The History of Warren County, Ohio, Part 22

Author: W. H. Beers & Co.
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1081

USA > Ohio > Warren County > The History of Warren County, Ohio > Part 22

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PREFACE.

The writer of the following county history, fifteen years ago, while a law student and engaged in editorial work, began the collection and preservation of materials for the history of his native county. At that time he had no intention of publishing a county history, but he was impressed with the importance of authentic local histories, and was aware that the materials he collected would increase in interest and value with the advance of time. Without the aid of the historic data thus collected and preserved, the following sketch, imperfect as it is, would not have been written. There has never been any historical society or pioneer association engaged in the collection of the historic data of Warren County, and, before the writer began this work, much of the pioneer history of the county was irrevocably lost.

So numerous are the sources from which the author has drawn the follow- ing work that no attempt has been made to indicate them in foot-notes. He has faithfully aimed at accuracy, both in dates and narratives, but doubtless errors will be found. The materials for the local historian are found in sources widely scattered-in books, pamphlets, periodicals and newspaper files; in manuscripts, church records, court records and Justices' dockets; in local laws, the charters, manuals and minutes of societies; in private letters, journals and diaries, especially of intelligent observers; in funeral sermons, obituary notices and inscriptions on tombstones; in the memory of living persons, of what they have themselves witnessed, and, last and least valuable of all, tradition. Where they could not be supported by some record or cotemporaneous document, the writer has received traditional accounts with the utmost caution.

Interest in local annals has greatly increased in recent years. In several of the New England States statutes now authorize a tax for the publication of local histories and records. The joint resolution of Congress in 1876, recom- mending the preparation of a sketch of the history of each town and county to be preserved in the Library of Congress, gave an impetus to local historical studies. A praiseworthy enthusiasm has become widespread to cherish the memory of the pioneers and to collect all the incidents and narratives connected with the early settlements, but it would be better that all should sink into ob- livion than that there should be recorded as truthful history the fabulous stories handed down by tradition, or the statements having a basis of fact, but dis- torted and exaggerated by that greatest enemy of authenticity-the love of the marvelous. In matters of doubtful authenticity, the writer has assumed as a guiding principle that the record of a false statement as the truth will be a greater evil than the loss of a true statement.

JOSIAH MORROW.

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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.

CHAPTER I.

ORGANIZATION AND BOUNDARIES.

W ARREN COUNTY was established by an act of the first General Assem- bly of the State of Ohio, passed March 24, 1803, and named at the same time in honor of the first great martyr in the cause of American independence. The act creating the county took effect May 1, 1803, and with this date the history of the county, as a civil division, begins.

When Ohio became a State, but nine counties had been formed within its limits by proclamation of the Territorial Governor, and one of the first duties of the first State Legislature, which met at Chillicothe March 1, 1803, was the creation of new counties. Out of the large territory of Hamilton County, as it then existed, Warren, Butler and Montgomery Counties were formed by one act, and by the same act the county of Greene was formed out of Hamilton and Ross.

In the boundaries of Warren County, the mouth of the O'Bannon is the only point fixed by nature. The northern boundary of Clermont, which was a due east line from the mouth of the O'Bannon, had already been established, and was made the southern boundary of Warren, east of the Little Miami. The county, at its organization, extended eastward to the present site of Wilming- ton, and included no territory west of the Great Miami. In 1810, when Clin- ton County was formed, its western boundary was decreed to be so fixed as to leave to Warren a constitutional area of 400 square miles. On January 30, 1815, the territory of our county west of the Great Miami was detached from Butler and attached to Warren, and at the same time, eleven square miles of this county extending along its eastern border-being a narrow strip about half a mile in width-were attached to Clinton.

The territory thus formed into Warren County was made up of parts of three different tracts of lands, deriving their designations from the manner in which they were transferred to the occupants from the Government-first, the Virginia Military Lands, including all of the county east of the Little Miami; second, Symmes' Purchase, including that portion west of the Little Miami and south of an east-and-west line passing about a mile north of Lebanon; and third, Congress Lands, or lands transferred immediately to the occupants by the officers of the Government, comprising the remainder of the county.

