USA > Ohio > Highland County > The County of Highland : a history of Highland County, Ohio, from the earliest days, with special chapters on the bench and bar, medical profession educational development, industry and agriculture and biographical sketches > Part 3
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THE COUNTY OF HIGHLAND.
their dead husbands and handed them to Tuckey, who took such deadly aim, every shot making the number in the canoe one less, that they abandoned all hope of reaching the boat and returned to the shore. After the conflict this noble man fell from sheer exhaustion and the women were obliged to take oars and manage the boat as best they could. They were enabled to effect a landing at Limestone, now Maysville; and a few days after their protector died of his wounds, and they followed him weeping to the grave. Being too well posted in Indian strategy to be decoyed, we pursued our journey unmolested. Nothing remarkable occurred save the death of my much loved grandmother. Her remains were committed to the dust at Maysville and Rev. Cary Allen preached her funeral."
Such were the experiences of those pioneers who came down the Ohio in 1783-88, seeking homes in the Virginia military lands, which, however, they were not permitted to possess for nearly a decade.
In the year 1787 Maj. John O'Bannon and Arthur Fox crossed over into the Military district on the north side of the river, to learn something of the country so that they could make intelligent entries, when the land should be opened, and in August of that year Colonel Anderson opened an office for the entry of lands in the Virginia mili- tary district of Ohio. The bottom lands of the Ohio, Miami, and Scioto rivers were soon taken up. This hasty selection and entry of land seemed contrary to the design and purpose of Congress, which in July, 1788, invalidated all the entries made on the north side of the Ohio river. This act was repealed, however, two years later, restoring validity to all entries and also giving the mode of obtaining patents. By a provision of an act passed by the legisla- ture of Virginia establishing a principal surveyor of Military lands, the holders of warrants were compelled to place them in the hands of the chief surveyor by a certain day specified by notice, and then the priority of warrants should be decided by lot. The warrants were given to satisfy various bounties promised by the legislature of Virginia to the soldiers of the Revolutionary war, and also pre- scribed the amount each person was entitled to, according to his rank in the army and the length of time he was in actual service. Col. John McDonald described the method of obtaining land by war- rants as follows: "The first step taken toward the acquisition of land by warrant, is by means of an entry, which is the appropriation of a certain quantity of vacant land by the owner of the warrant. This is made in a book kept by the surveyor for the purpose, and contains the quantity of acres intended to be appropriated, the num- ber of the warrant on which it is entered, and then calls for some notorious and permanent object, by which the locality of the land may be known, and concluding with a general description of the course to be followed in a survey of it."
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Before 1790 the location of land in the District was made by stealth. Every creek or river or valley that was explored was at the risk of the life of the explorers, from the lurking Indian, whose determined hostility to every advance of the white man called for the exercise of the most cunning caution, in order to avoid contact with him amid the deep shadows of his forest home. It was a con- test for dominion, and the courage, cunning and boldness displayed by the red men, in his plans for the extermination of their white foe, were only equaled by their ferocious onset in attack, and the silent, masterly retreat if defeated, gliding like shadows from tree to tree until lost from view and pursuit in the distance and darkness.
The holders of warrants were permitted to locate them if they so desired, but they were unacquainted with the business and were doubtful about their ability to so locate land as to avoid conflict and litigation in the years to come when lines were to be run and metes and bounds decided. A great many warrants had been placed in the hands of Nathaniel Massie in 1790, who was not only competent as a surveyor, but an honest, careful business man, in every sense reli- able and exact. In order to facilitate the business he had on hand, he determined to form a settlement in the District. During the winter of 1790-91 he laid out the town of Manchester and built a number of cabins for the inhabitants. By March, 1791, they had completed this work enclosing all the cabins with strong pickets securely fastened in the ground and erecting a strong blockhouse at each angle for refuge and defense. This settlement was an abso- lute necessity as a means of security, to the surveyors who ventured north of the Ohio river. This was the first settlement within the Virginia Military District, and the fourth within the present bound- aries of Ohio. While this settlement was formed in the very midst of the hot conflict betwen the two races, it suffered less than many others of a like character. The whole region north of Manchester to the lakes, west to the Miami, and east to Gallipolis, was one vast unbroken forest. Through this gloomy wild the dauntless surveyor, with compass, chain and gun traced out the most fertile spots, and blazed and marked and marked and blazed, fixing the metes and bounds of that civilization to be.
