History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 29

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164

USA > Illinois > Vermilion County > History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources > Part 29

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* One section in every township, section 16, being selected on account of its central position, and known as the school section, was set apart in the act of May 20, 1785, for public schools. The proceeds arising from the sales thereof called the school fund, is a sacred fund, the yearly accruing interest from which is expended in the maintenance of "free schools " within the township.

+ This is the embryo of the present state of Illinois.

Į Here is foreshadowed the future state of Indiana.

§ Out of this last the state of Ohio was formed.

It was under this discretionary clause that the states of Michigan and Wisconsin were subsequently formed.

264

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

tory of Michigan and the incipient state of Ohio, should be direct from the most northern cape of the Maumee Bay .*

In 1818, when Illinois was about to become a state, her delegate in congress, Nathanial Pope, procured an amendment of the act for its admission, so as to extend its northern boundary to the parallel of 42° 30' north latitude. + By a literal construction of the ordi- nance of 1787, two tiers of counties in northern Illinois would have been within the limits of Wisconsin. These changes, made through a wise forethought, have secured the harbor of Toledo to Ohio, Michigan City to Indiana and Chicago to Illinois.

Soon after the passage of the ordinance, a party of New England- ers, under the name of The Ohio Company, bought five millions of acres of land lying along the Ohio, between the Muskingum and Sciota rivers. Gen. Rufus Putnam, the agent of the company, with a colony from Massachusetts, landed at the mouth of the Muskingum on the 7th of April, 1788, and proceeded to lay out a town. to which the name of Marietta was given .; Another sale was made to JJohn C. Simms, embracing a tract of two millions of acres, fronting upon the Ohio, between the Great and Little Miami rivers. This was known as "The Simms Purchase," and its beauty and fertility soon attracted immigration. In this way the settlements westward of the Alleghanies and north of the Ohio were fairly begun.

Maj .- Gen. Arthur St. Clair was chosen by congress, on the 5thi of October, 1787, as the first governor of the Northwest Territory.

The subdivisions of New France, when owned by the French, for political purposes, seems not to have been clearly defined or well understood. Originally, La Salle, under his grant, claimed all of the territory between the Mississippi and the Wabash,- as appears from a letter of his lately published in the rare collections of P. Margry, - and also a strip ten leagues wide. on the west side of the Missis- sippi, to the mouth of the Ohio. He gave the name of " Louisiana to all the country watered by the Mississippi below the mouth of the Ohio, " a name, says Father Charlevoix, writing in 1743, which it still retains. Shortly after this the line was changed, and, says the great geographer, Thomas Pownall, quoting from maps and authorities accessible in 1756. the time at which he wrote. "the line which now divides Canada and Louisiana in the Illinois country begins from the Wabash at the mouth of Vermilion River, thence to the post called Le Rocher [Starved Rock] on the River Paeorias [the

* Burnett's Notes on the Northwest Territory, p. 360.

+ Ford's History of Illinois, p. 19.

# Pioneer History, p. 205.

265

POSTS RETAINED BY GREAT BRITAIN.

Illinois], and from thence to the peninsula formed at the confluence of Rocky [Rock] River and the Mississippi."* While the English owned the northwest, it was governed from Quebec, through officers or commandants stationed at Detroit, Fort Chartres and other mili- tary posts in the territory. Having thus briefly noted some of the subdivisions of the northwest by France and Great Britain for ad- ministrative purposes, those of our own government will be noticed.

By the terms of the definite treaty of peace, concluded at Paris on the 3d of September, 1783, between the United States and Great Britain, the boundary between the possessions of the two powers was established along the lakes substantially as it now remains. Among other stipulations, Great Britain was, without delay, to sur- render the several military posts within the acknowledged territory of the United States. She declined to perform this part of the treaty, and on the 8th of December, 1785, the American minister. John Adams, addressed a letter to Lord Carmarthen, the English secretary of state, protesting " that although a period of three years had elapsed since the signing of the preliminary treaty, and more than two years since that of the definite treaty, the posts of Niagara, Presque Isle, Sandusky, Detroit, Michilimackinack, with others, and a considerable territory around each of them, all within the incon- testible limits of the United States, are still held by British garrisons, to the loss and injury of the United States," etc., t and demanding "that all of llis Majesty's armies and garrisons be forthwith with- drawn," etc. To which, on the 28th of February, 1786, the British secretary replied, admitting that while Mr. Adams was correct in his construction of the seventh article of the treaty, the fourth article of the same, stipulating " that creditors on either side should meet with no lawful impediment to the recovery of all bona fide debts, hereto- fore contracted, had not been fulfilled on the part of the people of the United States. "+