HAMILTON COUNTY.

For a period of thirteen years subsequent to 1790, and for about eight years after the first settlement, Warren County, or that portion of it between the Miamis, formed a part of Hamilton County, with the seat of justice at Cincin- nati. That portion of Warren west of the Great Miami, from 1790 to 1798,

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was a part of Knox County, with the seat of justice at Vincennes on the Wabash; from 1798 to 1803, a part of Hamilton; and from 1803 to 1815, a part of But- ler. The part of Warren east of the Little Miami seems to have been included in Hamilton County from 1796 to 1803.

Hamilton County, the second county of the Northwest Territory, was formed by proclamation of Gov. Arthur St. Clair, January 2, 1790. It was originally bounded on the south by the Ohio; on the east, by the Little Miami; on the west, by the Great Miami; and on the north, by a line drawn due east from the Standing Stone Forks or branch of the Great Miami. The Standing Stone Fork or branch of the Great Miami is supposed to have been Loramie's Branch, which flows into the Miami near the northern boundary line of Miami County. On August 15, 1796, the eastern boundary line of Hamilton County was altered, and declared to be a due north line from the lower Shawnee town on the Scioto River. On June 22, 1798, the western boundary of Hamilton County was de- clared to run with the Greenville treaty line from the Ohio River to Fort Re- covery.

VIRGINIA COUNTIES.

But at still earlier dates, our territory had been made a part of political divisions called counties. During the Revolution, this region would have been marked on a map of the North American Colonies as a part of Virginia, whose extensive domain, making her the mother of States as well as of Presidents, reached to the Mississippi. Out of this broad territory, vast counties were formed. The county of Kentucky included the whole of the present State of that name. In October, 1778, Virginia, by statute, declared that: "All the citizens of the commonwealth of Virginia, who are already settled or who shall hereafter settle on the western side of the Ohio, shall be included in a distinct county, which shall be called Illinois County." Our territory, then, once formed a part of the vast western county of Virginia called Illinois.

But, going back a few years further, we find this region included in a county of still more vast extent. South of the Natural Bridge, between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies, and intersected by the James River, is a county of Virginia, with Fincastle for its seat of justice, named Botetourt, in honor of Norborne Berkeley, Lord Botetourt, a conspicuous actor in American colo- nial history, and Governor of Virginia. That county was established in 1769, and originally included our county within its limits. It was bounded on the east by the Blue Ridge, on the west by the Mississippi, and comprised Western Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Fin- castle, then, as now, was the county seat.

The following curious provision is found in the act of Virginia creating Botetourt County:

And whereas, the people situated on the Mississippi, in the said county of Botetourt, will be very remote from the court house, and must necessarily become a separate county as soon as their numbers are sufficient-which probably will happen in a short time: Be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid (House of Burgesses) that the inhabitants of that part of the said county of Botetourt which lies on the said waters, shall be exempted from the payment of any levies to be laid by the said county court, for the purpose of building a court house and prison for said county.

BOUNDARIES OF WARREN COUNTY.

ACT OF MARCH 24, 1803.

SECTION 1 .- That all that part of the county of Hamilton included within the follow- ing bounds, viz .: Beginning at the northeast corner of the county of Clermont. running thence west with the line of said county to the Little Miami; thence up the same with the meanders thereof to the north boundary of the first tier of sections in the second entire range of townships in the Miami Purchase; thence west to the northeast corner of Section No. 7 in the third township of the aforesaid range; thence north to the Great Miami;

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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.

thence up the same to the middle of the fifth range of townships; thence east to the Ross County line; thence with same south to the place of beginning-shall compose one new county, to be called and known by the name of Warren.

ACT OF JANUARY 30, 1815.

SECTION 1 .- That all that part of the county of Butler lying and being within the first and second fractional townships in the fifth range, and adjoining the south line of Montgomery County, shall be and the same is hereby attached to and made part of the county of Warren.

