Ohio annals : Historic events in the Tuscarawas and Muskingum Valleys, and in other portions of the state of Ohio, Part 21

Author: Mitchener, Charles Hallowell, ed
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Dayton, Ohio : Thomas W. Odell
Number of Pages: 380


USA > Ohio > Ohio annals : Historic events in the Tuscarawas and Muskingum Valleys, and in other portions of the state of Ohio > Part 21


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In October, Rev. Mr. Espick, also a physician, who had settled at New Philadelphia, was called to Goshen to attend Zeisberger, who died on the 17th day of November follow- ing, after a service of sixty-two years at various missions. His wife died in ten months after him. In two years after Gelellemund, alias Killbuck, finished his career at Goshen.


The war of 1812 having commenced, Goshen declined, and was finally abandoned as a mission in 1824, and its In- dians retired to the far west. Thus ended the second advent of the missionaries and the red men in the valleys.


No glittering marble column marks the spot where Zeis- berger lies, but a small square block of stone, surmounted with a marble slab, on which is etched his name-all that remains to denote the only place of rest this first and truly pious man ever had in the valley.


His mission, founded at Fairfield, Canada, in 1792, still survives, and it is in tradition that for many years after Zeisberger's death, Indian converts from Fairfield made pilgrimages to Goshen, to clean up his grave and keep green the grass thereon. In 1872, Rev. Reinke, a missionary from Fairfield, with four Indians, William Stonefish, James Snake, Joel Snake, Joshua Jacobs-one of whom was a descendant of a convert slaughtered at the massacre-and also the venerable David Knisely, Rev. E. P. Jacobs, Metho- dist minister, Rev. Wilhelm, Lutheran minister, John Judy, Esq., and others, visited the graves of Zeisberger and Ed- wards at Goshen, and assembling around the graves, sung the same hymn that had been translated by Zeisberger for the Indians, and which had been sung sixty-four years be- fore, on the same spot, at the funeral of David Zeisberger


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himself. These four Indians then visited Schoenbrunn, but Iminted in vain for the grave-yard of their convert ancestors, from thirty to forty of whom had been buried there fron 1772 to 1779. The spot was pointed out, but the converts' bones had been fertilizing a white man's field for a third of a century. These poor Indians wept at the sight, then shak- ing from their feet the dust of the valley, departed, never to return again.


FURTHER PUBLIC SERVICES OF PUTNAM AND HECKEWELDER-THEIR DEATHS.


After the return of peace, 1795, General Putnam estab- lished a line of packets on the Ohio, from Wheeling to Marietta, surveyed a national road from Wheeling west through the Muskingum County, of to-day, and thus opened up highways by which new settlers reached the valleys in great numbers.


Ile was, in 1796, appointed surveyor-general of the United States, and directed surveys of one hundred and seventy- four townships, into subdivisions for entry under military warrants and other grants. He came to the Tuscarawas and directed the Schoenbrunn, Gnadenhutten, and Salem tracts, of four thousand cach, to be laid off and subdivided into lots, for the use of converted Indians, and for lease to white settlers.


General Putnam, before closing his duties as surveyor- general, visited and slept with Zeisberger at Goshen, then named the little island in the river, after his revered friend, and returned to his home at Marietta, where he was chosen, in 1802, to represent Washington County in the convention to form the first constitution for the State of Ohio, which was completed in thirty days. Being opposed, in 1800, to the election of Thomas Jefferson as president,


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he retired, after his service in the convention, to private life, and devoted his energies to the encouragement of public improvements, education, and religion, until 1824, when he died, at the age of eighty-six years. He was son of Elisha Putnam; who was son of Edward Putnam-a grandson of John Putnam-who came to America in 1634, and was the founder of the Putnam family on this continent, and whose descendants in the male line numbered one hundred and thirty-four, prior to the birth of General Rufus Putnam, in 1738.


After the return of peace, Heckewelder proceeded to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and urged the Pennsylvanians to come and take up homes on the Tuscarawas. He had some years before ceased his functions as a missionary, and be- came agent for leasing the lands donated in trust to the society, and in due time emigration set into the valley, dotting it over with cabins and clearings of settlers. He had, in 1797, with some emigrants, gathered together the bones of the murdered Indians at Gnadenhutten, and buried the same where the monument now stands. He took up his home there, and entered four thousand acres of land for other parties. He stood at the bedside of Zeisberger when he died, in 1808, at Goshen, and became, on the organization of Tuscarawas County, an associate judge of the court of common pleas. He remained in the valley in which he had lived such an eventful life, until it was settled with all active, vigorous race of white men, and after that returned to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he died, in 1823, want- ing eleven months of the age of four score years. Thus ended the careers of these two remarkable men, within a year of each other. They well deserve a monument, as the founders of Ohio.


