The History of Wyandot County, Ohio, containing a history of the county, its townships, towns general and local statistics, military record, portraits of early settlers and prominent men etc, Part 23

Author:
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, Leggett, Conaway
Number of Pages: 1072

USA > Ohio > Wyandot County > The History of Wyandot County, Ohio, containing a history of the county, its townships, towns general and local statistics, military record, portraits of early settlers and prominent men etc > Part 23

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In Section 28, east side of Tymochtee Township, the Tymochtee slate is seen in the bed of the Sandusky, at Hayman's mill. Handsome flags, about two inches thick, are taken out. In Section 22, Pitt Township, Mr. James Anderson's quarry shows the following section in the bank of the Sandusky : Bituminous drab, ten inches ; very hard, flinty, irregular beds, five feet.

There are sometimes bituminous films visible on the fractured edge ; no fossils. In Pitt Township, on the southwest quarter of Section 10, Mrs. Rebecca Smith owns a quarry in the Sandusky, from which a fine-grained, even-bedded blue stone is taken, which weathers an ashen color. Here are some handsome beds, six to eight inches thick, affording a fine building material. Dip southeast. At various points in Pitt Township, the same features of the water-lime may be seen. No reliable estimate can be made of the thickness exposed, or of their relative places in the formation, the outcrops are so isolated, and show so nearly the same characters. The same stone is quarried in the river at Upper Sandusky by Mr. William Frederick. The same stone is found in Section 17, in Crawford Township, on lands of Mr. George Mullholand, and on Section 24, in the quarries of Messrs. Mitten and O'Brien, in the water-lime. The stone from these open- ings is in thick beds, much like the gray, hard beds of the quarries at Tiffin.

The lower corniferous may be seen in interrupted outcrop along the Sycamore Creek, from Benton, in Crawford County, to Section 18, in Syca- more Township, Wyandot County. Through the whole of this distance it is so hid by drift that no reliable section can be obtained. It is of the coarse-grained, thick-bedded, harsh and magnesian type until just within Section 17, Sycamore, the character of the rock changes. It assumes very much the aspect of the drab, thin-bedded water-lime. A little further down the creek the soft, thick beds of the lower corniferous return. Further still, there is another similar change to a fine-grained, compact, light-blue stone, without fossils. This character continues through the most of Section 27, and some in Section 21, evinced not often by rock in situ, but by the angular, bluish, fine-grained pieces in the stream. This member of the lower corniferous was also seen near Melmore, in Seneca County. No opportunity has been offered to ascertain its thickness, but,

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judging from the superficial expose, it may have a thickness of thirty or even forty feet. In the northwest quarter of Section 21, Sycamore, about eighteen inches of similar compact blue limestone may be seen in the creek, underlain by a blue shale, which crumbles conchoidally and shows spots of darker blue or purple. It is sometimes quite rocklike, yet when long weathered it crumbles. Its thickness cannot be stated, though there can- not be less than ten feet, judging from the distance it occupies the bed of the creek. On Section 18 of the same township, a thick-bedded, even- grained rock, harsh, like a sandstone, is slightly exposed. It is gray, with- out visible fossils, and weathers buff. It is impossible to give its dip, thickness, or relation to the shale just mentioned. It is probably below that. Near the same place, land of Andrew Bretz, there are also large frag- ments of a fragile, bituminous, crinoidal limestone, seen in the bed of the creek. In Pitt Township, southwest quarter of Section 25, on the land of Jacob Brewer, the lower corniferous is slightly exposed in the upper bank of the Sandusky River. The rock consists almost entirely of the coral Coenostroma monticulifera vein. On a thickness of about a foot can be in situ, but a mass of two feet thickness is tilted up so as to present the edges of the beds in a perpendicular position.

