USA > Ohio > The picturesque Ohio : a historical monograph > 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
Gc 977 C54 1721804
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01715 3260
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/picturesqueohioh00clar 0
CHEVALIER ROBERT DE LA SALLE.
-
(COLUMBIAN EDITION.)
THE PICTURESQUE OHIO.
Cl historical Monograph.
BY C. M. CLARK.
CINCINNATI : CRANSTON & CURTS. NEW YORK : HUNT & EATON.
COPYRIGHTED BY C. M. CLARK. I887.
1721804
Publishers' Introduction.
ITLY celebrating the Four Hundredth Anniversary of the Discovery of America, it is but natural that each section of the Republic should hasten to record its contribution to the building of the Nation, and claim its share in the Nation's wealth and glory. Not harm, but only good, can come from a friendly emulation among the States; for while the Nation must ever be greater than any one of its component commonwealths, it is still true that the glory of the Nation is but the aggregate glory of all the States. The Nation is what the States have contributed to make it; and because we appreciate our common heritage of obligation and of privilege in the Nation, we have a laudable pride in what our own communities have done to make that heritage splendid.
Of all the commonwealths, great empires in themselves, which have helped to make this Republic the marvel of history, none have more reason for honest pride and self-congratulation than those which lie in the fertile valley watered by the Ohio and its tributaries. Touching at their eastern entrance the western base of the Alleghanies, they caught the first influx of that im- migration which, as soon as independence was won and peace declared, burst through the mountain barriers, and poured its restless human tides into the great Mississippi Valley. If favor- able physical conditions have anything to do with making States, certainly they found such conditions, who halted their weather- stained immigrant wagons on the banks of the Muskingum or
.
5
6
PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTION.
Miami, on the rolling table-lands of Kentucky, or amid the trackless forests of Indiana. Here was soil which for ages had fed great forests, to receive its compensation when the generous boughs scattered their leaves under the touch of autumn frosts, until unlimited productiveness awaited the labor of the husband- man. Here were beautiful streams, which had never reflected the face of civilized man, waiting to give like reward to the genius and thrift of the manufacturer, while the broad, sweeping river and its tributaries afforded certain avenues of communi- cation and transportation.
We call Columbus the discoverer of America, and celebrate his exploit with blare of trumpet and flutter of pennon. But would it not be truer to history to call the Genoese navigator a Discoverer rather than the Discoverer of America? In other words, has not the real America had many discoverers, rather than one or two?
What, after all, did Columbus discover? An island in the sea, a dissevered fragment, so insignificant that to-day we scarcely give it a thought. He died without a dream of the vast territory which his courage, and persistency, and faith had opened to civilization.
What did Columbus know, or those who came after him for three hundred years, of what America held in store for men? To Columbus his voyage meant simply larger scope for the old systems of oppression; more gold for the coffers of kings; more territory for the ambition of conquerors; more slaves for the service of aristocracy. Or, if we must grant him the possession of a religious impulse (which, in the light of all testimony bear- ing upon his character, seems exceedingly doubtful), it was at best but a desire to extend the power of the tyrannous Roman
7
PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTION.
hierarchy. To later discoverers remained the vision of an almost boundless continent, into whose exhaustless stores God had opened wide the door, inviting the oppressed of earth to broadest liberty, to unparalleled prosperity, and to the building of a new civiliza- tion, whose corner-stone should be the freedom of the individual conscience. If our neighbors of Roman Catholic faith simply vied with others, as citizens of a common country, heirs of a com- mon heritage, in extolling the liberties and glories of the Repub- lic, all would welcome their enthusiasm. But we can not accept America at the hands of Rome. Only by its providential deliv- erance from Spanish domination has the vast territory of the United States and Canada escaped the fate of Mexico and the South American States.
