USA > Ohio > Brown County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 9
USA > Ohio > Clermont County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 9
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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
In a study of that theme for another work, it was my special duty to consider every obtainable page from both public and private collections concerning that darkest blot on Beautiful Ohio. The inevitable conclusion exhausts the available lan- guage of denunciation. From all the many incidents in the going of the Indian, the peaceful Delawares are still occa- sionally mentioned as a fine example of benevolent land grab- bing. In one sense the plan of vaunting fine motives while driving good bargains was better, because it was safer. The Delawares were thereby as certainly dispossessed as ever hap- pened to the most vengeful scalp hunters. After the tribe had
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ceased to be attractive to those who bought, or sold, them out, they became the special object of conversion by the Moravian people who had become sympathetic with the un- fortunate, through much persecution of their own. After the wilder people of the tribe had gone to the secure solitudes of the Muskingum Valley, they were visited in 1761 by Rev- erend Frederick Post, whom they permitted to build a small house on the east bank of the Tuscarawas River, just within the southern limit of Stark county. Post then went east for a helper, and returned with John Heckewelder, then nine- teen years old. On April II, 1762, arm in arm and singing a hymn, they entered that house which was the first Chris- tian home in Ohio. That effort was swept away by Pon- tiac's War. Nine years later Heckewelder returned as the assistant of David Zeisberger in locating two hundred and four migrating converted Delawares and Mohicans, of whom some were the survivors of the Massacre of Gnadenhutten, in Pennsylvania.
On May 3, 1772, by consent of the wild Indians, they began to clear the land about Schoenbrunn, the "Beautiful Spring," and to build sixty houses after the Moravian pattern, of tim- bers hewed on four sides to a square to fit closely together, with shingle roofs, with glass windows, with cupboards, with doors and floors, and with stone chimneys. Without saw mills, the boards were laboriously made from straight rifted logs with wedges, frows and drawing knives. The two streets were laid broad in the form of a T. Facing the stem and built in the same style stood the chapel, over which, on August 26, the first church bell used in Ohio was raised. On September 19, that first church house in Ohio was dedi- cated; and in that room during the winter of 1772 and 1773 the essentials of education were taught to Indians both young and old by John Heckewelder, the first of all the noble hosts of Ohio school teachers. The present and future sequence of that auspicious event staggers the imagination ; but out of all wondering one fact stands clear. There should be small tol- eration for the Ohio teacher whose lessons on patriotism begin and remain so far from home that he or she can not perceive the worth of such historic association and make it a part of our State pride. On September 18. 1772, another band led
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by a converted Mohican Chief, Joshua the Elder, founded Gnadenhutten, or the "Tents of Grace," where his grave stone dated, "Ist Aug. 1775," is still to be seen, the most ancient mark of Christian sepulture in Ohio. On May 22, 1780, as a better arrangement for increasing numbers, Heckewelder founded the Mission of Salem six miles down the river, where, in the chapel, on July 4, 1780, he was married to Miss Sarah Ohneberg, who had come as a teacher from the churches in Pennsylvania. This was the first white wedding in Ohio. An excellent and perfectly preserved oil painting from her younger days presents her for admiration as one of the love- liest of all brides as well as the first of all in Ohio. At Salem Mission, on April 6, 1781, was born their daughter, Maria, the first white baby girl in Ohio.
These three mission towns, the earliest by years of all at- tempts for civilization in Ohio, prospered hopefully ; but it was their misfortune to be half way on the Big Trail between the Whites about Fort Pitt and the hostile Wyandots about San- dusky. The British Indians scorned the non-resisting con- verts who would not join the war bands, and they freely exacted food or anything needed in their raids. They were also prone to charge any lack of success to the missionaries, whom they accused of giving information of impending dan- ger to the settlers. The British authorities decided to destroy the towns and yet cast the odium of the affair upon the Col- onies. The border men maddened by awful atrocities to doubt all good and to believe all evil, regarded the "Half- way Indians" as spies who harbored and guided their foe. Suspecion and slander never lessen. All Indians looked alike to the harassed people who vindictively resolved to "wipe out the Halfway towns." But no official sanction for such action could be obtained. Some events of the time are better under- stood now than then. General Daniel Broadhead marched against the Delawares about Goshocking, now Coshocton, as the worst and nearest to the eastern settlements. The attack was stopped by a flood and only some forty prisoners were taken, of whom sixteen were officially tomahawked. The rest met the same fate from their guards. The unruly militia were, with much difficulty, restrained from breaking away from the command in order to destroy the Mission Towns.
