Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. I, Pt. 1, Part 47

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

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round the point of the hill above Deer creek, de- scended northwardly about four hundred feet, and crossing that creek and in a southerly di- rection ascending gradually its western bank, led along the ground, now Symmes street, di- rectly toward Fort Washington, and diverging at the intersection of Lawrence street to the right and left of the Fort, entered the town.

"The river between Columbia and Cincinnati is thus minutely described, not only to give an idea of the former appearances to those who have come to reside here since, but also to ex- plain the statement which Mr. C. gave me. [The statement to Cist is by Mr. Coleman.]

"Spencer, as he tells us in his own narrative, had got on board a canoe at the bank in front of Fort Washington, which was just ready to put off from the shore on the afternoon of the 7th of July. It was a small craft, and hardly fit to accommodate the party, which thus consisted of a Mr. Jacob Light, a Mr. Clayton, Mrs. Cole- man, young Spencer, a boy of 13, and one of the garrison soldiers, which last individual, being much intoxicated, lurched from one side of the canoe to the other, and finally by the time they had got a short distance above Dcer creek, tum- bled out, nearly oversetting the whole party. He then reached the shore, the water not being very deep at the spot. Spencer did not know how to swim, and had become afraid to continue in the canoe, and was therefore at his own re- quest put on shore, where they left the soldier, and the party in the boat and Spencer on shore proceeded side by side. Light propelled the boat forward with a pole, while Clayton sat at the stern with a paddle which he sometimes used as an oar, and sometimes as a rudder, and Mrs. Coleman a woman of fifty years, sat in the middle of the boat. One mile above Deer creek, a party of market people with a woman and child, on board a canoe, passed them on their way to Cincinnati. Light and the others had rounded the point of a small cove less than a mile below the foot of the island, and proceeded a few hundred yards along the close willows here bor- (lering the beach, at about two rods distance from the water, when Clayton looking back, dis- covered the drunken man staggering along the shore, and remarked that he would be 'bait for Indians.' Hardly had he passed the remark wlien two rifle shots from the rear of the wil- lows struck Light and his comrade, causing the latter to fall towards the shore, and wounding the other by a ball glancing from the oar .- The

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two Indians who had fired instantly rushed from their concealment, to scalp the dead, and impede the escape of the living. Clayton was scalped, and Spencer, in spite of all his efforts to get off, was made prisoner, but Light soon swam out of reach of his pursuers ; and Mrs. Coleman who liad also jumped out, preferring to be drowned to falling into the hands of Indians, floated some distance off. The Indians would probably have reloaded and fired, but the report of their rifles brought persons to the opposite shore, and fearing to create further alarm, they decamped with their young prisoner in haste, saying 'squaw must drown.' Light had first made for the Ken- tucky shore, but finding himself drifting under all the exertions he could make in his crippled state, directed his way out on the Ohio side. Mrs. Coleman followed as well as she could by the use of her hands as paddles, and they both got to shore some distance below the scene of these events. Light had barely got out when he fell, so much exhausted that he could not speak, but after vomiting blood at length came to. Mrs. Coleman floated nearly a mile, and when she reached the shore, walked down the path to Cincinnati, crossed Deer creek at its

mouth, holding on to the willows which over- hung its banks-the water there in those . days flowing in a narrow current that might almost be cleared by a spring from one bank to the other. She went direct to Captain Thorp at the artificers' yard, with whose lady she was ac- quainted, and from whom she obtained a change of clothes, and rested a day or two to overcome her fatigue." (Cist's Miscellany, Vol. I, p. 261.)

Mrs. Coleman lived for almost fifty years after this episode.

SPENCER'S CAPTIVITY.

Spencer was captured by a Shawanee Indian and he was soon turned over to one White Loon, the son of a Mohawk chief and was taken to the confluence of the Auglaize and the Maumee, where the Indians sold their furs to a British Indian trader. They crossed over the Maumee to a small bark cabin where Spencer was left in charge of an old squaw, the mother-in-law of his master. The Indians then departed for their homes at a Shawance village on the river about a mile below. The squaw whose name was Cooh-Coo-Cha, was the priestess of the Iroquois tribe. She was esteemed a great medicine woman and was consulted by the Indians on all occasions before going upon any expeditions.

