USA > Ohio > The history of the state of Ohio; from the discovery of the great valley, to the present time > Part 47
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But the government was unrelenting. Somebody must be pun- ished. With much parade he was conducted to Richmond for trial. There he met Aaron Burr. The ruined man manifested much magnanimity in not uttering a single word of reproach to one who had proved the destroyer of all his prosperity and hap- piness. Indeed, it is not probable that either he or Mrs. Blenner- hassett had seen anything in the plans of Colonel Burr which was in the slightest degree criminal. Mrs. Blennerhassett, hearing of her husband's arrest, wrote the following touching letter to him, dated Natchez, August 3, 1807 :
" My Dearest Love :
" After having experienced the greatest disappointment in not hearing from you for two mails, I at length heard of your arrest, which afflicts and mortifies me because it was an arrest. I think that had you of your own accord gone to Richmond and solic- ited a trial, it would have accorded better with your pride, and you would have escaped the unhappiness of missing my letters, which I wrote every week to Marietta.
"God knows what you may feel and suffer on our account be- fore this reaches you, to inform you of our health and welfare in every particular. And knowing this, I trust and feel that your mind will rise superior to every inconvenience that your present situation may subject you to; despising, as I do, the paltry malice of the up-start agents of the government. Let no solicitude what- ever for us damp your spirits. We have many friends here, who
REUBEN WOOD Governor 1850 53. 1
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do the utmost in their power to counteract any disagreeable sen- sation occasioned me by your absence.
" I shall live in the hope of hearing from you by the next mail; and entreat you not to let any disagreeable feelings on account of our separation enervate your mind at this time. Remember that all here will read with great interest anything concerning you. But still do not trust too much to yourself. Consider your want of practice at the bar, and do not spare the fee of a lawyer.
"Apprise Colonel Burr of my warmest acknowledgments for his own and Mrs. Alston's kind remembrance, and tell him to assure her she has inspired me with a warmth of attachment which can never diminish. I wish him to urge her to write to me.
"God bless you, prays your
" MARGARET BLENNERHASSETT."
The second arrest of Mr. Blennerhassett was so totally unjusti- fiable that he was never brought to trial. He was bound over in the sum of three thousand dollars to appear at Chillicothe, Ohio, to answer to the charge of "having prepared an armed force whose destination was the Spanish Territory." He did not appear, and no notice was taken of it.
He soon returned to Natchez, and with the remains of his for- tune purchased a plantation of a thousand acres in Claiborne County, Mississippi, about seven miles from Fort Gibson. This he worked with about thirty slaves, of whom the energetic Mrs. Blennerhassett was superintendent. Cotton was high and found a ready market. Prospects brightened. He wrote to a friend, "In five years, with thirty hands, I can clear sixty thousand dollars."
Mrs. Blennerhassett rose at early dawn, mounted her horse, and rode over the large plantation, visiting every field, and giving minute directions to the overseer as to the work to be accomplished dur- ing the day. All the operations of the plantation were controlled by her judicious decisions. Here they lived for ten years, enjoy- ing the society of the neighboring planters. Mr. Blennerhassett, having but little taste for business, devoted himself to his literary and scientific pursuits, in which he found much enjoyment, but no pecuniary profit. But again days of darkness lowered over them. The war with England came with the cruel embargo. All commerce was stopped, cotton became nearly valueless. The profits of the plantation hardly met its running expenses. Mr.
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Blennerhassett, quite disheartened, and being greatly cramped by endorsements for Colonel Burr, amounting to thirty thousand dol- lars, sold out, and moved to Montreal. One of his intimate friends of former days was then governor of the province, and had invited him to come, with the promise of an appointment to a seat on the bench for which he was well qualified. But misfortune seemed still to pursue him. He had scarcely reached Montreal ere his friend, the governor, was removed from office and all his hopes were frustrated. His friends urged him to return to England with the assurance of a lucrative post from government. But political expectations are proverbially uncertain. He repaired to England and took up his residence with a maiden sister at Bath. No governmental office was open to him.
While at Montreal, when blighted hopes and prospects of pov- erty were thickening around them, Mrs. Blennerhassett wrote her beautiful poem, entitled "The Deserted Isle." It was the out- gushing of her heart in lamentation over the once happy home upon the island now lost forever. We give a few of the stanzas :
THE DESERTED ISLE.
