History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 17

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co.
Number of Pages: 814

USA > Ohio > History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I > Part 17

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HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

proprietors then there showing the necessity of the expedition, and that the settlers from other paris of Kentucky were desirous of having the expedition carried into effect." Another sur- vivor testified in 1804: "The men from the Falls were directed to meet us at the mouth of Licking with boats to enable us to cross." They took two batteaux, which were of material assist- ance to the little army in the crossing.

The unfortunate history of this expedition is well known. It was directed particularly against the Indian town of Old Chillicothe, near the present site ot Xenia-the same visited by Cap- tain Bullitt some years before, and the place where Daniel Boone was held a prisoner and whence he escaped in June, 1778. The men were collected in May, crossed the Ohio at the mouth of the Licking, moved in single file along the narrow Indian trail through the dense woods of the plain and up the rich valley now occupied by the great city of Cincinnati and its suburbs, and soon neared the savage stronghold. Says Mr. McClung in his Outline History:

The march was well conducted, the plan of attack well concerted, and the division led by Logan performed its part well. Yet the whole failed byreason of a want of promptness and concert in taking advantage of the surprise, or by misun- derstanding orders. Logan's division was compelled to make a disorderly retreat to the main column, and the rout quickly became general. All would have been lost but for the daring bravery of some of the subordinate officers, who charged the enemy on horseback and covered the retreat ; but the failure was as complete as it was unexpected.

There were some redeeming features, how- ever, to offset the comparative failure. Two noted chiefs of the enemy, Blackfeet and Red Hawk, were killed, one hundred and sixty-three horses and much other spoil were seized, and the Indian town was destroyed.

CAPTAIN HARROD'S COMPANY.

It is probable that most of the men from the fortified stations at and near the Falls of the Ohio, who are known to have been members of Captain Harrod's company the next year, were out in Colonel Bowman's expedition. Lieuten- ant James Patten was certainly with it, as he is mentioned by name and title in the depositions of 1804. The following is the roster of the company, numbering ninety-six (the Falls com- pany with Bowman counted about sixty), as it stood in 1780, and as given in the first volume of Collins's History. Some of the names are

doubtless wrongly spelt, as the rolls were fre- quently made up by officers or clerks who, though wonderfully learned in forest-craft and Indian fighting, were quite independent of for- mulas ın orthography, and spelt more by sound than by the prescriptions of dictionaries and spelling-books:

COMMISSIONED OFFICERS.

Captain William Harrod. Lieutenant James Patton.

Ensign Ed. Bulger.

PRIVATES,

Peter Balance, Alexander Barr, James Brand. John Buck- ras, A. Cameron, Amos Carpenter, Solomon Carpenter, Benjamin Carter, Thomas Carter, Reuben Case, Thomas Cochran, John Conway, John Corbley, John Crable, Robert Dickey, Daniel Driskill, Isaac Dye, John Eastwood, Samuel Forrester, Joseph Frakes; Samuel Frazee, John Galloway, William Galloway, James Garrison, Joseph Goins, Isaac Goodwin, Samuel Goodwin, James Guthrie, Daniel Hall, William Hall, John Hatt, Evan Henton, Thomas Henton, William Hickman, A. Hill, Andrew Hill, Samuel Hinck, Frederick Honaker, Joseph Hughes, Rowland Hughes, Michael Humble, John Hunt, Abram James, John Kenney, Valentine Kinder, Moses Kuykendall, John Lewis, John Lincant, Samuel Lyon, Patrick McGee, Samuel Major, Amos Mann, Edward Murdoch, John Murdoch, Richard Morris, William Morris, William Oldham, John Paul, George Phelps, Joseph Phelps, Samuel Pottinger, F. Potts, Reuben Preble, Urban Ranner, Benjamin Rice, Reed Rob- bins, Thomas Settle, William Smiley, Jacob Speck, John Stapleton, James Stewart, James Stewart, Daniel Stull, Miner Sturgis, Peter Sturgis, James Sullivan, William Swan, Joseph Swearingen, Samuel Swearingen, Van Swearingen, Robert Thorn, John Tomton, Beverly Trent, Thomas Trib- ble. Robert Tyler, Abraham Vanmetre, Michael Valleto, Joseph Wartord, James Welch, Abram Whitaker, Aquilla Whitaker, Jacob Wickersham, Ed. Wilson.

CLARK'S LATER EXPEDITIONS.

