USA > Ohio > History of the Central Ohio conference of the Methodist Episcopal church, 1856-1913 > Part 3
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recognized. It was told that. on a time, a certain tavern kecper who had long held undisputed possession of a particularly fine 'mud-hole,' which he had cultivated with special care for the profit it brought him, sold his stand, preparatory to leaving the country. Regarding his interest in the 'hole' as a franchise too valuable to be abandoned, he finally sold his quit-claim thereto to a neighbor for the sum of $5, being probably the only case on record of the sale of a 'mud-hole' for use as such."
The Maumee Valley, which is a part of the Black Swamp region, has been the theater of important historical incidents and events, and at the mention of the name there rise up before us the intrepid George Clark; the "Blacksnake," General Anthony Wayne; the calm, careful General William Henry Harrison; the valiant Croghan; the wily, masterful Pontiac, and the no less shrewd and able Tecumseh.
The aborigines who inhabited this section were bold, brave, shrewd, and with an unusually high order of intelligence. In stature the Miamis were of medium height; well built; heads round, rather than oblong; countenances agreeable, rather than sedate or morose; swift of foot, and excessively fond of racing. They were from their position less exposed to the poison of the whisky keg and the example of debauched traders, and retained their ancient character and customs in greater purity than their Eastern neigh- bors.
The Maumee has no beginnings such as we ascribe to the typical river; there is no bubbling spring, or trickling rivulet, or babbling brook to gradually grow into a broad river. The St. Joseph, from the north, meets the St. Mary's, from the south; these uniting at Fort Wayne, Indiana, become the Maumee, and this starts in bold- ness and strength for Lake Erie, meeting the Auglaize at Defiance, and entering Maumee Bay, five miles northeast of Toledo, after its journey of one hundred miles.
The Maumee was known to the early French explorers as the River a la Roche; it was also mentioned as Rock River. At a later date it was the "River of the Miamis," and then became the "Miami of the Lake," to distinguish it from the Great Miami, or the Miami of the River, which flowed into the Ohio. Colonel Clark, in his journal, 1779, spells it "Meami," which was probably as he heard it called.
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As late as 1805, Harris, in his "Journal of a Tour" that he made to Ohio in 1803, mentioned the river as "The Miami of the Lake, sometimes called Omee, and Maumick." The French would naturally give the "a" in the word a broad sound-"ah"-and this to English ears might well sound like "Me-ah-mee," and be easily fashioned into Maumee. Indeed, where Harris mentions the Great Miami, he has a footnote saying it is prouounced "Mawmee."
EARLY FRENCH EXPLORERS.
The Maumee Valley was very early known to the untiring French explorers-the priests and the soldiers. By this route, with only two short portages, they had access to the Miami on the south and to the Ohio and to the Wabash on the southwest, and the Mississippi.
It is said of LaSalle, the discoverer of the Mississippi, that during the years (1677-78) he was in command at Fort Frontenac, "He appears to have been evolving great schemes for opening up an easy channel of trade to the West by way of the Maumee and the Wabash."
Professor Hulbert, in his "Historic Highways of America," says that it was on this river, near the present site of Maumee City, that the first settlement of whites in the limits of what is now the State of Ohio was made in 1679.
During the year 1679, Frontenac, Governor of Canada, sent out a number of trading parties with authority to erect stores or posts and to take possession of the country visited in the name of France. One of these parties found its way to the Maumee River and, in 1680, built a small stockade just below the present Maumee City. This was an important trading post for many years, but was finally abandoned for a more eligible location at the head of the river, near where Fort Wayne now stands. On the very spot where the first French fort stood the British, in 1794, erected Fort Miami.
About 1700 a party of traders built a small fort on the Maumee about where is now Toledo.
In 1739 de Longuevil constructed a road from Detroit to the Ohio River, which crossed the Maumee at the foot of the rapids, and was thereafter used by the Canadians.
In 1748 the post on the Maumee was rebuilt by the French.
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In that same year instructions were given the commander at Detroit, "Every attempt of the English to settle at River a la Roche [Maumee] must be resisted by force."
