USA > Ohio > Ohio's progressive sons; a history of the state; sketches of those who have helped to build up the commonwealth > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90
١٠١١٠٢٠
Gc 977.1 0h36 1400168
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02405 5573
GEN
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/ohiosprogressive00quee
Ohio's Progressive Sons"
-
A History of the State
Sketches of those who have helped to build up the Commonwealth
ILLUSTRATED
But there are deeds which shall not pass away, And names that must not wither, though the earth Forgets her empires with a just decay. -Byron.
PUBLISHED BY THE Queen City Publishing Company Cincinnati, Ohio 1905
1400168
OHIO
-
CHAPTER I
Ohio before the arrival of the white man
Aboriginal Occupants of the Ohio Valley .- Their Fortifications and Mounds .- - The Ohio Indians in the Seventeenth Century .- Savage Warfare of the Iroquois .- Extermination of the Eries and Andastes .- An Ancient Custom House .- Division of Ohio between the Different Tribes in 1750 .- Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanese, Ottawas and Miamis .- Bravery of the Wyandots.
nece $ 28.50 5-5-67 Dw. 1960 P.D. 3837
1
GOVERNO 11)
FIRST
OF OHIO.
ÅRD
TIFFIN
OHIO'S FIRST GOVERNOR
S OUR FATHERS said of the Old Dominion, we may say of Ohio, "She is the mother of statesmen." Politically, Ohio is the first State in the Union, and perhaps more potential in public affairs than even New York. Of the Presidents of the United States, chosen by the Republican party, all but two were born in Ohio, and three of them lived in this State at the time of their election to the highest office in the gift of the American people.
Of the seven Chief Justices of the United States Supreme Court, two were from Ohio. Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, the most successful Union Generals of the great war of the Rebellion, were Ohio men. Five Secretaries of the Treasury came from Ohio, two of them pre-eminent for the abilities with which they discharged the duties of that high trust. The first Civil Governor of our new possessions in the Far East, William Taft, is also a son of our great and prosperous State.
Families of Ohio helped to people other States, and legions are the men from Ohio who have appeared in the National Councils, representing the newer States in the West and Southwest.
Ohio is a powerful commonwealth, blessed in climate, rich in soil, and abundant in natural resources. The population is homogenous, though in the veins of Ohio men flows the blood of many peoples-the Puritan, the Quaker, the Dutch, the Scotch-Irish, the German and the Cavalier from New England, Pennsylvania and Virginia. With these is mingled the best blood of our best class of foreign-born citizens. John Sherman, William Allen, Robert C. Schenck, Benjamin Butterworth, Clement L. Val- landingham and William McKinley sprang from different branches of the American family, but they were all Ohio men.
Less than one hundred and twenty-five years ago the territory comprised within the lim- its of the present State of Ohio was a wilderness-today, from its wealth and population, it stands in the foremost rank among the States of our grand country. History furnishes no parallel to a growth and development as wonderful as this.
The State of Ohio is the most Eastern of the States northwest of the river from which she derives her name. That river defines her borders on the Southeast and the South. On the North her territory is bounded by Lake Erie and the State of Michigan. On the East by the State of Pennsylvania, and on the West by Indiana.
The primitive aspect of the magnificent and fertile region watered by the Ohio River and its tributaries was singularly attractive to those pioneers of civilization, who, with the red men's love of freedom and the chase, united a sturdy energy and an indomitable per- severance peculiarly their own. The "Beautiful River," which gave easy access to this wonderful domain, was bounded by gently sloping hills, presenting no obstacles to culti- vation, and extending in irregular ranges for many miles into the interior. These undu- lating lands were overshadowed by one unbroken forest. The autumnal fires of the In- dians, during a long series of years, had destroyed every vestige of undergrowth. From hill
5
to hill, through the dim sylvan aisles, the hunter gazed with surprise and admiration upon the large herds of deer, as well as other game which here found pasturage on the luxuriant vines and grasses that sprang up from the fertilizing ashes of the annual fires. In the fall of the year, when the wind shook down the abundant fruit of the chestnut, the beech and the oak, countless flocks of wild turkeys afforded food of the most delicious character to the hunter. To attract the agriculturist. in addition to the excellent wheat lands on the hills, were the maize lands of the bottoms. Seldom touched by early frost and rarely subject to disastrous over- flows of the river, their rich, deep, black loam offered a generous reward to the labors of the husbandman.
