History of Henry and Fulton counties, Ohio : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 3

Author: Aldrich, Lewis Cass, ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason & Co.
Number of Pages: 852


USA > Ohio > Henry County > History of Henry and Fulton counties, Ohio : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 3
USA > Ohio > Fulton County > History of Henry and Fulton counties, Ohio : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 3


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31


GENERAL HISTORY


long ago that no one lives who remembers the time-the land of the beautiful Me-au-me, and when the Great Man-i-too calls, we will answer- here !' My pale-face brother is wise ; his beautiful daughters from the sun- rise love the shade and the flowers, and the beautiful land toward the sun-down, that he sings in the ears of the red children ; will he not go there with his pale-face children ? There is no enemy of my brother on the long trail, and no one to molest him ; he need not be afraid ; the Great Spirit of his fathers, will protect him Go to the wigwam of the great father (the President of the United States), and tell him that his red children will give the 'beautiful land' to their pale-face brothers, and they will sleep where their father's sleep, and their last council fire shall go out on the banks of their beautiful Me-aw- mee. Go, tell this to the great father.'


The wily and adroit commissioner could not answer the native eloquence and statesmanlike speech of the great chief, and the council closed.


Among many like incidents (and several occurred at which the writer was present), there was one other worthy of record in these pages, as showing the native character of these untutored savages. This incident was related several times at the cabin of the writer's father, by one of the principal actors at the scene, Governor Lewis Cass, territorial governor of Michigan. Governor Cass was sent by the government, in 1824 or 1830, as commissioner to treat with the Win-ne-ba-goes, Sacs and Foxes, O-gib-e-was and Kick-a-poos, to be assembled on the banks of the Mississippi, at the old French trading . post, Prairie du Chien. It took many weeks to assemble them from their distant hunting-grounds, and the governor was obliged to be patient, and wait the slow movements of the Indians, who were loth to come into the council. He put in the time as best he could by talking to the leading chiefs already assem- bled, and urging his purpose in many long private conferences. One morning, as the governor was seated upon a log on the bank of the Mississippi, the great head chief of the Win-ne-ba-goes, Waw-be-see (White Crane), seated himself by the side of the governor, and became an attentive listener to all the com- missioner had to say ; soon, however, other chiefs and braves came and be- gan to take seats on the log (always on the left side of the great chief), and soon filled that end of the log, so that the chief requested Cass to move along, as more of his braves wished to sit down. After several moves, the general reached the end, and could move no farther without falling off, and after noti- fying White Crane of the fact, the Indian rose, and taking a position, but a few feet in front of the general, said :


"My brother is a great chief; he speaks the truth and my young men have heard it and they will not forget it." Then raising his right hand and pointing towards the rising sun said: "My brother, so many snows have fallen, and it is so long ago that none can remember it, that my people looked over the great salt lake toward the sunrise and saw a great canoe with white wings coming to


32


HISTORY OF HENRY AND FULTON COUNTIES.


the land. My people welcomed the strangers, for they were the people of the sun, with pale faces; we gave them food and shelter and gave them land ; we looked again and more canoes with white wings were coming; we gave their people food and we gave them land to plant their corn and we moved away to give them room. Many more came, more than we could count, and we moved away many times, so far that we could not see the salt lake, to where all the water was without salt ; the children of the sun were so many that we gave them all the land around the shores and beyond the great lakes that have no salt, and we moved to the banks of the 'great river,' the 'father of waters,' and now you ask us again to move further; we are at the end of the log, and if we move again we shall fall off, fall into the great river, for our canoes will not cross the muddy water. Go, and tell the 'Great Father' what we say. I have done."


Thus closed the conference, and the commissioner, knowing that it was use- less to prolong his stay, soon left the treaty ground.


These incidents are related that the reader may be able to judge more cor- rectly the Indian character and his ability to cope with the wisest of our states- men. As a rule, when treaties were successfully made, there was more or less deception practiced to accomplish the objects in view, and it is no credit to so noble and generous a government as that of the United States to have, unfor- tunately perhaps, appointed among its agents selected to transact the business of the government, with these untutored and confiding savages, men who were, to say the least, not just.


CHAPTER IV.


HISTORY OF THE SOIL AND JURISDICTION.


