USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio, containing a collection of the most interesting facts, traditions, biographical sketches, anecdotes, etc., relating to its general and local history : with descriptions of its counties, principal towns, and villages > Part 2
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OUTLINE HISTORY.
the tenth township from the Ohio; thence by a due west line to Scioto ; thence by the Scioto to the beginning. The bounds of that contract were afterwards altered in 1792. The settlement of this purchase commenced at Marietta, at the mouth of the Muskingum river, in the spring of 1788, and was the first settlement formed within the limits of Ohio. An attempt at settlement within the bounds of Ohio had been made in April, 1785, at the mouth of the Scioto, on the site of Portsmouth, by four families from Redstone, Pa .; but diffi- culties with the Indians compelled its abandonment.
The same year in which Marietta was first settled, Congress ap- pointed Gen. Arthur St. Clair, an officer of the revolution, Governor ; Winthrop Sargeant, Secretary ; and the Hon. Samuel Holden Par- sons, James Mitchell Varnum, and John Cleves Symmes, Judges ; in, and over the Territory. The territorial government was orga- nized, and sundry laws were made, or adopted, by the Governor and Judges Parsons and Varnum. The county of Washington, having its limits extended westward to the Scioto, and northward to Lake Erie, embracing about half the territory within the present limits of the State, was established by the proclamation of the Go- vernor.
On the 15th of October, 1788, John Cleves Symmes, in behalf of himself and his associates, contracted with the Board of Treasury for the purchase of a large tract of land situated between the Great and Little Miami river, and the first settlement within the limits of that purchase, and second in Ohio, was commenced in November of that year, at Columbia, at the mouth of the Little Miami, five miles above the site of Cincinnati.
"A short time after the settlement at Marietta had commenced, an association was formed under the name of the " Scioto Land Com- pany." A contract was made for the purchase of a part of the lands included in the Ohio Company's purchases. Plats and descriptions of the land contracted for, were, however, made out, and Joel Barlow was sent as an agent to Europe to make sales of the lands for the benefit of the company ; and sales were effected of parts thereof to companies and individuals in France. On February 19th, 1791. two hundred and eighteen of these purchasers left Havre de Grace, in France, and arrived in Alexandria, D. C., on the 3d of May follow- ing. During their passage, two were added to their number. On their arrival, they were told that the Scioto Company owned no land. The agent insisted that they did, and promised to secure to them good titles thereto, which he did, at Winchester, Brownsville, and Charleston (now Wellsburg). When they arrived at Marietta, about fifty of them landed. The rest of the company proceeded to Gallipolis, which was laid out about that time, and were assured by the agent that the place lay within their purchase. Every effort to secure titles to the lands they had purchased having failed, an appli- cation was made to Congress, and in June, 1798, a grant was made to them of a tract of land on the Ohio, above the mouth of the Scioto river, which is called the 'French Grant.'"
3 1833 02405 4857
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The Legislature of Connecticut, in May, 1795, appointed a com- mittee to receive proposals and make sale of the lands she had re- served in Ohio. This committee sold the lands to sundry citizens of Connecticut and other States, and, in September of the same year, executed to several purchasers deeds of conveyance therefor. The purchasers proceeded to survey into townships of five miles square the whole of said tract lying east of the Cuyahoga ; they made di- visions thereof according to their respective proportions, and com- menced settlements in many of the townships, and there were actu- ally settled therein, by the 21st of March, 1800, about one thousand inhabitants. A number of mills had been built, and roads cut in various directions to the extent of about 700 miles.
The location of the lands appropriate for satisfying military land bounty warrants in the district appropriated for that purpose, granted for services in the revolutionary war, commenced on March 13th, 1800 ; and the location of the lands granted to the Canadian and Nova Scotia refugees commenced February 13th, 1802. The lands east of the Scioto, south of the military bounty lands, and west of the fifteenth range of townships, were first brought into market, and offered for sale by the United States on the first Monday of May, 1801.
