USA > Ohio > Fulton County > The County of Fulton: A History of Fulton County, Ohio, from the Earliest Days, with Special Chapters on Various Subjects, Including Each of the Different Townships; Also a Biographical Department. > Part 3
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"The progress of discovery seems constantly to diminish the dis- tinction between the ancient and modern races; and it may not be very wide of the track to assert that they were the same people."- Lapham.
The preceding pages give the views of well-known scientists and explorers, both early and recent. It is not the purpose of this work to decide controverted questions, but to give both sides and allow the reader to form his own opinions, based upon authorities cited.
In concluding this chapter, we will state, however, that, although Fulton county may not be a rich field for archaeological research, yet the evidences in existence that this section was once the abode of these unknown earth workers, are sufficient to create a local interest in any information concerning them. Judging from the mass of pub- lished information on the subject, the Mound Builders were a race or races of people, somewhat nomadic in their habits, yet more cen- tralized in habitation than the Indians of historic time. They were semi-agricultural in pursuits, given to hunting and fishing, and schooled in the primitive arts of warfare. They had some knowledge
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of trade, or a system of rude barter, which brought them into posses- sion of articles from far distant localities, since in Williams county, and particularly in the vicinity of Nettle Lake, mounds have been opened which contained copper that must have come from Lake Supe- rior, and mica that probably had its origin in the old mines of North Carolina. But, after all, our opinions can be but deductions drawn from the mementoes they have left us, and which have withstood the forces of nature that causes less enduring materials to crumble and decay. However carefully we may study and examine these rude and imperfect records, much will doubtless always remain shrouded in dense obscurity.
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CHAPTER II
EARLY JURISDICTION
I T WAS not until many years after the close of the Ameri- can Revolution that the Anglo-Saxon race undertook the project of colonization in the region known as the Maumee Valley, of which Fulton county is a component, and as regards population and resources, a very important division. It should not be inferred, however, that the territory contained within the present limits of the county remained unvisited by white men and unknown to them until after the epoch mentioned above. While this portion of North America was under the dominion of the French government an extensive trade with the Indians was carried on, and in pursuit of the returns that came from the traffic with the red men the wiley and skillful French traders traveled extensively over this portion of their mother country's pos- sessions. They continued their relations with the natives, notwith- standing that the result of the French and Indian war transferred the right of dominion to the English government, and even for years fol- lowing the American Revolution they followed their vocation, undis- turbed and without competition, save the rivalry existing among them- selves. So it is fair to presume that during their many excursions, in quest of trade, the present limits of Fulton county were frequently invaded; and as their much traveled route. connecting Detroit with the Wabash river, was through this region, it can easily be inferred that the natives who then inhabited this section were the beneficiaries cr victims, as the case might be, of commercial intercourse with the early French traders.
Good traditional authority exists for the belief that at least one In- dian and French trail passed through Fulton county. Major Sutten- field and wife passed over it on horseback, after Hull's surrender of the Northwestern army in the latter part of the summer of 1812, on their journey from Detroit to Fort Wayne. But railroad tracks and plow-shares have long since destroyed all vestige of this highway, so often trodden by the once powerful tribes and their eager customers. These commercial adventurers were not pioneers in the true sense of that word, and it is doubtful if they could properly be called advance agents of civilization. Their mission in these parts was neither to civilize the denizens of the forest nor to carve out homes in the west- ern wilderness. "The white man's burden" rested not heavily upon their shoulders and gave them little or no concern. the only motive that fetched them hither being a desire to possess, at as little cost as 30 1
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possible, the wares which the Indians had for sale. This object being attained, they wended their way homeward and the localities which had known them knew them no more. So it remained for the fore- runners of Anglo-Saxon civilization, as they led the "march of em- pire" in a westerly direction, to open this section of country for actual settlement and win from hostile nature-and at times a more hostile foe in human form-homes for themselves and posterity.
