History of Shelby County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 11

Author: R. Sutton & Co.
Publication date: 1883
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 427

USA > Ohio > Shelby County > History of Shelby County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 11

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The Mammoth.

This mammal, sometimes called the "hairy mammoth," and again the "Siberian elephant," was named from the Tartar term "mamma," signi- fying the earth, because the Tungooses and Yakoots believed it worked its way through the earth like a mole. They still believe the mammoth has taken refuge in subterranean caverns, and the moment it approaches the light it dies. So it is that remains are found, because the animal subjected itself to the fatality of the light, through mistake occasioned by the irregular conformations of the land. Its scientific name is Eali- phas primigenius or primitive elephant, which was applied by Blumen- bach. The name, however, is a misnomer, as several elephantine groups had lived and died before the appearance of this species. With the mastodon, the elephant lived through two periods before the existence of the mammoth. Three distinct species have been recognized and designated as the "E. primigenius" of Europe and Siberia ; the " E. Americanus" and " E. imperator." The latter of Dr. Leidy is probably the same as the " E. Columbi" of Dr. Falconer.

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HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY, OHIO. .

The mammoth was from fifteen to eighteen feet high, thus surpassing in size the largest existing elephant. It was covered with long shaggy hair, with a copious mane extending along the back. The body was heavier and the legs shorter than those of the elephant. The tusks were from eleven to fifteen feet in length and curved abruptly outward and backward. The skull was elongated, with a concave forehead and an obtuse lower jaw. The grinding tooth forms a prominent characteristic, as it forms only as required for use, instead of appearing at once, as is usual with most animals. Adults have only four teeth, one on each side of each jaw. A single tooth weighs as much as seventeen pounds, is broad, with a crown of successive plates, and these subdivided so as to render successive formation not only possible, but favorable. The fore- part of the tooth gives way first, but is not entirely unfitted for service, as it would still serve to crush coarse branches, while the more perfect part of the tooth would reduce this crushed mass to a pulp.

A tooth found near Zanesville, Ohio, weighed over seventeen pounds, and had a length of eighteen inches. It was a permanent molar, of a light color and quadrangular in form. Of the four faces the inferior is oval, being widest at the middle. There are sixteen surface plates of two layers of enamel, which reveal the remains of former plates. Both posterior and inferior faces show the termination of undeveloped plates. The superior border contains the fangs, and the fourth face, or anterior, is very short and irregular. The teeth resemble those of the Asiatic elephant, but are larger and heavier. In number and anatomical plan they are the same, but differ in plates, as those of the elephant tooth number twenty, while those of the mammoth number thirty. Like the mastodon, this animal was widely dispersed, having ranged over the greater part of the earth's surface. The remains are found in great numbers along the coasts of Siberia and Alaska. Ivory in a remarkable state of preservation is found washed out by the rivers of the north. It is collected by fishermen and sent to China and Europe, where it answers the purposes of the ivory of the living elephant. As high as 16,000 pounds have been sold in St. Petersburg in a single year. Tile- sius estimated the bones in Russia to exceed those of all the elephants now in existence upon the globe. True, all the fossiliferous remains cannot be attributed to the mammoth, as many different species of the elephant have existed through the countless ages of the past. Ivory of the same class was discovered in Greece 320 B. C. All those early bones belonging to the elephantine family were ascribed to human beings or demi-gods. Thus the patella of one found in Greece was called the knee-bone of Ajax : some remains thirteen feet long were by the Spar- tans ascribed to Orestes : some others eighteen feet in length, found in the Isle of Ladea were attributed to Asterius, son of Ajax, while others found in Sicily in the fourth century were believed to belong to Poly- phemus. The literature of the middle ages was so voluminous upon this subject that it has very properly been called "Gigantology." From 1456 to 1564 bones were discovered throughout France, all of which were attributed to a a race of giants.

