The Massacre at the Zeimer Cabin

The History Ashland County, Ohio  1909

PURSUIT AND CAPTURE. 

"They knew no dread of danger, When rose the Indian's yell; Right gallantly they struggled, Right gallantly they fell." The massacre at the Zeimer cabin aroused the feelings of the people, not only in Richland, but in other counties, almost to frenzy and companies were organized at Wooster, New Philadelphia and other places to protect the settlers. Captain Mullen commanded the Wooster company and Alex McConnel the one at New Philadelphia. Of the five Indians who committed the Zeimer-Ruffner murders, two had been killed by the heroic Ruffner in his defence of the Zeimer family ere he himself fell in the murderous assault of the savages. Some weeks later the three surviving Indians of that murderous gang, after having been seen lurking near Odell's lake, were captured at Fern Island, five miles down the Tuscarawas river from New Philadelphia. Fern Island is now a famous picnic resort and is reached by steam and electric cars both from New Philadelphia and Urichsville. The Tuscarawas is, perhaps, the most poem-inspiring river in the state. It courses through one of Ohio's most fertile valleys with an ease and grandeur that is both restful and inspiring. As rays of light shine upon its dark waters they reflect emerald tints as though the bottom was paved with precious stones. But the Indians had not sought that locality for its romantic beauty, nor because the waters of the Tuscarawas were wont to dazzle one with their diamond-like gleams, but for the protection the dense forests of that secluded isle would give them. The mark of Cain was upon them and the avenging Nemesis was following their trail. In that forest-embowered isle stood armies of ferns with nodding plumes and crimson falchions and among these the tired savages laid down to sleep.
  Captain McConnel, hearing that Indians were upon the Island, marched his company over the "Plains" and when the destination was reached he left.

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1761-1765. The Murder of Ensign Holmes at P

1761-1765. The Murder of Ensign Holmes at Post Miami (Fort Wayne, Indiana)

     A romantic traditional story relates that in May a beautiful Ojibway maiden,' in love with the Detroit commandant, Major Gladwyn, revealed to him the widespread plot of Pontiac to seize the entire west, and that the capture of Detroit post was planned for the following day. Thus warned, Gladwyn was enabled to hold the fort through a siege of several months, during which time Fort Sandusky, Fort St. Joseph, Fort Michilimackinac, Fort Ouiatanon and Post Miami passed into the hands of the savages. At the little fort on the St. Joseph river on the site of Fort Wayne, the garrison learned with fear of the further activities of the Indians. Nevertheless, Ensign Holmes, the commandant, was destined to be the first to lose his life. "And here," observes Parkman, "I cannot but remark on the forlorn situation of these officers, isolated in the wilderness, hundreds of miles, in some instances, from any congenial associates, separated from every human being except the rude soldiers under their command and the white or red savages who ranged the surrounding woods.
    The commandant, came to tell him that a squaw lay dangerously ill in a wigwam near the fort, and urged him to come to her relief. Having confidence in the girl, Holmes forgot his caution and followed her out of the fort. Pitched on the edge of a meadow [in the present Lakeside], hidden from view by an intervening spur of woodland, stood a great number of Indian wigwams. When Holmes came in sight of them his treacherous conductress pointed out that in which the sick woman lay. He walked on without suspicion, but, as he drew near, two guns flashed from behind the hut and stretched him lifeless on the grass. The shots were heard at the fort and the sergeant rashly went out to learn the cause. He was immediately taken prisoner, amid exulting yells and whoopings. The soldiers in the fort climbed upon the palisades to look out, when Godefroy, a Canadian, and two other white men, made their appearance and summoned them to surrender, promising that if they did so their lives would be spared.
   Such is the story as Parkman tells it, and we are given further "details" by Captain Robert Morris, who came to the village in the next year and who received the account from "the sole survivor" of the garrison. According to the tale of this man, whom Morris found chopping wood by the river bank, as the major's boat came floating by, the savages "killed all but five or six whom they reserved as victims to be sacrificed when they would lose a man in their wars with the English. They had all been killed except this one man," continues Morris, "whom an old squaw had adopted as her son." Possibly this "sole survivor" thought he was telling the truth, but it develops that he was not the only one whose life was spared. Others who lived to relate the story, and who told it under oath, were James Barnes, William Bolton, John McCoy and James Beems, who, as they found their way to Detroit during the succeeding weeks, gave their testimony before Gladwyn's court of inquiry. The substance of their combined narratives, together with that of John Welch and Robert Lawrence, traders, showed that the French men in the plot took the lead in the affair, and that the conduct of the savages stands out in commendable contrast with that of their white associates.

