The history of Madison County, Ohio, Part 26

Author: Brown, Robert C; W.H. Beers & Co., pub
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, W.H. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 1180

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Stone axes, hammers, pestles, flint arrow heads and ornaments have been found in every portion of the county, as well as here and there a steel tomahawk; but the most valuable implement in this line was turned up by William Armstrong, while plowing on the farm of his brother, Fulton, which is located about three miles south of London, in Union Township. This was a highly wrought, finely chased brass tomahawk, seven inches in length, with a pipe-bowl on the opposite end from the bit. A small hole runs from the bowl to the eye of the tomahawk into which the handle or stem fitted, and it was evidently used as a pipe by its owner. Brazed upon the bit is about one inch of steel, which gave it an excellent cutting quality. Steel tomahawks have been picked up at different points, which in comparison with the brass one herein mentioned, were rude, unfinished implements; the lat- ter. doubtless, having been presented to some chief of note by the early French or English traders.

We have been told by "Uncle George" McDonald, that a Wyandot chief named Gararah, with a band of Indians used to come, annually, from the reservation at Upper Sandusky on hunting expeditions to Madison County. These visits ceased about 1820, after which the red man was seen no more in the forests or along the streams of this portion of Ohio. Among the chiefs who frequented Madison County, none were so well known to the early settlers as Captain John, the Shawnee. We learn from Howe's His- tory of Ohio, that he was a man over six feet in height. strong and active, full of spirit and fond of frolic. In the war of 1812. he joined the American army and fought throughout that struggle. The following extracts relating to this chief we have copied from Howe. He says: "When Chillicothe was first settled by the whites, an Indian named John Cushen, a half-blood, mnade his principal home with the McCoy family, and said it was his intention to live with the white people. He would sometimes engage in chopping wood, making rails and working in the corn-fields. He was a large, muscular man, good humored and pleasant in his interviews with the whites. In the fall season, he would leave the white settlement to take a hunt in the lonely for- est, and in the autumn of 1799 he went up Darby Creek to make his annual

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hunt. There was an Indian trader by the name of Fallenash, who traveled the country from one Indian camp to another with pack-horses, laden with whisky and other articles. Captain John's hunting camp was near Darby Creek, and John Cushen arrived at his camp while Fallenash, the Indian trader, was there with his goods and whisky. The Indians set to for a real drunken frolic, and during the night, Captain John and John Cushen had a quarrel, which ended in a fight; they were separated by Fallenash and the other Indians, but both were enraged to the highest pitch of fury. They made an arrangement to fight the next morning, with tomahawks and knives. They stuck a post in the south side of a log, made a notch in the log, and agreed that when the shadow of the post came into the notch the fight should commence. When the shadow of the post drew near the spot, they deliber- ately, and in gloomy silence, took their stations on the log. At length the shadow of the post came into the notch, and these two desperadoes, thirsting for each other's blood, simultaneously sprang to their feet, each with a toma- kawk in his right hand and a scalping-knife in the left, and flew at each other with the fury of tigers, swinging their tomahawks around their heads and yelling in the most terriffic manner. Language fails to describe the horrible scene. After several passes and some wounds, Captain John's toma- hawk fell on Cushen's head and left him lifeless on the ground. Thus ended this affair of honor, and the guilty one escaped.

"About the year 1800, Captain John, with a party of Indians, went to hunt on the waters of what is called Rattlesnake Fork of Paint Creek, a branch of the Scioto River. After they had been some time at camp, Cap- tain John and his wife had a quarrel and mutually agreed to separate; which of them was to leave the camp is not now recollected. After they had divided their property, the wife insisted upon keeping the child; they had but one, a little boy of two or three years of age. The wife laid hold of the child, and John attempted to wrest it from her ;, at length John's passion was roused to a fury, he drew his fist, knocked down his wife, seized the child and carrying it to a log cut him in two parts, and then, throwing one- half to his wife, bade her take it, but never again show her face, or he would treat her in the same manner. Thus ended these cruel and brutal scenes of savage tragedy."

