Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 107

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006

USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I > Part 107

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In October, 1787, Dr. Cutler and Sargent closed two contracts with the Board of Trea- sury. One with Manasseh Cutler and Win- throp Sargent, as agents for the directors of the "Ohio Company of Associates, so called," was an absolute purchase of 1,500,000 acres, lying between the Ohio river, the 7th and 17th ranges of townships, and extending north from the river till a line due west from the 7th to the 17th range should, with the reser- vations stated in the contract, include the whole amount. The other with Manasseh Cutler and Winthrop Sargent, "for them- selves and associates," was an option to pur-

chase all the lands lying between the Ohio and Scioto rivers and the 17th Range, extending north to the line of the 10th Township, and also all the land east of this tract, west of the 7th Range, south of the 10th Township, and north of the Ohio Company's purchase. The whole tract of land included in the last contract was estimated to be from 3,000,000 to 3,500,000 acres. In each contract the line of the 17th range is recognized as yet to be determined. The price of the land was one dollar per acre, subject to a reduction of one-third for bad land, to be paid in gold, silver, or securities of the United States.

From the above it is seen that Dr. Cutler and Major Sargent made an absolute purchase from the Board of Treasury for the direct use of the Ohio Company, and a contract for the right of purchase or pre-emption right of the three millions and a half or thereabouts wanted by Duer and associates. Having done this they ceded to the latter the pre-emption right. Cutler and Sargent, members of the Ohio Company, were included as associates with Duer.

What we may term the Scioto tract was divided into thirty shares, of which Duer took 13, Cutler and Sargent jointly 13, and the remaining four were to be sold in Europe. Cutler and Sargent assigned interests to Generals Benjamin Tupper, Rufus Putnam, S. H. Parsons, and Royal Flint. Joel Barlow was also given an interest by Duer of one-sixtieth of the tract, he being selected as agent to go to Paris and sell the four shares. He arrived there the last of June, 1788. He could, however, sell only the " right of pre-emption." Barlow took with him a copy of a pamphlet by Dr. Cutler entitled " An explanation of the Map which delineates that part of the Federal lands comprehended between Pennsylvania, the Rivers Ohio, Scioto, and Lake Erie." This pamphlet was reprinted in Paris, in 1789, with the endorsement of Capt. Thomas Hutchins, the geographer of the United States, as to its accuracy.

At first Barlow met with indifferent success, but early in 1789 he got acquainted with William Playfair, whom he describes as an " Englishman of a bold and en- terprising spirit and a good imagination."

In July of that year the Bastile was taken and all France was in an uproar. The times were propitions for schemes of emigration. Barlow and Playfair issued " Prospectus for an Establishment on the Rivers Ohio and Scioto." In preparing this they used the pamphlet of Dr. Cutler and Capt. Hutchins descriptive of the Ohio country, with additions and embellishments wherein Playfair's "good imag- ination" was displayed, as is shown by the annexed extract :

A climate wholesome and delightful, frost even in winter almost entirely unknown, and a river called, by way of eminence, the beau- tiful, and abounding in excellent fish of a vast size. Noble forests, consisting of trees that spontaneously produce sugar (the sugar maple) and a plant that yields ready-made candles

(myrica cerifera). Venison in plenty, the pursuit of which is uninterrupted by wolves, foxes, lions or tigers. A couple of swine will multiply themselves a hundredfold in two or three years, without taking any care of them. No taxes to pay, no military services to be performed.

Volney, who came to America in 1795, in his "View," where we find the above, says :

670

GALLIA COUNTY.

These munificent promisers forgot to say that these forests must be cut down before corn could be raised ; that for a year, at least, they must bring their daily bread from a great distance ; that hunting and fishing are agreeable amusements, when pursued for the sake of amusement, but are widely different when followed for the sake of subsistence. And they quite forgot to mention that, though there be no bears or tigers in the neighbor- , hood, there are wild beasts infinitely more cunning and ferocious, in the shape of men, who were at that time at open and cruel war with the whites.