The State of Virginia, at an early period of the revolutionary war, raised two description of troops, State and Continental, to each of which bounties in land were promised. The lands within the limits of her charter, situate to the north-west of Ohio river, were with- drawn from appropriation on treasury warrants, and the lands on Cumberland river, and between the Green and Tennessee rivers on the south-easterly side of the Ohio, were appropriated for these mili- tary bounties. Upon the recommendation of Congress, Virginia ceded her lands north of the Ohio, upon certain conditions ; one of which was, that in case the lands south of Ohio should be insufficient for their legal bounties to their troops, the deficiency should be made up from lands north of the Ohio, between the rivers Scioto and Little Miami.
In 1783, the Legislature of Virginia authorized the officers of their respective lines to appoint superintendants to regulate the survey of the bounty lands promised. Richard C. Anderson was appointed principal surveyor of the lands of the troops of the continental estab- lishment. An office for the reception of locations and surveys was opened at Louisville, Kentucky, August 1st, 1784, and on the 1st of August, 1787, the said office was open for the reception of surveys and locations on the north side of the Ohio.
In the year 1789, January 9th, a treaty was made at Fort Harmer, between Gov. St. Clair and the Sachems and warriors of the Wyan- dot, Chippewa, Potawatomie, and Sac nations, in which the treaty at Fort McIntosh was renewed and confirmed. It did not, however, produce the favorable results anticipated. The Indians, the same year, assuming a hostile appearance, were seen hovering round the infant settlements near the mouth of the Muskingum and between
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the Miamies, and nine persons were killed within the bounds of Symmes' purchase. . The new settlers became alarmed and erected block-houses in each of the new settlements. In June, 1789, Major Doughty, with 140 men, from Fort Harmar, commenced the building of Fort Washington, on a spot now within the present limits of Cin- cinnati. A few months afterwards, Gen. Harmar arrived, with 300 men, and took command of the fort.
Negociations with the Indians proving unavailing, Gen. Harmar was directed to attack their towns. In pursuance of his instructions, he marched from Cincinnati, in September, 1790, with 1,300 men, of whom less than one-fourth were regulars. When near the Indian villages, on the Miami of the lake in the vicinity of what is now Fort Wayne, an advanced detachment of 210, consisting chiefly of militia, fell into an ambush and was defeated with severe loss. Gen. Harmar, however, succeeded in burning the Indian villages, and in destroying their standing corn, and having effected this service, the army commenced its march homeward. They had not proceeded far when Harmar received intelligence that the Indians had returned to their ruined towns. He immediately detached about one-third of his remaining force, under the command of Col. Hardin, with orders to bring them to an engagement. He succeeded in this early the next morning ; the Indians fought with great fury, and the militia and the regulars alike behaved with gallantry. More than one hun- dred of the militia, and all the regulars except nine, were killed, and the rest were driven back to the main body. Dispirited by this severe misfortune, Harmar immediately marched to Cincinnati, and the object of the expedition in intimidating the Indians was entirely unsuccessful.
As the Indians continued hostile, a new army, superior to the former, was assembled at Cincinnati, under the command of Gov. St. Clair. The regular force amounted to 2,300 men; the militia numbered about 600. With this army, St. Clair commenced his .march towards the Indian towns on the Maumee. Two forts, Hamilton and Jefferson, were established and garrisoned on the route, about forty miles from each other. Misfortune attended the expedition almost from its commencement. Soon after leaving Fort Jefferson, a considerable party of the militia deserted in a body. The first regiment, under Major Hamtramck, was ordered to pursue them and to secure the advancing convoys of provisions, which it was feared they designed to plunder. Thus weakened by desertion and division, St. Clair approached the Indian villages. On the third of November, 1791, when at what is now the line of Darke and Mercer counties, he halted, intending to throw up some slight forti- fication for the protection of baggage, and to await the return of the absent regiment. On the following morning, however, about half an hour before sun rise, the American army was attacked with great fury, as there is good reason to believe, by the whole disposable force of the north-west tribes. The Americans were totally de- feated. Gen. Butler and upwards of six hundred men were killed.
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Indian outrages of every kind were now multiplied, and emigration was almost entirely suspended.
