USA > Ohio > Allen County > A standard history of Allen county, Ohio : an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, educational, civic and social development > Part 20
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deponent then went with Wood to Ira Smith's tavern. A physician thought it doubtful whether Wood could recover. This deponent thinks there were from six to eight persons present at the time this deponent and Wood were attempting to arrest Mckay and Stickney. None of them interfered. At the time Wood informed Stickney that he had a precept against him, Stickney asked Wood whether his precept was issued under the authority of Ohio or Michigan. When Wood showed him the war- rant, Stickney said he should not be taken; but if it was under Ohio he would go.
This deponent thinks that at the time Wood was stabbed it was between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, and this deponent remained there about three hours. Before this deponent left the inhabi- tants of Toledo, to the number of forty or fifty, collected at Davis' tavern. This deponent was advised, for his own safety to leave the place, and, also by the advice of Wood, he returned to Monroe without having executed his precept. And further deponent saith not.
Lyman Hurd.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this sixteenth day of July, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five.
Albert Burnett, J. P.
The proceedings of this case were reported by Governor Mason to President Jackson, who realized that it was necessary to take some action in order to prevent serious trouble. Governor Lucas himself conferred with the President on the subject of the boundary difficulties. The result of this mission was the urgent plea of the President for the mutual suspension of all action by both parties, until the matter could finally be settled by Congress, and that no prosecutions be commenced for any violations of the acts.
As court had been ordered held in Toledo, as county seat of the new County of Lucas, the Michigan authorities were determined to prevent it. For this purpose the Detroit militia arrived in Monroe on the eve- ning of September 5th. Together with volunteers these forces rendez- voused near Toledo, and marched into that city on the 6th. Their num- bers were variously estimated at from eight to twelve hundred, and they were led in person by Governor Mason and General Brown. The associate judges had assembled at the village of Maumee, with Colonel Van Fleet and one hundred soldiers sent by Governor Lucas for their protection ; but wise peace counsels prevailed, and Ohio won the victory without shedding a drop of valiant Michigan blood. Strategy was adopted instead. As September 7th was the day set for holding the court, it was decided that the day began at midnight, and as no hour was specified, one hour was as good as another.
At 1 o'clock in the night the officers accompanied by the colonel and twenty soldiers, each carrying two cavalry pistols, started on horseback down the Maumee. They arrived about three and went quietly to a schoolhouse. About 3 o'clock the judges opened the court. The three associated judges were Jonathan H. Jerome, Baxter and William Wilson. They appointed a clerk and three commissioners for the new County of Lucas. They transacted a little other necessary business and "no further business appearing before said court," it adjourned in due form. The clerk's minutes, hastily written on loose sheets of paper, were deposited in his hat according to the custom of men in those days. All present then quickly started through the woods up the Maumee River to the town of the same name. In their haste the clerk's hat was knocked from his head as a result of coming in contact with the limb of a tree.
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Not a little apprehension was experienced until the scattered papers, containing the invaluable minutes of the court, were found. The entire session had been held between two days. All arrived safely at Maumee City, clearly outside the disputed territory, but yet within Lucas County, where Michigan civil officers or troops dare not pursue. Here the first victory was quietly enjoyed, and plans matured for complete discomfiture of the enemy. Colonel Van Fleet signalized their success by firing two salutes.
This is the account that appeared in the Michigan Sentinel, pub- lished at Monroe, under date of September 12, 1835:
"WOLVERINES OF MICHIGAN !- In anticipation of the proposed organi- zation of the Court of Ohio at Toledo, and the approach of Lucas's 'Million' Acting Governor Mason made a large requisition on the brave Wolverines of Michigan; and on Saturday last (September 5th) they approached our Town under arms by hundreds, from the Counties of Monroe, Wayne, Washtenaw, Lenawee, Oakland, Macomb and St. Joseph. The whole body entered the disputed territory on Monday, accompanied by Governor Stevens, Generals Brown and Haskall, and Colonels Davis, Wing and others, to the number of 1,200 to 1,500 and encamped on the plains of Toledo. Governor Lucas did not make his appearance. The Court is said to have been held at the dead of night, by learned Judges dressed in disguise; and the insurgents of Toledo precipitately fled from the scene of action."