In France, in Paris, the imagination was too heated to admit of doubt or suspicion,

and people were too ignorant and uninformed to perceive where the picture was defective and its colors too glaring. The example, too, of the wealthy aud reputedly wise confirmed the popular delusion. Nothing was talked of, in every social circle, but the paradise that was opened for Frenchmen in the western wilderness, the free and happy life to be led on the blissful banks of the Scioto. At length Brissot published his travels and com- pleted the flattering delusion. Buyers became numerous and importunate, chiefly among the better sort of the middle class. Single persons and whole families disposed of their all, flattering themselves with having made excellent bargains.

Volney here refers to the travels of Brissot de Warville. Brissot published several volumes relating to America, as we infer from his preface to his "New Travels in America," a work issued in the spring of 1791, and consisting in part of a series of letters written from this country in 1788. In his preface to the last, he says : "The third volume was published in 1787 by Mr. Claviere and me." In the last, he refers to the charges against the Scioto Company in this wise : " This company has been much calumniated. It has been accused of selling lands which it does not possess, of giving exaggerated accounts of its fertility, of deceiving the emigrants, of robbing France of her inhabitants, and of sending them to be butchered by the savages. But the title of this association is incon- testable; the proprietors are reputable men ; the description which they have given of the lands is taken from the public and authentic reports of Mr. Hutchins, geographer of Congress. No person cau dispute their prodigious fer- tility." He elsewhere speaks, in this volume, in high terms of the company.

With the proposals they issued a map copied from that of Capt. Hutchins, but with a fraudulent addition in the statement that the country east of the Scioto tract was cleared and settled when, indeed, it was a wilderness, the first settlement within it, that at Marietta, having been made only the year before.

The engraved map annexed was inserted in the first edition of this work. It was copied by us in 1846 from the map of Barlow and Playfair in the possession of Monsieur J. P. R. Bureau, one of the settlers who was then living in Gallipolis, and who came out in 1799 from Paris. The original was sixteen inches long and twelve wide.

It was in French, handsomely engraved and colored, with the lands of the two companies and the tract east of them, all divided into townships of six miles square. It represents the Scioto Company's tract as extending about 100 miles north of the mouth of the Kanawha, and including more or less of the present counties of Meigs, Athens, Muskingum, Licking, Franklin, Pickaway, Ross, Pike, Scioto, Gallia, Lawrence, Perry, Jackson, Hocking and Fairfield. This tract, on the map, is divided into 142 townships and thirty-two fractions. The north line of the Ohio Land Company's tract is eighteen miles south of the other, and included the present county of Morgan and parts of Washington, Meigs, Athens, Mus- kingum, Guernsey and Monroe, there divided into ninety-one townships and six- teen fractions. The tract east of that of the Ohio Company extends forty-eight miles farther north. Upon the original are the words, "Sept rangs de munici- palite acquis par des individues et occupes depuis, 1786;" i. e., "Seven ranges of townships acquired by individuals and occupied since 1786."

It was in November, 1789, that Barlow, as agent, concluded the sale to a com- pany formed in Paris under the firm-name of the "Company of the Scioto," the principal members of which were M. Gouy de Arsy, M. Barond, St. Didier, Maheas, Guibert, the Chevalier de Coquelon,. William Playfair and Joel Barlow. He used no deception with the company, showing them the exact terms of the grant to his principals.

GALLIA COUNTY.

671

The Society of the Scioto Company sold their lands rapidly, but the deeds did not give a perfect title nor claim to do so. They conveyed "all the right, title, interest and claim of said society," but many persons accepted the deeds as con- veying and warranting a perfect title. The warranty clause in the deeds guar- anteed against " every kind of eviction or attack." .

Barlow exceeded his powers in allowing the Scioto Company to give deeds. He, however, expected that from the proceeds of sales they would be enabled to

LAKE ERIE:

Grand R.

Omie R.

CONNECTICUT' Lands

ky R.

Huron R.

Sandu

Portage 4 m.

Portage Im.

PENS

Army

Lainds

Inhabitert

RIVER

Lead Mines

Tract acquired by Isthe OHNO COMPANY

Free stone Quarry

Salt Mine

Land of the

Village

SCIOTO / COMPANY

the

Coal

Army Lands

First town

C Great

Kanawha

ART

FAY ETTE CO.

KENTUCKY

"PLAN OF THE PURCHASE OF THE OHIO AND SCIOTO LAND COMPANIES."

perfect the title. His associate, Playfair, withheld the funds, and Barlow, it seems, was duped by him.

