History of Summit County, with an outline sketch of Ohio, Part 5

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey
Number of Pages: 1104

USA > Ohio > Summit County > History of Summit County, with an outline sketch of Ohio > Part 5

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"For force of will and vast conception; for va- rious knowledge, and quick adaptation of his genius

HISTORY OF OIIIO.

to untried circumstances; for a sublime magnani- mity, that resigned itself to the will of Heaven, and yet triumphed over affliction by energy of purpose and unfaltering hope-he had no superior among his countrymen. He had won the affec- tions of the governor of Canada, the esteem of Colbert, the confidence of Seignelay, the favor of Louis XIV. After the beginning of the coloniza- tion of Upper Canada, he perfected the discovery of the Mississippi from the Falls of St. Anthony to its mouth ; and he will be remembered through all time as the father of colonization in the great central valley of the West."*

Avarice, passion and jealousy were not calmed by the blood of La Salle. All of his conspirators per- ished by ignoble deaths, while only seven of the six- teen succeeded in continuing the journey until they reached Canada, and thence found their way to France.

Tonti, who had been left at Fort St. Louis, on "Starved Rock" on the Illinois, went down in search of his beloved commander. Failing to find him, he returned and remained here until 1700, thousands of miles away from friends. Then he went down the Mississippi to join D'Iberville, who had made the discovery of the mouth of the Mis- sissippi by an ocean voyage. Two years later, he went on a mission to the Chickasaws, but of his subsequent history nothing is known.

The West was now in possession of the French. La Salle's plans were yet feasible. The period of exploration was now over. The great river and its outlet was known, and it only remained for that nation to enter in and occupy what to many a Frenchman was the "Promised Land." Only eighteen years had elapsed since Marquette and Joliet had descended the river and shown the course of its outlet. A spirit, less bold than La Salle's would never in so short a time have pene- trated for more than a thousand miles an unknown wilderness, and solved the mystery of the world.

When Joutel and his companions reached France in 1688, all Europe was on the eve of war. Other nations than the French wanted part of the New World, and when they saw that nation greedily and rapidly accumulating territory there, they en- deavored to stay its progress. The league of Augs- burg was formed in 1687 by the princes of the Em- pire to restrain the ambition of Louis XIV, and in 1688, he began hostilities by the capture of Philipsburg. The next year, England, under the

lead of William III, joined the alliance, and Louis found himself compelled, with only the aid of the Turks, to contend against the united forces of the Empires of England, Spain, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Yet the tide of battle wa- vered. In 1689, the French were defeated at Walcourt, and the Turks at Widin; but in 1690, the French were victorious at Charleroy, and the Turks at Belgrade. The next year, and also the next, victory inclined to the French, but in 1693, Louvois and Luxemberg were dead and Namur surrendered to the allies. The war extended to the New World, where it was maintained with more than equal success by the French, though the En- glish population exceeded it more than twenty to one. In 1688, the French were estimated at about twelve thousand souls in North America, while the English were more than two hundred thousand. At first the war was prosecuted vigorously. In 1689, De. Ste. Helene and D'Iberville, two of the sons of Charles le Morne, crossed the wilderness and reduced the English forts ou Hudson's Bay. But in August of the same year, the Iroquois, the hereditary foes of the French, captured and burned Montreal. Frontenac, who had gone on an ex- pedition against New York by sea, was recalled. Fort Frontenac was abandoned, and no French posts left in the West between Trois Rivieres and Mackinaw, and were it not for the Jesuits the en- tire West would now have been abandoned. To recover their influence, the French planned three expeditions. One resulted in the destruction of Schenectady, another, Salmon Falls, and the third, Casco Bay. On the other hand, Nova Scotia was reduced by the colonies, and an expedition against Montreal went as far as to Lake Champlain, where it failed, owing to the dissensions of the leaders. Another expedition, consisting of twenty-four ves- sels, arrived before Quebec, which also failed through the incompetency of Sir William Phipps. During the succeeding years, various border con- flicts occurred, in all of which border scenes of savage cruelty and savage ferocity were enacted. The peace of Ryswick, in 1697, closed the war. France retained Hudson's Bay, and all the places of which she was in possession in 1688; but the boundaries of the English and French claims in the New World were still unsettled.

The conclusion of the conflict left the French at liberty to pursue their scheme of colonization in the Mississippi Valley. In 1698, D'Iberville was sent to the lower province, which, erelong, was made a separate independency, called Louisiana.

* Bancroft.

