History of the state of Ohio, Part 37

Author: Taylor, James W. (James Wickes), 1819-1893
Publication date: 1854
Publisher: Cincinnati : H.W. Derby & Co. ; Sandusky, C.L. Derby & Co.
Number of Pages: 570


USA > Ohio > History of the state of Ohio > Part 37


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41


The Ordinance concludes with six articles of compact, be- tween the original States and the people and States in the Territory, which should forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent. The first declared that no person, de- meaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner, should ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or reli- gious sentiments. The second prohibited legislative inter- ference with private contracts, and secured to the inhabitants trial by jury, the writ of habeas corpus, a proportionate rep- resentation of the people in the legislature, judicial proceed- ings according to the course of the common law, and those guaranties of personal freedom and property, which are enu- merated in the Bills of Rights of most of the States. The third provided for the encouragement of schools, and for good faith, justice and humanity towards the Indians. The fourth secured to the new States, to be erected out of the territory, the same privileges with the old ones ; imposed upon them the same burdens, including responsibility for the federal debt; prohibited them from interfering with the primary disposal of the soil by the United States, or taxing the public lands, or taxing the lands of non-residents higher than those of residents ; and established the navigable waters, leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the portages between them, as common highways for the use of all the citizens of the United States.


The fifth article related to the formation of new States within the territory, and to their admission into the Union. There were to be not less than three nor more than five States.


514


HISTORY OF OHIO.


The western State was to include all the country between a line from the mouth of the Wabash along that river to Vin- cennes, and thence due north to the territorial line, and by that line to the Lake of the Woods and Mississippi. The middle State was to comprehend all within a line drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami, to the territorial line and the eastern boundary of the western State. The residue was to constitute the eastern State, but Congress reserved the power of forming one or two States north of an east and west line, drawn through the southern bend or ex- treme of Lake Michigan. These States, having a population of sixty thousand, or at an earlier period, if consistent with the general interest of the confederacy, were to have the right of admission into the Union, agreeably to the terms of the Virginia cession and the resolution of October 10th, 1780, and were to remain forever members of the confederacy.


The sixth and last article was in these words: "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. Provided, always, That any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid."


The resolutions of the 23d of April, 1784, on the subject of the Ordinance, were repealed.7


In October following, Congress ordered seven hundred troops for the defence of the western frontiers and to aid in the organization of civil authority under their Ordinance of July, and on the 5th of the month, appointed General Arthur


7) The Ordinance will be found in Appendix, No. xiii. See Western Law Journal, vol. v. p. 529.


515


ORGANIZATION OF THE TERRITORY.


St. Clair, Governor of the Northwestern Territory, associa- ting with him, Winthrop Sargent of Massachusetts as Secre- tary, and Samuel Holden Parsons of Massachusetts, James Mitchel Barnum of Pennsylvania and John Cleves Symmes of New Jersey, as Judges of the territory.


On the SEVENTH OF APRIL, 1788, a party of forty-eight men, with General Rufus Putman at their head, disembarked at the mouth of the Muskingum River. They were the pio- neers of the Ohio Company, and they had made their voyage from Pittsburgh in a vessel constructed for the purpose-the " Adventure Galley" afterwards called the "Mayflower." The aniversary of this interesting occasion will always be cherished, as it is often celebrated by the people of Ohio.


On the FIFTEENTH OF JULY, Governor St. Clair, who had arrived at Fort Harmar six days before, was formally received upon the site of Marietta-the " Seat of Government"-by the veteran Parsons, the Secretary and Judges of the terri- tory, and an assemblage of inhabitants. Under a bower of foliage, contributed by the surrounding forest, the Ordinance of 1787 was audibly read-congratulations exchanged-and three cheers, startling the solitude of the streams, and the denizens of the wilderness around them, closed the simple, but impressive inauguration of Territorial Government beyond the Ohio.


٠


APPENDIX.


I. (Page 21.)


FURTHER PARTICULARS OF THE ERIES, NEUTRALS, AND ANDASTES.