Like mournful echo from the silent tomb, That pines away upon the midnight air,
While the pale moon breaks out with fitful gloom, Fond memory turns with sad, but welcome care, To scenes of desolation and despair,
Once bright with all that beauty could bestow,
That peace could shed, or youthful fancy know.
To thee, fair isle, reverts the pleasing dream ; Again thou risest in thy green attire, Fresh as at first thy blooming graces seem ; Thy groves, thy fields, their wonted sweets respire ; Again thou 'rt all my heart could e're desire. O why, dear isle, art thou not still my own ? Thy charms could then for all my griefs atone.
For many blissful moments there I've known ; Too many hopes have there met their decay, Too many feelings now forever gone,
To wish that thou wouldst ere again display The joyful coloring of thy prime array.
Buried with thee, let them remain a blot ; With thee, their sweets, their bitterness forgot.
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And oh ! that I could wholly wipe away
The mem'ry of the ills that work'd thy fall ; The mem'ry of that all-eventful day, When I returned and found my own fair hall Held by the infuriate populace in thrall, My own fireside blockaded by a band That once found food and shelter at my hand.
My children ! (oh ! a mother's pangs forbear, Nor strike again that arrow through my soul,) Clasping the ruffians in suppliant prayer, To free their mother from unjust control ; While with false crimes, and imprecations foul, The wretches, vilest refuse of the earth,
Mock jurisdiction held, around my hearth.
Sweet isle ! methinks I see thy bosom torn, Again behold the ruthless rabble throng, That wrought destruction, taste must ever mourn. Alas ! I see thee now, shall see thee long, Yet ne'er shall bitter feelings urge the wrong, That to a mob would give the censure due, To those that arm'd the plunder-greedy crew.
In England Mr. Blennerhassett encountered a double disap- pointment. He hoped for office, but obtained none ; he hoped to recover an interest he held in an estate he had owned in Ireland, but failed. In greatly straitened circumstances he removed to the Island of Guernsey, where he died a world-weary, heart-broken man, in the year 1831, in the sixty-third year of his age. His widow, with her children, was reduced to extreme want. Ten years after his death she returned to America with one of her sons, both in feeble health, to petition Congress for remuneration for the destruction of her property by the Wood County Militia. in December, 1806.
The petition she sent to Congress was a very appropriate and pathetic document. "Your memorialist," she wrote, "does not desire to exaggerate the conduct of the said armed men, or the injuries done by them, but she can truly say that before their visit the residence of her family had been noted for its elegance and high state of improvement ; and that they left it in a state of com- parative ruin and waste. Being apparently under no subordina- tion, they indulged in continued drunkenness and riot, offering.
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many indignities to your memorialist, and treating her domestics with violence. These outrages were committed upon an unoffend- ing and defenseless family in the absence of their natural protector, your memorialist's husband being then away from his home. In answer to such remonstrances as she ventured to make against the consumption, waste, and destruction of his property, she was told by those who assumed to have the command, that they held the property for the United States by order of the President, and were privileged to use it, and should use it, as they pleased. It is with pain that your memorialist reverts to events which, in their consequences, have reduced a once happy family from affluence and comfort to comparative want and wretchedness, which blight- ed the prospects of her children, and made herself, in the decline of life, a wanderer on the face of the earth."
This memorial was transmitted to Henry Clay, then in the Senate of the United States. It was accompanied by a letter from Mr. Emmet, son of a distinguished lawyer and orator of that name. In his letter Mr. Emmet writes :
"Mrs. Blennerhassett is now in this city, residing in very humble circumstances, bestowing her cares upon a son, who, by long poverty and sickness, is reduced to utter imbecility, both of mind and body, unable to assist her or to provide for his own wants. In her present destitute situation, the smallest amount of relief would be thankfully received by her. Her condition is one of absolute want, and she has but a short time left to enjoy any better fortune in this world."
