USA > Ohio > Lucas County > Toledo > A story of early Toledo; historical facts and incidents of the early days of the city and environs > Part 2
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OLD FORT INDUSTRY .- Shortly after the treaty and about the year 1800, there was erected by the government, in the vicinity of what is now the corner of Monroe and Summit Streets, a fort which was called Fort Industry. This was erected and gar- risoned to enforce obedience to the treaty and to protect the reservations from depredation, and for a number of years a company of regulars was sta- tioned there. At this fort in 1805 another treaty was concluded with the Indians, by which their title to the fire lands (now Erie and Huron counties), was finally extinguished. In the War of 1812 this part of the country suffered severely. I need not recount the surrender by General Hull of Fort De- troit to the British on August 16, 1812, for which he was afterwards court-martialed and convicted of cowardice and neglect of duty. This was followed by the River Raisin massacre in January, 1813, where the British and Indians ambushed General Winches- ter and his 800 men and where, under promise of protection if he surrendered, one-third of his men were butchered. Immediately following this, and on the first of February, 1813, General Harrison ad- vanced with a force from Fremont to the rapids, where he set about the construction of a fortifica- tion which he named Fort Meigs, in honor of the governor of Ohio. He anticipated, and the subse- quent events proved correctly, that the British would advance from Detroit and Malden and inter-
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vening points occupied by them to the river for the capture of this fort, and the control of this harbor from the lake.
On April 28th the British commenced the in- vestment of the fort, under the British General Proctor, and by May 1st they had their batteries in position directly opposite the fort on the northerly side of the river. On May 5th General Clay of Ken- tucky came down the river with 1,200 troops for the relief of General Harrison. Before they reached the fort, however, General Proctor sent Major Chambers to the fort demanding its surrender, to which Gen- eral Harrison replied :
HARRISON ISSUES DEFI. - " Tell General Proctor if he takes this fort, it will be under circum- stances that will do him more credit than a thousand surrenders."
COL. DUDLEY'S DEFEAT .- During the Bom- bardment Harrison sent orders that Colonel Dudley, commanding under General Clay a part of the rein- forcements, to land his regiment of 800 men above the British batteries, make a rapid assault, and cap- ture and spike the guns, and then withdraw under the bank of the river, leaving the enemy on the plains above exposed to the fire of Fort Meigs. Dudley by a brilliant movement and charge cap- tured the guns, spiked most of them and drove the body of the enemy from the ravine where they were sheltered, onto the upland. Unfortunately, his troops, fired with success and anxious to avenge the massacre at River Raisin, instead of withdrawing
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under the bank as ordered, pursued the retreating British and Indians across the ground now occupied by the old Maumee courthouse, a long distance into the wilderness, where a body of Indians coming from Malden for the relief of the British joined the latter, and learning of the situation, formed an am- bush on the low ground on the side of Swan creek, surrounded by woods, into which the Kentuckians rushed and were slaughtered, without mercy, only 148 of the 800 surviving, and that many only because the great Indian Chief Tecumseh stopped the mas- sacre and taught the civilized English general a les- son in what was honorable warfare. The survivors were marched to Fort Miami, where many of them had to run the barbarous Indian gauntlet to escape death.
RETREAT OF PROCTOR .- On the 9th of May Proctor decided on his final retreat and left for Malden.
Following this was the defense of Fort Steven- son and the battle of Lake Erie, resulting in Perry's victory, with their great influence in bringing about the close of the war.
By act of Congress at the session of 1816 and 1817 the reservation of twelve miles square at the foot of the rapids was ordered surveyed and sold. A company of Cincinnati men bought about 400 acres adjacent to the mouth of Swan creek, for $76.06 an acre, agreeing to pay for it one-fourth down and the balance in three equal annual pay- ments. They defaulted on the deferred payments and Congress passed a relief act, allowing them to
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retain a part of the property for their down pay- ments and surrendering the balance to the govern- ment. The University of Michigan was organized and was given the right to locate a certain amount of land within the territory of Michigan, in aid of the university. This territory was then supposed to be in Michigan. The university located these tracts and its title was afterwards confirmed by Congress.
