USA > Ohio > History of Ohio; the rise and progress of an American state, Volume Two > Part 31
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37
We cannot tarry in the midst of this colony with its unique mixture of grotesque and picturesque features. These people were no farmers, they were artisans at
499
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
best, all they managed to do was to cultivate their small gardens, artistically platted and flower adorned, grapes and other fruit being their chief product. For two years, especially during the winters, they depended on outside sources for their supplies, buying their pork and vegetables, such as they could not raise, from the boats descending the Ohio. The form of municipal government, as Belote notices, and protection against the Indians, gave the settlers little concern. The savages, their close neighbors, did not molest them; "it may be that the old time friendship of the Indians and French in the Northwest played its part here." This amicable relationship, however, was broken at the time of St. Clair's expedition, to which the Galli- politans contributed many enlistments. After this the town was in constant danger of hostile attacks from the tribesmen. To meet this new peril a military company was formed of which the Marquis D'Hebe- court was made captain, and a constant patrol of the environment of the town was maintained. All this while these buoyant inhabitants were under the cloud of the worthless titles to their lands and homes. The knowledge of the failure of Colonel Duer and the Scioto Company and the fact that they were occupying terri- tory actually owned by the Ohio Company were crush- ing blows to the naturally hopeful and cheerful French. Many in despair early left the town; some wandered to the eastern cities; a few settled in Kentucky; others drifted farther down the Ohio and joined the earlier French posts on the Illinois and Mississpipi. Those who remained lost heart and took but little interest in the improvement of the lands to which
500
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
they feared they would never gain valid title. For fifteen years the town of Gallipolis "changed but little in appearance, and that little, if anything, was for the worse rather than for the better."
In the autumn of 1793, M. Jean G. Gervais, one of the settlers, proceeded to Philadelphia for a conference with M. Duponceau, an eminent French lawyer. They presented a petition to Congress setting forth the distress of the French emigrants and the deception of which they had been the victims. Congress was unable to unravel the complications that had risen from the inter-transactions of the Scioto and Ohio companies, but finally in justice to the unfortunate French, in whom Washington took a deep personal interest, Congress in March, 1795, allotted to all male settlers, over eighteen years of age, and all widows who would be in Gallipolis on November I (1795), twenty-four thousand acres of land in what is now Green Township, Scioto County. It was termed the "French Grant," and extended eight miles along the Ohio River. By mutual agreement, four thousand acres of this were apportioned to Gervais for his services in the matter. The remaining twenty thousand acres were divided equally among ninety-two qualified dis- tributees; each therefore received two hundred and seventeen and two-fifths acres. Lots were drawn for the location of the respective portions. Eight addi- tional members having been overlooked in the first grant, another allotment of twelve hundred acres was assigned them, making one hundred petitioners in all provided for. Not more than sixteen of the orig- inal settlers moved on to their indemnity sections.
501
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
The others sold their portions to settlers from the east- ern states at nominal prices, and, says Belote, the French Grant became, in fact, "a Yankee settlement." The site of Gallipolis still belonged to the Ohio Com- pany, which in December, 1795, held a meeting, at Marietta, to make final adjustment of its affairs. A delegation of the French from Gallipolis attended this meeting and requested that the site of their town be given them by the Ohio Company, the petitioners pleading that it was the fault primarily of the Ohio Company that the town had been mislocated. The Ohio Company refused the petition but consented to sell the French the lots, within and adjacent to Galli- polis, at the nominal price of a dollar and a quarter per acre. Thus the French emigrants were given the "pleasant privilege of buying their lands twice." And here the curtain falls upon the comico-tragic drama of the French settlement at Gallipolis.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE POST-REVOLUTION CAMPAIGNS
