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UC 977.1 T21h 825761
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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02405 6027
1
JAN 2 1 1954
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/historyofstateof00tayl
INDIANA COLLECTION HISTORY
OF THE
STATE OF
OHIO.
BY
JAMES W. TAYLOR.
FIRST PERIOD.
1650-1787.
Beh
CINCINNATI: H. W. DERBY & CO., PUBLISHERS. SANDUSKY: C. L. DERBY & CO. 1854.
977.1 T243
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1854, by H. W. DERBY & Co., In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Ohio.
FRANKLIN PRINTING CO. Columbus, Ohio.
PREFACE.
THE History of that region of North America, which constitutes the State of Ohio, may properly be divided into four epochs. 825761
The First Period, or the ante-territorial epoch, engrosses the present volume. Commencing with the obscure memorials and traditions of the early Indian tribes, which are preserved in the faithful relations of Jesuit adventure upon the inland lakes and rivers of the continent-tracing the rise and progress of the fearful struggle for the Ohio and St. Lawrence valleys, between those European powers, that the lapse of a century finds in zealous alliance and with apprehensive gaze turned in an opposite direction -dwelling, once more, upon fragmentary relics of that Indian occupation in Ohio, which the first European settlers found in the Wyandot, Delaware, Ottawa and Shawanese successors of the almost mythical Eries of the seventeenth century- repeating the simple chronicles of Moravian zeal and courage, which, not unfruitful of beneficent influence upon the children of the forest, are also recognized by an intelligent reader to have been an agency
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iv
PREFACE.
extremely salutary and effective, in the protection of an exposed frontier during the disastrous hours of the American Revolution -narrating the incidental effect of that great struggle upon the rude commu- nities of savage life, which, at remote intervals, were familiar to the trader and missionary between Lake Erie and the Ohio; and, finally, preserving, with the fullness of detail which authenticity demands, those early monuments of continental legislation, that have proved, in their fuller development, the deep and broad foundations of the Commonwealth of Ohio, the following pages, as the author needs not to be reminded by others, hardly emerge from those mists of time, which distinguish an antiquarian era from the more sharply defined annals of our subsequent history. The dates of the title-page-1650-1787- are made conspicuous, as an epitome of the author's design, which perhaps may be deemed more curious than useful. Its execution was certainly undertaken -at first without any view of permanent publica- tion-mainly upon that sort of impulse, so admirably illustrated by Walter Scott, in his delineation of the Antiquary. The subsequent periods of Ohio history, according to the classification above referred to, are as follows : The Second Period, 1787-1802, may be denominated the Territorial; the Third, 1802 -1815, that of State Organization; and the Fourth, 1815-1851, that of State Development, until, with
ITZ
V
PREFACE.
the adoption of the Constitution of the latter year, our Ohio has reached a career of Progress-a period when the heterogeneous elements of her population may be expected to mature into a type of character, and the refinements of society and culture will be- come prevalent.
The first is unlike the subsequent periods in sev- eral particulars, that have not been without their influence upon the style and arrangement of the present volume. Of course, prior to 1787, the mate- rials existed only in libraries-in books or manu- scripts-while, since that date, much which would arrest the attention and investigation of a historical student, rests in the memory of the living. Besides, the authorities for whatever relates to Ohio from 1650 to 1787, are not numerous, and consist of rare volumes long since out of print. The details con- tained in this work, have been wrested, therefore, from the dead hand-mort gage-of old books, and because these were inaccessible to most readers, and unlikely to transpire in new editions, I have not restrained myself from ample quotations. In doing so, it has been an unavoidable result, that every variety of style breaks the currents of the following chapters ; but I have resisted the disposition to paraphrase, whenever it seemed that the language of the witness was in any respect desirable, either for the statement or elucidation of a doubt, or as an
vi
PREFACE.
illustration of men or times. If the freedom and fullness of citation from such unique publications as the Journal of Rogers, James Smith's story of Indian captivity, or the truthful and quaint narratives of the Moravians, Heckewelder and Loskiel, is irksome to the reader, the only apology here offered, or which the nature of the case admits, is, that the practice in question was adopted from a sentiment entirely opposite to the vanity of authorship. It was de- liberately adopted for the sake of authenticity, although sacrificing, in a considerable degree, the unity of the volume.
