USA > Ohio > History of Ohio; the rise and progress of an American state, Volume Two > Part 25
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gress naturally championed this view of Maryland and early in 1780, by resolution, made pledge that if the lands in dispute were ceded by the disputant states to the confederation they should be disposec of for the common benefit of all the states and the territory when ceded should be divided into new states and admitted into the Union as confederatec states on equal footing with the original thirteen.
The four claimant states, which at first obstinately held out for their respective sections, were Mas- sachusetts, New York, Connecticut and Virginia. W. consider their demands in the order named, demand which all grew out of the original colonial charter or grants, bestowing territory between certain degree of latitude on the Atlantic coast westward as fa as the land should go, the western limit being, a the time of the grants, unknown; even designated as the "south sea." These western extensions, how ever, since the treaty of 1783 must perforce end a the Mississippi, beyond which all was Spanish soil
Massachusetts, with most vaulting ambition, claimed that the territorial width of her charter rights, beyond the New York colony, whose grant cut through th Bay State strip, and beyond Lake Erie, which als lay in her way, entitled her to a continuation in wha are now southern portions of Michigan and Wisconsin But New York denied the western resumption o Massachusetts, which so boldly over-leaped itself, and New York claimed that the Bay State stopped a the eastern boundary of the Empire State, the charte of the latter and not that of Massachusetts, continuin, on west to the banks of the "Father of Waters.
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More than this, New York claimed the territory west and north of the Ohio River by reason of her various treaties with the Iroquois who had ceded their western territorial conquest titles to the British authorities in the treaties we have already mentioned, and now the result of those treaties reverted to the New York State. These New York claims have been characterized as the "vaguest and most shadowy of all" the colonial demands. But they were seriously put forth.
Connecticut, with Yankee thrift and tenacity, stepping over the southern ocean edge of New York, demanded a strip of Pennsylvania, and then a continuation through the northern part of Ohio and on to the Mis- sissippi, a claim conflicting, beyond Pennsylvania, with both New York and Virginia.
A full presentation of Virginia's plea, which sur- passed all others in extent, though interesting, would be too lengthy for recital here. In brief her claim was based on the Charter of 1609, which granted the Virginia colony a stretch along the Atlantic coast, two hundred miles each-four hundred in all-north and south from Old Point Comfort and "up into the land throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest." This latter expression, "west and northwest," says Avery in his History of the United States, was "wonder- fully vague and led to serious controversy." It made great difference which line was drawn northwest. If the northwest extending line was drawn from the southern end of the four hundred miles of the coast, the domain thus limited would constitute a triangle of moderate area. If, on the other hand, explains
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Mr. Avery, one line was drawn westerly from the southern of the two coast points and the remaining boundary line drawn northwesterly from the northern of the coast points, then the included territory would "embrace a great part of the continent and extend from sea to sea."
The first construction of the charter took in two- thirds of Ohio; the second interpretation, which Virginia adopted, included all of Ohio and the entire Northwest Territory. This latter claim, Virginia further strengthened by the plea, that, at her expense alone and under her sole direction, the Northwest had been rescued from England by the expedition of George Rogers Clark.
The problem of the claimant states bode fair for a while to bring disaster to the new confederation. But gradually the spirit of patriotism and unity pre- vailed and early in 1780 the New York legislature took the lead and "gracefully" passed an act pledging a cession of her claims to the Union. The act of cession by New York, however, in which she agreed to give up all claim to lands west of a north and south line drawn through the western end of Lake Ontario, did not take effect until March 1, 1781. On the strength of this action of New York and similar action fore- shadowed by the other claimants, Maryland on Feb- ruary I, 1781, ratified the "Articles of Confederation."
