Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. I, Pt. 1, Part 13

Author: Greve, Charles Theodore, b. 1863. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1020

USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. I, Pt. 1 > Part 13

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

"ties were interested in the Fort Stanwix con- :ence and all disgusted with the result. The "virginians gained the whole of Kentucky but were limited by the Ohio River. In spite of the complaints the King approved of the treaty in September, 1769, except as to

some private grants to Croghan and others. The various land companies immediately became more active. The Walpole Company, represented by Franklin. urged its petition with success. Its offer to repay the crown the amount paid for the whole coun- try, of which this grant was to be a part, together with certain quit rents and the promise to bear the expenses of the civil government, was accepted August 14, 1772. The Mississippi Company, composed of forty-nine Virginians, including George Washington, made application for lands but was unsuccessful.

The only real result, however, of all this ex- citement about royal grants, seemed to be to arouse the Indians beyond the Ohio because of their being ignored in behalf of the Six Nations. The settlers who were moving in paid little at- tention to the Indians or to companies or to royal grants and as a result the matter settled down to a fight to last twenty years in which the Indians endeavored to save at least the lands of the Ohio itself.

The Shawances took a leading part in the con- flicts on both sides of the river and at a confer- ence of the Western tribes held at the Scioto

plains in 1771 and the two following years they tried to reunite the tribes in the war of extermin- ation against the English. Johnson made every effort to conciliate them and had some success with the tribes of the far West, but the tribes in the Ohio country were relentless. Their feeling against the colonists continued during the Revo- lutionary War, and was largely the result of what they regarded as the injustice done at Fort Stan- wix and subsequent thereto.

DUNMORE'S WAR-LOGAN.

This conflict in regard to the various lines and the rights of the different States had much to do with Dunmore's War, which broke out against the Shawances in 1774. The particular occasion of this was an attack made by some Cherokee Indians upon three of Butler's traders. Dr. Connolly, a nephew of Croghan but a creature of Dunmore and for years afterwards a bitter enemy of the settlers in the West, who was at that time having a contest with the Pennsyl- vanian traders who were at the forks of the Ohio, took this occasion to call upon the Virginians to hold themselves in readiness to repel and attack the hostile Shawances. This was given as an excuse for collecting a force of militia with which he could intimidate Pennsylvania and maintain the sovereignty of Virginia beyond the Ohio and incidentally to despoil the Indians. A number of adventurers of all kinds, including hunters and grabbers, had assembled at the mouth of the Kanawha. Among them was a famous frontiersman, Michael Cresap, the son of Wash- ington's frontier friend and partner in the Ohio Company's venture. Another one of the number was a young man of great spirit and daring, George Rogers Clark, who was looking after a grant which he had obtained. At this spot Ebe- nezer Zane had squatted in 1769 and at this time there were a number of other houses, all of squatter settlers, clustering about those of Zane. These people were wholly irresponsible and in- clined to believe any exaggerated story. Zane himself was a man of prudence and Cresap is now regarded as a leader of a fair amount of caution and of good intentions. The alarm, however, caused by the Indians was so great that the settlers were passing eastward in great numbers, as many as a thousand crossing the Monongahela in one day. Stories of all sorts were told of the Indian outrages and outrages committed by the whites were also attributed to the red men. Some men of Cresap's company ambushed and killed

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF CINCINNATI

two Shawanees who had been employed by But- ler to recover his stolen goods from the Chero- kees. This outrage aroused the traders to further indignation and it was planned to go to the mouth of the Big Beaver and there attack the camp of Logan. This determination was aban- doned for the time, but towards the close of April ten Indians, including a number of Logan's fam- ily who had crossed the Ohio to get rum, were butchered in cold blood while drunk. Cresap at the time was charged with this deed and Logan held him responsible for it in the cele- brated speech, regarded by Mr. Jefferson "as challenging whole orations of Demosthenes and Cicero or any more eminent orator, if Europe has furnished any, to produce a passage superior to it.". It has since been pretty well established that Cresap had no connection with these mur- ders, but that they had been committed by one Greathouse and a party of twenty men under him. Indian runners spread the news of the massacre and Logan was soon on the war-path. Logan himself was a Mingo chief living among the Shawances and had long been a friend of the English. In the campaign which followed some of the most renowned frontiersmen took part. Besides Gen. Andrew Lewis there were Daniel Morgan, George Rogers Clark, William Craw- ford, Simon Kenton and Simon Girty. Pennsyl- vania held itself aloof from the war, leaving to Virginia the entire burden of conquering the savages.

