History of Knox County, Ohio, its past and present, Part 3

Author: Hill, N. N. (Norman Newell), comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A.A. & Co., Mt. Vernon, Ohio
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Mt. Vernon, Ohio : A. A. Graham & Co.
Number of Pages: 1096

USA > Ohio > Knox County > History of Knox County, Ohio, its past and present > Part 3

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" These red Indians had no traditions of a prior people; but over a large part of the lake country and the valley of the Mississippi, earth-works, mounds, pyramids, ditches and forts were discov- ered-the work of a more ancient race, and a peo- ple far in advance of the Indian. If they were not civilized, they were not barbarians. They were not mere hunters, but had fixed habitations, cultivated the soil and were possessed of consider- able mechanical skill. We know them as the Mound-Builders, because they erected over the mortal remains of their principal men and women memorial mounds of earth or unhewn stone-of which hundreds remain to our own day, so large and high that they give rise to an impression of the numbers and energy of their builders, such as we receive from the pyramids of Egypt."

Might they not have been of the same race and the same civilization ? Many competent authori- ties conjecture they are the work of the lost tribes of Israel; but the best they or any one can do is only conjecture.

" In the burial-mounds," continues Col. Whit- tlesey, " there are always portions of one or more human skeletons, generally partly consumed by fire, with ornaments of stone, bone, shells, mica and copper. The largest mound in Ohio is near Miamisburg, Montgomery County. It is the second largest in the West, being nearly seventy feet high, originally, and about eight hundred feet in circumference. This would give a superficial area of nearly four acres. In 1864, the citizens of Miamisburg sunk a shaft from the summit to the natural surface, without finding the bones

HISTORY OF OHIO.

or ashes of the great man for whom it was intended. The exploration has considerably lowered the mound, it being now about sixty feet in height.

" Fort Ancient, on the Little Miami, is a good specimen of the military defenses of the Mound- Builders. It is well located on a long, high, nar- row, precipitous ridge. The parapets are now from ten to eighteen feet high, and its perimeter is sufficient to hold twenty thousand fighting men. Another prominent example of their works exists near Newark, Licking County. This collection presents a great variety of figures, circles, rectan- gles, octagons and parallel banks, or highways, covering more than a thousand acres. The county fair-ground is permanently located within an ancient circle, a quarter of a mile in diameter, with an embankment and interior ditch. It: high- est place was over twenty feet from the top of the moat to the bottom of the ditch."

One of the most curious-shaped works in this county is known as the " Alligator," from its sup- posed resemblance to that creature. When meas- ured, several years ago, while in a good state of preservation, its dimensions were two hundred and ten feet in length, average width over sixty feet, and height, at the highest point, seven feet. It appears to be mainly composed of clay, and is overgrown with grass.

Speaking of the writing of these people, Col. Whittlesey says : "There is no evidence that they had alphabetical characters, picture-writing or hieroglyphics, though they must have had some mode of recording events. Neither is there any proof that they used domestic animals for tilling the soil, or for the purpose of erecting the imposing earth- works they have left. A very coarse cloth of hemp, flax or nettles has been found on their burial-hearths and around skeletons not consumed by fire.

"The most extensive earthworks occupy many of the sites of modern towns, and are always in the vicinity of excellent land. Those about the lakes are generally irregular earth forts, while those about the rivers in the southern part of the State are generally altars, pyramids, circles, cones and rectangles of earth, among which fortresses or strongholds are exceptions.

"Those on the north may not have been cotem- porary or have been built by the same people. They are far less prominent or extensive, which indicates a people less in numbers as well as indus- try, and whose principal occupation was war among

themselves or against their neighbors.' This style of works extends eastward along the south shore of Lake Ontario, through New York. In Ohio, there is a space along the water-shed, between the lake and the Ohio, where there are few, if any, ancient earthworks. It appears to have been a vacant or neutral ground between different nations.

" The Indians of the North, dressed in skins, cultivated the soil very sparingly, and manufactured no woven cloth. On Lake Superior, there are ancient copper mines wrought by the Mound- Builders over fifteen hundred years ago." Copper tools are occasionally found tempered sufficiently hard to cut the hardest rocks. No knowledge of such tempering exists now. The Indians can give no more knowledge of the ancient mines than they can of the mounds on the river bottoms.

" The Indians did not occupy the ancient earth- works, nor did they construct such. They were found as they are now-a hunter race, wholly averse to labor. Their abodes were in rock shel- ters, in caves, or in temporary sheds of bark and boughs, or skins, easily moved from place to place. Like most savage races, their habits are unchange- able; at least, the example of white men, and their efforts during three centuries, have made little, if any, impression."