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AN ASSASSIN MAKES THREE ATTEMPTS TO KILL HECKEWELDER.


The following incident occurred while Heckewelder was in charge of the mission at Gnadenhutten, during the American revolution, after the Wyandots had joined the British :


Some Wyandots, returning from the white settlements in Virginia with a prisoner, rested at Gnadenhutten. Among their horses was one that had been stolen from the mission a year before, and which belonged to Heckewelder. The leader of the Wyandots was prevailed on to sell the prisoner to the missionary, Heckewelder, and give up the horse, on the theory that it was a crime to hold stolen property, knowing the fact. He returned with his squad to Sandusky, where his companions told on him. He was ordered by the Indian council to return to Gnadenhutten and get the horse, or the scalp of its owner-the Indians in council adjudging the horse to have been a lawful prize in war when captured in Virginia. A short time after, as Heckewelder was going from Gnadenhutten to Salem, he was shot at from behind a log. In a few days he was traveling the same road, but had two Delaware guides, who discovered an Indian in a tree fork, leveling his gun at the missionary. They frus- trated his attempt to shoot. In a few nights the same In- dian entered Heckewelder's house with intent to murder him, but he was seized, and when asked his motive for wanting to kill Heckewelder, declared that it was he who had given up Heckewelder's horse, and he was sent back from Sandusky to get the horse, or Heckewelder's scalp. It is not stated in the history of Gnadenhutten what became of the assassin, but he never got back to Sandusky. The white prisoner bought by Heckewelder, and whose life was thereby saved, was sent to Fort Pitt, from whence he reached his home.


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AARON BURR AND THE BLENNERHASSETS AT MARIETTA-A BALL IN EARLY TIMES.


Connected with Marietta history is that of Aaron Burr, Harman Blennerhasset, and Margaret, his wife. Burr had honored his country by his military services in the war of independence, and was compensated by being nominated for Vice-President of the United States; having, in the presi- dential poll, received an equal vote on the same ticket with Thomas Jefferson, the House of Representatives had thrust upon it the duty of electing President and Vice-President. Jefferson succeeded to the first, and Burr to the second, office. His ambition was to be President-failing which he conceived a project of erecting a western republie upon the ruins of Mexico, and becoming president thereof. He had with him many discontented officers, who had been retired to private life poor, at the close of the revolution, and they in turn had soldiers of their old commands, who, having lost their time and property in the war, were ready for any emergency.


The founders of Marietta were in part retired officers, discontented, like those who joined Burr; but instead of overturning Mexico, and recuperating their finances by melting into money the little golden virgins and crosses of the Spanish churches, they chose the plan of buying land on the Ohio, setting up a State government, and selling farms to emigrants at a profit. Still, Burr looked to old friends in Marietta for help and sympathy. Among others, he became acquainted with Harman Blennerhasset and his accomplished wife. Blennerhasset was an educated Irish gentleman, who had built a fantastic mansion on one of Black Hoof's islands in the Ohio, nine miles below Marietta, where he was enjoying a quiet and retired life, in the midst


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of a score of hilarious good fellows, who were drinking his mountain dew, and entertaining him with "Teddy O'Rourke," and the " Exile of Erin."


Madame Blennerhasset had an outside estate of her own, and being an educated lady, she soon tired of hearing noth- ing but game and fish, dog and horse talk; hence she wished very often that the island would sink, or Buckshanoth and his warriors come back to the Ohio with their scalping knives.


Burr's project delighted Blennerhasset, and his powers of mind entranced the lady. The island home soon became a commissariat for needy adventurers, while Burr flitted about to Marietta, Chillicothe, Cincinnati, &c., making friends.


. In October, Burr sent Blennerhasset to accompany ex- Govenor Alston, of South Carolina, and his wife, Theodosia, Burr's daughter, to Lexington, Louisville, and other down the river towns, leaving Mrs. Blennerhasset at home to direct its management.


Burr had studied at a glance the people he was propitia- ting and winning over. He knew that the men already on the island would be faithful to him as long as their soup lasted, and the hostess knew well how to make it, hence her place for the time being was at home.


