(1906)
Author: Watson, Thomas E. (Thomas Edward), 1856-1922, ed
Volume: 15,2 (1912)
Publisher: Thomson, Ga. : Jeffersonian Pub. Co.
Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
Language: English
Call number: b5297193
Digitizing sponsor: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Book contributor: Watson-Brown Foundation, Thomson, Georgia
Collection: unclibraries; americana
Scanfactors: 10
Full catalog record: MARCXML
Volume: 15,2 (1912)
Publisher: Thomson, Ga. : Jeffersonian Pub. Co.
Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
Language: English
Call number: b5297193
Digitizing sponsor: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Book contributor: Watson-Brown Foundation, Thomson, Georgia
Collection: unclibraries; americana
Scanfactors: 10
Full catalog record: MARCXML
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[emphasis added:]
"Girty, The White Indian
A Study in Early Western History
Geo. W. Ranck
THOUGH Simon Girty was one of
the most unique and lurid characters that ever figured in the
annals of the West; though the part he played among the Indian tribes was
frequently important and sometimes
conspicuous, and though his life was a
tragic romance from the cradle to the
grave, yet all that was known of him
for more than a hundred years from
the time that he first made himself
feared and hated was comprised in a
few widely scattered fragments written
entirely by his enemies and disfigured
by errors and inconsistencies. Probably
no minor personage in American history who has received as little attention as Girty has had more written of
him in ignorance or been the subject
of so many wild and conflicting statements. Even as late as 1883, a book,
with an indorsing preface by a distinguished historian, was published,
which gave as facts the fairy tales
about Girty which, strange to say, have
been accepted as authentic down to the
present time. [Nelsons History of Cincinnati?] These very circumstances made the life of Girty attractive to the writer as an historical study,
and interested him in an effort to draw out and straighten the thread of truth
that has so long been knotted in this
tangled skein. The eventful story of the White
Indian, which is here attempted for
the first time, is mainly drawn from
original sources, and needs neither the
intense colorings of prejudice nor the
embellishments of fancy to make it
entertaining.
Simon Girty was born in 1744 at the
then little backwoods settlement of
Paxton, in the colony of Pennsylvania,
and not far from the site of the present
city of Harrisburg. His father, "old Girty of Paxtang," as he was irreverently called, a lawless, intemperate
Irishman, immigrated to the colony
about the year 1740, adopted the congenial pursuit of pack-horse driver in
the Indian trade, married one Mary
Newton, and made his home for a number of years at "Paxtang." Finding
it profitable to exchange red paint,
glass beads and bad whiskey for valuable furs and skins, he became a trader
himself and fell into the clutches of
the law as an unlicensed trafficker, and
later on, in 1750, got himself into the
same predicament again for appropriating certain unpurchased Indian
lands on Sherman Creek, in the present
Perry County, Pennsylvania. This
last venture did not increase his popularity with the red men, and shortly
after it he was killed by an Indian
named "The Fish" near his home on
the Susquehanna, and not far from
the land he had attempted to borrow.
There is no doubt that "old Girty of
Paxtang" was more of a sot than a
saint, and that fact certainly did not
increase his wife's affection for him,
but the dramatic episode of her fall,
and the assertion oft-repeated and now
so ancient that her husband was slain
by her paramour turns out to be a
pure fabrication. Surely the life of
Mary Girty was wretched enough and
the story of the family sufliciently
tragic without the sombre addition of
such an infamy. The widow of the
murdered man was left to battle with poverty and privations, and her four
little sons, Simon, James, George and
Thomas, looked helplessly out upon an
unfriendly world with no inheritance
but a love of liquor, with no memories
GIRTY, THE WHITE INDIAN.
281
but bitter ones, and with a future overshadowed by a relentless fate. About the year 1755, just in time to
share the sufferings and horrors of the
French and Indian war, the widow
Girty married John Turner, who was
then living on the Juniata, not far
from the protecting walls of Fort Granville, near the present Lewiston,
and there at his rude cabin and clearing, for a brief season, did the unfortuate family have such scant happiness
as the war and a howling wilderness
afforded. But more misery was impending. In the summer of 1750, not a year
and a half after Mrs. Turner's marriage, and while she was rejoicing in
the smiles and dimples of an infant
son, the danger signal was suddenly
heard and the family barely had time
to rush into Fort Granville when it
was attacked by a large number of
French and Indians, who had evidently heard of the absence of the commandant of the fort, who had left it with all his men but a handful under
Lieutenant Armstrong to guard some
reapers in Sherman's valley. The fort
was fired, Armstrong and one man had
been killed, several others wounded
and destruction was imminent, when
the enemy offered quarter to the
beseiged if they would surrender, and
John Turner, too desperate to wait for
a formal acceptance of the offer, threw
open the gates. Savage mercy fol [sic] followed. The fort was given up to
the flames and the prisoners, already
worn out, were driven by forced
marches to Kittanning, an Indian
town on the Alleghany, where Mary
Newton became a widow for a second
time and the climax of her sufferings
was reached. The whole village turned
out with whoops and yells of rejoicing
to meet the victors, and the few grown
male prisoners who had not already
been tomahawked were summarily disposed of. John Turner was consigned
to the stake before the eyes of his agonized family, and the carousing savages amused themselves by boring holes
through his flesh with red-hot gun-barrels. Finally, when flames and torture had nearly done their work, the
dying man was tomahawked by a little Indian boy who was lifted up in
the arms of his admiring father for
the purpose. If we will just here recall
the fact that the Christian government
of Pennsylvania was at this very date
offering rewards in cash for the scalps
of Indian men, women and children,
we may form some idea of the spirt
which prevailed during this desperate
and vengeful struggle. During this festive halt at Kittaning the surviving captives were parceled out among the representatives of
the different tribes engaged in the expedition. Thomas and George Girty
were assigned to the Delawares; Simon
to the Senecas, and James Girty, his
mother and her infant son John Turner were delivered over to the Shawanese. On the 8th of the following September, when Colonel Armstrong
attacked and destroyed Kittanning, he
recaptured Thomas Girty, who thus
escaped the savage education in store
for his brothers. He found a home
near Fort Pitt, the site of the present
Pittsburg, where he resided ever after,
and gave his name to Girty's Run in
the same neighborhood. The fate of
his singularly unfortunate mother has
givn rise to many romantic but conflicting traditions, and is still involved
in obscurity. There is nothing to show
that she ever escaped from the clutches
of the dusky demons who must have
seemed to her as special agents to work
out the family doom. Her baby, the
little John Turner, to whom she clung
so frantically through many a heart-rending scene, remained for years
among the slayers of his father; but
though longer in captivity than any
of his family, he seems to have been
the least affected by savage life, and,
strange to say, when at last released he
sought out his brother Thomas and 282 WATSON'S MAGAZINE. lived with the whites to the end of his
day.