Lord Dunmore's army was divided into two sections and included some of the most experi- enced and stalwart Indian fighters of the time. On October roth General Lewis' section, includ- ing eleven hundred men, was attacked at Point Pleasant by a large force of Indians under the Shawance chief, Cornstalk. In the battle, which continued for the entire day, one-fifth of the whites were killed or wounded, while the Indians lost but forty. The Indians had come upon the whites without warning, having evaded scouts who had been looking for them for four days. At dark they retired as noiselessly as they had come, unwilling to suffer the loss of any more comrades even to achieve ultimate success. Lewis marched to join Dunmore, who was at Sipo creek, a tributary of the Scioto near the line between Ross and Pickaway counties. The Indians there made a proposition of peace. Logan, however, sulked in his tent and was sent for by Lord Dun- more to join the conference. Simon Girty, the messenger, failed to bring him and then Colonel

Gibson went for him. He brought back the cele- brated speech. "I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry and he gave him not mcat, if ever he came cold and naked and he clothed him not? During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his cabin, an advocate of peace. Such was my love for the whites that my coun- trymen pointed as they passed and said Logan is the friend of the white man. I had even thought to have lived with him but for the in- juries of one man. Colonel Cresap last spring in cold blood and unprovoked murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country I rejoice at the beams of peace; but do not harbor a thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.".

Eloquent as was this speech it did injustice to Cresap, who was not within fifty miles of the place of the murder when it was committed. Logan, however, joined with Cornstalk in as- senting to the peace, determined upon according to the Indian custom by the majority of the council and Lord Dunmore returned to Vir- ginia to receive the praise that belongs to the conqueror. As a matter of fact the charge has been made that the whole expedition was in- tended to arouse the savages against the colonists in the war with the mother country, which every- one realized was impending. The officers, how- ever, passed a vote of respect for Dunmore, who they were confident "underwent the great fatigue of this singular campaign from no other motive than the true interest of his country." It is not unworthy of notice, however, that the first para- graph of the resolution adopted on the banks of the Ohio, November 5, 1774, was as follows : "Resolved, that we will bear the most faithful allegiance to his Majesty, King George the Third . whilst his Majesty delights to reign over a free people ; that we will at the expense of life and every thing dear and valuable exert ourselves in support of the honor of his crown and the dig- nity of the British empire. But as the love of liberty and attachment to the real interests and just rights of America outweigh every other con- sideration, we resolve that we will cxert every

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

power within us for the defence of American liberty, and for the support of her just rights and privileges ; not in any precipitate, riotous or tumultuous manner, but when regularly called forth by the unanimous voice of our country- men.'

Captain Cresap in the following year marched with a company of backwoodsmen across the Alleghanies and joined Washington at Cam- bridge. His health, however, was such as to make it necessary for him to leave the army and on his journey west he died at New York and was buried with honors in Trinity Church- yard.

THE QUEBEC ACT.

The Dunmore War may have been a trick either of England or Virginia, but it conquered for the time a peace which opened up the West- ern country for settlement; these settlements founded by the men who subscribed this pledge of independence served as a barrier between the Colonies and the savages of the Northwest dur- ing the war that was to follow. During this campaign Parliament had passed an act known as the Quebec act, by which the whole country bounded by the Ohio, Mississippi and the lakes west of the west line of Pennsylvania was an- nexed and made part of the Province of Quebec.

