History of Columbiana County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 2

Author: D. W. Ensign & Co.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 541

USA > Ohio > Columbiana County > History of Columbiana County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 2

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Sumuel Champlain in 1608 visited the Island of Orleans, cleured ground, and in July erected a few cabins on the site of Quebec, which proved the foundation of that city. He obtained a monopoly of the fur trade and fisheries, and established a trading-post at the now settlement.t Uuder the auspices of Champlain, the policy of establishing mis- sions was introduced. " Such a policy was congenial to the Catholic Church, and was favored by the conditions of the charter itself, which recognized the neophyte among the savages as an enfranchised citizen of France."§

To the remote country of the interior the missionaries made their advance by the rivers and lakes, those natural highways supplied by the unequaled water-system of this portion of the New World.

In 1634 the French Jesuits, Breheuf and Daniel, jour- neyed as far as the Straits of St. Mary and Lake Superior, following the Ottawa and French Rivers. Champlain had

. Acadia, or Acadie, the name of the peninsula now called Nova Bootis from the time of its settlement by the French in 1604 until its cession to the English in 1713. In the original commission of the King of France, New Brunswick and a part of Maine were included in Oudie, but practically the colony was restricted to the peninsula. The English claimed the territory by right of discovery .- Am. Cyolop.

t Annapolis is the capital of Annapolis County, in the province of Nova Bootin. Under the name of Port Royal it was the capital of the French colony of Acadia, after the conquest of which, by the English in 1710, the naine of the town was changed. The capital was removed to Halifax in 1750.

# Champlain had been many years engaged as a mariner in ox- ploring the northern coasts near the Gulf of St. Lawrence, comprising the provinces now known as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Cape Breton, south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, which were embraced in . grant made by Henry IV. of France to a company of merchants and others of Rouen, of whom Pontgrave and Chauvin were princi- pal .- Sos Martin's Louisiana, vol. 1. pp. 34 to 45, ed. of 1827.

See Baseront's History of the United States, vol. ill. pp. 121 and 127.

given aid to the Huron und Algonquin tribes in their struggles with the fierce Iroquois, whose " Five Nations" occupied the country south of the St. Lawrence and Luke Erie, and thus drawn upon the French the implacable hos- tility of that confederacy. In consequence of this the better route to the westward, by the upper St. Lawrence and the great lakes, was practically closed to the Jesuit mis- sionaries. Their route is described as leading "through a region horrible with forests. All day long they must wade or handle the oar. At five-and-thirty waterfalls the canoes were carried on the shoulders for leagues through thickest woods and over the roughest regions; fifty times they were dragged through shallows and rapids and over sharpest stones."ll

Others of the Jesuit fathers followed to the country on the borders of Lake Huron during the seven years succeed- ing 1640, among whom were Charles Raymbault, Claude Bejart, Isaac Jogues, and Father Bressani. Jogues and Bressani were captured by the Iroquois, and suffered at their hands tortures the most excruciating; but were ulti- mately rescued and ransomed by the Dutch on Hudson's River. Jogues returned in 1647, after a visit to France, and sought to conciliate the powerful Iroquois. In this effort he lost his life, and directly following this event the missionary settlements in Canada were assailed by the Burvages and destroyed. The zeul of the Jesuits would not permit a cessation of their efforts in the new land. Mis- sionaries in greater numbers entered upon the work so fate- fully begun, and in a few years brought about friendly relations with their former enemies.

In 1667, Father Claude Alloues, while in missionary sorvice among the Chippewas, first learned of a river to the westward, called by the natives " Mesasippi" or Great River. Two years later, Claude Dublon and James Marquette were sent to establish the mission of St. Marie, which formed the oldest settlement by Europeans within the present limits of Michigan. T

In 1673, Futher Marquette, who four years previous had resolved upon the discovery of the great river, was chosen with M. Joliet, a trader of Quebec, to effect that purpose. Futher Marquette had gained the good-will of the natives, and such was their veneration for the gentle father that for a long time after his death, when their canoes were storm-tossed on Lake Michigan, it is said they " called upon the name of Marquette, and the wind ceased and the waves were still." ** Marquette and his companion, with five other Frenchmen, left Michilimackinac May 13, 1673, cousted along the western shore of Lake Michigan, entered the bay of Puants (now Green Bay), ascended Fox River to the village of the tribe so named, then the " extreme limit of missionary effort in those western regions, where Alloues had already planted the cross."tt

Having procured Indian guides, they crossed the portage to the Wisconsin, carrying their canoes on their backs, and stood for the first time in the valley of the Mississippi, at a point beyond which no Frenchman had ventured. Aban-

| Bancroft's Hist., vol. ill. p. 122.

