Webmaster Note - Godfroy, not Godfrey is the accepted spelling of the chief's name.
The husband of Frances Slocum was known as "Deaf Man". He was very old, and it became necessary to elect a successor to him for the office of war chief of the Miamis. During the election, one old Indian resented a suggestion made by Francois Godfrey at whose trading post the meeting was held, and in anger, he struck Godfrey. In the quick and decisive manner in which Godfrey handled the critic, the assembled Indians at once made him their warchief.
At his home in the trading post, it is said every Indian chief of note at this time had smoked the pipe with Godfrey. He could neither read nor write, but kept an interpreter at all times. For his children, he bulit a school and a church and hired teachers for them, as he wished them to be as "polished" as his French ancestors had been. In faith the Godfreys were Catholics.
The interpreter at the famous Treaty of Greenville (1796) was a white man named Cole. When a child he had been taken from his family in Kentucky by the Shawnee Indians, and adopted into that tribe. He married an Indian woman and one of his clan became the wife of Chief Francois Godfrey. She could speak the language of several tribes, and was accomplished in all the arts of Indian women. For many years the wife lived on "the Godfrey farm" in Blackford County, where she had all the luxuries that the wealth of Francois Godfrey could supply.
Her sister, Elizabeth, married White Wolf, a quarrelsome Indian, who hated all white men, and whose knife and arrows and tomahawks had done deadly work. His home was near that of the chief. To the settlers, his wife was known as "Aunt Betsy White Wolf". (**White Wolf went west with his people on their last voyage)
The Indian name of the Chief's wife was Sac-ca-qua-tah. Francois Godfrey had a young wife at his home at Mount Pleasant. The two wives were good friends, and there were children in both homes.
Gabriel Godfrey, who became the most famous of all the Chief's children, was born on the Godfrey Reserve. He became a fine orator and delivered the dedicatory address at Battleground, Layfayette. One of his wives was a granddaughter of Francis Slocum.
The Godfrey farm or reservation in Blackford County contained six sections, Harrison Township and 344 acres of this was in Jay County, sections 17-20. Miami Indians under the rule of Francois Godfrey were living on this farm for eighteen years before the first white settlers came to live in the vicinity.
A small reserve on Butternut Creek, near the present city of Portland, Jay County was also owned by Chief Godfrey. This place was used by Indians for "still-hunting" deer. The Indians rowed their pirogues or hollow log canoes from the Godfrey farm to the place up on the Butternut, and in journeying along this river, they noticed a profusion of yellow flowers along the banks and in the woods. They called these Sal-i-mo-ne, which is Indian for "yellow flower". Thus the river became known as the Salamonie.
(**In "still-hunting" deer, the Indians attracted the deer by torchlights which reflected in the water) Continue