Ohio History Journal

THE OHIO VALLEY HISTORIC INDIAN CONFERENCE:

PAPERS READ AT ITS FIRST MEETING,

NOVEMBER 20-21, 1953

[In 1951 the board of trustees authorized the staff of the state

historical society to set up a project to be known as the Ohio Historic

Indian Center. As a part of the work of this project a research

associate was assigned to a study of the Indians and the campaigns

of the Indian Wars, 1790-95. The Anthony Wayne Parkway Board

has cooperated with the society in this study and now has a re-

search historian assigned in part to a continuation of it. The society

added to its library a number of important sources in the field,

especially microfilm copies of large groups from the Draper Col-

lection at the University of Wisconsin and from the Anthony Wayne

Papers at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, as well as microfilm

copies of the Isaac Craig Collection at the Carnegie Library of

Pittsburgh and of other papers.

As a second effort under the center the society decided to trans-

late and edit the diaries of the Indian missions of the Moravian

Church in Ohio from the 1770's to the early 1800's. The graduate

school of the Ohio State University joined in sponsoring this project,

and a member of the faculty of the German department was em-

ployed by the society on a part-time basis to direct the translation

and editing. Research assistants, clerical help, and an office have

been provided by the university. The society secured microfilm

copies and photocopies of the diaries from the Moravian Church

Archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The diaries of the Schoen-

brunn Mission have been transcribed, translated, and edited, and the

work on the Gnadenhutten Mission diaries is well under way. The

society is now seeking a way to finance the publication of this im-

portant source for the history of the Indians of the Ohio region.

Members of the society's staff have felt that the interest in the

historic Indian should be broadened to include the Old Northwest,

the region of the Ohio Valley, and areas from which tribes migrated

into the Old Northwest. They felt, also, the need for an exchange

of information with students in the field outside of Ohio. With

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152    Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly

 

this in mind the society, joined by the department of sociology and

anthropology of the Ohio State University, extended invitations to

all interested persons to a conference on the problem of the his-

toric Indian in the Ohio Valley, November 20-21, 1953. The con-

ference was attended by some forty persons from seven states and

the District of Columbia. The Ohio Valley Historic Indian Con-

ference was formed into a permanent organization, with Dr.

Erminie B. Voegelin, professor of anthropology at Indiana Uni-

versity, as chairman and Richard C. Knopf, historian of the Anthony

Wayne Parkway Board of Ohio, as executive secretary. Named to

the executive committee were Raymond S. Baby, department of

archaeology, the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society;

Dr. August C. Mahr, German department, the Ohio State Uni-

versity; Dr. Dwight L. Smith, department of history, Miami Uni-

versity; Dr. William S. Webb, departments of physics and anthro-

pology and archaeology, the University of Kentucky; and Dr. John

Witthoft, state anthropologist of Pennsylvania.

During the conference in November three papers on the historic

Indian in the Ohio Valley were presented, one by an archaeologist,

one by an ethnohistorian, and one by a historian. These papers

are presented on the following pages, along with the introductory

remarks by Dr. John W. Bennett of the department of sociology

and anthropology of the Ohio State University, who presided at

the opening session of the conference.--EDITOR.]

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