A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume I, Part 11

Author: Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922; Clarke, S.J., publishing company
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago-Cleveland : The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1262

USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume I > Part 11

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 (link on the Part 1 page).

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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

thousand acres in western New York. In 1770 he entertained Washington, then on his way to the Kanawha. On the outbreak of the Revolution he was mistrusted by both sides but he proved his loyalty to the American cause and was allowed to retain his vast possessions. He died in August, 1782, at Passay- unk, Pennsylvania. The valiant Croghan of the war of 1812 was his son.3

After the French and Indian war the British forbade the settlement of the land beyond the Ohio and Allegheny. All attempts to hold inviolate their treaty with the Indians, especially the Six nations, were in vain. The white settlers never respected the Indian's claim to the soil. A number of these tres- passers were forcibly expelled. Following the treaty of 1782 the United States tried to carry out this policy of exclusion. The settlers who had founded a settlement at Salt Springs in Weathersfield, Trumbull county, were dispossessed by Colonel Harmar in 1785.4

During the winter of 1755-6 James Smith, a Pennsylvanian, was held cap- tive by the Delawares on the Cuyahoga. The interesting narrative of his experiences includes a description of the Cuyahoga, the Black and the Kilbuck rivers. "From 1760 to 1764 Mary Campbell, a young girl captured in Penn- sylvania, lived on this river, most of the time near the foot of the falls at the forks below Akron."5

In October, 1760, during the French and Indian war, Major Robert Rogers, who had helped raise the Provincial Rangers in New Hampshire was ordered to leave Fort Niagara with his battalion and capture the French posts in the west. Coasting along the south shore of the lake in batteaux, he visited the Cuyahoga, where he met Pontiac, the celebrated Indian ally of the French. Albach relates the incident as follows: "Rogers was well fitted for the task. On the borders of New Hampshire, with Putnam and Stark, he had earned a great reputation as a partisan officer; and Rogers Rangers, armed with rifle, tomahawk and knife, had rendered much service and won a great name. Later that reputation was tarnished by greater crimes; tried for an attempt to betray Mackinaw to the Spaniards, he abandoned the country and entered the service of the Dey of Algiers. At the war of Independence he entered the American service, was detected as a spy, passed over to the British and was banished by an act of his native state. Such was the man who was sent to plant the British flag in the great valley. Immediately upon receiving his orders he set out to ascend the St. Lawrence with two hundred men and fifteen boats. *

"On the 7th of November they landed at the mouth of Cuyahoga creek. Here they were met by a party of Indians who were deputed to them to say that Pontiac, the great chief of the Ottawas, was near and he demanded that they should advance no further, till they should receive his permission. During the day the great chief appeared and imperiously demanded why the army was there without his consent. Rogers replied that Canada had been conquered and that he was on his way to occupy the French post and to restore peace to the

3 Western Reserve Historical Society, Tract No. 6, p. I, and Tract No. 37, p. 28, also Hulburt's "Red Men's Roads."

4 Sce Western Reserve Historical Society, Tract No. 6, p. 6, for list of settlers and per- sons thus forced out of Ohio previous to sale and survey of the Reserve.

5 Whittlesey's "Early History of Cleveland," p. 131.

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

Indians. Pontiac only replied that he would stand in his path till morning. On the next day he delivered a formal reply to the English officer that he consented to live in peace with the English as long as they treated him with due deference. The calumet was smoked and an alliance made. Pontiac accompanied his new friends to Detroit."6

Parkman relates the important episode as follows: "On the 7th of Novem- ber, 1760, they reached the mouth of the Cuyahoga river, the present site of Cleveland. No body of British troops had ever advanced so far. The day was dull and rainy, and, resolving to rest until the weather should improve, Rogers ordered his men to prepare their camp in the neighboring forest. The place has seen strange changes since that day.

"Soon after the arrival of the Rangers a party of Indian chiefs and warriors entered the camp. They proclaimed themselves an embassy from Pontiac, ruler of all that country, and directed, in his name, that the English should advance no further until they had had an interview with the great chief, who was close at hand.

