Unveiling of the Cresap Tablet. 141
vation of their historic sites, mounds,
circles, squares, and the tokens
of a bygone civilization found therein.
To you, and to your keeping, we present
this Tablet, and are happy
in so doing.
We realize that you, and the great State
of Ohio, are leading in the
procession of progress. To you, the
custodian of the glories of the past,
peoples, records, and their trophies of
valor, we consign this Tablet, and
leave it under your protection, and that
of "Old Glory." Once again in
behalf of the Cresap Clan, we thank you.
With like purpose words of appreciation
in behalf of the
descendants of Captain Michael Cresap
were tendered to the
State Society by Mr. Charles H. Lewis,
who is a descendant of
the one in whose honor the tablet was
erected. His closing words
were:
"In this beautiful setting, now
filled with peace and plenty,
unafraid we breathe the spirit of
pioneer heroism. Here met civil-
ization and savage. Short the story-
Buried, -lost forever is
the tomahawk;
Broken, and useless is the flintlock;
The voice of Logan is silenced."
In connection with this occasion
Mr. Frank Tallmadge had
offered a money prize to the school
pupils of Circleville for
the most meritorious essay on the
historical plains of Pickaway
Township. The prize was awarded to Miss
Arista Arledge.
The essay is here given in full:
PICKAWAY COUNTY.
Pickaway County is one of our most
historical counties in Ohio.
It was formed January 12, 1810. The name
is a misspelling of Piqua,
the name of a tribe of Shawnee Indians.
We learn that most of our
formal Indian settlements were near the
Scioto river in the Pickaway
Plains.
The remarkable Pickaway Plains may be
designated as the section
lying between the Scioto on the west,
Salt Creek on the east, and extend-
ing north and south between lines which
would run respectively east
and west through Circleville and
Chillicothe. This rich bottom land, the
most fertile in Ohio, was the most
favorite location of the prehistoric
Mound Builders, as well as the most
historic field of the Ohio Indians.
Of the earliest inhabitants of the Ohio
Valley, the Indians had
neither knowledge nor tradition. They
belong to the prehistoric ages
and, -"These ages have no memory,
but they left a record."
142 Ohio
Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
Ohio is rich in its records of a
prehistoric people. The records are
the mounds raised, in some far off time
by their hands. They are found
in various forms. Some of them represent
animals. The most noted of
them is the famous Serpent Mound of
Adams county. Some were for
purposes of defense and some for
religious rites and burial. Whence the
builders came and whither they departed
is an unsolved mystery. Some
conclude that they were a distinct race;
others say they were the an-
cestors of the Indian race.
In the Pickaway Plains on Scippo Creek
just north of where Congo
Creek empties into it, was Grenadier
Squaw's town, a wigwam center
which was named from a Shawnee woman of
great muscular strength,
who was the sister of one, who at that
time was the ablest and most influ-
ential chief of his nation. This man was
Keightughqua, signifying a
blade or stalk of the maize, hence the
cornstalk, or chief support of the
people, was therefore known as Cornstalk
to the people.
Cornstalk was born about 1720, in one of
the Scioto towns of the
Shawnees and first appears in history as
a leader in a Shawnee band
into the settlements of Virginia during
and after the French and Indian
war and Pontiac's war. During his raids
inhabitants were being mur-
dered and many were taken to the Shawnee
towns on the banks of the
Scioto River. His capital, called
Cornstalk's Town, was located on the
north bank of the Scippo Creek, a short
distance from his sister's village,
Grenadier Squaw Town.
The Indians had five villages, named
Chillicothe. 1-The Chillicothe
on the Great Miami, on the present site
of Piqua; 2-Chillicothe, often
called "Old Chillicothe,"
located about three miles north of Xenia; 3-
Chillicothe also called "Old
Chillicothe," on the west bank of the Scioto
River, at present ocation of the village
of Westfall; 4-Chillicothe, now
called Hopetown, often designated as
"Old Town," three miles north of
present Chillicothe; 5-Chillicothe now
Frankfort, Ross county. These five
historic Chillicothes were Shawnee
villages. The word Chillicothe, meaning
"the place where the people
live" or "a village."
Black Mountain is a ridge located on the
farm where D. E. Phillips
now resides. It is somewhat in the shape
of an inverted boat, elevated
from one hundred and thirty to one
hundred and fifty feet above the
bottom of the prairie immediately in its
vicinity, and commands from its
summit a full view of the high plains
and the country around it to a
great extent. This elevated ridge
answered the Indians some valuable
purposes.
No enemy could approach in daytime, who
could not from its sum-
mit be descried at a great distance and
by repairing there the Red Man
could often have a choice of the game in
view, and his sagacity seldom
failed him in the endeavors to approach
it with success.
The burning ground in the suburbs of
Grenadier Squaw's Town
was also situated on an elevated spot,
which commands a full view of all
the other towns for a distance around,
so that when a victim was at the
Unveiling of the Cresap Tablet. 143
stake and the flames ascending, all the
inhabitants of the other towns
who could not be present, might, in a
great measure, enjoy the scene by
sight and imagination. The burning
ground at Old Chillicothe was some-
what similar, being in full view of the
burning ground at Squaw's Town
and Black Mountain, and two or three
other small towns in other places
of the plains.