Unheard of for years the other captive brothers roamed, with their
adopted tribes, the great North-western Wilderness, and day by day their
savage guardians sought to destroy
within them every feeling and instinct
of race and civilization. The Girty
blood was naturally wild and lawless,
and they succeeded only too well. In
1764, at the close of Pontiac's war, the
able and gallant Bouquet of the British army accomplished that wholesale
rescue of prisoners from the Indians
so eloquently portrayed in the noted
painting of Benjamin West, and the three Girty brothers were among the
number. But they had now become
indifferent to deliverance. They
returned with Bouquet to Fort Pitt,
but they returned with souls imbued
with savage feelings and with natures
perverted by savage education. They
had been taught to love the destroyers
of their parents, and charmed with the
wild, free life of the forest and the
prairie, they hated to their dying day
the restraints and artificial habits of
white society. It is even said that they
returned to their tribes, but that the
Indians were again compelled to give
them up. They were for a time apparently weaned away from their adopted
brethren, but they never even then
fought against them, were always at
ease in their company, and, as will be
seen later on, ultimately took up the
savage life again. Much of their time
after their rescue was spent about Fort
Pitt, and the then wild and wooded
locality in that vicinity, which later
received the name of Squirrel Hill,
seems to have been one of their favorite haunts. It was there that their
more fortunate brother Thomas and
their long absent half-brother John
Turner settled, and the early history
of the hill teems with highly entertaining but confused and unreliable
legends of the family.
The three white savages followed in
a desultory way the pursuits which
harmonized most with their restless
and unsettled dispositions. James and George pursued for a while their
father's old business of trading with the Indians, while Simon made a reputation as scout and interpreter. It was in this last capacity that he descended
the Ohio with Lord Dunmore in 1771,
during the Cresap War, and assisted
the Governor at the treaty interview at Camp Charlotte with that great-souled and magnificent Indian, Cornstalk, a fact which contradicts the wonderful and too thrilling story of his
rage and treachery just before the battle of Point Pleasant. It was while he was with Dunmore that he became
the friend and comrade of Simon Kenton, and made the acquaintance of
Boone, Clark, Harrod and others who
took part in the expedition and afterward figured in early Kentucky history. It was about this time, while the
glowing spark of the American Revolution was being blindly fanned into a
blaze, that Simon Girty fell under the
malign influence of Conally, the Troy Commandant of Fort Pitt, who finally
brought down upon the unfortunate
man the crowning curse of his already
perverted life. The wily and talented
commandant, deep in his plot to secure
the Indians to the English, sweep the
frontier settlements from existence,
and decide the fortunes of the West in
favor of the crown, was corrupting
every man corruptible about the fort.
Alexander McKee and Matthew Elliott, both of whom were destined to
achieve an infamous notoriety, had not
only themselves succumbed already to
the power of British gold but were
busy helping to seduce Girty also, and
it is probable that the lieutenant's commission in the Virginia militia which waas given him by Conally only a few weeks before the battle of Lexington, was presented with a view to secure
him as a henchman. But the plot was GIRTY, THE WHITE INDIAN.
283 discovered, Conally was arrested, the
militia reorganized, and the tempted
Girty relegated to his former and less
brilliant position of interpreter. He
was employed in that capacity during
the most of 1776 by the Indian agent
Colonel George Morgan, but he was
restless and dissatisfied, and his conduct was such that he was discharged
by his employer, "for ill behavior," in
August of that year. It has been
asserted by various authors that Girty
was busy this year — 1776 — assisting
the Indians against the Americans, and
Abbott and Perkins both make him
the leader of the savage attack on Fort
Henry in the fall of 1777, when the
Elizabeth Zane incident is said to have
occurred, but both statements, though
elaborated in a highly entertaining way, are utterly without foundation.
He was still at Fort Pitt at the times
mentioned, but in no very amiable
mood. Corrupted by Conally, disappointed in his military hopes, sore over
his discharge, and too much of an
Indian to be moved by the feelings
and principles then stirring the patriotic garrison, but little was needed to
induce him to cast his lot with the people of his adoption and their powerful
employers.
Early in 1778, while the American General Hand was commanding at
Fort Pitt, where Girty was once more
acting as interpreter, it became plainly
evident to all its inmates that the fiercest of the North-western tribes had
united against the Americans and that
the whole frontier would be involved
in savage warfare. All the Indian in
Girty impelled him to side with the
dusky companions of his forest life,
and when at this dangerous crisis he
was again approached with specious
arguments and seductive promises by
Elliot and McKee, who had been for
months in the secret pay of the British
commander at Detroit, the untaught
creature, with the face of a white man
and the heart of an Indian, and with
no feeling of loyalty to any flag either
English or American, threw in his lot
with the savages and their allies. On
the night of the 28th of March, 1778,
three or four years later than some
writers claim, this now notorious trio
together with seven soldiers fled from
the long familiar walls of Fort Pitt
and severed their connection with their
country forever. The date of their
departure and the attendant circumstances are established beyond question
by the official records of Major Isaac
Craig, now in the hands of his grandson the accurate and accomplished
Isaac Craig, Esq., of Alleghany, Pennsylvania. Major Craig, in command
of artillery was ordered to Fort Pitt
during the Revolution and remained
there until the close of the war. Girty
soon put in an appearance at Detroit,
where he was warmly welcomed by the English commandant Hamilton, whom
that great soldier, Clarke, stigmatized
as ''the hair-buyer general." Girty's
skill as a woodsman and scout, his
knowledge of the Indian languages,
his proficiency in all the savage arts,
but above all his influence with his
dusky kinsmen, made him exceedingly
valuable to the English, who needed
his services in advancing their interests
among the North-western tribes. A
few weeks before Simon's flight his
brother James had been sent from Fort
Pitt with presents and mollifying messages to the Shawnees, who were boiling over with righteous wrath at the
cowardly murder of Cornstalk and his
son. He heard the news of Simon's
flight while on this mission, renewed
at once his kinship with his ancient
tribe and returned to Fort Pitt no
more. The following year his brother
George, the only one of the three regularly enlisted in the Continental army,
renewed for life his connection with
the people of his choice. Simon, or
'Katepacomen," as the Indians called him, now allied himself with the
Wyandots, "the bravest of the tribes," 284
WATSON'S MAGAZINE. with whom he was more or less identified until the day of his death. They
had known him ever since his childhood, and they received him now as
an adopted Indian, and he soon became
one of their most trusted and efficient
leaders, a fact which of itself did no
little toward making his voice so potent in the councils of the North-Western tribes. Much of his time during the Revolution was spent within
the present boundary of the State of
Ohio, his favorite haunt being the
Wyandotte town of Upper Sandusky,
which was located about four miles
north-east of the Upper Sandusky of
today. Here the British paid their
savage allies of the West their annuities, and here Girty helped to plan and
direct many of the blows that were
aimed at the frontier settlements. It was while Girty was in the Ohio
country, and in the fall of the same
year that he fled from Fort Pitt, that
the most creditable act of his life took
place. The Indians who were then
constantly on the war-path brought
home many captives, and among them
the redoubtable Simon Kenton, whom
they had taken to Wapakoneta and had
already doomed to the stake, when
he was recognized by Girty with
astonishment and delight as his old
comrade of the Dunmore expedition.