SEC. 2 .- That eleven square miles of the territory of the county of Warren and ex- tending parallel to the said eastern boundary of Warren County, along the whole length of such eastern boundary from north to south, shall be and the same is hereby attached to and made a part of the county of Clinton.

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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.

CHAPTER II. THE INDIAN OWNERS.

THE territory composing Warren County was uninhabited on its discovery and exploration by white men. So far as is known, no tribe of Indians ever lived upon its soil. There is no historic proof that any people ever had permanent habitations within its limits after the pre-historic race, the Mound- Builders, had passed away, until English-speaking white men took possession of the land and began the work of clearing away the forests which had been growing for centuries over the earthworks of a people whose history is envel- oped in obscurity. When the Ohio Valley was first explored by white men, the Miami Indians laid claim to nearly all of Western Ohio, and a vast region ex- tending through Indiana to Illinois and northward to the Maumee. This pow- erful tribe, or rather confederacy of tribes, had villages on the Scioto, the head- waters of the Miamis, the Maumee and the Wabash. But of their vast terri- tory, much that was then the most beautiful and is now the most valuable was entirely unoccupied. The Ohio, from the mouth of the Scioto, was without evi- dence of human habitations on either side. The region of the two Miamis from their union with the Ohio well up to their sources was an unbroken solitude. Why a region so inviting as Kentucky and Southwestern Ohio should have re- mained uninhabited for so long a period, while the inhospitable regions of the lakes were peopled, has, perhaps, not been satisfactorily explained. The theory that Kentucky was a common hunting-ground, and purposely kept bare of in- habitants, has been advanced. That it was a disputed ground and battle-field between the tribes of the South and those from the Northwest has been sug- gested. Perhaps the lack of human habitations may be explained with the simple facts that sufficient time had not elapsed since the advent of the Indian races upon the continent to people the whole territory; and that savage tribes, as well as civilized races, are not always successful in first selecting and occupy- ing the best and most pleasing regions. But whatever may be the explanation, the fact that the region referred to was destitute of all traces of recent settle- ment is established by the testimony of the first explorers and emigrants. Mr. Butler, in his history of Kentucky, says that "no Indian towns within recent times were known to exist within this territory, either in Kentucky or the Lower Tennessee." Gen. Harrison, whose long acquaintance with the Miami Valley before its settlement by white men, and his familiarity with Indian history and traditions, entitle his opinion to the greatest weight, was emphatic in denying the occupation of the country for centuries before its discovery by the Euro- peans, although he thought there was evidence, from the remains of pottery, pipes, stone hatchets, and other articles of inferior workmanship to those of the Mound-Builders, of its being inhabited by some race inferior to that people. At the threshold of this history, then, we are to conceive of the territory of Warren County during the generations preceding the approach of white men, not as thickly populated with dusky braves, whose villages dotted the shores of its streams, but as a wilderness inhabited only by the beasts of the forest. There was not a town or settlement upon its soil. The smoke curled up from no scat- tered wigwams; no council fires were lighted; no fields of maize were tilled by squaws within its limits. The Little Miami, from the northern boundary of the county, rolled its blue waters to the Ohio between forest-covered hills, which

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knew not the busy haunts of men. Fort Ancient, then, as now, stood covered with its forest growth of centuries, and no Indian visitor knew aught of its builders.

"Nothing appeared but nature unsubdued, One endless, noiseless, woodland solitude."

But, while there were no Indian residents, there were Indian owners. We have said that the Miami Indians claimed the territory. They were, doubtless, the rightful owners of the soil when the first white men visited the Miami Riv- ers. This tribe had important towns on the head-waters of the Great Miami in 1751. It was then probably the most powerful of the North American tribes. Little Turtle, the famous Miami chief, a few days before he agreed to the treaty at Greenville and ceded his right to these lands, spoke with pride, and yet with sadness, of the former greatness and dominion of his tribe. His words are pre- served in the American State Papers:

