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Logan
Elm State Memorial along Highway 23 in central Ohio,
is said to be the site where, in 1774, Chief Logan
of the Mingo tribe delivered his eloquent speech on
Indian-white relations. The speech was supposedly
delivered under a large elm tree. Considered to be
one of the largest elms in the U. S., the tree stood
65 feet tall, with a trunk circumference of 24 feet
and foliage spread of 180 feet. It died in 1964 from
damage by blight and storms.
Logan, born along the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania,
was the son of an Indian chief, and also a Christian.
He had moved from Pennsylvania to Ohio and had taken
up his home with a small tribe of Mingoes, near Steubenville.
They soon made him their chief.
One
day a party of Indians was camping at the mouth of
Yellow Creek. Some white men were camping on the other
side of the Ohio River. The Indians, consisting of
five men, a woman and a babe, crossed over to the
white camp. The whites gave them rum and when they
had made them drunk, they killed them. The Indians
on the other side of the stream, hearing the shooting,
started over to see what was the matter. These were
also shot. Among the killed were Logan's relatives:
his father, brother, and sister.
Logan
at once turned into a savage avenger. Blood was now
to be shed for blood. He went on the war path and
during the summer he himself took thirty scalps. The
Indians in Ohio followed his example and soon no white
man was safe. The Shawnees living on the Scioto, near
Circleville, were the leaders in the uprising under
their great chief, Cornstalk. Logan thought a man
by the name of Cresap had killed his family, and once
he wrote him a letter in which he said: "What
did you kill my people on Yellow Creek for? I thought
I must kill, too, and I have been three times to war
since. But the Indians are not angry. Only myself.
Captain John Logan."
The
war did not last very long, for the white people in
Virginia raised two armies to go against the Indians.
A terrible battle was fought where Point Pleasant,
on the Ohio River, now stands, October, 1774, and
the red men were thoroughly defeated, and hastened
back to their homes on the Scioto to sue for peace.
When
Logan was found later under the elm tree, in broken
English he burst out in one of the most beautiful
speeches ever uttered:
"I
appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered
Logan's cabin hungry and he gave him not meat; if
ever he came cold and naked and he clothed him not.
During the course of the last long and bloody war,
Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate of peace.
Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen
pointed at me as they passed and said, "Logan
is the friend of white men." I had even thought
to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one
man, who the last spring in cold blood and unprovoked,
murdered all the relatives of Logan, not even sparing
my women and children. There runs not a drop of my
blood in the veins of any living creature. This called
on me for revenge. I have sought it, I have killed
many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country
I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor
a 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."
The
remainder of the life of Logan was sad. His friends
were all dead. His tribe was broken up. His hunting
ground had gone to make corn fields for the white
man. He wandered about from tribe to tribe, dejected
and broken-hearted, a solitary and lonely man. He
took to drink and partially lost his mind.
In
the dusk of the evening he sat before his camp fire,
at the foot of a tree, with a blanket over his head,
his elbows resting on his knees, and his head resting
on his hands, thinking, no doubt, of his checkered
life. An Indian who had been offended at something
Logan had said at a council stole up behind him and
sank a tomahawk into his brain.
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