Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/648

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��HISTOEY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.

��He was aged, dark, large for -an Indian, of coarse features, high cheek-bones and large pro- truding lips, so much so, indeed, that, when or- namented with a miniature silver clevis and double-tree in each ear, and one in his nose, and smoking from the bowl and through the handle of his iron tomahawk, he presented rather a grotesque appearance. He was, in a word, re- garded by the whites as extremely homely and repulsive.

" Where he originated, or from what tribe he sprang, is unknown. He claimed land in Wy- oming Valley, said ' the whites had no right to it, never bought it ; that it was his.' He re- quested Judge Kinney to procure lawyers, in- stitute suit and oust the intruders, promising the Judge one-half if successful. Such action, it is needless to say, was never undertaken.

•• That he was superstitious, would appear from one of his dreams, its supposed baneful import, and its antidote. He dreamed that he was bit- ten l)y a mad hog, which he interpreted to mean that he would, while hunting the next day, be bitten by venomous snake, unless he plunged into the water the next morning, and thus broke in upon and nullified the vision of the night Hence his voluntary immersion in the Clear Fork the next morning before sunrise, though the water was cold, and he emerged from it shivering and perfectly chilled.

" That he was sarcastic, is also apparent from another incident. Mrs. Cunning, a 3'oung woman living near Hemlock Falls, and but recentty married, discovered him looking between the logs of the cabin before he entered the house. At this she became frightened, as her husband was from home. On seeing her trepidation, he laughed outright, and exclaimed, ' Very old woman, very much scared,' and left the house repeating the exclamation time and' again at the top of his voice, and in a chanting tone, till he disappeared in the forest.

" He called on jMrs. White, said he wanted a loaf of bread then on the fire baking. On be-

��ing promised it so soon as baked, he exhibited to her a string of what he called the tongues of white persons, stating he had ninety-nine, and was determined to have another, a woman's, and then he would have 100. On her exhibiting some alarm, being alone, and her husband absent, he said it was not her tongue, but that of a woman who had mistreated or insulted him.

■' He was very communicative to Mr. Johns- ton, and talked to him often and long. He stated that, during the Indian troubles and hos- tilities on the frontier, he was accustomed to approach the cabins of the settlers at the dead hour of night, when the inmates were asleep, and, silently as possible, punch a hole through the c\a,j daubing of the chimney into the fire- place, and then attaching a charge of powder to his ramrod, thrust it into the embers, when the powder would flare up, and illumine the inside of the dwelling, and enable him to count and discriminate the inmates, and if he discovered two men within he withdrew, but if but one. lie entered the house and killed him, and then dis- patched the women and children. He said, also, that at Crawford's and St. Clair's defeats, he had tomahawked white men till his arm was ' sick,' and denounced (len. Wayne as ' bad man, swear that he could be heard three miles.' The only scalp exhibited by him. however, was that of a fairhaired person, and said by him to have been taken from the head of a British oflficer.

" Notwithstanding this bloody record, he had the credit of saving the life of Mr. Flack, taken prisoner in Ligonier Valley, afterward taken to Detroit, redeemed by the French, and by them restored to his home and his tamily. While a prisoner in tlie hands of the Indians, and apprehending death at the stake, or other- wise, Lyons came to him and told him the only way to save himself was to strip off hi* clothes immediately, go to bed, cover himself up, and pretend to be asleep. He did so, and soon the savages dashed into the apartment

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