USA > Ohio > Fayette County > History of Fayette County : together with historic notes on the Northwest, and the State of Ohio, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and all other authentic sources > Part 19
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EARLY LAWS OF OHIO.
Appomattox Court House, and Corinth ; " their bones reposing on the fields they won, are a perpetual pledge that no flag shall ever wave over their graves but the flag they died to maintain." Their sufferings, their death, will ever be cherished and remembered by their grateful countrymen ; and, as evidences of the veneration in which they are held, we behold the beautiful Home, near Dayton, and the Asylum near Xenia.
Since the war Ohio has steadily advanced in agriculture, manufac- turing, and in all commercial directions. Politically she stands in the front ranks, and in the production of Presidents, her soil seems as prolific as the Old Dominion. The Mediterranean State in geograph- ical position, her advantages are fast making her the leading State in our glorious Union.
EARLY LAWS IN OHIO.
To those who complain of the rigidity of the present law of our State, a glance at some of the punishments inflicted in "ye olden times " for petty offenses will soon dispel any such idea.
In those times, when the present State was governed by the Terri- torial laws, the court house yards were invariably ornamented with the pillory, stocks and whipping-post. The first law for whipping was made by Governor St. Clair and Judges Parsons and Varnum at Marietta, September 6, 1787, which provided that in case a mob were ordered to disperse, and refused so to do, each person, upon convic- tion, should be fined in a sum not exceeding three hundred dollars, and whipped not exceeding thirty-nine stripes, etc.
The same penalty was inflicted for burglary, and, where violence was used, forty years imprisonment and forfeiture of goods and realty.
For perjury, or refusing to be sworn, sixty dollars fine, thirty-nine stripes, and sitting in the pillory two hours.
For forgery, sitting in the pillory three hours.
For arson, thirty-nine stripes, put in the pillory, confinement in the jail three years, and forfeiture of property, and in case death was' caused by such crime the offender was punished with death. .
If a child refuse to obey his or her parents, or master, on complaint shall be sent to the jail or house of correction until he or she, or they " shall humble themselves to the parent's or master's satisfaction ; and if any child shall strike his parent, he shall be whipped not exceeding ten stripes.
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EARLY LAWS OF OHIO.
For larceny, two-fold restitution, thirty-nine stripes, or seven years labor.
For drunkenness, first offense, five dimes, and one dollar for each " additional drunk," or sitting in the stocks one hour.
HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY.
INTRODUCTION.
Cheops, Cephrenes, and the mighty Sphynx, Obelisk of Cleopa- tra, and ruins of Xochicalco, stand forth as monuments upon which are engraven the mutations of time, the inevitable destroyer of all visible nature, and products of art: into whose Lethean gulf ancient Ilium, Nineveh, Thebes, and all the architecture of distant ages have been plunged in eternal slumber. Nay, the very stars shall cease to shine, the sun eclipsed in gloom, and all nature swallowed up in oblivion. Nothing is immortal, save the soul, which shall outlive the warfare of clashing elements and destruc- tion of worlds. The flight of a single day is perceptibly impressed upon surrounding nature. The faded flower, the withered tree, both speak of something gone. Indeed, the flinty pyramids that so long have opposed the blasts of the desert sands; the tower that for centuries has withstood the furies of old ocean's winds and waves, finally must yield to the universal destroyer-time-and, crumbling, moulder to earth, and "doting with age, forget their founder's name." Our lives are but an awakening, transition, sleep, and forgetting. Yet notwithstanding these numerous evidences of the general devastations of time, the soothing voice of resurrection whispers all is not lost; for-
"See dying vegetables, life sustain ; See life dissolving, vegetate again ; All forms that perish, other forms supply ; By turns we catch the vital breath and die. Like bubbles on the sea of water borne, They rise, they break, and to that sea return."