The reasons put forward by Lord Carmarthen were a mere pre- text. The true cause for the action of Great Britain in retaining possession of these military posts was to prolong her enjoyment of the fur trade and continue her influence over the several Indian tribes. With her it was the old desire to continue " master of the fur

* Appendix to The Administration of the Colonies, p. 16. This line, it would appear, placed all of the country north of it and east of the Wabash in the jurisdiction of Canada, and the territory to the south of the line and west of the Wabash within the confines of Louisiana.

+ Secret Journals of Congress, vol. 4, p. 186.

# Secret Journals of Congress, vol. 4, p. 187. Massachusetts and Virginia, for good reasons, refused to comply with the article of the treaty concerning the collection of debts.

266

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

trade." Her traders, in conjunction with the Canadians and coureurs de bois, had, since the submission of the westward Indians to her authority, in 1765, extended and perfected the "fur trade" over the entire northwest, and were reaping such profits as they never before realized, while the supply of goods required by the Indians absorbed a vast quantity of British manufactures.

Unfortunately, the revolutionary war was concluded without Great Britain's having made any provisions for her Indian allies, who con- tinned their hostilities. No treaties had ever been made between the United States and the Wabash tribes, and the latter continued their hostilities upon the people of Kentucky, in which the injuries and murders seemed to have been reciprocal."

The government tried peaceable means to put an end to these depredations. Failing in this, expeditions were sent out, the first under command of Gen. Harmar, who, in the fall of 1790, destroyed the villages about Fort Wayne, as,noticed on page 173. The next, by Gen. Charles Scott, in June, 1791, who burnt several villages above and below La Fayette, and carried a number of women and children captives to Fort Washington, where they were held as pris- oners. A third, under Gen. Wilkinson, who, in the summer of the same year, burned the Wea village above Logansport and destroyed some Kickapoo villages on the west side of the river, taking away with him a number of women and children, as Scott had done before him. Old scores with long accumulating interest were paid back. From Vincennes to Fort Defiance the heart of the Indian country had been ravaged. The principal villages along the Wabash and Maumee were destroyed. The fields were devastated, and the In- dians, suffering for food and shelter, were made to feel the retribu- tive hand of the Americans, whom traders within our borders, and other subjects of Great Britain in Canada, had heretofore taught them to despise.

While the expeditions of Scott and Wilkinson were being exe- cuted, Gov. St. Clair was organizing a force with which, under instructions from the war department, he was to proceed to the forks of the Maumee and there establish a permanent military post, from which forces could be sent as occasion required, to punish such tribes as might dare to further molest the border settlements. On the way to the Maumee his army, consisting of about 1,400 men, was, on the 4th of November, 1791, attacked by the confederated

American State Papers, vol. 4, p. 13. It was estimated that between the years 1783 and 1790 no less than fifteen hundred persons were killed and captured in that state and adjacent territory, and upward of twenty thousand horses and other property, estimated at $75,000, were taken or destroyed by the Indians: Idem, p. 88.

267

TREATY AT VINCENNES.

Indians, and almost totally destroyed. The calamity was one of the most severe ever sustained by the United States at the hands of the Indians until the time of the recent defeat of Custer. The bat- tle ground is in Mercer county, Ohio, and since known as Fort Recovery.

