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WESTERN RESERVE AND EARLY OHIO
CHERRY-FOUSE
Gc 977.1 C42w 1324613
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02398 8022
/
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/westernreserveea00cher_0
CLEVELAND 1796
THE WESTERN RESERVE C
AND
EARLY OHIO
By P. P. CHERRY
Author of THE GRAVE CREEK MOUND, PORTAGE PATH, PIONEER HUNTING STORIES, and MINGO THE SCOUT
Published by R. L. FOUSE FIRESTONE PARK, AKRON, OHIO 1921
Copyright 1920 CHERRY & FOUSE
CASLON PRINTERS WOOSTER, OHIO
1324613
RUSSELL L. FOUSE
This book is due solely to the ambition, enthusiasm and persistence of Russell L. Fouse, superintendent of the Kenmore schools. He, knowing of the Cherry manuscripts and of the sixty long years of patient, painstaking investigation and study which gave them birth, induced the author to publish them.
It was Supt. Fouse's money and force which brought this volume into existence by generously financing the proposition, thereby making it possible for the author to lay before the students of tomorrow the strenuous but golden days of the past. The author's grati- tude to the gentleman can not be expressed in words.
-The Author.
-
midland 8:50 10-16.65. 18
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introductory
Ohio-Poem.
Ohio.
The Pre-Historic Races of America 9
The Eries
11
The First Naval Battle on Lake Erie 29
The French in Ohio. 31
Pre-Territorial Military Expeditions 38
The Western Reserve 56
Organization and Early Boundaries of the Western Reserve .. 68
The Pioneers of the Western Reserve 76
Early Schools of the Western Reserve 96
The Common School Fund 109
Early Spelling School 111
Pioneer Colleges of the Western Reserve 115
The Home of Mormonism 118
Colonial Activities of the Western Reserve 120
Colonial Resources
140
Early Outfits 145
The Old Man of the Woods 147
Will 'o Wisp 149
First Post Masters and Early Post Routes 153
Indians of the Cuyahoga Valley and Portage Lakes 163 Indian Trails 176
Noted Indian Chiefs on the Reserve. 193
Tecumseh-The Last of Ohio's Great Chieftains 202
Indian Eloquence 212 Indian Religious Festivals. 218
Moravian Missions on the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas 220
Smith's Captivity on the Reserve. 230
Indian Holmes 242
Strange Adventures of Christian Fast 245 Hunters of Indians 250 Brady's Fight and Leap. 263 Adventures of Capt. Delaun Mills 266 Adam and Andrew Poe's Famous Fight. 268
Boundary Lines of The McIntosh Treaty 274 Military Expeditions Into the North-West Territory 276
Gen. Wadsworth's Army of Occupation. 284 Troubles of Early Constables . 289
Early Counterfeiters of the Cuyahoga Valley 293
Building Perry's Vessels.
303
New Portage as an Early Port. 305
The Ui derground Railway. 309
John Brown of Ossawatomie 322
Hunters of Indians 250
-
DEDICATION
This volume is dedicated to the boys and girls of today, that they may ever keep the traditions and brave deeds of our forefathers as sacrea memories.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Cleveland in 1796
Fort Island
Engraved Battle Ax
Frontispiece 8 12
Group of Implements
14
Stone Head
16
Retreat of Eries
21
Pre-Historic Works in Ashland County
23
Group of Implements
25
Stone Implements
26
Erie Crockery
27
From the Great Lakes to the Gulf
32 36
Inscription Rock
40 57 60
Fort Weymouth
- Fort Conneaut - -
Cuyahoga River
Pioneer Cabin
A Stockade
The Old Schoolhouse
An Early Clearing -
Shining Deer -
Camping Scene
Fort D. T. Wolbach
A Quiet Stretch on the Cuyahoga
Black Hawk
Beginning of Portage Path
Path Crossing Old Clearing
Center of Indian Communication
Pictured Tree on Path 187 Indian Statue on Portage Path 190 194
Capt. Pipe Warning Scout
Pontiac Taking Up Hatchet 198 236
Scioto War Trail Statue
Standing Rock in the Cuyahoga River 264
Upper Headquarters of Original Surveyors 285
Covered Bridge 287
John Brown
323
John Brown's Arsenal
326
John Brown's Monument
330
64 69 77 87 97 121 127 128
150 164 171 177 180 184
Fort Hill
Fort Whittlesey
THE PRIMITIVE CUYAHOGA VALLEY
There are very many vallies, vallies of renown. But the Cuyahoga valley was fairer than these. And greener its grasses and taller its trees 'Ere the sound of the ax in the forest had rung, Or the mower his scythe in the meadows had swung. In their sheltered repose looking out from the wood, The bark-builded wigwams of the Ottawas stood; There glided the corn dance, the council-fire shone, And against the red war-post the hatchet was thrown. There the old smoked in silence, their pipe, and the young To the pike and the white perch their baited lines flung! There the boy shaped his arrows, and there the shy maid Wove her many-hued baskets and bright wampum braid. 'O stream of Hopocan! if answer of thine Could raise from thy waters to question of mine, Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks a moan Of sorrow would swell for the days that are gone. Not for thee, dull jar of the loom and the wheel, The gliding of shuttles, the ringing of steel; But that old voice of water, of bird and of breeze, The dip of the wild fowl, the rustling of trees.
