Ohio History Journal

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SQUAW TRAIL

SQUAW TRAIL

 

 

BY GEORGE NELSON HINDS

 

 

John and Elizabeth Hinds and their three sons had emigrated from

the Fen country in England to the New World, on board a slave ship,

arriving in 1808. Traveling in an oilskin-covered wagon, drawn by their

oxen, Thomas and Jeremiah, they encamped at a point about thirty miles

from Albany, New York, on the Squaw Trail. This trail, variously labeled

"the Iroquois trail," "King Philip's road," and described as "a tote road"

and "a trace," was known to the Indians as Squaw Trail, because it was

sufficiently wide for squaws to move tribal belongings by means of ponies

dragging their burdens on tote poles. It is now for most of its course

designated as U. S. Highway No. 20, and little does the modern traveler

realize its antiquity, for it is thought by some to have existed before the

days af Babylon.

Frontier conditions and pioneer travel have been described time and

time again, so, although it is no easy matter for the modern reader to pic-

ture the scene which was presented to this venturing party, it is yet possible

to gain some conception of the hardships and dangers they were enduring.

The Hinds were bound for a cabin in the heart of the Ohio wilderness,

in the valley of the Whetstone (Olentangy), several hundred miles west-

ward, near where Squaw Trail merged into the Indian war trail. This

cabin, built by John's brother, Robert, in 1779, had been empty from the

time of the burning of Colonel William Crawford by the Delawares. John

had chosen the long route over Squaw Trail, avoiding the Great Way

through Fort Pitt, because of warnings against the character of many of the

white travelers on that road.

As they had been about to break camp to continue along the trail, they

were agreeably surprised when they were joined by another westward-bound

pioneer, Yacob Schneider, a German, late of the British Army, surrendered

by Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. He had been a German soldier, sold by

his Hessian overlord into the English ranks, and had chosen to remain in

America after the Revolution. Since then he had been living in the wilds

among the tribesmen, learning how the primitive peoples survive. He was,

therefore, a most useful member of the Hinds party, and the friendship

which therewith began continued throughout their lives.

Yacob was delighted to observe in John's outfit two casks of refined

salt and a small copper still. These he watched over with the same care

(78)