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Which Chief Logan...or both?

On the original plat filed in the Fairfield County Courthouse on August 7th 1816, Thomas Worthington named his property the Town of Logan.  It is widely believed that he named the town for an Indian chief who was known by the English name of Logan, and that this person was Chief Logan of the Mingo Indians, author of Logan's Lament, made most famous by Thomas Jefferson in his Notes on the State of Virginia.

However, the Mingo Chief Logan was not the only notable Indian who was known by the English name Logan.  There was another who might have been better known in Ohio in 1816, and who had personal ties to Thomas Worthington.
Spemicalawba was a Shawnee.  In the fall of 1786 at the age of 12 he was captured at Machachack (near present day West Liberty in Logan County, Ohio) by forces under Col. Benjamin Logan.  By all accounts he lived in Col. Logan's home in Kentucky and went to school with other children of the household.  Col. Logan gave him the name John Logan.  Some months or years later, he and other Indians captured by the Kentuckians were exchanged for settlers who had been captured by the Shawnee.

Over time he became a civil chief of the Machachac tribe of the Shawnees, married a Shawnee who had also been captured and spent time living among the settlers.  They lived mostly at Wapakoneta, Ohio.

As the War of 1812 approached he is said to have argued in tribal councils — or personally with Tecumseh — against the Shawnee aligning themselves with the British. When the war came Spemicalawba sided with the Americans.

On June 18th 1812 the U.S. declared war on Britain.  Congress adjourned on July 6th, not to reconvene until November 2nd.  In the first week of September Senator Worthington, who was also Ohio's Adjutant General, led a small party of soldiers and Indians to the vicinity of Fort Wayne, which was then under siege by Potawatomi and Miami Indians allied with the British.  Worthington's party included Major William Oliver and Captain Johnny Logan (Spemicalawba).  Oliver and Logan, but probably not Worthington, advanced to the besieged fort, entered it through a side gate, reassured the fort's defenders that help would be forthcoming, and upon leaving the fort were pursued by some of the besieging Indians, whom they eluded without injury.

On November 22nd 1812 forces under General William Henry Harrison were advancing toward the Rapids of the Maumee River in preparation for establishing what would soon be called Fort Meigs.  Captain Logan (Spemicalawba) led a small party scouting the area in advance of the left wing of these forces, commanded by General James Winchester.  The group was briefly captured by a group of Potawatomi Indians and British soldiers.  During their escape, they killed four of the enemy, but Logan was mortally shot.  He died three days later.


References (with remarks), Notes and Questions:

