¥ SRP Faeyr se 5F Pree Cae ity Cy * , ¥ rf aan G : iio A eb eae te Pid prt sy 1Vie bey ae Ps gist PR 3fe bb ey Li tehsh DADS . Mesias 5 Ke * ‘ fi at cane a fy; 2 wu aa) AY a bing Heys ¢ FuaN D ot : As Faiys tibep ys ik Pate i 1 iy Japa ast ia Aik dt Sia coeta Stes Sate 94th hakdn sd i sf Le ath ae hee a Ay y ; roma} alate ave ed dae oy Ver Apa yaar’ Wea Ge arta ui ie rah eee uate ae ses tae ge tage dilate: Unites Den ae ns fins ee 3 an TN Be eleai % " Ee te Pid gh mt ee wea Pens iat ¥ ; AL Sapte betas tevaceut Gf % 4 fi SHHaie, tht he SAM hPa ch eae He MY es te ge vere Geis i 4s, 4 ' ‘ey ee hag A Gt ve nt? lM pa Mays + : Toate ARP vote b mts co ats OY inet WM hcl GUA MR hhh th nt AA ARR ARI Pr: As pg sae ea sat ab fo at i ou ROSIN 31 sr ubwn Memmi ay oo Wt : Reo BaP sighs ducts LaBiahiend side sea ehalis oe «Natu Satay -lt petty ss a babes Ned we Mate de . Shwe . 4S bath hot’ seat Leonean Su ioe ty abibteweneace n, ee if Ny itice ved & pabineciet Matoyatibaven \s : xh of rt “4 i meio 4 Prpsanetty se Wetins tind i ie Ne Loe > * h . nin Midede dg ren tae Se igi aaa ‘ 2 Prt es erp aren T ty “ at ie: AUG NEM CT Hi) Se hessainns waa hah. cet ieee cone apy Te seach Ne cca tei te hed hee ede te eS Aaa NOTICE: Return or renew all Library Materials! The Minimum Fee for each Lost Book is $50.00. The person charging this material is responsible for its return to the library from which it was withdrawn on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for discipli- nary action and may result in dismissal from the University. To renew call Telephone Center, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN L161—O-1096 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2023 with funding from University of Illinois Uroana-Champaign https://archive.org/details/historyofallencoOOunse_1 HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY, OHIO Chicago Wamer, Beers & CO» 1885 ¥ Mi in agi bety ie pie oh in paging between pages 80-83 & -.) 47 a] iro ond bo aApoNK 2D HAT the history of the past should be commemorated, and that of the present placed on record form a dual duty to civilization. A consider- ation of the people and events connected with the settlement and progress of any political or geographical division of this country, must be a work of deep interest to the writers as well as to those who made subject for history. Even more, it must be an enduring memorial, formed to give pleasure and instruction to the people who will come after us; teaching them the value and beauty of industry, and inciting them to excel in the labors which brought such rich rewards to the people of this county within a half century after the era of progress was introduced. In local history is found the power to accomplish all this. Steel may ~ wear away, rust efface the inscription on iron, wood decay, and even the *_ marble rock break to pieces, but the page of history, once priuted, is car- ‘ried down the river of time unchanging and unchangeable. How swiftly ‘are those men and women, who entered the wilderness in their youth, pass- ing away! The great majority, even now, are in the homes of the silent, and few remain who can give all the details of the earliest settlement. Fortunately, their recollections are now preserved. A few more years and _ the whole unwritten history of Allen County should remain unwritten—lost for ever. Another few years and the brilliant story of progress would have - to be based on fragmentary relations —disconnected, unsatisfactory, aggravat “ing. Local history comes forward to rescue ten thousand facts and ~ names from oblivion, and place them where the historian of the future may ~ grasp the whole Union and give to each of its parts a complete sketch. Not alone should the history of pioneer times be treated fully and impartially, but also the present. The whole fabric of society,—the home, school, church, governmental and benevolent organizations, and all these industries and associations which bind men’s interests together—should be traced down from the humble beginnings of 1831 to our own days, making a record complete and impartial for the future. This age of progress is reviewed and compared with the quiet, unostentatious long ago. Commer- cial, military and political enterprises are detailed, nothing which might be thought worthy of mention is omitted, and thus every name and deed are entwined with the history of the country. 3 In presenting this volume to the people of Allen County, we feel that another valuable contribution to the history of )Ohio has been 1093360 iV PREFACE, added to the record of settlement and progress. The First Part, de- voted to the early history of the Northwest, contains direct references to this portion of Ohio. The Second Part treats on the military, politi- eal and civil history of Ohio. In this section of the work the history of Indian occupation is very fully related, and to it the reader is referred for much of the history of the Shawnees and their warriors. The history of Allen County, forming the Third Part, contains many most important chap- ters, each one treating fully the subject, so far as names or events are iden- tified with this county. In the Political Chapter the vote of the county, alone, is given; so with the military history, the names of Allen County soldiers, only, finding mention. The Pioneer history, contained in the chap- ter on Occupation and Settlement, embraces the tax roll of the county in 1834. The history of Townships, Cities and Villages embraces the history of land purchases, early industries, schools, churches and societies. This sec- tion of the work is so closely allied with the general history of the county, great care had to be manifested in distinguishing between the varied items, which belonged specially to each township, and those which had a direct bearing on the history of the whole county. An instance of this may be adduced. In the history of Lima a simple mention of the court house and jail is made. This is not discriminating against Lima; for the history of these buildings belongs to the whole county, even as do the buildings them- selves, and has special reference to the Organic Chapter, in which it appears. So with the tax roll of 1834, it would not bear distribution without mutila- tion, and thus it was necessary to make it a part of the general history. The history of the county and townships was written and compiled from most authentic records by the general historian, M. A. Leeson. The Biographical history is embraced in the Fourth Part. This important branch of history has claimed a great deal of attention: it has been col- lected and compiled at great expense, the work faithfully performed by our staff of biographical historians, corrected as far as possible by direct cor- respondence with the parties concerned, and then edited and sent through the press under the closest supervision. To the people who made the publication of a work of this magnitude possible, we extend our hearty thanks. To the county officers, who aided the general historian so materially, we express our gratitude; to the gentle- men of the press, our indebtedness for the unanimity of their support, and to all the people, a hope that the history of the first half-century of their county shall prove itself authentic and be acceptable. THE PUBLISHERS. Cuicaco, August 1, 1885. CONTENTS. degiald acd Doak HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. SOO RTANH ICAL OSIIOM..1.s sess canat's sanseasses wexaiobesen MAT yBrx BlOTAGONG i. -aesaes ceakestssnissces tevesntesvassscses Discovery: of the: OI0.. 2 5..55...-..s0sea0nsee Gee sap egnesoa English Explorations and Settlements............... PARP I: HISTORY OF THE ELISUOPN OL ONIO stasccatets sve ceas senctvdceeecevemtesr icc vsinece PPOMCHLELISG ORY: sva.ss cco soos viccoaee sess soeeeteadee vaseenice WFCINANCOLO rel (Sia NOTOe e-csoetts stein ecacrbescne emoaes Comments upon the Ordinance of 1787, from the Statutes of Ohio, Edited by Salmon P. Chase, and Published in the year 1833......... EEMORWANOT LGLOLE cos nesccestoce ts coc Metalic eteccnaon sossae PSA IVETIU Gee cons cava eet don battens teeters co threes eegweeae eats TN GV CANALS YSLeIMeyeccetetttenastceccetecsepreste.: ceeseoneuse MDIG PERN AL ACTA: crcee evoke oa ccvesvoesaees satay taceset MUP TOV ODOT GSsrrocscccateventaaeit evel tia cdetecotese vdcsassy sae Shave Bown d aries ...29.scsasveasocanesaressee ye css ccs deserves PAGE ‘ATHOLICAH HELLICMIONLSs.) we ee : a =. thi Dips td a 4 SSS ES eet WwW IS “7 N aS. ‘e se 8 Peete i See = ae | : Home: e ese a ay a aaa ee Dan Fn, gi eine fh He pas saa Za ASS SRAM Witla amit i | EE er Nt ae Pe] lmvadosd ab THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY oe THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION. When the Northwestern Territory was ceded to the United States by Virginia in 1784, it embraced only the territory lying between the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers, and north to the northern limits of the United States. It coincided with the area now embraced in the States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and that portion of Minnesota lying on the east side of the Mississippi River. The United States itself at that period extended no farther west than the Mississippi River ; but by the purchase of Louisiana in 1803, the western boundary of the United States was extended to the Rocky Mountains and the Northern Pacific Ocean. ‘The new territory thus added to the National domain, and subsequently opened to settlement, has been called the ‘New Northwest,” in contradistinction from the old ‘* Northwestern Territory.” i | In comparison with the old Northwest this is a territory of vast magnitude. It includes an area of 1,887,850 square miles; being greater in extent than the united areas of all the Middle and Southern States, including Texas. Out of this magnificent territory have been erected eleven sovereign States and eight Territories, with an aggregate popula- tion, at the present time, of 18,000,000 inhabitants, or nearly one-third of the entire population of the United States. Its lakes are fresh-water seas, and the larger rivers of the continent flow for a thousand miles through its rich alluvial valleys and far- stretching prairies, more acres of which are arable and productive of the highest percentage of the cereals than of any other area of like extent on the globe. For the last twenty years the increase of population in the North- west has been about as three to one in any other portion of the United States. EARLY EXPLORATIONS. In the year 1541, DeSoto first saw the Great West in the New World. He, however, penetrated no farther north than the 385th parallel 17 ae 4 18 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. of latitude. The expedition resulted in his death and that of more than half his army, the remainder of whom found their way to Cuba, thence to Spain, in a famished and demoralized condition. DeSoto founded no settlements, produced no results, and left no traces, unless it were that he awakened the hostility of the red man against the white man, and disheartened such as might desire to follow up the career of discovery for better purposes. The French nation were eager and ready to seize upon any news from this extensive domain, and were the first to profit by DeSoto’s defeat. Yet it was more than a century before any adventurer took advantage of these discoveries. In 1616, four years before the pilgrims “moored their bark on the wild New England shore,”’ Le Caron, a French Franciscan, had pene- trated through the Iroquois and Wyandots (Hurons) to the streams which run into Lake Huron; and in 1634, two Jesuit missionaries founded the first mission among the lake tribes. It was just one hundred years from the discovery of the Mississippi by DeSoto (1541) until the Canadian envoys met the savage nations of the Northwest at the Falls of St. Mary, below the outlet of Lake Superior. This visit led to no permanent result ; yet it was not until 1659 that any of the adventurous fur traders attempted to spend a Winter in the frozen wilds about the great lakes, nor was it until 1660 that a station was established upon their borders by Mesnard, who perished in the woods a few months after. In 1665, Claude Allouez built the earliest lasting habitation of the white man among the Indians of the Northwest. In 1668, Claude Dablon and James Marquette founded the mission of Sault Ste. Marie at the Falls of St. Mary, and two years afterward, Nicholas Perrot, as agent for M. Talon, Governor Gen- eral of Canada, explored Lake Illinois (Michigan) as far south as the _ present City of Chicago, and invited the Indian nations to meet him at a grand council at Sault Ste. Marie the following Spring, where they were taken under the protection of the king, and formal possession was taken of the Northwest. This same year Marquette established a mission at Point St. Ignatius, where was founded the old town of Michillimackinac. During M. Talon’s explorations and Marquette’s residence at St. Ignatius, they learned of a great river away to the west, and fancied— as all others did then — that upon its fertile banks whole tribes of God’s children resided, to whom the sound of the Gospel had never come. Filled with a wish to go and preach to them, and in compliance with a request of M. Talon, who earnestly desired to extend the domain of his king, and to ascertain whether the river flowed into the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean, Marquette with Joliet, as pot aes of the expe- dition, prepared for the undertaking. On the 13th of May, 1673, the explorers, accompanied by five assist-- THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 19 ant French Canadians, set out from Mackinaw on their daring voyage of discovery. The Indians, who gathered to witness their departure, were astonished at the boldness of the undertaking, and endeavored to dissuade them from their purpose by representing the tribes on the Mississippi as exceedingly savage and cruel, and the river itself as full of all sorts of frightful monsters ready to swallow them and their canoes together. But, nothing daunted by these terrific descriptions, Marquette told them he was willing not only to encounter all the perils of the unknown region they were about to explore, but to lay down his life in a cause in which the salvation of souls was involved; and having prayed together they separated. Coasting along the northern shore of Lake Michigan, the adventurers entered Green Bay, and passed thence up the Fox River and Lake Winnebago to a village of the Miamis and Kickapoos. Here Mar- quette was delighted to find a beautiful cross planted in the middle of the town, ornamented with white skins, red girdles and bows and arrows, which these good people had offered to the Great Manitou, or God, to thank him for the pity he had bestowed on them during the Winter in giving them an abundant ‘‘chase.” This was the farthest outpost to which Dablon and Allouez had extended their missionary labors the year previous. Here Marquette drank mineral waters and was instructed in the secret of a root which cures the bite of the venomous rattlesnake. He assembled the chiefs and old men of the village, and, pointing to Joliet, said: ‘* My friend is an envoy of France, to discover new coun- tries, and J am an ambassador from God to enlighten them with the truths of the Gospel.’’ Two Miami guides were here furnished to conduct them to the Wisconsin River, and they set out from the Indian village on the 10th of June, amidst a great crowd of natives who had assembled to witness their departure into a region where no white man had ever yet ventured. The guides, having conducted them across the portage, returned. The explorers launched their canoes upon the Wisconsin, which they descended to the Mississippi and proceeded down its unknown waters. What emotions must have swelled their breasts as they struck out into the broadening current and became conscious that they were now upon the bosom of the Father of Waters. The mystery was about to be lifted from the long-sought river. The scenery in that locality is beautiful, and on that delightful seventeenth of June, must have been clad in all its primeval loveliness as it had been adorned by the hand of Nature. Drifting rapidly, it is said that the bold bluffs on either hand ‘‘reminded them of the castled shores of their own beautiful rivers of - France.” By-and-by, as they drifted along, great herds of buffalo appeared on the banks. On going to the heads of the valley they could see a country of the greatest beauty and fertility, apparently destitute of 20 | THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. inhabitants, yet presenting the appearance of extensive manors, under the fastidious cultivation of lordly proprietors. On June 25, they went ashore and found some fresh traces of men upon the sand, and a path which led to the prairie. —The men remained in the boat, and Marquette and Joliet followed the path till they discovered a village on the banks of a river; and two other villages on a hill, within a half league of the first, inhabited by Indians. They were received most hospitably by these natives, who had never before seen a white person. After remaining a few days they re-embarked and descended the river to about latitude 383°, where they found a village of the Arkansas, and being satisfied that the river flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, turned their course up the river, and ascending the stream to the mouth of the Illinois, rowed up that stream to its source and procured guides from that point to the lakes. ‘* Nowhere on this journey,” says Marquette, ‘‘ did we see such grounds, meadows, woods, stags, buffaloes, deer, wildcats, bustards, swans, ducks, parroquets, and even beavers, as on the Illinois River.” The party, without loss or injury, reached Green Bay in September, and reported their discovery—one of the most important of the age, but of which no record was preserved save Marquette’s, Joliet losing his by the upsetting of his canoe on his way to Quebec. Afterward Marquette returned to the Illinois Indians by their request, and ministered to them until 1675. On the 18th of May, in that