All these events had attracted the attention of the country to this valley. Indiana was seeking the aid of the government in the construction of a canal to reach the navigable waters of Lake Erie, and had received a grant from Congress of alternate five miles square of land on each side of the proposed canal from the Wabash to Lake Erie. The terminus of the canal became a matter of great importance.
CHAPTER II
Ordinance of 1787-Boundary Disputes
Under the Ordinance of 1787, for the govern- ment of the Northwest Territory, it was provided that the territory should be divided into not less than three or more than five states, and in case of making only three states, the northern line of the eastern states should be drawn due east from the southern boundary of Lake Michigan.
The provision of Article 5 of the Ordinance is:
"Provided, however, and it is further understood and declared that the boundaries of these three states, shall be subject so far as to be altered that if Congress shall hereafter find it expedient, they shall have authority to form one or two states in that part of the said territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or ex- treme of Lake Michigan."
In the convention at Chillicothe for the framing of the constitution for the admission of Ohio into the Union it was proposed and adopted as follows:
"Article 7, Sec. 6. That the limits and bounda- ries of this state be ascertained, it is declared that they are, as hereinafter mentioned.
THE STATE BOUNDARIES .- "Bounded on the east by the Pennsylvania line, on the south by the Ohio river, to the mouth of the Great Miami river, and on the north by an east and west line drawn through the southerly extreme of Lake Mich- igan, running east, after intersecting the due north line aforesaid, from the mouth of the Great Miami
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river until it shall intersect Lake Erie or the terri- torial line and thence with the same through Lake Erie to the Pennsylvania line aforesaid. Provided always and it is fully understood and declared by this convention that if the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan should extend so far south that a line drawn due east from it should not intersect Lake Erie, or if it should intersect said Lake Erie east of the mouth of the Miami river of the Lake, then and in that case with the assent of the Congress of the United States the northerly boundary of this state shall be established by and extended to a direct line running from the southern extremity of Lake Mich- igan to the most northerly cape of the Miami bay, after intersecting the due north line from the mouth of the Great Miami river aforesaid, thence northeast to the territorial line, and by said territorial line to the Pennsylvania line."
With this constitution Ohio was admitted into the Union.
About 1817 a man named Harris was sent by the surveyor general to survey a line between Ohio and the territory of Michigan. Surveyor General Tiffin had given his instructions to follow the provisions of the constitution of Ohio, and with the aid of as- sistants and some Indian guides, he ran and estab- lished what is known as the Harris line.
DISPUTE STATE LINES .- Governor Cass, of Michigan, complained of this as being in violation of the Ordinance of 1787, and President Monroe or- dered the surveyor general to cause a new line to be
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run in accordance with the provisions of the Ordi- nance, and in the following year a surveyor named Fulton was sent out and established what has since been known as the Fulton line, which in this vicinity is about eight miles south of the Harris line, and if adopted would have placed Toledo in Michigan.
Very little importance was given to the bound- ary question or which line should be adopted, for a number of years, but in 1824 and following, Ohio began to manifest considerable interest in this Wa- bash & Erie Canal project, and also to contemplate a canal from Dayton to Lake Erie in connection with the Wabash & Erie Canal.
Then this disputed piece of territory between the Harris and Fulton lines began to assume very great importance, as it included the entrance of the Maumee river and bay to the lake.
It became evident that wherever these canals terminated by entrance to the river or lake, a com- mercial city would grow up, and it was quite evident that the canal ought to enter the Maumee for its lake connection somewhere between the foot of the rapids and the Maumee bay.
Ohio wanted this strip to develop it and with it its northwest territory. Michigan wanted it to prevent its development, as it anticipated that seri- ous injury would be done to Detroit and Monroe by building up a city at the head of the lake and the mouth of the river.
Ohio had control of the great question of the terminus of the canal and it delayed action on that question until the boundary line should be settled.
In 1833 the sessions of Congress, the Ohio Legis-
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lature and the Legislative Council of Michigan were concurrent, all in session at the same time.
