USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio, containing a collection of the most interesting facts, traditions, biographical sketches, anecdotes, etc., relating to its general and local history : with descriptions of its counties, principal towns, and villages > Part 1
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Gc 977.1 H83hi 119668
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02405 4857
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/historicalcollec00howe 2
REPULSE OF THE BRITISH BEFORE FORT STEPHENSON. AUG. 2. 1813.
"Col Short, who commanded the regulars composing the forlorn hope, was ordering his men to leap the ditch. -- cut down the pickets. and give the Americans no quarters, when he fell mortally wounded into the ditch- hoisted his handkerchief on the end of his sword, and begged for that mercy, which he had a moment be- fore ordered to be denied to his enemy ."
FIFTEENTH THOUSAND.
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF
OHIO;
CONTAINING A COLLECTION OF THE MOST INTERESTING FACTS, TRADITIONS, BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, ANECDOTES, ETC.
RELATING TO ITS
GENERAL AND LOCAL HISTORY :
WITH
DESCRIPTIONS OF ITS COUNTIES, PRINCIPAL TOWNS AND VILLAGES.
2414
ILLUSTRATED BY
180 ENGRAVINGS,
GIVING VIEWS OF THE CHIEF TOWNS,-PUBLIC BUILDINGS,-RELICS OF ANTI- QUITY,-HISTORIC LOCALITIES,-NATURAL SCENERY, ETC.
BY HENRY HOWE.
SEAL
OF THE
ST
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TE OF
GRE
OHIO
THL
18 2
CINCINNATI: PUBLISHED BY HENRY HOWE, AT E. MORGAN & CO'S. Price Three Dollars. 1852.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, BY J. W. BARBER & H. HOWE, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Conn.
,
CINCINNATI : Morgan & Overend, Printers.
3
شباطى
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PREFACE.
119668
INTRODUCTORY to this work, we state some facts of private history.
In the year 1831, Mr. John W. Barber of New Haven, Ct., prepared a work upon that our native city, which combined history, biography and de- scription, and was illustrated by engravings connected with its rise, progress and present condition. Its success suggested to him the preparation of one, on a similar plan, relative to the State. For this object he travelled through it, from town to town, collecting the materials and taking sketches. After two years of industrious application in this, and in writing the volume, the His- torical Collections of Connecticut was issued, a work which, like its suc- cessors, was derived from a thousand different sources, oral and published.
As in the ordinary mode, the circulation of books through "the trade," is so slow in progress and limited in sale, that no merely local work, however meritorious, involving such an unusually heavy outlay of time and expense as that, will pay even the mechanical labor, it, as well as its successors, was circulated by travelling agents solely, who thoroughly canvassed the state, until it found its way into thousands of families in all ranks and conditions,-in the retired farm-house equally with the more accessible city mansion.
That book, so novel in its character, was received with great favor, and highly commended by the public press and the leading minds of the state. It is true, it did not aspire to high literary merit :- the dignified style,-the generalization of facts,-the philosophical deductions of regular history were not there. On the contrary, not the least of its merits was its simplicity of style, its fullness of detail, introducing minor, but interesting incidents, the other, in "its stately march," could not step aside to notice, and in avoid- ing that philosophy which only the scholastic can comprehend. It seemed, in its variety, to have something adapted to all ages, classes and tastes, and the unlearned reader, if he did not stop to peruse the volume, at least, in many instances could derive gratification from the pictorial representation of his native village,-of perhaps the very dwelling in which he first drew breath, and around which entwined early and cherished associations. The book, therefore, reached MORE MINDS, and has been more extensively read, than any regular state history ever issued ; thus adding another to the many examples often seen, of the productions of industry and tact, proving of a more extended utility than those emanating from profound scholastic ac- quirements.
This publication became the pioneer of others : a complete list of all, with the dates of their issue, follows :
1336. THE HIST. COLL. OF CONNECTICUT ;
by John W. Barber.
1841.
66
NEW YORK ;
J. W. Barber and H. Howe.
1843.
PENNSYLVANIA ;
" Sherman Day.
1844.
NEW JERSEY ; 66 J. W. Barber and H. Howe.
1845.
66
VIRGINIA ;
" Henry Howe.
1847. €6
66
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" Henry Howe.
1839. " 66 MASSACHUSETTS ;
" John W. Barber.
