The history of Montgomery county, Ohio, containing a history of the county, Part 23

Author: W.H. Beers & Co
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago, W. H. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 1214

USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > The history of Montgomery county, Ohio, containing a history of the county > Part 23

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mountains, were left to us by our ancestors. They are our inheritance, and we will part with them to none. Your nation supposes that we, like the white peo- ple, cannot live without bread and pork and beef. But you ought to know that He, the Great Spirit and Master of Life, has provided food for us upon these broad lakes and in these mountains."

English traders began at once to push through the forests to the Indian villages, and the savages realized they were coming to possess the country.

Under the great Ottawa chieftain, Pontiac, the tribes of the West combined to drive out the invaders; the warriors, at a designated time, surrounded the forts, and all but Detroit were surrendered to the savages, who murdered the prisoners, soldiers and citizens alike. Forts Pitt and Niagara were saved; but the savages pushed into the settlements along the frontier, killing the inhabit- ants, burning the buildings, and destroying everything they could not carry off. Their failure to take the three most important forts discouraged the Indians, and in the fall the tribes separated. The next spring, an expedition under Col. Bouquet was sent in the Ohio country, and one under Gen. Bradstreet in the north along Lake Erie; all of the tribes again sued for peace, and quiet was restored. Two years later, settlers again crossed the mountains for the West. In 1768, the treaty of Fort Stanwix was made, by which the Six Na- tions of New York released their title to lands south of the Ohio, and quiet pre- vailed until the year 1774, when the whites in the settlements aronnd Fort Pitt committed many cruel acts against the Indians, murdering many warriors, squaws and children, and preparations for war were made by savages and whites.

Because of hostilities growing out of these acts, two expeditions were or- ganized in Virginia to march into the Ohio country; the one under Gov. Dun- more, from Fort Pitt; the other under Gen. Andrew Lewis, from the Greenbrier Valley. At the mouth of the Kanawha River, Gen. Lewis was attacked by the celebrated chief, Cornstalk, of the Shawnees, with a thousand of his warriors; the savages were repulsed with great slaughter, the loss on both sides being about equal.

The two armies united and camped on the Pickaway Plains, where Gov. Dunmore made peace with the Indians, and negotiated for the return of white prisoners that were held by the savages, the Shawnees further agreeing not to hunt south of the Ohio, nor molest travelers on the river.

When the war of the Revolution began, the French settlements in the Illi- nois country were in a flourishing condition.

Detroit was the British post in the North, and had a population of about three hundred, besides the garrison; all of the northwest country was in control of the British; although the territory now included within the States of Ohio and Indiana was substantially in possession of the Indians, who had steadily refused to cede to the whites any of the lands northwest of the Ohio; and, in the preparations for the struggle between the colonies and old England, gener- ally inclined to the British. The efforts of the colonial authorities were to keep the savages from forming an alliance with the British, thus averting horrible savage warfare and butchery along the frontiers, the Indians themselves only remaining neutral until partial results should develop which was the stronger side. Warriors from all of the tribes removed toward the head of Lake Erie, to be near the British, with whom they intended to operate; most of the In- dians, however, remained to hold their lands-a country so dear to them that it is no wonder they defended it with such obstinacy against the incursions of the whites. For this they need no excuses.

In 1778, George Rogers Clark's first expedition down the Ohio into the Illinois country was made to get possession of the British posts in that section. In the summer, Fort McIntosh was built on the north side of the Ohio, just be-

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

low Fort Pitt. It was the first fort built by the whites north of the Ohio, and was intended as a base of operations against the Lake Erie Indians. The same year, Fort Laurens was built, at the Tuscarawas portage. This expedition, and the building of these two forts, was part of a plan for a campaign against hostile Indians on the Sandusky Plains; the disastrous result caused uneasiness and anxiety among all of the Ohio tribes and white settlements of the West.

By the treaty of peace, proclaimed in 1783, Great Britain acknowledged the sovereignty of this country, and whatever title she had in the Northwestern Territory passed to the United States; but we have already shown how flimsy her title was. It was not even that of conquest, for the Indians had never been conquered, nor had they in any way surrendered a foot of the lands north of the Ohio. England simply had a quit-claim of jurisdiction from the French, and that was the chararter of the title that the United States acquired.

Virginia's claim to these Western lands was no more tenable; the Indian owners of the soil always protested and fought against it. It was not by ag- gressions of the whites, not by planting of settlements in the territory, that a clear title was to be acquired, as the history of subsequent events will show.

