History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 33

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 33

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During this sojourn of General Harrison's an event of a tragical nature took place in Franklinton. The Chronicle of June 16, 1813, contains the following ae- count of it :

AWFUL SCENE .- A man named William Fish, a private in Captain Hopkins's company of U. S. Light Dragoons, was SHOT at this place on Saturday last for the crime of desertion and threatening the life of his captain. We never before witnessed so horrid a spectacle ; and ean- not, in justice to our feelings, attempt a description of it. Three other privates, who were condemned to death by the same court martial, were pardoned by General Harrison. The last who was pardoned had been previously conducted to his coffin, and the eap placed over his eyes, in which situation he remained until Fish was shot; his reprief was then read.

In the Chronicle of the same date are found these items :

The Twentyfourth Regiment of U. S. Infantry marched from this place on Sunday last for Cleveland, by way of Lower Sandusky.

General Harrison's Headquarters are still at Franklinton.

The affairs of the Northwestern Army begin to assume a new aspect. It will hereafter be composed principally, if not solely, of regular troops. The route by the way of the Rapids has been very properly abandoned. Measures are taking to transport the public stores now at this place to Cleveland.

By this time startling news began to arrive again from the north, where General Clay had been left in command of Fort Meigs. The Freeman's Chronicle of June 26 contains the following announcement which must have caused great apprehension :

HIGHLY IMPORTANT ! - An express arrived here on Wednesday afternoon from Fort Meigs, with despatches from General Clay to General Harrison, stating that certain informa- tion had been received that FOUR THOUSAND INDIANS had collected at Malden - that fifteen hundred British regulars and militia were on their march to, or had arrived at Mal- den - and that an immediate attack was meditated en Fort Meigs, or the posts in rear of that Fort. General Harrison supposes that Lower Sandusky will be the first point of attack.

On the receipt of this intelligence, all the troops at this post were immediately ordered to march for Lower Sandusky. They marched this morning. Colonel Anderson's regiment have been ordered to halt on this side of Lower Sandusky. General Harrison started yester- day morning and will overtake Colonel Anderson this evening.

On the first of July a courier from Upper Sandusky arrived in Franklinton bringing a report that Fort Meigs, Lower Sandusky and Cleveland had all been attacked by Indians. These rumors caused great anxiety until contradicted by later information published in an extra issue of the Chronicle July 5. In this issue

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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

it was stated that General Harrison had arrived at Fort Meigs on the twentyeighth, that the post had not even been threatened, and that Colonel Johnson's mounted regiment had made a reconnoissance to the River Raisin, but had discovered no enemy. A band of about one hundred Indians, prowling about Lower Sandusky, had killed a couple of straggling dragoons, and massacred a family near the fort, then disappeared. Major Croghan, with nearly five hundred regulars, was sta- tioned at the Broad Ford, seventeen miles from Lower Sandusky, ready to move to any point which might be endangered. The State militia ordered out by Governor Meigs during the alarm were dismissed again to their homes.

His presence not being required at Fort Meigs, General Harrison passed over to Lower Sandusky, and thence, under escort of Ball's cavalry, to Cleveland, where the Secretary of War had ordered boats to be built for transporting the army across the lake. At Cleveland Harrison exchanged communications with Perry at Presque Isle, and received orders from Washington to call out the militia. Large quantities of army stores were forwarded from Franklinton to Lower Sandusky by Quartermaster-General Bartlett.

Returning to the Sandusky River, Harrison was intercepted by a courier from Clay announcing that a force five thousand strong, under Proctor, had ascended the Maumee in boats July 20, and was confronting Fort Meigs. A reassuring message went back to Clay, borne by his messenger, Captain McCune. Harrison suspected that the movement on Fort Meigs was only a feint to cover a descent on one of the Sanduskys, or Cleveland. He therefore took his station at Seneca Town, on the Sandusky, whence he could readily move to any point likely to be threatened. Nine miles below, where Frémont now stands, a small stockade had been built on a tract of land reserved as a trading station in Wayne's treaty of Greenville. At the time Harrison took post at Seneca Town, this work was known as Fort Stevenson, and was held by a garrison of one hundred and sixty men under Major George Crogban, a young Kentucky officer of twentyone years, nephew to General George Rogers Clark.

