Twentieth Century History of Findlay and Hancock County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, Part 4

Author: Jacob Anthony Kimmell
Publication date: 1910
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1189

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State of Ohio, the eastern part of the State of Indiana and the whole of Michigan, and it re- mamned as such until the admission of Ohio into the Union as a State in 1893. Then that portion of the so-called Wayne County in- cluded in the limits of the State of Ohio, was divided into various counties under the state government. The north portion of Ohio re- mained unorganized until February 12, 1820. Explorers and hunters had reported that the country was worthless from the fact that it would cost more to remove the heavy timber from the land than the latter would be worth after its removal, and that even after the tim- ber had been taken off the ground was too flat and wet for agriculture.

As has before been stated, the Ordinance of 1787 provided that whenever there should be 5,000 persons in the territory they should be entitled to a representative assembly. On Oc- tober 29, 1798, Governor St. Clair proclaimed that the population had reached the required number, and ordered an election for the third Monday in December. The representatives thus elected met in Cincinnati, January 22, 1799, and, under the provisions of the Ordi- nance, nominated ten persons, from whom the President should select five to constitute the Legislative Council. The persons chosen were: Jacob Burnet, James Finley, Henry Vander- burgh, Robert Oliver and David Vance. The Territorial Legislature again met at Cincin- nati on the 24th of September, when a great amount of business was done. They repealed some of the laws that were already in force, adopted others, created and filled new offices and devised various plans and methods for car- rying on the government of the new territory. The only lawyer in the body was Mr. Burnet, upon whom, by reason of his profession, a

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HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY

great amount of the work devolved. He seems citizens from settling there. The judiciary was to have acquitted himself well in the position in which he was thus placed. The whole number of acts passed and approved by the governor was thirty-seven. It is worthy of note that a bill authorizing a lottery was passed by the Council but rejected by the Legislature.

Among other duties which devolved on this session of the Legislature was the election of a delegate to Congress. The choice fell upon William Henry Harrison, the secretary of the territory at that time. He at once resigned his office and proceeded to Philadelphia to take his seat in Congress which was then in session. He was successful in obtaining many important advantages for his constituents, among others a measure subdividing the surveys of the pub- lic lands and permitting them to be sold in smaller tracts, thus making it possible for them to be purchased by individuals without first coming into the hands of speculators.

At this first session of the Legislature Gov- ernor St. Clair saw fit to veto eleven acts which were passed by it. The greater part of them related to formation of new counties, a right which the governor claimed was vested in him alone. The attitude of the governor served to increase his unpopularity with the people, whose confidence he seems to have lost, in large measure, after his disastrous defeat at the hands of the Indians.

In the year 1800 Congress took up the matter of dividing the Northwest Territory into two parts. The great extent of the terri- tory rendered extremely difficult and unsatis- factory the operations of the government. By reason of the loose administration of justice in its western part, that portion had become a rendezvous for criminals of various character, with the consequent effect of deterring better

likewise wholly inefficient as regarded civil cases. The far western frontier, being at such a great distance from the seat of both the national and territorial governments, could neither feel for them the attachment or fear their restraint to the extent that a closer rela- tion would establish. In consequence, on the 7th of May an act was passed dividing the ter- ritory, the line of division being "a line be- ginning at the Ohio, opposite to the mouth of the Kentucky River, and running thence to Fort Recovery, and thence north until it inter- sects the territorial line between the United States and Canada." The same form of gov- ernment was provided for the new territory as prevailed in the old. Chillicothe was made the seat of government for the old territory and St. Clair retained as governor, while St. Vin- cent's on the Wabash River, was made the capital of the "Indiana Territory," and William Henry Harrison appointed its governor.

ORGANIZATION OF THE STATE OF OHIO.

