USA > Ohio > The picturesque Ohio : a historical monograph > Part 3
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"When our neighbors visited us after their fearful orgy was over, they put off the subject of a guide from day to day, and we saw we were losing the favorable season, and were uncertain as to where we could pass the winter. M. de la Salle said our death was assured if we should attempt to winter in the woods. We were relieved of this uneasiness by the arrival of one of the chiefs, who had returned from the council with the Dutch in New Holland. This Indian assured us there should be 110 difficulty about a guide ; that he had captives from the different tribes where we desired to go, and he himself would very willingly go with us. Led by this hope, we quitted the Sonnontouans.
" Our guide took us to a river an eighth of a league in width, and ex- tremely rapid, which brings the waters of the upper lakes into Lake Ontario. The depth of this river is something prodigious below where it falls front the upper lake through the grandest cataract in the world. The haste we were in to get to our landing place prevented our taking time to see this marvel. We had to make our portage from near the mouth of the river, some distance from the cataract, by a path the Indians knew, which led us around and above the rapids through which the waters pass before they fall over the cataract.
"While waiting at the little village below this place, where ali the people were engaged to carry our baggage, M. de la Salle returned from a
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THE PICTURESQUE OHIO.
hunt, bringing back a severe attack of fever, which in a few days brought him very low.
"After three days of waiting, all the leading inen of the village came to see us. At this council our Dutchman was of more use as an interpreter than he had been at the larger village of the Sonnontouans. There was another exchange of presents, and two captives were given us as guides, one of the tribe of the Chiouanons, the other of the Nez-Percés. The Chiouanon fell to M. de la Salle, and the other to us.
"We left this place with more than fifty savages and savagesses, and it took us two days to reach the end of the portage where our baggage was waiting. Here we learned that two Frenchmen were at the village to which we were going, who had come from the land of the Outaouacs, and on arriv- ing at our destination on the 24th September, we found Sieur Jolliet, who had arrived the day before on his return from Lake Superior, where he had been sent by the governor to examine the newly discovered copper-mines.
" The illness of M. de la Salle had begun to take away his desire to go on to the Ohio, and now he began to be equally anxious to return to Mon- treal. The representations of Sieur Jolliet determined us to change our route, and visit the missions on the Superior, while M. de la Salle said the state of his health did not permit him to think of the journey to Lake Superior, and he begged us to excuse him for abandoning us on the way."
That the Abbé Gallinée did not understand La Salle is evi- dent from the mention he makes of his illness, "caused by fright at meeting three rattlesnakes in the path."
M. Dollier, an ex-soldier, brought up in the school of Tu- renne, was a much better judge of the metal of the young com- rade, who courteously pleaded the state of his health as a reason for turning back when the Abbé and M. Dollier changed their plan of going to the Ohio, and decided to visit the missions on the the upper lakes. La Salle's excuses made ("fine words," Dollier calls them), he left the two priests and their followers on the north side of Lake Ontario, and returned either to the Indian villages or to the south side of Niagara River, and continued his way
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THE DISCOVERER OF THE RIVER.
thence to the Ohio. There is some doubt as to the route he fol- lowed, but none as to his determined purpose and its accomplish- ment. Unfortunately, the papers and maps which record the journey, and illustrate the course pursued, and which were in the possession of his niece in 1756, were lost in the later years of that stormy century.
A Memoir of La Salle, written by one of his contemporaries (supposed to be the Abbé Renaudot), gives a condensed sketch of the trip, as La Salle told it to the writer; it is geographically correct and indisputably true, and therefore is added herewith :-
" M. de la Salle went back to the Indian village, and from thence started anew to find the Ohio. The Indians guided him across by easy portages to the head-waters of the Ohio; after reaching that river he pursued his jour- ney westward until he came to the rapids, which end in a low swampy coun- try. Here he was constrained to land; leaving the river for the higher ridges (on the northern bank) he found an Indian-hunting camp. These Indians told him that some distance below the river, which here seemed to have lost itself in little rivulets that wandered about through the vast ex- tent of forest-covered marshes, reunited its waters in a great stream. This decided him to continue his journey by land; but that night his followers deserted him, and, regaining the river above the rapids, went back.
" Finding himself alone (except for one or two faithful Indians), and over four hundred leagues from Montreal, he could do nothing, but return."
