USA > Ohio > Erie County > History of the Fire lands, comprising Huron and Erie Counties, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of the prominent men and pioneers > Part 9
USA > Ohio > Huron County > History of the Fire lands, comprising Huron and Erie Counties, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of the prominent men and pioneers > Part 9
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The tragedy which ended the life of each of these hunter and warrior chiefs, illustrates the sanguinary character of their race. Seneca John was accused of witchcraft, and having been condemned by his own tribe, was unhesitatingly slain,-his own brother be- ing the executioner. Ogontz, years before his death, had killed, in self defense, a rival chief, and had adopted the latter's son, who, even in his boyhood, cherished a desire to avenge his father's death. The boy grew up, and, when the opportunity offered, took the life of the brave, kind Ogontz, who had been a second father to him, better than the first.
These two men, John and Ogontz, the Seneca and the Ottawa, the Iroquois and the Algonquin, are the type of the aboriginal native of America, uncor- rupted by association with the white men. They lived and died, the one an ignorant savage, the other an educated gentleman, but both, by nature, proud, noble and manly, the proof that the red man was not always in his present state of miserable degradation.
Any view of Indian life and character is incom- plete which fails to take in their surroundings. Be- fore we can have vividly before us the life of the red man of the Fire-lands, we must reconstruct the Fire- lands themselves as they were a century ago. We must clear away all the marks of civilization; we must rear again the mighty woods, and let the prairie grasses grow in the rankness and luxuriance of nature; we must rescue from the overflowing waves of the destroying lake, the fertile lands on which they have encroached, and restore the marsh land along the rivers to the tillable condition of the past; we must sweep all the mill-dams from the streams, and let the lake muscalonge and pickerel, the lawful prey of the Indian, ascend to the farthest
limits of Huron county; we must re-people the forests with screaming panthers, bears and packs of howling wolves; deer must abound and rattlesnakes must crawl in the damp and gloomy woods.
Amid such surroundings as these the Indian war- rior reared his family. His daily work was hunting and trapping game, when he was not on the war trail, seeking the scalps of his enemies. According to Seneca John, the hunting grounds were, by agree- ment, allotted among the tribes, and, doubtless, en- croachments on one another's territory, and disputes as to boundaries, were the fruitful causes of quarrels and bloodshed.
In the autumn of every year the prairies were burned over, that the abundant deer might be more easily tracked and hunted over the bare and black- ened soil.
While the young men were engaged in such pur- suits, the other members of the tribes remained at. home. The old men, doubtless, smoked and dozed away the hours; or, not unlike our pioneers, lived over their youth in tales of daring deeds when their eyes were keen and their arms strong. The half- naked children played out of doors by themselves, or importuned their grandfathers to make them bows and arrows, or, may be, ever insatiable, begged to be told innumerable stories, entirely after the manner of juvenile palefaces, for children are children the world over.
The squaws, meanwhile, tied up their little pap- pooses in bark cradles, which they hung from the limbs of trees, to be rocked by the passing wind-a practice said to be the origin of our lullaby song, "Rockaby, baby, on the tree top"-and, then, meekly recognizing the existence of a "woman's sphere " and their wifely duties to their lordly hus- bands, which, as in civilized society, had been by the latter circumscribed and defined for them, they duti- fully brought the water, gathered the firewood and hoed the corn, as it was the custom for even the strongest-minded squaws to do; and, while they toiled with sweating faces and aching backs, they longed for the going down of the hot sun and the sight of their returning braves, with venison-laden ponies or belts full of reeking scalps.
But shall we infer from this slavery, into which the fashion of the race forced women, that there was no affection between husband and wife? At first thought, one might almost so believe, but surely there is under all the artificial manners and customs of the world a substratum of human nature which never varies. Let it not be doubted, then, that the Indian husband and wife often loved one another `with an affection not different from that of the palest-faced Caucasians.
The Moravian missionary, Heckewelder, tells a touching story illustrative of such tenderness on the part of an Indian husband toward his wife. It was in a time of famine, and a sick woman expressed a longing for some Indian corn. There was none in
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HISTORY OF HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES, OHIO.
the region where they lived, but a trader had a small quantity at Lower Sandusky, a hundred miles away. Thither the woman's husband rode, and, having traded his horse for a small quantity of the precious grain, he returned on foot along the weary trail, car- rying his precious purchase with him, that he might gladden the heart of his loved wife.
