USA > Ohio > Morgan County > History of Morgan County, Ohio, with portraits and biographical sketches of some of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 2
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HISTORY OF MORGAN COUNTY, OHIO.
portion of it their own. But it was not until near the middle of the seventeenth century that the French were led to ex- plore the region of the great lakes, and then religious zeal was the only inspira- tion of the explorers. Lake Superior was visited in 1641 by Charles Raym- bault, the first of the missionary ex- plorers of the Northwest. During the next thirty years, the Jesuits continued their explorations with great diligence and activity, establishing missions at varions points north of the lakes, also in Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois.
Joliet and Marquette, the former a Quebec merchant and the latter a Jesuit missionary, in 1673 explored the country about the northern lakes, passed from Green Bay up the Fox and down the Wisconsin River into the Mississippi, and explored that river as far as the mouth of the Arkansas, returning by the Illinois and Chicago rivers to Lake Michigan.
It is the unanimous opinion of the chief historians of the country that Robert Chevalier La Salle was the first white man to explore the beautiful stream now known as the Ohio, and the first to tread the soil of the great State named from the river. The earliest explorers of the Mississippi region con- sidercd the Ohio and Wabash as one stream, and gave the name Onabache to both.
La Salle was born in France in 1635, and educated for the priesthood; but his adventurous spirit would not brook the seclusion of the cloister. He came to Canada in 1666 and plunged boldly into the wilderness to make a name as an explorer. Soon after we find him among the Seneca Indians of New York, seeking a guide to lead him into the country of the Delawares. Success-
ful in his quest-having obtained a Shawnee prisoner by gifts to the Sene- cas-he set out upon his hazardous ex- pedition. As the records of three years of his wanderings are lost to the world, there is no direct evidence as to the route which he took to reach and ex- plore the Ohio River. Several Ohio writers have asserted, with some show- ing of probability, that after proceeding up Lake Erie to the mouth of the Cuy- ahoga he followed that river to the port- age and reached the Ohio by the Tusca- rawas and the Muskingum. It is gener- ally agreed that the time of his journey was the winter of 1669-70. Others main- tain that La Salle crossed Lake Erie to the Maumee, and came to the Ohio by that stream and the Miami. But the weight of historical evidence supports the generally accepted and more proba- ble theory that he journeyed from the Seneca country to the Allegheny, and down that river to the Ohio, whence he explored its chief tributaries. Hence, although he may not have reached the Ohio by way of the Muskingum, it is very likely that he explored the latter stream during some part of his three years of wandering.
In 1679, La Salle, who was then at the French post of Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, built and launched upon Lake Erie the Griffin, a bark of sixty tons' burden, the first vessel that ever navigated the waters of the lake ; sailed across Lakes Erie and Huron to the Straits of Mackinac, and thence to Green Bay. From this point he sent back the Griffin with a cargo of furs, and, accompanied by Father Louis Hen- nepin (a Franciscan monk) and four- teen other men, journeyed farther into the wild and unknown region. They proceeded in canoes by way of the St.
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Joseph, Kankakee and Illinois rivers to Peoria Lake, in the vicinity of which La Salle erected a fort and trading sta- tion. Then, leaving his lieutenant, Monsieur Tonti, and some of the men in charge of the station, he returned to Mackinac, where the Jesuits had a missionary settlement, and spent some months voyaging between that point and Fort Frontenac.
In January, 1682, La Salle set out on a grand voyage to discover the mouth of the Mississippi. By way of Lake Michigan, the Chicago and Illinois rivers, he reached the great river and descended it as far as the site of New Orleans. There, on the 9th of April, with due solemnities, in the name of Louis, king of France, he took posses- sion of "the country of Louisiana, all its seas, harbors, ports, bays, adjacent straits, . . nations, peoples, prov- inces, cities, towns, villages, mines, min- erals, fisheries, streams and rivers," from the Gulf to the sources of the Mississippi.
After this expedition the great coyd- geur returned to his native land and induced his government to fit out an expedition for the purpose of planting a colony on the Mississippi. Sailing from France in 1685, he reached the Gulf of Mexico, but failed to discover the mouth of the Father of Waters. Landing within the present State of Texas, he explored the adjacent region some distance westward and north- ward. La Salle was murdered in March, 1687, by two of his own men. Thus perished one of the bravest and most gallant of the explorers of the New World. Ilis scheme of coloniza- tion was a failure; but upon the strength of his action in taking posses- sion of the country in the name of the
king, France laid claim to the vast ter- ritory of Louisiana.
