USA > Ohio > Richland County > History of Richland County, Ohio, from 1808 to 1908, Vol. I > Part 13
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As the shades of night advanced the mind of Mr. Copus became unac- countably agitated. The reconnoitering party having gone further than had been intended did not get to Copus' until the afternoon of the following day-too late to render aid. Mr. Copus told the soldiers who were with him that he feared they would be attacked that night. But the soldiers only smiled at his fears, telling him that they arose, doubtless, from the impressions left upon his mind on seeing the murdered family of Zeimer the day before. Nine o'clock came and the soldiers got permission to sleep in the barn, as the night was extremely warm. During the night the dogs barked ahnost con- stantly and in the direction of the corn field. The night was dark and moon- less and the messengers of death, silent and frightful, had gathered them- selves around that solitary cabin, ready at the appoined hour, to smite their victims to the earth. Yet no one of that little band except Mr. Copus ex- pected that danger was so nigh. At the first dawn of that Tuesday morning. September 15, 1812, the nine soldiers, true to their promise, left their couches of hay at the barn and went to the cabin. As they grouped around the door, amber streaks darted into golden rays in the eastern sky, heralds of the com- ing day. The soldiers recalled the red-flamed sky of the evening previous and were thankful that the night was being succeeded by the glorious light
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of another day, a light so beautiful in its aspect that one might have imagined that it presaged the resurrection and looked for angels to appear and proclaim that "Time was, time is, but time shall be no more," but instead it was the angel of death that was soon to claim four of that little band.
Mr. Copus, still apprehensive of danger, cautioned the soldiers to be on their guard, but they laughed at his fears and, leaning their muskets against the outside of the cabin, went to the spring, a few rods from the house, but ere they had finished their lavations the Indians came upon them with demoniacal yells, and-"On the right, on the left, above, below, sprang up at once the Indian foe"-and forty-five painted savages, armed with muskets, tomahawks and scalping knives, rushed upon the unarmed soldiers and a scene of murder and butchery ensued.
When the attack was made Mr. Copus seized his rifle and went to the door, and as he opened it a ball fired by an Indan passed through the leather strap supporting his powder horn and entered Mr. Copus' breast, inflicting a wound from which he died within an hour.
When the soldiers were fired upon at the spring, being unarmed, they fled in different directions; two attempted to reach the forest upon the hill- side for protection, but were pursued by the Indians, were overtaken, mur- dered and scalped. Their names were John Tedrick and George Shipley. Another soldier-named Warnock-was shot through the bowels, but went some distance and, becoming weak from loss of blood, sat down by a tree and died. He had stuffed his handkerchief into the wound in an effort to stop the flow of blood. His body was found several weeks afterward in a sitting posture. Five of the soldiers who were nearer the cabin got inside safely, but the sixth-named George Dye-was not so fortunate and was shot through the thigh as he entered the door, and George Launtz was shot in the arm a short time later while removing a chink to make a port-hole in the wall. Mr. Copus realized that he was mortally wounded and entreated the soldiers to defend as best they could his wife and family.
The scene within the cabin was pathetically dramatic. He who an hour before stood as the protector of his family now lay in the throes of death, his grief-stricken wife and seven children grouped about his bedside; and as the spirit of this just man took its flight, the mother, as the center of that little band of mourners, was seen to gaze upward-heavenward-as if in prayer, commending her fatherless children to Him who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb and who alone can bind up the broken heart.
But they had soon to turn from the dead and assist the soldiers in their defense of the cabin. Early in the contest Nancy Copus, aged fifteen, was shot above the knee, inflicting a painful wound. The children were then placed upstairs for greater safety, and that was but poor, for a number of the Indians were upon the hillside in front of the house and kept up an incessant firing upon the roof of the house, until the clapboards, it was said, afterward presented almost a sieve-like appearance. And nearly all that forenoon the battle raged and the deadly lead was fired not only upon the roof, but also upon the walls, windows and door of that home, and the yells of the mur- derous savages were enough to daunt the bravest heart.
