USA > Ohio > Topographical and historical sketch of the state of Ohio, with an historical map > Part 1
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02399 4129
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TOPOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL
SKETCH OF THE STATE OF
OHIO, ,
WITH AN HISTORICAL MAP.
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BY COL. CHAS. WHITTLESEY,
PRESIDENT OF THE WESTERN RESERVE AND NORTHERN OHIO HISTORICAL SOCIETY, CLEVELAND, OHIO.
REPRINTED FROM WALLING & GRAY'S NEW TOPOGRAPHICAL ATLAS OF OHIO.
PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF
O. W. GRAY,
TOPOGRAPHICAL ENGINEER AND MAP PUBLISHER, 10 North Fifth St., Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA: JAS. B. RODGERS CO., PRINTERS, 52 & 54 NORTH SIXTH ST. 1872.
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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
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mated at 39,964 square miles, or 25,576,960 acres. In U. S. census of 1870, the total number of acres of land in Ohio is given as 21,712,420 acres, of which 14,469,133 acres are improved, and of the balance, 6,883,575 acres are in woodland.
FACE OF THE COUNTRY. - When the territory of Ohio emerged from the ancient waters of the Car- boniferous period, it presented the appearance of an extended, monotonous plain. It has not been mate- rially changed since that period, in a topographical sense, except by the excavating power of the streams. There are no geological uplifts, or mountain ranges, or peaks.
A low ridge, entering the State near the northeast corner, and crossing it in a southwesterly direction to the Indiana boundary, near the intersection of the 40th degree of north latitude, forms the water-shed dividing the waters flowing north into Lake Erie and those flowing south into the Ohio river. The gen- eral elevation of this ridge above tide water, as shown by the following table, is conclusive evidence that · originally these points were nearly in an horizontal plane.
LOCALITY.
ELEVATION ABOVE
THE OCEAN.
Lake County, Little Mountain.
1165 feet.
Geauga County, head of Cuyahoga River 1192 «
Columbiana County, Hanoverton Summit. 1199
Yellow Creek Hills 1245 "
Coshocton County, near New Castle. 1315
Richland County, Southeast corner. 1390 «
Knox County, North part. 1279
Highland County, near Hillsboro 1125
Perry County, near Somerset.
1150
Logan County, heads of Great Miami River 1335 “
Darke County, near Greenville
1045 «
North of this ridge the surface is generally level, with a gentle inclination towards the Lake, the ine-
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qualities of the surface being caused by the streams, as above stated. The central part of the State, embracing that portion between it and the 40th degree of north latitude, is a nearly level plain about 1000 feet above the level of the sea, with a slight inclination towards the south. The southern section of the State is uneven and hilly, the valleys cut out by the streams growing deeper and deeper, until they reach the great valley of the Ohio, which is several hundred feet below the general level of the State. In the southern counties the surface is greatly diversified by the inequalities produced by the excavative power of the Ohio and its tributaries, exercised through very long periods of time. There are some prairies in the central and north-western sections, but the greater portion of the State was originally well covered with timber.
The crest or water-shed between the waters of Lake Erie and those of the Ohio is less elevated in Ohio than in New York and Pennsylvania, as the following figures demonstrate, though the difference is not great. By comparison with the table just given, they show that the highest land is not always at the sources of the streams, and that the crest in Ohio is nearly horizontal.
Elevation of the Passes or Summit Levels between the Head Waters of the Rivers.
ELEVATION ABOVE
LOCALITY.
MEAN TIDE ..
Chautauqua Lake, New York 1291 feet.
Conneaut Lake, Pennsylvania
1074 “
Trumbull County, North line. 908 «
Portage County, Ravenna. 1068 «
Summit County, near Akron 958 **
Medina County, near Harrisville
901 «
Wyandot County, Tyamockte Summit.
898 “
Hancock County, heads of Blanchard's Fork 1053 "
Shelby County, Loramie's Summit. 942 “
Indiana, Wabash, and Maumee Summits. 810 “
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. . Although to a person in a balloon floating over the country the State appears to be a vast plain, to one who is sailing upon the Ohio river it appears to be quite mountainous. Here the bluffs rise above the valleys with steep faces of 250 to 600 feet. As- cending the tributaries of the Ohio, the precipitous hills become less and less abrupt, till they are re- · solved into gentle undulations; and towards their sources the banks become low and marshy.