The official records of THE DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER yet rest in the French Archives, and are shown in three or four documents which are reproduced in M. Margry's late work.
First. There is a petition to the king ("Demande du Privi- lege"), asking certain concessions in recognition of his discov- eries south of the lakes, and especially of the Ohio River.
Second. There are the official maps, made (by his rivals) in 1673 and the years immediately following, which show the course of the Ohio, and in each the discovery is credited to La Salle.
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THE PICTURESQUE OHIO.
Third. There are several dispatches to the king and to Col- bert from the governor-general and intendant of Canada, in which mention is made of "these discoveries of Le Sieur de la Salle, of various countries and rivers south of the lakes;" and in each something is said of "the Beautiful River," which is called "The Ohio," "the Bright River," "the Shining River," and "the Deep Shining River."
Fourth. In consideration of his discoveries, the king grants him a patent of nobility, creating him a knight, and making him governor of Fort Frontenac.
An extract from one of these documents, in which La Salle speaks of himself in the third person, and the record ends :-
"In 1667, and the following years, he made many journeys-at great expense-in which he was the first discoverer of the country south of the Great Lakes, and among other rivers, the Ohio. He followed its current to the rapids, where, after having been increased by a large river coming from the north, it spreads over wide swampy lowlands; and there is every indi- cation that these collected waters find their way to the Gulf of Mexico."
The other documents relating to La Salle in this new revela- tion of history belong to the records of the Mississippi.
EARLY DAYS ON "THE SHINING RIVER."
CHAPTER III.
FRENCH AND ENGLISH CONTEST FOR THE OHIO.
TTTHE French, by right of La Salle's discovery, laid claim to the whole stretch of country from the great lakes to the Ohio, while England declared the territory to be hers, and had included it in her grant to the colony of Virginia. Each contestant had allies among the Indians, who, however, were from time to time easily influenced to desert the one and aid the other.
Toward the middle of the eighteenth century the white set- tlements in Virginia and Pennsylvania were reaching out to and extending over the mountain chain. Hunters and traders, the early pioneers of civilization, had brought back to the settle- ments upon every return from the Indian country highly colored reports of the richness of the Western mountain glades, and of the beauty and importance of the mountain streams, which they had already begun to connect with the stories that had come from the far South of the mystic and mighty Mississippi.
At this juncture Thomas Lee, one of the council of Virginia, organized a syndicate of London merchants, which was called THE OHIO COMPANY .* The object of the syndicate was to settle the wild lands south and west of the Ohio, and secure as large a part as possible of Indian trade from the French. This grant em- braced a large area on the south of the Ohio, between the Mo- nongahela and Kanawha Rivers, with the further privilege of taking such lands on the north side of the river as should sub- sequently be deemed expedient. This territory was exempt
* Appendix A, No. II.
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THE PICTURESQUE OHIO.
from taxation on condition of its being taken up by actual set- tlers within a limited time, and also that the company should build a fort and sustain a garrison for their protection. To gain the good-will of the Indians a treaty was proposed, and that no time might be lost the company resolved to open roads from the head-waters of the Potomac to some convenient point on the Monongahela.
That Pennsylvania might not be distanced in the race, the proprietary government through Andrew Palmer, president of the council, gave instructions, January 23, 1748, to their agent to use his utmost diligence to visit all the neighboring tribes, and learn their numbers, strength, and disposition toward the colony. Their agent, Weiser, had one eminent advantage over his com- peers; he knew perfectly the language of the people with whom he was empowered to open negotiations. He immediately started West, and received invaluable aid from George Crogan, a trader and agent of the proprietary council, who was already settled on Beaver Creek, a few miles from its junction with the Ohio.