We are, therefore, to believe that throughout the economy of nature, by conservation and correlation, all things are preserved,
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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY.
and what we call death is but transition; for the book of nature plainly teaches the perpetuity of all created things. As the one grows old and dies, straightway in quick succession springs up the new, nourished by the moldering remains of its ancestor. We, ourselves, may pass away, but ere the eating canker begins its work, closely follows youth again, our second selves. All things new spring from and are nourished by things that have passed away. Not one beauty of nature takes its flight, but in untold centuries hence, by transition leaves behind the freshness of its distant genesis. We should, therefore, preserve and keep fresh, like flowers in water, the transitory fruits of the past, and bind them upon the same stock with the buds of the present.
Through reminiscence we love to dwell upon pleasing objects of the past, and calling them up we seem to gaze upon them one by one as they in panorama pass before us; meditate upon them, and in imagination, live over again the happy days that are forever gone. Our old and fond associates are once more mingling with us; we enjoy again the life we have left behind; but break the spell, the bubble bursts, and all melts into the past. So in our dreams, the untrammeled intelligence revels amidst the material- ized spirits of departed friends. We breathe again the balmy air of youth, and through the endless chain of recollection, link to link, as wave succeeding wave, we hold enchanting communion with the past, and imbibe intoxicating draughts from the sparkling fountain of youth, until we are in fancy transported to the happy realms of the morning of life; and truly has it been said that the mind can make substances, and people planets of its own with be- ings brighter than have been, and give a breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
Decaying organisms are by process of petrefaction metamor- phosed into everlasting forms, bearing exact identity with their prototypes, through whose interpretation we are enabled to unlock the profoundest mysteries of geognosy. If nature, therefore, has bequeathed to us the key to her created forms, so likewise should we receive, preserve, and keep fresh forever the history of those who suffered so long, endured so much, in order to secure for them- selves a resting place, and bequeath to us the beautiful homes we now enjoy, undisturbed by any of the dangers that surrounded our forefathers.
Let us, therefore, see to it that from the green pages of memory
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INTRODUCTION.
they do not pass into tradition, and still fading, through lapse of time sink forever beneath the wave of oblivion. The labor and embarrassments attendant upon, and research, and patience neces- sary to the resurrection of moldy facts and ethereal traditions which have so long slumbered in the matrix of obscurity, is little realized save by those who undertake to write a history based upon facts and traditions, whose genesis springs from the aboriginal tribes that roamed at large throughout the winding labyrinths of their own primival forests, beneath whose sylvan shades the pant- ing deer lay down in peace; amidst whose branches the winged choristers built their homes, and chirped their matin songs, carol- ing with angelic sweet and trembling voices, gently warbling with the murmuring brook and rustling leaves below. . The forest patriarchs had not looked down frowning upon the white man's cabin. They stood sentinel above the fragile wigwam of the paint- ed savage, nestled alone within their sequestered shades; within whose folds the forest maiden gave modest ear to the love song of the dusky warrior, as he displayed the gory insignia of his prowess which adorned his girdle, and sang the deeds of war and the chase, and with equal ardor woos the maid, or scalps the captive, and burns the victim at the stake.
ORIGINAL POSSESSORS.
While it would transcend our province to trace beyond prehis- toric data the original owners of the territory now comprehended within the limits of Fayette County, yet we deem it essential to a perfect elucidation of its complete history that we utilize all the facts within our grasp, and trace them until the line fades out in myth.
Therefore, so nearly as can with clearness be ascertained from chaotic masses of documents and traditions, we infer that the first inhabitants belonged to the Algonquin family, the most populous no doubt in the United States; whose language was comparatively uniform throughout all the tribes and subdivisions, very complex, yet capable of lofty flights of oratory, beautiful rhetorical figures, and ill-adapted to light and trifling speech. Inasmuch as there is a great deal of conflicting testimony in regard to the specific tribes comprehended in this great family, we shall, in this connection, state that the territory now called Fayette County, was originally
I3
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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY.
in the possession of the Twigtwees, called by the French Miamis, leaving its full discussion to another part of the work. Cursorily we may say, that at the time they were visited by Christopher Gist, the English agent for the Ohio Land Company, in 1751, they were superior in numbers to the Huron Iroquois, with whom they were at deadly enmity. Their country extended on the west as far as the watershed between the Wabash and Illinois. On the north were the Pottawatomies, who were slowly encroaching upon the Miamis, who in turn were gradually extending their western limits into Ohio, and absorbing the territory claimed by the Huron Iro- quois; and according to the best of authority, they were the un- disputed claimants of Ohio as far as the Scioto.