F ROM the events, just recited, of the peaceful planting of promising settlements we turn now to the sequential circumstances of in- glorious war. This influx of white settlers and the creation of colonial centers pleased not the tribes- men who with unerring intuition realized that the encroaching tide of civilization meant displacement if not the doom of their people. The settlers north of the Ohio lived in constant fear under the protection of less than six hundred regular troops stationed in the Ohio River stockades. Ten times that many savage warriors dwelt in the valleys of the Wabash, the Miamis, the upper Sandusky and Scioto regions. The aggressions to which the frontiersmen were subject was evidence that the Indians were reluctantly, if at all, becoming reconciled to the sovereignty of the United States. They paid scant adherence to the treaties that presumptively safeguarded the settlers in the section of Ohio ceded by the Indians to the government. Hostile menaces and bloody outbreaks were not infrequent particularly on the river frontier below Cincinnati; as one writer puts it, "the Indians watched the Ohio with especial care, and took their toll from immense numbers of immigrants who went down it." No boat was safe after passing the Mus- kingum. The interior Indians in the valleys just named, and in the lake region, were in a state of discontent, if not positive enmity. In all this they not only enjoyed the sympathy but secured the material aid of the British who still retained possession of the lake posts. The third article of the Ordinance of 1787 stipulated that "the utmost good faith shall
506
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent," etc. But the tribesmen took the ground that no treaty could bind them that did not include the consent of all tribes interested therein. Their territorial rights were communal, and no number of tribes less than all, could contract for the nations. In this matter the Ohio tribes eagerly consulted the Six Nations and in the summer of 1788 a large dele- gation of the latter, in councils at Detroit, met the tribesmen of the Ohio, the lakes and some even from the Upper Mississippi. In the Detroit gathering the most distinguished figure was Chief Joseph Brant then holding a commission and drawing a pension from the British government. Previous to this council Brant revealed his attitude of mind in a letter written from his home on the Grand River to Lieutenant Langan of the British army, saying, "as for the Five Nations, most of them have sold themselves to the Devil-I mean the Yankeys. Whatever they do after this it must be for the Yankeys-not for the Indians or the English." After the Detroit council he again wrote Langan stating that the Hurons, Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawattomies and Delawares were inclined "to lenient steps and having a boundary line fixed; and rather than enter headlong into a destructive war, will give up a small part of their country; on the other hand, the Shawnees, Miamis and Kickapoos, who are now so much addicted to horse-stealing, that it will be a difficult task to break them of it, as that kind of business is their best harvest, will of course declare for war and not giving up any
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
507
part of their country, which I am afraid, will be the means of our separating." The council seems to have adjourned without definite determination.
The unrestful demonstrations of the tribes at these councils as well as hostile acts on the river frontier led General St. Clair, with the approbation of the government, to call a council of all the tribes at Fort Harmar, for the autumn of 1788. Some two hundred delegates of the tribes, that had accepted the invitation, began to gather in the wintry days of December, but it was not until January 9, 1789, that they con- cluded a treaty, the negotiations for which St. Clair wrote "were tedious and troublesome." The diary of Major Ebenezer Denny, then at Fort Harmar, published in the St. Clair Papers, gives a summary of the council proceedings. Denny states the old Wyandot chief Shandotto, addressed the governor (St. Clair) in behalf of all the nations present. He told how the Thirteen Fires had gotten possession of their country and how in that accomplishment the whitemen had cheated the redmen; the Indians he said were for peace, which was doubtless true of the Wyandots. Two separate treaties were entered into; one with the Five Nations-neither Brant nor the Mohawks being present-confirming the Fort Stanwix Treaty (1784). It was signed by twenty-five chiefs among them Cornplanter. Nearly each one wrote "his mark" to his Indian name and its English equivalent; there were Long Tree, Big Tree, Broken Twig and Wood Bug, Falling Mountain, Dancing Feather, Thrown-in-the-Water, Big Bale of a Kettle, Full Moon, the Blast and Tearing Asunder.
e
t
e
t
I
8
508
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
The other treaty confirmed the boundaries of the Treaty of Fort McIntosh (1785), viz., that the Indians keep the country south of Lake Erie, from the Cuya- hoga to the Miami, and extending south to about the fortieth degree of north latitude; it was also agreed that the Indians were at liberty to hunt in the territory ceded the United States; traders, with a license, might ply their vocations among the tribes; all Indians committing robbery or murder were to be delivered up to be tried at American posts; all citizens of the United States settling on lands reserved to the tribes shall be out of the protection of the United States and may be punished by the tribesmen; certain sections of land, either six or twelve square miles, surrounding the posts claimed by the government, should be reserved to the United States. This treaty was signed by the Wyandots, Delawares, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawattomies and Sacs. Among the names of the chiefs who made their "marks" were Captain Pipe and Wingenund for the Delawares andc Tarhe for the Wyandots. The Shawnees, the Miamis, and many of the western and northwestern tribes were not present and remained uncommitted to this treaty. Indeed while the Fort Harmar council was in session, members of the tribes, just mentioned, were committing acts of depredation and even murder among the frontiersmen.