The second session of the General Assembly was held at Chillicothe in 1801. Governor St. Clair had, meanwhile, been growing more and more unpopular. The abuse heaped on the governor and the Legislature at Chillicothe be- came so great that they decided to remove the capital from that place to Cincinnati. Out of this agitation, however, and the general discon- tent with the governor, there had been rapidly arising a general sentiment in favor of the for- mation of a State government. This sentiment was in a minority, however, so far as the Gen- eral Assembly was concerned. A measure was introduced there proposing that the Ordinance of 1787 be so changed that the Scioto River, together with a line drawn from its intersec-

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HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY

tion with the Indian boundary to the western extremity of the Reserve, should be the western limit of the most eastern State to be formed out of the territory. To protest against this proposition the minority sent Thomas Worthington to Washington. While he was on his way a resolution introduced into the Legislature for choosing a committee to address Congress with regard to the proposed state was defeated. A further attempt pro- viding for taking the census of the territory was postponed by the Council.

Worthington, however, was successful in his mission to Congress, and on the 30th of April that body authorized the calling of a state con- vention for the purpose of forming a consti- tution, provided it was found expedient. "The act of Congress, providing for the admission of the new state into the Union, offered certain propositions to the people. These were, first, that Section Sixteen in each township, or, where that section had been disposed of, other contiguous and equivalent lands, should be granted to the inhabitants for the use of schools; second, that thirty-eight sections of land, where salt springs had been found, of which one township was situated on the Scioto, one section on the Muskingum, and one section in the United States Military Tract, should be granted to the state, never to be sold or leased, however, for a longer term than ten years; and third, that one twentieth of the proceeds of the public lands sold within the state, should be ap- plied to the construction of roads from the At- lantic, to and through the same." These prop- ositions were offered on the condition that the convention should provide, by ordinance, that all lands sold by the United States after the 30th day of June, 1802, should be exempt from taxation by the state for five years after sale.

The convention met at Chillicothe on the Ist day of November, 1802. While it believed the consideration offered to the state hardly suf- ficient for the tax exemption required, it de- cided to accept the conditions of Congress, pro- viding their propositions should be sufficiently enlarged "so as to vest in the state, for the use of schools, Section Sixteen in each township sold by the United States, and three other tracts of land, equal in quantity, respectively, to one thirty-sixth of the Virginia Reservation, of the United States Military Tract, and of the Connecticut Reserve, and to give three per centum of the proceeds of the public lands sold within the state, to be applied under the direc- tion of the Legislature, to roads in Ohio." Congress acceded to this modification and there was thus nothing to prevent the forma- tion of the new state.

The time for the meeting of the General As- sembly came while the constitutional conven- tion was in session, but, owing to the probabil- ity that the territorial government would so soon be superseded by that of the state, they deferred meeting. On the 29th of November the convention having framed a constitution and completed its labors, adjourned. The con- stitution, though never submitted to the peo- ple, was submitted to Congress and accepted by that body, and an act passed admitting Ohio to the Union, February 19, 1803. The consti- tution framed by this convention continued in force until the adoption, in 1851, of the present one. The territorial government ended and the state government began on March 1, 1803.

By the new constitution it was provided that the first elections under the new government should be held the second Tuesday of January, 1803. Accordingly at that time Edward Tiffin was chosen governor and Jeremiah Morrow

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HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY

sent to Congress. A General Assembly was 20, 1798; Clermont, Fairfield and Trumbull, also elected, which met on March 3rd and December 9, 1800; Belmont, September 7, chose the following officers: Michael Baldwin, 1801. Eight additional counties were created by the Assembly at its first session, viz .: Gallia, Scioto, Butler, Warren, Greene, Montgomery, Franklin and Columbiana. speaker of the House, and Nathaniel Massie of the Senate; William Creighton, Jr., secre- tary of state; Colonel Thomas Gibson, audi- tor; William McFarland, treasurer; Return J. The seat of government was first located at Chillicothe. In the year 1810 an act was passed changing its location to Zanesville, but at the next session of the General Assembly it was again taken back to Chillicothe, and com- missioners appointed to determine upon a def- inite location. It is said that they first reported in favor of Dublin, a small town on the Scioto about fourteen miles above Columbus. At the session of the Assembly of 1813-14, however, the proposal of parties owning the site of Co- lumbus was accepted and in 1816, the first meeting of the Assembly was held there. Meigs, Jr., Samuel Huntington and William Spriggs, judges of the Supreme Court; Fran- cis Dunlevy, Wyllys Silliman and Calvin Pease, president judges of the First, Second and Third Districts, and Thomas Worthington and John Smith, United States Senators. The As- sembly also passed such laws as were necessary. Up to the time of the adoption of the state con- stitution there had been organized the follow- ing counties: Washington, July 27, 1788; Hamilton, January 2, 1790; Adams, July 10, 1797: Jefferson, July 29, 1797; Ross, August

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.CHAPTER II.

