The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1947-03-06
Who Wrote The
Speech?
HT HARRY 1. aALR

eyes III SGiASA VI appAS~1AAEGhS0
schoolboys to flash, and as many
generations of schoolgirlish bosoms
to heave as they recited, of Friday
afternoons or the last day of school,
the Indians classic speech of 1776
under the elm near Chillicothe.
Whether Logan ever made the
speech is a moot question. He
spoke alone to ignorate and illiterate
Simon Girty, white renegade and
public enemy No. of the Revolu-
tionary War period. No one else was
there.
Girty and John Gibson, an Indian
trader, had been told by the rcora-
mandant of the Dunmore Expedition
to go and bring Logan to the council
fire where army officers and Indians
were making peace. Logan was the
only chief absent from the council.
Girty Brings Report
Girty, who had lived among the
Indians until they considered him
one of themselves, told Gibson he
would go alone and bring the Indian
back, because of Logan's known hate
for white men. He returned with
out the Indian, but with his own
crude verbal version of what he and
Logan had talked about.
Such a garbled account would be
poor report to Lord Dunmore, so
with Girty to furnish the details,
Gibson, who histories said twas fully
capable of such fowery language" J"
wrote out the speech and gave the
report to Dunmore.
That year it was published in a
Virginia newspaper. Then, with
more doctoring up, it was printed in
Thomas Jefferson's Notes of Vir-
ginia. Then, after more improve
ments in style, it got into Nc
Guffey's Reader and so to the
schoolchildren of the apple cheeks.
Elm Still Stands
The elm tree still stands on State
Route 361 just SO miles north of
Chillicothe. It is so feet high and
nine feet in diameter. History once
gave it height of 104 feet and a
spread of 154 feet.
In the spring of 1774 five Indian
men, a squaw and baby who were
camped on the northwest bank OF
the Ohio River at the mouth of Vel
low creek, II miles north of Steuben-
vile, crossed the river to visit a
party of white persons on the op.
posite bank. The whites gave them
rum on which three Indians became
drunk. The other two men and
woman refused to drink.
The whites challenged the sober
Indians to shoot at mark and as
soon as the Indians guns were
empty, shot them down. The
woman then was killed, the three
drunken Indians tomahawked and the
baby carried away. The Indians re-
naming at Yellow creek tried to es,
cape but were killed by the whites
near Wheeling, w. Va.
Seeks Revenge For Murder
Logan was in a council near Mingc
Junction, trying to keep the Indians
from making war on the whites wher
a courier came in and told of the
massacre opposite Yellow creek. The
sober Indians that were killed were
Logan's father and brother, and the
woman was his sister. He i'm
mediately became chief of the Mingos
and war on the whites began.
The Mingo Indians were not 6
tribe but were what today would be
a gang" or mob of hoodlums. The
band was composed of the most fierce
and warlike men Of the Wyandotte
Seneca, Iroquois and other tribes
When an Indian became too bad tt
live with his own tribe, he joined the
Mingos.
Logan was the son of Skikellimlis
Cuyuga chief in 1912 at Shamokin
Pa. His father named him 70,
James Logan, secretary of the prov
ince. He lived for time at Logan'S
Spring, Muffin County, then moved
to Mingo Junction, where he sup
ported his family by killing deer anc
! selling their meat and skins to the
whites. He called himself John
Logan.
Logan Killed
After the traditional speech under
| the Chillicothe elm, Logan became
discontented, surly, and usually wa;
drunk. Old settlers told of seeine
him always alone, sitting wrapped il
blanket in the door Of his cabin
his hide filled with whisky" smok
ing a corncob pipe. He was killed
when on a visit to an Indian village
in Michigan, by an Indian who claim
ed the old chief had wronged him.
| Simon Girty, interpreter to whom
| Logan spoke under the elm, was tn
worst of three bad Girty brothers. A
| fourth brother, Thomas, kept out O
trouble. When he was 15 he wa;
carried off by Indians and lived viii
them for three years. He liked it
and after he was liberated went bach
to live with the Wyandottes and ther
with the Senecas, Of whose tribe he
| became q naemher- He grew as