USA > Ohio > Brown County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 10
USA > Ohio > Clermont County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 10
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
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headlong flight for safety from pursuit beyond the Ohio, many a captive, like Boone. must have been hurried to the shore of Clermont and through its ancient wilderness. When some escaped or were ransomed they told an ever recurring story of such flights. When the weak, the tender or the despairing stumbled beneath. more than they could bear, as happened to Him who went to Calvary, a tomahawk bruised their brains, and their burdens were tied on the backs of stronger friends who went bitterly on to swell the sport of the gauntlet lines or to act the central part in the revels round the fire encircled torture stake. While some may curiously ask if the scenes of such misfortunes are known, we should be grateful that a merciful oblivion has covered such tragedies beyond a search that could never faintly guess the anguish of the blood be- sprinkled border land. only a little more than a hundred years ago.
But there is much circumstantial proof that such tragedies were a probable and even frequent occurrence in the then nameless midway region of Old Clermont-nameless, except that it was the bourne of the dreaded "Indian Country." On July 7, 1790, United States Judge Innes, for Kentucky, re- ported to General Knox. Secretary of War, that from Novem- ber, 1783, to the time of writing, fifteen hundred people had . been killed or captured in Kentucky by the Indians, who had also stolen twenty thousand horses, and destroyed an im- mense amount of other property. This was but the covert continuance of the long war about to rage again, of which the pages to come will localize such parts as in special de- gree tested the fiber of the founders of Old Clermont, both before and after their occupation of the land.
Incensed beyond measure by the dire molestation reported by Judge Innes, the Kentuckians imputed the ceaseless and implacable ferocity of the tribes to the machinations of the traders and officials still occupying the forts that should have been vacated when the British army sailed away from the eastern coast. The proclamation made April 19, 1783, just eight years from the Battle of Lexington and Concord, brought peace and rest to England, but it did not stop the Conflict for Ohio, which, thereafter, was mainly made in and from Kentucky, and soon became involved with other questions.
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The American Revolution had succeeded beyond the hope of despairing humanity, and beyond the expectation of dread- ing tyranny. While consenting to the Independence of the States as the price of peace, George III made Louis XVI of France and Charles III of Spain feel that their colonies might soon be a field for the ambitious schemes of equally success- ful rebels. Then, the three monarchs agreed more readily, than upon any other question, that the young States should not grow so fast as to become an enticing example to the discontented. France approved, while Spain barred the ways to the South and imposed excluding penalties upon the boats that floated toward the Gulf. Both saw no guile in a British plan to repossess the Ohio and spurn American ships from the ocean. The provocation thus begun led with increasing pur- pose to the Second War for Independence. The chief causes assigned for that war were the wrongs at sea and the insti- gation of Indian outbreaks.
Before these questions could be approached, the problems of a general government had to be solved. All progress was hindered by the war debts of the Revolution. These debts were heavy in all the States, amounting in some to nearly two hundred dollars to each person of all ages. To meet this debt the readiest and almost the only resource was the sale of the public lands. Those lands were the territory north and west of the Ohio, which the British hoped to regain through Indian complicity. In addition. all those living on westward flowing waters were profoundly agitated about the Spanish restrictions upon the navigation of the Mississippi. A more involved and perplexing condition has rarely disturbed the meditations of statesmen. The perplexity was increased by the conflicting claims of the States. Because of her char- ter priority and because of Clark's conquest of the North- west in her name, much the largest of those claims was that of Virginia. Her proposal in 1781 for a settlement of those claims was made a conclusive example for other States by the eventual cession on March I, 1784, of all her rights in the wide domain for the general good, except so much as should be needed to redeem her promises of an ample bounty of land to each of her sons who had borne arms in Free- dom's cause. This example becoming the rule, effort was
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begun for a clearer definition of the Indian title, in order that the lands could be surveyed and charted for distribution among the patriot soldiers, and for sale.
