USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 16
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Several outrages whose history we have found recorded, and doubtless many others so far unnoticed to the writer, occurred during the period of Indian warfare, some of whose dates we are not able to fix with certainty. Judge Symmes, in April, 1790, notes that a lad had been "cap- tivated" by the Indians a few weeks before at the Mill creek (Ludlow's) station ; but adds: "Otherwise not the smallest mischief has been done to any, except we count the firing by the Indians on our people mischief, for there have been some instances of that, but they did no hurt." Not a great many years ago a large elm might still be seen on one of the roads leading north from the city, about three miles from the old corporation line, be- hind which a small party of Indians had been concealed, to await the approach on horseback of a man named Baily, whom they halted, seized, and took prisoner.
At Blue Bank, a locality on the Great Miami near
Dunlap's station, while Michael Hahn, one of the early settlers of Cincinnati, Martin Burkhardt, and Michael Lutz, were viewing lots on the second of January, 1792, Lutz was killed and scalped, and finally stabbed by the Indians. Hahn was shot through the body, but ran for the station, within sight of which the Indians followed him, and there, seeing they were otherwise likely to lose the chance of his scalp, shot a second time and brought him down. Burkhardt was shot through the shoulder and took to the river, where he was drowned and his body found near North Bend six weeks subsequently. Thus perished this whole party by Indian massacre.
About two miles below the same station, at a riffle in the Great Miami, a canoe in which John McNamara, Isaac Gibson, jr., Samuel Carswell, and James Barnett were taking a millstone up the river, was fired upon with mortal effect. McNamara was killed, Carswell wounded in the shoulder and Gibson in the knee, Barnett alone escaping unhurt.
Elsewhere in the county, at Round Bottom, two set- tlers named Hinkle and Covalt, while engaged in hewing logs in front of their own cabin, were instantly killed by the barbarians.
An interesting narrative of the captivity of Israel Don- alson, contributed to the American Pioneer for Decem- ber, 1842, contains a passage which is of some local value, especially as illustrating the character of a famous old-time citizen, long since passed away. Donalson was captured by the Indians April 22, 1791, while on a sur- veying expedition with Massie and Lytle, four miles above Manchester, on what was called from that day Donalson creek, and escaped a few days afterwards, reaching the Great Miami, and following down Harmar's trace until he arrived at what he called "Fort Washington," now Cin- cinnati. Mr. Donalson says:
On Wednesday, the day that I got in, I was so far gone that I thought it entirely useless to make any further exertion, not knowing what distance I was from the river; and I took my station at the root of a tree, but soon got into a state of sleeping, and either dreamt or thought that I should not be loitering away my time, that I should get in that day; which, on reflection, I had not the most distant idea. However, the impression was so strong that I got up and walked on some distance. I then took my station again as before, and the same thoughts occupied my mind. I got up and walked on. I had not travelled far before I thought I could see an opening for the river ; and getting a little farther on I heard the sound of a bell. I then started and ran, at a slow speed, undoubtedly ; a little farther on I began to perceive that I was coming to the river hill, and having got about half- way down, I heard the sound of an axe, which was the sweetest music I had heard for many a day. It was in the extreme out-lot; when I got to the lot I crawled over the fence with difficulty, it being very high. I approached the person very cautiously till within about a chain's length, undiscovered ; I then stopped and spoke; the person I spoke to was Mr. William Woodward, the founder of the Woodward high school. Mr. Woodward looked up, hastily cast his eyes round, and saw that I had no deadly weapon ; he then spoke: "In the name of God," said he, "who are you?" I told him I had been a prisoner and had made my escape from the Indians. After a few more questions he told me to come to him. I did so. Seeing my situation, his fears soon sub- sided ; he told me to sit down on a log and he would go and catch a horse he had in the lot, and take me in. He caught his horse, set me on him, but kept the bridle in his own hand. When we got into the road, people began to enquire of Mr. Woodward, "Who is he-an Indian?" I was not surprised nor offended at the enquiries, for I was still in Indian uniform, bareheaded, my hair cut off close, except the scalp and foretop, which they had put up in a piece of tin, with a bunch of turkey feathers ; which I could not undo. They had also stripped
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
off the feathers of about two turkeys, and hung them to the hair of my scalp ; these I had taken off the day I left them. Mr. Woodward took me to his house, where every kindness was shown me. They soon gave me other clothing ; coming from different persons they did not fit me very neatly ; but there could not be a pair of shoes got in the place that I could get on, my feet were so much swollen. But what surprised me most was, when a pallet was made down before the fire, Mr. Woodward condescended to sleep with me.