In respect to Indian orthography, also, the indul- gence of the reader is entreated. The names of places and personages are written with infinite variety, and I have preferred, especially when a quotation was in hand, to forbear any effort to conform the orthography in these instances to any other than the writers' own standard. The names of " Coshocton," still applied to the Forks of the Muskingum, and of "Bockengehelas," the noted war-chief of the Delawares, may be particularly mentioned, as illustrations of the confusion of tongues which pervade aboriginal nomenclature.
Indeed, these pages aim at little more than a compilation of memorials and traditions, hitherto dis- persed and often inaccessible. The writer, perhaps from force of habit, has been indisposed to assume a
vii
PREFACE.
relation to their contents much different from that of an. Editor. Hereafter, it may be, he may sustain with more confidence, the independent bearing of authorship. Meanwhile, the Press of Ohio are urged to verify or expand the suggestions of this volume, so far as connected with their respective localities. The book may thus constitute a nucleus of historical inquiry, and if so, notwithstanding in many particu- lars it may be convicted of mistake or omission, yet the aggregate of historical knowledge will probably be increased.
The Indian, during the period which bounds the present publication, is of course the central, almost the exclusive, figure in the scenes described. There has been no attempt to urge any hypothesis upon his antecedents-no disposition to dogmatize upon his character or destiny. So far as his personality has been inseparable from the progress of events, he has moved into view, but also been suffered to pass from view without special challenge. In Ohio, the Indian was a temporary sojourner,-not linked so inseparably to the soil as the Six Nations to their " Long House," between Niagara and the Hudson. But while the tribes who were found in occupation of Ohio, were comparatively strangers to that region -having moved thither between 1720 and 1750- yet they are so far identified with its plains, forests and waters, that any inquiry, however cursory or
viii
PREFACE.
incidental, into their habits and history, is likely to become an enthusiasm. The geography of the State is likewise suggestive of the aboriginal dwellers. The streams, more than the political subdivisions, illustrate their vanished dialects, as has been beauti- fully expressed in some lines by WILLIAM J. SPERRY, formerly of the Cincinnati Globe, entitled “ A Lament for the Ancient People," and which, although a di- gression and not historically exact, are here inserted, as well for their intrinsic merit as from a personal regard to the writer :
" Sad are fair Muskingum's waters, Sadly, blue Mahoning raves ; Tuscarawas' plains are lonely, Lonely are Hockhocking's waves.
From where headlong Cuyahoga Thunders down its rocky way, And the billows of blue Erie Whiten in Sandusky's bay,
Unto where Potomac rushes, Arrowy from the mountain side,
And Kanawha's gloomy waters Mingle with Ohio's tide ;
From the valley of Scioto, And the Huron sisters three, To the foaming Susquehanna, And the leaping Genesee ;
Over hill and plain and valley-
Over river, lake and bay-
1
PREFACE.
On the water-in the forest,
Ruled and reigned the Seneca.
But sad are fair Muskingum's waters, Sadly, blue Mahoning raves ; Tuscarawas' plains are lonely, Lonely are Hockhocking's waves.
By Kanawha dwells the stranger, Cuyahoga feels the chain, Stranger ships vex Erie's billows, Strangers plow Scioto's plain.
And the Iroquois have wasted, From the hill and plain away ; On the waters-in the valley, Reigns no more the Seneca.
Only by the Cattaraugus, Or by Lake Chautauque's side, Or among the scanty woodlands, By the Alleghany's tide-
There, in spots, like sad oases, Lone amid the sandy plains, There the Seneca, still wasting, Amid desolation reigns."