RIVERS. - The Ohio river was first discovered in 1680, by the French explorer La Salle, and the French were the first to navigate its waters. It is formed by the confluence of the Alleghany and Monon- gahela rivers, at Pittsburgh, in the western part of Pennsylvania. Its entire length to the Mississippi is about 950 miles, following its meanderings, while an air line from Pittsburgh to Cairo would measure only about 615 miles. Its average descent is less than five inches to the mile. The current is very gentle, being about three miles per hour. At high stages of the river this rate increases, while in the dryest season it sometimes falls to less than two miles per hour. The average range between extreme high and low water is generally about 50 feet, although several instances have occurred, during extraordinary fresh- ets, when the river rose 60 feet above the low-water level. At the lowest stage of the river it is fordable in several places between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. There are many islands in the river, some of which are valuable for their fertility, etc., while others, known as tow heads, are sandy. The navigable waters of the Ohio and its tributaries are not less than 5,000 miles in extent. The area drained is about 200,000 square miles.
The Muskingum is formed by the confluence of the Tuscarawas and Waldhonding rivers, which rise in
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the northern part of the State, and unite at Coshoc- ton. · From this point it flows in a south-eastern di- rection, about 110 miles, through a beautiful, fertile, and populous region to the Ohio, at Marietta, where it is about 225 yards in width. It is navigated by steamboats as far up as Dresden, 95 miles from Mari- etta. The navigation has been improved by dams and locks, where falls in the river made them neces- sary. From Dresden a side cut about three miles in length extends northerly, to connect the river navi- gation with that of the Ohio Canal.
The Scioto is a beautiful river, and one of the largest streams which intersect the State. It rises in Hardin County, and flows south-easterly to Colum- bus. There it receives its principal affluent, the Olentangy, or Whetstone, after which its direction is southerly till it enters the Ohio at Portsmouth. The Ohio and Erie Canal follows its valley for a dis- tance of ninety miles. Its tributaries are, besides the Olentangy or Whetstone river, the Darby, Walnut, and Paint creeks.
The Miami river rises in Hardin County, near the head-waters of the Scioto, and runs south-westerly, passing Troy, Dayton, and Hamilton. It is a beau- tiful and rapid stream, flowing through a highly pro- ductive and populous valley in which limestone and hard timber are abundant.
It is about 150 miles in length, and empties into the Ohio near the south-western corner of the State.
The chief rivers of the northern slope are the Mau- mee, Sandusky, Huron, and Cuyahoga, all emptying into Lake Erie, and all but the first being entirely within the limits of the State.
The Maumee rises in Indiana, but runs for about 80 miles in Ohio, and is navigable as far as Perrys- burg, a distance of 18 miles. The other three rivers
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have rapid courses, and afford a large amount of valuable water-power. The Ohio and all its wide- spread network of tributaries, from the water-shed of Lake Erie to Alabama, flow in channels excavated by themselves.
Since the carboniferous ages, the never-ceasing action of the atmosphere, frost, rains, and the trans- porting power of thousands of running streams, has dissolved the rocks, hollowed out the valleys, and carried away the materials, particle by particle, into the Gulf of Mexico. No material disturbance of the strata has modified these channels, or changed the valleys by upheavals since the country emerged from the pre-carboniferous ocean.
Elevation of the Ohio at Low Water above the Ocean.
Cairo, at the mouth
324 feet. Below Lake Erie. 240 feet.
Cincinnati. 429
66 135 «
Portsmouth 469
94 “
Marietta 562
3 66
Wheeling 614 .6
Above Lake Erie.
50 4
Wellsville. 640
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66
76
Pittsburgh.
704 .
140 “
LAKES. - A remarkable feature of Ohio is the almost entire absence of natural lakes or ponds. A few very small ones only are found near the ridge or water-shed already described.
The five great North American Lakes are the most remarkable bodies of fresh water in the world. Their united area is about 90,000 square miles, and the hydrographical basin which they drain includes a ter- ritory exceeding 300,000 square miles in extent. Their mean elevation above the ocean is as follows, namely :
Lake Ontario. 233} feet. Lake Erie. 565}
Lake Huron 577} .6
Lake Michigan 583
Lake Superior
605
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Lake Erie, which forms the northern boundary of Ohio, and is next to the last or lowest in the series, is 290 miles in length, and in width, at the widest part, 57 miles. There are no islands, except in the shallow water of the west end, and very few bays. Its greatest depth is off Long Point, 312 feet. The shores are principally drift clay or hard pan, upon which the waves are continually encroaching. At Cleveland, from the first survey in 1796 to 1842, the encroachment was 218 feet, along the entire city front. The coast is low, seldom rising above 50 feet at the water's edge.