Up at Marietta he contracted with the ship carpenters for fifteen large boats, costing several thousand dollars, and that fact held the New Englanders' heads "level." On their return to the island, Governor Alston and wife were, with Mrs. Blennerhasset and her husband, and Burr, all invited to a ball at Marietta. As the dancing proceeded, and the wine went round, so did Burr; and in a short time he coun- teracted all the gossip touching himself. It was voted a lie by all, especially the unmarried ladies-Burr being then a widower-and the wives of all who wished Marietta to become a great commercial ship building center, although a thousand miles from the sea.


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To put an effectual quietus on all suspicions, Burr, ob- serving Theodosia and Madame Blennerhasset face to face in conversation, clasped his daughter, who had a national reputation for all that was good and virtuous in woman, and imprinted a kiss, while he gave his other arm to Mrs. Blennerhasset, exclaiming as he pressed both, "Man rules the world, and woman man." Then passing round the whirling crowd, he sought two matrons of Marietta at a window, with their puritan eyes gazing at him. But Aaron Burr never shrunk from the gaze of woman, and, making a gracious bow, comprehending at a glance their talk to be about him, he asked each if she had sons. Learning that such was the fact, he added that he had high places for the sons of courageous mothers, and further desired to know their wishes. These spartan pioneer women, who had unflinchingly looked out of Campus Martius at Indian war in all its horrors for five years, were just as open to flattery as the sex the world over. They bowed at the words "courageous mothers." Burr passed on through the throng, made the acquaintance of every one, and when the ball closed that night he had but one opponent, and she was a spinster of the post tertiary period, who invidiously remarked that the ex-president of the United States had conquered Marietta with a daughter on one arm and a Pompadour on the other.


On the day of the ball there had been a military training at Marietta, which, in those early times, brought a great crowd to the town. Burr, from his revolutionary experi- ence, was master of the art of war, and he drilled the militia on this occasion so successfully, that it was said he added five hundred recruits to his expedition, having not less than five thousand men in all.


His enemies began to work. The papers soon sounded the alarm of a disunion plot, of which it was hinted Burr was leader. In November, he was summoned into court at Frankfort to answer charges, but no proof being adduced to implicate him in any measure hostile to the Union, he


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was discharged, and a ball given in his honor. He then completed arrangements for Blennerhasset and his party, to go down the Ohio on the fifteen boats building at Marietta, to meet Burr at the mouth of the Cumberland, and there Burr to take command, and proceed down the Mississippi in quest of "fortune and honor." In the meantime, Presi- dent Jefferson issued a proclamation, based upon dispatches sent him by General Wilkinson, in command of United States forees at New Orleans, cautioning the people against " unlawful enterprises in the western States."


Blennerhasset came back to his island home, and there unwittingly fell in with a United States detective, who avowed himself one of "Burr's men," and who, after draw- ing information out of Blennerhasset, proceeded to Ma- rietta, and thence to Chillicothe, and laid all before the Governor of Ohio, who sent a secret message to the Ohio Legislature, then in session, and that body at once passed necessary laws in the premises. The militia were called out, marched to Marietta, captured the fifteen boats, and patrolled the Ohio River. A party proceeded to the island to arrest Blennerhasset, but he and forty companions left in the night for down the river, with directions for Mrs. Blennerhasset to follow soon. She went to Marietta, and while absent, the militia sacked the island home.


Burr was at Nashville-and ignorant of the fact that General Wilkinson had betrayed and exposed him-pro- ceeded on with his flotilla down the Mississippi until near Natchez, where the Governor of Mississippi and militia caused him to surrender. After examination his men were discharged, and Burr finding too many enemies in front, fed into the wilderness. Blennerhasset, on his return homeward, was arrested for treason, and committed to jail in Kentucky. Colonel, afterward General Gaines, arrested Burr in Alabama, who gave bond to appear at Richmond, Virginia, on the 23d of May, 1807, and stand trial for trea- son. Both he and Blennerhasset were indicted for treason, tried, and acquitted.


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Burr retired to England-was expelled from that coun- try, and took up his residence in Sweden. In 1809, he went to Paris, became very poor, returned to New York, where he practiced law. IIe died in 1833.


Blennerhasset and his wife returned to Marietta, but find- ing his island-home a waste, removed to Mississippi, bought a thousand acre cotton plantation, which completed his ruin, by reason of the embargo on cotton.


These two men caused more sensation, had warmer friends, and more vindictive enemies than any two men of their day. Both became outcasts, though no crime was proven against either. Blennerhasset died on the island of Guernsey in 1822. His wife unsuccessfully demanded damages against the government, and died in New York in 1842, not in want-as some writers have declared-of means or friends, but possessed of both to a moderate extent.


