EIGHTY years ago the territory included
within the limits of the present State of Ohio was an
almost unbroken wilderness. The beautiful river
that forms its southern boundary had, indeed, been
threaded by a few eager explorers; but the white man had
not yet established himself upon its banks. So too
Lake Erie, on the north, had long before been furrowed
by the adventurous craft of civilized men; but on all
its borders there was not a hamlet nor a house.
Over the whole region, now so thickly populated, brooded
the silence of savage life. The rivers were
ploughed only by the swift canoe of the Indian, and the
virgin earth waited for the race that was to develop its
riches and its beauty.
Today, in wealth and population Ohio ranks third among
the states of the Union. Large cities, flourishing
towns, peaceful hamlets, and smiling farms enliven and
beautify the scene. Huge steamers, laden with
passengers and with wealth, ply upon the rivers and
lakes which, less than three generations ago, were
silent and desolate. Railroads traverse the state
in all directions; busy manufactories give employment to
thousands; institutions of learning and charity abound,
and, in all respects, the state ranks as a prosperous
and powerful commonwealth.
History does not elsewhere record such an extraordinary
case of rapid development, and the political philosopher
finds abundant food for thought in tracing, from their
first beginning, the causes that have contributed to so
great a growth. We propose, in these pages, to
chronicle some of the events and to sketch some of the
individuals connected with the settlement and
development of one small portion of this great state,
viz: Athens County.
Before entering, however, upon
matters purely local, let us take a general view of the
country and its inhabitants prior to its first
settlement by the whites, and thus enable ourselves more
clearly to appreciate the wildness of the region to
which the early settlers came.
WHATEVER curious speculations may be indulged as to
the origin of the Indian races that once inhabited the
northwestern territory, it is certain that we have no
clear knowledge of them farther back than the middle of
the seventeenth century. Beyond that, they disappear in
the mists of the pre-historic period, and, even long
after that, much that is written concerning them rests
on vague tradition. Whether they were sprung from some
of the oriental tribes, or what their origin and whence
their travels, are. questions that will probably never
be answered; they belong to the class of ethnological
mysteries which will, in all times, furnish themes for
the ingenious researches of learned men, but which will
never be solved. It is not proposed to enter into this
broad and interesting topic, but merely to glance at the
condition of the country and the character of the
aboriginal inhabitants of Ohio before its first
settlement by the whites.
In 1650, Ohio was an unbroken forest, occupied
principally by a tribe of Indians called the Fries, who
had their villages and hunting grounds near the shores
of the lake of that name, and whose wanderings were
chiefly confined to the present northern portions of the
state. The Wyandots (or Hurons) held the peninsula
between Lakes Huron, Erie and Ontario, and their hunting
excursions extended as far south as the regions about
the mouths of the Maumee and Sandusky, while a tribe
called the Andastes possessed the valleys of the
Allegheny and the upper Ohio.
During the latter half of the seventeenth century,
frequent and terrible incursions were made among these
tribes of the west by the more warlike and powerful
Iroquois, from New York. These Iroquois, so called by
the French, were the noted Five Nations, viz: the
Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, and
they formed the strongest confederation known in Indian
history. Tradition relates with what relentless fury and
unwearying tenacity the hostile Iroquois warred upon the
western tribes until finally the latter were wiped
out—either massacred, driven away, or merged into other
tribes.
The foregoing enumeration conveys an idea,
sufficiently accurate for our purpose, of the Indian
tribes that inhabited Ohio during the middle and latter
part of the eighteenth century, and up to the time of
the first white settlement, under the auspices of the "
Ohio Company." These tribes were roving and
active, and in the power to make war by no means
contemptible. The long and bloody struggle which they
made to keep possession of the country, sufficiently
attests their tenacity of purpose and their capacity for
concerted action.
There is reason to believe that in some former age,
though how remote can only be conjectured, what is now
Athens county was a favorite resort of the Indians.
Indeed, remarkable traces of their existence are still
to be found here. In Athens and Dover townships, on the
level plateau called "the Plains," are several of those
Indian mounds which, found in various parts of the
Mississippi valley, have so long interested American
archaeologists. A still more interesting Indian relic in
the same township, is the remains of an ancient
earthwork or fortification.1
Considerably more than an acre is included by an
embankment which, though it has been ploughed over for a
third of a century, is still very marked with its rude
bastions, ramparts, and curtains. It is probable that on
this spot, some hundreds of years since, a battle was
fought between warring tribes of savages for the
possession of the inviting plains of Dover and the lower
valley of the Hockhocking. Numerous skeletons have
been found in these mounds, together with Indian
hatchets and other weapons of stone.
