USA > Ohio > The history of the state of Ohio; from the discovery of the great valley, to the present time > Part 54
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" From the statement of these constant companions of Tecum- seh during nearly twenty years of his life, we proceed to state that Tecumseh lay with his warriors at the commencement of the battle, in a forest of thick underbrush on the left of the American army. These Indians were at no period of the battle out of the
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thick underbrush. No officer was seen between them and the American army. Tecumseh fell at the very first fire of the Kentucky dragoons, pierced by thirty bullets, and was carried four or five miles into the thick woods, and was there buried by the warriors who told the story of his fate.
" This account was repeated to me three several times, word for word, and neither of the relators ever knew the fictions to which Tecumseh's death had given rise. Some of these fictions originated in the mischievous design of ridiculing the person who is said to have killed this savage, and who, by-the-by, killed no one, that day at least, either red or white. General Harrison, who planned this well-fought and successful battle, has never been applauded for what he so richly merited, while an individual, a subordinate, who merely did his duty, as every other officer and soldier did, has been applauded to the very echo for killing an Indian! If that had been true, he deserved no more credit than any one common soldier in the engagement.
" A few Mohawks, and some other Indian chiefs and warriors belonging to the Canadian Indians about Lake Ontario, were mixed with the British regulars in the front line of the enemy. Some of these savages were killed in the action, and the remain- der of these Indians on horseback fled with Proctor. The Indian found dead belonged to these Indians, and not to the Winneba- gos or Shawanese, who, in this battle, lay in ambush beyond a morass on the left of the American army."
The annihilation of the British fleet on Lake Erie, the re-con- quest of Detroit, and the utter overthrow and dispersion of the British army at the battle of the Thames, brought peace to the northwestern frontier. The population of Ohio was now three hundred thousand. At the conclusion of Wayne's war, eighteen years before, it numbered but five thousand. The battle of the Thames was fought on the 5th of October, 1813.
President Madison, in his message to Congress of November 4, 1812, speaking of this employment of the savages by the British, writes :
" The enemy has not scrupled to call to his aid the ruthless ferocity of the savages, armed with instruments of carnage and torture, which are known to spare neither age nor sex. In this outrage against the laws of honorable war, and against the feel- ings sacred to humanity, the British commanders cannot resort to
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the plea of retaliation, for it is committed in the face of our ex- ample. They cannot mitigate it by calling it self-defense against men in arms, for it embraces the most shocking butcheries of defenseless families. Nor can it be pretended that they are not answerable for the atrocities perpetrated, for the savages are em- ployed with a knowledge, and even with menaces, that their fury cannot be controlled. Such is the spectacle which the deputed authorities of a nation boasting its religion and morality have not refrained from presenting to an enlightened age."
Peace was made with Great Britain at Ghent, on the 24th of December, 1814. The Indians, after the fall of Tecumseh, renounced all hope of arresting the advances of the white men. Tribe after tribe renounced its hunting-grounds, and, receiving in exchange rich annuities from the United States, retired beyond the Mississippi.
Previous to the year 1812 there was no permanent state capi- tal in Ohio. In the year 1816 the state government was estab- lished at Columbus. The sessions of the Legislature were held at Chillicothe until 1810, and then at Zanesville. In 1812 the high bank of the Scioto River, just opposite Franklinton, was selected by a committee of the Legislature as a site for the future capital. The region was then an unbroken wilderness. In De- cember, 1816, the state authorities met there for the first time in legislative session. The location was very beautiful, and was on the same parallel of latitude with Philadelphia, from which it was distant four hundred and fifty miles. It was also on the same longitude with Detroit, being one hundred and seventy miles south of that city.