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The General could not tell the full reason for his earnest protection of the missionaries ; for every friendly act was care- fully guarded from the public, as is proved by the recent publication of official papers. British distrust increased by Broadhead's protection of the Moravians was manifested by a force that, on September 11, 1781, cruelly drove the con- verts from the plenty of their pleasant homes to the famine of Captive's Town and the roofless desolation of a bleak San- dusky plain. Their pious teachers were charged with treason and tried at Detroit. where the secrets at Fort Pitt would have cost their lives. While remembering that Broadhead's firmness postponed the evil day for some, the horrors of his expedition can not be denied and must not be excused. Yet. the ghastly facts may be partially explained, if not palliated, by the rage aroused by the infamous example of Lord Cornwallis in the South, who, in accordance with the orders of the Royal Ministry, executed those who refused to bear arms for the King. No trial was given. The fact that a patriot was found with his family was a warrant for hanging him in their pres- ence. In September, 1780, thirty men were thus hanged by the commander at Augusta, all for the glory of the King.
Made desperate by the hunger at Captive's Town, more than a hundred of the converts escaped and returned to get some food for their starving ones from their unharvested corn by the Beautiful Spring, the Tents of Grace and the Vale of Peace. Their coming and resting in their homes, while get- ting and taking their food to the helpless, was reported to the avengers. About three hundred, some say less. mostly nameless, under David Williamson, came with canting hypocrisy to round up the herd of victims .. Then, Friday, March 8, 1782, was spent "deliberately" in killing brown, un- resisting Christian men, women and children, largely with a cooper's mallet, until ninety-six scalps were counted. All the plunder that could be loaded on a hundred captured horses was taken to the settlements about Cross Creek, Pa., which are clouded with the memory of the foulest massacre that stains the authentic annals of the Anglo Saxon race.
The effect of that deed was beyond all immediate expecta- tion and beyond all modern appreciation. Instead of being intimidated, the savage spirit was roused to a fury never felt
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before. Revenge, heretofore deemed a duty and practiced for pleasure, became a solemn function not to be omitted without incurring the wrath of the spirit world, where those slain in their innocence were waiting for the price of their peace. The red race saw its doom could not be averted by submission. Those who might have turned Christian or might have lived craven resolved to abide in superstition and die according to their ideals of heroism, fighting always and yielding never. A mutual pledge was given and taken from East to West · that no white man should settle north of the Ohio. The place of the crime was set aside for death and abhorred for life. No warrior would ever revel in its gloom and no paleface should make it glad. With such foes roused to the highest pitch of vindictive passion, the campaigns of 1782, the last year of the Revolution, were fought in the West and mainly in Ohio, with a grim purpose on both sides that exceeded all of the kind before. For, after that awful crime on the Tuscarawas, both sides felt it was to be a fight to the finish.
Just twelve weeks from their gathering for the massacre, Williamson and many of his fellow murderers came again to Mingo Plain. They were now mustered in a legal force four hundred and eighty strong with Colonel William Crawford for commander. Their avowed purpose was against the In- dians about Sandusky, but many boasted that they would finish wiping out the Moravians. They went by the Big Trail and camped at Schoenbrunn where tradition states that Craw- ford was much disturbed by a panic among his men caused by some firing on the guard line. It is easy to believe that he must have felt some misgivings about the men who had such ample reason for. fearing supernatural displeasure. In the defeat that came June 8, the men that stood by William- son were the first to break and leave the wounded. It is told that he directed the retreat with skill; but the reflection comes' unbidden that those who murdered the meekest and best of the Indians were the first to fly from the bravest and · fierce. The victors ran here and there among the captives asking for the "Butcher Chief," Williamson, or any of his men, and when none were found, they put Crawford in his place to pay the fearful penalty of being slowly burnt to death. For the loftiest ideal of pagan superstition, more potent than
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all that the Delawares knew of wealth, demanded Crawford for a burnt offering. The hearts of all Christendom were chilled with awe, when it was known that the gallant Craw- ford, the personal friend of Washington, had thus been slowly tortured to death. Yet the Indians were yielding to a gain- ing change. Thirty years of war had made them the finest body of light infantry in the King's service, and there is no record that they tasted the flesh of the victim that their fathers would have eaten with horrible pleasure thirty years before.