That a people far superior to the nomadic tribes encountered by the early pioneers had anciently occupied this fertile valley is evidenced from the numerous traces of fortified cities, whose ruins have not yet wholly disappeared, and of the many mounds and burying places in the different parts of the State. Of this people and of the works which testify to their existence the traditions of their savage successors do not speak. Who they were, whence they came and in what manner they disappeared are mysteries which continue to baffle
the researches of the archaeologists and the patient scrutiny of the antiquarian. The race of those prehistoric people is extinct, and nothing is left to tell the story of the rise and fall of their nation.
At a later day the red man planted his vil- A RELIC OF THE VIRGIN FOREST CUYAHOGA FALLS lages along the shores of the Ohio River, but when the European trader first visited that stream these settlements, with very few excep- tions, had disappeared. For many miles back the wilderness was left untouched even by the tillage of the Indians. Lands of extraordinary fertility were used only as vast hunting grounds, where the warriors from the towns high up the tributaries of the Ohio followed the pleasures of the chase. To account for this change from comparative populousness to solitude the traditions of the Indians relate that for a long series of years fleets of canoes, manned by the fierce warriors of the Iroquois, came down annually from the headwaters of the Allegheny, carrying death and desolation through the entire valley of the Ohio, by reason of their ferocious attacks and unmerciful slaughter. until at length they drove the inhabitants to seek a more secure refuge far in the interior.
Of the Indian tribes who annihilated the prehistoric races little is known, and even the Indians of the last few centuries are surrounded more or less with deep mysteries. Only a period of two and a half centuries comprise our knowledge of that region of the American continent which is bounded by Lake Erie on the north and the Ohio on the south, and even within that brief segment of time many statements rest upon vague tradition. The Ohio of 1650 was a forest wilderness, principally occupied by a tribe of Indians called the Eries, or Cats, whose villages skirted the shores of the lake so designated, while the valleys of the Upper Ohio River were in possession of the Andastes. These Eries and Andastes were
:
6
members of the Iroquois family, speaking dialects of the same lingual stock. About the middle of the seventeenth century the "Five Nations," of New York, grown arrogant by fifty years of confederation, invaded the territory of the Hurons, or Wyandots, on the Eastern shores of the lake which bears their name, and thither the enemy penetrated, undisturbed
EARTHWORKS OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLE NEWARK, OHIO
by the neutral nation which occupied the Eastern portion of the peninsula adjacent to Lake Ontario, and probably extended beyond the Niagara River. The Hurons were driven with great slaughter to the islands of Lake Huron, and finally into the territories of the Odjib- was, on Lake Superior. Their enemies attempted to follow them, until they were defeated by
PREHISTORIC EARTHWORKS, NEWARK, OHIO
the Chippewas in a battle fought at the foot of the south cape of its outlet, at a prominent elevation, which, in allusion to this incident, is called Point Iroquois.
The extinction of the Neutral Nation soon followed, and then the victorious Iroquois turned against their Erie brethren. In the year 1655, using their canoes as scaling ladders, they stormed the Erie strongholds, leaped down like tigers among the defenders and butch-
7
ered them without mercy. The greater part of the nation was involved in the massacre, and the remnants were taken into the tribe of the conquerors or into other tribes, to which they fled for refuge. The Andastes shared the same fate, but their resistance postponed their dispersion until 1672, when their ruin was also accomplished. Thus, at the commence- ment of the eighteenth century, the territory now Ohio was derelict, except as the indomit- able confederates of the North made it a trail for further hostilities or roamed its hunting grounds. The Andastes and Eries were not entirely exterminated by the war of 1655. Many of their fugitives, like those of the conquered Hurons, became allies of the formidable Miamis or Twahtwas, who were located on the Miamis of the Lake and the Miamis of the Ohio. According to French Missionary authors, the Iroquois fell on the Miamis and Chic- taghicks, or Illinois (enraged at their friendly reception of the vanquished Indians), who
RACOON RIVER, NEAR PREHISTORIC EARTHIWORKS, LICKING COUNTY, OHIO
were encamped together on the banks of the Maumee River in the year 1680. In this attack they killed thirty and took three hundred prisoners. But the Illinois and Miamis rallied, and, by a dexterous movement, got ahead of the retreating Iroquois, waylaid their path and recovered their prisoners, killing many of their enemies.
