ALLEGHENY WINDINGS

CHIEF CORNPLANTER

Few names are more distinguished in the frontier history of Pennsylvania, than that of Cornplanter. People who have traveled up and down the Allegheny River, will recollect of having seen Cornplanter Stables, Hotels, Steamboats, etc., in short, a great many Cornplanter things. In order to inform the reader of the origin and source of all of this appelation timber, we will give a short account of his birth, parentage and a portion of his general life. He was born in Conewagus, on the Genessee River. His Indian name was Ga-nio-di-euh or Handsome Lake. He was only a half breed, the son of a white man named John O'Bail, a trader from the Mohawk Valley. In a letter written in later years to the Governor of Pennsylvania, he thus speaks of his early youth.

When I was a child, I played with the butterfly, the grasshopper and the frogs; and as I grew up, I began to pay some attention and play with the Indian boys in the neighborhood; and they took notice of my skin being of a different color from theirs; and spoke about it. I inquired of my mother the cause, and she told me that my father was a resident in Albany. I still ate my victuals out of a bark dish. I grew up to be a young man, and married me a wife, and I had no kettle or gun. I then knew where my father lived, and went to see him, and found he was a white man and spoke the English language. He gave me victuals while I was at his house, but when I started to return, he gave me no provisions to eat by the way. He gave me neither kettle nor gun."

Little further is known of his early life, beyond the fact that he was allied with the French in the engagement against Gen. Braddock in 1755. He was probably at that time, at least twenty years old. During the revolution he was a war chief, of high rank, in the full vigor of manhood, active, sagacious, eloquent and brave; and he most probably participated in the principal Indian engagements against the United States during the war. He is supposed to have been present at the cruelties of Wyoming and Cherry Valley, in which the Senecas took a prominent part. He was on the war path with Brant and Sir John Johnson, he led the Senecas in sweeping through the Schoharie Kill and the Mohawk. On this occasion he took his father a prisoner, but with such caution to avoid an immediate recognition. After marching the old man some ten or twelve miles, he stepped before him, faced about, and addressed him in the following terms:

"My name is John O'Bal, commonly called Cornplanter. I am your son! You are my father! You are my prisoner, and subject to the customs of Indian warfare. But you shall not be harmed. You need not fear. I am a warrior! Many are the scalps which I have taken! Many have I tortured to death! I am your son. I was anxious to see you, and greet you in friendship. I went to your cabin, and took you by force; but your life shall be spared. Indians love their friends and their kindred, and treat them with kindness. If you choose to follow the fortunes of your yellow son, and to live with our people, I will cherish your old age with plenty of venison, and you shall live easy. But if it is your choice to return to your fields and live with your white children, I will send a party of my trusty young men to conduct you back in safety. I respect you, my father. You have been friendly to Indians, and they are your friends."
The elder O'Bail preferred his white children and green fields to his yellow offspring and the wild woods, and chose to return.

Notwithstanding his bitter hostility while the war continued, he became a fast friend of the United States when once the hatchet was buried. His sagacious intellect comprehended at a glance the growing power of the United States, and the abandonment with which Great Britain had requited the fidelity of the Senecas. He therefore threw all his influence, at the treaties of Fort Stanwix and Fort Harmar; in favor of peace; and, notwithstanding the vast concessions which he saw his people were necessitated to make, still, by his energy and prudence in the negotiation, he retained for them an ample and beautiful reservation. For the course which he took on those occasions the State of Pennsylvania granted him the fine reservation upon which he resided, on the Allegheny. The Senecas, however, were never well satisfied with his course in relation to these treaties; and Red Jacket, more artful and eloquent than his elder rival, but less frank and honest, seized upon this circumstance to promote his own popularity at the expense of Cornplanter.