To this end, perhaps, because there was no other way, and because they could be more easily managed so, it was planned to deal with the tribes separately. This method gave bitter offense to what may be called the National party among the Indians, who insisted that such questions must be considered by a confederation of all the tribes. In this policy they were aided and comforted by the Spanish on the South and West and by the British on the North. No figures are at hand to show the relative percentage of death and misery that was fairly due to the Indiana alliance with the British during and after the Revolution. But enough is evident in the his- tory of that period to justify a belief that the red skinned savages dealt more fatal blows than the red coated soldiers. The result of that vain ferocity was a prevalent conclusion that the Indian, by constantly and cruelly fighting for the King, had forfeited any and all rights that the Americans were bound to respect. To sit in council with those unclean killers was as disgusting then, as it would be made ridiculous now by the liveliest cartoonist, yet might had given them such right, that Congress was fain to plead for peace.
The tribes were approached consecutively, the nearest com- ing first. The Iroquois who in 1768 had quit their claims to much of Pennsylvania, Virginia and all of Kentucky, as heretofore stated, for an absurdly paltry six thousand dollars, were again called to a council at Fort Stanwix. Angered because not consulted in making peace with Great Britain, forever sullied with the memory of Wyoming, and at last overawed by the near strength of the "Thirteen Fires," the larger part of the Iroquois in October, 1784, wisely concurred in ceding all their vast western pretensions north of the Ohio unto the Wabash in return for the safety of their villages in New York. The Commissioners for the United States who thus did much to limit a long contention were Oliver Wol- cott, Richard Butler and Arthur Lee. General George Rog- ers Clark took Wolcott's place, as the Commission went quick- ly on to Fort McIntosh at the mouth of Beaver on the Ohio, where on January 21, 1785, a treaty was made by which the
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Wyandot, Delaware, Chippewa and Ottawa Nations relin- quished all of their claims eastward from the Cuyahoga River and southward from the sources of the Tuscarawas, Scioto and Miami Rivers. The absence of the sullen Shawnees, though invited and the most vitally concerned of all, was re- ported to Congress, which on June 29, 1785, directed that they and other tribes farther west should be called to another council.
Meanwhile, the noted Iroquois chiefs, Sagoyewatha or Red Jacket, of the Seneca tribe, and Brant, the Mohawk, Thayan- danega, who had moved to Canada after the Revolution, formed a confederacy of the Indians in the Northwest who met in December, 1786, near Detroit, for a grand council. Without dissent, that council formally declared to the Amer- ican Congress that no white man should plant corn north of the Ohio River. A discreet diplomacy avoided any recognition of that confederation of British Indians. Instead of a fruit- less discussion of such foreign control, peace was steadily of- fered to the tribes directly interested in the disputed region. But those who were to suffer most girded themselves for the steadily increasing struggle.
Much rhetoric has been used in exploiting the superiority of those who were the first in settling Ohio. A few dates and several facts grouped for one view will do much to prove that the claims for such superiority depend more upon accident than merit. In a report to the Secretary of War, made in Philadelphia, on October 22, 1785, Colonel Josiah Harmar of the First American Regiment, when there was but one regiment, stated: "A full company of infantry raised with much difficulty embarked at Fort McIntosh, on Sep- tember 29, under Captain Finney, with General Butler of the Peace Commission aboard, to attend the council to be held at the mouth of the Great Miami. Colonel Harmar farther stated : "I have given Captain Finney written orders to secure himself from insult by fortifying his winter quarters." Farther down in the same report, Harmar stated : "I have given Cap- tain Doughty with his company of artillery written orders to take post at or near the mouth of the Muskingum, and to stockade or palisade himself for his own security as he should judge most proper." Then, while proceeding to Philadelphia,
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and having met Captain Hart with his company of infantry on Laurel Hill, four days' march east of Pittsburgh, on Oc- tober 7, Colonel Harmar added: "I gave Captain Hart orders to expedite his march, as he would be on time to go down the river with Captain Doughty and be under his command." If these official dates rendered by the commander of both show anything, they prove that Captain Finney charged with the personal protection of the distinguished Peace Commis- sioners started to possess and fortify the mouth of the Great Miami at least thirteen days earlier than Captain Doughty's expedition "to take post at or near the mouth of the Mus- kingum."