Even more total than the disappearance of the Senecas, is the migration of the remnants of the Ohio Tribes, who succeeded the New York confed- erates upon the Muskingum, the Scioto and the Sandusky, and of whom not even a "sad oasis" is visible, except upon the distant waters of the Kanzas or Nebraska. This volume leaves the indomitable
X
PREFACE.
Wyandot, the sagacious Delaware, the fierce Shaw- nee, and the cunning Ottawa as yet unconquered, although slowly and sternly retreating before the insolent column of white emigration. Another epoch witnessed the downfall of their savage pride, before the battalions of Wayne : while thenceforth, wholly unchecked by Indian resistance, swelled within our borders the rising tide of population, civil structure and material development. Upon these scenes the curtain is here unlifted. The task, delicate and re- sponsible in manifold aspects, extends immediately over the threshold laid by these pages .. He will be fortunate to whom its proper execution shall be allotted in the contingencies of the future.
To the writings of the late JAMES H. PERKINS, and for valuable suggestions personally communicated to the author by Hon. EBENEZER LANE, Hon. ELIJAH HAY- WARD, Col. JOHN JOHNSTON, THOMAS MEANS, Esq., and other citizens of the State, an expression of acknowl- edgment is due, and is gratefully tendered.
J. W. T.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Page
THE FATE OF THE ANCIENT ERIES, - CHAPTER II.
-
-
-
13
THIE NATURE AND EXTENT OF IROQUOIS CONQUEST IN THE MISSIS- SIPPI VALLEY, -
- 22
CHAPTER III.
INDIAN OCCUPATION OF OHIO IN 1750, -
-
CHAPTER IV.
-
-
29
LAKE ERIE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, -
-
-
41
CHAPTER V.
THE FRENCH ESTABLISH FORT SANDUSKY-THE ENGLISH EXPLORE THE OHIO VALLEY, - - - 55
CHAPTER VI.
THE ASCENDANCY OF FRANCE UPON THE OHIO,
-
-
-
69
CHAPTER VII.
A PICTURE OF OHIO ONE HUNDRED YEARS SINCE,
-
-
81
-
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SURRENDER OF THE WESTERN POSTS TO ENGLAND,
-
-
115
CHAPTER IX.
CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC, - - 127 CHAPTER X.
THE EXPEDITIONS AGAINST THE WESTERN TRIBES UNDER BRAD- STREET AND BOUQUET, - - 140
CHAPTER XI.
OLD MAPS AND INDIAN TRAILS, -
CHAPTER XII.
-
-
156
SUBMISSION AND FATE OF PONTIAC,
-
166
CHAPTER XIII. -
ENGLISH NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE WESTERN TRIBES-THE CLAIM TO KENTUCKY, -
- 178
CHAPTER XIV.
THE MORAVIAN MISSIONS ON THE MUSKINGUM,
-
-
- 186
CHAPTER XV.
-
-
202
THE SOCIETY OF UNITED BRETHREN, -
-
CHAPTER XVI.
DUNMORE'S EXPEDITION IN 1774-THE STORY OF LOGAN, -
- 238
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xii
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XVII. Pago
THE RELATION OF THE WESTERN TRIBES TO THE REVOLUTIONARY CONTEST, - - -
- 261
CHAPTER XVIII.
- 275 -
CHAPTER XIX.
THE CONQUEST OF ILLINOIS BY GEORGE ROGERS CLARK-INDIAN SIEGES OF FORT LAURENS, - -
CHAPTER XX.
THE KENTUCKY CAMPAIGNS AGAINST THE SHAWANESE,
-
309
CHAPTER XXI.
THE MORAVIAN MISSIONS ON THE MUSKINGUM, FROM 1772 TO 1782, 328 CHAPTER XXII.
PENNSYLVANIA CAMPAIGNS AGAINST THE OHIO INDIANS,
-
374
CHAPTER XXIII.
SUBSEQUENT MOVEMENTS OF THE MORAVIAN CONGREGATION, 380 CHAPTER XXIV.
EMBASSIES AND NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND THE OHIO TRIBES, - - 412
Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1784, 425; Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785, 438; Treaty of Fort Finney in 1786, 442.
