Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/213

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HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY

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��Bockinghelas and Capt. Pipe, principal chiefs of tlie Delaware tribe, and Killbuck, who had received a liberal education at Princeton Col- lege, and who retained the principles of Chris- tianity until his death.

Strong as the Delawares may have been in their halcyon days, disease and the vices of the whites rapidly diminished their numbers, until, when the Greenville treaty was made, only 381 were enumerated. They were represented at the second Greenville treaty, in 1814, and in Sep- tember. 1817, at a treaty held at the foot of the Maumee Rapids with Lewis Cass and Duncan McArthur, Commissioners on the part of the United States, a reservation of three miles square was granted to them near the Wy- andot reservation, near the northern bound- ary of Marion County. This reservation was equally divided among sixteen principal In- dians, among whom were Capt. Pipe. Zeshanau.* or James Armstrong, and others who had lived in Greentown, in this county, and whose history will be noticed hereafter. By the treaty con- cluded at Little Sandusky August 3, 1829, the Delawares ceded their reservation to the United States for $3,000. and removed west of the Mississippi.

The most noted Lidian town in old Richland County was in the part assigned to the Del- awares. This was Greentown. situated on Sec- tion 18. in Green Township. -^ Greentown was started aV)out 1783," says Dr. Hill, "on the Black Fork of Mohican by an American Tory from the blood-stained valley of Wyoming. After that sanguinary slaughter, Thomas Green, who had aided the fierce Mohawks to murder his countrymen, fled to the wilds of Ohio with Jelloway. Armstrong, Billy Montour, Tom Lyons and others. The village received thename of the white fiend, and was called Greentown."

When the Indian war of 1790 broke out, the Greentown Indians were led by Thomas Arm-

  • Dr. George W. HiU fays ArnistroDg's Indian name was " Pa-

moxet."

��strong, while that portion of the tribe living about Upper Sandusky were led 1)y Capt. Pipe. For a while they were able to repel the whites, but, in 1794. Gen. Wayne met them at the " Fallen Timbers," and so signally routed them that their power was forever Ijroken. Ever after the name of Wayne was a terror to them. After the treaty of 1795, part of the tribe returned to Greentown and part to Jeromeville,* established at that time. The Indians remained at Greentown at peace with the whites until the war of 1812. During this interval their village grew to a population of more than a hundred souls, and became one of the best known in Northern Ohio. It was one of the chief towns among the aborigines, and in it were held many of their feasts, an account of two being given in succeeding pages. They cultivated fields of corn adjacent to the village, built good cabins, and entertained, as best they could, any white person applying for their hospitality.t

Capt. Pipe, who was one of their ruling spir- its, and long time a chief, was, after the peace of 1795, a fervent friend of the whites. He had been an inveterate foe, and was the principal actor in the cruel execution of Col. Crawford, in retaliation for the wanton murder of their Moravian brothers. This was in strict accord with the ideas of Indian justice, and, had Col. Williamson, the commander of the militia who

  • Jeromeville, another important Indian town in tUis part of the

State though not in "old Kichland," well deserves a description. It was founded by John Baptiste Jerome, a Canadian Frenchman, who came about 1784 to the Huron River, where he married an Indian girl, a sister of the noted Indian, George Hamilton. After marriage, Jerome removed to upper Sandusky, where he remained until the outbreak of hostilities in 1790, when, with Capt. Pipe, of the Delawares, he engaged in battle against the Americana, only to be defeated by Gen. Wayne. After the treaty of Greenville Jerome Capt. Pipe, and a number of Delaware Indians, came to the site ot Mohican Johnstown, on the south side of the stream, about three- quarters of a mile from the present Jeromeville, where they estab- lished a town. This was about 1802 or 1803. Jerome crossed the stream and built a cabin a little northeast of a mill site long after- ward used for such. He was here when Joseph Larwill surveyed the country, in 1806 and 1807. He was still here when the first set- tlers came, and had considerable land cleared in the creek bottoms. He resided in this cabin with his Indian wife and daughter until the Indians were removed by orders of Capt. Murray, an account ot which is given in this volume. The removal caused their death. He was never the same man again. He married a German woman, sold his farm, and, after one or two moves, died at his old home, on the Huron River.

t Another old Indian town in this vicinity was Helltown. Its location was not far from the present village of NewviUe. It is fully described in the history of Worthington Township.

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