108 Treaty of Lochaber. 1769. agreement that no claim should ever be based upon previous treaties, those of Lancaster, Logstown, &c.; and they were signed by the chiefs of the Six Nations, for themselves, their allies and dependents, the Shawanese, Delawares, Mingoes of Ohio, and others; but the Shawanese and Delaware deputies present did not sign them. Such was the treaty of Stanwix, whereon, in a great measure, rests the title by purchase to Kentucky, western Virginia and Pennsylvania. It was a better foundation, perhaps, than that given by previous treaties, but was essentially worthless; for the lands conveyed were not occupied or hunted on by those conveying them. In truth, we cannot doubt that this immense grant was obtained by the influence of Sir William Johnson, in order that the new colony, of which he was to be governor, might be founded there. The fact, that such a country was ceded voluntarily, not after a war, not by hard persuasion, but at once and willingly, satisfies us that the whole affair had been previously settled with the New York savages, and that the Ohio Indians had no voice in the matter. But beside the claim of the Iroquois and the north-west Indians to Kentucky, it was also claimed by the Cherokees; and it is worthy of remembrance that the treaty of Lochaber, made in October, 1770, two years after the Stanwix treaty, recognized a title in the southern Indians to all the country west of a line drawn from a point six miles east of Big or Long Island in Holston river to the mouth of the Great Kenawha ;* although as we have just stated their right to all the lands north and east of the Kentucky river was purchased by Col. Donaldson, either for the king, Virginia, or himself—it is impossible to say which.† But the grant of the great northern confederacy was made. The white man could now quiet his conscience when driving the native from his forest home, and feel sure that an army would back his pretensions. A new company was at once organized in Virginia, called the "Mississippi Company," and a petition sent to the King for two millions and a half of acres in the West. Among the signers of this were Francis Lightfoot Lee, Richard would be at the expense of purchasing the same, the general assembly voted the sum of £2500 sterling for that purpose, which sum was accordingly paid to the Cherokees, in consideration, as we presume, of the additional lands gained by the alteration of the line by the surveyor, and in confirmation of his act." * Butler. 2nd edition. Introduction, li. + Hall's Sketches, ii. 248. 1770. Settlers crowd into the West. 109 Henry Lee, George Washington and Arthur Lee. The gentleman last named was the agent for the petitioners in England. This application was referred to the Board of Trade on the 9th of March, 1769, and after that we hear nothing of it. * The Board of Trade was, however, again called on to report upon the application of the Walpole Company, and Lord Hillsborough, the President, reported against it. This called out Franklin's celebrated "Ohio Settlement," a paper written with so much ability, that the King's Council put by the official report, and granted the petition, a step which mortified the noble lord so much that he resigned his official station. The petition now needed only the royal sanction, which was not given until August 14th, 1772; but in 1770, the Ohio Company was merged in Walpole's, and, the claims of the soldiers of 1756 being acknowledged both by the new Company and by government, all claims were quieted. Nothing was ever done, however, under the grant to Walpole, the Revolution soon coming upon America.‡ After the Revolution, Mr. Walpole and his associates petitioned Congress respecting their lands, called by them "Vandalia," but could get no help from that body. What was finally done by Virginia with the claims of this and other companies, we do not find written, but presume their lands were all looked on as forfeited. During the ten years in which Franklin, Pownall, and their friends were trying to get the great western land company into operation, actual settlers were crossing the mountains all too rapidly; for the Ohio Indians "viewed the settlements with an uneasy and jealous eye," and "did not scruple to say, that they must be compensated for their right, if people settled thereon, notwithstanding the cession by the Six Nations." It has been said, also, that Lord Dunmore, then governor of Virginia, authorized surveys and settlements on the western lands, notwithstanding the proclamation of 1763; but Mr. Sparks gives us a letter from him, in which this is expressly denied.§ However, surveyors did go down even to the Falls of the Ohio, and the whole region south of the Ohio was filling with white men. The futility of the Fort Stanwix treaty, and the ignorance or contempt of it by the fierce * Plain Facts, p. 69.-Butler's Kentucky, p. 475. + Sparks' Franklin, vol. iv. p. 302. Sparks' Washington, vol. ii. p. 483, et seq.-Plain Facts, p. 149. | Washington's " Journal to the West, in 1770." Sparks' Washington, vol. ii. p. 531. § lbid, p. 378. 110 Washington buys western lands. 1773. Shawanese are well seen in the meeting between them and Bullitt, one of the early emigrants, in 1773.* Bullitt, on his way down the Ohio, stopped, and singly sought the savages at one of their towns. He then told them of his proposed settlement, and his wish to live at peace with them; and said, that, as they had received nothing under the treaty of 1768, it was intended to make them presents the next year. The Indians considered the talk of the Long Knife, and the next day agreed to his proposed settlement, provided he did not disturb them in their hunting south of the Ohio; a provision wholly inconsistent with the Stanwix deed. Among the foremost speculators in western lands at that time was George Washington. He had always regarded the proclamation of 1763 as a mere temporary expedient to quiet the savages, and, being better acquainted with the value of western lands than most of those who could command means, he early began to buy beyond the mountains. His agent in selecting lands was Crawford, afterwards burnt by the Ohio Indians. In September, 1767, we find Washington writing to Crawford on this subject, and looking forward to the occupation of the western territory; in 1770, he crossed the mountains, going down the Ohio to the mouth of the great Kenawha; and in 1773, being entitled, under the King's proclamation of 1763, (which gave a bounty to officers and soldiers who had served in the French war,) to ten thousand acres of land, he became deeply interested in the country beyond the mountains, and had some correspondence respecting the importation of settlers from Europe. Indeed, had not the Revolutionary war been just then on the eve of breaking out, Washington would in all probability have become the leading settler of the West, and all our history, perhaps, have been changed.