**** This circumstance is alluded to on page 313, where a copy of Logan's speech to Dunmore, as preserved by Jefferson, is given. Mr. Brantz Mayer, in an able discourse delivered before the Maryland Historical Society in May, 1851, has adduced sufficient evidence to fully acquit Colonel Cresap of the charge made in the reported speech of Logan, and removed the foul stain of cold-blooded murder which has so long rested upon the fair fame of a brave and honorable man. It appears that, in the spring of 1774, Michael Cresap was upon the Ohio, below Wheeling, engaged in planting a settlement. Some pioneers on their way to make a settlement in Kentucky, under the auspices of Colonel George Rogers Clarke, resolved to attack an Indian town near the mouth of the Seiota, and solicited Cresap to command the expedition. He advised them to forbear, and, with him, they all repaired to Wheeling. Dr. Connelly, whom Lord Dunmore had appointed magistrate of West Augusta, sent Cresap word, on the 21st of April, that an Indian war was inevitable. Cresap, always vigilant, called a council of the pioneers, and on the 26th made solemn declaration of war against the Indians. They established a new post of defense, and the very next day two canoes, filled with painted savages, appeared. They were chased fifteen miles down the river, when a skirmish ensued. One man was killed, and several Indians were made prisoners. On the return of the pursuing party, an expedition against the settlement of Logan, * near the mouth of the Yellow Creek, thirty miles above Wheeling, was proposed. Cresap raised his voice against the proposed expedition, for the people of Logan's settlement seemed rather friendly than otherwise. His couneil prevailed, and the pioneers proceeded that evening to Red Stone Old Fort, at the mouth of Dunlap's Creek, on the Monongahela, now the site of Brownsville. Other white people upon the Ohio were less cautious and humane. On the bank of the Ohio, nearly opposite Logan's settlement, was the cabin of a man named Baker, where rum was sold to the Indians, which consequently augmented the savageism of their nature. On account of the shooting of two Indians near Yellow Creek, by a settler named Myers, the savages resolved to cross over and murder Baker's family. A squaw revealed "the plot to Baker's wife, and twenty white men, armed, were concealed in and around his cabin. The next morning early, three squaws, with an infant and four Indian men, unarmed, came to Baker's. The whole party of red people became intoxicated, an affray occurred, and the whole of the Indians were massacred, except the infant. Logan's mother, brother, and sister, were among the slain. The vengeance of the chief was aroused, and during nearly all of that summer Logan was out upon the war-path. Michael Cresap was known to be a leader among the pioneers upon the Ohio, and Logan supposed he was concerned in the affair. The researches of Mr. Mayer show that, at the time of the massacre, Cresap was with his young family in Maryland, and had nothing to do with the matter. * It is also demonstrated that at about the hour when the massacre took place, two canoes, with Indians painted and prepared for war, approached. The appearance fully corroborated the disclosures of the squaw, and justified the vigilance (but not the murder of women and unarmed men) by the neighbors of Baker.
* The Indian name of Logan, according to competent authority quoted by Mr. Mayer, was Ta-ga-jute, which means "short dress."
** This squaw was the wife for the time of John Gibson, the Indian trader, to whom the reputed speech of Logan was communicated. Her infant, who was saved, was cared for by Gibson.
*** Logan evidently held Cresap responsible, as appears hy the following note, quoted by Mr. Mayer, page 56. It was written with ink made of gunpowder and water, at the command of Logan, by William Robinson, who had been made a prisoner by that chief nine days before: "Captain Cresap,—What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for? The white people killed my kin at Conestoga, a great while ago, and I thought nothing of that. But you killed my kin again on Yellow Creek, and took my cousin prisoner. Then I thought I must kill too; and I have been three times to war since. But the Indians are not angry—only myself. "July 21 st, 1774. Captain John Logan." This note was attached to a war club, and left in the house of a man whose whole family had been murdered by the savages.