When white men came to the territory now em- braced in the State of Ohio, they found dwelling here the Iroquois, Delawares, Shawanees, Miamis, Wyandots and Ottawas. Each nation was com- posed of several tribes or clans, and each was often at war with the others. The first mentioned of these occupied that part of the State whose northern boundary was Lake Erie, as far west as the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, where the city of Cleveland now is; thence the boundary turned southward in an irregular line, until it touched the Ohio River, up which stream it continued to the Pennsylvania State line, and thence northward to the lake. This nation were the implacable foes of the French, owing to the fact that Champlain, in 1609, made war against them. They occupied a large part of New York and Pennsylvania, and were the most insatiate conquerors among the aborigines. When the French first came to the lakes, these monsters of the wilderness were engaged in a war against their neighbors, a war that ended in their conquering them, possessing their terri- tory, and absorbing the remnants of the tribes into their own nation. At the date of Champlain's visit, the southern shore of Lake Erie was occupied by the Eries, or, as the orthography of the word is

HISTORY OF OHIO.

sometimes given, Erigos, or Errienous .* About forty years afterward, the Iroquois (Five Nations) fell upon them with such fury and in such force that the nation was annihilated. Those who escaped the slaughter were absorbed among their conquerors, but allowed to live on their own lands, paying a sort of tribute to the Iroquois. This was the policy of that nation in all its conquests. A few years after the conquest of the Eries, the Iroquois again took to the war-path, and swept through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, even attacking the Mississippi tribes. But for the intervention and aid of the French, these tribes would have shared the fate of the Hurons and Eries. Until the year 1700, the Iroquois held the south shore of Lake Erie so firmly that the French dared not trade or travel along that side of the lake. Their missionaries and traders penetrated this part of Ohio as early as 1650, but generally suffered death for their zeal.

Having completed the conquest of the Hurons or Wyandots, about Lake Huron, and murdered the Jesuit missionaries by modes of torture which only they could devise, they permitted the residue of the Hurons to settle around the west end of Lake Erie. Here, with the Ottawas, they resided when the whites came to the State. Their country was bounded on the south by a line running through the central part of Wayne, Ashland, Richland, Crawford and Wyandot Counties. At the western boundary of this county, the line di- verged northwesterly, leaving the State near the northwest corner of Fulton County. Their north- ern boundary was the lake; the eastern, the Iro- quois.

The Delawares, or " Lenni Lenapes," whom the Iroquois had subjugated on the Susquehanna, were assigned by their conquerors hunting-grounds on the Muskingum. Their eastern boundary was the country of the Iroquois (before defined), and their northern, that of the Hurons. On the west, they

* Father Louis Hennepin, in his work published in 1684, thus alludes to the Eries: "These good fathers," referring to the priests, " were great friends of the Hurons, who told them that the Iroquois went to war beyond Virginia, or New Sweden, near a lake which they called 'Erige,' or 'Erie,' which signifies 'the cat,' or 'nation of the cat,' and because these savages brought captives from this nation in returning to their cantons along this lake, the Hurons named it, in their language, 'Erige,' or 'Erike,' 'the lake of the cat,' and which our Canadians, in softening the word, have called ' Lake Erie.' "

Charlevoix, writing in 1721, says: "The name it bears is that of an Indian nation of the Huron (Wyandot) language, whichi was formerly seated on its hanks, and who have been entirely destroyed by the Iroquois. Erie, in that language, signifies 'cat,' and, in some acounts, this nation is called the 'cat nation.' This name, probably, comes from the large numbers of that animal found in this region."

extended as far as a line drawn from the central part of Richland County, in a semi-circular direc- tion, south to the mouth of Leading Creek. Their southern boundary was the Ohio River.

West of the Delawares, dwelt the Shawanees. a troublesome people as neighbors, whether to white's or Indians. Their country was bounded on the north by the Hurons, on the east, by the Dela- wares ; on the south, by the Ohio River. On the west, their boundary was determined by a line drawn southwesterly, and again southeasterly- semi-circular-from a point on the southern boundary of the Hurons, near the southwest corner of Wyandot County, till it intersected the Ohio River.

All the remainder of the State-all its western part from the Ohio River to the Michigan line- was occupied by the Miamis, Mineamis, Twigtwees, or Tawixtawes, a powerful nation, whom the Iro- quois were never fully able to subdue.

These nations occupied the State, partly by per- mit of the Five Nations, and partly by inheritance, and, though composed of many tribes, were about all the savages to be found in this part of the Northwest.

