Century history of Youngstown and Mahoning County, Ohio, and representative citizens, 20th, Part 6

Author: Sanderson, Thomas W., comp
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1074

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done in Colonial times was of a nature to justify Rufus Choate's celebrated description of a phase of some dispute arising from this cause: "The commissioners might as well have decided that the line between the States was bounded on the north by a bramble bush, on the south by a bluejay, on the west by a hive of bees in swarming time, and on the east by five hundred foxes with fire-brands tied to their tails."

The establishment of New York as a separ- ate English colony put a new aspect on the claims of Massachusetts and Connecticut as based upon their "sea to sea" charters. There were some disputes, followed by adjustments and readjustments of boundaries, the lines being finally agreed upon in 1773, with some slight modifications, just as they are today. "When the two States were afterward told that by consenting to the lines east of the Hudson they had barred their own charter rights to ex- tend farther west, they replied that the Duke of York's grant was bounded on the west by the Delaware, that he had jumped them, there- fore, only to that limit and that their consent- ing to the fact in no sense barred them west of his boundary."

PURCHASES FROM THE INDIANS.

The grant made to Penn carried to 42 de- grees north, conflicted with the Connecticut charter of 1662, as well as with all others in which Connecticut was interested, and caused uncertainty as to the political jurisdiction and right of soil in a rich and fertile region of more than 5,000,000 acres of lands, west of the Del- aware and between the forty-first and forty- second parallels. In 1753, the Susquehanna Company was organized for the purpose of settling the lands claimed by Connecticut west of New York. In the following year a tract 120 miles in length, from ten miles east of the Susquehanna westward, was purchased by the company from certain Iroquois chiefs. In the same year the Albany Congress, which had been called under authority of the home gov- ernment for the consideration of existing af- fairs in the several colonies, passed resolutions

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declaring the validity of the Massachusetts and Connecticut claims west of the Delaware, and also of the western claims of Virginia. It also devised a practical system for carrying on western colonization. The Delaware Com- pany was soon after organized, which also pur- chased lands from the Indians. In 1768 five townships were organized in the Wyoming Valley by the older company.

CONFLICT WITH PENNSYLVANIA WESTERN RESERVE.

The Pennsylvania proprietors, who had hitherto done nothing but make protests, now purchased from the Indians, at a congress held at Fort Stanwix, all that part of the Province of Pennsylvania not previously purchased them, and this included the whole Connecticut claim. They also began to lease lands in the Connecticut district on the condition that the leasees should defend them against the Con- necticut claimants. The attempts of the lessees to oust the settlers in possession brought on a

skirmish of writs and arrests that has been termed the first Pennamite and Yankee war. It is unnecessary to follow the contest in its sub- sequent details. It was continued under one aspect or another, resort even being had to mil- tary force, until 1775, when the Continental Congress intervened with a remonstrance, which caused both parties to suspend hostil- ities. In 1782 a Federal Court, convened at Trenton, decided against the claims of Con- necticut. This decision applied to the whole Connecticut claim within the charter limits of Pennsylvania. Connecticut made no objection. Keeping in view the fact that Pennsylvania had a definite boundary on the west, she car- ried her stake westward and drove it into the ground five degrees west of the Delaware; "that is, she asserted her right to the strip of land lying between 41 and 42 degrees 2 min- utes west of Pennsylvania to the Mississippi River, which by the treaties of 1763 and 1783 had taken the place of the South Sea as the western boundary. This tract was the West- ern Reserve, and included within its limits what is now Mahoning County.

CHAPTER VI

THE NORTHWEST WRESTED FROM FRANCE

American History Influenced by the Iroquois-Indian Cessions-English Settlers Cross the Mountains-The French Precipitate the War-Pontiac's Conspiracy-Bouquet's Expedition.