The government, too feeble and greatly embarrassed, financially, from its struggle with Great Britain, could not speedily retrieve its loss. St. Clair resigned his commission in disgrace and Gen. Wayne - Mad Anthony, of revolutionary fame - was appointed military commander of the northwest in his stead. While the new general was recruiting his forces and subjecting them to a discipline that rendered their subsequent movements invincible, the government again tried to bring the Wabash tribes to a treaty of peace. The latter, now arrogant beyond measure from their victory, declined all overtures, and basely murdered Messrs. Hardin, Freeman and Trueman, who were sent with messages of peace to them. Gen. Putnam, the agent of the Ohio company, at Marietta, offered his services, and at the hazard of his life undertook to visit the hostile tribes and induce them to come to Philadelphia or Fort Washington and enter into negotiations. He was soon satisfied that the Indians would neither go to Philadelphia nor Fort Washington. Persisting in his efforts, however, several of the Wabash tribes agreed to meet him at Vincennes. Thither he went, starting from Fort Washington on the 26th of August, in company with the Moravian missionary, John Heckwelder, and the surviving prisoners-consisting mostly of women and little children -captured at the Wea towns by Scott and Wilkinson the previous year. The party, numbering in all one hundred and forty persons, were put in boats and taken down the Ohio and up the Wabash, ascending which they reached Vincennes on the afternoon of the 12th. The Indians, already notified of its coming, "were assembled upon the banks of the river, and when they saw their friends approaching," says Heckwelder, "they dis- charged their guns in token of joy, and sang the praises of their friends in tunes peculiar to themselves." The prisoners were immediately delivered to their friends with a happy speech by Gen. Putnam. From the 13th to the 23d the Indians were daily coming in to participate in the treaty.

Delegates representing the Eel Creek, Wea, Pottawatomie, Mas- coutin, Kickapoo, Piankeshaw, Kaskaskia and Peoria tribes being present, a conference was opened in the council house on the morn- ing of the 24th. Here Gen. Putnam assured the assembled chiefs that the United States desired peace ; that ample time and opportu-

268

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST. 1

nity would be given to them all to talk with the United States about all that had happened; to settle all old scores and to begin anew. An answer was deferred until the next day, when the council was again convened, at which the speakers chosen to reply on behalf of their respective tribes rose up in succession, and spoke upon strings -i. e., giving presents -of wampum. The drift of their speeches was that the whites should not take their land, but remain on the east and south side of the Ohio, letting that river be the mutual bound- dary. Their speeches were not clear, and Gen. Putnam requested a more definite answer, with which they gratified him in the after- noon. Among other things, the Indian speakers stated "that they did not wish to live too near the white people, as there were bad persons on both sides : that they wished to trade with us, and con- cluded with a request that the French dwelling in the vicinity of Vincennes might not be deprived of the lands which had been given them by the forefathers of the speakers in times past."*

Definite articles of peace were concluded and signed on the 27th of September, 1792, and this was the first treaty ever entered into between the United States and the several Wabash tribes. As here- tofore intimated, it was a treaty of peace and friendship only.

Gen. Putnam, as appears from his receipt, dated May 22, 1792, to the war department, had taken with him, besides a quantity of goods for presents, "the following silver ornaments: twenty medals, thirty pairs of arm and wristbands, twelve dozen of brooches, thirty pairs of nose jewels, thirty pairs of ear jewels, and two large white wam- pum belts of peace, with a silver medal suspended to each, bearing the arms of the United States."+

The chiefs of the several tribes having " signed the articles of treaty," says the Journal of Gen. Putnam, " the latter arose and delivered the following speech to them :

" Brothers, listen to what I say: We have been for some days past industriously engaged, in a good work, namely, in establishing a peace, and we have happily succeeded, through the influence of the Great Spirit.

"Brothers, we have wiped off the blood,-we have buried the hatchet on both sides ; and all that is past shall be forgotten. (Takes up the belts.)

"Brothers, this is the belt of peace, which I now present you in the name of the United States. This belt shall be the evidence of, and the pledge for, the performance of the articles of the treaty of

* Vide Heckwelder's journal in the book before quoted, pp. 116, 117.

t Putnam's Manuscript Journal of the Treaty of Vincennes.

269

THE GREAT PEACE BELT.

peace which we have concluded between the United States and your tribes this day.

" Brothers, whenever you look on this, remember that there is a perpetual peace and friendship between you and us, and that you are now under the protection of the United States.