At once and at the risk of destroying
both his standing and influence among
his inflamed and suspicious people,
Girty exerted himself to the utmost to
save him, and at length, after the most
earnest and impassioned speeches, the
power of which is attested by the effect
it had upon a crowded council of
prejudiced and revengeful savages, he
succeeded, and taking the rejoicing
Kenton to his own cabin, he fed him,
clothed him and dressed his neglected
wounds. White Indian as he was and
renegade, if such he can strictly be
called, he exhibited on this occasion
at least a generosity and nobility of
soul which would have done credit to
a more enlightened and more civilized
character. The British, however, soon
made use of him to perpetrate acts the very reverse of this one, and not very
long after the Kenton incident he made
his first appearance in the character of
an emissary among the Moravian
Indians with his evil advisers Elliott
and McKee, aud with them sought to
instigate that peaceful community to
join in the war against the Americans.
He is first heard of in a militray capacity in January, 1771, when as the
leader of a band of savages he attacked
and defeated a party of Continental
soldiers under Captain John Clarke
not far from his old familiar haunt, Fort Pitt. The following summer,
when Colonel Bowman was engaged in
his attack on old Chillicothe, Girty was
back in Ohio, and the report that ho
was advancing with a hundred warriors to the relief of that place may
have had something to do with Bowman's strange and sudden order for
the retreat of the expedition. The Girty brothers accompanied
Colonel Byrd when he invaded Kentucky in 1780, and it was when the
force was returning to the Indian
country that one of its detachments,
commanded, it is alleged, by Simon
Girty, defeated Colonel David Rogers
at the mouth of the Licking as he was
conveying a load of ammunition up the
Ohio for the Americans at Fort Pitt.
This victory, though not remarkable
for the number of men concerned, was
one of the most complete and crushing
of the minor engagements of the struggle, and must have convinced the
Indians that their white brother was a
brave of more than ordinary military
capacity, for when Clarke retaliated
on the Pickaway towns immediately
after Byrd's unexplained retreat, Girty
was given no insignificant part in the
conflict, though it is claimed that on
one occasion the reckless bravery of the
Kentuckians caused him to draw off
his savages with the remark that "it GIRTY, THE WHITE INDIAN.
285 was useless to fight fools and madmen."
George Girty, the only one of the Girty
brothers who, contrary to the popular
impression, ever actually deserted from
the American army, was duly heard
from in the summer of 1781. General
Irvine, then in command of Fort Pitt,
records the fact that a band of Indians
under this loyal savage and the noted Brandt attacked on the 24th of August
and below the mouth of the Great
Miami a force of volunteers on their way to join Clarke, and killed or captured every man in the expedition. Both the date and the facts of the
second demonstration against Fort
Henry. which occurred very early in
September, 1781, have been badly
mixed by different writers, but it is
quite evident that the Girtys participated in the siege, which failed
through timely notice given the settlers
hy the Moravian missionaries — a fact
which caused the disappointed Wyandots to turn 'round upon the buffeted
and badgered Christian Indians,
located about the site of the present
Coshocton on the Muskingum, and
break up their settlements. Girty took
part in the brutality of his tribe, and
though according to Heckewelder, a
most authentic witness, "Elliott was
the principal instigator of their sufferings," Girty also made himself conspicuous as a raging persecutor of the
missionaries and their unresisting converts. His outrageous conduct at this
time is attributed to drink— an overwhelming inherited passion. "No
Indian we ever saw drunk," says
Heckewelder, "would have been a
match for him." But at this stage of
the game in the West there was but
little choice between the mercy of an
Indian and the compassion of a white
man, and deeds of cruelty were not confined to one side only. The spring of
1782, the last year of the Revolution,
had barely come when Captain David
Williamson and a party of American
frontiersmen, as if bent upon surpassing the inhumanity of Girty and the Wyandots, also pounced down upon the
defenceless Moravian Indians and
murdered in the most cowardly and
cold-blooded manner about a hundred
of their men, women and children.
The victims were deliberately slaughtered like so many unresisting cattle,
their bodies burned in one of their own
churches, and their property carried
off to the settlements. It was a deed
as infamous as any ever committed by
the fanatical Sepoy or "the unutterable
Turk," and was doubly atrocious from
the fact that the murdered people had
befriended the Americans. The
Indians, though they felt free themselves to worry and abuse this little
band of their own people, resented this
massacre as a deadly insult and outrage upon their whole race. They
never forgot it, they never forgave it,
and there was no mercy in store for
any man who had part or lot in the
matter. Howe, in his Historical Collections says that even at late as eight years after the affair a settler captured
near Wheeling was killed by the
Indians for having been concerned in
that awful crime. About the same
time that Williamson murdered the
Moravians, occurred the celebrated
defeat of Estill by the Wyandots, two events that aroused the worst passions
of both sides to the highest pitch. The
settlers proceeded at once to organize
the ill-fated expedition of Crawford, with the declared intention of exterminating the Wyandots and Delawares of
the Sandusky root and branch. No
quarter was to be asked or given, no
prisoners were to be taken, every
Indian, be he friend or foe, was to die.