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Seneca Indian Prophet Foretold the Coming of Columbus

Seneca Indian Prophet Foretold the Coming of Columbus

      Just prior to the arrival of Columbus, the shock of an earthquake was felt, and comets and other omens of the heavens were observed. The meaning of these occurrences was not then divined, but a prophet soon appeared, who foretold the coming of a strange race from beyond the great waters. He announced that the expected strangers designed driving the Indians from their hunting-grounds and wresting away their homes, and he threatened the Great Spirit' s wrath upon any who should listen to the pale-faces. To add to these perturbations, another war broke out between the tribes west of the Genesee and the Five Nations, the weight of which, as usual, fell heavily upon the Senecas. Long and bloody conflicts ensued, and, while hostilities were yet in progress, the great event foretold by the prophet — that most pregnant fact of all Indian history, the arrival of Columbus — was heralded by the fleetest of foot along the myriad pathways of the continent. The imagination alone can picture the bewildering effect of the tidings. Wonder, awe, doubt and fear, each in turn, must have moved them, but though hushed for a moment by this event, the decisive struggle between the warring tribes went forward. The cause of this contest was so slight that tradition says it originated in a breach of faith on the part of the Kah-kwas at a game of ball to which they had challenged the Senecas.

57 gruesome stories of Indian capture and torture

Captain William Wells Decapitated and Heart Eaten by Miami Indians After Falling in Battle

History of Allen County, 1886
As the character of Captain Wells was unequaled for bravery, after his death, his head was severed from his body, and the Indians took out his heart, cooked it, and divided it among themselves in very small pieces. They religiously believed that each one who ate it, would thereby become as brave as he from whom it is taken.

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Revenge of the Burning at the Stake and Murder of Colonel Crawford

History of Ashland County, Ohio 1909
"Another legend claims that friends and relatives of Colonel Crawford swore uncompromising revenge against every Indian who helped handle the fagots that tortured him and that they carried this oath out to the letter. That they were with Harmer, St. Clair and Wayne marking these Indians and shooting them at every opportunity and even made a hunt on the banks of the San dusky for this bloody purpose. It is said the last one was shot in Holmes county in time of peace. Here is the Story : "An Indian once came to a tavern in Killbuck, where under the influence of liquor he boasted that he was present at the burning of Colonel Crawford and said that after the Big White Chief had fallen that he and several other Indians jumped on him and cut his heart out and he had eaten a piece of the raw heart, and, smacking his lips, said it tasted good. Billy Crawford heard this boast and when the Indian left he followed him. Billy afterward admitted that he had killed him near Holmesville and buried the body and gun in a pile of stone. Years afterward the body was found, but such was the sympathy of the people for those who suffered from Indian outrages that nothing was ever thought about it.

      "Society in those days had been worked up to a fearful spirit of revenge. Men had suffered under Indian outrages until their natures became fierce and drove out that high sense of human love taught by the Savior, and they went forth, guns in their hands, to hunt and shoot Indians as though they were wolves or bears."

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A Hundred Stories of Frontier Terror

Native American Custom of Taking Prisoners

It was their custom to carry off the women and children. If the children were hindered the march of their mothers, or if they cried and endangered or annoyed their captors, they were tomahawked, or their brains were dashed out against the trees. But if they were well grown, and strong enough to keep up with the rest, they were hurried sometimes hundreds of miles into the wilderness. There the fate of all prisoners was decided in solemn council of the tribe. If any men had been taken, especially such as had made a hard fight for their freedom and had given proof of their courage, they were commonly tortured to death by fire in celebration of the victory won over them; though it sometimes happened that young men who had caught the fancy or affection of the Indians were adopted by the fathers of sons lately lost in battle. The older women became the slaves and drudges of the squaws and the boys and girls were parted from their mothers and scattered among the savage families. The boys grew up hunters and trappers, like the Indian boys, and the girls grew up like the Indian girls, and did the hard work which the warriors always left to the women. The captives became as fond of their wild, free life as the savages themselves, and they found wives and husbands among the youths and maidens of their tribe. If they were given up to their own people, as might happen in the brief intervals of peace, they pined for the wilderness, which called to their homesick hearts, and sometimes they stole back to it. They seem rarely to have been held for ransom, as the captives of the Indians of the Western plains were in our time. It was a tie of real love that bound them and their savage friends together, and it was sometimes stronger than the tie of blood. But this made their fate all the crueler to their kindred; for whether they lived or whether they died, they were lost to the fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters whom they had been torn from; and it was little consolation to these that they had found human mercy and tenderness in the breasts of savages who in all else were like ravening beasts. It was rather an agony added to what they had already suffered to know that somewhere in the trackless forests to the westward there was growing up a child who must forget them. The time came when something must be done to end all this and to put a stop to the Indian attacks on the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia. The jealous colonies united with the jealous mother country, and a little army of British regulars and American recruits was sent into Ohio under the lead of Colonel Henry Bouquet to force the savages to give up their captives.

