USA > Ohio > Shelby County > History of Shelby County, Ohio, and representative citizens > Part 2
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From the fragments of history that have come down to us from tradi- tion it is learned that this territory was formerly occupied at different periods by the Twigtees, Miamis and Shawnee Indian tribes, but which of these tribes exercised sovereignty over this section is not known. The first white men to visit within the limits of the county were the early French traders. In 1749 a band of English traders settled at a place they named Pickawillany, within or near the southern line of the county. Three years later the French from Canada broke up this settlement and carried the traders off to Canada where they were held as prisoners for several years. A French trader named Loramie established himself here and built up an extensive trade with the Indians. His place became the headquarters of the Indian tribes, who so continuously made war on the Kentucky settlers. In 1792 George Rodger Clark marched an army of Kentucky militia into this territory, defeated the Indians and destroyed Loramie's trading post. Of this post Clark says: "The property destroyed was of great amount and the provisions surpassed all idea we had of Indian stores."
White settlers began coming into the county in 1805, among whom were the Wilsons, Cannons, Marshalls, Mellingers, Careys and McClures-names familiar to every one in the county. These settlers selected for their homes either the river bottoms or the highest portions of the country on account of much of the other parts being swampy. They came from Kentucky, Virginia and New Jersey principally, brought little of this world's goods, but they possessed that hardy industry, good sense and high character so necessary to the pioneers who have builded beyond their fondest anticipa- tions. From 1830 to 1850 there was a large immigration from Germany to the county, of those who came here for political freedom. They and the French settlers in the west part of the county have been a valuable acquisi- tion to our citizenship and the wealth and prosperity of Shelby county
Shelby county was detached from Miami county in 1819, and was named after General Shelby, a stern patriot and brave soldier in the Revo- lution, after whom nine counties have been named. He was afterward governor of Kentucky. The southern part of the county is undulating, ris- ing in places along the Miami into verdure-clad hills. The northern por- tion is flat table-land, forming part of Loramie's Summit, 378 feet above Lake Erie, the highest elevation in this part of the state. The soil is based
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on clay, with some fine bottom land along the streams. The southern part is best for grain and the northern for grass.
The principal stream in the county is the Great Miami river, which enters the county on the east side and runs southwest, affording a large amount of water-power, by which many mills and other industrial establishments are propelled. There are some creeks of importance, among them the Muchinippi, Tawawa, and Nine Mile creek.
The Miami canal and one of its feeders traverses the county, having direct connection, through the Miami river, with the Lewistown reservoir, located in the townships of Stokes, Washington, and McArthur, in Logan county, and which covers an area of some sixteen thousand acres, including the Indian or Miami lake. This reservoir was built, according to act of Congress, for the purpose of supplying an inexhaustible water-power for the canals.
There are two lines of railroads running through the county: the Cleve- land, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis, and the Dayton and Michigan railway, a description of which will be found elsewhere in this work.
The county seat was originally located at Hardin, and the first court was held there, in a log cabin, May 13 and 14, 1819. Honorable Joseph H. - Crane, of Dayton, was the presiding judge; Samuel Marshall, Robert Hous- ton, and William Cecil, associates; Harvey B. Foot, clerk; Daniel V. Ding- man, sheriff ; and Harvey Brown, of Dayton, prosecutor. In 1820 the county seat was moved to Sidney, where the courts were at first held in the resi- dences of the citizens, until some two years afterwards, when the first court house was erected. It was a small frame structure, twenty-four by thirty feet. The jail was sixteen by eighteen feet, and built of logs; and on the occasion of a prisoner escaping the commissioners were compelled to pay the fine for the nonpayment of which the prisoner was incarcerated.
Shelby county is situated not far from the intersection of the fortieth parallel of latitude and the eighty-fourth meridian of longitude and mid- way between Lake Erie and the Ohio river, one hundred miles, in round num- bers, from each.
At one time, when counties were much larger than now, it was embraced by Montgomery county, then was a part of Miami county and subsequently was detached from it and included Auglaize and Allen counties. They were eventually sliced off and Shelby county was pared down to its present area of 407 square miles, about the exact size of Miami county.