The Drift .- Wherever sections were observed throughout the county, the drift shows, as in counties further north, the two usual colors. The first is light brown, or ashen, and extends downward about twelve feet. It may be stratified or entirely unstratified, and forms the soil where it has not been covered with alluvial or marshy accumulations. Its color alone distinguishes it from the underlying blue or Erie clay. They both contain bowlders that show glacial action. On Section 24, Crawford Township, the lower member was seen exposed twenty-seven feet four inches in the bank of Tymochtee Creek, embracing beds of gravel and sand. The upper overlaying was twelve feet, and entirely unassorted, yet on Section 18, Tymochtee Township, both are more or less stratified. No two sections of this bank would be the same. The greatest uniformity in the order of alternation is in the upper part. The blue hard pan sometimes extends upward quite to the brown clays and sands, and in one case the whole bank consists of hard pan, the upper portion having the brown color. Hence the general character of this bank, and of the drift in Wyandot County, is as follows: Brown clay and sand, stratified; brown hard pan; statified brown clay; stratified blue clay and sand; finer blue clay and blue hard pan; brown clay; blue clay; debris, bowlders and slides. On the opposite side of the creek this bank is entirely wanting. There is a bank of a trifle over twelve feet, composed of agglu- tinated, rusty sand, without gravel or bowlders, at the base of which, near the water, is a bed of vegetable remains containing some pretty large limbs, and numerous branches of wood. Such deposits are common in the alluvial bottoms bordering the streams. There is a gradual ascent from the level of this bank to the height of the bank on the opposite side of the river, attain- tain that elevation in a distance of forty rods.

Material Resources .- The chief source of material wealth ir Wyandot County, as with other counties in Northwestern Ohio, lies in its rich and exhaustless soil. The streams are generally too small or too sluggish to be reliable for water powers. The rocks themselves are not known to possess any deposits of valuable minerals. They will serve for common use in building, and will make an excellent quicklime. There is reason to believe, also, that the water-lime, when having the characters seen in the quarry of Mrs. Smith, Section 10, Pitt Township, will afford a cement of hydraulic properties.

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HISTORY OF WYANDOT COUNTY.

Good brick, of a red color, are made in different places in the county from the surface of the drift. Such establishments are owned at Upper Sandusky by Jacob Gottfried & Brother, and by Ulrich & McAfee; also on the southeast quarter of Section 11, Salem, and on the Infirmary Farm, by Jacob Ulrich. Sand for mortar is easily obtained from the numerous natural sections of the drift along the drainage valleys. A sand bank at Upper Sandusky was observed to underlie a deposit of eighty feet of brown hard pan, and was excavated to the depth of ten feet. The layers of sand. lay nearly horizontal.

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HISTORY OF WYANDOT COUNTY.

CHAPTER TI.

INDIAN OCCUPANCY.

(FROM TIME IMMEMORIAL TO 1782.)

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS-LEGENDARY ACCOUNTS CONCERNING THE DELA- WARE AND IROQUOIS INDIANS-THEIR WARS-THE IROQUOIS FINALLY VIC- TORIOUS -- THE SHAWANESE-THE ERIES-THE HURON-IROQUOIS, OR WYAN- DOTS-CARTIER DISCOVERS THE LATTER ON THE SHORES OF LAKE HURON IN 1535-CHAMPLAIN'S OPERATIONS-THE FRENCH AND HURONS DEFEAT THE FIVE NATIONS-THE LATTER BIDE THEIR TIME, AND FINALLY TOTAL- LY DEFEAT AND DISPERSE THE HURONS-UNDER FRENCH PROTECTION, THE HURONS ARE AGAIN ASSEMBLED NEAR DETROIT-THEIR CHARACTERISTICS IN A SAVAGE STATE-THEIR WARS-THEY OCCUPY THE SANDUSKY COUN- TRY-AS ALLIES OF THE BRITISH, THEY COMMIT MANY ATROCITIES ON THE AMERICAN FRONTIER SETTLEMENTS-THE AMERICANS RETALIATE BY SENDING VARIOUS EXPEDITIONS INTO THE INDIAN COUNTRY.

PROBABLY no county in the State of Ohio is richer in historical data concerning its aboriginal inhabitants than this, and to none were left so many landmarks indicating the life, habits and characteristics of its former occupants-the Indians. Here, within its borders, the brave but unfort- unate Colonel Crawford fought his last battle, and suffered a death which will render his name conspicuous for all time in American annals; and here the Wyandots (who owned the land, who roamed at will beneath its forest shades, who chased the wild game through its tangled thickets, and who, under the fostering care of Christian ministers, had made many advances toward civilization) remained until within the memory of many now living -- until they were the last of the Ohio tribes to be removed to new homes beyond the Missouri. For these reasons, therefore, no further apol- ogy is deemed necessary in explanation of the large amount of space which is here devoted to the Indians, and to their occupancy of this and adjacent regions.