The record of such events, and of the Indian treaties made by the Govern- ment in the earlier years of the settlement of the Northwest Territory and State of Ohio, will be given further along, in the order of accomplishment. By them, good and clear titles were fairly acquired by the United States.

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

CHAPTER II.

THE MIAMI VALLEY-MILITARY EVENTS THAT INFLUENCED ITS SETTLEMENT- THE COMMON HUNTING-GROUNDS FOR THE TRIBES-DESCRIPTION OF STREAMS, HILLS AND BOTTOMS-COLONISTS PUSHING THROUGH TO THE WEST-CAPT. BULLIT-INDIAN ALARM AND HOSTILITIES- COL. BOWMAN'S EXPEDITION TO OLD CHILLICOTHE-SPEEDY RETALIATION-HARD WINTER OF 1780-LOCATION OF OHIO TRIBES-THEIR STRENGTH-NOTED CHIEFTAINS-INDIAN VILLAGE LIFE-MANNERS, CUSTOMS AND CONDITIONS-HUNTING, TRAPPING, FISHING --- WAR PARTIES-CRUELTIES.

T is proper, in writing the history of Montgomery County, to give the mili. I tary necessities and events that influenced the settlement of the Miami Valley. The territory lying between the Miami Rivers, with the Ohio on the south and Mad River at the north, has not been occupied by Indian villages or wig- wams since the year 1700. The valley seems to have been reserved by common consent of the tribes as hunting grounds from which to supply their war parties and villages witlı meat. Over hill and dale stretched a dense, undisturbed for- est; scattered through it were little patches of prairie and areas of wet land. Arrow heads, implements and other Indian relics, formerly so often found on the hills and in the fields, and even now occasionally picked up, must have been left here years before that.

Bands of warriors, in passing up and down, used one of the two trails; the one west of the Big Miami, the other east of the Little Miami River, running north from the Ohio River to the Shawnee towns, at Old Chillicothe (three miles north of Xenia), the Piqua towns on the Mad River seventeen miles above Dayton, and on up to the Mackacheek towns at the head-waters of Mad River; the trail to the west from the Ohio below the mouth of the Big Miami lead- ing on up, passing west of Hamilton, just east of Eaton, through Fort Jefferson and Greenville, to the portage at Loramie, and branching from there to the vil- lages north and west. The head-waters of the two .diamis, Scioto, Mad River, Stillwater, the Wabaslı, Maumee and Sandusky Rivers, drain the same level lands of Central Ohio and Indiana. In the early days, they were the black swamp lands, the storage ponds, the sources of supply, that kept the rivers at a tolerably even stage of water through the summer seasons. After continued rains, the whole Miami Valley would be inundated, sometimes for weeks. Drifting sand and gravel, forming bars, often changed the channel. The prin- ripal feeders of the Big Miami on the west were Loramie's Creek, Stillwater (formerly known as the Southwest Branch), Twin Creek and Whitewater; all of them navigable for batteaux and flat boats.

Beautiful, clear running Mad River is the only stream of any consequence that drains from the east; originating in a little crystal lake, it is fed all the way by springs and rapid little branches. The broad Miami Valley was a con- tinuation of rolling, heavily wooded lands, the forest opening here and there into moist levels of waving wild grasses. The rich bottoms were not so heavily timbered, were quite free of undergrowth, yet covered with a tangled mass of vines, bushes and weeds. A wild region in its natural state was this valley at the time of the French movements for control of the territory and its Indian trade; and subsequently, during the English campaigns against the French,

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

the movement of troops was to the eastward, and the Miami country still remained undisturbed, excepting by the English traders who located at the Loramie port- age in 1749, and the capture of that post by the French three years later.

The war furnished the opportunity to the colonists to learn more of the Western country, and the information acquired increased the desire to go West. As early as 1771, the glowing descriptions of the beauty and fertility of Kentucky lands determined many of the more venturesome to seek there for homes. In the year 1773, a company of Virginians accompanied a surveying party down the Kanawha and Ohio to Limestone Creek, where Maysville now stands. At that point, Capt. Thomas Bullit left the party, and alone crossed into Ohio, and on up through the woods to the Shawnee town, Old Chillicothe, to get consent of the Indians for his intended settlement at the falls of the Ohio. He was not seen by the Indians until he arrived in the town, waving a white handkerchief as a flag of truce. The savages, although thoroughly surprised, crowded around him to ascertain his business; and from the novelty of his com- ing, the courage displayed, and the pleasant address of the Captain, they quickly became friendly, consenting to his proposed settlement south of the Ohio.

