Colonel Henry Bouquet in the Tuscarawas River valley 

by Dave Tschantz

   Continued from the April 2002 Camp Tuscazoar Breeze

    In the two-day battle, Bouquet not only defeated the Indians but raised the siege of Ft. Pitt and, in so doing, turned the tide of Pontiac’s War. This ended forever Indian hopes of containing the westward expansion of the American nation.
   After relieving Ft. Pitt, Bouquet improved Ft. Pitt, gathered supplies and prepared for further operations. The blockhouse he built during this period is the only remaining building of that great fort and is preserved in Point State Park in Pittsburgh. He also determined to force a peace treaty on the hostile tribes and set out on October 3, 1764 for the Indian town of Goschgosching, now Coshocton, at the forks of the Muskingum River in Ohio. His army of around 1500 men moved cautiously, setting up defenses at every camp and scouting far and wide around their line of March. Bouquet was likely mindful of the horrors visited upon General Braddock’s army only nine years before. The army’s 13th Encampment was near Bolivar, a half mile south of where Bouquet built a blockhouse for the storage of rations and equipment, which also is thought to have become the site of Ft. Laurens, built 14 years later.
   The site of the army’s encampment from October 15th through the 22nd, 1764, is still visible along the Zoar Valley Trail south of Bolivar. It is the long pasture between the canal and the river near Lock #7. Unfortunately, this area is privately owned, so persons entering into the pasture are trespassing.
   At this encampment, several Indians, including the Delaware chiefs Custaloga and Tamaqua (Beaver), and representatives of the Shawnee and Seneca tribes visited Bouquet. Instead of hosting the parley at his place of encampment, Bouquet built a branch bower, or tent, at a site near present-day Ft. Laurens and met with the Indians there. One of the Indians’ favorite tactics was to enter a camp for the ostensible purpose of peace negotiations and, while there, gather valuable intelligence on the enemy’s defensive positions to plan a later attack. Bouquet wisely insisted that the meeting be held some distance from the army’s position. This meeting was likely held on top of the Indian mound located south of the Ft. Laurens Visitors Center, as that landmark would have been well-known to all the tribes of the area. It was also a very defensible position if the Indians sought to attack Bouquet, as had happened in the past.
   At this meeting, the Delaware delivered 18 white prisoners and promised to deliver 83 more at Coshocton. They signified this by giving Bouquet a bundle of 83 small sticks. They also pledged their willingness to sign a peace treaty. Bouquet warned that treachery would be dealt with sternly and expressed his desire that they follow through on their pledge.
   After several meetings, Bouquet continued his march to Coshocton and there received hundreds of white prisoners, many of whom were reunited with loved ones serving in Bouquet’s army. Many of the prisoners had to be forced to leave their Indian adoptive parents, as they did not want to leave the life they had known in the wilderness.
   In this campaign without a battle, Bouquet gained more fame than in all of his earlier campaigns. Within a year, his exploits were published by the College of Philadelphia and he was awarded the thinks of the Pennsylvania Assembly. He also figures prominently in I.W. Delp’s historical work about Camp Tuscazoar and its environs: Tuscazoar and Tales of the Tuscarawas.
   About the middle of 1765, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General and transferred to Florida for new duties. He arrived at Pensacola in August, contracted yellow fever, and died on September 2, 1765.