..
4
PREFACE.
From this list it will be perceived that OHIO makes the SEVENTH state work published on the original plan of Mr. Barber, all of which thus far circulated, were alike favorably received in the states to which each respect- ively related.
Early in January, 1846, we, with some previous time spent in preparation, commenced our tour over Ohio, being the FOURTH state through which we have travelled for such an object. We thus passed more than a year, in the course of which we were in seventy-nine of its eighty-three counties, took sketches of objects of interest, and every where obtained information by con- versation with early settlers and men of intelligence. Beside this, we have availed ourselves of all published sources of information, and have received about four hundred manuscript pages in communications from gentlemen in all parts of the state.
In this way, we are enabled to present a larger and more varied amount of materials respecting Ohio, than was ever before embodied ; the whole giving a view of its present condition and prospects, with a history of its settlement, and incidents illustrating the customs, the fortitude, the bravery, and the privations of its early settlers. That such a work, depicting the rise and unexampled progress of a powerful state, destined to a controlling influence over the well-being of the whole nation, will be looked upon with interest, we believe : and furthermore expect, that it will be received in the generous spirit which is gratified with honest endeavors to please, rather than in the captious one, that is dissatisfied short of an unattainable perfection.
Whoever expects to find the volume entirely free from defects, has but little acquaintance with the difficulties ever attendant upon procuring such ma- terials. In all of the many historical and descriptive works whose fidelity we have had occasion to test, some misstatements were found. Although we have taken the best available means to insure accuracy, yet from a variety of causes unnecessary here to specify, some errors may have occurred. If any thing materially wrong is discovered, any one will confer a favor by ad- dressing a letter to the publishers, and it shall be corrected.
Our task has been a pleasant one. As we successively entered the va- rious counties, we were greeted with the frank welcome, characteristic of the west. And an evidence of interest in the enterprize has been variously shown, not the least of which, has been by the reception of a mass of valua- ble communications, unprecedented by us in the course of the seven years we have been engaged in these pursuits. To all who have aided us,-to our correspondents especially, some of whom have spent much time and re- search, we feel under lasting obligations, and are enabled by their assistance to present to the public a far better work, than could otherwise have been produced. H. H.
OHIO.
OUTLINE HISTORY *
THE territory now comprised within the limits of Ohio was for- merly a part of that vast region claimed by France, between the Alleghany and the Rocky Mountains, first known by the general name of Louisiana. In 1673, Marquette, a zealous French Mis- sionary, accompanied with Monsieur Joliet, from Quebec, with five boatmen, set out on a mission from Mackinac to the unexplored re- gions lying south of that station. They passed down the lake to Green Bay, thence from Fox River crossed over to the Wisconsin, which they followed down to its junction with the Mississippi. They descended this mighty stream a thousand miles to its con- fluence with the Arkansas. On their return to Canada, they did not fail to urge, in strong terms, the immediate occupation of the vast and fertile regions watered by the Mississippi and its branches.
On the 7th of August, 1679, M. de la Salle, the French com- mandant of Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, launched, upon Lake Erie, the Griffin, a bark of about 60 tons, with which he proceeded through the Lakes to the Straits of Michillimackinac. Leaving his bark at this place, he proceeded up Lake Michigan, and from thence to the south west, till he arrived at Peoria Lake, in Illinois. At this place he erected a fort, and after having sent Father Lewis Henne- pin on an exploring expedition, La Salle returned to Canada. In 1683, La Salle went to France, and, by the representations which he made, induced the French Government to fit out an expedition for the purpose of planting a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi. This expedition failed, La Salle being murdered by his own men.
This disaster did not abate the ardor of the French in their great plan of obtaining possession of the vast region westward of the English colonies. A second expedition sailed from France, under the command of M. D'Iberville. This officer entered the mouth of the Mississippi, and explored the river for several hundred miles
* The principal sources from which this outline is derived, are the MSS. of Hon. Thomas Scott, of Chillicothe, Secretary of the Convention which framed the constitution of Ohio ; the historical sketch prefixed to Chase's Statutes, and Perkins' Annals of the West.
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OUTLINE HISTORY.