With this thought the publishers send forth this volume. We would not minify the greatness of the Discoverer, but we would magnify the courage and foresight and self-sacrifice of the DIs- COVERERS. If it required faith and courage and unbending strength of purpose in Columbus to go out over the trackless ocean toward unknown perils, it required no less courage and faith and strength of purpose in La Salle and Boone, and other explorers, to tread the dark forests, enduring exposure and fatigue and hunger, and in constant peril from savage beasts and not less savage men. If his discovery is worthy of grateful commemo- ration, theirs should not be forgotten. And so it seemed to us that we could make no more fitting contribution to this great anniversary than to send this beautiful volume, recording their deeds of courage and devotion, into thousands of Methodist homes.
We can not forget what history records-that for two hun- dred years Catholic monarchs and popes struggled in vain for a
8
PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTION.
foothold on the Atlantic Coast; and that they who did at last take possession of it, and laid the permanent foundations of the National life were not Romanists, but Protestants, driven by Romanist persecution from their European homes. Granting that the rocky headlands of the coast were first seen by eyes which adored the crucifix, THE NATION was discovered by men every drop of whose blood cried out against Roman superstition and oppression, and who, with prophetic vision, read God's pur- poses of emancipation in the opening of the New World. As Methodists, we should be untrue to the memory of our fathers did we permit their part in the planting and building of the Nation to be forgotten. The path of the circuit-rider may be traced all over this great central valley of the continent. His deeds of self-sacrificing heroism are woven into the traditions of every community. He swept like a herald of light from settlement to settlement. Where other ecclesiastical systems, with their formal methods of pastoral supply, were utterly inadequate, the Methodist itinerancy, with such generals as Francis Asbury and Wm. McKendree in command, was fully adequate. The preacher on horseback, with wardrobe and li- brary in the saddle-bags, always ready to move, waiting for no call except the all-inclusive call of God, was just the sort of man for that time. He came with the first settler, and ar- ranged to stay. He came with a genius for organization. His mission was not simply the evangelizing of dissevered com- munities. He helped to weld the scattered fragments into unity, and so to make possible the Nation. He stimulated the intel- lectual life of the people. He did not preach a faith which appealed to the ignorance and credulity of its adherents. He advocated the emancipation of the human intellect and will
9
PUBLISHERS' INTRODUCTION.
from every thrall of ignorance and superstition. Out of his saddle-bags came the first books that found their way into the remote cabins where citizenship was being formed. He was patron of school and press. It is significant that the very Conference, in 1784, which gave the Methodist Episcopal Church its formal organization, projected a college and pledged its support to higher education, and that among the first enterprises of the new eccle- siastical body was the founding of a house for the publication and dissemination of books. Out of Methodist academies and colleges and universities, scattered all over the valley of the Ohio, have come men and women, cultured in brain and heart, to adorn every walk of life and fill every position of trust, even to the highest in the Republic. Thus, from first to last, along the constantly lengthening lines of National life and power, has Methodism wrought for GOD and COUNTRY.
The publishing-house from which this book issues, is itself at once a product and an exponent of the intellectual life of Meth- odism in the valley of the Ohio. Started in 1820, simply as a depository for the distribution of Methodist publications, it has steadily increased its facilities to keep pace with growing de- mands, until its business engages a capital of over a million dollars, and during the past quadrennium there have dropped from its busy presses more than a billion and a half of printed pages.
That this volume may stimulate Christian patriotism in every home to which it finds admittance, and in some measure help to bring this land of ours into the heritage which God reserves for it, and into which HIS TRUTH alone can lead it, is our prayer.
CRANSTON & CURTS, Publishing Agents. CINCINNATI, November, 1892.
CONTENTS.
Bart First HISTORICAL.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE. " WHERE THE RIVER IS BORN," 2I
CHAPTER II.
THE DISCOVERER AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER, 33
CHAPTER III.
FRENCH AND ENGLISH CONTESTS FOR THE OHIO, 53
-
CHAPTER IV.
EARLY SETTLEMENTS,
63
CHAPTER V.
