The history of Hardin county, Ohio, Part 26

Author: Warner Beers & co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago : Warner Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 1076

USA > Ohio > Hardin County > The history of Hardin county, Ohio > Part 26

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Eel Rivers-Charley, Earth, Ploughman, Night Stander, Swallow, and Gun.

Kickapoos-Cat, Otter, Duck, Keeawhah, Persuader, Brave, Standing, Josey Renard, Bear, Dirty Face, Black Tree, and White Blanket.

Chippewas-Mesass, Bad Bird, Young Ox, Little Bear, Young Boy, Spark of Fire, Ball, Big Cloud, Cat Fish, Bad Legs, and Little Thunder. Sacs-Tepakee and Kesheyiva.

The Mingoes (of Ohio), do not seem to have developed any noted chiefs after Logan, on account, perhaps, of their steady decay and absorption by the other tribes. The notorious white renegade, Simon Girty, was leader of the Mingoes, and wielded a powerful influence among the Indians of the Northwest. He was born on an island in the Susquehanna River, in 1741. His father's name was also Simon, and his mother's maiden name was Crosby. The father was killed in a drunken frolic, leaving four sons, viz. : Thomas, James, George and Simon. The widow subsequently married John Turner, and bore him one son, John. During the French war the family were captured by the Indians, the elder Turner, burnt at the stake, and the balance were taken into captivity ; Thomas escaped ; James was adopted by the Shawnees ; George by the Delawares; and Simon by the Senecas. To what tribe the mother, and child, John Turner, were assigned, is unknown. After peace was declared, they all returned to civilized life, and settled in the vacinity of Pittsburgh, Penn.

During the Revolutionary war, the Girty boys joined the Indian allies of the English, and all became noted for fiendish cruelties to prisoners. Simon was the most conspicuous, and took a leading part in the Indian war which followed the Revolution. He was present at the burning of Col.

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Crawford ; and Dr. Knight says that he looked with devilish delight upon the horrible scene, and taunted the doctor with a similar fate. Soon after the close of the conflict, he married Catherine Malott, who bore him five children, viz. : John (who died in infancy), Ann, Thomas, Sarah and Pre- daux, whose descendants are numerous and respectable. Simon Girty died near Amherstburg, Canada, February 18, 1818. In appearance, he has been described as a man with dark, shaggy hair, low forehead, contracted brows, meeting above a short, flat nose, sunken eyes of a grayish color, and thin, compressed lips, " while all the vices of civilization seemed to center in him, and by him engrafted upon those of the savage state, without the usual redeeming qualities of either."

After the treaty of 1795, peace gradually settled over the Northwest Territory, and settlers began to pour into the rich valleys of the Ohio and its tributaries. In 1805, another treaty was concluded, and a large tract of country north and west of the Greenville treaty line was obtained by the Government. About this time the great Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, had risen to the head of his nation, and his influence was hostile to the United States. Born at the Indian town of Old Piqua (in Clark County) in 1768, he had grown up during the bitter struggle between the whites and his peo- ple for the possession of Ohio. His father, Puckeshinwa, was a chief, and fell at the battle of Point Pleasant in 1774. Tecumseh was never satisfied with the action of his race in signing away their heritage by treaty, and after reaching power was continually plotting mischief against the whites, in which he was ably seconded by his scheming brother Laulewasikaw, bet- ter known as the Prophet. He finally concocted a grand scheme of uniting all the Indian tribes in an alliance against the whites. With this in view he began visiting the different nations for the purpose of perfecting his plans, and while upon one of these trips to the Indians of the South, in 1811, Gen. William Henry Harrison marched at the head of a large force into the Wabash country. Here, on the now famed battle-ground of Tippe- canoe, he was furiously attacked by the savages under the leadership of the Prophet, whom he defeated with great loss, after a stubborn, well-fought battle.

The war of 1812 was soon after brought on by the arrogance and audacity of the English Government, and Tecumseh cast his fortunes with the English. In October, 1813, was fought the memorable battle of the Thames, in Canada, Gen. Harrison commanding the Americans, with Gen. Proctor and Tecumseh at the head of the English and Indians. Here the great Shawnee chieftain fell, while bravely fighting in the van of the con- tending forces, and thus the Indian alliance was forever dissolved.

