USA > Ohio > Cuyahoga County > Cleveland > A history of the city of Cleveland: its settlement, rise and progress, 1796-1896 > Part 15
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4
CHROMOTYPE CLV'D.
BURIAL OF THE DEAD, AFTER PERRY'S VICTORY, SEPTEMBER 10th, 1813.
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the spring came Major Jessup, of the regular army, who took command at this point. A company of regular troops under command of Captain Stanton Sholes arrived in May of this year; and under his orders a plain, but substantial, hospital was erected. It was also at this time that Fort Huntington, already referred to, was constructed. It was built of logs some twelve feet long, that were sunk into the ground three or four feet; the sides of those adjoin- ing each other being hewed down for a few inches, thus fitting them solidly together. This formed a good de- fense against small arms, while dirt was heaped up against the outside, to deaden the effect of heavier missiles. Trees and brush were next cut and piled along the side toward the lake, making a long abatis very difficult to scale.
Captain Sholes, in the later days of peace, after his country had passed through its war with Mexico, and was upon the verge of the most terrible conflict of all-in 1858, when 87 years of age-penned an account of his recep- tion in Cleveland on May 10th, 1813, when his company of regulars marched into the city. "I halted my com- pany," said he, " between Major Carter's and Wallace's. I was here met by Governor Meigs, who gave me a most cordial welcome, as did all the citizens. The Governor took me to a place where my company could pitch their tents. I found no place of defense, no hospital, and a forest of large timber (mostly chestnut), between the lake, and the lake road. There was a road that turned off be- tween Mr. Perry's and Major Carter's that went to the point, which was the only. place that the lake could be seen from the buildings. This little cluster of build- ings was all of wood, I think none painted. There were a few houses further back from the lake road. The widow Walworth kept the post-office, or Ashbel, her son. Mr. L. Johnson, Judge Kingsbury, Major Carter, N. Perry, Geo. Wallace, and a few others were there. At my ar- rival I found a number of sick and wounded who were of Hull's surrender, sent here from Detroit, and more com- ing. These were crowded into a log-cabin, and no one to
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care for them. I sent one or two of my soldiers to take care of them, as they had no friends. I had two or three good carpenters in my company, and set them to work to build a hospital. I very soon got up a good one, thirty by twenty feet, smoothly and tightly covered, and floored with chestnut bark, with two tier of bunks around the walls, with doors and windows, and not a nail, or screw, or iron latch or hinge about the building. Its cost to the Government was a few extra rations. In a short time I had all the bunks well strawed, and the sick and wound- ed good and clean, to their great joy and comfort, but some had fallen asleep. I next went to work and built a small fort, about fifty yards from the bank of the lake, in the forest. This fort finished, I set the men to felling the timber along and near the bank of the lake, rolling the logs and brush near the brink of the bank to serve as a breastwork. On the 19th of June, a part of the British fleet appeared off our harbor, with the apparent design to land. When they got within one and a half miles of our harbor, it became a perfect calm, and they lay there till afternoon, when a most terrible thunderstorm came up, and drove them from our coast. We saw them no more as enemies. Their object was to destroy the public or government boats, then built and building, in the Cuya- hoga River, and other government stores at that place." 17
The war vessels to which Captain Sholes refers were the " Lady Provost," the "Queen Charlotte," 18 and several smaller vessels. Had an attempt been made to land, the city was prepared to make a valiant defense; as each 17 From a letter to John Barr, secretary of the Cuyahoga County Histori- cal Society, under date of July, 1858 .- Whittlesey's "Early History of Cleveland," p. 442.
1> The following note concerning these vessels is from the pen of Hon. O. J. Hodge: "The following 10th of September these two vessels composed a part of the British force under Captain Robert H. Barclay, in the mem- orable naval battle when Oliver H. Perry gained his great victory. Both were captured in that fight. After the war, the 'Lady Provost,' in 1815, was sold to a Canadian merchant, and for many years did service in the carrying trade of the lakes. The 'Queen Charlotte,' after the war, was sunk for preservation in Misery Bay, but some years later was raised, fitted out, and sailed as a merchantman on the lakes."
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man who could muster a gun saw that it was well loaded, and hastened to the water front. There was one small can- non in the place, and for lack of a better carriage, it was swung upon the hind wheels of a wagon, and loaded ready for business. The battle was never fought, as for once the sudden squalls for which Lake Erie is famous sprang up, and drove the enemy away.