THE ABORIGINES.

Prehistoric Races-Pre-Glacial Man-The Mound Builders-The Red Race.

Hancock County may have been the figure; for while they are almost unknown home of man before the glacial period. There seems to be evidence, at least, that Ohio was occupied by human beings prior to this great geological epoch. Paleoliths have been found in the Little Miami Val- ley similar and under similar conditions to those unearthed by Dr. Abbott in the glacial terraces of the Delaware River. As to whether pre-glacial man ever had a home in Hancock County, however, in our present state of knowledge, could be noth- ing more than a matter of profitless specu- lation.

That the Mound-Builder lived here there is abundant evidence. The State of Ohio itself, from the standpoint of pre-his- toric occupation, is one of the most inter- esting portions of the entire globe. In no other equal area have so many of the Mound-Builder's works, consisting of for- tifications, effigies, mounds, etc., been found. On this point we quote from the recent work of Gerard Fowke on the "Archeological History of Ohio." "The total number of mounds in Ohio has been estimated at ten thousand. This is prob- ably under rather than over the correct

in the northwestern counties and are com- paratively scarce in some parts of the rugged hill lands of the south and south- east and along the main watersheds, there is scarcely a township in any other part where they are not found. In the neigh- borhood of every stream in the southern half of the State, except some of those flowing through rough or swampy country, the surface is so dotted with them that sig- nals could be transmitted from one to another for a hundred miles or more. There is scarcely a point along the Scioto below Circleville, or on either Miami in the lower half of its course, or in the valley of any tributary to these streams, where one may not be within a few minutes' ride of some permanent evidence of aboriginal habitation. The same is true of the Cuya- hoga and some other rivers belonging to the Lake Erie basin. On the summits of steep hills; in bottom lands subject to over- flow, on every terrace bordering a stream; on plateaus and uplands; wherever there is cultivable or naturally drained land, a good point of observation, an ample supply of water, a convenient topography for

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trails-the Mound-Builder has left his Township; one on Section 21, Liberty mark. Even in places where it would Township, and one on Section II in Dela- seem a nomad would not care to go, ex- cept as led by excitement or the necessities of the chase, and then for as brief a time as possible, such evidence is not lacking of pre-historic residence, or, at least, sojourn- ing." ware Township. This list has heretofore been published in papers and histories but in addition to this list, there is a very dis- tinct mound still in existence on Section 18, Allen Township; and taking the Archaeological Society as authority (vol. "The most notable mounds in the State are: The Serpent Mound, in Adams County, which is more than a thousand feet in length; Fort Ancient, in Warren County, the length of whose surrounding embankment is about five miles, and esti- mated to contain 628,800 cubic yards of material; Fort Hill, in Highland County, enclosing an area of thirty-five acres; Graded Way, in Pike County; and fortifi- cations at Newark covering over a thou- sand acres. The largest mound in the State, at Miamisburg, is sixty-eight feet in height and 800 feet in circumference at the base." 5, p. 272), there are two mounds in Blanch- ard Township and one in Pleasant. Those in Orange and Union Townships were opened by William M. Mckinley and La Fayette Ballard, who found human re- mains in each mound, also flint arrow heads and other implements of stone, some of which are in the possession of the Mckinleys. No doubt many more mounds existed in other townships of Hancock County, which the plow has long ago oblit- erated. Numerous evidence of this strange people cannot be looked for here, but that they once inhabited the valley of the Blanchard is beyond all doubt.

While Hancock County possesses none of these more important of the works of the Mound-Builders, and while there is nothing characteristic in the mounds and earthworks found in the county to distin- guish them from those in many other parts of the State, yet there are many interesting evidences that these people once lived within the limits of the county.

