Commemorative historical and biographical record of Wood County, Ohio : its past and present : early settlement and development biographies and portraits of early settlers and representative citizens, etc. V. 1, Part 4

Author: Leeson, M. A. (Michael A.) cn; J.H. Beers & Co. cn
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 1060

USA > Ohio > Wood County > Commemorative historical and biographical record of Wood County, Ohio : its past and present : early settlement and development biographies and portraits of early settlers and representative citizens, etc. V. 1 > Part 4

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The scarcely hunted fur-bearing animal -.

WOOD COUNTY, OHIO.

beaver, otter, coon, mink and muskrat, swarmed through all the region, and only waited the hunter and trader to develop a profitable business, sure of a quick return and not dependent, like hus- bandry, upon the slow process of clearing the forest, or affected by drouth, freshets, or frosts. Detroit, in addition to being a principal official and military station, continued to be the great trading center, for the forest rangers and forest products, of the Maumee Country for more than a hundred years after its founding.

The French, as soon as they were established, commenced their usual policy of conciliating the tribes-allaying feuds and jealousies and protect- ing the weak against the strong. They encour- aged the Indians to settle about the posts and engage in hunting and trapping instead of follow- ing the warpath. Among the tribes who thus settled about Detroit were the Ottawas and Wy- andots, whom we left located near Mackinaw. A little later some of the Pottawatamie bands came from Lake Michigan. By the middle of the cen- tury (1750) the Ottawas had taken possession of the Maumee hunting grounds, and about the time the English displaced the French, from 1760 to 1765, had their principal villages on the Mau- mee river, mostly on the north bank, because of the drier and more healthful conditions to be found there at that time. Wood county soil was never the permanent abode of the Indians so far as known-only a temporary resort for hunting. The Ottawas were our immediate predecessors, but shared their hunting grounds with their old friends, the Wyandots, who had their principal seat on the Sandusky river. Mingled with these, were bands of other tribes, who had become broken and dispersed, and either were not strong enough to seek another location, or for other causes, preferred to remain here.

This settlement here of these Indians, as just noticed, is termed by some writers, "the second occupation," as distinguished from the people, evicted or destroyed by the Iroquois, about one hundred years before. Many persons, even among the better informed, have fallen into the common error of supposing that there was a numerous Indian population here, or indeed all over Ohio, when the first white men came, or that the Indians that we displaced later had been here from a remote time. This was not the case. When the French founded Detroit, 1701, this part of the Maumee Country was virtually un- peopled. The French were the means of bring- ing the Indians here, to procure furs, and Wood county became a sort of game preserve for Otta- wa and Wyandot hunters, who had scarcely

been here long enough, when the English-speak- ing race came, to give eligibility to membership in a pioneer society.

Let us now refer to the last inap made by the French. It is dated about 1760. It will be re- inembered that on the map of 16So only the Miamis were located on Ohio soil-at the In- diana-State line. Now we find, by this later map, the best part of the Ottawas on the Maumee; at Sandusky, the Wyandots; at the head of the Maumee, the Miamis; on the Ohio river, above the Muskingum, the Delawares, late vassals of the Iroquois, from eastern Pennsylvania; between the Scioto and Muskingumn, the Shawnees, and near them a band of Wyandots.

To secure their territorial claims, keep peace among the tribes, and to protect the fur trade, which had become a source of vast revenue, the French had scattered forts and trading posts around quite liberally. Those nearest to the present boundaries of Wood county were at San- dusky, Detroit and Fort Wayne, but there were fortifications at Mackinaw, Green Bay, the lower end of Lake Michigan, and on the Wabash and Illinois rivers. There were forts at the con- fluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, and on Lake Erie, at Presque Isle, now Erie, and posts at La Boeuf and Venango, on the head waters of the Allegheny river. These were the cutward signs of her supremacy, and by these France made her claim of ownership. Discovery and occupancy were considered valid claims in those days of vast and easy colonial aggrandize- ment.

The French plan of colonization in North America was faulty, and its realization fell far short of the expectations of its projectors; but it had some elements of strength which their Eng- lish neighbors had neglected, or had not the means of employing. The French assiduously cultivated the friendship of the Indian tribes with whom they became associated, and notwithstanding the charges of fickleness and, treachery; made by many writers against the red men, they were singularly constant to the French, both in power and adversity. The French maintained close social relations with their red allies; made thein handsome gifts; hunted with them, traded with them, and frequently inter-married with them. The coureur des bois had much in common with his Indian companion. He was restless and brave; pliant in disposition; caring nothing for land or work; wanting only an empire for France and a good time for himself.

