History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 10

Author: Andrews, Martin Register, 1842-; Hathaway, Seymour J
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1490

USA > Ohio > Washington County > Marietta > History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio, and representative citizens > Part 10

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Note I .-

OLD-TIME CURRENCY.

1783 and in July. 1785, the ( Spanish) dollar was adopted as the unit. That this dollar was familiar to the pioneers, in both their okt home and their new, is evident from many papers, of which the following is a fair example :

COVENTRY. April 23d. 1770. For Value Received in cash and obligations of n y mother I, the subscriber, do promise to pay Father- In -Law Wilham Anthony, two hundred and fifty good Silver Span h Mill Dollars on demand with interest tilt paid. Witness my hand. GRIFFIN GREENE.

In the new settlement in Ohio. Arnold Clarke and John Tracy enter into a contract January 31. 1789. Clarke agrees to clear lots 123 and 136, plant them as specified, and hoe the crop. For this service Tracy promises to pay "twenty Spanish mill dollars." to find the seed, and to "pay the customary rate for hoe- ing and weeding."

.A few other coins were brought with the emigrants. In an inventory of the property left by Gen. James Varnum taken at Mari- etta. January 24, 1789, under the item "Cash" we find

3 hati Johannes 3 English Guinea Eight Dollars.

About the same time, probably a few days later, the following note was sent to Mr. Greene, who had charge of the estate, by an Indian trader, Thomas Gibson :

DEAR SIR: I am much pressed this morning for some hard cash and if you would be so good as to lend me three half Joes for a few days I will be mueh obliged to you and have sent by the bearer some Ohio Orders as a deposit until I pay you.

I am, Dear Sir. Your Obedient Serv't.

G. GREENE, Esq. THO. GIBSON.

Bundles of bills and receipts written more than a hundred years ago do not seem very in- The Johannes, an old Portuguese coin, was worth at that time about eight dollars, but in the inventory quoted above, a "half Jo- hannes" is estimated at that amount. Per- haps they were really half-doubloons. viting to the general reader, but a little care- ful study of these old papers will help us to understand the confusion of currency prevail- ing in the United States before the decimal system came into general use. This system It was a long time, however, before private was recommended by Jefferson as early as , accounts in Ohio were kept in dollars and

HISTORY OF MARIETTA AND WASHINGTON COUNTY.

cents. Until the close of the century, the us- ual "money of account" was in pounds, shil- lings and pence. For example, here is a bill presented by General Varnum's physician :

MARIETTA, Nov. 28th, 1788.

HON. JAS. M. VARNUM, To SOLOMON DROWN, DR.

To attendance and medicine .. 0

3 0 29th, To attendance. powders, &c. . 0

2 Dec. 4th, To attendance in consultation with

9 Dr. Farley 0 2 0

Dec. 12th, To attendance, and plasters sev-

6 eral times. .. 0 2

1789

Jan 23a, Received of Mr. Griffin Greene 1/2

R bushel corn 4

Feb. 17th, Received of do. 12 bushel.

5 9

Mar. 4th, Received 12 bushel. Received payment in full, SOLOMON DROWN.

In January. 1792, Griffin Greene charges Daniel Mayo for boarding 52 weeks, 19 pounds and 10 shillings. The bill is paid in flour at 30 shillings per barrel, in labor at 3 shillings per day, in corn at 2 shillings per bushel, and in wheat at 4 shillings 6 pence. In these two accounts, pounds, shillings, and pence merely served on paper as a convenient and familiar form of memorandum, while the real ex- changes were made by barter. When it came to the settlement of accounts with merchants in the Eastern cities, the process was not so simple. For example, John Mathews receives a bill from William Duer of New York. Octo- ber II, 1791, amounting to 89 pounds. 2 shil- lings, which is translated, since Mr. Mathews is a public officer, into United States curren- cy, as $222.74-at the rate of eight shillings for a dollar. On November 29th of the same year a bill from Mr. Frank of Philadelphia, calling for 19 pounds, 13 shillings, is translated $52.46-at the rate of 7 shillings 6 pence for a dollar.

A bill of D. Woodbridge. Jun., & Co., for 5 pounds 13 shillings is paid February 11, 1800, by Griffin Greene with a county order for $18.84-at the rate of six shillings for a dol- lar. To understand this seeming confusion

we must go back to colonial history. Through the abuse of credit, the accounts kept in pounds, shillings, and pence had depreciated at different rates.

Thus it happened that-

In New York and North Carolina 8 shil- lings were one dollar.

In Pennsylvania, 7 shillings 6 pence were one dollar.

In New England and Virginia, 6 shillings were one dollar.

