USA > Ohio > The Western Reserve and early Ohio > Part 15
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STANDING ROCK IN THE CUYAHOGA RIVER
BRADY'S FIGHT
two trails that Brady's men were divided on their re- treat. At the Cuyahoga, in Franklin Township in the present village of Kent, just north of the bridge on the road leading to Ravenna the Indians had extended their lines to hem him in and with loud shouts of triumph thought their prisoner safe. The river was here bordered by perpendicular rocks, the chasm being twenty-two feet wide. Brady, on reaching the river, gave a bound that despair on one side and hope on the other alone could have affected and clearing the river, gained the bank while his pursuers were hunting a place to cross. He ran about three miles to a lake which ever since has been known as Brady's Lake. In the water of this lake he sunk his body under the surface where he remained, breathing through a hollow weed until his enemies abandoned the search when he made his escape.
The Indians did not shoot him, as they wished to capture him alive so as to burn him at the stake.
About 1840, a gun was found while cleaning out and deepening Big Spring at Cuyahoga Falls. This is supposed to have belonged to one of Brady's men.
ADVENTURES OF CAPT. DELAUN MILLS
In the spring of 1800 the sons of Ezekiel Mills of Becket, Massachusetts, started out to the new land of promise. Of these three sons of the good deacon Mills, Delaun was the oldest, being 24, married, with three children. His brother Asahel, married with one child, and Isaac, 19 and single completed the Mills team. They left the hills of Massachusetts in two covered wagons, a little caravan of three men, two women and four child- ren. Their motive power was a yoke of oxen to each wagon and after a journey of several weeks landed in Youngstown, then a city of five log cabins. They were financially embarassed upon reaching this frontier hamlet having but twenty-five cents between them. About this time Urial Holmes, the proprietor of Nelson township arrived at Youngstown with Amzi Atwater, one of Moses Cleveland's gang in 1796 and '97. They were on their way to the township for the purpose of surveying it and were pleased to hire the Mills brothers as ax men. Leaving their families here they proceeded to the wilderness. They did not return until the next September when Delaun immediately moved his family to a log cabin he had built on a 100-acre tract given him by Holmes, thus becoming the first settler in Nelson.
Captain Mills organized the first military company ever formed on the Western Reserve. He led the first company in the war of 1812, that went forth from the New Connecticut to do battle for home and fireside. For years he kept a wayside hostelery. It was in front of his home that his company drilled and encamped in
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tents made from home-spun linen sheets of the good housewives. This was the first military camp on the Reserve composed of Americans.
Capt. Mills served through the war of 1812 and made a gallant officer. About this time he was bitten by a ratlesnake which came near ending his career. Soon after being bitten, blood commenced to flow from his eyes and nose and he became partially paralyzed. The usual remedy, filling the patient with whiskey saved him, but until the last day of his life he felt the effects of the terrible virus. In 1818 and again in 1824, he served as Captain of the big circular hunts.
Capt. Mills killed the last Indian killed on the Re- serve. After the close of the war a band of seven re- turned to this vicinity ; Mills and his men killed six out of seven. His life was an exciting romance, filled with hair breadth escapes.
ADAM AND ANDREW POE'S FAMOUS FIGHT
In 1782, an old man living alone in a log cabin near the southern line of Mahoning County was robbed and murdered by a band of Wyandot Indians under the command of Big Foot, the noted and gigantic Wyandot chief.
"Unlike the southern Indians the villages of the northwestern tribes were usually far from the frontier. Tireless and careless of all hardships, they came silent- ly out of unknown forests, robbed and murdered, and then disappeared again into the fathomless depths of the woods. Half of the terror that they caused was due to the extreme difficulty in following them and the ab- solute impossibility of forecasting their attacks, with- out warning and unseen until the moment they dealt their death stroke."
As soon as the murder was discovered by the settlers, a band of eight pioneer riflemen, led by Adam and Andrew Poe, started on the trail of the marauding band. Somewhere within the limits of Summit county, upon the banks of a stream, the Indians had laid an ambush for the pursuing "pale faces." The rangers discovered this in time, sent Andrew Poe around to the rear of the Indians to spy out, if possible, the well laid plans of their red foe.
Creeping carefully along the margin of the stream, beneath the branches of the overhanging trees he dis- covered a raft near a high cliff.
