History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 9

Author: Hopley, John E. (John Edward), 1850-
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago,Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1302

USA > Ohio > Crawford County > History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens > Part 9

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This closed the council, the Canadian In- dians remaining with the British, while the Ohio Wyandots followed the advice of Be- tween-the-Logs. Tarhe made another at- tempt and sent another message to his Cana- dian Wyandot kinsman: "Let all the Wyan- dots abandon the British. They are liars and have always deceived the Indians. They built Fort Miami, as they said, to be a refuge to the Indians. When wounded and bleeding, after our defeat by Gen. Wayne, we fled to their fort for protection, they shut the gates against us." Later in the campaign Tecum- seh threw this same treacherous act up to Gen. Procter. It referred to a campaign when "Mad Anthony" Wayne defeated the British and Indians, and the British sought refuge in Fort Miami, and closed its gates against their fleeing Indian allies. He called atten- tion to several other acts of perfidy of the British but it had no effect on his Canadian people, although nearly all the Wyandots in Ohio remained on the side of the Americans ;. only a very few joining the British.

During the war of 1812 Gen. Harrison had his headquarters much of the time along the Sandusky river. He established Fort Ferree, the present site of Upper Sandusky; Fort Ball at Tiffin and Fort Seneca half way between Tiffin and Fremont. This latter place had been a trading post over a century, established by the French, and here was Fort Stevenson.

On December 17, 1812, Gov. Meigs sent a message to the State Legislature appealing for aid for the Ohio militia at Sandusky, in which he said: "The situation of the men as to clothing is really distressing. You will see many of them wading through the snow and mud almost barefooted and half naked. Not half the men have a change of pantaloons, and those linen."

In January, 1813, Gen. Harrison marched from Upper Sandusky to the Maumee and about January 20 erected Fort Meigs, on the south side of the river just above where Perrysburg now is, and for the balance of the winter supplies and troops were sent forward and the fort strengthened. Toward the last of April the fort was besieged by Gen. Procter and Tecumseh with two thousand British and Indians, but the small force there made .so determined a resistence until re-inforcements arrived under Gen. Clay, that on May 5, the allies gave up the siege and retired. Gen. Harrison sent word to Gov. Meigs that more troops were needed, and they were soon on their way to the different posts. On May 8 the commander at Fort Ferree wrote that five hundred men had arrived that day and a thou- sand more would be there the next day.

On July 21 Gen. Procter and Tecumseh again laid siege to Fort Meigs with four thou- sand British and Indians, Gen. Clay being in command of the Fort. The British general, Procter, left Tecumseh to watch the Fort, while he, with five hundred British troops and eight hundred Indians, marched to Lower Sandusky (Fremont) to capture Fort Steven- son, which was garrisoned by one hundred and fifty men under Major Crogan, a young man of twenty-one. They arrived before the Fort on August- Ist, 1813, and Procter de- manded its surrender under the threat that its defense against his superior force was hopeless, and if they were compelled to cap- ture the place, it would be impossible for him to restrain the savagery of the Indians, and the entire garrison would be massacred. The demand was refused and on August 2d the attack commenced, and after several hours of fighting the enemy endeavored to take it by assault but were repulsed with great slaugh- ter. Gen. Harrison was at the time at Fort Seneca, nine miles up the river, with a large force of troops, and Procter fearing an at- tack in return gave up the attempt and re- turned to Detroit. Their loss was perhaps one hundred and fifty killed and wounded. The American loss was one killed and seven wounded.

The Ohio militia continued pouring into Fort Ferree until in August there were from five to six thousand men there under com-

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mand of the Governor, Return Jonathan Meigs. It was impossible to care for so many, besides the enemy had abandoned their at- tempt to capture Fort Meigs and retired to Detroit, and the pressing need for the militia had passed, so all but two thousand were dis- banded and sent home, an order which was received with the greatest disapproval by the disbanded troops, and led to indignation meet- .ings in which severe resolutions were passed against Gen. Harrison.

