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 5

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 5

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When England succeeded France in 1763, the British flag was hung out at Detroit; the French traders were ousted, and the Maumee coon and beaver skins were sold in the English language for English goods, instead of French. That was all the change the English made in behalf of the Maumee Country. But a beginning had been made. France had marked out the way. She had demonstrated, too, that this coun- try was not without some commercial importance, both in its products and location. Indeed so valuable and desirable did it prove to England that she violated her treaty of 1783 and held possession of Detroit, and this part of the North- west Territory, until 1796, thirteen years after

the treaty. This she did on a pretext that some Virginia debtors of England, or her sub- jects, had refused to pay their obligations. [Vir- ginia, and perhaps one or two other States, re- fused to abide by that part of the treaty relating to the payment of debts, because the British had, on their retirement, carried away a number of Negro slaves belonging to Americans. This, England inade the pretext for holding Mackinaw, Detroit, etc. ]

This is not the worst she did in the mean- tiine. She fostered and harbored agents and fur traders who, for their own selfish gain, cospnired with the savages, lately in the employ of the British army, to keep up a predatory warfare on American settlers, to drive thein back and forever

prevent them from coming north of the Ohio. In furtherance of this purpose, the English advanced their outposts in 1794 to the banks of the Mau- mee, where they constructed and garrisoned Fort Miami, on the old site of the French stockade. The evil effect of this incendiary action of the British, on the Indians, cannot be measured. It encouraged them to continued hostility against the Americans, or " thirteen fires. " as they called the Thirteen Colonies. Detroit, more than before. became headquarters for all the Northwestern tribes. Here they came to trade-to buy whisky. guns and blankets, and to nurse all their griev- ances, rea! or imaginary, against the whites, ever since England displaced the French; or, we might add, of nearly two hundred years against the' white race. Now all these long slumbering ani- mosities burned anew, and, under the artful machinations of the English traders and agents. the Indians were made to believe that all their sorrows were caused by the people of the .. thir- teen fires," and revenge was called for. In this work of vengeance and repression they were tanght to believe their " Great Father," the King of England, would help them.

The pell-mell rush of settlers, across the mountains and down the Ohio, to the attractive soil of western Virginia and Kentucky, only added fuel to the burning jealousy of the savages, and confirmed and aided the mischievious stories of the traders. Here then began to assemble, in council, all the dissatisfied, hostile elements of the various tribes; even bands of the Six Nations from New York, under the lead of the Mohawk. Brant, came. They had sold out most of their lands there, and were now panting to take the warpath, or to again get a scarlet blanket each, for signing a new treaty, ceding something they probably never owned. This incongruous fusion embraced some of the most warlike tribes and greatest chiefs of that warlike period. They had laid aside for the while their petty tribal feuds, and made common cause against the " thirteen fires." There were the proud Miamis of the Wabash with their associates, the Piank-a-shaws, and Weeas, all great fighters, led by Little Turtle; the fierce, implacable Shawnees, the Gypsies of the wilder- ness, headed by their savage chief, Blue Jacket: Roundhead and King Crane, with the irrepressible Wyandots, whose warriors often died in battle. but never surrendered. From the far-off Missis- sippi came bands of Sauks and Winnebagoes; the stoical Delawares, with the migratory, treacher- ous Pottawatamies, and the Chippewas, the Menominees, and bands and fragments of other broken tribes, were there. The heartless rene-

WOOD COUNTY, OHIO.

gade, Simon Girty, with Capt. Pipe, Buckonge- helas, Top-in-e-Bay, De-un-quot, Wen-no-way, Moluntha, Not-e-no, Lolloway, Cik-a-tom-i-co, Stoneater, Turkey-foot, Oquenoxy, Charloe, Whiteyes, Pukeshaw, Wawatum, Myera. or Walk- in-the-Water, Standingstone, Bright Horn, Te- cumseh (then a young warrior), Ottokee, Black- hoof, Winnemac, and other chiefs of less prowess in battle, were leaders. They all had wrongs of long standing against the white race. The vials of their long-slumbering hatred-all their griev- ances against the intruding Europeans for gener- ations past -- were now goading them into mad- ness. The Maumee Country, from the source of the river to Lake Erie, became the rendezvous and hotbed of secret plotters in hostile intrigue against the Americans. The dense forests and ague-breeding swamps afforded secure refuge from pursuit. From these shadowy wastes issued forth stealthy war parties, with murderous design,

to glut their fury on the defenseless border set- tlers, until the very name, Maumee, like the fabled Styx, was dreaded, even by the hardy frontiersmen. No such combination of savage elements for a desperate purpose, led by experi- enced, sagacious chiefs, had ever before con- fronted the white men in America.