The winter season was generally selected by the surveyors to do the work of running lines and locating warrants, as the Indians were not as active at that season of the year. Each surveyor controlled six men, making a party of seven men to the mess, and as five or six surveyors made up the company, quite a party would be engaged in the work at the same time. Each of the men composing the mess had his special work to do. The hunter was in advance of the party some two or three hundred yards not only to hunt but to guard the advance and appraise them of danger or the presence of an enemy.
H-3
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THE COUNTY OF HIGHLAND.
Following was the surveyor and the two chainmen, the marker and packhorse men with the baggage. These men always kept close together so they could be ready in case of an attack. Some two or three hundred yards in the rear marched the spy to guard against a surprise in that direction. Each man was armed with rifle, toma- hawk and scalping knife, and in addition, the blanket and other articles needed in the woods. The pack horses were loaded with the cooking utensils, with such provision as it was possible for them to carry with them. Bread was not thought of on these journeys, a good supply of salt was taken and the rifle must be depended upon for, provision. After having permanently established himself in his station, Massie commenced his location and survey of lands upon a large scale.
Before the Massie settlement on the Ohio river, General Harmar had been defeated by the Indians at the head of the Maumee river, and though that battlefield was far remote from the lands sought by the Virginians, the Shawanees roamed through this region and, when they could, sought to cut off the white intruders upon their hunting grounds. Then, after the founding of Massie's town, occurred in November, 1791, the terrible defeat of St. Clair's army in western Ohio, which seemed to put all the settlements in Ohio at the mercy of the red men.
The frontier conditions that delayed the settlement of Ohio may be illustrated by the adventures of Thomas Dick, whose later resi- dence for forty years within Highland county made his name famil- iar in its history. To a special friend he imparted the story of his early experience, and to this friend the citizens of Highland county are indebted for the sketch as told in Scott's history.
"Thomas Dick was born and educated at Belfast, Antrim county, Ireland. Immediately on the completion of his education he deter- mined to seek his fortune in America, and having some friends in Philadelphia he sailed for that place, where he arrived in safety after a long voyage. He remained there for some time, but being unable to find employment as a schoolmaster he journeyed on, intending to try his fortune in Pittsburg, then a frontier town. In 1789, in the month of June, he crossed the Laurel hill and came in sight of the secluded and beautiful district of country lying between that mountain and Chestnut ridge, known as Ligonier valley. Dick was so charmed with the scenery that he determined to make his home in this sweet and quiet retreat. He was kindly received and in the course of a few weeks a small school was made up for him. In the course of the following year he married, and established him- self in a home of his own, with the prospect of peace and happiness. About a month after this, March 1S, 1791, having just returned from a business visit from Pittsburg, he was seated at his dinner table in company with his wife and a young man of the neighbor-
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1889766
FRONTIER ADEENTURES.