As early as the year 1752 there existed on the banks of the Miami a trading post. It was located at the mouth of Loramie creek and was the first place settled by the English in Ohio. The French having heard of this trading post which they designated as the "English trading house of the Miami," detached a party of soldiers to demand a surrender of the store, which was probably a block house. This place was known as Loramie's store and was used to mark one of the boundaries of the Greenville treaty line. The house was inhabited by a number of friendly Indians and some English traders. On the demand of the French for the surrender of the
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place they refused to deliver up their friends. At attack was made and after a severe fight in which fourteen natives were killed, the remainder were taken prisoners and marched to Canada. The fort and trading house were called Pickawillany. Loramie, who was a French Canadian, was a founder of the trading post and was a bitter enemy of the Americans.
Howe in his early history of Ohio says of Loramie :
"The French had the faculty of endearing themselves to the Indians; and no doubt Loramie was in this respect fully equal to any of his countrymen, and gained great influence over them. They formed with the natives an attachment of the most tender and abiding kind. 'I have,' says Colonel Johnson, 'seen the Indians burst into tears when speaking of the time when their French father had dominion over them; and their attachment to this day remains unabated.'
"So much influence had Loramie with the Indians that when General Clarke, of Kentucky, invaded the Miami Valley in the autumn of 1782 his attention was attracted to the spot. He came on and burnt the Indian settlement here, and plundered and burnt the store of the Frenchman. The store contained a large quantity of goods and peltry, which were sold by auction afterwards among the men, by the general's orders. Among the soldiers was an Irishman, named Burke, considered a half-witted fellow, and the general butt of the whole army. While searching the store he found done up in a rag twenty-five half-joes, worth about two hundred dollars, which he secreted in a hole he cut in an old saddle. At the auction no one hid for the saddle, it being judged worthless, except Burke, to whom it was struck off for a trifling sum, amid roars of laughter for his folly. But a moment elapsed before Burke commenced to search, and found and drew forth the money as if by accident. Then shaking it in the eyes of the men, exclaimed, 'An' it's not so had a bargain after all.' Soon after, Loramie emigrated, with a party of Shawnees, to the Spanish territories west of the Mississippi.
"In 1794 a fort was built at the place occupied by Loramic's storc, by Wayne, and named Fort Loramie."
There are many evidences of the former presence of the Indians still- remaining. Fre- quently, during excavations, skeletons are found hcaring an unmistakable resemblance to the gigantic and well-formed aborigine. In Turtle Creek Township there remain to this day several graves, wherein repose the dust of some noble red men, whose spirits have departed to the "happy hunting-grounds." The Indians in this vicinity were generally of a peaceful disposition, after the appearance of the white settlers among them. In 1792, however. Colonel John Hardin was murdered in this county, while on a mission of peace to the Indians. The town of Hardin was laid out on the spot whereon occurred the tragedy. This, and that of a man named Boyier, were the only murders by the Indians from 1792 to 1811.
According to the same authority, the first white family who settled in the county was that of James Thatcher, in 1804, who settled in the west part, in Painter's Run. Samuel Marshall, John Wilson, and John Kennard came soon after.
Thus we see that Shelby county was once the theatre of Indian wars, Indian massacres, and sanguinary conflicts.