After various ineffectual attempts to decoy General Clay out of Fort Meigs, Proctor reembarked his white soldiers and sailed down the lake, while Tecumseh, with some thousands of warriors, crossed the Black Swamp toward the Sandusky River. On the twentyninth the Indians swarmed out of the woods along the river, and appeared in front of Harrison's camp. Deeming Fort Stevenson untenable, Har- rison ordered Croghan to abandon it, and withdraw to Seneca Town. Croghan replied to this command that he was resolved to hold the fort, and was thereupon summoned to headquarters to answer for disobedience. Responding promptly to this summons, Croghan appeared before General Harrison, and so clearly proved that it would be more hazardous to abandon the fort than to attempt to hold it, that he was permitted to resume his command, and execute his own plans. His defense of Fort Stevenson against the assaults of a force seven or eight times as great as his own, forms one of the most brillant episodes of the War of 1812. Croghan was the Corse of that war, and Fort Stevenson its Allatoona Pass. As- cending the river on the thirtyfirst of July, Proctor began his assaults on the first of August, and renewed them on the second, but was on both days disastrously repulsed. During the night of the second, be drew off in disorderly retreat, leav- ing the escarpments, ditches and clearings around the fort strewn with his dead

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THE FIRST WAR EPISODE.

HARRISON ELM AND HAWKES HOSPITAL, FRANKLINTON. THE KENTUCKY TROOPS UNDER GOVERNOR SHELBY WERE ENCAMPED ON THE MOUND ON WHICHI THIE HOSPITAL STANDS. Photograph by F. H. Howe, 1892.

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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

and wounded, numbering, in all, about one hundred and fifty. Croghan lost bnt eight men. On the thirteenth of August, the ladies of Chillicothe sent him a complimentary letter accompanied by the present of a sword.

The rumors and reports which reached Franklinton during these events were of the most stirring character. The State militia, disbanded only a month before, and now mostly busied with the harvest, promptly took the field again at the sum- mons of Governor Meigs. The Freeman's Chronicle of July 30, says :

The militia are rushing forward from all quarters of the State. Thousands are already in advance of this place, and thousands are on the march to the rear. It is impossible to ascertain the number of troops assembled and assembling throughout the State. Between six and seven thousand would be a moderate calculation. Even his Excellency the Governor, who arrived here three or four days ago, and has been engaged day and night in the organi- zation of the militia, is still ignorant of what number of troops are in motion through the State. Upwards of three thousand have passed through here within the last two days, and we hourly hear of hundreds of others on the march.

On the authority of Captain Vance, who had just returned from the Sandusky, the Chronicle of August 13 says :

General Harrison is at Seneca Town with between thirteen hundred and two thousand men, principally regulars. All the militia, except two regiments, will be sent home in a few days. The Governor will go to Seneca previously to his return, which will be in a few days. The Franklin Dragoons will accompany him.

The emergency for which the Ohio volunteers were called out on this occasion was soon over, but their blood was up, and they were anxious to fight it out with Proctor this time, and make an end of British invasion. Unfortunately they had enlisted for only forty days, a period entirely too short to make their services available for the autumn campaign then being planned. They were therefore dis- missed and sent home again, to their profound disgust. The Freeman's Chronicle of August 20 says:

Some thousands passed through here within the last week. Most of those who returned are extremely bitter against Governor Meigs and General Harrison. They say they were called out and marched' contrary to their will, without proper authority or an adequate emergency ; and complained that when they arrived at Sandusky they were not permitted to proceed and terminate the northwestern campaign by one strong and decisive effort.

But, notwithstanding these complaints, whenever volunteers were needed, as happened again some weeks later, they were obtained. In Franklinton so liberal was the response to the call of patriotism that there was sometimes scarcely an able-bodied man left.

The Chronicle of August 20, 1813, contains this long-looked-for news :

Commodore Perry writes to the Secretary of War, August 4, 1813, 9 P. M .: I have great pleasure in informing you that I have succeeded in getting over the bar the United States vessels, the Lawrence, Niagara, Caledonia, Ariel, Scorpion, Somers, Tigress, and Porcupine. The enemy have been in sight all day and are now about four leagues from us. We shall sail in pursuit of them at three tomorrow morning.