INDIAN CONFLICTS ON, AND FOR THE RIVER, 103
-
CONTENTS.
Bart Second.
DESCRIPTIVE.
AFLOAT ON THE DEEP, SHINING RIVER, I87
PAGE.
Appendix.
NOTES, I2
231
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Bart First.
ARTISTS.
PAGE.
Frontispiece : CHEVALIER ROBERT DĘ LA SALLE, Crayon by S. J. Ferris, "IVES PROCESS."
A SUDDEN DARKNESS, . . Wm. Hamilton Gibson, 17 Eng. by HARLEY.
"WHERE THE RIVER IS BORN,"
A. Cross, 2I Eng. by HARLEY.
" LAZILY DROP FROM POOL TO POOL,"
. Rhoda Holmes Nichols, 23
Eng. by HARLEY.
" CHESTNUT BURRS," . A. Cross, 26 Eng. by HARLEY.
"THE RED LIGHT THE PROUD CARDINAL
CARRIES,
A. Cross, 27
Eng. by HARLEY.
"A DRAGON-FLY IN SWIFT FLIGHT,"
E. T. Rockwell, Eng. by HARLEY.
28
"A MELANCHOLY JAY-BIRD TELLS THE MOVING STORY OF HER WOES," Fidilia Bridges, 29
Eng. by HARLEY.
" TO BE PULLED ASIDE AT THE REPRODUCTION OF THE MIRACLE PLAY OF SPRING," . . . H. F. FARNY, 30 Eng. by HARLEY.
A BEND IN THE RIVER, . Miss Louise Mclaughlin, 32 ELECTRO TINT ENG. CO.
EARLY DAYS ON "THE SHINING RIVER," . C. Harry Eaton, . " MOSSTYPE " ENG. CO.
·
52
THREE HUNDRED FEET UP BLACKWATER, . . Photo, . 61 " MOSSTYPE " ENG. CO.
13
I4
ILLUSTRATIONS.
ARTISTS. PAGE.
"A MOUNTAIN TARN," Photo, 91
" IVES PROCESS."
INDIANS FISHING IN THE ALLEGHENY, . H. F. Farny, 103
"IVES PROCESS."
SPANNING NORTH FORK, . · Photo, I45
" MOSSTYPE" ENG. CO.
THE CHERUBS' ROOST, .
Photo,
161
"MOSSTYPE " ENG. CO.
"THE DUN DEER THAT YET LINGER IN THE
MOUNTAINS,"
H. F. Farny, . 182
"IVES PROCESS."
Bart Second.
ARTISTS.
PAGE.
UP CHEAT RIVER, Bryson Burroughs, . . 183 "IVES PROCESS."
FISHING ON THE KANAWHA, . . H. F. Farny, . 189
LOOKING UP ELK CREEK (Charleston, W. Va.), Photo, . 195
" IVES PROCESS."
BRIDGE OVER THE RAVINE, . Vogt, 210
Eng. by WEISBRODT.
PLAN OF CAIRO, 225
Eng. for NATIONAL BANK.
VIEW ON THE GREENBRIER, .
Burroughs,
230
L
PART FIRST.
THE HISTORICAL MONOGRAPH OF
The Beautiful RRiver.
"A SUDDEN DARKNESS SHROUDS THE CRESTED PEAKS."-Page 29
.
Chapter I.
HARLEY
THE Ohio River-mountain - born and valley - fed-gathers the
1
22
THE PICTURESQUE OHIO.
little tributaries of its two formative and its southern affluents from the heights, uplands, ravines and valleys of the western watershed of that section of the Appalachian chain which links the broken spurs of the irregular Catskill to the frowning and rugged ridges of the southern Alleghany.
The sources of these small streams are as varied as are the mountain silhouettes, or the ever-changeful skies above them. They are collected drop by drop in the rain-caverns of the highest peaks, in the slight depressions of the uplifted dells, in the rock-ribbed ravines that flank the crested summits, and from the crystal springs that issue through the ledges of the craggy cliffs. Upon the very topmost heights an occasional silvery line runs over the face of the battlemented steeps ; or a miniature flood leaps sheer into space, breaking in silvery drops as it falls into the dusky tarn beneath.