I hope you will pay attention to what I now say to you. You have pointed out to us the boundary line between the Indians and the United States; but I now take the liberty to inform you, that that line cuts off from the Indians a large portion of country which has been enjoyed by my forefathers time immemorial, without molestation or dispute. The prints of my ancestor's houses are everywhere to be seen in this portion. It is well known to all my brothers present that my forefather kindled the first fire at Detroit; from thence he extended his lines to the head-waters of Scioto; from thence to its mouth; from thence down the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash; from thence to Chicago on Lake Michigan. At this place I first saw my elder brothers, the Shawnees. I have now informed you of the boundaries of the Miami nation, where the Great Spirit placed my forefather a long time ago and charged him not to sell or part with his lands, but to preserve them for his pos- terity. This charge has been handed down to me. I was surprised to find my other broth- ers differed so much from me on this subject; for their conduct would lead one to suppose that the Great Spirit and their forefathers had not given them the charge that was given to me; but on the contrary had directed them to sell their lands to any white man who wore a hat, as soon as he should ask it of them.

Little Turtle took pride in the antiquity of his race, as well as in the extent of territory controlled by his ancestors. In 1797, this Maimi chief met Volney in Philadelphia. The French philosopher explained to the savage orator the theory that the Indian race had descended from the dark-skinned Tartars, and, by a map, showed the supposed communication between Asia and America. Little Turtle replied; " Why should not these Tartars, who resemble us, have descended from the Indians ?"

While the Miami Indians were the rightful owners of the soil when the Miaini country was first visited by white men, they were not the only nor the principal tribe which resisted the settlement of the country by the white men. About ten years before the beginning of the Revolutionary war, the Miami tribes abandoned their towns on the Great Miami and removed to the region of the Maumee. The Shawnees, a warlike and numerous tribe, then established them- selves on the head-waters of the two Miami Rivers. It was the Shawnees that the first settlers of the Miami country most frequently came in contact with. They came from the South, and first appeared in Ohio under the protection of the Miamis. The tribes which in Ohio resisted the encroachments of the whites were the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawatomies, Miamis, Weas and Eel Rivers. The last three were in fact but one tribe, but at the treaty of Greenville, Gen. Wayne recognized this division, so as to allow them a larger share of the money which was stipulated to be paid by the United States. Gen. Wayne thought it just that the Miami Indians should receive more of the annuities promised by the Government than they would be entitled to as a single tribe, because he recognized the fact that the country ceded by the treaty was in reality their property. It was the opinion of Gen. Harrison that all the Indian tribes of Ohio and Indiana which were united in the war

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against the whites could not at any time during the ten years which preceded the treaty of peace in 1795 have brought into the field more than three thousand warriors, although a few years before, the Miamis alone could have furnished more than that number. The ravages of the small-pox was the principal cause of the great decrease of their numbers. They composed, however, a body of the finest light infantry troops in the world. They delayed the settlement of the country now forming Warren County and adjoining counties for more than seven years, and, if they had been under an efficient system of discipline, their con- queror at Tippecanoe admits that the settlement of the country might have been attended with much greater difficulty.

INDIAN MODE OF LIFE.