Perry's brilliant victory over the British fleet on the tenth of September; the capture of Malden by Harrison's army (transported across the lake by Perry) on the twentyeighth; and the victory of that army over Proctor and Tecumseh on the Thames River in Canada October 5, practically ended the war in Ohio. After these events the military operations in the Northwestern Department consisted mainly

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THE FIRST WAR EPISODE.

in guarding the frontier, which was done under the direction of Brigadier-General Duncan McArthur. General Harrison resigned his military commission, and was elected to Congress from the Cincinnati district. In March, 1814, Governor Meigs was appointed Postmaster-General, resigned the Governorship, and was succeeded therein by Othniel Looker, Speaker of the Senate. A treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain was signed December 24, 1814, at Chent, in Belgium.

To the end of the war Franklinton continued to be an important military rendezvous and point of distribution for both troops and supplies. Its armory, su- perintended by William C. Lyman, United States Commissary of Ordnance, repair- ed muskets and supplied ammunition. In February, 1814, the drafted Ohio militia were ordered to assemble at Franklinton, to the number of fourteen hundred. Lieutenant McElvain and Ensign Cochran were the officers locally engaged at that time in collecting recruits. The weather being very inclement, and the roads almost impassable, the work of enlistment and organization progressed slowly. No further imminent danger along the frontier impelled volunteers to exchange the comfort of their homes for the hardships of a winter campaign. In the latter part of February about two hundred men had assembled at Franklinton under the four- teen hundred call, and early in March a battalion of Ohio militia under Major Dawson, set out for Sandusky. Volunteers were called for about the same time to guard the British soldiers at Chillicothe, captured in Harrison's battle of the Thames. Part of these captives had been retained for a short time at Franklinton. A company of the Seventeenth United States Infantry, Captain B. W. Saunders, arrived there from Kentucky June 4. One of the military arrivals in July was that of British eaptives, from Chillicothe, en route to Upper Sandusky. They were escorted by a detachment of regulars under Major Graham. The British taken by Johnson's regiment in the Thames battle were brought up from Newport, Kentucky, by Captain Stockton's Company of the Twentyeighth Infantry, early in August.

Transient bodies of troops, regulars or militia, doubtless continued to enliven Franklinton by their arrival, departure, or sojourn to the end of the year. This stimulated the business of the village, and made it prosperous for the time being, yet all of its people were heartily glad when the war was over, and all danger of Indian massacre forever passed "Thank God!" exclaimed Mrs. Lucas Sullivant when she read in the Freeman's Chronicle that Harrison bad taken Malden. And so, doubtless, felt many another matron who had survived through the alarms and anxieties of frontier life in the War of 1812.

NOTES.

1. Freeman's Chronicle, June 24, 1812.

2. The names of the Indian Chiefs who signed this treaty were: Tarhe or Crane, Sha-ra-to, Su-tush, Moun-kon, Dew-o-su, or Big River, of the Wyandots ; Cut-a wa-ha sa, or Black Hoof, Cut-a-we pa, Pi-a-go-ha, Pi-ta-na-ge, Ki-e-hish-e-ma, of the Shawnees; Ma-tha-me, of the. Mingoes.

3. So named, it is said, because, owing to the difficulty of the trail and the unstable nature of the ground in the Black Swamp where it was built, this blockhouse was, from necessity, located at that particular point.

4. Sullivant Family Memorial.

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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

5. The same issue of the Chronicle (December 30, 1812) announces Decatur's capture of the British frigate Macedonian, and Napoleon's entry into Moscow.

6. Early in January, 1813, General Harrison wrote to the War Department from Franklinton : " My plan of operations has been, and now is, to occupy the Miami Rapids, and to deposite there as much provisions as possible, to move from thence with a choice detachment of the army, and with as much provision, artillery, and ammunition as the means of transportation will allow-make a demonstration towards Detroit, and by a sudden passage of the strait upon the ice, an actual investiture of Malden." -Dawson's Life of Harrison.