John Gibson.—Logan's Speech.—His Death.—Sketch of Colonel Cresap.
who was then at Old Chillicothe, disdained to meet the white men in council, and sat sullenly in his cabin while the treaty was in progress, Dunmore sent a messenger (John Gibson * ) to Logan, to invite him to attend the council. The chief took Gibson into the woods, and sitting down upon a mossy root, he told him the story of his wrongs, and, as that officer related, shedding many bitter tears. He refused to go to the council, but, unwilling to disturb the deliberations by seeming opposition, he sent a speech, in the mouth of Gibson, to Governor Dun-more. That speech, as preserved in print, ** has been greatly admired for its pathetic eloquence. ***
* John Gibson, who afterward became a major general, was an Indian trader, and an active man among the settlers on the Ohio. Washington esteemed him as a brave and honest man, and in 1781 intrusted him with the command of the western military department. He was succeeded by General Irvine in 1782. He was a member of the Pennsylvania convention in 1788; was major general of militia, and was secretary of Indian territory during the administrations of Jefferson and Madison. He was at one time associate judge of the Common Pleas of Alleghany county, in Pennsylvania. Colonel George Gibson, who was mortally wounded at St. Clair's defeat in Ohio, was his nephew.
** Gibson repeated the substance to Dunmore and other officers. They wrote it down, and, on returning to Williamsburg, caused it to be published in the Virginia Gazette, February 4, 1775. This was the name of the first newspaper published in Virginia. It was first issued at Williamsburg in 1736, a sheet about twelve inches by six in size. It was printed weekly bv William Parks, at fifteen shillings per annum. No other paper was published in Virginia until the Stamp Act excitement, in 1765-6. The Gazette was so much under government control, that Jefferson and others got Mr. Rind to come from Maryland and publish a paper, which was also called "The Virginia Gazette." It was professedly open to all parties, but influenced by none. This was the paper in which Logan's speeeh was published. Another "Virginia Gazette" was printed at Williamsburg in 1775, and published weekly lor several years.—See Thomas's History of Printing.
*** Logan, whose majestic person and mental accomplishments were the theme of favorable remark, became a victim to the vice of intemperance. Earlier than the time when Dunmore called him to council, he was addicted to the habit. The last years of his life were very melancholy. Notwithstanding the miseries he had suffered at the hands of the white man, his benevolence made him the prisoner's friend, until intemperance blunted his sensibilities, and in 1780 we find him among the marauders at Ruddell's Station (see page 500). The manner of his death is differently related. The patient researches ol Mr. Mayer lead me to adopt his as the correct one, as it was from the lips of an aged man who knew Logan well, and corresponds in all essential particulars with an account I received from an aged Mohawk whom I saw at Caglmawaga, twelve miles from Montreal, in the summer of 1848. His mother was a Shawnee woman, and when he was a boy, he often saw Logan. In a drunken phrensy near Detroit, in 1780, Logan struck his wife to the ground. Believing her dead, he fled to the wilderness. Between Detroit and Sandusky, he was overtaken by a troop of Indian men, women, and children. Not yet sober, he imagined that the penalty of his crime was about to be inflicted by a relative. Being well armed, he declared that the whole party should be destroyed. In defense, his nephew, Tod-kah-dohs, killed him on the spot, by a shot from his gun. His wife recovered from his blow.
* Michael Cresap was the son of a hardy pioneer, who was one of the Ohio Company in 1752. He was horn in Maryland (Alleghany county), on the 29th of June, 1742. While yet a minor, he married a Miss Whitehead, of Philadelphia. He became a merchant and trader, and at length a bold pioneer upon the Ohio, lie raised a company ot volunteers in the summer of 1774, and proceeded to aid his countrymen on the Ohio, when he was stopped by Connolly. Dunmore, however, valuing his services, sent him a commission of captain in the militia of Hampshire county, in Virginia He then proceeded to the Ohio, and was engaged in Dunmore's expedition of that year. When Gibson reported Logan's speech, the charge against Cresap was laughed at as ridiculous; and George Rogers Clarke, who was standing by, said, *' He must be a very great man, as the Indians palmed every thing that happened upon his shoulders."