History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Part 4

Author: Johnson, Crisfield
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Number of Pages: 716

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The peace of Aix la Chapelle was little more than an armed truce, so far as America was concerned, and the intrigues of both French and English for the ex- tension of their frontiers were more active than ever. In 1749, the Count de la Galissoniere, the governor- general of Canada, ordered Monsieur Celeron de Bien- ville to set forth from Detroit with three hundred men, to visit all important points, east and sontheast, as far as the Alleganies, and to take formal possession of the country in the name of the king of France. De Bienville obeyed his instructions, and at each im- portant locality he buried a leaden plate, engraved with the arms of France, and also made one of those curious records, called a " proces verbal," which con- sisted of a solemn written declaration of the officer, duly attested before a notary public, to the effect that he did then and there take possession of the surround- ing conntry, in the name and for the benefit of the king of France.

As the mouth of the Cuyahoga had long been recog- nized as one of the principal places in the West, especially as being the boundary between the Six Na- tions and their western rivals, it is highly probable that Celeron de Bienville buried one of his plates and drew up one of his "proces verbal" at that point. but there is no direct evidence to that effect. The

next year the French followed up the movement they had begnn, by building a fort near Sandusky bay.

In 1252, the Marquis de Duquesne de Menneville was appointed governor-general of Canada, and pro- ceeded to carry out the aggressive policy of his prede- cessor. The Indians of all the tribes became seriously alarmed, and in a council held below Pittsburg, that year, they inquired where the Indian lands were, since the French claimed all on the west side of the Ohio and the English on the east. The next year the French began to carry out their long planned scheme of connecting Lake Erie and the Ohio river by a chain of posts, which should at once mark the boundary of the French possessions and defend them from inva- sion. Posts were accordingly established at Presqu' Isle, (Erie). Le Boeuf (French Creek) and Veningo. all in the present State of Pennsylvania. If the movement was successful and the English acquiesced in it, Cuyahoga county, with all the rest of the West, was to become French territory.

The English and their colonies took the alarm ; a small garrison was ordered to the forks of the Ohio, and young Major George Washington was sent by the governor of Virginia to remonstrate with the com- mandant at LeBoeuf and demand his withdrawal. The latter proceeding was entirely futile, as was doubtless expected, and the next spring the French went down with a heavy force, drove away the little garrison at the forks of the Ohio, and built a fort there which they called Fort Duquesne. Thus the chain of posts was complete, and for the first time Cuyahoga county was fully inclosed within the French lines. The same year another fort was built on the Sandusky. About the same period, perhaps a little earlier, a French post of some kind was established on the Cuyahoga. It is shown on Lewis Evans' map, of 1155, as a " French house," tive or six miles up the river on the west side. The language would indicate a trading-house, but it was probably sufficiently for- titied to resist a sudden attack of hostile Indians. This was the first European establishment within the limits of Cuyahoga county.

By this time all the colonies were much excited, and a meeting of their representatives-the tirst American congress-was held at Albany to devise some means of united action against the common en- emy. Benjamin Franklin, a delegate from Pennsyl- vania, proposed a plan of union among the colonies, which, however, was not adopted. Immediately afterwards Franklin, in his paper at. Philadelphia. proposed a plan for defending the frontiers. Two joint-stock companies were to be formed, each share- holder in which was to receive a certain number of acres of land from the government; one of the com- panies being bound to plant a colony on the Niagara frontier, and the other to establish one north of the Ohio. For the protection of the latter he proposed a temporary fort on French creeck, and another at the mouth of the " Tioga" [ Cuyahoga] on the south side of Lake Erie, " where a post should be formed and a

GENERAL HISTORY OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

town erected for the trade of the lake." This was, so far as known, the first suggestion ever made look- ing to the building of a town on the site of Cleve- land.

But Franklin's plan necessitated that the govern- ment should first drive the French away from the head-waters of the Ohio and the south shore of Lake Erie, and this was a very difficult thing to do. When it should be accomplished the problem of defending the frontiers would have been substantially solved, whether the proposed colonies were established or not.

