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A NARRATIVE
OF THE
Adventures and Sufferings
FOSTORIA, OHIO.
THE GRAY PRINTING COMPANY,
1896.
The following brief narrative of the unparalleled adventures ofMATTHEW BRAYTON is compiled for the satisfaction of those who wishedto preserve a memorial of his romantic history.
Extraordinary as the incidents may appear, there is abundant proofof their entire truth. Living witnesses bear testimony to thecircumstances of the mysterious loss of the hero, and his identityis established by incontrovertible proofs. Numerous circumstancesalso confirm the account given by him of his adventures during thethirty-four years spent among the Indians.
That portion of North-western Ohio, situated to the South-east ofthe Black Swamp, was but sparsely settled at the close of the firstquarter of the present century. The hardy pioneers who had left theirNew England homes to open up the Western wilds, here and there builttheir modest dwellings and tilled the few acres won from the denseforest and luxuriant prairie. The dusky aborigines, driven from allother parts of Ohio, clung tenaciously to this comparatively neglectedspot, and the smoke from the log hut of the settler rose within sightof the Indian wigwam. The two races were at peace with each other, forneither cared to convert a passive neighbor into an active enemy. TheIndians had realized their inability to drive back the constantlyadvancing wave of civilization, and the white settlers had no desireto provoke the savage retaliations of their dusky neighbors unlesscompelled by necessity to do so.
In the neighborhood of the junction between the Sandusky and Tymochterivers, in Wyandot county, a remnant of the once powerful Wyandottribe still remained. One of their villages was at Upper Sandusky, andanother at Springville, in Seneca county. A small band of Senecas werealso located in the neighborhood, and some scattered Ottawas had theirwigwams on Blanchard's Fork, a few miles to the west of the Wyandotsettlements. An Indian trail led from Upper Sandusky to Springville,and thence, through the Black Swamp, to Perrysburg. At the latterplace it crossed the Maumee, and reached the shore of the Detroitriver opposite Malden, in Canada. Some of the Indians living in theNorth-west of Ohio had sided with the British in the war of 1812, andthese annually crossed over to Malden to receive their presents ofguns, ammunition and blankets. The Canadian Indians sometimes visitedtheir dusky brethren in Ohio, and thus the trail was frequentlytraversed.
Among