Such, then, were the occupants of Ohio in the middle of
the eighteenth century, and such, at least,
approximately, were the limits of their homes and
haunts. During the half century that followed, while the
white men were building up a civil society in the East,
and events were slowly drifting toward the collision and
war which resulted in American independence, the
possessory rights of these savages were but little
disturbed in Ohio. Here they roamed, and hunted, and
made love or war at their pleasure, little conscious of
their approaching troubles and doom. It is no part of
the purpose of this narrative to treat in detail of the
history of this period, of the intrigues and wars of the
French and English for the possession of this Western
country, and of the fitful and treacherous alliances of
the Indians now with one side and now with the other.
Our aim is merely to call attention to the character of
the Indian tribes that occupied the country by way of
showing in some degree the dangers and the obstacles
with which the pioneers had to deal; this being
cursorily accomplished, we pass to events more nearly
connected with our subject.
Dumnore's War.
Probably but few of the present inhabitants of Athens
county are aware that a fort was established within its
limits, and an army marched across its borders, led by an
English earl, before the Revolutionary war. The building of
Fort Gower at the mouth of the Hockhocking river, in what is
now Troy township, and the march of Lord Dunmore's army
across the county, thirty years before its erection as a
county, forms an interesting passage in our remote history
before the earliest settlement by the whites.
"Dunmore's war" was the designation applied to a series
of bloody hostilities between the whites and Indians during
the year 1774. It was the culmination of the bitter warfare
that had been waged with varying success between the
frontier population of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the
Delawares, Iroquois, Wyandots, and other tribes of Indians.
One of the most noted of the many massacres of that period
was that of Logan's family by the whites, and, in
retaliation, the swift vengeance of the Mingo chief upon the
white settlements on the Monongahela, where, in the language
of his celebrated speech, he "fully glutted his vengeance."
In August, 1774, Lord Dunmore, then royal Governor of
Virginia, determined to raise a large force and carry the
war into the enemy's country. The plan of the campaign was
simple. Three regiments were to be raised west of the Blue
Ridge, to be commanded by General Andrew Lewis, while two
other regiments from the interior were to be commanded by
Dunmore himself. The forces were to form a junction at the
mouth of the Great Kanawha and proceed under the command of
Lord Dunmore to attack the Indian towns in Ohio.
The force under Lewis, amounting to eleven hundred men,
rendezvoused at Camp Union, now Lewis-burg, Greenbriar
county, West Virginia, whence they marched early in
September, and reached Point Pleasant on the 6th of October.
Three days later, Lewis received dispatches from Dunmore
informing him that he had changed his plan of operations;
that he (Dunmore) would march across the country against the
Shawanese towns on the Scioto, situated within the present
limits of Pickaway county, and "Lewis was ordered to cross
the Ohio river at once and join Dun-more before those towns.
This movement was to have been made on the10th of
October. On that day, however, before the march had begun,
two men of Lewis's command were fired upon while hunting a
mile or so from camp. One was killed and the other came
rushing into camp with the alarm that Indians were at hand.
General Lewis had barely time to make some hasty
dispositions when there began one of the most desperate
Indian battles recorded in border warfare—the battle of
Point Pleasant. The Indians were in great force, infuriated
by past wrongs and by the hope of wiping out their enemy by
this day's fight, and were led on by their ablest and most
daring chiefs. Pre-eminent among the savage leaders were
Logan and " Cornplanter" (or "Cornstalk"), whose voices rang
above the din, and whose tremendous feats performed in this
day's action have passed into history. The contest lasted
all day and was not yet decided. Toward evening General
Lewis ordered a body of men to gain the enemy's flank, on
seeing which movement about to be successfully executed the
Indians drew off and effected a safe retreat. The force on
both sides in this battle was nearly equal —about 1,100. The
whites lost half their officers and 52 men killed. The loss
of the Indians, killed and wounded, was estimated at 233.2
Soon after the battle Lewis crossed the river and pursued the
Indians with great vigor, but did not again come in conflict
with them.
Meanwhile, Lord Dunmore, in whose movements we are more
interested, had, with about twelve hundred men, crossed the
mountains at Potomac Gap, reviewed his force at Fort Pitt
(now Pittsburg), and descended the Ohio river as far as the
mouth of the Hockhocking, within the present limits of
Athens county. Here he landed, formed a camp, and built a
fortification which he called Fort Gower. It was from
here that he sent word to General Lewis of the change in his
plan of campaign, and he remained here until after the
battle of Point Pleasant. Abraham Thomas, formerly of Miami
county, Ohio, who was in Dunmore's army, has stated in a
letter published many years ago in the Troy Times, that by
laying his ear close to the surface of the river on the day
of the battle, he could distinctly hear the roar of the
musketry more than twenty-five miles distant.
