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 25
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While some of the Allen County townships were named for patriots, only Auglaize, Ottawa and Shawnee perpetuate the Indian nomencla- ture. It was the regret of some of the pioneers that there was not a Quilna among them. Since he was the pathfinder among the Shawnees, a public thoroughware might well bear his name-Quilnaway. The Auglaize and the "Ottawa of the Auglaize," with their minor contrib- uting streams, afford drainage facilities for Allen County today. What a delight it would be to see the river banks and the farm homes again as they were before the onward march of civilization had changed them! While the Auglaize seems a diminutive stream today, it has its place in
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local history. The Auglaize and Ottawa both rise in Hardin County and cross Allen County as separate water courses, but they join their waters in Paulding and help to swell the Maumee. The Ottawa rises in the Great Marsh and flows west a little north of the Auglaize, and the tributary streams to the two Allen County rivers are Riley, Sugar, Plum, Cranberry and other small creeks. There are springs along the foothills of the rivers and creeks, and water is found in wells at a depth of from ten to sixty feet-flowing wells in some localities.
The child of today will never see Swinonia through the spectacles of the past generations, cannot think of the Ottawa River as "spread out all over creation," now that it flows in a channel through Lima. "Putrid Sea" and Hog Creek are one and the same to the youth along the Ottawa. It is said that Allen County people welcome winter because the stench from Hog Creek freezes and they forget it until the bluebirds come again. While it has been called Hog Creek from "time out of mind," there is a reason for it. The Indians named the stream Koshko Sepe or Hog River because of the swine along it. General Benjamin Logan, who lived in the time of George Washington and was a member of the Ohio Constitutional Convention, finally located in Shelby County and while driving hogs through the wilderness toward the north coun- try he encountered the Indians along the Ottawa. In the skirmish the hogs were scattered and were never assembled again. The stream will be Hog Creek as long as the story survives and when it drained the marshes of Hardin County it carried a considerable volume of water.
Again the thought-while sttanding in the threshold of this second century of Allen County history, it is an opportune time to linger by the wayside-the highway of time, and register some of the most impor- tant changes that have taken place in the first 100 years of development and advancement. While the dawn of the newer civilization is a stormy morning in the history of the entire world, superinduced by conditions of unrest and misinterpretations, many are looking forward to a noon- day splendor of even greater achievement, thinking the social upheaval will adjust itself, and that the world will not slip backward in its for- ward march toward a higher plane of civilization. However, Mark Twain long ago discredited the man who talked about the weather without doing anything for it. Since the humblest actor on the stage of Allen County in the drama of 100 years has acted well the part assigned him, why not label it the century of achievement-this first 100 years in Allen County history ?
CHAPTER XV FROM SAVAGERY TO CIVILIZATION
It is apparent that the early civilization of Allen County clustered about historic Fort Amanda. It was a place of defense against the warfare waged by the red men of the forest and it is related that the town of Hartford that sprang up in that vicinity was once a hamlet of 250 people and a college was instituted there; education was the dom- inant note in the lives of the wilderness inhabitants of Allen County.
Since the Fort Amanda blockhouse afforded shelter for the pioneers in Allen County history, it is interesting to know that a rectangle
BLOCKHOUSE AT FORT AMANDA
embracing one and one-half acres was enclosed by a stockade made of pickets eleven feet above ground, and set four feet in the earth. There was a blockhouse at each corner of the enclosure, with the usual pro- jecting upper story. In the center of the palisade was another building used for stores, and when an army hospital was needed there in 1813, an upper story was added to it. Most of those who now rest in the military cemetery at Fort Amanda died in this upper room hospital- rather an uncanny introduction to the place as a home for the settlers a few years later. However, long before there were any settlers it became the base supplies for Harrison's army operating in the Maumee valley, and in this building was the office of the paymaster.
