USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Dayton > The story of Dayton > Part 2
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The tribes which frequented this part of Ohio were named Twightwees, or Miamis, a group including many oth- ers, namely, Shawnees, Pottawatomies, Wyandots, Dela- wares, Chippewas, and Kickapoos. The Indians declared this rich and blooming territory of the Miami lands to be their own possessions. East of the Ohio River the white man might perhaps be allowed to settle; west of it they were determined he should never come. Settlers from the sand patches of New Jersey or the stony hillsides of Con- necticut saw in the lovely reaches of these valleys the farms that would make them rich. They had come, many of them
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The Conquest of the Miami Lands
on foot, six or seven hundred miles, and here they pro- posed to stay.
This varying point of view between the whites and the Indians led, in time, to the valleys of the two Miamis being known, with only too great appropriateness, as the "Miami Slaughter House." In battle after battle, in skirmish after skirmish, the soil of southwestern Ohio was drenched with blood. Every surveyor who left the fort at Cincinnati for the trip up the valley, knew that in so doing he took his life · in his hands.
Little Turtle.
Tecumseh.
We are told that for every Indian killed, three white men lost their lives. The cause of this appalling destruction was the manner in which the savage made war. Original settlers, those who had grown up in the woods, understood primitive war tactics, but only when it was too late did the regular troops learn. An Indian never stood out frankly to be shot at, never charged in the mass as the whites did. He concealed himself behind a stump and shot from am- bush. Every waving bush might, therefore, shelter a feath-
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The Story of Dayton
ered warrior ; every call of a blackbird or whistle of a quail might be a secret signal.
Following an attack, the settlers were accustomed to pursue the flying foe down the trail, expecting to find massed warriors blocking the way. But the summer woods were peaceful and still, no sounds but of birds and the singing brooks. Suddenly from behind, as well as in front and from both sides, came a hail of arrows and blood-curdling yells. So swift and terrifying was such an onset that the defenders had no time to reload their muskets. Ten In- dians behind trees were more than a match for twenty whites in the open. Having killed or wounded part of their foes and put to rout the rest, the savages came out, tore off what scalps they could-as often from the living as from the dead-and again disappeared. This, in brief, was the way Harmar's forces were defeated, how St. Clair's army was cut to pieces and left with six hundred bare and bloody skulls on the field of battle.
Although told in a general way, as the story of the whole western country, this was in reality the record of our own particular part of it. No ground was more often camped upon by Indians than that near the mouth of Mad River-no grass more frequently tramped down by the feet of soldiers in pursuit. Not seldom, a twentieth century schoolboy, in his Saturday tramps up the river, will see sticking out of the brown loam, one of those wonderfully chiseled flint arrow-heads, proof positive of the former activities of the Indians. Then he will realize, much clearer than any book can tell him, just what has happened on that spot of ground.
All this bloody skirmishing was really a part of the Revolutionary War. In 1776 the Eastern States, it is true, had stated their position to the British in the Declaration
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The Conquest of the Miami Lands
of Independence, but this vast western country was too big, -too far off,-to come into the bargain. The Kickapoos had never heard that we were born "free and equal, and en- titled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and would not have understood it if they had. Constitutions amounted to little unless protected by a good rifle. It was one thing to say you owned a country and quite another to hold on to it. The Indians were not the only enemies. De- troit belonged to Great Britain; Kaskaskia and Cahokia, in Illinois, to the French. Thus, two foreign nations, both giving arms and ammunition to the savages, waged a cease- less warfare.
Probably the first white man to set foot on the soil of our Main Street was a French major named Celoron de Bienville, who ascended the Great Miami in 1751, and described the sight of thirty or forty buffaloes grazing at one time, knee deep in the tall grass on the river bottoms. The secretary of the Ohio Land Company, Gist, who also came here at that time, gave an account of the charms of this fertile valley, the spreading trees, thick, wav- ing grass, and unafraid wild animals, an account of which will remind you of Roosevelt's glowing recital of the in- terior of South America. Indeed, the earlier explorer in his travels was not farther from civilization in his day than the later.
