USA > Ohio > Defiance County > History of Defiance County, Ohio. Containing a history of the county; its townships, towns, etc.; military record; portraits of early settlers and prominent men; farm views, personal reminiscences, etc > Part 6
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The productions of wheat, corn and oats for the year 1831, as returned by the several townships, is as follows:
TOWNSHIPS.
WHEAT. 1882.
CORN. 1882.
OATS. 1882.
Adams.
61,922
76,845
35,364
Defiance
18,480
18,089
9,774
Delaware.
29,359
31,000
14,360
Farmer
33,620
83,195
36,030
Hicksville
23,346
53,794
17,069
Highland
31,732
54 980
17,713
Mark
19,056
21,121
12,721
Milford
23,584
53,760
27,407
Noble ..
19,040
18,184
9,896
Richland
2,181
69,840
22,102
Tiffin
45,725
61,170
22,023
Washington
38,893
44,291
30
HISTORY OF DEFIANCE COUNTY.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MIAMIS.
A CCORDING to John B. Dillon. the mild and fer- tile region now included within the boundaries of the State of Indiana was at the time of its discovery by Europeans, claimed and possessed by the Miami confederacy of Indians. The Miamis proper, who, in former times, bore the name of Twightwees, formed the eastern and most powerful branch of this confed- eracy. "The dominion of the confederacy extended for a long period of time over that portion of Ohio which lies west of the Scioto River and over the whole of Indiana, over the southern part of Michigan and over the principal part of the State of Illinois, lying southeast of Fox River and the River Illinois. The tribe have no tradition of their migration from any other part of the country, and the great extent of the territory which was claimed by them may be re- garded as some evidence of the high degree of na- tional importance which they formerly maintained among the Indian tribes of North America."
The Miami tribe were of Algonquin lineage and spoke much the same language or dialect as the Dela- wares, the Shawnees and Wyandots. In stature for the most part, the Miamis were of medium height, well built, heads rather round than oblong, counte- nances agreeable, rather than sedate or morose, swift on foot and excessively fond of racing, both on foot and horse. Some of them were quite tall and yet retained fine forms. They were noted for their clean ly habits and neatness of dress.
The Miamis unlike most other tribes, were 'much whiter or fairer in color. This peculiarity attracted the attention of the French and other foreigners. Their color partly arose from inter-marriage with the French who frequently sought such alliances, and became quite influential with the tribe. The squaws cultivated the corn and other vegetables and per- formed most of the field labor. The warriors were regarded as hunters, and provided most of the game upon which the tribe subsisted. They went to war and were regarded as being above drudgery and toil. The men were proud and haughty, though generally evincing strong attachments for their squaws and children. The tribe for a long period lived along the banks of the Wabash, the St. Joseph and the Mau- mee, formerly called by the tribe the " Omee." Here the Miami lived doubtless centuries before the first civilized settlement in America had begun; his squaws cultivated the maize and performed the common hard-
ships of life, while the red man hunted the buffalo, the elk and other wild game; and speared the fish in the beautiful Maumee or Bean Creek, as they basked in the sunshine, or devoted himself to plays and games, or went forth to secure the trophies and honors of war, from his camp fires, upon the banks of the Maumee or the grand Glaize.
Ever eager to advance the interests of their re- spective Governments, the French and English were always antagonists in their missionary enterprises. The French from Canada were industrious in their efforts to propagate the Catholic faith among the Western tribes. In 1672, the Indians residing along the Maumee and the southern shore of Lake Michi- gan were visited by the missionaries, Allouez and Dablon, who opened a mission among the Miamis. There followed, between 1672 and 1712, the follow- ing: Rebourde, Membre, Hennepin, Marquette, Pinet, Benneteau, Bosles, Periet, Berger, Meoniet, Marest, Gravier, DeVille and Charden, who endured many privations aud dangers to propagate their relig- ion among the various tribes.
Hennepin pushed the mission in 1680 to the Illi- nois tribes, and, though peacefully heard, complains that the mission accomplished but little. The In- dians could not comprehend the mysteries of the Christian religion, but silently heard his story and suffered their children to be baptized. When asked why they remained silent, they informed him that "their habit was always to hear the speaker tell his story in a courteous manner without contradiction and at the same time judging of its truth or falsity;" while white men declare the religion of the red man to be false! This they thought very rude and unjus- tifiable. They never disturb a mau because of his religious belief. The result was that his mission pro- duced no lasting impression.
