On the water-in the forest, Ruled and reigned the Seneca. But sad are fair Muskingum's waters, By Kanawha dwells the stranger, And the Iroquois have wasted, Only by the Cattaraugus, Or by Lake Chautauque's side, There, in spots, like sad oases, Amid desolation reigns." Even more total than the disappearance of the Senecas, is the migration of the remnants of the Ohio Tribes, who succeeded the New York confederates upon the Muskingum, the Scioto and the Sandusky, and of whom not even a "sad oasis" is visible, except upon the distant waters of the Kanzas or Nebraska. This volume leaves the indomitable Wyandot, the sagacious Delaware, the fierce Shawnee, and the cunning Ottawa as yet unconquered, although slowly and sternly retreating before the insolent column of white emigration. Another epoch witnessed the downfall of their savage pride, before the battalions of Wayne: while thenceforth, wholly unchecked by Indian resistance, swelled within our borders the rising tide of population, civil structure and material development. Upon these scenes the curtain is here unlifted. The task, delicate and responsible in manifold aspects, extends immediately over the threshold laid by these pages. He will be fortunate to whom its proper execution shall be allotted in the contingencies of the future. To the writings of the late JAMES H. PERKINS, and for valuable suggestions personally communicated to the author by Hon. EBENEZER LANE, Hon. ELIJAH HAYWARD, Col. JOHN JOHNSTON, THOMAS MEANS, Esq., and other citizens of the State, an expression of acknowledgment is due, and is gratefully tendered. J. W. T. Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1784, 425; Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785, 438; Treaty of Fort Finney in 1786, 442. I. Further Particulars of the Eries, Neutrals, and Andastes, II. French Occupation by a Process Verbal, V. Contemporary Accounts of the Indian Hostilities in 1774, X. Surrender of the Moravian Tract to the United States, XII. Subsequent Indian Treaties, HISTORY OF OHIO. CHAPTER I. THE FATE OF THE ANCIENT ERIES. A PERIOD of two centuries prior to 1850, comprises our knowledge of that region of the American Continent, which is bounded by Lake Erie on the north, and the Ohio River on the south; and even within that brief segment of time, many statements rest upon vague tradition. An attempt to ascend beyond 1650, would involve a profitless discussion of the probable origin of the Indian race. We shall decline the inquiry, whether the lost tribes of Israel yet linger in the aborigines of the American woods; or whether the latter are an off-shoot from the Tartars of Asia; or, abandoning the unitary theory of the race, whether the Creator has not given to the continent of America its peculiar inhabitants. These are ethnological problems, which are aside from the purpose of the present volume. The Ohio of 1650 we assume to have been a forest wilderness, principally occupied by a tribe of Indians, called the ERIES, whose villages skirted the shores of the lake so designated. There is some conflict of opinion, whether the Eries were not confined to the eastern shore of the lake, but the preponderance of authority is in favor of their occupation of the |