There is a story in our county that contends a Delaware Indian chief by the name of Captain Pipe lived in a village along Pipe Creek south of Orestes.
Is it fact or fiction?
In 1897, “Historical Sketches and Reminiscences of Madison County, Indiana” was published by John L. Forkner and Byron H. Dyson.
In their work, the authors made the following statement: “Capt. Pipe was either afterward (referring to the 1789 treaty made at Fort Hammer upon which Pipe made his mark) a resident of what is now Madison County, or an immediate descendant of one of the same name who resided here as the stream. Pipe creek, took its name from a chief of that tribe (Delaware) known as Captain Pipe.”
Forkner repeated the claim in his “History of Madison County Indiana” published in 1914 when he said, “Among the Delaware chiefs that signed this treaty was Captain Pipe, either the one who afterward lived in Madison County or an immediate ancestor.”
Absent another explanation for the origin of the naming of Pipe Creek, it is certainly likely that the famous chief’s name was used when the stream was named by the first settlers. Killbuck Creek is another local example of using the name of a famous Delaware Indian chief.
History records there were two Delaware Indians who went by this name but fails to establish any connection between them. The first was quite famous.
Historians believe he was born about 1740 in Pennsylvania. The real name of Captain Pipe was Konieschquanoheel (which translates to “Maker of Daylight.”) His nickname was Hopocan meaning “tobacco pipe” hence his historical name of Captain Pipe. His uncle was Chief Custaloga, whom he succeeded as Chief about 1773.
At Greenville signing
During the American Revolution, Captain Pipe first tried to remain neutral to both the British and the Americans. The Americans pushed Captain Pipe solidly to England’s side in 1781, when Col. Daniel Brodhead attacked and destroyed his village. Captain Pipe became the leader of those natives who supported the British and moved his people to the Tymochtee Creek near the Sandusky River in the Ohio Territory. This village was known as “Pipe’s Town,” located near the village of Crawford in Wyandot County. He spent the remainder of the war trying to thwart American expansion into the Ohio Country.
Following the Revolution, Captain Pipe continued to resist the settlement of the Ohio Country. By the 1810s and 1820s, Captain Pipe realized his people had little chance against the Americans and began to negotiate treaties. The settlers violated these agreements, moving onto land set aside for the Delaware.
When young, he was a great warrior, and the unbending foe of the whites. He was in St. Clair’s defeat, where, according to his own account, he distinguished himself, and “slaughtered white men until his arm was weary with the work.”
In the 1794 campaign of General Anthony Wayne, Captain Pipe was one of his bitterest foes. Historians believe he was engaged in the battle of Fallen Timbers, and was even present at the treaty of Greenville in 1795. His name is not attached to that treaty because Captain Pipe was in disgrace. He had betrayed his friendship for the United States; brought ruin upon his people by his alliance with Little Turtle and other leaders in that war. The Delaware were left in a state of anarchy. They had warred against the United States by the advice and aid of Captain Pipe, resulting in ruin and disorganization. Captain Pipe, with a few of his friends, skulked away.
Captain Pipe is well known in early Ohio history. The north central part of the state has numerous historical references to him and the places he lived.
In 1911, the town of Barberton, Ohio erected a statue of him. The sculpture commemorates Chief Konieschquanoheel of the Delaware Indians, and is located where the tribe established their camp after they were driven from the banks of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania.
History records that Captain Pipe lived on the upper branches of the Mohican River in Ohio during at least two periods of time. The first was sometime between 1793 and 1795, when he kept his wigwam at the village known as Jerometown, about a mile southwest of the present site of Jeromeville. He is also reported living there from 1809 to 1812. It was during the spring of 1812 when he and most of his people quietly disappeared from that locality and never returned.
Meeting William Conner
I found a reference to Captain Pipe taken from the Conner papers that places him for a brief period in Indiana. In December 1823, Charles C. Trowbridge visited William Conner at his home south of Noblesville. He spent three months at Conner’s home with Capt. Pipe, an intelligent Delaware chief, daily occupied in researches into the manners, customs and dialect of his tribe.
The noted Delaware Indian historian C.A. Weslager also wrote of this meeting: “Charles C. Trowbridge was engaged in 1823 by General Lewis Cass, governor of the Michigan Territory, to investigate the Indians. In the winter of 1823, Trowbridge visited the home of William Conner on the White River in Indiana, and during the ensuing three months obtained information from Delaware Indian informants, including the aged Captain Pipe, who came from Sandusky, Ohio to converse with Trowbridge.”
Other than the above reference to his Indiana visit, there is no evidence that places Captain Pipe in Madison County. In fact, one Madison County historian, Samuel Harden, who preceded Forkner and Dyson, does not mention him at all; a strong argument that the famous old warrior was not here as Harden wrote extensively about what was shared with him by those who first settled here and they certainly would have known if Captain Pipe had lived here.
The second Captain Pipe died in Kansas about 1840. He has been described as a man of fine natural abilities, good natured and genial in disposition, and popular with his people. He too lived in Ohio before moving west.
We know the Delaware Indians who lived in Indiana were forced to leave here by the terms of the Treaty of St. Mary’s in 1818. Captain Pipe is not among the 18 Delaware chiefs who signed the treaty.
From what is known it appears the old story about Captain Pipe living on Pipe Creek in Madison County is nothing more than a myth. However, as with all history there are things yet to be discovered.
For more information visit the Madison County History Center, 15 W. 11th St., Anderson, Monday-Wednesday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Phone 683-0052.