year, as he was passing the mouth of a stream—going with his boatmen up Lake Michigan—he asked to land at its mouth and celebrate Mass. Leaving his men with the canoe, he retired a short distance and began his devotions. As much time passed and he did not return, his men went in search of him, and found him upon his knees, dead. He had peacefully passed away while at prayer. He was buried at this spot. Charlevoix, who visited the place fifty years after, found the waters had retreated from the grave, leaving the beloved missionary to repose in Miao The river has since been called Marquette. | While Marquette and his companions were pursuing their labors in the West, two men, differing widely from him and each other, were pre- paring to follow in his footsteps and perfect the discoveries so well begun by him. These were Robert de LaSalle and Louis Hennepin. After LaSalle’s return from the discovery of the Ohio River (see the narrative elsewhere), he established himself again among the French trading posts in Canada. Here he mused long upon the pet project of those ages—a short way to China and the East, and was busily planning an expedition up the great lakes, and so across the continent to the Pacific, when Marquette returned from the Mississippi. At once the vigorous mind of LaSalle received from his and his companions’ stories the idea that by fol- THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. a1 lowing the Great River northward, or by turning up some of the numerous western tributaries, the object could easily be gained. He applied to Frontenac, Governor General of Canada, and laid before him the plan, dim but gigantic. Frontenac entered warmly into his plans, and saw that LaSalle’s idea to connect the great lakes by a chain of forts with the Gulf of Mexico would bind the country so wonderfully together, give un- measured power to France, and glory to himself, under whose adminis- tration he earnestly hoped all would be realized. LaSalle now repaired to France, laid his plans before the King, who warmly approved of them, and made him a Chevalier. He also received from all the noblemen the warmest wishes for his success. The Chev- . alier returned to Canada, and busily entered upon his work. He at once rebuilt Fort Frontenac and constructed the first ship to sail on these fresh-water seas. On the Tth of August, 1679, having been joined by Hennepin, he began his voyage in the Griffin up Lake Erie. He passed over this lake, through the straits beyond, up Lake St. Clair and into Huron. In this lake they encountered heavy storms. They were some time at Michillimackinac, where LaSalle founded a fort, and passed on to Green Bay, the *“‘ Baie des Puans ” of the French, where he found a large quantity of furs collected for him. He loaded the Griffin with these, and placing her under the care of a pilot and fourteen sailors, started her on her return voyage. The vessel was never afterward heard of. He remained about these parts until early in the Winter, when, hear- ing nothing from the Griffin, he collected all the men—thirty working men and three monks—and started again upon his great undertaking. By a short portage they passed to the Illinois or Kankakee, called by the Indians, ‘‘ Theakeke,”’ wolf, because of the tribes of Indians called by that name, commonly known as the Mahingans, dwelling there. The French pronounced it Kiakiki, which became corrupted to Kankakee. ‘Falling down the said river by easy journeys, the better to observe the country,” about the last of December they reached a village of the Illi- nois Indians, containing some five hundred cabins, but at that moment no inhabitants. The Sieur de LaSalle being in want of some breadstuffs, took advantage of the absence of the Indians to help himself to a suffi- ciency of maize, large quantities of which he found concealed in holes under the wigwams. This village was situated near the present village of Utica in LaSalle County, Illinois. The corn being securely stored, the voyagers again betook themselves to the stream, and toward evening, on the 4th day of January, 1680, they came into a lake which must have been the lake of Peoria. This was called by the Indians Pim-t-te-wit, that is, a place where there are many fat beasts. Here the natives were met with in large numbers, but they were gentle and kind, and having spent 22 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. some time with them, LaSalle determined to erect another fort in that place, for he had heard rumors that some of the adjoining tribes were trying to disturb the good feeling which existed, and some of his men were disposed to complain, owing to the hardships and perils of the travel. He called this fort ‘‘ Creveceur”’ (broken-heart), a name expressive of the very natural sorrow and anxiety which the pretty certain loss of his ship, Griffin, and his consequent impoverishment, the danger of hostility on the part of the Indians, and of mutiny among his own men, might well cause him. His fears were not entirely groundless. At one time poison was placed in his food, but fortunately was discovered. While building this fort, the Winter wore away, the prairies began to look green, and LaSalle, despairing of any reinforcements, concluded to return to Canada, raise new means and new men, and embark anew in the enterprise. For this purpose he made Hennepin the leader of a party to explore the head waters of the Mississippi, and he set out on his jour- ney. This journey was accomplished with the aid of a few persons, and was successfully made, though over an almost unknown route, and ina bad season of the year. He safely reached Canada, and set out again for the object of his search. — Hennepin and his party left Fort Crevecceur on the last of February, 1680. When LaSalle reached this place on his return expedition, he found the fort entirely deserted, and he was obliged to return again to Canada. Heembarked the third time, and succeeded. Seven days after leaving the fort, Hennepin reached the Mississippi, and paddling up the icy stream as best he could, reached no higher than the Wisconsin River by the 11thof April. Here he and his followers were taken prisoners by a band of Northern Indians, who treated them with great kindness. Hen- nepin’s comrades were Anthony Auguel and Michael Ako. On this voy- age they found several beautiful lakes, and ‘“‘saw some charming prairies.” Their captors were the Isaute or Sauteurs, Chippewas, a tribe of the Sioux nation, who took them up the river until about the first of May when they reached some falls, which Hennepin christened Falls of St. Anthony in honor of his patron saint. Here they took the land, and traveling nearly two hundred miles to the northwest, brought them to their villages- Here they were kept about three months, were treated kindly by their captors, and at the end of that time, were met by a band of Frenchmen, headed by one Sieur de Luth, who, in pursuit of trade and game, had pene- trated thus far by the route of Lake Superior; and with these fellow- countrymen Hennepin and his companions were allowed to return to the borders of civilized life in November, 1680, just after LaSalle had returned to the wilderness on his second trip. Hennepin soon after went to France, where he published an account of his adventures. THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 23 The Mississippi was first discovered by De Soto in April, 1541, in his vain endeavor to find gold and precious gems. In the following Spring, De Soto, weary with hope long deferred, and worn out with his wander- ings, fell a victim to disease, and on the 21st of May, died. His followers, reduced by fatigue and disease to less than three hundred men, wandered about the country nearly a year, in the vain endeavor to rescue them- selves by land, and finally constructed seven small vessels, called brig- antines, in which they embarked, and descending the river, supposing it would lead them to the sea, in July they came to the sea (Gulf .of Mexico), and by September reached the Island of Cuba. They were the first to see the great outlet of the Mississippi; but, being so weary and discouraged, made no attempt to claim the country, and hardly had an intelligent idea of what they had passed through. To La Salle, the intrepid explorer, belongs the honor of giving the first account of the mouths of the river. His great desire was to possess this entire country for his king, and in January, 1682, he and his band of explorers left the shores of Lake Michigan on their third attempt, crossed the Portage, passed down the Illinois River, and on the 6th of February reached the banks of the Mississippi. On the 13th they commenced their downward course, which they pursued with but one interruption, until upon the 6th of March they dis- covered the three great passages by which the river discharges its waters into the gulf. LaSalle thus narrates the event: ‘¢ We landed on the bank of the most western channel, about three leagues (nine miles) from its mouth. On the seventh, M. de La Salle went to reconnoiter the shore of the neighboring sea, and M. de Tonti meanwhile examined the great middle channel. They found the main outlets: beautiful, large and deep. On the eighth, we reascended the river, a little above its confluence with the sea, to find a dry place beyond the reach of inundations. The elevation of the North Pole was here about twenty-seven degrees. Here we prepared a column and a cross, and to the column were affixed the arms of France with this inscription : ‘Louis Le Grand, Roi de France et de Navarre, regne ; Le neuvieme April, 1682.’’ The whole party, under arms, chanted the Ze Deum, and then, after a salute and cries of *“* Vive le Roi,” the column was erected by M. de La Salle, who, standing near it, proclaimed in a loud voice the authority of the King of France. La Salle returned and laid the foundations of the Mississippi settlements in Illinois ; thence he proceeded to France, where another expedition was fitted out, of which he was commander, and in two succeeding voyages failed to find the outlet of the river by sailing ~ 94 | THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. along the shore of the gulf. On the third voyage he was killed, through the treachery of his followers, and the object of his expeditions was not accomplished until 1699, when D’Iberville, under the authority of the crown, discovered, on the second of March, by way of the sea, the mouth of the ‘“‘ Hidden River.” This majestic stream was called by the natives ‘¢ Malbouchia,” and by the Spaniards, ‘‘la Palissade,’’ from the great number of trees about its mouth. After traversing the several outlets, and satisfying himself as to its certainty, he erected a fort near its western outlet, and returned to France. An avenue of trade was now opened out which wasfully improved. In 1718, New Orleans was laid out and settled by some European colonists. In 1762, the colony was made over to Spain, to be regained by France under the consulate of Napoleon. In 1803, it was purchased by the United States for the sum of fifteen million dollars, and the territory of Louisiana and commerce of the Mississippi River came under the charge of the United States. Although La Salle’s labors ended in defeat and death, he had not worked and suffered in vain. He had thrown open to France and the world an immense and most valuable country; had established several ports, and laid the foundations of more than one settlement there. ‘Peoria, Kaskaskia and Cahokia, are to this day monuments of LaSalle’s labors ; for, though he had founded neither of them (unless Peoria, which was built nearly upon the site of Fort Creveceeur,) it was by those whom he led into the West that these places were peopled and civilized. He was, if not the discoverer, the first settler of the Mississippi Valley, and as such deserves to be known and honored.” The French early improved the opening made for them. Before the year 1698, the Rev. Father Gravier began a mission among the Illinois, and founded Kaskaskia. For some time this was merely a missionary station, where none but natives resided, it being one of three such vil- lages, the other two being Cahokia and Peoria. What is known of these missions is learned from a letter written by Father Gabriel Marest, dated ‘** Aux Cascaskias, autrement dit de l’ Immaculate Conception de la Sainte Vierge, le 9 Novembre, 1712.”” Soon after the founding of Kaskaskia, the missionary, Pinet, gathered a flock at Cahokia, while Peoria arose near the ruins of Fort Crevecceur. This must have been about the year 1700. The post at Vincennes on the Oubache river, (pronounced Wi-bi, meaning summer cloud moving swiftly,) was established in 1702, according to the best authorities.* It is altogether probable that on LaSalle’s last * There is considerable dispute about this date, some asserting it was founded as late as 1742. When the new court house at Vincennes was erected, all authorities on the subject were carefully examined, and 1702 fixed upon as the correct date. It was accordingly engraved on the corner-stone of the court house. THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 25 trip he established the stations at Kaskaskia and Cahokia. In July, 1701, the foundations of Fort Ponchartrain were laid by De la Motte Cadillac on the Detroit River. These stations, with those established further north, were the earliest attempts to occupy the Northwest Terri- tory. Atthe same time efforts were being made to occupy the Southwest, which finally culminated in the settlement and founding of the City of New Orleans by a colony from England in 1718. This was mainly accom- plished through the efforts of the famous Mississippi Company, established by the notorious John Law, who so quickly arose into prominence in France, and who with his scheme so quickly and so ignominiously passed away. From the time of the founding of these stations for fifty years the French nation were engrossed with the settlement of the lower Missis- sippi, and the war with the Chickasaws, who had, in revenge for repeated injuries, cut off the entire colony at Natchez. Although the company did little for Louisiana, as the entire West was then called, yet it opened the trade through the Mississippi River, and started the raising of grains indigenous to that climate. Until the year 1750, but little is known of the settlements in the Northwest, as it was not until this time that the attention of the English was called to the occupation of this portion of the New World, which they then supposed they owned. Vivier, a missionary among the Illinois, writing from ‘ Aux Illinois,” six leagues from Fort Chartres, June 8, 1750, says: ‘*‘ We have here whites, negroes and Indians, to say nothing of cross-breeds. There are five French villages, and three villages of the natives, within a space of twenty-one leagues situated between the Mississippi and another river called the Karkadaid (Kaskaskias). In the five French villages, are perhaps, eleven hundred: whites, three hundred blacks and some sixty red slaves or savages. The three Illinois towns do not contain more than eight hundred souls all told. Most of the French till the soil; they raise wheat, cattle, pigs and horses, and live like princes. ‘Three times as much is produced as can be consumed; and great quantities of grain and flour are sent to New Orleans.” This city was now the seaport town of the Northwest, and save in the extreme northern part, where only furs and copper ore were found, almost all the products of the country found their way to France by the mouth of the Father of Waters. In another letter, dated Novem- ber 7, 1750, this same priest says: ‘‘For fifteen leagues above the mouth of the Mississippi one sees no dwellings, the ground being too low to be habitable. Thence to New Orleans, the lands are only partially occupied. New Orleans contains black, white and red, not more, I think, than twelve hundred persons. To this point come all the lumber, bricks, salt-beef, tallow, tar, skins and bear’s grease ; and above all, pork + 26 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. and flour from the Illinois. These things create some commerce, as forty vessels and more have come hither this year. Above New Orleans, plantations are again met with; the most considerable is a colony of Germans, some ten leagues up the river. At Point Coupee, thirty-five leagues above the German settlement, is a fort. Along here, within five or six leagues, are not less than sixty habitations. Fifty leagues farther up is the Natchez post, where we have a garrison, who are kept prisoners through fear of the Chickasaws. Here and at Point Coupee, they raise excellent tobacco. Another hundred leagues brings us to the Arkansas, where we have also a fort and a garrison for the benefit of the river traders. * * * From the Arkansas to the Illinois, nearly five hundred leagues, there is not a settlement. There should be, hower, a fort at the Oubache (Ohio), the only path by which the English can reach the Mississippi. In the Illinois country are numberless mines, but no one to work them as they deserve.” Father Marest, writing from the post at Vincennes in 1812, makes the same observation. Vivier also says: ‘‘ Some individuals dig lead near the surface and supply the Indians and Canada. Two Spaniards now here, who claim to be adepts, say that our mines are like those of Mexico, and that if we would dig deeper, we should find silver under the lead ; and at any rate the lead is excellent. There is also in this country, beyond doubt, copper ore, as from time to time large pieces are found in the streams. At the close of the year 1750, the French occupied, in addition to the lower Mississippi posts and those in I[ilinois, one at Du Quesne, one at the Maumee in the country of the Miamas, and one at Sandusky in what may be termed the Ohio Valley. In the northern part of the Northwest they had stations at St. Joseph’s on the St. Joseph’s of Lake Michigan, at Fort Ponchartrain (Detroit), at Michillimackanac or Massillimacanac, Fox River at Green Bay, and at Sault Ste. Marie. The fondest dreams of LaSalle were now fully realized. ‘The French alone were possessors of this vast realm, basing their claim on discovery and