A history of Ohio, with biographical sketches of her governors and the ordinance of 1787, Part 3

Author: Ryan, Daniel Joseph, 1855-1923
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Columbus, Ohio, A. H. Smythe
Number of Pages: 436


USA > Ohio > A history of Ohio, with biographical sketches of her governors and the ordinance of 1787 > Part 3


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A History of Ohio,


holders of the company. Afterwards, Generals Put- nam and Parsons, with Rev. Manasseh Cutler and Major Winthrop Sargent, who was the Secretary of the company, were appointed to confer with Con- gress concerning the purchase of land in the terri- tory. Their first visit to Congress was unsuccessful. Finally Dr. Cutler, who was a shrewd as well as an intellectual man, was successful in contracting in behalf of the Ohio Company for the purchase of lands from the United States.


The contract was entered into between the Board of Treasury of the United States, through Samuel Osgood and Arthur Lee, and the Ohio Company, through Manasseh Cutler and Winthrop Sargent, its agents. It was signed October 27, 1787, and called for one and one-half million acres of land at sixty- six and two-thirds cents per acre. The area, how- ever, was afterwards reduced to less than a million of acres. Contemporary with the efforts to secure this contract, which, by the way, was the first ever entered into by the United States, was the formation of the Ordinance of 1787, both of which showed the influence of the cultured Cutler.


Again, at Brackett's Tavern, on November 23, 1787, the Ohio Company met. Then and there they effected the arrangements for colonizing their new territory. The emigrants were put in charge of General Putnam. The little band consisted of their leader and forty-seven others, and was divided into two parties. On the 30th of November the first party started from Danvers, Massachusetts, under the supervision of Major Haffield White. On the Ist


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From 1788 to 1799.


of January, 1788, the other division left Hartford, Connecticut, in charge of General Putnam.


Their journey over the mountains, where the foot of the white man never trod before; their dangerous and painful marches through almost impassable snows, their bravery and privations, have no parallels in the civil annals of American history. The two parties met by pre-arrangement at Simrall's Ferry, a point on the Youghiogheny River, thirty miles above where Pittsburgh now stands. From here their route lay down the Ohio River to the mouth of the Muskingum. For six weeks the pioneers remained at Simrall's, arranging for their passage down the Ohio. They built a boat forty-five feet long and fifteen feet wide, strong, bullet proof, and decked ; and true to the memory of their forefathers, they named it the " Mayflower." She was launched on the 2d of April, and, with Captain Jonathan Devol in command, they started on their journey. On the 7th of April, 1787, they landed in the rain at the mouth of the Muskingum River, and thus the foun- dations of Ohio were laid, and Marietta was com- menced. 1634259


The settlers wlio landed there were a law-abiding and conscientious people. Unlike some of the com- monwealths of a later date, the primitive citizenship of Ohio was not composed of an outlawed element or mere aimless adventurers. They had a mission, and their course was marked by all the evidences of an improved civilization. The men of Marietta brought with them industry, knowledge, religion, and government. They were the proper pioneers of the great State whose fathers they were. The


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A History of Ohio,


Directors of the Ohio Company at Brackett's Tavern requested the settlers to " pay as early attention as possible to the education of youth," and among the first enterprises of the pioneers was a library. Such were the spirits that founded Ohio. Washington, in a letter written the same year, spoke of thein, say- ing, "No colony in America was ever settled under such favorable auspices as that which has just been commenced at the Muskingum. Information, prop- erty and strength will be its characteristics. I know inany of the settlers personally, and there never were men better calculated to promote the welfare of such a community. If I were a young man, just preparing to begin life, or had a family to make a provision for, I know of no country where I should rather fix my habitation." If Ohio is great, it is because she was born great.


