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1190769
GENEALOGY
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f\ C h / ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBR*
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3 1833 02399 0648
STATE CENTENNIAL
HISTORY OF OHIO
Covering the Periods of Indian, French and British
Dominion, the Territory Northwest, and the
Hundred Years of Statehood
By ROWLAND H. RER1CK
Author of Chronological Chart of the United States and Ohio; a History
of Florida, etc.
MADISON, WIS.
NORTHWESTERN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
I902
Copyright, 1002,
Selwyn A. Brant,
MADISON, wis.
PREFACE
1 130769
The object of this work is to present in narrative form the princi-
pal facts attending the growth of the State of Ohio, from its organi-
zation until the close of the first century following the adoption of
the Constitution. Introductory to the record of the Hundred Years,
several chapters are devoted to the earlier events that affected the
people formerly living in Ohio and created the conditions that made
possible the founding of an American State. The era of territorial
government is also given such attention as its importance demands.
Altogether, the volume covers an historical period of about four cen-
turies.
In the preparation of this volume recourse has been had to a great
many general and local histories and biographical collections relating
exclusively to Ohio, and the publications of historical societies and
official documents. Besides, information upon various subjects has
been sought in other publications of a more general scope. The
extent of this research is partly indicated in the foot-notes, but
many authorities that have been referred to are not so mentioned, for
want of space. It may be said that there is hardly a page in the
book that is not the result of comparison of several authorities. Spe-
cial indebtedness is acknowledged to those excellent abstracts of
official records, William A. Taylor's "Annals of Progress," and
"Ohio in ( !ongress."
Throughout the work it will be found that there has been included
sketches or biographical mention of the governors of the Stale,
United Slates senators, the presidents and great generals she has
given the Republic, the most eminent jurists ami statesmen, and
others famous in different careers, with the object of showing the
characters of the men who gave Ohio prominence and affording illus-
trious example and patriotic inspiration. These notices of promi-
nent men have been woven into the narrative, where they belong, and
are necessarily brief, but it has been sought, in every case, to pre-
sent the essential facts of the individual careers.
The political history of the State has not been avoided. The aim
of the author was to describe fairly and impartially those politi-
cal differences that have occupied so large a part of the thought of
the people of the State from the days of the Northwest Territory.
Without imposing any judgments upon the reader, the purpose has
been to present the main features of these political conflicts, the opin-
ions of the leaders, the names of the candidates for high office, and the
vote of the people.
CHAPTERS
The Axciext Domaix .
The Wak Aeouxd the Woeld
The Bbitish Ixdiax Eeseeye
Ohio ix the Eevoixtiox
The Northwest Teeeitoey
The Coxqitest of Ohio
3 lTE .
- - . ATEHOOD .
Wab axi> Haed Times .
- ' !aXAXS
"Befoke the Wab"
The Wae fob the Uxiox
The Twexty Yeaes aftek Appomattox
The Recext P . .
16
36
'_
Bl
101
122
147
168
- :
3 3JI
INDEX.
Note.— It lias not been deemed practical t.
and places in this work. The reader, in part
periods, under which names would fall.
Adams count v. 152.
Admission of State, 172.
Agriculture, :;s:t. 419.
Aid societies, 356.
Albany Congress, 49.
Algonquin Indian familv. 22-25.
Allegewi. conquest of, 22.
Allen. William. 259. 202. 2115. 208. 290
governor, 372-1 j 377.
Ames, Fisher, 144.
Amiueu. Daniel. 357.
Ammen, David, 241.
292. 302.
Antietam battle. 332.
Antiquities. 18-21.
Apples ] .lolmnv. ISO.
Appomattox, 354.
Arbitration, board of, 408.
Ashe, Thomas, travels. 179
Ashtabula disaster, 376.
Askins land claims, 109, 149.
Athens university, 220, 239.
Atlanta campaign, 351.
Atwater, Caleb. 181. Is::. 1S7 231 "3" "3S
Australian ballot, 404.
Bird, Henry, expedition. 91.
Birney. .lames (;.. 243 270.
Bishop, R. M., 3S0.
Black Hawk war, 249.
Black Laws. 212. 2so. 2Ss 2
Blaine. .lames G. 377.
Blennerhassett. Harmon. 1S2
.-.S3
Brad. lock's defeat. 50.
Bradstivet. Col. .lolin, invasion of Ohio, 63.
Brant. Joseph, chief, 82, 95, 108, 126, 130,
Bric'e.' Calvin S . 102.
Briggs, Caleb. 266.
Brinkerhoff, .la, 289, 301, 370.
British posts in Northwest. Ins, 129. 149.
Brodhead's raid. 94.
Brongh, John. 271, 27
360.
Brown. Ethan Allen. 220. 227. 230-1, 241.
— John. 245, 302. 305.
339. 346, 348. 350.
Cha
V.. 37
Backswoodsmen of Ohio
Bacon, Delia, 1S1.
Bacon, Leonard, 181. 26
Bally, Francis. 148.
Baldwin, Michael, 152
Bank riots. 229. 279
valley, 07.
161, 165. 173.
dependent treasury, 31
221, 224. 227. 229.
9. 297. 348: Bank
banking, 297 ; in-
85, .".25. 534. 335.
: second battle. 530.
54, 155. 167. 234, 240.
il.lu.
W. B..
''ami 11. Alexander. 191. 259
Campbell, .lanies !■:.. 599. 403. 401. 406. 408
Campbell. John YV\. 240, 259.
Campbell. 1.,. wi s p.. o s; , ; ;.,„_ 373
Campmeetings, ISO.
''''i'v' 1 - 1 '.,',. 1 -" 1 s lnvasion . 208; rebellion of,
Canals, pioneers of. 195. 223. 227; legisla-
tion. 230. 23.1. 252. 25.4 5; ,,,„,,! .-..mmis
sinners, 250: work begun. 257: canal svs
terns. 255. 251 2 : .'anal bonds. 23.0 : build-
ing of. 278.
Capital commission. 191.
Capitol, see Statehouse.
Captives, surrender to Bouquet. 65.
Carnitix Ferry, battle. 524.
Carolina campaign. 554.
Carcington, Henry B., 318, .".19.
Ill
Carv. Alice and Phoebe, 307. Constitutional convent!.,
Carv. Samuel I\. :'.74. .".77. | convention ol L850,
Cass Lewis, 190, 201, 203, 206, 212, 210. 1673 372
.,.-,, o-. 4 ., s , ( oQR k.\ Jay. ..,1. ,...s.
Cedar Monntain'battie. 33n. Cooper, Daniel C. ,190.
(.VI.. nm. ,N,,.,liti..n ..n Ohio. 4o 41 : rani on ( ..run Henry C. 41,.
I'irkawill'uiv 4..-6 Corinth, battle. .;.;..
Cen'nV. .n't 'ir.4: „f 1 1..'..: »f 1»»". Crnstalk. chief. "
178; of isir -'■
■-'17
... of IS'JM. 112b . of L830,
'277 : of 1850, 291 ; of 1860,
368; of 1880, 383; of L890,
L876! 375 ; of Ohio settle- |
urder of.
275, 280,
Cent
Cession' to Great Britain, 59
Britain. 101.
Chaffee. Adna R.. 416.
Chan. ell.. rsville. battle. ?,4o.
Charities, state board. 3Go.
Chase. Philander. 2:
('].:.
aon P., 114.
246, Z80, 289, 290,
314.
::;. 24. 33, 6S, 70,
Chicau'.. exposition. 407.
Cliiekaniauaa. battle. :'.4T..
Chilli,. .th.- i Indian!. 79.
Chilli. ■■.the. settlement. :
capital, 158, 165, 178, 1
195.
Cholera. 250. 291.
Christina-, nrsi ..l.servane.
Cincinnati, founding .f.
; party.
181, 187,
B. R.. 350.
I'.dw in, 358.
H. 314, 320. 324-5, 331, 342. 37.2
Villiaiu
Sanduskj
expedi-
n. 152.
45. 74-
173. 193.
\ 80.
42-44, 4b
52,
54
lliain.
2. :'.C.
le. ::24
213-14.
354, 351,
357.
"in'
;:.7. 376.
170. 232,
112. 113,
238
111
-IS
>3. 230. 233, 235, 237,
building, 27..
117: charter,
ecent develop-
25, 34, 39, 44. 4b. 50,
I lePeyster. Goyerno
I leQiiin.lie's expedi
I'evol. Jonathan. 1
I lick. -us. Charles. 2
Iiisney. David T.. 2
I ion tester,
Doughty, Maj.
127
133, 139.
17::. 191, 234.
Con
of the ordlnan, f 1787, 115-
bums |n . (hio, 36, 69 ; cessions
Conned icul . c
to D. S.. 93, in,.
Conolly. Dr. John 74, 77. 78 82 110.
Constitution nf 1mi2. Hill : of lsr.l. 2b4.
Coiistitiitioiial amendments, 0. S., 366.
:ilis. Sell. 11.. 423.
Cnab'Hng act. 163
Erie Indians in Ohio,
165, 176
us. i:;o.
:;•!( :;!i.-.. :;■.... .;■,;
Industry, 196.
Jefferson, 131.
[.iiinvns. Ss •!
mil battle of, 210-12 :
7: battle of. 141.
Goshorn, A. T.. 36S. 376.
Granger, Gordon, 344.
Granger, Robert S., 352.
Cram, riys-.-s s.. L'vu. 2s5. ::2". 320. ;;:;-.
:'.::ii-tn. 354 7. 307. 37o. 3*3, 390.
Cray. Elisba, 375.
Grayson, William, 106.
ClV.lthollSe IH.-l-M.I-,.. 75~6.
Ct-.tiw 1. Miles. 319.
Griffin, Charles, 354.
<:ris\v..]il. Stanley. IIU.
<;r...-si,,..-k w. s.. ::u2. 314. 305, 370.
Crosveiior. c II . :•.:.::. 111.
Cmlford. Naihaii. 220. 232. 23S.
Hall. Charles r. 34S.
Halstead, Mnnt. 358
Hamer, Thomas I... 259, 280, 285 6
Hamilton, Henry, 83 84, 87, 88.
Hamilton comity. 127. 154.
Hammond. Charles. Hill. 229. 230, 241. 244.
Hanna, Marcus A.. 410-11.
Harrison, Beniamin. 398.
Harrison William Ileiirv. 132. 142. 140, 153.
155. 15s. 1S4. 1H7 I. Ii. 2110 enmiiaian in
Ohio, 2n7 19, 220, 229, 230 231, 235 240
Wesl
145.
f St.
Lawrence. 27
s. 2s
"." . domain ir
The
is. 34 4ii: claim
colonies, 48 :
villi
•r of Ohio, 54
9. 28S.
1 10.
2H2. 304.
lisfor-
fiallagber. XV. D.. 271, 307 32
Gallia county, 174.
Calliliolis. selllemenr. 12s
tunes. 139.
Calloway. Samuel. 300.
Carlo -hi. .lames A,, 2sl. :;l ). 210 ;;■■;, ,;
327. 335, 343 5. 354, 378, 383, 384 6,
Cat.ii'. Philip, 148.
C.-.iL-ni|,li..|'s lin... In7
C ..L'ical liisto.v. is
C.'..|..L-ical survey. 30s.
Centum pione,.rs in .Xni.-ri. a i;s
Cerv.iise. .lean C . 14H.
Cetiysl.nri:. battle. 5iu,
Gibson, John. 76
cii.s,.,,. \\- i| 399
Ciilill'ifs Joslnta K.. 20S "43 "70 074
279. 289, 292, 294. 300 i. 304. " " '
uel. 10,5, ISO. 192.
390
sT '107.
73 removal of. 22:1,
uta.tin.n-. 2si 2. 3ns. :;s::. 4211.
Indian lanii \ . 22 25 ; Confedera-
■7 - war will. French. 2S ::n. :;5 :
-1 of "hi... 29. :::: 37 : treaties with
colonies. 36, 38, in. 17. 49. 54. 05
in l'ontiac's war. 59 . league w Itn
Willi:
L2
.lav. John. 109.
Jays treaty, 138, 144.
Jefferson county. 154.
Lotteries.
LllllgllrPV
I.ouis. I'll
Jls. 250. 260 2.
Julius. in. Sir Willian
68. 82.
Johnson. Tom L..
50, 52, 56, 65,
K:nu -:i- well. SOS.
Kantz. August v.. :i:.l. 254.
Keifer. J. W . 351. 354. SM. 410.
K.-kionga. 129.
Kelly. Alfred. 2S2. 23b. 272. 2-::.
Kcnnan. lieorge, 400.
Kennedy. Hubert P.. _395.
Kenton, Simon. 70. 77. s7. 120. 25o.
Kentucky, purchase ,>f, ti'.i : settlement .if.
s5 wars with Ohio Indians. Ml 7 : so 01.
10S, 120: campaigns ilsi',1 or, i. S2S. :;::2.
Ki'nyi-tl college. 220.
Kemstown, battle, 328.
McArthur. Hun. an. ISO. 170, 1S1. 101. 193,
2.11 is. 232 .".. 24s.
Meridian, il w I!., s.ls 21. .-,29, SS2, 553.
McClelland. i:.,licii. i::o.
McCook. Alexander MoD.. S17. 326, SS4.
336, 346.
Mai. Daniel, 342.
lien. Daniel. 3 52.
Edward. 345.
lieorge YV.. 2s5. S17. 367, 369.
Robert L., 326.
M.Cormick. Francis. 14S.
McDowell, battle. 2.2s.
McDowell, Irvin. 2*5, sis, 325.
McDonald. Angus, raid in Ohio. 77.
McDonald John, 132.
M. Dmgall. John. 201.
iah. 190.
Kirtland. .1 P 266
Knox county, lss
Kossuth's visit. 200.
Lafayette at Cincinnati. 23
Lake Krie exploration and i
trade on. 34.
Land - illation I is:;
LaSalle and his explo
Lawrence. William. 2
Lawton, Henry W.. 41
Lawyers of Ohio. 271.
Leatherwood God. 25i
I.eavitt. II. II. . 250. 3
Lebanon, Is.
Leggett. M. P.. 339. :
Licking coiintv. lss
Lima oil field. 393.
Lincoln. Abraham, as-ai-sinat i
Little Turtle. 13(1. Dili. 139. 1
Locke I 'avi.l R . 359.
Logan. . hlef. 75 : his revenge
ti.ms. 30 33.
i. 277.
McLene,
McMillan. Willi;
McPherson, James i: . 339, 351 2
Maguaga. battle of, 204.
Malum case, 269.
Malarial fevers. 195. 234.
Malarrie, Count de. 12,0. 140.
Maiden, capture of, 217.
Manchester settlement, 131.
Mansfield. Edward D. 204. 200. 271. s:
Manufactures. 12s, 131, 105 0.
SOL 401, 410.
Marietta, settlement of. 119: in lsn... 177
•Martha Washington" case. -JOS.
Massic, Nathaniel. 120. i::i. i::o. 1 17. 152.
155, 161, 162, 105. 173. 175. L82, lss.
1st. ISO, 190.
Mather. Win. W.. 207.
Matthews. Stanley. Sot. 342, 3.79. 3s 1
Mar.mee Indians. 34. 2,n. St. 30 37. 39 10.
66, 143.
Maumee valley, Indian homes. 141 : fort
i Kekionga i. 37. 39 40 : council. 136 :
I'.ritish fort. 142.: settlement. 190: cam-
paign ilM2 IS i. 2110.
Maxwell code, 151
Medill, William. 204. 295. 20s. s.ul
.Meigs, fief urn J., jr.. 150. 152. 155. 104,
173. 170. 1ST. 1911 : governor, 192 219.
Meigs. Ileturn J., sr.. 119.
Mei-s ,ty raid. 321.
Meilv. L. M . 381
Melish. John, travels. 195.
Mendeiihall. T. C ::os
Mexican war. 283 7
Miami Indians, see Manmec.
Mian
Mia
vail.
Indl
260.
Militia, first
1864, 350.
history, 39 40 ;
I860, 305 in
Miller
John, 201.
Milliken, Minor.
■.wi-
Mingo
E. .It. .Ills,
es, 97.
Ming..
Mil. h
330. 335
Missi.
til... 347.
Miss., .,11 ...in,... .Ill.s... ...'..I.
Monej in 1815, 221.
Monroe. James. Ill: visit to Ohio. 226.
Monterey, battle of, 285.
Montgomery county. 174.
M.. in. .in. Andrew. 42.
Moravians in Ohio, 52. 50. 70. 70. 82, 83;
removal from Muskingum valley. 04: mas-
sacre at Gnadenhuttcn, '.if.; later history.
07, 21S. 235.
Morgan. C..1. George. *3, s 0.
Morgan, George \V., 2M. 2sd. ::.".o. 301. :;05.
370.
Morgans' Ohio raid, 341.
Mormon eluirch in Ohio, 257.
Morris. Thomas. ion. 250. 200 70. 270. 2S1.
Morrow, .lei-eiuiah. 152. 105. 17::. 195. 2::...
233, 241. 275.
Moiin.ll.iiililers. 1S-21. 23.
Municipal laws. 403-4.
Muskingum, origin of name, 42.
Nash. II w K„ 418.
Nash. William II.. 417.
Nashville, r.attle. 352.
National Guard, 381. 417.
National Road. 193, 233, 236-7, 254.
Natural gas. 392.
Neal. .lames E., 406.
Neal. Lawrence T_. 390, 400, 407.
Netawatwes, 58. 71, 82.
New Departnre. the. 369.
New- England government, peculiarities
D. S„ 92.
Newherrv. John S.. 307, 36
Newspaper, first. 138.
Noble county •■rebellion.- 3:
North Rend, settlement, 12
Northwest Territory, enac
ginning of government.
157 58.
November elections. 394.
Noyes. E. l-\, 547, 500-72.
obeilin, 242-3.
Oherlin fugitive slave case, 304.
Ocean going ships, 170.
Ohio, battleship. 234.
ohi mi. any 1 1 . 4 s i , 40, 42. 00; company
Ohio com'pa'n'v (Marietta!. Ill, 112, IIS.
131. 130-40.
Ohio river, discovery. 51: first maps. 32;
early names. ::i ::j : Howard's vovage. 38:
commerce on, no. 170. 104. 223. 247.
Ohio troops, war of 1S12. 201-1S; in Mexi-
can war. 284 7: in war of the rebellion.
.".1 7 56 in Spanish war. 412-15.
Oil product, 401. 410: s ulatlon. 362-3;
wells. 300. 302. 393.
c diver. Robert. 15 4.
Ordinance of L784, L03 5; of 1785. 106; of
1787. 111-16; oppressions of, 151.
Orton, Edward, 368
Ostend manifesto. 299.
owl Creek bank, 227.
Raine. Edward 159.
Taine, Jo.d, 207.
Parsons, Samuel 11., loS, 111. 117, 11!
150.
Patrick. A. \\\. 423. _
Payne, Henry B.,' 294," 304. 378, 3S8.
Peace conference. 1861. 314.
Pease. Calvin. 175. ISO On. 254.
Pelee island, battle. 268.
Pendleton. George II.. 302, 353, 367
::ss. :;o4, 400.
Peninsula, battle of. 208.
Perkins, .lames II.. 108. 250, 271.
Perkins. Simon. 207-8.
Perry. 1 diver Hazard, 214.
Perivsburg. 224.
Perryville, battle of, 334.
Phillippi. battle. 321.
Piankesliaw chief. 30-46.
Pickaway, battle of 1 1780). 01.
Piekawillanv town. 39: treaty. 43;
46.
Pickering. Timothy. 102, 100.
Pi. 111,1 :■,;> : ( 'lark's campaign, 100.
rg Landing, battle. 320-7.
II 11:11
150.
1. lYnfiis.
151, 165
ie of, 215.'
102. 110, 110, 124. 150
139
Act,
battle of. 54.
ince of, 62.
81.
fil
f03 25 3 2 l<
253, 263.
273. 278. 270. 288
, 379, 390, 419.
41. '
'., 270. 205, 305, 335.
of. 339.
nchanan. 351. 359.
359^ 407
416.
Reillv, .1. \V.. 555. 354.
Keily. John. 165.
Religions pioneers, 4::.
Republican pai'tv. first convention. 301.
Resolve of 1780. 02. 103.
Revivals. ISO.
Revolution. Ohio during. 81.
Rhodes. James Ford, -71.
Rich Mountain battle 320
Richmond. Kv.. battle. 333.
Ripper laws. '403-4.
Rockefeller. John D.. 363.
Rogers. I 'avid, massacre. 90.
Rogers. Mai. Robert, in llllio. 55 50
R..se, reus. W *.. .-.is. .".-n. 321. 324-5, 334,
:::;■;. 343. 346. 368.
Ross county. 154.
Rotll. Johll Lewis, so
Ruggles, Benjamin, 191, 210, 240.
122.
St. Clair. Arthur. 74, 117. 122
129, 132-6. 130-67.
St. Mary's, battle of, 134-5.
Salt wells, 402.
Sandusky grand camp. 214.
Sandusky Plains, battle .if.
Sandusky, Wyand.it tint. 59 ;
bouse, 56 . massacre, 60 ; I
in.
Sanitary commission, 356.
Saul iagu. battle. 414.
Sargent, Winthrop, 111, 116, 1
133. 146.
Sayler, Milton, 381.
Sa'xe-Weimer, duke of. 234.
Scalps, rewards for, 140.
Seai\ Creek, battle. 321.
s.li. •uck. James I-'., 358.
Scbeiick. Robert i' ::17. :;2s. 33.-.. 400.
Schelick. William ('.. 155. 1*8. 279.
Scioto land company, lib IS. 12s. 139. 140.
s.i.iM trail, So.
Sei.it.. valley Indians. 39. 43: wars. 129.
Sci.c. valley settlement, 131,
Schoi lib run. 71.
School lands, 23S.
School system, 22b. 23.1, 232. 237. 260. 29S.
306.
Sctcli-lrish traders anil pioneers. 34, 38,
41. 47, 67.
Scott, Charles. 141.
Sett law. 387 88.
Scott. Thomas. 190-2.
Seal, territorial. 15o.
Secession of the West proposed. 109. 117.
Self rule in Ohio, 16S.
Settlement Orsl proposed in Ohio, 69.
Stallo. John B., 394.
Stanbery, Henry, -71 283, 365.
stanberv, William, 249.
Standard Oil company, 363.
Stanley, lb S„ 345. 351. 353.
Stanton, Benjamin, 300, 325.
Stanton. Edwin M.. 27o. ::oo. 35s. 565.
Steamboats on the Ohio. 192. 223, 278;
Lake Erie, 224, 410. 420.
St linan. .lames IS., 316. 344. 352, 377.
n 1S52. 293
05, 106-7.
300.
., 262, 326.
22. 124-7. 148. 150,
151.
Symmes, John Cleves. jr
Symmes purchase. 124-5
M., 406, 409.
olii
143.
69,
Shellabarser. Samuel. 315.
Sheridan,' I'. II., 536, 511. 550-51. 557. 3S0,
399.
Sherman. Charles I!.. 179, 234.
Sherman, .lolm. 179. 2s9. 300-1. 313-14.
558, 57(1. 374. 3,79. 3S2, 5*4. .".so, 400.
406. 410. 411, 415.
Sherman. Ta\ lor, 1 .9
Sherman. W. T„ 179. 268, 525. 327. 355.
359. 551-2, 551 7. 377. 405.
Ship building. :;n, 419.
Sill. Joshua \V„ 336.
Sibimail. Wilhs. 175,. 255. 240.
Silk worm breeding, 273.
Simpson, Matthew, 370.
Slavery exclusion. 105, 104, 106, 115. 116.
Slaves! fugitive. 2 117. 269. L'SS. 292. 51.4-5.
Sla\er\. etTorts for admission. 153. 16o. 1 1 0.
Sloane, Wm. M., 422.
Smith. Col .lames. 70.
Smith, John. 152. 165. 175. 1S3. 1S7.
Smith. Kilbv. 3,51.
Smith. Wm. Sooy, 349.
Soldiers' home. Dayton. 365.
Soldiers' home, state. 56.1. 422.
South Mountain battle. 331.
Spain, relations to Ohio, 90, 101. 109-10.
129. 145, 175. is |
Spanish war. 1898. 411.
Spaulding, Solomon. 257.
Sproat. Ebenezer. 119. 124.
Spaft'ord. Amos, 196-7.
Squirrel hunters, 333.
Territorial politics. 152.
Texas revolution. 267.
Thames, battle of. 217.
Thiirnian. Allen C. 265. 2s-J. ■_•'..,,, 365-6,
3.72 3.77 57s. 5*4. 5S9. 5,9s. 4o9.
Tinin. Edward. 147. 155. 159, 16o. 171. 172.
187. 191. 219.
'I it ;;i battle of. 199.
Tod. Havi.1. 2S1. lis;. :;o- ;;:;:;, r.Al-S.
Tod. George 161. 1S7. 1*9 911. 201.
Tola. i.l. John T, 3.41.
Toledo. 196. 224. 26ii. 265.. 282.
Tory party, 74. S3. SS.
'lolirj.ee. A. W„ 377.
Township survey. 103.
Traders in Ohio, 34-5.6, 37-38, 42. 46^7.
Tramps, 382 , ,„ .
Treaty of Buffalo, 150 : of Greenville. 14..-.. :
of Greenville, second. 21s : ,,l I ..it Ein-
ney. los : ..f Fort llarmar. 126, 156. 144;
of Fort Industry. 179: of Fort Mcintosh,
105. 108; of Fori Stanwix, 69, 105; of
Lancaster. 5S. 4o : of l...:-i..»ii. 3,s. )., :
of Maumee Rapids. 225: of Tuscarawas,
64.
Trent. Capt. William. 46.
Trimble. Allen. 2os. -51. J55. 255. 259. 501.
Trimble. W. A.. 214. 227. 231.
Trollopes. the. 247. 256.
Triimbull countv. 15S.
Topper. Edward W.. 176. 206. 208.
Topper, Benjamin. 110. 119, 124, 126.
Turner, George. 150-1.
Turnpike roads. 254.
Tuscarawas, 42, 56,
Tuscarawas county,
Uncle Tom's Cabin, 203.
Underground railroad, 245.
Union army. 341.
United States bank. 1SS. 222; war on. 22S.
Wayne. Anthony, 150 7. 1..S, 140-15.
Wayne's campaign, 141-4:;.
Wayne county, 149, lT'.i. 1SS.
Weitzel. Godfrey, 340, 354.
Weller, John B., 2S9.
Wells, Bezaleel. 1G5, 1SS.
Wells, William, 139.
West. William H.. 380.
Western Reserve. 107. 12S. 220 : sale of,
149; transfer of territory, 158-9.
Western Reserve college, 230. 242.
npaigns. 1861-05, 320. 331.
W€
04.
259, 277, 2S9.
Ohio, 36. 02
107 ; settle-
ajah. 231. 232,
298.
Wabas
i cant
Wade.
33(5.
Wade.
Wad-n
Waite.
m. i:
"Wakatomiea
05.
Walke
Hem
v. 3
Walk
Wa
Ward.
■I Q
War o
l sii
Worthington. Thomas. 152. 155. 101. 102,
294, 301, 313. 105. 107. 17ti. 173. 181. 185. 188. 189,
102: governor. 210-27: 231. 234. 348.
'vaudot i Huron i Indians 24. 28. 20, 34,
38-0. 41. 42. 44. 70. 8::. OS. 00.
\\andor 'upation of Ohio, 38.
War
■150.
Washington county, established. 124.
Wellington. Ceorge. 07. 100, 120. 132. 138.
1 10. 15s. v.i.-. • trip to Venango, 17 bat
tie at Creaf Meadows. 48; defeat at Fort
Necessity. 48.
Zane. Ebenezor. 74. 84. 148.
Zane. Jonathan. 77. 100.
Zane's trace 14.8.
/aliesville. 148; state capital. 101-
Zeigler. David. 153.
Zeisberger. David. 70. 71. 73. 97.
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO
CHAPTER I.
THE ANCIENT DOMAIN.
Natural Importance of Ohio — Geologic History — Ancient
Races — French Exploration — The Iroquois Dominion.
T THE beginning of the great colonial systems of North.
America, while the English occupied a strip of the North
Atlantic coast, their rivals, the Erench, advanced along
an interior and parallel line, by the St. Lawrence and the
lakes. The French had the advantage, flanking the English advance
toward the interior. But beyond Lake Erie the St. Lawrence water
way makes a sudden retreat in the far northwest, and the French
parallel line would fail if it were not extended to the Ohio river.
The key to the situation was the land of portages, from the Alle-
ghany river on the east, to the Miamies on the west. It followed
naturally that this land, now mainly included in the State of Ohio,
became a battle ground and the cause of war in other regions, from
the beginning of European rivalry in Xorth America. It was the
most important region of the continent; the key to all the country
west of the Alleghanies; commanding the commercial outlet toward
Europe of a vast and fertile country, destined to be the richest in
the world. Ohio began to be of this surpassing importance in the
sixteenth century, in the eyes of Europe, and there are evidences that
in more remote ages the region was the seat of the greatest towns and
the theatre of the most stubborn wars known to the ancient Ameri-
cans.
It is natural therefore, that the history of Ohio should be rich
with interest, that it should involve the rise and fall of political
power in both the old world and the new, and not at all strange that
18 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
the State, from its foundation, should show a rapid progress toward
a position of dominance in America.
Of the origin of this fair land geologists are ahle to give us an ac-
count from the evidences of the rocks. Once, we are told, a shal-
low sea of warm salt water, an extension of the gulf of Mexico, over-
spread the country between the Alleghanies and Rocky Mountains.
In Ohio the first land to emerge was about Cincinnati, an island of
which the ruck had 1 n deposited for many centuries in the sea bot-
tom, forming a peculiar dark limestone called the Trenton, famous
in our time as the impervious roof of the underground collections of
natural gas. In succession northward and eastward, layers were
built up under water, raised above, submerged and lifted again, the
most recent of all being the Carboniferous or coal-bearing rocks that
are the foundation of the eastern si rip parallel to the southwcstward
course of (lie Ohio river. These successive pushings-up of land
from the waters would have funned a vast, level plain, if the fan'
of the country had not been worn by rivers, and, ages after solid
land was established, by the icy torrents of melting glaciers. By
such erosions the hills were formed and the beautiful valley vis-
tas ami romantic gorges. "The aggregate thickness of the entire
series of recks," says Ohio's famous student of nature, Edward
Orton, "is about one mile, if we may consider the thickest known
section of each deposit, but, taking the average thickness, about
3,500 feet. For the accumulation and growth of this great series
of deposits, all of which were in salt water except the coal bearing
strata, which imply fresh water marshes, vast periods of time were
required. Many millions of years must be used in any rational
explanation of their origin and history. All the stages of this his-
tory have -one forward on so large a scale, so far as time is con-
cerned, that the few thousand years of human history would not
make an appreciable factor in any of them."
It was long after the upper coal strata had been covered by other
carboniferous deposits barren of coal in profitable quantity that
some great change in world conditions put a stop to tropical condi-
tions in Ohio, and brought down vast fields of ice and snow from the
north. Several milleniums after the ice had departed, and the con-
tour of the land was established as it is today, that race of human
beings lived in Ohio that is known to us through the remains of
great earth works.
The pioneers of the modern State w T ere interested in these ancient
relics as they felled the trees and cleared the fields to make way for
civilization. Indeed, the first two important settlements, at Mari-
etta and Cincinnati, were located where there were abundant signs
of ancient seats of population. "When I first saw the upper plain
on which the city [Cincinnati] stands," General Harrison wrote,
"it was literally covered with low lines of embankments. I had
THE ANCIENT DOMAIN. jg
the honor to attend General Wayne two years afterward in an excur-
sion to examine them. The number and variety of figures in which
these lines were drawn were almost endless." Many years later,
after Messrs. Squiers and Davis published their work on "The
Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," the discussion of
theories concerning the builders of these works was greatly increased.
The ancient works in Ohio are of three classes: heavy embank-
ments peculiar to the level or low lands of the southern half of the
State; the larger works composed of earth and stone on the hilltops
in the same region, and the smaller mounds scattered everywhere on
high or low ground indefinitely.* The principal low land enclosures
are confined to the valleys of the Muskingum, Scioto and Little
Miami, and the magnitude of the enclosures compel wonder and
admiration. The Newark works, the most remarkable of their class
ever discovered, have "mile after mile of embankment — circles and
other geometric figures, parallels, lodge sites and mounds, covering
an area of more than four square miles." The Marietta works, of
similar magnitude, are particularly interesting as containing a sort
of flat-topped mound peculiar to the southern states, a famous exam-
ple being the great Cahokia mound at St. Louis. The hill-top enclos-
ures, in the same region as the variety last mentioned, were evi-
dently for defensive purposes. Examples are Fort Hill, in High-
land county; the one on the high hill overlooking the mouth of
the Great Miami, where the earth walls are very massive, and Fort
Ancient in Warren county, which a proper garrison could hold
against a large army. Yet there is no sign of a water supply in any
of these so-called forts. There are many simpler works, some of
them covering acres, evidently designed to strengthen places of nat-
ural adaptability for defense, and these are found also in the Lake
Erie region. In a few cases traces remain of palisades built upon
them, according to the custom of Indians within the historical period.
Small enclosures, some apparently foundations for lodges, others
enclosing burial mounds, are found in all parts of the State, and in
the Scioto valley there are some considerable excavations surrounded
by embankments.
Most curious are the effigy mounds, surpassed, however, by those
in Wisconsin and Iowa. Xotable among these are the Alligator
mound, which might as well be called the Opossum mound, in Lick-
ing county, and the Great Serpent of Adams county, with the sem-
blance of an egg at one extremity, commonly supposed to be the
mouth, though some archeologists take another view.
The mounds-simple in Ohio are moderately estimated at ten thou-
sand, and there is scarcely a township in any part of the State except
the Black Swamp country and the rugged southeast, in which they
* Notes on Ohio Archeology, by Gerard Fowke. which is followed in this
brief outline, and seems to be a fair and trustworthy authority.
20 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
are not found. Ross county had five hundred or more, and Butler
and Licking counties hardly less. The greatest is that which over-
looks Miamisburg, piled up sixty-eight feet on the summit of a hill
precipitous to the river. But there are no others approaching it in
size, and few as large as twenty feet high and one hundred feet in
diameter. The hilltop mounds have heen explained as signal sta-
tions, upon which fires were lit, and to accommodate the theory the
mound on Mount Logan has heen said to be almost entirely composed
of ashes, quite different from the facts. Nearly all these mounds
contain burial places, and in many are found rock-built ovens or fur-
naces blackened with fires, possibly for funeral rites. Undoubtedly
some of the human remains deposited in the mounds have entirely
disappeared, but many mounds were evidently erected over one body.
Others were built over log structures containing the remains of a
considerable number. There were stone mounds built where stone
was convenient, the greatest being eight miles south of Newark, from
which was taken all the stone for the retaining wall along the north
side of the Licking reservoir, leaving several thousand yards in place.
Along the Ohio, there are also stone graves or tombs, of flat slabs,
such as were built by the Shawanees. Some remains of villages are
disclosed, but little if anything that testifies to a race essentially dif-
ferent in customs from the modern Indian. The only evidence found
in any mound in Ohio certainly older than the colonial period,
showing skill and culture beyond the apparent ability of the Indians
of Ohio, is some engraved objects of sheet copper found in Ross
county. But their rarity is almost conclusive proof that the people
who put them there obtained them, probably from Mexico, in the
course of the trade that is known to have existed over all the conti-
nent. '•Omitting from consideration the few articles so plainly of
foreign derivation, a comparison of all the relics collected from the
mounds with those picked up on the surface and those of known
Indian manufacture will show that the former do not surpass the
latter in any particular denoting superior skill, knowledge, or dis-
cernment of harmonious proportion."* If the greater works, such
as those at Newark and Marietta, be taken as the remains of a people
distinct from the common "moundbuilders," their country apparently
did not extend much more than a hundred miles in a radius about
Chillicothe, excepting some indications at Charleston, W. Va., and
on the upper Ohio.
The building of any of the works was not prodigious. It is esti-
mated that the greatest mound could be erected by a hundred per-
sons, each carrying half a bushel of earth, in forty-two days, and that
a thousand men, working one hundred days in the year, could con-
struct all the works in Ohio in a century.
'Gerard Fowke, in the work referred to.
THE ANCIENT DOMAIN. 21
The tendency of students at the present time is to deny the great
age assigned by early explorers to these earthworks. The evidence
of the trunks of trees rooted upon the mounds is not to be accepted
without qualification. It is known also that the homes of the Indian
tribes changed so rapidly, according to their own accounts, before
they were crowded by the white men, that the fact that some red men
found in Ohio after 1750 could give no account of the origin of these
mounds, is very weak proof of a great antiquity. Of some of the
works, the Indians did have traditions. Wider knowledge of the
early Americans, furthermore, reveals to us that in the gulf region
they were yet making use of mounds when the first Spanish con-
querors journeyed through that country. An artificial mound,
surmounted by the temple and the houses of the chief and the great
men, sometimes with a spacious stairway of hewn timber on one side,
and surrounded by the dwellings of the people, was the striking feat-
ure of the main Muskogee towns found by De Soto. Mounds were
also built by both southern and northern people, within the historic
period, in honor of the dead interred beneath them.* Interesting
papers have been published to sustain the theory that such well-
known tribes as the Cherokees and Shawanees were mound-builders.
Embankments in Ohio, enclosing a rectangular space, with passage
ways at the corners, strikingly suggest the great town houses of the
Apalachee Indians of Florida, built in the form of a hollow square,
with the main entrances at each angle. Tbe embankment, it may be
suggested, is an incidental detail of building, added either for pur-
poses of defense against enemies, or as a foundation of the structures,
a laborious feature that greater security or the enervating effect of
change of climate would persuade the red men to omit. The great
serpent mound, and other animal representations, though at first
thought inexplicable, might have been constructed as monuments of
the totems and symbols of the tribes of red men of the historic period.
It may be considered definitely settled, says Mr. Fowke, that in no
particular were the moimdbuilders superior to many primitive
Indian tribes. They hunted with the same kind of weapons, worked
with similar tools, were patient and plodding, and had no appliances
for saving labor. Under such circumstances there could not have
been a dense population, as some writers have imagined. Yet the
ancient works in Ohio attest a population more dense than in other
regions, a more permanent settlement, and a more tenacious effort to
hold the country against prehistoric invasion.
*In the summer of 1642. as told by the Jesuit priests, the Hurons, north
of the lakes, had a great feast of the dead, attended by delegates from many
friendly tribes, even from Lake Superior. Amid solemn rites and cere-
monial games the bones of the dead, temporarily buried in the past ten
years, were committed to a common grave, richly lined with furs, and with
the relics of the dead were deposited many articles of great value to the
red men.
22 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Among the attempts to describe the origin and movements of the
former inhabitants of Ohio the most elaborate is that of Dr. C. S.
Rafinesque, in his "Ancient Annals of Kentucky." By a pictur-
esque use of the imagination he traces the American folk well-nigh
back to Adam. When the mythical empire of Atlantis was in the
height of its glory, he says, America was first discovered and the
Ohio country became the center of the Atalan people. Later they
were divided in two branches, the Apalans of the north and the Tale-
gans of the Ohio valley, who warred against the Istacan and Siberian
invasions that finally resulted in the driving of the ancient people to
the south and the founding of Mexican civilization. This, Dr.
Bafinesque assigned to a period two thousand years ago. Then
came the Lenap and Menguy invaders across Bering's strait, to pos-
sess the Ohio and St. Lawrence country, and a period is approached
in which definite dates can lie assigned. Whatever may be the basis
for Dr. Bafinesque's theoretical account, it may be suggested that it
is as good history as any id the time before the coming of the "Lenap
and Menguy" forefathers of the red men found in the north after the
Columbian discovery.
The Indians who inhabited the northern region east of the Missis-
sippi at the beginning of historic times were, in language, of two
great families, which are given the French names Algonquin and
Iroquois. These are not the Indian names. In fact, from the word
Indian itself, which is a misnomer — arising from the slowness of
the early voyagers to admit that they had found unknown conti-
nents — down to the names of the trihos, there is a confusion of
nomenclature and often a deplorable misfit in the titles now fixed in
history by long usage. The Algonquin family may more properly
bo termed the Lenape, and the Iroquois the Mengwe, which the Eng-
lish frontiersman closely approached in the word, Mingo. The
Lenape themselves, while using that name, also employed the more
generic title of Wapanackki. The Iroquois, on their part, had the
ancient name of Onque ITonwe, and this in their tongue, as Lenape
in that of the other family, signified men with a sense of impor-
tance — "the people," to use a convenient English expression.
According to the Lenape tradition, that people came from a dis-
tant home to a great river, which they called the Xameesi Sippee,
where they found another nation, the Mengwe, engaged in a similar
migration. On crossing the river a powerful nation was discovered
in possession of the country, called the Tallegawi or Allegawi, a race
of tall, stout men, who had large towns and built fortifications and
intrenchments. Meeting with a desperate resistance from this peo-
ple, the Lenape and Mengwe made an alliance', agreeing to conquer
and divide the country between them, and after many great battles
and probably many years they were successful. Such is the tradi-
tion of the conquest as gathered from the Lenni Lenape (Delawares),
THE ANCIENT DOMAIN. 23
"the grandfather people," by Heckewelder.* Observing the fortifi-
cations on the Huron river (Ohio), he was told by an Indian that
under the mounds between the two forts were buried hundreds of
the Allegawi who fell in battle for their homes. There is no reason
to discredit the tradition in its essential particulars. Some students
prefer to interpret the Xameesi Sippee as the Detroit river rather
than the Mississippi, according to their notions of a northeastward
starting point of migration, but this is not material to our narrative.
Unfortunately the Indian habit of giving names to rivers and places
according to some striking physical characteristic, each nation or
tribe bestowing a name of its own, does not warrant the certain appli-
cation of Nameesi Sippee to the Mississippi. The title might be
given to any "great river," that being its signification. The Alle-
gawi left their name, as a perpetual monument, attached to the
mountain chain of the east, and to the Ohio river in the language of
one of the conquering nations. As Dr. Brintqn has pointed out, the
name Tallegawi means, the Tallega or Tallika people, and suggests
Tsalaki, the Indian name of which "Cherokee" is a corruption.
Before the Tallegawi, according to the ancient painted record of the
Lenape, translated by Rafinesque, there wore the "Snake people,"
who might have been the first moundhuilders.
The Lenape became the most wide-spread of the new peoples.
Some tribes remained west of the Mississippi, while others pushed on
to occupy the Atlantic coast from Virginia to Labrador. They were
typical Americans, up to the stature of the best European nation-,
well-formed and stalwart. v They had the physiognomy of warriors,
prominent nose, thin lips, piercing black eyes. Their black hair was
carefully pulled from their heads save a patch on the crown from
which grew long locks on which they bound gaudy feathers. Their
hands and feet were of aristocratic smallness. Each family lived
alone, in wattled lints, the little towns being surrounded with pali-
sades of stakes. They cultivated grain and vegetables, made coarse
pottery, wove mats, and dressed the skins which they were good
enough hunters to obtain from the deer and bear and buffalo, though
they had no better weapons than stone-tipped arrows, chipped out
most artfully from flint or chert. They dug copper, and in the
remotest parts of their territory had the red pipe bowls from Minne-
sota or the black slate pipes from Vancouver island. The sun, with
fire as its symbol, was their chief object of adoration, and the young
warrior must make his sun-vows at dawn from a solitary hill-top
before he became worthy of place among men. The four winds that
brought the rains were also objects of reverence, as well as the ani-
mal that was the symbol of the tribe, and the Lenape remembered
*Rev. John G. E. Heckewelder, in his "History, Manners and Customs of
the Indian Nations."
tD. G. Brinton. "The American Race."
24 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
with pious faithfulness the hero god Michabo who taught thern laws-
and gave them maize and tobacco, and some time would come again.
These Indians were those known in later years as the Delawares, the
Illinois, the Maumees,* the Mohegans, the Manhattans, the Pian-
keshaws, the Pottawotamies, the Shawanees and numerous other
tribes. All were one family in the likeness of their language, though
they often had their family quarrels, and they bear in history the
name given them by the French from one of their most unworthy
tribes, the Algonquins.
The Mengwe made their homes along the lower great lakes and the
St. Lawrence river, never reaching the coast, and thus they came to
be wholly surrounded by the Lenape. They were a fiercer people,
and models of physical development-! Though the Lenape regarded
them as inferior, and called them cannibals, they held themselves
superior to all races, and certainly gave some proof of superiority in
their history. The women among them had more than ordinary
respect, at least in ancient times, and were represented by a speaker
in all councils. In the Wendat tribe the women of each gens elected
the chief, who represented it in the tribal council. The "long house"
was a distinctive feature of Mengwe life — large communal log
houses, fortified with palisades, and so strong that the white pioneers
did not err in calling them castles. Included in this stock of people
were the Mohawks, Oneidas, Senecas,- Cayugas, Eries, Cherokees,
Wyandots, Tusearoras and others, these being the names commonly
given them in history. The Washash (Osage), it is believed, they
left beyond the Mississippi in the migration. But the Cherokees
among the Mengwe and the Shawanees among the Lenape are people
difficult to classify. i
The language of both races was copious, admirably constructed,
*The Indian name of this nation was something like Omaumeeg. and is
said to have meant people of the peninsula. The French name which came
into general use was Miami, pronounced Me-ah-me, though the English
sometimes used Omee. The names of the river that both bore the - French
name, Miami, as late as 1835. have now been given different spellings, Mau-
mee and Miami, and different pronunciations. But the Indians were never
known, at least not in early times, as My-am-ies. Consequently the spelling
Maumee is used in this work.
t Physically the stock is unsurpassed by any in the world. It stands on
record that the five companies of Iroquois of New York and Canada during
the civil war stood first on the list among all recruits of our army for
height, vigor and corporeal symmetry. — D. G. Brinton, "The American
Race."
J The word Shawanee. as a name for an Indian people, evidently origin-
ated with the Delawares. in whose tongue "Shawan" means South. It means
simply "Southern people" and probably is not the name the Shawanees
applied to themselves in their own language. The Cherokees were a South-
ern people from colonial times, though a few were found along the Ohio.
The Shawanees were for a time, at least. Southern, and introduced into
Ohio geography such words as 'Wakatoiniea and Chillicothe, that are sugges-
tive of Chocktaw and Creek names.
THE ANCIENT DOMAIN. 25
flexible and generally melodious. That of the Lenape was the more
guttural, the sounds represented by ch or g in printed words closely
approximating the German ch. They also had delicately sounded
nasal vowels resembling the French. Onondaga, for instance, was
pronounced something like O-nong-dah-gah. The dictionaries and
grammars of the languages that have been published demonstrate the
remarkable richness of the tongues in words and their inflection and
combination. The clans of the Lenni Lenape (called Delawares by
the English) were known among the Indians by their totems, the
Turtle, Turkey and Wolf, the Turtle being the highest in honor,
while among the Alengwe there were the clans and totems of Turtle,
Wolf, Bear, Deer, Beaver, Hawk, Crane and Snipe, each having
separate towns. There were no Indian kings. The government was
in the hands of the elected chief and the council of old and worthy
men. The chief was the keeper of the wampum, used for tribal nego-
tiations, and he was authorized to control the clan or tribe as far as
his diplomacy could carry him, but no orders or attempts at forcible
discipline would be tolerated. He could not make war or peace, or
levy taxes, and was required to hunt for his living the same as any
■warrior. There was no limit of lands; all belonged to all. There
were scarcely any penal laws, but unless some atonement were made
murder could be avenged by the friends of the victim. The most
generous hospitality was the rale, and when anyone needed a neces-
sity of life, there was no harm in taking it without asking. Said
James Smith, who passed some years as a forcibly adopted Indian
among the Ohioans at a later day: "They are not oppressed or
perplexed with expensive litigation ; they are not injured by legal
robbery. They have no splendid villains that make themselves grand
and great on other people's labor. They have neither Church nor
State created as money making machines."
In war they were very skillful. Such maneuvers as marching for-
ward in line (not in file) a mile long through the woods, forming a
circle or semi-circle to surround an enemy, or a hollow square from
which to face out and repel attack, they could perform to perfection,
and they closely obeyed their leaders. They won famous battles,
wholly or almost unaided by Europeans, against white troops in his-
toric times, and could teach strategy to white commanders as well as
the highest statecraft.*
Of another side of their character Gen. William Henry Harrison
has left an interesting suggestion. "By many," he said, "they are
supposed to be stoics, who willingly encounter privations. The very
reverse is the fact; for if they belong to either of the classes of phil-
osophers that prevailed in the declining years of Bome, it is to that
*The Iroquois advised the union of the American colonies, when the
colonists, like inferior Indians, were too jealous of each other to consent
to it
20 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
of the Epicureans. For no Indian will forego an enjoyment or suf-
fer an inconvenience if he can avoid it. Even the gratification of
some strong passion he is ever ready to postpone, when its accom-
plishment is attended with unlocked for danger, or unexpected hard-
ship." Another qualified to speak said of the Shawanees, popu-
larly known as ferocious and discontented : "They are the most
cheerful and merry people that ever I saw. The cares of life, which
are such an enemy to us, seem not to have yet entered their mind.
It appears as if some drollery was their chief study; consequently
both men and women in laughing exceed any nation that ever came
under my notice."* "They are also the most deceitful in human
shape," said the Rev. David Jones, referring particularly, it seems,
t . > their diplomacy. For all he charges them with in particular is
that "when they imagine anything in their own mind about you, they
would say some one told them so, and all this cunning to find out your
thoughts about them." They were "perfect traiteuvs," as the French
observed in Florida, meaning treators or negotiators. If diplomacy
could have kept out the Europeans the red men would still hold the
Ohio valley.
There were, of course, darker sides of the picture, of which enough
will appear in the course of this history. The women did not enjoy
too much honor, and there were some rites that remind one of the
ancient people of the Mediterranean whose civilization is admired.
Their marriages were made with as little ceremony as among the
ancient Hebrews, and often were temporary. The warriors were
cruel, perhaps more so than Europeans of their day, and possibly
there were more horrible atrocities on the borders of the colonies than
occurred during the Thirty Years' war in Germany, or in the Irish
wars, or in the Xetherlands. Captives were sometimes burned at
the stake, and once in awhile portions of them were eaten, as a sort
of religious rite. But, originally at least, captive women were
treated honorably.
Volney, the once famous French philosopher, who studied the
Indian after he had suffered much from conquest and the strong
drink of the whiter race, remarked : "I have often been struck with
the analogy subsisting between the Indians of K~orth America and
the nations so much extolled of ancient Greece and Italy. In the
personages of Homer's Iliad I find the manners and discourse of the
Iroquois and Delawares." After he had visited the Maumees and
talked with Little Turtle, he remarked that Thucydides, in describ-
ing the Greeks at the period of the Trojan war, very closely pictured
the mode of life of the western Indians.
The red men were superstitious, or religious, as one may choose
to call them. They believed in two supernatural qiowers, the Kee-
: Rev. David Jones, a missionary in 1772.
THE ANCIENT DOMAIN. 27
cliec manitoo, or good spirit, and matchee manitoo, or satan, like the
ancient Persians, though the Ahura Mazda of the latter was the good
god. To tin- good spirit they made prayers and offerings of bated
meats, which, however, all shared in eating, having no priests with
special privileges. The matchee manitoo was perhaps nioi'e the
object of concern, but he could be driven away and his evil influence
averted by the shaking of gourd rattles or by the smoke of tobacco,
thrown upon a tire. The eagles and owls, to the old Ohioans, were
the watchers by day and night for the Carreyagaroona, or heavenly
inhabitants, and their appearance required a smudge of tobacco as a
token that the red man was not forgetful. The Iroquois had a notion
that they were all formerly animals under the earth, and in their
emergence the ground hog had been left behind. They woitld not eat
that animal therefore, for fear of devouring a relative. The rattle-
snake was "grandfather." and must be let alone, or all its race would
rise against the red men. When a bear, sorely wounded, would cry
in almost human fashion, the Indian hunter would stand and talk to
him in scorn, upbraiding him for weakness, and exhorting him to
bear misfortune bravely.
Their most common remedy for illness was as far advanced as the
practice of those people today who have found that cleanliness is
often preferable to drugs. The Turkish bath was common in Ohio
hundreds of years ago. The Indian would take it in a little tent of
hides over some hot stones, and if he could stand a tobacco smudge in
addition to the hot air, the bath gained the merit of a religious cere-
mony.
Such were the ancient people of the Ohio valley in the fifteenth,
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. About the year 1459 the great-
est event affecting their history, after the conquest of the Allegawi,
occurred, namely, the confederation of the five Mengwe tribes known
to us as Mohawks, Oneidas, Senecas, Cayugas, and Onondagas, under
the leadership of the great chieftain and statesman, Ayoun-wat-ha,
familiar in romance as Hiawatha. This confederacy was founded
to maintain quiet among those tribes, and was called the Kayanerenh-
kowa, or "great peace," whence the French, "Iroquois," or Eroke
people. Their nation, from Lake Champlain toward Lake Erie,
including the upper waters of the Ohio, they called the Kanon-
sionni,* or Long House, with the Sonontowa (Senecas) as door-
keepers on the west. This "great peace," while it held the five tribes
in firm alliance, did not forbid war with their neighbors, the
Lenapes, or other tribes of the Mengwe family.
A wonderful happening in 1535 was the appearance of Cartier
and his Frenchmen in the St. Lawrence river, as high as Hoehelaga
(Montreal). It was the advance guard of the new era, in which the
'The People of the Long House, by E. M Chadwick.
28 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Iroquois confederation should be conspicuous for more than two cen-
turies and then pass away, with all the Indian power, ("artier was.
met in friendliness by the Indians and told of a great river that
could be followed for three moons to the southward from Hochelaga.
This, Cartier reported as a probable route to Cathay, for which all
the explorers of America were hunting. But it was not until 1608
that the first permanent settlement was made, by Champlain at
Quebec. Champlain at the outset made friends with a tribe inhab-
iting that region, which the French called "good Iroquois," Chario-
gorois or Hurons.* They were a powerful people, of the Mengwe
family, but at war with their cousins, the Iroquois of the confedera-
tion. While the little island settlement of the French was but a
year old Champlain consented, with fatal effecl upon French domin-
ion in America, to join in an expedition of Hurons and Adirondacks
against the Iroquois, and the arquebuses of the French routed the
red men of the confederacy at Ticonderoga. But it was only two
months later that Hendrick Eudson sailed up the river that bears
his name, and in a few years a great trading station was established
at the place that the Delawares came to know as Manahachtanienk
(Manhattan), meaning "the island where we all got drunk." The
Iroquois speedily made a covenant chain, a treaty of lasting peace,
with the Dutch, and obtained the European firearms, in the use of
which they soon became masters. But even when equipped with bow
ami arrow alone they made an effectual barrier to French progress
to the southwest. Because of the hostility he provoked, Champlain
turned to the Ottawa river and visited Georgian bay. Within a
quarter century after the unfortunate battle of Ticonderoga Xicollet
discovered Lake Michigan, and as late as 1048 the French knew more
of the far western lake of Winnebago than they did of Lake Erie,
or even the falls of Onyagaro (Niagara), of which they heard tales
from the Indians. It was not for want of enterprise that the French
submitted to this restriction. In 1615 Champlain invaded the Iro-
quois country and laid siege in a medieval manner to the walled
capital, Onondaga, but was repulsed and compelled to retreat. Then
in 1629 the English captured Quebec, and for a little while Canada
and the right of exploring the unknown rivers and lakes of the intei - -
ior were granted to a favorite of Charles I. But Charles had a claim
against the king of France for promised but unpaid dower, and
when his father-in-law had settled this, the English charter was
annulled. Meanwhile the Puritans had made their settlement
among the Lenape of Massachusetts, and Jamestown had been estab-
lished in Virginia, both with grants from the English monarch
*This was a nickname for the Wendats or Wyandots, also called Tionta-
ties, or tobacco Indians, or Petuns, from an obsolete French name for tobaCco
derived from Brazil.
THE ANCIENT DOMAIN. 09
reaching to the western seas, though no one but the Spanish had an
adequate conception of the vast territory that lay between the Atlan-
tic and Pacific.
The Christian religion, as taught by the Franciscan fathers, was
broughl to the Indians about Niagara in 1626, but the adventurous
priest, Joseph de la Roche Daillon, barely escaped with his life.
After Quebec was restored to the French in 1632 came the Jesuits,
who had some si ess in instructing the Hurons, Imr none with the
Iroquois. Some Jesuit fathers visited Sault St. Marie in 1642, and
on their return were taken by the Iroquois and savagely tortured.
Father Joques, the only survivor, was carried across New York
state before his release.
With the advent of the French and Dutch the Indians found they
could obtain wampum, clothing, guns and ammunition and many
trinkets dear to both warriors ami women, as well as the "firewater"
that might serve even better than their ancient besum (herb drink)
in fortifying themselves tor bunting or fighting excursions, all in
exchange for beaver skins and other peltry. The Iroquois held a
position commanding the channel of trade both with Dutch and
French. The French had humiliated them in war; the Dutch had
sought their friendship and encouraged them to control the trade.
It was natural therefore that they should seek to cut off the French
trade and possess for themselves the bunting grounds of all the adja-
cent regions. Thus the fur trade became a controlling motive in the
polities of tlie northwest and continued so until the war of 1812.
Its first, effect was that the Iroquois launched upon a great career of
conquest In Kilo they attacked the Attiwondaronks, called the
"neutral nation" by the French, living north and south of Niagara,
and these were driven out or absorbed in the victorious tribes.
Within a few years the Huron towns in upper Canada, though strong
enough to be called palisaded castles, were stormed and captured,
the inhabitants driven far to the west, and the country made desolate
and empty of people. The last o T eat battle, according to the Huron
tradition as told to General Harrison, was fought in canoes on Lake
Erie, in which nearly all the warriors of both nations perished.
The story of this campaign was told in Europe, and divided atten-
tion with the ghastly details of the massacre of fifty thousand Eng-
lish in Ireland.
About 1654 the Iroquois, flushed with success, turned their arms
against the nation possessing at that time the rich hunting grounds
of Ohio. These were also kindred to the Iroquois, but this was
immaterial to the conquerors. The Ohioans were called Riquehron-
nons (Rick-ohr-rons) by the Jesuit fathers, "or those of the Cat
nation," probably from their totem. Part of the original French
name survives in Erie (pronounced by the French airy). Rick-
30 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
ahickons, the English of Virginia called them, when several hundred
Eries fled to that region in L655. They were good enough fighters
to repulse the attacks of the English and Pomukies, hut were power-
less before the Iroquois. Eastern Ohio, it seems, was swept clear of
them by the invincible New York confederates, and given over to
solitude as a game reserve of the conquerors. But two great Indian
powers remained to the westward, the Twigtwees or Maumees and
the Chigtaghieks or Illinois.
Peace was made for a few years with the French, and the Jesuits
established a mission at Onondaga, but tin- fathers wore soon com-
pelled to retire, ami devote themselves to Wisconsin, following the
paths of the fur traders. Jesuit supremacy and French influence
were inseparable after 1632, and the Iroquois refused both. Their
attitude must have been influenced somewhat by their friends, the
Protestants of New York. The Dutch came to America from a
country for many years the battle-ground of religious wars, and the
English who succeeded them in 1664 were no less hostile to the power
of Rome. It is not an unwarranted statement, though rather start-
ling. that, the Iroquois were the outposts of Protestantism. Nor
were they, at that time, allies of which to be ashamed. In the tre-
mendous struggle that had distressed Europe for a century there
were participants whom the Iroquois could not surpass in ferocity
and cruelty. If may be doubted if women and children were safer
in any war cursed region of Europe at that day than they would have
been on the Indian border.*
On account of the hostilities mentioned, the French map makers
did not know of Lake Erie as distinct from Huron for many years.
It first appears as a separate lake in the map id' Creuxius, published
in 1660, doubtless by reason of the tracing of the north coast and the
discovery of the Riviere I)e Troit, or strait, by the fur traders.
The French made some headway against the Iroquois after this,
and Eemy de Courcelles invaded their "long house" in 1605, and
chastised the Mohawks. This was followed by important advances
in exploration. Robert Cavelier, who also bore the title of de la
Salle, a scion of an old and wealthy family at Rouen, France, ambi-
tious to establish a trading house and explore the interior, determined
to put to proof the Indian stories of a great river in the interior that
he imagined might empty in the Vermilion sea (gulf of California)
and afford a short route to India. Some Sulpitian fathers at Mon-
treal decided to carry the gospel to the dwellers along the great, river
at the same time, and the two joined in an expedition of eight canoes
*The religious influence was more apparent in later periods, when the
New Yorkers were shocked by the story that the Jesuits, seeking the favor
of the Iroquois, assured them that the king of France was the eldest son of
Jesus, probably a misunderstanding of the anxious efforts of the French to
establish the superior claims of his Christian Majesty.
"THE ANCIENT DOMAIN. 31
that set out from La Salle's post near Montreal, in July, 1669. They
were about to seek the headwaters of the great river that had its
sources partly in the Iroquois country, but the Sulpitians were either
dissuaded by the Senecas with stories of hostile Shawanees above the
Ohio falls or by the representations of Louis Joliet, who met them
on his return from the copper district of Lake Superior. The party
separated, the missionaries going to Long Point, on Lake Erie, and
paddling their eanoes thence, in the stormy waters of Lake Erie, to
Point Pelee and Detroit, a place they were the first historic charac-
ters, save Joliet (possibly), to visit. This is the first recorded use
of Lake Erie as a route to the west.
As for La Salle, his doings in the next two years are matters of
warm dispute among historians. The Jesuit fathers, with whom he
became hostile, do not give him credit for great discoveries after-
ward elaimed by and for him. An eminent authority* dismisses
his career at this period with the words : "La Salle, by way of Lake
Erie, reached the Illinois, or some other affluent of the Mississippi,
but made no report and made no claim, having failed to reach the
main river." With the dispute regarding the comparative honors of
Marquette, Joliet, and La Salle, as discoverers of the Mississippi, we
have little to do here. Each of them saw a river which had been
known to the Spanish for more than a century. But it is of inter-
est in connection with the history of Ohio to know if La Salle in this
disputed period navigated the river from which the State obtains its
name. It was not then definitely known as the O-hee-0, for the
Iroquois gave that, name also to the Mississippi, and possibly to other
great rivers, and the Lenape called it Alleghany. The authorities
for claiming that LaSalle was the first European to visit it are, first,
his memorial to Count Erontenac, governor of Canada, in 1<;77, in
which he declares: "In the year 1667 and following he made
divers voyages, with nnich expense, in which he was the first to reach
the countries south of the lakes, and discovered among others the
great river of Ohio; he followed it to a narrow 7 place where it fell
from a great height into vast marshes, after having been reinforced
by another very large river from the north." This is construed to
mean discovery of the river now called Ohio, as far south as the falls
at Louisville.
The other authority is an anonymous history of La Salle, pub-
lished at Paris in 1670, which relates that the explorer, with an
Indian giiide, navigated the Ohio until he "found a saull [falls or
rapids] which fell toward west in a low coimtry, marshy, all cov-
ered with old souches [stumps or trunks], of which some are yet sur
pied [standing or alive]." In 1670, by the same authority, he
coasted Lake Erie (on the Ohio side, doubtless) and on to Lake
'John G. Shea, "The Catholic Church in Colonial Days.'
32 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Michigan, and descended a river to a great stream, apparently the
Mississippi, which he followed until sure that it emptied into the
gulf of Mexico and not, as he fondly hoped, into the gulf of Califor-
nia. Joliet observed the mouth of the Ohio when with Marquette on
the Mississippi, and in 1670 he made a map showing the Ohio unmis-
takably, though not correctly. Along its course is inscribed: "River
by which the Sieur de la Salle desceuded in setting out from Lake
Erie to go into Mexico." Another map of Joliet's, four years later,
•shows an exactly similar trace of the Ohio, with the inscription,
''Route de M. de la Salle pour aller dans le Mexique." It is
charged, however, that, this trace and inscription have been added
by another hand to the original chart. A curious feature of botli
maps is that the great northward l>end of the Ohio, where it receives
the Miami, is made to approach closely to Lake Erie. The Maumee
is also shown, apparently as far as Fort. Wayne, and dotted lines indi-
cate that the portage there is directly from the Maumee to the Ohio.
This scorns to reinforce the opinion of Gen. J. S. f'lark, that La Salle
went down the Wabash instead of the Ohio, and saw the falls and
marshy country at Logansport instead of Louisville. But in that
ease the tracing of the upper Ohio, to its source in two rivers, must
be explained. This error regarding the close approach at the Mau-
mee portage was accepted for a long time, and when it was known
that the Ohio did not flow so far north, Hennepin, the companion of
LaSalle in later voyages, mapped the lake far enough southward to
maintain a similar distance. Tints it was delineated as late as 1697,
on a Hennepin map which (significantly) does not show the Wa-
bash.*
The conclusion of Parkman is that "La Salle discovered the Ohio,
and in all probability the Illinois also, but that he discovered the
Mississippi lias not been proved, nor in the light of the evidence we
have, is it likely." Winsor, a more recent authority, says: "Mar-
gry [ the main champion for La Salle of the honor of discovering the
Mississippi] has ceased of late years to claim that LaSalle reached
the Mississippi by the < >hio, hut is content, to assert that he did noth-
ing more than to follow the stream to some distance."
There can he no profitable denial, however, of the greatness of
La Salle and the tremendous energy that carried him through a career
of discovery ami adventure unparalleled in the AVest, and sustained
him in misfortunes that would have crushed an ordinary man. Save
*In the map of Monet (lfiSo) the upper Ohio is called the Ouabaehe
(Wabash), the lower Ohio the Choucagua (Chicago). In 1GSS the name
"Ohio" or Belle Riviere appears on the map of Franquelin. LaHontan's
map. a little later, shows "Lac Errie or De Conti," with some correctness,
and south of it a dotted line marked. "The route that the Illinois. Oumamis.
and other savages take by land, same as the Yroques follow to make war
with savage nations as far as the Mississippi."
;
THE ANCIENT DOMAIN. 33
De Soto, and he had an army to support him, there is no hero in the
early history of the Mississippi and Ohio valleys to compare with
this Robert Cavelier. We next hear of him as seigneur of Tort
Frontenac, on the northeast shore of Lake Ontario, the first French
fort that far west, where, aided by his family in France, he might
have quietly rested, ruled all the lake and grown wealthy in the fur
trade. But he was determined to extend his influence and that of
France, to the great rivers southwestward. In one of his visits to
Europe he secured a helper of like spirit, Henri de Tonty, an Ital-
ian, and in 167S they established a fort at Niagara. Above the falls,
carrying the material twelve miles, they built the Griffin, the first
sail boat on Lake Erie. This pioneer of the wonderful inland navy
of the great lakes, of forty-five tons burden and carrying five small
cannon, was launched in 1679. In it La Salle and Tonty sailed to
Mackinac and up Lake Michigan. From St. Joseph the boat was
sent back for supplies, and was never again seen. Going down the
Kankakee and Illinois, La Salle and Tonty built Fort Crevecceur
near Peoria, and then the indomitable captain sent Hennepin to
explore the Mississippi. He l-eturned on foot and by canoe over
Lake Erie, to Fort Frontenac, to find his property seized by creditors,
his supply ship from France wrecked on the coast, and a band of
deserters who had destroyed Fort Crevecceur and the post at St.
Joseph seeking to waylay and kill him. While he was surmounting
these difficulties, the jealous Iroquois, being informed of his traffic
with the Western Indian.-, journeyed to that distant country, through
the forests of Ohio and Indiana, and according to their story, utterly
destroyed the chief town of the Illinois and drove its inhabitants
across the Mississippi.
Under such circumstances, with the influence of the Jesuits
against him. La Salle regained his credit, returned to Illinois, hunted
the wilderness for Tonty, went down the Mississippi in Hi^i',
returned to France, sailed at the head of a fleet to establish French
dominion at the mouth of the great river, and though he failed and
died in the wilds of Texas, succeeded in giving the impulse of enter-
prise that resulted in founding the vast interior empire of New
France, from the St. Lawrence and Lake Superior to the Gulf.
Already, at Sault St. Marie, the sovereignity of "the most high,
mighty and redoubtable monarch, Louis, fourteenth of that name,
king of France and of Navarre," had been proclaimed over all lands
between the seas of the north and west and the South sea.
Meanwhile the enemies of French dominion were active. Renew-
ing their career of conquest, the Iroquois established their towns as
far west as the Cuyahoga, routed the Canois in West Virginia; dis-
persed the Shawanees who had their seat on the Skenota or Deer
river (Sciota), followed them across the Ohio and drove them from
the ■"meadow land" (Kentakee), and made war on the Oherokees.
1—3
34 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Long before this, in the east, the Andastes (the tribe that bore spe-
cially the title of Mengwe), had been reduced to subjection, and the
most dangerous enemy of the Iroquois, the Delawaxes or Lenni
Lenape, had been persuaded by the Iroquois and Dutch together to
abjure war and take the part of arbitrators and mediators. As it
was always left for the women to demand peace, this diplomatic tri-
umph was called by the Iroquois "putting petticoats on the Dela-
ware, '" and the latter were denied the title of men.
The supremacy of the [roquois throughout the lake region, south
to the Tennessee river, and west into the Maumee and Illinois coun-
try, meant British trade supremacy in the Ohio valley, if not actual
possession, and the severing of the French domain. The situation
demanded vigorous effort on the part of the French. Xegotiation
was given a trial in a conference held with the Iroquois in 1684 at
the Cuyahoga river, but this was unavailing, and the haughty lords
of the west continued their forays against the Maumees, Illinois and
Ottawas. The crisis arrived in 1686 when two Xew York trading
parties, composed mainly of those hardy Irish and Scotch-Irish who
were the pioneers of British power in the interior, ventured to navi-
gate Lake Erie and trespass upon the Huron trade. They were
promptly arrested and sent out of the country, and next year the mar-
quis Denonville, governor of Canada, rebuilt Fort Niagara in the
country claimed by the Iroquois, and, aided by a force of western
Indians, ravaged tin' Seneca towns. Governor Dongan, of Xew
York, remonstrated against the invasion of the Iroquois country, and
inquired why the Xew York traders were captured in a land where
they had a right to be. under the covenant chain with the Five
Nations, who were lords of the domain. Why not let the British
have a linger in the pie, he inquired. "If the sheep's fleece be the
thing in dispute, pray let the king of England have some part, of it."*
The French laughed at the Iroquois claim to the west, but soon
found occasion to admit the Iroquois power. The Five Xations,
under some greal leader whose name has vanished, destroyed Fort
Niagara, invaded Canada itself (1688-89), ravaged the whole coun-
try in the west, up to the gates of Montreal. Dongan proposed to
seize the island of Mackinaw, but the ambitions project was aban-
doned. The Iroquois occtipied the country north of Lake Erie, and
mi the south pushed westwardly to the confines of the territory held
in Ohio by the .Maumee nation. This strong confederation of tribes,
wiib its seats of power on the three rivers rising in northwest Ohio
that were the channels of ancient transportation, the Maumee of
Lake Erie, the Miami that gave a canoe route to the Ohio, and the
Wabash that led to the Mississippi, vigorously resisted the extension
of [roquois conquest There was continual war in Ohio between the
*The Ohio Vallev in Colonial Days," Berthold Fernow.
THE ANCIENT DOMAIN. 35
two nations, whose outpost tribes, the Senecas for the Iroquois and
Twigtwees for the Maumees, bore the brunt of the conflict. In
1600 the Iroquois and Canada made a peace that lasted for sixty
years, Irat the hostilities continued in Ohio, with such success on the
part of the western red men that the haughty Iroquois were forced to
ask the governor of Xew York to intervene.*
'Journal of Capt. William Trent, notes by Goodman.
1190769
CHAPTER II.
THE WAR AROUND THE WORLD.
Colonial Charters — Intrigues eor Indian Trade — Expedition
of Celoron — Croghan, Montour and Gist — Events at Piok-
awillany — The Skirmish that Set the World on Eire —
Braddock's Campaign — Bounding of Bittsburg — Expedition
of Rogers — The Moravians — Bontiac's War.
THE BRITISH colonists, though laggards in the work of ex-
ploring vest of the Alleghanies, were not slow in seeking
the trade of the Indians in that region, or asserting their
claims to sovereignty. Under the charter of 1609 Vir-
ginia claimed "all lands, countries and territories'' two hundred miles
south from Boint Comfort and as far north, "and up into the main-
land throughout from sea to sea west and northwest." The crown
treated this grant as annulled, and chartered Bennsvlvania, Mary-
land and [North Carolina within its limits, but Virginia went to the
verge of war in later years for a part of the Quaker dominion. Massa-
chusetts and Connecticut also had charters for land from sea to sea.
In 1701 the Iroquois made a sort of quit claim of the country north-
west of the Ohio to New York, and in 1720 Governor Burnet
obtained a deed of trust to King George of a strip along the south
shore of Lake Erie as far west as the Cuyahoga. But the French
were the only explorers and possessors, except some Virginians sent
out by General Wood in 1671, who claimed to have traced the Kana-
wha river down to the falls.
Before 1000, as has been noted, Irish traders were in the Ohio
region, but the Maumees continued to be firm supporters of France
and an embassy from the earl of Bellemonte, governor of Xew York,
was sent as prisoners to Canada. The Iroquois war toward the close
of the century went against the western nation, and in 1702 a peace
was made, and part of the nation agreed to trade with the British
colonists, and compelled M. dc Jucherau and a. party of Canadians
to abandon their projected settlement on the lower Wabash. At this
time France and England were at war, both involved in that great
THE WAR AROUND THE WORLD. 37
struggle that was incited by the succession of the Bourbons to the
throne of Spain, in which the English Marlborough upheld the right
of Queen Anne to the throne of England, where France would have
}3ut a Stuart, and the rival French and British colonists were urged
to greater effort in their straggle for Ohio and the Northwest. In
1705 Governor Vaudreuil, of Canada, sent M. de Vincennes to
persuade the Maumees to expel the British traders, and this was
followed by a military expedition, under Cadillac, to force a recon-
ciliation, but a few years later the Maumees sent a delegation to New
York to talk of trade relations. In the midst of the European war
the king of Spain, who had not yet recognized the right of the French
in the Mississippi valley, coded France all the vast interior claimed
under the name of Louisiana, including ( )hio, and this was confirmed
by the treaty of Utrecht, 1713. By the same treaty, which termin-
ated the conflict at that time between England and France, the Iro-
quois were recognized as subjects of Great Britain not to be molested
by the French, and England at the same time agreed to keep peace
with the Indians of the West who were under French influence. The
subjects of each nation were to enjoy full liberty going and coming
in trade.
But in spite of the peace the Iroquois influence and the proximity
of the British settlements seem to have closed eastern Ohio against
French trade. The Iroquois barrier extended Avestward to the San-
dusky at least. Beyond them lay the Maumees, divided in allegiance
to France, receiving British traders on the Wabash as early as 1715.
At Kekionga, the main Maumee town, at the head of the Maumee
river, and near where the portage was made from that river to the
Wabash, forming the shortest channel of transportation from Can-
ada to Louisiana, a French mission was planted early in the century.
In 1719 a post was established on the Wabash among the Weas
(Ouiatenon), and some years later Post Vincennes was founded. In
1725 the French were asking the Maumees to renew the war on the
Iroquois, in the hope that that might keep out British traders. But
now and then French traders were killed, while the British were fav-
ored, and the repeated intrigues of the French to involve the Mau-
mees in war with the Iroquois or to drive out the English^ failed of
effect. Further east the first aggressive step of the French in oppo-
sition to the adverse possession of the Iroquois and the British, that
threatened the center of their long line of dominion from Quebec to
New Orleans, was to rebuild Fort Niagara. New York made a cotm-
ter-move in 1725 by establishing the long-contemplated trading post
and fort at. Oswego. The French had the advantage in position here,
and the New York traders were presently complaining that the fur
packs from the distant "Wyacktenocks," Maumees and other tribes,
were intercepted at Niagara.
Traders from the English colonies also established themselves on
38 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
the Ohio, as fax down as Logstown (14 mile- down the river from
Pittsburg), and some adventurous spirits went much farther into the
western wilds. Tradition says that John Howard, of Virginia, went,
down the Ohio to the Mississippi in 174;.'. and was made a prisoner
by the French. In 1744 occurred the famous treaty of Lancaster,
Pa., between representatives of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Vir-
ginia, and the Iroquois nation; Conrad Weiser, the great interpreter
of that day, assisting. The Indians were persuaded to make certain
concessions of land, under which the Virginia settlements were
pushed west of the Alleghanies, but the treaty was repudiated by the
red men as obtained by unworthy means, though a ratification was
obtained in the same way at Logstown in 1752.
The English speaking trailers who were endangering the suprem-
acy of France in the west, were, if we may win illy accept, the con-
temporary accounts, to a considerable extent unprincipled or lawless.
Poor Alary Harris, captured at the burning of Deerfield, Jlass., in
17<>4, and reared among the red men. with her home finally on the
Walhonding, remembered that in her childhood they used to be very
religious in New England, and wondered how white men could be so
wicked as they were in the woods.* But whatever their failings, the
traders were enterprising and tireless travelers. To the number of
three hundred a year they went over the Alleghanies, their goods
packed on the hacks of horses, and followed the Indian trails and
buffalo tracks into the interior, or floated down the Ohio in canoes.
Some crossed the Mississippi and traded with the Osages.
George Oroghan, whose name is the most conspicuous of all in this
commercial invasion of the Ohio valley, had come to Pennsylvania
from Ireland in 174o, and within three years was trading as far west
as the Maumee country. In 1748 he had a trading house at the
month of Beaver river, and others were soon established in the prin-
cipal Ohio villages. He urged the policy adopted by Pennsylvania,
of weaning the western Indians from the French by presents and
trade concessions, and in 1717 he was sent out by the colonial gov-
ernment to deliver presents to the various tribes, thank them for a
French scal]i sent in. and announce a proclamation prohibiting the
trade in strong liquor.f This prohibition, it may he said, was not
effective, and the chiefs who thanked Croghan for it. suggested that
as they hail never tasted English rum. a little would he acceptable for
experimental purposes.
During this first half of the eighteenth century there was a con-
siderable resettlement of Ohio by Indian tribes. The Hurons or
Wyandots, who had been driven west by the Iroquois ami back from
Lake Superior by the Sioux, to settle, greatly reduced in numbers,
* Gist's Journal.
t "Gist's Journal." note by W. M. Darlington.
THE WAR AROUND THE WORLD. 39
about the French post of Detroit, pushed cast ward to Sandusky* bay,
and through central Ohio to the Beaver river, and began to assert a
sovereignty over all the land between the Ohio and Lake Erie. The
Ottawas (Ottaw' wahs), also exiles from upper Canada, shared the
eastward migration of the Wyandots, and frequented the islands of
Lake Erie and the peninsula of Sandusky. The Sliawanees, after
leaving their old homes on the banks of the Ohio and in Kentucky
and Tennessee, had moved southward, some to the Carolina borders.
In 1698 a considerable body settled on the upper Potomac, and many,
returning from the south, moved into the country of the Delaw r ares,
where there had been Sliawanees at the time of Penn's treaty. In
1728 some sought French protection on the Alleghany, and some,
crowded out of Pennsylvania with the Delawares, moved into south-
ern and central Ohio west of the Scioto. Later, about 1755, other
Sliawanees came back to Ohio with a story of wanderings as far south
as the salt water where there were ruins of white settlements, evi-
dently middle Florida, where, according to some writers, they gave
their name to the Suwannee river. Beginning in about 174:0, the
Delawares, by permission of the Wyandots, established towns on the
upper Muskingung ( Elk's Eye) river. Their most western town was
on the Scioto, and their total military strength in Ohio was about
five hundred warriors.
The friendship of the tribes was won by < 'roghan's policy. Declar-
ing that the French traders had cheated his people, the Piankeshaw
chief, called "Demoiselle,'' left his home near the French posts, and
established himself at the site of an ancient town of the Twigtwees,
a village called Pickawillany.t on the Great Miami, north of the
present town of Piqua. By reason of friendship to the Pennsylvania
traders the chief earned the name of ''Old Britain." His capital was
a great rendezvous of traders, who built a log fort and storehouse and
raised the British flag in the heart of the region claimed by France,
In 17-47 the hostility roused against the French culminated in the
league of seventeen tribes, including some of the Iroquois, formed
under the leadership of Nicholas, a Wyandot chief, who had estab-
lished himself 011 Sandusky hay about 174-5. Many French traders
were killed in all parts of the west, and trading posts broken up.
The Maumee fort was captured, hut a timely warning saved Detroit
*It is said that the Wyandots bestowed the name Outsandoukie. meaning
"there is pure water there." Another story is that Sandusky derives its
name from Jonathan Sodowsky. also called Sandusky, who came to America
in the time of Queen Anne, and was an Indian trader at that port. His son,
James, built Sandusky's station in Kentucky about 1776. and Jacob, another
son, went down the river to New Orleans in the same year.
t According to Gist, the "Pickwaylinees" were a tribe of Twightwees. The
name in various forms, Piqua and Pickway and Pickaway, became rather
common in Ohio. The remarks in Howe's History regarding the correct
form of the word, and the meaning of it, are evidently erroneous.
40 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
from falling into the hands of the conspirators. In the following
year peace was made, the Maumee fort was rebuilt, and Nicholas
abandoned his Sandusky village and retreated into the wilderness.
But this French victory was more than offset by the treaty of peace
and commerce made by the Maumees, Iroquois and Shawanees, at
Lancaster, Pa., in 1748. In the following year the Maumees sent
seventy-seven packs of skins to Oswego.
Not only were the western Indians being detached in friendship
and commerce from the French, but schemes for English coloniza-
tion in the Ohio valley were on foot toward the middle of the eight-
eentfi century. The Ohio company, formed in 1748, in which
Thomas Lee, president of the Virginia council, and Augustine and
Laurence, brothers of George Washing! were stockholders, was
granted 200,000 acres south of the "river Alleghany, otherwise
called Ohio," with a promise of 300,000 more when a fort should be
built and a hundred families located. This meant encroachment upon
the territory of Louisiana, which included, by the French claim, all
the country drained by the Mississippi river and its tributaries.
While all these events were preparing a crisis in the relations of
the French and English colonies, the mother countries were absorbed
in the wars which followed the accession of Maria Theresa to the
throne of Austria, and the attempted partition of her domain, begun
by Frederick of Prussia and the king of Spain. When the quarrel
between Frederick and Maria Theresa was quieted for a while by
the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, in 1748, both France and England had
time to listen to the complaints of their American colonists. France
sent over as temporary governor of Canada the valiant Marquis de la
Galissoniere, humpbacked but keen in intellect, and the chief repre-
sentative in France of the spirit of American expansion. He was
prompt, upon his arrival at Quebec, to announce the determination of
France to hold the Ohio valley. The Sandusky and Maumee hostiles
were subdued, and. in the summer of 174H, Celoron de Bienville (or
Blainville), a captain of colonial troops and chevalier of St. Louis,
was sent out to mark the claims of New France and warn the Eng-
lish trespassers. With fourteen officers, twenty French soldiers, one
hundred and eighty Canadians, and a band of Indians, embarked in
twenty-three birchbark canoes. Celoron sailed up Lake Ontario, port-
aged around the falls of Niagara, coasted along Lake Erie to a
portage, and, by Lake Chautauqua and its outlet, reached la Belle
Riviere -Tune 29th. On the south side, opposite the mouth of the
Alleghany, he affixed the arms of France to a tree, and buried at its
base a lead plate, which, according to its inscription, was ''a token
of renewal of possession heretofore taken of the River Ohio, of all
streams that fall into it, and all lands on both sides to the sources of
the same, as the preceding kings of France have enjoyed or ought to
have enjoyed, and which they have upheld by force of arms and by
THE WAR AROUND THE WORLD. 41
treaties, notably by those of Ryswick, Utreclit and Aix la Chapelle."
They then floated down the river, or marched along its shore, ''buried
in the somber and dismal valley," as it was described by Father
Bonnecamp, the astronomer of the expedition ; posting - the lilies of
France upon the trees of the wilderness and burying their futile lead
plates at the mouths of important tributaries. After passing a new
town of the Wyaudots, at the mouth of Beaver, where they were
saluted in friendly spirit with volleys of musketry, they went through
their ceremonies at the mouths of three rivers, one of which, the
Muskingum, they called Yanange konan, Iroquois for "tobacco peo-
ple," revealing the presence of the Wyandots. Soon afterward, they
noticed the ''Illinois cattle" (buffaloes) in small herds. At the
mouth of the Sinhioto (Scioto) was found a village of sixty houses,
of Chaouanons (Shawanees), who pierced the flag of Celoron's
embassy with bullet-holes, but finally consented to an amicable coun-
cil. Here five English traders were ordered out of Ohio, as a larger
party had been at the Big Beaver. A village of Maumees was found
at the mouth of river Blanche (Little Miami), and on July 31st the
party left the Ohio to go up the River of Rocks (Great Miami), to
visit the redoubtable chief whom they called I. a Demoiselle. Though
they tarried for some time at his village, "Old Britain" remained
within bis lug fort, refused to see them, and trifled with Celoron's
order to return to his former place. Burning their canoes, Celoron's
party marched northward, past the dilapidated French fort on the
Maumee, and so on to Detroit. In traveling one hundred and eighty-
one leagues on the Ohio river, said Father Bonnecamp, but twelve
Indian villages were found, but the reports received indicated a
greater population in the interior, among which the English traders
were established. "Behold then," said he, "the English already
within our territory, and, what is more, they are under the protec-
tion of a crowd of savages win mi they entice to themselves and whose
number increases every day."
Celoron's expedition was followed by three very important events:
the death of Conestoga, the great chief of the Iroquois nation : the
succession of a chief who adhered to the Catholic, church and was
favorably disposed toward the French ; and the capture in north-
west Ohio and haling to ( Janada of some Fennsylvania traders.
The Pennsylvania assembly, usually very cautious in expenditures,
opened the colonial purse in this emergency. A hundred pounds
were voted for the purchase of presents to the Iroquois, a hundred for
the Twigtwees, and five hundred for "the natives of the Ohio" gen-
erally, who were to be invited to a great council in western Pennsyl-
vania. About the same time, to placate the Delawares, the white
settlements west of the Susquehanna were broken up, household goods
moved, and cabins given to the torch.
40 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
The mission to the Indians was entrusted to George Croghan, and
Andrew Montour, the "White Mingo," a picturesque character, of
French Canadian and Indian descent, who was famous as au inter-
preter of many Indian languages and exerted great influence for the
English during the succeeding years. On state occasions he was a
striking figure, attired in brown broadcloth coat, scarlet damaskeen
waistcoat, breeches over which his shirt hung, the shoes and hat of
civilization on his head and feet, and the favorite '"basket-handle"
pendants of the Indians dangling from his ears. These ambassadors
of Pennsylvania commerce' arrived at Logstown in November, 1750,
and thence set out with a small party for an overland trip through
Ohio, following the great trail to Pickawillany from the mouth of
Beaver river.
( Jroghan and Montour were not to be alone in this famous journey.
Christopher Gist, son of one of the commissioners who platted the
city of Baltimore, had started out in September, 1750, as the repre-
sentative of the Ohio company, to view the western land. He took
occasion to assert the claim of Virginia to the country south of the
< >hio, and was very much embarrassed by a shrewd Delaware chief,
who asked him where the Indian land lay, if the French owned all
on one side and the English all on the other. As Gist approached the
Wyandot town on the .Muskingum,* he caught sight of British flags
flying from Croghan's trading house and the house of the chief, and
was -'"'ii t.'ld that < !roghan was stirring up the red men regarding the
capture of traders, and the French were building a new fort on one
of the branches of Lake Erie.f At this place was the first observance
of Christmas in Ohio, December 25, 1750. Gist, a. loyal member of
the church of England, invited the white men to join him in reading
prayers, but they, not being "inclined to hear any good," and preju-
diced against the established church, buna' off until Thomas Burney,
the blacksmith, a jolly man, no doubt (who, poor fellow, stood a
French siege on the Miami and lost his life with Braddock ), brought
some of the frontiersmen around in the afternoon, while Montour led
in a party of red men. Gist, explaining that he meant no harm, or
offense to any sect, read to them of salvation, faith and good works,
from the homilies of his church.* Then Montour gave Gist great
distinction in the eyes of the Indians by remarking that he was of the
true faith of the great king. Crowding around, they thanked the
explorer, called him Annosanah, the name of a good man who once
*Muskingung, meaning Elk's Eye. was the Indian name for the Tuscara-
was as well as the Muskingum. This town was on the Tuscarawas near the
forks.
t Supposed to refer to Sandusky bay.
tThis, was no doubt the first Protestant service in Ohio. In 1766 the
Revs. Charles Beatty and George Duffield. Presbyterians, preached at New-
comerstown, and March 4. 1771. the Rev. David Zeisberger, United Brethren,
delivered his first sermon at the same .town. — Notes to Gist's Journal.
THE WAR AROUND THE WORLD. 43
dwelt with them, and begged him to take up his abode in Ohio and
baptize their children. One of them surprised Gist by bringing- a pin
calendar, of French contrivance, to show that he always observed the
Sabbath day.
But life in an Indian town had its vivid contrasts. On the day
following, Gist made this entry in his journal : "Tins Day a Woman
who had been a long time a Prisoner, and had deserted and been
retaken, and brought into the Town on Christinas Eve, was put. to
death in the following manner: They carried her without the Town
& let her loose, and when she attempted to run away the Person
appointed for that Purpose pursued her ami struck her on the Ear,
on the right side of her Head, which beat her Hat on her Face on the
Ground ; they then stuck her several times through the Back with a
Dart to the Heart, scalped her & threw the scalp in the Air, and
another cut off her Head. There the dismal Spectacle lay until the
Evening, & then Barney Curran desired leave to bury Her, which
He and his Men, and some of the Indians did just at dark."
From the Muskingum town Oroghan, Montour, Gist and Robert
Oallender, with their party and pack horses, proceeded through Ohio
to the west. They passed through the little town on the Walhonding
where the white woman lived (Mary Harris), and followed the great
trail to the most westerly town of the Delawares, on Scioto, where the
chief was Windaughalah, whose name signified "ambassador." He
was the great war chief of the Delawares, and conspicuous in the
treaty making of subsequent years. The name of his son, Buekon-
gahelas, is perpetuated in the geography of the country. On Janu-
ary 28th the party reached the main Shawanee town, at the mouth of
the Scioto. '"The Shannoah town,'' wrote Gist, "is situate upon both
sides of the River Ohio, just below the mouth of Sciddoe Creek, and
contains about 300 Men. There are about 40 Houses on the South
side of the River and about 100 on the North side, with a Kind of
State house of about 90 feet long, with a tight cover of Bark, in which
they hold their Councils." A few years later the northern part of
the town was destroyed by flood.
In the middle of February Oroghan and his companions came in
sight of Pickawillany, and after firing a few volleys in salute and
greeting, and smoking the warrior's pipe that was sent out to them,
they entered the town, with hearts warmed despite the wintry weather
by the sight of the British colors flying upon the log fort. They w r ere
entertained in the chief's house, where all the white traders in town
were called in to meet them, and then went to the long house to meet
the chief and council. Montour opened the negotiations in the figura-
tive style of the red men, with whom, though their vocal Hilary was rich
and copious, friendship was poetically styled "an open road." "You
have made a road for our brothers, the English, to come and trade
among you," he said, speaking in behalf of the Shawanees and Dela-
44 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
wares, "but it is now very foul [alluding to tbe capture of traders],
great logs have fallen across it, and we would have you be strong like
men, and have one heart with us, and make the road clear, that our
brothers, the English, may have free course and recourse between you
and us. In the sincerity of our hearts we send you these four strings
of wampum." This was received with tbe usual deep-voiced "Yo-
ho," from the seated council, the calumet of peace was passed about,
and the offerings made, of tobacco, clothing and shirts. The pow-
wow, with intermissions enlivened by dance-, lasted two weeks.
Hardly had Croghan and Montour begun to make headway when some
Ottawa Indians came in with wampum, tobacco and brandy from the
French, but when their speaker first entered the council, "Old Brit-
ain" reproached the French for "fouling the road, 7 ' and turning his
back upon envoy and brandy, abruptly left the house. The French
ambassador wont out among the Indians, and finding his arguments
futile, sent up a wail of lamentation. Two days later the final answer
was given the French ambassador, not by "Old Britain," but by the
captain of the Maumee warriors, who, holding up four strings of
black and white wampum, declared in a warlike voice: '"Brothers
the Ottawas, you are always differing with tbe French yourselves, and
yet you always listen to what they say ; but we will let you know by
these four strings of wampum that wc will not hear anything they
say to us, nor do anything they bid us." They had made a road to the
sea by the sunrising, he continued, and taken the hand of the English,
the Six Nations, Delawares, Shawanees and Wyandot s. "Brothers
of the Ottawas, you hear what I say; tell that to your father, the
French, for that is our mind, and we speak ir from our hearts.''
Finally, on March 1st, the orator of the Maumees, another officer
subordinate to the chief, delivered the answer of the confederacy to
the governor of Pennsylvania. They had come to a resolution, he
said, never to give heed to what the French said, but always to hear
and believe the English. They would come to Logstown for council
as soon as the corn was planted, and the distant tribes had come in.
Though they were poor, they hoped their brothers would accept the
gift of a bundle of skins for shoes on the road, and on their part they
were heartily grateful for the clothes, which they had put on the
women and children.
These proceedings, recorded by Gist in his Journal, arc of interest
as ilie first great treaty in Ohio, and convey some idea of the dignity
and statesmanship of the red men. The deputations returned to the
east, .Gist going by the Ohio river and visiting the then famous Big
Bone lick, though warned that French Indians were seeking to way-
lay him. After inspecting the lands south of the Ohio, lie reached
the Ohio company's warehouse, on the Potomac, opposite tbe present
town of Cumberland, and fifteen miles from the Shawanee headquar-
THE WAR AROUND THE WORLD.
45
ters in 1698 to 172S. At the latter place was the residence of the
famous Col. Tin nuns Cresap, then a member of the Ohio company,
whose capture in 1736 bj a Pennsylvania sheriff was a notable part
of the Virginia and Pennsylvania hostilities, which led to the run-
ning of Mason's and Dixon's line (begun in 1769). His son,
Michael Cresap, afterward figured in the border raids of Ohio.
In May, 1751, Croghan and Montour met a great concourse of
Iroquois, Delawares, Shawanees and Maumees at Logstown, and
were successful in making a commercial treaty with them, although
the French sent several canoe loads of presents down the Alleghany
and contended for the Indian favor.
Unfortunately for the English colonics, the assembly of Pennsyl-
vania was displeased with Croghan's negotiations, on account of the
expense involved, and jealousy of the power of the proprietors of the
colony. New York, for awhile, w r as left alone, by the dissensions of
Pennsylvania and Virginia, to oppose the French aggression. In its
behalf Col. William Johnson negotiated witli the eastern Iroquois,
while Joncaire and Father Piquet labored with the Senecas in the
French interest. Piquet was encouraged to suggest that an army of
eighteen hundred Iroquois and Ohioans could be raised to drive the
English from the disputed territory and make war on Virginia. The
Marquis de la Jonquiere, then governor of Canada, was asked by < rov-
ernor Clinton to dismantle the new fort at Niagara, in the territory
of British subjects (the Iroquois), and release traders captured in
Ohio, but the Frenchman spurned the pretensions of English author-
ity over the Five Nations, and offered a reward for the head of George
( 'roghan, asserting that the latter had instigated the killing of French-
men. Jonquiere sent sharp orders to Celoron, now in command at
Detroit, to ln-oak up the trading post at Pickawillany, and was wor-
ried by equally urgent orders from France to drive out the British
intruders, though France could not spare him money to build forts
on Lake Erie. Yet France was at that time the powerful nation of
Europe, and even on the sea, her fleet, under the command of Galis-
soniere, who had returned from Quebec to resume that honor, humil-
iated the British. Jonquiere died, in the midst of his anxieties, and
was temporarily succeeded by Longueil, who received reports from
Celoron, from Raymond at the Maumee fort, and Saint Ange at Yin-
cennes, all telling of the hostile influence of the trailers at Pickawil-
lany, the Indian threats of war, and the killing of French traders.
The red men yet adhering to the French sought refuge at Detroit, but
refused to aid Celoron in the expedition he was ordered to make
against Pickawillany. Though militia were sent on from the east,
no move was made until Charles Langlade, a young French trader
who had married a Green Bay maiden, came down the lake to Detroit
with 250 Ottawas and Ojibwas. These did not shrink from conflict
4G
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
■with the Maumees, and on the morning of June 21, 1752, Celoron's
force, having marched down by Kekionga, came in sight of the British
flag waving over the fort of the Piankeshaw chief.
The fight that followed did not demand much valor on the part of
the victors. Most of the Maumees were away on the summer hunt,
and when the squaws came in shrieking from the fields, "Old Brit-
ain" and some of the others in the village did not have time to gain
the protection of the fort. Three traders were taken outside, and
three others were given up by the Maumees within the fort, on condi-
tion that the siege should not be prosecuted, and the prisoners should
be well treated. Two traders, Andrew McBryer and the black-
smith of Muskingum, Thomas Burney, were hidden. The store-
houses were' plundered, a wounded trader was stabbed to death,
fourteen Maumees were killed before they could reach the fort, and
the proud chief who was England's hope in the West was put to death,
roasted and eaten by his savage enemies.* As soon as they could take
a French scalp in retaliation, the Maumees of Pickawillany sent Bur-
ney with it and a message to the governors of Virginia and Pennsyl-
vania, saying: "We saw our great Piankeshaw king taken, killed
and eaten within a hundred yards of the fort, and before our faces.
We aow look upon ourselves as a lost people, fearing our brothers will
leave us ; but, before we will be subject to the French, or call them
our fathers, we will perish here" Captain William Trent and Mon-
tour, carrying presents to the Maumees from Governor Dinwiddie of
Virginia, met McBryer and Burney at the Shawanee town on the
Scioto in July, and was told of the sack of the western outpost of
trade. Trent went on, and though he found the town deserted, raised
the British flag again. In his journey he met the young Pianke-
shaw king, Assapausa, the Maumee chief Meechee Konahkwa or
Big Turtle, afterward famous in frontier history, and the widow
of Old Britain, who attended the Carlisle council in 1753 and put her
son under the protection of the British colonies.
The Marquis Duquesne, a heroic figure in the history of Xew
France, had by this time arrived at Quebec as governor, and he fol-
lowed up the Pickawillany stroke by an attempt to make good the
frontier sign posts of Celoron. One night in the spring of 1753 some
Mohawk couriers roused William Johnson from sleep by whooping
and yelling to tell him that the lake was covered with the French
canoes for an invasion of the Iroquois country. Fifteen hundred men,
French, Canadians and Algonquins, had been sent under Marin, to
*The Pennsylvania and Virginia assemblies voted aid to the Maumees on
account of the sack of Pickawillany and killing of Old Britain, but becoming
fearful of the loyalty of the Indians, held back most of the presents. The
Maumees then went over to the French and sent warriors to the battlefields
of New York and Pennsylvania in the following war.
THE WAR AROUND THE WORLD. 47
occupy the upper Ohio. They were the first, says Parkman, to follow
the Presque Isle route, and they fortified upon the lake and erected
Fort Le Bceuf at the other end of the portage to French creek. Marin
died there, and all suffered terribly from sickness, but the Indians
were effectively impressed with the military power of France. The
Iroquois as well as the Shawanees and Delawares on the Ohio sent
embassies to Philadelphia and Virginia, declaring- that they had
ordered the French to keep out of the. country, and asking- for help.
At the same time they demanded that all English settlers should be
kept out of the Ohio valley ; that the numerous traders, who had pro-
voked French jealousy, should be restricted to the head of the Ohio,
Logstown, and the month of the Kanawha. Especially should the
sale of liquor be stopped. "Your traders," said the Indians, "bring
scarce anything- but nun and flour. They bring little powder and
lead or other valuable goods. The rum ruins us." Had these condi-
tions been complied with, says a document of that period, the English
might easily have conquered the trade and secured the affections of
many of the Indian nations ; "whereas by neglecting this and suffer-
ing a parcel of banditti under the character of traders to run up and
down from one Indian town to another, cheating and debauching the
Indians, we have given them an ill opinion of our religion and man-
ners and lost their esteem and friendship."*
In this emergency the central colonial governors, though much-
embarrassed by the tendency of the representative assemblies to devote
their time to remonstrances against taxation, did the best they could
to defend their claims to the interior. Johnson, Croghan and Mon-
tour were untiring in their efforts to checkmate the French intrigue.
The friendly Iroquois chief, Scarroyada, or Half-King-, at a treaty in
September, 1753, assented to an English fort at. the head of the Ohio,
and promised to fight the French, though he refused to permit any
English settlements. Soon after, with Gist as his guide, and a few
followers, George Washington set out from Will's creek station of the
Ohio company, to carry to the French the order of Governor Dinwid-
dle that they should at once withdraw from the territory of the King
of England. From the forks at the head of the Ohio he proceeded to
Logstown, and up to Venango, the French outpost. There, when the
wine had flowed, "They told me," said Washington, "it was their
absolute design to take possession of the Ohio, and by God, they
would do it: for though the English could raise two men to their one,
yet they knew their motions were too slow and dilatory to prevent
any undertaking of theirs."
Washington, of course, got no satisfaction from the commander at
Le Bceuf, whom he visited in December. On his return he narrowly
♦"Inquiry into Cause of Alienation of Delaware and Shawanese Indians,
from the British Interest," 1759.
48 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
escaped death from the bullet of a treacherous guide and from drown-
ing in the icy water, but finally reached Will's creek, exhausted, and
Gist half frozen.
Then came actual war. The vigorous efforts of Governor Dinwid-
die, who ordered a draft of two hundred men, to be commanded by
Colonel Washington, and called for aid from the Ohio Indians and
the other colonies, resulted in the construction of a little fort at the
head of the Ohio by the advance guard of the forces of defense. But
Contrecceur came down upon this post in April, 1754, and compelled
its surrender. Against Washington, who bad marched with the main
body of colonial troops to Great Meadows on hearing of the French
advance, Junonville was sent in reconnoissance, fatally to that gallant
young officer, who fell in the combat that compelled the retreat of his
command. In France it was told that Junonville was treacherously
murdered by '"the cruel Washinghton," and there was a general cry
for revenge. ''This obscure skirmish set the world on fire." * With it
may be said to have begun the war for Ohio, which presently broad-
ened into a struggle the issue of which founded the modem conditions
of Anglo-Saxon and German supremacy around the world.
After his success in this skirmish, Washington advanced, but being
unsupported, soon found it desirable to fall back to his post, called
Fort Necessity. There Contrecceur attacked him July 3d, with a
force of French and Indians, and after a fight in a dismal rain for
nine hours, Washington capitulated. It was on July 4, 1754, that
he marched out with his band of colonials from the advanced post of
Anglo-Saxon power in America and in humiliation trudged, back
toward the upper Potomac
He could do no better with the support he received. iSTo Indians
were with him. and the French had plenty. The advantages gained
in trade in the Ohio country vanished as soon as the red men perceived
the bold show of the French and the feeble motions of the English.
Even the Iroquois were cold. It was dangerous to mention the Lan-
caster and Logstown ''treaties" to them. At one of the councils
where they were asked for aid, an orator said : "We don't know what
you Christians, English and French, intend. We are so hemmed in
by both of you, we have hardly a hunting place left. In a little
while, if we find a bear in a tree, there will immediately appear an
owner of the land to claim the property and hinder us from killing
thai by which we live. We are s,, perplexed between you that we
hardly know what to say or think."
The colonies were embarrassed in defensive operations by the ris-
ing tide of resistance to proprietary and royal authority, and Great
Britain itself was exhausted by the recent European war, and had no
worthy leaders in power. The second of the Georges, somewhat
; Parkman, "Conspiracy of Pontiac'
THE WAR AROUND THE WORLD. 49
more of a king than the third of that name, but possessing, says Lord
Mahon, "scarcely one kingly quality except personal courage and
justice,"' was then upon the throne. The army had become corrupt
and inefficient, and was commanded by men of pompous assump-
tion and pitiable incapacity. The first shock of war, that presently
followed, was so disastrous to England that it forced the cry from
Chesterfield that the nation was ruined.
From London came an order, at tins crisis, that had vast but unex-
pected significance. Commissioners from the various colonies were
to meet together to make treaties with the Indians and devise a plan
of common defense. It followed that most of the provinces were rep-
resented in the first American congress, at Albany, in 1754-, as a result
of the contest for possession of Ohio. The Iroquois, who participated
in the deliberations, pointed to their own success gained by union,
and advised the colonists to forget their jealousies and follow the
example of the Five Xations. Benjamin Franklin there made the
first proposition of confederation, but it found little favor, the crown
fearing the power of such a union, and the colonies dreading the
supremacy of their associates. The famous Albany congress most
directly affected the history of Ohio through a treaty made by Penn-
sylvania with the Iroquois, establishing a boundary line within the
province. "In what manner and by what means this grant was
obtained, is well known to those who attended the treaty," says an
authority previously quoted. Its effect was to confirm the suspicion
of the western Indians that under British rule they would be crowded
out as the Delawares had been from the land of William Penn.
Shawanees and Delawares, as well as Iroquois, were affected, and in
their own councils repudiated the grant. The land hunger of the
English, their irrepressible disposition to put up a line fence, was
exasperating to the red men who yet remained friendly. Everything
conspired to drive them to alliance with the French, who asked for
no land and appeared to be, and were at that time the strongest mili-
tary power in the, world.
After the defeat of Washington the French were supreme beyond
the Alleghanies. The trading posts were seized and goods confiscated.
Men like Croghan were ruined, and that worthy pioneer himself, in
danger of arrest by his debtors, retired for safety to a frontier post,
when- he was surrounded by the friendly Iroquois of the Half-King.
England was sufficiently awakened to the danger of her colonies in
the fall of 17">4 to send over two regiments of red-coats, and General
Braddock, whom Horace Walpole called "a very [roquois in disposi-
tion, " to take command ami drive the French beyond the lakes. The
French at the same time sent reinforcements to < 'anada, and the navy
of the expeditions clashed in battle at sea. But as yet war was not
declared. France, ruled by Louis XV, and he by Madame Pompa-
dour, was already involved in the strange alliance of the stern Maria
1-4
50 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Theresa of Austria with the profligate Catherine of Russia to crush
Frederick the Great. Louis would overlook much before he would
formally invite another enemy, and England, as then ruled, was
anxious to avoid a part in the impending conflict on the continent.
Though Braddock's forces were inadequate lie divided them for
four expeditions against the French posts from Acadie to Niagara.
The most important column he led in person, against the fort that
Contreeceur had built at the head of the Ohio and called Duquesne.
With a force of near fifteen hundred British and colonials he had
closely approached the French position when Beaujeu led out nine
hundred officers and soldiers, of which 6"37 were Indians, in large
proportion from Ohio. The fight that followed is familiar to every
reader of American history. It was au Indian victory, won by
Indian strategy and tactics, and fought almost entirely on the success-
ful side by Indians. Rallying from the first surprise the British
made a gallant defense that threw the French into confusion, but the
red men kept up the attack without faltering. After three hours
under fire, the army having degenerated to a mob between the raving
military insanity of Braddock and the steady shrieking of bullets
from an unseen foe, it was every man for himself, and the Indians
indulged in ferocious chase and slaughter. Sixty-three of the eighty-
six British officers were killed or wounded; only 459 of the 1,373 sol-
diers came off unhurt.
In the expedition against the French on Lakes George and Cham-
plain, led by William Johnson, the Mohawk chief, Ilendrick, was the
ablest military man, but Johnson, managing to resist the French and
Indian attack, was made a baronet. The expedition against Xiagara
was compelled to halt at Oswego.
The effect of this general check to British power confirmed the
main part of the Ohio Indians in their judgment of French superi-
ority. A Lenape league was formed, with Teedyuseung as supreme
chief, and attacks were made by the Ohio tribes upon the frontiers of
the central colonies. Sir William Johnson appealed to the Iroquois
to assert their ancient authority over the Delawares, but the latter,
when summoned to council by their feudal superiors, answered : "We
are men, and are determined not to be ruled any longer by you as
women. We are determined to cut off all the English, except what
may escape in ships. Say no more, lest we make women of you!"
Indeed, the [roquois had now been brought, between the French and
English, to practically the same status that they had formerly imposed
upon the Delawares. Recognizing this, the Six Xations appear to
have made an alliance with Teedyuseung to tight both French and
English, hut this attitude could nor be maintained.
