Knight took up the narrative: Burning of Crawford (Wyandot Historical Society) Having suffered beatings since his capture, Crawford was to burn at the stake. By the 10th, it was clear Crawford would suffer a similar, albeit more gruesome, fate. Along the way, they encountered other militia from the expedition, many of whom are killed on the way back to the Sandusky.
The Delaware returned them to the Sandusky, heading for a settlement near Tymochtee Creek a few miles from the battlefield and north of today’s Upper Sandusky. On June 7, Delaware Indians caught Crawford and his party en route. He linked up with a small party and eventually started eastward, bound for the Ohio. On the night of June 5/6, a planned withdrawal turned into a rout and Crawford was separated from his command. As they grew weaker, the Native Americans-largely from the Wyandot, Delaware, and Shawnee nations-grew stronger. The fighting lasted two days with no clear conclusion, but things did not bode well for the militia. What became known as Crawford’s Expedition set out from the Ohio River on May 25, finally meeting significant Indian resistance on the Sandusky River on June 4, near the modern town of Upper Sandusky. (Crawford had taken no part in the Gnadenhutten Massacre). After the militia massacred defenseless Christian Indians at Gnadenhutten in March, Brigadier General William Irvine, the Continental Commander at Pittsburgh, arranged for Colonel Crawford to lead the inevitable militia expedition, likely in hopes that Crawford could prevent a repeat. By the spring of 1782, they could not be restrained. Their goal was to retaliate for Indian raids across the Ohio and spoil future raids. For years, settlers in the Ohio Valley had agitated for punitive raid against the Ohio Tribes along the Sandusky River in today’s northwestern Ohio. Sidelined during the war’s last years, he commanded local Pennsylvania militia and was largely retired by 1782. A veteran of frontier conflicts, during the Revolution he had served as the Lieutenant Colonel of the 5 th Virginia Regiment, commanded the 7 th Virginia in the east, and then returned to the Pittsburgh area to raise the 13 th Virginia.
Crawford at about 40, twenty years before his execution (Wikimedia Commons)īorn in 1722, Crawford was a long-time business partner of George Washington, particularly in the acquisition of land in the Ohio River valley. It was a vicious execution, but not unheard of in the wars on the American frontier, where violence and brutality from both sides were common. John Knight’s account of the torture and execution of Colonel William Crawford by members of the Delaware Indian tribe in 1782.
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