The next day, soon after breakfast, General Harmar sent for me to come to the fort. I would not go. A second messenger came: I still refused. At length a Captain Shambrongh came ; he pleaded with me, told me I might take my own time, and he would wait for me. At length he told me if I would not go with him, the next day a file of men would be sent, and 1 would then be compelled to go. I went with him; he was as good as his word, and treated me very kindly. When I was ushered into the quarters of the commander, I found the room full of people waiting my arrival. I knew none of them except Judge Symmes, and he did not know me, which was not surprising, considering the fix I was in. The General asked me a great many questions; and when he got through he asked me to take a glass of liquor, which was all the aid he offered ; meantime had a mind to keep me in custody as a spy, which, when I heard, it raised my indignation to think that the com- mander of an army should have no more judgment when his own eyes were witnessing that I could scarce go alone.
RELIEF AT LAST.
The glorious victory of General Wayne brought infi- nite relief to the harassed people. They no longer trembled with anxiety and fear of Indian outrage. One immediate effect of the victory and the treaty of Green- ville was the partial abandonment of the river villages and the stations, by the desire of the people to settle in the open country. August 6, 1795, Judge Symmes wrote from Cincinnati :
This village is reduced more than one-half in its numbers since I left it to go to Jersey in February, 1793. The people spread themselves into all parts of the Purchase below the military range since the Indian defeat on the twentieth of August, and the cabins are of late deserted by dozens in a street.
Another letter of his the next year, however, shows that the Indians were again giving trouble, though not very serious this time :
They now begin to crowd in upon us in numbers, and are becoming troublesome. We have but one merchant in this part of the Purchase [North Bend], and he will not buy their deer-skins. The next result is to beg from me, and I was compelled last week to give them upwards of forty dollars value, or send near forty of them away offended.
They must have a market for their skins, or they can purchase nothing from us. Though we have twenty or more merchants at Cin- cinnati, not one of them is fond of purchasing deer-skins. Some attention of Government is certainly necessary to this object. . Some of our citizens will purchase horses from the Indians. The con- sequence is that the Indians immediately steal others, fo rnot an Indian will walk if he can steal a horse to ride. I wish it was made penal by Congress to buy horses directly or indirectly from the Indians.
But these annoyances and losses were petty, compared with the awful dangers of the earlier years. The Miami country, though not without occasional alarms, especially during the Indian war of 1811 and the war with Great Britain that began the next year, was thenceforth almost exempt from savage atrocities. "Poor Lo," with the inev- itable destiny of his race, was being crowded westward and to eventual extermination.
CHAPTER IX.
CIVIL JURISDICTION-ERECTION OF HAMILTON COUNTY.
What constitutes a State?
Not high-raised battlements or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned; Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Not starred and spangled courts,
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride. No ;- men, high-minded men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endued, In forest, brake, or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude, -- Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain, Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain ;- These constitute a State.
- SIR WILLIAM JONES.
"IROQUOIS."
IN chapter IV it was remarked that upon some of the early maps of the territory which includes the present State of Ohio, a geographical district was marked and entitled "Iroquois," since the confederated tribes called by that generic name claimed jurisdiction over it. It is not probable that their government was represented here by satrap, prætor, viceroy, or other governor ; but theirs is, we believe, the first authority distinctly recognized by geography or history as existing over this region. One of the maps of 1755 designates this as Tunasoruntic, or "the deer-hunting country," a part of "the country of the confederate Indians," covering the present territory of New York, Ohio, and Canada, and thus signifying about the same thing as the former "Iroquois."