On September 10, 1813, Perry gained his signal victory on Lake Erie and Gen. Harri- son pushed forward into Michigan to retake the fort. Reaching Detroit he found the place deserted, the British and Indians having re- tired across the river into Canada. On Oc- tober 2d, Gens. Harrison and Shelby, with 3,500 Ohio and Kentucky troops, started after the retreating army and overtook the allied forces at the river Thames, eighty miles from Detroit. A battle followed on October 5, in which Tecumseh was slain, which so demoral- ized his Indian followers that they immediately took flight. A large number of the British were killed or captured and the rest fled. This was the final battle of the northwest, and from that time the settlers of northwestern Ohio were no longer disturbed by the British or In- dians. The war, however, continued in the east and south, until the last battle was fought at New Orleans, on January 8, 1815, by Gen. Jackson, who, with six thousand men, ad- ministered a crushing defeat to Gen. Packen- ham's force of 12,000. The troops of Pack- enham were the pick of the British army, the survivors returning to Europe in time to take part in the battle of Waterloo, while the troops of Jackson were the raw militia of Kentucky, Tennessee and the Northwest, but every man a marksman. In the repeated charges of Pack- enham against the breastworks of the Amer- icans the world was given an example of the height to which disciplined soldiery can be brought.

During the war of 1812, in the battles along the Maumee, the brutal murderings by the In- dians of the soldiers after they had sur- rendered, were of frequent occurrence. Un- armed prisoners were butchered and scalped; huts containing the wounded were set on fire, the infuriated savages surrounding the burn- ing buildings, and as the maimed and crippled

soldiers endeavored to escape they were bayo- netted back into the flames. Some prisoners were taken by the Indians to their towns to undergo death by torture. During this war the English endeavored to curb the cruelties of their Indian allies, but it was generally use- less, and it was only on a few occasions that

SUPERIOR

WINKELS

MICU

MACKINAW

STPAUL

WISCON

CHIGAN

LAKE

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SIN

MILWAUKEE

FARAND RAPIDS

PORT HURONE

MADISON

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Illinois

INDIANAPOLISZ

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TENN.

N. C.

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MAP OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.

Tecumseh himself was able to restrain the ferocity of the savages.

The Wyandots being at peace with the Americans, and Harrison's headquarters for his principal army of advance during the war being in what was Crawford county from 1820 to 1845, there were no disturbances in this section ; in fact at the tinie of the War of 1812 to 1814, there was not a single settler on any land within the borders of the county, it was still an unbroken wilderness, crossed by a mil- itary road in the south and another through where Bucyrus is now located, with Indian trails covering the county in various directions.

VINCENNES

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Wabash

Ohio

VIRGINIA

MISSOURN R

SPRINGFIELD

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SOUTH BEND

LAKE ERIEK

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PONTAGE

Muskel

DULUTH

CHAPTER IV

SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY

Crawford County Organized-Previous Ownership-Indian Reservations-Formation of Wayne County-Delaware and Known Counties Formed-Richland County Organized- Boundaries of Crawford County in 1820-The Wyandot Reservation Purchased-Indian Villages in Crawford County-Army Routes-Early Roads-The Sandusky Plains-Pas- sage of Crooks' Army-Ludlow's Survey-Bad Lands-Abandoned Cabins-Crawford County in its Crude State-The "Old Purchase"-The Westward Movement-Inhab- itants of the County Prior to 1815-Jedediah Moorehead-John Pettigon, the First Land Owner-William Green, the First Permanent Settler-Other Early Settlers in the Various Townships-A Fatal Accident-Early Distilleries-Indian Treaty of 1817-The Land Secured by it-Supplementary Treaty-The New Land Surveyed and Settled-Where the Pioneers Came From-Their Real and Personal Estate-Log Cabins and How They Were Built-Accidents-Furniture-Provisions-Baking-Water Supply-Log Rolling -Clothing-Crops and Harvesting-Grist Mills-Honey and Bee-Hunting-Cranberries -Scarcity of Money-Price of Various Products-Blazed Trails-Neighbors' Visits- Pioneer Hospitality-Mails-The Traveling Minister-Family Services-Medical Re- sources and Early Doctors-Pioneer Pastimes-Funerals-Improvements-The County Erected and Named-Population in 1820-List of Settlers.

O! the pleasant days of old which so often people praise!

True, they wanted all the luxuries that grace our modern days:

Bare floors were strewed with rushes-the walls let in the cold;

O! how they must have shivered in those pleasant days of old!

I love to sing their ancient rhymes, to hear their legends told-

But, Heaven be thanked! I live not in those blessed times of old !- Francis Brown.

On Feb. 12, 1820, the Legislature of the State of Ohio passed an act erecting the County of Crawford, and on Jan. 31, 1826, another act was passed, authorizing the cit- izens of the county to elect their officers and Crawford became one of the counties in the great State of Ohio.

