USA > Ohio > Adams County > A history of Adams County, Ohio, from its earliest settlement to the present time, including character sketches of the prominent persons identified with the first century of the country's growth > Part 5
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To the reader in these days of advanced civilization these thrilling stories of Indian depredations against the white. settlements on the Ken- tucky border, and the prompt retaliatory incursions of the whites against the Indian towns in the Northwest Territory, read like fiction. It seems incredible that any considerable body of mounted troops could be collected and carried over the Ohio River within the course of a few hours' time. There were neither bridges nor ferries across the Ohio in those days, and the rapid crossing of that broad stream by mounted troops would seem a formidable undertaking.
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But the waters of the beautiful Ohio were no barrier to our hardy pioneer fathers. Their horses were trained to swin and at the same time carry their riders and their accoutrements. With a few well-trained leaders, a troop of horsemen would dash into the waters of the Ohio, and within the time it takes to relate the fact would be on the opposite shore getting in order for the pursuit of a marauding band of Indians, or for a dash against some of their towns. It will be remembered that when Simon Kenton was captured by the 'Indians in 1778, at the mouth of Eagle Creek, now in Brown County, it was through delay in trying to get the horses he and his companions had taken from the Indians on Paint Creek, to enter the waters of the Ohio, a windstorm prevailing at the time which dashed the waves so high as to frighten the animals.
Kenton's Attack on the Camp of Tecumseh.
Early in the spring of 1792, a small band of Indians under the celebrated Tecumseh, made an incursion into the region about Limestone, Kentucky, and stole a number of horses from the settlers. A party of whites numbering thirty-six men, among whom was Simon Kenton, Cornelius Washburn, Benjamin Whiteman, Alexander McIntyre, Timothy Downing, Charles Ward, and other experienced woodsmen, pur- sued the enemy. It was found that the Indians had crossed the Ohio at Logan's Gap near the mouth of Eagle Creek and had followed the course of Logan's Trace toward the Indian towns on the waters of the Little Miami. The pursuing party crossed the Ohio the first evening and encamped for the night. Early the next morning the trail of the Indians was taken up and followed in a northerly course, through a flat swampy region. When fairly started on the trail, a difference of opinion as to the best plan to pursue, arose among the men, and twelve of them were granted liberty to return home. Kenton, at the head of the twenty-four remaining, pushed on and encamped the second night on the waters of White Oak Creek, now in Brown County. On the afternoon of the following day, the tinkle of a bell was heard, and the pursuing party believed they were in the vicinity of the Indian Camp. After moving cautiously forward some distance, a solitary Indian was seen approaching them. When within gurchot he was fired upon and killed. Then Kenton hastened his spies forward to reconnoiter the Indian camp, being satisfied it was near by. A considerable body of Indians was later found encamped on the waters of the East Fork of the Little Miami near the present boundary between Brown and Clermont Counties. A hasty council was held and it was agreed to lay by until night- fall, and then assault the camp. Spies were left to watch the camp, while the men withdrew and kindled fires to dry themselves from a day's travel through the cold March rain, and to put their guns in order. The party was then divided into three detachments, Kenton commanding the right, McIntyre the center, and Downing the left. When Downing and his men had approached near the camp, an Indian arose and began to stir the fire which was but dimly burning. Fearing discovery, he was instantly shot down. This was followed by a general fire from the other detachments, upon the Indians who were sleeping under some marquees and bark tents close upon the margin of the stream. When fired upon the Indians in-
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stead of retreating as had been anticipated, boldly stood to their arms and rushed upon their assailants. Kenton fearing that his men would be over- powered, soon ordered a retreat which was continued through the night and a part of the next day. Samuel Barr was killed in this action and Alexander McIntyre was captured the next day and tomahawked. The Kentuckians were three days, during which they suffered from the wet and cold and for want of food, in reaching the station near Washington.