One of the most influential factors in de- termining the ultimate triumph of England over France in North America, was the Indian confederacy known as the Six Nations, to which reference has already been made. Both English and French early recognized the im- portance of conciliating these haughty war- riors. In this the former were the more suc- cessful. The French, though usually more tactful than the English in dealing with the aborigines, on several occasions made the mis- take of provoking the people of the "Long House"-a mistake that all subsequent diplom- acy, united to the indefatigable exertions of the missionaries, was unable wholly to rectify. While the Jesuits were giving thanks to God for having at last affected the conversion of these formidable savages, the Iroquois attacked and almost utterly destroyed the friendly Hurons west of the Ottawa. Their incessant forays kept the frontier settlements in a miser- able state of uncertainty and suspense that operated as a powerful check to the execution of French plans for obtaining a solid foothold it the West. It was owing chiefly to the Iro- quois that Lake Erie was the last of the Great Lakes, and the territory now known as Ohio, the very last portion of the Northwest, to be

discovered and explored. After the destruc- tion of the Eries this region was covered by roving bands of Iroquois, and the main body of French immigration was turned aside from the lower lakes to the Ottawa and the Nipis- sing. Could France have gained the friend- ship of the Six Nations, her traders, settlers, and garrisons would have filled the West, "and cut up the virgin wilderness into fiefs, while as yet the colonies of England were but a weak and broken line along the shore of the At- lantic."

The feudal nature of the then existing French scheme of government-a government of officers, not of laws-is clearly shown in a letter of instructions that Colbert wrote to Frontenac in 1672.

"It is well for you to observe that you are always to follow in the government of Canada the forms in use here, and since our kings have long regarded it as good for their service not to convoke the states of the kingdom, in order, perhaps, to abolish insensibly this ancient usage, you on your part should very rarely, or, to speak more correctly, never give a corporate form to the inhabitants of Canada. You should even, as the colony strengthens, suppress gradually the office of the syndic who presents

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

petitions in the name of the inhabitants ; for it is well that each should speak for himself and none for all."

"The Iroquois," says Parkman, "retarded the growth of absolutism until liberty was equal to the final struggle, and they influence our national history to this day, since popu- lations formed in the ideas and habits of a feudal monarchy, and controlled by a hier- archy profoundly hostile to freedom of thought would have remained a hindrance and a stumb- ling block in the way of that majestic experi- ment of which America is the field."

INDIAN CESSIONS.

No sooner had New York been wrested from the Dutch than the English settlers who poured into that province to reap the benefits of the fur trade, which had been established on the Upper Hudson and the Mohawk by their predecessors, set themselves to cultivate good feeling and commercial relations with the people of the six tribes, and they succeeded in winning from them many valuable concessions, "some of which they did, and some of which they did not understand." Sometimes the Iro- quois permitted New York traders to pass through their country to the lakes. Once on the shore of Lake Erie a few days' paddling brought the traders to the extensive beaver grounds of the lower Michigan peninsula.

At a later date it was claimed by the Eng- lish that a treaty had been made by them with the Iroquois, in 1701, whereby the confeder- ated tribes had ceded to the English king all the lands to which they laid claim north of the Ohio, and reaching to the Illinois and Missis- sippi rivers, but the genuineness of this deed has been doubted. Other extensive concessions, however, were actually made by them to the English. In 1684. the Iroquois at Albany placed themselves under the protection of King Charles and the Duke of York; in 1726 they conveyed all their lands in trust to England, to be protected and defended by his majesty to and for the use of the grantors and their heirs."

A more important treaty was that made at

Lancaster, Pa., in 1744, when the deputies of the Iroquois confirmed to Maryland the lands within that province, and made to Vir- ginia "a deed that covered the West as effectu- ally as the Virginian interpretation of the charter of 1609. Says Hinsdale, "It gave the English their first treaty hold upon the West, and it stands in all the statements of the Eng- lish claim to the country, side by side with the Cabot voyages. Again at Albany, in 1748. the bonds binding the Six Nations and the English together were strengthened, and at the same time the Miamis were brought within the covenant chain. In 1750-54, negotiators were busy with attempts to draw to the English in - terest the Western tribes. Council fires burned at Logstown, at Shawneetown, and the Picka- willany, and generally with results favorable to the English."

ENGLISH SETTLERS CROSS THE MOUNTAINS.

In 1748 there began a general movement of Pennsylvanians and Virginians across the mountains. Kentucky and Tennessee were explored by a Virginian expedition under com- inand of Dr. Thomas Walker. About the same time the Ohio Company was formed for the purpose of speculating in western lands and carrying the trade with the Indians. Ad- venturous traders and backwoodsmen extended their excursions farther and farther into the Western wilds, and soon the Indian town of Pickawillany, on the upper waters of the Mi- ami, became a great center of English trade and influence. The growing interest in the West was evinced also by the fact that the Colonial authorities in every direction were seeking to obtain Indian titles to Western lands and to bind the Indians to the English by treaties.