An uprooted tree near the cloister of Reyden, in Lucerne, Switzer- land, exposed some bones which, upon examination by Felix Platen, a celebrated physician and professor at Basle, were pronounced the remains of a giant nineteen feet in height. The inhabitants of the province then adopted the image of this imaginary giant as the supporter of the city arms. In 1706 only two fragments of the skeleton remained, and were recognized by Blumenbach as belonging to the elephant. With some remains found in Germany in 1663 Leibnitz constructed a strange mon- ster with a horn in its forehead, and a dozen molar teeth in each jaw, which he then named the Fossil Unicorn. For more than thirty years this was accepted, until the discovery of an entire skeleton in the valley of the Unstrut. Numerous remains were found during the seventeenth century all over the face of Europe, but were little understood, as evi- denced by the disposition often made of them. Let us instance that of the church at Valence, Spain, which attributed a molar tooth to St. Christopher, whose existence at any period was about as questionable as that of the unicorn of Leibnitz. Again, away down the descent of years, in 1789, an elephant femur was carried about the streets at the head of processions by the canons of St. Vincent, by whom it was de- clared the arm of a saint, for the purpose of producing rain. It was probably about as effective as the hurling of the Pope's bull at the comet

to stay it in its wayward flight. The eighteenth century did, however, sweep aside many of the curtains and unravel many of the mysteries which hung like a pall over the long line of ages, weak through igno- rance, and apprehensive through superstition. Here, too, science was fought back and retarded in her onward march by a blind and jealous opposition which had fears to feed and beliefs to support. That oppo- sition easily accounted for these remains after yielding their human or divine origin and character by ascribing them to elephants brought from Carthage by Hannibal in his expedition against Rome. If they were not the remains of giants, as claimed for years, they must at least be accounted for on some equally absurd hypothesis, and as they were found along the route of the Carthagenian army, they must be correct in ascribing them to the animals of that army.

One weakness of this conclusion was its failure to conclude, for it did not embrace those numerous remains found where no Carthagenian army ever marched with African elephants in its train. In 1799 Ossip Schu- machoff found a frozen mass at the mouth of the Lena River. A year later he was still unable to determine what it was, but in 1801 he found it sufficiently exposed by the action of the water and ice to disclose its nature. Returning to his family he related his experiences, when the narration of the discovery produced such dread and consternation that sickness ensued, for it was believed the discovery of an entire mammoth foreboded death to the whole household. Superstition proved almost fatal, but the chief recovered and revisited the spot in 1804, when he cut the tusks away, while the inhabitants of the vicinity cut away the flesh for their dogs until the skeleton was almost cleared. According to the description of the Tungusion, " the mammoth was a male, with a long mane on the neck; the tail was much mutilated, only eight out of the twenty-eight caudal vertebræ remaining; the proboscis was gone, but the places of the insertion of the muscles were visible in the skull. The skin, of which about three-fourths was saved, was of a dark gray color, covered with reddish wool and coarse long black hair. The entire skeleton, from the forepart of the skull to the end of the mutilated tail, measured sixteen feet four inches. The tusks measured along the curve nine feet six inches, and in a straight line from the base to the point three feet seven inches." Another entire body was found on the bank of the Alaseia, near the frozen ocean, in 1800, by Gabriel Sarytchew, a Russian naturalist. In 1843 Middendorf, a distinguished naturalist, discovered a mammoth on the Fas between the Obi and Yenisei, in lati- tude 66° 30' north, which was in such a perfect state of preservation that the ball of the eye was preserved and is now in the museum at Moscow. The present habitat of the elephant being the tropics, it is classed as a tropical animal, and if we judged solely from a knowledge of living species, we would be compelled to believe that at the period of the mammoth, the climate of Siberia must have been tropical. Still, it is fallacious to conclude that because an animal flourished under a high temperature, all remains of a whole family must be assigned to the same climate. The tiger is tropical, but it has been seen on the borders of the perpetual snows of the Himalayas, among the snows of Mt. Ararat, and is common near Lake Aral, in latitude 45º north. In the summer of 1828 one was killed on the Lena in latitude 521º north. So the zebra is tropical, while the horse withstands a rigorous climate. It does not follow, then, that Siberia must be provided with a tropical climate for the maintenance of one group, although other species of the same genus do require such a climate. The food of this group must have been largely of a coarse nature, such as the branches of fir, birch, poplar, willow, and alder. Forests of these types are found, according to travel- lers, as far north as latitude 69º 5'. Again, it may be supposed that whatever vegetation did flourish in this region, was of a very nutritious quality, and so did not require such prodigious quantities as would at first appear necessary to sustain large numbers of these animals. Such, at least, is the case in South Africa, where, with a limited vegetation. suitable for food, large numbers of the greatest living animals find sub- sistence. Still it might not be extravagance to suppose that at the period of the mammoth a vegetation flourished between latitude 40° and 65° north, which was capable of feeding this great mammal and its con- temporaries. Evidence exists pointing to the latter part of the pliocene period as the birthday of the mammoth. In Europe it lived through the long glacial period, which it survived for many ages. In America