The raft lay closely in shore and Poe at once sup- posed it to be a snare, silently cocking his rifle, he was
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about to go forward when he saw an Indian of gigantic stature and with him, a medium sized one, both slowly approaching him. The large savage was Big Foot, the terror of the border, a warrior to be feared and who boasted that he had never been defeated. The chief was armed with a rifle and was evidently on the lookout for some one, but at the moment was looking away from Poe. Taking advantage of this, Andrew's rifle was silently but swiftly raised to his shoulder, his eye glanced quickly along the tube and he pulled the trigger. A dull click followed, the powder in the pan had failed to explode. The noise made by the gun lock at once made Poe's whereabouts known.
The Indians were at the foot of the bank, while the white man was on the bank directly above them. Dropping his useless rifle he ran for the chief, jumping squarely upon him; at the same time he threw out his arm, grasping the smaller Indian and all three went down in a heap together. The small Indian twisted him- self clear of Poe's embrace, ran to the raft and then came bounding back swinging a tomahawk around his head. Big Foot by this time had succeeded in turning the tables on Poe and held him fast on the ground. As soon as the small Indian came close enough, Poe set one of his big feet squarely in the savage's stomach and he went to the ground. The big chief gave the little one a severe raking for not being able to strike Poe on the head and while excitedly talking unconsciously re- laxed his hold, in a small degree. Poe taking advan- tage of this, made a sudden and tremendous effort and broke from the grasp of the chief, seizing a gun which lay a little distance away, promptly shot the small
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Indian. Big Foot now jumped Poe, straining every nerve to down him. Both realized that it was a life or death struggle and put forth their best efforts, wrest- ling here and there, they finally stumbled over the edge of the bank and both went rolling down the steep in- cline into the water of the creek. Then each put forth superhuman efforts to drown the other, by a lucky move, Poe succeeded in catching the chief by the hair and forced his head under the water and holding it there until he thought the Indian was dead, but on re- laxing his grasp he found out his mistake when the Wyandot lifted his head and at once renewed the life and death struggle. In trying to grasp each other again they staggered into deeper water and were car- ried off their feet and swiftly rushed down stream. Each at once released his hold and commenced swim- ming for the shore. The Indian proved the better swimmer of the two and reached the bank consider- ably in advance of Poe. The chief at once made a hunt for a gun and finding one, returned to the bank and drew a bead on the white as he attempted to pull him- self up the steep bank. Poe saw his danger and at once dived. Luck followed Poe again, for the gun proved to be the one he had recently shot the small Indian with and was empty; but before the Indian could re- load, Adam Poe's brother came upon the scene and Andrew cried out to him, "Shoot the Indian!" But Adam's rifle was in the same condition as the chief's, unloaded. Big Foot seeing this cried, "Man load first kill!" Now again began another three handed game, both white and Indian striving to see which could get their gun loaded first. In his haste the Indian dropped
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his ramrod and before he could recover it and get his bullet down, Andrew had rammed his home, taking deliberate aim, shot the Indian dead. Rushing to the bank, he offered to assist his brother, but was told not to mind him but to scalp the chief, who in his dying agony was trying to roll himself in the water and save that precious possession. In the meantime, another of Poe's party coming up and seeing Andrew in the water mistook him for an Indian and shot him through the shoulder. Andrew was then helped up the bank after which they held a short council. After the council the party started for the rest of their men but had not proceeded far when they heard the sharp crack, crack, of rifie shots. In spite of Andrew's wound, they all started on a run examining their rifles as they ran. They had not gone far before they arrived on the battle ground. Here they found that four out of the five Indians left had been killed, while the other had fled. On the side of the whites three had been killed.
The survivors gathered up their dead and bore them back to the settlements.
For the small number engaged and the large per- centage of casualties, it was one of the bloodiest con- flicts ever known to occur between the whites and the Indians within the limits of the Western Reserve. Of fifteen engaged, nine were killed and one wounded, or two out of every three; the Indians loosing six out of seven.
Theodore Roosevelt in his "Winning of the West" differs somewhat in his account of this fight; he claims that Poe was shot by his brother. He also states that Big Foot was "one of the most powerful and redoubt-
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able warriors in the Wyandot tribe and that his com- panions were choosen for their known prowess and bravery, they had many times worsted the whites and did not deem them their equals in battle."