After the treaty of peace at Greenville in 1795, Stephen Ruddle, who had been captured by the Indians in his youth and adopted by a Shawnee family, stated that he was with Tecumseh in this engagement, and that the number of Indians was much less than the force under Kenton. He said that at the beginning of the attack, Tecumseh was lying by the fire outside of the tents. When the first shot was fired, he sprang to his feet and called to his warriors to charge their assailants. Tecumseh rushed forward and killed Samuel Barr with his warclub. In the confusion, it being quite dark, an Indian fell into the creek and made so much noise in getting out, that Kenton supposed reinforcements were crossing the stream to aid Tecumseh, and ordered his men to retreat. There were but two Indians killed. Ruddle said McIntyre was killed the next day, after having been pursued and taken prisoner. He had caught the horse of the Indian who had been shot by Kenton's men the afternoon before the attack and had tied it some distance in the rear of the Indian Camp. When a retreat was ordered he mounted this horse and rode away. The Indians pusued his trail and overtook him the next day while he was encamped cooking some meat. He was taken back to the battle-ground and in the temporary absence of Tecumseh was tomahawked and scalped by some of his warriors. At this act of cruelty to a prisoner, Tecumseh was exceedingly indignant, and upbraided his men for such conduct, declaring it cowardly to kill a man when tied and a prisoner. Says a writer: "The conduct of Tecumseh in this engagement, and in the events following, is creditable alike to his courage and humanity. Resolutely brave in battle, his arm was never uplifted against a prisoner. nor did he suffer violence to be inflicted upon a captive without promptly rebuking it." More than twenty years after the events related above, the brave and humane Tecumseh, saved the lives of many helpless prisoners among whom was the grandfather of the writer, taken at the defeat of Col. Dudley, while confined in the old block- house at Malden. In the absence of Tecumseh, the British Gen. Proctor permitted some savages to enter this prison pen and seize, tomahawk and scalp their helpless victims. Hearing of this cowardly slaughter, Tecumseh hastened with the utmost speed of his pony to the block-house, and dis- mounting seized two savages who were in the act of butchering a stalwart Kentuckian, and threw them to the ground, where they lay trembling in fear of their chief. Then turning to Gen. Proctor, he demanded why such butchery had been permitted by him. The General replied that he could not restrain the savages. With a look of withering scorn and contempt Tecumseh told Proctor that he was not fit to command men and that he ought "to go home, and put on petticoats." Although a savage chieftain and the implacable foe of the whites, yet such was his magnanimity to- wards his white captives, that many of our pioneer forefathers honored his memory by naming a son Tecumseh. One of our most illustrious generals, bore his name-William Tecumseh Sherman.
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Elsewhere in this volume it is stated that in a battle with some Shawnees near Reeve's Crossing of Paint Creek, in 1793, that a white man named Ward who was with the Indians, was killed. That was John Ward who was with Tecumseh at the above mentioned fight on East Fork. He had been captured by the Indians in 1758 when but three years old, and had grown up in an Indian family and married a Shawnee woman. His brother, Captain Charles Ward, of Washington, Kentucky, was one of Kenton's men in this fight on East Fork, and afterwards related that while he stood within rifle shot of the camp on the night of the engagement, an Indian girl about fifteen years of age attracted his attention, and not recognizing her sex he raised his gun to fire, when her open bosom dis- closed her sex and her light complexion caused him to doubt whether she was an Indian by birth. He afterwards learned it was his brother's child whose wife and family were in the camp.
Extinguishment of Indian Titles.
By the treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785 and that of Fort Harmar in 1789, the Indian titles to the lands in southern Ohio were partially trans- ferred to the United States government. But the powerful tribes of west- ern and northwestern Ohio refused to recognize the terms of these treaties, because as they justly claimed they had been negotiated with only a few of the weaker tribes, and had never been sanctioned by the real powers in the so-called Indian confederacy. These tribes insisted that the boundary line between the Indian possessions and the lands of the United States should be the Ohio River. And it was mainly this contention that brought about the horrible border warfare between the whites and the Indians of the northwest which only terminated with Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers. They had up to this time defeated the arms of the United States first under General Harmar in 1790, and again under General St. Clair in 1791, and as has been truthfully said held the combined forces of the United States and the Kentucky and Virginia militia at bay, and retarded the settlement of the Northwest Territory for a period of seven years. But with the crushing defeat of the allied Indian tribes at Fallen Timbers, the spirit of their confederacy was broken, and all principal tribes con- sented to the terms of the treaty of Greenville in 1795, which vested the title of the southern three-fourths of the territory of Ohio, in the United States, and gave permanent peace and safety to the hardy pioneers who erected their homes therein.
