By Gary Felumlee
Shortly after the council at Gekelemukpechunk (or Newcomerstown), in present day Tuscarawas County, White Eyes and a Delaware escort saved a convoy of traders with 120 pack horses from the Shawnee. In another incident, three Shawnee from the lower Scioto towns were fired upon while escorting individuals on the trail to Fort Pitt. One of them was wounded. Another council was held on June 23rd and the Shawnee at Wakatomika still refused to consider peace. War parties, including John Logan's continued to raid throughout the region leaving a path of death and destruction in their wake.
In June and July, Governor Dunmore of Virginia called out the militia and began to assemble a force to put an end to the violence erupting on his frontier. His first target would be the Shawnee at Wakatomika and later those in the lower Scioto Valley. Destroying Wakatomika would help eliminate the pressure on the settlements. At the same time, Pennsylvania called out their militia in an attempt to protect their citizens from the raids, but also from the Virginians, and to preserve the fragile peace along the border. Pennsylvania feared that bands of Virginians could possibly commit acts of violence against the Native Americans and others in their state expanding the growing conflict.
Credit: “Logan’s Revenge” oil on canvas by Robert Griffling, 1993.
On July 18, John Logan and his war party arrived at Wakatomika. By that time the Mingo had apparently established a small village there among the Shawnee. He brought with him two prisoners from a raid he had carried out on July 12. They were William Robinson and Thomas Hellew. Both men were forced to run the gauntlet. Two lines of villagers formed a path to a cabin and the men were forced to run toward the cabin while being clubbed and beaten. Robinson and Hellew both reached the sanctuary of the cabin, Hellew with Robinson's help. A council was held, and it was decided that Hellew should be adopted and Robinson burnt at the stake. William Robinson was tied to a post and as the flames were about to be ignited Logan intervened. William Robinson was adopted by Logan's aunt to replace a son killed at Yellow Creek and Thomas Hellew or Hellen was adopted by another family. On July 21, 1774, Logan had William Robinson write a message to be delivered on a future raid. It began with “What did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for?” Raids throughout the region continued as Governor Dunmore raised a force to intervene. Logan's note, written by Robinson was found near the border of North Carolina, attached to a war club on September 23, 1774, after the killing of a family there. The note further stated, “The Indians is(sic)not angry only myself.” Virginia had put in motion about eight hundred men to build Fort Fincastle, later called Fort Henry at Wheeling. Major Angus McDonald at 47, a career military man originally from Scotland, was chosen to lead an expedition of four hundred men against Wakatomika. Company commanders were Michael Cresap, George Rogers Clark, Hancock Lee, William Lynn, Daniel Morgan, Henry Hoagland, James Wood and John Stephenson. Scouts leading the group were Jonathan Zane, Thomas Nicholson and Tady Kelly. The battalion departed Wheeling on July 26, 1774, taking canoes about twenty miles to Captina Creek on the Ohio side of the river.[1]
Major Angus McDonald and his battalion of 400 men with neither horses nor wagons nor artillery, would use traders' paths as they advanced on Wakatomika. Each man carried seven days of ammunition and rations. This was frontier warfare, and it required the ability to advance rapidly through the forested, hilly landscape as quietly as possible. As the force began to advance with scouts and a vanguard leading the main body, they were hit with heavy rain that soaked the soldiers and some of the gun powder in the cartridges. There was a delay while they waited for some dry powder. Then the battalion advanced for five days with no contact with the Shawnee or Mingo.[2]
On August 1, 1774, the battalion advanced into what is now present-day Muskingum County. Three Indians, on horseback, appeared on the trail. Shots were rapidly exchanged between them and the soldiers. A small party was sent ahead to look for any warriors because they had heard a cough. A shot was fired, the sound of a War Whoop was heard, and the Indians turned their horses and vanished into the woods. No one was hurt but the soldiers took up defensive positions and slept on their arms. The scouts and a small party slept in front of the main body of troops. The scouts had discovered an ambush of logs and blinds. What would August 2nd bring?
The camp was on guard through the night, as attacks could sometimes happen at first light. No attack came. The battalion formed three columns with a scouting party in the front. This formation could form a quick response to an attack from any direction. Shortly after beginning the march the force encountered swampy ground which caused the columns to revert back to single file. Safe passage put the swampy ground behind them and once again three columns were formed. Soon shots rang out, and about fifty mostly Shawnee and Mingo warriors concealed behind trees, logs and hunting blinds opened fire. The Virginian scouts fell back to the main body of militia and the fight began. The columns moved into flanking positions and advanced.[3]
McDonald's force spread out and began to flank or start to enclose the ambush site. Outnumbering the force against him by eight to one, the warriors would not be able to hold their position. The fighting evolved to hit and run tactics, some close in fighting, and this continued for about half an hour, the native force grudgingly giving up ground until they vanished into the forest.