Province of Louisiana - French Claim -- British Claim - Cession of France to England -- Cession by England to the Colonies - Cesssion by the States to the United States - Extin- guishment of Indian Titles - Organization as to Territory -- Admission as a State -- Organiza- tion of Counties - Township Organization.


H ENRY county was originally embraced in that vast region of territory claimed, by virtue of discovery and conquest, by France, lying between the Allegheny and the Rocky Mountains, known by the general name of Loui- siana. While the king of France had dominion in North America, the whole of the United States northwest of the Ohio River was included in this province, the north boundary of which, by the treaty of Utrecht, concluded between England and France in 1713, was fixed at the 49th parallel of latitude north of the equator.


33


GENERAL HISTORY.


After the conquest of the French possessions of North America by Great Britain this territory was c'eded by the former country to the latter, by the treaty of Paris, in 1763, and the dispute of dominion ceased.


Dominion beyond the Alleghenies had always been claimed by England. The principal ground for the claim was, that the Six Nations owned the Ohio Valley and had placed it, with their other lands, under the protection of Eng- land. Some of the western lands were also claimed by the British as having been actually purchased at Lancaster, Pa., in 1744, at a treaty between the colonists and the Six Nations.


The European powers based their claim to American territory upon the discoveries made by their subjects, and thus the title to "Louisiana " became a subject of contention between France and England. In 1609 the English crown granted to the London Company all the territory extending along the coast for two hundred miles north and south from Point Comfort and "up into the land, throughout, from sea to sea, west and northwest." Charles II., in 1662, granted to certain settlers upon the Connecticut, all the territory be- tween the parallels of latitude which include the present State of Connecticut, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. During the Revolution Massachusetts claimed an interest in these western lands, founded upon a similar charter granted thirty years afterwards.


In 1774 the parliament of Great Britain passed an act by which the whole of the northwestern territory was annexed to and made part of the Province of Quebec, as created and established by the royal proclamation of October 7. 1763.


The colonies, having, in 1776, renounced allegiance to the British throne, assumed rank as free, independent, and sovereign States, and each State claimed the right of soil and jurisdiction over the district of country embraced within its charter.


The claim of England to this northwestern territory was ceded to the United States by the treaty of peace signed at Paris, September 3, 1783. The provisional articles which formed the basis of that treaty, more especially as related to the boundary, were signed at the same place on the 30th of Novem- ber, 1782. Pending negotiation relative to these preliminary articles, the Brit- ish commissioner, Mr. Oswald, proposed the Ohio River as the western bound- ary of the United States, and but for the indomitable perseverance of John Adams, one of the American commissioners, who insisted upon the Mississippi as the boundary, the probability is that the proposition of Mr. Oswald would have been acceded to by the United States commissioners.


The charters of several of the States embraced large portions of unappro- priated western lands. Those States which had no such charters insisted that these lands ought to be appropriated for the common benefit of all the States. Congress repeatedly urged upon the charter States to make liberal cessions of those lands for the common benefit of all. 5


34


HISTORY OF HENRY AND FULTON COUNTIES.


Answering these appeals, the State of Virginia, in March, 1784, ceded the right of soil and jurisdiction to the district of country embraced in her charter, situated to the northwest of the Ohio River. In September, 1786, the State of Connecticut also ceded her claim of soil and jurisdiction to the district of country within the limits of her charter, " situated west of a line beginning at the completion of the forty-first point degree of north lattitude, one hundred and twenty miles west of the western boundary of Pennsylvania, and from thence by a line drawn north parallel to and one hundred and twenty miles west of said line of Pennsylvania, and to continue north until it came to forty- two degrees and two minutes north latitude." Connecticut, also, on the 30th of May, 1801, ceded her jurisdiction claims to all territory called the " Western Reserve of Connecticut." The States of New York and Massachusetts also ceded all their claims.


But these were not the only claims which required adjustment before the commencement of settlements within the limits of Ohio. Numerous tribes of Indians asserted their respective claims, and these had to be extinguished. A treaty for this purpose was made at Fort Stanwix, October 27, 1784, with the sachems and warriors of the Mohawks, Onondagas, Senecas, Cayugas, Oneidas, and Tuscaroras, by the third article of which treaty the Six Nations ceded to the United States all claims to the country west of a certain line extending along the west boundary of Pennsylvania, from the mouth of the Oyounayea to the river Ohio.