hood, when his house was suddenly surounded by Indians. No dan- ger had been anticipated in the valley, although the inhabitants were aware of the hostility of the savages. The first intimation Mr. Dick had of their presence was the discharge of rifles through the open door, by which the young man who sat with them at the table was killed, and the next consciousness he had afterwards was of standing in a remote corner of the room, faced by an Indian, painted and dressed in full costume, about to strike him with a tom- ahawk. But the Indian desisted at the critical moment and Dick was bound and led him out of the house. He discovered, much to his relief, that Mrs. Dick was not injured, but like himself a pris- oner. The Indians, a party belonging to the Seneca tribe, hurried away with their prisoners, leaving the house open and all the prop- erty undisturbed, and taking a direct route to the northwest trav- eled night and day through the most secluded and unfrequented parts of the country until they reached the Ohio river. At this point, a considerable distance above Wheeling, they met other preda- tory bands of the tribe with prisoners and plunder. They raised from the mouth of a small creek their canoes which they had sunk when they crossed before, and were all soon on the opposite side. Here they called a halt and rested ; but soon resumed their march to their towns on the Sandusky, where they arrived after a long and fatiguing journey to their prisoners. Mrs. Dick, by the time they reached the Seneca town, near where the city of Tiffin now stands, was seriously ill. Rest and the kind attention of her husband and some of the squaws, however, in time restored her to comparative health, but the exposure brought on a violent attack of rheumatism, which continued obstinately to resist all modes of treatment known to the Indians. On their way out the Indians made several efforts to load Mr. Dick with part of the plunder, but he always refused, and when a load was placed upon his back, would throw it off and walk on leaving it behind. He was a very strong man, but was determined not to disgrace himself by working for Indians. At the towns, also, he refused to work with the squaws in the corn field. The Indians knew Dick was stout and wished to test his manhood. But whenever one of them took hold of him, he always threw him down quite roughly and walked off. His object was to show them that he was strong and could defend himself if assailed. His resentment of the practical jokes of one of them made this individ- ual a deadly enemy. This the other Indians soon became aware of, and they thought best to sell Dick, as he would neither work nor hunt. They sold him to a trader who carried him to Detroit, where the English commander of that fort purchased and released him. Being an excellent penman, he soon became the secretary of the com- mander, and was able to save some money. He was, however, very anxious about his captive wife. He had not been permitted to see
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THE COUNTY OF HIGHLAND.
her before he left the Seneca towns, but he knew that in her helpless condition she had no means of escape, and there was no probability of her rescue by her friends in Pennsylvania. He knew it would not do for him to go back to the towns with the view of carrying her off, and therefore, employed a Chippewa Indian to steal her and bring her to him at Detroit. The Indian would not undertake it unless he was paid twenty gallons of rum in advance. Dick pur- chased the rum and gave it to the Chippewa, who started down the river toward the Seneca towns, but never again appeared. Dick then consulted the commander of the fort, who directed him to a trustworthy Indian, with whom he was able to make a contract for the delivery of Mrs. Dick in Detroit on the payment of eighteen dollars. This envoy, with the aid of an old negro woman in the Indian camp on the Maumee river, succeeded in reuniting the hus- band and wife, and after she had rested, and her husband had secured sufficient means for the journey, they bid adieu to the kind hearted English friends, got aboard a small vessel bound for Buf- falo, and were landed at Erie, Penn., about the first of December, 1791. To reach Westmoreland county, he engaged a man with a sleigh and horse to take them part of the way. After this, he took his almost helpless wife on his back and carried her several miles through the snow and woods to the next settlement. There he obtained a boy with an ox sled for a couple of days. When the boy turned back he again carried his wife upon his journey. In this way the great part of the winter was spent. Finally on the 8th of March, 1792, they reached Pittsburg almost worn out with hardship and fatigue. From there they soon reached their home and friends in Ligonier valley."