The site of the settlement to be located at the mouth of Mad River was frequently under discussion among the in- habitants at Fort Washington. People had been gathering there from various points in the East, waiting for a chance to procure good farming land. In 1787, Benjamin Stites, of Cincinnati, in pursuit of Indians who had stolen horses, penetrated the woods as far as the present site of Xenia. Coming back down the banks of the Great Miami, he
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The Story of Dayton
brought the report to his friend, John Cleves Symmes, that the confluence of the three rivers, the Miami, Stillwater, and Mad rivers, was, in his opinion, an ideal location for a city. Later Symmes himself went up the river and added his favorable report to that of Stites. Robert Patterson, the founder of Lexington, Kentucky, and one of the original owners of Cincinnati, who camped at the mouth of Mad River on his return from the Logan and Clarke raid against the Indians in 1788, testified, in his turn, that this locality seemed to him the most beautiful spot on earth, and that he hoped to have a home here, which he eventually did have in 1804.
The fact that three navigable streams converged at this point was a factor in all of these favorable verdicts. Rivers meant water power for mills, and before roads existed, were the only avenues of travel. The first settlers always came by water. At the present time the Miami River contributes not the slightest aid to the industrial life of Dayton; still less does Mad River or Stillwater. Hindrances, rather, if the truth be told, with, at one season no water to speak of in the channel and at another quite too much. Mad River was described by Gist as "a rapidly flowing, deep, majestic stream, shadowed by the overhanging forest." In 1795, all three streams were navigable, having at some seasons suf- ficient waterway for keeled boats drawing four feet. The destruction of the forests has reduced them to their present insignificance. During the first twenty years of Dayton's history a large amount of river commerce was carried on, upstream as far as St. Marys, and downstream to New Orleans. Therefore, in every record of that far-off time we find mention of these two characteristics, the rich earth and the three rivers, promising between them, abundant crops and a waterway to the markets of the world.
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The Conquest of the Miami Lands
As to the presence of Indians on the site of Dayton, and of skirmishes with them, abundant testimony exists. We read that they came in fleets of canoes down the rivers from their villages near the present site of Springfield, and, pitching camp at the mouth of Mad River, proceeded to lay in a winter's supply of venison and buffalo meat. In 1780, George Rogers Clarke led a company of Kentucky rangers up the Miami Valley against the Shawnees in revenge for bloody work done by them south of the Ohio River. Two . years later, he came again with one hundred picked men. The encounter in which they came off victors took place at the mouth of Mad River, the very site of Dayton. In 1787 occurred the terrible battle of Blue Licks, Kentucky, in which two-thirds of the fighting force of that State perished. In desperation, the settlers gathered their remnants together and under Clarke, Logan, and Patterson, came up the valley once more and held near Piqua, the severest engagement of the war. Their triumphant return, following an over- whelming victory, was right across the course of our present streets, the camp being pitched on the south bank of the river, near the spot where the gas works now stand.
Many famous warriors took part in this battle; Red Jacket, Big Corn, and Little Turtle. One was taken pris- oner. Their villages were wiped out. For a few years the Indians, busy in hunting and raising new crops, kept a par- tial peace ; but not for long. Benjamin Logan was the next leader to distinguish himself with the efficient help of Robert Patterson, who, in one skirmish, received a severe wound. Their expedition led straight up our valley. Com- ing back by way of Mad River, they found, on arriving at the mouth, a camp of Indians, which was routed and driven out of reach-this being the second skirmish on the site of Dayton. Indians had no false pride about running
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The Story of Dayton
away. Each time that they melted into the shadow of the woods or disappeared up the river, it was only to get fresh "wind" and weapons and begin all over again.