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HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY, OHIO.

it was contemporaneous with the M. giganteus. In Europe it became extinct about the dawn of the Reindeer epoch, and probably ceased to exist in the United States about the same period. Touching the causes leading to that extinction, the observations on the destruction of the mastodon are equally pertinent. Sir Charles Lyell remarks : " Between the period when the mammoth was most abundant and that when it died ont, there must have elapsed a long interval of ages when it was growing more and more scarce, and we may expect to find occasional stragglers buried in deposits long subsequent in date to others, until at last we may succeed in tracing a passage from the post-Pliocene to the recent fauna, by geological monuments which fill up the gap." Man, the mastodon, and the mammoth fill the gap, and it remains to be seen how far anterior to its ingress those monuments may be discovered. Age, in numbered years and countless epochs, stamps its way upon the records of geology until its chronology is lost for a moment in the dim twilight of periods upon which the sunbeams of investigation have not yet fallen with suf- ficient power to reveal the antecedent history of the earth and its inhab- itants. That many monuments have crumbled and perished and so are no longer discoverable cannot be doubted for a moment, when the long descent is traced by these until they become so aged and feeble that they crumble beneath the touch and fade away before the light.

INDIAN WARS.

In 1789, after the Fort Harmar treaty, the Indians assumed a hostile attitude and annoyed the infant settlements near the mouth of the Mus- kingum and between the Miamis. Nine persons were killed within the bounds of the Symmes Purchase. The settlers became alarmed, and Major Stiles, of Pennsylvania, with twenty-five brave men, commenced the erection of block-houses in each of the settlements of this region. At the same time Major Doughty with one hundred and forty men from Fort Harmar commenced building Fort Washington, nine miles below the mouth of the Little Miami, and within the present city limits of Cincinnati. This spot was chosen because it commanded the mouth of the Licking River, which penetrated Kentucky and gave the Indians facilities for penetrating the heart of that country by crossing the Ohio at the Licking mouth and then pursuing their way up the latter. There was a road called " The Old War Path," extending from the British gar- rison at Detroit to the Maumee, thence up that river, and finally across to the "Miamis of the Ohio." All the Indian paths from Lake Erie led to this old " war path," and as it crossed into Kentucky at the mouth of the Licking, that point was commanded by the erection of Fort Washington. The spring of 1787 foreboded evil to the white settle- ments of the Northwest. Early in the summer a great meeting of Indian deputies from the Shawnees, Delawares, Cherokees, Wyandots, Tawas, Pottawatomies, and other tribes from the lake region, held a grand coun- cil of war at old Chillicothe. The council was largely influenced by the notorious and infamous Girty and McKee, who inflamed to frenzy and madness the too susceptible savage minds.

Colonel Todd's Defeat.

On the 15th August, 1781, the Indians had made an attack upon Bry- ant's Station, a post five miles from Lexington. About five hundred Indians and whites encompassed the place, but the post having received reinforcements from Lexington, they were compelled to retire and were pursued by Colonels Todd and Trigg, Daniel Boone and Major Harland, with one hundred and sixty men. The men were anxious for an engage- ment, but Boone endeavored to dissuade them until they could be rein- forced. Contrary to his prudent advice they pursued the Indians, came up with them at a bend in Licking River beyond the Blue Licks, where the Americans were attacked by an overpowering force. Sixty-seven of the Americans were killed, among the number being the three principal officers and a son of Daniel Boone.

General Clarke.