Again, in 1750, complaint is made that "The English, far from confining themselves within the limits of Britain's possessions, not satisfied with multiplying themselves more and more on Rock River, and with having houses and stores there, have, more than that, pro- ceeded within sight of Detroit, even unto the Fort of the Miamis."
In 1754 Governor Morris, of Pennsylvania, calls a note of alarm because of the French making a settlement of three hundred families in the country of the Twightwees (Miamis).
In 1760 Major Rogers was sent. West to take possession of Detroit and other French forts along the lake. From Detroit, we are told, the major went to the Maumee, and thence across the State to Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh).
THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC.
The name of the great Indian chief Pontiac will always be associated with the Maumee Valley. This was his home and his stronghold. It was here he planned his treacherous campaigns, and here he came when defeat weakened him. He was the bitter enemy of the English, and his ability and craftiness made him their most formidable foe.
In 1760 the war that had been waging in America between the French and the English came to an end through the defeat of Montcalm, on the Heights of Abraham, at Quebec.
From 1535 to 1760-225 years-the region of the lakes, dis- covered and traversed by Jesuit missionaries and French fur traders, was under the dominion of the King of France, and was designated on the maps as New France. But on the 29th of No- vember, 1760, the French flag was lowered at Detroit, and this part of Ohio became a part of the Province of Quebec.
The Indian tribes saw the English taking possession of the French forts, and they were alarmed. The French had always treated the Red Men as brothers, had made them liberal presents, and had dealt with them honestly. The English had been cold and harsh, had cheated them in trade, and had outraged their families. These things aroused them to the highest pitch of excite-
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ment, but it would probably have passed over had it not been for Pontiac, of whom Parkman writes. "The American forests never produced a man more shrewd, politic, and ambitious."
Pontiac's plan was to make a contemporaneous assault upon all the British posts and thus extinguish the English power at a single blow. By favor of an Indian woman, Detroit alone of all the chain of forts was saved, but by the treachery of another Indian woman the fort on the Maumee was captured.
CAPTURE OF FORT MIAMI.
Fort Miami was near what is now Fort Wayne, and was com- manded by Ensign Holmes, who was suspicious of the intentions of the Indians, and was therefore on his guard when, on the 27th of May, 1763, a young Indian girl who lived with him came to tell him that a squaw lay dangerously ill in a wigwam near the fort, and urged him to come to her relief.
Holmes forgot his caution and followed her out of the fort. Pitched at the head of a meadow, hidden from view by an inter- vening spur of the woodland, stood a great number of Indian wig- wams. When Holmes came in sight of them, his treacherous con- ductress pointed out that in which the sick woman lay. He walked on without suspicion, but as he drew near, two guns flashed from behind the hut and stretched him lifeless on the grass.
The shots were heard at the fort and the sergeant rashly went out to learn the reason for the firing. He was immediately taken prisoner, amid exultant yells and whoopings. The soldiers in the fort climbed upon the palisades to look out, when Godefroy, a Canadian, and two other white men made their appearance and summoned them to surrender, promising that if they did so their lives would be spared, but that otherwise they would be killed without mercy. The men, being in great terror and without a leader, soon threw open the gate and gave themselves up as prisoners.
END OF PONTIAC'S WAR.
The end of Pontiac's war came with the arrival at Detroit of General Bradstreet with reinforcements. The English boats en- tered the mouth of the Detroit River on the 26th of August, and
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Pontiac retired to the Maumee, whence he sent haughty defiance to the English commander. But famine and misery brought most of the followers to have a sincere desire for peace, and they readily obeyed the summons of Bradstreet to meet him in council.
A deputation was sent to Pontiac, and that chief agreed to lead the nations no more to war, but declared that he would never become a friend of the English. He met General Bradstreet at Maumee Bay with offers .of peace, which ended the bloody war. This war has been described as "undoubtedly the most compre- hensive military campaign ever conceived in Red Man's brain."
On the 24th of August, 1765, George Croghan made a treaty with the Miamis, by which that nation was to remain undisturbed in its hunting grounds. Not long after this the tribes abandoned their towns on the Great Miami and removed to the Maumee, St. Joseph, and Wabash Rivers.
In 1766 mention is made of Pontiac being on the Maumee again, at the mouth of the river, where he is said to have spent the winter living in the forest with his wives and children and hunting like an ordinary warrior. In 1769 he was assassinated in the vicinity of St. Louis, Mo.
DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.
In December, 1778, Hamilton, the British commander in De- troit, hearing of Clark's capture of Vincennes, determined to re- take it, and, heading troops and Indians, ascended the Maumee from Lake Erie. They recaptured the fort at Vincennes, but dur- ing the next year Clark retook it and Hamilton with it.
In 1780, General Washington directed that the Western waters be explored, the navigation of them accurately laid down, and a complete map of the country made, at least "as far westerly as the Miamis, running into the Ohio, and into Lake Erie. For I can not forbear observing that the Miami Village (Fort Wayne) points to a very important post for the Union."
During the Revolution this part of Ohio from its remote situ- ation was but little affected by the war. The British employed the Indians to harass the American settlements on the Ohio and in Kentucky. These joint expeditions (British soldiers and Indian warriors) usually organized at Detroit and proceeded in boats as
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far as they could ascend the Maumee, and from there crossed over to the Ohio. The prisoners taken were all massacred, and so much per scalp paid by the British. We hardly need to be told "their march through the whole region was attended with the utmost consternation."
A NEW FORT MIAMI.
At the close of the Revolution the British refused to evacuate the fort at Detroit, and in 1794 built a new Fort Miami on the Maumee, near the present site of Maumee City.
This fort is described as situated on a hill which rises abruptly from the margin of the river, at the head of a plain. It was a quadrangle, constructed of large, square logs of timber, laid closely together and notched into each other. At the two most exposed angles were strong bastions, enfilading three sides of the fort. On these three sides the fort was protected by a deep moat or ditch, in which was standing water. And on the side fronting the river there was a covered way down the steep bank to the water.
THE BATTLE OF FALLEN TIMBERS.
The Maumee next appears in history through General Anthony Wayne's decisive victory over the Indians at the battle of Fallen Timbers. As in the Revolution, marauding parties continued to descend from this section upon settlers in Southern Ohio and Kentucky. They were undoubtedly encouraged by the English, who had refused to abandon either Detroit or Fort Miami after the Revolution.
In 1790, General Harmar, an able officer, was dispatched to quell these Indians with a force of about 1,400 men. He impru- dently divided his army, was taken by surprise and defeated at what is now Fort Wayne, by a body of Indians led by Little Turtle.
General St. Clair was then placed in command of about 2,300 men, and started towards the Maumee. This army was to march from Cincinnati, Ohio, and erect a fort on the site of Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was not properly supplied; it was totally undisciplined, and there was a bitter feeling of jealousy among the officers. De- sertions reduced it more than one-third. It was ambushed near Greenville, Ohio, and forced to retreat. "In almost every . sense
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it was the greatest defeat suffered by white men on this continent at the hands of the aborigines."
A new army was then formed, the Legion, and General Wayne was placed in command. While he was drilling this into shape every effort was being made at Washington to secure treaties of peace with the Indians on the Maumee, but their victories over Harmar and St. Clair had made them haughty, conscious of their power, and determined to make no treaty that. would not make the Ohio the boundary of the United States and reserve all lands north and west of that for the Indians.
At one time it had been seriously considered to make the Maumee the boundary line of the Union. In 1791 the Secretary of War wrote to General St. Clair: "In order to avoid further wars it might be proper to make the Wabash, and thence over to the Maumee, and down the same to its mouth at Lake Erie, the boundary between the people of the United States and the Indians."
In the meantime General Wayne was making every preparation for war and, with his men, was turning his face northward. When they reached the place where St. Clair was defeated, a fort was erected, named Fort Recovery, and garrisoned.
On July 28, 1794, Wayne, with 2,000 regulars and 1,500 mounted volunteers, set out from Fort Greenville for the Maumee Valley. The Indians were quick to recognize and describe in their figurative way the two chief characteristics of Wayne as a com- mander-they called him the "Black Snake" and the "Whirlwind"- he was as cunning as he was impetuous.
On August 1st the army pressed on over the backbone of Ohio and down the northern slope into the basin of the Maumee River and cncamped beside the Little St. Marys. On the afternoon of August 6th the army reached the banks of the Auglaize, where Fort Laramie was built.