Crawford's defeat was closely followed by an expedition of five hundred Indians under McKee and Girty, who with a part of the warriors had shared in the recent triumph. They went down the Miami Trail under British colors, and on August 14 besieged Bryant's Station at the crossing of the Elkhorn by the road from Maysville to Lexington, scarcely over a day's trail south of New Richmond. After losing about thirty in bold but fruitless attempts they artfully retreated on the fourth day. On August 19 the choicest chivalry of Kentucky, the rough riders of many romantic rescues in an impetuous pursuit galloped rashly into the Battle of Blue Licks with one hundred and eighty rifles and one sword. From that disastrous field, the sword and eighty-nine rifles never returned. That was the last battle in Kentucky under a British flag. It was also the last hostile British banner to go by the western slopes of Clermont along the winding way of the Miami.
Glutted with gore and waving the scalps of the best in Ken- tucky, many of the warriors joined a band of forty white rangers with two hundred and sixty Indians who went by the Big Trail to scatter the settlers on the western rim of Pennsylvania and Virginia. On the evening of September II, the assembled band formed in lines, paraded the British flag, and again, in the name of King George III, demanded the surrender of Fort Henry. Colonel Zane with twelve men and the women defended the place through two nights and the intervening day in which the incident occurred that added the name of Elizabeth Zane to the list of famous women.
"Talk not to me of Paul Revere,
A man on horseback with nothing to fear ;
Nor of old John Burns with his bell crowned hat-
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He'd an army back of him, so what of that? Here's to the heroine plump and brown Who ran the gauntlet in Wheeling town; Here's a record without a stain,- Beautiful, buxom Elizabeth Zane."
This siege has been called the Last Battle of the Revolu- tion, which thus began at Point Pleasant and ended at Wheel- ing, both on the Ohio, on which a display of British power has not since been seen. That retreat passed westward over the Big Trail about the first week in October. For another clash of arms was near. Aroused by the defeat at Blue Licks, the brawn of Kentucky volunteered, a thousand and fifty mounted rifles, under Colonels Floyd and Logan commanded by Gen- eral Clark. During October that invincible army, gathered in September, went up the Miami Trail with such skill that the warriors, who had conquered Crawford, won Blue Licks. and ravaged the region of Fort Pitt, could not be rallied against the great chief of the Long Knives. Everywhere they fell away while Clark destroyed their towns and stores through- out the Miamis. The blow brought dismay to Detroit. But that success was deemed best for another campaign. Mean- while the rumored peace of which the preliminary treaty was signed November 30, 1882, was presumed to stop the war. It did suppress the open operations, but it did not re- move the hostile influence that was to plague another gen- eration of which many were to be untimely slain before Ohio was fully won.
If all the killings and barbarities during that dreadful sea- son of the tyrannical repression of a foolish King were gath- ered into one point of view, it may be said with truth that the war whoop was never still, the scalping knife was never dry, and the torture fires were never quenched. In the same view the humble homes of hope never ceased to blaze, and the captive throng ever went through gloomy ways to join the prisoners of sorrow in the satanic lot of those who formed the first unhappy and unavailing white population of fair Ohio. If this sanguinary strife that surged from Detroit in a long succession of movements and countermovements- if all this conflict for an empire richer than Rome had hap-
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pened within the sphere of Boston influence, there would have been no shelf strong enough to hold the volumes in record. Instead, the details of the heroic achievement have been dis- missed by the supersensitive as too rude for artistic treatment. all unmindful-
That nothing yet has 'scaped oblivion's wrong Except some dauntless deeds and scraps of song.