President Washington now urged forward the vigorous prosecu- tion of the war for the protection of the North-west Territory ; but various obstacles retarded the enlistment and organization of a new army. In the spring of 1794, the American army assembled at Greenville, in Darke county, under the command of Gen. Anthony Wayne, a bold, energetic and experienced officer of the revolution. His force consisted of about two thousand regular troops, and fifteen hundred mounted volunteers from Kentucky. The Indians had col- lected their whole force, amounting to about two thousand men, near a British fort, erected since the treaty of 1783, in violation of its obligations, at the foot of the rapids of the Maumee. On the 20th of August, 1794, Gen. Wayne encountered the enemy, and after a short and deadly conflict, the Indians fled in the greatest confusion, and were pursued under the guns of the British fort. After destroy- ing all the houses and corn fields above and below the British fort, on the Maumee, the victorious army returned to the mouth of Au Glaize, where Wayne erected Fort Defiance. Previous to this ac- tion, various fruitless attempts had been made to bring the Indians to peace. Some of the messengers sent among the Indians for that object were murdered.
The victory of Wayne did not at first reduce the savages to sub- mission. Their country was laid waste, and forts were erected in the heart of their territory before they could be entirely subdued. At length, however, they became thoroughly convinced of their in- ability to resist the American arms and sued for peace. A grand council was held at Greenville, where eleven of the most powerful north-western tribes were represented, to whom Gen. Wayne dic- tated the terms of pacification. The boundary established by the treaty at Fort McIntosh was confirmed and extended westward from Loramie's to Fort Recovery, and thence south-west to the mouth of Kentucky river. The Indians agreed to acknowledge the United States as their sole protector, and never to sell their lands to any other power. Upon these and other conditions, the United States received the Indian nations into their protection. A large quantity of goods was delivered to them on the spot, and perpetual annuities, payable in merchandise, &c., were promised to each tribe who be- came a party to the treaty.
While the war with the Indians continued, of course, but little progress was made in the settlement in the west. The next county that was established after that of Washington, in 1788, was Hamil- ton, erected in 1790. Its bounds included the country between the Miamies, extending northward from the Ohio river, to a line drawn due east from the standing stone forks of the Great Miami. The name of the settlement opposite the Licking was, at this time, called Cincinnati.
At this period, there was no fixed, seat of government. The laws were passed whenever they seemed to be needed, and promulgated
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at any place where the territorial legislators happened to be as- sembled. In 1789, the first Congress passed an act recognizing the binding force of the ordinance of 1787, and adapting its provisions to the federal constitution. At this period, the judges appointed by the national executive constituted the supreme court of the terri- tory. Inferior to this court, were the county court, courts of com- mon pleas, and the general quarter sessions of the peace. Single judges of the common pleas, and single justices of the quarter ses- sions, were also clothed with certain civil and criminal powers to be exercised out of court.
In 1795, the governor and judges undertook to revise the terri- torial laws, and to establish a system of statutory jurisprudence, by adoptions from the laws of the original States, in conformity to the ordinance. For this purpose they assembled in Cincinnati, in June, and continued in session until the latter part of August. The general court was fixed at Cincinnati and Marietta ; other courts were established, and laws and regulations were adopted for various purposes.
The population of the territory now continued to increase and ex- tend. From Marietta, settlers spread into the adjoining country. The Virginia military reservation drew a considerable number of revolutionary veterans, and others, from that State. The region between the Miamies, from the Ohio far up toward the sources of Mad river, became chequered with farms, and abounded in indica- tions of the presence of an active and prosperous population. The neighborhood of Detroit became populous, and Connecticut, by grants of land within the tract, reserved in her deed of cession, in- duced many of her hardy citizens to seek a home on the borders of Lake Erie. In 1796, Wayne county was established, including all the north-western part of Ohio, a large tract in the north-eastern part of Indiana, and the whole territory of Michigan. In July, 1797, Adams county was erected, comprehending a large tract lying on both sides of Scioto, and extending northward to Wayne. Other counties were afterwards formed out of those already established. Before the end of the year 1798, the North-west Territory contained a population of five thousand free male inhabitants, of full age, and eight organized counties.