The result of tin hostility of the Ohio Indians was revealed in the
of Dumas, commanding at Fort Duquesne: "'I have suc-
ceeded in ruining tin- three adjacent provinces, Pennsylvania. Mary-
THE WAR AROUND THE WORLD. 51
land and Virginia, driving off the inhabitants and totally destroying
the settlements over a tract of country thirty leagues wide. I had six
or seven war parties in the field at once, always accompanied by
Frenchmen." The orders of the French officers to prevent the tortur-
ing of captives were of little effect. "They kill all they meet," said a
French priest, of the Indians, "and after having abused the women
and maidens, they slaughter or burn them." Washington, by this
time the foremost man on the border, and so strong with the people
that Dinwiddie dared not displace him from command of the Virginia
militia, wrote in April, 1756 : "The supplicating tears of the women
and moving petitions of the men melt me into such deadly sorrow that
I solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could offer myself a
willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, provided that would contrib-
ute to the people's ease." Again, "It is not possible to conceive the
situation and danger of this miserable country. Such numbers of
French and Indians are all around that no road is safe."
Even under such circumstances, it required the threat of mob vio-
lence to induce the Pennsylvania assembly to vote a tax in support of
war on the Indians. In every colony there was reluctance to levy
taxes to strengthen the power of the provincial governments. "Our
assemblies are diffident of their governors;" said William Livingston,
of New Jersey, "governors despise their assemblies, and both mutu-
ally .misrepresent each other to the court of Great Britain." About
the time the colonies were forced to organize troops England declared
war on France.
"It was the interest of France," says Parkman, "to turn her
strength against her only dangerous rival, to continue as she had
begun, in building up a naval power, that could face England on the
seas, and sustain her own rising colonies in America, India and the
West Indies, for she too might have multiplied herself, planted her
language and her race over all the globe, and grown with the growth
of her children, had she not been at I lie mercy of an effeminate profli-
gate, a mistress turned procuress, and the favorites to whom they dele-
gated power." Apparently, Louis XV had little fear of the English
in America, for only two battalions were sent thither with the new
general, Louis Joseph, marquis de Montealm-Gozan de Saint Veran.
A hundred thousand were marshaled to aid Austria and Russia in
wiping out the ambitious Frederick of Prussia.
But however troops were distributed, the conflict began to be world-
wide in the summer of 1 ~i~>C>. The rights of it did not appear on the
surface. Frederick the Great took Silesia from Maria Theresa with
very feeble justification. The British traders were trespasser- in
Ohio, a land discovered and duly claimed by France. But these were
not the real issues. The Seven Vein--' war was unavoidable. It was
a part of the long and bloody struggle that began in the days of
Philip II of Spain, for the enfranchisement of nations and individ-
52 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
uals from various forms of tyranny, and the establishment of the pres-
ent ideals of civil and religious liberty.
The French retained their advantage throughout 1756 in the war
for Ohio. Sir William Johnson, clothed with extraordinary power
as sole superintendent of the Six Rations and other northern tribes,
independent of the governors and reporting to the crown alone, made
George Croghan Ids deputy for the Indians of Ohio on the Pennsyl-
vania frontier, and together these able men strengthened their cause
by diplomacy. The Iroquois, in solemn council, were induced to
formally ""take the petticoats" off the Delawares, and call them men,
which had a conciliatory effect But the English had no success
against the French outpost at Ticonderoga : an expedition for the sup-
port of Oswego was roughly handled by the Indians, and, later,
Oswego was compelled to surrender to the French. Upon the ruins
of this last stronghold of the English on the lakes, the priest Piquet
planted a tall cross, bearing the inscription, "In hoc signo vincunt."
The main seat of war, except tin- ravages along the border, in which
militia and Indians operated very much in the same fashion, incited
by rewards for scalps, was on Lake George, where Indians from Ohio
and more remote regions, even Iowas whose language no one could
understand, were gathered under the command of Langlade, Saint
Luc de la Corne, and other adventurers. The French strength,
even with tins savage reinforcement, was far inferior to that
of the English, but a foolish diversion against Louisburg in 1757 per-
mitted Montcalm to besiege and capture Fort William Henry, on Lake
George. While these reverses seemed to promise success for France
in America, the great Frederick, rising from an equally gloomy situ-
ation, muted an overwhelming French army at Rossbach, and Will-
iam Pitt, the greatest Englishman since < Jromwell, was called to the
control of war and foreign affairs. '•England has long been in labor,"
said Frederick, ''and at last she has brought forth a man." Pitt took
the reins of power with a mind settled to destroy the sea power of
France and her colonial dominion in America, the islands of the sea,
and Hindustan. His prompt selection of new generals, vigorous
shaking up of the army, and bold reform of finance-, saved the Eng-
lish colonies from restriction to the Atlantic coast, and made possible
not only the empire of India but the republic of the United States.
But in extolling Pitt, one should not forget the work of Sir William
Johnson and George Croghan. Their quiet but indispensable in-
trigues and negotiations bore such fruit that in 1758, when Amherst
took Louisburg and Bradstreel Frontenac, and the Hurons. Ottawas,
Maumees, Pottawatomies and other nations were ordered to the sup-
port of Fort Duquesne — menaced by the expedition of Forlx>s, Bou-
quet and Washington — the Delawares and Shawanees, who held the
key to the situation, were talking of peace with the "Tengees."
Christian Frederick Post, a missionary of the Moravian brother-
THE WAR AROUND THE WORLD. 53
hood or United Brethren, whose village on the Lehigh called Gnad-
denhiitten (houses of grace), had been burned by the Indians after
the defeat of Braddock, was sent by the government of Pennsylvania
as an envoy to the wavering tribes. "He Mas a plain German, upheld
by a sense of duty and a single-hearted trust in God." Doubtless, he
was inclined to favor English supremacy, as preferable, from h
ious point of view, to the Jesuit ; but the treatment bis people bad
received in America could not have inspired him with a vivid sense
of religious freedom. His controlling motive was to bring peace to
the Indians. To their cause he had devoted his life, emphasizing the
fact by taking in marriage a Delaware maiden. But, if one may
view the situation without race prejudice, lie persuaded the 1 telawares
to a fatal error. If they, the wisest people of the great Lenape line,
had gone on the warpath to assist the French at Duqtiesne against
the army of Forbes, loitering on the way to know what the Delawares
would do, it would have been many generations before their hunting
grounds in the valley of the Ohio would have been disturbed. With
the best of motives, but with that fatality that attended the association
of the Moravians with the Indians. Post succeeded in persuading the
Delawares to a step that hastened their ruin. But it was a ruin that,
so far as man can see, was inevitable even if deferred, and necessary
for a nobler and more profitable use of the land.
The Delawares were sensible of the tremendous responsibility that
rested upon them. After Post had been told that they were willing
to renew the old chain of friendship, provided the wampum belt was
sent from all the provinces, they hesitated for a long time to let him
depart, fearing the soundness of their judgment. When Post
returned to Philadelphia, there was much rejoicing. Belts of wam-
pum were sent to the nations for a great council at Eastern, on the
Delaware river, at which the governor of Pennsylvania, in behalf of
all the provinces, promised to heal all wounds and renew all treaties
on condition of peace. Post and a small party of whites and Indians
were sent out to carry the message of peace into the upper Ohio region,
and received assurances of friendship from the Delawares, Shawa-
nees and Mingos.
After this decision of the Delawares. necessarily followed by the
other tribes who looked to them for counsel, there was an immediate
change in the fortunes of war. Ligneris, at Fort Duqtiesne. was of
course endangered by the fall of Fort Frontenac. but. the refusal of
the Delawares and Shawanees to support him, followed by the with-
drawal of the Ottawas, Wyandots and Alaumees, induced him to
blow up his fortification and abandon the Ohio river, November 9,
1758. General Forbes, advancing, took possession of the place and
built a stockade, and a village of cabins for his men. called Pittsburg.
This bloodless victory, won by diplomacy, assured the possession of
Ohio by men of British and German blood. William Pitt, fully
54 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
appreciating the extent of the advantage gained, ordered that the fort
should be at once rebuilt, with strength "adequate to the great impor-
tance of maintaining his majesty's subjects in the undisputed
possession of the Ohio; of effectually cutting off all trade and com-
munication this way between Canada and the Western and South-
western Indians; of protecting the British colonies from the incur-
sions to which they have been exposed . . . and of fixing
again the several Indian nations in their alliance with and depend-
ence on his majesty's government." His orders were promptly
obeyed. Fort Pitt was constructed to hold the key to the Ohio river,
and George Croghan continued his negotiations with the red men.
But there remained considerable fighting to do before the French
would withdraw from the region south of the lakes, and they were
yet aided by a large body of Indians from the western regions under
their control. They made a gallant struggle in 1T.">0 to hold Oswego
and Niagara, but were defeated by the English and Iroquois, Sir
William Johnson showing his ability as general as well as diplomat
The forts on the French creek route were abandoned, and the whole
fortified line south of the lakes was lust to the French, exposing
Detroit, Mackinac and Illinois to the enemy. On July 4-th of the
same year Croghan began a great conference with the Ohio Indians
at Pittsburg, which was resumed in October with the Iroquois,
Shawanees, Wyandots, Maumees and Delawares, Montour also light-
ing the pipe ct* peace left by delegates of the Ottawas. All the nations
of the Ohio region seemed to be convinced of British power, and were
disposed to renew the recently broken friendship.
Meanwhile Wolfe invaded Canada, and was very nearly ruined by
the shrewd policy of Montcalm, who retired with his army of inferior
soldiery to the impregnable promontory of Quebec, and suffered the
English to ravage the country. At last, in the extremity of his
hopes, Wolfe sealed the Beights of Abraham ami that most romantic
of American battles occurred, September 13, 1759, which resulted in
the death of both Wolfe and Montcalm, but need not have involved
the fall of Quebec, had a man like Frontenac or Galissoniere been
governor of Canada. After Old England was ablaze with bonfires
and New England had gathered to hear thanksgiving sermons, the
French rallied, defeated the British at Sainte Foy, and would have
retaken Quebec hut for tin 1 timely arrival id' the invincible and
ubiquitous English navy. On September 8, 1760, Governor Vau-
drenil surrendered Montreal, and the province of Canada and all its
dependencies, and the war was practically ended in America.
A few days after Vaudreuil's surrender an expedition was started
from Aleut real to take possession of the forts on the upper lakes, and,
being reinforced by a party from Pittsburg, it left Presque Isle
November !. L760. In this first military and naval force of the
English speaking people in Ohio there 1 were about two hundred bor-
THE WAR AROUND THE WORLD. 55
dcr rangers, mostly on board a flotilla of nineteen whale boats and
batteaux (one commanded by G "ge Croghan), while a land party
of forty-two rangers, fifteen Royal Americans and twenty Indians,
under Captain Brewer and Montour, marched along the coast. The
officer in general command was Maj. Robert Rogers, a colonial
ranger, who had made himself famous by daring exploits about
Ticonderoga, and by a merciless onslaught upon the Abenakies of St.
Francis, in revenge for the massacre at Fort William Henry.*
In his progress up the lake, Rogers followed the south shore, and
after about two days' travel, reaching the "Chogage river," probably
the Geauga, met an embassy of Ottawa Indians from Detroit, who
informed him that "Ponteack, the king and lord of the country," v
was at a small distance, approaching peaceably, and desired Rogers
to halt and await him. "At first salutation, when we met," says
Rogers in his account, "he demanded my business into his country,
and how it happened that I dared to enter it without his leave."
Rogers disclaimed any hostility to the red men, announced his inten-
tion to remove the French who had been an obstacle to peace and
commerce, and handed over the inevitable wampum, but Pontiac gave
no further answer, says Rogers, "than that he stood in the path I
traveled till next morning, giving me a small string of wampum, as
much as to say, I must not march further without his leave." Xext
day this hitherto unrenowncd chief, who claimed a great dominion,
to the extinction of the ancient Iroquois pretensions, even within the
home country of the Six Xations, and sustained his pretensions per-
sonally by "an air of majesty and princely grandeur," had a second
conference with Rogers and graciously assented to his progress, giv-
ing him a hundred warriors to protect and assist in driving the fat
cattle that the expedition took with it. Even more than this Pontiac
did, attending Rogers personally all the way, ami, when they arrived
at Detroit, saving a party from the fury of the Indians who had
assembled at the strait to cut them off. "I had several conferences
with him," Rogers continues in his narrative, "in which he discov-
ered great strength of judgment ami a thirst after knowledge." Pon-
tiac inquired closely into the military affairs of the English, e:
a great desire to visit England, and repeatedly declared his willing-
ness to call the king uncle and pay annual tribute of furs: but "his
whole conversation suffieientlv indicated that he was far from eon-
*In later years Rogers went to the bad. When in command of the garri-
son at Mackinac, he was brought before a court martial charged with plot-
ting to surrender that post to the Spanish. Subsequently he served in the
army of the dey of Algiers. Returning to America at the beginning of the
Revolution he offered to accept a commission under Washington, but was
suspected of being a spy. Afterward he was made colonel in the British
service, and in 177* he was proscribed and banished by the government of
New Hampshire, his native land.
t Rogers' "Account of North America," London. 1765
5G CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
sidering himself as a conquered prince, and that lie expected to be
accorded the respect and honor due to a king and emperor by all
who came into his country or treated with him."
Rogers received the surrender of Detroit Xovember 29th, the
French commandant making no resistance. An attempt was made
by Rogers and Montour to proceed to Mackinac, but the ice and deep
snow prevented, and in the latter part of December the expedition
started back overland for Fort Pitt, following, in the main, the great
trail across Ohio, most important in the central west, which from
the Wyandot town mi Lake Sandusky proceeded through Mohegan
town mi the upper Walhonding to the town on the Tuscarawas, then
called the Muskingum, opposite the mouth of Big Sandy, where
there were at that time about three thousand acres of cleared ground.
Thence the trail ran eastward to the Ohio river at the mouth of
Beaver creek. Of the country Rogers said that "the land on the
south side of Lake Erie puts on a very fine appearance; the country
level, the timber tall and of the very best sort, such as oak, hickerie
and locust; and for game, both for plenty and variety, perhaps
exceeded by no part of the world." On his return from Lake San-
dusky he found good country all the way, the timber "white, black
and yellow oak, black and white walnut, Cyprus, chestnut and
locust."
Rogers' trip to Detroit was followed in July, 1761, by the visit
of Sir William Johnson, who traveled in triumph along the lake
shore that he had contributed so effectively to conquer. At that time
there was no British post within the limits of Ohio, the nearest at the
west being that at Fort .Miami ( Fort Wayne) where thirty men were
stationed, and at the east on French creek, where there was an equally
imposing garrison. But soon after Sir William's departure (in
1761 ) a blockhouse was built on the south shore of Sandusky bay.
The same year i- notable for the beginning of the Moravian influ-
ence in western Ohio. This religious organization, known uow as
the United Brethren, from their old title, "Unitas Fratrum," has
an ancient history, traced by some authorities back to the Greek
church. Moravia and Bohemia were seats of the organization at the
time of Luther's reformation, with which the sect felt sympathy and
consequently suffered grievous persecution. Early in the eighteenth
century a body of refugees from Moravia took refuge under the pro-
tection of the Count of Zinzendorf, who afterward afKliateVl with
them and was made bishop. The peculiarity of the church was
devotion to the primitive ordinances of Christianity, and withdrawal
from '-the confusion and giddiness, pain and toil, deceit and false-
hood, misery and anxiety,"" of the affairs of the world, opening
*The words of their great religious book. "The Labyrinth of the World*
and the Paradise of the Heart," first published in 1631.
THE WAR AROUND THE WORLD. 57
their hearts to ''Lord God alone." Much light is thrown upon their
attitude by the fact that they gave Saturday to rest and meditation
because they saw no scriptural warrant for neglecting the ancient
Sabbath, and on Sunday joined the rest of Christendom in celebrat-
ing the death and resurrection of Christ. In their communities
there was a real community of goods, and industry was a religious-
duty. Their understanding of the scriptures would not permit them
to go to war or return a blow. So fully did they depend upon
religious guidance in the affairs of life that Madame de Staid called
them "the monks of Protestantism." Through such a life they were
happy and prosperous in times of war and violence, but this prosper-
ity always brought upon them the hatred and persecution of their
neighbors. In 1732 they began sending missionaries to America,,
actually to Greenland's icy mountains and West Indies' coral strands,
and small colonies were planted in Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Observing the necessity of missionary work among the Indians they
labored among the Iroquois and Delawares, and soon aroused the
disgust of the traders by opposition to the trade in liquor, and efforts
to turn the red men from fur hunting to farming. Count Zinzen-
dorf visited the missions in 1742 and encouraged the work, but it
was much embarrassed not only by the enmity of the trailers, but by
the prejudice of good people who accused the United Brethren of
sympathy with "Romanism" and France. This suspicion was
strengthened by the tendency of their Indian converts to refrain from
war on the French, which warfare was the only use many of the
colonists had for the red men aside from commercial gain. The
Moravians were driven out of New York by act of the legislature,
and they were imprisoned in Connecticut. Even in Pennsylvania
they became the object of suspicion. In that province -there were
many, also seeking confirmation in holy writ, who would extirpate
the Indians as the Israelites did the Canaanites, that the people of
the Lord might possess the land. To these the Moravians, sur-
rounded by little towns of industrious Indians, were hateful. When
hostilities were imminent with France, the rumor spread that the
Moravians were '"papist" spies. But in the moment of danger of
destruction by the Pennsylvanians, the French Indians wiped out
their village of Gnadenhiitten, not far from Bethlehem. This mis-
fortune relieved the United Brethren from suspicion,* and as has
been noted, one of them, ( diaries Frederick Post, was entrusted with
important public service. His western excursions as an envoy to
the Indians led him to visit the Muskingum valley in 1761. He
avoided the Goshgoshung (Coshocton ) town at the forks, where the
*A few years later, however, there were savage massacres of Moravian
Indians by the whites, and the effort of the government to protect the sur-
vivors brought the province near to civil war.
58 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
traders, doubtless, had returned, but sought the recently established
village of the Delawares on the Tuscarawas, Newcomer's town,
founded by the old chief, Netawatwes, who it is said was present at
the first treaty with William Penn. Across the river, at the mouth
of Sandy creek, he was given permission by the chief to make his
home and start a scbool and mission. Returning in the following
year, with young John Heckewelder as a teacher, he began the estab-
lishment of a frontier home. But the Indians, fearful of aggression,
restricted these missionaries to fifty paces square for farming, sug-
gesting that the French were content with as much, and as they said
God had sent them, doubtless God would provide them with food.
They would have starved later, if Calhoon, a trader on the river
below, had not assisted them. In the summer of 1762 Post was
invited to attend a great conference with the Indians at Lancaster,
and he performed this service for the Pennsylvania colony, taking
with him chiefs of the western Delawares. In a little while Hecke-
welder heard the rumors spread among the Indians that Post would
not return, that Iris missionary effort was a blind for his real design
to deliver the country to the English, and that the time was ripe for
a great war of defense, in which the French, yet lingering in the
west, would give assistance. Heckewelder soon escaped into Penn-
sylvania ; the traders remaining until peremptorily ordered away,
wben, being attacked on the road, only two, Calhoon and James
Smith, saved their lives. As many as thirty people of Heckewelders
acquaintance were killed in this outbreak, in the fall of 17(32.
More direful events followed as a natural sequence of a war in
which France and England had used the red men of the West as
allies, with fair promises on each side, and then were about to con-
clude a peace without any provision for them or recognition of their
existence. The Delawares donbtless realized their mistake in desert-
ing the French, and turning to the opposite extreme, talk was revived
of that alliance with the Iroquois that had been proposed against both
French and English. In the east, encroachments of settlers were
enraging the Delawares and Shawanees, while in the west the Otta-
was, Maumees and Wyandots complained that the English had
become parsimonious once they had gained the upper hand in trade,
and that the garrisons of the forts were insolent and lawless. The
old French inhabitants who remained did not refrain, we may
imagine, from dwelling fondly upon the happier days of the past,
and the Indians forgol that then they made the same complaints of
the French. Under such circumstances the red men of Ohio and the
Northwest went on the war path against the British empire, that had
been triumphant round the world.
At the head of the movement was Pontiac, who, though it is said
that he had been a leader for several year-, is not conspicuous in con-
temporary accounts previous to his meeting with Major Rogers on
THE WAR AROUND THE WORLD. 59
the shore of Lake Erie.* There are various accounts of his origin,
but he was reared among the Ottawas, a race always faithful to the
French, and is supposed to have been the son of an Ottawa father
and Ojibwa mother. Bancroft calls him the "colossal chief," whose
"name still hovers over the .Northwest, as the hero who devised and
conducted a great but unavailing struggle with destiny for the inde-
pendence of his race." During the winter of 1762 he was busily
engaged at his town near Detroit, organizing all the Indians of the
Ohio valley and the lakes, sending to New Orleans for arms and
ammunition, and employing two secretaries for his correspondence.
Other famous chiefs, such as Guyasota, of the Senecas, were hardly
less prominent in organizing war in the upper Ohio valley.
The French in America doubtless encouraged this "conspiracy of
Pontiac." Peace had not yet been concluded with England by for-
mal treaty. While Great Britain was gathering the fruits of vic-
tory in America, the war had continued in Europe, where Frederick,
achieving wonderful victories and enduring crushing defeats, was in
imminent danger of losing the fight. When Pitt was turned from
power in 1761, the promise of the German empire of today could
hardly have been read in the situation of Europe. But the oppor-
tune death of Catherine turned the scale, and Russia became an ally
instead of an enemy. France, sickened by losses of men and terri-
tory, and exhausted in resources, proposed peace in 1762, and
accepted the hard conditions imposed upon her by the treaty of Paris,
February 10, 1763. Clinging to Canada and the Ohio valley,
Choiseul, the French minister, warned the British that the moment
Canada became English, the colonies, relieved of fear of foreign
aggression, would shake off their dependence on Great Britain. But
the warning was in vain. All Canada and the great islands of the
coast, and all the interior east of the Mississippi, except the isle of
Orleans, were ceded to Great Britain. France also gave up to Eng-
land the land of Senegal in Africa, and in India all her gains and
hopes of supremacy. Spain, having foolishly engaged in the war
near its close, in alliance with France, gave England Florida in con-
sideration of the return of Havana and Manila, and thus Great
Britain became the ruler of all Xoi-th America east of the Mississippi.
The country west of that river was ceded by France to Spain.
The valiant Maria Theresa was soon forced to make peace with
Frederick, leaving Silesia in his hands, and the great struggle came
* During the series of Indian wars against the English colonies and armies,
from the Acadian war in 1747 to the general league of the western tribes in
1763. he appears to have exercised the influence and power of an emperor,
and by this name he was sometimes known. He had fought with the French,
at the head of his Indian allies, against the English, in the year 1747. He
likewise . . . took an active part in the memorable defeat of the Brit-
ish and provincial army under General Braddock in 1755." — Taylor's His-
tory of Ohio.
00 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
to an end. It was estimated that over 850,000 soldiers of various
nations had lost their lives in Germany and other hundreds of thou-
sands were crippled by wounds or had died of famine and disease.
To this may be added the losses of life and property in America, on
the seas all round the world, and in both the Indies, to make up the
total cost of the tremendous struggle that began with the war for
Ohio.
Close upon the heels of the treaty of Paris came the carefully pre-
meditated blow of Pontiac. The first fruit of the hostile alliance
was shown in the expulsion of Post and Heekewelder frorn^ the Musk-
ingum valley, and the killing of traders, but this was no part of the
plan of Pontiac, who desired peace and secrecy till the moment
arrived for a simultaneous attack on all the British posts. May,
1763, was the time selected, and with little variation in date, and no
warning to the little garrisons in the west, the onslaught was made.
The stockade at Sandusky was the first to fall, on the 16th. Ensign
Paully, the commandant, admitted several Wyandots and Ottawas, on
a professedly peaceful errand. While seated with them, a signal was
made, Paully was seized, disarmed and bound, and shrieks and yells
and the sound of musketry arose outside. "When all was quiet again,
Paully was led through the parade ground where the bodies of his
men lay, and carried to the camp of Pontiac. Fortunately he was
saved from torture and death by the fondness of an Indian widow,
and in a few weeks he secured an opportunity to escape to the fort
at Detroit. While the forts at St. Joseph, Maumee, Ouiatenon,
Mackinac, Presque Isle, Le Boeuf, and Venango were taken and
burned, and the garrisons massacred or carried into captivity, Detroit
and Fort Pitt held out against the savage enemy, checking effectively
the conquest planned by Pontiac In May, for the aid of Detroit,
an expedition was sent by lake under Lieutenant Cuyler, but it was
attacked by the Wyandots near Point Pelee, most of the party cap-
tured and the remainder forced to retreat by way of Sandusky and
the south shore. The second little army of the English in Ohio went
up Lake Erie in July, following the south coast. At Sandusky bay
they halted, and marching inland, burned the Wyandot town and
destroyed the Indian cornfields. Proceeding they joined the garri-
son at Detroit under cover of the night, but even this reinforcement
did not at once end the Indian sie^e, and a night sally met with
inglorious defeat and heavy loss of life. The siege continued, under
the direct command of Pontiac, until after news of the relief of
Fort Pitt, and the defeat of the Indians in a two days' battle at
Bushy Run by Colonel Bouquet, August 4-5, 1763. Then the war-
rim^ became restless, word was received from the French on the ZSTis-
si"i]qii that no assistance could be expected from them, and Pontiac
repaired to the Maumee, leaving Detroit in peace for the winter.
This war should not be considered a wicked and causeless conspir-
THE WAR AROL'XD THE WORLD. q±
aey for massacre and plunder. It was waged by the Indians after
their uncivilized fashion, not essentially different from wars in
Europe, to assert their right to the lands they occupied, which were
being handed over from France to England without recognition of
the Indian interests. It may be said that in the campaign of 1763,
though the red men failed at Pittsburg and Detroit, they achieved
a remarkable victory in obtaining recognition from the throne of
England. The famous "King's Proclamation," of October 7, 1703,
should be considered as a sequel of this remarkable campaign, in
which nine British forts were reduced, as many as a hundred traders
put to death and their goods confiscated, and thousands of settlers
killed or driven from their homes in western Pennsylvania and Vir-
ginia.
CHAPTER III.
THE BRITISH INDIAN RESERVE.
The King's Proclamation — Beadsteeet's Sandusky Expedi-
tion — Bouquet's March to the Muskingum — The Sur-
render of Captives — The Scotch-Irish — Colonization
Schemes — Moravian Missions — Conolly at Pittsburg —
Ceesap and Logan — Dunmore's War — Battue of Point
Pleasant — Logan's Speech — The Fort Gower Resolutions.
Z/| r-vl HE "King's Proclamation," or order in council, divided
the newly acquired territory in North America into three
provinces and an Indian reservation. The pretentious
claims of the Atlantic colonics from sea to sea were not rec-
ognized, and the provinces were practically limited westward by the
Apalachian mountain ranges. Canada was rechristened the prov-
ince of Quehec; East and "West Florida included the peninsula and
strip of gulf coast south of the St. Mary's and the 31st parallel
west to the Mississippi; the established colonial governments were
restricted in their westward scope to the sources of the rivers that
fall into the Atlantic, and all beyond those sources, in the interior,
between Florida and the great lakes, and the Mississippi and the
Alleghanies, was reserved for the Indians. Within this reservation
the provincial governors were forbidden to make grants of land : all
subjects were strictly forbidden to make any purchases or establish
settlements without special license, and persons within the country
reserved for the Indians were required to remove themselves forth-
with.
This proclamation seemed to be a declaration, by the highest
authority, that not only Ohio and all the country northwest of the
Ohio river to the source of the Mississippi, hut Kentucky, Tennessee,
and that part of the territory claimed by Georgia now comprised in
the states of Mississippi and Alabama, passed from the direct con-
trol of the crown of France to the direct control of the crown of Eng-
land, without regard to the ancient provincial charters. If Virginia
THE BRITISH INDIAN RESERVE. 63
or any other colony participated in the war against the French for
the purpose of extending the provincial bounds to the full extent of
the claims, they were deprived of the fruit of victory. Governor
Dinwiddie, of Virginia, had promised 200,000 acres of land beyond
the mountains to the soldiers who went out with Washington, and if
he were to fulfill the pledge now he must be authorized by a special
grant of the king, who had assumed complete dominion in those
parts. The disposition of individuals, both in Georgia and Virginia,
was to extend the frontier settlements westward in disregard of the
royal edict. The conservative men of the colonies construed the
proclamation as a temporary expedient to avoid Indian hostilities.
But this was their wish, rather than the fact. The plain purpose of
the British government was to restrict the Atlantic colonies to the
coast, as Lord Hillsborough said, "in due subordination to and
dependence upon the mother country," while the west should be
devoted to Indian occupation and fur trading.
As for the region of the present State of Ohio, as well as that coun-
try of the upper Ohio and its tributaries which topographically
belongs to it, though now included in Pennsylvania, it was made the
king's domain, without any intervening and subordinate government
in America until it should be created a new province, or annexed to
an existing one. "It was subject only to military commanders or
Indian agents acting under the immediate orders of the king in coun-
cil, or of the Board of Trade, which at that period administered the
king's domain in America." Ohio remained in this condition for ten
years, without any government located in America, save the author-
ity of Sir William Johnson, and at the expiration of that time, when
it seemed necessary to give it and the Xorthwest a provincial gov-
ernment, it was assigned, not to Virginia, or any other Atlantic col-
ony that claimed rights in it, but to the province of Quebec.
Perhaps, if the Indians had promptly made peace on the basis of
this proclamation, the settlement of the Ohio valley would have been
longer delayed, but whatever the disposition of the wiser chiefs may
have been, ravages on the border were resumed in the spring of 1764,
necessitating the invasion of Ohio by a sufficient force to compel
peace. An army was collected in two wings, one, under Col. John
Bradstreet, made up of colonials (those from Connecticut led by
Israel Putnam), to advance in boats along the south shore of Lake
Erie; while the left wing, under Col. Henry Bouquet, was fo inarch
into the interior of Ohio from Fort Pitt.
Bradstreet reached Niagara in July, and found representatives of
twenty tribes gathered to seek for peace, the Senecas leading in the
conciliatory step of bringing in and delivering their prisoners.
Before the troops arrived at Presque Isle, ambassadors appeared,
purporting to speak for the Wyandots, Shawanecs and Delawares.
64
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
With these Bradstreet made a treaty with various stipulation.-, includ-
ing the delivery at Sandusky of all prisoners and permission to
rebuild the western forts and occupy the land within cannon shot of
each. But the authority of these Indian negotiations is doubtful.
They were not able, if sincere, to stop the hostilities toward the east,
and Though Bradstreet notified Bouquet that his advance would l>e
unnecessary, the latter officer found it desirable, for the safety of
the frontier, to push on toward Ohio.
Bradstreet continued his march through Ohio, without hostilities,
and at Detroit, where he arrived August 26th, a treaty of peace was
made with the Michigan tribes. Mackinac was regarrisoned, but an
envoy to the Maumee region, where Pontiac was encamped with the
Ottawa and Maumee warriors, made a narrow escape with his life.
Bradstreet did not move against that centre of hostility, and did not
act with decision upon the failure of the Indians to carry out the
pledge to bring their captives to Sandusky. Returning to Sandusky
in September, he received orders from General Gage, censuring him
for the indulgent terms granted at Presque Isle and urging an attack
upon the Indians of the Scioto valley. His proper course, for an
effective campaign, was to attack the Maumee villages, but it was
then too late, and after a month at Sandusky bay, he wrote to Bou-
quet, "he found it impossible to stay longer in these parts, absolute
necessity requiring him to turn off the other way." On the return
trip the flotilla suffered from storms on the lakes.
Bouquet's army, including five hundred regulars, a thousand Penn-
sylvanians and a corps of volunteers from Virginia, did not advance
from Fort Pitt until October 3d. Previously he had adopted the
plan afterward followed in Indian wars, of seizing envoys who came
in with peace talks and holding them as hostages. In this way he
secured the safe conduct for a messenger through Ohio to Bradstreet
at Detroit. Marching out on the great trail crossing the mouth ot
Beaver, the army entered Ohio without resistance, and on Octol>er
13th came in sight of the ruins of the Tuscarawas town, near which
an encampment was made. The chiefs of the Delawares and Shawa-
nees immediately gave notice of their desire to treat for peace, and
on the 17th Bouquet went into council, under an arbor erected for
that purpose, with chiefs of the Senecas, Delawares and Shawanees.
A small party of warriors attended the chiefs, and the better part of
Bouquet's army was drawn up in an imposing fashion, close at hand.
Bouquet's policy was not conciliation and hasty forgiveness. He
sternly rebuked the Indians, and not until the 20th would he say that
he was willing to make peace. "I am now to tell you," be said, "that
we will no longer be imposed upon by your promises. This army shall
not leave your country until you have fully complied with every con-
dition now to be agreed upon." Twelve days were given the Indians
THE BRITISH INDIAN RESERVE. 65
to turn over at Wakatomica,* a Shawanee town on the Muskingum,
all the prisoners in their possession, English, French, women, chil-
dren and negroes, with clothing - , provisions and horses to carry them
to Fort Pitt. Bouquet then moved his army to the Coshocton forks,
a central position among the Indian settlements, established a forti-
fied camp, and erected houses for the reception of the captives. By
the early part of November over two hundred of these unfortunates
had been brought in from the depths of the primeval forest, the
greater part women and children. Accompanying Bouquet as volun-
teers were a considerable, number of men seeking their wives or chil-
dren. Some were bitterly disappointed; others, finding their loved
ones, gave vent to their emotions in scenes that made this one of the
most memorable incidents in the history of the continent. If one
could imagine a reunion of the Acadians, torn from their homes a
i'cw years before, and scattered along the Atlantic and gulf coast by
the English, a similar picture might he presented to the mind.
Strange to say, some of the captives, perhaps those that had been
long in that situation, were reluctant to leave the red people, who
were compelled to bind and carry them to the camp, aud there were
Indians who wept over their prisoners at parting, brought them gifts
during their stay in camp, and followed on the way to Fort Pitt,
daily supplying them with food from the forest. It is told that one
young Mingo brave, desperately in love with a girl prisoner, trailed
after the army until his life was in danger on the Virginia frontier.
Some prisoners, women particularly, found means to escape from
their rescuers and return to life in the forest. Such circumstances
as these perplex one when tempted by some story of savage cruelty to
join in wholesale denunciations of the red men. The Shawanees
were the last to give up prisoners, and even then withheld a large
number, on the plea that the great men to whom they belonged were
absent. Six hostages were taken to insure future performance on
their part, and on November 18th army and captives started back to
Fort Pitt. For his success Bouquet was promoted to brigadier-gen-
eral. The worthy Swiss might possibly have won greater honors at
the expense of the United Colonies a few years later, but, being
assigned to command at Pensacola, he took the fever there and died
in 1765.
As a result of the invasions of Ohio in 1764, delegates from many
tribes met Sir William Johnson in April, 17<'>.">, at German Flats, in
the interior of Xew York. They agreed to grant land to the traders
in compensation for their losses, and a definite boundary line was
*Mica (meekal a termination of the names of a few Shawanee towns in
Ohio, is from the same Indian word as "mieeo." the Creek and Seminole
title for chieftains, and the prefixes of Jlissi-sippi and Michi-gan, and has
the primitive meaning of "great."
1-5
qq CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
discussed, but nol decided upon, the Indians recommending the line
of the Alleghany and Susquehanna rivers. George Croghan had
visited London, with the adventure by the way of a shipwreck on the
coasl of France, and had submitted the necessity of such a boundary
to the lords of trade and plantations. But for three years the matter
hung in uncertainty.
Returning to America, Croghan went down the Ohio in .May,
1765, on a mission to the Ottawas and Maumees, who had as yet
taken uo part in the peace negotiations. Save the Mingo town below
the present site of Steubenville no Indian village was found on the
Ohio river from Fort Pitt to the mouth of the Wabash. Buffalo
were frequently observed, and came of all sorts w T as abundant. The
valley remained a wilderness, after centuries of Indian occupation.
To the white man it was preposterous that all this lovely land should
be left in the hands of few thousand savages, all of whom, with their
families, could find abundant room and amass wealth by agriculture
in a single county. Arrived at the Wabash, ("roghan sent notices of
his arrival to the English and French posts on the Illinois and ylis-
sissippi, but his mission was suddenly cut short, June 8th, by an
attack of Kickapoo Indians. Five of Oroghan's party were killed,
and he and most of his other attendant whites, Delawares and Shawa-
nees were wounded. In this condition Croghan was taken up the.
Wabash, and to the Maumee town, where he found Pontiac in refuge
and disposed to make peace. The great warrior would no longer
stand in the path of the English ; "but they must not imagine that
in taking possession of the French forts they gain any right to the
country, for the French had never bought, the land and lived upon
it by sufferance only."
From the Maumee villages, attended by Pontiac, Croghan went
down the river of the same name, through the country occitpied by
the Ottawas, and proceeding to Detroit, held another council, at
which Pontiac spoke most pacifically on behalf of the tribes under
his influence, ami concluded a dignified address by a petition for pow-
der and lead for the hunters and the opening of the barrel, "that your
children may drink and be merry." The career of Pontiac was soon
run. A few years later he appeared at the French post of St. Louis,
and mar there was assassinated, at the instigation, it is said, of a
British trader.
After the negotiations of Johnson and Croghan, there was a great
revival of colonization schemes for the Ohio valley, despite the king's
proclamation. A new Ohio company was projected in 1766, with
Sir William Johnson and Benjamin Franklin as its promoters, ask-
ing land south of the Ohio river, including the panhandle. Thomas
Walpole, a London banker, became its nominal head. Another ambi-
tious scheme contemplated the acquirement of the territory between
the Ohio ;md Mis-is-ippi bounded on the north by a line from the
THE BRITISH INDIAN RESERVE. C7
mouth of the river Wisconsin to the mouth of the Maumee.* Frank-
lin worked for his project at London, while in America the influence
of George Washington is said to have been exerted against such enter-
prises, in the interest of the soldiers of the French and Indian war
who had been promised bounties in western land. The frontier peo-
ple, meanwhile, were "squatting" where they saw fit, mainly in west-
ern Virginia and Pennsylvania, exciting the hostility of the Indians,
and compelling General Gage to warn the governors of Pennsylvania
and Virginia of their duty to prevent such lawless aggressions. But
it was useless to oppose the tide of movement of the hardy and inde-
pendent pioneers of the West.
"These backwoods mountaineers who dwelt near the great water-
shed that separates the Atlantic streams from the springs of the
Wautauga, the Kanawha and the Monongahela, were all cast in the
same mould, and resembled each other much more than any of them
did their immediate neighbors of the plains. The backwoodsmen of
Pennsylvania had little in common with the peaceful population of
Quakers and Germans who lived between the Delaware and the Sus-
quehanna ; and their kinsmen of the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky
mountains were separated by an equally wide gulf from the aristo-
cratic planter communities that flourished in the tide-water regions
of Virginia and the Carolinas. . . . The backwoodsmen
were Americans by birth and parentage, and of mixed race ; but the
dominant strain in their blood was that of the Presbyterian-Irish, the
Scotcli-Irish as they were often called. . . . These Irish
representatives of the Covenanters were in the west almost what the
Puritans were in the northeast, and more than the Cavaliers in the
south. Mingled with the descendants of many other races, they
nevertheless formed the kernel of the distinctively and intensely
American stock who were the pioneers of our people in their march
westward, the vanguard of the army of fighting settlers, who with axe
and rifle won their way from the Alleghanies to the Rio Grande and
the Pacific. . . . They were Protestants of the Protestants ;
detested and despised the Catholics, whom their ancestors had
conquered ; and regarded the Episcopalians, by wdiom they themselves
had been oppressed, with a more sullen, but scarcely less intense,
hatred. They were a truculent ami obstinate people, and gloried in
the warlike renown of their forefathers. . . . They did nut
begin to come to America in any numbers till after the opening of
the eighteenth century; by 1730 they were fairly swarming across
the ocean, for the most part in two streams, the larger going to the
port of Philadelphia, the smaller to the port of Charleston. Pushing
through the long settled lowlands of the seacoast, they at once made
their abode at the foot of the mountains, and became the outposts of
"Kind's "Ohio."
08 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
civilization. From. Pennsylvania they drifted south along the foot-
hills till they met their brethren from Charleston. . . . The
two facts of most importance to remember in dealing with our pio-
neer history are first, that the western portions of Virginia and the
Carolinas were peopled by an entirely different stock from that which
had haig existed in the tide-water regions of those colonies; and sec-
ondly, that . . . the immigrants of this stock were mostly
from the north, from their great breeding-ground and nursery in
western Pennsylvania." So Theodore Roosevelt* describes the dom-
inant pioneers of the Ohio valley, noting also the large admixture of
descendants of early English colonists, of Pennsylvania Germans, f
Carolina Germans, and the less numerous Huguenots, Hollanders
and Swedes.
As a vivid picture of the character of these pioneers, then strug-
gling toward the Ohio borders, another passage from the same author
should be read :
'"Thus the backwoodsmen lived on the clearings they had hewed
out of the everlasting forest : a grim, stern people, strong and simple,
powerful for good and evil, swayed by gusts of stormy passion, the
love of freedom rooted in their very heart's core. Their lives were
harsh and narrow; they gained their bread by their Mood and sweat,
in the unending struggle with the wild ruggedness of nature. They
suffered terrible injuries at the hands of the red men, and on their
foes they waged a terrible warfare in return. They were relentless,
revengeful, suspicions, knowing neither ruth nor pity; they were also
upright, resolute and fearless, loyal to their friends and devoted to
their country. In spite of their many failings, they were of all men
the hot iitted to conquer the wilderness and hold it againsl all
comers."
To fix a line which these people should not pass became the concern
of the British government. The southern superintendent of Indian
affairs, treating with tin 1 Cherokees, settled upon a boundary which
ran south from the mouth of the Kanawha. Sir William Johnson, in
January, 17t'>s, was instructed, in effect, to make a treaty extending
this line from the Kanawha to Oswego. In May following Croghan
conferred with the Ohio Indians at Pittsburg, allaying the soreness
of tli" Shawanees regarding encroachments, and in October Sir Will-
ian Johnson, with representatives from various colonies, met a large
*The Winning of the West. Vol. I.
fAs early as the Scotch-Irish in Pennsylvania, were the Protestant Ger-
mans from the Palatinate, of whom James Logan wrote, in 1717, that a great
number had poured in. It was feared in 1730 that Pennsylvania would
become a German colony. They were, in fact, within a few decades, one-
third of the total population. One of them was the pioneer of navigation to
the gulf. They did not seek trouble with the red men. but after that danger
was past they came west, and very largely monopolized great regions of
Ohio. No people have done more to build the prosperity of the State.
THE BRITISH INDIAN RESERVE. (59
assemblage of Iroquois, Delaware's and Shawanee deputies in the
memorable convention at Fort Stanwix, in New York.- The result
was that Sir William, recognizing the old claim of the Iroquois to
sovereignty over the Ohio valley, purchased from them, for some-
thing over £10,000, all the country south of the Ohio river to the
Tennessee, the boundary following the Ohio and Alleghany rivers up
to Kittaning, and along the west branch of the Susquehanna, and
thence across to Oswego. Separate grants were made to Pennsyl-
vania of all the territory claimed by that state west of the Susque-
hanna, and the old treaties of Lancaster and Logstown were revoked.
The king disapproved this treaty, as contrary to the instructions
given, but was induced to ratify it in December, 17G9, apparently
as the best, solution of the problem offered by the energy of the fron-
tiersmen, the importunity of the land companies and colonial sol-
diers, and the claims of the despoiled traders.
About the same time the Mississippi company was formed, in
which George Washington was a member, which asked for two and
a half million acres of land. Though this failed. Colonel Washing-
ton individually obtained patents for over :i2,000 acres of land on
the Ohio and Kanawha, and went down the Ohio river to survey and
mark his domain in 1770. A tract of land embracing about one-
fourth of West Virginia was given under the Stanwix treaty to
traders in compensation for their losses, which they proposed to settle
as a new territory under the name of Indiana. The Walpole com-
pany, which succeeded in obtaining a grant, subject to the approval
of the Six Nations, was merged in a sort of "trust company," includ-
ing the old Ohio company of Virginia, which proposed to launch
the new province of Vandalia, including all Kentucky west of the
mouth of the Scioto, and much of West Virginia. But before this
title could he perfected, the Revolution came on, and these land com-
panies became practically extinct.
While none of these schemes directly concerned Ohio land,-" they
immediately affected the history of Ohio, as the Delawares and
Shawanees felt themselves outraged by the sale of Kentucky by tin 1
Iroquois, and every new viewer of land set their passions to a tenser
pitch. "They view the settlement'* of the people upon this river
with an uneasy and jealous eye," said Washington after his trip down
* The first scheme to settle within the bounds of Ohio was that of an
ambitious association of "Yankees." who proposed to the crown and the gov-
ernment of Connecticut in 1755 to establish a colony west of Pennsylvania,
to extend indefinitely between the Mississippi river and the Alleghanies.
The plan was to allot 300 acres to each grown person who settled, except
slaves, and the same area to children when they came of age. at an annual
quit rent of two shillings per hundred acres, which should be applied to the
support of government, christianizing of Indians, relief of the poor, encour-
agement of learning and other purposes of public good. In this proposed
colony all Protestants of orthodox belief should be eligible to office, but no
member of the church of Rome should be allowed to own lands or bear arms.
fO CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
the Ohio, "and do not scruple to say that they must he compensated
for their right, if the people settle thereon, notwithstanding the ces-
sion of the Six Nations."
A prominent figure at the Stanwix treaty was Dr. Thomas Walker,
of Virginia, who had explored the Cherokee lands south of the Ohio.
His pioneer efforts were followed by those of Joseph [Martin, and
Col. - lames Smith (a captive in Ohio in 1755-60), and the traders,
among them John Finley, who traveled the Warrior's trail from
Cumberland gap up toward the mouth of the Scioto. On his return
to North Carolina Finley joined with others in forming a party to
explore Kentucky. The leader was Daniel Boone, a Pennsylvanian
by birth, and a famous chief of hunting parties on the border. After
their visit in 1769 the "dark and bloody ground,"' south of the Ohio
river, previously the neutral region of the warring northern and
southern Indians, began to be the hunting grounds of adventurous
whites who incidentally plundered the Shawanees and Cherokees
and were in turn plundered by them, with inevitable killings on each
side. Daniel Boone was also a surveyor, and in a few years there
were others in the same profession locating lands for themselves or
soldiers who had bounty grants. In 17T:'> Boone made his settle-
ment, not without a battle with Indians, and Simon Kenton, wander-
ing through Kentucky, hist one of his companions, whip was burned
by the red men at the stake.
These huntings, killings, surveys and settlements south and east
of the Ohio meant rankling hostility among the Shawanees and Dela-
wares, and a condition of border warfare was initiated, which con-
tinued for twenty years. Into the heart of the tumult the peace-
Living Moravians were led by their fate, one miidit say, though they
would have ascribed their continual association with misfortune to
the decree of an inscrutable providence. After their disasters in
eastern Pennsylvania, the Rev. David Zeisberger, in 17i>S sought
security in the wilderness and planted a mission on the Alleghany,
gaining the friendship of Glickhegan, orator of the Wolf clan of
Delawares, who ended in renouncing war and joining with Zeisber-
ger in establishing a mission on the Big Beaver, which was called
Friedenstadt. But this "city id' peace" the well-meaning mission-
aries established in a region notorious, from the early days of Logs-
town, as the headquarters of the must unscrupulous traders and law-
less characters, even worse than those the missionaries had suffered
from in the more eastern regions. This elass spread the rumor that
Zeisberger intended to sell his converts to the Cherokees as slaves,
ami in every possible way increased the irritation caused by the defec-
tion of Glickhegan and others from their customary places in tribal
life.*
King's History of Ohio.
THE BRITISH INDIAN RESERVE. ■* 71
Seeking a home yet further west, Zeisberger, in 1771, was hos-
pitably entertained and heard with favor by old Xetawatwees, chief
of the Turtle tribe of the Delawares, on the Tuscarawas, where Post
had attempted a settlement ten years before. In the following year,
with the approval of the Wyandots, the United Brethren were invited
to come with all their converted Indians in Pennsylvania, and make
their home where they might choose in the Muskingum valley. A
general council of the church accepted this call, and Zeisberger and
some assistants, looking for a location in 1772, decided upon the
beautiful and fertile country on the eastern bank of the Tuscarawas,
northward from the confluence at the head of Muskingum river, and
the Delawares gladly accorded them some miles along the river,
between their town ami Stillwater creek. Zeisberger and five Indian
families entered this haven of rest May 3, 1772, and falling at once
to work, soon had fields and gardens cleared and planted, ami a town
begun, which they called Schoenbrun, about two miles south of the
present site of New Philadelphia. In all, more than a hundred
Moravian Indians came from Beaver, and they were soon reinforced
by a colony from Wyalusing, about two hundred and fifty, led by the
Pevs. John Etwein and John Heckewelder. The Delawares in these
parties congregated at Schoenbrun ami the .Mohicans founded a new
town called Gnadenhiitten, seven miles down, reviving the title of the
ruined village on the Lehigh. At a later date they built, five miles
further down, the town of Salem. But while all were yet assem-
bled together at Schoenbrun, in 1772, the rules of the congregation,
which Taylor* calls "the first act of Ohio legislation — the constitu-
tion of 1772," was read ami accepted by the people. These rules
were a simple, brief statement of faith ami admonition as to conduct.
No more was necessary. The Bible was the constitution, in fact.
The missionaries looked after the government, and the helpers (or
national assistants ), chosen from among the Indian converts, saw
that good order was maintained. Certain sorts of people were for-
bidden to enter or remain, siich as murderers, thieves or drunkards,
ami those who attended dances, sacrifices or heathenish festivals, or
used Tshappich (witchcraft) in hunting. All pledged themselves to
observe Sunday for rest and worship, renounce "all juggles, lies and
deceits of Satan," obey the teachers and helpers, be industrious ami
peaceful, requite any damage to the property of another, keep out of
debt to traders ami buy nothing of them on < mission without the
consent of the national assistants, go not on long journeys or hunts
without informing the minister or steward, ami cheerfully contribute
labor to public work. No intoxicating liquor was to be brought to
the towns. Young people were not to marry without the consenl of
their parents; a man should have hut one wife, and a woman but one
History of Ohio, p. 233.
72 * CENTENNIAL HISTORY OP OHIO.
husband, to whom she should be obedient, taking care of the children
and being' cleanly in all things. At a later date new rules were made
necessary by the war of the Revolution, viz.: "Xo man inclining
to go to war, which is the shedding of blood, can remain with us," and
banishing those who should buy things known to be stolen or plun-
dered. These regulations, with other rules regarding church gov-
ernment, regulations for the banishment of individuals (which was
the only punishment), control of schools, relief of the needy and
burial of the dead, made up the Moravian code of laws.
This must worthy enterprise lias been compared to the settlement
of the Puritans. "These missions were the primordial establishment
id' ()hiu, as true as that Plymouth was the beginning of Massachus-
etts," says uiic of the historians of the State. P>nt the essential dif-
ference must lie noted, that Schoenbrun and Gnaddenhiitten were not
settlements of white people hut communities of Indian families
attended by white teachers. If they had been unmolested, and had
continued to he successful as at the start, there would have been
founded an Ohio entirely different from that of today. It is there-
fore only with very sweeping reservations, that one can accept the
declaration that "The Moravians may justly he remembered and hon-
ored as the pilgrims of Ohio."* Yet they are to he remembered and
honored for their patient and loving work, and influence for peace
during the Revolution. Their Indians, when they were killed, died
Christians. It is bard to say that they wronged the Indians ;t it was
the white desperado of the border who wronged both Moravian mis-
sionary and converted red men; but the doctrine of peace seemed as
much out of place wherever the Moravian went, and they tried many
places, as it was in the days of the original Apostles.
As has been intimated, there was more in the hostility of the white
people'to the Moravian missionaries than the rude jealousy of traders
who feared a curtailing of the trade in "fire-water." The experience
of Christopher Gist when he wished to celebrate Christmas at Cosh-
octon is an example of the religious prejudice mi the border, where
one would hardly expect it. An interesting glimpse of the situation
from the sectarian point of view may he found in the journal of Rev.
David Jones, of New Jersey, who visited Schoenbrun soon after its
foundation, afterward took trips on the Ohio witli George Pogers
Clark, and was a chaplain with Anthony Wayne in the Revolution
* King's History of Ohio.
t"No greater wrong can ever be done than to put a good man at the mercy
of a had. while telling him not to defend himself or his fellows: in no way
can the success of evil he made surer and quicker: but the wrong was par-
ticularly great when at such a time and in such a place the defenseless
Indians were thrust between the anvil of their savage red brethren and the
hammer of the lawless and brutal white borderers. The awful harvest
which the poor converts reaped had in reality been sown for them by their
own friends and would-be benefactors." — Roosevelt. "Winning of the West."
THE BRITISH INDIAN RESERVE. 73
and on the Maumee. He went up the Scioto in 177:2, to "Kuskin-
kis;" heard of the "Pickaweeke," near Deer Creek, a Shawanee town,
"remarkable for robbers and villainies;" visited "Chillicaathee," also
a Shawanee town, and "Conner's" town toward the Muskingum.
Noting that the wives of Conner and the Indian chief were in their
actions entirely Indian, though white captives from childhood,
the good man asked vainly, "Might we not infer from hence that if
the Indians were educated as we are, they would lie like us?" He
stopped at the Whitowoman's town, and the town of Coquethagechton,
known as Captain White-Eves, who was away on a hunt down past
the Ohio and toward the gulf of Mexico ; and finally reached the head
town of Xetawatwos. whence the traveler went to the Moravian town,
on a high level road, east of the Muskingum, ten miles above Xew-
eomer's town. He observed that neat loghouses bad been built, and
a good chapel for divine worship. Zeisberger, he noted, "seems an
honest man, successful among these poor heathen." But the Bev-
erend .Tones saw something to make him forget the good work re-
vealed in log houses, farms and meeting-house. "While I was
present he used no kind of prayer, which was not pleasing to me,
therefore asked him if that was their uniform practice." Zeisberger
"replied that sometimes prayer was used. Their worship began and
ended with singing a hymn in the Indian language, which -was per-
formed melodiously. In the evening they met again for worship."
Again, "An Indian asked the minister when Easter Sunday was."
Waiting in breathless expectancy for the answer. Tones thought that
Zeisberger hesitated in his presence to discourse about Easter. "My
soul was filled with horror," he wrote, "that mortal man should pre-
sume to teach a heathen religiously to observe what God Almighty
never taught him as any part of his will."
Mr. .Tones gives us some interesting facts as to the religious aspira-
tions of the Helawares. Captain Killbuck (Gelelemend) , a great
man in the nation, did not care for the Moravian faith. "It did not
signify to be of a religion that could not protect them in war time."
Neither would he have Presbyterians in his town, because they went
to war against tlia Indian. It was his intention to go and see the
king of England and obtain a minister and schoolmaster of royal
choosing, and to this end he had already saved up £40. Opposed by
such an ambition, .Tones was noi encouraged when he asked leave to
preach. The head men talked irrelevantly of a Highland officer who
had taken one of their women as his wife, and sold her in Maryland
as a slave. "Wbat is become of the woman '." they asked, and the
good preacher could not answer. Finally, his resources exhausted by
the exorbitant prices of food, he gave up bis mission and returned
home by way of "Weeling."
Wheeling was then a small ami recently established settlement
74 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
( L772) of a few Virginians, among them Ebenezer Zane, a sturdy
pioneer destined to a notable part in the conquest and settlement of
Ohio. It was the advance post of the land claimants who were com-
ing over the mountains to possess West Virginia. The Pennsylva-
nians were more concerned with trade, and between Pennsylvania and
Virginia the old quarrel about boundaries had been intensified almost
to a state of war. The Canadian authorities also were asking to have
the old bounds of Canada established in the upper Ohio valley. In
the winter of 1773-74 Dr. John Conolly, a nephew of George Cro-
ghan, acting as agent for Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, issued
a proclamation calling on the inhabitants of the upper Ohio region to
meet and organize as Virginia militia. Col. Arthur St. Clair, rep-
resenting the Pennsylvania proprietors at Pittsburg, put Conolly
under arrest and prevented the proposed assemblage, but after his
release Conolly returned to Pittsburg in March, 1774, at the head of
an armed force; proclaimed the jurisdiction of Virginia, and rebuilt
and occupied the old fortification, calling it Fort Dunmore. Here he
was visited by Dunmore, and appointed lieutenant and commander
in that region.
Conolly was a rash and inconsiderate man, likely to provoke war
rather than peace. It was afterward charged that Lord Dunmore
desired Indian hostilities in order to distract the attention of his
people on the -lame- river from the encroachments of the crown. On
the other hand there was also talk that the Pennsylvania traders in-
cited the red men to keep back the settlers, in the interest of border
trade, and bought the horses stolen on the Virginia frontier, it was
evidently a period of mutual suspicion and rancor, with Pennsylvania
near to war witli Virginia; the young and reckless in both colonies
talking of rebellion against Kngland; the lines between Tory and
Patriot coming into being, and anarchy practically prevailing in the
region that was the key to the West.
Conolly began sending out word in the spring of 1771 that the
Shawanees were not to be trusted. The Mingoes about Logstown
.-.tide some horses from the "landjobbers," a- Zane called them, and
a canoe party from Butler's trading house at Pittsburg was attacked
by a few stray Cherokees on the river. The doings of the Mingoes,
Iroquois stragglers, and Cherokees, who had no settlement in Ohio,
and wen- the hereditary enemies of the Ohio tribes, should not have
incited a general war. But it was easy for ( !onolly to excite the spirit
of hostility along the border. There was a gathering of frontiersmen
at Wheeling, in which leading spirits were Michael Cresap, son of
the old pioneer of the upper Potomac, and George Rogers Clark, a
young Virginian twenty-one years of age, already a famous hunter and
rover of the w Is, who was following the business of backwoods sur-
THE BRITISH INDIAN RESERVE. 75
veyor.* While they wore deliberating about the proper course to
pursue, an express from Conolly arrived, stating that war was inev-
itable and the country should be protected by scouts until it could be
fortified. In the words of Clark, "Action was had and war declared
in the most solemn manner; and the same evening two scalps were
brought into the camp." Zane, down the river making improvements
on land he had located, hurried back to Wheeling upon news of trou-
ble, as did others in the same business. lie endeavored To dis-
suade Cresap from his proposition to indiscriminately kill the
Indians along the Ohio. Nevertheless, a party of Indians ami
traders being reported a little way up the river, Cresap led out a
party against them, and soon returned with the trailers, and blood and
bullet holes in the canoe that convinced Zane that the two Indians,
friendly people attached to Butler's trading interests, had been mur-
dered and thrown in the river. Next 'lay some Indians, attempting
to pass Wheeling unobserved, in their canoes, were chased fifteen
miles down the river, driven to land, and attacked, the action resulting
in the wounding of several on each side. After this it was proposed
to march against the Mingo town, up the river, then the residence of
a chief who has ever since been famous in American history. This
was Logan, so named by his father Shikellimus, former chief of the
Iroquois on the Susquehanna, in honor of .lames Logan, secretary of
the province of Pennsylvania, lie bad been reared in Pennsylvania,
coming into the Ohio region after the advent of the .Moravians, had
always been a friend of the whites and was regarded by them a- a
man of superior ability. Judge William Brown, a worthy man of
that day in the Juniata region, declared that Logan was the best speci-
men of humanity he ever met, either white or red.
But after the Wheeling people had marched live miles toward
Logan's town, Cresap, according to Clark's narrative, suggested a
reconsideration of their purpose. Clark told of his being entertained
at Logan's town, a few weeks before. As they discussed the matter,
"every person seemed to detest the resolution they had set out with,"
and the party turned back to Wheeling and took the road to Redsl
on the Monongahela. A few days later, thirty or more frontiersmen
having gathered at. Baker's settlement on the Virginia side' of the
river, opposite the month of Yellow Creek, enticed a party of Min-
goes, including five men. a woman or two and a little child, to come
across. Greathouse, the white leader, endeavored to make them all
drunk, in preparation for a massacre. Some of the red men, who
got in that condition, were tomahawked, and the others were shot,
*"He possessed high flaring, unflinching courage, passions which he could
not control, and a frame fitted to stand any strain of fatigue or hardship.
He was a square-built, thick-set man. with high, broad forehead, sandy hair,
and unquailing blue eyes that looked out under heavy, shaggy brows."—
Roosevelt.
70 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
except rlii baby. Other Indians, who came over from the opposite
shore, to the aid of their comrades, were shot in their boats. In the
course of the killing all The relatives of Logan were murdered. He
charged the crime to Colonel Cresap in his famous speech, at a later
date, and the Moravians also heard from the Italians that Cresap was
the leader iii the affair, but the testimony of Cresap's associates seems
to acquit him of mure than intending to attack the Mingo town.
< >ther outrages were reported to the people at Schoenbrun, such as the
killing of John Gibson's Shawanee wife, and it was told that Cresap
and his men threatened to kill and plunder all who went up and down
the river. A few of them, doubtless, such as took fart in the Yellow
Creek massacre, were willing and fitted to become pirates against
Indians and traders, whom they hated alike, hut the majority were
better men, excited 1" an outburst "1' vengeance by Long-continued
wrongs, and by this time regretting the action to which they had been
urged by Conolly.
The Mingoes at once sent news of their misfortunes to the other
tribes, and set out on the warpath, seeking scalps of white people
indiscriminately, both of the Long Knives ( Virginians) and of the
traders who were entirely innocent. Early in June news arrived of
the killing of a family of eight mi the Monongahela by Logan's party,
and by the end of that month Logan returned to his refuge among
the Shawanees with thirteen scalps, declaring he was now sari-tie, 1
for the loss of his relatives, and would sit still till ho heard what the
Long Knife would say.* The people at the Moravian mission were
in great distress, and feared they must push further into the wilder-
ness in their vain search for a land of peace. But the Delawares set
guards about their town, and some of the influential red men associ-
ated with them were invited to the great council that Netawatwes
called. In this council the Mingoes and Shawanees were urged to
keep peace and assured they would have no help from the Delawares;
hut the Mingoes were excited beyond hope of dissuasion and the
Shawanees were ready to answer their appeal for help.
In the warfare they carried along the Pennsylvania and Virginia
border, they were aided by young and reckless warriors, yearning for
tin' distinction of winning a scalp — Wyandots, Iroquois, Maumoes,
and even Delawares. Part of the Shawanees, under the lead of their
great chieftain, Cornstalk, for a time endeavored to preserve peace,
until, it is-said. a safeguard the chief had furnished some traders lie
*The prisoners he took were tortured to death at the Shawanee town on
the Muskingum, except one. whom Logan saved by adopting in place of a
brother killed at Yellow Creek. In July this man wrote at Logan's dictation
the famous letter to Captain Cresap: "What did you kill my people on Yel-
low creek for? ... I thought I must kill too. and I have been three
times to war since; but the Indians are not angry, only myself." Then,
crossing the Ohio, he slaughtered a family on Holston creek, and left the
note there, tied to a war club.
THE BRITISH INDIAN RESERVE. 77
l,;i<! rescued from the Mingoes was attacked by order o£ the treacher-
ous Conolly. A great panic possessed the frontier, and those who did
not take refuge in the numerous stockhouses built, fled hack over the
mountains. The people of the two provinces, al cross purposes, sus-
pected each other of hostile designs, and the organizing of a company
of Pennsylvania rangers almosl led to hostilities against them by the
Virginians. There were many horrible massacres of settlers, much
taking of scalps on both sides, many little battles at the stockades or
upon the forest trails, south and east of the Ohio.
Conolly, alarmed by the result of his war orders, sought to throw
the blame on Cresap, and held councils with the Delawares ami Iro-
quois, who, with similar diplomacy, repudiated the deeds of their
young men. The Shawanees, making no promises, boldly charged
Conolly with deception. Meanwhile Dunmore was preparing an
army to recover the ravaged territory, and in earnest of what should
come, Col. Angus McDonald, of a family conspicuous to this day in
the Shenandoah valley, commanding four hundred men, inarched to
Wheeling, built Fort Fineastlo, and guided by Jonathan Zane and
others, advanced to the Shawanee town of Wakatomica on the Mus-
kingum, which with the others was burned, and the cornfields laid
waste. The expedition then retired to Wheeling, having met with
no serious resistance.
Lord Dunmore himself organized a force of about fifteen hundred
men at Pittsburg, whence he planned to go down the Ohio and unite
with the left wine of his army, under Gen. Andrew Lewis, at the
month of the Great Kanawha. Lewis, a veteran of the Braddock
campaign, now a general of Virginia troops, with about twelve hun-
dred men, including a large number of frontiersmen, and such famous
leaders and scouts as Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark, Michael
Cresap and Simon Kenton, advanced from his rendezvous at Lewis-
burg, Va., to the mouth of the Great Kanawha, to meet the governor,
but instead of finding the expected support, after considerable delay
re Lved an express from Dunmore by the hand of Simon Girty,*
advising him that the two wings of the army should cross the Ohio
separately, effect a junction and march against the Scioto villages.
A- Lewis had left some of his volunteers behind as garrisons, on the
understanding that the two wings would unite east of the Ohio, the
change in plan increased his danger if the enemy should attack. At
the time the despatch was received, the backw Ismen raised in Fin-
castle, as the Virginia border county was called, were delayed and
hail not yet caught up with the main column. Though the officers
of the army declared by resolution that Dunmore was in their belief
* Girty was the son of an Irish trader, and was reared by the Indians who
killed his father. He was with the colonists in this war. but when the col-
onies made war on Great Britain, he became a Tory and a leader of Indians
for the British.
7S CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
actuated by "no other motive than the true interests of the country,"
afterward there was severe criticism of the failure to unite, and it was
charged directly that Dunmore hoped for tin- destruction of Lewis'
army. Said one of the officers: "It was evidently the intention of
the old Scotch villain to cut off General Lewis' army." To support
this view it is pointed out that the first Continental congress met a
week before Lewis marched from Lewisburg, and that Conolly and
Dunmore had been exerting themselves to bring on war between
Pennsylvania and Virginia, as well as an Indian outbreak that would
endanger the homes of the border people, and discourage the hope
of independence of Great Britain.
The Indians, under the command of Cornstalk, had closely watched
and harassed Lewis's movements, and when the white command
encamped at Point Pleasant, the warriors concentrated on the Ohio
side of the river, intending to attack when the Virginians crossed or
lead them into ambush at some fitting place in the interior. But on
account of the long delay of the white troops, the Indians, being
nearly at the end of their supplies, were compelled to take the offen-
sive. They crossed above the camp, on the night of October 9th,
about one thousand strong, and attacked on the morning of the 10th,
with the purpose of driving Lewis's troops into the forks of the
Kanawha and Ohio ami into the rivers. It was a soldierly plan of
battle, and gallantly and determinedly carried on. Only the great
heroism of the little Colonial army, the flower of the frontier hunters
and fighters, saved it from extermination by a smaller force led by
an abler general. The battle raged without much advantage from
sunrise to about noon, when the flank attack of the Indians was
repulsed and they were flanked successfully in turn, and it became
possible to bring the whites into a connected line. Then the colonials
pushed forward, and a tight from tree to tree continued until dark,
when Cornstalk retreated across the river without molestation. It
was one of the greatest battles fought against whites by the red men,
and about the only considerable engagement in which the whites did
not outnumber the Indians two to one or more. According to the
best authorities the Indian loss in life was about forty, while the cas-
ualties of Lewis's command were seventy-five dead and one hundred
and forty wounded, a total of twenty per cent of his force engaged.
Among the killed and wounded were seventeen officers, including Col-
onel Lewis, brother of the general, and Colonel Field; while the red
nun lost none of their chiefs, though these were at the front, and their
voices, it is said, were often heard urging the warrior-. "Be -iron--,
he strong!"
Cornstalk, having failed to cut off one wing of the invaders of
Ohio, retreated into the forests, and Dunmore, after building a stock-
ade jn-t above the mouth of Hockhocking, called port Gower,
ascended the Hocking river without resistance and encamped on
THE BRITISH INDIAN RESERVE. 70
Sippo creek, in view of the Pickaway plains. Offers of peace hav-
ing been received from Shawanee chiefs, Lewis was ordered to
remain where he was, but that commander had no disposition so to do,
and advanced into Ohio as far as Congo creek, within striking dis-
tance of Chillicothe, the principal Shawanee village.* The Vir-
ginians, led by Lewis, were for destroying these Indian homes. Dun-
more, to enforce his orders for a halt, was compelled to draw his
sword on the impetuous victor of Point Pleasant, and it was with
difficulty that Lewis restrained his men from attacking Dunmore and
his Indian escort. Cornstalk, meanwhile, was asking his head men
in council what they desired to do. He had not advised the war, but
had done his best to repel invasion. Sow he proposed, as a test of
sentiment, to kill all the women and children and fight until every
warrior was dead, but receiving no answer, he struck his tomahawk
in a post, and declared he would go and make peace, which received
hearty approval.
The council that was held by the earl of Dunmore, at Camp Char-
lotte, is one of the most famous in American history, not only for the
presence of Cornstalk, who impressed his hearers as a man of grand
and majestic presence, and an orator surpassing any they had ever
heard,f hut also for the delivery by letter of that remarkable address
of Logan's, that Thomas Jefferson declared was unsurpassed by any
passage in the orations of Demosthenes, Cicero, or any orator of
Europe. Logan refused to attend the council, hut John Gibson, the
interpreter, in later years a general under Washington, visited him,
and the Indian chief, after sitting silently in tears for some time,
delivered the speech which Gibson wrote down and recited to the
council. Jefferson endeavored to embellish it. and his version is the
one that was for many years printed in the school books of the race
that conquered. The earlier version, probably nearest correct,
deserves to be quoted:
"I appeal to any white man to say that he ever entered Logan's
cabin hut I gave him meat; that he ever came naked hut I clothed
him. In the course of the last wart Logan remained in his cabin
an advocate for peace. I had such an affection for the white people,
that I was pointed at by the rest of my nation. I even should have
lived with them, had it not been for Colonel Cresap, who last year
cut off in cold blood all the relations of Logan, not sparing women
and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any
human creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it —
I have killed many, and fully glutted my revenge. I am glad that
there is a prospect of peace, on account of the nation; hut I beg yon
will not entertain a thought that anything I have said proceeds from
*This was at the present site of Yv'estfall, near Circleville — Taylor's Ohi
tSueh was the description of Colonel Wilson, of Dunmore's staff.
J War of 1763-64.
§0 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
fear. Logan disdain- the thought. He will not turn on his heel
to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Xo one!"
This speech put upon Cresap forever the stigma of the Yellow
creek murders, in spite of his protestations and the probability of his
innocence of the actual deed. At the council, after Logan's speech
was read, Clark taunted his friend with being so important a man
that all the great deeds were charged to his account, and Cresap swore
he had a mind to avenge Logan by tomahawking Greathouse.*
Dunmore seems to have made an arrangement with the Shawanees
■confirming the Ohio river as a boundary. Then the earl retreated,
with no permanent gain but a fort at Point Pleasant. Port Gower
was not occupied again by American troops until Josiah Ilarmar
came there in 1790.
Next year Dunmore was to meet the Indians at Pittsburg for a
treaty, but by that time the new order of things in America had too
far progressed to leave him power in affairs. Even as his army
marched back, the officers held a meeting at Fort Gower and adopted
resolutions of sympathy with the Continental congress. They had
been three months in the wilderness, and feared their service under
an English nobleman and representative of the crown might be mis-
interpreted. Their resolution, framed in Ohio, Xovember 5, 1774,
and afterward published in the Virginia Gazette, foreshadowed the
declaration of independence:
"Resolved, That we will bear the most faithful allegiance to his
Majesty, King George the Third, whilst his Majesty delights to reign
over a free people; that we will at the expense of life ami everything
dear and valuable exert ourselves in support of the honor of his crown
and the dignity of the British Empire. But as the love of liberty
and attachment to the real interests and just rights of America out-
weigh every other consideration, we resolve that we will exert every
power within us for the defense of her just rights and privileges : not
in any precipitate, riotous or tumultuous manner, but when regularly
ealled forth by the unanimous voice of our countrymen.''
♦After this treaty Logan fell into a deep melancholy, from which he never
revived. He declared frequently that life was a burden, and that it had been
better he were never born. Like George Rogers Clark and other famous
frontiersmen, he yielded to the seductions of strong drink. Finally, while
sitting before a fire, somewhere along the Maumee river, his head between
his hands, an Indian enemy stole upon him. and buried a tomahawk in his
brain.
CHAPTER IV.
OHIO IN THE REVOLUTION.
The Quebec Act — The Attitude of the Indians — Murder of
Cornstalk — Kentucky Raids — George Rogers Clark and
His Campaigns — Vtncennes and Fort Laurens — Battle on
Mad Riveh — Cessions of Northwest Territory — Moravian
Removal and Massacre — Crawford's Invasion.
LA K^HE YEAR 1771 is memorable, not only for Dunmore's cam-
paign and the first Continental congress, but for an ordi-
nance of parliament extending the jurisdiction of the
government at Quebec over Ohio and the Northwest This
''Quebec Act" had an important influence upon future events. It
was a formal reiteration of the proclamation of 1703, a decree of the
sovereign power that the Northwest was not to be the backyard of the
colonies, or the field of their expanding energies, or a place of refuge
from the petty tyrannies of colonial governors, hut an Indian reserve,
under the control of the Canadian military. It was to maintain this
status of Ohio, also to cut off the importation of military supplies
from Spain by way of the Ohio river, that Great Britain used the
Indians against the western frontier through the war of the Revolu-
tion. Another feature of the lull, fulfilling the pledges of the treaty
of 17»;:{, was that the French inhabitants of the West, as well as of
Quebec, were assured of religious liberty and their accustomed judi-
cial methods. This roused "a prodigious cry" in England, for
"religious liberty" meant a < Jatholic province. "Does not your blood
run cold," said Hamilton, "to think that an English parliament
could pass an act fur the establishment of arbitrary power ami popery
in such an extensive country?" The American congress protested
that the bill was but the first step in reducing "the ancient, free, Prot-
estant colonies to the same state of slavery,'* and the Quebec lull was
one of the evils complained of in the declaration of independence, but
in language very much modified, because the colonists had found that
1-6
go CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
their outcry against "popery" kept the Canadians from joining in
the Revolution.*
Within a few weeks after the battle of Lexington (June, 1775),
the Iroquois nation renewed its ancient league with Great Britain,
and turned against the insurgent colonials, under the leadership of
the great Mohawk chief, Thayendanegea, better known as Joseph
Brant, whose sister was the recognized wife of Sir William Johnson
after the death of the first Lady Johnson. But before Conolly could
effect his purpose of organizing the Ohio tribes, and marching to the
support of Lord Dunmore, he was arrested and imprisoned. The
Delawares had been kept from hostilities during the Dunmore war
through the influence of Glickhegan and other Moravians and the
famous White-Eyes, though there was a strong war party under the
leadership of an Indian called Captain Pipe. This tribe and a large
party of the Shawanees were for neutrality in the new war, and they
heard with favor the representations made to them of the justness of
the colonial cause by Benjamin Franklin and Patrick Henry, com-
missioners appointed by Congress to take charge of the Indian affairs
in the Ohio region. The commissioners met representatives of the
Shawanees and Delawares at Pittsburg, in the fall of 1775, and the
council was enlivened by the spirited reply of WhiteJiyes to some
Senecas who reminded him of the old subordination of his people to
the Iroquois. lie declared that he had thrown off the petticoats and
was a man, and in behalf of his nation claimed dominion of all the
country west of the Alleghany. This determined attitude of White-
Eyes, at the expense of his popularity with a large faction of his
people, is directly traceable to the influence of the United Brethren
missions. When he returned to the Muskingum ho was severely cen-
sured by Captain Pipe, who withdrew to his town on the Wahlhond-
ing, ami by the Muncie tribe, a relic of the ancient Andastes, who
repaired to the Sandusky region, within the British influence. Neta-
watwes, supported by White-Eyes, Killbuck and Big Cat, established
a new capital at Goshgoshgunk (Coshocton), ami in 1 7 7 < : the new
Moravian colony of Lichtenau was estahlished three miles below the
forks at the head of the Muskingum. This was soon followed by the
death of Netawatwes, hut White-Eyes, who succeeded him. continued
to hold most of the 1 lolawaros in friendship for the Moravians and the
United Colonies.
For these reasons, it may be observed that the quiet teachings of the
missionaries were more potent than the war of Dunmore, in saving
the struggling colonies from Indian war in the west for two years.
It is also to he remembered that the influence of Kirkland, a Mora-
vian missionary in the east, detached the Oneidas and Tuscarawas
from the war pact of the British and [roquois. In these efforts '■•"
Winsor's "Westward Movement.'
OHIO IN THE REVOLUTION. 83
peace the Delawares and the better part of the Shawanees had a tire-
less and faithful co-worker in Col. George Morgan, Indian agent for
the middle department.
But this work was not done by the Christian Indians without
serious danger. In 1777 a hostile party of two hundred Wyandots,
provoked by the refusal of the Delawares to take the war belt,
descended upon the town at Coshocton. Then Glickhegan gained a
remarkable victory by strategy hitherto unknown in Ohio. The
visitors were stuffed with food at banquets, taken to visit the school-
houses, and loaded with all the provisions they could carry. Parno-
acan, the chief, went home declaring that the white brethren were
his fathers, and the Delawares should rest in peace.
It was impossible, however, to counteract the intrigues of Henry
Hamilton, lieutenant-governor of Quebec province south of the lakes.
He was ordered in the fall of 1776 to enlist the Indians in the war
of the British king against his rebellious subjects, and great councils
.were held at his headquarters, at Detroit, which were ominous to the
safety of the colonial border. The Wyandots, lords of Ohio, needed
little urging. The peace party of the Delawares and Shawanees
could not restrain all their warriors. In the spring of 1777 Gov.
Patrick Henry, of Virginia, determined to send an expedition to
chastise a hostile band on the upper Scioto, but was dissuaded from
the enterprise by the remonstrance of Colonel Morgan. At that time,
according to Morgan, the county-lieutenants of Monongahela and
( >hio seemed to have conspired to provoke Indian hostilities. Friendly
Delawares had been fired upon, and there was danger that the foolish
performances of a part of the white population, as uncontrollable as
young Indian braves longing for the first scalp, would drive the red
nations to war. White men, as well as Indians, were divided. A
large proportion of the population, known as Tories, were ready
upon opportunity to intrigue or tight in the British interest.
Between them and the patriots, on the border and elsewhere, there
was a conflict that lacked little, aside from scalping and the torture
by fire, of resemblance to Indian warfare.
Another event at this period, fatal to peace, was the murder of
Cornstalk, who, since the Dunmore war, had -rood between the set-
tlers of Kentucky and West Virginia and the thirst of the warriors
for revenge. Cornstalk had gone from his Scioto home to Point
Pleasant to warn the commandant that the Shawanees were being
drawn into war, and his tribe must be protected, or lie must yield his
desires for peace. Thereupon Captain Arbuckle detained him as a
hostage. Some days later Cornstalk was joined by his son, Ellinip-
sico, anxious regarding his father's long absence. Next followed
the killing of a ranger who went out hunting. Though Cornstalk
was there for tin- express purpose of warning against such hostilities,
the dead soldier's comrades, headed by Capt. John Hall, made a rush"
84 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
to kill him in revenge. To Ellinipsico, who was agitated for a
moment, for lie was young, the old chief said, "My son, the Great
Spirit has sent you here that we may die together," and, turning, he
calmly received the bullets of his murderers. His son, encouraged
by such manliness, sat still, gazing calmly at the mob until he was
shot dead.*
By August, 1777, Hamilton, having formed a confederation of
the Northwestern nations against the colonies, had sent out fifteen
parties to ravage the frontier. With each he sent white officers and
rangers. Many prisoners were carried to Detroit, and were there
decently treated, lint there were also bloody and horrible deeds,
from which the white leaders did not seem able to restrain their sav-
age raiders. Scalps carried to Detroit, were paid for, a shocking,
but not a new feature of war in America. In the early part of Sep-
tember a party of Wyandots, Mingoes and Shawanees and Detroit
rangers carrying the British flag, besieged Fort Henry, at Wheeling,
and drawing out the garrison into an ambush, killed or wounded
twenty-six. The few men who remained, under the leadership of
Ebenezer Zane, were called upon by a British officer to surrender and
acknowledge the sovereignty of the king, but they preferred to fight,
and, aided by the heroic women who were with them, successfully
withstood the assaults of the enemy.
In thr spring of 177* Hamilton's force of subordinate commanders
was conspicuously strengthened by the arrival in Ohio of Alexander
McKee, Indian agent for the crown, who escaped from imprisonment
at Pittsburg, or broke his parole, and brought with him Matthew
Elliott, an Indian trader who had been negotiating with both sides,
and "two of the name of Girty," one of whom is supposed to be Simon
Girty, though tradition has him in command of the attack on Fort
Henry. Simon Girty, who now returned to the forest to support the
cause of hi- adopted fathers, the Senecas, was thereafter the inciner-
ate and merciless foe of the American people. There is no darker
name in tin' history of Ohio. The word picture of him left by a
prisoner in the Indian country seems to justify tradition. '"'His
dark, shaggy hair: bis low forehead, his brows contracted ami meet-
ing above his short flat nose; his gray, sunken eyes, averting the
ingenuous gaze, his lips thin and compressed, and the dark and sinis-
ter expression of his countenance, to me seemed the very picture of a
villain."!
♦Roosevelt, though frequently insisting that the whites were justified in
their wars, and were more sinned against than sinning, calls this a "brutal
and cowardly butchery," "one of the darkest stains on the checkered pages
of frontier history," and declares that "we have no record of any more
infamous deed."
tThere were tour Cirtys— Simon. George. Thomas, and James — reared in
different tribes after they had witnessed the burning of their parents at
the stake. Simon was net incapable of human conduct. He left the Senecas
OHIO IN THE REVOLUTION. 85
According to the Moravian narrative these refugees from Pittsburg
very nearly involved the Christian Indians in war. It was after the
British occupation of Philadelphia, and McKee and his companions
assured the Delawares that General Washington had been killed and
the American armies cut to pieces, that the Congress was to be hung,
and the Americans no longer held any territory except the mountains,
whence they were descending to kill the Indians without sparing-
women or children. The party of Captain Pipe was greatly encour-
aged : most of the Delawares prepared for the war path, and it was
with some danger to his own life that White-Eyes secured a delay of
ten days to hear from Morgan. Fortunately John Heckewelder was
at Pittsburg when the messenger of the chief arrived, and he hastened
back with news to dispel for the time the falsehoods of the conspira-
tors. Though his people hardly dare shake his hand when they
greeted him at Lichtenau, for fear of the war party, he was able to
assure them of the unshaken friendship of their American brothers,
and tell them of the surrender of the army of General Burgoyne. It
appears from Heckeweldcr's narrative that the great event at Sara-
toga, of date October IT, 1777, was first known in the Muskingum
valley when he brought the word in February, 177S. The effect of
the surrender was to strengthen the Indian peace party both directly
and indirectly, for it was the signal for recognition of American inde-
pendence by France, and the change of the French trading interest in
the West to hostility to Great Britain.
At this time and for several years afterward the history of Ohio
was closely associated with that of Kentucky, the land of the most
western American settlements. A large part of the adventurous
pioneers came to their selected homes in the "meadow land," down
the Ohio river, but at the risk of death at the hands of hostile bands
of Shawanees and Cherokees. It is a remarkable fact, due to this
hostility, that the greater number of early settlers of the state across
the river came by what Daniel Boone called the "Wilderness road,"
the great Warrior's trail through Cumberland gap, which the red
men of the North and South had used for many years in their heredi-
tary forays. This trail was continued north through Ohio along the
Scioto, taking advantage of the water transportation on the way to
form a desirable rente to and from Sandusky bay <>n Lake Erie. In
1776, though in the midst of continual Indian hostilities, the Ken-
to live in western Pennsylvania, but being a tory. went to the Sandusky
river and established a trading post. He is credited with saving Simon
Kenton from torture. He was killed in 1816. in Proctor's defeat on the river
Thames. .lames, adopted by the Shawanees. seems to have been an unmiti-
gated monster in his Kentucky raids. George, reared by the Delawares, was
a thorough Indian warrior all his life. These three were desperate drunk-
ards, a common vice on the frontier. Thomas, on the other hand, after
escaping from the Indians, became a good citizen. — See Perkins' Annals of
the Northwest.
86 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
tucky pioneers, led by George Rogers Clark, grew tired of govern-
ment as an appendage of Fincastle county, Virginia, and in conven-
.< cted two delegates, one of whom was Clark, to treat with the
Virginia govern menl for organization as a separate county. This, it
appears, was a compromise demand, not altogether agreeable to Clark,
who urged the erection of an independent state. He was one of the
delegates and was able to put so convincingly the independent atti-
tude of the Kentuckians toward the war with England, that, to save
the region for Virginia, the council spared the frontiersmen 500
pounds of powder, and the legislature erected the county of Ken-
tucky in the fall of lTTii. Following this came the Indian out-
break, general and vigorous after the murder of Cornstalk. A great
part of the hostilities were directed against the settlements in Ken-
tucky, for the purpose of their extermination, and were carried on to
a considerable extent by the Shawanees of the Miami and Mad river
valleys, whose principal towns were Chillicothe, near the present site
of Zenia; Piqua, seven miles west of Springfield, and Upper and
Lower Piqua in what is now Miami county.
In February, 177n Daniel Boone and twenty-seven others w-ere
captured at the Blue Licks, and carried to Detroit, where all were
detained as prisoners save Boone, whom the Indians adopted and
married to the widow of a fallen warrior. While lie was playing
Indian in Ohio the famous campaign was planned against Vincennes.
Parly in 177^. Congress determined to make a campaign against
Detroit, in order to stop British intrigue in the west and relieve the
border of Indian hostilities. An army of two converging columns
was planned, each fifteen hundred strong, one to advance by the
Kanawha, ami the other from Pittsburg. To the command of the
latter division was assigned Gen. Lachlan Mcintosh, of Georgia, an
able officer, experienced in righting Southern Indians and the Span-
ish of Florida. Recently he had become involved in a quarrel with
President Gwinnett, of the Georgia council, concerning a luckless
invasion of Florida, and in the inevitable duel that followed Gwin-
-' his life. To quiet the dissensions in Georgia, Mcintosh was
transferred to the north. In the spring of 1778 he was able to
advance with about rive hundred men, and at the mouth of Beaver
river erect the fort which bore his name. The southern column was
never organized, and the whole enterprise failed. The maintenance
of an army of three thousand men at that distance from the coa~t,
at an estimated cosl of over $600,000, was beyond the power of the
this, George Rogers Clark had planned an expedition
against the posts in the Illinois country, ami spies he sent there had
reported a possibility of suceess, a- the French inhabitants were not
warm in support of Great Britain. Seeking help in Virginia,
. he found that little could !»■ given him. but Thomas Jeffer-
OHIO IN THE REVOLUTION. 37
son and others promised to induce the legislature to reward with
grants of land the men he might enlist. He was given the commis-
sion of colonel, and a little money and military supplies. After
struggling with many difficulties and discouragements, all the time
keeping his object a secret, he came down the river from Pennsyl-
vania with one hundred ami fifty soldiers and some families of set-
tlers, part of whom made the first homes of white people at Louisville.
There he met a small party of Virginians that had come over the
Wilderness road, but most of them turned back home when told of
the campaign proposed. Clark was much encouraged, however, by
receiving news of the French alliance. This would give him prestige
at his destination, where the population was almost entirely Creole.
With about two hundred men Clark set out from Louisville .lime
24th, on his daring- campaign. He hail no trouble in surprising and
capturing Kaskaskia and its powerful fort, commanded by a French-
man. Philip Rocheblave, and St. Philips and Cahokia likewise, and
he gained the confidence of the French so thoroughly that they
enlisted under his flag, and a French priest arranged a revolt of the
people at Vincennes and the hoisting of the American colors without
('lark's assistance. All that country, in the summer of 177 s . was
organized as the county of Illinois, of the state of Virginia, with the
consent of the inhabitants.
The center of the British power for the whole of the province of
Quebec, northwest of the river Ohio, was Detroit, which Clark was
far from approaching. His was rather a flank movement, while the
direct campaign was to be made by the Continental army. In the
midst of this activity Hamilton was net idle. While Clark was mov-
ing against the Mississippi river posts, Boone, a prisoner in the Scioto
valley, discovered that a large expedition of Shawanees ami Maumees
was about to invade Kentucky, under the command of Capt. Daign-
ian de Quindre, a Detroit partisan. Boone made his escape, and
in August, during the delay of the anticipated invasion, made a raid
into the Scioto valley to Paint Creek, lie was able to return just in
time to aid his neighbors in the defense of Boonesborough during a
ten days' siege by De Quindre's force. Then followed the famous
expedition of Simon Kenton and two friends into Ohio to capture
horses. George Clark alone escaped, and Kenton, a famous hunter,
runner and wrestler, tall, light-haired, like a Norseman, generally
kind, but sometimes a very Berseker, was carried about among the
Ohio towns, condemned to torture. Though saved from death by
Sim. hi Grirty and the Mingo chief, Logan, he was cruelly abused and
compelled to run the gauntlet eight times.
Mcintosh, meanwhile, could collect only a thousand men, and
perforce abandoned the long march to Detroit, lie did much g i.
r, by treating with the Indians. In September, 177 s . he suc-
ceeded in bringing together at Fort Pitt the mutually hostile chiefs
gS CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
of the Delaware?, White-Eyes, Killbuck and Pipe, and an elaborate
treaty was made, of great historical interest. For the purpose of
proving the friendship of the United States, there were guaranteed
to the Delaware nation and its heirs, "in the fullest and most ample
manner," all the territorial rights defined by former treaties, and it
was agreed that the Delawares should invite other tribes to join with
them to form a confederacy and State, with the Delawares at the
head, which should have a representative in the Continental congress.
This proposition was the one most favorable to the Indian ideas of
national dignity ami independence ever made. Perhaps it was so
favorable because the [roquois had just shown their deadly hostility
to the United States by the famous massacre of Wyoming (July,.
1778), in which American Tories were more savage than their red
allies. Under the authority of this treaty Mcintosh advanced into
Ohio over the great trail in October without opposition, and built a
stockade en the Tuscarawas river, near the mouth of Sandy creek.
This he named in honor of his friend, Henry Laurens, of South Caro-
lina, and garrisoned with 150 men under Col. John Gibson. Thus,
while Clark was establishing a Virginia county in Illinois and
Indiana, through the favor of the French, Mcintosh made a lodg-
ment in the British domain for the purpose of building up a Dela-
ware state, subordinate to the United States.
There had already been an encroachment of frontiersmen on the
northwest banks of the Ohio, in spite of all the hostilities. It is said
that there were improvements below the Hockhocking as early as
j77o'. In the latter part of 1778 there were at least a dozen settle-
ments on the west side of the Ohio, some of them with considerable
population. Adventurers appropriated the salt springs in what is
now Mahoning county, selling the product at six dollars a bushel.
At Mingo Bottom was a notable settlement under the domination of
one Ross, and at Mercertown the little settlement had elected two
justices of the peace and were attempting to live under legal forms
though in illegal possession of the land. The presence of these
"squatters" gave the Indians warrant for hostilities, and Colonel
Harmar, commanding on the Ohio, sent a detachment to remove the
pioneers. Sixty of them signed a petition for permission to remain
over winter, and some made a show of armed resistance. Ross and a
few others were seized and imprisoned, but he was again in pes-. — ion
of his claim in a short time, and in the following years many new
"squatters" built their cabins in the northern Ohio valley and marked
their claims with tomahawks on the trees.
Mcintosh's advance was too late to make a diversion in favor of
Clark. Earlier in the same month Hamilton had collected a force
of British regulars ami Detroit French, nearly two hundred strong,
to drive out the daring Kentuckians. Going in boats across the end
of Lake Erie and up the Manmee. they descended the Wabash u~
OHIO IN THE REVOLUTION. go,
Vincennes, and compelled the surrender of Captain Helm, who was
left alone by the fickleness of his Creole militia. Xot venturing
further on account of the approach of winter, Hamilton waited at
Vincennes, while his Indian allies confronted the American advance
from the east, capturing seventeen men at Fort Laurens, and reduc-
ing the garrison almost to the point of starvation. But Fort Laurens
was reinforced, and the indomitable Clark, daring the impossible, set
out from Kaskaskia, waded for mile after mile through the icy floods
of the Wabash, and forced the capitulation of Hamilton and his
troops at Vincennes, February 24, 1770.
For a while, therefore, the military of the United States held por-
tions of the Korthwest territory against the British, but a glance of
the map will show how comparatively small these possessions were.
The occupation was not long continued in the east. Fort Laurens
was abandoned by the starving garrison in August, 1779, and even
Fort Mcintosh was evacuated. Clark's western posts were occupied
by a few Americans in all three years, until the latter part of 1781,
when they too were abandoned for lack of sustenance. Within this
time (1780) the French inhabitants (under La Balme) made an
expedition of their own against Detroit, but got no further than the'
Maumee river, where the Indians fell upon and destroyed the party.
The abandonment of Fort Laurens, the death of White-Eyes in
177S, and the resignation of Indian Agent Morgan, whom the Dela-
ware* had called Tamanend (Tammany), in evidence of their love
for him, left that nation at the mercy of the war party in Ohio. Kill-
buck, the temporary chief, with a few who remained peacefully
inclined among the warriors, were compelled to take refuge near
Pittsburg, and the Moravian Indians were abandoned to their
enemies. Yet, though they were accused, and probably with truth,
of informing Pittsburg of the hostile movements planned by the
British, the Moravians, concentrated at and near Gnadenhiitten. on
the Tuscarawas, were not seriously molested during 17S0 and a great
part of 1781. These were years memorable in their quiet chronicles
for the arrival of a sister, Sarah Ohneburg, her marriage to John
Heckewelder, and the birth (April 13, 1781), of their (laughter,
Mary.*
Meanwhile hostilities continued along the Ohio. In May, 1779, a
party of three hundred Kentuckians. under the county lieutenant,
John Bowman, made a dash at the Chillicothe of Greene county, but
*This was said for some time to be the first white child born in Ohio, but
John Lewis Roth, son of another Moravian missionary, was born at Gnad-
denhiitten. July 4, 1773. History also records the fact that among the pris-
oners recovered by Bouquet was a Virginian woman and her baby, born in
captivity. Doubtless other white children were born earlier to white men
connected with the trading posts, who married white women brought into
Ohio as captives. In 1754, it is said, a child was born to a French officer
and his white wife, at Fort Junandat.
<)0 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
was repulsed by the Shawanees, losing nine killed. The Ohio river
was tin- great channel of communication and transportation between
Pittsburg, a military base of the Revolution and the friendly Span-
ish of New Orleans, where Oliver Pollock was looking after the pur-
chase of military supplies, in emergency drawing on France and
persuading the Spanish governor to cash his obligations. It was of
course essential that the commandant at Detroit should guard this
river with his savage soldiery, and such was the cause of many of the
so-called massacres. Maj. David Rogers and seventy men, toiling up
the river with powder and lead from New Orleans in the fall of 1779,
were lured to shore near the mouth of the Licking, and while a few
Indians pretended to offer the soldiers a chance to take scalps, a larger
party closed in around them, and more than half the whites were!
killed.
The famous ''hard winter" followed, in which rivers froze so com-
pletely that animals died of thirst, and the snow was so deep that
men could not hunt, much less make war. In a milder clime, how-
ever, the Spanish of Xew Orleans began war on the British along the
lower Mississippi and gulf coast.
Soon afterward Spain informed the United States, through Min-
ister Jay, not only that she proposed to conquer and hold the Flor-
idas, but that the United States had no rights on the Mississippi
river, and Spain expected to make "a permanent conquest" of the
lands between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi reserved by the
Royal proclamation of 1703. This would include Ohio and the
country occupied by George Risers Clark. From this time, though
Spain made war on England apparently in aid of the United States,
England was really an ally of the United States in saving the North-
west from Spanish dominion.
Early in 1780, while General Washington was planning a cam-
paign by Clark and Brodhead against Detroit, General Haldimand,
in Canada, arranged for a combined movement that should at
Least take Kaskaskia from the Americans and St. Louis from the
Spanish. The American campaign did not progress further than
the -ending' of a party of scouts over Ohio toward Sandusky, which
Brodhead hoped to march against, but soon abandoned even that pro-
ject for lack of soldiers. The British movement was earlier afoot
and drew Clark to the Mississippi river. It was a great campaign,
on paper, that Arent Schuyler de Peyster,* the new commandant at
Detroit, now entered upon. While General Campbell, from Pensa-
cola, sailed up the Mississippi, Sinclair with fifteen hundred Indians
would march on St. Louis, and another large body of Indians under
Langlade would take Kaskaskia. To amuse Clark, meanwhile, a
* De Peyster was a New York tory. lately in command at Mackinac. He
was popularly supposed to be less bloodthirsty than Hamilton, but the pol-
icy ot both was the same, as dictated by their superior officers.
OHIO IN THE REVOLUTION. 94
large war party, under Capt. Henry Bird, including six hundred
Indians, some Canadians, and a few pieces of artillery, with Elliott
and the Girties and Chief Logan, marched southward through Ohio,
and other war parries traversed the state to the east. But in every
direction the amhitious campaign collapsed. The Spanish successes
in the south put an end to English aggression there, and the reluct-
ance of the Indians to fight ("lark saved St. Louis and Kaskaskia.
Bird invaded the Licking valley of Kentucky in June and captured
two stockades, and then suddenly retreated to Detroit, leaving his
cannon at the trading post on the Miami.
To avenge this invasion and destroy the rendezvous of the British
forces in the Miami valley, George Rogers Clark, having returned
from Illinois, practically made himself dictator of Kentucky, and by
vigorous measures collected a force of a thousand men. Early in
August, 1780, they concentrated at the site of Cincinnati, one wing,
under Col. Benjamin Logan, coming down the Licking, and the other
up the Ohio from the falls. The march into the Little Miami coun-
try was made with such precaution against surprise that no resistance
was encountered, and when Chillicothe was reached, that Massie
Creek town was found abandoned and in flames. On the Sth the
army approached the Pickaway town on Mad river,* where Simon
Girty and one of his brothers, and several hundred warriors were
encamped. Clark with his main body crossed the river, while Col-
onel Logan kept up stream to cross in the rear of the village, and did
not get in the fight. The warriors were apparently taken by surprise
by Clark's rapid advance, but while falling back toward their village,
part of them, led by Simon Girty, gallantly contested the advance of
the Kentuckians. Erom one account it appears that the red men
made a determined stand in a prairie grown up with high weeds, and
attempted to flank their enemy, compelling Clark to extend his line
for nearly a mile. Girty afterward said that if he had had three
hundred men lie could have won a victory. Finally Clark's com-
mand pushed its way up to the town, with the three-pounder cannon,
dislodged the Indians in tin 1 blockhouse, and about sunset the Ken-
tuckians had command of the field, the Indians having drawn off
with a loss of six or eight killed. The loss of Clark's force was sev-
enteen killed and many wounded. y The straggling Indian town,
stretching for three miles along the river, was utterly destroyed, and
the corn fields devastated. The campaign was a decided success,
winning some months of quiet for Kentucky, and greatly increasing
the military fame of General Clark.
*This was a famous Shawanee town, on the north side of Mad river, about
five miles west of the site of Springfield, and was the birth-place of Teeum-
seh.
tThis brief account of an important battle is based on Taylor's history,
and the reports of McKey to Detroit, as quoted by Roosevelt.
92 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Though all these events fell far short of conquest of Ohio and the
"Xorthwest, it was already the settled policy of the states in revolution
to claim and hold the country, by virtue of the ancient charter- from
sea to sea, and as necessary for protection from Indian hostilities.
But at this period the policy of expansion threatened to dissolve the
■weak alliance of the states, instead of strengthening it. The trouble
was mainly due to the enormous claims of Virginia, under the char-
ter of 1609 to the "Company of Adventurers and Planters.*' Vir-
ginia would hold Kentucky, and take Ohio and all the Northwest,
under the description, ""up into the mainland throughout, from sea
to sea. west and northwest."' Though this charter was annulled in
1624, though France for a long time held adverse possession, though
Great Britain annexed the country to Quebec province, though Penn-
sylvania. Maryland and North Carolina had been chartered in dis-
regard of the charter of 1009, Virginia reasserted its validity in the
west when she formed her first independent government, at the begin-
ning of the revolution." Maryland immediately remonstrated, and
made it the principal business of her statesmen to demand that the
West should be dedicated to the people of all the states. The failure
to agree about the future of Ohio delayed the declaration of independ-
ence and postponed the completion of the Confederacy for several
years.
Stoutly adhering to her claim. Virginia opened a land office for
the sale of westeru lands in 1771'. whereupon the other states pro-
tested and the old land companies added their remonstrances. Though
the settlement of Kentucky as a Virginia comity was inevitable,
attempted settlements north and west of the Ohio were broken up by
the Continental military.
Congress appealed to the states to sacrifice their western claims for
the common good, and avert dissensions that threatened to separate
the people into warring factions. New York, claiming title through
:' the [roquois conquerors, first yielded, on condition that the
west should be for the common benefit of all states that should join
the proposed confederacy. Congress thereupon in October. 1780,
adopted the first great declaration regarding the future of Ohio and
the Northwest. This was "a pledge on the part of congress that the
lands ceded in pursuance of its recommendations should be disposed
the common benefit of the United States : be settled and formed
into distinct states, with a suitable extent of territory; and become
members of the Federal union, with the same, rights of sovereignty,
freedom and independence, as the other states: that the expenses
incurred by any state in subduing British posts, and in the acquisition
•An elaborate argument to show that Virginia had no title to the country
west of the Alleghany mountains was made by Samuel Finley Vinton, of
Gallipolis. in a fugitive slave case, tried at Richmond, Va. f in December,
1845.
OHIO IX TK" REVOLUTION. 93
and defense of the territory, should be reimbursed: and that the lands
ceded should be granted and settled agreeably to regulations to be
afterwards agreed upon in congress."*
Congress postponed the acceptance of the New York cession to
October, 1782. and this action was soon followed by propositions of
cession from Virginia. Massachusetts and Connecticut. Virginia
made conditions, asking ( longress to guarantee her right to Kentucky,
which Congress refused to do. Connecticut also made conditions.
But the necessity for union overwhelmed the disposition to dicker,
and. leaving the various propositions to a committee of Congress, the
first Union was completed, with all cessions unaccepted, by Mary-
land signing the articles of confederation. March 1. 1781.
It will be observed that Congress refused to guarantee Virginia's
title r.i Kentucky, and Virginia joined in the confederacy on the basis
of the resolrition of 1780, which did not admit her title to the eon-
quest of General Clark, but offered to remunerate her for the expense
of the same. The real sco] f Clark's conquest should be under-
stood. It is often said that that gallant pioneer and brave soldier
took possession of the Northwest, and by virtue of this England was
forced to cede the land at the close of the war. because the United
States already possessed it. For a typical statement of the doctrine,
we may cite an able southern author : "At the suggestion and under
the guidance of her distinguished citizen. Gen. George Rogers Clark,
Virginia organized an expedition composed of Virginia soldier-, in
Virginia pay, without assistance from the United State-, expelled
the British from the territory, and held if at the close of the war. in
the name of the State." v
Clark's expedition was. it may be suggested, his own enterprise,
sustained by the frontiersmen, as far up the river as Pittsbursr. The
distinctively Virginia troops deserted before he left Louisville. But
as he held a commission from Virginia and organized the country he
occupied as a Virginia county, Virginia has the honor of the con-
quest, and her men of national spirir. like Thomas Jefferson, deserve
eternal credit for sustaining the effort of the gallant western patriot.
But the truth should he home in mind, that the occupation would
have been altogether impossible without the aid of the French and
Spanish. Clark'- success should be considered as one of the
sequences of the French alliance with the United States, and the
Spanish friendship for France. He could not have held the few
1 took, for a month, without the countenance of the French
and the financial support of the Spanish, both of which were given
to the United States, though technically on the account of Virginia.
Oliver Pollock, agent of the United States at Xew Orleans, and Vigo,
*The synopsis given by Salmon P. Chase. See Perkins' Annals of
AVest. p. 239.
f William R. Garrett. - The South in Territorial Expansion."
94 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
the Spanish merchant of the Illinois country, bankrupted Themselves
in raising funds for Clark, Pollock alone advancing $!»0,000 in specie.
Furthermore, it is far from the fact to say that Clark "expelled the
British from the territory." To the close of the war he was anxious
to do that hy taking Detroit, lint was unable to collect a sufficient
army. The Spanish went nearer the only important seat of British
power when they destroyed the post at St. Joseph, Mich. But the
British hold upon all the territory northwest of the river Ohio, except
the Egypt of Illinois, and the vicinity of Vincennes, continued
unshaken until after the close of the Bevolutionary war.
In the fall of 17S0 the campaign against Detroit was again pro-
jected. Clark, commissioned a brigadier-general of Virginia, was
authorized by Gov. Thomas Jefferson to organize an army to march
by way of the Miami valley, and reinforcements for him were ordered
by General Washington from Pittsburg. Colonel Daniel Brodhead,
the successor of Mcintosh, was at the same time meditating an
advance on Detroit by the great trail. Thus threatened, it was
proper, from a military standpoint, that Major De Peyster should
desire the Moravian settlement, with its abundant commissary,
removed from a position where it would serve as a base of supplies
for an invading army. While the British were impelled to destroy
the .Moravian missions, the Pennsylvania and Virginia frontiers-
men were no less hostile. Though the Christian Indians were prac-
tically allies of the Americans, they fed perforce the war parties of
either side, and to that extent their settlement was. as the border
rangers called it. "a half-way house for the British." The peace-
|.>\ in- people were the victims of circumstance, and altogether out of
place in the path of war.
The premonition of disaster to the Moravians came in April. 17^1.
when Colonel Brodhead, to retaliate for a recent Indian raid easl of
the Ohio, marched from Wheeling with three hundred men. and
destroyed the Delaware town at Coshocton, and another he called
"Indaechaie." Prisoners were taken, of whom fifteen were executed
and scalped as concerned in the murder of white captives in Wesl
Virginia, and twenty more were killed by the militia without orders.
The frontiersmen were exasperated beyond all restraint. A sachem
coming into the camp, on pledge of safety, was struck from behind
and killed by Lewis Wetzel* or his brother. Brodhead marched to
Xewcomerstown. and though Killbuck had aided him in running
down the hostiles, and the Moravians supplied his troops with food
enough for their march hack to the Ohio, it was with difficulty that
the militia could he withheld from looting the villages. Brodhead
* Lewis Wetzel, one of the most famous frontier knights, who passed his
time hunting, fighting Indians, wrestling and foot-racing, made many incur-
sions in Ohio alone, and in the course of his career gathered thirty Indian
scalps.
OHIO IN THE REVOLUTION. 95
improved the opportunity to advise the missionaries to remove their
flock under his protection to Pittsburg, and soon afterward, Buck-
ongehelas, the great war chief, urged them to go under his protection,
to the Maumee' valley. But the Moravians were blind to their danger,
and for the sake of their property decided to wait until after harvest.
De Peystcr had signified his desire to have the Moravians brought
into the interior, within what might be called the British lines. The
work was entrusted to Captain Pipe and Pomoaean, the Wyandot
'•half-king." Pipe himself, though he had talked much against his
Christian brothers, was half ashamed of the errand, which the Iro-
quois, Ottawas and Chippewas had refused, and after he and the half-
king had led a party of Wyandot, Delaware and Muncie warriors to
Gnadenhiitten in August, 1781, and called Glickhegan and the other
Christian head-men into conference, he was willing to drop the mat-
ter and fire on the British flag. But Captain Elliott was with the
party, and encouraged Pomoaean to seize the five missionaries and
their families. The settlements were then given over to plundering,
and the luckless Moravians were forced to remove to the Sandusky
river, leaving property and crops worth, it is estimated, twelve thou-
sand dollars. Selecting a spot in the region to which they were Taken.
they began in poverty and distress the building of another town in
the wilderness. De Peystcr, after giving the missionaries a hearing-
at Detroit, sent them back to their new home with seme clothing and
supplies. Afterward they were subjected to much annoyance from
Pipe and Girty, and compelled to live apart from their flock.
Meanwhile Clark's Detroit campaign had been thwarted. lie was
unable to collect a sufficient force, and though he started down the
river from Pittsburg late in July, 1781, with four hundred men, lie
A\a> convinced, by the time he reached Wheeling, that the project was
hopeless. Proceeding to the falls of the Ohio, lie was followed by a
body of over a hundred volunteers, -'the best men of the frontier,"
said Gen. William Irvine, under Col. Archibald Loughrey. McKee
and Brant were in the field under orders to intercept Clark's expedi-
tion, and Brant obtained an opportunity to surprise the Loughrey
volunteers when they were en shore, August 24, to cook a buffalo that
had been shot on the bank a few miles below the month of the Great
Miami. One-third of the command were killed, the rest surrender-
ing, ami when Colonel Loughrey and other captives were found
unable to travel they also were massacred. "Not a man escaped,
either to join General (Mark or return home. - ' A later reinforce-
ment, two companies of artillery, under ('apt. Isaac Craig, came
down the river safely, but Clark's whole force was entirely ten -tnall
to invade < (hio, and by taking refuge in his fort at the falls he avoided
an attack from McKee and I '.rant.