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CHAPTER V.
THE VIRGINIA MILITARY DISTRICT
First Survey in the District-Deputy Surveyors-First Settlement- Manner of Making Surveys-Some Incidents-Time for Making Entries and Surveys-Massie's Surveying Party-An Adventure with the Indians-Original Entries and Surveys-Recorded Land Patents.
The Virginia Military lands or the Virginia Reservation in Ohio, includes a vast portion of the State lying between the Scioto and the Little Miami Rivers. In form it may be likened to an isosceles triangle with the Ohio for the base, the Scioto and Little Miami respectively forming the sides, and the old Wyandot reservation, the apex. This region includes the fairest and richest lands within the State, and there have been formed from its territory the counties of Adams, Brown, Clermont, Highland, Clinton, Fayette, Madison and Union; and por- tions of Scioto, Pike, Ross, Pickaway, Franklin, Delaware, Marion, Hardin, Logan, Clark, Champaign, Green and Warren. It covers six thousand five hundred and seventy square miles, and contains over four million acres of land.
When Adams County was erected it embraced the larger portion of the Virginia Military lands, and from the old stockade at the "Three Islands" where the town of Manchester now sits, the intrepid Nathaniel Massie, assisted by the Beasleys, the Washburns, the McDonalds, the Leedoms, the Wades, and the Edgingtons, braving savage beasts and more savage men, explored its remotest regions, surveying its richest valleys and most fertile plains.
McDonald, in his "Sketches," says: "This fine portion of our State known as the Virginia Military District, possesses from its situation and soil many advantages. On the east and north its boundary is the Scioto River; on the west, the Little Miami, while its entire southern boundary is washed by the Ohio River for upwards of one hundred miles. The soil of this tract of country presents a greater variety, prob- ably, than any other region of like extent in the United States. In the southeastern portion the uplands extending thirty or forty miles below the mouth of the Scioto, and thirty miles north from the Ohio, are hilly and the lands poor. Below the mouth of Brush Creek, the hills along the Ohio, for a short distance from the river, are rich and heavily tim- bered. Further down the Ohio the extent of rich land increases to the mouth of the Little Miami. The bottoms of the Ohio, Scioto, Miami and the large tributary streams, composed of a rich and dark loamy soil, are celebrated for their fertility; and the heavy crops annually taken
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from them for a succession of upwards of thirty years, without rest or renewal in any way, show that their celebrity is not without foundation. "The middle portion of the district presents, however, the greatest variety of soil. Although the extent of bottom land along the streams is considerable, yet the greater portion is upland of good quality, on which wheat is raised in great abundance. A portion of it is level land, timbered with beech and sugar trees, and at the first settlement of the country was considered rather too flat and wet for cultivation; but since it has been cleared and cultivated, it is justly considered very good land, alone surpassed by the rich alluvial bottoms.
"A part of the middle portion consists also of prairie or barren land, the value of which has been lately discovered to be greater than ever was suspected, as it presented, at the first settlement of the country, a marshy appearance, which, it was supposed, could not be overcome by cultivation. The industry of our inhabitants has overcome this ob- stacle, and the barrens are fast becoming very valuable lands. The other part of the district consists of barrens, and also of wet, flat land, timbered with beech and sugar trees, and is at this time quite unsettled. [Now these are drained and are rated very fine farming and grazing lands.] From this variety of soil great advantages arise. In our bot- toms we raise corn in great abundance ; on our uplands, wheat and other small grains; while our barrens or prairies furnish most desirable pas- tures for grazing. Our quarries supply the finest building stone to be obtained, and the Brush Creek hills contain ore from which a quality of iron is obtained unsurpassed in the world."