Through the treaty enacted in 1807, at Detroit, Mich., with the Wyandots, Ottawas, Pottawatomies and Chippewas, all of Ohio north of the Maumee was ceded to the United States. In 1808, the same tribes, together with the Shawnees, granted a tract two miles wide for a road through the Black Swamp. In 1817, the Shawnees, Wyandots, Pottawatomies and other tribes ceded nearly all their remaining territory in Ohio, receiving in return a tract of land ten miles square surrounding Wapakoneta ; a tract of twenty-five square miles on Hog Creek, adjoining the above; and a tract of forty-eight square miles surrounding Lewistown. In 1818, fourteen square miles were added to the latter tract, and twenty square miles to the reserva-

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tion at Wapakoneta. The Shawnees and Senecas, with a few scattering In- dians belonging to other tribes, occupied these reservations, which were lo- cated principally in Auglaize and Logan Counties, though touching the southwest corner of Hardin County, and the northeast corner of Shelby. The Wyandot Reservation embraced the territory surrounding Upper Sandusky, in Wyandot County, while that of the Delawares lay immediately south of the Wyandots, extending into Marion County. In 1818, the Miamis surrendered their claims to the remaining Indian territory in Ohio, west of the St. Mary's River and north of the Greenville treaty line. The last title of the Delawares was purchased in August, 1829, and in July and August, 1831, all of the Indian reservations around Lewistown and Wa- pakoneta, on which were living 700 Shawnees and 350 Senecas, were ceded to the Government. There was an Indian reservation of 40,000 acres in Seneca and Sandusky Counties, which was granted in 1817-18. They were known as the Senecas of Sandusky, and numbered about 400 persons. The aged chief, Good Hunter, who dwelt there, claimed they were the rem- nant of Logan's tribe. Henry C. Brish, their Sub-Agent, in a letter to Henry Howe, says : " I cannot to this day surmise why they were called Senecas. I never found a Seneca among them. They were Cayugas, who were Mingoes, among whom were a few Oneidas, Mohawks, Onondagoes Tuscarawas and Wyandots." By a treaty concluded at Washington, D. C., February 28, 1831, these lands were ceded to the United States, and this band removed to Southwest Missouri. The Wyandot Reservation of twelve miles square, at Upper Sandusky, was purchased in March, 1842, and the following year the last Indian left Ohio for the West. At that time, the Wyandots numbered about 700 souls, and were the last Indian tribe to relinquish its claim to the soil of this State. Thus, after a struggle of more than three-quarters of a century, the red sons of the forest were forced to give way before the strength and powers of the white race, and were fruitless in their attempts to stem the onward march of civilization.

It is estimated that from the French war in 1754 to the battle of the Fallen Timbers in 1794, a period of forty years, there were at least 5,000 persons killed or captured west of the Alleghany Mountains. Eleven mili- tary expeditions were organized and sent against the Western Indians, pri- or to the war of 1812, seven regular engagements fought and about 1,200 men killed in battle. , More whites were slain in battle than there were In- dian braves killed in military expeditions and by private raids and mur- ders ; yet, in 1811, all the Ohio tribes combined could not muster 2,000 warriors.

The geographical position of the territory embraced in Hardin County placed it in the direct route between the Indian towns on the Miamis and Mad Rivers and the Wyandot villages, around the head-waters of the San- dusky. It therefore became one of the favorite hunting grounds of the Shawnees, Wyandots, Miamis, Senecas, Delawares, Ottawas and Mingoes. In its forests, they followed the chase ; along its clear, running streams they pitched their tents, and drank the pure waters of its beautiful springs. For generations ere the permanent settlement of the whites, the Indian wigwams were annually erected upon the banks of the Scioto and its tributaries, as well as along the streams which flow into the Sandusky and Auglaize Rivers. In subsequent years, when their heritage had slipped from their grasp, they

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still lingered around those hallowed spots, taking, as it were, a last farewell of the lands dotted with the graves of their ancestors.

It is not our intention to attempt to give the location of every spot where the Indians camped in Hardin County, as success in such an under- taking would be utterly impossible. They pitched their wigwams wherever fancy dictated, sometimes on running streams, again close to springs, but always where water could be obtained without much trouble. The vicinity of the great Scioto marsh was much frequented on account of the large amount of game that resorted to its fastnesses, while around Hog Creek Marsh, as well as upon every stream and rivulet of Hardin County, the In- dian huntsman sought the wild denizens of the forest, reveling in the spoils which his well-laid traps and trusty rifle helped him to secure.