About this time the Five Nations of New York became involved in a war with the Colonists of Can- ada, which continued until the treaty of Ryswick in 1697, which retarded the ambition of the French in planting colonies in the Northwest and the valley of the Mississippi. Between 1680 and 1700, several efforts were made by French missionaries to establish missions along the southern shores of Lake Michigan for the purpose of converting the Indians of Illinois. These missions were composed of a few Frenchmen under the lead of the celebrated La Salle, the mis-
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HISTORY OF DEFIANCE COUNTY.
sionary and explorer, and attracted the attention of many adventurers to the Illinois country, and about the year 1700 a small number of them settled on the banks of Kaskaskia River and became the founders of a village of that name.
La Salle pushed his discoveries in the new coun- try until the Mississippi, the great river of North America, was discovered and traced to its mouth, by this ambitious explorer and his followers in 1682. The Government of France immediately took measures to plant a line of forts connecting their Canadian possessions with the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. By the efforts of La Salle, a small fort was built on the lake shore, forming a missionary station and trad- ing post on the borders of the River St. Joseph of Lake Michigan. Hennepin, in his notes, states that the fort was situated at the mouth of the St. Joseph on an eminence, with a kind of a platform naturally fortified. It was pretty high and steep, of a triangu- lar form, defended on two sides by the river and on the other by a deep ditch, which the fall of the waters had made. We felled the trees that were on the top of the hill; and having cleared the same from bushes for about two musket shot we began to build a re- doubt of eighty feet long and forty feet broad, with great square pieces of timber laid one upon another, and prepared a great number of stakes of about twenty-five feet long to drive into the ground, to make our fort the more inaccessible on the river side. We employed the whole month of November, 1679, about that work, which was very hard, though we had no other food but the bears' flesh our savage killed. These beasts are very common in this place, be- cause of the great quantity of grapes they find there; but their flesh being too fat and luscious, our men began to be weary of it, and desired leave to go hunt- ing to kill some wild goats (deer). Mr. La Salle denied them that liberty, which caused some mur- murs among them; and it was but unwillingly that they continued their work. "We made a cabin wherein we performed divine service every Sunday; and Father Gabriel and I, who preached alternately, took care to take such texts as were suitable to our present circumstances and fit to inspire us with cour- age, concord and brotherly love." This fort, when completed, was named "Fort Miami," and was with. in the dominion of the Miami nation. This was the sixth fort erected by the French, and guarded the routes to the great father of waters, via the Wiscon- sin and Illinois Rivers. Another fort was built near the confluence of the St. Joseph and St. Mary's Rivers, near the present site of Ft. Wayne, where settlements of French traders began to collect at an early period, which extended to Vincennes and other points. Time wore on. The church of Rome was
the church of the Frenchmen of the day; and his God was not the God of the Englishman. The contest was for surpemacy, and destined to be a bitter one; the vantage-ground seemed to be on the side of the French; but 1749 came, and the English began to make inroads on the French dominion as traders; this year La Jonquiere, then Governor of Canada, found English traders at Sandusky exerting an influ- ence against French traders among the Wyandots, and encouraged by the Iroquois of New York, who had been unwittingly insulted by Champlain in 1609 by uniting with a party of Algonquin Indians. The English sided with the Iroquois and encouraged their animosities against the French settlements. This feeling among the New York tribes continued until the fall of French power in Canada in 1760.
Ke-ki-ong-gay was the great capital of the Mi- amis, and from the importance exerted by the tribe was regarded the "great gate" of the tribe through which all great enterprises must pass before they were given the consent of the confederacy. It stood where the city of Ft. Wayne now stands, and at the junc- tion of St. Joseph and St. Mary's, near the head of the Maumee, up which the French missionaries and Miami warriors anciently passed in their bark canoes and pirogues.