The Indians who inhabited the northern region east of the Missis- sippi at the beginning of historic times were, in language, of two great families, which are given the French names Algonquin and Iro- quois. These are not the Indian names. In fact, from the word Indian itself, which is a misnomer-arising from the slowness of the early voyagers to admit that they had found unknown continents- down to the names of the tribes, there is a confusion of nomenclature and often a deplorable misfit in the titles now fixed in history by long usage. The Algonquin family may more properly be termed the Lenape, and the Iroquois the Mengwe, which the English frontiers- men closely approached in the word, Mingo. The Lenape themselves, while using that name, also employed the more generic title of Wapanackki. The Iroquois, on their part, had the ancient name of Onque Honwe, and this in their tongue, as Lenape in that of the other family, signified men with a sense of importance-"the people," to use a convenient English expression. The Lenape became a very wide- spread people, and different divisions of them were known in later years by various names, among which was Maumee. The Indian name of this tribe was something like Omaumeeg, and is said to have meant people of the peninsula. The French name which came into general use was Miami, pronounced Me-ah-me, though the English sometimes used Omee. From this derivation came the names of rivers in Ohio, and as late as 1835, the river flowing eastward into Lake Erie was known as "the Miami of the Lake;" but since then, for the pur- pose of shortening the name and also to avoid confusion, the other form of the word has been used and the river has been called the Maumee, while Miami is used to designate rivers in Southern Ohio.
Before proceeding with an account of the organization and set- tlement of Fulton county, a brief review of the question of title to lands will be necessary, the word title as here used having special reference to racial dominion or civil jurisdiction. As is well known, the French were the first civilized people who laid claim to the ter- ritory now embraced within the state of Ohio, and France exercised nominal lordship over the region until the Treaty of Paris, in 1763, which ended the French and Indian war. Prior to this date the French actually occupied isolated places in the vast extent of territory claimed by them (the south shore of Lake Erie, for instance) but it is an open historical question when such occupancy began. It is certain, how- ever, that there was not the semblance of courts or magistrates for the trial of civil or criminal issues, and hence the chief function of civil government was lacking. And even for some years after the Ohio country passed under the control of the officials of the British
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government, affairs there were managed by army officers, command- ants of posts on the frontier.
Immediately after the peace of 1763 with the French, the Province of Canada was extended by act of Parliament, southerly to the Al- legheny and Ohio rivers. This of course included all of the present state of Ohio, notwithstanding the claims of the colony of Virginia that she had the title to all the land northwest of the Ohio river. This conflict of authority was at its height during the Revolutionary war, and in 1778, soon after the conquest of the British forts on the Mis- sissippi and the Wabash, by Gen. George Rogers Clark, Virginia erected the county of Illinois. with the county seat at Kaskaskia. It practically embraced all the territory in the present states of Ohio, Michigan. Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. But the British held pos- session of the Ohio country and all the lake region. and in the same year (1778), Lord Dorchester. Governor-General of Canada, divided Upper Canada into four districts for civil purposes, one of which in- cluded Detroit and the lake territory.
Great Britain had promised the Indian tribes that the whites should not settle north of the Ohio river, and the government of this almost unlimited region was, during English control, exclusively military, with Detroit as the central post. This was the condition during the Revolutionary war, and even after the treaty of peace, in 1783, the same state of affairs continued until after the second, or Jay treaty, in 1795. Early in 1792 the Upper Canadian parliament authorized Governor Simcoe to lay off nineteen counties to embrace that province, and it is presumed that the county of Essex, on the east bank of De- troit river, included Michigan and northern Ohio. While this sup- position is not conclusive, certain it is that some form of British civil authority existed at their forts and settlements until Detroit was given up and all its dependencies in August. 1796.
