History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 7

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 7

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is a little to the east of Logan, Ohio, including all of Athens and Meigs counties, the greater part of Washington and Gallia and small por- tions of adjacent counties. From this tract, two townships, six miles square, were reserved for the support of a university, section 16 in each township was devoted to the maintenance of schools, and section 20 was "to be appropri- ated for the purposes of religion." Three sections in each township were reserved for the future disposal by Congress.

Many insinuations against Rev. Manas- seh Cutler have been made because he consent- ed to the proposed ordinance for the purchase of nearly 6,000,000 acres when the organiza- tion of the Ohio Company provided for the investment of but $1.000,000 in land. The most that can be charged against him from the evidence is a case of "log-rolling." which has not yet been proved a criminal aet in it- self. Ile found it impossible to secure the consent of Congress to the purchase about the Muskingum unless his company would nomi- nally assume the purchase of a much larger tract, the greater part of which was really to be bought by another organization, afterward called the Scioto Company, in which he says in his diary "many of the principal characters in America are concerned." .At that time when the Ohio Company was making the pur- chase of a million and a half aeres about the Muskingum, it seemed good policy for them to encourage another settlement near their own. It also seemed equally advanta- geous to the poverty-stricken general govern- ment to take this ready way of paying off a part of its debt by the sale of a larger tract of waste land. The subsequent disasters which befell the Scioto Company cast a reproach upon all its transactions, but its early history gives no proof of intent to defraud the gov- ernment.

The records of the Ohio Company show that the general plan of a city to be located at the mouth of the Muskingum had been adont- ed before the pioneers left Massachusetts. But the direction and position of the streets

HISTORY OF MARIETTA AND WASHINGTON COUNTY,

and squares were evidently modified by the discovery that another city lay buried beneath the dense forest. Rectangular and circular mounds, long lines of earthworks, proved that a race well advanced in civilization and nu- merous enough to co-operate in vast undertak- ings had once lived about the Muskingum. With something of awe, the hardy surveyors looked at these relics of a people whose very name had been forgotten and when they laid out the new city, they so arranged the streets as to leave the largest mounds untouched. Three of these yet remain in lots reserved for the public; the circular mound gives its name to the cemetery in which General Putnam, Commodore Whipple and many other heroes now rest : the two platform mounds have been reserved as parks. About a mile from the Ohio, there were two parallel lines of earth- work, apparently constructed to protect the passage from the fortified town to the Mus- kingum. This has been called in modern times the Sacra L'ia, but it has not been held sacred enough to save the old walls of earth from the shovel of the vandal.

LANDING AT THE MOUTH OF THE MUSKIN- GUM.

In the fall of 1787. Gen. Rufus Putnam was selected to lead the first party from Mas- sachusetts to Muskingum, as the new country was then called. The task was no easy one. First, he must collect a hardy band who could be builders, boatmen, surveyors, woodmen, hunters, farmers, or soldiers, as occasion de- manded. These must go by land to the head- waters of the Ohio, there build their own boats and then proceed down the river to their destination. (Note C.) No wonder, then, that the trip and the building took the entire winter and that the pioneers did not reach their new home until the 7th of April. 1788. ( Note D.) This day is celebrated vear by year at Marietta, and the very spot where the first party of 48 men landed has been marked

by a neat monument. the patriotic work of the New Century Historical Society. No women or children came until July. 1788.

The list of the first party has been pre- served in the handwriting of Gen. Rufus Put- nam and the names have been carved on the monument erected where they landed. Gen- eral Putnam has also left the record of the men who came within the first year-89 in all -a few of whom brought their families. The next year the whole number of men who came to settle was 153 and in 1790 there were 165 men and 31 families. (Notes E and F.) For the next four or five years there was little increase in the number of permanent settlers. The total population, scatetred for 30 miles along the Muskingum and Ohio, from Water- ford to Belpre, probably did not, at the end of seven years, exceed 1,000. It was a hard task to transplant New England to what was then the far West

Of these settlers General Washington said. "No colony in America was ever founded un- der such favorable auspices as that which has just commenced at the Muskingum. Inform- ation, property and strength will be its char- acteristics. I know many of the settlers per- sonally, and there never were men better cal- culated to promote the welfare of such a com- munity .*

At least 50 of these pioneers had been sol- diers in the Revolution. First among them was Rufus Putnam, one of the junior officers. who by faithful service from Bunker Hill to the close of the war had risen from the rank of lieutenant-colonel to that of brigadier-gen- eral. For nearly 40 years he was the most prominent figure in local history. Hither came also a son and grandsons of Maj .- Gen. Israel Putnam, whose descendants have borne an honorable part in the history of our State and country.

