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Source:
History of Western Ohio & Auglaize County
with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of
Pioneer and Prominent Public Men
by C. W. Williamson
Columbus, Ohio
Press of W. M. Linn & Sons
1905
CHAPTER IV
THE EARLY SETTLERS
Page 22 - 28
As stated in a previous
chapter the French traders were the first settlers of Ohio and the
Northwest. In the course of eighty or a hundred years they
lapsed into a state of semi-barbarism, not much above average
Indian. The number of this degenerate class was much greater
than most people seem to apprehend. They were found by the
commissioners sent out to make treaties, in considerable numbers in
nearly every town in the Ohio territory. It is not to be
understood, however, that the preceding remark should be applied to
all the French traders. Many of them were shrewd, intelligent
men, more intent upon driving profitable trades, than in the
elevation of the social and moral condition of their countryment
and their descendants.
In addition to the French settles, a contraband
population, chiefly from Virginia and Western Pennsylvania, went in,
during the Revolution, and took possession of lands in Ohio
territory bordering on the Ohio river. To pacify the Indians
and secure their good will, many of them married women held in
capacity by the Indians, and not a few married Indian squaws.
It was a compromise in the first instance, but later was discovered
by the Indians to be a fraud. These innovations were
considered so serious by the Indians that complaint was made by them
to General Brodhead in 1778, "who reported to General
Washington that he had set troops from Pittsburg to drive off a
land company who were trespassing upon the Indians somewhere
opposite to Wheeling. The officers detached upon this duty
reported that he had found settlements form Fort McIntosh down to
the Muskingum, and extending thirty miles up the streams on the west
side of the Ohio. He evidently did not execute his orders, as
these people were still the chief subjects of complaint of the
Indians at the treaty of Fort McIntosh n 1785. Nor was their
enterprise exclusively confined to stealing land. Some of them
appropriated the salt springs (Mahoning county) which
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had long been used by the Indians." Numerous attempts were
made to expel the invaders, but all failed of execution.
"The Revolutionary War had hardly closed before
thousands of the disabled soldiers and officers were looking
anxiously to the western lands for new homes, or for means of
repairing their shattered fortunes." But it was not until 1784
that the dispute between the states of New York, Massachusetts,
Virginia and the General Government with regard to the ownership of
certain lands in the Ohio territory were settled. As soon as
these states ceded their titles to the general government, offices
were opend for the sale of lands in central and southern
Ohio. In 1800 Connecticut, also, ceded her title to the Fire
Lands in the northern portion of the state, by which all the lands
of the Northwest Territory passed under the control of the General
Government.
"On the 13th of July, 1787, Congress assumed
jurisdiction over the territory was to be governed by a Governor, a
Secretary, and three Judges. The President appointed these
officers, and they were to make the laws and execute them.
This form of defective government was to continue until the
Northwest Territory contained five thousand free white male
inhabitants over twenty-one years of age, when the people were
authorized to elect a legislature or general assembly."
On the 27th of October, 1787, Manasseh Cutler
and Winthrop Sargeant, as agents of the "Ohio Company Associates,"
entered into a contract with the board of treasury for the purchase
of one million five hundred thousand acres of land (which was
afterward reduced by consent of the parties to 964,280 acres), lying
within the bounds of a tract which was offered for sale by the act
of Congress, of the 23d of July, 1787. The lands were conveyed
by letters patent on the 29th of October, 1787, under the seal of
the United States, to Rufus Putnam, Manasseh Cutler, Robert
Oliver, and Griffin Green, in trust for the persons
composing the "Ohio Company of Associates."
In April, 1792, a patent was also granted to John
Cleves Symmes for 311,682 acres adjoining the Ohio river, and
situated between the Miami rivers.
Under the act of Congress of July 13th, 1787, Arthur
St. Clair was appointed governor of the Northwest Territory.