THE FRENCH PRECIPITATE THE WAR.

Céloron de Bienville, who in 1749, was sent by Galissoniere, Governor of Canada, to take possession of the valley of the Ohio and propi- tiate the Indians, found the valley full of Eng- lish traders, and the Indians generally well dis-

HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY

posed to the English. The conflict which was to decide "whether French of English ideals and tendencies were to have sway in North America" was now recognized by all to be close at hand. France took the initiative. Early in 1753, before the English Colonial governments had agreed upon any concerted plan of action, the Marquis Duquesne, who had succeeded Galissoniere as Governor of Canada, and who realized the need of prompt action, sent a strong force to seize and hold the northeastern branches of the Ohio. The party constructed two forts, one at the confluence of French Creek and the Allegheny River. This called forth a remonstrance from Governor Din- widdie of Virginia, the messenger being George Washington, who thus makes his first appearance in history. The French officer greets Washington with all the politeness and suavity of his nation, but returns the unsatis- factory reply that he will refer the matter to Quebec, and in the meantime proposes to hold his ground. This was in December. Early in the following year-1754-a small force of Virginians was sent to seize and fortify the forks of the Ohio-the key to the West. Before the works, which should have been built sev- eral years before, could be completed, they were seized and demolished by a large force of French, who had descended the Allegheny, and who proceeded to build a much stronger fort, which they called Fort Dusquesne. "This was an unmistakable act of war, and it pre- cipitated at once the inevitable contest." It is unnecessary here to follow the long struggle through all its shifting scenes. Though the French gained some early successes, the most important being the terrible defeat they in- flicted on the headstrong Braddock, Tuly 7, 1755, they were unable long to retain the ad- vantage. In the summer of 1758 the current changed. Though the expedition under com- mand of General John Forbes, undertaken for the capture of Fort Duquesne, received a tem- porary set-back, in the severe defeat sustained by Grant, who, hurrying forward too rapidly with the vanguard of Scotch Highlanders, had left his support behind, the object of the ex- pedition was fully attained. On the advance

of the main army, the French evacuated the fort and fled. Forbes, who had conducted the campaign while incapacitated from illness to such an extent that he had to be carried most of the time in a litter, took possession of the fort and called the spot Pittsburg, after the great English minister. Placing an officer in command, he left for Philadelphia, where he died in March of the following year, contented in his last hours to know that, in spite of his feebleness, he had been able to restore the red flag to the Great Valley. The capture of Ni- agara by General Prideaux and Sir William Johnson, in 1759, secured the victory of Forbes, and Fort Pitt was safe. Quebec fell in September of the same year, and the end came a year later at Montreal, when after some desultory operations, Vaudreuil, commander of the remaining French forces, surrendered to General Amherst. By the terms of his capitulation not only Montreal, but Canada and all its dependencies came into possession of the British Crown. The treaty of Utrecht, 1763, left the French substantially nothing of their vast empire in America east of the Mis- sissippi, save the town of New Orleans and a small strip of land at the mouth of the Great River.

PONTIAC'S CONSPIRACY.

The defeat of Braddock in the early part of the war, let loose swarms of bloodthirsty sav- ages against the frontier settlements of Vir- ginia and Pennsylvania, who kept up their murderous raids, with but few intermissions, for many years thereafter. They seem to have had some provocation in the numerous un- authorized frontier settlements made by vag- rant and vicious whites, who debauched them with rum while cheating them out of their lands and destroying their hunting grounds. The Indians who were not parties to the treaty of 1763, felt that they had far more to fear from the English than from the French. The news that France had ceded so large a part of North America. including the Indian lands, to Great Britain, drove them to desperation. Pontiac, chief of the Ottawas, one of the

GEN. GEORGE ROGERS CLARK

GEN. ANTHONY WAYNE

GEN. WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON

GEN. ARTHUR ST. CLAIR

GEN. JOSIAH HARMAR

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strongest and most influential of the western tribes, organized a formidable conspiracy against the whites, in which he was joined by the Ojibways, the Pottawattamies, and to a certain extent by some other tribes. In May, 1763, a simultaneous attack was made upon all the forts and frontier settlements from Penn- sylvania to Lake Superior. The settlers, unpre- pared, were everywhere slaughtered in great numbers; two thousand are said to have been killed along the borders outside the armed posts. Every white man was driven from the upper Ohio and its tributaries, all the posts along the river were destroyed, and the savage foe even swept through unguarded passes of the mountains. Some of the smaller forts were also taken and their garrisons massacred.

