History of Noble County, Ohio: With Portraits and Biographical Sketches of some of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 3

Author:
Publication date: 1887
Publisher: Chicago : L.H. Watkins
Number of Pages: 709

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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 coun- try, where he was captured and

burned in the same year; Colonel Benjamin Logan, 1786.

The most illustrious military achievement in all the annals of the west was that of Colonel (afterward General) George Rogers Clark. His heroic exploit was the chief agency in securing to the United States the territory of the Ohio and Missis- sippi 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- 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 American writers of considerable note have even written what pur- ported to be "histories of the United States" in which his name was not even mentioned ! But in the West his name and his fame will be per- petual.

George Rogers Clark was a native of Virginia, and a pioneer settler of Kentucky. Ilis wisdom and fore- sight 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. Accord- ingly, he sought authority from the Ilouse of Burgesses of Virginia to enable him to fit out and lead an ex- pedition against the distant military posts of that nation. The Burgesses hesitating, and attempting to put

HISTORY OF NOBLE COUNTY, OHIO.

him off by excuses, he appealed in person to Patrick Henry, the gov- ernor 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 military 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 Kentuck- ians and Virginians, he marched into the wilderness of the Illinois country and soon had the important British posts of Kaskaskia and Vincennes in his possession. With 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. Subse- quently -in 1780 and 1872-Gen- eral Clark led expeditions against the Miami Indians.

It was on the strength of his con- quest that Virginia in 1778 organ- ized the whole region from her west- ern boundaries to the Mississippi into the county of Illinois, and held courts at Vincennes in 1779. Colo- nel John Todd was Virginia's county lieutenant or commander-in-chief for Illinois County, and established local governments in most of the western settlements. Virginia continued to exercise authority -or, at least, a show of authority -over this vast region until 1784, when she yielded all of her claims to territory in the Northwest to the general govern- ment.

Before leaving the subject of early

travels and explorations in the West let us briefly tell the story of the Moravian missionaries and the sad fate of the settlements founded by them.

The missionaries of the Moravian Church (a Protestant denomination whose chief seat was at Bethlehem, Pa.) were most zealous and success- ful in their efforts to convert the In- dians to Christianity. As early as 1761, one of their number, the Rev. Christian Frederick Post visited the Delawares on the Tuscarawas, and built himself a cabin near where the town of. Bolivar now is. Having es- tablished friendly relations with the savages, he returned to Bethlehem. In May of the following year he was again at his cabin on the banks of the Tuscarawas, accompanied by an- other missionary, Rev. John Hecke- welder. They began making a small clearing for the purpose of planting a garden. This alarmed the Indians, who feared that the missionaries contemplated taking possession of their lands. A compromise was finally made, the Indians allowing Post and Heckewelder a garden spot fifty paces square. During the sum- mer Post went to Lancaster, leaving Heckewelder at the station to in- struct the Indian children. During a portion of the summer Hecke- welder lived with Thomas Calhoun, an Indian trader who had his cabin near that which Post had built. He was obliged to hide his books and do all his reading and writing in secret, the Indians having a superstitious fear of reading and writing, think- ing when it was going on something

THE DAWN OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION.

was being done to rob them of their lands. In October Heckewelder left the Indian country, on account of rumors of war and uneasiness among the Indian nations.

Though this first attempt to con- vert the Indians resulted in failure, the zealous Moravians did not aban- don the enterprise. In 1771 Rev. David Zeisberger visited the Tusca- rawas, and in 1772 established a missionary settlement composed of twenty-eight persons and called it Schonbrunn (Beautiful Spring). Its sight was near the present town of New Philadelphia, Tuscarawas County. Rev. John Roth, Rev. George Jungman and Rev. John Etwin came out from Pennsylvania in the same year, and in the spring of 1773 the settlement of Gnaden- hutten (Tents of Grace) was founded on the river seven miles below Schonbrunn. A town was regularly laid out and a large chapel erected. The converted Indians betook them- selves to agricultural pursuits, and led a simple, quiet, peaceful exist- ence. The missionaries' labors were abundantly blessed, and the number of converts rapidly increased. In the spring of 1776 another Moravian settlement, consisting of eight fami- lies, was formed by Revs. Zeisberger and Heckewelder. It was situated about two miles from the present site of Coshocton and was called Lichtenau (Meadows or Fields of Light). In 1776, through the agency of British emissaries, a portion of the converts of Schonbrunn were in- duced to desert the settlement, re- nounce Christianity and join the

hostile Indians. Soon after the town was destroyed. In 1780 Lichtenau was abandoned and the settlement of Salem founded, five miles below Gnadenhutten. Meantime, Schon- brunn had been re-occupied.

