USA > Ohio > Shelby County > History of Shelby County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 6
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The charter of Massachusetts, upon which that State's title was based, was granted within less than twenty-five years after the arrival of the Mayflower; and that of Connecticut, bearing date March 19, 1631, both embracing territory extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and that of New York, obtained from Charles the Second, on March 2, 1664, in- cluded territory that had been previously granted to Massachusetts and Connecticut; hence, the conflict of claims between those States, their
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several charters covering, to some extent, the same territory; and hence, also; their contest with Virginia as to a portion of the soil of Ohio. Probably the titles of some or all of the aforesaid contesting States were in some way affected by the provisions of treaties with the Iroquois, or by the fact of their recognition by them, as appendants of the govern- ment of New York.
New York's deed of cession was favorably reported upon by a committee of Congress, May 1, 1782; and by like acts of patriotism, magnanimity, and generosity to those of New York and Virginia, Massachusetts and Connecticut soon followed by similar acts of relinquishment of title, or by corresponding deeds of cession to the United States. The Legislature of Massachusetts, on the 13th day of November, 1784, authorized her delegates in Congress to cede the title of that State to all the territory west of the western boundary of the State of New York to the United States, and the measure was consummated in 1785.
Connecticut, in September, 1786, ceded all her claim to soil and juris- diction west of what is now known as the Western Reserve to the United States. Five hundred thousand acres of the western portion of the Western Reserve was set apart for the relief of the Connecticut sufferers by fire during the Revolution, since known as the " Firelands," the Indian title to which was extinguished by the treaty.of Fort Indus- try (now Toledo), in 1805, Charles Jouett being the United States Com- missioner, and the chiefs of the Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandots, Chip- pewas, Ottawas, and some minor tribes representing the interests of the 1 Indians. The remainder of the Western Reserve tract, amounting to about three millions of acres, was sold, and the proceeds dedicated to educational purposes, and has served as the basis of Connecticut's com- mon school fund, now aggregating upwards of two millions of dollars. Jurisdictional claim to the Western Reserve was ceded by Connecticut to the United States May 30, 1801.
EARLY-TIME WHITE MEN IN OHIO.
As early as 1680 the French had a trading station on the Maumee River, a few miles above the present city of Toledo, near where Fort Miami was erected in 1794; and Bancroft, the historian, asserts that a route from Canada to the Mississippi River, by way of the Maumee, Wabash, and Ohio rivers, was established by the French in 1716. A little later a route was established from Presque Isle, now Erie, on Lake Erie, to French Creek, and thence down the Alleghany and Ohio rivers. Vague traditions have been handed down of the establishment of trading posts upon the Ohio, by Englishmen, as early as 1730. In 1742 John Howard crossed the mountains from Virginia, and descending the Ohio in a canoe, was captured somewhere on his voyage by the French. In 1748 Conrad Weiser, a German of Herenberg, who (says the author of " Western Annals") had in early life acquired a knowledge of the Mo- hawk tongue, was sent to the Shawnees on the Ohio as an ambassador, and held a conference with them at Logstown, on the Ohio River, seven- teen miles below the "Forks of the Ohio" (now Pittsburgh), but it is not quite certain that he came within the present limits of Ohio, though it is probable.
In 1750, Christopher Gist, an agent of the " Ohio Land Company," which had been organized in 1748 by the Washingtons, one or two of the Lees, and other Virginians, and some Englishmen, came over the mountains from Virginia, and crossing the Ohio at or below the " Forks" (now Pittsburgh), passed over to the Tuscarawas River, which he de- scended to its junction with the Walhonding. From thence he travelled down the Muskingum, following an Indian trail, to the mouth of the Wakatomika (now Dresden, Muskingum County), where there was an Indian town. He then followed the Indian trail across the Licking River to King Beaver's town, situated on the head waters of the Hockhocking River, about equidistant from the present cities of Lancaster and Co- lumbus. The trail he followed must have led him near the "Big Lake," as the Indians called it, now the " Reservoir," a famous fishing resort, situated in the counties of Licking, Fairfield, and Perry. In this explor- ing expedition Gist was joined at the Walhonding by George Croghan, and probably by Andrew Montour, a half-breed, son of a Seneca chief, who often acted as an interpreter between the whites and Indians. They crossed the Scioto and travelled on to the Great Miami, which Gist de-
scended to the Ohio, and voyaged down said stream to a point fifteen miles above the " Falls," from whence he travelled through Kentucky to his home in Virginia, where he arrived in May, 1751.
