OLD CHILLICOTHE
and BLUE JACKET

William A. Galloway’s book, Old Chillicothe: Shawnee and pioneer history; conflicts and romances in the Northwest territory, is an oft quoted, often relied upon reference used by contemporary authors and researchers. It contains a short section on Blue Jacket, the last principal war chief of the Shawnee Tribe. A surprising amount of the material is in error and is here pointed out at the end of paragraphs needing attention. The Galloway work is interesting, historically enlightening, and above all, entertaining.  continued
 

The Legend of Blue Jacket
A new book that Blue Jacket relatives need to find out about.  See the review here and learn lots about our founder.

The Legend of Blue Jacket
by Michael P. Spradlin |
illustrated by Ronald Hinter

30 p. Harper Collins Publishers 2002 LCCN: 2001024749

A BOOK REVIEW
by G. Carlyle Hinshaw
1713 Baron Drive
Norman OK 73071
405 364-4584

The copyright page lists this beautifully illustrated book as a biography of Blue Jacket, b. ca. 1753 and written for juveniles. The format is a first person narrative about the great Shawnee Indian chief’s life in Ohio country during the 18th century.

On the front, inside flap of the cover, the publisher says:

“He was only sixteen when the Shawnee Indians took him from his home. But he wasn’t captured. He went willingly. And, after many years of proving his bravery in battle against the colonists, he was named war chief of the Shawnee. His name was Blue Jacket.

Here, told in riveting narrative and stunning, historically accurate illustrations, is the incredible story of a white boy who spent the first sixteen years of his life among white settlers and the rest of his life fighting them.”

Here, the publisher portrays its book as stunning and historically accurate. Certainly, parents and teenagers with an eye for knowledge, will read the flap, gobble up this information and shell out, as your reviewer did, the money for this good looking book. Later, as libraries begin to shelve this publication, this material encased for juveniles will spread across the land. Unfortunately, young minds reading it will be taught a highly inaccurate fable, retaining it the rest of their lives.

In the Preface (p. 1.), the author says he spent twelve years researching literature and it seems that it took him that long to convince himself that he was telling the true story of Marmaduke Van Swearingen, a white person who became Blue Jacket, war chief of the Shawnee Tribe, despite what honored historians have negated with their scholarly investigations. He tells the reader, in effect, that he is right and everyone else is wrong, citing no specific references. He states: “From all that I have read and studied, I believe that Marmaduke Van Swearingen was born in 1753 and was captured by the Shawnees in the spring of 1769.” This statement relegates his work to the realm of belief, not fact, and to foist this on developing minds is a travesty.

Blue Jacket and Shawnee peers, including Silverheels (the Treasurer of the Shawnee Tribe in Miami, Oklahoma, Georgie Honey, is a descendant of Silverheels), were trading with the Ohio Company in 1752 and 1753 as documented by that company’s records. These original financial reports were transcribed and published by Kenneth P. Bailey, Associate Professor of History, Humboldt State College, in his THE OHIO COMPANY PAPERS, 1753-1817, Being Primarily Papers of the “Suffering Traders” of Pennsylvania, Argata, California, 1947. Transactions listed on page 50 (1753) show that Blue Jacket’s Eldest Brother sold 17 deer hides (Bucks) and 1 Doe, receiving 6 pounds, 11 shillings and 3 pence in return. His Younger Brother traded 21 Bucks for 7 pounds, 17 shillings and 6 pence. Silver Heels (Silverheels) got 5 pounds, 1 shilling and 3 pence for 13 Bucks and 1 Doe. On page 56, Blue Jacket traded 45 Bucks for 16 pounds, 17 shillings and 6 pence. On page 57, it comes to light that the traders let the Indians “charge” trade goods received. Here, Blue Jacket pledged that he owed 7 Bucks to David Hendricks to pay off 2 pounds, 12 shillings and 6 pence worth of trade goods! On page 99 (1752) Blue Jacket sold 10 Bucks and 1 Doe for 7 pounds, 6 shillings and 3 pence. Lower Shawnee Town, at the confluence of the Ohio and Scioto rivers, was, at that time, the principal Shawnee settlement that both English and French traders flocked. Finally, and this is very interesting, on page 157, Virginia colonist Adam Terrance suffered a French promoted Indian raid on his establishment at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers, up stream of Lower Shawnee Town. His losses, booked forward receipts (“charged” goods) due him by Shawnee and Delaware Indians, included a Blue Jacket owing of 6 pounds, 7 shillings and 6 pence. In other words, the Indian guys “charged’ some stuff then came back and stole Adam blind!