The British, having become jeal- ous of the influence which the Mo- ravians were gaining among the In- dians, sent a party of Wyandot and Muncie warriors to the settlements. The Indians were led by the chiefs Pipe, Half-King, Wingmund and others, and by Captain Elliott and three other white men, one of whom, Kuhn by name, had been adopted into an Indian tribe. and chosen a chief. The missionaries were charged with having held corre- spondence with the agents of the American colonies then in rebellion against the British. On this slender pretext the three settlements were broken up and all the inhabitants forcibly removed to Sandusky in September, 1781. The missionaries, Zeisberger, Edwards, Heckewelder and Senseman, were subsequently tried at Detroit and found not guilty of the charges made against them.

In the winter following, the Mora- vian Indians at Sandusky, suffering from the want of sufficient provisions, sought and obtained permission to re- turn to their former homes on the Tuscarawas for the purpose of gath- ering some of the corn which they had left standing in the fields at the time of their hurried departure. They reached the Tuscarawas and began their work early in March. Meantime, the winter having been unusually fine, war parties had set

HISTORY OF NOBLE COUNTY, OHIO.

out from the Sandusky country earlier than usual, and on one of their in- cursions had murdered a family named Wallace near the Ohio River, and then fled westward toward the Moravian towns. The murderers arrived at the Tuscarawas, found the Moravians there and told them of the crime they had committed. The Christian Indians, fearing for their own safety, knowing that the whites of the border settlements would likely pursue the hostile warriors, warned the latter to leave their towns. Before they departed, how- ever, they bartered a dress and some other articles which they had taken from the murdered Mrs. Wallace to some young and thoughtless Mora- vian girls. This circumstance may have led to the massacre which fol- lowed, though it is doubtful if the Moravians would have been spared in any event. A force of eighty or ninety men, led by Colonel David Williamson, arrived at Gnadenhutten on the 7th of March, in pursuit of the Sandusky warriors whose out- rages had aroused the resentment of the inhabitants of the border. They found the peaceful Indians at work in the fields, picking corn to carry to their starving kindred on the San- dusky, having their arms, according to their usual custom, near at hand. The whites greeted the Indians in a friendly manner, told them they had come on a peaceful errand, to lead them to Fort Pitt and place them under the protection of the Ameri- cans. The Indians received this an- nouncement with pleasure, delivered once began preparing for the journey. A part of Williamson's men went to Salem and brought the Indians from the fields at that place to Gnaden- hutten. All were then placed under guard and confined in some of the deserted buildings of the town. The whites now showed their true colors, and instead of using friendly words began taunting the Moravians and calling them thieves and murderers. The Indians protested their inno- cence and sued for mercy in vain. The question was put whether the captives should be led to Fort Pitt or dispatched then and there. Only eighteen men out of the eighty or ninety in the party favored the for- mer course. Then, while the Mora- vians, with childlike faith and touch- ing devotion, were uttering their simple prayers to their Maker and singing the hymns which the noble missionaries had taught them, the dreadful carnage began. Neither age nor sex moved the heartless whites to feelings of mercy or pity. Like sheep in a pen the helpless In- dians were slaughtered by their ruth- less captors. The fiendish work ceased only when there were no more victims. Of all that were gathered in the slaughter-pens at Gnadenhut- ten on that bloody day - March 7, 1782-only two escaped. Ninety- six lives were taken. Sixty-two of the victims were grown persons, about one-third of them women. The remainder were children and youth of both sexes. The Moravians who were at work in the fields at Schoen- brunn fled at the approach of Wil- over their arms to the whites and at | liamson's men and escaped.

THE DAWN OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION.