The savages heard of this determination and met it with a resolution as
merciless at is was inflexible. The
tragic story of the Crawford expedition is well known. In June, 1782,
with the murderer Williamson second
in command and accompanied by a
number of others who had participated 286
WATSON'S MAGAZINE. in the Moravian massacre, he marched
upon the Sandusky towns, failed disastrously, and fell with many of his
troops into the hands of the Indians,
whose hearts were burning with feroity and the thirst for vengeance. The guilty Williamson, who so well merited
death, unfortunately escaped, but
Crawford was doomed. He was burned
at the stake, on the 11th of June, near
Upper Sandusky, in the present Wyandot County, Ohio, after prolonged and
horrible sufferings from all the tortures that savage ingenuity could
invent. Simon Girty, who had been a
prominent leader in the conflict, and
who witnessed this terrible scene, had
known Crawford during the Dunmore
war; had often enjoyed his hospitality,
and, tradition says, had even formed a
romantic attachment for his daughter.
It is therefore easy to believe that the
blackest thing that has ever been
alleged against him is that he not only
did not save the tortured and slowly-dying colonel, but answered him with
a mocking laugh when he begged him
to shoot him and relieve him of his
agony. It is said that even the devil
is not as black as he is painted, and it
is possible that the same may be said
of Girty. Exactly how far his savage
and perverted nature carried him on
this occasion will never probably be
accurately known, but the commonest princip]es of justice require that some
things that are known should be stated.
It should be remembered right at the
beginning that Crawford was a prisoner of the Delawares, and that they
only could therefore decide his fate;
and that he was burnt at a Delaware
town and in retaliation for an outrage
upon the Delawares, for the Moravians
were of that tribe. The statement
printed time and again that the ill-fated colonel was burnt by Girty's
tribe, the Wyandots, betrays a gross
ignorance, both of the transaction
itself, and of the customs peculiar to
the different tribes of that day. The
writer was not surprised therefore that
a Canadian descendant of Wyandot
Indians, with whom he corresponded,
should energetically protest that his
ancestral tribe did not at that time, if
ever, burn prisoners of war. Regarded
simply from a tribal stand-point, Girty
had no authority whatever to release
Crawford. As to the influence which
he might have exerted in favor of the
condemned man, that is another matter, for he was certainly a person of
no little power and importance among
the Indians at that time. Dr. Knight,
who was captured with Crawford and
witnessed his tortures, and who has
long been accepted as a most reliable
authority on this subject, while he says
that Girty refused the prayer of the
tortured man to shoot him and "by all
his gestures seemed delighted at the
horrid scene," does not make him in
any way an assistant at it. On the
contrary, he even asserts that Crawford said to him: "Girty has promised
to do all in his power for me, but the
Indians are very much inflamed
against us." An examination of the
principal authorities on this subject
will convince any unprejudiced person
that Girty was true to his promise to
Crawford, but that he was uterly powerless to save him. Heckewelder, who
certainly had not one spark of love for Girty and whose testimony is unimpeachable, says of Crawford: "It was
not in the power of any man, or even
body of men, to save his life." Wingemund, a Delaware chief, when
appealed to by Crawford, replied: "If Williamson had been taken you might
have been saved, but, as it is, no man
would dare to interfere in your behalf;
the King of England, if he were to
come in person, could not save you; we
have to learn barbarities from you
white people." (See Howe, 547.) If the statements of the savage but brave
and manly Wyandots are to be
believed, Girty did not forget the
sacred obligations of accepted hospi- GIRTY, THE WHITE INDIAN.
287 tality, but remebered old ties in Crawford's case as he did in Kenton's.
McCutchen, who claims to have
obtained his information from Wyandots, says, in the American Pioneer,
that Girty tried to save Crawford at
the only time when it was possible to
do it, viz., the night before his capture.
That he went to him in Indian dress,
and, under a flag of truce, warned him
that he would be surrounded that
night, and told him how he might
escape; that Crawfovd tried to act on
his advice, but that his men were too
much demoralized to carry out the
plan. After saying this, McCutcheon
strangely adds that afterward, as a
matter of speculation, Girty offered the
Delaware war-chief, Pipe, three hundred and fifty dollars for Crawford,
but was himself threatened with the
stake for his inteference; that he was
afraid after that to show the sympathy
he felt for the doomed man, but sent
runners, however, to Lower Sandusky,
to traders there, to hasten to buy Crawford, but that he was fatally burned
by the time they arrived. The latest
contribution to this subject is from the
venerable Mrs. McCormick, of Pelee
Island, now in her ninety-sixth year,
and it is doubly interesting from the
fact that she was not only personally
acquainted with Simon Girty, but
received her information directly from
her mother-in-law, who was captured
by the Ohio Indians when she was
about grown, and was at the Delaware
town when Crawford was burnt. Mrs.
McCormick kindly sent the writer the
following statement, often repeated
to her by her mother-in-law, in recounting the incidents of her captivity. She
says: "I have often heard my mother-in-law speak of Simon Girty. She both
saw and heard him interceding with the
Indian chief for the life of Colonel
Crawford, and he offered the chief a
beautiful horse which he had with him,
and the stock of goods he then had on
hand, if he would release him, but the
chief said 'No. If you were to stand
in his place it would not save him.'