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ATTACK:ON:THE COPUS + CABIN + BY
ยท INDIANS - MORNING . OF
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ATTACK ON COPUS CABIN
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The few soldiers within made a heroic defense. They fired through port- holes and their aim was often unerring, as a number of the redskins were seen to fall to rise no more. After five long hours of murderous assault from outside and of valiant defense within, the awful contest ended by the Indians retreating, taking their dead with them and firing a parting volley into a flock of sheep which had huddled together in terror near the barn.
After the Indians had disappeared, one of the soldiers got out upon the roof of the cabin, and, cautiously glancing around and seeing no foe, climbed down and went to the Beam blockhouse for assistance. About 1 o'clock Cap- tain Martin and his squad of soldiers who had been expected to arrive the night before, came upon the scene two hours after the battle had ended, but before assistance had time to come from the blockhouse. Captain Martin, not seeing any Indians in his reconnoiter the day previous and not expecting any trouble at the Copus home, had bivouacked for the night at the Ruffner cabin, near where Mifflin now stands, three and a half miles north of the Copus settlement.
During the forenoon Captain Martin thought he heard firing, but sup- posed the troops below were at target practice. When Martin and his troops arrived at the scene of the tragedy they were appalled at the horrible spec- tacle that met their view. Attention was given to the wounded and the dead were buried. An attempt was made to track the Indians and it was thought they went east; but, as they had three hours start, they were not pursued. The bodies of Copus, Tedrick and Shipley were buried in one grave a few rods from the cabin and a monument now marks their grave. Stretchers were made upon which to carry the wounded and the march of the whole party to Beam's blockhouse was commenced. As it was late in the day when the start was made, they went only a short distance until they stopped for the night. By that time the number of the party had increased to about one hundred, and pickets were thrown out to guard against surprise. The march was resumed the next morning, the route being up the valley to Mifflin, thence west along a trail now known as the Mansfield-Wooster road, and then down to the Beam blockhouse, the distance being about thirteen miles. where they arrived safely in the evening.
Several weeks afterward a squad of soldiers accompanied Henry Copus, a son of James Copus, to the cabin, and on the way, some distance from the Copus cabin, they discovered the missing soldier (Warnock) sitting against a tree dead. They buried him near where he was found. They also found the bodies of two Indians, which were left to their fate.
Mrs. Copus and children remained in the blockhouse about two months and were then taken to Guernsey county, where they lived until the close of the war, when they returned to their home on the Black Fork and where Mrs. Copus reared the family and lived to a good old age, beloved and re-' spected by her neighbors and friends. Sarah Copus, the daughter. became Mrs. Vail, and lived to be present at the unveiling of the monument. Sep- tember 15, 1882, erected to the memory of her father and the soldiers who were killed in that awful tragedy at that humble cabin in the wilderness September 15, 1812.
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Among the incidents of the fight it is stated that Copus and an Indian fired at each other simultaneously, the former receiving a mortal wound and the latter being killed instantly. Copus did not fall when he was shot, but staggered back across the room to a table, from which he was assisted to the bed. He told his wife that he could not live and that she would have to rear the children as best she could.
A number of times while the battle lasted the savages tried to take the cabin by storm, but the soldiers had taken the precaution to barricade the door and windows with puncheons removed from the floor.
George Launtz, the soldier who had an arm broken by a bullet, caught sight of an Indian peeping around a tree and, taking deliberate aim, fired, and had the satisfaction of seeing the savage bound into the air and then roll down the hill, dead. Another redskin, who had been shot, fell in the yard. His groans were heard as he attempted to crawl away, but a well directed bul- let from the cabin put an end to his suffering. Forty-five scoop-outs where fires had been, were afterward found in the cornfield, where the Indians had roasted corn, and from that it was taken that there had been forty-five sav- ages in the assault. Of that number, nine were carried away by the Indians when they retreated, which, with the two bodies found later, made their loss eleven, killed and wounded.
During the greater part of the battle the Indians fought from ambush, taking refuge behind the trees on the hillside in front of the house. On the same day that the Copus battle took place, the cabins of Newell, Cuppy and Fry, farther east, were burned, and the Indians who attacked the Copus family were supposed to have been the incendiaries, as they went in that direction. Those families were at the Jerometown blockhouse.
