USA > Ohio > Lucas County > Toledo > Polk's Toledo City Directory (1858) > Part 4
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gave Coutture the name of Sa-gua-na, which signified Be brave, and Coutture understanding that he was now safe, interceded, and not unsuccessfully, with his Indian father for the life of Dr. Bower, and that gentleman was, not many years ago, a Senator from Missouri. Wau-gon took him to Detroit, and afterwards Coutture saw him on their march to the Thames.
Jack Brandy, while conveying Winchester as his prisoner to Proctor's camp, captured Whitmore Knaggs, the old Potta- watamie Agent, and father of George and James Knaggs of this valley. Sometime before the war, Knaggs had caused Jack to be flogged for some offence, and ascertaining who had taken him, supposed as a matter of course that he would be slain. Jack re-assured him with promises of safety. Before they arrived at the camp, they were met by a band of Potta- watamies, who, with upraised tomahawks, rushed towards Knaggs. Jack stepped between them and his prisoner, told them they must kill him before they killed Knaggs, and thus saved him from massacre.
This same Jack Brandy, a few days before the massacre of Raisin, in conversation with Harry Hunt of Detroit, told him, that if occasion ever offered, he would be kind to the Yan- kees, and bring any that might fall into his hands, to Detroit without injury. This promise he so far fulfilled, as to drag from the buildings, at the massacre, a large Kentuckian by the name of John Green, who had been wounded in the engage- ment. Wrapping him carefully in his blanket, he laid him in the bottom of his carryall, and started on a trot for Detroit. The next morning, Hunt saw Jack drive up in front of the town, and with one or two friends went to see him.
" Well, Jack," he enquired, "have you brought us some venison to-day ?"
" Yes, Harry Hunt," replied the Indian, throwing the blan- ket off his captive. "Good Yankee venison. There, Harry Hunt," he continued, as soon as Hunt discovered that the
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prisoner was one of the Raisin captives. "I told you Jack Brandy cannot lie."
Mr. Hunt purchased the liberty of Green, took him to his house, and afterwards restored him to his friends, who, suppo- sing he was slain, enlisted under Harrison to avenge his death.
Sometime before the close of the war, Harry Hunt bought a large, dapple grey horse, which was stolen soon after, by a band of Pottawatamies. On entering his store, a day or two after- wards, Hunt encountered Jack Brandy, who, observing the seriousness of his countenance, enquired as to the cause. On being informed, Jack simply replied, "May be me get him again," and mounted his pony and started in pursuit. He soon struck the trail of the Pottawatamies, and came up with them two days afterwards. He camped with them on the night of his arrival, and told them he had a special mission to the Indi- ans near Chicago, which had an important bearing upon the war. This pleased his entertainers, and they told him about the fine horse they had got. Jack, upon the plea of urgent business, bantered them for a trade, promising, if on trial, the horse proved to be good, to pay the difference between him and his pony. At daylight, the horse with his saddle and bridle, was brought up for Jack to prove. He bestrode him, rode a short distance in the direction of Chicago, struck into the woods, and that was the last his Indian friends saw of him. The next day he rode into Detroit at top speed, and surrendering the horse to his owner, repeated most emphatically :
" There, Harry Hunt, I tell you once more, Jack Brandy cannot lie."
The horse was afterwards sold to Proctor for one hundred guineas, and on him, that infamous coward made his escape at the Thames.
Otussa, already named as the son of Pontiac, captured Capt. Baker of the 17th Infantry, at the battle of River Raisin. On his return to Detroit with his prisoner, accompanied by his son Wa-se-on-quet, he encamped the first night at Huron River. 5
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He ordered his son to make a fire. The young man asked why the Yankee dog could not do it.
"My son," answered Otussa, " such language is wrong. This prisoner is a chief among his own people. We must treat him as we would wish to be treated under like circumstances."
Otussa obeyed this golden rule, took the best of care of his prisoner, bought tea, butter, sugar, and other expensive luxu- ries for him. Baker was sent to Quebec, but exchanged in time to join Harrison's army and take part in the battle of the Thames. The day after the return of the army from the Thames to Detroit, a band of Indians with a white flag, was seen to emerge from the wilderness in rear of the town. Harrison ordered Capt. Baker to treat with them. He approached them, and recognized in their leader his old captor and friend Otussa. The meeting between them was highly affecting. Baker did not fail to repay, fourfold, the favor which had been bestowed upon him by the noble Indian.