The history of the white man's treatment of the red race nowhere exhibits a darker record of heartless cruelty, of preconcerted treachery and wanton, unprovoked murder than is furnished in this story of the mas- sacre of Gnadenhutten. When we read that for scores of years after- ward white settlers in various parts of the country lived in constant dan- ger of attacks from the Indians, can we wonder at the fact? Rather we should wonder, knowing what the nature of the savage was, that there ever again should be peace between the white man and the red.

The close of the Revolutionary War left the western country, from the great lakes on the north to Florida on the south and the Missis- sippi on the west, in the possession of the United States. Prior to that time the question of the ownership of that vast region was a vexed and much disputed topic, which had given rise to much international contro- versy. France, making the discov- eries of Marquette and La Salle the basis of her title, claimed the whole Mississippi Valley as a part of New France. Later, by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, the entire region from the lakes to the gulf became a part of the French province of Louis- iana. Not until the treaty of Paris, at the close of the French and In- dian war in 1763, did France re- linquish her claims to the territory east of the Mississippi and west of the Allegheny mountains.

England, from the earliest period of discovery and settlement of the Atlantic coast by British subjects,

laid claim to all the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and all the royal charters granted to the several original colonies defined their boun- daries as extending from sea to sea. In later years one ground of Eng- land's claim to the West was a treaty made at Lancaster, Pa., in 1744, be- tween British agents and the Six Nations, by which the latter, who claimed to own all the Ohio Valley, ceded their title to the king. By act of the British Parliament in 1774 the whole of what was afterward the Northwest Territory of the United States was made a part of the Cana- dian province of Quebec.

On the strength of their charters several of the thirteen original colonies claimed dominion west of the Alleghenies. We have seen that Virginia organized the county of Illinois, including the whole North- west, in 1778-79. But she began to assert her claims even earlier, organ- izing the county of Botetourt in 1769, with the Mississippi as its western limit. But her government of the region from 1769 to 1779 existed rather in name than in fact.

New York was the first of the States to surrender her claims to a part of the West. Under her char- ter, granted by Charles II in 1664, New York claimed western territory which prior charters had given to Massachusetts and Connecticut. On the 1st of March, 1781, she ceded to the United States all her right, title and jurisdiction in lands beyond her present western boundaries.

Virginia had better grounds for her claims than any other State, rest-

HISTORY OF NOBLE COUNTY, OHIO.

ing her title upon charters issued by King James I in 1606, 1609 and 1612, upon the conquest of the west- ern country by General Clark, and her subsequent exercise of civil au- thority therein. Nevertheless she speedily followed the example set by New York, and on the 1st of March, 1784, conveyed to the United States all her lands northwest of the Ohio, reserving a small tract, known as the Virginia Military District, in South- ern Ohio.

In the same year Massachusetts ceded her claims without reservation, and the action was formally ratified April 18, 1785.

Connecticut made, as Chief Jus- tice Chase expressed it, "the last tardy and reluctant sacrifice of State pretensions to the general good," on the 14th of September, 1786, ceding to Congress all her "right, title, in- terest, jurisdiction and claim" to ands northwest of the Ohio, with the exception of the Connecticut Western Reserve; that tract she was allowed to hold and dispose of, and she did not yield her claims of juris- diction over it until May 30, 1800.

Thus, in a brief time after the ter- ritory passed from British to Ameri- can control, all the various conflict- ing and embarrassing State claims were amicably adjusted and the way prepared for stable and effective government in the Northwest.

The close of the Revolution and the treaty of peace left the United States to deal with the Indian ques- tion alone, Great Britain even neg- lecting to make any provision for the Six Nations, who had steadfastly

adhered to her side, and manfully fought for her interests throughout the war. It has sometimes been said that republics are ungrateful. Be that as it may, what ought to be said of the ingratitude of a great kingdom which treats a powerful confederation of people as friends and allies for years, uses them to fight its own battles, then basely deserts them? This savage confed- eracy, consisting of the Mohawks, Onondagas, Senecas, Tuscaroras, Cayugas and Oneidas, for more than a century had claimed the ownership of the Ohio Valley.