One of the saddest conditions of that and all such periods was the loneliness of the grief for those who had paid the price of their victory. During that last woeful year of the western Revolution. of which many refuse to learn, while parental, filial and social love mourned in seclusion, the east- ern people thrilled with the hope of peace. But time lagged. Thirty-eight days passed before the surrender of Cornwallis was known in London. In deepest agitation, Lord North. the amiable minister of tyranny, exclaimed again and again: "It is all over." Two days later. November 27. Parliament con- vened and soon manifested a desire to quit the "unnatural and unfortunate war." The large majority for the subjuga- tion of America dwindled by degrees, until on March 4, 1782. the House of Commons without a division adopted an address in effect : that those advising a continuation of the war against the American Colonies would be regarded as enemies to the King. If this could have been cabled and wired as such things happen now. the wasted energies of 1782 might have made a fruitful growth along the Ohio. The agony of Craw- fords' awful execution might have been spared and the blood of his men saved for peaceful labor. The invasion of Kentucky might not have occurred and the costly sacrifice of Blue Licks might have been averted. The raid on West Virginia would not have been ordered and the captives would not have en- tered the valley and shadow of living death beyond the river about the Indian Country. The dire distress inflicted upon the Shawnees by Clark's stern retribution might have been stayed. For the cruel Clinton as commander in chief was followed by the humane Sir Guy Carlton, whose policy was a virtual truce till the conditions of peace could be deter- mined. With modern facilities for exchanging opinions, all
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this and more would have been possible during that last year of the Revolution. But there was one exception that would have still marred all. No persuasion of human origin would have stopped the fiendish purpose of the swaggering mob that wrought the woe of Gnadenhutten; for they had gath- ered at and were on the way from Mingo Plain on the same day that Parliament took the action that turned England toward the future paths of justice. There is melancholy sat- isfaction in the reflection that the rude travel of those days hindered a knowledge of the deed that would have changed the sympathy for America into horror for its miscreants.
America had many friends in England from the begin- ning, and gained many more as her cause came to be bet- ter understood. When no more armies could be had for oppression and the stubborn King was forced to quit, still more were brought to favor the colonies by a belief that the separation would not last long. A new adjustment was certain, but the extent of the independence was to be as little as possible. The King's friends proposed from the Penob- scot to Spanish Florida and back to the Ohio. Among things most abhorred by the King of Spain was the independence of the Thirteen English Colonies because of the effect upon his own possessions in America. Among things most desired by the King of Spain, the first was Gibraltar. Every art of his court was used to hinder one and gain the other, and both in vain. The motive of France had a double trend. The popular mind was turning to greater liberty and saw an ex- ample to be aided. The court party were waiting for a chance to humiliate English pride. Urged by both, the not willing young King took the course beneficial to mankind but fatal to himself. Before undertaking their cause, the Americans were reminded of their old claims as far as to the South Sea, and were sounded as to their intentions. The agents for the United Colonies answered that the claims made in geographic ignorance would not be used against their friend and that they would accept the Mississippi as a mutual boundary and convenience for Spain and for themselves.
The treaty was begun and practically finished by the Earl of Shelburne and Dr. Benjamin Franklin. Shelburne was represented in Paris by Richard Oswald, a Scotchman, who
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had lived much in America and knew the people. Franklin acted alone until he and Shelburne had reached a fine under- standing. Then an intrigue of Spanish origin and French culture was sprung upon Jay, by which England was to hold the Mississippi Valley eastward to the mountain crest and the Colonies to lose their highly prized part in the east- ern fisheries. In return Spain was to have Gibraltar, and France would be at peace with all, as was greatly desired by all. Shelburne answered that no Englishman could face Par- liament with the proposal. Jay was angry that his mission had such an impotent conclusion. Adams imprudently admitted that he would rather pay the "Merchant claims," and the words could not be recalled. Franklin wisely kept the secrets of all, of which he had the key.
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And so a treaty was signed that the Colonies as United States should have their Independence ; that the salt sea fish- eries should be free to their sailors ; that refugees should have amnesty; and that British merchants might collect their an- cient claims. The maps filed therewith showed the bound- aries in a dark line wandering from the St. Croix westward up the.midwater line of the St. Lawrence and the great lakes to the Lake of the Woods and thence down the Mississippi to a point crossed by the thirty-first parallel and thence east with the southern line of Georgia.