CHAPTER XXV.
COLONIAL CLAIMS TO WESTERN LANDS, AND THEIR CESSION TO
THE UNITED STATES, - - - 465 - CHAPTER XXVI.
THE SETTLEMENT OF THE NORTH-WESTERN TERRITORY-ORDI-
- 493 NANCE OF 1787,
APPENDIX.
I. Further Particulars of the Eries, Neutrals, and Andastes, - 517
II. French Occupation by a Process Verbal, -
- 520
III. The Delaware Villages on the Scioto, - -
- 521
IV. The Locality of the Canesadooharic, -
- 521 -
V. Contemporary Accounts of the Indian Hostilities in 1774, - 522
VI. Further Particulars of Connolly's Scheme, - 525
VII. Incidents in the Life of James Dean, -
- 527
VIII. Netawatwes, and other Delaware Chiefs, - -
- 530
- - IX. Lewis Wetzell, the Borderer, - -
- 532
X. Surrender of the Moravian Tract to the United States, - 539
XI. Bockengahelas, the War-Chief of the Delawares, -
- 545
XII. Subsequent Indian Treaties, - - -
550
XIII. Ordinance of 1787, - - -
-
- 551
BORDER WAR OF THE REVOLUTION, - -
- 280
HISTORY OF OHIO.
CHAPTER I.
THE FATE OF THE ANCIENT ERIES.
A PERIOD of two centuries prior to 1850, comprises our knowledge of that region of the American Continent, which is bounded by Lake Erie on the north, and the Ohio River on the south ; and even within that brief segment of time, many statements rest upon vague tradition.
An attempt to ascend beyond 1650, would involve a prof- itless discussion of the probable origin of the Indian race. We shall decline the inquiry, whether the lost tribes of Israel yet linger in the aborigines of the American woods; or whether the latter are an off-shoot from the Tartars of Asia ; or, abandoning the unitary theory of the race, whether the Creator has not given to the continent of America its peculiar inhabitants. These are ethnological problems, which are aside from the purpose of the present volume.
The Ohio of 1650 we assume to have been a forest wilder- ness, principally occupied by a tribe of Indians, called the ERIES, whose villages skirted the shores of the lake so desig- nated.
There is some conflict of opinion, whether the Eries were not confined to the eastern shore of the lake, but the prepon- derance of authority is in favor of their occupation of the
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14
HISTORY OF OHIO.
southern shore. Dewitt Clinton, in his celebrated Historical Discourse upon the Indians of North America, speaks of " the nation of the Eries or Erigas on the south side of Lake Erie." Louis Hennepin, a Franciscan friar, whose travels in New France were published in 1698, mentions the return of the Iroquois to their villages, bringing Erie Indians as captives "from beyond the lake." Brant, the distinguished Mohawk chief, in a letter to Timothy Pickering, dated Nov. 20, 1794, alludes to the Eries as " a powerful nation form- erly living southward of Buffalo creek." Charlevoix, the historian of New France, may be cited as an authority that the nation of Eries lived where the State of Ohio now is. The recent discovery of ancient earthworks, and two inscrip- tions in the pictographic character, on Cunningham's Island (now Kelley's Island, a township of Erie county, Ohio), are supposed by Schoolcraft to indicate that the archipelago of islands in the western part of Lake Erie, was one of the strongholds of the tribe.1
1) Kelley's Island has an arca of about 3000 acres, and is situated ten miles north of the mouth of Sandusky Bay. It consists of a basis of hor- izontal limestone, of the species common to Lake Erie, rising about fifteen feet above the water level. The surface, where it is exposed, discloses the polish ercated by former diluvial or glacial action - a trait which is so remarkable on the rocks of the adjoining shores of Sandusky. This is cov- ered with a fertile limestone soil, and at the earliest period, all, except the old fields, bore a heavy growth of hard wood timber.