The Legislative Council of Michigan rashly passed an act called "The Pains and Penalties Act," which provided severe penalties for any one within the limits who should acknowledge any other au- thority than was derived from the territory of Michi- gan. When the news of this was brought to the Ohio Legislature it stirred up a storm, and it met the Pains and Penalties Act by an act authorizing the governor of Ohio to call out 10,000 militia and placed $250,000 at his command, authorizing him to re- mark the Harris line, appoint officers and organize government in the disputed territory.
GOVERNOR LEADS MILITIA. - Governor Lucas led in person 500 militia to the Maumee to protect the commissioners whom he had appointed to re-mark the Harris line.
Some of the surveyors were fired at by Michi- gan militia and for the time being further work of re-marking the line was abandoned, because about that time President Jackson sent two commissioners, Rush and Howard, to the disputed territory to effect a compromise. They proposed terms which Ohio agreed to accept but Michigan rejected.
An election was then ordered in the disputed territory for local officers under the authority of Ohio, which was a complete challenge to Michigan authority to enforce the provisions of the Pains and Penalties Act. Major Benjamin F. Stickney, Platt Card and John T. Baldwin acted as judges of elec- tion. This action caused excitement to run very
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high; a war between the state and territory seemed very imminent. Congress, in the session of 1834-5, had the boundary question for serious considera- tion. The Senate decided in favor of Ohio, by a vote of 30 to 10, but the House, under the leadership of John Quincy Adams, who favored Michigan, de- clined to concur.
Michigan also attempted to organize govern- ment in the disputed territory and appointed a jus- tice of the peace and constables, who attempted to administer the provisions of the Pains and Penalties Act by prosecutions against those recognizing Ohio. An officer from Monroe, James Wood, attempted to arrest Two Stickney and was warned to keep his distance. He insisted on making the arrest, when he was stabbed by a knife in young Stickney's hands, the only blood actually shed during the strife.
DEMANDS SURRENDER. - Michigan de- manded young Stickney's surrender and appealed to President Jackson, who made an order directing the governor of Ohio to surrender Stickney to the Michigan authorities for prosecution. Governor Lucas replied to the president that the whole mili- tary power of the United States would not compel him to comply.
In July, 1835, Governor Mason of Michigan sent a force of 250 men to Toledo to hunt for and capture young Stickney, but he had retired to the central part of the state and was not found.
CHAPTER III Lucas County Established
The county of Lucas was established by act in 1835 and the 8th of September was fixed for the holding of the first term of the court of common pleas of Lucas county. Governor Mason organized a force of 1,000 men who marched to Toledo to pre- vent the court from assembling. The troops came to Toledo, but the court met without their knowl- edge and organized. Toledo sympathizers in Ohio were quietly organizing to drive these men back to Michigan, and it was with difficulty that Governor Lucas was prevented from taking the field in person with his 10,000 militia. Wiser counsels prevailed. The great strength of Ohio and the comparative weakness of the territory might have turned the cur- rent of opinion toward the weaker, if open hostilities had been precipitated by the act of the stronger.
About this time Governor Mason was removed and Governor Horner, his successor, because of his conservative consideration of the subject, was burned in effigy by the hot heads who approved of Mason's depredations.
CONGRESS SETTLES QUESTION. - In the session of 1835-6, on June 30, 1836, President Jack- son in the meantime having come over to the Ohio side, Congress settled the question by an act estab- lishing the Harris line as the boundary. The canal was completed with its terminus near the Maumee bay in what was then Manhattan, now North Toledo.
Down the river, just below the Wheeling bridge,
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on the east side, was the site of the encampment of Pontiac, the great Indian chief of 1764, and from that time down to and including the period covered by this narrative, it was a prosperous Indian village. The Indians were of the Ottawa nation and from 1807 for many years were ruled over by the head chief, Tishqua-gwun, a descendant of Pontiac.
Pontiac's widow, Kan-tuck-ee-gum, and their son, Otussa, also lived near by. Mesh-ke-Ma, a cousin of Otussa, ruled on the opposite side of the river, and he was the great orator of the nation. Other nations and tribes occupied other parts of the river banks.