The same human nature sometimes shone out in the love of parents for their children. The red war- rior was, on the surface, a stern and taciturn man, and perhaps the little ones oftener looked up to him with fear and awe than with any other emotion, but there must have been something besides sternness in the heart of that Wyandot of Upper Sandusky, who, while on a hunting excursion east of Milan, lost a child by death, and carried the body home in his arms, that the little one might sleep in the grave of its mother. By day and by night he carried his bur- den and his sorrow, alone in the lonely woods, until he reached his dreary home. He was an Indian, and would shed no tears; but every white father, who has lost the first-born son of his pride and affection, can understand the bitterness of the red man's sorrow.
It is a mystery, how, in this northern climate, the Indians obtained the means of living through the winter. Even those tribes who did not despise agri- culture tilled the soil in a superficial way, and often had short crops. In such a season, their chief de- pendence was on fish and game, and even these must at times have failed them. It is easy to understand that such famines as that which drove the Wyandots south of the lake, according to their tradition, were not an unfrequent occurrence. Pestilence, too, occa- sionally swept the country, destroying whole tribes. Ogontz has been spoken of as an Ottawa, but, in reality, according to his own statement, he was an adopted son of that tribe-his own parents having died in such a pestilence while he was a child. Sam- oset, the Wampanoag, told to the New England colo- nists the story of a great plague, which, a few years before, had almost denuded the country of its inhab- itants, and had left many tribes in a feeble and deso- late condition.
The tongues and dialects spoken by the aboriginal inhabitants of our country have been a fruitful field for philologists. As the Algonquin tribes inhabited that part of the Atlantic coast first settled by the English, their language gave to the colonists several words which have almost become a part of our Eng- lish vocabulary. They are such words as "wigwam," "squaw," "wampum," "tomahawk," "sachem," etc. The words in the Indian vocabularies were few, and it became often necessary for them to express their ideas circuitously, by metaphors and other figures, and by such combinations of words, as printed in English books, have given many people the impres- sion that the aboriginal languages were full of un- pronouncable, polysyllabic words.
Many of the Indian proper names were combina- tions of expressive words descriptive of the localities
named. Thus the name Sandusky is a compound and corrupted word, meaning, originally, "clear water," or, more literally " water not concealing the ground," or, as another has translated it, " water in pools." Norwalk, which comes from the Connecticut town of that name, is another compound word, signifying "middle-land," or, like the Greek Meso- potamia, " between the rivers." Erie signifies "wild cat," an appropriate title for one of the fiercest of the native tribes.
Many English books have been translated into these dialects and languages; grammars and dictionaries have been written of the tongues of several of the tribes, and comparative philologists have sought, by means of verbal affinities, to trace the sources and beginnings of the American races.
There is no subject connected with aboriginal America having more of the interest of unsolved mystery than this. As with most mysteries, if we could lift the curtain which hides from us the genesis of the people who inhabited the continent before us, the subject would lose much of its fascination.
We have but glanced at the Fire-lands of pre- historie times. A hundred things might still be said, and yet the darkness which hides from our con- ception the state of a country whose people wrote no history, would not be changed to twilight.
CHAPTER IX. THE MORAVIAN MISSIONS.
THE seet known as Moravians originated in Bohe- mia, and though always insignificant in point of num- bers, and none of them remarkable for their wealth, or position, or learning, they have never been lacking in zeal or enthusiasm in extending their Master's king- dom. Indeed, taking into account the fewness of their numbers, it may be confidently asserted that no other denomination of christians has done so much for the missionary cause. Never excelling in ability or skill in elucidating abstruse and difficult problems of belief, they have sought not to make proselytes among those already well grounded in the cardinal doctrines of christian faith, but to teach the elementary gospel religion to those races and tribes who had not yet been converted to christianity.
To the prosecution of this work they have freely devoted their lives and fortunes, and no country has been too remote, no shore too forbidding or inhospita- ble to prevent their planting the banner of the cross, and seeking to bring under its folds the most savage, barbarous and degraded of mankind.