Another, and perhaps the greatest, factor wielded by the French, was the zeal and self-

خشمرا

WOOD COUNTY, OHIO.

sacrificing labor of the untiring missionaries- such as Mesnard, Marquette, and others. "Re- ligious enthusiasm," says Bancroft, "colonized New England, and religious enthusiasm founded Montreal, made a conquest of the wilderness about the upperlakes and explored the Mississippi." But there was a great gulf between the facile temperament of the proselyting Jesuit and the stern, unyielding one of the Puritan. The former patiently moulded all adverse circumstances to his purpose, and followed the Apostle Paul's doctrine of conformity to the various phases of human character. The latter, long taught to look only for direction and assistance from God, was cold, formal and arbitrary in his teachings. The gorgeous rites and ceremonies of the Catho- lic Church were well suited tothe imaginative forest neophytes, whose simple minds could but illy understand the written creed and catechism of the white race.

The creed of the Puritan was dogmatic and appealed more to the reasoning faculties, in which latter attributes the red men were deficient. In these divergent methods of dealing with the native races we must look chiefly for the marked ascendancy which the French obtained over the original occupants of the country.

We will now turn, briefly, to the English whom we left along the Atlantic coast. Their settlement was about contemporaneous with the French at Quebec. They had not been idle. They had increased rapidly in population, and extended their settlements far into the interior. Their plan of colonization differed radically from the French, and hardly considered commercial intercourse with the Indians as one of its factors. They were toilers rather than traders; farmers, who sought out the best lands they could find, for agricultural purposes. They formed compact settlements for religious and social convenience, and for protection against the savages. The Indians did not always look with favor upon the land-grasping encroachments of their English neighbors; and to these differences was soon to be added an embroglio with their French rivals. In their eagerness to occupy the rich valleys to the west, some daring speculators, from London and Virginia, known as the Ohio Company, ob- tained a grant from the Crown of six million acres of land southeast of the Ohio river, in what is now West Virginia and Pennsylvania, on which they intended to settle a large colony. Survey-

ors, among them George Washington, and land agents were at work, extending the bounds of English domain westward very rapidly. Already they were within the limits claimed by the French, and the jealousy of the latter was raised to fire heat. The most bitter feelings of rivalry were engendered, and each sought to checkmate the movements of the other. The English claimed by purchase from the Iroquois and their charter from the English king, which document, in the parlance of the time, modestly read from "sea to sea." The French based their claim upon discovery and possession. Neither would back down. Diplomacy was vainly resorted to; raids and murders were rife. Colonial officials. Gaul and Anglo-Saxon, vowed to stand for their respective rights, and the savages, watch- ing the portentous clouds of war, stood in the background, painted and ready for the carnival of blood.

The storni broke, in 1756, at the head of the Ohio, and what is known as the French and In- dian war, the bloodiest in Colonial history, was inaugurated. Each of the great rivals put forth their best efforts to secure the aid of their savage allies, but the French were by far the most suc- cessful in the diabolic and infamous scheme. The western tribes were nearly all under their influence. The nations of the Iroquois League remained neutral, or joined the English; the Cherokees and some other bands on their south- western border also joined them, Soon the whole line of settlements was startled by the appalling whoop of the swarthy warriors. The tomahawk and torch answered the tearful plea for mercy; old age and helpless infancy shared the same horrible fate, In details of savage atrocity that war has few, if any, parallels in war's dread annals. The contest raged with varying fortune until the fall of 1759, when the roar of cannon on the rocky heights of Quebec made proclama- tion that the supremacy of race, in North America, was at final issue. The Anglo-Saxon was tri- umphant, and the future destiny of this country was irrevocably fixed in that line. Some desul- tory fighting, the surrender of Montreal, and the peace treaty of 1763 followed. France ceded all her possessions east of the Mississippi river to England. Thus passed away the rule of France. Wood county, for almost a century under hier dominion as a part of the Diocese of Quebec. now passed under the control of England.

CHAPTER III.

TWENTY YEARS' OCCUPATION BY THE ENGLISH -- 1763 TO 1783-PONTIAC'S WAR-PONTIAC'S RETIREMENT TO THE MAUMEE-ANGRY INTERVIEWS WITH CAPTAIN MORRIS-" THE EN- GLISH ARE LIARS "-INTERESTING DESCRIPTION OF THE MAUMEE COUNTRY AT THAT EARLY DATE BY THE ENGLISH SUB-COMMISSIONER, GEORGE CROGHAN-ENGLAND DISPLACED IN AUTHORITY BY THE UNITED STATES, 1783.