The military affairs of the United States wesl of the Alleghanies
were at. this time in a most deplorable condition. The few regulars
96 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
were unpaid and unfed, and the militia forces were disorganized and
lawless. Col. David Williamson was the nominal commander of the
militia of "Washington county, Pa. It appears that he was not aware
of the removal of the Moravians by the British allies, though the
young daughter of Glickhegan had started out on horseback alone, at
the arrival of Pomoacan's command, to carry the word to Pittsburg.
Williamson, consequently, set out to break up the settlement, after
it- destruction, but found there only a few of the Moravians, who had
returned to gather corn for food. These he arrested and carried
back into Pennsylvania, where they were set at liberty. Later, in
March, 1782, the murder of a Pennsylvania family by Indians from
Sandusky, a name of terror along the frontier, caused Williamson to
again enter Ohio, in pursuit of the marauders. The frontiersmen of
his party were looking for Indians to kill in revenge. They were
not concerned as to whether the Indians they found were good Indians
or bad Indians, and they doubtless would have heartily concurred in
a more modern opinion that the only good Indian is one who has
been entirely removed from temptation.
Unfortunately, they marched straight to the deserted Moravian
towns and found Glickhegan and more than a hundred of his people
engaged in gathering their abandoned crops, to carry hack to Upper
Sandusky. The frontiersmen did not fall upon them suddenly in
the heat of passion, but treacherously persuaded them to give up their
guns and hatchets and submit to being taken to Pittsburg. Worn
out by persecution, the Christians submitted. As the story is told
by Loskiel, the historian of the Moravians, when they had exposed
their little stores of food to the whites, and were ready to travel, all
were seized and hound. To those thus collected at Gnadenhiitten
were added a number from Salem. Then Williamson, who may have
had human instincts, left it to the vote of his men whether the Mora-
vian Indians should he put to death or taken to Pittsburg as had been
promised. Less than twenty of the ninety or more white men sti pped
to the front as opposed to treachery and murder. The remainder
"only differed concerning the mode of execution. Some were for
burning them alive, others for taking their scalps, and the latter was
at last agreed upon." Then, as the victims were Christian-, they
were kindly given until the morrow to prepare for a better world.
Glickhegan, the converted warrior, yielded quietly to his fate, and
all spent the time allotted them as did the Christian martyrs in the
day- of Nero and Diocletian. At the appointed hour ninety-six
Indians, who were bound and imprisoned in two houses, so that tin 1
women and children were apart from the men, were butchered and
3calped.
It is difficult to add any comment to the simple narration of fact.
It' the Indians thus killed had been warriors, caught red-handed, the
treachery of their executioners would have been shameful. As it
OHIO IN THE REVOLUTION. 97
was, the massacre of inoffensive Christians was a deed so horrible,
so utterly beyond the conceptions of honorable and humane men, that
no denunciations can do it justice. Yet, some of the men with Will-
iamson, no doubt, had hunted for the bones of wife and children in
the ashes of desolated frontier homes. It was a time of terror and
savage war in which the disciples of peace must expiate the crimes
of the vicious.*
The Indian resentment of the massacre of the Moravians aided the
strenuous efforts of the British at Detroit to draw all the northwest-
ern tribes into war upon the border, and from the beginning of 178:3
the trails of Ohio were followed by many savage parties going out
in war paint and returning with scalps and plunder. Among the
Delawares it was vowed that after Gnadenhiitten, no captive should
■escape torture. The situation was never more desperate for the
frontiersmen, and there was no safety on the border except within
the stockades. The men, organized as mounted riflemen, were kept
busy patrolling the country. In the east. Williamson, the hero of
Gnadenhiitten, proposed to Gen. William Irvine, who had been
appointed to command at Pittsburg and Wheeling, to lead an expe-
dition against the Wyandot headquarters on the Sandusky. It is a
noteworthy circumstance that at the same time a scheme was on foot,
in which Williamson was interested, to organize a colony to cross the
Ohio, possess the land and set up a new and independent state. The
convention of frontiersmen for this purpose was announced by pla-
card to be held at Wheeling on the same day that Williamson pro-
posed to start for Sandusky, f General Irvine endeavored to
separate the two enterprises, fixed the military rendezvous at Mingo
bottoms, used his influence against the selection of Williamson as
commander of tie volunteer force, and sent a surgeon, and his aide-
de-camp, Lieut. John Rose,? to aid the expedition. At the election,
held by the 480 Virginia and Pennsylvania soldiers, Williamson
was defeated by five votes by Col. William Crawford, a Virginian
about fifty years of age, who had been the companion of Washington
in his voyage down the Ohio, ami had made a good record in the
Indian and Revolutionary campaigns.
The expedition marched out from the Mingo bottoms, in the latter
* After the massacre the congregation at Sandusky separated and took
refuge with the Shawanees on the Scioto and the Delawares on the Mau-
mee. Zeisberger and the other missionaries lived for some time with
another remnant in Canada. Finally they went back to the Tuscarawas.
Land was given them by congress, a new church was built, at Gnadenhiitten.
and the town of Goshen founded on the site of Schoenbrun. At the latter
place Zeisberger died in 1808. Heckewelder survived until 1823, and pub-
lished several valuable books as the fruit of his experience.
f'The Crawford Expedition." by C. W. Butterfield.
t'Who afterward, returning to Europe, succeeded to his title as Baron
Rosenthal, of Livonia.
1-7
98 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
part of May, with the object of breaking up tlic Sandusky settle-
ments of the Wyandots and fugitive Delawares (such as Captain
Pipe's town on the Tymochtee) whence the war parties went out to
the border. It was a continuation of successive attempts at invasion
begun several years before.*
Crawford and his men marched, through or near the present sites
of Mansfield and Crestline, to the upper .Sandusky river, and were
disappointed to find the Wyandot town (five miles below the site of
Upper Sandusky) deserted.
The Wyandots and hostile Delawares gathered to meet their
invaders, and a reinforcement of rangers, with artillery, under the
command of < laptain Caldwell, was hastened to the field by De Pey-
ster. While Crawford was moving about on the Sandusky plains,
seeking bis enemy, he encountered, on the evening of June 4th, Cald-
well and his Detroit rangers and about two hundred Delawares,
Wyandots and upper lake Indians. f Captain Pipe, it is said, was
in command of the skirmish line of red men. Crawford drove tlie
enemy from a grove in which they were posted, but was held there
by the effective fire of Caldwell's command, sheltered in the high
grass and bushes of the prairie, and the day closed with a loss of
twenty-four killed and wounded of Crawford's men, and seventeen
on the other side, including Caldwell among the wounded. Xext day
the same situation continued with some skirmishing, until a hundred
and forty Shawanees came up to reinforce Caldwell. Then the
militia decided to retreat at dark, but the watchful Indians detected
the movement and made it a night of terror to the discomfited Amer-
icans. Colonel Crawford, hunting for his son in the darkness, be-
came separated from the main body, and with Dr. Knight and
others wandered about until they were captured. The main body
retreated through the Sandusky town they had found deserted, and
on the evening of the 6th made a stand at Oletangy creek, losing
eleven killed and wounded, but repelling the assaults of the Indians.
The skirmishing continued until after they passed the neighborhood
of Crestline, and after that, having lost in all seventy men, the de-
feated army pursued its way, without molestation, but with much
suffering and privation, to Mingo bottoms.
Crawford was turned over to Captain Pipe, who determined to
*Loskiel and Heckewelder may be excused for regarding Crawford's com-
mand as an excursion of "banditti and murderers." thirsting for more Mora-
vian blood, and some volunteers may have merited those appellations.
Doddridge also considered one of the objects of the expedition the finish-
ing of the work of murder and plunder begun at Gnadenhutten. But But-
terfield's account of the campaign puts the matter in a more reasonable
light. It is not probable that a force under Colonel Crawford would have
been guilty of such atrocities. It is natural that the Moravian chroniclers
believed themselves the objects of all the military activity, but in fact, their
misfortunes were deplorable incidents.
|De Peyster's report to General Haldimand.
OHIO IN THE REVOLUTION. 99
execute him with torture, and Knight was given the Shawanees for
the same purpose. Accordingly their faces were painted black, and
after they had witnessed the slaughter of nine other prisoners, they
were taken to the Delaware town on the Tymochtee. Crawford
appealed to Simon Girty for relief from his fate, and it is related
that Girty offered $350 as a ransom, which was refused. The col-
onel' was tied to a stake, as many as seventy musket-loads of powder
were shot in his skin, his cars were cut off, and he was tortured with
thrusts of live coals at the ends of burning poles. After an hour or
two of this he fell from exhaustion, and his scalp was taken and
thrown in the face of Knight. Housed to consciousness by more
ingenious tortures, his life finally ended in the flames. Knight,
while being carried to the Shawanee town for similar treatment,
managed to escape. John Slover, a scout, also had a wonderful
escape, and some other captives were burned. Crawford was, accord-
ing to the chronicles of his day, an honorable man, and in no wise
deserving of such a fate.* Many others, as innocent as he of com-
plicity in outrages upon the red men, suffered deaths equally horrible
during the border wars.
To follow up this repulse of the Americans by an invasion of the
upper Ohio country, and to destroy Wheeling and other posts, De
Peysters captains, Caldwell and McKee, marched eastward through
Ohio in July, attended by the largest army of Indians ever collected
during that war, the number being estimated at one thousand. But,
as they advanced, rumors came of danger to the Shawanee towns in
the southwest, probably due to the arrival in Ohio of General Clark's
western gunboat, and the British captains were compelled to divert
their intended blow. Finding the Shawanee towns safe, most of the
red men withdrew from the army. With but three hundred Wyan-
dots and lake Indians, Caldwell and McKee, aided by Simon Girty,
crossed the Ohio to attack Lexington and its surrounding stockades.
But the frontiersmen at Bryan's Station withstood the attack of
August 16th and 17th, and the invaders returned to the Blue Licks,
where they were rashly attacked by two hundred Kentuckians,
August 19th. The result was what appears to have been inevitable
where the Indians had equal or greater strength than their enemy.
After five minutes of fighting the Kentuckians fled in a wild rout,
leaving seventy killed on the field, among them Colonels Todd and
Trigg, Major Harlan and a son of Daniel Boone. This terrible
blow and the ravages that followed, threatened to bring about the
object, of British effort, the depopulation of Kentucky, but again
General Clark mastered the situation, and called together over a
thousand mounted riflemen under his lieutenants, Logan and Floyd,
* According to the Moravian narrative, he suffered in expiation of the
Gnadenhiitten massacre, and it is further asserted that on reaching the
Sandusky he sought first the Moravian town.
100 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
at the month of Licking. Thence they crossed over to the site of
Cincinnati, where a stockade had been established the year before,
and a few people then resided in log cabins.* Marching northward
to a crossing of Mad river not far from the site of Dayton, the army
kept up the valley of the Great Miami, crossed to the west side, and
arrived, about November 10th, at the Piqua towns of the Shawanees,
which were found deserted. There was no opportunity to avenge the
slaughter of Blue Lick and only ten scalps were taken, but the upper
and lower Piqua towns, and the fields about them, and Loramie's
trading post, were burned and devastated. The blow was a serious
one to the Indians, and, according to MeKee, opened the road to
Detroit If Clark realized this, he was not able to improve the
opportunity, for which he longed.
The proposed attack on Wheeling was not abandoned, being made
in September by a large party of Indians under Captain Pratt and
one of the Girtys. It was during this siege that Jonathan Zane
defended his fortified house, as an outpost of Fort Henry, and his
sister, Elizabeth, immortalized herself by running from fort to cabin
and carrying hack, in full view of the Indians, a supply of powder
for the garrison. During the frontier raids following Crawford's
defeat also happened the famous combat between Adam and Andrew
Poe, settlers on the upper Ohio, and the Wyandot warrior. Bigfoot.f
General [rvine began preparations for another campaign in Ohio,
but the success of the war for American independence put a stop to
hostilities by January, 1783.
♦Reminiscences of Abraham Thomas, of Troy.
t Such is the date given by Butterfield. but there is much conflict in dates
and facts. Even the identity of the girl who carried powder at Wheeling i9
contested.
CHAPTER V.
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY (1783-1788).
Cession to United States — Cessions of the States — Jeffer-
son's Ordinance — Grayson's Ordinance — Treaties with
Indians — British Influence — Spanish Intrigue — The Or-
dinance of 17S7 — The Ohio Company — Marietta Settle-
ment — The Virginia Military Lands.
HEiST the war of the Revolution closed, there were sev-
eral claimants of the Ohio country. Spain had driven
the British from the Natchez country on the lower Mis-
sissippi, and had contributed materially to what con-
quest had been made on the Illinois and Wabash. That nation, the
original claimant, and for a short time in 1762-63 grantees of the
title of France to all the vast country within the drainage of the
Mississippi and its tributaries, in 1782 had undisputed dominion
west of the Mississippi, and demanded that the terms of peace should
return to her possession the eastern valley of the Mississippi and
Ohio. If that could not be, she preferred that the interior be left
in the hands of Great Britain, rather than added to the territory of
the United States. Trance was inclined to support the policy of
Spain, and if the statesmen of these monarchies had had their way,
the United States would have been confined between the Atlantic
and the Alleghany mountains.
Great Britain was not disposed to give up the region between the
Ohio river and the lakes. Even if in other quarters the colonies
might be permitted to extend back to the Mississippi, that region had
been made a part of the province of Quebec, and so held throughout
the war.
The United States was represented in the negotiation of a treaty at
Paris by abler men than the other powers had at the head of their
affair-, namely: John Adams, John Jay and Benjamin Franklin.
Partly through shrewd policy and partly through good luck, they
were able to make an arrangement with England for a separate treaty.
Asking for Canada as well as the Ohio valley, they contented them-
102 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
selves with England's yielding all south of ( Canada and east of the
M Lssissippi, north of Florida. The idea of thwarting the Spanish and
French Bourbons persuaded England to recognize the claim of the
United States to all that the colonies had claimed under their old
and obsolete charters back to the Mississippi, and though at one time
it appeared that England would be compelled to accept such terms as
the European allies of the United States proposed, certain timely
naval victories changed the situation. An indispensable condition
of this separate treaty with Great Britain was that the United States
should be recognized as an independent, treaty-making power, and
it was to this central power, representing a nation in its infancy,
that Ohio and the Northwest was ceded by Great Britain in 17 s :!.
Then, when the federal congress had acquired a good title from
Great Britain to the Northwest, the discussion of the claims of the
states was resumed, hand in hand with treaties to obtain right of set-
tlement from the Indians, and the study of plans for the creation of
new states. In June, 1783, Colonel Bland, of Virginia, introduced an
ordinance for erecting a territory north of the Ohio, with provisions
for encouragement of seminaries of learning. The veterans of the
late war also took a hand in the discussion. Col. Timothy Pickering,
quartermaster-general, proposed in behalf of the army the settlement
of a new state on the Ohio river, east of the Scioto. This effort was
inspired by the deplorable plight of the soldiers who, after devoting
their time and often their fortunes to the cause of independence, were
paid in certificates that sold as low as a tenth of their face value. An
example was Abraham Whipple, of Rhode Island, a famous naval
commander, who had served his country seven years without pay or
subsistence, besides advancing $7,000 in speeie. lie was paid in
certificates that were discounted eighty per cent when he attempted
to obtain money on them. These men were compelled to seek new
opportunities in the West, where they hoped to be aide to buy land
with their scrip at its face value and locate the land donated them
as bounties.
Gen. Bul'iis Putnam,"" of Massachusetts, the worthy patriot whom
Washing-ton considered the ablest military engineer on the continent,
interested himself in the project, and sent a petition to General Wash-
ington, signed by 288 officers. In the original proposition slavery
*He was born in Sutton. Mass.. April 9. 1730: was his own teacher; began
his military life in the old French war. and had adventures that sound like
those of Cooper's romances. In 1773 he aided in founding a famous New
England colony in the Yazoo country. He joined the camp of the rebels at
Cambridge as a lieutenant-colonel of volunteers just after the battle of Lex-
ington. Washington made him chief engineer during the siege of Boston,
though Putnam had never read a word of the science. It was he who put
up in a night, on Dorchester Heights, the log intrenchments that suggested
to the British next morning that they were the victims of enchantment and
magic, and persuaded them the Americans must have an army larger than
their own, and so led to the evacuation of
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 103
■was to be totally excluded from the State, and Putnam suggested a
survey in townships six miles square, and reservations of land for
support of schools and clergy. Washington recommended this to the
attention of Congress, and suggested two new states in the west,
probably conforming to Jefferson's early idea of one north and the
other south of the Ohio. In October Congress resolved to erect a
government north of the' river, but settlers were advised to go west
of the present limits of Ohio on account of Indian troubles. About
the same time the congressional committee recommended the accept-
ance of the cession of Virginia, without a guarantee of Kentucky to
that state, and ordered the establishment of the sovereignty of the
United States in the western country. Virginia was thus induced to
agree to a compromise, in the same year, and execute a deed of ces-
sion of her claim to the Northwest, March 1, 17*4, based on the res-
olutions of 17S0, and with the special provisions among others that
150,000 acres should he donated in one tract to the soldiers of General
Clark, and that should certain Southern lands reserved for Virginia
soldiers prove insufficient, the deficiency should be made up between
the Scioto and Little Miami. In October following the cession by
Xew York, of her claim through the Iroquois, was accepted, and
Massachusetts ceded her claim, north of 42°, in 17S5.
"All these cessions tacitly, ami those of Virginia and Massachus-
etts expressly, referred to the resolve of October, 17S0. By the
acceptance of these cessions, therefore. Congress became the trustee
of the Confederacy; the resolve of 17S0 was invested with the solemn
character of a great national compact, of high and permanent obliga-
tion : and the faith of the Union was pledged that the trusts upon,
which the western lands were ceded, should be faithfully per-
formed."* On the same day that Jefferson and his colleagues, rep-
resenting Virginia, deeded Virginia's claim to the United States, he
reported March 1, 17S4, as chairman of a committee, a plan of organ-
ization designated to cover the whole West from the lakes to Florida.
According to this scheme the country northwest of the Ohio would
have been divided into ten statesf by arbitrary meridians and par-
allels, regardless of natural boundaries. It was provided that the
states thus formed, as well as the seven southern states proposed,
should be republican in government, and "forever remain a part of
*S. P. Chase. History of Ohio, 1833.
t Jefferson proposed to give these states names of classical form, in most
cases founded on natural features, such as Sylvania for the far northwestern
woods, Cheronesus for the Michigan peninsula, and Mesopotamia for the
region of the sources of the Miami. Maumee, Sandusky and Wabash. South
of the latter would be the state of Saratoga; and south of it, to the Ohio.
Pelisipia. and east of these, between the Ohio and Lake Erie, the state of
Washington. This clause was stricken out while the bill was in committee.
The plan would have divided Ohio among four states.
104 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
this confederacy of the United States of America," subject to the
articles of confederation and laws of congress. They should be sub-
ject to pay a share of the "federal debts," and should not interfere
with the sale of lands by the United States, or tax the same while yet
unsold. The eighth article provided that after the year 1800. "there
shall neither be slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said
states, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party
shall have been duly convicted to have l>een personally guilty." The
new states were to have a temporary government, under the control
of Congress, with delegates to Congress who should not be allowed to
vote. All the articles should constitute an irrevocable compact and
fundamental constitution between the old and new states. This plan
contained the perm of the plan of organization followed ever since
in new territory, and the credit for it, as well as for the proposition
to abolish slavery at a very early date, south as well as north, belongs
to Thomas Jefferson, the first great American expansionist.
Referring to the anti-slavery clause, Unfits King, in his history of
Ohio (1888), declares "it is safe to say that if the prohibition of
slavery in the Northwest Territory had been left to depend upon
this provision, all the states would have been slave states." Justin
Winsor, in his "Westward Movement," echoes the same opinion, and
Senator Hoar, in his Marietta centennial address, said "It would
have been impossible to exclude the institution of slavery if it had
once got footing. With or without his proviso the scheme of Mr.
Jefferson would have resulted in dividing the territory into ten small
slaveholding states." But it does not seem fair to discredit the dis-
position of Jefferson and many other Southerners at that time to put
an end to slavery. .More generous is the expression of George Ban-
croft, that "the design of Jefferson marks an era in the history of
universal freedom." "At that time shivery prevailed throughout
much more than half the lands of Europe. Jefferson, following an
impulse from his own mind, designed by his ordinance to establish
from end to end of the whole country a north and south line, at which
the westward extension of slavery should be stayed by an impassable
bound. Of the men held in bondage beyond that line ho did not
propose the instant emancipation; but slavery was to be rung out
with the departing century, mi thai in all the western territory,
whether held in 1784 by Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia or the
United States, the sun of the new century might dawn on no slave."
But from a North Carolinian, "a young fool."' Jefferson called
him, came a motion to strike out the anti-slavery article. The vote
of delegates was Hi to 7 for retaining it. but the count was by states.
Delaware, Georgia and \Y\\ Jersey were absent, and North Carolina
divided. Though only three states opposed abolition, only -ix could
be counted in it- favor, one less than enough. So the article was
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 105
stricken out.* ''The voice of a single individual would have pre-
vented this abominable crime," Jefferson wrote in 178(3. "Heaven
will not always be silent; the friends to the rights of human nature
will in the end prevail."
The ordinance of 1784 was adopted April 23d, and on May 7th
Jefferson reported an ordinance for regulating the survey of the pub-
lic domain, in which the division in lots one mile square was pro-
posed, and it was ordained that the lands "should pass in descent and
dower according to the customs known to the common law by the name
of gavelkind," i. e., to the sons equally, instead of to the eldest. This
is of interest, showing Jefferson's connection with the system of sec-
tional survey of land, and reform of the laws of descent, as well as
the institution of the dollar and the decimal system of money. If
he had also succeeded in establishing a dead line for slavery along
the Alleghanies and Chattahoochee river, who could rival him as a
benefactor of his country ? But Jefferson was appointed minister
to France, and the impulse of his enthusiasm was lost for a time. He
was often more visionary than practical, it may be said. The steadier
wisdom of Washington was shown in his disapproval of the imag-
inary bounding of future states by meridians and parallels, and his
recommendation that states lie created politically as they grew actu-
ally, and with natural bounds. But, as Bancroft says, "The land
ordinances of Jefferson, as amended from 1784- to 1788, definitely
settled the character of the national land laws, which are still Treas-
ured up as one of the most precious heritages from the founders of
the republic."
After the Xew York and Virginia cessions, commissioners of the
United States (Arthur Lee, Richard Butler and Oliver Wolcott) met
delegates of the Iroquois at Borne, X. Y. (Fort Stanwix), in Octo-
ber, 1784, and a treaty was made, granting the Indians peace, on
condition of the limitation of their bounds and extinction of their
ancient claims in the West. In January, 17 s .">, at Fort Mcintosh,
George Bogers Clark, Richard Butler and Arthur Lee met represent-
atives of the Wyandots, Delawares, Chippewas and Ottawas, who
consented for the sake of peace to restriction to a region south of
Lake Erie, of which the east boundary was the Cuyahoga and the
Tuscarawas and their portage, and the west boundary the Miami
and Maumee and their portage; the southern extent to lie limited by
a straight line from the crossing '>{' the Muskingum at Fort Laurens
to the site of Old Britain's ruined fort on the Miami. Thus, appar-
ently, three-fourths of Ohio was ready for survey and sale, the title
of the United Slate- being based mi conquest from British and
* Benton, in his Thirty Years' View, gives this explanation: "It was
struck out — the three southern states present voting for the striking out —
because the clause did not then contain the provision in favor of the recov-
ery of fugitive slaves, which was afterwards ingrafted upon it."
106 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Indians, and relinquishment of state claims. Washington urged
Lee, of Virginia, toward the close of 1784, to arouse Congress to the
necessity of providing a plan of survey and sale of land, and the mat-
ter was discussed widely, Timothy Pickering and other northerners
advocating township surveys, and the Virginians inclining to haphaz-
ard locations. The New Englanders also wanted reservations of
land for the support of churches as well as schools, while the Virgin-
ians were not inclined to perpetuate even that much association of
church and state. In both these differences were illustrated the
characteristics of the two sections, or rather, the peculiarities of New
England. The settlements begun at Plymouth Rock were religious
in character. ''They formed civil organizations ; yet the church
principle or influence was completely the dominant one in these soci-
eties. It made public opinion. It gave and took away personal
influence. It, in effect, made the laws and made the magistrates."*
That people were as solicitous for the maintenance of churches as of
schools ; for the support of the minister as of the magistrate. Under
the new constitution the legislators of Massachusetts were required
to take oath of allegiance to the Christian religion, while Virginia
adopted Jefferson's proposition of entire freedom of opinion and no
religious test of capacity for public service, a doctrine novel enough
to gain the attention of Europe. Xew Englanders organized, fur-
thermore, with the town or township as the unit, while Virginia, typ-
ical of the South, had for its essential unit the broad area of a county,
with great plantations and scattered mansions. There were more
people, also, in Xew England who believed the system of slavery
opposed to the interests of the average farmer than there were in
Virginia. Timothy Pickering, early in 1785, was urging Unfits
King, a delegate from Massachusetts, to see that lands in the west
were reserved for sttpport of religion and education, with slave labor
prohibited, and King, in April, again brought before Congress the
Jefferson clause prohibiting slavery after January 1, 1801, with
special application to the Northwest, and with the addition of a pro-
vision for the restoration of fugitive slaves. But with the reporting
of this resolution by King the matter seems to have been dropped.
The leadership in lawmaking for the Northwest was now in the
hands of William Grayson, of Virginia, who had been educated at
Oxford and associated with General Washington as aide-de-camp.
Through his efforts an ordinance was framed, written by him, and
put through Congress May 20, 17>v>, which provided a practical plan
for surveying and selling the lands of the Northwest. It embodied
a compromise of various opinions, and while it did not extend to mat-
ters of organization ami government, it was the fundamental instru-
ment on which was based the settlement of the new country. This
Randall's Life of Jefferson.
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. JQJ
■"ordinance for ascertaining the mode of disposing of lands in the
"western territory," established the system of rectangular survey, with
townships six miles square, formed by intersecting range and town-
ship lines. The west boundary line of Pennsylvania ( run by Andrew
Ellicott in 1785-86) was taken as the principal meridian, which the
range lines should parallel, and a base line, as a guide for township
lines, was to be established due west from the intersection of the
boundary line with the north bank of the Ohio river. As the bill
was reported, section No. 16 in each township, that is, one-thirty-
sixth of the land, was reserved for the support of education, and the
same amount for religion, but the latter reservation was stricken out*
before the bill was enacted. The provisions for education were for
the purpose of encouraging settlement. On the sale of this wild
land the confederation depended for the payment of the debts in-
curred in the Revolution, even the compensation of soldiers. No
other method seemed possible. Alexander Hamilton had retired
from public affairs in disgust, and the funding of debt and wise pro-
vision for its payment were yet in the future. There were other
reservations: One seventh of all the land for soldiers of the Con-
tinental army, four sections in each township for future disposal by
Congress, and one third of all gold, silver and copper mines; three
townships for refugees from Canada and Nova Scotia, and suffi-
cient lands for the Moravian missionaries and Indians about their
former towns. Another great reservation was for Virginia veterans,
between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers, provided certain lands
reserved for them south of the Ohio were not sufficient. Five ranges
were to be first surveyed, and portions offered at public sale in each
•state, at $1 an acre, payable in obligations of the United States.
Thomas Hutchins, who had been General Bouquet's engineer in
Ohio, was made geographer-general of the United States, and put in
■charge of the survey, with an assistant from each of the states, and
in the fall of 1785, for the protection of the surveyors, Fort Harmar
was built at the mouth of the Muskingum river. Hutchins' first
work was to ran a base line west from the boundary of Pennsylvania,
on the north bank of the Ohio, forty-two miles, under the protection
■of the troops. This is called the "Geographer's line."
After this, September 13, 1786, Connecticut ceded her claims in
the west, reserving, on promise to settle it, as much of her strip "from
sea to sea" as lay between the Pennsylvania border and a line 120
* Another feature stricken out would have been "of the most fatal charac-
ter." said Thomas H. Benton in 1830. "It was, that each township should
be sold out complete before any land should he offered in the next one. .
. The effect of such a provision may be judged by the fact that above
one hundred thousand acres remain to this day unsold in the first land dis-
trict, that of Steubenville. in Ohio, which included the first range and first
township. If that provision had remained in the ordinance the settlements
would not yet have got out of sight of the Pennsylvania line." ■
108 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
miles west. This became known as the Western Reserve,* and was
surveyed with a new hase line on the 41st parallel. This cession was
very important. Virginia prided herself on a tremendous sacrifice
in behalf of the United States. But the Connecticut claim was
more definite and certainly as valid as that of Virginia, and Con-
necticut gave up that very important belt of country passing through
the finest lands of Michigan and Indiana and Illinois and including
the sites of Toledo and Chicago.
But all this legislation was ineffective without an understanding
with the Indian possessors of the land. It soon became apparent
that the treaty of Fort Mcintosh would be repudiated by the Indians
as unauthorized, because all the tribes who claimed title were not
represented. Neither did they rest quietly under the theory of con-
quest, ami asked payment for the lands. A similar treaty was made
by Clark and Butler and Samuel II. Parsons, at a stockade called
Tort Finney at the mouth of the Great Miami, in January, 1786, by
which the Shawanees yielded southern Indiana and the west side of
the Miami, and this was also repudiated. Joseph Brant, the gnat.
Iroquois chief, visited England to find out the real international
status of the Indian in the West, and came home sullen and dis-
heartened. From the first he announced his policy that no treaty
was valid unless all the nations consented, and just as pertinaciously
<-ontended that the Ohio river must be the boundary. A western
confederacy of Indians was formed, at least on paper, ami a strong
argument, reinforced no doubt by British logic, was sent to Congress
in L786, asking for a general treaty on the basis of compensation for
land ceded. Border depredations were carried on by white and red
men alike, and in the summer of 1786 General Clark was again com-
pelled to raise an army in Kentucky to fight the Indians on the
Wabash, and Col. Benjamin Logan, with Boone and Kenton and a
considerable force of Kentuekians, marched into the head-water
region of Mad river, killed twenty Indians, captured seventy or
eighty more, and destroyed eight villages and the surrounding fields.
The British still held the military posts south of the lakes, of
which Detroit was most important, as Spain held on to the western
region claimed by Georgia. Really, the United States had obtained
nothing in the west by the treaty of 1783 but the right to get what
they could from the Indians, for that was all England had. England
apparently deserted her Indian allies by the treaty, which Sir John
Johnson on thai account declared '•infamous," but the policy of the
mother country was to encourage the red men to hold the land up
to the Ohio river. Her representatives were always protesting that
*The Western reserve was not under the jurisdiction of the Nortl
Territory until April, 1S00.
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. IQf)
they would not encourage an Indian war, and they did not desire one,
because they wished the Indians to remain at peace for the profit of
the great fur-trading houses of Canada. But England would have
been glad to see an Indian state maintained between Kentucky and
the lakes, and the warriors were supplied with arms and ammunition
for "hunting." At the same time the white people about Detroit
were obtaining deeds from the red men for large tracts of land. John
Askin, a native of Ireland ( whose daughter married Alexander
McKee, the Indian agent), obtained, in company with several others,
the most important of whom was Alexander Henry, the great fur-
trader of Montreal, this sort of title to a million acres on the Maumee
including the site of Toledo, the Sandusky peninsula, and further
east, including a large part of the site of Cleveland. Asian's claim
in northern Ohio amounted to five and a quarter million acres.
When the United States remonstrated against the retention of the
Western posts, Great Britain replied that in the treaty of 1783 Con-
gress had been pledged to secure the repeal. of the acts of banishment
and confiscation directed against the Tories, but on the contrary the
states were redoubling their persecution of these people and driving
them from the United States by tens of thousands. Furthermore,
the Virginia statutes to prohibit the collection of British debts, in
retaliation for the British taking away Virginia slaves, and similar
laws in other colonies, had not yet been repealed as was promised.
England was also justified, politically, in holding her posts, as Spain
was holding hers in the country claimed by Georgia, because the
United States, under the confederation, showed signs of speedy dis-
solution. The proposition of John day, in 1785, to leave the Mis-
sissippi under the control of Spain for twenty-five years in exchange
for commercial privileges in the West Indies, enraged the western
settlers and suggested a scheme to separate the Atlantic states into
three independent groups, East, Middle and South.
The Kentucky settlers strenuously urged war on the Ohio Indian-,
frequently frustrating efforts for peace by their warlike enthusiasm.
At the same time they were asking independence from Virginia, and
some of them were plotting with Spain. The leader, as George
Rogers Clark sank into obscurity, was James Wilkinson, a gallant
Revolutionary officer, of remarkable eloquence, magnificent manner
and restless ambition, who had made great trouble in the Continental
army by becoming the confidant of a cabal and betraying it, and was
again to act such a part in American history. Wilkinson was for
Western independence of Virginia, and of the United States also, if
the United States could not give the West tree commerce on the Mis-
sissippi. There is no doubt that he was for a time privately engaged
to go further and bring the West under the dominion of Spain. Eng-
land was watching these intrigues, and carrying on intrigues of her
jlO CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
own to counteract them, in which Dr. John Conolly,* Lord Dun-
more's former lieutenant at Pittsburg, was a conspicuous agent. The
United States Indian agent, Gen. Samuel Holden Parsons, was-
approached by these British emissaries, and according to an entry
in the secret service books, he was disposed to be friendly. It is not
likely that the main body of the frontiersmen of Kentucky and Ten-
nessee really favored an alliance with Spain or England. More
than Wilkinson could count on as friends would have preferred join-
ing an American army to drive Spain out of the Mississippi valley.
But they would not submit to loss of the Mississippi as a channel of
commerce. In May, 17S2, a Pennsylvania German, Jacob Yoder,
had started out from Redstone, on the Monongahela, with a big boat
load of flour. He sold his cargo at Xew Orleans and took his pay in
furs ; traded his furs at Havana for sugar, sailed with that to Phila-
delphia, and then, with money in his pocket, recrossed the mountains
to his home. Thus began the great river commerce, which Spain
soon foolishly interfered with, in the hope of forcing the West into
union with her colonial power.
Wilkinson made a commercial voyage to Xew Orleans in 17S7,
and came under the Spanish influence so thoroughly that some time
later he wrote Governor Miro : "I have voluntarily alienated myself
from the United States. . . I have rejected the proffered
honors and rewards of Great Britain. . . I have given my
time, my property, and every exertion of my faculties to promote the
interests of the Spanish monarchy." For a considerable time all
the trade between the Ohio and Xew Orleans was carried on in Wil-
kinson's name, a line from him sufficing to ensure the owner of the
boat every privilege and protection.t In 17S9 he took an expedition
of twenty-five armed boats down the river, carrying tobacco, flour
and provisions. Another expedition, under Colonel Armstrong, of
the Cumberland settlement, had its goods confiscated, and the men
fought a battle with the Spaniards to prevent their arrest.
While affairs were in this dubious condition, with the savages in
actual possession, and England and Spain watching a chance to seize
the land, the first authorized American settlements in Ohio were pro-
jected.
Gen. Patfus Putnam was the surveyor selected by Massachusetts
for the work upon the "seven ranges" .t in Ohio, but being unable lo-
go, Gen. Benjamin Tupper, a veteran of the French war as well as
*Dr. Conolly went through Ohio in November, 17SS, to study the situation
in Kentucky, and talked of a British plan to send an army down the Mis-
sissippi while a fleet attacked New Orleans, and hold the river for the use
of Great Britain and the West. Wilkinson, the agent of Spain, frightened
the British emissary away by threats of violence.
t American State Papers.
t Seven ranges were actually surveyed, instead of five, as provided in the
ordinance of 1785.
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 211
the Revolution, took his place. The Indians interrupted the survey.
Tupper went back to Putnam, and the two friends sat up all the first
night planning a colony of veterans in the West. At daybreak they
had completed a call for a convention. The result was the organi-
zation of the "Ohio Company of Associates," at a meeting of dele-
gates from the various Massachusetts counties, which convened at
the ''Bunch of Grapes'' tavern in Boston, March 1, 178G. The plan
contemplated a capital of $1,000,000, mainly in continental specie
certificates, divided in a thousand shares. A year later two hundred
and fifty shares had been subscribed for, and General Putnam, the
Rev. Manasseh Cutler and Gen. Samuel II. Parsons were chosen as
directors, and Maj. Winthrop Sargent, secretary. Manasseh Cut-
ler was a graduate of Yale, late chaplain in the army, and a distin-
guished scientist, General Parsons had made the trip down the
Ohio as Indian commissioner, and recommended the location on the
Muskingum. He was selected to present the scheme to Congress.
Meanwhile, there were many who did not have faith iu the future
of the West, such as James Monroe, who dodged all the votes on the
prohibition of slavery. As the result of a visit to Fort Pitt, he
brought about a reference of the proposed creation of states to the
grand committee of Congress, which reported in March, 1TS6, advis-
ing the repeal of all legislation conflicting with the power of Con-
gress to set off states at discretion. In April, Xathan Dane, one of
the Massachusetts members, an able lawyer and patriot, a man of
remarkable clearness of thought and expression, moved a committee
to frame a temporary form of government of the proposed western
states. Monroe, made chairman of that committee, reported a plan
of division into at least two and not more than five states. But
there could be no change in the number of states without consent of
Virginia, that state having embodied the Jefferson ordinance in her
deed of cession. So the matter was dropped for the time. In May,
however, Grayson had a law enacted making the navigable rivers
and portages public highways of the United States, and in July he
proposed the plan of division into five states, practically the same
now established, with the mouths of the Wabash and Great Miami as
the starting points of the north and south lines. But this was voted
down and the three state plan adopted, through jealousy of future
political power in the Northwest. In September a bill was intro-
duced to postpone the admission of any northwestern state until its
population should be one-thirteenth of the population of the original
states at the time of the proposed admission. This timorous propo-
sition, that would have kept out the frontiersmen for many years,
was fortunately checked by the adjournment of Congress. The new
Congress, obtaining a quorum in February, 1787, was first busied
with discussion of the proposed convention "to form a more perfect
union," and the rebellion in Massachusetts, inspired by resistance
212 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
to collection of debts, complicated by the evils of depreciated paper
money. In April the ordinance for government of the Northwest
was broughl up, the restriction of population was stricken out, and
the bill was up to a third reading when the memorial of the Ohio
company was presented. '"It interested everyone. For vague hopes
of colonization, here stood a body of hardy pioneers, ready to lead
the way to the rapid absorption of the domestic debt of the United
States, selected from the choicest regiments of the army, capable of
self-defense, The protectors of all who should follow them."* The
memorial was referred to a committee composed of Edward Carring-
ton, Rufus King, Nathan Dane, .Tames Madison and Egbert Ben-
son. But the quorum of Congress soon disappeared, and attention
was diverted to the constitutional convention. In the interval
Manasseh * Sutler was deputed by the Ohio company to take the place
of Parsons as negotiator. Cutler was probably the fittest man on
the continent, except Franklin, for a mission of delicate diplomacy,
says Senator Hoar.f He seems, at least, to have had some of Frank-
lin's craft in negotiation. 'Tie was a man of consummate prudence
in speech and conduct; of courtly manners, a favorite in the draw-
ing room and in the camp; with a wide circle of correspondents
among the most famous men of his time." Congress obtained a
quorum July 4th, and next day Dr. Cutler arrived, armed with a
bundle of letters of introduction, and with the experience of Parsons
to guide him. The judgment of Parsons in recommending the
Muskingum country as the place of settlement was reinforced by the
opinion of llutchins, with whom Cutler had frequent interview-.
Me also conferred with the special committee on the Ohio company
memorial, and on duly 10th Chairman Carrington reported a bill
in his own handwriting recommending a sale of land to the company,
providing for what the Ohio company asked : donations in each town-
ship for support of both religion and education, and four townships
near the centre of the tract for a university; the company to do the
township and section surveying, and to have an allowance of one-
third the price to make up for poor land. The price, therefore,
would be 66% cent- aii acre, payable in certificates worth then about
12 cent.- on the dollar, making the speculative price eight or nine
Cents.
The 'lay before this, the proposed ordinance for the govern-
ment of the Northwest had been referred to a new committee of
seven: Carrington and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, Kean of
South Carolina, and Dane and Melancthon Smith of the east and
middle states. Of the eight states present by delegates in Congress,
live were southern. An ordinance was reported on the 11th. and it.
♦Bancroft's History of the United States.
fSee his Marietta oration. 1888.
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. H3
appears that Dr. Cutler,* being asked to examine a copy and make
suggestions, did so, and then started to Philadelphia to spend the
time while the ordinance was under discussion in visiting the con-
stitutional convention and Benjamin Franklin. On the 13th the
"Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United
States Xorthwest of the River Ohio," was passed. It was composed
of two parts: first, provisions for government as a district exclusively
by (''ingress, and later as a territory by a legislature subject to con-
gressional supervision ; second, six articles of general and funda-
mental law, "to be considered as articles of compact between the
original states and the people and states in the said territory, and
forever remain unalterable, except by common consent." The first
part was not such a liberal recognition of ''the rights of man" as
might have been expected, and Lee wrote to General Washington, in
apology for it, that the strong-toned features were "necessary for the
security of property among uninformed and perhaps licentious peo-
ple, as the greater part of them who go there are." In the second
stage of government provided for (territorial), suffrage was
restricted to men owning fifty acres of land."}"
The second, or general part, is that which has been the subject of
well-deserved praise since that day. Antedating the Federal con-
stitution, it embodied some of the noblest features of that great
charter. It was entirely worthy of the fathers of the nation. As
Senator Hoar remarks: "From their experience there had come to
the men who were on the stage in this country in ITS" an aptness
for the construction of constitutions and great permanent statutes
such as the world never saw before or since. Their supremacy in
this respect is as unchallenged as that of the great authors of the
reign of Elizabeth in the drama."
Such were the men, and the conditions from which they evolved
the ordinance and the constitution are well described in the Mari-
etta address of Gen. Thomas Ewing: "The curse of land monopoly
had blighted most of the colonies. The evil of large holdings was
being fostered and perpetuated in many states by laws of primogeni-
ture and entail and by limiting suffrage and offices to land owners,
thus establishing as far as practicable, a landed aristocracy. A sec-
ond curse was slavery, the twin and ally of land monopoly, both oper-
ating to degrade labor; lwth repelling immigration of poor white
♦There has been an attempt to establish Dr. Cutler's authorship of the
ordinance, a theory first announced about 1872. Dr. William F. Poole has
gone so far as to suggest that Dr. Cutler brought the ordinance in his pocket
from Massachusetts, and Congress forthwith passed it unanimously! What
the suggestions were, that he made to the committee, there is no record to
show.
t Fifteen years later a writer in the Scioto Gazette declared: "This gov-
ernment, now so oppressive, was prescribed by the United States at a time
when civil liberty was not so well understood as at present."
1-8
124 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
men; both enemies of democratic-republican government. In no
one of the constitutions of the states was slavery prohibited, and in
but one (Delaware) was the slave trade forbidden. In the Federal
constitution, almost of the same date as the ordinance, 'every clause
which touched the institution of slavery was intended to protect and
strengthen it.' The slave trade which British greed had established
was carried on after the revolutionary war under the American flag
in ships sailing from northern ports: and it was by northern votes in
the constitutional convention that the traffic was protected until 1S08.
The general lack of the vital flame of democracy in the Confedera-
tion is further illustrated by the fact that in only four of the states —
Virginia, New York, North Carolina and Rhode Island — was there
absolute freedom of religious opinion. In but three — New Hamp-
shire, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania — was there provision for
common schools; and in less than half the eleven new state constitu-
tions were to lie found lulls of rights containing the habeas corpus
and other safeguards of liberty."
In 1S33 Salmon P. Chase, afterward one of the most famous of
Ohioans, wrote of the ordinance:
"It comprehended an intelligible system of law on the descent and
conveyance of real property ami the transfer of personal goods. It
also contained five articles of compact between the original states,
and the people and states of the territory, establishing certain great
fundamental principles of governmental duty and private right, as
the basis of all future constitutions and legislation, unalterable anil
indestructible except by that final and common ruin, which, as it has
overtaken all former systems of human policy, may yet overwhelm
our American union. Never, probably, in the history of the world,
did a measure of Legislation so accurately fulfill and yet so mightily
exceed the anticipations of the legislators. The ordinance has been
well described as having been a pillar of cloud by day and of tire by
night, in the settlement and government of the northwestern states.
"When the settlers went into the wilderness, they found the law
already there. It was impressed upon the soil itself, while it yet
bore up nothing but the forest. The purchaser of land became by
that act, a party to the compact, and bound by its perpetual cov-
enants. . . . This remarkable instrument was the last gift of
the congress of the old confederation to the country, and it was a fit
consummation of their glorious labors. At the time of its promulga-
tion, the federal constitution was under discussion in the conven-
tion, and in a few months, upon the organization of the new national
government, that congress was dissolved, never again to assemble."*
Nathan Dane, who drew up the ordinance for the committee, has
distinctly stated that he took from Jefferson's resolve of 17 v 4 the
's Sketch of the History of Ohio.
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. H5
substance of the general provisions regarding the permanent union
of the new states with the Confederacy, their preliminary subjec-
tion to the laws of congress, including taxation to pay public debt,
the control of public lands by congress without taxation by the states,
and the provision that non-resident proprietors must not be taxed
higher than residents. The recent Shay's rebellion in Massachu-
setts, based on opposition to collection of debts, inspired the clause :
"Xo law ought ever to be made or have force in the said territory that
shall in any manner whatever interfere with or conflict with private
contracts or engagements, bona fide and without fraud, previously
formed." This principle was also embodied in the constitution of
the United States, and lias ever since been "the safeguard of public
morals and of individual rights." Mr. Dane claimed the authorship
of this extremely important part of the ordinance, as well as of those
clauses securing the Indians in their rights and property and elabor-
ating Jefferson's proposal to divest land titles of the feudal features
persisting in the old states. "But," says Bancroft, ''the clause regard-
ing impairment of contracts related particularly to the abuse of paper
money, and bears in every word the impress of the mind of Richard
Henry Lee." The remaining general provisions were selected from
the constitution and laws of .Massachusetts, including the famous
declaration that "Keligion, morality ami knowledge being necessary
to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the
means of education shall forever he encouraged."
As fur the article forbidding slavery, I lane wrote at the time to
Rufus King: "When I drew the ordinance (which passed, a few
words excepted, as I originally formed it) I had no idea the states
would agree to the sixth article, prohibiting slavery, as only Massa-
chusetts in the eastern states was present, and therefore omitted it
in the draft. But finding the house favorably disposed on this sub-
ject, after we had completed the other parts, I moved this article,
which was agreed to without opposition." Forty-three years later
Mr. Dane declared, when there was sectional dispute about the sub-
ject, that he took the words "from Mr. King's motion made in L785."
As King's motion was based on Jefferson's resolve of 17*4, the anti-
slavery article of 1787 is in fact a reproduction of the Jefferson
model, changed to apply to the Northwest alone, and at once instead
of after 1800, a concession of time to balance a concession in scope
of application.
Furthermore, there was a very great and portentous concession to
the slaveholding interest in an added clause: "Provided always,
that any persons escaping into the same [Xorthwest territory! from
whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original
states, such fugitive may he lawfully reclaimed and conveyed to the
person claiming his or her service as aforesaid." It is strange that
11g CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
this tacit recognition of the lawfulness of slavery,* and foundation
of the fugitive slave law, is not discussed when the Ordinance of
17S7 is the subject of panegyric. The ordinance seems in fact to
be, as one studies it, the first of the famous compromises that char-
acterize the history of slavery in America. One suspects that its
nature as a compromise is what caused the house to be "favorably
disposed" to the anti-slavery article, and that Mr. Dane might have
told more of the reason for delay in constructing- and presenting- the
article.
There is apparent compromise in other regards in the ordinance.
Religion and knowledge are declared to be necessary to good govern-
ment and happiness, but it is decreed that education only "shall for-
ever be encouraged." It is likely that the question of slavery was
not so important in the minds of the delegates as the number of states
authorized in the future, of which three and five were made the
limits. The balance of power between North and South was already
a matter of solicitude. John Brown, the first western delegate to
congress, wrote home to Kentucky in 1788 that the East would not
consent to the admission of that district, unless Vermont or Maine
were admitted at the same time, and added, "the [Eastern] jealousy
of the growing importance of the western country, and an unwilling-
ness to add a vote to the southern interest, are the real causes of oppo-
sition."
After the ordinance was passed Dr. Cutler returned to Xew York,
and aided by Winthrop Sargent, addressed himself to procuring
authority to buy a great tract of land for his company, as recom-
mended by the special committee. But he found Congress so little
disposed to agree to his terms, which almost amounted to giving away
the land, that he thought of abandoning the enterprise. Then Col.
William Duer, secretary of the board of the treasury, came to him,
the doctor wrote in his journal, "with proposals from a number of
the principal characters in the city, to extend our contract and take
in another company ; but that it should be kept a profound secret.
He explained the plan they had concerted and offered me generous
conditions if I would accomplish the business for them. The plan
struck me agreeably; Sargent insisted on my undertaking; and both
urged me not to think of giving the matter up so soon." Colonel
Duer "lived in the style of a nobleman," bis wife, "Lady Kitty,"
daughter of Lord Sterling, was a charming entertainer, and Dr.
Cutler agreed to the Duer proposition, which was in effect, that Duer
should lie allowed to organize a sub-speculation, under the wing of
the Ohio company, to buy a great area of western land with depre-
*The actual effect of the anti-slavery article was to prevent the importa-
tion of slaves. It did not. as administered, abolish the slavery already exist-
ing in Indiana. Illinois and Michigan.
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. H7
ciated scrip. The appeal of the veterans of the Ohio company would
obtain for tlio Xew York speculators better terms than they could
hope for without such a motive.* At the same time Dr. Cutler made
a '•bluff'' to Congress that as there was no prospect of coming to
terms he would drop the matter and buy land of the states. Then,
when some delegates came to him in anxiety lest the sale should fall
through, lie sprang upon them a new proposition based on the secret
arrangement with Duer, that he would extend the purchase from the
Seven ranges to the Scioto river, by which sale Congress could
extinguish "more than four millions of the public debt" and secure
"an actual, large and immediate settlement of the most robust and
industrious people in America."! This resulted in the passage of
an ordinance July 23d, authorizing the sale of the land between the
Seventh range and the Scioto, back to an extension of the north line
of the tenth township of the Seven ranges and reserving the sixteenth
sections for support of schools and the twenty-ninth sections for sup-
port of the church.
Cutler and Sargent then made their formal proposition to buy,
and renewed the struggle to obtain the approval of Congress, aided
by Duer and all the help he could enlist. The Ohio Company
had made a slate of territorial officers, and this they found must be
abandoned. General Parsons had been selected for governor, but he
was dropped for Arthur St. Clair, president of Congress, with the
proviso that Parsons should be a judge and Sargent secretary.
Then "matters went on much better," Dr. Cutler was told, but there
was such delay that on the 27th he packed his baggage and went
around on a morning call to bid the congressmen farewell, saying if
the terms he had offered, which he considered very good, consider-
ing the state of the country, were not accepted, he would deal with
Xew York, Connecticut or Massachusetts, and doubtless obtain more
exclusive privileges. He added another significant argument in
favor of the deal. "The uneasiness of the Kentucky people with
respect to the Mississippi was notorious. A revolt of that country
from the Union, if a war with Spain should occur, was universally
acknowledged to be highly probable; and most certainly a systematic
settlement in that country, conducted by men thoroughly attached to
the federal government, and composed of young, robust and hardy
laborers, who had no idea of any other than the federal government,
I conceived to be an object worthy of much attention." The full
meaning of this was probably not realized by Cutler or the men he
*In the "Narrative and Critical History of America," vii, 535, this is
called "a sort of bribe, linked in the legislation of Congress for the purpose
of affording opportunities for private speculation." This is an inconsider-
ate expression. It was an unfortunate alliance, but without the help of
Duer the Ohio company could not have made its first payment on the land.
fCutler's Journal, July 21st.
118 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
addressed, and it was not especially obvious during the early history
of the State. But it became quite clear in 1861. Upon this appeal
of Cutler's Congress immediately referred the Ohio company offer
to the treasury board, with the requirement that after the second pay-
ment the residue should be paid in six semi-annual installments.
"By this ordinance," says Cutler, "we obtained the grant of near
five million acres of land, amounting to three million and a half of
dollars; one million and a half acres for the Ohio company, and the
remainder for a private speculation, in which many of the principal
characters of America are interested. Without connecting this
speculation, similar terms and advantages could not have been
obtained for the Ohio company." A verbal contract was made with
the treasury board, and on October 27th following the contract was
made in writing. By this instrument the Ohio company contracted
to lmy between the seventh and seventeenth ranges, back from the
Ohio river far enough to include one and a half million acres,
besides the donations of two sections in each township for support of
schools and the ministry, and two townships for a university, and
three sections in each township retained under the control of Con-
gress. The company paid down half a million dollars in final set-
tlement certificates, and was then authorized to take possession of
750,000 acres in the east, but until the balance was paid, after the
completion of surveys, the United States withheld a Arc<\.
For the first payment Colonel Duer advanced $143,000, and a
contract for sale (or rather for option of purchase) of the western
tract being (dosed at the same time, a half interest in it was trans-
ferred to Duer. Thus the Scioto company had its origin. Cutler
and Sargent were the other partners in the Scioto speculation, and
afterward conveyed the greater part of their interests to Putnam,
Tupper and others, including the famous poet of that day, Joel Bar-
low, who went to Europe to interest the French nation in the enter-
prise.*
Congress was justified in its reluctance to accept the Ohio com-
pany proposal, as it was pure speculation, based on the low price of
certificates. These certificates at once began to advance when such
an attractive use for them was pointed out, and the inauguration of
the federal government and the financial system of Alexander Ham-
ilton made them altogether too dear for purposes of speculation.
The < >liio company was unable to meet even the second payment, and
had no patent to its bind until 1792.
In the winter of 1787-88 the Ohio company sent two parties of
people, all capable of doing some part of the varied work of a
community, to begin the colony on the Muskingum. From the
Youghiogheny they came down river in a vessel constructed for the
'Maj. E. C. Dawes, in Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications.
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. H9
purpose, called the "Mayflower," and on April 7. 17.88, they landed
at the mouth of the Muskingum. There, opposite Fort Harmar, was
the first aiithorized settlement by English speaking colonists in
Ohio.*
"No colony in America," said Washington, "was ever settled under
such favorable auspices as that which has just commenced at the
Muskingum. I know many of the settlers personally, and there
never were men better calculated to promote the welfare of such a
community." Carrington, another Virginian, added his generous
tribute, "The best men in Connecticut and Massachusetts — a descrip-
tion of men who will fix the character of politics throughout the
whole territory, and which will probably endure to the latest period
of time." "I know them all," cried Lafayette, when the list was
read to him at Marietta in 1825. "I saw them at Brandywine,
Yorktown and Rhode Island. They were the bravest of the brave."
Rufus Putnam, who had been chosen superintendent at the meet-
ing of the Ohio company in Boston, November 21, 1787, "to be
obeyed and respected accordingly," was at the head of the colony,
which included forty-eight men. Among them were "Varnum, a
courtly gentleman, soldier, statesman, scholar, orator, whom Thomas
Paine, who had heard the greatest English orators in the greatest
days of English eloquence, declared the most eloquent man he had
ever heard ; Whipple, first of the American naval heroes, first to fire
an American gun at the flag of England on the sea, pioneer of the
river commerce of the Ohio to the gulf; Meigs, hero of Sag Harbor,
of the march to Quebec and of the storming of Stony Point, whom
the Cherokees named White Path in recognition of his unfailing
kindness and fairness ; Parsons, one of the strongest friends of Wash-
ington, the man who first proposed the Continental ( Ymgress ; the
chivalric Devol, said by his biographer to be 'the most perfect figure
of a man to be seen amongst a thousand ;' the noble presence of
Sproat; the sons of Israel Putnam and Manasseh Cutler; Fearing
and Greene and Goodale and the Gilmans; Tupper, leader in church
and state ami veteran of a hundred exploits."!
General Putnam, taking the title of governor, two days Later
issued a set of ordinances, for the government of the territory of the
company, creating a judicial system, a militia, and a public library
to be kept at the governor's headquarters. Another provision was
that the town thus established should bear the name of Marietta, in
honor of Marie Antoinette, queen of France, whose former friend-
ship to America and present persecution by calumny in the rising
storm of French revolution, appealed to the chivalry of these sturdy
*It is to be remembered that there had been unauthorized settlements in
Ohio along the river, for ten years before this.
t Senator Hoar's Marietta address.
120 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
conquerors of the wilderness. These ordinances, written out by Sec-
retary Benjamin T'upper, wore posted in three places.
During these proceedings the old warrior, Captain Pipe, was
encamped with his band near by, but he had left the war path, and
looked on with quiet interest in the inevitable new order of things-
in Ohio. But, for protection, Fort Harmar being on the opposite
side of the river, the colonists began the building ol a stockade, near
the ancient earthworks which told of a town far antedating- the Ohio
company. The place thus fortified was called the Campus Martins,
for the people of that day were devoted to their Roman history.
Later a very strong fortified place was built, with log- bastions, and a
palisade enclosing a parade ground and several dwelling places used
by the settlers who had families and by the company and territorial
officials. On July 2d there was a meeting- of directors and agents,,
to formally name the town and the streets and squares, and on July
4th Independence day was celebrated with a barbecue and an oration
by the eloquent, Yarnum, aided by the cannon of Fort Harmar.
At the same time the first efforts were being made toward a settle-
ment of the Virginia military reserve between the Scioto and Little
Miami rivers, a settlement as worthy of attention as that at Marietta,
and of very great importance in the history of the State. Kentucky
was being rapidly settled under the very liberal donations to actual
settlers made by the Virginia government, and the greater portion
of the country was soon more than doubly appropriated, says McDon-
ald, by the pre-emption and settlement claims and military and treas-
ury warrants, issued in almost as large quantities by Virginia as con-
tinental paper.* A tract for soldiers of the Revolution was reserved
in Kentucky between the Green and Cumberland rivers, and before
Virginia made her cession Col. Richard C. Anderson (father of Gen.
Robert Anderson, of Fort Sumter fame) was entrusted with the sur-
vey of the military reservations. Early in 17^7 Major O'Bannon
and Arthur Fox, Kentucky surveyors, looked over the Ohio reserva-
tion, and on August 1st of the same year Colonel Anderson, who had
made his home near Louisville, opened an office for that region and
many entries of land were made in the Ohio, Scioto and Little
Miami bottoms. About that lime, or a little before, says McDonald,
several expeditions Were made from Kentucky to destroy the Indian
town-, in which Simon Kenton was a prominent figure. But Con-
gress interfered in L788, and all these Ohio entries were made void
until the governor of Virginia should report that the land reserved
in Kentucky was exhausted. One of the adventurous spirits who
viewed the promised land in 1788 was Nathaniel Massie.f a fine
* Biographical Sketches, by John McDonald, 1838.
f Nathaniel Massie was born in Goochland county, December 2S. 1763, son
of Maj. Nathaniel Massie. a substantial planter. As a boy he served in the
Revolutionary war, and afterward he came to Kentucky as a surveyor.
THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY.
121
looking young Virginian who was employed in Colonel Anderson's
land office. A little later he was to make good use of his knowledge
of locating and surveying land, according to the haphazard Vir-
ginian way, that furnished occupation for the lawyers for many
years to come.
CHAPTER VI.
THE CONQUEST OF OHIO.
Governor St. Clair — Territorial Government — The Miami
Settlements — French Settlement — Harmar's Campaign
— The Virginia Settlement — St. Clair's Campaign — For-
eign Intrigue — Wayne's Campaign — Jay's Treaty.
Z^rT^HE ORGANIZATION of the first territorial government
was made by Congress in October, 1787, with Alaj.-Gen.
Arthur St. Clair as governor and Winthrop Sargent as sec-
retary. Brig.-Gen. Samuel Holden Parsons, Brig.-Gen.
James Mitchell Vamixm, and John Armstrong were appointed
judges. All were officers of the war of the Revolution. Armstrong
declining, John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, was appointed in his
place in February, 1788.
St. Clair was a native of Scotland (1734), who came to America
with Amherst's army. After 1703 he commanded Fort Ligonier in
western Pennsylvania, where he was granted lands. He warmly
supported Pennsylvania in the troubles with Virginia, and Dunmore
asked in vain for Ins dismissal from office. A colonel of the conti-
nentals at the beginning of the Revolution, he was promoted to briga-
dier in 1776, and later to major-general. lie participated in the
battles of Trenton and Princeton, and was in command of Ticon-
deroga at the opening of Burgoyne's campaign. His evacuation of
this post brought him under popular censure, but the court-martial
acquitted him of the charges of cowardice and incapacity. It hap-
pened that the troops he withdrew from probable loss were of use in
the subsequent capture of Burgoyne, and Congress ratified the ver-
dict of the court-martial. After the war he was elected to Congress,
ami made president of that body. He was a man of superior ability,
and of upright character. Though democratic in manner, and popu-
lar on that account with the western people, he held tenaciously to
his opinions and was jealous of his authority and prerogative. As
leader of the majority in the constitutional convention of Pennsyl-
vania in 17S3 he bad advocated the appointment of higher judges for
THE CONQUEST OF OHIO. 123
life, exclusion of foreigners from suffrage for a considerable time,
and a property qualification for all voters, and opposed enforced rota-
tion in office. Consequently he was obnoxious already to the "fierce
democracy" of Thomas Jefferson, though national politics did not
seriously affect the Ohio country for the next ten years.
Governor St. Clair landed at Marietta, July 9, 1788, greeted by a
salute from the guns of the fort, and after Colonel Sargent arrived
on the 15th, with the commissions, an assembly of the inhabitants
was called, and the government of the Northwest Territory inaugu-
rated. The governor was also commander of militia, and had the
appointment of magistrates and other civil officers as well as mili-
tary. He and the judges were the law-making power, subject to the
approval of Congress, until the territory had 5,000 free male inhabi-
tants, when a house of representatives could he elected by the peo-
ple. This body should then nominate ten persons, of whom Congress
should select five as a legislative council, who, with the governor,
would constitute an upper house of legislature.
The governor and judges were authorized, not to make new experi-
ments in legislation, but to adopt and publish such laws of the orig-
inal states as were necessary and best suited to the circumstances of
the district. The governor and judges soon disagreed about the con-
struction of this provision, the judges holding that they had the
power to select parts of laws, and even to enact new laws based upon
the spirit of existing state laws, while St. Clair was for a stricter con-
struction. But he gave way, and legislation went on without much
regard to the ordinance Congress never directly approved any of
these laws, and Judge Burnet says their constitutionality was always
doubted by the early bar of Ohio. But as the judges were also the
lawmakers, there was nothing to do but accept their work.*
The first law of the Territory was adopted July 25, 17S8, provid-
ing for militia service of the male inhabitants, and weekly drills. In
all ten chapters of laws were promulgated at Marietta. In 1790 a
few laws of local interest were enacted at Vincennes and Cincinnati,
and after that there was no legislation until the adoption of the Max-
well code in 1795. That the governor and judges, in the enactment
of laws from 1788 to 1795, while exceeding their authority, says
Judge Chase, did not abuse it, may be inferred from the fact that all,
except two laws that had been previously repealed, were confirmed
by the first territorial legislature. All these laws, as well as the
temporary government provided by the ordinance were superseded
and annulled by the adoption of the State Constitution. The
supreme court of the United States has expressed the opinion that
the ordinance as a whole was superseded by the adoption of the con-
stitution of the United States; which, if correct, limits the effective
'Marietta address by F. F.
224 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
life of the ordinance between July 15, 1788, and March 4, 1789.
The principles of government enunciated in it survive, however, in
that constitution and in the constitutions of the states formed from
the Territory and the constitutions of many other states modeled
upon them.
One of the duties of the governor was to lay out counties for the
establishment of judicial authority, and lie accordingly established
the county of Washington, including all Ohio east of the Scioto and
the Cuyahoga and south of the Indian line. In all this vast area
there was no town save Marietta, and no other settlements except the
scattered inhabitants along the upper Ohio. Courts of common
pleas and quarter sessions were created for the county. Rufus Put-
nam and Benjamin Tupper were appointed judges of the court of
common pleas, and on September 2d Col. Ebenezer Sproat, high sher-
iff, with drawn sword marched at. the head of a procession including
the officers of the garrison, the governor and territorial judges, up
the path cut through the forest to the strong house built upon Cam-
pus Martins, where Dr. Cutler invoked the blessing of Almighty God,
and the opening of the first court was proclaimed. On the 9th the
judges of the court of quarter sessions, exercising many of the present
functions of county commissioners, were also formally installed.
While the settlers were busy clearing fields and building log houses
they were visited, August 27th, by the advance guard of another col-
ony, led by John Cloves Symmes, who stopped for a few days to per-
form his duties as a lawmaker for the territory. Symmes was a man
of forty -four years, a native of Long Island, who had been a colonel
of militia in the Revolution, and rendered public service as lieuten-
ant-governor of New Jersey, judge of the supreme court of that state,
and member of the council and of Congress. He was bound for the
Miami valley, naturally a more inviting field for settlement than the
Muskingum, but avoided on account of the Indian hostilities. So
frequent were the forays of Kentuckians, Shawanees and Wyandots
through its beautiful valleys and among its verdant hills that it
became known as the "Miami slaughter house," and future events
were to confirm the aptness of the title. As late as March, 17SS,
while Putnam and his colony were coming down the Ohio, a consid-
erable party of explorers, including Samuel Purviance of Baltimore,
and some French mineralogists and botanists, were nearly all killed
or captured by the Indians at the mouth of the Great Miami.
But before this the forays of the Kentuckians had drawn one Ben-
jamin Stites, a Xew Jersey trailer of a speculative turn of mind,
into the Miami valley, and, enthusiastic over the possibilities of that
rich country, he returned to Xew Jersey to enlist in his scheme John
Cleves Symmes, Gen. Jonathan Dayton, Elias Boudinot, Dr. Wither-
spoon, and other worthies of that day. An association resembling
the Ohio company was formed, Congress was asked (August, 17 S T)
THE CONQUEST OF OHIO. 125
for a grant on the same terms given Putnam and his associates in the
previous month, of the lands between the two Miamis, as far back
as the north line of the proposed purchase of the Ohio company.
Symmes encountered the same delay that had discouraged Cutler,
hut being of an enthusiastic nature, he seems to have taken it for
granted that his enterprise would be approved, and began disposing
of the country in November by covenanting to deed Stites 10,000
acres of the best lands in the valley. This he followed with a glow-
ing prospectus, inviting settlers to select lands', and avail themselves
of the low price, two-thirds of a dollar an acre, before it was raised
on May 1, 1788, to one dollar. On his own behalf he reserved the
nearest entire township to the mouth of the Great Miami, as well as
fractional townships about it, as the site of a proposed city. There
was a rush for the land bargains, and Matthias Denman, of New Jer-
sey, also with a town in view, took up an entire section opposite the
mouth of Licking river.
Stites and a party of settlers landed November 18, 178S, just
below the Little Miami, and founded a town called Columbia. Sym-
mes and party were on the way, but waited at Limestone (Maysville,
Ky.) for a military escort, and Denman, without a following, went
to Lexington, Ky., and formed a partnership with the founder of
that city, Col. Robert Patterson, a Pennsylvania)! who had visited
Ohio as an officer in the Indian campaigns, and John Filson, a Penn-
sylvania schoolmaster who had become a Kentucky surveyor and the
first of Kentucky historians. In the deal between these three, Den-
man received £20 in Virginia currency and the Kentuckians each a
third interest in the section opposite the mouth of Licking, where
the partners proposed to found a town and call it Losantiville. This
was as tasteful and appropriate as the names Thomas Jefferson had
proposed for the northwestern states, but less severely classical.*
Free lots being offered as an inducement to immediate settlement, a
large company of Kentuckians followed Patterson and Filson to the
city site, where they met Denman, Symmes and Israel Ludlow, chief
surveyor of the Miami company, September 22, 1788. A plat had
been made by Filson, and the city of Cincinnati then had its dedi-
cation. But the survey and location of lots could not be made until
Ludlow had ascertained if this section were within twenty miles of
the mouth of the Great Miami.
Symmes, in his headlong course as a promoter, had been brought
to a sudden check by the fact that the treasury hoard did not favor
his application for such a great river front, and in view of his unau-
thorized procedure, was disposed to have nothing to do with the
*The combination of Latin and French is supposed to represent l'os anti
ville, and. reversed, it might be interpreted: "town opposite the mouth."
Perhaps Villantios had a sound that suggested the reversal.
126 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
project. Through the intercession of General Dayton and Daniel
Marsh, representing Symmes' associates, the board was brought to
consent to the sale of a twenty-mile front, eastward from the mouth
of the Great Miami, and running hack far enough to contain one
million acres, and this tract was not formally contracted for until
three weeks after the preliminary location of Cincinnati* (October
15, irss).
While awaiting the survey, a large part of the adventurers, as they
called themselves in that day, made an excursion into the interior to
view the promised land and encountei - ed an encampment of Indians,
from which they turned hack. The historian, Filson, becoming
separated from the party, probably was killed by the Shawanees, as
he was never again heard from. The adventurers all returned to
Kentucky or the east, hudlow became the successor of Filson in the
partnership. Symmes went to Limestone, and waited for the con-
clusion of a now treaty with the Indians to insure peace. This
desired treaty was concluded by Governor St. Clair at Fort Ilarmar,
January 9, 1780, reaffirming the bounds set by the treaty of Fort
Mcintosh, as the fruit of conquestf The Eroquois chief, Joseph
Brant, approached the council place, hut did not. participate, and it
afterward appeared that the Indians present wore unauthorized to
bind their tribes to code any lands northwest of the Ohio. Romance
has it that Brant was met in the forests by his former acquaintance,
the governor's daughter, Louisa St. Clair, whose horsemanship and
skill with the rihV was the admiration of the frontier.
After his treaty the governor went to New York, to witness the
inauguration of General Washington as the first president of the
United States, and remaining there several months, took part in
devising additional legislation for the Northwest territory and a pol-
icy toward the Indians. Instructions were given him to avoid war
as long as possible and to visit the Indians of the Wabash and Illi-
nois.
Meanwhile, about Christmas, 17 S S or Yew Year's. 17 s '.', Patter-
son and Ludlow and a small party returned to Losantiville, and began
laving out town lots, and the first settlers of that city gathered to
*The matter was finally settled by a patent to Symmes and his associates
September 30, 1794. for the land between the two Miamies, and far enough
inland to include 311.682 acres, from which sections sixteen and twenty-nine
were reserved for the support of education and religion, and eight, eleven
and twenty-six for disposal by Congress, also the Fort Washington reserva-
tion, and one complete township for a college. The latter was finally
selected in Butler county, though not quite complete, and is the site of
Oxford.
t'On the day after the signing of the treaty James Mitchell Varnum died,
at the age of forty years. Three years later Gen. Benjamin Tupper died at
Marietta, June, 1792.
THE CONQUEST OF OHIO. 127
select their property.* A great flood followed, and delayed Symmes
and his party until late in January. Then, on coming down the
river to Fort Finney, the country about it was found under water.
The disgusted military officer abandoned the fort to go to Louisville,
but Symmes landed upon the nearest dry spot and began a town,
which was given his name. With the advent of pioneer recruits,
North Bend was established, a few miles up the river. Which of the
various locations should be the center of development was in doubt
until Symmes' appeal for military protection led to the placing of
an army post. Ensign Luce and eighteen men built a stockade at
North Bend and occupied it several months, but there was an Indian
attack in the spring of 17S9 that stampeded the inhabitants. Then
Major Doughty came down with a larger force and in the summer of
1789 selected Losantiville as the best position and built a stockade
that he called Fort Washington. t Gen. Josiah Harmar, com-
manding the regular army of the United States, which was composed
of his regiment of infantry and Major Doughty 's battalion of artil-
lery, occupied this fort with the main part of his command, Decem-
ber 29, 1789, and Governor St. Clair, stopping there on his way to
the Wabash and Mississippi, established, January 2, 1790, a new
county, which Symmes named in honor of Alexander Hamilton.
The name of the town St. Clair changed to commemorate the title
of the new military order, the Cincinnati. This county included
the country between the Miamis back to the Standing Stone forks of
the larger river. Cincinnati, as the seat of an unsettled county,
began, in a squalid and barren fashion, its history as the metropolis
of the Ohio valley. In 1792 (February 11th) Governor St, Clair
extended the county jurisdiction to include all west of the Scioto and
a line north from the lower Shawanee town to Sandusky bay, and
*"On the 24th of December, 1788." says Symmes. in one of his letters, they
left Maysville "to form a station and lay a town opposite the Licking." The
river was filled with ice "from shore to shore." but "perseverance triumph-
ing over difficulty, they landed safe on a most delightful high bank of the
Ohio, where they founded the town of Losantiville. which populates consid-
erably." James H. Perkins, in his Annals of the "West, points out that the
day of the settlement is unknown. "Some, supposing it would take about
two days to make the voyage, have dated the being of the Queen City of the
west from December 26th. This is but guesswork, however, for as the
river was full of ice. it might have taken ten days to have gone the sixty-
five miles from Maysville to Licking. But. in the case in chancery, to which
we have referred, we have the evidence of Patterson and Ludlow that they
landed opposite the Licking 'in the month of January. 1789;' while William
McMillan testifies that he 'was one of those who formed the settlement of
Cincinnati on the 2Sth day of December. 1788.' "
fThe story was told by Judge Jacob Burnet that the commanding officer
became "enamored with a beautiful, black-eyed female." at North Bend,
whom her husband took to Cincinnati, whereupon the officer decided that
the latter was the best strategic position. "This anecdote was communi-
cated by Judge Symmes," said Burnet, "and is unquestionably authentic;"'
but Judge Symmes was much offended at the officer.
log CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
■fast of a line from Standing Stone forks of the Great Miami to Lake
Huron, including all eastern Michigan.
In the same period ( 17 s > ) a land company was formed to buy the
Western Reserve of Connecticut, and Samuel Holden Parsons, the
manager of this enterprise, under protection of the military, located
land at the Salt Springs (Mahoning county), and a tract at the site
of the city of < Cleveland, but -while returning from a talk with the
Indians about opening the land, in November, T7S9, Parsons was
drowned in Big Beaver river, and settlement in the northeast was
postponed.
In ITS'." also, be it remembered, the crank for the first saw mill in
Ohio was shipped from the foundry at New Haven, Conn., to the
■Ohio company, and brought by packhorses to the Youghiogheny river,
and thence down the Ohio and up the Muskingum to Wolf Creek.
While St. Clair was in the west, another important settlement was
made on the Ohio. This was the result of the operations in France
of Joel Barlow, agent of the Duer-Cutler project of colonization of
the Scioto valley. Barlow found the countrymen of La Salle ready
for a colonization project on La Belle Riviere, and had no difficulty
in forming a company, called the Society of Scioto, which agreed to
take three million acres at six livres per acre. He wrote hopefully
to Duer of being able to send him the money necessary to make a pay-
ment on the land, and secure a title to it. In rousing the French
people to the importance of the enterprise Barlow used a descriptive
pamphlet and map which did not seriously exaggerate the attractions
of the land, except in stating that the Ohio company tract was cleared
and settled. Soon the French colonists were coming over, and Gen-
eral Putnam sent Major Burnham to New England to enlist a com-
pany tn clear a place for them and build houses at a temporary place
below the mouth of the Kanawha, called Gallipolis, which was con-
sidered the proper classicism for Frenchtown. The Frenchmen,
reaching Alexandria, Va., in April, 1790, and the following months,
were discouraged by the Virginians, but being reassured by Colonel
Duer. who had reason to think all was well, pushed mi over the moun-
tains, guided by ('apt. Isaac Guion, at Duer's personal expense.
Several hundred id' them were at Gallipolis in October, 1790. Count
de Barth and the Marquis Marnesia stopped at Marietta, awaiting
the survey at the mouth of the Scioto, where they proposed to estab-
lish a city. But the American projectors of the speculation soon
began to tremble at the failure to receive money from France, and
meanwhile there were events in the Ohio country that stopped the
progress of settlement.
It is estimated that there were in 1790 something over four thou-
sand settlers northwest of the Ohio, including those on the Wabash,
but mure settled smith of the river. In twelve months the lookouts
at Fort Ilarmar counted eight or nine hundred boats going down
THE CONQUEST OF OHIO. 129
the Ohio, carrying twenty thousand settlers, with horses, cows, sheep
and wagons, nearly all bound for Kentucky. The hostility of the
Indians maintained the Ohio river as a barrier to settlement, and
Great Britain retained military possession of Oswego, Fort Erie,
Detroit and Mackinac. The only posts of the United States in the
Territory were Fort Steuben (site of Steubeuville), Forts Harmar
and Washington, and Fort Knox at Vincennes.
George Washington, president of a Union taking some stops toward
becoming a nation, determined to use all his power to gain posses-
sion of the Northwest, and toward the close of 1789 instructed St.
Clair to draw upon Virginia and Pennsylvania for militia to rein-
force the ludicrously small army that the jealousies of the states had
allowed the federal government. General Harmar sent an expedi-
tion into the Scioto country in April, 1790, to break up a band of
Cherokees who had posted themselves mi the Ohio to plunder pass-
ing boats.
St. Clair, in the west, sent to the Indians on the Wabash his inju-
dicious formula of peace or war, as the red men preferred, and his
ambassador was turned back with defiance. At the head of the
Maumee, the center of Indian rule, Gamelin found that no treaty
would be made without British approval. St. Clair was then
recalled to Ohio by the renewal of hostilities in the valley. Return-
ing to Fort Washington, the governor met General Harmar, July
11th, and a campaign was planned with the object of reducing the
Indians to quiet. There were to be two columns, advancing in the
middle of September, one up the Wabash, and the other, led by Gen-
eral Harmar, north from Fort Washington. Requisition was made
upon Kentucky and Pennsylvania for fifteen hundred militia, to
reinforce Harmar's regulars, and St. Clair was busy from Kentucky
to Xew York, in the work of organization. The result was that less
than 1.500 men were collected in all, of whom 320 were regulars,
and four companies of mounted riflemen, three battalions of Ken-
tuckians and one of Pennsylvanians. The militia, of which a good
part was badly armed and equipped, were under the command of Col.
John Hardin, and this officer led the advance guard of the expedi-
tion, which marched out from Fort Washington, September 26th.
The British had been advised by letter that the campaign was
aimed only at hostile Indians, and not against the English troops.
There was talk of war between England and Spain, and it was not
desired to hinder the British, if they contemplated a march against
the Spanish on the Mississippi river. The Indians, receiving exag-
gerated reports of Harmar's strength, made no opposition to his
advance, and after proceeding through the Great Miami valley and
the headwater-country of the Wabash, Col il Hardin, by a forced
march, stole upon Kekionga, at the head of the Maumee, October
1—9
13<) CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
15th, hoping to surprise the red men and the Indian traders and get
much booty. But the three hundred huts were deserted and the
storehouses empty. On the march an Indian was seldom seen,
though the horses of the soldiers were continually disappearing.
The first Indian killed was enticed into an ambush by setting a horse
as decoy, and when the red man fell wounded he was mercilessly
despatched.* The Maumee village and 20,000 bushels of corn were
burned, and Colonel Hardin took a party up the St. Joseph to destroy
two Delaware towns. This was an opportunity for which Little
Turtle, t the great Maumee war chief, had been waiting, and Hardin
was driven hack in rout, leaving twenty-two regulars and several vol-
unteers killed on the field. Meanwhile, burning the Maumee village,
Hannar moved down the river to a Shawanee Village called Chilli-
cothe,:!: and destroyed it.
Further down the Maumee, at the rapids, was a considerable set-
tlement of Indians and British, including Brant and Alexander
McKee, where the red men were supplied with clothing and military
supplies, lint Hannar had promised not to molest the British posts,
and on October 21st he started with his army on the return march
to Fort Washing-ton. At the close of a short day's inarch, Hardin
gained permission to redeem himself by another attempt at the Mau-
mees. With three hundred and forty militia and sixty regulars he
returned to the ruins of the Maumee village, hoping to find some of
the Indians returned. His wish was gratified, but be was again
badly defeated, losing ten officers and a large number of men. Then,
with total casualties of 183 killed and ?>1 wounded, General Hannar
continued his march southward. At Old Chillicothe, there was a
mutiny among the volunteers, and when the troops got back to Fort
Waskington, weary from carrying their baggage, all the horses hav-
ing been stolen or killed by the Indians, the Kentuckians were clam-
orous in complaint against the leader of the campaign, who had
alluded to the conduct of the militia as shameful and cowardly.
Following this success, the red men, encouraged by McKee and
Simon Girty, continued their hostilities along the Ohio. In Janu-
ary, 1701, the Ohio company settlement at Big Bottom, forty miles
*Says the narrative of one of the volunteers, the Indian's head was cut
off and put on a pole near General Harmar's tent, to remind the latter of a
promise of a dozen of wine for the first head brought in.
t Little Turtle's Indian name is given in the histories as Meeehee Konahk-
wah. The latter word has some resemblance to the Indian for turtle, but
the first means Big. There was a Big Turtle, as mentioned in a previous
chapter, and the names may be confused.
JCol. William Stanley Hatch, in his "Chapter of the War of 1812,"
declares that Harmar never got farther north than the junction of Mad
river and the Great Miami, and that this Chillicothe was the Clark county
Chillicothe.
THE CONQUEST OF OHIO. 131
up the Muskingum, was destroyed and twelve people killed.* But
the Indians did not do all the bad work. In March a party of vol-
unteers, meeting a trading party of friendly red people near the Big
Beaver, killed three men and a woman, stole all their property and
stripped the bodies of clothing. Maj. Isaac Craig, at Fort Pitt,
reported that though this looked like deliberate murder, it seemed
to meet the approval of most of the people on the Ohio. Corn-
planter, the great Seneca chief, sent a remonstrance to "Washington,
and Governor St. Clair hurried to make amends for this outrage and
similar ones.
In the face of these adverse circumstances another of the most
important initial settlements of Ohio began, that of the Virginia vet-
erans in the Scioto valley. Their previous attempt, coincident with
the Marietta settlement, has already been mentioned. In August,
1790, Congress removed the prohibition against them, and a large
amount of military land warrants were put in the hands of Nathaniel
Massie for location and survey, by Colonel Anderson, who had been
entrusted with them by his comrades. Some adventurers had con-
tinued to make locations despite the act of Congress, at the risk of
their lives, for the Indians were vigilant in defending their country.
There was yet danger, but Massie was of a spirit to risk it. On
account of the risk, his profit would be great, from one-fourth to one-
half of the land he should obtain title for. He followed the usual
custom of venturing beyond the Ohio in the winter, as the Indians
were then collected in their towns. He gave general notice of his.
enterprise, offering each of the first twenty-five families as a dona-
tion, one inlot, one outlot and one hundred acres of land, provided
they would join him in founding a town, and more than thirty fami-
lies enlisted in this daring venture into the Indian country. After
investigation the Ohio bottom opposite the lower of the Three islands
was selected for the settlement, and there in December, 1790, the
town was founded, called Massiestown and later Manchester. By
the middle of March, 1791, the town of log houses was enclosed with
strong pickets, witli blockhouses at each angle. With Massie were
"the Beasleys, the Stouts, the Washburns, the Ledoms, the Edging-
tons, the Denings, the Ellisons, the Utts, the McKenzios, the Wades,
and others, who were equal to the Indians in all the arts and strata-
gems of border warfare." f For their main farm the colony used
the lower island, which yielded bountiful crops of com. Peer, elk,
buffalo, bear and turkeys were abundant, and the river was full of
♦The Ohio company had planted several new settlements in 1790. at Belle
Pre and Newbury and Anderson's Bottom on the Ohio, on Wolf Creek, where
the first mill in Ohio was built, at Duck Creek and Meig's Bottom. In 1792,
Major Goodale. at Belle Pre, commanding the Farmers' Castle, was captured
and carried north until he died at the Sandusky.
tMcDonald's Sketches.
_
- -
...
Vara
- •
-
---.-■
. -
- -
- ....
- "
-
'
" ■
THE CONQUEST OF OHIO. 133
command, and he visited the president for counsel and, at Pittsburg
and other places, endeavored to encourage the raising of troops and
organization for a campaign. At the same time Col. Thomas Proc-
tor was sent with Cornplanter to Detroit to treat for peace, and was
expected to return by way of Fort Washington early in May, 1791.
But the KentucMans were eager to make war mi their own account,
and after waiting some time to hear from the peace commissi
hearing nothing, they set out under Gen. Charles Scott, with James
Wilkinson as a colonel, in the latter part of May, and ravaged the
Indian country on the Wabash. These hostilities while a peace
envy was in the field persuaded the red men that the talk of peace
was only to delude them, and the preparation for an invasion by a
large force from Cincinnati was enough to confirm their suspicion.
After the return of Scott St. Clair authorized Wilkinson to lead
another force of Kentuckians into the Indian country, in August,
and they made a path of devastation through what is now northern
Indiana, from the Kankakee to the Little river, burning villages and
fields and killing Indian men, women and children. All this only
intensified the trouble. If there had been a sufficient trained and
disciplined army in the field that could be depended upon to act in
concert with civilized efforts toward peace, better results might have
followed.
St. Clair, meanwhile, was awaiting at Cincinnati the arrival of
bis reinforcements. He had two regiments of regulars and some
Kentucky militia, but the levies that were sent down the river seemed
to be largely collected from the streets and prisons of the cities of the
east, as unfit for fighting Indians as could be imagined. It also
appears that the general staff, with the exception of Winthrop Sar-
gent, adjutant-general, who was the mainstay of the army, was sadly
inefficient. The contractor for commissary was Colonel Duer, late
of the Scioto company, and his work was grossly mismanaged. The
clothing furnished the volunteers and levies was miserable, the 1
were infamous, the packsaddles were big enough for elephants, the
axes were soft metal, the powder was too poor to effectively carry the
bullets, and even the wine at headquarters was bad.* St. Clair him-
self was growing old and his health was such that he should not have
undertaken the campaign, if the prospect of the work of such a
poorly equipped and disorganized army were not enough to forbid
his risking his reputation with it. Doubtless he realized that more
good would come of postponing the campaign over a year, but his
levies were enlisted for >ix months only, and some of them declared
the time began when they left home.
St. Clair's orders were to advance on the Maumee village i Fort
Wayne i and establish a fortified post, with a chain of forts b
'Testimony at the investigation.
134 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
that position and Cincinnati. On hia march he must, of course,
cut, a road for wagon train and build the forts. In the middle of
September, when he had 2,300 men, exclusive of commissioned offi-
cers, lie began building Fort Hamilton, at the site e-f the city of Ham-
ilton, and thence, on October 4th, the main part of the army marched
northward, under Gen. Richard Butler, while St. Clair waited a few
days to prod the commissary department and push forward some
militia who were already rapidly deserting. From Fort Hamilton
on the 8th he wrote to Israel Ludlow, agent of the contractors, that
he was not performing his duly, and the troops were already short of
provisions. "A competent number of horses were pi'ovided to your
hand;" the general wrote, "how they have been employed I know
not ; certainly one half of them have never been upon the road, or we
should not have been in our present situation; and take notice that
the want of drivers will lie no excuse to a starving army and a disap-
pointed people."' Two weeks later Hodgdon, the quartermaster-gen-
eral, was sent back to Cincinnati to discover what was the matter
with the commissary department. On the loth the army was about
six miles south of Greenville, and began the building of Fort Jeffer-
son, with the troops on half rations of flour. Oldham's company of
militia being ordered to escort a cavalcade of horses back for flour,
refused and declared if they went they would never return, and noth-
ing could he done but send another company. While yet at Fort
Jefferson, with the general fearing he would not be able to Leave his
lied, the levies began to declare their time was up, and desert. To
stop this the army was drawn up on the 23d to witness the shooting
of two deserters and one mutineer. Xext day they set out on the
inarch again, moving about nine miles a day.
From the time the troops were at Fort Hamilton horses had been
stolen, presumably by Indians, hut red men were not seen until the
28th, when the army was in the low and wet country of the head-
waters of the Wabash. Then sentries were provoked to tire in the
darkness at night, arousing the camp. A friendly Indian chief,
Piainingo, and nineteci warriors were sent out on a scout. On
October 31st the army halted to wait for provisions coming up on
packhorses from Fort Jefferson. The militia were at the point of
mutiny, and a third of them turned out with the expressed deter-
mination of going home. Sixty did start hack, vowing they would
stop the packhorses, and in consequence of this the First regiment
of United States troops, about three hundred strong, was ordered
\<-.\r\, to Fort Jefferson, ostensibly to bring the deserters hack, hut,
really to protect the convoys. The flour arrived, and the army
marched on November 2d about eight miles through a snow storm.
Xext day they trudged nine miles through water and mud and went
into camp o,, a piece of dry ground on the southeast side of a branch
of the Wabash. The camping ground was so small that the militia
THE CONQUEST OF OHIO. 135
was ordered across the creek about three hundred yards to another
dry spot, and the men seemed so exhausted that the building of
intrenchments was postponed until morning. It was evident that
the Indians were about, the sentinels firing- so often in the night that
General Butler sent out an officer and detachment to investigate.
Next morning, the 4th, before sunrise, just as the troops had been
dismissed from the usual parade, the woods in front rang with the
veils of Indians and the reports of their rifles. The advanced force
of militia, after firing a few shots, rushed back to the main body.
All the troops were at once under arms and posted to meet the attack,
which speedily enveloped both Hanks. Their volleys and the roar of
their artillery made a great noise, while the Indians, concealed by
the smoke, crept up in close range, posted themselves behind tire-;
and logs, and, in perfect quiet, save the crack of their rifles, fired
murderously into the mass of soldiers. After all the officers of the
artillery were killed but one, and he badly wounded, and nearly all
of the men were cut off, the Indians took possession of the guns.
Again and again the troops charged with fixed bayonets and routed
the red men from their places, but as the attacking parties fell back
into line, the Indians resumed their hiding places, and continued
their tire. ' The ground began to be covered with the dead and
wounded. The left flank, particularly exposed, gave way. St.
('lair, on foot, led a force that drove out the Indians from that quar-
ter. Other gallant efforts were made, but the troops were gradually
bunched together, and General Butler and the greater part of the regi-
mental officers having been killed or disabled, the men lost all hope
and gave way to panic. The order to move toward the road, intended
to begin a retreat, had to be repeated three times before it was heeded.
Then, after four hours of such a fight, the remnant hurried to Fort
Jefferson, with little opposition, and after the first two or three
miles, without pursuit. They were not long in reaching that place,
where the First regiment was awaiting them, and then what was left
of the army pushed en in the night to meet a convey of provisions,
for there was nothing at the fort to eat.*
St. Clair had about 1,400 men in this fight, besides the officers.
The killed and wounded were 890, and of the 86 or 90 officers, 1''.
*The story of this disaster is told, with as much vigor as old Scotch bal-
lads relate the frays of Highlander and Lowlander, in an ancient ballad of
Ohio, of which the following are the first stanzas:
'Twas November the fourth, in the year of ninety-one.
We had a sore engagement near to Fort Jefferson;
Sainclaire was our commander; which may remembered be.
For there we left nine hundred men in the Western Ter'tory.
At Bunker's Hill and Quebeck, there many a hero fell,
Likewise at Long Island (it is I the truth can tell).
But such a dreadful carnage may I never see again
As happened near St. Mary's, upon the river plain.
236 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
were killed or wounded. It was a bloodier defeat than Braddock's,
and it shoAved that the lesson of 1755 was forgotten. The Indians,
under the great Maumee general, Meeehee Konahquah, again dem-
onstrated their ability in warfare. The result was a furious outcry
against General St. Clair, and denunciation of the people responsible
for the quartermaster, ordnance and commissary failures, but, as
Gen. John Armstrong said, "The people at large, in behalf of whom
the action was brought on, are more essentially to blame, and lost the
battle. An infatuated security seemed to pervade the minds of all
amongst us."
General St. Clair visited the federal capital and tendered his res-
ignation from the army, which was accepted. A court of inquiry
threw tlie blame on the delays and gross mismanagement of the quar-
termaster and commissary departments, the lateness of the season and
the inexperience of the troops, and the general's conduct was com-
mended. Preparations were begun for an army of five thousand
men in spite of the cry that the Indian war was only an excuse for
the Federalists to impose a standing army upon "the people." and,
"to the great disgust" of the Virginia planters. President Washing-
ton appointed Anthony Wayne commander-in-chief. Wayne began
the training of an army at a post a few miles below Pittsburg and took
his time for it, while peace negotiations continued. Wayne was, as
the British ambassador wrote, "the most vigilant, active and enter-
prising officer in the American army." but, as Washington said, he
was supposed to be "more active and enterprising than judicious and
cautious; vain and open to flattery."
There were talks with the Senecas and negotiations with the Brit-
ish minister concerning the evacuation of the posts on the lakes. An
important point was scored by General Putnam, who was sent with
the missionary Heckewelder, to Vincennes, to treat with the Potta-
watomies and other tribes, whom he persuaded to peace by guarantee-
ing them peaceable possession of their lands. Brant was invited
to Philadelphia and urged to work for peace. In a great council at
the junction of the Auglaize and Maumee, Cornplanter and Bed
Jacket, of the friendly Senecas, in the fall of 1702, endeavored to
urge the Maumees and their allies to make terms, but without avail.
In the summer of 17'.»:; Benjamin Lincoln, Beverly Randolph and
Timothy Pickering were appointed to treat with the western Indians
to confirm the boundary line in Ohio agreed upon at Fort Ilarmar,
and it was understood that $50,000 worth of presents and an annuity
of $10,000 would be promised the red men.
A conference was held at the Detroit river, and though the com-
missioners asked for nothing more than the Fort Ilarmar conces-
sion- in Ohio, ami Clark's grant on the lower Ohio, ami promised
munificent ^it't-. the [ndians in council at the foot of the Maumee
THE CONQUEST OF OHIO. 137
rapids* were defiant and insisted on the Ohio river as a boundary.
There can be no doubt that they were sustained in this determination
by British influence. Brant, who attended the council, found to his
surprise that the British advised the Indians to hold the river Ohio.
They were told that the United States had no right in the Northwest
under the treaty of 1783 but that of pre-emption of lands and that
right had been forfeited by making war on the rightful owners of the
soil. This was revealed by the Indians in their declaration that they
had as much right to give their lands to the British as to the Arner*
icans. It was stated clearly in the speech of Lord Dorchester, gover-
nor of Canada, to a deputation of Indians from the council, in
February, 1794, in which he complained of the American settlements
beyond the Ohio, as "infringements on the king's rights," and said
he should not be surprised if England was at war with the United
States within a year.
Meanwhile General Wayne had brought what he had been able to
collect of the proposed army down the Ohio to a camp called "Hob-
son's choice," near Cincinnati, and garrisons were maintained at
Forts Hamilton and Jefferson and St. Clair (near Eaton). The
Detroit conference closed on August 16, 1793, and as it became
known that the army would soon move, September 21st was devoted
to fasting and prayer for the success of the soldiers. October 7th
Wayne advanced with about 2,600 regular troops and three or four
hundred mounted volunteers to a point six miles north of Fort Jef-
ferson, where he built Fort Greenville. Ten days later the Indians
attacked the convoy of one of his wagon trains between Forts St.
Clair and Jefferson, and killed Lieutenant Lowry and fourteen
others. On the 24th Wayne was joined by a thousand mounted Ken-
tuckians. He was not disposed, however, to repeat the experiment
of a campaign in the late fall. Having an abundance of provisions,
he contented himself with staying where he was through the winter
and drilling his troops to fight Indians. On Christmas day a detach-
ment readied the St. Clair battlefield, and after gathering up and
burying the whitened bones, in which were counted six hundred
skulls, Fort Recovery was built upon the scene of disaster.
The West, which then meant mainly Kentucky, was cheered and
encouraged to allegiance to the Union by these movements for pro-
tection from Indian hostility, hut in the East there was grumbling
at the expense of the war. Political excitement ran high. The
Federalists, committed to Alexander Hamilton's policy of a strong
central government and financial system, were accused by the Repub-
licans and Democrats of aristocratic monarchical tendencies. The
rancorous disputes were intensified by the culmination of the French
*This great council included the Iroquois and Maumee confederacies, Wyan-
dots. Delawares. Shawanees. Pottowatomies. Chippewas and other tribes of
the north, and the Cherokees and Creeks of the south.
138 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
revolution in the Terror of 170.°), which disgusted the Federalists
with republicanism in Europe, while the Democrats continued warm
friends of France and began to urge an alliance with that country
against England. Even Jefferson, secretary of state, became in-
volved in this sentiment. President Washing-ton was insulted and
maligned because he held the country firmly to neutrality in relation
to England, France and Spain. In Georgia he was burned in effigy.
The French determined to force the United States into war against
Spain as well as England. In IT!*:! a French embassy was in Ken-
tucky to organize an army to drive the Spanish from the Missis-
sippi valley, and George Rogers Clark came into prominence again
as a proposed leader in this movement. With the title of major-gen-
eral in the army of France, and "commander-in-chief of the French
revolutionary legions on the Mississippi river," he published a call
for volunteers in the first Ohio newspaper, the "Centinel of the
Northwest Territory."*
In April, 1794, Governor Dorchester, who had told the Indians
that the encroachments of the Americans could no longer be endured,
sent Colonel Simcoe to build a British fort at the rapids of the Mau-
mee. There could be no stronger encouragement of the red men to
war. In the following month a messenger from the Spanish col-
onies appeared to tell the northwestern Indians that the great Creek
nation of the south would join with them in an united effort to
destroy the power of the English. Thus the strength of the red men
of the West, which had sufficed so far to hold the United States in
check, was urged to renewed exertion by both the English and Span-
ish authorities, one of these pracl ically hostile nations aiming to hold
the great lakes, while the other was determined to retain the com-
mand of the Mississippi and all the gulf coast. The situation was
a critical one, but Washington, firm and steadfast in nature, was
unmoved in the midst of these dangers, to which were added the hos-
tility of the French party and a state of rebellion in western Penn-
sylvania. He held Wayne steady to the one purpose of occupying
the seat of Indian power on the Maumee, forbidding all raids and
side campaigns, and John Jay was sent to Europe to negotiate for
the removal of the British posts and the acquirement of commercial
rights "ii the Mississippi. If Wayne had failed Jay might also have,
failed, but Wayne was winning his victory by training his soldiers
till through the winter in the realities of war. not in the silly show
of militia parade; teaching them to fight from the shelter of trees
and stumps, to hit what they shot at, to fire and charge to a more
advanced shelter, to throw up log breastworks on a moment's notice,
*The first issue of this paper, printed in large type on coarse paper, was
dated at Cincinnati. November 9, 1793. In 1796 it was changed to Freeman's
Journal.
THE CONQUEST OF OHIO. I39
just as the American volunteer soldier had to learn over again half
a century later.
A very important part of Wayne's army were the scouts, of which
there were two commands, under Ephraim Kibbey, one of the first
settlers of Columbia, and William Wells, lately a captive among the
Indians, who had married a sister of Little Turtle, and fought
against the whites during the Harmar and St. Clair campaigns.
With Wells there were three other men who should be as famous as
tin' "Three Musketeers'' of Dumas: Henry Miller, Christopher
Miller, his brother, added to the party during the campaign by cap-
ture from the Indians, of whom he was at first a faithful ally, and
Robert McClelland, a scout who had come to Cincinnati in 1791, and
was famous for his ability to jump over a team of oxen. His later
career as an explorer of Oregon, is told by Washington Irving.
In the meantime the little Ohio colonies had to keep under arms
to protect their homes. At Cincinnati Secretary Sargent, acting
governor in the fall of 1792, proclaimed that "the practice of assemb-
ling fur public worship without arms may be attended with most
serious and melancholy circumstances." In the Scioto valley Massie,
aided by Duncan McArthur, a soldier of Harmar's expedition, was
attempting to push his surveys inland, but encountered much Indian
hostility. The Frenchmen brought over by the Scioto company had
established themselves at Gallipolis, four miles below the mouth
of the, Kanawha, and some of them took part in the St. Clair cam-
paign, the Count Malartie particularly distinguishing himself as a
staff officer. But their discontent was increased by an Indian raid
afterward, in which several of them were captured and one scalped.
Even news of the Terror in France did not reconcile them to the dif-
ficulties of frontier life, though their cabin homes were not uncom-
fortable, and their gardening met with success. They were involved
in a vexatious lawsuit to obtain titles to the lands they had bought,
but the Scioto company had totally failed, bad ne lands to deliver to
them, and its chief spirit. Colonel Duer, was put in prison for debt.
Even the Ohio company was struggling for existence. They yet had
no deeds to their lands, and by contract could have none until the sec-
ond payment of $500,000 was paid. On account of the rise in value
of continental securities, the speculation based mi the cheapness of
these securities failed. Putnam and Cutler asked Congress for
relief, and an act was passed in April, 1792, ordering a patent i.>
them for the 750,000 acres paid for. 214,485 more on account of
army bounties, and a gift of L00,Q00 acres to lie divided among actual
settlers.
The famous French philosopher, known as Count de Vblney,
escaped the guillotine in 1 7 '• » 4 by the fall of Robespierre, ami in 1796
went down the Ohio. He described the people at Gallipolis a- for-
lorn and sickly, but, judging from his description, as well off as the
140 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
ordinary frontier settler. A later distinguished visitor was Lonis
Phillippe, afterward the citizen king of France, who was at Gallipolis
in 1798.
The main furore about the Scioto scandal was due to politics. Even
Jefferson rejoiced at the misfortunes of Duer in the panic, of 1792.
While the colonists suffered temporarily on account of failure of title
to land, the Ohio company made an effort to have Gallipolis included
in their donation of land, so that it could be assigned to the French,
and though Congress did not do this, the Ohio company offered the
French a chance at the donation tracts of hundred acre lots, and a
little later (March, 1 7 '. » ."> ) Congress granted them 20,000 acres, now
in Scioto county, and 4,000 more to Jean Gabriel Gervaise, the
leader, who proposed to found a town upon it. But the poor adven-
turers were then mostly scattered. At the worst, however, they had
something to be thankful for, as they escaped the Terror and missed
the slaughter of Napoleon's wars. Hypolite de Malartie, an aide-de-
camp with St. Clair in 1791, wrote to the general from Europe five
years later: "I am very sorry I have left America. I have lost my
father; the guillotine has deprived me of a great part of my family,
the rest are in prison. . . . The more I reflect, the more my
country inspires horror . . yours is the only country to live
in." On the other hand. Barlow, who induced these Frenchmen to
seek refuge in Ohio, went back to France a- a diplomat, and died in
the snow while accompanying Napoleon in Russia.
In July, 1793, there were only two hundred and thirty male- over
sixteen years of age in the Ohio Company country, exclusive of the
French at Gallipolis, and the settlers were contracted in narrow
bounds for better protection. The men were organized in militia
companies in the Muskingum and Miami valleys and did faithful
service in keeping the prowling red men at bay. In April, 17 , .'4, an
organization of citizens in Hamilton county offered rewards for
Indian scalps, the highest being $136 for each scalp (with right ear
appendant) of the tir.-t ten Indians killed before Christmas.* Safe
communication with the east was kept up by two keelboats on the
( >hio, gunboats, in fact, with bullet-proof covers and portholes for the
cannon they carried. These boats, propelled by oars up the river
and steered down with the current, made the trip between Cincinnati
ami Wheeling every two weeks, and formed the mail route of
1794-97.
In the early part of 1794 General Wayne continued his prepara-
tions for occupation of the Indian strongholds, though advised that
the British had occupied the new posl on the Maumee and that the
Indians expected not only ammunition and guns from them hut -a
re-inforcemenl of a thousand soldiers. Some of the red men, tatight
'St. Clair Papers.
THE CONQUEST OF OHIO. m
by experience, distrusted the English, ami talked peace. The
Wabash tribes were partly withheld from war by the Putnam treaty,
and others who spied upon Wayne's work in training the troops
became convinced that they would have no opportunity to surprise
him. Wayne's tactics of delay were very much like those of General
Forbes in his successful advance upon Fort DuQuesne. Little Tur-
tle, however, remained undaunted, and on June 30, 1794, he sought
to strike an effective blow by attacking Fort Recovery with a large
party of warriors, aided by some British soldiers. It happened that
Major McMahon with 140 men arrived at the same time, convoying
a supply train, and they fought one day outside the fort and next
day within it. Fortunately the Americans were able to repulse the.
attack, though they lost over fifty killed and wounded, and probably
inflicted a severe punishment upon their enemy. The Indians
expected to find St. Clair's cannon that they had hidden, said Gen-
eral Wayne in his report, ami turn them upon the garrison, but fortu-
nately the American soldiers bad taken care of these beforehand.
About a month later, July 26th, Wayne was reinforced by Gen.
Charles Scott, a Virginia veteran who had settled in Kentucky, with
about sixteen hundred mounted men, among them Maj. William
Clark (brother of the hero of Vincennes) who had fought with St.
Clair and, in later years, made the famous exploration of the Rocky
.Mountains and another Xorthwest. Wayne made feints to deceive
the enemy, sending detachments to cut roads to Kekionga and the foot
of tin 1 rapids, while he should strike directly at the junction of the
Auglaize and Maumee, but a deserter gave the enemy warning, and
when the army marched out from Fort Greenville and reached its
destination August 8th, the villages were found deserted. The line
of march had been wisely chosen. A soldier wrote, "We have
marched four or five miles in corn fields down the Auglaize, and there
is not less than a thousand acres of corn around the town."* Gen-
eral Wayne himself declared: "The margins of these beautiful
rivers, the Miamies of the lake and Auglaize, appear like one contin-
uous village for a number of miles above and below this place, and
I have never before seen such immense fields of corn in any part of
America from Canada to Florida." Availing himself of this abun-
dance, Wayne took time to send out, as commander-in-chief of the
federal army ami commissioner plenipotentiary of the United States,
another offer of peace to the hostiles, declaring that "the arm of the
United States is strong and powerful, but they love mercy ami kind-
aess more than war and desolation." Little Turtle was inclined to
make peace on receiving this message, bu1 the war party overrode his
judgment, and he went to the field with his people. Brant, with his
Mohawks, was at some distance, sick, lie -aid. and never reached the
"Journal of George Will.
142 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
battleground. Waiting for an answer, Fort Defiance was built where
the city of Defiance now perpetuates its name.
Then starting down the Maumee, Wayne was met by hi* envoy
returning with a request that he wait ten days more for an answer.
The general wisely decided to push ahead. On the 12th, after an
advance of forty-one miles along the north side of the Maumee, past
numerous villages of Indians, Canadian French and renegade Eng-
lishmen, all deserted, the army reached a point where there seemed
to be indications of resistance. Halting, a fortified place was made
for the baggage ami sup] dies, called Fort Deposit, and thence the
advance was made August 20th, with Major Price's mounted battal-
ion a good distance in advance to give warning of danger, for the
general was "yet undetermined whether the Indians would decide
for peace or war." After proceeding about five miles Price met a
heavy fire that drove him hack. The Indians, under Little Turtle,
about thirteen hundred strong (according to MeKee), had "formed
in three lines within supporting distance of each other, and extending
for near two miles at right angles with the river."* Tecumseh was
there with the Shawanees, and there was a sprinkling of British to
take part in the killing, as evidenced afterward by their own dead
bodies on the field. The ground was well chosen, covered with
fallen timber, torn up and scattered in every direction by a tornado,
so that cavalry was useless immediately in front.
Wayne formed his legion in two lines, the right wing under Gen-
eral Wilkinson and the left under Colonel Ilamtramck, but even as
he was doing so the red men, while keeping up an effective fire from
the front, pushed out their line to flank the Americans on the left.
The general made his plan of battle in an instant; and his aid. - de-
camp, among them Lieut. William Henry Harrison, were busy
carrying orders to the subordinate commanders. The second line
w-as ordered up to support the first, and Scott was directed to take
the whole force of mounted volunteers by a circuitous route against
the enemy's right flank. To meet the flank movement of the enemy,
next the river, where there was a chance t<> advance the horsemen, he
sent his own trained cavalry under Captain Campbell, and the front
line of infantry was ordered t" charge directly into the face of the
fire, with trailed arms, rout, the enemy from cover with the bayonet,
then fire ;it close quarters, and charge again, loading as they ran.
The men were trained to do this and they did it. The second line
did net have time In take part in the battle; the flank maneuvres were
left far behind, and in an hour the Indians had been driven two miles
by the nine hundred infantry that went after them in such a daring
and effective manner.
Wavno's Iii-s in this decisive victorv, known as the battle of Fallen
►General Wayne's report.