Although the above was lengthy, it is incumbent on this reviewer to document his statements just as any author. If the reader has, like this reviewer, a vested interest in the true history of Blue Jacket, we will get into more, very interesting Shawnee heritage. So, read on, Pilgrim!

Silver Heels (Silverheels) was the younger brother of Keigh-tugh-qua (Cornstalk) and Nonhelema (The Grenadier Squaw), Shawnee leaders of the 1760’s and 1770’s. The families had not yet moved up the Scioto to the Pickaway Plains, just south of present day Circleville, Ohio..

On page 2 of his Legend, Spradlin says that Blue Jacket’s born name was Duke (diminished from Marmaduke) Van Swearingen (the Van was dropped from the Swearingen family name years before this) and that they lived in western Virginia. On ensuing pages, he and his brother, Charlie, went herb gathering in the woods and were captured by Pucksinwah (father of Tecumseh, also spelled Pucksinwa and Puckeshinwau by other historians) who was leading a party of Shawnees. Duke agreed to stay with them in return for letting Charlie go. Taken to Pucksinwah’s village, Duke was renamed Blue Jacket and adopted by Black Fish, becoming a full (blood excluded) Shawnee. No dates are proffered in the text, but Spradlin states in the Preface that it was in 1769.

Herein then, is an insurmountable problem relating to the publishers claim of historical accuracy. Karel L. Whyte is a Swearingen descendant and the foremost historian of that family. In her book, SWEARINGEN/VAN SWEARINGEN and RELATED FAMILIES, 1997, Karel L. Whyte, 224, Heathewood Dr. Aiken SC 29803, LCCN: 97191585, unerringly demonstrates that Marmaduke was born January 2, 1763, near Hagerstown, Maryland. His birth date is from a family Bible that belonged to Joseph Swearingen, a son of Marmaduke’s brother, Charles Swearingen. As of two years ago, that Bible was in the possession of Thomas G. Swearingten of Uniondale, Indiana, a chemist for Phelps Dodge Corporation. A copy of the family record can be found at the Ross County Historical Society Library in Chillicothe, Ohio.

The family estate was not in Virginia, but in (now) Fayette County, Pennsylvania. John, Marmaduke’s father, had moved there in 1770 (see Whyte) and died there. His will was probated on September 6, 1784. A copy of the will is included in the book (page 275) of Robert V. Van Trees, Banks of the Wabash, 2002, 3rd ed., rev., Van Trees Associates, 589 Westwood Drive, Fairborn, Ohio 45324, 300 p., ISBN 0-961-6282-3-5. In the will, John Swearingen left to his son, Marmaduke, the use of John’s slave, Herry, for the term of one year, after which Herry reverted to Marmaduke’s mother, Cathrine (Stull) Swearingen.

Shucks, any middle school math student will admit that Spradlin’s above equation which includes the year 1753 just won’t fly! Charles Swearingen, Marmaduke’s brother, was born at the Fayette County home on September 26, 1767. If he and Marmaduke were wandering around in the woods in the spring of 1769, neither one could hardly see over a herb!