In July of this year (1780), Colonel Clark ordered out his battalion of State troops from the fort and stations about Louisville, to which were joined the forces from other parts of Ken- tucky, altogether numbering one thousand men, for another invasion of the Indian country. Colonels Benjamin Logan and William Linn, respectively, were at the head of the regiments formed. They rendezvoused at the usual place, at the mouth of the Licking, crossed the Ohio and pushed into the interior, where Clark de- feated the natives in a pitched battle, destroyed the Indian towns and devastated the corn-fields at Piqua and Old Chillicothe, and captured the English trading-post at Loramie's store, far up the Miami country, near the present western boundary of Ohio. This expedition is notable, in good part, for having built a blockhouse dur-

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

ing the movement northward,, upon a spot op- posite the mouth of the Licking, the first house built by civilized hands (unless by the Mound Builders) upon the subsequent site of Cincinnati. The invasion was undertaken to retaliate for captures made and atrocities com- mitted by an expedition under the English Colonel Byrd, who came down from Detroit the previous June with a mixed force of Canadians and Indians, went up the Licking and reduced Riddell's and Martin's stations, near that river.

During the same summer-probably earlier than the Miami expedition-Colonel Clark was instructed to execute a plan which had been con- templated more than two years before by Patrick Henry, while Governor of Virginia, and had been embodied in orders by his successor, Thomas Jefferson, "to establish a post near the mouth of the Ohio, with cannon to fortify it." Clark took about two hundred of his troops from the Falls, went down the Ohio to its mouth, and thence about five miles down the Mississippi to a place at the mouth of Mayfield creek, called the Iron Banks, where he erected Fort Jefferson, named from the Governor and future President, with several blockhouses attached-a strong and useful work. One object of establishing the post here was to signify the title of the United States to all the territory in this direction to the Mississippi. The Chickasaw Indians, however, claimed this region as their hunting-ground; and, as their consent to the erection of the fort had not been obtained, they soon began marand- ing and murdering about it, and finally, in 1781, besieged it for several days. The garrison and the settlers crowded within the work were reduced to great distress, but were finally relieved by the arrival of Clark from Kaskaskia, with pro- visions and reinforcements. The difficulty of supplying the fort led to its abandonment not long after. During the late War of the Rebel- lion, a singularly long iron cannon, of six-pound calibre, buried under the old fort, was partly ex- posed by the wash of the river and the rest dug out by the owner of the spot, from whom it was taken by the Federal soldiers to Cairo. The site is now in Ballard county, one of the latest formed in the State, and named from Captain Bland Ballard, the famous pioneer and border warrior of the Louisville region.

In November, 1782, in punishment for the ter

rible defeat inflicted upon the Kentuckians, in- cluding Boone, Kenton, Todd, Trigg, and other famous pioneers, at the battle of Lower Blue Licks, in August, Clark (now brigadier-general) made his final expedition against the Indian towns of the upper Miami county. He called out the Kentucky militia, of which one division, under Colonel John Floyd, assembled at the Falls. The other, commanded by Colonel Ben- jamin Logan, got together at Bryan's Station ; and then all, to the number of 1,050 men, ren- dezvoused at the mouth of the Licking. They made a rapid march some one hundred and thirty miles northward, completely surprising the enemy, destroying the principal town of the Shawnees, many villages and cornfields, and the trading-post at Loramie's, which was thoroughly plundered, and the contents distributed among the soldiers of the expedition. The Indians thenceforth ceased to invade Kentucky and har- ass the settlements from this quarter. Accord- ing to some statements, two block-houses were built upon the site of Cincinnati by men of this expedition, near one of which was buried Captain McCracken, a brave soldier who was wounded by the Indians in a skirmish, and died as he was being borne back in a rude litter over one of the neighboring hills.

Clark's last expedition against the red men was his only unsuccessful one. It was under- taken in September, 1786, to check the persistent depredations and outrages of the Wabash In- dians. Mr. McClung gives the following excel- lent summary of the unhappy event and its re- sults. According to this writer, the expedi- tion was undertaken in response to the demands of the people, but in violation of solemn treaties made by Congress, and the absence of any legal power or instructions from higher authority to undertake it. If so, the venture met with merited failure.

A thousand volunteers under General Clark rendezvoused . at Louisville, with the determination thoroughly to chastise the tribes upon the Wabash. Provisions and ammunition were furnished by individual contribution, and were placed on board of nine keel-boats, which were ordered to proceed to Vincennes by water, while the volunteers should march to the same point by land.