Thus fully successful, he returned to his party and descended with them to the falls. As other settlers began to arrive in the West, and it was demon- strated to the Indians that their hunting-grounds would be interfered with, and that, unless emigration were checked, settlements would be made north of the Ohio, they commenced hostilities against the whites. Boats along the Ohio River were constantly being attacked, and the emigrants murdered; explorers and other small parties were killed and scalped wherever found. Retaliation quickly followed, attended by all the horrors of savage border warfare.

A history of these thrilling events, occurring as the tide of emigration to Kentucky lands increased, gradually, from the year 1775 until the treaty at Fort Harmar in.1789, would require more space than is deemed proper to devote in giving the record of events that influenced the settlement of this county.

Whatever may have led to the unfriendly situation between the whites and the savages of the West, certain it is that, after the cold blooded murder at Point Pleasant, in the summer of 1777, of Cornstalk, the great chieftain of the Scioto Shawnees, the young warrior, Red Hawk, and Ellinipsico, the son of Cornstalk, there could be no hope of peace.

The settlements in Kentucky suffered terribly from incursions of war parties from the savage tribes of the North, creating a malignant spirit of revenge among the whites that led to acts of brutality scarcely less atrocious than the cruelties of the savages. The British commander at Fort Detroit encouraged the formation of war parties for attacks upon emigrants along the Upper Ohio, and for murderous expeditions against the feeble stations in Kentucky.

The trails leading south on the east side of the Little Miami and on the west side of the Big Miami were constantly used by the warriors, while they were supplied with meat by parties in the valleys. They would cross the Ohio, attack small stations in Kentucky, carry off prisoners and plunder, retreat rapidly, and thus escape punishment. In 1778, Daniel Boone was captured in Kentucky by one of these parties and taken to the Shawnee town at Old Chil licothe, near Xenia. In the summer of the same year, these Indians formed an expedition of 450 warriors to attack Boonesboro, in Kentucky. Boone escaped from them and notified the inhabitants of their coming.

His escape caused a delay of the expedition for several weeks. On the 8th of August, about five hundred warriors, armed and painted, appeared before the fort at Boonesboro and demanded its immediate surrender; Capt. Du Quesne, a British officer, was in command of the invaders, and a British flag was their standard. Good treatment was guaranteed if the post was surrendered, but, if

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

resistance were offered, no quarter could be expected. After two days' parley, Boone notified Du Quesne that he and his comrades were prepared to defend the fort to the last. The attack was commenced at once, and lasted ten days, resulting in a final repulse of the enemy with a loss of thirty seven killed and many wounded. The loss to the garrison was two men killed and four wounded.

During the spring of the next year (1779), the woods were filled with small bands of Indians; the Kentucky settlements were kept in constant excitement. Large war parties came from the north in canoes down the Great Miami River. Camps were formed at the mouth of Hole's Creek, and at the "big prairie" be- low Middletown. Then the savages divided into smaller bands to annoy emi- grant boats along the Ohio, and the stations over about Lexington, Ky.

The Indians seemed to have grown desperate in their efforts to regain con- trol of the Ohio Valley, and their devilish ingenuity was constantly devoloping fresh outrages and barbarous ways of torture. In July, these scalping parties were so numerous, and had grown so bold in their operations, that it became necessary to organize a force for protection. Col. John Bowman was given the command, and it was decided to march to the Shawnee town, Old Chillicothe, on the Little Miami River. Crossing the Ohio at the mouth of the Licking River, the force of 160 men made a rapid march, arriving near the Indian town the second night, without being discovered. At daylight, the attack was made, but, from mismanagement, ended in a repulse. A number of ponies were capt- ured, sufficient to mount the entire command, and the retreat was at once ordered.

They were closely pursued by the Indians until they had recrossed the Ohio River, having lost nine men.

