Too Sick to Celebrate & Murder Near Ft. Amanda

 

Sunday the 4^th July 18  This being Cool & pleasant with A fine Breeze of wind at about, W. made our situation quite comfortable to what it had been for some days past.

Normally the men at Ft. Amanda would have been celebrating this special day with patriotic speeches, the firing a cannon and muskets, and an extra ration of rum.  Such was not the case.  There were so many sick with measles and other ailments that Schillinger wrote; “Our men many of them sick prevented us from Celebrating the Day in the usual way,”

Journal Entry July 4, 1813

 Not wanting to miss out on all the fun, Capt. Benaugh, decided to St. Marys to join in on the festivities there.  

Authors note:

Captain Benaugh was George R. Benaugh wagon master for the company.  As wagon master it was his job to oversee the transportation of supplies between Ft. Amanda and the other posts.  This was his second tour of duty.  He had previously served as a Lieutenant under Captain Thompson Ward during construction Phase I.   

 Monday the 5^th                                                   This morning Cool & Pleasant

While some of the men were recovering from things like the flu, colds, etc., Schillinger noted that several were still quite ill with the measles.   Around 11 o’clock that morning, an Army courier named Kerchard arrived at the fort with word that the siege of Ft. Meigs was over and all the British and the Indians had left the area.  This proved to be wishful thinking as while the British and their allies had indeed abandoned the siege, they weren’t finished yet. 

Capt. Benaugh left St. Marys that morning in company with 46 year old Dr. Jacob Lewis who was on his way to Amanda to tend to the sick there.

Tuesday the 6^th July                                 Fine Pleasant weather

Early that morning, the cook of Schillinger’s mess group went out hunting and killed a fawn.  He brought it back to the fort and shared it with some of the other men in the company.  Around noon, General Wingate and his staff came to the fort.  Doctor Lewis, his work done, left Amanda a short time later.

Be More Careful!

Wednesday the 7^th                                                  Pleasant weather

At 9 o’clock that morning, General Wingate and his staff left Amanda to return to St. Marys. 

Shortly before noon, 6 ox teams pulling carts arrived at the Amanda on their way to Ft. Jennings to pick up Indian goods.  As one of the teams was passing through the new southwest gate, one of the wheels on the cart hit the gates framework and broke an axle.   Schillinger assigned a carpenter to repair the damage. 

Capt. Hosbrook was feeling somewhat better that day but as several of the other men were still very sick so very little work was done around the fort.

Thursday the 8^th 1813                                Clear & warm

With the axle on the ox cart repaired Sgt. Bradbury, Isaac Covalt and 12 other men were sent along to escort the ox teams 17 miles to Ft. Jennings. They drew provisions and ammunition and left around 2 o’clock that afternoon.  If they traveled an average of 3 mph, the trip would have taken them approximately 6 hours meaning they would have arrived at Ft. Jennings around sunset which on the 8^th of July 1813 was 8:30 pm.

Murders

Friday the 9^th                                                                                   Fine weather

Private Leo Tiberghein finally returned to Amanda.  He had been home on leave for nearly four months.  He brought a letter from Schillinger’s wife informing him that tall was well at home.

A soldier in the company who’d been at St. Marys returned to the fort bringing news that a white man had been “tomahawked & scalped” two miles from St. Mary’s.  As it turns out, the story was only partially true.  The murder had indeed taken place near St. Marys but the incident happened in the fall the year before and the victim was the Indian, not the white man. 

Unbeknownst to anyone, a second murder had just taken place between Ft. Amanda and Wapakoneta involving a white man and an Indian and this time the victim was the white man, the same white man who murdered the Indian near St. Marys the year before.

Authors note:
Scalping was done by using a knife and cutting a through the top of the scalp. Grabbing the hair and pulling with a quick jerk created a "popping noise."
As you can see by the pictures above, scalping didn't necessarily kill an individual as seen in the pictures of two of 2 survivors of a scalping.  It was not uncommon for survivors to live a full life after being scalped.  And before anyone is quick to judge the Native Americans for the practice, first criticize the Dutch as they were the first to introduce scalping to the natives.  The purpose was to provide physical evidence that they were "on the job." 

Demands were made of the Indian leaders in Wapakoneta that the murderer be turned over to authorities at Fort Amanda.  When they refused, the incident set off a firestorm of threats and challenges that soon became a very serious situation.