CHAPTER II DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
An Account of the Early Explorers and the First Settlements Made in America
Columbus discovered America and landed on October 12, 1492. The country was named after Americus Vespucius, who discovered South America seven years later, and North America itself had been discovered five hundred years prior to Columbus' discovery. Yet Columbus was given credit for the discovery, as it was his voy- age, followed up, which settled the country: Toward the close of the ninth century Naddod, a Norwegian, while attempting to reach the Faroe Islands, 200 miles northwest of the British Isles, was driven by storm to Iceland, and he found the land had already been visited by the Irish. The Norsemen made a settlement there in 875 by Ingolf. The colonization at Iceland was carried in a southwesterly direction. through Greenland to the New Continent. Notwithstanding these Icelandic explorations westward, one hundred and twenty-five years elapsed when Lief, a Norwegian, the son of Eric the Red, in one of his voyages landed on the American coast, between Boston and New York, in the year 1,000. He called the new land Vinland, on account of the grapes growing there, and he was naturally delighted with the fruitfulness of the soil and the mildness of the climate as compared with Iceland and Greenland. Later a settlement was made here, and when the white people came to Rhode Island in 1638 they discovered a tower of unhewn stone made from gravel of the soil around, and oyster-shell lime. It was circular in form, 23 feet in diameter and 24 feet high. The Narra- gansett Indians knew nothing of its origin. The Icelandic chronicles state that besides Lief the Red, Thorfinn Karlsefne visited the point and settled here with his wife Gudrida, and that a son was born to them, Snorre Thorb- randsson. These historic chronicles seem to have been written in Green- land as early as the twelfth century and partly by descendants of settlers born in Vinland, so others besides Snorre were born there. The care with which the genealogical tables are kept was so great that that of Thorfinn Karlsefne, whose son Snorre Thorbrandsson, was born in America, has been brought down from 1007, the date of Snorre's birth, to the present. and Lossing states this geneological tree shows that Thorwaldsen, the great Danish sculptor, was a descendant of this first known white child born on American soil. The Icelandic history also shows that explorers erected three
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boundary pillars on the eastern shore of Baffin's Bay, bearing a date of 1135. When these were found in 1824 there were also discovered the ruins of a number of buildings, showing there had been a settlement there, and the records further show frequent fishing trips to this and other localities along Baffin's Bay.
At this time Iceland was an important place. It had in 1100 a popula- tion of 50,000 people, had a government and records, and poets and writers, and was farther advanced in literature at that time than any European nation .* Ships from Bistol, England, kept up a constant trade with Iceland, and Christopher Columbus himself, in a work on "The Five Habitable Zones of the Earth," says that in the month of February, 1477, he visited Iceland, "where the sea was not at that time covered with ice, and which had been resorted to by many traders from Bristol." Columbus, in the same work, mentions a more southern island, Frislanda, a name which was not on the maps published in 1436 by Andrea Bianco, or those in 1457 and 1470 pub- lished by Fra Mauro. The island is dwelt upon at length in the travels of the brothers Zeni, of Venice, in 1388 to 1404. But Columbus could not have been acquainted with the travels of the Zeni brothers, as they were unknown to Zeni's own Venetian family until 1558, when they were first published, fifty-two years after the death of Columbus. Therefore Columbus knew there was land southwest of Iceland. He could easily have reached this land by taking the beaten track to Iceland, and then southwest, but his genius told him he could find it by taking a westerly course from Spain. which he did, and became the discoverer of a new world.
The landing of Columbus was on what is now San Salvador, latitude 24 north, longitude 76 west, one of the Bahamas, about 300 miles east of the Florida coast. On this trip he cruised south as far as 20 degrees north latitude and discovered Cuba and San Domingo. In March, 1493, he returned to Spain with plants, birds, animals and Indians of the new world, and his journey overland from Palos to Barcelona, to meet Ferdinand and Isabella, was the march of a conqueror. At Barcelona the throne of the rulers was erected in a public square and Columbus was received with royal honors. The counselors of Spain believed it advisable to keep the wonder- ful discovery quiet, as Columbus reported fabulous wealth in the new world. That same year he returned again to America, taking with him several horses, a bull and some cows, the first European animals taken to the new world. He made two other voyages. In 1498 he discovered the Orinoco, on the north coast of South America. On his third voyage he was returned to Spain in chains, owing to misrepresentations made to Queen Isabella. Matters were easily explained and he made his fourth and last trip, in 1502, but on his return in 1504 the Queen was dead, and his enemies were in power, and he who had given Spain a new nation and a glory that would last for all time, died in poverty and obscurity at Valladolid on the 20th of May, 1506.
In the meantime Americus Vespucius in 1499 visited the Orinoco, one year after Columbus had discovered it, and returning gave a glowing account of the new world and it was named America.
* Encyclopædia Britannica.
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Immediately after the first discovery of Columbus, Spain made settle- ments in the islands of the West Indies and reduced the Indians to slavery, and Spanish cruelty and wrong broke the spirit and lowered the standard of the Indians. The Spanish colonists married the Indian women, and from this union came the mixed race of the West Indies. The Pope recognized the discoveries of Spain, and by an edict granted Spain the ownership of the new world; that there might be no future doubt of what Spain owned he gave them control of "the whole region westward, beyond an imaginary line 300 miles west of the Azores."