"NEW FRANCE."
The Ohio country, however, was long before this time claimed by the French, as an integral part of their great North American possessions, "New France," by virtue of the discoveries of her brave explorer, Robert, Cavalier de la Salle, and the earlier voyage (1640) of the Jesuit Fathers Charemonot and Brebœuf, along the south shore of Lake Erie. With the Iroquois they were constantly at war, and the claims of the confederated tribes to the territory weighed nothing with the aggressive leaders of the French in the New World. When, some time in the first half of the eighteenth century, the French built a fort on the Iroquois lands near Niagara falls, the governor of Canada proclaimed their right of encroachment, say- ing that the Five Nations were not subjects of England, but rather of France, if subjects at all. But, by the treaty of Utrecht, April 11, 1713, Louis XIV, Le Grand Monarque, renounced in favor of England all right to the Iroquois country, reserving only the St. Lawrence and Mississippi valleys to France. Boundaries were so vaguely defined, however, that disputes easily and frequently arose concerning the territories owned by the respective powers; and in 1740, the very year after that in which the Ohio Land company of the Washingtons, Lee, and others was organized under a grant from George II, to occupy half a million acres west of the Alleghanies, De Celeron, the French commandant of Detroit, led an ex-
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
pedition to the Ohio dispatched by the Marquis de la Gallissoniere, commander-in-chief of New France, buried a leaden tablet "at the confluence of the Ohio and Tchadakoin" (?) "as a monument of the renewal of pos- session which we have taken of the said river Ohio, and of all those that therein fall, and of all the lands on both sides, as far as the sources of said rivers"-a sweep- ing claim, truly. He ordered the English traders out of the country, and notified the governor of Pennsylvania that if they "should hereafter make their appearance on the Beautiful River, they would be treated without any delicacy." The territorial squabbles which then ensued led up to the French and Indian war of 1755-62, which closed by the cession to England, on the part of France, of Canada and all her American possessions east of the Mississippi, except some fishing stations. Thus the Ohio region at length passed into the undisputed possession of the British crown.
IN THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC.
In 1766 (though some confidently say 1774*), the British Parliament insisted upon the Ohio river as the southwestern boundary, and the Mississippi river as the western limit of the dominions of the English crown in this quarter. By this measure the entire northwest, or so much of it as afterwards became the Northwest Terri- tory, was attached to the province of Quebec, and the tract that now constitutes the State of Ohio was nomi- nally under its local administration.
BOTETOURT COUNTY.
In 1769 the colony of Virginia, by an enactment of the house of burgesses, attempted to extend its jurisdic- tion over the same territory, northwest of the river Ohio, by virtue of its royal grants. By that act the county of Botetourt was erected and named in honor of Lord Bote- tourt, governor of the colony. It was a vast county, about seven hundred miles long, with the Blue Ridge for its eastern boundary, and the Mississippi for its west- ern boundary. It included large parts of the pres ent States of West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Illi- nois, and was the first county organization covering what is now Hamilton county. Fincastle, still the seat of county for the immensely reduced Botetourt county, was made the seat of justice; but so distant from it were the western regions of the great county, that the thoughtful burgesses inserted the following proviso in the creative act :
Whereas, The people situated on the Mississippi, in the said county of Botetourt, will be very remote from the court house, and must neces- sarily become a separate county as soon as their numbers are sufficient, which will probably happen in a short time, be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the inhabitants of that part of the said county of Botetourt which lies on the said waters, shall be exempted from the payment of any levies to be laid by the said county court for the purpose of building a court-house and prison for said county.
"WEST AUGUSTA."
In 1776, the present territory of Ohio was included in what was known as the "District of West Augusta, fbut we are not informed to what State or county authority it was subordinated-though probably to that of Virginia, as was the Kentucky region at this time.
ILLINOIS COUNTY.