The purpose of this act, which was passed June 22, 1774, was to extend the boundaries and government of Quebec so as to include the French at Kaskaskia, on the Wabash and at Detroit, and also to provide for the people at Quebec, who were almost entirely French Catholics, a gov- ernment applicable to their religion and their manner of life and thought. By its terms it ex- tended to all inhabitants of the province the free exercise and the enjoyment of the tenets of the Church of Rome and also provided for a govern- ment in accordance with French methods which at that time were opposed especially to the prin- ciple of popular representatives and trial by jury. The outcry against the act both in England and America was astonishing, particularly when viewed in the light of modern ideas. It simply carried out the principles of religious and political liberty and was a fulfillment of the promise of the King made in 1763. However, it was de- nounced as arbitrary, dangerous, eruel, oppressive, odious and "destructive of that liberty which ought to be the ground work of every constitu- tion," by Lord Chatham himself. It was op- posed on other grounds by Colonel Barre, Charles James Fox, Edmund Burke and the

Lord Mayor and Magistrates of London. In the course of a discussion as to the abandonment of trial by jury, Sir Guy Carleton testified that the French Canadians thought it "very strange that the English residing in Canada should pre- fer to have matters of law decided by tailors and shoemakers mixed up with respectable gentle- men in trade and commerce; that they should refer their decision to that of a judge." He also stated that there were at that time, in 1770, in Canada, about three hundred and sixty men who claimed to be Protestants, while the Roman Catholics numbered one hundred and fifty thou- sand.

The passage of this aet was made a subject of complaint in the Declaration of Independence, where among the repeated injuries and usurpa- tions of the King of Great Britain is cited the giv- ing of his assent to acts "for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for in- troducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies."

At any rate whatever may have been the motive it is hard at this date to criticise the sound statesmanship of the Quebec act so far as it referred to the Province of Quebec in Canada. By its terms Ohio was added to Canada again and remained a part of that section until the treaty of independence in 1783. The connection was, however, simply nominal, as there seems to have been no effort to assert any civil or military authority over the Northwest Territory by either the French, English or Americans.

THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

During the War of the Revolution the cam- paigns in the Northwest were in the main those conducted by George Rogers Clark against the Indians and their English allies. Under the Quebec act Detroit was made the capital of the territory northwest of the Ohio and was the seat of the English power during the war. Henry Hamilton was the lieutenant-governor and super- intendent and it was to him that the news of the Declaration of Independence came in a copy of the Pennsylvania Gasette, July 24, 1776. The . paper had been brought to Detroit by the Dela- ware chief, Captain White Eyes, who appeared with a letter, a string and a belt, soliciting the Western Indians to attend a conference at Pitts- burg in the interest of the colonists. Some two

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF CINCINNATI

years later Baubin and Lorimer, two French- men, appeared at Detroit at the head of some fourscore Shawanee Indians and a large number of captives. They had made a raid through the Miami slaughter house up the Kentucky River and had come upon Daniel Boone and twenty-six others making salt at the salt licks. They cap- tured them without the loss of a man and after a long trip through the Indian country had brought them to the English commandant.

Boone, at that time forty-four years of age, and the leader of the pioneers in the Kentucky country, made a marked impression both upon the Indians and Hamilton. According to his own account he was treated by the latter with great humanity. "During our travels the Indi- ans entertained me well; and their affection for me was so great that they utterly refused to leave me there with the others, although the gov- ernor offered them fioo sterling for me on purpose to give me a parole to go home. Several English gentlemen there, being sensible of my adverse fortune and touched with human sym- pathy, generously offered me a friendly supply for my wants, which I refused, with many thanks for their kindness, adding that I never expected it would be in my power to recompense such un- merited generosity." (Filson's Boone.)

After five months' captivity, Boone, having heard that the Indians were about to attack Boonsborough, succeded in making his escape. He traveled one hundred and sixty miles in five days with but one meal during the whole trip and succeeded in warning his friends.

In the summer of this year, June 17, 1778, a great council of Indians, including every im- portant tribe of the Northern Indians, met at Detroit. With them were the Indian agents, Hay and Alexander McKee, and the notorious Simon Girty.

Girty and his two brothers, James and George, were the sons of an Irishman who formerly made his home on the banks of the Susquehanna and , engaged in Indian trade. The father was killed in a drunken spell by an Indian named "The Fish" and the Indian was then killed by one John Turner, who thereupon married Girty's widow.

The entire family were taken prisoners in 1756 and Turner was tortured to death in the presence of his family. The three sons were separated among the Indians, Simon being adopted by tlie Senecas, James by the Shawanees and George by the Delawares. During their Indian life they became accustomed to witnessing scenes of the

most horrible torture. In time no Indian could cqual them in barbarity.