Having buried the hatchet, Cornplanter sought to make his talents useful to his people by conciliating the good will of the whites; and securing from further encroachment the little remnant of his national domain. On more than one occasion, when some reckless and bloodthirsty whites on the frontier had massacred unoffending Indians in cold blood, did Cornplanter interfere to restrain the vengeance of his people. During all the Indian wars from 1791 to 1794, which terminated with Wayne's treaty, Cornplanter pledged himself that the Senecas should remain friendly to the United States. He often gave notice to the garrison at Fort Franklin of intended attacks from hostile parties, and even hazarded his life on a mediatorial mission to the Western tribes. He ever entertained a high respect and personal friendship for Gen. Washington, "the great councillor of the Thirteen Fires," and often visited him during his presidency, on the business of his tribe. His speeches on these occasions exhibit both his talent in composition and his adroitness in diplomacy. Washington fully reciprocated his respect and friendship. They had fought against each other on the disastrous day of Braddock's field. Both were then young men. More than forty years afterwards, when Washington was about retiring from the presidency, Cornplanter made a special visit to Philadelphia to take an affectionate leave of the great benefactor of the white man and the red.

After the peace was permanently established between the Indians and the United States, Cornplanter retired from public life, and devoted his labors to his own people. He deplored the evils of intemperance, and exerted himself to suppress it. The benevolent efforts of missionaries among his tribe always received his encouragement, and at one time his own heart seemed to be softened by the words of truth; yet he preserved, in his latter years, many of the peculiar notions of the Indian faith.

In 1821-2 the commissioners of Warren county assumed the right to tax the private property of Cornplanter, and proceeded to enforce its collection. The old chief resisted it, conceiving it not only unlawful, but a personal indignity. The sheriff again appeared with a small posse of armed men. Cornplanter took the deputation to a room around which ranged about a hundred rifles, and, with the sentitious brevity of an Indian, intimated that for each rifle a warrior would appear at his call. The sheriff and his men speedily withdrew, determined, however, to call out the militia. Several prudent citizens, fearing a sanguinary collision, sent for the old chief in a friendly way to come to Warren and compromise the matter. He came, and after some persuasion, gave his note for the tax, amounting to $43.79. He addressed, however, a remonstrance to the Gov. of Pennsylvania, soliciting a return for his money, and an exemption from the demands against land which the state itself had presented to him. The legislature annulled the tax, and sent two commissioners to explain the affair to him. He met them at Warren, on which occasion he delivered the following speech, eminently characteristic of himself and his race:

"Brothers: Yesterday was appointed for us all to meet here. The talk which the governor sent us pleased us very much. I think the Great Spirit is very much pleased that the white people have been induced so to assist the Indians as they have done, that he is pleased also to see the great men of this state and of the United States so friendly to us. We are much pleased with what has been done.

"The Great Spirit first made the World, and next the flying animals, and found all things good and prosperous. He is immortal and everlasting. After finishing the flying animals, he came down on earth and there stood. Then he made different kinds of trees, and weeds of all sorts, and people of every kind. He made the spring and other seasons, and the weather suitable for planting. These he did make. But stills to make whiskey to be given to Indians He did not make. The Great Spirit bids me tell the white people not to give Indian this kind of liquor. When the Great Spirit had made the earth and its animals, He went into the great lakes, where He breathed as easy as anywhere else, and then made all the different kinds of fish. The Great Spirit looked back on all that He had made. The different kinds He made to be separate, and not mix with and disturb each other. But the white people have broken his command by mixing their color with the Indians. The Indians have done better by not doing so. The Great Spirit wishes that all wars and fightings should cease.

"He next told us that there were three things for our people to attend to. First, we ought to take care of our wives and children. Secondly, the white people ought to attend to their farms and cattle. Thirdly, the Great Spirit has given the bears and deers to the Indians. He is the cause of all things that exist, and it is very wicked to go against His will. The Great Spirit wishes me to inform the people that they should quit drinking intoxicating drink, as being the cause of disease and death. He told us not to sell any more of our lands, for He never sold lands to any one. Some of us now keep the seventh day; but I wish to quit it, for the Great Spirit made it for others, but not for the Indians, who ought to every day to attend to their business. He has ordered me to quit drinking any intoxicating drink, and not to lust after any woman but my own, and informs me that it is very wicked to tell lies. Let no one suppose this I have said is not true.