This Lake, like the others, has a variable sur- face, rising and falling with the seasons, like great rivers, called the " annual fluctuation," and a gen- eral one, embracing a series of years, due to meteoro- logical causes, known as the "secular fluctuation." Its lowest known level was in February, 1819, rising more or less each year, until June, 1838, in the extreme to six (6) feet eight (8) inches. Reducing each year to an average, the difference between 1819 and 1838 was fire (5) feet two (2) inches, and the average annual rise and fall, obtained by the mean of twelve years, one (1) foot one and one-half (1}) inches. In a table of general elevations above the ocean, it is evident the mean level must be determined, before the average surface can be fixed. With the exception of Lake Erie, I have not a good determination of the mean surface. For the other lakes the figures must be regarded only as close approximations. In Lake Michigan, the extreme difference of level has been found about the same as in Lake Erie. Lake Su- perior has a difference of at least four (4) feet, and Ontario six (6).
There are several important harbors and ports in Ohio, among which are Cleveland, Toledo, Sandusky,
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Port Clinton, Fairport, and Ashtabula. Valuable improvements have been made in some of these har- · bors, at the expense of the General Government. By means of the Welland Canal, in Canada, vessels not exceeding 130 feet in measurement of keel, 26 feet beam, and 10 feet draught, can pass to and fro be- tween Lake Erie and the Atlantic Ocean. The first steamboat was launched upon Lake Ontario in 1816, and upon Lake Erie in 1818. -
PRIMITIVE RACES AND ANTIQUITIES. - It is not yet determined whether we have dis- covered the original or first people who occupied the soil of Ohio. Modern investigations are continually bringing to light evidences of earlier races. Since .. the presence of man has been established in Europe as a contemporary of the fossil elephant, mastodon, rhinoceros, and the horse, of the later drift or glacial period, we may reasonably anticipate the presence of man in America in that era. Such proofs are already known, but they are not of that conclusive character which amounts to a demonstration. It is however known that an ancient people inhabited Ohio in advance of the red man, who was found here three hundred years since by the Spanish and French explorers.
Five and six hundred years before the arrival of Columbus, the Northmen sailed from Norway, Ice- land, and Greenland, along the Atlantic coast as far south as Long Island. They found Indian tribes in New England, closely resembling those who lived upon the coast and the St. Lawrence, when the Eng- lish and French came to possess those regions.
These red Indians have no traditions of a prior people; but there are over a large part of the Lake
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- country, and of the valley of the Mississippi, earth- works, mounds, pyramids, ditches, and forts, the works of a more ancient race, and a people far in ad- vance of the Indian. If they were not civilized, they were not barbarians. They were not mere hunters, but had fixed habitations, cultivated the soil, and possessed mechanical skill. We know them as the Mound Builders, because they erected over the mortal remains of their principal men and women memorial mounds of earth or unhewn stone, -of which hun- dreds remain to our day, - so large and high, that they give rise to an impression of the numbers and the energy of their builders, such as we receive from the pyramids of Egypt.
In those burial-mounds there are always portions of one or more human skeletons, generally partly con- sumed by fire, with ornaments of stone, bone, shells, mica, and copper. One of the largest mounds of the Ohio country is represented on our map. It is now fifty-eight (58) feet high, with a circular base of about 800 feet in circumference. In 1864, the citizens of Miamisburg, Montgomery County, sunk a well or F haft from the top to the natural surface, without finding the bones or the ashes of the great man for whom it was erected. This exploration has lowered the summit of the mound five feet below what it was in 1839, when I first examined it.
Fort Ancient, on the Little Miami, is a good speci- men of the military defences of the mound-builders. It is well located on a long, high, narrow, precipitous ridge. The parapets are now from 10 to 18 feet high, and its perimeter is sufficient to hold 20,000 fighting-men. There is another prominent example of their works near Newark, in Licking Co. This collection presents a great variety of figures, circles, rectangles, octagons, and parallel banks or high-
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ways, covering more than a thousand acres. The County fair-ground is permanently located within an ancient circle, which is a quarter of a mile in diam- eter, with an embankment and interior ditch. At the highest part it was, in 1839, twenty-six (26) feet from the top of the bank to the bottom of the moat. All the supposed inscriptions upon stones, purport- ing to have been taken from the mounds, are now proven to have been forgeries.
There is no evidence that they had alphabetical characters, picture-writing, or hieroglyphics, though they must have had some mode of recording events. Neither is there any proof that they used domestic animals for tilling the soil, or for the purpose of erecting the imposing earthworks they have left. A very coarse cloth of hemp, flax, or nettles, has been found on their burial-hearths, and around skeletons not consumed by fire.