As early as 1688 France had estab- lished military posts at Frontenac, Niagara, Mackinac, and on the Illinois River, and before 1750 French settle- ments were established at several points on the great lakes and in the Missis- sippi Valley. But of the Ohio Valley, from the death of La Salle to near the middle of the eighteenth century, there is little authentic history except that furnished by the journals of the Jesuit missionaries, who traversed the country along the Wabash, the Maumee and the Illinois, founding missions and preach- ing to the Indians. Soon after the missionaries began their labors the French traders established posts, and to some extent explored the country. They had a trading post at or near the mouth af the Maumee as early as 1680, and traveled back and forth from Can- ada to the Mississippi ; later they trav- eled to that stream by way of the Mau- mee, the Wabash and the Ohio, and from Presque Isle, on Lake Erie, by way of the Allegheny (which was long known as the Ohio) and the Ohio.
The entire region west of the Alle- ghanies was little known to the English prior to 1740, when English traders began to supersede the French. The colonial governments of Virginia and Pennsylvania especially encouraged and fostered the commerce between the whites and the Indians. In this Vir- ginia took the lead. Governor Spots- wood was an enthusiast upon the sub- ject, and after exploring and finding a practical passage through the Alle- ghenies in 1714 he entered eagerly upon the project of taking possession of the country beyond them. He urged upon the British government the
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HISTORY OF MORGAN COUNTY, OHIO.
importance of obtaining such a foot- hold in the West as to be able to resist the growth of French influence. One romantic feature of his work was the founding of the Transmontane order of knights, with the motto, Sic jurat trans- cendere montes. Though no systematic settlement or exploration resulted, yet from time to time adventurers reached La Belle Riviere- the Beautiful River- - as the French called the Ohio. Had Gov- ernor Spotswood's advice been heeded, the long and bloody French and Indian war (1754-63) might not have been necessary to dislodge the French from the West.
English traders visited the Ohio be- tween 1730 and 1740, and were licensed by the government of Pennsylvania to trade as far west as the Mississippi in 1744. John Howard descended the Ohio in 1742, and was captured on the Mississippi by the French. In 1748 Conrad Weiser, acting for the English, visited Logstown, a Shawnee town on the Ohio, a short distance from Pitts- burgh, bearing gifts to gain the favor of the savages. Soon after, the renowned pioneer, George Croghan, accompanied by Andrew Montour, a Seneca half- breed, journeyed westward into the country of the Miamis, won the favor of the tribes by gifts, and in 1751 erected a stockade on the great Miami within the present limits of Shelby County, Ohio. This station, which was called Pickawillamy, was destroyed by the French and Indians in June of the following year. It was doubtless the first structure erected by the hands of Englishmen within the limits of the State.
Prior to 1750 the French established a trading-station and built a fort at Sandusky, and made a systematic ex-
ploration of the Ohio and its tributaries. The expedition for this purpose was sent out by the Marquis de la Galis- soniere, captain-general of New France, and was led by Celeron de Bienville. In 1798 a leaden plate was found at the mouth of the Muskingum, which bore an inscription of which the following is a translation :
"In the year 1749, of the reign of Louis XV of France, we, Celeron, con- mandant of a detachment sent by the Marquis de la Galissoniere, captain- general of New France, in order to establish tranquility among some vil- lages of savages of these parts, have buried this plate at the mouth of the river Chi-no-da-hich-e-tha, the 18th of August, near the river Ohio, otherwise Beautiful River, as a monument of re- newal of possession which we have taken of the said river Ohio, and of all those which empty themselves into it, and of all the lands of both sides, even to the sources of said rivers, as have en- joyed or ought to have enjoyed the pre- ceding kings of France, and that they have maintained themselves there by force of arms and by treaties, especially by those of Ryswick, of Utrecht and of Aix-la-Chapelle." Another plate bear- ing a similar inscription was found later at the mouth of the Kanawha, and a few years ago one of like purport was found on the Upper Allegheny.