Samuel H. Parsons, James M. Varnum and John Armstrong
were
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appointed Judges. The latter not accepting the office, John
Cleves Symmes was appointed n his place, and Winthrop
Sargeant was appointed Secretary. A meeting of the
stockholders was held in Boston in November and plans were made for
founding a colony at the mouth of the Muskingum river. Early
in December boat builders assembled at Sumrill's Ferry, a point on
the Youghiogheny river, about thirty miles above Pittsburg. By
the second of April a sufficient number of boats were constructed to
carry the emigrants to the Muskingum country. "The 'Adventure
Gallery,' as it was then called, was forty-five feet long, and
twelve feet in width, with the curved bow of a gallery, and her
heavy planks surmounted by a deck roof - a heavy, cumbersome craft,
but snug enough to float down stream. She was afterward
re-christened the Mayflower, with a propriety which will not be
questioned, for New England was now, in her turn, going westward to
plant the first colony in a wilderness." On the second of
April the fleet, of forty-seven colonists, under command of
General Putnam, sailed down the Youghiogheny into the
Monongahela, and out upon the broad Ohio, which was to bear them to
their new home. "For five days and nights they floated down
the beautiful river. Occasionally, a flock of wild turkeys in
the underbrush, or a startled deer, drinking at the water's edge,
would draw the fire of the riflemen from the boats; and now then the
dusky form of an Indian would be seen darting into the forest.
But the emigrants met with no interruption."
On the seventh of April, 1788, about noon they arrived
at their destination. The troops from Fort Harmar (a United
States fort erected in 1785) assisted them in landing and guarded
the settlers until the stockades and block houses were constructed.
Their was a welcome form the people of the fort, and from a party of
Delaware Indians encamped at the mouth of the river. The
Delawares, to the number of about seventy, and headed by Captain
Pipe, an influential chief, had come to trade with the soldiers
of the garrison. with their accustomed diplomacy the Indians
offered a most affable greeting to the white men. By July the
streets of a city had been laid out with great regularity, when the
associates met to give a name to their new home. These
Revolutionary officers and soldiers were not unmindful of our
nation's obligations to France, in achieving our Independence.
They
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named the new town Marietta, in honor of Marie Antoinette,
the unhappy queen of Louis XVI.
While the Marietta colonists were making rapid
developments around the mouth of the Muskingum, Judge Symmes
was making vigorous movements for the settlement of his large
purchase of 311,682 acres between the Miami rivers. From that
time until 1803, colonies of emigrants followed each other and
filled up the most desirable locations from Marietta to Cincinnati.
The settlement at the mouth of the Muskingum was made
before the arrival in the territory of the governor and judges.
The judges arrived in June, and on the ninth of July, 1788,
Governor St. Clair reached Marietta. After a few days of
repose, the governor, on the 18th of July, made his first appearance
before the citizens of the territory. The first law enacted
under the newly constituted government was entitled.
"A law for regulating and establishing the Militia in
the Territory of the United States northwest of the River Ohio."
The first public act of the governor, was creating the county of
Washington. The establishment of courts, and the enactment of
necessary laws followed in rapid succession.
The dilatory action of the Governmental Treasury
Commission and other officials, so retarded the efforts of Judge
Symmes to establish a colony at South Bend, that he was
compelled to suspend operations for a time. About the time
that he had completed arrangements to pilot a company of emigrants
to South Bend, the Indians assumed a threatening attitude toward the
settlements of Marietta and Cincinnati. In a letter to a
friend, Symmes wrote, "they (the Indians) are perpetually
doing mischief; a man a week, I believe, falls by their hands."
Before 1789, two settlements had been made within the Summes
Purchase. "In the course of 1789, Fort Washington was erected
by a detachment of troops under the command of Major John Doughty,
on a portion of the ground which is now the site of Cincinnati; and
a few friends settled on the rich bottom lands just below the mouth
of the Little Miami river, where they laid the foundation of
Columbia."
During the spring and summer of 1790, the menacing
attitude of the Indians became very alarming.
As early as July, 1789, Judge Symmes wrote to
the Hon. Jonathan Dayton, of Elizabethtown, "that he had sent
Isaac Freeman into the Indian country. He returned
safe, but brings such
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terrifying accounts of the warlike preparations making in the Indian
towns, that it has raised fresh commotions in this village, and many
families are preparing to go down to the falls. They say, 'We
will not stay longer at a place like this, the very forlorn hope of
the United States, and at the same time so intolerably neglected as
we are.' One ensign and twelve soldiers in a little block
house badly constructed, and not an axe, hoe, spade, or even
tomahawk - the property of the United States - is furnished them . .
