Boys' Book of Indian Warriors and Heroic Indian Women

by Edwin L. Sabin

"Who is there to mourn for Logan?" would ask some voice, in the circle. And another voice would reply, with deep feeling: "Not one!"

President Thomas Jefferson included the speech in a book that he published—"Notes on Virginia," and said that he challenged the orations of the world to produce anything better.

It was copied into other books. School-children memorized it, for "speaking day"; grown people used it, in contests; and for one hundred years it was the favorite platform piece. Thus Logan lived in the white man's words.

Still Logan did not come in to the peace talk held with Governor Dunmore, southeast of present Circleville in south central Ohio. The Shawnees and Delawares said:

"Logan is like a mad dog. His bristles are up; they are not yet fallen, but the good talk may smooth them down."

He stayed close in his cabin, up the Scioto River, and Cornstalk spoke for the Shawnees, Delawares and Wyandots. It was another great address.

"I have heard the first orators of Virginia—Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee," declared Colonel Benjamin Wilson, of Dunmore's men, "but never have I heard one whose powers surpassed those of Cornstalk on that occasion."

Cornstalk told of the wrongs suffered by the Indians, in their hunting grounds; how they were losing the lands of their fathers, and were being cheated by the white men. He asked that nobody be permitted to trade, on private account, with the Indians, but that the Government should send in goods, to be exchanged for skins and furs, and that no "fire water" should enter into the business, for "from fire water there comes evil."

Then he buried the hatchet. He never dug it up. When the Revolution broke, in 1776, and the British agents urged the Indians to strike the post again and help their great father, the king, Cornstalk held firm for friendship with the Americans.

In the spring of 1777, he and young Red Hawk the Delaware, and another Indian came down to the American fort that had been built on the battle field of Point Pleasant at the mouth of the Big Kanawha of the West Virginia border.