The first concerted movement look- ing toward the establishment of an English colony in the Ohio Valley was made in 1748, when twelve prominent Virginians, among whom were Robert Dinwiddie, governor of the province, Lawrence and Augustine Washington, brothers of George Washington, and Thomas Lee, president of the council of Virginia, formed an association styled
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the Ohio Land Company. In 1749 the company received from George II a grant of half a million acres of land, to be located between the Kanawha and Monongahela rivers, or on the northern bank of the Ohio. One of the condi- tions of the grant was that one hundred families should be settled on the tract within seven years.
De Bienville's expedition was made for the purpose of driving the English out of the Ohio Valley and thwarting the purposes of the Ohio Land Com- pany. To the same end the French built forts at Presque Isle (now Eric, Pa.), at Le Bœuf, on a tributary of the Allegheny, about fifteen miles south of Lake Erie, and at Venango, and sent out a party to destroy the English post on the Maumee.
Meantime, in 1750, the Ohio Land Company sent out Christopher Gist and a surveying party to examine and explore the country in which it was proposed to establish the colony. The party reached the Ohio, opposite the mouth of Beaver Creek, and, after tarry- ing at Logstown, crossed the country, arriving at the Tuscarawas River, op- posite the present town of Bolivar, on the 5th of December. On the 7th Gist crossed the river to an Indian village, whose inhabitants were favorable to the French. Following the river south, on the 14th he reached an Indian town near the junction of the White-woman Creek and the Tuscarawas. The town contained about one hundred families, part of them favorable to the English and part to the French. Ilere he found Montour and George Croghan, the latter having his headquarters in the town.
" When we came in sight of the town," says Gist, in his journal, " we perceived the English colors hoisted on
the king's (chief's) house, and at George Croghan's. Upon inquiring the reason I was informed that the French had lately taken several English traders, and that Mr. Croghan had ordered all the white men to come into this town, and had sent runners to the traders of the lower towns, and that the Indians had sent to their people to come and counsel about it."
Gist tarried among the Indians of the Tuscarawas Valley until the latter part of January, 1751, and during his stay visited the white woman, Mary Harris, who lived among the Indians, and had great influence with them. White-woman Creek received its name from her. She was of New England birth, and was captured and taken west when a child. She grew up and mar- ried among the savages, and ended her days among them.
Gist, accompanied on part of his jour- ney by Croghan, crossed from the Muskingum to Licking Creek, thence to the Scioto, which he explored to its mouth, then journeyed on the Ohio nearly to the falls at Louisville, return- ing on foot to Virginia through Ken- tucky.
In 1753 the Virginians opened a road from Will's Creek, near Cumberland, Md., to the Ohio Valley, and made preparations to establish a colony. The governor sent George Washington, with Christopher Gist as his guide, to the French posts at Venaugo (now Frank- lin, Pa.), and Le Bœuf, to demand the reason for the French invasion of British territory. The young Virginiau received a defiant answer, and the project of founding a colony was abandoned, as it became evident that war must ensue between the French and the English. The struggle that followed established
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HISTORY OF MORGAN COUNTY, OHIO.
the British in possession of Canada and all the country east of the Mississippi, excepting the Spanish territory and a sinall body of land about New Orleans.
In 1764 occurred the first English military expedition into the country northwest of the Ohio. Colonel Henry Bouquet was sent out to punish the Delawares, Shawnees and other Ohio tribes for their depredations and massa- cres on the Pennsylvania frontiers dur- ing the war between the French and the English. With a force numbering fifteen hundred men, three hundred of whom deserted before the expedition was fairly begun, he had marched through Pennsylvania along Braddock's old trail in 1763, conquered the Indians in a two days' fight at Bushy Run and taken the remainder of his army to Fort Pitt. On the 3d of October, 1764, he marched from Fort Pitt with fifteen hundred men on his way into the val- leys of the Muskingum and the Tus- carawas. The expedition penetrated the Indian country as far as the forks of the Muskingum, where Coshocton now is. No blood was shed, the In- dians yielding their assent to the terms of a treaty proposed by Colonel Bou- quet, and delivering up the captives they then held. Over two hundred white prisoners were delivered into the colonel's charge, and it was stated that more than a hundred more still re- mained at distant points in possession of the Shawnees, who promised to de- liver them to the English authorities in the following spring. Bouquet's army returned from its bloodless conquest, reaching Fort Pitt on the 28th of November.