Several years after this, a Wyandot chief, named Rohn-yen-ness, was converted to the Christian religion and confessed that after it became known among the Wyandots that Andrew Poe had caused the death of their greatest war chief, he was appointed to go to Poe's house and assassinate the white enemy. He pro- ceeded to Poe's house to carry out his plan, but was received with so much kindness and hospitality that his nerve weakened. "Poe having no suspicion what- ever of his design, furnished him with the very best that his cabin afforded. When bedtime came, a pallet was carefully prepared for their Indian guest by the hospitable couple in their own chamber. The unsus- picious hunter and his family having fallen into a deep sleep, the Indian had now a fair opportunity to accom- plish their destruction. He thought of the duty he owed to his nation, of the death of its most valiant warrior and of the anger of his tribe; but Poe had received him with so much kindness, had treated him so much like a brother, that he could not summon a sufficient amount of resolution to kill him and in this unsettled state of mind he lay until about midnight. Once more he arose from his pallet and approached his sleeping host. His sinewy arm was uplifted and the murderous weapon glittered in his hand. Again the kindness of the sleeping pioneer shook the resolution of the Indian, who feeling it to be unworthy the char-
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acter of a warrior to kill even an enemy who had re- posed in him such a generous confidence, returned to his pallet and slept till morning."
It is told of Adam Poe that five Indians, all rather drunk, came to his cabin and tried to force the door open. He sent his wife with the children out in the cornfield behind the house, remarking, "There is a fight and fun ahead," but when he saw the state the Indians were in he did not fire at them. He fell upon them with his fists, knocked them all down and then threw them one after another over the fence into a promiscious heap on the other side. The fun then ended and Poe called in his family.
BOUNDARY LINES OF THE FORT McINTOSH TREATY JANUARY 21, 1785
The boundary line agreed upon at this treaty was as follows: "Beginning at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, on the southern shore of Lake Erie, thence up the east bank of the Cuyahoga River to its lake source ; thence across to the source of the Tuscarawas and down that stream to its junction with Walhounding Creek, near the site of the old American Fort Laurens ; thence in a direct line south of west, to the mouth of Mad River, a large eastern tributary of the Great Miami, or Stony River; (it being that branch of the Stony River on which the French had a fort) in the year 1752; thence up the main branch of the Miami or Stony River to the portage across to the St. Mary's River or main branch of the Maumee; thence down the southwestern bank of the St. Mary's and the Maumee to Lake Erie."
"East and south of this line the lands are ceded and relinquished to the United States, for the use of the people thereof. The United States grant and re- relinquish to the Indians all lands north and west of this line for their use and occupancy as dwelling places and hunting grounds, free from encroachment by the whites excepting certain roads therein specified, lead- ing to the principal military posts on the northwestern frontier and also six miles square contigious to and including each of said posts; also, six miles square at the Rapids of the Maumee and six miles square, also, at its mouth; also, six miles square on the Sandusky
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FORT McINTOSH TREATY
River, another at Detroit, and one on the River Raisin."
The treaty of Fort Harmer, signed January 9, 1789, confirmed the lines established by the treaty of Fort McIntosh.
The treaty of Greenville signed August 3, 1795, re- established the lines made at the Fort McIntosh treaty and confirmed that of Fort Harmer, as also a complete relinquishment of sixteen square tracts in the vicinity of the several military posts then held, or claimed by the United States, south of the lakes, together with the right of way to and from them.
The first treaty made by the Indians to the whites in which they ceded to the British the territory now included within the Western Reserve, was made July 19, 1701, over two hundred years ago. The description, spelling and all is as follows:
"A tract lying between the great lake Ottawawa (Huron) and the lake called by the natives Sahiquage and by the Christians Swege (Erie), and runns till it butts upon the Twichtwichs and is bounded on the right hand by a place called Quadoge, (head of Lake Michi- gan, Chicago), conteigning in length 800 miles and in bredth 400 miles including the country where the Bevers, the Deers and Elks keep."
MILITARY EXPEDITION INTO THE NORTH WESTERN TERRITORY --- 1790-1794
In the autumn of 1785, Maj. John Doughty under the direction of the then Col. Josiah Harmer commenced the erection of Fort Harmer. It was built on the right bank of the Muskingum at its junction with the Ohio. It was not completed until the year 1786, but was the second to be erected within the limits of Ohio, Fort Laurens having been built seven years earlier, in 1779.
