- This topic has 5 voices and 28 replies.
-
Posts
-
At the website below —
http://chickamaugacherokee.org/dragging_canoe.html
it says 3/4ths of the way down —
1791 November 4
Combined force of Chickamaugans, Creek, Anishnabe (Chippewa), Shawnee, Deleware, Iroquois, Miami, Wynadot and Dakota totally annhilated the forces of American Gen. Arthur St. Clair at the Wabash River in Indiana. “St. Clair’s Defeat” – the biggest (number of whtie’s killed) united Native triumph in history.
Does anyone know what this battle is referrng to, or are there other references of it, and where can they be found? My ancestors (surname Wood & Dickson) were near the Wabash River, but arrived there — best we can tell at present — 1806. My Richey’s arrived there between 1797 and 1817.
We were there too late for this battle, but information about it might contain clues.
thanks
vance
I sure don’t know, but I’d like to. Please let us know if you find out more.
Odd we’ve never heard of this if it was bigger than Little Big Horn. I wonder how much bigger it was.
Have you ever talked to Airy Dixon? I can’t remember if I ever referred you to him.
Vance and Linda:
I read a biography on Tecumseh last winter and here’s what it says about St. Clair’s defeat:
St. Clair was a Revolutionary War soldier selected to lead the Americans against the combined native force in the Old Northwest Territory. Originally promised over 3000 men, he did not get that many. As he marched through Ohio, he stopped several times and built forts, leaving some of his reduced force behind to guard it. Ultimately, I believe he had less than 1000 men to stand against a combined force of Indians numbering 3000.
The weather was awful, the march tiring, and then the weapons and powder were found to be defective and mislabeled when the battle began on a day following a march that was so tiring that the soldiers did not build breastworks to defend themselves nor send out scouting parties. They just dropped where they were and slept.
The Indians were led by Little Turtle of the Miamis and Blue Jacket of the Shawnee. They had had spies following the army all the time and selected this morning to lead their attack. They surrounded the army as the soldiers slept. The next morning, by noon and after the remaining living soldiers retreated, 832 whites were dead, including soldiers and camp followers. Sixty-seven Indians died.
Cindy
Oh, one more thing: the book is A Sorrow in Our Heart: The Life of Tecumseh by Allan Eckert. There is a controversy with this author, but regardless of this, the book is full of information on his primary sources that might be helpful in your search. This book helped me, although not on the side of the family that has the native background. I found in this book that my gggggrandfather was a surveyor for George Washington. Ironically, he helped to survey the very land that was being stolen from my Shawnee grandparents.
Vance, it mentions a Wood who also surveyed for George Washington in the area of the confluence of the Ohio and the Big Sandy. Isn’t this the river discussed in another forum, an area of Tutelo settlement?
There is also a William Wood mentioned who invited Cornstalk to Fort Pitt where he was murdered. I think I need to reread part of this, now that I know my Green family was involved with the Zanes as they also surveyed Ohio territory.
No Richeys.
Cindy
Thank you for this information. If this was “Little Turtle’s War” then this is just before the time of Dragging Canoe’s death, and the time the Northern Chickamauga went back to NW Alabama with Doublehead. Am I right in saying this?
I have found my g-g-grandma (Harriet Guess, 1820-1886) in census records of 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880) sayiing she was born in Tennessee sometimes and in Alabama sometimes. My great grandma (Josephine Brown Richey, 1854-1932) in the census of 1910, 1920, and 1930 (and in the 1900 Chickasaw nation census) said her mother (who was Harriet) was born in Alabama sometimes and in Mississippi sometimes. If you look where Mississippi and Alabama and Tennessee meet, it isn’t far from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. That is where Dounbelead’s village was.
I also noticed my ancestors leased land from a Belton/possibly Benton Colbert while they were living in the Chickasaw Nation from the 1880s until Oklahoma statehood. So I did a google searchfor Colbert and found a Chickasww Chier named George Colbert who married 2 of Doublehead’s daughter’s. In fact the county neighboring Lauderdale County where Doublehead lived in NW Alabama is Colbert County, named for the old Chickasaw Chief.
I did furthere research and found a history link on Lauderdale and Colbert County’s websites saying there were4 or 5 Cherokee villages nearby along the Tennessee River. It said George Colbert had a ferry across the Tennessee River just about at or verynear to Doublejhead’s Village. It said there was a great battle between the Cherokee and the Chickasaw and afterwards (from the 1770s on) Cherokee migrated into NW Alabama and there were a lot of intermarriages between the Chickasaw and Cherokee in this area.
