USA > Ohio > Auglaize County > History of western Ohio and Auglaize County, with illustrations and biographical sketches of pioneers and prominent public men > Part 2
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"The extreme point of land just below the mouth of St. Joseph river (near the present city of Fort Wayne) is said to have been the accustomed place of burning the prisoners taken in southern and southeastern Ohio. The records of depravity pre- sent no more terrible examples of cruelty than were furnished on this spot. The prisoners who had been captured and reserved for this horrible rite, were bound to stakes, and slowly burned to death. After life was extinct, they were devoured by the savage blood-thirsty fiends in the presence of the whole tribe, who had assembled to witness the awful spectacle. The last poor victim sacrificed in this way, at this place, is said to have been a young man from Kentucky, who had been captured in the latter part of the Revolutionary War."
DOMESTIC LIFE.
During the summer months the Indians lived in their villages, around which the women and children cleared patches and fields in which they planted corn, beans, squashes, Indian cucumbers, pumpkins, melons and tobacco. The cultivation of the crops de-
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volved entirely upon the squaws and children. The implements used by them were made from sharp bones of animals, tortoise shells, or flat stones. The labor of cultivation must have been much harder for them than for the whites. After the traders came among them they exchanged their furs for hoes and other garden implements. The cultivated products of the Ohio Indians' exceeded in quantity those of any other equal area in North America. The great quantities of grain stored away for food, should game become scarce has always been a subject of surprise to students of our early history. The large quantity of corn and other provisions captured at Loramie's store was a matter of great surprise to General Clark and his officers, when they raided that den of atrocities in 1780. It is recorded further, that when General Wayne moved down the Auglaize river on his way to Defiance, that his army marched through four thousand acres of corn at its confluence with the Maumee. Also, that there were thousands of acres between Defiance and the mouth of the Maumee river.
' Aside from tilling the soil, the squaws prepared the food and did the cooking. Though done in the rudest manner, it included jerking the venison, bear and buffalo meat, drying wild fruits and pumpkins, husking and storing away the corn, and gathering the wood for the fires. In addition to these duties, there were the duties of preparing wearing apparel, moccasins, baskets, and making maple sugar. All of the latter duties being performed in the interim of the more pressing affairs of life. Indians, ordinarily, dined twice a day,- morning and evening. In the hunting season, and times of excitement, the hours for meals were irregular. Where the families of a clan lived in close proximity they cooked and were fed from the same kettle. "The kettle was kept filled with corn, beans, and venison, from which every one partook when he became hungry."
The only manual labor the men ever did was to make bows, arrows, tomahawks, war clubs, and canoes. The latter were either made of logs slowly burned out and then smoothed with sharp shells, or of birch bark, which the women sewed together with long strong strips of bark from red elm or basswood trees and smeared the seams with spruce tree gum.
"In this manner the summers passed. The women and chil- dren tilling the soil, whilst the braves amused themselves in fish-
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ing fire-hunting, gambling, or fighting a hostile tribe, or devot- ing themselves to their toilets - painting, tattooing, and other- wise decorating their bodies.
As autumn approached and the leaves began to change color preparations began for the fall and winter hunt. As soon as the nights and mornings became cool, they left their villages for the hunting grounds. Then it became the duty of the women to carry the luggage. Their mode of proceeding has thus been de-
scribed: "The master of the family, as a general thing, went ahead, leisurely bearing a gun, and perhaps a lance in his hand. The woman followed with the mats, poles and other necessaries, and not infrequently the household dog perched on the top of all. If there was a horse or pony in the list of family possessions the man rode and the squaws trudged after him. It has been asserted by way of apology by some persons, said to be versed in Indian character, that this unequal division of labor was the result of no want of kind affectionate feeling on the part of the husband. It was rather the instinct of the sex to assert its superiority of position and importance when a proper occasion was afforded. When out of the reach of observation, and in no danger of com-
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promising his own dignity, the husband was willing enough to relieve his spouse from the burden that custom imposed upon her. Thus their winters were spent in hunting the deer, the otter, the bear and the buffalo. And when they were admonished by bud- ding trees, and flowers, and grass, and the return of singing birds that spring had come, they gathered again in their villages."