The flotilla, laden with provisions and munitions of war, encountered obstacles in the navigation of the Wabash which had not been foreseen, and was delayed beyond the time which had been calculated. [Large part of the supplies of food was thus spoiled. ] The detachment moving by land reached the point of rendezvous first, and awaited for fifteen

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

days the arrival of the keel-boats. This long interval of in- action gave time for the unhealthy humors of the volunteers to ferment, and proved fatal to the success of the expedi- tion. The habits of General Clark had also become intem- perate, and he no longer possessed the undivided confidence of his men. A detachment of three hundred volunteers · broke off from the main body, and took up the line of march for their homes. Clark remonstrated, entreated, even shed tears of grief and mortification ; but all in vain. The result was a total disorganization of the foree, and a return to Kentucky, to the bitter mortifieation of the commander in chief, whose brilliant reputation for the time suffered a total eclipse,

This expedition led to other ill consequences. The con- vention which should have assembled in September, was un- able to muster a quotum, the majority of its members having marched under Clark upon the ill-fated expedition. A num- ber of the delegates assembled at Danville at the appointed time, and adjourned from day to day until January, when a quorum at length was present, and an organization effected. In the meantime, however, the minority of the convention, who had adjourned from day to day, had prepared a me- morial to the Legislature of Virginia, informing them of the circumstances which had prevented the meeting of the con- vention, and suggesting an alteration of some of the clauses of the act, which gave dissatisfaction to their constituents, and recommending an extension of the time within which the consent of Congress was required. This produced a total revision of the aet by the Virginia Legislature, whereby an- other convention was required to be elected in August of 1787, to meet at Danville in September of the same year, and again take into consideration the great question, already decided by four successive conventions, and requiring a ma- jority of two-thirds to deeide in favor of separation, before the same should be effected. The time when the laws of Virginia were to cease was fixed on the Ist day of January, 1789, instead of September, 1787, as was ordered in the first aet ; and the 4th of July, 1788, was fixed upon as the period, before Congress should express its eonsent to the admission of Kentucky iuto the Union.

General Clark soon afterwards sent Colonel Logan, then in camp on Silver creek, on the In- diana side, on a recruiting excursion into Ken- tucky, with instructions to make a raid upon the Ohio Shawnees. Logan raised about five hun- dred men, with which he crossed the Ohio at Limestone (now Maysville), marched to the headwaters of the Mad river, killed the principal chief and about twenty warriors of the tribe, cap- tured seventy or eighty Indians, destroyed several towns and a great amount of standing corn, and marched triumphantly back to Kentucky.

THE "BOARD OF WAR."

In January, 1791, the continuing border war- fare made it advisable, on the part of the Gen- eral Government, in response to the petition of the people that they be allowed to fight the In- dians at discretion and in their own way, to cre- ate a sort of subordinate War Department in Ken-

tucky, which was accordingly done. A "board of war" for the District of Kentucky was ap- pointed, consisting of Brigadier-General Charles Scott, Isaac Shelby, Colonel Benjamin Logan, John Brown, and Harry Innes. To this board was committed discretionary power to provide for the defense of the settlers and the prosecution of border wars. They were authorized, whenever they thought the measure demanded by the ex- igencies of the situation, to call the local militia into the service of the United States, to serve with the regular forces. As will be seen by the names, Jefferson county, which had by this time been formed, had her honorable share in the composition of the board.

GENERAL SCOTT'S EXPEDITION.

Soon after the appointment of this board, on the 9th of March, 1791, President Washington issued an order authorizing it "to call into the service a corps of volunteers for the District of Kentucky, to march on an expedition against the Indians northwest of the Ohio, and to be commanded by Brigadier-General C. Scott," who was himself, it will be remembered, the head of the board. Eight hundred mounted men, of which Jefferson county furnished its full con- tingent, were collected at the mouth of the Ken- tucky, where the Ohio was crossed, and a march begun upon the Indian towns on the Wabash, not far from the present location of Lafayette, Indiana. Here the chief town of the natives, Ouiatenon, a village of about seventy huts, was destroyed, with other clusters of wretched homes. The Indians were encountered several times dur- ing the campaign, but were invariably defeated, with loss of about fifty killed; and a large num- ber of them were taken prisoners.

The muster-roll of one of the companies "mustered in at the Rapids of the Ohio, June 15, 1791, by Captain B. Smith, First United States regiment," has been preserved and is printed by Mr. Collins in his second volume. It is that of the company of mounted Kentucky volunteers, recruited by Captain James Brown for the expedition against the Wea Indians, com- manded by Brigadier-General Charles Scott. As will be seen by the roll, the command consisted of one captain, one lieutenant, one ensign, four sergeants, and seventy-one privates present and one absent . (James Craig, who was "lost in the

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

woods" while traveling from the interior to Louisville).

ROLL OF CAPTAIN BROWN'S COMPANY. COMMISSIONED OFFICERS.