          57 Gruesome stories of Indian capture and torture

Early Description of the Miami Indians in Present Day Fort Wayne, Indiana

A picture of conditions about the confluence of the St. Mary's and the St. Joseph at this time comes down to us from the letter of a French officer, writing in 1718. ' ' The Miamis are sixty leagues from Lake Erie and number four hundred, all good-formed men and well tattooed," he writes. "They are hard-working, and raise a species of maize unlike that of our Indians at Detroit. It is white, of the same size as the other, the skin much finer, and the meal much whiter. This nation is clad in deerskin, and when a woman goes with another man, her husband cuts off her nose and refuses to see her any more. They have plays and dances; where fore they have more occupation. The women are well clothed, but the men use scarcely any covering, and are tattooed all over the body." The writer adds in description of the region to the south-west, along the Wabash, that "from the summit of this elevation nothing is visible to the eye but prairies full of buffalo. ' ' Another writer of the same year adds strength to the correctness of the latter remarkable statement in the claim that along the Maumee river, at the mouth of the Auglaize, near the present city of Defiance, Ohio, "buffaloes are always to be found; they eat the clay and wallow in it."  Five years earlier, Father Gabriel Marest, a French missionary, wrote of the region to the southward that "the quantity of buffalo and bear found on the Oubache [Wabash] is incredible," and LaSalle in 1682, describing the region of the Ohio, says: "The multitude of buffalo is beyond belief. I have seen twelve hundred of them killed in eight days by a single band of Indians."

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Where the First French Fort Stood in Ft. Wayne, Indiana

Where the First French Fort Stood in Ft. Wayne, Indiana

WHERE THE FIRST FRENCH FORT STOOD IN FT. WAYNE, INDIANA FIRST CONSTRUCTED AS EARLY AS 1680 Bonne In 1750, the buildings of the post were abandoned and became the center of Coldfoot Village and Indian settlement presided over by Chief Coldfoot

On the 20th, the canoes were burned and the expedition departed overland for the post on the site of Fort Wayne, "each one carrying his provisions and baggage," writes Celeron, "except the officers, for whom I had procured horses and bearers." This strange expedition, as it approached the site of Fort Wayne was formed into four companies, each with an officer at the right and left. "On the 25th," says Celeron in his journal, "I arrived at M.de Raimond's who commands at Kiskakon, staying there only as long as it was necessary to buy provisions and canoes to convey me to Detroit. ' ' A more appreciable reference comes from the journal of the Reverend Father Jean de Bonnecamps. Describing first the march along the banks of the St. Mary's, wherein they "found large crabs in abundance," the priest's story continues with the account of the arrival here. He wrote : "The fort of the Miamis was in a very bad condition when we reached it. Most of the palisades were decayed and fallen into ruin. There were eight houses, or, to speak more correctly, eight miserable huts which only the desire of making money could render endurable. The French their number twenty-two; all of them, including the commandant, had the fever. Monsieur Raimond did not approve the situation of the fort and maintained that it should be placed on the bank of the St. Joseph a scant league from the present site. He wished to show me the spot, but the hindrances of our departure prevented me from going hither. All I could do for him was to trace the plan for his new fort. The latitude of the old one is 41 degrees, 29 minutes. This decaying fort stood on the right bank of the St. Mary's river in the bend of the stream a short distance north of the present Nickel Plate railroad bridges.