Men high in authority in the New Government believed that British officials were covertly con- niving at and approving this action of the tribes, in the hope that opportunity would offer to reclaim to England a large slice of the lost terri- tory. Many circumstances justified this belief. Whatever England's motive was, her action was very unjust, and fettered the progress of the Maumee Country by the continued hostility of the Indian tribes, and no language is strong enough to condemn the infamous course pursued by her agents and traders.

CHAPTER IV.

TROUBLES OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT-INDIANS DISPUTE ITS RIGHT TO SETTLE ON LANDS NORTH OF THE OHIO-TREATY WITH THE IROQUOIS, OR SIX NATIONS. 1784. AT FORT STANWIX. N. Y .- SAVAGE AGGREGATION OF DISCONTENTED TRIBES AND NOTED WARRIORS ABOUT DETROIT-ENGLISH TRADERS HELP TO FAN THE DISCONTENT-UNITED STATES MAKES A SECOND TREATY AT FT. MCINTOSH, 1785, AND A THIRD AT FT. FINNEY, 1786-U. S. GOVERNMENT PLANTS ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT IN THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY AT MARI- ETTA, 1788-RAPID INFLUX OF SETTLERS-INDIANS STILL OBJECT-FOURTH TREATY, FT. HARMAR, 1789-MASSACRE AT BIG BOTTOM, 1791-DEFEAT OF GEN. HARMAR-GEN. ST. CLAIR LEADS A NEW ARMY TOWARD THE MAUMEE, AND IS ROUTED WITH GREAT LOSS- GEN. ANTHONY WAYNE DEFEATS THE TRIBES ON THE MAUMEE, 1794-TREATY OF GREEN- VILLE, 1795.

T HESE were some of the vexatious prob- lems that confronted the New Govern- ment at the very outset. In the mean- time persevering efforts had been going on to clear up the claims of some of the tribes.

The first and most greedy of the claimants were the Iroquois. They had, as previously mentioned, been practically at one time masters of the country to Lake Michigan on the west, and south into Tennessee. In fact they went on war expeditions wherever they could hear of any tribe to fight with, and nearly all the tribes in the territory mentioned held title at one time or another by Iroquois sufferance. They had lat- terly, however, probably under old treaties with 2

the French, confined themselves mostly to New York, Pennsylvania and that part of Ohio south of Lake Erie, but east of the Cuyahoga (Cleve- land). Hardly a treaty was made, or sale of land, but they were on hand to claim some spoils. Hardly a battle was fought but some of their tribes were represented among the hostiles. They were not, however, in high favor with the Americans because of their joining the British in the Revolution, and under Brant, Cornplanter and Butler (not Richard) committing some hor- rible atrocities in the Mohawk and Cherry Valleys. The Americans finally got after them before the war closed, and inflicted savage punishment, devastating their villages and decimating their

WOOD COUNTY, OHIO.

tribes fearfully. So enraged were the New York people at the close of the Revolution that they proposed driving them out, and did drive off the Mohawks to Canada; but Gen. Washington and others urged more liberal treatment. At the final wind up of the Indian wars the Senecas, and some other bands of the Six Nations, were allotted lands on the Sandusky river, not far from where Tiffin is. Others remained in New York and in Canada, and some went west.

First Treaty .- At a treaty at Fort Stanwix (now Rome, N. Y.), October, 1784, the Six Nations (Iroquois) ceded to the Americans all their claims to land west of Pennsylvania. This was the first Indian treaty made by the United States. It would seem to have disposed of the claims of the Iroquois to lands in the West; but not so. There is scarcely a subsequent bat- tle, or treaty, that has not had representatives of some tribe of the Six Nations in it.