{ Ibid., p. 152.

Letters of Charlevoix.

tt See John W. Monette's Valley of the Mississippi, vol. i. p. 124.

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HISTORY OF COLUMBIANA COUNTY, OHIO.

doned by their guides, they floated down the Wisconsin, and after seven days entered the great river June 17, 1673 .*

One hundred miles below the mouth of the Wisconsin an Indian town near the western shore was discovered, where Marquette announced " the one true God, their Creator, and related how the French governor of Canada had humbled the Iroquois." The savages were rejoiced, caused the party to tarry six days, and suspended from the neck of Marquette the sacred calumet, or " peace-pipe," as a " safeguard among stange tribes." Floating down the river, they passed the Missouri, or Pekitanoni, and the Ohio, and continued their voyage down to latitude 33º north, a considerable distance below De Soto's point of crossing one hundred and thirty-two years before. Futher Marquette and his party returned to the lakes by way of the Illinois River.

The task of completing the exploration of the great river was undertaken by the ambitious, hardy, and enterprising Monsieur la Salle, a native of Rouen, in Normandy. The hope of reaching the South Sea and China by means of some of the western tributaries of the Mississippi, as sug- gested by Marquette, was still entertained in Europe, and was shared by La Salle. His plan to push French settle- ments westward and provide them with proper defenses was favorably entertained by the king. He was appointed to the command of Fort Cutaracoui, afterwards called Fron- tenac, on the site now occupied by the city of Kingston, on Lake Ontario.

On the 18th of November, 1678, he set out from the fort in a bark of ten tons, and, reaching the head of Onta- rio, spent the winter in making further preparation for his expedition. Unable to ascend the falls of Niagara with his vessel, he built upon Lake Erie the "Griffin," of sixty tons burden, which was finished Aug. 7, 1679, and was the first sailing-vessel upon that lake. Three monks were of the company, one of whom was " Father Louis Henne- pin, a Franciscan friar, a man full of ambition for discov- eries and fame; daring, hardy, energetic, vain, and self- exaggerating almost to madness." The route of the expe- dition led through Lakes Huron and Michigan to Green Bay, where they arrived in October. From that place La Salle sent the "Griffin" upon a return voyage, richly laden with furs. The vessel was wrecked and the curgo lost; but La Salle, impatient for the " Griffin's" re-appear- ance, did not learn her fate until the ensuing January. Meantime he had proceeded southward, and passing around the lake to the river St. Joseph, secured consent of the Miamis for the erection of a stockade-fort and trading-post at the mouth of that river. He passed over to the Illinois, and descended that river to the broad portion of it called Lake Peoria, where he built a fort which, because of de- spondency occasioned by signs of mutiny among his men, he named " Crève Coeur," or Broken Heart.

The Indians became suspicious of the designs of La Salle, but fortunately serious trouble was averted. In February, 1680, before his return to Fort Frontenac, he arranged an expedition, under the lead of Father Hennepin, to explore

the upper Mississippi. After a delay of ten days, occa- sioned by floating ice in that river, Hennepin ascended to the " Falls of St. Anthony," so called by him in honor of his patron saint, St. Anthony, of Padua. His party spent several weeks exploring the country above the falls, " but never reached the real sources of the great river, as Henne- pin falsely affirmed."t

In the latter part of the summer of 1680, Hennepin aguin entered the Mississippi through the Wisconsin, and procceded to the mouth of the Arkansas, and from that point returned without reaching the mouth of the great river.

La Salle had named the Illinois " St. Louis," and the country traversed by it " Louisiana," both in honor of the King of France. Desiring to complete the work of explora- tion, he started from Fort Crève Coeur in 1682, and on the 2d of February entered the Mississippi, determined to carry his investigations to its union with the sea. A few days were spent at the mouth of the Missouri, which he named "St. Philip," and other days at the mouth of the Ohio, to arrange for trade with the Indians, and at Click- asa Bluffs for a like purpose, where he obtained permission to build a fort. This post was called " Fort Prud'homme," after one who was left in command with a small garrison. He tarried at the mouth of the Arkansas, was well received by the Tensas Indians, whose village was situated, it is be- lieved, upon the banks of what is now known as " Lake Providence," and reached Red River on the 27th of March. After a few days' delay he pursued his journey, and reached the goal of his endeavors the confluence of the great river with the Gulf-on the 7th of April.