Yet more tragic was the story of the Jolly family, as related by John A. Trimble. David Jolly, Sr., was among the earliest settlers in the neighborhood of Wheeling, Va. His dwelling was upon the hill about three miles from the mouth of Wheeling creek, and the site of his cabin is still pointed out as an interesting memory of the unwritten past. His family consisted, in 1790, when he lived at this place, of wife and six children, and one grandchild. On the 8th day of June, 1790, a small party of Indians, who had secreted themselves behind some gooseberry bushes in the garden, fired upon the house in open daylight. The senior Jolly had gone that day to the Monongahela to collect some money coming to him. His daughter Mary was absent on a visit to her uncle, Joseph McCune, some five miles away. David, Jr., had gone out in the range to hunt the cows and expected certainly to be home by dinner time, and would have been, without doubt, except for a very unusual occur- rence. When only a short distance from home on his return he, being in perfect health, was suddenly seized with a fainting sensa- tion which forced him to sit down at the root of a tree, where he
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remained for nearly an hour before he was able to proceed home- ward. While there he heard distinctly the report of the Indians' guns but did not reach home till their work was done and they had gone. James Jolly had gone to the spring some distance from the house for a bucket of water. John, the eldest son, had just returned from the field to dinner and was in the act of wiping the perspira- tion from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt, and Mrs. Jolly was standing in the door waiting for James to come with the water, when the Indians, not doubting but what all the family had arrived for dinner, fired from their well chosen ambush into the home. Mrs. Jolly fell dead instantly, John was shot in the mouth and fell very badly wounded, a daughter and grandson were wounded at the first fire. Immediately the Indians rushed in, toma- hawking all the wounded and scalping them while they were in the death struggles. James had heard the alarm and hurriedly made his escape. The remaining members of the family at home, Will- iam, the youngest son, and his cousin Joseph McCune, were made prisoners by the Indians, who pillaged the house and fired it and made a rapid retreat. David Jolly, Jr., arrived at his desolate and burning home only in time to drag the remains of his murdered friends from the flames, which soon consumed the building. He ran to the nearest neighbors and gave the alarm. In a few hours Lewis Wetzel, with his company of veteran scouts, was on the trail, but the Indians, aware of the bold, daring and energetic character of the men in and about Wheeling, made a cautious retreat, and effectually eluded the vigilance of their pursuers. To hasten their retreat they killed young McCune soon after they set out, because he was weakly and could not travel very fast, and made a noise cry- ing, which they feared might attract attention. His body was found some hours afterward, just where he had sunk under a single blow from the tomahawk. The Indians who committed this cruel deed were a war party of Shawanees, who carried their prisoner to San- dusky. William Jolly at that time was a lad of about ten years of age, a good constitution, and sprightly turn of mind. He soon adapted himself to the Indian mode of life and became a favorite with the younger portion of the tribe. His family made great effort to find and release him, but owing to the continued and fierce hostility which prevailed for the next five years, all their efforts were una- vailing, as they could not even hear of him, and of course did not know whether he was alive or dead, or to what extremity of torture and suffering he had been subjected by his infuriated captors. After Wayne's treaty, his brother David went to Greenville in hope of finding him among the prisoners surrendered by the various northwestern tribes under the treaty stipulations, but after long waiting and much inquiry, he utterly failed, and returned fully impressed with the belief that his brother was dead. From that
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THE COUNTY OF HIGHLAND.
time he was given up and all effort to rescue him was abandoned. During the winter of 1796-97, David Jolly, Sr., who had recently moved to Chillicothe, received a letter from Colonel Zane telling him that his son William was living with Cherokee Indians on the Coosa river in Alabama, and directing him to Colonel Whitley, of Lexington Ky., for further information. Near the middle of March, 1797, David, Jr., set out on horseback to Lexington, and had an interview with Colonel Whitley, who gave him all the nec- essary instructions, also a letter of introduction to the Governor of Tennessee. Setting forward again he arrived in Knoxville in April, delivered his letter to the governor, and was kindly received by him, and by Major Henley, of the War department, who promptly made out a pass and furnished an experienced and trusty interpreter and guide. Thus provided, David Jolly pursued his. way south, and in due time reached the point in the Cherokee coun- try, on the Coosa river, to which Col. Whitley had directed them, but to their great disappointment, found that a large part of the Indians had gone south and the boy with them. Mr. Jolly and his companion continued in the pursuit, and traveled on, until they arrived near Pensacola, before they found the Indians. When they made their business known, the Indians seemed disposed to give them but little satisfaction. The young of the party were out hunt- ing, they said, but they were all Indians, none white. On the evening of the third day the young Indians all came into camp with the proceeds of their hunt, and Mr. Jolly soon recognized his brother, more from family resemblance than anything else, for he was dressed in full Indian costume, and looked and acted as much like an Indian as any of his companions. He endeavored to draw him into conversation in English, but the boy had either forgotten it or was not disposed to talk. When he communicated through the interpreter his intention of taking him back, he positively refused to go, and the Indians appeared inclined to interpose to pre- vent him. When, however, the authority of the agent of the War department was read to them by the interpreter, they made no fur- ther objections, but hastily prepared to return to their homes on the Coosa. So the whole party accompanied them back that far. Then they discovered that the boy had been adopted by a woman who had her only son killed in battle. She regarded young Jolly as one sent by the Great Spirit as a substitute for him she had lost, and she loved him with all a mother's devotion, and he returned it with all the warmth and generosity of his nature. She was almost frantic when she heard that he must leave her by the authority of the United States government. But after a long and tender inter- view which continued through the greater part of the night, in which she made the boy promise that he would soon escape and return to her, they started the next morning. A large number of
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FRONTIER ADVENTURES.