On the 8th of August, after marching through five miles of cornfields, where were "vegetables of every kind in abundance," the tired Legion came in view of the Maumee, "of which they and the whole Nation had heard so much." The spot where they en- camped was the site of the present city of Defiance, and here, in the eight days succeeding, Fort Defiance was erected.
On the 16th, it being reported that the Indian army was lying two miles above the British fort (Fort Miami), the grand advance
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began. Nineteen miles were made that day, and twelve the fol- lowing. On the 18th the army encamped forty-one miles from Fort Defiance, and made a strong entrenchment, which was named Fort Deposit. Here the heavy baggage was stored, that the troops might go into action unencumbered.
On the 20th, at seven in the morning, the Legion advanced in fighting order. The Indian army was stretched across the valley for two miles, in a well-chosen position. A tornado had recently swept the forest, and a mass of fallen trees offered a peculiarly advantageous spot for the Indians' favorite mode of fighting.
Such spots were very common in the old Black Forest of the West, and were generally known as "fallen timber" by the Indians and pioneers. In them cavalry was almost useless. Thus the mounted volunteers, the Indians believed, would be debarred from the fight.
At 11 o'clock the advance lines met. At the first burst of sudden flame from the concealed foe, the American vanguard of volunteers were staggered ; the guards on the right fell back through the regulars, who were thrown into confusion. It was fifteen minutes before order was restored, but when joined by the rifle- men and legionary cavalry, a charge with trailed arms was ordered, and the savages were pricked out from their lairs with the point of the bayonets. A heavy firing on the left announced that the battle now was raging there, but this was only for a moment.
The Indians began to break and retreated towards the walls of Fort Miami, as if expecting protection from their English friends. But the gates of the fort had been shut, and the English within seemed to watch the outside proceedings with apparent indiffer- ence. The Indians then poured down the valley toward the present site of Toledo and Lake Erie.
In the action the American force was about 3,000 men, and the Indians were in point of number about the same. Most of the savages were naked and covered with war-paint. They were assisted by white men from Detroit.
General Wayne remained three days on the battlefield, de- stroving Indian villages and cornfields on the banks of the Maumee, but before leaving he paraded his force in front of the British fort that they might see its strength. A correspondence of no very friendly character ensued with the commander of the fort,
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but that was all. and General Wayne proceeded to Fort Defiance. Then he ascended the Maumee to the junction of the St. Mary's and St. Joseph-Harmar's battleground-and built a fort, which he permitted his oldest officer to name "Fort Wayne, in honor of the hero of Stony Point."
The battle of Fallen Timbers was a decisive and important victory. The Indians never forgot the "Black Snake," and their power was broken. The conquest of the Maumee Valley awed the savages, and in the following year the cowed and shattered nations signed the Treaty of Greenville, and "since then the Indian race has never been a National menace."
In 1805, by a treaty with the Indians at Fort Industry, at the mouth of Swan Creek, in the heart of what is now Toledo, the United States acquired all that part of the Connecticut "Western Reserve" which lies west of the Cuyahoga River.
HULL'S EXPEDITION TO DETROIT, 1812.
In June, 1796, the British surrendered Detroit to American troops, and also the forts on the Maumee. When war. with England was a certainty, in 1812, it was deemed wise to reinforce the gar- risons. General Hull, with about 2,000 men, was ordered there.
They organized in the vicinity of Urbana, Ohio, and their route from there was through the tangled wilderness to the "Grand Rapids of the Miami," and they had to cut their way for about one hundred miles through a dense, unbroken forest. It was ex- pected that Hull should reach Detroit before war was actually declared, but from want of energy upon his part the declaration of war found him and his army at the foot of the rapids of the Maumee.
Here Hull committed a fatal mistake. He chartered a small schooner then lying in Maumee Bay, on board of which he put a large portion of the army baggage and provisions, together with his own military chart and all his papers, instructions, plans of the campaign, etc., to be shipped to Detroit. This schooner, while on its way up the Detroit River, was seized by the British naval force lying at anchor opposite Fort Malden.
The loss of this vessel and its cargo was disastrous to the American army, while the possession of the plans of the campaign,
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the baggage and military stores was a most important acquisition to the enemy.
