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George Rogers Clark conquers the Northwest. The boldest defender of the western frontier was George Rogers Clark, a young Virginian of twenty-five years, and a born leader of men. Clark planned to end the raids and massacres by attacking the real enemy behind the Indians. He determined to drive the British garrisons from the entire Northwest Territory; that is, out of the region between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes. Clark raised a small force of hunters and Indian fighters for his expedition. He embarked his little army on flatboats at a point near Pittsburgh, and floated down the Ohio to the mouth of the Cumberland. Landing his men, Clark made a rapid march of 120 miles across the country to Kaskaskia. On the evening of July 4, 1778, the British garrison at Kaskaskia was surprised and captured. Other towns in southwestern Illinois
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HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF OHIO
now hastened to surrender. Even Vincennes on the Wabash, the most important British post in the Ohio Valley, raised the American flag. Most of the inhabitants of these towns were Frenchmen, who readily accepted American rule when they learned from Clark that France had become our ally. With
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FIG. 5. Clark's campaign
This map shows the scene of Clark's campaign in the West. Note the broken line which shows the approximate limit of land conquered from the British
only 200 men, this intrepid leader wrested from British control a territory nearly as large as the entire thirteen colonies.
The Northwest ceded to the United States. George Rogers Clark won by his victory the proud title of "the conqueror of the Northwest." More than this, he won for his country the Mississippi instead of the Alleghenies as its western boundary ; for when the treaty of peace was signed, Great Britain recog- nized our claim to the western territory of which we held possession. Thus Clark's victories opened the way for the march of the American people across the continent.
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Problem V. How the creation of a public domain helped develop the Northwest
Creation of a public domain. At the close of the Revolution, this Northwest Territory was unoccupied by white men except for a few hardy pioneers who had pushed westward through the
Land Office Military WARRANT, No. 3755
To the principal SURVEYOR of the land's fet apart for the Officers and Soldiers of the Commontrank of VIRGINIA.
T r " HIS fhall be your W A R R A N T to furvey and lay off in one or more Surveys, for frage the things to a
bis Ich's or Afins, the Quantity of The Hausand
Acres of Land, due unto the faid Graary : Washingtons Joa
wereableto Content from the Creation and Connell received in the Land- Office, SAVEN under my Hand, and the sed of the faid Ofice this /4 / Day of ped y in the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred and 15.
FIG. 6. Washington's Ohio land warrant
This is a reproduction of a land warrant by which 3000 acres of land in the Ohio Military District were given to George Washington. What present-day counties would be included in the old Virginia Military District? (Illustration from Randall and Ryan's "History of Ohio")
passes of the Alleghenies. Even before it was surrendered by Great Britain, there was a dispute among the states as to its rightful ownership. Virginia, Massachusetts, and Connecticut each claimed large portions of this territory. Their claims were based on grants made by the king when the colonies were first settled, and these grants were very indefinite with regard to their western boundaries. Moreover, New York claimed all the territory formerly occupied by the Iroquois Indians and their subject tribes, including the territory west and north of
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HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF OHIO
the Ohio River. There was no way to settle the dispute unless these states should agree to cede their claims to the United States government. This was finally done, and so the North- west Territory became part of the public domain; that is, it
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FIG. 7. Ohio land grants and surveys. (From Randall and Ryan's "History of Ohio")
was held in trust by the United States for the benefit of all the people. When lands were sold the proceeds went into the national treasury and were used for government expenses.
Lands reserved by Virginia and Connecticut. When Virginia ceded her claims in the Northwest she kept back or "reserved" that part of Ohio lying between the Little Miami and Scioto
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rivers. This region was reserved for the payment of bounties promised by Virginia to her officers and soldiers who had served in the Revolutionary War (Fig. 6). It was called the Virginia Military District of Ohio, and embraced 4,500,000 acres of land (see Fig. 7). Connecticut also reserved a part of the territory which she claimed. This "Western Reserve" kept by Connecticut was in northeastern Ohio, and comprised about 3,366,000 acres. Several Connecticut towns had been captured by the British during the Revolution, and many homes were burned. So Connecticut gave 500,000 acres of her Ohio lands to the people who had lost their property by the torch of the invader. These "Firelands" were in the western part of the Reserve, embracing the present counties of Huron and Erie. Connecticut sold the remainder of the Western Reserve, and used the proceeds for the support of her public schools.
Land surveys in the Northwest. Fortunately for the western settlers, Congress in 1785 adopted a simple and accurate method of survey by which the pioneer could readily locate his farm. The western territory was divided into townships, each six miles square. Each township was then subdivided into thirty- six sections, each one mile square, containing six hundred and forty acres of land. Every township and section was numbered, so that any tract of land could be easily located. Congress re- served the sixteenth section in each township and gave it to the new states for the support of their public schools. Two entire townships in each state (Ohio received three) were also reserved for the support of a university.