Leaving a sufficient force at Fort Gower to protect the
stores and secure it as a base, Lord Dunmore marched up the
Hockhocking toward the Indian country. There is a tradition
that his little army encamped a night successively at
Federal creek, and at Sunday creek, in Athens county.
He marched across the present limits of the county and
up the Hockhocking as far as where Logan now stands; and
from there westward to a point seven miles from Circleville,
where a grand parley was held with the Indians. It was at
this council, by the way, that the famous speech of the
Mingo chief was made, beginning " I appeal to any white man
to say, if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry and he gave
him not meat," etc. After the execution of a treaty with the
Indians (for we do not propose to detail the movements of
General Lewis or the operations of the campaign, except as
they had some connection with what is now Athens county),
Lord Dunmore returned to Fort Gower by nearly the same route
he had pursued in his advance, viz: across the country and
down the valley of the Hockhocking to its mouth. It is
probable that his army was disbanded at this point, and
returned in small parties to their homes.
Charles Whittlesey, in Fugitive
Essays, says:
"In 1831 a steamboat was detained a few hours near the house
of Mr. Curtis, on the Ohio, a short distance above the mouth
of the Hockhocking, and General Clark, of Missouri, came
ashore. He inquired respecting the remains of a fort or
encampment at the mouth of the Hockhocking river. He was
told that there was evidence of a clearing of several acres
in extent, and that pieces of guns and muskets had been
found on that spot; and also that a collection of several
hundred bullets had been discovered on the bank of the
Hockhocking, about twenty-five miles up the river. General
Clark then stated that the ground had been occupied as a
camp by Lord Dunmore who came down the Kanawha with three
hundred men in the spring of 1775, with the expectation of
treating with the Indians here. The chiefs not making their
appearance, the march was continued up the river twenty-five
or thirty miles, where an express from Virginia overtook the
party. That evening a council was held and lasted till very
late at night. In the morning the troops were disbanded, and
immediately requested to enlist in the British service for a
stated period. The contents of the dispatches, received the
previous evening, had not transpired when this proposition
was made. A major of militia, named McCarty, made an
harangue to the men against enlisting, which seems to have
been done in an eloquent and effectual manner. He referred
to the condition of the public mind in the colonies, and the
probability of a revolution which must soon arrive. He
represented the suspicious circumstances of the express,
which was still a secret to the troops, and that appearances
justified the conclusion that they were required to enlist
in a service against their own countrymen, their own
kindred, their own homes.
"The consequence was that but few of the men
re-enlisted, and the majority, choosing the orator as
leader, made the best of their way to Wheeling. The news
brought out by the courier proved to be an account of the
opening combat of the Revolution, at Lexington, Mass., April
20, 1775.
"General Clark stated that himself (or his brother) was
in the expedition."
Of this account, Mr. Whittlesey says it was related to
him "by Walter Curtis, Esq., of Belpre, Washington county,
Ohio, and transmitted by me in substance to the secretary of
the Ohio Historical Society. Mr. Curtis received it from
General Clark, an eminent citizen of Missouri, a brother of
General George Rogers Clark, of Kentucky." Mr. Whittlesey
admits that, cc though it comes very well authenticated, it
seems to contradict other well-known facts. "We are
decidedly of opinion that General Clark's statement was
erroneous in respect of the time, nature, and object of Lord
Dunmore's expedition up the Hock-hocking, and that he never
made but one expedition to that region, which was the one we
have already described. In the first place, there is not a
scrap nor particle of history extant to show that Dunmore
made any western expedition in the "spring of 1775."
Secondly, we know that he was there in the summer and autumn
of 1774, that Fort Gower was built at that time, and,
probably, the buried bullets, etc., were deposited at the
same time. Thirdly, hostilities with the mother country had
begun in the spring (April) of 1775; Lord Dunmore was one of
the most active and determined royalists in the colonies,
and it is not likely that he was spending his time chasing
after the Indians when his master's empire in America was
crumbling to pieces. Finally, we know that Dunmore was at
Williamsburg, Virginia, on the 3d day of May, 1775, for on
that day he issued a proclamation to "the disaffected
persons of the Colony," calling on them to return to their
allegiance.3
There is evidence that he was there in April of the same year;
and in June, 1775, a letter written from Baltimore says: "A
gentleman who last night came here from Williamsburg, which
he left on Friday last, June 9th, brings an account of Lord
Dunmore having the day before gone on board a man-of-war at
York, with his lady and family, for safety."4
These considerations we think, render it quite clear that Lord
Dunmore did not make an expedition to the Hockhocking
country in the spring of 1775, and doubtless the one made in
the summer of 1774 was the only one he ever made to this
region.
As a matter of historical
curiosity we give the following:
"Proceedings of a Meeting of Officers under Earl
Dunmore.