Birthplace of the Famous Miami Chief Little Turtle

    Little Turtle was born in 1752 was located on the north tributary of Eel river, twenty miles northwest of Fort Wayne, Whitley County, Indiana, on lands now owned by William Anderson, in Section 9, Smith Township. This north tributary is known today as the Blue river branch near its junction at the Blue River Lake, to which it furnishes an outlet only a short distance away. The village stood on the west side of the river on a high, sandy point of land, surrounded An Indian trail led from this village northwest to the Elkhart river; another, southeast to the Miami villages, at the head of the Maumee (now Fort Wayne) ; a third, southwest down Eel river and the Wabash, and still another almost due west to Tippecanoe Lake and the Kankakee river. Blue River Lake is only a short distance and in plain view to the southeast. No doubt Little Turtle as a child and youth spent many happy hours about this enchanted spot. On this account the reader will pardon us if we make a slight digression.

     
." Blue River Lake lies two miles northwest of Cherubusco, and is in Sections 9, 10, 15 and 16, Smith Township of Whitley County. Indiana. It is oblong in shape, narrow at the eastern end, is about one and one-quarter miles long by one-half mile in average width. It has an area of about 420 to 500 acres, and a very uniform depth of 40 to 60 feet. The area of shallow water  of medium width, rather broad on the east, south and west sides, and narrower on the north. The shores at most points are rather abrupt, the surrounding country being of a rolling type. Blue river heads in Green township, Noble county, from a chain of small lakes that range across the north side of the township, including Sand. Long. Dock and Bowen Lakes. It finally empties into Blue River Lake for a few rods only on the .west end, and then takes a southwest course by Columbia City, and a few miles below empties into Eel river. This lake thus receives its waters from the upper Blue river and from springs along its sides and bottom. It is well stocked with food fishes.

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Terror on the Ohio Frontier: 'Old Britain' is Boiled and Eaten For Being Allies With the British 

    While conditions at the head of the Maumee and throughout the Wabash valley grew more alarming for the French, there was increased activity at the English settlement at Pickawillay. Chris Topher Gist, sent on an exploring expedition to the west in the interest of the Ohio Land Company (of which George Washington was a member) visited the place in February, 1751. His journal tells of the activity of the village and of the re-construction of the post — the first established by the English in the west, and which was designed to prove a menace to the Kekionga and Detroit strong holds of the French. But the scenes were soon to shift. Celeron, commandant of Detroit, had been directed by Governor Jonquiere, of Canada, to proceed to Pickawillany and accomplish its destruction. Whether Celeron shirked the undertaking or was too deliberate in his preparations, it does not appear, but it is true that another arose to the occasion and accomplished the work which had been outlined for him. This leader was Charles Langlade. The Indians at Kekionga, no less than the garrison at the post, were taken by surprise one day in June, 1752, when a small army of French and two hundred Chippewas and Ottawas, came rapidly up the Maumee and turned westward into the St. Mary's on their way to the portage point nearest the Pickawillay post. (Piqua Ohio) It was the army come to drive out the English. Langlade had gathered his followers from the Green Bay region and piloted them to Detroit, where their assistance was offered to the commandant. Celeron accepted their service, supplemented the force by the addition of a few French regulars and Canadians, under M. St. Orr (or St. Orr), and directed the expedition against Pickawillany. No word had reached the British post to warn it of the approach of the attacking party. "Langlade," says one writer, after describing the landing of the canoes on the bank of the St. Mary's, "led his painted savages through the forest to attack La Demoiselle and his English friends."" The assault was spirited and decisive. "Among the Indians who had been captured was the principal chief of the Piankeshaws, called 'Old Britain' [La Demoiselle], on account of his friendship for the British ; he was killed, cut in pieces, boiled and eaten in full view of the fort, after which the French and their allies moved away."

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The Murder and Curse of the Shawnee Chief Cornstalk

• Cornstalks Curse - "I was the border man’s friend. Many times I have saved him and his people from harm. I never warred with you, but only to protect our wigwams and lands. I refused to join your paleface enemies with the red coats. I came to the fort as your friend and you murdered me. You have murdered by my side, my young son.... For this, may the curse of the Great Spirit rest upon this land. May it be blighted by nature. May it even be blighted in its hopes. May the strength of its peoples be paralyzed by the stain of our blood."

   Cornstalk (the elder) was a Shawnee chief of bravery and distinction, and one of the leaders 

of his tribe at the battle of the Kanawha (Point Pleasant), Va., in 1776. He had tried before 
that disastrous engagement to induce his people to bury the hatchet, but in vain. After that,

 however, his efforts were crowned with success. He submitted in good faith to the whites, 
joined in the treaty and observed it faithfully, and lived quietly and at peace. Some of the

Indians, however, remained hostile, and such was the temper of the times and so ready 

were the whites to commit atrocities against the helpless "red men," that, in 1777, when 

Cornstalk and his son, Enilipsco, both of excellent character, of kindly disposition, 

and entirely and sincerely friendly and peacable, entered, in amity and good will, the

American fort at Point Pleasant, they were murdered in cold blood. Cornstalk himself 

foil pierced by seven or eight bullets. His grave is said yet to be visible at Point Pleasant 

near the site of the ancient fortress. 