The capturing Shawnee, Pucksinwah, first addresses Marmaduke by his new Indian name, Blue Jacket, on page 11 of the author’s book, wherein the boy is asked if he would like to stay with the Tribe. The youngster answers, “The heart of Blue Jacket is now a Shawnee heart.” The origin of the name is alluded to on pages 4 and 6 where the captive is said to have been wearing a blue jacket when taken in custody. The jacket is described as one made of linsey-woolsey. As shown above, as early as 1752, the British were addressing this chief-to-be by the name “Blue Jacket”, a word of their choosing. In reality, he had a Shawnee language name, believe it or not. The name given by his parents was Se-pet-te-ke-na-the, Big Rabbit, which he used as late as 1776 (page 27 of Sugden, John, Blue Jacket, Warrior of the Shawnees, 2000, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, LCCN: 00022192.). Before 1778, he chose, as some Shawnees did, to use Waweyapiersenwaw, the Whirlpool. Jasper Yates and Col. John Montgomery (Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 5, pp. 484-485.) recorded him under that name as one of the tribal representatives present at the signing of the Treaty of Fort Pitt in that year. The same name is affixed to the Treaty of Green Ville in 1795. A third name, Sasesequa, was passed by James Galloway in his letter to Benjamin Drake in 1839 (Draper Manuscripts, BJ245-259.). Now, after all that, we still have a way to go in this name business. The Blue Jacket family heritage brings down the origin of the term “Blue Jacket” as being the Chief’s wearing of a French officers coat as a youngster. This makes excellent sense, because the Shawnees traded more with the French than with the English at Lower Shawnee Town prior to the exploratory trip down the Ohio by Chirstopher Gist on behalf of the Ohio Company in 1750. Gist’s trip is what opened up Ohio country for the British and the trading records show this. This origin of the use of “Blue Jacket” is recorded in a published interview by W. T. Holland on August 13, 1937 for the Oklahoma Historical Society (Indian Pioneer History, vol. 15). Holland’s interviewee was Pearl Tecumsah Blue Jacket, a first cousin to this reviewer’s grandmother, Gertrude Hinshaw, and Pearl passed that information along for Holland’s records. As an aside, but important for this record, Gertrude, at age 13, took Pearl (the younger of the two) in hand and they went to Carlisle Indian School, Carlisle, Pennsylvania from 1893 until 1896. Pearl became a dedicated preservationist of Shawnee native life and in 1943, crafted a beautiful bow of Bois ‘d Arc for this reviewer. The common grandfather of those two cousins was Henry Blue Jacket, a signer of the Shawnee Treaty of 1854, which, in effect, caused the removal of the Shawnee Tribe from Kansas to Indian Territory in 1871. Henry Blue Jacket was a grandson of Blue Jacket, being born on the Huron River in southeastern Michigan Territory about 1800. The old Chief died in 1808 (about 68 years of age) at what is now Wyandotte, Michigan and was buried in a Wyandot Indian cemetery there. His sixth generation descendant, Margaret McGrath, also a Blue Jacket family historian, lives in Wyandotte today. As a result, this trail of passing is a valid document.

Blue Jacket was in his young adult years, honing his warrior talents and leadership qualities in the 1760’s and early 1770’s just as Spradlin indicates. On page 16, he marries a captured white (English from Virginia) girl and she births son Joseph. No dates are given but certainly in the mid 60’s. In 1774, Shawnee leader Cornstalk, trying to stem white encroachment, attacked the Army of Lord Dunsmore, Royal Governor of Virginia Colony. Called the battle of Point Pleasant, where the Kanawha River empties into the Ohio (now western West Virginia), Pucksinwah perishes in the conflict. Blue Jacket’s wife was then repatriated, being pregnant with daughter to be, Nancy. Son Joseph stayed with his father (Joseph was killed the War of 1812). Although forbidden to go into “Caintuckee” by the Point Pleasant aftermath, Black Fish led a party toward Blue Licks, north of Daniel Boone’s settlements. They met a party of whites near there led by Boone and a fight erupted with Boone being captured and taken to the Shawnee villages north of the Ohio. He later escaped and returned to Cai ntuckee. Now in the American Revolution years, the Shawnee continued to harass Caintuckee settlements, which were anti British American. Raids between the two peoples became tit for tat and Blue Jacket was captured by Boone’s men on one of these forays. He escaped the same night with a bit of help from Boone himself.

