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 8

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 8

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The subordinate traders and Canucks who conducted these pack trains from the post were generally a rough, uncouth, intractable lot, some- times but little in advance of the savages. A coat made of a blanket, or smoked deer-skin, a skin cap, if they wore any head covering, with deer leather leggins and moccasins, comprised their dress, and a rifle, hatchet and knife, their equipment for guarding the goods and getting their meat in the forest, as they traveled from place to place. While wholly unschooled in the politer forms of civilized society or customs, these rough, swarthy men were brave and nearly al- ways trustworthy. The per cent of peculation was less than under the more polished surround- bugs of later years.

The demands of this extensive traffic and the provisions, and other supplies of the traders, and

their clerks, required a transportation line along the Maumee, long before the land came into market or the axe of the pioneer was heard in the bordering forests and fertile valleys.

Another thing occurred this same year, 1805. which we should, in speaking of the actual first coming of the white men to the present territory of Wood county, make a note of. In that year Elias Glover, United States Deputy Surveyor, arrived with his corps of assistants, and run out and marked the exterior subdivision and meander lines of the U. S. Reserve of twelve miles square. [Resurveyed between 1816 and 1824 by Joseph Wampler and William Brookfield. as is more fully explained in the chapter on Public Lands, Surveys, etc.] It will be remembered that among the blocks or reservations of land, kept for the United States, by Gen. Wayne, when he made the Greenville Treaty with the Indians, there was one large one, twelve miles square, at the Rapids of the Maumee; also the proviso was made that when the United States got ready to survey the boundary lines of any of these reservations, that the chiefs and head-men of the tribes should be notified so that they could be present and see that it was properly done, etc. The northeast corner of this reserve, as surveyed by Glover, stands in the city of Toledo; the southeast corner is identical with the present southeast corner of Perrysburg township; thence west on the section line, passing a little north of the village of Hull Prairie, and crossing the lower half of Station Island, in the Maumee, the southwest corner is a few rods west of the river, in Lucas county. Twelve miles north of that is the northwest cor- ner, thence east to the place of beginning in the city of Toledo, completes the boundary. Of this tract of 92, 160 acres, a trifle less than half is within the present bounds of Wood. It was, as previously noticed, the first land the United States acquired title to here, and one of the direct results of Wayne's battle and treaty. The title to this reserve was one of the conditions of that treaty, and the size of the reserve, and the tenacity with which Wayne insisted on having this block of land, shows the important views he had con- cerning the Maumee Rapids and vicinity. The field notes of these surveys are interesting in two ways; first, in showing the important mill sites, and the estimate the surveyors gave of the coun- try, its forests, soil, water, etc. ; second, in being the first official, undeniable evidence left on record of a white man making in what is now Wood county any permanent improvement. In fact there is no evidence that, previous to that date, a white man had even camped on Wood county

WOOD COUNTY, OHIO.

soil. When the surveyors began to drive stakes and blaze lines there was an actual beginning.

This was not nearly all. Among those who came in tliat pioneer work was a man to whose memory belongs the honor of being the first per- manent settler of what is now Wood county; who acquired the first title to land and built his cabin on it. In the party of New Englanders who came down the south shore of Lake Erie, in 1796, and landed at Conneaut, was Amos Spaf- ford. Later we hear of his being at Cleveland, when the survey was made. In ISos he came with the surveyors to the Maumee Rapids. He did not become a resident at that time, but was favorably impressed with the country, and doubt- less then chose the location where he afterward settled with his family. [For account of the Spafford Farm, refer to Index. ]

On the north side of the river, above the site of old Fort Miami, Col. John Anderson, a Scotch trader, had a small establishment, and there were two or three transient French traders along the Rapids. At Fort Industry, Toledo, there was a trader, or a sort of garrison sutler at the fort. It will be remembered that, under the treaty, no one could establish themselves in trade, among the Indians, without a license, or permit, from the United States.

The British traders at Detroit, when Wayne came to take possession, in 1796, very adroitly shifted their establishments to Malden, on the Canada side of the river, and, by every possible inducement, tried to get the Indians to bring their furs across the river to trade. In this way they held a good share of the trade for a long time; but the American traders were pretty enter- prising, and kept sub-agents and traders traveling among the Indians, during the buying season, or, as was often the case, located in their midst, and who lived almost as the savages did.

