History of Sandusky County, Ohio : with portraits and biographies of prominent citizens and pioneers, Part 22

Author: Everett, Homer, 1813-1887
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : H.Z. Williams
Number of Pages: 1040

USA > Ohio > Sandusky County > History of Sandusky County, Ohio : with portraits and biographies of prominent citizens and pioneers > Part 22

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sented almost an indistinguishable mass of slowly moving mud.

Meantime emigration to the West in- creased, and the more the road was trav- elled the worse it became. Some attempts were made now and then by the superin- tendent to fill up an impassable mud-hole with earth, but such work only made it thicker and deeper. The condition of this road, traversed by emigrants from all sections of the east; the reported failures in carrying the mails according to contract, by reason of its impassability, gave it a National reputation for being, perhaps, the worst road on the continent. The dis- tance from Lower Sandusky to Perrys- burgh was thirty-one miles. Hauling stalled teams out of the worst mud-holes had become a regular and well-established employment of the settlers along the route, and in 1834, 1835, and 1836, there were thirty-one taverns between Lower Sandusky and Perrysburgh, which would be a tavern averaging one to every mile of road. These taverns had two purposes; one was to give the traveller food and shelter for the night, and the other to pull their tired and stalled teams through the worst places with ox teams, and start them forward to the next impassable mud-hole, where they would find another ready to perform a like service. These taverns, be it remembered, were log huts in the woods, on the borders of the road. Our very worthy citizen, John P. Moore, says that one Andrew Craig happened to locate on the road in the vicinity of several of the worst places in the track; that Andrew charged exor- bitant prices for pulling out the stalled teams, and for the use of his cabin for emigrants to rest in over night. That it was a common occurrence for Andrew to work all day in getting the team through one or two bad places, and then have the emigrants go back to stay at his house for three successive nights, until they got

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within the jurisdiction of the next tavern. Andrew's charges were never too low to afford him a good income. He was a representative tavern-keeper of the time, on that road.

There was little variation in the condi. tion and management of this road until an event happened which aroused public attention throughout the State to the ne- cessity of its improvement, and that event was what is called

THE OHIO AND MICHIGAN WAR.

While this war, as it was called, was not the direct result of any action of Sandus- ky county, still; its influence and bearing upon the subsequent improvement of the road had such an importance in the ad- vancement of the county that a brief allu- sion to it seems proper. Beside this, the prominent part taken in that dispute by citizens of the county makes a notice of its causes and results pertinent to this history.

The convention of delegates which met at Chillicothe in September, 1802, formed a Constitution for the purpose of presenting it to Congress for acceptance, and for then being admitted to the Union as a State. In the seventh article of the sixth section of the instrument as finally agreed upon and accepted by Congress, the con- vention undertook to set out the bounda- ries of the State. After minutely and clearly describing the eastern, southern, and western boundary, the section contin- ued in the following words:

On the north by a line drawn east through the southern extreme of Lake Michigan until it shall in- tersect Lake Erie or the territorial line; thence with the same through Lake Erie to the Pennsylvania line. Provided that said line shall not intersect Lake Erie east of the mouth of the Maumee River; then and in that case it shall, by and with the consent of Congress, be bounded by a line drawn from the southern extreme of Lake Michigan to the northern cape of the Maumee Bay.

It was soon ascertained that an east line drawn from the southern extreme of Lake

Michigan would intersect Lake Erie far east of the mouth of the Maumee or Miami River. Ohio, upon ascertaining this fact, solicited Congress to assent to the establishment of her northern boundary according to the proviso con- tained in the seventh article of the sixth section of her Constitution. The opinions of members of Congress differed on the subject, some holding that the proviso had already been assented to by the adoption of the Constitution; others believed that the assent of Congress was made neces- sary by the terms of the proviso, and that further action was necessary to establish the boundary beyond all question. In 1815 the Senate of the United States acted on the subject, favoring the claim of Ohio, but the bill was rejected by the House of Representatives. Again, in De- cember, 1834, the Senate passed the same bill and it was again rejected by the House of Representatives. Thus it appears that the State of Ohio had, for a period of nearly thirty years, solicited Congress from time to time to establish beyond a doubt or cavil her northern boundary, without ac- complishing the purpose. In the mean- time she had exercised civil jurisdiction to the line mentioned in the proviso, and had at great cost constructed the Miami canal, which connected with the Maumee River at Manhattan, which place then, 1834, promised to be what the city of Toledo now is, the chief commercial city of northwest- ern Ohio. It should be mentioned here, in order to properly understand the cause of dispute, that in 1805 Congress, in or- ganizing the territorial government for the Territory of Michigan, had bounded that Territory on the south, unconditionally, by a line drawn east from the southern extreme of Lake Michigan. This line would leave Toledo, Manhattan, and the mouth of the Maumee River, to the territory of Michi- gan, and take from Ohio a strip of land