T HE downfall of the French was a sad dis- appointment to their Indian allies in the West. They did not exactly understand why, because the French had been beaten, the English had any right to come and take possession of the Indian's territory, and become his master in authority and occupy all the forts and posts. The unfavorable turn events had taken might well have caused the tribes to reflect a little, and see that they had made a great mis- take in joining in a fight and decimating their ranks in a contest between two nations, both of which fought for the same object, namely, to possess the country, not to help the Indian to retain it. The French colonists, too, in the set- tlements about the posts, were illy suited with the new order of things. They were loyal to the obnoxious flag of Britain only in appearance, and no doubt prejudiced the Indians against their masters, the English. About Detroit the Indians had become numerous. Toward the English they kept up an exterior appearance of friend- ship, but underneath was a discontented, sullen, revengeful feeling. In this temper, and at this time (1763), almost before peace had been con- cluded between the English and French, in Paris, a most dangerous, remarkable and widespread conspiracy was formed and partly carried into execution by the savages. It was as diabolical in its scope as it was original and bold in concep- tion. It was planned and headed by the Ottawa chief, Pontiac, whose tribe was about Detroit or on the Maumee. This unlettered savage com- bined in his make-up the cunning, far-reaching diplomacy of a Talleyrand, with the courage and skill in leadership of a Hannibal. His design was nothing less than the capture by stratagem and treachery of all the English posts from Niagara to Mackinac. The garrisons and the English settlers on the border were to be massa- cred, and the whole frontier made as desolate as the torch and scalping knife could make it.

knowledge of Indian character, so worked upon the superstitions, prejudices and fears of the In- dians as to bring most of the tribes heartily into his deep-laid plot. He had picked his warriors and planned all the details. When the blow came, which was arranged to be made simulta- neously along the border, nine posts, including Mackinac, fell. Detroit escaped only by a hair's breadth. An Indian woman betrayed the dan- ger to the commandant, and he had the wisdom to profit by the warning in time. The crack of doom or the flash of a meteor could not have come more sudden or unexpected; nor could the dread thunders of an earthquake have caused greater consternation among the frontier people. Again the whole border was thrown into wild panic. The horrors of the French and Indian war, just closed, were held in vivid remembrance by the startled colonists. Men flew to arms, and women and children deserted their homes and hastened to the interior towns and settlements. Thousands of homes on the Virginia and Penn- sylvania border were abandoned, and hundreds of settlers were massacred and made captives.

Pontiac's rage knew no bounds when his own part of the programme failed, that of capturing Detroit. He at once laid siege to the fort, doubtless with the expectation of starving out the garrison. What is most remarkable in Indian warfare, he held his warriors to the work, and kept up the siege with more or less vigor tor about ten months, when reinforcements arrived for the fort and drove him off. Disappointed and chagrined, he retired to the Ottawa village on the Maumee with his warriors, from which he soon heard of the total collapse of his audacious plans, under the telling blows of the border men and the English soldiers.

While he was here, and a treaty, at Presque Isle Erie), which he declined to take part in, was in progress /1,64, or had been arranged, an incident occurred, illustrative of Pontiac's hostile Bradstreet's army

Pontiac had, by his eloquence and astute . feeling toward the English.

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lay encamped on the field near Detroit at the time. Capt. Morris, with a few Iroquois and Canadian attendants had been detailed to go on any embassy to the country of the Illinois in 1764. Ascending the Maumee in a canoe, he soon approached the camp of Pontiac, who had now virtually given up his great contest, and sul- lenly withdrawn to the banks of this river with his chosen warriors. While yet at some distance, Morris and his party were met by about two hun- dred Indians, who treated him with great violence and rudeness, while they offered a friendly wel- come to the Iroquois and Canadians. Attended by this clamorous escort, they all moved together toward the camp. At its outskirts stood Pontiac himself. He inet the embassador with a scowl- ing brow, and refused to offer his hand. "The English are liars," was his first salutation. He then displayed a letter addressed to himself, and purporting to have been written by the king of France, containing as Morris declares, the gross- est calumnies which the most ingenious malice could devise, to incense the Indians against the English. The old falsehood was not forgotten. "Your French father," said the writer, "is neither dead nor asleep; he is already on his way, with sixty great ships, to revenge himself on the English, and drive them out of America." The letter was written by a French officer, or, more probably, a French fur trader, who, for his own profit, wished to inflame the passions of the In- dians, and thus bar the way against English com- petitors. Pontiac's warriors plundered the whole party of everything except their arms, their clothing and their canoes, and then suffered them to depart. This war is known in history as "Pontiac's Conspiracy," and may properly be said to be the termination of the French and In- dian war. In startling, tragic details, it surpassed the most ingeniously contrived, harrowing tales of fiction.