settlement. Another nation, however, was now turning its attention to this extensive country, and hearing of its wealth, began to lay plans for occupying it and for securing the great profits arising therefrom. The French, however, had another claim to this country, namely, the DISCOVERY OF THE OHIO. This ‘‘ Beautiful” river was discovered by Robert Cavalier de La- Salle in 1669, four years before the discovery of the Mississippi by Joliet and Marquette. THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. oT While LaSalle was at his trading post on the St. Lawrence, he found leisure to study nine Indian dialects, the chief of which was the Iroquois. He not only desired to facilitate his intercourse in trade, but he longed to travel and explore the unknown regions of the West. An incident soon occurred which decided him to fit out an exploring expedition. While conversing with some Senecas, he learned of a river called the Ohio, which rose in their country and flowed to the sea, but at such a distance that it required eight months to reach its mouth. In this state- ment the Mississippi and its tributaries were considered as one stream. LaSalle believing, as most of the French at that period did, that the great rivers flowing west emptied into the Sea of California, was anxious to embark in the enterprise of discovering a route across the continent to the commerce of China and Japan. He repaired at once to Quebec to obtain the approval of the Goy- ernor. His eloquent appeal prevailed. The Governor and the Intendant, Talon, issued letters patent authorizing the enterprise, but made no pro- vision to defray the expenses. At this juncture the seminary of St. Sul- pice decided to send out missionaries in connection with the expedition, and LaSalle offering to sell his improvements at LaChine to raise money, the offer was accepted by the Superior, and two thousand eight hundred dollars were raised, with which LaSalle purchased four canoes and the necessary supplies for the outfit. On the 6th of July, 1669, the party, numbering twenty-four persons, embarked in seven canoes on the St. Lawrence; two additional canoes carried the Indian guides. In three days they were gliding over the bosom of Lake Ontario. Their guides conducted them directly to the Seneca village on the bank of the Genesee, in the vicinity of the present City of Rochester, New York. Here they expected to procure guides to conduct them to the Ohio, but in this they were disappointed. The Indians seemed unfriendly to the enterprise. LaSalle suspected that the Jesuits had prejudiced their minds against’ his plans. After waiting a month in the hope of gaining their object, they met an Indian from the Iroquois colony at the head of Lake Ontario, who assured them that they could there find guides, and offered to conduct them thence. On their way they passed the mouth of the Niagara River, when they heard for the first time the distant thunder of the cataract. Arriving among the Iroquois, they met with a friendly reception, and learned from a Shawanee prisoner that they could reach the Ohio in six weeks, Delighted with the unexpected good fortune, they made ready to resume their journey ; but just as they were about to start they heard of the arrival of two Frenchmen in a neighboring village. One of them proved to be Louis Joliet, afterwards famous as an explorer in the West. He 28 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. had been sent by the Canadian Government to explore the copper mines on Lake Superior, but had failed, and was on his way back to Quebec. He gave the missionaries a map of the country he had explored in the lake region, together with an account of the condition of the indians in that quarter. ‘This induced the priests to determine on leaving the expedition and going to Lake Superior. LaSalle warned them that the Jesuits were probably occupying that field, and that they would meet with a cold reception. Nevertheless they persisted in their purpose, and after worship on the lake shore, parted from LaSalle. On arriving at Lake Superior, they found, as LaSalle had predicted, the Jesuit Fathers, Marquette and Dablon, occupying the field. These zealous disciples of Loyola informed them that they wanted no assistance from St. Sulpice, nor from those who made him their patron saint; and thus repulsed, they returned to Montreal the following June without having made a single discovery or converted a single Indian. After parting with the priests, LaSalle went to the chief Iroquois village at Onondaga, where he obtained guides, and passing thence to a tributary of the Ohio south of Lake Erie, he descended the latter as far as the falls at Louisviile. Thus was the Ohio discovered by LaSalle, the persevering and successful French explorer of the West, in 1669. The account of the latter part of his journey is found in an anony- mous paper, which purports to have been taken from the lips of LaSalle himself during a subsequent visit to Paris. In a letter written to Count Frontenac in 1667, shortly after the discovery, he himself says that he discovered the Ohio and descended it to the falls. This was regarded as an indisputable fact by the French authorities, who claimed the Ohio Valley upon another ground. When Washington was sent by the colony of Virginia in 1753, to demand of Gordeur de St. Pierre why the French had built a fort on the Monongahela, the haughty commandant at Quebec replied: ‘‘ We claim the country on the Ohio by virtue of the discoveries of LaSalle, and will not give it up to the English. Our orders are to make prisoners of every Englishman found trading in the Ohio Valley.” ENGLISH EXPLORATIONS AND SETTLEMENTS. When the new year of 1750 broke in upon the Father of Waters and the Great Northwest, all was still wild save at the French posts already described. In 1749, when the English first began to think seri- ously about sending men into the West, the greater portion of the States of Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota were yet under the dominion of the red men. The English knew, however, pretty THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 29 conclusively of the nature of the wealth of these wilds. As early as 1710, Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, had commenced movements to secure the country west of the Alleghenies to the English crown. In Pennsylvania, Governor Keith and James Logan, secretary of the prov- ince, from 1719 to 1781, represented to the powers of England the neces- sity of securing the Western lands. Nothing was done, however, by that power save to take some diplomatic steps to secure the claims of Britain to this unexplored wilderness. England had from the outset claimed from the Atlantic to the Pacific, on the ground that the discovery of the seacoast and its possession was a discovery and possession of the country, and, as is well known, her grants to the colonies extended ‘‘ from sea to sea.” This was not all her claim. She had purchased from the Indian tribes large tracts of land. This lat- ter was also astrong argument. As early as 1684, Lord Howard, Goy- ernor of Virginia, held a treaty with the six nations. These were the ereat Northern Confederacy, and comprised at first the Mohawks, Onei- das, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. Afterward the Tuscaroras were taken into the confederacy, and it became known as the Srx NATIons. They came under the protection of the mother country, and again in 1701, they repeated the agreement, and in September, 1726, a formal deed was drawn up and signed by the chiefs. The validity of this claim has often been disputed, but never successfully. In 1744, a purchase was made at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, of certain lands within the ‘“‘ Colony of Virginia,” for which the Indians received £200 in gold and a like sum in goods, with a promise that, as settlements increased, more should be paid. The Commissioners from Virginia were Colonel Thomas Lee and Colonel - William Beverly. As settlements extended, the promise of more pay was called to mind, and Mr. Conrad Weiser was sent across the mountains with presents to appease the savages. Col. Lee,and some Virginians accompa- nied him with the intention of sounding the Indians upon their feelings regarding the English. They were not satisfied with their treatment, and plainly told the Commissioners why. The English did not desire the cultivation of the country, but the monopoly of the Indian trade. In 1748, the Ohio Company was formed, and petitioned the king for a grant of land beyond the Alleghenies. This was granted, and the government of Virginia was ordered to grant to them a half million acres, two hun- dred thousand of which were to be located at once. Upon the 12th of June, 1749, 800,000.acres from the line of Canada north and west was made to the Loyal Company, and on the 29th of October, 1751, 100,000 acres were given to the Greenbriar Company. All this time the French were not idle. They saw that, should the British gain a foothold in the West, especially upon the Ohio, they might not only prevent the French 30 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. settling upon it, but in time would come to the lower posts and so gain possession of the whole country. Upon the 10th of May, 1747, Vaud- reuil, Governor of Canada and the French possessions, well knowing the consequences that must arise from allowing the English to build trading posts in the Northwest, seized some of their frontier posts, and to further secure the claim of the French to the West, he, in 1749, sent Louis Cel- eron with a party of soldiers to plant along the Ohio River, in the mounds and at the mouths of its principal tributaries, plates of lead, on which were inscribed the claims of France. These were heard of in 1752, and within the memory of residents now living along the ‘‘ Oyo,” as the beautiful river was called by the French. One of these plates was found ~ with the inscription partly defaced. It bears date August 16, 1749, and a copy of the inscription with particular account of the discovery of the plate, was sent by DeWitt Clinton to the American Antiquarian Society, among whose journals it may now be found.* ‘These measures did not, however, deter the English from going on with their explorations, and though neither party resorted to arms, yet the conflict was gathering, and it was only a question of time when the storm would burst upon the frontier settlements. In 1750, Christopher Gist was sent by the Ohio Company to examine its lands. He went to a village of the Twigtwees, on the Miami, about one hundred and fifty miles above its mouth. He afterward spoke of it as very populous.’ From there he went down the Ohio River nearly to the falls at the present City of Louisville, and in November he commenced a survey of the Company’s lands. Dur- ing the Winter, General Andrew Lewis performed a similar work for the Greenbriar Company. Meanwhile the French were busy in preparing their forts for defense, and in opening roads, and also sent a small party of soldiers to keep the Ohio clear. This party, having heard of the Eng- lish post on the Miami River, early in 1652, assisted by the Ottawas and Chippewas, attacked it, and, after a severe battle, in which fourteen of the natives were killed and others wounded, captured the garrison. (They were probably garrisoned in a block house). The traders were carried away to Canada, and one account says several were burned. This fort or post was called by the English Pickawillany. .A memorial of the king’s ministers refers to it as ‘‘ Pickawillanes, in the center of the terri- tory between the Ohio and the Wabash. The name is probably some variation of Pickaway or Picqua in 17738, written by Rev. David Jones Pickaweke.”’ * The following is a translation of the inscription on the plate: “In the year 1749, reign of Louis XV., King of France, we, Celeron, commandant of a detachment by Monsieur the Marquis of Gallisoniere, com- mander-in-chief.of New France, to establish tranquility in certain Indian villages of these cantons, have buried this plate at the confluence of the Toradakoin, this twenty-ninth of July, near the river Ohio, otherwise Beautiful River, as a monument of renewal! cf possession which we have taken of the said river, and all its tributaries; inasmuch as the preceding Kings of France have enjoyed it, and maintained it by their arms and treaties; especially by those of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix La Chapelle.’ THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY, 31 ‘\ This was the first blood shed between the French and English, and - occurred near the present City of Piqua, Ohio, or at least at a point about forty-seven miles north of Dayton. Each nation became now more inter- ested in the progress of events in the Northwest. The English deter- mined to purchase from the Indians a title to the lands they wished to occupy, and Messrs. Fry (afterward Commander-in-chief over Washing- ton at the commencement of the French War of 1775-1763), Lomax and Patton were sent in the Spring of 1752 to hold a conference with the natives at Logstown to learn what they objected to in the treaty of Lan- caster already noticed, and to settle all difficulties. On the 9th of June, these Commissioners met the red men at Logstown, a little village on the north bank of the Ohio, about seventeen miles below the site of Pitts- burgh. Here had been a trading point for many years, but it was aban- doned by the Indians in 1750. At first the Indians declined to recognize the treaty of Lancaster, but, the Commissioners taking aside Montour, the interpreter, who was a son of the famous Catharine Montour, and a chief among the six nations, induced him to use his influence in their favor. This he did, and upon the 13th of June they all united in signing a deed, confirming the Lancaster treaty in its full extent, consenting to a * settlement of the southeast of the Ohio, and guaranteeing that it should not be disturbed by them. ‘These were the means used to obtain the first treaty with the Indians in the Ohio Valley. Meanwhile the powers beyond the sea were trying to out-manceuvre each other, and were professing to be at peace. The English generally outwitted the Indians, and failed in many instances to fulfill their con- tracts. They thereby gained the ill-will of the red men, and further increased the feeling by failing to provide them with arms and ammuni- tion. Said an old chief, at Easton, in 1758: ‘* The Indians on the Ohio left you because of your own fault. When we heard the French were coming, we asked you for help and arms, but we did not get them. The French came, they treated us kindly, and gained our affections. The Governor of Virginia settled on our lands for his own benefit, and, when we wanted help, forsook us.” At the beginning of 1653, the English thought they had secured by title the lands in the West, but the French had quietly gathered cannon and military stores to be in readiness for the expected blow. The Eng- lish made other attempts to ratify these existing treaties, but not until the Summer could the Indians be gathered together to discuss the plans of the French. They had sent messages to the French, warning them away ; but they replied that they intended to complete the chain of forts already begun, and would not abandon the field. ; Soon after this, no satisfaction being obtained from the Ohio regard- 2 32 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. ing the positions and purposes of the French, Governor Dinwiddie of. Virginia determined to send to them another messenger and learn from them, if possible, their intentions. For this purpose he selected a young man, a surveyor, who, at the early age of nineteen, had received the rank of major, and who was thoroughly posted regarding frontier life. This personage was no other than the illustrious George Washington, who then held considerable interest in Western lands. He was at this time just twenty-two years of age. Taking Gist as his guide, the two, accompanied by four servitors, set out on their perilous march. They left Will’s Creek on the 10th of November, 1758, and on the 22d reached the Monon- gahela, about ten miles above the fork. From there they went to Logstown, where Washington had a long conference with the chiefs of the Six Nations. From them he learned the condition of the French, and also heard of their determination not to come down the river till the fol- lowing Spring. The Indians were non-committal, as they were afraid to turn either way, and, as far as they could, desired to remain neutral. Washington, finding nothing could be done with them, went on to Venango, an old Indian town at the mouth of French Creek. Here the French had a fort, called Fort Machault. Through the rum and flattery of the French, he nearly lost all his Indian followers. Finding nothing of importance here, he pursued his way amid great privations, and on the 11th of December reached the fort at the head of French Creek. Here he delivered Governor Dinwiddie’s letter, received his answer, took his observations, and on the 16th set out upon his return journey with no one but Gist, his guide, and a few Indians who still remained true to him, notwithstanding the endeavors of the French to retain them. Their homeward journey was one of great peril and suffering from the cold, yet they reached home in safety on the 6th of January, 1754. From the letter of St. Pierre, commander of the French fort, sent by Washington to Governor Dinwiddie, it was learned that the French would not give up without a struggle. Active preparations were at once made in all the English colonies for the coming conflict, while the French finished the fort at Venango and strengthened their lines of fortifications, and gathered their forces to be in readiness. The Old Dominion was all alive. Virginia was the center of great activities ; volunteers were called for, and from all the neighboring colonies men rallied to the conflict, and everywhere along the Potomac men were enlisting under the Governor’s proclamation—which promised two hundred thousand acres on the Ohio. Along this river they were gathering as far as Will’s Creek, and far beyond this point, whither Trent had come for assistance for his little band of forty-one men, who were THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 33 working away in hunger and want, to fortify that point at the fork of the Ohio, to which both parties were looking with deep interest. “The first birds of Spring filled the air with their song; the swift river rolled by the Allegheny hillsides, swollen by the melting snows of Spring and the April showers. The leaves were appearing ; a few Indian scouts were seen, but no enemy seemed near at hand; and all was so quiet, that Frazier, an old Indian scout and trader, who had been left by Trent in command, ventured to his home at the mouth of Turtle Creek, ten miles up the Monongahela. But, though all was so quiet in that wilder- ness, keen eyes had seen the low intrenchment rising at the fork, and swift feet had borne the news of it up the river; and upon the morning of the 17th of April, Ensign Ward, who then had charge of it, saw upon the Allegheny a sight that made his heart sink—sixty batteaux and three hundred canoes filled with men, and laden deep with cannon and stores. * * * That evening he supped with his captor, Contrecceur, and the next day he was bowed off by the Frenchman, and with his men and tools, marched up the Monongahela.”’ The French and Indian war had begun. The treaty of Aix la Chapelle, in 1748, had left the boundaries between the French and English possessions unsettled, and the events already narrated show the French were determined to hold the country watered by the Mississippi and its tributaries; while the English laid claims to the country by virtue of the discoveries of the Cabots, and claimed all the country from New- foundland to Florida, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The first decisive blow had now been struck, and the first attempt of the English, through the Ohio Company, to occupy these lands, had resulted disastrously to them. The French and Indians immediately completed the fortifications begun at the Fork, which they had so easily captured, and when completed gave to the fort the name of DuQuesne. Washing- ton was at Will’s Creek when the news of the capture of the fort arrived. He at once departed to recapture it. On his way he entrenched him- self at a place called the ‘ Meadows,” where he erected a fort called by him Fort Necessity. From there he surprised and captured a force of French and Indians marching against him, but was soon after attacked in his fort by a much superior force, and was obliged to yield on the morning of July 4th. He was allowed to return to Virginia. The English Government immediately planned four campaigns; one against Fort DuQuesne; one against Nova Scotia; one against Fort Niagara, and one against Crown Point. These occurred during 1755-6, and were not successful in driving the French from their possessions. The expedition against Fort DuQuesne was led by the famous General Braddock, who, refusing to listen to the advice of Washington and those 34 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. acquainted with Indian warfare, suffered such an inglorious defeat. This occurred on the morning of July 9th, and is generally known as the battle of Monongahela, or ‘‘ Braddock’s Defeat.” The war continued with various vicissitudes through the years 1756-7 ; when, at the commence- ment of 1758, in accordance with the plans of William Pitt, then Secre- tary of State, afterwards Lord Chatham, active preparations were made to carry on the war. Three expeditions were planned for this year: one, under General Amherst, against Louisburg ; another, under Abercrombie, against Fort Ticonderoga; and a third, under General Forbes, against Fort DuQuesne. On the 26th of July, Louisburg surrendered after a desperate resistance of more than forty days, and the eastern part of the Canadian possessions fell into the hands of the British. Abercrombie captured Fort Frontenac, and when the expedition against Fort DuQuesne, of which Washington had the active command, arrived there, it was found in flames and deserted. The English at once took possession, rebuilt the fort, and in honor of their illustrious statesman, changed the name to Fort Pitt. The great object of the campaign of 1759, was the reduction of Canada. General Wolfe was to lay siege to Quebec; Amherst was to reduce Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and General Prideaux was to capture Niagara. This latter place was taken in July, but the gallant Prideaux lost his life in the attempt. Amherst captured Ticonderoga and Crown Point without a blow; and Wolfe, after making the memor- able ascent to the Plains of Abraham, on September 18th, defeated Montcalm, and on the 18th, the city capitulated. In this engagement Montcolm and Wolfe both lost their lives. De Levi, Montcalm’s successor, marched to Sillery, three miles above the city, with the purpose of defeating the English, and there, on the 28th of the following April, was fought one of the bloodiest battles of the French and Indian War. It resulted in the defeat of the French, and the fall of the City of Montreal. The Governor signed a capitulation by which the whole of Canada was surrendered to the English. This practically concluded the war, but it was not until 1763 that the treaties of peace between France and England were signed. This was done on the10th of February of that year, and under its provisions all the country east of the Mississippi and north of the Iberville River, in Louisiana, were ceded to England. At the same time Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain. On the 13th of September, 1760, Major Robert Rogers was sent from Montreal to take charge of Detroit, the only remaining French post in the territory. He arrived there on the 19th of November, and sum- moned the place to surrender. At first the commander of the post, Beletre, refused, but on the 29th, hearing of the continued defeat of the THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 35 French arms, surrendered. Rogers remained there until December 23d . under the personal protection of the celebrated chief, Pontiac, to whom, no doubt, he owed his safety. Pontiac had come here to inquire the purposes of the English in taking possession of the country. He was assured that they came simply to trade with the natives, and did not desire their country. This answer conciliated the savages, and did much to insure the safety of Rogers and his party during their stay, and while on their journey home. . | . Rogers set out for Fort Pitt on December 23, and was just one month on the way. His route was from Detroit to Maumee, thence . across the present State of Ohio directly to the fort. This was the com- mon trail of the Indians in their journeys from Sandusky to the fork of the Ohio. It went from Fort Sandusky, where Sandusky City now is, crossed the Huron river, then called Bald Eagle Creek, to “* Mohickon John’s Town” on Mohickon Creek, the northern branch of White Woman’s River, and thence crossed to Beaver’s Town, a Delaware town on what is now Sandy Creek. At Beaver’s Town were probably one hundred and fifty warriors, and not less than three thousand acres of cleared land. From there the track went up Sandy Creek to and across Big Beaver, and up the Ohio to Logstown, thence on to the fork. The Northwest Territory was now entirely under the English rule. New settlements began to be rapidly made, and the promise of a large trade was speedily manifested. Had the British carried out their promises with the natives none of those savage butcheries would have been perpe- trated, and the country would have been spared their recital. The renowned chief, Pontiac, was one of the leading spirits in these atrocities. We will now pause in our narrative, and notice the leading events in his life. The earliest authentic information .regarding this noted Indian chief is learned from an account of an Indian trader named Alexander Henry, who, in the Spring of 1761, penetrated his domains as far as Missillimacnac. Pontiac was then a great friend of the French, but a bitter foe of the English, whom he considered as encroaching on his hunting grounds. Henry was obliged to disguise himself as a Canadian to insure safety, but was discovered by Pontiac, who bitterly reproached him and the English for their attempted subjugation of the West. He declared that no treaty had been made with them; no presents sent them, and that he would resent any possession of the West by that nation. He was at the time about fifty years of age, tall and dignified, and was civil and military ruler of the Ottawas, Ojibwas and Pottawatamies. The Indians, from Lake Michigan to the borders of North Carolina, were united in this feeling, and at the time of the treaty of Paris, ratified February 10, 1763, a general conspiracy was formed to fall suddenly 36 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. upon the frontier British posts, and with one blow strike every man dead. Pontiac was the marked leader in all this, and was the commander . of the Chippewas, Ottawas, Wyandots, Miamis, Shawanese, Delawares and Mingoes, who had, for the time, laid aside their local quarrels to unite in this enterprise. The blow came, as near as can now be ascertained, on May 7, 1762. Nine British posts fell, and the Indians drank, “‘ scooped up in the hollow of joined hands,” the blood of many a Briton. Pontiac’s immediate field of action was the garrison at Detroit. Here, however, the plans were frustrated by an Indian woman disclosing the plot the evening previous to his arrival. Everything was carried out, however, according to Pontiac’s plans until the moment of action, when Major Gladwyn, the commander of the post, stepping to one of the Indian chiefs, suddenly drew aside his blanket and disclosed the concealed musket. Pontiac, though a brave man, turned pale and trembled. He saw his plan was known, and that the garrison were prepared. He endeavored to exculpate himself from any such intentions; but the guilt was evident, and he and his followers were dismissed with a severe reprimand, and warned never to again enter the walls of the post. Pontiac at once laid siege to the fort, and until the treaty of peace between the British and the Western Indians, concluded in August, 1764, continued to harass and besiege the fortress. He organized a regular commissariat department, issued bills of credit written out on bark, which, to his credit, it may be stated, were punctually redeemed. At the conclusion of the treaty, in which it seems he took no part, he went further south, living many years among the Illinois. He had given up all hope of saving his country and race. After a time he endeavored to unite the Illinois tribe and those about St. Louis in a war with the whites. His efforts were fruitless, and only ended ina quarrel between himself and some Kaskaskia Indians, one of whom soon afterwards killed him. His death was, however, avenged by the northern Indians, who nearly exterminated the Illinois in the wars which followed. Had it not been for the treachery of a few of his followers, his plan for the extermination of the whites, a masterly one, would undoubtedly have been carried out. It was in the Spring of the year following Rogers’ visit that Alex- ander Henry went to Missillimacnac, and everywhere found the strongest feelings against the English, who had not carried out their promises, and were doing nothing to conciliate the natives. Here he met the chief, Pontiac, who, after conveying to him in a speech the idea that their French father would awake soon and utterly destroy his enemies, said: * Enelishman, although you have conquered the French, you have not THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 37 yet conquered us! We are not your slaves! These lakes, these woods, these mountains, were left us by our ancestors. They are our inheritance, and we will part with them to none. Your nation supposes that we, like the white people, can not live without bread and pork and beef. But you ought to know that He, the Great Spirit and Master of Life, has provided food for us upon these broad lakes and in these mountains.” He then spoke of the fact that no treaty had been made with them, no presents sent them, and that he and his people were yet for war. Such were the feelings of the Northwestern Indians immediately after the English took possession of their country. These feelings were no doubt encouraged by the Canadians and French, who hoped that yet the French arms might prevail. The treaty of Paris, however, gave to the English the right to this vast domain, and active preparations were going on to occupy it and enjoy its trade and emoluments. In 1762, France, by a secret treaty, ceded Louisiana to Spain, to pre- vent it falling into the hands of the English, who were becoming masters of the entire West. The next year the treaty of Paris, signed at Fon- tainbleau, gave to the English the domain of the country in question. Twenty years after, by the treaty of peace between the United States and England, that part of Canada lying south and west of the Great Lakes, comprehending a large territory which is the subject of these sketches, was acknowledged to be a portion of the United States; and twenty years still later, in 1803, Louisiana was ceded by Spain back to France, and by France sold to the United States. In the half century, from the building of the Fort of Crevecceur by LaSalle, in 1680, up to the erection of Fort Chartres, many French set- tlements had been made in that quarter. These have already been noticed, being those at St. Vincent (Vincennes), Kohokia or Cahokia, Kaskaskia and Prairie du Rocher, on the American Bottom, a large tract of rich alluvial soil in Illinois, on the Mississippi, opposite the site of St. Louis. By the treaty of Paris, the regions east of the Mississippi, including all these and other towns of the Northwest, were given over to England; but they do not appear to have been taken possession of until 1765, when Captain Stirling, in the name of the Majesty of England, established him- self at Fort Chartres bearing with him the proclamation of General Gage, dated December 30, 1764, which promised religious freedom to all Cath- olics who worshiped here, and a right to leave the country with their effects if they wished, or to remain with the privileges of Englishmen. It was shortly after the occupancy of the West by the British that the war with Pontiac opened. It is already noticed in the sketch of that chieftain. By it many a Briton lost his life, and many a frontier settle- 38 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. ment in its infancy ceased to exist. This was not ended until the year 1764, when, failing to capture Detroit, Niagara and Fort Pitt, his confed- eracy became disheartened, and, receiving no aid from the French, Pon- tiac abandoned the enterprise and departed to the Illinois, among whom he afterward lost his life. As soon as these difficulties were definitely settled, settlers began rapidly to survey the country and prepare for occupation. During the year 1770, a number of persons from Virginia and other British provinces explored and marked out nearly all the valuable lands on the Mononga- hela and along the banks of the Ohio as far as the Little Kanawha. This was followed by another exploring expedition, in which George Washing- ton was a party. The latter, accompanied by Dr. Craik, Capt. Crawford and others, on the 20th of October, 1770, descended the Ohio from Pitts- burgh to the mouth of the Kanawha; ascended that stream about fourteen miles, marked out several large tracts of land, shot several buffalo, which were then abundant in the Ohio Valley, and returned to the fort. Pittsburgh was at this time a trading post, about which was clus- tered a village of some twenty houses, inhabited by Indian traders. This same year, Capt. Pittman visited Kaskaskia and its neighboring villages. He found there about sixty-five resident families, and at Cahokia only forty-fivedwellings. At. Fort Chartres was another small settlement, and at Detroit the garrison were quite prosperous and strong. For a year or two settlers continued to locate near some of these posts, generally Fort Pitt or Detroit, owing to the fears of the Indians, who still main- tained some feelings of hatred tothe English. The trade from the posts was quite good, and. from those in Illinois large quantities of pork and flour found their way to the New Orleans market. At this time the policy of the British Government was strongly opposed to the extension of the colonies west. In 1763, the King of England forbade, by royal proclamation, his colonial subjects from making a settlement beyond the sources of the rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean. At the instance of the Board of Trade, measures were taken to prevent the settlement without the limits prescribed, and to retain the commerce within easy reach of Great Britain. The commander-in-chief of the king’s forces wrote in 1769: ‘Inthe course of a few years necessity will compel the colonists, should they extend their settlements west, to provide manufactures of some kind for themselves, and when all connection upheld by commerce with the mother country ceases, an independency in their government will soon follow.”’ In accordance with this policy, Gov. Gage issued a proclamation ‘in 1772, commanding the inhabitants of Vincennes to abandon their set- tlements and join some of the Eastern English colonies, To this they THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 39. strenuously objected, giving good reasons therefor, and were allowed to remain. The strong opposition to this policy of Great Britain led to its change, and to such a course as to gain the attachment of the French population. In December, 1773, influential citizens of Quebec petitioned the king for an extension of the boundary lines of that province, which was granted, and Parliament passed an act on June 2, 1774, extend- ing the boundary so as to include the territory lying within the present States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. In consequence of the liberal policy pursued by the British Govern- ment toward the French settlers in the West, they were disposed to favor that nation in the war which soon followed with the colonies; but the early alliance between France and America soon brought them to the side of the war for independence. In 1774, Gov. Dunmore, of Virginia, began to encourage emigration to the Western lands. He appointed magistrates at Fort Pitt under the pretense that the fort was under the government of that commonwealth. One of these justices, John Connelly, who possessed a tract of land in the Ohio Valley, gathered a force of men and garrisoned the fort, calling it Fort Dunmore. This and other parties were formed to select sites for settlements, and often came in conflict with the Indians, who yet claimed portions of the valley, and several battles followed. These ended in the famous battle of Kanawha in July, witere: the Indians were defeated and driven across the Ohio. During the years 1775 and 1776, by the operations of land companies and the perseverance of individuals, several settlements were firmly estab- lished between the Alleghanies and the Ohio River, and western land speculators were busy in Illinois and on the Wabash. At a council held in Kaskaskia on July 5, 1773, an association of English traders, calling themselves the ‘“ Illinois Land Company,” obtained from ten chiefs of the Kaskaskia, Cahokia and Peoria tribes two large tracts of land lying on the east side of the Mississippi River south of the Illinois. In 1775, a mer- chant from the Illinois Country, named Viviat, came to Post Vincennes as the agent of the association called the ‘‘ Wabash Land Company.”’ On the 8th of October he obtained from eleven Piankeshaw chiefs, a deed for 37,497,600 acres of land. This deed was signed by the grantors, attested by a number of the inhabitants of Vincennes, and afterward recorded in the office of a notary‘public at Kaskaskia. This and other land com- panies had extensive schemes for the colonization of the West; but all were frustrated by the breaking out of the Revolution. On the 20th of April, 1780, the two companies named consolidated under the name of the ‘United Illinois and Wabash Land Company.” ‘They afterward made 40 - THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. strenuous efforts to have these grants sanctioned by Congress, but all signally failed. When the War of the Revolution commenced, Kentucky was an unor- ganized country, though there were several settlements within her borders. In Hutchins’ Topography of Virginia, it is stated that at that time ‘* Kaskaskia contained 80 houses, and nearly 1,000 white and black in- habitants — the whites being a little the more numerous. Cahokia con- tains 50 houses and 300 white inhabitants, and 80 negroes. There were east of the Mississippi River, about the year 1771 ’’—when these observa- tions were made — ‘300 white men capable of bearing arms, and 230 negroes.” From 1775 until the expedition of Clark, nothing is recorded and nothing known of these settlements, save what is contained in a report made by a committee to Congress in June, 1778. From it the following extract is made: ‘‘Near the mouth of the River Kaskaskia, there is a village which | appears to have contained nearly eighty families from the beginning of the late revolution. There are twelve families in a small village at la Prairie du Rochers, and near fifty families at the Kahokia Village. There are alsé four or five peta at Fort Chartres and St. Philips, which is five miles further up the river.’ St. Louis had been settled in February, 1764, and at this time con- tained, including its neighboring towns, over six hundred whites and one hundred and fifty negroes. It must be remembered that all the country west of the Mississippi was now under French rule, and remained so until ceded again to Spain, its original owner, who afterwards sold it and the country including New Orleans to the United States. At Detroit there were, according to Capt. Carver, who was in the Northwest from 1766 to 1768, more than one hundred houses, and the river was settled for more than twenty miles, although poorly cultivated—the people being engaged in the Indian trade. This old town has a history, which we will here relate. It is the oldest town in the Northwest, having been founded by Antoine de Lamotte Cadillac, in 1701. It was laid out in the form of an oblong square, of two acres in length, and an acre and a half in width. As described by A. D. Frazer, who first visited it and became a permanent resident of the place, in 1778, it comprised within its limits that space between Mr. Palmer’s store (Conant Block) and Capt. Perkins’ house (near the Arsenal building), and extended back as far as the public barn, and was bordered in front by the Detroit River. It was surrounded by oak and cedar pickets, about fifteen feet long, set in the ground, and had four gates — east, west, north and south. Over the first three of these ~ THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 41 gates were block houses provided with four guns apiece, each a six- pounder. Two six-gun batteries were planted fronting the river and ina parallel direction with the block houses. There weye four streets running east and west, the main street being twenty feet wide and the rest fifteen feet, while the four streets crossing these at right angles were from ten to fifteen feet in width. At the date spoken of by Mr. Frazer, there was no fort within the enclosure, but a citadel on the ground corresponding to the present northwest corner of Jefferson Avenue and Wayne Street. The citadel was inclosed by pickets, and within it were erected barracks of wood, two stories high, sufficient to contain ten officers, and also barracks sufficient to contain four hundred men, and a provision store built of brick. The citadel also contained a hospital and guard-house. The old town of Detroit, in 1778, contained about sixty houses, most of them one story, with a few astory and a half in height. They were all of logs, some hewn and some round. There was one building of: splendid appearance, called the *“‘ King’s Palace,” two stories high, which stood near the east gate. It was built for Governor Hamilton, the first governor commissioned by the British. There were two guard-houses, one near the west gate and the other near the Government House. Each of the guards consisted of twenty-four men and a subaltern, who mounted regularly every morning between nine and ten o’clock, Each furnished four sentinels, who were relieved every two hours. There was also an officer of the day, who per- formed strict duty. Each of the gates was shut regularly at sunset, even wicket gates were shut at nine o’clock, and all the keys were delivered into the hands of the commanding officer. They were opened in the morning at sunrise. No Indian or squaw was permitted to enter town with any weapon, such as a tomahawk ora knife. It was a stand- ing order that the Indians should deliver their arms and instruments of every kind before they were permitted to pass the sentinel], and they were restored to them on their return. No more than twenty-five Indians were allowed to enter the town at any one time, and they were admitted only at the east and west gates. At sundown the drums beat, and all the Indians were required to leave town instantly. There was a council house near the water side for the purpose of holding council with the Indians. The population of the town was about sixty families, in all about two hundred males and one hundred females. This town was destroyed sy fire, all except one dwelling, in 1805. After ie the ae ‘“new’ town was laid out. On the breaking out of the Revolution, the British held every post of importance in the West. Kentucky was formed as a component part of Virginia, and the sturdy pioneers of the West, alive to their interests, 42 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. and recognizing the great benefits of obtaining the control of the trade in this part of the New World, held steadily to their purposes, and those within the commonwealth of Kentucky proceeded to exercise their civil privileges, by electing John Todd and Richard Gallaway, burgesses to represent them in the Assembly of the parent state. Early in September of that year (1777) the first court was held in Harrodsburg, and Col. Bowman, afterwards major, who had arrived in August, was made the commander of a militia organization which had been commenced the March previous. Thus the tree of loyalty was growing. Thechief spiritin this far-out colony, who had represented her the year previous east of the mountains, was now meditating a move: unequaled in its boldness. He had been watching the movements of the British throughout the Northwest, and understood their whole plan. He saw it was through their possession of the posts at Detroit, Vincennes, Kaskaskia, and other places, which would give them constant and easy access to the various Indian tribes in the Northwest, that the British. intended to penetrate the country from the north and south, ana annihi-- late the frontier fortresses. This moving, energetic man was Colonel, afterwards General, George Rogers Clark. He knew the Indians were not- unanimously in accord with the English, and he was convinced that, could the British be defeated and expelled from the Northwest, the natives. might be easily awed into neutrality; and by spies sent for the purpose, he satisfied himself that the enterprise against the Illinois settlements. might easily succeed. Having convinced himself of the certainty of the project, he repaired to the Capital of Virginia, which place he reached on November 5th. While he was on his way, fortunately, on October 17th, Burgoyne had been defeated, and the spirits of the colonists greatly encouraged thereby. Patrick Henry was: Governor of Virginia, and at. once entered heartily into Clark’s plans. The same plan had before been agitated in the Colonial Assemblies, but there was no one until Clark came who was sufficiently acquainted with the condition of affairs at the. scene of action to be able to guide them. Clark, having satisfied the Virginia leaders of the feasibility of his. plan, received, on the 2d of January, two sets of instructions—one secret, the other open—the latter authorized him to proceed to enlist seven companies to go to Kentucky, subject to his orders, and to serve three months from their arrival in the West. The secret order authorized him to arm these troops, to procure his powder and lead of General Hand at Pittsburgh, and to proceed at once to subjugate the country. With these instructions Clark repaired to Pittsburgh, choosing rather to raise his men west of the mountains, as he well knew all were needed in the colonies in the conflict there. He sent Col. W. B. Smith to Hol- THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 43 ston for the same purpose, but neither succeeded in raising the required number of men. The settlers in these parts were afraid to leave their own firesides exposed to a vigilant foe, and but few could be induced to join the proposed expedition. With three companies and several private volunteers, Clark at length commenced his descent of the Ohio, which he navigated as far as the Falls, where he took possession of and fortified Corn Island, a small island between the present Cities of Louisville, Kentucky, and New Albany, Indiana. Remains of this fortification may yet be found. At this place he appointed Col. Bowman to meet him with such recruits as had reached Kentucky by the southern route, and as many as could be spared from the station. Here he announced to the men their real destination. Having completed his arrangements, and chosen his party, he left a small garrison upon thé island, and on the 24th of June, during a total eclipse of the sun, which to them augured no good, and which fixes beyond dispute the date of starting, he with his chosen band, fell down the river. His plan was to go by water as far as Fort Massac or Massacre, and thence march direct to Kaskaskia. Here he intended to surprise the garrison, and after its capture go to Cahokia, then to Vincennes, and lastly to Detroit. Should he fail, he intended to march directly to the Mississippi River and cross it into the Spanish country. Before his start he received two good items of infor- mation: one that the alliance had been formed between France and the United States; and the other that the Indians throughout the [lnois country and the inhabitants, at the various frontier posts, had been led to believe by the British that the ‘“ Long Knives” or Virginians, were the most fierce, bloodthirsty and cruel savages that ever scalped a foe. With this impression on their minds, Clark saw that proper management would cause them to submit at once from fear, if surprised, and then from grati- tude would become friendly if treated with unexpected leniency. The march to Kaskaskia was accomplished through a hot July sun, and the town reached on the evening of July 4. He captured the fort near the village, and soon after the village itself by surprise, and without the loss of a single man or by killing any of the enemy. After sufficiently working upon the fears of the natives, Clark told them they were at per- fect liberty to worship as they pleased, and to take whichever side of the great conflict they would, also he would protect them from any barbarity from British-or Indian foe. This had the desired effect, and the inhab- itants, so unexpectedly and so gratefully surprised by the unlooked for turn of affairs, at once swore allegiance to the American arms, and when Clark desired to go to Cahokia on the 6th of July, they accom- panied him, and through their influence the inhabitants of the place surrendered, and gladly placed themselves under his protection. Thus 44 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. the two important posts in Illinois passed from the hands of the English into the possession of Virginia. In the person of the priest at Kaskaskia, M. Gibault, Clark found a powerful ally and generous friend. Clark saw that, to retain possession of the Northwest and treat successfully with the Indians within its boun- daries, he must establish a government for the colonies he had taken. St. Vincent, the next important post to Detroit,remained yet to be taken before the Mississippi Valley was conquered. M. Gibault told him that he would alone, by persuasion, lead Vincennes to throw off its connection with England. Clark gladly accepted his offer, and on the 14th of July, in company with a fellow-townsman, M. Gibault started on his mission of peace, and on the Ist of August returned with the cheerful intelligence that the post on the ‘“‘ Oubache’’ had taken the oath of allegiance to the Old Dominion. During this interval, Clark established his courts, placed garrisons at Kaskaskia and Cahokia, successfully re-enlisted his men, sent ‘word to have a fort, which proved the germ of Louisville, erected at the Falls of the Ohio, and dispatched Mr. Rocheblave, who had been commander at Kaskaskia, as a prisoner of war to Richmond. In October the County of Illinois was established by the Legislature of Virginia, John Todd appointed Lieutenant Colonel and Civil Governor, and in November General Clark and his men received the thanks of the Old Dominion through their Legislature. In a speech a few days afterward, Clark made known fully to the natives his plans, and at its close all came forward and swore alle- giance to the Long Knives. While he was doing this Governor Hamilton, having made his various arrangements, had left Detroit and moved down the Wabash to Vincennes intending to operate from that point in reducing the Illinois posts, and then proceed on down to Kentucky and drive the rebels from the West. Gen. Clark had, on the return of M. Gibault, dispatched Captain Helm, of Fauquier County, Virginia, with an attend- ant named Henry, across the Illinois prairies to command the fort. Hamilton knew nothing of the capitulation of the post, and was greatly surprised on his arrival to be confronted by Capt. Helm, who, standing at the entrance of the fort by a loaded cannon ready to fire upon his assail- ants, demanded upon what terms Hamilton demanded possession of the fort. Being granted the rights of a prisoner of war, he surrendered to the British General, who could scarcely ‘believe his eyes when he saw the force in the garrison. Hamilton, not realizing the character of the men with whom he was contending, gave up his intended campaign for the Winter, sent his four hundred Indian warriors to prevent troops from coming down the Ohio, THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. ' 45. and to annoy the Americans in all ways, and sat quietly down to pass the Winter. Information of all these proceedings having reached Clark, he saw that immediate and decisive action was necessary, and that unless he captured Hamilton, Hamilton would capture him. Clark received the news on the 29th of January, 1779, and on February 4th, having suffi- ciently garrisoned Kaskaskia and Cahokia, he sént down the Mississippi a “* battoe,”’ as Major Bowman writes it, in order to ascend the Ohio and Wabash, and operate with the land forces gathering for the fray. On the next day, Clark, with his, little force of one hundred and twenty men, set out for the post, and after incredible hard marching through much mud, the ground being thawed by the incessant spring rains, on the 22d reached the fort, and being joined by his ‘ battoe,”’ at once commenced the attack on the post. The aim of the American back- woodsman was unerring, and on the 24th the garrison surrendered to the intrepid boldness of Clark. The French were treated with great kind- ness, and gladly renewed their allegiance to Virginia. Hamilton was sent as a prisoner to Virginia, where he was kept in close confinement. During his command of the British frontier posts, he had offered prizes to the Indians for all the scalps of Americans they would bring to him, and had earned in consequence thereof the title “ Hair- buyer General,” by which he was ever afterward known. Detroit was now without doubt within easy reach of the enterprising Virginian, could he but raise the necessary force. Governor Henry being apprised of this, promised him the needed reinforcement, and Clark con- cluded to wait