In 1432, while their number was less than four hun- dred, they began their missionary work, the first station established being at St. Thomas, in the West Indies. In 1440, they established a mission among the Indians at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania ; but as the Indians were
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HISTORY OF HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES, OHIO.
being gradually driven westward, a permanent loca- tion was impossible. The efforts of the missionaries never were successful in civilizing the Indians to the degree that they could remain in contact with the whites, without being corrupted and degraded. To have any success they must keep in advance of the wave of emigration. In 1468 a new location was sought near Oil City, Pennsylvania, and in 1220 the congregation removed to the Beaver river. After remaining here for a year or more, they turned their steps westward to the valley of the Tusearawas, near New Philadelphia, Ohio.
Here, in this pleasant and fertile valley, they thought themselves so far in the wilderness that they might forever remain undisturbed. They built cab- ins, cleared away the forests, tilled the soil, and wor- shiped God in peace and happiness. Their numbers increased by conversions from the Indians until the settlement contained three villages named Schoen- brunn, Gnadenhutten and Salem. But though exer- eising only the arts of peace, keeping aloof from war and strife, and patiently submitting to wrong withont seeking to bestow punishment or gratify revenge, they could not escape persecution and martyrdom.
They were distrusted by both the British and the Americans. The former took steps to break up their mission and bring the inhabitants to Detroit as pris- oners. It was a sad blow to the peaceful Christians to be forced to leave their homes and nngathered crops, and, in a long journey through a pathless wil- derness, suffer indignity, eruelty and untold hard- ships. The following spring (1:82) a portion of them obtained permission to return to harvest their corn. Arriving there, a terrible fate soon befell them. A detachment of Americans came among them, and, seizing a favorable opportunity, rushed upon the defenceless Indians and slaughtered them in cold blood. The details of the massacre are sickening and horrible-it being one of the most unprovoked, cruel and bloody deeds in the annals of border warfare.
Those that had remained at Detroit sought a home in Canada, but, after staying a few years among the Chippewas, their hearts yearned for their old home on the Tuscarawas, and, in 1286, they started on their return.
Reaching a point on the Cuyahoga. about ten miles from Cleveland (in Independence township), they re- ceived intelligence that made them shrink from going further. After remaining here for about a year, they removed westward, and, in 1282, made a settlement on the Fire-lands on the Huron river, about two miles north of Milan, in Erie county. But the country was still the scene of war and bloodshed, and, after re- maining five or six years, they abandoned their settle- ment, and again sought refuge in Canada, where they founded a settlement on the river Thames.
In 1992, congress, mindful of their past wrongs. made grants to them of their old lands on the Tus- carawas; a portion of them returned, and the mission- aries continned their labors. But the contact of the
whites interfered with their success, and some of them returned to Canada, and others, among them Charles Dencke, came to the Huron river and re-established the mission. This was in 1804, and they remained about five years, until the Fire-lands, having been sur- veyed, the white settler began to claim the lands pur- chased from the Indians by the treaty of Fort Industry, and they, the missionaries and their Indian adherents, returned to Canada.
The mission village was called Pequotting, or Pay- nothing, and consisted of a chapel, mission house, and a score or more of cabins, some of which were after- ward used by the white settlers. Here, as elsewhere, the missionaries taught the Indians not only religion but the rudiments of education, and, to a certain ex- tent, were successful in inducing them to get their food by cultivating the soil instead of by the chase, to live in eabins, and to leave off their paint and feathers and clothe themselves in more civilized garb.
Their missionary, Charles Frederick Deneke, was born in Iceland, his father being a missionary to that country. Tradition states that he had a library which filled a space of not less than ten feet in length by six feet in height, and occupying nearly one side of his log-cabin at Peqnotting. Surely, the man who would take the pains to transport these books from place to place under so many difficulties, could not have been an ignorant or uncultivated man.