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HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY.

about ten miles in width at the west line of Ohio, and running to a point ; then the line due east from the southern extreme of Lake Michigan touched Lake Erie.

For many years the country was so wild and had so few settlers that there was no strife and no question about its occupancy or the civil jurisdiction over it, and Ohio · in good faith held possession and built the canal through it without hindrance or opposition. After the project for building the canal was formed and the work under way, the then future commercial import- ance of the mouth of the Maumee River and the Maumee Bay, and this ten miles of territory including them, began to be appreciated.

The repeated failures of Congress to pass the necessary enactment or declara- tion, especially the last failure in 1834, served to attract attention to the subject and induce a discussion of the question whether Ohio or Michigan owned this strip of valuable territory. To Ohio this question had become one of grave import- ance. She had spent large sums of money in improvements on it, and it was then clearly seen that in the future develop- ment of the Northwest a large commer- cial city must grow up somewhere near the mouth of the Maumee River. Wea- ried of importuning Congress, the State itself took action in the matter. February 6, 1835, the Governor of Ohio, Robert Lucas, sent a communication to the Gen- eral Assembly of the State, recommending the passage of a law "declaring that all the counties bounded on the northern boundary of the State of Ohio, shall ex- tend to and be bounded by a line running from the southern extreme of Lake Mich- igan to the northern cape of the Maumee Bay." On the 23d day of February, 1835, an act was passed by the General Assem- bly in accordance with the Governor's recommendation. Over a part of the ter-

ritory included by this line, which was the line mentioned in the proviso above no- ticed, Ohio had not up to that time exer- cised any specific jurisdiction. This act specifically required the public officers of the townships and counties bounded by this line to exercise jurisdiction to it, thus enforcing the laws of Ohio over a con- siderable territory, which for a number of years had been tacitly subject to the laws of the Territory of Michigan.

On the 12th of February, 1835, the legislative council of Michigan passed an act, the second section of which reads as follows:

And be it further enacted, that if any person resid. Ing within this Territory shall accept any office or trust from any State authority other than the govern- ment of the United States or the Territory of Michigan, every person so offending shall be fined not exceeding one thousand dollars, or imprisoned five years at the discretion of the court before which any conviction may be had.

The act of the General Assembly of Ohio above mentioned, also provided that the Governor should appoint three commis- sioners to run the line and distinctly mark it on trees, and by monuments where trees were not available for the purpose ; that is, mark the line which terminated at the northernmost cape of the Maumee Bay.

In the two acts above mentioned may be seen the rising clouds which were soon to culminate in a storm of opposing au- thorities, and the collision of hostile forces. The acting governor of Michigan, Stevens T. Mason, seeing Ohio preparing to take from Michigan a part of her territory, pre- pared to execute the laws and defend what he understood to be the rights of the people of Michigan. To do this and to effectually drive off all hostile invaders from the soil in his Territory, he ordered Brigadier-General Brown, under his com- mand, to have in readiness a military force to repel any encroachment upon their Ter ritory, and intimited to the authorities of

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HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY.

Ohio in plain terms, that the first man who should attempt to run the line ordered by the authorities of the State of Ohio, would be shot without hesitation or compunction.

The citizens of Toledo, then a small village situated on the disputed territory, manifested a disposition to yield to the claims and jurisdiction of Ohio. This disposition on their part raised a spirit of jealousy against them in the minds of the people of Michigan, which led the latter to commit unwarrantable and odious dep- redations upon the citizens of that village.

