History of Van Wert and Mercer counties, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 8

Author: Sutton, R., & Co., Wapakoneta, Ohio, pub
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Wapakoneta, Ohio : R. Sutton
Number of Pages: 878

USA > Ohio > Mercer County > History of Van Wert and Mercer counties, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 8
USA > Ohio > Van Wert County > History of Van Wert and Mercer counties, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 8

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

General Lewis was reinforced to the extent of three hundred men, soon after the battle, and then started upon his march of eighty miles, through the wilderness, for the Indian towns on the Scioto, arriving within four wiles of " Camp Charlotte" on the 24th of October. llis

HISTORY OF VAAN WERT AND MERCER COUNTIES, OHIO.

encampment, which was named Camp Lewis, was situated on Congo Creek, a tributary of Sippo Creek, hear the southern termination of the " Pickaway Plains," and within a short distance of the " Old Chillicothe town."

The principal chiefs of the Indians on the Scioto met Lord Dammore at " Camp Charlotte," and agreed with him upon the terms of a treaty. Cornstalk, who had been defeated by General Lewis, was present, and, being satisfied of the futility of any further struggle, was specially anx- jous to make peace, and readily obtained the assent of the chiefs present to it. The Mingoes were not a party to the treaty, but remained rebel- lious; whereapon Captain Crawford was sent, with a small force, against one of their towns on the Scioto, which they destroyed, and took a num- ber of prisoners, who were not released until the next year. And it is a noteworthy fact, too, that Logan, the great Mingo chief, would not attend the council at " Cump Charlotte." He could not be prevailed upon to appear, and in any way make himself a party to the treaty. Dunmore greatly desired his attendance and acquiescence, at least, if he could not secure his approval of the terms of the treaty. To this end he sent Col- onel John Gibson as a messenger to the okl Chillicothe town, across the Scioto, where Logan usually spent his time when not on " the war-path," to ascertain the reasons for his absence, and, if possible, to secure his presence.

Logan was found, but he was in a sullen mood. At length, becoming somewhat mollitied under the gentle and persuasive manipulations of Gibson, and from the effects of freely administered "fire-water," he moved from the wigwam in which this preliminary interview was held, and, beckoning Dunmore's messenger to follow, "he went into a solitary thicket near by, where, sitting down on a log, he burst into tears, aud uttered some sentences of impassioned eloquence, charging the murder of his kindred upon Captain Michael Cresap." Those utterances of Logan were committed to paper by Colonel Gibson immediately on his return to "Camp Charlotte," and probably read in the council and in the pres- ence of the army. And this is substantially the history of the famous speech of Logan, until it appeared in the Virginia Gazette, of date Febru- ary 4, 1775, which was published in the city of Williamsburg, the then seat of government of the colony of Virginia. Its publication was, doubt- less, procured by Dunmore himself. It was neither a speech, an address, a message, nor a promise to assent to, or comply with, the provisions of a treaty, butsimply the wild, excited, passionate utterancesof a blood-stained savage, given as near as remembered by Colonel Gibson, and which con- sisted, in part, of slanderous allegations, based on misinformation, against Captain Michael Cresap-charges known by every officer at "Camp Charlotte" to be unfounded-allegations that have been persist- ently propagated to the present time, to the detriment of the fair fame and memory of an injured patriot, a valuable, enterprising, adventurous pioneer on the western frontiers, and a brave soldier and gallant officer in the Revolutionary army, who died a patriot's death while in the service of his country !

Colonel Gibson, knowing that Captain Cresap had not participated in any way in the murder of Logan's kindred at Yellow Creek, immediately after the close of the very spirited recital of his injuries, corrected Lo- gan's impressions as to Cresap's guilt, but the half frantic savage per- sisted in the false charge he had made, or at least declined to withdraw it, and Colonel Gibson felt bound to put Logan's words on paper, as near as he could just as they were spoken. Soon after Logan's speech, as it was called, was published in Williamsburg, it was republished in New York and elsewhere, and its further republication by Thomas Jeferson, in his " Notes on Virginia," in 1751, as a specimen of aboriginal elo- quence, gave it still greater currency, and, tacitty, an apparent indorse- ment of the charge it contained against Captain Cresap. But Mr. Jeffer- son published it without any reference to the truth or falsity of said charge, but to disprove the statements of Buffon and Raynal, who alleged the inferiority of Americans, and charged that there was a natural tend- ency to physical, mental, and moral degeneracy in America !

