Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 75

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 75

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As the season was far advanced, the Colonel could not stay long in these remote parts. He was obliged to rest satisfied with the prisoners the Shawnees had brought, taking hostages and laying them under the strongest obligations for the delivery of the rest, knowing that no other effectual method could be pursued.

After a reply from Bouquet and some further talk, the prisoners were delivered up. The circumstances, as thus told by Dr. Smith, were very touching.

The Caughnawagas, the Delawares and Senecas severally addressed the Shawanese, as grandchildren and nephews, "to perform their promises, and to be strong in doing good, that this peace might be everlasting."

And I am here to enter on a scene, re- served on purpose for this place that the thread of the foregoing narrative might not be interrupted-a scene which language in- deed can but weakly describe ; and to which the poet or painter might have repaired to enrich their highest colorings of the variety of human passions; the philosopher to find ample subject for his most serions reflections ; and the man to exercise all the tender and sympathetic feelings of the soul.

The scene I mean was the arrival of the prisoners in the camp; where were to be seen fathers and mothers recognizing and clasping their once lost babes ; husbands hanging around the necks of their newly- recovered wives ; sisters and brothers unex- pectedly meeting together after long separa- tion, scarce able to speak the same language, or, for some time, to be sure that they were children of the same parents! In all these interviews joy and rapture inexpressible were seen, while feelings of a very different nature were painted in the looks of others-flying from place to place in cager inquiries after relatives not found ! trembling to receive an answer to their questions! distracted with doubts, hopes and fears on obtaining no ac- count of those they fought for ! or stiffened into living monuments of horror and woe on learning their unhappy fate !

The Indians, too, as if wholly forgetting their usual savageness, bore a capital part in heightening this most affecting scene.

They delivered up their beloved captives with the utmost reluctance, shed torrents of tears over them, recommending them to the

care and protection of the commanding officer. Their regard to them continued all the time they remained in camp. They visited them from day to day, and brought them what corn, skins, horses and other matters they had bestowed on them while in their families, accompanied with other presents, and all the marks of the most sin- cere and tender affection. Nay, they did not stop here ; but when the army marched, some of the Indians solicited and obtained leave to accompany their former captives all the way to Fort Pitt, and employed themselves in hunting and bringing provisions for them on the road. A young Mingo carried this still further, and gave an instance of love which would make a figure even in romance. A young woman of Virginia was among the captives, to whom he had formed so strong an attachment as to call her his wife. Against all the remonstrances of the imminent dan- ger to which he exposed himself by ap- proaching to the frontiers, he persisted in following her at the risk of being killed by the surviving relations of many unfortunate persons, who had been captivated or scalped by those of his nation.

Those qualities in savages challenge our just esteem. They should make us chari- tably consider their barbarities as the effects of wrong education, and false notions of bravery and heroism ; while we should look on their virtues as sure marks that nature has made them fit subjects of cultivation as well as us, and that we are called by our su- perior advantages to yield them all the helps we can in this way. Cruel and unmerciful as they are, by habit and long example, in war, yet whenever they come to give way to the native dictates of humanity, they exercise virtues which Christians need not blush to imitate. When once they determine to give

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COSHOCTON COUNTY.

life they give everything with it, which, in their apprehension, belongs to it. From every inquiry that has been made, it appears that no woman thus saved is preserved from base motives, or need fear the violation of her honor. No child is otherwise treated by the persons adopting it than the children of their own body. The perpetual slavery of those captivated in war is a notion which even their barbarity has not yet suggested to them. Every captive whom their affection, their caprice, or whatever else, leads them to save, is soon incorporated with them, and fares alike with themselves.

These instances of Indian tenderness and humanity were thought worthy of particular notice. The like instances among our own people will not seem strange, and therefore I shall only mention one out of a multitude that might be given on this occasion.

Among the captives a woman was brought into camp at Muskingum with a babe about three months old at her breast. One of the Virginia volunteers soon knew her to be his wife, who had been taken by the Indians about six months before. She was immedi- ately delivered to her overjoyed husband. He flew with her to his tent, and clothed her and his child in proper apparel. But their joy after the first transports was soon damped by the reflection that another dear child of about two years old, captivated with the mother, and separated from her, was still missing, although many children had been brought in.

