History of Sandusky County, Ohio : with portraits and biographies of prominent citizens and pioneers, Part 4

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 4

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The French had a very just claim to the Ohio Valley, but it was destined that they should not hold it, and already events were shaping which eventually led to the over- throw of their authority and the vesture of title and possession in the English crown.

The Colonial Ohio Land Company was organized in Virginia in 1748, by twelve

* Bancroft quotes Gist as saying the captives were taken ' to a new French fort at Sandusky."

HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY.

associates, among whom were Thomas Lee, and Lawrence and Augustine, brothers of George Washington. Under their auspices Christopher Gist explored the Ohio as far as the falls, travelling a portion of the time with Croghan and Montour. The company secured a royal grant of half a million acres of land in the Ohio · Valley. In 1763 preparations were made to establish a colony. The French ex- hibited an intention of resistance, and the royal Governor of Virginia sent George Washington, then a young man, to the commander of the French forces to de- mand their reason for invasion of British territory. Washington received an answer that was both haughty and defiant. Re- turning to Virginia he made known the failure of his mission. The project of making a settlement was abandoned, and preparations were immediately made for the maintenance of the British claim to the western valley by force of arms. The result was the union of the colonies, the ultimate involvement of England in the war that ensued, the defeat of the French, and the vesture in the British crown of the right and title to Canada and of all the territory east of the Mississippi and south to the Spanish possessions, excepting New Orleans and a small body of land sur- rounding it. Benjamin Franklin had previously tried to effect a union of the colonies and had been unsuccessful. He had proposed a plan of settlement in 1754, and suggested that two colonies should be located in the West-one upon the Cuya- hoga and the other upon the Scioto, "on which," he said, "for forty miles each side of it and quite up to its head is a body of all rich land, the finest spot of its big- ness in all North America, and has the peculiar advantage of sea coal in plenty (even above ground in two places) for fuel when the wood shall have been de- stroyed."

The peace concluded by the treaty of Paris in February, 1763, was only a fan- cied settlement of difficulties in the North- west. For a few months war clouds shift- ed from the zenith and left a clear sky just long enough for the frontier farmer to plant his crop in the hope of harvest- ing in security; and for the industrious trader to begin his journey from village to village. But a storm of terrible fury was gathering on the horizon all around.

The Northwestern Indians submitted sullenly to the British arms. They re- mained jealous of encroachments, and having been accustomed to receiving splendid presents from the French, they soon began to cherish those bitter feelings of resentment which neglect always in- spires. The organization of the Ohio Land Company, the multiplication of grants to settlers by the Government of Vir- ginia, the outrages of the English soldiery which displaced the gay French garrisons in the Northwestern forts, all contributed to bring on the war which is known in his- tory as "Pontiac's Conspiracy." The Ot- tawa chief, Pontiac, was the soul of a for- midable conspiracy which exploded in the spring of 1763, spreading desolation and death throughout the whole Northwest. He was a chief of great genius and pos- sessing qualities unsurpassed by the most distinguished of his race .* There is something lofty in the proud speech ad- dressed to the English traders who came to his camp for purposes of business :

Englishmen! Although you have conquered the French, you have not yet conquered us. We are not your slaves. These lakes, these woods, these mountains were left to us by our ancestors. They are our inheritance, and we will part with them to none. Your Nation supposes that we, like the white people, cannot live without bread, pork and beef, But you ought to know that the Great Spirit and Master of Life has provided food for us on these lakes and in these mountains. +

*Taylor's History of Ohio.

+Writings of Perkins.

HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY.

Bancroft styles Pontiac the colossal chief, whose "name still hovers over the Northwest, as the hero who devised and conducted a great but unavailing struggle with destiny for the independence of his race." He had taken a conspicuous part in the French war, having been in com- mand of the Indian forces in the defence of Fort Duquesne and at Braddock's de- feat. By some historians he is given the title of emperor. Like Tecumseh, a half century later, Pontiac appealed to super- stition to reach the Indian heart. He aroused the tribes from the Carolinas to Lake Michigan by interpreting the voice of the Great Spirit as saying to them: "Why do you suffer these dogs in the red clothing to enter your country and take the land I have given you? Drive them out! Drive them! When you are in dis- tress I will help you."

