EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is Part 3 in a 9-part series on Ohio’s great American Indian chiefs released by the Ohio Historical Society on Nov. 3, 1967. Richland Source has entered into a collaborative agreement with the Ohio History Connection to share content across our sites.
Cornstalk was chief of the Shawnee who first settled in the Scioto Valley.
He led a thousand of his fellow braves against the sleeping frontier troops at Point Pleasant, West Virginia. After a long battle, he was defeated by only a narrow margin.
Thereafter, Cornstalk entered into a peace treaty with Lord Dunmore, signed at Camp Charlotte, near the present-day village of Tarlton, in November 1774.
To honor the pledge then given, Cornstalk returned to Point Pleasant in 1777 to warn the settlers that restless Indians might soon force him into a new war.
Cornstalk and his son, held as hostages, were later murdered by soldiers who were infuriated at the killing of a settler by roving Native American Indians.
