old Lord Fairfax for surveying, first developed a spirit of land speculation. Crawford was his agent in the West. September 21st, 1769, he writes from Mt. Vernon: "If you will be to the trouble of seeking out the land, I will take upon me the trouble of securing them, as there is a possibility of doing it. I will, moreover, be at all the cost and charges of surveying and patenting the same. You shall have such a reasonable proportion of the whole as we may fix upon at our first meeting."

It is needless to say, the matter was promptly attended to. These lands were on on the Youghioghany. The fees for surveying in those days were ample, and Crawford and Washington often got one-fourth of the land for their services, the latter, doubtless, got many valuable slices from his old patron, Fairfax. It is not strange, therefore, that he became a large Virginia land owner.

About three years previous to the advertisement alluded to in the Baltimore Journal, he left Mt. Vernon on horseback to cross the Alleghany mountains and visit Crawford on the Youghioghany and look after his landed interest there, and to descend the Ohio on a prospecting

tour.

This trip occupied nine weeks and one day, when he arrived on horseback at Mt. Vernon as he had left it.

He and Crawford left the Yough

ioghany and came to Pittsburgh, a trading post of twenty log cabins. Here, in company with Mr. Harrison and others, they secured a large canoe and floated slowly down the Ohio, examining the land. At Mingo Bottom (now Steubenville) they found an Indian town of twenty-five log huts; this was afterwards the starting point of Crawford's fatal campaign against Sandusky.

They floated down as far as the mouth of the Great Kenawha. On their return, Washington wishing to examine the land in the great bend of the Ohio, in what is now Meigs County, he and Crawford walked across the neck, which they estimated at eight miles. Whether this land on the Ohio was secured or not is not told, and as there were then no United States, and the colonial claims of Virgina' were rather indeterminate, the metes and bounds of his 20,000 acres are not very close.

The party pursued their way home. still more slowly than they came, for pushing this big canoe against the current was quite different from floating with it. At Mingo Bottom they were met by horses sent from Crawford's home to meet them. On their way home they met a canoe loaded with sheep going to Illinois. This was nearly fifty years before the waters of the Ohio were disturbed by a paddle wheel, and doubtless it was the first shipment of live stock from Pittsburgh to the vicinity of St. Louis.

Arriving at Crawford's home on the Youghioghany, they found the river very high and the canoe gone. Finally, finding a boat, they paddled. over, swimming their horses. Resting a few days here, Washington returned over the mountains on horseback, and reaching Mount Vernon as already stated in nine weeks and one day from the time he left.

The fact that Washington does not include his Youghioghany land in his Kenawha advertisement, may be accounted for by the conflicting colonial claims of Pennsylvania and Virginia. As many lost their homes in this cause, it is possible that Washington suffered in this way to some

extent.

About two years later Washington, in company with Lord Dunmore, had arranged to visit the west on a landinspecting tour. He had written to Lord Dunmore asking the time he would be ready to start, so Crawford could be notified to be ready to ac

company them, but the death of Miss Custis, June 19th, frustrated the plan. He still instructed Crawford to inspect the land about the mouth of the Sciota and secure it to him, but the mutterings of the Revolution were heard, and soon both these men were in the biggest real estate transaction the world ever saw. It was not 20,ooo acres on the Kenawha, but it was half a continent, and they got it.

This was about the end of the real estate matters with these men. They had been together at Braddock's defeat; they were at the heroic crossing of the Delaware on Christmas day, and at the victory of Trenton. the next day, and Princeton the 3d of January, 1777. Not much is known of Washington's land scheme for some time, and his agent and lifelong friend, Colonel Crawford, lost his life in the Sandusky campaign. against Indians.

NEW LONDON, O.

GRIFFITH MORRIS.

THE Miami Indians, who welcomed Generals Harmar, St. Clair, Wayne and Harrison with tomahawks, scalping-knives and war-woops to this now wide and peaceful land, were first encountered by the French, under John Nicolet, in 1634, at Green Bay. They then numbered eight thousand warriors, and were a civil, brave, well-disposed people. Teten

re

chona, their chief, was much spected, and went about with a bodyguard.

In 1721 they were found on the St. Joseph river, and subsequently upon the Wabash and the headwaters of the two Miami rivers.

During the Revolution they sided with the English. They made peace with the Americans at Fort Finney

(mouth of the Great Miami), but continued to entertain a hostile feeling. In 1790 they could put fifteen hundred warriors in the field. Under Little Turtle they defeated Colonel Hardin, October 19th, 1790; General Harmer in the same year; General St. Clair in 1791; but, with other tribes, were defeated by General Wayne at the battle of Fallen Timbers, August 20th, 1794, where Little

LITTLE TURTLE.

Turtle first met Lieutenant W. H. Harrison as aid-de-camp to Wayne. The year following they joined in the Greenville Treaty-their right and title to the land now known as the Miami Valley being conveyed to the United States by virtue of the mark, a little turtle, of their chief affixed to that compact. Notwithstanding this, they reluctantly took part against the

United States, corrupted by English officers, in the war of 1812.

They were once more badly defeated by Colonel Campbell, under orders from General Harrison. A final treaty of peace was made with them September 8th, 1812.