By incessant work and unsurpassed genius, Pontiac secretly formed a league which was to environ and enfeeble the garrisons, and by stratagem and force sim- ultaneously to destroy them. The fron- tiers were then to be swept by a general massacre.

"At last the day came; traders every- where were seized, their goods taken from them, and more than one hundred put to death. Nine British forts yielded instant- ly, and the savages drank, -' scooped up in the hollow of joined hands ' -- the blood of many a Briton. The border streams of Pennsylvania and Virginia ran red again. ' We hear,' says a letter from Fort Pitt, ' of scalpings every hour.' In western Vir- ginia more than twenty thousand people were driven from their homes. Detroit was besieged by Pontiac himself, after a vain effort to take it by stratagem, and for many months that siege was continued in a manner and with a perseverance un- exampled among the Indians. It was the 8th of May when Detroit was first. at-

tacked, and on the 3d of the following November it was still in danger. As late as March of the next year the inhabitants were still sleeping in their clothes, expect- ing an alarm every night."*

The destruction of Fort Sandusky and the consequent destruction of the neigh- boring Wyandot village, come within our legitimate field, for although the fort was beyond the east line of this county, and the village probably was, the burning of both had the effect of giving Lower San- dusky greater importance in Indian affairs. The destruction of the fort left no foreign military station nearer than Detroit, which gave to the Indians here confidence of greater security, for although in after years they received at the British headquarters pay for furs, bounty for scalps, and ran- som for prisoners, they never ceased to entertain a lurking suspicion of the white men. The destruction of the village on the bay had the effect of concentra- ting the population about the headwaters of navigation, a place more difficult for white expeditions to approach, superior for agriculture, nearer the centre of tribal dominion, and in almost every respectt bet- ter adapted for an Indian stronghold than any other point in the lake basin. Col- onel Smith's narrative speaks of visiting the "Little Lake," giving that locality considerable importance. After its de- struction it was never rebuilt, and Lower Sandusky is next described* as the home of the great war chief Tarhe, the Crane.

From the report of Ensign Paully of the garrison, there has been compiled by Parkman and Bancroft detailed accounts of the siege of the fort.

On the 16th of May (1763), Fort Sandusky was approached by a party of Indians, principally from the Wyandot village. Ensign Paully was informed that seven Indiens were waiting at the gate to speak with him. They proved to be four Hurons or Wyan-

* Perkins's Annals of the West.

*By Heckewelder in 1782.

HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY.

dots, and three Chippewas, and as several of them were known to him he ordered them to be admitted without hesitation. Arrived at his quarters two of the treacherous visitors seated themselves on each side of the commandant, while the rest were dis- posed in various parts of the room. The pipes were lighted and conversation began, when an Indian who stood in thedoor, made a signal by suddenly raising his head. Upon this the astonished officer was seized, dis- armed, and tied by those near him, while at the same . moment a confused noise of shrieks and yells, firing of guns, and the hurried tramp of feet sounded from the area without. It soon ceased, however, and as Paully was led from the room he saw the dead body of his sentry, and the parade ground was strewn with the corpses of the murdered garrison. The body of his sergeant lay in the garden where he was planting at the time of the massacre. Some traders who were stationed within or near the pickets were also killed and their stores plundered. At nightfall Paully was conducted to the margin of the lake, where several birch canoes lay in readiness, and as amid thick darkness the party pushed out from shore, the captive saw the fort, lately under his command, bursting on all sides into sheets of flame.

The tragedy at Sandusky did not remain un- avenged. On the 26th of July a detachment of two hundred and sixty men, under command of Captain Dalzell, arrived at Sandusky on their coastwise route to Detroit. Thence they marched inland to the Wy- andot village, which they burned to the ground, at the same time destroying the adjacent fields of stand- ing corn. After inflicting this inadequate retribution of the scene of May 16, Dalzell steered northward, and under cover of night effected a junction with the Detroit garrison.

George Washington made a journey down the Ohio in 1770. He was accom- panied by Dr. Craik, Captain (afterwards Colonel) William Crawford (who was burned to death at the stake within the present limits of Wyandot county in 1782), and several other white men, also by a party of Indians.