Time, in making all things even, developed the fact that the scandal touching her and Burr's secret intimacy was fictitious, and gotten up by his enemies to destroy his influ- ence among the people. She died a martyr "to state craft."


CHAPTER XII.


THE LAST INDIAN WAR-DEATH OF TECUMSEH.


The impressment of American naturalized citizens on the high seas by British orders, and British intrigues among the frontier Indians, brought on the war of 1812, and in which the white settlers of the Tuscarawas and Muskingum valleys bore an honorable part. But it is not the province of this work to detail other than the Indian incidents of that war.


General Harrison commanded in the north-west, where the prophet, Tecumseh, and his brother, were instigating the Shawanese, Delawares, and other tribes, to engage in war for the recovery of the lands lost by the Indians at the Wayne treaty of 1795. Those of the Indian tribes who opposed his machinations, or favored the Americans, he had burned as witches as fast as caught by his spies.


The atrocities of the prophet finally caused General Harrison to issue and send a "speech " to the Shawanese chiefs, sharply remonstrating against these actions. About this time the British became very active with the Indians, and it soon came to the notice of the Americans. Early in 1808, large numbers of Indians congregated in the vicinity of Fort Wayne, on the Maumee, in obedience to a summons from the prophet. In the following summer the prophet removed to a place called Tippecanoe, on the upper waters of the Wabash, where he was soon surrounded by his deluded followers. Here he remained until 1810, when


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Governor Harrison received positive information that the prophet and Tecumseh were inciting the Indians to open a war with the Americans. Traders arriving at Vincennes from the upper country confirmed these reports, and asserted that not less than a thousand warriors were assembled un- der Tecumseh and the prophet. The government made preparations for a war, but in order to prevent it called upon Tecumseh to meet the governor at Vincennes for a peace conference. Accordingly, in July, 1811, Tecumseh, with three hundred of his warriors, came to Vincennes. Gov- ernor Harrison told the Indians what he knew concerning their warlike preparations, and warned them against pre- cipitating a war. Tecumseh boldly denied all, and solemnly pledged the governor that he would return in eighteen days, when he would "wash away all these bad stories." Tecumseh failed to come on the appointed day, but on the 27th of July he appeared with his three hundred warriors, and acted in quite a bold and defiant manner. The con- ference took place in the presence of the troops and the Indians, who were called out to protect their respective leaders in case of foul play from the opposite side. After several speeches on either side, Tecumseh proposed to let matters rest while he visited the southern tribes to learn their desires. So the meeting broke up without a definite understanding, and Tecumseh went down the Wabash on his proposed visit.


This was his last appearance before the commencement of hostilities. In the meantime the mysterious conduct of the Indians had excited and thoroughly aroused the whites. It is not proposed to detail here the movements of the In- dians or the government troops, which culminated in the memorable battle of Tippecanoe, which took place on the 7th of November, 1811, resulting in the defeat of the prophet and his force. Soon after the battle Tecumseh returned from his southern trip, and was much surprised and chagrined at the result of the conflict. He now proposed to Governor 18


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Harrison to be allowed to proceed to Washington, but was not encouraged, and the journey was at once abandoned.


Tecumseh and his brother now applied themselves with all their energy and cunning toward fomenting a general war against the Americans, in which they were abetted and encouraged by the British on the Canada frontier. Matters finally assumed a serious phase, and the ball was opened by the forcible abduction of a party of peacefully disposed Wyandots by a detachment of British and Shawanese, ac- companied by Tecumseh, Elliott, and McKee. Sometime afterward a deputation of Indians, with the consent of Gov- ernor Harrison, went into the British camps to procure the release and return of all the Indians there who desired to return to their own country. The Wyandots who were held by the British secretly promised the deputation that they would all desert to the Americans at the first opportunity, which they did.


Tecumseh, having returned from a conference with the British agents, Elliott and McKee, sent a message to the prophet to send his women and children westward, and march to attack Vincennes with all the warriors he could command, and that he, Tecumseh, would join him ere long.


In June, 1812, war was declared against England by the United States. Northern Ohio, Lake Erie, Michigan, and Canada comprised the principal theater of the war in the West; and among the noteworthy events were Colonel Cro- ghan's gallant defense of Fort Stephenson, on the present site of Fremont, Ohio; Perry's victory on Lake Erie; Hull's surrender at Detroit; the complete defeat of the British under Proctor, and the Indians under Tecumseh, by General Harrison's army, on the river Thames, in Canada, and the gallant defense of New Orleans by General Jackson.