Colonel (afterwards General) Gibson was a man of talents, and ahand- antly capable of excenting the ageney attributed to him in this matter. He enjoyed the confidence of General Washington, who, in 1781, intrusted him with the command of the " Western Military Department." General Gibson was Secretary of Indiana Territory, and sometimes acting 5

Governor, from 1800 to 1813, and held other positions of honor. He died near Pittsburgh, in 1>22. Most of the foregoing facts are obtained from the sworn deposition of General Gibson himself, and from the cor- roborative statements of General George Rogers Clark, Colonel Benja- min Wilson, Luther Martin, Esq., Judge John B. Gibson, and other gentlemen distinguished for talents and veracity.

During the summer of 1774 Logan acted the part of a murderous de- mon! He was a cruel, vindictive, bloody-handed savage! He took thirty sealps and some prisoners during the six months that intervened between the time of the unjustifiable, wanton, unprovoked murder of his friends at Yellow Creek, and his interview with Colonel Gibson! He had had his revenge! To quote his own vigorous language, "he had fully glutted his vengeance!" And notwithstanding he had indulged his savage pro- pensities, even to satiety one would suppose, he nevertheless subsequently engaged in other hostile crusades against the frontiersmen, one of these being the murderous expedition into Kentucky which resulted in the capture of Ruddell's and Martin's Stations, and the taking of many pri- soners. He also went on a similar mission to the Holston River settle- ments, in 1779. Logan was a savage, but had been friendly to the whites. After the brutal murder of his friends, the frontiersmen east of the Ohio River, and the red men west of it, assumed an attitude of intense hostility towards each other, the latter embracing every oppor- tunity to rob, capture, and murder the former, and those outrages were met by the white settlers in a determined spirit of retaliation and revenge. The conduct of Logan, therefore, was not surprising. The fact that he wos a sarage is the best plea that can be offered in mitigation of his enormities. And he had great provocation, too!

Logan, after the murder of his kindred and friends, in 1774, gave way, in a great measure, to intemperance and vindictiveness, and became a sullen, harsh, cruel, dranken vagabond. His acts of barbarity finally brought him to a violent death on the southern shore of Lake Erie, between Sandusky Bay and Detroit, in 1780, at the hands of one of his own race !

Colonel Michael Cresap, upon the breaking out of the Revolutionary war. in 1775, raised a company of volunteers at the call of the Maryland Delegates .in Congress, and became their commander. He promptly marched to Boston, where he joined the Continental army of General Washington. His health, however, soon failed, and he attempted to return to his home in Maryland, but when, on the 12th of October, he reached New York, he found himself too feeble to proceed farther. Daily declining, he died October 18, 1775, in the thirty-third year of his age, and was buried the day after his death, with military honors, in Trinity churchyard. A widowed wife and four children survived him. Thus died, in early manhood, the gallant soldier, the pure patriot, the cruelly defamed pioneer, the meritorions Revolutionary officer, the greatly ma- ligued and unjustly assailed Captain Michael Cresap !

Lord Dunmore, after negotiating with the Indians for peace, and for the restoration of prisoners and stolen property, returned to Virginia, pursuing very nearly the route by which he came, leaving a hundred men at the mouth of the Kanawha, and a small force at " Fort Fincastle," afterwards called " Fort Heury" (now Wheeling); also a limited number of men at the " Forks of the Ohio," for the protection of the frontier settlements. Fort Henry was named in honor of Patrick Henry, who became Governor of the colony of Virginia as the successor of Lord Dummnore, immediately after the latter's espousal of the cause of the mother country against the colonies, and of his ignominious flight from Williamsburgh, in June, 1,75, and taking refuge on board of a British man-of-war.

It may be recorded to the honor of Dunmore's officers that they were loyal to the colonies and patriotic to the core, which they made manifest when, at " Fort Gower," at the mouth of the Hockhocking, while on their homeward march, they resolved, in view of the approaching rupture with England, "that they would exert every power within them for the defence of American liberty, and for the support of America's just rights and privileges."

ORGANIZATION OF ILLINOIS COUNTY.

For the purpose of more effectually organizing civil government north- west of the Ohio River, after the conquest of the country by Col. George

HISTORY OF VAN WERT AND MERCER COUNTIES, OHIO.

Rogers Clark, the House of Burgesses of Virginia, in October, 177%, creeted the comity of Hlinois, out of the western part of Botetourt County, which had been established in 1769. Ilinois County was bounded on the east by Pennsylvania, on the southeast and south by the Ohio River, on the west by the Mississippi River, and on the north by the northern lakes, thus making the territory that now constitutes the State of Ohio an integral portion of it. John Todd, Esq., was appointed County Licu- tenant and Civil Commandant of Illinois County. He was killed in the battle of Blue Licks, August 18, 1782, and was succeeded by Timothy de Montbrun. The Moravian missionaries on the Tuscarawas, a few scores of ludian traders, and a small number of French settlers on the Manmee, made the sum total of white men at that time in what is now Ohio.