Largely through Washington was the interest in the West revived. Immense schemes for settlement and land specula- tion were projected. A huge company was organized which included the Old Ohio Company and the Walpole scheme as well as recognizing the bounties of the Virginia volunteers in the French war. Doubtless some of these plans for the de- velopment of the West would have suc-

ceeded had it not been for Indian hostili- ties upon the border settlements already established, and the probability of a long continuance of the perturbed condicion of affairs generally. Colonel Henry Bo- quet, who had the year before rescued the garrison of Fort Duquesne and dispersed Pontiac's warriors, made a military expe- dition into the Ohio country in 1764, his purpose being to punish and awe the In- dians and recover from them the captives they had taken during the previous years on the Pennsylvania and Virginia borders. He was successful in the accomplishment of each one of his objects. The expedi- tion was directed against the Delawares upon the Muskingum and Tuscarawas. No blood was shed, the Indians assenting to the terms of a treaty prepared by Colo- nel Boquet, and delivering to him over two hundred prisoners. Upon the 28th of November the army of about fifteen hun- dred returned to Fort Pitt, which point they had left on October 3d. This ex- pedition for a time tranquilized the Indi- ans of the Ohio country, and the next ten years passed peacefully and without the occurrence of any important event.

But returning to the period from which we retrograded to speak of the Boquet expedition, we find in 1774 that the Shaw- nees have become bitterly hostile, princi- pally on account of the prospect of losing their land and because of the murder of the kindred of Logan, the famous Mingo, who was now dwelling with them at the Old Chillicothe town on the Scioto (where was afterward the village of Westfall, Picka- way county). Logan had "fully glutted his vengeance" upon the white settlements of the Monongahela country, and numerous atrocities had been committed all along the border. To quell the turbulence that prevailed Lord Dunmore, the then royal Governor of Virginia, organized an army of invasion of the Indian country. He

HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY.

had a desire for military renown and de- cided to assume personal command of the large division, while he entrusted the other, consisting of about eleven hundred men raised west of the Blue Ridge, to General Andrew Lewis. The forces of the latter were attacked by the Indians on the Ioth of October, south of the Ohio, and the ensuing combat, known as the battle of Point Pleasant, was one of the most desperate and bloody in the annals of the West. The contending forces were very nearly equal, it is claimed by most writers, but there is strong probability that the Indians were much weaker in numbers than the army which they assailed. The whites lost half of their officers and fifty- two men killed, while the Indian loss was estimated at two hundred and thirty-three. Lord Dunmore's division passed through a bloodless campaign. They descended the Ohio to the mouth of the Hocking River, and there built Fort Gower. The Governor was here at the time of the bat- tle of Point Pleasant, and had sent mes- sengers to Lewis ordering him to march toward the Scioto towns. Dunmore marched through the territory includ- ed in Athens county and onward to the Pickaway (originally Piqua) plains, be- low the site of Circleville. There he was met by Lewis' decimated division, whom he could hardly keep from falling upon the Indians to avenge the death of their comrades at Point Pleasant. A treaty was held at Camp Charlotte, which was attended and acquiesced in by all of the leading chiefs of the villages except Lo- gan. Lord Dunmore dispatched John Gibson to confer with the haughty Mingo, and his visit elicited the famous speech, which Jefferson pronounced equal in elo- quence to any ever made by the great ora- tors of civilized nations.

Already the premonitory signs of that discontent which developed into the Rev-

olution and American independence were exhibiting themselves, and soon the con- flict was begun which riveted the atten- tion of the world upon the colonies. The Revolutionary period was almost barren of events in the West. There was one event, however, of immeasurable importance. The time had come when the destiny of the Great West-of the Northwestern Ter- ritory-was to be decided. The man who was to shape its destiny was, in 1774, an officer in Lord Dunmore's army, and in 1776 a pioneer settler in Kentucky- George Rogers Clarke. He was a realiza- tion of the ideal soldier-cool, courage- ous, and sagacious, and at once the most powerful man and the most picturesque character in the whole West. It was his . foresight and prompt, efficient action which at the close of the war made the Northwest Territory a portion of the United States instead of leaving it in pos- session of the British .* He foresaw that even if the colonies should be victorious in the War for Independence they would be confined to the eastern side of the Alle- ghanies, unless the West was a special field of conquest. After failing to inter- est the House of Burgesses he made an appeal to Patrick Henry, the Governor of Virginia, and from him he succeeded in obtaining the authority which he needed, viz .: commissions that empowered him to raise seven companies of soldiers, and to seize the British posts in the Northwest. In January, 1778, he was at Pittsburg se- curing provisions and ammunition; in June he was marching through the unbroken forest at the head of a small but valiant army, principally composed of his fellow