Problem VI. How the Ordinance of 1787 influenced the creation of new states
The Ordinance of 1787. For several years before the North- west Territory was ceded to the United States, Congress had been considering plans for its government. The plan finally adopted, known as the Ordinance of 1787, was one of the most important laws in our history. It outlined the policy since followed by the national government in dealing with all its
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HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF OHIO
territories. "I doubt," said Daniel Webster, "whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787."
The Ordinance provided that for the first few years the Northwest Territory should have a temporary government, the laws to be made by the governor and three judges appointed by Congress. As the population increased, this temporary government was to be replaced by a representative government. A legislature of two houses was then to be created, the upper house consisting of a council of five members appointed by Congress ; while the lower branch was to be chosen for a term of two years by the voters of FIG. 8. Rufus Putnam the territory. Three pro- visions of the Ordinance Rufus Putnam, called the "Founder and Father of Ohio," served with distinction in the French and Indian War, and was one of Washington's most trusted officers in the Revo- lution. He organized the Ohio Company, and was the leader in the Marietta settlement. He died at Marietta, Ohio, in 1824 were of especial impor- tance. It prohibited slavery in any form; guaranteed religious freedom to all set- tlers; and declared that "religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."
Not more than five nor fewer than three states were to be formed from this region, and statehood was promised as soon as any district had 60,000 inhabitants. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a part of Minnesota are the states which were afterwards formed from the Northwest Territory.
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HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF OHIO
Problem VII. How the first settlements in Ohio were made -
The Ohio Company of Associates. The little town of Rut- land in central Massachusetts is sometimes called the "Cradle of Ohio." After the close of the American Revolution, this village was the home of Rufus Putnam (Fig. 8) ; and it was in his house, still standing (Fig. 10), that two men sat up all night
FIG. IO. Home of Rufus Putnam
This house was purchased by Rufus Putnam after it had been confiscated from its Tory owner. It is now in charge of the Rufus Putnam Memorial Association
on January 9, 1786, discussing their plans for a colony on the Ohio River. These men were Rufus Putnam and Benjamin Tupper, two of Washington's most trusted officers. When the Revolutionary War ended, Congress was unable to pay the men who had fought so bravely for American liberty, and many of them were left almost penniless. General Putnam and several other officers decided to ask Congress to aid the veterans by a grant of lands in the Ohio country, a project which had the full approval of Washington. Finally, General Putnam and
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his friend, Benjamin Tupper, published a notice in the New England papers inviting their late comrades in arms to unite with them in this enterprise. The result was the forming of the Ohio Company of Associates, composed of veterans from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Acting as agent for the company, Reverend Manasseh Cutler secured. from Congress the grant of nearly 1,000,000 acres of land, lo- cated north of the Ohio River on both sides of the Muskingum.
The journey to Ohio. It took eight weeks for the first band of settlers to make the journey by wagon from Massachusetts to the headwaters of the Ohio River. They followed Braddock's old military road across Pennsylvania and over the Alleghenies to Sumrill's Ferry, now West Newton, Pennsylvania. Some two months were spent here in building boats, the largest of which was named the Mayflower, after the famous ship which brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth. Putnam's resolute band numbered forty-eight men in all, including surveyors, boat- builders, carpenters, smiths, and farmers. Embarking with their stores on April 1, 1788, the little party floated down the Monongahela to the broad bosom of the Ohio. They reached the mouth of the Muskingum on April 7, 1788, and viewed the site of their new homes-an unbroken forest. Friendly Indians belonging to the Wyandot and Delaware tribes welcomed the pioneers as they stepped ashore and began to land their stores and baggage.
The first settlement at Marietta. Marietta was the name given to their first settlement, in honor of the French queen, Marie Antoinette. This oldest town in Ohio was situated on a level plain which had once been the site of a fortification built by the Mound Builders. As a defense against the Indians, the settlers built blockhouses of hewn logs and surrounded this forti- fied square with a stockade (Fig. 11). For several months Gen- eral Putnam lived in a large tent called a marquee, which had been taken from the British when Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga. The settlers at once began the work of clearing the land, and during the first season they planted one hundred acres of corn. The soil was fertile, and the game so abundant that
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the pioneers celebrated July 4, 1788, with a barbecue at which venison, bear meat, buffalo, and wild turkey were served.
Perhaps no colony in America was ever planted under more favorable auspices, for these Marietta pioneers were the flower of New England's sturdy stock. "I know many of the settlers personally," wrote Washington, "and there never were men better calculated to promote the welfare of a community." On
FIG. II. The Old Blockhouse, Marietta, Ohio
The Old Blockhouse at Marietta was built in 1788 as a defense against the Indians, and is still standing. It served as a church and school, as well as a fort, and for a time was the home of General Rufus Putnam
his farewell visit to America in 1825, Lafayette spent some pleasant hours with his old comrades at Cincinnati, and at Marietta he visited the little cemetery where others had been laid to rest. "I knew them all," said Lafayette. "I saw them at Brandywine, Yorktown, and Rhode Island; they were the bravest of the brave."