Respecting the early history of the tribes once the claimants and occu. pants of these regions, the most rational and lucid accounts are obtained from the journals of the Jesuit and Moravian Missionaries, men who, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, penetrated into this terri- tory far in advance of the boldest hunters and trappers. They were in- formed by the old men of the Delawares (the Lenni Lenape, or original people, as they called themselves) that many centuries previous, their ances- tors dwelt far away in the western wilds of the American Continent, but emigrating eastwardly, arrived after many years on the west bank of the "Namoesi Sipu" (the Mississippi), or river of fish, where they fell in with the Mengwes (Iroquois), who had also emigrated from a distant country in the direction of the setting sun, and approached this river somewhat nearer its source. The spies of the Lenape reported the country on the east of the Mississippi to be inhabited by a powerful nation, dwelling in large towns erected upon the shores of their principal streams.

This people bore the name of Allegewi. They were tall and strong, some were of gigantic size, and from them were derived the names of the

INDIAN JAIL.

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HISTORY OF WYANDOT COUNTY.

Allegheny River and Mountains. £ Their towns were defended by regular fortifications or intrenchments of earth, vestiges of which are yet seen in a greater or less degree of preservation throughout the Mississippi and Ohio valleys and in the regions of the great lakes. The Lenape requested per- mission to establish themselves in their vicinity, a request which was re- fused, but leave was given them to pass the river and seek a country farther to the eastward. But while the Lenape were crossing the river, the Al- legewi, becoming alarmed at their number, assailed and destroyed many of those who had reached the eastern shore, and threatened a like fate to others should they attempt the passage of the stream. Frenzied at the loss they had sustained, the Lenape eagerly accepted the proposition from the Mengwes, who had hitherto been spectators only of their enterprise, to conquer and divide the country of the Allegewi. A war of many years' du- ration was waged by the combined nations, marked by great havoc and loss of life on both sides, which finally resulted in the conquest and expulsion of the Allegewi, who fled by the way of the Mississippi River, never to re- turn. Their country was apportioned among the conquerors-the Meng. wes or Iroquois choosing the neighborhood of the great lakes, and the Len- nape or Delawares possessing themselves of the lands to the southward.

Many ages after, during which the victors lived together in great harmony, the enterprising hunters of the Lenape tribes crossed the Alleghany Mountains and discovered the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers and the bays into which they flowed. Exploring the Sheyichbi country (New Jersey), they arrived on the Hudson River, to which they subsequently gave the name of the Mohicannittuck. Returning to their nation after a long absence, they reported their discoveries, describing the country they had visited as abounding in game and fruits, fish and fowl, and destitute of inhabitants. Concluding this to be the country destined for them by the Great Spirit, the Lenape proceeded to establish themselves upon the principal rivers of the east, making the Delaware, to which they gave the name of Lenape- Wihittuck (the river of the Lenape) the center of their possessions.

All of the Lenape Nation, however, who crossed to the east side of the Mis- sissippi, did not move toward the Atlantic coast, a part remaining behind to as- sist that portion of their people who, frightened by the reception which the Allegewi had given to their countrymen, fled far to the west of the Namoesi Sipu. Finally the Lenape became divided into three great bodies. The larger half of all settled on the Atlantic and the great rivers which flow into it. The other half was separated into two parts; the stronger continued beyond the Mississippi, the other remained on the eastern bank.

Ultimately, that part of the Lenape Nation who located on the east side of the Mississippi, became divided into many small tribes, receiving names from their places of residence, or from some circumstance remarkable at the time of its occurrence. Thus originated the Delawares, Shawanese, Nanticokes, Susquehannas, Nishamines, Conoys, Minsis, Abenaquis, Pequots, Narragansetts, Miamis, Illinois, Sauks, Foxes, Menomonees, Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawatomies, and the Southern Cherokees and Choctaws. Ac- cording to those who have made a special study of Indian history, all of the tribes above named belonged to the great Algonquin race, and spoke dialects of the Algonquin language, so similar that the members of any tribe could communicate with those of all others without the aid of an in- terpreter.

For some years the Mengwes (Iroquois), who, as before stated, consti- tuted a separate race, remained near the Great Lakes with their canoes, in

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readiness to fly should the Allegewi return. The latter failed to appear again, however, and becoming emboldened and their numbers rapidly in- creasing, they stretched themselves eastward along the St. Lawrence, and finally locating, for the most part, in the present State of New York, became, on the north, immediate neighbors of the Lenape or Algonquin tribes. In the course of time, the Mengwes and Lenape became enemies, and, dread- ing the power of the Lenape, the Mengwes resolved to involve them in war -one Lenape tribe with another -- to reduce their strength. They com- mitted murders upon the members of one tribe, and induced the injured party to believe they were perpetrated by another. They stole into the country of the Delawares, surprised and killed their hunters, and escaped with the plunder.