According to the Troxells, Doublehead was in Kentucky at some point. We know he died near Muscle Shoals in NW Alabama, Lauderdale Coiunty, in 1806. Also Dounblehead was Sequoyah’s Uncle. Our family has always maintained we are NOT directly descended from Sequoyah even tho we have the “Guess” surname, but the family story goes that Harriet was either Sequoyah’s niece or great niece, but we don’t think we can prove it ever. But seeing a connection with the Colbert surname, and seeing that Doublehead, a relative of Sequoyah knew the Colbert’s in the 1790s and seein that in the 1880s my direct ancestors were leasing land from another generation of Chickasaw Colbert’s, and the confusion over Harriet’s birthplace & seein as how Harriet was also related to Doublehead somehow — well it all seem to point me in this direction — NW Alabama.
Oh yes, I found a record somewhere where someone said the “Ohio Chickamauga” went back to Alabama in 1792″ after a battle called “Fallen Timbers”. Were these “Ohio Chickamauga” Doublehead and his people? I think so but I am not sure. I think I am starting to unravel this side of the family, too. Wish I could prove it, but all I can do is come up with evidence I think. That’ss have to do I suppose.
You know Doublehead was said to have had a son named “Tuckahoe.” Somehow this is a part of a bigger picture than just Chickamauga Cherokee. I also heard Doublehead had a wife who was from a Virginia Indian Tribe. Does anyone know anything about this?
When I used to read about Doublehead he seemed like a big nasty brute of a man who killed on a whim and was just a nasty fellow. But he had some close relatives of his brutally murdered under a flag of truce. He had his reasons and warefare probably hardened him. Now I see him as a great warrior who did what he thought had to be done, and in the process made mistakes as we all do, got cought up in events that took on a life of their own, and was eventually brutally killed the same way he had lived.
vance
Here’s another link to the story I just found ==
http://sinclair2.quarterman.org/history/mod/battleofwabash.html
We are descended from a Wood/Woods who was discharged from Ft. Pitt in 1783, but he wasn’t William. He went to live on the Holston River in NE Tn and his son migrated to first Knox Co., In in 1806 and later Gibson Co, In. While in Tn, 2 Woods boys married 2 Dickson girls. I do not know what race these people were, but I’d guess “mixed”. One of these had a daughter Mary Polly Wood who married John Richey in Gibson, Co. In in 1817. They are my g-g-g-grandparents.
Linda you did give me Airy Dixon’s address and I wrote him. He gave me a couple of leads that I need to check up on. And his reply said he had an ancestor’s document that spelled the name “Dixon” at the beginning of the letter but by the end of it the spelling had changed to Dickson (or vice versa, I forget). So the 2 surnames are the same. I have that same problem with my Guess/Guest/Gist and Richey/Ritchey’Ritchie et cetera surnames, so I already suspected that. I ought to write him again. thanks.
vance
Vance:
The numbers on your story differ from mine, but the outcome is the same.
The book I read speaks of two different Woods. William (maybe the one you mention because both are connected with Fort Pitt) was one but the other one, the surveyor, was named John.
The biography only mentions Dragging Canoe briefly as being openly hostile towards whites and causing a break in the Cherokees, resulting in the Chickamaugas.
I know very little of Cherokee history. My ancestors were Shawnee; in fact one cousin has an oral history of an ancestor being Tecumseh’s niece. My own Blackfoot grandmother was “an Indian princess” in some family stories but I doubt it. Other stories call her an orphan. I find this the more likely of the two.
Cindy
Thank you Cindy. I think the one we are from was John Wood or Woods. What do you know about John and William Wood? What is the story with the great Shawnee Chief and the William Woods? I have always said some of my ancestors were Indian and some were “Indian fighters”. In my case, the children of the Indian fighter usually married an Indian, . . . It seems to have happened that way. I wouldn’t be surprized to find this on the Woods side too . . . 🙁
From the 1770s to 1840s or so there seems to have been a great migration and many Indian peoples took part in it and mixed.
vance
Vance:
The book says that he was Dr. John Wood. He came down the Ohio River with Hancock Lee in May, 1773, along with a group of surveyors they had hired. They built cabins (They met with Simon Kenton who also built a cabin in their settlement.) at the mouth of the Big Sandy, where Catlettsburg, WV is today. They were not involved with Tecumseh that I know of. Simon Kenton was, but this is the only reference to John Wood in Tecumseh’s biography. Tecumseh was small at this time, only six.