One of the first acts of the infant Republic was the making of a treaty with the Six Nations. Congress ap- pointed Oliver Wolcott, Richard But- ler and Arthur Lee as commissioners, and the treaty was concluded at Fort Stanwix, October 22, 1784. Corn- planter and Red Jacket, two of the ablest of the chiefs of the Six Na- tions, were present at the treaty, the former counseling peace and the lat" ter war. Lafayette, the noble French ally of the Americans, was also pres- ent, and warmly urged upon the In- dians the importance of making peace with the United States. The most important provision of the treaty, so far as the West was concerned, was the surrender by the allied tribes of all claim to lands in the Ohio Valley.

The treaty of Fort McIntosh was concluded January 21, 1785, between George Rogers Clark, Richard But- ler and Arthur Lee, commissioners of the United States, and represen- tatives of the Indian tribes of the Delawares, Wyandots, Ottawas and

THE DAWN OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION.

Chippewas. The treaty provided for the surrender to the United States of all prisoners then held by the several tribes, and the Indians declared themselves under the pro tection of the United States Govern- ment, and of no other power what- ever. The third article of the treaty declared :

"The boundary line between the United States and the Wyandot and Delaware nations shall begin at the mouth of the river Cuyahoga and run thence up the said river to the portage between that and the Tus- carawas branch of the Muskingum; thence down the said branch to the forks at the crossing-place above Fort Laurens; then westwardly to | the portage of the Big Miami, which runs into the Ohio, at the mouth of which branch the fort stood which was taken by the French in 1752; then along the said portage to the Great Miami or Ome River,* and down the southeast side of the same to its mouth ; thence along the south shore of Lake Erie to the mouth of Cuyahoga, where it began."

"ARTICLE 4TH .- The United States allot all the lands within the said lines to the Wyandot and Delaware nations to live and to hunt on, and to such of the Ottawa nation as now . live thereon, saving and reserving for the establishment of trading posts six miles square at the mouth of the Miami or Ome River, and the same at the portage of that branch of the Miami which runs into the Ohio, and the same on the Lake of Sandusky, where the fort formerly

stood, and also two miles square on each side of the lower rapids of San- dusky River, which posts and the lands annexed to them shall be to the use and under the government of the United States."

The United States agreed that the Indians might punish as they pleased any person attempting to settle on the reserved land of the Wyandot and Delaware nations. The Indians signing the treaty surrendered all claims to lands east, south and west of the limits specified in the third article. Articles 7 and 8 reserved to the United States the posts of Detroit and Michillimackinac (Mack- inac) and small tracts about them. Article 9th declared that if any In- dian should murder or rob any citi- | zen of the United States the tribe to which he belonged should deliver him up to the authorities at the nearest post. The concluding arti- cle was as follows :

"ARTICLE 10TH .- The commission- ers of the United States, in pursuance of the humane and liberal views of Congress, upon the treaty's being signed, will direct goods to be dis- tributed among the different tribes for their use and comfort."

The Shawnees, at a treaty held at Fort Finney, at the mouth of the Great Miami, January 31, 1786, sur- rendered their claims to land in the Ohio Valley. George Rogers Clark, Richard Butler and Samuel II. Par- sons were the commissioners who negotiated the treaty. (General l'ar- sons was afterward one of the pion- eer settlers at Marietta and one of the territorial judges. He was

"The Maumee.

HISTORY OF NOBLE COUNTY, OHIO.

drowned in the Big Beaver River November 17, 1789.) James Mon- roe, from Virginia, afterward Presi- dent of the United States, accompa- nied General Butler on his way to Fort Finney as far as Limestone, now Maysville, Ky., where they ar- rived in October, 1785. The party, according to General Butler's jour- nal, stopped at the mouth of the Muskingum and left fixed in a locust tree a letter recommending the build- ing of a fort on the Ohio side.

The terms of the treaty confined the Shawnees to territory west of the Great Miami. They gave host- ages for the return of all citizens of the United States then held by them as prisoners, and acknowledged the sovereignty of the American govern- ment over all territory ceded by the British. The treaty was soon disre-

garded by the Shawnees, who began to be dissatisfied with its provisions almost as soon as they had yielded their assent to them. Congress now changed its tactics, and instead of assuming that the treaty with Great Britain had made the American gov- ernment the absolute owner of the Indian lands, began to recognize the Indians' rights to the territory. In July, 1787, $26,000 was appropriated for the purpose of extinguishing In- dian titles in the West and making a purchase beyond the limits fixed by the previous treaties. Under this policy the treaty of Fort Harmar (1789), the treaty of Greenville (1795) and others of later date were con- cluded. The Fort Harmar and Greenville treaties are described in another chapter.