Permanent establishments were made at different points ; and from this time the French colony west of the Alleghanies steadily in- creased in numbers and strength. Previous to the year 1725, the colony had been divided into quarters, each having its local gover- nor, or commandant, and judge, but all subject to the superior au- thority of the council general of Louisiana. One of these quarters was established north west of the Ohio.
At this period, the French had erected forts on the Mississippi, on the Illinois, on the Maumee, and on the lakes. Still, however, the communication with Canada was through Lake Michigan. Before 1750, a French post had been fortified at the mouth of the Wabash and a communication was established through that river and the Maumee with Canada. About the same time, and for the purpose of checking the progress of the French, the Ohio Company was formed, and made some attempts to establish trading houses among the Indians. The French, however, established a chain of fortifica- tions back of the English settlements, and thus, in a measure, had the entire control of the great Mississippi valley. The English go- vernment became alarmed at the encroachments of the French, and attempted to settle boundaries by negotiations. These availed no- thing, and both parties were determined to settle their differences by the force of arms.
The claims of the different European monarchs to large portions of the western continent were based upon the first discoveries made by their subjects. In 1609, the English monarch granted to the London Company, all the territories extending along the coast for two hundred miles north and south from Point Comfort, and "up into the land, throughout, from sea to sea, west and north-west." In 1662, Charles II. granted to certain settlers upon the Connecticut all the territory between the parallels of latitude which include the present State of Connecticut, from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. The claims which Massachusetts advanced, during the revolution, to an interest in the western lands, were founded upon a similar charter, granted thirty years afterwards.
When the king of France had dominions in North America, the whole of the late territory of the United States, north-west of the river Ohio, was included in the province of Louisiana, the north boundary of which, by the treaty of Utrecht, concluded between France and England in 1713, was fixed at the 49th parallel of lati- tude north of the Equator. After the conquest of the French pos- sessions in North America by Great Britain, this tract was ceded by France to Great Britain, by the treaty of Paris, in 1763.
The principal ground whereon the English claimed dominion beyond the Alleghanies was, that the Six Nations owned the Ohio valley, and had placed it with their other lands under the protection of England. Some of the western lands were also claimed by the British as having been actually purchased, at Lancaster, Penn., in 1744, at a treaty between the colonists and the Six Nations at that place. In 1748, the "Ohio Company," for the purpose of securing
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OUTLINE HISTORY.
the Indian trade, was formed. In 1749, it appears that the English built a trading house upon the Great Miami, at a spot since called Loramie's Store. In 1751, Christopher Gist, an agent of the Ohio Company, who was appointed to examine the western lands, made a visit to the Twigtwees, who lived upon the Miami river, about one hundred miles from its mouth.
Early in 1752, the French having heard of the trading house on the Miami, sent a party of soldiers to the Twigtwees and demanded the traders as intruders upon French lands. The Twigtwees re- fused to deliver up their friends. The French, assisted by the Ot- tawas and Chippewas, then attacked the trading house, which was probably a block house, and after a severe battle, in which fourteen of the natives were killed and others wounded, took and destroyed it, carrying away the traders to Canada. This fort, or trading house, was called, by the English, Pickawillany. Such was the first British settlement in the Ohio valley, of which we have any record.
After Braddock's defeat, in 1755, the Indians pushed their excur- sions as far east as the Blue Ridge. In order to repel them, Major Lewis, in Jan., 1756, was sent with a party of troops on an expedi- tion against the Indian towns on the Ohio. The point apparently aimed at was the upper Shawanese town, situated on the Ohio, three miles above the mouth of the Great Kanawha. The attempt proved a failure, in consequence, it is said, of the swollen state of the streams, and the treachery of the guides. In 1764, Gen. Bradstreet, having dispersed the Indian forces besieging Detroit, passed into the Wyandot country by way of Sandusky Bay. He ascended the bay and river as far as it was navigable for boats, and there made a camp. A treaty of peace was signed by the Chiefs and head men. The Shawnees of the Scioto river, and the Delawares of the Mus- kingum, however, still continued hostile. Col. Boquet, in 1764, with a body of troops, marched from Fort Pitt into the heart of the Ohio country on the Muskingum river. This expedition was con- ducted with great prudence and skill, and without scarcely any loss of life, as treaty of peace was effected with the Indians, who re- stored the prisoners they had captured from the white settlements. The next war with the Indians was in 1774, generally known as Lord Dunmore's. In the summer of that year, an expedition, under Col. M'Donald, was assembled at Wheeling, marched into the Muskin- gum country and destroyed the Indian town of Wapatomica, a few miles above the site of Zanesville. In the fall, the Indians were de- feated after a hard fought battle at Point Pleasant, on the Virginia side of the Ohio. Shortly after this event, Lord Dunmore made peace with the Indians at Camp Charlotte, in what is now Picka- way country.