THE CONQUEST OF OHIO. 143
Timbers, was 33 killed, including five officers, and 100 -wounded.
It was Wayne's opinion that the enemy lost more. He reported that
"the woods were strewed for a considerable distance with the dead
bodies of Indians and their white auxiliaries, the latter armed with
British muskets and bayonets."
General Wayne's victorious advance brought his troops almost
within cannon range of the British post, and next day Maj. William
Campbell, the commandant, sent a request to be informed "in what
light he was to view this approach" to a post of his majesty the king
of Great Britain. Wayne retorted that the British commander must
have been able to hear the reason of bis approach in the accents of his
small anus the day before, and if the defeated Indians had taken
refuge in a British fort on American soil it would not have made
much difference in the progress of his victorious command. The
major returned next day that he was anxious to prevent war, and had
forebome to resent the insult to the British flag of armed parties com-
ing within pistol shot, but if the insult should continue he should be
obliged to have recourse to harsh measures. Wayne responded that
the only act of hostility between Great Britain and America within
his purview was Campbell's presumption in occupying a post on
American soil, and ordered him to withdraw forthwith. Campbell
replied, in a much milder tone, that his duty compelled him to re-
main; and thus the correspondence ceased. After burning the
houses and laying waste the cornfields all about the fort, Wayne
marched back to Fort Defiance, sweeping the country clean for many
miles on each side of the Maumee. Fort Defiance was strengthened
and garrisoned, and on September 14th the army mai'ched for the
Kekionga village, where Fort Wayne was then constructed. The
Kentucky volunteers were soon sent home, and early in JSTovember
the main part of the legion was back at Fort Greenville.
Through the following winter Colonel Simcoe, who called the
Indian chiefs together and urged them to continue hostilities, lost in
influence, and Wayne gained. The Maumees whose villages and
fields had been ravaged were dejxmdent on the British altogether for
food, and listened to Simcoe. The Shawanees and Ottawas were also
for war, but the other tribes were divided, and the parties from
beyond the Mississippi soon returned to their homes. John Jay,
meanwhile, was making progress with a treaty, and Simcoe was dis-
gusted by orders to remain quiet. In January, \7U~>, the same month
that it was known in America that Jay had concluded a treaty, the
chiefs of the hostile tribes met Wayne at Greenville to make the pre-
liminary talk for peace. The poor creatures could do nothing else,
for they were on the verge of starvation and their cattle were dying
of hunger. In the following June, while the senate of tin 1 United
States was considering the treaty with England, which provided,
other important features for the evacuation ><( the British
144 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
posts and a northwest boundary, Buckongehelas and Lirtle Turtle
and their parties were trailing in to Greenville. In August the
chiefs of the northwestern tribes, with contending emotions, signed
the terms agreed upon with Wayne, and in the same month President
Washington, in spite of a terrific clamor against Jay's treaty, a
clamor that Hamilton called "a mere ebullition of ignorance, of prej-
udice and of faction," signed the pact with England. This treaty
could not really be effective until the house of representatives bad
voted an appropriation to carry it into effect in the Northwest, and
when the house was asked to do so in the spring of 1796, there was
more probability of nullification of the treaty and war with England
than there was of peace. "The great triumph was won by Fisher
Ames, a Massachusetts Federalist, in a speech before the house on
April 28th, whose effect is kept alive even today among the grandchil-
dren and great-grandchildren of those who heard it and those who
witnessed its effect throughout the land."" Ames stoutly maintained
that the alarm about concessions to England in the treaty was the
product of imagination and prejudice. He appealed to the sense of
interest The western lands must be held and settlement encouraged
that the sales of land might pay the national debt. He appealed to
sympathy for the victims of the savage Indian, for protection to the
families of the settlers; and finally sought to awaken a sense of
national honor. "On a question of shame and honor, reason is some-
times useless and worse. I feel the decision in my pulse : if it
throws no light upon the brain it kindles a fire at the heart." In
those days an orator always had to compete witli classic models, but
Fisher Ames was said to have equalled Demosthenes and Cicero.
Better yet. the vote taken after the speech showed a majority of two
in favor of taking possession of the West according to the temis of
the -lay treaty. By this narrow margin it was settled that the West
should be saved, and that the clamor that would have thrown the
United States under the influence of her most dangerous enemies,
France and Spain, should yield to the firmness of Washington.
The treaty made by General Wayne provided for an Indian bound-
ary in Ohio as established by the treaty of Fort Harmar. Between
the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas and the Maumee and Miami, south to
the line from Fort Laurens to Loramie's store, the Indians were to
retain possession, and besides that they were to bold the title to all
the rest of the country, west of a line from Fort Recovery to the
mouth of the Kentucky river, and west and northwest of the Maumee,
excepl ("lark's grant on the Ohio river ami certain reservations about
Detroit and the fort- in Ohio and other parts of the Northwest, with
the understanding that when they should sell lands, it should be to
the United States alone, whose protection the Indians acknowledged,
*Winsor's Westward Movement
THE CONQUEST OF OHIO. 145
and that of no other power whatever. There was to be free passage
along the Maumee, Auglaize, Sandusky and Wahash rivers and the
lake. Twenty thousand dollars worth of goods were at once deliv-
ered tn the Indians, and a promise was made of $9,500 worth every
year forever.
A treaty with Spain about the same time opened the Mississippi
tn the river boats from the Ohio, and provided a place of deposit at,
"Xew Orleans, hut while this satisfied the demands of the Kentucky
people, there was danger in the situation. Freedom of trade on the
Mississippi might increase the disposition to separate the nation
along that formidable harrier to trade and travel, the Alleghany
ridge. The French, amused in national spirit by the victories of the
republic, were looking with longing eyes at their ancient province
of Louisiana. "The possession of Louisiana by the French,'' said
Rochefoucault Liancourt, "would set bounds to the childish avarice
of the Americans, who wish to grasp at everything.*' In 1796, the
French minister sent Gen. Victor Collot down the Ohio to view the
situation. The philosopher Volney earnestly denied that he was a
spy, but hi' happened along about that time also, and Michaux, the
noted French botanist, bad been studying the trees of the Ohio valley.
If the French gained control of the country west of the Mississippi,
it was seriously to lie feared that Kentucky and Tennessee, influ-
enced by the strong French sentiment of the "Jacobins," would make
a union with that domain. There was also talk of British ambition
in the valley. Dr. Conolly again appeared, examining a route for
an expedition against New Orleans, England having declared war
against Spain in October, 1796, and a little later, Senator Blount,
of Tennessee, was expelled from Congress for alleged complicity in
a British plot in the west.
In December, 1796, General Wayne, on his wa y from Detroit to
Philadelphia, was taken with fever and died in a cabin at or near
Presque Isle (Eric), at the age of fifty-one. lie was succeeded by
Gen. James Wilkinson, lately devoted to the cause of Spain. Caron-
delet, the governor of Louisiana, counseled by Chief Justice Sebas-
tian, of Frankfort, Ky., a man in the hire of Spain, sent an emissary
into the Ohio valley to ascertain the disposition of the people toward
the formation of a new and independent republic, which Carondelet
had no doubt that Wilkinson, "through vanity." would be glad to
promote. "The people are discontented with the new taxes," said
Carondelet. "Spain and France are enraged at the connection of
the United State> with England ; the army i- weak and devoted to
Wilkinson; the threats of Congress authorize me to succor, mi the
spot, and openly, the western states; the ney will oo1 he wanting;
nothing more will he required bu1 an instant of firmness and resolu-
tion to make the people of the west perfectly happy." Tin'!" !
1-10
240 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
dollars, in sugar barrels, were to l>e sent to General Wilkinson.
Thomas Power, the emissary, visited Wilkinson at Detroit with an
official communication that masked his errand, but he found the Ken-
tuckians indisposed to revolt. The government at Washington, being
informed of his mission, ordered his arrest, but he was escorted to the
frontier by an officer. Wilkinson soon afterward received a remit-
tance of specie, which was said to be the returns from a tobacco ven-
ture. Another messenger with money was murdered on the way. One
must study this complicated situation and comprehend the real dan-
ger at that time that Ohio and the Northwest would be detached from
the Union, to realize the value of Wayne's conquest of Ohio, and the
treaties with England and Spain. One may also with such prepara-
tion read with some understanding the great farewell address of
George Washington, delivered September 17. 1 7 '. » 7 , witli its elabor-
ate argument for union of the country in a nation, and for a decent
.self-respect among the people that should prevent them lending
themselves to the intrigues of foreign nations. To the Wesl lie
pointed out that *'it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of
indispensable outlet for its own productions to the weight, the influ-
ence and the future maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the
Union, directed by an indissoluble community of interest as one
nation." This league of East and West and commercial unity,
preached by Washington, was in later years perfected by the intro-
duction of canals, lake steamers and railroads, and saved the Union
from its greatest danger. "Any other tenure by which the West can
hold this essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate
strength [secession], or from an apostate and unnatural connection
with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious."
By this time the fruit of the policy of Washington had ripened.
Nothing more was heard of British invasion. Congress was aide to
set up the territory of Mississippi, to which Winthrop Sargent was
sent a- governor, William Henry Harrison, now a captain and com-
mandant at Fort Washing-ton, who had married Anna, daughter of
Judge Symmes, succeeding him as secretary of the Northwest ter-
ritory. General Wilkinson, who must have smiled at his situation,
took possession of Natchez in the name of the United States, and
another great step was completed in the struggle for freedom from
foreign control.
CHAPTER VII.
FROM TERRITORY TO STATE.
Progress of Settlement — The Connecticut Reseeve — Oppo-
sition to St. Clair — Beginning of Representative Gov-
ernment — Movement for Statehood — "Monarchists and
Jacobins" — The Enabling Act — Constitutional Conven-
tion — End of St. Clair's Administration.
ITII the treaty of Greenville concluded and the probabil-
ity that it settled forever the status of the Indians in
the Northwest, the Pennsylvania "whiskey" rebellion
squelched in 1794, peace with England assured by the
Jay treaty, and a promise from the Spanish government in the same
year to yield free use of the Mississippi, the United States was at
greater liberty for peaceful development toward the close of Wash-
ington's administration. Consequently there was a considerable
revival of immigration in Ohio.
In April, l7'.Ki, a Presbyterian colony collected from Bourbon
county. Ivy., and Pennsylvania, under the leadership of Rev. Rob-
ert W. Finley,* having sold or freed such slaves as they owned, rein-
forced the Massie settlement in the Virginia tract, and in the same
year Massie platted the town of Chillicothe, on the west side of the
Scioto, where by fall there were twenty cabins. These pioneers
were reinforced, notably in the spring of 1708, from the Shenan-
doah valley.
Edward Tiffin, bom at Carlisle. Eng., January 10, 1766, came to
Philadelphia in boyhood with his people, studied medicine, and
began bis practice when- his father had settled, at Charleston, in the
valley of Virginia. His bouyant spirits, handsome person and ele-
gant manners made him very popular, ami in 17v> he married Mary,
daughter of Col. Robert Wbrthington, a wealthy planter. With his
*In the previous year, while Wayne was treating with the Indian chiefs.
Finley and a party of sixty, while going into Ohio, had attacked a camp of
Indians, and after some fighting were compelled to return to Kentucky.
General Wayne wrote a sharp letter to St. Clair about it. This was the last
of the Indian fights.
14S CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
brother-in-law, Thomas Worthington, and their families, he came
to Ohillicothe in 1798, and the two at once became leaders in the set-
tlement, and friends of Massie, then the greatest landowner in Ohio.
Worthington had "a little army of negroes, who had been freed, but
who were brought as servants to the new home.*
In IT'.m; Ebenezer Zane made a contract with the national govern-
ment to cut a road for a mail route from Wheeling to Limestone on
the Ohio, his compensation for the same and maintaining ferries to
be three sections of land on his mad. which he selected, one opposite
Ohillicothe, one at "Standing Rock" on the Hockhocking, determin-
ing the site of Lancaster, and the other on the Muskingum, at the
site of Zanesville. For some time afterward the road was passable
only for horsemen.
Francis Baily, an English astronomer, came down the Ohio soon
after the visit of Yolney (1797), and found Cincinnati a town of
three or four hundred houses, mostly frame, and busy as the great
military depot and capital of the west. The tract of conn try between
the two Miamis was the "only properly settled country on the north
side of the Ohio," he declared. "There are a few scattered planta-
tions along the banks of the Ohio and on some of the rivers that run
into it, yet they are too widely diffused to assume any corporate form,
or to vie with each other in a spirit of industry and civilization.
This little Mesopotamia may he said to he the most attractive part
of the whole Northwest territory."
Judge Symmes, though his purchase had been reduced to less than
300,000 acres, was selling lands far to the north, and Governor St.
Clair, Generals Jonathan Dayton and .lames Wilkinson and Israel
Ludlow purchased a tract on which was platted the city of Dayton,
which was settled in April, 1796. There was no right on Symmes'
part to convex-, hut Congress granted the settlers pre-emption rights
in 1799.
In Clermont county there was a notable settlement of people from
south of the Ohio who disliked slavery, largely dominated by Francis
McCormick, a soldier of the Revolution, who founded the first Meth-
odist church, and preached with great force as early as IT'. 1 ". With
him was associated Philip Gatch, a Methodist preacher from Mary-
land who hail suffered the martyrdom of tar and feathers, ami was
elected to the first constitutional convention of Ohio because he
opposed slavery.
By the -lav treaty the British posts were to he abandoned on or
before .Tune 1, 1796, and in July, when the United States demanded
a fulfillment of the treaty, the transfer was made and General
Wayne moved his headquarters to the neighborhood of the great
lake-. In the absence of Governor St. Clair Secretary Sargent went
■Chelocotlie Souvenir." by a granddaughter of Worthinston.
FROM TERRITORY TO STATE. 149
to Detroit, and on August 15, 1796, proclaimed the county of Wayne,
which included, besides what is now parts of Michigan, Indiana,
Illinois and Wisconsin, the north part of Hamilton county, includ-
ing the Indian country in Ohio. There had been great activity in
this region, as lias been noted, in acquiring Indian titles to land.
In 1 7 '- » .""> a scheme was brought before Congress to sell the whole of
lower Michigan to a syndicate, hut as bribery was attempted noth-
ing hut a scandal resulted. The son of John Askin attempted to
take part in the treaty of Greenville as a proprietor in northwestern
Ohio, hut was seized and held in the guardhouse until the treaty was
concluded. Afterward he built a house within the present limits of
Cleveland, west of the river, ami assumed ownership, and intrigued
with the Indians to defeat the purchase of land by the promoters of
settlement in the Western Reserve.
Connecticut had made in 1792 a grant of 500,000 acres in the
Reserve for the benefit of those people, mainly of London, Xorwalk
and Fairfield, Conn., whose homes had been burned by the llritish
during the Revolution, and in 17'.».'i the legislature of that state
offered the remainder for sale, with the provision, afterward
rescinded, that the proceeds should go to the support of the church
in Connecticut. In May, 1795, the legislature again offered the
land, decreeing that the proceeds should he appropriated to the main-
tenance of schools, and a sale being effected under that law, the
school fund of Connecticut was thereby founded. The sale occurred
in September, without survey or measurement of the land, to thirty-
five purchasers who severally promised to pay sums aggregating
$1,200,000, each of the thirty-five purchasers, who represented a
larger number of people, to receive a deed for as many twelve hun-
dred-thousandths of the land as he agreed to pay dollars. The area
was estimated at four million acres, and though it turned out to he
less than three million, it was the largest land s a le ever perfected in
Ohio. It will be noted that the plan rested upon individual respon-
sibility, not upon the speculative ability of a company, as in the case
of the Ohio and Miami companies, ami performance was made of
the contract.
At the head of the purchasers, who were not incorporated, was
Oliver Phelps, one of the greatest land speculator- of that time, and
hi- associates included citizens of New York and Massachusetts as
well as of Connecticut. On September •".. 1 T '.*-"» , the syndicate
adopted articles of association, but no formal incorporation was ever
made. The stock was divided into four hundred shares of $3,000
each, it was determined to survey the land in townships five miles
square,* and it was agreed to reserve six townships for the associa-
*This township has 16,000 acres; the United States survey township
23,040.
150 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
tion, divide four townships into four hundred tracts of 160 acres
to be distributed to shareholders by lot, and divide the residue in
tracts equalized in area to correspond with the quality of the land.
In the spring of 1796, the Wayne treaty having been ratified by the
United States senate in December, and Andrew Ellicott having com-
pleted the west line of Pennsylvania, the Connecticut associates sent
out a party to survey the land, under the leadership of their general
agent, Moses Cleaveland, a lawyer of Canterbury who had served as
a captain in the Revolution, and was a brigadier-general of militia.
At Buffalo a treaty was made with the Iroquois to extinguish their
title in the reserve east of the Cuyahoga for the consideration of
£500 worth of goods, two beef cattle and a hundred gallons of whis-
key. Part of the surveyors followed the Indian trails westward, and
part coasted along Lake Erie in boats, the fifty-two meeting at Con-
neaut Creek, July 4th, and joining in a hearty celebration of the
day. On the 22d of the same month they reached the month of the
Cuyahoga, where a city was platted as the capital of the domain and
named Cleaveland, in honor of the leader.*
At this period, in the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio,
there was no fixed -cat of government. St. Clair resided at Cincin-
nati, t where the offices wore, hut the governor and two judges pro-
mulgated laws wherever they might happen to he assembled. Before
the year 1795 no laws were, strictly speaking, adopted from old State
laws. Most of them were framed by the governor and judges to
answer particular public ends; while in the enactment of others,
including all the laws of 1702, the secretary of the territory dis-
charged under the authority of Congress, the functions of the gov-
ernor. Parsons, Symmes and George Turner were the judges until
the death of Parsons, when Rufus Putnam succeeded him and served
until he was made surveyor-general of the territory in 17'."!. and
Joseph Oilman took his place at the (dose of that year. Return
Jonathan Meigs, Jr., took the place of Turner in February, L798.
It has been stated that the original judges, by deciding to enact
new laws, instead of adopting old laws of the states, assumed abso-
lute powers not contemplated by the ordinance. At the close of
1794, Governor Si. Clair, writing to Thomas Jefferson, then secre-
tary of state, pointed out in a characteristic manner another peculiar
circumstance. "The principal settlement- have been made in tracts
of land purchased by certain companies or associations of persons,
the Ohio company and Miami company. Tn both those associations
the management of the directors and agent- are thought to have laid
♦The name of the city appears both Cleveland and Cleaveland on the first
plats, and was spelled both ways, but officially Cleaveland, until about 1S33,
when the newspapers dropped th< superfluous a.
fThe governor had adopted a territorial seal, with one tree growing, and
another felled, and the motto "Meliorem lapsa locavit."
FROM TERRITORY TO STATE. 151
the foundation of endless disputes. General Putnam has been the
active director in the first association, and Mr. Symmes the princi-
pal if not the sole agent in the second, and they are both judges of
the supreme court. Every land dispute will be traced to some trans-
action of the one or the other of these gentlemen, and they are to sit
in judgment on them."
In 1795 the governor and judges undertook to revise the terri-
torial laws and establish a complete system of statutory jurispru-
dence, by adoptions from the laws of the original states, in strict
conformity with the provisions of the ordinance of 1787. For this
purpose St. Clair, Symmes and Turner met at Cincinnati and organ-
ized as a legislature May 29th, and continued in session until the
latter part of August. "The judiciary system underwent some
changes. The general court was fixed at Cincinnati and Marietta,
and a circuit court was established with power to try in the several
counties issues in fact depending before the superior tribunal, where
alone causes could be finally decided. Orphans' courts were estab-
lished, with jurisdiction analogous to, but more extensive than that
of a judge of probate. Laws were also adopted to regulate judgments
and executions, for the limitation of actions, for the distribu-
tion of intestate estates, and for many other general purposes. Fin-
ally, as if with a view to create some great reservoir from which
whatever principles and powers had been omitted in the particular
acts might be drawn according to the exigency of circumstances, the
governor and judges adopted a law providing that the common law
of England and all general statutes in aid of the common law, prior
to the fourth year of James I, should be in full force in the territory.
The law thus adopted was an act of the Virginia legislature, passed
before the declaration of independence, and at the time of its adop-
tion had been repealed so far as it related to the English statutes.
The other laws of 1705 were principally derived from the statute
book of Pennsylvania. The system thus adopted was not without
many imperfections and blemishes; but it may be doubted whether
any colony, at so early a period after its establishment, ever had
one so good."* This body of law, as published, was known as the
Maxwell code
The settlement of the territory was hampered now. a- St. Clair
wrote in 1707, by the land law that at first encouraged the great com-
panies. The people also felt the ordinance of 17 x 7 as oppressive of
liberty. The restraints upon an "uninformed and perhaps licentious"
people, as Richard Henry Lee imagined the settlers would be, were
onerous, at least in the principle involved, and Governor St. Clair,
who represented the autocratic government prescribed by the ordi-
nance, began to suffer in popular esteem for his zealous attention to
'Salmon P. Chase, in his sketch of the history of Ohio.
152 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OP OHIO.
administration. In 17'.».') the judges of Hamilton county, commis-
sioned by Secretary Sargent, in the absence of St. Clair, "(hiring
the pleasure of the governor," indignantly refused their commissions.
They "would not stoop to holding office, the tenure of which is dur-
ing pleasure,*' though the ordinance fixed no other limit. After
the Symmes patent was issued in 1794, providing for one township
to be set apart for a seminary, St. Clair was compelled to be dis-
agreeably insistent to have such a reservation actually saved. A
few years later we find Judge Symmes declaring: "We shall never
have fair play while Arthur and his 'knights of the round table'
sit at the head."
On account of the Virginian settlement Adams county was created
duly 10, IT'.tT, from Washington and Hamilton, including the
French grant, ami extending from the Ohio river to the Greenville
treaty line, or Wayne county. Nathaniel Massie, appointed colonel
of militia and magistrate in this county, attempted to change the
county seat from Adamsville to Manchester, leading the governor
to rebuke the effort to override his authority. .Massie had a strong
friend in Worthington, of whom St. Clair complained for high
handed conduct regarding the land laws and rights of settlers.*
Tiffin was of course enlisted in the cause of Worthington, and there
soon resulted a formidable opposition to the governor. Associated
in this movement were William Creighton, a Virginian who settled
at Chillicothe in 1799, practiced law, and was a social favorite; Jos-
eph Kerr, of Chillicothe, a young man of Irish parentage; Samuel
Finley, of Chillicothe; Joseph Darlinton, one of the pioneers of
Adams county; John Smith, who became the Baptist minister at
Columbia in 1790, a man of "noble and commanding presence, popu-
lar manners ami remarkably fascinating address; William Goforth,
of Hamilton county; Francis Dunlavy, a Scotch-Irishman of the
Shenandoah valley, who had been with Crawford in the Sandusky
expedition, and came to the site of Lebanon in 1797 and taught
school with John Reily; Jeremiah Morrow, another pioneer of what
is now Warren county, a canny Scotch-Irishman, horn in Pennsyl-
vania; Return Jonathan ^\Ieigs. dr., of Marietta, who made a break
in the Federal ranks on the Muskingum; and Michael Baldwin, of
Chillicothe, of Connecticut descent, a lawyer and powerful leader
of the carousing ami gambling element.
These leaders were Republicans, as the party of Thomas Jefferson
was called, and St. Clair was an earnesl Federalist The partisan
Federalist lumped Republicans and Democrats together as "Jaco-
bins," friends of the French revolution ami French atheism, and
enemies of the conservative institutions of the Union; while the
partisan Republican called the Federalists friends of Great Britain;
'Address by William Henry Smith. "Monarchists and Jacobins."
FROM TERRITORY TO STATE. 153
"aristocrats," who would oppress the country with a regular army
and powerful navy, perhaps to establish a monarchy. The Feder-
alist dreaded Republican supremacy as an end to "law and order,"
and the Republican burned for relief from Federalist "despotism."
There has never been more bitter partisanship in the United States
than then existed. It was not felt in Ohio when John Adams was
elected president. Judge Burnet was able to recollect only four
men in his neighborhood who favored Jefferson in opposition to
Adams. They were good ones, however — Major Zeigler,* William
Henry Harrison, William McMillan ami John Smith. But party
spirit rapidly rose during Adams' administration. The "alien and
sedition laws." intended by the Federalists to crush French intrigue,
by invading the liberty of the press insured the triumph of the oppos-
ing party. As St. Clair wrote a pamphlet defending these obnoxious
laws, and was praised therefor by John Adams, the opposition nat-
urally directed toward his gray head their vials of wrath. Across
the river the Kentuckians asserted the right of nullification. North-
west of the Ohio, tlie Federalists were strongest <>n the Muskingum,
fairly held their own on the Miami, had many friends at Detroit,
and were being reinforced by the pioi r settlers of the Western
reserve, but on the Scioto the Republicans were supreme, and their
strength was not insignificant in all the other settlements, fostered
by the organization of Republican clubs, and the general desire for
greater political rights, for which people looked to statehood and the
success of the Republican party, though, in fact, the South, where
that party was strongest, had control of Congress when the objec-
tionable plan of government was framed in 1787.
It is difficult to determine lnnv much influence the institution of
slavery had in this political dissension in the Northwest territory.
There were petitions to Congress for the suspension of the prohibi-
tion of slavery in 1796, and again in 1T'.I'.> by Virginia officers who
proposed to settle in the Military tract, but St. Clair himself had
given the ordinance a liberal construction further -west. When the
people of the Vincennes and Illinois country, where negro slaves
had been introduced by shipmenl from San Domingo in L726,f
anxiously inquired about their rights under the ordinance of 1TS7,
St. Clair advised them that the sixth article was not retroactive but
prospective, and that Congress had not intended to abolish slavery
already existing in the territory. Neither was slavery interfered
*Zeigler, a native of Germany, had the reputation of having served under
Frederick the Great and Catherine of Russia, was a gallant soldier of the
Revolution, and captain in the single regiment of the regular army formed
later under Harmar. He served in Harmar's campaign, commanded Fort
Harmar and afterward Fort Washington and was the first United States
marshal of Ohio.
f Governor Reynolds, "My Own Times."
154 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
with at Detroit, where there were so many Pani Indians held in that
condition that the word Pani (Pawnee) came to be a common name
for slaves of any color.* At Detroit, however, property in slaves
was considered to have the protection of the Jay treaty. A few
years later St. Clair intimated that the "institution" was somewhat
involved in the fight, saying: "Kepublicans ! What is a Repub-
lican '. Is there a single man in all this country that is not a repub-
lican, both in principle and practice, except perhaps a few people
who wish to introduce negro slavery amongst us, ami those chiefly
residents of Puss county ?"f But when he said this St. Clair was
making his last desperate appeal for support
The creation of new T counties meanwhile went on, Jefferson being
established July 20, 1707, from the northern part of Washington,
including the Western reserve east of the Cuyahoga, with Steuben-
ville as the county seat. A year later, June 22, 1708, Hamilton
county was extended westward to the Greenville treaty line, and
August 20, 1798, Ross county, named for James Poss, of Pennsyl-
vania, was set off from the northern part of Adams.
From the- organization of the Territory in 1788 it had had no rep-
resentation in Congress, or any representative government. Such
were the restrictions of the ordinance of 1787. Xow an effort was
made toward self-government, and in 1708 a census was taken, which
showed more than "five thousand free male inhabitants of full aire"
in the Northwest territory. The governor accordingly proclaimed
an election on the third Monday of December, for the choice of a
house of representatives in the general assembly to which the district
was entitled at that stage of development. As the framers of the
ordinance had provided, such of the five thousand "free males'' as
owned fifty acres of land w 7 ere entitled to vote, and those who owned
two hundred acres were eligible to office. Following the plan of the
ordinance, the house of representatives met at Cincinnati January
22, 1799, nominated ten persons as candidates for the upper house,
or legislative council, and from these ten President John Adams
selected five. First was Jacob Burnet, a young, swarthy, black-eyed
gentleman, son of the surgeon-general of Washington's army, who
had graduated at Princeton, and come to Cincinnati to practice law.
He wore his hair in a queue and was a thorough Federalist. The
others were James Findlay, of Cincinnati, another young gentleman,
twenty-nine years of age, rather austere, like Burnet, and a Federal-
ist, scion of a prominent family in Pennsylvania : Henry Vanderburg,
whose history belongs to the Indiana country that be repre-
sented; Col. Robert Oliver, of Washington county, an Irish seldier
of the Revolution, who succeeded Parsons as a director of the Ohio
* Hinsdale's "Old Northwest."
tHis speech at Cincinnati, 1802
FROM TERRITORY TO STATE. 15 5
company, and David Vance, of Jefferson county. On September 24,
1799, the legislature was organized at Cincinnati, with the executive
council so appointed, which elected Vanderhurg as its president, and
the lower house chosen by the people, with the following members:
Hamilton county: William Goforth, William McMillan,* John
Smith, John Ludlow, Robert Benham, Aaron Caldwell, Isaac Mar-
tin. Ross county: Thomas Worthington. Samuel Finley, Elias
Langham, Edward Tiffin. Wayne county [Detroit] : Solomon Sib-
ley, Charles F. Chaubert de Joncaire, Jacob Visger. Adams
county: Joseph Darlinton, Nathaniel Massie. Jefferson county:
James Pritchard. Washington county: Return Jonathan Meigs.
Knox county (west of Ohio) : Shadrach Bond.
Edward Tiffin, of Chillicothe, already to be reckoned in opposi-
tion of the governor, was elected speaker of the house. Of the council
Henry Vanderhurg was president and William C. Schenck, secre-
tary. The duty of the new legislature in which the greatest inter-
est was taken was the election of a delegate to Congress, who, though
denied a vote in that body, would be allowed to speak in behalf of
his constituents. Two candidates led the field : one, Capt. William
Henry Harrison, secretary of the Territory, and son-in-law of Judge
Symmes ; the other, Arthur St. Clair, Jr., son of the governor. Har-
rison was elected by a majority of one vote.
The relations of the governor and legislature were marked by
great courtesy and ceremony. He addressed each house, recom-
mending legislation, and received a response from each, to which he
replied, and then this first legislature in Ohio went to work, amend-
ing or repealing existing laws and providing new oiks, the council
depending on Jacob Burnet almost entirely to draft the bills originat-
ing in that body.f The whole number of acts passed and approved
by the governor was thirty-seven. Of these the most important
related to the militia, to the administration of justice and to taxa-
tion. Justices of the peace were authorized to hear and determine
all actions upon the case, except trover, and all actions of debt, except
upon bonds for the performance of covenants, without limitation as
to the amount in controversy, and a regular system of taxation was
established. The tax for territorial purposes was levied upon lands,
that for county purposes upon persons, personal property and houses
and lots. One of the petitions presented was for authority to make
a lottery at Chillicothe to raise $3,000 for the purpose of erecting a
Presbyterian church, and it is a memorable lesson in government
that this prayer was granted by the council of men sifted out by
legislature and president, while the house elected directly by the
people rejected it.
* William McMillan, a native of Virginia, was a college bred man. one of
the first settlers of the Miami country, and a man of a high order of talent,
t Letters of Judge Burnet.
156 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Notwithstanding the violence of political spirit an address of con-
fidence and congratulation was addressed to President Adams,
though five members voted in opposition, and there was generally a
feeling of attachment to Governor St. Clair, but the latter, by the
close of the session, had greatly injured his political strength.
Under tlie ordinance of 1787 he suffered very little dimunition in
absolute power by the change to a government more popular in form,
for lie retained the right to veto any hill passed by the legislature,
without that, body having any power of overriding his veto. Conse-
quently the governor vetoed eleven hills, and it is an index to his
want of tact that, resting on the letter of the ordinance, he gave no
sign to the legislature of his reasons for disapproval until the end of
the session. Though the legislature could not pass a hill over his
veto, yet the prompt communication of his objections would have
been a courteous recognition of their undoubted power to enact
another hill on the same subject. But the governor preferred to
stand alone in the maintenance of his peculiar privileges, and some
friends he might have held went over to the opposition.
The most important vetoes, those that excited most criticism,
were due to the movement, now begun, for the organization of a
State. The Scioto valley people led in advocating this for various
reasons, not the least of which was the need of another Republican
state for the election of a president, and St. < 'lair and the Federalists
opposed it for the same reason, as Ohio had very much tin 1 appear-
ance of Republican control. For political reasons, the governor
opposed any steps toward statehood, and favored division into smaller
territories, and enough of them to indefinitely postpone admission of
any one, or, if one must he admitted, such a boundary as to make it
probably Federalist. Consequently he vetoed a hill for a census of
the "eastern division" of the territory, because no such division was
yet recognized by Congress. He found authority in the language of
the ordinance, also, to retain control of the formation of new coun-
ties, a powerful weapon in the hands of the legislature, and vetoed
bills to set off a new county from Hamilton and Adams, ami create
the county of Clark in the Western reserve. These two matters,
territorial and county division, became the main stibjects of politi-
cal dispute throughout the territory. St. Clair wrote letters, unfor-
tunately, and even that to Delegate Harrison was given to the public.
To Senator .lames Ross he wrote that "a multitude of indigent and
ignorant persons are hut ill-qualified to form a constitution and gov-
ernment for themselves. They are too far removed from the -eat
of government to he much impressed with the power of the United
Slate-. Their connection with any id' them is very slender. mau\ of
them having left nothing hut creditors behind them, whom they
would willingly forget entirely. Fixed political principles they have
none; though at firsl they seem attached to the general government
FROM TERRITORY TO STATE. I57
it is in fact but a passing- fancy . . . and there are a "good
many who hold sentiments in direct opposition to its principles.
Their government would most probably be democratic in
form and oligarchic in its execution, and more troublesome ami more
opposed to the measures of the United States than even Kentucky."
Hence the governor urged a division of the territory, in order to
"keep them in the colonial stage for a good many years to come." He
had already suggested certain lines of division to Secretary of State
Pickering, but on reflection changed Ins mind, because '"the eastern
division would be surely Federal," and "the design would be too
evident." The line he favored would put Hamilton and Wayne
counties in the western territory. The Ross county people urged a
division on the Great Miami line. "Their views are natural and
innocent enough," said the governor, "they look no further than giv-
ing the capital to Chillicothe ;" but St. Clair suggested that such a
division would not retard the admission of a state, and that the state
thus formed Avould be "democratic and unfriendly to the United
States."
It is to be said in mitigation of St. Clair's apparent disposition to
class his political opponents as enemies of the United States, that he
meant by "democratic," thai party (somewhat distinct from the J< f-
fersonian "Republicans") then known as Democrats because of
French sympathy, who were blamed with the rebellion in Pennsyl-
vania and the famous "nullification" resolutions of Kentucky, and
the discontent that was relied upon by Miro and Carondelet to induce
tin 1 secession of the West. He was driven by political bias to accuse
the Ohio settlers of sueh tendencies, and Tiffin and Wbrthington
retorted by accusing him of yearnings for a monarchy. Such was
the politics of that day.
St. Clair, heroic, even to his enemies; "distant, ignored and for-
gotten" by Congress, as he wrote to De Lu/.icre. was doing his besl in
fighting for his party, then at the verge of destruction. Bui he was
not actuated by pettj selfishness, always neglected opportunities for
persona] gain, and found "an infinity of enjoyment in repressing
the vices of society and leading his people to public happiness by vir-
tue." lie urged upon Harrison the need of reform in the land laws,
and the latter was duly credited with a new law. permitting the
sale of half the public land in tracts as small as .".20 acres on easy
terms of payment, and establishing four land offices, at Cincinnati,
Chillicothe, Marietta and Steubenville.
To Harrison the governor addressed himself quite otherwise than
to lloss, on the subject of territorial division, in February, 1800,
advising a triple partition, on the Scioto and a line north from the
mouth of the Kentucky river, making the capital-. Marietta. Cincin-
nati and Vincennes. "Almost any division into two parts would
ruin Cincinnati," la' shrewdly suggested to the son-in law of Judge
158 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Symmes. But Congress wisely decided to carry on the work of par-
tition. Laying the foundations of new .-rare-, after the advice of the
always level-headed Washington, in conformity with the natural
groupings of population. By the act approved May 7, 1800, the
Northwest territory was cut in two by setting off Indiana territory
west of the line of Wayne's treaty, running from a point opposite
the mouth of Kentucky river to Fort Recovery, and thence due north
to the Canada line. The region eastward remained under the title
■of the territory northwest of the River Ohio, witli the provision that
when admitted as a state it should lie with the same bounds, and the
capital was fixed, until the legislature should otherwise order, at
Ohillicothe. This was a great victory for the Chillicothe party.
While it was also a victory fm- the Republican party, "the design,"
to cpiote the words of the governor, was not "too evident." There
remained a chance of Federalist control in the eastern territory as
long as Wayne county, including what is now eastern Michigan, was
part of the domain. Another success of the Chillicothe party was
the appointment of Harrison as governor of Indiana territory. To
succeed him as secretary under St. Clair, Charles Willing Byrd had
been appointed, who proved to be thoroughly devoted to the anti-St.
Clair cause. William McMillan, of Cincinnati, was appointed to
Harrison's seat in Congress.
The next most exciting political event in the early part of 1S00
was tin- creation of the new county of Trumbull. During the early
settlement of the Western Reserve, says Col. Charles Whittlesey:
"So little was known of the respective powers of the State and of the
United States under the constitution of 17*7 that many of the set-
tlers thought the land company had received political authority and
could found a new state, and like William Penn, lie proprietors and
governors. It was imagined that the deed of Connecticut conveyed
powers of civil government to the company, and at the Conneaut cele-
bration, the second toast drank was to 'The State of Xew Connecti-
cut.' '' The same misconception may be observed in the early
proceedings of the Ohio company and its settlers. After Jefferson
county was established, and the tax collector went up into the reserve
from Steubenville, he was laughed at for his pains. The settlers had
a notion that their state government was at Hartford, and in the
home state the land company asked the Connecticut legislature to
give a county government to the Western reserve. But the legisla-
ture was doubtful of its authority. This condition of affairs put the
land company in alarm regarding the validity of titles, and John
Marshall, of Virginia, not ye1 chief justice of the United States, was
called upon for an opinion. He held that "As the purchasers of the
land i lmonly called the Connecticut reserve hold their title under
the State of Connecticut they cannot submit to the government estab-
lished by the United State- in the Northwest territory, without
FROM TERRITORY TO STATE. I59
endangering their titles, and the jurisdiction of laws could not be
extended over them without much inconvenience." Congress took
up the matter, and after much animated discussion, threatening to
waken all the old and sleeping colonial disputes, a bill was passed
authorizing a release of the title of the United States in the reserve,
on condition that Com ticut should then in turn relinquish all
claims to territory and jurisdiction, not only in the reserve, hut in a
New York tract where the titles were tied up by litigation. This
bill was approved April 28, 1S00, and upon the carrying out of its
provisions, the Western reserve became subject to the government of
the Northwest territory.* Accordingly, on duly 1(), 1S0O, Gover-
nor St. Clair exercised the privilege that he claimed in opposition to
the legislature, and, after corresponding with Marshall, proclaimed
a new county, including all the Western reserve east and west of the
( luyahoga, and named it in honor of "Brother Jonathan" Trumbull,
fourteen years governor of Connecticut, the famous friend of Wash-
ington and a sturdy Federalist. The county seat was located at
Warren, where there were then two log cabins : the county was organ-
ized in August; and in October, by 38 votes out of a total poll of 42,
the county elected to the legislature another Federalist, Gen. Edward
Paine, a pioneer of the lakeshore settlement that bears his name.
In the same year the United States census was taken, showing a
population in Hamilton county of 14,692, in Jefferson of 8,766, in
Ross of 8,540, in Adam- of 3,432, in Wayne (including Detroil 1 of
3,206, in Washington of 5,427, and in Trumbull of 1,302. The
population was only three-fourths of that required by the ordinance
of L787, "sixty thousand free inhabitants," to be "admitted by its
delegates into the congress of tin- United States on an equal footing
with the original states." Nevertheless the movement for state
organization was well afoot, and was increased in vigor by the organ-
ization of Trumbull county, which the legislature regarded as an
usurpation of its functions. Edward Tiffin and others issued a call
to voters of the territory to instruct their representatives in the next
legislature regarding the propriety of going into a state government,
and this had its answer from tin- Federalists in the resolution
adopted at Marietta (January. 1801 ): "That designing characters
wen- aiming at self-aggrandizement and would sacrifice the riulits
and property of citizens at the shrine of private ambition."
The most effective defense of the governor througlioul thes
putes appeared in a series of letter- to the Gazette at Chillicothe,
♦That part of the reserve west of the Cuyahoga remained in the hands of
Askins and the Indians. Askins making a great effort to gain confirmation
of his claim from Congress, until July. 1805, when the Fire Lands company.
of which the formal title was "the proprietors of the half million acres lying
south of Lake Erie called Sufferers' Land." obtained a deed for the country
from the Indians, and Askins abandoned his contest.
160 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
written by Charles Hammond (born in Maryland, 1779), a young
man then residing at Wheeling. Introduced to Ohio by these elo-
quent letters, he was admitted to the bar at Marietta in 1803, and
then made his home at St. Clairsville, beginning a career as one of
the ablest lawyers and journalists who have ever lived in the State.
When he addressed the second legislature, which met at Chilli-
cothe, November 3, 1800, St. Clair said that "the vilest calum-
nies and the greatest falsehoods" were being circulated to defeat his
reappointment as governor, but he did nor yield an inch in his policy,
and took occasion to freely criticise his enemies in Adams county for
failure to execute the laws and ordinances. The legislature, with
Edward Tiffin as speaker, revealed its independent spirit by ques-
tioning the right of Congress to change the territorial capital;
asserted its exclusive power to erect new comities, and asked the
governor to return vetoed bills to the house within ten days, with his
objections. The governor answered this request with an elaborate
argument in support of his policy, and on December 9th he pro-
claimed two more new counties: Clermont, adjoining the Symmes
purchase, where Philip Gatch of Virginia and John Sargent of Mary-
land, who had freed their slaves before coming, were representative
citizens and afterward delegates to the constitutional convention;
and Fairfield, in what was known as the United States military
lands, east of the Virginia military tract, a region in which Ebenezer
Zane had just founded a town on his Limestone road, calling it Tan-
caster in honor of a party of Pennsylvania settlers.
There was active opposition to the governor's appointment for a
fifth term, which fell in the closing days of John Adams, the plan
being to hang up the appointment so that Secretary Byrd would
become his successor, but the governor adjourned the legislature, so
that the secretary had no authority under the ordinance to act after
the expiration of the governor's term. It was a day of hold and
revolutionary politics. Finally, on the same day that John Mar-
shall became chief justice, St. Clair was renominated as governor.
The national election of L800 resulted in a tie in the electoral vote,
and was thrown into the lower house of Congress, where for a week
the states were divided without a decisive majority, between Thomas
Jefferson, the great statesman who. with hi- hair unpowdered and
without a queue, his democratic loose trousers, and shoes tied with
strings, represented in dress as well as principle the popular spirit of
republicanism and democracy; and Aaron Burr, the brilliant lawyer
and founder ami representative of the New York style id" politics,
whom the Federalists were inclined to support in preference to the
Virginia slaveholder who opposed slavery, plantation lord who advo-
cated the rights of man, and speculative philosopher who hated the
restraints of religious systems. By Jefferson's assurances to Adams
that he hail no intention to repudiate tin public debt and overturn
FROM TERRITORY TO STATE. Id
the constitution, the most daring of the Federalists were held back
from extreme measures which would have imperiled the nation, and
finally the great political revolution was consummated by the quiet
inauguration of Jefferson.
The governor continued to show his disregard of the legislature
by proclaiming, September 7, 1801, the new county of Belmont, com-
prising the southern part of the Seven ranges, with the county seat
at St Clairsville. In the fall of 1801, when the legislature met at
Chillicothe, and Congress at Washington — Paul Fearing,* a friend
of the governor, representing the territory in the latter body — the agi-
tation for statehood by one party and further territorial division by
the other, was resumed. Meanwhile there was a famous conversation
between Governor St. Clair, and his friends, George Tod and Gen-
eral Paine, at the home of Joseph Massie, overheard by Francis Dun-
lavy and Jacob White, on the subject of President Jefferson's first
message. St. Clair's comments were such that the report- got out that
lie utterly despised militia, Jefferson's substitute for a regular army,
and preferred a monarchy to the condition of things into which the
country was drifting.
St. Clair's party was in full control of the council, and twelve to
eight in the house. It was not difficult to pass a resolution, assenting
to a new division of the territory into three parts, the two north and
south lines to be the Scioto river and a line north from ('lark's grant
in Indiana. Practically this was a division of the future state of Ohio
on the Scioto, throwing the Western reserve into the eastern district,
and would postpone the admission of a state for a long time. To-
further sustain this policy an act was passed changing the capital of
the territory from Chillicothe to Cincinnati. This was followed by
a proposition to burn the governor in effigy, which Colonel Worthing-
ton prevented, and on Christmas eve there was a disturbance which
approached the character of a riot.
It was bad politics to persist in this policy of division in the face
of the success of the llepublican party, every day growing stronger
both east and west, but such was the tenacity of St. Clair, who would
go down, if he must, all his colors flying. The leaders of the oppo-
sition, who, according to the governor, were Worthington, Tiffin,
Massie, Darlinton and Michael Baldwin, sent Colonel Worthington
and I'.aldwin to Washington to oppose division and obtain authority
to organize a state east of the Miami line. While they found it easy
to interest the dominant party in their plan, Fearing could qoI hope
to bring any Republicans to his support except those interested in
western lands who wished to avoid stale taxation. f
*Paul Fearing, born in Massachusetts in 1 7 1". 2 . came to Marietta in the
first months of settlement, was the first lawyer admitted to practice in Ohio.
and was prominent as long as the Federalists were in power. He died of
the fatal fevers in 1822.
tFearing's letter to St. Clair, January, 1802.
I— 11
162 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
The Chillicothe '"junta," as the governor called it, also made a
direct attack upon St. Clair. Massie wrote to James Madison, sec-
retary of state, asking the governor's removal because he had advised,
in the letters to Harrison and Pinckney, division of the territory for
political reasons; had demanded and received oppressive fees; had
erected new counties without right; had made public utterances (in
the conversation with Tod and Paine) favoring monarchical govern-
ment, and because he had attempted to influence justices of the peace
in their performance of duty. Colonel Worthington elaborated the
charges, also accusing the governor of attempting to create and attach
to himself a political party.
"In case the old man was to be removed,'' who should be governor I
wrote Worthington to Massie,"" suggesting Massie himself, but that
gentleman, never ambitious for office, modestly disclaimed such an
honor. "My first and great wish,'' he wrote, "is to get him from the
head of the government, and then I am sure some suitable person
might be found." But the charges against St. Clair were so flimsy,
ami respect for the old general so profound, that Jefferson, though
anxious to please his friends, contented himself with advising the
defiant governor to yield to the legislature in the matter of new coun-
ties and abolish the rather heavy fees he had established for marriage
and ferry licenses, suggestions that St. Clair promptly accepted.
Spurred to exertion by this personal attack, Sr. Clair went to
Washington in the spring of 1802 to defend himself and tight the
statehood proposition, and four hundred dollars were raised in Cin-
cinnati to send McMillan to assist him. The legislature, meanwhile,
in December, 1801, had been prorogued to meet at Cincinnati in the
fall of 1802. The governor readied Washington too late to counter-
act the work of < 'olonel Worthington, if he could have influenced the
party in power. Worthington labored so earnestly to "terminate the
influence of tyranny," and "ameliorate the circumstances of thou-
sands by freeing them from the domination of a despotic ehief,"t
and was so effectively aided by John Breckinridge, of Kentucky, and
William B. Giles, of Virginia, Jefferson's close friends, that March
4, 1802, a report was made to the house of congress in favor of a
state convention in the Eastern division of the Northwest territory.
It avoided the restriction of the ordinance concerning population by
the hypothesis that since the census of 1S00 the increase east of the
Miami would produce a population of sixty thousand by the time a
state government could be formed.
It is interesting to note, in connection with the study of human
*St. Clair papers.
tSee his letters to Giles and Finley.
FROM TERRITORY TO STATE. 1,33
nature in politics, that the enabling act approved April 30, 1802,*
though enacted by a Republican congress and approved by Jefferson,
maintained without abatement the strong powers of a central govern-
ment cherished by the hated Federalists. It was said to be more
"despotic" than anything the Federalists had attempted. Mr. (iris-
wold, of Connecticut, declared that the bill threatened the consolida-
tion and destruction of all the states ; that the assuming by Congress
of the power to district the Ohio country and apportion the delegates
to the convention was arbitrary and unjust ; that the wdiole enactment
was beyond the power of Congress and an invasion of popular rights,
and that the next thing to be expected would be a similar invasion of
the rights of the states. Mr. Fearing contended that Congress had
the power to waive the requirement of 60,000 population, perhaps,
but it could go no further; but Congress decided that its powers were
unlimited in the territories by a vote of 4-7 to 29 in the house, the
middle and eastern states dividing almost equally on the question,
and the South supplying the decided majority by a vote of 26 to 0.
One of the votes in the negative was cast by Manasseh Cutler, then a
representative from Massachusetts. "This act did not contain a gleam
of what is called popular sovereignty," says Professor Hinsdale. f
"The territorial legislature was wholly ignored. Neither the legis-
lature nor the people themselves were asked to pass mi the question
of entering into a state government. The sole function of the electors
was to vote for members of the convention." But the great majority
of the Ohio people were satisfied to have it so.
Tli is was the first of the "enabling acts.'' Vermont, Kentucky
and Tennessee had been admitted after their people had adopted con-
stitutions and organized state governments without asking permission
from Congress. But the circumstances were different, for those
states had net been formed from territory absolutely under the juris-
diction of Congress. The apparently despotic features were not so
marked in subsequent enabling acts. In the ease of Ohio the Fed-
eralists said at the time, that it was a matter of partisan politics, the
Republicans being ready to invade local rights in order to prevent
Federalist control of the- apportionment of delegates to the conven
tion. The act authorized the inhabitants of the Eastern division to
elect delegates to a convention to determine the expediency of form-
ing a constitution ami state government, and either proceed t" 'In so
or call another convention. Congress prescribed the number of dele-
gates, thirty-five, and apportioned them among the counties: Ham-
ilton 10, Kess .">. Jefferson ■<, Washington 4, Adams 3, Trumbull 2.
Fairfield 2, Clermont 2 ; Wayne being excluded.
sople of theEastern Division of the Ter-
■t of the River < >hio to form a I
r the admission of such St;ite into the
^Entitled, " Anactto e
nabl(
ritory of the United State
- X.
ti"n and State governmi
■at.
Union on an equal footing
r Wit
t'The Old Northwest.'*
1C4 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
In organizing the state, such name might be adopted as deemed
proper, and the state so formed would be admitted to the Union on
the same footing as the original states. The boundary on the west
should be the meridian of the mouth of the Great Miami, and in pur-
suance of the articles of the ordinance of 17 s 7 that permitted divi-
sion into five states, the parallel of the southern extremity of Lake
Michigan should be the northern boundary of the state west of Lake
Erie. This would cut off Detroit and leave the population of the
proposed state Less than 40,000, whereas the ordinance of 17 S 7
required 60,000. But in this regard the ordinance was ignored, as
it has been since then in establishing other state lines, and in forming
six states instead of five. Furthermore Congress proposed three
conditions of admission: Congress would grant the sixteenth or
school sections to the inhabitants of each township, and transfer the
Scioto salt springs reservation to the State, and asked that the State
exempt from taxes all public lands thereafter sold by Congress, for
five years after such sale, on condition that Congress appropriate five
per cent of the receipts from land sales to the building of a highway
from navigable water in the east to and through the State. Until the
next census the State was to he given one representative in Congress,
Then the campaign was on for the election of delegates to the con-
vention. Detroit had no part in it, and was soon mollified by promise
of a new territory of which it should be the capital. St. Clair, re-
turning to the territory, began organizing the opposition to state-
hood, and had grounds to hope that a greal part of Eamilton, all of
Washington and a majority of Jefferson county were with him. A
meeting at Dayton in September unanimously passed resolutions
denouncing the enabling act as an usurpation, hearing a "striking
resemblance" to the tyrannic- of Greal Britain, and demanding that
the coming convention order a new census and a new convention. A
newspaper writer declared statehood was "a scheme to furnish offices
for the Chillicothe gentry — the ambitious and wealthy at the expense
of the poor." Washington county had already declared against
statehood, in delegate convention, and young Return Jonathan Meigs,
a friend of Colonel Worthington, wrote to him that "Federalism was
raging with intolerant fury."' On the other hand General Darjin-
ton -aid the people of Adams county congratulated themselves on the
prospect of soon shaking oil' the "iron fetters of aristocracy" and
bringing about the downfall of the "Tory party in the territory." A
writer in the Scioto Gazette declared that it was practically impos-
sihle to administer a government conducive to national happiness
under the ordinance of 17 s 7. Aside from these considerations the
friends of -laid I promised "plains covered with herds, and farms
with crops to gladden the hearts of the owners, if the tree of liberty
FROM TERRITORY TO STATE. 105
might be permitted to extend its benign branches over the citizen and
protect liim from oppression and tyranny."
The main issues, as presented in the calm and temperate statement
of Nathaniel Massie, a candidate for delegate to the convention, in
the Scioto Gazette, were: Shall a state government be organized as
soon as possible? Shall it be republican? Shall slavery be per-
mitted in the State '. These are the only questions he mentions in a
publication designed to inform the voters of his position. On the
slavery question this Virginian said: "I believe the introduction of
slavery would ultimately prove injurious to our country, although it
might at present, and for some time hence, contribute to improve it.
I am clearly of the opinion that it ought not to be admitted
in any shape whatever." This illustrates the fact that opposition to
slavery in Ohio was not confined to the settlements of Eastern or Xew
England people. A mass meeting of citizens at Chillicothe resolved:
"We want a constitution that will set the rights of the meanest
African and the most abject beggar upon an equal footing with those
citizens of the greatest wealth and equipage." There were candidates
at the capital who favored the admission of slavery, but the delegates
elected from Ross county — Worthington, Tiffin, Massie, Baldwin and
Grubb — had all declared themselves in opposition.
At the election of delegates the opposition to St. Clair had its own
way generally. When the convention met at Chillicothe, November
1, 1802, Dr. Edward Tiffin was elected president, and it was evident
that there would be no delay about claiming admission to the Union
as a state. The membership of this historic body, which framed
the first constitution of Ohio, was as follow-:
Adams county: Joseph Darlinton, Israel Donalson and Thomas
Kirker.
Belmont county: dames Caldwell and Elijah Woods.
Clermont: Philip Gatch and .Tames Sargent.
Fairfield: Henry Abrams and Emanuel Carpenter.
Hamilton: John W. Browne, Charles Willing Byrd, Francis
Dunlavy, William Goforth, John Kitchel, Jeremiah Morrow, John
Paul, John Reily, John Smith, and John Wilson.
Jefferson: Rudolph Bair, George Humphrey, John Milligan,
Nathan Updegraff, Bazaleel Wells.
Ross: Michael Baldwin, James Grubb, Nathaniel Massie, Edward
Tiffin, and Thomas Worthington.
Trumbull: David Abbott and Samuel Huntington.
Washington: Ephraim Cutler, Benjamin Ives Oilman, John
Mclntyre ami Rufus Putnam.
Upon this bo,]y St. Clair had little or no influence. He had gone
too far and made himself an obstructionist of the inevitable. "> et
lie asked leave to address the convention at its opening, and this being
denied, accepted permission f" appear before the body on November
166 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
3d, as plain "Arthur St Clair, Esquire." Apparently be hoped to
arouse the resentment of the convention against Congress sufficiently
to postpone the framing of a constitution. But he made a grave mis-
take. The republicans victorious were no longer concerned about
technical aggressions of Congress, and it was only Federalists who
for some years were seriously unhappy about constitutional rights.
As a prelude the governor admitted that his government had not been
as popular as it might have been, but he appealed to the people to sus-
tain his assertion that "it had been administered with gentleness
and with one single view, the good of the whole." He then pro-
ceeded with his arraignment of Congress, asserting that the people
of the territory did not need an act of Congress to form a constitu-
tion, that the act of Congress was "in truth a nullity" and of no more
force on that subject than "an edict of the first consul of France."
The people of Wayne county, he declared, had been "bartered away
like sheep in a market," and remitted to a stage of government that
had been villified, in Ohio, with "every epithet of opprobrium which
the English language affords." He resented the conditions made by
Congress about the public lands, declared Congress had attempted
to "drive a hard bargain," that the promise of a national road was "a
mere illusion," that the saving of newly sold lands from taxation
would burden present owners, and that the restriction to one repre-
sentative in Congress was an insult. He deplored the launching of
a new stare at a time when "party rage is stalking with destructive
strides over the whole continent. That baleful spirit destroyed also
the ancient republics, and the United States seems to be running the
same career that ruined them with a rapidity truly alarming." By
these arguments St. Clair did not postpone state organization.
Ephraim Cutler, of Marietta, cast the only vote that way. But the
temper of the governor's address was fatal to himself.
On November L2th, nine days later, James Madison, secretary of
state, sent the following letter to be delivered to St. Clair by Secre-
tary Byrd, who was directed t,, assume the duties of governor: "Sir:
The president observing, in an address lately delivered by you to the
convention held at Chillicothe, an intemperance and indecorum of
language toward the legislature of the United States, and a disorgan-
izing spirit and tendency of very evil example and grossly violating
the rule of conduct enjoined by your public state, determines that
your commission of governor of the Northwest territory shall cease
on the receipt of tin- notification."
St. Clair bad already declined to be a candidate for governor of
the state, and he soon made public his reply to Secretary Madison,
in which he asserted that "the violent, hasty and unprecedented
intrusion of the legislature of the United States into the internal
concern- of the Northwest territory was at least indi rous and incon-
sistent with it- public duty." and that, "degrade. 1 as our country is,
FROM TERRITORY TO STATE. 107
and abject as too many of her sons have become," some remained to
fitly characterize the separation of Wayne county. To Madison he
said : "Be pleased, sir, to accept my thanks for the peculiar delicacy
you observed in committing the delivery of your letter, furnishing
him with a copy of it, to Mr. Byrd, against whom there are now in
your hands to be laid before the president complaints of
neglect and refusal to perform official duty."
There is little in the subject matter of these old disputes to interest
the reader of today. It cannot be comprehended why, on the merits
of the case, there should be serious opposition to forming a state with
the wide bounds given it, and the exclusion of the Michigan part of
Wayne county seems clearly according to the plan of division estab-
lished by the ordinance. But all this is essential to a picture of life
in Ohio at that day. The bare outlines have been given. The
details might be sketched in by anyone familiar with politics today,
for politics in every age is essentially the same.
With the advent of the Republican party in power, headed by
Thomas Worthington, the Federalists retired from all official bur-
dens. "We were proscribed," says Judge Burnet, "and as soon as the
plans of our competitors were consummated, we submitted to our
destiny with good grace, and withdrew from all participation in the
politics of the day." Conscious of the worthy record of their party
in founding the Union, they bore with such grace as they could the
popular cry that they were aristocrats, opposed to the liberties of the
people.
General St. Clair passed from the field of public affairs, after four-
teen years at the head of government in the Northwest His latter
years were full of misfortune. He was soon compelled to give up
his old home in Pennsylvania. He had lost all his modest wealth
in the public service, and when Congress tardily granted him a pen-
sion, his creditors waited for it at the door of the treasury. During
the last days of his life he shared witli his daughter Louisa the shelter
of a log house, on one of the Pennsylvania highways of western travel.
Despite his poverty he never abandoned the insignia of an officer of
the Revolution and a gentleman of the Federal party, the black coat
and knee breeches, the long hair done up in a queue ami powdered.
No "ne met him in his humble abode without admiration of his
courtlv and distinguished manner.
CHAPTER VIII.
FIRS YEARS OF STATEHOOD.
Governors: Edward Tiffin, 1803-1807 — Thomas Kirker,
1807-1808 — Samuex Huntington, 1808-1810 — Return Jon-
athan Meigs, 1810-1812.
tS\ |^HE principle of life in the West and in Ohio, emphatically,
is self-rule, said one of the ablest writers of the State, nearly
seventy years ago.* '■Nowhere had this principle, as the
central one of the social and political body called a state
or people, been seen fully acting until Ohio was settled. In the
old world self-ride, political and social, unembarrassed by feudal
or servile habits of life, has not been seen to this day: and in
all our Atlantic states more or less of the feudal spirit was ever
found before the Revolution, nor are all its marks gone yet; and
through the whole South the servile element prevented the full opera-
tion of the principle of self-rule. No man that governs others as
a lord, can lie, socially speaking, what he is who governs none but
himself. Other faculties, other wishes, other views, are brought
out in the hereditary lord, than those which come forth in the
merely Independent man. In Ohio, then, was first founded a
nearly true democratic community: here men were from the first
socially equal compared with the older states: here were none of
those many habits which first arose in feudal times — the habit of
looking up to some family or place, or following the opinions of
the man springing from that family, or holding that place, or going
on in certain beaten tracks of thought, action and feeling — all these
things were not; and the slight political differences made by the ordi-
nances left no permanent mark. So that I do not doubt that Ohio,
when she became a state, was the truest democracy which had yet
existed."
The year 1803 began a new era in the history of America. The.
admission of the Stale id' Ohio gave promise of four more in the
Xorthwest consecrated as she was to self-rule and social independence,
♦Address of James H. Perkins, before the Ohio Historical Society, 1S37.
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD. igo,
and the purchase of Louisiana province a few months later vastly
increased the space for the building of similar commonwealths. In
this new country the lovers of liberty sought new homes, sparing the
ancient order of things to slowly pass away in the South and East.
The notions of the pioneers of Ohio, who have so thoroughly con-
quered that it can hardly be realized that any other form of society
ever existed in America, unless one study certain survivals of ancient
conditions in the South, were shown to some extent in the constitu-
tion and laws of Ohio, framed in 1802 and succeeding years.* It
is true that the constitutional convention, which convened November
1, 1802, and signed the new instrument on the 29th of the same
month, refused to submit its work to popular vote. But this excep-
tion was on behalf of the tyranny of politics, to which the American
people willingly submit. Jeffersonian senators, representatives and
electors were urgently needed, and the risk of delay could not be
endured. But it appears that the action of the convention had the
popular approval ; and the eastern division of the Northwest terri-
tory became the constitutional State of Ohio November 29, 1802.
In the distribution of powers of government among the legislative,
judicial and executive departments, this first constitution is notable
for the restriction of the powers of the governor. "The governor is
a name almost without meaning. He may appoint one or two offi-
•cers; in certain contingencies he may exercise one or two unimportant
powers; it is his duty to make out commissions, and he enjoys the
petty prerogative of pardon and reprieve ; and this is all."! The gov-
ernor was to be elected every two years, and one man could not hold
the office more than four years in six. The legislature, on the other
hand, had not only the exclusive right of making laws, but the
appointment of all the judges, all the civil officers in immediate con-
nection with the government, and the chief military officers, and
could define at pleasure the jurisdiction of the courts. The terms
of the state officers, secretary, treasurer and auditor, to be elected by
the legislature, were restricted to three years. But the judges, also
chosen by the legislature, were permitted to serve seven years. The
legislators themselves were kept close to popular touch, the general
assembly meeting every year, with representatives elected as often
and senators every two years. The bill of rights declared the com-
plete authority id' the people to alter, reform or abolish their govern-
ment; provided against unwarrantable seizure and search; asserted
the right id' the citizen to speak, write or print as he thinks proper on
any subject : restricted imprisonment for debt, prohibited poll taxes,
and reserved the right of the citizen to carry arms.
*"The constitution of Ohio shows the democratiral opinions prevalent on
the western frontier. It reduced the executive power almost to a nonentity,"
says J. C. Hamilton in his biography of the great Federalist.
t Salmon P. Chase. 1833.
170 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
The judicial system adopted and maintained for many years under
this constitution was well enough adapted to a state of nine counties,
but became expensive and inconvenient as the population increased.
The supreme court, of three judges at first, was a sort of peripatetic
court, being required to sit once a year in each county. The next
lower court was the court of common pleas, for which the State was
divided in three circuits, a president judge in each circuit, and two
or three associate judges in each county. Besides, there were to be
justices of the peace in cadi county, important officers under tin- sys-
tem. ''The judicial department has power enough," commented
Judge Chase in 1833, "but it is net, perhaps, sufficiently secured in
the independent and unbiased exercise of that power."
"Two other features of the constitution deserve particular notice.
The first is the total absence of property qualifications for office and
fur voters ; the poorest, equally with the rich, may elect and be elected
to any office in the state. The second is the immediate responsibility
of every agent in the government to the people ; most of the officers,
the right of appointing whom is net vested by the constitution in
some particular person or body, being elective by the people, and the
constant tendency of tilings being to make them all so."
There was an effort made in the constitutional convention to coun-
tenance slavery in the new state. More strongly, the same movement
was seen in Indiana in the same year, a petition being sent to Con-
gress tor the abrogation of the sixth article of the ordinance of 17 s 7,
on which John Randolph, of Virginia, reported that the territory
should continue to submit t<> the "sagacious and benevolent restraint"
of that charter. In the Ohio convention. John W. Brown, member
of the committee on hill of rights, offered a declaration that no person
shall lie held in slavery after thirty-five years of age, if a male, or
twenty-five years if a female, and urged its adoption as recommended
by some of the wisest statesmen of the country. But an article ivas
proposed forbidding slavery in the words of the ordinance, and going
further to prohibit the holding of slaves under pretense of indenture
of apprenticeship, after they were of legal age, and annulling all
indentures of negroes and mulattoes made thereafter outside the -tare.
i.a- in the -taie. if the term exceeded one year, except in case of
apprenticeships. This prevailed in the committee by a vote of five
to four, and it was saved in the convention by the change of one vote.*
The rejection of the Brown resolution and the prohibition of the
indenture system, it i- to be noted, did net involve a clese vote on the
permission of slavery, unqualifiedly, as might lie inferred from the
discussion of this subject in Professor Hinsdale's "Old Northwest. "
♦Address of Prof. E. B. Andrews, who ascribes the article to Ephraim
Cutler. Thomas Worthington is also credited with the clause forbidding
negro apprenticeship.
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD.
171
The majority in the convention against such a proposition was
decided. But some delegates were evidently in favor of allowing
negroes to be held as slaves during the early part of their lives, or as
long as the master pleased if the legal form of indenture were
observed. The strength of the sentiment against slavery was shown
by the proposition to confer manhood suffrage upon the males of the
three hundred colored people already in the State, and there was ani-
mated discussion of the subject. After the article was adopted defin-
ing the electors as "white male inhabitants," etc., a proviso was
actually passed extending the suffrage to the male negroes and mulat-
toes then residing in the territory, if they should make a record of
citizenship within six months. Not so many were in favor of giving
the descendants of these negro pioneers the same privilege, and a
resolution to that effect was lost by one vote. But there is no excep-
tion to white suffrage in the constitution of 1802. When the final
vote came, there was a motion to strike nut the negro suffrage proviso,
and it was carried by the vote of President Tiffin, the house being
evenly divided. His vote was so cast, no doubt, because the position
taken regarding the negro race by the proviso was extremely
advanced and was likely to arouse violent criticism. The proviso
would extend the suffrage to only a few score men, and its importance
did not seem to outweigh the need of avoiding unnecessary opposition
to the hastily framed and hastily adopted constitution, and the dan-
ger of rejection by Congress.
As to the conditions proposed by Congress, the convention asked
modification so that the proceeds of the sale of section sixteen in
every township should go to the state for the use of public schools,
also for the same purpose one thirty-sixth of the Virginia military
lands, the United States military tract, and the Connecticut reserve;
also that three of the five per cent of land proceeds should lie expended
on roads in Ohio.
The convention made a temporary apportionment of representa-
tives and senators, provided for a general election of officers January
11, 1803, and continued the territorial officers in the exercise of their
duties until the new officers were installed. But the issuing of writs
for an election was put in the hands of the president of the conven-
tion. The territorial laws "not inconsistent with the constitution,"
were also continued in force until the State legislature should make
other enactments.
The preamble of the constitution declared that "We, the people of
the Eastern Division of the Territory of the United States North-
west of the River Ohio . . . do ordain and establish the fol-
lowing Constitution or form of government; and do mutually agree
with each other to for urselves into a free and independent state,
by the name of the Siate of Ohio." It asserted "the rigb.1 of admis-
sion as a member of the Union," as consistent with the constitution
172 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
of the United States, the ordinance of 17S7, and the act of Congress
enabling them "to form a constitution and state government, and for
the admission of snch state into the Union on an equal footing with
the original states."
It can hardly he doubted that in the opinion of the majority in
< Jongress Ohio passed from the condition of a territory, subject to the
arbitrary will of Congress, into the charmed upper region of " inde-
pendent and sovereign states," when the constitution was adopted.
But when did the state enter the Union? Evidently Congress had
doubts, for, in the winter following, a committee was directed to
report what legislation was necessary, if hhi/. for admitting the State
of Ohio into the Union, and extending the laws of the United States
over the state. This committee reported a bill, which was enacted,
and approved February 1!>, 1803, entitled "An act to provide for
the execution of the laws of the United States within the State of
Ohio," extending the laws of the United States over the new state,
and establishing a federal district court, to hold its first session at
Ohillicothe in June. This act was doubtless intended to cover all the
legislation necessary to recognize Ohio as a member of the Union.
On March 3, 1803, another act was approved, granting the modifica-
tions asked by the state convention in the conditions of the enabling
act, and then certainly "the compact was completed," in the words
of Judge Chase, under which senators and representatives of the
State might take seats in Congress. Perhaps, if they had been
elected, they might have been seated before, as there had been ques-
tion of the right of Mr. Fearing to continue in Congress.
In brief, it may be said that there was no act of Congress which,
in so many words, admitted Ohio to the Union, and from this it might
he inferred that the State was already in the Union. But the laws
of the United States, hitherto partly withheld, were extended over it
February lit, 1803, and this date has the strongest claim to be re-
garded as the epoch of admission."
At the election, held in January, 1803, Dr. Edward Tiffin was
elected governor without opposition, receiving 4,565 votes. His
early career lias already been mentioned. He was an eloquent and
impassioned speaker, as well as a man of many winning characteris-
tics. Having joined the Methodist church in 1790, while in the
Shenandoah valley, lie had been made a lay preacher by Francis
Asbury, and he frequently tilled the frontier pulpit, and read the
service at times in St. Paul's Episcopal church at Cbillicothe. lie
was the one man of his party in Ohio most likely to meet the general
at upon the meeting of the legislature, March
t en that clav ceasi'il. am! < >hio became a
in Mr. Rufus King's -'Ohio." The fact
ritorial judges up to that day is cited as "an
*A
statement of tin
) then
IV t
hat
l. 180:
i. the territ'H'ia
1 ii-llVI
Till
state i
n the Union m
ay he
t'oi
mi
that tl
le United State
3 paid
1 in
• te
a at In ii
•itative decision
of thi
• SI
ibji
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD. ^g
approval of the powers at Washington and the people of the State,
whom he had served as speaker of the Territorial legislature and
president of the constitutional convention.
When the legislature met March 1, 1803, Nathaniel Massie was
elected speaker of the senate, and Michael Baldwin speaker of the
house. A few days later Thomas Worthington was elected United
States senator for the short term, and William Creighton secretary
of state. All these were men of Ross county, which was in supreme
control. Thomas Gibson was made auditor of state, and William
McFarland treasurer, and as United States senator for the full term
John Smith, of Hamilton county, was selected. As judges of the
supreme court, the choice fell upon Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr., of
Marietta, Samuel Huntington, of Cleveland, and William Sprigg.
Calvin Pease was elected president judge of the court of common
pleas for the First circuit, Wyllys Silliman* for the Second, and
Francis Dunlavy for the Third. Charles Willing Byrd was not neg-
lected either. President Jefferson made him the first United States
district judge of Ohio.
The two senators were second to none under the new regime in
power and influence. Worthington was the real power at the head
of affairs. He was then thirty-four years old, a young man, but of
great energy and ardent temperament. A native of the Shenandoah
valley, he brought with him to Virginia probably the most aristocratic
establishment the state then possessed. But, like Jefferson in aris-
tocratic conditions, he was also like him in democratic sentiment.
After he took his seat in the United States senate in the fall of 1S03,
he soon gained recognition as a man of brain and energy: not a great
orator, but a worker, and his work was for the good of the Northwest.
In 1807 he was the author of a resolution calling on Secretary Galla-
tin to report a plan for applying the resources of Congress to such
public improvements, as highways and canals, that deserved the aid
of the national government. Jefferson called him "the truest, brav-
est patriot since the days of old Rome;" VanBuren alluded to him
as "the illustrious founder of the commonwealth of Ohio," and Sal-
mon P. Chase lias characterized him as "the father of internal im-
provements, of the great National road and of the Erie canal." The
Rev. John Smith also made a worthy senator, and he was a man of
real native force and ability. On June 11th, following the first legis-
lature, Jeremiah Morrow was elected as the first representative in
( Jongress, beginning for that gentleman a memorable career in public
* Wyllys Silliman. was born in Connecticut in 1777, edited a Federalist
newspaper in western Virginia in 1800-01. and coming to Ohio married a
sister of Lewis Cass, and was the first lawyer at Zanesville. where he was
register of the land office, 1S05-11. During part of President Jackson's sec-
ond term he was solicitor of the United States treasury. He was one of the
most eloquent men of his day.
174 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
life. For a long time he was one of the most popular men in Ohio.
He, also, was of the type of man to give Ohio credit in the halls of
< Jongress.
The officials thus named continued in service practically all the
time of the administration of Governor Tiffin, who was re-elected in
1805, receiving 4,783 votes, with none in opposition. Jeremiah
Morrow was re-elected to Congress four times, serving until 1813,
and State Treasurer McFarland was kept in his position for four-
teen years.
Of the legislatures of Governor Tiffin's administration something
may be said of general interest. The first duty before them was to
adapt the old territorial laws to the new constitution. The new judi-
cial system was to some extent regulated by the first legislature, and
the county administration duties of the old quarter sessions court
were transferred to associate justices of the court of common pleas.
These three men in each county wore entrusted with the establishing
of highways, erecting public buildings, granting licenses, etc. But
the first legislature did not attempt much. Eight new counties were
created : Butler, named in honor of Bichard Butler, a gallant officer
who lost his life in St. Clair's campaign, a county of which the
nucleus was Hamilton, that had grown up about the site of Fort Ham-
ilton: Columbiana (a name formed from Columbian as Indiana is
formed from Indian), a county including the old adventure ground
of the Foes and others of the earliest settlers, where Bev. Lewis Kin-
ney had founded Xew Lisbon in 1802 ; Franklin, of which the seat
was Franklinton, laid out by Lucas Sullivant, a Kentucky surveyor,
in 1707, with another important settlement at Worthington, an Epis-
copalian colony founded in 1803 by the Scioto company of Granhy,
Conn., of which the leading spirit was Col. James Kilbourn* ; Gallia,
a county on the Ohio river with the French settlement, Gallipolis, as
its capital ; Greene, named in honor of Gen. Nathaniel Greene, includ-
ing no town at its beginning, though Xenia was laid off by Joseph C.
Vance, on the land of John Paul, a few months later ; Montgomery,
commemorating Gen. Bichard Montgomery, who fell at Quebec, wirli
the seat of government at Dayton, founded several years before, as
previously noted; and Scioto, including the month of that river and
the French grant. Montgomery, Greene and Franklin were extended
in jurisdiction to the north boundary of the State, including all the
Indian country, formerly part of Wayne county, except a strip south
of the Connecticut reserve.
In the second legislature, of December, 1803, the first session pro-
vided for l.v the general provisions of the constitution, further
* James Kilbourn, while in Ohio in 1802, selecting a site for the settle-
ment, made a map of the State very popular with the pioneers. Informa-
tion regarding the Indian country was given him by Fitch, his father-in-law,
inventor of the steamboat, who had been a prisoner in that region.
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD. ^5
important steps were taken in the system of government. Then
incorporation of civil townships for local government was first pro-
vided for and boards of commissioners were established in each
county. A law was passed to encourage immigration, according
aliens the same proprietary rights as native citizens. The three per
cent fund from the national government was divided, to be applied
in various parts of the state, under different boards of commissioners,
an unwise measure, for after the expenditure of several hundred thou-
sand dollars, during thirty years, "the beneficial effects were hardly
anywhere visible." The revenue system was revised at this session,
but the main reliance for taxation continued to be the lands, a consid-
erable part of which was in the hands of non-residents of the State.
One-third of the taxes levied by the legislature were to go to the
county treasuries, for local expenses, in addition to which county
commissioners and township trustees were authorized to levy taxes for
certain purposes, a system not so favorable to local independence as
latterly prevails.
The next session, 1804, undertook to revise the whole system of
laws. All the laws of the Territorial governor and judges and legis-
lature were repealed, with some few exceptions, and in place a new
and tolerably complete system of statute law was enacted. It is not
practicable to follow up the legislative enactments, but this brief
mention of early legislation will serve to call attention to the impor-
tant work of the founders of the state.* Other counties set off from
the older ones during Tiffin's administration were Muskingum, with
Zanesville as the county seat, January 7, 1804; Highland, February
18, 1805; Athens and Champaign, February 20, 1S05 ; Geauga,
December 31, 1805; Miami, January 16, 1S07; Portage, February
10, 1807.
The second legislature (December, 1803) organized a militia sys-
tem, dividing the state into districts, each of which should muster a
military division. Of the first division, in the southwest, John S.
Gano was made major-general and Daniel Symmes quartermaster-
general; of the Second division, Nathaniel Classic major-general and
David Bradford, quartermaster-general; of the Third division, on
the upper Ohio, Joseph Buell major-general and Samuel Carpenter
quartermaster-general; of the Fourth division, in the northeast,
Elijah Wadsworth major-general and Brice Viers quartermaster-
general. Before this, there had been a Avar alarm, and a call for
Ohio volunteers. The sale of Louisiana to the United States by
Napoleon had aroused much indignation in Spain, the whole trans-
action being, in fact, an outrage uim.ii that country, if one stop to
"This synopsis is abbreviated from that given by Judge Chase, in his
sketch of Ohio history which was prefixed to the edition of the statutes of,
Ohio, edited by him and published in 1S33.
170 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
consider the futile objections that arc made to the revelation of "man-
ifest destiny" by conquering soldier- and statesmen. The Spanish
right was really about on a par with that of the Indians, as weighed
against the demands of civilization. The Spaniards in Louisiana
made a show of resistance to the spread of American dominion, and
President Jefferson called on Governor Tiffin, in 1S03, to prepare a
regiment for use if necessary. When the call was made on tin- Sec-
ond division, say- Colonel McDonald, the Scioto valley furnished a
full regiment of men. The company officers of the regiment assem-
bled in Chillicothe and unanimously elected Duncan McArthur to
tin' command as colonel. But the vast western region was possessed
in peace, and Judge Meigs, of the supreme court of Ohio, was
selected by Jefferson to command the upper country, with the rank
of brevet lieutenant-colonel in the United States army, with head-
quarters at St. Louis, and also to hold the office of supreme judge in
the west, lie resigned his judgeship in the Ohio supreme court and
was succeeded by Daniel Symmes.
To aid in the realization of the period when Ohio became a state,
and the conditions under which the pioneers labored, a few words
may be said. It was three years before the first mining of coal in
the United States, five years before the first practical steamboat, thir-
teen years before gas was used anywhere in America for lighting.
It was about a quarter century before steam railroads, steam printing
presses and friction matches were heard of, forty years before the
telegraph and the sewing machine, half a century before kerosene
Lamps, and three quarters of a century before telephones, electric
lights and trolley cars. It was in the age of tallow candle-, tint boats
and < Jonestoga wagons. The news of the world, brought by horsemen
across the mountains, was of Napoleon Bonaparte, who made him-
self emperor of France in 1804, fought at Austerlitz in 1805 and fin-
ished at Waterloo in L815.
The building of ocean-going vessels was at this time a flourishing
industry at Marietta. In May, 1800, the rirst one, called the St.
Clair, a full-rigged brig, cleared from Marietta, loaded with flour and
pork on the way down and sailed from New Orleans to Philadelphia.
On account of this industry, farmers gave more attention to hemp
growing, ropowalks were established, and iron was imported from the
forges of the Juniata. In 1805 two ships, seven brigs and three
schooners were built and rigged at Marietta to sail the rivers to Xew
Orleans, ('apt. Jonathan Devol, who managed the building of the
Ohio Mayflower, built the boat Muskingum of -2'M) tons in 1801-02
for Benjamin Ives Oilman, and other vessels, and in 1805 he -ailed
to Xew Orleans in a schooner from his wn yard. Edward W. Trip-
per, -on of Oen. Benjamin Tupper, at hi- Marietta shipyard built
the brig Orlando, that sailed down the Ohio and, Mississippi and to
the Mediterranean. He was a ] M , the builder of two United States
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD. 177
gunboats in 1807. The most popular river boats continued to be the
arks, built of plank, fastened to ribs or knees with wooden bolts.
Forty to sixty feet long, and twelve or eighteen wide, they carried
sixty to eighty tons, without any effort except steering on the part of
the crew. When emptied at New Orleans or Natchez they were
taken apart and sold as lumber. The sailing boats wore not expected
to return either, but they had the advantage of being able to venture
out in the gulf and seek other ports. The exports were flour, corn,
hemp, and flax, beef, pork, smoked hams of venison, whiskey, peach
brandy, "ak staves and lumber.
But, as it was well-nigh impossible to bring goods up the Missis-
sippi, it was easy to prophesy, as did a writer of that day: "The
people of the upper country will always procure their goods at Wash-
ington, Baltimore or Philadelphia, and have them brought thence
in waggons. So circumstanced, they will be provident in their use
of foreign articles; they will prevent their need of them by setting
up various manufactories, the raw material of which they so abun-
dantly possess, and thus supply other places, without needing or
being able to receive any returns but specie. The consequence will
be that this interior country must every year become more independ-
ent upon other countries, more prosperous and more happy."
The published journal of a traveler through Ohio reveals the
progress of settlement a year or two after the beginning of state-
hood. •■ At .Marietta be noted a difference as be came from the Vir-
ginia country. "Here, in Ohio, they are intelligent, industrious and
thriving; there on the backskirts of Virginia, ignorant, lazy and poor.
Here the buildings are neat, though small, and furnished in many
instances with brick chimneys and glass windows; there the habita-
tion- are miserable cabins. lb-re the grounds are laid otit in a regu-
lar manner and inclosed by strong post- and rails, there the fields are
surrounded by a rough zig-zag log fence. Here are thrifty young
apple orchards; there the only fruit i- tin- peach, from which a good
brandy is distilled." But Ohio had a good many peach trees also,
a- well as brandy, and Marietta was an exceptional community, even
in Ohio. Marietta had ninety-one dwellings, of which eleven were
brick and three stone, eight -tores and three rope walks. Much busi-
ness was done, and -hip building was promising great results. The
other towns in Washington county were Belle Pre, IT mile- 1.. low,
opposite the elegant mansion of Blennerhassett on an island of
more than a hundred acres; Waterford, Adams on the Muskingum,
Salem on Thick Creek, founded in 1795, Athens on the Hockhock-
ing, site of the Ohio university, Ames, north of Athens, and New-
port, above Marietta.
Harris cave a brief notice of each county. In Trumbull were
1 Thaddeus Mason Harris, "Journal of a Tour," published in 1805.
1-12
17S CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
the towns of Warren, a pleasant and thriving town on Beaver creek,
with considerable trade by portage to La Grande Riviere, into the
lake: Yuungstown, a flourishing settlement, and "Cleveland, a pleas-
ant little town." Jefferson county had the towns of Steubenville
laid out in 171'.", very flourishing, and Warren, a small place sixteen
miles below. St. Clairsville and Pultney, small settlements, were
the main features of Belmont county.
Gallia county had its main settlement at Gallipolis, which had
about a hundred houses in two rows (the French inhabitants of
which had mostly gone to the grant about twenty-four miles below,
when- \[. Gervais platted Burrsburg), and Fairhaven, a small town
opposite the mouth of the Kanawha. Scioto county boasted of
Alexandria, a hamlet at the month of the Scioto, with great expecta-
tions, and Adams county had the river towns of Massiesburg and
Manchester. Clermont had one town. Williamsburg, with twelve
or fifteen houses. Hamilton county, after this long stretch of
emptiness, was an agreeable change, with Cincinnati," boasting
upwards of three hundred dwellings. "A printing press is estab-
lished here, which issues a weekly paper." The other towns were
Columbia, Newtown and North Bend. Muskingum county had two
rival towns, Springfield, on the east hank of the Muskingum, with
thirteen families, and Zanesville opposite, with ten families, on
Zane's grant Both were on the post road from the east to Ken-
tucky. Besides these were the Moravian towns of Schcenbrun,
resettled in 17'.»l» or LSOO ; Gnadenhiitten, ten miles below; Salem,
six miles further down the river, and Tuscarawi, platted at the
forks in 1799. Fairfield county had the tine little town of Lan-
caster, established in 1800. In Boss, Chillicothe had considerable
importance as a town of one hundred and fifty houses; Newmarket
had twelve and Westfall ten. Franklinton, "'a small hut flourish-
ing town on the forks of the Scioto, forty miles above Chillicothe,"
was 'he metropolis of the vast interior county of Franklin. War-
ren county hail its villages of Deerfield and Waynesburg. The one
town of Butler county was Hamilton, a small settlement. Day-
ton and Franklin were similar small settlements in Montgi
county. These few counties, which comprised the State at that time,
had the following number of white males in 1S03 : Trumbull,
1.111; Columbiana, 542; Jefferson, L,533; Belmont, L,030; Wash-
and Muskingum, 1,246; Gallia, 307; Scioto, 249; Adams,
906; Clermont, 755; Hamilton, 1,700; Fairfield, 1,051; Ross,
♦Among the men who came to Cincinnati in 1S03 was Nicholas Long-
worth, born in Newark. N. .T.. in 1782. He was the first to introduce the
culture of the grape and the making of wine in Ohio, became very wealthy
by investments in real estate, and was one of the most eminent and use-
ful citizens of Ohio. It was in his honor that Longfellow made the pun
at a social meeting. "Worth makes the man and want of it the fellow.'"
FIRST TEARS OF STATEHOOD. 17y
1,982; Franklin, 240; Warren, 854; Greene, 446; Butler, 836,
and Montgomery, 526. The total white males were 15,314.
In July, 1805, as has been previously noted, the proprietors of
Sufferers' Land | Fire Lands) bought of the Indians the part of the
Connecticut reserve west of the Cuyahoga. In the same year a
treaty was made at Fort Industry, the site of the future Toledo, by
the United States, by which the Indians ceded not only what is
called the Fire Lands, but the strip smith of it, as far west as the
west line of the Connecticut reserve. The Wyandots, Chippewas,
Mmisees and Delawares, who made this cession, were promised a
perpetual annuity of $1,000, $17."> of which was to be paid by the
Fire Lands company, which had previously agreed to pay the
Indians $4,000 down and $12,000 in six annual payments for the
land they obtained. In 1807 Governor Hull, of Michigan, by treaty
of friendship at Detroit, secured the right to Ohio of building a road
from the western limit of the Fire Lands to the Maumee rapids, and
a strip a mile wide mi each side of the road, as well as another road
south from Lower Sandusky (Fremont). Taylor Sherman.* of
Connecticut, was sent out to superintend the settlement of the Fire
Lands, and on February 7. 1809, the region was se1 off as the county
of Huron. The strip of Indian country south of this, also acquired
by the treaty id' 1805, remained without a name, except the ".Ww
Purchase," until it was formally designated as Wayne county in
1808, including also the present counties of Ashland and Richland
and parts of Stark, Holmes, Morrow and Crawford.
Thomas Ashe, an Englishman, coming down the Ohio in 1 806, f on
reaching the mouth of the Scioto was curious to see Chillicothe, and
its democratical government, of which he had heard much, and he
undertook to walk up through the rather wet lands west of the river.
"I suffered much for my curiosity," lie said. "My route lay through
a wilderness so thick, deep, dark and impenetrable that the light,
much less the air of heaven, was nearly denied access. We were like-
wise almost stung to madness by musketoes. So numerous were
these persecutors, that we walked amidst them as in a cloud, and
suffered to an excess not possible to describe." Chillicothe he found
a town of about 1"><> lams,. g. At Cincinnati there were twice as
many. The importance of the latter city lit 1 ascribed largely to the
fact that "in Holland, Germany, Ireland and the remotesl part- of
America, persons intending to emigrate declare they will go to the
Miamics," so famous was that fertile and beautiful region. At
*His son. Charles R. Sherman, followed him to Ohio, and became a lawyer
at Lancaster, and later one of the ablest judges of the supreme court.
Among his children were Senator John Sherman and General William
Tecumseh Sherman.
t "Travels in America." London, 1808. Ashe traveled under an assumed
name and was afterward railed the "swindling Englishman." and "the
infamous Ashe." The West was not tolerant of criticism in those days.
jgO CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Lebanon he found the community of Shaking Quakers, and at Day-
ton much shaking of another sort, from malaria.
In the Warren county settlements, which included Lebanon and
the homes of Francis Dunlavy and Matthias Corwin, father of Tom
Corwin, and the farm and mill of Jeremiah Morrow, there were
strange doings about this time. In 1802 there came from Kentucky
a Presbyterian preacher, Richard McNemar, a gaunt, restless man,
learned in the ancient languages, who started a "revival," in which
the congregation went into convulsions, shouted, jerked, barked,
rolled about upon the ground, prophesied, and exhibited faces of such
ecstasy that it was not doubted that they were more favored than
St. Paul, who could only look "as through a glass darkly" upon the
glories of eternity. At these meetings the people would sing with
such energy that they could lie heard for miles around.
James B. Finley, of Highland county, son of the Rev. Robert W.
Finley, went down into Kentucky in 1801 to see the famous Cane
Ridge camp-meeting; was terrified by the noise and fervor, of twenty-
five thousand shouting people, but yielded to the impulse, ami became
one of the leading workers under Francis Asbury, who preached at
the Chillicothe stetehouse in 1803. Presbyterians were also active
in the great religious movement, that continued until 1810. Appar-
ently inseparable from the "revivals" were "the jerks,*' a peculiar
nervous disorder that some declared was the work of the devil. At
the camp-meetings, that became common, one of The most famous
preachers was Lorenzo Dow, a native of Connecticut, who traveled
and exhorted from the Lakes to the Gulf.
In March, L805, there arrived at Lebanon the forerunner- 'if
another religious movement, John Meacham and his associates, who
came to found a community of the Shaking Quakers, started in Eng-
land about sixty years before, in the delusions of a woman, Ann Lee,
who claimed to lie a re-incarnation of Christ. She was put in a mad-
house in the old country, but came to America and found favor.
The sect had much success at Lebanon, and founded the Shaker town
at Union Village.
There was also broughl into the wilderness the mystical doctrines
of Swedenborg by one of the memorable characters of pioneer days,
Jonathan Chapman, who is said to have been born at Boston about
1 7 7 - > . lie came into the Territory in 1801 with a horse load of
appleseeds, planted an orchard in Licking county, and was ever after-
ward known as "Johnny Appleseed." In 1806 he came down the
Ohio by boat and went up the Muskingum and Mohican into the Ash-
land county country, where he planted more nurseries. To the
Indians he was a great "medicine man." and to the whites a myste-
rious but always welcome visitation. From hi- seeds thou-.
orchards grew, and he may have imparted son* degrei of mystical
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD. ^gl
coloring to the religious life of the frontier by his eloquent discourses.
For forty years he wandered about in Ohio and Indiana, clad some-
times in a coffee sack, with his cooking pan for a liar.
In the Western Reserve and other parts of the State religious col-
onies were founded, such as the town of Tallmadge, in Summit
county, established exclusively for Congregationalists or Presbyte-
rians by David Bacon, a missionary from Connecticut, in 1807.
There was bred Leonard Bacon, a famous theologian of later days,
and his sister, Delia Bacon, who became noted in England as well as
America for her attempt to transfer to the great English philosopher
whose name she bore the honors of him who wrote "not for an age
hut for all time."
The State was yet mainly in a condition of nature. ''We do not
believe there was even one bridge in the State when it was organized,"
says Caleb Atwater, in his quaint history. '•The roads were few and
it was no easy matter for a stranger to follow them." Atwater him-
self preferred to thread the forests with the aid of a compass. The
judges of the supreme court and the circuit judges, traveling from
county to county, attended by a retinue of lawyers, were accustomed
to swim rivers and smilingly submit to the bufferings of nature and
the attentions of the mosquitoes, which were almost overwhelming.
Much has been written of the lack of comfort of the settlers, and
their sufferings. It is a common theme, and need not here be dwelt
upon. Living in their log cabins and laboring tremendously at clear-
ing away the giant trees, the man and wife and their flock of chil-
dren were happy, as happy as any people are now. The men and
women of today would do the same work now if they were similarly
situated, and develop just as much endurance of mind and nrascle,
and the men and women of that day, if suddenly brought hack from
their well-earned rest to till our places, would quickly adapt them-
selves to the present conditions. Thousands of times have sections
of humanity gone through as great a progress, in the essentials of life,
as has occurred since L803 in Ohio, and man forever remains the
same, wonderful in adaptation to circumstances, and departing little
from the original creature, whether he stand in wonder of himself
as the master of the newly invented stone axe, or the newly invented
.steam engine, trolley-car and telephone.
Bui Ohio was not all log houses during the administration of the
genial Doctor Tiffin. There was a really imposing stone capitol at
Chillicothe, and upon the hills overlooking the town were the man-
sions of Senator Worthington and Duncan McArthur, as deserving
of a place in romance as the plantation homes of Virginia. Worth-
ington's home was a Virginia mansion transplanted. It was fanci-
fully named, according to the custom of the Virginia gentlemen when
they built homes in the wilderness, and known as Adena. A grand
place it was, in fact, and furnished for the entertainment of such
worthies as the duke of Saxe Weimar, the ("lavs and Breckinridges
182 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
of Kentucky and President Monroe, who enjoyed its hospitality in
later years. Duncan McArthur, who had come to Ohio with the
Pennsylvania soldiers in L790 and fought under Harmar at the head
of the Maumee; skirmished with the Indians at Captina, below
Wheeling, in 1792; hunted along the Ohio with Joseph Vance, and
carried a chain with Nathaniel Massie in 1793; scouted against the
Indians along the river in the service of Kentucky, and after the
treaty of Greenville helped plant the town of Chillicothe, was new
becoming one of the greatest land owners of Ohio, and his mansion
corresponded to his prosperity. General Massie's comfortable home
at Paint Creek was also a place of much social life. Here the Vir-
ginians who came frequently on land business were entertained.
Colonel McDonald recalled that the hospitality of this home bordered
on extravagance, especially when the general welcomed any old com-
panion in frontier adventure. "His lady, although raised in pol-
ished and fashionable life, took great pleasure in rendering- his
awkward woods companions easy ad at home. I well remember
that it was in Mrs. Massie's room 1 first saw tea handed around for
supper, which I then thought foolish business and still remain of that
opinion.""
Another famous mansion, not quite in the State, as all her territory
is "northwest of the river Ohio." was on an island opposite Belpre.
Elijah Backus, of Connecticut, bought the island of its original
claimant for a small price, and sold half of it about 1798 at $26 an
acre, to an easy victim who had come down the river fresh front Ire-
land. This purchaser was Harmon Blennerhassett, a native of Eng-
land, then thirty years old, a graduate of Trinity college, Dublin,
who had inherited a small fortune and married a daughter of the
lieutenant-governor of the Isle of Mm. Locating on the island, so
that he might own a few slaves, he made business investments at
Marietta, and spent a good part of his money in building a spacious
frame house, in plan ami architectural finish resembling a barracks,
hut furnished with considerable luxuriance and good taste. About
forty thousand dollars is said to have been expended on the resid< nee
and grounds. The master is described as a tall, slight-built, short-
sighted man. a good musician, devoted to scientific experiments, hut
with little aptitude for business, who dressed in scarlet or huff small-
clothes and a blue broadcloth coat, silk stockings and silver buckled
shoes, after the fashion id' the gentry of that day. \\\> wife, a charm-
ing woman, could jump a fence and lead the dance with equal ease,
and as she rode her horse from Belpre to Marietta, attired in scarlet
habit, she reminded the sober-minded pioneers of some tropical bird
of gay plumage and rapid flight, winging its way through the woods. t
♦Biographical Sketches, by Col. John McDonald. 1838.
tSuch is the description of Dr. S. P. Hildreth, of Marietta, in his "Pio-
neers of Ohio."
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD. Ig3
There were numerous balls and assemblies at Marietta and Belpre,
as well as at her home, in which she was the chief spirit.
In 18U4 the first presidential electors of Ohio were chosen: Will-
iam Goforth, James Pritchard and Nathaniel Massie, who cast the
vote of the State for Thomas Jefferson for a second term. Jeffer-
son's administration was "almost worshipped by our people," -ays
Caleb Atwater, "who were greatly caressed in return, by the object
of their reverence." There was some opposition, for a resolution in
the legislature, commending the government for taking possession
of Louisiana, passed the house by a majority of only one, and the
opposition bad a protest spread upon the journal against absurd com-
mendations of the government for doing its duty. Among these prot-
estants was Philemon Beceher, from Connecticut, a man then thirty
years old, who had settled at Lancaster; the pioneer of the Beechers
in Ohio;, and dean of the famous Lancaster group of lawyers.
It will he remembered that Napoleon Bonaparte, citizen of the
republic id' France, in 1804 declared himself emperor of the French.
The same year was the last of the term of Aaron Burr as vice-presi-
dent of the United States. He sought to step from that place to the
governorship of New York, hut was thwarted by Alexander Hamil-
ton. Deeply offended by the personal charges traceable to Hamilton,
Burr forced the great Federalist to meet him in a duel that resulted
in Hamilton's death. Duels were common in that day, even along
the Ohio river, but such a storm of indignation arose over the killing
of Hamilton that Burr soon realized that his wonderful political
career was ended in the east. His property in Xew York was seized
by creditors, and if he had entered Xew Jersey he would have been
arrested on the charge of murder. No man had been more popular
in the United States, no man was more brilliant and winning. He
was not unlike Napoleon, a little man, with marvelous eyes: a soldier
also, gallant and successful. Bidding farewell to the senate in
March, 1805, with a speech that left his distinguished audience in
tears, Aaron Burr followed the advice of Gen. James Wilkinson and
came down the Ohio on his way to Nashville, where it was hoped he
might he elected to Congress. He traveled too slowly, and that
scheme failed. But he was received as one of the great men of the
age in Kentucky, Tennessee, and at Xew Orleans, whither he con-
tinued his journey. In sailing down the Ohio in one of the arks of
that period he stopped at Marietta, and called at the famous Blcnner-
hassett home, finding the good man out, hut greatly fascinating his
wife, as he did all women and most men. At Cincinnati lie visited
his friends in the senate, John Smith, and Gen. Jonathan Dayton,
and at Nashville he was the guest of Andrew Jackson. He inter-
ested himself in the schemes of the wesl and talked with Wilkinson
and Dayton about a canal at Louisville. At New Orleans lie discov-
ered hostility to American rule. Conflict had again arisen with the
184 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Spanish over the claim of the United State- that in buying Louisiana
of Napoleon they had also acquired ownership of Texas. Baton
Rouge ami Mobile. As Burr was returning and enjoying the hospi-
tality of Henry Clay in Kentucky a little revolution broke out among
the Americans in Baton Rouge against the Spanish. A year later
General Wilkinson and his troops and a Spanish army were confront-
ing each other near Natchitoches, ami war with Spain was confidently
expected, and in Kentucky and Tennessee anxiously desired. Wil-
kinson in the fall of 1805 urgently besought William Henry Harri-
son, who was quietly ruling over his territory in Indiana, to have
Burr sent to Congress from that region.
Returning east Burr kept Wilkinson informed of the prospect of
war, which by this time seemed fading, for William Pitt had died
ami Napoleon had intimated that the United States could have Texas
and Florida only by another contribution to his war chest. For the
last time Burr sought a place in the United States service, at The
hands of Jefferson, and being refused, devoted himself to the project
of planting a colony in western Louisiana, with the object of making
a conquest of Texas and Mexico, and founding an empire of which
he should be the head, to which part of the western United States
might be admitted, if it should be favorable to the project. The first
necessary step in the great scheme was that General Wilkinson should
bring on war. which would be easy. Let some hostility be committed,
without authority, and if the Spanish moved a finger, Kentucky and
Tennessee, if not Ohio, would rise in fury to sweep the Dons from the
continent.
Burr, aided by his friends, purchased four hundred thousand acres
on the Washita, and with the sympathy and assistance of General
Dayton, General Adair of Kentucky and General Jackson of Tennes-
see, began the organization of a colony and filibustering expedition.
In the summer of 1806, with his daughter, Theodosia, and two or
three friends. Colonel Burr started down the Ohio again, expecting
never to return. In passing, he made little trips ashore, to enlist
recruits and assistance. At Cannonsburg he was entertained by
l olonel Morgan, who became alarmed by his talk and caused a letter
to be sent to President Jefferson, warning him that Burr was plotting
to seduce the West from the United States. The president sent John
Graham to investigate, but it was two months before the latter could
reach Ohio, and meanwhile Burr proceeded with his operations. At
Marietta he put the militia regiment through some evolutions, and
by this and his courtly grace at the ball thai followed, won the general
admiration. "Many were willing to engage in his mysterious enter-
prise against the Spanish, and the impression grew that the govern-
nieut was privy to it. Blenncrhassett was already enlisted in the
scheme by correspondence, and though no man was less fitted for such
a project, he devoted himself to it, encouraged by his ambition- w ii'e.
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD. 185
Headquarters wore made on the island; fifteen large boats, to carry
five hundred men, were undertaken by the boat builders at Marietta,
quantities of subsistence stores were purchased, and . men wore
enrolled, who were to come armed and accept pay in Washita hud.
Other boats were contracted for on the Cumberland river, and money
to pay for them deposited with Andrew Jackson.
Blennerhassett's island was then the center of interest in Ohio.
Burr traveled somewhat in the State, spreading the fame of his
undertaking - , one of the places he visited being the home of Senator
Worthington. Though the latter was away, the adventurer was
entertained by the ladies. To his kindness, according to the family
tradition, Adena was indebted for its mossroses, yellow jasmine and
sweet honeysuckle. In October, leaving the work at the island in the
capable hands of Mrs. Blennerhassett, Burr went into Kentucky.
Then trouble began. A Frankfort paper asserted that the old Span-
ish conspiracies were being revived. Great excitement was aroused,
and Burr was called before the grand jury. He was defended by
Henry ('lav, and triumphantly acquitted. Proceeding to Nashville,
it was arranged that he should take a party down the ( Jumberland
and at its mouth join Blennerhassett's flotilla.
Meanwhile General Wilkinson, commander of the American army
on the Spanish frontier, had been brought to the point of a weighty
decision, by the arrival of Burr's advance agent, bearing a cipher let-
ter announcing the plan of taking possession of Xew Orleans and
making it a base of an expedition against the Spanish colonial gov-
ernment. The general, hitherto, to all appearances, an ally of
Burr's, had to choose whether he should remain at the head of the
United States army and preserve peace with his Spanish friends, or
provoke war with the prospect of becoming second to Burr in a new
empire that was yet a dream. He decided on the first course, took
the position of the savior of America from treason, warned Jefferson
of terrible events, retreated from the Spanish border to guard the
Mississippi and Xew Orleans, and put the whole country in terror
with the story that seven thousand armed men were descending the
M ississippi. President Jefferson was willing to follow suit, and pur-
sue Burr vindictively. Troops were called out. A bill suspending
the writ of habeas corpus passed one house of Congress. General
Eaton, another interesting character, came out with a story of what
Burr had told him, that was the main foundation of the charge for
treason. At the same time, it seems to be as well established as much
of the history of the period that Wilkinson sent a demand to the
viceroy of Mexico for pay for his services in averting an invasion of
that country.
Graham, the president's agent, reached Marietta in the fall of
1806, made inquiries of Blennerhassett, warned him of danger, and
had a conference with Governor Tiffin, which resulted in the latter
]gg CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
sending a secrel message tip the legislature, December 2d. The legis-
lature passed an act intended to quell the conspiracy and the governor
called out the sheriffs and militia along the Ohio. General Buell
seized Blennerhassett's boats at Marietta, and on hearing that a body
of Virginia militia was marching to the island, Blennerhassett, with
aboul thirty companions, set out down the river in four boats, at
night, leaving Mrs. Blennerhassett to follow. Then the Virginia
militia occupied the island, had a trial of a hand of recruits that were
intercepted, and who, of course, were discharged, and after that
invaded the wine cellar and sacked the mansion. Burr and Blenner-
hassett met as agreed at the mouth of the Cumberland, and ignorant
of Wilkinson's play of patriotism, dropped down the river to Missis-
sippi. There they heard of the tremendous commotion that had been
raised, and the troops that were looking I'm- them. Burr was put
under arrest. The grand jury returned a hill condemning his ene-
mies and denouncing Wilkinson's conduct, but, being threatened
with military proceedings, Burr fled toward Pens; la, was seized
by Captain Gaines and carried to Richmond, Va. Blennerhassett
suffered a similar fate, and every man who had talked to Burr in the
West was under suspicion. Nearly all his friends were ruined, with
a notable exception in Andrew Jackson, who dared to go to Rich-
mond and denounce Jefferson for persecuting his friend. Then fol-
lowed the great treason trial at Richmond, before Chief Justice John
Marshall, of which it is enough to say that after several months of
oratory and legal profundity, the accusation id' treason failed, and
Burr and Blennerhassett were hound over for a trial at Chillicothe
in January. 1808, for the misdemeanor of organizing an expedition
against Spain, a trial that was never intended to he held and never
was. A great feature at Richmond was the speech of William Wirt,
attorney-general of the United States. That part of it describing
the felicity of Blennerhassett's island and the dire result of tin entry
of Burr like the serpent into Eden, was a favorite piece in the school
readers of the next generations, ami as popular for declamation as
Rienzi's address to the R an-. While Wirt was delivering it, Blen-
nerhassett and his wife were planning to give further assistance to
Burr. Blennerhassett returned to his island to find it laid waste,
afterward went to Mississippi and embarked in cotton planting, and
thrived until, having been seriously crippled by the failure of the
Burr empire, the hard times attending the commercial troubles with
Napoleon and ("neat Britain put an end to his prosperity. He died
in poverty in England, and his wife passed away in similar circum-
stances in America, while endeavoring to obtain justice from Con-
gress. A great tl 1 swept over the island, and finally, in 1811, a
lire destroyed the famous mansion. As for Burr, he took refuge in
Europe for a time, and then returning had revenge on "the Virginia
dynasty" by planning the triumph of Jackson and VanBuren.
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD. jgY
''To look back upon the farce now, is like reading an aecounl of
the Massachusetts witchcraft," wrote Caleb Atwater in his history of
Ohio. A considerable number of ] pie in Ohio suffered in popular
esteem for friendship to Burr. The careers of General Dayton and
Senator Smith were ended. Smith was accused of treason before the
United States senate. A vote to expel him failed by one vote, but
he yielded to the unanimous demand of the legislature for his resigna-
tion, in December, 1808. "Affidavits of conversations with Colonel
Burr were gotten against him;" says Atwater, '•many of these will-
ing witnesses we knew, and would not believe them under oath then
or at any other time during their lives." After he left office the
prejudice against Smith took the form of financial persecution and
his property was seized. He abandoned the state, took refuge in
Louisiana and died there in 1824.
Governor Tiffin in January, l^oT. was elected to the United States
senate, to succeed Senator Worthington, an honor for which Phile-
mon Beecher received a creditable support. George Tod, of Trum-
bull county, a man of Connecticut birth, who had served as state
senator, was elected to the supreme court, defeating Richard S.
Thomas by one vote. At the election of governor in the same
year, there was a memorable contest between Return Jonathan Meigs
and Xathaniel Massie, Marietta against Chillicothe, in which the
older town seemed to win. The returns showed 6,050 for Meigs and
4.7.">7 for Massie, ami though the election was contested, and many
returns thrown out, neither of the revisions made could quite wipe
out the Meigs majority. Both houses of the legislature sat .in joint
convention for several days to hear a contest, instituted by the friends
of Massie, on the ground that Meigs was disqualified to hold tin'
office because he had been appointed to United States office in Louis-
iana (Missouri) and Michigan, though he contended that his legal
residence had remained at Marietta. By a vote of 24 to 20 he was
ruled out as ineligible, and it was declared that there had been a fail-
ure to elect.''' Thomas Kirker, speaker of the senate, who had
become acting governor on the resignation of Tiffin, held the office
from January, 1807, to December 12. 1808. Meigs was elected to-
the supreme court.
