History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 5

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 5

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But Fort Detroit and Fort Pitt stood firm. For months Pontiac beleaguered the Northern fortress, gaining advantages whenever the garrison attacked him, but unable to reduce the fort. All summer long the eyes of the world were upon Detroit -- and the gallant de- fense of Fort Pitt, was comparatively forgot- But Braddock made a death-bed prophecy. Before he died he said : "We shall later known how to deal with them another time." And the British did; for an army from Phila- delphia relieved Fort Pitt. While General ten. But the maintenance of this strategic point was of incalculable importance to the West. The garrison felt this. And here, if anywhere, was courage shown in battle. Here, if ever, brave men faced fearful odds { Bradstreet was moving by water to' Detroit

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS.

and. with much bungling, reasserting English authority along the lake shore, an intrepid successor of the headstrong Braddock was do- ing, with greatest credit to himself and the brave men who constituted his army, what Braddock failed to do.

This notable expedition was put under the command of General Forbes' efficient officer, Col. Henry Bouquet, who had a good seven- years' record as an Indian fighter and was more crafty than many a redskin.

Bouquet marched westward from Phila- delphia over Forbes' old road and at Bushy Run fought one of the decisive battles of America. From this hard-fought fiekl he marched to Fort Pitt.

The year following Bouquet led across the Ohio the first English army that ever crossed into what is now Ohio and on the upper Mus- kingum he brought the Delawares to terms and ended then and there Pontiac's dream of an Indian empire.

TIIE REVOLUTIONARY WAR IN THE WEST.

tions awed for the time being by Dunmore's invasion, but silently abiding their time to avenge themselves for the loss of the meadow lands of Ken-ta-Kec.

Such was the condition of affairs when, in April, 1775. the open struggle for independ- ence of the American colonies was roughly precipitated at Lexington. It might seem to the casual observer that the colonists who were now hastening by way of the Wilderness Road or the Ohio River into the Virginian Kentucky could not feel the intense jealousy for Amer- ican interests which was felt by the patriots in the East. On the very contrary, there is evi- dence that these first pioneers into the West had a profound knowledge of the situation and a sympathy for the struggling patriots which was enhanced, even, by the distance which separated them and the hardships they had en- dured. Not a few of them too had known personally of the plundering British officials and the obnoxious taxes. It is the proud boast of Kentuckians that in the center of their beautiful blue-grass country was erected the first monument to the first dead of the Revoli- tion. A party of pioneers heard the news of the battle of Lexington while sitting about their camp fire. Long into the night the rough men told and retold the electrifying news and before morning named the new set- tlement they were to make. "Lexington." in honor of New England's dead !

History was making fast in the West when the Revolutionary struggle reached the crisis in 1775 at Concord and Lexington. South of the Ohio River. Virginia's new empire was filling with the conquerors of the West. The Mississippi Valley counted a population of 13 .- 000, 3,000 being the population of New Or- leans. St. Louis, in Spanish possession, was It was not at all evident at first what the war was going to amount to in the West. Scarcely more was known in the West of the Revolutionary War than had been known two decades before of the French and Indian War. But at the outset it was plain that there was to be a tremendous struggle on both sides to gain the allegiance, as the British desired, of the Indian nations which lay between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes. For two years the struggle in the East went on, engrossing. the entire attention of both combatants. During 1776 and 1777 the his- tory of the West is merely the continuation of carrying on a brisk trade with the Indians on the Missouri. Vincennes, the British port on the Wabash, had a population of 400 whites. Detroit, the metropolis of the West, numbered 1.500 inhabitants, more than double the num- ber in the dashing days of Gladwin only a dec- ade before. The British flag also flew at Kas- kaskia, on the Mississippi, and at Sandusky. This fringe of British forts on the North were separated from the American me- tropolis of the West, Pittsburg, and from the first fortresses built in Kentucky, by leagues of forests, dark as when Bouquet pierced them, and filled with sullen Indian na- , the bloody story of the years which led up to

HISTORY OF MARIETTA AND WASHINGTON COUNTY,

Dunmore's campaign. Slowly the Indians forgot Lewis' crushing victory at Point Pleas- ant and their solemn pledges at Camp Char- lotte, and were raiding the feeble Kentucky posts with undiminished relish, or giving the "Long Knives" of the Monongahela country plenty of provocation for the barbarities of which they are known to have been guilty.