On the map, the most extensive earthworks on the waters of the Ohio are represented by a square or block, thus They occupy many of the sites of modern towns, and are always in the vicinity of excellent land. Those on the waters of Lake Erie are represented by a circle in black, thus , because they are quite different from those on the south. They are generally irregular earth forts, while the southern ones are generally altars, pyramids, circles, cones, and rectangles of earth, among which fortresses or strongholds are exceptions.
Those on the north may not have been contempo- rary, or have been built by the same people. They are far less prominent or extensive, which indicates a people less in numbers as well as industry, and whose principal occupation was war, among themselves or against their neighbors. This style of works extends eastward along the south shore of Lake Ontario,
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through New York. In Ohio there is a space along the water-shed, between the Lake and the Ohio, where there are few if any ancient earthworks. There appears to have been a vacant or neutral ter- ritory here, lying between different nations.
The Indians of the North dressed in skins, culti- vated the soil very sparingly, and manufactured no woven cloth. On Lake Superior there are ancient copper mines, wrought by the mound-builders not less than 1500 years ago, of which the red men have no more knowledge than they have of the sepulchral mounds.
The Indians did not occupy the ancient earth forts, nor did they construct such works. They were found to be as they are now - a hunter race, wholly averse to labor. Their abodes were in rock shelters, in caves, or in temporary sheds of bark and boughs, easily moved from place to place. Like most savage nations, their habits are unchangeable; at least the example of white men, and the efforts for their civil- ization during three centuries, have made no perma- nent impression.
THE OHIO TRIBES .- When Champlain, in 1609, came in contact with the northern Indians, the Eries, Erigos, or Errienons, occupied the south shore of Lake Erie. About 1650, the Iroquois fell upon them with such fury and in such force that the na- tion was annihilated. Those who escaped the slaugh- ter were absorbed among their conquerors, accord- ing to their policy; and the country of the Eries was occupied by the Iroquois. In 1681 these fero- cious warriors swept through Ohio and Indiana to the Illinois country, where they attacked the tribes on the Mississippi. These tribes would have shared the fate of the Eries and Hurons, had not the French assisted in their defence.
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Until the year 1700, the Iroquois held the south shore of Lake Erie so firmly, that the French dared not trade or travel along that side of the Lake. There are slight evidences that French missionaries and traders were in Northern Ohio as early as 1650; but written historical proofs of this fact have not yet been discovered.
Having driven the Hurons or Wyandots from Lake Huron, and murdered the Jesuit missionaries who were among them, by modes of torture of which only savages are capable, the Iroquois permitted the residue of the Hurons to settle around the west end of Lake Erie. The Delawares, or " Leni-Lenapes," whom they had subjugated on the Susquehanna, were assigned hunting-grounds on the Muskingum. A southern tribe, known as the Chouwawanons or Shawnees, a troublesome people as neighbors, whether to whites or Indians, desired a place on the waters of the Ohio. They were permitted to occupy the Scioto country as tenants at will, having the Twigtwees, Tawixtawes, Mineamis or Miamis, on the west. I have laid down on the map the general po- sition of the Ohio tribes, as they were from the com- mencement of the French war, in 1754, to the close of the American Revolution, or 1784.
EXTINGUISHMENT OF THE INDIAN TITLE IN OHIO .- The true basis of title to Indian territory, is the right of civilized men to the soil for purposes of cultiva- tion, perfected by conquest. As against civilized nations, the English crown derived title to the terri- tory between the Alleghany Mountains and the Mis- sissippi by the treaty of Paris, in February, 1763. Long before this she had granted to individuals or to the Colonies all the land from ocean to ocean ; but the French had done better, and acquired quasi possession of the Lake country, the Ohio and the
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upper Mississippi valleys, not by treaty, but with the consent of the Indians. This was the principal cause of the old French war, commencing in 1754 with the capture of a Virginia detachment at the forks of the Ohio.
The Iroquois confederacy had, as early as 1680, carried their wars westward through Ohio to the Illinois river, and claimed lands to the banks of the Mississippi.
As early as 1684, and again in 1726, cessions or grants of land were made by them to the English ; and these treaties and grants are regarded as a source of title. Those which purport to convey land are given in chronological order on the next two pages, together with other cessions made by civilized powers.
The numerous so-called Treaties of Peace, for the delivery of prisoners, made with the western tribes, in which no cession of lands was inserted, were :- one by Gen. Forbes, at Fort Du Quesne (Fort Pitt), in 1758; another by Col. Bradstreet, at Erie, in August, 1764; and by Col. Bouquet, at the mouth of Walhonding, in November, 1764; in May, 1765, at Johnson's, on the Mohawk, and .at Philadelphia, in the same year; in 1774, by Lord Dunmore, at Camp Charlotte, in Pickaway County.