The proprietors of the land entered into a contract with the state. The town, covered with the primeval forest, was carefully surveyed and laid out, and on the 18th of June, 1812, the first sale of lots by public auction was held. On that day war was declared with Great Britain. The city grew very rapidly, emigrants flow- ing in from all quarters. A curious incident occurred in Colum- bus in the year 1822, which is worthy of record. The Columbus Gazette of August 29 contains the following notice :
" Grand Squirrel Hunt. The squirrels are becoming so numer- ous in the county as to threaten serious injury, if not destruction, to the hopes of the farmer during the ensuing fall. Much good might be done by a general turn out of all citizens whose conven-
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ience will permit, for two or three days, in order to prevent the alarming ravages of these mischievous neighbors. It is therefore respectfully submitted to the different townships, each to meet and choose two or three of their citizens in a hunting caucus at the house of Christian Heyl, on Saturday, the 3Ist instant, at two o'clock P. M. Should the time above stated prove to be too short for the townships to hold meetings as above recommended, the following persons are respectfully nominated and invited to attend. the meeting at Columbus."
Thirty-four persons were then nominated from the several townships. A subsequent paper says, "The hunt was conducted agreeably to the instructions in our last paper. On counting the scalps it appeared that nineteen thousand six hundred and sixty scalps were produced. It is impossible to say what number in all were killed, as a great many of the hunters did not come in."
Continuous efforts were now made to extinguish the Indian titles to all their lands within the state. During the year 1817 Honora- ble Lewis Cass and Honorable Duncan Walker met a large dele- gation of the Indian chiefs at the foot of the Maumee Rapids, and succeeded in purchasing an immense expanse of territory. The Wyandots reserved twelve miles square in Wyandot County, on the Upper Sandusky, and there were also two other very small reservations.
The Wyandots were considered the bravest of all the Indian tribes. Several of their chiefs were men, not only of highly moral, but of religious character. In the early occupation of Canada by the French, the Catholics, with a spirit of devotion and self-sacri- fice which has never been surpassed, established a mission there. The first Protestant who preached to them was John Stewart, a mulatto, of the Methodist denomination. He was followed by a regularly established mission of the Methodist Church. Rev. James B. Finley, one of the best of men, formed a church here and organized a school. One of the Wyandot chiefs, Between-the- Logs, became quite a celebrated preacher.
Another of these Christian chiefs, Sum-mun-de-wat, was bru- tally murdered by some miscreant white men. He had been out, accompanied by his family, on a hunting expedition in the wilder- ness of what is now Hancock County. He had returned to his lodge with a good supply of food, and was sitting with his wife and children at his fire when three white men entered. The
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hospitable Indian treated them with the utmost kindness. His wife immediately cooked a supper for them. Sum-mun-de-wat, after they had finished their supper, according to his custom, kneeled with his wife and children in family prayer. He then provided his guests with a comfortable couch of skins for sleep.
In the night these wretches rose and murdered the chief and. his wife, and plundered the lodge of all its valuables. They were so bold and unblushing in this crime that they were easily arrest- ed. They were, however, allowed to escape, and were never pun- ished. In speaking of this case, Colonel Johnston says, that in a period of fifty-three years, since he first went to the West, he never knew of but one instance in which a white man was tried, convicted, and executed for the murder of an Indian. Such were the outrages which often stung the Indians to madness. This one exception was brought about by the efficient action of Colonel Johnston himself, aided by the promptness of the Hon. John C. Calhoun, who was then Secretary of War. He took an interest. in bringing the offender to justice, which was very unusual on the: part of the officers of our government.
Rev. Mr. Finley, in his interesting History of the Wyandot: Mission, often alludes to this Christian chieftain. The following anecdotes which he relates will be read with interest :
"Sum-mun-de-wat amused me after he came home by relating a circumstance which occurred one cold evening just before sun- down. 'I met,' said he, ' on a small path not far from my camp a. man who asked me if I could talk English. I said, "Little." He ask me, "How far is it to a house? " I answer, " I don't know, maybe ten miles, maybe eight miles." "Is there a path leading: to it?" "No; by-and-by dis go out (pointing to the path they were on), then all wood. You go home with me, sleep, me go show you to-morrow."