Three years later as a result of the treaty of Easton in 1756, they came together again and made their headquarters at Pittsburg. By reason of their knowledge of the Indian dialect and their acquaintance with the different tribes they were much used as interpreters. Simon Girty was one of Lord Dunmore's scouts and afterwards re- ceived a commission in the Virginia militia. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War he first attached himself to the Americans, but his loyalty was soon suspected and after a short time he became associated with Sir William Johnson and Alexander McKee, whose position as crown deputy had also placed him under suspicion. At the end of March, 1778, these two, together with Matthew Elliott, another Irish trader, escaped to Detroit and cast their lot with the British. From this time the names of Girty, McKee and Elliott were associated in the minds of the set- tlers with the most terrible cruelties practiced by the savages along the border.

The council of Indians at Detroit, which has been just referred to, opened with prayer, after which Hamilton congratulated the Indians on the number of their prisoners and the far greater number of scalps they had taken. Every artifice was used to arouse the passion of these savages against the whites who were in revolt and the party separated after a riotous feast. Despite the congratulations of Hamilton and his feeling of security he was to hear in a few days of Clark's wonderful expedition against Kaskaskia, which he entered at the head of a handful of troops on the evening of July 4, 1778.

GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.

After Dunmore's War, Clark had cast his lot with Kentucky. Early in 1778 he had been able . to obtain authority from Governor Patrick Henry to make an attempt to gain the Northwest for the Americans. Gathering together such volunteers as he could, about one hundred and seventy-five in all, he started on his campaign to extend the limits of the American Colonies far beyond any point claimed by them before that time. Kas- kaskia was completely surprised while the Brit- ish were engaged at a ball when Clark entered the place. His treatment of the people was so tactful that they volunteered to go with his party to Cahokia. It surrendered immediately upon the approach of his force under Major Bowman. Vincennes, too, yielded immediately, largely as

المعب المناسبة

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

the result of the intercession of a priest, Father Gibault. 'On October 17, 1778, Virginia, as a re- sult of Clark's conquest, established the county of Illinois, embracing all the charter limits of the Colony west of the Ohio River.

Hamilton at Detroit was stunned by Clark's success and called upon Veteran Langlade to arouse the Indians. As a result in the campaign which followed Captain Helm, who had been left in charge at Vincennes, surrendered that post to Hamilton on December 17th, without firing a shot as a defense would have been use- less. The campaign that followed, as a result of which Clark retook Vincennes, is one of the most remarkable cpisodes in American history. It has been a favorite story with historians and also with writers of romance. On February 5, 1779, the miniature army of one hundred and seventy men had set out from Kaskaskia to cap- ture a British commander in a fortified fort well supplied for a sicge, with a garrison at least equal to one-half of the number of the attacking party. A large part of their march was through water up to their waists. For periods of more than two days at a time they would be without food of any kind. Vincennes was completely surprised and on the night of the 23rd Hamilton heard the shots of the besicgers. After some parley, Hamilton was obliged to surrender on February 25th, and a salute of thirteen guns was fired from the fort by Clark in honor of the Col- onies. It seems unfortunate that Hamilton, who had treated Boone so well, should have been treated with so little generosity. He was sent to Williamsburg, a distance of twelve hundred miles, with other prisoners, and the uncomfort- able journey lasted almost three months. The latter part of his journey was in irons. He was kept in confinement for nineteen months and was not paroled until October 10, 1780. The reason for this cruelty was the wide-spread belief in his guilt of buying Virginia scalps from the Indians. The English retained possession at Detroit and although Clark made many plans to attack this post he was never able to carry them out. Dur- ing the remainder of the war the Northwest coun- try remained a neutral ground so far as the prin- cipal combatants were concerned. The subse- quent expeditions by Clark and others up the Miamis and through the West were against the Indians.