Whittier.
INTRODUCTORY
Like the strains of some long forgotten music the memory of the days of olden time come knocking at our door.
There is no life so bleak or drear, but what fancy can call back from out the shadowy past memories that make us forget the care and the worries of our present while reveling among the brighter joys of the past.
I have no excuse to offer in inflicting upon the world another book. It has been to me a labor of love, and if it shall prove as much comfort to any who reads as it has been a joy to the author in the labor of com- piling this work, he will feel amply paid.
The true history of the world is but the history of individuals and communities. The historian of today, and of communities, has but degenerated into a mere compiler of facts and statements from lips that have long since crumbled into dust; echoes from that mystic shore from whence none ever return.
The writer has tried to present a true picture of the Pioneer days of the Reserve. The matter given is truth, not fiction, and whatever may have been his failings, he has endeavored to do his best. He is well aware that there were many men far more capable of performing this task, but they did not, and the spirit of the past came upon him and he did his best-what more can a man do?
It is the story of the struggles, privations and triumphs, not of a race, but of a class as distinctive as a race. No other people cast in the same mould could have brought about the same results, or brought forth a people who would in such a near future direct the policy of the whole American Nation.
Where is there a section containing but 3,500,000 acres that could in a period of time covering but little
more than fifty years, from a dense and frowning wil- derness produce such men as Benjamin F. Wade, Joshua R. Giddings, Rufus P. Spalding, David Todd, James R. Garfield, and William McKinley; sounding from high places solemn words of warning and advice or directing the ship of State in troublous waters with breakers looming just ahead ?
The fires of the Indians have long since gone out upon the shores of our lakes, and upon the banks of rushing streams.
As a race they have withered from our land. The war-whoop no longer sounds in the forest; the toma- hawk and scalping are seen no more. The midnight conflagration, massacre, outrage and torture no longer cries to high heaven for its bloody vengeance. The for- est itself has disappeared and in its place stand lovely homesteads, pleasant villages and teeming cities; the rush and roar of thousands of engines and pulleys and belts; the whirring of countless wheels and spindles and looms; the rattle and clatter of hurrying multi- tudes, who if not happier are not in danger of midnight attack, burning homes and the shrieks of the tortured.
The Athens of America still stands, but her pion- eers, the cubal cains, who have broken her solitudes and fashioned her destinies and made the beginnings of a class of people, the like of which the world has never seen equaled; they have passed away, their names are being forgotten, and their deeds have but become tradi- tions, dim, far away and misty. Let us then do honor to our noble forefathers, so brave, so patient, so trust- worthy, so true to their conceptions of God and Home and Country.
OHIO
"The sun never shone on a country more fair Than beautiful, peerless Ohio. There's life in a kiss of her rarefied air, Ohio, prolific Ohio.
Her sons are all valiant and noble and bright, Her beautiful daughters are just about right, And her babies, God bless them, are clear out of sight ; That crop never fails in Ohio.
"Our homes are alight with a halo of love, Ohio, contented Ohio ;
We bask in the light of the heavens above, No cloud ever darkens Ohio. Our grain waves as billows of gold in the sun; The fruits of our orchards are equaled by none ; And our pumpkins, some of them weigh most a ton ! We challenge the world in Ohio!
"Our girls are sweet models of maidenly grace, In this modern Eden Ohio.
They're perfect in figure and lovely in face, That's what they are in Ohio. Their smiles are bewitching and winning and sweet ; Their dresses are modest, stylish and neat; A Trilby would envy their cute little feet In beautiful peerless Ohio.
