By Andrew Lee Feight, Ph. D.
Here at the Logan Elm State Memorial, visitors can read the history of the Scioto Valley border written in bronze and stone. First conceived in the fall of 1841 through the Logan Historical Society, elm and its lands have become the main monument of the United States. Indians and pioneers who conquered and colonized the valley.
At its inaugural assembly in Westfall on July 23, 1841, the Society decided to erect a monument to the reminiscence of Logan’s courage, in or near the position (if established) where his remarkable speech delivered, or as close as appropriate, a position While the corporation controlled to record many reminiscences of the era of borders and pioneers , the organization died, along with its original pioneer members, without any monument to its namesake.
The first monument, which marks the location of the elm, was erected in the 1880s through John Boggs. However, the stone pillar and the attached bronze plaque were primarily intended to commemorate Boggs’ father, Captain John Boggs, the first American settler of Pickaway Plains. , in whose assets Logan Elm was located.
“Under the outstretched branches of a magnificent elm, near,” says the inscription of the monument, “is where Logan, Chief Mingo, gave his remarkable speech and where Lord Dunmore concluded his treaty with the Indians in 1774 and thus opened this country for the While this is not the story of a much longer struggle to stop the American colonization of the Scioto Valley , at least the Boggs Monument helped link the hitale of American colonization with the occasions that took a position for those reasons.
On October 2, 1912, a Circleville “Miss May Lowe” attended the Logan Elm State Memorial Dedication Ceremony, a dramatic public event, which included historical speeches, reading Chief Logan’s Lament, and an exchange. ceremonial name of the land, where the Ohio Historical and Archaeological Society took possession of the new Memorial Park, committed to the history of the Dunmore War of 1774.
The State Society published Lowe’s account of the proceedings, adding a brief confrontation through Mary McMullin Jones, president of the Pickaway Historical Society, in which she explained why the park had been here at Pickaway Plains in the Scioto Valley:
“General Andrew Lewis, after his victory at Point Pleasant, waited long for his superior, Lord Dunmore, but, crossing the Ohio River, he made his way to the Indian settlements at Pickaway Plains. Hearing of General Lewis’s advance, Lord Dunmore he sent a messenger to return with his army to the mouth of the Kanawha River. This Lewis refused to do so, and continued his advance into the valley, near where we are now, and set out for the camp.
“Lord Dunmore has been tested. Negotiating peace with the same Indians that General Lewis had just whipped with a wonderful sacrifice, and this much-desired peace can only be achieved if General Lewis obeyed his order and influential chief Logan, who, sullen and insensitive at his home in Old Chillicothe, now Westfall, about five miles northwest of here, Array would lend his presence to the board.
“As a result, Lord Dunmore himself came here, to General Lewis’s camp, to force him to return to the Kanawha River and await his arrival. While this act was performed through Lord Dunmore and General Lewis, John Gibson, Array. . recoiled from Old Chillicothe with Logan’s message to white men, and, here under this wonderful elm, that tradition, Gibson read to Lord Dunmore . . .
Thus was born the epic that fascinated the scholar Jefferson to the point that he declared it favorably compared to any speech of Demostene or Cicero. It doesn’t matter if this is not the precise position where Lord Dunmore won the prayer. It couldn’t be far from here. But, tradition, which passes through several trusted families whose representatives still live near here, says that this magnificent old elm, the largest in the whole country, who then and for many years later had a beautiful fountain flowing from its roots, is the same, elm under whose branches, then spread as now, the message delivered.
Jones noted that Logan’s speech “has been translated into many languages and is known to all schoolchildren in the country. It is a message full of fervor, kindness and love, but it is full of righteous anger and fearless vengeance. It is full of pathetic” and philosophy, and ends with a masterful phrase describing the excessive pain of a spirit.
“It is appropriate then,” Jones observed, “that these acres of land and this ancient elm, who were silent observers of the occasion of time that brought peace to the Indians and opened this fruitful country to the new civilization, should be preserved for posterity. These landmarks are lost too soon and are too valuable.
“Mr. President,” Jones concluded, “Pickaway County, Ohio, is proud to have contributed to the preservation of this historic arrangement and with the certainty that the state of Ohio, through its archaeological society, will maintain it, I will deliver it on behalf of our county. Society. In a few hundred years, this tree will possibly be lost forever, however, it will remain and hope that posterity will commemorate with a bronze monument the world-renowned speech of wonderful leader Mingo, Logan. .