And so, early in the struggle, far-sighted ones saw signs of the growing despicable alli- ance of the savages to British interests, and before the bloody year of 1778 opened, it was only a question of how much England wanted of the savage allies who were crowded about their forts along the lakes. It is a terrible blot on the history of British rule in America that when led to the same bitter trough, Eng- lish officers in the West used every means of retaliation for the use of which they so round- ly condemned French officials a quarter of a century before. American officers employed Indians as guides and scouts and were guilty of provoking inter-tribal war, but they did not pay Indians for bringing in British scalps, or praise them for their murderous successes and equip them for further service. . Is a brave American officer said, "Let this reproach re- main on them"-and the people of the West will never forget the reproach nor forgive! They remember and always will the burning words of Washington written more than 10 years after the close of the Revolution. "All the difficulties are encounter with the Indians, their hostilities, the murder of helpless wo- men and children along all our frontiers re- sults from the conduct of the agents of Great Britain in this country." Around the hearths of hundreds of homes of descendants of the pioneers in the West will be found today mem- ories of the inhuman barbarities of British of- ficers during the Revolution, which will never be forgotten and which will never fail to pre- judice generations yet unborn. The reproach zvill remain on them!

At the outbreak of the war. chiefs of the Indian nations were invited to Pittsburg where

the nature of the struggle was explained to them in the following parable :

"Suppose a father had a little son whom he loved and indulged while young, but, grow- ing up to be a youth, began to think of having some help from him: and making up a small pack, he bid him carry it for him. The boy cheerfully takes this pack up. following his father with it. The father finding the boy willing and obedient, continues in this way: and as the boy grows stronger, so the father makes the pack in proportion larger; yet as long as the boy is able to carry the pack, he does so withont grumbling. At length, how- ever, the boy having arrived at manhood. while the father is making up the pack for him. in comes a person of an evil disposition, and, learning who was to be the carrier of the pack, advises the father to make it heavier, for sure- ly the son is able to carry a larger pack. The father listening rather to the bad adviser than consulting his own judgment and the feelings of tenderness, follows the advice of the hard- hearted adviser, and makes up a heavy load for his son to carry. The son, now grown up, examining the weight of the load he is to carry, addresses the father in these words: 'Dear father, this pack is too heavy for me to carry, do pray lighten it: I am willing to do what I can, but am unable to carry this load.' The father's heart having by this time become hardened, and the bad adviser calling to him. 'Whip him if he disobeys,' and he refusing to carry the pack, the father orders his son to take up the pack and carry it off or he will whip him, and already takes up a stick to beat him. 'So,' says the son, 'am I to be served thus for not doing what I am unable to do? Well, if entreaties avail nothing with you, fa- ther, and it is to be decided by blow's, whether or not I am able to carry a pack so heavy, then I have no other choice left me, but that of re- sisting your unreasonable demand by my strength, and thus, by striking each other. learn who is the strongest.'

The Indians were urged to become neutral

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in the struggle that was opening. Impossible as such a course would have been to men who loved war better than peace, certain tribes promised to maintain neutrality. In a few months, however, most of the nations were in open or secret alliance with British officers. Even the better element of the Delaware na- tion, led by Captain White Eyes, eventually sacrificed their lives in attempting to play the impossible role. England was always handi- capped in her use of the American Indian be- cause of the want of men who could success- fully exert control over him. Even when the forts of the French in the West passed into British possession, Frenchmen were retained in control since no Englishman could so well rule the savages who made the forts their ren- dezvous. The beginning of the successful employment of the Indians against the grow- ing Virginian empire south of the Ohio and against the multiplying cabins and forts of the "Long Knives" may loosely be said to have begun in the spring of 1778, when three North- ern renegades Simon Girty. Matthew Elliott and Alexander McKee eluded the Continental general. Hand, at Pittsburg, and took service under Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton at De- troit. Bred to border warfare and well known among the Indians from the Susquehanna to the Missouri, these three men were the "most effective tools for the purpose of border war- fare" that the British could have secured. Hamilton immediately began to plan the in- vasion of Pennsylvania and the conquest of Pittsburg. The campaign was condemned by his superiors in the East and was forgotten by its originator when the news of a bold inva- sion of his own territory by a Virginian army suddenly reached his cars!