Croghan and Montour were the bearers of liberal presents from Penn- sylvania to the Miamis, who, in return, granted the right to the English to build a strong trading-house or stockade on the Miami River, at the entrance of Loramie's Creek into said stream, in the present county of Shelby, and which was accordingly erected and called Pickawillany, and has been called by some historians " the first point of English settlement in Ohio," and "a place of historic interest." The presents were made on behalf of Pennsylvania, and the reciprocal favor secured, it was believed, would largely benefit the Indian traders there and in " the regions round about," who were principally Pennsylvanians. The Pickawillany stock- ade was doubtless the first edifice erected upon Ohio's territory by Eng- lish-speaking people; but it was of brief duration, for in June, 1752, a force of French, Canadians, and Indians (Chippewas and Ottawas) attacked and destroyed it, capturing or killing all the traders but two ; fourteen of its defenders, chiefly Miamis, being killed in the action ; a number also being wounded. We transcribe, from a long list of names, in Captain Trent's journal, a few of those who traded at this post with the Indians between the years 1745 and 1753, as follows: Peter Chartier, Conrad Weiser, Thomas McGee, George Croghan, James Denny, Robert Callender, George Gibson, James Lowry, Michael Cresap, Sr., Christo- pher Gist, Jacob Piatt, William Trent, John Findlay, David Hendricks, John Trotter, William Campbell, Thomas Mitchell, William West, and others.
Before 1745 the traders among the Ohio Indians were principally Frenchmen ; but about this time Pennsylvanians and Virginians entered into that business in augmented numbers, and continued in it persist- ently, while the French gradually relinquished it; and after the capture of Fort Du Quesne, in 1758, the English also acquired a foothold as traders in the Upper Ohio Valley, and retained it until the peace of 1783-4.
George Croghan, with a retinue of deputies of the Senecas, Shawanese, and Delawares, passed down the Obio River in two batteaux from Fort Pitt to the mouth of the Wabash in 1765.
It is also well known to persons familiar with our history, that George Washington came to Fort Pitt in 1770, and, with William Crawford, Dr. Craik, and a few other chosen friends, and two Indians, three servants, some boatmen, and an interpreter, voyaged down the Ohio River to the mouth of the Kanawha, and fourteen miles up said stream, and, after some buffalo shooting and hunting generally, but mainly after extensive explorations with a view to the selection and ultimate location of lands, returned by the way of Ohio to Fort Pitt. From the journal of Wash- ington, it appears that they lodged one night in the camp of Kiashuta, an Indian chief of the Six Nations, near the mouth of the Hockhocking River. Washington and Crawford also took a short walk of eight miles across the " Big Bend," now in Meigs County, while their canoes were being paddled around the bend, on their return voyage.
Rev. David Jones (the Chaplain Jones of Revolutionary fame) also made a voyage down the Ohio and up the Scioto to the "Old Chillicothe" Indian towns, thence across the Licking to the missionary stations on the Tuscarawas, and from thence to Fort Pitt and home, in 1772-3, making the journey from the Indian towns on the Scioto on horseback, in company with a Pennsylvania Indian trader named David Duncan.
And, lastly, we mention a voyage made down the Ohio River in the autumn of 1785, from Fort Pitt to the mouth of the Great Miami, by Gen. Richard Butler, Gen. S. H. Parsons, Col. James Monroe, Major Finney, Isaac Zane, Col. Lewis, and others, who were then, or subse- quently became, men of note ..
THE EARLIEST ENGLISH MILITARY EXPEDITIONS ON LAKE ERIE.
After the conquest .of Canada by the English, in 1759-60, General Amherst, with a view to the establishment of English authority over the uncivilized regions of the West, organized an expedition under command of Major Rogers, who, on the 12th of September, 1760, received orders "to ascend the lakes and take possession of the French forts in the Northwest." This expedition, consisting of about two hundred men,
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coasted along the southern shore of Lake Erie, arrived at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River on the 7th of November, and were probably the first English-speaking people that, in any considerable numbers, sailed upon it. The expedition sailed up the lake and on to Detroit, and there, on the 29th of said month, " took down the colors of France and raised the royal standard of England." In December, Major Rogers left the Mau- mee, and after reaching Sandusky Bay (now Sandusky City), he decided to cross the Huron River and travel to " Fort Pitt" by way of the north branch of the White-woman's River (now called Walhonding), which he did, arriving there January 23, 1761.
