History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 16

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202

USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I > Part 16

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Simultaneously with the execution of this second or Scioto contract, " Cutler and Sargent conveyed to Colonel William Duer, of New York City, a onehalf inter- est in it, and gave him full power to negotiate a sale of the lands in Europe or else- where, and to substitute an agent. Colonel Duer, [who was Secretary of the Board of Treasury], agreed to loan to the Ohio Company one hundred thousand dollars public securities to enable it to make its first payment to Congress -[Duer actually advanced $143,000]-and procured a large subscription to its shares. Soon after, Cutler and Sargent conveyed a little over threcfourths of their retained interest in about equal proportions to Generals Rufus Putnam, Benjamin Tupper, Samuel H. Parsons, Colonel Richard Platt, Royal Flint and Joel Barlow. Many others became interested with these in greater or less proportions."4

The Scioto Company appointed Joel Barlow as its agent for the disposal of these lands, and sent him to Paris, where he spread abroad such captivating tales of the Scioto region that a large number of sales were effected. About six hundred of these purchasers came over from France, intending to establish homes on their supposed possessions, but soon learned that the Scioto Company had defaulted in its payments and could give them no valid title. Defrauded, nearly destitute and surrounded by hostile Indians in the wilderness, these French colonists found them- selves in a condition truly pitiable. Finally, in 1795, those of them who still remained were indemnified, in part, for their losses, by a congressional grant of twentyfour thousand acres lying in the eastern part of Scioto County.

The Ohio Company's outcome was altogether different. On November 23, 1787, its directors met at Brackett's Tavern, in Boston, and made arrangements for sending out its first band of settlers. General Rufus Putnam was appointed super-

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intendent of the colony ; Ebenezer Sproat, Anselm Tupper, R. J. Meigs, and John Mathews were selected as surveyors of its lands. The first party, numbering twentytwo men, mostly mechanics, set out from Danvers, Massachusetts, Novem- ber thirtieth, under Major Haffield White. Exposed to the inelement weather of the season, this little band journeyed tediously over the mountains by an old Indian trail, aiming for Simrall's Ferry, on the Youghiogheny, thirty miles above Fort Pitt. At this appointed rendezvous a halt was made for the construction of a barge in which the entire expedition, when assembled, could float down the Ohio.

A second detachment, including the surveyors, quitted Hartford, Connecticut, January 1,. 1788, under General Putnam. When it reached the mountains, its wagons were unable to go forward on account of the depth of snow, and sledges had to be constructed for transportation of the baggage. General Putnam arrived at Simrall's abont the middle of February. The galley was then pushed to com- pletion, launched and named the Mayflower. It was fortyfive feet long and fifteen wide. Though not graceful it was stanch, its sides being thickly-timbered for protection against the bullets of the Indians. The commander of this pioneer craft was one of its builders, and a veteran seaman, Captain Jonathan Devol. The capacity of the Mayflower not being sufficient for conveyance of all the men and baggage, a supplementary flatboat and some canoes were provided. Embarking in this flotilla, the party, fortyeight in number, floated away from Simrall's on the second of April. On the seventh, in the early dawn of a misty morning, it landed on the north bank of the Ohio, at the mouth of the Muskingum. There by the riverside, a rude shed was immediately built as an office for the superintendent of the colony, and over it was unfurled the American flag. On the opposite or west- ern bank of the Muskingum, the same friendly emblem was seen floating over the bastioned pentagon of Fort Harmar.5

The first laws of the colony were those of its own adoption. For the informa- tion of all, they were read aloud by Benjamin Tupper, and posted on the trunk of a tree. But the colonists were of such a character as to give little need for this expedient, and even that little need was destined to be brief. The subject of pro- viding a system of civil government for the socalled "transmontane half" of the republic had engaged the attention of Congress long in advance of this initial attempt at its settlement. A committee of which Thomas Jefferson was chairman already had the matter under consideration when Virginia completed her cession, and immediately thereafter reported a plan applicable not alone to the territories north of the Ohio, but to the entire western region, from the Gulf to the northern boundary of the Union. On the twenty-third of April, 1784, this plan, after some amendments, one of which struck out a clause forbidding slavery, was adopted. It proposed a division of the territory into seventeen States, for ten of which Mr. Jeffer- son proposed the following descriptive titles: Sylvania, Michigania, Chersonesus, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Illinois, Saratoga, Washington, Polypotamia, and Pelisipia.