After the United States became a reality, the Shawnee continued to try and rid their beloved Ohio country of Americans. Blue Jacket was elevated to the position of principal war chief of the Shawnee Tribe and the book ends there, leaving many more years of conflict to evolve in the history of Blue Jacket and his people. The latter promotion took place about 1787 but the date was not included in the text.

A last page (p. 30) entitled Afterward, continues with an outline of later events, including the battles of St. Claire’s defeat and Fallen Timbers. It also has some brief comments on other facets of Blue Jacket’s life with some errors but none that surpass Marmaduke. It chronicles moves of the Shawnee Tribe to Kansas and into Indian Territory.

The life of Blue Jacket as the Shawnee Indian he really was, is the stuff of which real legends are made. Had Spradlin just left Marmaduke Van Swearingen out of it, since the white guy was in effect, a total lie, his dollars would still roll in. Blue Jacket was a legend in his own time and Spradlin points out that his leadership may have been the best of all native Americans who battled for their peoples rights.

I cannot, in good judgment, recommend the purchase of The Legend of Blue Jacket. The illustrations by Ronald Hinter are simply superb and I commend him for that excellent work.

An Appendix by Karel L. Whyte is enclosed. She wrote the article for the Blue Jackets family website. It gives an excellent history of how Marmaduke was inserted into Blue Jacket history and tarnished the heritage of both the Blue Jacket and Swearingen families.

October 31, 2002

Gaylord Carlyle Hinshaw is a seventh generation descendant of Blue Jacket. He was born in Stockton CA and was raised in Parsons KS, which is about 40 miles northwest of Blue Jacket OK, where his grandmother, Gertrude Hinshaw, a daughter of Emma Blue Jacket, was born. Mr. Hinshaw is council member 911U10381 of the Shawnee Tribe, a federally recognized native American group in Miami OK. He earned BS and MS degrees in geology from Kansas State University and is a consulting geologist, calling his company Blue Jacket Exploration.

Appendix
It’s Fiction - not Fact!
by Karel L. Whyte

Marmaduke Swearingen was born 2 Jan 1763, near Hagerstown, MD. His birthdate is from a family Bible which belonged to Joseph Swearingen, a son of Marmaduke’s brother, Charles Swearingen. As of two years ago, the Bible has been in the possession of Thomas G. Swearingten of Uniondale, Indiana, a chemist for Phelps Dodge Corporation. A copy of the family record can be found at the Ross County Historical Society Library in Chillicothe, OH.

Marmaduke Swearingen was named in his father’s will, which was written in 1784, at which time he would have been 21 years old. Because there is no other record of him to be found, he appears to have disappeared about that time, perhaps killed or captured by Indians or maybe he simply left home to make his way in the world as many young men did.

Marmaduke Swearingen’s Rise to Fame as Chief Blue Jacket

The tale had its beginnings in the 1870's. On 15 Feb 1877, a letter written by newspaperman Thomas Jefferson Larsh was published in the Daily Ohio Journal. Larsh was the grandson of Marmaduke's sister, Sarah. The letter told the story of Marmaduke’s capture by Indians and his rise to power within the Shawnee community as Chief Blue Jacket. A commentary or article on the same subject is said to have first been published by Larsh in the Eaton Register (OH) in 1873 although a copy has not been located. The fictitious account was repeated in 1884 in H. H. Swearingen’s Family Historical Register. Swearingen prefaced the piece with, "The following letter appeared a few years ago in the Ohio State Journal", then followed with Larsh’s words which began .... "It seems to have dropped out of the memory of the present generation of men, if, indeed, it was ever generally known, that the chief, Blue Jacket, was a white man....." For generations, descendants and others have believed the story without any further investigation or search for documentation.

