Youroquains: The Legend of Caty Sage

Catharine “Caty” Sage was born 5 Jan 1786 in Elk Creek, Virginia, to James and Lovisa Sage. She was their fifth child and their second daughter. Her father, James, was a “new” American, having arrived in the Colonies from England in 1773. He had fought in the Revolutionary War against England in several battles, including Valley Forge under the command of General George Washington. After the defeat of the British, he settled in Virginia Colony where he met and married his wife, Lovisa “Lovi” Ott, the daughter of German immigrants to the Colonies. Together they homesteaded 400 acres of land along Elk Creek and began raising their family.  

In the late spring of 1792, a neighbor of James Sage named Cornute (Cornett) had three of his finest horses stolen. Three white strangers had been seen in the area and it was believed these men were the thieves.  Seeking the assistance of his neighbors, James and Cornute went in search of the horses and found them hobbled and grazing in a place called Elks Garden between the White Top Mountain and Balsam Mountain. The horse thieves themselves were never found.

Later, in July, James and his two sons, Samuel, and James Jr., were working in the family’s field. Back at their log cabin, Lovi had carried her large iron pot to the creek, filled it with water and had set a fire beneath it to heat the water to do the washing. When she went back to the cabin to get the clothes to be washed, she spotted Caty chasing butterflies in the nearby hayfield, her blonde hair blowing in the wind. However, when Lovi returned with the clothes, Caty was nowhere to be found. She searched the woods near the cabin and the creek, calling her name but with no answer. Panicked, she sent her older daughter, Polly, after James and the boys who also searched but still found nothing. James sought the aid of their neighbors the following day.  They searched for two weeks, but no sign of Caty was found.

Based on later interviews with Caty it is presumed that one of the horse thieves sought to redeem his losses and inflict revenge by selling the blond-haired, blue-eyed little girl to the Cherokee that came to the Trading Gap in Tennessee, a two-day ride to the southwest of her home at Elk Creek. Per her recollection, she was snatched up by a white man, a handkerchief put over her mouth, and taken away on horseback.  Once at the Trading Gap, she was sold to the Cherokee who took her north, back through Virginia, what is now West Virginia, and eventually to a Wyandot village near the Scioto River, just north of the town of Franklinton, a district of present-day Columbus, Ohio. 

 It was an arduous 16-day ride by horseback and canoe from Elk Creek to the Trading Gap. The Cherokee were there to trade horses with the Wyandot and Shawnee and to take part in the Green Corn Harvest Festival, the Indians’ thanksgiving celebration. The Wyandot chief, Tarhe (“the Crane”) showed great interest in the little fair-haired girl who would not speak, and with much negotiation obtained her from the Cherokee.

Tarhe was the Grand Sachem (head chief) of the Wyandot Indians, born near Detroit in 1742. He belonged to the Porcupine clan of the Wyandot Nation and since boyhood had participated in all the battles of his tribe. His wife, Ronyouquaines, was believed to be French, the daughter of Chevalier La Durante, a French Canadian. It was said that she had been captured as a child and raised by the Wyandots and was eventually married to the great Tarhe. Together they had a daughter, Myerrah, who was married to Isaac Zane, a white man who also had been captured as a child and raised by the Wyandots. By order of Tarhe, Caty was adopted into the Turtle clan with the full blessing of her new father, Tarhe, the top chief of the Wyandot nation. It was during her adoption that she was given the name “Yourowquains,” by the squaws of the tribe. Full translation of the name has been lost over time, but at least part of the name translates into English as “Sally.”  

 Back in Virginia, James had not given up hope of finding his Caty, but all searches and turned up nothing. Out of desperation, he sought out an Appalachian woman called Granny Moses whom it was rumored had the gift of foreseeing the future. She told James that indeed Caty was alive but he would never see her again in his lifetime. His wife, Lovisa, would hear of her in her old age and would learn of her whereabouts, but she too would never see her again. Granny Moses advised James to return home to his family and try to live and forget.  

Meanwhile, a great battle between the American Army and the Indian Nations was coming. The Wyandots and others had been preparing for some time and in 1794 at the Battle of the Fallen Timbers 1,300 braves from the Indian Nations and 80-150 British Canadian militia fought against 3,000 American Army soldiers on the Maumee River. The bloody battle lasted only an hour and 10 minutes, but it left the Indian nations defeated and subdued. Of the 13 chiefs that had left for battle, only one returned—the great Tarhe who was wounded in the arm. One of the youngest braves to return was Tauyaurontoyou, or “Between-The-Logs” at only 14 years of age. The Battle of the Fallen Timbers resulted in the Treaty of Greenville, which redefined the boundary between the Indians’ lands and the white men’s lands in the Northwest Territory. Following the signing of the treaty, in the spring of 1797, Tarhe moved his camp of Wyandots from near the Hocking River north to the Upper Sandusky River.  