From 1774 (Dunmore's war) to 1794, the victory of Wayne on the Maumee, the Miamis along the upper waters of the Scioto, the Mad and Little Miami Rivers in Ohio, and the Wabash River and the Mi- ami village in Indiana, the Miamis, Shawnees, Wy- andots, Delawares and other tribes gave the border settlers of Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania much annoyance by their hostile raids along the Ohio River. The treaty of Ft. Harmar was expected to quiet their hostility, but failed to pacify the Miamis, Shawnees, and others who were still anxious to reserve all the territory northwest of the Ohio, and still vis- ited the settlers of the borders and committed many murders and thefts. During this time, the hero Gen. (teorge Rodgers Clark led an expedition into the ter- ritory of Southern Ohio and Indiana, to humble the pride and cruelty of the Miamis and other tribes. The Indians were still treacherous and cruel. Simon Kenton visited the Shawnees with his Kentuckians to punish their horse-stealing, and was, taken prison- er. The Indians continued hostile, contending for the whole of Ohio. Boats were frequently taken on the Ohio and the crews murdered and scalped by the Indians. In self-defense, it finally became necessary to send an expedition against them, commanded by Gen. Harmar. This led to the war of 1791 to 1795, when the Miamis and other tribes were completely humbled by the great campaign of Gen. Wayne.
" Tracing the history of the Miami Indians from
32
HISTORY OF DEFIANCE COUNTY.
the present time backward through a period of 150 years. we must pass painfully over a long and mourn. ful picture of ignorance, superstition, injustice, war, barbarity and the most debasing intemperance," says Dillon "they fell into decay from habits of indo- lence, idleness, drunkenness and barbarism. Intem- perance is the bane of the red man, and under its in- fluence the American Indians are rapidly disappear- ing. At the present time a few small, mixed and mis- erable bands constitute the remnant of the once pow- erful Miami nation. Their misfortunes and vices which they learned from the white race still cling to them, with unabated power to degrade and destroy. Thus, with the light of civilization beaming around them, the last fragments of one of the most powerful aboriginal nations in North America are rapidly pass- ing away from the earth forever. There are but a few remnants of this people in Indiana, the rest hav- ing long since been transferred to reservations west of the Mississippi.
The Miamis were less cruel in war than the New York tribes, but had many customs that were revolt- ing in their nature. Gen. Cass, in a speech delivered at Ft. Wayne July 4, 1843, at the celebration of the opening of the canal, said: "For many years during the frontier history of this place and region, the line of your canal was a bloody war-path, which has seen many a deed of horror, and this peaceful town has had its Moloch, and the records of human depravity furnish no more terrible examples of cruelty than were offered at its shrine. The Miami Indians, our predecessors, in the occupation of this district, had a terrible institution whose origin and object have been lost in the darkness of aboriginal history, but which was continued to a late period, and whose orgies were held upon the very spot where we now are. It was called the man-eating society, and it was the duty of its associates to eat such prisoners as were preserved and delivered to them for that purpose. The members of this society belonged to a particular family and the dreadful inheritance descended to all the children, male and female. The duties it imposed could not be avoided, and the sanctions of religion were added to the obligations of immemorial usage. The feast was a solemn ceremony, at which the whole tribe was collected as actors or spectators. The mis- erable victim was bound to a stake and burned at a slow fire, with all the refinements of cruelty which savage ingenuity could invent. There was a tradi- tionary ritual which regulated with revolting precis- ion the whole course of procedure at those ceremonies. Latterly, the authority and obligations of the insti- tution has declined and I presume it has now wholly disappeared. But I have seen and conversed with the head of the family, the chief of the society,
whose name was White Skin-with what feeling of disgust I need not attempt to describe. I well knew an intelligent Canadian who was present at one of the last sacrifices made at this horrible institution. The victim was a young American captured in Ken- tucky toward the close of our Revolutionary war. Here where we now are assembled, in peace and secur- ity, celebrating the triumph of art and industry, within the memory of their present generation, our countrymen have been thus tortured, and murdered and devoured. But, thank God, that council fire is extinguished. The impious feast is over; the war- dance is ended; the war-song is sung; the war-drum is silent, and the Indian has departed to find, I hope, in the distant West, a comfortable residence, and I hope also to find, under the protection, and, if need be, under the power of the United States, a radical change in the institutions and general improvement in his morals and condition. A feeble remnant of the once powerful tribe, which formerly won their way to the dominion of this region, by blood, and by blood maintained it, have to-day appeared among us like passing shadows, flitting round the places that know them no more. Their resurrection, if I may so speak, is not the least impressive spectacle, which marks the progress of this imposing ceremony. They are the broken columns which connect us with the past. The edifice is all in ruins, and the giant vegetation which covered and protected it lies as low as the once mighty structure, which was shelved in its recesses. They have come to witness the first great act of peace in our frontier history, as their presence here is the last in their own. The ceremonies upon which you heretofore gazed with interest, will never again be seen by the white man, in the seat of their former power. But thanks to our ascendancy, these representations are but a pageant; but a theatrical exhibition, which, with barbarous motions and sounds and contortions, show how their ancestors conquered their enemies, and how they glutted their revenge in blood. To-day, this last of the race is here; to-mor- row they will journey toward the setting sun, where their fathers, agreeable to their rude faith, have pre- ceded them, and where the red man will find rest and safety."