The prominence of his father, Colonel Spencer, who was an intimate friend of the President, caused every effort to be made to re- capture him. The very day of the capture, Gen- eral Wilkinson wrote to Captain Armstrong at Fort Hamilton as follows :

"I send out to apprise you that, this day about noon, a party of savages fired on a party consist- ing of two men, a woman and Col. Spencer's son-about one and a half miles above this, and on this side of the river-one man killed, the other wounded but not mortally, and poor little Spencer carried off a prisoner. I sent out a party who fell in with their trail in Gen. Har- mar's trace about six miles from this, and fol- lowed it on the path about two miles farther, when the men failing with fatigue, the Sergeant was obliged to return-master Spencer's trail was upon the path-this is a farther answer to the pacific overtures, and makes me tremble for your hay. I pray you if possible to redouble your vigilance, and on Monday morning early Captain Peters will march with his company and six wagons to your assistance-send me twenty horses the moment Peters reaches you, and I will be with you next day-in the meantime, your cavalry should scout on both sides of the river, and your rifle men be kept constantly in motion -adieu."

Spencer was subsequently redeemed from cap- tivity on the last day of February, 1793, through the solicitation of the President to the Governor of Canada. The latter instructed Colonel Elliott, the Indian agent, to interpose for his release. He was taken down the Maumee in a pirogue and paddled by two squaws in a canoe along the shore of Lake Erie to Detroit. Here he was taken in a vessel to Erie, Pennsylvania, thence to Forts Chippewa and Niagara, across the wil- derness of New York State to Albany, down the Hudson to New York, and from there by way of Pennsylvania to Cincinnati. The distance traveled by him was over two thousand miles, and the journey occupied two years. Nothing but the prominence of Spencer's family made such a trip possible.

Spencer in his narrative, subsequently pub- lished, described the settlement, afterwards the site of Fort Defiance. He became a clergyman and minister of the Methodist Church and presi- dent of the Miami Exporting Company. His son, Henry E. Spencer, was afterwards mayor of the city.

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DEMOSS.

John Scott Harrison, a son of President Har- rison and father of another President Harrison, in his address at Cleves on September 8, 1866, in speaking of the pioneer life at North Bend gives the following anecdote :

"A party of men residing at the 'Point' (mouth of Big Miami) were returning from a small mill near North Bend, and, with one ex- ception, stopped at the old- log-house, lately oc- cupied by Andrew McDonald, where a tavern was then kept; and as this was before the days of temperance societies, it is a very fair in- ference that they stopped to 'take a drink.' One man (Demoss) more temperate, perhaps, than his fellows, continued on his way up the hill- the trace to the Point then running over the hill, near the old graveyard, and on the bluff of the ridge. The revelers had hardly time to accomplish the object of their stop before the report of a rifle was heard on the hill. The party at the tavern, supposing it was only an intimation from their more sober companion to cease their revels and continue their way home, rushed out of the house, and, with a wild whoop, mounted their horses, and rode up the hill. But what must have been the horror of the party, on arriving at the crown of the hill, to find their. companion dead, and weltering in his blood. The undischarged rifle of Demoss, and the miss- ing meal-bag, too plainly explained the manner and cause of his death. Pursuit was immediate- ly given, in a northwesterly direction, and the meal, but not the Indian found. The Indian, in order to save his own life, had dropped that which had evidently incited him to commit the murder.

"This tale of Indian murder has always had a peculiar personal interest to me. My mother, then unmarried, and living with her father, Judge Symmes, at North Bend, had been on a riding excursion (horseback, of course) to the Point, the very afternoon of this murder, and · has often told me that the horses of her party were still at the door, after their return, when the fatal shot, that killed Demoss, was plainly heard. My mother was always under the im- pression that the Indian saw her party pass, but that bread, rather than blood, was the object of the murderer."

RIFLES IN CHURCHI.