Before we make note of the little column of white settlers, now timidly advancing in the dis- tance, let us make note, in their order, of two other events that brought a rift of light in the dark cloud so long hanging heavily over the Mau- mee Country.

Detroit Treaty .- At Detroit, in 1807, Gov. William Hull, of Michigan Territory, acting for the United States, made. a treaty with the Otta- was, Chippewas, Pottawatamies and Wyandots, for a large tract of land, which fortunately included the territory in Ohio, lying north of the Maumee, as far west as the mouth of the Auglaize. This was not much, to be sure, but it began to let daylight into the long benighted Maumee Country.

Treaty of Brownstown .- One year later, on November 25, 1808, another treaty, at Browns- town, with the same tribes, and the Shawnees in addition, laid the basis for the Maumee and West- ern Reserve road, for years the most important, most traveled, and, we might add, the worst high- way in this part of Ohio, if not in the world. This cession from the tribes gave a roadway 120 feet wide, direct from the Foot of the Rapids, through what is now Fremont, to the east side of Sandusky county (the west line of the Connecticut Reserve;, and one mile of land, each side of the roadway, to help pay for building the road. This route is nearly in the same course of the old trail, for- merly used by the French, and afterward by the English, in their expeditions, by land, between Detroit and the Ohio; only their trail kept on the higher ground along the route, thus often deviating from a straight course. This liberal provision assured a public highway, virtually, from Detroit to the growing settlements of the Reserve, and farther east, by the south shore of Lake Erie; also a path for the eastern emigrants to the fine lands of southern Michigan, northern Indiana, and to the southern end of Lake Michi- gan, where Chicago has since grown up.

The Foot of the Rapids, then recognized as the head of navigation on the Maumee, stood in high estimation as a point of future commercial importance. It gave most promise of all loca- tions in the wilderness at the head of Lake Erie.

Following the treaties just mentioned, occa- sional white squatters began to locate at the Foot of the Rapids. And now arises the trouble- some query of who was the first white settler on the Maumee? There are no records by which to answer this question, and all who could tell have long since passed off the stage of life. Fur- thermore, it is difficult to determine what consti- tutes a settler in this sense. If building a cabin. cultivating the soil and trafficking with the In- dians made a man a settler, some of the traders might be entitled to the honor. When Wayne swooped down on the Mauniee Indians, in 1794. Col. John Anderson, British-Indian agent, at the time, had a little trading establishment, and a garden and corn field above Fort Miami. Wayne's followers devoured the Colonel's roasting ears, and destroyed everything outside the fort. Old Andy Race, with the victorious army, and later a set- tler, and who believed that " Mad Anthony" could do anything, not actually forbidden by Omnipo- tent Power, used to say that Wayne would have stormed the fort, and destroyed that, too, only that he ran out of whiskey that morning. How- ever this may have been, Anderson seems, for

WOOD COUNTY, OHIO.

some reason, not to have been seriously inter- fered with when the United States took posses- sion. The Missionary, David Bacon, says (year 1802): "Mr. Anderson, a respectable trader, was at Fort Miami, and was opposed to selling whiskey to the Indians." This would indicate that Anderson, who was at Miami at the time of the battle, 1794, and was yet there in 1802, had been a permanent resident for at least eight years. Mr. Anderson afterward lived at Monroe, Mich. J. B. Beaugrand, Gabriel Godfrey, and one or two other Frenchmen, were traders on the north side, in 1805, when the United States sur- veyors were at the Rapids. But the French set- tlement proper was down opposite Manhattan. Another early trader, by the naine of Court- manche, made transient trips through the valley.

It looks as though Col. Anderson, with his corn-field, garden and store, was best entitled to the honor of being the first settler. The first comers were in fact all squatters, and in a sense transient occupants. The title to the honor, however. is not so clear as to bar other claimants. Among the first Americans was James Carlin, Govern- ment blacksmith to the Indians, who came from the River Raisin in November, 1807. He moved first from Auburn, N. Y., to Erie, Penn .; then came up the lake to Detroit. The Ewings, Races, Carters, David Hull, Daniel Purdy, and some others came in the year 1807. Several French families, the Mominees, Peltiers, La Points and others were there in 1807. The years 1808 and 1809 brought a number more families, Americans and French, the latter mostly from Detroit and the Raisin. They were the avant-couriers of the great population which has since taken posses- sion of every acre of this vast domain. Like the scouts and skirmishers in the advance of a great army, they cautiously felt their way ahead, and the main army followed and took up the bur- den of the battle. Gradually the settlement in- creased.