There were between two and three thousand upon their reservations in 1822. They numbered eleven hundred in 1838, when they sold their reservation in Indiana to the Government. The annuities granted by the Government proved fatal to them upon their reservations, producing insolence, intoxication and violence. In 1846 they were removed to Fort Leavenworth Agency, a wretched, desolate band numbering about two hundred and fifty, and now, doubtless, have all perished from the earth.

Little Turtle was the last chief of the Miami Indians. Regarded as a type of a departed race, the following facts concerning his character and career are submitted in connection with his picture, which is engraved from a copy of the portrait painted. by Stuart, in Philadelphia, in 1797, by request of President Washington.

The late Hon. E. D. Mansfield saw Little Turtle in 1805 at the house of his father, General Jared Mansfield, who then occupied the Ludlow Mansion, yet standing in Cumminsville, Hamilton County, O. He describes him as a "dark man, with swarthy complexion, riding a fine horse, dismounting before his father's house,

and after a consultation with him touching the boundary lines between the two nations, riding away, never to revisit these scenes again. The sun of Indian glory set with him, and the clouds and shadows which for two hundred years had gathered round their destiny, now closed in the starless night of death."

Little Turtle-his Indian name was Me-che-kan-hah-quah-was half Mohican and half Miami. He was the son of a chief, and was born about 1747 at his village on the Eel river, a tributary of the Wabash, now in the State of Indiana. In stature he was short, well built, with prominent forehead, keen black eyes, and a large chin. After signing the treaty of Greenville he remained the true and faithful friend of the United States Government, and was respected by was respected by all who knew him. Tecumseh strove to obtain his co-operation, but in vain. Nothing could move him from his treaty obligations and his friendship for Americans.

It has been said that had the advice of this chief been taken before their disastrous fight with General Wayne, there is little doubt but that Wayne would have met with as ill success as St. Clair. He was not for fighting General Wayne at Presque Isle, and inclined rather to peace than fighting him at all. In a council held the night before the battle he argued as follows: "We have beaten the enemy twice under separate commanders. We cannot expect the same good

The

fortune always to attend us. Americans are now led by a chief who never sleeps; the night and the day are alike to him. And during all the time that he has been marching upon our villages, notwithstanding the watchfulness of our young men, we have never been able to surprise him. Think well of it. There is something whispers to me it would. be prudent to listen to his offers of peace."

When Mr. Volnay asked Little Turtle, in Philadelphia, what prevented him living with the whites, and if he were not more comfortable in Philadelphia than upon the banks of the Wabash, he said: "Taking all things together you have the advantage over us, but here I am deaf and dumb. I do not talk your language; I can neither hear nor make myself heard. When I walk through the streets I see every person in his shop employed about something-one making shoes another hats, another sells cloth, and every one lives by his labor. I say to myself which of all these things can you do? Not one. I can make a bow or an arrow, catch fish, kill game, or go to war, but none of these is any use here. To learn what is done here would require a long time. Old age comes on. I should be a piece of furniture, useless to my nation, useless to the whites and useless to myself. I must return to my own country."

Colonel John Johnston, the Indian agent, said: "Little Turtle was a

man of great wit, humor and vivacity, fond of the company of gentlemen, and delighted in good eating. When I knew him he had two wives living with him under the same roof in the greatest harmony; one an old woman, about his own age-fifty-the choice of his youth, who performed the drudgery of the house; the other, a young and beautiful creature of eighteen, who was his favorite; yet it was never discovered by any one that the least unkind feeling existed between them."

He died July 14th, 1812, of the

gout, at Fort Wayne, Ind., whither he had gone from his home upon Red river, to be treated by a United States surgeon. His body was buried with military honors and lowered mournfully into the grave with all his personal adornment and implements of war, including a sword presented to him by General Washington, together with a medal bearing. the likeness of Washington. The place of his long sleep is still known. and honored by the citizens of Fort Wayne.

HENRY DUDLEY TEETOR.

HISTORY is the record of eventsnot the advertisement of localities. The northern half of Asia is as much a blank book, as Canada away from the St. Lawrence. If we take out Egypt and Carthage, Africa is a dark -a very dark-continent, indeed. Nor can we accept from Egypt a pyramid for history. The names of the aristocratic families entombed there, even if we could rescue them from oblivion, are of far less consequence than the tears and agony of the thousands of slaves who perished

*The above is the full text of the annual address prepared for the recent meeting of the Kansas State Historical Society, by its President, Hon. William A. Phillips, of Salina. It is an able and graphic contribution to the history of that great State.

building them. History proper is the crystalization of thought; ideas grow into works and institutions.

But a few years ago-you and I can remember the time-Kansas was the "Great American Desert." That is, historically, and we have learned. that what is called history is not, necessarily, accurate. Still, the "Desert" was not all a myth. I can remember several long stretches of country, where in ante-bellum days, the sands drifted and blew, where the grass grew not, but a few miniature plum trees might be seen, or a wild rose bush. In the course of time, however, grass straggled over and covered it, and the squatters finally made farms upon it; and I ceased to be positive in my opinion concerning