"Brothers, we both hold this belt in our hands, -here, at this end. the United States hold it, and you hold it by the other end. The road, you see, is broad, level and clear. We may now pass to one another easy and without difficulty. Brothers, the faster we hold this belt the happier we shall be. Our women and children will have no occasion to be afraid any more. Our young men will observe that their wise men performed a good work.

" Brothers, be all strong in that which is good. Abide all in this path, young and old, and you will enjoy the sweetness of peace." (Delivers the belts. )

The connection which the relie here illustrated sustains with the treaty at Vincennes will now be shown. We leave the treaty for a moment while we narrate the circumstances under which this medal, together with the other one illustrated farther on, was found. For the purposes of description, the first may be designated as the " Washington medal," although it is an engraving, and the latter as the " British medal." The former is believed to be none other than the silver medal " suspended to the white wampum belt of peace" pre- sented by Gen. Putnam, and referred to in his speech.

The two medals, the illustrations of which are the exact size of the originals, and fine representations of the sides of the medals they display, were found in April, 1855, at the old, so-called, Kicka- poo Indian burying-ground, near the month of the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River, four miles west of Danville, Illinois, in a grave which had become exposed by the giving way of the high bluff, on the brink of which this grave, with many others, is situated .*

* The old burial-place bears the appearance of having been used by the Indians for many years prior to the time of the cession of the territory along the Vermilion by the Pottawatomies and Kickapoos. It is a level plateau of several acres, at an elevation that commands a fine view of both streams, overlooking the bluffs beyond, and taking in a wide scope of the prairies, before the timber and undergrowth had intercepted the view. The plateau is terminated at the westward by a precipitous bluff, the foot of which, nearly a hundred feet below, is washed by the Middle Fork. Of late years the stream has encroached upon the bluff at the water-line, causing the earth to slide down from above. Two young men, John Ecard and Hiram Chester, then living upon the farm of Samuel Chester, near by, were passing along the water's edge, in the month of April, 1855, and found a skull and some other parts of a human skeleton that had fallen out of a grave above and rolled down the hill. The skull was well preserved, and had clinging to it the remains of a rotted band, filled with plain brooches, about a half an inch in diameter, made of silver, which, owing to their delicate structure and the length of time they had been buried, crumbled to pieces on exposure to the air. The young men, following an accessible path that led up the hill, proceeded to the

270

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

The Washington medal consists of a thin plate of silver let into a rim of the same metal. It was made and engraved by hand. On

GEORGE WASHINGTON

PRESIDENT 1792

the side not illustrated is engraved " the coat of arms of the United States -the American eagle, with wings outspread. the shield upon

grave out of which the remains had fallen, and found a part of the grave still intact. Ecard took a stick, and digging around in that portion of the grave that yet remained, quickly unearthed both of the medals, which were highly discolored. He sold them to Samuel Chester, and the latter disposed of them to the present owner, Josephus Collett, of Terre Haute, to whom the writer is indebted for permission to illustrate them. The writer has the affidavit of Samuel Chester as to the time, place and manner of their finding. Mr. Chester was informed of the facts within a few moments after their dis- covery, and immediately went over to the spot in company with the young men, of whom he then and there received the particulars substantially as given.

271

DESCRIPTION OF THE MEDAL.

its breast ; a bundle of arrows in one foot and an olive branch in the other ; and the stars, representing the several states, about the head of the bird, from which lines radiate, representing the sun's rays. The 'eye,' by which the medal is suspended, shows no signs of having been used; the delicate tracings of the engraver appear as perfect as when first made. These facts would seem to preclude the idea that it was worn about the person as an ornament.

Among the manuscript papers of Gen. Putnam relating to the treaty of Vincennes is a speech, in his own handwriting, in which he particularly describes one side of this medal .*

We quote extracts from Gen. Putnam's speech :