One of the favorite camping grounds of Captain John was on Wal- nut Run, about fifty yards east of David Watson's cabin, in Paint Town- ship. He was generally well liked by the white settlers, and assisted them very materially in many ways. About 1809, he blazed a road from the house of David Watson to the grist-mill of Owen Davis, where Clifton now stands, a distance of twenty miles, for which Mr. Watson paid him $1.50. This mill. according to Howe, was built in 1798, but a thorough investiga- tion leads us to believe that it was not erected until 1800. Tradition has handed down a story as to the death of Captain John, and we give it without vouching for its accuracy. The tale goes that while hunting in the south- western portion of this county, he shot and wounded a large deer, but upon reaching the animal it attacked him furiously, and in the fray both deer and hunter were killed. His body was found several days afterward, lying beside his intended victim and covered with wounds, demonstrating how fierce the conflict must have been, by which this sturdy son of the forest lost his life.

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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY.

We do not wish to recall the history of the aborigines who occupied this locality, to extol their supposed greatness or to lament their disappear- ance, 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 wonderful events that have transpired, and improvements made in the last one hundred years, present the power, talent, genius and unequaled great- ness 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 hunt- ing-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 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 per- son would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few savages to a great State covered with cities, towns and well-cultivated farms, embel- lished 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 ENGLISHI TRADING- POSTS-FORT LAURENS-AATTEMPTED 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 IIARMAR - PIONEER SETTLEMENTS ALONG THE OHIO-FORT WASHINGTON-FIRST SETTLEMENT IN THE VIR- GINIA MILITARY DISTRICT-NATIIANIEL MASSIE-FRENCII SETTLEMENT AT GALLIPOLIS-FORMATION OF ADAMS COUNTY - ROSS COUNTY SETTLED AND ERECTED -SETTLEMENT OF MADISON COUNTY-TERRI- TORIAL LEGISLATURE-OHIO BECOMES A STATE-FRANKLIN COUNTY ERECTED -LEADING MEN OF THE SCIOTO VALLEY.

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

AGED. 73. YEARS. SEPT. 30,TH. 1882.

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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 Madison 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.

The French erected a trading-post near the mouth of the Maumee early in the eighteenth century, which became a depot of considerable note, and was, probably, the first permanent habitation of white men in Ohio. It remained until after the peace of 1763, the termination of the French and Indian war, and the occupancy of the country by the English. On the site of this trading-post the latter erected Fort Miami in 1794. which they gar- risoned until the country came under the control of the Americans, enconr- aging and assisting the Indians in their hostility toward the young nation. As soon as the French learned the true source of the Ohio and Wabash Rivers, they began to establish trading-posts or depots at accessible points, generally at the mouths of rivers emptying into the Ohio. One of these old forts stood about a mile and a half southwest of the outlet of the Scioto. When it was erected is not known. but it was there in 1740.

Some English traders and Indians built a fort or station in 1749, which they called Pickawillany. It stood on the west side of Loramie's Creek. and about two miles north of the mouth of that branch, in what is now Shelby County. In 1752, the French captured the post, and subsequently a Cana- dian Frenchman named Loramie established a store at that point. He be- came very prominent among the Indians, gained great influence over them, and their attachment always remained unabated for their " French father," as they called him, often shedding tears at the mere mention of his name. He opposed the Americans in the struggle for possession of Ohio, and in retaliation Gen. Clark destroyed the station in 1782, Loramie escaping

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with the Indians to the West, where he lived and died. In 1794, a fort was erected on the site of Loramie's store, by Gen. Wayne, and named Fort Loramie, which became an important point in the Greenville treaty line.

The French had a trading post at the mouth of Huron River, in what is now Erie County, but when it was established is unknown. It was, how- ever, one of their early outposts, and may have been built before 1750. They had a similar station on the shore of Sandusky Bay, on or near the site of Sandusky City. Both were abandoned previous to the Revolutionary war. On Lewis Evans' map, published in 1755, a French fort called "Fort Junandat, built in 1754." is located on the east bank of the Sandusky River, several miles above its mouth, while Fort Sandusky, on the western bank, is also noted. Very little is known of any of these trading-posts, as they were evidently only temporary, and abandoned when the English came into possession. The mouth of the Cuyahoga River was another important trading point, for we find on Evans' map, on the west bank of that stream, some distance from its mouth, the words, "French House," doubtless the station of a trader. The ruins of a house found about five miles from the mouth of the Cuyahoga, on the west bank of that river, are supposed to be those of the station. There are few records of settlements made by the French prior to 1750, and even these were merely trading-posts, and could hardly be called settlements. These French traders easily affiliated with the Indians, treated them in a brotherly, friendly manner, but did little toward developing the country. They never laid low the forest or cultivated the fields, but passed their time in hunting and trading.