"At a meeting of the officers under the command of his
Excellency, the Right Honorable the Earl of Dunmore,
convened at Fort Gower, situated at the junction of the Ohio
and Hockhocking rivers, November 5, 1774, for the purpose of
considering the grievances of British America, an officer
present addressed the meeting in the following words:
" ' Gentlemen: Having now concluded the campaign, by the
assistance of Providence, with honor and advantage to the
colony and ourselves, it only remains that we should give
our country the strongest assurance that we are ready, at
all times, to the utmost of our power, to maintain and
defend her just rights and privileges.' We have lived about
three months in the woods, without any intelligence from
Boston or from the delegates at Philadelphia. It is
possible, from the groundless reports of designing men, that
our countrymen may be jealous of the use such a body would
make of the arms in their hands at this critical juncture.
That we are a respectable body is certain, when it is
considered that we can live weeks without bread or salt;
that we can sleep in the open air without any covering but
the canopy of heaven, and that our men can march and shoot
with any in the known world. Blessed with these talents, let
us solemnly engage with one another, and our country in
particular, that we will use them to no purpose but the
honor and advantage of America in general, and of Virginia
in particular. It behooves us then, for the satisfaction of
our country, that we should give them our real sentiments,
by way of resolves, at this very alarming crisis.'
"WHEREUPON the meeting made choice of a committee to
draw up and prepare resolves for their consideration, who
immediately withdrew; and after some time spent therein,
reported that they had agreed to and prepared the following
resolves, which were read, maturely considered, and
unanimously adopted by the meeting:
"Resolved, That we will bear the most faithful
allegiance to his Majesty King George the Third, whilst his
Majesty delights to reign over a brave and free people; that
we will, at the expense of life and 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, outweigh every other consideration, we
resolve that we will exert every power within us for the
defense of American liberty, and for the support of her just
rights and privileges ; not in any precipitate, riotous, or
tumultuous manner, but when regularly called forth by the
unanimous voice of our countrymen.
"Resolved, That we entertain the greatest respect for
his Excellency the Right Honorable Lord Dunmore, who
commanded the expedition against the Shawanese; and who, we
are confident, underwent the great fatigue of this singular
campaign from no other motive than the true interest of this
country.
"Signed, by order and in behalf of the whole corps,
BENJAMIN ASHBY, Clerk."5
On his return to Virginia, Lord Dunmore received the
congratulations of various towns, and the thanks of the
Assembly, on the successful issue of his expedition and his
execution of a treaty with the Indians. He at once ardently
espoused the cause of the King, was one of his most
influential and obstinate adherents in the colonies, and
spent the remainder of his brief stay in this country in the
vain effort to resist the consummation of American
independence. But the doom of the cause which Lord Dunmore
thus earnestly espoused was as clearly written in the book
of fate as was that of the savage race, against whose towns
he had marched up the banks of the Hockhocking.
6
It is to be regretted that the name of the river is now
almost invariably abbreviated to Hocking. True, it takes
longer to write or pronounce the real name—Hockhocking; but
the whites have never rendered such distinguished favors or
services to the Indian race as to entitle them to mutilate
the Indian language by altering or clipping the few words
that cling to the geography of the country. Some of these
Indian names are not only expressive in their original
signification, but are really musical. The following verses,
written many years ago, by a former editor of Cincinnati—Mr.
William J. Sperry, of the Globe—though not highly poetical,
are worth insertion in this connection :
THE LAST OF THE RED MEN.
Sad are fair Muskingum's waters,
Sadly, blue Mahoning raves;
Tuscarawas' plains are lonely,
Lonely are Hockhocking's waves.
From where headlong Cuyahoga
Thunders down its rocky way,
And the billows of blue Erie,
Whiten in Sandusky's bay;
Unto where Potomac rushes
Arrowy from the mountain side,
And Kanawha's gloomy waters
Mingle with Ohio's tide ;
From the valley of Scioto,
And the Huron sisters three,
To the foaming Susquehanna,
And the leaping Genesee;
Over hill, and plain, and valley,
Over river, lake, and bay—
On the water, in the forest,
Ruled and reigned the Seneca.
But sad are fair Muskingum's waters,
Sadly, blue Mahoning raves;
Tuscarawas' plains are lonely,
Lonely are Hockhocking's waves.
By Kanawha dwells the stranger,
Cuyahoga feels the chain;
Stranger ships vex Erie's billows,
Strangers plough Scioto's plain.
And the Iroquois have wasted
From the hill and plain away;
On the waters, in the valley,
Reigns no more the Seneca.
Only by the Cattaraugus,
Or by Lake Chautauqua's side,
Or among the scanty woodlands
By the Allegheny's tide :
There, in spots, like sad oases,
Lone amid the sandy plains,
There the Seneca, still wasting,
Amid desolation reigns.
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