The Michigan authorities continued to make trouble, but the success of the above strategy practically closed the contest. An order came from Washington removing Governor Mason from the office of chief executive of the territory of Michigan because of his excessive zeal for its rights. His secretary, John S. Horner, immediately became acting governor. This had little effect upon the people of Michigan. Mason had been elected governor under the election held without authority and he still proceeded to administer the affairs of state until the mortified Horner betook himself into the wilds beyond Lake Michigan. Senators had been elected and immediately went to Washington and demanded admission to the Senate. But the representatives of Indiana and Illinois worked against Michigan, for their own boundary lines were affected. While the advocates of Michigan called it tyranny to keep 80,000 people shackled by a territorial government its opponents prophesied the event- ual destruction of the federal government when its people were allowed to makes states for themselves. But behind all was the disputed boundary question. On June 15th, 1836, Michigan was admitted into the Union with her southern boundary next to Ohio limited to the Harris line. The disputed territory was given to Ohio. As compensation for her loss Michigan was awarded the northern peninsula, with its rich beds of mineral ore, which had proved to be a most valuable possession. The new state lost 400 miles of territory but 9,000 were added to it. Nevertheless the State Legislature when it met would not agree to the conditions. The bill of admission was called a "Bill of Abomination" for Michigan was "mutilated, humbled and degraded" and it was not desirable to enter a union with "Gamblers and Pickpockets." A convention was called to which delegates were elected and consented to the conditions imposed. It was not until January, 1837, that Michigan became in fact a state.
Thus it was that the angry strife which for a time threatened a san- guinary war, was happily settled, and fraternal relations have ever since existed between the authorities of Ohio and Michigan. The Ohio Legis- lature in 1846 passed an act appropriating $300 to compensate Major
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Stickney for damage to property and for the time he passed in prison at Monroe. Michigan afterwards bestowed $50 upon Lewis E. Bailey for the loss of a horse while in the service of the territorial militia. The people of both states immediately took the matter good naturedly, and treated the whole affair as a joke. Songs were sung, of which a couple of verses of the Michigan "War Song" are as follows:
Old Lucas gave his order all for to hold a Court, And Stevens Thomas Mason, he thought he'd have some sport. He called upon the Wolverines, and asked them for to go To meet this rebel Lucas, his Court to overthrow.
Our independent companies were ordered for the march, Our officers were ready, all stiffened up with starch; On nimble-footed coursers our officers did ride, With each a pair of pistols and sword hung by his side.
CHAPTER XII THE PASSING OF THE RED MAN
Prior to the War of 1812, there were comparatively few Americans in Northwestern Ohio and not a great number of French or British. On the right bank of the Maumee, on a site now within the City of Toledo, there was a French settlement consisting of a number of families. There were probably three score of white families living at or near the foot of the rapids at Maumee. Of these Amos Spafford was the most prom- inent, since he was collector of customs at that port. Some of these were also French, and Peter Manor, or Manard, did valiant service for the American cause. There were a number of white traders residing at Defiance, and other points along the Maumee and Auglaize. The entire number, however, was very inconsiderable. The red man as yet felt no crowding in the vast domain over which he hunted. For the thirty years succeeding the second war with Great Britain the principal history of this region relates to the various treaties with the Indian tribes by which the sovereignty of the rich Maumee Valley was transferred from the red man to his white successor.
The total number of Indians residing in Ohio at the time of the incom- ing of their successors was not great, as we reckon numbers today. At the time of Pontiac's Conspiracy, it was estimated that 15,000 Indians lived in Ohio, who were capable of putting 3,000 warriors on the war- path. More than one-half of these doubtless resided in Northwestern Ohio, for none made their homes along the Ohio River. This probably conflicts with the prevalent notion that the forests literally swarmed with the savages. There were a few Indian villages, many isolated groups of lodges in the forests, which were the homes of hunters, and narrow trails winding among the trees and bushes. So thin and scattered was this native population that, even in those parts where they were most numerous, one might journey for days together through the twilight forests without encountering a single savage form. Escaped captives have traveled from the Maumee River to Wheeling or Pittsburg in day- time without casting eyes upon a single human being.