On the south shore of the Island are two crescent-shaped embankments, apparently intended to inclose and defend villages ; (a third circumvallation is situated inland.) One has a front of 400 feet, and the other of 614 feet, on the rocky and precipitous margin of the lake. Within these enclosures have been found stone axes, pipes, perforators, bone fish looks, net sinkers, and fragments of human bones. In the vicinity is a rock, 32 by 21 fcet on the surface, in which a great variety of figures and devices are deeply sunk. The summit of the rock is elevated eleven feet above the water. "It is by far the most extensive and well-sculptured, and well preserved inscription of the antiquarian period, cver found in America. Being on an islet sepa-
15
FATE OF THE ANCIENT ERIES.
It is generally admitted that the Eries were a member of the Iroquois family, as distinguished from the Algonquin tribes. In 1650, the Iroquois, as the confederated Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas were called by the French, occupied what is now New York and Northern Pennsylvania ; the Hurons or Wyandots, and a kindred Neutral Nation, held the peninsula between Lakes Huron, Erie and Ontario ; the Eries were seated on the southern shore of Lake Erie; while the Andastes possessed the val- leys of the Alleghany or Upper Ohio River,-but all were generically Iroquois, speaking dialects of the same lingual stock. The Western tribes were singly more powerful than either of the New York tribes, except perhaps the Senecas ; but the Five Nations (afterwards increased to Six by the accession of the Tuscaroras) had formed their celebrated alliance at least as early as 1605, and, by the strength of union, become the terror of their less sagacious neighbors.
Before proceeding with our immediate topic-the fortunes of the Eries, Hurons and Andastes-we will briefly classify the other Indian tribes, as they were found by the first dis- coverers of the continent.
rated from the shore, with precipitous sides, it has remained undiscovered till within late years. It is in the pictographie character of the natives. Its leading symbols are readily interpreted. The human figures, the pipes, smoking groups, the presents and other figures, denote tribes, negotiations, crimes, turmoils, which tell a story of thrilling interest, in which the white man or European plays a part. There are many subordinate figures which require study. There are some in which the effects of atmospheric and lake action have destroyed the connection, and others of an anomalous charac- ter: The whole inscription is manifestly connected with the occupation of the basin of the lake by the Eries-of the coming of the Wyandots-of the final triumph of the Iroquois, and the flight of the people who have left their name to the lakc."-History, Condition and Prospects of the Indi- an tribes of the United States : by H. R. Schoolcraft, LL.D. Illustrated by S. Eastman, U. S. A. Part second, 86-7.
16
HISTORY OF OHIO.
Except the Iroquois, antiquarians describe all other north- ern tribes as Algonquin, which term, though generic, was the special designation of a nation living on the St. Lawrence River, where also was the seat of the Utawawas or Ottowas. The leading tribe of the Algonquins, however, were the Lenno Lenapees or Delawares, who were found by the first colonists about the waters of the Delaware and its tributary streams, within the present limits of New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania. Their traditions declare them to be the parent stem whence other Algonquin tribes have sprung-a claim recognized by the latter, who accord to the ancient Lenapees the title of Grandfather. The Lenapees, on their part, call the other Algonquin tribes Children, Grandchildren, Neph- ews, or Younger Brothers ; but they confess the superiority of the Wyandots and the Five Nations by yielding them the title of Uncles, while they, in return, call the Lenapees Nephews, or more frequently Cousins.2
" Except the detached nation of the Tuscaroras, and a few smaller tribes adhering to them," to quote from the accom- plished historian of Pontiac's Conspiracy, "the Iroquois family were confined to the region south of the Lakes Erie and Ontario, and the peninsula east of Lake Huron. They formed, as it were, an island in the vast expanse of Algon- quin population, extending from Hudson's Bay on the north to the Carolinas on the south ; from the Atlantic on the east to the Mississippi and Lake Winnipeg on the west. They were Algonquins who greeted Jacques Cartier as his ships ascended the St. Lawrence. The first British colonists found savages of the same race hunting and fishing along the coasts and inlets of Virginia ; and it was the daughter of an Algon- quin chief who interceded with her father for the life of the
2) Parkman's Conspiracy of Pontiac, 26.