Next among the leaders was Commodore Whipple, the first naval commander of the Revolution and the first to sail a ship down the Ohio and Mississippi. Rev. Manasseh Cut-

AND REPRESENT.ITICE CITIZENS.

As the leaders of this party were soldiers. some of them well acquainted with the treach- erous character of the Indians, it was natural that they would seek a suitable spot and fortify it. Such a place they found where the high ground approaches the Muskingum River at what is now the corner of Washington and Second streets in Marietta. Itere they erect- ed the Campus Martius, a stockade or parallel- ogram of vertical logs set so deep in the earth that some of the pieces have been dug up in recent years and preserved as relics. Veter- ans have seen such defenses around Knoxville, Tennessee, and in Alexandria, Virginia. The position chosen could not have been defended against artillery from the towering hill on the other side of the Muskingum but the pioneers knew what kind of an enemy they had to meet : so they selected a position close to the river, their only highway. Within this stock- ade they built cabins and offices. Here Rev. Manasseh Cutler in August and September of that year conducted divine services ; here the first court was opened September 2. 1788: here also the first school was taught by Maj. Anselm Tupper and the first Sunday-school, by Mrs. Mary B. Lake, whose grave at Rain- bow was covered a few years ago by a mound of flowers placed there by the Sunday-school Association of Ohio. A monument. the gift of the Sunday-schools of this State, now marks her grave and commemorates her work.

A task of equal importance with that of preparing for defense, was the providing of the means of subsistence. With three uten- sils the pioneers could provide for their wants in the wilderness: with the rifle they could find game: with the axe they could construct their houses, fortifications, and boats, with it they could also girdle the large forest trees, and with the hoe they could dig out the smaller

ler also sent a son to this Western colony, bushes and prepare the soil for planting corn. among whose descendants are many who have honorably served the State and the nation. Their diligence in this work was often men- tioned by the officers and soldiers at Fort Ilarmar. Before many weeks a hundred INDUSTRY AND COURAGE OF THE PIONEERS. aeres had been cleared and planted in what was then known as the "big cornfield" and which lay in the bottom land between the Campus Martius and the Ohio. A triangular piece of land on the east side of the Muskin- gum at its mouth was also protected by a log fence or stockade and thus the New Athens had its New Piraeus but there were no long walls to connect them-nothing in fact but the Muskingum River and a rough path along its bank.

For more than six years there was no mail route and no post-office. Letters could only be sent by private messenger. One settler, who had made so much progress in farming that he wished to have a yoke of oxen, could find no other way of procuring them than to buy them in New England and have them driven all the way to Ohio. At first the new region was known as Muskingum, and the little town as Adelphi, but in the summer of 1788 the officers of the Ohio Company adopt- ed the name of Marietta in honor of "Her Majesty of France" Marie Antoinette. (Note (. )

The long road through the wilderness did not deter the pioneers from transplanting the best they could find in New England. We have seen how they brought the school and the church with them. They also brought law and order. for the Ordinance of 1787 provided for a temporary government which had power to adopt laws from any State, and Governor St. Clair was sent as the highest executive officer. (Note H.)

Many officers and soldiers who came to Marietta had been members of a traveling lodge of Freemasons which. chartered in Massachusetts in 1775, had kept up its or- ganization to the close of the war. Work was resumed at Marietta and so it happens that American Union Lodge of Marietta is No. 1 in Ohio.

HISTORY OF MARIETTA AND WASHINGTON COUNTY.

A few years ago George Dana showed the writer a hardy old apple tree which. he said. was the parent of all the Putnam or Roxbury russets found in Ohio. This hardy variety has proved to be one of the strongest to resist the ravages of the pests which have destroyed many of the more rapid growers.