Captain James Brown. Lientenant William McConnell. Ensign Joshua Barbee.

NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS.

First Sergeant Joseph Mosby. Second Sergeant Adam Hanna. Third Sergeant Samuel Mellvain. Fourth Sergeant William Kincaid.

PRIVATES.

Aaron Adams, William Baker, Edward Bartlett, Alexander Black, John Brown, Samuel Buckner, Richard Burk, John Caldwell, Phillips Caldwell, Peter Carr, John Caswell, Wil- liam Clark, Robert Conn, James Craig, Robert Curry, Wil- liam Davidson, Wilham Dougherty, Hugh Drennon, Nat. Dryden, Alexander Dunlap, James Dunlap, Robert Elliston, Matthew English, John Ferrell, Benjamin Fisher, Morgan Forbes, James Forgus, John Fowler, Alexander Gilmore, Job Glover, John Hadden, Robert Hall, Thomas Hanna, Wil- liam Hanna, Randolph Harris, John Henderson, Andrew Hodge, David Humphreys, David Humphries, Robert Irvin, Samuel Jackson, Gabriel Jones, David Knox, James Knox, Nicholas Leigh, Richard Lewis, George Loar, Abraham Mc- Clellan, Joseph McDowell, John McIlvaine, Moses McIl- vaine, James Nourse, Robert Patterson, John Peoples, Arthur Points, Francis Points, Percy Pope, Samnel Porter, Benjamin Price, William Reading, William Rogers, George Sia, Wil- liam Smith, John Speed, John Stephenson, Joseph Stephen- son, Robert Stephenson, Samuel Stephenson, John Strick- land, Edmund Taylor, Stephen Trigg, Joshua Whittington.

ANOTHER SCOTT EXPEDITION.

More than two years afterwards, in October, 1793, the same General Scott led a reinforce- ment of one thousand Kentucky cavalry across the Ohio and up the Miami country, to reinforce the army of General Wayne, then in the vicinity of Fort Jefferson, about eighty miles north of Cincinnati. On the 24th of that month he re- ported his fine command to "Mad Anthony;" but they had to be sent home, as the season was late, supplies were too scarce to subsist them, and no immediate attack upon the Indians was contemplated. A larger number of Kentuckians, however, under the same general, joined Wayne in July of the next year, and shared in the glori- ous victory of the Battle of the Fallen Timbers.

WILKINSON'S EXPEDITION.

In Scott's expedition of May, 1791, the sec- ond in command was Colonel James Wilkinson, who afterwards, as General Wilkinson, was com- mander in chief of the Western forces, with his headquarters at Fort Washington, Cincinnati. He was also implicated in the Franco-Spanish in-

trigues of 1793-95, instigated in Kentucky by the French Minister, Genet, with a view to wrest- ing Louisiana by force from the domination of the Spanish. August 1, 1791, the Kentucky Board of War dispatched Colonel Wilkinson by way of Fort Washington, with five hundred and twenty-three Kentuckians, to burn the Indian towns and destroy the corn-fields near the junc- tion of the Wabash and Eel rivers. They make their march and effect their destruction, with little loss of human life on either side. Louis- ville is the point where the march ends and the expedition disbands. August 2Ist, Wilkinson reaches this place, delivers his captives to the commanding officer, and dismisses his force. The general resided for a time here and in other parts of Kentucky.

HOPKINS'S EXPEDITION.

A larger force than any that had hitherto col- lected at the Falls for operations against the Indians, gathered here in October, 1812, under General Samuel Hopkins. The war with Great Britain had opened in June; Hull had surrend- ered his army at Detroit ; the invasion of Canada from the Niagara had failed, and the Indians, in great number and with relentless atrocity, were harassing the border settlements. One thousand five hundred volunteers were called for by Isaac Shelby, first Governor of the State, now again in the executive chair, after the lapse of twenty years since he first took the oath of office. More than two thousand responded to the call, and were all received into the temporary service. They marched gaily away into the Indian coun- try; but when their supplies began to give out, and marches in deep swamps and across path- less prairies wearied the flesh, their martial ardor cooled. Suddenly, in the same independent spirit which had led to the abandonment of the gallant Clark sixteen years before, they rise in revolt, refuse [to obey orders or remain longer, and start in straggling parties upon the return march. The expedition failed without having met the enemy or smelt a grain of hostile pow- der. It was the last of the Kentucky expedi. tions against the savages.

THE WAR OF 1812-15.

