Editor’s Note: This is an ongoing series which runs each Thursday morning titled the Richland Chronicles Volume 2, by author Paul Lintern. It is set in the summer of 1831 and tells the story of Richland County through the eyes of young people. This is the second in a three-book trilogy. Volume 1 was Amelia Changes Her Tune.
Chief Black Hoof was probably what the boys expected of a man 109 years old.
He was lying down in a tall straw-filled bed, with a thick downy pillow. His face was dark red with leathery skin and deep wrinkles. He had long, straight black hair tied on each side, covering his ears. His dark eyes watched the boys enter, and his head moved slowly.
He raised one arm to shake hands and his voice, quiet and halting, kept him from speaking more than a few words at once. Still, he seemed truly happy to see them and wanted to know why they were there.
“Sir, we know you have seen many things in your long life. My friend and I want to know why the Indians have to leave Ohio,” Isaac said.
Black Hoof paused, as though letting the question settle in his ears. Then he began to speak.
“Our tribe came from the great salt water, where the sun came out of the lake in the morning and hid in the forest at night. We were a great people. Our men were great warriors. They fought many tribes and always won.
“When I was a young man, we had this land as our hunting grounds, and we raised many children to raise many children. We joined with the French to fight the British, and we lost. Then we joined the British to fight the Americans and lost when the Americans became their own people.
“We fought again with the British against the Americans in the war 20 years ago and lost even more.
“When I was younger, my great enemy was Simon Kenton, who helped whites move into Ohio. Today, he is my friend; he lives not 20 miles from here.
“We have tried to live as friends, and our neighbors would say that we do, but our Great Father in Washington says we must leave. The white men want what little land they have not yet taken.
“And so we move again and will move again and again I am sure, because the white man will want whatever land they give us now.
“I, however, refuse to go away from here, from my home, and I know that I will leave only when I am to return to the Great Spirit. My people, those who stay here, will then go to join the other Shawnees to the west,” Black Hoof said.
The boys were quiet.
“What if Wolf Paw here doesn’t want to go when the Wyandots go?” Isaac asked.
“He will stay as long as he can, then be dragged away when he can no longer stay. It will be much effort on his part with little result.
“I have seen generation after generation of warriors resist, then lose, and have nothing but pain when it is over,” he said.
The boys were quiet.
Black Hoof continued.
“You can use all your strength to stand against the river’s current, but the river was made to carry you on. Ride the river; don’t stand against it.”
The great Shawnee chief spoke of other things, telling stories from his boyhood, his dreams as a young man, then, after instructing the boys to follow the visions and dreams they have been given, he laid his head back on the pillow to rest. His daughter politely escorted the boys from the room and out of the house, but only after giving them a generous helping of bread and potatoes, dried beef and strawberries, wrapped in a brightly colored gingham cloth.
“Well, what’s next?” Wolf Paw asked.
“Simon Kenton. You heard the chief. He is only 20 miles away. We can still make it there today.”
On they went southeast to Urbana, where they were told that Simon Kenton owned a farm north of the village. Green seemed up for a faster pace, so the boys found themselves at the Kenton farm before supper.
His wife, Elizabeth, answered the door of the little cabin, and greeted the boys as graciously as had Black Hoof’s daughter. She explained that her husband probably was out back in the woods, but should be home shortly for supper. When she invited them to stay, the boys quickly agreed.
They were sitting with her on their front porch when Simon Kenton came walking across the field. Although he was 75 years old and thin as a rail, he stood taller than anyone Isaac had seen up close, nearly half a foot taller than six feet. He carried a musket, as old as Isaac’s, but one that looked finely honed and much more experienced.
He did not look excited to have guests, but seemed to warm up to the idea that they wanted to hear stories. He especially brightened up when he learned that they had visited Black Hoof earlier in the day.
“How is my old adversary and my old friend?” he asked.
“Very old,” Isaac said, and then felt embarrassed when Mr. Kenton laughed.
“I mean…”
“I know what you mean. He was old when I first met him, 50 years ago. Still, I should go to him one more time. We have shared much in our lives together.”
And Simon Kenton started telling stories, of entering the Ohio lands before they were American lands and rescuing people who shouldn’t have gone in there, of being captured and having to run the gauntlet naked through a quarter mile of Indians with sticks and clubs, of escaping twice after being captured.
He spoke of Blue Jacket and Tecumseh and a whole list of other great chiefs against whom he had fought, and some of whom, like Black Hoof, had become friends.
He showed them the hole on the top of his head, put there 50 years before by a tomahawk, which no one knew why it had not killed him.
He told of owning 250,000 acres of land in Ohio, then losing it all when land speculators cheated him. He told of founding Springfield village to the south, and moving to Urbana, his current home.
He told of his campaigns with Mad Anthony Wayne, George Rogers Clark and other heroes of the American War for Independence, in 1776, and the second war with Britain, in 1812. His stories continued throughout supper and into the night.
The boys did not want him to stop, but his age and his health drew the evening to a close. He invited the boys to sleep in the barn or under the stars, whichever they chose, and to let his wife serve them a large breakfast before they go.
As he eyed Isaac’s musket, he added, “Maybe I should give you some shooting tips, too, before you go.”
As the boys bedded down in the hay loft of the barn, Isaac pictured himself as an old man, 75 or 80, which he figured would be about the turn of the next century, about 1900.
He wondered what he would see by then. How many new states would we have by then? What would happen to the Indians? What wars would have to be fought? What inventions would change the way we live? Who would grow up to be president? How big would places like Mansfield or Urbana become?
He fell asleep with maps and names and events swimming in his head and calling to his future.