The nations or tribes of that period had each a particular mark upon its war clubs, which, left beside a murdered person, denoted the aggressor. The Mengwes committed a murder in the Cherokee country, and left with the dead body a war-club bearing the insignia of the Lenape. The Chero- kees in revenge fell upon the latter, and thus commenced a long and bloody war. The treachery and cunning of the Mengwes were at length discovered, and the Delaware tribe of the Lenape turned upon them with the determi- nation to utterly extirpate them. They were the more strongly induced to take this resolution, as the man-eating propensities of the Mengwes, accord- ing to Heckewelder, had reduced them in the estimation of the Delawares below the rank of human beings.

To this time, each tribe of the Mengwes had acted under the direction of its particular chiefs, and, although the nation could not control the con- duct of its members, it was made responsible for their outrages. Pressed by the Lenape, they resolved to form a confederation, which might enable them better to concentrate their forces in war, and to regulate their affairs in peace. Thannawage, an aged Mohawk, was the projector of this alliance. Under his auspices, fire nations *- the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Ca- yugas and Senecas-formed a species of republic, governed by the united councils of their aged and experienced chiefs. The beneficial effects of this confederation early displayed themselves. The Lenape were checked, and the Mengwes, whose warlike disposition soon familiarized them with fire- arms procured from the Dutch on the Hudson River, were enabled at the same time to contend with their ancient enemies and to resist the French, who now attempted the settlement of Canada, and the extension of their dominion over a large portion of the country lying between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River.

However, becoming hard pressed by the Europeans, the Mengwes, or Five Nations, sought reconciliation with their old enemies, the Lenape; and for this purpose. if the traditions of the Delawares be accredited, they affected one of the most extraordinary strokes of policy which aboriginal history has recorded.

When Indian nations are at war, the mediators between them are the women. However weary of the contest, the men hold it cowardly and dis- graceful to seek reconciliation. They deem it inconsistent in a warrior to speak of peace with bloody weapons in his hands. He must maintain a de- termined courage, and appear at all times as ready and willing to fight as at the commencement of hostilities. With such dispositions, Indian wars

*To these a sixth nation, the Tuscaroras, was ad led in 1712. This last tribe originally dwelt in the western part of the present State of North Carolina, but having become involved in a war with their neighbors, were driven from their country northward, and adopted by the Mengwes or Iroquois confederacy.

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HISTORY OF WYANDOT COUNTY.

would never cease if the women did not interfere and persuade the combat- ants to bury the hatchet and make peace with each other. On such occa- sions, the women would plead their cause with much eloquence. "Not a warrior," they would say, " but laments the loss of a father, a son, a brother or a friend. And mothers, who have borne with cheerfulness the pangs of childbirth and the anxieties that wait upon the infancy and adolescence of their sons, behold their promised blessings crushed in the field of battle, or perishing at the stake in unutterable torments. In the depths of their grief, they curse their wretched existence, and shudder at the idea of bearing children." They conjured the warriors, therefore, by their suffering wives, their helpless children, their homes and their friends, to interchange for- giveness, to cast away their arms, and, smoking together the pipe of peace, to embrace as friends those whom they had learned to esteem as enemies.

Such prayers thus urged seldom failed of the desired effect. The Meng- wes solicited the Lenape to assume the function of peacemakers. " They had reflected," said the Mengwes, " upon the state of the Indian race, and were convinced that no means remained to preserve it unless some magnani- mous nation would assume the character of the woman. It could not be given to a weak and contemptible tribe; such would not be listened to; but the Lenape and their allies would at once possess influence and command respect." The facts upon which these arguments were founded were known to the Delawares, and in a moment of blind confidence in the sincerity of the Iroquois they acceded to the proposition and assumed the petticoat. This ceremony was performed at Fort Orange (now Albany, N. Y.) amid great rejoicings in 1617, in the presence of the Dutch, whom the Lenape afterward charged with having conspired with the Mengwes for their de- struction.

The Iroquois now assumed the rights of protection and command over the Delawares, but, still dreading their strength, they cunningly involved them again in a war with the Cherokees, promised to fight their battles, led them into an ambush of their foes and deserted them. The Delawares at length comprehended the treachery of their so-called friends of the North, and resolved to resume their arms, and, being still superior in numbers, to crush them. It was too late, however. The Europeans were now making their way into the country in every direction, and gave ample employment to the astonished Lenape.