After a few days spent in making discoveries along the coast of the Gulf, he " planted the arms of France, erected the cross, and calling the country ' Louisiana,' he closed the ceremony with a display of the solemn and imposing rites of the Catholic Church."; Two years later the ex- plorations of La Salle were extended to the country of Texas. §

By virtue of these discoveries, France made claim to all the territory drained by the "Great River" and its tribu- taries, including the country whose waters descend to the Ohio on the south and to Lake Erie on the north.

The undefined limits of the provinces in America claimed severally by the great powers, Spain, France, and England, and the greed for territorial extension, manifested most strongly on the part of the last named, gave rise to serious struggles, both diplomatic and military, covering the period from 1690 to 1821, when, by lot of war and by purchase, a power younger than either-the United States -- acquired the largest part of her present magnificent domain, includ- ing the " Mississippi Valley." The treaty by which France ceded " Louisiana," west of the Mississippi, was signed April 30, 1803.

t Monette's Valley of the Mississippi, vol. i. p. 139.

# See Martin's History of Louisiana, vol. i. pp. 100, 101.

? It has been claimed that La Salle, in the year 1670, proceed- ing from Lake Erie, reached the Ohio at the Forks, where now is the city of Pittsburgh, and from thence floated down the river to the Fulls. The statement, however, is disbelieved by historians gener- ally.

. Monette's Hist., vol. i. p. 125.

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HISTORY OF COLUMBIANA COUNTY, OHIO.

CHAPTER III.

INDIAN OCCUPANOY.

WHEN white men first became acquainted with the region lying immediately south of Lake Erie, a tribe of Indians called Eries were in actual possession, and their claims doubtless extended over all of Northeastern Ohio and Western New York. They were brave, fearless, and disposed to boast of their strength and prowess, and were at the maximum in numbers and power at the period of the simultaneous advance of Champlain upon the St. Lawrence and of Hudson upon the " North River" in 1608.

Tradition asserts that, anticipating the union of the five tribes in the State of New York, whose power in that event they feared would be concentrated against them, under plea of a friendly contest they challenged these tribes to a trial of skill in wrestling, racing, and other Indian games. Equal numbers of their most athletic young men were chosen by cach side, who met on favorable ground and struggled for the mastery in a manner worthy of the best days of Greece and Rome. In each particular the representatives of the five tribes were victorious, which only stimulated the Eries to prevent the combination, and to this end they planned the destruction of the tribes in detail by a sudden onslaught. The eastern Indians were warned of the design, quickly concentrated their warriors, and met the advancing Eries not far from what is known as Honeoye Falls, in the county of Monroe. At this place the Eries are said to have fallen almost to a man, after one of the most sanguinary and hotly contested conflicts known to Indian history.

The destruction of the Eries is by some writers alleged to have taken place in the year 1656 .* The tradition above narrated relates to a period anterior to 1600, the probable date of the famous league of the Five Nations, " as it was a powerful organization at the date of Dutch occu- pancy in 1609."

The Iroquois, it is alleged, were at one time in subjec- tion to the Adirondacks, against whom they arose unsuc- cessfully, and were obliged to retire from the north side of the St. Lawrence to the Seneca River. The league, from its formation until 1712, consisted of five nations,- Ononda- gas, Oneidus, Mohawks, Cuyugas, and Senecas,-when the organization became known as the "Six Nations" by the admission in that year of the Tuscaroras, " shirt-wearing people," who had been driven from the western part of North Carolina. Rising in their combined power and burning for revenge and conquest, they turned against and utterly annihilated the Adirondacks, and " conquered the Hurons, the Eries, the Andastez, the Chauanons, the Illi- nois, the Miamies, the Algonquins, the Delawares, the Shawanese, the Susquehannocks, the Nanticokes, the Unamis, the Minsi, and even the Carnise Indians, in their sea-girt home upon Long Island, found no protection against their attacks. The name of the Iroquois had be- come a terror to all the Indian nations."