 In the winter of 1803, Ronyouquains, the wife of Chief Tarhe, died. Tarhe, at the age of 62, took Caty, now 17, as his wife. Together they had a son who died in infancy. This was a common occurrence with Indian newborns and though sad was considered a natural thing. Then in November 1816, at the age of 74, the Great Crane, Chief Tarhe died. Caty and the entire Wyandot nation went into mourning and were adrift without their beloved leader. Eventually, he was succeeded by Duon-quot (Half-King) of the Porcupine clan.  

Christianization of the Indians had begun in the early 1800s. John Stewart, a Methodist, had committed himself to mission work among Native Americans and followed this calling to the Wyandot country around the Upper Sandusky River. There he presented them with the Christian message that brought reconciliation and peace to estranged and fractured relationships in the tribe.  During this time, Caty was allotted her own land where she had a house built, and soon after she became the wife of Between-The-Logs, who moved into her house with his daughter, a brother, and two sisters, one of whom was blind. Caty also took in an orphan girl in the tribe. Caty’s love and caring for others was becoming well-known throughout the tribe and many sought her advice. Shortly after their marriage, Between-The-Logs was made chief of the Wyandot nation. He also had become a Christian at one of Stewart’s early meetings and took an interest in the mission’s growth. Together, Caty and Between-The-Logs improved their way of life by learning new ways of doing things, most of which they learned from the missionaries. He died of consumption at his home in 1827 and a large number attended his funeral, which was held at the mission church he cared for so much.  

Frost

Two years after the death of Between-The-Logs, Caty was again married, this time to a Wyandot warrior by the name of Frost whom she had met through his sister who attended the mission church. This time, however, Caty changed her name to Sally Frost, taking the name of her husband as her surname, in the Christian tradition. Along with Between-The-Log’s daughter, Caty and Frost also raised Frost’s sister’s children after they were left orphaned. With this houseful, they decided to build a larger cabin about 300 yards from her old cabin on top of a ridge near a very good spring. Frost and several other families came together in September 1830 to cut the trees and fashion them into logs to build the cabin. In 1842 Caty’s husband, Frost, died. There is no record of the exact date or how he died. Their nephew Michael, whom they had taken in after the death of Frost’s sister, was 15 and considered to be a grown man. He had taken a wife named Hannah whom he moved into the Frost household. It was Michael who was now the man of the family, taking care of such chores as tending crops, chopping firewood, and carrying water from the spring, though their living situation would not last long. 

 During talks with the government officials regarding the buying of the Wyandot land on the Upper Sandusky, their chief Summunduwat was murdered. Almost immediately upon his death, government officials again offered to relocate the Wyandots to land in Kansas. Feeling they had no choice, they accepted and in July 1843, 51 years after Caty’s abduction from her home in Elk Creek, Virginia Colony, she was once again relocated to a strange land: Kansas. In 1846, Caty and her family homesteaded a 160-acre allotment that had previously belonged to the Delaware Indians. 

On 10 Mar 1848, one of the Wyandot interpreters came to Caty to tell her about a white man he had met at Fort Leavenworth who had a strong resemblance to her.  He had also told the man about her. The man had told him that he had had an older sister who disappeared before he was born and that her fate was unknown. The interpreter, who had known Caty since the time she was brought into the tribe by Tarhe, said the man’s name was Charles Comer Sage, and that he had come from southwestern Virginia as a trader.  He was now anxious to meet her to see if she was his long-lost sister. Caty agreed to meet this man at the Wyandot council house on March 29, with the interpreter as Caty did not speak any English but only the Wyandot language.  

Charles Comer Sage

 It was an emotional meeting. Caty had long since forgotten anything about her home in Virginia. And now she heard the interpreter explain to Charles that she had been given to the Wyandots by the Cherokee as a gift during one of their annual festivals about 50 or 60 years ago. Caty learned about how her father and brothers and neighbors searched for her for weeks when she went missing. She learned that her father, James Sage, had died and that her mother, Lovisa Sage, was still living at the family homestead on Elk Creek. Caty was convinced that Charles was her brother, but Charles was not yet convinced, saying that he would write to his family and inquire if there were any identifying marks that would confirm her identity. His older brother, Samuel, who was eleven years old when Caty disappeared, lived about 200 miles from Ft. Leavenworth and he also agreed to come to meet her as well.  

 In his letter home, Charles wrote:  

 “She looks to be about 58 or 60 years in age. She is about the height of Sister Esther. She stands straight under my arm. Her hair is yellow like Esther’s. She has a large nose like Sister Betsey. She has a foot and toenails like Mother and walks with a kind of swing like Mother used to do when going from you. She cannot talk one word of our language nor understand it. I had to talk to her through an interpreter. I asked her whether there were any particular marks on her that she could be distinguished by and she showed me her left hand. I examined her fingers. They are shorter than common and more thick and clumbsy at the end. Her left thumb resembles a thumb [--if you can imagine, or] supposed [that] it was cut off at the root of the nail, and then a broad, flat nail [were] to grow on the stump.”