The Virginia Military District is a product of the Revolution. It grew out of the adjustment of the claims of Virginia to portions of the Northwest Territory acquired by the United States from England under the treaty of Paris in 1783. It will be remembered that the grants of land from the English monarchs to the American Colonies, as set forth in their charters, were "from ocean to ocean," and consequently, upon the acquirement of the territory west of the Alleghenies at the close of the Revolution, the States of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, each claimed portions of the newly acquired territory within the alleged limits of their respective colonial grants. The claim of New York, however, was lim- ited to "all the territory northwest of the Ohio River belonging to the Six Nations, or Iroquois Indians," from whom that State had acquired title to their lands. The six other States in the Confederation whose boundaries were fixed, and which were in consequence barred from claiming, as individuals, any of the newly acquired territory under the plea of extension of boundaries, contended that this territory acquired irom Great Britain became the common property of all the States in the Confederation, and should be disposed of for the benefit of all under the authority of the Congress of the Confederation. And so it was, that after the awful hardships and terrible conflicts of the war just closed, in which the States vied with each other in their sacrifices of property and lives to maintain their rights and to establish the principles of lib- erty, one of the fruits of that victory-this newly acquired territory -- very nearly brought on internecine war, and almost disrupted the Fed- eral Union. It is truthfully said that the history of the times of the
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Revolution shows that nothing except the war itself, so deeply agi- tated the whole country as the question to whom properly belonged this vast western domain, and no question so subjected the Confederation to greater peril. All the States were greatly straitened for means of bearing their respective portions of the expense of the war; and all at- tached a very great, and probably an undue, importance to these lands as a source of revenue, or as a fund on which to obtain credit by their hypothecation. Many distinguished men arrayed themselves on differ- ent sides of this question. Mr. Hamilton, for example, held that the Confederacy or nation at large had succeeded to the rights and property of the Crown as a common fund, while Mr. Madison maintained that the States respectively had succeeded to the Crown lands within their limits, and thus the matter was carried into the Congress of the Confederation.
Congress appealed to the States to relinquish their claims to the disputed territory, and to cede it to the Confederation for the benefit of all the States. Under the powerful influence of Hamilton, New York, whose claims were not so well established as those of the other States above referred to, authorized her delegates in Congress to restrict her western boundary by such limits as they might deem expedient. The conciliatory course adopted by New York was followed by the other States, and finally, under the Ordinance of 1787, this vexed question was brought to a happy termination. But in their deeds of cession to the Congress of the Confederation, Connecticut and Virginia each provided for a large "reservation" of lands in the territory northwest of the Ohio River ; the former a large tract known as the "Western Reserve," for the benefit of her citizens who suffered from Tory raids, and for the purpose of establishing a common school fund; the latter for the purpose of making good her promises of bounties in lands to her soldiers in the Revolution.
The Commonwealth of Virginia during the Revolution had raised two descriptions of troops-State and Continental-to the latter of which she had promised large bounties of "good lands on the Cumber- land, between the Green and Tennessee Rivers" in her territory south- west of the Ohio River. But anticipating that there would be a defi- ciency of good lands in that reservation, in order to provide against such an emergency, when she deeded her interest in the Northwest Terri- tory to Congress, she prudently reserved the tract between the Scioto and the Little Miami, since known as the "Virginia Military Lands," to fulfill all her obligations to her soldiers of the Continental line.
The act of cession of Virginia was passed by the Legislature of that State, October 20, 1783, and the ceded territory was adopted by act of Congress March 1, 1784. The reservation above refered to in the deed of cession is as follows :
"That in case the quantity of good lands on the southeast side of the Ohio, upon the Cumberland River, and between the Green River and the Tennessee River, which have been reserved by law for the Vir- ginia troops of the Continental establishment, should, from the North Carolina line bearing in further upon the Cumberland lands than was expected, prove insufficient for their legal bounties, the deficiency should be made up to the said troops in good lands to be laid off between the rivers Scioto and the Little Miami, on the northwest side of the
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river Ohio, in such proportions as have been engaged to them by the laws of Virginia."
The "proportions as have been engaged to them" were as follows : A Private, 200 acres; a Non-commissioned Officer, 400 acres; a Sub- altern, 2,000 acres ; a Captain, 3,000 acres; a Major, 4,000 acres; a Lieutenant Colonel, 4,500 acres; a Colonel, 5,000 acres; a Brigadier General, 10,000 acres; and a Major General, 15,000 acres.