It is stated that David Zeisberger was here during their first stay. For an account of this celebrated missionary, and his co-laborers, Heckewelder, Post and others, it is only necessary to refer the reader to any anthentic history of Ohio. They were not the heroes of battles, nor winners of renown in the noisy strife of civic triumph. They cared not for the ap- planse of men, but in a humble way, in an obscure field, in years of lonely wandering, with a strong faith that sustained them in many a trying hour, they sought out the rnde savage of the forest, and did what they could to civilize and elevate him. Is it not best that history spares them a page, and . fame keep their names alive ?
CHAPTER X. EARLY SETTLEMENT.
THE survey of the Fire-lands having been completed in 1808, and the Indian title having been extinguished, many people in the old Connecticut began to think of emigrating to the new. The names of the earlier set- tlers, and the dates of their arrival, are given with more or less fullness in the histories of the different townships. In some instances, it is difficult to obtain accurate information, not only beeause of the vague- ness of memory, and the imperfections of records, but because it is somewhat difficult at this period to dis- tingnish between the bona-fide settler and the mere squatter. This latter class were usually first upon the
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HISTORY OF HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES, OHIO.
ground. It was rarely difficult to secure their removal when desired. Civilized society and regular labor were an aversion to them. They loved the excitement of the chase and the independence of forest life, and the advent of cultivated fields was in general the signal for their disappearance. Here and there one remained, living in a hand-to-mouth way, doing odd jobs of chop- ping. planting or husking for himself or others, but always preferring to hunt or fish, and in habits, tastes and character being an intermediate link between the Indian and the white man. Doubtless some of this elass are often put down as regular settlers, though the classification of rights was not made until November 9, 1808.
The following carefully prepared table shows the date of settlement of the different townships:
HURON COUNTY. .
Norwalk
1810
Fairfield .1816
Lyme
1811
Norwich.
1816
New Haven
1811
Wakeman.
1816
Townsend
1811
Clarksfield.
1817
Ridgefield.
1812
Greenwich
1817
Sherman.
1812
Hartland
1817
Bronson.
1814
Richmond
1825
New London
1×15
Ripley
1825
Peru
1815
ERIE COUNTY.
Huron
1808
Milan . 1810
Vermillion.
1808
Margaretta.
1810
Danbury (Ottawa County)
1809
Oxford.
1810
Portland
1809
Florence.
1811
Groton.
1809
Birmingham.
1816
Berlin. .
1810
Ruggles (Ashland County). .. . 1823
It will be seen that the first settlements were made in Erie county. Indeed, some of these townships were settled and cleared up while much of the south part of Huron county was yet an almost unbroken wilder- ness. The number of inhabitants in Milan township, at the outbreak of the war of 1812, is stated by Mr. Fowler to have been two hundred and twenty-five.
It will already have been noticed that a large ma- jority of the settlers of the Fire-lands, like those of other parts of the Western Reserve, were of Connecti- cut birth. This gave for many years a fixed and homogeneous character to the population, and, though the old stock has given way to younger generations, the old traits of character remain to a great extent unchanged.
Here, then, in 1809, or twenty-eight years after the burning of New London, and thirty-three years after the incursion to Danbury, the sufferers conld begin to see the end, and to avail themselves to some extent of the long-songht relief. But the proportion of the origi- nal losers and sufferers, finally benefited, was small. Death had thinned their ranks, another generation was taking their place, and, of those still living, many of them with hearts siekened by long-deferred hope, and despairing of ever receiving anything, or, compelled by the stress of poverty, had sold their rights for a pit- tance. Others, vainly striving to raise the money to pay the taxes levied to meet the expenses of purchasing the land of the Indians and surveying it, were unable to do so, and their rights sold. At best, of those who were able to retain their interests, but few would care to remove to a distant wilderness, and so, in one way
and another, much of the smaller interests were ab- sorbed by the larger, and if not, most of the Fire-lands passed into the hands of comparatively .a few indi- viduals, who had the means to profit by the necessities of those less favored by fortune. Indeed, there is but little doubt but that, previous to the passage of the grant, many of the rights had been bought np on speculation for trifling sums. It is certain that up to that time immigrants were rapidly arriving. The war of 1812 checked for a temporary period the influx of settlers. In fact, many of them abandoned their im- provements and fled to a place of safety, some of them never returning.