Virginia, which had strenously considered the subject and really had the most to yield, was the next to respond. She dickered not a little over the subject with Congress, making tentative offers which were refused but finally on March 1, 1784, her cession, with
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ertain reservations, became effective. She ceded Il her territory north and west of the Ohio River, but eserved that part of Ohio lying between the Little Miami and the Scioto rivers, from a line between heir respective sources, to the Ohio River; it com- rised 6,570 square miles and 4,504,800 acres of land; was thereafter known as the Virginia Military Dis- ict of Ohio and was reserved for the sole purpose f satisfying the bounties promised by Virginia to er officers and soldiers who had served either in the olonial or Continental army during the Revolutionary Tar. Another reservation by Virginia was that of ne hundred and fifty thousand acres of land, promised y the state to General George Rogers Clark and the ficers and soldiers of his regiment, "who marched ith him when the posts of Kaskaskia and Vincennes ere reduced," etc. The lands so reserved were lo- ted north of the Ohio, "at the Falls of the Ohio,
the county of Illinois." Certainly staunch old irginia was true to her sons and her pledges to them. Massachusetts followed suit on April 19, 1785, e tenth anniversary of the battle of Lexington and oncord, when she yielded to the federal government r claims to all lands west of New York.
Connecticut came last, "reluctantly, tardily, thrift- " It was not until May 26, 1786, that she relin- ished "all right, title and interest, jurisdiction d claim" to lands within her chartered limits "lying :st of a line one hundred and twenty miles west of id parallel with the western boundary line of the site of Pennsylvania." But all within her chartered hiits for one hundred and twenty miles westward
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from Pennsylvania and lying between latitudes 4º and 42° 2' north, she reserved from conveyance al this retained territory became known as the "Westen Reserve of Connecticut." This cession, says Alfr Mathews in his "Ohio and the Western Reserve' was a "bargain of the proverbial Yankee trader kind' for what Connecticut gave up in her far west clair. was "a few thousand miles of atmosphere, elusi», intangible"; she gave it for a "sure title to a tract f solid ground with definite boundaries, as large as te mother state, " a tract of three and a quarter millini acres.
Charles Moore, in his "Northwest under Thie - Flags," tersely sums up the effect of the cession: "New York, by giving up early what she never ha, 2 won great credit; Virginia generously made a distinta - sacrifice of dearly conquered territory over whi she was actually exercising jurisdiction; Massachuse's quit-claimed a title she could not defend; and Connec- cut gained an empire to which she was not entitle, te but which she put to the very best uses."
Thus the Northwest Territory-"a vast empi, 2 larger than any country in Europe, save Russia became the public domain of the confederated stat But the aboriginal inhabitant and possessor was s' there; the Indian claimant was still to be dealt wi, and to the general government of the United Stat, he now belonged the exclusive right to extinguish, eithr by purchase or by conquest, the Indian title of oc(- pancy.
While Haldimand and the British authorities weee making every endeavor to retain the favor of tel
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x Nations and the western tribes, Washington and ongress sought to placate the tribesmen by bringing tem under the care of the Federal government ther than leave them to be dealt with by the several ates. With this in view a conference was called Fort Stanwix, the present site of Rome, New York, October, 1784. It was an event of great moment American history; the parleyings continued for tree weeks, with the usual prolonged ceremonies nd lengthy "talks." The United States government as represented by Oliver Olcott, Richard Butler and rthur Lee. The Iroquois tribes, Mohawks, Onon- agas, Senecas, Cayugas, Tuscarawas, and Seneca- beal, were present in the persons of their chiefs and chems; among whom the most conspicuous were ed Jacket and Cornplanter. This latter was a eneca chief, his especial following being known as le "Seneca-O'beal," as his father was said to be a hite trader named John O'Bail or O'Beel. The lief's mother was a full-blooded Seneca. Corn- anter, in his native tongue Garganwahgah, at the me of the Stanwix Treaty some fifty years of age, as a splendid specimen of his race and of commanding fluence. He had sided against the English in the rench and Indian War, but was a zealous adherent the British in the American Revolution.
Cornplanter ardently urged harmony between the w government and the tribesmen. He "saw the folly waging war single-handed against the whole power the confederacy and exerted all his power for peace," it he wisely sought to avoid a definite treaty, with- it the concurrence of the western tribes. On the
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contrary Red Jacket-Sagoyewatha, "he keeps the awake"-was boldly opposed to "burying the hatchet he would yield no land, concede no right. Red Jack was some twenty years younger than Cornplante he had also been the friend of the British in the Rev lution, though he was never prominent as a warric and his fame and influence rested mainly upon h powers of oratory, in which according to many write of his time, he had no superior, perhaps hardly a equal, among his race. His appeal for the independer stand of his people was, says Lafayette, who wi present "a masterpiece and every warrior who hear him was carried away with his eloquence."