The United States thus early adopted the just policy of procuring the Indian title to land before offering it for sale, or encouraging settlers to go upon it. This, notwithstanding they had already acquired the title of both England and France. Two of the chief causes of all the trouble the government has had with the Indians are, first, the lawless intrusion of some of the border set- tlers on lands claimed by the Indians before the government authorized settlement there. Sec- ond, the nomadic tenure of some of the tribes and the consequent indefiniteness of boundaries; notably the Shawnees, which made it difficult to fix their claims to any certain territory, for they were in one location one year and somewhere else the next. Again, if a tribe were fixed on a location by treaty, it would sometimes occur that another tribe would find, at a later day. that they had prior squatter rights on the lands. This was the case, for instance, with the Delawares and Wyandots against the Shawnees. The latter claimed title to lands previously ceded to the government by the former tribes. When we add to this the mischief-making efforts of renegade white men, living among the tribes, and the evil influence of English traders and agents, whose selfish interests it was to keep back settlements, we can readily sec why the Kentucky and Vir- ginia border, and the territory now embraced in Ohio, was a bloody battle ground for years, in 'spite of the humane efforts of Washington and other leading men in the government.

Second Treaty .- Below Pittsburg, on the Ohio, opposite the mouth of the Beaver, was Ft. McIntosh; there, in 1785. the United States made its second treaty, and for the same land it had

just got by treaty from the Iroquois. There the Delawares, Chippewas, Ottawas and Wyandots. ceded their claims to all lands east and south of the Cuyahoga river, defined in the treaty line as beginning at the mouth of said river (now Cleve- land), up said river (south) to the Portage path, across on said path to the head waters of the Muskingum to Ft. Laurens (now Bolivar, Tus- carawas county), thence west to Loramie's ford (Shelby county), on the Miami; thence, by the Portage path, to the head waters of the Maumec (St. Mary's branch), and down the Maumee to Lake Erie, and along its south shore, back to the mouth of the Cuyahoga. All north and west of this line should belong to the Indians, except some reservations made by the government. All east and south of that line, about two-thirds of the present State of Ohio, the government was to have peaceable possession of. It will be no- ticed that no treaty mention is made, thus far, with the quarrelsome Shawnees. They held squatter rights on a fine location along the Scioto, about old Chilicothe, and north to Mad river, which the Delaware and Wyandots refused to recognize, and claimed the right to sell the land, and did cede it to the United States. Here was an opening for trouble.

Third Treaty .- The government met the Shawnees, in treaty, at Ft. Finney, at the mouth of the Miami, January, 1786, and besides money and presents given, they were allotted, and agreed to accept, land at the head of the Mad river (Little Miami), and north, between the Dela- wares and Miamis, central in what is now Au- glaize county. This was the third Indian treaty the United States had made in as many years: First, with the Iroquois at Ft. Stanwix for their claim on lands north of the Ohio, 1784; second, the treaty with the western tribes at Ft. McIn- tosh, 1785; and third, at Ft. Finney. with the Shawnees, in 1786. It is well to be thus partic- ular, respecting these treaties, for two reasons: It is of interest to the owners and occupants of the soil to-day, and in all subsequent years, to know just how the title to our homes was ac- quired. We hold our title deeds from the Presi- dent of the United States, the head officer of our government, and seldom stop to inquire how the government acquired the title. Again it is a sat- isfaction to know that, instead of resorting to force to expel the Indians, pacific measures were invariably taken by the government and treaties held. from time to time, with these native claim- ants, to secure title to land, for which the gov- ernment had already waged an eight-years' war with another claimant. It should also be noted

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that the Indians always received a consideration for their lands from the United States.

We may, as a Christian people, feel a prick- ling conscience, at times, when we glance over those old land patents, bearing the President's name and the great seal of the United States, and reflect that the title was, really, only made clear and perfect when the native chieftians, and their warriors, borne down amid the roar of can- non and clash of arms, were forced to throw down their bloody hatchets and put their mark on the treaty deed. That was the court of last resort. It was the decree of-well, call it Fate. There was no appeal. Still it is well for us to know and feel that humane endeavor was exhausted in trying to do what at last was wrought by force. This is not offered as a justification of all that has been done, but mentioned rather in mitigation of some of the things that were done.

After this treaty with the Shawnees, in Jan- uary, the government, with the understanding that a peaceful conclusion with the Indian claim- ants had been reached, began active work to plant settlements north of the Ohio. Hitherto it had not only discouraged, but had forbidden, settlers from locating there, and those who had done so did it at their own peril, and usually paid the penalty with their lives, unless lucky enough to get out in time.