Unhappily neither the government of Pennsylvania nor the attempts of the OHIO COMPANY, under the patronage of the coun- cil of VIRGINIA, succeeded in conciliating the disaffected Indians, or in dividing them from the French, who had already begun to build a line of forts from their settlements in Canada to the outlet of the Mississippi below New Orleans. Their northern forts were situated at Presque Isle on Lake Erie, at Le Bœuf, and at Venango. The building of these forts so aroused the spirit of the English that Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, sent Washing- ton to the French commander at Le Bœuf to demand his "rea- sons for invading English territory in time of peace." On No- vember 22, 1753, the "young envoy" reached Frazier's, at the
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CONTEST FOR THE OHIO.
mouth of Turtle Creek; from thence he continued his route by way of Hill's Creek to Shannopin's, an old Indian town on the Allegheny, about two miles above its union with the Monon- gahela. He examined the position at the junction of the afflu- ents forming the Ohio, and reported the point as favorable for a fortification. At Logstown he called together a council of In- dians, and although he gained the information he sought relative to the French garrisons and numbers, he was constantly thwarted by the influence the French had gained over the Indians. He proceeded to Le Bœuf, where he delivered his dispatches to the French commander, who in reply to the message from the gov- ernor of Virginia said that "it was not in his province to specify the evidence and demonstrate the right of the king, his master, to the lands situated on the Ohio, but he would transmit the let- ter to the Marquis du Quesne, and act according to the answer he should receive from that nobleman."* He did not hesitate to declare, however, that in the meantime he should "hold all the land claimed through the discovery of La Salle." With this un- qualified statement, Washington set out on his return, encoun- tering on the way many hardships and perils. Much of the journey from Venango was made on foot with a single com- panion. Once he barely escaped death by drowning; again he was shot at by an Indian, at a distance of but fifteen paces, yet received no injury. Although impatient at every delay, he spent a whole day, with the aid of a poor hatchet, in constructing a rude raft on which to cross the Allegheny; but he soon found himself blocked in the ice, and unable to proceed until the river was completely frozen over. Rapid progress at such a season
*The letter from the governor of Virginia required the French to withdraw from the dominions of Great Britain.
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THE PICTURESQUE OHIO.
was impossible ; but at last he arrived with his dispatches safe in Williamsburg.
In spite of ill reports brought by Washington from their western domains, the Ohio Company decided to strengthen their position in the west. They had one block-house at Redstone (now Brownsville), and they determined to take and hold per- manent posession of the entire country named in their grant. In February, 1754, they sent a re-enforcement and began the foundation of a redoubt where Pittsburg now stands. Before the work was finished Contrecœur, a French officer, with one thou- sand French and Indians, and eighteen pieces of cannon, arrived from Venango, and compelled the surrender of the post, which they fortified and named Fort Duquesne, after the governor of Canada. They loaded their Indian allies with presents of guns, ammunition, blankets, and beads, and the joy of conquest com- pleted the alienation of the Indians from the English, and the treaty of 1754 was made.
On his return from the French forts Washington had been placed in command of an expedition to aid in completing the re- doubt begun by his advice. En route for this point he had reached Will's Creek (afterwards Fort Cumberland), when he learned of Contrecœur's descent upon the redoubt. Nothing daunted, he wrote to the governor for re-enforcements, and deter- mined to push on to the Monongahela. His plan was to wait at Redstone for Colonel Fry's troops on their retreat from the lost position, then drop down the river and attack the French. But he had not accomplished more than fifty miles through this rough country when he was apprised by a dispatch from the half-king* of the approach of the enemy. He was
* A title given to one of the Shawnee chiefs.
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encamped at Great Meadows, where he now determined to intrench himself. After sending out reconnoitering parties, who failed to discover any trace of the French, Washington, with forty men, set out at nine o'clock on a dark and rainy night, and by difficult and toilsome paths, reached the half-king's camp at sunrise. His Indian ally knew where the tracks of the French had been seen, and consented to send two of his people to follow these tracks to the lurking-place of the enemy, while expressing his willing- ness to go hand in hand with his brother, as he called Washing- ton, to strike the French. The result was an engagement of about fifteen minutes, in which the French were defeated. Their party had come as spies, but pretended to have been sent with a communication to Washington, who, however, was not deluded by the excuse. Sending his prisoners, twenty-one in number, to Governor Dinwiddie, at Williamsburg, he prepared for the attack which he had good reason to expect, and Fort Necessity * was hastily strengthened. On the 3d of July it was attacked by seven hundred French and Indians. The fight lasted for nine hours. The courage of the raw provincials and the coolness of their young leader enabled them to hold the po- sition against greatly superior numbers. The French com- mander, De Villiers, sent in a flag of truce, offering terms of capitulation, which were accepted. The English withdrew from their only foothold upon the Ohio; and the Beautiful River, to- gether with the entire valley of the Mississippi, was left to the French and their Indian allies.