CHAPTER III.
THE REVOLT OF THE COLONIES.
The war between France and England, known as the "French and Indian War," began in 1754 and continued until 1763. As has already been stated in this work, the boundaries between the British and French possessions had been in dispute for more than a quarter of a century, but no serious conflict occurred between the colonists until 1755. For a history of the nine years of war resulting in the conquest of Canada and the occupation of all the French ports and trading posts in America, the reader is referred to Parkman's "History of the Pioneers in the New World," and his "History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac." After the occupation of the French forts by the English there was a cessation of Indian hostilities in the Ohio country until near the beginning of the American Revolution.
Following the treaty of Paris, the English government issued a proclamation, setting apart the valley of the Ohio and the adja- cent region as an Indian domain, and strictly prohibiting the in- trusion of settlers. This proclamation, like many others, was dis- regarded by the pioneers on the borders of Virginia and Pennsyl- vania. Attempts of the pioneers to establish themselves beyond the boundary were frequently followed by sanguinary results.
"That the French should be forced to leave the country greatly surprised and enraged the Indians, for they had such boundless faith in the power of their French father, as they called the French monarch, that they could not understand how it was possible that he would thus allow his subjects to be conquered. They saw with sorrow and bitterness the departure of their French allies, and received the English with distrust, and indeed with defiance.
"The English, now that the French were conquered, no longer felt the need of natives as allies, and did not treat them as well as they had formerly done. They showed them no cour- tesies, and bestowed upon them but few gifts or favors."
2 HAC
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Such were the relations of the English and Indians at the. beginning of the Revolution.
Every member of the liberal party in the English Parliament realized that the Indian was a dangerous element in the Colonial struggle.
"Immediately after Lord Dunmore's War, the Liberal Party in Parliament and the Colonial authorities made strenuous en- deavors to induce all the Indian tribes in the west to remain neutral during the conflict of the Revolution."
In accordance with these views, "early in June, 1776, General Schuyler, being duly authorized by the Colonial government, met the chiefs and warriors of the Six Nations in a grand coun- cil at German Flats. After very many imposing ceremonies and eloquent speeches, the pipe of peace was smoked, a treaty was formed, and the Indians stipulated to observe a strict neutrality in the impending conflict. About a year after this, in 1777, the British Government sent commissioners to each of these tribes requesting their chiefs and warriors to meet in a grand council at Oswego, on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. We give an account of the proceedings of this council as described by the distinguished British traveler, Mr. Buckingham, in his "Travels in America." He quotes them from a narrative, which he pro- nounces to be of unquestionable truthfulness.
"The council convened, and the British commissioners in- formed the chiefs, that the object in calling a council of the Six Nations, was to engage their assistance in subduing the rebels who had risen up against the good king, their master, and were about to rob him of a great part of his possessions. The com- missioners added, that they would reward the Indians for all their services. The chiefs then informed the commissioners of the nature and extent of the treaty, into which they had entered with the people of the States the year before; informing them also that they should not violate it now by taking up the hatchet against them.
"The commissioners continued their entreaties without suc- cess, until they addressed their avarice and their appetities. They told the Indians that the people of the States were few in num- ber, and easily subdued ; and that, on account of their disobedience to the king, they justly merited all the punishment which white men and Indians could inflict upon them. They added that the
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king was rich and powerful, both in subjects and money; that his rum was as plenty as the water in Lake Ontario; that his men were as numerous as the sands on the lake shore; that if the Indians would assist in the war until the close, as the friends of the king, they should never want for money or goods."
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"These savage chieftains and warriors disregarded their stipulated neutrality, and entered into a treaty with the British commissioners, for abundant rewards, many of which were already before their eyes, and others still more alluring were promised for the future. They agreed to assail the colonists with tomahawk and scalping knife till the war should end.
"The commissioners were delighted with their success. They immediately presented to each Indian warrior a suit of clothes, a brass kettle, a gun, a tomahawk, a scalping knife, and one piece of gold. They, also, promised a bounty for every scalp which should be brought in.