Numerous instances of violence and kid- napping resulted from the hostility engen- dered by the contest for civil jurisdiction by Ohio over this disputed territory, and to prevent the survey of the line as re- quired by the law of the State. These outrages brought Governor Lucas to the conclusion that the commissioners he had appointed to make the survey would be arrested while performing their duty, and the work prevented unless protected by adequate force. Sincerely believing that the claim of Ohio was legal and just, and feeling it to be his solemn duty to see the laws of the State faithfully executed, though regretting the necessity for force, he resolved to use force, if it must be used, to execute the law and maintain the rights of the State.

The Governor, for the purpose of pro- tecting the commissioners and maintain- ing the peace, ordered General John Bell, then a brigadier-general of Ohio militia, to raise five hundred men to rendezvous at Lower Sandusky on the 23d of April, 1835, and repair immediately to head- quarters at Fort Miami, on the Maumee River and there be in readiness for service.

On the 3Ist of March of that year Governor Lucas, with his staff and the boundary commissioners, arrived at Perrys-

burgh on their way to run the line as directed by the law of Ohio.

General Bell, then in command of the Seventeenth division of Ohio militia, the boundaries of which included the disputed territory, arrived about the same time with near three hundred men, who went into camp at Fort Miami to await orders. This force was the first to report, and was from the vicinity of the expected conflict, being under the command of Colonel Mathias Van Fleet. The Lucas Guards, an inde- pendent company of Toledo, formed a part of this force. These were soon after joined by part of a regiment from San- dusky county, under command of Colonel Lewis Jennings; also a part of a regiment from Seneca and Hancock counties under command of Colonel Henry C. Brish, of Tiffin, numbering about three hundred more; all together numbering about six hundred effective men. The last men- tioned three hundred men, and the Gov- ernor and staff, as well as the surveying party, necessarily had to pass through the Black Swamp, by the Maumee and West- ern Reserve road, in the spring of the year.

And now we have arrived at the event which makes the mention of this war perti- nent in the history of the Maumee and Western Reserve road, and that lies in the fact that the contest over the north boun- dary of the State, made it necessary for the troops and officers, the Governor and his staff, and the commissioners, to run the line, and many other distinguished and influential men of the State and from other States, to wallow through thirty-one miles of mud and water, and to realize that it was for land travel the connecting and only way from the East to the rapidly de- veloping region of the Northwest ; and to realize further, that the condition of the road was a shame and a disgrace to the State.

But now that we have gone thus far in

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HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY.

the mention of the war, let us briefly trace it to the conclusion and then resume the more direct history of the road.

On Sunday, the 26th of April, the sur- veying party which had been engaged in running the line, when resting about a mile south of the line, in what they consider a part of Henry county, in Ohio, at about 12 o'clock noon, were surprised by about fifty of Governor Mason's mounted men, well armed with muskets, under command of General Brown. The commissioners who at the time, had only five armed men with them, who had been employed as a lookout and as hunters for the party, thought it prudent to retire, and so advised the men. Several made good their escape, but nine of the party did not leave the ground in time, and, after being fired upon by the enemy, were taken prisoners and carried away to the interior of Michi- gan. The names of those who were thus captured are, Colonels Scott, Hawkins, and Gould, Major Robert S. Rice, father of our Congressman-elect, and of our other prominent citizens, William A., Robert S., and A. H. Rice; Captain Samuel Biggerstaff, and Messrs. Ellsworth, Fletcher, Moale, and Reckets. These men were taken by an armed force to Tecumseh, Michigan, brought before a magistrate there for examination, and, though they there denied the jurisdiction of Michigan, six entered bail for their ap- pearance, two were released as not guilty, and one, Fletcher, refused to give bail and was retained in custody.

Governor Lucas, finding it impracticable to run the line without further Legislative aid, disbanded his forces and called an ex- tra session of the General Assembly to meet on the 8th of June, which was held accordingly. That body passed an act to prevent the forcible abduction of citizens of Ohio, and made the crime punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary, not

less than three nor more than seven years ; it also passed an act to create the county of Lucas out of the north part of Wood county, including the disputed territory north of it, and a portion of the northwest corner of Sandusky county. The General Assembly also provided ample means to enforce the claims of Ohio. It appro- propriated three hundred thousand dollars to carry its laws into effect, and authorized the Governor to borrow the money.