The upshot of the matter was that the Scioto Company and Col. Duer failed, and the failure of the latter was so great that it was said to have been the very first financial shock of any moment from speculation New York city ever received.

A full history of the Scioto Company is given in thirty pages of the "Life of Manasseh Cutler," published by Robert Clarke & Co., to which the reader is referred.

River

Cleared

Scicto

Cleared & Settled Marietta Fort Da

BEAUTIFUL

RCINI

OHIO

Lit

Kanawha R.

NSYLVANIA

Portage & m.

Cuyahoga R.

R. Miami R.

672

GALLIA COUNTY.

The result of the operations of the Scioto Company was to colonize a spot in Ohio with French people in 1790, who thus made the third permanent regular settlement within its limits at Gallipolis, the others preceding being Marietta and Cincinnati. The first party of French emigrants arrived at Alexandria on May 1, 1790; about 500 in all left their native country for the promised land, and about October 20th the first boat-load arrived at Gallipolis.

The terms to induce immigration were as follows : the company agreed to take the colonists to their lands and pay the cost, and the latter bound himself to work three years for the company, for which he was to receive fifty acres, a house and a cow. Not all came on these terms, for among them were men of wealth and title

GALLIPOLIS, i. e., CITY OF THE FRENCH, IN 1790.

who paid their own passage and bought land on their own account. They were persons ill fitted for such an enterprise. Among them were not a few carvers and gilders to his majesty, coach and peruke makers, friseurs and other artistes, about equally well fitted for a backwoods life, with only ten or twelve farmers and laborers.

On the map is shown the " first town," i. e., "Premiere Ville," lying opposite the mouth of the Kanawha. It was laid out by the Ohio Company, under the name of Fair Haven ; but as the ground there is low and liable to overflow, Gallipolis was located four miles below, upon a high bank, ten feet above the flood of 1832.

The location was made a few months before the arrival of the French. Rufns Putnam sent for that purpose Major Burnham, with forty men, who arrived here on the 8th of June by river from Marietta. They made a clearing and erected block-houses and cabins. Col. Robert Safford, who died here June 26, 1863, a very aged man, was of this party and was the first to spring ashore from the boat and signalize his landing by cutting down a sapling, which he did with a camp hatchet, which was the first blow towards making a settlement.

On the public square Burnham erected eighty log-cabins, twenty in each row. At each of the corners were block-houses, two stories in height. In front of the cabins, close by the river bank, was a small, log-breastwork, erected for a defence . while building the cabins. Above the cabins, on the square, were two other par- allel rows of cabins, which, with a high stockade fence and block-houses at each of the upper corners, formed a sufficient fortification in times of danger. These upper cabins were a story and a half in height, built of hewed logs, and finished in better style than those below, being intended for the richer class. In the upper cabins was a room used for a council chamber and a ball room.

The Scioto Company contracted with Putnam to erect these buildings and furnish

673

GALLIA COUNTY.

the settlers with provisions, but failed of payment, by which he lost a large amount. It was a dense little village, the cabins close together, and in its personelle a piece of Paris dropped down on the banks of the Ohio. According to well- authenticated tradition one of the cabins had out the sign, BAKERY & MID- WIFERY.

We continue the history of Gallipolis in the annexed extract from a communi- cation in the American Pioneer, made about the year 1843 by Waldeurard Meu- lette, one of the colonists.

At an early meeting of the colonists, the town was named Gallipolis (town of the French). I did not arrive till nearly all the colonists were there. I descended the river in 1791, in flat boats, loaded with troops, com- manded by Gen. St. Clair, destined for an expedition against the Indians. Some of my countrymen joined that expedition ; among others was Count Malartie, a captain in the French guard of Louis XVI. General St. Clair made him one of his aide-de-camps in the battle, in which he was severely wounded. He went back to Philadelphia, from whence he returned to France. The Indians were encouraged to greater depredations and mur- ders, by their success in this expedition, but most especially against the American settle- ments. From their intercourse with the French in Canada, or some other cause, they seemed less disposed to trouble us. Imme- diately after St. Clair's defeat, Col. Sproat, commandant at Marietta, appointed four spies for Gallipolis-two Americans and two French, of which I was one, and it was not until after the treaty at Greenville, in 1795, that we were released.