"When the burdens of life I am called to lay down I hope I may die in Ohio. I never could ask a more glorious crown Than one of the sod of Ohio;
And when the last trump wakes the land and the sea, And the tombs of the earth set their prisoners free, You may all go aloft, if you choose, but as for me, I think I'll just stay in Ohio." -Auld.
OHIO
"The hills of Ohio, how sweetly they rise,
In beauty of nature, to blend with the skies, With fair azure outline, and tall ancient trees,
Ohio, my country, I love thee for these."
-Mary E. Kail.
In his address delivered on "Ohio Day", at the Centennial, in Philadelphia, Edward P. Mansfield said:
"Ohio is, in reference to the square miles of its surface the first State in agriculture of the American Union. Ohio has raised more grain per square mile than either France, Austria, or Great Britain. They raised 1450 bushels per sqaure mile and ten bushels to each person. Ohio raised 3750 bushels per square mile, or 50 bushels to each person. Ohio was the first state in the Union in the production of domestic animals.
The coal fields of Ohio are vastly greater than that of Great Britain. The 10,000 square miles of coal, and 4,000 square miles of iron in Ohio are enough to supply the whole American Continent for ages to come.
From the ports of Cleveland and Cincinnati the vessels of Ohio touch 42,000 miles of coast, and her 5,000 miles of railroad carry her products to every part of the country.
Ohio has more than kept pace with New York and New England in the progress of manufactures during the last twenty years.
Ohio is the first state in the Union, as to the pro-
1
OHIO
portion of her youth attending school. Ohio has taxed itself tens of millions of dollars beyond its land grants of 640 acres to every township, to found and maintain a system of education which the world has not sur- passed.
With this knowledge, it is not difficult to say that the future will produce more, and in far greater ratio, than the past. The pictured scenes of the prophets have already been more than fulfilled, and the visions of beauty and glory, which their imagination failed fully to describe, will be more than realized in the bloom of that garden which republican America will present to the eyes of astonished mankind. Long be- fore another century shall have passed by the single State of Ohio will present four fold the population with which the thirteen States began their independence, more wealth than the entire Union now has; greater universities than any now in the country, and a de- velopment of arts and manufactures which the world knows nothing of.
A state that began long after the Declaration of Independence, in the then unknown wilderness of North America, presents the fairest example of what a repub- lican government, with Christian civilization can do. Where is the civilization on Earth can equal this ?
During the Civil War, Ohio furnished 327 regi- ments of her citizen soldiery or nearly one-eighth of the entire Union force in the field. Whitlaw Reid says : "The patriotic dead of Ohio lie upon every battle field in the Southland. They lie where they fell, forming a vidette line half across the continent, a chain of pros- trate sentinels 2,000 miles long, still guarding with
2
OHIO
their clay the glory and integrity of the great republic".
Seven years after Ohio had been admitted as a State she had doubled her population five times; ten years later she had doubled it fourteen times. Twenty- seven years after her admission her population had doubled twenty-two times. From nothing, from the Seventeenth place, Ohio won the third place and has held it for over 60 years. The enormous growth of the State is best shown by the annexed table of population :
1803.
42,150
1810.
230,760
1820.
581,295
1830
937,903
1840
1,519,467
1850
1,980,329
1860
2,339,511
1870
2,665,260
1880
3,198,062
1890
3,372,376
1900
4,157,549
Ohio was the first state settled by people of our own country. Other states had been settled by people from other countries, but Ohio was the first state to be populated by people of that great democratic power that had wrested the colonies of America from the hands of Great Britain, and had erected the greatest republic on the face of the earth. Ohio was settled by the best blood of the Revolutionary struggle, hers was the first territory to be representative of the entire people. The amalgamation of the flower of the best blood in the original thirteen colonies was to be blended by the process of time and evolution into a great dis- tinctive people. Of all the States, Ohio stood alone for a generation and a quarter for what was best in Nation-
3
OHIO
al life, character and conscience. Whenever National life demanded a victim, a leader, a way, or a plan, Ohio was always the first to throw herself into the breach, and it is to the skill of her generals, the wisdom of her statesmen, and to the directness and conservatism of her conscience, that the National life is what it is to-day.
From the seventeenth place in the rank of States in 1803 she advanced by quick and sturdy strides to the thirteenth place in 1810; to the fifth place in the next ten years, and to the third place in the next suc- ceeding twenty years.