At Columbia the feeling with regard to the Indians was so strong as to induce the settlers to pay for Indian scalps. The sum fixed was

$30 a head. The pioneers were in the habit of organizing for hunting Indians just as they would hunt bears, deer or any other wild ani- mal. There is a tradition that one of the Sabbath meetings at Columbia was broken up and the inhabitants sent home to prepare against an at- tack from the savages by the hurling of a reek- ing scalp torn from the head of an Indian into their midst. At Cincinnati sentinels were posted in the out-lots or at any place where improvements were being made .. A rifle was carried to service by the congregation of the First Presbyterian Church, then located near the corner of Fourth and Main. Any man who failed to bring his rifle was subject to a fine of one hundred cents and Col. John S. Wallace, a well known pioneer, is said to have been obliged to pay this fine for his neglect.

A proclamation of the Secretary of the Ter- ritory on this subject was issued September 18, I792:

"The practice of assembling for public wor- ship without arms, may be attended with most serious and melancholy consequences. It pre- sents the opportunity to an enemy of the small- est degree of enterprise to effect such fatal im- pression upon our infant settlement as posterity might long in vain lament.

"The laws of the Territory have wisely pro- vided that every man enrolled in the militia shall, upon those occasions, arm and equip him- self as though he were marching to engage the enemy, or in default that he shall be fined in the sum of one hundred cents, to be levied upon complaint made to any justice of the peace.

"Although it is incumbent upon every good citizen to represent all violations of this law which shall come to his knowledge, yet it is more immediately the province of the militia officers. They will, therefore, cach and every one of them, from and after the publication of this order, con- sider it their indispensable duty to take cogni- zance of all persons enrolled in the militia who shall assemble for public worship (within their observation or knowledge), deficient in the arms or accouterments required by law, and make report thereof upon oath to a justice of the peace, as soon as may be after such default shall happen."

ELLIOTT.

In 1794, Col. Robert Elliott lost his life at the hands of the Indians. Elliott was a Pennsyl- vanian by birth but at that time lived at Hagers- town, Maryland, In connection with Col. Eli

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Williams of that place he had a contract for the supply of General Wayne's army then preparing for a march to the Indian country. He super- intended the delivery of supplies in person. Ac- companied by a servant he was on his way from Fort Hamilton to Cincinnati on the present Win- ton road. When about four miles out at about the point where the line runs between Hamilton and Butler counties he was fired upon by savages who were lying in ambush along the side of the road. He fell dead from his horse which started on the run back to Hamilton followed by the servant on the other horse. Elliott who was a very large man weighing nearly three hundred pounds wore a wig. One of the Indians who shot him rushed up, drew his knife, took him by the scalp-lock and proceeded to scalp him. To his great surprise the scalp came off at the first touch without any indications of injury caused by its removal. The Indian much disgusted at the imposition exclaimed, "dam lie!" In a few minutes however the Indian party recovered from their astonishment and made great sport of the wig.

The next morning the Colonel's body was boxed up and placed in his own wagon and start- ed. back to Cincinnati for burial. The servant accompanied the body riding the Colonel's horse. At almost the exact spot where Elliott had been killed the day before, the ambushed Indians again fired upon the party and the servant was killed at the first shot. The horse escaped to Hamil- ton for the second time followed by the wagoner. The Indians broke open the box evidently ex- pecting to find within it something of value but upon its contents being discovered it was left and nothing but the wagon horse carried off. Another party from the fort recovered the body and carricd it to Fort Washington and it was then buricd in the usual burying ground at the corner of Fourth and Main streets. Many years later, in 1835, Colonel Elliott's son, Commodore Jesse D. Elliott, while upon a visit to the city had his father's body removed to the new bury- ing ground of the First Presbyterian Church on 12tli street and erected over the grave a tablet to the memory of his father. .

Among the stories collected by Mr. Cist of the early settlers and their contact with the Indians there are some rather amusing ones :

"It was with difficulty horses could be pre- served from being stolen, by all the means of protection to which the settlers could resort.

In the family to which this lady belonged, the halter-chains of the horses were passed through between the logs and fastened to stout hooks on the inside. But neither this precaution nor sccuring them with hobbles, would always serve to protect horses from the savages. On one oc- casion, a fine mare, with her colt, had been left in the rear of the house, in a small inclosure. The mare was taken off by Indians, they having secured her by a stout buffalo tug. It appears they had not noticed the colt in the darkness of the night. As they rode her off, the colt sprang the fence after the mare, and made such a noise galloping after, that, supposing themselves pur- sued, they let the mare go, lest she should im- pede their escape, and the family inside of the house knew nothing of the danger to which they had been exposed, until the buffalo tug told the night's adventure.