The Transylvania Company, which had erected a proprietary government south of the Ohio, came suddenly to an end when the Ken- tuckians elected George Rogers Clarke and Ga- briel John Jones members of the Virginian Assembly, as the assembly erected the county of Kentucky out of the land purchased by Henderson at Fort Watauga in 1775. Upon

bringing this about, Clarke, a native of Virginia and a hero of Dunmore's War, returned to Kentucky nourishing greater plans. With clear eyes he saw the increasing affiliation of Indian and British interests meant that Eng- land, even though she might be unsuccessful in the East, could keep up an interminable and disastrous warfare "along the rear of the col- onies" so long as she held forts on the North- ern edge of the Black Forest. Clarke sent spies northward who gained information con- firming his suspicions and then he hurried eastward with his bold plan of conquering the "strongholds of British and Indian barbarity." Kaskaskia. Vincennes and Detroit. Ile came at a fortunate time. The colonies were re- joicing over the first great victory of the early war. Saratoga. Hope, everywhere, was high. From Patrick Henry, Governor of Virginia, Clarke received two orders, one to attack the British post Kaskaskia. He at once set out for Pittsburg, to raise, in the West (where both Dunmore and Lewis raised their armies) troops for the most brilliant military achieve- ment in Western history. Descending the Ohio to Kentucky, where he received re-in- forcements, Clarke marched silently through the forests with 135 chosen men to Kaskaskia. which he took in utter surprise July 4. 1778. "Keep on with your merriment." he said to revellers whom he surprised at a dance. "but remember you dance under Virginia, not under Great Britain." Clarke brought the news of the recently made alliance between France and the United States into the Illinois country and used it with telling effect. A French priest at Vincennes ran up a Virginian flag over that fort, telling the inhabitants and the Indians that their "French Father" had come to life. In October Virginia incorporated the "County of Illinois" within her Western empire-the first portion of the land north of the Ohio River to come under the administra- tion of one of the States of the Union.

Contemporaneously with Clarke's stirring conquest, an expedition was raised at Pitts- burg to march against the Indians in the

HISTORY OF MARIETTA AND WASHINGTON COUNTY,

neighborhood of the British fort at Sandusky -- possibly to counteract the rumored attempt to invade Pennsylvania by Hamilton at De- troit. Troops and supplies were to be assem- bled at Fort Pitt where the famous route of Bouquet was to be followed toward the lakes. The expedition was put in charge of Gen. Lachlan McIntosh. Distressing delays made the half-hearted Indians who were to guide the army staff and McIntosh started before his stores arrived, fearing longer delay would alienate his friendly Indians, among whom was the Delaware, White Eyes, now turned from a neutral course. At the mouth of the Beaver River, McIntosh built the fort which bore his name-the first fort built by the Americans on the Northern side of the Ohio. Advancing westward over Bouquet's track with 1,200 men he reached the Muskingum ( Tuscarawas) River in 14 days, arriving No- vember 19. 1778. The result of this attempt- ed invasion is best described perhaps by Gen- eral McIntosh himself in a letter written to General Washington the year following :

"A letter by express from Lieutenant-Col- onel Campbell, a little afterward, informed me that no supplies came yet, and we had very little to expect during the winter, nor could he get the staff to account for, or give any reas- ons for their neglect and deficiencies, which disappointed all my flattering prospects and schemes, and left me no other alternative than either to march back as I came without effect- ing any valuable purpose, for which the world would justly reflect upon me after so much ex- pense, and confirm the savages in the opinion the enemy inculcates of our weakness, and unite all of them to a man against us, or to build a strong stockade fort upon the Muskin- gim, and leave as many men as our provisions would allow to secure it until the next season, and to serve as a bridle upon the savages in the heart of their own country ; which last I chose with the unanimous approbation of my prin- cipal officers and we were employed upon it while our provisions lasted."

But Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton, learn-

ing of Clarke's seizure of Kaskaskia and the treachery of the fickle inhabitants of Vin- cennes, set about to reconquer Illinois. De- parting from Detroit on a beautiful October day the expedition descended the Detroit Riv- er and entered the Maumee. The weather changed and it was 71 days before the Ameri- can captain Helm at Vincennes surrendered his wretched fort, and became a prisoner of war. Hamilton was unable to push on; to Kaskaskia because of the lack of provisions, and sat down to watch the winter out where he was. Thus the spectacular year of 1778 closed-Clarke at Kaskaskia watching his an- tagonist feasting at Vincennes: McIntosh's little guard at Fort Laurens undergoing con- tinual harrassing and siege. In the East the evacuation of Philadelphia, the battle of Mon- mouth and the terrible Wyoming Massacre were the events of the year.

But the year 1779 was to witness as brill- jant a military achievement in the West as the East was to witness in the capture of Stony Point. This was the recapture of Vincennes by Clarke. Joined by an experi- enced adventurer, Col. Francis Vigo, former- ly of the Spanish service, Clarke was persuad- ed that he must capture Hamilton or Hamilton would capture him. Accordingly, on the 5th of February. Clarke set out for Vincennes with 170 trusty men. In 12 days they reached the Embarras River, which was crosed on the 2Ist with great bravery, the men wading in the water to their shoulders. On the 25th, Hamilton, the most surprised man in the world, was compelled to surrender. Within two weeks he was on his way to Virginia where, being found guilty of buying Virgin- ian scalps of the Indians, he was imprisoned but was exchanged the year following.

In July, while returning from New Or- leans with supplies, Colonel Rogers and party of Kentuckians were overwhelmed by Indians under Girty and Elliott on the Ohio River. In a terrible running battle, 60 Kentuckians were killed. The sad news spread quickly throughout Kentucky and a thousand tongues

AND REPRESENT. ITIT'E CITIZENS.

called loudly for revenge. In response Major Bowman led 300 volunteers up the Scioto Val- ley and attacked the Shawanese capital. There was bungling somewhere and a retreat was or- dered before victory was achieved.

During this summer the conqueror of Illi- nois expected to complete his triumph by the capture of Detroit. A messenger from Thomas Jefferson, Governor of Virginia, brought tid- ings that troops for this expedition would be forthcoming from Virginia and Kentucky and would rendezvous at Vincennes in July. When the time came, Clarke found only a few soldiers from Kentucky and none at all from Virginia. The Detroit expedition fell through because of Virginia's poverty in money and in men. though artillery, ammunition and tools had been secured for the campaign from Fort Pitt, at Washington's command. But with master- ly foresight Governor Jefferson secured the es- tablishment of a fort on the Mississippi River in the Illinois country. During this summer the little garrison which General McIntosh left buried in the Black Forest at Fort Laurens fled back over the "Great Trail" to Pittsburg. Nowhere north of the Ohio were the scenes, fre- quently enacted in Kentucky, reproduced so vividly as at little Fort Laurens on the upper Muskingum. At one time 14 of the garrison were decoved and slaughtered. At another time an army numbering 700 warriors invested the little half-forgotten fortress and its in- trepid defenders. A slight embankment may be seen today near Bolivar, Ohio, which marks one side of the first fort erected in what is now Ohio, those near the lake shore ex- cepted. Thus closed the year 1779-Clarke again in possession of Vincennes, as well as Kaskaskia and Cahokia, but disappointed in the failure of the Detroit expedition : Hamilton languishing in a Virginia dungeon, 1,200 miles from his capital-fort, Detroit ; Fort Lau- rens abandoned, and the Kentucky country covered with gloom over Rogers' terrible loss and Bowman's inglorious retreat from the val- ley of the Scioto. On the other hand, the East was glorying in "Mad Anthony"

Wayne's capture of Stony Point, Sullivan's rebuke to the Indians and Paul Jones' electri- fying victory on the sea.

Four expeditions set forth in 1780. all of them singular in character and noteworthy. The year before, 1779, 'Spain had declared war upon England. The new commander at Detroit took immediate occasion to regain control of the Mississippi by attacking the Spanish town of St. Louis. This expedi- tion, under Captain Sinclair, descended the Mississippi from Prairie du Chien. The at- tack on St. Louis did not succeed, but six whites were killed and 18 taken prisoners.