In June, Samuel met Charles and arranged to meet Caty at the Council house. He had received the information he needed to confirm Caty’s identity from his youngest sister, Betsey. In his letter to Virginia dated 20 Jun 1848, Charles describes the meeting:

 “Samuel looked at her [Caty] and recognized her immediately. He had been told before he saw her she had a burn on her thigh. We asked her if it was there. She said it was and when she was a small girl, she asked the woman that raised her how that mark came there and she told her it was always there. We then examined and found the mark between her shoulders, as Mother described it, and Caty said she never knew it was there before. Also, the mark that brother James described on the right side just above the collar bone [was there] and so it seems that every mark proves it to be her. We have no doubt nor has she any doubt but she is our real sister and the Indians are satisfied she is our sister. She has been claimed by two families before but they never could convince her nor describe her by any mark.”

Caty agreed to accompany her brothers home to see her mother and the rest of her family but after two days she changed her mind about going. In his letter home, Charles explained that her reason was the distance “and that it would be no satisfaction because she cannot talk to you nor you to her and I am sure it would be the case.”

 “There is a man in the Nation that can write her history. [He is] a half-breed and I will get him to do it and send it to you which will give you more satisfaction than to see her, for I assure you that it was as trying a thing as ever I met with to meet a sister I never saw and could not talk one word with her.” “It is a difficult thing to talk through an interpreter. As to her situation, it is as good as any of ours. She appears to have plenty. Sister Caty is a very pious woman. She was adopted into the Turtle [clan] and claims the whole tribe as her children by adoption and they claim her as a grandmother.”

Charles continued to return to see Caty when his job for the trading company brought him to the area. Caty pondered whether she had made the right decision in not returning to Virginia to see her family, but the idea of traveling such a long distance frightened her. She was 63 and nearly blind. And there were rumblings of the government coming again to force the Wyandots to relocate again. No, she decided, she had made the right decision to look after her people. Then in the spring of 1849, the Wyandot tribe was infected with cholera. Charles tried to enlist the aid of the half-breed interpreter to write Caty’s story, but he too went blind.

On 25 May 1851, Charles again came to visit his sister. Through an interpreter, Caty asked him to write a letter to her mother for her.  

 “Though I am blind I can hear. Write to my mother and tell her though I have lost my vision, and all is dark without, all is light within. Tell her it has been some 30 years since I first heard the Gospel preached and the name of Jesus. I then embraced the calls of mercy and though I felt at the time an outcast and did not know that I had a relative on earth, I found Jesus precious to my soul. And from that [day] to the present time I have thought that when this mortal body put on immortality, I should meet my relations according to the flesh in that world where all circumstances of my mysterious life should be known. Though you may think that my lot has been a hard one, and certainly it has, I have no reason to complain. I have always been treated tenderly in the way I have been raised, and now that a mysterious providence has made known to me that I have a mother and brothers and sisters yet on earth, and the idea is forever precluded that I can see them in this world, my soul is buoyant in the hope that you all will meet me in heaven where we can tell all our sufferings and enjoyments over, where parents and children, brothers and sister, will meet to part no more.”

In the spring of the following year, Charles made another visit to Caty. It was to be his last. Her health had declined, her sight was almost totally gone. The biography that Charles had hoped would be written had yet to even be started, even though he had paid the interpreter the previous year to begin. On Sunday, 23 Jan 1853, Catharine “Yourowquains” Sage, the wife of chiefs, the grandmother to the Wyandot Nation, and the missing child of Elk Creek, died of pneumonia 16 days following her 66th birthday. Known in the Wyandots as “Aunt Sally Frost,” “Mother,” and “Grandmother,” she was buried near the Church of the Old Methodist in the Wyandot Nation. No biography had been written and her amazing story was lost to the annals of history, except to those family historians fortunate enough to discover it.  

Today the cemetery where Caty rests is called the Quindaro Cemetery in Kansas City. In Grayson County, Virginia, along Highway 21 is a historical marker marking the place where a 5-year-old girl with blonde hair and laughing blue eyes was abducted from her family and became a family legend.  

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ball, Bonnie Sage. Red Trails and White: the Mysterious Life of Caty Sage. B. Ball, 1988.

Bland, Bill. Yourowquains, a Wyandot Indian Queen: the Story of Caty Sage. Historical Publications, 1992.

Honsberger, Lonny L. A Book of Diagrams and Index of Indian Landholders on the Wyandot Reservation, Wyandot County, Ohio, at Time of Cession. L.L. Honsberger, 1989.

“James Sage (1749-1820) - Find A Grave Memorial.” Find A Grave, www.findagrave.com/memorial/83192527.

Ray, Michael. “Treaty of Greenville.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 27 July 2019, www.britannica.com/event/Treaty-of-Greenville.

“Battle of Fallen Timbers.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 7 Mar. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fallen_Timbers.

Sage, Charles Comer.

“Sally ‘Caty’ Sage Frost (1787-1853) - Find A...” Find A Grave, www.findagrave.com/memorial/86622600/sally-frost.

“The Legacy of John Stewart and the Wyandot.” Methodist Mission Bicentennial, 19 Oct. 2018, methodistmission200.org/about-the-bicentennial/the-legacy-of-john-stewart-and-the-wyandot/.

Yates, William A. Selected U.S./International Marriage Records, 1560-1900. Broderbund Software, 1997.