The little wandering rivulets wind about in solitary threads of sinuous trace, until some obstacle of rock or tree brings their re- verted coils together ; then, as the volume of water increases, the brook hurries over slope and precipice to its outlet from the heights.
Lower down the mountain-side, where the swelling ridges widen, the gathering of the waters begins. The brawling brooks fall together, singing of the cliffs they have left and the dangers they have passed. And now the chorus grows loud and full, for the arching forest aisles echo and re-echo the sound, as the foaming, glittering waves rush over the rocks down to where noise and glitter are lost in the stream that tranquilly glides through long, narrow stretches of emerald -tinted meadows.
But the incoming of the watery tribute is not yet ended ; for
23
WHERE THE RIVER IS BORN.
through the outlying fields and orchards which cover the slopes that fall from the thickly-wooded hills, and over the shelving de- scent of the broken uplands, the slow- going little creeks lazily drop from pool to pool as the wrinkling circles send their pulsing currents onward to the "meeting of the waters."
24
THE PICTURESQUE OHIO.
When the broad-bosomed valleys of the rich lowlands are reached, the Ohio gathers its tributaries and goes on to join the Mississippi in its triumphant march to the Gulf.
From their sources upon the giddy heights to where they are lost in their union with the valley streams, each one of the moun- tain rivulets which contributes to the Ohio perfectly fits into the wild and broken landscape it traverses. The characteristics of rivulet and sylvan landscape are distinctly defined ; yet, as counter- parts, they thoroughly harmonize.
From where they issue beneath cleft and jutting spur of the cloud-touched ridges, beside tufts of hanging harebells that dot the bold escarpments, to where they come dancing over the edges of the mossy cliffs that brokenly terrace the wide stretches between the forest-crowned peaks, these rippling streamlets are piece and parcel of the wild scenery they serve to illustrate and relieve. They gurgle over rocky beds through dense forests which the morning sun never sees and which the westering sun hardly pierces with its long, shadowy, glimmering rays. In fertile, uplying glades they turn and return until their twisted curves encircle fairy-like bits of woodland. scenery to which the noonday splendor of the high levels lends the glamour of enchantment. They wind beneath long vistas of over- arching trees, where the gnarled roots are covered with a carpet of tinted mosses in which tiny blue and purple flowers lie hidden. They linger where the waving plumes of flags and of the broad- bladed grasses border the water-line; and where the crimson-spotted trout skim along the shallows, or leap in flame-tinted flashes out of the depths of the still, shadowy pools. Their wavelets creep up the shelving banks to touch the starry-eyed flowers that look out
25
WHERE THE RIVER IS BORN.
from the gold-broidered stretches of the narrow upland meadows, and they loiter, in changing circles, under the drooping branches of the sweet-scented mountain honeysuckle. If the year is young, and a pattering shower dimples the brook and hurries it over the broken rifts downward, it rushes in mad haste between the jagged boughs of the storm-twisted and flame-scarred trees of the rugged hillside ; whirling in noisy flight around the rough clearings, where the leaf- less skeletons of the wooded belt tell how fire was used to eke out the sharp strokes of the woodman's axe, down to where a sudden turn leads into some secluded valley, suggestive of the fox, the bear, and the dun deer that yet linger in the mountains, and of the stately sachem who once stalked these coverts.
When the icy fetters of winter are fairly broken, when mountain- side and fell are brightened with the white-blossoming dogwood and the rose-hued thickets of the gay red-bud, when the slow- melting floods have reached the lower levels-then the swamp- willows take their first faint tinge of color; the trailing arbutus puts on its pale-rose tint, and all the little sweet-scented things that sleep under the snow are blooming in the wood. The languor and perfume of spring is in the air, the May-apple blossoms hang under their tented leaves, and
" Crowned daffodils are dight in green."
