Ohio History Journal


MONUMENTS TO HISTORICAL INDIAN CHIEFS

MONUMENTS TO HISTORICAL INDIAN CHIEFS.

 

BY EDWARD LIVINGSTON TAYLOR.

It will always seem strange that the Indian tribes erected

no monuments of an enduring character to mark the last resting

place of their dead; especially so, as they had constantly before

them the example of the burial mounds of the race that pre-

ceded them in the occupancy of the country, as well as the later

example of the white race, whose custom of marking the graves

of their dead was familiar to them. It is doubtful if the graves

of even a score of their most noted chiefs or warriors could

now be certainly determined. Even the exact burial spot of

that great and wise Chief Crane (Tarhe), who was long the grand

sachem of the Wyandot tribe, cannot now be definitely fixed,

although his death occurred as late as the year 1818, at Crane

Town, in Wyandot county, Ohio, and his burial was witnessed

by many hundreds of Indians of many tribes and by many white

men. The grave of Chief Leatherlips would not now be known

had it not been marked by a white man who witnessed his ex-

ecution and burial.

Many chiefs have obtained a permanent place in the history

of the country and have thus enduring monuments, but even

such noted chiefs as Pontiac, Tecumseh, Crane, Logan, Solomon,

Black Hoof, Little Turtle, Blue Jacket and many others, who

were conspicuously active in the early settlement of Ohio, and

most of them buried in Ohio soil, are all monumentless and their

burial places are now unknown.

At all periods of the history of the contact, and too often

conflict, between the white and red races since the landing of the

Pilgrims, there appeared great and worthy red men, actuated

by high purposes, whose lives and characters were illustrated

and made notable by magnanimous and noble deeds. Instances

of this kind fill all our history, not only as to chiefs and warriors,

but as to many of the Indian women. It has long been the

pride of many Virginia families to boast that the blood of Po-

Vol. IX-l.