In South Carolina, 32 shillings 6 pence were one dollar.

Hence, when an account was received from an Eastern market, it was necessary to trans- late the pounds, shillings, and pence accord- ing to the standard of the State from which it came. Fifty years ago the arithmetics used in this State still contained rules for translat- ing this State money of account into United States currency.

Although the official accounts were made out in the newly devised decimal system, the writers continued to think in pounds, shillings and pence, not of the sterling kind, but in the New York, Pennsylvania or Virginia money of account. This can be proved by the form of many old records, but a few will serve as illustrations :

At a Justice's Court held in Marietta this first day of October, 1780, Benjamin Tupper and others as supervisors of highways complainants against Josiah White and Lake Webster for not working on the high- ways a warrant being granted. the said White and Webster were brought before Griffin Greene and Isaac Pierce, two of the Justices for the County of Washing- ton in the Western Territory-and after hearing the partie- with their evidence, do adjudge that the said White and Webster pay sixty-ninetieths of a dollar cach as a fine to be laid out in work on the highways, and Cost of Court Taxed at three dollars and thirty- six ninetieths to be paid equally between them and to stand committed until costs is paid.

Why ninetiethis of a dollar? Evidently the worthy justices mentally placed the fine at five shillings Pennsylvania currency, in which 7 shillings 6 pence, or 90 pence, are equal to one dollar. This is no conjecture. On the back of a bill for hauling goods in

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS.

1795, at the rate of 16 shillings a hundred, the "formerly inhabited and occupied by Christian "full solution," as the examiners say, still ap- Indians." pears. The shillings are multiplied by 12, the The field notes of the survey are in the handwriting of General Putnam and prove that he laid out the land in person. result divided by go and the quotent is given as dollars.

In February, 1789, Hezekiah Flint pre- sents a mill for "Two hundred and fifty-seven feet of boards at One Dollar and thirty-five ninetieths per hundred feet."

In a letter written by Gen. Rufus Putnam to his nephew, John Mathews, March 10, 1796, he says the agents of the Ohio Company had resolved. "That the balance due from John Mathews, being one hundred and twenty-one dollars and eighteen ninetieths, be remitted as some compensation for losses by the Indians while surveying for the Ohio Company."

Even when the translation was made. our grandfathers found the decimal system puz- zling and vexations.

Hence, in an inventory of January, 1789, the items are thus recorded :

Cash E. D. d. c. m.

5 I

A Bald Eagle or order of Cincinnati. . 2 5

A purse 3 3 3

369 lbs of Beef at 4 d per 1b .1 4 7 6

Thus by slow steps the grown-up boys of the last century learned to use our decimal currency. We need not wonder at this when we see how easy and simple metric sys- tem is neglected by the English-speaking na- tions, who will not give up the antiquated meth- ods of weighing and measuring inherited from the dark ages. Even now the English suprem- acy in trade is threatened in some places on account of this ultra conservatism.

Note J .-

Among the papers left by General Putnam is a "Plan of a Tract containing 4.155 acres. viz. : 4,000 acres being a Grant to the Society of United Brethren for propagating the Gos- pel among the heathen, and 155 acres being the waters of the river Muskingum, within which tract is included the old and the new towns of Schoenbrun with the cornfield and so forth.

Secretary Timothy Pickering to Gen. Rufus Putnam.

PHILADELPHIA, March 17, 1797.

DEAR SIR: Bishop Ettwein, President of the in- corporated Society of Brethren in the United States, associated for propagating the Gospel among the Heathen, has written me on the sith instant, that the Directors of the Society, being very desirous to have surveyed the lands granted to the Society on the Mus- kingum, comprehending the Christian Indian lowns of Salem, Gnadenhutten and Schoenbrun, that those In- dians may resume their settlements there without delay, have appointed Messrs. John Heckewelder ( whom you i know, and Wilham Henry, Esq. (a member of the Society and a very worthy man), their deputies 10 attend the survey of those lands and the subdivision thereot to accommodate the settlers.

About the same time Bishop Ettwein wrote to General Putnam: "The said Society having some material concerns in the locating of the lands on the Muskingum, I beg leave to inform you of some few facts respecting the same. In the year 1788 the Honorable Congress then assembled gave to the United Brethren, by their ordinance, in trust for the Christian Indian Congregations, the three desolated Indian towns, viz. : Schoenbrun, Gnadenhutten and Salem, with a certain quantity of land to each of them, as by the said ordinance, of which you will receive a copy per Mr. Heckewelder, will appear. At the same time the proper offi- cers of Congress informed me and some other gentlemen then with me, that, in behalf of the said Christian Indian Congregations, we had not only a prior right, but indeed a positive right by former possession to locate the lands so allotted by Congress to each of the said towns, as we thought proper, provided it was run in straight lines.'