THE testimony of the Jesuit missionaries confirms the opinion expressed in the text, that the Neutrals were one of several tribes, that suffered from Iroquois hostility. In 1654, Father Simon Le Moine visited the country of the Onondaga Indians, near the mouth of Lake Ontario. His party were received by some Iroquois fishermen ; and among them was " a Huron pris- oner, and a good Christian," and some Huron squaws, for the most part Christian women, formerly rich and at their ease, whom captivity had re- duced to servitude. "They requested me," the missionary continues in his Journal, " to pray to God; and I had the consolation to confess there at my leisure Hostagehtax, our ancient host of the Petun nation. His senti- ments and devotion drew tears from my eyes : he is the fruit of the labors of Father Charles Garnier, that lioly missionary whose death has been so precious before God."


At the principal Onondaga village, the missionary met other Huron cap- tives, and names Terese, a good Christian woman, who had with her a young captive of the Neutral Nation-de la Nation Neutre-who became " the first adult baptism at Onondago."


In a conference with the Indians, Le Moine, who bore a message and va- rious presents from M. de Lauson, then Governor of New France, delivered " a hatchet to each of the four Iroquois Nations, for the new war they were waging against the Cat Nation," with many other references to existing liostilities. "Finally," he adds, "by the nineteenth present, I wiped away the tears of all the young warriors for the death of their great chief Anne- neraos, a short time prisoner with the Cat Nation." In reply, a captain of the Oneida Nation "produced four large belts, to thank Onnontio (the French Governor) for having encouraged them to fight bravely against their new enemies of the Cat Nation."


(517)


518


APPENDIX.


Another Missionary Journal, in 1658, alludes to the subjugation of tlie dreaded Cat Nation, as having been then accomplished. See Documentary History of New York, vol. i., pp. 30, 31, 32, 37.


A map published in Amsterdam in 1720, founded on a great variety of memoirs of Louisiana, and attached to a work called Receuil de Voyages, represents within the present limits of Erie county, and directly east of " Lac San dou ske," somc villages of the " Eries-Nation du chat," adding, that they were then destroyed (detruite). See French's Historieal Collections of Louisiana, Part II.


There are many traditions among the Scneeas of a tribe, by them called Kahkwahs, whose villages were west of the Gencsec, and thence south to the sources of the Alleghany. We suppose them to have been the Andastes, who were vanquished by the New York confederates in 1672. H. R. School craft (Notes on the Iroquois, p. 318) has preserved tlie following Seneca tra- dition of the Kalikwalis. It will be seen that the writer identifies the Eries with the Kahkwahs. The terms may be synonymous, but if so, the seats of the Eries were certainly extended to the western extremity of Lake Erie.


" My inquiries," Schoolcraft proeceds to say, " were answered one evening at the mission house in Buffalo, by the Alleghany chicf, Ha-yek-dyoh-kunh, or the Wood-cutter, better known by his English name of Jacob Black- snake. He stated that the Kahkwahs had their chief residence, at the time of their final defeat, on the Eighteen Mile Creek. The name by which he referred to them, in this last place of their residence, might be written per- haps with more exactitude to the native tongue, Gah-Gwah-ge-o-nuh-but as this compound word embraces thic ideas of locality and existence along with their peculiar name, there is a species of tautology in retaining the two inficetions. They are not necessary in the English, and besides, in common use, I found them to be generally dropped, while the sound of g naturally changed in common pronunciation into that of k.


"Blacksnake commcneed by saying, that while the Senecas lived east of the Genesee, they received a challenge from the Kalikwahs to try their skill in ball-playing and athletic sports. It was accepted, and after due prelimi- naries, the challengers came accompanied by their prime young men, who were held in great repute as wrestlers and ball players. The old men merely came as witnesses, while this trial was made.


"The first trial consisted of ball playing, in which, after a sharp contest, the young Senecas came off victorious. The next trial consisted of a foot race between two, which terminated also in favor of the Senecas. The spirit of the Kahkwas was galled by these defeats. They immediately got up another race on the instant, which was hotly contested by new runners, but it ended in their losing the raec. Fired by thesc defeats, and still con- fident of their superior strength, they proposed wrestling, with the sanguin- ary condition, that each of the seconds should hold a drawn knife, and if


519


APPENDIX.


his principal was thrown, he should instantly plunge it into his throat and cut off his head. Under this terrible penalty, the struggle commenced. The wrestlers were to catch their holds as best they could, but to observe fair principles of wrestling. At length the Kahkwah was thrown, and his head immediately severed and tossed into the air. It fell with a rebound, and loud shouts proclaimed the Senecas victorious in four trials. This ter- minated the sports, and the tribes returned to their respective villages.