The Indians soon afterwards were signally punished. General Clarke, at the head of a thousand men, rendezvousing at Fort Washington, where Cincinnati now stands, invaded the Indian territory. At the approach of so formidable an army the Indians fled, leaving their towns to be destroyed. Daniel Boone thus describes the march of their army : "We continued our pursuit through five towns on the Miami River-Old Chil- licothe, Pecaway, New Chillicothe, Willis' towns, and Chillicothe-burnt them all to ashes, entirely destroyed their corn and other fruits, and everywhere spread a scene of desolation in the country.".

The American Revolution having terminated, and England and Ame- rica at peace, the Indians began and continued to molest the border inhabitants of the colonies, and the government having failed to produce peace by means of conferences with these Indian tribes, resolved to humble them by force of arms.

General Harmar's Defeat.

In September, 1790, General Josiah Harmar marched into the Indian territories at the head of nearly fifteen hundred men for the purpose of destroying the Indian settlements on the Scioto and Wabash rivers. To accomplish this, he crossed the Ohio River and following the old Indian war path visited the Indian villages on the head-waters of the Little Miami. From those towns he struck across the woods on to the Great Miami, where Piqua now is, and marching forward when he came to where Loramie's Station was since located, three Indians were discovered early in the morning viewing his encampment. These were followed by some mounted men, one Indian was taken prisoner, but the other two escaped.

The next morning the army crossed St. Mary's River and Col. Hardin and Major Paul beat up for volunteers to go to the Indian town ahead, supposed to be about forty miles .distant. Six hundred volunteers marched forward under these officers in advance of the main army, and arrived at the Indian village on the second day. The Indians had mostly fled on their approach, burnt their wigwams, and exchanged a few shots. This detachment remained in the Indian town four days before Gen. Harmar came up with his baggage, having had to cut a road along which his teams and wagons could travel. Gen. Harmar tarried one week after his arrival in the deserted town.

In the mean time the Indians were collecting from all quarters. Every party sent out from the army was waylaid and defeated. A party under Col. Hardin fell in an ambuscade, and twenty-three out of thirty men were killed in the skirmish. Gen. Harmar finally concluded to return to Fort Washington, and actually marched eight miles on his return when he received information that the enemy had taken possession of their town as soon as he had left it. He then ordered Col. Hardin to return and attack the enemy, who with his soldiers returned, attacked, and drove the Indians before him until they had crossed the Maumee in their front and St. Marys on their left. Col. Hardin had marched down the St. Marys on its northern bank to its junction with the St. Josephs. Here Capt. William Crawford, who commanded the Pennsylvania Vol- unteers, crossed the Maumee and attacked the Indians, who lay on the north bank of the St. Josephs, and drove them up that river several miles and returned triumphantly to where Fort Wayne now stands.

Col. Hardin with his men crossed the St. Marys and followed the Indians up the St. Josephs on the south side of that river, but, marching carelessly along on the low lands adjoining the river, he permitted the Indians to take possession of the high grounds south of him, by which means he was defeated with great loss, considering his small command. In these different engagements Gen. Harmar lost one hundred and eighty men from the time of his leaving Covington until his return to Fort Washington. Historians all agree that although Harmar boasted of a victory, yet in common parlance it is called Harmar's defeat.

. Thus, instead of humbling the savages by producing desolation over their fine land, Harmar, in two battles near the present site of Fort Wayne, Indiana, was defeated with disastrous loss, and abandoned the expedition. In May of the following year General Scott, of Kentucky, with eight hundred men penetrated the Wabash country almost to the site of the present town of La Fayette, Indiana, and destroyed many

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HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY, OHIO.

villages. At this time, and while the whole western border was in a ferment of anxiety, Congress again considered the matter, and devised new methods which would require the construction of fortifications at different points across the very heart of the Indian country. Such measures bore the stamp of boldness, but this quality recommended itself by its fruits wherever already tested in Indian warfare. It was, therefore, self-suggestive in the principle that "nothing succeeds like success," and so met with favor at the hands of Congress. It was already perceived by some that the Indians must be met by the exhibi- tion of their own favorite methods, although military officers were loth to substitute Indian methods for European tactics. It was this failure on the part of so many generals to understand and live up to the true methods of Indian warfare, to which we may attribute many reverses, several desperate defeats, and a few horrible massacres. Men who had been trained in military tactics in Europe, and fought through the Revo- lutionary war, proved incompetent when pitted against the savages. Neither do we hold them altogether responsible; certainly to the earlier commanders we attach no responsibility. They fought a foe who recog- nized no rules of civilized warfare; a foe often practically invisible while an army was destroying.

