Sitting high on a hill overlooking the Mac-A-Cheek Valley is a huge boulder known for generations as “Squaw Rock.” It is hard to see from the road these days because of the vegetation growing around it but for whatever reason, this rock stands as a witness to tales of love and grief, war and survival.
The rock bares a simple plaque that reads:
Squaw Rock of Indian Legend
Site of Shawnee Village Mac-A-Cheek
Home of Chief Moluntha
Destroyed 1786 by Col. Logan.
Site of Simon Kenton Gauntlet 1778
The rock is said to have been a remnant of the glacial period, left here when the Glaciers receded and formed the Great Lakes. Earliest reports of the rock have it being used as a gathering place for the seven nations of the Indian Confederacy although legend has it that the confederacy was not the only one to meet in secret at the rock.[1]
The Chief’s Daughter
One such legend states that the Chief of a nearby village disapproved of his daughter’s interest in a young warrior causing the two to sneak off and meet at the rock in private. For years the two met at the rock whenever they could manage to sneak away from the preying eyes of the Chief and as one would expect the two fell deeper and deeper in love with every meeting.
It was not until the Chief told his now teenage daughter that she was to be given to one of his loyal warriors to take as his bride that the daughter finally professed her undying love for the young man she had been meeting at the rock. Of course her father was not happy in the least that his daughter had been sneaking behind his back and seeing a man that he had already told her he did not approve of. Enraged the father confronted her young lover and gave him the choice of exile or death. Disheartened the young warrior fled the village.
As luck would have it or rather as the legend would have it, the Chief was not only planning his daughter’s future, he was also planning a raiding party for the following morning. As morning broke the Chief along with his warrior friend and would be son-in- law, set out on their mission to steal supplies from a nearby American trading post. Word must have gotten out about the raid because the trading post was ready and waiting for the Chief and his raiding party. The fight only lasted a few minutes but it was long enough for the Chief and his warrior friend to be mortally wounded.
Some writers have suggested that it was the daughter’s lover who tipped off the trading post. Maybe he did so out of revenge against a father who would not allow him to marry his daughter or maybe he was simply hoping to eliminate his competition. Either way it worked out in the two young lover’s favor. With no one the wiser and the daughter now free to marry whomever she chooses, the two young lovers were married a few days later.[2]
It would be so easy to say that they lived happily ever after but that is not where their story ends. Squaw Rock has more stories to tell.
Logan’s Raid on Mac-O-Chee
Mac-O-Chee village was the 18th century Shawnee settlement that surrounded Squaw Rock. [3] It was Located on top of a hill overlooking one section of the Mac-O-Chee Creek and it was the head quarters of the Great Sachem of the Shawnee; Chief Moluntha.
In the fall of 1786, Colonel Benjamin Logan, was commissioned by George Rogers Clark, to attack Mac-O-Chee Village and force the Indians to surrender their land and move to the western lands agreed upon in the terms of the McIntosh Treaty. Col. Logan sent scouts to report the movements of the Shawnee living within the Mac-O-Chee Valley. Upon receiving word that the Indians were organizing a large hunting party to acquire food for the winter months ahead, Col. Logan laid out his plan of attack. His army, lead by Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton; would wait until the majority of the warriors had left the village in pursuit of food. The villages would be virtually defenseless and his army should be able to easily overwhelm any resistance. Lying in wait his army watched as the last warrior disappeared into the wilderness. Boone and Kenton gave the orders to advance but told the men to leave anyone who was not taking up arms against them unharmed.
As the army approached Chief Moluntha urged his people to remain calm and reminded them that the Americans were allies and the village was not in violation of the Miami Treaty.[4] In what many suggest was an effort to calm the tension before it got out of hand, Moluntha began to walk towards the approaching army. As Colonel Logan approached the city Moluntha walked out to greet him holding a copy of the Miami Treaty in one hand and waving an American flag in the other. The treaty he was holding was signed earlier that year and legally entitled his people to the land in which they stood and the American flag was a symbol that the people of this village pose no threat to the Americans.[5]
Soldiers at the front began to surround Moluntha as Logan approached from the rear. For the second time Logan reminded the men that Moluntha was not to be injured but that order was not one that all his men were willing to abide by.
As Colonel Logan and Chief Moluntha sat down to begin negotiations a man asked Moluntha if he was at the Battle of Blue Licks? (Blue Licks was a battle that resulted in massive causalities for American soldiers during an Indian uprising) Moluntha was not at the battle but must have misunderstood what the man asked because he shook his head yes. The man grabbed a tomahawk and charged towards Moluntha striking him down with a blow to the back of the head. Simon Kenton quickly subdued the man as others gathered around but it was too late for the great Chief and he bled out on the ground. Logan ordered his troops to arrest the murderer of Moluntha and he ordered that the village be burned to the ground.
