The Land of the Miamis. Barce Elmore
the buffalo herds east of the Mississippi, suddenly disappeared. George Wilson, in his history of Dubois County, Indiana, says that, "toward the close of the eighteenth century a very cold winter, continuing several months, froze all vegetable growth, starved the noble animals, and the herds never regained their loss." This statement is borne out by the testimony of the famous Potawatomi chieftain Shaubena, of northern Illinois, who says that the trade in buffalo robes east of the Mississippi ceased in about the year 1790; that when a youth he joined in the chase of buffalos on the prairies, but while he was still young, they all disappeared from the country. "A big snow, about five feet deep, fell, and froze so hard on the top that people walked on it, causing the buffalo to perish by starvation. Next spring a few buffalo, poor and haggard in appearance, were seen going westward, and as they approached the carcasses of dead ones, lying here and there on the prairies, they would stop, commence pawing and lowing, then start off again in a lope for the west." It is true that Brigadier-General Josiah Harmar, in marching from Vincennes to Kaskaskia, in 1787, gives a striking account of the early prairies, "like the ocean, as far as the eye can see, the view terminated by the horizon," and describes the country as excellent for grazing, and abounding with deer and buffalo. Pachan, or Pecan, a famous Miami chieftain from Miamitown, and an Indian comrade, supplied the military party with buffalo and deer meat on the march out, and on the return. Notwithstanding these facts, the story of the terrible winter and the deep snow as told by Shaubena seems authentic, and while scattered remnants of the great herds may still have existed for some time afterward, the great droves stretching "for above a league together," were seen no more.
The great snowfall was the culminating tragedy. In order to secure whiskey and brandy the horse tribes of the prairies had slaughtered thousands, and bartered away their robes and hides. What distinguishes the savage from civilized man is, that the savage takes no heed of the morrow. To satisfy his present passions and appetites he will sacrifice every hope of the future. He no longer cures the skins and clothes his nakedness. He thinks no longer of husbanding his supply of meat and game. He robs the plain, and despoils every stream and river, and then becomes a drunken beggar in the frontier towns, crying for alms. The same thing that happened on the plains of Illinois at the close of eighteenth, took place on the plains west of the Mississippi in the last half of the nineteenth century. The giant herds melted away before the remorseless killings of the still hunters and savages, who threw away a meat supply worth millions of dollars in a mad chase for gain and plunder, and no one took a more prominent part in that killing than the Indian himself.
"When the snow fall was unusually heavy," says William T. Hornaday, "and lay for a long time on the ground, the buffalos fast for days together, and sometimes even weeks. If a warm day came, and thawed the upper surface of the snow, sufficiently for succeeding cold to freeze it into a crust, the outlook for the bison began to be serious. A man can travel over a crust through which the hoofs of a ponderous bison cut like chisels and leave him floundering belly-deep. It was at such times that the Indians hunted him on snow-shoes, and drove their spears into his vitals as he wallowed helplessly in the drifts. Then the wolves grew fat upon the victims which they, also, slaughtered without effort." This is probably an accurate description of what took place east of the Mississippi river about the year 1790, and left the bones of the herds to bleach on the prairies.
However the facts may be, it is certain that at the opening of the nineteenth century the buffalo were practically extinguished in the territory of the northwest. A few scattered animals may have remained here and there upon the prairies, but the old herds, whose progenitors were seen by Croghan were forever gone. In the month of December, 1799, Judge Jacob Burnet was traveling overland on horseback from Cincinnati to Vincennes on professional business, and while at some point north and west of the falls of the Ohio, he and his companions surprised a small herd of eight or ten buffalos, that were seeking shelter behind the top of a fallen beech tree on the line of an old "trace," during a snow storm. This is one of the last accounts given of any buffalos in Indiana. On August 18th and August 27th, 1804, Governor William Henry Harrison, as Indian agent for the United States government, bought a large tract of land in southern Indiana, between the Wabash and the Ohio rivers, from the Delaware and Piankeshaw tribes. The right to make this purchase was disputed by Captain William Wells, the Indian agent at Fort Wayne, and by the Little Turtle, claiming to represent the Miamis, and it was claimed among other things, that the lands bought were frequented as a hunting ground by both the Miamis and Potawatomi, and that they went there to hunt buffalo. The truth of this statement was denied by Governor Harrison, who said that not an animal of that kind "had been seen within that tract for several years."