The second expedition that came within Ohio territory, was organized at Albany, on the Hudson River, in 1763, by General Amherst, and con- sisted of six hundred British regulars placed under the immediate com- mand of Major Wilkins. In ascending Lake Erie a violent storm was encountered, and a number of the vessels of the expedition were wrecked, losing fifty barrels of provisions, some field pieces, all their ammunition, and seventy-three men, including two lieutenants and a surgeon. The remnant returned to Albany without a further attempt to reach Detroit, the objective point of the expedition.
SUBSEQUENT MILITARY MOVEMENTS UPON OHIO SOIL.
For the purpose of subjugating the hostile Wyandots, Delawares, and Shawanese, who were unreconciled to English rule, and who bad outraged humanity by their brutality towards the frontier settlers, having bar- barously murdered many of them and carried their wives and children into captivity, General Gage, commander-in-chief of the British troops in North America, decided, in 1764, to organize two armies, to be com- manded respectively by Colonels Bradstreet and Bouquet.
COLONEL BRADSTREET'S EXPEDITION.
In pursuance of this purpose Colonel Bradstreet, with a force of twelve hundred men, in August, sailed up Lake Erie, by way of Sandusky Bay, to Detroit, which had been besieged by Pontiac for many months, con- fining the garrison to their ramparts. After relieving Detroit, he returned by way of Sandusky Bay to Niagara. Israel Putnam, who figures in our Revolutionary history as a Major-General, and as one of the most distinguished men of those " stirring times," served as Major, command- ing a battalion of provincial troops in the Bradstreet expedition.
COLONEL BOUQUET'S EXPEDITION. .
Colonel Bouquet's army of fifteen hundred men, composed of two hundred Virginians, seven hundred Pennsylvanians, and six hundred English regulars belonging to the Forty-second and Sixtieth regiments, was organized at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, arrived at "Fort Pitt" Septem- ber 17, and marched from thence for the Upper Muskingum River (now called Tuscarawas) October 3, reaching said stream on the 15th of said month, at a point within the present limits of Tuscarawas County, and proceeded at once to erect a temporary fort. Here (says the historian of the expedition ) " Indian chiefs and warriors of the Senecas, Delawares, Shawanese, and others, numbering in all nearly fifty, met Colonel Bou- quet October 17, and sued for peace in the most abject manner. Turtle- Heart, Custaloga, Beaver, and another chief or two, were the speakers, who, in their harangues, vehemently accompanied with wild gesticula- tions, asserted that they had been unable to restrain their young men, who had participated with those of other tribes in the acts of barbarity charged, and generally palliated the conduct of the Indians towards the white settlers." They pledged themselves, however, in conclusion, to restore all captives, which had been previously demanded of them by Colonel Bouquet, who had doubtless authoritatively charged home upon them their perfidy and cruel barbarities, their violated engagements, their treachery, and brutal murders of traders and frontiersmen, their unfaithfulness to all the promises they had made, their untrustworthi- ness, their baseness generally, concluding with the affirmation that their crimes merited the severest punishment.
We also learn from the official account of the expedition, that, by ar- rangement, Col. Bouquet met them again on the 20th of October, when, after reiterating the charges against them, he notified them that many
of the friends and relatives of those that had been massacred or captured by them, accompanied the expedition, and that they would not consent to a peace with them until full satisfaction was rendered, by the restora- tion of all captives under their control, or by making satisfactory arrange- ments for their return to their homes and friends at the earliest practical period. Moreover, he emphatically impressed upon them that his army would not leave their country until they had fully complied with every condition contained in any treaty or arrangement he would make with them, because their oft-time violated obligations, their repeated acts of perfidy, their general faithlessness, their oft-told falsehoods, their for- feited honor in numerous cases, had rendered them so infamous as to be wholly untrustworthy.
"The temper of the foregoing address," says a writer in the Historical Record, " was such as to extort a promise from those chiefs to secure the restoration promptly of all whites held in captivity by their people." And it was then and there agreed that they would meet again in twelve days, at the junction of the Tuscarawas and White-woman (now called Walhonding) rivers, when and where the Indians were to " surrender all the prisoners now held by them, whether they were men, women, or children; whether they were English, French, African, or American; or whether they were adopted, or married, or living in any other condition among them."