No sooner had the Americans obtained control of this country, than they began, by treaty and purchase, to acquire the lands of the natives. They could not stem the tide of emigration ; peo- ple, then as now, would go West, and hence the necessity of peacefully and rightfully acquiring the land. "The true basis of title to Indian territory is the right of civilized men to the soil for pur- poses of cultivation." The same maxim may be applied to all uncivilized nations. When acquired by such a right, either by treaty, purchase or con- quest, the right to hold the same rests with the power and development of the nation thus possess- ing the land.

The English derived title to the territory between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi partly by the claim that, in discovering the Atlantic coast, they had possession of the land from "ocean to ocean," and partly by the treaty of Paris, in Feb- ruary, 1763. Long before this treaty took place, however, she had granted, to individuals and colo- nies, extensive tracts of land in that part of Amer- ica, based on the right of discovery. The French had done better, and had acquired title to the land by discovering the land itself and by consent of the Indians dwelling thereon. The right to pos- sess this country led to the French and Indian war, ending in the supremacy of the English.

HISTORY OF OHIO.

The Five Nations claimed the territory in ques- tion by right of conquest, and, though professing friendship to the English, watched them with jeal- ous eyes. In 1684, and again in 1726, that con- federaey made cessions of lands to the English, and these treaties and cessions of lands were re- garded as sufficient title by the English, and were insisted on in all subsequent treaties with the Western Nations. The following statements were collected by Col. Charles Whittlesey, which show the principal treaties made with the red men wherein land in Ohio was ceded by them to the whites :

In September, 1726, the Iroquois, or Six Na- tions, at Albany, ceded all their claims west of Lake Erie and sixty miles in width along the south shore of Lakes Erie and Ontario, from the Cuyahoga to the Oswego River.

In 1744, this same nation made a treaty at Lancaster, Penn., and ceded to the English all their lands "that may be within the colony of Virginia."

In 1752, this nation and other Western tribes made a treaty at Logstown, Penn., wherein they confirmed the Lancaster treaty and consented to the settlements south of the Ohio River.

February 13, 1763, a treaty was made at Paris, France, between the French and English, when Canada and the eastern half of the Mississippi Valley were ceded to the English.

In 1783, all the territory south of the Lakes, and east of the Mississippi, was ceded by England to America-the latter country then obtaining its independence-by which means the country was gained by America.

October 24, 1784, the Six Nations made a treaty, at Fort Stanwix, N. Y., with the Ameri- cans, and ceded to them all the country claimed by the tribe, west of Pennsylvania.

In 1785, the Chippewas, Delawares, Ottawas, and Wyandots ceded to the United States, at Fort MeIntosh, at the mouth of the Big Beaver, all their claims cast and south of the "Cayahaga," the Portage Path, and the Tuscarawas, to Fort Laurens (Bolivar), thence to Loramie's Fort (in Shelby County); thence along the Portage Path to the St. Mary's River and down it to the "Omee," or Maumee, and along the lake shore to the " Cayahaga."

January 3, 1786, the Shawanees, at Fort Fin- ney, near the mouth of the Great Miami (not owning the land on the Scioto occupied by them), were allotted a tract at the heads of the two

Miamis and the Wabash, west of the Chippewas, Delawares and Wyandots.

February 9, 1789, the Iroquois made a treaty at Fort Harmar, wherein they confirmed the Fort Stanwix treaty. At the same time, the Chippewas, Ottawas, Delawares, and Wyandots-to which the Sauks and Pottawatomies assented-confirmed the treaty made at Fort McIntosh.

Period of war now existed till 1795.

August 3, 1795, Gen. Anthony Wayne, on behalf of the United States, made a treaty with twelve tribes, confirming the boundaries estab- lished by the Fort Harmar and Fort McIntosh treaties, and extended the boundary to Fort Re- covery and the mouth of the Kentucky River.

In June, 1796, the Senecas, represented by Brant, ceded to the Connecticut Land Company their rights east of the Cuyahoga.

In 1805, at Fort Industry, on the Maumee, the Wyandots, Delawares, Ottawas, Chippewas, Shawa- nees, Menses, and Pottawatomies relinquished all their lands west of the Cuyahoga, as far west as the western line of the Reserve, and south of the line from Fort Laurens to Loramie's Fort.

July 4, 1807, the Ottawas, Chippewas, Wyan- dots, and Pottawatomies, at Detroit, ceded all that part of Ohio north of the Maumee River, with part of Michigan.