Prior to this the territory comprising Craw- ford county had been under various controls. The first civilized owner was Spain, when it became Spanish territory in 1492, by the dis-

covery of Columbus, and the claims of Ferdi- nand and Isabella, approved by Pope Alexander VI., which made all newly-discovered terri- tory, west of the Atlantic, Spanish possessions.

In 1497, and subsequent years, the Cabots, John and Sebastian, especially the latter, ex- plored the Atlantic coast from Canada to Florida, and by virtue of their discoveries England claimed the entire country north of Florida from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Later England made grants of lands to colon- ization companies, and what is now Crawford county, under one of these grants, came under the jurisdiction of Virginia. The present northern boundary of Crawford was the north line of Virginia territory. From this line north to the Lake belonged to Connecti- cut, also supposed to extend through to the Pacific ocean.

In 1554 Cartier went up the St. Lawrence as far as Montreal, and for over two centuries France made explorations of the entire coun-

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

try west of the Alleghenies and north of the Ohio river. France explored it and fortified it, erected trading posts and made settlements, claimed it by the right of discovery and had control of it. England, however, still claimed it by reason of the Cabots' coast discoveries, and the further claim that in several treaties with the Iroquois Nation, the last in 1744, they had purchased of that Indian nation the entire territory from the Alleghenies to the Mississippi, north of the Ohio river. As a result of these conflicting claims, in 1755 the Seven Years War started between England and France. The French were defeated, and in 1763, by force of arms, the land became English, and Crawford county was Virginia territory.

In 1774 England made all the land, from the Ohio to the Lakes and from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi, Royal Domain and a part of the Province of Quebec, so Crawford coun- ty's headquarters was now Canada.

In 1776 the War of the Revolution started, and again by the force of arms the ownership changed, and by the final treaty signed in Paris, Sept. 3, 1783, Crawford became a part of the new Nation.

By the Indian treaties of Jan. 27, 1785, and Jan. 9, 1789, all of Ohio west of the Cuyahoga river, and about the northern half of the State west of that river, including nearly all of northern Indiana and all of eastern Michi- gan was reserved to the Indians, and this vast territory was designated as Wayne county, with headquarters at Detroit.

On July 4, 1805, another treaty was made with the Indians extending the eastern boun- dary of the Indian reservation fifty miles further to the west. This placed the boundary line of the reservation in Crawford county. The eastern line of the reservation being the present eastern line of Liberty and Whetstone townships. The seven eastern miles of the present county were now open to settlement, and of this territory the four eastern miles were a part of Fairfield county, and the balance a part of Franklin county. In 1808 Delaware and Knox counties were created, and the east- ern part of the county was Knox and the west- ern part Delaware.

Jan. 7, 1813, Richland county was organ- ized, and the four eastern miles of the present

Crawford were a part of the new county, the balance of the county being Delaware.

Sept. 20, 1817, a treaty was made with the Wyandots, together with a supplemental treaty on Sept. 17, 1818, by which all of northwest- ern Ohio was purchased from the Indians, their only reservation being a few tracts, the largest twelve by eighteen miles in size in what is now Crawford and Wyandot coun- ties. This newly opened section for three years remained a part of Delaware county.

By an act of the Legislature of Feb. 12, 1820, Crawford county was formed, consist- ing of a tract of land, commencing at the present western boundary of Auburn and Ver- non townships, and extending west thirty-three miles, including all of the present Wyandot county except an irregular strip of about four miles on its western border. The northern boundary was the same as today. The south- ern boundary was two miles north of the present southern line of the county. For judicial purposes the new county was placed under the care of Delaware. Dec. 15, 1823, Marion county was organized, and Crawford came under its judicial jurisdiction, and for the convenience of settlers in the northern portion, all land north of the Indian reserva- tion, including one tier of townships east and west, was placed for judicial purposes under the care of Seneca county. The Seneca county portion was practically Texas, Lykins, and the western portion of Chatfield.

On Jan. 31, 1826, Crawford county was organized, the same territory as formed in 1820, an area of about 594 square miles.

In 1835, six miles of the eastern portion of the Wyandot reservation was purchased from the Indians, and a few years later all of the present Crawford county was open to settle- ment. On March 7, 1842, the balance of the Wyandot reservation was purchased, and the last foot of soil in Ohio owned by the In- dians passed from their possession.

The organization of Wyandot county on Feb. 3, 1845, changed Crawford county to its present borders. Crawford lost to Wyandot on the west a strip of land eighteen miles square; from Richland on the east was added a strip four miles wide and eighteen deep. From Marion on the south a strip was added twenty miles long and two wide, making the

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY

new and present Crawford county about 20 miles square, with an area of nearly four hun- dred square miles.