Government was still nominal, however, so far as the county organization was concerned, between the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers; and the Indians and few white settlers within those borders were entirely a law unto themselves. After the conquest of the Indiana and Illinois country by General George Rogers Clark in 1778 the county of Illinois was erected by the Virginia legisla- ture out of the great county of Botetourt, and included all the territory between the Pennsylvania line, the Ohio, the Mississippi, and the northern lakes. Colonel John Todd was appointed the first county lieutenant and civil commandant of the county. He perished in the battle of Blue Licks, August 18, 1782; and Timothy de Montbrun was named as his successor. At this time there were no white men in Ohio, except a few Indian traders, some French settlers on the Maumee, and the Moravian mis- sionaries on the Tuscarawas.
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.
After the title of the United States to the wide tract covered by Illinois county, acquired by the victories of the Revolution, had been perfected by the cession of claims to it by Virginia and other States and by Indian treaties, Congress took the next step, and an important one, in the civil organization of the country. Upon the thirteenth of July (a month which has been largely as- sociated with human liberty in many ages of history), in the year 1787, the celebrated act entitled "An ordinance for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio," was passed by Congress. By this great organic act --- "the last gift," as Chief Justice Chase said, "of the Congress of the old Confederation to the country, and it was a fit consummation of their glorious labors"-provision was made for various forms of territorial government to be adopted in succession, in due order of the advancement and development of the Western country. To quote Governor Chase again: "When the settlers went into the wilderness, they found the law already there. It was impressed upon the soil itself, while it yet bore up nothing but the forest." This measure was succeeded, on the fifth of October of the same year, by the appointment by Congress of General Arthur St. Clair as governor, and Major Winthrop Sar- gent as secretary of the Northwest Territory. Soon after these appointments, three territorial judges were ap- pointed-Samuel Holden Parsons, James Mitchell Var- num, and John Armstrong. In January the last named, not having entered upon service, declined his appoint- ment, which now fell to the Hon. John Cleves Symmes, the hero of the Miami Purchase. The appointment of Symmes to this high office gave much offence in some quarters, as it was supposed to add to his opportunities of making a great fortune in the new country. It is well known that Governor St. Clair's appointment to the Northwest Territory was promoted by his friends, in the hope that he would use his position to relieve himself of pecuniary embarrassments. There is no evidence, how- ever, that either he or Judge Symmes prostituted the privileges of their places to such ends.
* As Isaac Smucker, in Secretary of State's report for 1877. +Bryant's Popular History of the United States, Vol. I., 610.
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
All these appointments being made under the articles of confederation, they expired upon the adoption and operation of the Federal constitution. St. Clair and Sargent were reappointed to their respective places by President Washington, and confirmed by the senate on the twentieth of September, 1789. On the same day Parsons and Symmes were reappointed judges, with Wil- liam Barton as their associate. Meanwhile, on the ninth of July, 1788, the governor arrived at Marietta, and pro- ceeded to organize the territory. He and the judges, of whom only Varnum and Parsons were present, consti- tuted, under the ordinance, the territorial legislature. Their first law was proclaimed July 25th, and on the twenty-seventh Governor St. Clair issued a proclamation establishing the county of Washington, to cover all the territory to which the Indian title had been extin- guished between Lake Erie, the Ohio and Scioto rivers, and the Pennsylvania line, being a large part of the present State of Ohio. Marietta, the capital of the Territory, was made the seat of justice for Washington county. The next civil division proclaimed was
HAMILTON COUNTY.
COUNTY .