A short time prior to the Indian war, a settlement of traders was estab- lished at the junction of the Auglaize and Maumee Rivers, where Gen. Wayne built Fort Defiance in 1794. O. M. Spencer, in speaking of this post says : " On the high ground extending from the Maumee a quarter of a mile up the Auglaize, about two hundred yards in width, was an open space, on the west and south of which were oak woods with hazel under- growth. Within this opening, a few hundred yards above the point, on the steep bank of the Auglaize, were five or six cabins and log houses, inhabited principally by Indian traders. The most northerly, a large hewed log house, divided below into three apartments, was occupied as a warehouse, store and . dwelling by George Ironside, the most wealthy and influential of the traders at the point. Next to his were the houses of Pirault (Pero), a French baker, and Mckenzie. a Scot, who, in addition to merchandising, followed the occupation of a silversmith, exchanging with the Indians his brooches, ear-drops and other silver ornaments at an enormous profit for skins and furs.

" Still further up were several other families of French and English ; and two American prisoners, Henry Ball, a soldier taken at St. Clair's defeat, and his wife, Polly Meadows, captured at the same time, were allowed to live here and pay their masters the price of their ransom, he by boating to the rapids of the Maumee, and she by washing and sewing. Fronting the house of Ironside, and about fifty yards from the bank, was a small stockade inclosing two hewed log houses, one of which was occupied by James Girty (a brother of Simon), the other occasionally by Elliott and McKee, English Indian agents living at Detroit." The post, cabins and all they contained fell under the control of the Americans when the English evacuated the lake

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shores, but during its existence it was a constant source of trouble to the whites by encouraging and abetting Indian discontent.

About 1761, the Moravian missionaries, Revs. Frederick Post and John Heckewelder, established permanent stations among the Ohio Indians, chiefly on the Tusearawas River, in Tuscarawas County. The first one, however, was on the north side of the Muskingum, at the junction of the Sandy and Tusearawas, in what is now Stark County. The missions in Tuscarawas County, known as Shoenbrun, Guadenhutten and Salem, were not established until 1771-72. In 1776, Zeisberger, a Moravian missionary, with a band of Indian converts, came from Detroit to an abandoned Ottawa village, on the site of Independence, Cuyahoga County, which they called " Pilgrims' Rest." Their stay was brief, as the following April they removed to the vicinity of where Milan, Erie County, now stands, and this

they named New Salem. The account of the massacre of friendly Indians at the missions in Tuscarawas County, by Col. Williamson in 1782, appears in the former chapter. The principal part of those remaining finally removed to the Moravian missionary station, on the River Thames, in Canada, while others scattered among the hostile tribes of the Northwest.

It may be proper to remark here that Mary Heckewelder, daughter of the missionary, is generally believed to have been the first white child born in Ohio, but this is largely conjecture. It has been established beyond doubt that captive white women among the Indians are known to have borne children during their captivity, who, with their mothers, were subsequently restored to their friends. Some of these cases occurred previous to the birth of Mary Heckewelder, April 16, 1781, but as no record was kept of them, and hers being the first recorded, thus obtained priority.

In 1778, Gen. MeIntosh, with a detachment of 1,000 men from Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) built Fort Laurens, in the northwestern part of what is now Tuscarawas County. It was vacated in August, 1779, as it was deemed untenable at such a distance from the frontier.

The locality around the mouth of the Scioto River must have been pretty well known to the whites, for in April, 1785. three years before the settlement at Marietta, four families made an ineffectual attempt to settle in that vicinity. They came from the Redstone country in Pennsylvania, and floating down the Ohio, moored their boat under the high bank where Ports- mouth now stands, and commenced elearing the ground to plant seeds for a crop to support their families, hoping that the red man would suffer them to remain in peace. Soon afterward the four men, heads of families, started up the west bank of the Scioto for the purpose of exploring the country. Encamping near the site of Piketon, Pike County, they were surprised by a party of Indians, and two of them killed as they lay by their fires. The remaining two escaped to the Ohio, and getting the families and goods on a passing flat-boat, arrived safely at Maysville, Ky. Thus was misery and disaster brought upon those peaceful families, their hopes blasted, and the attempt to settle north of the Ohio defeated.