In 1810, Amos Spafford. previously inen- tioned, with his family, settled on the south side of the river. He held a commission as collector of the Port of Miami, Erie District. In June, of the same year, he was appointed postmaster, and the settlement had the convenience of mail every two weeks. Benoni Adams was carrier from Cleveland to the Rapids, the round trip, made usually on foot, because there was no road through the swamp, occupying sometimes two weeks. Miami was the only post office on the route, between Cleveland and Chicago, then Fort Dearborn, except River Raisin (Monroe). Major Spafford's first quarterly report, as collect-

or, showed the export value of goods, furs, skins and bear's oil, to be $5,640.85. Here was the beginning of civil government on the Maumee. Amos Spafford was the pioneer officer, in the ex- ercise of civil authority; date ISIo. He was, too, the first pioneer to build his cabin, and begin a permanent abode, in what is now Wood county. The land he first squatted upon, and made im- provements on, he afterward paid for, and there he died in 1817. He was the first man who possessed title, from the United States Govern- ment, to Wood county soil, his patent being signed by James Monroe, as related in the chapter on Land Titles.

In this same year, 1810, some New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians came from Buffalo, and a party of them landed from the schooner, where Port Clinton is, to take a look at the country. Andrew Race, who was with them, on his return to the Maumee, with his brothers Bob and Dave. piloted the party through. Beside the Races were Jesse Skinner, Cyrus Hitchcock, Daniel Murray, Samuel Merritt, and some others. Most of the party selected locations, and then some went back east. Skinner selected what is since River Tract 50, " at and below the south end of the present Waterville bridge. One of the Ewings had previously located three miles below, on the same side of the river, and a Frenchman, a sort of trader, named Peter Lumbar, had a squatter's shanty near the mouth of Tontogany creek. nearly opposite the Ottawa Indian village. By these gradual accretions the settlement grew, numbering in the spring of 1812 about seventy families. All were along the river on both sides, except one of the Ewings, Samuel H., Daniel Murray, and one other family, who located at Monclova, where Ewing built a dam on Swan creek, and had commenced constructing a saw- mill.

The settlers had already begun to test the pro- ductiveness of the soil by planting islands, and rich bottoms, in grain and vegetables. After the first crop, there were no longer doubts as to the quality of the soil. The yield was enormous; none had ever seen better. Another great yield, not so gratifying, came in the fall season-the Maumee fever and ague. This misery came right from the start, but was not considered dan- gerous after the first year and a season of accli- mation. Still, with hardships, exposure and the prevailing fever, a number of those first settlers lost their lives.

The spring of 1812 was an eventful one, not

* The river tracts were not surveyed as such by Glover in 1805, but at the re-survey, in Isto. by Wampler.

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only on the Maumee, but in the world's history. Europe was trembling beneath the tread of the gigantic armies of Napoleon, marching to the Russian frontier. Ominous war clouds darkened the horizon of all Europe, and lowered threaten- ingly over the United States. The hopeful,

embryo settlement at the Maumee had planted their crops, and the islands and bottoms were verdant with the promise of a bountiful harvest, when all their hopes were blasted by events, which will be described in the next succeeding chapters.

CHAPTER VIII.

WAR OF 1812-ARRIVAL OF GEN. HULL'S ARMY AT THE MAUMEE RAPIDS-HULL'S "TRACE " __ SURRENDER AT DETROIT-THE PIONEER MAUMEE SETTLEMENT ABANDONED TO THE SAVAGES.

S AID Montesquieu, "Happy are the people whose annals are a blank." Fortunate, in- deed, would the first Maumee Pioncers have been could this part of our story have been a blank in their history.