"'Then he came to my camp; so take horse, tie, give him some corn and brush, then my wife give him some supper. He ask me where I come. I say 'Sandusky.' He say, 'You know Finley ? "" ' Yes,' I say. 'He is my brother, my father.' Then he say, 'He- is my brother.' Then I feel something in my heart burn. I say, ' You preacher?' He say, 'Yes;' and I shook hands and say,. 'My brother !' Then we try talk. Then I say, 'You sing and. pray.' So he did. Then he say to me, 'Sing and pray.' So I did; and I so much cry I can't pray. No go sleep; I can't, I
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wake, my heart full. All night I pray and praise God, for He send me preacher to sleep in my camp. Next morning soon come, and he want to go. Then I show him through the woods, until we come to big road. Then he took me by hand and say, ' Fare- well, brother ; by-and-by we meet up in Heaven.' Then me cry, and my brother cry. We part ; I go hunt. All day I cry, and no see deer jump up and run away. Then I go and pray by some log. My heart so full of joy that I cannot walk much. I say, 'I cannot hunt.' Sometimes I sing. Then I stop and clap my hands and look up to God, my Heavenly Father. Then the love come so fast in my heart I can hardly stand. So I went home, and said, 'This is my happiest day.'"
Rev. Mr. Finley relates another anecdote of one of these Wy- andot chiefs, who, subsequently to the event here recorded, be- came a Christian. He was one of the most brave and sagacious of their warriors, and was selected by the tribe to kill Adam Poe, who resided in a lonely hut near the mouth of the Yellow Stone River. We have previously described the desperate conflict in which Poe and his party killed five out of six of an Indian band.
" The Wyandots chose chief Rohn-yen-ness as a proper person to kill him, and then make his escape. He went to Poe's house, and was met with great friendship. Poe not having any suspicion of his design, the best in the house was furnished him. When the time to retire to sleep came, he made a pallet on the floor for his Indian guest to sleep. He and his wife went to bed in the same room. Rohn-yen-ness said that they both soon feel asleep. There being no person about the house but some children, this afforded him a fair opportunity to execute his purpose; but the kindness they had both shown him worked in his mind. He asked himself how he could get up and kill even an enemy that had taken him in and treated him so well, so much like a brother.
"The more he thought about it the worse he felt. But still, on the other hand, he was sent by his nation to avenge the death of two of its most valiant warriors ; and their spirits would not be appeased until the blood of Poe was shed. There he said he lay, in this conflict of mind, until about midnight. The duty he owed to his nation and the spirits of his departed friends aroused him. He seized his knife and tomahawk and crept to the bedside of his sleeping host. Again the kindness which he had received from Poe stared him in the face; and he said, 'It is mean -it is un-
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worthy the character of an Indian warrior to kill even an enemy who has so kindly treated him.' He went back to his pallet and slept till morning.
" His kind friend loaded him with blessings, and told him that they were once enemies, but that now they had buried the hatchet and were brothers, and that he hoped they would always be so. Rohn-yan-ness, overwhelmed with a sense of the generous treat- ment he had received from his once powerful enemy, but now his kind friend, left him to join his party. He said that the more he reflected on what he had done, and the course he had pursued, the more he was convinced that he had done right. This once revengeful savage warrior was overcome by the kindness of an evening, and all his plans frustrated. This man became one of the most pious and devoted of the Indian converts. Although a chief, he was as humble as a child. He used his steady influence against the traders and their fire-water."
In the treaty which Messrs. Cass and Walker made with the Indians at the Maumee Rapids, in 1819, the Delawares retained a tract of three miles square on the south side of the Wyandot tract. The Senecas also reserved forty thousand acres on the east side of Sandusky River, mainly in Seneca County. But in the year 1829 the Delawares ceded their reservation to the United States; and the Senecas theirs in 1831. In the year 1842 the Wyandots surrendered their territory also. And thus every foot of the soil of Ohio passed from the red men, who had so long roved its savage wilderness, into the hands of the white man, who was destined to make the wilderness bud and bloom as the rose.
Mr. Brish relates the following incident as illustrative of the superstition of the Seneca Indians, and of the composure with which their warriors would meet. The tribe had diminished to about four hundred souls.
About the year 1825 three of the prominent chiefs went on an excursion to seek a new home and fresh hunting-grounds for their people. Their names were Coonstick, Steel and Cracked Hoof. They returned after an absence of nearly three years. Coonstick and Steel were brothers. They left behind them an older brother, Comstock, who was chief of the tribe, and a younger brother, John
The two brothers who went West finding, on their return, that their elder brother, Comstock, was dead, and that their younger
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brother was chief in his stead, charged John with having caused the death of Comstock by witchcraft. He denied the charge most earnestly.
