The Garlock-Elliott Family


Home | People | Places | Histories | Archive | Sharing

Yellow Creek Stories

Robert W. SCHILLING

Chapter IX

White Eyes

Strange as it may seem, there was a legend told by the early pioneers in the Yellow Creek valley over a century ago, that might have contained much truth, had it not been clouded by later developments that only rendered the problem more perplexing. Two statements in the legend are true, but the third lacks the known facts to substantiate it to equal veracity.

It states that White eyes, the Delaware Indian who was leading General McIntosh’s army along the banks of Yellow Creek to the Tuscarawas River in 1778, was killed by an Indian named The Pipe, while standing atop the Standing Rock in Yellow Creek.

The first fact that beclouds the clarity of this legend is that there were two of these Delaware Indians by the name of White Eyes (both sometimes called Captain White Eyes) and they became a part of our local history. Both of them were killed within the boundary of the original Knox township, Jefferson County, Ohio, but at two dates separated by twenty years of time.

They were father and son, who had lived on the banks of the Tuscarawas, and although the father was a chief of petty rank among the Delawares, the son was neither a chief or captain and often bore the name of George White Eyes.

In the early days of the Revolutionary War, the father was very loyal to the Americans, and with a few of his picked warriors he served in the Continental army and was held in high esteem by the army officials.

Among this Delaware tribe of Indians, there were two antagonistic groups; the larger, eager to attack the Americans during the Revolution, and led by wise Old Pipe. The second group was smaller and was headed by White Eyes, a friend of the Americans. Both were minor chiefs of equal rank, but Pipe of the Wolf clan and White eyes of the Turtle clan were as different in their disposition as the clan symbol itself. Pipe was jealous, vicious, easily misled and war-minded against the whites. White Eyes listened to the wise council of his favorite missionary, Rev. David Jones, and surrounded himself with like minded Indians, such as Netawatwes, (a Wyandot head chief who died in 1776), Big Cat and Captain John, all known for their loyalty to the Americans, and all had accepted Christianity, when that way of life was not popular among Indians west of the Ohio River.

Pipe very early became bitter against the whites and when some Delaware scouts brought him word that General Bouquet was leading an army across the Blue ridge mountains towards "the forks of the Ohio," he began preparing to go and see this expedition for himself. With ten other Indians, Pipe came down the Yellow Creek valley in the autumn of 1764, on his way to get all the facts in the case, and if possible try and dissuade Bouquet to give up whatever task he was leading his army to perform. The ten Indians soon arrived at "the forks of the Ohio" and called across the river to Bouquet, asking what this act meant; advising him of the strength of the western tribes, and telling him it was their intention to live in peace with the whites. Not only did they advise Bouquet of all these things, but also suggested to him that winter was near at hand, so it would be dangerous to go any further into the unending wilderness north of the Ohio.

Col. BOUQUET invited three of the ten Indians over to his army camp for questioning and to listen to their requests, but he soon came to the conclusion that they were only spies seeking to find out the size, equipment and object of his army. So the Colonel ordered them to be put under strict guard for safe keeping, and then told the other seven to move on, making his suggestion effective by a shower of musket shots to further heighten their efforts to hurry their pace.

One of these three he placed in the guard house proved to be one of the most cunning, artful and ambitious red men of his day in the early history of Ohio—The Pipe. Bouquet now rapidly moved on westward to the Tuscarawas, his army the awe of every red man who witnessed its power and size. When Bouquet finished his treaty and all was subdued in Indian warfare he ordered Pipe, his hostage at Fort Pitt, to return to the Tuscarawas on November 11, 1764. Here this wily rascal kept a reasonable degree of peace in accordance with the treaty he signed, until 1780, when he could resist no longer and was one of the leading strategists in the defeat of Crawford in 1782.

All this time White Eyes was having a difficult time keeping his Delaware followers in check, but in the spring of 1778, only a wise act on his part prevented his whole tribe from going on the war path against the colonies.

Early in that year ten soldiers from the American garrison at Fort Pitt deserted, and on examination they were found to be the most degraded, feared and hated specimens of white humanity in the history of the territory west of the Ohio River. Of the ten heartless ruffians Matthew Elliott, Alexander McKee and the three Girty brothers stopped here in the Tuscarawas valley to insist the Indians to go to war against the Americans.