When Spring has taken flight-with her train of delicate beauties -summer comes to the mountains, bringing warmth and richness of color into the wild life that the languorous spring only stirred into a half-awakened existence.
In the hot months Nature scatters her gifts broadcast. Then
26
THE PICTURESQUE OHIO.
The firs are decked with an
HARLE V the heights are aglow with splendour. edging of prickly lace, the pines put on all their bravery of shining leaves and cone-coronets ; and while chestnut burrs are forming, the tints of the. spring - clad forest- kings are deepened. In the sun-lit glades where nutty treasures are be- ginning to ripen on the hazel and chincapin bushes, the laurel uplifts its showy, crimson-spot- ted clusters above the purple - flowered tufts of the wild geranium. The colour - changing, fringed
Across.
27
WHERE THE RIVER IS BORN.
orchis dots the bank above the brook ;- while down below, the trout lazily rise to the thirsty fly that buzzes between sips to his shadow.
In the shelving mountain-passes through which summer streamlets are slow- ly flowing, the flowers are all on show, - even to those little gad- abouts, the ground- ivy and the lace- vine (so named by the mountain folk) befurbelowed in gossamer. The walking- fern has crossed a tiny rill to see the red lights the proud car- dinal car- ries on the top of its tall stalks : while from
28
THE PICTURESQUE OHIO.
every coigne of vantage, of sunny bank or deep, shade-environed dell, the prickly branches
of the wild eglantine pride, their wealth and blossoming on-fly in swift by a question of ment to an outlying tain's eastern slope- the wing, and then of a blushing rose larkspur, which ful stem from bour, as the what the thrush low-hammer birds fell in- twitter of,
Hard gnarled a vine has woven a summer
uplift, in stately of opening buds flowers. A drag- flight - called great pith and mo- glade on the moun- rests a second on alights on the face to watch the blue is waving its grace- neighbour to neigh- merry gossips tell whistled to the yel- when the mocking- to such a rollicking laughter. by the bank, in a old tree around which screen, a melancholy
29
WHERE THE RIVER IS BORN.
jay-bird tells the moving story of her woes to a sympathetic but hungry robin which has its near eye flooded with misty drops of pity and its off eye fixed on a fat worm it means to dine upon, when Mrs. Jay ends her story of the heartless woodpecker that kept up its horrible ham- mering on her house-tree until, between the frights and the falls of the nestlings in trying to see the monster, she lost the last of her promising brood. Before the story is ended, or the worm is caught, a sudden darkness shrouds the crested peaks.
FB.
HARLEY
N.Y.
30
THE PICTURESQUE OHIO.
A fierce wind comes shrieking up the pass scattering the watery fragments of the storm-cloud it carries, as it rushes on leaving ruin in its track.
The robin vanishes with the quick-coming storm. The jay's nest falls as the nestlings had fallen; and the melancholy little grass-widow is left to smooth her wet and ruffled feathers-all alone, in a homeless world.
The larkspur and her merry neighbours are lying prone upon the ground, near a broken dragon-fly that is buried beneath the torn petals of a rose. The cardinal-flower has lost its red lights ; and the tiny rill-changed to a rain-laden rivulet-sweeps over the track of the walking-fern. The " lace-vine's gossamer furbelows" are torn into shreds, and the flower-covered bank is floating upon a muddy and swollen stream.
But a cloudless night and the sun-kisses of a summer morning, will uplift the fallen and heal the wounded. Where the dead have gone down, there will be an increase of life ; but between loss and increase the fructifying winter must come :- a drop-curtain to be pulled aside at the reproduction of the miracle-play of Spring.
HARLEY
A BEND IN THE RIVER.
CHẠPȚER !!.
THE DISCOVERER AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER.
T THE Discoverer of the OHIO, ROBERT RENE CAVELIER, was born November 22, 1643, at his father's country-seat, called La Salle, hard by the famous old city of Rouen, in Normandy.