In 1770, the first congress of the
various tribes met at the Shawnee
headquarters.
In July, 1772, another congress was held
at the Pickaway Plains at
which the confederacy was consummated,
if indeed, it had not been fully
organized a year before. Thus on the
banks of the Scioto were united
Shawnees, Delawares, Miamis, Ottawas,
Wyandottes, Illinois and western
tribes. The Shawnees were the chief
constituency of this union and
Cornstalk, their leader, was recognized
as the head of the tribal alliances,
About six miles south of Circleville,
the county seat of Pickaway
county, in an open field by the
roadside, stands an ancient elm tree, whose
broad branches stretch over a wide space
and whose sturdy trunk has
withstood the storms of two centuries.
With each passing year it be-
comes more and more an object of
interest and veneration. Under its
falling autumn leaves, almost one
hundred and forty years ago, Logan,
"the friend of the white man,"
delivered the famous speech that has since
become familiar in almost every home in
the middle west. Who has not
read the following eloquent and pathetic
words?:
"I appeal to any white man to say
if ever he entered Logan's
cabin and I gave him not meat; if ever
he came cold and naked and
I gave him not clothing. During the
course of the last long and
bloody war, Logan remained in his tent,
an advocate of peace. Nay,
such was my love for the whites that
those of my own country
pointed at me as they passed, and said,
'Logan is a friend of the
white man!' I had ever thought to live
with you, but for the in-
juries of one man, Colonel Creasap, last
spring, in cold blood and
unprovoked, cut off all the relatives of
Logan, not sparing even my
women and children. There runs not a
drop of my blood in the
veins of any human creature. This called
on me for revenge. I
have sought it. I have killed many. I
have fully glutted my ven-
geance. For my country I rejoice at the
beams of peace. Yet do
not harbor the thought that mine is the
joy of fear. Logan never
felt fear. He will not turn on his heel
to save his life. Who is
there to mourn for Logan? Not one."
In this burst of Indian eloquence Logan
told the truth in regard to
his friendship for the white man and the
murder of his family. He was
mistaken, however, in placing the blame
on Colonel Cresap. The deeds
of unprovoked violence of which he
complained were perpetrated near the
144 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
mouth of Yellow Creek, a short distance
below the sight of Wellsville,
in the spring of 1774.
A man by the name of Daniel Gratehouse
enticed some Indians
across the Ohio near this point, gave
them liquor until they were help-
lessly drunk, and then slew them. He and
his followers afterward sur-
prised and killed other Indians on
Yellow Creek. Among those slain
were the mother, brother and sister of
Logan.
This outrage aroused his fury against
the whites. After the battle
at Point Pleasant, in which the Indians
led by Cornstalk, Logan and other
chiefs were overwhelmingly defeated,
October, 1774, a peace was con-
cluded on the Pickaway Plains, not far
from the site of Circleville.
Here Lord Dunmore at the head of the
victorious army met the van-
quished chiefs in council. Logan refused
to be present but sent by Col-
onel John Gibson the famous speech
already given. Of the later years
of Logan, little is definitely known.
While he did not renounce the nobil-
ity of his nature and on different
occasions still manifested humane sym-
pathy for the whites he withdrew from
the borders of civilization, be-
came sullen and moody, often sitting for
hours, "buried in thought."
As he sat thus, so runs the story, one
of his own race, to satisfy
some personal grudge, slipped up behind
him and slew him with a toma-
hawk. But the great tree still stands
and flourishes greenly where he
told the immortal story of the wrongs he
had suffered at the hands of
the white man.
At the ceremonies of the unveiling of
the Cresap Tablet,
at Logan Elm Park there were present the
following descend-
ants of Colonel Thomas Cresap: Friend
Cox, Brent Cresap Cox,
and J. Frank Cox, Wheeling, W. Va.; B.
O. Cresap and B. O.
Cresap, Jr., Wellsburg, W. Va.; B. Worth
Ricketts, Willis H.
Cresap, and Ernest Wilfred Cresap,
Coshocton, Ohio; Anna
Sanford Cresap Bibb, Kansas City, Mo.;
Charles Henrickson
Lewis, Harpster, Ohio; Ellen Brasee
Towt, Lancaster, Ohio;
Ella Ogle Shoemaker, Massillon, Ohio;
Mrs. M. L. C. Stevenson
and Anna Thistle Cresap Dorsey, Dresden,
Ohio; Blanche
Cresap Longstreth, Union Furnace, Ohio;
Frank Tallmadge,
Howard Cresap Lemert, Madge Hibbard
Potter and Hibbard
Bethlo Potter, Columbus, Ohio.
These Cresap descendants, on the evening
following the ex-
ercises at the Logan Elm, assembled at
the Chittenden Hotel,
Columbus, and organized "The Cresap
Society," with the fol-
lowing officers: Honorary President and
Official Historian,
Mrs. Mary Louise Cresap Stevenson,
Dresden, Ohio; President,