With such constant warfare, lasting from 1780 to 1795, there could be no thought of permanent settlements at Mad River or anywhere else. The deliverer from this state of affairs proved to be General Anthony Wayne, who, in June, 1794, met the largest force of Indians ever assembled for battle, and gained a decisive victory. The battle took place about one hundred miles north of us, and was the turning point in the whole history of western civilization. So sweep- ing and destructive was it that the Indians, recognizing at once the end of their cause, sued for peace. Both sides met at Greenville the next year and declared the war at an end. The Indians, by agreement, retired north of the Shelby County line, and Ohio was at last comparatively safe.
The Dayton plan had been waiting only upon permanent peace and that now being assured, steps were taken toward the actual settlement. A treaty was signed on July 30, 1795, and on August 6, just seven days later, and as soon as the news could travel to New Jersey, the contract between Symmes on the one part, and Dayton, Ludlow, Wilkinson, and St. Clair on the other, was duly subscribed to.
In September, two surveyors, named Cooper and Dun- lap, started from Cincinnati to break ground in the new town. Cooper was to cut away brush and make a trail up which the wagons could come. Dunlap was to run the boundaries of the purchase. On arriving at the mouth of Mad River, they found, as so many had before them, a camp of Indians, but the treaty was in force, and after the ex- change of a few presents, these remnants of the once power- ful tribes wandered harmlessly away. The Dunlap party remained a week, during which time it rained relentlessly, soaking all their possessions, so that the field notes had to
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The Conquest of the Miami Lands
be kept by scratching with a jackknife on a flat slab of wood. In November, Israel Ludlow came up and laid out the streets, naming one after himself, the others after his colleagues, adding Jefferson Street, to the east, because they were all good Federalists, and the town itself he called DAYTON.
Then, it being cold weather, all further arrangements for the settlement were suspended until spring.
5
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Cincinnati in 1796. From an old print. The bank of the Ohio where the Dayton pioneers set sail.
CHAPTER III. 1796.
The Real Settlement.
The Dayton settlers start from Cincinnati. The Land party and its adventures. The Water party and its difficulties. Ten days of travel and the destination reached. Dayton comes on the map.
In the last chapter we heard of the men who bought the land where our city now stands, and of the other men who protected it from the Indians. In this we shall know some- thing of the first real Daytonians, how they happened to come here, and how they prospered. I shall ask you to use your imaginations, because history must be read with a vision. All the truth cannot be put down in books.
Throughout the winter of 1795-96, preparations had been going on at Cincinnati for the new settlement. The promoters made good use of the waiting time by describing with enthusiasm the advantages of a home in Dayton. Tempting inducements were offered. Each householder was to have the gift of an "inlot" and an "outlot." meaning a town site for his home and ten acres outside the bounda- ries, for purposes of cultivation. He was also to be granted the privileges of buying one hundred and sixty acres in ad- dition, for the sum of a dollar and thirteen cents an acre, which plan has been since followed by the Federal Gov- ernment for the benefit of homesteaders. The contract obliged the settler to clear his land and build a cabin.
In November a lottery had been held by the surveying party, acting for others as well as for themselves, to divide the ground fairly. Forty-six men were found to have drawn lots. By spring however, this number had dwindled until in March only nineteen were really ready to make the start.
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The Story of Dayton
Counting wives and children, there were just thirty-six souls who became, in 1796, the actual settlers of Dayton.
Necessity divided the group into three parties, two to go by land and one by water. The first party consisted of ten persons, led by John Hamar, who made the journey in a two-horse wagon over the road cut by Cooper the fall be- fore. This is now the Cincinnati pike. In the other land party were George Newcom, his wife, and six other couples. A rather important member of this cavalcade, if we may credit the frequent mention of her in all the old histories, was a family cow belonging to Samuel Thompson, himself a member of the boat party. William Van Cleve drove the cow, and she paid her way in milk for the chil- dren night and morning.
The stores for the land parties were carried in creels, or baskets made of hickory withes, and swung on each side of the pack horses. In these receptacles were loaded the household treasures for the new home; bedding, skillets, tools, seed corn, provisions, a chair or two, clothing, and sometimes one might see, peeping out over the edge, the laughing face of the littlest child, put there to save the tired arms of the mother. The crossing of tributary creeks proved a problem met with not a few times between Cincin- nati and Dayton. If it were a small stream which obstructed the way, the men hewed down a large tree so that the trunk would fall across the current, and on this footbridge the women and children crossed dry shod. If, however, the stream were larger, a raft was made by cutting saplings, binding them together and poling the party across.
