Logan moved in early life to the banks of the Juniata, which is a beautiful little river, flowing through a wild, romantic country, watered also by the Susquehanna. In a pleasant valley he built his cabin, and married a Shawnee wife. Thus he became identified with the Shawnees and Delawares, though belonging to the Six Nations. Logan inherited his father's talents of oratory and bid fair to be equally prosperous. He took no part in the French and Indian war of 1760, nor that of Pontiac which followed, except to assume the role of peacemaker.
His house, like his father's, was the Indian's and the white man's home, the dwelling-place of love. Alas! that the milk of human kindness in his bosom should ever have been turned to gall by cruel and inhuman wrongs. In his childhood a little cousin had been taken captive by white men, under aggravating circumstances, but for this he did not become the foe of the white race.
"Forgive and forget," seems to have been his motto at this time; and he lived to be an aged man, before vengeance took possession of his soul.
In all the country where he dwelt he was known, and to every cottage Logan was welcome; terror did not creep into the heart of woman nor fear disturb the little child, when his footsteps were heard at their doors. And this, as was afterwards proved, was not because he had not all the traits which make a brave warrior, but from a settled principle that all men were brothers and should love one another.
Minnie Myrtle, in her interesting book, "The Iroquois," says of Logan: "He set forth at one time on a hunting expedition, and was alone in the forest. Two white hunters were engaged in the same sport, and having killed a bear in a wild gorge, were about to rest beside a babbling spring, when they saw an Indian form reflected in the water. They sprang to their feet and grasped their rifles, but the Indian bent forward and struck the rifles from their hands, and spilt the powder from their flasks. Then stretching forth his open palm in token of friendship, he seated himself beside them and won his way to their hearts. For a week they roamed together, hunting and fishing by day and sleeping by the same fire at night. It was Logan, and henceforth their brother. At the end of their hunt, he pursued his way over the Alleghenies, to his lodge, and they returned to their homes, never again to point a gun at an Indian's heart.
"Some white men on a journey stopped at his cabin to rest. For amusement a shooting match was proposed, at which the wager was to be a dollar a shot. During the sport Logan lost five shots, and when they had finished he entered his lodge and brought out five deer skins in payment of his losses, as a dollar a skin was the established price in those days and the red man's money. But his guests refused to take them, saying they had only been shooting for sport and wished no forfeit. But the honorable Indian would take no denial, replying, 'If you had lost the shots I should have taken your dollars, but as I have lost, take my skins.'
"Another time he wished to buy grain, and took his skins to a tailor, who adulterated the wheat, thinking the Indian would not know. But the miller informed him, and advised him to apply to a magistrate for redress. He went to a Mr. Brown, who kindly saw that his loss was made up, for Logan came often to his house, and he knew his noble heart and grieved to see him wronged. As he was waiting the decision of the magistrate, he played with a little girl, who was just trying to walk, and the mother remarked that she needed some shoes, which she was not able to purchase for her.
"The child was very fond of Logan and loved to sit upon his knee, and when he went away was ready to go too. He asked the mother if he might take her to his cabin for the day, and she, knowing well the attention which would be bestowed upon her in the Indian's lodge, consented. Toward night there was a little anxiety about the child, but the shades of evening had scarcely begun to deepen, when Logan was seen wending his way to the cottage with his precious charge; and when he placed her in her mother's arms, she saw upon her feet a tiny pair of moccasins, neatly wrought and ornamented with beads, that his own skilful hands had made. Was not this a delicate way of showing gratitude and expressing friendship? Was it a rude and savage nature that prompted this attention to a little child, to gladden a mother's heart? Not all the refined teachings of civilization could have invented a more beautiful tribute of sympathy and grateful affection."
The hunters and backwoodsmen of the period describe Logan as a chief or headman, among the outlying parties of Senecas and Cayugas, and the fragments of broken tribes that lived along the upper Ohio and its tributaries.
They tell us he was a man of splendid appearance, over six feet tall, straight as a spear-shaft, with countenance as open as it was brave and manly, until the wrongs he endured stamped on it an expression of gloomy ferocity. He had always been the friend of the white man, and had been noted particularly for his kindness and gentleness to children. Up to this time he had lived at peace with the borderers, for though some of his kin had been massacred by the whites, years before, he had forgiven the deed—probably because he had knowledge of the fact that others of his relatives and people had been concerned in equally bloody massacres of the whites.