November 25, 1808, the same tribes with the Shawanees, at Brownstown, Mich., granted the Government a tract of land two miles wide, from the west line of the Reserve to the rapids of the Maumee, for the purpose of a road through the Black Swamp.

September 18, 1815, at Springwells, near De- troit, the Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawatomies, Wy- andots, Delawares, Senecas and Miamis, having been engaged in the war of 1812 on the British side, were confined in the grants made at Fort McIntosh and Greenville in 1785 and 1795.

September 29, 1817, at the rapids of the Maumee, the Wyandots ceded their lands west of the line of 1805, as far as Loramie's and the St. Mary's River and north of the Maumee. The Pottawatomies, Chippewas, and Ottawas ceded the territory west of the Detroit line of 1807, and north of the Maumee.

October 6, 1818, the Miamis, at St. Mary's, made a treaty in which they surrendered the re- maining Indian territory in Ohio, north of the Greenville treaty line and west of St. Mary's River.

The numerous treaties of peace with the West- ern Indians for the delivery of prisoners were-

HISTORY OF OHIO.

one by Gen. Forbes, at Fort Du Quesne (Pitts- burgh), in 1758; one by Col. Bradstreet, at Erie, in August, 1764; one by Col. Boquet, at the mouth of the Walhonding, in November, 1764; in May, 1765, at Johnson's, on the Mohawk, and at Philadelphia, the same year ; in 1774, by Lord Dunmore, at Camp Charlotte, Pickaway County. By the treaty at the Maumee Rapids, in 1817, reservations were conveyed by the United States to all the tribes, with a view to induce them to cultivate the soil and cease to be hunters. These were, from time to time, as the impracticability of the plan became manifest, purchased by the Gov- ernment, the last of these being the Wyandot Reserve, of twelve miles square, around Upper Sandusky, in 1842, closing out all claims and com- posing all the Indian difficulties in Ohio. The open war had ceased in 1815, with the treaty of Ghent.

" It is estimated that, from the French war of 1754 to the battle of the Maumee Rapids, in 1794, a period of forty years, there had been at least 5,000 people killed or captured west of the

Alleghany Mountains. Eleven organized military expeditions had been carried on against the West- ern Indians prior to the war of 1812, seven regu- lar engagements fought and about twelve hundred men killed. More whites were slain in battle than there were Indian braves killed in military expedi- tions, and by private raids and murders; yet, in 1811, all the Ohio tribes combined could not mus- ter 2,000 warriors."

Attempts to determine the number of persons comprising the Indian tribes in Ohio, and their location, have resulted in nothing better than estimates. It is supposed that, at the commence- ment of the Revolution, there were about six thousand Indians in the present confines of the State, but their villages were little more than movable camps. Savage men, like savage beasts, are engaged in continual migrations. Now, none are left. The white man occupies the home of the red man. Now

" The verdant hills

Are covered o'er with growing grain, And white men till the soil, Where once the red man used to reign."

CHAPTER II.

EARLY EXPLORATIONS IN THE WEST.

W HEN war, when ambition, when avarice fail, religion pushes onward and succeeds. In the discovery of the New World, wherever man's aggrandizement was the paramount aim, failure was sure to follow. When this gave way, the followers of the Cross, whether Catholic or Protestant, came on the field, and the result before attempted soon appeared, though in a different way and through different means than those supposed.

The first permanent efforts of the white race to penetrate the Western wilds of the New World preceded any permanent English settlement north of the Potomac. Years before the Pilgrims anchored their bark on the cheerless shores of Cape Cod, "the Roman Catholic Church had been plant- ed by missionaries from France in the Eastern moiety of Maine; and Le Caron, an ambitious Franciscan, the companion of Champlain, had passed into the hunting-grounds of the Wyandots, and, bound by the vows of his life, had, on foot or pad- dling a bark canoe, gone onward, taking alms of the savages until he reached the rivers of Lake

Huron." This was in 1615 or 1616, and only eight years after Champlain had sailed up the wa- ters of the St. Lawrence, and on the foot of a bold cliff laid the foundation of the present City of Quebec. From this place, founded to hold the country, and to perpetuate the religion of his King, went forth those emissaries of the Cross, whose zeal has been the admiration of the world. The French Colony in Canada was suppressed soon after its es- tablishment, and for five years, until 1622, its im- munities were enjoyed by the colonists. A grant of New France, as the country was then known, was made by Louis XIII to Richelieu, Champlain, Razilly and others, who, immediately after the res- toration of Quebec by its English conquerors, entered upon the control and government of their province. Its limits embraced the whole basin of the St. Lawrence and of such other rivers in New France as flowed directly into the sea. While away to the south on the Gulf coast, was also included a country rich in foliage and claimed in virtue of the unsuccessful efforts of Coligny.