John Heckewelder to Gen. Rufus Putnam.

BETHLEHEM, Oct. 26th. 1796.

DEAR SIR: I accidentally met this moment a Mr. Wilson on his way home to Muskingum, with whom I wish to inform you that our society here are desirous of commencing a settlement on their lands on sand river as speedily as possible. A few weeks ago I men-

HISTORY OF MARIETTA AND WASHINGTON COUNTY,

tioned th Jo the Sec'y of State Col. Pickering request- ing him to advise us unto whom we were to apply to get these lands surveyed. His answer (yet confidentially ) was, that a Commission of General Surveyor of the western and military lands was now on the way to Gen. Putnam at Marietta.

Now. as we are all in hopes that you have accepted the appointment. we wish you do let us know at what time and place I and such as are to attend the survey may set out and meet you. I do not expect that we need leave home during the winter, neither could my constitution admit me to endure winter fatigues. But at any time in the spring I should be ready. My nearest way would be from Wheeling, where I would need but encamp one night in the woods between that and Gnadenhutten, it being no more than 50 miles.

The Ordinance of Congress of 1788 directs the three Moravian towns to be first surveyed before the military grants, and the intention of that Congress was (and so they directed it to be done) that we should have the lands surveyed so as it suited us best for set- tlenient. even in Parallelograms, with the river running through each tract, but the lines were all to be north, east. south, and west. It was also understood by Con- gress last session that the river was to run through each tract. and we wish upon the whole to have it sur- veyed to best advantage.

From John Heckewelder to Gen. Rufus Putnam,

[ Extract.]

BETHLEHEM, Jan. 7, 1797.

I entertain some hopes that Gnadenhutten and Salemi may be joined together. I fear we shall not get one good mill site on the three tracts; those streams falling within the tracts being small and nearly dry half the summer. Sugar Creek above the upper town is an excellent mill stream. White Water, though a large stream, is too deep and dead. I shall await your further orders respecting setting out and meeting you.

Mr. Heckewelder to

BETHLEHEM, Feb. 16th, 1797.

Having understood of Mr. Carey from Marietta, who passed through this place yesterday, that it was possible Gen. Putnam would be in Philadelphia soon, and having a great desire to meet the General in Philadelphia in order to consult him with respect to some matters respecting our Muskingum grants, I would take it as a kindness if you would inform him of this and request him to send me a line by post from Philadelphia on his arrival; as also the place he lodges at. Our people are anxious to commence a set- tlement on the Lands on Muskingum, and I hope the dissatisfaction prevailing at present among the Indians on account of the bad goods they received (as related to me by Mr. Carey) will soon be done away.

CHAPTER IV.

WAR WITH THE INDIANS.

ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT -- MASSACRE AT BIG BOTTOM- BELPRE AND BEVERLY --- FORTS AT MA- RIETTA AND HARMAR-FARMERS' CASTLE AND FORT FRYE-OHIO COMPANY AFFAIRS AT LOW EBB-JOSEPH KELLY-GENERAL WAYNE'S SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN-DAWN- ING OF A BRIGHTER ERA FOR OHIO COLONISTS-CAPTURE AND ESCAPE-REMINIS- CENCES OF WAR TIMES AND OF LATER YEARS-THE INDIANS IN OHIO-LETTERS OF GENERAL PUTNAM-LIST OF THE PIONEERS AT THE FORTS DURING THE INDIAN TROUBLES-PIONEERS KILLED BY THE INDIANS.

ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT.

The second year of the Muskingum settle- ment was one of extreme want; the third was the beginning of a long and bloody war. In the fall of 1790 General Harmar led an expe- dition against the Indians at the head of the Wabash River. He destroyed their towns and cornfields but accomplished little. The next year General St. Clair advanced with an ill- disciplined crowd that hardly deserved the name of army. although it contained many true soldiers. In what is now Mercer County the Indians attacked him and won the greatest vic- tory ever achieved by them. On the 18th of November, Capt. George Ingersoll wrote to General Putnam and gave some account of the battle. He wrote of the ill health of the aged commander, General St. Clair, who was evi- dently physically unfit to command an army or to perform active service.

We quote from the manuscript of Captain Ingersoll's letter, which we have not seen in print :

"Colonel Darke, who was in Braddock's de- feat, and has been in many other actions, de-

clares on his honor they are but faint in de- scription compared to what may be ( said) of this campaign, if justice be done."