On the retreat of the Indians from the engagement of the 18th January, with Capt. Lewis, some of them entered the cabin of Achan Leboo, an old Frenchman, living upon Sandy Creek. They killed Leboo and his son-in-law John Solo. Two children, Alexis and Geneveive, the eldest only fourteen, crept between the beds, where they remained all night without discov- ery, and by running barefoot, the next day, a mile or more over frozen ground, escaped with their lives.
The fate of Capt. Nathaniel Hart, as detailed by Capt. Cout- ture, is one of the most affecting incidents connected with the massacre. Hart had been wounded in the calf of his leg. When the Indians came to the hospital, the morning after the battle, a Pottawatamie chief, by the name of Os-a-med, threw his blanket over the Captain, and lifted him upon his pony. Coutture, who knew Os-a-med, promised him a reward to take good care of Captain Hart. Designing to do so, Os-a-med started with his prisoner for Detroit, on an old blind trail, but had proceeded but a short distance, before Capt. Hart fell from
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his saddle, with a bullet in his brain, fired by a Chippewa. The Indians stripped and scalped him, leaving his body to become a prey to the wolves. A mile beyond the spot where Hart fell, a young man by the name of Henry Shovin, son of one of the settlers, lay dead in the road. In the night, after the Indians had departed, Shovin, the father, accompanied by Coutture, went after the body of the young man, which they brought to Shovin's house, directly in front of which lay the body of Capt. Hart. They hid young Shovin's body in the cellar, and first covering that of Capt. Hart, with bark, they buried it in the hollow made by the roots of a fallen tree.
As soon after the massacre of the Raisin as safety would permit, Gen. Harrison advanced from his camp on Portage River to the foot of the rapids, and built Fort Meigs, which was the only fort on the frontier, in the Spring of 1813, at all prepared to resist an attack of the enemy. It was anticipated that an attack would be made as soon as the lake broke up in the Spring. It was, therefore, important that the army, garri- soned at Fort Meigs, should be re-enforced as soon as possible, as the fall of that post would expose the whole frontier to fire and massacre.
Navarre and his brothers were employed as scouts, by Har- rison, as soon as Fort Meigs was completed. When the Indi- ans first made their appearance, Navarre discovered them cross- ing the river, at the foot of the large island. On reporting this to Harrison, he gave him three letters, one to Lower Sandusky -one to Upper Sandusky, and a third to Governor Meigs, at Urbana. Navarre departed, and at the close of the fifth day handed the message to Gov. Meigs. Meigs sent messengers in all directions for volunteers. Two days afterwards, Col. Duncan McArthur left Urbana at the head of eighteen hundred men, to re-enforce Gen. Harrison. At Fort Findley, they were met by a messenger from Harrison, with intelligence of the successful repulse of the British and McArthur's troops dis- banded.
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Two regiments, under command of Gen. Green Clay, marched for the exposed fortress, from Kentucky, early in April, over the route traversed by Gen. Winchester. At St. Mary's block- house, Gen. Clay divided the brigade, sending Col. Dudley's regiment across to the Auglaize River, and descending the St. Mary's himself, at the head of Col. Boswell's troops, intending to unite the two regiments at Defiance. While this march was in progress, the enemy made their appearance on the bank of the river opposite the fort, which, as none of the new levies had arrived, was very indifferently manned by less than one thousand men. In this exigency, Gen. Harrison sent Major Oliver, as an express, to Gen. Clay, with orders to hasten his march with the Kentucky reinforcements. Oliver, accompanied by one Indian and one white man, performed this hazardous service successfully, having found Gen. Clay at Fort Win- chester.
On the night of the next day after Oliver left Fort Meigs, Col. Dudley sent Leslie Combs as an express to Fort Meigs to inform Gen. Harrison of his advance, and to receive his orders. Combs, accompanied by four whites, and Black-Fish, a young Shawnee warrior, descended the river in a pirogue without ac- cident, but did not arrive in sight of the Fort until the morn- ing of the next day had far advanced. He was discovered by the Indians, after he had arrived in sight of the beleaguered garrison, fired at, and one of his men killed, and being unable to effect an entrance, he left his pirogue, and with much diffi- culty and suffering, succeeded in re-joining his regiment two days afterwards. Oliver and Trimble were more successful. They entered the fort at a late hour the night before the sortie, bringing with them the welcome intelligence that Gen. Clay's reinforcement was within a few miles.
