Project provides honest story about Native Americans
Newcomerstown Historical Society members Harley Dakin, left, and John Ourant with a sign that details some of the Lenape history of Newcomerstown outside of the Temperance Tavern Museum.
There is a small Woody Hayes connection to the new Lenape Diaspora Memorial, which will be erected in Newcomerstown to honor the Lenape (Delaware) people and recognize the struggles they went through when they were displaced from their homelands.
The members of the Newcomerstown Historical Society met sculptor Alan Cottrill of Zanesville when they placed a bronze statue of Hayes, created by Cottrill, at the site of the Temperance Tavern Museum and the Olde Main Street Museum in 2018.
They soon learned of a new project Cottrill had planned to honor the Lenape people, which was to be placed in Zanesville. Upon learning that the namesake of Newcomerstown, Lenape Chief Netawatawees, who was known as “The Newcomer,” was one of the planned six figures, the members of the NHS asked about moving the project to Newcomerstown. They also received the support of the Delaware Tribe of Indians for the project.
Newcomerstown was once the site of the Lenape village, Gekelmukpechunk, which was later named in honor of Chief Netawatawees.
It was Netawatawees that invited Moravian missionary David Zeisberger to establish Moravian missions near the village. Zeisberger later established Schoenbrunn and Gnadenhutten in 1772.
The Lenape Diaspora Memorial project consists of six 7-foot-high bronze figures of the same family over six generations. It also will have plaques installed to help tell the story. Diaspora is the dispersion from one’s original homeland.
Cottrill, a descendant of the Lenape people, has already started working on the full-sized sculpture of Netawatawees.
“As a young boy, I had heard that (an ancestor had) married an Indian princess,” Cottrill said.
About four years ago, he was doing some genealogical research and found his great, great, great grandfather, a White man named John Schoolcraft, had married Miatoka Nyeswanon, the daughter of Bemino, who is believed to be the son of Netawatawees.
Cottrill had always had an interest in Native American culture that began as a child.
“I read every book I could find,” Cottrill said. He also spent hours looking for arrowheads in newly plowed fields.
When he began to research Miatoka Nyeswanon’s ancestors, Cottrill was surprised to find they were important historic figures.
The memorial sculptures will begin with Chief Tamanend, 1625-1701, who is displayed proudly holding aloft one of the many peace treaties he signed with William Penn that did indeed provide years of peaceful coexistence between Whites and the Lenape. Tammany Hall is named in his honor. The Tammany Society was formed in Philadelphia in 1772, and Tammany Festivals have been held from that date to the present day. Statues honoring Tamanend exist in Philadelphia, New York City and the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
The next sculpture is of Chief Nutimus, 1650-1756, son-in-law of Tamanend. He is shown in a distressed state after the realization of how much land he had given away by signing the Walking Purchase Treaty in 1735.
The namesake of Newcomerstown is the next sculpture, Chief Netawatawees, 1686-1776, the son of Nutimus. Netawatawees was recognized by the Whites as the head chief of all the Lenape. A wise counselor, he signed many treaties with the Whites and moved his tribe to Gekelmukpechunk, which was later named Newcomerstown in his honor in Eastern Ohio in 1759. Netawatawees is in a pose representative of his “wise counselor” moniker.
The next figure will be of Bemino, John Killbuck, Sr., 1704-79, son or nephew of Netawatawees. Bemino was a medicine man and war chief of both the Lenape and Shawnee, leading them in many major battles during the French and Indian War, 1754-63. As a counter point to Netawatawees, Bemino is in a war-making pose. He represents all Native Americans who chose to fight back over the taking of their ancestral homeland and the often-forced relocations of entire tribes.
The fifth figure is Cottrill’s great, great, great grandmother, Miatoka Nyeswanon, 1740-79. She is the daughter of Bemino. She married a White man named John Schoolcraft in 1760, and the couple had 14 children.
During the American Revolution in 1779 and 1781, there were three Indian raids on the Schoolcraft farm during which Miatoka and nine of her children were killed, and the other five were captured. Miatoka is shown in an anguished pose, during the raid, in which she reaches out for her son Jacob.
The final figure is Jacob Schoolcraft, 1761-1850, son of Miatoka Nyeswanon, who was captured by Indians — tribe unknown — in 1779 in what is now North Central West Virginia, and he was assimilated into the tribe. After five years he and his brother Andrew escaped and were reunited with their father. Two of the captured brothers never left the tribe.
Jacob is depicted as he tries to escape the attackers, prior to his capture, and is reaching back toward his mother. Jacob is representative of the Lenape tribe today, insofar as most if not all Lenape are now of mixed-race heritage.
“I've always felt a deep connection to the plight of the American Indian, and I realized that telling the story of this family is telling the story of all the native tribes,” Cottrill said, “down to the last figure that I represent, which is half Native American and half European. And that's what has happened to almost all the native tribes. There's very few full-blooded American Indians.”
The memorial will reach much farther than the village of Newcomerstown.
“I think it has national significance, especially at this moment in history when so many of the Confederate statues and slaveholder statues are coming down. We're putting one up representing the oppressed people,” Cottrill said.
The project will cost more than $500,000 to complete, and the NHS has already received some donations. With the help of Cottrill and Rob Guentter of AFG Associates, they also hope to apply for some grants to help defray the costs.
Cottrill and the NHS hope to place the first figure in the memorial, Netawatawees, sometime this fall if enough funding is secured to cover the installation.
Making bronze statues is a long process. Cottrill first started by making maquettes of each figure at 22% scale of its final 7-foot-tall size. From the initial consultation to finished project, there are 26 steps needed to create a sculpture.
“I'll be so proud to get it done and have it at Newcomerstown,” Cottrill said.
New members are always welcome at the Newcomerstown Historical Society, which is an all-volunteer organization. The group meets the second Wednesday of each month at 5 p.m. They also will host some fundraisers for the memorial.
“We're in the planning stages for that right now. We’re trying to recruit volunteers, and there’s been discussions about several different opportunities to raise money,” Harley Dakin of the NHS said.
Donations for the Lenape Diaspora Memorial can be made to the Newcomerstown Historical Society. Add Account #8454 on the check note line and mail to Park National Bank, 220 E. State St., Newcomerstown, OH 43832.
The Newcomerstown Historical Society is a nonprofit organization.