"He greeted Rogers with a haughty demand what his business was in that country and how he dared enter it without his permission."7

Rogers published a journal of two volumes relating his experiences with considerable detail. But unfortunately the place of this historic meeting is not told with clearness. By following his journal from day to day, Colonel Whit- tlesey has concluded that it is extremely doubtful whether their meeting was held here or at the Grand, or some other river, and indeed whether Rogers stopped here at all.8

In 1761 Sir William Johnson, the British superintendent of Indian affairs, visited Detroit, after Major Rogers had captured it and had hauled down the French flag, which had for so many years floated worthily over the historic fort. On his way back Sir William skirted the southern shore of Lake Erie and recorded in his diary, "Embarked this morning at six of ye clock and intend to beach near Cuyahoga this day."

From 1760 to 1763, the English traders encroached upon this territory and no doubt some of their hardy number visited our valley. The English schooner "Gladwyn" carried supplies to and from Detroit and it is not improbable that she stopped here occasionally. But in 1763 these peaceful pursuits were abruptly ended by the treacherous conspiracy of Pontiac. Two expeditions sent out by the British during this frontier war are of special interest to Cleveland.

The first was the expedition of 1763 under command of Major Wilkins. It consisted of six hundred regulars, with arms, stores and artillery. On the way to Detroit (November 7, 1763) it was wrecked in a violent storm. Seventy men perished, all the ammunition, several cannon, twenty boats and fifty bar- rels of provisions were lost. Here again we are left in doubt as to the locality. Dr. Jared P. Kirtland, the eminent physician and naturalist, collected many articles that were found on the shores near the mouth of Rocky river from 1830 to 1869, and he believed that they were the relics of the wreck of the

6 Albach "Annals of the West," p. 162.

7 "Conspiracy of Pontiac," pp. 147 and 148.

8 "Early History of Cleveland," pp. 90-95.

........

. -

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

Wilkins expedition. Colonel Whittlesey does not concur with this view but believes that the expedition was wrecked on the north shore of Lake Erie and that the articles found by Dr. Kirtland are from another wreck.9

The second expedition was sent out in 1764 under Colonel Bradstreet. He left Niagara in the early summer, stopped at Presque Isle (Erie) and Sandusky and reached Detroit on the 26th of August. He was singularly unfortunate in his dealings with the Indians. He learned the treaties he had made with them were mere acts of savage treachery on their part. He retired from Detroit under the censure of his commander, reached Sandusky and on the 18th of October, he embarked from that place in a panic, without even recalling his scouts, only to be overtaken in a terrible storm and shipwrecked at the mouth of Rocky river. "The boats of the army had scarcely entered Lake Erie when a storm descended on them, destroying several and throwing the whole into con- fusion. For three days a tempest raged unceasingly and when the angry lake began to resume its tranquillity it was found that the remaining boats were in- sufficient to convey the troops. A large body of Indians together with a detach- ment of provincials were therefore ordered to make their way to Niagara along the pathless borders of the lake."10 Twenty-five boats were lost on the perpen- dicular ledges that jut out into the lake off Rocky river, together with six brass cannon, most of the baggage and ammunition. It is not known how many lives were lost.11

To the end of the Pontiac war this country was little frequented and until the opening of the Revolution only an occasional British or French trader stopped here.

During the Revolution at least one white man came to the Cuyahoga. This was Major Craig, who received orders from General Irvine, dated "Fort Pitt, Nov. II, 1782" reading as follows: "Sir: I have received intelligence through various channels, that the British have established a post at Lower Sandusky and also information that it is suspected they intend erecting one, either at Cuyahoga creek or Grand river. But as these accounts are not from persons of military knowledge, nor to be fully relied upon in any particular, and I am anxious to have the facts well established; you will therefore proceed with Lieutenant Rose, my aid-de-camp, and six active men, in order to reconnoitre these two places, particularly Cuyahoga."