The Indians who roamed over the territory now forming Warren County, and retarded its settlement, lived in villages along the upper waters of the two Miamis. The nearest of these was the Shawnee town, Old Chillicothe, on the Little Miami, about three miles north of the site of Xenia. Here Daniel Boone was a prisoner in 1778 for some months, and ingratiated himself into the favor of his captors by mingling in their sports, hunting, fishing, shooting and swim- ming. Boone names five towns on the Miami Rivers which were destroyed by Gen. George Rogers Clark-Old Chillicothe, Pickaway, New Chillicothe, Will's Town and Chillicothe. Their huts were generally built of small round logs, and covered with bark or skins. Old Chillicothe was built somewhat after the manner of a Kentucky station-that is, a hollow square. A long council house extended the entire length of the town, in which embassies were received and the chiefs met to consult on grave questions. Some of the houses are said to have been covered with shingles or clapboards. Many Indian huts were made by setting up a pole on forks and placing bark against it; there being no chim- ney, the smoke passed through an opening at the top. Long before the first settlement of the Miami country by the whites, the habits of the Indians had been modified by their contact with Europeans. The French and English trad- ers had supplied them with fire arms, scalping-knives and tomahawks. They had iron pots and brass kettles for cooking and sugar-making. They had learned to love strong drink, and were given to great excesses in eating and drinking. Some of their own arts showed great skill and ingenuity. According to James Smith, a captive among the Delawares in Ohio, the Indian squaws in the sugar- making season of 1756 made vessels for collecting sugar-water in a very curious manner, from freshly peeled elm bark. The manner of construction he does not describe. They raised gourds and used them for cups and dishes. The agri- culture of the Indians was confined chiefly to the growing of corn and beans, to which potatoes were afterward added. The extent of their corn-fields was much greater than is generally supposed. A journal of Wayne's campaign, kept by George Will, under the date of August 8, 1794, says: " We have marched four or five miles in corn-fields down the Auglaize, and there are not less than one thousand acres of corn around the town." The same journal describes the im- mense corn-fields, numerous vegetable patches and old apple-trees found along the banks of the Maumee from its mouth to Fort Wayne. It also discloses the fact that the army obtained its bread and vegetables for eight days, while build- ing Fort Defiance, from the surrounding corn and potato fields. Four years before, Gen. Harmar, in his expedition, burnt and destroyed at least twenty thousand bushels of corn. In the cultivation of these large fields, nearly all the work was performed by the women. In addition to field work, the Indian women procured water and fire-wood, dressed skins, made garments and moc- casins, and were little more than inere slaves of the men. The men went to war, procured game, manufactured such arms and implements as were not ob-

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tained from the whites, and kept them in repair. They disdained ordinary labor, except upon an object of such dignity and importance as a canoe or a dwelling. Their hunting-grounds were often a great distance from their vil- lages. Thus, while the Indian squaw was cultivating these fields or gather- ing the corn, her warrior lord may have been hunting in the valley of Turtle Creek, and have shot the arrow whose flint head the Warren County farmer to- day turns up with his plow.

CHARACTER OF THE INDIANS.

Gen. William Henry Harrison thus speaks of the intellectual and moral qualities of the Indians who roamed over this region, in his discourse before the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, on the Aborigines of the Ohio Valley:

" The Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees and Miamis were much superior to the other members of the confederacy. The Little Turtle of the Miami tribe was one of this description, as was the Blue Jacket, a Shawnee chief. I think it probable that Tecumseh possessed more integrity than any other of the chiefs who attained to much distinction; but he violated a solemn engagement, which he had freely contracted, and there are strong suspicions of his having formed a treacherous design, which an accident only prevented him from accomplishing. Similar instances are, however, to be found in the conduct of great men in the history of almost all civilized nations. But these instances are more than coun- terbalanced by the number of individuals of high moral character which were to be found amongst the principal and secondary chiefs of the four tribes above mentioned. This was particularly the case with Tarhe, or the Crane, the great sachem of the Wyandots, and Black Hoof, the chief of the Shawnees. Many instances might be adduced to show the possession on the part of these men of an uncommon degree of disinterestedness and magnanimity, and strict perfor- mance of their engagements under circumstances which would be considered by many as justifying evasion.

" By many they are supposed to be stoics, who willingly encounter depri- vations. The very reverse is the fact. If they belong to either of the classes of philosophers which prevailed in the declining ages of Greece and Rome, it is to that of the Epicureans. For no Indian will forego an enjoyment or suffer an inconvenience if he can avoid it, but under peculiar circumstances, when, for instance, he is stimulated by some strong passion. But even the gratification of this he is ready to postpone whenever its accomplishment is attended with unlooked-for danger or unexpected hardships. Hence their military operations were always feeble, their expeditions few and far between, and much the greater number abandoned without an efficient stroke, from whim, caprice, or an aver- sion to encounter difficulties." He adds: " When, however, evil comes which he cannot avoid, then he will call up all the spirit of the man and meet his fate, however hard, like the best Roman of them all."

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The History of Warren County, Ohio, Part 22

Author: W. H. Beers & Co. Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1081

Author: W. H. Beers & Co.
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1081