She also went to see Colonel Crawford,
and talked with him, and he told her
that Girty had done all he could to
save his life. This was no Kenton
case. Crawford had invaded the
Indian country with the declared intention of granting no quarter, and, what
was even worse in the eyes of the infuriated savages, his intimate associate
and right-hand man was the guilty
Williamson. Crawford was burnt by
the Delawares in retaliation for the
wanton and cowardly massacre of their
Moravian kindred, and there was no
hope for him from the moment of his
capture. Authorities differ as to the
motives which actuated Girty's conduct toward Crawford, but
close inquiry renders positive the
declaration that Girty was not
only powerless to save him, but that
he would have endangered his own life
if he had persisted in an open effort to
do so. It was during the days immediately
following Crawford's defeat that
James and George Girty so greatly
increased their unsavory reputations by
their brutal treatment of Slover and
other captives, and more than one writer expresses the opinion that much of
the odium now resting upon Simon
Girty is due to the fact that many of
the cruel acts of these brothers were
either ignorantly or intentionally
placed to his credit. The power of circumstances and education to affect the
lives and conduct of men is here strikingly exemplified. Thomas Girty,
reared among patriotic and civilizing
influences, was now one of the respected
and substantial citizens of Pittsburg
(Fort Pitt), and at the very time his
three Indian brothers were joining in
the war-hoop of the braves as they
gathered for the destruction of Crawford's command, he was known as a
lover of his country and was seeking to 288 WATSON'S MAGAZINE. increase the security and good order of
his town. Elated by their victory over Crawford and spurred on by rumors of a peace which would leave the choicest of
their hunting-grounds forever in the possession of thier enemies, the Indians were eager to make a crowning effort for the recovery of Kentucky, and early in August of this year, 1782, a
grand council of the North-western
tribes was held at Chillicothe to decide
the question of invasion. Simon Girty,
who was now one of the most trusted
and devoted of the Indian leaders, was
the foremost figure at this meeting,
and is credited by Bradford with having made the decisive speech of the occasion. Nearly six feet tall, straight,
strong and broad-chested, with massive
head and big black eyes, deeply bronzed
by exposure, dressed in savage fashion
and adorned with paint, feathers, and
all the war trappings of his tribe, he
looked every inch the Indian leader
that circumstances and his peculiar talents had made him. To the assembled
chiefs his words were the words of
Katepacomen, their adopted brother,
who was as faithful to them as the
panther to her cubs; whose tent-poles
had been strung with the scalps of their
enemies, whose cunning was that of the
fox and whose heart had never failed
him in time of battle. In his speech,
which aroused the warriors to the
highest pitch of excitement, he depicted
the ruin the whites were making of
their favorite hunting-ground, urged an immediate blow for its recovery,
and then with significant flourishes of
his tomahawk he closed his impassioned
words by a fiery call for the extermination of their enemies, which was
answered by a wild and unanimous
yell of approval. The council promptly
declared for invasion. Girty was
chosen the leader of the savage army
of nearly six hundred warriors, and
Bryant's and Lexington stations, which
were only five miles apart, were marked
as the first in order of destruction. By
the middle of the month the dusky
horde, after a swift and stealthy
march, reached the center of the
wilderness now so widely known as
"the Blue Grass Region of Kentucky,"
and on the night of the 14th of
August silently settled around famous
Bryant's Station, which they had
expected would fall at once into their
hands through the absence of its usual
male defenders. With admirable skill
the wily Girty had maneuvered to
draw them out to the relief of Hoy's Station, which he had caused to be
threatened several days before for that very purpose, and the pioneers, competely deceived by the device, were
busy with preparations for a march by
sunrise, when he arrived fortunately
for them a few hours before their
intended departure. The deceiver was
himself deceived. Mistaking the bustle
and the lights within the fort to mean
tliat his presence had been discovered, Girty ordered a premature attack,
which revealed to the unsuspecting and
astounded garrison the imminence of
its danger and ultimately resulted in
the failure of its enemies. The gallant
charge of the men of Lexington
through the Indian lines and into the
beleaguered fort; the heroic exploit of
the women who marched into the jaws
of death to get water for the garrison,
and the successful defense of Bryant's
Station are now too celebrated in story
and in song to need another telling. At
this siege Girty displayed his usual
courage. He led on the Indians when
they stormed the palisades, and in
close encounter with a Lexington rifle-man barely escaped with his life. His parley with the garrison, however,
when he tried to negotiate a surrender,
resulted only in his mortification and
the taunt of the fearless Reynolds that
"they knew him, and he himself had a
worthless dog that looked so much like
him that he called him "Simon Girty,"
must have convinced the White Indian GIRTY, THE WHITE INDIAN.
289 how greatly he was detested by the pioneers. The alarm had now gone
forth, the rescue was sounded and the
siege was abandoned. Girty's plan, so
admirably conceived, so well conducted
and so nearly realized, failed, but in
the very face of defeat and while the
brave hunters of Kentucky were gathering and marching against him, beset
by difficulties but undiscouraged, he
formed a scheme still deeper and more
dangerous to his foes. He retreated,
but it was a subtle and seductive
retreat, which lured the small but
dauntless band of his pursuers to the
fatal hills and deadly ravines of the
Blue Licks, where the advice of the
sagacious Boone was disregarded, and
where, on the 19th of August, 1782, the
Indians struck a blow that sent horror
and grief to every cabin in the wilderness of Kentucky and invested the
name of a barren and rugged spot of
earth with a sad and sanguinary
immortality. The criminal rashness of
McGary, the precipitate crossing of the
fatal ford, the unequal struggle, the
desperate heroism of the pioneers and
the sickening slaughter of the flower of
Kentucky's soldiery, constitute one of
the most familiar and interesting episodes of Western history; but the part
played in it by the principal actor,
Girty, has for some reason been substantially ignored by the writers who
have treated the event during the entire
century that has elapsed since its occurrence. The borderers of 1782, exasperated at Estill's defeat, inflamed by the
burning of Crawford and lashed into
a fury of mortification and grief over
this last and great disaster, were in no
mood to admit the ability of the man
they hated and despised as a renegade.
The disaster was charged entirely to
the recklessness of the hot-headed
McGary and the odious Girty was
treated with silent contempt. The
example thus set seems to have been
followed by all the Western chronicles
since that day. But viewing now the
cold facts with eyes undimmed by
either prejudice or passion, it becomes
evident that the soldiership of Girty
had more to do with the defeat of the
gallant pioneers than the rashness of
McGary, which dramatic incident has
not gone unchallenged from the fact
that Boone makes no mention of it
whatever in his letter to the Governor
of Virginia, written only a few days
after the battle. The man who led on,
entrapped, outgeneraled and overwhelmed such able and wary leaders as
Boone, Todd and Harlin may be
scorned as a renegade but not as a military chieftain. It does but little honor
to the memory of the brave who battled at the Blue Licks to assert that
they were beaten by a creature who had
neither character nor brains.
How great was the alarm of the
settlers, even after Girty had retired
beyond the Ohio, may be inferred from
the above-mentioned letter of Boone,
in which he urges the Governor of Virginia to send troops to aid in the
defense of Fayette County, in which
the two greatly exposed stations, Bryant's and Lexington, were located. He
declares : "If the Indians bring another
campaign into our country this fall, it
will break up these settlements." Girty
was now by far the most prominent
and influential leader among the Ohio
Indians, and was dreaming of still
greater military achievements, when
fortunately for the distressed and
weakened pioneers his career as a soldier was checked for a while by the
close of the War of Independence, but
not before he had, according to Bradford, made a narrow escape from the
swiftly-moving forces of George Rogers Clarke, "the Napoleon of the West," who pursued him to the valley
of the Miami. The autumn, so dreaded
by Boone, instead of bringing Indians,
brought the glad tidings of the cessation of hostilities, an event which
crushed all the hopes of the savages of
ever recovering Kentucky — hopes
290
WATSON'S MAGAZINE.
which seemed just after their great
victory at the Blue Licks to be on the
very verge of a glorious realization.