17
FATE OF THE ANCIENT ERIES.
adventurous Englishman. They were Algonquins who, under Sassacus the Pequot and Phillip of Mount Hope, waged deadly war against the Puritans of New England ; who dwelt at Penacook under the rule of the great magician Passacona- way, and trembled before the evil spirits of the Crystal Hills ; and who sang Aves and told their beads in the forest chapel of Father Rasles by the banks of the Kennebec. They were Algonquins who, under the great tree at Kensington, made the covenant of peace with William Penn; and when the French Jesuits and fur traders explored the Wabash and the Ohio, they found their valleys tenanted by the same far- extended race. At the present day, the traveler, perchance, may find them pitching their bark lodges along the beach at Mackinaw, spearing fish among the boiling rapids of St. Marys, or skimming the waves of Lake Superior in their birch canoes."
Bancroft, in a map of aboriginal America, concurs with Parkman, but limits the Algonquins to the thirty-sixth degree of north latitude, and gives four-fifths of the country south of that parallel to the Mobilian race. The other southern races were the Cherokees, who were mountaineers, and oc- cupied the upper valley of the Tennessee River, as far west as Muscle Shoals, and the highlands of Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, the Switzerland of the south; the Uchees and Catawbas, who occupied small arcas adjacent to the Chero- kee country on the south and east ; and the Natchez, residing in scarcely more than four or five villages, of which the largest was near the site of the city thus called. Bancroft has a general classification of Dacotah for the numerous tribes west of the Mississippi, and within the valleys of the Arkan- sas and the Missouri. These distinctions have little other foundation than language, of which eight radically different 1*
18
HISTORY OF OHIO.
varieties are said to have been spoken east of the Missis- sippi.3
To return to the kindred but hostile Iroquois tribes. About the middle of the seventeenth century, the Five Na- tions of New York, grown arrogant by fifty years of con- federation, invaded the territory of the Hurons or Wyandots. The ancient seats of this nation were on the eastern shores of the lake which now bears their name, and thither the enemy penetrated, undisturbed by the Neutral Nation, who occupied the eastern portion of the peninsula adjacent to Lake Ontario, and probably extended beyond the Niagara River.4 The Hurons were driven with great slaughter to the Manitouline islands of the lake. They next occupied the island of Michillimacinac, thinking its isolated position and precipitous cliffs would prove a shelter. But the enraged enemy drove them thence. They fled into the territories of the Odjibwas, in Lake Superior. But even there their ene- mies attempted to follow them, until they were defeated by the Chippewas, in a battle fought at the foot of the south cape of its outlet ; at a prominent elevation, which, in allu- sion to this incident, is still called Point Iroquois.
The extinction of the Neutral Nation soon followed, and then the victorious Iroquois turned against their Erie breth- ren. In the year 1655, using their canoes as scaling ladders, they stormed the Erie strongholds, leaped down like tigers among the defenders, and butchered them without mercy. The greater part of the nation was involved in the massacre, and the remnant was incorporated with the conquerors, or with other tribes, to which they fled for refuge.4
3) History of the United States, vol. iii., p. 235.
4) We accede to what scems the weight of tradition, that the Neutral Nation were a distinct tribe, and so called from their neutrality in the con- test between the Iroquois and the Hurons ; but Schoolcraft, in speaking of
19
FATE OF THE ANCIENT ERIES.
The Andastes shared the same fate, but their resistance postponed their dispersion until 1672, when their ruin was also accomplished. It seems likely that a tribe called by the Iroquois, Satanas, by the French, Chaouanons, and whom we suppose to have been the Shawanese, were, about this period, driven from the valley of the Ohio to the vicinity of the Mexican Gulf. Thus, at the commencement of the eigh- · teenth century, the territory now Ohio was derelict, except as the indomitable confederates of the North made it a trail for further hostilities, or roamed its hunting grounds.
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