Ohio History Journal

LEADEN PLATE AT THE MOUTH OF THE MUSKINGUM

In the October QUARTERLY were published cuts of the

leaden plate prepared for deposit at the mouth of the Conewango

and the one buried at the mouth of the Kanawha.

On the following pages are illustrations of the remnant of

the plate buried at the mouth of the Muskingum and what was

probably its entire text. This plate was considerably multilated.

A portion of the lead was cut away for bullets before the signifi-

cance and importance of this relic were realized. We are under

obligation to the American Antiquarian Society for a very satis-

factory photograph of this remnant from which has been pro-

duced the illustration on the following page.

The plates which have been found thus far show that an

effort was made to include identical text on each with the excep-

tion of the date and the name of the river at the mouth of which

the plate was buried. No two of the plates, however, could have

been made from the same mold, as they contain respectively

nineteen, twenty-one and eighteen lines of varying length. A

separate mold must have been used in casting each and space

was left to engrave the date and the name of the river, at the

confluence of which with the Ohio, each plate was buried. Some

writers have ventured the opinion that the inscription, with the

exception above noted, was stamped upon the plates.

The full text of the inscription on the plate buried at the

mouth of the Muskingum is not given in either of the Journals,

but from the official statement, the text of the inscriptions on

the other plates and the assertion of Celoron that "the inscription

is always the same" (page 371) the writer has undertaken to

supply, with the aid of the fragment left, the full inscription of

this plate. The result is found on page 479. It cannot vary

materially from the original and is believed to be practically

identical with it.

A comparison of the texts of these plates shows some varia-

tions and slight inaccuracies in orthography. The artist, Paul

(477)

480      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

de Brosse, like Celoron himself, had evidently not taken first

prize in spelling words of his native tongue and was somewhat

careless as the variations in the texts of the inscriptions indicate.

Mr. Marshall in his paper, page 442, tells us how Caleb Atwater,

Governor Clinton and others were led for years to suppose that

the leaden plate found at the mouth of the Muskingum had

originally been buried at the mouth of French Creek on the

site of the old Indian village, Venango. They were led to this

conclusion by the similarity of the words "Yenangue" and

"Venango." The fact is, as the Journal of Celoron shows, that

"Yenangue" is only part of the name of the river, the con-

cluding portion of which, "kouan" undoubtedly was carried over

to the beginning of the next line, completing the word "Yenan-

guekouan" the name given to what is now the Muskingum

River.

The circumstances under which this plate was discovered

are stated on a succeeding page and more fully in Hildreth's

Pioneer History of the Ohio Valley pages 19 and 20. The

names of the boys who discovered the plate are not given. In

The Olden Time, Vol i, pages 238-241, is published an account

of the discovery of the plate at the mouth of the Great Kanawha.

This plate was found by "a little son of J. W. Beale, while play-

ing on the margin of the river." The writer in The Olden Time

makes the following comment on the inscription of this plate:

"The French is none of the purest, and the accents, apos-

trophies, and punctuation are wanting, except that the circum-

flex is placed over the initial O in Oyo the first time that word

occurs, while the I's, though capitals, are invariably dotted, and

the Q's are of the old black letter form, like a P reversed."