The administration of Governor Kirker was marked by agitation
for the removal of the capital from Chillicothe, the beginning of a
famous attempt to restrict the power of the courts, ami the crcati.ni
of a number of new counties. A minor feature, perhaps, was the
enactment of a law compelling every male citizen of military age to
collect and turn over to his township clerk annually, one hundred
*It is statPd by McDonald and other historians that General Massie was
declared elected, and that he declined to accept the office because he had not
received a majority. But the record is as above.
188 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
squirrel scalps, or if deficient pay at the rate of three cents a scalp
for the benefit of those who were better hunters. The fields as well
as forests were overrun with these animals, as larger game disap-
peared, and it was a fight for life on theipart of the farmers.
The new counties created were: Knox from Fairfield, named in
honor of Gen. Henry Knox, of the Revolution; Licking, also set off
from Fairfield, with its county seat at Newark, a town founded in
tin- refugee tract in 1803 by Gen. William < !. Schenck, an officer
under General Wayne, who was also a pioneer of the Miami valley;
Delaware from Franklin, named from the great Indian nation;
Stark, including the historic country of Fort Laurens, with the
county scat at Canton, laid out in 1806 by Bezaleel Wells, a city com-
memorating in its name the great interest felt at that time in China ;
Wayne, the "New Purchase" from the Indians; Tuscarawas, from
Muskingum, including the old Moravian towns, with the county seat
at New Philadelphia, platted in 1804; and Prehle, separated from
Montgomery and Butler, and named in honor of the gallant commo-
dore who had recently bombarded Tripoli.
One of the prime necessities of the young State was money. The
great difficulties of transportation rendered it impossible to bring
enough specie into the State through export of products, if it had
heen practicable for the early settlers to raise enough products to
export The recourse in this need was to local hanks empowered to
issue notes, which became the circulating medium. The first legis-
lature, in April, 180:!, in the charter of the Miami Exporting
company, of Cincinnati, made provision for banking among the com-
mercial functions id' that concern, but the first hank proper to receive
a charter was that at .Marietta in 1808. In the same session of the
assemhly the founding id' a State hank was favorahly reported on by
Mr. Worthington. The Bank of Chillicolhe was chartered for ten
years. The state was offered one-sixth id' the shares. The great
popular demand from these hanks was the issue of paper money, hut
the law did not restrict the amount of it, or require its redemption
in specie. Banks of the same sort were incorporated in 1S0S at
Steubenville and Chillicothe, and three others in 1812-13.
There was a sort of national currency also to he taken into account.
The first United States hank, which was in reality a private concern,
specially entrusted with the national finances and issue of paper
money, was a result of the great Ohio Indian war of 1790-95. "To
carry on war at that time, with such Indians as were then, at such
a distance in the wilderness, was a severe trial upon the finance- of
the federal treasury as well as upon the courage and discipline of the
troops; and General Hamilton, the head of the treasury, urged that
with the aid of a national hank, the war would he better and more
successfully conducted ; and therefore that it was •necessary' and
mighl be established a- a mean- of executing a granted power, to-
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD. jg<j
wit: the power of making war."* This national bank, the first
Bank of the United States, flourished, with the credit of successfully
sustaining the Ohio war. until its charter expired in 1811.
In 1804-05 there had been a memorable attempt on the part of
the leaders of the Jeffersonian party, suggested by Jefferson himself,
to remove from the bench of the United States supreme court Judge
Samuel Chase of Maryland, a Federalist who was so indiscreet as to
remain an "offensive partisan." The Jeffersonians realized that
without a freely exercised control of the judiciary, there remained
a restriction upon the independence of the legislatures and states,
and the removal of John Marshall from the commanding position of
chief justice was earnestly desired. It was asserted by the Jeffer-
sonians that for the supreme court to declare an act of Congress
unconstitutional would he good around for impeachment and removal
from office. The first blow was struck at Chase, who was vulnerable
in his indiscretions, and a momentous battle was waged, that might
have changed the form of government and justified the fears of the
Federalists in 1800. But Judge Chase was acquitted by the senate
acting as a court. This is mentioned because the crisis was echoed
in Ohio. The act of the legislature in 1805, defining the duties of
justices of the peace, gave those officers jurisdiction of cases involv-
ing'over $20 and prohibited the recovering of costs in the common
pleas court on judgments of from $20 to $50. These provisions
were brought in question before the courts, as obnoxious to the
seventh amendment of the United States constitution, which, ordains
that "in suits at common law, when the value in controversy shall
exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall In- preserved,"
and also repugnant to a provision in the Slate constitution that "the
right of trial by jury shall ho inviolate." The court of common pleas
of the Third circuit (of which Calvin Pease was president judge I
and Judges Huntington and Tod. of the State supreme court, decide. 1
that the provisions of the law of 1S05 referred to were unconstitu-
tional and void, and thereupon the legislature ordered the impeach-
ment of the judges.
Judge Huntington did not suffer in popular favor on account of
this movement, and being selected in 1S08 as the candidate opposed
to the Chillicothe party, he was triumphantly elected, receiving 7,293
votes to 5,601 for Thomas Worthington ami .",:i!i7 for Thomas
Kirker, for governor.f
Samuel Huntington, as has been noted, was of Connecticut birth.
He was of Puritan stock and a graduate of Yale college. Corning
west in 1800 ho made his home at Cleveland and began the practice
* Thomas H. Benton. "Thirty Years" View.''
tin this year Nathaniel Massie. Thomas McCune and Stephen Wood were
chosen presidential electors, and they threw the vote of Ohio for James
Madison.
190 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
of law. He was elected to the constitutional convention and the
state senate, became speaker of the .senate and later judge of the
supreme court, from which he was called to the chief magistracy.
lie was duly installed December 12, 1808, and the proceedings
againsl him were dropped, and articles of impeachment* were
reported againsl Judges Tod and Pease, for "high misdemeanor and
wilful, corrupt and wicked disregard of the constitution," in declar-
ing null and void an act of the legislature. They were tried before
the senate. Judge Tod, in his answer, "asserted his right and duty
to determine ease- brought before him as judge, according to the con-
victions of his judgment, and vindicated the purity of his motives
and the uprightness of his judicial eonduct."f Nevertheless the
senate voted in both cases fifteen to nine for finding the judges guilty,
but fifteen being die less than the two-thirds vote required for con-
viction, the judges retained their places upon the bench. The names
of the nine deserve remembrance. They were John Bigger of War-
ren, Jacob Burton of Fairfield, John P. R. Bureau of Gallia i father-
in-law of Samuel F. Vinton), Calvin Cone of Trumbull, Daniel C.
Cooper of Montgomery,! Joseph Foos of Franklin, Lewis Kinney.
Jr., of Columbiana, Eenry Massie of Ross, and Elnathan Schofield.
Among those who voted for conviction were ex-Governor Kirker and
future-Governor McArthur.
During the same session of the legislature an United States sen-
ator was elected to succeed John Smith, and Return Jonathan Meigs
was chosen by a decisive majority over Nathaniel Massie. William
Creighton having resigned the office of secretary of state, Jeremiah
McLene, a < !hillicothe pioneer and sheriff of Koss county, was elected
over Joseph Tiffin. McLene held this office for twenty-three years
successively. To succeed Huntington and Meigs in the supreme
court. Thomas Scott and Thomas .Morris were chosen.
in Euntington's administration there was danger of war
with European powers, on account of the violation of neutral rights
in the course of the Napoleonic war-. In March, 1809, the Ohio
militia officers, under order- from the president of the United States
.lining picked ho. lie- of men to go into the field, but presently
ill- en ergency passed, with the restoration of more amicable relations.
Exasperated by the failure to remove the judge- that had dared to
is .-i common thing for the early legislatures to indulge in impeach-
ment and trial of the various judge*. Some prominent men were compelled
t" pa-- tin* ordeal, Madras William W, Irwin, who was accused ol refusing
to meet with iii- judicial colleague- and speaking slightingly of the importance
of ill- duties. After a solemn trial lie was found guilty and removed from
office.
tin defense of the judges a famous argument was made by Lewis Cass.
lawyer of Marietta, whose father, Maj. Jonathan Cass, had been
with the army in Wayne's campaign and was now farming near Zanesville.
{Jonathan Da; n the Miami valley, and. it may be said, the
real founder of the city of Dayton.
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD. ^gj
annul acts of the legislature, the radical Jeffersonian party made a
determined effort to gain greater control of the legislature in L809.
Edward Tiffin resigned from the United States senate, following the
death of his wife,* and was elected to the house from Ross county,
and Duncan McArthur was re-elected to the senate and made speaker
by unanimous vote. Of the house Alexander Campbell, of Adams
county,f was speaker pro tempore until elected United States senator
to succeed Tiffin, Richard S. Thompson being his main competitor
for the honor. To succeed Thomas Gibson as auditor of state, Benja-
min Hough was chosen. With all this change the majority in the
legislature was not content as long as the obnoxious judges retained
office. Consequently a new move was made, based on the cry that,
the public officers had been in power long enough and should give
place to new men. A resolution was passed, in January, 1810, called
the "Sweeper resolution," providing that officers chosen to fill vacan-
cies arising during the original terms in the judiciary should go out
at the expiration of those terms.
By this legislation the judges of the supreme and common pleas
courts were removed from office. Thomas Scott. William W. Irwin
and Francis Dunlavy were elected as a new supreme court, and John
Thompson and Benjamin Ruggles were elected president judges of
the Second and Third circuits. Ruggles, horn in Connecticut in
17 s -':. had been a lawyer at Marietta since isu", ami now moved to
St. Clairsville, where, after a career of great distinction he died in
L857. A full new se1 of associate judges was also provided for the
counties. ■•.Many of the counties had not been organized half seven
years and the judges in not a few instances hail not served two years,"
Mr. Atwater commented. •"In some such cases, both sets of judges
attempted to act officially. The whole state was thrown into utter
confusion for a time, but finally one and all became convinced that
the Sweeper Resolution was all wrong." It was also his opinion that
"all the acts of this session were equally violent and unconstitutional,
for "madness ruled the hour.'" One of the measures was a resolu-
tion to remove the seat id' government temporarily to Zanesville. A
commission was appointed in February, I s in, composed of James
Findlay, Joseph Darlinton and William McFarland, to whom Wyllys
♦Stanley Griswold, of Cuyahoga, was appointed ad interim. He was a
Connecticut man who had been expelled from the ministry of his church for
preaching Jeffersonian politics; had been secretary of Michigan territory,
and from 1810 until his death was United State's judge for the Northwest
territory.
t Alexander Campbell, born in Green Brier county. Va.. in 177'.*. an orphan
in boyhood, was reared in East Tennessee and Jxentucky. studied medicine,
came to Adams county as a doctor, in 1S04, was thrice elected to the legisla
ture, and then to the United States senate, where he opposed slavery, the
Mexican war and the United States bank. He rode his horse to ami from
Washington. After being senator he served several times in the legislature
and was a Harrison elector in 1836.
292 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Silliman and Rezin Beall weir subsequently added, to select a perma-
nent si at of government.
Thus the administration of Governor Huntington passed, in a
stormy manner. It should he remembered for the practical failure
to put tin- judiciary under the dominion of the legislature and pre-
vent the co-ordination of powers that are characteristic of American
government, and for the beginning of the effort to move the capital,
which revealed tbe growth of population away from the Ohio river
region. Several new counties were also created. In 1809 Darke
county, with the county seat at Greenville, founded by John Devor
in 1808, was erected (though not organized until 1817); the Fire-
lands were named Huron county, and in January and February,
1810, the counties of Cuyahoga, Pickaway, Guernsey, Coshocton,
Fayette. Clinton and Madison, were organized.
All this legislation revealed the progress of the state, and the cen-
sus of 1810 showed that in seven years the population had increased
from less than fifty thousand to 230,760. At the same time- the
total tax valuation of lands had risen from three million to nearly
$10,000,000, and the state revenues had grown from $22,000 to
nearly $86,000. The lusty seven-year-old had already far surj assed
in population the original state> of Delaware and Rhode Island and
New Hampshire, and was not far behind Connecticut, Georgia and
New Jersey. Of the more newly admitted state- Tennessee was not
far behind, hut Kentucky could still look down upon Ohio a- some-
thing of a wilderness.
At the State election of lslii Return Jonathan Meigs was again
a candidate and pitted against another Chillicothe man, the distin-
guished Thomas Worthington. The campaign was spirited and
exciting and Meigs was successful, despite the prestige of hi- oppo-
nent, by a majority of over two thousand. lie was duly inaugurated
in December, 1810, without question of his citizenship. This cre-
ating a vacancy in the United State- senatorship, there was a warm
for that honor and on the sixth ballot Worthington gained the
one vot< necessary to elect, Samuel Huntington being his close
opponent.
Govi raor Meigs was one of the ablest men of the early days of
( >hio, worthy of the honor bestowed upon him. He was re-ele
1812 by a majority of nearly four thousand over Thomas Scott, ■ t
Ross county.
When the legislature met at Zanesville in December, 1S10, the cap-
ital commissioners reported in favor of a site on Hie lands of John
and Peter Sell-, on the Scioto, a few mile- west of Worthington, hut
the matter went over to the next legislature, when nine propositions
ade by Landowners to donati sites. <>no was from Henry
Neville, of L50 acre- on the Pickaway plains. Circleville tend< red
a ash d d James Kilbourne, of Worthington, offered the-
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD. 193
necessary grounds and buildings. But eventually Col. James John-
son, Alexander McLaughlin, John Kerr and Lyne Starling were suc-
cessful in securing the acceptance of their offer to donate twenty
acres and expend $50,000 in building the statehouse, offices and peni-
tentiary, on the high lands opposite the town of Franklinton. This
was the beginning of the city of Columbus, the present capital of the
State, in which the first lots were sold June IS, 1812. The tem-
porary state capital was again established at Chillicothe until the new
buildings were completed, and the legislature met but twice at the
city of Zanesville.
According to the apportionment made under the census of 1810,
Ohio had a great increase of representation in the lower house of
Congress, from one to six representatives. The first delegation of
six, was John McLean, John Alexander, Duncan McArthur, James
Caldwell, James Kilboum and John S. Edwards. McLean, then
twenty-seven years old, was a native of New Jersey, who was brought
west by his family in 1789, locating in Warren county ten years later.
He studied law under the junior St. Clair and became a lawyer in
1807. John Alexander was an early settler of Greene county; Dun-
can McArthur we know, and also James Kilbourn. Caldwell was
a Belmont county man. Edwards was a pioneer wool grower in the
Western reserve. He resigned to lead a militia regiment in the war,
and his successor Bezin Beall, of New Lisbon, a Marylander who
had served under Harmar and Wayne, also resigned to command a
brigade of militia. David Clendenin, of Trumbull, was the actual
first representative from the Western reserve. McArthur also
resigned for the war and his place was taken by William Creighton.
Jeremiah Morrow, who was the solitary representative of Ohio in
1803-13, was elected to the United States senate to succeed Camp-
bell and served six years.
The conveniences of travel to Ohio were not yet much improved
by 1812. The great National road, that was to furnish access to
the eastern seaboard, was being opened very slowly. It was to be
built, as will be remembered, by a part of the receipts from sale of
public lands in Ohio and the northwest. When the fund available
for building east of Ohio, two per cent, amounted to about $12,000,
in 1805, a move was made toward building a road, and Joseph Kerr,
of Boss county, was appointed by Bresident Jefferson as one of the
three commissioners to locate it. A substantial road, sixty-six feet
wide, was ordered, and $30,000 appropriated in 1806. The road,
as marked and cleared of trees in 1808, followed in a general way,
Braddock's route toward Bittsburg, crossing the Monongahela at
Bedstone. There was intense rivalry between Wheeling and Steu-
benville for the terminus of the eastern division, but through the
influence of Henry Clay the Virginia town won. Construction went
on at the cost of $0,000 a mile, but it was not until 1818, some years
1-13
194 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
after the period now under consideration, that mail coaches began
to run over this magnificent road, from Washington to Wheeling.
With this highway incomplete and communication with the east
very difficult and expensive, the Ohio and Mississippi rivers con-
tinued to be the main outlet of the surplus of Ohio, but with the great
inconvenience that while it was easy to to go down the river with
flatboats and sail-rigged vessel, it was almost impossible to get back
that way. For this reason most adventurers down the Ohio sold
their craft on reaching New Orleans and returned overland. In
1812 a hundred boats loaded with Ohio products left Chillicothe for
Natchez and New Orleans, and in the same year a vessel sailed from
the mouth of the Scioto for foreign ports. There' was similar com-
merce on the Muskingum and Miami in the early years of the State,
as well as from Cincinnati and Marietta, the principal ports. After
Robert Fulton, in 1S07, was successful in running a steamboat on
the Hudson river, there began a new era of navigation on the rivers,
but it was slower in development than might have been expected. In
1809, Mr. Roosevelt, of New York, the associate of Fulton, went
down the Ohio to inspect the river as to the practicability of steam
navigation, and as a result, the steamer New Orleans was built at
Pittsburg. While the advent of this new marvel was expected in
1811, there was a great river event at Cincinnati, that was thus
reported in the Baltimore Weekly Register :
"Cincinnati, May 29. — Arrived at this place, on Sunday morning,
the 26th inst, barge Cincinnati, Beatle commander, from New
Orleans, with a cargo of sugar, hides, logwood, crates, etc. She
sailed from New Orleans the 3d of March, arrived at the Falls the
9th of May, 68 days, remained at Falls 9 days, and sailed from
thence on the 17th inst. This is the first rigged vessel that ever
arrived at Cincinnati from below. She is but 100 feet keel, 16 feet
beam, rigged sloop fashion, and burthen 64 tons. She was worked
over the falls by 18 men, in half a day."
In the following October the expected steamboat came down the
river from Pittsburg, watched by thousands and admired for the
rapidity of its movement. Reaching Cincinnati at night the town
was alarmed by the strange noise of escaping steam. The boat ran
between Cincinnati and Louisville until high water enabled it to
shoot the rapids. Then it proceeded to the lower Mississippi, on
the way narrowly escaping destruction by the great earthquake of
December, 1S11, which changed the channel of the river, and was
frit in Ohio and all parts of the United States. Two years later the
second steamer went down from Pittsburg (the Vesuvius), and she
attempted to make the return trip, hut ran aground, and for some
time it was not thought practicable to run steamers above Natchez.
In addition to the hope of a broad highway over the mountains
and better navigation on the great rivers there was talk of canala
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD. 195
during the Meigs administration. Dewitt Clinton, of New York,
highly esteemed in Ohio for his friendly attitude toward the admis-
sion of the State, had already hecome a leader in canal agitation in
the east, and in 1S09 was one of a commission to survey a canal to
connect Lake Erie and the Hudson. This was, of course, a matter
of great importance to Ohio, as transportation matters were then,
and the legislature in 1812 heartily joined in recommending national
aid for the work. Much Avas expected from these artificial water
ways, which, so far as modern history is concerned, were a new thing.
Canal construction in England does not antedate the middle of the
eighteenth century, and soon after it was proposed to unite in this
way the cities of Hull and Liverpool, in 1777, Gouverneur Morris
suggested the Erie and Hudson canal. George Washington at the
same time advised the Virginia government to make such a connec-
tion with the waters of the Ohio, and in 17S-i both Washington and
Thomas Jefferson suggested canals to unite the Ohio and Lake Erie,
Washington continuing persistently to urge an investigation of the
project. The fact that in wet weather there was complete water con-
nection between the Cuyahoga and Muskingum for the light craft of
the Indians, suggested that route as the most promising.
An interesting glimpse of Ohio in 1811 may be obtained from a
book of travels published by John Melish. The main towns were
Cincinnati, with about four hundred houses and 2,283 inhabitants ;
Marietta, with 1,500 people, and Chillicothe, with 1,360. Cincin-
nati had thirty dry goods stores, while Chillicothe was an active
manufacturing town, with two rope walks, cotton, woolen and nail
factories, a pottery and several distilleries. Taverns were an impor-
tant feature of town life. Zanesville, a much talked of town, because
of its situation on the mail route from Wheeling to Kentucky, had
eleven taverns, though tbe inhabitants numbered but twelve hundred.
Coshocton had 140 people, and New Philadelphia, where the Penn-
sylvania Germans were settling, did not exceed 250. The Western
Reserve, where Warren was the main town, was noted for muddy and
difficult roads. Continual malarial fevers had made the few settlers
of the little hamlet of Cleveland pale and dejected, and completely
checked its growth, of which there had been great expectations.
There were sixteen dwellings, two taverns, two stores and one school
in this place, already hopefully called a city. There were two sorts
of malarial attacks prevalent here and in other parts of the State,
the ague proper, in which the chills were of frightful violence, and
the dumb ague, something like the malarial fever of later days. No
one escaped, entire families being at times disabled, and clouds of
mosquitoes kept the infection in circulation. It is indeed the truth,
that mosquitoes were a more serious foe than the Indians to the early
settlers of Ohio. Along the Ohio river, peaches were grown in great
abundance for the manufacture of peach brandy, of which a gallon
190 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
could be bought for three or four shillings. With very few excep-
tions, this brandy, and whiskey, which was cheap, were freely used
by all. Government land was selling at $1.64 cash, or $2 on four
years' time, and of the earlier claimants one might buy good land for
five or six dollars an acre. A wild turkey could be bought for
twenty-five cents, but salt was $1.50 a bushel. Coal was about five
cents a bushel at Zanesville, and wood one dollar a cord. Flour was
$4 a barrel, meats could be bought from two to four cents a pound,
and fowls at half a shilling. Wages were 75 cents to $1.50 per day
at Chillicothe.
It must not he imagined that amid these conditions of rawness,
intellectual culture was altogether neglected. There were many
excellent schools, taught by men of whom Francis Glass, of Irish
birth, is an example, a man who labored faithfully with the young
ideas and in his leisure wrote in Latin a history of Washington, that
he completed in 1823. In 1815 an edition of Pascal's "Of the Imi-
tation of Christ," was printed at Wilmington, which may, for cur-
iosity, he contrasted with that latter day Columbus edition of the
"Rubaiyat," that is sought by book collectors.
At Steubenville a paper mill was established in 1812, about which
and the woolen factory gathered a colony of English and Germans,
among them young Thomas Cole, in later years one of the great
artists of the world, and Joseph Howells, grandfather of William
Dean Howells.
Though northwest Ohio remained in the hands of the Indians there
were United States reservations for military purposes, such as that
of twelve miles square at the foot of the Maumee rapids and of six
miles square at the mouth of the river, where Fort Industry, built
about 1800, marked the site of the future Toledo. These reserva-
tions became the homes of settlers, beginning the remarkable though
retarded development of that part of Ohio. Maj. Amos Spafford
came from Cleveland to the foot of the rapids in 1810 as collector
of the port of Miami, and just before war was declared in 1812 there
were sixty-seven white families living there. Among them were some
remnants of the old French population, notably Pierre Navarre and
his brothers, who served throughout the war as scouts for the Amer-
icans, and Pierre Manor, who saved the settlers from massacre by a
timely warning at the outbreak of hostilities.
But the Toledo site at this time was in the possession of the terri-
tory- of Michigan. When the Ohio constitution was framed, there
was some discussion regarding the northwestern line of the state,
which according to the enabling act of Congress was to be an exten-
sion of a line drawn due east from the head of Lake Michigan to
Lake Erie. According to Mitchell's geography, then the authority,
such a line would cut the Detroit river, but old traders and hunters
doubted this, and the founders of the State of Ohio provided that if
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD. -j^f
such a line should not touch Lake Erie, or touch it east of the mouth
of "the Miami river of the lake," the north boundary line shotdd lie
drawn not due east, but north of east from the head of Lake Michi-
gan to the most northerly cape of "the Miami bay." Congress
accepted this constitution, and, as Ohio ever afterward contended,
thereby ratified the amendment to the original plan of boundaries.
But in 1805 Michigan territory was created with the southern
boundary as originally specified, without any reference to the Ohio
amendment.
In 1807 Governor Hull, of Michigan, acting for the United States,
bought the land north of the Maumee as far west as the mouth of the
An Glaize and up beyond Detroit, from the Indians for $10,000, and
this tended to confirm the establishment of the Maumee river as the
northwest boundary of the Ohio country. As early as 1S12 Michi-
gan territorial officials were assuming authority in the Maumee
country, exciting the jealousy of those who had settled there from
Ohio. Collector Spafford, in that year, appealed to Governor Meigs
to extend the laws of Ohio over them and contest the claims of Michi-
gan. The matter was also brought before Congress, and by resolu-
tion of May, 1812, a survey w r as ordered as soon as the Indians
should permit it, to determine the location of the due east and west
line. But war came on and the doubtful region was quickly depop-
ulated and of no importance except as a battleground.
During all this time, since the treaty of Greenville, Indians and
whites had lived in peace. Though northwest Ohio was Indian
country, white men traveled through it without molestation, and
the red men were familiar figures in the white settlements. But
occasionally there were outrages that threatened serious trouble, due
to lawless elements in both races, and the race hatred entertained by
many of the whites. Near Warren, for instance, some drunken
Indians disturbed a white family in the absence of the husband. A
party sought the Indian camp near by, hungry for vengeance. The
Indian chief suggested with really chivalrous feeling that if there
must be blood, he would meet one of the party to settle the matter,
and was instantly shot down. Several other Indians, including
women and children, were wounded. The red men fled and called a
council, and a war was with difficulty averted. The Indians finally
consented to let the whites punish the offenders, but when the trial
was had, a mob compelled the acquittal of the murderers. West of
Ohio were tribes not yet satisfied with the judgment of battle, who
entertained the old hope of driving the Yengees across the Ohio if
not into the sea. Those Indians also bore their wrongs with "aston-
ishing patience," but "should the United States be at war with any
European nation who are known to the Indians," Governor Harrison
predicted as early as 1S01, "there would probably be a combination
against us, unless some means are made use of to conciliate them."
298 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
As for war with a European nation, there was always opportunity
during those days. It must be remembered that the period of sixty
years, beginning with the shots fired in 1754 by George Washing-
ton's men in the Pennsylvania wilderness, was practically a contin-
ous war for dominance in Europe and America, for the establishment
of republican governments, or for the overthrow of ancient dynasties.
After American independence was achieved, nominally at least, in
1783, the struggle was soon resumed in Europe, with France and
England as the chief antagonists. Then the problem for America
was to restrain her sympathies for each of these powers, keep out of
the fight and strengthen her independence. Washington managed
to hold down the French sympathizers, and Jefferson, though lean-
ing toward France, adopted a policy of coquetry toward the hostile
nations, using the opportunities of the situation to gain territory for
the United States. But when the rival powers attacked the great
shipping interests of the United States, with arbitrary edicts and
confiscations, Jefferson, with all his ability, was compelled to declare
an embargo on ocean trade, as retaliation. This ruined the com-
merce all along the coast. New York, in 1S08, resembled a city
hushed under the ban of some great pestilence. Jefferson w^ent out
of office, leaving conditions that made war inevitable, and his coun-
try crippled so as to make the war promise humiliation. Madison, a
man of less ability, could not cope with the situation. The states-
men of his school made the country more unready for war by putting
an end to the United States bank. Meanwhile a group of young men
like Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun came to the front demanding
war for American honor, to avenge the insidts and outrages com-
mitted by the French and English upon American shipping and
sailors. It was doubtful which country would be chosen as an antag-
onist, but the leanings of the party in power were toward France
as an ally. Furthermore, the British were not only oppressive at
sea, but were accused of again encouraging trouble among the Indians.
When the American frigate President and the British sloop Little
Belt turned their guns on each other in the Atlantic, and the Indians
fell upon Harrison's camp in Indiana, the country could no longer
resist the cry for war with England.
The Indians of the West were at this time under the influence of
one of the greatest men who rose among them from the beginning of
the white invasion — Tecumseh, a native of the old Shawanee town
of Piqua on Mad river. His father had fallen in the famous battle
at Point Pleasant, and before he was thirty years old, the young
warrior had experience in the hostilities that were ended by the
treaty of Greenville. His brother, Ellskwatiwaw, became a medi-
cine man, or "prophet," of great renown, and brought to the aid of
Tecumseh all the influences of Indian religion. It was his special
effort to repress drunkenness, to save the squaws from the degrada-
FIRST YEARS OF STATEHOOD.
199
tion of frontier license, and encourage a national spirit. It was
Tecumseh's ambition to unite' the red men, put a stop to the piece-
meal bargains, by which they lost their hunting grounds, and compel
the United States to treat with the whole people for the lands.
Governor Harrison continued to narrow the Indian area west of
Ohio by the objectionable sort of treaties, and Tecumseh, as early as
1808, having made his home in Indiana, met the governor with fre-
quent and angry remonstrance. The situation had almost reached
the intensity of war in 1810, and Tecumseh determined to enlist all
the Indians from the lakes to the gulf in a great effort to stop the
wave of white settlement. Harrison justified his encroachments
upon the red men by the argument that the country was destined for
civilization, and could not be left in a state of nature to accommodate
a "few wretched savages." When a wealthy Scotchman of Vin-
cennes accused him of cheating the Indians out of their lands, the
governor went to law and obtained a judgment of damages against
his daring critic.
Tecumseh went south in 1811, among the Creeks and Cherokees,
and incited an Indian war there that demanded all the energy of
Andrew Jackson to control. In the south as well as in Indiana and
Michigan it was declared by the warriors that the British would
become their allies and furnish them guns and ammunition. In the
south Pensacola, and in the north Brownstown, on the Detroit river,
opposite the British post, Fort Maiden (Amherstburg), became the
place of resort of the war plotters. Harrison had called for assist-
ance, and the Fourth United States regiment and a Kentucky
mounted battalion were sent to Vincennes in the summer of 1811,
with which he marched up the Wabash and approached the Prophet's
town on Tippecanoe creek, in the absence of Tecumseh. It was
expected that the Indians collected there would disperse, but instead
they made a fierce attack at four o'clock in the morning of Novem-
ber 7th, some of them breaking through the lines and fighting among
the tents. Fortunately, the troops were not seriously surprised, and
managed to repel their enemy, though nearly a third of the little
army were killed or wounded. Harrison was made famous by the
victory, which was a very narrow escape from another St. Clair dis-
aster. The Indians scattered and their town was destroyed.
Great excitement was caused in Ohio by this battle, "and by the
debate in Congress in the following month regarding the policy of
invading Canada. The legislature in December discussed the situa-
tion and adopted resolutions deploring the outrages and aggressions
of the belligerent powers of Europe. "A retrospective view of the
sufferings, injuries and insults which have flowed to this country,
from a peculiar system of maritime depredation," they said, "must
elevate the mind of every American to a posture of unyielding resist-
200 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
ance." At the conclusion it was pledged for Ohio, "We will at the
call of our country rally round the standard of freedom."
But there were many who opposed the war. Ohio's two senators
voted against it. In New England the opposition was so strong that
an element threatened secession from the United States, which a
British emissary intrigued to encourage. But even with the warn-
ing of such opposition at home the administration seemed incapable
of preparing to make the inevitable war a creditable one. To com-
mand the proposed invasion of Canada in the west, Governor Hull,
of Michigan, was chosen, a man who had been a gallant subordinate
officer in the Revolution, but had not evinced, in his Michigan admin-
istration, such strength or tenacity of purpose as is essential to suc-
cess as a general. He was asked to invade Canada from Detroit,
while General Dearborn should advance from Lake Champlain and
Van Rensselaer from Niagara.
It seems amazing that the government should have planned an
invasion of Canada without a warship on the lakes. The necessity
was realized, and the first steps were taken toward the building of a
navy on Lake Ontario. Near Detroit there was a small frigate in
the yards that soon fell into the hands of the British. If the build-
ing of a navy had been begun earlier and vigorously, its mere pres-
ence on the lakes, threatening British dominion in Canada, might
have served all the purpose of the costly and miserable war that began
in 1812. Until a navy was built an invasion of Canada would
be fruitless, with such a small army as was called out. Governor
Hull repeatedly reminded the government of this before he accepted
the responsibility of the movement from Detroit, but in vain.
There was a mystery about the first Canada campaign, that some
people explained by a secret ivnderstanding that vigorous measures
should be restrained, for fear Canada should be overrun and added
to the Union, disturbing the balance of power between the free and
slave states. It is more likely that the administration, naturally
weak and politically prejudiced against a strong army and navy, but
driven into war by popular clamor before it was ready to fight, vacil-
lated between opposing impulses, sacrificing the soldiers to its own
incompetence and the popular impatience.
CHAPTER IX.
WAR AND HARD TIMES.
Governors Return Jonathan Meigs, 1S12-14 — Othniel
Looker. 1S11 — Thomas Wokthington, 1S14-18 — Ethan-
Allen Brown, 1818-22.
FOR THE occupation of Detroit the Washington authorities
proposed to withdraw from Indiana the little regiment of
regulars that protected the frontier from the Indians, and
send them with a small body of Ohio volunteers through
a wilderness that had never been penetrated by a wagon. Ohio
yielded with patriotic devotion to the' demand upon her resources
for this amateur war. She would willingly and easily have raised
an army large enough to be effective. The State had 35,000
militia enrolled and had arms of one sort or another for 10,000
or more. In the spring of 1812, with the prospect of war becom-
ing more and more certain, the Ohio major-generals of militia
ordered their men together for drill and inspection, and when
Governor Meigs, in obedience to the president, called for twelve
hundred volunteers, there was a prompt response. Dayton was
selected as the place of rendezvous, and companies were there assem-
bled in May from the three southern divisions and organized in
three regiments, of four or five hundred men each. Of the First
regiment, from the Scioto valley, Duncan McArthur was elected
•colonel, and James Denny of ( iircleville, and William Trimble of
Highland, majors. The colonel of the Second regiment, from the
Miami country, was James Findlay, and the majors were Thomas
Moore and Thomas Van Horn, The Third regiment, mainly from
the Muskingum country and eastern Ohio, with some men from the
Scioto and Miami valleys, chose Lewis Cass as colonel, and Robert
Morrison and Jeremiah Monson as majors. In the organization of
regular troops two field officers were assigned to Ohio — Col. John
Miller, an editor at Steubenville, who was madi lonel of the Nine-
teenth United States regiment, and George Tod, lately judge of the
supreme court, who was commissioned a mlajor in the same regiment.
William McMillan became lieutenant-colonel of the Seventeenth, in
OQO CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
which George Croghan was a major. At the same time. Gen. Elijah
Wadsworth, commanding the northeastern division of militia, organ-
ized three companies and put them in the field.
Hull, commissioned a brigadier-general, arrived at Cincinnati in
April, and relieved Meigs of command at Dayton, May 25th, mean-
while busying himself in finding arms, equipment and clothing for
the volunteers, and organizing some sort of a system of commissary
supply. He was not enthusiastic over the enterprise, but the govern-
ment was confident of the capacity of the American militia to subdue
the British lion, and the Ohio regiments were full of hope and
enthusiasm. They marched to Urbana in May, and there welcomed
the arrival of the reinforcement of the Fourth United States regi-
ment, three hundred men, under Col. James Miller, who had been
given a triumph at Cincinnati as the heroes of Tippecanoe. From
Urbana the little army moved to Manary's blockhouse (now Belle-
fontaine), the frontier settlement of northwest Ohio. Thence to
Detroit the country was an unbroken wilderness, part of the way
without even a footpath, level country, slashed with swamps, marshes
and rivers, and including the famous Black Swamp, for many years
afterward the terror of western emigrants. The army was com-
pelled to carry all subsistence and forage in wagons, and in order
that the wagons might proceed a road must be cut through the dense
forests, bridges built and corduroy laid over the rivers and swamps.
Isaac Zane and other guides went ahead and blazed the way, and the
soldiers, armed with axes, grubbing-hoes, spades and shovels, fell
to work. McArthur's regiment, in two days, built the road from
Manary's, thirty miles to the Scioto, wdiere Fort McArthur was con-
structed, and the other regiments, taking their turn, performed simi-
lar feats, much of the time working in steady rain. Fort Necessity
was built where they were compelled to stop and rest after a sixteen
miles' struggle through rain and mud. On Blanchard's fork another
stockade. Fort Findlay, was erected. Gen. Robert Lucas and Will-
iam Denny, sent on to Detroit, had returned bringing news of dan-
ger from the Indians, and at Fort Findlay orders were received from
Washington to hasten. Leaving all camp equipage the troops
pnshed on to the rapids of the Maumee, Cass' regiment cutting the
way, and, arriving there, the pack-horses were so worn out that bag-
gage, hospital stores and road-making tools were shipped on the
schooner Cuyahoga, and thirty sick soldiers on a smaller boat, for
Detroit. Marching ahead, Hull received at Frenchtown on the
Raisin river, another message from Washington, written on the same
day as the one received at Findlay, informing him that war had been
declared June 18th. This important message had been forwarded
by mail to Cleveland! Hull sent men down to the coast to stop his
transports, but they were too late. The Cuyahoga was captured off
Fort .Maiden, and in it was a trunk containing the rolls of the army
WAR AND HARD TIMES. 0Q3
and Hull's papers. The British had the news from Washington
before Hull.
There was no delay in the advance to Detroit, except to build a
bridge over the Huron river, where the army spent a night, with the
British brig, the Queen Charlotte, hovering off the mouth of the
river, observing their movements. On the night of July 6th they
readied the little trading town of Detroit, where stood Fort Wayne,
in a dilapidated condition, and a few hundred Michigan militia were
available. Hull now had about two thousand lighting men, and
under the circumstances he could not be blamed for resisting the
entreaties of McArthur and Cass to go ahead and storm Fort Maiden
without artillery. The guns of the fort were not fitted for use, and
it was necessary to manufacture carriages. He waited until he had
received from Washington definite orders to make the invasion, and
crossed the river July 12th, under cover of a demonstration lower
down by McArthur's men. Camping at Sandwich, Hull issued a
proclamation, said to have been composed by Cass, which Avas a
model of pomposity. The Canadians were exhorted to remain quiet,
while the hosts of America, of which this army was only the van-
guard, should rescue them from the dragon of tyranny. It was
also threatened that if the British should have Indian allies, the first
stroke of the tomahawk would be the signal for "an indiscriminate
scene of desolation." This proclamation seems to have really had
great effect. Many of the Canadian militia deserted, a considerable
number of settlers sought the protection of Hull and some of the
Indians refused to take up arms for the British.
Hull waited at Sandwich three weeks, building a sort of navy of
floating batteries to drive the British boats from the river, and believ-
ing his work was progressing well as long as the Canadians showed
increased friendliness. He was also awaiting news of the advance
of the other armies of invasion in the east. Meanwhile the troops
were clamorous for an attack on Fort Maiden, but he would not risk
it without artillery. Instead, the men were given their first exper-
ience in war in various excursions. McArthur led his men \ip to
the river Thames through a country much more advanced in settle-
ment than any part of Ohio, and captured a large store of British
army supplies and keel boats, and Colonel Cass made a reconnois-
sance to the river Aux Canards "or Tarontee, on the road to Maiden,
and gained possession of the bridge, after a skirmish which was much
magnified. But Hull did not see fit to hold this advantage. Find-
lay, McArthur and Denny also had skirmishes at the Aux Canards
river, in all of which men were sacrificed, Denny losing six killed
and two wounded. The British destroyed the bridge, and supported
by their navy, held the river in such force that a small attacking
party had no power against them, and the effort to find another
Crossing place was defeated by the Indian- under Teeumseli.
Finally Hull was informed that the British had taken Mackinac
204 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
ami the Indians were rising throughout Michigan, that he could expect
no co-operation in eastern Canada, and that General Brock was col-
lecting troops to reinforce the Maiden garrison. Hull's line of sup-
ply lay across the Detroit river, around the head of Lake Erie and
across the Maumee river, exposed in several places to the enemy.
Hearing that Capt. Henry Brush, of Chillicothe, and 150 men, had
reached the river Raisin, thirty-six miles below Detroit, with a sup-
ply train, Major VanHorn was sent with two hundred of Findlay's
regiment to bring the train through, but it was found that the Indians
and British had occupied Brownstown, half way between Detroit
and the Raisin, and VanHorn was defeated with considerable loss,
Captains Gilchrist, Ullery and McCullough being among the killed.
Under such circumstances Hull decided to retreat from Canada, in
the hope of holding Detroit if he could open communications with
Ohio. Governor Harrison had already written Governor Shelby that
if reinforcements and supplies could not be forwarded "Detroit must
fall." Major Denny, with 250 men and some artillery, was left in
fort on the Canada side.
From Detroit Colonel Miller, with a battalion of regulars and
some companies of Ohioans under Majors VanHorn and Morrison
made a second attempt to open the way for Brush. At the Indian
village of Maguaga they met a body of British, and Indians under
Tecumseh, and a fierce battle was fought, in which Miller lost one-
fourth of his men killed or wounded, but held the field, from which
the enemy were driven. In the stormy night that followed McArthur
and two hundred men went down by boat or horse to Miller's camp.
Next morning a British brig, the Hunter, took position off shore, and,
the use of boats being impossible, the wounded men were hauled in
wagons to Detroit, on the only road there was, along the river, under
the fire of the British gams. Says McDonald: "When the teams
were running at full speed, and when the wagon wheels would come
in contact with a stump or root or a stone, the jar would throw the
wounded soldiers in heaps upon each other; in this way the bandages
would come loose and the broken bones be torn from their places, and
their wounds bleed afresh; and by the time the carriages had passed,
the road was made slippery with the blood of the poor wretched sol-
diers." This expedition having failed, Miller returning to Detroit,
Hull made another effort to open the door of the trap in which he was
placed, sending McArthur and Cass with four hundred picked men
toward the Raisin, by a roundabout way through the hack country.
Meanwhile the garrison across the river had been withdrawn, and
General Brock occupied the Canada side opposite Detroit, erected
batteries, and demanded the surrender of Detroit. Hull refused,
and sent a messenger to recall McArthur and Cass. The British
ships of war took position in the river, while the Indians invested
the town, and Brock opened fire with his batteries on the 15th. One
of the cannon balls killed two officers outright, and tore off the leers
WAR AND HARD TIMES. 205
of Dr. James Reynolds, of Cass' regiment, who died lamenting that
he would never again see Zanesville.
On August 16th Brock landed a force on the American side, and
marched on the fort. In it the population of the town had taken,
refuge from the British artillery and the scalping knives of the
Indians. Hull, burdened with the sense of many lives already lost;
fearing the massacre of the settlers it was part of his duty to save
from danger ; with a large part of his fighting force absent ; ordered
his artillery not to fire, put out the white flag and surrendered, an
act which he said "was dictated by a full sense of duty and a full
conviction of its expediency." McArthur and Cass were meanwhile
hastening back toward Detroit, but they were too late. Learning as
they approached that Hull had surrendered, they attempted to
retreat southward, but were so near starvation that when overtaken
by two British officers and notified of their inclusion in the capitula-
tion, they went into Detroit as prisoners of war. Hull and the regu-
lars were sent to Quebec, but the Ohio troops were paroled and
shipped to the Ohio coast. Brush's relief party was also included in
the capitulation, but these Ohioans, on hearing of the surrender, fled
back to the Maumee and made their escape to the settlements. But
they were regarded as on parole and afterward regularly exchanged.
The story of this campaign has been given at some length, because
it is one of the most notorious events of the history of the West, and
because Ohio troops were prominently concerned iu it. The Ohio
troops did their duty honorably, suffered severely and were anxious
to suffer more rather than surrender. When they returned home
prisoners of war instead of conquerors, most of them joined in unre-
strained censure of their general, though nothing can he more certain
in the probabilities of war that either capture or death would have
befallen them however the campaign was carried on. A military
genius might have done something with enough men to detach forces
to hold his line of communication. A military genius, with Hull's
little command, might have risked his army in a dash at Fort
Maiden, without artillery, for the purpose of striking a blow that
should keep the Indians quiet, but he could not have held the fort, as
will occur to anyone who will glance at the geography, and any delay
there would have been almost as dangerous as a repulse, which was
as likely as success. It is denied that Hull knew that Dearborn had
made an armistice of sixty days in eastern Canada, leaving the Brit-
ish free to overwhelm him, but he was aware that he was not sup-
ported. If he had known all, it has been suggested that his proper
course was to retreat to Ohio, in which case, as McDonald says, "He
would have been censured as a pusillanimous wretch; but lie would
have saved his army, and time, which unfolds dark things, would
have retrieved his character." But to retreat would be to abandon
Detroit to Indian rapine, and his army to Indian warfare from which
few would have escaped. The defeats about Brownstown revealed
206 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
the clangers of retreat. He could have been cut off by the whole Brit-
ish aiid Indian force at Brownstown, Raisin river or Maumee rapids.
The garrison of Fort Dearborn (Chicago), attempting to retreat on
the day that Brock opened fire on Detroit, was nearly all slaughtered.
Hull chose the simplest way of avoiding a massacre at Detroit and
the killing of his soldiers, and surrendered to the British officers.
The Ohio soldiers, however, wanted a battle before they became
prisoners of war, and thought they could have repulsed the enemy
iu the assault of the 16th, though what they would have done after-
ward no one has ever told. As Harrison said, '"Xo military man
would think of retaining Detroit, Maiden being in possession of the
enemy, unless his army was at least twice as strong as the enemy."
Cass, more of a politician than soldier, heartily supported the
Madison administration in making Hull the scapegoat of its own
heinous transgression of the first principles of war. Popular senti-
ment was unanimous against Hull. All over Ohio the people were
singing a ballad that began with such words as these: ''Old Hull,
you old traitor, You outcast of Nature !" The old gentleman was
court-martialed for treason and various other things, and though
acquitted of treason beyond the shadow of doubt was sentenced to
death, whereupon the gracious administration struck his name from
the rolls and permitted him to go home and await further orders.
The news of Hull's surrender was soon followed by despatches
from the commandant at Fort Wayne, Ind., and from Governor Har-
rison, Avho was at Cincinnati, asking help from Governor Meigs,
as the Indians were about to wipe out the remaining military posts.
The Ohio soldiers surrendered by Hull, being landed at the Huron
river, were mistaken at first for a British invasion, increasing the
panic that prevailed along the frontier. But the men of Ohio
responded promptly to the call for troops to defend the State.
Before the worst was known regarding Hull three battalions of three
hundred each had been raised to reinforce McArthur, Findlay and
Cass. They marched under Gen. Edward W. Tupper, at that
time a resident of Gallipolis, and were at Urbana when tidings
arrived of the surrender. This was the nucleus of a gathering of
militia there, of which Governor Meigs took command. By the last
of August General Worthington, Colonel Dunlap and Colonel
Adams, with about five hundred men, arrived at the St, Marys river,
sixty milis above Fort Wayne, for the relief of that post from
Forts Manary and McArthur were garrisoned and the works strength-
ened. The Ohio Indians, yet friendly, were called together for pro-
tection and to guard against hostile influence, and eight hundred
were soon in a "concentration" camp at Urbana.
The Fourth division .militia were called out, under Maj.-Gen.
Elijah Wadsworth, a veteran of the Connecticut line in the Revolu-
tion, with the Jefferson county brigade under Gen. John Miller,
the Columbiana brigade under (Jen. Rezin Beall, the Trumbull-
WAR AND HARD TIMES. 207
Cuyahoga brigade under Gen. Simon Perkins, and the brigade from
the remainder of the Western Eeserve under Gen. Joel Paine.*
There was a general rally of the able-bodied men to the rendez-
vous at Cleveland, while many women and children fled to the
interior settlements. All over the State men were leaving their
homes and little farms to serve their country, and heavy burdens fell
upon the women, generally careworn with many children and weak-
ened by the omnipresent fever and chills. But nowhere was the war
felt more severely than in the Reserve, exposed to invasion from the
lake, and the danger of straggling Indians.
Early in September General Wadsworth had four hundred men
at the mouth of the Huron, under General Perkins, to defend that
post, while General Beall occupied the site of Mansfield with about
six hundred militia. Kentucky was also contributing to the com-
mon cause, and her governor strained the law to appoint Governor
Harrison major-general of militia, that he might lead three regi-
ments of volunteers up the Miami valley. When the popular victor
at Tippecanoe reached Dayton Governor Meigs called on Ohioans to
join him. A battalion of mounted riflemen was organized in the
Miami valley under Colonel Finley (Findlay),f to take part in the
campaign for the succor of Fort Wayne. Harrison, bringing up his
forces to join the Ohioans at the St. Marys post, soon advanced on
Fort Wayne, and relieved that post, where a brother of Governor
Meigs had fallen during the siege.
General Winchester, of Tennessee, a veteran of the Revolution,
had been assigned to chief command in the West. As the Seven-
teenth and Nineteenth United States regiments advanced through
Ohio to become the nucleus of his army, many Ohioans enlisted to
fill out their ranks, and in these as well as other commands of the reg-
ular service, Ohioans fought throughout the war, in the Niagara as
well as the Detroit campaigns. Winchester's effort was to estab-
lish a line for the protection of the State, by occupying posts at
Cleveland, Mansfield, LTrbana, Dayton, Lower Sandusky (Fremont),
the Maumee Rapids and Fort Wayne. He had no opportunity to
demonstrate his fitness for command, as the people of the West clam-
ored for Harrison to lead them, and the government, yielding, com-
missioned him as major-general in the regular army, giving him
precedence over Winchester, who retained command at Fort Wayne.
•Wadsworth. born in Connecticut in 1747, settled at Canfield in 1802; was
one of the proprietors of the Reserve and a prominent man until his death
in 181 1. Simon Perkins, born in Connecticut in 1771. explored the Reserve
for the proprietors in 1798. and settling at Warren in 1806, had charge of a
large part of the country. Rezin Beall was a Pennsylvanian who had served
with Wayne in 1792-94.
tThe Findlay who was with Hull, say McAfee ajid Lossing. But Col. Sam-
uel Finley. a veteran of the Revolution, pioneer of Chillicothe, and prominent
in the organization of the State, is credited by his biographers with leading
a regiment of mounted volunteers in this war. while Col. James Findlay Is
not.
208 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
After the first alarm, the Ohio militia for permanent service were
organized in two brigades, under General Tapper at Fort McArthur,
and under General Perkins on the Sandusky. The latter was
ordered to build a road to the Maurnee rapids.
It would be falsifying history to say that Ohio was unanimous in
all respects at this time. Many were opposed to the war, and there
were severe critics of those in authority. Governor Meigs did not
escape, and he declared in September that "Slander, with her thou-
sand tongues, assails me." But a meeting of Ohio militia officers,
at Urbana, expressed full confidence in his administration.
The Indians of Ohio as a whole remained friendly to the whites,
though sometimes under great provocation. Some of them rendered
valuable service against the hostiles, notably a Shawanee known as
Captain Logan, who after saving the Avomen and children of Fort
Wayne by leading them to Piqua, kept the garrison from surrender
by running the blockade with news of the approach of assistance.
Harrison was expected to recapture Detroit as soon as possible,
and he attempted to prepare an immediate movement, but though the
difficulties and dangers were no greater than those into which Hull
had been sent, the new commander could do nothing effectual for
many months. His plan for a fall campaign was to converge three
columns at the Maumee rapids, establish a great base of supplies, and
then advance to Brownstown, cross and take Fort Maiden, and thus
compel the evacuation of Detroit. The left column was to be under
Winchester. The central column, of 1,200 Ohio infantry and S00
mounted men, under Gen. E. W. Tupper, was to march from Fort
McArthur, while General Perkins, with the right wing, would
advance by the Sandusky route.
Winchester marched down the Maumee, causing the retreat of a
body of British and Indians, who had occupied old Fort Defiance
and were advancing on Fort Wayne. Captain Cotton and seventy-
two men, of Perkins' brigade, had a skirmish with Indians Septem-
ber 29, 1812, the only fight in the Western Reserve, which is remem-
bered as "the battle of the Peninsula." Young Joshua R. Giddings
was one of the volunteers in the ranks. Col. Allen Trimble led a
body of five hundred Ohio mounted riflemen into northeastern
Indiana, and defeated the hostile Indians on the St. Joseph, and
burned their villages. By this time it was apparent that a fall cam-
paign could not be carried out, and Harrison consented to undertake
a winter campaign on the ice though he warned the government that
the unnecessary cost of it would build a navy on the lake that would
compel the evacuation of Detroit He made his headquarters at
Franklinton and did his best to put troops in the field and supply
them.
General Tupper had been ordered to drive the Indians from the
foot of the Maumee rapids, and after long delay, embarrassed by the
WAR AND HARD TIMES. 209
refusal of the militia to serve under the orders of General Winches-
ter, he moved within sight of the enemy's camp, but after a slight
skirmish, retreated on the night of November 15th to Fort
McArthur. In December Lieut. -Col. John B. Campbell, with six
hundred mounted men, marched from Franklinton against the Mis-
sissinewa villages in Indiana, and after a severe right defeated the
hostiles and burned their huts, but lost eight killed and forty-eight
Wounded, besides two hundred men disabled by frost and sickness.
Winchester was ordered to occupy the Maumee rapids and establish
the depot, and accordingly the left wing trudged through the snow
early in January, 1813, and reached the rapids on the 10th. Gen-
eral Paine's Ohio brigade arrived about the same time. Thus, with
no fighting except what was brought on by raids against the Indians,
General Harrison was able, within four months after taking com-
mand, to reach the Ohio base of his proposed campaign against
Canada.
Winchester, at the rapids, received an appeal from the people of
Frenchtown (Monroe, Mich.), for protection, and sent six or seven
hundred men under Colonels Lewis and Allen, who crossed the Raisin
river and defeated tl nemy, British and Indians combined, on
January 18th. Winchester determined to keep this advantage,
taking up 250 men himself, and Harrison, hurrying to the Maumee
rapids, advised Winchester to "told fast the position, at any rate,"*
and started out Perkins' Ohio brigade as reinforcements. But the
reinforcements were hardly on the way, before the startling news
arrived that Winchester's command had been cut to pieces. There-
upon General Harrison fell back to the rapids, destroyed his new mili-
tary depot and withdrew his eight or nine hundred men behind the
Portage river. General Proctor, the British commander at Raisin
river, also fearful of his enemy, beat a similar retreat, but with sev-
eral hundred American prisoners.
Soon the particulars came in of the terrible disaster on the Raisin,
January 22d — how General Proctor was able to laud from Maiden
and plant a battery commanding Winchester's position in the night,
unnoticed ; how the sudden attack in the morning demoralized a
great part of the Americans, who wen 1 either cut down by the Indians
or captured. General Winchester being among the prisoners, and
bow the remainder bravely held out under Major Madison, though
Winchester had surrendered them, until protection against massacre
was promised. About two hundred Americans were killed in this
frightful affair, and eiirht hundred captured.
This practically ended General Harrison's fall and winter cam-
paign against Detroit. Gen. John Armstrong, secretary of war,
"This has a curious analogy to Cass' occupation of the Aux Canaril river,
before Fort Maiden, and desire to hold the position, which poor Hull, being
"incompetent," refused to sanction.
1-14
210 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
who was unfriendly to Harrison, has pointed out that the popular
western general violated eleven essential principles of war in his
campaign. McAfee, in his history of the war, declares that the
advanced troops subsisted for two weeks in December on bad beef
and hickory routs, "('ha. is and misconduct reigned in every depart-
ment, and particularly in that of supplies."
Early in February General Harrison advanced again, in the hope
of making his campaign on the ice, and with about two thousand men
occupied the military reservation at the foot of the Maumee rapids
and built a strong fortified camp, called Fort Meigs. Near the oppo-
site or northwestern bank, a little way down the river, was the aban-
doned British fort thai Wayne had menaced after the battle of
Fallen Timbers in 1T'.'.">. There was soon a rumor of hostile gather-
ings on the lower Maumee ami several hundred men were sent
down the frozen river on a fruitless raid, taking along a camion,
which gave them employment by breaking through the ice. Another
scouting party of 250 men, under Captain Langham, went by way of
the blockhouse at Lower Sandusky, out over the lake. They were
instructed to approach Maiden at night, ami burn the fleet and
storehouses, but after reaching Middle Bass island, .March 3d, it was
prudently decided that the iee was too much broken up to make the
passage. Consequently the last dream of a winter campaign was
abandoned. After a visit to Cincinnati, Harrison brought Mills'
Ohio regiment to reinforce Fort Meigs and made ready to resist a
probable attack by the British.
Proctor was not slow, as soon as there was navigation in the lake,
to accept the challenge of Fort Meigs, and in the latter part of April
brought up the Maumee about three thousand men, including
Canadian militia ami Tecumseh and his Indians and artillery for a
siege, witli a sufficient naval equipment. Establishing batteries
across the river ami later on the same side that Harrison held, the
garrison was actively bombarded for four days, .May 1st to tth.
Harrison, though he gave a plucky answer to a demand for surren-
der, might have been forced to yield had not his expected reinforce-
ments, a large body of Kentuckians, arrived under Gen. Green ('lav.
When news of their near approach was brought through the Indian
lines by Peter Navarre, Leslie Combs and Capt. William Oliver, a
gallant scout who had been distinguished in a similar way at the
siege of Fort Wayne, Harrison sent out directions for the mode of
joining him. As (May could not land his boats under the tire of the
enemy's guns, Harrison devised a plan for temporarily silencing the
batteries. Part of Clay's men were to land on the north side, march
through the woods and take the two batteries there and spike the
guns, after which they should return to their boats and cross over to
the fort. At the same time the remainder .if the Kentuckians
should cut their way through the Indians on the south side, aided by
WAR AND HARD TIMES. 2 n
sorties from the fort, by which it was hoped to silence the battery on.
that side.
However wise the plan of battle may have been, the result was
disastrous, which General Harrison ascribed to rashness and lack of'
discipline in the Kentuckians. But he had asked them to advance
into the heart of a hostile army and then fall hack under the galling
fire of the Indians. General Clay and Colonel Dudley found it
easy to surprise and carry the two British redoubts, hut were soon
attacked from all directions, and becoming confused, fell an easy
prey to Proctor and Tecumseh. A heavy rain was falling that
added to the gloom of the terrible day. Driven here and there or
enticed into ambush, the men were shot down and tomahawked with-
out mercy. Many were killed and more wounded, and the greater
part, in despair, laid down their arms as prisoners. Dudley was
among the victims of the Indians, hut Clay managed to escape
across the river with ahout one hundred and fifty out of his eight
hundred men who made the attack on the north hank. There was
no glory on the south side to alleviate this frightful disaster, except
that the remainder of the Kentuckians succeeded in getting into the
fort, and Colonel .Miller and .Major Trimble, with part of the garri-
son, made a gallant charge upon the British battery, losing many of
their men. hut temporarily taking the guns and capturing a few
British. General Harrison was also aide to secure the ammunition
brought down by the Kentuckians, of which he si 1 in great need,
hut the boats containing the baggage and stores of the expedition tell
into the hands of the Indians.
Both Harrison and Proctor called this battle of May .".. L813, a
victory. The investment of the fort continued unchanged, and over
half the force that was to relieve it, with the supplies, was lost.
More memorable even than the battle was the massacre of prisoners.
As they were sent hack to the old British fort for safe keeping, a
body of Indians formed in line and inflicted upon the men tin- tor-
tures of running the gauntlet, whipping them with ramrods, toma-
hawking s,,ii M . and -hooting others, and when tin' prisoners reached
the fort threats were made of general massacre. One Indian painted
black killed three men here, causing an indescribable panic. "Hut
the British officers and soldiers seemed to interpose," said an eye
witness,* and quiet was restored by the arrival of Colonel Elliott
of Revolutionary fame, and Chief Tecumseh, who rode into the fort,
Elliott looking t -e like a savage than Tecumseh, who impressed
the prisoners as "a noble, dignified personage." Elliott made eva-
sive answer to an appeal for mercy, hut Tecumseh looked over the
scene with unmoved composure. Perhaps in another place occurred
that romantic incident related by other witnesses, in which Tecum-
Lieut. J. R. Underwood, whose account is printed in Howe's Collections.
919 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
seh rode up to a scene of massacre, commanded his braves to desist
and tomahawked one or two who refused, at the same time reproach-
ing Proctor for weakly permitting such horrors. At any rate the
killing ceased, but afterward the prisoners were ranged in lines, and
young men were picked out by the Indian- to be taken to their vil-
lages. "I saw Corporal Smith, of our company, bidding farewell
to his friends, and pointing to the Indian with whom he was to go,"
Underwood writes, and adds, "I never heard of his return." Sev-
eral hundred prisoners survived, were taken to the British shipping,
and after a few days were paroled.
The siege lasted four days longer, during which the bombardment
of the fort continued, without serious effect, the garrison taking
refuge, when not on duty, in caves and tunnels. Harrison refused
to comply with a second demand for surrender. The Indians began
to scatter, though Teeumseh remained constant with a few hundred
braves he could control, and the British themselves became wearied
and sick from exposure. Furthermore, Governor Meigs was
approaching with Ohio militia. Consequently Proctor prepared to
raise the siege, and left en the 9th without molestation, embarking
his artillery and sailing away to Maiden. He had at least effectu-
ally defeated the third campaign against western Canada. Heavy
Loss was inflicted upon Harrison's forces, for in addition to the cas-
ualties of May 5th on the north hank of the river, 81 were killed
and 1 v '.' wounded. The brave men of the garrison, when they were
able again to go outside the fort and walk about, looked like "so
many scarecrows."
General Harrison now repaired to Franklinton to organize a new
command to participate in a general campaign all along the Can-
ada line, his special duty heing the capture of Maiden and the n cov-
ery of Detroit. McArthur and Cass, on the expiration of their
paroles, had been made major-generals of the Ohio militia, and when
the president ordered two regiments of United States troops organ-
ized in (thin. Cuss was commissioned as one of the colonels to raise
and command them. Soon afterward ('ass and McArthur were
ed to brigadier-generals in the regular army, giving the com-
manding general in the west aide and enterprising lieutenants. A
great outpouring of the Ohio and Kentucky militia was also
arranged (<>r. a proceeding which drew upon Harrison's head the
complaint of extravagance from the war department. T<> further
strengthen the hope of nieces General Harrison held a council with
tin- friendly Indians at Franklinton, June 21st, in which Chief
Crane (Tarhe) of the Wyandots, led that tribe and the Delawares
and Shawanees in arrangements for promoting the American cause.
Many of the [ndians of Ohio were collected in concentration camps,
and they generally behaved we!]. It was the whites whom Harrison
WAR AND HARD TIMES. 213
wns compelled to implore to keep peace with the red men at Piqua
in September.
But with all the preparations made it is not likely that the fourth
campaign would have been more .successful against Canada than
those before, it' there had not been, at last, an abandonment of the
plan of invasion that had so uselessly sacrificed the young men of
the west. Navies were building on Erie and Ontario and Cham-
plain, which should give American heroism an opportunity to accom-
plish results. With the events on the eastern lakes we have not to
do, but it was very important in affecting the history of Ohio that
there was in the spring of 1813 a little fleet of war ships in construc-
tion at Presque Isle ( Erie), anxiously watched by the British squad-
ron, which was unable to cross the bar. At Cleveland also, a great
many small boats were in construction.
To counteract this danger, the British fleet sailed to Presque Isle
and Pmctor determined to make a demonstration mi the Maumee, in
the hope of drawing the attention of Harrison's army in that direc-
tion, and exposing to attack the Sandusky region, Cleveland and
Presque Isle. Ccneral Harrison's headqiiarters wore by this time
advanced to Fort Seneca (a few miles north of the site of Tiffin),
while a well-built little fort at Lower Sandusky (Fremont), was
held by Major George Croghan, of Kentucky, a son of Maj. Will-
iam Croghan, and nephew of George Rogers Clark.
Proctor's army of British, Canadians and Indians, about four
thousand strong, was discovered ascending the Maumee in boats
July 20th, bul Harrison cautiously refused to move until Clay
should he seriously he-ii-^ed, and being informed of this, Clay was
not deceived by the sham battle that Proctor arranged in the hope
of enticing him from the fort to co-operate with an imaginary reliev-
ing party. So Proctor withdrew without any serious hostilities,
and with part of his force, turned toward Fori Stephenson, sending
many of his Indians to annoy Harrison's camp. In anticipation of
danger Harrison had instructed Croghan to hold the fort against
Indians, because a retreat from them would he impossible, but if
menaced by artillery and British to hum the fort and fall hack to
Fort Seneca. Later an order was sent to Croghan to retreat imme-
diately, to which ho replied that it was too late. "We have deter-
mined to maintain this place, and by heavens we can." Thereupon
Harris. m sent a letter of reprimand, relieving Croghan and putting
Colonel Wells in his place, hut after an interview with the general
the young officer was permitted next day to resume command, with
the same instructions as originally given. On the following even-
ing tin- enemy appeared, with gunboats on the river, and .Inly 1st
the Indians displayed themselves all about tin 1 little fort, while the
British artillery opened fire, and troops and howitzer- were landed.
After a demand for surrender, to which Croghan replied that they
2X4 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
would hold the post until death, a bombardment was kept up during
tin- night of the 1st and through the next day, at the elose of winch
two columns of British stunned the northwestern angle of the fort.
Croghau had prepared for this, and the opportune discharge of a
six-pounder, double-loaded with grape and slugs, tilled the ditch with
the assailants, among the killed being Colonel Short of the red-coats.
Thus the assault failed and Croghan wen immortal fame.*
When the British force had withdrawn, and Colonel Renick had
come up with 250 mounted men, Harrison advanced to Fort Stephen-
son, ordering Generals McArthur and Cass, who had lately arrived,
to follow with all the forces they could collect.
McArthur, as soon as Proctor had begun this invasion, called out
the entire Second division of militia, and Governor Meigs took the
held as commander in chief. In a few days "the Sandusky plains
were covered with nearly eight thousand men, mostly from the Scioto
valley,"'!" forming "the grand cam]) of Ohio militia." Among these
volunteers were judges, lawyers, merchants, farmers and all sorts
and conditions of men, as private soldiers or officers. "Indeed, the
Scioto country was so stripped of its male population mi this occa-
sion that the women were compelled to carry the grain t<> mill or let
their children suffer for want." Upon the retreat of Proctor and
Tecumseh from Fort Meigs, the militia force was reduced to two
thousand men. who were directed to remain on the Sandusky under
command of the governor. General McArthur was detailed to com-
mand the garrison at Fort Meigs. There was great wrath among
the Ohioans, and Harrison was bitterly criticised also for his con-
duct regarding Fort Stephenson. The disgust of the Ohioans at the
prospect of having no part in the proposed offensive campaign was
increased by the fact that a force of four thousand Kentuckians,
"half horse, half alligator." as the envious called them, were
approaching, under the command of Governor Shelby, who were
likely to he honored with active service. But, after all, Harrison's
popularity remained invincible.
Commodore Chauncey had assigned to command of the squadron,
building at Erie, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, of Rhode
Island, then thirty-eight years old. who was the son of : i Revolu-
tionary soldier, and from his boyhood had been a naval officer of the
Tinted States. He had made a good record in the Mediterranean
expeditions, and was in command of a flotilla of Jefferson's coast
gunboats from ls<>7. Asking for service on the lakes in 1812, he'
had joined Chauncey at Sackett's Harbor, and in March, 1813, began
to supervise the construction and fitting out of a fleet at Erie. After
aiding in the expedition against Fort George he returned to Erie
*By the ladies of Chillicothe. the seat, of fashion and social brilliancy in
the west, the major was presented a sword.
fMcDonald's Sk< ti h< s.
WAR AND HARD TIMES. 215
with live vessels, evading the British fleet, and early in August had a
squadron built and ready for service. Only two of his boats, the
Lawrence and Niagara, carrying 20 guns each, could be called men-
of-war, the others being small boats with one to four guns. Having
only half enough sailors, he obtained a body of Pennsylvania militia
and trained them as gunners.
With nine vessels, fifty-four guns, and 500 men. Perry managed
to get his fleet over the bar, sailed August 5th, and on the 15th
readied Put-in-bay, a beautiful harbor of South Bass island. On
the 18th his signal guns called Harrison from ('amp Seneca to a
meeting- in Sandusky harbor. Returning to Put-in-bay Perry made
two reconnoissances toward Maiden, where the British were hur-
riedly completing a new war ship, the Detroit.
The British squadron included six vessels and carried 63 guns.
Four were of good size, and two of these, the new Detroit and the
Queen Charlotte, apparently matched Perry's only two large craft,
the Lawrence and Niagara. lint in fighting power. Perry's squad-
ron had much the advantage.* Tn command of the British fleet was
Capt. Robert Heriot Barclay, who had been with Lord Nelson at
Trafalgar. Obtaining a goodly number of seamen and riflemen
from Harrison, Perry, with his station at Put-in-bay, practically
blockaded the British stronghold. This the enemy could not long
endure, and it became necessary for Barclay, with his men on half-
allowance of food, to offer battle, though the British officer was
doubtful of the result. Perry descried the approach of the enemy
at sunrise September 10th and sailed out to meet him, the vessels
coming into action about ten miles to the northwest, off North Bass
island. It was a furious tight, in which every commissioned officer
on the British side was killed or wounded. Barclay, who had lost
one arm at Trafalgar, had the other shot off, and the second officer in
command was killed. The decks of the Lawrence, Perry's flagship,
ran with blood. Of her 103 officers and men, S3 were shot down.
Perry flew a flag inscribed with Lawrence's last order, "Don't Give
Up the Ship." lmt he was compelled, when his flagship was almost
put out of action, to take down his defiant banner for a few minutes
and hoist it on the Niagara. But he kept up the fight, which a fav-
oring wind enabled him to bring to a speedy finish, compelling the
surrender of the entire British force. Tearing off the back of an
old letter, and using his cap as a desk, he wrote to Harrison the fam-
ous despatch : "We have met the enemy and they are our-: two
ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop!" The British loss in
this action, which is to lie counted as one of the most famous of Ohio
battles, was 4 1 killed and 94 wounded, while Perry had l>7 killed
and 96 wounded.
* Perry was superior three to one in Ions; gun metal and two to
carronaues, says Rcosevelt in -The Nival War of 1ML'."
2 i ( ; CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
The victory was of such great importance, that it deserves to be
fully described here, in the words of the gallant Perry himself. Fol-
lowing is his official report:
U. S. Schooner Ariel, Put-in-Bay,
13th September, 1813.
Sir: — Tn 1113- last T informed you that we had captured the enemy's
fleet on this lake. 1 have now the honor to give you the most impor*
tant particulars of the action.
On the morning of the 10th instant, at sunrise, they were discov-
ered from Put-in-Bay, where 1 lav at anchor with the squadron
under my command. We got under weigh, tin' wind light at s. w.,
and stood for them. At 10 a. 111. the wind hauled up to s. e. and
brought us tit windward; formed the line ami bore tip. At fifteen
minutes before twelve the enemy commenced tiring; at five minutea
before twelve the action commenced en our part. Finding their tire
very destructive, owing to their long guns, am! its being mostly
directed to the Lawrence, i made sail, and directed the other vessels
to follow, for the purpose of closing with the enemy. Every brace
and bowline being shot away, she became unmanageable, notwith-
standing the great exertions of the sailing master. In this situation
she sustained the action upwards of two hours, within canister shot
distance, until every gun was rendered useless, and a greater part of
the crew either killed or wounded. Finding she could no longer
annoy the enemy, I left her in charge of Lieutenant Yarnall. who,
1 was convinced from the bravery already displayed by him, would
do what would comport with the honor of the flag. At half past two
the wind springing up, Captein Elliott was enabled to brim;' his ves-
sel, the Niagara, gallantly into close action. 1 immediately went on
beard of her, when he anticipated my wishes by volunteering to bring
in the schooners, which had been kept astern by the lightness of the
wind, into closer action. It was with unspeakable pain that I saw,
soon after I got en heard the Niagara, the flag of the Lawrence come
down, although I was perfectly sensible that she had been defended
to the last, and that to have continued to make a show of resistance
would have been a wanton sacrifice of the remains id" her brave crew.
But the enemy was nol able to take possession of her, and circum-
stances soon permitted her flag again to be hoisted. At forty-five
minutes past two, the signal was made for "closer action." The
Niagara being very little injured. 1 determined to pass through the
enemy's line; bore up, and passed ahead of their two ships and a
brig, giving a raking lire to them from the starboard trims, and to a
large schooner and sloop from the larboard side, at half pistol shot
distance. The smaller vessels at this time having irot within grape
and canister distance, under the direction of Captain Elliott, and
keeping up a well-directed tire, the two ships, a brig, and schooner,
WAR AND HARD TIMES. 217
surrendered, a schooner and sloop making a vain attempt to escape."
Perry's victory gave the United States undisputed command of
Lake Erie, and the rest was easy. The army of invasion was rapidly
concentrated toward the month of Portage river. McArthur had
arrived at Fort Meigs, ('ass had reached Upper Sandusky, a Penn-
sylvania regiment was marching from Eric, and on the 17th Gov-
ernor Shelby brought four thousand mounted Kentuckians to the
mouth of the Portage. There was such a superfluity of cavalry that
five thousand horses were turned loose on the Port Clinton penin-
sula, a three-mile log fence across a narrow place serving to confine
them. M cArthur's brigade arrived at the mouth of the Portage
three days later, marching through meadows where the grass grew
above a man's head, and on the 21st and 22d Harrison's army was
moved by boat to Put-in-Bay, where the soldiers gazed with vast satis-
faction upon the battered British ship-, whose men had been sent as
prisoners to Chillicothe. Three days later the army, embarked on
the fleet and a hundred small boats, reached Eastern Sister, about the
last of the stretch of islands toward Canada, and after a reconnois-
sance of the hostile coast, the final embarknient was made on the
27th, on the evening of which day the army landed three miles below
Maiden.
The result was as might have been expected, and as it would have
been twelve months before if Hull had been supported by a navy.
There was no enemy at the famous stronghold, and a deputation of
ladies came out from the village to implore protection for their
home-. The buildings of the fort and navy yard had been burned,
and Proctor and Tecumseh had retreated from an untenable posi-
tion. General Harrison marched without opposition to Sandwich,
while Col. Richard M. Johnson thundered into Detroit with his regi-
ment of Kentucky cavalry, which had come up around the head of the
lake. McArthur and his brigade were sent over to occupy Detroit,
and on October 2d Harrison set out with Johnson's cavalry, part of
Ball's legion and most of Governor Shelby's Kentuckians to pursue
Proctor and Tecumseh. The hitter had selected a battlefield eighty-
four miles away, on the Thames river, where, by a continued fatal-
ity, the Moravian mission, driven from Ohio during the Revolution,
had sought a retreat from the alarms of war.
The enemy held a naturally strong position, but the keen observa-
tion of Major "Wood, Harrison's chief engineer, detected that the
British line was drawn up in open order, and the general changed
his plans accordingly, when arrayed for battle October 5th. A des-
perate charge was made by a battalion of cavalry, which rode through
and broke the line of British troops, and the day was immediately
won. Though the Indians fought with remarkable stubbornness,
causing heavy loss among the Kentuckians under Colonel Johnson,
218 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
who fell among the badly wounded, a panic wan created and the allies
fled, leaving the great chief, Tecumseh, among the slain."
A part of the. army took possession of the Moravian town, from
which the Moravian Indians fled in terror, some of the mothers
throwing their babies in the river to save them from massacre.
Before leaving this village, the American troops bunted it, imitat-
ing' the atrocity of 1781. Meanwhile, at Detroit, General McArthur
received a deputation from the previously hostile tribes, asking for
peace, and a little later Walk-in-the-Water, Tecumseh's chief lieuten-
ant, came in bearing a while flag. The war was over, so far as Ohio
was directly concerned, within thirty days after Perry's victory.
General Cass was made provisional governor of Michigan, and Har-
rison sailed with his regular troops, including many Ohio soldiers,
to Buffalo. Presently General Harrison resigned, on account of
disagreement with the secretary of war, and General McArthur was
put in command of the northwestern army, with headquarters at
Detroit. Garrisons were kept on the Ohio coast and frontier posts,!
Croghan made an unsuccessful attempt to recover Fort Mackinac and
McArthur went on a raid through western Canada: hut Ohio
remained in peace while the war raged in the east and south, with
such incidents as the burning of Buffalo, Toronto and Washington,
and generally much humiliation for the American nation. It is not
to be wondered at. therefore, that when overtures for settlement were
made, England demanded that the United States make peace with
Britain's Indian allies, create a permanent Indian country between
Canada and the United States, abandon the forts, make the south
shore of the lakes the boundary and agree never to maintain a navy
on the lakes. Political events in Europe, attending the first abdica-
tion of Napoleon, persuaded England to abandon these demands and
the boundary in the middle of Lake Erie remained as before, but
the Indians lost nothing by the war and were confirmed in the posses-
sion of the lands they held in 1811. After peace was agreed upon
in Europe, the self-respect of the country was greatly helped by the
splendid victory of General Jackson at \ew Orleans. On February
8th the legislature marched in procession to the Presbyterian meet-
ing house at Chillicothe to give thaYiks.
On account of this war Ohio put into the public service in various
capacities 23,951 men, more than half of the men of the State sub-
ject to military duty and nearly one-sixth of the entire force in the
* Colonel Johnson's claim that he killed Tecumseh was the subject of dis-
pute for many years, and something of a political issue, for Johnson became
vice-president. It is also told that the Kentuckians skinned the body of
the fallen chief, to obtain trophies.
f As stated in the message of Governor Meigs of December, 1ST 3. Ohio
had two thousand militia on duty in the service of the United States, sta-
tioned at Ports St. Marys. Amanda. Jennings, Winchester. McArthur, Find-
lay ami Meigs, at Lower and Upper Sandusky, and at Detroit. Mich.
WAR AND HARD TIMES. 2 19
military service of tlie United States. The State also contributed
more than $300,000* in support of the war by payment of direct
taxes, and the loss suffered from the had financial system of the gov-
ernment was nowhere felt more acutely.
On account of the war Ohio lost as a citizen General * "ass. who
continued for some time as governor of Michigan and became promi-
nent in national affairs, and regained General Harrison, who made
his home at North Bend, and presently was selected to represent the
State at Washington, as he had represented the territory. These
two gentlemen, with Governor Shelby, of Kentucky, were appointed
to make peace with the Indians before the close of the war, and a sec-
ond treaty at Greenville was concluded, July 22, 1814, by which
the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanees, Senecas and Maumees agreed
to become allies of the United States against Great Britain.
Governor Meigs resigned in March, 1814, to become postmaster-
general of the United States under President Madison. Though
this was not then a cabinet office. Meigs may be said to have been the
first Ohioan in high administrative position at Washington. He
held the place nine years, serving also under Monroe, and then retir-
ing, lived at his Marietta home until his death .March l".». 1825. It
is an interesting fact that he was succeeded as postmaster-general by
John McLean, who held office six years under Monroe, Adams and
Jackson. After him, the office became a political dispensatory, of
cabinet rank. Edward Tiffin was also called to office at Washington
by President Madison, as commissioner of the public land depart-
ment, a place he filled with marked ability. His books and papers
were the only ones saved at the burning of the capital. Later he
exchanged places with Josiah Meigs as surveyor-general of Ohio.
This position he held, being permitted to remove the office, for his
convenience, to Chillicothe, until, on his deathbed, he turned the
office over to Robert T.- Lytic.
Upon the resignation of Meigs, Othniel Looker, of Llamilton
county, speaker of the senate, became acting governor. He was a
candidate for election as governor in the fall, lint Senator Thomas
Worthington was elected by a large majority, receiving 15,879 votes
to 9,708 for his opponent.
For the senatorship which Worthington resigned there was a
large number of candidates, the most prominent being Benjamin Rug-
gles, Joseph Kerr, William W. Irwin and David Purviance. Kerr
was finally successful, but for the full term that followed Judge Etug-
gles was chosen, his principal competitor being General McArthur.
Governor Worthington, the mosl prominent man of the State after
the fall of St. Clair, had hitherto been assigned to wort for the
Tnder the art of 1813 she contributed $104,150. ami under that of Janu-
ary, 1815, she raised $208,300."— Ryan's History of Ohio.
220 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
State's interest at Washington. As governor now, he exercised the
limited powers of the chief magistrate for four years, being honored
with re-election in 1816 by an overwhelming majority over James
Dunlap and Ethan Allen Brown. During his term the State made
rapid progress toward the modern condition of affairs, many events
of interest occurred, and in Congress Morrow and Ruggles and an
able body of representatives gave the West greater political impor-
tance.
( reneral Harrison was elected to < !ongress in L816 to take the place
of John McLean, who went on the supreme bench of the State.
There was an animated political fight over this election, and charges
were made against Harrison's record as a general that led to an
investigation. Congress, in voting medals, left out his name, but
two years later made amends by resolutions in his honor. Other
congressmen elected in that year were John W. Campbell, of Adams;
Levi Barber, of Washington; Samuel Herrick, of Zanesville; Phile-
mon Beecher, of Lancaster, and Peter Hitchcock, of Cuyahoga
county. Peter Hitchcock was contented with one term. He was
a graduate of Yale, one of the ablest lawyers of the State, served
twenty-eight years in the State supreme court, was twenty-one years
chief-justice, was called "the father of the constitution of 1851," and
was, altogether, cue of the noblest characters in the annals of Ohio.
In 1816 John Killiuurn, author of geographies, began the publi-
cation of the Ohio Gazetteer at Columbus, and William Lusk, at the
same place, launched his Almanac, which was a favorite in the
pioneer homes for thirty-five years.
A very important result of the embargo that preceded the war of
1812, and the cutting off of English trade throughout the war. was
the growth of manufacturing in Ohio. According to the Baltimore
Register of May, 1814, New Lisbon had a furnace, bloomery and
wire mill, and two or three wool and cotton factories in prospect, for
cotton could be cheaply shipped on the river and the settlers were
raising many sheep. Chillicothe already had three cotton factories,
two nail factories, paper mill, furnace, etc. Merino sheep were
introduced here about 1810. Cincinnati was the greatest manufac-
turing town of the west, except Pittsburg and Lexington. It had a
steam mill, manufactures of cotton and wool and numerous distil-
leries and breweries. Steubenville had a woolen mill and steam
flouring mill, and a manufactory of the hand printing presses that
were used by the newspapers of the west. While Ohio was thus
learning to make clothing and iron, tools ami machinery at home,
she was al>o sending droves of cattle and li"^ across the moun-
tains instead of exporting at great cost the grain she grew. Thus
the international troubles tended to make Ohio a financially and
industrially independent state.
This prosperity was aided also by a great tide of immigration that
WAR AND HARD TIMES. 221
poured into the State as soon as peace was assured. But it was
threatened from the first by the rottenness of the money system. At
the beginning of the war gold, being undervalued in the ratio of coin-
age then existing, ceased to be currency, and was an article of mer-
chandise and export Silver had been superseded by the flood of
notes of local hanks, "and besides, would have been too cumbrous for
a national currency."* The government was compelled to rely upon
the local hanks for support, and they soon stopped specie payments,
except in New England, and the United States government issued
treasury notes in great quantities. These depreciated in value as
they came west, and in Ohio were worth not more than two-thirds
their face in exchange for even the discredited local hank notes.
After the war the numerous banks and institutions of various sorts
with the privilege of issuing printed notes, supplied an abundant cir-
culating medium. Under its influence speculation ran riot, and
improvements of various kinds were projected, beyond the prospect
of speedy realization of profit. Prices were inflated, while money
sank in value. "Before 1820 the country was flooded with the notes
of irresponsible private banks. Traders and others issued their small
notes of twenty-five cents and upwards, called shin plasters, redeem-
able in dry goods, groceries, or something to drink. The little sil-
ver in circulation was converted into what was called 'cut money/
A Spanish pistareen [from New Orleans], worth seventeen or
eighteen cents, was cut into six pieces, representing double the value
in silver of the pistareen, and so with quarters and half dollars. A
meal at a tavern was to be had for twenty-five cent- in this cut money,
and for one dollar or more in paper."' v
In 1815 the legislature began a war on unauthorized issue of cur-
rency, a contest more protracted and vigorous than in any other state,
because it seemed a more difficult problem in Ohio than elsewhere.
A law was also passed imposing an annual tax of four per cent
on bank dividends, and if these were not reported, a tax of one per
cent on nominal capital, lint all the hanks were not bad. The
State found them useful in making large loans to pay the direct war
tax. A large part of the irresponsible banking was done by agents
of banks of other states, and these were absolutely barred from doing
business in 1816. This was followed, in February, 1816, by an act
designed to benefit the treasury of the State and prevent the further
increase of banking institutions. Six banks were incorporated to
last till 1843 and swen hitherto unincorporated companies were
given charters under the same plan, which required them to set
apart for the State one-twenty-fifth of their stock, ami so handle it
as to ultimately make the State a one-sixth partner. In return the
H. Benton. 1854.
tReminiseences of Mayor L'Hommeieu of Cincinnati
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
banks that went into this scheme were exempted from State taxa-
tion. This act was the result of a recommendation by Ralph L.
Osborn, who was made auditor of State in 1815, and by Governor
Worthington, that the State limit the capital of the banks of Ohio
to live million dollars, of which the State should hold one-fifth, so
that the State might be in position to check the speculative issues of
currency. Governor Worthington expected the State to derive from
this arrangement an annual revenue of $120,000 within ten years,
but the result of the law passed was such that in 1825 the legislature
relinquished its claim to stock for the payment of a tax of two per
cent on previous and four per cent upon subsequent dividends.
The notion of State partnership in banks for the purpose of rais-
ing state revenue, and the twin error of bank loans of money on real
estate, held sway in the west during the first half of the century,
•and. "were more destructive to the happiness and prosperity of one
section after another than pestilence or famine."* But at the same
time the doctrine of Hamilton, who had opposed these notions, was
that specie was "dead stock" except as used to hack issues of paper
money. It was a period of cutting and trying, to find the right
way, and evil results were often traceable to the most honest inten-
tions.
The situation was complicated by the revival of the United States
bank. As soon as it was chartered in 1816 Ohio towns applied for
the location of branches, and on January 28th, 1817, a branch was
established at Cincinnati, and about a year later one was opened at
Ohillicothe. Their establishment was soon followed by a crisis in
the affairs of the parent hank, due to bad management and a loss of
some $3,000,000 through rascality at Baltimore, all of which was
kept secret, the public only seeing that the hank stopped the issue of
currency, ami gathered in what was in circulation, and refused to
perform those functions of public convenience in hope of which the
Jeffersonian politicians had consented to establish it. At Chilli-
cothe the branch refused to honor a draft from Governor Cass for
$10,000 to pay the [ndians what was due them by treaty, and this
occasioned prejudice all over the United States. All these circum-
stances persuaded some of the states, led by Maryland, to try to tax
the branch banks out of existence. The subject was agitated in
( >hio before the (dose of Worthington's administration.
By this time the collapse had arrived. The treaty of peace had
restored commercial intercourse with Great Britain, and thai coun-
try obtained some revenge by excessive sales of goods in the United
States, ruining the recently established factories. An instance was
the failure of the Worthington manufacturing company, established
by James Kilbourn at Steubenville and Worthington, which manu-
factured woolens and issued paper money. The flood of paper
'Journal of Commerce "History of Banking."
WAR AND HARD TIMES.
J23
money and wild speculation also broughl their natural sequel of loss
of confidence. Men who had contracted debts found, when called
upon to pay, that the means were unattainable. Banks which had
made excessive issues, could not redeem their notes on demand, and
their loans on land were not collectible. The inflated prices took a
tumble, merchants failed and hanks broke. There were desperately
"hard times," in Ohio, and many people lost all they had saved in
their struggles in the wilderness. Thousands of fanners found it
impossible to pay for their lands, bought of the government on time.
Out of the conditions following the war of L812 grew the submis-
sion of the Jeffersonian party to the re-establishment of the United
States hank and the growth in favor of the "American policy" of
internal improvements and a protective tariff, advocated by Henry
Clay, who became the idol of Ohio.
Though the building of sailing vessels at Marietta soon* declined,
the trade down the Ohio and Mississippi continued to grow, barges
being used mainly, despite the introduction of steamboats. The
first steamboat to ascend the rivers from Xew Orleans was the
Enterprise, that went down in 1814 and came hack in May, 1815,
commanded by Capt, Henry M. Shreve, who gave his name to
Shreveport, La. The iEtna, in the following year, failed in the
attempt to stem the river torrents amid the snags and driftwood.
In 1815, even for coming up the rivers, barges got most of the freight
at Xew Orleans, in preference to steamboats, at eight cents a pound.
Steamboat building soon began at Cincinnati, and in 1818 another
"Enterprise," built and owned entirely at Cincinnati, made the
trip from Xew Orleans to its home city in twenty-eight days. In
1817-\19, it is said, one-fourth of all the steamboats built in the
West were launched at Cincinnati. By 1826, 233 steamboats had
been on the Ohio, of which '.in had been lost. The steamboat revo-
lution gradually made headway, and by 1840 the boats were going
down from Louisville in four or five days and up in five or six, and
carrying freight up at fifteen cents a hundredweight.
The discussion of canals was revived after the close of the war.
The early idea was that the sources of rivers should he connected
by artificial channels, using the navigable part of the beds of the
streams, hut in later years it became apparent that the better plan
was to dig a canal following the river valleys, ami by means of dams
use the streams as feeder-. In L815 Dr. Daniel Drake,* one of the
♦Daniel Drake was born in Plainfield. N. J., in 17S5. and died in Cincin-
nati in 1852. He was reared in Kentucky, studied medicine at Cincinnati
and Philadelphia, practiced his profession at Cincinnati, was one time pro-
fessor in the Transylvania university and at the university of Louisville,
and in 1S33 organized the medical department of the Cincinnati college.
He gave twenty years of travel and study to the production of his monu-
mental work on the "Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America."
He did more, says a biographer, to advance the intellectual life of Cincin-
nati than any other man before 1850.
224 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
greatest men of the Ohio valley, proposed such a ••anal from some
point on the Great .Miami to Cincinnati. In his "Picture of Cin-
cinnati," published in that year, he predicted that if New York
should dig the proposed Erie canal. New York city "will probably
become one of our inlets for foreign goods," a remark that indicates
the commercial relations of Ohio at that day. New Orleans was
then the great place of export ami import fur all the western coun-
try, and next to New < Irleans, were Baltimore and Philadelphia.
The change since then has been wrought, first by the canals, next
by the railroads, and by the combination of railroad interests in
favor of New York. In 1817 the New York legislature provided
for the construction of the Erie canal, and within a decade the great
work was carried through by that State, led by Dewitt Clinton, sup-
plying an example to tin 1 rest of the United States. In January,
lMs. the Ohio legislature incorporated the Little Miami canal and
hanking company, hut there was a growing sentiment in the State
opposed to entrusting canal enterprises to corporations. Meanwhile
the -team navigation of the great lakes was begun in the summer of
1818 by the trip of the "Walk-on-the-Water," named after Teeum-
soh's warrior, from Buffalo to Cleveland and Detroit. This pioneer
steamer was a queer-looking craft, rigged for sails and needing them
at times, that could make eight miles an hour with its rickety
machinery.
Toward the close of Worthington's term there was a revival of
the Michigan boundary trouble, simultaneous with a great increase
of Ohio territory open to settlement toward the northwest. In the
vicinity of the old port of Miami and Fort Meigs a new town was
laid out on the military reservation in 1816, and called Perrysburg,
which became the seat of Ohio influence, while the pioneer towns
of Port Lawrence and Vistula (now merged in Toledo) were within
the hounds claimed by Michigan. The United States government
surveyors ventured out in the wilderness to run the desired true east
line from the head of Lake Michigan, under the direction of Edward
Tiffin, surveyor-general, and Harris, the engineer in charge, in 1817
established the northwest corner of Ohio, on a due east line from the
m southern point of Lake Michigan, according to the original
ordinance. But he found that if this line were continued due east
to Lake Uric, it would touch the lake over seven miles south of the
most northerly capo of Maumee bay. Accordingly, in conformity to
the constitution of Ohio, he ran a boundary line from the northwest
corner he had established, to a willow tree on the cape. The differ-
ence in latitude of his willow tree and the northwest corner of < »hio
was about fifteen minutes. Lewis Cass, governor of Michigan ter-
ritory, protested against such a departure from the anciently pre-
scribed boundary, and furthermore declared, "The country en the
WAR AND HARD TIMES. 225
Maumee has no natural connection with the interior of Ohio."
There was some excuse for Harris' disregard of the old ordinance
line, for Congress, in 1816, in defining the hounds of the new state
of Indiana, allowed it to encroach ten miles upon Michigan, and in
ISIS gave Illinois a line fifty miles north of the ordinance boundary.
But the government did not approve the Harris line, and in 1S18
another surveyor, Fulton, was sent out. He ran a line due east
from Harris' Ohio corner, eighty miles and forty chains to Lake
Erie, throwing Maumee hay into .Michigan. Michigan treated this
as the true south line, and up to that line extended her county and
township government.
It will he remembered that in 1805 the United States bought of
the Indians the eastern end of the great Indian country in Ohio
under the Greenville treaty, and in 1m»7 a large area north of the
Maumee was purchased. In IMS the Indian title to all the remain-
der, except some reservations for the chiefs, was extinguished by a
treaty made by Generals Cass and McArthur at the Maumee rapids.
The consideration was an annuity of $4,000 forever to the Wyan-
dots, $500 forever to the Senecas, $2,000 forever to the Shawanees,
$1,300 for fifteen years to the Pottawatomies, $1,<»00 for fifteen
years to the Ottawas, $1,000 for fifteen years to the Chippewas, ami
$500 once to the Delawares. This was followed by the removal of
the Indians to the west, which was not completed until 1842, when
the Wyandots went, among whom the Rev. James B. Finley estab-
lished a famous mission in 1821.
In February, 1S20, the legislature defined fourteen counties in
this newly acquired region — Allen, Crawford, Hancock, Hardin,
Henry, .Mercer, Marion, Paulding, Putnam, Sandusky, Seneca,
VanWert, Williams ami Wood, but for want of inhabitants, only two
of these — Sandusky, including the settlements on that river ami hay,
and Wood, including Perrysburg, were (hen organized. The north-
ern boundary of Williams, Henry, Wood ami Sandusky was declared
to be the Harris line, ami there soon arose conflicts of local authority
with tin 1 officials of Erie county. Michigan.
Other important events of Worthington's administration were, a
general revision of the laws in 1815-16, the enactment of laws
against duelling, and the incorporation in IS 16-17 of a large num-
ber of companies for the building of turnpikes, connecting the prin-
cipal towns. Out of tin' three per cent received from sales of United
States land more than a hundred public roads were ordered opened
ami improved in 1817. The State library was founded by Governor
Worthington in 1M7, through a legislative appropriation, and Jer-
emy Bentham ami Robert Owen contributed their works to this
frontier collection. In the same year the firsl Sumla\ scl 1 in
Ohio was held at Marietta.
The new State buildings at Columbus were ready for occupancy in
1-15
226 CEXTEXXIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
1816, comprising, as they were described by a traveler,* a statehouse
eighty feet square, of brick with white marble trimmings, another
large building for state offices, and a penitentiary for convicts, which
struck the observer as quite too small.
In August, 1817, the State had its first presidential visit. Presi-
dent Monroe returned from Detroit through the interior by coach,
and was entertained at Lancaster, Delaware, Columbus, Circleville,
Zanesville and other places. "At the boundary of Ross county he
was met by a deputation of the corporation of Chillicothe, and a
large number of gentlemen on horseback, who escorted him to the
governor's mansion on Prospect Bill, where he -pent the night."
The years 1817 and Is is are remembered for great emigration
from New England to the Western reserve. The exodus was pre-
ceded by a slimmer season of unprecedented cold in the oast, frosts
destroying all the crops, and as Goodrich describes it in Peter Par-
ley's Recollections, "a sorl of stampede took place from the cold,
desolate, worn-out New England, to this land of promise." Some
came in covered wagons, others started in ox-carts and traveled at
the rate of ten miles a day. Families came on foot, the father and
boys taking turns in dragging a hand wagon, on which a few g is
were hauled, and an occasional lift given the mother and baby.
Many of these persons were in extreme poverty ami begged on the
way.
It is worthy of note that in 1818 ('apt. John Cloves Symmes,
nephew of Judge Symmes, published his famous theory that the
earth is not solid but composed of concentric spheres, and that if the
poles coujd he explored a passage would he found to an interior
world which would he habitable if not already inhabited. Until his
death in 1829 he attracted much attention by his lectures on this
subject and efforts to raise money fur an expedition to the north pole.
Doubtless he gave a considerable impulse to those polar expeditions
that have become common in later years.
Governor Worthington's last two messages were largely devoted
t'i thi' subjects of public education and transportation improvement.
There was yet no free public school system, nor were the colleges for
which Congress had donated land, in operation, except that the insti-
tution at Athens (incorporated December 12, 1801), first known as
the American Western university, and later as the Ohio university,
was represented by an academy conducted by the parish minister.
Nathan Guilford, of Cincinnati, began the publication of the Educa-
tion Almanac about 1816, and the movement at Cincinnati was
heartily seconded in tin Ohio Company resrion and in the Western
*Dr. John Cotton, of Marietta, who said: "One thing seems truly ridicu-
lous. Inscriptions are set up over the doors on beautiful slabs of marble,
taken from Joel Barlow's Columbiad. holding forth The detestable principles
of the French revolution." Cotton was evidentlv a Federalist.
WAR AND HARD TIMES. 227
Reserve, but the struggle for piiblic schools was a difficult one. Gov-
ernor Worthington advised the founding of a State free school
at the capital. He also advocated Legislation to encourage the estab-
lishment of manufactories in Ohio, and the restraint of the produc-
tion and sale of intoxicating liquor, and the reform of the banking
system by incorporating a State bank. He was a worthy prophet of
progress.
The election for governor in 1818 resulted in the choice of Ethan
Allen Brown,* of Cincinnati, a native of Connecticut, who bad
studied law under Alexander Hamilton, and served on the supreme
court of Ohio from 1814. He was the first governor from the Miami
country, except Othniel Looker, who acted in that capacity a short
time as speaker of the senate. In politics he was opposed to Henry
Clay. He assumed Mich little power as belonged to his office, thor-
oughly imbued with enthusiasm for the development of the resources
of the State by means of canals, and he was also friendly to the move-
ment for free schools. The State officials associated with him were
Jeremiah McLene, secretary of state; Ralph Osborn, auditor, and
Hiram M. Curry, who had succeeded McFarland as treasurer in
1817. When the term of Jeremiah Morrow in the United States sen-
ate expired in 1819, the legislature elected Col. William A. Trimble,
of Highland, a brother of Allen Trimble, and of Virginian parentage,
who had been a major of Ohio troops under 1 1 nil and a major of reg-
ulars under Harrison, receiving a severe wound in the sortie from
Fort Meigs, and had afterward remained in the army. Thomas
Worthington, Robert Lucas and John Hamm were the other candi-
dates.
Governor Brown had corresponded with Dewitt Clinton on the
subject of canals, ami in his first communication to the legislature
directed its attention to the necessity of such water ways in < >hi". but
his recommendations that secured readiest hearing were regarding the
branches of the United States bank, "established without authority
of State law." Following the example of Kentucky the Ohio legis-
lature proceeded early in L819 to attempt to wipe out those institu-
tions, by imposing upon each of them a tax of $50,000 a year if they
continued to do business after September 1-"'. 1819. At the same
time the legislature tried to compel the local hanks to make good
their notes, of the twenty-five in the State only six or seven were
redeeming their paper. Others were classified as "seven good, four
decent, tour middling, four good for nothing." ( Ine of these institu-
tions, the Owl Creek hank, was made famous hv the allusions to it in
Xiles' Weekly Register, of Baltimore, which, like many other papers,
wa- addicted to raving on tin' subject, indiscriminately denouncing
hanks as the source <>f all evil. At the Owl Creek, or "Hoo Hoi>"
'Brown received 30.194 votes, and Col. James Dunlap, of Ross couty, 8.075.
228 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
bank, as Niles called it, a mysterious stranger railed and, throwing
down some of the concern's notes, demanded specie. There was none,
and lie asked for eastern funds. There were no eastern funds on
hand. "Then," said the stranger, "will you be so kind as to give me
some well-executed counterfeit notes on solvent banks?" When the
clerks rose to put him out, he threw upon the counter the carcass of a
hoot-owl, bidding them beware, for he had already killed their presi-
dent.
The year 1819 was the turning point financially. The currency
of the country had been contracted a half or mure, and the time was
near at hand at which gold would begin to return from Europe. The
depression thai reigned was terrible. The United Stales hank at
Cincinnati had been made the dump of many thousands of depre-
ciated paper dollars taken in on government land sales, which the
cashier had loaned nut, fur want of anything else to do with them.
The other hanks became indebted to the United States hank heavily.
When the demand was put upon them to pay, they complained that
they had paid nearly a million and a half in eighteen months, at the
cost of retiring nearly all their circulation, and they could not pay
what remained in monthly installments of twenty per cent, with inter-
est. The hard times that prevailed were blamed on the hanks, and
particularly on the United States branches.
Before the State could enforce it- tax on these branches, an injunc-
tion was obtained from the United States circuit court, hut this the
Siati' auditor ignored, and when the period of grace had expired, as
set by the legislature, his agents entered the bank at Chillicothe and,
being denied their demand for $100,000, jumped the counter and
forcibly took p.i— cs-ion of $120,425. Subsequently the excess over
$100,000 was returned, but the balance, less $2,000 fees for collec-
tion, was kept for some time in the State treasury, which had no other
fund- of value, though the face of the notes held was over $50,000.
The officers concerned were arrested and imprisoned for a time.
The United States supreme court had pas6ed on a similar case
from Maryland, sustaining the United States hank in its right to
do business regardless of state interference, but the radical state
sovereignty people repudiated the authority of the United States
supreme court in the matter. The Ohio legislature passed res-
olutions explicitly recognizing and approving the principles of the
famous Kentucky resolutions of 1798 and 1S00, the original procla-
mation of state rights and nullification; asserting the right to tax a
private corporation such as the United States hank, and protesting
againsl "the doctrine thai the political rights of the separate states
thai compose the American Union, and their powers as sovereign
'•tate-. may he settled and determined in the supreme court of the
United States, so a- to conclude ami hind them in cases contrived
WAR AND HARD TIMES. 229
between individuals, and where they are, no one of them, parties
direct,"
This manifesto of the legislature, composed by Charles Hammond,
was regarded as a matchless exposition of the doctrine of State
rights.* The governor is quoted as saying of the invasion of the
bank: "I view the transaction in the most odious light, and from
my very soul I detest it. ... I am sorry it happened in
Ohio."'!- But he sustained the action of the legislature.
These resolutions of the Ohio legislature were of particular impor-
tance because at that rime the people of the United States were agi-
tated over the struggle regarding the extension of slavery in the west,
attending the proposed admission of the state of Missouri. The
sovereignty of the states was being asserted both in regard to the
bank and slavery question, and John ( '. Calhoun had come to the
conclusion that the South might do well to secede and become an
appendage of Great Britain. The Missouri problem and the fight
with the United States bank both occupied the time of the legislature
of 1819-20. The resolutions offered to instruct the Ohio delegation
to oppose the extension of slavery provoked a long and bitter debate.
General Harrison, who bad lately served in Congress from the First
district, and now was a member of the State senate, was for a mod-
erate course (in Congress he had voted for "squatter sovereignty"),
but the State went on record as opposed to the extension of slavery.
In 1820 occurred the first bank mob at Cincinnati, caused by the
suspension of the Miami Exporting company. A procession marched
down Main street, with a dray carrying a coffin marked "Miami
Bank No More." The military was stationed in front of the bank
to protect if, and when the crowd reached the office of Mayor Isaac
G. Burnet, that official read the riot act, which had the desired effect.
The financial depression did not seem greatly to check the marvel-
ous growth of Ohio. The census of 1820 showed an increase in pop-
ulation to 581,295. Ohio was now ahead of Kentucky and Tennessee,
and had outstripped all the original thirteen states except New York,
Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina. In fact this young
giant of the West st 1 next to those great states, witli Kentucky and
Massachusetts the nearest rivals. Vet. according to the estimates
of well-informed men of that day. more than half the population of
the Ohio and the northwest at that time was in debt to the government
at Washington, through the system of- selling public land on time.
To relieve this situation Congress passed a law in 1821 permitting
settlers to give up lands they felt unable to pay for, and receive credit
rh\ sucb tracts as they could retain for the whole amount of money
they had paid. Thus twenty million dollars in debts were wiped out,
*Rufus King's "Ohio."
t Journal of Commerce "History of Banking'
230 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
and the experience led Congress to reduce the price of public lands to
$1.25 an acre, payable in advance.
In 1820, the year that President Monroe was re-elected and the
"era of good-feeling" was in progress among the politicians, though
business was not feeling remarkably well, Monroe received the eight
electoral votes of Ohio. Governor Brown was triumphantly re-
elected, though General Harrison ran against him. Brown's vote
was nearly 35,000, while Jeremiah Morrow received less than 10,000
and Harrison less than 5,000. Governor Brown directed attention
to the canal projects in his message, December, 1820, but the mind
of the legislature had first to be relieved on other subjects. General
Harrison was a member of the senate, of which Allen Trimble was
speaker, and the General, as chairman of the joint committee on pro-
ceedings of the United States court, made a report asserting that the
sovereign state of Ohio had been insulted in being called before an
inferior United States court. Being sovereign it could not he cited
before any court except by previous consent. As the courts had
declared the United States hank independent of the State laws, Har-
rison proposed to treat it as an alien and deprive it of the protection
of the laws. He reported a Kill, which was passed, withdrawing from
the bank all the collection machinery of the ( mio courts. Under this
remarkable law a burglar might rob one of these branch hanks and
the sheriff would be liable to a fine of $200 if he put the criminal in
jail. At the same time it was provided that a compromise might be
arranged upon the hank's submitting to a tax of four per cent on its
dividends or withdrawing from the State. This was the law in Ohio
for several years. In Cincinnati, before the hank was outlawed by
the legislature, the mayor put it out of court, instructing a jury that
the hank had mi right I" <1 !><•< mut notes, whereupon the jury brought
in a verdict annulling a debt.*
In 1821 the United States circuit court ordered the return to the
Chillicothe hank of the entire $100,000 confiscated, with some
$12,000 interests and costs, and granted a perpetual injunction
against the collection of the tax. The legislature was discouraged
in resistance by the fact that its remonstrance, sent to (lie legislatures
of all the other states, had received no sympathetic response except
from Connecticut. Governor Brown saw no course open but to sub-
mit to the court.
At the March term, 1824, the case of the State Auditor of Ohio vs.
the United States Bank was decided by the United States supreme
court. For the hank appeared Henry Clay, and for the auditor the
anient Federalist, Charles Hammond,! whose genius was not at all
* Journal of Commerce "History of Banking."
f Hammond had established The Ohio Federalist at St. ClairsrfTle in
1812, and become the leader of his party. A member of the legislature from
1813 to 1822, he codified the laws and was the author of many of them. In
WAR AND HARD TIMES. 231
obscured by the brilliancy of the great Kentuckian. Hammond is
said to have profoundly impressed Chief Justice John Marshall, tbe
most majestic figure of that period, with the remarkable power of bis
intellect. But it was Marshall's duty and bis peculiar function in
tbe building of the American form of government, to assert tbe
supremacy of the laws of the United States. Ohio submitted grace-
fully, having already returned the main part of tbe confiscated funds,
and in 1826 repealed the laws barring the bank from State cotirts.
The struggle was fiercer in Kentucky, which, as a result, for some
years had two bodies claiming to be the legal State court of appeals.
It is not remarkable that in the midst of the financial depression
and political turmoil other important matters were neglected, if not
considered impracticable. In December, 1820, Governor Brown rec-
ommended a survey of canal mutes before the State should blindly
turn over tbe work to corporations. An act was passed, providing
for the appointment of three canal commissioner-, to have charge of
the survey of a route of a canal if Congress should donate the public
lands along the line. On January :'>, 1822, Micajah Williams made
an elaborate report on the subject of canal navigation, and moved the
appointment of a commission to further investigate the subject. See-
ing an opportunity to profit by the need of the new enterprise for
friends, Caleb Atwater had moved for a commission on a free school
system. Thus there was prospect of something tangible in the way
of improvement toward the close of Brown's second term. On the
same day. January 3d, the governor was elected United States sen-
ator to succeed Col. W. A. Trimble, who died at Washington, from
the effects of his wounds at Fort Meigs. The governor's ambition
for a senatorship was contested by Thomas Worthington, John
McLean and General Harrison, but after be and Worthington had
run neck and neck for several ballots, Brown succeeded by a majority
of one. Col. Allen Trimble, who was speaker of tbe senate and had
been for five years, became acting governor, and served throughout the
remainder of the year 1822 with general satisfac'ion to the people.
Governor Trimble, who had lived in the Sciot i valley from 1805,
was noi only a pioneer and gallant soldier himself, but the grandson
of a Scotch— Irish frontiersman who was killed by Indians, and son
of one of the Virginians who fought at Point Pleasant. Bom in
the Shenandoah valley and reared in Kentucky, be was a typical
( thioan of the noddle region, and his lineage and record and personal
worth made him one of the most popular men of the State.
1S21 he was chosen as the first reporter of the supreme court, an office he
held until his death in 1S40. Living at Cincinnati from 1822, he made
the Cincinnati Gazette famous by the brilliancy and weight of the editorials
he contributed during the remainder of his life. He was called the Alexan-
der Hamilton of the West. Henry Clay and he. in succession, refuse, i a
seat in the United States supreme court, tendered by President John Qiiincy
Adams.