. They feel themselves abandoned to destruction, and
whether the danger they apprehend is real or imaginary, 'tis the
same to them.'
"While Mr. Freeman was at the Indian towns he
was lodged at the house of Blue Jacket (then at Wapakoneta), and
while there he saw the pack horses come to Blue Jacket's house
loaded with five hundred weight of powder, and lead equivalent, with
one hundred muskets; this share he saw deposited at the house of
Blue Jacket. He says, the like quantity was sent them from
Detroit to every chief through all their towns. Freeman
saw the same dividend deposited at a second chief's house in the
same town with Blue Jacket. On the arrival of these stores
from Detroit, British colors were displayed on the house top of
every chief, and a prisoner among the Indians who had the address to
gain full credit with them, and attended their council house every
day, found means to procure by artifice an opportunity of conversing
with Freeman. He assured Freeman that the Indians were
fully determined to rout these settlements altogether, that they
would have attempted it before this time, but had not military
stores, but these being then arrived, it would not be long before
they would march; that they only waited the return of a Mr. Magee
with two pieces of artillery from Sandusky or Detroit, and they
would proceed without further delay down to the Ohio on their
proposed expedition."
"The hostility of the Indians at this period, and the
great uneasiness that they had manifested during the preceding
years, are generally and justly attributed to the intrigues of the
British agents in the northwest; and it therefore may be proper
hereto refer more particularly to the motives and ends of their
policy, and the means by which they sought to effect it:
"Most of the tribes adhered to England during the
Revolutionary struggle. When the war ceased, however, England
made no provision for them, and transferred the Northwest to the
Page 27 -
United States, without stipulation as to the rights of the natives.
The United States, regarding the lands of the hostile tribes, as
conquered, and forfeited, proceeded to give peace to the savages,
and to grant them portions of their own land. This produced
discontent, and led to the general uprising of the Indians that
followed."
The British government in justification of their
continued occupation of the forts on the frontier, claimed that
certain stipulations in the treaty of 1783, had not been complied
with. They conceded that they had agreed, as speedily as
possible, to evacuate all the northwestern posts, which lay within
the boundaries of the United States; while, on the other hand,
Congress had stipulated that no legal impediments should be thrown
in the way to prevent the collection of debts due to British
merchants before the declaration of war. Large importations
had been made by American merchants, upon credit, in 1773 and 1774;
and as all civil intercourse between the two countries had ceased
until the return of peace, the British creditors were unable to
collect their debts. Upon the final ratification of the
treaty, they naturally became desirous of recovering their property,
while their debtors as naturally were desirous of avoiding payment.
Congress had stipulated that no legal barrier should be
thrown in the way; but, as is well known, Congress, under the old
confederation, was much more prolific in "resolution," or rather
"recommendations," than acts. The states might or might no
comply with them, as suited their convenience. Accordingly,
when Congress recommended the payment of all debts to the state
legislatures, the legislatures determined that it was inexpedient to
comply. The British creditor complained to his government; the
government remonstrated with Congress, upon so flagrant to breach of
one of the articles of pacification; Congress appealed to the
legislatures; the legislatures were deaf and obstinate, and there
the matter rested. When the question was agitated, as to the
evacuation of the posts, the British, in turn, became refractory,
and determined to hold them until the acts of the state
legislatures, preventing the legal collection of debts, were
repealed. Many remonstrances were exchanged, but all to no
purpose.
Up to this time (1789) there was no systematic or
general movement of the Indians for the extirpation of the whites,
as was alleged to be the object of their great confederacy of 1782.
The
Page 28 -
irregular mode of living among the savages, forbade the
accomplishment of such a design, if it had even been their settled
purpose; the subsistence of themselves and families being
principally derived from the chase, a species of provision which did
not permit the laying up of extensive and permanent stores, if even
their improvident mode of living had permitted the effort.
But when they found the settlers entrenching themselves
in fort after fort, circumscribing their range, and cutting them
entirely off from their hunting grounds south of he Ohio, there can
be no doubt that a determined hostility spring up in the minds of
the savages, which all the exertions of the American Government
failed to allay, and soon rendered it apparent that the two races
could not live together in amity, where it was the policy of one to
reclaim the country from the hunter, and of the other to keep it a
wilderness
THIS CHAPTER ENDS ON PAGE 28 |