. While Clark was occupied in the Illinois coun- try the colonists were engaged in an expedition which was raised at Pittsburg, for the purpose

of marching against the Indians in the neighbor- hood of the British fort at Sandusky and possi- bly to cooperate in an attack upon Detroit. Gen. Lachlan McIntosh, a Scotchman about fifty years of age, was assigned to command at Fort Pitt. Here McIntosh in September, 1778, at- tempted to conciliate with presents the Dela- wares, among whom the Moravians had already established themselves. The Shawanees in the lower valleys of the Great and Little Miamis and Scioto, were rather friendly to the English and the upper waters of these same streams were held by the hostile Mingoes. Beyond these on the Sandusky were the Wyandots, very un- certain in their sympathies, and the Ottawas on the Maumee, who were devoted to the Brit- ish cause. McIntosh made some slight headway with these Indians at a conference and received the consent of the Shawances to pass through their country. This conference, however, had caused much delay and the scason for an active campaign passcd without result. Accordingly, he began the ercction of the fort on the north bank of the Ohio, thirty miles bclow Fort Pitt, near the mouth of Beaver creek, at which, called Fort McIntosh, he established his headquarters on October 18, 1778. This was the first fort built north of the Ohio River and was in a good posi- tion to assist the settlements already extending to the Muskingum and up that river. His delay in building this stronghold, which was called by his successor, Brodhead, "a romantic fort," has since been regarded as the cause of the failure of his campaign in its main object,-the capturc of Detroit. 'At length he pushed westward with twelve hundred men over Bouquet's route until he reached the Upper Muskingum or Tuscara- was, where he arrived November 19, 1778, after making but fifty milcs in a fortnight. He had not met the Indians, but fearing the danger of surprisc, he erccted a stockade on the west bank of the Tuscarawas near the site of the modern Bolivar and close to a spot where Bouquet had built a stockade some distance above a Moravian settlement. This he named Fort Laurens, after the president of Congress. A slight embankment to-day marks the site of this fort, which was the first erccted in Ohio, with the exception of those near the lake shore.

McIntosh describes his so-called invasion in a letter to Washington, in the year following :

"A letter by express from Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell, a little afterward, informed me that no supplics came yet, and we had very little to

CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF CINCINNATI

expect during the winter, nor could he get the staff to account for, or give any reasons for their neglect and deficiencies, which disappointed all my flattering. prospects and schemes, and left me no other alternative than either to march back as I came without effecting any valuable pur- pose, for which the world would justly reflect upon me after so much expense, and confirm the savages in the opinion the enemy inculcates of our weakness, and unite all of them to a man against us; or to build a strong stockade fort upon the Muskingum, and leave as many men as our provisions would allow to secure it until the next season, and to serve as a bridle upon the savages in the heart of their own country ; which last I chose with the unanimous approbation of my principal officers, and we were employed upon it while our provisions lasted." It is not remarkable that a man capable of such an un- conscionably long sentence as this was unable to accomplish any results.

McIntosh put Colonel Gibson of the Thirteenth Virginia regulars in command of the post with a force of one hundred and fifty men and in December returned to Fort Pitt. During the winter the garrison at Fort Laurens had but lit- tle trouble; in the spring they began to suffer from the artifices of the savages. At one time the Indians stole the horses of the fort. and took off their bells which they jangled along the path in the woods. Some men were sent out. from the fort to bring in the horses and of these, sixteen in number, fourteen were killed on the spot and the other two captured. In the even- ing the Indians who were under the command of Simon Girty paraded past the fort in war paint and feathers, over eight hundred in num- ber, including Iroquois, Delawares and Sha- wances. After they had indulged in all sorts of antics in celebration of their victory in full view of the garrison, they disappeared. Colonel Gib- son, thinking that they had left the neighbor- hood, concluded to send a dozen invalids, under the escort of fifteen soldiers, back to Fort Pitt. This party was ambushed within two miles of the fort and but four escaped. The blockade con- tinued for about a month, at the end of which time McIntosh, with a relief party of seven hundred men, came to their aid. As the pack- horses carrying supplies came within hearing of the welcoming salute fired from the fort they took fright and carried the provisions off into the woods so that they were not recovered. The garrison had reached the point of living on raw hides and roots.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. I, Pt. 1, Part 13

Author: Greve, Charles Theodore, b. 1863. cn Publication date: 1904 Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1020

Author: Greve, Charles Theodore, b. 1863. cn
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1020