It would be a difficult task to pieture, to the mind of the reader living in an age of railroads and tele- graphs, the difficulties and hardships attending a jour- ney from Connecticut to Ohio in the early part of the present century. A distance that is now traversed in twenty-four hours, required, then, a journey of weary weeks and months. There was no means of instanta- neous communication; even the turnpike and stage coach were thought of only as among the possibilities of the future. Indeed, at this present time, one can traverse the globe, not only with greater comfort and safety, but consume but a little more time than was then necessary to travel from Connectient to the Fire- lands. The boat poled up the Mohawk; the skiff rowed along the shores of Lake Erie, scarce daring to venture on its treacherous waters; the wagon drawn by the slow plodding oxen through pathless forests, and fording, as best they could, the bridgeless streams,- these were the means of communication between the east and the west in those days. Nor do they, upon their arrival, find anything prepared for their comfort or their safety. Their lot is cast in the wilderness, and toil, danger and privation must be their portion for many years to come. The wild beast is yet in the for- est, and the Indian still lingers on his old hunting ground, generally peaceable, indeed, but at times spreading consternation along the border, and at best an object of suspicion and distrust. Many a night is passed in terror, many a day in weary suspense. Stout hearts grow weak, and not a few seek safety in removal or flight. No wonder, then, that among the pioneers of the Fire-lands were found so many men of strong frames, robust health and indomitable will. The fittest only eould stand the journey and the subsequent life-the weak and puny must remain behind.
The damp woods and marshes were full of malari- ons poisons, and the strongest were not proof against insidious fevers which sapped their strength and laid them low on beds of pain and death.
Did they never repine, and mourn for their old homes and associations so far away, and curse the evil hour they were induced to leave them? It would be strange if there were not those among them that did so. But there was little time for the settler to spend in vain regrets. Ile must work or starve. His long journey from the east accomplished, he found himself too late to raise any crops the first year. For his food
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HISTORY OF HURON AND ERIE COUNTIES, OHIO.
he must depend on what he had brought with him, what he could purchase of his neighbors, and last, but by no means least, what he could kill with his rifle. He must build a cabin for the shelter of himself and his family, inelosures to protect his stock from the wolf and the bear; then, for years, with an experience only varied by a little planting and caring for crops, an occasional trip to the distant store or mill, year in and year out, he must labor with his axe, felling the trees which covered the land. one by one ; splitting some into rails to fence his erops, but generally rolling them together and burning. It is worth while to describe his house-building, farming operations and mode of life more in detail.
CHAPTER XI. PIONEER TIMES.
A DESCRIPTION of a pioneer log-cabin and of the pioneer home-life, may not be without its interest to the reader of the present day.
The location of the cabin decided upon, the space cleared away, and suitable timber having been selected, felled, partially hewn, and eut into proper lengths, it remained to "raise " the cabin. Word having been given out, the settlers for miles around gathered to their new neighbor's elearing, glad to lend a helping hand. A man of experience in such matters was selected as captain or leader: other expert men, axe in hand, were posted at the corners to eut saddles or notelies in the logs that they might- lie more firmly and closer together. the ends of the logs often over- lapping and projecting for a foot or more. The logs having been previously drawn to a convenient nearness by oxen, to the major part of the company was assigned the duty of conveying the logs to the intended strue- ture ; sometimes the combined strength of the party sufficed to lift them up and carry them, but oftener skids and handspikes were called into use; in either ease the work was done with a will scarce needing the energetie tones and sharp commands constantly used by the leader. Accidents were not uncommon; severe strains often resulted from one man trying to out-do another, while sometimes a log slipped or fell, striking a man down in its descent, and breaking his leg or arm. The log-carriers were sometimes divided into squads, or parties, each having a particular end to keep up, and the resulting rivalry made the task a short one, the building being rarely over a single story in height. The cabin fairly raised, and the roof poles put in position, the remaining work of finishing the cabin could be performed more leisurely without the help of so many hands. The whisky to which they had re- sorted for refreshment during their labors was drank more freely than ever, and its stimulating effect began to be visible on many of the company. Quiet men grew loud and boisterous; modest men boastful and ar- rogant : peaceful, orderly men became quarrelsome
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