Some researchers speculate that the burning of the village was an act done in an effort to hide the murder of Moluntha from the returning Indian warriors. Others suggest that the intent of the raid was to scare the returning Warriors in hope that they would flee the area. Whatever the reason, the village was burnt to the ground and the remaining villagers were taken prisoner…but...... the murder of Moluntha was not all that took place that fateful day.
The Mother at the Rock
While the soldiers were burning the village, an Indian squaw with her infant son was spotted lurking behind the large rock. Why she was there we do not know, but one of the American soldiers saw her movement and mistook her for an attacking Indian warrior.
In his confusion the soldier fired at the figure hiding behind the rock and began to slowly approach. The closer the soldier got to the rock the clearer his view became. The person hiding behind the rock was not a warrior at all but rather an Indian mother slumped over with her infant son in her arms. The soldier, himself having a daughter about the boys age; was overcome with remorse for what he had done. He laid his rifle upon the Rock and kneeled down to retrieve the crying baby boy. The soldier buried the boy’s mother at the foot of the Rock and pledged to look after the boy for the rest of his days.
White Feather the Soldiers Son
As the soldier’s adoptive son grew into a teenager he did his best to hide the fact that the boy was an Indian. He dressed the boy in white man's clothes and treated him no different than any other father would have treated his son. The boy was educated in the ways of farming and hunting and spent many nights reading and playing with his adoptive sister. However, the boy’s skin was much darker and more reddish than that of his families and the town’s people began to take notice.
Unaware of how accurate their taints were, several other teenagers around town began to call the young boy White Feather the Indian savage. They would taunt and tease the boy, telling him that they would scalp him and feed him to the dogs.
Slowly the boy began to question who he really was. He began to act out aggressively and began to distance himself from everyone. Did the boy somehow remember what had happened that day at the rock? Was the boy destined to become a savage Indian? Is the family in danger? All of these questions began to cross the father's mind. Out of fear for his daughter’s safety the father told his daughter to avoid being seen in public with the boy and as a result the boy withdrew from society even more.
Over the next few months the taunts of White Feather had spread throughout the village and the boy began to lash out at anyone and everyone. The boy became an outcast in the only family he had ever known. He began to get into fights and disappeared for days on end, until finally the boy stopped returning all together. Some say the boy died in the woods but legend has it that the boy found his way back to his Indian clan and began to reclaim his heritage. Some say that the boy even made it back to the very same valley that surrounded the Rock where his mother was buried.
The Soldiers Daughter
Years past and not a word was heard from the boy once called White Feather but the end of his story has not yet been told because many believe he visited his sister one last time.
It was the night of his adoptive sister’s wedding and the bride and her husband were enjoying their first night of marital bliss when fate came calling. No-one really knows what took place that fateful night but the aftermath was left for all to see. The morning after their wedding the daughter of the soldier and her new husband were found lying dead in a pool of blood on the floor of their cabin. The only clue left by their killer was a white feather placed in the hair of the soldier’s slain daughter. As the father wept over his murdered daughter the anguish, he could not help but remember the murder he once committed at the Rock. He wandered if the boy he once called his son, had finally realized his past and returned as fates avenger. He wandered if the mistakes of the past had finally come back to haunt him. The father was said to have screamed out in anger “cursed is my heart, for I never felt such pain. Cursed am I for having laid eyes on that Rock.”[6]
Abram Sander Piatt sums up this legend best by describing it as Forever a story of war, love, and betrayal remembered by a huge rock on a hill in the Mac-A-Cheek Valley.[7]
[1] Excerpt from The Historic West Liberty, Ohio Sesquicentennial booklet, "Our Hometown News," The West Liberty Star, July 16, 2018: Issue 15.
[2] Excerpt from Mackachack Valley and it’s Indian Legends by Oswald K. Reames, "Our Hometown News," The West Liberty Star, July 16, 2018: Issue 15.
[3] Keren Jane Gaumer, "Mac - O - Chee Valley," Ohio History Journal 26: 455-469, Retrieved from the Ohio History Connection online archive, http://resources.ohiohistory.org/ohj/search/display.php?page=5&ipp=20&searchterm=crawford&vol=26&pages=455-469.
[4] Ibid., Keren Jane Gaumer, "Mac - O - Chee Valley.”
[5] Timothy B. Powell, Ruthless Democracy: A Multicultural Interpretation of the American Renaissance, Princeton University Press, 2000, pgs. 2-4.
[6]The biography of Donn Piatt. "Our Hometown News." The West Liberty Star, July 16th 2018: Issue 15.
[7] Quote from a poem about Smiling Valley by Abram Sander Piatt. "Our Hometown News." The West Liberty Star, July 16, 2018: Issue 15.