The next effort to regain Fort Duquesne was part of the well planned and badly executed campaign of 1755. A large
* Fort Necessity was eight miles from Uniontown, on the Youghiogheny, and about fifty miles from Cumberland.
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THE PICTURESQUE OHIO.
and well-disciplined army, under General Braddock, was to storm the fort, and wrest the Ohio Valley from the French.
"After taking Fort Duquesne," Braddock said to Franklin, "I am to proceed to Niagara, and having taken that, to Frontenac. Duquesne can hardly detain me more than three or four days, and then I can see nothing that can obstruct my march to Niagara."
"The Indians are dexterous in laying and executing ambus- cades," suggested Franklin.
"The savages may be formidable to your raw American militia; upon the king's regular and well-disciplined troops it is impossible they should make any impression," replied the British general.
After numerous delays, Braddock succeeded in marching his army across the mountains to within ten miles of Fort Duquesne. The French, aware of his approach, with the aid of the Indians sallied forth to prepare an ambuscade. They unexpectedly found themselves in the presence of the English, and instantly began an attack, which lasted for two hours, and resulted most disas- trously for Braddock's regulars, who were terrified by the yells of the Indians, and utterly demoralized from the first. Wash- ington, acting as aid to General Braddock, was in the thickest of the fight, and his escape seemed almost miraculous. Brad- dock fell mortally wounded, after having had five horses killed under him. He was carried off the field on a stretcher made of his heavy sash, to a place of safety; but died before the retreat- ing army reached Cumberland. The English lost seven hundred killed and wounded ; while of the French and Indians only thirty- three were killed. The defeated army was not pursued, as the Indians could not be induced to leave the scene of carnage.
Three years passed before any further effort was made to dis-
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lodge the French from the "Gateway of the West." Fortunately for the Colonies England now had a minister who recognized the importance of the position. Pitt determined the English to make fresh effort to obtain possession of Fort Duquesne. An expedition for this purpose was intrusted to General Jo- seph Forbes, who, after long waiting and many disappointments, found himself at the head of an army of six thousand two hun- dred men-Scotch Highlanders, Royal Americans, Militia, and Volunteers; among the last were Benjamin West, the painter, and Anthony Wayne, then a lad of thirteen. Washington, in command of the Virginia regiments, led the advance, and but for him the expedition would most probably have failed. During the long and trying march through snow and over rocky roads his brave spirit cheered his men, and made them disregard hard- ships which they would not have borne so uncomplainingly under a leader less trusted.
The garrison at Fort Duquesne, disheartened at the approach of so superior a force, determined to abandon the post. Accord- ingly, after setting fire to the fort on the night of November 24, 1758, they embarked on the river in the light of the flames. On the evening of the next day the British flag floated over the ruins, and from that time the place has commemorated the name of Pitt.
The possession of the Ohio was now secured by the English ; and the contest between two civilized nations for land, rightfully the property of neither, was ended.
MESS ENR. CO. N.Y.
THREE HUNDRED FEET UP BLACKWATER.
CHAPTER IV.
EARLY SETTLEMENTS.
TTTHE earliest settlements on the Ohio River were made in the years 1770 and 1773-the one by the Zane brothers, at Wheeling; the other at Louisville, by the Taylors, Thomas Bullitt, the McAfees, McCouns, and Adams.
The spot selected by the Zanes in 1769 became in 1777 the scene of the memorable siege of Fort Henry, in which a little band of defenders were opposed by savages more than thirty times their number, led by Simon Girty, the renegade.
After fighting for several hours the supply of powder was so reduced that a surrender would have been inevitable but for the heroism of Elizabeth Zane. At her brother's house, across an open space just outside the fort, was a keg of gunpowder, to ob- tain which the commander was about to send out one of the men, when the sister of the Zanes stepped forward and insisted that to her the undertaking should be intrusted, urging that the danger attending the venture was sufficient reason why the life of a soldier should not be risked, for the garrison was already too weak to spare even one of its number. The firing was dis- continued for a short time, thus giving a favorable opportunity to the brave girl, who, in full view of the enemy, made her way across the open space, obtained her prize, and was returning with it before the Indians suspected her purpose. They imme- diately leveled their pieces and aimed a volley at her as she ran toward the gate; but not a ball grazed her clothing, and
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THE PICTURESQUE OHIO.
she entered the fort in safety, bearing the keg of powder in her arms.