It appears that the Piankeshaws, or Peanzichias-Miamis, a sub- division of the great Twigtwee confederacy, owned or occupied the southern part of Ohio, including the present territory of Fayette County.
The Wyandots, long prior to the advent of the English and French, had resided in the territory now embraced in Ohio. In the beginning of the present century they numbered 2,300 persons. In 1841-2 they ceded their lands to the United States commission- er, Col. John Johnston, and removed beyond the Missouri.
In about 1750 the Shawanoes came from Florida, under Black- hoof, and as tenants at will of the Wyandots took possession of the valleys of the Maumee, Scioto, Mad and Miami rivers.
From the fact that the ownership and occupancy of the soil re- sided first in the Twigtwees, and subsequently in the Wyandots and Shawanoes, it is difficult to ascertain the exact date or dates at which the Indian title became totally extinct (a full discussion of which will be given in the body of the work).
Thus we have endeavored, in so far as possible, to disentangle from the hetrogeneous mass of uncertainty, the original owners, the extinction of the original title, and the final vesting of the same in such a shape as to lay it open for individual purchase and settlement.
POLITICAL AND MILITARY HISTORY ..
This county, occupying a portion of the Virginia Military Reser- vation, reaches back in its political history into early colonial times, before the organization of the general government of the United · States, and when all the territory northwest of the River Ohio, ex- tending west to the Mississippi, was claimed by Virginia.
In the years 1774 and 1775, before the Revolutionary War began, the thirteen colonies then existing, so far as their relations to one another were concerned, were separate, independent communities, having, to a considerable extent, different political organizations and different municipal laws; but their various population spoke, almost universally, the English language, and, as descendants from a common English stock, had a common interest and a common sympathy.
In the year 1773, on the 7th day of July, Dr. Benjamin Frank- lin, then in England, wrote an official letter to the Massachusetts Assembly, strongly urging a general assembly of the representa- tives of the people of all the colonies, that they might make such a declaration and assertion of their rights as would be recognized by the king and parliament of Great Britain. Pursuant to this advice a congress, called the First Continental Congress, assembled at Carpenter's Hall, in Philadelphia, on the 5th day of September, 1774, and remained in session until the 26th day of October, fol- lowing. A second Continental Congress met on the 10th day of May, 1775. This congress, styled also the revolutionary govern- ment, on the 4th day of July, 1776, published to the world the Declaration of Independence, and on the 15th day of November, 1777, agreed to articles of confederation and perpetual union be- tween the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New · Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Caro- lina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY.
Article I. recited that "The style of this confederacy shall be The United States of America;" and Article II. that "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every pow- er, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation ex- pressly delegated to the United States in congress assembled." These articles of confederation, thirteen in number, which defined the powers and privileges of congress, and the rights of the several states, after their adoption by each state, constituted the supreme law until the adoption of the constitution in 1788. It was under this confederacy that the great discussions arose concerning the disposition of the public lands.
VIRGINIA.
The territory of Virginia, granted by the charters of King James I., was very extensive. The first charter authorized a company to plant a colony in America, anywhere between 34° and 41º north latitude, embracing about 100 miles of coast line, and extending back from the coast 100 miles, embracing also the islands opposite to the coast, and within 100 miles of it. The second charter grant- ed to the Virginia Company a much larger territory, extending from Old Point Comfort (a point of land extending into Chesa- peake Bay, a little to the north of the mouth of James River), 200 miles north and 200 miles south, along the coast, and thence with a breadth of 400 miles, to the west and northwest, through the continent to the Pacific Ocean. The third charter added to this immense territory all the islands in both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, within 300 leagues of either coast. By the treaty of peace between France and Great Britain, in 1763, the Mississippi River was made the western boundary of the British provinces. Thus restricted, the territory of Virginia included all that territory now occupied by Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, Kentucky, and all the land northwest of the River Ohio.