HISTORY OF OHIO.

Religious zeal as much as commercial prosperity had influenced France to obtain and retain the de- pendency of Canada. The commercial monopoly of a privileged company could not foster a colony; the climate was too vigorous for agricult- ure, and, at first there was little else except relig- ious enthusiasm to give vitality to the province. Champlain had been touched by the simplicity of the Order of St. Francis, and had selected its priests to aid him in his work. But another order, more in favor at the Court, was interested, and succeed- ed in excluding the mendicant order from the New World, established themselves in the new domain and, by thus enlarging the borders of the French King, it became entrusted to the Jesuits.

This "Society of Jesus," founded by Lovola when Calvin's Institutes first saw the light, saw an unequaled opportunity in the conversion of the heathen in the Western wilds; and, as its mem- bers, pledged to obtain power only by influence of mind over mind, sought the honors of opening the way, there was no lack of men ready for the work. Through them, the motive power in opening the wilds of the Northwest was religion. "Religious enthusiasm," says Bancroft, "colonized New Eng- land, and religious enthusiasm founded Montreal, made a conquest of the wilderness about the upper lakes, and explored the Mississippi."

Through these priests-increased in a few years to fifteen -a way was made across the West from Quebec, above the regions of the lakes. below which they dared not go for the relentless Mohawks. To the northwest of Toronto, near the Lake Iro- quois, a bay of Lake Huron, in September, 1634, they raised the first humble house of the Society of Jesus among the Hurons. Through them they learned of the great lakes beyond, and resolved one day to explore them and carry the Gospel of peace to the heathen on their shores. Before this could be done, many of them were called upon to give up their lives at the martyr's stake and re- ceive a martyr's crown. But one by one they went on in their good work. If one fell by hun- ger, cold, cruelty, or a terrible death, others stood ready, and carrying their lives in their hands, established other missions about the eastern shores of Lake Huron and its adjacent waters. The Five Nations were for many years hostile toward the French and murdered them and their red allies whenever opportunity presented. For a quarter of century, they retarded the advance of the missionaries, and then only after wearied with a long struggle, in which they began to see their

power declining, did they relinquish their warlike propensities, and allow the Jesuits entrance to their country. While this was going on, the traders and Jesuits had penetrated farther and farther westward, until, when peace was declared, they had seen the southwestern shores of Lake Superior and the northern shores of Lake Michigan, called by them Lake Illinois .* In August, 1654, two young adventurers penetrated the wilds bordering on these western lakes in company with a band of Ottawas. Returning, they tell of the wonderful country they have seen, of its vast forests, its abundance of game, its mines of copper, and ex- cite in their comrades a desire to see and explore such a country. They tell of a vast expanse of land before them, of the powerful Indian tribes dwelling there, and of their anxiety to become an- nexed to the Frenchman, of whom they have heard. The request is at once granted. Two missionaries, Gabriel Dreuillettes and Leonard Gareau, were selected as envoys, but on their way the fleet, propelled by tawny rowers, is met by a wandering band of Mohawks and by them is dis- persed. Not daunted, others stood ready to go. The lot fell to Rene Mesnard. He is charged to visit the wilderness, select a suitable place for a dwelling, and found a mission. With only a short warning he is ready, "trusting," he says, "in the Providence which feeds the little birds of the desert and clothes the wild flowers of the forest." In October, 1660, he reached a bay, which he called St. Theresa, on the south shore of Lake Superior. After a residence of eight months, he yielded to the invitation of the Hurons who had taken refuge on the Island of St. Michael, and bidding adieu to his neophytes and the French, he departed. While on the way to the Bay of Che- goi-me-gon, probably at a portage, he became separated from his companion and was never after- ward heard of. Long after, his cassock and his breviary were kept as amulets among the Sioux. Difficulties now arose in the management of the colony, and for awhile it was on the verge of dis- solution. The King sent a regiment under com- mand of the aged Tracy, as a safeguard against the Iroquois, now proving themselves enemies to

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History of Knox County, Ohio, its past and present, Part 3

Author: Hill, N. N. (Norman Newell), comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A.A. & Co., Mt. Vernon, Ohio Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Mt. Vernon, Ohio : A. A. Graham & Co. Number of Pages: 1096

Author: Hill, N. N. (Norman Newell), comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A.A. & Co., Mt. Vernon, Ohio
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Mt. Vernon, Ohio : A. A. Graham & Co.
Number of Pages: 1096