But the treaty was finally agreed upon and signe in which among other features the Six Nations wer to be secured in the possession of the lands they wei then occupying but practically yielded to the Unite States all their interest in and right to the territor west and north of the Ohio. This treaty gave grea dissatisfaction to the Ohio and western tribes-"thos on the soil"-for these tribes, unrepresented at For Stanwix had ever refused to acknowledge that th Six Nations could deed away the Ohio lands.
There was one great chief, "conspicuous for hi absence," at the Fort Stanwix Treaty. It was th Mohawk Brant, who, while Cornplanter and Re Jacket were contending over the policy of the Si Nations, was in Quebec for the purpose of securin title to the Grand River reservation for the Mohawks He not only opposed the results of the Stanwix Treaty but hastened to visit the western and northern tribe in the endeavor to form a confederacy for the pro
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tection of the western lands "as far south as the Ohio." With the aim of still further welding the claims of the Six Nations, especially the Mohawks, upon the British, he visited England in the following year (1785). His stay of several months in London forms a chapter full of picturesque and novel scenes, for Brant was the lion of the day. Royalty and nobility lavished their most luxurious hospitality upon this Mohawk chief; his polished and dignified manners and ready conversation gave him easy entry to the salons, not only of fashion, but of letters, and "among his most frequent guests," says his biographer Stone, 'were Fox, Burke and Sheridan, and others of that splendid galaxy of eloquence and intellect, the master pirits of the House of Commons." But he seems to have returned laden with naught but empty honors o the new Canadian home of his Mohawk subjects.
The Fort Stanwix Treaty whatever else it accom- lished, certainly cleared the northwest of the cloud of the Iroquois title. It remained for the Federal Government to make settlement with the Ohio tribes. This was done at the Treaty of Fort McIntosh, held 1 January, 1785. George Rogers Clark, Richard 'utler and Arthur Lee spoke for the Government, while sachems and warriors represented the Wyandot, Delaware, Chippewa, and Ottawa nations. At the reaty, among other stipulations, a new boundary ne was agreed upon for the tribes just named. This oundary began at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River in up said river to the portage between that and le Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum; then own the Tuscarawas as far as the crossing place
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above Fort Laurens; then westwardly to the portage of the Great Miami; then along the portage to the Maumee; down the Maumee to Lake Erie and the shore of the lake to the mouth of the Cuyahoga where the boundary began.
Within this territory, including nearly three-fourths of the state of Ohio, the Delawares, Wyandots and Ottawas were to "live and hunt" unmolested and should "any citizen of the United States, or other person, not being an Indian" attempt to settle on the lands thus allotted to the tribesmen named, "the Indians may punish him as they please." The Indians who signed this treaty, for themselves and in behalf of their tribes, acknowledged the lands east, south and west of the lines described "to belong to the United States;" and "none of their tribes shall presume to settle upon the same or any part of it." In this treaty, however, there were reserved in the Indian territory described, sites for posts, usually six miles square, respectively, at the mouth of the Miami, portage of the Big Miami, site of Old Fort Sandusky, and at "lower rapids of Sandusky River," which posts, and the lands annexed to them, "shal be to the use and under the government of the United States."
The treaty at Fort McIntosh dealt only with the Wyandots, Delawares and Ottawas in Northwesterr Ohio. It was followed a year later, January 1786 by the treaty of Fort Finney, a post established for the occasion, at the mouth of the Great Miami The clearing was made and the stockade erected in the late autumn of 1785, by Captain William Finney
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with a detachment of infantry from Fort McIntosh. The proceedings of the council are related at length n the journal of Richard Butler, who with George Rogers Clark and Samuel H. Parsons acted as treaty delegates for the government. The tribes represented vere the Delawares, Wyandots and Shawnees. Many ther Wabash and western tribes had been invited but failed to appear; their absence being attributed o the agents of England, especially Captain William Caldwell and Simon Girty, the latter making every ossible effort to keep the tribesmen from the council, articularly the Shawnees, "the most conceited and rarlike of the aborigines, the first in battle and the ist at a treaty."