While Fort Amanda was constructed in 1812, the overthrow and removal of the Ottawas and Shawnees was not effected until twenty years later. The Shawnees, who figured extensively in the Greenville Treaty. were of the Algonquin tribes, and they had a tradition that the
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Master of Life, the Great Creator himself, and the originator of all peoples, was an Indian. He made the Shawnees before any other of the human race ; they sprang from his brain, and they were the romance people of the world. Consequently, it was hard for them to relinquish their claim to the hunting grounds of their fathers. Today it is an easy matter for the sympathetic nature to become enlisted in their favor; the red man of the forest endured many things. However, the agreement entered into between the Indians of the Northwest and General Wayne, ceding to the United States Government northwestern Ohio, northeastern Indiana and the whole of Michigan, comprising in all 25,000 square miles of territory, was indorsed by the United States Senate, and Decem- ber 22, 1795, President Washington attached his signature.
In signing this agreement President Washington hoped to end a destructive war, to settle all controversies and restore friendly relations with the Indians. However, he had "reckoned without his host." Because Chief Tecumseh had not joined in the Greenville Treaty, it proved little more than "a scrap of paper" and he soon incited further difficulties resulting in the second war with England. The story of Fort Amanda belongs to the ensuing period in local history. While there were Indians in the Allen County forest, they came as silently as the shadows and vanished as they came-Shawnees, Ottawas, Senecas, Delawares and Wyandottes, and all
"Like the cares that infest the day, Will fold their tents like the Arabs And silently steal away."
And now that they are gone the way of the world their history is as a story that is told. The Indian has been strong in his appeal to literature, and some paragrapher writes: "The twilight of Ohio history reveals to us the Red Man of the long ago; like tawdry attired phantoms after the passing of the years we dimly see them again-Pht and Quilna stealthily flitting along the warpath beneath the shadows of the primeval forest."
When Columbus discovered America he thought it was the West Indies and he named the tribes he found in the new country Indians. While he died in ignorance of all that his discovery meant to the world, there is now an overwhelming library of literature concerning the chil- dren of the forest, black-haired, copper colored, attired mostly in the garb of nature-the romance people of the world. While "fuss and feathers" describes him, the American Indian was in partnership with nature and pageantry will always perpetuate his character. The names of Pht and Quilna will live in local history. On September 29, 1817, there was a secondary treaty with the Indians looking to their removal from their hunting grounds in the territory already ceded to Anthony Wayne.
THE SECONDARY TREATY WITH THE SHAWNEES
While the Shawnees were included in the Greenville Treaty, they were in no hurry about evacuating the country. As a result, Lewis Cass and Duncan McArthur, as United States Indian commissioners, met with the tribes at the rapids of the Maumee, and certain reservations were allowed them. There was a grant by patent in fee simple to Pe-Aitch-Ta, now corrupted to Pht, and translated Falling Tree, and to Conwaskemo, known as the Resolute Man, chieftains of the Shawanese tribes residing on the Ottawa River (Hog Creek) and to their successors in office, chiefs of said tribes residing there, a tract of land containing twenty-five
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square miles which is to adjoin the tract granted at Waupaughkonnetta, and to include the Shawanese settlement on Hog Creek, and to be laid off as nearly as possible in a square form, and the above described Indian reservation has since become the most wealthy rural baliwick in the United States of America. Shawnee Township is the historic ground in Allen County today.
The defeat of the American Indian in northwestern Ohio was one thing and his removal to the western reservations was quite another, but the day came when there were no Indians in Allen County. There was ambush fighting along the Auglaize River, and Fort Amanda was built by Col. Thomas Poague under orders of Gen. William Henry Harrison, who commanded the military forces in the vicinity in with- standing the depredations of the Indians. It is known that Colonel Poague cleared the way through the wilderness from St. Marys, where
LAST INDIAN APPLETREE, SHAWNEE
General Harrison had his headquarters, to Fort Defiance at the junction of the Auglaize and the Maumee-the site marked by a college today. On his return journey Colonel Poague constructed Fort Amanda, hon- oring his own wife with the name of the garrison.
While it is only a word imagery, Senator F. B. Willis, who was governor of Ohio when the Fort Amanda monument was unveiled, paid the following tribute to the woman whose name has been perpetuated in local history. He said "The fort was built under the personal direc- tion of Colonel Poague, who named it, not for himself or his general, but for his wife-Amanda. History does not record her beauty or her virtues, but we may rest assured that she had the courage and the grace of the worthy matrons of that far off day- that she merited the secure place she held in the affectionate regard of her chivalrous hus- band, and the perpetuation of her name of antique origin in this monu- ment erected by the state-Amanda, 'deserving to be loved.'" The foregoing tribute from an Ohio statesman should be an inspiration to the young womanhood of Allen County today.