The settlers also brought with them the old-fashioned method of account in pounds. shillings, and pence, which they continued to use in book accounts, at least, until the be- ginning of the next century. These pounds. shillings, and pence were not the sterling kind. but the money of account used in the colonies and a shilling in one colony meant a very dif- ferent thing from what it did in another ; thus to know whether it was one-sixth, one-eighth or two-fifteenths of a dollar, we must first learn from what one of the old colonies the ac- count comes. Usually the Pennsylvania rate prevailed in the new settlement : that is, a Span- ish dollar was counted at seven shillings and six pence, or 90 pence. Hence as the pioneers began to translate their accounts into Jeffer- son's new-fangled money they would reduce the bill to pence and divide by 90. Thus a workman charged General Putnam one dollar and thirty-five ninetieths a hundred for some lumber, and in 1796 the Ohio Company paid John Matthews one hundred and twenty-one dollars and eighteen ninetieths. It took the people a long while to learn the new way of counting by the decimal system. (Note I.) In fact, it made very little difference to the pioneers whether they wrote dollar or shil- ling for they rarely saw either. The most of their trading was done by barter. The first library bought by the settlers on Federal Creek was called the "Coonskin Library." be- cause it was purchased with the furs which the young men had collected for that purpose.

of some of the simplest necessities of life. At first the salt, which was brought over the mountains on pack-horses and then by boat down the Ohio, was sold to those who could afford to buy it, at $8 a bushel. After a few years a salt spring near Chandlersville, in Mtts- kingum County, was discovered, and a com- pany was formed to purchase kettles and con- vey them to the place. These the sharehold- ers could use in rotation and the surrounding forest furnished an abundance of fuel. Even then it was a long, tedious process to boil down the weak solution, so that salt was still worth $4 a hundred. At these primitive salt-works the Duke of Orleans, afterward known as Louis Philipp, spent a night, as the guest of Ephraim Cutler. This same Mr. Cutler gives a vivid picture of his mode of travel in 1799 from what is now Ames township of Athens County to Wolf Creek Mills.

"By the first of May we had cut down the trees standing on about one acre, and had the logs ready for a cabin, when a rain fell suffi- cient to raise Federal Creek so as to admit large pirogues to come within two miles of my place. I started at once with my two men and Samuel Brown for Waterford, with the purpose of having our goods brought round by water. When we came to Wolf Creek on our way, it was so swelled by the late rains as to be impassable. We found a large bitter-nut hickory tree standing near the creek, which we cut down, and peeled off the bark from about thirty feet of the trunk: and with the bark of the leather wood, which grew there in abundance, we sewed up the two ends; then smeared the slippery inside with earth, so that we could stand up in it, and launched it into the creek. We made some paddles of the wood of the hickory tree, and went aboard our craft. Finding it a better boat than we ex- pected, instead of crossing the stream, as we at first intended, we concluded to use it to con- vey us down to Wolf Creek Mills, fifteen miles below. The current bore us on at a good speed. Presently we saw a bear on the

In our day when even in the country dis- tricts the neighboring store can furnish us ar- ticles of necessity or luxury from every quar- ter of the globe, when car-loads of tropical fruits are as common as wheat or corn, it is hard to realize how destitute the pioneers were ; bank about to swim the creek. Having a

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS.

rifle on board, we shot him and, landing. carefully placed our prize in our frail canoc. This, with four persons, was rather too heavy a load, and the leatherwood strings threatened to give out. 1 laid myself down and. grasping my hands around the bow of our boat, remained in that position, holling it firmly together, until we arrived with our car- go safely at the mills."

These times of suffering often brought out the nobler traits of humanity.

As long as they lived. the first settlers used to recall with gratitude the kindness of Isaac Williams, who settled in Virginia oppo- site Fort Harmar, in the site that now bears the name of Williamstown. In the fall of 1789 an early frost had so injured the corn that the next spring was a time of great priva- tion. Mr. Williams had a surplus. This he refused to sell to speculators who were eager to buy up his corn at $1 a bushel, but to each family he would sell a few bushels at half the price he had been offered.

OTHER NEAR-BY SETTLEMENTS.