It was inevitable that eventually, legitimate researchers would begin to question the tale’s validity because of inconsistencies with known historical data. During my own research, I came across the record of births of the children of John Swearingen and wife Catherine. The Bible record states that Marmaduke Swearingen was born in 1763. This was less than ten years before Blue Jacket became Chief of the Shawnee. It is ridiculous to think that the Shawnee Tribe would make a young white boy their chief. My examination of John Swearingen’s will written on August 3, 1784 and probated on September 6, 1784 in Fayette County, Pennsylvania showed that he had provided for a slave for the use of his son "Marmonduke". It seems reasonable to believe then that Marmaduke’s disappearance probably occurred about that time.

Further study of the known data on Chief Blue Jacket reveals no proof or even a suggestion that he was a white man. Of Thomas Larsh’s motivation in creating the story, historian and author Mr. Robert Van Trees states, "Ego may have provided a thrust to his self-serving commentary--his grandfather, Charles Larsh, had been involved in a romantic wilderness adventure wherein Paul Larsh, father of Charles, snatched Mrs. George Kincaid from death at the Indian's stake in about 1758 and carried her down the Miami, down the Ohio, and up to Kaskaskia where he married her--Charles was born to this union a year later. After moving east to southwestern PA, and settling near the Swearingen wilderness tract of land northeast of present-day Point Marion, PA, Charles met and married in 1781, Sarah Swearingen, older sister of Marmaduke. The grandson of this union, Thomas J. Larsh (1809-1883), was enamored with the Indian's way of life and he named three of his sons White Cloud, Black Hawk, and Blue Jacket--the latter died in a prisoner's camp during the Civil War."

In his book, Banks of the Wabash, Van Trees presents additional proof that not only was Blue Jacket not Marmaduke Swearingen, but also that Blue Jacket did not kill his brother, Charles Swearingen in the defeat of Arthur St. Clair’s army in 1791, as stated by Allan Eckert in his books. My own research indicates that Charles Swearingen was not even a participant in the battle. He had married Nancy Pottenger in December of 1788 and in 1800, years after Charles was said to have been killed, he and Nancy were living in Mason Co, KY. The only known Swearingen to have been killed at St Clair’s defeat was Captain Van Swearingen, a distant cousin of Marmaduke.

Because of his extensive research, Van Trees has become the foremost authority on the Blue Jacket family and the historical events of Chief Blue Jacket’s lifetime. His article, Fact, not fiction: Marmaduke Swearingen, Shawnee War Chief?, was published in the Mercer County Chronicle, 6 Sep 1990 [Vol 84, No 36, Coldwater, OH]. Van Trees’ book, Banks of the Wabash, 2002, 3rd. rev., is available from Barnes & Noble or from the Historical Society Museum Gift Shop, One Fort Site St, Fort Recovery, OH 45846.

In 1999, Van Trees instigated a DNA test, personally gathering the necessary specimens from Blue Jacket and Swearingen descendants. The testing was carried out at Wright State University by Dr. Dan Krane, Associate Professor of Biology. Results show there is no genetic link between the two lineages (Dayton Daily News, 12 Jun 2000). Van Trees has contributed information to the Blue Jacket family internet website mastered by Blue Jacket blooded cousins, Winston Charles Bingham and Gaylord Carlyle Hinshaw. Descendants of Blue Jacket are members of the Cherokee Nation (Adopted Shawnees) of Tahlequah OK, Eastern Shawnee Tribe of West Seneca OK and the Shawnee Tribe of Miami OK.

In 2000, Mr. Hinshaw filed a report to the Library of Congress, "Defending Blue Jacket from the Depredations of the White Men", protesting the inaccuracies presented in the Blue Jacket Outdoor Drama, performed each year in OH. His protest was accompanied by a number of others authored by other Blue Jackets, including one by the Eastern Shawnee Tribe Elder of the Year, Robert Denton Blue Jacket. The play had recently been accepted into the Library of Congress’ Local Legacy project, although the author’s portrayal of Marmaduke Swearingen having become Chief Blue Jacket appears to have been taken directly from the original, totally inaccurate, Larsh story, with the added embellishment of Blue Jacket having killed his brother Charles in 1791.