Previous to the war of 1812 there was no settler in Crawford county. Prior to that time the Indians had villages and camps in various parts of the county. An Indian vil- lage had once been located in the northwest- ern part of Auburn township, just east of what is now North Auburn station. Another village was that of the Delawares, half a mile northeast of the present site of Leesville. Another was a Wyandot village on the bank of the Whetstone in what is now the corporate limits of Galion. There may have been a village four miles west of Bucyrus on the Grass Run, If it was not a village it was used so frequently as a camp as to leave many of the signs which mark the sites of Indian villages. The same is true of a site on the Sandusky south of the Mt. Zion church, and another point on the Sandusky a mile above the present village of Wyandot. Early set- tlers found land cleared at these places which had been used for the raising of corn; there were also a few fruit trees, but the clearing being not over an acre they may have been only annual camps. Some writers hold it was on the Sandusky river at one of these points where the Moravian Indians spent the winter of 1781, when they were forced to leave their home on the Tuscarawas, and were brought as prisoners by the British and Wyandots to Crawford county. The Indians had camps all over the county, one which they used during the maple sugar season was on what is now the public square at Bucyrus ; others were along the banks of the rivers and bordering the plains used during their hunts; in Chatfield and Cranberry and northern Auburn and southern Holmes were those used during the cranberry season. Many an early settler on his first arrival made use of these little shelters which had been erected by the In- dians.

During the War of 1812 troops passed through what is now Crawford county; the eastern division of the army had its head- quarters at Upper Sandusky; a fort was built there, called Fort Ferree, and it was here the bulk of the stores for the entire army operat- ing on the Maumee was assembled, most of

these stores being brought north from Frank- linton (Columbus), and entered the original Crawford county several miles west of the present western boundary of the county, at Little Sandusky. But one or more roads had been cut through the forest from the eastern to the western part of Crawford county for the transportation of troops and supplies from the east to the Upper Sandusky headquarters.

In 1805 the seven eastern miles of the pres- ent Crawford had been purchased from the Indians, and in 1807 this portion of the county was surveyed. A map published in 1815 gives a road that goes west along the present boun- dary line between Vernon and Jackson town- ships; at the southwest corner of Vernon it bears to the north one mile in three, leaving Sandusky township one mile north of its south- ern boundary; it is then marked through the unsurveyed Indian reservation as an air-line to Upper Sandusky, which would pass along the present north corporation line of Bucyrus in Holmes township, and leave the present county about a mile south of Oceola. An- other of these military roads entered the county at where Crestline now is; bore to the south- west, practically along the line of the present Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati road, passed through Galion north of the Whet- stone,* and followed about the line of the present Galion road to Bucyrus, keeping to the high ground north of that road; crossing the Sandusky at Bucyrus, and getting to the high ground north of the present Pennsylvania road, going west to Upper Sandusky. This road is not given on the map printed in 1815, but that a military road existed somewhere along this route can hardly be questioned. H. W. McDonald, in his thorough survey of the county forty years ago, traced it plainly through Jackson and Polk townships. In 1821 James Nail was living two miles north of Galion, and he wanted to find the place where the Indians gathered their cranberries, so he started on a searching expedition with two of his neighbors. He says: "We took horses and horsefeed and went southwest until we struck the Pennsylvania Army Road, which we could easily distinguish." After following that road several miles, he thought they were not "get-

*In 1833 the Legislature changed the name of this stream to the Olentangy.

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

ting far enough north," therefore "we turned further north," and crossed the Sandusky at McMochael's, whose land was then about two miles up the river from Bucyrus. The lan- guage of Nail plainly shows that when they struck the Army road they followed it in a northwesterly direction, but not far enough north to suit them so they turned further north. Added to this, Seth Holmes, who came with the Nortons in 1819, was a captain of team- sters in the army in 1812, and always insisted that on the march to Upper Sandusky he camped one night on the banks of the San- dusky, the camping point being near where the Pennsylvania railroad now crosses East Mansfield street.

The celebrated Sandusky Plains in this county extended from the eastern part of Whetstone township west to the Sandusky river, the Pennsylvania railroad being about the northern boundary. Outside of this section the county was practically all forest, where trees would have to be cut to make a road. During the War of 1812 the entire militia of the state, nearly twelve thousand in number, were assembled at Upper Sandusky ; many reg- ular troops were also massed there, and there can be no question many of these passed through Crawford county, probably nearly all of them on horseback, marching light without camp equippage, and followed the Indian trails, and their passage gave rise to the tradi- tions handed down of several of Gen. Harri- son's Military roads in Crawford county.