† But while in England and along the Atlantic, men were talking of peopling the West south of the river Ohio, a few obscure individuals, unknown to Walpole, to Franklin, and to Washington, were taking those steps which actually resulted in its settlement; and to these we next turn. Notwithstanding the fact that so much attention had been given * Butler's Kentucky, p. 20. Sparks' Washington, vol. ii. pp. 346-7. He had patents for 32,373 acres ; 9157 on the Ohio, between the Kenhawas with a river front of 13 1-2 miles; 23,216 acres on the Great Kenhawa, with a river front of forty miles. Besides these lands, he owned fifteen miles below Wheeling, 587 acres, with a front of two and a half miles. He considered the land worth $3.33 per acre.-Sparks' Washington, xii. 264, 317. 1750-73. Kentucky Explored. 111 to the settlement of the West, even before the French war, it does not appear that any Europeans, either French or English, had, at the time the treaty of Fort Stanwix was made, thoroughly examined that most lovely region near the Kentucky river, which is the finest portion, perhaps, of the whole Ohio valley. This may be accounted for by the non-residence of the Indians in that district; a district which they retained as a hunting ground. Owing to this, the traders who were the first explorers, were led to direct their steps northward, up the Miami and Scioto vallies, and were quite familiar with the country between the Ohio and the Lakes, at a period when the interior of the territory south of the river was wholly unknown to them. While, therefore, the impression which many have had, that the entire valley was unknown to the English colonists before Boone's time, is clearly erroneous; it is equally clear that the centre of Kentucky, which he and his comrades explored during their first visit, had not before that time, been examined by the whites to any considerable extent. Dr. Walker, in 1747 or 1750,* had been among the mountains in the eastern part of what is now Kentucky; there is also reason to think that Christopher Gist may have been through the centre of Kentucky, along the river of that name, and across to the Scioto, before 1755;† and Washington's journal of 1770 shows that Dr. Connoly, Colonel Croghan's nephew, was well acquainted with the lands south of the Ohio; but the first actual explorer, of whom we have any definite knowledge, was Colonel James Smith, from whose narrative we take the following statement: In the year 1766, I heard that Sir William Johnson, the king's agent for settling affairs with the Indians, had purchased from them all the land west of the Appalachian Mountains that lay between the Ohio and * Butler (p. 18) says 1747; Stipp's Miscellany, (p. 9.) says 1750; which date is confirmed by facts in Holmes' Annals (ii. 304, note): Marshall, i. 7) says 1758. See note (†). + Evans' map, published in 1755 and republished 1776, gives Gist's route from the Alleghanies, through Kentucky and Ohio; this expedition may have been after the first edition was published, but was probably in 1750 or 1751. Governor Pownal, in his Topography (Imlay, 99) speaks of Gist's second journey as in 1761, but this we take to be a misprint for 1751. Evans published a map of the West in 1752 (Pownall in Imlay, 69.) Captain Gordon, whose journal is much referred to by Evans and others, went down the Ohio in 1766. (Pownall in Imlay, 115.) In the London edition of Washington's Journal, printed in 1754, there is a map on which is marked "Walker's Settlement, 1750", upon the Cumberland. On that map nothing is said of Gist's journey, and it is too imperfect to allow us to think it based on actual travels 112 Colonel Smith in Kentucky. 1767. Cherokee River; and as I knew by conversing with the Indians in their own tongue that there was a large body of rich land there, I concluded I would take a tour westward and explore that country. I set out about the last of June, 1766, and went in the first place to Holstein River, and from thence I travelled westward in company with Joshua Horton, Uriah Stone, William Baker and James Smith, who came from near Carlisle. There were only four white men of us, and a mulatto slave about eighteen years of age, that Mr. Horton had with him. We explored the country south of Kentucky, and there was no more sign of white men there then than there is now west of the head waters of the Missouri. We also explored Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, from Stone's* River down to the Ohio. When we came to the mouth of Tennessee, my fellow-travellers concluded that they would proceed on to the Illinois, and see some more of the land to the west, this I would not agree to. As I had already been longer from home than what I expected, I thought my wife would be distressed, and think I was killed by the Indians; therefore I concluded that I would return home. I sent my horse with my fellowtravellers to the Illinois, as it was difficult to take a horse through the mountains. My comrades gave me the greatest part of the ammunition they then had, which amounted only to half a pound of powder, and lead equivalent. Mr. Horton also lent me his mulatto boy, and I then set off through the wilderness for Carolina. About eight days after I left my company at the mouth of the Tennessee, on my journey eastward, I got a cane stab in my foot, which occasioned my leg to swell, and I suffered much pain. I was now in a doleful situation; far from any of the human species, excepting black Jamie, or the savages, and I knew not when I might meet with them. My case appeared desperate, and I thought something must be done. All the surgical instrnments I had was a knife, a moccasin awl, and a pair of bullet-moulds; with these I determined to draw the snag from my foot, if possible. I stuck the awl in the skin, and with the knife I cut the flesh away from around the cane, and then I commanded the mulatto fellow to catch it with the bullet-moulds, and pull it out, which he did. When I saw it, it seemed a shocking thing to be in any person's foot; it will therefore be supposed that I was very glad to have it out. The black fellow attended upon me, and obeyed my directions faithfully. I ordered him to search for Indian medicine, and told him to get me a quantity of bark from the root of a lynn tree, which I made him beat on a stone, with a tommahawk, and boil it in a kettle, and with the ooze I bathed my foot and leg; what remained when I had finished bathing * Stone's river is a south branch of Cumberland, and empties into it above Nashville. We first gave it this name in our journal, in May, 1767, after one of my fellow-travellers, Mr. Uriah Stone, and I am told that it retains the same name unto this day. |