Thus, almost to a day, thirty-two years after Christopher Gist and his company of explorers crossed into Ohio "with English Colors before Us," the British flag, that had been carried up and down the river sides, and around and by and probably through the Land of Old Clermont, gave place to the Stars and Stripes.
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CHAPTER VI.
THE INDIAN COUNTRY.
British Hope for the Failure of Independence-Indians Not Consulted in the Treaty for Peace-The Malign Influence of the British Fur Traders-Old Clermont a Midway Hid- ing Place for Plundering Bands-War Debts and Public Lands-State Claims-Indian Titles-Treaty Councils at Fort Stanwix, Fort McIntosh and Fort Finney-Brant and Red Jacket Form an Indian Confederacy at Detroit-Mol- untha Pleads for Peace-Congress Forbids Invasion of In- dian Border-Clark's Expedition in 1786-Logan's Expedi- tion against Mac-o-chee-The Murder of Moluntha-Civil Government Instituted-The Fertility-Spanish Hostility- Squatter Claims Rejected-The First Government Survey in Ohio, August, 1786-Surveying in the Virginia Military District begun in 1787-The Ordinance of 1787-The Sec- ond Ohio Land Company-Marietta-John Cleves Symmes -The Danger in 1787-Enter Arthur St. Clair, President of Congress-The Territory Northwest-Columbia-Losanti- ville-North Bend-Colonel Robert Todd's Expedition Against Paint Creek-Grant's Defeat near Vevay-"The Banditti Must be Intercepted"-Spanish Intrigue to Dis- solve the Union-Cincinnati-Governor St. Clair Reports a Series of Disasters-Colonel Charles Scott's Expedition- War Resumed-Harmar's Expedition Against Omee-The Massacre at Big Bottom-Scott and Wilkinson's Expedition -Wilkinson's Second Expedition-St. Clair Planned a Chain of Forts-St. Clair's Defeat-Anthony Wayne-Two Years of Preparation and Two Hours of Victory-The In- dian Country Passed into History After Forty Years of Con- flict for the Ohio-Gallipolis, Massie's Station, or Man- chester.
Many Englishmen honestly believed that the federation of States would not endure; and, upon occasion, they hoped to regain the land that was only held by a rope of sand. Some of the less resolute in America feared what such English-
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men hoped. The Congress with neither power nor chance to levy a revenue was not table to pay the just claims of needy friends and still less able to meet the admitted claims of the British, who determined to hold certain forts as a pledge for the payment of certain debts. Among those thus retained was Detroit, the key to the Northwest, of hateful memory to the western settlers, and destined quickly to be still more odious. With candid dealing, this need not have been ; but, with the bitter past and a cruel chance, the way was short to malicious actions.
As in the French surrender of Canada twenty years before, peace was concluded without the least consultation with the savage allies. Next to a war dance the ceremony of making peace is dear to Indian pride. Notwithstanding all their bravery in the war, they had not been consulted about the results more than their dogs; and, in the end, they had been left to the decision of their enemies. Their trade, however, was valuable to the British, whose traders with no morals and every vice, became the teachers from whom the Indians learned, if possible, to think still greater evil of the approach- ing settlers. With such advisers to justify every outrage, the depredations continued to be a peril scarcely less than in the open war. The great besieging expeditions under British commanders ceased to come and parade around the stations ; but no isolated house, no lonely traveler, no drifting boat, was free from the suddenly deadly attack of a foe that haunt- ed the forest or lurked by the river to kill and plunder, and then rush away with the captives or booty to Detroit, where there was ready market, and ransom agents. Such raids all along the border were made by bands that scattered or gath- ered, as if by magic, while they combined the pleasure of hunting with the zest of war, for Indians the most fascinating of all modes of life. From such conditions that most largely prevailed between the Scioto and the Miami unto the refine- ment of today affords a theme with material to illustrate every phase of civilization. The land of Clermont was be- tween the larger settlements about Lexington in Kentucky and the Indian Chillicothes on the Miami and the Scioto. Or, to be more definite, Chilo was half way on a direct line from Boonesborough to the Old Town by Xenia. In the
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