The Colonel ( or General ) Darke here men- tioned is the one in whose honor Darke County was named.

St. Clair's army had some good officers, but the men had been hastily gathered together, were poorly equipped and without discipline.

MASSACRE AT BIG BOTTOM.

Meanwhile the settlement on the Mus- kingum had suffered. The little band at Big Bottom, 40 miles above Marietta, was attacked on the 2nd of January, 1791, and 12 of them were killed. There was great alarm at Mari- etta, but no general attack was made by the Indians, who lurked about the forts, killed one man, and drove away the cattle. At this time there were only 20 soldiers at Fort Harmar and in all the settlements near it there were but 287 settlers capable of bearing arms. Many of these were very poorly equipped for service. From the letters written by the pioneers in

HISTORY OF MARIETTA AND WASHINGTON COUNTY',

that year, it is evident that they felt themselves neglected by the general government ; but in truth that government was too weak to give much help.

BELPRE AND BEVERLY.

The majority of the pioneers who came to Marietta were farmers and good judges of land. Hence, we observe that they selected for their first settlements the wide bottoms. In making their assignment to individual settlers, the section lines of the original survey were disregarded and the land was laid out in long strips. giving each settler a frontage on the river, which was then the highway, and, what was still more important giving to each a fair share of hill and bottom land. Hence, it hap- pened that the settlers at Marietta were soon attracted by the advantages of the "Beautiful Meadow," lying opposite the mouth of the Little Kanawha. About 40 of the pioneers made a settlement on this land in the winter of 1788-89, drawing lots for their portion. This settlement was distributed along the Ohio River in three parts, known as the Upper Set- tlement, the Middle Settlement and Newberry. On account of the beauty of the land it was called Belle Prairie-Belleprie-and at last Belpre or "Beautiful Meadow."

They suffered severely from the famine, caused by the early frost of October, 1789. which almost destroyed their corn crop and that winter they also shared in the kindness of Isaac Williams, from whom Williamstown de- rives its name. Nearly all the men who set- tled at Belpre had been soldiers in the Revo- lutionary Army and the majority had been offi- cers, but all were shrewd, intelligent farmers.

In the winter of 1780 a second association of 39 members moved 20 miles up the Mus- kingum and occupied the wide plain in the vicinity of the present site of Beverly, but a few went to the west side of the river to build a mill on Wolf Creek, a description of which is found elsewhere. This settlement was first called Painfield, afterward Waterford, a name still borne by the township, and later the

town received the name of Beverly. This set- tlement was more fortunate than the one at Belpre in that it had a fair crop of corn in the fall of 1789.

In the winter of 1790, 36 men went to Big Bottom and began a block-house on the east side of the Muskingum, about a mile below the present site of the Stockport bridge. The re- mains of the block-house have been discovered in recent years and the site marked by a stone. The block-house was never finished, for here the first attack upon the pioneers was made by the Indians and 12 men were killed, as men- tioned in another place. The settlement at this place was then abandoned until the close of the war.

FORTS AT MARIETTA AND HARMAR. 1

St. Clair's defeat and the attack on the ad- vance post at Big Bottom warned the settlers that they must for the time concentrate their forces and prepare for defense. At Marietta there was the Campus Martius, already begun and now hastily strengthened, and the "Stock- ade," at what was known as the "Upper Point," that is the territory bounded by the Ohio River, the lower part of Front Street, a line running to the Muskingum, about half way between Butler and Green streets, and the Muskingum River. This was protected by a stockade of logs and by the cabin walls. On the opposite side of the Muskingum River was Fort Har- mar, still garrisoned with a few soldiers, but at times during the war almost deserted.

FARMERS' CASTLE AND FORT FRYE.

The old soldiers in the Belpre settlement concentrated at a point on the Ohio below the bluff, nearly opposite the middle of what is now called Blennerhassett's Island, and there built a fort which was known as "Farmers' Castle." The settlers at Painfield built a stock- ade near the Muskingum River, a short dis- tance below the point where the Beverly bridge now stands. They also built a small block- house on the west side to protect farmers at

.AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS.

work. The mill, mentioned elsewhere, on Wolf Creek was unprotected but was not de- stroyed, although visited at different times by the Indians.

It is said that Jabez Barlow, who had lived a few months in the trunk of a hollow syca- more and who had afterward built a cabin, per- sisted in remaining on his farm after the war had begun, saying that he had "never harmed the Indians," but he was finally chased into the fort.

It is hard for us to appreciate the trials and privations of the settlers thus gathered together in the garrison. For the next four years, farming, trading and visiting could only be car- ried on at the risk of capture or death.