Notwithstanding Spain made no public announcement of the discoveries of Columbus, the most extravagant stories drifted through Europe of the fabulous wealth of a new world, and Sebastian Cabot, of Bristol, England, on March 16, 1497, was granted a commission of discovery by Henry VIII. Bristol was the port which years previous had done most of the trading with Iceland, and when Cabot started, he took the well-known route towards the northwest, and on July 3, 1497, discovered the rugged coast of Labrador. He skirted along the coast southward, past Newfoundland, touched at sev- eral points, and returning to England announced the discovery of what was undoubtedly a new continent. The next year, 1498, he fitted out another expedition, and, like Columbus, his main object was to discover a passage to India. Again he reached Labrador, and cruised north, but the ice stopped his progress, and he abandoned his search for a northwest passage and went south, exploring the coast from Labrador to North Carolina.
On March 27, 1512, Ponce de Leon landed in Florida, and took pos- session in the name of the King of Spain-the first appearance of Spain on United States soil. Years later, in 1539, Ferdinand de Soto landed in Florida with six hundred men, all warriors, ard proceeded inland through Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, crossing the Mississippi river somewhere below Memphis in May, 1541, taking possession of the land he passed over, and the land beyond that river in the name of the King of Spain. During the entire trip he had much trouble with the Indians, men died of sickness, and when he reached Florida on September 20, 1543, of the six hundred men who started but sixty returned, but they had made a trip of three thousand miles, through an unbroken wilderness, wandering on and on in a vain search for the fabulous gold they dreamed was somewhere in the interior.
In 1534 Jacques Cartier, a Frenchman, went up the St. Lawrence river with his ships as far as where Quebec now stands, and learning the Huron (Wyandotte) King had his capital at a point called Hochelaga he paid him a visit. The Wyandotte King entertained his guest with the greatest hospi- tality and showed by every means possible that the visitors were welcome. Cartier remained the guest of the King for several 'days and climbed the large mountain, saw the magnificent St. Lawrence stretching above and below him, the rich country as far as the eye could see in every direction, and he named it Mount Real, which is its name today, the Metropolis of Canada with a population of half a million. Cartier returned the King's hospitality by a dinner on board his vessel in which he made him a prisoner
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and took him to France, exhibiting him to that civilized nation as one of the barbarian curiosities of the new world. In 1542 Cartier returned to the St. Lawrence, and had intended taking the King back with him, but the unfortunate savage, pining for his home and people, had died of a broken heart. On Cartier's arriving at Quebec with a force of men to make a set- tlement, he found the Indians so unfriendly that he was compelled to build a fort at Quebec for his protection. This was the first experience of the Wyandotte Indians with the newer and higher order of civilization.
Practically the same thing occurred in South Carolina. D'Ayllon, a French navigator, who had founded a colony at San Domingo, started for the Bermudas to capture a few slaves to work the Domingo sugar and tobacco plantations. Bad weather drove him to the coast of South Carolina where he was furnished water and provisions by the natives, and treated with the greatest hospitality. He entertained them in return on his boats, showed them over the vessels, and when a hundred savages were below fastened down the hatches, and sailed for San Domingo. One vessel was lost, and on the other the savages stubbornly refused food, and nearly all died of starvation. A few years later D'Ayllon returned for more slaves. He landed on the same coast, and was again hospitably received by the ignorant natives. They gave him feasts and banquets, and arranged a magnificent feast at their capital, thirty miles from the (?) for the feast, and when in the wilderness, miles from help, they were led into an ambush, and the entire party massacred. Thus early were the Indians learning the higher order of civilization. Cortoreal of Portugal obtained a permit from King John to make discoveries. He reached Canada, captured fifty natives, took them back to Portugal and sold them for slaves. The investment was so profitable that he immediately started for a second cargo, but he was never heard of afterward.