In that year (1754) Washington, by attacking a French party which was spying around his camp, struck the first overt blow in the most important war which had yet been waged in America. The French rallied their numerous friends among the western In- dians, and these came gliding down the lake in canoes, resplendent in war-paint and feathers, ready to aid their great father, the king of France. Some went to Presqu' Isle (Erie), and thence to the posts in the interior, but some went up the Cuyahoga to the " French house," thence to the portage, and so on direct to Fort Duquesne.

In 1755, a crowd of these western savages defeated the disciplined army of Braddock, and the valley of the Ohio and the shores of Lake Erie appeared to be more firmly fixed than ever in the power of the French. Their grasp was loosened in 1758, when Fort Duquesne was surrendered to General Forbes, but was by no means entirely relinquished. The next year, at the same time that Wolfe was seeking glory and a grave under the walls of Quebce, General Prideaux and Sir William Johnson, with a considera- ble force of English, Provincials and Iroquois, came to besiege Fort Niagara, justly considered the key of the whole upper-lake region. Again the western In- dians were called on, and again they hastened down the lake to the assistance of their French brethren.

D'Aubrey, the commander at Venango, gathered all he could of both white and red, and hastened to the relief of Niagara. He was utterly defeated and captured, however, close to the walls of that post, and the fort itself was immediately surrendered to the English. When this news came westward, fol- lowed quickly by the intelligence of the fall of Quebec, the few remaining Frenchmen along the lakes sadly foreboded the speedy transfer of this broad domain to the power of the hated English. In September of the next year (1260), the Marquis de Vandreuil, gov- ernor-general of Canada, surrendered that province to the English, including all the forts of the western country. This ended the long contest for dominion over the territory of northern Ohio, for no one could doubt that, with the French once subdued, the Eng- lish would be the virtual lords of the whole country. although they might permit the various tribes of In- dians to assert a nominal ownership.

CHAPTER V. ENGLISH DOMINION.

Major Rogers and his Rangers sent to Detroit-The Command at the "C'hogage"-Location of that Stream-A Band of Ottawas-Question as to the presence of Pontiac-Rogers' description of the Meeting, and of subsequent Events-Sir William Johnson at the Cuyahoga-First British Vessel on Lake Erie-Conspiracy of Pontiac-Wilkins' Expe- dition-Location of the Disaster which befell it-Bradstreet's Expedi- tion-Its arrival in Cuyahoga County-Description of the Scene-The Command proceeds up the Lake-Its Return-Wreck of the Flotilla- Location of that Event-Destruction of Boats-Putnam and his Men return on Foot-Relies found near Rocky River-A Mound full of Bones-Query regarding its Occupants-Subsequent Events-Hard- ships of Early Navigation-Ohio annexed to the Province of Quehee- Lord Dunmore's War-The Revolution-Indian Forays-Murder of Moravian Indians-Meeting of Commissioners to negotiate l'eace- Proposition to give Ohio to Great Britain-Its Defeat-Duration of English Dominion.

As soon as the surrender of Canada had been en- forced, the British commander-in-chief, Gen. Amherst, felt that it was important to send a body of troops immediately to take possession of the western French posts, especially of Detroit, which had been looked on as the headquarters of French power on the upper lakes by numerons warlike tribes, who would hardly believe that England was vietorions as long as they saw the Gallic flag flying from the battlements of that fortress. Ile selected for that purpose the force reported to be the bravest body of partisans in the Anglo-American army -- the celebrated New Hamp- shire Rangers, commanded by their renowned leader, Major Robert Rogers. Major Rogers had served throughout the war which was just closing, usually having a separate force with which he operated against the Indians or annoyed the French, and act- ing much of the time in concert with Israel Putnam, of Connectient, whose fame as a partisan was second only to his own; each of them having done more daring deeds and experienced more hair-breadth escapes than would suffice to fill a volume.