In the eighteenth century in Ohio the Indian was a temporary sojourner, not linked so inseparably to the soil as the Iroquois to their "Long House" between the Niagara and the Hudson. But while the tribes who were found in occupation of Ohio when the first white settlers arrived were comparatively strangers to that region, having moved there between 1720 and 1750, yet they were closely identified with the plains, forests and waters. The streams perpetuate their vanished dialects, as has been expressed by William J. Sperry, in the old "Cincinnati Globe." in the first half of the last century, entitled "A Lament for the Ancient People," which is as follows:
"Sad are fair Muskingum's waters, Sadly the Mahoning raves; Tuscarawas' plains are lonely, Lonely are Hockhccking's waves. "From where headlong Cuyahoga Thunders down its rocky way, And the billows of Lake Erie Whiten in Sandusky's Bay,
8
"Unto where Potomac rushes Arrows 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- On the water, in the forest -- Ruled and reigned the Seneca.
"But sad are 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, Stranger plows 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 Chautauqua's side, Or among the scanty woodlands By the Allegheny's tide --
"There in spots, like sad oases, Lone amid the sandy plains, There the Seneca still wasting Amid desolation reigns."
In the middle of the eighteenth century four tribes were prominent within the limits of Ohio-the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanese and Ottawas. In 1671, the Tionontates, a tribe of the Hurons or Wyandots, who after their defeat by the warlike Iroquois, had found refuge among the Chippewas, left Lake Superior for Michillimacinac, where they rallied around them the dispersed remnants of the other tribes of their nation, and prob- ably some of the Andastes and other kindred tribes, which had been likewise nearly exter- minated by the Iroquois. Some years later they removed to Detroit in the vicinity of their ancient seats. But, though reduced to two villages, they resumed their superiority over
the other tribes. Charlevoix, in 1721, writes that they were still the soul of the councils of all the Western Indians. They claimed the sovereignty over the country between Lake Erie in the North and the Ohio River in the South.
About 1740-1750 a party of Delawares, who had been disturbed in Pennsylvania by European emigration determined to move West of the Allegheny Mountains, and obtained from their ancient allies and relatives, the Wyandots, the grant of a derelict tract of land lying principally on the Muskingum River. Here they flourished and became a very powerful tribe. From 1765 to 1795 they were at the height of their influence, but the treaty of Greenville and the disasters sustained by the Delawares in Wayne's campaign were a death blow to their ascendency. The Shawanese returned to their ancient home in Ohio, from which they were driven by the Iroquois, during the years 1740-1755. They occupied the
NORTHSHORE OF GREEN ISLAND, LAKE ERIE
Scioto country, extending to Sandusky and westwardly towards the Great Miami, where they left the names of two of their tribes, Chillicothe and Piqua. During the forty follow- ing years the Shawanese were in an almost continuous state of war with the American people, either as British colonies or as independent States. These Indians were among the most active allies of the French during the Seven Years' War; and after the conquest of Canada continued in hostile concert with the Delawares, which only terminated after the successful campaign of General Bouquet. The Ottawas lived on the banks of the Canadian
10
river Ottawa, until driven westward by the Five Nations, where they took refuge among the Pottawatannies and Ojibwas. The western shore of Lake Huron and the northern portion of the Michigan peninsula were the asylum of the fugitive Ottawas.
It is remarkable that among the Ottowas alone the heavenly bodies were an object of veneration-the Sun ranking as their Supreme Deity. This tribe, whose mythology was more complicated than usual with the Indians, was accustomed to keep a regular festival to celebrate the beneficence of the Sun. The Ottawas also erected an idol in their towns and sacrificed to it, but such ceremonies were by no means general. Bancroft states that the word "Ottawa" signifies "trader" and was probably applied by the Hurons by the fact that the tribe was principally settled on and in the vicinity of an island in the Ottawa River, where the Ottawas exacted a tribute from all the Indians going to and coming from the country of the Hurons. Although the Hurons were ten times as numerous as the Otta- was, they submitted to that imposition, which seems to prove that their right of sovereignty over the Ottawa River was generally recognized. After their expulsion from this abor- iginal custom house, they took possession of the islands of Lake Erie and the peninsula of Sandusky, where their fishing and trapping parties were found by the French as early as 1750. Soon after this time strag- gling parties of New York Indians were occasionally found near Lake Erie ; and at least one Mingo town was situated on the Ohio River, at Mingo Junction, just below Steu- benville.