A number of other respected historians, including Dr. Ray Crain of Ohio, have researched the issue and his findings have been accepted by the Ohio Historical Society. Louise Franklin Johnson researched the story for her paper in 1992, Six Men Named Van Swearingen And Their Fathers. Helen Hornbeck Tanner researched Blue Jacket in the late 1960's, concluding then that Blue Jacket was not a white man. Ms Tanner is a Senior Research Fellow at the Newberry Library in Chicago, IL, a private research library with an exceptionally fine genealogical collection and a Center for the History of American Indians. And, historical author John Sugden has written an excellent biography, Blue Jacket, Warrior of the Shawnees, published in 2000 by University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE.

August 3, 2001, 224 Heathwood Dr., Aiken SC 29803.

Updated October 30, 2002.

This article was written for the following website of the Blue Jacket family: http://www.shawnee-tribe.org/Blue Jacket.htm

Karel L. Whyte recently passed away and is sorely missed.  Karel was an astute historian and contributed a great deal to the chronicling of pioneer times.  She authored  SWEARINGEN/VAN SWEARINGEN and RELATED FAMILIES, 2002, privately published, LCCN: 97191585

Massasoit
photo by Hal Sherman

Artist Charles Goslin of Shawnee would rather talk about history than about himself.

He says that being an artist has a broad

A graduate of the Kansas State Art Institute and a retired Hallmark artist, Goslin says history and art entered his life almost concurrently.

In 1959, Charles Goslin involved himself in Shawnee town history by fighting to preserve one of its historic buildings – the Wagon Master’s House.

Built in the 1850s as a home for the Santa Fe Trail wagon master, Dick Williams, and his Shawnee Indian wife, Margaret, the house was nearly demolished to make parking space for a nearby store.

“I saw this beautiful house being threatened and I made friends with the folks who were threatening it,” Goslin says.

The artist’s friends delayed demolition for eight months while Goslin preserved the home in his paintings and arranged for its stones to be numbered and moved to Shawnee Mission Park. His research on the house uncovered stories about other figures in frontier Shawnee town, beginning a relationship with history that he calls “a romance that I’ve enjoyed all through the years.”

Goslin actively supports Old Shawnee Town, where other historic buildings, moved and rebuilt, preserve the feel of the old frontier town. He brought more of the town’s stories to life in a 90-foot mural at City Hall, which includes Shawnee Indian Chief Blue Jacket and six of Blue Jacket’s 23 children. And Goslin recently was commissioned to sculpt Chief Blue Jacket for Herman Laird Park.

“Because although he wore many hats, the primary thrust of the sculpture is parenting,” says Goslin, who notes that the statue will include two of the chief’s children. “We know from accounts that he took time every day to read to those children and that he counseled them.”

Goslin’s passion for historical heroes enlivens his art, and history, for others. With paintings of historical scenes in the National Frontier Trails Museum, the Hollenberg Station Museum, National Parks Service interpretative sites and in several towns, Goslin shows the world the history he sees behind everyday life.

Story by Rosanne Catalano
Photo by Jim Hagans
Sent by Hal Sherman

The Treaty Picture carved on granite stone.

Tecumseh and the Prophet's Village Marker.

The Anthony Wayne's Council House.

Annie Oakley's statue.

Contributions or gifts to the Shawnee Arts Council for the Blue Jacket Foundation are "Charitable Contributions" deductible to the extent and in the manner provided by the Internal Revenue Code.

Call the Civic Centre at 913/631-5200 for a Blue Jacket Fountain & Sculpture Plaza  Personalized Brick Order Form.  Supplies are limited ORDER TODAY!