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While Fort Amanda commemorates Mrs. Amanda Poague, perhaps Amanda Township commemorates the fort without stressing the mem- ory of the woman. When the meaning of the name is considered, it is a happy thought that it is thus perpetuated in history. The monument erected at Fort Amanda by the people of Ohio in honor of the Amer- ican soldiers who died there, was unveiled July 5, 1915, and it focused attention to the site of the palisade that served as a place of refuge for the wilderness soldiers more than 100 years ago. Enthusiasm seemed to pervade the whole countryside, even the farm houses enroute being decorated with the national colors, while horsedrawn vehicles and motor cars displayed the same degree of patriotism. It seems that all vied with each other in commemorating those unknown heroes sleeping the sleep that knows no waking in the military cemetery there.
While Anthony Wayne died in 1796, it is said that his trace is along the Auglaize opposite the site, Fort Amanda having later been built on the bluff overlooking the west side of the stream. The Auglaize is always regarded as historic, since there were many Indian villages adja- cent to its waters. While it is a diminutive stream today, drainage and the.cleared land changing conditions, its water carried rapidly away, in the past it was navigable, capable of floating heavily laden scows and flat boats. It was the highway of transportation for both the Indians and the white settlers who later occupied the territory along it. The aborigine and his pale-faced brother both glided through its placid waters.
INDUSTRIES AT FORT AMANDA
In the winter of 1812-13, the garrison at Fort Amanda was consti- tuted a shipbuilding company, some selecting timber while others cut it, and barges were constructed there. The trees were sawed into boards and there was system in the ship yards springing into existence in the wilderness along the Auglaize. Everything was team work, some of the soldiers cutting timber and others converting it into lumber or posts for palisades, while another crew was detailed to convert the manu- factured lumber into flat boats and the boats constructed there were used many years. It is said the work turned out from the Fort Amanda shipyards eclipsed in construction and durability anything produced at the Fort Defiance Navy Yard at the same time. There was better workmanship on the boats built at Fort Amanda than at Fort Defiance, and when a craft was ready for the water there was always demand for it. While the ship yard story at Fort Amanda seems an absurdity today, there is no question about it. However, there is a difference of opinion as to how operations were carried on there. It would seem that Mrs. Clarence Lathrop of Old Fort Amanda farm house is right when she says she hears widely different versions of the shipyard industry there. In the "Historic Background of the Monument," found in the program of its unveiling ceremony, are these words: "Ship building was , begun by the garrison in the winter following the building of the fort ; the shipyard was on the east bank of the river just east of the fort; seventy-five flat boats were constructed, and part of them were used to carry troops to Fort Meigs in 1813. It is believed that some of the scows built in Fort Amanda were used by Commodore Oliver Perry in floating his ships over the shallows of Put-In-Bay upon the day of his famous victory," but some who have studied the situation have a differ- ent opinion about it.
The varying descriptions of important battles are because of the varying viewpoints of the writers describing them. The writer was shown Fort Amanda and heard a different version of the shipyard
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industry there. Some who apply their own reasoning facilities are inclined to the belief that the barges constructed in the ancient ship vards there and used in transporting supplies down the Auglaize to Fort Defiance were built on the high ground now the site of the monument, the channel down the slope to the south having been excavated in order to move the barges down the hill to the water. While the channel is grassed over today, it would have been an easy matter to skid a barge down it with the momentum of its own weight, much as crafts are launched on the water today. The scows built at Fort Amanda were used on the lower Miami as well as the Auglaize, and it is a pleasing story that one of them was in the fleet commanded by Commodore Perry on Lake Erie, when he exclaimed "We have met the enemy and they are ours."