"Some time after this event, two Seneca hunters went out to liunt west of the Genesee River, and as the custom is, built a hunting lodge of boughs, where they rested at night. One day, one of them went alone, and having walked a long distance, was belated on his return. He saw, as he cast his eye to a distant lodge, a body of the Kahkwahs marching in the direction of the Seneca towns. He ran to his companion, and they instantly fled and alarmed the Senecas. They sent off a messenger post-haste to inform their confederates towards the cast, who immediately prepared to meet their ene- mies. After about a day's march, they met them. It was ncar sunset when they descried their camp, and they went and encamped in the vicinity. A conference ensued in which they settled the terms of the battle.


"The next morning the Senecas advanced. Their order of battle was this. They concealed their young men, who were called by the narrator burnt knives,* telling them to lie flat, and not rise and join in the battle until they received the war cry, and were ordered forward. With these were left rolls of peeled bark to tie their prisoners. Having made this ar- rangement, the old warriors advanced and began the battle. The contest was fierce and long, and it varied much. Sometimes they were driven back, or faltered in their line-again they advanced, and again faltered. This waving of the lines to and fro, formed a most striking feature in the battle for a long time. At length the Senecas were driven back near to the point where the young men were concealed. The latter were alarmed, and cried out, 'Now we are killed !' At this moment the Seneca leader gave the concerted war-whoop, and they arose and joined in battle. The effects of this reinforcement, at the time that the enemy were fatigued with the day's fight, were instantaneously felt. The young Senecas pressed on their enemies with resistless energy, and after receiving a shower of arrows, beat down their opponents with their war-clubs, and took a great many prison- ers. The prisoners were immediately bound with their arms behind, and tied to trees. Nothing could resist their impetuosity. The Kahkwah chiefs determined to fly, and leave the Senecas masters of the field.


" In this hard and disastrous battle, which was fought by the Senecas alone, and without aid from their confederates, thie Kalıkwahs lost a very great number of their men, in slain and prisoners. But those who fled


* A term to denote their being quite young, and used here as a cant phrase for prime young warriors.


520


APPENDIX.


were not permitted to eseape unpursued, and having been reinforced from the east, they followed them and attacked them in their residence on the Droscona (Buffalo Creek), and Eighteen Mile Creek, which they were obliged to abandon, and fly to the Oheeo, the Seneea name for the Alle- ghany. The Senecas pursued them, in their eanocs, in the descent of this stream. They discovered their encampment on an island in numbers su- perior to their own. To deceive them the Senecas, on putting asliore, carried their canoes aeross a narrow peninsula, by means of which they again entered the river above. New parties appeared, to the enemy, to be thus continually arriving, and led them greatly to overestimate their num- bers. This was at the elose of the day. In the morning not an enemy was to be seen. The Eries had fled down the river and have never since ap- peared. It is supposed they yet exist west of the Mississippi.


"Two characteristic traits of boasting happened in the first great battle above described. The Kahkwalı women carried along, in the rear of the warriors, packs of moccasins for the women and children, whom they ex- peeted to be made captive in the Seneca villages. The Senecas, on the other hand, said as they went out to battle, 'Let us not fight them too near for fear of the steneh,' alluding to the anticipated heaps of slain.


"It may here be inquired, perhaps, whether the Kahkwahs were not a remnant, or at least allies of the ancient Alleghans. The French idea, that the Eries were exterminated, is exploded by this tradition of Blacksnake, at least if we concede that Erie and Kahkwah were synonyms. A people who were called Erierions by the Wyandots, and Kahkwahs by the Iroquois, may have had many other names from other tribes. It would contradict all Indian history, if they had not as many names as there were diverse nations to whom they were known."


II. (Page 57.)


FRENCH OCCUPATION BY A PROCESS VERBAL.


The French government still retain this rather theatrical method of as- serting their sovereignty. When La Salle reached the mouth of the Mis- sissippi, it was with similar tokens that he proclaimed the dominion of his royal master; and recently, when a French squadron occupied New Cale- donia, in the Pacific, it was observable that the lapse of centuries had not materially changed the traditional ceremonies of such an occasion.


