"We visited Logan at his camp, at Logan's Spring, and your father and he shot at a mark, for a dollar a shot. Logan lost four or five rounds, and acknowledged himself beaten. When we were about to leave him, he went into his hut and brought out as many deer-skins as he had lost dollars, and handed them to Mr. Maclay, who refused to take them, alleging that he had been his guest, and did not come to rob him; that the shooting had only been a trial of skill, and the bet merely nominal. Logan drew himself up with great dignity, and said, 'Me bet to make you shoot your best; me gentleman, and me take your dollar if me beat.' So he was obliged to take the skins, or affront our friend, whose nice sense of honor would not permit him to receive even a horn of powder in return.
"The next year," said Judge Brown, "I brought my wife up, and camped under a big walnut-tree on the bank of Tea Creek, until I had built a cabin near where the mill now stands, and I have lived in the valley ever since. Poor Logan" (and the tears chased each other down his cheeks) "soon after went into the Alleghany, and I never saw him again."
Many other characteristic anecdotes are given of Logan, the publication of which in these pages would answer no very desirable end.
In looking over the few pages of manuscripts left by the late Edward Bell, Esq., we find mention made of "Captain Logan, an Indian friendly to the whites." This confirmed us in the belief that there were two Logans. "Logan, the Mingo chief," left Kishicoquillas Valley in 1771; while Captain Logan resided in the upper end of Huntingdon county at that time, and a few years afterward in Logan's Valley, in Blair county. When the Revolution broke out, he moved toward the mountain, in the neighborhood of Chickalacamoose, near what is now Clearfield. He served as a spy for the settlers, and rendered them valuable service. He was an Iroquois or Mingo Indian, too, and a chief; whereas Logan, the Mingo, was no chief until he removed to Ohio after his relatives were murdered and he took up the hatchet against the whites. This explanation is necessary, because many people of Huntingdon and Blair counties are under the impression that the Captain Logan who resided in Tuckahoe as late as 1785, and Logan, the Mingo chief, were one and the same person.
Logan, in consequence of Kishicoquillas becoming too thickly populated, and the game becoming proportionately scarce, emigrated to Ohio, where he settled at the mouth of Yellow Creek, thirty miles above Wheeling. There he was joined by his surviving relatives and some Cayugas from Fort Augusta, and a small Indian village of log-huts was built up.
Heckwelder, who must have seen him previous to settling at Yellow Creek, speaks of him as follows:—
About the year 1772, Logan was introduced to me by an Indian friend, as son of the late reputable chief Shikelemus, and as a friend to the white people. In the course of conversation, I thought him a man of superior talents than Indians generally were. The subject turning on vice and immorality, he confessed his too great share of this, especially his fondness for liquor. He exclaimed against the white people for imposing liquors upon the Indians. He otherwise admired their ingenuity; spoke of gentlemen, but observed the Indians unfortunately had but few of these neighbors, &c. He spoke of his friendship to the white people, wished always to be a neighbor to them, intended to settle on the Ohio, below Big Beaver; was (to the best of my recollection) then encamped at the mouth of this river, (Beaver;) urged me to pay him a visit. I was then living at the Moravian town on this river, in the neighborhood of Cuskuskee. In April, 1773, while on my passage down the Ohio for Muskingum, I called at Logan's settlement, where I received every civility I could expect from such of the family as were at home.
Indian reports concerning Logan, after the death of his family, ran to this: that he exerted himself during the Shawnees war (then so called) to take all the revenge he could, declaring he had lost all confidence in the white people. At the time of the negotiation, he declared his reluctance to lay down the hatchet, not having (in his opinion) yet taken ample satisfaction; yet, for the sake of the nation, he would do it. His expression, from time to time, denoted a deep melancholy. Life, said he, had become a torment to him; he knew no more what pleasure was; he thought it had been better if he had never existed. Report further states that he became in some measure delirious; declared he would kill himself; went to Detroit, and, on his way between that place and Miami, was murdered. In October, 1781, while a prisoner, on my way to Detroit, I was shown the spot where this was said to have happened.
That Logan's temper should have soured on the murder of his relatives and friends, after the friendship he had always extended to the whites, is not at all strange. These murders changed his nature from a peaceable Indian to a most cruel and bloodthirsty savage. Revenge stimulated him to the most daring deeds; and how many innocent white men, women, and children, he ushered into eternity to appease his wrath, is only known to Him "whose eye seeth all things."
His people—some say his family, but it never was ascertained that he had any—were murdered in May, 1774. Some roving Indians had committed depredations in the neighborhood, and the settlers, highly incensed, determined to drive them out of the neighborhood. To this end, about thirty men, completely armed, and under the command of Daniel Greathouse, without knowing the character and disposition of Logan and his friends, made a descent upon the village and destroyed it, and killed twelve and wounded six or eight of the Indians. Among the former was Logan's sister and a son of Kishicokelas. Logan was absent, at the time of the occurrence, on a hunting expedition. On his return, as soon as he saw the extent of the injury done him, he buried the dead, cared for the wounded, and, with the remnant of his band, went into Ohio, joined the Shawnees, and fought during their war against the whites with the most bitter and relentless fury.