Major Craig started on November 13 with his small company. Arriving, as he thought, within a day's journey of the Cuyahoga, he left one man with the horse they had loaded with provisions and pushed forward to the mouth of the river intending to return to the man with the horse, obtain a fresh supply of provisions and then hasten to the Grand river. But he was delayed by storms and when he returned from the Cuyahoga, the soldiers and the horse with the provisions had disappeared. He had to abandon the reconnaisance of the Grand river and after terrible hardships reached Fort Pitt December 2. He reported that there was no sign of British occupancy at the mouth of the Cuyahoga.12

9 Sec "Early History of Cleveland," pp. 97-125 for full discussion.

10 Parkman "Conspiracy of Pontiac," p. 476.

11 For details see Dr. Kirtland's account "Early History Cleveland," pp. 107-114.

12 Western Reserve Historical Society, Tract 22, p. 3.

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

"In 1786 a lively trade in furs is known to have been carried on here Of the energetic half civilized men, who for so many generations carried on this business, we know personally nothing; except in regard to Joseph Du Shattar and some of his companions. * * * He had from a youth been in the employ of the Northwest Fur Company along this lake. The mouth of the Cuyahoga and Sandusky were principal points. About 1790 he married Mary Pornay at Detroit and commenced trading on his own account. He had a post nine miles up the river, which is probably the one whose remains have been observed in Brooklyn, opposite Newburg. Here his second child was born in 1794. John Baptiste Fleming and Joseph Burrall were with him a part of the time. * * * Du Shattar was living in 1812 and assisted in the capture of John O'Mic and Semo on Locust Point, the murderers of Michael Gibbs and Daniel Buell at Pipe creek near Sandusky."13

In 1786 and 1787 a band of the gentle and persecuted Moravians lived on the banks of the Cuyahoga. Driven from their homes on the Muskingum by the Indians, they sought peace and safety, first at Sandusky, and later on the Huron river, near Detroit. They were determined, however, to start a settle- ment in this vicinity, and in May, 1786, a company of them, under the guidance of Zeisberger and Heckewelder, started for the Cuyahoga. Owing to storms and sickness which occasioned much suffering, they did not reach here until June 7. They chose as the site of their mission the east bank of the river just below Tinker's creek near the town of Bedford and gave it the significant name of Pilgerruh (Pilgrim's Rest). A space of ground had previously been cleared by a village of the Ottawas; here they planted corn. Heckewelder then went to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the principal station of the sect and the new colony was left in charge of Zeisberger. They were evidently not pleased with the site, for in the spring of 1787 they removed to the Black river, where their stay was brief. Buffeted about by Indians and British they found no rest until after the war of 1812 when their settlements on the Muskingum and in Canada were left in peace.

John Heckewelder was born March 12, 1734, in Bedford, England. His father was a Moravian and had come to England in 1734 as a representative of the Moravian church. When John was ten years old his parents moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to take charge of the Indian mission. When at that place he learned to be a cooper but wished to follow the work of his father, and in 1762 went with the first missionary post to Ohio, to labor with the Indians at Tuscarawas, near the present village of Bolivar in Tuscarawas county. The Pontiac war compelled him to leave the mission and in 1773 he helped in the building of the Moravian towns in the Muskingum valley. In 1780 he mar- ried Sarah Ohadburg. This was the first marriage of white persons in the limits of the present state of Ohio; and their eldest child, Johanna Maria, born in April, 178I, was for a long time supposed to be the first white child born in Ohio. The Moravians not believing in war, the Revolution made them suspected by both sides, and they were carried by the British as prisoners of war to upper Sandusky and later to Detroit. It was during the exile from the Muskingum valley that the brutal butchering of the Moravian Indians in that valley took place.

13 "Early History of Cleveland," pp. 132-3.

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HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

In 1786 Heckewelder returned to Ohio and remained for some time near the Cuyahoga river at the Moravian village of Pilgerruh. On October 8, 1786, he left the Cuyahoga and returned to Bethlehem. In 1801 he returned to Gnadenhuetten, where for nine years he had charge of a large grant of land given by congress to the Moravians; he served also as postmaster and judge of the common pleas court. In 1810 he returned to Bethlehem for the last time ; he died there on the 3Ist of January, 1823.