At this time, the enemy had poured an incessant fire upon the fort for four days, during which time, they had killed but one man. Foreseeing that some time would elapse before Clay's reinforcement would come up, Gen. Harrison had caused
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a grand traverse of earth, twenty feet high, to be thrown up for a distance of three hundred yards, through the centre of the fort. The British, in the mean time, were erecting their batteries on the opposite side of the river, and the work upon the traverse was hid from their view by the tents which were pitched in front of it.
On the morning of the 1st of May, before Proctor opened his batteries upon the fort, it is said he reconnoitered the American camp with his spy-glass, and while thus employed, much to his astonishment, he saw the tents struck, and in a few minutes afterwards, the tops of the poles which supported them, appearing above a solid embankment of earth, which covered and protected everything within range of his guns. Among the thousand and one stories told of his conduct, when he made this discovery, the remarks that it is said he made to his men, are not the least probable.
" Boys," said he, " we will commence the fire, but I despair of success. Men who can perform such a mountain of labor, will never be taken alive."
Three days afterwards, finding he had made but little im- pression upon the fort, and that all his balls were caught in the earth-work, he sent Major Chambers to the fort to demand a surrender. Harrison's reply was worthy of his fame :
"Tell Gen. Proctor," said he, "if he takes this fort, it will be under circumstances that will do him more honor than a thousand surrenders."
Firing and bombardment were renewed, and continued with unabated fury, until Gen. Clay's army made their appearance on the margin of the river, a mile above the batteries. Col. Dudley's regiment had received orders from Gen. Harrison to land at that place, and make a rapid assault upon the British batteries, capture them, spike their guns, and then withdraw under the bank of the river, leaving the discomfited enemy on the plain above, exposed to the fire of the guns of the fort. By a simultaneous movement, Col. Miller was to march from
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the fort, at the head of four hundred men, and dislodge the batteries which had been erected on the south side of the river. Both expeditions were successful. Miller's attack was one of the most brilliant achievements of the war. Dudley's would not have been a whit behind it, had his men obeyed the orders of the commanding General. The batteries were taken, the guns partly spiked, and the enemy driven from the ravine they had occupied, in range of the guns from the fort, upon the up- land ; but Dudley's troops, fired with the ardor of success, and eager to improve this opportunity to retaliate upon the enemy for the horrible Massacre at Raisin, instead of withdrawing under the bank, pursued their retreating foe for several miles into the wilderness. A large body of Indians, on their march from Malden to reinforce the British, came up while our troops were thus engaged, and comprehending the precise state of affairs, formed an ambush, into which the unsuspecting Ken- tuckians were decoyed, surrounded, and most inhumanly butch- ered,-only one hundred and forty, of eight hundred, escaping to tell the tale. Col. Dudley himself was among the slain.
Would to God, for the honor of our common humanity, that there were no more distressing details connected with this dreadful slaughter. Alas! for the boasted civilization-alas ! for the chivalric spirit of Britain,-the unprecedented violation of all the rules of honorable warfare, and the horrible cruelties practiced at River Raisin and Fort Meigs, have fixed a stigma upon each, as damning as it is ineffaceable. Upon the surren- der of our troops, one by one, as they arrived at the batteries, they were marched in single file, down to the British head-quar- ters, at old Fort Miami, there, soon to be followed by the Indi- ans, their squaws, and their boys, and by them, plundered,- and if not tomahawked or shot, subjected to every species of insult and abuse. Capt. Leslie Combs, one of the prisoners, says that the Indians enfiladed the entrance to the fort, and tomahawked or shot such of the prisoners as were not able, by running the lines, to reach the interior in safety. The ditch
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was filled with Americans, who had been thus dispatched in sight of the butcher Proctor, and his officers. Soon after the prisoners, who had run this gauntlet, were in the fort, the In- dians transferred their horrid sport to that arena, where, after slaughtering as many as they pleased, indiscriminately, they were making preparations to bring the tragedy to a speedy close, by shooting those that remained altogether, when a noble looking Indian entered hurriedly into their midst, drew his sword, and made a short but indignant speech. This was the great chief Tecumseh, who, until that moment, had been a stranger to the doings of his men. The work of murder, from that moment, ceased ; though a bloody villain, who, but a few moments be- fore, had struck his tomahawk into the skulls of four persons, showed such signs of disobedience, that Tecumseh threatened him with instant death, unless he desisted.
At dark the prisoners were marched to the mouth of Swan Creek, and confined under hatches on a brig and schooner, with nothing but the bare plank for a bed, and without food or sur- gical attention. In this condition they were taken to Malden, where, after a short period of confinement, they were liberated upon parole, and sent across the Lake in an open boat, to the mouth of Huron River, fifty miles distant from the nearest set- tlement in Ohio.