The tribe seems to have continued these barbar- isms almost to the last. Like the Shawnees and Dela- wares, they burned prisoners and captives.
LITTLE TURTLE.
This chief was of mixed origin-half Mohican and half Miami, and son of a chief; born at his vil- lage on Eel River, about 1747, he very early became the war chief of the Miamis. In stature he was a short, well built, with symmetrical form, prominent
33
HISTORY OF DEFIANCE COUNTY.
forehead, heavy eye-brows, keen, black eyes and a large chin. His Indian name was Me-che-kan-nah- quah, and he was noted for his bravery and wisdom in the councils of the tribe with whom he was allied. In leading his army of braves to sure victory, one hour, it is said, he was cutting and slashing with his tomahawk with the ferocity of a tiger, and the next hour was calm and passive as a child. At the treaty of Greenville, he proved himself to be a full match for Wayne in the councils of the tribes, for shrewd- ness and far-reaching diplomacy. After the treaty he returned to his people and gave his adherence to the United States, which he freely supported as long as he lived. He, with his tribe, resisted the invasion of Harmar in 1790-91, and met Gen. St. Clair with all his savage confederates, which resulted in the de- feat of St. Clair's army at what was afterward Ft. Recovery. Upon the approach of the army of Wayne, he again prepared to meet that heroic commander at the battle of Fallen Timbers, in 1794. But the Shawnee chief, Blue Jacket, was made the command- er of the Indian forces and led that army. The re- sult of that battle is well known. It was fought against the advice of Little Turtle, and resulted in disaster to the Indians. In all those battles, the Lit- tle Turtle proved himself a brave and discreet chief. In the war of 1812, though urged by Tecumseh, he refused to take sides with that wily leader of the Shawnees. He was content with the treaty of Green- ville and remained near Ft. Wayne. He died on the
14th of July, 1812, at his lodge at the old orchard, a short distance north of the confluence of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph Rivers, in the yard fronting the house of his brother-in-law, Capt. William Wells
The chief had long suffered with the gout, and had come there from his place of residence, at his village on Eel River, about twenty miles from Ft. Wayne, to be treated by the United States Surgeon at the fort. It was a solemn and interesting occasion. After the treaty of Greenville, he had remained the true friend of the Americans and the United States Gov- ernment, and was much respected by all who knew him. He was borne to the grave with the highest honors, by his great enemy, the white man. The muffled drum, the solemn march, the funeral salute, announced that a great soldier had fallen, and even enemies paid tribute to his memory. His remains were interred about the center of the old orchard, with all his adornments, implements of war, and a sword presented to him by Gen. Washington, to- gether with a medal of the likeness of Washington thereon- all laid by his side and hidden beneath the sod in one common grave. This remarkable chief possessed a great mind. For many years he was the leading chief among the Miami tribe, surpassed for bravery and intelligence by none of his race. He is said to have possessed a very inquiring mind and never lost an opportunity to gain some valuable in- formation.
CHAPTER V.
THE HISTORY OF THE SHAWNEES. BY DR. GEORGE W. HILL, OF ASHLAND, OHIO.