A visit from General Harrison, on a tour of inspection, was one of the events of the midsummer. He was accom- panied by his staff, among whom were Governor Hunting- ton, Major George Tod, Major Jessup, and Col. Wood. He was cordially received by the people, and remained but three days, when he returned to headquarters at the mouth of the Maumee. When Commodore Perry passed up Lake Erie, just before that memorable battle that won him such glorious fame, and broke the British power in the northwest, his fleet lay off the mouth of the Cuya- hoga, while he paid a visit to the shore. Only a few weeks later, the people along the lake shore heard the deep roar of his guns in the still September air. Be- fore long came the glad tidings that have made the 10th of September, 1813, a glorious day in the annals of our country. When Harrison won the battle of the Thames in October, he and Perry came down the lake together, en route for Buffalo, and visited Cleveland on the way. They were entertained at a banquet while here, and the Ma- sons of all this neighborhood met them in special session, out at the hospitable home of Judge Kingsbury. Al- though peace was not formally declared until 1815, the war was at an end so far as Cleveland was directly concerned.
Returning once more to the quiet ways of peace, we find that Cuyahoga County, having come into possession of a court of her own, felt the need of a suitable struc- ture in which the judiciary and the executive officers could be properly housed. A contract was therefore made be- tween the county commissioners and Levi Johnson, for the erection of a court-house and jail on the northwest corner of the Public Square. This work was commenced
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in 1812, but was not completed until the summer of the succeeding year. The building was of wood, two stories high, with a jail and living room for the sheriff on the ground floor, and a court room above. It was in this little building that justice, according to the high Cuyahoga standard, was administered for some fifteen years.
It was not ready, however, for either the trial or incar- ceration of the first man, white or red, tried for murder, and executed, in Cuyahoga County.
There was one, O'Mic,19 or Poccon, the son of O'Mic, who committed murder for gain, and was compelled to pay the penalty, under the laws of Ohio. A daughter of Judge John Walworth, who knew him as a boy, says that he " was not a bad Indian towards the whites. When we were chil- dren at Painesville, we used to play to- gether on the banks of the Grand River, at my father's old residence, which we called Bloomingdale." A story is told on the FIRST COURT HOUSE AND JAIL. authority of a niece of Major Carter, that when young John was near six- teen years of age, he entered the Carter garden with- out permission, and began to help himself to the veget- ables. He was ordered away by Mrs. Carter, but in- stead of going, whipped out a knife and chased her around the house, leaving, only when a stalwart young man appeared upon the scene and drove him away.
19 There is some question as to this young Indian's name. Col. Whit- tlesey, quoting Hon. Elisha Whittlesey, calls him simply O' Mic, and the same form is used in the court records, with the name John prefixed. Mrs. Julianna Long also calls him John O' Mic. The " History of Cuyahoga County " says John Omic. In his "Pioneer Medicine on the Western Reserve," Dr. Dudley P. Allen declares that his name was Poccon; that he " was about twenty-one years old, and the son of old O'Mic."
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It is needless to add that when the redoubtable Major came home and heard this story, he set out in instant search of the young rascal, as he was the last man in Cleveland to allow a deed of that kind to go unpunished.
He went to the Indian headquarters, on the other side of the river. It is said that he put a rope in his pocket, with the declaration that he would hang the offender if he caught him-which story has a suggestion of prophecy, if true, as Carter was the chief instrument of O'Mic's exe- cution, some years later. As that may be, the father of the boy was so impressed by the Major's visit, and the remarks he made over there, that a promise was given that young John should be kept on the western shore of the river, and it is further said that the next trip that he made across the river, was when on his way to trial and punishment.
The crime for which he was executed was committed near Sandusky City, Huron County then being attached to Cuyahoga for judicial purposes. Two white trappers, named Buel and Gibbs, were murdered in their sleep and their traps and furs stolen. Three Indians were arrested for the deed; one of them escaped by suicide, and an- other was let go because of his youth.20 The third was young O'Mic, who was brought to Cleveland and turned over to Major Carter, who tied him to a rafter in his house, in the absence of a jail.