On the other hand, the Mengwes denied the story told by the Lenape. They always asserted that they had conquered the Delawares by force of arms, and made them a subject people. And though it was said they were unable to detail the circumstance of this conquest, it is more reasonable to suppose it true than that a numerous and warlike people should have volun- tarily suffered themselves to be disarmed and enslaved by a shallow artifice, or that, discovering the fraud practiced upon them, they should unresist- ingly have submitted to its consequences. This conquest was not an empty acquisition to the Mengwes. They claimed dominion over all the lands oc- cupied by the Delawares-from the head-waters of the Delaware and Susque- hanna Rivers on the north, to the Potomac on the south, and from the At- lantic Ocean westward to the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers-and their claims were distinctly acknowledged by the early whites when treating for the ces- sion of lands. It is also recorded in history that from about 1617, until the Indian title to the territory just described was extinguished, parties of the Iroquois or Five Nations (afterward known as the Six Nations) occupied and wandered over the country of the Delawares at pleasure. True, the cow-

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HISTORY OF WYANDOT COUNTY.

ardly Delawares and the perfidious Shawanese always boldly claimed these grounds as their own (except when confronted and rebuked by the chiefs and head men of the Six Nations), yet the proprietaries wisely recognized the claim of the Six Nations, and it was with that great confederation of red men they treated when purchases of territory were made.

The Shawanese came from the South. They were a restless, wandering tribe, and had occupied regions now embraced by the States of Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia and the Carolinas, before locating with their allies, the Delawares, in the province of Pennsylvania. After passing a few decades in that province, they migrated, or rather were driven, westward, and by the middle of the eighteenth century the entire tribe had settled on the Ohio River and its large tributaries.

Meanwhile the Six Nations were ceding to the Penns the lands occupied by the Delawares in Pennsylvania. Hence the latter were gradually yet peaceably pushed back to the westward by the constantly advancing tide of European emigration, until the beginning of the "Old French and Indian war" of 1754-53, when they, together with the Shawanese, Wyandots and other tribes of the great Northwest, became the allies of the French, and for many years thereafter ravaged at frequent intervals the western frontiers of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Immediately after their defeat at Kittanning by Col. Armstrong in September, 1756, the Delawares fled into Ohio; they refused to settle again on the east of Fort Du Quesne, and seemed quite willing to have that fortress and its French garrison placed between them and the English. However, while extremely careful to main- tain their old men, wives and children far to the westward of Fort Du Quesne, afterward Fort Pitt, the Delaware and Shawanese warriors (assisted until 1763 by the French) dominated over all of the country (with the ex- ception of small circles surrounding Forts Pitt and Ligonier) lying imme- diately west of the Alleghenies, until 1764, when Gen. Henry Boquet, with a strong force of Pennsylvania and Virginia provincials marched into the " Muskingum country." He defeated the savages in several encounters, and caused them to sue for a peace which continued until after the beginning of the war for American independence. The British then rendered their name forever odious by marshaling under their banners the Delawares, Shawanese, Wyandots, Pottawatomies and other Northwestern tribes, besides the Six Nations of New York, whose warriors, after being fully supplied with English munitions of war, were sent forward to massacre, irrespective of age, sex or condition, the unfortunate residents of American border set- tlements.

Having related thus much of the traditional and authentic history of the Delawares and Shawanese-tribes which many years ago were prominent in the region now embracing Wyandot County-we turn our attention to the "Erigas," or Eries, and the Huron Iroquois, otherwise known as " Yendots," or Wyandots.

Of the Eries but little is known, and that little consists mainly of a few meager traditions. Indeed, some writers doubt whether such a tribe ever existed on the southern shores of Lake Erie, as claimed. However that may be, it is fair to presume that if such a race did once occupy the lake shore described, they were at the same time occupants of the territory now within the limits of Wyandot County. The early French priests, or missionaries, are quoted as authority for the statements, that about 230 years ago a powerful tribe of savages, termed variously the Eries or " Cat Nation," the Erigas or "Neutral Nation," occupied a wide expanse of country on the

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The History of Wyandot County, Ohio, containing a history of the county, its townships, towns general and local statistics, military record, portraits of early settlers and prominent men etc, Part 23

Author: Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago, Leggett, Conaway Number of Pages: 1072

Author:
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, Leggett, Conaway
Number of Pages: 1072