On the second of January, 1790, in the thirteenth month and second year ab urbe condita, the governor arrived at Lo- santiville. His august approach was duly heralded, and as he stepped ashore from his flat-boat, pirogue, or barge, he was received with a salute of fourteen guns, and four- teen more were fired as he moved with his suite to the embattled precincts of Fort Washington. He dispatched a message to North Bend for Judge Symmes, who ar- rived the next day, and, after consultation, the ensuing day (the fourth) was signalized by the erection, as the Judge put it in a subsequent letter, of "this Purchase in- to a county." St. Clair's proclamation established the fol- lowing as the boundary lines of the new creation : "Begin- ning on the bank of the Ohio river, at the confluence of the Little Miami, and down said Ohio river to the mouth of the Big Miami, and up said Miami to the Standing Stone forks, or branch of said river, and thence with a line to be drawn dne east to the Little Miami, and down said Little Miami to the place of beginning." This was a long and narrow county, decidedly inconvenient in shape, if it had been settled throughout all its borders; but it was no doubt formed in accordance with the sug- gestions of Judge Symmes, and its northern boundary was much better defined than was that of the Miami Purchase at that time, or at any time until the patent for the Purchase was issued. The Judge writes: "His ex- cellency complimented me with the honor of naming the county. I called it Hamilton county, after the Secretary of the Treasury "-Colonel Alexander Hamilton, the dis- tinguished revolutionary and cabinet officer, now but . thirty-three years old, in the prime of his powers, and considered the pride of the Federal party, perishing mis- erably fourteen and a half years afterwards, from a mor- tal wound received in the duel with Aaron Burr. It is altogether probable that Judge Symmes may have desired to do the secretary fitting honor; but it is also not impos- sible that, since the negotiations for the Purchase were still
incomplete, and the duties of the late treasury board, in regard to the sales of the public lands, had now, under the new constitution and before the organization of the general land office, devolved upon the Secretary of the Treasury, he was also prompted by a lively sense of favors to come. He adds, in his notes of this affair: "The governor has made Losantiville the county town by the name of Cincinnata [thus Symmes spells it, for reasons that will appear by and by], so that Losantiville will be- come extinct." St. Clair soon afterwards made it the capital of the Northwest Territory, and in 1799 the first session of the territorial legislature was held there.
On the same day that Hamilton county was proclaimed commissions were issued by the governor for a county court of common pleas and general quarter sessions of the peace, for said county. Messrs.' William McMillan, William Goforth, and William Wells-a triumvirate of Williams-were appointed judges of the court of com- mon pleas and justices of the court of general quarter sessions of the peace. They were also appointed and commissioned as justices of the peace and of the quorum in said court. Other justices of the peace were appointed for the new county, in the persons of Benjamin Stites, our old Columbia pioneer, John Stites Gano, another Columbian, and Jacob Topping. J. Brown, "Gent.," was commissioned sheriff "during the governor's pleas- ure;" Israel Ludlow, esq., was made prothonotary to the court of common pleas and clerk of the court of general quarter sessions of the peace.
Some appointments were also made at this time to commands in the "First Regiment of Militia in the County of Hamilton." Israel Ludlow, John S. Gano, James Flinn, and Gershom Gerard, were commissioned as captains; Francis Kennedy, John Ferris, Luke Foster, and Brice Virgin, as lieutenants; and Scott Traverse, Ephraim Kibby, Elijah Stites, and John Dunlap, as en- signs. Provision seems to have been made by these appointments for the formation of but four companies.
On the twenty-fourth of the following May the organi- zation of the county was furthered by the appointment of William Burnet as register of deeds, and on the next fourteenth of December Mr. George McCullum was added to the justices of the peace.
The boundaries of the county were afterwards changed by the governor, as the settlements widened; and its area was greatly enlarged. By his proclamation September 15, 1796, erecting Wayne county (now, as reduced, in Michigan), with Detroit as its seat of justice, St. Clair described the eastern boundary of Hamilton county as a "due northern line from the lower Shawnees' town upon the Scioto river," which was a long remove to the east- ward from the Little Miami."
By proclamation June 22, 1798, an alteration was made in the boundaries of Hamilton, Wayne, and Knox . (now, as reduced, in Indiana) counties, by which the west- ern line of Hamilton was laid down as follows:
The western boundary of the county of Hamilton shall begin at the, spot on the bank of the Ohio river where the general boundary line between the lands of the United States and the Indian tribes, estab- lished at Greenville the third day of August, 1795, intersects the bank of that river, and run with the general boundary line to Fort Recovery,
.
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
and from thence by a line to be drawn dne north from Fort Recovery until it intersects the south boundary line of the county of Wayne; and the said line from the Ohio to Fort Recovery, and from thence to the southern boundary line of the county of Wayne, shall also be the eastern boundary of the county of Knox.
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