The North-West Territory being organized in 1788, the government of the United States made an imme- diate effort to subdue the Indians of the Territory.
Disaster had followed the campaigns of Braddock in 1755, Wilkins in 1763, Bradstreet in 1764, Lochry in 1781 and the murderous and disgraceful campaigns of Col. Williamson in April and that of Col. Crawford in June 1782 had only inflamed the hostile savages and inspired them with greater courage and perseverance.
Midnight shrieks of terror, the burning cabins, outraged womanhood, the yell of despair, the torture stake were but daily incidents in the far from the frontier settlements. Indeed in these few years more blood had been shed, more treasure destroyed on the frontiers of Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky than had been in the Revolutionary War on both sides. To secure a speedy termination of these savage atroci- ties the National Government early organized a number of military expeditions into the Ohio country.
Gen. Harmer was then the Commander-in-Chief of the Military Department of the west. His was to be
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MILITARY EXPEDITIONS
the first expedition in the North-Western Territory. In the autumn of 1790, Gen. Harmer mobolized the troops under his command. He then made requisitions on Pennsylvania and Kentucky for volunteers. Pennsyl- vania sent troops under the command of Col. John Hardin. Kentucky sent troops under the command of Col. Trotter. The volunteers numberer in all some 1400 men.
The expedition left Fort Washington and marched to the Junction of the St. Joseph and St. Mary's rivers (Fort Wayne). After destroying several villages and wasting the country as far as Maumee, he divided his army into detachments. Col. Hardin who commanded the Pennsylvania troops was ambuscaded and his forces routed at a village eleven miles from Fort Wayne and on October 21, the main division was defeated with great loss at the Maumee Ford. Gen. Harmer imme- diately retreated to Fort Washington and disbanded his army.
GEN. MARTIN SMITH'S EXPEDITION
When Gen. Harmer called for volunteers from Pennsylvania for a warfare on the Maumee Indians, Gen. Martin Smith raised a body of volunteers in East- ern Pennsylvania, but instead of going down the Ohio in boats to Cincinnati, as the other Pennsylvania troops did, he struck out directly Westward across the country to Fort Wayne. It is not known whether he left Penn- sylvania westward from Fort McIntosh on the Fort McIntosh and Sandusky Indian trail or whether he took boats from Fort Presque Isle (Erie) to the mouth of the Cuyahoga, thence up the Cuyahoga to Old Port-
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age, but probably the latter. From Old Portage he cut a roadway westward (the Old Smith Road) to the Indiana line. Near Medina he abandoned three brass field pieces.
This old road was re-cut in 1812 by Col. Rial Mc- Arthur and his (Akron) Middlebury Co. and over it he marched his command to Fort Stevenson. Over this road also came the hero of Fort Stevenson and his 150 men. Gen. Perkin's army returned by it. Over this during 1812 went all the canon, amunition and sup- plies for Fort Meigs, Fort Stephenson and Gen. Perkin's camp on the Huron. At its foot, in the Cuyagoha Val- ley, lay Gen. Wadsworth's army of occupation.
ARTHUR ST. CLAIR'S EXPEDITION
After the defeat of Harmer the government adopt- ed more vigorous measures for the repression of Indian hostilities.
On September 6, 1791, Gen. St. Clair, the Governor of the North-western Territory, with an army of 2300 men set out from Fort Washington (Cincinnati) to break the power of the Miami confederacy. On the night of November 3 he reached a point nearly 100 miles north of Fort Washington and encamped on one of the upper tributaries of the Wabash, in what is now the south-west angle of Mercer County.
On the morning of November 14, half an hour before sunrise, his camp was suddenly assailed by more than 2000 warriors led by Capt. Pipe, Little Turtle and several American renegades.
After a terrible battle of three hours duration, St. Clair was completely defeated with a loss of 1000 men.
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The defeat soon became a rout with the Indians killing on every side. 'It was here that Capt. Pipe said, "I killed, killed and killed until my arm grew weary." Gen. St. Clair had eight bullets through his clothes and hat. He had four horses killed and was finally compelled to mount an old steed that could scarcely walk. St. Clair's men had not eaten breakfast yet and were in poor con- dition to fight. The weather was cold and the ground was covered with a slushy snow. One woman with an infant who was with the army threw away her baby in the snow because it retarded her flight. The Indians rescued the baby, took it to their town and raised it. From 50 to 200 women were killed in this action- accounts vary.