the young Indians accompanied them the first day, and after that a few continued to follow until they arrived at the Tennessee river. During the journey through the wilderness Jolly was sullen and refused to talk, and sought to escape, but was too carefully guarded. But from Knoxville home his brother had no difficulty with him. As they passed the neighborhood of Lexington, Ky., the boy, being in Indian dress, attracted much attention, and many young ladies of course were anxious to see the "young Indian." When some handsome girls were around him his brother asked him how he would like to have one of them for his wife. He shook his head and said "Too much white, too much white." After young Jolly returned to his father and became somewhat reconciled to civilized life, he gave a brief history of his seven years' captivity. When carried to Sandusky he was well treated, much to his surprise, as he had witnessed the murder of his little cousin, McCune, on the route, and had always heard of the cruel and blood-thirsty nature of the Indians. The next spring after he was taken Mr. and Mrs. Dick were brought into the same encampment. On one occasion when she was there the Indians all got drunk and exhibited much of their savage nature and habits. Mrs. Dick was much alarmed for the safety of the boy, and the better to protect him, covered him up in one corner of the wigwam in a pile of bear skins. Soon after this young Jolly was transferred to the Cherokees, a small party of whom were on a visit to their Shawanee brethren, and the Cherokees soon afterward set out for the South, taking him with- them. They took the trail to Old Town on the North fork of Paint. From there they struck and kept the hill region to the Ohio river at the mouth of Cabin creek. After crossing the river they again took the hills on to the Cumberland mountains, avoided all white settlements and kept the mountains on to Tennessee. Young Jolly seemed to regret deeply his separation from his Indian friends in the south. He liked their mode of life, the delightful climate, and more than all their warm friendship and native magnanimity. In fact, he had become a thorough Indian in his habits and tastes. The life of the white man was irksome to him, and he longed for the sylvan shades and warm hearts on the banks of the Coosa. He had no taste or inclination for work, but was an adept in hunting and fishing, and spent most of his time with his bow and arrows on the banks of the Scioto and Paint. Generally, in summer time, when he would desert from the field work, he would climb a tree and weave himself a bed of limbs and grape vines where he lay all day dreaming doubtless of his happy home in the sunny south. The next summer after he returned to his family two Indians, his adopted brothers, came from Alabama to see him. They brought with them his pony, gun, tomahawk and hunting implements, also some pretty worked belts, and moccasins, sent by his Indian mother,
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THE COUNTY OF HIGHLAND.
Young Jolly was overjoyed at the sight of his Indian brothers. They ate together in Indian style, slept together, hunted together, and during the two weeks of their stay were inseparable. But it was a sorrowful day when the Indians left. He made them pres- ents of anything he could get his hands on that would be likely to please their fancy. He also fixed up some presents for others of his friends among the tribe, not forgetting his old Indian mother, and when the morning came for them to start he went with them one day's journey.
After the defeat of St. Clair (1791) the Indians were inspired with the hope of driving out the white men and regaining the hunting grounds of their fathers. So bold and persistent were their incur- sions upon the border settlements, that the inhabitants were kept in perpetual alarm, and immigration was entirely suspended. Spies and scouts were employed by the government of Kentucky to roam the forest in all directions keeping sharp lookout for Indian advances, when they were to notify the settlers in time for their escape to the block house and forts. Duncan McArthur and Samuel Davis with two others were detailed as scouts and these four men were sent out to keep guard, upon whose faithful vigilance depended the safety and security of life and home. McArthar and Davis were brave and cun- ning woodmen, accustomed to this wild and dangerous life amid lurk- ing foes and savage beasts. These two men were linked together by the strongest ties of friendship and were seldom separated when hunt- ing Indians.
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