Mr. Clay had formerly been well acquainted with the family, and it will be remembered that he was Mr. Blennerhassett's attorney, when so unjustly arrested in Lexington, Kentucky. He presented the memorial to the Senate in touching words, which moved all hearts. It was referred to the Committee on Claims. Mr. William Woodbridge, the chairman, reported very strongly in favor of granting the petitioner's request. In his report. he entered into a detailed account of what is called "The Burr Conspiracy," and of Mr. Blennerhassett's undeniable innocence.
" Under these circumstances," he said, "to deny the petition of the memorialist, would be unworthy of any wise or just nation that is disposed to respect most of all its own honor."
While the subject was thus under consideration, Mrs. Blen- nerhassett passed away from all the sorrows of time into that
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WILLIAM MEDILL Governor 1853-56.
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sleep which knows no earthly waking. The question was dropped in Congress, not again to be revived. Mrs. Blennerhassett, whose early days had been surrounded by wealth and splendor, who had moved, one of the most brilliant and accomplished of ladies, in the very highest circles of rank and culture known on earth, who, with a sympathetic heart, had ministered abundantly to the wants of the poor and the friendless, was herself indebted to the hand of charity for nursing in her last sickness, and for the expenses of her burial. A benevolent association of Irish females. in New York tenderly watched over her in her last sad hours, and bore her to the peaceful grave. Such is life! If there be no other world than this, surely existence, in thousands of cases, cannot be deemed a blessing: But Christianity throws radiance even into the gloom of the sepulchre. It says to every disciple of Jesus, "There the wicked shall cease from troubling, and the: weary are at rest."
CHAPTER XXXI.
TECUMSEH AND THE PROPHET.
THE EARLY DAYS OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON - HIS NOBLE CHARACTER AND HIS LOVE OF ADVENTURE - ENLISTS IN THE ARMY - STATIONED AT FORT WASHINGTON - HIS EXECUTIVE ABILITY - HIS TEMPERANCE - RAPID PROMOTION - THE TER- RITORY OF INDIANA - WRONGS INFLICTED UPON THE INDIANS - TESTIMONY OF GOVERNOR HARRISON - HIS MAGNANIMITY - TECUMSEH AND HIS BROTHER - THEIR BIRTH AND CHAR- ACTER - THEIR REPUTED DESIGNS - THEIR AVOWED PLAN - REMARKABLE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE PROPHET - STATESMAN- SHIP OF TECUMSEH.
AMONG THE most distinguished men whose lives are inter- woven with the great events which have transpired in the North- western Territory, William Henry Harrison stands prominent. He was born at Berkeley, on the James River, in Virginia, on the 9th of February, 1773. His father was wealthy, and a man of commanding influence in his day. He was an intimate friend of Washington, and one of the influential members of the Conti- nental Congress.
Benjamin Harrison was a very portly, good-natured, jovial man. In the Congress of 1775, he was the rival of John Hancock for Speaker. Harrison resigned at once, and Hancock was chosen. Seeing Hancock modestly hesitate a little to take the chair, he with characteristic playfulness, seized him in his muscular arms, as though Hancock had been a mere child, and bore him to the seat of honor. Then turning around, his honest face beaming with fun, he said to his amused associates :
"Gentlemen, we will show Mother Britain how little we care for her, by making for our President a Massachusetts man, whom she has excluded from pardon by a public proclamation."
He was twice chosen Governor of Virginia. His son enjoyed all the advantages which wealth, education and cultivated society
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- could then give. He graduated with honor at Hampden Sidney College, and studied medicine at Philadelphia under Dr Rush. Washington was then President of the United States. The Indi- ans were committing fearful ravages on our northwestern frontier. General St. Clair had been sent to erect Fort Washington on the far-distant waters of the unexplored Ohio.
Young Harrison, probably influenced both by a natural love of adventure and also by sympathy for the sufferings of emigrant families, though then but nineteen years of age, enlisted in the army. Just before Harrison received from Washington his com- mission as ensign, General St. Clair encountered his terrible defeat near the head-waters of the Wabash. This awful catastrophe had spread consternation throughout the whole frontier. The Indi- ans, flushed with victory and supplied with arms and ammunition by the British authorities in Canada, were roving with the tom- ahawk and the torch in all directions.