CHAPTER X.
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES AND CANALS.
Goveknors Allen Trimri.e, 1S22 ; Jeremiah Morrow, 1822-26;
Allen Trimble, 1826-30; Duncan Me Arthur, 1830-32;
Robert Lucas, 1S32-3G; Joseph Vance, 1836-38.
DT WAS during the' brief administration of acting-Governor
Trimble that a resolution, drawn by Micajah T. Williams, of
Cincinnati, was passed, providing for a public engineer and
seven commissioners, to investigate and report regarding four
proposed canal routes, one from Sandusky bay to the Ohio, one by
way of tlie Maumee and Miami, one by way of the Cuyahoga and
Muskingum, and one from the mouth of Grand river by way of the
Mahoning. On the same day, January 31st, was passed a resolution
reported by Mr. Atwater, for the appointment of a commission to
report "a system of education fur common schools." "The same mes-
sage from the senate to the house of representatives announced the
success of both measures, so closely allied were the friends of each,
and so uniformly did they work together."* Governor Trimble
appointed Caleb Atwater, John Collins, James Hoge, Nathan Guil-
ford, Ephraim Cutler, Josiah Barber and James M. Hell to devise
the educational system. The canal commissioners selected were
Judge Benjamin Tappan, of Steubenville ; Alfred Kelly, a lawyer
and legislator id" Cleveland, who had some time before this startled
the legislature by proposing to ah<dish imprisonment for debt;
Thomas Worthington, ex-Governor Brown, Jeremiah Morrow, [saac
Minor, and Ebenezer Buckingham.
Thus the year 1822 is a memorable one in State history for the
effective beginnings of great advancement. Its political events were
also of great importance. A special session of the legislature in May
redistricted the Stale for the election of fourteen congressmen, to
which Ohio was entitled under the Last census, and the delegation
chosen included such men as Philemon IVecher, Duncan McArthur,
Ryan's History of Ohi
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES, AND CANALS. 233
William McLean, Joseph Vance, Samuel F. Vinton, John Sloan, and
Elisha Whittlesey, giving' a strong representation to the many people
of the State who were disposed to break with the administration of
national affairs that hindered the extension of the National road on
account of constitutional scruples.
A great many of the old Republicans, like General McArtbur ( who
named his eldest son Thomas Jefferson), rallied under the leadership
of Henry Clay in support of the "American System." It was their
desire to engage the general government in a system of internal
improvements; that Congress should levy taxes for the purpose of
making roads and constructing canals, and impose heavy duties on
articles of foreign importation, in order to prevent foreign manufac-
turers from coming in competition with American manufacturers.
This was called the high tariff.* With this branch of the old Jeffer-
sonian party those who retained the principles of the Federalists had
no difficulty in coalescing, and the result was a formidable party that
enrolled about half the voters of the State, and during a great part of
the time controlled the government. Allen Trimble was in the new
movement, and he came near electionas governor in 1Sl'2.
Jeremiah Morrow, an old friend of Worthington' s, won the elec-
tion, but for the first time in the history of the State, by a minority
vote. He received 26,059 votes, Trimble 22,899, and' William W.
Irwin, of Fairfield, 11,050. Governor Morrow, a shrewd business
man of Scotch-Irish descent, was by no means a constitutional the-
orist; in fact, was the strongest internal improvement man in the
State. Bora near Gettysburg, Pa., in 1771, he came to the Miami
valley in 1796, bought land in what was later Warren county, and.
after the manner of the day, returned to Pennsylvania to marry and
brought his wife to the log cabin in the Ohio woods. As lias been
noted, he took part in framing the first constitution and then, for ten
years, while Ohio had but one representative in Congress, held that
office continuously. Promoted from the lower to the upper house, he
was United States senator six years as the colleague of Worthington
and Ruggles. His strength as a public man was based on his rugged
honesty, remarkable good sense and unassiiming modesty. It was
said of him by Henry < 'lay : "Xo man in the sphere within which he
acted ever commanded or deserved the Lrnplicil confidence of Con-
gress more than Jeremiah Morrow. There existed a perfect persua-
sion of his entire impartiality and justice between the old states and
the new. A few artless but sensible words pronounced in his plain
Scotch-Irish dialect were always sufficient to insure the passage of
any hill or resolution which he reported." lb' had done in the
house, in 1806, what Worthington did in the senate, toward the build-
ing of the great National road, and. with Worthington. endeavored
♦Such is the statement of McDonald (lS3St, in his sketch of McArthur.
234 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
to overcome his party's prejudice against this national necessity. As
chairman of the senate committee in 1816 he presented the report rec-
ommending a general system of internal improvements by the federal
government. When he declined re-election to tho senate, and went
back to his farm and mill on the Little Miami, he was called to act
on the Ohio canal commission. As governor he continued to urge
highway and canal improvements.
Toward the close of his administration he was visited by Bernard,
duke of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, who wrote in his "Travels in North
America :" "The dwelling of the governor consists of a plain frame
house, situated on a little elevation not far from the shore of the
Little .Miami, and is entirely surrounded by fields. The business of
the Stale calls him once a month to Columbus, and the remainder of
the time he passes at his country seat, occupied with farming, a faith-
ful copy of an ancient Cincinnatus. He was engaged at our arrival
in cutting a wagon pole, hut he immediately stopt his work to give
us a hearty welcome, lie appeared in he about fifty years of age;
i- nn'T tall, hut thin and strong, and has an expressive physiognomy,
with dark and animated eves." The duke noted that the governor
prefaced his breakfast with prayer, and some days later found the
same custom observed by Governor Worthington, of whom he wrote
that he considered the acquaintance with him and his family "one of
the most interesting- that I made in the United States."
As a feature of the new political order of things, it is to he noted
that Jacob Burnet, who, at the organization of the State, considered
himself a man proscribed, had been elected a judge of the supreme
court in 1819, and at the same time there was advanced to the same
high position, < diaries R. Sherman, of Lancaster. Both of them served
in the supreme court, with Jesup >>'. Couch and Peter Hitchcock,
John AIcLean and Calvin Tease, as their associates most of the time,
the court now having four members, until 1S29, when Sherman died
suddenly, while yet a young man, and Burnet was elected to the
United States senate.
The canal commissioners, having engaged -1 antes Geddes, of New
York, as engineer, made a preliminary report to the first legislature
of Morrow's administration, and were continued on duty, hut the
years 1823-24 brought fatalities that seriously interfered with their
work. Fevers of various sorts desolated the State. Pending the
progress of material improvement, the laws and forms of legal pro-
cedure were revised and greatly simplified as a result of the work of a
committee headed by Judge Francis 1 'unlaw, and the legislature
declared by a large majority in favor of a system of emancipation that
should put an end to slavery in the southern states. A United States
battleship had been named in honor of Ohio, and the State presented
it a stand of color-. An interesting event of l->:j:; was the meeting
of Lewis Cass, representing the United States government, and Lewis
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES. AND CANALS.
235
tie Sehweinitz, of the Moravian society, to bring to an cud the occu-
pation by Christian Indians of the lands in Tuscarawas county deeded
the society in 1798. It had been found impracticable for these
Indians to live without deterioration, surrounded by whites, and
exposed to the evils of civilization. Consequently, the red men.
including- the heirs of Killbuck and White-eyes, left the State, most
of them taking refuge at the Moravian town on the Thames, rebuilt
since the visit of Harrison's army.
In 1824 occurred the famous elections in which the Virginia suc-
cession io the presidency was overthrown. The friends of ('lay in
Ohio polled 19,255 votes for their electoral ticket, headed by General
Harrison, while the conservative wing of the Jeffersonian party cast
18,489 votes for Genera] . Jackson, and the remnant of the Federalists
gave 12,280 for John Quincy Adams. The election of a president
was thrown into the lower house of Congress, ami ten of the Ohio
representatives followed the will of Henry Clay in making Adams
president in preference to William H. Crawford or Andrew Jackson.
Governor Morrow was re-elected, hut out of the total poll of nearly
77. not) votes he had a majority of less than 2,500 over Allen Trimble.
The legislature elected at the same time had a majority favoring
the new party, so<m called National Republican, in distinction from
the Democratic Republicans who supported Jackson. This session
elected General Harrison to the United States senate, to succeed
Ethan Allen Brown, Wyllys Silliman being a formidable candidate
Aside from national politics, the majority of the legislature was
pledged to take some action for the canals and public schools.
Full reports and estimates were laid before it for various routes of
water transportation between the Ohio river and Lake Erie. The
demands of both the eastern and western portions of the State were
to he considered, and the canal commission at first sought to find a
] racticable course for a canal to mute the Scioto and Miami valleys,
making Cincinnati one of the river termini of a connected system,
lint this was decided to he impracticable, and hence two systems
resulted, one from the month id' the Scioto, following that river, the
Licking and upper Muskingum to Coshocton, and thence along the
Tuscarawas and Cuyahoga to Cleveland, and another line from Cin-
cinnati along tin 1 Great Miami to the Maumee river. Marietta was
to 1„ provided for by an improvement of the Muskingum river from
its mouth to the point where the Ohio canal approached it from the
west, near Dresden. Sandusky, greatly to her sorrow, was left out of
the scheme.
These two systems, the firs! to he known as the Ohio canal and the
second as the Miami ami Erie canal, were adopted by the Legislature,
though the first order was to build the Miami canal no farther than
Dayton from Cincinnati, while the Ohio canal was to lie completed-
through. There wa- only $60,000 in the treasury, and tin n
.'.-]•;
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
estimate of the cost of the Miami line was over $2,500,000 and of the
other nearer three millions. But times were better, and the success
of the Erie canal in New York assured the generous support of eastern
capital. Besides, the conditions permitted the canals to be con-
structed with great economy in the cost of Labor. The money went,
not to gangs of practically servile and foreign laborers, but to farmers
and farmer boys of the State. The investment of capital was there-
fore profitable, aside from the worth of the canals themselves.
Under the famous act of February 4, 1825, "to provide for the
internal improvement of the State of Ohio, by navigable canals," the
great work was put under the management of seven canal commis-
sioners, Alfred Kelly, Mica jab T. Williams, Thomas Worthington,
Benjamin Tappan, John Johnston, Isaac Minor, and Nathaniel
Beasley, and the financial part of the enterprise was entrusted to a
board of canal fund commissioners, Ethan Allen Brown, Ebenezer
Buckingham and Allen Trimble. When the latter became governor
his place was taken by Gen. Simon Perkins. These names include
those of the men who may justly he called the fathers of the famous
canal system of the State. Kelly was particularly distinguished in
the actual superintendence of the eastern, and Williams of the west-
ern line.
The canal fund, created for the enterprise, embraced all lands,
property and money devoted to the work, including over a million
acres of government land afterward donated by Congress, which was
sold, bringing two and a quarter million dollars to the fund. The
first reliance was upon the proceeds of six per cent bonds, the first lot
id' which, $400,000, was sold in 1825 at two and a half per cent dis-
count. In the following year bonds for $1,000,000 were taken by
John Jacob Astor and others at a premium of $8,475. The next
issue of $1,200,000 commanded a premium of over $70,000.
The tidings of the passage of the canal hill were received through-
out the State with great rejoicing, and in the following month came
the welcome news that on March 3d, the last day of Madison's admin-
istration, it had been enacted by Congress that the great National road
should he extended through the capitals id' Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
By tlie original plan this road would have run through Chillicothe to
Cincinnati, hut during the delay caused by hostile politics, settlement
had been pushed so far inland that the location was diverted north-
ward. East of Wheeling the mad had been put in good repair, and
great caravans id' overland traffic had that Ohio river city as their
terminus. The survey through Ohio had already been made. There
was an old mad between Zanesville and Columbus by way of Newark
and Granville, and the people of those places made a great effort to
have it followed by the new highway, hut in vain, as the law required
the straightest possible line. The road was located by Jonathan
Knight and a young army officer, Joseph E. Johnston, in later years
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES, AND CANALS. 237
the formidable military antagonist of one of the sons of Judge
Sherman. Hardly had the exultation subsided over the prospect of
canals and roads, than preparation began for the welcoming of Gen-
eral Lafayette. The distinguished Frenchman was received at Cin-
cinnati in May, 1825, by Governor Morrow and his staff, in the
presence of an enormous crowd of people, estimated at fifty thousand.
Lafayette was amazed by the wonderful progress of the new state
which had grown in the hostile and impenetrable wilderness of the
Revolutionary period, when he was fighting with Washington for the
independence of the Atlantic colonies. His secretary and chronicler
relates that the general was so profoundly impressed by what he saw
and the attentions he received that he pronounced Ohio the eighth
wonder of the world.
On July 4, 1S25, ground was broken at St. Clairsville for the con-
struction of the National road to Columbus. The .same day was
selected for the formal beginning of work on the Ohio canal, at the
summit level in Licking county. Governor Clinton," of New York,
who had come by boat to Cleveland, and traveled thence by stage,
accompanied by a distinguished party, raised the first spadeful of
earth, and Thomas Ewing, the great Lancaster lawyer, not yet in pol-
itics, made a memorable speech in the woods, amid great enthusiasm,
though the crowd could not have heard a less powerful orator on
account of the innumerable flies and mosquitoes and the incessant
tramping and tail-swishing of the horses of the cavalry company
around the stand. In the following months the boys from the farms
worked faithfully on the "Roaring Canal," as they called it, at eight
dollars a month, rainy days excepted. Eight dollars a month, in cash,
was not to be neglected in those days. The north end of the canal, to
Cleveland, was first completed, in 1827, and wheat along the line
soon rose in value from 25 to 75 cents a bushel, and potatoes became
a marketable product.
It has been noted that a commission to report a system of public
education bad been appointed in 1S22, as well as a canal commission,
and the legislature of 1S24-25 was elected upon the school and canal
issue combined. On February 5, 1825, the day following the passage
of the canal act, the legislature passed an act to support public instruc-
tion, requiring the establishment of schools in every township, for
free tuition, and imposing a general tax of ono-half mill on the dollar.
The early legislation on this subject down to 1821 had dealt with the
school lands alone. "The general assembly had first attempted to
♦"Clinton was induced to visit Ohio by a few over-zealous friends who
promised a presidential boom, but we are assured by the correspondence of
the day that the influence of 'Harry of the West' was so manifest every-
where he went as to disturb the mind of the New York guest. He said
many ugly things about Mr. Clay afterwards, and while he did not reach
the presidential chair himselT, lie did defeat Mr. Clay in New York, and
thereby broke the hearts of thousands." — W. H. Smith.
238 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
lease the lands, and that plan failing, finally offered them for sale,
and in some townships they were all sold. The last of the reserve
land- were sold in 1852.' The portion of the whole State fund that
belongs to the reserve is something more than a quarter million.
These results seem small, but we must remember that the problem of
handling school lands in great quantities was a new one, that Ohio
was the first state to grapple with it, and that in those days wild lands
were mere plentiful than buyers."* All education previous to 1821
was purely voluntary, both in support and attendance. .Settlers
united voluntarily in building schoolhouses, and hiring teacher-, and
sometimes were incorporated for the purpose by the legislature. The
main educational institutions of lower grade than colleges were the
academies, private enterprises with more or less public assistance,
a pioneer of which was Burton academy in the Western reserve,
founded in 1803. .In 1819 Ephraim Cutler had introduced a bill for
the establishment and public support of common schools, but it failed
to pass. In January, 1821, an act was passed permitting the organ-
ization of school districts in the townships, with authority to levy
taxi-, provide houses and pay the tuition of poor children. But this
lacked the essential (dement of a general system and attached the
stigma of pauperism.
The free school system, as it is now known, had its origin in the
investigations of the Atwater commission, and the bill prepared by
Nathan Guilford, who had been elected to the senate from Cincinnati
and made chairman of the joint committee on school legislation.
Mainly to Cutler, Atwater and Guilford, says Ryan, "Ohio owes
her common school system. All subsequent legislation has been
amendatory of the great idea that they developed and formulated in
law." It was not, of course, fully developed. The tax levied was
\. r\ small, and it was not until 1838 that the law makers ventured to
impose taxation for school furniture and fuel. But the law of L825
was all that the people would submit to at that time. As it was, there
was much remonstrance and voluminous petition- to later legislatures
for the suspension or repeal of the law The friend- of the system
had met the strongly urged objection that taxation for the purpose of
education was unconstitutional, by appeal to the words of the ordi-
nance of 1787, declaring that "schools ami the means of education
shall he forever encouraged," hut many remained unconvinced, while
there was a general objection to the expense. But the legislative com-
mittee of 1826-27, to which remonstrances were referred, reported
that the new system would become popular when it was tried.
* Some commentators are not so kind. A senator is on record as saying:
"Members of the legislature got acts passed, under pretext of granting leases
to themselves, relatives and political partisans, giving the lands away until
there was nothing left." There was certainly grave incompetence, in com-
parison with the success of Connecticut in founding her school fund upon the
sale of the Western reserve.
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES, AND CANALS. 239
"because its features are stamped with an enlarged wisdom, a liberal
and enlightened policy." In 1829 a new law increased the tax to
three-fourths of a mill, and provided for school districts and a board
of three school directors and a clerk and treasurer in each township,
who were empowered to levy taxes. Ever since, the school system lias
become more deeply routed in the fundamental structure of the com-
monwealth. It lias been developed until Ohio leads all the states in
the provision made for general education, and within her bounds are
expended one-tenth of all the money spent in the United States for
public schools.
Beginning its career even with the free schools, Miami university,
opened in 1824, under the presidency of Robert 11. Bishop, became a
famous center of learning. The ether institution founded on land
grant-, Ohio university, at Athens, had graduated Thomas Ewing
and John Hunter as its first class, in 1815, but did not have a full
faculty until 1822. For thirty-five years it was under the presidency
of W. II. McGwffey, who published the school readers in use all over
the west. Prof. Joseph Hay, of another institution at New Athens,
wrote the arithmetics that were studied for many years, and Thomas
W. Harvey, a leader of education in the Western Reserve, supplied
an English grammar. But these belong to later years. In 1S20,
Bishop Philander Chase, prominent in the settlement of the town of
Worthington, founded the town of (iamhicr and Kenyon college,
name- bestowed in honor of the Englishmen who mainly contributed
to the endowment of the institution. The good hishop was the first
president of the school. At the same time Western Reserve college
was founded at Hudson by a Presbyterian colony, and in 1830 there
came to it as president Charles 1). Storrs, whose son, Henry M. Storrs,
was an eminent divine of later years.
At the election in 1826, Allen Trimble, on his third attempt,
received as a candidate for governor, 71,47.~> votes out of the total of
84,600. His opponents, John Bigger, Alexander Campbell and Ben-
jamin Tappan, obtained a little over 4,000 each. The governor thus
signally honored has already been mentioned as a soldier, legislator
and acting governor. I hiring the period of public service now begun,
he labored effectively for the improvement of the common school sys-
tem, the encouragement of manufactures and reform of penitentiary
methods. It is said of him that he was a man of strong religious feel-
ing, strict integrity, ami a shrewd and well-balanced mind. His
ability was so generally recognized that he had been seven times con-
secutively elected speaker of the Ohio -.eiinfe.V
*In 1S82 it was removed to Cleveland, under an arrangement for endow-
ment by Amasa Stone, receiving the name of his deceased son. Adelbert
t After four years' service as governor he .retired from public life, but
in 1846 was made the first president of the Ohio state board of agriculture.
He was born in Augusta county. Ya., November 24, 1783, and died at Hills-
boro, February 3, 1870.
04(| CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
The first great political event following the election of Governor
Trimble was the choice of a United States senator. Senator Ruggles,
in 1824, had been president of the congressional caucus that nom-
inated Crawford for president, and, as a conservative Jeffersonian,
opposed Jackson, nominated by resolutions of the various legislatures.
Crawford received no support in Ohio, and consequently Senator Rug-
gles had a hard struggle for re-election. He was opposed by William
W. Irwin and Wyllys Silliman, but, with the aid of seme of his polit-
ical enemies, obtained a majority of three on the twenty-fourth ballot,
lie was the first Ohioan three times successively elected to the senate,
and there have been but two others. After the close of eighteen years
in Congress he returned to his home at St. Clairsville, where he died
in 1857.
At the presidential election of 1828 Ohio gave Andrew Jack- in
67,597 votes and Adams 63,396. This indicated the final extinction
of the old Republican or Jeffersonian, and Federalist or Ilamiltonian
parties. The majority in the election were known as "Jack-on men,"
or Democratic-Republicans, afterward simply Democrats, while the
opposition, led by Henry (day, took the name of National Republi-
cans and later were known as Whigs. In the same year, Governor
Trimble was re-elected, but he did not receive the overwhelming
majority of two years before, his margin over John W. Campbell*
being a little over 2,500 votes. Upon the meeting of the legislature
in December it became necessary to elect a successor to Senator Harri-
son, who had resigned to accept appointment by President Adams
as minister to the new republic of Colombia. The legislature was
Jacksonian but its choice tell upon Judge Jacob Burnet, who was
at last fitly honored with political office. Though one of the most
important figures of Ohio, bis early devotion to the Federalists bad
kept him from the high positions he was eminently adapted to occupy.
In the senate he was a firm supporter of Clay and Daniel Webster in
the stormy times of tariff discussion and South Carolina nullification.
There, as in the supreme court of Ohio, he commanded admiration
by his clearness of mind, depth of understanding, and power of sound
reasoning.
As will be remembered, President Jackson surpassed any of his
predecessors in removing officials for political reasons. John
.Mid. can. who had held the office of postmaster-general since 1823,
through Adams' administration, though avowedly a Jackson man.
refused to undertake the work of removing the (day postmasters, and
consequently was offered a seat in the United States supreme court,
*Jobn W. Campbell was an early settler of Adams county, of Virginian
birth. He had served ten years in Congress. 1817-27, besides three terms
in the legislature. After Jackson was inaugurated the president made him
United States district judge, an office he held until his death from cholera
in 1833.
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES, AND CANALS. 04^
which he occupied for many years with great ability and honor.
Among those who suffci-ed from the new policy, known in later years
as "turning the rascals out," was General Harrison, who was promptly
recalled from his post in South America. He retired to the old
Symmes homestead at North Bend, and for a time was cramped by
poverty, but his friends soou provided him with official employment.
Ohio was compensated in the diplomatic field by the appointment of
Ethan Allen Brown in 1830 as minister to Brazil.
Governor Trimble's administration may be taken as an important
epoch in the great anti-slavery movement, manifested by petitions and
memorials to the legislature. Ten years before, in 1820, the legis-
lature, at the suggestion of Charles Hammond, had declared slavery
a great moral and political evil, and about the same time there was
organized in Ohio a branch of the American Colonization Society,
which sought to solve the negro problem by exporting the colored | -
pie. Senator Morrow was president of this branch. The president-
in-chief of the society. Busnrod Washington, memorialized the legis-
lature in Governor Trimble's administration in behalf of the colony
in Liberia. There was a petition from negroes regarding a proposed
colony in Canada, and the Society of Friends asked the repeal of
the Ohio Black Laws of 1807.
Long before this the abolition movement had started. Thomas
Jefferson was deeply interested in putting an end to slavery, but when
the cotton gin made negro labor more profitable, that early Southern
movement died. The offensive African slave trade was stopped, but
in its place appeared a domestic slave trade, a breeding of negroes in
Virginia and Kentucky, for sale further south, that excited a new
abolition crusade. The father of this was an Ohio man. Benjamin
Lundi . born in \ew Jersey, of Quaker parents, in L789. In boyh 1.
working as a saddler at Wheeling, he was distressed by the sight of
gangs of slaves taken through there from the Virginia breeding fields
to the southwest. When he married he made his home at St. Clairs-
ville, ami in L815 for 1 the Union Humane society, devoted to agi-
tation against shivery. Next, he sold all he had and joined Charles
< >sborne, another Quaker, in publishing The Philanthropist. During
the Missouri agitation he was in that state writing on the evils of
slavery for Northern journals, and in 1822, when he walked hack to
Ohio, he started another paper, The Genius of Universal Emancipa-
tion. Afterward he visited the Quakers in the Carolinas and Vir-
ginias, organizing anti-slavery societies, and in 1828, after he had
formed a hundred societies in all parts of the country, he visited Bos-
ton and enlisted William Lloyd Garrison in tin' work. He was in no
respeel a ranter or demagogue, hut treated all men as brothers. Yet,
at Baltimore, he was assaulted and nearly killed by a slave-broker.
The Rev. John Rankin was another Ohio man on the skirmish line
of the new war against slavery, whom Garrison acknowledged as a
[—16
242 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
teacher and master. He was of the Pennsylvania Scotch Irish
breed, born in East Tennessee, and began preaching against slavery
in Kentucky. From hatred of slavery he and nearly all his congre-
gation moved across the Ohio, and he became the Presbyterian pastor
at Ripley and founder of the Free Presbyterian church. He trav-
eled and lectured and was often mobbed in Ohio. David Ammen,
of Brown county, father of a general and an admiral, published Kan-
kin's arguments for the abolition of slavery, in LS26.
The Black Laws, to which there was objection in Ohio, were a set
cf statutes partly in force from the foundation of tin- Stair, but
revised ami amplified in 1807. They denied the negro the right of
testifying in court or bringing a sttit against a white man: strictly
fin-hid miscegenation, and no negro or mulatto was allowed to make
his home in any county without giving bond for good behavior.
Negi s who could nut give bond were turned over in the poor-master,
who sold their annual services to the highest bidder. There was also
a system of registration, intended to aid in the discovery of runaway
slaves from the South, and laws against harboring or concealing
negroes. These laws were considered by the Friends and an increas-
ing number of other people, as a disgrace to the State, ami legislature
after legislature was petitioned to repeal them. They served a - 1
purpose, however, by holding in check the increase of uegro popula-
tion. The desire of the early settlers of Ohio was not n. establish a
refuge lor runaway negroes, but to found a state in which there should
he as few negroes as possible to compete with white labor.
As anti-slavery sentiment grew more pronounced, an effort was
made to subdue it. in the interests of harmony in the nation, and also
in the interests of lmsine^s along the Ohio river. This was carried
to the length of repression of free speech, more marked in the east
than in Ohio, bowever. It became dangerous to refer to the "peculiar
institution'* that the South now defended as an essential part of her
civilization. But many college students and college professors were
irrepressible. Particularly in the Western Reserve was there a man-
ifestation of a spirit of crusade against slavery. There, people
seemed t" feel more heavily than elsewhere the burden of the -in- of
the world. Fr the Western Reserve college students were in the
habit of going out in vacations ami lecturing the people on the evils
of slavery, intemperance and violation of the seventh commandment,
sometime- getting mobbed mi the first count of the indictment, at
ii ast. The faculty of this college was broken up by the attempt to n
pro- slavery agitation in 1830-33, and a little later Lane theological
seminary, at Walnut Hills, near Cincinnati, opened in 1832 under
tin presidency of Dr. Lyman Beecher, suffered a similar mi-fortune.
Meanwhile a colony of Pongregationalists, led by a half-blind ami
penniless preacher, Rev. John J. Shipherd, and Philo 1'. Stewart,
lately a missionary to the Indians in Mississippi, settled in Lorain
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES. AND CANALS. 243
county in 1833, expressly to found a religious college, and the Oberlin
Collegiate Institute was introduced to the world. This new school
soon profited by the trouble at Lane seminary and gained some of its
faculty and many of its students, and the announcement wont out
that negroes might enter Oberlin as students. In fact, the attendance
of the colored youth was very small | one at first ), but the adoption of
thai policy toward the servile race made the school famous. In L835
it was endowed by Arthur Tappan, brother of Senator Benjamin Tap-
pan, who had remained in the cast, and become president of the
American Anti-Slavery society and founder of the American Tract
society. Charles G. Finney was made professor of theology. The
lectures of Dr. Theodore D. Weld, one of the professors coming from
Lane seminary, aroused two young lawyers, Joshua R. Giddings and
Benjamin F. Wade, to organize an anti-slavery society which began
with four members, but if it had contained only those two, would have
been the strongest in the world. Oberlin Institute became a univer-
sity and was soon overrun with students, some of whom actually
camped in the woods. Oberlin is to be considered as a product of the
great religious revival of 1830-32, and what was called the New
School of theology, which concerned itself mainly with the personal
responsibility and immediate duty of the individual. Finney, the
most famous man of its faculty, varied his educational labors with
excursions as an evangelist, preaching in his "big tent," which was the
precursor of the tent preaching of later days. The university was a
religious as well as anti-slavery center, and it was the forum of the
free discussion of all new theories. The new flour and Graham bread
were preached there, as well as Christian perfect ion and sanctifica-
tion. The Adventists were free to send their ablest prophets to dis-
cuss the imminent coming of Christ, and the radical abolitionists,
who wore beginning to withdraw from political action and denounce
the United States constitution as "a covenant with death and a league
with hell," had freedom of speech hut not much sympathy in this
famous college town. It must not he inferred that the people of the
Western Reserve were all Oberlin enthusiasts. Like other prophets,
those at Oberlin experienced in a considerable degree the scorn of
their conservative neighbors.
The progress of tin' anti-slavery movemenl was shown in l s ::."> by
the organization of the Ohio Anti-Slavery society, with headquarters
at Cincinnati, and the strength of the opposition was manifested by
the mobs of 1836, that sacked the publication office of Birney's*
* James Gillespie Birney, the head of the abolition movement foi
years, was a Kentuckian. of Pennsylvania Scotch— Irish descent. He was
active in politics in Kentucky and Alabama, but was occupied with philan-
thropic schemes from his youth, and finally declared for immediate abolition
of slavery. He then found it necessary to take refuse in Ohio, win i. !:• i»
gan the publication of The Philanthropist, first in Clermont county and later
in Cincinnati. This publication was continued by Pugb and Gamaliel Bailey,
in spite of mobs, until 1844.
244 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Philanthropist, printed by Achilles Pugh, strewing the street- with
type and dumping portions of the press in the river. Many of the
mob were minded also to attack the office of Charles Hammond's
Gazette. In the same year, when a state convention of anti-slavery
men was held at the town of Granville, founded by Massachusetts
people, the meeting was held in a barricaded building, and after
adjournment the members were followed >>n the streets by a mob and
pelted with rotten eggs.
It may he asked why people of Ohio should concern themselves so
much about the industrial system south of the river as to arouse vio-
lence ami discord in their own hemes '. Seme have said en account of
a meddling disposition ami exee^s of self-righteousness en the part of
seme northern people, in face of the fact that the leading agitators
came to Ohio from the South. But the philosopher would be
extremely shallow who could trace the great battle over slavery to
such a cause. The primary irritating cause of hostility was the run-
away slave.
The histories of Florida aid Texas are ample to illustrate the axiom
that a slave country cannot live in peace with a neighboring state
where -laves can find happier conditions. Ohio was not at this time
the refuge of many slaves. It was the path traveled by slaves to
Canada, where, under the law as laid down by Mansfield in 177:.', the
negro was free a- soon as he stepped upon British soil. By the Ordi-
nance of 17*7. Ohio was denied the attributes of a sovereign state
possessed by Canada. But many id' her citizens aided the slave- to
escape. Nothing else could he expected. In a community accus-
tomed to personal freedom then- will hi- men who cannot endure the
sight of man hunter-.
Furthermore, out of the proposition that slaves did not become free
when they entered Ohio grew thi' fear that slavery might actually
be established in the State, under the protection of the courts and
the power of the United States. There was already an actual inva-
sion of The State by slave labor through the renting id' farm hands.
in. the river counties, from Virginia and Kentucky. The introduc-
tion of slave labor meant the destruction of the civilization of Ohio.
The result would he practically the same as would follow the intro-
duction of -Chinese coolie labor today.
What the labor system of Ohio was. may he inferred from the
observation of an English traveler.* lie wrote: "It is a common
saying among the farmers of the Western Reserve, 'If a man i- good
enough to work for me. he i- g 1 enough to eat with me." And actu-
ally every hired person, male or female, native or foreigner, whom
they employ i- treated 'as one of the family.' not in the sense that
* D. Oriffith. "Two Years' Residence in the New Settlement of Ohio," Lon-
don, 1835.
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES, AND CANALS. £45
promise is sometimes fulfilled to apprentices in England, bul bona
fide: for they eat at the. same table and at the same time; all fare
alike and all fare well." Such a condition, that made possible and
encouraged the rise of hired men to high station in society, has been
destroyed in Latter years, to a large extent, by the introduction of for-
eign white labor. It would have yielded rapidly to the employment
of negro labor.
The provision of the great charter of 1787, that fugitive slaves
may he •■lawfully reclaimed," showed that that early the peril of a
free boundary was realized by slaveholders. In lT'-'o the first
United States fugitive slave law was enacted, because of the esca] t
slaves into Pennsylvania. Later, as the industry of breeding negroes
was developed in Virginia and Kentucky, where successful competi-
tion with the Georgia and Mississippi cotton fields was impossible,
the flight of slaves was greatly increased. Escaping across the Ohio-
river, they pursued their way into Canada. ( hie of the oldest routes
of the runaways was from the Ohio river near North Bend, n, the
streams to the upper Auglaize, passing near the Shawanee village
(Wapakoneta) and the Indian village on Blanchard's Fork (Ottawa)
to the Maumee rapids a1 the Ottawa village of Child' Kinjeiro, and
thence by a plain trail to .Maiden. Along this route many fugitive
slaves traveled from about L816 to L835 or L8 tO, aided by the Indians
and some white citizens, conspicuous among them in later years Col.
D. W. II. Howard, of Wauseon.* There were men along the line
wdio made their living by intercepting the fugitives, and other-, with-
out compensation, put their wits against the kidnappers in piloting
hand- of negroes to safe retreats.
It is said that a negro crossing the river in 1831 to take the Ripley
and Sandusky route for Canada, was closely pursued by his owner,
who had him in sight until the Ohio hank was reached, when the fugi-
tive mysteriously disappeared without a trace. '•The nigger must
have gone off on an underground road," the disgusted proprietor is
said to have remarked. However true this may he, the "underground
road" suggested itself as a good name for a fugitive slave route, and
as soon as the new t le of transportation was talked about, it was
the "underground railroad." Gradually other well defined routes,
like that of the Maumee valley, were established, along which yin-
pathizers with the slaves, from the river to the lake, sent the fugitives
on from station to station. Opon the efficiency of this secret organ-
ization the Ironclad fugitive slave law of Ohio, passed in 1 s l'-'!. had
little impression. Most active in the work were communities, fre
quently isolated, of Quakers, Covenanters, Wesleyan Methodists and
Tree Presbyterians. John JJrown, of Connecticut, who had come
*'The Underground Railroad in Ohio," W. H. Siebert; Archaeological and
Historical Publications, Vol. [V.
24(5 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
to Hudson, in the Western reserve, at the age of five years, in 1825,
and after studying for the ministry supported himself and family as
a tanner, was one of those who gave shelter to runaway slaves before
1825. There were communities of free negroes in Ohio, notably one
established by John Randolph, of Virginia, in Clark county, and
wherever there was a negro settlement the fugitives found a hearty
welcome. In Ohio there were "certainly not less than twenty-three
ports of entry for runaways along the river front. Thirteen of these
admitted the slaves from the two hundred and seventy-rive miles of
Kentucky shore on our southwest, while the other ten received those
from the one hundred and fifty miles of Virginia soil on our south-
east. From these initial depots the Ohio lines ran in zigzag, trending
generally in a northeastern direction, linking station with station in
mysterious bond till a place of deportation was reached on Lake Erie.
There were five such outlets along Ohio's lake frontage. These were
Toledo. Sandusky, Cleveland, Fairport harbor (near Painesville)
ami Ashtabula harbor. Toledo and, fifty miles beyond if, Detroit,
were the shipping points for perhaps the oldest section of the road in
Ohio, though by no means the longest lived,"* the .Miami valley route
already mentioned.
The most active counties in the underground railroad system were
Trumbull, Richland, Huron and Belmont, Ashtabula and Jefferson,
Lorain and Mahoning. Hut little is known of the actual work of tin 1
people who maintained these routes, and of the number of slaves
whom they helped to freedom. Their work was outlawed, and
though they had the moral support of thousands, their deeds were kept
secret. Levi Coffin, a Quaker who lived just across the Ohio line, at.
Richmond, End., and made his home at Cincinnati in 1M7, to super-
intend the system in the Ohio valley, is said to have forwarded three
thousand slaves over the Ohio and Indiana lines. It i< told that
William Lambert, at Detroit, aided thirty thousand to reach Canada.
Theestimates of till that passed through Ohio run from forty to
eighty thousand.
The efforts of the slave owners to recover their slaves gave rise to
a class of individuals in Ohio who were as thoroughly despised as
slave auctioneers were by the high class planters of the South. These
northern tools of the system not only made themselves spies upon the
underground railroad, hut were on the lookout to kidnap aegroes
entitled to freedom.
Tin- doctrine that the sovereignty of the State of Ohio involved the
freedom of the -lave that was brought to the State by hi- master, was
also a subjeel of discussion ami litigation. Such a case arose in Cin-
cinnati in 1837, and young Salmon 1'. Chase, who had come from the
easl to the Worthington settlement with his uncle. Bishop Philander
'The rndcrground Railroad in Ohio.'
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES. AND CANALS. 047
Chase, and afterward had graduated at Dartmouth college and read
law under William Wirt, beginning his professional career at Cin-
cinnati in 1830, volunteered to risk ostracism by defending the lib-
erty of a black servant girl.
The census of 1830 showed that the State had well-nigh doubled in
population in ten years, which had been prosperous as compared with
the previous decade, though commerce and trade were still burdened
with an inefficient ami dangerous system of banking and currency.
The total population was now 937,903. Of these less than 10,000
were colored, a much smaller proportion than in New York ami Penn-
sylvania. The marvelous fact was now apparent that ( )hio, in a third
of a century, the average period of a generation, had taken place as
the third State in the LJnion in white population. New York and
Pennsylvania were the only states that outranked her, and Ohio was
worthy to he considered a prominent member of that great trio, the
real Keystone of America, covering the territory from the Hudson to
the Maumee. Virginia was still ahead id' Ohio in total population,
but far behind in free men. Cincinnati now had a population of
25,000, ami was unrivalled in the West. People called it the "Tyre
of the West." Cleveland had not begun its great development, and
was the home of not more than a thousand people. Toledo was not,
on the map, and Columbus had less than four thousand inhabitants.
One of the famous attractions of Cincinnati in 1828-30 was the
Bazar, a picturesque business and amusement building erected by Mrs.
Frances Trollope, who came from England with her sons, including
the afterward famous novelist, Anthony Trollope. She Lost thou-
sands in the store that -he conducted, and the building otherwise did
not prove profitable, though it contained a magnificent ballroom that
was the center of social life and gayety. Abandoning her contribu-
tion to the architecture of the city, which became known as "Trollope's
Folly," she returned to England ; wrote a hook on the ••Domestic Life
of the Americans," and became an author of considerable note. In
her Bazar was held in 1838 the first annual fair of the Ohio
Mechanics' institute, organized ten years before for the encourage-
ment of popular education.
Beef and pork were shipped from Cincinnati to New Orleans as
early as L803, the earliest packing houses in the west being flat boats
in tin river. In L818 Elisha Mills founded at Cincinnati the first
establishment representative of the modern packing business in tin-
west, and in We). 85,000 hogs were packed at Cincinnati. The city
was naturally the center of the great corn region of Ohio, Indiana and
Kentucky. Later, when the corn land of the western prairies were
opened, Cincinnati could not maintain the supremacy it had in early
days.
There was yet room in Ohio for vast development. As late as
183,4, an Englishman, traveling through the Ohio forests, described
248 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
them as "tall, magnificent, boundless." He bad been told that there
was nothing in America to give the sense of antiquity, because there
were no ancient works of architecture, sculpture or painting, but he
declared that compared with these forests, he had "met with nothing
among tin mosl venerable forms of art that impress you so thoroughly
with the idea iif indefinite distance and endless continuity of antiq-
uity, shrouded in all its mystery of solitude, illimitable and eternal."'
The election of governor in 1830 was very hotly contested between
the Clay party, whom we may new call Whigs, and the Jackson party,
which was the Democrat party up to 1861. The Whigs pur forward
Gen. Duncan McArthur, who bad been conspicuous in public affairs
from the beginning of the State, and the I (emocrats nominated Etoberl
Lucas, a descendant of William Penn and a native of the Shenandoah
valley, who bad settled at the mouth of the Scioto in 1802, served
efficiently in the war of L812 as a commander of volunteers, gaining
the militia rank of brigadier-general, ami later, making bis home at
Piketon, bad been a member of the State senate and speaker of the
house.* McArthur, says Mel >onald in his sketches, "was a supporter
of the internal improvement system, was also in favor of what was
called the high tariff, and. what was more odious to the Jackson party,
be was in favor of rechartering the Tinted State- bank. The Jackson
party assailed bis character with all the animosity and virulence that
party strife engenders. The affair of permitting the deserters to be
shotf was again brought forward in a new, extended and frightful
edition. The party, in their zeal, depicted General McArthur as a
monster whose delight was in blood : they had forgotten that their own
chief [General Jackson] was at least equally, if not more obnoxious
to censure in this respect. McArthur's land speculations were
depicted in the most horrid colors. From the publications it would
appear that he had dispossessed of their homes almost every widow
and orphan in his reach. So far from this being a true representa-
tion of his land law suits, he generally contended with none but other
hind speculators, and this was a war of Greek to Greek."
The result of this fiercely contested election was that McArthur
received t!>.t;i;s votes and Lucas 49,186. Consequently General
McArthur became governor, lie was aged and crippled by a serious
ai eident After he bad served one term he retired to private life, and
McDonald wrote of him in 183S : "lie appears to be almosl forgot-
t< n by all. but more especially by the gay and fashionable who. in the
*Two years later he was president of the national convention that nom-
inated President Jackson for a second term. This was the first year national
conventions were held in the I'nited States.
tin lstt McArthur. while commander-in-chief in the west, had called a
general courtmartial at Chillicothe to try deserters, and twenty-six were con-
demned, of whom all were pardoned lint four, who had deserted repeatedly,
but theretofore escaped punishment through the kindness of General Harri-
son. These four were shot.
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES. AND CANALS. 949,
I
days of health and prosperity, fluttered around him like satellites
around a brilliant planet. lie is now almost a stranger, when-, a short
time since, his word was law." lie was the last of the governors of
Ohio who had been prominent at the founding of the State. With
him ended the predominance of the Chillicothe party which had for
so long ruled the young commonwealth. McArthur is a heroic fig-
ure, like St. Clair, standing at the parting of the ways, and typifying
an order of things that was passing away. But, more adaptable than
St. Clair, he led in the establishment of a new political party before
he retired from public life. After him, with a transition through
Lucas and Vance, came the prevalence of the second generation of
Ohioans.
The term of Jacob Burnet in the United States senate expiring,
Thomas Ewing, Micajah T. Williams and Edward King were con-
testants for the place, and Ewing, the Whig candidate, wen by one
vote on the seventh ballot, though Williams was in the lead at the out-
set. This was the beginning of the public career of Ewing, one of
the greatest of Ohioans, described in later years by .lame- G. Blaine
as "a grand and massive man, almost without peers." lie was a prod-
uct of pioneer conditions, reared from infancy in the settlement- of
the Muskingum and Hocking valleys, and had \» me famous as a
lawyer, under the training at Lam-aster of Philemon Beecher ami
Charles Sherman. In Congress he took a high place, though there
was seme ridicule of his famous description of the hard times that
were said to he due to President Jackson's fight on the United States
bank. "Our canals have become a solitude," the senator .-aid, "and
the lake a desert of waters."
One of the congressmen elected in 1830 was William Stanbery, of
Licking county, a brother of Henry Stanbery. He had the temerity
to question the motives of seme legislation urged by Sam Eouston, of
Tennessee, and was assaulted by that worthy en the streets of Wash-
ington,
The last id' the Indian wars that considerably agitated Ohio
:urred in 1S32. The Sac and Fox tribes conveyed their lands in
Illinois to the United States in 180-i, but, repenting of the act, a large
part of the tribes joined in the hostilities el' L812— 15. After that, the
treaty was renewed, except by a small party of irreconcilables, led by
Black Hawk, a noted warrior, who continued to negotiate with the
British at .Maiden. In lS-">0, when an effort was made to move the
Indian* west ,,f the ]\I issi-sippi. l'.lack Hawk began organizing a war
party for resistance, and trouble began in 1831, when troops were si nl
into the Rock river country, [n the spring of 1832 a party of volun-
teers attacked a body of Black Hawk's warriors and were badly
defeated. There was a general rising of militia in the western states
and, with the aid of the regulars en the Mississippi, the Indians were
defeated in thre< isiderable engagements in June and duly, and
250 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
the trouble was practically over. Meanwhile Gen. Wmfield Scott,
with a regiment of regulars, was hastening to the scene of fighting by
way of the great lakes. On tin- wa.v his men were overtaken by a
worse foe than red men, the Asiatic cholera, which had obtained a
foothold in Canada. The Detroit camp became a hospital and more
soldiers died of disease seven times over than fell under the rifles
of the red men. The disease spread through the whole west in the
fall of 1832.
In Ohio the cholera was preceded by another calamity. There was
excessive snow-fall in the winter of 1831-32, and early in February
of 1832 a sudden thaw caused an immense inundation of the valleys
of all the rivers. It was the first great flood in the history of the
State, though the Indians had known one like it sixty years before.
.Many farms were swept (dean of houses, hams and livestock. At
Marietta. February 11th and 12th, the river was filled with the float-
ing ruins of homes and farms. At Cincinnati five hundred families
were driven from their homes and property destroyed to the amount
of half a million dollars. The Cincinnati American of the 17th said:
"A church passed the city with the steeple standing, hound for New
Orleans, we presume. A poor market" A considerable number of
villages along the Ohio were entirely depopulated, and every town
from Steubenville to Cincinnati, except Gallipolis, had its business
life and prosperity seriously interrupted. It was undoubtedly the
greatest ti 1 disaster in the annals of Ohio.
Upon the heels of this came a great fire at Cincinnati, and on Sep-
tember 30, 1832, the first case of cholera. The epidemic lasted thir-
teen months, the extreme severity being in October, 1832, when forty-
one died on one day. Cincinnati was then the chief city of the west,
but it was largely depopulated for the time, and presented a woeful
spectacle. Other river and lake towns suffered, and gradually the
disease penetrated the State along the routes of travel. At Columbus
two hundred died, and out of the population of three thousand, a
third tied from their homes. Cincinnati was the greatest sufferer,
not only from pestilence, but from flood and fire, and financial string-
ency. By hank operations the city had 1 n for 1 to a cash basis
by this time, and nearly all the leading business men were driven to
the wall. But the city was not killed. .lames II. Perkins, who came
to the Queen City that year, wrote home that he was amazed by the
rapidity of building, and told that the masons set to work, in mid-
winter, laying a new foundation for a burned block while the smoke
was yet rising.
The pestilence did, indeed, serve to prevent the proposed reunion of
the old Indian fighters who occupied the site of Cincinnati Novem-
ber 1, 1T s l'. so that only Gen. Simon Kenton ami a handful gathered,
but on December 26, 1833, the anniversary of the settlement of Cin-
cinnati, resolutions were adopted that led to a celebration of the
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES. AND CANALS. 251
first settlement of Ohio. April 7. 1835, by native Ohioans at Cin-
cinnati. It was a glorious meeting, at which Thomas Wbrthington
read a poem, the eloquent William M. Corry delivered an oration, and
Dennis McHenry sang a song of which this is a sample:
Then send round flic mantling wine.
Fill up the friendly glasses —
lie this "in- toast : "The Buckeye Tree,
Ami Buckeye lads and Lasses."*
Here, rather than in the campaign of 1840, might he put the begin-
ning of popular recognition of the Buckeye as the emblem of the
State. The title "Buckeye State" needs no other explanation than
the abundance of that tree in the forests that the pioneers entered, and
the unique beauty of foliage, blossom and fruit that made the tree con-
spicuous. Ohio was known as the Buckeye State long before the cam-
paign of 1840.
While Cincinnati suffered, the State as a whole began in 1S30 a
period of financial expansion and speculation that continued for seven
years. Scores of new town-, and cities were projected, canals were
dug, turnpike roads opened, railroads begun, and in every channel
there was enterprise and confidence. This was the time when the
mulberry was introduced ami silk culture begun, and even the culture
of sugar beets was tried, by Lucas Sullivant.
In 1828, the .Miami canal, with the exception of the part from Main
street in Cincinnati to the Ohio river, was completed to Dayton, at a
cost of less than $900,000. The inlet of the Ohio canal from Colum-
bus, called the feeder, was opened in September, L831, and the Ohio
canal was complete in 1833, except the lower lock to connect it with
the Ohio river, at a cost of $4,244,539. In 1828 the first coal was
shipped by canal to Cleveland by Henry Newberry, father of the emi-
nent Ohio geologist, John S. Newberry. The Hocking valley branch
canal opened up that famous coal region, where one of the pioneer
mine operators was Thomas Ewing. Ewing and Vinton were part-
ners in the mining of salt in that region, sinking the first well in 1831.
In 1830 arrangements were made with Indiana by which Ohio
changed the plan of the .Miami canal, so a- to have a channel down the
Maumee valley from the Indiana line to Maumee hay, continuous
with the Wabash canal in the sister state, and forming a channel of
commerce which was expected to he as important under the new con-
ditions as tl Id river and portage route was in the daw of (he French
traders. With this east and west canal the canal from Cincinnati
to Dayton was subsequently extended to connect near Defiance.
"Ohio has at the present time," wrote Judge Chase in 1^:;:;, "four
*Dr. Drake, in his remarks, referred to an eastern poet sending for "a
drawing of the leaf and flower of our emblem, the Buckeye tree."
252 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
hundred miles of navigable canals, constructed at an expense of rather
more than five millions of dollars | for which the State went in debt].
The gross amount of tolls on both canals for the year 1832 was
$123,791. Measures have been taken to extend the canal northward
from I >ayton, and efforts are nude at the presenl moment to construct
a railroad between that place and the lake. The effect of these
improvements upon the prosperity of the State cannot be developed in
a few sentences. They have afforded to the farmer of the interior an
easy access to market, and have enhanced the value of his farm and bis
productions. Tiny have facilitated intercourse between dim-nut sec-
tions of the State and have thus tended to make the people more
united as well as more prosperous. They have furnished to the peo-
ple a common ohjeet of generous interest and satisfaction. They have
attracted a large accession of population and capital, and they have
made the name and character of Ohio well known throughout the
civilized world, as a name and character of which her sons may be
justly proud."
When completed, the Ohio canal system included the main canal
from Portsmouth to Cleveland, 309 miles, with 25 miles of feeders;
the Hocking canal, 56 miles long, and the Walhonding, 25 miles, as
well as the Muskingum improvement, Dresden to Marietta, 91 miles,
which went under the control and management of the general govern-
ment. The Miami & Erie system included the main canal. Cincin-
nati to I >efiance and Toledo, 250 miles, the canal from the vicinity of
Defiance to the State line, 18 miles, forming a link in the Wabash &
Erie canal, and the Sidney feeder, 14 mile-. Exclusive of the Mari-
etta improvement, these aggregate i'>'.i7 miles of canal. The mainten-
ance of the canals involved the creation of great reservoirs also, of
which thelargesl was established in Mercer county, submerging seven-
teen thousand acres. The Lewistown reservoir in Logan county cov-
ered over seven thousand acres, the Licking county reservoir thirty-six
hundred, and smaller ones were established in other localities, mak-
ing a total ana devoted to reservoirs of 32,100 acres, or fifty square
miles. Including these reservoirs, the cost of the canals was a- fol-
lows: Miami & Erie .'anal, $8,062,880 ; Ohio canal. $4,695,203;
Walhonding canal. $607,268; Hocking canal, $975,481; Muskin-
gum improvement, $1,627,018. "For thirty years these waterways
were the great controlling factors of increasing commerce, manufac-
tures and population. Through their influence villages became cities,
towns were built where forests grew, farming developed into a profit-
able enterprise, ami the trade and resources of the world were opi ned
u> Ohio."* The selling prices of farm products were immediately
increased, and wealth and prosperity smiled u] the struggling west-
ern State. As the canal period drew toward a close, and the railroad
* Daniel J. Ryan, "A History of Ohio. - '
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES, AND CANALS. 253
age began, the water ways continued to benefit the people by the influ-
ence of their cheaper rates upon the tariffs of the new mode of trans-
portation. The canals also earned substantial revenues for the State.
During the first thirty-five years the receipts exceeded expenditures
on account of canals by over seven million dollars. This revenue
was merged in the general fund of the State and consequently spent
without the people appreciating it, but if it bad been set aside in a
special fund, as was dune in New Fork, Mr. Ryan estimated in l^ss
that there would have been $6,000,000 to the credit of the ( >hio canals.
lie further estimated that taking the figures of 1885, the people of
Ohio were saving ten millions a year in railroad freight charges on
account of the existence of the canals. "Every bushel of wheat and
corn that moves northward from the Scioto and Miami valleys pays a
freight that is regulated by the canals that flow through those valleys ;
the rail rate on iron ore ft i every point on Lake Erie to the Ohio
river i- a common rate, and it is due entirely to canal influences."
This general summary of the canal systems of Ohio, and glance
into th nditions of later times than the period of this chapter, is
necessary to show what a tremendous work was assumed by the people
of l ^ jn -40, and how earnestly they set about building the foundation
of the greatness of the State.
But even before the canals were completed, as appears from Judge
Chase's reference in is:)-"!, railroads were being discussed. Rail-
roads, n ithoul steam power, had Keen in use for some time in the older
part- of the country, and the Baltimore & < >hio railroad had its begin-
ning as a tramway of this character. Bui in L828 30 the South
Carolina railroad was built for steam power, Stephenson having dem-
onstrated the applicability of the steam engine to land transportation.
In L-830 citizens of Huron, Seneca, Crawford, Delaware, Logan,
Clark and Champaign counties, petitioned the legislature for the
incorporation of a company to build a railroad from Sandusky to
Dayton with a branch to Columbus. This was to be a railroad with
strap iron for rails and horses a- the motive power.
Following this there was a rush for the incorporation of railroad
companies ami the legislature of L83 i 32 granted charters to eleven.
These were the Richmond, Eaton & Miami railroad company, to con-
nect Richmond, hid., with some point on the Miami canal: the Mad
River & Lake Erie, from Dayton by way of Springfield to Lower
Sandusky; the Franklin, Springboro and Wilmington, a feeder for
the Miami canal ; the Erie & ( >hio, to connect the northeastern inland
counties with the Ohio river; the Pennsylvania & Ohio, from Pitts-
burg to Massillon ; the Milan & Newark, a feeder for the ( >hio canal ;
the Columbus, Delaware. Marion & Sandusky, to connect the State
capital and lake coast ; the Cincinnati & St. Louis, an ambit ion- trunk
line : the Milan & Columbus, the Chillicothe & Lebanon ami the Port
( ilinton & Sandusky. Mosl of these projects, it will he observed, were
254 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
intended to be auxiliary to the canal system. But the actual rail-
roads, with sufficient mileage to work a considerable change in trans-
portation methods, came much later in the history of Ohio.
Meanwhile there was great activity in the building of turnpike
roads, by companies that were chartered to establish these lines
between important points and obtain their remuneration by tolls. The
first of the-e was the Columbus and Sandusky turnpike, incorporated
by John Kilbourne in 1823, and aided by a donation of over 30,000
acre- of public land by Congress. It was finished in 1834, at a cost
of about $75,000. The great highway was, of course, the National
read, to complete which to Zanesville, Congress made an appropriation
of $170,000 in 1827, and to continue it through the State made
another appropriation in 1829, the land sales fund proving inade-
quate. This road, eighty feet wide, with stone foundation and
macadam surface, with massive stone masonry where necessary and
quaint covered bridges ever the larger stream-, is worthy to rank with
the great highways that commemorate the Caesars and Napoleon.
"There is nothing like it in the United States. Leaping the < >hio at
Wheeling, the National road throws itself across Ohio and Indiana,
straight as an arrow, like an ancient elevated pathway of the gods,
chopping hills in twain at a blow, traversing the lowlands on high
grades, vaulting over streams on massive bridges of unparalleled
size.""'' Over it passed the pioneers who built states west of Ohio.
All along its course today are sleeping villages, once the subjects of
fond expectation and ambition, that died long ago and remain only to
preserve the memory of the past, as well as thriving, bustling towns
and a score of cities that represent the 'lower of American civilization.
1 1' one would study America at her heart, and understand her marv< 1-
ous growth, there i- no way m> easy as to follow the path of the pioneer
over the Alleghanies and the Ohio, and acre-- hill and valley on the
National road. The crossing of the Ohio was made by ferry at first,
and later by a great bridge that was the marvel of the west. The
management was in the hands of the State, and after 1S36 under the
supervision of the hoard of public work-. On the average then- was
a toll gate every ten miles on the National road, and the tolls were
varied for the different sort- of business. A "chariot, coach, or
coachee and horses," must pay ! s :; t cents, a horse and rider paid six-
cents, every passenger in a mail coach was taxed four cents, and a
sco!-, of cattle could he driven through for 20 cents. School children,
clergymen, the United States mail and United States troops and State
militia were passed free. Ai these rates the road did not pay, as the
annual expense averaged $100,000, and the greatesl annual receipts
(in 1839 ) were about $62,,*
•From "The Old National Road." by Art-hie Butler Hulbert, a work to
which we are indebted Cor the facts on this subject.
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES. AND CANALS. 255
Upon this road and the other turnpikes that were opened to travel,
coach lines were established, and at the little towns were many famous
taverns. The pioneers of these ancient hostelries were those at St.
Clairsville and Zanesville as early as 1799, on the Zane road, thai
from a bridle path for mail carriers and boatmen returning from
Louisiana developed into the first wagon road northwest of the Ohio.
At one of these famous taverns, the Sign of the ( )range Tree, at Zanes-
ville, the Legislature met in 1810-12. The Sign of the Green Tree at
the same town boasted of entertaining President Monroe and Lewis
< 'a--. The first at < 'omnibus was the Lion and Eagle, opened in 1S13
under another name. Griffith Foos had a pioneer tavern at Spring-
field before the National road arrived, and afterward Billy Worden's
became famous at that place, where the traveler from the east
changed coaches for Cincinnati and the South. Some of the land-
lords were really owners of land and prominent men.* For the
freight men there were many wagon houses. Wherever the traveler
stopped he could find in the winter season a great tire-place with a
roaring Log fire and in all seasons a bar that dispensed the favorite
beverage, whiskey, at two drinks for a ••tip"' (six and a quarter
cents). Th ach lines were frequently associated with the tav-
erns, and at first there was brisk competition, often reducing the fare
materially, as, from Richmond to Cincinnati, from five dollars to
fifty cents. There were races, too, swift and furious, by rival
coaches. The great coach line en the National mail was the
National Road Stage company, and its main rival was the Good
Intent line, both with headquarters at Uniontown, Pa. The Ohio
National Stage company, with headquarters at Columbus, operated
westward from the capital. There were smaller line-, -itch a- the
Landlord's, Pilot, Pioneer, Defiance, and June Bug. A- years
passed, combinations or "mergers" were formed. The Neil, Moore
& Co. line, of Columbus, was forced to sell to the National, '•Will-
iam Xeil becoming one of the magnates of the latter company, which
was in its day a greater trust than anything known in < >hio history."
In ls.">."> the daily lines running from Columbus were the Mail Pilot
line to Wheeling, a twenty-four hour trip, including five hour-" resl
at St. Clairsville; the Good Intent coach for Wheeling, in twenty
hours, to connect with the Baltimore and Philadelphia stages; and
the Mail Pilot line to Cincinnati, making the journey in thirty-six
hours, including six hours at Springfield. There was also a daily
line for Chillicothe, ami coaches every other day to Cleveland, Sim-
dusky City and Huron, two-day trips. There was a stai
from Buffalo to Cleveland and Detroit, going through the terrible
Black Swamp, in which horses would occasionally drown, and six
♦Senator Kerr, in 1821. kept hotel at the "Sign of the Scioto Ox," a1
cothe, where, according to his advertisement, one might get a meal for twi nty
cents, and "lodging, in clean sheets, for ten cents.''
256 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
horses could sometimes do no more than five miles a day. When
lake navigation closed, communication with the northwest was almost
entirely cut off.
Over these roads the Dinted States mail was carried under the
same system as prevails today. There were express mails cor-
responding to the present fast mail trains, and they made remarkable
speed. The contract time in 1837 between Washington and Wheel-
ing was thirty hours, to < 'olumbus l.">' ._, hours more, and from Colum-
bus to [ndianapolis twenty hours. This was accomplished, of
course, by relays of g 1 horses. By this mean- it was possible to
carry mail and a few passengers from Washington to New Orleans
in Is:; hours. Ordinary mail coaches made the trip from Wash-
ington to Columbus, over the mountains, in three days and sixteen
hours. The coaches were handsome affairs, lined with plush, gen-
erally with three seats inside, and room for one mere with the driver.
The first Troy coach, the finest of them all, costing about $500,
came ever the road in 1829. All the coaches bore names, suggested
by the fancy of the owners, and their comparative comfort and
speediness were discussed far and wide. Sometimes, on the National
road, as many as twenty coaches might lie seen following in line;
one might find at the wagon houses a hundred horses, stamping and
feeding and resting from the burden of the caravan; while droves of
cattle were plodding eastward, thrown in tumult now ami then by
the blast of a horn announcing the approach of a hurrying stage.
Such were the roads of Ohio in the days of the stage coach, particu-
larly in 1830 to 1850. It is a story of the past, that the youth of
today finds difficult to picture in imagination, lie can hardly under-
stand that apostrophe of Thackeray's to the old stage coaches:
"Where are you, charioteers? Where are yen. () rattling Quicksil-
ver. < ) swift Defiance? Von are passed by racers stronger and
swifter than you. Your lamps are out, and the music of your horns
have died away."
Very prominent features of Ohio life in those days were the
prevalence of drunkenness and gambling, and. as was said by Mrs.
Frances Trollope, who spent seme years in Cincinnati, "the
most vile and universal habit of chewing tobacco." There must
have been considerable truth in the pictures presented by Charles
Dickens in ••Martin Chuzzlewit" and '•American Notes," though
America bitterly disclaimed the likeness. Mo less striking than
these and some ether disagreeable features was the intense religious
spirit that animated a great part of the people. This had a powerful
influence for u 1. and at the -ami- time afforded a lodgment for
graceless adventurers. In 182S the people of Guernsey county were
agitated by the appeara] f an individual named Joseph < '. Dylkes,
a handsome well-dressed man. who made his advent mysteriously at,
the Leatherw 1 creek camp-meeting, with a peculiar snort and
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES. AND CANALS.
ii> 1
shout, "Salvation." He announced himself as the Messiah and
obtained a considerable following until some muscular unbelievers
ran him out of the county. He is remembered as "the Leatherwood
God."
In 1830 a new religion appeared at Palmyra, X. Y., with the pub-
lication of "the Iiuok of Mormon," which was immediately followed
by the organization of "the Church of Latter Day Saints." which
was to play a considerable part in the history of America, and form
an incident of the annals of Ohio. In the beginning of the new
religion there was Joseph Smith, who as a boy had the reputation of
being one of the most careless and good-natured of a family devote, 1
to hunting and fishing and poverty. Strange to say, he was noted
both for extreme taciturnity and the telling of marvelous stories. He
had thoroughly read the Bible and discarded its authority and that
of the modern churches, when a peculiarly shaped stone, resembling
quartz, was dug up in the vicinity and became a neighborh 1 won-
der. Young Smith's reading had probably been more extensive
than his neighbors suspected, for he put this stone to the uses of the
crystal sphere of the Rosicrucians. Through its w^r he began to see
hidden treasures, but had no success in finding them. From that he
advanced to special revelations in trance, and finally announced that
he was about to discover a buried l>ook of golden tablets, on which
were inscribed the records of the lost tribes of Israel, who had been
the original inhabitants of America, and had left this golden book
as the foundation of the true religion. The hook was duly found,
or said to have been, and with it a pair of miraculous spectacles, by
the use of which the dead and forgotten language mis-lit be read b*
Joseph Smith. When he had made the "translation," it was printed
as the basis of a new and true religion. There was no difficulty in
obtaining believers; indeed, converts are easilv found at the present
day.
It is claimed that an Ohio man was innocently implicated in the
foundation of this new church. Solomon Spaulding, a graduate of
Dartmouth, who hail failed in business in the east and in Ohio ran
an iron foundry, living at Conneaut from 1809, wrote a romance as
early as 1812, in which he ascribed the origin of the Indians to the
lost tribes of Israel, and gave an imaginary account of their migra-
tion and habits of life. This was never published, and Spaulding
died in L816, but as soon as the Book of Mormon became famous, old
neighbors win, had heard him read portions of his story declared
that Smith's 1 k was founded upon Spaulding's romance. In
later years Spaulding's manuscript, or, at least, one of his romance
manuscripts, was recovered in the Sandwich islands, and a critical
comparison with the Mormon book made by Presidenl .lame- II.
Fairchild, of Oberlin college. Hi- verdict was that tin- theory of
the origin of the '-golden I k" was purely imaginary. "The
1-17
L'.-.s
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
manuscript has no resemblance to the Book of Mormon, except in
some very genera] features. There is not a name or an incident
common to the two." The discussion is hardly material, however,
as bearing upon tin- claim of supernatural origin for the Book of
Mormon. The theory that the Indian? were the lost tribes of Israel
i- very much older than either Spaulding or Smith, and the notion
of finding ancient tablets or manuscript in mystical rocky vaults is
as ancient as the Arabian Nights.
Bui from the first, it was evident that the gospel of Mormon was
sufficiently authentic for a large portion of humanity, and the prac-
tical part of the scheme, which was migration and colonization, was
very attractive to many. Soon after the formation of the church the
prophet received a revelation that "Zion" should 1"- located at Kirt-
land, Ohio. There, in a beautiful farming' country, on the east
branch of Chagrin river, the rapidly increasing community estab-
lished itself in January, 1831, laid off a town and bought farms, and
in 1834 spent about forty thousand dollars in the building of a tem-
ple. Sidney Rigdon, a printer to whom has been ascribed the author-
ship of the hook of Mormon and familiarity with the romance of
Solomon Spaulding, became the leading financial genius of the town,
and a hank was organized, without incorporation, of which he was
president. This issued paper money in profusion. Some of it,
reaching Pittsburg, was returned for redemption, hut Rigdon calmly
replied that the notes were not intended for redemption, but for
circulation. In this sentiment he was in full accord with many of
the Gentile "bankers" of his day.
Polygamy was not yet practiced, but the Mormons were the objects
of considerable persecution, nevertheless, and the failure of their
hank in 1837 left them at the financial mercy of their enemies.
Brigham Young, a native of Vermont, joined the Kirtland commun-
ity in 1832, and in .May, 1835, the twelve apostles, of whom he was
i ne. set out to gather proselytes. Another colony, planted in Mis-
souri, was driven out by state authority, winning the Mormons seme
sympathy as victims of slave-state persecution. Hut the main body
remained at Kirtland until 1838, when they were forced to join
their western brethren at Nauvoo, 111. Of their subsequent history
it i- net the province of this work to treat, except to note that in a
much later period i 1883) a branch calling themselves the "reorgan-
ized church" returned to Kirtland, swept out the long abandoned
temple, ami re-established the organization in Ohio, after a lapse of
half a century.
The elections of 1832 showed that the Jackson party was gaining
strength in Ohio. The Jackson electoral ticket, headed by Benja-
min Tappan, received 81,246 votes, and Henry Clay, the idol of the
west, was given hut 76,539. Clay suffered from the enmity of the
Anti-Masonic party, one of the curiosities of American politics, that
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES, AND CANALS. 259
grew up after the disappearance of William Morgan in 1826, and in
L832 bad a presidential ticket in the field. Two years later the Ohio
legislature was asked to investigate freemasonry, but the select com-
mittee <>ii the subject reported that "Masonry is the same everywhere
that it is here, and here as it is everywhere else," and the questii □
should be left "to the salutary action of enlightened political opin-
ion."
At the State election in the same year, Robert Lucas, the unsuc-
cessful Jackson candidate for governor of two years before, was suc-
cessful by over eight thousand majority over Darius Lyman. The
State being redistricted under the new apportionment, with nineteen
congressional districts, a notable delegation was elected, including
Robert T. Lytle, of Cincinnati, father of Gen. William II. Lytle;
Thomas L. Ilamer, of Brown county; Joseph 11. Crane, of Dayton,
judge for twelve years and eight years in Congress; Samuel F. Vin-
ton, of Gallipolis; William Allen, of whom something will he said
later; Jeremiah McLene, the veteran secretary of state; Joseph
Vance, who had been in Congress since 1821; Humphrey Howe
Leavitt, afterward Dinted States district judge for Ohio, Elisha
Whittlesey, a member of Congress since 1822; and Thomas Corwin,
for whom this was the si nd election. Thomas Corwin, son of
Judge Matthias Corwin. was a native of Kentucky hut had been
reared in the Little Miami valley. lie was a wagon hoy in the
war of L812, became a lawyer and was twice elected to the legisla-
ture before he was first sent to <',,ni:iv-s in L830. Until 1840 he;
was regularly re-elected. During these ten years he acquired
national fame as an orator ami humorist. Corwin was a fleshy man,
of kindly face and manner, with most expressive irray eyes, lighting
a clean-shaved but very dark face. His perfect and mobile month
aidecl his shaggy eyebrows in producing those inimitable expressions
of countenance that heralded some humorous remark. His genius
was real, and he could have been great without the weapons of sar-
casm and ridicule which no .me else could handle as effectively.*
The last term of Benjamin Ruggles as United Slates senator expir-
ing in 1833, Thomas Morris was elected by a small majority over
John W. Campbell. Morris, son of a Pennsylvania preacher and
the daughter of a Virginia planter who refused her inheritance of
slaves, was reared amid the religious and anti-slavery influences of
Clermont county, and afterward hecami spicilOUS a- an opponent
of slavery, hut his party had not yet divided on that question, and
he was an ardent follower of Andrew Jackson. In L809 be had
been elided to the supreme court over Thomas Worthington, Lewis
f'ass and Ethan Allen Brown, ami for ten years from L813 he had
*A young orator ho is said to have thus admonished: "If you would suc-
ceed in life you must lie solemn, solemn as an ass. All the great monuments
of the earth have been built over solemn asses."
260 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
been a prominent member of tbe state senate. Sis services in reor-
ganizing the judiciary of Ohio and promoting public education and
interna] improvements were of great value.
In 1834 Governor Lucas was re-elected, receiving a majority of
3,294 over the Whig candidate, Gen. James Findlay, of Cincinnati,
who. since the war of L812, had been four times elected to Congress
( L824-30). During the Jackson administration he was one of the
conspicuous figures of Washington as he long had been in the Miami
country. A bluff, hearty man. of corpulenl person, he dressed in
the aristocratic blue and buff and carried a gold beaded cane, recall-
ing Washington Irvine's picture of the master of Bracebridge Hall.
It was told nf him that at the time when government lands were
being forfeited and resold in the Miami valley, he, as receiver of the
land office, mounted a stump one day to offer a poor man's land and
improvements. "I trust there is no gentleman — no, 1 will not say
that, n- rascal- -here so mean as to buy his neighbor's home over his
head," was the encouraging remark of the auctioneer. "Gentlemen,
1 offer the lnt fur sale. Who bids?" Needless to say. there was no
Sale.''
Beginning his second term Governor Lucas was soon confronted
with a crisis in the boundary controversy with Michigan, that had
1 n dragging along without any serious outbreak since the war of
1812. The northwest corner of Ohio, as established by Harris,
remained undisputed, hut from that point eastward two lines
diverged so that Maumee bay lay between them on the lake. Michi-
gan claimed to the southern line, and Ohio to the northern, and
the sanction of Congress could he cited in approval of both line- as
tin' true boundary.
Maumee ( !ity, laid out by Maj. William Oliver and others in 1817,
was the main settlement north of the Maumee river, for some years.
In 1832 Vistula, a little settlement at the mouth of the river, was
"boomed" by Capt. Samuel Allen, of Lockport, X. Y., and Major
Stickney, the famous Maumee valley pioneer, and Major Oliver,
Micajah Williams ami the Comstock brothers began the revival of
the neighboring village of Tori Lawrence. This activity was due
to the near approach of the time when the lower Maumee would be
connected by canal with the Wabash river and the Ohio at Cincin-
nati. The promoters were nearly all Ohio people, the future of their
enterprises depended mi the public works of Ohio, and they naturally
appealed to the legislature of Ohio to hasten the boundary dispute to
a settlement, so that their future city might grow up in the nurture
and admonition of Buckeye legislation. It was a matter of no
little importance that the Maumee canal should not find itself termin-
ating in another state and feeding with the wealth of Ohio a city of
■Ben. Perley Poore's Reminiscences.
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES, AND CANALS. 261
Michigan. There was also much anxiety about the control of the
lake terminus of the Wabash & Erie canal, for which Congress bad
voted aid in Ohio land in 1822-23. New observations of latitude,
made under act of Congress in 1832, by Engineer Talcott, showed
that the originally proposed line, if extended as required by the enab-
ling act of 1802, would not touch the international boundary in the
middle of Lake Michigan, and coming to land again in the cast would
throw into the territory of Michigan a considerable part of the Con-
necticut reserve. It was confidently expected that Congress, to avoid
such an absurdity, would confirm the alternative line proposed by the
constitution of Ohio, which Congress had constructively approved.
The outbreak began after the Legislature of .Michigan, in prepara-
tion for admission as a state, instructed Secretary Mason, acting
governor of that territory, to appoint commissioners to treat with
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois regarding disputed boundaries. When
Governor Lucas received a communication from Mason he referred
it to the Ohio legislature, whicb passed an act February 23, L835,
affirming the jurisdiction of W 1, Henry and Williams county to
the Harris line, and gave notice to Congress that it •"ill becomes
a million of freemen to bumbly petition, year after year, for what
justly belongs to them and is completely within their control."
Mason, as soon as he perceived from Governor Lucas" message thai
Ohio would maintain her claim to the disputed country, sent a bel-
ligerent message to his council, which by enactment prohibited the
exercise of official functions by citizens of Ohio in the territory,
under pain of a tine of $1,000 ami imprisonment for five years.
Undaunted by this. Governor Lucas appointed Lri Seely, of Geauga,
Jonathan Taylor, of Licking, ami John Patterson, of Adams, to
retrace and establish monuments on the Harris line. .Mason called
out his militia under Gen. Joseph W. Brown, about a thousand
strong, who encamped at Toledo, ami Governor Lucas ordered Gen.
John Bell, with about six hundred men. to Perrysburg. By the
last of March Governor Lucas and his staff and the boundary com-
missioners were at Perrysburg, and matters were ripe for war
between Ohio and Michigan when two embassadors sent by President
Jackson, Richard Rush, of Philadelphia, and Benjamin C. Howard,
of Baltimore, appeared on the scene, and persuaded the belligerent
governors to dismiss their armed forces. Benjamin F. Butler,
attorney-general of the United States, gave his opinion that until
Congress acted otherwise, Michigan had the right to Maumee bay,
but no harm could come from the resurvey of the Harris line.
Accordingly the Ohio commissioners and a posse for protection
started to retrace the line from the northwest corner, but after work-
ing east aboul forty miles General Brown swooped down upon them
and dispersed the party, putting several Ohioans under arrest and
in jail. There wa- also a close watch kept for "treason" within the
0(32 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
country claimed by Michigan. Two citizen- were arrested by the
sheriff and taken to jail at Monroe for advising disobedience to the
laws of Michigan, and two others who raised the Ohio Hag- at the
little settlement near the bay, now beginning to be known as Toledo,
were promptly apprehended. This created great excitement through-
out Ohio and' a special session of the legislature was called in dune,
which appropriated $300,000 to enable the governor to enforce the
survey and protect citizens of Ohio from "abduction."
To emphasize the claims of Ohio the county of Lucas was ereated
in the disputed region, with Toledo as the county seat. The state
troops were put in readiness for action, and ten thousand were
reported in condition to take the field. But the Michigan officers
continued to make arrests, and in the summer of W>:> Major Stick-
ney, Judge Wilson (an Ohio officer), and other- were arrested and
lodged in the Monroe jail. The major's son, Two Stickney, stabbed
the .Michigan sheriff ami escaped. The affair has its myths also.
A justice of the peace, under < >hio commission, tied to a sugar camp
in the w Is, and was feci by the robins! Finally an Ohio embassy
was sent to Washington to see General Jackson, and these gentlemen,
Noah IT. Swayne,* William Allen ami David T. Disney, wrought a
change. The president removed Secretary Mason from office, but
before retiring from rhe field he and General Brown had another
famous campaign. Governor Lucas, in September, assembled mili-
tia at .Miami, and Colonel Vanfleet was detailed to escort a set of
Ohio judicial and county officer^ to Toledo to put Lucas county in
running order. Brown at once occupied Toledo with his militia, and
the I >hio officials and soldiers heat a hasty retreat. This was the end
of hostilities. An amicable arrangement was made with the new
acting governor of Michigan, ami Governor Lucas finished his state
line survey in peace, suspending all other operation- until Congress
should act.
When the matter went before Congress John Quincy Adams
declared that never before in his life had he known "a controversy
in which all the right was so (dearly on one side and all the power so
overwhelming on the other.*' Bui there was more right on the Ohio
side than he saw. Furthermore, it ha> keen suggested, Mr. Van
Buren, the politician of the Jackson administration, looking forward
to L836, would not offend Indiana and [llinois, and as those states
had both encroached on the original south boundary of Michigan,
why should not Ohio?! Swayne, Allen and Disney found favor in
their labors at Washington, able argument- were made by Senator
♦Swayne was a Virginian of Pennsylvania descent, who had removed to
Coshocton in 1815, and was appointed United States district attorney for
Ohio by President Jackson in 1S31, at the age of twenty-six years.
tBut VanBuren failed to carry either of those states, and did carry Mich-
igan.
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES, AND CANALS.
■2<V.)
Ewing ;ind Representative Vinton, and in June, 1836, Congress
held that the Ohio constitution, having been solemnly accepted,
authorized Ohio to annex the disputed territory. Michigan was
compelled to abandon the contesl and accept the upper peninsula in
compensation before she could be admitted as a state. It is not sur-
prising therefore that the Ohio legislature passed resolutions request-
ing Senators Ewing and .Morris to vote in favor of expunging the
resolutions censuring President Jackson for his conduct in relation
to the United States bank.
This victory created enthusiasm in the Maumee country, and
served to attract general attention to the prospects of the region.
The Wabash & Erie canal was located in 1836, and fifteen cities were
projected between the mouth of the river and the rapids. The Erie
& Kalamazoo railroad, the pioneer railroad of the west, projected
by Dr. Samuel O. Comstock, of Toledo, in the winter of 1832-33,
and chartered in Michigan, was completed to Adrian in 1836, with
oak rails covered with strap iron, and business was begun with horse
power. In L837 the first locomotive was put mi this road, lint it
wa- ten years before this new country was fairly launched in the
channels of prosperity.
The State was now in another period of speculation ami expansion,
due in great part to the expenditure of five millions of borrowed
money on the canals, and the promise of railroad building. Many
railroad companies were incorporated, and many banks. A notable
instance was the incorporation of the Ohio Lit'-" [nsurance and Trust
company, in 1834, with a capital of two million dollars to he sub-
scribed, with banking privileges ami the right to issue notes to the
amount of twice the deposits. In 1836 tic legislature required the
banks to stop issuing notes smaller than $5, with the alternative of
paying twenty per cent of their dividends as a tax. lint the inflation
had gone too far to check.
The Mad River & Lake Erie railroad, incorporated in 1832, was
partly under contract in L834-, and promised to connect Sandusky
and Springfield with the terminus of the Miami canal at Dayton.
Work was begun in 1835 and a small portion was opened in L838 for
horse power, but the line was not completed until 1851. The first
Ohio railroad completed was the Painesville .V Fairport, three miles
Ion--, in operation with horse power in 1837. Meanwhile the South
was Leading in railroad enterprise, and at Cincinnati it. was proposed
to build a railroad to Springfield, to conned with the Sandusky line,
and another to Lexington, K'y.. t n i with the greal southern
system. As a result the Little Miami railroad was chartered in L836
and work begun in 1837, laying a strap iron track, hut this was not
completed until nearly ten years later. The Cincinnati A Charles-
ton railroad was incorporated in South Carolina, and the Cincinnati
leaders in enterprise were iti correspondence with John < '. Calhoun
264 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
and Roberl Y. Eayne over the prospects of uniting these two cities.
At Cincinnati, O. Fairchild, E. I >. Mansfield and Dr. Daniel Drake
were leaders in railroad promotion and the city had a board of inter-
nal improvements, appointed in 1835, composed of John S. Williams,
George W. Neff, Alexander McGrew and others.
Along the south shore of Lake Erie, "sparsely settled as it was,
were platted city lots a1 every indentation of the coast, and one spec-
ulator, wilder than the others, predicted one solid city from Buffalo
to Cleveland."* In various places on the lake shore, in 1836, land
sold for a higher price than it commands now, after the growth of
population in seventy years.
Through these years of pioneer effort in Ohio, children wen- born
in rude cabins, or brought from the east to be reared in the forests or
little straggling towns, who were to be the leaders of the nation in
their manhood. Such men as Leonard Bacon, .Matthew Simpson,
Edwin M. Stanton, and Allen G. Thurman, among the elder men of
Ohio birth or rearing; a little later. Ulysses S. Grant, the two Sher-
mans. George II. Pendleton, and -till later. Benjamin Earrison, Phil
Sheridan, Haves, Garfield, McKinley, Foraker, Edison, Eowells,
MacGahan, Thomas Buchanan Reid and Whitelaw Reid, may lie
named among those wdio had their boyhood lives in Ohio between
1810 and 1850. Baron, in after years, gave in luminous phrase his
memories of early influences :
"Our home life, the snowy winter, the blossoming spring, the earth
never plowed before and yielding the- first crop to human labor, tiro
giant trees, the wild birds, the wild flowers, the blithesome squirrels,
the wolves that we heard howling through the w Is at night hut
never saw, the red-kin savage sometimes coming to the door— by these
things God was making impressions on my soul that must remain for-
ever, and without which T should not have been what I am."
Michel Chevalier, a French visitor at Cincinnati in 1834, wrote
that he observed at his hotel table "a man about medium height, stout
and muscular, and of about the age of fifty years, yet with the active
step and lively air of youth. I had been struck with his open and
cheerful expression, the amenity of his manners, and a certain air of
command which appeared through his common dress. 'That is" a
friend explained, 'General Earrison, clerk of the Cincinnati court of
common pleas.' " When the Frenchmen expressed his wonder at
thi- transformation in the general's fortunes it was explained that
he was living thus, in quiet, awaiting an opportunity to become pres-
ident of the United States. "But," -aid the friend, "at this
wretched table you may see another candidate for the presidency,
who seems to have a hotter chance than General Harrison. It is
Mr. McLean, now one of the judges of the supreme court of
the Finted States."
♦Historical address by C. P. Leland.
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES. AND CANALS. 265
But it was Harrison who had the best chance, and in 1836 he was
named as the first candidate of the Whig party for the presidency of
the United State-. Ee carried Ohio by a vote of over L05,000 to
97,000 for VanBuren, and he also carried Indiana and Qlinois in
the west, but as there were three ether candidates, including Daniel
Webster, in the field against VanBuren, the Latter was easily elected.
This is the first year in which an Ohio man was before the people for
the presidency.
For governor, the Whig candidate was Joseph Vance, one of the
Ohio, pioneers of Scotch-Irish strain, born at Washington, Pa., in
1786, who came to Urbana with his father in 1805, and served
as a militia general, ami as one of the guides of Hull's army. In
political life he had been prominenl a- a legislator, hut was princi-
pally distinguished as a member of Congress for fourteen years
(1821-35). In that body he had been a sturdy fighter for the
National road, and protective tariff, to the extent of arousing the ire
of the "strict constructionists." Vance was a stunt man. of average
height, had the peculiarity of keeping his right eye nearly closed : on
duty observed the conventionalities of black broadcloth, but in relaxa-
tion fancied a blouse ami jeans trousers of pioneer cut: socially was
most agreeable, and as a public speaker was strong and earnest. He
received 92,204 votes, his opponent, Eli Baldwin, 86,158.
The legislature elected at the same time had a Democratic major-
ity of one on joint ballot, but a few scattering votes kept the election
of a United States senator iii January, l^-">7. to succeed Thomas
Ewing, in doubt until the eleventh ballet, when Senator Ewing was
defeated by William Allen. This gentleman, who enjoyed the dis-
tinction of being the first Ohio senator of the new Democratic party,
was a tall young man, with a voice of remarkable power, ami an elo-
quence that aroused much enthusiasm. In the late campaign he had
aroused a tremendous outcry by a story that the women of Chilli-
eothe, when they presented a sword to Major Croghan, had voted a
petticoat to General Harrison. Born in North Carolina, Allen had
come to Chillicothe in boyhood, January, L819, from Virginia, to
make his home with his sister, the mother of Allen G. Thurman.
When a young law student he was a suitor for the hand of Effie
McArthur, and being refused by her father, he entered the political
field spurred by the hope of a prominence that should warrant the
favor of even a governor and general. Running for < gress in L832,
he defeated General M c A it h ii r. the opposing candidate, by one vote,
and gained such popularity that, as has been noted, he became the
successor of Thomas Ewing in the United State- senate al the age
of twenty-seven, lie held the position for twelve year-. Mi-s
McArthur meanwhile was married to an Alabamian, but after his
death the union that was the dearest of Allen's ambitions took place
in 1845. Two years later she died, and Senator Allen withdrew from
L't;i;
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
public affairs, living at the old McArthur homestead, Fruit Hill,
almost in solitude for many years, devoting his time to the study of
literature ami science, even refusing the office of minister to Great
Britain when tendered by President Buchanan.
Tin' most important thing in the administration of Governor
Vance was the school law of March, L838. Tin- free schools were
yet poorly supported, hut there was continual agitation for better
things, sustained largely by the "Western College of Teachers,"
organized a- a result of tin- efforts of the Academic Institute of Cin-
cinnati, which called a convention of the friends of education in the
Mississippi valley at Cincinnati in 1831. An educational conven-
tion was held at Columbus in January, 1838, presided over by Prof.
Calvin E. Stowe, who had been sent to Europe by the State to study
the Prussian educational system. A committee of this convention,
beaded by Edward I >. Mansfield, of Cincinnati, prepared a memorial
to the legislature, embodying the principles of the new school law of
1838, which fairly established the modern system of education in
Ohio. Furthermore, there had been apportioned the State, in 1836,
a share of the surplus in the United States treasury amounting to two
million dollars, and in accordance with the recommendations of Gov-
ernors Lucas and Vance, this was set apart as an irrevocable school
fund.
Other interesting happenings were, the appointment of the first
geological corps of the State, composed of W. YV. .Mather. Dr. S. P.
Hildreth, Dr. .T. P. Kirtland, Dr. John Locke. 0. Briggs, 0. Whittle-
sey, and ■]. W. Foster; provision for the erection of a new statehouse,
the appointment of a new canal commission, and a Legislative protest
against the annexation of Texas.
The geological survey of 1838-39, though soon abandoned, brought
into notice Dr. dared Putter Kirtland, a native of Connecticut, who
became an authority in zoology, and founded the Cleveland academy
of natural sciences in 1845; ('baric- Whittlesey, also of Connecticut
birth. "i f the Tallmadge colony of Is in, a graduate of Wot Point
and in the army during the Black Hawk war. who kept up antiqua-
rian researches after the survey ceased, made a geological survey of
the Lake Superior copper mines in Is4."> and was afterward in the
geological service of the United States, lie was a colonel in the war
of 1861 65, founded the Western Reserve historical society in l s o7,
and published many books and pamphlets. Samuel Preston Ilil-
dreth, another doctor of the survey corps, of Massachusetts birth,
■came to Belpre in IS06, was a natural history collector, the pioneer
weather recorder, and the pioneer historian of the Muskingum val-
ley, publishing several books. Dr. Caleb Briggs, a citizen of [ron-
ton, surveyed the coal and iron regions, ami did work of great value.
Foster, in later years, was a noted antiquarian and author. Dr.
FREE SCHOOLS, TURNPIKES, AND CANALS. 267
William W. Mather, a descendant of Cotton Mather, came to Ohio
from the Xew York survey, and was qualified by education at West
Point and a professorship there. He afterward was a citizen of
Jackson county, and taught chemistry in several Ohio colleges.
Texas, of which the American colonization had been begun by a
Connecticut man in 1821, had gained a considerable population of
slaveholders while yet a state of the United States of Mexico. But
Mexico was opposed to slavery, and in 1829 the governmenl decreed
emancipation. Trouble resulted, but the government gave way to the
-Texas settlers. The South demanded expansion, and the United
States made propositions for purchase. These were not entertained,
and American immigration was prohibited. Sam Houston, having
a domestic falling-out, resigned the "Mice of governor of Tennessee to
live among flic Indians, and went to Texas as a filibuster 1 , it might
he said, but success made him a "patriot." In ls.">:> war began and
Texas declared independence in 1836. Adventurous spirits flocked
to the banner of the new republic, even from Ohio. On .Tune If,
1836, a company under ('apt. James Allen, editor of the Cincinnati
Republican, left that city to join General Houston. On March (3th,
twelve days before President Jackson visited the city of Cincinnati,
David Crockett and his band at the Alamo were besieged and mas-
sacred. Hut the Texas colonists and filibusters were soon victorious
at San Jacinto, and, the independence of Texas being established,
talk of annexation was begun. A great many people of the north
could see nothing in it hut an "unholy slavery crusade."
The war in Texas was immediately followed by a war in Canada,
and another scries of filibustering attempts enlisted other adventur-
ous Ohioans. This, however, was not considered very reprehensible
in the north. The rebellion in Canada, led by Mackenzie, occurred
in 1*'M. and upon its practical suppression a considerable number of
fugitives took refuge in the United States and enlisted sympathy. It
was imagined that with some assistance the people of Canada would
rise and drive out the "British tyrants," as the Texan- had driven out
the Mexicans. Van Rensselaer led the operations against Canada in
the east, and "General" Handy, of Illinois, was th mmander of
the Patriot army of the Northwest. In Ohio the leader was
Lucius V. Pierce, a native of Connecticut and a graduate of Ohio
university, who had begun the practice of law at Akron in L825.
He devoted hi- time and money to the cause of Canadian liberation,
and had many assistants. Some Ohioans were with Sutherland in
the attempt to capture Fort Maiden from Bois Blanc island in dan
nary, L838, which resulted in the capture of the filibustering
schooner, and the loss of one killed and eighl wounded. General
Handy collected seven hundred men on Sugar island, hut was com-
pelled by the governor of Michigan to disband hi- troop-. In
March, Sutherland made another attempt, occupying Pelee island,
2GS CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
with four hundred men, but the British descended upon them, and,
according to a Canadian account, killed about sixty and took
nine prisoners.* The Canadian Refugee Relief association was
formed in the United States, with Handy as the head, and Hunters'
lodges were organized along the border, and a convention held at
Cleveland in September, L838. The members were pledged to
"expel the British tyrant from North America." Bierce was
made commander-in-chief in August, and troops were recruited
in jVtichigan, tinder General Putnam of Canada, tinder Col-
onel Harnell in < >hio, and under General Birge in the east.
A concerted invasion was to lie made, but Birge was precipitous and
sent Colonel Von Schoultz, a Pole who had enlisted a body of his
banished countrymen in the enterprise, from Sackett's Harbor to cap-
ture Prescott. The expedition was disastrous, and after a battle the
invaders were captured, and Schoultz and ten of his men were exe-
cuted. Notwithstanding this disaster General Bierce and 180 men
made an invasion of Canada from Detroit, December 3d, cheered by
the populace, and attacked Windsor, burning the militia barracks
and a steamer, bu1 his men were soon compelled to take flight.
Colonel Prince, the British commander, reported: "Of the brig-
ands and pirates twenty-one were killed, besides four who were
brought in just at the close and immediately after the engagement,
all of whom 1 ordered shot upon the spot, and it was done accord-
ingly." Tins was as tragic and essentially as barbarous as the Alamo
affair, but there were no mere raids, and Canada was not annexed.
General Pierce returned to Akron, and was called before the United
States court in January, 1839, on the charge of violating the neutral-
ity laws, but the grand jury refused to indict him. There was bitter
feeling against England arising out of disputes regarding the Oregon
and .Maine boundaries, and the Ohio legislature, by resolution about
this time, indicated the same sentiment that William Allen expressed
in the memorable phrase, "Fifty-four forty or fight."
Another war of this period was carried on by the United States
from is.",.", to L842, against the Seminole Indians in Florida, by Gen.
Winfield Scott, and later by Genera] Jesup, Harrison's brigade major
in 1812, and Gen. Zachary Taylor. Ohio contributed some soldiers
and officers, notably young Lieut. William Tecumseh Sherman, son
of Judge Charles Sherman, and adopt!. 1 son of Thomas Ewing, who
left West Point in 1840, and had his first experience of war on the
St. Johns river.
*"The Canadian Rebellion of 1837," by D. P. Read.
CHAPTER XI.
"BEFORE THE WAR."
Governors Wilson Sn axni ) -\, 1 838- 1< I ; Thomas < 'orwin, 1840-4:2 ;
Wilson Shannon, 1842-44; Thomas W. Baetley, L844;
Mokdecai Bartley, 1844-46; William Bebb, 1846-49; Sea-
buby Ford, 1849-50; Reuben Wood, 1850-53; William:
Medill, 1853-56; .Sal. mux P. Chase, 1856-60.
i^\ pvi HE political unrest in Ohio at this time made it impossible
for a governor to retain office more than one Term. In
1838 Governor Vance was defeated by Wilson Shannon,
the first native governor of Ohio, lie was born in Belmont
county February 24, 1803, of Pennsylvania— Irish stock, pursued col-
lege studies at Ohio university and Transylvania university ( Ken-
tucky), read law under Charles Hammond and David Jennings, and
became successful in that profession at St. Clairsville, and a leader
in the Jackson party. Though defeated for Congress in 1832, he
was victorious over Vance by a vote of 107,884 to 1.02,146. Vance's
defeat was probably due to his permitting, just before election, the
arrest of John B. Mahan, for assisting in the escape of a runaway
slave. The abolition movement of thai period was then at its height,
with three hundred anti-slavery societies in the State, and the State
society under the leadership of Leicester King, an aide Whig lawyer
of the Western reserve.
Another important (dement in the campaign was the anxiety of
the auti-slavery people to return a legislature favorable to the re-elec-
tion of Senator Morris, who had become famous as the channel for
the presentation to Congress of petitions for the abolition of slavery
in the district of Columbia. When John C. Calhoun attempted to
exact a pledge from Congress that slavery should not be disturbed,
Morris was the foremost of those who met him in debate. Conse-
quently, in the election, many Whig votes went bo Democratic anti-
slavery candidate- for the Legislature, or were withheld. When the
legislature met, Morris was asked to give an ai nnt of his l>.^ -
cratic faith, and while he was sound on the hanks and the tariff, he
270 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
boldly admitted thai he was for abolition^ Consequently lie was
dropped by his party.
The Whig legislators voted for Ewing. But the Jackson men
easily elected, on the first ballot, Benjamin Tappan, of Steuben-
ville, a native of Connecticut, who had come to Ohio in 1799 to
found the town of Ravenna, op the land of his father, who bore the
same name. He had served seven years on the circuit bench
(1816-23), as a lawyer in active practice stood at the head of his
profession, and in politics was one of the Jacksonian leader-, heading
the electoral ticket in 1832. Since l s :'>:; he had been United States
district judge. He is described as a man of perfed self-poise, and
never found without resource in emergency. Something is learned
of him from the memory that he was called' "Old Ben Tappan," and
more from the fact that under his tutelage Edwin McMasters Stat
ton* was prepared for public life.
Mm-ris, after the legislature of his state had refused To re-elect
him, replied, in February, 1S39, to the famous speech of Henry Clay,
intended to discourage agitation of a dangerous question, and boldly
declared that the negro would yet be free. Though he had losl the
favor of the majority in his State, he had the verdict of John Gr.
Whittier, that "Thomas Morris stand- confessed the lion of his
day."
Not only did the Ohio legislature rebuke Senator Morris for stir-
rim: ti]i the slavery question, but it passed a fugitive slave law, impos-
ing heavy tines or imprisonment upon any who should encourage the
running away of Southern property. A resolution was passed, also,
declaring that blacks and mulattoes in the State had no constitutional
right to petition the legislature on any subject. The revulsion
against agitation was so strong that the abolition movement was seri-
ously checked for some years after 1840.
The same legislature that elected Tappan refused to grant the
prayer of John 1!. Mahan, of Brown county, for compensation for
sufferings he had endured through arrest under a requisition from
tin' governor of Kentucky, charged with assisting the escape of slaves,
an accusation it was found impossible to prove. Only one senator
voted in favor of Mahan, and that was Benjamin E. Wade, of about
tin same age as Salmon P. < 'ha-e. and like him, a tall, imposing man,
but who. unlike Chase, had been reared in poverty in Massachusetts,
had shoveled dirt on the Erie canal, and coming to Ohio in 1821, read
Euclid and the Bible by the light of a pine torch in nights when he
wa- weary with wood chopping, lie had been admitted to the bar in
L82S, and afterward became a partner of Joshua Reed Giddings, of
♦Stanton was born at Steubenville in 1SI4. was educated at Kenyon eol-
lege, siived Ohio as reporter of the supreme court in 1S42-- 15. and began his
ociation \\nli tin government at Washington as attorney-general under
■: in I H • ember, 1860.
BEFORE THE WAR. 271
Ashtabula county, who was this year elected to Congress. Giddings,
a native of Pennsylvania, came to Ashtabula county in 1806, eleven
years old, and became a lawyer of such success that he retired, well
to do, in 1836, Rufus P. Ranney taking his place in the partnership ;
and, after losing all his property in the panic Giddings entered the
field of polities, in which he had national importance during tin- next
twenty years.
This legislature of 1838-39 elected as auditor of state John
Brough, born at .Marietta in 1811, son of an Englishman who had
come to America with Blennerhassett. The young man had been
reared as a printer and had already made a reputation as a leader of
the Jackson party in editing the .Marietta Gazette and Lancaster
Eagle. On the "stump," a phrase more literal than metaphorical in
those days, he was establishing his fame as "the Boanerges of the
Democratic party," in Ohio. "In mental vigor, in acuteness and
skill in debate, he greatly resembled Stephen Douglas. So formid-
able was he in debate that very few Whigs were hold enough to meet
him upon the stump."* Brough served as auditor of state until
1846, and rendered services of great value in reforming the financial
ami banking systems. In 1841 he and his brother Charles founded
the Cincinnati Enquirer, which they made famous, and which ha*
ever since had an unique place among the foremost American news-
papers.
John Brough, the printer-orator, was an example of the genius
that was abundant in that day. The State seemed to he full of great
men. Charles Hammond, the intimate advisor of Henry Clay, and
called by Daniel Webster "'the greatest genius that ever wielded the
political pen;" William D. Gallagher (son of a refugee from Roberl
Emmet's Irish rebellion), the first of Ohio poets, founder of the
Western Literary Magazine at Cincinnati in 1836, and a brilliant
Whig journalist ; James II. Perkins, essayist, poet and historian, and
E. I >. Mansfield, who started in L836 the Cincinnati Chronicle, to
which Harriet. Beeeher Stowe contributed her first story, u,a\ he
named in the literary field. Hut in the profession of the law the pro
fusion of genius in the second generation of Ohioans was most appar-
ent. It can lie said of the bar of the State as a distinguished Ohio
historian t has said of the bar of the Western Reserve: "They
had hut few law 1 ks ami those they mastered; their literature was
the Bible ami Shakespeare, and their forensic contests were apt dis-
plays of logic, invective and wit. In that community influence went
for nothing; if a man rose to the top it was through ability ami
industry. Tn those days the best lawyers went to the legislature and
sat upon the bench. It was an honor to he a member of the legisla-
tion McCulloch, "Men ami Measures of Half a Century."
t.Iames r'onl Rhode*, author of "A History of the United States from
1850."
279 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
ture and an honor to be a judge." Chase and Wade and Giddings,
reared among such Lawyers, became not only -rear jurists, but Leaders
of the dominant sentiment of the North.
Among the Ohio lawyers of that day, says a competent authority,*
the greatest were Ewing, Stanbery and Corwin. "Whether their
distinction rests wholly upon their distinction at the bar, or not, it is '
certain they rill the largest horizon and occupy the greatesl place in
history of any lawyers which our State has produced." Each rose
from humble birth to a place in the national councils. "Ewing would
Lav..- been a great natural Lawyer had he never seen a lawl k. a great
logician had he never seen a work on logic." Henry Stanbery, more
learned in 1 ks, was the most elegant and courtly man of his day, as
well as one of the most eloquent lie delighted in explanations of
the intricacies of the law and the exposition of general principles.
It was not in his nature to be as much of a politician as Ewing.
Greater than either of them in his influence on the public and in his
wonderful power of invective, dazzling wit, and brilliant flights of
rhetoric, and consequently more famous in the political field, was
Tom I )orwin. Group with these Peter Hitchcock, Philemon Beecher,
Benjamin Tappan, Rufus P. Ranney, and note the younger men. like
Charles Anthony, Samson Mason, Thurman, Stanton, Chase, Wade,
Allen. Schenck, Pugh, as examples of a class, and it can be under-
st 1 h^w Ohio within a few years became a leading power among
the states.
Ye? the historian Atwater, writing during YanBuren's adminis-
tration, complained that Ohio was not recognized in national affairs.
Said he, "We are oppressed in all the ways in which littleness, seated
on high, can reach us." lint he took courage to predict, "This state
of things cannot last Long, before Ohio has a voice and an influence
at Washington. No president or attorney-general will dare then t<>
treat with contempt our citizens and our members of congress."
As a result of the crash of the hanks and the general prostration of
business in 1837, ascribed by the Whigs to President Jackson's suc-
cessful war mi the United States hank and the sacrifice of Clay's
American system of protection to the nullification threats of South
Carolina. Ohio was in a had way financially in 1838-40.
Everywhere, manufactories shut down, merchants failed, and banks
went to the wall. Farmers could not obtain remunerative prices for
their products, and labor was deprived of employment. When tie 1
Ohio treasury did not have enough money to pay the interest on her
bonds, which there was some talk id' repudiating, Alfred Kelly, fund
commissioner of the State, guaranteed Ohio by giving his individual
not.- for twice what he was worth. People, in their discouragement
turned to any employment that promised returns, and the craze of
David K. Watson, writing in IS'jO.
BEFORE THE WAR. ._,- : j
mulberry culture and silkworm breeding spread over tbe country,
leading many to invest all they had and lose it. in 1839-40.
The legislature renewed its efforts to shut out irresponsible insti-
tutions that printed money. The Washington Social Library com-
pany was one of these concerns that embarked in the money indusl rj .
and endeavored to inveigle Auditor Brough into recognizing its
authority. The story was told thai eastern adventurers boxight the
charter of a moribund library association in Hamilton county, and
issued bank Dotes, with no assets except a remnant of dogeared 1 ks.
Half the hank capital in the State was owned by tion-residents, and a
third of the bank loans were to officers and directors. The banks dis-
trusted each other, and the people distrusted all of them. Nine con-
cerns had out illegal circulation, among them one chartered as an
Orphans' institute. The depreciated money and public scrip bore
peculiar and derisive names — such as yellow dog, red cat, smooth
monkey, blue pup and sick Indian.
As the whole country was affected by the same conditions of depres-
sion, the progress of railroad and canal construction was endangered
in Ohio. But the legislature attempted, in March, ls:;7. to help
these enterprises by "an act to authorize a loan of credit by the State
of Ohio to railroad companies, also to turnpike, canal and slackwater
navigation companies," a measure that had such unfortunate results
that it was popularly known as "the Plunder law." The trouble
arose from the fact that while the law provided for a loan of credit,
that is, the issue of State bonds to the corporation to the amount of
half the money expended in actual con- ruction or in the purchase of
lands for the use of the corporation, it was construed to apply to "the
purchase of lands for the purpose of speculation or even fraud."*
Under this manipulation of the law the Ohio railroad company, orig-
inally organized at Painesville in 1830, to build through northern
Ohio, from the Pennsylvania line to Toledo, bought lands at myth-
ical prices by the issue of stock, obtained State bonds for $249,000,
established a bank on this capital, and issued $300,000 or $400,000
in paper money with which to build a road. The plan of construc-
tion was as airy as the finances. A line of plank rails was to hi' laid
on posts or piles. Work was actually begun on this plan in L839,
from Fremont to a future city, called Manhattan, somewhere in the
high grass below Toledo. There was to he another city called Rich-
mond, near Painesville. Upon the original subscriptions to two mil
lion- of stock, less than $14,000 was paid in cash. That was oi
course lost, for presently the company collapsed, leaving no assets
hut some land, fully covered by liabilities, and sixty three n
rotting posts and timbers. Under the provisions of the sa
aid was extended to the Mad River and Lake Erie, the Little Miami.
Report of A ml ft or John Brough, 1S43.
1-18
274 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
the Vermilion & Ashland, the Mansfield & Sandusky City, and the
Fairport & Zanesville railroads, the Cincinnati & Whitewater canal,
and the Pennsylvania & Ohio canal, which was completed in L841,
opening communication between Cleveland and Pittsburg. Before
the law was repealed in .March, 1840, the Stare had issued bonds to
the railroads named, to the extent of over $750,000, to the canal- for
$600,000, and to twenty-five turnpike companies for the enormous
sum of $1,853,365. The grand total of the investment was nearly
three and a quarter millions. The Little Miami and Mad River
road- paid dividends, but otherwise the bonds represented an almost
total loss.
From the contemplation of the financial conditions in 1838 and
1839, people turned with delight to the diversions and excitement of
politics, and, ascribing the evils that existed to the Jackson dynasty
that was continued under VanBuren, joined in a vast cry for "a
change." This brought tinder one banner the followers of Clay in
Ohio and the Crawford state-sovereignty men of the South. The
Whig national convention at Harrisburg, Pa., in December, 1839,
nominated General Harrison the second time for the presidency.
No other man could have united the discordant elements of the new
party, lie was able to assure the South that slavery should be undis-
turbed,* and in the North the people lnnl confidence in his belonging
to the school of Henry Clay. In fact, his party stood tor the repeal
of all rhar the Jackson Democrats had accomplished in the direction
of what would now he called "sound money." and Harrison had the
support of the "wildcat" banks, lint the great issue was, a change,
and the election of an honest, patriotic old soldier, in place of Van-
Buren, a cold-blooded politician of the school of Aaron Burr. The
cry was for "The iron-armed soldier, the true-hearted soldier. The
gallant old soldier of Tippecanoe."
A Baltimore paper foolishly said that if Harrison were given a
small pension he would he content to remain in his log cabin and
drink hard cider the rest of bis days. This sneer at the character <<(
a noble gentleman and at the peculiarities of pioneer life settled the
fate of VanBuren, whom the Democrats put up for re-election. On
Washington's birthday the ( )hio Whig convention was held at Colum-
bus, and before the day set the people began to arrive by canal boat
and wagon from all parts of the State. Through day and night they
poured into the city, with hand- playing the Marseillaise and the
Star Spangled Banner. With them they hauled through the winter
mud, log cabins on wheels, decorated witl i skins, and abundantly
supplied with hard cider, ginger bread, hoe-cake and hacon. When
lie was markedly unfriendly to Giddings after the inauguration, at a time
when tin- Southern congressmen were inviting the • ihioan to come South and
be hanged on account of his denunciation of the Florida war as acrime.com-
mitted in behalf of slavery.
BEFORE THE WAR.
275
the hotels were full, private houses were opened to those pilgrims who
did not find sufficient food and shelter in the caravans. At the con-
vention General Bcall presided and Thomas Ewing Led in the speech
making. But the main interest was in the procession, that wound
for hours through the streets, its main features being a long line of
canoes on wheels; a warship, "Western Empire State," bearing a
Buckeye tree ami a great banner with Harrison's portrait ; a repre-
sentation of Kurt Meigs with cannon firing salutes from the embra-
sures, a company with brooms t<> signify a "clean sweep," ami a horse
bearing the war-saddle of George Washington, which had been sent
up from Marietta. Everywhere there were banners, with inscrip-
tions that kept the watching thousands in an uproar of cheers and
laughter, and there were songs by glee cluhs, with rousing choruses,
such as "His latch string hangs outside his door, So here's three
cheers for honest Tip."