Notwithstanding the great difficulties, the difference of tempers, education and profes- sions, the inhabitants lived in harmony, and having little or nothing to do, made themselves agreeable and useful to each other. The Americans and hunters, employed by the com- pany, performed the first labors of clearing the township, which was divided into lots.

Although the French were willing to work, yet the clearing of an American wilderness and its heavy timber, was far more than they could perform. To migrate from the Eastern States to the "far west" is painful enough now-a-days, but how much more so it must be for a citizen of a large European town ! even a farmer of the old countries would find it very hard, if not impossible, to clear land in the wilderness. Those hunters were paid by the colonists to prepare their garden ground, which was to receive the seeds brought from France ; few of the colonists knew how to make a garden, but they were guided by a few books on that subject, which they had brought likewise from France.

The colony then began to improve in its appearance and comfort. The fresh provisions were supplied by the company's hunters, the others came from their magazines. When on the expeditions of Generals St. Clair and Wayne many of the troops stopped at Galli- polis to take provisions, which had been de- posited there for that purpose by government ;

the Indians, who no doubt often came there in the night, at last saw the regulars going morning and evening round the town in order to ascertain if there were any Indian traces, and attacked them, killing and wounding sev- eral-a soldier, besides other wounds, was tomahawked, but recovered. A French col- onist, who had tried to raise corn at some dis- tance from the town, seeing an Indian rising from behind some brushwood against a tree, shot him in the shoulder ; the Indian hearing an American patrole, must have thought that the Frenchman made a part of it ; and some- time afterward a Frenchman was killed, and a man and woman made prisoners, as they were going to collect ashes to make soap, at some distance from town.

After this, although the Indians committed depredations on the Americans on both sides of the river, the French had suffered only by the loss of some cattle carried away, until the murder of the man above related. The Scioto Company, in the mean time, had nearly ful- filled all their engagements during six months, after which time they ceased their supply of provisions to the colonists, and one of their agents gave as a reason for it, that the com- pany had been cheated by one or two of their agents in France, who, having received the funds in France for the purchased lands, had kept the money for themselves and run off with it to England, without having purchased or possessing any of the tract which they had sold to the deceived colonists. This intelli- gence exasperated them, and was the more sensibly felt as a scarcity of provisions added to their disappointment. The winter was uncommonly severe ; the creek and the Ohio were frozen ; the hunters had no longer any meat to sell ; flat boats could not come down with flour to furnish as they had done before. This produced almost a famine in the settle- ment, and a family of eight persons, father, mother, and children, was obliged to subsist for eight or ten days on dry beans, boiled in water, without either salt, grease or bread, and those had never known, before that time, what it was to want for anything. On the other hand, the dangers from the Indians seemed to augment every day.

The colonists were by this time weary of being confined to a few acres of land; the result of their industry was lost ; the money and clothes which they had brought were nearly gone. They knew not to whom they were to apply to get their lands ; they hoped that if Wayne's campaign forced the Indians to make a lasting peace, the Scioto Company

674

GALLIA COUNTY.

would send immediately, either to recover or to purchase those promised lands; but they soon found out their mistake. After the treaty of Greenville, many Indians passing through Gallipolis, on their way to the seat of government, and several travellers, revealed the whole transaction, from which it was as- certained that the pretended Scioto Company was composed of New Englanders, the names of very few only being known to the French, who, being themselves ignorant of the English language, and at such a distance from the place of residence of their defrauders, and without means for prosecuting them, could get no redress.

Lonely Condition of the Colonists .- Far in a distant land, separated forever from their friends and relations-with exhausted means, was it surprising that they were disheartened, and that every social tie should have been loosened, nearly broken, and a great portion of the deceived colonists should have become reckless ? May the happy of this day never feel as they did, when all hope was blasted, and they were left so destitute ! Many of the colonists went off and settled elsewhere with the means that remained to them, and re- sumed their trades in more populous parts of the country ; others led a half-savage life, as hunters for skins : the greater part, however, resolved, in a general assembly, to make a memorial of their grievances, and send it to Congress. The memorial claimed no rights from that body, but it was a detail of their wrongs and sufferings, together with an ap- peal to the generosity and feelings of Con- gress ; and they did not appeal in vain. One of the colonists proposed to carry the peti- tion ; he only stipulated that his expenses should be paid by a contribution of the col- onists, whether he succeeded or not in their object ; but he added that if he obtained for himself the quantity of land which he had

paid for, and the rest had none, he should be repaid by their gratitude for his efforts.

