"THE WYANDOT'S BRIDE."
N. B. C. LOVE, D. D.
The poem, "The Wyandot's
Bride," written by Rev. L. B.
Gurley, about seventy years ago, is an
epic of over two hundred
lines. It is in blank verse. It
describes:
The Sandusky River rolling outward into
the Lake:
"'Mid leafy groves, and prairies
bright with flowers."
On this River the Wyandots,
"A remnant of an ancient nation
dwelt"
Which in its waning glory,
"Was proud of its old name, 'Wyandot.'"
When the poem was written many old
chieftains lived:
"To tell of noble deeds and feats
of war;
But the scenes of war had passed
away."
They delighted to sit by their council
and wigwam fires and
by word and pantomine fight their
battles o'er again while the
hatchet and pipe of peace:
"Were pass'd around and foes were
true friends made."
The poem is connected with an important
event that occurred
in 1816. John Stewart, the pioneer
missionary of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, inspired of God, came
from Marietta, Ohio,
to Upper Sandusky "to seek the lost
sheep in the wilderness."
His efforts were successful, and the
work became too great for
him, and he sought assistance in 1819
from the old Ohio Con-
(182)
The Wyandot's Bride. 183
ference of the M. E. Church and
missionaries and teachers were
sent him. A log school building was
erected out of hewn logs,
on the banks of the Sandusky a half mile
north of the town.
And later in 1824 the United
States Government caused to be
built the stone mission church near and
west of the school
building. The poem speaks of these
buildings:
"Upon the verge of a grove-framed
prairie,
Glorious with bright and beautiful
flowers
God's temple rose, the mission school
was there."
The landscape of this locality is
picturesque to-day, and
must have been more so ere it had lost
its primal appearance.
One of these missionaries in the vigor
of his manhood, and
popular in Ohio as an orator, was sent
here to teach. His oldest
child Lucy was ten years old. While he
did not feel this to be
his, even providential work, yet at
bidding of one of the "chief
pastors," the bishop, he came and
did all he could for:
"These uncultured children of the
wild.
He was a man,
So good, so wise, noble, and yet so
kind,
So peerless that beneath his glowing
strains,
Of what seemed more than mortal
eloquence,
The minds of giant strength, and culture
high,
Would bend and bow as trees beneath the
storm."
This missionary without a peer in the
pulpits of southern
and eastern Ohio, contrary to the wishes
of the white people,
who by the thousands had listened to
him:
"Came with his wife, and little
ones to dwell,
In that secluded spot; his eldest child
Was young and beautiful, and surpassing
fair;
Of her I sing, and how her future life
Was so strangely linked to this native
band."
"Ten summers o'er her head had
rolled their suns.
On her fair brow and ivory neck
Flated her auburn tresses- her
blue eyes
Were like the deep blue sky, so deep
they seemed
Reaching the very fountains of the soul,
And mirrored back the sunshine floating
there.
184 Ohio Arch. and
Hist. Society Publications.
Her dewey lips were clothed with winning
smiles,
On her cheeks the summer roses bloomed,
Sweet rang her merry laugh among the
bowers,
That skirt the verdant lawn, and flowery
plain-
She was so beautiful, so angel like
That savage eyes were charmed her face
to see,
Proud chieftains bowed to kiss her
childhood brow
And praise the angel Lucy good and
fair."
The ingathering of the Wyandot children
is graphically de-
scribed:
"To the mission brought and taught
and clothed."
It was paying the Indians some of the
debt owed them by
the whites. The Wyandots from their defeat--with
other
tribes -by Gen. Wayne in
1794, had been true and unflinching
friends of the Americans. Gen. W. H. Harrison fully relied
on them in the War of 1812 and he had no reason to regret it.
For this service the Government failed
to compensate them.
They were wronged in the forceful
deprivation of their homes
on the Sandusky, and:
"Culture and toil were the hope of
the tribe."
To the hewn log mission house the
children came:
"From wigwams rude and forests old
and grand.
Coarse were their scanty robes and wild
their sports,
Yet their young hearts were merry and
their songs
Echoed amid the emerald groves around.
Fair Lucy mingled in their childish
plays,
Caught their wild tongue and sang their
wild songs
And taught their wild tongue to say,
'Our Father.'
Among these youths was White Star,
lovely boy,
Of mingled blood."
His proud father was of one of Old
England's best families,
and when a young man came to the
Sandusky Valley:
"And for a spouse a queenly
daughter took
Of a chieftain, White Star was their
only son."
The boy at this time was thirteen years:
The Wyandot's Bride. 185
"His raven hair shaded a noble
brow,
While deep beneath lashes dark and long,
Reposed two brilliant eyes, and fit he
seemed
To be the leader of that happy
band."
The poem tells us of the happy and
natural life of the chil-
dren of the mission school and that
White Star and Lucy the
happiest of all, were often found
together with environment of
the rippling waters of Sandusky River,
the crystal water of the
big spring flowing out into a brook, in
the meadow, in which
wild flowers bloomed. For a year they
were friends with the
unconscious and unknown tie of pure love
uniting their artless
souls.
They were children but mature children's love of each
other early and true. Their acquaintance
lasted less than two
years, and then they had to part:
"Love was not named.
The noble youth saw tears in Lucy's
eyes,
And scarce represt those gathering in
his own."
The years passed. The separation seemed
complete. She
with her father to a rural home in
central Ohio, near Mansfield,
and he continuing with his father at
Upper Sandusky, where his
time passed divided between study in his
home, his father, an
educated man teaching him, and the work,
the amusements and
the hunting of the Wyandot boys in their
"teens;" but:
"White Star and Lucy
Met again where learning lights the
lamps
In classic halls and culture's hallowed
bowers.