During the revolutionary war, most of the western Indians were more or less united against the Americans. In the fall of 1778, an expedition against Detroit was projected. As a preliminary step, it was resolved that the forces in the west, under Gen. M'Intosh, should move up and attack the Sandusky Indians. Preliminary to this,
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OUTLINE HISTORY.
Fort Laurens, so called in honor of the President of Congress, was built upon the Tuscarawas, a short distance below the site of Bolivar, Tuscarawas county. The expedition to Detroit was abandoned and the garrison of Fort Laurens, after suffering much from the Indians and from famine, were recalled in August, 1779. A month or two previous to the evacuation of this fort, Col. Bowman headed an ex- pedition against the Shawanees. Their village, Chillicothe, three miles north of the site of Xenia, on the Little Miami, was burnt. The warriors showed an undaunted front, and the whites were forced to retreat. In the summer of 1780, an expedition directed against the Indian towns, in the forks of the Muskingum, moved from Wheeling, under Gen. Broadhead. This expedition, known as "the Coshocton campaign," was unimportant in its results. In the same summer, Gen. Clark led a body of Kentuckians against the Shaw- nees. Chillicothe, on the Little Miami, was burnt on their approach, but at Piqua, their town on the Mad River, six miles below the site of Springfield, they gave battle to the whites and were defeated. In September, 1782, this officer led a second expedition against the Shawanese. Their towns, Upper and Lower Piqua, on the Miami, within what is now Miami county, were destroyed, together with the store of a trader.
There were other expeditions into the Indian country from Ken- tucky, which, although of later date, we mention in this connection. In 1786, Col. Logan conducted a successful expedition against the Mackachack towns, on the head waters of Mad River, in what is now Logan county. Edwards, in 1787, led an expedition to the head waters of the Big Miami, and, in 1788, Todd led one into the Scioto valley. There were also several minor expeditions, at various times, into the present limits of Ohio.
The Moravian missionaries, prior to the war of the revolution, had a number of missionary stations within the limits of Ohio. The missionaries, Heckewelder and Post, were on the Muskingum as early as 1762. In March, 1782, a party of Americans, under Col. Williamson, murdered, in cold blood, ninety-four of the defenceless Moravian Indians, within the present limits of Tuscarawas county. In the June following, Col. Crawford, at the head of about 500 men, was defeated by the Indians, three miles north of the site of Upper Sandusky, in Wyandot county. Col. Crawford was taken prisoner in the retreat, and burnt at the stake with horrible tortures.
By an act of the Parliament of Great Britain, passed in 1774, the whole of the late north-western Territory was annexed to, and made a part of, the province of Quebec, as created and established by the royal proclamation of the 7th of October, 1763. But nothing therein contained, relative to the boundary of the said province of Quebec, was in any wise to affect the boundaries of any other colony.
The colonies having, in 1776, renounced their allegiance to the British king, and assumed rank as free, sovereign.and independent States, each State claimed the right of soil and jurisdiction over the district of country embraced within its charter. The charters of
9
OUTLINE HISTORY.
several of the States embraced large portions of western unappro- priated lands. Those States which had no such charters, insisted that these lands ought to be appropriated for the benefit of all the States, according to their population, as the title to them, if secured at all, would be by the blood and treasure of all the States. Con- gress repeatedly urged upon those States owning western unappro- priated lands, to make liberal cessions of them for the common bene- fit of all.
The claim of the English monarch to the late north-western Ter- ritory was ceded to the United States, by the treaty of peace, signed at Paris, September 3d, 1783. The provisional articles which formed the basis of that treaty, more especially as related to the boundary, were signed at Paris, November 30th, 1782. During the pendency of the negociation relative to these preliminary articles, Mr. Oswald, the British commissioner, proposed the river Ohio as the western boundary of the United States, and but for the indomit- able perseverance of the revolutionary patriot, John Adams, one of the American commissioners, who opposed the proposition, and in- sisted upon the Mississippi as the boundary, the probability is, that the proposition of Mr. Oswald would have been acceded to by the United States commissioners.