On the 29th day of June, 1776, just five days before the Declara- tion of Independence by the United States in congress assembled, Virginia adopted her constitution or form of government, in Arti- cle XXI. of which she ceded the territories contained within the charters creating the colonies of Maryland, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, to those respective colonies, relinquishing all her rights to the same, except the right to the navigation of certain
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VIRGINIA.
rivers, and all improvements that had been or might be made along their shores. But this article affirms that "the western and north - ern extent of Virginia shall in other respects stand as fixed by the charter of King James I., in the year 1609, and by the published treaty of peace between the court of Great Britain and France, in the year 1763, unless, by act of legislature, one or more territories shall be laid off, and governments established west of the Alleg- heny Mountains." The charter of King James I., referred to in this article, was the second charter, so that now, on the sea coast, Virginia was restricted to her present limits, but her western boundaries were unchanged. She claimed Kentucky, and all the northwestern territory.
Concerning this northwestern territory there were conflicting claims. New York claimed a portion of it. Massachusetts also asserted a separate claim, and Connecticut, by her grant from the council of Plymouth, in 1630, was to extend westward from the Atlantic Ocean to "the South Sea," or Pacific Ocean. This would take a large portion of the territory included under the Virginia charter. These conflicting claims were never adjusted between the states, but were finally settled, as will soon appear, by cession to the United States in congress assembled.
In 1779 Virginia opened an office for the sale of her western lands. This attracted the attention of the other states, several of which regarded the vacant region in the west as a common fund for the future payment of the expenses of the war for independ- ence, in which the colonies had been engaged. This claim in be- half of the United States was asserted on the ground that the western lands had been the property of the crown. By the treaty of 1763, France had ceded to Great Britain all her possessions in North America, east of the Mississippi, and naturally these lands would fall, on the declaration of independence, to the opponent of the crown, that is, to the United States in congress assembled, and not to individual states. It was contended, therefore, that it was manifestly unjust that a vast tract of unoccupied country, acquired by the common efforts and the common expenses of the whole union, should be appropriated for the exclusive benefit of particular states, while others would be left to bear the unmitigated burdens of debt, contracted in securing that independence by which this immense acquisition was wrested from Great Britain. These sepa- rate claims by the several states were opposed by those states that
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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY.
made no pretentions to claims, and they served, in a great measure, for a time, to prevent the union under the articles of confederation.
On the 25th day of June, 1778, nearly one year before the open- ing of the Virginia land office, New Jersey made objection to the confederation, on the ground that the public lands now claimed by Virginia and other states, under ancient charters, should belong to the United States in common, that each separate state might de- rive a proportionate benefit therefrom.
Maryland instructed her delegates in congress not to sign the articles of confederation, unless an article or articles were added thereto, looking to a cession of the public lands.
The council of the State of Delaware, on the 23d day of Janu- ary, 1779, before passing a law instructing their delegates in con- gress to sign the articles of confederation, resolved, that the state was justly entitled to a right in common with the other members of the union to that extensive tract of country westward of the frontier of the United States, which was acquired by the blood and treasure of all, and that it ought to be a common estate, to be granted out on terms beneficial to the United States.
Such were the vigorous protests against the union under the arti- cles of confederation, while Virginia was left a vast empire within the confederacy, a power, as many supposed, dangerous to the liberties of the smaller states; and when Virginia opened her land office for the sale of her western lands, the excitement be- came more intense: Congress, in opposition to the pretensions of all the states claiming lands, as the common head of the United States, maintained its title to the western lands upon the solid ground that a vacant territory, wrested from the common enemy by the united arms, and at the joint expense of all the states, ought of right to belong to congress, in trust for the common use and benefit of the whole union; hence she earnestly recommended to Virginia, and to all the states claiming vacant lands, to adopt no measures that would obstruct the final cession of such lands to congress. New York was the first to listen to the appeals of the complaining states and to congress. On the 29th of February, 1780, she authorized her delegates in congress to restrict her western border by such lines as they should deem expedient, and on the 20th day of December, 1783, Virginia passed an act authorizing her delegates in congress to convey to the United States in congress assembled, "all the right of this commonwealth to the territory
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VIRGÍNIA MILITARY SURVEY.
northwest of the River Ohio." In this act of cession she made the following reservation :
VIRGINIA MILITARY SURVEY.