By the treaty at the Maumee Rapids, in 1817, reser- vations were conveyed by the United States to all the tribes, with a view to induce them to cultivate the soil, and cease to be hunters. These were from time to time purchased by the Government, the last of which was the Wyandot Reserve, of 12 miles square, around Upper Sandusky, in 1842, closing out all claims, and composing all the Indian difficul- ties in Ohio. The open wars had ceased in 1815 with the treaty of Ghent.
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Abstract of Treaties conveying Lands.
Date of the Treaty.
The Tribes and other Parties, and the Place where held.
Outlines of the Grants.
Sept. 1726.
Albany, New York. Iroquois or Six Na- tions.
All their claims west of Lake Erie, and 60 miles in width along the south shore of Lakes Ontario and Erie, from Oswego river to Cuyahoga or "Cayahaga."
1744.
Lancaster, Pa. Iroquois or Six Na- tions.
All their lands that are or here- after may be within the Colony of Virginia.
1752.
Confirmed the treaty of Lancas- ter, and consented to settlements south of the Ohio river.
Canada and the eastern half of the Mississippi valley.
Oct. 22, 1784. 1785.
Same at Logstown, on the Ohio, and West- ern Indians. Paris, France. English and French. Paris. England and the U S. Fort Stanwix, N.Y. Iroquois and the U. S. Fort McIntosh, at the mouth of Big Bea- ver. - Chippeways, Delawares, Ottawas, and Wyandots.
Territory south of the Lakes and east of the Mississippi.
Cede all their claims west of Pennsylvania.
Cede all their claims east and south of the " Cayahaga," the Por- tage path, and the Tuscarawas to Fort Laurens (Bolivar), thence to Loramie's Fort (north-west part of Shelby Co.), thence along the Portage path to the St. Mary's river, and down it to the Omee or Maumee river, and the Lake shore to the " Cayahaga."
Jan. 31, 1786.
Fort Finney near the mouth of the Great Miami. - Shawnees or Shawanes.
Feb. 9, 1789.
At Fort Harmar. Iroquois.
Aug. 3, 1795.
At Fort Greenville. Darke County, United States, with 12 tribes : Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, Ottawas, Chippeways, Pota- watamies, Miamis or Mineamis, Eel River Indians were Kicka- poos, Piankashaws, and Kaskaskias.
They not owning the land occu- pied by them on the Scioto, were allotted a tract on the heads of the two Miamis and the Wabash, west of the Chippeways, Delawares, and Wyandots.
Treaty of Fort Stanwix con- firmed. Treaty of Fort McIntosh confirmed by the Chippeways, Ot- tawas, Delawares, and Wyandots, to which the Sauks and Potawata- mies assented-a period of Indian murders and wars till 1795.
Boundary of Fort McIntosh and Fort Harmar confirmed and ex- tended to Fort Recovery and the mouth of Kentucky River.
Feb. 13, 1763. 1783.
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Abstract of Treaties conveying Lands.
Date of the Treaty.
The Tribes and other Parties, and the Place where held.
Outlines of the Grants.
June, 1796.
At Buffalo.
The Senecas, represented by Brant, ceded to the Connecticut Land Company their rights east of the Cuyahoga.
1805.
At Fort Industry on the Maumee.
Wyandots, Delawares, Ottawas, Chippeways, Shawnees, Munsees, Potawatamies, relinquished all lands west of the Cuyahoga, as far west as the west line of the West- ern Reserve, and south of the line from Fort Laurens to Loramie's Fort.
July 4, 1807.
At Detroit.
Ottawas, Chippeways, Wyan- dots, and Potawatamies cede all that part of Ohio, north of the Maumee river, with part of Mich- igan.
Nov. 25, 1808.
Brownstown, Michi- gan.
The same parties and the Shaw- nees granted a tract two miles wide, from the west line of the Reserve to the rapids of the Mau- mee, for the purpose of a road through the Black Swamp.
Sept. 18, 1815.
Springwells, near Detroit.
Chippeways, Ottawas, Potawat- amies, Wyandots, Delawares, Sen- ecas, Shawnees, and Miamis, who had been engaged on the British side in the war of 1812, confirmed the grants made at Fort McIntosh in 1785, and Greenville 1795.
Jept. 29, 1817.
Rapids of the Mau- mee.
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The Wyandots ceded their lands west of the line of 1805, as far as Loramie's and the St. Mary's River, and north of the Maumce. The Potawatamies, Chippeways, and Ottawas, ceded the territory west of the Detroit line of 1807, and north of the Maumee.
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