The States who owned western unappropriated lands, with a single exception, redeemed their respective pledges by ceding them to the United States. The State of Virginia, in March, 1784, ceded the right of soil and jurisdiction to the district of country embraced in her charter, situated to the north-west of the river Ohio. In Sep- tember, 1786, the State of Connecticut also ceded her claim of soil and jurisdiction to the district of country within the limits of her charter, situated west of a line beginning at the completion of the forty-first point degree of north latitude, one hundred and twenty miles west of the western boundary of Pennsylvania ; and from thence by a line drawn north parallel to, and one hundred and twenty miles west of said line of Pennsylvania, and to continue north until it came to forty-two degrees and two minutes north lati- tude. The State of Connecticut, on the 30th of May, 1801, also ceded her jurisdictional claims to all that territory called the " West- ern Reserve of Connecticut." The States of New York and Massa- chusetts also ceded all their claims.
The above were not the only claims which had to be made prior to the commencement of settlements within the limits of Ohio. Numerous tribes of Indian savages, by virtue of prior possession, asserted their respective claims, which also had to be extinguished. A treaty for this purpose was accordingly made at Fort Stanwix, October 27th, 1784, with the Sachems and warriors of the Mohawks, Onondagas, Senecas, Cayugas, Oneidas, and Tuscaroras ; by the third article of which treaty, the said Six Nations ceded to the United States all claims to the country west of a line extending along the west boundary of Pennsylvania, from the mouth of the Oyounayea to the river Ohio.
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OUTLINE HISTORY.
A treaty was also concluded at Fort McIntosh, January 21st, 1785, with the Wyandot, Delaware, Chippewa, and Ottawa nations, by which the boundary line between the United States and the Wyan- dot and Delaware nations was declared to begin "at the mouth of the river Cuyahoga, and to extend up said river to the Portage, be- tween that and the Tuscaroras branch of the Muskingum, thence down that branch to the crossing place above Fort Laurens, then westerly to the Portage of the Big Miami, which runs into the Ohio, at the mouth of which branch the fort stood which was taken by the French, in 1752 ; then along said Portage to the Great Miami, or Omee river, and down the south side of the same to its mouth; then along the south shore of Lake Erie to the mouth of the Cuyahoga river, where it began." The United States allotted all the lands contained within said lines to the Wyandot and Delaware nations, to live and hunt on, and to such of the Ottawa nation as lived there- on ; saving and reserving for the establishment of trading posts, six miles square at the mouth of the Miami, or Omee river, and the same at the Portage, on that branch of the Big Miami which runs into the Ohio, and the same on the Lake of Sandusky where the fort formerly stood, and also two miles square on each side of the Lower Rapids of Sandusky river.
The Indian title to a large part of the territory within the limits of Ohio having been extinguished, legislative action on the part of Congress became necessary before settlements were commenced ; as in the treaties made with the Indians, and in the acts of Congress, all citizens of the United States were prohibited settling on the lands of the Indians, as well as on those of the United States. Ordinan- ces were accordingly made by Congress for the government of the North-western Territory, and for the survey and sale of portions of lands to which the Indian title had been extinguished.
In May, 1785, Congress passed an ordinance for ascertaining the mode of disposing of these lands. Under that ordinance, the first seven ranges, bounded on the east by Pennsylvania, and on the south by the Ohio river, were surveyed. Sales of parts of these were made at New York, in 1787, the avails of which amounted to $72,974, and sales of other parts of said range were made at Pitts- burg and Philadelphia, in 1796. The avails of sales made at the former place amounted to $43,446, and at the latter, $5,120. A portion of these lands were located under United States military land warrants. No further sales were made in that district until the Land Office was opened at Steubenville, July 1st, 1801.
On the 27th of October, 1787, a contract in writing was entered into between the Board of Treasury for the United States of Amer- ica, of the one part, and Manassah Cutler and Winthrop Sargeant, as agents for the directors of the New England Ohio Company of associates, of the other part, for the purchase of the tract of land bounded by the Ohio, from the mouth of the Scioto to the intersec- tion of the western boundary of the seventh range of townships then surveying ; thence by said boundary to the northern boundary of
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