In 1523, Francis I, of France, sent out John Verrazini with four vessels to make discoveries. In March 1524 he reached the Cape Fear river in North Carolina, and explored the coast, anchoring in Delaware Bay and New York harbor, and landed where New York now is. He treated the Indians to liquor, and not being used to it, many became very drunk, from which fact the Indians then called the place Manna-ha-ta, "place of drunkenness." He continued his trip north and named Canada New France.
The entire coast had now been discovered; Spain had Florida and the southern part of the United States and beyond the Mississippi; England from the Carolinas north, and France had Canada, all this within half a cen- tury after Columbus' great discovery. Settlements had been established by the Spanish and French in the West Indies and by the Portugese in New- foundland, but no permanent settlement had yet been made in the United States.
The era had now arrived when John Calvin in England, Martin Luther in Germany, and the Huguenots in France were bitter in their opposition to the Catholic church, and Admiral Coligny, the advisor of the weak Charles IX of France, decided to establish a place of refuge for the Protestants in
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the new world. The King granted him a commission for that purpose, and on February 28, 1562, a squadron under command of John Ribault sailed for America. The fleet first touched near the harbor of St. Augustine, Florida, sailed north past the St. John's river to Port Royal, the southeast- ern part of South Carolina, where they established their colony, calling it Carolina, in honor of Charles of France. The colony did not prosper and additional settlers were sent.
In the meantime Philip II of Spain, who claimed the territory by virtue of Columbus' discovery, and the edict of the Pope giving Spain everything west of the Azores, was highly incensed at this invasion of his territory, and sent Pedro Menendez to Florida as governor with strict instructions to drive out the French and establish a Spanish colony. He had a strong force and landed at St. Augustine, founding a town there, the first in the United States, and proclaimed the King of Spain as monarch of all of North America. Ribault, learning of the landing of Menendez, started down the coast to attack him, but his ships were wrecked, many of his men drowned, and those who reached the shore were either killed, or were murdered by the Spaniards. In the meantime Menendez marched overland to Port Royal surprised the settlement, and murdered all of them, about nine hundred in number. He erected a cross on the site of the wholesale butchery and on it placed an inscription that these men were slain, "not because they were Frenchmen but Lutherans." And being in a particularly pious frame of mind he laid the foundation for a church to commemorate the deed.
When Charles of France learned of the murder of his subjects, matters at home were in such shape that he could not avenge the insult, but a wealthy Frenchman, Dominic de Gourges, fitted out a ship at his own expense, and landed at Port Royal with 150 warriors, captured the 200 men left in charge there, and hanged the whole party, he, too, erecting a cross with the inscrip- tion : "I do not this as unto Spaniards or Moors, but unto traitors, robbers and murderers." His force was too small to risk an attack on Ft. Augustine, and being in danger of being attacked by the Spaniards at any moment, he had no time to even lay the foundation of a church, but sailed immediately for home, leaving the placarded Spaniards hanging to the trees as an object lesson to the Indians of the new and higher order of civilization.
From 1579 to 1585 settlements were made by the English in Virginia and North Carolina, but they were not permanent. In 1585 Sir Richard Grenville landed at the island of Roanoke in Albemarle Sound. He treated the Indians very badly and they returned the compliment with interest. He was finally compelled to return to England, which he did, leaving fifteen men in charge. Two years later, in 1587, John White went over with reinforce- ments, and found the colony abandoned, the men having been murdered by the Indians.
White re-established the colony, and reversed the policy of Grenville. treating the Indians kindly and cultivating their friendship. He induced Manteo, their chief, to become a Christian, and baptized him. White further pleased the Indians, and their chief by investing him with the title of Lord
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of Roanoke, with great formality and display, followed by a feast to the Indians and presents. This was the first-as well as the last-peerage ever created in America. When White returned to England he left behind his daughter, Eleanor Dare, wife of Lieutenant Dare, one of his officers. On August 18, 1587, there was born to Lieutenant and Mrs. Dare, a daughter, and she was named Virginia Dare, the first English child born in what is now the United States. In 1589 White again started for America but was driven back by the Spaniards; however in 1590 he returned to the colony only to find it abandoned and all traces of the colonists lost, and it was not until eighty years later the English learned that their lost kindred had been adopted by the Hatteras tribe, and become amalgamated with the children of the wilderness .*
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