About the middle of June, 1812, the settle- ment about the Lower Maumee Rapids was set astir by the arrival of Gen. William Hull, with about two thousand troops, on his way to De- troit. This column consisted of three volunteer regiments, under Cols. Duncan McArthur, James Finley, and Lewis Cass, that had been recruited in southern Ohio, mostly about Dayton, Spring- field and Urbana, also a battalion of regulars un- der Col. Boyd. They marched from Urbana, directly northward, and cleft their way through the heavy forests from Champaign county to tlie Maumee.

Congress had appointed Gov. Hull brigadier general, and authorized the enlistment of this force for two causes: First, Gov. W. H. Har- rison, in the Indiana Territory, had been having serious trouble with the Indians. Tecumseh, with a band of restless Shawnees, had settled on the Wabash, with the Miamis, and with his twin brother, Elkswatawa, better known as the " Prophet," a brawling, fanatical conjurer and medicine man, was "pow-wowing" the dissatis- fied elements, in all the tribes, into an aggressive league against the whites, similar in some re- spects to that of Pontiac. Some of the half- crazed Indians had already commenced depreda- tions on the settlers, and Indians who disbelieved in the "Prophet" were driven off, and in some in- stances put to deathi for witchcraft by their over- zealous ignorant brethren.

Gov. Harrison, with the purpose of breaking up the pow-wow and restoring order, gathered

up what troops he could and marched over to the "Prophet's" village, near the mouth of the Tippe- canoe. The cunning Indian came out to meet him, and professed great friendship and wanted no war. A parley was arranged for the next day. Harrison then went into camp abont a mile from the Indian village. The next morning, before daylight, his camp was assailed, with unexampled fury, by the "Prophet's" warriors, and one of the most stubborn battles in Indian warfare followed, the whites losing nearly two hundred men, and some of their best officers. The savages were beaten off finally, and their village burned; but it was evident, from this act of treachery, that when Tecumseh, who was absent, returned from his pilgrimage among other tribes, he and his fanatical brother would stir up a general war. if possible. Hence, the Governors of both Mich- igan and Indiana Territories, where a large portion of the tribes were, began active preparations to defend the settlements. This action, fought No- vember 7, ISII, is known in history as the bat- tle of Tippecanoe, taking its name from the creek near where the fight took place. The second cause, for an armed force at Detroit, was the strained relations between Great Britain and the United States. Because of the impressment of American seamen, and unredressed acts of injus- tice and overbearing insolence, the United States was on the eve of formally declaring war on Eng- land; in fact, had done so, when Hull was camped at the Rapids, but there were no telegraphs or railroads in 1812, so news went slow, and this army was still ignorant of the true situation.

To guard their line of communications, Hull's forces, as they came north, constructed Forts McArthur in Hardin county, Findlay on the Blanchard, and a small stockade on the north

WOOD COUNTY, OHIO. 1620294

branch of the Portage, or Carrying river, called Fort Portage. These were temporary defenses, and were garrisoned with the necessary comple- ment of men under subaltern officers. The pres- ence of this military force was a great relief to the little settlement at the Rapids, as there had been a feeling of insecurity since the affair of Tippecanoe the previous fall. This was increased by the expected trouble with Great Britain, and the settlers prevailed on Gen. Hull to also leave them a small detail of soldiers for their better protection.

Hull's army, after their toilsome march through the swamp, in which the water in places reached the saddle girths of the horses, enjoyed three days rest and refreshment, in their camp on the river, as only soldiers on the march know how to do. While they are encamped there, let us take a hasty look over the route they came. It was Wood county's pioneer road, and from north to south, the only one for many years after. It was such a miserable excuse for a road, however, that the early settlers did not respect it with the name of road, but called it "Hull's Trace."

No professional engineering skill was expended either in its location or construction. Gen. Hull was at Dayton with his little army, and wanted to get to Detroit, so they decided to advance to Urbana, and thence take a straight northerly course. Instead of engineers, they employed three expert woodsmen, Isaac Zane, Robert Arm- strong and James McPherson, as guides to pilot the army through the woods and keep it from getting lost. Zane and Armstrong had been raised among the Indians from boyhood, and McPherson was a fur trader, familiar with the country between Cincinnati and Detroit. Look- ing over the ground now, since it is stripped of the forest and exposed to view, we must own that the most skillful topographical engineer could scarcely have improved on the route selected by those unlettered woodsmen without compass or chain.