The site of the new settlement was in the midst of a natural beauty that framed, as in a picture, the substantial richness of the alluvial land of the Mus- kingum. The settlers had left behind them the snows of New England; here they found a climate as baliny as spring. One of the settlers writing home to Worcester, Massachusetts, six weeks after his ar- rival, said, "This country, for fertility of soil and pleasantness of situation, not only exceeds my ex- pectations, but exceeds any part of Europe or America that I was ever in. We have already started twenty buffaloes in a drove. Deer are as plenty as sheep with you." Another writing, with true Western en- thusiasm, under date of July 9th, said, "The corn has grown nine inches every twenty four hours for two or three days past." We can see from this that


37


From 1788 to 1799.


work was the order of the day from the hour of land- ing. In three months, the colonists had cleared the timber, built houses, erected a fort, laid off streets, plowed the ground and planted their corn. About . the first of July, another party of pioneers from Mass- achusetts joined the colony, adding strength and stability to it. Up to this time no name had been conferred upon the settlement. It was first called Adelphi, then Muskingum ; but on the 2d day of July, 1788, the directors and agents present at the settle- ment christened it, by resolution, "Marietta," after the accomplished but ill-fated Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, whose influences were always with the Americans in their recent struggle for liberty. The first 4th of July on Ohio soil was celebrated in genuine old-fashioned style. Thirteen guns from Fort Har- mar ushered in the Republic's natal day, and the same rang through the hills at eventide. A banquet was served on the banks of the Muskingum and toasts were drunk. General James M. Varnum delivered the oration, which was the first one deliv- ered within what is now Ohio.


Until the arrival of Governor St. Clair, the laws of the colony were made by the resident directors, and they were published by being posted up on a beach tree. It stands as a credit to the good name and good humor of the early settlers, that during this time but one dispute among them is recorded, and that was settled without the intervention of the law.


On the 2d day of September, the first court ever held on Ohio territory was opened with formal cere- monies at Marietta. The sheriff, with drawn sword, headed the procession of the people to the blockhouse


38


A History of Ohio.


of Campus Martius, where the sessions of the court were held. Governor St. Clair and the other territor- ial officers were present. A group of Indian chiefs were invited guests to this important event. Little did they dream that this initial pomp of the reign of law meant the beginning of the end of the red man in the West.


General ยท Rufus Putnam and General Benjamin Tupper were the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas by appointment of the Governor. There being no suits, civil or criminal, the session was purely formal. Paul Fearing was admitted to the bar, and thus became the first lawyer of the new settlement and territory.


Immediately upon arriving, Governor St. Clair and the Judges of the Territory commenced their work of framing the proper legislation for the limits of their jurisdiction. The first law published was concern- ing the organization of a militia, and was adopted July 25, 1788. Besides this, they legislated on crimes, courts, marriages, coroners, officers, and also erected Washington County, which at that time included nearly half of Ohio. The close of the year 1788 saw the colony of Marietta in a safe and flourishing con- dition. The settlement numbered nearly two hundred souls, and was receiving acquisitions monthly. In fact many were turned away because they could not get land. In a letter written this year to the Mass- achusetts Spy, General Putnam, referring to travel westward on the Ohio River, states that "upwards of seven thousand have gone down since we began our settlement." Thus early did the western emi- gration begin.


39


From 1788 to 1799.


The second settlement in Ohio was made at Columbia, about five miles above Cincinnati. The land between the Great and Little Miamis, and extending northward far enough to make a tract of a million of acres, was sold by Congress to John Cleves Symmes, of Morristown, New Jersey, in 1787, very soon after Dr. Cutler had secured the Ohio Com- pany's purchase. Major Benjamin Stites, of Penn- sylvania, purchased from Judge Symmes 10,000 acres near the mouth of the Little Miami River. On the 18th of November, 1788, twenty-six hardy Pennsyl- vanians located at this point erected a block house, laid off a little town, and called it Columbia. The settlement prospered admirably for several years. The pioneers gathered here were men of grit and character, and before long it had a population much in excess of the settlements of the neighborhood.


While Major Stites was building the town of Columbia, Mathias Denman, with Robert Patterson and Israel Ludlow, laid off a town on the high north bank of the Ohio River opposite the mouth of the Licking River. Denman had purchased 800 acres from John Cleves Symmes, for which he paid thirty cents an acre. About the 28th of December, 1788, Denman and his companions, fifteen in number, landed at the site of the proposed town, which has since grown to be the Queen City of the West. The settlement was first known as " Losantiville," but very soon after was changed to Cincinnati; in fact the settlement was always officially known as Cincinnati.