After the close of the war, a number of the Indians returned to this county. Sarah Copus, the girl who had seen the redskins lurking around the day before the attack was made on their home, did not seem to be in favor with the savages. Going on the hill beyond the spring one day, after the family had returned from Guernsey county, she saw one hiding behind a tree. She ran toward the house, the Indian pursuing her almost to the door. They said the girl "knew too much"-was too observant of them and their actions.
Tom Lyons, an ugly redskin of the Delaware tribe, in a conversa- tion with Mrs. Copus in 1816, admitted he knew all about the attack on their cabin, but denied that he took part in it.
After the times became more secure, the settlers returned to their homes, but affairs were more or less troubled until the close of the war.
THE COPUS AND ZEIMER. MONUMENTS.
Elsewhere in this work is a chapter on the public monuments of this county. Upon the same lines the monuments erected to the memory of the pioneers and soldiers who lost their lives in the Zeimer massacre and the Copus battle will now be considered, as those bloody deeds were enacted within the original boundaries of Richland county, and, therefore, belong to and are a
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part of our early history. Space will not admit of giving the antecedent history of those awful tragedies, except to state that they occurred in the early part of the war of 1812, and that the Indians were acting as the allies of the British, which, added to their inherent hostilities to the whites, made them dangerous foes, even when treacherously professing friendship for the settlers.
The Zeimers were early settlers in the Blackfork valley, about two miles south of the village of Mifflin, and southeast of the Petersburg lakes. The family consisted of Frederick Zeimer and wife and their son Philip and daughter Kate. They located there in 1810, and during their two years' residence, had tried to live upon friendly terms with the Indians. On September 10, a short time after the removal of the Indians from Green- town, a party of five redskins was seen one afternoon going toward the Zeimer cabin. Martin Ruffner, a stalwart German, who lived about a mile northwest of where the village of Mifflin now stands, heard of the presence of the Indians, and that they were going toward the Zeimer's. Mr. Ruffner, suspecting treachery on the part of the Indians, shouldered his rifle, and as the savages had made a halt, Ruffner reached the cabin first and apprised the Zeimers of the situation. A conference was held, and it was decided that Philip should go and notify James Copus and other settlers further down the valley, of the presence of the Indians near his home, and request them to come to their protection. Soon after the Indians arrived they demanded supper, which was served to them by Mrs. Zeimer and Miss Kate. The Indians seemed sullen, and not long after eating supper made a mul- derous assault upon the family. They first assaulted the brave Ruffner. who shot his foremost assailant dead, then clubbing his rifle, felled another prostrate to the floor. As he struck at the third, he accidentally hit the stock of his rifle against a joist, and the Indians, taking advantage of the mishap. fired upon him, two shots taking effect, either of which would have proven fatal. They dragged the body of the dying man into the yard, and inhu- manly removed his scalp ere he expired.
At the beginning of the assault, Kate fainted. When she regained con- seiousness she realized that Ruffner had been killed, and, seeing them assai! her parents, again swooned, unconsciousness kindly veiling from her sight the horrible spectacle of seeing her father and mother murdered. When Kate again recovered, she was ordered to give the Indians her father's money and the valuables of the family, and as she complied with their demand, they rudely tore her engagement ring from her finger. Then Kanotche, one of the most bloodthirsty and treacherous of his kind, buried his toma- hawk in poor Kate's head, and she fell dead upon the hearth and her blood was mingled with that of her parents. This squad of Indians was captured on Fern Island, in Tuscarawas county, and the narrative of the massacre was obtained from Kanotche himself, while he was confined as a prisoner in the jail at New Philadelphia.
As it was late in the afternoon when Philip went after assistance. the sable mantle of night covered the valley ere his return, and this narrative
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of the massacre will here close, rather than attempt to sketch of portray Philip's grief over the death of his parents and sister.
"Zeimer" is a German name of Swiss origin. It was Americanized by the pioneers into "Zimmer," and finally into "Seymour," but the name as it is still retained by the family in Pickaway county, in their legal papers and upon their gravestones is "Zeimer."
