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.