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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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.]