The people were now entitled, under the ordinance of 1787, to a change in their form of government. That instrument provided that whenever there were five thousand free males, of full age, in the territory, the people should be authorized to elect representatives to a territorial legislature. These, when chosen, were to nominate ten freeholders of 500 acres, of whom the president was to appoint five, who were to constitute the legislative council. Representatives were to serve two, and councilmen five years. The first meeting of the territorial legislature was appointed on the 16th of September, 1799, but it was not till the 24th of the same month that the two houses were organized for business; at which time they were ad- dressed by Gov. St. Clair. An act was passed to confirm and give
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force to those laws enacted by the governor and judges, whose valid- ity had been doubted. This act, as well as every other which origi- nated in the council, was prepared and brought forward by Jacob Burnet, afterwards a distinguished judge and senator, to whose labors, at this session, the territory was indebted for some of its most beneficial laws. The whole number of acts passed and approved by the governor was thirty-seven. William H. Harrison, then sec- retary of the territory, was elected as delegate to Congress, having eleven of twenty-one votes.
" Within a few months after the close of this session, Connecticut ceded to the United States her claim of jurisdiction over the north- eastern part of the territory ; upon which the president conveyed, by patent, the fee of the soil to the governor of the State, for the use of grantees and purchasers claiming under her. This tract, in the summer of the same year, was erected into a new county by the name of Trumbull. The same congress which made a final arrange- ment with Connecticut, passed an act dividing the North-western Territory into two governments, by a line drawn from the mouth of the Kentucky to Fort Recovery, and thence northward to the terri- torial line. East of this line, the government, already established, was continued ; while west of it another, substantially similar, was established. This act fixed the seat of the eastern government at Chillicothe ; subject, however, to be removed at the pleasure of the legislature."
On the 30th of April, 1802, Congress passed an act authorizing the call of a convention to form a State constitution. This convention assembled at Chillicothe, November 1st, and, on the 29th of the same month, a constitution of State government was ratified and signed by the members of the convention. It was never referred to the people for their approbation, but became the fundamental law of the State by the act of the convention alone ; and, by this act, Ohio be- came one of the States of the Federal Union.
" Besides framing the constitution, the convention had another duty to perform. The act of congress, providing for the admission of the new State into the Union, offered certain propositions to the people. These were, first, that section sixteen in each township, or, where that section had been disposed of, other contiguous and equi- valent lands, should be granted to the inhabitants for the use of schools ; second, that thirty-eight sections of land, where salt-springs had been found, of which one township was situated on the Scioto, one section on the Muskingum, and one section in the United States military tract, should be granted to the State, never, however, to be sold or leased for a longer term than ten years ; and third, that one- twentieth of the proceeds of public lands sold within the State, should be applied to the construction of roads from the Atlantic, to and through the same. These propositions were offered on the con- dition that the convention should provide, by ordinance, that all lands sold by the United States after the thirtieth day of June, 1802, should be exempt from taxation, by the State, for five years after sale
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" The ordinance of 1785, had already provided for the appropria- tion of section sixteen to the support of schools in every township sold by the United States; and this appropriation thus became a condition of the sale and settlement of the western country. It was a consideration offered to induce purchases of public lands, at a time when the treasury was well-nigh empty, and this source of revenue was much relied upon. It extended to every township of land within the territory, except those in the Virginia military reserva- tion and wherever the reserved section had been disposed of, after the passage of the ordinance, Congress was bound to make other equivalent provision for the same object. The reservation of sec- tion sixteen, therefore, could not, in 1802, be properly made the ob- ject of a new bargain between the United States and the State : and many thought that the salt reservations and the twentieth of the proceeds of the public lands were very inadequate equivalents for the proposed surrender of the right to tax. The convention, how ever, determined to accept the propositions of Congress, on their being so far enlarged and modified as to vest in the State, for the use of schools, section sixteen in each township sold by the United States, and three other tracts of land, equal in quantity, respectively, to one thirty-sixth of the Virginia reservation, of the United States military tract, and of the Connecticut reserve, and to give three per centum of the proceeds of the public lands sold within the State, to be applied under the direction of the legislature, to roads in Ohio. Congress assented to the proposed modifications, and thus completed the compact."