This scheme never took practical effect. Its proposed territorial divisions were inconvenient. The regions for which it provided government contained nothing governable, as yet, to govern. It anticipated settlement. But the Ohio Company's enterprise changed all this. The leading spirits in that venture wanted

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law no less than land. They desired freedom, morality and social order even more than land. They solicited in behalf of their proposed commonwealth not only a territorial basis, but a strong and practical legal framework. Most fortunately for themselves, and for the Great West, their wishes were fulfilled.

Various additional projects with respect to the new territories having come before Congress, a committee on the general subject was appointed. Its members wero Messrs. Johnson of Connecticut, Pinckney of South Carolina, Smith of New York, Dane of Massachusetts, and Henry of Maryland. In September, 1786, an ordinance for the government of the territories was reported from that committee. It was a crude document, yet would doubtless have been passed on the day appointed for its third reading - May 9, 1786 - but for the antecedent appearance of the Ohio Company's agent on the scene. The presentation of that Company's petition by General Parsons caused further proceedings as to the ordinance to be suspended. On the fifth of July Rev. Manasseh Cutler appeared in lien of General Parsons as representative of the Ohio Company's interests, and this event is believed to have had some connection with the appointment of a new committee on territorial government which immediately followed. The members of this com- mittee were Messrs. Edward Carrington and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, Nathan Dane of Massachusetts, Kean of South Carolina and Smith of New York. From the hands of this committee came the legislative masterpiece known in his- tory, and famous for all time, as the Ordinance of 1787. It was entitled "An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States Northwest of the Ohio," and was adopted in Congress July 13 by unanimous vote of all the States. Only one individual vote was recorded against it.

Next to the Constitution, which followed in it the order of time, this ordinance is the most important act in the annals of American legislation. In 1830 Daniel Webster said of it: "We are accustomed to praise the lawgivers of an antiquity; smut we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has prodneed effects of more dis- tinet, marked and lasting character, than the Ordinance of 1787. We see its eonse- quences at this moment, and we shall never cease to see them, perhaps, while the Ohio shall flow."

The authorship of this great ordinance has been variously ascribed. In its original form it was drawn by Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, but the ideas which made it illustrious, and which fixed the character of the north western communities, were inserted afterwards, and seem to have emanated chiefly from the Virginia statesmen. The slavery prohibition, and that afterwards inserted in the Constitu- tion, forbidding all laws impairing the obligation of contracts, have both been attributed to Mr. Dane, but it is not certain that either was originally his. It is claimed that Doctor Cutler had considerable to do in molding the final character of the ordinance, and there are reasons for believing that, while it was being framed, the committee freely consulted him, and profited much by his suggestions. The sweeping assertion sometimes made that he was the "Father of the Ordinance" is not sustained by historical evidence.

One of the thoughtful forecasts of the Ohio Company was the adoption of a resolution reserving a tract of four thousand aeres for city purposes at the mouth of the Muskingum. This was done in October, 1787. On the second of July, 1788,

tr.

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the directors held their first meeting on the site of the proposed city, and chris- tened it Marietta. The name was intended as a compliment to Queen Marie Antoinette, of France, whose conspienous kindness to Franklin while representing the colonies at the court of Louis XVI. had touched the hearts of these brave pio- neers. To some of the streets and publie places classical names were given which show how literary predilections, once well grounded, may predominate even amid the savage associations of the wilderness. One of the squares was called Capitolium, another Quadranaou, and a third Cecilia ; a prominent street, leading up from the landing, took the name of Sacra Via ; a rectangular space, palisaded with hewed logs, was dignified as the Campus Martius.