Here we will leave our old guardians, France and England, for a time, as well as the savage tribes who hold the Maumee Country, and turn to the New Government, just starting into life. With it is involved the future of this wilderness. From its new energies, new agencies of growth, progress and strength, must come deliverance. There are many critical stages to pass; many ob- structions to be cleared away; long marches made; battles fought; treaties negotiated; and the patience and wisdom of statesmanship exhausted before the hardy band of pioneers who came later with axe, plow and spade, to reclaim and subdue this waste place, could begin with a clear title deed and an assurance of protection to life and property. It is not designed to give here a history of Ohio, or of the Northwest, but only to present, in chronological order, an account of such events as have affected the history of Wood county. An inspiration of pride swells in every American bosom when contemplating the hercu- lean work of those sturdy, devoted patriots and statesmen, who stood at the front, in the long struggle for a new nation. Now that it was born and christened, they were, for a time, to take charge of its destiny. Out of chaos and con- fusion they brought order and system. Out of

thirteen colonies, with diverse claims and inter- ests, they established the Union, and that Greater Charter, the Constitution. Out of poverty and distress they brought prosperity and contentment. Out of the wilderness they carved and founded great States, where communities and cities sprung up as if by magic. When England gave up the contest, she simply made a quit-claim deed; that is, the new nation took possession, subject to all claims and encumbrances.

Included in the treaty, and which more di- rectly concerns this story, was the vast stretch of country from the Ohio to the Canada border, on the north, and from Pennsylvania west to the Mississippi, since cut up into the States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and that. part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi. When the United States took possession, this was a nameless waste, the greater part under the gen- eral term, Province of Quebec, and the smaller part of it, Louisiana, and occupied by about twenty-two tribes and clans of Indians, and a sparse population of whites about the military posts, mostly French. Besides being poor, the government was heavily in debt, and had in ad- dition many soldiers who had been promised bounty in land. This public territory, or domain, seemed to be about the only resource she had. It was known to be the finest body of land in the world; adapted to all the wants of man. Its vast inland fresh-water seas were the wonder of all travelers. Its great rivers and broad fertile valleys were unexcelled in any country, and its fame was known in all the great centers of Europe. That it could readily be disposed of and would sustain a vast population there was not a doubt. It was in the light of all these facts that Congress set to work to clear up the title and open the land to settlement. First to be dealt with was four members of the Confederate sister- hood: Virginia, Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut. Each claimed a slice of the New Territory. All claimed under their original Colo- nial charters from the King of England, and Vir- ginia made the additional claim of conquest. and New York of purchase from the Iroquois.

No reader of history but has admired the feats of the redoubtable Virginian, Col. George Rogers Clark, who, during the Revolutionary war, when he saw that Congress was neglecting the Illinois Country, next the Mississippi, sallied forth from Kentucky with a small force and captured the British garrisons at Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Vin- cennes, freed the country from British rule. drove away Lieut. Henry Hamilton, and held it in spite of all efforts of the enemy to drive him off. Kentucky

WOOD COUNTY, OHIO.

was at that time a part of Virginia, and the latter State at her own expense equipped Clark for the expedition. But for the enterprise and success of that gallant officer Illinois and Indiana inight, to-day, belong to Canada, possibly all the coun- try north of the Ohio.

Virginia compromised her claim by taking 3,800,000 acres of land bordering the Ohio on the north, between the Scioto and Miami, known since as the Virginia Military Tract. New York and Massachusetts conflicted somewhat with each other in jurisdiction, and finally relinquished their claims. Connecticut was more stubborn and reluctant. She claimed a belt of land clear to the Pacific, but finally, after much vexatious de- lay, compromised, in 1786, by taking a strip of land about fifty miles average width, on the south side of Lake Erie, and extending west from Pennsylvania, 120 miles, containing 3,700, - 000 acres, known, sometimes, as "New Con- necticut, or "Connecticut Reserve," but usually as the " Western Reserve." Five hundred thous- and acres of this land at the west end, now com- prising Huron and Erie counties, known as the " Fire Lands," were given by Connecticut to those of her citizens, whose property, at New London, Stonington and other coast towns, was destroyed by fire in the Revolutionary war. This peaceable settlement of those claims required patient and careful statesmanship. The Union of the States had not yet been perfected, and the least bit of friction might have done great mis- chief at such a critical time. Ali breathed easier when it was finally consumated.