While on the Cuyahoga river in 1796 he made a map of northeastern Ohio, which is very illuminating, showing the routes of the Indians. Accompanying this map is a description of the Cuyahoga valley. This map and the accompanying description is now in the archives of the Western Reserve Historical society.14

Colonel James Hillman was engaged in 1786 by Duncan and Wilson of Pittsburg as a packhorseman to carry goods from Pittsburg to the Cuyahoga, where they were delivered to Caldwell & Elliott of Detroit. He says that a log hut had been built on the west side of the river by a trader named Meginnes, who had abandoned it because he had trouble with the Indians. Hillman and his company the same year "built a hut at the spring" which he claims "was the first house built on the Cleveland side."15 The surveyors, on their arrival ten years later, make no mention of this hut. It was therefore not only in ruins, but had entirely disappeared. It probably was burned and the ashes covered with vegetation. An Englishman, James Hawder, was also employed by Duncan & Wilson at the Cuyahoga, 1786-7. A dilapidated hut was found in 1797 by Pease, on the west side of the river, near Center and Main streets. It was sup- posed, by the early settlers, to have belonged to French traders. Whittlesey thinks it was built about 1786 for a storage house by the traders.

EARLY MAPS AND NOMENCLATURE.

The Western Reserve Historical Society has a large collection of early maps, charts and atlases. The most important of these maps were com -. pared and described by Judge C. C. Baldwin in Tract No. 25, published by the society in 1875. The first map of the Great Lakes was attempted · by Champlain in 1632. It was published in France two years later. This hero of the Quebec frontier, "The Father of New France," sailed up the St. Lawrence in 1603, in two little boats of twelve and fifteen tons. From that time to his death at Quebec, in 1635, he was active in exploration and its at- tendant warfare. Yet the map he has left shows that he had personal knowledge only of Lake Huron, Mer Douce, and of Ontario, Lac St. Louis. Lake Erie he reduced to a wide stream and Lake Superior to a stream of secondary importance, while Lake Michigan was his Grand Lac expanded like his Huron, to enormous size. He reached Lake Huron always through the Canadian penin- sula and Georgian bay.

14 See Whittlesey's "Early History of Cleveland," pp. 135-44 for list of early missionaries. 15 Whittlesey's Early History of Cleveland," pp. 363-5.

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

This northern course was pursued by the Jesuit missionaries who penetrated the Superior region after Champlain's death, because the Ottawa Indians were friendly with them, while the Iroquois, controlling the Niagara route, were hostile. The Jesuits mapped Lake Superior and parts of Huron and Michigan with considerable accuracy and also Lake Neepigon.

Sanson, geographer to the French king, compiled a map in 1656, showing some knowledge of Lake Erie; indeed he gave the general direction of its southern shore more accurately than many subsequent maps. He places the lake far to the south. Galinee in 1670 made a map of portions of the lake including the north shore of Erie, which he visited in 1669.

In 1672 it is supposed that the great La Salle made his first map of the Lakes. Parkman alludes to it as quite accurate. He also shows the Ohio river. In 1670 La Salle sailed on our lake. Its northern coast had been pre- viously visited and it is at least pleasing to our imagination, though probably contrary to facts, to think that he skirted our southern shore and caught a glimpse of the mouth of the Cuyahoga. His route from Lake Erie to the Ohio has not been traced with certainty. The route by way of the head waters of the Allegheny, or the Maumee-Wabash route were the most probable. In 1679 he launched his famous "Griffin" near Niagara and sailed through the lakes to Green bay, whence he entered the Mississippi on February 6, 1682, following it to the Gulf. Father Hennepin, who accompanied La Salle on some of his earlier expeditions, made several maps. On his first, Lake Erie, called Lac de Conty or Erie, is traced with great inaccuracy, extending south to the thirty-fourth parallel, while on the second map, called Lac du Chat, or Erie, it is narrowed to latitude thirty-seven.

Baron La Hontan, published a small map in 1705 to accompany a book of travels. He is as inaccurate as Hennepin and as mendacious. His Lake Erie is long, with a broad, square eastern end. In 1715 a larger edition of his map retained these inaccuracies.