General Butler's journal gives a graphic account f the proceedings. The Shawnees appeared at the ouncil house in their "war paint and feathers" but le presence of troops from Fort Harmar prevented ny outbreak. Many "big chiefs" of the Wyandots nd Delawares took part in the "talks," Tarhe, aptain Pipe, Wingenund, Big Cat and White Eyes; it the treaty as finally signed applied only to the lawnees, who "acknowledged the United States be the sole and absolute sovereign of all the terri- ry ceded by Great Britain." The treaty allotted e Shawnees lands with a territory mainly between e Great Miami and the Wabash, within which they are not to be disturbed by other settlers, at the me time the Shawnees relinquished to the United ates "all title or pretense of title" to the lands st, west and south of the territory reserved to em.
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But the Fort Finney Treaty proved a mere pape one. The Shawnees promptly disregarded it an the other nations, not participating, utterly ignore it. Instigated by McKee, Elliott and Girty, th western tribes, especially those on the Ohio, renewe hostilities against the whites. The Kentuckians agai sought the leadership of George Rogers Clark, "no but a wreck of his former self," who with a ford of ten hundred frontiersmen, invaded the Wabas country, in the fall of the year (1786). But the gre: commander had lost his cunning and bravery, havir become a slave to his drinking habits; his men lo confidence in him and deserted in great number the expedition ended with fruitless results. At tl same time, Colonel Benjamin Logan, commandir some five hundred mounted riflemen marched again the Shawnees in the Mad River country and destroy many villages and fields of corn, took eighty prisone and killed twenty Indians. Among the Indian cente destroyed were McKeestown and Machecheek. this expedition Colonel Logan was aided by Colone Thomas Kennedy, Robert Trotter and Robert Patte son. Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton were t. advance scouts. Among the Indian warriors who the Kentuckians encountered were the famous chie Blue Jacket, Little Turtle, Tecumseh and the c Shawnee chieftain Molunthe, who had favored pea with the whites, but was now, in this campaign, aft a personal conflict with Colonel Patterson, ma prisoner and then foully murdered by the "dare-de"l renegade named McGarry," whom Roosevelt just calls a scoundrel.
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Meanwhile Brant was holding conferences with the British agents and the chiefs of the western and lake tribes, keeping alive the hostility of the Indians to the Americans as the latter sought by treaties with the various nations to secure possession of the trans-Allegheny country. This memorable year (1786) closed with a great gathering of the western tribes at the mouth of the Detroit River. More than wenty of the leading nations were present and made protest at the policy of the United States in making treaties with separate tribes, instead of with the authorities of "the whole confederacy." It was the laim of the great Indian chiefs that the possession ind occupancy of the Northwest Territory belonged o the Indians as a race and not in severalty to the arious tribes. Therefore a general consent was necessary to any treaty by the United States for itle to the lands occupied by the tribesmen.
During the years that the states were ceding their erritorial claims to the Government and the latter ras entering into agreements with the Indian occu- ants for possession of the land and the right to make ettlements thereon, Congress was considering a form f government for this vast and newly acquired territory. On the 20th of May, 1785, Congress passed an rdinance for the survey and disposition of that ortion of the territory which had been purchased om the Indians by the treaties of Forts Stanwix and IcIntosh. To carry this ordinance into effect one irveyor was appointed for each state and placed der the direction of Thomas Hutchins, geographer the United States and who was engineer of the :
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expedition to Ohio of Colonel Henry Bouquet in 1764. Rufus Putnam was the surveyor chosen from Mas- sachusetts, but being at the time engaged in the survey of Maine, for the state of Massachusetts, he could not attend to the duty and General Benjamin Tupper was appointed in his place "until Mr. Putnam shall actually join the geographer and take the same upon himself."