The third settlement in the Symmes Purchase was made under the immediate supervision of Judge Symmes himself. On the twenty-ninth of January,


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A History of Ohio,


1789, Symmes and his party left Maysville, and ina de a difficult, dangerous, and slow journey down the Ohio River. The weather was intensely cold, and the river was filled with floating ice. They reached their destination, North Bend, in safety in the early part of February. A city, magnificent on paper, was laid out and called Symmes, though it was scarcely known by any other name than North Bend.


Of these three settlements Cincinnati, on account of its elevation above high water (for the flood of 1789 completely submerged Columbia and Symmes) became the principal center of the Miami country. The construction of Fort Washington at Cincinnati, and the removal of the garrison from Symmes, was another potent factor in the building of the future metropolis of the State.


On the 2d of January, 1790, Governor St. Clair arrived at Fort Washington, and on the fourth he issued his proclamation establishing Hamilton county, which comprised "all of the district lying between the Little Miami on the east and the Big Miami on the west, and the Ohio on the south, to a line on the north drawn from the standing Stone Forks, on the Big Miami, due east to the Little Miami." The county seat was fixed at Cincinnati ; the first Judges of the Court of Common Pleas were William Goforth, William Wells, and William Mc- Millan. Israel Ludlow was the first Clerk of the Court. This was the beginning of the great city of Ohio. Its successful growth and permanency, as compared with contemporaneous settlements in the Miami country, were due undoubtedly to its location. Its advantages as a military post were seen by Major


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From 1788 to 1799.


Doughty when he arrived at Cincinnati to construct Fort Washington. Its position above the usual floods of the Ohio gave it a preference over its sister settlements. As a result, it absorbed most of the population of North Bend and Columbia. I11 1795, the population was about 500; from that date the fertile lands between the Miamis commenced to be dotted with the clearings of thrifty settlers, and their nucleus and protection was Cincinnati.


The next settlement, in point of time, was the interesting one of Gallipolis, in 1791. The specula- tive emigration companies of to-day have their prototype in the Scioto Company, which sent Joel Barlow to France in 1788 to sell its lands. His descriptions were so picturesque and highly colored that they created a perfect rage among the Parisians. Volney, a celebrated French writer of that period, says: "Nothing was talked of in every social circle but the paradise that was opened for Frenchmen in the Western wilderness, the free and happy life to be led on the blissful banks of the Scioto." About five hundred Frenchmen, principally from Paris and Lyons, and mostly artisans, totally unfit for the laborious life of a backwoodsman, left their native land for the new settlement, which was appropriately named Gallipolis. They had not been long in their new homes when it was discovered that the titles guaranteed by the Scioto Company were valueless, and that the land was owned by the Ohio Company.


The position of these settlers was truly pitiable and alarming. They were in a strange country, and amid a strange people, with their fondest hopes blasted. The Indians at this time were aroused all 4


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A History of Ohio,


over the frontier, and it was certainly sufficient to drive the Frenchinen to despair. The result was that many drifted farther west to Detroit and Kas- kaskia; some remained and purchased their land from the Ohio Company. Congress, in 1795, and subsequently, granted 24,000 acres of land to these defrauded emigrants. This land is in the eastern part of Scioto county, on the Oliio River, and is known, by reason of its history, as the "French Grant."


At Manchester, on the Ohio River, in March, 1791, Colonel Nathaniel Massie, a Virginian, who at that time was located in Kentucky, made the first settle- ment in the Virginia Military District. This com- posed the territory between the Scioto and the Little Miami. Massie was a surveyor, and he located many land warrants for the Virginia holders. In his surveying and locating expeditions he explored the Scioto Valley, and was attracted by its richness and beauty. In 1796, Colonel Massie, assisted by Duncan McArthur, laid out the town of Chillicothe, and thus opened to emigration the far-famed region of the Shawanese. Chillicothe soon received acquisitions from Virginia, and in a few years became a very important town. Its history, and that of its citizens, play a very important part in the annals of Ohio.


Thus far the Ohio settlements were in the south- ern and central portion, and not until 1796 was any attempt made to develop the northern part. On the 4th of July of this year, a little -band of fifty-two, under the leadership of General Moses Cleveland, as the agent of the Connecticut Land Company, landed at the mouth of Conneaut creek in Ashtabula


43


From 1788 to 1799.


county. They came with the double purpose of sur- veying and settling the Western Reserve. The set- tlers were all from Connecticut. Leaving the party at Conneaut, General Cleveland and his surveyors proceeded to the mouth of the Cuyahoga river, where he laid out the town of Cleveland.