In 1807, Peter Navarre, born in Detroit, a son of Robert de Navarre, a French officer, came with his brothers and his father to reside at the mouth of the river near the settlements mentioned. He be- came famous as an American scout and guide in the wars with the Indians and British. He and one of his brothers carried the dispatch from General Har- rison to Commodore Perry to engage the enemy's fleet as soon as practicable.
NAVARRE FINDS PERRY .- Navarre reached Put-in Bay on the 9th of September, delivered the dispatch, found Perry ready and waiting for the en- emy, and the engagement occurred the next day.
In 1808 Ellsk-wa-la-wa, a brother of Tecumseh and a famous Shawnee prophet, visited these people on the banks of the river and claimed to have a mis- sion from the Great Spirit to induce the Indian na- tions to rise and reclaim the lands ceded to the United States. Tecumseh was trying to unite the
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western and southern tribes to the same end, and the English were sending agents into the same villages to revive their prejudices against the United States.
Unfortunately for the Indians, when the War of 1812 was declared, many of them believed the time had come when that might be accomplished.
Prior to this declaration of war there were about 67 white families settled on this twelve-square-mile reserve, living at peace with the neighboring Indians.
During the hostilities, their homes, farm uten- sils, cattle, and everything that they could not take with them in their hurried flight, were destroyed. But the Indians suffered the most. The last 100 of this tribe of Ottawas that, in 1837, left their beauti- ful hunting grounds and their peaceful homes in the Maumee valley to go west of the Mississippi, were principally vagrants and drunkards.
The wars, the treaties, bad bargains, bad judg- ment and bad whiskey rid them of all their power and possessions.
Circumstances, perhaps not entirely creditable to the white man, but in obedience to an irresistible law that the savage must become civilized or perish under the wheels of that modern juggernaut called "progress," proved fatal to their continued life in the valley.
CHAPTER IV. Early Years in Toledo
It has been frequently said that a very large pro- portion of the present residents of Toledo know little or nothing about the early history of the city, and what is probably true, have concerned themselves very little about it. The city has grown in popula- tion so rapidly that the newcomers, if we include as newcomers those whose residence does not go back more than a dozen or fifteen years, outnumber very greatly those of longer residence, and that the de- scendants of the older inhabitants are now very largely in the class of grandchildren and not in pos- session of very much accurate knowledge of the pioneer days and struggles of their grandparents.
There is not much of the early history of Toledo that is not of record somewhere and that is not ac- cessible to those who have the patience or curiosity enough to hunt for it. Histories of the state, includ- ing the Valley of the Maumee; histories of the val- ley itself, histories of the northwest, and histories of Toledo and Lucas county, have been written and published, and in each of them some parts of the information sought to be aggregated and at the same time condensed here, can be found, and to which the compiler is indebted for many of these facts. This little book is in the main a compilation. Its merit, if it has any, is that it gathers in a brief com- pass facts, well authenticated, which could not be obtained elsewhere without much of the same time and labor bestowed by the compiler, which very few of its readers would care to bestow upon it. Many
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facts are from personal recollection of the writer.
And yet the city is not old. Many of the early events related are within the memory of many per- sons still living. That in 1836 it had less than 100 in population; in 1846, only about 2,000, and in the cen- sus of 1850 only 3,100, does not depend upon written history to a great number of people still living who know. That the most hopeless and repellant spot in the limits of the city is now its great business center is within the knowledge of living citizens who learned to skate and paddle a canoe in the vicinity of where the Spitzer and Nicholas buildings and the principal business area are now. Living men re- member the awful years of the cholera plague, 1852 and 1854, which necessarily impeded the growth of the city, followed by the panic of 1857, and, notwith- standing these obstacles, they know that the growth in population from a little over 3,000 in 1850 exceed- ed 13,000 in 1860. If sixty or seventy years of life in a city makes one a pioneer, there is quite a number of pioneers still living in our midst. The marvelous thing is that a pioneer sixty or seventy years wit- nessed the growth of a city from 3,000 to 250,000 people, and in all that makes a city, its growth is in the same proportion.
EARLY LAND INTERESTS. - It is this fact that led the Toledo Commerce Club to believe that the days of the infant city should not be entirely obliterated or forgotten in the activities and absorb- ing influences of the days of its strength and size. It must be understood at the outset that this narra- tive is to be confined to the early years of the city
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and to events which may pass out of memory when the pioneers of sixty or seventy years, spoken of, pass away.