"I have now to thank the governor for what he has done. I have informed him what the Great Spirit has ordered me t cease from, and I wish the governor to inform others of what I have communicated. This is all I have at present to say."

The old chief appears after this again to have fallen into entire seclusion, taking no part even in the politics of his people. He died at his residence on the 7th March, 1836, at the age of 100 years and upwards. Whether at the time of his death he expected to go to the fair hunting grounds of his own people, or to the heaven of the Christian, is unknown.

Notwithstanding his profession of Christianity, Cornplanter was very superstitious. "Not long since," says Mr. Foote, of Chautauqua Co., "he said the Good Spirit had told him not to have anything to do with the white people, or even to preserve any mementoes or relics that had been given to him, from time to time, by the pale-faces, whereupon , among other things, he burnt up his belt, and broke his elegant sword."

In reference to the personal appearance of Cornplanter at the close of his life, a writer in the Democratic Arch,(Venango Co.,) says:

" I once saw the aged and venerable chief, and had an interesting interview with him about a year and a half before his death. I thought of many things when seated near him, beneath the wide spreading shade of an old Sycamore, on the banks of the Allegheny - many things to ask him - the scenes of the revolution, the generals that fought its battles and conquered the Indians, his tribe, the Six Nations and himself. He was constitutionally sedate, was never observed to smile, much less to indulge in the 'luxury of a laugh.' When I saw him, he estimated his age to be over 100 years. I think 103 was about his reckoning of it. This would make him near 105 years old at the time I speak of. Mr. John Struthers, of Ohio, told me, some years since, that he had seen him near 50 years ago, and at that period he was about his height - viz: 6 feet 1 inch. Time and hardship had made dreadful impressions upon that ancient form. The chest was sunken, and his shoulders were drawn forward, making the upper part of his body resemble a trough. His limbs had lost their size and become crooked. His feet, too, (for he had taken off his moccasins,) were deformed and haggard by injury. I would say that most of the fingers on one hand were useless; the sinews had been severed by a blow of the tomahawk or scalping knife. How I longed to ask him what scene of blood and strife had thus stamped the enduring evidence of its existence upon his person! But to have done so would, in all probability, have put an end to further conversation on any subject, the information desired would certainly not have been received, and I had to forego my curiosity. He had but one eye, and even the socket of the lost organ was hid by the overhanging brow resting upon the high cheekbone. His remaining eye was of the brightest and blackest hue. Never have I seen one, in young or old, that equalled its brilliancy. Perhaps it had borrowed lustre from the eternal darkness that rested on its neighboring orb. His ears had been dressed in the Indian mode: all but the outside ring had been cut away. On one ear this ring had been torn asunder near the top, and hung down his neck like a useless rag. He had a full head of hair, white as the 'driven snow,' which covered a head of ample dimensions and admirable shape. His face was not swarthy; but this may be accounted for from the fact, also, that he was but half Indian. He told me that he had been at Franklin more than 80 years before the period of our conversation, on his passage down the Ohio and Mississippi with the warriors of his tribe, on some expedition against the Creeks and Osages. He had long been a man of peace, and I believe his great characteristics were humanity and truth. It is said that Brant and Cornplanter were never friends after the massacre of Cherry Valley. Some have alleged; because the Wyoming massacre was perpetuated by the Senecas, that Cornplanter was there. Of the justice of this suspicion there are many reasons for doubt. It is certain that he was not the chief of the Senecas at that time: the name of the chief in that expedition was Ge-en-quah-toh, or He-goes-in-the smoke. As he stood before me, the ancient chief in ruins, how forcibly was I struck with the truth of the beautiful figure of the old aboriginal chieftain, who, in describing himself, said he was "like an aged hemlock dead at the top, and whose branches alone were green.' After more than one hundred years of most varied life - of strife, of danger and of peace - he at last slumbers in deep repose, on the banks of his own beloved Allegheny."


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