From the mouth of the Maumee to Detroit the army marched through the mud and water of the wretched pioneer roads, in con- stant fear of attack from the hostile Indians and bombardment from the British. A few weeks later Hull surrendered this army and the fort at Detroit to the English. "On an instant the hopes that had sustained the men on the long marches and perilous sallies faded away, and the pent-up feelings of a disappointed army gave way to impotent wrath. Officers in their rage snapped their swords in two across their knees, and strong men by the hundreds broke down and cried like children."
General Hull was tried for both treason and cowardice. He was convicted on the second charge and sentenced to be shot. But in consideration of his services in the Revolution, he was pardoned by the President.
WINCHESTER'S DEFEAT AT FRENCHTOWN.
The Maumee Valley was closely connected with General Win- chester's defeat and the subsequent massacre on the River Raisin. The surrender of General Hull and his army had placed Northern Ohio again at the mercy of the British, but it was determined to wrest from them the advantages they had gained. An army was organized under the command of William Henry Harrison and sent to the head of Lake Erie.
Advancing as far as Upper Sandusky, he detached General Wilkinson in advance to the mouth of the Maumee. On January 21, 1813, Winchester sent forward a foraging party as far as Frenchtown (Monroe), on the River Raisin, and joined them the next day, having a force of about 800 men. He was attacked by the British, 1,000 strong, and Indians, and six pieces of artillery, and compelled to surrender.
"The bloody scene which followed that disastrous morning has given celebrity to the spot far beyond the importance of the event." The massacre that followed the surrender is a foul blot on the military fame of Great Britain. Most of the wounded were col- lected in one or two houses near the battleground. These the savages set on fire, and as their victims attempted to escape from
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the windows, they pushed them back into the flames. The bodies of those slain in battle were left where they fell, to feed the wolves of the neighboring forests.
The story of this brutal massacre excited the whole country, and we read that "the enthusiasm for the campaign was very great at this time, and volunteers came in from all parts of the State."
Of this movement that ended so disastrously, General Harrison, in his official report, said, "The detachment to the River Raisin was made without my knowledge or consent, and in direct opposition to my plans."
SIEGE OF FORT MEIGS. .
After the defeat of Winchester, General Harrison hurried for- ward his army and established himself at the foot of the rapids of the Maumee (Perrysburg), and proceeded to build a fort, which was named Meigs, in honor of the governor of the State.
This fort was nothing more than a line of pickets, with a ditch and high embankment of earth thrown up around the encampment, with round log blockhouses at the salient angles. This afterwards became a very important post and contributed mainly to the defense of an extended line of frontier settlements. Small troops of mounted rangers and scouts on foot, sent out from the fort, scoured the wilderness and kept in abeyance the bands of marauding sav- ages.
In the latter part of April, 1813, General Proctor, at the head of a strong detachment (over 1,200) from the British army, with 2,000 to 3,000 Indians, under the great Tecumseh, laid siege to Fort Meigs. There were sorties and some severe fighting, but the British official report gives the result: "The enemy so completely entrenched and covered himself as to render unavailing every effort of our artillery." So the British boats carried the army back to Malden, on the Detroit River, May 9, 1813.
During this siege another massacre from the disobedience of orders occurred. At midnight on May 4th, Harrison received in- telligence that General Clay, with 1,200 Kentuckians, was just above the rapids and could reach him in two hours. Harrison determined on a grand sally, and directed Clay to land 800 men
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on the right bank, take possession of the British batteries, spike their cannon, immediately return to their boats, and cross over to Fort Meigs. The remainder of Clay's forces were to land on the left bank and fight their way to the fort, while sorties would be made from the garrison to aid these movements.
Col. Dudley's Battle
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RAPID
RIVER
MAUMEE
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Upper Sandusky Road.
Lower Sandusky R
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General Clay gave the command of the men who were to operate on the right bank to Colonel Dudley, who completely suc- ceeded in driving the British from their batteries, but instead of immediately crossing to the fort, his men commenced a pursuit of the Indians, were ambuscaded and intercepted when they at- tempted to return to the river. They were compelled to surrender, and the Indians began the work of massacre. Of 800 men, only 150 escaped; the rest were slain or made prisoners.
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