The first General Assembly under the State constitution met at Chilicothe, March 1st, 1803. The legislature enacted such laws as were deemed necessary for the new order of things, and created eight new counties, namely : Gallia, Scioto, Franklin, Columbiana, Butler, Warren, Green, and Montgomery. The first State officers elected by the assembly were as follows, viz. : Michael Baldwin, Speaker of the House of Representatives; Nathaniel Massie, Speaker of the Senate ; William Creighton, Jr., Secretary of State ; Col. Thomas Gibson, Auditor ; William McFarland, Treasurer ; Return J. Meigs, Jr., Samuel Huntington, and William Sprigg, Judges of the Supreme Court ; Francis Dunlavy, Wyllys Silliman, and Calvin Pease, Judges of the District Courts.
The second General Assembly convened in December, 1803. At this session, the militia law was thoroughly revised and a law was passed to enable aliens to enjoy the same proprietary rights in Ohio as native citizens. At this session, also, the revenue system of the State was simplified and improved. Acts were passed providing for the incorporation of townships, and for the establishment of boards of commissioners of counties.
In 1805, by a treaty with the Indians at Fort Industry, the United States acquired, for the use of the grantees of Connecticut, all that part of the western reserve which lies west of the Cuyahoga. By subsequent treaties, all the country watered by the Maumee and the
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· Sandusky have been acquired, and the Indian title to lands in Ohio is now extinct.
In the course of the year 1805, the conspiracy of Aaron Burr began to agitate the western country. The precise scope of the conspiracy does not distinctly appear. " The immediate object, probably, was to seize on New Orleans and invade Mexico. The ulterior purpose may have been to detach the west from the Ameri- can Union. In December, 1806, in consequence of a confidential message from the governor, founded on the representations of an agent of the general government deputed to watch the motions of Burr, the legislature passed an act authorizing the arrest of persons engaged in an unlawful enterprise, and the seizure of their goods. Under this act, ten boats, with a considerable quantity of arms, am- munition, and provisions, belonging to Burr's expedition, were seized. This was a fatal blow to the project."
The Indians, who since the treaty at Greenville had been at peace," about the year 1810, began to commit aggressions upon the inhabi- tants of the west. The celebrated Tecumseh was conspicuously active in his efforts to unite the native tribes against the Americans, and to arrest the farther extension of the settlements. His proceed- ings, and those of his brother, 'the Prophet,' soon made it evident that the west was about to suffer the calamities of another Indian war, and it was resolved to anticipate their movements. In 1811, Gen. Harrison, then governor of Indiana Territory, marched against the town of the 'Prophet,' upon the Wabash. The battle of Tip- pecanoe ensued, in what is now Cass county, Indiana, in which the Indians were totally defeated. This year was also distinguish- ed by an occurrence of immense importance to the whole west. This was the voyage, from Pittsburg to New Orleans, of the first steamboat ever launched upon the western waters.
" In June, 1812, the United States declared war against Great Britain. Of this war the west was a principal theatre. Defeat, disaster, and disgrace marked its opening scenes ; but the latter events of the contest were a series of splendid achievements. Croghan's gallant defence of Fort Stephenson ; Perry's victory upon Lake Erie ; the total defeat, by Harrison, of the allied British and savages, under Proctor and Tecumseh, on the Thames; and the great closing triumph of Jackson at New Orleans, reflected the most brilliant lustre upon the American arms. In every vicissitude of this contest, the conduct of Ohio was eminently patriotic and honor- able. When the necessities of the national government compelled «congress to resort to a direct tax, Ohio, for successive years, cheer- fully assumed, and promptly paid her quota out of her State trea- sury. Her sons volunteered with alacrity their services in the field; and no troops more patiently endured hardship or performed better service. Hardly a battle was fought in the north-west, in which some of these brave citizen soldiers did not seal their devotion to their country with their blood.
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