Girty learned with disgust of the
return of peace while at the head of an
Indian force operating about Fort Pitt,
and the news, strange to say, was first
made known to him by the salutes of
rejoicing fired from the very fort that he had shamelessly abandoned, and
whose downfall he had so confidently predicted.
The great struggle in which the
savages had been so actively engaged
was now over, and Girty, resigning for
a reason the ambitions of military life,
betook himself again to his old desultory occupations of trader, hunter and
interpreter. It was during the, to him,
monotonous calm of the first year after
the war, 1783, that he secured a white
wife by marrying Catharine Malotte,
a young lady about half as old as himself, and reputed to have been at that
time the beauty of Detroit. There is
an air of romance even about his marriage. His wife, like himself, had
been a victim of a border tragedy and
a prisoner among the Indians. A party
of settlers, including her own family,
while descending the Ohio in a flat-boat, seeking new homes in the wilds
of Kentucky, were fired into by a band
of Shawanese, who seized the boat,
killed several of the party, and carried
into a miserable captivity all the survivors, including the then young girl, Catharine Malotte. She was released
tlirough the interposition of Girty.
(Gratitude paved the way for love, and
when her delivirer returned from the War as the victor of the Blue Licks,
she turned away from her red-coated
and more civilized admirers of the
British post, and accepted their strange
and notorious white savage confederate. About two years after his marriage, 1785, Girty did an act of kindness, as singular as it was unexpected,
and the motive for which has never
been clearly explained. According to
Colonel Thomas Marshall, he posted
his brother, James Girty, who was himself a thorough savage, on the northern
bank of the Ohio, near the mouth of
the Kanawha, to warn immigrants
traveling by boat of the danger of
being decoyed ashore by the Indians.
McClung says that this timely notice
was of service to many families, and
that those who did not heed it suffered.
It is asserted that Girty did this to
curry favor with the Americans, and
to help pave the way for his return to
the people he had abandoned, but nothing has been produced to support this
opinion. His conduct otherwise did
not indicate it. The Indians at this
time, and for years after, were constantly aggravated by the encroachments of the whites upon their North-western lands, and certainly Girty did
his best to fan the increasing flame,
which finally resulted in Harman's
campaign of 1790. The very name of
the White Indian seemed an omen of
evil to the pioneers, for it was at "Girty's Town," now St. Mary's, Ohio,
that Hardin was defeated in this same campaign.
Hostilities between the Americans
and Indians continued, and Girty's
services being in demand, he was once
more in his element. In February,
1791, at the head of a large force of
savages, he attacked and beseiged Dunlap's Station on the Great Miami, but
he failed as he did at Bryant's, after
trying by every device of skill and
terror to induce the brave and determined garrison to surrender. It was
at this place that Abner Hunt met his
death, but exactly how will probably
never be known. O. M. Spencer, who
was captured by the Indians about this
time, and while he was yet a child,
says in his Captivity that Hunt was burned and tortured to death by Girty's Indians. Judge Burnet, in his Well-known and valuable Notes, makes
no mention whatever of the burning,
but says : "Mr. Hunt was killed before
GIRTY, THE AVIIITE INDIAN.
291
he could reach the fort." Spencer is
remarkable for his exuberant imagination. He pictures Girty as a regular
Italian assassin of the Borgia period,
with the regular stage "make-up,"
scowl and all, but unfortunately betrays himself by giving Girty a flat
nose. He evidently dressed up his
character to suit the popular demand, George and James Girty were so completely identified with the Indians all
this time as if they had been actually
born savages. They lived with them,
fought wIth them, and apparently
wanted no other society, and did all
they could to make Indians out of the
white children they frequently captured. They participated in the attack
on Dunlap's Station, and each took an
Indian's part in the struggle then in
progress.
Simon Girty figured in the terrible
defeat of the brave but unfortunate St.
Clair, November 4, 1791, and was evidently a personage of some importance,
but owing to the fact that the Indian
side of the story of these early and
bloody days is not recorded, the part
he took is not clear. He is said to have
received a saber-cut in this battle, but
Spencer, who saw no bravery in him,
and who calls him "a murderous renegade and villain of diabolic invention,"
says that "he was informed," while he
was a badly scared child captive, "that
the wound was made by the celebrated
Brandt while he and Girty were
engaged in a drunken frolic." That
Girty could get as drunk as a lord and
display all the brute that was in him
when he was drunk there is no manner
of doubt, but his daring character and
his contempt for danger are sufficiently
established to refute the imputation of
cowardice. It is said that on one occasion, while engaged in a violent quarrel with a Shawanese, the Indian
questioned his courage. Savage-like
Girty sought satisfaction at once, and
got it. Securing a keg of powder he
instantly knocked it in the head,
snatched a blazing fagot from the
camp fire, and then, in the presence of
a crowd of dusky spectators, called on
the Shawanese to stand by him while he waved the sparkling torch above the
powder. But the taunting Indian
decamped amid the derisive laughter
and yells of the Indians.
An incident which is thought to have
occurred shortly after St. Clair's
defeat, and which is given on British
authority, indicates that Girty shared
the feelings of his tribe against the
horrible practice of burning prisoners.
Several captives who had been taken
during the recent battle, by some of the
Indian allies, were condemned to the
stake, and, in spite of every influence
that Girty could bring to bear, the
fatal fires were kindled to the delight
of the assembled multitude of drunken
braves, screeching squaws and capering children of all ages. Among the
prisoners was an American officer, in
whose behalf Girty especially exerted
himself, but withont effect. Finally,
when his doom seemed inevitable,
Girty, who was always fertile in expedients, seized a favorable moment
when unobserved and dropped him a
significant hint. The officer, very fortunately, instantly comprehended it,
and, as he was being taken to the stake,
he suddenly snatched a papoose from the arms of a squaw and threw it
towards the flames where another prisoner was burning. The wildest excitement instantly ensued; men, women
and children fell over each other in the
simultaneous rush that was made to
save the baby. The child was rescued,
but, in the midst of the frantic and
indescribable confusion, the officer
made good his escape. To his credit
be it said, that he never forgot his
deliverer, and, as will be seen further
on, did his best to prove his gratitude
in 1812 when the fortunes of war
brought trouble to Girty.