CHAPTER II. INDIANS OF THE OHIO VALLEY.

A GLANCE AT ABORIGINAL OHIO - A HUNTER'S PARADISE - THE MOUND BUILDERS AND THEIR WORKS - THE ABORIGINES- ORIGINAL TRIBES IN OHIO -THE 'IROQUOIS AND THEIR CONQUEST OF THE COUNTRY - THE DELAWARES OF THE TUSCARAWAS AND THE MUSKINGUM - INTERESTING TRADITIONS - NOTED CHIEFTAINS - THE SHAWNEES AND THEIR HISTORY - THEIR HOSTILITY TO THE WHITES - OTHER INDIAN NATIONS -THE MANNER OF SAVAGE LIFE- JAMES SMITH RELATES HIS EXPERIENCE - HOW HE WAS CONVERTED FROM A WHITE MAN TO AN INDIAN - LIFE IN THE WILDERNESS - HUNTING THE ELK AND THE BUFFALO - WAR SONGS AND DANCES - COURTSHIP AMONG THE SAVAGES - HUNTING ADVENTURES.

F OR many years prior to the advent of the white man a large part of the valley of the Upper Ohio was almost wholly des- titute of human inhabitants, and occupied by the Indians only now and then as a hunting-ground. Dr. Hildreth estimates that this un- peopled tract was from forty to sixty miles in width on both sides of the Ohio, extending from the site of Pittsburgh to the mouth of the Great Miami. In all this vast region there were few if any spots that were permanently occupied, with the exception of Logstown, in western Pennsylvania, and a Shawnee village at the mouth of the Scioto. Over the hills and through the valleys roamed the elk, the deer and the buffalo. Beasts of prey abounded also, and the silence of the forest was frequently broken by the hoarse cry of the bear, the shriek of the pan- ther or the bark of the wolf. The streams abounded in . fish and were the haunts of valuable fur-bearing animals, such as the mink, the otter

and the beaver. It was a hunter's paradise.

Yet there was a time, farther back than the written history of America extends, when all the valley of this great river was the seat of a great race of semi-civilized people. But no pen has recorded their history ; their achievements in war and peace have never been told, and even their man- ner of life is unknown. Speculation as to their origin and fate has so far proved fruitless. But upon the shores of lakes, streams and rivers, from the western base of the Alleghenies to the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains, they have left countless mementoes of themselves to remind future generations of the antiquity of human life in America. The relics of this curious and mysterious race known to us only as the Mound- Builders, are especially numerous in Ohio, existing in almost every part of the state. The ancient mounds at Marietta and at many other places in the valleys of the Ohio and the Mus- kingum are but few of many monu-

HISTORY OF NOBLE COUNTY, OHIO.

ments left by this people to mystify the archaeologists of today. Every county in southeastern Ohio had its share of these relics, and though the plowshare has eliminated all traces of many, some are still traceable along the principal water-courses. The following account of an exami- nation of some of these prehistoric works, made by an English traveler named Ash, in the year 1826, may serve as an example of what the mounds are :

" On the banks of a creek on the west side of the Muskingum, in Mor- gan County, were found numerous small mounds, the bases of which were composed of hard burned bricks about five inches square, and on the bricks were charcoal cinders mixed with particles of calcined bones of human frames. The general shape and size of the mounds showed that the bones had been first burned on the brick altars and afterward cov- ered with earth to protect them and mark the spots. One of these mounds was over twenty feet square, and the bricks plainly showed the action of fire. This mound was covered with large trees, some of which were ascer- tained to be five hundred years old. Lying on the ground were found trees in a state of decay that had fallen from old age. From a minute calcu- lation of the age of the fallen trees and of those yet standing it was found that the mound was at least a thousand years old."*

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History of Noble County, Ohio: With Portraits and Biographical Sketches of some of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 3

Author: Publication date: 1887 Publisher: Chicago : L.H. Watkins Number of Pages: 709

Author:
Publication date: 1887
Publisher: Chicago : L.H. Watkins
Number of Pages: 709