" I loved my brother Comstock," said he, "more than I loved the green earth I stand upon. I would give up myself, limb by limb, piecemeal by piecemeal ; I would shed my blood, drop by drop, to restore him to life."
But his protestations of innocence and love for his brother were all unavailing. His brothers told him that he must die, and that it was their duty to be his executioners. John calmly replied :
" I am willing to die. I ask only that you will allow me to live until to-morrow morning, that I may see the sun rise once more. I will sleep to-night in the porch of Hard Hickory's lodge, which fronts the east. There you will find me at sunrise."
They acceded to this request. Coonstick and Steel, awaiting the morning when they were to kill their brother, passed the night in a lodge near by. In the morning they proceeded to the hut of Hard Hickory, who himself told this story to Mr. Bliss. He said that just as the sun was rising he heard the approaching footsteps of the brothers, and opened the door of his hut to peep out. There he saw John asleep, wrapped in his blanket. His brothers awoke him. He rose and took from his head a large handkerchief which was wound around it. His hair, which was very long, fell upon his shoulders. The doomed chief looked calmly around for the last time upon the landscape and upon the rising sun, taking evi- dently a farewell view, and then said to his brothers that he was ready to die.
The brothers had brought with them another Indian warrior by · the name of Shane. Coonstick with Shane each took John by the arm, and led him along towards the place of his execution. Steel followed behind, with his gleaming tomahawk in his hand. They had advanced about ten steps from the porch when Steel struck his brother a heavy blow with his tomahawk upon the back of his head. He fell to the ground as the blood gushed from the dread- ful wound. Supposing him to be killed, they dragged him beneath a tree near by. There, perceiving signs of life, Steel drew his knife and cut his brother's throat from ear to ear. The next day the corpse was buried with the customary Indian cere- monies.
This horrible scene occurred in Seneca County, Ohio, in the
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year 1828. Steel was arrested and tried in Sandusky County, and was acquitted. When the tribe removed far away beyond the Mississippi, the two brothers carefully leveled the ground around the grave, so that no vestige of the burial might remain.
The first steamboat which descended the Ohio River was called the New Orleans. It was a vessel of about four hundred tons burden, and was built at Pittsburgh in 1811. The success which had attended steam navigation on the Hudson led to a careful examination of the western rivers, to ascertain their adaptation to be navigated by steam. The result was that this first boat was built, which was designed to ply between Natchez and New Or- leans.
In October, 1811, the boat commenced its adventurous voyage down the whole length of the Ohio and the Mississippi. As the object was merely to convey the boat to her station, no freight or passengers were taken. The distance from Pittsburgh to the mouth of the Ohio is nine hundred and fifty-nine miles. From the mouth of the Ohio to New Orleans there is another thousand miles of water to be traversed. As wood was burned, and there were no wood-yards on the way, many delays were unavoidable. The only persons on board the boat were Mr. Rosevelt, of New York, his young wife and family, Mr. Baker, the engineer, Andrew Jack, the pilot, six hands and a few domestics. Mr. Rosevelt was the agent of Chancellor Livingston and Mr. Fulton, who, it would seem, had caused the boat to be built.
Mr. Rosevelt, in surveying the stream, had discovered two beds of coal, about one hundred and twenty miles below the rapids of Louisville, on the Indiana side of the river. He took some tools with him to try the experiment of using that fuel. The voyage down the river from Pittsburgh to Louisville, of seven hundred miles, was accomplished in seventy hours, being at the rate of ten miles an hour, aided by the current.
The novel appearance of the boat, and the fearful rapidity with which it seemed to rush through the waters, upon which only flat- bottomed boats had thus far appeared floating upon the current, excited the amazement of all who dwelt upon the banks of the lonely stream. The boat entered Louisville in the middle of a bright moonlight night. The strange noise created by the steam rushing through the valves, as the boat rounded to at the landing, created a general alarm in the settlement. The citizens generally
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rose from their beds, and come out in the streets to ascertain the Cause of the strange disturbance.
