158 TEE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



DEATH OF RED JACKET. 



January 20, 1830. 



The following account of his death is from Miss Johnson's " Iroquois, 

 or Bright Side of Indian Character," 1855, page 198 : 



The wife and daughter were the only ones to whom he spoke parting words or gave 

 a parting blessing, but as his last hour drew uigh his family all gathered around him, 

 and mournful it was to think that the children were not his own (his were all sleep- 

 ing in the little churchyard where he was soon to be laid) ; they were his step- children, 

 the children of his beloved wife. 



So there were none around his dying bed but step-children. These he had always 

 loved and cherished, and they loved and honored him, for this their mother had 

 taught them. The wife sat by his pillow and rested her hand upon his head. At his 

 feet stood the two sons [Henry and Daniel Two Guns]. 



1830 to 1878.* 



About 4 miles from the city of Buffalo, on what was the Buffalo Creek Reservation, 

 may be found the old Indian burial-ground. This little spot, consecrated as the last 

 resting place of many of the chiefs and headmen of the Senecas, occupied the site of an 

 ancient Indian fort. In 1842 the line of the intrenchments could be distinctly traced, 

 especially on the west and south. A little to the north of the principal entrance was 

 the grave of the celebrated chief Red Jacket, so long the faithful friend and protector 

 of his people against encroachments of the whites, and still, as we might imagine, the 

 watchful sentinel, solemnly guarding this little spot, where so many of his chosen 

 friends recline around him, from the desecrating touch of the race whom he had so 

 much reason to fear and hate. 



No stones marked the graves of these primitive nobles, but while the tribe still re- 

 sided on the Buffalo Creek Reservation the graves of Red Jacket, Young King, Little 

 Billy, Destroy Town, Twenty Canoes, Two Guns, Captain Pollard, John Suow, Old 

 Whitechief, and others were pointed out to the curious traveler. — Mrs. Asher Wright. 



For portrait and biography of Bed Jacket, see page 1, vol. 1, Mc- 

 Kenney & Hall. 



Red Jacket is therein noted as having been born in 1756, at Old Cas- 

 tle, on Seneca Lake, Ontario County, New York. 



His name is given as " Sa-go-you-wat-ha," or the u Keeper Awake." 

 He is costumed in a blue coat, as painted by Charles B. King at Wash- 

 ington, in 1818. 



Also see "The Life and Times of Bed Jacket, or Sa-go-ye-wat-ha, 

 being the sequel to the History of the Six Nations, by Col. William L. 

 Stone, 1811." 



HOW RED JACKET'S REMAINS WERE LOST AND RECOVERED. 



William C. Bryant, esq., of Buffalo, answering a letter of inquiry from 

 General Ely S. Parker, of New York City, of May 8, l8S<k, gives the 

 following valuable information as to the loss and recovery of Red 

 Jacket's remains : 



* Henry Placide, the eminent comedian, some thirty-five years ago, or in 1849, caused a marble slab, 

 •with a brief and suitable inscription, to be placed at the head of Eed Jacket's grave. Relic hunters 

 and other vandals mutilated and chipped it away in a pitiless manner. What they left of it is now 

 (1885) deposited in the rooms of the Buffalo Historical Society, at Buffalo, N. Y.— T. D. 