Doubtless many Indian trails passed over the soil of this county, but the best known was the old Shawnee trace from the Mackacheek towns, to the Indian villages of the Sandusky and Tymochtee. It entered Hardin County in the southeast corner of what is now Taylor Creek Township, pass- ing in a northeast direction through Hale, Dudley and Goshen Townships, crossing the Scioto River in Survey 10.021, and leaving the county in Sec- tion 24, Goshen Township; thence on to Upper Sandusky. This trace was followed by Gen. Shelby, in September, 1813, on his march from Belle- fontaine to Fort Ferree, which stood on the site of Upper Sandusky, and subsequently became the center of the Wyandot reservation. The old State road was afterward laid out on the line of this trail.

The celebrated Mingoe chief, Logan, with a band of followers, had a village in the southeastern part of this county as early as 1778. It is probable that he removed from the lower Shawnee towns on the Scioto, where his cabin stood in 1774, to this point, soon after Lord Dunmore's campaign. The exact location of this village is not known, some old settlers claiming that it stood in the vicinity of " Grassy Point," in Hale Township. Col. John McDonald, in his biography of Simon Kenton, when telling of his capture in 1778, says : " As the Indians passed from Wapatomika to Upper Sandusky, they went through a small village on the River Scioto, where then resided the celebrated chief, Logan, of Jefferson memory. Logan, unlike the rest of his tribe, was humane as he was brave. At his wigwam, the party who had the care of the prisoner, staid over night." From this account, it seems they also remained the succeeding day and night, not leaving for Upper Sandusky until the second morning after their arrival at Logan's village. The old Shawnee trail crossed the Scioto near the resi- dence of the late Judge Portius Wheeler, in Survey 10,021, Dudley Town- ship, several miles Northeast of Grassy Point, and as the Indian Village was on the Scioto, it is safe to infer that the wigwams of Logan and his band were in the vicinity of the Shawnee ford, and not at Grassy Point. The main reason why the latter place has been thought to have been the site of the Mingoe camp, is that the Indians had cleared and cultivated some land in that locality, which, upon subsequent abandonment, had grown up in blue grass, hence the name, Grassy Point. It is more probable, that the land referred to was cultivated by the Shawnees and Wyandots, who owned this territory in common, while the Mingoes occupied it only by consent of these tribes, who loved it as one of their favorite camping grounds, and a sacred depository of their dead in by-gone ages.

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HISTORY OF HARDIN COUNTY.

The Wyandot chief, Roundhead, had a village on the Scioto in the southwest corner of Hardin County, where the town of Round Head was subsequently laid out. At what precise date the Indians start- ed this village is not known, but about the year 1800 Maj. James Galloway, of Greene County, visited them at this point and says that there were then quite a number of apple trees in the village, and that the Indians raised many swine. Some of those trees, said to have been planted by this old chief, are yet standing. Roundhead, whose Indian name was Stiahta, was a fine looking man. He had a brother named John Battise, a man of great size and personal strength. He was well remembered by the pioneers, of the Miami and Scioto Valleys on account of possessing an enormous nose, which resembled in size and hue an immense blue potato full of indentations, and when he laughed it shook like jelly. He lived at a place called Battise town, some miles west of his brother's village, joined the English in 1812, and was killed at the seige of Fort Meigs.

In 1807, Roundhead was present with Tecumseh and other chiefs at a council held at Springfield, Ohio, between the Whites and Indians, to settle a difficulty which arose over the killing of a white man named Myers a few miles west of Urbana. The execution of Leatherlips, a well known Wyan- dot chief, which took place twelve miles north of Columbus, Ohio, in 1810, on the charge of witchcraft, was intrusted by Tecumseh to Roundhead, who at the head of six braves, came from Tippecanoe and did the deed. Upon the breaking-out of the war of 1812, Roundhead took up arms against the Americans and was present at Hull's surrender of Detroit, August 15, 1812. Prior to that event, Gen. Brock had presented Tecumseh with a red sash, who, knowing that if he wore it, some of the other chiefs would be jealous of this supposed mark of superiority, generously gave the sash to Roundhead. At the battle of River Raisin, fought January 22, 1813, near the site of Monroe, Mich., Roundhead captured Gen. Winchester, who commanded the American forces. He compelled the General to divest himself of his uniform, which Roundhead immediately donned, including the cocked hat, and then conducted his shivering victim to a fire, while he strutted around among the Indians proudly, exhibiting his prize. Gen. Proctor, who was in command of the English and Indians, had some difficulty in persuading this stern Wyandot chief to relinquish his claim to the American General, and return his uniform, which Roundhead looked upon as his by right of conquest. At the close of the war, he returned to his village in this county, where he finally died. The Indians had a few acres of land in that vicinity which they cultivated ; and Jonathan Carter, who is yet living at Round- head, says that for some years after he settled in the village, the Indian friends and relations of this chief came annually to visit his grave, and per- formed their religious rites around the spot where he was buried.