This brings us to the most interesting period in the early history of our country-the laying of the foundations of five of the great States in the Union. The fate of the Maumee Country is so di- rectly linked and connected with the history of that period, and the country was itself the arena of so many historic events, that a brief outline of the story, though national in its scope, will not only be of interest, but necessary to the ground-work of our local history.

Among the most urgent agencies in hastening the efforts of the government to piant settle- ments north of the Ohio, were the bounty claims for land, of the Revolutionary soldiers. Many of these men had served eight years for but little pay, and that in depreciated currency. The promise to them of land in the different grades of the service was as follows: Major-general, 1, 100 acres; brigadier-general, 850 acres; colonel, 550 acres; major, 400 acres; captain, 300 acres; lieu- tenant, 200 acres; ensign, 150 acres; non-com- missioned officers and privates, 100 acres each.

The survey of this vast public domain, and the manner in which it should be done, had al- ready been arranged for by Congress, and the surveyors began work in July, 1786, following the treaty with the Shawnees in January of the same year. The first stake was driven on the north bank of the Ohio, at the Pennsylvania line. The surveys were under the direction of Capt. Thomas Hutchins, United States Geographer. This was the beginning of a work so important then, and to all future generations, that a sketch of it in this volume, based on official authority, is given a separate chapter.

The best statesmen in the land had, meall- time, been laboring to perfect a plan of provis- ional civil government for the new territory, which resulted in the enactment by Congress. July 13, of the celebrated Ordinance of 1787, the Magna Charta of the Northwest-a document more talked about, and which has received more encomiums from statesmen, past and present. at home and abroad, than any other, the Con- stitution only excepted. It is the fundamental law of five great States. Salmon P. Chase said of it: "Never probably in the history of the world did a measure of legislation so accurately fulfill, yet so mightily exceed, the anticipations of legislators. When the settlers went into the wilderness they found the law already there. It was impressed upon the soil itself, while it vet

* This bore up nothing but the forest. = *

remarkable document," he says again, " was the last gift of the old Confederation to the country. and was a fit consummation of their glorious labors." At the time of its promulgation the Federal constitution was under discussion in the convention, and in a few months-upon the organization of the new national government- that Congress was dissolved never again to re- assemble. Its essential propositions were: (I Freedom of conscience and right of worship. (2) Free people and no slavery. (3) Free schools and encouragement of education and religion. (4) Inviolability of private contracts and the greatest personal liberty. What a debt of grati- tude later generations have acknowledged to the wise statesmen of that day for the single pro- vision in the Ordinance of 1785, of a section of land, in each township, for school purposes. That alone immortalized their legislation. That Ordinance organized the whole domain north of the Ohio into a single division, called the Terri- tory northwest of the Ohio, but which will be referred to for greater convenience in the suc- ceeding pages as the Northwest Territory. . A governor, secretary and three judges constituted

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the corps of officials, who were to go on the ground and put the Ordinance into operation. All that seemed necessary now to make a great State was people. These were soon forthcoming. On the 7th of April, 1788, Gen. Rufus Putnam, superintendent of the Ohio Company, with a party of forty-seven New England colonists, crossed the Alleghany mountains, and by boat passed down the Ohio, landing at a point where the Muskingum unites with it, and there planted the first settlement, which they named Marietta. In June another installment of New England pio- neers arrived, and afterward they canie faster than shelter could be provided for them. By the 15th of July the government officials had arrived: Arthur St. Clair, governor; Winthrop Sargent, secretary; John Cleves Symmes, James M. Varnum and Samuel H. Parsons, judges. These officials, appointed by Congress and the Ordinance of 1787, were the Government. A day was appointed for a public meeting; addresses were made; the commissions of the new officials were read; the governor duly inaugurated: three rousing cheers given, and the people dispersed in a happy mood. In this summary way the North- west Territory was organized, Marietta was its temporary capital, and the wheels of government were in motion; the proceedings had occupied no more time in those wild woods than the open- ing of a country school lyceum by the reading of its constitution and by-laws.

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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 5

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