"These demoniac warriors immediately entered upon a career of devastation and blood, against men, women, boys, girls, and even infants, whose horror no imagination can conceive. Inspired by British gold and British rum, they swept with flame and blood the lovely valleys of the Wyoming, the Cherry, the Mohawk and the Susquehanna.
"While his majesty's government was perpetrating such crimes in the north, Sir John Stewart was sent to rouse the Cherokees to a similar war against the frontiers of Virginia and the two Carolinas. These are dark pages in the history of civil- ization, and we hesitate in recording them. But history would be false to herself in spreading any veil over such crimes." It is true these atrocious measures of Lord North and Germain were opposed by Burke, Chatham and others, but the policy of the ministry 'prevailed.
"While the savage Indian barbarities were in progress the Colonists sent Benjamin Franklin to Paris, to secure, if possible, the aid of France in favor of his countrymen. Dr. Franklin wrote an article for the American Remembrancer, which exerted a powerful influence, in both Europe and America. It purported to be a letter from a British officer to the Governor of Canada, accompanying a present of eight packages of scalps of the Colo- nists.
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"As a very important part of the history of the times, the letter should be recorded. It was as follows :
"May it Please Your Excellency:
"At the request of the Seneca Chief, I hereby send your Excellency, under the care of James Hoyd, eight packages of scalps, cured, dried, hooped and painted with all the triumphal marks of which the following is the invoice and explanation :
"No. I. Containing forty-three scalps of Congress soldiers, killed in different skirmishes. These are stretched on black hoops, four inches in diameter. The inside of the skin is painted red, with a small black spot to denote their being killed with bullets; the hoops painted red, the skin painted brown, and marked with a hoe ; a black circle all around, to denote their being surprised in the night; and a black hatchet in the middle, signifying their being killed with that weapon.
"No. 2. Containing ninety-eight farmers killed in their houses ; hoops red, figure of a hoe, to mark their profession ; great white circle and sun, to show they were surprised in the day time; a little red foot to show that they stood upon their defense and died fighting for their lives and families.
"No. 3. Containing ninety-seven of farmers; hoops green to show they were killed in the fields; a large white circle, with a little round mark on it, for a sun, to show it was in the day time ; black bulletmark on some, a hatchet mark on others.
"No. 4. Containing one hundred and two of farmers, mix- ture of several of the marks above; only eighteen marked with a little yellow flame, to denote their being prisoners burnt alive, after being scalped ; their nails pulled out by the roots, and other torments. One of these latter being supposed to be an American clergyman, his hand being fixed to the hook of his scalp. Most of the farmers appear, by their hair, to have been young or middle- . aged men, there being but sixty-seven very gray heads among them all, which makes the service more essential.
"No. 5. Containing eighty-eight scalps of women ; hair long, braided in Indian fashion, to show they were mothers; hoops blue, skin yellow ground, with little red tadpoles, to represent, by way of triumph the tears of grief occasioned to their relatives ; a black scalping knife or hatchet at the bottom to mark their being killed by those instruments. Seventeen others, hair very gray, black hoops, plain brown colors, no marks but the short club or cassetete, to show they were knocked down dead, or had their brains beat out.
"No. 6. Containing one hundred and ninty-three boys' scalps of various ages. Small green hoops whitish ground on the skin, with red tears in the middle, and black marks, knife, hatchet, or club as their death happened.
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"No. 7. Containing two hundred and eleven girls' scalps, big and little; small yellow hoops, white ground tears, hatchet, scalping knife.
"No. 8. This package is a mixture of all the varieties above mentioned, to the number of one hundred and twenty-two, with a box of birch bark, containing twenty-nine little infants' scalps, of various sizes; small white hoops with white ground. With these packs, the chiefs send to your Excellency the following speech delivered by Conicogatchie, in council, interpreted by the elder Moore, the trader, and taken down by me in writing.
"FATHER - We send you herewith many scalps, that you may see we are not idle friends. We wish you to send these scalps to the great king, that he may regard them and be re- freshed; and that he may see our faithfulness in destroying his enemies, and be convinced that his presents have not been made to an ungrateful people," etc.