The storms of Winter were beginning to wail through the tree- tops and to sweep the bleak prairies. Young Harrison in physical organization was frail; but he was endued with that indomitable will which often triumphs over bodily weakness. The heroic young man crossed the Alleghanies on foot. Upon reaching Pitts- burgh he took a boat and floated down the forest-fringed Ohio till he reached the point where the log structure, called Fort Washington, appeared upon the river banks, surrounded by stump's in an opening which the ax had made in the dense wood.
The first duty assigned to him was to take charge of a train of pack-horses bound to Fort Hamilton, about twenty-five miles north of Fort Washington, on the east banks of the Great Miami. St. Clair had built a stockade there at the commencement of his dis- astrous campaign, for the deposit of provisions and ammunition, and as one of the connecting links between Fort Washington and a line of fortresses which he hoped to construct to the mouth of the Maumee where it enters Lake Erie.
It was an arduous undertaking. The wilderness was almost pathless. Nearly every mile afforded facilities for ambuscades. The forest was filled with fierce and able warriors. Their runners were watching every movement of the whites. A veteran front- iersman, inured to the hardships and the perils of life in the wil- derness and battles with the savages, as he looked upon the slender,
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beardless boy at the close of the service which he admirably per- formed, said :
' I should as soon have thought of putting my wife into the ser- vice as this boy ; but I have been out with him, and find that those smooth cheeks are on a wise head, and that that slight frame is, almost as tough as my own weather-beaten carcass."
Intemperance was at that time the great vice, not only of the army, but of nearly all of the frontier settlements. Some men seem born with instincts of nobility. It is difficult to account for the fact that young Harrison should have adopted the principle of total abstinence. Whisky was regarded as quite an essential to military life. It was deemed needful to strengthen the soldier on his weary march, and above all to inspire him with courage and energies for the battle. And yet this noble boy resisted all enticements to drain the intoxicating cup. Thus he was enabled to endure toils and privations beneath which the stoutest men sank into the grave.
He was soon promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and was attached to General Wayne's army in that brilliant campaign which effaced the disgrace which our flag had endured in the terrible discomfiture of St. Clair's catastrophe. It was in the Spring of the year 1792, that Wayne's Legion, as his army was called, con- sisting of about three thousand men, floated down the Ohio to Fort Washington. Here Lieutenant Harrison joined the legion. His mature and soldierly qualities immediately commanded atten- and respect.
In the great battle at the junction of the Auglaise and Mau- mee Rivers, which we have already described, and where the Indians were hopelessly routed, Lieutenant Harrison greatly sig- nalized himself. His conduct elicited from his commanding officer the following warm commendation :
"Lieutenant Harrison was in the foremost front of the hottest battle. His person was exposed from the commencement to the close of the action. Wherever duty called he hastened, regard- less of danger, and by his efforts and example contributed as much to secure the fortunes of the day as any other officer subordinate to the commander-in-chief."
He was now promoted to a captaincy, and was placed in com- mand of Fort Washington. He married about this time a daugh- ter of John Cleaves Symmes, the energetic founder of the Miami
SALMON PORTLAND CHASE Governor 1856-60.
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settlements. After peace was restored with the Indians, Captain Harrison in 1797, being then twenty-four years of age, was ap- pointed Secretary of the Northwestern Territory, and Lieutenant Governor, General St. Clair being then Governor of all that region. The very unwise law at that time was that the United States gov- ernment would not sell any tracts of land in the Northwestern Territories in quantities less than four thousand acres. This threw land into the hands of speculators, who formed companies, pur- chased immense regions, and then charged such prices as they pleased.
Captain Harrison, though violently opposed by the powerful capitalists, succeeded in obtaining such a modification of this law that Congress consented to sell the land in alternate sections of six hundred and forty and three hundred and twenty acres. Thus a few neighbors who wished to emigrate could unite together and purchase their farms at government prices. The Northwestern Territory was entitled to send one delegate to Congress. Captain Harrison filled that office.
The Eastern Territory, embracing mainly the region now con- stituting the State of Ohio, was designated as the "Territory Northwest of the Ohio." The Western region was called the " Indiana Territory." Captain Harrison, at twenty-seven years of age, was appointed by John Adams, then President of the United States, as Governor of the Indiana Territory, and soon after as Governor also of Upper Louisiana.