In pursuance of the above agreement, Col. Bouquet, on the 25th of October, reached the " Forks of the Muskingum" (now Coshocton), and then and there made preparation for the reception of the prisoners. The Indians, realizing the necessity of keeping faith with the stern and determined commander of such a large army, brought in, from day to day, numerous captives, so that when the general meeting was finally held, on the 9th of November (being some days later than the time first agreed upon), two hundred and six captives were delivered, and pledges given that about one hundred more, still held by the Shawanese, and whom it was impracticable to have present on so short a notice, would be surrendered during the next spring. Hostages were taken for the fulfilment of this part of the arrangement (for it was not a formal treaty), which (although some of the hostages escaped) secured the delivery of the additional captives, numbering about one hundred, at " Fort Pitt," on the 9th of the following May.
The scene at the surrender of the prisoners, in the midst of this far- off western wilderness, far beyond the limits of the white settlements, was one that human language is too feeble to portray-which the pen of the historian and of the ready writer could not adequately describe- which the genius of the painter would utterly fail to present on canvas- which the skill of the renowned sculptor would be unable fully to exhibit in marble, and which could not fail to have stimulated into the most lively exercise all the variety of human passions, and, exceptionally, all the tender and sympathetic feelings of the human heart !
"There were seen," says the aforenamed authority, "fathers and mo- thers recognizing and clasping their once captive little ones ; husbands hung around the newly-recovered wives; brothers and sisters met, after long separation, scarcely able to speak the same language, or to realize that they were children of the same parents! In those interviews there was inexpressible joy and rapture; while in some cases, feelings of a very different character were manifested by looks or language. Many were flying from place to place, making eager inquiries after relatives not found, trembling to receive answers to their questions, distracted with doubts, hopes, and fears; distressed and grieved on obtaining no infor- mation about the friends they sought, and, in some cases, petrified into living monuments of horror and woe on learning their unhappy fate !
"Among the captives brought into camp was a woman with a babe, a few months old, at her breast. One of the Virginia Volunteers soon recognized her as his wife who had been taken by the Indians about six months before. She was immediately delivered to her happy husband. He flew with her to his tent and clothed her and his child with proper apparel. But their joy, after their first transports, was soon checked by the reflection that another dear child, about two years old, taken captive at the same time with the mother, and separated from her, was still missing, although many children had been brought in. A few days after- wards a number of other prisoners were brought to the camp, among whom were several more children. The woman was sent for, and one,
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supposed to be hers, was presented to her. At first sight she was uncer- tain, but, viewing the child with great earnestness, she soon recollected its features, and was so overcome with joy that, literally forgetting her nursing babe, she dropped it from her arms, and, catching up the new- found child, in an ecstasy pressed it to her bosom, and, bursting into bears, carried it off, unable to speak for joy, while the father, taking up the infant its mother had dropped, followed her in no less transport of affection and gratitude."
Albach says that "in many cases strong attachments had grown up between the savages and their captives, so that they were reluctantly surrendered, some even not without tears, accompanied with some token of remembrance."
Colonel Bouquet having accomplished his purposes, broke up his camp at the " Forks of the Muskingum" on the 18th day of November, and, after a march of ten days, arrived at " Fort Pitt." His expedition was generally regarded as preeminently successful. His large army of well-equipped soldiers, led by a determined commander, struck terror into the hearts of the savages. They saw that resistance would be vain, and hence readily yielded to the conditions submitted to them. The results secured were the restoration to their friends of more than three hundred captives, a treaty of peace the next year, made with Sir William Johnson at the German Flats, and comparative exemption in the entire Northwest, for about ten years, from the horrors of Indian warfare.
The success of Colonel Bouquet's expedition secured him immediate promotion to a Brigadier-Generalship, and he was also highly compli- mented by the Legislative Assembly of Pennsylvania; also by the House of Burgesses of Virginia, and by his Majesty's Council of the same Colony, as well as by Governor Fauquier.
General Henry Bouquet was a native of Rolle, a small town in the canton of Vaud, Switzerland, near the borders of Lake Geneva. He was born in 1719, and died at Pensacola, Florida, late in the year 1765. He was a man of sense and of science, of education, of ability, and talents. He was a subordinate in the Forbes expedition against Fort Du Quesne, in 1758. General Bouquet had a command while yet a very young man, in the army of the King of Sardinia, and passed through several of "the memorable and ably-conducted campaigns that monarch sustained against the combined forces of France and Spain."