As they expected, Pipe offered a willing ear and heard these inveterate liars tell, how George Washington was killed, Congress hanged, the American army destroyed, so that the war was over; and encouraged the Indians to step in and help themselves to what they wanted. They related that the whites were so furious over the loss of the war that they were now preparing to kill all Indians, burn their crops and destroy their towns and wigwams.

Pipe was ready to act, but White Eyes was not. The latter called an Indian powwow to be held at Coshocton, and requested that before any action be taken against the Americans, that a picked committee of trusted Delawares be sent to Fort Pitt to find out if what Elliott and McKee were telling was the truth. They were to be given ten days for this mission, and all were to withhold any decision until they returned. When the committee returned they emphatically stated that the story of the deserters was untrue in every statement.

This gave White Eyes a better standing with his people, and caused the jealous Pipe to receive severe setback in his grasp on this tribe, much to his chagrin and sorrow.

In 1776, White Eyes, at the suggestion of the Continental Congress, paid them a visit and was presented to that august body of patriots with great pomp and ceremony—a gesture that made him greater in the eyes of his Delaware nation, for he was now a nationally known patriot, trusted by his white brothers in a great cause.

This act did not ease the suspicious soul of Pipe. Now, White Eyes, honored Red Man as he was, was brought into further distinction by General McIntosh who made him an honorary colonel at Fort McIntosh, and chose him to lead the little army of a thousand men on the safest, easiest and shortest route to the Tuscarawas valley country (White Eyes home country). The route White Eyes chose was along the Ohio River front to the mouth of Yellow Creek, and then westward to the Sandy and Tuscarawas. There they were to build the first fort, Fort Laurens in what is now Ohio. Practically all these tribes were at war with the Americans, except a few of the Delawares, because they were urged on by the British nation.

These tribes of Indians north of the Ohio were hard to get at, and for that reason this new fort was to be built—to hold them in check.

In the central part of New York state the red man, because he was easy to reach, and would not behave, was given a terrible blow by General Sullivan, who destroyed all Indians, as well as their cabins and crops. This active warfare of Sullivan checked the activity of these western Indians, but only for a short time.

As General McIntosh and his army came down along the Ohio, White Eyes was far in front, following the same old trail that Bouquet blazed fourteen years earlier. McIntosh’s army made slow progress—in fact, "fourteen days was required to travel a distance of seventy miles," so the record states, this was because the cattle and pack horses "would tire out about every five miles." That it was the animals that retarded the trip was shown when the same men required only four days to return the same route without the cattle to slow their traveling pace.

Now we have McIntosh’s army of a thousand men here in the Yellow Creek valley with White Eyes leading along the well-known old trail of Bouquet, so will stop the story and do some calculations. No doubt every step of this army was watched by many Indian spies.

White Eyes was killed November 10, 1778. A history of that date states that Fort McIntosh was thirty miles below Fort Pitt and the mouth of Yellow Creek was fifty miles below the same point.

The army started on its march November 5, 1778, so that White Eyes dying November 10, 1778, was an interval of five days, or at a point twenty-five miles below Fort McIntosh—or five miles back from the mouth of Yellow Creek—in the neighborhood of the Standing Rock.

We do not know the exact spot at which this noted Indian was killed, nor the circumstances, but we do know the truth was rendered hazy by General McIntosh himself. It’s the supposition that this was done by McIntosh so as not to irritate the Indians nor the army. So he let the idea gain prevalence that this red patriot died of small pox, but the grapevine news leaked out that a treacherous American soldier killed him at Fort Laurens—this fort was not built then, so this could be true.

We do know that the government Indian Agent Col. George Morgan at Fort Pitt, had the elder son of White Eyes, George White Eyes sent to Princeton College at government expense, although "Colonel" White Eyes the father had considerable wealth. Young White Eyes was killed by Wm. Carpenter, Jr., on May 27, 1798. The killing of the son gained so much notoriety that it overshadowed the patriot whose Indian name was Kogue-thae-gae-heon.




 

Janice Garlock Donley
700 Tenth Street • Oakmont, PA 15139 USA

412-828-6557• jdonley@garlock-elliott.org


©1999-2003, Janice G. Donley | Design: Susan K. Donley | Programming: H. Edward Donley