A treaty was also concluded at Fort McIntosh, January 21, 1785, with the Wyandot, Delaware, Chippewa, and Ottawa nations. By this treaty the bound- ary line between the United States and the two former nations was declared to begin "at the mouth of the river Cayahoga, and to extend up said river to the Portage between that and the Tuscaroras branch of the Muskingum, thence down that branch to the crossing place above Fort Laurens, thence westerly to the Portage of the Big Miami, which runs into the Ohio, at the mouth of which branch the fort stood which was taken by the French in 1752, thence along said Portage to the Great Miami, or Omee River, and down the south side of the same to its mouth, then along the south shore of Lake Erie to the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, where it began." The lands within the de- scribed limits were allotted to the Wyandots and Delawares " to live and hunt on, and to such of the Ottawa nation as lived thereon, saving and reserv- ing for the establishment of trading posts, six miles square (one township) at the mouth of the Miami, or Omee, (Maumee) river," and the same at the Por- tage, on "the branch of the Big Miami which runs into the Ohio, and also the same on the Lake of Sandusky, where the fort formerly stood, and also two miles square on each side of the Lower Rapids of Sandusky River."


In 1789, January 9, another treaty was made at Fort Harmer, between Governor St. Clair and the sachems and warriors of the Wyandot, Chippewa,


35


GENERAL HISTORY.


Potawatomie, and Sac nations, in which the treaty of Fort McIntosh was re- newed and confirmed.


The claim of soil and jurisdiction by France, England, the colonies and the Indians to the territory within the limits of Ohio having been extinguished and the title vested in the United States, legislative action by Congress became necessary before actual settlements could be commenced, as in the treaties with the Indians, and by the acts of Congress, all citizens of the United States were prohibited settling on the lands of the Indians as well as on those of the United States.


Ordinances were accordingly adopted by Congress for the government of the northwestern territory, and for sale of portions of the lands to which the Indian title had been extinguished. In May, 1785, Congress passed an ordi- nance for ascertaining the mode of disposing of these lands. Under that ordi- nance the first seven ranges, bounded on the east by Pennsylvania and on the south by the Ohio 'River, were surveyed. Sales of parts of these were made at New York in 1787, parts at Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in 1796, and some were located under military land warrants. No further sales were made until July 1, 1801, when a land office was opened at Steubenville. 309635


In 1788 Congress appointed General St. Clair governor ; Winthrop Sar- geant, secretary, and Samuel Holden Parsons, James Mitchell Varnum, and John Cleves Symmes, judges over the territory. The county of Washington, its limits extending westward to the Scioto and northward to Lake Erie, and embracing about half the territory within the present limits of Ohio, was estab- lished by proclamation of the governor. In 1790, Hamilton county was erected including the country between the Miamies, " extending northward from the Ohio River to a line drawn due east from the standing stone forks of the Great Miami." Wayne county was established in 1796, including all the northwestern part of Ohio, a large tract in the northeastern part of Indiana and the whole territory of Michigan, so that the territory of Henry county was as a county organization first under the jurisdiction of Wayne county. Wooster is the cap- ital of the county retaining the name of Wayne in Ohio.


In 1789 the first Congress under the constitution passed an act recognizing the binding force of the ordinance of 1787, and adapting its provisions to the federal constitution. The northwest territory, before the end of the year 1798, contained a population of five thousand free male inhabitants, of full age, and had eight organized counties, entitling the citizens under the ordinance of 1787, to a change in their form of government, and a territorial government, the first legislature of which met on the 24th of September, 1799. On the 30th of April, 1802, Congress passed an act authorizing the call of a conven- tion to form a constitution. The constitution of that year was adopted at Chillicothe on the 29th of November of that year. It became the fundamental law by the act of the convention alone and Ohio became one of the United,


36


HISTORY OF HENRY AND FULTON COUNTIES.


States, and county organization, soil and jurisdiction were subsequently con- trolled by our own legislature and State officials.


On the 7th of May, 1800, the northwest territory was divided into two governments, that part lying west of a line beginning opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River, in Kentucky, and running north to the Canada line, was called Indiana, and formed, and still is, the western line of Ohio.