"On another occasion, several families, who had settled on the face of the hill, near where Colonel Spencer afterward resided, at a spot called Morristown, from one Morris, the prin- cipal individual in the settlement, had hung out clothes to dry. Early in the evening, a party of Indians, prowling around, made a descent and carried off every piece of clothing left out, nor was the loss discovered until the families were about to retire for the night. Pursuit was made, and the trail followed for several miles, when, arriving at the place where the savages had en- camped, it was found deserted, the enemy being panic-struck, and having abandoned all to effect their escape. The plunder was recovered, but not until the Indians had raveled out the cover- lets to make belts for themselves." (Cist, Cin- cinnati in 1859, pp. 123 and 124.)

DONALSON.

An anecdote told by Israel Donalson in the American Pioneer for December, 1842, is char- acteristic of the life at that time. Donalson had been out surveying with Massie and Lytle four miles above Manchester and was captured by the Indians April 22, 1791. He escaped a few days afterward and reached the Great Miami from which he followed Harmar's trace until he reached Fort Washington. Ile was almost exhausted with his exertions before he reached the river and had almost abandoned hope which he heard the sound of a bell. This stimulated him to greater exertions and finally as he came

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near the river he heard the sound of an ax which was the sweetest music he had heard. for many a day; it was in the extreme out-lot. He crawled over. the fence and approached very cautiously the man who was working, who final- ly heard him and seeing he had no weapon de- manded his name. This man was William Woodward, the founder of Woodward High School. Woodward put Donalson on his horse and took him into the town. As they passed people on the road many thought that he was an Indian for he was in Indian uniform bare- headed with hair cut off close except the sealp and foreloek which they had put up in a piece of tin with a bunch of turkey feathers. This he could not undo. They had also stripped off the feathers of the two turkeys and hung them to the hair of his scalp but these he took off the day before he reached the fort. Woodward took him to his home and provided him with clothing although he could not find a pair of shoes large enough on account of the swollen condition of his feet. What surprised him most was that Woodward slept with him on a palette before the fire. On the next day he was sent for sev- eral times by Gencral Harmar to go to the fort and finally was compelled to go. The exact reason of his hesitation does not appear; possi- bly his condition and appearance and the appar- ent suspicion with which he was regarded were the causes. He states himself that the Gen- eral deliberated about keeping him in custody as a spy. This fact shows the precarious times in which men were then living. Not only the red man alone was an enemy but large numbers of white renegades many of whom had gone to live among the Indians because of crimes committed or from a fondness for the mere laziness of Indian life; others were supposed to have been in the pay of the English.

THE LUDLOW CHILDREN.

The case of John Ludlow, the brother of Israel, illustrates the difficulties of trans- portation endured by the pioneers. On his way from New Jersey he left Red Stone in the year 1792 at the time of the flood which was one of unusual magnitude. He was ac- companied by a trader named McGowan and they traveled on a flat-boat which was loaded with eastings, bar irons and grind stones. Two wagons belonging to Ludlow were swung on

one side of the boat to balance the weight of the horses, oxen and cows on the other side. When the boat reached the lower island of the Three Sisters, it hit a sunken log and sprang a leak and commenced to fill rapidly. The party attempted to pull the boat around to make the island and the bow struck a heap of drift. Thereupon most of the party sprang onto the drift heap leaving the two children of Ludlow, William D. and Elizabeth, aged five and three years respectively, on the roof of the boat where they had climbed to escape the rising water. One of the men immediately cabled the boat to a tree but the strong current struek her with so much force that while she was swinging around the weight was thrown to one side. The roof of the boat came off and floated away with the children on top of it. The boat itself sank and the live stock with the exception of one horse were drowned. Strangely enough the party had neither skiff nor canoe and were unable to go to the rescue of the children. . McGowan ran up the hill to look for help and he saw a flat-boat three miles off and hoisted the signal of distress. On the flat-boat were Jesse Hunt and Joseph Prince. Prinee recognized the signal and wanted to land the boat but Hunt fearing that it was an Indian decoy objected. Prince then took the skiff and with two of the men who were heavily armed rowed near enough to hear McGowan's explanation of the trouble. The party immediately pushed on after the children but were obliged to row 12 miles before over- taking them. Immediately after the children were taken from the roof, it struck a drift heap and was carried under by the current.