Owing to three armies which had passed over it and trodden down the earth, the road from Cincinnati to Fort Hamilton was found in fair condition; beyond Hamilton, however, there was not a wheel track, only the blazed trees and the clearing made by Cooper. Their first camp was made seven miles above Cincinnati, the second at Dunlap's Station, and the third at Hamilton. Every night the set- tlers built a fire of dry wood and cooked a wild goose for
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The Real Settlement
supper. Large flocks of ducks and geese were continually flying overhead and nests were found full of eggs in the rushes.
During this time the water party progressed slowly, experiencing, on the whole, a most laborious journey. The pirogue had been built on the river bank at the foot of Sycamore Street, Cincinnati. It started on March 21 with the Thompson's, the McClure's, Benjamin Van Cleve, and a dozen others on board. The first stage of the journey was in the manner of that so often taken by the immigrants
Coming up from Cincinnati in 1796.
from Pittsburgh, a mere floating with the current, as far at least as the mouth of the Miami River. This stage of the journey occupied the whole of the first day. Where the two rivers meet, a long peninsula was found to extend into the Ohio. Here the women and children went ashore and walked across, meeting the boat as it rounded the point.
Beyond the mouth of the river, it was no longer a question of letting the current do the work, but a forcing of the heavily-laden boat upstream by sheer muscular
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The Story of Dayton
strength. A running board extended the length of the pirogue, and upon this stood the men who worked the boat. While one steered, another shoved a stout pole into the bank or bottom of the stream, then, holding the other end to his shoulder, walked slowly from the prow to the stern, forcing the craft slowly against the current. Withdrawing the pole, he went back to the prow for a new "set," repeating this duty, hour after hour, while the boat crept at a snail's pace up the river. When shallows were met in the channel, a rope was attached to a tree on the bank. upstream, and all on board would take hold and pull, until the craft was even with the tree. Another tree being selected farther on, another loop of the rope was effected and another pull. Eight miles a day was a good run. Think of it the next time you come up from Cincinnati in an hour and twenty minutes on the Big Four train.
That sixty-mile journey required just ten days to cover, inch by inch, mile by mile. And did they enjoy it, we won- der? Was the river beautiful, with glassy reflections, as it is now, in calm reaches far from the city? Were pussy- willows just feathering out? Were thickets pink with red- bud and white with dogwood? We do not know, for the only account of the journey, that given by Benjamin Van Cleve, is chiefly concerned with the effort to reach their destination. But it was April, and that alone must have filled their hearts with hope and courage for whatever was before them.
The boat party was the first to arrive. Rounding the curve in the river, where for so many years since then it has been flowing under the Dayton View bridge, the pio- neers perceived before their eyes the swift current of Mad River emptying itself into the main channel, just as it had been described, and saying to each other (so we may imagine), "Yes, this must be the place," they tied the pirogue to a tree at the head of St. Clair Street and led by Mrs. Thompson, all clambered ashore.
At that moment DAYTON came on the map!
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The Real Settlement
It certainly bore small resemblance to the DAYTON we know, this forest wilderness of vines and shrubs, these groves of oak and beech and walnut. the rows of stately sycamores sweeping with their branches the surface of the water, and in the midst of it all, a handful of simple, pio- neer people looking gravely about. And what would the Thompson's and Newcom's have thought if. looking ahead a century and more. they could have seen the present vista of Main Street, the bridges, the cars, and Steele High School?
Whatever we may surmise about the doings of these first Daytonians, a shelter of some kind we may be sure was their first concern. Van Cleve tells us that they broke up the pirogue and with the lumber built a three-sided shack, open to the camp fire. This formed a partial shelter against wild animals and spring storms, from both of which there was instant need of protection. A day or so later, creeping up from the south, and threading the grassy clearing full of stumps and gullies which was one day to be Main Street. came the two wagon parties. Imagine how glad they all were to meet again : how the wagon people told the boat people about the creeks and the wild geese, how the boat people told the wagon people about the hard pull over the "riffles" at Franklin.