The geographers of Europe naturally relied on these maps of the explorers and on their descriptions for information. Therefore, the maps made by the early geographers are full of inaccuracies. Herman Moll, the English geog- rapher, 1711-20, Peter Schenck of Amsterdam, 1708, and John Homans, the justly celebrated geographer of Nuremberg, about this time, all copied, with more or less variation and imagination, the mistakes of the explorers.

In 1719 and 1721 John Senex of London made a map quite as misleading. He shows Lake "Erius," or "Felis als Cadaraqua" as a narrow, sinuous body of water, the "Felians" or Cat tribe, and the Senecas or "Sinneks" occupying the land around the lake. An earnest attempt at bettering the map of this region was made by William de l'Isle (1675-1726), the royal geographer to the king of France. His map shows the lake and the Ohio coming nearly together.

It remained for Charlevoix, the Jesuit, to trace more detail into the vague outlines of the early map makers. In 1744 appeared his History of New France, six volumes, with many charts and maps. His Lake Erie is rounded at the ends and somewhat attenuated in the middle, with a well defined bay or exten- sion to the southward, showing two insignificant streams flowing into it. This bay may be the great curve on which Cleveland is located and one of the

HISTORY OF CLEVELAND

streams may indicate the Cuyahoga. The islands in the west end of the lake are shown as Rattlesnake Island (des Serpens Sonnettes) and of the south shore is written: "all this shore is nearly unknown."

With the occupation of Presque Isle by the French in 1753 began the period of more accurate information of this southern shore, that had remained unexplored during the two centuries in which the north shore, the Detroit river, Georgian bay, and Mackinaw were frequented by adventurers and traders. Washington's historic journey in the autumn of 1753 to the headquarters of the Ohio on his diplomatic mission to the French, who had encroached upon that territory, was minutely described in his journal published in 1754, accom- panied by a map whose author remains unknown. But the map-maker, relying no doubt on Washington's description and on the map of Charlevoix, gives some interesting details. Lake Erie is given a more accurate course and the region from Presque Isle to the Ohio is well shown.

Lewis Evans, one of the first American geographers to map this region, published a map in 1755 in Philadelphia, printed by Benjamin Franklin and D. Hall. The map has many details. The rivers flowing into the lake from the south are the Cherade, where Conneaut now is, the Elk, which may be the Grand or the Chagrin, the Cuyahoga, traced inaccurately and described as "muddy, pretty gentle." The portage is shown with a French trading house near it to the west. The "Guahadahuri," probably intended for the Black river, which had been named "Canasadohara" by some early traders. The Sandusky river is shown with an inflation, probably meant to represent the bay. The Mineani, or Miami, is shown as flowing due east. This is a very instructive map and is here reproduced.

John Mitchell, M. D., F. R. S., a botanist of renown, who lived in Virginia, and died in England in 1768, published a map in 1755 that was considered the best authority in its time and was used by the commission treating for the peace of 1783. The map was made at the request of John Pownall, secretary of the Board of Trade, and all the information, surveys and reports, then extant, were placed at Dr. Mitchell's disposal. The map is filled with comments and observations like the Evans map, but it is far more artistic, although not always more accurate. The Cuyahoga river is shown. The trail to Sandusky from the Cuyahoga is forty miles through a country called Canahoque, a relic of the ancient name of Black river alluded to above. It is described as the trading and hunting ground of the Six Nations. To the east of the Cuyahoga the Conneaut and two very slight streams, one the Gwahago (Geauga?), are shown.

The map of John Heckewelder dated January 12, 1796, is the first extended map with careful descriptions made by an explorer and careful observer who had actually traversed the ground. The original is in the Historical society, donated by Mrs. Morgan of Norwich, Connecticut, the daughter of Moses Cleaveland, among whose papers it was found. Heckewelder was a member of the little Moravian community on Tinker's creek in 1786-7. Some years later he made a careful description of this country which is so full of details, and displays such careful observation that it is inserted entire.

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A history of Cleveland, Ohio, Volume I, Part 11

Author: Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922; Clarke, S.J., publishing company Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Chicago-Cleveland : The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1262

Author: Orth, Samuel Peter, 1873-1922; Clarke, S.J., publishing company
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: Chicago-Cleveland : The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1262