A spirit id' unrestrained jollity possessed all the Whigs. On top
of the log cabin from Springfield, built of Buckeye logs, rode the
portly and dignified Charles Anthony, eating ginger bread and drink-
ing hard cider. Governor Vance was .t the helm of the gunboat,
and when it stuck in the mml "Bill" Neil, the king of the coach lines,
ran to the rescue. In the midst of all this tremendous outburst, the
convention nominated for governor the "Wagon Boy of 1812," Tom
Corwin. He resigned his seat in Congress, and the convention to
nominate his successor, held at Wilmington, and attended by ten
thousand people, unanimously named the veteran Jeremiah Morrow,
who was elected. Tin- was Morrow's last public service. The
remainder of his days he spent at his home on the Little .Miami, until
his death .March 22, 1852.
Corwin, already famous through ten years' service in congress,
was the typical man for such a campaign as followed. He was
hailed in song: "Tom Corwin, our true hearts love you; Ohio lias
no nobler sun, Iu worth there's none above you." Sustained by his
marvelous eloquence and humor he swept along for seven months at
the crest uf a wave of enthusiasm. His political enemies were com-
pelled t.i admire him, and he had always had a story or a witty thrust
to turn the point of any question that would embarrass a statesman
merely philosophic. The mosl effective campaign document was his
speech in Congress provoked by an attack upon Harrison's military
record by Crary, of Michigan. Corwin had overwhelmed the critic
(who had been a militia general) in a t! I of brilliant sarcasm.
When spoken, the speech transformed the House from a body of some
dignity into a group of laughter-shaken humanity, crowding aboul
the -peaker that they might miss none of his intonations or facial
expressions, and when In- had finished with joking he held them spell-
bound with an argument of profound dignity thai vindicated the
character and ability of his friend. Poor Crary's political
27G CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
was finished, and to the end of his days he was known as "the late
general."
As the campaign opened so it continued, and the Ohio spirit spread
over the United States. The buckeye was popularized as a symhol
of the State and the candidate, and there was a great trade along
tbe National road in buckeye canes. Horace Greeley, in New York,
began the publication of The Log Cabin, out of which grew the
Tribune. For the first time political son;:' books were published, and
the Whigs were soon all chanting the praises of -'Tippecanoe and
Tyler too," and vehemently shouting that "Van — Van — is a used up
man." For the first time in a national campaign business was prac^
tically suspended. For the fii'st time a presidential candidate made
a tour of speech making. This was provoked by the cruel report that
General Harrison was of feeble mind. Consequently he made a few
speeches in ( >hio, al which there were immense audiences and pn s-
sions, regiments of brass bands and avenues of log cabins. Ar Day-
ton he spoken to ten acres of closely packed humanity, and was heard
by st of his audience. The number at this meeting was a subject
of discussion all over the United States, and was variously estimated
at from seventy-five to one hundred thousand. What this meanl in
the way of travel may be judged from the fact that the town of Day-
ton had about five thousand residents. At Chillieothe the General
rode in a procession -ix miles long ami spoke to fifty thousand people,
and there were similar demonstrations at Lebanon, Urbana, Sidney,
Somerset ami < Jolumbus.
Against this whirlwind of political enthusiasm a gallant fight was
made by Wilson Shannon, who was renominated tor governor, aided
by Allen, Brough, Tod, and the other Democratic leader-, hut with-
out avail. Early in the fall came the news that Maine had "gone
hell-bent for Governor Kent." Delaware, Maryland and Georgia fol-
lowed suit by electing Whig governors, and in October Ohio gave Cor-
win sixteen thousand majority. At the presidential election the
Harrison (doctors in Ohio received 1.48,157 votes and the VanBuren
electors 124,782. In the United States Harrison obtained 234 elec-
toral votes, VanBuren 60. The most devoted abolitionists, among
whom Senator Morris was now a leader, organized the Liberty party,
and voted for .lame- G. Birney tor president, hut the total vote was
very slight.
In the spring of 1 s41 General Harrison left Cincinnati by boat,
cheered by thousands, to go to Washington, and at his inauguration
he had a glorious triumph. Unfortunately he did not have an oppor-
tunity to prove his ability a- chief magistrate of the nation. After
a few weeks of worriineut by a tlood of office-seekers, embittered by
disputes with Clay and Webster, who assumed to dictate appoint-
ments, hi- weakened nerve- yielded under an exposure to weather
that he had been accustomed to enjoy, and he passed away. April 1th.
BEFORE THE WAR. ._,--
the first president of the Orated Suites to die in office, and the first
of three Ohio presidents who have lost their Lives in that exalted
station.
To his cabinet, as secretary of the treasury, President Harrison
had called Thomas Ewing, who held the office under Tyler until
the latter vetoed the second national bank bill, when he resigned.
Another of Harrison's appointments was of Elisha Whittlesey, who
had served in Congress sixteen years, as fourth auditor of the treas-
ury. Whittlesey resigned from Congress to take the place, and Ben
Wade made his first effort in politics as the Whig candidate to sue
ceed him.
The census of 1840 showed a population in Ohio of 1,519,467, an
increase of 580,000 in ten years, the greatest in all the history of the
State, from 1803 to 1903. The daj of doubling the population in ten
years had passed, for Ohio was already sending thousands of settlers
to the younger -fates, mainly to Indiana and Illinois. From the
Miami valley, for instance, after the opening of the Indian lands in
northern Indiana in 1832, young men, sons of Ohio pioneers, set out
for the new country with their wive-, experienced hardships Like those
of their fathers as they made their way through the Black Swamp, and
in the forests renewed those experiences of toil, privation and happi-
ness that their parents had gone through in Ohio thirty years before.
But with a million and a halt' of people, Ohio had gained the third
place in population, and, what was just as remarkable, the fourth
place in manufacturing. Old Virginia had fallen far behind in total
population and had Less than half the number of freemen. This place
among the states, next to New York and Pennsylvania, which Ohio
had attained in forty years, she held for another forty year-, finally
yielding a slight advantage to her younger sister of the West, where
( >hioans were helping to build up a city that should eclipse even that.
"eighth wonder of the world." < 'incinnati.
Cincinnati was not at that time wholly a "Porkopolis," although
one-fourth of the pork packing in the United Stales was done there.
Thirty-three steamboats were built there in L840, at a cost of
$600,000. It was the intellectual, educational, hook publishing cen-
ter of the West. There were eight hell foundries as well as man;.
breweries, and foxir concerns were manufacturing mathematical and
philosophical instruments. The foundries and machine shops of the
city were famous for the production of steam engines, and hundreds
of cotton gins, sugar mills and cotton-spinning machines were being
-hipped to the South every year. Cleveland, though far inferior in
population, was beginning to gain importance in ship building. The
first little schooner built there, the Zephyr, was Launched in 1808, and
in 1827 the first steamboat was i tpleted. The building of the
steamers for the lake traffic rapidly increased at the city on the Cuya-
hoga, and, i'i L844, ii boasted of the first steamboal in the
278 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
States of more than a thousand tons, the Empire - , which from keel
to masts, engines and all, was of Cleveland manufacture.
Steamboat travel was attended by some frightful disasters. One
long remembered in < Ihio was the explosion of the Moselle, April 26,
! s :;s. Going "in from Cincinnati, on its first trip, with over two
hundred people on board, the steamer turned up stream a Little ways
to take "ii some passengers before running to Louisville, and ;ts
another steamier happened to 1"' near a1 hand, of course there must
be a race at full speed. The boilers burst with a terrible roar, so
near the city that the body of the captain and fragments of other
human remains were thrown into the streets. The pilot was blown
a hundred feet in the air and fell in the river. Many people who
survived instant death drowned before help could reach them.
Under the census of 1840 Ohio was given twenty-one congress-
men. A special session of the legislature was held in the summer
of 1842 to make the apportionment, but action was prevented by
the desertion of the minority of the house, who declared that the
proposed apportionment was unjust and in disregard of constitu-
tional provisions.
In 1841 the .Miami canal had been completed north from Dayton
to Piqua. About thirty miles of the Little Miami railroad had been
built out from Cincinnati, with straprails, fur horse power; the White-
water canal was nearly finished, the Pennsylvania <i: Ohio canal was
completed, connecting Cleveland, by way of Akron, with the Ohio
river at the mouth of Heaver and river navigation to Pittsburg, and
the Mad River and Lake Erie was in course of construction from San-
dusky to Springfield and Dayton, and partly in operation. An inter-
esting story might be told of the building of the pioneer railroads.
On the Little Miami road the laborers were often fed upon the
cattle contributed by the farmers on the hoof in payment of their
subscriptions. Fund- were frequently exhausted. "The men sur-
rounded the hoxise of honest William Lewis, the Treasurer, demand-
ing money from an empty treasury, calling him every kind of a hard
name, until lie was forced to seek the president and declare: "These
men. when 1 tell them I have no money, call me liar and scoundrel
so often and so earnestly, that 1 begin to think I am what they call
me. and I must resign !' "' :: '
In I s 1l' Charles Dickens visited Cincinnati, ami was entertained
with the sight of a procession of the Washington Auxiliary temper-
ance societies. This was a manifestation of the great temperance
movement thai began in Ohio in LS41, which John Sherman, looking
hack after a lapse of half a century, judged to he the most beneficial
reform in his time. If Dickens had come a year earlier he might
have witnessed the famous battle between the negro residents and a
Reminiscences of S. S. L'HonuiT ( ]ku.
BEFORE THE WAR. 079
riotous white element, reinforced from Kentucky, which kept the
city in a turmoil for two days. On his return from St, Louis the
novelist traveled by coach over the good macadam highway from ( in-
cinnati to Columbus and thence to Sandusky. Of all of which one
may read in his much-abused ■•American Notes."
On November 1, L842, there was another serious riol at < lineinnati,
caused by a run en the banks, net for specie, but for paper better
than their own. Two or three hanks were gutted, and when the
militia was called out the mob was tired upon and several wounded.
Anions the twenty-one congressmen elected in 1842, was a young
man of Springfield, who had attracted attention by daring a debate
with John Brough ami acquitting himself with honor. This was
Robert C. Schenck, son of Gen. William < '. Schenck, one of the
famous pioneers of Ohio, and ward of Gen. .Tames Findlay. For
many years Schenck was one of the most brilliant men of Congress.
Joseph Vance returned to Congress with this delegation, and Samuel
F. Vinton, and Joshua R. Giddings, of Ashtabula county, a man
standing six feet two. with muscles hardened by clearing away the
forest, who had entered Congress at the age of forty-three years, in
1839, and for twenty years afterward led the forces of free soil and
free labor in the face of the most bitter opposition and contumely.
During a period of violence he was singularly immune to challenge
or assault, though he was unrelenting and often hitter in his political
denunciations.
During the two years* administration of Governor Thomas Cor-
win the financial condition of the state showed some improve-
ment, ami there were continued efforts to legislate sound principles
into banking. The .Mad River & Lake Erie railroad company was
called to a unt for issuing paper money, a number of hank charters
were repealed or suspended and the resumption of specie payments
was pledged. In 1842 a law was passed to regulate banking, requir-
ing all capital to he paid in in specie before beginning operations, and
regulating the limits of liabilities and circulation. But the banks
would not organize under it, and a number of the most reliable con-
cerns organized for mutual support At this time the currency in
circulation had been reduced about one-third from what it w T as in
1837, and there was some light ahead. In 1843 the charters of thir-
teen hanks expired, and two more came to an end a year later. The
remaining eight had a capital of about three million and a half, half
of the total banking capital of the state. The charters of some were
extended in 1844, with provisions for individual liability of stock-
holders, and the circulation restricted to three ti s the specie in
reserve. f'ort\ seven hanks had failed since they had been chartered,
hut those that remained were in hotter condition than ever before.
The State started in 1842-46 upon a new career of prosperity and
speculation.
280 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
The Whig legislature elected with Corwin was bombarded with
petitions to repeal the Black Laws, bu1 with no more success than had
attended previous efforts. This disappointment may have been one
of the reasons for a sudden growth in numbers of the "Liberty
party," aided by Salmon P. Chase. (iiddiiijrs and their followers
in 1841, which materially contributed to the defeat of Governor Cor-
win for re-election in 1842. Wilson Shannon, again a candidate,
received a plurality over Corwin of 3,120, while Leicester King, the
nomini f the Liberty men. polled five thousand votes. A notable
feature <>f the campaign was a debate at Chillicothe between Corwin
ami Thomas Lyon Earner, who took the place of Shannon tor that
event. Hamer, horn in Pennsylvania in 1800, ami reared in poverty
in Clermont county, with the valuable friendship of Thomas .Morris,
was a homely man, with a great shock of red hair, lmt of most win-
ning countenance when ho talked, ami a powerful orator and excellent
lawyer. He had served in Congress from 1835 to 1841, and within
that time, in 1839, ho had appointed to a cadetship at West Point,
Ulysses Simpson Grant, who was born in Clermont seventeen years
before.*
The second administration of Governor Shannon was uneventful.
The main features of the legislation were financial, as already noted :
there w;i- a revival of railroad enterprise, as indicated by the exten-
sion of old charters ami the granting of new one-, and in January,
1844, a national convention met at Cincinnati to affirm the Monroe
doctrine as applied to ( >regon and protesl againsl yielding to the Brit-
ish claims. Among tin' prominent participants were Thomas Worth-
ington, E. 1). Mansfield, and Samuel Medary, of Ohio, and William
Parry ami Unfits King were secretaries. The convention was tribu-
tary to the Democratic platform of ls44. which demanded the "reoc-
cupation of Oregon ami the reannexation of Texas," without serious
scepl a- to Texas.
Governor Shannon resigned in April, 1>44. ami became minister
to Mexico, the nation with which trouble was brewing, and Thomas
W. Hartley, speaker of the senate, became acting governor.
At the elections of 1844 the Whigs carried Ohio and entertained
hopes of making Henry Clay president, lmt though the great ami
beloved Kentuckian carried Ohio by a plurality of six thousand, and
*A Revolutionary soldier, who had fought at the battle of Lexington, a de-
scendant of Matthew Grant, of Scotland, who came to Massachusetts in 1630,
and of a family thai had given soldiers to the French and Indian wars, came
from Massachusetts after tile war to western Pennsylvania, from there to
Columbiana county, and thence to Portage county, where he apprenticed his
R to a tannet In husiness on his own account at Ben-
jamin Tappan's town. Ravenna, in early manhood, hut soon moved to Point
Pleasant. Clermont county, and married Hannah Simpson, though very poor.
Ulysses was born to them April 27. 1822, and next year they moved to George-
town. Brown county, where the hoy wa
BEFORE THE WAR. g „ |
received a strong support throughout the Union, the Liberty party
voted for an Ohio ticket, Birney and Morris,* and their defection
from the Whigs in New York -tar.' defeated Clay, to the intense sor-
row of the majority of the people of Ohio. The Whig candidate for
governor of Ohio was Mordecai Hartley, of Mansfield, father of the
acting governor, who was a Democrat and came within one vote of
being nominated for governor on the Democratic ticket. The senior
Bartley was born in Fayette county, Pa., in L783, settled in Jefferson
county in 1809, commanded a company in the war of 18 L2, and after-
ward cleared a farm in Richland county and became a merchant at
Mansfield. Beginning in 1822 he had hem four times elected to
< !ongress. He was the firsl ( >hio gover ■ from the "New Purchase"
country, and it was his fortune to be the second war governor, count-
ing Governor Meigs as the first. His opponent in the campaign was
David Tod, to whom the future was to hring honor as governor dur-
ing another war. He was the son of Judge George Tod, conspicuous
in the earlier history of the State; was born at Youngstown in L805,
became a lawyer there, and had made himself a name as a campaign
orator in l^fn. supporting the Democratic ticket. The election was
very close, as Leicester King, the Liberty party candidate, increased
his vote to nearly nine thousand, and Hartley had to he satisfied with
a plurality over Tod of 1,271. The financial issue was prominent,
the Democrats standing for hard money, and the Whigs for bank
paper. Tod, having declared that rather than adopt paper money
it would be hotter to go hack to the Spartan custom and coin money
from pot metal, was dubbed "Potmetal Tod," ami medal- of iron
were -truck, bearing his likeness, and distributed as "Tod money. "y
Failing to become governor, Tod opened the first coal mine in the
Mahoning valley in L845, at Briar Hill, and began the shipping of
coal to Cleveland, taking into his employment for the canal boating,
among others, James A. Garfield, of Cuyahoga county, then a hoy of
fifteen years. Since 1806, when the first blast furnace in Ohio
(built by David Heaton) was started in Mahoning county, a few
miles from Ybungstown, charcoal had been exclusively used in the
manufacture of iron, to the rapid destruction of the forests in the
vicinity of the thirty furnaces that were put in operation in the State
up to L846. The new era in the manufacture of iron, linking
together for the benefit of man the natural deposits of iron ore and
coal, began with experiments in Pennsylvania in the summer of
1845,$ and in August, 1^-Pi. bituminous coal was first successfully
used in iron smelting in Ohio, in the Mahoning furnace, at Lowell-
* Senator Thomas Morris was the candidate of the Liberty party :.
president. In the following month. December 7. 1S44. he died suddenly at
his Clermont county home.
tTaylor's 'Ohio Statesmen."
t Ryan's History of Ohio.
g82 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
ville. Ar a later date the coal was converted into coke before it fas
used in the furnaces.
There followed, in 1849, the founding of Ironton on the Ohio, by
John Campbell, a native of Ripley. This was near the place known
tn the early explorers as Hanging Rock, where John Means, a South
Carolina slaveholder converted to abolition, began the burning of
charcoal and manufacture of iron as early as 1826, and whence pig
iron had been shipped to New York by way of New Orleans, and a
little Tii Europe, in 1832. This Lawrence county district, in L840,
manufactured l'ujii.mi tuns of iron, ami all the rest of the State, includ-
ing- the furnaces in the Cleveland region, L5,00Q tons.
In the congressional delegation elected in 1>44. sonre new names
appeared, among them that of Allen G. Thurman, who was to stirpa>s
his uncle, William Allen, in reviving the political fame of Chillicothe
ami the Virginia military^ reserve. Born at Lynchburg, Va., in 1813,
the Mm of a Baptist clergyman who came to Chillicothe six years
afterward, he studied law in his youth under his uncle and Noah 11.
Swayne, and succeeded to Allen's law practice when the latter became
senator. For a long time after his one term in Congress he kept out
of polities, hut was upon the supreme bench for four years, 1851-55.
Another of the new congressmen was Columbus Delano, elected as a
Whig, a man then thirty-five years old. residing at Lexington, where
he worked his way up from employment in a woolen mill to an honor-
able position at the bar.
The legislature following, in December, 1844, having a Whig
majority, elected Thomas Corwin to the United States senate to suc-
ceed Benjamin Tappan, by a vote of sixty to forty-six for David T.
Disney. Disney was a prominent lawyer of Cincinnati, of Maryland
birth, one of the foremost men of his party from 1830 to I860, twice
speaker of the senate, and three times elected To Congress. He died
suddenly in 1S57, while preparing to go to Spain as L'nited States
minister.
In 1845 the Wabash & Erie canal, long delayed by the fevers
that, seemed to he let loose as the earth was excavated, making the
work as dangerous as a war, was completed far enough to influence the
volume of business at the port of Toledo, and in the same year the
Miami & Erie canal was opened through to give water communication
Let ween Cincinnati and Maumee hay. Toledo then expected to
speedily become the great distributing point of the West. The
Wabash canal, to he four hundred and sixty miles long when com-
plete, was to be the channel of most of the export and import trade of
Indiana and eastern Illinois, and the Miami canal would certainly
he one of the mosl imp.ii'tant transportation channels in the world.
The change that was to he effected by the railroads, it appears, was not
yet comprehended.
The mosl importanl legislative accomplishment of Bartley's admin-
BEFORE THE WAR. 283
istration was the incorporation of the Bank of the State of < >hio, by
act of February, 1^4.~>, a measure Largely due to the energy and wis-
dom of Alfred Kelly, who has been called both the father of infernal
improvements and the founder of the State banking system. Under
this law existing banks were to be merged in a State hank, with a cap-
ital of over six million dollars, and branches equably distributed over
the State, nnder the management of a central board of control, and a
board of hank commissioners. Independent hanks, if they desired to
issue notes, were required, as the State hank was, to deposit bonds of
the State or of the JJnited States to secure circulation. There
resulted a reasonably safe and adequate banking system in Ohio.
Three years later there were thirty-seven branches of the State hank,
with a total circulation of $5,400,000 in bank notes, deposits of
$2,200,000 and $1,900,000 gold and silver on hand. Besides the
State hank, several independent houses were in operation under the
law, including the Life and Trust company, which had been permitted
in continue.
Other important events were the appointment of commissioners to
complete the new State house at Columbus, which had been begun
July 4, 1839, and abandoned on account of a sectional dispute which
nearly caused removal; the creation of the office of attorney-general
of Ohio, to which Henry Stanbery was elected as the first incumbent
in 1846; and the founding of the Ohio system of taxation, devised
by Senator Alfred Kelly and pushed by him to adoption in 1846.
Toward the <dose of Governor Bartley's administration the State
was again called upon to furnish troops for a war, under circum-
stances that inspired very general distrust of the motives of the con-
flict and indifference as to the result. Yet Ohio responded as
generously as any state to the call of the president, and her soldiers
did honorable duty. In 1845 Texas had been annexed with provi-
sions that insured the extension of slavery over its territory. A small
army of occupation, under Gen. Zachary Taylor, was advanced to the
Rio Grande, a boundary which Mexico had not admitted for Texas,
and in May, 1846, the Mexican forces crossed the river and attempted
to drive away the American troops, bringing mi the battles of Palo
Alto and Resaca do la Palma.
A bill for the support of war with Mexico was immediately intro-
duced in Congress. Representatives Delano, Vance. Giddings, Root
and Tilden, of Ohio, voted against it, and in the senate a memorable
speech was made by Senator Corwin, who boldly declared that the
prosecution of a war that excited hostility between the North and
South was treason, a "crime of such infernal hue that every other in
the catalogue of iniquity, when compared with it, whitens into vir-
tue." He declared that "if bell itself could yawn and vomit up the
fiends that inhabit it- penal abodes to disturb the harmony of the
world . . the first step in the consummation of tin- diahol-
284 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Leal purpose would be to Liglil the fires of internal war and plunge the
sister states of this Union into the bottomless gulf of civil strife."
This was strong enough, but the most famous utterance of the great
invective was in reply to the cry of .Mr. ("ass rhar the people of the
United States wanted more i m. "If I were a Mexican," Corwin
declared, "I would tell you, 'Have you not room in your own c< runtry
to bury your dead men '. It' you come into mine, we will greet you
wirli lil ly hands and welcome you to hospitable graves.' " By this
utterance, more dramatic bul in essence the same as that regarding
the war of the Revolution for which William Pitt is praised by Amer-
ican-. Corwin incurred general disapproval. The popular sentiment
was, "Our country, right or wrong," and effigies of Corwin were
burned to demonstrate the patriotism of the citizens of various
regions.
When Ohio was called upon for troops, Samuel Ryan Curtis, of
Newark, a native of New York, but reared from infancy in Ohio, a
graduate of West Point and from l v -'17 to 1840 engineer of the Mus-
kingum river improvements, was made adjutant-general of the State
to organize the quota of volunteers. The offers for enlistment were
abundant, and there was no delay in enrolling the quota of the State.
The volunteers were collected at Camp Washington, near Cincinnati,
in .May. and organized in three regiments.
The First, mustered in June 23, 1846, was commanded by Col.
Alexander M. Mitchell. John l'>. Weller and Thomas L. Hamer were
made lieutenant-colonel and major, and the successive adjutant- dur-
ing the service were Andrew W. Armstrong, dames Findlay Earri-
son and Jonathan Richmond. The surgeon was H. K. Chamberlain.
The companies, in their alphabetical order, were commanded at
first by Robert M. Moore, Luther Giddings ; Lewis Hornell, Edward
Hamilton. John II. Armstrong, Edwin 1 >. Bradley, Sanders W. John-
son, Philip Muller. James George, William II. Ramsey.*
The Second regiment, mustered in dune 23d, was commanded by
Col. George W. Morgan, then a young man of twenty-six years, who
had left school in Pennsylvania in 1836 to join the Texas army of
independence, became a cadet at West Point in 1841, and later
eiiiei.. J the practice of law at Mount Vernon. His staff officers were
William Irvine of Fairfield county, a West Point graduate, lieuten-
ant-colonel; William Wall, major: Thomas Worthington, of Hocking
Palis. a graduate of West Poinl i L827) and afterward general of
< (bio militia, adjutant ; William Trevitt, surgeon. The original com-
pany commander- were Hobbv Reynolds, George W. Morgan, David
[rick, Evan Julian, Simeon M. Tucker, Robert G. McLean, John V.
Mickum, William Irvine. Richard Stadden, Daniel Brunner, William
Latham.
'Official Roster of Ohio Troops.
BEFORE THE WAR. 285-
Samuel R. Curtis, leaving his work as adjutant-general, was com-
missioned colonel of the Third regiment, and his stall' officers wen
George Wythe McCook (a law student ami partner of Edwin M.
Stanton, at Steubenville), lieutenant-colonel; John S. Love, major;
Oliver C. Gray, adjutant: Benjamin Stone, surgeon. The captains
were . rames Allen, William McLaughlin, Jesse .Meredith, Thomas II.
Ford, John Patterson, David Moore, •lame- F. Chapman, Chauncey
Woodruff, Asbury F. Noles, John Kill, Jr., .lames Allen.
These regiments were enlisted for twelve months, and in July left
for the Kin Grande, taking boal at ( Jincinnati for New Orleans, lint
before they started Maj. Thomas I.. Hamer was commissioned briga-
dier-general of volunteers, an honor at the same time conferred upon
Caleb Cushing, Franklin Pierce, Sterling Price and other men of his-
toric prominence, Though Hamer lacked military experience and
military education, and was put, fur political reasons, in command
ever men who had such qualifications, his remarkable ability enabled
him tii creditably act the part of a general. He was succeeded as
major by Luther Giddings, of Dayton.
( >n reaching the Win Grande the army was organized, and the < >iii.>
brigade was assigned to the division of General William < ). Butler,
with Gen. Tom. .Mar-hall'- Kentuckians, and Gen. due Lane's Indi-
anians. Among the officers of the regulars the volunteers found
some Ohio acquaintances, sneh as Lieut. Irvin McDowell, son of a
Worthington pioneer, who was aide-de-camp to General Wool; Lieut.
1 inn < !arlos Buell, adjutant of the Fourth United States, who attracted
admiration by his soldierly air,* and another lieutenant, acting as
quartermaster of the Third, a quiet, unobtrusive young fellow, with
no pretensions to glory, but much esteemed for common-sense, Ulysses
S. Grant.
The Third regiment went mi garrison duty at Matamoras and Fort
Frown, the Second was detailed for the garrison at Camargo, where
they began building Fort Ohio, and the First took an active part in
the advance from Camargo on Monterey. In the battle of Monterey,
August 21, L846, the First led one of the columns that penetrated
the suburbs of the town. Coming under a destructive tire. General
Butler ordered a charge-upon the enemy's works. Colonel Mitchell
ami Adjutant Armstrong and Capt. dame- George were wounded, and
the men were falling rapidly under a concentric tire, when Butler,
receiving a severe wound, tinned over the command to General 1 [amer
witli orders to withdraw. But Earner's brigade continued to hold
the suburbs of the town, which was surrendered three days later.
Among the killed of the First Ohio mi this occasion was Lieut.
Matthew Sett.
*Bue]I was born near Marietta, in ISIS, son of Capt. Timothy Buell. of
Blennerhassett's time. McDowell was born in the same year, nt
Irish-Kentucky family.
2S6 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
No more battles were fought by Taylor's army during 1846. Gen-
eral Ilamer continued in command of the Volunteer division of the
army until December 30th, when he died after a short illness. In
his order announcing the fact, General Taylor said, "In council I
found him clear and judicious, and in the administration of his com-
mand, though kind, yet always impartial and just. . . I had
Looked forward with confidence to the benefit of his abilities and judg-
ment in the service which lies before us. and feci most sensibly the
privation."
At. the time of the Buena Vista campaign, in March, 1847, the
First and Second regiments had some brisk engagements with the
enemy, while guarding Taylor's line of communication and bringing
up supplies. Major Giddings and three companies were particularly
distinguished at Ceralvo, .March 7th. The Third, after this, garri-
soned Camargo, while the others were advanced to Buena Vista. At
the expiration of the enlistment the three regiments were sent home,
with an honorable record. The First lost 24 killed and 42 from dis-
ease; the So,-,, nd 6 killed and 62 from disease; the Third <>1 in all.
In 1847 two other Ohio regiments were organized. One of these
was the Fourth Oh in. mustered in May 19, l s 4 7, of which Charles II.
Brough was colonel; Melchior Werner (and later. Augustus Moor),
Lieutenant-colonel; William P. Young, major: Herman Kessler i and
later. Warren Spencer), adjutant; O. M. Langdon, surgeon; and the
captains, W. C. Appier, Augustus .Moor (succeeded by Herman Kess-
ler, who was killed). Otto Zorckel, Samuel Thompson, George
Weaver, Mitchell C. Lilly, George K. Pugh, Tresher L. Hart. Will-
iam P. Young, Charles II. Brough (succeeded by Josiah M. Robin-
son), Melchior Werner (succeeded by John Fries). This regiment
left Cincinnati July 1, 1847, and after garrisoning Matamoras went
to Vera Cruz and joined Scott's army. They raised the siege of
Pueblo and fought at Atlexco < >ctober L9, 1847, and in a year'- service
lost ! killed and 72 died. The Fifth regiment, in fact the Second
reorganized, and generally known by that number, was enlisted at
Cincinnati, in August, 1847, with William Irvine as colonel : William
A. Latham. lieutenant-colonel; William II. Link, major: Robert
McNeil, surgeon; and the following captains: Nathaniel II. Miles
( died i. Richard Stadden, John W. Lowe. William A. Latham. Joseph
W. Filler. William I'. Ferguson, James F. Ilarle. William II. Link.
John G. [Iuglies, George F. McGinnis, Edwin Williams. The Fifth
reached Vera Cruz in September, 1847, formed part of the brigade
that guarded the great wagon train -cut t,, Sen'- arnrj at the City of
Mexico, and had considerable guerrilla warfare. The loss was 74
nd died.
George W. Morgan was commissioned colonel of the Fifteenth
United States infantry, to which Ohio also contributed live compa-
nies commanded by Capts. Daniel Chase, Jam,- A. Jones, Edward
BEFORE THE WAR. 287
A. King, John S. Perry and lloi-s Iloagland. These companies
were distinguished for gallantry during the advance of Scott's army
to the Mexican capital, in the fall of 1847, at the harries of Contreras,
Churubusco and Chapultepec, losing a large number of men killed
and wounded. Colonel Morgan, receiving a wound at ( !ontreras, was
honored with the brevet of brigadier-general in the regular army.
Chase, Jones and Hoagland won the brevets of major.
( )hio also contributed the following independent companies, in serv-
ice during 1S46: Companies of Capt. John R. Duncan | ununited |,
John H. Dauble, Frederick A. Churchill, Hermann Kessler, George
Durr, John Caldwell, H. 0. Donnell, Thomas W. Ward, Augustus
Moor, Joseph S. Hawkins, Atlas L. Stout, Francis Link, John S.
Love; and two that served in 1847-48, under Cants. William Ken-
neally and Robert Riddle. There was an Ohio company in the
regiment of Riflemen, under Capt. Winslow F. Sanderson, who won
promotion to major in Scott's campaign, and some Ohio companies in
the Third Dragoons and Voltiguers. Captain Kenneally died in
Mexico, in December, 1847, and was succeeded by Capt. William IT.
Lytle, a native of Cincinnati, then twenty-one years old, who made
himself as famous, a few years later, with his poem, "I am dying,
Egypt, dying." as that other Mexican war soldier, O'llara, who wrote
"The Bivouac of the Dead," in memory of Buena Vista.
While Ohio soldiers fought the battles of the country in the field,
Samuel F. Vinton, in the lower hons,. u f Congress, though a Whig,
supported the administration as chairman of the ways and means com-
mittee. He was at this time a veteran in Congress, having served
continuously from 1823 to 1837, and again from ls4:;. and he con-
tinued until 1851. Notable among his achievements was the estab-
lishment of the national department of the interior.
One important result of this war was the training of a large num-
ber of men for military command in Thar greater conflict that ( Jorwin
had prophesied as the seiptel of tin' aggression upon Mexico. Among
the field and line officers of the Ohio volunteer regiments there were
the following generals of 1861-65: Samuel Beatty, George F.
McGinnis, Robert B. Mitchell, William H. Lytle. George W. Morgan,
Samuel R. Curtis; and the following colonels: James Findlay Har-
rison, Edwin D. Bradley, Ferdinand Van DorVeor, Can- 1!. White,
James P. Fyffe, Thomas Worthington, George W. McCook, Thomas
II. ford. John Hell, David .Moore. B. J. Crossthwaite, Jacob G.
Frick, Arthur Higgins, Augustus Moor, .lames Irvine. John < '.
Groom, John G. Marshall. John W. Lowe, William Howard.
Tn the midst of the war period, at the Ohio election of 1846, the
Whigs continued in ascendancy. David Tod, again a candidate for
governor, was defeated by a small plurality by William Bebb. The
vote st I. Bebb 118,869, Tod 116,489, and Samuel Lewis, Liberty
party, 10,797. William Bebb was a native of Butler county I 1 ^"M I,
288 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
in early manh 1 had taught school at North Bend, the home of Gen-
eral Harrison, and since 1831 had been practicing law at Hamilton.
After the close of his term he visited England, in L855, and organized
a colony which settled in East Tennessee. This enterprise was
broken up by the rebellion, and he spent the remainder of his days in
Illinois.
In his second message to the legislature Governor Behh renewed
the attack on the Black haws, saying: "I cannot forget that the
Black Laws still disgrace our statute books. All .1 ran do is earnestly
to reiterate the recommendation for their unqualified repeal.
Through all the preceding years tin- Underground railroad had been
doing ii- w^rk. assisting the passage of runaway slaves through Ohio.
In 1843 the State legislature had repealed the law intended to aid in
the capture of these fugitives. The attempts to reclaim negroes were
the cause of much litigation. In 1845 three citizens of < (hio, < tamer,
Thomas and Loraine, helped some slaves up the Ohio hank of the
river, and were arrested, taken to Virginia and indicted. This was
the basis of the celebrated ease in which Samuel F. Vinton made his
great argument before the bench of twelve judges at Richmond, Ya.,
mi the extent of the ancient boundary of Virginia. In March, \ v 16,
Columbus was excited by the abduction of Jerry Finney, a colored
waiter there for many years, who was carried hack to a former owner
in Kentucky. The men implicated in his seizure were arrested for
kidnapping.
The administration of Mr. Behh was marked by the close of the
war with Mexico, and some important steps toward the building of
railroads. The Little Miami, which had been equipped in 1843 with
one locomotive, two passenger roaches and eight freight cars, all built
at Cincinnati, was relaid with heavier rails, and having been com
pleted to Springfield in 1846, within the next two years became a link
in the first through railroad line across ( )hio, from Sandusky to Cleve-
land. In 1847 Richard Billiard and Henry 1!. Payne, of Cleveland,
began the taking of subscriptions for the building of tin I low-
land, Columbus & Cincinnati railroad, to Columbus; Alfred Kelly
was made president, and Frederick Barbach, Amasa Stone and Still-
man Witt undertook the construction, and work was begun in ls-iS
ami completed in 1851. The Cleveland, Warren & Pittsburg was
begun in 1847 and completed in 1852. It is also worthy of aote that
in Is 17 the first press telegram was received at Cincinnati, beginning
thai system of newspaper telegraphic news that is now such a familiar
feature of everyday life. In the following year Prof. ( >. M. Mitchel
mounted at his observatory, ne of the Cincinnati hills, a great
telescope, carrying a lens manufactured at Munich. The land had
been donated by Nicholas Longworth, John Quincy Adam- had laid
the corner stone of the pier, and many laboring men had donated their
work to the cause of science.
BEFORE THE WAR. 289
When Congress was < 1 i -<-i i ~- i 1 1^. "expansion," ami legislating in
anticipation of settlement with Mexico in 1846, and ii was soughl to
appropriate $3,000,000 for the purchase of territory on the Pacific
coast, there was proposed what is known in history as the VVilmol pro-
viso, written by Judge Jacob Brinkerhoff, of Mansfield, then a mem-
ber of ( Jongress, which provided thai negro slavery should be excluded
from the new territory. [Jpon this proposition a new party was
formed in L848, at the Buffalo convention, in which Joshua R. Gid-
dings and Salmon P. Chase were conspicuous figures. Thomas Cor-
win was talked of by many as the presidential candidate of the new
party, but having gone too far in opposition to the Mexican war. he
was now suspected of shrinking from full allegiance to the Wilmol
proviso. John McLean was also the favorite of some delegates, hut
his son-in-law, Chase, did not formally present his name. Martin
VanBuren was nominated for president, upon the platform, "Free
Soil, Free Speech, Five Labor and Free .Men." General Taylor,
under whom many Ohioans had foughl in .Mexico, was nominated
by the Philadelphia convention of the Whig-, of which John
Sherman was secretary, and the regular Democratic candidate was
the former Ohio colonel and general, Lewis Cass. For governor-
of Ohio the Whigs pu1 up Seabury Ford, who gained the nomination
by a majority of two over Columbus Delano. The Democrats named
John B. Weller, of Hamilton, a brilliant young man, then thirty-four
years old, who had served in Congress three terms and as lieutenant-
colonel in the Mexican war.
The electoral vote of the state was given to Cass, who received
154,773 votes, Taylor, 138,359, and Van Biiren, 35,357. But Taylor
was elected, and at his inauguration called to his cabinet Thomas
Ewirig as secretary of the interior.* Among the congressmen elected
in 1848 were David T. Disney, a man who narrowly missed the high-
est political honors of the State ; Lewis D. Campbell, of Butler countyj
who m.w began a career of great prominence as a statesman, being five
times re-elected, and Moses I '>. Oorw i n, a Whig lawyer of Champaign,
who had been in ( Jongress in L839 1 1, and at this election had a small
majority over his son, John A., who ran against him as a Democrat.
The organization of the legislature developed one of the most
remarkable political struggles in the history of the State. The pre-
vious legislature had attempted to divide Hamilton county into two
districts for the election of representatives, and the legality of this
was in dispute. Two sets of representatives appeared, and neither
party in the legislature was strong enough to organize, until a plan
of compr ise was forced upon ihcm by the eight Free Soil members.
*Elisha Whittlesey, horn in Connecticut in 1783. a pioneer lawyer at Can-
field in 1S06. was appointed comptroller of the treasury by Taylor, and held
the place until Buchanan's administration. He was restored to the office by
Lincoln, and retained it until near his death in 1863.
1-19
L".HI
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
In the senate two members of the Free Soil party held the balance of
power and much time was consumed in organization. After both
housi - were organized they did little but meel and adjourn until Jan-
uary 8, 1849, when they me1 to canvass the vote for governor. The
first committee appointed to count the returns threw out two counties
and reported the election of Weller. But finally, on January 22d,
a return was agreed to which showed a majority for Kurd of 31 1 votes
in a total of about three hundred thousand. The next struggle was
over the election of a [Jnited States senator to succeed William Allen.
The Democrats voted for Allen, and the Whigs for Thomas Ewing.
But two Free Soilers, Morton S. Townshend, of Lorain, and John F.
Morse, of Lake county, controlled the situation. Morse desired the
election of Joshua K. Giddings, and Townshend that of Salmon 1'.
Chase. They demanded the repeal of the Black Laws and the election
of one of their candidate- for [Jnited States senator, and in return
they were willing to help either of the old parties elect two members
of the State supreme court. Giddings, the veteran abolitionist, had
too stroll"' a record for some of the Whigs; lmt Townshend succeeded
in his coalition with the Democrats, and Chase was elected to the
United States senate.''" Rufus 1'. Spalding and William I!. Caldwell
were elected to the -u ] ireini • court, and the Flack Laws were modified.
so as to remove the most offensive restrictions upon the negroes, Mid
provision was made for separate schools for negro children. But
further than this Ohio was not disposed to go in making the uegroes
citizens. Two years later a proposition to give colored men a right
to vote was defeated in the legislature, 108 to i:;. and it i- probable
that le-s than one-tenth of the voters of the Slate would have voted
to strike the word white out of the qualifications for franchise.!
Seabury Ford is to be remembered as the first governor from the
Western Reserve. Born at Cheshire, Conn., in 1801, in the same
town that was the birthplace of his uncle, Peter Bitchcock, he was
brought to Ohio a few years later by his parents, and reared at Fur-
Ion. He walked hack to Connecticut to enter Yale College, where he
was the only Ohio student. After studying under Judge Bitchcock
he became prominent as a lawyer and efficienl as a legislator, repre-
senting Geauga county and his senatorial district for a number of
years. In politic- lie was an ardent supporter of Henry (day. After
•This deal was called bad names by the Whigs of Ohio, who fiercely de
: the Free Soil party movement, for partisan reasons. Of its effect
upon sentiment something may he judged from the following extract from
an historical paper by A. G. Kiddle, in LS75: "Whatever may he said of the
morality or the expediency of tin- course pursued, no doubt can exis; of its
effect upi n Mi' Chase and his career. It lost to him at once and forever the
nee of everj Win?; of middle age in Ohio. Its shadow, never wholly
dispelled, always fell upon him and hovered near ami darkened his pathway
ii- political after life."
fMessageoi Gov. R B. Hayes, 1868.
BEFORE THE WAR. 291
n term of two year- as governor he returned to his home, where he
died in L855.
The year 1849 was marked by another attack of cholera. There
were LG2 deaths at Columbus, and many other places suffered, bul
none so severely as Cincinnati, where there were 4,114 deaths that
summer. In L850 Cincinnati was almost depopulated by the panic
caused by the epidemic, and the deaths numbered nearly five thou-
sand. The disease returned in various parts of the state, during the
following summers, the last visitation occurring in 1854.
A feature of internal improvements at this time was a sudden
notion for plank roads, a scheme nol badlj adapted to some parts of
the undrained country. A hundred companies for such work were
incorporated by the legislature in L850. A good many roads were
laid, which have Long since disappeared.
The census of L850 showed a population in the State of practically
two million ( 1,980,329), of which only 25,000 were colored people.
Beyond the Ohio were two states, perfectly adapted to white labor,
but denied it by the unfortunate policy of the South ; states that fifty
years before had seven times the population of Ohio; but Ohio now-
had as many people as Kentucky and Tennessee together, and among
her people she did not have, as they did, 450,000 ignorant slaves, a
degradation of labor and a menace to civilization. Virginia, one
hundred and fifty years older than Ohio, with a third more area,
abundant mines of coal and iron and magnificent ocean ways, had
fallen far behind in population, and, even counting one-third of ber
people as persona] property, her assessed valuation was a hundred
millions less than that of Ohio. Cincinnati, the metropolis of Ohio,
with a population of 11."). ooo, had already equalled the ancient city
of New Orleans, and far surpassed Charleston and Louisville.
There was a lesson in this that the South would not see. The South
insisted on settling more id' the territory of the United Slates with a
comparatively small number of while people who should monopolize
the land ami work it with slaves, to the exclusion of foreign immigra-
tion, and against such a policy the opposition daily grew stronger
in the North. California, acquired through the war with Mexico,
in L848 became the subject of contention on account of the discovery
of gold and the great rush to the gold fields in 1849. The pioneers
framed a constitution prohibiting slavery ami asked admission as a
state.""" The radical Southern leaders thereupon threatened secession
from the Union if slave- were barred from that part of the Pacific
coast. Th< • \ asserted what Benl -ailed, in derision, "the transmi-
gratory function of the constitution ami the instantaneous transpor
ration of itself in it- slavery attributes into all acquired territory."
♦John McDougall. son of a pioneer trader at Chillicothe and a captain in
tli" ivlexicau war, was elected the first lieutenant-governor of the aev
and governor in 1 851.
292
CENTENNIAL, HISTORY OF OHIO.
The northern men fighting for free soil demanded the admission of
California and Ww Mexico without slavery, the abolition of slavery
in the distrid of Columbia, and the prohibition of the slave trade
between the states. Clay proposed a compromise, and Daniel Web-
ster made his famous speech of March, L850, by which, said Giddings,
"a blow was struck al freedom and the constitutional rights of the
Ir was Webster's purpose, by pointing out the excesses and misun-
derstandings of both sides, to calm the fears of the South and end the
anti-slavery agitation in the North. For the moment, Clay and Web-
ster succeeded. The compromise prevailed, California was admitted
free, Utah and New Mexico were left as territories without the Wil-
mot proviso, and a new fugitive slave law was enacted, so severe that
Seward considered it part of a conspiracy to justify secession. In
this greal political battle, during which threats of dismembering the
Union were freely made in Congress and in the legislatures of the
South. Ohio's free soil leaders, Salmon P. Chase and Joshua K. Gid-
dings, made a stand with Seward. Hale, and Thaddeus Stevens, "(in
the principle of permitting no more slavery in the national domain,
ami, while the Southern leaders were dreaming and talking of the con-
quest of Mexico and Cuba, they determined it should he kimwn that
there was a hand of men totally opposed to the c [uest of more terri-
tory unless it were expressly understood that it should he dedicated to
freedom." The impartial years, says Mi'. Rhodes, have vindicated
their course as right.
'Hie compromise of 1 850 was approved, however, by the greater part
of the people of Ohio, because it promised sectional peace. An
enthusiastic meeting at Dayton resolved that the settlement wa- the
hot attainable, and that "the Union, the c stitution and the laws
must and shall he maintained.'" This meeting was addressed by
Clemenl L. Vallandigham, horn in 1820 at New Lisbon, where his
father hail been a Presbyterian clergyman and teacher mho L807.
flu young man had become a lawyer and newspaper writer at Day-
ton, led hi- party in the legislature of 1848-49, and opposed the repeal
of the Black Laws. He succeeded!. D.Campbell in Congress in
1857, and wa- one of the ablest of those men in the North who from
this lime became particularly noted for advocating sectional peace, at
any price.
f'.ut far more imp.. riant in permanent influence than the speech of
Vallandigham or the Dayton resolution*; was a little family letter writ-
i al t the same time by Mr-. Edward Beecher to her sister-in-law,
Mr-. Harriet Beecher Stowe. In it wen' these words, inspired by
the compromise and the fugitive slave law: "llattie. if I could use
a p. n a- you can. 1 would write something that would make this whole
' History of the United States.
BEFORE THE WAR. 293
nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.'" Harriet Beecher had
come to Cincinnati in 1832, with her father, Dr. Lyman Beecher, the
president of Lane Theological seminary, had married Prof. Calvin E.
Stowe of the same institution, in 1836, and afterward had busied her-
self in writing for the newspapers and magazines of that day. For a
time she assisted her brother. Henry Ward Beecher, in editing the
Daily Journal. She was familiar with the doings of Levi Coffin, and
had seen her father and In-other arm themselves to take to an interior
station of the Underground railroad a servant, considered free, that
a former master proposed to recall to slavery. Her mind had been
tilled with pictures of border state slavery — the prices set on negro
women for their qualifications as breeders, slave auctions with their
disregard of modesty and humanity, the parting of families — happen-
ings quite real ami unquestionable, and defended only on the ground
that the negroes were not unhappy in such conditions, and that the
anguish of separated families and the pangs of desecrated modesty
existed only in the minds of people north of the Ohio. To some
extent the defense was reasonable, lint that class of negroes keen-
witted enough to escape into Ohio did not lack in descriptive powers
nor manifestation of human attributes. Being also of a restive ami
uncontrollable nature, the fugitives were likely to bear the marks of
cruel seourgings, brandings like cattle and cropped ears. When -he
left Cincinnati for Bowdoin college, whither her husband was trans-
ferred in LS50, Mrs. Stowe had in hand the elements of a thrilling
story of border life, and in L851-52, in respon.se to the suggestion
already mentioned, she gave it to the world in the National Era, pub-
lished at Washington by Gamaliel • Bailey and John G. Whittier.
Such was the source of I'ncle Tom's Cabin, the greatest American
novel up to that time, and, very likely, yet the greatest. Within a
few mouths Mrs. Stowe was the most famous woman in the world.
Eighteen publishing houses in London were kept busy supplying the
demand for the book in Great Britain, and before long, ii was trans-
lated into all modern languages. In August, 1852, the story was
dramatized, and the hoodlum of the galleries who had delighted in
pelting abolitionists with rotten eggs was persuaded to weep over the
sorrows of I'ncle Tom and meditate vengeance againsl slave hunter-.
The exciting national issues were much discussed in Ohio during
the State campaign of LS50, but there was a general disposition to
accept the compromise. Reuben Wood, of Cuvahoga county, was
elected on the Democrat ticket bv a plurality of 12,000 over William
Johnston, Win,-, while KdwarM Smith, the candidate of the Free Soil
party, had about 13,500 votes. Wood, an eminent lawyer and popu-
lar politician, was a native of Vermont ( 1 7 '- ' ii ) . had been a state sen
ator in 1 s i'o-l'~. and afterward a judge of the common pleas and
suprei iourts. Being "a giant in stature, ereel a- an Indian, with
the presence of a chief ami the bearing of a soldier," he was known as
294 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
the "Tall Chief of the Cuyahogas," when he was a candidate before
the Democratic national convention in 1852, for the nomination for
president of the United States.
Senator Corwin bad been called to the cabinel of President Fill-
more as secretary of the treasury after the death of President Taylor,
and Thomas Ewing, who retired from the cabinet after the death of
Taylor, was appointed in Corwin's place as senator. The legislature
of LS50-51 had the duty of electing a successor, and the task proved
to be an arduous one. The candidate of the Democrats "was Henry B.
Payne, a lawyer at Cleveland since LS33 and already conspicuous iu
the railroad and manufacturing enterprises of the State. His main
opponent at first was Hiram Griswold, with Joshua R. Giddings
receiving enough rotes to prevent an election. Griswold finally
'hopped out and Thomas Ewing, Thomas Corwin. Benjamin F.
Wade and Ebenezer Lane were successively voted for against Payne,
until the opposition mainly concentrated on Wade, and he was
elected by a majority of one on the thirty-seventh ballot This was
one of the most important events in the history of the State, as it
gave Ohio a double leadership in the United States senate in favor of
that policy that presently gained ascendency in the North and sus-
tained the war for the Union.
During this exciting struggle a convention was framing a new con-
stitution for the State. The convention was called by act of Febru-
ary, 1 >.*■<». and convened at Columbus, May 6th, with one hundred and
eight members. William Medill, of Fairfield county, a Delaware man
who bad become one of the lawyers of the famous Lancaster bar in
1832, and as a Democrat had presided as speaker of the Ohio house,
served in congress and held office at Washington a- assistant-post-
master-general and commissioner of Indian affairs, was made presi-
dent of the convention. Among the members were Unfits P. Ranney,
Josiah Scott, Peter Hitchcock and Joseph R. Swan, justices of the
supreme virt; Charles Reemelin, a noted writer on politics and
economics; William S. Groesbeck and Henry Stanbery, eminent jur-
ists; William P. Culler, son of Kphraim Cutler, who sat in the first
convention; Simeon Jvash, the law writer, and Otway Curry, a bril-
liant editor.* Governor Vance, while a delegate to the convention,
was stricken with paralysis, from which he died in the following year.
The convention sat at Columbus until July 9th, and at Cincinnati
from December 2, IS50, to Match 10. 1S51, when the fruit of its
labor was adopted as the constitution of ( >hio. It was a much more
elaborate instrumenl than that of 1802] and like its predecessor has
served the State for half a century withoul much amendment. A
marked change was that the legislature was deprived of the election
of -tate officers and judges, which was referred to popular vote,
'Ryan's History of Ohio.
BFFORE THE WAR. 295
showing a progress of confidence in the ability of the people to govern
themselves, since the days of Jefferson. At the same time, the exper-
ience in canal and railroad building persuaded the constitution
framers to deny the people of any city, town or county the right of
voting aid and incurring debt in behalf of any corporation, and it was
provided that the State should never again contrad any debt for the
purpose of internal improvement, or be a shareholder in any corpora-
tion. In the attempt to regulate taxation the constitution went so far
as to specify exactly what should be taxed, and consequently the tax-
ing of franchises, a matter of greal importance fifty years later, is noi
allowable in Ohio.
The meetings of the legislature were changed to the firsl Monday
of January, every ether year, and both representative- and senators
were to be elected biennially. The membership of the house was fixed
at one hundred, of the senate at thirty-three. There was to be a new
state officer, the lieutenant-governor, and all state officials were to he
elected biennially, except the auditor, who should held office four
years. A supreme court of five members was created, the justices
to hold five years, and since then the number has been increased to
six, with six-year terms. The first supreme court, under the new
constitution, was composed of Thomas W. Hartley. John A. Corwin,
Allen G. Thnrman. Rufus P. Ttanney and William B.Caldwell.
In place of the nineteen judicial districts previously existing, nine
were created, with three common pleas judges in each, and these
three with a judge of the supreme court presiding, constituted a dis-
trict court. Special incorporations by the legislature were forbid-
den. The faith of the State was pledged for the payment < ■ t" its
public debt, Incurred in public improvements, and a sinking fund
was created. The powers of the governor were tail increased and
the veto power was withheld.
This new constitution was submitted to the people at a special
election in June, 1851, and adopted by a vote of 125,264 to 109,276.
At the same time a separate vote was cast en this section: "No
license to traffic in intoxicating liquors shall hereafter he granted in
this State: but the general assembly may. by law. provide against
evils resulting therefrom," and the clause was adopted by a majority
of about nine thousand.
The first elections under the new constitution were in October,
1851, beginning the odd year election- in Ohio, and a- congressmen
and part of the State officers were to he chosen in even years, Ohio
ha- since had annual elections. At this election of l v". l the l 1 - mo
crat party was successful. Governor Reuben W I was n
by a majority of 26,000 over Samuel F. Vinton, the Whig candidate,
and Sanmel Lewi-, who was put up by the Liberty party, received
ah.. ui 1.7,000 votes. The remainder of the ticket elected was Will-
iam .Medill. lieutenant-governor; William Trevitt, secretary of
296 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
state; William I). Morgan, auditor of state; John G. Breslin, treas-
urer of state; George E. Pugh,* attorney-general; and members >f
the board of public works, James B. Steedman, George W. Many-
penny and Alexander 1'. .Miller. The terms of office of all these offi-
cials began in January, 1852.
It should be noted that in this period the first state fairs were
attracting much attention. They were begun at Cincinnati in 1850,
and held annually with much success at various cities. Nor should
it be forgotten that it was a time of great decline in the sheep grow-
ing industry. There were about four million sheep in the State in
1848, but many wool factories went out of business after the tariff
change of 1846, and wool growing became unprofitable. This had
a marked political influence.
The year 1852 was a memorable one. On February 1. 1852, the
old statehouse, built by the founders of Columbus, burned down. A
new statehouse had already been begun in 1839, and was completed
in 1861, at a cost of $1,644,677. In February Louis Kossuth, the
Hungarian patriot, visited Colummis and Cincinnati, by the invita-
tion and at the expense '>t' the State and citizens, but failed to arouse
sufficient enthusiasm to involve the country in war with Austria. In
.Time the Whigs nominated General Winfield Scott for president and
the Democrats, on the forty-ninth ballot, named Franklin Pierce;
one of Ohio's sons, Lewis Cass, failing in hi- great ambition. In
July the great political hero of the West. Henry Clay, died, and
thousands wept as hi- body was home through Ohio. In October
Daniel Webster passed away, and with the loss of these two leaders,
the fate of the Whig party was certain. In the fall, while the Whigs
received a crushing defeat, the valiant Giddings made a successful
fighl in a congressional district that had been arranged to secure
his overthrow, ami there was a famous jollification dinner at Paines-
Ville.
The period of Governor W 1's administration was notable in the
railroad history of Ohio. In February, 1851, the first throuffh train
was 'iin from Columbus to Cleveland, ami the governor and hi- staff
and the legislature were treated to an excursion. In September,
1851, the Greal .Miami railroad (Cincinnati. Hamilton & Dayton),
was opened, having been constructed by the sale of stock in Cincin-
nati mainly, and bonds in New York, without such dependence on
municipal and county subscription a- was common. It soon became
the greal thoroughfare of Cincinnati. This and the Little Miami
were the only railroads at Cincinnati until 1857, when the Ohio &
Mississippi was completed westward to Vincennes. The Marietta
& Cincinnati, begun in 1851, was not completed to Cincinnati till
:<■ Ellis Push, (in.- of tlie great lawyers of the State, was horn at Cin-
L822 He was educate,! at Miami university, and
served as a captain in the Mexican war.
BEFORE THE WAR. 297
1866. The Bellefontaine to Union railroad was opened in 1853,
and a portion of the Cincinnati, Richmond and Chicago. The Cin-
cinnati & Zanesville was begun in 1851, and the Columbus, Piqua &
Indiana \\a< in construction. In 1852-54 the Ohio i: Pennsylvania
was built to Crestline from the east, and the Ohio \- Indiana from
Crestline to Fort Wayne, but ir was not until 1858 thai trains were
run over these linos from Pittsburg to Chicago. The Cleveland,
Warren & Pittsburg was completed, making connection with Pittst
bitrg and the cast. The Cleveland & Mahoning Valley road was
begun, but dragged along for several years, its principal promo-
ter, Jacob Perkins, declaring on his deathbed in Cuba, "You may
inscribe on my tombstone, Died of the Mahoning Valley railroad."
The Sandusky, Mansfield lV Newark, a combination of railroads
laid with iron-plated plank rails, was reconstructed; construction was
in progress on the Central Ohio (Columbus to Bellaire), afterward
merged in the Baltimore & Ohio system, it is interesting to trace
the origin, in this period, of the Lake Shore system. The Junction
railroad company, chartered in L846 to link the Cleveland. Colum-
bus & Cincinnati and the Mad River & hake Erie, took the old Ohio
railroad right of way and pulled up its piles and timbers to make
room for ties and iron rails; the Toledo, Nbrwalk \- Cleveland com-
pany, to connect Toledo with the Cleveland and Columbus read, was
incorporated in 1850, and the Port Clinton railroad company in
1852. In 1853 these companies were consolidated in the Cleveland
& Toledo railroad upany, which built the roads. .Meanwhile, in
1852, the Cleveland, Painesville & Ashtabula road had been built,
to connect with the Pennsylvania lines to Erie and eastward, ami the
original Toledo & Adrian road was being extended under various
names to Chicago. The lilies remained separate until after the
great National war.
The total mileage of railroads in 1852 is given as 890. During
the next ten years over two thousand more mile- of iron track were
laid in the State and equipped with locomotives and ears. This
largely monopolized the energy and capital of the State and the
progress of building in all the states enlisted most of the capital of
the east, for if meant an expenditure of over $100,000,000, in Ohio
alone.
Of great importance in th.' financial history of the State was the
Free Hanking law enacted in 1851. It- principal author was Will-
iam Lawrence, horn at ,Mt. Pleasant in 1819, who was on the
threshold of a distinguished career. Under this law the State sup-
plied the hanks with paper money, somewhat as the United States
doe- national hanks now under tin- financial system of Salmon P.
Chase. The Ohio law authorized the auditor of state to issue notes
to hank-, not to e\« 1 three times their paid-up capital, when they
should have made a deposil of the 3ame amount of State er United
298 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
States bonds. Tin's made four banking systems in Ohio: those
banks chartered before 1845, which had $1,500,000 capital; the
State bank and branches, with a capita] of $4,000,000; the inde-
pendent banks, with $720,000 capital, ami the Free banks, which in
1845 had about $700,000 capital. The issues of these banks formed
the currency that circulated in business Tin- numerous systems
aided the natural tendency to inflation, which continued until L854,
where there was a crisis in the stock market in Xew York and a
responsive run on the Ohio stock banks for coin. Though the notes
of these banks were secured by bonds, they suffered depreciation in
value, and the notes of the old fashioned banks, without such securi-
ties on deposit, became almosl worthless.*
Under the provisions of the new constitution the legislature
(March 14, 1853), passed an act for the reorganization of the com-
mon school system, for which Ohio is mainly indebted to Harvey
Rice, of Cuyahoga county. Radical changes were introduced,
amounting t<i the founding of the modern system of public educa-
tion in Ohio.
A famous event of 1853 was the law suit growing out of the loss
of the -learner Martha Washington by tire on the Mississippi river,
with a cargo heavily insured. Conspiracy was charged and the most
famous lawyers of the Slate, including Thomas Ewing, Noah
Swayne, Judge Walker, Durbin Ward, George Pendleton^ Henry
Stanhery and George Pugh took part in the trial in the United States
court at ( )olumbus.
Governor Wood, becoming financially embarrassed, resigned July
L5, 1853, to become United States consul at Valparaiso, and Lieut. -
Gov. William Medill succeeded him. In October Medill was
elected governor as the candidate of the Democratic party, reci iving
nearly 1 .Mi, nun vote-. Nelson Barrere, nominated by the Whigs,
polled only 85,857, while the Free Soil people rolled up 50,1 for
Samuel Lewis. The legislature was so strongly Democratic (three
to one) that George E. Pugh was elected United States senator in
March, L854, by a large majority on the first ballot, to succeed Sal-
mon I'. Chase. But this remarkable political triumph was short
lived. At the time of Pugh's election Congress was struggling over
a new extension of slavery in the territories, that permanently
divided the party of Jackson and VanBuren. Stephen A. Douglas,
desiring to give a territorial organization to the great western region
then known as Nebraska, embraced in a bill for that purpose what he
called "popular sovereignty," which, in brief, was allowing if' s< t-
tlers lo decide whether they would have slavery or not. This he did
to gain the vote- of the Southern congressmen, wl therwise would
leave Nebraska in the hand- of the Indians.
'Journal of Conine r< < ' Hanking.
BEFORE THE WAR. 290
At the opening' of the debate on this question earh in 1 v.:;, Sena-
f or Chase was the leader of the opposition in the United States
senate. "He was, with perhaps the exception of Sumner, the hand-
somest man in the senate, and as he rose to make his plea for the
maintenance of plighted faith, all felt the force of his commanding
presence. More than sis feet tall, lie had a frame and figure pro-
portioned to liis height. With his large head, massive brow ami
smoothly shaven face, he looked like a Roman senator."* Ben
Wade. Seward and Sumner, following him, were the other great
opponents of Douglas. During the discussion a Carolina senator
drew a pathetic picture of the cruelty of compelling him to leave
behind the ""Id mammy," his negro nurse in childhood, if he should
seek a new home in the West, and Wade provoked the laughter of
the Xorth by the quick retort that no one could find fault with the
senator's migration to Kansas, nor his taking his mammy with
him, hut there was serious objection to his selling her after he got
there.
Modified so as to provide for two territories. Kansas and Nebraska,
the hill permitting the introduction of shivery into Them and annull-
ing the compromise boundary line of 1820, passed Congress despite
the desperate struggle of Chase and Wade and Giddings and their
allies. Thousands of people in the North were now convinced that
the aggressions of slavery would never cease until the whoh untry
was overspread with it. As an extremist. William Lloyd Garrison
publicly burned a copy of the United States constitution, declaring,
"The Union must be -dissolved," and extremists of the South were of
the same mind when they waxed angry at the notion of forbidding
them to emigrate to the west with their laborers as slaves. At the
same time the Xorth was alarmed by the efforts of the administration
to annex Cuba, apparently as slave territory, to balance new western
states, which resulted a few months later in the "Ostend manifesto,"
by the United States ministers in Europe, declaring that the United
State- could not enjoy peace until Cuba "was embraced within its
boundaries."
The situation gave birth to a new political party. On duly 13,
1854, the anniversary of the ordinance of 17S7, a convention met
at Columbus, with representatives from every town in the State, to
organize all the political (dements opposed to the extension of slav-
ery into Kansas and Nebraska. This brought together Democrat,
Whig, Free Soil ami Liberty men: the friends of Birney and those
of VanBuren, and those who elected Chase to the senate iii L849.
Already a convention of similar sentiment had adopted the party
mime of Republican in Michigan, hut this Columbus convention did
not go -o far. The resolutions of the convention contained this
*McCulloc-h's "Men and Measures."
3(|() CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
pledge: "We will Labor assiduously to render inoperative and void
that portion of the Kansas and Nebraska bill" permitting the inva-
sion by slavery of the territory pledged to free labor by the Missouri
compromise, and we will oppose by every lawful and constitutional
means every increase of slave territory or -lave states "in this repub-
lican confederacy." A State ticket was nominated: Joseph 11.
Swan, a Democrat, for judge of the supreme court and .1. Blickens-
derfer for member of the board of public works, and in every congres-
sional district a candidate was nominated or approved by this new
party opposed to slavery in Kansas and Nebraska, and known as the
Anti-Nebraska party. The old party lines were abandoned and the
people were arrayed definitely on this issue, with the result that the
new party swept the State, electing Swan by a majority of T"'.^ 1 "*
and carrying every congressional district. Congressmen David T.
Disney, Alfred 1'. Edgerton, Andrew Ellison, Moses B. Corwin, Wil-
son Shannon and others were defeated; John Scott Harrison (son of
the General), Lewis 1 ). Campbell, .Matthias II. Nichols, Aaron Har-
lan, William R. Sapp, Edward Ball, Edward Wade and Joshua R.
Giddings were re-elected, and among the new names appeared those
of Benjamin Stanton, a Quaker native of Belmont county; Samuel
Galloway, of Columbus, a man of great eloquence and humor, to be
known later as the intimate friend of Tod and Lincoln; John Sher-
man, then thirty-one years old, a lawyer of ten year-' practice; and
John A. Bingham, of < 'adiz. a Pennsylvanian who had come to < >hio
in 1840, practiced law, and occasionally met in political debate that
staunch Democrat, Edwin M. Stanton. Bingham began at this elec-
tion a career of sixteen years in Congress, Sherman one of forty.
These men were Ohio's contribution to that memorable Congres-
sional battle of the winter of 1855-56. While the Anti-Nebraska
men had been very successful in Northern states, their victory was
in some degree involved in the sudden spread of another new party,
started in 1S52, founded upon a secret society for the promotion of
native-American ruh — the American or "Know Nothing" party,
so-called from the apparent ignorance of its leaders regarding the
secret society. Among the candidates .. for speaker of the lower
house of Congress was Lewis D. Campbell, of Ohio, who had the
favor of some of the Northern "Know-Nothings" and the support
of Horace Greeley. The Anti-Nebraskan congressmen, led by the
veteran Joshua R. Giddings, voted for Nathaniel P. Hanks. ' The
contest continued from the opening of Congress until early in Feb-
ruary, with great excitement and angry discussion, in which Gid-
dings with his stalwarl frame and heroic courage bore the brunt of
the battle. Finally, on the 133d ballot, Hanks was elected by a
plurality of three, and Giddings, the "Father of the House," enjoyed
the reward of sixteen years of struggle. Ohio cast eighteen of the
votes necessary to elecl Banks, and two for Campbell, and her intlu-
BEFORE THE WAR. jq-j
ence was pre-eminent in winning the victory. There had been much
talk of "our section," among the Southern congressmen. There were
threat-, als.., of secession. Bui now Giddings took his revenge, and
shouted to the opposition, "Your history is written; your d a is
sealed." "We do not intend to dissolve the Union, and we do not
intend to let you do it." Predicting that his party would soon have
the senate and the president, he warned hi- opponents, "Then those
who threaten disunion had better look out."
Before this event, in 1855, came the first convention in Ohio that
revived the eld Jeffersonian name of Republican. It was called to
order at Columbus by Joshua R. Giddings, and John Sherman was
made permanent chairman. Its membership included representa-
tives of the Democrat, Whig, American and Free Soil parties. The
American wing, led by Lewis I). Campbell, desired the nomination
for governor of Jacob Brinkerhoff, of Richland county, for fifteen
years a judge of the supreme court, but Giddings' support gave the
liminr to Salmon 1'. Chase. The Democrats who did not join the
new party nominated William Medill, and a remnant of Whips
named the veteran Allen Trimble, bu1 Chase received a decided plu-
rality, nearly 1.47,000 to L31,000 tor Medill and 24,000 for Trimble.
The full ticket was successful.
The installation of the new officials in January, 1856, was fol-
lowed in a few months, by the discovery of a deficit in the -rate treas-
ury, which caused the resignation of Treasurer William II. Gibson,
who had succeeded his brother-in-law, John G. Breslin. Amasa I'.
Stone was appointed to the vacancy.
The annual elections in this period kept the State in a turmoil of
excitement. In 1856 came the famous Fremont presidential cam-
paign. As a prelude occurred the personal assault upon Charles
Sumner by Preston Brooks, in ('impress, and when Anson Burlin-
game challenged Brooks to a duel, in behalf id' Sumner, whose life
was in danger, Lewis D. Campbell was selected as one of the seconds
of the Michigan congressman. Hut Canada was proposed as the
scene of the fight, and Brooks declined to cross 1 1 1 < ■ Northern states.
The national conventions of L856 were held en the Ohio river.
First, there met at Pittsburg the former Whips. Democrats and Free
Soilers who now took the title id' Republicans, in a memorable eon 1
vention largely dominated by Joshua R. Giddings, Salmon I'. Chase
and Benjamin F. Wade. Though Judge McLean was strongly sup-
ported, they nominated for president John < '. Fremont, the "path-
finder" of the Rocky .Mountains and son-in-law of Thomas IL
Benton. The Democrats came further west, in recognition of the
new power in the nation, and held their convention at Cincinnati,
nominating Buchanan. Ohio gave Fremont a plurality of nearly
17,000 over Buchanan, while 28,000 votes were cast for Fillmore,
the candidate of the Americans and Whigs. In the congressional
302 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
elections there was a Democral or conservative gain, notably in the
election in the Firsl district of George II. Pendleton, a young lawyer
of Cincinnati, beloved for his courteous manner and high character;
in the Second district of William S. (li sheck, of Cincinnati, an
older man who had been prominent in the constitutional convention :
in the Third district of Clement L. Vallandigham, who was adjudged
by Congress to have a majority over Campbell, though the latter was
at first awarded a majority of nineteen; and in the Twelfth district
of Samuel Sullivan Cox, of Zanesville, grandson of the former state
treasurer, Samuel Sullivan. He was then but twenty-two years old,
but had earned a diplomatic appointment and considerable fame as
editor of the < >hio Statesman.
The election of Buchanan, despite the large vote polled by Fre-
mont, was a victory for the party now engaged in struggle with
Northern colonists for the possession of Kansas. John Brown, after
leaving Summit county, Ohio, for the East, had become one of the
recruits for the Kansas war. and being joined in l s ">4 by five of his
.-on- from ( >hio. made his home near ( >ssawatomie, and began to have
national fame, dust after the inauguration of Buchanan came the
famous Dred Scott decision of the United State- supreme court.
The law. in 1856, a.- announced by Chief Justice Taney, was that
when Dred Scott's owner, in .Missouri, took him into Illinois, he
remained a slave, in spite of the Illinois laws forbidding slavery,
because Dred Scott, being a negro, was not a citizen of the United
States. Though Illinois might recognize him as a citizen and grant
him the citizen's privilege of lawful marriage, when his owner took
him hack to .Missouri he continued in his former condition as a slave,
and had no claim to liberty, wife or children. The same ruling had
previoiisly been made in cases of negroes taken into Ohio and back
into Kentucky. The court also, in declaring the .Missouri compro-
mise unconstitutional, math' it impossible to draw any line on slavery
extension in the future. Judge McLean, the representative of Ohio
on the supreme bench, dissented, ami held that if Dred Scott became
live mi entering Illinois with his master, he remained free when ho
returned to Missouri. In plain words he stated the danger that
threatened the nation. "It seems to me the principle' laid down will
enable the people of a slave state to introduce slavery into a free state,
for a longer or shorter time, as may serve their convenience, and by
returning the slave to the state whence he was brought, by force or
otherwise, the status of slavery attaches, and protects the rights of
the master and defies the sovereignty of the free states." A year
later Abraham Lincoln startled the North by his clear and forcible
statement of the same truth, which had keen realized by the enemies
id' slavery for mam years, inspiring them to their thankless and
actually dangerous labors. "This government cannot permanently
endure half -hue and half free," said Lincoln. "It will become all
BEFORE THE WAI
303
one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery -will
arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind
shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction;
or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful
in all the states, old as well as new. North as well as South."
In 1856 it became apparent thai the greal absorpl ion of the capital
of the country in building railroads, such as those thai then extended
through all parts of Ohio, was to produce serious results. At the
same time there was a change in the tariff, upon which the evil that
followed has been blamed. In 1857 the failure of the Ohio Life and
Trust company started a panic. There was -real depression of
prices and loss of employmenl among working men, caused by sus-
pension of manufacturing enterprises and railroad building, bul on
account of the famine in Ireland and the Crimean war the farmers
did not suffer. The main effect in Ohio was the collapse of the rail-
mud companies. Nearly all of them failed to pay interest, suffered
foreclosure of mortgages, and went into the hands of receivers, from
which most did not emerge until after 1860. A remarkable excep-
tion was the Cleveland, Painesville & Ashtabula, under the presi-
dency of Amasa J. Stone, one of the greatest financiers of Ohio. Eis
road was the must perfect in the State and ten years later had the
best financial record, all the original stockholders who had retained
their stock having enjoyed regular and handsome returns.
A- a result of the misfortunes of the railroads there were strikes
of railroad employes, notably one at Chillicothe, January 1. 1858.
The men took possession of the property of the .Marietta & Cincin-
nati road, and stopped the trains, hut the city police put forty
strikers under arrest and the railroad company brought suit against
tin in tor $50,000 damages.
It can be said of Ohio that her financial record during this crisis
was exceptional. Her public debt had reached its maximum,
$20,000,000, in 1845, hut, though there was talk of repudiation, the
honor of the State was rigidly maintained. In 1>.">7 an act was
passed for the incorporation of the Bank of Ohio, with ottices at
Cleveland, Cincinnati and New York. The bank maintained specie
payments through the year l s ">7. The nexl step in regard to money
was made by the legislature in 1858, and it is of great interesl as
indicating the position of financial independence which it was then
believed the State had attained. What was called the independent
treasury system was adopted, and provision was made tot- the gradual
retirement of all hank notes and the collection of taxes in coin only.
The State hank was to come to an end in 1866, and the free hank- in
1872, and after that nothing but hard money was to he receivable
for public dues in the State. Ohio was in such g 1 financial con-
dition when the crisis of I860 arrived that the banks did not suspend
in unison with those of the rest of the country, and there was much
304 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
dispute in the board of control as to whether the banks should be
allowed to suspend specie payments in 1862.
Governor Chase was re-elected governor in 1857 by a very small
plurality. Henry 11. Payne was -elected as the Democrat candidate,
and received 159,294 votes to 160,575 for Chase. Philadelph Van-
Trump, the American candidate, pulled over 10,000 vote;-. The
legislature was strongly Democratic. But in the following year
Christopher P. Wolcott, Republican, was elected over Durbin Ward,
the Democrat candidate for attorney-general, by twenty thousand.
Governor Chase's administration extended from January, 1856,
to January, 1860. Throughout his administration the legislature,
by special sessions, met every January. One of the most important
events of tins period was the reorganization of the militia and a
review of the military forces in 1858. There was practically a state
of war in "bleeding Kansas,'* with the sacking of towns and bloody
encounters of small parties.
In 1858 occurred one of the hist attempt- to make the fugitive slave
law effective in Ohio. A young negro at Oberlin, supposed to be a
fugitive, was taken by four slave hunters to Wellington, where a
crowd rescued him without violence, and sent him to Canada. The
law was invoked, and twenty-even indictments returned in the
United States court, against citizens of Oberlin and Wellington,
including one professor. Two were tried and convicted, and tour-
teen went to jail at Cleveland, refusing to give bail. When the State
supreme court was asked for a writ of habeas corpus, this relief was
denied by a division of three to two. If one judge had been of differ-
ent mind, says President J. 11. Fairchild, in Ins history of Oberlin,
Governor Chase would have sustained "a decision releasing the pris-
oners, by all the powers at his command, and the United State- was
as fully committed to the execution of the fugitive -lave law. This
would have placed Ohio in conflict with the general government in
defense of State rights, and a war might have come in 1859 instead
of 1861." A great mass meeting was held at Cleveland, May 24th,
to express sympathy with the prisoners, and Joshua R, Giddings,
referring to the charges of the Democratic press that he had coun-
seled forcible resistance to the law, declared, "God know- it is the
first truth they have ever told about me." It i- pertinent to add
that in the fall of the same year this veteran radical was defeated in
the nomination for Congress by John Hutchins, by a majority of one
vote. Finally the men in jail were liberated through a compromise
with the slave hunters, who were alarmed by proceedings for kidnap-
ping. So. -aid tin' Cleveland Plaindealer, "the government has been
beaten at last, with law, justice and facts all on its side, and OBerlin,
witli its rebellious higher law creed, i- triumphant."
Stanley Matthew-, of Cincinnati, a Five Soil man appointed
United States district attorney by President Buchanan, enforced
BEFORE THE WAR. 30 5
the provisions of the law against a white man of Cincinnati, who
had given a fugitive negro couple seme bread and water in the pri-
vacy of his home, and the sinful good Samaritan was sent to prison.
Twenty years after, this enforcernenl of the United States statutes
was recalled against Matthews, causing his defeat as a candidate
for Congress, a circumstance that would tend to vindicate those who
considered the fugitive slave law an outrage upon the essential prin-
ciples of humanity and civilization.
Governor Chase, throughout his administration, attempted to
arouse interest in military organization and drill, undoubtedly
because he foresaw the danger of an appeal of the great political
questions ro the high court of war. lie was far from a military man
himself, but he sought to make the State capable of meeting any
emergency. Ellsworth, of Chicago, had shown that militia might
he interested in something more than the manual of arms, and Chase,
with legislative support, encouraged similar companies of Zouaves
in Ohio. A new arsenal was established, and new arms received
from the government. A convention of nearly two hundred officers
met at Columbus to devise means of promoting the militia system,
and at Dayton Governor Chase had the satisfaction of reviewing a
gathering of nearly thirty companies. The result was slight in
value, yet all the westward states combined did not |i,,v>es< so large
a militia body as the First Ohio regiment, under the command of
Colonel King, of Dayton."
In 1859 occurred John Brown's wild raid from Pennsylvania to
Harper's Ferry, to promote an insurrection of negroes; the calling
out of the militia of Virginia : the battle, in which one negro student
of Oherlin lost his life, and the trials and hangings, in which another
Oberlin negro student shared the fate of the old abolitionist. After
this, there was a feeling that the crisis was near at hand. The last
official declaration of Governor Chase was in reply to a notice from
Governor Wise of Virginia that Virginia troops would pursue abo-
lition bands into sister states if necessary to punish them. Chase
responded with dignity that Ohio would obey the constitution and
the laws and discountenance unlawful acts, hut under no circum-
stances would the military of another state he permitted to invade
her territory.
At the state election in 1859 there were no tickets lmt the Demo-
cratic, headed by Rufus P. Ranney, and the Republican, headed by
William Dennison, Jr. Dennison was elected by a majority of over
13,000, and the legislature, strongly Republican, sent Salmon P.
Chase to the United States senate to succeed Pugh.
The new governor, inaugurated in January, 1860, was a native
of Cincinnati, born in L815, -on of the proprietor of one of the most
'Ohio in the War." by Whitelaw Reid.
1—20
so<;
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
famous hotels of the West. In early manhood he married a daughter
of the great stage proprietor, William Neil, of Columbus, and
embarked in the practice of law at the capital. He had shown
marked ability mainly in connection with railroad and bank man-
agement prior to 1860, though he had served a term in the State
senate, but in the campaign against Ranney, an eminent lawyer and
''acknowledged leader of the Ohio bar," he had achieved considerable
popularity. He began his term with the eventful year of l v i'>*>.
destined to be the crisis of the long pending conflict between the free
and slave states. Tlie situation was already serious enough for Gov-
ernor Chase to say in his retiring message, January, I860: "Ohio
has uttered no menace of disunion when the American people have
seen fit to entrust the powers of the Federal government to citizens
of other political views of a majority of her citizens. Xo threats of
disunion in a similar contingency by citizens of other states will
excite in her any sentiments save those of sorrow and reprobation.
They will not move her from her course. She will neither dissolve
the Union herself nor consent to its dissolution by others.
She will abide in the Union and under the constitution maintain
liberty."
Ohio, at this critical epoch, had a population of 2,343,739. This
was one-eighth of the people of the states that might be expected to
unitedly support the uational government, and. with ,">00,000 young
men. it was to be expected that the State would play an important
part in the approaching conflict. To this importance had Ohio
arisen. Sixty year- before a wilderness, she was now indispensable
to the maintenance of the Union to which she had been admitted in
1803. Besides, she had contributed an army of pioneers to the
great states of Indiana and Illinois, which now contained three mil-
lion people, as well as to other states west to California and north to
Lake Superior. The census of L860 revealed that the center of pop-
ulation of the United States, which had fallen further and further
west from Baltimore since 1790, was now in Ohio, a State sixty years
before on the frontier.
The State debt in 1800 was $14,250,000; the municipal debt
nearly $10,000,000; but if to these were added corporate and private
debt to make a total of $170,000,000, that total was only nineteen
per cent of the assessed valuation of property. The people were pay-
ing in taxes for local and general purposes eleven million annually.
The efficiency of the State government was shown by the mainte-
nance of a reform school as well as a penitentiary, an institution for
the blind, deaf and dumb, and three asylums for the insane.
In the way of educational facilities, the State had twenty-two col-
legi s. eleven theological schools, one law school, ten medical schools,
ten commercial schools, ninety academies, one hundred ami thirty-
live private aid parochial schools, one hundred and fifty-seven high
BEFORE THE WAR. 307
schools, and lljiT-'! free common schools. The beginnings of Ohio
university at Athens, and Miami university at Oxford, as well as
Kenyon, Western Reserve, Oberlin, and Lane theological school, have
been mentioned. Besides these there were Marietta college, founded
in 1835; Ohio Wesleyan university at Delaware, founded in 1842;
Wittenberg college, at Springfield, chartered in 1845; St. Xavier's
college, chartered in 1846; Otterbein university, founded in 1849;
Franklin college, founded in 1825; Muskingum college, 1837;
Heidelberg college, 1850; Urbana university, 1850; Capital univer-
sity, 1850; Antioeh college, is;,2; Baldwin university, 1856; Mount
Union college, 1858. Nearly all of these, except the institutions at
Athens and Oxford, were supported and controlled by particular
religious denominations. The State had no great central university,
such as was founded by Michigan. But in these numerous small
colleges, where the students were comparatively few, there was
earnest work done, and a democratic equality among the students,
that tended to the proper training of men for noble functions in
society.
Something lias been said to indicate the prominence that Ohio had
obtained in matters of intellect by her brilliant statesmen, jurist- and
journalists, in the literary field there have not been mentioned the
Cary sisters, Alice and Phoebe, daughters of Robert Cary, a pioneer
of 1803, who were born and reared at Cincinnati, began the publica-
tion of their poems in the Cincinnati papers, and were among the
most popular poet's of America from 1850 until after the civil war.
in science considerable distinction had been obtained by John Strom:'
Xewberry, horn in < 'onnecticut, hut reared from two years of age in
Ohio and educated at the Western Reserve college and Cleveland
medical college. From 1855 to 1859 he was engaged in geological
exploration in the far west with government expeditions. William
S. Sullivant, of Columbus, son of a pioneer of that region, associated
with I. eo Lesquereux, a Swiss who came there about 1850, became
the highest American authority in one of the most difficult depart-
ments of botany, and Lesquereux began his famous study of the fos-
sil plants of the coal lied-.
William Davis (ialladier, horn in Philadelphia in 1808, hut
reared in the Miami valley from the age of eight years, editor of the
Cincinnati Mirror ami a busy journalist, made himself famous in
l-*4."> by a ballad, "The Spotted Fawn," and wrote some other things
that were better. "There are few American poems," say-; William
Dean Howells, who was then writing sketches and poems for the
papers, "that impart a truer and tenderer feeling for nature than
( rallagher's 'August,' beginning 'Dust on thy summer ma nth', dust.' "
Coates Kinney, horn in New York, came to Ohio at fourteen years
of age in 1840, lived at Xenia, and in 1^4'.» published the poem,
"Rain on the Roof," fur which, and "Duty Here and Glory There,"
308 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
he will always be remembered. Hiram Powei'S, born in Vermont in
L805, came to Cincinnati in 1819, and there began his work as ;i self-
taught sculptor. Aided by Nicholas Longworth, he went to Wash-
ington and finally to Italy, where lit- produced his "Greek Slave," the
tnosl famous work in early American art, .lames II. Beard, sen of
a pioneer shipmaster on the lakes, and reared at Painesville, where
his scarcely less famous brother, William II. Beard, was born, after
a wandering Life as a portrait painter lived for many years at Cin-
cinnati, leaving there in IS60 to become a resident of New York and
member of the National Academy.
Cincinnati was at this time, with 160,000 population, one of the
two greatest cities of the West. Its population was practically the
same as that of Boston, New Orleans and St. Louis, and only 50,000
behind Baltimore. Chicago was growing remarkably fast, but as
vet had only 110,000 people. Cleveland had less than 45,000,
Columbus less Than 20,000, and Toledo 15,000. The next in Ohio
was Zanesville with about 10,000. In the li-t of cities of six or seven
thousand were Hamilton, Springfield, Chillicothe, Portsmouth and
Steubenville, ami those of four thousand or rive thousand were
Xenia, Circleville, .Marietta, Alt. Vernon, Mansfield and Canton.
The corn crop of the State, from the earliest days its main reli-
ance, was 75,000,000 bushels a year. The wheat crop was about
18,000,000 on the average. There were 240,000 farmers, mostly
owning small farms, and these were one-tenth id" all the farmers in
the United States. The meat packing industry of the State was
worth about $12,000,000 annually, and Cincinnati was tin- great
pork packing city id' the country, as it was also the greatesl city for
the manufacture of clothing, not excepting New York, the product
being valued at about $16,000,000 annually. Since 1850 there had
been enormous progress in developing the natural resources of the
State aside from agriculture and grazing. The coal dug had
increased from eight million to fifty million bushels, the number of
iron furnaces from nineteen to fifty-nine, and the product of salt had
grown from 300,000 bushels to two million. The manufacture- in
iron were estimated at $20,000,000 annually. In 1854-60 were
the beginnings of the iron rolling mills at Cleveland, and people
began to prophesy, because of its situation in relation to coal and
iron mines, the future greatness of that city.
Another source of wealth was becoming important for the first
time. Oil. seeping out of certain rocks, or coming up in springs in
some localities, was known to the red men before the days of the
pioneers. The Indians used it as a medicine, and the thicker oil
for mixing tin- paint with which they adorned their bodies. When
the French commander at Fort Duquesne came into Pennsylvania
before the Revolution, the [ndians sel fire to <lil Creek for his enter-
tainment. The abundance of the oil about Fort Stanwix I Rome,
BEFORE THE WAR.
:',()!(
N. V. ), and the use of it by the Indians, gave rise to the name "Sen-
eca oil," by which it was known for many years. In northern Ohio
the "il exuded in many places from a fine-grained sandstone and clay
shale that in eastern Ohio bends down under the coal beds, and there
were similar appearances along the exposures of this rock as far
south as Portsmouth. When the early settlers were boring salt wells
they often encountered oil and sometimes a greal pressure of gas that
caused wonder and alarm. This was the ease along the Little Mus-
kingum, where some of the people used the oil in lamps, and Pro-
fessor llildreth, of .Marietta, in 1819 predicted that some way would"
be found to employ the product in lighting the streets of future
Ohio cities. At Liverpool, about the same time, people boring a well
for salt water "struck oil," which was forced to the surface, accom-
panied by a tremendous explosion of gas. Not valuing such things,
tin \ bored deeper and found salt water, hul it was too much defiled
with oil to be valuable. So a wooden tube was inserted in the well,
and a pump used to encourage the natural How of the oil. It was
used about Liverpool as a sovereign remedy for rheumatism, hoarse-
ness and throat disease, and for lubricating machinery and cart-
wheels. Three barrels of this "rock oil" were taken to Cleveland
and offered for sale as rheumatism medicine, but the supply offered
was si, enormous that the speculation was defeated.
Distillation of the crude oil was necessary to make if valuable as
an illuminant, and this was not successful, on a Large scale, until
1854, when "kerosene."' produced at New York, was put on the
market. Then it became desirable, for the first time, to bore for oil,
and a Connecticut man, Drake, came to Titusville, Pa., in 1859, and
began a well, laughed at by the natives, who had so little faith in the
enterprise that the village blacksmith refused tin' explorer credit for
the price of a centerbit Put Drake struck oil. at L70 foci, and
obtained twenty barrels a day from the well. This was the begin-
ning of the great oil excitement in the West. The product of Penn-
sylvania was increased from 2,000 barrels a year to 2,000,000 in
1859-60. John Strong Newberry wrote in 1859 an account of ••The
Rock Oils of Ohio," which was published in the Ohio agricultural
report-, and said that "already the amount of petroleum daily drawn
from the wells bored to procure it in Pennsylvania and Ohio may he
safely estimated to he at least five hundred barrels." lie announced
the theory that the oil was formed by natural distillation from coal
under pressure, ami that the oil of strong odor probably hail its origin
in animal remains. Some two hundred wells were being bored in
the Mecca (Trumhull county) district, lie said, and twelve or more
were successfully pumped. The average depth was fifty feet, and
the daily product five to twenty barrels. At Lowellville, in Mahon-
ing county, a single well, 157 feet deep, was yielding twenty barrels
of lid, t oil a day. Boring had jus, begun about Liverpool and
310
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Lorain, and wells had been sunk on Duck creek in Nohle county,
where oil had been obtained for many years from salt wells. After-
ward, 13 wells were sunk about Liver] 1, four of them by Colonel
Whittlesey. The oil of Ohio promised greal returns of wealth even
then, for in Europe many of its uses had been discovered, (hit of
the oil from the West and East Indies there had been obtained "par-
affin, benzole, nitro-benzole, aniline (used to produce the fashionable
color, mauve), and pure violet aniline' powder, selling at $300 a
pound." The price of rock oil from Titusyille at New York was
•then forty cents a gallon, and Dr. Newberry predicted, "Should
petroleum ever lie produced in such abundance as to glut tin- market,
ami tin- price ho reduced to fifteen cents a gallon, it will lie used a- a
fuel mi steamboats ami locomotives." That it ""must ultimately suc-
ceed all illuminants now in use excepl gas" he had no doubt.
I nit the must remarkable advancement was in channels of com-
munication ami trade. At the beginning of the year 1858, Commis-
sioner Mansfield was able to say that in the thirty-two years since the
firsl earth was turned fur the canals, the State had completed the
mosl extensive system of works for the facilitation <>t" commerce and
travel that any state or nation of like population c uld show. "Ndth-
ing in ancient or modern times, within the same period of time and
with the same population, can he compared with it." No state in
the Union, excepl New York, with greater population, could rival
( )hio in this respect. It was only ten years since the Little Miami and
Mad River railroads had begun to attract attention, hut in 1858 Ohio
had three thousand miles, or one-seventh of the railroads of the
United States, in addition to the 850 miles of canals, and 2.400 miles
of turnpike ami plank mads. A single generation had made over
7(i.(iii(i miles uf canals, highways and iron roads.*
The principal points of convergence of the railroad lines were
Toledo, Sandusky and Cleveland on the lake. Columbus and Dayton
in the interior, and Cincinnati mi the river. The only railroad
termini mi the river between Cincinnati and Bellaire were Ports-
mouth and Marietta. The main lines uf the present Lake Shore,
Pennsylvania, Panhandle and J iiir Four systems were in operation,
under various names, througb the State, as channels of transporta-
tion from east to west. The Baltimore & Ohio system was also rep-
resented by the lines from Bellaire to Columbus and Sandusky, hut
without the modern Chicago extension. On these lines there were
many changes of cars for througb travel, from one railroad to
another. No bridge spanned the Ohio. At Cincinnati the famous
engineer, John A. Roebling, had planned a suspension bridge in
t846, and work was begun on the towers in IS56, but financial trou-
bles had forced it> abandonment
'Reports of E. V). Mansfield. State statistician.
BEFORE THE WAR. :;ll
Hardly less notable was the advance in ship building and water
commerce. The State ranked next to Maine, .Ma~-a.-hn-.ii-, New
York and Pennsylvania in sbip building. There was now as much
Ohio steamboat tonnage on Lake Erie as on the Ohio river, and the
sail tonnage on,the lakes had increased so much that all together the
lake tonnage exceeded that of the river four to one. The commerce
with Canada ports had doubled in ten years. In 1860 the lake
exports were valued at $23,000,000 and the imports at $38,000,000.
In 1855 a canal had been completed at Sault Sre. Marie, opening
the ir«.n and copper mines of Michigan to the iron workers of Ohio.
Toledo, in I860, received by way of the Michigan Southern, Toledo
& Wabash and Detroit & Milwaukee railroad- and the canal, over
five million bushels of wheat, eight hundred thousand barrels of
flour, and considerably more than five million bushels of corn, besides
other grain, which was largely shipped cast by boat over the lake.
Now, the Ohio and Mississippi rivers were no longer necessary as
outlets for the products of the State. The great channels of com-
merce eastward over the lake and along the lake shore and north bend
of the river, as well as by the Potomac valley, were established, and
the East and West were one, as George Washington had said they
must he. Ten years earlier the South, controlling the Mississippi
river, might have set up a separate government with comparatively
little danger of its overthrow. Now the railroads had made the Eas1
and West an united and unconquerable enemy to such a division of
the country.
CHAPTER XII.
THE WAR FOR THE UNION.
Governors William Dennison, 1860-62; David Ton. 1862-64;
John Brough, 1864-65.
ART of the inaugural address of Governor Dennison was
admirable— that directed to 'matters in which he had
experienct — the needs of commerce. He said most appro-
priately: "The time lias arrived when the West will
no longer consent that her just demands upon the Federal gov-
ernment for the protection of her great interests shall be dis-
regarded. She is no longer a frontier, and will not patiently be
treated as such. She i- the heart of the Union, the center of
its population, its production and its consumption."* This senti-
ment evidently influenced the nominations for president that
followed. The Democratic party, which had already contributed
thousand- of voters to the Republican party, split again because, as
George E. Pugh said in the Charleston convention, the South would
humiliate the Northern Democrats to the verge of degradation, with
their hand- on their mouths and their mouths in the dust. The
Northern wins nominated Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, and the
Southern John < \ Breckinridge, of Kentucky. The Republican
national convention, meeting at Chicago, considered Salmon P. Chase
and Judge McLean, of Ohio, as well as Seward and others, and chose
Abraham Lincoln for the presidency. In the election Ohio gave
Lincoln 231,610 votes, Douglas 187,232, Breckinridge 11,405, and
Bell (the candidate mainly supported in the South in opposition to
Breckinridge i 12,194. Thus all shades of opinion were represented.
As soon as the resull of the national vote electing Lincoln was
announced, preparation for secession began in the extreme Southern
states, led by South Carolina, and the people of Ohio were brought
*But he was verbose in his discussion of the proposed secession, and
declared that standing armies would be the "succedaneum" of division. The
word was new to his readers and was the subject of much jesting.
THE WAR FOR THE UNION.
313
to consider what was their duty in regard to the preservation of the
Union.
The sentiment of the State was conservative. Anything would
have been conceded to the South for the sake of peace except the one
thing, that slavery must not be extended over more territory, either
in the west or southward by expansion in the Spanish-American
countries. The legislatures of Kentucky and Tennessee, visiting
Columbus, were greeted with the utmost friendliness and courtesy,
and an effort was made to assure them that Ohio was actuated by
fraternal feelings. In the Congress of L859-60, memorable for the
long and hitter and finally successful contest of the Southerners
againsl the candidacy of John Sherman for speaker of the house,
Thomas Corwin had secured the preliminary adoption of an amend-
ment to the (Jnited States constitution, guarding slavery forever from
interference, provided it remained within the limits then established,
and the legislature of Ohio ratified this amendment after war had
actually begun.
But the South, educated by the farseeing and logical-minded John
<'. Calhoun, was persuaded that there could lie no peace in the Union
with slavery, and consequently, in the minds of the leaders, it was
settled that the COtton suites Would go out of the I'liioli. They Were
convinced that their interests were so different from those of the
corn and wheat states that it was useless for either section to attempt
those sacrifices of individual notions necessary to maintain one gen-
eral government. They did not want manufactories nor a tariff to
protect manufactories. Their only desire was to raise cotton by
negro lal><>r and let England spin the cotton and weave the cloth.
In that gloomy period at the end of 1860 and beginning of L86!l
when the Southern congressmen were taking their leave and pro-
nouncing funeral orations for the Union, and people were everywhere
in donlit what should he done or could he done, lien Wade of Ohio
rose in the senate and boldly declared that the United States was a
nation and must defend herself. He went on to lay down the policy
that Lincoln afterward followed. If a state should secede, the
nation will not make war on her, hut the secession would he illegal
until the nation acceded to it. The president must continue to exe-
cute the laws of the Union and collect revenues. The state must
submit to this or make war on the United States. If she makes war
on the United States, that i- treason and will he crushed. "That is
where if results," said Wade, "we might just as well look the matter
right in the face." As for him. he -aid. "I stand by the Union
of these states. Washington fought for that good old flag. .My
father fought for it. It is my inheritance. It was my protector in
infancy and the pride and glory of my riper years, and though it may
he assailed by traitors on every side, by the grace of God under its
shadow I will die."
314
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
But a large part of the people of the North were convinced that the
sections were so radically different that it was no longer worth while
1" try to keep the cotton states in the Union. Like Horace Greeley,
they would let them go in peace. Throughout January. L861, they
were going — adopting ordinances of secession, taking possession of
United States forts and arsenals, capturing and paroling United
States troops, until there remained only a few little spots in the
South Atlantic and Gulf State- where the Stars and Stripes were
flying — only the islands occupied by Forts Sumter and Pickens and
the Florida keys. Five of the states thai were thus behaving, out of
seven, had been bought by the money of the whole country or won
from foreign powers and the Indians by the blood and treasure of the
whole country. Gradually the enormous impertinence of such a pro-
ceeding prevailed over the feeling of indifference, and there was a
mighty indignation in the North that awaited more acute provocation
to break out in the spirit of conquest and punishment. Yet there was
a constant restraint imposed by the neutral attitude of the border
states, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee
and Missouri. At their suggestion a peace conference was held at
Washington in February, 1861, to winch Ohio sent as delegates, Sal-
mon 1'. Chase. William S. Groesheck, Franklin T. Backus, Reuben
Hitchcock, Thomas Ewing, Valentine B. Horton and C. P. Wolcott.
They deliberated on plans to perpetuate slavery in the South and
limit it by a boundary. But the conference was altogether futile.
The cotton states were determined on independence, and no proposi-
tion on any other basis would be considered then, or at any other
time before Appomattox.
The Ohio legislature passed resolutions declaring that the general
government could not permit the secession of any state without vio-
lating the bond and compact of union, and. after President Lincoln
had been inaugurated, "hailed with joy his firm, dignified and patri-
otic message," and pledged "the entire power and resource- of the
State for a strict maintenance of the constitution and the laws." But
there was a considerable party that objected to such expressions,
holding that the general government had no power to "< rce a
state." The leaders in the legislature, favoring the maintenance of
the Union by force, were .lames A. Garfield, who since leaving the
Mahoning canal hail fitted himself to become president of Hiram
college; Jacob Dolson Cox. a graduate of Oberlin who had married
the daughter of President Finney, and James Monroe, an oldtime
abolitionist of the ( )berlin district.
At the election of a United States senator in February, to succeed
George E. Pugh, Salmon P. Chase was elected by a vote of Tit to 53
for Pugb and 5 for Thomas Corwin. A month later President Lin-
coln selected Mr. Chase as hi- secretary of the treasury, and John
Sherman was elected to the vacancy, his Democratic antagonist being
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 3^5
William Kennon, Sr. Thus Ohio was represented in Congress in
1861 liy Wade an<l Sherman in the senate, the first a radical, the
other a conservative, but firm and unyielding; and in the house by
George II. Pendleton, John A. Gtirley, (.'lenient L. Vallandigham,
William Allen (of Darke county), James M. Ashley, Chilton A.
White, Thuiiias Corwin, Richard A. Barrison, Samuel Shellabar-
ger, Warren P. Noble, Carey A. Trimble, Valentine B. Horton,
Samuel S. Cox, Samuel < '. Worcester, Harrison (i. Blake, Robert II.
ISTugen, William P. Cutler, James E. Morris, Sidney Edgerton,
Albert <1. Riddle, John Hutchins ami John A. Bingham. Bingham,
Shellabaxger ami Horton were Leading supporters of the war power
of the nation, ami Pendleton, S. S. < 'ex ami Vallandigham, the prom-
inent critics of the exercise of power by the administration.
On April 10th, after there had been an actual state of war on the
southern coast for many weeks, but not officially recognized, the peo-
ple of Cincinnati displayed a sense of the situation by stopping the
shipment of arms through that city to Arkansas. This aroused great;
indignation southward; but the United States was denied the right
to send food to the soldiers at Forts Sumter and Pickens. When it
was attempted, Fort Sumter was bombarded, April li'th. and Major
Anderson, son of the old land officer of the Virginia reserve in Ohio,
was compelled to haul down the flag.
This, at last, removed all restraint from the spirit of war. Before
the bombardment had ended twenty full companies were offered to
Governor Dennison for immediate service. On the 15th came Presi-
dent Lincoln's call for 75,000 men for three months service to
re-establish the laws of the United States where they were defied.
Governor Dennison immediately gave out a patriotic proclamation to
the State, and when Governor Magoffin telegraphed that "Kentucky
would furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sis-
ter southern states," Dennison telegraphed to Washington, "If
Kentucky will not fill her quota, Ohio will till it for her." The
Ohio legislature promptly passed a hill appropriating one million
dollars to put the State on a war footing, ami Cincinnati offered to
tak e-fourth of the loan. Some of the members voted tor the war
act with explanation. Judge Thomas M. Key, the ablest of the
Democrats, "believed it was an unwarranted declaration of war
a usurpation by the president . . . the beginning of
military despotism; hut he was opposed to secession, and could
do no otherwise than stand by the stars and stripes." Thomas
Moore, of Butler county, a type, of the "Silver Gray Whigs,"
felt that this was "the most, painful duty of his life
hut he could do nothing else than stand by the grand old flag
of tin' country." There was one vote against the hill in the sen-
ate, hut the house, waiting a day for public opinion, was unanimous,
and in the speeches made there was unreserved national spirit. .Mr.
:;j,; CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Flagg, a Democrat of Hamilton comity, said he was '•ready for pei
for the Union, or war for it, love for it, hatred for it, everything for
it." Mr. Vallandigham visited the capital and earnestly remon-
strated with the I '«•! :rats for giving their sanction to the war; but
the patriotic enthusiasm of the crisis could not be controlled by
such partisanship.* With particular reference to Vallandigham, it
was supposed, Garfield secured the passage of a 1 > i 1 1 to punish trea-
son.
There was no hesitation in the response to the call for troops in
Ohio. Three months before, President Lorin Andrews, of Kenyon
college, had offered his services in ease of war, and he now set about
forming a company. He was a type of the men who enlisted or
encouraged enlistment. As soon as the President had called for
troops, telegrams came to the governor from various towns, tender-
ing companies. Cincinnati, Dayton and Cleveland offered thou-
sands, .lames Barrett Steedman, of Toledo, who had been a
delegate to the Charleston Democratic convention, pledged a regi-
ment in ten davs. Prominent men, in every quarter, without regard
to party, offered their services and asked what tiny could do. The
militia system was, of course, worthless, and of no avail in the emer-
gency. There were a few companies of volunteer infantry, armed
and trained, and a few one-gun squads of artillery. The best,
known of thes.. companies immediately offered their services. It is
interesting to note that Lucius V. Bierce, the invader of Canada in
L838, was among those who raised companies, largely at his own
expense. Later he was made assistant adjutant-general of volun-
teers, under the national government, ami was engaged for two years
in the mustering of volunteers at Columbus.
The feelings with which the greater pari of these soldiers enlisted
have been frequently stated, but perhaps nowhere so naturally and
simply as in a memorandum found among the papers of Col. Minor
Milliken. He was the son of a wealthy lawyer and farmer of But-
ler county, before the war graduated in Miami college ami Harvard
law school, and began the practice of law with Thomas Corwin, but
returned to farming until the spring of 1861, when he organized a
company of cavalry and furnished the money to partly equip it. He
went to West Virginia as a private, and later was commissioned
major <>f the First Ohio cavalry, from which rank he soon rose to
colonel. The memorandum here referred to was made 1 public after
Colonel .Milliken was killed at Stone River, and in part was as fol-
lows:
t to leave my friends and mv home, and. relin-
and pleasure, bind mvself'to hardships and
ars by a solemn oath. Why did I do it?
*"Ohio in the War." by Whitelaw Reiil. at the beginning of the war an
editor at Xonia. his native town
"1
t tt-;i
- not |
quisl
obed
ienci
mv li
for i!i
THE WAR FOR THE L'NIOX.
: ; i ;
"First. I did it because I loved my country. I thought she was
surrounded by traitors and struck by cowardly plunderers. I
thought that, having been a good government to me and my fathers
before me, I owed it to her to defend her from all harm; so when I
heard of the insults offered her, 1 rose up as if some one had struck
my mother, and as a lover of my country agreed to fight for her.
"Second. Though I am no great reader, 1 have heard the taunts
and insults sent us workingmen from the proud aristocrats of the
South. My blood has grown hot when I heard them say labor was
the business of slaves and mudsills; that they were a noUe-hlooded
and we a mean-spirited people; that they had ruled the country by
their better pluck, and if we did nol submit they would whip us by
their better courage. So I thought the rime had come to .-how these
insolent fellows that Northern institutions had the best men. and I
enlisted to flog them into good manners and obedience to their betters.
"Third. I said that this war would disturb the whole country
and all its business. The South meant rule or ruin. It has Jeff
Davis and the Southern notion of government; we our old constitu-
tion and our old liberties. I couldn't see any peace or quiet until
we had whipped them, and so I enlisted to bring back peace in the
quickest way."
The Lancaster Guards arrived at Columbus April 15th, closely
followed by the Dayton Light Guards and Montgomery Guard-, and
on the morning of April 18th two regiments were made up of the
companies that had reached the capital. The First included the Lan-
caster Guards; the Lafayette Guards, and Light Guards and Mont-
gomery Guards, of Dayton; the Grays and the Hibernian Guards of
Cleveland, the Portsmouth, Zanesville and Mansfield Guards, and
the Jackson- of Hamilton. In the Second regiment were the
Rovers, Zouaves and Lafayettes of Cincinnati, the Videttes and
Fencibles of Columbus, the Springfield Zouave-, the Covington Lines
(of .Miami county), one Steubenville and two Pickaway companies.
The men elected their own officers, and Edward A. Parrott was made
temporary commander of the first, and Lewis Wilson, chief of
police of Cincinnati, colonel of the Second. Without uniform and
without arms, they started out by train next day under the command
of George W. MoCook, a .Mexican war veteran, to defend the capital
founded by George Washington. The First was mustered into the
United State- service at Lancaster, l'a., by Lieut. Alexander McDow-
ell MeCook, a New Lisbon boy, who had been educated at West
Point. He was then made colonel, and Parrott lieutenant-colonel.
The Second was imistered in at the same place and Wilson retained
in command. Loth regiments, after some delay, reached Washing-
ton, and were assigned to a brigade under the command of Robert C.
Schenck, who was made a brigadier-general, as Hamer had
1 v 16, and who. like Hamer, justified the honor.
318 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
The quota of Ohio, in the call for 75,000 men, was 13,000, and
after two thousand had been sent to meet the most urgent demand,
there remained the work of organizing eleven regiments from the
hosts that poured into Columhus, where there was no shelter for
them, no tents, no supplies, nobody with experience to take care of
the men and organize them. Governor Dennison established Camp
Jackson in the woods, naming it in honor of the old Democrat
patriot, and his start', Adjutant-General Henry B. Carrington, Com-
missary-General George \V. Runyan, and the others, did the best
they could under the circumstances, soon embarrassed by the usual
disparaging comment that accompanies the organization of armies.
To command the troops the governor wanted Irvin McDowell,
whose career lias already been noticed, then on the staff of General
Scott, but upon the urgency of Cincinnati friends he selected
George B. McClellan, a Pennsylvanian, then thirty-five years old, a
West Pointer who had seen war in Mexico and had been sent to
Europe by Jefferson Davis, when secretary of war, to observe the
Crimean war. In 1860 he had come to Cincinnati a- president of
the Ohio & Mississippi railroad. Fur brigadier-generals, Newton
Schleich, the Democrat leader in the state senate, J. 11. Bates, of
Cincinnati, and J. I). Cox were selected. Presently the governor's
start was reinforced by the addition of Catharinus P. Buckingham,
Charles Whittlesey. J. W. Sill, and William S. Roseerans, a native
of Delaware county, a graduate of West Point, who had left the
army in L854, and since then had been interested in coal ami oil
production in Ohio, lie had drilled the home guards at Cincinnati,
which was in fear of invasion, and in the latter part of April he
located Camp Dennison, near Cincinnati, and was busy caring for
the volunteers until made chief engineer for the State. As finally
re-organized the governor's staff was C. P. Buckingham, adjutant-
general; George P. Wright, quartermaster-general, Columbus
Delano, commissary-general, and C. P. Walcott, judge advocate-
general.