                            57 gruesome stories of Indian capture and torture

White Man Burned at the Stake by the Miami Indians Near Muncie, Indiana

History of Randolph County, Indiana   1889

A white man was burned at the stake by the Indians some- 
where east of Muncie, but the particulars of the fact, whether as 
to reasons, time or parties engaged, we have never learned. 

                      57 gruesome stories of Indian capture and torture

Delaware Indian's Kidnapping of Frances Slocum

Frances Slocum

Many are the tales of how Indians raiding a white settlement have kidnapped and adopted into their families the children of the slain whites, but none 
more enthralling than that of Frances Slocum, who was carried away from home by a party of Delawares when but five years of age, and who lived with them until her death in 1847. When discovered by the whites she was an old woman of over seventy years of age. The story is told by the writer of a local history as follows:

"The Slocums came from Warwick, Rhode Island, and Jonathan Slocum, the father of the far-famed captive girl, emigrated, in 1777, with a wife and nine children. They located near one of the forts, upon a spot of ground which is at present covered by the city of Wilkes-Barre.

"The early training of the family had been on principle averse to war, and Jonathan was loath to mix with the tumult of the valley. A son by the name of Giles, of a fiery spirit, could not brook the evident intentions of the Torys and British, and consequently he shouldered his musket, and was one to take part in the battle of July 3, 1778.

"The prowling clans of savages and bushwhacking Torys which continued to harass the valley occasioned much mischief in different parts, and in the month of November following the battle it was the misfortune of the Slocum family to be visited by a party of these Delawares, who approached the cabin, in front of which two Kingsley boys were engaged at a grindstone sharpening a knife. The elder had on a Continental coat, which aroused the ire of the savages, and he was shot down without warning and scalped by the very knife which he had put edge to.

"The report roused the inmates of the house, and Mrs. Slocum had reached the door in time sufficient to see the boy of her neighbour scalped.

"An elder daughter seized a young child two years old, and flew with terror to the woods. It is said thather impetuosity in escaping caused the Indians to roar with laughter. They were about to take away a boy when Mrs. Slocum pointed to a lame foot, exclaiming: 'The child is lame; he can do thee no good.' They dropped the boy and discovered little Frances hidden away under the staircase. It was but the act of a moment to secure her, and when they bore her away the tender child could but look over the Indian's shoulder and scream 'Mamma!'

"The alarm soon spread, but the elasticity of a Delaware's step had carried the party away into the mountains.

"Mr. Slocum was absent at the time of the capture, and upon returning at night learned the sad news.

"The family's trials did not end here. Miner, who is ever in sympathy with the early annals of Wyoming, thus depicts the scenes which occurred afterwards:

"'The cup of vengeance was not yet full. December 16th, Mr. Slocum and Isaac Tripp, his father-in-law, an aged man, with William Slocum, a youth of nineteen or twenty, were feeding cattle from a stack in the meadow, in sight of the fort, when they were fired upon by Indians. Mr. Slocum was shot dead; Mr. Tripp wounded, speared, and tomahawked; both were scalped. William, wounded by a spent ball in the heel, escaped and gave the alarm, but the alert and wily foe had retreated to his hiding-place in the mountain. This deed, bold as it was cruel, was perpetrated within the town plot, in the centre of which the fortress was located. Thus, in little more than a month, Mrs. Slocum had lost a beloved child, carried into captivity; the doorway had been drenched in blood by the murder of a member of the family; two others of the household had been taken away prisoners; and now her husband and father were both stricken down to the 
grave, murdered and mangled by the merciless Indians. Verily, the annals of Indian atrocities, written in blood, record few instances of desolation and woe equal to this.'"

"In 1784, after peace had settled upon the country, two of the Slocum brothers visited Niagara, in hopes of learning something of the whereabouts of the lost sister, but to no purpose. Large rewards were offered, but money will not extract a confession from an Indian.

"Little Frances all this time was widely known by many tribes of Indians, but she had become one of them, hence the mystery which shrouded her fate.