The Indian occupancy of Ohio, in - 1750, was as follows: The Dela- wares occupied principally the val- ley of the Muskingum, but their hunting grounds embraced the ter- ritory from Lake Erie to the Ohio River, covering over one-half of the present State of Ohio. The Shaw- anese were soon admitted to the INSCRIPTION ROCK, KELLEY'S ISLAND LAKE ERIE valleys of the Scioto and Miami Rivers, adjoining the territory of See Explanatory Notes the Twahtwas or Miami Indians, while the Wyandots and a few bands of Ottawas dwelt by the waters of the Sandusky and Maumee. The principal seat of the Wyandots was opposite Detroit, and the Ohio settlements were in the nature of colonies from the peninsula bor- dering Lake Huron. This was also the case with the Ottawas, whose villages were scattered along the lake shore, although on a map drawn in 1763, the remains of an Ottawa fort is marked, situated near the present site of Plymouth, Huron County, Ohio, while an Ottawa town is seen, located on the Cuyahoga River, about thirty miles from its mouth, just below the falls.
The Ohio Indians were magnificent specimens of the race, physically as well as men- tally. Among them the Wyandots unquestionably were more superior by reason of their bravery. With other tribes, flight in battle was no disgrace, and was sometimes a part of their strategy. With the Wyandots, however, it was different. In the Battle of the Fallen Tim- bers, in which the strength of the Confederate Tribes was broken by General "Mad Anthony" Wayne, but one survivor remained of thirteen chiefs of the Wyandots, and he was found badly wounded.
3 1833 02405 5573
11
The following illustrates this characteristic: When General Wayne occupied his po- sition at Greenville, in 1793, in his final campaign against the Ohio Indians, he sent for Captain Wells, who commanded a company of scouts, and requested him to capture an Indian from Sandusky for the purpose of obtaining information. Wells, who spent his early life among the Indians as a captive, having been stolen from his Kentucky home, was per- fectly acquainted with their character, and answered that he could take a prisoner, but not one from Sandusky.
"Why not from Sandusky?" asked the General.
"Because there are only Wyandots in Sandusky," he answered.
"Why will not a Wyandot do?"
"For the best of reasons," said Wells; "a Wyandot will never be taken alive."
80
20
15
35
30
19
45
10
45
10
45
30
45
Pointe auxy
Daranguisse
Raux Cigue
Wointe Pellec
LAC ERIE
la Taille coupres Idanoury-
Istes aux Serpentes.
Toutle celle partie du Lac mest inconnue.
R.aux Boeufs
Village de Louise
Fort des slams
- R au Fiel
Rau Permillion
Ancien
Tillage
ass Chabuarhus Antigue
Villave de Chingue
ct
Village de Louy's
La Demoiselle
R.Kammnouaras
Roche
* Veronguekozan
OARTE
15
DUN VOYAGE FAIT
DANS
LA BELLE RIVIERE
5
R.ChiuonduichCe
EN LA NOUVELLE FRANCE
R. Bloncre
Na Te Bori
OU- R.de Sinhido
For lo Revererend Pere Bonnecampus Jesulle Mothermuticity
On apris pour Preniter meridien celuy de l'observatoire Royale de Paris
5
Longitude Occidentals
43.
30° 15'
86 -
+5°
20- 15
45.
30%
95
45.
30' 15.
ys
30. 15' 80" 45' 30' 15.
19 45
30.
.
Maux Cadres
CRaux Pommes
10
Lac Tjadakoin
5
Iraux
RAISING
20
C
Por
orlag
15
L'OHIO
M.DCC XLIX.
OLDEST MAP OF OHIO
12
CHAPTER II
-
A Period of Wars and Bloodshed
Grants of Ohio Lands .- French Possession of the Ohio Valley .- The Seven Year's War .- Indian Conspiracy and the Confederacy of Pontiac .- Appearance of the First White Settlers .- Assassination of Logan's Family .- Lord Dunmore's War .- Chief Logan's Great Speech .- Arrival of Christian Missionaries.