At the time of Bowman's expedition against the Shawanese, the year previous, a British officer, Colonel Bird, had assembled a noteworthy array at Sandusky preparatory to the invasion of Kentucky. News of the Kentucky raid up the Scioto Valley set Bird's Indians to "cooking and counselling" again, instead of acting. This year Bird's invasion materialized and the fate of the Kentucky set- tlements tremblexi in the balance. The in- vading army of 600 Indians and Canadians was armed with two pieces of artillery. There is little doubt that this army could have bat- tered down every "station" in Kentucky and . swept victoriously through the new settle- ments. Ruddles' station on the Licking was first menaced and surrendered quickly. Mar- tin's fort also capitulated. But here Bird paused in his conquest and withdrew north- ward, the barbarity of the Indian allies, for once, at least, shocking a British commander. The real secret of the abrupt retreat lay no doubt in the fact that the increasing immigra- tion had brought sich vast numbers of peo- ple into Kentucky that Bird feared to penetrate further into the land for fear of a surprise. The gross carelessness of the newly arrived inhabitants in not taking the precaution to build proper defenses against the Indians un- doubtedly appeared to the British commander as a sign of strength and fortitude which he did not have the courage to put to the test. As a matter of fact, he could probably have

HISTORY OF MARIETTA AND WASHINGTON COUNTY.

annihilated every settlement between the Ohio and Cumberland Gap.

In turn Kentucky sent an immense army north of the Ohio in retaliation, a thousand men volunteering under Clarke, the hero of Vincennes. A large Indian army was routed near the Shawanese town, Pickaway. Many towns with standing crops were burned. A similar expedition from Pittsburg under Gen- eral Brodhead burned crops and villages on the upper Muskingum.

In retaliation for the attack on St. Louis, the Spanish commander at that point sent an expedition against the deserted British post of St. Joseph. Upon declaring war against England in the year previous, Spain had oc- cupied Natchez, Baton Rouge and Mobile. which, with St. Louis, gave her command of the Mississippi. But His Catholic Majesty was building other Spanish castles in Amer- ica. He desired the conquest of the British Northwest to offset the British capture of Gib- raltar. This "capture" of St. Joseph led to an amusing but ominous claim on the part of Spain at the Treaty of Paris when, with it for a pretext, the Spanish crown claimed all lands west of a line drawn from St. Joseph southward through what is now Ohio, Ken- tucky. Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Mis- sissippi! The Mississippi River boundary was. however, stoutly contended for and obtained by the American commissioners.

In this year the first "gunboat" to ply Wes- tern waters was built under direction of Brig- adier-General Clarke. It was a galley armed with light artillery. This queer looking craft soon fell into disuse, though it became a ter- ror to the Indians who continually infested the lower Ohio. It was relished little better by the militia, who disliked service on water. But it stands as a typical illustration of the enter- prise and devotion of the "Father of Ken- tucky" to the cause for which he had done so much.

The year following. 1781, saw the termin- ation of the Revolution in the East when Cornwallis' army marched down the files of

French and American troops at Yorktown to the melancholy tune-"The World's Turned Upside Down." The Treaty of Paris was not signed until 1783, and in the meantime the bloodiest year of all the war. 1782, was adding its horrors to all that have gone before.

MASSACRE OF GNADENHUTTEN.

While the East was rejoicing, the Central W'est saw the terrible massacre of Gnadenhut- ten, the more terrible because committed by white men themselves.

Half a decade before the Revolutionary War, the heroic Moravian missionary, David Zeisberger, had located three Christian Indian towns on the upper Muskingum in what once was Washington county. To these towns a number of Christian Indians had been de- ported from their former homes in Pennsyl- vania by the Moravian Church. Throughout the war the situation of these towns was most desperate, located as they were in the center of the forests between Fort Pitt and Fort De- troit and near the bloody "Great Trail," the highway through the Central West. Before long, the Delawares, among whom the Chris- tian Indians were permitted to settle, became affiliated with the British or Americans. The Moravians still attempted the impossible role of neutrality.

Before long, they became suspected by both British and Americans. This suspicion gained ground rapidly, but at last, in 1781. 300 war- riors under command of Captain Pipe and the British captain Elliott, appeared on the Mus- kingum and ordered the removal of the Chris- tian village to the Sandusky River, as a measure of safety. With a broken heart the venerable Zeisberger, now in his 60th year, put himself at the head of his persecuted flock and led them from their homes to the wilder- ness of the Sandusky.

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History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 5

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