A few days afterwards a number of other prisoners were brought to the camp, among whom were several more children. The woman was sent for, and one supposed to be hers was produced to her. At first she was uncertain ; but viewing the child with great earnestness, she soon recollected its features, and was so overcome with joy, that literally forgetting her sucking child she dropped it from her arms, and catching up the new-found child iu an ecstasy, pressed it

to her breast, and bursting into tears carried it off, unable to speak for joy. The father, seizing up the babe she had let fall, followed her in no less transport and affection.

Among the children who had been carried off young, and had long lived with the In- dians, it is not to be expected that any marks of joy would appear on being restored to their parents or relatives.

Having been accustomed to look upon the Indians as the only connections they had, having been tenderly treated by them, and speaking their language, it is no wonder they considered their new state in the light of a captivity, and parted from the savages with tears.

But it must not be denied that there were even some grown persons who showed an unwillingness to return. The Shawanese were obliged to bind several of their prison- ers and force them along to the camp; aud some women who had been delivered up, afterwards found means to escape and ran back to the Indian towns. Some who could not make their escape, clung to their savage acquaintance at parting, and continued many days in bitter lamentations, even refusing sustenance.

For the honor of humanity we would sup- pose those persons to have been of the lowest rank, either bred up in ignorance and dis- tressing penury, or who had lived so long with the Indians as to forget all their former connections. For, easy and unconstrained as the savage life is, certainly it could never be put in competition with the blessings of im- proved life and the light of religion by any persons who have had the happiness of enjoying, and the capacity of discerning them."

By the 9th of November 206 prisoners had been delivered, including women and children ; of whom 32 men and 58 women and children were from Virginia, and 49 males and 67 females from Pennsylvania.

Capt. THOMAS HUTCHINS, who prepared the three maps which accompany Dr. Smith's " Historical Account," was an extraordinary man. He was born in 1730, in Monmouth, N. J., and died in Pittsburg in 1789. He entered the British army as ensign before he was sixteen, and became captain and paymaster of the Sixtieth Royal-American regiment, and accompanied Bouquet as assistant- engineer. He also took part in a campaign against the Florida Indians.

In the year 1779 he was in London, and being in strong sympathy with the cause of American Independence, he was, on the charge of being in communica- tion with Dr. Franklin in Paris, seized and imprisoned for several weeks, and lost thereby, it was said, £12,000. "He soon after went to France, and thence to Charleston, S. C., where he joined Gen. Nathaniel Greene, and received the title of 'Geographer-General.' Beside furnishing the maps mentioned above, he is the author of 'A Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Mary- land, and North Carolina' (London, 1778); ' History, Narrative, and Description of Louisiana and West Florida' (Philadelphia, 1784) ; and papers in the ' Phila- delphia Transactions,' and one in the 'Transactions of the American Society.'"

Capt. Hutchins, as one of the Commissioners of Pennsylvania in 1784, ran the boundary line between that State and what is now Ohio. In 1786, as Geographer

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COSHOCTON COUNTY.

of the United States, he put in practice the rectangular system of dividing the public lands in squares of one mile with meridian lines, which has been of such vast utility in the settlement of the West. It seems that Hutchins conceived of this simplest of all known modes of survey in 1764 while with Bouquet. It formed a part of his plan of military colonies north of the Ohio, as a protection against Indians. An article upon this subject, "Surveys of the Public Lands of Ohio," by Col. Charles Whittlesey, is among the introductory articles of this work. (See page 133.)

BROADHEAD'S EXPEDITION.

In the war of the Revolution, in the summer of 1780, a second expedition was undertaken against the towns of the Delaware Indians in the forks of the Muskingum. It arose from the deepened feeling of antipathy to the Indians con- sequent upon some depredations and outrages committed upon settlers in Western Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Eastern Ohio. It had also been reported that the Delawares, contrary to pledges, were joining the British. Its commander was Col. Daniel Broadhead, who was at that time in command of the Western military department, with headquarters at Fort Pitt, now Pittsburg, an officer well expe- rienced in Indian warfare. The narrative of this, usually known as the "Coshocton Campaign," we derive from " Doddridge's Notes."

The place of rendezvous was Wheeling ; the number of regulars and militia about 800. From Wheeling they made a rapid march, by the nearest route, to the place of their destination. When the army reached the river, a little below Salem, the lower Mora- vian town, Col. Broadhead sent an express to the missionary in that place, the Rev. John Heckewelder, informing him of his arrival in the neighborhood, with his army, requesting a small supply of provisions and a visit from him in his camp. When the missionary ar- rived at the camp, the general informed him of the object of the expedition he was en- gaged in, and inquired whether any of the Christian Indians were hunting or engaged in business in the direction of his march. On being answered in the negative, he stated that nothing would give him greater pain than to hear that any of the Moravian In- dians had been molested by the troops, as these Indians had always, from the com- mencement of the war, conducted themselves in a manner that did them honor.