The treaty of 1783, which terminated the war of the Revolution, included Ohio within the boundaries of the United States, and the Seventh article of that treaty stated that the King of Great Britain would, "with all convenient speed, withdraw all his forces, garrisons and fleets from the United States. and from every post, place and har- bor, within the same." Military posts were garrisoned, however, by British troops, and continued under the dominion of Great Britain for many years after that date. But preparatory to taking possession of it, and in order to avoid collision with the Indian tribes, who owned the soil, treaties were made with them from time to time (of which more is said on a subsequent page), in which they ceded to the United States their title to their lands. But the territory thus secured by treaties with Great Britain, and with the Indian tribes-and concern- ing which we had thus established an amicable understanding-was many years sequestered from our possession. The British govern- ment urged as an excuse the failure of Americans to fulfill that part of the treaty protecting the claims of British subjects against citizens of the United States; but. from the "aid and comfort" rendered the Indians in the campaigns of Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne, the ap-
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parent prime cause was to defeat the efforts of the United States to extend their power over the country and tribes north of the Ohio, and continue to the British the advantage of the fur trade, which, from their relations with these tribes they possessed. The ultimate result of this international difficulty was the campaigns of 1790-91-94, os- tensibly against the Indians, but substantially against them and their British allies, which bear so intimate a relation to the formal sur- render of the country to American control, that they perform an es- sential part of history and are given in detail in the first volume of this work.
Virginia, however, still adhering to her claim of sovereignty over the Northwestern country, on March 1, 1784, ceded the territory to the United States, and immediately congress entered seriously upon the consideration of the problem of providing a government for the vast domain. Its deliberations resulted in the famous "Compact of 1787," which is also fully discussed and explained in the history of Ohio, which accompanies this volume. It might not be out of place here, however, to call attention to the fact that this compact, in two provisions which were inspired by Thomas Jefferson, guaranteed to all the right of religious freedom and prohibited slavery in the terri- tory. Hence the citizens of Fulton county, in common with the citizens of Ohio and those of the sister states that were carved from Virginia's grant, can feel a pardonable pride that never. under any American jurisdiction of this domain. has a witch been burned at the stake or a slave been sold on the auction block.
All these pretensions of sovereignty and conflictions of authority were aside from the claims of the real inhabitants of the country. The Iroquois Indians, or Six Nations, laid claim to the entire extent of territory, bordering on the Ohio river and northward. basing their contention upon the assumption that they had conquered it and held it by right of conquest. In 1722, a treaty had been made at Albany, New York, between the Iroquois and English, by which the lands west of the Alleghany mountains were acknowledged to belong to the Iroquois by reason of their conquests from the Eries, Conoys, Tongarias, etc., but this claim was extinguished by the terms of the treaty of Fort Stanwix, concluded October 22, 1784. The treaty of Fort McIntosh. in 1785, was intended to quiet the claims of the Dela- wares, Wyandots, Ottawas and Chippewas, in the Ohio valley. The Shawanees relinquished their claims under the provisions of the treaties of Fort Finney, January 31, 1786, treaty of Fort Harmar (held by General St. Clair). January 9, 1789. by the treaty of Greenville, and various other treaties from that date until 1818. It is a notable fact that every foot of Ohio soil was acquired from the Indians through treaty or purchase, and, when compared with methods followed in other sections of America, the means employed were decidedly hon- orable. True, some of these treaties. as for instance the one concluded at Greenville, were entered into at the close of a long and bloody con- flict, when the Indians had been conquered and reduced to a condi- tion of helplessness, thus making them obliged to submit to any terms
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offered by the victors. But when we consider the fact, demonstrated on every page of the world's history, that the tree of civilization does not grow until the soil has been fertilized by human blood, we can excuse the warfare waged against the Indians, and by comparison at least point to those treaties as just and merciful ones.