Although St. Clair apparently accomplished an important result in the Fort Harmar Treaty and the Indians participating had been paid many thousands of dollars for their acquiescence, they had little regard for the document they had signed. In this proceeding
509
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
General St. Clair had not recognized the Indians as one nation, but rather as separate tribes having distinct interests; "jealousy subsisted between them," he said in a letter to Washington, "which I was not willing to lessen by appearing to consider them as one people-they do not so consider themselves; and I am persuaded their general confederacy is entirely broken; indeed it would not be very difficult, if circumstances require it, to set them at deadly variance. " Shortly after the council, St. Clair visited New York, when on April 30, 1789, he witnessed the inauguration of his old commander-in-chief, and de- voted friend, as first president; indeed he stood near the side of Washington while the latter took the oath of office, "clad in a full suit of dark-brown cloth, with a steel hilted sword, white stockings and plain silver shoe-buckles, his hair dressed and powdered in the fashion of the day and worn in a bag and solitaire."
It was on January 22, 1790, that Governor St. Clair arrived at Fort Washington, as before noted, where he remained only a week, hastening on to the French towns on the lower Ohio. At the Rapids, he prepared messages to the Indian tribes on the Wabash, which documents he transmitted to Major John Francis Hamtramck, then commandant at Post Vincennes, who in turn forwarded them to their destination by Antoine Gamelin, a popular trader among the Indians. Gamelin, who kept an interesting journal, of his embassy, published in the St. Clair Papers, was six weeks on this errand, holding audiences with the Miamis, Piankeshaws, Kickapoos, Ouiatanons, Delawares, Pottawattomies, Weas and Shawnees. He
h
SO
510
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
was courteously but cautiously received, respect- fully listened to, but in the main evasively answered. The first chief and all the great warriors of the Pianke- shaws were well pleased with the messages advocating peace, but could not give answer before consulting their elder brethren, the Miamis; the chief of the Kickapoos also referred the messenger to the Miamis; "you invite us to stop our young men," he said, "it is impossible to do it, being constantly encouraged by the British;" Le Gris, great chief of the Miamis, said, "don't take bad, of what I am to tell you, we cannot give you a positive answer, we must send your speeches to all our neighbors and to the Lake nations, we cannot give a definite answer without consulting the commandant at Detroit." Blue Jacket, chief of the Shawnees, received Gamelin with all possible hospitality at his home at Miamitown-headwaters of the Maumee-and "in a private manner" told his guest that the Shawnees "were in doubt of the sin- cerity of the Big-Knives, having clearly been deceived by them; a certain proof that they intend to encroach upon our lands is their new settlements on the Ohio." The chief of the Weas reported "that the English commandant is their father, since he threw down our French father; they could do nothing without his approbation." The chief of the Kickapoos declared, "we cannot stop our young men from going to war; every day some set off clandestinely for that purpose."
The report of Gamelin, made to Hamtramck, throws a flood of light upon the Indian situation in the Wabash and Miami countries; revealing the hostile temper of the tribesmen towards the Americans and
of
G
th Sc
tw
co to
511
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
their feudatory relation to the British, whose comman- dant at Detroit they recognized as "Father." More- over they repudiated the Fort Harmar treaty, declaring that it was signed by only a few tribes and then merely by "young men" who were neither chiefs nor delegates and were without authority of any kind from their respective nations.
That war could not be avoided, St. Clair was now convinced and he hastened his return from Kaskaskia to Fort Washington to confer with General Harmar. Meanwhile the latter had in April (1790), with a com- mand of one hundred regular troops supported by General Charles Scott, "a rough Indian fighter and a veteran of the Revolutionary War" at the head of two hundred and thirty Kentucky volunteers, made a dash by a circuitous route to the Upper Scioto, in the neighborhood of Paint Creek, and thence down the Scioto to its mouth, in order to chastise some of the hostile bands. But "the villains had retreated" and "wolves might as well have been pursued," was Harmar's summary of the fruitless raid, the rumors of which only aroused the Ohio tribes to feelings of greater hostility. Almost simultaneous with the Har- mar and Scott raids, Hamtramck with a small company of regulars rushed forth from Fort Knox, at St. Vin- cennes, to the Wea villages on the Wabash. But the villagers had fled leaving their huts and stores of corn to be burned by the unresisted enemy.