"This document was a true representation of the nature of the conflict which the government of Great Britain was waging against its revolted colonies. There was not the slightest exag- geration in this. All alike were compelled to admit its truthful- ness. The impressions which it produced throughout the courts of Europe was very profound."
It would be foreign to the plan of the present work, to at- tempt to give even a brief synopsis of the events of the great struggle through which the colonies passed. It will be sufficient to record that the surrender of Lord Cornwallis was followed by the establishment of American Independence. The great conflict, . extending through a period of eight years, was over. The country emerged from the protracted struggle rich in hope, but destitute of a government capable of dealing with the depleted financial condition of the country.
The Articles of Confederation adopted during the Revolu- tion were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the times. Five years were spent in the preparation and adoption of a new Constitution. "Thus for the first time the English-speaking race of the New World, with the exception of the remote Canadians, was united under a common government strong enough for safety and liberal enough for freedom."
CHAPTER IV.
THE EARLY SETTLERS.
As stated in a previous chapter the French traders were the first settlers of Ohio and the Northwest. In the course of eighty or a hundred years they lapsed into a state of semi-barbarism, not much above the average Indian. The number of this degen- erate class was much greater than most people seem to apprehend. They were found by the commissioners sent out to make treaties, in considerable numbers in nearly every town in the Ohio terri- tory. It is not to be understood, however, that the preceding remark should be applied to all the French traders. Many of them were shrewd, intelligent men, more intent upon driving profitable trades, than in the elevation of the social and moral condition of their countryment and their descendants.
In addition to the French settlers, a contraband population, chiefly from Virginia and Western Pennsylvania, went in, during the Revolution, and took possession of lands in Ohio territory bordering on the Ohio river. To pacify the Indians and secure ยท their good will, many of them married women held in captivity by the Indians, and not a few married Indian squaws. It was a compromise in the first instance, but later was discovered by the Indians to be a fraud. These innovations were considered so serious by the Indians that complaint was made by them to General Brodhead in 1778, "who reported to General Washing- ton that he had sent troops from Pittsburg to drive off a land company who were trespassing upon the Indians somewhere opposite to Wheeling. The officer detached upon this duty re- ported that he had found settlements from Fort McIntosh down to the Muskingum, and extending thirty miles up the streams on the west side of the Ohio. He evidently did not execute his orders, as these people were still the chief subjects of complaint of the Indians at the treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785. Nor was their enterprise exclusively confined to stealing land. Some of them appropriated the salt springs (Mahoning county) which
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had long been used by the Indians." Numerous attempts were made to expel the invaders, but all failed of execution.
"The Revolutionary War had hardly closed before thousands of the disabled soldiers and officers were looking anxiously to the western lands for new homes, or for means of repairing their shattered fortunes." But it was not until 1784 that the dispute between the states of New York, Massachusetts, Virginia and the General Government with regard to the ownership of certain lands in the Ohio territory were settled. As soon as these states ceded their titles to the general government, offices were opend for the sale of lands in central and southern Ohio. In 1800 Con- necticut, also, ceded her title to the Fire Lands in the northern portion of the state, by which all the lands of the Northwest Ter- ritory passed under the control of the General Government.
"On the 13th of July, 1787, Congress assumed jurisdiction over the territory, and passed an ordinance for its government, by the provisions of which, the territory was to be governed by a Governor, a Secretary, and three Judges. The President ap- pointed these officers, and they were to make the laws and exe- cute them. This form of defective government was to continue until the Northwest Territory contained five thousand free white male inhabitants over twenty-one years of age, when the people were authorized to elect a legislature or general assembly."
On the 27th of October, 1787, Manasseh Cutler and Win- throp Sargeant, as agents of the "Ohio Company Associates," entered into a contract with the board of treasury for the purchase of one million five hundred thousand acres of land (which was afterward reduced by consent of the parties to 964,280 acres), lying within the bounds of the tract which was offered for sale by the act of Congress, of the 23d of July, 1787. The lands were conveyed by letters patent on the 29th of October, 1787, under the seal of the United States, to Rufus Putnam, Manasseh Cut- ler, Robert Oliver, and Griffin Green, in trust for the persons composing the "Ohio Company of Associates."