7. Referring to this tour of General Harrison's, Atwater says: "Leaving the troops in the garrison [at Fort Meigs] he hastily departed into the interior, by way of the Sanduskys, Delaware, Franklinton and Chillicothe to Cincinnati. He everywhere, as he moved along, urged forward to Fort Meigs troops, provisions, and all the munitions of war. At Chillicothe he found Colonel John Miller and one hundred and twenty regulars under him, of the Nine- teenth regiment. These the General ordered to Fort Meigs by way of the Auglaize route. He found but one company of Kentuckians at Newport, but two or three other companies soon reaching that place, he mounted the whole of them on pack horses, and ordered them to Fort Meigs. Going forward himself he ordered Major Ball and his dragoons, who had been cantoned at Lebanon ever since their return from the Missisineway expedition, to march to the same point. Harrison himself marched to Amanda on the Auglaize. Here he found Colonel Miller and his regulars, just arrived from Chillicothe, and Colonel Mills of the militia, with one hundred and fifty men who had been building and had completed a fleet of boats. Into these boats the General and these troops and boat builders entered, and in this way, reached Fort Meigs on the eleventh of April, 1813 .- Atwater's History of Ohio.

8. The Franklin Chronicle of May 13, 1813, contains the following enthusiastic account of the outpouring of the Ohio volunteers for the relief of Fort Meigs :

" The siege of Fort Meigs was raised on the ninth, the British and their allies had retired, and the communication was perfectly open. . .. The troops were consequently ordered to return to their homes, and an express was despatched to order back all who were then on their way to join the main body. About six hundred were met between Lower San- dusky and Delaware rushing on to the point of destination with the greatest zeal and alac- rity. Six or seven hundred more were on their march by way of Fort Findlay, who were also ordered to return. Several hundred, probably thousands, of others were preparing to march from various parts of the state, and all this in the course of a few days. Such zeal, such prompt- itude, such patriotism were never surpassed in the annals of the world. All ages and ranks of citizens flocked by one noble impulse simultaneously to the standard of their country. . .. Never have we witnessed such a scene; never, we believe, was such a scene exhib- ited in North America. We are confident that if the fort had not relieved itse'f for ten days longer, ten thousand men from Ohio would have been on their march towards it. Although inexperienced and undisciplined, and sometimes refractory, yet it may be truly said that on such occasions as the late emergency, the militia is the bulwark of liberty."

9. The Franklin Chronicle's account of General Harrison's speech to the Indians is as follows: "The General promised to let the several tribes know when he should want their services, and further cautioned them that all who went with them must conform to his mode of warfare, not to kill or injure old men, women, children, nor prisoners; that by this means, we should be able to ascertain whether the British tell the truth when they say that they are not able to prevent Indians from such acts of horrid cruelty ; for if the Indians under him (General H.) would obey his commands, and refrain from acts of barbarism, it would be very evident that the hostile Indians could be as easily restrained by their commanders. The General then informed the chiefs of the agreement made by Proctor to deliver him to Tecumseh in case the British succeeded in taking Fort Meigs; and promised them that if he should be successful, he would deliver Proctor into their hands on condition that they should do him no other harm than to put a petticoat on him, 'for,' said he, 'none but a coward or a squaw would kill a prisoner.'"

CHAPTER XIII.

THE FIRST PUBLIC BUILDINGS.

The State Director provided for in the statute which permanently located the capital was vested with some very important functions. By the exercise of his discretion in the discharge of the duties laid upon him the character of the future city was, in some respects, permanently fixed. Probably no functionary ever had more to do with molding the infancy and marking out the adult future of Colum- bus, at least in a topographical sense. Ile was required to " superintend the sur- veying and laying out of the town," to " direct the width of streets and alleys," and " to select the square for public buildings, and the lot for the penitentiary " and its " dependencies." He was empowered to collect and disburse taxes on the town property until January 1, 1816. In brief, the State of Ohio, acting through ber agent, Joel Wright, was the sponsor of the newlyborn capital.

