Republican Herald

"It is forty-three years since I landed upon the Northern shore of Ohio, a young adventurer seeking the land of promise, which has been to him, as to many others, the land of performance. At that time the Territory of Indiana, of Illinois, of Michigan, and the Territory of Wisconsin formed one government, under the name of the Northwestern Territory. I shall not stop to bring before you the incidents of a frontier life, nor the difficulties and privations, and sufferings, in peace and in war, by which the forest is acquired and reclaimed, and finally subdued. During many years this region had its full share of troubles. This line of your canal was a bloody war path, which has seen many a deed of horror. And this peaceful town has had its Moloch, and the records of human depravity furnish no more terrible examples of cruelty than were offered at his shrine.

The Miami Indians, our predecessors in the occupation of this district, had a fearful institution whose origin and objects have been lost in the darkness of aboriginal history, but which was continued to a late period, and whose orgies were held upon the spot where we now are. It was called the Man-eating Society—and it was the duty of its associates to eat such prisoners as were preserved and delivered to them for that purpose.

The members of this society belonged to a particular family, and the dreadful inheritance descended to all the children, male and female. The duties it imposed could not be avoided, and the sanctions of religion were added to the obligations of immemorial usage. The feast was a solemn ceremony, at which the whole tribe was collected, as actors or spectators. The miserable victim was bound to a stake, and burned at a slow fire, with all the refinements of cruelty which savage ingenuity could invent. There was a traditionary ritual, which regulated with revolting precision the whole course of procedure at these ceremonies. Latterly the authority and obligations of the institution had declined, and I presume it has now wholly disappeared. But I have seen and conversed with the head of the family, the chief of the society, whose name was White Skin. With what feelings of disgust, I need not attempt to describe. I well knew an intelligent Canadian, who was present at one of the last sacrifices made to this horrible institution. The victim was a young American, captured in Kentucky, during the revolutionary war. Here, where we are now assembled, in peace and security, celebrating the triumph of art and industry, within the memory of the present generation, our countrymen have been thus tortured and murdered, and devoured. But, thank God, that council fire is extinguished. The impious feast is over."