Pontiac's name stands among the first in the history of the Indian race in genius and leader- ship. His proud spirit would not become fully reconciled to English rule. With a few followers he finally left the Maumee and went to the Illi- nois Country where, in the year 1769, he was assassinated by a drunken Indian of the Kaskas- kia tribe. A French officer at Fort St. Louis, who had known the great chief, sent across the Mississippi for the body, which was buried where the great city of St. Louis now stands. " Neither mound nor tablet," says Parkman, "marks the burial place of Pontiac. For a mausoleum, a city has risen above the forest hero, and the race whom he hated with such burning rancor tram-

ple with unceasing footsteps over his forgotten grave."

We have felt it due to the story of the Mau- mee Country to say this much of the part Pontiac and his followers took in this savage drama of the border, as this was his home at that time. Misguided savage that he was, Pontiac, though not an actor here, may safely be ranked, in his- tory, the equal of any of the great chiefs, white or red, whose genius in war made the Maumee historic.

The peace treaty following this uprising-the closing chapter of the French and Indian war -- was held at Presque Isle (Erie), in August of 1764, and was followed by the repair and garri- soning of all the posts. Gradually confidence became restored in the stability of the peace, and at once, with redoubled energy, the settlers began the work of rebuilding their blasted homes on the frontier. New life and enterprise. long restrained. was noticeable everywhere. Shrewd agents and surveyors were busy hunting out the best lands. Adventurous explorers, like Boone, McBride. Findlay and others, had penetrated to the wilds of Kentucky. In Western Virginia and Penn- sylvania the settlers, no longer menaced by the French, had advanced beyond the mountains. and the smoke of their cabins was seen far out on the waters of the Ohio. In the meantime. while this great advance was being made south- east of the Ohio, the country northwest of it, and about the Great Lakes, the late domain occupied by the French and Indians, showed but little gain. A few English traders and their employes were gathered about the posts to profit by the fur trade; that told it all.

The exact situation in the Maumee Country and at Detroit at that time, 1765, is given in the journal notes of the English Sub-Commissioner. George Croghan, who made an official trip to the West that year, down the Ohio from Fort Pitt to the mouth of the Wabash, thence up that river and by the usual route to Detroit, stopping at Post Miami, now Fort Wayne. to visit a band of the Miami tribe there, which he speaks of as the Twightwees, a name they sometimes went by. On August I, he says: " Within a mile of the Twight- wee Village, I was met by the Chiefs of that na- tion ( Miamis ), who received us very kindly. The most part of these Indians knew me, and con- ducted me to their village, where they immedi- ately hoisted an English flag that I had formerly given thein at Fort Pitt. The next day they held a council, after which they gave me up the English prisoners they had, then made severai speeches, in all of which they expressed the great

WOOD COUNTY, OHIO.

