- The First White
People in Ohio
(From the address of Hon. R. M. Stimson, April 7,
1899.)
It is asked
were there no white people in what is now the State
of Ohio, before the settlement at the mouth of the
Muskingum, 1788? Certainly. Passing the
French, already noticed, there were white captives
and traders and missionaries among the Indians.
As early as 1770, Richard Conner, a trader
from Maryland was living with his wife in the
Pickaway Plains, with the Shawanese, and a son was
born to them in 1771 in that region. This, I
think, was Col. John Conner, the founder of
Connersville, the county seat of Fayette County,
Indiana. He and a younger brother, also of the
same origin, were prominent citizens of Indiana in
its early history. I had the facts from the
family record at Connersville in 1881, but the
communication to me from the descendants has been
mislaid.
Mr. Henry, from a
prominent family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was
also at the same period, and in the same quarter,
living as a gunsmith with the Shawanese.
John Lewis Roth was
born at Guadenhutten, July 4, 1773; and Joanna
Maria Heckewelder was born at Salem, Apr. 16,
1781 - children of Moravian missionaries, at the
afore-named stations, on the upper Muskingum, or its
main branch, the Tuscarawas. After the
massacre at Gnadenhutten, in 1782, and the breaking
of the missionary stations, on the Tuscarawas, they
were taken to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and both
lived and died there at an advanced age.
There were also "Squatters" along the upper Ohio River,
in the present counties of Jefferson and Belmont,
perhaps elsewhere, who were in 1785 warned and
driven off the Congress Lands by United States
officers.
All that is claimed is that at Marietta was the first
permanent settlement in Ohio, by owners of hte land,
with the forms of law.
GEN. RUFUS PUTNAM
REV. MANASSEH CUTLER, LL., D.
GEN. BENJAMIN TUPPER
COMMODORE ABRAHAM WHITTLE
COL. ROBERT OLIVER
MAJ. HATFIELD WHITE
COL.
EBENEZER SPROAT
COL. RETURN JONATHAN MEIGS
ARTHUR ST. CLAIR
ICHABOD NYE
-
MRS.
REBECCA IVES GILLMAN
-
MRS.
MARY LAKE
-
ISAAC
AND REBECCA WILLIAMS
-
COL.
WILLIAM STACY
MAJ. ANSELM TUPPER
COL. BENJAMIN TUPPER
GEN. JOSEPH BUELL
REV. DANIEL STORY
JOHN MATHEWS
EPHRAIM CUTLER
DAVID PUTNAM
NAHUM WARD
|