URING the early half of the eighteenth century the attention of the Anglo- American colonies, which as yet had extended their back settlements to but little over a hundred miles from the Atlantic, began to be attracted by reports of a beautiful country west of the Alleghenies. The glowing accounts given of the Ohio Valley by the fur traders, who alone had penetrated that region, naturally produced a desire for its acquisition. As early as 1710 Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, with much pomp and retinue explored the mountain passes leading to that "land of promise." Again Logan, the energetic Secre- tary of Pennsylvania from 1719 to 1731, constantly urged the necessity of securing for the English the Ohio territory. At length, in the year 1748, Thomas Lee, a member of the Virginia Council, associating himself with several other gentlemen of that province, together with certain London mer- chants, obtained a grant of half a million acres of land, situated principally on the south side of the Ohio River between the Monongahela and the Kanawha. This was the first Ohio Land Company, and its object was the establishment of an English settlement in the then far West. The right of Great Britain to grant these lands was founded upon the assumption that the Iroquois, or "Five Nations," by right of conquest owned the Ohio Valley and had placed it, along with their other lands, under the protection of the English flag. France, however, advanced a counter claim, fol- lowing the discovery of the Mississippi by the adventurous Pere Marquette.
Robert de la Salle, a French Chevalier, the first white man who sailed the waters of Lake Erie, had forced his way to the three outlets through which the "Great River" poured into the Gulf of Mexico.
Upon reaching the termination of his journey, he took formal possession of the whole Mississippi Valley in the name of Louis XIV., and erected forts and established settlements at various points. Fully appreciating the vast importance of prosecuting the system of colonization thus commenced he proceeded to France and communicated his ideas to the King. The Ministers of the great Louis listened eagerly to a scheme which not only prom- ised an immense accession of valuable territory, but served likewise to create a permanent and efficient barrier to the Western extension of the English colonies in Northern America. An expedition was fitted out for the purpose of planting a permanent colony at the mouth of the Mississippi, the command of which was given to La Salle. This expedition was a failure and its illustrious but unfortunate commander perished a victim to the treachery of his own followers. This disaster, however, did not quench the ardor of the French in the prosecution of their great plan. A second expedition sailed from France under the command of M. d'Iberville. He explored the river for several hundred miles and added that territory to the dominion of France, giving it the name of Louisiana. During the period that elapsed from La Sale's discovery until near the middle of the eighteenth century the French enjoyed entire and almost undisputed, though not unquestioned, possession of the West. Permanent establishments were made at different points, as Detroit, Peoria, Kaskasia, Vin- cennes and New Orleans, and the forts and settlements west of the Alleghenies steadily increased in numbers and strength. Before the completion of the first quarter of the eighteenth century the territory had been divided into quarters, each having its local Gover-
15
nor or Commandant, all of whom being subject to the authority of the Council General of Louisiana. One of the quarters was established northwest of the Ohio, forts had been erected on the Mississippi, on the Ilinois and on the Maumee, as well as on the lakes. Still however, the communication with Canada was through Lake Michigan. The nearer route to the Ohio River and Lake Erie had not been discovered. This discovery was made not long afterwards. Before 1750, a French post had been fortified at the mouth of the Wabash, and 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, previously referred to, was formed, and some attempt was made to establish trading posts among the Indians. This event hastened what it was designed to prevent. A third chain of fortifications was established by the French, extending from the confluence of the Monongahela and the Allegheny to the sources of French Creek and to Lake Erie. The French were now in actual occupation of the whole valley of the Mississippi and the English Government became seriously alarmed. Negotiations took place in the course of which England proposed to limit her American colonies on the west by a line drawn from Lake Erie through French Creek to its mouth and thence direct to the nearest mountains of Vir- ginia. These negotiations were of no avail, and the contending parties referred their con-
AT THE CAMP FIRE
troversies to the arbitration of arms. After a desperate struggle of seven years' duration the powers of the French and their Indian allies was effectually broken, their chain of West- ern posts either destroyed or captured and the whole territory herebefore claimed by them left in undisputed possession of their conquerors.
By the treaty of peace signed at Fontainebleau, on the 10th of February, 1763, France divested herself of all her North American possessions by ceding to Great Britain the whole of the territory east of the Mississippi River, with the exception of the Peninsula of Orleans,
16
which with the remainder of Louisiana she transferred on the same day to Spain. Having been thus effectually freed from the pressure of an active and enterprising enemy, English traders, hoping to succeed to the influence previously exercised by the French over the Northwestern tribes of Indians, speedily spread themselves among them for the purpose of obtaining peltries from the red men. With the feeling of security the Ohio company made
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.