There were many Indian tribes resident in Northwestern Ohio. In fact, tribal relations were constantly changing among the aborigines. Tribe was giving place to tribe, language yielding to language all over the country. Immutable as were the red men in respect to social and individual development, the tribal relations and local haunts were as changeable as the winds. The Hurons, or Wyandots, were scattered during the French occupation of Canada through the animosity of the Iroquois. The Eries along the southern shores of Lake Erie had been exterminated by the same implacable foes. Their blood was constantly being diluted by the adoption of prisoners, whether white or red. In fact it was the policy of many tribes to replenish their losses in war by adopting the young braves captured from the enemy. The tribes most intimately associated with the Maumee region are the Wyandots, Shaw- nees, Miamis, Ottawas, Senecas and Delawares.
At the time of the settlement of Northwestern Ohio, the Wyandots were admitted to be the leading nation among the Indian tribes of the Northwest. This was not because of numbers, but for the reason that they were more intelligent and more civilized in their manner of life. To them was entrusted the Grand Calumet, which united the Indians in
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that territory into a confederacy for mutual protection. They were authorized to assemble the tribes in council, and to kindle the council fires. The signature of Tarhe, the Crane, is the first signature under that of General Wayne in the Treaty of Greenville. The name of Wyandot is the Anglicized form for Owendots, or Yendats. They were divided into tribes or totemic clans, and their head chief was taken from the Deer Tribe until the Battle of Fallen Timbers. This tribe was so deci- mated at that battle that the chiefs thereafter were selected from the Porcupine Tribe. The descent always followed in the female line. The principal home of the Wyandots was along the Sandusky River, but many dwelt along the Blanchard and their hunting ground covered the entire Maumee region. In fact, they claimed it all and only permitted the other tribes to reside here through sufferance.
The Wyandots were always a humane and hospitable nation. This is clearly manifested in permitting their former enemies to settle on their
GOOD-BYE TO THE OLD HUNTING GROUNDS
lands, when driven back before the advancing white population. They kindly received the homeless or exiled Senecas, Cayugas, Mohegans, Mohawks, Delawares, and Shawnees, and spread a deer skin for them to sit down upon. They allotted a certain portion of their country, the boundary of which was designated by certain rivers, or points on certain lakes, to these outcasts, which was freely given for their use, without money and without price. This fact was clearly developed when the different tribes came to sell their lands to the Government, when the Wyandots pointed out these bonds. Although never behind other tribes in their wars against the whites, they were far more merciful toward their prisoners. They not only saved the lives of most prisoners taken by them, but they likewise purchased many captives from other tribes. Thus they became allied with some of the best families in this and other states. The Browns, an old Virginia family, the Zanes, another well-known family, the Walkers of Tennessee, the Armstrongs and Magees of Pittsburg, were all represented in the tribe.
The Wyandots was the last Indian tribe to be removed from Ohio. It therefore remained longest on the borders of the incoming white popu- lation. Many of this once noble tribe therefore sank into degrading vice, becoming the worst as well as most ignoble and worthless of their race. 1
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This is not very much to the credit of the Caucasians, who should have protected the weak aborigine and endeavored to show him a better life, instead of trying to exploit him and enrich himself at the expense of his weaknesses. The tribe numbered about twenty-two hundred at the time of the Greenville treaty, including the men, women, and children. From that time until their removal, almost a half a century later, they lost but few men in battle. It is a fact, nevertheless, that during these fifty years through drunkenness, with its accompanying bloody brawls, and other vices, the tribe was reduced to fewer than half the original members.
The Wyandots were great hunters and wandered all over extreme Northwestern Ohio in their winter hunting expeditions. Bear hunting was the favorite sport. During the winter the bears were generally hibernating, but one would occasionally be discovered in a hollow tree. When they found such a tree they would examine the bark to see if one had ascended. Their keen eyes would soon detect the scratches of his claws upon the bark. It might be thirty or forty feet up to the entrance to his winter dormitory. A sapling was quickly felled against the tree and an agile hunter would ascend. He would then cut a branch and scrape the tree on the opposite side of the hole, crying like a young bear. If a bear was inside, he would either make a noise or come out. If inside and he failed to appear, a piece of rotten wood would be lighted and dropped inside. This would fire the tree. It would not be long until Mr. or Mrs. Bear appeared in great wrath, sneezing and wheezing, and blinded by the smoke. A bullet or arrow would quickly soothe his troubles.