The tumuli in this part of the state were each about five feet high and thirty feet in diameter, and upon being opened exhibited the same evidence of construction and con- tents as previously stated. Three of these mounds were located northeast of Can- nonsburg in Union Township; two on Sec- tion II, and one on Section 13, in Orange

The Mound-Builders have long since passed away. Aside from the earthworks which they constructed and the relics found within them, no source of information remains to us by which to determine anything as to their char- acter, history or fate. Even the Indians them- selves had practically no traditions concerning them. All the research and investigation that has been made has led to no definite or reliable conclusions. Theories have been propounded only to be discredited by later discoveries. Whether the Mound-Builders were a race dis- tinct in themselves, ultimately conquered and exterminated by the Indians, or whether they were simply the progenitors of the Indian tribes, are questions which remain unanswered and are destined, perhaps, always to be so.

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HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY

THE RED RACE.

Of the successors to the Mound-Builders, however, considerably more is known. Indeed it has not been much over a hundred years since the only residents of Hancock County were the red men, and a hundred years is a period comparatively brief when we consider the length of time that has elapsed since the date where historical knowledge begins. It is scarcely correct, however, to speak of the Red Men as residents. The term implies a more permanent attachment to a locality than could be attributed to them. With their nomadic habits, they were not long confined to a single place, and we find the various tribes wander- ing over widely extended areas.

When the white man first came to the Ohio Valley he found a number of tribes inhabiting the Northwest Territory, among them the Del- awares, Shawnees, Miamis, Mingoes, Munsees, Wyandots, Senecas, and perhaps others.

The Delawares took their name from the Delaware River on the banks of which they were located when first discovered by the Eu- ropeans, and which, in turn, took its name from Lord De la Warre, who first explored it. Their real name, however, was Lenni Lenape. Ac- cording to the traditions of the Lenni Lenape, their organization antedated that of most of the other Indian tribes, also that they had once occupied the western part of the country, but, crossing the Mississippi, had gradually moved eastward until they had taken up a more per- manent abode on the river which gave them their English name. In the course of their mi- gration eastward they had exterminated the Allegans who occupied the principal ranges of the Allegheny Mountains. They had formed an alliance with the Iroquois by whom they

were afterward subdued and reduced to "women." Whatever truth there may have been in their traditions, however, when the European settler came, they were found on the banks of the Delaware.

William Penn met them in friendly inter- course and negotiated with them a treaty by which he bought their lands, and by which both parties agreed that the same moral law should apply to both races alike. This treaty was kept unbroken by the Delawares for sixty years. So favorable was the impression made upon them by Penn's fairness that the name "Quaker" came, with them, to be synonymous with "good men."

At the time of the treaty with Penn, how- ever, or shortly afterwards, the Delawares were brought into subjection to the Iroquois. At the Lancaster treaty in 1744, in the pres- ence of a large assembly of tribes, the Iroquois denied the right of the Delawares to sell their lands. "Canassatego, an Iroquois chief, up- braided them in public council for some former act of this kind. Speaking in a strain of mixed irony and arrogance, he told them not to reply to his words but to leave the council in silence. He peremptorily ordered them to quit the sec- tion of the country where they then resided and to move to the banks of the Susquehanna." Accordingly, the Delawares, cowed into sub- mission, left the banks of the Delaware where their home had been for many years and turned to the West, from which, according to their traditions, they had formerly come. It is said that at the opening of the Revolution the Del- awares shook off the Iroquois yoke and that, a few years later, at a public council, the Iroquois admitted that they were "no longer women."

About 1650 the Eries held full sway of the northern portion of what is now Ohio. They

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HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY

lived along the southern border of the lake wares, Senecas, Pottawotomies and Chippe- which bears their name, but being conquered was, and all lands in this state remaining in possession of the Indians were ceded to the by the Iroquois five years later, most of them . United States. Certain reservations were set aside by this treaty for the use of the several Indian tribes, to which large additions were made by a treaty concluded at St. Mary's, Ohio, with the Wyandots, Senecas, Shawnees and Ottawas, September 17, 1819.

fell on the field of battle, while the remainder became incorporated with other tribes, and drifted southward and westward. In the early part of the seventeenth century the Shawnees were living along the Ohio Valley, but they were dispersed by the Iroquois, and dispos- sessed of their happy and prolific hunting grounds. For many years before and after the year 1700 this entire wilderness was inhab- ited by the remnants of defeated tribes, who were permitted to remain through the leniency of their conquerers.