My family is like this too. One member of my family was the widow of the first soldier to kill the Lenne Lappe at Gnaddenhutten. She remarried into my Green family that is Shawnee.
Cindy
thank you. I don’t know if this is the same “John Woods” or not. Mine was discharged from Ft Pitt in 1783. His wife’s maiden name was “Hamilton” and they were both born in Virginia. He was soldier during the Rev. War but I know nothing of him before this time. It was 2 of his sons that married the “Dickson” girls on the Holston River in East Tennessee. The son I’m descended from then moved to S. Indiana in 1806.
I never heard him called “Doctor” before. I know he was a soldieradn I assumed he was just a private. If he was a doctor it should say somewhere. I’ll have to look into that. I am thinkin that it is probably a different John Woods because of the title “Doctor” — but you never know . . . I’ve been wrong before, why stop now? 🙂
You mentioned the Mouth of the Big Sandy. Is that the same place others have been writing about on this forum? I’ll have to check it out. Thanks
Thank you very much Cindy — I really appreciate it.
My Richey/Woods?Dickson/Wayland ancestors came from Va to Ar eventually. My Guest/Black/Roney?Looney/Rainwater/Brown ancestors seem to have come to Ark by way of Alabama. But at one time some branches of both migrations seem to have been in far E. or NE Tenn, and it is conceivible they knew each other in E Tn lost touch for a generation or two and re-met in Ar. That’s just guessing. Maybe they never met in E. Tn, I have no way of knowing really.
again thank you very much.
vance
I don’t see why the Big Sandy mentioned here would not be the same as the one we were discussing earlier, that was noted by an early explorer as the Tottero River.
Linda:
That was what I said in an earlier posting to Vance, that we had been talking about the Big Sandy as a Tutelo location. If indeed they are the same area and this Wood was Vance’s ancestor, here is another link to Blackfoot for him.
I wish the book identified the primary source that this information came from. It only footnotes the information and gives a bibliography but does not tie the two together. You would need to sift through the bibliography to see where Eckhart found his information.
Cindy
Vance:
Just for the heck of it, I did a google search for this Dr. John Wood. I did not find him, but check this URL out, Vance:
http://www.floydvirginia.com/about/history.html
Is the Wood that was left in the toteros village your ancestor?
Cindy
Well Cindy thank you for that link. I don’t have any idea if those Woodses are mine or not, though. But it sure felt like many of my ancestors turned out. My heart wants to say yep that’s them alright! But my mind knows my heart can be deceived . . . a delimma, huh? ha ha
The only way I know he was at Ft Pitt was a link someone else had about the Woods and them marrying the Dickson girls, and then moving to Gibson County, Indiana. I have found documents where in Indiana Nancy and Mary Polly Wood (sisters) married John adn Gideon Richey (brothers). There waas a third Richey — James in that area and we think all 3 are brothers. These people with the “Woods” website said nothing about 2 Woods girls marrying 2 Richey’s in Gibson County, tho, but they are definitely the same Woods as mine — we can document the Gibson County Woods as being ours at that early date (they married our Richeys in 1817 and there weren’t other Woods families there back then.)
Anyhow, these people said their ancestor was at Ft. Pitt in 1783 and was discharged from the Army at that time and went to live on Holston River in E. Tn. Census records of MY KNOWN ancestor gove Mary Polly Woods Richey (b. circa 1796) as being born in Tennessee and her father was born in Virginia. But as to whre in Virginia I don’t know. Those “could be” my ancestors. That link to Floyd County website says something about the Woods family trading with the Cherokees and Holston River was a known hangout of a great many traders. So it “sounds” like the same family.
I’m gonna hang onto this bit of information, Cindy, and see where it leads. Those might be my people.
I sure wish I knew Virginia geography better, all these rivers and counties . . . Little River, New River, Big Sandy, now even a Woods River. WHere are these places??? 🙁 I sorely need a Virginia map!
Just about everyone here has been so kind to me in my searches for our ancestors and I think you all very much.
vance
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