EXPEDITION OF GEN. MC INTOSH.

Gen. Lachilin McIntosh, commander of the Western Military Depart- ment, made an expedition, in 1778, with discretionary powers, from "Fort Pitt" to the Tusearawas, with about one thousand men, and there erected Fort Laurens, near the present town of Bolivar, in Tusearawas County. He garrisoned it with one hundred and fifty mon, under com- . mand of Col. John Gibson, and then returned to " Fort Pitt."

The original purpose was to march his army to Detroit, or at least as far as the Sandusky Indian towns, but various causes prevented, and the campaign was comparatively finitless. Not receiving reinforcements as expected, and probably lacking in energy, and having no special capacity for Indian warfare, his expedition was a failure, and he resigned his command of the " Western Military Department" in February, 1779.

General MeIntosh was a Scotchman, born in 1727. His father's fain- ily, himself included, came with General Oglethorpe to Georgia in 1736; became Colonel of the First Georgia Regiment in the early part of the Revolutionary war; was soon made a Brigadier-General; killed Hon. Button Gwinnett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, in a duel fought in 1777; commanded the Western army in 1778-79; was captured at Charleston, South Carolina, May 12, 1750 ; became a member of Con- gress in 1784, and an Indian Commissioner in 1785, and died in Savan- nah, Georgia, in Is06.

ERECTION OF FORT LAURENS IN 1778.

Fort Laurens (named in honor of the then President of the Continental Congress, Henry Laurens) was the first parapet and stockade fort built within the present limits of Ohio; Fort Gower, and others previously constructed, being of a less substantial character. Disasters attended it from the beginning. The Indians stole their horses, and drew the garrison into several ambuscades, killing fourteen men at one time, and eleven at another, besides capturing a number also. Eight hundred warriors invested it at one time, and kept up the siege for six weeks. The provisions grew short, and when supplies from " Fort Pitt" had arrived within a hundred yards of the fort, the garrison, in their joyous- nese, fired a general salute with musketry, which so frightened the loaded pack-horses as to produce a general stampede through the woods, seat- tering the provisions in every direction, so that most of the much-needed supplies were lost. Although it was regarded very desirable, for vari- ous military reasons, to have a garrisoned fort and depot of supplies at a point about equidistant from the forts on the Ohio River and the hostile Indians on the Sandlusky Plains, yet so disastrous had been the fate of Fort Laurens, on the Tuscarawas River, that it was abandoned in Au- gust, 1779. Fifty years ago the Ohio Canal was cut through it, and but little remains to show where this, the first of our military earthworks erected by the white race, stood. Though this stockade was constructed less than a hundred years ago, it is now numbered among " the things that were, but are not !"

EXPEDITION OF COL. JOHN BOWMAN.

In July, 1779, Colonel John Bowman, with a hundred and sixty Ken- tuckians, marched against some Shawanese Indian towne situated on the Little Miami River, within the present limits of Greene County. It was in retaliation for atrocities then recently committed in Kentucky. The troops were divided, a portion of them being commanded by Colonel Benjamin Logan. They rendezvoused at the mouth of the Licking,

opposite the present city of Cincinnati, from whence, at the end of the second night, they reached the vicinity of one of the towns midi-covered. Soon fighting ensued, but, says Albach, " from some unexpected cause, there was no efficient cooperation between the two wings of the Kentucky army, and, consequently, but little success." The town was destroyed, and some booty, including one hundred and sixty horses, was taken. There was gallant fighting on both sides, nine men of Colonel Bowman's army being killed, and probably as many, or more, on the part of the Shawane-e. Blackfish, one of their chiefs, was wounded.

The Indians were, however, on this occasion, in no degree daunted or crippled, and made a vigorous pursuit of the Kentuckions, frequently attacking them during the first day's retreat, which was commenced at about ten o'clock. The retreating army recrossed the Ohio at the mouth of the Little Miami, and then dispersed to their homes.

Colonel Logan was of the Bouquet and Dunmore expeditions, and he, as well as Colonel Bowman, have had honorable mention, in Western history, of their meritorious conduct.

COLONEL GEORGE ROGERS CLARK'S EXPEDITION.