The Greenville treaty was made by General "Mad Anthony" Wayne, on August 3, 1795, at the close of the Indian war that waged in the Maumee Valley and throughout the state during the years 1790-95. Full particulars of these hostilities, as before stated, are given in the accompanying volume-devoted to the history of Ohio- but the provisions of the treaty comes properly within the scope of the history of Fulton county, and will bear repetition. Between the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas and the Maumee and Miami, south to the line from Fort Laurens to Laramie's store, the Indians were to retain possession, and besides that they were to hold the title to all the rest of the country, west of a line from Fort Recovery to. the mouth of the Kentucky river, and west and northwest of the Maumee, except Clark's grant on the Ohio river and certain reservations about Detroit and the forts in Ohio and other parts of the northwest, with the understanding that when they should sell lands, it should be to the United States alone, whose protection the Indians acknowledged, and that of no other power whatever. There was to be free passage along the Maumee, Auglaize, Sandusky and Wabash rivers and the lake. Twenty thousand dollars worth of goods were at once delivered to the Indians, and a promise was made of $9,500 worth every year forever.
The United States senate ratified the Wayne or Greenville treaty in due time, and northwestern Ohio, north of the treaty line and west of the Connecticut Reserve line, remained unorganized practically until 1820. About the same time (1795) John Jay, as minister to England, concluded his treaty with that country, by the terms of which the British posts were to be abandoned in the neighborhood of the Great Lakes on or before June 1, 1796. The terms not being strictly complied with, in July, 1796, the United States demanded a fulfillment of the treaty and the transfer of authority was accordingly made, General Wayne moving his headquarters thither and displac- ing the English commander. In the absence of General Arthur St. Clair, who was the Governor of the Northwest Territory, Secretary Winthrop Sargent went to Detroit and proclaimed the county of Wayne, which included, besides what is now parts of Michigan, In- diana, Illinois and Wisconsin, the Indian country in Ohio, the boun- dary of which on the south was the Greenville treaty line.
The proclamation creating the county of Wayne was issued August 15, 1796, and the boundaries named therein were as follows: "Be- ginning at the mouth of the Cuyahoga river. upon Lake Erie, and with the said river to the Portage, between it and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum: thence down the said branch to the forks, at the carrying place above Fort Laurens; thence by a west line to
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the western boundary of Hamilton county (which is a due north line from the lower Shawanees town upon the Scioto river) ; thence by a line west-northerly to the southern part of the Portage, between the Miamis of the Ohio and the St. Mary's river; thence by a line also west-northerly to the most southern part of Lake Michigan; thence along the western shores of the same to the northwest part thereof (including the lands upon the streams emptying into the said lake) ; thence by a due north line to the territorial boundary in Lake Su- perior, and with the said boundary through Lakes Huron, Sinclair and Erie, to the mouth of Cuyahoga river, the place of beginning."
From the organization of the territory, in 1788, it had had no rep- resentative government, owing to the restrictions of the "Ordinance of 1787." A reference to this "Compact" will discover to the reader that the legislative function of the territorial government in its first stage of development, and until there should be five thousand free male inhabitants of full age in the district, was lodged in the Gov- ernor of the Territory and the judges of the general (or Territorial) court, or any two of the judges and the Governor. But in 1798, a census was taken, which disclosed more than the necessary "five thousand free male inhabitants" in the Territory, and on October 29, 1798, Governor St. Clair accordingly proclaimed an election, to be held on the third Monday of December, for the choice of a house of representatives in the general assembly. to which the territory was entitled at that stage of development. The gentlemen chosen at this election met at Cincinnati on January 22, 1799, and organized the first elective legislative body that ever convened within the limits of the Northwest Territory. Twenty-two representatives were chosen by the nine counties then organized, and they constituted the law- making power of the territory, when taken in conjunction with a legislative council of five members, who were appointed by the United States congress.