TN an address delivered before the New York His- torical Society, December 6, 1811, by Gov. De Witt Clinton, on the origin and history of the Iro- quois Nation, he says: " There is a strong propensity in the human mind to trace up our ancestry to as high and as remote a source as possible, aud if our pride and our ambition cannot be gratified by a real statement of facts, fable is substituted for truth, and the imagination is taxed to supply the deficiency. This principle of our nature, although liable to great perversion, and frequently the source of well-founded ridicule, may, if rightly directed, become the parent of great actions. The origin and progress of in- dividuals, of families and of nations, constitute biog- raphy and history-two of the most interesting de- partments of human knowledge. Allied to this principle, springing from the same causes, and pro-
ducing the same benign effects, is that curiosity we feel in tracing the history of the nations which have occupied the same territory before us, although not con- nected with us in any other respect. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavored, and it would be foolish if it were possible. The places where great events have been performed, where great virtues have been exhibited, where great crimes have been perpetrated, will always excite kindred emotions of admiration or horror. And if that man is little to be envied whose patriot- ism would not gain force upon the plains of Mara- thon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona, we may with equal confidence assert that morbid must be his sensibility and small must be his capacity for improvement who does not ad- vance in wisdom and in virtue from contemplating
34
HISTORY OF DEFIANCE COUNTY.
the state and the history of the people who occupied this country before the man of Europe."
It will be interesting to all ethnologists, and those engaged in the study of archaeology, to take a general geographical and historical view of the Shawnee Na- tion, which formerly owned and inhabited the valleys of the Ot-ta-wa and Auglaize, before they came into the possession of the present inhabitants of Allen County by treaty and sale. We enter upon this task the more cheerfully from the conviction that no part of Ohio contained a braver race, or one which fur. nished a more interesting and instructive history. The Shawnees have, since their intercourse with the white man, been conspicuous for the possession of many remarkable chiefs and leaders of great military talent-men distinguished in war and in treaties for their shrewdness and far-seeing diplomacy.
Originally, the nation was called Chaouanons by the French, and Shawanoes by the English. The English name Shawano changed to Shawanee, and recently to Shawnee. Chaouanon and Shawano are obviously attempts to represent the same sound by the orthography of the two languages, the French 'ch' being the equivalent of the English 'sh.' The Shawnee nation originally migrated from the north, .perhaps Canada, and used largely the dialect of the Wyandots or ancient Hurons. Their eccentric wan- derings, their sudden appearances and disappear- ances, says a noted writer on Indian history, perplex the antiquary and defy research. In all history the Shawnees were noted for their restless disposition, frequently changing their residence and migrating hundreds of miles.
The Shawnees, by permission of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, emigrated from the South, perhaps the coast of Florida, some time prior to 1682, and located on the West Branch of the Susquehanna, in Pennsyl- vania. The Five Nations regarded them as inferiors, and did not permit them any representation in the great Northern confederacy, but simply designated them as brothers and relations. We find, however, that when William Penn landed at Coaquannuck, the present site of Philadelphia, in 1682, and entered into a mutual understanding with the Iroquois, the Delawares and other Indian tribes inhabiting Penn- sylvania, concerning the purchase of lands and a league of peace, the Shawnees were sufficiently nu- merous and powerful to be present at the consultation.
In June, 1682, a conference for ratifying the treaty appears to have been held under a large elm tree at Shackamaxen, near the Delaware River. The chiefs of the Five Nations, the Delawares, the Shaw- nees, the Mingoes and the Gan-aw-eese, from the Potomac River, were present, and received compensa- tion for lands, and the right to occupy the country
by the colony of Penn, in cloth, blankets, strouds and other valuables.
The Shawnees were of Algonquin descent, and spoke much the same dialect as the Iroquois, and it is tolerably certain that they were of Northern or Canadian origin. If it be true, as suspected by some, that they were a remrant of the ancient Eries, or Andastes, who fell under the fury of the relentless Iroquois in 1655, who fled their country and became widely scattered in North and South Carolina, Florida and the wilds of Kentucky, the fact of their return to the upper waters of the Susquehanna, some thirty or forty years after the conquest of their country south of Lake Erie, seems easy of explana- tion. Certain it is, that at the conquest of the Eries by the Five Nations, great numbers of the fallen tribe were killed on the various fields of battle, while large numbers were captured and carried home to grace the triumph of the Iroquois, and, to carry out their sav- age customs, burned to the stake. Tradition also declares that great numbers of the Eries were incor- porated into the body of the Iroquois nation, and thenceforward regarded as a part of that people; while, desiring to escape Iroquois vengeance, great numbers of the fallen Eries fled to the far South, and obtained a home among the Creeks and the tribes in Geurgia and Florida.
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