HISTORY OF OHIO.

Forts were erected on Mobile Bay, and the division of the territory between the French and the Spaniards was settled. Trouble existed between the French and the Chickasaws, ending in the cruel deaths of many of the leaders, in the fruitless endeavors of the Canadian and Louisi- anian forces combining against the Chickasaws. For many years the conflict raged, with unequal successes, until the Indian power gave way before superior military tactics. In the end, New Orleans was founded, in 1718, and the French power secured.

Before this was consummated, however, France became entangled in another war against the allied powers, ending in her defeat and the loss of Nova Scotia, Hudson's Bay and Newfound- land. The peace of Utrecht closed the war in 1713.

The French, weary with prolonged strife, adopted the plan, more peaceful in its nature, of giving out to distinguished men the monopoly of certain districts in the fur trade, the most pros- perous of any avocation then. Crozat and Cadillac-the latter the founder of Detroit, in 1701-were the chief ones concerned in this. The founding of the villages of Kaskaskia, Ca- hokia, Vincennes, and others in the Mississippi and Wabash Valleys, led to the rapid develop- ment, according to the French custom of all these parts of the West, while along all the chief water-courses, other trading posts and forts were established, rapidly fulfilling the hopes of La Salle, broached so many years before.

The French had, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, four principal routes to their western towns, two of which passed over the soil of Ohio. The first of these was the one followed by Marquette and Joliet, by way of the Lakes to Green Bay, in Wisconsin; thence across a portage to the Wisconsin River, down which they floated to the Mississippi. On their return they came up the Illinois River, to the site of Chicago, whence Joliet returned to Quebec by the Lakes. La Salle's route was first by the Lakes to the St. Joseph's River, which he followed to the portage to the Kankakee, and thence downward to the Mississippi. On his second and third attempt, he crossed the lower peninsula of Michigan to the Kankakee, and again traversed its waters to the Illinois. The third route was established about 1716. It followed the southern shores of Lake Erie to the mouth of the Maumee River; following this stream, the voyagers went on to the

junction between it and the St. Mary's, which they followed to the " Oubache "-Wabash-and then to the French villages in Vigo and Knox Counties, in Indiana. Vincennes was the oldest and most important one here. It had been founded in 1702 by a French trader, and was, at the date of the establishment of the third route, in a prosperous condition. For many years, the traders crossed the plains of Southern Illinois to the French towns on the bottoms opposite St. Louis. They were afraid to go on down the " Waba " to the Ohio, as the Indians had fright- ened them with accounts of the great monsters below. Finally, some adventurous spirit went down the river, found it emptied into the Ohio, and solved the problem of the true outlet of the Ohio, heretofore supposed to be a tributary of the Wabash.

The fourth route was from the southern shore of Lake Erie, at Presqueville, over a portage of fifteen miles to the head of French Creek, at Waterford, Penn .; thence down that stream to the Ohio, and on to the Mississippi. Along all these routes, ports and posts were carefully maintained. Many were on the soil of Ohio, and were the first attempts of the white race to possess its domain. Many of the ruins of these posts are yet found on the southern shore of Lake Erie, and at the outlets of streams flowing into the lake and the Ohio River. The principal forts were at Mackinaw, at Presqueville, at the mouth of the St. Joseph's, on Starved Rock, and along the Father of Waters. Yet another power was encroaching on them: a sturdy race, elinging to the inhospitable Atlantic shores, were coming over the mountains. The murmurs of a conflict were already heard-a con- flict that would change the fate of a nation.

The French were extending their explorations beyond the Mississippi; they were also forming a political organization, and increasing their influence over the natives. Of a passive nature, however, their power and their influence could not with- stand a more aggressive nature, and they were obliged, finally, to give way. They had the fruitful valleys of the West more than a century ; yet they developed no resources, opened no mines of wealth, and left the country as passive as they found it.

Of the growth of the West under French rule, but little else remains to be said. The sturdy Anglo-Saxon race on the Atlantic coast, and their progenitors in England, began, now, to turn their attention to this vast country. The voluptuousness

HISTORY OF OHIO.

of the French court, their neglect of the true basis of wealth, agriculture, and the repressive tendencies laid on the colonists, led the latter to adopt a hunter's life, and leave the country unde- veloped and ready for the people who claimed the country from "sea to sea." Their explorers were now at work. The change was at hand.