He with manly form, erect and strong,
And she matured in woman's opening
charms."
And thus at Norwalk Seminary their lives
were full of
mutual joy, hope and love. But a letter
came to Lucy,
"Come home, your father is sick and
needs your care and help."
Soon after reaching that home amid her
tears she saw,
"That head within whose walls the
thoughts were born
That might test an angel's strength to
bear
Was cold and pillowed in the lap of
death."
186 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
Desolate indeed was Lucy's heart. How
irreparable such
a loss to the Itinerant's wife and
children. The orator, mis-
sionary and great pioneer preacher was a
martyr to his calling.
"The crape was tied to the cabin
door."
White Star too was sad to hear of the
death of his teacher
and Lucy's father. He wondered if
somehow they might meet
again.
"She had not said yes, I love,
But he had read it in her speaking eyes
And soft voice, and rich carnation tint
That graced her brow and mantled all her
face."
But would she consent to be his?
"Would she come to his bower
content to dwell
Among the rude tenements of the forest
wild?"
And Lucy too wondered if it were best to
indicate her heart
to White Star who longed to know. She
remembered:
"It was then her heart first
love-throbbing felt -
Then she first caught the missionary
flame
Which never ceased to glow within her
breast.
Then with those children of the forest
wild
She past her sunniest days to memory
sweet.
And then was he not a man? What though
his veins
Bore blood averse to cultured race and
thought,
Yet all could in him the white man's
blood trace.
In mind he was gifted, learned and kind;
His manly brow glowed with conscious
pride,
For he was versed in love, and learning
deep,
In law, philosophy, and science and art,
And best of all, the love of Christ had
thrown
Its mantle o'er his every thought and
life;
Besides he loved her well and prized her
most."
The following ends the poem and the
story:
"It was a summer eve, a rosy tinge
Lingered on the beauteous western
sky."
*
* * * * *
The Wyandot's Bride. 187
"They met once again at her cottage
door,
He woed and won and took her to his
home,
This passing fair and most beauteous
bride."
*
* * * * *
"Hard by a grove on verge of
verdant lawn,
Their wildwood cabin stood where they
could see
The Sandusky meandering through the
vale."
The facts furnishing the data of
this poem are as follows:
Russel Bigelow, a prominent Itinerant
Methodist preacher
was sent to the Wyandot Mission in the
fall of 1827. Rev. J. B.
Finley was Presiding Elder on Lebanon
District, Ohio Confer-
ence. The district embraced one-fourth
of the state of Ohio
and reached up into Michigan to Detroit.
This year the pre-
siding elder was superintendent of the
mission and Bigelow was
assistant. The following year the latter
was presiding elder of
Portland District and superintendent of
mission. Portland was
called Sandusky City later.
Russel Bigelow had in the settlements and
larger towns of
Ohio won the distinguished honor of
being the greatest pulpit
orator of the West, and some ministers,
it is said, were jealous
of him, and had a pliant bishop send him
to the Wyandots.
I have the documentary evidence of this
statement. It was
wrong, but Bigelow did a great work in
the mission and good
came of it.
After this, his health being impaired,
he retired to his home.
He was appointed first chaplain of the
Ohio Penitentiary, but
his health was not sufficient and he
died in the middle of his
active life. Lucy Bigelow was his oldest
daughter.
"White Star" was John McIntyre
Armstrong. Mr. Arm-
strong had one-eighth Indian blood. Mrs.
Lucy Armstrong
residing in Kansas City wrote me several
times in 1887. I
learned many things about her
husband. I can for lack of
space mention briefly only a few.
He was on the white side a grand-son of
the scout Zane,
and grandson of Robert Armstrong. His
grandmother Zane
was Indian and French and the most
beautiful woman in the
tribe. Mrs. Lucy Armstrong claimed that
her husband was
only one-eighth Indian blood. Others who
knew him, say he
188
Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
partook in complexion and many
characteristics of the Wyandot.
He was the attorney for the Wyandots.
They had confidence in
his legal ability and honesty. He was a
member of their Coun-
cil, and wrote their last constitution.
When on his way to Wash-
ington, D. C., 1852, to look after
interests of the nation he died
at Mansfield, Ohio.
William E. Connelly of Kansas, a writer
of pioneer and
Indian history, and recently president
and chief of the Wyan-
dots, speaks of Armstrong in high terms.
Mrs. Lucy Bigelow in 1890 wrote me a number of inter-
esting letters. She was then about
seventy years old but de-
lighted in good works. She was Secretary
of the W. F. Mis-
sionary Society and Aid Society and W.
C. T. U. of Kansas City.
She died a year or two later. To-day the
Wyandots maintain
their tribal organization although
citizens of the United States.
Their organization is fraternal and
social. The Wyandots are
an intelligent and prosperous people.
Mrs. Lucy B. Armstrong
has two children living, Russell Bigelow
Armstrong and a mar-
ried daughter. Both are intelligent and
respected citizens.
The late Thomas J. Pope of the M. E.
Church, North Ohio
Conference, married Lucy's sister. To
them were born four sons,
all of whom became preachers. The
oldest, Dr. Russel B. Pope,
died two years since. He was
distinguished for his scholarship
and oratorical ability. Two others, Dr.
P. P. Pope and Rev.
T. J. Pope, are honored members of the
Central Ohio Con-
ference. The former ranks high as an
executive officer and
presiding elder, and the latter as a
faithful pastor and able
preacher. The other son is, I think, a
member of East Ohio
Conference.
Toledo, Ohio.