Following close upon the settlement on the Muskingum was another between the Great and the Little Miami. In 1787 John Cleves Symmes made a contract with Congress for the purchase of 1,000,000 acres between these two rivers. He failed to pay for the whole. and therefore secured patents for a little less than one-third of the proposed amount. The first party to occupy land in this purchase was led by Maj. Benjamin Stiles. They landed at the mouth of the Little Miami in November. 1788, and founded the town of Columbia. . 1 second party, under Matthias Denman and Robert Patterson, landed opposite to the mouth of the Licking in December, 1788, and some one proposed the name of Losanteville for a town which was never laid out. The etymology of the name is variously interpreted. The third party was led by John Cleves

Symines. He landed at North Bend. The names Symmes was proposed for the town about to be built there but it has ever since been known as North Bend. In June. 1789. a detachment of soldiers under the same Ma- jor Doughty who had built Fort Harmar came to the "land opposite the mouth of the Lick- ing" and built Fort Washington. Around this fort grew up the town which soon bore the name of Cincinnati in honor of that order of "embattled farmers" founded by the officers of the Revolutionary Army. It has been as- serted that the name was suggested by Gov- ernor St. Clair. For nine years the two towns Marietta and Cincinnati were the only county- seats in what is now Ohio, and the only coun- ties were Washington and Hamilton. In the Northwest Territory there were two others: Knox, now the State of Indiana, with seat of justice at Vincennes : and St. Clair or Illinois. with Kaskaskia for its county town.

Almost from the beginning of the settle- ment between the Miamis, the settlers were harrassed by Indians. Within the first year the savages made three attacks, killed four men. wounded others, captured one prisoner and carried off much plunder.

The next settlement was made at Gallipo- lis, a name suggested in France before the col- onists started from their fair home. The misfortunes of these colonists, enticed into the wilderness by the roseate pictures of the wily promoter Joel Barlow, demand for their vivid portrayal the genius of another Longfellow. To understand the history of Gallipolis we must go back to the Scioto Company. This company had in 1788 sent Barlow to Paris to sell 3,000,000 acres of land and induce French settlers to come over. In February. 1790. about 600 emigrants sailed from Havre for Alexandria, Virginia. Thence their route lay through Winchester, Virginia, and Brownsville, Pennsylvania. When their ves- sels arrived at Alexandria, they learned a lit- tle of the perils which confronted them and that even the title to the lands they had pur- chased was not good.

*From "Life and Times of Ephraim Cutler." by his granddaughter. Miss Julia Perkins Cutler.

HISTORY OF MARIETTA AND WASHINGTON COUNTY.

In despair some gave up the journey and settled in the East. About 400 crossed the mountains and found quarters at Gallipolis in the cabins, prepared under the direction of Maj. John Burnham, who had been sent thither by General Putnam. The centennial anni- versary of that event was fittingly celebrated at Gallipolis, October 19, 1890. Among the French settlers were many workmen whose skill excited the wonder of the hardy frontiers- man. There were goldsmiths and watchmak- ers, sculptors and glassblowers. Some of their work went down the river to New Or- leans and other choice pieces were brought up the Ohio. The beautiful gardens and vine- yards were greatly admired by General Put- nam and John Heckewelder, who visited Galli- polis in 1792. But there was an accumula- tion of disasters to blight the fair prospects of the settlement. First. the Indian war dis- turbed it as had also happened on the Miami and the Muskingum. Then the French Revo- lution. the greatest of all political and social revolutions, had destroyed the property of some who had promoted the French emigra- tion, and their losses hastened the financial failure of the Scioto Company. Many of the settlers at Gallipolis moved away. A few came to Marietta where their descendants still live. So many French settlers had deserted Gallipolis before 1795, , that when General Putnam was called to divide and allot the 24 .- 000 acres of land of the "French Grant,"- a tract on the Ohio above the mouth of the Sci- oto,-only 93 persons over 18 years of age reported to draw their share. A very inter- esting history of the Gallipolis settlement has recently been published by Hon. William G. Sibley.

A little later, General Putnam was directed to survey and locate another settlement-one which had been begun in 1773 but which had been destroyed in 1782, and remained utterly destroyed for about 16 years.

At a time when some cold-blooded and weak-headed people are so ready to sneer at the labors of the missionary. it is worth while to

recall the heroism of the Moravians who came to the upper waters of the Muskingum long before the settlement was begun at Marietta. .As early as 1762 John Heckewelder com- menced his missionary career about the heads of the Tuscarawas. In the spring of 1773 he came down the Ohio with a party of Christian Indians, who in 22 canoes were seeking a peaceful home beyond the reach of the savage frontiersman. They went up the Muskingum beyond the present site of Coshocton and founded Gnadenhutten ( The Tents of Grace). Unfortunately they were between the British and Americans in time of a bitter war-a war in which many Indians were taking part on one side or the other. Hence the poor Christian Indians were persecuted by all parties, and at last in 1782, at the very time when a British officer was sending orders for them to leave their pleasant corn-fields, the crowning atroc- ity of the war was consummated by a party of Americans from Mingo who murdered 93 !In- resisting prisoners.