This hardy backwoods leader, with his battalion of "Rangers," set out from Fort Niagara in October, 1760. The command moved up the Niagara and set forth upon Lake Erie in the large bateaux, holding fifty men each, with which white troops usually navi- gated the great lakes at that period. On the 7th of November the battalion arrived at the month of a river which Rogers, in his published journal, calls the "Chogage." It has generally been assumed that this was the Cuyahoga, but weagree with Col. Whittlesey, the author of the Early History of Cleveland, in think- ing that it was much more probably the "Cheraga," as the Grand river was then called, according to the old maps; a name which has since become Geauga. Major Rogers, in his journal, gave the distances which he sailed nearly every day, and these, as stated after he left Presqu' Isle ( Erie), would bring him just about to Grand river. "Chogage" is much more like Cheraga than it is like Cuyahoga or Canahogue, and as the Cuyahoga river was one of the best known streams in the western country, and was laid down

ENGLISH DOMINION.

on all the maps of this region, it is certainly strange if Major Rogers, a man of marked intelligence, did not know its name and location.

At this point Rogers met a band of Atturawra ( Ot- tawa) Indians, just arrived from Detroit. In Rogers' "Journal," published in 1765, nothing is said of Pon- tiac or any other celebrated chief as being present on this occasion, but in his "Concise Account of the War," also published in 1765, it is stated that Pontiac was the leader of the party and that he haughtily forbade the English from proceeding. Rogers was a good deal of an adventurer, and some have imagined that after Pontiac became celebrated the major added the account of their meeting to give interest to his story. It is, however, one of those discrepancies which indicate truth rather than falsehood. If Major Rogers had interpolated the account of Pontiac, he would have carefully made his two books harmonize on that point; they being both, as we have said, pub- lished in the same year. It has been suggested that, as the Cuyahoga was the eastern boundary of Ponti- ac's territory, he would not have halted Rogers at Grand river. But it should always be remembered that Indian boundaries are not as clearly defined as those of the white man; and though the Cuyahoga was generally considered the boundary between the Iro- quois and the western Indians, yet the old maps show an Ottawa village on the east side of that stream, in the present township of Independence; so it may well be that the haughty Pontiac claimed as far east as Grand river or even farther. We may add that the great authority of Parkman is decidedly in favor of the credibility of Rogers' account.

According to that account the first delegation of Indians informed the major that the great chief, Pontiac, was not far off, and requested him to wait until that dignitary conld see "with his own eyes" the Anglo-American commander. . Accordingly Pon- tiac soon met Rogers, demanded his business, and asked him how he dared to enter that country without his, Pontiac's, permission. Rogers answered that he had no design against the Indians, but should remove the French, the common enemy of both the whites and the Indians, at the same time giving a belt of wampum. Pontiac said:

"I stand in the path you travel in until to-morrow morning ;" thus forbidding the Americans to proceed, and emphasizing the command by the presentation of a wampum belt. Rogers continnes:

" When he departed for the night he inquired whether I wanted anything that his country afforded, and he would send for it. I assured him that any provisions they brought should be paid for, and the next day we were supplied by them with several bags of parched corn and some other necessaries. At our second meeting he gave me the pipe of peace, and both of us by turns smoked with it, and he assured me he had made peace with me and my detachment; that I might pass through his country unmolested, and relieve the French garrison, and that he would

protect me and my party from any insults that might be offered or intended by Indians; and as an carnest of his friendship he sent a hundred warriors to pro- tect and assist us in driving a hundred fat cattle. which we had brought for the use of the detachment from Pittsburg by the way of Presqu' Isle [ Eric]. He likewise sent to the Indian towns on the south side and west end of Lake Erie, to inform them that I had his consent to come into the country. He at- tended me constantly after this interview till I ar- rived at Detroit, and while I remained in the country. and was the means of preserving the detachment from the fury of the Indians, who had assembled at the month of the strait, with an intent to ent us off. I had several conferences with him, in which he dis- played great strength of judgment and a thirst after knowledge."

Rogers was detained at "Chogage" by contrary winds until the 12th of November, when he made a run, which he estimated at forty-one miles, to " Elk river." This was probably Rocky river, though the old maps show Elk river east of the ('nyahoga. Those maps were made from vague reports, and though they showed the names of the principal streams they fre- onently confused the localities. The distance from "Chogage" (Cheraga, Geauga or Grand river) was so great that Rogers' next stopping place could not pos- sibly have been Chagrin river, and the Cuyahoga was too well known to be mistaken. From Rocky river the adventurous major, with his battalion of daring partisans, seasoned in a score of desperate conflicts with the savages, proceeded up the lake to remove the principal emblem of French dominion in the upper- lake region, while the Ottawa chiefs, preserving their friendly demeanor, continued in the somewhat un- wonted task of escorting the detachment which drove the cattle along the shore.