The news of the murder of the Zeimers caused the settlers to go to the blockhouses for safety. The country was filled with alarm, and other deeds of blood soon followed. James Copus lived on the east side of the Blackfork valley, about midway between Mifflin and Greentown. With other settlers, he had taken the family to the Beam blockhouse, but after a few days he became restless and wanted to return to his cabin home. He believed the Indians were all gone, and that if any were lurking around he felt confident they would do him no harm, as he was their friend. That confidence cost him his life. The Indian character is one of treachery. Against the facts of history, writers speak of the "Noble Red Man" and of the gratefulness of his character. Facts show that his deceit and treachery have left trails of blood through American history.
When Mr. Copus stated that he intended to return to his cabin, Captain Martin, the commandant of the blockhouse, protested against him taking such a step, and told him he would endanger the lives of himself and family by doing so. But Mr. Copus had made his decision, and on the morning of the fourth day after the Zeimer murder, started with his wife and seven children, to return home, a detail of nine soldiers going with them. Captain Martin, who took out a scouting party, promised to call and spend the night with the Copus family. But, finding no trace of the Indians, and recon- noitering further than they had intended to go, they did not get to the Copus home until noon the next day-too late to avert the fate that had fallen upon that household. When night came, the soldiers who had accompanied Mr. Copus and family home, went to the barn to sleep, the weather being very warm. At daybreak on Tuesday morning, September 15, 1812, the soldiers reurned to the house, and after conversing a little while with the family, went to the spring on the hillside, to wash. They left their arms stacked against the side of the cabin. When in the act of washing, an Indian yell rent the air and in a moment the soldiers were surrounded by forty-five armed and painted savages. Upon being attacked the soldiers, being unarmed, fled in different directions; two attempted to reach the forest upon the hillside for protection, but were pursued by the Indians, were overtaken, killed and scalped. Their names were John Tedrick and George Shipley. A third, named Warnock, was shot through the bowels, went some distance and sat down by a tree and died. His body was found several weeks after- wards in a sitting posture. Five soldiers got inside safely, but the sixth. named George Dye, was not so fortunate, and was shot through the thigh as he entered the door, and George Launtz was shot through the arm later, while removing a chink to make a port-hole in the wall. These soldiers were from Guernsey county and have many relatives living in that part of
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the state at the present time. A descendant of George Dye is now the city editor of the Zanesville Signal.
When the attack was made upon the soldiers at the spring, Mr. Copus seized his rifle and went to the door, and, as he opened it a ball fired by an Indian, passed through the leather strap that supported his powder horn, and entered his breast, inflicting a wound which caused his death within an hour. Early in the contest Nancy Copus, aged fifteen, was shot above the knee, inflicting a painful wound. The children were then placed upstairs for greater safety, but even the loft was insecure, for a number of the Indians upon the hillside kept firing upon the clapboard roof. For five long hours the battle raged, the Indians often trying to take the cabin by assault. The soldiers made a heroic defense. They fired through port- holes, and their aim was often unerring, as a number of Indians were seen to fall to rise no more. Finally the awful contest ended by the Indians retreating, taking their dead with them, and firing a parting salute into a flock of sheep, which had huddled together in terror, near the barn.
When Captain Martin and his scouts arrived, they were appalled at the horrible spectacle that met their view. Attention was given to the wounded, and the dead were buried. Eleven Indians were killed. The bodies of nine were taken away, and two were left upon the ground.
The same day of the Copus battle, the cabins of Newell, Cuppy and Fry, further east, were burned by the Indians. The families were at the Jerome- villo blockhouse.