For some reason not arising from any immediate political necessity, Congress made haste to provide the new Territory with a full corps of officials. On the fifth of October, 1787, before a single emigrant had set out for the Ohio, Arthur St. Clair was chosen as the Territorial Governor. James M. Varnum, Samuel Holden Parsons, and John Armstrong, were at the same time elected Judges, and Winthrop Sargent, Secretary. At a later date John Cleves Symmes was named as Judge in lieu of Armstrong, who declined to serve.

Governor St. Clair arrived at Fort Harmar July 9, 1788. He remained at the fort until the fifteenth, when he was formally received at Marietta, and delivered an address, which was replied to, in behalf of the colony, by General Putnam. Such was the beginning of organized civil government in Ohio.

By provision of the Ordinance, no legislature could be chosen until the terri- tory should contain five thousand free adult male inhabitants. Meanwhile it was made the duty of the Governor and Judges to provide such laws as might be neces- sary. These officials therefore addressed themselves at once to the formation of a statutory code. St. Clair desired, first of all, a law for the organization of the militia, but the judges, pursuing some unique ideas of their own, drew up and pre- sented to him, instead, a scheme for the division of real estate. This scheme seems to have been chiefly intended for the despoilment of nonresidents. St. Clair rejected it, and a militia law was then passed. Other statutes which soon followed provided for the establishment of courts, the punishment of crimes, and the limita- tion of actions. On July twentyseventh the Governor established by proclamation the county of Washington, bounded south by the Ohio, east by Virginia and Pennsylvania, north by Lake Erie, west by the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas as far south as Fort Laurens (now Bolivar), and thence by a line to the head of the Scioto and down that stream to its mouth. These boundaries included the terri- tories now constituting the entire eastern half of Ohio and of Franklin County. The seat of government for the county, as well as for the Territory, was at Marietta.

The colony was soon increased by the arrival of additional settlers, until it numbered one hundred and thirtytwo. Officers of the militia were appointed, and also a corps of judicial officers, including justices of the peace and a judge of pro- bate. Rufus Putnam and Benjamin Tupper were made Judges of Common Pleas, and on Tuesday, September 2, 1788, the first court ever held within the boundaries of Ohio was formally opened. On that memorable ocasion "Governor St. Clair and other territorial officers, and military from Fort Harmar being assembled at the Point, a procession was formed, and, as became the occasion, with Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, Sheriff, with drawn sword and wand of office at the head, marched

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up a path that had been cut through the forest, to the hall in the northwest block- house of Campus Martius, where the whole countermarcbed, and the Judges, Putnam and Tupper, took their seats on the high bench."6 Rev. Manasseh Cutler, then visiting the colony, offered prayer, after which the commissions of the Judges, Clerk and Sheriff were read, and the Sheriff solemnly proclaimed : "O, yes! a court is opened for the administration of even-handed justice to the poor and the rich, to the guilty and innocent, without respect of persons, none to be punished without trial by their peers, and then in pursuance of the laws and evidence in the case."

Several Indian chiefs, who had been invited by Governor St. Clair to a con- ference, were witnesses of this curious scene.

Such was the opening of the Court of Common Pleas. A court of Quarter Ses- sions was opened September ninth. Paul Fearing was admitted to practice before it, and was the first lawyer in the Territory.

A memorandum of August 27 reads: "Judge Symmes, with several boats and families, arrived, on their way to his new purchase at the Miami. Has a daughter (Polly) along. They lodge with the General and Mrs. Harmar. Stay three days and depart."

This was a reinforcement for the second English-speaking settlement in Ohio. In the Miami Valley that settlement was the first. It had its inception with Major Benjamin Stites, who descended the Ohio in a flatboat in the spring of 1787, and ascended the Little Miami to the vicinity of Old Chillicothe. So captivated was Stites with the natural beauty of the country that he determined to bring out a colony for its settlement. Returning east, he presented this idea to Judge John Cleves Symmes, then a member of Congress from New Jersey, who had himself visited the Miami country, and was readily persuaded to undertake to purchase from Congress a tract of land in that region. In October, 1787, Symmes obtained a contract for a million acres, fronting on the Ohio, between the Big and Little Miami Rivers. Stites embarked on the Ohio with a party of twentysix colonists November 16, 1788, and a little after sunrise on the eighteenth landed at a point now within the corporate limits of Cincinnati. " After making fast the boat," says the chronicler of this adventure, " they ascended the steep bank and cleared away the underbrush in the midst of a pawpaw thicket, where the women and children sat down. They next placed sentinels at a small distance from the thicket, and, having first united in a song of praise to Almighty God, upon their knees they offered thanks for the past, and prayer for future protection."