In 1750, however, we find something like permanent occupation in northwest and other portions of what is now Ohio, by the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, Miamis, Munsees, Ottawas and Mingoes. The Wyan- dots then inhabited the valley of the Sandusky River and its tributaries, and dwelt around Sandusky Bay, and streams flowing into the lake. The Delawares and Munsees occupied the Muskingum Valley. The Shawnees lived along the Scioto, from the Ohio to the Scioto marsh, and also had a few scattering towns along the Miami and Mad Rivers. The Mi- amis occupied the territory drained by the head waters of the Maumee, Wabash and Great Miami Rivers, from the Loramie portage to Ft. Wayne and down the Maumee Valley. The Ottawas were scattered along the lower Blanchard, Auglaize and Maumee Rivers, and around the western end of Lake Erie, while the Mingoes were settled in the eastern and northeastern portion of the state.

On the 29th of September, 1817, a treaty was made at the foot of the Maumee Rapids, with the Wyandots, Ottawas, Shawnees, Dela-

The Wyandot reservation embraced a tract of twelve miles square near Upper Sandusky, Ohio; one mile square on Broken Sword Creek; 55,680 acres lying on the north and east of Upper Sandusky Reserve, and 16,000 acres surrounding the Big Spring at the end of the marsh, in what is now the southwest corner of Seneca County and the line into Big Lick Township, Hancock County, the last men- tioned tract being for the use of the Wyandots residing at Solomon's Town on the Blanchards fork. The reservations located in Logan, Au- glaize, Seneca, Hancock and Sandusky Coun- ties were purchased from the Indians in 1831. In March, 1842, the Wyandots ceded their land to the government. The territory em- braced in Hancock County lay between the In- dian towns in what is now Seneca and Wyan- dot counties, and those located on the Blanch- ard, Auglaize, and Maumee Rivers. It was a portion of the hunting grounds of the Wyan- dots and Ottawas, the former of whom had a small village on the site of Findlay, and culti- vated corn along the river within the present limits of the city. Howe, in his "Historical Collections," speaking of the settlement of Wil- son Vance at Fort Findlay, in 1821, says : "There were then some ten or fifteen Wyandot families in the place, who had made improve- ments. They were a temperate, fine-looking people, and friendly to the first settlers." How-

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HISTORY OF HANCOCK COUNTY

ever, some histories and authorities have since place, there may have been a battle of some refuted this statement. As a tribe they were practically all gone in 1818, but for years after, scattering remnants were still located in Han- cock County.

According to tradition there were two In- dian villages in this county, and both were lo- cated on the banks of the Blanchard. In 1815, there were eight or ten families of friendly Wyandots living around and in the blockhouses of Fort Findlay. They tilled two fields, one above and the other below the fort, on the south bank of the Blanchard. Kuqua was the chief, and one of his sons, Tree-top-in-the- Water, died in a cabin west of the fort before the Indians removed to the Big Spring reser- vation. Six or seven miles down the river, the Wyandots had another village, called Indian Green. This was a clearing about twelve acres square, which had apparently been under cul- tivation, since an orchard of plum trees was found near the part of the clearing occupied by the graveyard. It has been claimed that earthworks ran along the brows of the hill overlooking the river, but recent investigation does not fully bear out this statement. A man by the name of Ellison settled on the clearing and was found out to have robbed the dead braves of their jewels, which were to have given them the means of purchasing a clear title to their share of plunder in the Happy Hunting Grounds. The Indians, who kept a close watch on the dead, soon discovered his meddling and made it expedient for the man to leave the county immediately. From va- rious relics which have been discovered at this

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Twentieth Century History of Findlay and Hancock County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, Part 4

Author: Jacob Anthony Kimmell Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1189

Author: Jacob Anthony Kimmell
Publication date: 1910
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1189