In 1881, the Ashland county pioneer society took steps for the erection of "monuments to the memory of those pioneers and soldiers who were killed by the Indians in the fall of 1812"-refering to the Zeimer massacre and the Copus battle. Funds for the same were raised by subscription, largely through the work of the late Dr. Riddle. Two monuments, costing a hundred and fifty dollars each, were erected the following year, one where the Zeimers and Ruffner are buried, the other where Copus and the soldiers are interred. The monuments were unveiled with appropriate ceremonies on September 15, 1882- seventy years after the Copus battle. The attend- ance was very large, fully ten thousand people being present. Judge R. M. Campbell was the orator of the day. Short addresses were made by Henry C. Hedges, the late Dr. William Bushnell and Colonel B. Burns. Two aged ladies, who as young girls had been pioneers in the county, were introduced to the audience and given seats upon the stand. They were Mrs. Sarah Vail, daughter of James Copus, and Mrs. Elizabeth Baughman, daughter of Captain James Cunningham.
Twenty-two years have come and gone since these monuments were unveiled. Many who were present upon that occasion, including a number who took part in the exercises, are with us no more. A. J. BAUGHMAN.
CAMP COUNCIL.
AAs Americans, we should remember, and as patriots we never can forget, the cost at which our National Independence was secured and has been
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maintained. It cost seven long years of war to have America acknowledged as one of the nations of the earth; then came the struggle of 1812-15, for sailors' rights and for the protection of American commerce upon the high seas, against unreasonable search and seizure. Then our war with Mexico, where many brave boys found graves in a foreign land; and then followed the war of the Rebellion, in which the boys in blue went forth to meet those in grey in the conflict of war, to maintain and uphold the union of the states, to give us in the future, as in the past, one country, one constitution, one destiny, under one flag.
The arm which guides the hand which writes these lines touched elbows with the boys in blue, and would like here to pay a tribute to the men who carried the flag and kept step to the music of the Union-soldiers whose valor will continue to live in story and in song so long as the peaks of the Rocky Mountains shall hold their snow-capped summits in the clouds of the sky, and the rivers that traverse our land flow onward to the sea.
But it is the purpose of this chapter to deal with a few of the incidents and events of the war of 1812. Limit here will not permit of following the army of that period in its marches and triumphs from Chippewa to Lundy's Lane and down through the successes and reverses of the years of that conflict, which ended in a blaze of glorious victory at New Orleans, January 8, 1815, when General Jackson whipped the Red Coats to a finish, but can only for a short distance follow Beall's trail to take a look at Camp Council, in the northern part of Richland county.
At the time of which this deals Mansfield was only a small village and there were but few settlers north or west of this. The Indians who had been peaceful in their way, before, were then acting as the allies of the British, and the settlers found it necessary to build blockhouses for protection from their savage foes. The settlers had looked to the army in the north- west for protection, but after Hull's surrender in August, 1812, this locality was in danger, alike, from the army of Great Britain and from marauding bands of Indians.
To protect the settlers, Return Jonathan Meigs, then governor of Ohio. was organizing an army of volunteers and Colonel Kratzer, who had been stationed at Mt. Vernon, was ordered to Mansfield and his command was here joined by Captain James Cunningham's, and to this army was assigned the duty of guarding the western border. To protect the frontier on the north, General Reason Beall raised an army of two thousand men, recruited principally in Columbiana, Harrison, Jefferson, Stark and Wayne counties, and came to the relief of the settlers on the northern border. While en- camped for a few days at Wooster they heard of the Zeimer and Copus tragedies and hastened on to this county, cutting their way through an almost unbroken wilderness, and their route is caled Beall's Trail, in his- tory.
Upon entering Richland county the army first went into camp on the Whetstone, where Olivesburg now stands. From the Whetstone they marched to the present site of Shenandoah, where a short stop was made until a more desirable location was found a mile to the southwest, on land
/2.
AN INDIAN VILLAGE
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which is a part of the southeast quarter of section number 33, in Blooming Grove township, a short distance north of the south line of the township. General Beall went into camp there for the purpose of drilling his troops and to hold consultation with the civil and military authorities as to the best means of protecting the settlers, and the camp was, therefore, called "Camp Council."
A brook, called Beall's Run, courses down a ravine that runs from the northeast to the southwest, and upon an upland to the west and north the camp proper was located, the soldiers clearing the land and using the wood for fuel. From the bank on the east side of the brook, a spring of clear, cold water rushes forth now, as it did then, sufficient in volume to supply several thousand troops.
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