In July and August, 1750, Colonel George Rogers Clark organized an expedition and marched against the Indian towns on the Little Miami and Mad rivers, with an army of about a thousand men, all Kentuck- ians, to chastise them for their marauding excursions into the settle- ments south of the Ohio River. They, too, crossed the Ohio at the mouth of the Licking, and erected two block-houses on the first day of August, upon the ground now occupied by Cincinnati. The march was resamed the next day, and on the sixth day of August they arrived at the site of an Indian town (called Old Chillicothe), on the banks of the Little Miami, which had been set on fire and destroyed by the Indian-, in anticipation of Clark's arrival with his infuriated Kentuckians. After cutting down the growing corn, and finding no enemy, the expedition proceeded to the large Indian town called Pigna (the birthplace of Tecumseh ), situated on the Mad River, about five miles west of the present city of Springfield. The Indians, concealed in high grass in a prairie adjoining the town, made an attack, and a desperate battle ensued, which resulted in the death of twenty Kentuckians and as many Indians, and the flight of the latter. Piqua was utterly destroyed, and about five hundred acres of growing corn were cut down there and in the vicinity of the site of " Old Chillicothe," which was situated within the present limits of Greene County. Colonel Clark's army then started on their return march, and on arriving at the mouth of the Licking was disbanded. Colonel Ben- jamin Logan was the second officer in rank. There seems to be good reason to believe that the infamous Simon Girty had command of three hundred Mingoes in the Piqua battle.

. GENERAL DANIEL, BRODHEAD'S EXPEDITION.

To guard against the recurrence of predatory incursions into the fron- tier settlements east of the Ohio River, and to avenge the cruelties and atrocious barbarities of the savages, General Daniel Brodhead, in April, 1781, organized a force of about three hundred effective men, at Wheel- ing, with which he marched to the Muskingum Hiver. The result of this campaign was the taking of the Indian town situated at the " Forks" of said river (now Coshocton), with all its inhabitants, and the capture of some prisoners at other villages. Among the prisoners taken were six teen warriors who were doomed to death by a council of war, and accord- ingly dispatched, says Doddrilge, with spears and tomahawks, aml afterwards scalped! A strong determination was manifested by the sol- diers to march up the Tusearawas to the Moravian towns and destroy them, but General Brodhead and Colonel Shepherd (the second officer in rank ) prevented this contemplated outrage. The famons Lewis Wetzel killed, in cold blood, a chief who was held as a hostage by General Bral. head ! Other atrocities were committed by the infuriated men on their return march, who were resolved to adopt the most sanguinary measures, if necessary, to prevent in the future the murderous incursions of the savages into the frontier settlements.

The border wars of this period were prosecuted on both sides as wars of extermination, and the cruelties and barbarities perpetrated by the Indians had produced such a malignant spirit of revenge among the

HISTORY OF VAN WERT AND MERCER COUNTIES, OHIO.

whites as to make them but little less brutal and remorseless than the savages themselves. Some of their expeditions against the Indians were mere murdering parties, hell together only by the common thirst for re- venge ; and it is not likely that any discipline calculated to restrain that pervadling feeling, or that would be efficient in preventing or even check- ing it, could in all cases have been enforced. It is certainly unfortunate for the reputation of General Brodhead that his naine is thus associated with the murder of prisoners; but it is highly probable that he never sanctioned it, and could not have prevented it.

General Daniel Brodhead's home was in Berks County, Pennsylvania. He entered the Revolutionary army as a Lieutenant-Colonel, his com- mission bearing date July 4, 1776; was engaged in most of the battles fought by General Washington's army, until early in 1779, when, on receiving a Colonel's commission, he was placed in command of the Eighth Pennsylvania Regiment. On March 5, 1879, he was appointed to the command of the "Western Military Department" (succeeding General MeIntosh), with head-quarters at " Fort Pitt." This position ho retained until 1781, when he was succeeded by General John Gibson, who was himself succeeded by General William Irvine, September 24, 1781.

In 1789, General Brodhead was elected Surveyor-General of Pennsyl- vania, an office which he continued to hold until 1799, when he retired to private life. His death occurred at Milford, Pennsylvania, November 12, 1800. He was one of four brothers, who all rendered essential serv- ices during our Revolutionary struggle.

COLONEL ARCHIBALD LOCHRY'S EXPEDITION.