FORT AMANDA A PLACE OF SAFETY
While there was never a military engagement at Fort Amanda, it was a place of refuge from the Indians, and the graves in the military cemetery there are the last resting places of many soldiers who died while on garrison duty. While the din of battle was never heard on Allen County soil, this historic fort was the site of personal heroism that will remain unknown to the end of the world. The war whoops of the Shawnees, the shrill whistle of the rifle ball and the roar of cannon were not unknown in the valley of the Maumee, and this ren- dezvous on the Auglaize was a place of safety for the brave young soldiers when Generals Harrison and Proctor were meeting in mortal combat, the British general being aided by his devoted Indian ally, Chief Tecumseh. He had not joined in the Greenville Treaty, and he wished to preserve to his people their hunting grounds forever.
FLOUR WAS SHIPPED ON THE AUGLAIZE
A letter written June 20, 1813, at Camp Fort Meigs by Green Clay establishes the fact that a consignment of flour was received there by Ensign Gray that had been sent from Fort Amanda by transport, a thing that would be an utter impossibility on the Auglaize today. Fort Meigs has been swallowed up by Toledo, and the Auglaize is no longer a navigable stream. The removal of the timber and the drainage of the country has worked the transformation. While it was named for an Indian chieftain, and along its banks marched General St. Clair and General Wayne, and dusky warriors were once in hiding among its many dark ravines; while the stream was once capable of floating heavy- laden flat boats, pirogues and scows, all that seems today like a story that is told, beginning "Once upon a time." The transformation of the earth's surface has greatly reduced the volume of the Auglaize. In the days of Auld Lang Syne it was a factor in Allen County history. While it is conceded that Wayne's trace follows the course of the Auglaize sometimes crossing it, the wilderness troops later following its course from Fort Amanda to Fort Defiance, their provisions being transported by water, at this centennial period in Allen County history there are no markers designating it.
THE DEDICATION OF THE FORT AMANDA MONUMENT
The order of the day, July 5, 1915, was the unveiling of the monu- ment and 5,000 persons were attracted to Fort Amanda for the cere- mony. Dr. J. H. Blattenberg of Lima was chairman of the decorations committee, and Old Fort Amanda Farm House-the home of Clarence Lathrop, from whom the site was purchased-was thrown open to the public for the day. There are many curios in this old homestead that
Vol. I-12
THE FORT AMANDA MONUMENT
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have been gathered in the vicinity of Fort Amanda that hark back to the shipbuilding industry there. There were many dinners spread on the ground and William Rusler, who was secretary of the monument commission and active in securing the appropriation for it, entertained many friends at a basket dinner-the day devoted to the cause of patri- otism in honor of the unknown dead who lie buried there. While there are community graves in the foreground of the military cemetery, the unknown soldier dead lie near the river bluff and on a detached knoll across the ravine is the grave of Capt. Enoch Dawson. He was killed in October, 1812, by an Indian from ambush, while eating grapes from a vine near the water's edge, which is pointed out to this day to vis- itors there. While it shows evidence of great age, this vine still clings to the trunk of a tree overhanging the waters of the Auglaize.
The movement which resulted in the erection of the monument at Fort Amanda was started in a meeting called by William Rusler of Shawnee Township, February 4, 1913, in Memorial Hall. The Fort Amanda Memorial Association was formed and later it was incor- porated, the purpose being to create sentiment for a Fort Amanda memo- rial. The officers chosen were: President, Jacob B. Sunderland, Spen- cerville ; secretary, R. R. Zurmehly, Lima; vice-presidents, C. W. Wil- liamson, Wapakoneta ; Daniel Harpster, West Cairo; Mrs. W. L. Mack- enzie, Mrs. B. M. Moulton, Mrs. S. J. Derbyshire, Mrs. James Sullivan, Thomas H. Jones, Rev. M. C. Howey, Clinton Hover and Dr. George Hall. The executive committee: William Rusler, chairman ; Mrs. D. J. Cable, Clarence Lathrop, George Feltz and James Pillars. The incor- porators : Mabel Thrift Gray, A. C. Hover, Amanda J. Sullivan, Rev. M. C. Howey and R. R. Zurmehly. In April, 1913, Senator Mooney and Representative Kennedy secured an appropriation of $5,000 from the Ohio Assembly, and Governor James M. Cox named W. L. Macken- zie, Alva V. Noble and William Rusler honorary commission to super- intend the erection of the monument. The commission organized with Mr. Noble, chairman; Mr. Mackenzie, vice-chairman, and Mr. Rusler, secretary.