This, the first expedition into the Miami Valley by the frontiersmen, was unsuccessful, and, as it turned out, was extremely unfortunate. The warriors remained along the Ohio between the two Miamis for some time, and were there in October, when Col. David Rogers and Capt. Robert Benham, with a hundred men, were passing up the river in two keel boats. A few of the savages were seen, and one half the command was landed to attempt their capture; Col. Rogers soon found his mistake, and that he had been led into an ambush of four or five hundred Indians. A desperate fight ensued, but the gallant commander and nearly all his men were tomahawked and scalped. Capt. Robert Benham, who, with a few of his men, cut their way through the lines, was shot through both hips, but was able to crawl into the top of a fallen tree and lie concealed. The Indians were passing back and forth over the battle-ground all night and for nearly two days. The evening of the second day, Benham shot a coon that was on a tree near him, hoping in some way to get to it, make a fire and cook it. As soon as he had fired, he heard some one call, very near him; supposing it to be an Indian, he hastily reloaded his gun and kept quiet; soon the same call was heard again, but much nearer; still Benham did not reply, but sat ready to fire as soon as the party should appear. The call was made the third time, followed by expressions of distress that convinced Benham that it must be a Kentuckian; he then replied, and the parties were soon together. There sat Benham, shot through both hips, and unable to move! The man proved to be John Watson, a soldier, who had both arms broken by a bullet in the same battle. Benham, having the use of his arms, could easily kill all the game they wanted, while Watson, with two good legs, could kick the dead game to where Benham sat, who would clean and cook it.

When their wounds had somewhat healed, they built a small hut near the river, to watch for a passing boat.

November 27, a flat-boat was seen slowly floating down the river. The wounded men hoisted a signal; but the crew, supposing it to be an Indian de-

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

coy, put over to the opposite side of the river and passed down as rapidly as possible. At length, when the boat was about half a mile below, a canoe was sent ashore to reconnoiter, which, after a lengthy parley, landed and took the two sufferers aboard. At Louisville, receiving proper treatment, they soon re- covered the use of their limbs.

But for the successful operations of Col. George Rogers Clark in the Illi- nois country, the year 1779 would have left the Western people in an uncomfort- able situation; as it was, however, emigration greatly increased, reviving the spirits of the settlers, giving them a confidence in their ability to resist the in- vasions of the savages.

From the crops harvested, there was but little surplus with which to supply the new-comers. The winter of 1779-80 was long known as the " hard winter; " everything was frozen up, and the ground was covered with snow for many weeks; many emigrant families suffered from hunger and exposure, and arrived at the Kentucky stations in almost destitute condition. Bears, buffalo, deer, wolves, beavers, otter and wild turkeys were frozen to death; wild animals would come up to the camps in a famishing condition, with the perishing cattle. The three months of severe winter ended; a delightful spring, and the rapid growth of vegetation, promised speedy relief from hardships, and the settlers might look forward to a season of plenty and happiness.

LOCATION OF OHIO INDIAN TRIBES.

The tribes that occupied and owned the territory now within the State of Ohio were the Eries, Mingoes (of Ohio), Delawares, Munsees, Shaw- nees, Wyandots, Miamis, Senecas (of Sandusky); the Piankeshaws, Potta- watomies and Ottawas were along the Maumee and around Detroit; the Weas, Eel River Indians and Kickapoos were the Wabash tribes that so often united with the Miami tribes in their expeditions down the Miami and across into Ken- tucky. The Eries, a strong nation, whose towns were located along the south- ern shore of Lake Erie, were entirely exterminated by the Six Nations of New York at some time before the year 1680. The Delaware nation were the tribes who had ceded to William Penn the lands along the Delaware River and around the Delaware Bay, and afterward removed to the West, locating in the Musk- ingum Valley, and to the east of that. The Munsees were one of the tribes of Delawares. The Shawnee Indians were natives of the South, but, being con- quered by the Cherokees, they left the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and came to the Ohio Valley about the year 1740, locating in the Scioto Valley-a warlike and brave people, cruel in the extreme, proud, and most successful hunters. Their principal towns were at first located on the north bank of the Ohio, above and below the mouth of the Scioto River, but, after the Ohio began to be used so much as a highway for emigrant boats, they moved further up the Scioto, and afterward built their principal towns, the one at Old Chillicothe on the Little Miami River, and the other, Old Piqua, on the north side of Mad River, seven- teen miles above Dayton; they at the same time located the Mackacheek towns around the head-waters of Mad River. These tribes were among the first and most vicious in harassing parties along the river, and in the settlements of Ken- tucky, and were the last to make peace with the whites. The grand forests of the Miami Valley were their game preserves, and jealously did they guard them against the encroachments of their hated neighbors, the pioneers of Kentucky.