Blockhonses and log cabins were built, and the settlement was named Col- umbia.

This colony was directly followed by a third, planted five miles further down the river, on a tract of six hundred and forty acres, bought of Judge Symmes by Matthias Denman. The price paid for this land, now covered by the city of Cin- cinnati, was thirty cents per acre. The tract fronted on the Ohio, directly opposite the mouth of the Licking. On the fifth of August, 1788, Mr. Denman associated with himself as partners in this enterprise Robert Patterson and John Filson. A short time afterwards, Israel Ludlow took the place of Filson, who was killed by the Indians. By Filson's suggestion, it is said, the colony took the name of Losantiville. Its original settlers, whose debarcation has been noted, were members of a party which had come west under Symmes, and halted at Maysville, Kentucky.

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The exact date of their arrival at the Denman tract is somewhat uncertain; the date most generally accepted is December 28, 1788. They landed where the foot of Sycamore Street, Cincinnati, now rests, at a little inlet afterwards known as Yeatman's Cove.

Ten months later, a detachment from Fort Harmar, under Major John Doughty, began the erection of a fort within the site of Losantiville, directly opposite the month of the Licking. This work was completed the following winter (1789-90) and named Fort Washington. According to General Harmar, it was " built of hewn timber, a perfect square, two stories high, with four block houses at the angles."

The fourth settlement in the Ohio series was founded by Symmes in person, at North Bend, below Cincinnati. It dates from February, 1789.

Governor St. Clair visited Fort Washington January 2, 1790, and after consulta - tion with Judge Symmes proclaimed the Symmes purchase as the county of Hamil- ton. The credit seems to be due to the Governor of having blotted out, at the same time, the name of Losantiville, and caused the seat of goverment of the new county to be known thenceforth as Cincinnati.

The fifth settlement in the series was that of the French colony, to which reference has already been made. It had its beginning in 1791, and took the ap- propriate name of Gallipolis.

The first settlement in the Virginia Military District was founded at Manches- ter, on the Ohio River, in 1791, by Colonel Nathaniel Massie. In the pursuit ot his duties as a surveyor, engaged in locating lands for the holders of Virginia military warrants, Colonel Massie found it necessary to establish a station for bis party, convenient to the scene of his labors. A tract of bottom land on the Ohio, opposite the lower of the Three Islands, was chosen, and thither some Kentucky families were induced to emigrate. The entire town was surrounded by a line of wooden pickets firmly planted, with blockhouses at the salients. In the further prosecution of his work, Colonel Massie explored the Scioto and became promi- nently identified with its early settlement. In 1796 he laid out the town of Chil- licothe on ground then covered by a dense forest. The settlement established there under his auspices was soon largely reinforced from Kentucky and Virginia.

Up to this period colonial enterprise had been limited entirely to the southern portions of the future State. Emigrants and explorers had naturally drifted down the Ohio, and had aimed, thus far, to keep within reach of its facilities for communi- cation. Central Ohio was yet unexplored. In Northern Ohio a settlement was made July 4, 1796, at the mouth of Conneaut Creek, by a colony of fiftytwo emigrants from Connecticut under General Moses Cleveland. In September and October of the same year General Cleveland and his associate surveyors laid out a town at the month of the Cuyahoga, but only two families passed the winter of 1796-7 within its limits. In honor of its founder the place took the name of Cleve- land. The original colonists, both there and at Conneant, suffered greatly from in- sufficiency of food.

After the settlements along the Ohio, which have been mentioned, emigration began to pour into the country very rapidly. This excited the jealousy of the Indians; nor was this their only incentive to discontent. The treaties of Forts McIntosh, Stanwix and Finney had been imperfectly understood by some of the

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tribes, and very grudgingly acquiesced in by others. Even those who had con- sented to them regretted it when they saw the consequences of the act in the steady advance of colonization into the territories where they had been accustomed to roam in boundless freedom. Added to all this was the disquietude produced by the intrigues of the British, who still maintained their military posts in the Northwest, and kept up their trade relations with the Indians.