Abraham Thomas and the Walpole Letters, as mentioned in Where the Frolics and War Dances are Held by Jeff Carskadden and Jim Morton, add some additional detail to the struggle at close quarters.[4] In one incident, Abraham Thomas was moving up a small ravine aiming to reach a grove of oak trees. Two other individuals were with him, a man named Martin and another named Fox. A single shot rang out and both Martin and Fox collapsed. Martin was dead and Fox injured by the same ball. Thomas had not seen from where the shot had come from and continued to advance toward a large oak tree. A second shot rang out and an Indian fell and rolled to Abraham Thomas's feet. He had shot Martin and Fox and as he was about to shoot Thomas, a neighbor shot and killed him. The warrior was behind the tree Thomas was headed for.
Angus McDonald (1727 – August 19, 1778) was a notable Scottish American military officer, frontiersman, sheriff, and landowner in Virginia. He held leadership positions during the French and Indian War, Dunmore's War, and the American Revolutionary War.
With the withdraw of the Native American war party McDonald paused the advance briefly and left twenty-five men to care for the more seriously wounded men and bury the dead. McDonald had two killed and five wounded. No casualties were left on the field from the war party. The Walpole letters suggest that one Shawnee and two Mingo warriors were casualties, one of them killed as mentioned. It is possible that minor wounds were not counted.
One humorous event concerns Major Angus McDonald. At some point in the battle, a soldier, Jacob Newbold, saw the major taking shelter by a log. There was often not much love between citizen soldiers and British Army Officers. After the battle he shouted, “Who hid behind the log?” A good number of the soldiers shouted back, “The Major!” Offended, the major rebuked Newbold, and cut a couple of switches to “battle it out.” The major went to another part of the battle line! Most accounts in the record speak well of Angus McDonald.[5]
The columns continued toward Wakatomika and reached the east side of the Muskingum River, a distance of about five miles by late afternoon. Here, they were met by at least three members of the Delaware Nation and one Mingo. The Delaware had likely been made aware of the approaching Virginians and had come to Wakatomika to attempt a peaceful resolution or at least save their own villages on upstream.
A detailed account of negotiations beginning on August 2nd is presented in Butler’s “Frontier History of Coshocton.”[6] The interpreter, Joseph Nicholson called out in Delaware, that he belonged to the Six Nations. A Delaware called back, asking if he was Simon Girty, one of Alexander McKee's interpreters. Nicholson identified himself and was recognized. The two were long acquaintances. The Delaware crossed over and McDonald began to negotiate. Two other Delaware joined in the discussion and brought with them a Mingo. The Delaware wanted only peace. McDonald gave orders that no one was to harm them. The Delaware recalled their efforts to assure peace from the Shawnee and Mingo. In the meantime, Michael Cresap shot an Indian on the other side of the river!
McDonald made a deal that Wakatomika and the other villages would not be burnt if two women captives would be released; this is probably the Boyer Sisters according to Carskadden and Morton’s “Where the Frolics and War Dances are Held.” And the ambassador (the Mingo) and two warriors would be prisoners until the chiefs met. In the meantime, McDonald planned what was to happen in the morning if needed. Two hours before sunrise, Cresap moved two miles downstream with his men and prepared to cross the Muskingum River. The Mingo returned in the morning with no prisoners or warriors and was taken prisoner.
As Michael Cresap and his company advanced upriver another ambush site was found but abandoned. A warrior was seen watching the Virginians. He was shot and killed, and later scalped, by John Hargus.
As the Virginians reached Wakatomika they found it completely abandoned except by one account a starving old cow. They were greeted however with a grisly display of human scalps. The cabins were set to the torch, acres and acres of corn was cut down, and a small portion of grain saved for the trip home. In all, five Shawnee villages and one Mingo village were burned that day: August 3, 1774.
With the burning of the villages at Wakatomika, the immediate threat to Pennsylvania and some parts of Virginia was greatly diminished. Logan continued to raid settlements for a time, but the Battle of Point Pleasant on October 10, 1774, and destruction of Shawnee villages on the Scioto River brought an end to the war just as the American Revolution was beginning. Many Native Americans would join the British side in an effort to save their lands from settlement. The Delaware and others remained neutral or in some cases joined the Americans in their struggle.
Those that evacuated Wakatomika and the surrounding villages moved westward. Some settled for a short time in Licking County, Ohio on the upper reaches of the Licking River. Most moved on toward the Scioto River and to the north and west.
Wakatomika became an early settlement in the mid to late 1790's near what would become Dresden, Ohio. It conducted trade with the Shawnee and other tribal groups into the decade prior to the War of 1812.
[1] Butler, Scott E. Frontier History of Coshocton. Sugarcreek, Ohio: Carlisle Printing, 2020, 152.
[2] Ibid., 153.
[3] Butler, Scott E. Frontier History of Coshocton. Sugarcreek, Ohio: Carlisle Printing, 2020, 153.
[4] Carskadden, Jeff and James Morton. Where the Frolics and War Dances are Held. Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1997, 228.
[5] Schneider, Norris F. Y Bridge City. Cleveland: The World Press, 1950, 28.
[6] Butler, Scott E. Frontier History of Coshocton. Sugarcreek, Ohio: Carlisle Printing, 2020, 154-155.
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Butler, Scott E. Frontier History of Coshocton. Sugarcreek, Ohio: Carlisle Printing, 2020.
Carskadden, Jeff and James Morton. Where the Frolics and War Dances are Held. Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1997.
Schneider, Norris F. Y Bridge City. Cleveland: The World Press, 1950.