They were also experts at trapping, and especially at ensnaring the raccoon. When other game was difficult to obtain they subsisted largely on these little furry animals. "One man will have, perhaps, 300 rac- coon traps, scattered over a country ten miles in extent. These traps are 'dead falls,' made of saplings, and set over a log which lies across some branch or creek, or that is by the edge of some pond or marshy place. In the months of February and March the raccoons travel much, and frequent the ponds for the purpose of catching frogs. The hunter gen- erally gets around all his traps twice a week, and hunts from one to the other. I have known a hunter to take from his traps thirty raccoons in two days, and sometimes they take more. From three to six hundred is counted a good hunt for one spring, besides the deer, turkeys, and bears."
The Wyandots understand the art of making sugar from the sap of the maples, and devoted themselves to this industry for several weeks after the sap began to run. They fashioned bark troughs, which held a couple of gallons, for the trees that they tapped, and larger troughs to hold the collections. These were shaped like canoes. They cut a long perpendicular groove, or notch in the tree, and at the bottom struck in a tomahawk. This made a hole into which they drove a long chip, down which the sap flowed into the bark vessel. As an instance of life in a Wyandot camp, Rev. James Finley says: "The morning was cold, and our course lay through a deep forest. We rode hard, hoping to make the camps before night, but such were the obstructions we met with, from ice and swamps, that it was late when we arrived. Weary with a travel of twenty-five miles or more through the woods, without a path or a blazed tree to guide us-and, withal, the day was cloudy-we were glad to find a camp to rest in. We were joyfully received by our friends, and the women and children came running to welcome us to their society and fires. It was not long after we were
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seated by the fire, till I heard the well-known voice of Between-the- Logs. I went out of the camp, and helped down with two fine deer. Soon we had placed before us a kettle filled with fat raccoons, boiled whole, after the Indian style, and a pan of good sugar molasses. These we asked our heavenly Father to bless, and then each carved for him- self, with a large butcher knife. I took the hind-quarter of a raccoon, and holding it by the foot, dipped the other end in the molasses, and ate it off with my teeth. Thus I continued dipping and eating till I had pretty well finished the fourth part of a large coon. By this time my appetite began to fail me, and thought it was a good meal, without bread, hominy, or salt."
The Shawanees, Shawanoes or Shawnees, were a tribe that command considerable attention in the history of Northwestern Ohio. Fearless and restless, wary and warlike, they were the vagrants of the trackless forests. Nomadic as were all the savages, the Shawnees bear off the palm for restlessness, and they were the equal of any in their undying
INDIANS AND PIONEERS
hostility to the whites. They had wandered from the waters of Lake Erie to the warm shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Prior to that they are known to have been along the Delaware River. They were proud and haughty, and considered themselves superior to the others. The Shawnee traditions said that the Creator made them before any other tribe of people, and that from them all red men were descended. Their arrogant pride and warlike ferocity made them the most formidable of all the nations with which the white settlers had to contend in Ohio. They reveled in their prowess and cunning. When driven from the Carolinas and Georgia, the Shawnees decided to repossess their former hunting grounds. Instead of resorting to force, however, they betook themselves to diplomacy. At a council of reconciliation, they were given permission to settle on the lands of the Miamis and Wyandots. They first estab- lished themselves along the Scioto, and later along the Auglaize and Miami. This matter of ownership was raised by both the Miamis and Wyandots at the Greenville Treaty.