pleasure it gave them, to see the unhappy differ- ences which embroiled the several nations in a war with their brethren ( the English ) were now so near a happy conclusion, and that peace was established in their country. The Twightwee Village is situated on both sides of a river, called St. Joseph. This river, where it falls into the Miami ( Maumee ) river, about a quarter of a mile from this place, is one hundred yards wide, on the east side of which stands a stockade fort, somewhat ruinous. The Indian village consists of about forty or fifty cabins, besides nine or ten French houses-a runaway colony from Detroit. During the late Indian war, they were concerned in it, and being afraid of punishment, came to this post, where ever since they have spirited up the Indians against the English. All the French residing here are a lazy, indolent people, fond of breeding mischief, and spiriting up the Indians against the English, and should by no means be suffered to remain here. The country is pleas- ant, the soil rich and well watered. After sev- eral conferences with the Indians, and their delivering me up all the English prisoners they had, on the 6th of August, we set out for Detroit, down the Miami ( Maumee ) river in a canoe. This river heads about ten miles from hence. The river is not navigable till you come to the place where the St. Joseph joins it, and makes a considerably large stream. Nevertheless we found a great deal of difficulty in getting our canoes over shoals, as the water at this season was very low. The banks of the river are high, and the country overgrown with lofty timber of various kinds; and the land is level and the woods clear. About nine miles from the Miamis of Twightwee, we came to where the large river, that heads in a large lick, falls into the Miami river. This they call the forks. The Ottawas claim this country, and hunt here, where game is very plenty. From hence we proceeded to the Ottawa Village [Providence, Lucas County. ] This nation formerly lived at Detroit, but is now settled here, on account of the richness of the country, where game is always found to be in plenty. Here we were obliged to get out of our canoes and drag them eighteen miles, on account of the rifts which interrupted the navigation. At the end of these rifts, we came to a village of the Wyandots, who received us very kindly, and thence we proceeded to the mouth of this river, where it falls into Lake Erie. From the Miamis to the lake it is computed one hundred and righty miles, and from the entrance of the river into the lake, to Detroit, is sixty miles- that is forty-two miles up the lake, and eight-

een miles up the Detroit river to the garrison of that name.

"On the 17th, in the morning, we arrived at the fort, which is a large stockade, inclosing about eighty houses. It stands on the west side of the river, on a high bank, commands a very pleasant prospect for nine miles above and nine miles below the fort. The country is thickly settled with French. Their plantations are gener- ally laid out about three or tour acres in breadth on the river, and eighty acres in depth. The soil is good, producing plenty of grain. All the people here are generally poor wretches, and con- sist of three or four hundred French families, a lazy, idle. people, depending chiefly on the sav- ages for subsistence. Though the land, with little labor, produces plenty of grain, they scarcely raise as much as will supply their wants, in imitation of the Indians, whose manners and customs they have entirely adopted, and cannot subsist without them."

" Before the late war, there were three Indian nations at this place: The Pottawatamies, whose village was on the west side of the river, about one mile below the fort; the Ottawas, on the east side, about three miles above the fort; the Wyan- dots, whose village lays on the east side, about two miles below the fort. The former two na- tions have removed to a considerable distance, and the latter still remain where they were, and are remarkable for their good sense and hospi- tality." This extract taken from Butler's History of Kentucky, doubtless gives the earliest con- temporaneous account of the Maumee Country in English print; at least it affords data from which to make more definite investigation. The writer, though slightly in error in the matter of distances, gives a good general description of the Maumee and of Detroit, as he saw it at that time. He tells who our predecessors in occupation were then, 1765, and aids somewhat in fixing the dates of their coming. He locates the chief seat of the Ottawas at the head of the Maumee Rapids, where it was yet, in part, when the settlement of Wood county began, fifty years later; also that there was a Wyandot village at the lower end of the Rapids, probably at old Fort Miami. The Wyandots, however, as noted in Chapter II, never became other than temporary residents here.

The English of Detroit, as well as the other posts, found, like the French had, that it was greatly to their interest to maintain peace among the tribes. War was troublesome, danger- ous and expensive; besides it interfered greatly with the profits of the fur traders, which were

WOOD COUNTY, OHIO.

very heavy. Peace seemed desirable to all in- terests on the frontier.

Vain hope ! War came. It was scarcely ten years from the close of the Indian war when mut- terings of discontent came from the far East. England's Colonies grew tired of the burdensome exactions of the parental government, and re- belled. Soon the rattle of musketry from Con- cord and Lexington told that the tide of battle was up, 1775. Those same brave Colonists, who learned the trade of soldiers, fighting French and Indians, now had to turn their guns against the Mother Country. And, shame to her great name, England followed the infamous practice she had but so recently condemned in the French, and employed the savages to aid her in attempting to subjugate her former subjects. They helped her, especially her old friends, the Iroquois, but she failed ingloriously. In 1783, England surren- dered up all her possessions south of Canada to her late Colonists, who had established a new government, styled, "The United States of America." The destiny of the Mauinee Country is henceforth linked with the fortunes of the New Government.

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Commemorative historical and biographical record of Wood County, Ohio : its past and present : early settlement and development biographies and portraits of early settlers and representative citizens, etc. V. 1, Part 4

Author: Leeson, M. A. (Michael A.) cn; J.H. Beers & Co. cn Publication date: 1897 Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers & Co. Number of Pages: 1060

Author: Leeson, M. A. (Michael A.) cn; J.H. Beers & Co. cn
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 1060