The army that passed through Crawford county was Pennsylvania troops under Gen. Crooks. They arrived at Mansfield a little after the middle of October, where they stopped several weeks for rest and to await their sup- plies. About Dec. Ioth Gen. Crooks received orders from Gen. Harrison to proceed to Up- per Sandusky. At that time reports from the supply train showed it would reach Mansfield in a day or two, and on Dec. 12th, Col. Ander- son arrived with the stores. He reports : "On the 12th we reached the village of Mansfield, where we found two blockhouses, a tavern and two stores." The army train of which Col. Anderson had charge consisted of 25 cannon, mostly four and six pounders, each of these drawn by six horses; then there were the twenty-five cannon carriages each requiring

four horses; fifty covered wagons containing the stores, with six horses to each; the ammu- nition was in large covered wagons, each with six horses ; one large covered wagon drawn by six horses contained iron-bound kegs filled with coin for the payment of the troops. After re- maining in Mansfield two or three days to rest the teams they started for Upper Sandusky about Dec. 15. Each teamster was armed with a gun in case of an attack by the Indians. The army train had reached but a short dis- tance from Mansfield when a heavy snow fell, and the ground was covered to a depth of two feet. The ground had not yet frozen for the winter, and the heavy wagons and ordnance cut into the soft earth, and frequent stoppages had to be made to extricate some wagon that had become stalled. At night, after a toilsome day's journey, the snow had to be cleared away to secure a camping place; they had no tents, and trees were cut down and large fires burned all night to keep them from freezing. This toilsome journey of about 43 miles from Mans- field to Upper Sandusky, through Crawford county, took them about two weeks and they reached Upper Sandusky on New Year's Day, 1813. But the first road through Crawford county had been made.

What this army road was like is best shown from a letter written by one of the Pennsylva- nia troopers to a friend at Pittsburg, when he continued his march from Upper Sandusky to the Maumee, in March, 1813: "Early the next morning at two o'clock our tents were struck, and in half an hour we were on our way. I will candidly confess that on that day I regretted being a soldier. We walked thirty miles in an incessant rain. For eight miles of the thirty the water was over our knees and often up to the middle. The Black Swamp, four miles from the Portage river, and four miles in extent, would have been considered impassable by any man not determined to sur- mount every obstacle. The water on the ice was about six inches deep. The ice was very rotten, often breaking through, where the water was four or five feet deep. That night we encamped on the best ground we could find, but it was very wet. It was next to impossible to kindle fires. We had no tents, no axes ; our clothes were perfectly soaked through, and we had but little to eat. Two logs rolled together

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY

to keep me out of the water was my bed." This was Gen. Harrison's military road, over which he had to transport all his troops and supplies from the eastern division of his army. If the Pennsylvania trooper had left Upper Sandusky on his homeward journey, and passed on his way east through the plains of southern Crawford, the description in March, 1813, would have been exactly the same.

It was in 1807 that Maxwell Ludlow sur- veyed the eastern seven miles of the present Crawford county. He passed over what is now the rich farming lands of southern Ver- non, and in his surveyor's notes says: "This mile is low land; the swamp is bad and no water; am very thirsty; had but one drink in 48 hours." Surveying the line between Ver- non and Auburn townships he writes: "I have traveled the woods for seven years, but never saw so hedious a place as this." The land was so awful that the surveyor abandoned the proper spelling of the descriptive word in ex- pressing his disgust. In northwest Auburn, between sections 3 and 4, just west of Coyken- dall's run, he writes: "Second rate lane, ex- cept the prairie, 20 inches deep in water." In Polk township, he fared some better. He writes : "Level. Good meadow ground. Some swamps. Many crab apples. Hickory, sugar, beech and swamp oak." Ludlow's territory stopped before the Plains were reached. And it was not until 1817 the western part of the county was opened to settlement, and it was surveyed by Sylvester Bourne in 1819. Here, on the Plains, in southern Holmes, and in the cranberry region of Chatfield and Cranberry he had difficulty in setting his stakes, and in some cases had to use a log or boat.

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History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 9

Author: Hopley, John E. (John Edward), 1850- Publication date: 1912 Publisher: Chicago,Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1302

Author: Hopley, John E. (John Edward), 1850-
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago,Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1302