A part of the militia had resolved on going up the river to destroy the Moravian villages, but were prevented from executing their pro- ject by Gen. Broadhead, and Col. Shepherd of Wheeling. At White Eyes' Plain, a few miles from Coshocton, an Indian prisoner was taken. Soon afterwards two more In- dians were discovered, one of whom was wounded, but he, as well as the other, made his escape.

The commander, knowing that these two Indians would make the utmost despatch in going to the town, to give notice of the ap- proach of the army, ordered a rapid march, in the midst of a heavy fall of rain, to reach the town before them and take it by surprise. The plan succeeded. The army reached the place in three divisions. The right and left

wings approached the river a little above and below the town, while the centre marched directly upon it. The whole number of the Indians in the village, on the east side of the river, together with ten or twelve from a little village some distance above, were made pris- oners without firing a single shot. The river having risen to a great height, owing to the recent fall of rain, the army could not cross it. Owing to this the villages, with their in- habitants on the west side of the river, es- caped destruction.

Among the prisoners, sixteen warriors were pointed out by Pekillon, a friendly Delaware chief, who was with the army of Broadhead. A little after dark a council of war was held to determine on the fate of the warriors in custody. They were doomed to death, and by order of the commander they were bound, taken a little distance below the town and despatched with tomahawks and spears and scalped.

Early the next morning an Indian pre- sented himself on the opposite bank of the river and asked for the big captain. Broad- head presented himself and asked the Indian what he wanted. To which he replied, "I want peace." "Send over some of your chiefs," said Broadhead. "Maybe you kill," said the Indian. He was answered, "They shall not be killed." One of the chiefs, a well-looking man, came over the river, and entered into conversation with the commander in the street ; but while engaged in conversa- tion, a man of the name of Wetzel came up behind him, with a tomahawk concealed in the bosom of his hunting-shirt, and struck him on the back of his head. He fell and instantly expired. About 11 or 12 o'clock the army commenced its retreat from Coshoc- ton. Gen. Broadhead committed the care of the prisoners to the militia. They were

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about twenty in number. After marching about half a mile, the men commenced kill- ing them. In a short time they were all dispatched, except a few women and chil-

dren, who were spared and taken to Fort Pitt, and, after some time, exchanged for an equal number of their prisoners.

After the Gnadenhutten Massacre, which occurred the next year, in what is now Tuscarawas county, the few remaining Indians gradually left this region. In 1795 this long-favorite home of the Delawares came into the full possession of the United States. A few straggling members of the nation, more particularly the Moravians, until after the war of 1812, moved about the locality, hunting, selling their pelts, and then all turned away forever from its loved haunts and the graves of their fathers. William E. Hunt, in the " Magazine of Western History," gives us these interesting items of its succeeding history :

The Forks of the Muskingum, in subse- quent years, and in the possession of a new race, was still a marked locality. Its flour and whiskey have given it fame in far-off lands, albeit of the latter none is now made. Forty thousand gallons of it, however, were once sent by one shipment to California. Its sons and daughters are widely scattered and many of them well known. It has been the dwelling-place of such men as the Bucking- hams, Joseph Medill, the famous Chicago editor ; of Noah H. Swayne, of the United States Supreme Court ; Rev. Dr. Conkling, of New York City ; Governor Stone, of Iowa, and of many others of scarcely less distinc- tion. The junction of the Ohio and Wal- honding canals, with an unlimited supply of water-power and with thick-set mills and factories, is within gunshot of the Forks. Within sight are numerous collieries. The thriving towns of Coshocton and Roscoe on either hand, with really noticeable hotels, business houses, schools and churches, catch the eyes of the myriads of passengers over the Panhandle and other railways passing by them.