Thirty thousand men assembled in answer to the call for thirteen.
Cut of these, eleven more regiments were organized for three months'
service for the United States: the Third, Col. Isaac II. Marrow;
Fourth. Col. Lorin Andrews: Fifth, Col. Samuel 11. Dunning;
Sixth. Col. William K. Bosley; Seventh. Col. Erastus P.. Tvler;
Eighth, Col. Hiram DePuy; Ninth, Col. Robert I.. McCook; Tenth,
Col. William II. Lytic; Eleventh, Col. dame- K. Earrison; Twelfth,
Col. John P. Low'e; Thirteenth, Col. A. Saunders Piatt. A little
later these were sent to Camp Dennison and re-organized for three
years' service, with some change in officers. Two or three thousand
declined to re-enlist, and were senl home on furlough until their
three months' enlistment had expired. They had not been paid.
"Their feelings were participated in by their friends, until very
THE WAR FOR THE UNION.
;io
many were led to believe that the promises of the government were
worthless, and bitterness and wrath succeeded to suspicion and
disappointment."*
In addition to these thirteen for the national army, Ohio organ-
ized ten regiments of her own out of the companies that were offered.
These were the Fourteenth, Col. .lames I!. Steedman : the Fifteenth,
( !ol. George W. Andrews; the Sixteenth, or Carrington Guards, Col.
James Irvine: the Seventeenth, Col. John M. Connell; the Eight-
eenth, Col. Timothy R. Stanley; the Nineteenth. Col. Samuel
Beatty; the Twentieth, Col. Thomas Morton; the Twenty-first, Col.
Jesse S. Norton; the Twenty-- mil. Col. William E. Gilmore.f
Besides these regiments, enough companies for four others were held
in reserve at their homes.
The State was expected to uniform, arm and equip its soldiers, and
the difficulties of doing this were enormous, requiring the generous
services and counsel of the best qualified citizens. To aid in the
work Miles Greenwood, who had established an iron foundry in Cin-
cinnati in 1831, undertook the contract for rifting the old smooth-
bore muskets, producing the "Greenwood rifle," which carried for a
long range a bullet that would nowadays be considered very large.
Greenwood also undertook the casting of cannon, and during the war
turned ou1 over two hundred bronze cannon, the first ever made in
the West, as well as gun caissons, and the armanent of a monitor.
A- soon as it was known that ti ps would be called out for three
years, Governor Dennison recommended MeClellan for the rank of
major-general, so that he could retain chief command in the West.
"Qhio must lead throughout the war." said the governor. The com-
mission was issued. MeClellan at first could hardly believe in his
sudden advancement, but it was not long before he was exercising
authority with ample -way. and betraying toward Dennison an
ingratitude that hurt the governor more than the extravagances of
public opinion and newspaper tirades.
Governor Dennison's chief duty, aside from the furnishing of
troops to the genera] government, was the protection of the Stal •
from invasion. There was no Confederate army near, in the early
pari of 1m;i, for Kentucky was neutral and western Virginia largely
Union in sentiment. But Confederate companies were organizing
all along the border, and it was reasonable to expeel that < 'onfederate
armies would occupy those regions adjacent to Ohio, if they were not,
forestalled. General Carrington in April advised the Governor that
the Ohio river was not a practical line of defense, and that Ohio
could he guarded only by occupying western Virginia and Kentucky.
But did the Ohio troops have a right to invade the soil of another
♦Report of Adjutant-General Buckingham, 1861.
tOne of the ten went to St. Louis and mustered in as the Thirteentn Mis-
souri, under Col. Crafts J. Wright.
320 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
state? When it was being discussed whether United States troops
could take possession of the Long Bridge at Washington, Governor
Dennison said: "We can let no theory prevent the defense of Ohio.
1 will defend Ohio where it costs less and accomplishes most.
Above all. I will defend Ohio beyond rather than en her border."
lie joined with Governors Yates and Morton in urging the govern-
ment to garrison the important points in Kentucky; hut that was not
attempted until the enemy hail occupied the strategic positions.
Regarding western Virginia, the governor obtained permission to
aet. because in that quarter it was desired to encourage the people to
secede from Virginia ami form a new state. In April Colonel Har-
nett ami part of his artillery was sent to Marietta to hold in check
the rebellious element at Parkersburg, ami when it was heard that
the Virginia volunteers had taken possession of the Baltimore & < >hio
railroad at Grafton, the government permitted Ohio to go ahead.
Genera] McClellan had given his first advice regarding tin cam-
paign: "I advise delay for the present. . . I will soon have
Camp Dennison a model establishment. . . In heaven's name
don't precipitate matters. . . Don't let these frontier nan
hurry you on. . . Morton is a terrible alarmist." But on the
24th of May he began to move, and asked for the nine regiments of
state troops, which were in motion for the border in six hours. Col-
onel Steedman crossed with the Fourteenth and Barnett's artillery at
.Marietta, occupied Parkersburg May 27th, and swept out on the rail-
road repairing the track and rebuilding bridges, at Grafton joining
Colonel Irvine, who had brought the Sixteenth and Kelly's Virginia
regiment along the other branch of the road. Pushing on to
Philippi, they fought the first battle of the war. dune 3d, and drove
the Confederate force- into the mountains.
Colonel Norton, with the Twenty-first Ohio, crossed at Gallipolis
and seized thirty Virginians of secession activity, who were sent to
Camp Chase, near Columbus, and were the first prisoners at that
camp, afterward famous as a place of detention for Confederate
soldiers. The Twenty-second went across in May.
The Fifteenth. Eighteenth and Nineteenth rapidly supported the
advance guard. McClellan soon entered western Virginia, with
other Ohio State troops, and some Indiana regiments. William S.
Rosecrans, promoted to brigadier-general, was with the army, ami
Gen. Charles W. Hill led a considerable body of Ohio militia. A
slow advance was made against the new position of the Confederates
at the Rich .Mountain and Laurel Hill gap in the mountains. The
attack was made .Inly 11th. a victory was won by Rosecrans, and a
sharp blow to the retreating enemy delivered at Carrick's Ford by
Stoedinan's regimi nt.
Gen. J. D. Cox, under the orders of General McClellan, had
taken command of the districl of the Kanawha in July, with the-
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. ;y>^
Eleventh, Twelfth and Twenty-first Ohio and First and Second
Kentucky, organized near Cincinnati. Cotter's Ohio battery and
Pfau's Cincinnati cavalry, and moved up the river, driving the
enemy from the Kanawha valley into the mountains, a little battle
occurring at Scary Creek, July 17th, that caused the death of several
gallant Ohioans.
Meanwhile Irvin McDowell had been major-general in command
at Washington, and occupied Arlington, Va., in the latter part of
May. Moving into Virginia, he fought the disastrous battle of Bull
Run, July 21st. The hirst Ohio, which had Lost nine killed and
two wounded iu a little tight, at Vienna, .June 17, was but slightly
engaged at Bull Run, losing three killed. The Second, their com-
rades, had two killed.
Such was the tir-i experience of Ohio in the war. Her native sen,
McDowell, a really capable military man, missed his chance to be the
great Union leader, ami became the victim of slander as well as just
criticism; and another native son, Rosecrans, won an easy victory on
account of which, McClellan, the ablest of all the generals that went
out from Ohio in winning popularity, was hailed as a young Napo-
leon, and called to supersede .McDowell at Washington. Hut the
main thing to lie remembered is, that though valuable aid was given
by Indiana, it was mainly the Ohio militia that established the power
of the Union in western Virginia, and saved that region, inhabited
by descendants of the mountaineers who opened the West, from the
danger of secession. As Governor Dennison desired, the Virginia
mountains were made the bulwark of Ohio on the southeast.
The State troops that did this work in West Virginia returned
home at the end of their three months' enlistment, hut were neglected
by the United States government in the matters of muster out and
pay. "Disappointed and disgusted by the treatment they had
received," -ays General Buckingham, "they aggravated in a tenfold
degree the mischief produced by the three-months' men sent home
from Camp Dennison. The prospect of raising troops in Ohio was
for a time very discouraging." The neglect was, of course, due to
the lack of efficient general organization, not to any desire of the
government to disappoint the men. It i< well to remember how
impatient and distrustful and ready to accuse the government and
hound unlucky generals public sentiment was in that period where,
looking hack through the haze of forty years, the hasty observer can
see only a glorious unanimity and patriotic devotion. There was,
in fact, a wonderful readiness to sacrifice -elf for country, a- com
pared with any other American war. If men had enlisted a- read-
ily for the war of the Revolution, George Washington would have,
had an army lai'ge enough, one might say, to crowd the British into
the sea in a fight with clubs and stones. Vet. with all this degrei of
unanimity, there was the -ante fault finding, sensational mi
1-21
322 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
ion and unwillingness of a great many to do their duty, that
have characterized other wars. The newspapers of both parties
indulged in censure of the State government, persuading the people
that the soldiers were given bad rations, shoddy uniforms and worth-
less guns. Some of them daily denounced the management of Camp
Dennison, "exaggerated every defect and sought for criminal motives
in every mistake,"* justifying that Scathing indictment of the news-
papers of the United States that Charles Dickens had made a few
years before.
So lunch was enlistment discouraged that it was fortunate that
Ohio had four regiments in reserve. In June these were called to
Camp Chase, near Columbus, and organized in the Twenty-third
regiment, Col. E. P. Scammon; the Twenty-fourth, Col. Jacob
Ammen; Twenty-fifth, Col. .Tames A. Jones, and Twenty-sixth, Col.
E. P. Fyffe. The nine regiments that had been in West Virginia
having been mustered out, the entire force of Ohio three-years' men
in the field Augusl 1st were the four just named, the eleven organ-
ized at Camp Dennison, the cavalry companies of Captains George
and Burdsall, and two sections of artillery. These were on duty
mainly in West Virginia.
But the effect of disaster at Bull Run -was to stiffen the determina-
tion of the patriotic leaders. Venomous criticism was -rilled in the
fa l danger to the national capital, and new regulations removed
some disagreeable features of enlistment. The nine three-months'
regiments that had been in West Virginia were re-organized for
three year-, generally with the same commanders, except that Col.
Moses R. Dickey re-organized the Fifteenth, John F. de Courcey
the Sixteenth, and Charles Whittlesey the Twentieth. Besides these
many other entirely new regiments were organized, so that by the
end of the year the infantry numbers ran up to eighty-two. At
Mansfield, under the encouragemenl of Senator Sherman, who for a
time intended to go to the field, but was dissuaded, there was organ-
ize'] the Sixty-fourth and Sixty-fifth, under Colonel- Forsytbe and
Marker, with McLaughlin's squadron of cavalry and Bradley's bat-
tery. Congressman Gurley gave special attention to the promotion
of distinctive regiments from the Cincinnati district, such as the
Twenty-eighth. Thirty-fourth, Forty-seventh, and Fifty-eighth, Ger-
man or Zouave, and the Fiftieth, Irish Catholic. Cavalry was at
firsl discouraged, but the State raised one regiment in July, Senator
Wade and John Hutchins raised another in the Reserve, and by
special efforts six cavalry regiments were formed in the year. These
were the First, Col. Minor Milliken; Second. Col. Charles Doiible-
day; Third, Col. Lewis Zahm; Fourth, Col. John Kennett; Fifth,
Col. W. II. II. Taylor, and Sixth, Col. William R. Lloyd.
'Reid, "Ohio in the war."
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. ;;■>;_;
Iii the artillery branch seventeen batteries were organized, besides
Barnett's regiment, which was filled to ten companies. No
among these batteries was Wetmore's, of Cleveland, associated with
Col. William B. Eazen's* Forty-first regiment, and Mitchell's bat-
tery, of Springfield, that wen! to Missouri. Hoffman's Cincinnati
battery was the first to go to Missouri, followed by the Thirty-ninth,
Twenty-seventh and Eighty-first regiments and part of the Twenty-
second. Ohio troops did gallant service in saving Missouri as well
as Wr-t Virginia and Kentucky.
Military operations in Kentucky did not begin until September
and later, when the Confederate troops occupied Columbus and
Bowling Green and a force under Zollicoffer came through Cumber-
land Gap on the old Warrior's trail. Then the Clermont county
boy, Ulysses S. Grant, who had been comparatively unnoticed so far,
but had been given a brigadier's commission because of his old army
training, advanced to Paducah with Illinois troops, and Robert
Anderson, by this time also a general, and in command of the depart-
ment of the Cumberland, ordered the Ohio and Indiana troops across
the Ohio river, where they took position to guard Cincinnati, and
hold the railroad- against the enemy. In a few weeks William
Tecumseh Sherman, who hail been made colonel in the regulars, and
brigadier-general after Hull Run, where he was cool in the midst of
confusion and panic, succeeded Anderson. Sherman, in this new
position, was nervous, irritable and extremely free in expressing his
opinions. An interview in which he asked two hundred thousand men
to make a successful campaign, caused his removal. The Cincinnati
Commercial published a famous editorial beginning: "The pain-
ful intelligence reaches us in such form that we are not at liberty to
discredit it, that Gen. W. T. Sherman, late mmander of the depart-
ment of the Cumberland, is insane. It appears that he was al timi 3,
when commanding in Kentucky, stark mad." McDowell, a man of
strict abstinence, had already been written down as a drunkard: the
same fate awaited Grant, and McClellan before long found himself
libelled as a traitor. Hut General Sherman had a faithful brother,
and was not long overwhelmed by calumny. If insane in the fall
of 1861, his reason appears to have resumed its throne at a later date.
While the Ohio regiments were advancing to meet the enemy in
Kentucky. Rosecrans and Cox made a successful campaign in West
Virginia against an army under lien. Robert I-'.. Lee, which
attempted to regai mmand of the Baltimore & Ohio railroad and
the Kanawha valley. This was considered an important campaign
and engrossed the attention ,,f the nation. Floyd's Virginians
moved against Cox in the Kanawha valley. Cox's advance was com
manded by Col: E. II. Tyler, of the Seventh Ohio, and ihi- regiment
*Hazen. a native of Vermont, was reared in Portage county. Ohio. Ap-
pointed to West Point from Ohio, he was in the regular army six years, until
he took command of the Forty-first.
324 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
was surprised at Cross Lanes August 26th, and a considerable num-
ber killed, wounded and captured, a reverse that occasioned much
excitement in Ohio. Then Lee made his first move against the
Union troops at Cheat Mountain, and the Twenty-fourth figured
prominently in his repulse, as ii did in the operations that followed
in that quarter through the winter, losing a number of killed and
wounded. This maneuver completed, Rosecrans and Lee concen-
trated in the upper Kanawha valley. Rosecrans, moving to join
Cox, with three brigades of Ohio regiments, under Gen. EL \Y. Ben-
ham, Col. Robert L. McCook and Col. E. 1'. Scammon, attacked
Floyd in intrenchments at Carnifix Ferry on Gauley river. Septem-
ber 21st, and gained a position that compelled the Confederate
retreat. In this attack fell the first Ohio field officer killed in battle,
Col. John \Y. Lowe, of the Twelfth, and Col. W. II. Lytle was
wounded. In the \inth. Tenth. Twelfth, Thirteenth and Twenty-
eighth regiments, McMullin's battery and Ohio cavalry, 17 were
killed and 111 wounded, the Tenth suffering most severely. That
position won, Rosecrans ami < 'ex advanced and confronted Lee at
Sewell mountain, but, no battle resulting, fell back to the falls, and
rented Floyd, who fell. .wed. on Cotton hill. Meanwhile the Fourth
and Eighth ami ether Ohio commands held the Baltimore & Ohio
railroad in AVest Virginia, occasionally skirmishing, and perform-
ing arduous service that caused the death of seme brave men, among
them the patriotic college president, Lorin Andrews, colonel of tin.'
Fourth.
The result of the campaign, holding West Virginia against a large
army directed by the ablest Southern general, encouraged the North.
l.ee was relieved of command and sent to take charge of a depart-
ment en the coast. Rosecrans, says Pollard, "was esteemed at the
South one of the host generals the North had in the field." lie was
thanked by the Legislatures of Ohio and West Virginia. A year
later l.ee and Rosecrans, in different fields, were in command of
great armies, one invading the North, the other the South, and both
manifested, ;it Antietam and Stone River, unshaken heroism in the
face of great danger and heavy h'^s. For yet another year, the two
continued in somewhat parallel careers, making a second set of inva-
sions, further north and further south; hut though Rosecrans had
more success in Georgia than Lee in Pennsylvania, his fame was
overshadowed by that of Grant. Probably l.ee would have given way
at the same time to some successful Southern general, had there been
one. Virginia had lost Stonewall Jackson, ami beyond the two.
l.ee and Jackson, the old Dominion did not seem as fertile of great
generals as her daughter, Ohio.
At the time when the political parties in Ohio nominated candi
dates for governor in LS61, Governor Dennison was blamed with all
the error- that had occurred in the raising of an armv in Ohio greater
THE WAR FOR THE UNION.
325
than the whole United States had ever before put in the field. He
had organized twenty-three regiments fur three-months service and
eighty-two for three years. He left the State credited with 20,751
soldiers over and above the demands of the general government.
Besides that he had shown military wisdom in regard to the occupa-
tion of West Virginia and Kentucky. In financial administration,
when the appropriations of three millions by the legislature were
tied up under the construction of the law followed by Treasurer Tay-
lor, he adopted the hold plan of collecting money due the State from
the general government by his personal agents, and using it for the
desired purpose. In this way he kept out of the State treasury, and
where it could be used, over a million dollars that was absolutely
necessary for war purposes. In all this work he hail 1 n efficiently
aided by such civilians as George W. McCook, Edward Ball,
iSToah II. Swayne, Joseph R. Swan. Aaron F. Perry, Julius .1. Wood,
Richard M. Corwin, Alfred J'. Stone and William A. Piatt.
Vet hi^ party dropped him'"' and nominated, partly to retain the
favor of the Democrats who supported tin- war. David Tod, of War-
ren, who had been the Democrat candidate for governor in ls4t, for
five years served ;is minister to Brazil, and in 1860 was president of
the Baltimore national convention that nominated Douglas. He
was an ardent supporter of the war for the Union. Benjamin Stan-
ton, the abolitionist, was named with him, for lieutenant-governor.
They received nearly 207,000 rotes, and the candidates of the Demo-
cratic party, Hugh J. Jewett and John G. Marshall, about 152,000.
Jewett, a lawyer at Zanesville, had begun in 1857 a very prominent
career as a railroad man, as president of the Ohio Central, lie was
a conservative war 1 (emocrat.
In the fall of L861 the country was restive ami impatient for
action at the front, a sentiment that was voiced by W. D. Gallagher,
for thirty years a poet and editor of Ohio, in a poem that became
immensely popular, "Move on the Columns!"
After the elections, and near the close of the year, came the first
campaign in Kentucky. The sudden eclipse of General Sherman
had given a chance to Gen. Don Carlos Buell, another Ohio gradu-
ate of West Point, who was given command in eastern Kentucky in
November, lie rendered services of great value in organizing an
army and winning by diplomacy the good-will of the State he .. cm-
pied. The firsl active campaigning in Kentucky was when Col.
James A. Garfield, of the Forty-second Ohio, was sent in command
♦"With the end of his service he began to be appreciated. He was the
most trusted counsellor and efficient aid to his successor. Though no more
than a private citizen, he came to be recognized in and out of the State as
her best spokesman in the departments at Washington. Gradually he even
became popular. The State began to reckon him among her leading public
men, the party selected him as president of the national convention at Balti-
more, and Mr. Lincoln called him to the cabinet." — Risid.
326
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
of a brigade to drive out Humphrey Marshall, and George II.
Thomas to repulse Zollicoffer. Both were successful, and the young
Western Reserve colonel was made a brigadier-general. At Logan's
Cross Roads, January 19, Thomas won the most decisive Union vic-
tory so far, east of the Mississippi, in which Col. Robert L. McCook,
commanding a brigade, and bis regiment, the Ninth Ohio, were par-
ticularly distinguished.
Justice John McLean, whose honorable career covered the first
fifty years of the statehood of Ohio, died at Cincinnati, April 4,
1861, and in February, 1862, as his successor in the United States
supreme court, President Lincoln named Noah II. Swayne, whose
early career has already been noticed. He held this high office, with
unquestioned ability, until his resignation in 1881, three years
before his death.
In the early days of Tod's administration, in the beginning of
1862, the first serious onslaught was made on the Confederacy. It
was begun by General Grant, who cleared Kentucky of the enemy
by moving up the Cumbeidand and Tennessee rivers, and taking
Forts Henry and Donelson in February. In this movement Ohioans
did not take a conspicuous part, but the Fifty-eighth, Sixty-eighth
and Seventy-sixth regiments were present at Fort Donelson, under
tin command of Gen. John M. Thayer, of Nebraska, and lost
twenty-seven killed and wounded. Grant, pushing forward rapidly,
occupied Pittsburg Landing in .March, near the north boundary of
Mississippi, and there on an April Sunday morning, was assailed by
the concentrated forces ,,f fhe Confederacy that he had crowded out
of Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as reinforcements from all over
the gulf states.
Buell's army, by this time, had begun to show the distinctive
organization of the great Army of the Cumberland. The First divi-
sion was commanded by George II. Thomas, with Col. R. L. McCook
leading one brigade, and nearly half of all the regiments from Ohio.
The Second division was under the command of Alexander Mid).
McCook, the first commander of the First Ohio, now a brigadier-
general. Three of McCook's regiments were from Ohio. ( ). M.
Mitchel. who had been a class-mate of Robert E, Lee at West 1'oint,
and had left his astronomical studies to become a brigadier-general
and commandant at Cincinnati, fortifying the city through the sum-
mer of 1861, was given command of the Third division, in which
as a strong Ohio brigade, including the Third. Thirty-third,
and Twenty-first, with Col. Joshua W. Sill in command; a brigade
half Ohioans, and several other Ohio regiments. Colonel Ammen
commanded a brigade in Nelson's division. With this army. Gen-
eral Luell had moved southward, by Bowling Green and Nashville,
supporting Grant's advance on the Tennessee river, and was close at
hand vln-n the fighting began at Shiloh.
THE WAR FOR THE UNION.
327
General Sherman had been appointed to succeed Grant at Cairo,
ami as Grant moved south, lie brought along a division that was
mainly Ohio regiments. Two brigades, under Colonels Hildebrand
and Buckland, were all Ohio soldiers," and half of the other two
were Ohioans. They were encamped in the most advanced position,
and upon them fell the iirst blow of the attack, April 6th. They
were pounded back, and part broke in confusion, hut Sherman was
^t i 1 1 fighting at the close <>( the day, with a remnant of two brigades.
He was shot in the hand, three horses had been shot under him. hut
his gallantry ami cheering influence had been such that General Hal-
leck reported that "•Sherman saved the fortunes of the day."' His
division, with seven thousand men in battle, lost 325 killed, 1,277
wounded, and 300 captured, nearly two thousand in all. Among the
killed was Col. Barton S. Kyle, of .Miami county.f
Outside of this the Ohio troops did not have much to do in the first
day's battle. Gen. Lew Wallace, it will he remembered, did not
arrive until late in the day, and Thayer's brigade, with him, and
Col. Charles Whittlesey's brigade,^ were not in the fight of the 6th.
Col. Thomas .Morton commanded McArthur's brigade of \Y. II. L.
Wallace's division, and his regiment, the Eighty-firsl Ohio. [os1 23;
the Fifth Cavalry had some active service, though it was not a cav-
alry battle. Burrows' Ohio battery fought gallantly until over-
whelmed ami their guns captured. Bui it should not he forgotten
that Jacob Airmen's brigade, the vanguard of Buell's army, was on
the field before dark, and reinforced the Union line at a critical
moment.
Through the night, the resl of General Buell's army arrived,
Alexander McCook and Thomas d. Wood commanding two of the
divisions, and William IT. Gibson, William 1!. Iiazen. William Sooy
Smith and dames A. Garfield among the brigade leaders, and there
was a strong reinforcement of the Ohioans on the field as the battle
was renewed next day. There was warm fighting, as the Union
army pressed forward to drive the enemy back to Corinth. The
Firsl regiment lost 50 killed and wounded, the Fifteenth 7.".. the
Forty-ninth 40, the Sixth 9, the Twenty-fourth 7''.. the Forty-first
(under Hazeu ) 133, the Nineteenth 55, the Fifty-ninth :.7, the Thir-
teenth 66, in this second day's battle, hut the Confederates were
beaten, and Sherman was entrusted with the pursuit.
"Hildebrand's brigade. Fifty-third. Fifty-seventh and Seventy-seventh Ohio;
Buckland's brigade. Forty-eighth. Seventieth and Seventy-second regiments.
Fifty-fourth and Seventy-first in T. Kilby Smith's brigade and Forty-sixth in
J. A. McDowell's brigade.
tCol. Thomas Worthington's regiment, the Forty-sixth, lost 185 killed and
wounded. Ihe Fifty-fourth lost in the same way 139 and the Seventy-first
44. The casualties of Hildebrand's brigade were 223 and of Buckland's 203.
Besides, over two hundred Ohioans were captured.
JThe Twentieth, Fifty-sixth, Seventy-sixth and Seventy-eighth regiments.
328 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Sliiloh was a battle of great carnage, but a decided victory, and if
Grant had been left in charge, would have been speedily followed by
tin upation of Corinth, but, unfortunately, the people at home
treated ir as a defeat, and Halleck took direct control of the army.
As soon as the new- of the Losses in killed and wounded reached
home the great heart of Ohio throbbed with sympathy. The Sani-
tary commission, Mayor Hatch of Cincinnati^ and Governor Tod,
hastened to send steamers down the rivers, laden with supplies,
surgeons and nurses. "Ohio boats removed the wounded with ten-
der care to the hospitals at Camp Dennison and elsewhere within the
State; the Ohio treasury was good for expenditures for the comfort
of the siek and wounded which the general government did not pro-
vide for." At the close of the year Ohio had paid out ever $50,000,
the expenses of eleven steamboats and many surgeons in this work of
mercy.
While Grant ami Sherman and Buell made such a greal advance
toward the heart of Rebeldom and held their ground, it was quite
different in the east with that other son of Ohio, McDowell, and her
protege, McClellan. Before they could grapple with their antagon-
ist, their plans were disarranged by the fierce activity of Stonewall
Jackson, a -on of that Scotch-Irish breed that opened up the. Ohio
valley, a type of that large element in the Southern army that makes
it idle to attempt to classify the Southern and Northern fighters on
any basis but the flags they hove. Six Ohio regiments,* a squadron
of cavalry and two batteries of Ohio troops had the honor of assist-
ing in a repulse of Jackson at Kernstown in the Valley, losing 250
killed or wounded, half the Union loss; but at McDowell. Va.. May
mIi, General Schenck and General Milroy (of Indiana), suffered a
severe defeat. The Twenty-fifth, Thirty-second, Seventy-fifth, and
Eighty-second, under Schenck. lost 210 killed and wounded, and the
Seventy-fifth, Twenty-fifth and Thirty-second, under Milroy, 153.
Tn fact, on the Union side, it was almost exclusively an Ohio battle,
and it was characterized by great gallantry, but the superiority of
numbers defeated the Ohioans, after they had inflicted a loss of
nearly five hundred on their enemy. Rosecrans, it may he noted,
was no longer in command in this region. lie hail been called away
tor some inscrutable reason and the romantic Fremont put in his
place. If it had been Rosecrans, instead of Fremont and Shields
and Banks, against Jackson, that industrious Confederate might not
have made hi- sudden leap to glory.
While -Jackson was sweeping the valley clean of "Yankees," there
was greal alarm for the safety of Washington. Tn obedience to a
call from the capital. < rovernor Tod called for volunteers. At Cleve-
land a public meeting was hastily called, at which two hundred and
'Eighth, Sixty-seventh, Fifth. Sixty-second, Seventh and Twenty-ninth.
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. ;;.,.,
fifty men enlisted, among them nearly all the students of the law
school; at Zanesville the fire bells rang alarm, and three hundred
were enrolled, among them the judge of the com„ then in session and
the lawyers, and all over the State there was the same spirit, so that
five thousand men reported at Camp Chase within a few days.
Under these circumstances the Eighty-fourth regiment was sent to
the field in ten days, and the Eighty-fifth, Eighty-sixth, Eighty-sev-
enth and Eighty-eighth soon afterward filled. All the other regi-
ments, eighty-two of infantry and six of cavalry, had been filled in
February and March and sent out of the State, except the Forty-
fifth, Fiftieth and Fifty-second, that recruited during the summer.
As has already been noted, Jackson's exploits in the Valley dis-
arranged the operations of McClellan and McDowell. The enemy
did not stand for them to slowly approach and grapple the Confeder-
acy by the throat, but by a lightning shift, crushed the unfortunate
McClellan and hurled his splendid army hack from Richmond.
Then, came upon Ohio the necessity of raising seventy-four thousand
more men. Under the law the state militia was liable to draft for
half of this force. To avoid the apparently harsh methods of the
draft, which would bring in all able-bodied men without regard to
their patriotism, the plan was at this time adopted of apportioning
the quota to the counties, according to population, and calling upon
the communities to encourage enlistments in the most effective man-
ner possible. Up to this time 115,000 voluntary enlistments hail
been made, and of these 60,000 three-years troops were in the field.
This was not a very serious depletion of the State's military
resources, but it was deemed best by Governor Tod and those who
were apparently best qualified to judge, to use extraordinary means
to secure enlistments, and the practice was begun of paying bounties.
Beginning in the summer of 1m;2 and continuing until the latter
part of the war. over $50,000,000 was paid in local bounties in Ohio
to secure enlistments, while in the South a much larger proportion
of the able-bodied population was put in the field without such
expense, by means of draft or conscription. In spite of all that was
done in this way in the summer of 1862, the State had furnished but
151,301 voluntary enlistments on September 1. 1862, and a draft
was necessary to raise 12,000 more. The draft was a failure prac-
tically, for it resulted in adding only 2,400 men, but voluntary
enlistments were renewed afterward, s<> that the State was by the end
of the year credited with L7l,000 men, he-id,- the tir-i three months
men, recruits for the regular army and enlistments in the navy.
It was evident that some strong anti-war influence had temporarily
occupied the public mind in the summer. Before the military situa-
tion was very serious the arresl and imprisonment, al the suggestion
of Governor Tod, of Dr. Edson B. old-, of Lancaster, for making
330 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
speeches discouraging enlistment, snowed the tendency of reaction
against the government.
Despite the Confederate successes in Virginia there appeared
nothing threatening to Ohio in the West in the early summer of
1862. Buell was making a campaign toward Chattanooga, in the
course of which General Mitchel, in command of a division, occupied
Huntsville, Ala., had some skirmishing, and sent Colonel Streight
on the raid to cu1 the railroad between Atlanta and Chattanooga, in
the course of which the Third Ohio was captured by Gen. Nathan B.
Forrest. Part of Mitchel's command actually bombarded Chatta-
nooga. Suddenly the air of peace which had settled over the Ohio-
valley was disturbed by the irruption of Gen. John II. Morgan and
his cavalry into Central Kentucky. Cincinnati was reasonably
alarmed by the news and the frantic appeals of Boyle, the Kentucky
general en guard in that state. Public meetings were called in the
city. George E. Pugh leading the effort for defense, Governor Tod
sent arms and convalesced soldiers, tell,, wed by ether troops in the
State, and these and the city police force were sent to Lexington,
Ky., to meet the enemy, hut Morgan retired after recruiting his
brigade and destroying a great amount of military supplies.
When this period of excitement had passed, the people were dis-
couraged by the Second Manassas campaign, which forced the 1 nion
army in Virginia hack to Washington. On August 9th Geary's
Ohio brigade* behaved with great gallantry in the serious drawn bat-
tle of Cedar Mountain. Va., Losing 465 killed and wounded.
The- Ohio brigade of Sigel's corps, the Twenty-fifth, Fifty-fifth,
Seventy-third and Seventy-fifth infantry, and Easkins' battery,
under the command of Col. Nathaniel < ). McLean, son of Judge
John McLean, had an active part in the Second Bull Run battles and
marches, and lost 4o4 killed, wounded and captured. Genera]
Schenck, their division commander, was wounded. Twenty of the
First Ohio cavalry, acting as escort for General Pope, were gobbled
up by del, Stuart in his famous raid. In the tierce 1, attic of August
29th the Eighty-second Ohio suffered terribly, losing over a hundred
men, and Colonel Cantwell was killed. The Sixty-first, in the same
battle of Schurz' division, lost :',.",, and two Ohio batteries and the
Sixth cavalry were participants in the struggle-!
This was soon fell,, wed by disaster in West Virginia and the car-
rying of the Confederate flag into Ohio. Genera] Cx's army on the
Kanawha, in June, 1 862, wa- made up ,,f one West Virginia b: igadi .
* Fifth. Seventh. Twenty-ninth and Sixty-sixth regiments.
tAt Second Manassas a brigade was creditably commanded by Gen. A. San-
ders Piatt, of Logan county, colonel of an Ohio regiment in the West Virginia
campaign. His brother. Donn Piatt, noted as an author and editor, served
on the staff of General Schenck in Maryland, and created considerable com-
motion by an unauthorized order permitting the enlistment of slaves as sol-
diers. It practically put an end to slavery in that State.
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 33 j
and three Ohio brigades, the Litter Col. E. P. Scanimon's, including
the Twelfth, Twenty-third and Thirtieth regiments and McMullin's
battery; Col. George Crook's, including the Eleventh, Thirty-sixth,
Forty-fourth and Forty-seventh, and Col. A. .Mum-"-, including the
Twenty-eighth, Thirty-fourth and Thirty-seventh regiments. They
occupied the Kanawha valley as far east as the Greenbrier gap. Yet
it was impossible to keep the district entirely tree from invasion.
A party of < !onfederate raiders struck Guyandotte, on the ( >hio river,
in November, 1861, and captured a number of Ohio citizens. In
the spring of 1862 Cox and Crook and their Ohio regiment- had
seine brisk fighting in the West Virginia mountains, in the regiou of
the New river narrows, but held their positions until Cox and the
main part of the division were ordered to Washington. The < Ion-
federates heard of this moveiiieiii by the capture of General Pope's
letter-book at Manassas, and a Large force of the enemy was at once
sent to'sweep the Kanawha valley clean to the Ohio. They found
in the Kanawha valley, hesides some West. Virginia ti ps, the
Thirty-seventh and Thirty-fourth Ohio, under Col. E. Siber, and the
Forty-fourth and Forty-seventh under Col. S. A. Gilbert. Gilbert
and Siber made a gallant resistance', losing a considerable number
of men in their fighting, hut were forced hack to Point Pleasant.
Before their arrival there, a dashing Confederate raider, A. U. .Ten-
kin?, had forded the river September 4th, and carried the Confeder-
ate flag for the first time into Ohio." lie made an excursion in
ileitis county and reported that lie was at times welcomed with cheers
for Jeff Davis
In this same doleful September Lee made his first invasion of
Maryland, cutting off the line of communication by the Baltimore &
Ohio railroad. McClellan was restored to command, and battles
were fought in Maryland to defend Washington and Philadelphia.
It may he imagined that profound depression prevailed in Ohio in
the midst of this unexpected result of the "On to Richmond" cam-
paigns. But the Ohio troops did their duty in the emergency. The
distinctively Ohio command in the Army of the Potomac during
this famous campaign was the Kanawha division under the command
of Gen. Jacob I). Cox. It was part of the Ninth army corps, under
Genera] Beno. and when the latter was killed at South Mountain,
General Cox was advanced to corps command. The Kanawha divi-
sion led in the attack upon the strong position of the Confederates at
Turner's Pa><. September 14th. fought gallantly and lost heavily.
The First brigade was in the advance of Reno's army, led by Col.
E. P. Scammon, the Twenty-third regiment under Lieut. -Col.
Rutherford P. Bayes, the Twelfth under Col. Carr P. White, and
*But he soon recrossed the river; Morgan's division was sent to Point
Pleasant, and in October, Cox and Crook returned and the Kanawha valley-
was regained and permanently held.
332 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
the Thirtieth under Col. Hugh Ewing. McMullin's battery was
advanced with the attacking column, and the second line was com-
posed of the Second brigade, Eleventh, Twenty-eighth and Thirty-
sixth Ohio, under ( !ol. ( reorge < h k. A hill was won, and when the
enemy attempted to retake it, the Thirty-sixth and Twelfth saved
the position by a dashing charge, Hayes' regiment lost 130 killed
ami wounded, a very heavy casualty, for all the regiments were
depleted. The total 1"— of the two Ohio brigades was 356. Hayes
was wounded. He and Cox and Scammon and Crook here won their
promotions and may he said to have begun their careers of distinc-
tion, though they had earned promotion in West Virginia.
In the great battle of Antietam that followed, General Cox com-
manded the Ninth corps under General Burnside, and Colonel
Scammon the Kanawha division, while Col. Hugh Ewing- led the
First brigade, and Crook the Second. Cox fought the famous battle
for the possession of the bridge over Antietam creek, and the two
Ohio brigades were in the heat of the struggle, winning a victory
after stubborn righting, hut being compelled t.> yield the advantage
to Lie's reinforcements, while McClellan held out of the battle a
corps that might have saved the important position gained and com-
pelled the surrender of Lee's army. McClellan was afraid to risk
all on one tremendous blow that might have ended the war, and Lee
escaped from the effects of his strategic blunder and peacefully
retreated across the Potomac. Therefore many live- were wasted,
among them two Ohio lieutenant-colonels, A. 1L Coleman, and
Clarke, of Miami county, and 36 killed and 188 wounded in the
Kanawha division. At the other end of the field, where there was
terrible havoc, an Ohio brigade fought under Major-General Mans-
field ( killed ). and lost a hundred killed and wounded, the brigade at
the close of the tight being under the command of Maj. Orrin J.
Crane, of tin- Seventh. The other regiments with the Seventh were
the Fifth and Sixty-sixth Ohio ami Twenty-eighth Pennsylvania.
The Eighth Ohio, in Kimball's brigade, under Lieut.-Col. Franklin
Sawyer, probably had harder fighting than any other Ohio command,
half their number (324) being killed or wounded. Gen. E. B.
Tyler, who had fought a battle against Stonewall Jackson in the val-
ley, commanded a brigade of Pennsylvania troops in this battle and
at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.
Before the news of the slaughter at South Mountain and Antietam
brought mourning to < Hrio homes, tin- State was alarmed by the great
invasion of Kentucky. Firsl came word that Kirby Smith was
coming up to Ohio over the old Warrior's trail through Cumberland
Gap. Gen. George W. Morgan, commanding a division, including
the Sixteenth and Forty second Ohio in Colonel De Courcy's brigade,
had occupied Cumberland Gap, but was flanked out of the position
and compelled to retreat to the Ohio river. General Manson
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 333
attempted to check the Confederates at Richmond, Ky., August
30th, and was swept away, one Ohio regiment, the Ninety-fifth,
sharing in the battle, and losing 4S killed and wounded, among the
wounded their colonel, William L. McMillen. News of the battle
reached Cincinnati Saturday night and on Monday came the infor-
mation that General Buell, lately planning to take Chattanooga, was
retreating toward Louisville, and Bragg was advancing with the
main Confederate army to unite with Smith. Cincinnati was
exposed to the combined Confederate forces. It is no1 surprising
that the city was alarmed. Yet there was no panic. The people
resolved t<> defend their homes. Gen. Lew Wallace was sent to take
command, and he at once proclaimed martial law and ordered the
citizens te suspend all business and assemble for military service or
work. "The principle adopted is. Citizens fur the labor, soldiers
for the battle," he said; •"The willing shall he properly credited, the
unwilling promptly visited." This vigorous order was generally and
cheerfully obeyed. Every store was closed, the street cars stopped
running, and even the schoolteachers reported fur duty. By 1 n
thousands of citizens were drilling in companies, and many were at.
work mi the fortifications traced back of Newport and Covington. At
the close of the day a pontoon bridge connected Cincinnati and Cov-
ington, and lumber for barracks and material for fortifying was being
transported. Governor Tod, meanwhile, reached the city and ordered
forward all the available troops and munitions of war. "Through-
out of the interior, church and tire bells rang, mounted men galloped
aboul spreading the alarm, there was a hasty cleaning of hunting
rifles, molding of bullets and filling of powder horns, and village
musters of volunteers." The trains for Cincinnati wen- crowded that
night, and by daybreak of September 3d the "Squirrel Hunters"
began pouring into Cincinnati. These, as the self-armed volunteers
were called, with their homespun clothes and sportsman outfits,
mingled in the streets with fragments of militia companies ami
invalid veterans and portions of partly organized regiments, march-
ing over the pontoon bridge into Kentucky. •■The ladies of the city
furnished provisions by the wagon load ; the Fifth st reel market
house was converted into a vast free eating saloon; halls and ware-
houses were used as barracks." By the !th Governor Tml had senl
to the point of danger twenty regiments, and twenty-one more were
in organization, besides the militia. Among them was the newly
organized Hundred-and-Fourth, under Col. .1. \Y. Reilly. The
stringent orders regarding business were relaxed in a few days, but
the people Continued their work of defense. Details of white citi-
zens, three thousand a day.— judges, lawyers, clerks, merchant-
princes and day laborers, shoveled side by side in the red Kentucky
(day. and a negro brigade reinforced them. The Confederate demon-
stration was pushed far enough to cause some skirmishing before
;;:;t
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Wallace's line by September LOth, but by the 15th it was apparent
thai the prompt measures for defense of the city had saved it from
;ill danger of attack, and the "Squirrel Hunter-'"" wore able to return
tu their homes and the citizens to business. This was the "siege of
Cincinnati. "' which left it- monuments in extensive military works
on the hills of Newport and Covington. After it was over, the peo-
ple laughed, but they had done a glorious as well as necessary work,
unparalleled in the history of the United States. As General Wal-
lace said in his farewell address: "Paris may have seen something
like it in her revoliitionary days, but the cities of America never did.
Be proud thai yen have given them such an example."
The relief of Cincinnati from danger was caused by the advance
of Buell from Louisville, compelling Bragg to concentrate for a hat-
tie, which was fought at Perryville, Ky., October 8th. Ohio troops
had a very important part in this famous combat, and sustained one-
fourth of the total casualties. The battle was fought almost entirely
by Gen. Alexander McCook's corps, and the brunt of the Confederate
assault was borne largely by the brigades commanded by Col.
Leonard A. Harris, of the Second regiment: Col. William II. Lytle,
of the Tenth ( who was wounded ainl captured ) : < Jol. Albert S. Hall,
of the Hundred-and-Fifth, and Col. George Webster, of the Ninety-
eighth (who was killed ). Under these Ohio officers were eight Ohio
regiments,! which lost 1,089 killed, wounded and captured. Four
of these, the Tenth, Third, Hundred-and-Fifth and Ninety-eighth,
losl 222 killed and 625 wounded. No regiment lost so many killed
or wounded or fought more gallantly than the Tenth Ohio, in that
part of the Held held by Lytle. Colonel Beatty's Third fought side
by side with them, and the two, by a stubborn defense, did a great
deal to avert disaster when the other wing of the army was crumpled
np under the Confederate assault.
While these audacious campaigns were being carried on toward
the north, another Confederate army, under Price and Vandorn,
attempted to drive Granl and Rosecrans out of Mississippi and easl
Tennessee. Rosecrans, whose merit had by this time keen recog-
nized by command of the Army of the Mississippi, attacked the
enemy at Inka. September L9th and won a victory. Gen. David S.
Stanley, a native of Wayne county, who had had a distinguished
career in Missouri and mi the Mississippi, commanded a division.
Col. John W. Fuller's Ohio brigade (Twenty-seventh. Thirty-ninth,
Forty-third and Sixty-third regiments) was engaged, the Thirty-
ninth regiment winning honorable mention, and no command was
more highly spoken of in the general's report than Sands* Ohio bat-
* There were fifteen thousand of the "Squirrel Hunters." from the various
counties of the State. Brown and Gallia contributing over two thousand.
tThe Second. Thirty -t.iird. Ninety fourth. Third. Tenth. Hundred-and-Fifth.
Fiftieth, Ninety-eighth and Hundred-and-Twenty-first.
THE WAR FOR THE UNION.
335
tcry, that fought brilliantly in an exposed position, losing 16 killed
and 35 wounded, a loss seldom equalled in the artillery service.
Two weeks later Rosecrans, in the works at Corinth, was assailed
by the Confederate forces, and successfully resisted desperate and
repeated assaults, practically destroying tin- Confederate army
broughl againsl him. In this fight Fuller's Ohio brigade fought in
the place of greatest danger, at Battery Robinett. The Sixty-third
lost 24 killed and 105 wounded, the Forty-third 20 killed and 76
wounded, the Twenty-seventh 62 in all, and Col. .T. L. Kirby Smith,
of the Forty-third (nephew of the Confederate Kirby Smith), fell
with a mortal wound, Adjutant Heyl dropping with him. Colonels
Sprague, Swayne and Noyes were particularly commended in the
official reports. The Eightieth, Twenty-second ami Eighty-first
infantry. Fifth cavalry and Sands' battery, also did their duty, and
lost more than a hundred men.
This was the only decided success in the enemy's country to cheer
the people of the North in the fall of L862. Lee ami Bragg retreated,
hut tci positions (hat continued to threaten the North. Buell, made
the subject of a court of iii.pii i\\', gave place to Roseerans, who won
in a remarkable degree the confidence and love of the Army of the
Cumberland, that he now set about reorganizing at Nashville.
Net only was the course of the war discouraging, hut. the proposi-
tion to emancipate the slaves of the South as a war measure was not
agreeable to all. The Democrat party in Ohio declared its alle-
giance to the Union, but opposed emancipation and arraigned the
administration for those arbitrary exertions of power which accom-
pany war. Their platform found so much favor that they carried
the State, electing W. W. Armstrong secretary of state, ami Judge
Ilaimov to the supreme court, by a majority of seven thousand. The
danger of Ohio's sending a congressional delegation opposed to the
administration was so great that Schenck ami Garfield became can-
didates for Congress. They were elected, but only thn ther
Republicans pulled through, while sixteen Democrats were success-
ful.
In October, Maj.-Gen. < >. M. Mitchel, who had lost his command
in Alabama because of a tremendous outcry against si plundering
by his soldiers, died of yellow fever on the Carolina coast. The State
had expected much of him. he was regarded as one of the ablesl and
most brilliant generals, and his death was deeply mourned.
There was little in the events of the war during the remainder of
the year to inspire hope. The army in Virginia was defeated with
frightful loss at Fredericksburg, December loth, the Fourth and
Eighth Ohio sharing in the casualties of the charge against Marye's
hill. In Mississippi Grant was thwarted in his campaign againsl
Vicksburg, and Sherman, attempting to cany the Confederate works
north of that river post, suffered a grievous repulse and heavy loss.
336 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
nearly a third of which was borne by Ohio troops, who had OS killed,
250 wounded and 200 captured. Gen. George W. Morgan, of Ohio,
commanded the division that did most of the fighting, and < lolonel De-
Courcy commanded the brigade that led the assault. The Sixteenth
Ohio was particularly distinguished, and suffered the heaviest loss
on the field, 16 killed, L03 wounded, and 194 captured before the
Confederate works. Sherman, on account of this battle, again
went under temporary eclipse, while Rosecrans, in command of the
main army of the west, gained renown by advancing to Murfreesboro
and fighting in the closing days of L862 and beginning of l v ''>--; the
famous battle of Stone River. It began something like Pittsburg
Landing, but Rosecrans showed himself as great as Grant in his
refusal to admit defeat, and finally compelled his enemy to retire.
To this great battle < >li i< > furnished thirty-two regiments of infan-
try, nine latteries of artillery and three cavalry regiments, and it"
losses are a criterion the Ohio troops here at least one-fourth of the
burden of the conflict, for they lest 3,641 men. and the total casual-
ties were 13,249. The most distinguished among the killed was
Brig.-Gen. Joshua W. Sill, who had ably commanded a division of
the army. There also fell Col. .Miner Milliken, of the First cav-
alry; Col. John Kell, of the Second infantry; Col. Joseph G.
Hawkins, of the Thirteenth; Col. Fred C. Jones, of the Twenty-
fourth; Col. Leander Stem and Lieut.-Col. M. F. Wooster, of the
Hundred-and-First, and many ether gallant officers and men. In
this battle Philip II. Sheridan, reared at Somerset, and appointed to
West Point from Ohio, won great fame in command of a division of
infantry. Colonel Kennetl led a division of cavalry. John Beatty,
Timothy R. Stanley, John F. Miller, Moses B. Walker, Daniel
McCook, Charles G. Harker, William B. Hazen. Samuel Beatty,
James I'. Fyffe, Samuel W. Price. Lewis Zahm, Ohio colonels, and
Gen. James 1!. Steedman, commanded brigades, and Gen. Samuel
Beatty succeeded VanCleve in command of a division. Alexander
McCook commanded the right wing of the army. Colonel Barnett
was chief of artillery.
In January. IS63, Senator Wade was elected for a third term, his
opponents being Hugh J. Jewett and Thomas Ewing. He contin-
ued in the senate to he the powerful leader, with Thad Stevens, of
the uncompromising party that sustained the war. But the opposi-
tion became more active. Rosecrans' battle, a~ costly victory, did not
greatly inspirit the people at home in the early days ,,f 1863, and
there was a field for labor for the agitators of discontent and fault-
finding, supported by those who were opposed to the emancipation
proclamation of President Lincoln, issued January 1. 1863. In
Noble county there was a little rebellion, and a squad sent to arrest
a deserter was mel by an armed force that asked the [Jnited States
officers to surrender and he paroled a- prisoners of the Confederate
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. ;;;;;
army. Two companies of troops marched through the disaffected
region and arrested a large number of eitzens, a few of whom were
punished by imprisonment and fine. The leader in Ohio in opposi-
tion to the administration was Clement L. Vallandigham, who had
been defeated for Congress in the previous fall, despite the general
triumph of his party. General Burnside took command at Cincin-
nati, and issued an order intended to rigidly repress acts tending To
discourage enlistment or create enmity to the general government.
Vallandigham was arrested al Dayton, May 2d, just after he had
made a speech at Mount Vernon, and his paper. The Dayton
Empire, announced next day: "The cowardly, scoundrelly Aboli-
tionists of this town have at last succeeded in having Eon. C. L.
Vallandigham kidnapped," and followed this up with invective
against the Union party. The result was that the newspaper office
was wrecked and burned by a mob, and several buildings were con-
sumed before the names could he extinguished. The county was put
under martial law. hut no other disturbance followed. Mr. Val-
landigham issued an address from his confinement at the Burnet
House, Cincinnati, which he called a "bastile," declaring that he was
a good Union man. and his enemies were "abolitionist disunionists
and traitors." On the trial of Mr. Vallandigham it was shown that
ho had denounced the war as ••wicked, cruel and unnecessary," waged
not for the preservation of the Union, hut for "the purpose of crash-
ing out liberty," and that he had indulged in various inflammatory
utterances about "Lincoln and his minions," and their "usurpa-
tions." lie was defended before the court-martial by Messrs. Pugh
and Pendleton, hut there could he no denial of his violent utter-
ances, and he was sentenced to close confinement until the end of the
war, a punishment which President Lincoln commuted to banish-
ment within the Confederate lines.
By an application for writ of habeas corpus, the Vallandigham
case was broughl before Judge Leavitt, of the United State- district
court,* who, after elaborate arguments by .Mr. Pugh and District
Attorney Perry, refused the writ, holding that there had been no
unwarranted exercise of the powers intrusted to the president of the
United States as commander in chief of the army in time of war.
There were many, however, who disagreed with the judge, and
asserted their righl as American citizens to emulate the freedom and
incur the unpopularity of Th a- < 'orwin when he advised the Mexi-
cans to welcome American soldiers to hospitable graves.
After the Vallandigham episode, there was a serious resistance to
the draft in Holme, county, and Governor Tod sent a body of troops
against the insurgents, issued a proclamation warning thi people ill
•Judge Humphrey Howe Leavttt had held this office ever since his appoint-
ment by Andrew .Jackson, in 1S34.
1—22
338 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
fault, ami told Genera] Mason to granl no quarter if they did not
obey. A thousand armed men collected in a fortified camp to fight
the Ohio troops, but, after a skirmish, dispersed, ami peate was soon
restored, withoul any loss of life.
The political campaign of 1863 was one of the most remarkable in
the history of Ohio. S<:ine leaders of the Democratic party, and a
great pari of the rank ami file, excluding of course that large num-
ber who had from the firsl supported the war for the Union, were
carried away by the theory that the war was being waged unnecessar-
ily by the administration at Washington, when an honorable peace
might he made. Aside from the theory .it' peace, remonstrances
were made against General Burnside's order No. :is, which led to the
arrest of Vallandigham. Judge Pugh,* in his address at the state
convention of 1863, said in reference to Vallandigham: "We will
not talk <d' war, or peace, or rebellion, until our honored citizen has
been restored to us. If you make that your platform you will lie
victorious. If nol I counsel you to seek a home where liberty i xists."
'ldie convention nominated Vallandigham for governor of Ohio.
This was followed by a written appeal addressed to President
Lincoln, for the restoration of Vallandigham to his home, and a
remonstrance alleging, among oilier thin::-, that the arrest of Val-
landigham was an insult to Ohio. Lincoln, in his answer said:
"•Your nominee for governor, in whose behalf you appeal, is known
to you and to the world to declare a^ain-i the use of an army to sup-
pn -- the rebellion. Your own attitude, therefore, encourages
desertion, resistance to the draft and the like, because it teaches
those who incline to desert and escape the draft to believe it is your
purpose to protect them, and to hope that you will become strong
enough to do so." Lincoln adroitly proposed that the committee
sign a statement that a war was in existence tending to destroy the
national Union, that an army and navy were constitutional means
of suppressing it, that none of them would do anything to impair
the efficiency of the army and navy, or hinder enlistment, and that
they would do all tiny could to maintain the soldiers. In that ease
the President would return Vallandigham to his home. But the
campaign went on with .Mr. Vallandigham in Canada, where he went
from Wilmington on a blockade-runner, the Confederates refusing to
keep him except as a prisoner. In Canada there were many other
refugees who opposed the war. and some secrel agents of the Confed-
eracy plotting for the release of prisoner-. From Niagara Falls,
Vallandigham issued an address to the people of Ohio, declaring him-
self the champion of "free speech, a free press, peaceable assem-
blages of the people, and a free ballot."
Bui almosl simultaneous with the Vallandisrham convention, John
As quoted in Reid's Ohio in the War.
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 339
Brough, remembered as a greal Democratic leader in the days of
Harrison and Jackson; founder of the Cincinnati Enqnirer, the
ablest of the Ohio auditors of state, for the past fifteen years a rail-
road manager, made one of his powerful public addresses at Mari-
etta, in support of the war. and E. D. Mansfield, in the Cincinnati
Gazette, proposed Brougb for governor. The proposition found
Lnstanl favor, and at the "Union" convention, a week later, Brough
was nominated by a small majority over those who supported the re-
nomination of Tod. The platform upon which he appealed to the
people was essentially this; "The war must go on with the utmost
vigor, until the authority of the national government is re-estab-
lished, and the ('hi Flag floats again securely and triumphantly over
every state and territory of the Union."
This was all on the heels of the terrible disaster at Chancellors
ville. But soon the faith of the war party was vindicated by the
greal military triumphs of the early days of July, that opened the
Mississippi river to the gulf and ended the invasive career of the
Confederate army led by General Lee.
General Grant, with the Army of the Mi--i--ippi, ohtained a lodg-
ment on the river below Vicksburg, .May 1st. fighting a successful
battle at Port Gibson, in which several Ohio regiments were actively
engaged. One corps of his army was commanded by James I!.
MePherson, a native of Sandusky county, thirty-five years old at that
time, who hail been Grant's chief engineer at Shiloh, and Halleck's
before Corinth, and in less than a year had been advanced from cap-
tain to major-general. MePherson, after Por1 Gibson, pushed on
toward Jackson, _Miss., and Logan's division of his command, on
.May 12th, fought a tierce little battle at Raymond, in which the
Twentieth Ohio, under Col. Manning F. force, was particularly dis-
tinguished, losing in killed and ">^ wounded. Sherman and MePher-
son, united, then struck a blow at Joseph E. Johnston's army at.
Jackson, which brought into battle Gen. Ralph B. Buckland's bri-
gade, and the Eightieth Ohio. Turning westward and concentrat-
ing, Grant defeated Pemberton at Champion's Hill, where Gen.
George F. McGinnis, an Ohio soldier in tin Mexican war. now an
Indianian, ably commanded the brigade that fought at the -t
important point and suffered the greatest loss. The Fifty-sixth
Ohio, of Slack's brigade, fighting on an extension of McGinnis' line,
losl 20 killed and !h> wounded. Gen. Mortimer 1 >. Leggetl com-
manded the brigade of Logan's corps that comprised the Twentieth,
Sixty-eighth ami Seventy-eighth Ohio, ami these were hotly engaged,
as also were the three Ohio regiments of Lindsey's brigade.
Then followed the rout of the Confederate rearguard at Ilk
river, and the investment of Vicksburg. In the assault of May
19th two regiment- of Gen. Hugh Swing's brigade, the fourth West
Virginia and Forty seventh < >hio, got close to the Confederate works.
340 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
and held their place rill night. In the second assault, -May 22d, a
volunteer storming party of Ewing's brigade planted the flag on the
Confederate works, and the Thirtieth Ohio gallantly followed, sup-
ported by the Forty-seventh. Other Ohio regiments, at other points
of the line, participated in the assault with credit, but none lost so
heavily as the Thirtieth and Thirty-seventh on that day, or as the
Thirty-seventh and Forty-seventh on the 19th.
In the siege, that continued six weeks, twenty-live regiments of
Ohio infantry took part and eleven batteries of Ohio light artillery.
Ohio, represented by these gallant men in the line and by Grant,
Sherman and McPherson among the generals, fully shared in the
glory of compelling the surrender of the Confederate garrison, July
4th. This triumph was sunn followed by the fall of Port Eudson,
for which, among the generals, no one was more responsible than
Godfrey Weitzel, who had been appointed to West Point from Cin-
cinnati, and had done more than any other man to secure the Union
occupation of Louisiana. Later in the year he was on recruiting
ditty in Ohio.
The day of Pemberton's surrender General Lee began his prepara-
tion for retreat from Gettysburg, jnst after the failure of his grand
assault on Cemetery Hill, duly 3d. Lee had begun by defeating
the Union army in Virginia, at Chancellorsville, early in May.
Among the first troops to he overwhelmed by the flank attack of
Stonewall Jackson was Genera] Mid. can's brigade of four Ohio regi-
ments and one Connecticut. They fought bravely, as is proved by
their list of 45 killed and 350 wounded, hut were driven from their
line, and the same fate befell ether three Ohio regiments in How-
ard's corps. 'Ida- other brigade in the army, largely composed of
Ohioans, and commanded by Col. (diaries Candy, of the Sixty-sixth,
fought with mere ^ucce<s. and lust less heavily, and the Fourth and
Eighth, in a brigade under Colonel Carroll, of the latter regiment,
also had honorable part in the battle. Every Ohio regiment mi the
field suffer,, 1 loss, and among the killed was Col. Robert Reily of the
Seventy-fifth.
Advancing into Pennsylvania, Lee's long column, extending from
tin' Potomac to the Susquehanna, was touched near the center, at
Gettysburg, by the advance of Reynold's corps. Instantly contract-
ing, the Confederate army was hurled upon the head of the Union
column, hut was held at bay until corps after corps could !»• hurried
forward into an impregnable position on which Lee wasted the flower
of his army during three sweltering days, duly 1st, 2d, and 3d. In
this great battle, the most generally familiar, if not the most impor-
tant of the war. Ohio had the Fourth and Eighth infantry regiments
in Carroll's brigade of Hancock's corps; the Twenty-fifth, Seventy-
fifth and Hundred and Seventh in Harris' brigade of Howard's
corps; the Fifty-fifth and Seventy-third in Col. Orland Smith's bri-
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. g | |
gade of the same corps, and the Sixty-first and Eighty-second in
Schurz's division of the same corps; the Fifth. Seventh. Twenty-
ninth and Sixty-sixth in Candy's brigade of Geary's division,
Slocum's corps; the Sixth cavalry in Pleasanton's corps, and in the
artillery, a very important ami in that battle, the batteries of Gibbs,
Dilger, Eeckman, and Norton. Carroll, Harris. Candy ami Orland
Smith were Ohioans in brigade command. Carroll and his men
earned the special thanks of General Howard. The Seventy-third
Ohio lost 21 killed and 120 wounded, and the Hundred-and-Seventh
23 killed and 111 wounded. These were the heaviest regimental
losses among the Ohio troops, the total being 1,234.
It was in July. L863, also, that Col. John T. Toland, of Ciflcin-
anti, led a brigade of mounted men, the Thirty-fourth Ohio and
Second Virginia, to Wyfheville, and cut the railroad communica-
tions of Richmond, bu1 lost his life in the act.
The reader may have remarked that although Ohio had by this
time enlisted over 1S0,000 men for the Union army, there were in
the summer of 1st;:;, only twenty-five regiments in the lines about
Yicksburg ami twelve in the battle of Gettysburg. Forty-five were
in Rosecrans' army operating in middle Tennessee. That is to say,
at the great points of contact, where North and South were most
actively contending, Ohio had about eighty regiments, -which, if full,
would have represented 80,000 men. hut were far from full, and
probably did not contain over 60,000. The other regiments had
either been mustered out. as was the case with the three-months regi-
ments, or they were on duty guarding the Southern territory thai lay
behind the western armies, and the routes along which food and
ammunition were shipped to the fighting lines. This duty, alto-
gether honorable, required a large part of the Union troops. Atten-
tion is called to tin's here, that the reader may understand the truth
when he encounters some statement based on total enlistments, that
the North had in its armies three million men, and the South less
than a million, and the war was won by hurling these three million
en masse upon the lonely one. The campaigns of 1863 were fought
by contending; armies in which there was not enough difference of
numbers in line to excuse any great general for defeat.
It was after Ohio was tilled with rejoicing over Gettysburg and
Vicksburg that the word came. July 8th, that the redoubtable raider,
John Morgan, had reached the Ohio river and was aboul to enter
Indiana. On the 12th Governor Tod issued a proclamation calling
out the militia, and on the next day Morgan and two thousand
troopers were near the suburbs of Cincinnati, tearing along at the
rate of fifty miles a day, picking up fresh horses a- they went, but
not taking time to do serious mischief. Feinting toward Hamilton,
Morgan boldly crossed the railroads running out of Cincinnati in
the suburbs of the city, passing through Glendale ami feeding hi-
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
horses in sight of Camp Dennison. There was a slight skirmish
there, and a Little .Miami train was thrown fr.nn the track, but Mor-
gan did not tarry, and pushed on to find a crossing place into Ken-
tucky, followed closely by General Hobson, while Generals Cox,
Sturgis and Ammen and Cols. Granville M lv and Stanley .Mat-
thews organized the militia about Cincinnati, and General Judah's
troops were sent up the river to cut off the Confederate retreat. Of
course, the utmost consternation prevailed among the people of the
country that Morgan traversed. There was little danger to life, but
the raider- indulged in the most unrestrained plundering. They
seemed to want calico more than anything else, and every village
store they passed had i* utribute this commodity. Every man
who could ii'et a bolt, says the historian of Morgan's cavalry, Gen.
Basil Duke, tied it to his saddle belt, only to throw if away and get
a fresh one at the first opportunity. One man carried a bird cage,
with three canaries in it. for two days. Another slung seven skates
around his neck, though it was intensely hot weather. They pil-
laged like boys robbing an orchard. Againsl these mirthful ma-
rauders fifty thousand Ohio militia actually took the field, but not
half of them ever got within fifty miles of Morgan.
On the 8th, four days after leaving Camp Dennison, Morgan was
at Pomeroy, where the militia annoyed him seriously, and when he
reached Chester he gave his men a rest of an hour and a half that
was just the margin between successful escape and disaster, so close
was the pursuit. It was dark when he reached the ford at Buffing-
ton's island (or Portland. Meigs county), where a little fort was
held by two or three hundred militia, who evacuated in the night
while Morgan waited for light before attacking. In the morning-.
.Inly 19th, Eobson's cavalry, who had chased Morgan through three
rtates, came down upon him pell-mell, and Judah, with his gunboats.
-uiued the river. After a brisk tight, in which the Ohio men losl
the gallant old patriot, Maj. Daniel McCook, father id' two major-
generals and three brigadier-generals, Morgan escaped with about
twelve hundred men, and seven hundred surrendered. The chase
continued. Twenty miles above Morgan got three hundred more of
his men across, when the gunboats compelled him to hasten on with
the remainder. Striking for the Muskingum, he was headed off by
the militia under Runkle, and he turned toward Blennerhassett's
island. Then, finding an unguarded crossing on the Muskingum
above McConnellsville, he pushed toward the Ohio above Wheeling,
hut wa- attacked at Salincville, in Columbiana county, on July 26th,
by some Michigan cavalry, and losl two or three hundred of his men,
and on the evening of the same day he surrendered what remained
of his party to a small body of Kentucky cavalry. The non-com-
whose property had been taken in this famous raid were
clamorous to have Morgan treated as a horse-thief, and the dashing
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 343
Kentuckian and some of bis officers were immured in cells of the
( >hio penitentiary, which was not used otherwise as a military prison.
Morgan took his revenge for this treatment by making a daring and
successful escape in November.
Morgan's raid cosl the State and individuals, ii was estimated,
about one million dollars. For the individual hisses claims were
made against the general government. A Stare. tmission, in l s >'.4,
passed upon the claims of individual losses and arrived at a total of
a little over .$.".75,000.
The great victories of July. L863, and the speedy discomfiture of
Morgan, helped the Union party in Ohio to make a spirited cam-
paign. Toward the close of it, however, there was a great combat
that was dubious in its results — a defeat in battle, though the cam-
paign of which it was the culmination was partly a success. The
heavy loss of life among Ohio soldiers cast gloom over the State.
This battle of ( nickamaue.a. the greatest in the West, ranking with
Gettysburg as the greatest of the war, was fought under the com-
mand of that general of all famous generals most closely associated
with Ohio. William S. Rosecrans. It was his supreme Test, and,
unfortunately, he did not quite come up to supreme greatness, fall-
ing short of thai tenacity that saved his army at Murfreesboro.
Rosecrans had maneuvred Bragg out of middle Tennessee, hack to
Chattanooga, in the summer of 1863, ami in Augusl set his army in
motion to flank that point, and force Bragg down into Georgia. The
main part of his army crossed the Tennessee river below Chattanooga
and struggled through the mountains into Georgia south of Chatta-
nooga, compelling Bragg to evacuate that city and fall back toward
Atlanta, while the remainder of Rosecrans' army occupied the aban-
doned town. But Bragg would not give up without a battle, and
expecting reinforcements from Virginia, soughl to cut off Rosecrans'
columns as tiny debouched in the Georgia valleys. This caused
Rosecrans to hurry his scattered divisions northward, and the fight-
ing began September 18th across Chickamauga creek, for possession
of the roads to Chattanooga. Through the 19th and the 20th the
battle raged, marked by furious assaults by the Confederate troops,
and stubborn defense by the northern end of the Union line, under
General Thomas, while the southern wing, kept in a state of confu-
sion by the hurrying of troops to supporl Thomas, was shattered and
driven back to ( lhattanooga. lint the roads for which the battle was
fought were held, and when the troops retreated, they fell back to
Chattanooga, and retained that important position, which had been
the objective of campaign for more than a year.
In the great battle of Chickamauga an Ohioan commanded the
army, and an Ohioan. General Garfield, was chief of staff. Five of
the thirteen division < inlanders and twelve of the thirty -i.\ brigade
commanders were Ohio officers; ten of the thirty-six batteries, and
:;i I
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
forty-four of the one hundred and fifty-eight regiments wore from the
Buckeye state.*
Attached to general headquarters were the First battalion Ohio
sharpshooters and the remnant of the gallant Tenth infantry. In
Thomas' corps there were Ohio regiments in every division. In
Baird's were the Second, Thirty-third and Ninety-fourth Ohio regi-
ments of Scribner's brigade. In Negley's division were the Eight-
eenth, in a brigade commanded by its eel, me], T. R, Stanley: the
Twenty-first and Seventy-fourth in Sirwell's brigade, and Marshall's
ami Schultz's batteries, and John Beatty commanded a brigade of
Westerners. In Brannan's division were the Seventeenth, Thirty-
first and Thirty-eighth, in a brigade commanded by Col. John M.
Connell of the Seventeenth; the Fourteenth in Croxton's brigade;
the \inth and Thirty-fifth in a brigade commanded by Col. Ferdi-
nand Van Denver: and Gary's battery. In Reynold's division the
Hundred-and-Fifth was a part of King's brigade, and the Eleventh,
Thirty-sixth and Ninety-second formed the main part of Turehin's
brigade.
There were not many Ohioans in the corps commanded by Oen.
Alexander McCook: the Fifteenth and Forty-ninth of Goodspeed's
battery, in the brigade commanded by Gen. August Willich, of Cin-
cinnati, wlie had drilled The Ninth Ohio, but went int.. the war as
colonel of an Indiana regiment; the Eundred-and-First, in Carlin's
brigade; the Firsl and Ninety-third, in Baldwin's brigade; and
Grosskopf's battery. lint in this corps Phil Sheridan commanded
a division and Gen. William II. Lytle a brigade under him.
In Crittenden's corps there was an Ohio brigad< — Sixty fourth.
Sixty-fifth, and Hundred-and-Twenty-fifth Ohio and Third Ken-
tucky — commanded by Col. Charles G. Harker; William I!, llazen,
promoted to brigadier-general, commanded a brigade including the
Forty-first and Hundred-and-Twenty-fonrth ; the Ninetieth, Ninety-
seventh, Twenty-sixth, Twenty-fonrth and Sixth were scattered in
other brigades, and Bradley's, Baldwin's and Cockerill's batteries
were in the artillery. Horatio P. VanCleve, kinsman of Dayton pio-
neers, commanded a division including the Nineteenth in a brigade
led by Oen. Samuel Beatty, also the Thirteenth and Fifty-ninth and
Fifty-first ami Ninety-ninth, making up half the other brigades.
Gen. Gordon Granger's reserve corps, destined to win much fame
in the battle, was largely Ohioans. Gen. .Tame- I :. Steedman com-
manded the main division of ii. with the Ninety-eighth, llnndred-
and-Thirteenth and Hundred and Twentv-first regiments the main
*In 1S!)4 Ohio erected fifty-five monuments on this field and about Chatta-
nooga to mark the places where her soldiers had fought. The two fields of
made a national park largely through the efforts of Henry Yan-
v nt, ,n, of Cincinnati, in later life a distinguished journalist and war
historian, who commanded Hi,- Thirty-fifth Ohio at Chiekamauga and Mis-
sionary Ridge.
THE WAR FOR THE UNION.
:;i:
part of the brigade of Col. John G. Mitchell, of the Hundred-and
Thirteenth. Col. Daniel McCook commanded another brigade,
including the Fifty-second and Sixty-ninth, and the Fortieth, Eighty
ninth and Aleshire's battery were parr of Whitaker's brigade.
In the cavalry corps Col. Edward McCook commanded cue divi-
sion, and Gen. George Crook, an Ohioan who had made himself a
name in the West Virginia campaigns, the other. One brigade of
cavalry, under Col. Eli Long, was made up of the First, Third and
Fourth Ohio and Second Kentucky, and Newell's light artillery was
with McCook's division.
Of the part of Ohioans in the battle there is not space lure to give
details. They fought gallantly in every part of the field. After the
wreck of the Union right, General Garfield made a famous ride under
tire to encourage Thomas to keep up the fight, and in the emergency
of Thomas' command, Steedman, Harker, YVillich. Dan Mc< 'ook,
John Beatty, Stanley, and their men, and the men of Turchin's bri-
gade, earned the special commendation of the "Rock of Chicka-
mauga." Harker, VanDerveer, Dan McCook and T. E. Stanley,
• thin colonels, were urgently recommended for promotion. Bazen
and Samuel Beatty and Willich were no less faithful under less for-
tunate circumstances.
No death on the held was more lamented than that of General
Lytle, the only officer of that rank who was killed, lie fell at the
head of his men, in a charge upon the enemy. Fifty-eighl other com-
missioned officers were killed, among them Col. Hiram Strong, of the
Ninety-third, Lieut. -< Jol. Valentine < 'upp, commanding the First cav-
alry, Col. William (1. Jones, of the Thirty sixth, and Lieut.-Cols.
Elhannon M. Masl and 1 >. M. Stoughton. The Ninth regiment,
which distinguished itself on the first day by capturing a battery at
the point of the bayonet, lost more heavily in killed and wounded
than any other Ohio regiment — 4s killed and l s ."> wounded. The
either regiments that suffered most severely were the Fourteenth, 35
killed and 167 wounded; the Twenty-sixth, 27 killed and 1-4-0
wounded; the Thirty-fifth, 21 killed and 139 wounded; the Thirty-
first, 13 killed and 134 wounded. There was not an Ohio infantry
regiment on the field that was nol at least decimated, to use thai word
in its strict meaning; nol a regiment that did not lose one-tenth of
its men. killed, wounded or missing. In every regimenl men were
unaccounted for when the official reports were made out, and their
frit nds at lamie did not knew for months, and some never, whether
they were buried on the field, or languished, wounded and sick, in
Southern prisons. The Ohio ti ps, if losses may be taken as the
test, bore one-third of the brunl of battle, for their killed were 510
in a total of 1,657. The wounded a g the Ohio soldiers were
3,052 in a total for the army of 9,756, hut those reported captured
or missing were not in so great proportion, only 1,346 in a total of
346 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
£,757.* ( hit of this 1,346 many should be added to the list of killed
and wounded.
The survivors of Chickamauga, besieged at Chattanooga, had the
privilege of voting their opinions regarding the extraordinary polit-
ical campaign at home. They and their comrades in other parts of
the South cast 41,467 votes for Brough and 2,288 for Vallandigham.
That Vallandigham received so many votes among the soldiers is sur-
prising, and that he received 187,000 votes in Ohio was yet more
startling. But Brough was given a majority of over 60,000 at home,
and the soldier vote raised ir to 101,099, the greatest in the history
of Ohio. There was hearty jollification throughout the State. The
victory was taken as an assurance of the progress of the war until the
South should suhmit unconditionally and ir should be forever settled
that a s<-«-(— -ii m nf -rates was an offense against the law of the nation,
a rebellion to be crushed by force of anus.
After Chickamauga Grant was given chief command in the West.
Rosecrans was supplanted by Thomas in command of the Army of
the Cumberland, and in the reorganization Alexander McCook, who
was blamed in considerable degree for the misfortunes both of Mur-
freesboro and Chickamauga, was relieved. The fate of Rosecrans
cannot be passed without comment. If, on the field of Chickamauga,
he had sent Garfield to look after the retreating' troops and arrange
for defense of Chattanooga, and had gone himself to Thomas' line,
doubtless he would not have losl command of the army. But nothing
influenced him to go to the rear but the conviction that such was his
duty. It was, in fact, Ins proper place, for there the troops nmst he
arranged to cheek pursuit. The newspapers, however, accused hint
of running away, and nothing could he -aid to overcome the prejudice
that was excited against him. Even then, he might have held Ins
place, if. in earlier campaigns, lie had been careful in criticising the
shortcomings of other officers, like Grant and McClellan. When lie
needed friends most, he found he had lost them. It nmst be said,
also, that Charles A. Dana, special agent of the war department, had
found fault with his administration in Tennessee, and by his reports
id" the Chickamauga campaign, em' day telegraphing that the army
would march to Atlanta and end the war, and a few days later declar-
ing that Bull Run had been outdone, worked irreparable injury to
Rosecrans. If he had retained command id' his army, and had been
reinforced at Chattanooga, he would doubtless have won the same
triumph that followed and associated en the field of victory the more
famous trio of Ohio soldiers, Grant, Sherman and Sheridan.
In the November battles of Lookoul Mountain and Missionary
Ridge, the Ohioans of the Army of the Cumberland were reinforced
by the ( Ihioans of Howard's corps of the Army of the Potomac, and
■Official Reports.
THE WAR FOR THE UNION.
347
Candy's brigade of Geary's division of the same eastern army, as
well as nine Ohio regiments of Sherman's Army of the Tennessee,
from Mississippi, Gen. Hugh Ewing commanding one of the divi-
sions. .Mure Ohioans fought together around Chattanooga than ever
before in the war. Ohioans of both the Eastern and Western armies
climbed together up the steep sides of Lookout, and swarmed up Mis-
sionary Ridge and broke the line that had held Sherman at bay.
There was comparatively little loss in the fighting on Lookout Moun-
tain, and those Ohio regiments that suffered most in the campaign
wen- in the divisions of Sheridan and Wood, under Brigadiers Wag-
ner, Harker, Willich, Efazen and Samuel Beatty, the greatest loss
being L49 killed and wounded in the Ninety-seventh Ohio. These
fifteen regiments lost 600 in all, seven Ohio regiments of Turchin's
brigade lost 246, and the other regiments of Ohio's fifty lost enough
To make up an Ohio total of 1,600, about one-third of the loss of the
army. Twice as many Ohio officers were killed as of any other
state — forty in all — among thorn Col. William R. Creighton, of the
Seventh regiment; Col. Edward II. Phelps, of the Thirty-eighth, and
Majors Samuel C. Erwin, I!. F. Butterfield, Thomas Acton and Will-
iam Birch.
At the same time Col. .lames W. Reilly's Ohio brigade, and several
other regiments of Ohio infantry and cavalry, were campaigning in
east Tennessee, where they and their comrades held Knoxville against
the assault of Longstreet.
During the year L863, fifteen thousand new men were enlisted for
the army in Ohio, raising the entire number furnished by the State
to something over 200,000 according to the governor's estimate. But
the great event of the year in thai line was the re-enlistment, for the
-war. of twenty thousand veterans in the field, who were the remnants
of eighty Ohio regiments enlisted for three years in 1S61. "It was
the most inspiring act since the uprising after Sumter." Col. R. B.
Hayes' regiment, the Twenty-third, was the first in which the work
began, and Col. E. F. Nbyes' regiment, the Thirty-ninth, furnished
the largest number of veterans.* The Sixty-sixth, the firsl of these
regiments to return to the State after re-enlistment, on the veteran
furlough of thirty days, reached Columbus December 26th, and was
received with unprecedented enthusiasm. Tl thers rapidly fol-
lowed, and enjoyed for a few brief days the delights of peace and the
admiration and applause of their fellow citizens. They did the State
good, also, in shaming into silence what was left of the spirit of oppo-
sil ion to the war.
Governor Tod retired from office at the beginning of 1864 with a
r< rd of a great many good things done, as well as s e instances
•Reid's Ohio in thp War.
348
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
of hasty action that made him enemies.* He had been very active
in sending assistance to wounded soldiers, had encouraged the work
of the sanitary commission and aided the government in every way
possible, in none more effectually than promoting the reorganization
of the state militia on a working basis as a National Guard under
Adj.-Gen. Charles W. Hill.
Statistics showed thai Ohio, despite all the losses in battle, was
nowhere near the poinl of exhaustion at tin close of 18G3. In fact,
she had a reserve of over four hundred thousand able-bodied men
from which Levies could he made for war. ami actually thirty thou-
sand nmre able-bodied men at home in the State in the fall of 1863
than she had in the fall of 1860. From this one may realize hew the
ordinary life of the State, business, manufacturing, transportation,
mining, the courts and schools, went en with no visible effect from
the war except the dropping out of many familiar figures of three
years before. The production of petroleum was rapidly growing in
importance, and in that line uf exploitation of the earth's resources
the foundations of seme great fortunes were being laid. The rail-
reads were generally in the hands of receivers, offering the oppor-
tunities for purchase ami consolidation and destruction of original
stuck that founded ether great corporations.
People were aide to give attention to search for the north pole as
well as conquest of the southern states, and Charles Francis Hall, a
modest seal-engraver of Cincinnati, returned in 1862 from a voyage
in the polar regions, and met Lady Franklin at Cincinnati, after-
ward receiving assistance for a second voyage, in 1864, in which he
discovered the relics of Franklin's unfortunate party.
With high prices tor farm products the people at home were pros-
pering, and the mortgage debts had been decreased $10,000,000
since I860. In L863, $675,000 of public debt was paid, $150,000
advanced to the general government, and nearly $425,000 remained
in the State treasury. The Ohio banks had ever six and a halt mil-
lions of their paper money in circulation in 1m;:;, hut it was rapidly
giving way, under the financial policy of Secretary Chase, to the
national hank currency, the issue of which was begun in L863, and
the greenbacks, or national notes. Gold had gone out of circulation,
and a gold dollar was worth two of paper, hut wheat sold at $1.50
per bushel.
Though the constitution of Ohio tended to make the governor a
figure-head, during the war the occupants of that office found abun-
dant opportunity for action, and they were distinguished anion- the
♦Governor Tod. near the close of his term, was near actual imprisonment
en tli. charge of kidnapping as the result of a scheme for revenge ingeniously
planned by Dr. E. B. Olds. Probably he was the second governor to he put
under arrest. Governor Worthington about fifty years before was brought to
the door of a jail on a writ of capias, sued out by Judge Jarvis Pike, who had
quare, and was anxious for his pay.
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 349
governors of the North for energy and wisdom in their efforts to
maintain the Union and support the men in the field. None was
more active than the last of the three, .John Brough. He began his
administration in 1864 by persuading the legislature to levy a tax
of two mills on the dollar, to which county commissioners might add
one mill, and city councils a half mill, for the support of soldiers'
families, and he watched the enforcement of the law with an eagle
eye, promptly exposing those recreant county and township officials,
for there were some, who tried to divert the tax into the road fund.
He also built tip the State agency for the relief of soldiers in the
tield. pushing the work ahead regardless of all conflict with the Sani-
tary commissions, "lie kept a watchful eye upon all the hospitals
where any cpnsiderahle numbers of Ohio troops were congregated.
The least abuse of which lie heard was made matter of instant com-
plaint. If the surgeon in charge neglected it. he appealed forthwith
to the medical director. If this officer made the -lightest delay in
administering the proper correction, he went straight to the surgeon-
general. Such, from the outset, was the weight of his influence
with the secretary of war that no officer about that department
dared stand in the way of Brough's denunciation. It was known
that the honesty and judgment of his statements were not to he
impugned, ami that his persistence in hunting down defenders was
remorseless.*
By the beginning of bi'4 there had been over 200,000 enlistments
in Ohio, and in February over 50,000 more were called for: in
March 20,000, in July 50,000, and in December 26,000 more.
The method already adopted was used in raising these troop-. First
bounties were offered until as much as a thousand dollar- was paid
To get a recruit up to the mustering officer and as much more to get
him To the front Thi- failing to secure enough men. there were
drafts which were generally ineffectual. Nearh eight thousand were
drafted in May, of whom the government got less than fifteen hun-
dred in the ranks. These fact- do not have a patriotic ring, but such
was ihe record, and no state did better than Ohio, for some way or
other -he supplied the government with all the men called for. and
more Too. Eleven new regiments were organized in 1864, running
the numbers up to One Hundred and Eighty-thn f infantry, and
old regiments were recruited.
In February a campaign was made by Gen. William Sooy Smith,
a native of Delaware county, and graduate of Wes1 Point, who was
assistant adjutant-general at Gamp Dennison in L861, and colonel of
tin' Thirteenth regiment, and in IS62 brigadier-general. lie served
with credit al Shiloh and Perrvville, and next was chief of cavalry
in the Tennessee department. Hi- campaign in February, 1864,
:;:,<»
CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
was from Memphis into Mississippi, and resiilted in several unsuc-
cessful battles with General Forrest, the greatest of the Confederate
cavalrymen.
In April Governor Brough conceived the idea of calling out State
militia to hold the frontier and lines of communication, so that the
experienced troops could be released to take part in the united effort
to crush the rebellion. On his suggestion a meeting of western gov-
ernors was held at Washington, and Brough, Morton, Vates, and
Stone of Iowa offered President Lincoln 85,000 militia for such a
purpose. Thirty thousand were immediately called for from Ohio,
and the work of organizing them fell upon Adj.-Gen. B. R. Cowen.
People douhted if the militia would respond, and on the day set a
cold, heavy rain fell, that seemed a gloomy token of failure. But
at night came the thrilling news that thirty-eight thousand were in
eamp for duty, at various towns and cities of the State. The gov-
ernment at Washington was amazed, and was not ready with muster-
ing officers, so that the movement of the men was delayed. Govi rnor
Brough asked that he might send more than thirty thousand, and
Stanton accepted all he could raise, to till Tip the deficiencies of
other states, saying: "They may decide the war." In brief, Ohio
sent forty regiments, clothed, armed and equipped, to the points that
the government designated, for one hundred days' service. Some of
these men did more than guard duty in the Shenandoah valley, on
the Virginia peninsula, around Petersburg and Richmond, at Monoc-
acy and iii the works around Washington. Three of the regiments
went into Kentucky to meet Morgan's last raid, and at Cynthiana
losl heavily in killed, wounded and captured. The war was not
ended when their term of service expired, bur they did much to
"decide the war," for Grant needed all the veterans they released
for his campaign in Virginia.
In the army that moved acres- the Rapidan early in May. under
the command of General Grant, who at the same rime directed the
movements of Sherman in Georgia and Hanks in Louisiana and
Crook in West Virginia, were a comparatively small number of Ohio
regiments. The veteran Fourth and Eighth Ohio, with Carroll as
their brigade commander, represented Ohio in Ilai ck's corps.
The Hundred-and-Tenth, Hundred-and-Twenty-second and Ilun-
dred-and-Twenty-sixth were in Sedgwick's corps; the Sixtieth and
Second cavalry in Burnside's corps. The Sixth cavalry was tin only
Ohio regiment then under the command of Phil Sheridan, but
George A. Custer, s,,n of a Harrison county blacksmith, who had
been senl to West Point by Congressman Bingham, commanded one
of the cavalry brigades. Though few in numbers the Ohioans were
conspicuous for gallantry at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court-
house and Cold Harbor, and their losses were among the heaviest.
The most efficient officers in the army of General Butler, that
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. •;-,!
should have Taken Richmond, were Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore, a
native of Lorain county, and Gen. August V. Kautz, reared in Brown
county, a soldier of the Mexican war in the First Ohio, and com-
mander cf Ohio cavalry in Kentucky, who led Butler's little cavalry
division with great energy; but there were only two veteran Ohio reg-
iments in that army, the Sixty-second ami Sixty-seventh.
Another small group of Ohio regiments (five) mixed with West
Virginians, under General ('nick, with Rutherford I'. Hayes as one
of the brigade commanders, operated through the western Virginia
mountains, cutting the western railroad communications of Rich-
mond, ami fighting a severe battle al Cloyd's Mountain, where the
Ohioans lost 300 killed and wounded. Crook's division, with other
Ohio regiments, was also in the Lynchburg campaign, am! six of the
newer Ohio regiments were represented in Lew Wallace's battle at
Monocacy, losing heavily in killed, wounded ami captured. Later in
the year, Crook's division was with Sheridan in the famous Shenan-
doah valley campaign* — Haves', Wells' and Johnson's brigades of
Ohioans, and with them were J. Warren Keifer's brigade of three
Ohio regiments, ami two Ohio regiments of cavalry. Gen. Will-
iam H. Powell, of 1 ronton, who organized the Second West Virginia
cavalry, mainly Ohioans, commanded a division of Sheridan'.- army.
In the far distant Red River campaign < >hio was represented
among the division commanders by Gen. 'I'. Killy Smith, ami among
the troops by an Ohio brigade, under Col. .1. W. Vance, four regi-
ments in all.
lint the urea! ma>s of the Ohio soldiers at the front were concen-
trated in .May. L864, in north Georgia, for the campaign to Atlanta.
William Tecumseh Sherman led the grand array of a hundred
thousand effective soldiers, comprising the Army of the Cumberland
under Thomas; the Army of the Tennessee, under McPherson; and
the Army of the Ohio under Schofield. With "Pap" Thomas were
twenty-two Ohio regiments and five batteries; 1 ). S. Stanley com-
manding a division, and Samuel Beatty, Ilarker, Willich and Gib-
son, Emerson Opdycke, and Isaac M. Kit-by. brigades, in Howard's
corps; in Palmer's corps twenty-one Ohio regiments and two bat-
teries, with A. G. McCook, Dan McCook, M. I!. Walker. Van LVr-
veer, John G. .Mitchell and Este leading brigades; in Hooker's corps,
nine regiments and Two batteries, with I )an Butterfield commanding a
division ami Candy and .lames S. Robinson brigades. Under
McPherson were thirteen Ohio regiments and a battery in Logan's
corps, with C. K. W Is and Hazen rising from brigade to division
* Sheridan's famous victory at Cedar Creek. October 19th, inspired Thomas
Buchanan Read, at his Cincinnati home, to write the well-known poem,
"Sheridan's Ride." which Murdock read for the first time at an entertain-
ment given for his benefit, as he had been giving all his talent to tin cause
of the Sanitary commission. The walls of every schoolhouse and lyceum in
the North soon resounded with "Hurrah! Hurrah for Sheridan:"
<j 5 2 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
command, and Gen. Charles < '. Walcott commanding a brigade; in
Dodge's corps four regiments and a battery, with Gen. J. W. Fuller
commanding a brigade or division as emergency demanded, and Gen.
John W. Sprague and Col. K. NT. Adam.- brigades; in Blair's corps,
which joined the army in June, five Ohio regiments and three bat-
teries, with M. I). Leggett commanding a division and Force and
R. K. Scott and B. F. Potts brigades, ruder Schofield wen- eight
Ohio regiments and two batteries; -1. 1). Cox commanding a division,
and Bond, Reilly and McLean brigades. In the cavalry there were
four Ohio regiments, and Ed McCook and Kenner Garrard com-
manded divisions, and Long the Ohio brigade.
In all Ohio contributed eighty-six regiments and sixteen batteries
to this magnificent army, thai maneuvered and fought for a hundred
days from Dalton to Jonesboro and occupied Atlanta in the early
day- of September, while Grant was still waiting outside the breast-
works of Petersburg and Richmond, ami Banks had been driven back
from Shrevesport, ami Sheridan was preparing to begin the conquesl
of the Shenandoah valley. Thousands of these Ohio soldiers were
numbered among the killed and wounded in the battles of Resaea,
New Hope, Kenesaw Mountain, Peachtree Creek, Atlanta and .Tones-
Inn'., and the innumerable skirmishes. There was no death in that
year thai so saddened the nation as the death of the gallant McPher-
son, who tell in the pine w Is near Atlanta. July 22d.
In tin' assault at Kenesaw .Mountain the brave generaTs, Dan
McCook and Harker, fell mortally wounded. "If they had lived,"
wrote Sherman afterward, "I believe 1 should have carried the posi-
tion." Col. John II. Patrick fell at Dallas Col. dames W. Shane
at Kenesaw.
When Sherman marched to the sea he took with him forty Ohio
infantry regiments, three of cavalry and two of the Ohio batteries.
Among bis division commanders were < '. R. Woods. W. Ii. Hazen and
M. 1 >. Leggett, and brigades were led by I!. D. Fearing, Theodore
Jones, W. S. -lone-. J. W. Fuller, M. F. Force. R. K. Scott, John S.
Pearce and ( reorge P. Este. All id' these shared in the honor of cap-
turing Savannah, and Hazen, by the capture of Fori McAllister, won
During this campaign Gen. Robert S. Granger, a native of Zanes-
ville. was in command in north Alabama, and with the Hundred-and-
Second Ohio among his troops did conspicuous service in holding
Forrest in check, and later in the year made a splendid fight against
Hood at Decatur. At the same period General Steedman was in com-
mand of the garrison at Chattanooga, ami Gen. Ralph Buckland at
Memphis.
Over thirty Ohio regiments were left in Tennessee under General
II on as, when Sherman marched from Atlanta, and they shared in
ody victory of Franklin and the rout of II 1's army before
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 353
Nashville. Ohioans were conspicuous in leadership. Schofield, in
chief command at Franklin, reported that Gen. J. 1). Cox, command-
ing the Twenty-third corps, "deserves a very large share of credit for
the victory;" Gen. I). S. Stanley, commanding a division, was
"deserving ><( special commendation," and General Reilly, command-
ing a division of brigades under Cox, captured twenty rebel batfle-
flags. Emerson Opdycke won the brevet of major-general. At
Nashville Stanley commanded a corps and Samuel Beatty, Cox,
Steedman ami Kenner Garrard divisions, ami were highly distin-
guished. Among the brigade commanders was Col. <'. II. Grosvenor.
The political campaign of 1864 in < >hio is also to be noticed as one
of the important occurrences of the war period. There was opposi-
tion to the renomination of Mr. Lincoln, and for a time Salmon I'.
Chase listened to the voices that urged his candidacy, but he with-
drew his name from consideration when the Ohio legislature indi-
cated a preference for Lincoln, and later in the year became chief
justice of the United States supreme court. Lincoln was renom-
inate.] in a convention presided over by ex-Governor Dennison, and
the Democratic convention put in nomination Gen. George 1!. McClel-
lan for president and George H. Pendleton for vice-president. This
was a ticket that should have particularly appealed to Ohio, but the
platform declared that "after four years of failure to restore the
Union by the experiment of war." the situation demanded a cessa-
tion of hostilities and a convention of the states to make peace. Such
a sentiment lest force after the capture of Atlanta. A smaller, tem-
porary political party, called Peace Democrats, in which Alexan-
der Long of Ohio, was prominent, was more radically opposed
to war. Mr. Pendleton, in October, expressed himself as devoted
to the Union and in favor of no terms of peace that did no?
restore the Union entire. But the majority of the people took the
view expressed by the famous war Democrat, General Dix, in a
speech at Sandusky, that "a cessation id' hostilities would lead inevi-
tably and directly to a recognition of the insurgent states." Ohio
gave Lincoln a majority of nearly sixty thousand, but there were over
200,000 votes for McClellan. The majority would have been only
thirty thousand if 50,000 soldiers in the field had not voted four to
one for Lincoln. Put no other state, save Massachusetts, gave Lin-
coln so large a majority. Tie carried New York by less than seven
thousand out of a total vote of over seven hundred thousand.
In the midst of the political campaign, and while a draft was
impending, discovery was made of a secret organization, opposed 10
the war and enlistment of troops, akin to the "Knights of the Golden
Circle." The adjutant-general estimated that it embraced from
eighty to a hundred thousand members in Ohio. Bui no serious
trouble resulted. There were rumors later in the year, of
lion- from Canada to release the Confederate prisoners, of
1-23
354 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
there were large numbers held at Camp Chase, near Columbus, and
on Johnson's island. An attempt was actually made against John-
son's island in September, by John Yates Beall, of Virginia,
who, with a few comrades, seized the steamer Pliilo Parsons, at Sand-
wich, captured and scuttled the steamer Island Queen, and cruised
about Sandusky bay, awaiting a signal from another conspirator to
make an attack on the war boat Michigan. Bu1 the scheme failed,
the Parsons was scuttled on the Canada shore, and Beall, being cap-
tured later and accused of attempting to wreck an express train, was
hung al Governor's Island. X. Y.
The year I860 opened with Sherman marching northward from
Savannah t<> crash the united remnants of the Confederate armies
that had held Atlanta and Charleston, and Grant and Sheridan wait-
ing fur passable mads to compel the surrender of Richmond. To aid
Sherman, Schofield's corps was sent from Nashville east and by boat
tn Wilmington. General Cox was in immediate command of the
corps, and (hus. X. < '. .McLean and .1. W. Reilly in command of divi-
sions, that included twelve regiments of Ohio infantry. With Sher-
man in the northward march were the Ohio regiments that had
marched to the sea, and Gens. C. P. Woods. W. 1!. Hazen, M. F.
Force and M. D. Leggett commanding divisions of the army. Sher-
man and Cox, between them, pulverized the forces of Johnston, Bragg
and Hardee, and compelled their surrender soon after Grant had
cornered Lee at Appomattox and put an end to the career of the
greatest of the Confederate armies. With Grant in this famous
campaign, among the conspicuous generals were George (rook, one
of the staunchest and bravest of Ohio soldiers, and his gallant men
of the old Kanawha division, under Keifer and C. H. Smith, and
Gen. Charles Griffin, a native of Licking county, who had made a
nmst honorable record in Virginia, from Pull Run, where his battery
was in the center of tin 1 hardest fighting, to Appomattox where he
commanded a corps ami received the arms and colors of the defeated
army. With the Army of the James, before Richmond in the last
days, were four Ohio regiments, and Weitzel and Kautz were high
in 1 tmand of the troops.
The telegraphic news of the surrender of Lee, April 0. 1S65, was
received with the wildest rejoicing at home. A week later the State
was plunged in mourning by the horrifying news that President Lin-
coln was assassinated. Ohio has had to mourn two other presi-
dents, her own sons, foully taken off, hut there has never been in the
history of America, such a moment of horror and dismay and such
a cry for vengeance as followed the death of Lincoln. The voice that
most potently reassured the nation was that of General Garfield — a
few broken sentences spoken to the frantic crowd that gathered in the
.-! re< ta of New York :
"Fellow citizens: Clouds and darkness are around Him. His
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 355
pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds. Justice and judgment arc
the establishment of Ili> throne. Mercy and truth shall go before
His faro! Fellow citizens, God reigns. The government at Wash-
ington lives."
in the sad journey of Lincoln's body to Illinois, a stop was made
at Cleveland, where the coffin was placed under an open temple and
viewed 1>\ thousands. At Columbus the body Lay for a day in the
rotunda of the capitol, upon a mound of flowers, while the walls
about were hung with the tattered battleflags of Ohio regiments.
The streets were draped in mourning, minute guns sounded through
the day, and the people crowded in tearful silence about the body of
the great leader "f the Union.
After the grand review at Washington the Ohio troops with Grant
ami Sherman returned to their homes in June and July, and the
men with Thomas and other commanders also came home, all being
received with the highesl manifestations of honor and approbation.
But it was some time before all returned, for fifteen regiments assem-
bled in Texas to expedite the departure of the French army from
Mexico, ami many were kept in garrison throughout the South.
General Steedman remained in command of the department of
Georgia, (Jen. ( '. R. \\" Is iu Alabama, Sherman in command of
the division of the Mississippi and Sheridan of the division of the
Gulf.
Before the close of 1865 all hut eight of the Ohio regiments had
ceased to he, and the soldiers were again quiethj engaged in the pur-
suits of civil life. Fears of the growth of a military despotism were
proved to he utterly unfounded. The last of Ohio's volunteer army,
the Twenty-fifth infantry. Eleventh cavalry and Battery 1!, First
artillery, were mustered ou1 in June and duly. 1865.*
The summaries compiled by the adjutant-general of the State
show that Ohio furnished troops under the various calls a- follows:
Call of April l:., 1861, for 75,000 12,357
July 22, 1861, for 500,000 84,116
-inly 2, L862, for 300,000 58,325
dune i:>. 1863, fur militia 2,736
October 17. L863, for 500,000 :!2.s:;7
March 1 1. L864, for 200,000 29,931
April 22, 1864, for militia 36,254
July 18, 1864, for 500,000 :;n.s L >:;
December 19, L864, for 300,000 23,275
Grand total 310,654
These were four thoitsand more than the Stan- was allotted .1- her
share, and reduced to department standard they represent quite
♦King's "Ohio."
;;-,,; CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
240,000 three-year soldiers. The total list of Ohio organizations
includes 230 regiments, 26 independent batteries, five independent
companies of artillery, several corps of sharpshooters, large parts of
five West Virginia regiments, two Kentucky regiments, two of
United States colored troops, and a large proportion of two Massa-
chusetts colored regiments, lie-ides, the State gave nearly 3,500
men to the gunboal service on western waters. According to Reid's
summary, Ohio contributed one-third of a million men to the war.
Out of her troops who went upon the field, 11,237 were killed or
mortally wounded (of which 6,563 were left dead on the field), and
13,35 I died of disease.
Out of every thousand, en an average, :'■" were killed or mortally
wounded, 4-7 died in hospital, 7l» were honorably discharged for dis-
ability, and 44 deserted. Hut such an average, like most averages,
is deceptive. The item of desertions is hardly applicable to the
regiments that went to the front, and, while some regiments suffered
scarcely any less in battle, ether- were nearly destroyed. A brief
dipping into the military records will illustrate. The First regi-
ment lost 527 killed and wounded in twenty-four battles; the Second
."•'17. The Third went on Streight's raid into Georgia and were all
killed, wounded, or captured and confined in prison pens where
many died. The Seventh, out of 1,800 enlisted from time to time,
returned heme with hut 240 able-bodied men. Similar figures might
he given of ether regiments.
The total war expenses of the State government, beginning with
a million and a half in 1861 and ending with over half a million in
1865, was $4,741,373, to which should be a. hied the fund for relief
of soldiers and their families, which rose from half a million in 1862
to two millions in 1865, and aggregated $5,61S,864. Besides the
total of these two items, over ten millions, more than fifty-two mil-
lions were paid as local bounties to soldiers, and over two million- in
bounties of $100 each to 20,708 veterans in 1864. Furthermore,
Ohio paid $1,332,025 in direct national tax for the support of the
war. a sum that was refunded in later years. The grand total of
war expenditure is given at nearly $65,000,000.
This enormous total does not, of course, represent all the pecuniary
sacrifice of the State. Notable among the other contributions were
those made through the agency of the Sanitary commission. The
Cincinnati branch, laboring efficiently all through the four years for
the tvliet' of Ohio soldiers, devoted large amounts of money to the
cause and forwarded vast stores of clothing and supplies donated
from all parts of the State. It established a Soldiers' home in 1862,
and a soldiers' cemetery at Spring Grove, and under its auspices was
held the Greal Western Sanitary Fair at Cincinnati, that yielded
the commission over a quarter million dollars. Outside of Cincin-
nati the principal association was the Soldiers' Aid society of Oleve-
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. :;: ,;
land, the first general organization in the Dhited States for such a
purpose, which disbursed in money and goods and f 1 much more
than a million dollars, established a home, and also held a fair that
brought in $78,000. The Columbus society, active in the same sort
of work, established a Soldiers' home in L862. In every part of the
State, these greater efforts were rivalled, according to the ability of
smaller communities, and the work was without compensation or
hope of reward. Everywhere the women gathered to scrape lint for
bandages, and make up boxes of clothing and dainties for the brave
men in camp or hospital.
And it may be said further, that among these quiet workers there
were very few who wn-c not earnest supporters of the war to the hit-
ter end. They labored to hold the people true to the cause of estal>
lishing and perpetuating a national America, with no more rotti a
compromises for its betrayal. They had n<> sympathy for the
prophets of a patched-up peace.
Men nt' Ohio birth— Grant, Rosecrans, Buell, McDowell, Slur-
man. Sheridan, McPherson, Crook — commanded armies with, mi the
whole, mure success than the generals of any other state. [ndeed,
if we may include McClellan, who, it may he said, was presented to
the nation by Ohio, the greater part of the Union armies were the
greater part of the time under the leadership of Ohio men. The
mosl successful of these were the si. ns of Ohio pioneers, and were
reared in lug cabins or humble village homes, in the western atmos-
phere of equality and fearlessness. This was particularly exempli-
fied in Grant, Sheridan, Crook and Custer, typical hard fighters,
fearless leaders, who were never worried by the reverence fur South-
ern strategy and awe of Southern "chivalry," that injured the worth
of many officers. "Never mind the danger of their cutting our com-
munications," -aid Grant in the Wilderness, "they have communi-
cations of their own to take care id'." "They are only a lot of
department clerks," cried Sheridan at Five Forks, "Run them
down !"
Among the naval officers particularly distinguished for patriotism
was Henry Walke, of Virginia birth, who had been reared and edu-
cated at Chillicothe, had nunc into the navy as midshipman in ! s -7,
and served with credit in the Mexican war. He was unfaltering in
upholding the honor of the flag at Pensacola, aided in saving Fort
Pickens to the nation, and mi the Mississippi river from the fall of
186] to the fall of 1863 had a conspicuous part iii all the naval
fighting, as tin mmander of the famous Carondelet. Afterward
he chased the Confederate cruisers mi the Atlantic, and his service
was rewarded by pi ition to commodore in 1866, and ><
admiral in IsTm An g the naval officers mi the Atantic
commanding a monitor in the attacks on Foil Sumter and othi r
Confederate strongholds, was Daniel Amnion, a brother *>( General
;; - s CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
Annum, and a native of Brown county. He was an old playmate of
Grant's, ami after the Latter became president, Ammen was made a
rear-admiral. James Findlay Schenck, a brother of Gen. Robert C.
Schenck, who hail been in the United States navy since 1825, was
made a commodore in L863, and took an important part in the attack
upon Fort Fisher, lie was promoted to rear-admiral in l^<is.
Xot only did Ohio furnish great generals but die gave the nation
great statesmen, like Chase, whose administration of the treasury
department was one of the memorable features of that period — not
perfect according to some critics, but "ii the whole as good as human
imperfection would, permit ; Stanton, secretary of war — stern, tire-
less, single in purpose, who will always he conspicuous among the
heroes of the must dramatic era of American history; Benjamin F.
Wade, the bold and unhesitating leader of the war party in the sen-
ate; John Sherman, wise, calm, deliberate, a power in steadying the
ship of state; John A. Bingham, a famous leader, and Schenck and
Garfield, who were both statesmen and soldiers.
Thomas Corwin, at the beginning of Lincoln's administration, was
sixty-seven years of age. lie served his country through the war as
minister to Mexico, ami December 18, 1865, died at Washing-ton.
In 1^74 Governor Noyes, urging that the State honor his memory,
said: "In a little graveyard at Lebanon, marked only by a bed of
myrtle, reposes the dust of Thomas Corwin, the most brilliant ora-
tor and one of the wisest statesmen whose lives grace the history of
the State. Xo man has held a larger place in the hearts ami minds
of tin' people, nor has contributed more to the welfare of the State
than he."*
Thomas Ewing, seventy-two years of age in 1861, gave his influ-
ence to the support of the war after the failure of the Peace con-
gress, of which he was a member, hut the weight of years was upon
him. He died at Lancaster October 26, 1871. His son Hugh was
one of the most gallant Ohio commanders, while Thomas, Jr., was
in less noted among the commanders west of the Mississippi.
day Cooke, son of a Sandusky lawyer, land speculator, and con-
gressman of early days, Eleutheros Cooke, had become a noted finan-
cier in \'ew York in 1861, and as financial agenl of the United
States aided materially in the sale of the government bonds.
Among the newspaper men of the Union, Edwin < 'owles, of < 'leve-
land, a native of Ashtabula county, and Mnrat Halstead, horn in
* "At the close of the war lie was stricken with paralysis while visiting as a
private citizen the eapitol at Washington where he had triumphed as repre-
sentative and senator, and he died almost before the laughter had left the lips
of tin- delighted groups which hung about him. Of all our public men he was
met distinctly what is called, for want of some clear term, a man of genius,
and he shares with but three or four other Americans the fame of qualities
that made men love while while they honored and revered him." — William
Dean Howells, "Stor.es of Ohio."
THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 359
Butler county, were inferior to none in ability or devotion to the
government. Whitelaw Reid, the Xenia editor, became war cor-
respondent of the New York Tribune, and upon his observations
many thousands based their hopes of success. The potent weapon
of ridicule was turned so strongly against the opponents of the war
by David Ross Locke in the Toledo Blade, that it was soberly
declared in a speech at Cooper Institute, New York, that three
things saved the Union, "the army, the navy and the letters of
'Petroleum V. Xasby.' "
Again, if songs are more important than laws, Ohio was eminent
in that field also. In the trenches of the Crimea, it is said, the Eng
lish all sang "Annie Laurie." In the Union army they sang
"Lorena," written by a young Zanesville preacher. Soldiers of many
states, when they thought of heme, hummed the plaintive line- of
'"Rain upon the Root'," by Coates Kinney, of Xenia. Nor was there
lack of poets to express the patriotic sentiment of the people. In
the latter days of the war nothing cheered the people more strongly
to the final and supreme effort than the "Sheridan's Ride." of
Tlmmas Buchanan Read.
Notf. — It has been barely mentioned that Ohio troops were conspicuous
in saving Missouri to the Union in 1861-62. In he Army of the Mississippi,
first organized under General Pope, there was the Twentv-seventh Ohio. Col.
John Groesbeck: Thirtv-ninth. Col. John W. Fuller: Forty-third, Col. J. L.
Kirby Smith, and Sixty-third, Col. John W. Sprague 