Very gracious are the words coming from a sister state when Alfred Mathews says: "But Ohio had par- ents. It had progenitors. It was the child of purpose. Its career was most kindly conserved and promoted by destiny and fortuitous circumstance, but it owed much to good birth. The ordinance of 1787 clothed the soil with law before the foot of authorized settlement fell upon it. Ohio by her vast growth in population, by the multiform character as well as the magnitude of her national development, by the effectiveness of the exer- tion of her enormous strength for the Union, and by the exercise and outcome of her influence upon the Nation, long ago arrived at that dignity of position which is claimed in the matter of her State seal, of be- ing literally an empire within an empire-IMPERIUM IN IMPERIO.
And thus located in the middle country, looking westward to the homes of her sons, and eastward to those of her sires, the horizon of her interest and her influence is broadened to the bounds of the union itself ;
4
OHIO
and while contemplating her own achievements, and feeling her own strength-of which she first became fully conscious in the period of the Civil War-she turns reverently the page of history, to be reminded that she is the creature of the Nation; that her founda- tions were lain by the people of ALL the States, that her existence was decreed and directed by the legal en- actments of the Nation and that she was in fact the first product of Nationalism."
The wondrous growth of the state can be seen at a glance when we realize that at the time of her birth with less than 43,000 population, she in less than sixty years, offered for the preservation of National honor, more than 340,000 of her choicest sons, leaving as a tribute to the sacredness and imperishability of the Federal Union 24,564 of her loved ones on the sandy plains and sunny hillsides of the Southland; more than half her population when she sought Statehood, and sixteen per cent greater loss than that incurred by the British and American soldiery during the entire prog- ress of the Revolutionary War. France asserted own- ership of the territory now constituting Ohio from the treaty of Utrecht in 1713 until the treaty of Paris in 1763. When the treaty of peace was concluded in Paris in 1783 and ratified by the U. S. congress in 1784 the paper right was vested in the United States.
In 1750 George Washington passed over Portage Path and descended the Tuscarawas River to the Wal- honding. In 1774 the British Parliament passed an act making the Ohio river the south-western boundary of Canada and the Mississippi river its western boundary.
Fort Laurens, the first parapeted and stockaded
5
OHIO
fort in the present Ohio, was erected on the Tuscarawas river in 1776. Virginia acquired a title to the north- western territory from which six great states have been formed, notably Ohio, by virtue of several char- ters granted by James I of England, bearing dates re- spectively April 10, 1606, May 23, 1609, and March 12, 1611. In 1769 Virginia created the county of Bote- tourt, consisting of all of Ohio and adjoining territory. In 1783 this territory was conveyed to the United States by the legislature of Virginia, and signed by Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe.
Congress on July 13, 1787, created the North- Western Territory and also the ordinance of 1787, known as the Ordinance of Freedom. Ohio for all time was to be free. The first settlement in Ohio was at Marietta, in 1786, under the auspices of Major Generals Putnam and Parsons and Col. Return Jonathan Meigs. The second grade of territorial government, although passed in 1778, did not actually take place until Sep- tember, 1799. The first act of the territorial govern- ment was to establish a militia. Two days thereafter Gov. St. Clair established the county of Washington including all the territory east of the Scioto river to Lake Erie and south to the Ohio river, Marietta the county seat. Trumbull county was established July 10, 1800 including all of the Western Reserve with its county seat at Warren. Ohio became the 17th state in the Union on Mar. 3, 1803. David Abbot and Samuel Huntington being the representatives of Trumbull county.
Ohio with her 88 counties stands today as an ex- ample of what democracy can do for a nation; a bul-
6
OHIO
work of freedom, a hope and an inspiration to the op- pressed of every clime, and always a saving grace to the nation to which she owes her birth.
Fort Island. In the Center of a Suanos.
The Last Stand of the Orie . Coplus Township Summit CD
THE PRE-HISTORIC RACES OF OHIO
Forty-five years ago it was thought that the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys were inhabited by one race- the Mound Builders-but recent investigations have disproved that fact. There were Mound builders and mound builders. While the same generic name covered all, yet they were separate and distinctive races, no matter how closely related.
The Mound Builders of Central and Southern Ohio were a distinctive race from the Mound Builders of Northern Ohio, of Wisconsin and of the southern states.
It is not necessary to go far back to prove their existence as a race, or their dispersal as a factor of good or evil in the Ohio Valley.
Was the white race that was destroyed on the Ohio river at the first coming of the eastern six nations, a remnant of the Mound Builders? The question must remain unanswered for the present. Time may pos- sibly solve the problem.
It will not be necessary to go back much beyond four hundred years to prove the cause of the dispersal of these races. The evidence when found, will not be found in the heavens, nor on the face of the earth, nor under it, BUT IN IT.