After the attack upon Fort Stephenson, in July, the British and Indians made no further aggressions, but remained in quar- ters at Detroit, like our own army, anxiously awaiting the result of the demonstrations progressing in another quarter. On the 8th of September, Navarre and one brother were sent to Com. Perry, then at Put-in-Bay, with orders to engage the British fleet as soon as possible. They arrived on the 9th, gave Perry the letter, were favored with a review of the seamen and ma- rines, and returned to Fort Seneca the same night. The battle of Erie was fought next day, and the battle of the Thames soon followed. Navarre and his brothers were advance scouts on Col. Johnson's march from Fort Meigs to the Thames.
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With this last action, the war in the northwest was brought to a glorious termination. Gen. Harrison entered into an ar- mistice with the hostile Indians, and went, with some of his troops, to the Niagara frontier. The second treaty of Green- ville took place soon after, at which Major Stickney, as Indian Agent, had seven thousand Indians to govern and feed. The treaty was effected after a meeting of two month's duration. The Indians renewed their fealty to the United States, and departed to their old settlements. From this time, until peace was de- clared, they were dependant upon our Government for support -for the reason, that they could not, without liability to ex- posure to our troops, go on their usual hunting expeditions. Du- ring the last year of the war, Major Stickney disbursed, for provisions alone, over three hundred thousand dollars. The condition of this frontier, at this period, is thus described by Major Stickney :
" The British authorities saw they might possibly make some- thing out of predatory incursions by the Indians upon the par- tially protected frontier, as they had much the largest number of Indians who adhered to them. The Indians committed some depredations upon the scattered settlements. This produced a very uneasy state of mind among the inhabitants of Ohio and Indiana. Some hundreds of families broke and run. In this state of things, Gen. Harrison ordered the two principal Indian Agents, John Johnson, Esq., and myself, to head-quarters, at Cincinnati, to consult upon the ways and means of protecting the frontier. We made a written report to the General, the substance of which was, that as the Indians had their settle- ments scattered along the frontier, to confine them there, by feeding them daily, at their proper places of residence and no other, and to inform them that they must be responsible for the safety of the frontier ; that if they suffered the British Indians to kill the white people over their heads, the white people would retaliate by killing them, as often as opportunity offered. This answered a tolerable protection ; but the frontier inhabitants
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were yet in a very feverish state-hundreds fled -- the friendly Indians were great objects of fear-the Agents, who doing all they could to protect them, were suspected of intentions to let the Indians loose, and were thus placed between two fires. The Indians grew impatient of restraint and made several efforts to escape, which were thwarted by the vigilance of the Agents."
Perhaps no frontier settlers suffered more from the war than those who dwelt in this valley. They lost their all. First, the British and Indians burned their houses, mills and furniture, and stole their cattle and horses before the arrival of the American troops. When they came, being out of provisions, they ravaged their cornfields, and left nothing that had escaped the plunder of the enemy. The amount of losses, sustained by eleven settlers at the foot of the rapids, exceeded $5,000. A small part of this amount was afterwards provided for by our Government, to cover the losses occasioned by our army.
On their return to the valley, the settlers erected new cab- ins out of the arks which had been used as transports by the army, and the pickets and block-houses of Fort Meigs. This fortress, which had withstood the siege of the British and In- dians, was destined to fall before the power of a single individ- ual. The strife to obtain the pickets and irons became cause of serious dissention among the settlers, and to put an end to it, one of them applied a torch to the block-houses and pickets, one dark night, and before daylight, the proud old fort was a heap of smoky ruins.
In 1815, Major Spafford sent to Washington, by his neigh- bors, to obtain remuneration for the corn which our army had used in the winter of 1813. He succeeded in getting an act passed, which provided for the payment of part of the value of the property destroyed.
One trouble followed another. The lands in the occupancy of the settlers had been purchased, as belonging to the twelve mile reserve, ceded to the United States at the old treaty of Greenville, and were embraced within a parcel of one mile 6
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square, which had, by mistake, been ceded a second time, and after the purchase by the settlers, in the treaty of Brownstown. Just after the inhabitants had effected a comfortable settlement, rebuilt their cabins, and planted their crops, an act of Congress was passed, ordering the sale of these lands, leaving the time and place of sale to be fixed by the President. The settlers were now in danger of losing crops, cabins, even the lands themselves, which they had suffered so much to subdue and cultivate. A letter, addressed to President Madison by Major Spafford, under date of March 18th, 1815, describes, in a graphic manner, the losses which he and his neighbors had al- ready sustained, and asks the President to fix the sale of those lands at Fort Meigs, that the settlers may have an opportunity to purchase them. One extract will serve to show how difficult it was to obtain information of public events. It is as follows :
" Should the time not be known, or the place of sale so re- mote that myself and others could not attend, all would be lost -first, burned by the enemy-secondly, destroyed by our own army, and thirdly, sold by an act of Government to whom we don't know, this would be the last sacrifice, that we could pos- sibly make."