During the years 1792-3, when the
Federal Government through commis-
292
WATSON'S MAGAZINE.
sioners was seeking to establish a permanent peace with the North-western
tribes, Girty was conspicuous as the
adviser and interpreter of the Indians. He counseled them with all the earnestness of a natural-born savage to resist
every effort of the Americans to
acquire their lands north of the Ohio,
and his voice seems to have been as
potent with them as ever. In fact, he
is said to have been the only man with
a white skin allowed to be present at
the most important private consultations of the red men. Girty and his
Wyandots were found arrayed against
the Americans in the campaign of 1804, and they took part in the desperate attack on Fort Recovery on the 30th of June, and were present at the
battle of Fallen Timber on the 20th
of the following August, when old Mad Anthony Wayne visited such a
crushing defeat upon the brave but
fated savages. Girty was now getting
on in years, and when the treaty of
Greenville, in the summer of 1795,
closed the old Indian wars of the West
and brought his hunting-grounds and
his adopted kinsmen under the authority of the people he had fought
so long and hated so cordially, the battle-scarred warrior, disappointed, disgusted and furious, abandoned forever
his old home on the St. Mary's and followed the retiring British to Detroit.
He was there in July, 179G, when the
English gave up to the United States
this the last of the military posts they
held in the North-west, and the
advancing troops of Wayne felt sure
that now at last the daring and notorious "White Indian" would fall into
their clutches. But the wily old fox
scented the danger just in time, and
desperately determined to risk the
chance of drowning, to capture by his
enemies, he boldly plunged his horse
into the Detroit River as the soldiers
came in sight, fought his way successfully through the sweeping current to
the Canada shore, and there, with the
water streaming from his clothing but
still seated firmly upon his panting
horse, he shook his fist at his balfled
pursuers and poured out upon them
and the United States Government a
torrent of the wildest and most savage
curses.
Driven at last from American soil,
Girty found a refuge at Fort Malden,
a post which had been established by
the British on the east side of Detroit
River, on the Canadian frontier just
before the evacuation of Detroit, and
distant only fifteen miles from that
stockaded village so famous in the annals of Indian warfare. Fort Malden commanded the entrance to Detroit
River and from its walls the red-coatod
sentinel could look for many a mile up the stream which separated him from
the territory of the new Republic, and
turning, view the beautiful waters of
Lake Erie spreading out before him as
far as the eye could reach. The ground
once occupied by this defense is now
the property of Hon. John McLeod,
ex-member of the Canadian Parliament. A platform of elevated earth
cast up in the long ago by the veterans of George III., and the stump of
the flag-staff that once surmounted it,
are now the only remains of the fort
from whence issued the invading forces
which brought death and disaster to
the American soldiers of the war of
1812. The very name '"Malden'' has
almost disappeared from the maps, and
its successor, "Amherstburg," now
designates the picturesque spot in the
County of Essex, Upper Canada,
where once the royal stronghold stood.
But the Malden of 1796 which Girty
sought, though but an outpost of the
wilderness frontier, was busy enough just then, surrounded as it was by
hundreds of hungry refugee Indians
from the war-desolated North-West,
who were clamoring for aid and comfort from their British employers.
Here he found many warriors of his
own tribe preparing to settle on lands
GIRTY, THE WHITE INDIAN.
293 granted them as allies of the crown,
and here safely ensconced were Elliott
and McKee, his corruptors of Fort Pitt
and his boon companions for twenty
years. They had found it convenient
to be among the earliest arrivals. These
educated white mercenaries grew rich
from the fruits of their treason, while
the illiterate Girty, Indian-like, waxed
poorer and poorer. It was well said
lately to the writer by a scholarly correspondent who owns original papers
bearing upon the Girty case, that
"Girty was terribly punished for his
conduct, whilst men who deserved it
more escaped almost unscathed." As
this society (about Malden), Indians,
refugees and British, was the most
home-like Girty could expect to find,
the soil fertile, the region sufficiently
wild and abounding with game and no
war promising immediate excitement,
he settled with his family on a piece
of land at the head of Lake Erie and
about a mile and a half below Malden,
the same now owned by W. C. Mickle.
Following on with other fugitives
came James Girty, the most degraded,
blood-thirsty and uncivilized member
of the family, a thorough Indian in
feelings, manners and life. Caring for
no society but that of his fellow-savages, he settled with his Shawnee squaw,
his dogs and his wild young children,
on Middle Sister Island, not far from
his brother. After his settlement at
Malden, Simon Girty resumed the
occupation of interpreter, and was
among the Indians who constantly
visited the fort and camped upon his
land. But the monotony of peace,
which accorded so little with a nature
that was fiery, untamed and adventurous to the last, pushed him to
extremes for relief. Sometimes he
sought excitement in the rum he loved
so much and which was dealt out so
freely at the fort, and then he was an
Indian indeed, and would tear around
on horseback flourishing an Indian
war club, singing Indian war songs,
and filling the air with the terrible sounds of the scalp halloo. Sometimes
his recreation would be a long hunt
with a party of savage kindred, and
again it would be some dangerous
expedition. Tradition reckons with
this last his celebrated trip to Pennsylvania in 1711 [sic?], when, in disguise he
risked his life to see once more his
relatives and old haunts at Squirrel
Hill, east of Pittsburg, where his brother Thomas and a half-brother
John Turner lived and died respected.
John Turner, who seems to have
always been loyal and affectionate to
the notorious and hated Simon, is
known as "the benefactor of Squirrel
Hill," from the fact that he donated a
burying-ground to the citizens of that
locality at his death, which occurred
in 1840, after he had attained the
advanced age of eighty-five. All sorts
of wonderful and improbable tales are
told of this bold appearance of Simon in the very midst of his enemies. One
of the wildest recounts an attack that
was made upon him while he was concealed at Turner's house, and the statement is made that he even received a
saber-cut in the head which ultimately
caused his death. Unfortunately for
this thrilling tale the saber-cut dated
back to St. Clair's defeat. He was convinced however that he was still cordially detested, and especially at that
time when the hostile movement of the
Wabash Indians caused the savage
horrors of the past to be so vividly
recalled. His presence was detected
and vengeance was threatened, but he
escaped, and returning home found all
Upper Canada in excited commotion
over the rapidly approaching war
between the United States and England and the certain invasion of the
province.