*" The cession of that great territory, under the treaty of 1773, was due mainly to the foresight, the courage and endurance of one man, who never re- ceived from his country an adequate recognition of his great service." -- Hon. James A. Garfield. Ad- dress. 18.3.

HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY.

pioneers from Kentucky. His march was directed towards the Illinois country. His able generalship and courage soon placed the garrisons of Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and St. Vincent in his possession, and his equally great tact enabled him to win over the French inhabitants to the American cause and make of them warm allies. . Two other expeditions were made by General Clarke -- both against the Indians upon the Miamis-one in 1780 and the other in 1782. Other expeditions into or through Ohio territory were made as fol- lows: by Colonel Bradstreet (simultane- ously with Boquet's expedition-1764) along Lake Erie to Detroit, accompanied by Major Israel Putnam (the Major-General of the Revolution); by Colonel Angus Mc- Donald (just prior to Dunmore's invasion); by General Lachlin McIntosh in 1778 (to the Tuscarawas, where he built the first English fort, with a parapet and stockade, intended as a permanent work, in Ohio); by Colonel John Bowman in 1779; by General Daniel Broadhead in 1781; by Colonel Archibald Lochry in the same year; by Colonel Williamson in 1782; by Colonel Benjamin Logan in 1786; and still others of less importance by Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, Colonel Edwards, and Colonel Todd, at various times dur- ing the decade preceding the settlement of the territory.

Another topic to be touched upon briefly in this chapter is of painful and peculiar interest. We have in mind the Moravian missions on the Muskingum, and use the word painful, as the horrible massacre perpetrated there-the blackest stain on Ohio history-comes to mind. We say also a peculiar interest, and that phrase is suggested by the fact that the Moravians had better claims to be con- sidered as settlers than any other dwellers north of the Ohio, prior to the arrival of the New England colony, and however

inadequate such claims may appear it must at least be admitted that these " monks of Protestantism "* presented to the Western world a phase of civilization and religion which was both picturesque and inspiring.

As early as 1761 the Delaware Indians on the Tuscarawas branch of the Mus- kingum were visited by a Moravian mis- sionary, the Rev. Christian Frederick Post. In March of the following year John Heckewelder became his companion and assistant. Only a few months, how- ever, were spent in missionary labor, for in the fall the Indians who had first wel- comed them, became suspicious that their sojourn there was only a ruse through which a foothold was to be gained leading to settlement, and Post and Heckewelder were obliged to leave the country to save their lives. Not until ten years had passed by was another attempt made by the zeal- ous religionists to plant a mission among the savages. In 1772 Rev. David Zeis- berger founded Schoenbrunn (Beautiful Spring) on the west side of the river and near the site of New Philadelphia, Tus- carawas county, and twenty-eight persons located there. Gnadenhutten (Tents of Grace) was established the same year seven miles below Schoenbrunn. The Rev. George Jungman, Rev John Roth and Rev. John Etwin, came out as mis- sionaries · from Pennsylvania the same year; and with the last named, immigrated to Zeisberger's Station a large company of converted Indians, bringing with them the implements of industry. Good log huts were built in the regularly laid out village, a large chapel reared in which to hold re- ligious services, the ground tilled, and every measure taken that was considered needful in the formation of a permanent settlement. The simple, quiet life went on very pleasantly, and all was peace and

* Madame de Stael.

HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY

prosperity. Much did the Delaware chiefs and the few traders who visited Schoen- brunn marvel to see so many Indians living together after the manner of the whites, and devoting themselves to agri- culture rather than the chase. They had abjured war and all savage customs. New converts were made almost daily, and the pious missionaries felt well rewarded for their patient toil, and gave praise to Him whom they regarded as the prime author of their success. So many accessions were made by the Moravians that in 1776 Zeisberger formed another colony, village or station, near the present town of Cos- hocton, and gave it the name Lichtenan. In 1780 Salem was founded five miles be- low Gnadenhutten, and the Rev. John Heckewelder became its regular preacher.