Occasional mention has been made in the his- tory of the State, in preceding pages, of settle- ments and trading-posts of the French traders, explorers and missionaries, within the limits of Ohio. The French were the first white men to occupy the northwestern part of the New World, and though their stay was brief, yet it opened the way to a sinewy race, living on the shores of the Atlantic, who in time came, saw, and conquered that part of America, making it what the people of to-day enjoy.

As early as 1669, four years before the discov- ery of the Mississippi by Joliet and Marquette, La Salle, the famous explorer, discovered the Ohio River, and paddled down its gentle current as far as the falls at the present city of Louisville, but he, like others of the day, made no settlement on its banks, only claiming the country for his King by virtue of this discovery.

Early in the beginning of the eighteenth cent- ury, French traders and voyagers passed along the southern shores of Lake Erie, to the mouth of the Maumee, up whose waters they rowed their bark canoes, on their way to their outposts in the Wa- bash and Illinois Valleys, established between 1675 and 1700. As soon as they could, without danger from their inveterate enemies, the Iroquois, masters of all the lower lake country, erect a trading-post at the mouth of this river, they did so. It was made a depot of considerable note, and was, probably, the first permanent habitation of white men in Ohio. It remained until after the peace of 1763, the termination of the French and Indian war, and the occupancy of this country by the English. On the site of the French trading- post, the British, in 1794, erected Fort Miami, which they garrisoned until the country came under the control of Americans. Now, Maumee City covers the ground.

The French had a trading-post at the mouth of the Huron River, in what is now Erie County. When it was built is not now known. It was, how- ever, probably one of their early outposts, and may have been built before 1750. They had an- other on the shore of the bay, on or near the site of Sandusky City. Both this and the one at the

mouth of the Huron River were abandoned before the war of the Revolution. On Lewis Evan's map of the British Middle Colonies, published in 1755, a French fort, called "Fort Junandat, built in 1754," is marked on the east bank of the San- dusky River, several miles below its mouth. Fort Sandusky, on the western bank, is also noted. Several Wyandot towns are likewise marked. But very little is known concerning any of these trading-posts. They were, evidently, only tempo- rary, and were abandoned when the English came into possession of the country.

The mouth of the Cuyahoga River was another important place. On Evan's map there is marked on the west bank of the Cuyahoga, some distance from its mouth, the words "French House," doubt- less, the station of a French trader. The ruins of a house, found about five miles from the mouth of the river, on the west bank, are supposed to be those of the trader's station.

In 1786, the Moravian missionary, Zeisberger, with his Indian converts, left Detroit in a vessel called the Mackinaw, and sailed to the mouth of the Cuyahoga. From there they went up the river about ten miles, and settled in an abandoned Ottawa village, where Independence now is, which place they called " Saint's Rest." Their stay was brief, for the following April, they left for the Huron River, and settled near the site of Milan, Erie County, at a locality they called New Salem.

There are but few records of settlements made by the French until after 1750. Even these can hardly be called settlements, as they were simply trading-posts. The French easily affiliated with the Indians, and had little energy beyond trading. They never cultivated fields, laid low forests, and subjugated the country. They were a half-Indian race, so to speak, and hence did little if anything in developing the West.

About 1749, some English traders came to a place in what is now Shelby County, on the banks of a creek since known as Loramie's Creek, and established a trading-station with the Indians. This was the first English trading-place or attempt at settlement in the State. It was here but a short time, however, when the French, hear- ing of its existence, sent a party of soldiers to the Twigtwees, among whom it was founded, and de- manded the traders as intruders upon French ter- ritory. The Twigtwees refusing to deliver up their friends, the French, assisted by a large party of Ottawas and Chippewas, attacked the trading- house, probably a block-house, and, after a severe

HISTORY OF OHIO.

battle, captured it. The traders were taken to Canada. This fort was called by the English "Pickawillany," from which "Piqua" is probably derived. About the time that Kentucky was set- tled, a Canadian Frenchman, named Loramie, established a store on the site of the old fort. He was a bitter enemy of the Americans, and for a long time Loramie's store was the headquarters of mischief toward the settlers.

The French had the faculty of endearing them- selves to the Indians by their easy assimilation of their habits; and, no doubt, Loramie was equal to any in this respect, and hence gained great influ- ence over them. Col. Johnston, many years an Indian Agent from the United States among the Western tribes, stated that he had often seen the " Indians burst into tears when speaking of the times when their French father had dominion over them; and their attachment always remained unabated."