BOUQUET'S EXPEDITION.

When the extent of the calamity became known, a military force of regulars and pro- vincials was organized to relieve the garrisons and subdue the Indians. It was placed under charge of Colonel Henry Bouquet, a man of high character and ability, who had taken an important part in the war and in some of the events leading up to it. Though delayed and harrassed by the Pennsylvania authorities, who had raised a force for the borders, but re- fused to place it under his control, he at last started with about 1,500 men. He first en- countered the enemy at Bushy Run, twenty- six miles from Fort Pitt, and gained some ad- vantages, though at the loss of about sixty men. On the next day the battle was renewed, and ended in the utter rout of the Indians, who proved to be a mixed force of Delawares, Shawnees, Wyandots and Mingoes. By the IIth of August Bouquet, who had lost alto- gether 115 men, reached Fort Pitt, which had successfully stood a siege of five days. All the other forts in the West, except that at Detroit, had been either captured by the enemy or abandoned.

Bouquet's victory had for a time a quieting effect upon the Indians, though during the autumn small parties continued to commit depredations along the Virginia frontier. It

was known that the Indians had been supplied with ammunition by the French, who thus sought to thwart the English and gain the friendship of the savages, with the view of establishing settlements beyond the Mississippi. The next year General Thomas Gage, who had succeeded General Amherst in the command of the English forces in America, planned a cam- paign against the Indians, putting Colonel Bouquet in charge of all the regular forces in Philadelphia and south of it. These, accom- panied by militia, were to be pushed into the Mississippi region, while another expedition, under Colonel Bradstreet, was to make a west- ern advance in the direction of Sandusky.

Bradstreet was deluded by the Shawnees and Delawares into making a worthless treaty, a scheme devised by them to escape punish- ment. This treaty they had no intention of honoring, the Delawares, after signing it, con- tinuing to ravage the frontiers. Bradstreet, however, relieved the weary garrison at De- troit, and sent forward detachments to take possession of Mackinac, the Sault, and Green Bay.

Bouquet, a man of very different caliber, after losing some time, owing to the apathy of the local authorities, pushed at last into the wilderness to "force peace of his own imposing which should relieve the regions east and south of the Ohio of the tribes, and preserve the navigation of the Ohio itself. He had ad- vanced into the Muskingum Valley, when on the 17th of November, the Indians about thought it wise to sue for peace." Bouquet would make no terms until every prisoner among them was surrendered. "I give you," said he, "twelve days from this date to deliver into my hands at Wakatamake all the prisoners in your possession, without any exception- Englishmen, Frenchmen, women, and children, whether adopted into your tribes, married, or living amongst you under any denomination and pretense whatsoever-together with all negroes. And you are to furnish said prison- ers with clothing and provisions, and horses to carry them to Fort Pitt. When you have fully complied with these conditions, you shall then know on what terms you may obtain the peace

HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY

you sue for." It took the Indians nearly a month to collect the prisoners, who numbered eighty-one males and 125 women and children. The scene at the camp on the arrival of these unfortunates is thus described in the account of Bouquet's expedition (Ohio History Series) : "In the camp were to be seen fathers and mothers recognizing and clasping their long lost babes, husbands hanging around the necks of their newly recovered wives, sisters and brothers unexpectedly meeting together after long separation, scarce able to speak the same language, or for some time to be sure that they were children of the same parents. In all these interviews joy and rapture inexpressible were seen, while feelings of very different nature were painted in the looks of others flying from place to place in eager inquiries after relatives not found; trembling to receive an answer to their questions; distracted with doubts, hopes and fears, on obtaining no ac- count of those they sought for, or stiffened into living monuments of horror and woe on learn- ing their unhappy fate.