Governor St. Clair and the first laws. General Arthur St. Clair, a brave and faithful officer of the Revolution, had been appointed governor of the Northwest Territory (Fig. 12). It was a great day for the new colony when the barge bearing the
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governor and two judges arrived at Marietta, which was to be the first capital of the territory. One of the early tasks of the governor, aided by the judges, was to draw up and publish the laws. These provided for a militia to defend the territory, created a system of courts, and named the offenses which were to be punished as crimes. Penalties were severe, as was the case in New Eng- land at that time. Even minor offenses were pun- ished by whipping, confine- ment in the stocks, or binding the offender out at hard labor for a limited time. Governor St. Clair laid out the boundaries of the first county, Washing- ton County, which included most of eastern and south- ern Ohio.
FIG. 12. Arthur St. Clair
The westward movement. Emigration to the West now Arthur St. Clair was born in Scotland. He served with the British army in America dur- ing the French and Indian War, and after- ward settled in Pennsylvania. During the Revolution he was major-general under Wash- ington. From 1789 to 1802 he was governor of the Northwest Territory. He died in pov- erty and obscurity in 1818. (Portrait from Randall and Ryan's "History of Ohio") became very popular. East- ern farmers hastened to sell their homes for what they would bring, in order to be- gin life anew on the banks of the Muskingum or the Ohio. Each year hundreds of flatboats loaded with cattle and household goods floated down the Ohio River. One observer said that during the month of April, 1787, fifty flatboats left Fort Pitt; while a resident at Fort Harmar records that within a period of eight months he counted 127 boats, carrying upwards of 2700 people. The little settlement at Marietta grew rapidly ; by the year 1790 it had 100 cabins, and branch settlements were planted at Belpré on the Ohio, and at Big Bottom on the Muskingum.
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HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF OHIO
The founding of Cincinnati (December, 1788). The second purchase of Ohio lands was made by John Cleves Symmes of New Jersey and several associates. The Symmes Purchase comprised the tract lying between the Little and the Great Miami River. In the same year that Marietta was founded, three settlements were made in the Symmes Purchase. These
FIG. 13. Cincinnati in 1800
This is the way Cincinnati looked in 1800, twelve years after it was founded
were Columbia, at the mouth of the Little Miami, Losantiville, opposite the mouth of the Licking, and North Bend, on the Ohio River near the Indiana line.
The three leaders in the settlement at Losantiville were Mathias Denman, John Filson, and Robert Patterson. Filson was responsible for the curious name originally given to this settlement, intended to signify the "town opposite the mouth of the Licking." Judge Symmes had made his home at North Bend, and the troops detailed to protect the settlers were first stationed at that point. Later the garrison at Fort Harmar was removed to Losantiville, and the building of Fort Washington gave this settlement a decided advantage over its competitors.
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Shortly after the arrival of the garrison from Fort Harmar, Governor St. Clair determined to reside at Losantiville and make it the seat of government for the Northwest. He renamed the settlement Cincinnati, in honor of the Society of the Cin- cinnati, an organization composed of officers of the Continental Army. The governor now organized Ohio's second county, called Hamilton, which included the territory west of the Muskingum River.
The French colony at Gallipolis. On the Ohio River below Marietta was the ill-fated settlement of Gallipolis, founded in 1790 by six hundred French immigrants. They had been in- duced to come to Ohio by agents of the Scioto Company, to which Congress granted a large tract of land. Their settlement was doomed to failure for several reasons. The Scioto Company could not give a good title to the lands which they occupied, and the Frenchmen themselves were not prepared for the hardships of pioneer life. Congress finally came to their relief with a grant of 24,000 acres, but when General Rufus Putnam came to Gallipolis to distribute the lands in this "French Grant" he found that only ninety-three persons were present to draw their shares.
Problem VIII. How the Indian power in Ohio was broken
Indian tribes of Ohio. At the time of the first settlements, the region known as Ohio was occupied by numerous Indian tribes. In the northwest the Wyandots made their home along the banks of the Maumee and Sandusky rivers; the Shawnees were in the south-central region on both sides of the Scioto River ; the Miamis occupied the valleys of the two rivers named for their tribe; the Mingoes (the word means "stealthy" or "treacherous") were in the southeastern section, between the Muskingum and the Ohio. Scattered among these tribes lived fragments of many others, as the Delawares, Ottawas, and Chippewas.
