Eskippakithiki, The Last Indian Town in Kentucky - The Filson ...

Vol. 6 ] The Filson Club History Quarterly 381
The Shawnee name Eskippakithiki being all but impossible to
Anglo-Saxon tongues, was early forgotten, but "Kentucky," the
Iroquoian name for the same place, being delightfully easy to pronounce,
has lived on as the name of our State.
i Eskippakithiki is called the last Indian town in Kentucky with a full realization
that during the whole life of the Lower Shawnee Town on the north bank of the
Ohio, at the mouth of the Seioto there were cabins w th their Indian residents
upon the opposite south bank of t e Ohio. Christopher Gist built a cabin on the
south side in 1751; and a trading company consisting of Colonel George Croghan
William Trent, Robert Calendar, and Michael Teaft had a store there in 1754, at the
time the French and Indian outbreak drove the English traders out of the Ohio
Valle r, but these cabins.never constituted an organized town; they were but an
outlying part of the town on the north bank of the Ohio, where their residents
exercised their rights of citizenship. It would be impossible to separate thehistory
of the few Kentucky cabins on the south bank from the history of the main
Lower Shawnee Town opposite them on the north shore of the Ohio.
2 In the course of their troubled history the Shawnees were driven at various
times by Iroquois, Miamis, Catawbas, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Natchez, South
Carolinians, Pennsylvanians, Virginians, the British government, Kentuckians, and
the United States forces; and they have fled for protection to the Siouans. Yuchis,
French, Chickasaws, Cherokees Creeks Spanl sh, South Carolinians, Natchez
Mohicans, New Yorkers, Delawares Pennsylvanians, Six Nations, and the British
in Canada, yet at the close of their active career they were our most valiant Indian
foes.
s Franquelin's map of 1688. See Narrative and Critical History of America, Justin
Winsor, Vol. IV, pp. 230-231.
4 On November 12, 1755, Colonel George Croghan wrote James Hamilton, "the
Six Nations, while they stand neuter . . . have already settled some of the Upper
Cherokees on Kentucky, a creek near the Lower Shawnee Town." This reference is
mystifying. It is possible that, when the Shawnees left Kentucky, the Six Nations
induced some Overhill Cherokees to move into Kentucky, possibly into the deserted
houses and abandoned cornfields of the Shawnees at our village, thus holding the
land against the French, whose dominion the Six Nations did not wish extended, but
nothing else about this is definitely known. Possibly it was a Six Nations' tale to
please .the British• Possibly, also, Colonel Croghan was mistaken, as about this
time he wrote another letter in which he mentions the Hoiston as a head stream of
the Kentucky River a mistake that can be seen in nearly all of the early maps, and
the settlement mentioned by him may have been merely one of the Hoiston Cherokee
towns. In their sale to the Transylvania Company the Cherokees made no claim
to any country north of the Kentucky River.
* See Ludwell Papers in the archives of the Virginia Historical Society published
by D. I. Bushnell, Jr., in American Anthropologist, new seriesj Vol. X No. 4 pp.
568 574.
7 Catahecassa was one of the greatest leaders the Shawnees produced during the
period of their greatest activity. He was present at Braddoek's defeat, in 1755j
where he says he shot at Washington many times, but, being unable to hit him, decided
that he bore a charmed life. He was at Point Pleasant in 1774, as a prominent
officer on the Indian side. He was one of the head chiefs at Harmar's andSt. C air s
defeats and at Wayne's victory. After this last he ceased to struggle against the
whites, deeming it hopeless. He was a well versed historian, courageous leader,
and a persuasive orator. As head chief of the Shawnees he kept most of them from
followm" g Tecumseh to the British in the War of 1812. He died at Wapakoneta, Ohio,
in 1831. For a sketch of his life see Handbook of American Indians, Vol. 1, p. 212,'
and Vol. II, p. 535.
* Historical CoUectious of Louisiana and Florida, New Series, p. 123.
• * Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, Historical Magazine, 1866, Vol. X, p. 1.
1o The Wilderness Trail, Charles A. Hanna, in two vohunes, 1911, Vol. II, p. 130.
1 Enumeration of the Indian tribes connected with the government of Canada.
(1736.) The authorship of this has been ascribed to Joncairep Chauirguiere, and
Celoron Jr.