This condition of things led to numerous forays by the savages along the border, and a state of great uneasiness in the settlements. Property was destroyed, un- protected frontiersmen were murdered, or borne away in captivity, and the navi- gation of the Ohio River was made exceedingly perilous. Governor St. Clair endeavored to assuage the hostility of the border tribes by friendly advances, but without success. He finally succeeded in arranging a conference with their chiefs at Fort Harmar, and in pursuance of this arrangement two hundred warriors made their appearance at the Fort. On December 13, 1788, they arrived in procession, and were saluted by a discharge of firearms. Troops, with music playing, escorted them into the enclosure, and the negotiations with them formally proceeded. Among those present as peacemakers was John Heckewelder, the famous Moravian missionary. On January 9, 1789, two treaties were concluded at this conference, one of them being signed by twentyfour chiefs of the Six Nations, the other by the representatives of the Wyandots, Delawares, Ottawas, Sacs, Chippewas and Pottawattomies.

The stipulations thus entered into confirmed the treaties previously made, and were signalized by a large distribution of presents to the contracting savages, but without producing the desired result. The border disturbances were soon renewed, and the settlers appealed loudly for military protection. By correspondence with the authorities of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky, Governor St. Clair suc- ceeded in collecting a force about fourteen hundred strong at Fort Washington, where General Josiah Harmar, commanding the Western Department, held bis headquarters. The expedition set out from the Fort in September, 1790, aiming to strike through the woods to the Miami villages by way of Old Chillicothe. Gen- eral Harmar was in command. His force comprised 320 regulars under Majors Willys and Doughty, and 1033 militia under Colonel Hardin, a veteran of the Con- tinental Army. The militia were shabbily equipped and poorly officered. When they met the enemy they broke and ran, leaving the regulars to do the fighting. General Harmar and Colonel Hardin, both brave, capable officers, did what they could to rally the cowards, but their efforts were unavailing. The Miamis were led by their great chief, Little Turtle. The expedition burned some of the Indian villages, and destroyed a large amount of ripening corn, but lost heavily in killed and wounded.

This failure, for such it practially was, emboldened the Indians, aud led to the formation of a confederacy of the north western tribes to annihilate the settlements. To meet this emergency Congress passed a law in pursuance of which General St. Clair was made military as well as civil governor of the Territory, and appointed chief commander in the West. After much effort St. Clair succeeded in gathering together about two thousand men for the renewal of operations against the Indians. The troops assembled at Fort Washington, and seem to have consisted, for the most part, of the scum of the border. Their fighting qualities and equipment

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were alike shabby. At the head of this force St. Clair set out from Fort Washington September 17, 1791, and made his way by a road cut through the woods to the point where now stands the city of Hamilton. Ilere he erected Fort Hamilton. Fort St. Clair was established about twenty miles further on; and Fort Jefferson about six miles south of the present town of Greenville. The march through the woods was difficult, and desertions took place daily. Indians hovered about but offered no seri- ous resistance until November 4, when the army was suddenly attacked by fifteen hundred warriors led by Little Turtle. The action took place within the present limits of Mercer County, and resulted in a complete victory for the Indians. The militia were struck first, and fled precipitately through the lines of regnlars under General Butler. The pursuing Indians were charged by Butler, who fell mortally wounded. Lieutenant-Colonel William Darke, commanding Butler's second line, also charged, and for a time held the savages at bay. General St. Clair was sick at the time of the battle, yet appeared in the thick of the fight, and exerted himself to rally the troops. He was finally obliged to give orders for a retreat, which quickly grew into disorderly flight. The losses were terrible. The wounded numbered 283, the killed and missing 630. All the artillery and baggage on the field were lost. The captured were subjected to horrible tortures. The fugitives who escaped rallied at Fort Jefferson, whence the retreat was continued in shame- ful disorder back to Fort Washington.8

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History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 16

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co Publication date: 1892 Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1202

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202