During the winter of 1796, but two families were living in the town. The pioneers of the Western Reserve suffered many privations and dangers. The country was not settled as early or as rapidly as that farther south. I11 1798, there were but one hundred and fifty persons in that whole region. The charac- ter of the settlers was of that same sturdy stock that planted Marietta, and their starting point was the same- New England.


The thinly arranged settlements rapidly concen- trated, and finally developed into towns. Usually, the first thing done by the pioneers, was to plat into lots the land settled upon. Up to 1799, the rapid increase of emigration had drawn into the territory within Ohio enough settlers to lay off and establish the towns of Marietta, Columbia, Cincinnati, North Bend, Gallipolis, Manchester, Hamilton, Dayton, Franklin, Chillicothe, Cleveland, Franklinton, Steu- benville, Williamsburg and Zanesville. The close of the century found these towns enjoying peace and prosperity. But to be able to do this, the territory had in the meantime passed through its second war with the Indians; to understand this, a retrospect is necessary.


Governor St. Clair, at Fort Harmar, on January 9th, 1789, concluded a treaty with the Six Nations, and representatives of the Wyandots, Delawares,


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A History of Ohio,


Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawatomies and Sacs. By this he secured valuable concessions to. the settlers, and confirmed the treaty of Fort McIntosh. But it did not bring the good will of the Indians. Maraud- ing parties of the savages were still kept up. This was especially so on the Ohio river. From 1789 the tide of emigration westward became very large for that period. The northwest and Kentucky were the objective points. The Ohio river was the great channel through which this stream of pioneers flowed. The travel down the Ohio became perilous by reason of the attacks of the Indians on the emi- grants. So much so that in 1790, General Wilkin- son, of Kentucky, called the attention of General Harmar, the Commander-in-chief of the Western military department, who was at Fort Washington, to the condition of affairs. In a letter dated April 7th of this year, General Wilkinson says: "For more than a month past a party of savages has occu- pied the northwestern bank of the Ohio a few miles above the mouth of the Scioto, from whence they make attacks upon every boat that passes, to the de- struction of much property, the loss of many lives, and the great annoyance of all intercourse north- ward. By very recent accounts, we are apprised that they still continue in force at that point, and that their last attack was against five boats, one of which they captured. It is the general, and I conceive a well-founded opinion, that if this party is not dis- lodged and dispersed, the navigation of the Ohio must cease."


As a result of this correspondence, General Har- mar and General Scott marched from Maysville,


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45


From 1788 to 1799.


Kentucky, with a force of about three hundred and thirty men, to the mouth of the Scioto. But the Indians had been notified and upon the arrival of the troops but four of the savages could be found. They were killed.


About this time the inroads of the Indians were . becoming unbearable. They were instigated by the British to these attacks upon the white American settlements. Governor St. Clair determined upon heroic treatment, and on July 15th, 1790, he ad- dressed letters to the militia officers of Pennsyl- vania, Virginia and Kentucky, calling for troops for an Indian campaign. Accordingly there assembled at Cincinnati in September, a little army, from the states named, of 1,400 mien, of which over three hundred were regulars. The militia, in a military sense was a mongrel crew, consisting principally .of boys and old men, most of whom were wholly undis- ciplined and ill-equipped. The result can be sur- mised. The expedition was a failure. The troops, though fighting bravely, were fearfully cut up; the killed being estimated at one hundred and eighty- three men, including many officers. The lack of discipline was the principal factor in the defeat. General Harinar, a brave, honorable and able officer, could not control the militia, "they," said he, "shamefully and cowardly threw away their arms and ran, without scarcely firing a gun."


The campaign of General Harmar served but to ex- asperate the Indians, and they proceeded to form a confederacy of the tribes northwest of the Ohio, with the avowed purpose of annihilating the white settle- ments. There was panic and terror in the territory.


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A History of Ohio,


In March, 1791, Congress took cognizance of the con- dition of affairs, and passed an act for the increase of the army on the Western frontier for the purpose of checking the Indian invasion. Governor St. Clair was appointed Major-General and Commander-in- chief. Under the instructions of General Knox, who was Secretary of War, he proceeded to make the nec- essary arrangements for an expedition against the Indians. After long months of weary waiting and recruiting, General St. Clair, in command of about two thousand men, commenced his march from Fort Washington. Twenty-two miles from this point he erected Foit Hamilton, garrisoning this place, he marched further on, and at similar distances establish- ed Fort St. Clair and Fort Jefferson.


