Two Moons
© By Abraham Lincoln

“With nearer tinkle through the dust of long ago Creep the Pennsylvania wagons up the twilight—white and slow.”

There were bands of Shawnees, Delawares, Munseys, Pottawatomies, Kickapoos, Miamis and Seneccas in and around this area. Among them was the small band whose chief was named, “Two Moons.” They had been peaceful and were trusted but the continued influx of settlers accounted for random killings.

Two Moons lived just east of West Senora, Ohio along the banks of a small stream; a tributary of “Miller’s Fork” today, but the Indians never called it by that name. 

I have been there and tried to imagine how Two Moon’s village looked on the hill. The village was not large, numbering less than 100 people. Two Moons had a wife and two children. The people in his village were mostly Delaware and Pottawatomie. Stealing a wife or trading horses for a wife accounted for the different tribes in camp. 

Richard Robbins, from Randolph County, North Carolina, crossed the Kis-ke-ba-la-se-be River, or La Belle Riviera (Beautiful Ohio River) and journeyed north into Indian Country. 

The Stillwater River was a mecca for settlers but Robbins moved and became a resident of Twin Township in 1815 — west of the trading post at Ithaca, Ohio.

The land was filled with wild animals, and wolf packs were feared more than bear or catamount. It was difficult to have cows, pigs and chickens because wolves or bears would crash through pens and steal bawling animals. Sometimes, in the dead of winter when deer and other wildlife were hard to find, Indians would steal anything they could eat. 

Two Moon’s band killed men, women and children, and did so to protect their homes from the settlers. They regarded settlers as terrorists, who murdered without mercy – killing Indians so they could steal the land Indians had lived on for generations. 
Two Moons often journeyed to John Colville’s trading post at Ithaca, Ohio. Two Moons coveted a fine rifle there and lovingly stroked it the last time he was at the trading post. He wanted it and asked how much it would take to buy it for himself. 

John Colville’s half-breed helper stuck both hands up with fingers and thumbs fully extended. It would take ten fine deerskins or that many black-woods buffalo hides. An astonishing price he would pay off in deerskins as subtle as felt, chewed by his wife and mother-in-law — they were soft and pliable.

Two Moons was looking for something different he could trade for the rifle. He was around Robbin’s cabin. Robbins was feeding his pigs when he heard the sharp report of a flintlock rifle and looked up to see an Indian (Two Moons) slowly slide his body behind a large sycamore tree.  

Though he charged and threatened to kill the man who had shot at him, Two Moons steadfastly denied it. 

Richard Robbins, one of the first settlers in Twin Township, died in 1824, after an attack of measles. All of the local Indians, including Two Moons and his family walked away from their home on the hill. Nobody ever saw them again.