The crime was committed on April 3d, 1812, and the trial occurred in the same month. The court sat in the open air, at the corner of Water and Superior streets, under the shade of a protecting tree. Alfred Kelley was prosecuting attorney; Peter Hitchcock counsel for the defense. The court records 21 further show that the
20 This mercy was ill-requited. " The boy was considered as forced into par- ticipation by the others, and was suffered to escape, and lived to be the ring- leader of two others in the murder of John Wood and George Bishop, west of Carrying River, in 1816, for which they were all executed in Huron County." -- Statement made by Seth Doan, in 1841 .- Whittlesey's" Early History of Cleveland," p. 436.
21 Volume A, Records of the Supreme Court of Ohio for the County of Cuyahoga, is replete with pioneer history. It includes the records of the court from April, 1812, to August, 1824.
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judges of court were William W. Irvin and Ethan Allen Brown; sheriff, Samuel S. Baldwin; grand jurors, Asa Smith, Hezekiah King, Horatio Perry, Calvin Hoadley, Lemuel Hoadley, Plinney Mowrey, James Cudderbach, John Shirtz, Benjamin Jones, Jeremiah Everitt, Samuel Miles, Jacob Carad, and Harvey Murray. The petit jurors were Hiram Russell, Levi Johnson, Philemon Baldwin, David Bunnel, Charles Gunn, Christopher Gunn, Samuel Dille, Elijah Gunn, David Barret, Dyer Shearman, William Austin, and Seth Doan.
The indictment charged O'Mic with the murder of Daniel Buel, the crime being committed " with a certain Tomahawk, made of iron and Steele." The trial was of short duration; the verdict "guilty;" and the sentence of death fixed for the 26th of June following.
Many accounts have been written of this pioneer exe- cution which vindicated before the red man the strong power of the white man's law; an event which may well be classed as one of the most dramatic, in all its incidents and surroundings, of any that have happened in the valley of the Cuyahoga. No account yet penned has so well told the story as that of Elisha Whittlesey,22 who was an eye-witness, and speaks from personal knowledge. I repeat his story in full :
"After his conviction, O'Mic told Mr. Carter and Sher- iff Baldwin ( who was from Danbury), that he would let the pale faces see how an Indian could die; that they need not tie his arms, but when the time came he would jump off from the gallows. Before Mr. Carter's house, in the direction of Superior street, was an open space, somewhat extensive, and covered with grass. The re- ligious exercises were held there. Several clergymen were present, and I think the sermon was delivered by the Rev. Mr. Darrow, of Vienna, Trumbull County. The military were commanded by Major Jones, a fine-looking officer in full uniform, but he was in the condition that Captain McGuffy, of Coitsville, said he was when he was
22 "Execution of O'Mic, June 24th, 1812," by the Hon. E. Whittlesey.
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commanded to perform an evolution by his company and could not do it. His explanation was, 'I know Baron Steuben perfectly well, but I cannot commit him to practice.'
" O'Mic sat on his coffin in a wagon painted for the oc- casion. He was a fine-looking young Indian, and watched everything that occurred with much anxiety. The gal- lows was erected on the Public Square in front of where the old court house was erected. After the religious services were over, Major Jones endeavored to form a hol- low square, so that the prisoner should be guarded on all sides. He rode backwards and forwards with drawn sword, epaulets, and scabbard flying, but he did not know what order to give. The wagon with O'Mic moved ahead and stopped; but as the Sheriff doubted whether he was to be aided by the military, he proceeded onward. Major Jones finally took the suggestion of some one, who told him to ride to the head of the line, and double it round until the front and rear of the line met. Arriving at the gallows, Mr. Carter, the Sheriff and O'Mic ascended to the platform by a ladder. The arms of the prisoner were loosely pinioned. A rope was around his neck with a loop in the end. Another was let down through a hole in the top piece, on which was a hook to attach to the rope around the neck. The rope with the hook was brought over to one of the posts, and fastened to it near the ground.