When the Miamis moved to Indiana, after the burning of Pickawil- lamny in 1782, the Shawnees under Blue Jacket and Blackhoof estab- lished themselves at Wapakoneta and others settled at St. Marys, Lewis-
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ton, and the mouth of the Auglaize (Defiance). Skulking bands were ever harassing the whites along the Ohio River. As a famous council house was located at Wapakoneta, many of their captives were brought there. At least one hundred and fifty Shawnee warriors took part in the defeat of St. Clair. Blue Jacket lived in the style befitting a great chief. At the Treaty of Greenville, the Shawnees withheld participation for sev- eral weeks through their obstinacy. When the chiefs finally decided to join with the other tribes, they were reserved and haughty. But the warm-heartedness of General Wayne was irresistible. When they left Blue Jacket, Blackhoof and Red Pole expressed their undying personal regard for Wayne, and they never again took up arms against the United States. The Shawnees returned to their former vocations of hunting and trapping, with an increased cultivation of the soil. The men lounged about during the summer, when the skins and furs were not fit for market.
In the fall season nearly all the villages commenced making elaborate preparations for their winter's hunt. When everything was ready, the whole village, men, women and children, together with their dogs, cats, and ponies, with as much of their furniture as they could conveniently carry, set off for the lonely woods. "I have seen many of these com- panies moving off in cold weather," says a pioneer, "among whom were to be seen the aged, gray-headed grandmothers, the anxious care-worn and nearly forlorn mother with her half naked children, and often a little infant on her back, with its little naked head to the cold wind over its mother's shoulder ; the whole company headed by a nimble-footed and stout-hearted warrior, with his blanket drawn close around his body, a handkerchief curiously twisted to a knot on his head, with his gun on his shoulder and gunstick in his hand, his tomahawk in his belt, which is so constructed that the poll is his pipe and the handle the stem, and he carries his tobacco in the skin of some little animal, often a polecat skin."
The Ottawas were a Canadian tribe which formerly dwelt along the river of that name. Accompanying the Wyandots, with whom they were on friendly terms, they went west only to be again hurled back by the Sioux. Scattering bands finally found asylums along an affluent of the Maumee, and there gave their name to the river also known as the Auglaize. The Delawares also occupied lands with the Wyandots. They called themselves Lenape, or Leni-Lenape, meaning "real men." They were in many respects a remarkable people. They were generally peac- able and well disposed towards the whites and religious teachers. When the Iroquois subdued them they "put petticoats on the men," to use their expression, and made "women" of them. They were deprived of their right to make war, change their habitation or dispose of their land with- out the consent of their overlords. Those found in Northwestern Ohio had fled there to escape the humiliation of such surroundings.
One of the smaller of the tribes was the Senecas, who dwelt along the lower Sandusky. Prior to the incoming of the white man, they remained there by the sufferance of the hospitable Wyandots. They were renegades from the Iroquois nation. Among them were also a few Oneidas, Mohawks and Tuscaroras. About the beginning of the nineteenth century, these "Senecas of the Sandusky," as they were fre- quently called, numbered about four hundred souls. At this time they were more dissipated than their neighbors, the Wyandots. Virtue was indeed at a low ebb, for the marriage relation was maintained in name only, and their free practices led to many quarrels and difficulties of a serious nature.
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Along the Maumee River the dominant tribes were the Miamis. The British called them Twightwees, meaning "the cry of the crane." They were one of the most powerful tribes of the west, numbering many hun- dreds of warriors. Members of this tribe were reported as far as Illi- nois and Wisconsin. Of his people, Little Turtle, their famous chief, said : "My fathers kindled the first fire at Detroit; thence they extended their lines to the head waters of the Scioto; thence to its mouth ; thence down the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash and thence to Chicago over Lake Michigan." The tribe gave its name to three rivers, Big Miami, Little Miami, and Maumee. They are said to have been above the aver- age of the aborigines in intelligence and character. They were also credited with better manners and dispositions than most of the savages. Their chiefs also had a greater degree of authority over their warriors. About the time of Pontiac's Conspiracy they settled along the Maumee. A French traveler early in the eighteenth century wrote of them as fol- lows: "The Miamis are sixty leagues from Lake Erie, and number 400, all well-formed men, and well tattooed; the women are numerous. They are hard working, and raise a species of Maize unlike that of our Aborigines at Detroit. It is white of the same size as the other, the skin much finer and the meat much whiter. This Nation is clad in deer and when a married woman goes with another man, her husband cuts off her nose and does not see her any more. This is the only nation that has such a custom. They love plays and dances, wherefore they have more occupation. The women are well clothed, but the men use scarcely any covering and are tattooed all over the body."
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