After seeing the route marked out on a sec- tional map under the careful guidance of some of the earliest settlers, as Gen. John E. Hunt, Judge William Ewing, Jacob Eberly, Thomas Cox, Collister Haskins and others, who were familiar with and had traveled it, the "Trace " may be described in general terms as follows: It entered the county from the south, on the east part of Section 35, in Henry township, not far east r ! Rocky Ford creek, which it followed north to the center of Section 19, Bloom township, where st crossed to the west side of the creek, near the present bridge, and continued north between the

creek and the Perrysburg and Findlay pike, to the southeast corner of Section 1, Henry town- ship, where it bore west gradually, about to the half-section line, when it continued nearly due north, through the chain of beech ridges and swails, to the north branch of the Portage, or Ditch 12, near which point was established the stockade post, sometimes called Fort Portage. Here the trail turned down stream, northeast, until about eighty rods east of the pike, where it crossed the Portage, and from there lay nearly parallel with the railroad to Bowling Green, a part of the way on the railroad's right of way. The railroad track is on top of the old trace at the Wooster street crossing, Bowling Green. Passing north near the old cemetery ground, the route was almost direct to the point of ridge across the prairie, on the west side of the stone pike, in the northeast corner of Section 13, Plain. Here, on the dry ground that is sometimes called Terry's Corners, was a favorite camping place, with prairie grass convenient for grazing the oxen and beef cattle. From this point the trace bore away from the pike, passing just west of Union Hill cemetery, Plain township, thence to the cor- ner of Section 23, Middleton township, which it crossed diagonally, also Fractional Sections 15 and 34, and River Tracts 46, 47 and 48, striking the Maumee near the ravine, opposite the lower end of Dodd's island, at River Tract 49, thence down the river, on the most eligible ground, to the "Big flats," where the army camped and crossed the river at that point, when the march was resumed.

This route is thus somewhat minutely de- scribed for future reference, not only because of its relation to one of the unfortunate historic events of the war of 1812, but because it was for some years a path for the pioneers to their county seat (Urbana, and, afterward, Bellefontaine), and also, in part, a United States mail route.

For some of the incidents of the march, and the inglorious end of the expedition, and career of Gen. Hull, an extract from the "Reminis- cences of Gen. John E. Hunt." read before the Maumee Valley Pioneer Association, in Perrys- burg, February 22, 1876, will prove instructive and of interest. Hunt, who went with the troops, was at that time in his fifteenth year, and in later years was a commissioner of Wood county. "In 1812," he says, "I was living with my brother-in-law, Dr. Abraham Edwards, at Dayton. He became surgeon-general of Hull's army. Going out with him, I messed with the staff officers and dined at Gen. Hull's table. The army left Dayton in the forepart of June.

BESUCHT

WOOD COUNTY, OHIO.

We struck the Maumee river about the 15th of that month. In passing through Hull's Prairie the water was up to my saddle skirts. It was a clear summer day when the army struck the river, at the head of the "Big flats," about two miles above Fort Meigs. There were three regiments of volunteer militia, and the Fourth U. S. Infantry, who had joined Hull at Urbana, and were just come from the victory of Tippe- canoe, in all 2, 500 men. After coming through the wilderness so many days, it was beautiful to look upon the broad, open channel of the river, expanding among the islands and sweeping off into the blue distance in graceful curves. The high banks were clothed with the primeval forest, and the level bottom land and islands were covered with grass. It was not half an hour before the whole army was in the water. When we left Dayton, a regiment went forward at a time. Col. McArthur went first and built Fort McArthur, and Col. Findlay followed and built Fort Findlay. We camped at the "Big flats " three days, the General expecting every day to hear news from Washington of the declaration of war against Great Britain. The first day they moved they marched four miles down the left bank of the river, having forded at Presque Isle, and camped on the bottom land below Miami. There they found a small vessel, . The Cuya- hoga,' which was chartered and sent ahead for Detroit, loaded with the officers' wives and bag- gage. On the way she was captured by the British at Malden. [As Hull's men marched through the settlement where Maumee is, a Capt. Bond, a sort of clerk or deputy collector for Maj. Spafford, brought out his militia company and paraded them in honor of the occasion. Each man, in the absence of a feather, had a deer tail stuck in his hat .- Way's Memoirs. ]

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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 8

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