After the admission of Ohio into the Union, the remainder of the territory, was, by act of Congress, January 11, 1805, formed into the county of Michi- gan, and is now the State of Michigan, being admitted January 22, 1837, and forms the northern boundary of northwestern Ohio.


After Ohio assumed the sovereignty of a State, county organizations be- came rapid, and boundaries were clearly defined. By act of the Legislature, passed February 12, 1820, " all that part of the lands lately ceded by the In- dians to the United States, which lies within this State"-being northwestern Ohio-was erected into fourteen counties, Henry being of the number. By this act the boundaries of the county were defined "to include all of ranges five, six, seven and eight, north of the second township north, in said ranges," [the north line of Putnam county, (which was formed at the same time) and the south line of Henry], and to run north with the same to the State [Michigan] line.


By the erection of Defiance county, March 4, 1845, townships three, four and five of the fifth range, being Adams, Richland and Powell's Creek-now Highland-were taken from Henry, and made a part of Defiance, which with Williams county, forms the western boundary of Henry. June 30, 1835, Lu- cas county was formed, to which most of the territory now composing Fulton county, and at that time belonging to Henry, was allotted, but by the erec- tion of Fulton, February 28, 1850, this territory was given to that county, and the line between the two counties, Henry and Fulton, established on the south line of section twelve, in township six, north of range eight east, and which is now the northern boundary of Henry county. The eastern boundary has never been disturbed.


The county is now divided into thirteen townships as follows :


Ridgeville


Township No. 6, N.


Range No. 5, E.


Freedom


66


6, “


66


6, "


Napoleon.


6.


5, ‘‘


66


6, "


Flatrock


6, '. Pleasant.


66 6, "


Liberty


66


66 6,


66


5,


60 66 7, 7, Monroe 4, Marion.


Washington


6, €


66


66


8, “


Damascus


5,


66


66


8, “


Richfield


66


4, "


66


3, "


66


66 8, ‹‹


66


4, "


66


66


3, ‘‘


..


7. "


Harrison


66


..


3, "


7, '


8, “ Bartlow.


Napoleon, in Napoleon township, is the county seat.


37


GENERAL HISTORY.


CHAPTER V.


HISTORY OF THE ADVENTURES, INVASION, IMMIGRATION AND SETTLEMENT BY THE WHITES.


T THE first footprints of white men in the sands of the Maumee were unques-


tionably made by the French Jesuits in the seventeenth century. These zealous and devoted people came to the red man, unlike the Spaniard with sword and brand to civilize by death, torture and depopulation, but with the Word of God in their hands, preaching peace and good will to all men, and endeavoring to civilize and Christianize by education, kindness, mercy and the teachings and virtues of the highest Christian civilization.


Whatever the motive of the European in his visit to the American Indian, whether trade, agriculture, or missionary labor, prudence, even of those who sought only temporary residence, suggested the necessity of adopting some means of safety, of retreat and protection, and to guard against surprise, treachery and attack. As early as 1679 the Count de Frontenac, then gover- nor of Canada, urged upon the French monarch the importance of erecting forts and trading posts in the western country along the chain of the great lakes. Frontenac, a man of great energy and spirit, though unaided by the profligate Louis, sent out a number of trading parties, authorizing them to erect stores and posts and to take possession of all territory visited, in the name of the government of France.


The first effort to form a settlement in the territory now constituting the jurisdiction of Ohio, was undertaken by the French in the Maumee Valley, in the year 1680. On the authority of the late A. T. Goodman, secretary of the Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society, and founded on data obtained from French records at Montreal and Quebec, and papers at Albany and Harrisburg, "One of these parties found their way to the Miami or Mau- mee River, and, in 1680, built a small stockade just below the site of Maumee City. This was an important trading point for several years, and in 1694 was under the command of Sieur Courthemanche, but was finally abandoned for a more eligible location at the head of the Maumee River. near where the city of Fort Wayne now stands. On the very spot where the fort of Maumee stood, the British, in 1794, erected Fort Miami." This shows the occupation of the Maumee to antedate that sought to be established at Detroit, the first effort at settlement being made by the French at the latter place in 1683.