Rogers reached Detroit in safety, and took posses- sion of it in the name of King George the Second, and for a time it seemed as if all the tribes of the West were willing to acknowledge the supremacy of the British. The next year Sir William Johnson went to Detroit, to aid in attaching the western In- dians to the English crown by the same arts by which he had gained such a powerful influence over the Iroquois. Hle returned by the south side of the lake, (which seems to have been a favorite route, although the one along the north side was the shortest), and mentions his preparations to stop at the Cuyahoga; showing, as before stated, that that was a well known point.

It was in 1762, as near as can be ascertained, that the first British vessel sailed npon Lake Erie: a schooner called the " Gladwyn," designed to carry supplies to the posts on the upper lakes.

Meanwhile the western Indians, including per- haps some of the westernmost tribes of the Iroquois, had been all the while growing more hostile to the English, partly on account of their attachment to the defeated French, partly from jealousy of the rapid

GENERAL HISTORY OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY.

progress of the English, and partly, probably, from disgust at the haughty ways of the conquerors, never as adroit as the French in the management of har- barons tribes. A wide-spreading conspiracy was skillfully organized by Pontiac, which in the spring of 1763 developed itself in simultaneous attacks on all the principal English posts.

While that able though ferocious leader fiercely assaulted Detroit with his Ottawas, other tribes came hurrying down the lake to attempt the capture of Fort Pitt, and still others united with the Senecas in besieging Fort Niagara. But, though nine smaller posts were surprised and their garrisons massacred, the three just named withstood all the attempts of their foes. In the summer Major Rogers, who had returned cast, was again sent np the lake with a de- tachment of provincials, to aid the garrison of De- troit. Pontiac still maintained the siege, and in the autumn another force of some six hundred regulars, under Major Wilkins, proceeded to the relief of the beleaguered post. This force was wrecked on their way up, the artillery was lost, seventy-three officers and men were drowned, and the remainder returned to Fort Niagara.

It has been strenuously argued that this mishap occurred near Rocky river, in this county, but after a careful examination of the facts, we have no hesita- tion in deciding that it was on the north shore of the lake. The place mentioned in contemporary records as being the scene of the disaster was "Point aux Pins" (Point of Pines), a well known locality in the district of Kent, Canada West, which is mentioned on several of the old maps by the same appellation. Besides, if Bradstreet's disaster, which occurred the next year at that point, had been at the same place as that which befell Wilkins, some of the contempo- rary writers would undoubtedly have said so.

Pontiac finally raised the siege of Detroit, but still maintained a hostile attitude toward the English. In the spring of 1764 it was determined to send a sufficient force up the lake to awe the western Indians into subjection. This expedition was placed under the command of Colonel (commonly called General) Bradstreet, a native of Massachusetts, who had been quartermaster-general of the Northern army in several of its most important campaigns, and who was gen- erally considered one of the ablest and most enterpris- ing officers in the service.

After a long halt at Fort Niagara, to compel the adhesion of the reluctant Senecas, the command came up the lake, reaching the borders of Cuyahoga coun- ty in Angust.

Colonel Bradstreet commanded the largest force of white men which had yet appeared on Lake Erie, be- sides a considerable number of Indians. They made a gay and formidable appearance as they swept up the lake, the white men in their great, open bateaux, holding forty or fifty men each, with sails spread to catch the favoring breeze; the red men in a cloud of light canoes, each burdened with but three or four

warriors, and swiftly propelled through the water by the paddles of its inmates.

It was one of those motley but picturesque bands, so common in those early wars, which harmonized well with the wilderness through which they were often called to pass, and it presented more to interest the eye and the imagination than might a far larger and better disciplined army. Three hundred and fifty of the number were veteran soldiers of the seventeenth and fifty-fifth regiments of British regulars, clad in their brilliant, scarlet uniforms, officered by the elite of the aristocracy, and trained to obey every word of command with more than religious zeal.