521


APPENDIX.


III. (Page 64.)


THE DELAWARE VILLAGES ON THE SCIOTO.


Gist by no means found the bulk of the Delawares upon the "cast bank of the Scioto," although " several villages" might have been scattered along its course. His route was doubtless by the " Standing Stone," now Lancas- ter, and thence to the fertile Pickaway Plains, where the Shawanese were afterwards assembled in considerable force. When the Delaware chiefs, who were in the American interest, visited Philadelphia during the Revolu- tion, they spoke of "placing the Shawanese in their laps"-a figurative expression for the surrender of the Scioto valley to them, as they ascended from the mouth of the river. But the Delawares continued their occupation of the region now bearing their name in Ohio; and George Sanderson, Esq., in his "History of the Early Settlement of Fairfield county," mentions them as joint occupants of that vicinity with the Wyandots. On a further examination of Gen. Sanderson's interesting treatise, we have noticed that he thus obviates the difficulties suggested in the text (chap. xi. p. 160.) While the Wyandots occupied the present site of Lancaster, a Delaware chicf, called Tobey, ruled over a village, called Tobeytown, near Royalton. The reader is requested to note the error, on page 160.


-


IV. (Page 88.)


THE LOCALITY OF THE CANESADOOHARIE.


There are some circumstances mentioned by Smith, which might induce the opinion, that the Canesadooharic was the Huron, and not the Black River. He says that it "interloeks with the west branch of the Muskingum, runs nearly a north course and empties into the south side of Lake Erie, about eight miles east from Sandusky, or betwixt Sandusky and Cuyahoga." A Wyandot camp would also be more likely to be found at the mouth of Huron River. On the other hand, the Falls of Canesadooharic, are a marked feature of analogy to Black River; and a party ascending the west branch of Muskingum, with Lakc Eric for their destination, would hardly extend their route to the westward sources of the Mohican or west branch of Mus- kingum, when the Lake Fork led them northwardly and directly to their destination. The mouth of Huron is certainly "about eight miles east from 22*


522


APPENDIX.


Sandusky," while the distance to Black River is at least twenty-five miles, but this is probably an inaceuraey of Smith's memory-his Journal having been published after an interval of more than forty years.


V. (Page 247.)


CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTS OF THE INDIAN HOSTILITIES OF 1774.


In the first volume of the fourth series of the American Archives, oceurs the following contemporary allusions to the border war, commenced or precipitated by the massacre of Logan's family :


A communication to Lord Dunmore, dated March 24, 1774, speaks of the unhappy murder near the Ohio, not long before, of "young Russell," by a Cherokee chief, and antieipates further hostilities. (Page 278.)


Extracts are given from a "Journal of the United Brethren's Mission on the Muskingum." These mention a rumor, May 6, 1774, from Mochwesung, a Munsic village, that a Shawanese chief was killed on the Ohio, by white people, and another wounded. May 8, the journal states that " an express arrived from Gekelemuekepuck with the disagreeable news, that the white people on the Ohio had killed nine Mingoes and wounded two." (p. 283.)


May 24, David Zeisberger writes (p. 284) that twenty Shawanese warriors from Woakatameka had gone to make an ineursion where the Mingoes were killed, but that the lower Shawanesc were peaceable and had protected the traders. The missionary adds, " we are more than 200 souls in Schoenbrun, besides the congregation at Gnadenhutten."


John Heckcwelder was an Englishıman by birth, and it is barely possible that he is " the Cosh, alias Jolin Bull," who thus writes from the Muskin- gum Mission on the 24th of May :


" About three weeks ago, John Jungman and myself were at Fort Pitt. On the way thither, we heard that three Cherokee Indians, going down the river, had killed onc trader and wounded another, and plundered the canoe : the traders had imprudently shewn their silver things they had for trading. In the Fort, we heard that the Mingoes had stolen that night fifteen horses, and that they were all gone off from below Logtown. The white people began to be much afraid of an Indian war. We hastened to get home again, and after our return, received the news that a company of Virginians, under one Cresap, entieed some of the Mingoes, living at the mouth of Yellow Creck, to the other side of the river, and gave them rum to make them drunk, and then they killed five; two others, crossing the river to