All went well with the mission stations until the British, fearing or pretending to fear, that they were performing various services for the Americans, forcibly re- moved them in September, 1781, to Up- per Sandusky. They were sorely distress- ed by lack of provisions, and in the latter part of the following winter obtained per- mission to return to their old stations and gather the corn which they had planted the summer before, and to secure if pos- sible any of the valuables they had been obliged to leave behind them when they were hurried away. They came down from Sandusky in February, and March I found them busily engaged in plucking the corn which had been left standing during the winter, and packing it for transportation to their famishing brethren. "The weather during the greater part of February." says Doddridge, "had been uncommonly fine, so that the war parties from Sandusky visited the settlements and began depredations earlier than usual One of the parties fell upon a family named Wallace and murdered all of its members exhibiting even greater brutality

than usually characterized their atrocities. The early period at which the fatal visita- tion was made led to the conclusion that the murderers were either Moravians or that the warriors had their winter quarters at their towns on the Muskingum. In either case the Moravians being at fault, the safety of the pioneer settlements re- quired the destruction of their establish- ments at that place .* A force of eighty or ninety men was immediately organized, and led by Colonel David Williamson set out for the Muskingum. On their arrival at Gnadenhutten they found the Indians in the fields gathering their corn and with their arms by them as was the common custom, for the purpose of shooting game, and also to guard against attack. The unsus- pecting Indians hearing the whites' pro- testations of peace and good will, and be- ing informed that they had come to re- move them to Fort Pitt and place them under the protection of the Americans, gave up their arms and began with all speed to prepare food for the white men and themselves for the proposed journey. A party of men sent out for the purpose soon brought in the Indians from Salem, and with the Gnadenhutten Indians they were placed in block-houses and confined under an armed guard. Colonel William- son then coolly put the question to his men, should the prisoners be taken to Pittsburg or dispatched. Sixteen or eighteen men only out of the eighty or ninety men leaned toward the side of mercy. The majority were for murdering them and were impatient to begin their hellish work. The Moravians had foreseen their fate as soon as they had been placed in confine- ment, and in the hour of extremity exhib- ited the steadfastness of their simple faith by singing the hymns and breathing the

*Notes on the Early Settlement and Indian Wars m Western Virginia and Pennsylvania In Joseph Doddridge.

HISTORY OF SANDUSKY COUNTY.

prayers that Heckewelder and Zeisberger had taught them. Some of them appeal- ed for mercy when the murderers came among them to begin their work, but the greater number, sustained by their acquir- ed religious faith or natural stoicism, met death with majestic composure. The ex- . ecutioners, with tomahawks, war-clubs, and knives, entering the crowded slaugh- ter-pens struck down the defenceless and innocent captives until their arms grew tired, and then their places were taken by others of those white savages who thirsted for blood; and the dreadful carnage went on until ninety-six lives had been taken. Of these sixty-two were grown persons, of whom one-third were women, and the remaining thirty four were children of various ages, from those just entering manhood or womanhood down to babes on their mothers' breasts. Neither the gray hairs of old age nor the mute, ap- pealing innocence of childhood_were pro- tection from the fury and the brutality of these fiends in the form of men. Of all these Indians gathered in the block-houses only two escaped. Those at Schoenbrunn fled before the approach of Williamson's men and none of them were taken. This massacre occurred on the 7th of March, 1782, just six years and one month before the landing of the pioneer colony of Ohio at the mouth of the Muskingum.

The wanton butchery of these inoffen- sive Moravians, more than any other event in Western history, had the effect of mak- ing the Indians hostile to the Americans, and, therefore, naturally inclining them to amity with the British. This was an end which the latter people constantly sought to effect by every method of intrigue. There is some reason, too, for the belief that Williamson's men were led to the Moravian towns and incited to the com- mission of the stupendous massacre through the shrewd wiles of the British.

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History of Sandusky County, Ohio : with portraits and biographies of prominent citizens and pioneers, Part 4

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