Little is known at this day, beyond what we have related, of the effects in this region of the last war with Great Britain. It is matter of his-

HISTORY OF THE OHIO FALLS COUNTIES.

tory that the earliest volunteers from Kentucky, under Colonels Allen Lewis and Scott, left their homes, in general, on the 12th of August, 1812, rendezvoused at Georgetown, marched thence along the Dry ridge to the Ohio, opposite Cincin- nati, where they remained a few days, and then moved northward to Piqua, and on to the relief of Fort Wayne, meeting as they went the news of the disgraceful surrender of Hall at Detroit. We have no information as to the share Jefferson county had, if any, in this force at the northward.

One company at least was recruited, or rather drafted, in this region in the fall of 1814, to join the army of General Jackson at New Orleans. There does not seem to have been a wild enthu- siasm at this time to smell gunpowder; the com- pany, as may be seen below, was composed largely of substitutes; and a number of its mem- bers, both drafted and substitutes, failed to re- port for duty. The roll included the names of ninety-four officers and men; but this number was sadly cut down before they reached the Crescent city. Upon the embarkation from Louisville, November 21, Captain Joyes drew ra- tions for seventy-four men, and in middle De- cember for but fifty-three, though he added for two more the latter part of that month.

This company was led by Captain Thomas Joyes, of the well-known pioneer family of Louisville. Though now but a youth of twenty- six years, he had already seen severe service in the escort of baggage-trains going from Louis- ville to Vincennes in the latter part of 1812, and afterwards as a spy and ranger under General Hopkins, commanding at Vincennes, and then in the quartermaster's department at that place. He became a captain in the Thirteenth Regiment of Kentucky Detached Militia, and was recalled into service by Governor Shelby in November, 1814, with his company. The diary of his ser- vice in Indiana has been preserved, and it is in possession of Patrick Joyes, Esq., of Louisville, but contains nothing necessary to this History.

The camp of the Thirteenth Regiment was pitched on Beargrass creek, at no great distance from the river, and was officially known as "Camp Beargrass." Colonel Slaughter's (Fifteenth) regiment of detached militia, and Lieutenant- Colonel Gray's (the Thirteenth) formed the camp,- with Major-General Thomas personally in com- mand. Captain Joyes's company, and probably

the other companies, were mustered into service November 10, 1814. After some delay in col- lecting vessels and supplies, the commands were embarked in flatboats on the 21st of November, and started on the long and tedious voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi. The troops had been but poorly provided in camp, and they fared worse in their crowded and frail barks, many of them being without even a plank to shelter them, and many becoming sick from the ex- posure and hardship. New Orleans was reached at last, January 3, 1815; but the boats floated on to a landing some distance below, where the troops disembarked and encamped near Camp Jackson, making shelter of the planks of their boats. Nothing of note occurred till the even- ing of the 7th, when, says Captain Joyes in his journal of the campaign, which has also been pre- served :

About two hundred and forty of Colonel Davis's regiment [late Colonel Gray's] were detached to cross the river, to re- pulse the enemy, who was expected to land on the opposite side, to assail our little establishment there, they having cut a canal from the bayou where their launches lay in the swamp to the Mississippi, by which means they got their boats through and finally effected a landing that night below General Morgan's camp, whose men lay in apparent tran- quillity, without an endeavor to intercept them. Our detach- ment reached General Morgan's camp a little after daylight, having been detained by every sentinel on our way up to the city, where we crossed the river in wood-boats, procured by me under direction of T. L. Butler, and similarly impeded on our way down on the other side. So soon as we reached General Morgan's camp, we were ordered to lay down our knapsacks, etc., and push on to meet the enemy, who was approaching with precipitation. At this moment a test rocket was thrown from the enemy's camp, which we sup- posed was the signal for an attack, as the cannons were let loose like thunder. Our situation on the Camp Morgan side being an unfortunate one, and the field officers who ought to have commanded us not having come, we were disposed at random. Myself and thirty-odd of my company, who were on the front flank, next the enemy, were ordered out as a flanking party; and, the swamp being so impenetrable, we were unable to make in. Having got below the firing of the retreat and pushed up the levee, we got in this dismal swamp and attempted to come, when we discovered we had run al- most up to the British. We then wheeled and ran in a di- rection up the river to make for our party, whom we supposed to be retreating. At length, after a horrid ramble, we reached a picket-guard which our party had placed out. They conducted us in to where our troops lay in the action. Joseph Tyler, of my company, was killed, James Stewart wounded, and Thomas Ross taken prisoner.

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History of the Ohio falls cities and their counties : with illustrations and bibliographical sketches, Vol. I, Part 17

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co. Number of Pages: 814

Author: Williams, L.A., & Co., Cleveland
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio : L. A. Williams & Co.
Number of Pages: 814