The old " Seioto Salt Works," in Jackson County, was a spot early known to the whites, through prisoners being brought there by the Indians. The location is laid down on Evans' map of 1755, and although the works were occupied by the French and Americans as early as 1780, no settle- ment was made there until after the close of the Indian war and the treaty

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of 1795. These outposts and attempted settlements are about all that are known to have existed on Ohio soil prior to the settlement at Marietta.

No sooner had the Americans obtained control of this country, than they began, by treaty and purchase, to acquire the lands of the natives. They could not stem the tide of emigration ; people, then as now, would go West, and hence the necessity of peacefully and rightfully acquiring the land. "The true basis of title to Indian territory is the right of civilized men to the soil for purposes of cultivation." The same maxim may be ap- plied to all uncivilized nations. When obtained by such a right, either by treaty, purchase, or conquest, the right to hold the same rests with the pow- er and development of the nation thus possessing the land, but there is no moral or Divine justice in an individual, people or nation acquiring land or territory, unless it is lying undeveloped, or uncultivated, by the original possessors thereof and that they fully intend to cultivate and develop the same. Thus the Americans were justified in acquiring by treaty, purchase and conquest the territory now embraced in Ohio.

The French had acquired title to the territory between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi by discovery and by consent of the Indians dwelling there- on, while the claims of the English were based upon the absurd theory that in discovering the Atlantic coast, they had possession of the land from " ocean to ocean," and partly by the treaty of Paris, in 1763, long before which, however, they had granted to individuals and colonies extensive tracts of land within the disputed territory. These conflicting claims led to the French and Indian war against the English, ending in the supremacy of the latter.

As early as 1730, English traders began in earnest to cross the Alle- ghanies, and gather from the Indians the stores beyond. In 1742, John Howard descended the Ohio River in a canoe. and on the Mississippi was taken prisoner by the French. In 1748, Conrad Weiser, a German em- ploye of the English, who had acquired a knowledge of the Indian tongue, visited Logstown, the Indian village on the Ohio, below Pittsburgh, where he met the chiefs in Council and secured their promise of aid against the French. In the same year the Ohio Company was formed and a grant of 5,000,000 acres of land obtained.

In the fall of 1750, Virginia, through the Ohio Company, sent Chris- topher Gist to explore the region west of the mountains. He was well fitted for such an enterprise ; hardy, sagacious, bold, an adept in Indian charac- ter, a hunter by occupation, no man was better qualified than he for such an undertaking. He visited Logstown, where he was not received in a friendly manner, passed over to the Muskingum River, and at a Wyandot village here, met Crogan, another famous frontiersman, who had been sent out by Pennsylvania. Together they traveled to the Shawnee towns on the Scioto River, and thence to the Indian villages on the Miamis and Mad River. In this trip they passed through what is now Madison County, and doubtless were the first white men who trod its soil. They made treaties with all these tribes, and Crogan returned to Pennsylvania, where he pub- lished an account of their wanderings, while Gist followed the Miami River to its mouth, passed down the Ohio, to within fifteen miles of the falls, re- turning to Virginia, by way of the Kentucky River, and over the Highlands of Kentucky.

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HISTORY OF MADISON COUNTY.

By the treaty at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1744, with the Six Na- tions, and the Logstown treaty, in 1752, with these and some of the West- ern tribes confirming the previous one, the English claim to the territory em- braced in Ohio was founded. While the French and English were fighting for the possession of the West, the Indians were used as a cat's-paw by each, and wavered in their friendship from one nation to the other according to circumstances. To Frederick Post, a Moravian preacher, who was sent on a mission to the Indians by the English. in 1758, they bitterly complained of both nations, saying : "Why did you not fight your battles at home or on the sea, instead of coming into our country to fight them ?" The strug- gle between the French and English finally closed, and was ratified by the treaty of Paris, in 1763.

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The history of Madison County, Ohio, Part 26

Author: Brown, Robert C; W.H. Beers & Co., pub Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago, W.H. Beers & co. Number of Pages: 1180

Author: Brown, Robert C; W.H. Beers & Co., pub
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, W.H. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 1180