In April, 1792, a patent was also granted to John Cleves Symmes for 311,682 acres, adjoining the Ohio river, and situated between the Miami rivers.
Under the act of Congress of July 13th, 1787, Arthur St. Clair was appointed governor of the Northwest Territory. Sam- uel H. Parsons, James M. Varnum and John Armstrong were
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appointed Judges. The latter not accepting the office, John Cleves Symmes was appointed in his place, and Winthrop Sargeant was apointed Secretary. A meeting of the stockholders was held in Boston in November and plans were made for founding a colony at the mouth of the Muskingum river. Early in December boat builders assembled at Sumrill's Ferry, a point on the Yough- iogheny river, about thirty miles above Pittsburg. By the second of April a sufficient number of boats were constructed to carry the emigrants to the Muskingum country. "The 'Adventure Gallery,' as it was then called, was forty-five feet long, and twelve feet in width, with the curved bow of a galley, and her heavy planks surmounted by a deck roof - a heavy, cumbersome craft, but snug enough to float down stream. She was afterward re- christened the Mayflower, with a propriety which will not be ques- tioned, for New England was now, in her turn, going westward to plant the first colony in a wilderness." On the second of April the fleet, of forty-seven colonists, under command of Gen- eral Putnam, sailed down the Youghiogheny into the Mononga- hela, and out upon the broad Ohio, which was to bear them to their new home. "For five days and nights they floated down the beautiful river. Occasionally, a flock of wild turkeys in the under- brush, or a startled deer, drinking at the water's edge, would draw the fire of the riflemen from the boats; and now and then the dusky form of an Indian would be seen darting into the forest. But the emigrants met with no interruption."
On the seventh of April, 1788, about noon they arrived at their destination. The troops from Fort Harmar (a United States fort erected in 1785) assisted them in landing and guarded the settlers until the stockades and block houses were constructed. There was a welcome from the people of the fort, and from a party of Delaware Indians encamped at the mouth of the river. The Delawares, to the number of about seventy, and headed by Cap- tain Pipe, an influential chief, had come to trade with the soldiers of the garrison. With their accustomed diplomacy the Indians offered a most affable greeting to the white men. By July the streets of a city had been laid out with great regularity, when the associates met to give a name to their new home. These Revolu- tionary officers and soldiers were not unmindful of our nation's obligations to France, in achieving our Independence. They
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named the new town Marietta, in honor of Marie Antoinette, the unhappy queen of Louis XVI.
While the Marietta colonists were making rapid develop- ments around the mouth of the Muskingum, Judge Symmes was making vigorous movements for the settlement of his large pur- chase of 311,682 acres between the Miami rivers. From that time until 1803, colonies of emigrants followed each other and filled up the most desirable locations from Marietta to Cincinnati.
The settlement at the mouth of the Muskingum was made before the arrival in the territory of the governor and judges. The judges arrived in June, and on the ninth of July, 1788, Gov- ernor St. Clair reached Marietta. After a few days of repose, the governor, on the 18th of July, made his first appearance before the citizens of the territory. The first law enacted under the newly constituted government was entitled :
"A law for regulating and establishing the Militia in the Territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio." The first public act of the governor, was creating the county of Washington. The establishment of courts, and the enactment of necessary laws followed in rapid succession.
The dilatory action of the Governmental Treasury Commis- sion and other officials, so retarded the efforts of Judge Symmes to establish a colony at South Bend, that he was compelled to sus- pend operations for a time. About the time that he had completed arrangements to pilot a company of emigrants to South Bend, the Indians assumed a threatening attitude toward the settlements of Marietta and Cincinnati. In a letter to a friend, Symmes wrote, "they (the Indians) are perpetually doing mischief ; a man a week, I believe, falls by their hands." Before 1789, two settlements had been made within the Symmes Purchase. "In the course of 1789, Fort Washington was erected by a detachment of troops under the command of Major John Doughty, on a portion of the ground which is now the site of Cincinnati ; and a few friends settled on the rich bottom lands just below the mouth of the Little Miami river, where they laid the foundation of Columbia."
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