War was proclaimed on the 19th of
June, 1812, to the delight of the savage beneficiaries of Great Britain, who
had for weeks been gathering in
swarms about Fort Malden, and the 294
WATSON'S MAGAZINE. very name of that post soon became to
the Americans the synonym for defeat
and death. Girty was an old man
when the war commenced, but not too
old to encourage a band of Wyandots
to rally around Tecumseh and the
British standard. After the lapse of many years the aged victor of the Blue
Licks, and the reuniant of his broken people, were again united against their
ancient and inveterate North-western
foes. But the health of Girty was
shattered, and he was so nearly blind
that he could lead no more his dusky
hosts to battle, but he dimly saw the
flash of the guns which announced the
shameful surrender of Hull; stood
once again within the stockaded walls of Detroit, to which he had been so
long a stranger, and heard the exultant
shouts of his lessening tribe as it
returned from the bloody massacre of
Raisin, a deed which inspired every
Kentucky soldier with the feelings of
an avenger, revieved bitter memories of
the Indian tragedies of the past, and with them the name of Girty, which was mentioned again with threats and
curses. And fate as usual was against
him. The tide of war turned, the
British fleet was destroyed. Malden
was captured, and Girty became a
fugitive. But one at least of the soldiers who pursued the retreating forces
of Proctor wished the White Indian
no evil. It was the American officer whose life he had saved by suggesting
the desperate expedient of casting the
Indian papoose toward the flames. A
British authority asserts that, though
this officer had retired from the American army, he rejoined it in 1813 with
the express purpose of doing his best to
protect Girty in the event of his capture. It was an exhibition of that
rarest of noble qualities, gratitude,
which makes one think better of his
race. But the ill-starred Girty, from
whom happiness always stood afar off,
was denied the pleasure of ever knowing that he had a single friend among
the advancing Americans. They never
met. With panic and difficulty Girty
followed the retreating British and
Indians until the 5th of October, 1713 [sic?], when Harrison virtually closed the
struggle in the North-West by his victory at the Thames. And here also,
according to the veracious Campell, was ended the checkered career of the
notorious White Indian. Campbell
says: "It was the constant wish of Girty that he might breathe his last
in battle. So it happened. He was at
Proctor's defeat on the Thames, and was cut to pieces by Colonel Johnson's
mounted men." Nearly three-quarters of a century have elapsed since the battle of the Thames occurred, and though
in that long period books and pamphlets without number on Western history and the War of 1812 have been
published, still, strange to say, in spite
of all this investigation, this statement
of Judge Campbell was the nearest
approach that writers made to the
actual truth concerning Girty's death,
and was, with one very late exception
(Mr. Butterfield) received by all as
authentic history. Simon Girty was
not only not killed in the battle of the
Thames, but he was prevented by blindness and rheumatism from taking
any part whatever in the engagement.
His brother James, however, followed the brash Tecumseh that day into the
thickest of the fight, his younger
brother George is said to have died
about this time, and it was during this
war that Simon lost his son Thomas,
from sickness occasioned by over-exertion in gallantly carrying a wounded
officer from the field of battle, and it
is possible that the error so long perpetuated about the death of Simon
may have arisen from a confusion of
these events, all of which involved the
Girty name. The collapse of the British army at the Thames found Simon
Girty homeless and a wanderer, but,
moved by the same instinct of savage
brotherhood which ever characterized GIRTY, THE WHITE INDIAN.
295 him, he sought and found a refuge at
a village of tlie Mohawks on Grand
River. This village, which was located
in the midst of some of the finest land
in the Dominion, and on probably the
most picturesque of Canadian streams,
was settled at the close of the American
Revolution, under the leadership of
Girty's Indian friend and comrade,
the distinguished Brandt. It is a singular coincidence that Campbell, the
celebrated poet, should have made a
mistake about Brandt so similar to the
one made by another and more obscure
Campbell about Girty. In Gertrude
of Wyoming "the monster Brandt" is
mentioned as a participant in that cold-blooded massacre, of which Thomas
Campbell so touchingly sung, though
the fact is established that he was not
present on that tragic occasion.
Girty shared the whiskey and venison of his Indian friends until the close
of the war in 1815, when he returned to
his solitary farm near Malden. It was
solitary indeed. His two daughters
were married, and in homes of their
own; the son of his heart had died during the war; and his wife, worn out by
his wild and irregular life and Indian-like way's, had left him long ago. Only
one of his family, his son Prideaux,
lingered about him. To add to his
gloomy reflections, his savage brother
James was nearing the grave. Shunned by white people, and deserted even by
his Indian squaw, the miserable creature lingered on through months of
pain, and at last was found dead on
the beach of Middle Sister Island, on
the 15th of April, 1817. The final
shadows were gathering thick and fast
about the aged victor of the Blue Licks
also. Blind, rheumatic, and shattered
in health, the terrible Canadian Winter
succeeding his brother's death told with
fatal effect upon him. He declined
rapidly, but showed no concern whatever about his condition, and bore his
sufferings with the proverbial stoicism
and fortitude of his adopted race.
During the bitter weather prevailing
but few bothered themselves about the
now desolate and sinking recluse. The
remnant of his old tribe, however, did
not entirely forget him in his extremity, and occasionally a solitary Wyandot, as seamed and scarred and grizzled as himself, would come to his bedside suddenly and unannounced, take
the thin hand of his dying brother
"Katepacomen," and with tender grasp,
but impassive countenance, greet him
in the familiar tongue of his dusky
people. Girty died in the month of
February, 1818; his troubled and tempestuous life fitly ended in the midst
of a driving snow storm. He had paid
no attention to religion as understood by white men, and if he died in any faith at all it was in that of the Indian
— a simple trust in the power and the
goodness of the Great Spirit. He was buried near Amherstburg (Malden) on
his farm, now known as the W. C.
Mickle place, while the snow was so
deep that his body had to be carried
over the fences. His grave can still be
pointed out, thou it is entirely
unmarked, and so utterly neglected
that a common farm gate swings over
the spot, And so ended the unhappy
life of a creature who became by the
force of warping circumstances the
anomaly of early Western history.
No estimate of Girty can be either
correct or just which does not take into
account the influence which captivity
and savage training had on his
character. How powerful it was is
shown by the significant facts that it
not only effaced the natural antipathy
for the destroyers of his parents, but so perverted his normal instinct of race
that he was never again in full sympathy with his own people, while as far
as known, he was always true to the
Indians, and retained their confidence
and friendship to the end of his days.
The early settlers knowing that he was
a white man by birth, but ignorant of
his captivity and its effects, very natu- 296
WATSON'S MAGAZINE. rally hated and despised him as a renegade. The term, however, does not
apply to him in its infamous sense as it
applies to Elliott and McKee, who had
nothing whatever in common with the
Indians, while Girty was one of them
in almost everything but complexion.
He was more of a savage than a renegade; more of a Brandt than an Elliott,
and took part in the forays and outrages against the whites, not with the
cowardice and mean malice of an outcast, but as a leader of his adopted people, and with the bravery and open
hatred of an Indian. He was substantially an Indian; was neither better nor worse than an Indian, and
should in the main be judged as such..."
