A Brief History of Tuscarawas County, Ohio

62 with soap-stone his ‘little hatchet,’ always, however, admonishing him not to return without some good long-haired scalps for wigwam parlor ornaments and chignons, such as were worn by the first class of Indian ladies along the Killbuck. So prominent had she become that the town was named ‘The White Woman’s Town,’ and the river thence to the Muskingum was called in honor of her, ‘The White Woman’s River.’ In 1750, when Christopher Gist w’as on his travels down the valley hunting out the best lands for George Washington’s Virginia Land Company, he stopped some time at White Woman’s Town, and enjoyed its Indian festivities with Mary Harris, who told him her story; how she liked savage warriors; how she preferred Indian to white life, and said the whites were a wicked race and more cruel than the red man. In her wigwam the white woman was the master spirit, and Eagle Feather was ignored; except when going to war. or when she desired to accompany him on his hunting expeditions, or was about to assist at the burning of some poor captive, on which occasions she was. a true squaw to him, and loved him much.

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