"The Indians, too, as if wholly forgetting their usual savageness, bore a capital part in · heightening the most affecting scene. They delivered up their beloved captives with the utmost reluctance, shed torrents of tears over them, recommending them to the care and pro- tection of the commanding officer. Their re- gard to them continued all the time they re- mained in camp. They visited them from day

to day, and brought them what corn, skins and horses and other matters they had bestowed on thern while in their families, accompanied with other presents, and with all the marks of the most sincere and tender affection. Nay, they did not stop here, but, when the army marched, some of the Indians solicited and obtained leave to accompany their former captives all the way to Fort Pitt, and employed themselves in hunting and bringing provisions for them on the road. A young Mingoe carried this still further, and gave an instance of love which would make a figure even in romance. A young woman of Virginia was among the captives, for whom he had formed so strong an attach- ment as to call her his wife. Against all re- monstrances and warnings of the imminent danger to which he exposed himself by ap- proaching the frontiers, he persisted in follow- ing her at the risk of being killed by the surviv- ing relations of many unfortunate persons who had been captured or scalped by those of his nation." Among the forest exiles was one who had given birth to an offspring supposed to be the first white child born in what is now the State of Ohio. Hoving imposed his terms, Bouquet broke up his camp and marched to Fort Pitt, which he reached on the 28th of December. When subsequently congratulated by Sir William Johnson on his success, he re- marked, "Nothing but penetrating into their country could have done it."

CHAPTER VII

THE TRANSITION PERIOD --- FROM WAR TO WAR

English Jealousy of the Colonics-Lord Dunmore's War -Frontier Characters - First White Man's House in Ohio-Military Expeditions to the West-Martial Law-George III Forbids Western Settlement.

Owing to a growing jealousy of the col- onies, the policy of the home government in re- gard to the settlements west of the mountains was shifting and inconsistent. In 1769 the Ohio Company, whose purposes had been thwarted by the war, was absorbed in a scheme in which Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin and others were interested, to establish a west- ern colony on the south side of the Ohio River. It was opposed by Lord Hillsborough, presi- dent of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, who affirmed that the great object of the North American colonies was to "improve and extend the commerce, navigation and manufactures of England." Shore col- onies he approved because they fulfilled this condition; inland colonies he condemned be- cause they would not fulfill it. It was his opinion that the king should take every means to check the progress of the western settle- ments, and should not make grants of land that would have an immediate tendency to en- courage them."

These utterances called forth such a crush- ing reply from Franklin that the Walpole peti- tion was granted, and Lord Hillsborough re- signed in disgust. His opinions, however, were shared by many in England, who saw in the growing strength of the colonies a future

menace to the commercial interests of Great Britain. Some were even in favor of restoring Canada to the French in exchange for the island of Gaudeloupe, with the idea that a French establishment in Canada would serve to hold the colonies in check. For the present the western frontier continued to be a wilder- ness inhabited chiefly by wandering Indian tribes, and the almost equally savage white traders, whom Franklin described in a letter to George Whitefield in 1756, as "the most vicious and abandoned wretches of our nation." These men, regardless alike of honor. conscience, or even common prudence, and eager only for gain and the gratification of their lawless instincts, were responsible for many of the Indian uprisings which for so long afflicted the western settlements. In shudder- ing over the horrid cruelties inflicted by the Indians upon their prisoners, it should be re- membered that their acts were often the result of almost equally fiendish excesses on the part of white ruffians, some of them clothed with authority which they were wholly unfit to exercise.

LORD DUNMORE'S WAR.

Thus, to glance briefly ahead of the story. Lord Dunmore's War. in 1774, which caused

HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY

the murder of many settlers along the Virginia frontier, as well as a great slaughter in battle of both whites and Indians, was directly pro- voked by the wanton murder of some peaceful Indians, with their families, by Captain Cresap, commander at Fort Fincastle. In this detest- able act he was imitated by one Daniel Great- house, who, at the head of a bloody gang of ruffians, treacherously slaughtered a party of Indians encamped near the mouth of Yellow Creek, having first taken the precaution to make them intoxicated. Among the victims were the entire kin of Chief Logan, of the Cayugas, who, from an influential advocate of peace, was thus converted into a determined enemy of the whites in Virginia. Bald Eagle, another friend of the pale faces, while alone in the woods near the Monongahela, was mur- dered by three white men, who "placed the life- less body of the native in a sitting position in his canoe and sent it adrift down the stream." The war which followed, and which was par- ticipated in by several tribes, was brought to an end after the Indians had been defeated in a great battle by Lord Dunmore, who was more than suspected of having instigated it. He made a treaty with the Indians in which they acknowledged the Ohio River as the boundary between the white man's territories and their own hunting grounds.

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Century history of Youngstown and Mahoning County, Ohio, and representative citizens, 20th, Part 6

Author: Sanderson, Thomas W., comp Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1074

Author: Sanderson, Thomas W., comp
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1074