Another duty with which the Director was charged, was that of supervising the erection of the public buildings which the original proprietors of the town had engaged to provide. In this matter, however, the agent of the State was by no means left entirely to his own discretion. By resolution passed February 18, 1812, a joint committee was appointed "to agree upon and lay down the plan on which the statehouse and penitentiary shall be erected, and to point out the materials whereof they shall be built." Two days later a resolution was passed " laying down and agreeing to a plan on which the statehouse and penitentiary shall be erected," as follows :

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives, That the director, after seleeting the squares and scites whereon the statehouse and penitentiary shall be built, shall proceed to lay down the size and dimensions of the said buildings as follows, viz ; The statehouse to be seventyfive feet by fifty, to be built of brick on a stone foundation, the proportions of which shall be regulated by said director. according to the most approved models of modern archi- teeture, so as to combine, as far as possible, elegance, convenience, strength and dura- bility.

The penitentiary to be sixty feet by thirty, to be built of briek on a stone foundation with stone walls projecting in a line with the front fifty feet on each end so as to form a front of one hundred and sixty feet, and to extend back from the front one hundred feet, forming an area of one hundred and sixty by one hundred feet. The walls to be fifteen feet highi.

The proportion of the penitentiary shall be regulated by the director, according to the best models which he can obtain from those states where theory has been tested by experi- ence, and the said director shall make a report of his proceedings in the premises, with a plan of said buildings, to the next Legislature within ten days after the commencement of the session.1

[251]

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HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

In compliance with these instructions, Director Wright selected the ground for the Public Square, staked out its boundaries, and fixed the location of the State- house on its southwest corner. The Square was then surrounded by a staked and ridered " worm fence," and was similarly enclosed as late as 1825. It was covered by a growth of beautiful forest trees which remained until cleared off by Jarvis Pike, under contract with Governor Worthington, in 1815 or 1816.º Pike was per- mitted to farm the ground, probably in consideration of his labor in chopping off its trees, and harvested from it three or four crops of wheat and corn. After that, the fencing became dilapidated, and the ground lay open for several years as a pub- lic common. According to Kilbourne's Gazetteer of 1828, ninetenths of it were still nn- occupied in that year except by the cows and schoolboy ball-players of the village. In 1834 the Square was enclosed, for the first time presentably, with a fence of cedar posts and white painted palings, built by Jonathan Necreamer. This im- provement was instigated by Mr. Alfred Kelley, then agent of the State, who had the grounds planted at the same time with young elm trees, brought from the forest. The picket fence remained until replaced in 1839 by a higher one of rough boards, built to screen the convicts at work on the present Capitol.

The Penitentiary was located by the Director on a plat of ten acres in the southwest part of the town, fronting on Scioto Lane. A complete description of it is reserved for the history of the prison.

Excepting excavation for the foundations, and the collection of materials, not much progress was made upon any of the public buildings in 1812. In December of that year Director Wright submitted the following report to the General Assembly :

The director appointed to superintend the surveying and laying out of the town of Col- umbus, etc., respectfully presents on the subject of his appointment the following report :

Having with diffidence submitted to the unexpected appointment, I repaired to the post assigned me, superintended the surveying and laying out of the town on an elevated and beantiful situation, on the east side of the Scioto River, opposite the town of Franklinton, in Franklin County, directed the width of the streets and alleys, selected the square for public buildings and the lot for the penitentiary and dependencies, according to the plan or plat herewith presented. After selecting the public square and penitentiary lot, I proceeded to designate on the ground plat the sites and dimensions of the Statehouse and penitentiary, according to the size of each building prescribed by the Legislature.

Being directed to regulate the proportion of the penitentiary according to the best models and plans I could obtain from those states where theory has been tested by experi- ence, I have applied for, and, at some considerable expense procured several, viz: Philade]- phia, New York and Kentucky. On applying for that at Baltimore I was informed it might be procured for thirtysix dollars; but at the same time being notified that it was not on the most improved plan, I did not think proper to make a second application. On ex- amining and comparing the plans received I found the penitentiary at Columbus could not be made exactly conformable to any of those procured without varying the dimensions proposed by the Legislature; I have, however, drawn plans of the different stories so as to make the building useful as possible according to its size.

I have also procured the penal laws of Maryland, with the rules and regulations for the government of the penitentiary at Baltimore, the penal laws of Pennsylvania, and an account of the state prison or penitentiary in the city of New York. These are submit- ted to the inspection of the Legislature with the plans above mentioned, to which are added plans of the Statehouse and public offices.

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History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 33

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