Preparations for warfare on a larger scale were now pushed forward. Congress in the summer empowered Washington to call out the Militia of Kentucky, Virginia and Western Pennsylvania, which troops were
S
512
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
to rendezvous by September 15th at Fort Washington. The United States government recognizing the co- operative alliance-tacit if not open-both offensive and defensive, between the Indians and the British, was solicitous as to the attitude the latter might assume relative to the impending campaign. The British officials made no effort to conceal their insinuating suspicion that the ulterior design of the Americans was to secure Detroit, and the other lake posts, still retained by His Majesty. Indeed an inspection of the posts was being made by the Canadian officials with the view of their being strengthened for anticipated defense and the Detroit stockade was in fact repaired and improved. To allay this sympton of war spirit, pretended or real, exhibited by the Canadian British and to prevent their open and active allegiance to the tribesmen, St. Clair, under instructions from Wash- ington, wrote Major Murray, commanding the British garrison at Detroit to "inform you, explicitly that the expedition about to be undertaken is not intended against the post you have the honor to command, nor any other place at present in the possession of the troops of his Britannic Majesty, but is on foot with the sole design of humbling and chastizing some of the savage tribes, whose depredations have become intolerable and whose cruelties have of late become an outrage, not only on the people of America, but on humanity."
The troops as they assembled at Fort Washington mostly presented a motley and misgiving appearance. The Kentucky contingent, three battalions with Colonel Trotter at their head, said Denny, "were not such as we had been accustomed to see on the frontier; they
GENERAL JOSIAH HARMAR
Born in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1753. Served in the Ameri- can Revolution. Appointed Lieutenant-Colonel Com- mandant of the United States Infantry Regiment, August, 1784; superseded by St. Clair in 1791. Under his com- mand Fort Washington was built (1789). He commanded the American forces in the Indian campaign of 1790. He died in Philadelphia, Pa., 1813.
FORT WASHINGTON
Built under command of General Harmar, 1789. It was demolished in 1808. Its site in the City of Cincinnati is now marked by a monument on Third Street near the intersection of Ludlow Street. This picture is from a sketch made in 1791 by Major Jonathan Heart, U. S. A.
612
THE RISE AND PROGRES
to rendezvous AALHAH HAHa HAHanad ort Washingu
guA romigeA vitastal zetet2, botiaU ont to fasbaism Brit
impending .¿ Y81 .. ET , siffqIsbstidI mi beib Brit otcials made no effort to conceal then insinuatin Suspicion that TOTO /IHRAHEART of the Americ
ai itsonioni? to vtip ont ni atia at1 8081 ni bodailomob CLOU retain 9H3 19n JOSTJE brINT No fromunom's Yd boxism Won
with the H de meteorologie total defense and the Detroit sto trade was in fact repair
and improved. To allag s symptom of war spl pretended or real, exhibited by the Canadian Bri and to prevent their open and active allegiance the tribesmen, St. Clair, under instructions fromy W ington, wrote Major Murray, commanding the Bril garrison at Detroit to "inform you, explicitly that i expedition about to be undertaken is not inler let the pom jum have the honor to command, any value )TT m the possession of the tre of His Bruaude Majesty, but is on foot with the design of humbling and chastizing some of the Envase tribza, wliose depredatione have become intol-i and whone cruelties lave of late become an coll not only on the people of Americe, but on human If
The troops as they assembled at Fort Washington mostly presented a motley and misgiving appeso de The Kentucky contingem, three battalions with Cod "Trotter ac their head, said Demy, "were not :s we had been accustomed to see on the frontier when
.