"After some little time, Mr. Carter came down, leaving O'Mic and Sheriff Baldwin on the platform. As the Sheriff drew down the cap, O'Mic was the most terrified being, rational or irrational, I ever saw, and seizing the cap with his right hand, which he could reach by bending his head and inclining his neck in that direction, he stepped to one of the posts and put his arm around it. The Sheriff approached him to loose his hold, and for a moment it was doubtful whether O'Mic would not throw him to the ground. Mr. Carter ascended to the platform and a negotiation in regular diplomatic style was had. It
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was in the native tongue, as I understood at the time. Mr. Carter appealed to O'Mic to display his courage, nar- rating what he had said about showing pale faces how an Indian could die, but it had no effect. Finally, O'Mic made a proposition, that if Mr. Carter would give him half a pint of whisky he would consent to die. The whisky was soon on hand, in a large glass tumbler, real old Monongahela, for which an old settler would almost be willing to be hung, if he could now obtain the like. The glass was given to O'Mic and he drank the whisky in as little time as he could have turned it out of the glass. Mr. Carter again came down, and the Sheriff again drew down the cap, and the same scene was re-enacted, O'Mic expressing the same terror. Mr. Carter again ascended to the platform, and O'Mic gave him the honor of an In- dian, in pledge that he would not longer resist the sen- tence of the court, if he should have another half pint of whisky. Mr. Carter, representing the people of Ohio and the dignity of the laws, thought the terms were rea- sonable, and the whisky was forthcoming on short order. The tumbler was not given to O'Mic, but it was held to his mouth, and as he sucked the whisky out, Sheriff Bald- win drew the rope that pinioned his arms more tightly, and the rope was drawn down to prevent the prisoner from going to the post, and to prevent him from pulling off his cap. The platform was immediately cleared of all but O'Mic, who run the ends of his fingers on his right hand between the rope and his neck. The rope that held up one end of the platform was cut, and the body swung in a straight line towards the lake, as far as the rope permit- ted and returned, and after swinging forth and backward several times, and the weight being about to be suspend- ed perpendicular under the center of the top of the gal- lows, the body turned in a circle and finally rested still. At that time a terrific storm appeared and came up from the north northwest with great rapidity, to avoid which, and it being doubtful whether the neck was broken, and to accomplish so necessary part of a hanging, the rope was
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drawn down with the design of raising the body, so that, by a sudden relaxing of the rope, the body would fall several feet, and thereby dislocate the neck beyond any doubt; but when the body fell, the rope broke as readily as a tow string and fell upon the ground. The coffin and grave were near the gallows and the body was picked up, put into the coffin, and the coffin immediately put into the grave. The storm was heavy and all scampered but O'Mic. The report was, at the time, that the surgeons at dusk raised the body, and when it lay on the dissect- ing table, it was easier to restore life than to prevent it."
There is a second chapter to this story-brief, but ex- pressive. There were several physicians present at the execution, from various sections of the Reserve. At night, with the tacit consent of the Sheriff, they visited the Public Square, and came away with a bundle they had not carried there. " The skeleton was placed below a spring, on the bank of the lake, east of Water street," writes a descendant 23 of one of these medical gentle- men, " and remained there for about one year, after which time it was properly articulated. The skeleton was for a long time in the possession of Dr. Long, but was later in Hudson in the office of Dr. Town. From there, it was supposed, it was carried to Penn, near Pitts- burg, to Dr. Murray, a son-in-law of Dr. Town. The writer has made every effort to discover its whereabouts and restore the bones to Cleveland, which should be their proper resting place, but all efforts to this end have proved fruitless."
The meetings of the electors of Cleveland township had hitherto been held at private residences, but with the completion of the court-house, the gatherings were within its more commodious quarters, and the record book proudly carries the entry, " at the court-house."
A glimpse at a pioneer moving, and at Cleveland in the summer of 1813, is afforded by a member of a family
23 " Pioneer Medicine on the Western Reserve," by Dudley P. Allen, M. D .- " Magazine of Western History," Vol. III., p. 286.
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which had decided to make its home in this section. "In 1811, my grandfather, Jacob Russell," says the nar- rator,"4 " sold his farm and grist-mill on -the Connecti- cut River, and took a contract for land in Newburg (now Warrensville), Ohio. His oldest son, Elijah, my father, shouldered his knapsack, and came to Ohio to get a lot surveyed; he made some improvements, selected a place for building, and then returned to New York, where
he lived. In the spring of the following year, he, with his brother Ralph, came again to Ohio, cleared their piece of land, planted corn, built a log-house, and went to Con- necticut to assist in moving the family to their new home, which was accomplished in the autumn of the same year. They formed an odd procession; father's brother, Elisha, and brother-in-law, Hart Risley, accompanied them with their families; the wagons were drawn by oxen, my father walking all the way so as to drive, while grandmother rode on horseback. When they were as comfortably settled as might be, father returned to his family, whom he moved the next summer, 1813, embark- ing at Sackett's Harbor, N. Y., August Ist, and arriving at Cleveland, August 31st. There being no harbor at that time, the landing was effected by means of row-boats. We then pulled ourselves up the bank by the scrub-oaks, which lined it, and walked to the hotel kept by Major Carter; this hotel was then the only frame house in Cleveland."