The powerful Wyandots lived around Sandusky Bay and up the valley to the head- waters of Sandusky River; they were one of the leading nations of the North- west, the beautiful traditions of the tribes running back for more than a century. They made common cause with the Shawnees and Miamis against the whites, their warriors always joining in the expeditions to the Ohio; the young bucks

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

of these tribes would form small hunting parties to roam through the woods of Southwestern Ohio, remaining away from their towns for a year at a time; oc- casionally as scalping parties, ranging along the banks of the Ohio, and over among the settlements of Central Kentucky, retreating to the Miami Valley to escape the vengeance of the pursuing settlers.

The Miami nation of Indians was the Western Confederacy of tribes, as opposed to the Six Nations (Iroquois) of New York; the Twightwees, Tawas and Miami tribes, of the Miamis, occupied the level lands drained by the streams that formed the sources of the Great Miami, the Maumee and the Wabash Rivers -- a stretch of country from the Loramie portage across to Fort Wayne and down the Maumee Valley. The Miamis were conspicuous in their hostilities to the whites, making long expeditions to engage in the border attacks, and, with the Wyandots and Ottawas, were the steady allies of the English in all campaigns against the Western settlements.

The Chippewas were the Michigan Indians in the Saginaw country, many large tribes.

The Mingoes (of Ohio) were located along the eastern border of Ohio; then east and north of them were the Six Nations of New York.

The Weas, Piankeshaws and Kickapoos, as has already been stated, were in the Wabash Valley.

STRENGTH OF THE TRIBES.

The following list shows the number of warriors in the several tribes who could, upon short notice, be assembled for war against the settlements:

Shawnees.

400

Wyandots.

300

Delawares and Munsees. 600

Miamis 300

Pottawatomies

400

Ottawas ..

Mingoes (of Ohio). 600

800

Weas, Piankeshaws and Kickapoos.

Total 4,000

Six Nations of New York-

100

Oneidas and Tusearoras.

400

Cayugas. 220

Onondagas 230

Seneeas. 650

Total 1.600

The Chippewas of the upper lakes were estimated to be as strong as all of the above named tribes together.

The main object of all the treaties with the Indians by the United States during the Revolutionary war was to keep them quiet, and persuade them not to molest the settlements.

Cornstalk, the great war chieftain of the Shawnees; Pontiac, of the Otta- was; and Logan, of the Cayugas, were dead; they had been the sachems, the great leaders, of the united Indian nations; although savages, yet possessed of great natural intelligence and experience, gifted with eloquence, brave in every situation and emergency, they acquired unbounded influence among the tribes, and, from their high sense of justice, the respect of the Western settlers. After them, there was no great leader to unite the savages against the colonists until, in 1805, Tecumseh, and his brother, Laulewasikaw - the Prophet - rose to prominence among the Shawnees, and finally uniting warriors of all Western and Northern tribes as allies of the British against the United States. During

600

Mohawks. .

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

the colonial war, and until the organization of the Northwestern Territory, there were chiefs and braves among the tribes who inclined to peace, and held at least one half of the warriors from alliance with the British. Of the chiefs who dis- tinguished themselves in the campaigns between the years 1780 and 1795, we give the list from the tribes that operated in border attacks along the Ohio River, and in the territory between that river and Lake Erie.

Shawnees-White Cap (the principal chief), Red Pole, Long Shanks, Capt. Reed, Black Hoof, Blue Jacket, Civil Man, Black Wolf, Snake, Turkey, Corn- stalk, Kakiapilathy (the Tame Hawk), Capt. Johnny.

Wyandots-Tarhe, the Crane, a tall chief, handsome, and of splendid physique, attained some reputation as a warrior, and, in his policy after the treaty at Greenville, generally favored the United States. Other influential chiefs of this tribe were: The Half King, and his son, Cherokee Boy; Leather Lips. Black Chief, Walk in the Water, Big Arm.

Delawares-Capt. Pipe, the war chief; Three Chiefs, Wicocalind, or White Eyes; Kelelamand, or Col. Henry; and Hengue Pushees, or the Big Cat, who were always friendly to the Western settlers; Grand Glaize King, Killbuck, Capt. Buffalo, Capt. Crow, Red Feather, Bohongehelas, Black King, Billy Sis- comb.

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The history of Montgomery county, Ohio, containing a history of the county, Part 23

Author: W.H. Beers & Co Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Chicago, W. H. Beers & co. Number of Pages: 1214

Author: W.H. Beers & Co
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago, W. H. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 1214