So much influence had Loramie with the In- dians, that, when Gen. Clarke, from Kentucky, invaded the Miami Valley in 1782, his attention was attracted to the spot. He came on and burnt the Indian settlement here, and destroyed the store of the Frenchman, selling his goods among the men at auction. Loramie fled to the Shawanees, and, with a colony of that nation, emigrated west of the Mississippi, to the Spanish possessions, where he again began his life of a trader.

In 1794, during the Indian war, a fort was built on the site of the store by Wayne, and named Fort Loramie. The last officer who had command here was Capt. Butler, a nephew of Col. Richard Butler, who fell at St. Clair's defeat. While here with his family, he lost an interesting boy, about eight years of age. About his grave, the sorrowing father and mother built a substantial pieket-fenee, planted honeysuckles over it, which, long after, remained to mark the grave of the soldier's boy.

The site of Fort Loramie was always an im- portant point, and was one of the places defined on the boundary line at the Greenville treaty. Now a barn covers the spot.

At the junction of the Auglaize and Maumee Rivers, on the site of Fort Defiance, built by Gen. Wayne in 1794, was a settlement of traders, established some time before the Indian war began. "On the high ground extending from the Maumee a quarter of a mile up the Auglaize, about two hundred yards in width, was an open space, on the west and south of which were oak

woods, with hazel undergrowth. Within this opening, a few hundred yards above the point, on the steep bank of the Auglaize, were five or six cabins and log houses, inhabited principally by Indian traders. The most northerly, a large hewed-log house, divided below into three apart- ments, was ocenpied as a warehouse, store and dwelling, by George Ironside, the most wealthy and influential of the traders on the point. Next to his were the houses of Pirault (Pero) a French baker, and Mckenzie, a Scot, who, in addition to merchandising, followed the occupation of a silver- smith, exchanging with the Indians his brooches, ear-drops and other silver ornaments, at an enormous profit, for skins and furs.

Still further up were several other fami- lies of French and English; and two Ameri- can prisoners, Henry Ball, a soldier taken in St. Clair's defeat, and his wife, Polly Meadows, captured at the same time, were allowed to live here and pay their masters the price of their ransom-he, by boating to the rapids of the Mau- mee, and she by washing and sewing. Fronting the house of Ironside, and about fifty yards from the bank, was a small stockade, inclosing two hewed-log houses, one of which was occupied by James Girty (a brother of Simon), the other, occasionally, by Elliott and McKee, British Indian Agents living at Detroit."*

The post, cabins and all they contained fell under the control of the Americans, when the British evacuated the shores of the lakes. While they existed, they were an undoubted source of Indian discontent, and had much to do in prolonging the Indian war. The country hereabouts did not settle until some time after the creation of the State government.

As soon as the French learned the true source of the Ohio and Wabash Rivers, both were made a highway to convey the products of their hunt- ers. In coursing down the Ohio, they made trading-places, or depots, where they could obtain furs of the Indians, at accessible points, generally at the mouths of the rivers emptying into the Ohio. One of these old forts or trading-places stood about a mile and a half south of the outlet of the Scioto. It was here in 1740; but when it was erected no one could tell. The locality must have been pretty well known to the whites, however; for, in 1785, three years before the settlement of Marietta was made, four families

* Narrative of O. M. Spencer.

HISTORY OF OHIO.

made an ineffectual attempt to settle near the same place. They were from Kentucky, but were driven away by the Indians a short time after they arrived, not being allowed to build cabins, and had only made preparations to plant corn and other necessaries of life. While the men were encamped near the vicinity of Piketown, in Pike County, when on a hunting expedition, they were surprised by the Indians, and two of them slain. The others hastened back to the encampment at the mouth of the Scioto, and hurriedly gathering the families together, fortu- nately got them on a flat-boat, at that hour on its way down the river. By the aid of the boat, they were enabled to reach Maysville, and gave up the attempt to settle north of the Ohio.

The famous "old Scioto Salt Works," in Jack- son County, on the banks of Salt Creek, a tributary of the Scioto, were long known to the whites before any attempt was made to settle in Ohio. They were indicated on the maps published in 1755. They were the resort, for generations, of the In- dians in all parts of the West, who annually came here to make salt. They often brought white prisoners with them, and thus the salt works be- came known. There were no attempts made to settle here, however, until after the Indian war, which closed in 1795. As soon as peace was as- sured, the whites came here for salt, and soon after made a settlement. Another early salt spring was in what is now Trumbull County. It is also noted on Evan's map of 1755. They were occu- pied by the Indians, French, and by the Americans as early as 1780, and perhaps earlier.