523


APPENDIX.


look after their friends, were shot down as soon as they came ashore. Five more were going over the river, whom they also waylaid, but the Indians perceiving them, turned their eanoe to make their escape, but being imme- diately fired at, two were killed and two wounded. The day following they killed one Shawanese and one Delaware Indian, in a eanoe down the river with two traders. The same party killed John Gibson's wife, a Shawanese woman; they further pursued a canoe, killed a Shawancse chief, and wounded another man. They said they would kill and plunder all that were going up and down the river. But they soon fled and left the poor settlers as vietims to the Indians; many are fled and left all their effects behind. The Mingoes took their way up Yellow Creek, and struck our road just where it turns off from the road to Gekelemuckepuck, where they hunted for ten days to catch some traders, but as the Delawares had found them out, they stopped the traders from going that road. The Mingoes having sent word to the Shawanese, they fetehed them to their town, Woa- katameka, where they had a council of war. * * * We are in great distress, and don't know what to do; our Indians keep wateh about us every night, and will not let us go out of town, even not into our corn fields. If there should be more bad news, we will be forced to move from here, for we are in danger from both sides. I heard from some, that if the white brethren should be forced to leave them, the greatest part would return to the Susquehanna. But if only the Delawares continue in their peaceful mind, it may go better than we now think. At the couneil at Woakatame- ka, were several head men of the Delawares present, who live at Sehoen- brun and Gnadenhütten, being particularly sent for by Netawatenees, to assist them in the good work of preserving peace. The chief addressed the Shawanese and Mingoes present in a fatherly manner, shewing unto them the blessing of peace and folly of war ; and pressed it very much upon their reason, what misery they would bring upon themselves and others by their madness, and told them positively that they had not to expeet any help or assistance from the Delawares, and enjoined them very earnestly not to stop the road to Philadelphia, but to let it be free and open. The Shawa- nese gave him in answer, they did believe his words to be good, and they would take notice of them, and desired him to give also a fatherly admoni- tion to their wives to plant corn for them; which he did, but they seemed more inclined to move off than to plant." (p. 285.)


May 29, Arthur St. Clair writes to Gov. Penn from Ligonier. He had lately been to Pittsburgh. Capt. White Eyes protected Duncan, a trader, from the hostile Shawanese, keeping him at Newcomerstown. Cresap and Greathouse killed thirteen Indians. Cresap deelares publiely that he acted by Connolly's orders. (p. 286.)


From a speceh of the Shawanese, it appears that Cornstalk sent his brother to accompany and protect the traders to Pittsburgh. (p. 288.)


524


APPENDIX.


A newspaper publication at Philadelphia, dated May 23, 1774, gives the following version of the affair at Yellow Creek, on the authority of "Capt. Crawford and Mr. Neville, of Virginia :"


" That a number of Indians encamped at the mouth of Yellow Creek, op- posite to which two men named Greathouse and Baker, with some others, had assembled themselves, at a house belonging to the said Baker, and invited two men and two women of the Indians over the creek to drink with them, when, after making them drunk, they killed and sealped them ; and two more Indian men then came over, who met with the like fate. After which six of their men came over to seek their friends, and on ap- proaching the bank, where the white men lay concealed, perceived them, and endeavored to retreat back, but received a fire from the shore, which killed two Indians, who fell in the river; two fell dead in the eanoe, and a fifth was so badly wounded that he could hardly crawl up the bank." Among the unfortunate sufferers was an Indian woman, wife to a white man, one of the traders; and she had an infant at her breast, which these inhuman butchers providentially spared and took with them. Mr. Neville asked the man who had the infant, if he was not near enough to have taken its mother prisoner without killing her. He replied that he was about six feet from her, when he shot her exactly in the forehead, and cut the hoppase with which the child's cradle hung at her back; and he thought to have knocked out its brains, but remorse prevented him, on seeing the child fall with its mother. This party further informed them, that after they had killed these Indians, they ran off with their families, and that they thought the whole country was fled, as Cresap, who was the perpetrator of the first offence, was then also on his way to Red Stone. (p. 345.)


A letter from Fort Pitt, June 19, 1774, says : "We have an account of Logan's being returned to the Shawanese towns, and that he took with him thirteen scalps." (p. 429.)




Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.