General Butler's Journal shows that he inspected the posi- tions proposed at or near the Muskingum and Scioto, and then going warily by the hostile shore reached the mouth of the Great Miami, where by his direction, Captain Finney, on October 25, began a strong stockade for protection and for holding the treaty, which, in honor of the Captain's sol- dierly promptness, was named Fort Finney. Since Captain Doughty's expedition left Pittsburgh only twelve days before Finney's arrival at the Miami, it is difficult to find reasons for the vaunted priority of his fortification which was named Fort Harmar; except that the New Englanders came to its protection and gratefully proclaimed it as the First Federal Fort in Ohio-that they had seen-and thus left nothing to chance that could be decided by the pen. Their histories, as far as seen, vaguely say that Fort Harmar was built in that autumn and offer no dates for comparison. Neither Finney nor Doughty probably had a thought of antiquarian rivalry between their respective spheres. The beginnings of the civilization that was to stay were made in the east and west of Ohio in a movement that for strategic purposes was intended to be simultaneous at widely separated points. The expedition to the Miamis having farther to go started first to a destination that became an American shrine of patriot- ism as the home of two presidents. There was duty enough for both captains and all with them. Of the two, Finney's was the more difficult. For when the fort was ready, Gen- erals Clark and Butler were joined by General Samuel H. Parsons in a Commission that met four hundred and forty-
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eight Indians of whom three hundred and eighteen were ill boding Shawnees. It was Finney's irksome duty to control and supply that contentious host that clamored for pork as the greatest of delicacies, and guzzled great gulps of whiskey without which no treaty could be made.
The Shawnees were ill humored and defiant. At a critical moment a leading chief put a war belt on the table, which, in their custom was a challenge to war. General Butler, after a few stern words, brushed the defying wumpum aside, whereupon the council broke in great commotion. The scene has been made the subject of much fanciful description, of which General Clark fills the leading part. General But- ler's account in his Journal, which is sufficiently tragic, must have the preference. In the afternoon when the tumult was less, Moluntha, the chief Sachem or King of the Shawnees, asked to be heard. He was the same Moluntha whose wife was the sister of the famous Cornstalk and who because of her great height and stately carriage, was known as the "Gren- adier Squaw." As the Sachem of the tribe and assisted by Cornstalk he had made peace with Dunmore, which he stead- ily urged till swept away by the assassination of his greatest war chief, and relative, the pacific Cornstalk. He deplored the war that was wasting his tribe. While trying to quiet his warriors at Fort Finney, he lifted up a peace belt and asked pity for his women and children. There is much in his story . as picked in fragments from those who hated him that makes us regret his fate, for the worst is to fill a future page. After much contention, the Shawnees agreed in February, 1786, to more than had been obtained from other tribes. By the Treaties thus made at Forts Stanwix, McIntosh and Finney, prisoners on both sides were restored, and both Eastern and Southern Ohjo passed to white control. But it was soon evi- dent that there would be no peace. The eastern tribes simply concentrated farther west, and those facing south drew farther north, so that both were nearer to the supplies and malign influences at Detroit, while the murdering, plundering bands strewed the settlements with fear and filled the Ohio River with peril.
With a hope of: obtaining peace with the tribes after they should cease to be aided by the British, Congress refused to
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admit that there was war in and on Kentucky. This com- forting belief in the distant tranquility was accompanied by orders against an invasion of the Indian Country. However wise this may have appeared in peaceful Philadelphia, the condition was exceedingly irritating to the settlers who raged to rout their foe. After expecting little aid or none from the hampered States for four dreadful years, exasperated but self-reliant Kentucky, with some consent from Virginia, again mustered under General Clark for a march over a thousand strong from Louisville on September 17, 1786, by way of Vin- cennes against the Wea towns near where now is Lafayette, Ind. The expedition was abandoned within two days' march of the projected destination, under circumstances of much humiliation for Clark, whose popularity thenceforth waned. In order to divide the enemy or to take advantage of any concentration against his own force, General Clark ordered Colonel Benjamin Logan to lead five hundred mounted rifle- men as secretly and rapidly as possible against the towns on the Mac-o-chee, in what is now Logan county, Ohio. Since the