In the early summer of 1781, Colonel Lochry, the County Lieutenant of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, was requested by Colonel George Rogers Clark to raise a military force, and join him in his the contem- plated military movement against Detroit, and the Indian tribes of the Northwest generally. The mouth of the Big Miami River was first named as the place of general rendezvous, but was subsequently changed to the " Falls of the Ohio." Colonel Lochry raised a force of one hun- dred and six men, who, on the 25th of July, "set out for ' Fort Henry' (Wheeling), where they embarked in boats for their destination." They passed down the Ohio River to a point a few miles below the mouth of the Big Miami, where, having landed, they "were suddenly and unex- pectedly assailed by a volley of riffe-balls, from an overhanging bluff, covered with large trees, on which the Indians had taken position in great forec." The result was the death of Colonel Lochry and forty-one of his command, and the capture of the remainder, many of whom were wounded, some of the captured being killed and scalped while prisoners ! This occurred August 25, 1751, and such of the captured as were not murdered, died, or escaped, did not reach their homes again until after the peace of 1783, when they were exchanged at Montreal, and sent home, arriving there in May, 1783. The murder of prisoners was alleged to be in retaliation for the ontrages committed by Brodhead's men a few months before; and it has been said that this treatment of Lochry's men was one of the provocations for the brutal murder of the Moravian Indians, ou the Tuscarawas, in 1782.

COLONEL WILLIAMSON'S EXPEDITION.

The wife of William Wallace, and three of her children. also John Car- penter, all of Washington County, Pennsylvania, were captured by the Indians in February, 1782, and carried off. Mrs. Wallace and her infant were found, after having been tomahawked and scalped! The frontiers- men were greatly exasperated, and at once organized an expedition of nearly a hundred men to pursue and chastise the murderers. On arriving at the Tuscarawas River, and finding the Moravian Indians there, in con- siderable force, gathering corn at the villages from which they had been forcibly removed, by British authority, the preceding autumn, to the Sandusky Plains, for alleged favoritism to the American cause, the con- clusion was soon reached that they had found the murderers of Mrs. Wallace and her child, and at once made prisoners of those at Gnaden- hütten and Salem, to the number of ninety-six. The Indians at Shün- brun made their escape, on hearing of the capture of those at work at the other villages. It has been stated that some clothing was found with

those Indians that was identified as that of the murdered friends of some of Williamson's men ; but even if that were so, it did not prove that these Indians were the murderers, or had even aided or abetted the mur- derers.

Colonel Williamson, on March 8, 1782, submitted the fate of his help- less captives to his excited men. The alternative was whether they should take them to " Fort Pitt," as prisoners, or kill them. Eighteen only voted to take them to " Fort Pitt," the others voted to butcher them, and "they were then and there murdered in cold blood, with gun and spear, and tomahawk, and scalping-knife, and bludgeon and maul !" Two only escaped. There are many details of this atrocious massacre- this infamous butchery of an innocent people-but we omit them. His- tory characterizes it as an atrocious and unqualified wholesale murder- as a terrible tragedy-a horrible deed. Would that it could be blotted from our history ! Colonel Williamson opposed the massacre, but could not control his men. 1681076

COLONEL CRAWFORD'S SANDUSKY EXPEDITION.

Soon after the return of the murderous expedition of Colonel William- son, an expedition against the Wyandot villages, on the Sandusky Plains was determined upon, their destruction being deemed essential to the pro- tection of the frontier settlements east of the Ohio. Nearly all of Colonel Williamson's men volunteered, and recruiting went on so rapidly that by the 25th of May four hundred and eighty men rendezvoused at the Mingo Bottoms, three miles below the present city of Steubenville. An election for commander of the expedition was held there, when it was found that Colonel William Crawford was elected, having received 235 votes, while 230 were cast for Colonel David Williamson. The latter gentleman was then promptly and unanimously chosen the second officer in rank. The entire force was composed of mounted men, who, following the " Williamson trail" to the Tuscarawas, passed rapidly on to the San- dusky. On reaching a point three miles north of Upper Sandusky, and a mile west of the Sandusky River, within the present limits of Wyandot County, a battle ensued (known as the battle of Sandusky, fought June 4-5, 1782), followed by the defeat of Colonel Crawford and the loss of over a hundred men in killed and prisoners. Colonel Crawford was captured and tortured to death in a slow fire, accompanied by circum- stances of barbarity unparalleled in the annals of Indian warfare. Some historians have misapprehended the purpose of the Crawford campaign. We think it clearly established that the design was not the pursuit and chastisement of the Moravian Indians, but the destruction of the Wyan- dot villages of the Sandusky Plains, and for the reasons above stated. The details of this disastrous expedition are so well known to the general reader that we omit them.

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History of Van Wert and Mercer counties, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 8

Author: Sutton, R., & Co., Wapakoneta, Ohio, pub Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Wapakoneta, Ohio : R. Sutton Number of Pages: 878

Author: Sutton, R., & Co., Wapakoneta, Ohio, pub
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Wapakoneta, Ohio : R. Sutton
Number of Pages: 878