The territory was to be surveyed into townships of six miles square, by lines running due north and south and others crossing at right angles. The first survey was to begin at the point where the western boundary of Pennsylvania intersects the northerr bank of the Ohio River. From this point, a base line known as the Geographer's Line, was to be rur due west. North and south lines six miles apart were to divide the territory into "ranges" and east and west lines six miles apart were to divide each range into townships. Each township therefore con- tained six square miles and each was to be divided into thirty-six lots, subsequently called sections, each one mile square. Lot sixteen of each township wa! to be reserved for the maintenance of public school: within that township and reservations were made for the patriot refugees from Canada and Nova Scotia and for the Moravian Indians of Gnadenhutten Schoenbrunn and Salem. The remaining lands wer to be sold at auction for not less than a dollar, speci value, an acre and the cost of surveying. But, a we shall see, before any lands were sold under thi system, Congress authorized the sale of large tract at much lower prices to land companies or syndicates
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The inauguration of this survey was notice to the Indian inhabitants that the white invader was indeed preparing to come to stay. Hostile bands, regardless of all treaties, made the labors of the surveyors most hazardous, and in November 1785, a detachment of troops under Major John Doughty was sent to the nouth of the Muskingum River and there erected i stockade to be thereafter known as Fort Harmar. But the menace of Fort Harmar could not cover the proposed field of the surveyor's operations and owing o the Indian hostility the survey was not begun intil the summer of 1786. It was thereafter continued with many interruptions and amid great dangers- he surveyors often requiring the presence of troops o prevent the attacks of the savages. It was the utumn of 1787 before the survey of the first seven anges-extending forty-two miles west from Penn- ylvania on the Geographer's Line-was completed. 'his Geographer's Line as determined in 1785, by 'homas Hutchins, the United States Geographer, was cated on latitude 40° 38' 02", north, and was the orthern boundary line of the famous Seven Ranges irvey.
CHAPTER XX. THE ORDINANCE OF 1787
A® S early as the fall of 1776 and at various times later, up to the final peace agreement of 1783, Congress by resolution pledged bounty lands to those (officers) who served n the Continental Army. But until the cession of he claimant states, Congress had no lands at its disposal to fulfill its pledges. But the western terri- ory was constantly in sight, and April 7, 1783, Timothy Pickering, member of Congress, wrote a friend that ' there is a plan for the forming of a new state westward of the Ohio. Some of the principal officers of the irmy are heartily engaged in it. The propositions especting it are in the hands of General Huntington nd General Putnam." Neither Huntington nor Pickering is heard of again in the matter. But Rufus Putnam pressed it upon General Washington in epeated letters, which Washington answered, affirm- ng his own interest in the scheme and saying he had rged it upon Congress.
In June 1783, at Newburg, Washington's head- uarters, nearly three hundred officers of the Con- nental line "who were about to exchange the hard- hips of war for the sufferings of poverty" petitioned ongress to "work out a district between Lake Erie nd the Ohio River as the seat of a new colony," tys Mr. Avery, "in time to be admitted as one of le confederated states of America." Rufus Putnam as the prime mover in this petition-and in large easure its author-but nothing came directly of le project.
Probably the same month (June) of this year (1783) e army officers petitioned Congress for the benefits
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of the western lands, and Theodoric Bland, at Wash ington's suggestion and supported by Alexander Hami ton, moved, in Congress, the adoption of an Ordinand looking to the division, settlement and governmer of the western lands, which was referred to a "gran committee," composed of a member from each stat but the Bland Ordinance seems to have slept undi turbed in the grand committee.
In October of this same year (1783) before th United States had received title to any of the wester domain, Congress appointed a committee, of whid Thomas Jefferson was chairman, to consider the for of government for the anticipated territory, and March 1, 1784, the very day Virginia made her cessio which was accepted by Congress, Jefferson reporte what is known as his Ordinance, providing for tl dividing into districts of all the western lands "cede or to be ceded," and for a temporary governme: therefor. Henry S. Randall, in his "Life of Thom Jefferson," presents this Ordinance in full, whi we need not repeat here. In brief this Ordinan of Mr. Jefferson embraced all the public territo east of the Mississippi River, between latitudes 3 and 47º north, which vast domain was to be divid into seventeen states by lines of latitude two degre; apart, intersected by two meridians of longitud Ten of the states were to be north of the Ohio Riv and were to bear, after their natural characteristic, the classic and significant names of Sylvania, Micl- gania, Cherronesus, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Il- noia, Saratoga, Washington, Polypotamia and Pe- sipia. Under this classic checker-board arrangemer,
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