King Charley .- Probably no man ever had so much notoriety in connection with the Forks, and especially gave so much notoriety to the locality, as "old Charley Williams," or "King Charley," as he was called. He was born in 1764, near Hagerstown, Mary- land. In his boyhood the family removed to Western Virginia, near Wheeling. He subsequently struck out for himself, and was engaged for a time at the salt works, ten miles below Coshocton, but in the closing years of the last century he settled at "the Forks." He is generally regarded as the first permanent white settler in what is now Coshocton county. He died in 1840. Of hardy stock, he grew up in the severest dis- cipline of pioneer life. He was a successful trapper, scout, hunter and trader. Clever, shrewd, indomitable, not averse to the pop- ular vices of his day, and even making a vir- tue of profanity, he was for forty years a prominent feature of the locality and for twenty-five years the real ruling power of the region. He held every office possible in that day for a man of his education, from road- supervisor up to tax-collector and member of the legislature. He kept the Forks ferry

and tavern near by. He was a good shot, a fine dancer, a colonel in the militia.

King Charley and Louis Phillippe. - Among the accepted traditions of the locality is one telling how the Colonel once kicked Louis Phillippe, afterwards the famous French king, out of his tavern. G. W. Silliman, a lawyer of Coshocton, was in Paris as bearer of dispatches to the American minister, hav- ing been sent by his uncle, General Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, and heard the king speaking of his travels in the western coun- try, when a refugee in America. The king complained that he had been very shabbily treated at the Forks tavern. And this con- firmed Williams' oft-told tale, which was that Louis complained of the accommodations as utterly unfit for a real king, and Williams told him that he had entertained hundreds of sovereigns (all the people of his country being such), and if he was not satisfied with what had pleased them he could get out of the house, and as the king withdrew he gave him a little lift with the toe of his boot.

The story, at any rate, helped no little to make Williams, in the eyes of the early set- tlers, "a biger man than old Grant." In the days of the militia musters, and at the time of "the court balls," held at the close of each term of court, the old tavern shone in its brightest glories. For a year or so after the county-seat was established at Co- shocton, the courts were all held in Williams' house, and several of the earlier sermons at the Forks were preached in " Old Charley's" bar-room. What the Forks were to the wide adjacent region, that "Old Charley's" tavern was to the Forks. Some of its fea- tures can still be seen in far-western regions, but some are no longer found even in the pioneer tavern. For many of the old set- tlers about the Forks, in its day, life would have been hardly worth living without the old tavern.

Mother Renfrew .- In what may be termed the second stage of settlement of the region about the Forks. there came to be very widely known a house of marked contrast with the old tavern, and no picture of the locality is complete without it. Less widely known, it yet is more deeply embalmed in the memo- ries of the very many who did know it-res- idents, movers, traveling preachers, home-

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COSHOCTON COUNTY.

sick emigrants, fever-stricken settlers, unlet- tered children, and all that longed for heav- enly light and rest. For year after year it was the "headquarters" of the godly, the ministers' "hold." The chief figure in that house was a woman. She came from the grand old Scotch-Irish stock, which, what- ever glory is due unto another race for what was done in the outset of our career, or may yet be attained by possibly still another, it must now be admitted, has furnished so im- mensely the brain and brawn whereby this great land has become what it is.

Although for a number of years prior to coming to the Forks she had lived in Western Pennsylvania, she was herself an emigrant from Ireland, and thus knew the heart of a stranger. She had been reared in a family connection famed for its earnest piety and

the large contribution of its sons to the min- istry. She had experienced the griefs of widowhood, and had learned the care of a family. She came to the Forks with the children of her first marriage, as the wife of the leading " store-keeper" of the region.

He was also from the "Green Isle," and had full proportion of the keen wit and strong sense characterizing his people gener- ally. He was in full sympathy with her in her religious views, which were always tinged with the bright and loving blue of true Pres- byterianism, and cheerfully supported by his means all her endeavors in the hospitable and charitable line. And so she wrought, leav- ing imperishable marks, and making her name, "Mother" Renfrew, to be still cher- ished in many a household at the Forks and far away.

CRAWFORD.

CRAWFORD COUNTY was formed April 1, 1820, from old Indian Territory. It formed a part of the "New Purchase." This included the last part of the State under Indian domination, and was ceded to the United States in accordance with a treaty made at the foot of the Maumee Rapids, September 29, 1817. The New Purchase was divided into seventeen counties. The surface of the county is gen- erally level and in parts slightly rolling. The south and west part is beautiful prairie land, comprising a part of the great Sandusky Plains, and covered with a rich vegetable loam of from six to fifteen inches deep; the subsoil in most parts is clay mixed with lime, in some others a mixture of marl. Save on the plains, the land originally was covered with a dense growth of heavy timber. The original settlers were largely of New England origin ; later, about 1832, a heavy immigra- tion set in direct from Germany. In 1848 the political troubles of Germany brought a great addition to the Teutonic element, so that it obtained the ascendancy. The area is 400 square miles. In 1885 the acres cultivated were 135,300; in pasture, 32,056 ; woodland, 41,324 ; lying waste, 857 ; produced in wheat, 512,287 bushels ; oats, 448,783 ; corn, 927,107 ; wool, 245,572 pounds. School census in 1886, 10,019 ; teachers, 171. It has 72 miles of railroad.