Before 1720, the Ohio above the mouth of the Wabash was known as the "River of the Iroquois," which was

often called the Hoio by the Indiuns, and it is not definitely known whether the conquering Iroquois, prior to that pe- riod, actually occupied that part of the country of the Eries which is now a part of Ohio, situated between this warlike confederacy on the east and the cqually warlike Shawanese on the west, who occupied the valleys of the Scioto and Miami. The intervening country is said to have been un- inhabited except by bands of Shawunees-Shawnees-or War-parties of the Iroquois and Miamis. The Wyandotst are said to have made a treaty with the Five Nations about the year 1694, and to have "graduully extended and moved into what is now Ohio, the Delawares afterwards coming in from the east, the Miamis from the west, and the Shaw- nees from the south."

In the early part of the eighteenth century a portion of the Five Nations, mostly Senecas, called Mingoes by the Pennsylvanians, from the Delaware term Mengwe, occupied the northern part of Ohio.t

The century opened auspiciously for the French by the conclusion of a treaty at Montreal in the summer of the year 1700, between the Iroquois, on the one side, and the French and Western Indians, on the other. "A written treaty was made, to which each nation placed for itself a symbol,-the Senecas and Onondagas drew a spider ; the Cuyugus, a calumet ; the Oneidus, a forked stick; and the Mohawks, a bear." It was agreed " that war should cease between the French allies and the Sioux ; that peace should reuch beyond the Mississippi."§ This bond of fealty and good-will was strengthened by the admission to the con- federacy of the Tuscaroras, who had suffered wrongs in North Carolina at the hands of the English.

During the period extending from 1754 to the final treaty of peace between France and England in 1763, most of the Indian tribes from Lake Champlain to the Mississippi " were engaged as allies and auxiliaries to the French arms." At the latter period " some bands of the Six Nations dwelt on the sources of the Ohio, south of Luke Erie, and others as far west as Cuyahoga River, on Lake Eric." |

The Iroquois claimed by right of conquest " the whole of the country from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and from the lakes to Carolina."" Among the treaties made by the colonics with this powerful confederacy was one signed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in June, 1744, whose grants of territory were very indefinite. By its terms were conveyed all the lands within the bounds of Virginia; but

. See Early Notices of the Indians of Ohio, pamphlet, by M. F. Forbes, 1879.

t "Mr. Ferral, an old citizen of Fairfield township, tells me that in early times the Wyandota encamped near where Salem now stands, and being in a very destitute condition, the whites gathered up pro- visions and went to their relief, and in return for their kindness re- ceived as a present from the Indians a wampum or bead-belt (being the highest token of gratitude and friendship), which belt was after- wards kept and preserved in the family of old William Heald, who was one of the first government surveyors in our county, and towards the close of his life moved to Iowa, and died at over one hundred and two years of age." -- H. H. Gregg's Address before the Columbiana Pioneer Society, September, 1873.

# See pamphlet, 1879, "Some Early Notices of the Indians of Ohio," Archives of the Western Reserve Hist. Soc., Cleveland. ¿ Bancroft's Hist. of the U. S., vol. iii. p. 194.

| Monette's Valley of the Mississippi, vol. i. p. 323. " Cadwallader Colden.

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HISTORY OF COLUMBIANA COUNTY, OHIO.

the Indians subsequently claimed that they had been deceived, and " did not intend to cede any lands west of the mountains."* However valid or weak the claim of England to lands on the Ohio, it is evident that between French discovery and British diplomacy the Indian claims were of small significance.

The French and Indians resisted the encroachments of the English upon the territory north and west of the Alle- ghany and Ohio Rivers, and until the extinguishment of French claims by the treaty of Paris, in 1763, the din of arms continued, and that portion of the New World was a scene of war and massacre, the result of savage warfare instigated by rival Christian nations.

The uprising of Pontiac, an Ottawa chief, prolonged the strife until the adoption of the treaty of "German Flats," in November, 1764, by which the Six Nations ceded large tracts of land to New York and Pennsylvania. The tide of' westward emigration received a new impetus; yet, notwithstanding the Indian title was not extinguished to much of the territory occupied by the settlers, the Indians maintained comparative quiet for ten years. The treaty of Lancaster, 1744, which the Indians had been induced to sign, after partaking freely of whisky-punch, " bumbo," and wine, duly administered by the honorable commissioners from Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, was still vehemently repudiated by the savages, who were growing more and more restless, and ready to rise upon any fresh provocation. Sufficient incentive to armed hostility was furnished directly in the causes which led to

LORD DUNMORE'S WAR.