Thomas Worthington's daughter Sarah, late in life, wrote a memoir of her father. In this book, remembering the first year of the War of 1812, when she was 12 or 13 years old, she wrote: "During the disastrous summer of 1813...Fort Meigs held out with great gallantry, but reports reached us that the want of provisions might oblige its garrison to yield.  My father, with his usual forgetfulness of all personal considerations, resolved at all hazards to communicate with the beleaguered forces.  From prudential reasons, he concealed the design he had formed from all except the individuals he had engaged in this dangerous service.  These were his brave and tried friends, Major William Oliver and a friendly Indian named Logan, who was bound to him by former obligations.  Accompanied by these two men, and all disguised as Indians, they lurked around the fort until he had contrived to throw into it a letter carefully wrapped around an arrow, which gave assurance of speedy relief, and infused new courage into the hearts of the dispirited troops."  For the title of the book (a privately published limited edition, a copy of which is in the Archives/Library of the Ohio Historical Society), and the full 3-page paragraph from which this quote is taken, click here.
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Remarks:  The central element of this narrative for this inquiry — that Worthington with the help of "a friendly Indian named Logan" who was already known to Worthington approached a fort then under siege by the British and their Indian allies and succeeded in reassuring them that help was coming — seems to be supported by other evidence.
However, many of the details in this narrative surrounding this central element fit together diferently than presented in the narrative.  Fort Meigs was under siege from April 28th to May 9th 1813, but by then Logan was dead.  [The 12th Congress adjourned on March 3rd and the 13th Congress did not convene until May 24th.  There does not seem to be any indication in Worthington's Biography of his whereabouts during April and May.  His diary might answer this question.]  Logan's association with Ft. Meigs was that he was scouting ahead of the troops who were on their way to erect Ft. Meigs when he was killed.  Apparently it was Ft. Wayne, under siege in August and September of 1812 that Worthington, Oliver and Logan came to support.  No other version of the story includes a note attached to an arrow shot into the fort.  The common version seems more dramatic, with the three as part of a party of about 16 establishing a base camp near the fort and then a smaller party of perhaps 5, including Logan and Oliver, but not Worthington, riding into the besieged fort undetected by the enemy, conferring with the fort's commanders and then briefly encountering enemy Indians as they left the fort.
The description of Logan as an Indian "who was bound to [Worthington] by former obligations" may relate to Worthington's work with the Quakers to help the Indians, since Wapakoneta, where Logan's family lived, was one of the Shawnee settlements where the Quakers were active.  [Searches of the records of several Friends Meetings might find correspondence from Worthington or other useful information.]
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Thomas Worthington: Father of Ohio Statehood places Worthington in the area of Fort Wayne early in September and most details seem consistent with the scenario detailed at the top of the page.  There is no mention of Logan or Oliver or of a foray by elements of his party into the fort.  There are these details: "On the first of September, Worthington, with eight other whites dressed as Indians, set out with seven Indian guides to explore the country adjacent to Fort Wayne.  They had covered thirty miles in two days without finding any sign of hostile Indians when a spy from Fort Wayne got through to them and reported that there were none farther east from the Fort than five miles."  For a longer citation from this section of the biography, click here.  [Worthington's diary, cited several times here by the biographer, might be usefully reexamined for evidence for or against the above scenario.]
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Many of the books on the life of Tecumseh mention the Shawnee Logan.  One example published in 1840 covers his capture and time living in the home of Col. Logan; his exploit at the siege of Fort Wayne; and his death.  The first mention of Worthington in this passage reads: "On the next day, general Thomas Worthington, of Chillicothe, who was then on the frontier as Indian commissioner, seeing the great importance of communicating with the garrison, determined to unite with Oliver in the attempt to reach it. These two enterprising individuals induced sixty-eight of the Ohio troops and sixteen Shawanoe Indians, among whom was Logan, to accompany them."  To see the entire passage on Spemicalawba, click here.  To go directly to the part on the siege of Fort Wayne, click here.
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A tenuous chain of evidence connects Spemicalawba to Quaker activism at Wapakoneta before the war; the Quaker activism at Wapakoneta after the war to James Ellicott of Ellicott Mills, Maryland; and the Quaker activism of John Ellicott of Ellicott Mills, Maryland to the Quaker activism of Thomas Worthington.  [This suggests that correspondence and minutes of Quaker Meetings might show that Worthington had direct dealings with the Shawnee at Wapakoneta before the war, perhaps including Spemicalawba.]
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William Henry Harrison wrote in a letter to William Eustis, the Secretary of War on December 14th 1812: "I neglected in my last to mention a circumstance which reflects much Honor on the bravery of the Shawanoe Chief Logan who has fallen a victim to his zeal for our cause. I had sent him with a reconnoitring party...."  To see the rest of the letter, click here.
In the treaty with the Wyandot, Seneca, Delaware, Shawanese, Potawatomees, Ottawas, and Chippeway tribes of Indians made and concluded at the foot of the Rapids of the Miami of Lake Erie on September 29th 1817, Article 8 begins: "At the special request of the said Indians, the United States agree to grant, by patent, in fee simple, to the persons hereinafter mentioned, all of whom are connected with the said Indians, by blood or adoption, the tracts of land herein described:"  Article 8 then lists 14 grants, the ninth of which says: "To the children of the late Shawnese chief captain Logan, or Spamagelabe, who fell in the service of the United States during the late war, one section of land, to contain six hundred and forty acres, on the east side of the Great Auglaize river, adjoining the lower line of the grant of ten miles at Wapaghkonetta and the said river."  [Note that, according to the Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Spemicalawba's "name occurs also as Spamagelabe."]
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The Handbook of American Indians Living North of Mexico, published by the Smithsonian Institution 100 years ago, is still considered a dependable general reference on its subject.  Click here to see the entry on Spemicalawba, and along side it the entry on the Mingo Chief Logan.  The entry on Spemicalawba mentions his capture as a youth and describes the events that led up to his death, but it does not mention the siege of Fort Wayne.  The entry does mention (awkwardly) the controversial story that Spemicalawba's mother was Tecumapese, the sister of Tecumseh.