In consequence of the small depth of water upon the rapids, the boat was detained at Louisville for three weeks. It improved the time in running several trips between Louisville and Cincin- nati. The last week in November the waters rose, and the steamer resumed her voyage. We transcribe from the Great West, with some slight abbreviation, an account of the fearful earthquakes which were soon encountered.
When the steamer arrived about five miles above the Yellow Banks, they moored the boat opposite the first vein of coal, and which had been purchased in the interim of the government of Indiana. They found a large quantity already quarried to their hand, and conveyed to the shore by the depredators, who had not found means to remove it. With this they commenced loading their boat. While thus employed they were accosted in great alarm by the people of the neighborhood, who inquired if they had not heard strange noises on the river and in the woods in the course of the day. The said that the shores of the river shook, and that they had repeatedly felt the earth tremble beneath their feet.
Hitherto nothing extraordinary had been perceived on board the boat. The following day they pursued their monotonous voyage in those vast solitudes. The weather was observed to be oppressively hot; the air was misty, still and dull. Though the sun was visible, like a glowing ball of copper, his rays hardly shed more than a mournful twilight on the surface of the water. Even- ing drew nigh, and with it some indications of what was passing around them became evident. As they sat on deck, ever and anon they heard a rushing sound and violent splash, and large portions of the shore tearing away from the land and falling into the river. It was an awful day; so still that you could have heard a pin drop upon the deck. They spoke little, for every one ap- peared thunderstruck.
The second day after leaving the Yellow Banks, the sun, hang- ing over the forest, presented the same dim ball of fire, and the air was thick, dull and oppressive as before. The portentous signs of this terrible natural convulsion continued and increased. The pilot, alarmed and confused, affirmed that he was lost, as he found the channel everywhere altered. Where he had hitherto
JACOB D.COX Governor 1866-68.
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known deep water there lay numberless trees with their roots up- ward. The trees were seen waving and nodding on the bank with- out a wind; but the adventurers had no choice but to continue their route. Towards evening they found themselves at a loss for a place of shelter. They had usually brought to under the shore; but everywhere they saw the high banks disappearing, overwhel- ming many a flat-boat and raft, from which their owners had landed and escaped.
A large island which had been in the mid-channel of the river, and which the pilot knew very well, was sought for in vain. It had entirely disappeared. Thus, in doubt and terror, they pro- ceeded hour after hour until dark, when they found a small island and moored themselves at its foot. Here they lay, keep- ing watch on deck during the long winter's night, listening to the sound of the waters, which roared and gurgled horribly around them; and hearing, from time to time, the rushing earth slide from the shore, and the commotion as the falling mass of earth and trees was swallowed up by the river.
The lady of the party, who was in very delicate health, having a babe in her arms, who was born as their boat lay off Louisville, was frequently awakened from her restless slumber by the jar given to the furniture and loose articles in the cabin, as several times in the course of the night the shock of the passing earth- quake was communicated from the island to the bow of the vessel. It was a long night. But the morning showed them that they were near the mouth of the Ohio. The shores and channel were now not recognizable. Everything seemed changed.
About noon of that day they reached the small town of New Madrid, on the right bank of the Mississippi. Here they found the inhabitants in the greatest distress and consternation. Part of the population had fled in terror to the higher grounds, others begged to be taken on board, as the earth was opening in fis- sures on every side, and their houses were hourly falling around them.
Proceeding thence they found the Mississippi unusually swollen, turbid and full of trees. After many days of great danger, though they felt and perceived no more of the earth- quakes, they reached their destination at Natchez, at the close of the first week in January, 1812, to the astonishment of all. The escape of the boat had been considered an impossibility.
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The Orleans continued to run between New Orleans and Natchez for a couple of years. She was then wrecked near Baton Rouge, by striking on a snag. In the course of a few years several other steamers were built and launched on the Western rivers. The confidence of the community in these boats was of slow growth. But when, in the Spring of 1817, a boat of four hundred tons made the voyage from Louisville to New Orleans and back in forty-five days, the universal voice declared that steamboats on the western waters were proved to be a success.
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