destruction of Piqua, those towns had become the chief habitation of the Shawnees. Logan's, force mustered at Lime- stone Point or Maysville, and on October 1, 1786, crossed the Ohio and going through Logan's Gap into and beyond Eagle Creek took a course through the uplands of Brown county. with all possible speed and secrecy, almost due north to Mac- o-chee. For a time that course was known as Logan's Trace, but nothing is reported to mark it now, except that a resting place on Todd's Fork in Clinton county, nearly three miles northeast of Wilmington, is still marked as the "Deserted Camp," because a man or spy deserted there in order, it was thought, to warn the Indians, whose main force had gone to oppose Clark on the Wabash. Although the surprise was frustrated, eight towns were burned, many fields of corn were destroyed, seventy odd prisoners were taken, and twenty killed, among whom was their Grand Sachem, the venerable and peace preferring Moluntha. Riding hotly foremost in the charge was a volunteer soldier named William Lytle, then sixteen years and one month old. As Lytle poised to fire on one of the pursued, an open hand went up in token of the surrender of that one and more in the thicket. The
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group was Moluntha with the "Grenadier Squaw" and some other women and children. The capture was a noble deed in the life of the brave boy whose levelled rifle protected his prisoners as others rode up and clamored for their death. After bringing them back to the town, the same Major Mc- Gary who had caused the defeat at Blue Licks, also returned, with no success to report, and crowded up to see the chief. McGary asked: "Were you at the defeat of Blue Licks?" Not knowing a word of the question but relying upon his con- duct at Fort Finney, Moluntha acted pleasantly, whereupon McGary snatched a hatchet from the Grenadier Squaw. Lytle, seeing the motion, interposed, but the heavy blow wounded his left wrist and scattered Moluntha's blood and brains over those around. In the same instant, Lytle drew his hunting knife and would have struck McGary to the heart, if the blow had not been foiled by others.
As long as the Story of the Ohio shall be read, the Defeat at Blue Licks will blot the name of McGary with braggart folly; and the murder of Moluntha will stain his memory with cruel brutality. Any comparison with any service to his credit, like Benedict Arnold's courage with his treason, will only make the blot and the stain more conspicuous. The splendid conduct of the youthful Lytle, equally ready to dare the depths of danger or scale the heights of peril, marked him forever after as equally gentle and brave. The mad- ness of the deed, that could not be obscured without casting a cloud on the youthful heroism admired by all, brought much shame and regret to Logan and his worthy troopers which included such truly typical Kentucky Colonels as Patterson, Kennedy, Trotter, Kenton and Boone, who loathed the pres- ence of McGary in the returning march to Maysville. Every detail of the Indian village and the captives amid the victor riflemen on horse and afoot crowding or yielding about the Old Forest King and his stately Queen, while the burly major was vainly but almost fatally opposed by the hardy young volunteer, affords one of the most tragic themes for an his- toric artist that yet remains unused in marble or colors.
The Genius of Civil Rights closely followed and at times even preceded the spirit of conquest. The Act of Quebec. hated and resented by all Americans, was anticipated in no .
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uncertain terms in 1769, by the Virginia House of Burgesses, of which Washington was a member, by constituting the county of Botetourt which extended from the Blue Ridge westward to the Mississippi and embraced the southern part of the Northwest. Seven years later Virginia claimed the same region under the name of West Augusta District. After that it was a part of Fincastle county. The county of Ken- tucky was constituted in October, 1776, but even in 1777 the fighting force all counted was but one hundred and two "guns" or men. After Clark's conquest of the southwestern Brit- ish forts, Virginia again asserted her control by constituting the immense county of Illinois, over which Colonel John Todd was made the governing agent in the fall of 1778. For eighteen months he went among the French settlers there. To his wise work is due much of the spirit that kept the Brit- ish from regaining that region, and thus eventually secured the independence of the Northwest, and so fixed our place as it is. The one sword at the Battle of Blue Licks was worn there to the death by him. He was of the family that fur- nished the wife for Abraham Lincoln, whose grandfather was also killed in 1784 by an Indian in Kentucky. A more vivid idea of the struggle is gained by noting such incidents. In 1780 the county of Kentucky was subdivided into the three counties of Jefferson, Fayette and Lincoln. And thus the forms of just restraint and civil protection were being brought around the land of our homes that were to come.