Although the spot upon which Louisville was built was se- lected in 1773, it was an uncertain home for the few families there collected, who were in constant dread of the Indians. All this was changed in 1778, when George Rogers Clark made his successful foray into the Indian country. Virginia had raised a regiment for the defense of the western frontier; with this force Clark descended the Monongahela and the Ohio to the Falls .* Halting a few days at the little settlement, he waited for the Kentucky volunteers to join him. One direct consequence of his success was the preservation of the settlement at the mouth of "Bear Grass Creek." Previous to that period the families of the pioneers who were collected at the Falls of the Ohio had been com- pelled to seek safety upon the small island abreast of the present site of the city. Here Clark had built a fort, and at his depart- ure about thirteen families remained on this narrow islet, in the midst of the foaming rapids, surrounded by enemies and en- during the severest privations, yet tenaciously maintaining their foothold. The capture of Vincennes, by breaking up the nearest and strongest of the enemy's western posts, relieved their appre- hensions of immediate danger, and encouraged them to settle permanently on the Kentucky shore.
The possibility of establishing settlements on the river having been demonstrated at the two points mentioned, it was not long before other bands of determined men were induced, either by the love of adventure or the fertility of the soil, to brave the hardships and dangers of pioneer life. A clear title to four hundred acres of well-watered and well-timbered productive land, in an agreeable
* Appendix A, No. IĮI.
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EARLY SETTLEMENTS.
climate, where game was abundant, could be obtained by simply putting up a log cabin and raising one crop. For this reason many a hardy woodsman of the older settlements, where land was both poor in quality and high in price, made light of the risk ; and thinking only of gain, shouldered his rifle and ax, and with all his wordly goods on a pack-saddle, made his way, with horse and dog, over the mountains.
Wild and extravagant stories were wafted across the Atlantic. Designing agents of more designing speculators formed in France a company of five hundred emigrants, who left their native shores and encountered perils by sea and land to reach the " won- derful Ohio Valley." They landed at Alexandria, but it was months before their conductors made arrangements for them to cross the mountains. After having been two years on the jour- ney they reached their destination, and began building the town of Gallipolis, on the Ohio River .*
About the same time settlements were begun at Marietta, Manchester, Maysville, and Cincinnati, in spite of the outrages committed by the savages. Accounts of inhuman butcheries and cruel tortures inflicted upon the early settler fill pages of history. Strong men, bravely patient women, innocent children, all learned to dread the savage yell which announced the pres- ence of the Indian; and they feared still more the treacherous ambuscade into which, when in apparent security, so many heed- lessly wandered. Homes were destroyed, the husband and father slain and scalped, the wife and mother carried into cap- tivity, and little children tomahawked and left to feed the wild beasts that lurked in the forests bordering the "Warrior's Road." An incident in the history of Maysville will give a
* Appendix A, No. IV.
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THE PICTURESQUE OHIO.
very fair picture of what might be looked for by those attempting to settle on the river :
"John May and several companions were drifting down the Ohio, bound for Maysville, when suddenly, at daylight one morning, an alarm of danger was given. A dense smoke was seen rising above the trees on the northern shore. The party determined at once to seek the opposite side of the river; but they were hailed by two white men, who ran down to the shore and implored to be taken on board. They said that they had just escaped from the Indians, and were closely pursued, and unless taken on board would surely be recaptured and killed. They were suspected of treachery by some of the party in the boat, but their entreaties made others beg that they might be rescued. May was resolute in his refusal, but one of his companions induced him to put in to the shore just long enough to allow him to land. The savages hidden under the drooping willows were instantly masters of the situation, though they contented themselves for some time with firing upon the crew without making any attempt to take possession of the boat. As soon as it was seen that resist- ance was useless, all hands lay down on their faces wherever they could best be protected. One of the women was shot and instantly killed, one of the nien was severely wounded, and May, finding the firing hotter at every moment, waved a signal of surrender, and was killed in the act. The savages now made for the boat, and on boarding it shook hands with their prisoners, and then coolly scalped the dead. After pulling the boat ashore they ex- amined and destroyed every thing of value, until they stumbled upon a keg of whisky, which they carried off in great exultation.
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