When it was definitely decided that the memorial should be in the form of a monument, a tract of two and one-half acres was purchased from Mr. Lathrop and a contract was let to the Allen County Mausoleum Company, the work to be executed by the Hughes Granite Company, Clyde, Ohio. There has been $2,600 appropiated by the Ohio Legisla- ture to purchase more land, and two cannons are promised by the U. S. Government to be placed there. There were committees on arrange- ments, finance, decorations, music, souvenir, grounds, privileges and reception, and all were bent on the success of the undertaking. The Fort Amanda Memorial Association did not consider its work terminated with the unveiling ceremony and there are further plans to convert the site into a park reached by improved highways which will be visited by thousands, both because of the historic interest of the place and its natural beauties as a pleasure resort, and when the tract between the military cemetery and the Auglaize-Allen County line has been converted into a government reservation, there will still be work in perpetuating it. Although it may never have railroad facilities, Fort Amanda will always be a mecca for tourists.
SENTIMENT CRYSTALLIZED SLOWLY
i
In the souvenir program of the ceremonies connected with the unveiling of the monument at Fort Amanda are these words: "The
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historic interest which attaches to Fort Amanda long ago suggested that the spot ought to be marked by a memorial in honor of the sol- diers who sleep there, and of the deeds done in the service of the nation ; but more than a century passed before the sentiment took con- crete form, and the monument was a reality. While accounts vary as to the number of graves, the estimates ranging close to seventy-five, only about forty are supplied with the simple military markers today. The identities of the soldiers were lost because of the destruction of mil- itary records when the British troops burned the Capitol at Washington."
When the Fort Amanda monument was unveiled the Lima Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, presented Old Glory, the pres- entation 'address being made by Mrs. Grace Bryan Hollister, regent of the chapter. The Lathrops of Old Fort Amanda Farm have assumed the responsibility of caring for this beautiful flag, and it floats from the flag staff adjoining the monument on Sundays and gala days when the weather is favorable for visitors. A page in the souvenir program entitled "The Monument, the Site and Environment" reads: "Rugged simplicity characterizes the design and the material of the monument, symbolical of the character and lives of the men whom it commemorates. The shaft, of gray granite in the obelisk form, towers nearly fifty feet ; at the base the stone is carved to suggest the stockade which enclosed Fort Amanda.
"On the west face of the monument which is placed according to the points of the compass is a bronze tablet upon which the old fort is reproduced in relief, from sketches and descriptions. Below the reproduction is the legend: 'Fort Amanda, erected by order of Gen. William Henry Harrison in October, 1812, and became an important deposit of army stores during the war.' Above the reproduction are the words: 'Erected by a grateful people to the memory of the pioneer soldiers of Ohio and other states, who fell in the defense of their homes from Indian depredations in the war of 1812.' The monument stands in the center of what was once Fort Amanda but all external traces of the structure have disappeared; it was only through the butts of the logs which formed the stockade, unearthed in plowing, that the outline of the enclosure was determined; until a few years ago a depression showed the location of the well, but that also now has vanished; the monument stands on a bluff on the west bank of the Auglaize River, in Logan Township, Auglaize County, just across the line of Amanda Township, Allen County, and ten miles southwest of Lima."
CHAPTER XVI
EXIT SHAWNEE-ENTER SETTLER
While the Indian tribes of Northwest Ohio have already had atten- tion, the deportation of the Shawnees belongs to the history of Allen County. Their days were numbered already when the tide of civilization was upon them. Their only conception of life contemplated the unre- stricted freedom of the forest. With his tomahawk and scalping knife, the American Indian was always a problem with the settlers. In a pathetic way some one writes of the American Indians transferred from their original hunting grounds to the reservations: "As a race they have withered from the land; their arrows are broken; their springs are dried up; their cabins are in the dust ; their council fire has long since gone out on the shore; their war cry is fast dying away in the untrodden west ; slowly and sadly they climb the distant mountains, and read their doom in the setting sun," and to this day deportation is considered the saddest experience that befalls humanity.
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