Beside them were three battalions of provincial troops from New York, New Jersey and Connectient, numbering nearly eight hundred in all, less brilliantly clad and less rigidly disciplined than their English companions, but by no means to be confounded with ordinary militiamen. Nearly all of them had seen hard service in the many campaigns of the previous ten years, had shown themselves no unworthy foes of the soldiers of King Louis, and in combats with the Indians were more than equal to the red-coated musketeers of England. At the head of the Connect- icut battalion was that sturdy farmer-soldier, then a little over forty years of age, already renowned as one of the most valiant Indian-fighters on the continent, the companion or rival of Rogers in half a dozen desperate campaigns, and afterwards destined to still wider fame as Major General Israel Putman, of the army of the Revolution.

Besides these soldiers of Caucasian blood, the water was covered by a swarm of bark canoes, where gleamed beneath the Angust sun the knives, the tomahawks and the naked, copper-colored bodies of a thousand warriors, gathered from nearly all the tribes of the cast to aid in the subjugation of their contumacions western brethren. Here were Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cuyugas, Tuscaroras, Conawagas, Nan- ticokes, Stockbridges, Oquagas, and even a few Otta- was from Canada, ready to make war on their coun- trymen and their great chieftain, Pontiac. The largest body, however, from any tribe was composed of three hundred scowling Senecas, who had only been persuaded to join by the mingled threats of Bradstreet and persuasions of Sir William Johnson (who had accompanied the expedition as far as Fort Niagara), and who had only the previous year per- petrated the terrible massacre of the " Devil's Hole," on the bank of the Niagara, when nearly a hundred English sokliers were surprised and slain in a few terrible moments. They could hardly have been very reliable allies of the British, and were probably re- quired to accompany the expedition rather as hostages for their brethren at home than for any other pur- pose,

Colonel Bradstreet, as has before been stated, had been considered one of the very ablest and most en- terprising commanders in the service during the French war, but he was singularly unfortunate

ENGLISH DOMINION.

throughout this expedition. He was believed to have been deceived by a treaty he made with the Indians at Presqu' Isle. When he reached Sandusky bay he could neither persuade the hostile Indians of the Scioto plains to come to him and make a treaty, nor conld he, for lack of transportation, go to them and conquer them. He next proceeded to Detroit, where perhaps the appearance of so large a force had a good effect on the lingering.followers of Pontiac, and then returned to Sandusky bay.

Ou the Isth of October he re-embarked his men to return east, refusing to wait even a few hours for some who were absent from camp. Within a day or two after leaving Sandusky bay the boats were drawn up at night along an open beach, on which the men made their bivouac. During the night a storm arose, drove the boats ashore, destroyed a large portion of them, and caused the loss of a great part of the pro- visions and ammunition.

The locality of this disaster was, beyond all reason- able doubt, at " McMahon's beach," in the town of Rockport, in this county, stretching from one to three miles west of Rocky river, and being from eight to ten miles west of Cleveland. The description of the locality corresponds with that given in contemporary accounts, though these are not very definite, and moreover there have been an immense number of military relies found in that vicinity which could not have come from any other source than Bradstreet's unfortunate flotilla. The principal of these relics are described in an elaborate paper by the late Dr. J. P. Kirtland, which is published entire in Colonel Whit- tlesey's History of Cleveland, and of which we avail ourselves liberally and thankfully in this chapter.

Some have attributed the disaster to the obstinacy of Bradstreet, who insisted on drawing up his boats opposite the beach and landing there, in opposition to the protests of his more experienced officers. Sir William Johnson, in a letter to General Gage, im- putes the misfortune to Bradstreet's relying on a French pilot, of Detroit, who was suspected of betray- ing an English officer-Captain Dalzell-into an In- dian ambuscade the year before. The man may have been treacherous, but the fact is hardly proven by his failing to navigate Lake Erie with a fleet of ba- teanx and canoes. The wonder is that so many of those old navigators in such vessels escaped destruc- tion.

Parkman's account says the storm raged three days, but some part of this had probably spent its force before the flotilla drew up opposite McMahon's beach. If it had been beaten against the land during that period, there would hardly have been a single boat left. As it was, twenty-five bateaux (half of the whole number) were destroyed, and most of the ammunition and baggage was lost.

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History of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Part 4

Author: Johnson, Crisfield Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Johnson, Crisfield
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Number of Pages: 716