There will be many bronze plaques here over the decades, but never one for Logan’s remarkable lament. Instead, his speech would be engraved in stone in 1919, with the likeness of the old elm cast in bronze and fixed on his words.
The organizers of the determination in 1912 organized the rite, while Columbus hosted an assembly of the National Association of American Indians, securing the presence of a giant number of Indian participants, known men and women through Lowe such as Chippewa, Winnebago, Sioux, Mingo, Seneca, Osage, Cheyenne and Cherokee.
Lowe prepared the scene as follows: “There were about five thousand more people gathered. . . . A hay staircase, wrapped in American flags, placed next to the tree and served as a platform for speakers. The platform is occupied by officials of the Ohio Historical and Archaeological Society and its guests, red and white, and Ms. Howard Jones, president of the Pickaway County Historical Society.
The honor of reciting Logan’s speech was for “Miss Calvert of the Sioux Tribe. “Logan’s lyrics, recorded through Captain John Gibson and Jefferson’s Virginia Notes, read:
“I ask any white man to tell if he ever entered Logan’s hungry cabin and gave him meat; if he ever came without blood and naked and didn’t dress her?During the last long and bloody war, Logan remained inactive in his camp. , defender of peace. Such was my love for white people that my compatriots pointed out in passing and said, “Logan is the friend of the target. “I even think I’d live with you without a man’s wounds. Colonel Cresap, in Blood Unscrutinly and un provocatively last spring, murdered all of Logan’s parents, without even forgiving my wives and children. There is not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living being. He called me to get even. I looked for him. I killed a lot of them. I have absolutely exhausted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice in the rays of peace; However, don’t expect mine to be the joy of fear. Logan was never afraid. He probably wouldn’t light his heels to save his life. Who’s there to cry to Logan? None at all. “
When Charles E. Dagenett, “a representative of the same tribe to which Logan belonged,” spoke, he trusted the crowd: “Today, Logan’s spirit looks through the unknown intervening from the cheerful hunting grounds of the Indians who are situated on spiritual lands, and knows that there are those of his friend and enemy, the white boy Array , who needs to atone for the harm done to this child of nature; now he knows there are those who mourn for Logan.
Nearly exactly a hundred years later, on September 30, 2012, the Ohio Historical Society celebrated the “Logan Elm Centennial” with a “tree planting ceremony. “One of the honor visitors was Paul Barton of the deer clan, Seneca- The Cayuga tribe of Oklahoma, Logan’s seventh-generation nephew, who addressed the crowd impromptuly and explained that it has long been the culture of his other people to reflect on the effect of their movements on the lives of their descendants seven generations in the future. “When my Uncle Logan acted, he acted with me and my generation in mind.
Weakened by Dutch elm disease, the tree died of typhoon in 1964. Its measurements were 104 feet high, with a circumference of 23 feet and a long cup of 154 feet.
In addition to the original Boggs Monument, the park is now called with several stone and bronze monuments, committed to the reminiscence of Logan and other Native American leaders who were trapped in the Dunmore War, such as Cornstalk and his sister, Nonhelema. , whom the Americans called Grenadier. There is also a marker placed here to correct a mistake in Logan’s speech to clear the call of Michael Cresap, whom Logan had mistakenly blamed for his family’s massacre.
One of the most attractive monuments is one of the smallest, an editable stone that scholars at nearby McDowell Exchange School arranged to hit at the foot of Logan Monument in 1980. In an effort to correct the kind of discovered racist language engraved on the adjacent monument, which referred to Logan as “a noble guy of a wild race,” McDowell’s memorial simply says, “Indians were neither barbaric nor savage, fought for their mother earth, fought for their lives. “
Visit the Logan Elm site, where Lord Dunmore and Andrew Lewis’ army of Virginians first heard a report on Logan’s speech. Think about how Ohions and Native Americans lived the Dunmore War for more than a century.
Sources:
Howard Jones, “Logan and the Logan Elm,” Ohio History, Vol. 23 (1922): 314-327.
May Lowe, “Logan Elm Dedication,” Ohio History, Vol. 22 (1912): 267-307.
William H. Safford, “An Outing on the Congo. A to the Dunmore Treaty site with the Shawnees 1774”, Ohio History, Vol. 7 (1899): 349-366.
“Revealing the Cresap Tablet,” Ohio History, vol. 26 (1916): 123-140.
By Andrew Lee Feight, Ph. D.
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