On his march north St. Clair had built a fort four miles south of the present Greeneville, Darke Co., which he named Fort Jefferson. The defeated troops fled to this fort where a council of war was held and they concluded to continue their march south and marched all night. Fort Hamilton, which they had built on their march to the north on the Great Miami was 44 miles south of Fort Jefferson.
Capt. Buntin, afterwards dispatched to bury the dead, filled four trenches but on account of the snow was unable to find all; 26 months later Wayne's advance counted 600 skulls on the battle field. "Oh!" said an old squaw years later at St. Marys, "My arm that night was weary scalping white man." The Indian camp near the battle field was nearly three quarters of a mile long. Col. John Johnson, Indian agent, said, "One of my interpreters, Wells, by name, said that he toma- hawked and scalped the wounded and dead till he was
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unable to raise his arm." If it had not been that the Indians were so crazy for loot from the camp the fatali- ties would have been much larger.
GENERAL ANTHONY WAYNE'S EXPEDITION
The expeditions that were to have enforced peace with the Indians of the North-Western Territory hav- ing proved an utter and complete failure, the people of the Great West had become desperate and agonized wails went up to Congress from every section. St. Clair was deposed and Congress appointed Gen. Anthony Wayne, "Mad Anthony" as they delighted to call him, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the West.
On the 28th of July, 1794, Wayne having been joined by Gen. Scott with 1600 gallant mounted Ken- tuckians, began his forward drive toward the Maumee, following practically the same route taken by the un- fortunate St. Clair. This army of 3200 strong on Aug- ust 8 arrived near the junction of the Maumee and Auglaize and there commenced the erection of Fort Defiance. The Indians being aware that Wayne was advancing had hastily abandoned their Auglaize vil- lages and the surprise that Mad Anthony had for them fell through. His army moved forward and on August 18, reached Roche DeBouef (Standing Rock) where they erected light fortifications and named it Fort Deposit. On the 20th they moved forward to attack the Indians encamped on the bank of the Maumee, about two miles south of Maumee City and four south of the British Fort Miamis. Just north of this fort was Proctor's Camp. Fort Miamis was garrisoned by
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a force of 450 men and mounted ten pieces of artillery.
As Wayne's advance which consisted of mounted troops under the command of Major Price, rounded the high hill called Presque Isle, they were met by a with- ering volley from the Indians hidden in the long grass and the woods. Major Price immediately fell back on the main body. Gen. Wayne in his report says, "The Legion was the right, its flank covered by the Maumee: one brigade of mounted volunteers on the left, under Gen. Todd, and the other in the rear under Gen. Barber. A select battalion moved in front." The battle of Fallen Timbers was on.
He further states, "The Legion was immediately formed in two lines, principally in a close thick wood, which extended for miles on our left, and for a very considerable distance in front; the ground being cov- ered with old fallen timber which rendered it impracti- cable for the cavalry to act with effect and afforded the enemy the most favorable covert for their mode of warfare. The savages were formed in three lines, within supporting distance of each other and extending for nearly two miles at right angels with the river. The enemy were in full force in front, in possession of their favorite ground and endeavoring to turn our left flank. I ordered the second line to advance and sup- port the first and directed Maj. Scott to gain and turn the right flank of the savages with the whole force of the mounted volunteers by a circuitous route; at the same time I ordered the front line to advance with trailed arms and arouse the Indians from their coverts at the point of the bayonet and when up, to deliver a close and well directed fire on their backs, followed by a
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brisk charge so as not to give them time to load again. I also ordered Capt. Campbell, who commanded the legionary cavalry, to turn the left flank of the enemy next the river, which afforded a favorable field for that corps to act in. The enemy was driven, in the course of one hour, more than two miles through the thick woods. From every account the enemy amounted to two thousand. Our troops actually engaged were short of 900. This horde of savages with their allies, abandoned themselves to flight and dispersed with terror and dis- may, leaving our victorious army in full and quiet pos- session of the field of battle, which terminated under the guns of the British garrison. The loss of the enemy was more than ours. They were strewn for a consider- able distance with the dead bodies of Indians and their auxiliaries, the latter armed with British muskets and bayonets."
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