until he could capture and sufficiently garrison the posts. Had Clark failed in this bold undertaking, and Hamilton succeeded in uniting the western Indians for the next Spring’s campaign, the West. would indeed have been swept from the Mississippi to the Allegheny Mountains, and the great blow struck, which had been contemplated from the commencement, by the British. ‘‘ But for this small army of dripping, but fearless Virginians, the union of all the tribes from Georgia to Maine against the colonies might have been effected, and the whole current of our history changed.” At this time some fears were entertained by the Colonial Govern- ments that the Indians:in the North and Northwest were inclining to the British, and under the instructions of Washington, now Commander-in- Chief of the Colonial army, and so bravely fighting for American inde- pendence, armed forces were sent against the Six Nations, and upon the Ohio frontier, Col. Bowman, acting under the same general’s orders, marched against Indians within the present limits of that State. These expeditions were in the main successful, and the Indians were compelled to sue for peace. aoe. THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. During this same year (1779) the famous “‘ Land Laws” of Virginia were passed. ‘The passage of these laws was of more consequence to the pioneers of Kentucky and the Northwest than the gaining of a few Indian conflicts. These laws confirmed in main all grants made, and guaranteed to all actual settlers their rights and ‘privileges. After providing for the settlers, the laws provided for selling the balance of the public lands at forty cents per acre. To carry the Land Laws into effect, the Legislature sent four Virginians westward to attend to the various claims, over many of which great confusion prevailed concerning their validity. These gentlemen opened their court on October 18, 1779, at St. Asaphs, and continued until April 26, 1780, when they adjourned, having decided three .thousand claims. They were succeeded by the surveyor, who came in the person of Mr. George May, and assumed his duties on the 10th day of the menth whose name he bore. With the opening of the next year (1780) the troubles concerning the navigation of the Missis- sippi commenced. The Spanish Government exacted such measures in relation to its trade as to cause the overtures made to the United States to be rejected. The American Government considered they had a right to navigate its channel. To enforce their claims, a fort was erected below the mouth of the Ohio on the Kentucky side of the river. The settle- ments in Kentucky were being rapidly filled by emigrants. It was dur- ing this year that the first seminary of learning was established in the West in this young and enterprising Commonwealth. The settlers here did not look upon the building of this fort in a friendly manner, as it aroused the hostility of the Indians. Spain had been friendly to the Colonies during their struggle for independence, and though for a while this friendship appeared in danger from the refusal of the free navigation of the river, a it was finally settled to the satisfaction of both nations. The Winter of 1779-80 was one of the most unusually severe ones ever experienced in the West. The Indians always referred to it as the ‘‘Great Cold.” Numbers of wild animals perished, and not a few pioneers lost their lives. The following Summer a party of Canadians and Indians attacked St. Louis, and attempted to take possession of it in consequence of the. friendly disposition of Spain to the revolting colonies. They met with such a determined resistance on the part of the inhabitants, even the women taking part in the battle, that they were compelled to abandon the contest. They also made an attack on the settlements in Kentucky, but, becoming alarmed in some unaccountable manner, they fled the country in great haste. | About this time arose the question in the Colonial Congress con- - cerning the western lands claimed by Virginia, New York, Massachusetts THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 43 and Connecticut. The agitation concerning this ‘subject finally led New York, on the 19th of February, 1780, to pass a law giving to the dele- gates of that State in Congress the power to cede her western lands for the benefit of the United States. This law was laid before Congress during the next month, but no steps were taken concerning it until Sep- tember 6th, when a resolution passed that body calling upon the States claiming western lands to release their claims in favor of the whole body. This basis formed the union, and was the first after all of those legislative measures which resulted in the creation of the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. In December of the same year, the plan of conquering Detroit again arose. The conquest might have easily been effected by Clark had the necessary aid been furnished him. Nothing decisive was done, vet the heads of the Government knew that the safety of the Northwest from British invasion lay in the capture and retention of that important post, the only unconquered one in the territory. Before the close of the year, Kentucky was divided into the Coun- ties of Lincoln, Fayette and Jefferson, and the act establishing the Town of Louisville was passed. This same year is also noted in the annals of American history as the year in which occurred Arnold’s treason to the United States. — Virginia, in accordance with the resolution of Congress, on the 2d day of January, 1781, agreed to yield her western lands to the United States upon certain conditions, which Congress would not accede to, and the Act of Cession, on the part of the Old Dominion, failed, nor was anything farther done until 1783. During all that time the Colonies were busily engaged in the struggle with the mother country, and in consequence thereof but little heed was given to the western settlements. Upon the 4th of July, 1773, the first birth north of the Ohio River of American parentage occurred, being that of John L. Roth, son of John Roth, one of the Moravian missionaries, whose band of Christian Indians _ suffered in after years a horrible massacre by the hands of the frontier settlers, who had been exasperated by the murder of several of their neighbors, and in their rage committed, without regard to humanity, a deed which forever afterward cast a shade of shame upon their lives. For this and kindred outrages on the part of the whites, the Indians committed many deeds of cruelty which darken the years of 1771 and 1772 in the history of the Northwest. During the year 1782 a number of battles among the Indians and frontiersmen occurred, and between the Moravian Indians and the Wyan- dots. In these, horrible acts of cruelty were practised on the captives, many of such dark deeds transpiring under the leadership of the notorious | 3 AGe THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. During this same year (1779) the famous “ Land Laws” of Virginia were passed. ‘The passage of these laws was of more consequence to the pioneers of Kentucky and the Northwest than the gaining of a few Indian conflicts. These laws confirmed in main all grants made, and guaranteed to all actual settlers their rights and ‘privileges. After providing for the settlers, the laws provided for selling the balance of the public lands at forty cents peracre. To carry the Land Laws into effect, the Legislature sent four Virginians westward to attend to the various claims, over many of which great confusion prevailed concerning their validity. These gentlemen opened their court on October 18, 1779, at St. Asaphs, and continued until April 26, 1780, when they adjourned, having decided three .thousand claims. They were succeeded by the surveyor, who came in the person of Mr. George May, and assumed his duties on the 10th day of the month whose name he bore. With the opening of the next year (1780) the troubles concerning the navigation of the Missis- sippi commenced. The Spanish Government exacted such measures in relation to its trade as to cause the overtures made to the United States to be rejected. The American Government considered they had a right to navigate its channel. To enforce their claims, a fort was erected below the mouth of the Ohio on the Kentucky side of the river. The settle- ments in Kentucky were being rapidly filled by emigrants. It was dur- ing this year that the first seminary of learning was established in the West in this young and enterprising Commonwealth. The settlers here did not look upon the building of this fort in a friendly manner, as it aroused the hostility of the Indians. Spain had been friendly to the Colonies during their struggle for independence, and though for a while this friendship appeared in danger from the refusal of the free navigation of the river, vou it was finally settled to the satisfaction of both nations. The Winter of 1779-80 was one of the most unusually severe ones ever experienced in the West. The Indians always referred to it as the ‘‘Great Cold.” Numbers of wild animals perished, and not a few pioneers lost their lives. The following Summer a party of Canadians and Indians attacked St. Louis, and attempted to take possession of it in consequence of the. friendly disposition of Spain to the revolting colonies. They met with such a determined resistance on the part of the inhabitants, even the women taking part in the battle, that they were compelled to abandon the contest. They also made an attack on the settlements in Kentucky, but, becoming alarmed in some unaccountable manner, they fled the country in great haste. | About this time arose the question in the Colonial Congress con- cerning the western lands claimed by Virginia, New York, Massachusetts THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 43 and Connecticut. The agitation concerning this subject finally led New York, on the 19th of February, 1780, to pass a law giving to the dele- gates of that State in Congress the power to cede her western lands for the benefit of the United States. This law was laid before Congress during the next month, but no steps were taken concerning it until Sep- tember 6th, when a resolution passed that body calling upon the States claiming western lands to release their claims in favor of the whole body. This basis formed the union, and was the first after all of those legislative measures which resulted in the creation of the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. In December of the same year, the plan of conquering Detroit again arose. The conquest might have easily been effected by Clark had the necessary aid been furnished him. Nothing decisive was done, yet the heads of the Government knew that the safety of the Northwest from British invasion lay in the capture and retention of that important post, the only unconquered one in the territory. Before the close of the year, Kentucky was divided into the Coun- ties of Lincoln, Fayette and Jefferson, and the act establishing the Town of Louisville was passed. This same year is also noted in the annals of American history as the year in which occurred Arnold’s treason to the United States. — | Virginia, in accordance with the resolution of Congress, on the 2d day of January, 1781, agreed to yield her western lands to the United States upon certain conditions, which Congress would not accede to, and the Act of Cession, on the part of the Old Dominion, failed, nor was anything farther done until 1783. During all that time the Colonies were busily engaged in the struggle with the mother country, and in consequence thereof but little heed was given to the western settlements. Upon the 4th of July, 1773, the first birth north of the Ohio River of American parentage occurred, being that of John L. Roth, son of John Roth, one’ of the Moravian missionaries, whose band of Christian Indians_ suffered in after years a horrible massacre by the hands of the frontier settlers, who had been exasperated by the murder of several of their neighbors, and in their rage committed, without regard to humanity, a deed which forever afterward cast a shade of shame upon their lives. For this and kindred outrages on the part of the whites, the Indians committed many deeds of cruelty which darken the years of 1771 and 1772 in the history of the Northwest. | During the year 1782 a number of battles among the Indians and frontiersmen occurred, and between the Moravian Indians and the Wyan- dots. In these, horrible acts of cruelty were practised on the captives, many of such dark deeds transpiring under the leadership of the notorious 3 50 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. frontier outlaw, Simon Girty, whose name, as well as those of his brothers, was a terror to women and children. These occurred chiefly in the Ohio valleys. Cotemporary with them were several engagements in Kentucky, in which the famous Daniel Boone engaged, and who, often by his skill and knowledge of Indian warfare, saved the outposts from cruel destruc- tion. By the close of the year victory had perched upon the American banner, and on the 30th of November, provisional articles of peace had been arranged between the Commissioners of England and her uncon- querable colonies. Cornwallis had been defeated on the 19th of October preceding, and the liberty of America was assured. On the 19th of April following, the anniversary of the battle of Lexington, peace was proclaimed to the army of the United States, and on the 8d of the next September, the definite treaty which ended our revolutionary struggle was concluded. By the terms of that treaty, the boundaries of the West were as follows: On the north the line was to extend along the center of the Great Lakes; from the western point of Lake Superior to Long Lake; thence to the Lake of the Woods; thence to the head of the Mississippi River ; down its center to the 31st parallel of latitude, then on that line east to the head of the Appalachicola River ; down its center to its junc- tion with the Flint; thence straight to the head of St. Mary’s River, and thence down along its center to the Atlantic Ocean. Following the cessation of hostilities with England, several posts were still occupied by the British in the North and West. Among these was Detroit, still in the hands of the enemy. Numerous engagements with the Indians throughout Ohio and Indiana occurred, upon whose lands adventurous whites would settle ere the title had been acquired by the proper treaty. : To remedy this latter evil, Congress appointed commissioners to treat with the natives and purchase their lands, and prohibited the settle- ment of the territory uutil this could be done. Before the close of the . year another attempt was made to capture Detroit, which was, however, not pushed, and Virginia, no longer feeling the interest in the Northwest she had formerly done, withdrew her troops, having on the 20th of December preceding authorized the whole of her possessions to be deeded to the United States. This was done on the Ist of March following, and the Northwest Territory passed from the control of the Old Dominion. To Gen. Clark and his soldiers, however, she gave a tract of one hundred and fifty thousand acres of land, to be situated any where north of the Ohio wherever they choose to locate them. They selected the region opposite the falls of the Ohio, where is now the dilapidated village of Clarksville, about midway between the cities of New Albany and Jeffer- sonville, Indiana. THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 51 While the frontier remained thus, and Gen. Haldimand at Detroit refused to evacuate, alleging that he had no orders from his King to do so, settlers were rapidly gathering about the inland forts. In the Spring of 1784, Pittsburgh was regularly laid out, and from the journal of Arthur Lee, who passed through the town soon after on his way to the Indian council at Fort McIntosh, we suppose it was not very prepossessing in appearance. He says: ** Pittsburgh is inhabited almost entirely by Scots and Irish, who live in paltry log houses, and are as dirty as if in the north of Ireland or even Scotland. There is a great deal of trade carried on, the goods being _ brought at the vast expense of forty-five shillings per pound from Phila- delphia and Baltimore. They take in the shops flour, wheat, skins and money. There are in the town four attorneys, two doctors, and not a priest of any persuasion, nor church nor chapel.” Kentucky at this time contained thirty thousand inhabitants, and was beginning to discuss measures for a separation from Virginia. A land office was opened at Louisville, and measures were adopted to take defensive precaution against the Indians, who were yet, in some instances, incited to deeds of violence by the British. Before the close of this year, 1784, the military claimants of land began to occupy them, although no entries were recorded until 1787. The Indian title to the Northwest was not yet extinguished. They held large tracts of land, and in order to prevent bloodshed Congress adopted means for treaties with the original owners and provided for the surveys of the lands gained thereby, as well as for those north of the Ohio, now in its possession. On January 31, 1786, a treaty was made with the Wabash Indians. The treaty of Fort Stanwix had been made in 1784. That at Fort Me- Intosh in 1785, and through these much land was gained. The Wabash Indians, however, afterward refused to comply with the provisions of the treaty made with them, and in order to compel their adherence to its provisions, force was used. | During the year 1786, the free navigation of the Mississippi came up in Congress, and caused various discussions, which resulted in no definite action, only serving to excite speculation in regard to the western lands. Congress had promised bounties of land to the soldiers of the Revolution, but owing to the unsettled condition of affairs along the Mississippi respecting its navigation, and the trade of the*Northwest, that body had, in 1783, declared its inability to fulfill these promises until a treaty could be concluded between the two Governments. Before the close of the year 1786, however, it was able, through