It was ascertained by the Adjutant- General of Ohio, Samuel C. Andrews, that not less than twelve thousand men in the State were ready to volunteer to sus- tain and enforce the claims and laws of Ohio.

The partisans of Michigan continued, during the summer of 1835, to arrest and harrass the people on the disputed terri- tory, and the war cloud daily became more and more portentous and threaten- ing.

Before the forces under General Bell had reached the scene of military opera- tions, the President of the United States had sent Hon. Richard Rush, of Phila- delphia, and Colonel Howard, of Balti- more, as commissioners to use their influ- ence to stop the war-like demonstrations. These eminent men were accompanied by Hon. Elisha Whittlesey, one of Ohio's most honored public men, and these en- deavored to persuade Governor Mason to permit the line to be peaceably surveyed and marked, and then let matters rest as they had been before, until the next ses- sion of Congress ; but he refused compli- ance with the proposition, while Governor Lucas assented because he considered the Governor of the Territory as a subaltern to the President and subject to his (the President's) control. This reliance on the President's authority it was that in- duced Governor Lucas to believe he could run the line in peace, and hence he set

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the surveyors at work without a military guard, as above noticed. But no effort for peace was successful in modifying the war-like determination of the Governor of Michigan, and Ohio went on with her preparation. to meet force with superior force.

The war cloud rose higher, became darker, and spread wider, until the au- thorities at Washington began to feel un- easy about the peace of the country. President Jackson, to whom the proceed- ings and the preparation for hostilities were reported, became strongly impressed with the necessity of interposing a check to the tendency to serious trouble.

Governor Lucas, perceiving the state of mind at Washington, wisely chose the time to make an effort to induce the Presi- dent to interfere in behalf of peace. For this purpose he sent a deputation to con- fer with the President on the subject. This deputation consisted of Noah H. Swayne, William Allen, and David T. Disney, all eminent and very _influential men, who procured from the President an urgent appeal that no obstruction should be interposed to running the line; that all proceedings begun under the Ohio act of February 23d be discontinued, and that no prosecutions be commenced for any violation of it, and that all prosecutions then pending be discontinued .. This ar- rangement or appeal from the President was obtained July 3, 1835. The authori- ties of Michigan, however, disregarded the President's recommendation, and con- tinued their resistance to running the line, still claiming jurisdiction over the dis- puted ground; and thus matters stood until the 15th of June, 1836, when Michi- gan was admitted into the Union and her southern boundary fixed as Ohio had claimed it to be. To console Michigan for what her people thought was wrongfully taken from them, the same act gave her a

large scope of mineral lands about Lake Superior. Thus, by the liberality of Con- gress, the contending parties were recon- ciled and made happy.

Having followed this digression to its termination, let us now go back to the subject from which we diverged and re- turn to the history of

THE ROAD.

The dispute with Michigan, which we have briefly mentioned, brought the condi- tion of the Maumee and Western Reserve road, and its future importance, promi- nently into notice. The militia from Lower Sandusky and the counties south of it; the commissioners appointed to run the line of the State, and their assistants; the peace commissioners sent by the President to the theater of impending conflict; high functionaries of the State, including the Governor and his staff; all were in the dis- charge of public duties, compelled to plunge and wallow through thirty miles of mud and water in order to reach the ob- jective point of contest. Thus leading men in our own State councils were by act- ual and disagreeable experience brought to a correct understanding of the condi- tion of the road. True it is, that for some years before the contest with Michigan, the stage drivers, the emigrants, and all others who were compelled to travel the road, out of their wallowings in the mud had sent up oaths and imprecations sufficient to split the skies. But the stage driver had little to do with moving public opin- ion of the State, and the emigrant passed on, and the imprecations never reached the ears of the State authority-but the road obtained a frightful reputation all over the country. Now, however, our own people, and our Governor and many of his influential friends, had found to their own discomfort and the shame of the State, the true condition of the road, and had realized its future importance. In