OHIO COMPANY AFFAIRS AT LOW EBB.

In the midst of the Indian war, the colon- ists were so discouraged that many were ready to abandon the settlement. The Ohio Com- pany had in the first four years spent $30,0001 in specie for the general welfare and defense: no more land could be sokl and even those who had received donation tracts of 100 acres were thinking of removing to safer quarters ; the pay- ment of the other half million dollars was due and the company had no means of meeting their engagement.

In these straits they sent a petition to Con- gress on the 2nd of March, 1792, asking for better terms than those extorted by the Con- gress of the Confederation. In this petition they said :

"The resident proprietors sensibly feel the great loss of men and property which they have sustained as well as the extreme distress and suffering they endured the last year. There is every reason to believe that. unless they are relieved from that state of suspense and un- certainty respecting their title with which their minds have so long exercised, they will make no further exertions to defend a settlement from which they are at any time liable to be driven, that if the tomahawk and scalping knife do not prevent an escape, they will in- mediately retreat to some place of greater se- curity."

In 1792 the Indians on the Wabash were detached from the other tribes by the labors of General Putnam who made a treaty with them, after a great deal of ceremony and the judi- cious distribution of trinkets. The letters re- ceived by him while on this mission give pa- thetic glimpses of the darker scenes in pioneer life. A wife seeks a husband and a son cap- tured in what is now Jefferson County. A husband seeks a wife who had been carried off from the mouth of Harding Creek. Many par- ents seek their lost children, and one poor Ken- tuckian asks for the return of three slaves.

JOSEPHI KELLY. -

Thirty years ago there lived in Marietta an old man, Joseph Kelly, who, when about six years of age, was captured by the Indians. tied on the back of a stolen cow, and thus con- veyed to their village on the Maumee. Here he was kept for five years, long enough to forget his mother tongue and to become thoroughly accustomed to the savage life. After Wayne's treaty, he was rescued through the exertions of Colonel Meigs and brought back to Mari- etta. But the widowed mother could not again see the face of her boy. The awful spectacle of a husband murdered and a child snatched away by savages had actually blinded her eyes.

When Mr. Kelly grew to manhood some of his Indian playmates visited him. They remembered that he was a fleet runner. So they picked one of their own number and call- ing Mr. Kelly by his Indian name said, "Lala run." He did run a race and beat their cham- pion. lle always defended the Indians and said they were more sinned against than sin- ning.

GENERAL WAYNE'S SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN. --

As soon as possible President Washington sent the hero of Stony Point. General Wayne, to repair the disaster and restore confidence in the settlements. He had the task of creating an army and transporting it through a wider- . ness. Hence his movements seem very slow,

HISTORY OF MARIETTA AND WASHINGTON COUNTY,

but he protected the settlements as he advanced, and made no mistakes. In the summer of 1792 he collected his army near Pittsburg; in the spring of 1793 he moved to Fort Washington : thence he proceeded northward and in Decem- ber of that year he built Fort Greenville in what is now Darke County. The next year ( 1704) he built Fort Recovery and here in June, 1795, he was attacked by the Indians under Little Turtle. The red men were de- feated and in August of the same year Wayne himself advanced to the attack and chased the Indians to the shadow of the fort of their Brit- ish allies. Wayne then rested at Greenville, where in 1795 the representatives of 13 tribes, or the "thirteen fires." as they were called, made a treaty which had a great influence upon the subsequent history of Ohio. If we re- turn to a county map of this State we may ob- serve that the northern boundaries of Tuscar- awas and Knox counties do not extend in a line due east and west but that a part of their boundary falls on a line extending from near Loramie in Shelby County. Tuscarawas and Knox counties have thus preserved in their northern boundaries a part of the treaty line agreed upon in 1795 between General Wayne and the Indians, all land south of this line be- ing ceded to the whites.

DAWNING OF A BRIGHTER ERA FOR OHIO COL- ONISTS.

This treaty marks the beginning of a new era in the settlement of the Northwest. The settlers no longer remained clustered about a few nrilitary posts, but pushed forward to se- lect the best tracts of land wherever they couldl be found. Hence, the year 1796 marks the be- ginning of permanent settlements in many places. Two deserve special mention. . When Connecticut pretended to surrender her ficti- tious claim to Western lands-a claim already disallowed by parliamentary action in Eng- land and by judicial decisions both in England and America-she retained what was for a time known as New Connecticut and is now called the Western Reserve. In this tract.

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History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 10

Author: Andrews, Martin Register, 1842-; Hathaway, Seymour J Publication date: 1902 Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1490

Author: Andrews, Martin Register, 1842-; Hathaway, Seymour J
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1490