"That a quantity not exceeding one hundred and fifty thousand acres of land, promised by this state, shall be allowed and granted to Gen. George Rodgers Clark, and to the officers and soldiers of his regiment to be laid off in such place on the northwest side of the Ohio as a majority of the officers shall choose, and to be afterwards divided among the said officers and soldiers in due proportion ac- cording to the laws of Virginia. That in case the quantity of good lands, on the south side of the Ohio, upon the waters of the Cum- berland River, and between the Green River and the Tennessee, which have been reserved by law for the Virginia troops, upon con- tinental establishment, should prove insufficient for their legal boun- ties, the deficiency should be made up to said troops in good lands, to be laid off between the rivers Scioto and Little Miami, on the northwest side of the River Ohio, in such proportions as have been engaged to them by the laws of Virginia."
The land embraced in this reservation, between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers, constitutes the Virginia Military District in Ohio. The district comprehends the entire counties of Adams, Brown, Clermont, Clinton, Highland, Fayette, Madison and Union; and a portion of the counties of Scioto, Pike, Ross, Pickaway, Franklin, Delaware, Marion, Hardin, Logan, Champaign, Clarke, Greene, Warren and Hamilton.
Although this cession and reservation was made in 1783, its defin- ite boundary was not determined until a decision of the Supreme Court was made in reference to it some time in 1824. The Scioto was the eastern line, and Virginia claimed the right to run the west- ern line of the tract direct from the source of the Scioto to the mouth of the Little Miami. Such a line would run considerably west of some parts of the Little Miami. The source of the Scioto is in the western part of Auglaize County, and a straight line drawn from this point to the mouth of the Little Miami, would have run entire- ly west of Greene County, and would have included in the Military District, a portion of Auglaize, Shelby, Miami and Montgomery counties.
The Indian line established by the treaty of Greenville, between
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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY.
the United States and certain Indian tribes, being a part of the boundary of this military district, it is quite important that it be de- scribed here. It begins at the mouth of the Cuyahoga and runs south, up that river through the portage between it and the Tusca- rawas, down the Tuscarawas to the northern line of Tuscarawas County at its middle point; thence west, bearing a little south, form- ing the northwestern line of this county to Holmes; passing through Holmes County, it forms the eastern part of the northern boundary of Knox. It then passes through the northwestern part of Knox, through the middle part of Morrow, the southern part of . Marion, through Logan, forming the northern line of Lake and Harrison townships, through Shelby County, forming the northern boundary of Salem Township. From a point in the western part of Shelby County the line bears a little to the north of west, and ex- tends through the southern part of Mercer County to Fort Recov- ery, in the western part of the county; thence it extends in a straight line south, bearing west through the southeastern part of Indiana, to the Ohio River, at a point in Indiana opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River.
In May 1800, congress passed a law for the sale of lands in the western territory which were not included in the Virginia Military District, and in the execution of this law the surveyor general caused a line to be run from the source of the Little Miami toward what he supposed to be the mouth of the Scioto, which is denomi- nated Ludlow's line, and surveyed the lands west of that line into sections as prescribed in the act of congress.
In 1804, congress passed a law concerning the boundary of the Virginia Military District which enacted' that Ludlow's line should be considered the western boundary line of the reserved territory north of the source of the Little Miami, provided the State of Vir- ginia should within two years recognize it as the boundary of this territory. Virginia did not accept the proposition, and the rights of the parties remained as if nothing had been done. Again, in 1812, congress authorized the president to appoint three commis- sioners to meet three other commissioners, to be appointed by the State of Virginia, who were to agree upon the line of military re- serve, and to cause the same to be surveyed. Should the commis- sioners from Virginia fail to meet them, they were to proceed alone, and make their report to the president. In the meantime, and until the line should be established by consent, Ludlow's line
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