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1836 Rodolphus Dickinson, of Lower Sandusky, was, fortunately for the north- western part of the State, and especially for the town in which he resided, chosen a member of the board of public works of the State. The road was in his division of the works, and thus came under his per- sonal direction and management. He at once put his rare abilities, favored by his public position, into the work of procuring the improvement of the road. In his ef- forts he was, of course, warmly supported by the localities to be benefited, and such progress was made in moving public opin- ion in the right direction for the accom- plishment of the purpose, that on March 14, 1838, the General Assembly of the State passed an act providing for the re- pairing and macadamizing the road, and appropriating forty thousand dollars to be expended in the work. This act provided that the work should begin at the western termination of the road, and progress east- wardly from that point through to the eastern termination. It also provided that after a good road bed had been made, and before the stone covering should be put on, gates might be erected and tolls charged upon teams travelling over the re- paired portion. Here it should be no- ticed that the United States had not at the time this act was passed, in any way given the State a title to the one hundred and twenty feet in width of land on which the road was made, but only the land on each side of it, with authority to make the road, and pay for the making out of the proceeds of the sale of the land. There- fore, before the State actually began the expenditure of the appropriation, the act of Congress of July 7, 1838, was passed, ceding the title to the road and land which it cov- ered, that is the one hundred and twenty feet in width between the termini of the road, to the State of Ohio; since then the State has been the real owner of the road.

Soon after the appropriation of this forty thousand dollars was made and the above mentioned act of Congress passed, the Board of Public Works sent General John Patterson, one of the State engineers, to survey and superintend the work of repair- ing and macadamizing the road, and too much praise cannot be bestowed on Gen- eral Patterson, though he is now dead, for the honesty and skill, and the fidelity with which he executed his duties. March 16, 1839, the State appropriated one hundred thousand dollars to forward the macad- amizing of theroad. The timber originally grubbed out and cut off the road and piled on the sides, had now become dry and was burned off. The roots and stumps had so much decayed that they were easily re- moved, and the plowing of the ground and scraping up of a good road bed was com- paratively easy. Mr. Patterson skilfully laid the grade with a view to the best pos- sible drainage into all the rivers, creeks, and swails, by which the water could be carried away, and where necessary con- structed large lateral ditches leading to the north from the road. The new road bed or pike was sixty feet in width, loca- ted about ten feet nearer the south line than the north line of the road. This lo- cation of the road bed was adopted for the purpose of affording an ample side road on the north side, which, in dry periods, was preferred by teamsters to the stoned road bed, and thus the wear of the stone was made much less than if it bore the wear of all the travel-twenty feet in width of the crown of the road bed was covered with stone, well broken. A prominent fea- ture in the work of General Patterson in designing the improvement of the road, was the capacious, and, in some places, deep side ditches which he caused to be constructed along the sides of the sixty feet road bed, with frequent culverts, by which water was conducted from one ditch

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to the other, under the roadway. The water which had rendered this road such a terror to travellers in very rainy or wet seasons, had a tendency to slowly soak away to the north with the general direc- tion of the rivers and creeks, and hence the ditch on the south side of the road caught the water as it slowly drained in from the south. The system of culverts and large ditches afforded a passage for the water along the road to the nearest point where a natural or artificial channel would carry it towards the lake.

At this day, and in future times, the reader may feel tempted to ask, Why were these dry, common-place details about the construction of this road set out here as a matter of history? The answer is simple; when completed to some outlet, these ditches almost instantly-though in some instances the water would necessarily run many miles along the road-relieved the lands along them of surface water; es- pecially was this the case with lands south of the road. This, however, is not the full answer. It was thereby demonstrated that the Black Swamp lands could be drained, and that dreadful locality made one of the most productive regions of Ohio, as it now, in fact, is. A new spirit was given to the inhabitants; their land had become valuable, and they could dis- cern, through all their former discourage- ments, that their part of the county would soon be filled with inhabitants and be- come rich and prosperous. The result was to draw public attention to a realizing sense of the great benefits to this country to be derived from draining land, and in this view, the location, construction, and improvement of the Maumee and Western Reserve road was not only the first, but the most important public improvement made in the county. The State, through the Board of Public Works, collected the tolls, repaired and managed the road, until

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History of Sandusky County, Ohio : with portraits and biographies of prominent citizens and pioneers, Part 22

Author: Everett, Homer, 1813-1887 Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : H.Z. Williams Number of Pages: 1040

Author: Everett, Homer, 1813-1887
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : H.Z. Williams
Number of Pages: 1040