In point of territory his realm was larger than that of almost any other sovereign on the surface of the globe. He was also appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs. This invested him with almost dictatorial powers. Young as he was, he discharged these duties with such distinguished ability that he was three times re-appointed to these offices - twice by Thomas Jefferson and once by James Madison.
These almost boundless regions were then occupied almost exclusively by roving tribes of savages and by wild beasts. There were but three white settlements in that wilderness expanse of thousands of unsurveyed, unexplored square miles. One of these little hamlets of a few log huts was on the Ohio River, nearly opposite Louisville; one at Vincennes, on the Wabash; and the third a small trading post of the French.
During Captain Harrison's very efficient administration he 35
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effected thirteen treaties with the Indians, by which he trans- ferred to the United States the undisputed title of sixty million acres of land. He had ample opportunities to enrich himself. But his integrity was such that he never held one single acre by a title emanating from himself.
We have had occasion, in this history, often to speak of the outrages, of every conceivable kind, which the Indians endured from those lawless, vagabond white men, who are ever found prowling along the verge of civilization. Fiends could not have been more demoniac in their conduct. There was no power in Congress to prevent these atrocities, and thousands of good men bitterly deplored them. The savages were thus often goaded into war And while we could scarcely blame them, it became a painful necessity to shoot them down in their ferocious massacres as we would ravaging wolves and bears.
In a communication which Governor Harrison made to the United States Government in July, 1801, he wrote :
" All these injuries the Indians have hitherto borne with astonishing patience. But, though they discover no disposition to make war upon the United States, I am confident that most of the tribes would eagerly seize any favorable opportunity for that purpose. And should the United States be at war with any European nations, who are known to the Indians, there would probably be a combination of more than nine-tenths of the northern tribes against us, unless some means are made use of to conciliate them."
Thomas Jefferson, when occupying the Presidential chair, humanely did everything in his power to protect the Indians, and to induce them to cultivate the soil, and strengthen themselves by all the arts of civilized life. In the year 1804 Governor Harrison obtained from the Indians the cession of all their vast hunting grounds, excepting from the Illinois River to the Missis- sippi. Even into these regions emigration was now beginning to flow. A territorial legislature was organized.
Governor Harrison, intelligent, courteous and unswervingly upright in every action, won universal respect and confidence. He was by nature not only inflexibly just, but he was endowed with great amiability and kindliness of heart. His knowledge of human nature, and his tact in dealing with all diversities of character, were quite remarkable.
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" His magnanimous devotion to the public interest was such that he several times appointed decided political opponents to offices of trust, which he deemed them eminently fitted to fill. He was so cautious to avoid the appearance of evil, that he would not keep the public money on hand, but always made his pay- ments by drafts upon Washington. It is said that no man ever disbursed so large an amount of public treasure with so little difficulty in adjusting his accounts.
" For twelve years Mr. Harrison was Governor of the Territory of Indiana. A wealthy foreigner by the name of McIntosh accused him of having defrauded the Indians in the treaty of Fort Wayne. The governor demanded investigation in a court of justice. Not only was he triumphantly acquitted, but the jury brought in a verdict against McIntosh for damages to the amount of four thousand dollars. Governor Harrison, having thus obtained the perfect vindication of his character, distributed one third of the sum to the orphan children of those who had died in battle, and restored the remainder to McIntosh himself." *
When the governor entered upon his responsible office he took up his residence at the old military post of Vincennes Few men could have resisted the temptations which were presented Gov- ernor Harrison to accumulate a fortune through the facilities which his office gave him. The proprietor of the land upon which the City of St. Louis now stands offered him nearly half of the whole township if he would merely contribute his influence to building up the settlement. But. Governor Harrison declined the proposal. So nice was his sense of honor that he could not consent to take advantage of his official situation to promote his private advantage. In a very few years that property was worth millions, and the governor might have been in the enjoyment of great wealth without defrauding an individual of a dollar.
There was in the vicinity of Cincinnati a large tract of very valuable land, which in the early settlement of the country had been sold for quite a trifling sum under an execution against the original proprietor. Subsequently, when the property had become of immense value, it was ascertained that through some defect in the proceedings of the court the sale was not valid This being the case it was found that the legal title was vested in Mrs. Har- rison and one other individual. But Mr. Harrison at once decided * Abbott's Lives of the Presidents.
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