Near the end of April, 1774, a party of land-jobbers gathered at Wheeling, Va., pretending to apprehend an attack from the Indians. Capt. Cresap, who was in com- mand at Fort Fincastle, learning that two Indians, with their families, were coming down the Ohio, a few miles above Wheeling, proposed to slay them. Devoid of any spark of humanity, and regardless of the consequences to the settlements which the act would inevitably produce, of which he was duly warned by Col. Zane, the bloody design was fully carried out by Cresap, who shot the Indians in

."The province of Virginia invariably took the lead in all move- ments for the occupancy of the Western lands. As early as 1774, two commissioners from Virginia, Col. Thomas Lee and Col. William Beverly, with others from Pennsylvania and Maryland, convened a portion of the Six Nations at Lancaster, Pa., for the purpose of treut- ing with them for the sale and relinquishment of large bodies of land extending west of the settlements in the three provinces, from the Susquehanna to the Potomac. After a liberal use of whisky-punch, 'bumbo,' and wine, of which the Indians partook freely, the treaty was duly read and signed by the parties respectively. The amount paid the Indians for signing this treaty was two hundred and twenty pounds on the part of Maryland, and two hundred pounds on the part of Virginia, both in Pennsylvania currency, besides sundry presents, and abundance of whisky-punch and ' bumbo.'"

At subsequent treaties, held at Logstown, Winchester, and other places for the purpose, the Indians "indignantly refused to ratify the treaty of Lancaster." . . . " In all these treaties, whether ratified or rejected, the Virginians appear to have been determined to coerce a relinquishment of the Indian lands, either by fair means or foul, and no effort of negotiation or intrigue was omitted to accomplish this purpose."-Sce Monette's Hist. of the Mississippi Valley, pp. 348, 349.

their canoes, a few miles above Wheeling. This unpro- voked und cowardly crime was followed by another at the mouth of Cuptina Creek, below Wheeling, where Cresap and his followers shot a number of Indians in cold blood, one man receiving in turn a severe wound.

A few days afterwards, Daniel Greathouse, claiming to fear mischief from a number of Indians who were encamped near the mouth of Yellow Creek, collected a party of thirty- two men, and proceeded to " Baker's Bottom," on the east side of the Ohio, and opposite the Indian encampment. Greathouse crossed the river alone,-a spy in friendly guise,-but was warned by an Indian woman to return, because the warriors were drinking, were exasperated at the recent murders, and might do him some injury. The force of savages being too great, a plot was laid by which Inany of them were decoyed across the river and made help- lessly drunk on whisky supplied by one Baker. While in this condition they were wantouly murdered by Greathouse, aided by a few others of his bloody gang. The friendly squaw, who had warned Greathouse of his danger, was not spared. Those of the conspirators who calmly viewed the horrid work were equally guilty with the principals for per- mitting its consummation.

Among the victims in the murders at Captina and Yel- low Creeks were the kin of the noble native chieftain Logan, of the Cuyuga tribe of the Iroquois. From au in- fluential advocate for peace, the slaughter of his entire family converted Logan into a determined enemy of the whites in Virginia. A timely message from the authorities of Pennsylvania, condemning the outrages and reminding the Indians that the wrongs had not been committed by the dwellers in that province, turned the fury of the onset chiefly against the Virginia settlements.t

The civil authorities rendered no redress for Indian grievances, but rather encouraged the lawlessness of the whites by their indifference. Numerous other acts of fiendishness than those related mark the sad history of that period, including the killing of " Bald Eagle," who had long been a friend to the pale-face. While alone in the woods, neur the Monongahela, he was murdered by three white men, who afterwards " placed the lifeless body of their victim in a sitting posture in his canoe, and sent it adrift down the stream."}

The Shawanese on the Scioto, as principals in the war, aroused other tribes on the north and west, and began the conflict by murdering all whites found within their territory.

Lord Dunmore, Governor of the Province of Virginia, took steps to protect the frontier settlements and chastise the hostile Indians. The ensuing war, called " Dunmore's War," lasted until Jan. 7, 1775.

" The Indian ' declaration of war' was made by Logan on the 21st of July, 1774, in company with a party of eight warriors. Having advanced into the settlements on the upper Monongahela, and having killed one man and taken two prisoners on the 12th of July, he returned on the 21st and left at the house of William Robinson, whose family he had murdered, 'the war-club,' to which was attached a note, written by a white prisoner who had been

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History of Columbiana County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 2

Author: D. W. Ensign & Co. Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages: 541

Author: D. W. Ensign & Co.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 541