For many years one branch remained on the centuries old elm, but several summers ago time took its toll- the Logan Elm in Circleville, Ohio, one of the nation's most famous landmarks finally died. It was under this old elm tree that John Logan, a leader of the Mingo tribe made his plea for peace between his tribe & the settlers in 1774- Logans Lament- a speech which for generations was memorized in schoolrooms in the US.
Logan's atory is more tragic than either his lament or legend ever tells. One night in APR 1774, while he was away on a hunting trip, a band of men broke into his cabin & brutally massacred his family. The following morning Logan found the bodies of all the relatives he thought he had in the world. He swore to avenge them.
Half-white himself, his father captured as a child & raised by Cayugas, John Logan or Tahgahjute, had been known as a friendly man, respected by the Shawnee tribe into which he married. Swearing revenge against the white man, Logan sent a declaration of hostilies to VA Governor Dunmore- attributing the mass killing of his family to a drunken band led by Michael CRESAP. The Shawnee Indian Chief Cornstalk supported Logan's declaration in 1774 there resulted the bloody uprising known as Dunmore's War. Tribes went on the warpath through the Ohio Valley & before the militiamen overcame them at Point Pleasant, hundreds of lives were lost on both sides.
Logan was through with war then, had his revenge, yet his sorrow was so intense that he refused to meet with Governor Dunmore in a council of peace. Cornstalk , speaking for all the Shawnee, accepted Dunmore's proposal, but John Logan would not sit with his enemies. Instead, he wrote Dunmore a letter that would go down into history:
I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry & he gave him not meat; if ever he came cold & naked & he clothed him not. During the course of the last long & bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate for peace. Such was my love for the whites that my country-men pointed as they passed & said, " Logan is the friend of the White Man." I had even thought to live with you but for the injury of one man- Colonel (sic) Cresap who last Spring in cold blood & unprovoked, murdered all the relatives of Logan, not sparing even my women & children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengenance. For my country I rejoice at the beams of peace. But do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.
He read the letter from under the elm in what is now Logan's State park in Circleville. But Logan's story may have been even more tragic than his words reveal- for at least according to one version, the Indian discovered that his family had not been murdered by white men. It is said that Logan learned that a band of Indians had really murdered his family & realized that his revenge had no meaning at all, that he had injured those who were innocent. His death 6 years later was ironic. In 1780 after a druken quarrel Logan attacked another Indian & was killed by him. The other man as it turned out to be a nephew unknown to Logan- the last of his once large family.
From: The old 'People's Almanac.