The lands were finally offered for sale at Fort Meigs, and purchased by the settlers without competition. Two consider- able towns sprung up at the foot of the rapids, in 1815-one at Fort Meigs, first, called Fort Meigs, and afterwards, Or- leans-and the other, at Maumee. This part of the State was then included in Champaign county. Urbana was the County- seat. Fort Meigs was visited by three vessels, in 1815, which came after the Government stores left there at the close of the war. With the exception of a few light vessels, used by the British as transports during the war, these were the first ves- sels of ordinary draft that ever ascended to the foot of the rap- ids. The Miami, before spoken of, as the vessel which was captured at Malden, while conveying the ladies of Gen. Hull's army and his papers to Detroit, was built at the foot of the
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rapids, by Capt. Anderson Martin, in 1810. It was re-captured of the British in the battle of Erie, where it was known by the name of Little Belt. The Chippewa, also captured by the Brit- ish, was built by Capt. Martin, at Chippewa, in 1810. This was also re-captured at the battle of Erie, and both these ves- sels, with American troops on board, were afterwards piloted by Capt. Martin to the scene of the decisive victory on the Thames.
In 1816, an Agent was sent by Goverment to locate and survey a town at such point on the river, as seemed most fa- vorable for business purposes. He selected and surveyed the present town of Perrysburg. Among the papers of Major Spaf- ford is the following letter, which doubtless accounts for the name :
WASHINGTON, April 12, 1816.
DEAR FRIEND : As you will have a town on the Miami of Erie, it will be well to think of the name it is to bear. The act does not give a name. Who is to christen it ? I wish you would think on the subject and let me know your wishes. For my part, I barely suggest to you that, if it could be called Perrys- ville or Perrystown, or in some other form which may always remind us of the victory of Erie, it would be good policy. We ought to make the best profit we can of the blood of our coun- trymen, which has been shed for the confirmation of our inde- pendence. If it were left for me to name the town at Lower Sandusky, I should name it in honor of the gallant youth, Croghan, and would say it should be Croghansville. I believe it is in your power to fix the name.
Yours, Truly, JOSIAH MEIGS, Comptroller of the Treasury. S
The lots in Perrysburg were exposed to sale at Wooster Land Office in 1817, and many of them purchased by people living in that town, who afterwards settled upon and improved them. The settlement of the town was gradual, at first, but in 1822 the boundaries of Wood county having been determined, it became the County-seat, and rapidly distanced its older neighbors of Maumee and Orleans.
The history of this valley, since it ceased to be the theatre
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of warlike achievements, is well enough understood, in its main features, without a recital. It can be told in the language of one who, perhaps, had as much to do with it, as any inhabitant. Major Stickney, in a manuscript biography of himself, says :
" The declaration of war found me in the Indian country, in the character of an Indian Agent. To the public it would not appear very well to resign and leave the country. I therefore continued until the close of the war, rendering such service as circumstances put in my power to perform. My attention was soon directed to the country. I began to estimate its capaci- ty and future prospects. It was a vast, unbroken forest, where everything was yet to be done, and I was willing to be one to take hold and aid. I had travelled much in the woods during the war, and still had to travel in the discharge of my official duties, but the pressure was diminished, and I had leisure to review my observations, and saw the importance and practica- bility of a canal in the vallies of the Wabash and Maumee rivers. About the time I had arrived at these conclusions, a number of enterprising and scientific men in Cincinnati, formed themselves into a society by the name of the Western Emigrant Society, and created me an honorary member. Their object was to collect and disseminate knowledge in relation to the Great West, then but little known. I was invited to furnish them a communication, containing such observations as I had made during my residence at Fort Wayne. I wrote some twenty pages of manuscript, in which, among other details, I gave my views in relation to the practicability of a canal in the vallies of the Wabash and Maumee, connecting the two, and thereby making a water communication from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, with the exception of a port- age at the Falls of Niagara."
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