In 1695 Captain Nicholas Perrot built a trading station "at the west end of Lake Erie," the exact location of which cannot now be ascertained. After remaining there for two years the Miamis plundered the place, made prisoner of Perrot and were about "roasting him alive" when he was rescued by the Outagamis.


38


HISTORY OF HENRY AND FULTON COUNTIES.


In 1690 war was declared between England and France, and for a century after a bitter and malignant feeling existed between the subjects of these nations, and especially so among those residing and claiming possessions in America, and competing for the lucrative trade with the Indians. In that year we find the governor of Canada in a letter to his king expressing " great desire for the maintenance of French posts in the west." A bloody war occurred in 1695 between the Iroquois and the Miamis, in which the latter suffered severely as did also the French traders in the Ohio and Illinois country, and the governor of Canada complained that the Iroquois "roasted all the French prisoners " who fell into their hands.


It is probable that English traders began establishing themselves perma- nently in the west in 1698-99, as early in the year 1700 M. de Longueil, at a council held with various Indian tribes at Detroit, urged them to make war on the English, saying : "It is to the White River and the Beautiful (Ohio) River that I expect you will immediately march in quest of him, and when you de- stroy him you will seize and divide all his goods among you.


If the English escape you on the Beautiful River you will find them a little further off with his brother, the Flat Head." During this same year the Iro- quois made a treaty with the French, by which their missionaries and traders were allowed in all parts of the west, and about the same time a party of fac- tors from Detroit built a small post on the Maumee, where Toledo now stands.


The English, in 1703, invited the Hurons and Miamis to locate near the Senecas, on Lake Erie, but the proposition was rejected. During the year 1705 Sieur de Joncaire visited the Seneca Indians, and Sieur de Vincennes the Miamis, on business of the governor of Canada, and found English traders among them. The mission of these Frenchmen seems to have failed, for in 1707 M. de Cadillac, commandant at Detroit, marched with a small force against the Miamis, and soon forced them to terms. In 1714 Captain de La Forest pointed out to the French government the importance of maintaining Detroit and keeping possession of Lake Erie and its environs. The French had more foresight than the English, and spent large sums of money in ex- tending their possessions, and having obtained control of the Indians, the En- glish, in 1716, sent agents among them with speeches and presents, but were unsuccessful in forming an alliance. Gain seems to have been the great ob- ject of these traders, and in a letter addressed about this time to the governor of Canada by M. de Ramezay and M. Begon, they urge the French govern- ment to build a post at Niagara, on the ground that it " would deter the Mis- sisague and Amicone Indians from going to the Iroquois to trade when passing from the neighborhood of Lake Erie."


In 1736 the French claimed to have 16,403 warriors, and 82,000 souls under their control in the west, and in 1739 the commandant at Detroit crossed the Ohio country, and discovered Bigbone Lick, in Kentucky. He


39


GENERAL HISTORY.


constructed a road from Detroit to the Ohio River, which crossed the Miami at the foot of the rapids, and was thereafter used by the Canadians.


By the treaty at Lancaster, Pa., in 1744, the Six Nations "recognized the king's right to all lands beyond the mountains," and the English, encouraged by this, formed several settlements and magazines along the Ohio, but were driven off by Detroit Indians.


[It is not the province of this work, and it would much exceed our space to give an account of all the French, English and Indian troubles, outrages and murders which occurred in the western territory during the first half of the eighteenth century, and we refer the reader who may be interested in it to Knapp's History of the Maumee Valley, while we hasten to history more im- mediately connected with the territory of which we write.]


In 1748 the " Ohio Company " was formed for the purpose of securing the Indian trade, and it appears that in 1749 the English built a trading house on the Great Miami, at a spot called "Loramie's Store." In 1751 Christopher Gist, as agent of the "Ohio Company," was appointed to examine the western lands, and made a visit to the Twigtwees, who then lived upon the Miami River, about one hundred miles from its mouth. In 1752 the French, having heard of this trading house, sent a party of troops to this Indian tribe and de- manded the surrender of these traders as intruders on French soil, which demand was refused. The French, assisted by the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, attacked the block trading house, and after a battle, in which fourteen of the natives were killed and others wounded, took and destroyed the build- ings, capturing the traders and carrying them to Canada. The name of this fort, or trading house, was Pickawillany, and was the first British settlement of which a record can be obtained.




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