The French Grant .- At Philadelphia he met with a French lawyer, M. Duponceau, and through his means he obtained from Con- gress a grant of 24,000 acres of land, known by the name of the French grant, opposite to Little Sandy, for the French, who were still resident at Gallipolis. The act annexed the condition of settling on the lands three years before receiving the deed of gift. The bearer of the petition had his 4,000 acres ; the rest was divided among the remaining French, amounting to ninety-two persons, married and single.

Each inhabitant had thus a lot of 217} acres of land ; but before the surveys and other arrangements could be made, some time was necessary, during which, those who had reclaimed the wilderness and improved Galli- polis being reluctant to lose all their labor, and finding that a company, owning the lands of Marietta, and where there was a settlement previous to that of the French colony, had met to divide lands which they had purchased in a common stock, the colonists sent a depu- tation for the purpose of proposing to the company to sell them the spot where Galli- polis was and is situated, and to be paid in proportion to what was improved, which was accepted. When at last the distribution of the lots of the French grant was achieved, some sold their share, others went to settle on it, or put tenants, and either remained at Gal- lipolis, or went elsewhere ; but how few en- tered again heartily into a new kind of life, many having lost their lives and others their health, amid hardships, excess of labor, or the indolence which follows discour- agement and hopeless efforts ! Few of the original settlers remain at Gallipolis: not many at the French grant.

Breckenridge, in his "Recollections," gives some reminiscences of Gallipolis, related in a style of charming simplicity and humor. He was at Gallipolis in 1795, at which time he was a boy of nine years of age.

The Little French Doctor .- Behold me once more in port, and domiciliated at the house, or the inn, of Monsieur, or rather, Dr. Saugrain, a cheerful, sprightly little Frenchman, four feet six, English measure, and a chemist, natural philosopher, and phy- sician, both in the English and French signi- fication of the word. . This singular village was settled by people from Paris and Lyons, chiefly artisans and artists, peculiarly unfitted to sit down in the wilderness and clear away forests. I have seen half a dozen at work in taking down a tree, some pulling ropes fastened to the branches, while others were cutting around it like beavers. Some- times serious accidents occurred in conse- quence of their awkwardness. Their former employment had been only calculated to ad- minister to the luxury of highly polished and wealthy societies. There were carvers

and gilders to the king, coaclı-makers, friseurs and peruke-makers, and a variety of others who might have found some employment in our larger towns, but who were entirely out of their place in the wilds of Ohio. Their means by this time had been exhausted, and they were beginning to suffer from the want of the comforts and even the necessaries of life.

The country back from the river was still a wilderness, and the Gallipotians did not pre- tend to cultivate anything more than small garden spots, depending for their supply of provisions on the boats which now began to descend the river; but they had to pay in cash and that was become scarce. They still assembled at the ball-room twice a weck ; it was evident, however, that they felt disap- pointment, and were no longer happy. The predilections of the best among them being

GALLIA COUNTY.

075

on the side of the Bourbons, the horrors of the French revolution, even in their remote situation, mingled with their private misfor- tunes, which had at this time nearly reached their acme in consequence of the discovery that they had no title to their lands, having been cruelly deceived by those from whom they had purchased. It is well known that Congress generously made them a grant of 20,000 acres, from which, however, but few of them ever derived any advantage.

As the Ohio was now more frequented, the house was occasionally resorted to, and espe- cially by persons looking out for land to pur- chase. The doctor had a small apartment which contained his chemical apparatus, and I used to sit by him as often as I could, watching the curious operation of his blow-

pipe and crucible. I loved the cheerful little man, and he became very fond of me in re- turn. Many of my countrymen used to come and stare at his doings, which, they were half inclined to think, had a too near resemblance to the black art. The doctor's little phosphoric matches, igniting sponta- neously when the little glass tube was broken, and from which he derived some emolument, were thought by some to be rather beyond mere human power. His barometer and thermometer, with the scale neatly painted with the pen, and the frames richly carved, were objects of wonder, and probably some of them are yet extant in the west. But what most astonished some of our visitors was a large peach in a glass bottle, the neck of which would only admit a common cork .

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 107

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 1006

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006