Many of these Ohio Indians belonged to the Algonquin family, which had been conquered and driven westward and northward
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HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF OHIO
by the fierce Iroquois; other tribes, like the Mingoes and Wyandots, were of Iroquois stock, but not admitted to member- ship in the "Long House," or Iroquois confederacy. The five Iroquois tribes belonging to the Long House lived in New York and northeastern Pennsylvania. At various times they had fought with and conquered the Indian tribes of Ohio, hence the Iroquois claimed all of this region as part of their hunting-grounds. Prac- tically all of the Ohio tribes denied this claim; only the peace-loving Delawares ac- knowledged the Iroquois as their masters and paid them tribute.
The Indians and the white settlers. When Marietta was founded, the total number of Indians living in Ohio was probably about 15,000, of whom 3000 were fighting FIG. 14. Simon Kenton braves. They lived chiefly Simon Kenton, Ohio's pioneer hero, whose exploits rival those of Daniel Boone, served as scout in the expeditions of Dunmore, Clark, and Wayne. His body rests in the cemetery at Urbana, Ohio, where a monu- ment marks his grave. (After an illustration in Randall and Ryan's "History of Ohio") by hunting and fishing, but also cultivated fields of maize or corn. The Indians re- sented the coming of the white settlers, who wished to convert their hunting- grounds into farms. So the early history of the Northwest Ter- ritory is the story of the desperate warfare waged by the Indian in defense of his wigwam and hunting-grounds. It is a story filled with thrilling incidents. It tells of sudden ambuscades and bloody massacres in which the Indians were led by such renowned warriors as Little Turtle, chief of the Miamis, or Tecumseh of the Shawnees; it narrates the exploits of the Girty brothers,-George, James, and Simon,-three renegade white
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men who lived with the Indians and led them in attacks on the settlements; it is the story of the capture and thrilling escape of those famous Indian fighters, Daniel Boone and Simon Ken- ton (Fig. 14), and of the death at the stake of the brave William Crawford; it tells of the heroism of Betty Zane, the young girl who saved the Wheeling garrison from massacre by carrying in a supply of powder as the Indians fired upon her. In a word, this early history is the account of the pioneers who conquered the savages as they conquered the wilderness, by a slow, steady, and resolute advance.
Expeditions of Harmar and St. Clair. Soon after the first settlements were established in the Northwest Territory, the Indians formed a confederation for the purpose of destroying the new towns and driving the white men beyond the Ohio. It took three armies, each numbering about 1500 men, to defeat the Indians and make the Ohio country safe for settlers. General Harmar commanded the first expedition, which moved northward from Fort Washington against the Miami Indians at the head of the Wabash (1790). Harmar's troops were drawn into an ambuscade, and the survivors retreated to the Ohio River.
A second expedition under General St. Clair met with even greater disaster (1791). His army was poorly equipped and disciplined, and badly led. In spite of Washington's warning, "Beware of a surprise," St. Clair fell into an ambush on the banks of the Wabash River, in Mercer County. The Indians under Little Turtle gained one of the greatest victories they had ever won over the white man. Within the space of a few hours nearly all of St. Clair's men lay dead or wounded on the field, and the few survivors were in headlong flight.
Anthony Wayne and his victory. The Indians were elated by their successive victories, and it now became a question of de- feating them or abandoning the western settlements. For the leader of his third expedition Washington chose Anthony Wayne, nicknamed "Mad Anthony" for his impetuous valor in the American Revolution (Fig. 15). Wayne now showed that he was prudent as well as brave; instead of advancing at once, he
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HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF OHIO
drilled his army for six months in a camp near Pittsburgh. He taught his men to shoot at the mark while they were on the run, and only after every man could hit the target at thirty paces, while running, was Wayne ready to lead them against the Indians.
General Wayne showed the same prudence in marching his army northward by slow stages, building forts as he went. One of these was at Greenville, in Darke County ; another was Fort Recovery, on the field of St. Clair's defeat in Mercer County ; a third was Fort Defiance, at the junction of the Auglaize and Maumee rivers. Still pressing northward, Wayne finally en- countered the Indians on the west bank of the Maumee River, FIG. 15. Anthony Wayne just above the present town of Anthony Wayne, one of the ablest offi- cers in Washington's army, displayed heroic valor at Stony Point where he captured the British garrison of 600 men with the loss of only 15 men killed. After St. Clair's disaster, Washington appointed Wayne to com- mand the expedition which defeated the Indians in the battle of Fallen Timbers (August 20, 1794) Maumee. The fight which en- sued, known as the battle of Fallen Timbers, forever broke the power of the Indians in Ohio. "Wayne," said the Indians, "we cannot surprise, for he is a chief who never sleeps." Crushed by their defeat, representatives of the thirteen confederated tribes signed the treaty of Green- ville (Fig. 16), ceding nearly two thirds of their lands in Ohio (1795).
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