It was not cowardice nor disloyalty on the part of officers or privates, which allowed a savage enemy to glut its vengeance in horrid glee : it was simply ignorance of the Indian mode of warfare, and the failure to employ the same bold and strategic methods to which the many successes of the Indians must be attributed.

St. Clair's Expedition.

With something of experience, attended by some force of its proper lessons, Congress resolved upon the measures recited, and in September, 1791, two thousand troops were gathered at Fort Washington, and marched northward, under the immediate command of Gen. Butler, accompanied by Gen. St. Clair as chief in command. They proceeded about twenty miles from Fort Washington, where they halted and erected Fort Hamilton, on the Miami River.

Again advancing about forty-two miles, they built Fort Jefferson. Leaving here late in October, they were apprised of Indian scouts hov- ering upon their flank. At length the army halted, and encamped on a tributary of the Upper Wabash, near the Indiana line, and about a hun- dred miles north of Fort Washington. Thus far the plans of the expe- dition had been successfully carried out, and weary by reason of the toilsome march, the soldiers embraced an early hour of rest, unsuspicious of imminent danger. During the night the sentinels kept up an almost steady fire upon individual Indians; but these were believed to be mere prowlers, and their appearance seems to have given rise to no particular uneasiness. Before sunrise, however, of November 4, 1791, while break- fast was preparing in camp, the horrid yells of the savages fell like & death-knell upon the little army, as the savages fell upon the camp with terrible fury. The troops sprang to their feet, seizing their arms, and made a gallant defence, but the slaughter was too great to be withstood. When it was known Gen. Butler and most of his officers were slain, a panic ensued, and the smitten, bewildered army fled in wild confusion. Gen. St. Clair, tortured with gout, had three horses killed under him, but finally escaped on a pack horse. That evening Adjutant-General Winthrop Sargent wrote these words in his diary : " The troops have all been defeated, and though it is impossible at this time to ascertain our loss, yet there can be no manner of doubt that more than half the army are either killed or wounded." Among the fugitives were more than one hundred feminine camp followers-the wives of the soldiers. One of these was so fleet of foot that she outran the flying remnant of the army. With her long red hair streaming behind her, she became the oriflamme which the soldiers followed in their flight to Fort Washington. This defeat spread dismay over the frontier settlement, and that dismay found a counterpart in the indignation breathed against Gen. St. Clair by the whole nation. President Washington could not hide his wrath and indignation, for he remembered his last words to St. Clair were: "Beware of a surprise." A surprise, suicidal to an army, was too much to hear without revealing his deep emotion, and for a few minutes he was swayed by a tempest of anger, and paced the room in a rage.

" It was awful," wrote Mr. Lear, his private secretary, who was pre- sent ; " more than once he threw his hands up as he hurled imprecations upon St. Clair. 'O God ! O God!' he exclaimed, 'he is worse than a murderer ! How can he answer for it to his country? The blood of the slain is upon him ; the curses of widows and orphans; the curse of Hea- ven.'" When his wrath subsided, "This must not go beyond this room," he said, and in a low tone-as if speaking to himself alone-he continued, "St. Clair shall have justice; I will hear him without preju- dice ; he shall have full justice."

Afterward, when the veteran soldier, bowed with age, and carrying a burden of public obloquy-which was more wearing than his previous illustrious burden of military honors-approached his old commander, Washington took his hand and received him warmly. " Poor old St. Clair," said Curtis, who was present, " hobbled up to his chief, seized the offered hand in both of his, and gave vent to his feelings in copious sobs and tears." He lost a battle, but he kept a heart, and he who could fight as bravely for his country and weep as freely over her defeat, de- serves better of his countrymen than their obloquy and contempt. Who was General St. Clair? Perhaps an answer to this question will do him that justice which we demand for every man, remembering that many sterling virtues may make amends, not for a solitary vice, but for a sol- itary misfortune. We will see.

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History of Shelby County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 11

Author: R. Sutton & Co. Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Number of Pages: 427

Author: R. Sutton & Co.
Publication date: 1883
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 427