While Bouquet was in the Muskin- gum country Colonel Bradstreet led an expedition to the Indian towns along
the southern shore of Lake Erie, and was equally successful in his object, gaining the promise of peace without any fighting.
The British took but little advantage of their ascendency in the Northwest. The country was visited by few except Indian traders. The borders of Penn- sylvania and Virginia were peopled years before adventurous hunters and trappers ("squatters ") sought to make homes for themselves north of the Ohio, where the Indian title to the lands had not yet been extinguished.
In 1770 George Washington, Captain William Crawford and Dr. Craik, ac- companied by a party of Indians, jour- neyed down the Ohio as far as the mouth of the Big Kanawha. (Craw- ford, afterward colonel, was burned at the stake in what is now Wyandot County, in 1782.) The party were at the mouth of the Muskingum on the 27th of October.
In the spring of 1774, on the West Virginia side of the Ohio, there was perpetrated a most cruel and unpro- voked murder of Indians by the whites. The massacre took place opposite the mouth of the Yellow Creek, Jefferson county, Ohio. The victims were the kindred of Logan, the talented Mingo chief, renowned for his friendship to the whites. Logan had taken no part in the French and Indian war, except as a peacemaker. At the time of the massacre he was living on Yellow Creek and supporting himself and fam- ily by hunting. A party of white men encamped opposite the mouth of the creek, and were visited by six Indians -five men and one woman. The whites, after making some of the In- dians drunk, murdered all, not even sparing the woman.
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To avenge the death of his relatives, Logan took the warpath, and became the terror of the adventurous squatters of the border. Then, retiring farther into the wilderness, he made his home with the Shawnees-a tribe most hos- tile to the whites-in the old Indian town of Chillicothe. The Shawnees, doubtless inspired by the influence and example of Logan, renewed their bloody assaults upon the frontier set- tlements. To quiet the increasing trouble, Lord Dunmore, the royal Gov- ernor of Virginia, organized and led an army into the Ohio country. The force was in two divisions, one led by General Alexander Lewis, and the other by Lord Dunmore himself.
General Lewis' division marched by land to the mouth of the Big Kanawha, while Dunmore's force proceeded down the Ohio in boats and canoes. At Point Pleasant, on the 10th of October, 1774, General Lewis' Division (the smaller of the two), consisting of about eleven hundred men, was attacked by almost an equal number of Shawnees, under the leadership of Cornstalk. There ensned one of the most hardly contested battles ever fought between the white men and the red on the banks of the Ohio. The Indians re- tired after losing several of their best warriors. The whites lost over fifty men and several officers. The loss of the Indians was estimated at over two hundred.
Dumnore, instead of landing at the month of the Kanawha, as had been his original intention, disembarked at the month of the Hocking, where he erected a blockhouse in which to leave his sur- phis stores while he advanced farther into the enemy's country. Dimmore's division did no fighting, but advanced
to within eight miles of the Indian town of Chillicothe, and there was joined by General Lewis and his force. The Indians seemed humbled and sued for peace, and at Camp Charlotte a treaty was held. It was during the negotiation of this treaty that Logan gave utterance to his famous speech, once familiar to every schoolboy, be- ginning, " I appeal to any white man to say that he ever entered Logan's cabin hungry, but I gave him meat," etc. Lord Dunmore returned to Virginia, and in the following year engaged in that rebellion which called for his ex- pulsion in disgrace from the province. Whatever may have been the motives which animated him in his subsequent course, there is no doubt but honorable patriotism and a desire for military re- nown inspired his western expedition.
Contemporary with Lord Dunmore's expedition Colonel Angus McDonald led a force of four hundred men against the Indian towns on the Muskingum. Wakatomeka, a Shawnese town of con- siderable size, stood near the present site of Dresden, Muskingum County. The force was collected at Wheeling. by order of the Earl of Dunmore, some time in June, 1774. It set out for the Indian town, piloted by Jonathan Zane, Thomas Nicholson and Tody Kelley. About six miles from Wakatomeka the militia were met by a band of forty or fifty Indians, who attacked them, killed two soldiers and wounded several others. One Indian was killed and several wounded. On reaching the town Colo- nel McDonald found it deserted, the Indians having withdrawn to the op- posite side of the river. There they attempted to draw the soldiers into an ambuscade, but, being msnecessful, sned for peace. The commander agreed to
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HISTORY OF MORGAN COUNTY, OHIO.