As early as 1761 Moravian missionaries came among the Ohio Indians and began their labors. In a few years, under the lead of Revs. Fredrick Post and John Heckewelder, permanent stations were established in several parts of the State, chief- ly on the Tuscarawas River in Tuscarawas County. Here were the three Indian villages-Shoenburn, Gnadenhutten and Salem. The site of the first is about two miles south of New Philadelphia ; Gna- denhutten was seven miles further south, and about five miles still on was Salem, a short distance from the present village of Port Washington. The first and last named of these villages were on the west side of the Tuscarawas River, near the margin of the Ohio Canal. Gnadenhutten was on the east side of the river. It was here that the brutal massacre of these Christian Indians, by the rangers under Col. Williamson, occurred March 8, 1782. The account of the massacre and of these tribes

appears in these pages, and it only remains to notice what became of them.

The hospitable and friendly character of these Indians had extended beyond their white breth- ren on the Ohio. The American people at large looked on the act of Williamson and his men as an outrage on humanity. Congress felt its influence, and gave them a tract of twelve thousand acres, embracing their former homes, and induced them to return from the northern towns whither they had fled. As the whites came into the country, their manners degenerated until it became necessary to remove them. Through Gen. Cass, of Michigan, an agreement was made with them, whereby Con- gress paid them over $6,000, an annuity of $400, and 24,000 acres in some territory to be designated by the United States. This treaty, by some means, was never effectually carried out, and the princi- pal part of them took up their residence near a Moravian missionary station on the River Thames, in Canada. Their old churchyard still exists on the Tuscarawas River, and here rest the bones of several of their devoted teachers. It is proper to remark here, that Mary Heckewelder, daughter of the missionary, is generally believed to have been the first white child born in Ohio. How- ever, this is largely conjecture. Captive women among the Indians, before the birth of Mary Heckewelder, are known to have borne children, which afterward, with their mothers, were restored to their friends. The assertion that Mary Heckewelder was the first child born in Ohio, is therefore incorrect. She is the first of whom any definite record is made.

These outposts are about all that are known to have existed prior to the settlement at Mari- etta. About one-half mile below Bolivar, on the western line of Tuscarawas County, are the remains of Fort Laurens, erected in 1778, by a detachment of 1,000 men under Gen. Mc- Intosh, from Fort Pitt. It was, however, occu- pied but a short time, vacated in August, 1779, as it was deemed untenable at such a distance from the frontier.

During the existence of the six years' Indian war, a settlement of French emigrants was made on the Ohio River, that deserves notice. It illus- trates very clearly the extreme ignorance and credulity prevalent at that day. In May or June of 1788, Joel Barlow left this country for Europe, " authorized to dispose of a very large body of land in the West. "" In 1790, he distributed pro- posals in Paris for the disposal of lands at five

HISTORY OF OHIO.

shillings per acre, which, says Volney, " promised a climate healthy and delightful; scarcely such a thing as a frost in the winter; a river, called by way of eminence 'The Beautiful,' abounding in fish of an enormous size; magnificent forests of a tree from which sugar flows, and a shrub which yields candles ; venison in abundance ; no military enrollments, and no quarters to find for soldiers." Purchasers became numerous, individuals and whole families sold their property, and in the course of 1791 many embarked at the various French sea-ports, each with his title in his pocket. Five hundred settlers, among whom were many wood carvers and guilders to His Majesty, King of France, coachmakers, friseurs and peruke makers, and other artisans and artistes, equally well fitted for a frontier life, arrived in the United States in 1791-92, and acting without concert, traveling without knowledge of the language, customs and roads, at last managed to reach the spot designated for their residence. There they learned they had been cruelly deceived, and that the titles they held were worthless. Without food, shelterless, and danger closing around them, they were in a position that none but a Frenchman could be in without despair. Who brought them thither, and who was to blame, is yet a disputed point. Some affirm that those to whom large grants of land were made when the Ohio Company procured its charter, were the real instigators of the movement. They failed to pay for their lands, and hence the title reverted to the Government. This, coming to the ears of the poor Frenchmen, rendered their situation more distressing. They never paid for their lands, and only through the clemency of Congress, who after- ward gave them a grant of land, and confirmed them in its title, were they enabled to secure a foot- hold. Whatever doubt there may be as to the

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History of Summit County, with an outline sketch of Ohio, Part 5

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848- Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey Number of Pages: 1104

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago, Baskin & Battey
Number of Pages: 1104