It has been stated that by special act of Con- gress, at the session of 1816-17, this twelve miles square reserve at the foot of the rapids of the Miami of Lake Erie was ordered surveyed and sold. The tract was surveyed and divided into several tracts numbered from one up. River Tracts one and two are interesting here. A company of men, including William Oliver, Martin Baum, Jacob Burnet, Wil- liam C. Schenck, John Piatt, Robert Piatt, William N. Worthington and others, purchased at the sale these two tracts, with others, from the government at $76.06 per acre on terms requiring one-fourth down and the balance in three equal annual pay- ments, and these gentlemen, before making any but the down payment, adopted a plat, with streets and town lots, and called it Port Lawrence, and imme- diately offered these lots for sale at an auction to be held September 17, 1817, at Fort Meigs, and a number of them were sold on the same terms of payment as provided in the purchase from the gov- ernment.
Unfortunately they were unable to make the deferred payments to the government when they became due, and Congress passed a special act for their relief, allowing them to retain part of the land. for their down payment upon surrendering the re- mainder. Under this arrangement, the Port Law- rence property was relinquished, including all the lots that had been sold. The territory of Michigan had created a university by the name of the Univer-
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sity of Michigan, and under an act of Congress au- thorizing the location of certain lands for aid to the university, it located these surrendered lands and the title was confirmed by Congress.
Then three of the original purchasers, Martin Baum, William Oliver and Micajah J. Williams, en- tered into negotiations which resulted in their pur- chase of these lands by exchange for other lands in- cluded in the original purchase, Oliver taking title in his own name.
1195075
WAREHOUSE IS BUILT .- Before surrendering this land to the government, the proprietors, in con- nection with Benjamin F. Stickney, built a ware- house on what is now lot two of the Port Lawrence Division, and now covered by the Bostwick & Braun Company building. It was built of logs, was two stories high, and was the occasion of an interesting gathering of people to a "log raising" and with re- freshments and music, games, dancing, etc. The event was duly celebrated by the settlers around Fort Meigs, Perrysburg, Maumee and the vicinity.
Another structure in the vicinity was an old blockhouse, a part of Fort Industry, in the vicinity of what is now the corner of Monroe and Summit Streets, on the riverside, where the present Fort In- dustry block stands.
Among the earliest settlers on this tract were John T. Baldwin and his family, consisting of his wife, four sons and one daughter, who came from Palmyra, in Portage county, Ohio, in February, 1823, and who settled in this warehouse, built in 1817, and lived in it until 1833. Marquis Baldwin, one of the
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sons, never left Toledo except for sixteen years he lived on a farm in Washington township, near To- ledo, and then moved back into the city.
There were many residents on the Maumee river, at Maumee, Perrysburg, Orleans (Fort Meigs), and Miami, but in the territory now occupied by Port Lawrence, the Baldwins were among, although not the earliest permanent residents.
There was, in 1822, a small frame house on Perry Street, between Summit and St. Clair, owned by Joseph Prentice, father of Frederic Prentice, who later became a large landowner here. In this house Frederic was born December 22, 1822, and is sup- posed to be the first white child born in Port Law- rence. His father, above mentioned, was employed by the Port Lawrence proprietors to erect the ware- house previously mentioned, in 1817. Frederic lived to be 93 years old and died in New York in 1915. A log house stood on Superior Street, near the present police station, owned by Joseph Trombley; a hewed log house on Summit Street, near Jefferson, owned and for a time occupied by William Wilson. A part of Fort Industry, with pickets of the fortification ex- tending to Jefferson Street, was still standing in 1823. This statement is of course confined to Port Lawrence. The settlements at Tremainsville, now a part of Toledo, are briefly stated later. Down the river, in what was afterwards known as Stickney's Addition, north of Vistula, was a brick residence on Summit Street, between Bush Street and Stickney Avenue, built and occupied by Benjamin F. Stick- ney. Back from the river on what is now Colling- wood avenue, Noah F. Whitney lived, and Coleman
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