make peace on condition that their chiefs be given him as hostages. Five chiefs were accordingly delivered up to him. The Indians then representing that they would not make peace unless the chiefs of other towns were present, one of the hostages was released to bring in the others. IIe did not return, and another chief was sent out, who also failed to come back. The soldiers then moved about a mile and a half np the river to another Indian village, where they had a slight skirmish and killed one Indian. It was discovered while the whites were awaiting the re- turn of the messengers that the Indians were engaged in removing their people and effects from the upper towns. The military then burned the towns and de- stroyed the cornfields of the Indians, and returned to Virginia with three of the hostages, who were released at the subsequent peace made by Lord Dun- more in the fall of the same year.
Aside from the noteworthy and suc- cessful expedition of General George Rogers Clark, mentioned more fully below, although several invasions of the western country were planned or made during the Revolutionary period, there were few important events transpiring in what was afterwards the Northwest Territory from 1775 to 1783.
In April, 1776, Colonel George Mor- gan was appointed Indian Agent for the middle department, with headquar- ters at Fort Pitt. He held the position until some time in 1779, and by his treatment of the savages did much to win their friendship and respect. In June, 1776, Colonel Morgan sent Will- iam Wilson into the Indian country to make arrangements for a treaty. Colo- nel Morgan accompanied him as far as Pluggystown, then returned to Fort
Pitt. Wilson visited Coshocton and other Indian towns, journeyed to De- troit, and returned by way of Cosh- octon.
In 1778 a fort was erected at the mouth of Big Beaver, and named Fort McIntosh. In the fall of the same year General McIntosh marched from that fort into the Indian country, meeting with no opposition, and on the bank of the Tuscarawas, near the mouth of Sandy Creek, erected Fort Laurens, which he garrisoned with 150 men under the command of Colonel John Gibson. Fort Laurens was the first English fortification worthy of the name in Ohio. No good resulted from planting this post in the heart of the Indian country. The Shawnees and Wyandots besieged it for several weeks, killed several soldiers and caused the rest much privation. The distance of the post from supplies and the hostility of the Indians caused the fort to be abandoned in August, 1779.
Among later expeditions into the Ohio country were those of Colonel John Bowman, in 1779; General Daniel Brodhead, 1781; Colonel Archibald Lochery, 1781; Colonel Williamson, 1782; Colonel William Crawford, into the Sandusky country, where he was captured and burned, in the same year ; Colonel Benjamin Logan, 1786.
The most illustrious military achieve- ment in all the annals of the West was that of Colonel (afterward General) George Rogers Clark. His heroic ex- ploit was the chief agency in securing to the United States the territory of the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys, and but for it the Ohio and not the Mississippi would have been the boundary of our western possessions at the conclusion of the peace of 1783. As Garfield ex-
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pressed it, "the cession of that great territory under the treaty of 1783 was due mainly to the foresight, the courage and endurance of one man, who never received from his country an adequate recognition of his great services."
General Clark has received scant honor from the historians. Some Amer- ican writers of considerable note have even written what purported to be "histories of the United States" in which his name was not even men- tioned ! But in the West his name and his fame will be perpetual.
George Rogers Clark was a native of Virginia, and a pioneer settler of Ken- tucky. His wisdom and foresight led him to consider that the territory of the West as well as that of the East should be wrested from the control of the British. Accordingly, he sought authority from the House of Burgesses of Virginia to enable him to fit out and lead an expedition against the distant military posts of that nation. The Burgesses hesitating, and attempting to put him off by excuses, he appealed in person to Patrick Henry, the governor of the province, and from him received authority to raise seven companies for the purpose of taking the British posts in the Northwest. In the winter of 1778 he gathered ammunition and mili- tary stores at Pittsburgh and Wheeling ; in the spring proceeded down the Ohio to the Falls, and thence, with the small but valiant army of hardy Kentuckians and Virginians, he marched into the wilderness of the Ilinois country and soon ha I the important British posts of Kaskask.a and Vincennes in his posses- sion. W.th consummate tact he won the French inhabitants of the western posts over to the American side, and also concluded treaties of peace with
several of the western tribes of Indians. Subsequently-in 1780 and 1872-Gen- eral Clark led expeditions against the Miami Indians.
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