Limitations of space compel us to pass over this subject lightly. In 1875 there were some 10,000 of these works yet to be seen in the state, the most im- portant were Grave Greek mound, just across the river from Dille's Bottom. It is 900 feet in circumference
9
THE PRE-HISTORIC RACES
and 75 feet high. The Serpent Mound in Adams coun- ty, about 1300 feet long, twenty wide and five high, lies with open jaws 100 feet above Brush Creek. The works at Circleville, Newark and Marietta, Fort Ancient in Warren county, are nearly a mile long and 236 feet above the river. The mound at Marietta is 115 feet in diameter and 30 feet high. The wall or embankment of Fort Hill in Highland county is 8,582 feet long, base 25 feet wide with an outer ditch of 50 feet inclosing 35 acres, and lies 500 feet above Brush Creek. The Great Mound, near Miamisburg, Montgomery county, on an elevation over a hundred feet above the Miami river, is 67 feet high and 800 feet in circumference. The Alligator Mound is near Granville, Licking county. In 1875 the banks of the Newark works in places were yet 75 feet in height. These works covered five square miles of territory and were said to connect with those thirty miles distant.
D
THE ERIES
At the time of their discovery by the French Jesuit Fathers and as near as can be determined, the Eries occupied a narrow strip of country abutting on the southern shores of Lake Erie-and eastward.
Beginning at "Redstone Old Fort," in Pennsyl- vania, they passed northwesternly up the "Riverie Aux Boeuf" of the French to Presque Isle thence west- wardly, following the conformation of the lake shore to the present site of Sandusky occupying the lake islands and having their chief town at Conneaut.
The Cuyahoga seemed to have been their favorite river and the rich alluvial deposits of its bottom lands, as well as those of Rocky River, were laid under con- tribution for the purpose of such limited cultivation as they practiced.
Just below the Portage Path, hugging close to the 41st meridian, lay 64 fresh water lakes stocked with savory fish and frequented by many varieties of wild fowl, while the surrounding forests were filled with game of many kinds, including bear, deer, elk, bison, and even that lordly creature of a dead age-the Mammoth, whose bones are yet quite frequently found in swampy grounds.
The steep banks enclosing the Cuyahoga Valley from the highlands were seamed and lined with their fortifications, signal stations and watch towers. A sig- nal fire lighted on Point Lookout could be seen at the mouth of the "Crooked River" at Lake Erie, some
11
1
Engraved Battle Ax
THE ERIES
thirty miles distant ; every mile, almost, was lined with > some of the works of this mysterious people.
From the head of the canoe navigation on the Cuy- ahoga they evidently crossed over that old national highway of the Indian nations of the "Ohio Country." Whoever had access to the valley of the "crooked river" the portage, or "Portage Path," as it is known today, was the shortest, the most direct, and the driest, every foot being on solid ground, of any of the portages on the "from the Gulf to the Great Lakes route."
Passing over this portage to where the city of Akron now stands, they built, a few miles to the west- ward, in the center of Copley swamp, impassable at that time unless bridged, and entirely surrounded by a shallow fresh water lake, the, at the time, impregnable works of Fort Island.
Passing a couple of miles to the south, but on the west side of the valley, just clear of the swamps, they built on the highest promontory in that section a stone signal station whose light could have been seen, not only at the Portage Path and Fort Island, but from the highlands in Wadsworth and Fort Houtz, the Kointown of the ancient Eries.
Forming a junction with the Portage Path on the present site of Akron, there ran from time immemorial an ancient war trace or trail that in the eighteenth cen- tury was known as the "Great Scioto War Trail." Bear- ing south of west, it ran in the shortest and most direct way through the present counties of Wayne and Ash- land.
The ancient Kointown, the new temporary capital of the Eries, was built on the heights across the Chip-
13
3
4
GROUP OF IMPLEMENTS
Descoidal Stone. 2. Flint Drill. 3. Slate Implement. 4. Flint Implement.
THE ERIES
pewa River from this hard, well-beaten national high- way of the Indian Nations of the "Ohio Country."
From Kointown the fortifications and village walls of the Eries ran west and south as far as the present site of Richland County, showing conclusively that after their expulsion from the Cuyahoga Valley that for years they must have enjoyed comparative peace in order to have built so many miles of village walls and places of defense. All of these were in touch with Kointown through the use of signal stations which still continued westwardly by the use of which the war- riors of the outlying stations could be summoned in case of need.
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