24 " Reminiscences," by Melinda Russell .- " Annals of the Early Set- tlers' Association," No. 4, p. 65.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE INCORPORATED VILLAGE OF CLEVELAND.
The year 1814 was by no means one of moment in a local sense, although it saw Newburg set up as a township upon its own responsibility, and steps taken toward the incorporation of Cleveland as a village. Her claim to this distinction lay in the fact that she possessed a total of thirty-four dwelling houses and places of business- one of these being a brick store, the first of its kind, erected by J. R. and Irad Kelley. It was also becoming well known as a ship-building point, which fact was em- phasized somewhat by the means taken by Levi Johnson to get his schooner " Pilot " down to the water. That he might be near his base of timber supplies, he laid the keel in the woods, on the Euclid road, near the present site of the Opera House, and when finished, found it necessa- ry to drag it a half mile to the water. Unlike Robinson Crusoe, however, he had figured all the ways and means in advance. He sent for his friends in the country round- about, and they came with their oxen, twenty-eight yoke in all, placed rollers under the structure, and soon had it safe and sound at the foot of Superior street, where it gracefully slid off into the water.
Something was done in the way of schools, a little in advance of anything yet recorded. We find traces of sev- eral centers of pioneer teaching in the neighborhood, the most important of which was that kept by the Rev. Stephen Peets, who is remembered not so much because of his teaching, as from the fact that he gave an enter- tainment that stirred the entire social nature of the set- tlement. Mr. Morgan, to whose wonderful memory and vivid descriptions I already owe so much, informs us that this event occurred at the log-house of Samuel
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Dille,25 " on the road from Newburg to Cleveland, now Broadway, where you first get a view of the river from the high land." It was a large structure for those days, and had a spacious upper room, running the whole length and breadth of the house. "There," he adds, " the people of Newburg and Cleveland assembled and witnessed the performance of the 'Conjurer ' taken from the Columbian Orator; the ' Dissipated Oxford Student,' also taken from the same book; 'Brutus and Cassius,' taken from the American Preceptor ; and several other pieces. The vari- ous parts were conceded by the critics there to have been performed in admirable style." He then gives us a pen-picture of some of the difficulties of pioneer travel: " After the performance, my father, mother, two sisters and myself returned home, a distance of a mile and a half on the family horse. Two adults and three plump children, six to twelve years of age, might now be con- sidered a rather large load to carry, and five on a horse, as may be supposed, would now render a cavalcade some- what uncouth in appearance on the streets of Cleveland."
The township of Newburg was organized on the 15th of October of this year, 1814, embracing within its limits the residences of a number of important citizens, among whom were James Kingsbury, Rodolphus Edwards, and Erastus Miles. A little over two months later, on Decem- ber 23rd, Cleveland made a point against its rival, by se- curing from the general assembly the passage of an act " To incorporate the Village of Cleveland in the County of Cuyahoga." The boundaries of this new vil- lage were described as "so much of the city plat of Cleveland, in the township of Cleveland, and County of Cuyahoga, as lies northwardly of Huron street, so-called, and westwardly of Erie street, so-called, in said city plat as originally laid out by the Connecticut Land Company, according to the minutes and survey and map thereof in the office of the recorder of said County of Cuyahoga."
25 " Incidents in the Career of the Morgan Family," by I. A. Morgan .- " Annals of the Early Settlers' Association," No. 5, p. 28.
1801
Harbor 1827
LA
K
E
E
R I E.
1857
1831
1801
1812
1790
BATH
1827
STREET
1842
1842
187
191
WATER
6
18
24
LAKE
STREET
183
187
190
196
LAN
MANDRAKE
A STREET
30
36 - 37
42
48
UNION
.
202
49
54
81
ot
66
72
174
177
SUPERIOR LANE
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