TOWNSHIPS AND CENSUS.

1840.

1880.

TOWNSHIPS AND CENSUS.

Auburn,

1,176

Liberty,

1840. 1,469

1,679

Bucyrus,

1,654

5,073

Lykins,

742

1,225

Chatfield,

878

1,266

Polk,

6,518

Cranberry,

680

1,824

Sandusky,

679

658

Dallas,

500

Texas,

587

Holmes,

744

1,660

Tod,

1,099

Jackson,

636

3,216

Vernon,

1,038

Jefferson,

1,224

Whetstone,

1,124

1,840

1880.

Population in 1830 was 4,788 ; in 1840, 18,167 ; 1860, 23,881 ; 1880, 26,862, of whom 22,634 were Ohio-born, and 2,531 natives of Germany.

483

CRAWFORD COUNTY.

This county derived its name from Col. William Crawford, who was born in Virginia in 1732, the same year with Washington. In 1758 he was a captain in Forbes' expedition, which took possession of Fort Duquesne, on the site of Pittsburg. Washington was the friend of Crawford, and often in his visits to the then West was an inmate of his humble dwelling in Fayette county. He was a brave and energetic man, and, at the commence- ment of the Revolution, raised a regiment by

his own exertions, and received the commis- sion of colonel of Continentals. He often led parties against the Indians across the Ohio. În 1782 he reluctantly accepted the command of an expedition against the Ohio Indians. On this occasion he was taken prisoner, and burnt to death amid the most excruciating tortures, on the Tyemochtee, in the former limits of this, but now within the new county of Wyandot.

LAUCK & FAILOR

Drawn by Henry Howe, 1846.

CENTRAL PART OF BUCYRUS.

BUCYRUS IN 1846 .- Bucyrus, the county-seat, is on the Sandusky river-here a small stream-sixty-two miles north of Columbus, and forty-six from Sandusky

MOSS ING C

Jumes Dougherty, Photo , Bucyrus, 1887.

CENTRAL PART OF BUCYRUS.

[The new view shows on the right the same frame building seen in the old view; also, the new opera house. On the left appears the court-house and Methodist church.]

city. The view shows on the right the Lutheran church, and on the left the county buildings and the academy. It contains 1 Presbyterian, 1 Lutheran, 1 Baptist, 1

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CRAWFORD COUNTY.

Methodist, and 1 Protestant Methodist church ; 14 stores, 1 grist, 1 saw, and 2 fulling mills, 1 newspaper printing office, and a population of about 1,000; in 1840 it had 704 inhabitants. On the land of R. W. Musgrave, in the southeastern part of the town, a gas well has recently been dug. On first reaching the water- a distance of about eighteen feet-it flew up about six feet, with a loud, roaring noise ; a pump has been placed over it, and the gas is conducted to the surface by a pipe, which, when a torch is applied, burns with a brilliant flame. Bucyrus was laid ont February 11, 1822, by Samuel Norton and James Kilbourne, proprietors of the soil. The first settler on the site of the town was Samuel Norton, who moved in from Pennsylvania in 1819. He wintered in a small cabin made of poles, which stood just north of his present residence on the bank of the Sandusky. This region of country was not thrown into market until August, 1820, at which time it abounded in bears, wolves, catamounts, foxes, and other wild animals. When he came there were but a few settlers in the county, principally squatters on the Whetstone, the nearest of whom was on that stream eight miles distant. North and west of Mr. N. there was not a single settler in the county. Others of the early settlers in the town whose names are recollected were David and Michael Beedle, Daniel M'Michael, John Kent, William Young, Jacob Schaefer, Thomas and James Scott, James Steward, David Stein, George Black, John Blowers, and Nehemiah Squires. The first frame house was built by Samuel Bailey, and is the small frame building standing next to and north of F. Margraf's residence. The first brick dwelling is the one now owned by William Timanus, on the public square. The Methodists built the first church .- Old Edition.

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 75

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