Traces of the old buffalo wallows are occasionally met with, even to this day. The great animals "rolled successively in the same hole, and each carried away a coat of mud," which, baking in the sun, served to protect them against the great swarm of flies, gnats and insects that infested the marshes and prairies of that early time. One of these wallows, in a perfect state of preservation, exists in the northwest quarter of section thirty, in township twenty-five north, range six west, in Benton County, Indiana. It is several yards in diameter, hollowed out to a depth of four or five feet, and its periphery is almost an exact circle. It is situated on a rather high, springy knoll, commanding a view of the surrounding plain for several miles. A great number of Indian arrow heads have been picked up in the immediate vicinity, showing that the Indiana had previously resorted thither in search of game.
CHAPTER V
THE WABASH AND THE MAUMEE
– Chief line of communication with the tribes of the Early Northwest. The heart of the Miami Country.
To give a detailed description of the many beautiful rivers, valleys and forests of the northwest at the opening of the last century, would be difficult. It was, as before mentioned, a vast domain, well watered and fertile, and containing some of the best lands in the possession of the federal government. Two rivers, however, assume such historical importance, as to merit a more particular mention. Along their courses two Indian confederacies were organized under the spur of British influence, to oppose the advance of the infant republic of the United States. These two rivers were the Wabash and the Maumee, both leading to the principal center of the fur trade of the northwest, the town of Detroit.
The valley of the Wabash, famed in song and story, and rich in Indian legend, is now filled with fields of corn and prosperous cities. At the close of the Revolution, the great stream swept through an unbroken wilderness of oak, maple and sycamore from its source to the old French settlement of Vincennes. Its bluffs, now adorned with the habitations of a peaceful people, then presented the wild and rugged beauty of pristine days; its terraces, stretching back to the prairies of the north and west, were crowned with forests primaeval; while naked Miamis, Weas and Potawatomi in canoes of bark, rounded its graceful courses to the waters of the Ohio.
For one who has ridden over the hills to the west and south of Purdue University, and viewed the gorgeous panorama of the Wea plain, or who has glimpsed in the perspective the wooded hills of Warren and Vermilion from the bluffs on the eastern side of the river, it is not hard to understand why the red man loved the Wabash. An observer who saw it in the early part of the last century pens this picture: "Its green banks were lined with the richest verdure. Wild flowers intermingled with the tall grass that nodded in the passing breeze. Nature seemed clothed in her bridal robe. Blossoms of the wild plum, hawthorn and red-bud, made the air redolent." Speaking of the summer, he says: "The wide, fertile bottom lands of the Wabash, in many places presented one continuous orchard of wild plum and crab-apple bushes, over-spread with arbors of the different varieties of the woods grape, wild hops and honeysuckle, fantastically wreathed together. One bush, or cluster of bushes, often presenting the crimson plum, the yellow crab-apple, the blue luscious grape, festoons of matured wild hops, mingled with the red berries of the clambering sweet-briar, that bound them all lovingly together."
Through all this wild and luxurious wilderness of vines, grasses and flowers flitted the honey bee, called by the Indians, "the white man's fly," storing his golden burden in the hollow trunks of the trees. While on the march from Vincennes, in the last days of September, 1811, Captain Spier Spencer's Yellow Jackets found three bee trees in an hour and spent the evening in cutting them down. They were rewarded by a find of ten gallons of rich honey.
The great river itself now passed between high precipitous bluffs,