"Brothers, the engravings on this medal distinguish the United States from all other nations; it is called their arms, and no other nation has the like. The principal figure is a broad eagle. This bird is a native of this island, and is to be found in no other part of the world ; and both you and the Americans being also born on this island, and having grown up together with the eagle, they have placed him in their arms, and have engraved him on this medal, by which the great chief, Gen. Washington, and all the people of the United States hold this belt fast. The wings of the eagle are ex- tended to give protection to all our friends, and to assure you of our protection so long as you hold fast this belt. In his right foot the eagle holds the branch of a tree, which with us is an emblem of peace, and it means that we love peace, and wish to live in peace with all our neighbors, and is to assure you that while you hold this belt fast you shall always be in peace and security, whether you are pursuing the chase, or reposing yourselves under the shadow of the bough. In the left foot of this bird is placed a bundle of arrows ; by this is meant that the United States have the means of war, and that when peace cannot be obtained or maintained with their neigh- bors on just terms, and that if, notwithstanding all their endeavors for peace, war is made upon them, they are prepared for it."+

* * Whether this explanation, or the substance of it, was delivered at Vincennes, we cannot say. It does not appear in the journal of the proceedings." Letter of Dr. Andrews, custodian of the Putnam papers at Marietta College, Ohio, to the writer. However, while the journal may be silent on this point, it was doubtless delivered, as appears from the remarks of an Indian chief two years later, at Greenville, noticed farther on.

¡ It will be borne in mind that prior to this treaty the tribes represented at Vin- cennes had never held official or diplomatic relations with the United States, and it was highly proper that our coat of arms, and the signification of its several parts, should be explained to them. The bill of account of Gen. Putnam against the United States shows that at this treaty he delivered one of the peace belts, six of the medals, and a quantity of other jewelry itemized in the account, and that he retained the other peace belt, medals, etc., in his custody. Extract from the Putnam papers, supplied to the writer by Dr. Andrews.

272

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

The obverse side of the medal, illustrated. required no explana- tion from Gen. Putnam : it interpreted its own story to the Indian clearer than any words could do. The Indian has thrown his toma- hawk, the emblem of war, at the foot of the tree, under whose roots it was to be typically buried. The extended pipe is the universal token of peace, which Washington. representing the United States, with outstretched hands was about to receive and smoke, as the Indian had already done. These friendly acts assured protection to the pioneer plowman and his cabin in the background. All this is plain to the merest novice in picture reading.

Turning to the minutes of the great treaty held at Greenville, in 1795. we take the following extracts from two speeches of Kesis, or the Sun, a prominent Pottawatomie chief, who took an active part in both of the treaties at Vincennes and Greenville.

" Elder Brother :* If my old chiefs were living, I should not pre- sume to speak in this assembly ; but as they are dead. I now address you in the name of the Pottawatomies, as Massas has spoken in the name of the three fires, of which we are one.+ I have to express my concurrence in sentiment with him. It is two years since I assisted at the treaty of Vincennes. My voice there represented the three fires. I then said it will take three years to accomplish a general peace."

In another speech (made in order of time before the one quoted), Kesis says : " Brother. the Master of Life had pity on me when he permitted me to come and take you # first by the hand. With the same hand and heart I then possessed I now salute you. When I gave you my hand you said I thank you, and am glad to take your hand, Pottawatomie ; and you thanked the other Indians, also, and told them you had opened a road for them to come and see you."g

* Referring to Gen. Wayne.

+ Massass was a Chippewa, and the expression, of the three fires being one, is intended by Kesis to refer to the fact that the Ottawas, Chippeways and Pottawato- mies were one nation.

Į Meaning the United States.

§ " Opening a road " has the peculiar signification that the parties who have given and received a "road belt " are at liberty to go to and from, and visit each other freely, as friends, without danger of molestation. It seems that Kesis was the custo- dian of several of these belts or records, for at Greenville he displayed a road belt which he said he had received from the United States, to which the eagle was sus- pended holding an olive branch which, he said, had been explained as " a leaf of that great tree under whose shade we and all our posperity should repose in prosperity and happiness." He also displayed a war belt which, he said, "was presented to us by the British, and has involved us for four years past in misery and misfortune." This war belt he gave to Gen. Wayne, saying: "You may burn it if you please, or trans- form it into a necklace for some handsome squaw, and thus change its original design and appearance, and prevent forever its future recognition. It has caused us much misery, and I am happy in parting with it." Kesis, as stated in another speech made by him at the same treaty, and quoted in foot-note on page 147, said his village was a

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History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 29

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903 Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company Number of Pages: 1164

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164