Then, of course, they all went to work. Not enough hours between dawn and sunset for all there was to do. Each day several big oaks or maples fell with a crash and were cut into lengths for cabin walls. The men worked to- gether, putting up each house in turn.
Round logs were fitted at the corners, enclosing one large room with a loft above, reached by means of pegs driven in the chinks. Not a nail was used, for the good reason that they had none. Wooden pins kept the door and win- dow frames in place. Floors were made by splitting logs lengthwise and laying the flat side up-puncheon floors, they were called. An opening six or eight feet square was left on one wall, and against this the chimney was built of
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TOWN OF DAYTON
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note - The streets running from the River run as 16.Z. and
PLAN OF THE
Original Plan of Dayton, as recorded in the Records of Hamilton County.
Israel Judlow.
for Don't C. Cooper
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Sec 33, T2, RI
Received on Recorded 28% April 1808
30
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plan of the Town of Theytan, os recorded in Deed
SEEMS CIAX O
Book ER, Pose 88, Hamilton County Records
I hereby certify that this map is a correct copy of the
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I hereby certy
Given under my hand this 27th day of April Noz
original plan of the Town of Dayton.
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and all are four poles wide, except those crossing in the Public
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The Real Settlement
flat stones from the river bottom, daubed with mud or clay. Houses made in this way were not handsome, but proved to be both warm in winter and cool in summer, much su- perior to the later dwellings built of clapboards.
With a roof over their heads, the next move of the pio- neers was towards a garden. As each man cleared his ground of trees and brush he sowed it with potatoes, corn, and beans. By midsummer of 1796, the clearing west of Wilkinson Street had been converted into a wide cornfield. cultivated by all the village, each family taking its share of the crops. The remainder of the cleared ground followed the present course of Monument Avenue along the river bank, the one row of cabins so placed that the owners would be able to see the boats passing up and down stream.
The boundaries of Dayton at that time were Monument Avenue on the north as far as the present course of the canal; on St. Clair south to Fifth, thence west to Jefferson, south to Sixth, west to Ludlow, north to Fifth, then to Wil- kinson and the river once more. But of all this, the meager group of cabins on the river bank constituted the only vis- ible proof that a town existed. Small wonder that strangers stopping at Newcom's Tavern to inquire how much farther it was to Dayton, had to be told that they had just passed through it !
Three gullies, running from north to south through the town site, added to the difficulty of making streets. In 1891, while digging for a sewer at Third and Main, the workmen uncovered, six or eight feet beneath the surface, a number of logs placed there in the early years of the last century to keep horses from sinking into the mud. Mud there was, you may be sure, and plenty of it-mud and stumps, tall weeds and pawpaw thickets, tangles of wild grapes, and five log cabins with blue smoke curling from their chimneys-that was Dayton in her birthday year of 1796.
W.COM.
Interior of Newcom Cabin (restored).
CHAPTER IV. 1793-1800.
A Pioneer Family.
If you were an early Dayton boy. The fireside and the din- ner table. Wild turkey, corn dodgers, hominy and sorghum, venison. How mother made things comfortable. The road to a loaf of bread.
A glance inside the old Newcom Tavern, now standing on the river bank at Van Cleve Park, will tell the story of how our pioneer ancestors lived. A big open fireplace, the feature of every pioneer home, was the gathering place of the family. It held on winter days a roaring fire of hickory logs, cleverly built so as to furnish light as well as lieat. The family cooking was done over this fire, and back-breaking. face-scorching work it must have been for the mother. Fortunately, not as many viands were re- quired then as now. A bowl of mush and milk or one of bominy and sorghum made a full meal for a hungry, pioneer boy. Dipped hot from a big iron kettle on a crane, such as hangs in the cabin to-day, it was a dish fit for an emperor.
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