Every one, the Indian himself, knew that the red race must go with time and force. Time was passing and force was coming. Many went west by the Wilderness Road and Boone's Trace; but more came floating from the Northeast in search of genial airs and fertile plains. In 1780 three hun- dred family boats or "arks" reached "The Falls" by Louis- ville, where they were broken up for the lumber to be used by the "movers" in the improvement of cabins sometimes many miles away. Often ten and fifteen wagons a day could be counted going to the interior. Rumor spread the fame of the land where a grain of corn dropped in the soil cleft by an axe, where weeds had not learned to grow, would yield five hundred fold. Swine turned loose fattened on the mast and multiplied beyond need with no care other than the
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thrilling sport of gathering the salable pelts of the wild ani- mals that would feed on the young. Cattle needed scarcely more than the salt that would lure them from straying away on boundless pastures that kept their sweetness in rank growths beneath snows that were neither early nor lasted long. The fleece of flocks (that in truth had to be herded from wolf- ish troubles) could be well mixed with the finest flax yet grown in America, and dyed with native forest hues that fash- ion has since approved. Health was quaffed with every draught out of the spring flowing from the hidden fountains of the Blue Lime Stone. Delight thrilled the air. Plenty waved a beckoning hand. Safety would soon mantle every path. Homes resounded with the laughter of many children. The teachers were at work. The youthful Lytle, so ready to wield a deadly knife for his helpless captives, guided his quill with a fine, strong, rapid hand, with pure, correct, lively dic- tion, and reverenced his parents, as is proved by letters to them now in my care. The people remembered the tales of great deeds and splendid cities and they believed the prophets of greater things yet to be. In 1783 Daniel Broadhead estab- lished a service by wagons from "The fair and opulent city of Philadelphia" across the mountains to Pittsburgh, and a line of keelboats to Louisville by which goods were brought to the first store in Kentucky, for the barter of foreign stuff pre- viously was conducted by peddling traders. Furs were taken in that store in lieu of cash, of which there was little or none. But there was no market for the rapidly accumulating grain, multiplying stock and luxuriant tobacco.
Spain steadily prohibited the navigation of the Mississippi except under duties and penalties that amounted to confisca- tion and imprisonment. The policy of Spain was as hostile to the Western Americans as the opposition of the Indians, but more refined. The details would fill volumes about what brought much discontent and even threatened a rupture of the Union, which was the sinister purpose of the long Spanish intrigue. The products of the West would have been far from welcome among the Eastern people even if it had been possi- ble to take them across the mountains. Therefore, the gather- ing riches of Kentucky seemed less than worth the care. No Stronger political proof is needed that the balance of justice
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should not be trusted to selfish hands, than the fact that six of the thirteen States influenced by concessions to their inter- ests voted for a treaty that imposed submission to Spain's de- termination to prohibit American navigation of the Missis- sippi. Satisfaction reaches delight in contemplating the ulti- mate defeat of that tyrannical restriction.
Galled by the marauders from the Indian Country, enraged by the malignant coercions of Spain, and imbittered by the seeming incomprehension of Congress regarding both condi- tions, the Kentuckians, except for these restraints, lords of a world of hopeful prospects, began and persisted in demands for recognition as an independent State. But the purpose and forms of that independence which was to be the precedent for Ohio and many similar actions was a problem that the founders of the Nation chose to weigh with anxious wisdom.
Meanwhile, the prime object of the Indian treaties was to achieve the sale and safe settlement of the public domain. as contemplated in the Land Ordinance enacted May 20, 1785, under which surveyors were commissioned to make the maps. But, before that work could proceed, one of the rough con- ditions of that cruel time was the ejectment of unauthorized settlers from the lands north and west of the Ohio, where, according to statements for April, 1785, as reported by Col- onel Harmar to Congress, people were going "by the forties and fifties." "From the best information," three hundred fam- ilies were on the Muskingum, as many more on the Hock- hocking and fifteen hundred on the Rivers Miami and Scioto, to whom a notice had been published to hold elections for choosing delegates to a convention to meet on April 20, 1785, at the mouth of the Scioto. This statement that Ohio then contained twenty-one hundred white families, after much search for supporting facts, must be regarded as a hoax on Harmar's credulity. The affair was very serious to a few score people along the northwestern shore of the upper Ohio, whose cabins were burned by Captain Armstrong. Otherwise, the condition told to Colonel Harmar was created by imag- ination and colored by fancy. As to the utter absence of humanity from the Scioto at that time there is positive proof. In the same month, April, 1785, four families from Red Stone on the Monongahela tied their boat under the bank where
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