AN ACT OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT.
It may not be generally known, and yet be a fact worth recording, that the British Parliament, in the year 1774, passed an act making the Ohio River the south western boundary of Canada, and the Mississippi River its western boundary, thereby attaching the Northwest to the province of Quebec, as it was called, thus placing the territory that now consti- tutes the State of Ohio under the local administration of said province. Some historians give 1766 as the time of the aforesaid parliamentary enactment.
For ten years after the celebrated Bouquet expedition, the settlers on the western frontiers of the colonies of Virginia and Pennsylvania en- joyed comparative immunity from the marauding excursions and mur- derous raids of the western savages, and from the barbarities previously and subsequently practised by the Ohio Indians. That decade of peace, however, may be fairly judged to have been more the wholesome result of the instructive lessons taught by Colonel Bouquet and of his large, well-equipped and formidable army than of the action of the English Parliament above named (even if said act was passed in 1766), or of any other cause or combination of causes whatever. When the army of the gallant Bouquet started on its long western march, "the wilderness was ringing with the war-whoop of the savage, and the frontiers were red with blood"-when the return march was ordered the signs of the times were auspicious, promising a long season of peace and quietude to the courageous frontiersmen of those "heroic times," and those hopeful indi- cations were, in a good degree, realized during the halcyon years of the succeeding decade.
COLONEL M'DONALD'S EXPEDITION.
As has been already intimated the ten years that immediately followed the Bouquet expedition (from 1764 to 1774) was a period of comparative peace on both sides of the Ohio River. What might be appropriately
called "a state of war" between the Ohio Indians and the Western fron- tiersmen, did not exist at any time during that decade. It is true some outrages were perpetrated by the Indians that provoked some acts of retaliation on the part of the whites, during "those piping times of peace;" but taken all in all, those ten years may be properly styled the halcyon decade of the latter half of the eighteenth century, as between the civilized white men east of the Ohio, and the savage rod men west of it.
While, however, it was yet early spring-time, in 1774, rumors of threat- ened horse-stealing raids, and of contemplated hostile visits by the Indians into the frontier settlements, were rife. The border settlers were in a painful state of distrust, of doubt, uncertainty, and apprehen- sion, which culminated in fully arousing the partially smothered hostility mutually cherished by the two hostile races towards each other.
On the 16th of April, 1774, a large canoe, owned by William Butler, a well-known and leading merchant or trader of Pittsburgh, with a number of white men in it, was attacked.by three Indians (supposed Cherokees), while it was floating down the Ohio River, near Wheeling, and one of the men was killed. This outrage soon became known, and was followed at once by wild, but generally believed rumors of further contemplated Indian atrocities. It will readily be seen how news of such an outrage, with the accompanying and probably exaggerated reports, would fall upon the ears of the already highly excited and inflammable frontiersmen, many of whom had, probably, for good cause, been long nursing their hatred of the Indian. The outrage, as might have been expected, was promptly succeeded by retaliation, for it was only a few days thereafter when a number of Indians that were going down the Ohio River in a boat were killed by some white men who alleged the murder of one of Butler's men as the provocation and their justification. It has been often asserted and extensively published, that Captain Michael Cresap, of border and Revolutionary fame, had command of the murderers of these friendly Indians. We do not think the charge clearly established, but whatever may be the fact on that point, it is probable that the atrocity was perpetrated at the instigation of Dr. John Connolly, who was at this time commandant, under Virginia authority, at the " Forks of the Ohio;" the fort at that time being called Fort Dunmore, in honor of the usurping Governor of Virginia. The frontiersmen about Wheeling being generally Virginians and Marylanders, naturally and easily became victims of the malign influence of the artful, designing Connolly, a tool of Dunmore's, who was always ready to do his bidding. Captain Cresap recognized Connolly's authority, and was in correspondence with him. Connolly sent an express to Cresap, which reached him April 21st, informing him "that war was inevitable; that the savages would strike as soon as the season permitted." This message, says Brantz Mayer, was the "signal for open hostilities against the Indians, and resulted in a solemn and formai declaration of war on the 26th of April, and that very night two scalps were brought into camp." Upon the receipt of the letter from Connolly, on the 21st, "a council was called at Wheeling, of not only the military there then, but all the neighboring Indian traders were also summoned for consultation on the important occasion, result- ing as above indicated."
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