On November 4, 1791, the army of St. Clair was attacked within what is now Mercer County, Ohio, by Little Turtle and his warriors, fifteen hundred strong. They first attacked the militia who fled tu- multuously: The surprise, for such it was, resulted in a complete defeat for the Americans. Over six hun- dred were, killed, and two hundred and eighty wounded. The sequel to the battle was the horrible treatment by the Indians of the killed and wounded. This was "St. Clair's Defeat." A combination of circumstances, uncontrolled by General St. Clair, was the cause of it. Raw militia, poor arms, bad disci- pline, and carelessness were the chief causes. The disastrous result of the battle called for an investiga- tion by Congress, which, after the fullest inquiry, honorably acquitted General St. Clair of any respon- sibility in the defeat.


After five fruitless attempts to make peace with the


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From 1788 to 1799.


Indians, who were inflated by their successes in the defeats of Generals Harmar and St. Clair, the United States government determined upon a final and de- cisive movement in behalf of the settlers of the Northwest. General Anthony Wayne, the hero of Stony Point, and the most daring officer of the Rev- olution, was assigned to the command of this most important campaign. The spring and summer of 1793 was spent at Fort Washington ( Cincinnati ) drilling and recruiting his men, and at the same time holding himself in readiness to move northward. On the 7th of October, 1793, he left Fort Washington with three thousand well drilled men, and proceeded to six iniles beyond Fort Jefferson, where he erected Fort Greenville, near where Greenville, in Darke County, is now situated. Here he went into win- ter quarters. The winter season being over, the spring of 1794 saw many skirmishes between the Americans and Indians, and also many efforts on the part of General Wayne to secure a treaty of peace. After a fair warning, he attacked the Indians on the 20th of August, 1794, and defeated them with great slaughter and terrible loss. All the chiefs of the Wyandots, nine in number, were killed. This ell- gagement is known as the "Battle of Fallen Tini- bers," on account of the breast-work of fallen trees behind which the Indians were massed.


This chastisement quieted the Indians, and they begged for peace. The result was the "Treaty of Greenville," signed by the chiefs of the twelve lostile tribes, at Fort Greenville, August 3, 1795 By the terms of this treaty, the Indians released extensive territory between the lakes and the Olio River, and


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A History of Ohio,


the United States gave them twenty thousand dollars in merchandise, and nine thousand dollars annually forever, to be divided among the several tribes. This was the last of Indian warfare in Ohio, and al- though for many years thereafter the red man roamed the forests, it was for the more peaceful purposes of hunting and fishing, and not upon the war-path.


The five years of bloodshed and military campaigns had a decided tendency to check the growth and development of the Northwest territory. The able- bodied men were taken from the clearings and the fields, and emigration westward was practically sus- pended. The women and children, with the men who remained at home, were paying more attention to the blockhouses and stockades than to the corn- fields. The condition of affairs at the time can be better understood when we read the order promul- gated at Cincinnati by St. Clair, through his Secre- tary, calling public attention to the fact that "the practice of assembling for public worship without arms may be attended with the most serious and melancholy consequences," and he asks all good cit- izens to go armed, and to report the careless for punishment. The period of the Indian wars was one of fear and anxiety to the settlers.


After the treaty of Greenville and the restoration of peace, the population of the territory began to in- crease. In 1790, there were about three thousand white inhabitants in Ohio. Five years later there were fifteen thousand white versons in the Northwest Territory, and by 1798 there were five thousand male white persons witliin its borders. Under the Ordin- ance of 1787, this entitled the people to a territorial


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From 1788 to 1799.


legislature. Accordingly, on the 29th of October, 1798, Governor St. Clair issued his proclamation fix- ing the day for electing Territorial Representatives on the third Monday of December following.


Thus the Territory of the Northwest passed into its second or legislative grade of government. Prior to this, the making of the laws and their administration was vested wholly in Governor St. Clair and the Judges. The time had now arrived when that power was to be exercised by the people.




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