Tecumseh was engaged in all the fights in the north-west, and at the decisive battle of the Thames he commanded the right wing of the allied British and Indian forces. When the retreat commenced Tecumseh fiercely exerted himself to stem the tide of defeat. And this was his last fight. Re-


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fusing to run with the cowardly British, he renewed the contest, and sprang to the front of his savages, and by his appeals encouraged many to stand by him. Finally, the In- ‹lians gave way and retreated, when it was found that their brave leader was killed, and around him lay a score of his braves who fell at his side. The old story that Tecumseh was shot by Colonel R. M. Johnson, who commanded the Kentucky troops, has never been definitely settled. He fell in front of where Colonel Johnson was wounded, and that is all that is positively known on the subject. But the In- lians soon abandoned all hope of recovering their old valleys. At the close of the war the English granted the family of Tecumseh a pension, as also the prophet, who lived several years afterward. Tecumseh was about forty-five years old when he was killed.


The war on the lakes resulted as disastrously to the Britishi navy as it had to the British army on land, and before the battle of New Orleans was fought, a treaty of peace was signed in December, 1814, between the two governments, but the fact not being known at New Orleans, Packenham moved upon Jackson's army, and was demolished January 8, 1815.


The counties of Tuscarawas and Muskingum furnished in all about five hundred men for the war, and lost but about thirty.


ACCOUNT OF THE ELLIOTT FAMILY OF FIGHTERS.


Colonel Robert Elliott came from Pennsylvania, near the Maryland line. Ile had been twice married; the last time to a lady named Hughes, by whom he had a daughter, who became the wife of General Irvine, commandant at Fort Pitt; he also had three sons, William, Wilson, and Jesse D. Elliott. The first emigrated to Canada; the second com- manded an Ohio company, from Trumbull County, at the seige of Fort Meigs, in the war of 1812; the third was second


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in command of Perry's fleet on Lake Erie, and his ship com- ing into action at the opportune moment, contributed to win the victory, Perry's flag-ship having become disabled, and he having to go aboard of Elliott's ship. It is a family legend that William and Wilson Elliott personally encoun- tered each other in a hand to hand fight at Fort Meigs.


Commodore Jesse D. Elliott's son, Washington Elliott, was a Captain in the Mexican war, and a colonel of the regular army in the war of 1861. He was president of the court-martial that tried Captain Jack and his Modocs in 1873.


Colonel Wilson Elliott's son, Jesse D. Elliott, is and has been one of the editors of the Ohio Democrat, at New Phila- delphia, Ohio, for thirty years past. Other branches of the Elliott's live at Newark.


The Matthew Elliott, referred to in Heckewelder and Zeisberger's narratives, was of different ancestry.


COLONEL ROBERT ELLIOTT AMBUSHED AND KILLED IN WAYNE'S WAR.


On General Wayne's march from Fort Washington into the Indian country, he so depleted the stores of Forts Hamilton and Jefferson that Colonel Robert Elliott (grandfather of Jesse D. Elliott, Esq., of New Philadelphia, Tusearawas County), who was acting in the capacity of quartermaster- general, was ordered to replenish those forts with army stores. While attending to this duty, and when on his way from Fort Washington to Fort Hamilton, accompanied by his body servant, a roving band of Indians that had struck out on a spying expedition shortly after Wayne defeated their forces on St. Clair's old battle-field, waylaid and shot the colonel dead from his horse. The servant made good his escape by putting his horse to its utmost speed. He arrived at Fort Hamilton in the night, and soon after him came the faithful charger of his master. On the following


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morning the commandant at the fort sent a squad of soldiers, accompanied by the servant, out after the body of the colo- nel, which they found a short distance from the spot where he fell. The savages had stripped it of all valuables and a portion of the clothing. The body was placed in a box taken out for the purpose, and the soldiers started with it for the fort. When about one-third of the way in they were fired upon by the same party of Indians who had shot Elliott, and the servant, who had rode the colonel's horse was killed. The soldiers abandoned the remains and took to the woods, but were rallied by their commander, when they drove off' the Indians. In the meantime the savages had broken open the coffin. The remains were then put into the wagon with those of the servant, and taken safely to the fort, and after- ward to Cincinnati, where they were buried side by side in the cemetry of the old Presbyterian church at that place. In 1835, his son, Commodore Jesse D. Elliott, of the United States Navy, placed an imposing monument at the grave with the following inscription upon it: " In memory of Robert Elliott, slain by a party of Indians, near this point, while in the service of his country. Placed by his son, Com- modore Jesse D. Elliott, United States Navy, 1835. Damon and Fidelity."




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