The Wyandots were among the bravest of the Indian tribes, and some of their chiefs were men of high moral character. From a discourse of Gen. Harrison's which was printed and preserved in the collections of the Histor ical Society of Ohio, we cull the following tribute to the Wyandot nation. He says : " With all other tribes but the Wyandots, flight in battle, when meeting with unexpected resistance or obstacle, brought with it no disgrace. With them it was otherwise. Their youth were taught to consider anything that had the appearance of an acknowledgment of the superiority of the

Jours Firmly J.J. Robinson.

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enemy as disgraceful. In the battle of the Maumee Rapids, of thirteen chiefs of that tribe who were present, only one survived, and he badly wounded .. Some time before this action, Gen. Wayne sent for Capt. Wells, and requested him to go to Sandusky and take a prisoner, for the purpose of obtaining information. Wells-who had been bred with the Indians, and was perfectly acquainted with their character-answered that he could take a prisoner, but not from Sandusky, because Wyandots would not be taken alive."

Four miles northeast of Upper Sandusky was located the old Indian town of that name, where Tarhe (the Crane), the celebrated Wyandot chief, died in 1818. Prior to this, he had resided at Solomon's town, in Logan County, whence he removed to the village where he died. After Tarhe's death, the Wyandots transferred their council-house to the present site of Upper Sandusky, gave it that name, and called the old village Crane Town. Black Hoof, the great Shawnee warrior and orator, lived at Wapakoneta, Auglaize County, where he died in 1831. The noted Shawnee chief, Blue Jacket, had a village on the site of Bellefontaine, Logan County, but subse- quently removed to Wapakoneta, and had also a town on the Maumee. Buckongehelas, the principal chief of the Delaware tribe for many years, re- sided three miles north of Blue Jacket's town in Logan County, but he, too, removed to Wapakoneta in the early part of the present century. Capt. Reed, a Shawnee chief, dwelt in the vicinity of Bellefontaine, at a place known as Reed's Town, while Capt. John Lewis, another well-remembered leader of the Shawnee tribe, had a village, called Lewistown, in the north- west part of Logan County. In later days, Tecumseh, with other less cele- brated chiefs, whose names are closely identified with the Indian history of this portion of Ohio, resided at Wapakoneta, Lewistown and Upper San- dusky. The Wyandot Indians, with their chiefs, are better remembered by the pioneers of Hardin County, than any of the other tribes, for the reason that they hunted in its forests for many years after its first settlement, while the Shawnees, Delawares, Senecas, Miamis and Mingoes left for the West prior to its civil organization. It was on the north bank of the Scioto, close to the Shawnee ford, where the Wyandots camped in 1843, when moving to the West. Here, William Walker, the half-breed Wyandot chief, made a farewell address to a large concourse of whites who had come to say good-bye, and portrayed in glowing words the wrongs and sufferings of his race.

We do not wish to recall the history of the aborigines who occupied this locality, to extol their supposed greatness or to lament their disappearance, but to compare them with the white race of people who have followed them, and learn from the past useful lessons for the present, and from the wonder- ful events that have transpired, and improvements made in the last one hun- dred years, present the power, talent, genius and unequaled greatness of the people who occupy this land. In the place of the Indian trace they have laid down railroads ; where stood the wigwam, they have built cities ; they have digged down mountains, bridged rivers, and extorted from the bowels of the earth, gold, silver, iron, copper, tin and coal. The hunting-grounds of the passed-away race are annually covered with crops of wheat, corn and other cereals, while upon the broad pastures skirting the streams roam herds of stock, living evidences of wealth and progress. The sites of the old Indian villages in the valleys of the Scioto and Miami Rivers, are about the

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center of a food-producing district, with a surplus produce great enough to feed a continent. It was a part of the inevitable that the red man should depart and the white man take his place. No thoughtful person would pre- fer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few savages to a great State covered with cities, towns and well-cultivated farms, embellished with all the improvements that art can devise or industry execute, occupied by more than three millions of people, enjoying all the blessings of liberty, civilization and religion.

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CHAPTER III.