August 1, 1784, Gen. Robert C. Anderson, grandfather of Major Anderson, of Fort Sumpter fame, who had been appointed principal sur- veyor of these lands, opened an office in Louisville, Kentucky, for the reception of entries and surveys upon warrants issued to the Virginia soldiers of the Continental line. These warrants could be laid by the original grantees or by some one to whom they had been legally as- signed. And as many of the soldiers to whom these warrants were granted had not the means or inclination to locate them, from the great hardships to be endured and the risk and danger from Indian attacks after crossing west of the Alleghenies, there sprung up a class of land jobbers who bought these warrants and employed deputy surveyors to locate them. The deputy surveyors themselves became speculators in lands through the purchase of warrants or by taking an agreed portion of the lands entered and surveyed by them. Sometimes they would get as much as one-half of a survey for their services. Or, if paid in money, the usual terms were fio Virginia currency for each 1,000 acres entered and surveyed exclusive of chainmen's expenses.
At that period lands were abundant and cheap, and it was the prac- tice to give "full measure" in the location of warrants; and if the deputy surveyor had a contract for one-fourth or one-half of the lands located, the "measure would be full and overflowing" for a certainty, as he would get, besides his agreed share, the surplus. It is said of General Lytle, a famous frontiersman and a noted surveyor and land speculator of the times, that he made many of his surveys on horseback, and never troubled himself to thread thickets or to cross fallen timbers, but that he would conveniently ride around such obstacles.
Previous to the year 1787, the warrants issued troops of the Conti- nental line were laid en lands upon the Cumberland, between the Green and Tennessee Rivers. But early in that year it became apparent to Gen- eral Anderson, that there would be a deficiency of good lands in that reservation, and he accordingly established in his office, August 1, 1787, a bureau for the reception of entries and surveys in the reservation northwest of the Ohio. This region had been cautiously explored by Kenton, Davis, Helm, Fox, O'Bannon and other frontiersmen, who painted fine pictures of the beauty of the region, and related wonder- ful stories of its abundance of game and great fertility of soil. This, together with the fact that Congress had just enacted an ordinance pro- viding for a most liberal and enlightened code of laws for the govern- ment of the Territory in which the reservation was situated, caused hun-
. dreds of holders of the military warrants to anxiously turn to this el- dorado of the West. But the ever-vigilant and revengeful savages of the Territory stood as a bar to its entrance. From their look-outs on the Ohio, they scrutinized every pirogue that passed over its waters, and reckoned the military strength of every armed foe that threatened their
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shores. None but the most experienced Indian fighters dared enter the region with hope of returning alive. Under these difficulties the early surveys in the Virginia Reservation were made, and it was not until after the treaty of Greenville that the danger of assault from the savages was removed.
First Survey in the District.
The first survey made in the district was that of John O'Bannon of lands upon which the village of Neville, in what is now Clermont County, is situated. This was on the thirteenth day of November, 1787. Two days later he made a number of surveys on Three Mile, in Sprigg Township, and one of 1,000 acres for Philip Slaughter, opposite Lime- stone, and on the 17th surveyed 1,000 acres at the mouth of Eagle Creek for Mace Clements. The entry of this survey is said to have been the first made within the district, it having been recorded on the day of the open- ing of the reservation, August 1, 1787. The survey made by O'Bannon opposite Limestone, and the one at the mouth of Eagle Creek, were of lands within the limits of Adams County until the formation of Brown County in 1818.
On July 17, 1788, Congress, by resolution, declared all the entries and surveys previously made in this district invalid for the reason that General Anderson acted without authority of law in opening the reser- vation, as it had not been officially ascertained that there was a defi- ciency of lands in the Cumberland Reservation. This was a bitter dis- appointment to those who had endured severest hardships and risked life itself to lay the foundation of their future homes in this choice region of the Northwest Territory. But this galling resolution was re- pealed August 10, 1790, by an act of Congress which declared the Cum- berland Reservation insufficient, and immediately thereafter entries and surveys were made in the new reservation as rapidly as conditions would permit.
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