"The efforts of the family were untiring. Several trips were made westward, and each resulted in vain. A large number of Indians of different tribes were convened, in 1789, at Tioga Point, to effect a treaty with Colonel Proctor. This opportunity seemed to be the fitting one, for one visit could reach several tribes, but Mrs. Slocum, after spending weeks of inquiry among them, was again obliged to return home in sorrow, and almost despair.

"The brothers took a journey in 1797, occupying nearly the whole summer, in traversing the wilderness and Indian settlements of the west, but to no purpose. Once, indeed, a ray of hope seemed to glimmer upon the domestic darkness, for a female captive responded to the many and urgent inquiries, but Mrs. Slocum discovered at once that it was not her Frances. The mother of the lost child went down to the grave, having never heard from her daughter since she was carried away captive.

"In 1826, Mr. Joseph Slocum, hearing of a prominent Wyandot chief who had a white woman for a wife, repaired to Sandusky, but was disappointed when he beheld the woman, who he knew to a certainty could
 not be Frances. Hope had become almost abandoned, and the family was allowing the memory of the lost girl to sink into forgetfulness, when one of those strange freaks of circumstances which seem so mysterious to humanity, but which are the ordinary actions of Infinity, brought to light the history and the person of the captive girl of Wyoming.

Ruins of the Frances Slocum cabin in Miami County, Indiana

"Colonel Ewing, who was connected with Indian service, had occasion to rest with a tribe on the Wabash, when he discovered a woman whose outlines and texture convinced him that she must be a white woman, though her face was as red as any squaw's could be. He made inquiries, and she admitted that she had been taken from her parents when she was young, that her name was Slocum, and that she was now so old that she had no objections to having her relations know of her whereabouts.

"The Colonel knew full well how anxious many eastern hearts were to hear of the lost one of earlier days, and thinking that he would do a charitable service, he addressed the following letter to the Post-master of Lancaster, Pennsylvania:

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Shawnee Indians called  "Ken-tuck-ee"  "The River of Blood" Filled with Ghosts of Slaughtered Inhabitants

Shawnee legends say that during low water their warriors went to Sandy Island and slaughtered the remaining White Indian mound builders.

Prehistoric Men of Kentucky by Col. Bennett A. Young,  1910

       Col. James Moore, of Kentucky, was told by an old Indian that the primitive inhabitants of this state had perished in a war of extermination waged against them by the Indians; that the last great battle was fought at the Falls of the Ohio, (Clarksville Indiana); and that the Indians succeeded in driving the aborigines into a small Island below the rapids, 'where the whole of them were cut pieces'. The colonel was assured that the evidence of this event rested upon facts handed down by tradition, and that he would have decisive proofs of it under his eyes as soon as the waters of the Ohio became low. When the waters of the river had fallen, an examination of Sandy Island was made, and 'a multitude of human bones was discovered'. There is a simular confirmation of this tradition in the statement of General George Rogers Clark , that there was a great bury-ground on the northern side of the river, but a short distance below the Falls. According to a tradition imparted to the same gentleman by the Indian Chief Tobacco, the battle of Sandy Island decided finally the fall of Kentucky, with its ancient inhabitants when Colonel McKee commanded in the Kanawha, (says Doctor Cambell), he was told by the Indian Chief Cornstalk, with whom he had frequent converstions, that Ohio and Kentucky (and Tennessee also is associated with Kentucky in prehistoric ethnography by Rafinesque) had once been settled by white people who were familiar with arts of which the Indians knew nothing; that these whites, after a series of bloody contest with the Indians, had been exterminated; that the old burial places were the graves of an unknown people; and that the old forts had not been built by Indians, but had come down from ' avery long ago' people, who were of a white complexion and skilled in the arts'. More on the mound builders here

       In addition to this tradition testimony, various striking traces of a deadly conflict have been found all along the Ohio border... General Clark declares that Ken-tuck-e in the language of the Indians signifies 'the river of blood'
Shawnee Picture Gallery

      Ken-tuck-e, to the Indian, was a land of ill repute, and, wherever a lodge fire blazed, 'strange and unholy rumors' were busy with her name. The old Indian who described to Colonel Mooore the sanguinary and decisive battle of Sandy Island expressed great astonishment that white people could live in a country which had once been the scene of such conflicts; and an ancient Sac, whom Colonel Joe Hamilton Daveiss met at St. Louis in 1800, gave utterance to simular expressions of surprise. Kentucky, he said was filled with ghost of its slaughtered inhabitants, how could the white man make it his Home?

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Over 100 Real Stories of Pioneer Terror