MASSIE.

Another episode of Indian life is related by Governor Allen in his speech to the Cincinnati Pioneer Association, delivered at Pike's Opera House on July 4, 1874 :

"Massie was here at your own Fort Washing- ton. In 1792, being a man of some moneyed means, of fine education, a leader of men by nature, with great enterprise and great courage, he concluded that there was some country along the shores of the Little Miami that was worth looking after, and he made up a company at Fort Washington and went up as far as the present city of Xenia. I passed along there the other day, and it would have delighted me to

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have picked out the very spot where the incident happened that I am going to narrate. All was wilderness and all was Indian. But these men wanted to see about that land on the Little Miami, and they went up there, every man with a rifle on his shoulder, of course; and every man that was hired to tomahawk the trees to show where the surveys had been made, every one of them, carried a rifle on his shoulder, and every one of them was not only ready and willing, but rather anxious to get a shot at an Indian. There were no roads in those days, and hardly anything that could be called a path, except now and then a little straight line. Mas- sie started out one morning, but got ahead of his company, with the exception of one man, who followed close behind him. The name of

that man is still very dear to the people of Cin- cinnati, and I am induced to tell the anecdote in order to bring home to the people of Cincin- nati, and especially to the part of it assembled here, an honorable and gallant incident in the history of the life of one of their men. There went Massie along the path, and therc followed this other man, and this other man was none other than Gen. William Lytle. Lytle discov- ered that an Indian from the side bushes was drawing a bead on Massie with his riffc, and, jerking up his own rifle, he drew a bead upon the Indian and shot him down and left Massie. There could not have been a more unfortunate death for the interests of the Western country in the Western country than the death of Massie at that time."

CHAPTER XIX.

THE STATIONS.

LUDLOW'S STATION -THE MANSFIELDS - CUMMINSVILLE - COLERAIN OR DUNLAP'S STATION -THE ATTACK ON DUNLAP'S STATION-THE DEATH OF HUNT-WISEMAN'S ADVENTURES-THE HAHNS -- COVALT'S STATION-THE ATTACK ON WHITE'S STATION-BLOODY RUN-GRIFFIN'S STATION- CAMPBELL'S STATION -- NELSON'S STATION -TUCKER'S AND PLEASANT VALLEY STATIONS - GERARD'S STATION - VOORHEES' STATION - RUNYAN'S STATION - MCFARLAND'S STATION - MERCERSBURGH.

Symmes in his letter to Dayton of May 18, 1789, in a paragraph already quoted, refers to a peculiarity of the settlement of the Miami coun- try which distinguished it from that of Marietta. At Marietta there was one compact settlement in the neighborhood of the fort, Fort Harmar. In the Miami country the settlers more venture- some in their methods formed stations or little villages throughout the neighboring territory some of which were a number of miles from Fort Washington. These stations consisted frequent- ly of but a small number of men living with their families in a single blockhouse or in cabins about a central blockhouse. It is impossible to state which stations were organized first or just how many there were. From the reference just cited, some must already have been established or. at least in contemplation at that time. On April 30th of the next year Symmes writes :

"We have established three new stations some distance up in the country. One is twelve miles up the Big Miami (Dunlap's), the second is five miles up Mill Creek (Ludlow's), and the third is nine miles back in the country from Columbia (Covalt's). These all flourish well. A lad look- ing for cows, was captivated by the Indians a few weeks ago at the Mill Creek station ; otlier- wise not the smallest mischief has been- done to any, except we count the firing by the Indians on our people, mischief, for there have been some

instances of that, but they did no hurt. We have parted with all the fifty donation lots around the city, and I think it highly incumbent on the proprietors to add one fifty more thereto, as people being refused out-lots when they apply, go directly up to the back stations, where they are sure to have them."

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Centennial history of Cincinnati and representative citizens, Vol. I, Pt. 1, Part 47

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