FIRST WHITE MEN-CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES-FRENCH AND ENGLISH TRADING- POSTS-FORT LAURENS-ATTEMPTED SETTLEMENT AT THE MOUTH OF THE SCIOTO-SALT WORKS-FRENCH AND ENGLISH CLAIMS-ENGLISH AGENTS -AMERICAN POSSESSION-OHIO COMPANY'S PURCHASE-SYMMES' PUR- CHASE-FORT HARMAR - PIONEER SETTLEMENTS ALONG THE OHIO-FORT WASHINGTON-FIRST SETTLEMENT IN THE VIR- GINIA MILITARY DISTRICT-NATHANIEL MASSIE-FRENCH SETTLEMENT AT GALLIPOLIS-ERECTION OF WAYNE COUNTY-TERRITORIAL LEGISLATURE-OHIO BE- COMES A STATE-THE LANDS EMBRACED IN THIS COUNTY OPENED FOR SETTLEMENT- DIVISION OF THE INDIAN TERRITORY · INTO COUNTIES-FUR TRADERS- HULL'S TRAIL - FIRST SET- TLERS OF HARDIN COUNTY.

O NE hundred years ago the whole territory from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains was a wilderness, inhabited only by wild beasts and Indians. The intrepid missionaries of the Catholic Church, viz., Fathers Mesnard, Allouez, Dablon, Hennipin, Marquette, La Salle and others, were the first white men to penetrate the wilderness, or behold its mighty lakes and rivers. The French traders and Moravian missionaries subsequently followed, and like their predecessors, continued their labors among the In- dians of Ohio. While the thirteen old colonies were declaring their inde- pendence, the thirteen new States, which now lie in the western interior, had no existence, and gave no signs of the future. The solitude of nature was almost unbroken by the steps of civilization. The wisest statesman had not contemplated the probability of the coming States, and the boldest pa- triot did not dream that this interior wilderness would soon contain a greater population than the thirteen old States, with all the added growth of one hundred years.

Ten years after that the old States had ceded their Western lands to the General Government, and Congress had passed the act of 1785 for the sur- vey of the public domain, and, in 1787, the celebrated ordinance which or- ganized the Northwestern Territory, and dedicated it to freedom and intel- ligence. It was more than a quarter of a century after the Declaration of Independence ere the State of Ohio was admitted into the Union, being the seventeenth which accepted the Constitution of the United States. It has since grown up to be great, populous and prosperous, under the influence of those ordinances. Previous to her admission, February 19, 1803, the tide of emigration had begun to flow over the Alleghanies into the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi, and, although no steamboat or railroad then existed, nor even a stage-coach line to help the immigrant, yet the wooden " ark " on the Ohio, and the heavy wagon slowly winding over the mountains, bore these tens of thousands to the wilds of Kentucky and the plains of Ohio. From

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the date of the first settlements in 1788, at the mouth of the Muskingum, the tide continued to pour on for half a century in a widening stream, min- gled with nearly all the races of Europe and America, until now, the five States of the Northwestern Territory in the wilderness in 1776, contain more than ten millions of people, enjoying all the blessings which peace and pros- perity, freedom and Christianity can confer upon any people. Of these five States born under the ordinance of 1787, Ohio is the first, oldest, and, in many things, the greatest. We will then begin with the coming of the whites to the soil of Ohio, and briefly trace the events leading to the settle- ment of Hardin County.

The discovery and exploration of the great Northwest was the result of the religious enthusiasm of French Catholic missionaries for the conversion of the Indians inhabiting the country, coupled with a patriotic desire to enlarge the French dominions, and spread civilization over this unex- plored land. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the French had four principal routes to their Western posts, two of which passed over the soil or waters of Ohio. About 1716, a route was established from the east, along the southern shores of Lake Erie, to the mouth of the Maumee River, thence following this stream to the Wabash Valley. The second route ran from the southern shores of Lake Erie, at Presqueville, over a portage of fifteen miles to the head of French Creek, at Waterford, Penn .; thence down that stream to the Ohio, and on to the Mississippi. Along these routes forts or trading-posts were built and maintained, and were the first attempts of the white race to possess the land. Though their stay was brief, yet it opened the way to another people living on the shores of the Atlantic, who in time came, saw and conquered this portion of America, making of it what we to-day enjoy.

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The history of Hardin county, Ohio, Part 26

Author: Warner Beers & co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago : Warner Beers & Co. Number of Pages: 1076

Author: Warner Beers & co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago : Warner Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 1076