After his 1760s move to the Ohio Country, he became affiliated with the Mingo, a tribe formed from Seneca, Cayuga, Lenape and other remnant peoples.
He took revenge for family members killed by Virginian long knives in 1774 in what is known as the Yellow Creek Massacre.
[1] Scholars agree that Logan was a son of Chief Shikellamy, an important diplomat for the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
But, as anthropologist Anthony F. C. Wallace has written, "Which of Shikellamy's sons was Logan the orator has been a matter of dispute.
[4] With the disruption of warfare, disease, and encroachment, some Seneca, Susquehannock, and Cayuga among the Haudenosaunee migrated to the Ohio Country, as did Lenape.
John Petty or Sogogeghyata, was the youngest of his brothers and bore the name of a Shamokin Indian Trader.
Statement of Jesse Logan, aged 106 years old and Great Grandson of Chief Shikellamy Cornplanter Reservation, Penn October 9, 1915:[8] I was born on the West Bank of the Allegheny River, in the Cornplanter Reservation, in 1809, the same year as Abraham Lincoln.
My father after retiring from the war path, settled at Cold Spring, in the Allegheny Reservation, in New York State, where he died in 1944 aged 100 years.
I married Susan, a Seneca maid, and we had one child, James Logan, who died at the age of thirty.
Every morning, winter or summer, rain or shine, at six o'clock he would come out of his house and ring a big dinner bell as a signal for all to get busy.
I remember Philip Tome, the great elk and panther hunter, who lived a mile up the river.
In my old age I am well cared for by my Indian friends, but regret that 'my blood flows not in any living person,' to use the language of my great-uncle James.
There are many Logans in the Reservations in Pennsylvania and New York; some are descended from my brother and sisters, others adopted the name because of the honor attached to it.
I wish I had been invited to attend the unveiling of my great-grandfather's [Shikellamy's] monument in Sunbury next week, but I guess that the world has forgotten Logan.
Next summer, if I live I hope to visit Logan Valley, where my grandfather resided, and view the scenes that my father loved to talk about.
I have lived a long while, but I am not tired of life, and each day seems new and pleasant to me.Logan's friendly relations with white settlers changed after the Yellow Creek massacre of April 30, 1774.
A group of Virginia Long knives led by Daniel Greathouse murdered a number of Mingo, among them Logan's brother (commonly known as John Petty) and at least two other close female relatives, one of them pregnant and caring for an infant daughter.
The Mingo in Baker's cabin were all murdered, except for the infant mixed-race child, who was spared with the intention of giving her to her father.
At least two canoes were dispatched from the Yellow Creek village to aid their members, but they were repelled by Greathouse's men concealed along the river.
Influential tribal chiefs in the region, such as Cornstalk (Shawnee), White Eyes (Lenape), and Guyasuta (Seneca/Mingo), attempted to negotiate a peaceful resolution lest the incident develop into a larger war, but by Native American custom Logan had the right to retaliate for the murders.
Several parties of mixed Mingo and Shawnee warriors soon struck the frontier, including one led by Logan.
Col. Cresap, the last spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not sparing even my women and children.