Wayne county (of which the territory now embraced in Fulton was then a part) was represented in this assembly by Solomon Sib- ley, Charles F. Chaubert de Joncaire and Jacob Visger, all residents of Detroit. The first named, Mr. Sibley, was an exceedingly active and influential member of this assembly and was appointed a commit- tee of one to superintend the printing of the laws of the session. The book as printed is now in possession of the supreme court library in Columbus, and in it Mr. Sibley certifies that he has carefully com- pared the printed laws with the original enrolled bills, and finds them to agree. During the interim between the adjournment of the first and the meeting of the second session of this legislature, congress passed the act dividing the Northwest Territory and creating the new territory of Indiana. This act legislated Henry Vanderburg, of Vin- cennes, out of the legislative council. and Mr. Sibley was later pro- moted to that position. At the election for members of the second legislative assembly, Wayne county chose as her representatives Charles F. Chaubert de Joncaire, George McDougal and Jonathan
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Schiefflin. The election of the latter two was contested, but they were declared to be entitled to their seats.
By the above-mentioned act of Congress, which was approved May 7, 1800, the old Northwest Territory was cut in two by setting off Indiana Territory west of the line of Wayne's treaty, running from a point opposite the mouth of the Kentucky river to Fort Recovery, and thence due north to the Canada line. Hence the above date marks the division of the territory embraced in the states of Ohio and Indiana, the line north of Fort Recovery being located about one and one-half miles east of the present state line. The region east of this line remained under the title of "The Territory Northwest of the Ohio river," and while by the provisions of this act the old county of Wayne was considerably reduced in extent, yet its numerical . strength as regards population was probably lessened very little. By the United States census of 1800, Wayne county-which it must be remembered included Detroit-contained a population of 3,206. The first, and what proved to be the last. session of the second territorial legislature, convened at Chillicothe, November 23, 1801, and ad- journed January 23, 1802: and this was the last time that Detroit was represented in an Ohio legislative assembly.
In the Congressional enactment providing for a convention to con- sider the question of statehood, Wayne county was not permitted to elect delegates, owing to the fact that its population was confined chiefly to Detroit and vicinity. which region it was not intended to include in the proposed new state. This separation, and the ensuing admission of Ohio into the Union of States. left the region of which Fulton county is now a part-though technically considered a part of Hamilton-practically under no county jurisdiction ; but as all the vast territory, north of the Greenville treaty line and west of the boundary of the Connecticut Reserve, was as yet the hunting ground of the aborigines, such a condition of affairs entailed no hardship upon anyone.
Among the first acts of the first state legislature, however, was the erection of eight new counties, three of which-Montgomery, Green and Franklin-were extended in jurisdiction to the northern boundary of the State, including all the Indian country, formerly a part of Wayne county, except a strip south of the Connecticut Re- serve. The boundary line thus established between Montgomery and Green counties, extending north to the State line, divided the Fulton county territory, and thus it became unorganized parts of Montgomery and Green. The aforesaid act was passed March 24, 1803, and de- scribed the boundaries of these two counties as follows :
Montgomery-"Beginning at the State line at the northwest corner of the county of Butler; thence east with the lines of Butler and War- ren to the east line of section number sixteen in the third township and fifth range; thence north eighteen miles ; thence east two miles; thence north to the State line; thence with the same to the west boundary of the State; thence south with the said boundary to the beginning,
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shall compose a third new county, called and known by the name of Montgomery."
Green-"Beginning at the southeast corner of the county of Mont- gomery, running thence east to Ross county line, and the same course continued eight miles into the said county of Ross; thence north to the State line; thence westwardly with the same to the east line of Mont- gomery county ; thence bounded by the said line of Montgomery to the beginning, shall compose a fourth new county, called and known by the name of Green."
On January 16, 1807, the county of Miami was formed out of ter- ritory taken from Montgomery county, and as its location was such as to place it immediately north of the organized part of the latter county, thus separating it from the Indian country to the north, the legislature amended the act on January 7, 1812, by the following : "Whereas by the act establishing Montgomery county, the limits of said county were extended to the northern boundary of this state, and whereas by the above-recited act, the limits of Miami county were confined to the Indian boundary line [the Greenville treaty line], leaving a tract of country attached to Montgomery county, over which no jurisdiction can be conveniently exercised-therefore, all that part of the county of Montgomery lying north of the county of Miami, shall be, and the same is hereby attached to the said county of Miami."
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