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The Wilderness Trail

stand from Post's description of the approach to Old Kuskuskies, why it should be a favored spot of residence for the red man. On the 20th of November, Post speaks of attending a Council with the Delawares in "the middle town" of the Kuskuskies.

Thomas Hutchins, in his Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina, writes of Beaver Creek that "at Kishkuskes (about fifteen miles up) are two branches of this Creek, which spread opposite ways; one [Shenango] interlocks with French Creek and Cherage [the Grand River, in Ohio]   the other [Mahoning], with Muskingum and Cayahoga; on this Branch, about thirty-five miles above the Forks are many Salt Springs. It is practicable with canoes about twenty miles farther."

General William Irvine, who made a survey of Western Pennsylvania in the summer of 1785, writes of the Beaver Valley: "From where McLane's Line strikes the . . . Beaver, I continued exploring the country up the several western branches of the Beaver, viz., the most westerly, and two branches denominated the Shenango. The distance from the above named line to an old Moravian Town is three or four miles; from thence to Shenango, two and a half miles; thence to a Fork, or second Branch [Neshannock]; two miles; from the mouth of Shenango to Cuscuskey on the West Branch [Mahoning] is six or sever! miles; but it was formerly all called Cuscuskey by the natives along this Branch, as high as the Salt Springs, which is twenty-five miles from the mouth of Shenango."

Another Kuskuskies town, perhaps, was the one called Mahoning on Hutchins's map of 1764. This is supposed to have been located at or near where the city of Youngstown, Ohio, now stands. John McCullough, a captive among the Indians at Sauconk at the mouth of the Beaver, after 1755, writes in his Narrative, that at about the time Forbes occupied Fort Duquesne, the Indians to whom McCullough belonged removed from Shenango (or from Logstown) to the Salt Licks, on the West Branch of the Beaver, "where they were settling a new town, called Kseek-heoong, or Salt Licks"; and from thence, the following spring they removed to a town about fifteen miles farther up, called Mahoning. This latter town is probably the same as that shown as "Old Mahoning Town" on Heckewelder's map of 1796. It was located on the west bank of the Mahoning, near the boundary line between the present counties of Trumbull and Mahoning   probably on or near the site of Newton Falls. After the battle of Bushy Run, in August, 1763, John McCullough's master took him from Mahoning to "Caya-hawge, a town not far distant from Lake Erie." Hutchins's " Mahoning Town " is located by him as being below the Salt Lick Town.

General William Irvine wrote to Washington, January 27, 1788,