In 1798 the self-sacrificing missionary Zeisberger returned with a little band of Christian Indians to the banks of the Tusca- rawas, where Congress had granted them 12,000 acres of land. About the same time Heckewelder and many Moravians from Penn- sylvania returned and made new homes at Gnadenhutten, where on the 12th of August. 1900, the Moravian Church of that place cel- ebrated its rooth anniversary. Tuscarawas is a good Indian name ; vet when we recall the noble heroism of missionaries and martyrs. we regret that the legislature did not adopt for that country the name first proposed. Mo- ravia. (Note J.)

NOTES.

Note A .- SURVEYING IN OHIO IN 1786-87.

(Extracts from the journal of John Mathews. The manuscript is in the private collection of R. M. Stim- son, of Marietta, Ohio.)

General Rufus Putnam, was sent by his uncle The writer of this journal, a nephew of

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

in the summer of 1786 to assist in the survey of the lands lying west and north of the Ohio River. Mr. Mathews was to receive for his services two shillings-about 25 cents-a day and rations. Evidently he was not there for the wages alone. He had a keen eye for good farming iand and he noted very carefully where it could be found as he tramped across the territory that now forms Carroll, Coluim- biana, Harrison, Jefferson and Belmont coun- ties.

Saturday, ( July ) 29th. Arrived at Pittsburg about 3 o'clock P. M., found the surveyor had gran down the Ohio to Little Beve Creek. Received directions from Gen'l Tupper by Col. Shairman to go down the river, Col. Shairman being to set out immediately for Beaver Creek. We cross the Monongchala and road about a mile and 12 and put up for the night.

Sunday, 30th. Proceeded down S. E. side of the Ohio river for Beaver Creek, put up at within 4 miles of camp.

Monday, 3Ist. Arrived at camp on the E bank of the Chio this morning where the surveyors are waiting for the troops from Mingo who are (to) assist them on their survey. August 15th. Crossed the river this day with Capt. Hoops to begin the 2nd raing of townships. Camp'd 5 miles from the river-on the E and W line. On coming the line I found the land hilly and uneven except near the Ohio and of an excellent quality many of the side hills most fit for grazing and the tops of the ridges level and excellent for wheat.

On the 25th of August their line leads them across the "N fork of Yellow Creek."

Sept. ist. 1786. Major Hoops having been for some time in a bad state of health and growing more unwell, concluded this morning to leave the line and return to camp at Little Beaver. Accordingly de- camped at 9 a. m. and got as far as the 5th mile post on the N boundary of the 2 raing.

Saturday. Sept. 2nd. Arrived at Little Beaver at 3 o'clock P M. Found the surveyors had all left camp except Gon'l. Tupper, Capt. Morris and Mr. Duffey.

On the 6th he started westward with Gen- eral Tupper and passed north of the present site of Carrollton.

Monday. Ith. The second mile is through a large swamp coming from the S. E. and running north- westwardly. The soil deep and mirey in many places but when elcared it will make excellent low medow.

Mr Ansehn ( Tapper un did he and myself carry the om in

It Bach. A. M Mr Tupper and myself with a bunter left Major Sargent's camp in order to fall in with Gen'l. Tupper on the geographers' line who we found .neamped near the end of the 6th raing. 15th. Moved to the westward about 5 miles where we found the geographers' camp on Sandy creek, a irge branch of the Tuskarawas.

Inth. The north bounds of the 7th ramg not be- completed. Gul. Tupper could not enter upon business this day.

Sunday, 17th I went to a camp of Indians who were returning from Fort McIntosh to their town. They were encamped So rods above us on the creek. They were about eighteen in number, men and women. They had rum with them and had a drunken frolic the night before, but appeared decent anel friendly.

Monday. 18th. 10 o'clock Genl. Tupper began his raing and our camp moved to west about 3 miles to another large branch of the Tuskarawas, called Nime-hilling. After we had run 34 of a mile an ex- press arrived from Major Hamtramck's camp at Little Beaver and brought information that the Indian, were assembling at the Shawanees towns and intended mak- ing a general attack on the surveyors. Capt. Ilutchens and Gen !. Tupper thought it unsafe to proceed any further. Information was immediately sent to Capt. Morris who had got about one mile and a half on the west boundary of the 7th raing.

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History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 7

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