ـجام ٥
a
te
A
b
th
th
to
له
P
(
513
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
appeared to be raw and unused to the gun of the woods; indeed many are without guns and many of these they have want repairing." They were poorly clad and almost destitute of kettles and axes, and camp utensils. The Pennsylvania enrollments were little better in character; many of the home militia having sent substitutes of old infirm men and young boys; they were untrained and inclined to be disorderly and even mutinous; they formed a battalion under Major Paul and Lieutenant Colonel Truby. There was one battalion of mounted militia, under Major James Fontaine, and two small battalions, numbering three hundred and twenty, of federal regulars under Majors John P. Wyllys and John Doughty. A company of artillery, with three pieces of ordnance, was under the command of Captain William Ferguson. In all, the army numbered fourteen hundred and fifty-three men, under Josiah Harmar, who, since 1784, had been Lieu- tenant Colonel Commandant of the United States Infantry Regiment, the highest ranking officer in the American army. The general was seriously handi- capped at the outset through the jealousy existing between the "regulars" and the militia. Moreover there was much strife among the militia concerning the choice of their commander, Colonels John Hardin and Robert Trotter being rivals for the preference, the latter being finally selected. The commissary arrangements were inadequate and badly organized. Under such conditions the expedition was destined to failure from the outset.
An advance detachment of the militia moved forth from the fort on September 26th, followed a few days
514
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
later by the regulars. We briefly summarize the march from the journals of General Harmar and officers Ebenezer Denny and John Armstrong. On October 3d an encampment was made "on the waters of the Little Miami," 31 miles and on the 4th they struck a stream Harmar calls Caesar's Creek, a branch of the Little Miami, forty-two miles from Fort Washington; on the fifth they reached Glade Creek, "a very lively clear stream," fifty-two miles; on the sixth, after passing a beautiful open country, encamped three miles north of Old Chillicothe, sixty-two miles; seventh, encamped on Mad River, "alias the Pickaway Fork of the Great Miami, 71 miles; on the tenth they crossed to the Great Miami, the course of which was then followed, passing on the eleventh a place called "The French Store," one hundred and twelve miles; twelfth passed New Chillicothe, at which is Girty's home, on Glaze Greek or branch of the Omee (Maumee), one hundred and twenty-five miles; sixteenth, the Colonel Hardin, who had been sent forward, reached the "favorite Miami-village and towns" which the savages and traders had evacuated. This village was at the juncture of the St. Joseph and St. Mary's rivers, one hundred and seventy miles from Fort Washington. On the following day the main army joined the advance at this point. The chief Indian village contained "about 80 houses and wigwams, and a vast quantity of corn and vegetables hid in various places, holes, etc." Other nearby towns comprised a hundred or more wigwams with gardens and adjacent fields of corn. The towns, deserted by the Indians, were destroyed by the soldiers, the
515
OF AN AMERICAN STATE
militia loading itself with plunder. On the 19th a party of the militia and regulars under Colonel Trotter proceeded to reconnoitre the country, when they came upon two Indians whom they killed. The colonel being "content with this victory" returned to camp much to the disgust of Colonel Hardin, who under orders from General Harmar marched out the next morning and when about ten miles from the camp was met, says Denny, by a party of Indians "not exceeding one hundred, but was worsted, owing entirely as I am informed, to the scandalous behavior of the militia, many of whom never fired a shot, but ran off at the first noise of the Indians and left a few regulars to be sacrificed,-some of them never halted until they crossed the Ohio." On the day following, the army, having "burned five villages besides the capital town and consumed and destroyed near twenty thousand bushels of corn in ears, took up the line of march on the route back to Fort Wash- ington."
But the disastrous result was not yet complete. The disheartened and demoralized army halted a few miles from the site of the Maumee "capital," at the Shawnee town of Chillicothe-not Old Town, but some Indian village called Chillicothe, the usual name given a town by the Shawnees-about which lurked many savages thirsting for revenge. The humiliated Harmar resolved upon an attempt to re- trieve the disgrace of Trotter's discomfiture. Major Wyllys of the regulars and Colonel Hardin, with "four hundred choice militia and regulars," were ordered to return to the scene of the former repulse
516
THE RISE AND PROGRESS
and "surprise any parties that might be assembled there." Harmar's journal for that day (22) reads: "Major Wyllys and Colonel Hardin performed won- ders, although they were terribly cut up; almost the whole of the Federal troops were cut off, with the loss of Major Wyllys, Major Fontaine and Lieutenant Frothingham-which indeed is a heavy blow. The consolation is that the men sold themselves very dear. It is supposed that not less than one hundred warriors of the savages were killed upon the ground."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.