The Caveliers belonged to the Grande Bourgeoisie, that untitled class from which the nobility of France was recruited after the autocratic power of the great nobles was curbed by their enforced vassalage to the crown. The father and uncle of young Cave- lier were wealthy merchants, and some of the connection held places of trust and honor at Court. That his parents were people of good position in Rouen is evident from the education and breeding of the younger son, who at an early age was placed with the Jesuits, where his ability was recognized and fostered.
It is asserted by several of his contemporaries that before his father's death Robert was designed for the priesthood, and that he had already entered his novitiate. It is probable that this is true, for the existing records prove that he had in some way lost all legal right to a share in his father's estate, and, under the French law of that period, connection with the Jesuits would have entailed its forfeiture.
The scant gleanings that can be gathered from the few letters preserved in the French archives as to the manner of La Salle's early life give the bare facts, that when he was twenty-one years of age he parted with the Jesuits on friendly terms, they giving him excellent testimonials to his scholarly attainments, his good
33
34
THE PICTURESQUE OHIO.
conduct, and his unblemished character; that an annuity of four hundred livres was given him from the inheritance of his father ; that an exchange of this annuity for the capital it repre- sented was effected; and that, with this modest sum, he sailed for Canada in 1666 to discover for France the richest possession she has ever let slip from her grasp.
Although history has given but meager data by which to discern so checkered a personality as that of Robert Cavelier, who disappears from the list of Jesuit novices in 1664 to reap- pear as M. de la Salle in an official report from Patoulet to Colbert, November 11, 1669; though we can not "clothe him in his very habit as he lived," we have sufficient indication of under- lying characteristics in the rapid movement of his life, to sketch a man of action whose soul is unveiled in the record of his achievements. That he had a clear intellect and that divining instinct of discovery which, without any traceable process, con- putes the results that await effort, is demonstrated by his suc- cess in the teeth of obstacles that detached from him in his first expedition all following except the devoted, unreasoning In- dian, whose higher law was comradeship in danger after the persuasion of prudence had failed. That he was able, ambitious, calm, discreet, enthusiastic, fearless, indefatigable, reticent, self- poised, absolute of will, inflexible of purpose, we learn, through the charges and admissions of his enemies. To these charac- teristics join the fact that he had in his veins the hot blood of the roving Norsemen, who cut Normandy out of Gaul in the reign of Charles the Simple, and it becomes plain to the most superficial reader of men that La Salle had the qualities and tem- perament which fitted him for the career he had chosen.
Yet to comprehend the multiform individuality of so complex
35
THE DISCOVERER OF THE RIVER.
a nature, something more than a mere summary of qualities is needed. Any sketch of La Salle, however circumscribed, would be incomplete, if it failed to note the seeming transformation wrought by the changed circumstances of his life.
The metamorphosis of Robert Cavelier into La Salle, of the Jesuit novice into the man of action, who without any previous knowledge of business from his first start in Canada, held his own, and scored success after success in his career as an Indian trader, would be of itself a marvel. But when to this is added the revelation of another and totally different personage, as soon as La Salle feels his foothold secure, when the man of business is merged into the enthusiastic discoverer, in the ambitious aspirant for immortality; and when, through a magnificent recklessness of expenditure, it is made plain that gains were valued only as a means to secure an end; then it becomes necessary to turn back the leaves and make a study of the surroundings, the tempera- ment, and the teaching of Robert Cavelier, that we may under- stand La Salle. That his connections were people of large wealth, for that age, we know. That his immediate family were devout Catholics is proved by the entrance of two sons into the priesthood. Jean Cavelier, the older son, a priest of the Order of St. Sulpice, was sent to Canada by the superior of the Sul- pitians before his brother left the Jesuit Seminary. That Robert entered the seminary when very young is probable; the custom of the time, and his proficiency in mathematics and the physical sciences, warrant that belief.
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.