the treaties with the Indians, to allow some grants and the settlement gp THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. thereon, and on the 14th of September, Connecticut ceded to the General Government the tract of land known as the ‘ Connecticut Reserve,” and before the close of the following year a large tract of land north of the Ohio was sold to a company, who at once took measures to settle it. By the provisions of this grant, the company were to pay the United States one dollar per acre, subject to a deduction of one-third for bad lands and other contingencies. They received 750,000 acres, bounded on the south by the Ohio, on the east. by the seventh range of townships, on the west by the sixteenth range, and on the north by a line so drawn as to make the grant complete without the reservations. In addi- tion to this, Congress afterward granted 100,000 acres to actual set- tlers, and 214,285 acres as army bounties under the resolutions of 1789 and 1790. | While Dr. Cutler, one of the agents of the company, was pressing its claims before Congress, that body was bringing into form an ordinance for the political and social organization of this Territory. When the cession was made by Virginia, in 1784, a plan was offered, but rejected. A motion had been made to strike from the proposed plan the prohibition of slavery, which prevailed. The plan was then discussed and altered, and finally passed unanimously, with the exception of South Carolina. By this proposition, the Territory was to have been divided into states by parallels and meridian lines. This, it was thought, would make ten states, which were to have been named as follows —beginning at the northwest corner and going southwardly: Sylvania, Michigania, Cher- sonesus, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Illenoia, Saratoga, Washington, Poly- potamia and Pelisipia. There was a more serious objection to this plan than its category of names,— the boundaries. The root of the difficulty was in the resolu- tion of Congress passed in October, 1780, which fixed the boundaries of the ceded lands to be from one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles square. These resolutions being presented to the Legislatures of Vir- ginia and Massachusetts, they desired a change, and in July, 1786, the subject was taken up in Congress, and changed to favor a division into not more than five states, and not less than three. This was approved by the State Legislature of Virginia. The subject of the Government was again ile up by Congress in 1786, and discussed throughout that year and until July, 1787, when the famous ‘“*Compact of 1787” was passed, and the foundation of the gov- ernment of the Northwest laid. This compact is fully discussed and explained in the history of Ohio in this book, and to it the reader is re- ferred. THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 5S The passage of this act and the grant to the New England Company was soon followed by an application to the Government by John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, for a grant of the land between the Miamis. This gentleman had visited these lands soon after the treaty of 1786, and, being greatly pleased with them, offered similar terms to those given to the New Engiand Company. The petition was referred to the Treasury Board with power to act, and a contract was concluded the following year. During the Autumn the directors of the New England Company were preparing to occupy their grant the following Spring, and upon the 25d of November made arrangements for a party of forty-seven men, under the superintendency of Gen. Rufus Putnam, to set forward. Six boat-builders were to leave at once, and on the first of January the sur- veyors and their assistants, twenty-six in number, were to meet at Hart- ford and proceed on their journey westward ; the remainder to follow as soon as possible. Congress, in the meantime, upon the 3d of October, had ordered seven hundred troops for defense of the western settlers, and to prevent unauthorized intrusions ; and two days later appointed Arthur St. Clair Governor of the Territory of the Northwest. AMERICAN SETTLEMENTS. The civil organization of the Northwest Territory was now com- plete, and notwithstanding the uncertainty of Indian affairs, settlers from the East began to come into the country rapidly. The New England Company sent their men during the Winter of 1787-8 pressing on over the Alleghenies by the old Indian path which had been opened into Braddock’s road, and which has since been made a national turnpike from Cumberland westward. Through the weary winter days they toiled on, and by April were all gathered on the Youghiogheny, where boats had been built, and at once started for the Muskingum. Here they arrived on the 7th of that month, and unless the Moravian missionaries be regarded as the pioneers of Ohio, this little band can justly claim that honor. Gen. St. Clair, the appointed Governor of the Northwest, not having yet arrived, a set of laws were passed, written out, and published by being nailed toa tree in the embryo town, and Jonathan Meigs appointed to administer them. ° Washington in writing of this, the first American settlement in the Northwest, said: ‘No colony in America was ever settled under such favorable auspices as that which has just commenced at Muskingum. Information, property and strength will be its characteristics. I know 54 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. many of its settlers personally, and there never were men better calculated to promote the welfare of such a community.” On the 2d of July a meeting of the directors and agents was hela on the banks of the Muskingum, “ for the purpose of naming the new-born city and its squares.” As yet the settlement was known as the ‘ Mus- kingum,”’ but that was now changed to the name Mariétta, in honor of Marie Antoinette, The square upon which the block-houses stood was called ‘“ Campus Martius;” square number 19, “ Capitolium ;” square number 61, ‘“ Cecilia;”’ and the great road through the covert way, “ Sacra Via.” Two days after, an oration was delivered by James M. Varnum, who with S. H. Parsons and John Armstrong had been ~ appointed to the judicial bench of the territory on the 16th of October, 1787. On July 9, Gov. St. Clair arrived, and the colony began to assume form. The act of 1787 provided two district grades of government for the Northwest, under the first of which the whole power was invested in the hands of a governor and three district judges. This was immediately formed upon the Governor’s arrival, and the first laws of the colony passed on the 25th of July. These provided for the organization of the militia, and on the next day appeared the Governor’s proclamation, erecting all that country that had been ceded by the Indians east of the Scioto River into the County of Washington. From that time forward, notwithstanding the doubts yet existing as to the Indians, all Marietta prospered, and on the 2d of September the first court of the territory was held with imposing ceremonies. The emigration westward at this time was very great. The com- mander at Fort Harmer, at the mouth of the Muskingum, reported four thousand five hundred persons as having passed that post between Feb- ruary and June, 1788—many of whom would have purchased of the ‘* Associates,” as the New England Company was called, had they been ready to receive them. On the 26th of November, 1787, Symmes issued a pamphlet stating the terms of his contract and the plan of sale he intended to adopt. In January, 1788, Matthias Denman, of New Jersey, took an active interest in Symmes’ purchase, and located among other tracts the sections upon © which Cincinnati has been built. Retaining one-third of this locality, he sold the other two-thirds to Robert Patterson and John Filson, and the three, about August, commenced to lay out a town on the spot, which was designated as being opposite Licking River, to the mouth of whjch they proposed to have a road cut from Lexington. The naming of the town is thus narrated in the ‘‘ Western Annals” :—* Mr. Filson, who had been a schoolmaster, was appointed to name the town, and, in respect to its situation, and as if with a prophetic perception of the mixed race that THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 55 were to inhabit it in after days, he named it Losantiville, which, being interpreted, means: ville, the town; anti, against or opposite to; os, the mouth; Z. of Licking.” Meanwhile, in July, Symmes got thirty persons and eight four-horse teams under way from the West. ‘These reached Limestone (now Mays- ville) in September, where were several persons from Redstone. Here Mr. Symmes tried to found a settlement, but the great freshet of 1789 caused the * Point,” as it was and is yet called, to be fifteen feet under water, and the settlement to be abandoned. The little band of settlers removed to the mouth of the Miami. Before Symmes and his colony left the ‘** Point,”’ two settlements had been made on his purchase. The first was by Mr. Stiltes, the original projector of the whole plan, who, with a colony of Redstone people, had located at the mouth of the Miami, whither Symmes went with his Maysville colony. Here a clearing had been made by the Indians owing to the great fertility of the soil. Mr. Stiltes with his colony came to this place on the 18th of November, 1788, with twenty-six persons, and, building a block-house, prepared to remain through the Winter. They named the settlement Columbia. Here they were kindly treated by the Indians, but suffered greatly from the flood of 1789. On the 4th of March, 1789, the Constitution of the United States went into operation, and on April 30, George Washington was inau- gurated President of the American people, and during the next Summer, an Indian war was commenced by the tribes north of the Ohio. The President at first used pacific means; but these failing, he sent General _Harmer against the hostile tribes. He destroyed several villages, but was defeated in two battles, near the present City of Fort Wayne, Indiana. From this time till the close of 1795, the principal events were the wars with the various Indian tribes. In 1796, General St. Clair was appointed in command, and marched against the Indians; but while he was encamped on a stream, the St. Mary, a branch of the Maumee, he was attacked and defeated with the loss of six hundred men. General Wayne was now sent against the savages. In August, 1794, he met them near the rapids of the Maumee, and gained a complete victory. This success, followed by vigorous measures, compelled the Indians to sue for peace, and on the 30th of July, the following year, the treaty of Greenville was signed by the principal chiefs, by which a large tract of country was ceded to the United States. Before proceeding in our narrative, we will pause to notice Fort Washington, erected in the early part of this war on the site of Cincinnati. Nearly all of the great cities of the Northwest, and indeed of the 56 _ THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. whole country, have kad their nuclet in those rude pioneer structures, known as forts or stockades. Thus Forts Dearborn, Washington, Pon- chartrain, mark the original sites of the now proud Cities of Chicago, Cincinnati and Detroit. Soof most of the flourishing cities east and west of the Mississippi. Fort Washington, erected by Doughty in 1790, was a rude but highly interesting structure. It was composed of a number of strongly-built hewed log cabins. Those designed for soldiers’ barracks were a story and a half high, while those composing the officers quarters were more imposing and more conveniently arranged and furnished. The whole were so placed as to form a hollow square, enclosing about an acre of ground, with a block house at each of the four angles. The logs for the construction of this fort were cut from the ground upon which it was erected. It stood between Third and Fourth Streets of the present city (Cincinnati) extending east of Eastern Row, now Broadway, which was then a narrow alley, and the eastern boundary of of the town as it was originally laid out. On the bank of the river, immediately in front of the fort, was an appendage of the fort, called the Artificer’s Yard. It contained about two acres of ground, enclosed by small contiguous buildings, occupied by workshops and quarters of laborers. Within this enclosure there was a large two-story frame house, familiarly called the ‘‘ Yellow House,” built for the accommodation of the Quartermaster General. For many years this was the best finished and most commodious edifice in the Queen City. Fort Washington was for some time the headquarters of both the civil and military governments of the Northwestern Territory. Following the consummation of the treaty various gigantic land spec- ulations were entered into by different persons, who hoped to obtain from the Indians in Michigan and northern Indiana, large tracts of lands. These were generally discovered in time to prevent the outrageous schemes from being carried out, and from involving the settlers in war. On October 27, 1795, the treaty between the United States and Spain was signed, whereby the free navigation of the Mississippi was secured. No sooner had the treaty of 1795 been ratified than settlements began to pour rapidly into the West. The great event of the year 1796 was the occupation of that part of the Northwest including Michigan, which was this year, under the provisions of the treaty, evacuated by the British forces. The United States, owing to certain conditions, did not feel justified in addressing the authorities in Canada in relation to Detroit and other frontier posts. When at last the British authorities were called to give them up, they at once complied, and General Wayne, who had done so much to preserve the frontier settlements, and who, before the year’s close, sickened and died near Erie, transferred his head- THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. ST quarters to the neighborhood of the lakes, where a county named after ‘him was formed, which included the northwest of Ohio, all of Michigan, and the northeast of Indiana. During this same year settlements were formed at the present City of Chillicothe, along the Miami from Middle- town to Piqua, while in the more distant West, settlers and speculators began to appear in great numbers. In September, the City of Cleveland was laid out, and during the Summer and Autumn, Samuel Jackson and Jonathan Sharpless erected the first manufactory of paper—the “ Red- stone Paper Mill”—in the West. St. Louis contained some seventy houses, and Detroit over three hundred, and along the river, contiguous to it, were more than three thousand inhabitants, mostly French Canadians, Indians and half-breeds, scarcely any Americans Wen sans, yet into that part of the Northwest. ; The election of representatives for the territory had taken place, and on the 4th of February, 1799, they convened at Losantiville— now known as Cincinnati, having been named so by Goy. St. Clair, and considered the capital of the Territory—to nominate persons from whom the members of the Legislature were to be chosen in accordance with a previous ordinance. This nomination being made, the Assembly adjourned until the 16th of the following September. From those named the President selected as members of the council, Henry Vandenburg, of Vincennes, Robert Oliver, of Marietta, James Findlay and Jacob Burnett, of Cincinnati, and David Vance, of Vanceville. On the 16th of September the Territorial Legislature met, and on the 24th the two houses were duly organized, Henry Vandenburg being elected President of the Council. The message of Gov. St. Clair was addressed to the Legislature September 20th, and on October 13th that body elected as a delegate to Congress Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison, who received eleven of the Votes cast, being a majority of one over his opponent, Arthur St. Clair, son of Gen. St. Clair. The whole number of acts passed at this session, and approved by the Governor, were thirty-seven — eleven others were passed, but received his veto. The most important of those passed related to the militia, to the administration, and to taxation. On the 19th of December this pro- tracted session of the first Legislature i in the West was closed, and on the 30th of December the President nominated Charles Willing Bryd to the office of Secretary of the Territory vice Wm. Henry Harrison, elected to Congress. The Senate confirmed his nomination the next day. 58 HE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. DIVISION OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. The increased emigration to the Northwest, the extent of the domain, and the inconvenient modes of travel, made it very difficult to conduct the ordinary operations of government, and rendered the efficient action of courts almost impossible. To remedy this, it was deemed advisable to divide the territory for civil purposes. Congress, in 1800, appointed a committee to examine the question and report some means for its solution. This committee, on the 3d of March, reported that: ‘‘In the three western countries there has been but one court having cognizance of crimes, in five years, and the immunity which offenders experience attracts, as to an asylum, the most vile and abandoned crim- inals, and at the same time deters useful citizens from making settlements in such society. The extreme necessity of judiciary attention and assist- ance is experienced in civil as well asin criminal cases) * * * * To minister a remedy to these and other evils, it occurs to this committee that it is expedient that a division of said territory into two distinct and separate governments should be made; and that such division be made by a line beginning at the mouth of the Great Miami River, running directly north until it intersects the boundary between the United States and Canada.” The report was accepted by Congress, and, in accordance with its suggestions, that body passed an Act extinguishing the Northwest Terri- tory, which Act was approved May 7. Among its provisions were these : ‘‘ That from and after July 4 next, all that part of the Territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio River, which hes to the westward of a line beginning at a point on the Ohio, opposite to the mouth of the Kentucky River, and running thence to Fort Recovery, and thence north until it shall intersect the territorial line between the United States and Canada, shall, for the purpose of temporary government, constitute a separate territory, and be called the Indiana Territory.” After providing for the exercise of the civil and criminal powers of the territories, and other provisions, the Act further provides: ‘That until it shall otherwise be ordered by the Legislatures of the said Territories, respectively, Chillicothe on the Scioto River shall be the seat of government of the Territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio River; and that St. Vincennes on the Wabash River shall be the seat of government for the Indiana Territory.” Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison was appointed Governor of the Indiana Territory, and entered upon his duties about a year later. Connecticut also about this time released her claims to the reserve, and in March a law THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 59 was passed accepting this cession. Settlements had been made upon thirty-five of the townships in the reserve, mills had been: built, and seven hundred miles of road cut in various directions. On the 3d of November the General Assembly met at Chillicothe. Near the close of the year, the first missionary of the Connecticut Reserve came, who found no township containing more than eleven families. It was upon the first of October that the secret treaty had been made between Napoleon and the King of Spain, whereby the latter agreed to cede to France the province of Louisiana. In January, 1802, the Assembly of the Northwestern Territory char- tered the college at Athens. From the earliest dawn of the western colonies, education was promptly provided for, and as early as 1787, newspapers were issued from Pittsburgh and Kentucky, and largely read throughout the frontier settlements. Before the close of this year, the Congress of the United States granted to the citizens of the Northwestern territory the formation of a State government. One of the provisions of the ‘‘ compact of 1787”’ provided that whenever the number of ‘inhabit- ants within prescribed limits exceeded 45,000, they should be entitled to a separate government. The prescribed limits of Ohio contained, from a census taken to ascertain the legality of the act, more than that number, and on the 30th of April, 1802, Congress passed the act defining its limits, and on the 29th of November the Constitution of the new State of Ohio, so named from the beautiful river forming its southern boundary, came into existence. The exact limits of Lake Michigan were not then known, but the territory now included within the State of Michigan was wholly within the territory of Indiana. Gen. Harrison, while residing at Vincennes, made several treaties with the Indians, thereby gaining large tracts of lands. The next year is memorable in the history of the West for the purchase of Louisiana from France by the United States for $15,000,000. Thus by a peaceful mode, the domain of the United States was extended over a large tract of country west of the Mississippi, and was for a time under the jurisdiction of the Northwest government, and, as has been mentioned in the early part of this narrative, was called the ‘“‘New Northwest.” The limits of this history will not allow a description of its territory.: The same year large grants of land were obtained from the Indians, and the House of Representatives of the new State of Ohio signed a bill respecting the College Township in the district of Cincinnati. Before the close of the year, Gen. Harrison obtained additional grants of lands from the various Indian nations in Indiana and the present limits of Illinois, and on the 18th of August, 1804, completed a treaty at St. Louis, whereby over 51,000,000 acres of lands were obtained from the 60 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. aborigines. Measures were also taken to learn the condition of affairs in and about Detroit. C. Jouett, the Indian agent in Michigan, still a part of Indiana Terri- tory, reported as follows upon the condition of matters at that post: ‘The Town of Detroit.—The charter, which is for fifteen miles square, was granted in the time of Louis XIV. of France, and is now, from the best information I have been able to get, at Quebec. Of those two hundred and twenty-five acres, only four are occupied by the town and Fort Lenault. The remainder is a common, except twenty-four acres, which were added twenty years ago to a farm belonging to Wm. Macomb. * * * A-stockade incloses the town, fort and citadel. The pickets, as well as the public houses, are in a state of gradual decay. The streets are narrow, straight and regular, and intersect each other at right angles. The houses are, for the most part, low and inelegant.” During this year, Congress granted a township of land for the sup- port of a college, and began to offer inducements for settlers in these wilds, ahd the country now comprising the State of Michigan began to fill rapidly with settlers along its southern borders. ‘This same year, also, a law was passed organizing the Southwest Territory, dividing it into two portions, the Territory of New Orleans, which city was made the seat of government, and the District of Louisiana, which was annexed to the domain of Gen. Harrison. On the 11th of January, 1805, the Territory of Michigan was formed, Wm. Hull was appointed governor, with headquarters at Detroit, the change to take effect on June 30. On the 11th of that month, a fire occurred at Detroit, which destroyed almost every building in the place. When the officers of the new territory reached the post, they found it in ruins, and the inhabitants scattered throughout the country. Rebuild- ing, however, soon commenced, and ere long the town contained more houses than before the fire, and many of them much better built. . While this was being done, Indiana had passed to the second grade of government, and through her General Assembly had obtained large tracts of land from the Indian tribes. To all this the celebrated Indian, Tecumthe or Tecumseh, vigorously protested, and it was the main cause of his attempts to unite the various Indian tribes in a conflict with the settlers. To obtain a full account of these attempts, the workings of the British, and the signal failure, culminating in the death of Tecumseh at the battle of the Thames, and the close of the war of 1812 inthe Northwest, | we will step aside in our story, and relate the principal events of his life, and his connection with this conflict. THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 61 TECUMSEH, AND THE WAR OF 1812. This famous Indian chief was born about the year 1768, not far from the site of the present city of Springfield, Ohio. His father, Puckeshinwa, was a member of the Kisopok tribe of the Swanoese nation, and his mother, Methontaske, was a member of the Turtle tribe of the same people. They removed from Florida about the middle of the last century to the birthplace of Tecumseh. In 1774, his father, who had risen to be chief, was slain at the battle of Point Pleasant, and not long after Tecum- seh, by his bravery, became the leader of his tribe. In 1795 he was declared chief, and then lived at Deer Creek, near the site of the present City of Urbana. He remained here about one year, when he returned to Piqua, and in 1798, he went to White River, Indiana. In 1805, he and his brother, Laulewasikan (Open Door), who had announced himself as a prophet, went to a tract of land on the Wabash River, given them by the Pottawatomies and Kickapoos. From this date the chief comes intd prominence. He was now about thirty-seven years of age, was five feet and ten inches in height, was stoutly built, and possessed of enormous powers of endurance. His countenance was naturally pleas- ing, and he was, in general, devoid of those savage attributes possessed by most Indians. It is stated he could read and write, and had a confi- dential secretary and adviser, named Billy Caldwell, a half-breed, who afterward became chief of the Pottawatomies. He occupied the first house built on the site of Chicago. At this time, Tecumseh entered upon the great work of his life. He had long objected to the grants of land made by the Indians to the whites, and determined to unite all the Indian tribes into a league, in order that no treaties or grants of land could be made save by the consent of this confederation. He traveled constantly, going from north to south; from the south to the north, everywhere urging the Indians to this step. He wasa matchless orator, and his burning words had their effect. Gen. Harrison, then Governor of Indiana, by watching the move- ments of the Indians, became convinced that a grand conspiracy was forming, and made preparations to defend the settlements. Tecumseh’s plan was similar to Pontiac’s, elsewhere described, and to the cunning artifice of that chieftain was added his own sagacity. During the year 1809, Tecumseh and the prophet were actively pre- paring for the work. In that year, Gen. Harrison entered into a treaty with the Delawares, Kickapoos, Pottawatomies, Miamis, Eel River Indians and Weas, in which these tribes ceded to the whites certain lands upon the Wabash, to all of which Tecumseh entered a bitter protest, averring 62 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. as one principal reason that he did not want the Indians to give ae any lands north and west of the Ohio River. Tecumseh, in August, 1810, visited the General at Vincennes and . held a council relating to the grievances of the Indians. Becoming unduly angry at this conference he was dismissed from the village, and soon after ' departed to incite the southern Indian tribes to the conflict. Gen. Harrison determined to move upon the chief’s headquarters at Tippecanoe, and for this purpose went about sixty-five miles up the Wabash, where he built Fort Harrison. From this place he went to the Prophet’s town, where he informed the Indians he had no hostile inten- tions, provided they were true to the existing treaties. ° He encamped near the village early in October, and on the morning of November 7, he was attacked by a large force of the Indians, and the famous battle of Tippecanoe occurred. The Indians were routed and their town broken up. Tecumseh returning not long after, was greatly exasperated at his brother, the Prophet, even threatening to kill him for rashly precipitating the war, and foiling his (Tecumseh’s) plans. Tecumseh sent word to Gen. Harrison that he was now returned from the South, and was ready to visit the President as had at one time previously been proposed. Gen. Harrison informed him he could not go as a chief, which method Tecumseh desired, and the visit was never made. In June of the following year, he visited the Indian agent at Fort Wayne. Here he disavowed any intention to make a war against the United States, and reproached Gen. Harrison for marching against his people. The agent replied to this ; Tecumseh listened with a cold indif- ference, and after making a few general remarks, with a haughty air drew his blanket about him, left the council house, and departed for Fort Mal- den, in Upper Canada, where he joined the British standard. In the Summer of 1813, Perry’s victory on Lake Erie occurred, and shortly after active preparations were made to capture Malden. On the 27th of September, the American army, under Gen. Harrison, set sail for the shores of Canada, and in a few hours stood. around the ruins of Mal- den, from which the British army, under Proctor, had retreated to Sand- wich, intending to make its way to the heart of Canada by the Valley of the Thames. On the 29th Gen. Harrison was at Sandwich, and Gen. McArthur took possession of Detroit and the territory of Michigan. The pursuit of Proctor began October 2. He was overtaken on the oth at the Thames. Tecumseh fell* in that battle and British power was forever broken, Canada alone being left them, as the Americans had no orders to follow up their victory eastward. Burr’s incipient insurrection of 1805 was quelled, and the murderer of the eloquent Hamilton driven from his beautiful island fortress in the Ohio River. * Supposed at the hands of Col. R. M. Johnson of Kentucky. THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 63 In January, 1807, Governor Hull, of Michigan Territory, made a treaty with the Indians, whereby all that peninsula was ceded to the United States. Before the close of the year, a stockade was built about Detroit. It was also during this year that Indiana and Illinois endeavored to obtain the repeal of that section of the compact of 1787, whereby slavery was excluded from the Northwest Territory. These attempts, however, all signally failed. In 1809 it was deemed advisable to divide the Indiana Territory. This was done, and the Territory of Illinois was formed from the western part, the seat of government being fixed at Kaskaskia. The next year, the intentions of Tecumseh manifested themselves in open hostilities, and then began the events already narrated. While this war was in progress, emigration to the West went on with surprising rapidity. In 1811, under Mr. Roosevelt of New York, the first steamboat trip was made on the Ohio, much to the astonishment of the natives, many of whom fled in terror at the appearance of the ‘‘monster.”? It arrived at Louisville on the 10th day of October. At the close of the first week of January, 1812, it arrived at Natchez, after being nearly overwhelmed in the great earthquake which occurred while on its downward trip. The battle of the Thames was fought on October 6, 1813. It effectually closed hostilities in the Northwest, although peace was not fully restored until July 22, 1814, when a treaty was formed at Green- ville, under the direction of General Harrison, between the United States and the Indian tribes, in which it was stipulated that the Indians should cease hestilities against the Americans if the war were continued. Such, happily, was not the case, and on the 24th of December the treaty of Ghent was signed by the representatives of England and the United States. This treaty was followed the next year by treaties with various Indian tribes throughout the West and Northwest, and quiet was again restored in this part of the new world. On the 18th of March, 1816, Pittsburgh was incorporated as a city. It then had a population of 8,000 people, and was already noted for its manufacturing interests. On April 19, Indiana Territory was allowed to form a state government. At that time there were thirteen counties organized, containing about sixty-three thousand inhabitants. The first election of state officers was held in August, when Jonathan Jennings was chosen Governor. The officers were sworn in on November 7, and ‘on December 11, the State was formally admitted into the Union. For some time the seat of government was at Corydon, but a more central location being desirable, the present capital, Indianapolis (City of Indiana), was laid out January 1, 1826. 64 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. On the 28th of December the Bank of Illinois, at Shawneetown, was chartered, with a capital of $300,000. At this period all banks were under the control of the States, and were allowed to establish branches at different convenient points. Until this time Chillicothe and Cincinnati had in turn enjoyed the privileges of being the capital of Ohio. But the rapid settlement of the © northern and eastern portions of the State demanded, as in Indiana, a more central location, and before the close of the year, the site of Col- umbus was selected and surveyed as the future capital of the State. Banking had begun in Ohio as early as 1808, when the first bank was chartered at Marietta, but here as elsewhere it did not bring to the state the hoped-for assistance. It and other banks were subsequently unable to redeem their currency, and were obliged to suspend. } In 1818, Illinois was made a state, and all the territory north of her northern limits was erected into a separate territory and joined to Mich- igan for judicial purposes. By the following year, navigation of the lakes was increasing with great rapidity and affording an immense source of revenue to the dwellers in the Northwest, but it was not until 1826 that the trade was extended to Lake Michigan, or that steamships began to navigate the bosom of that inland sea. Until the year 1832, the commencement of the Black Hawk War, but few hostilities were experienced with the Indians. Roads were opened, canals were dug, cities were built, common schools were estab- lished, universities were founded, many of which, especially the Michigan University, have achieved a world wide-reputation. The people were becoming wealthy. The domains of the United States had been extended, and had the sons of the forest been treated with honesty and justice, the record of many years would have been that of peace and continuous pros- Perit. . BLACK HAWK AND THE BLACK HAWK WAR. This conflict, though confined to Illinois, is an important epoch in the Northwestern history, being the last war with the Indians in this part of the United States. | Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiah, or Black Hee was born in the principal Sac village, about three miles from the junction of Rock River with the Mississippi, in the year 1767. His father’s name was Py-e-sa or Pahaes ; his grandfather’s, Na-na-ma-kee, or the Thunderer. Black Hawk early - distinguished himself as a warrior, and at the age of fifteen was permitted to paint and was ranked among the braves. About the year 1783, he went on an expedition against the enemies of his nation, the Osages, one | THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 65 of whom he killed and scalped, and for this deed of Indian bravery he was permitted to join in the scalp dance. Three or four years after he, at the head of two hundred braves, went on another expedition against the Osages, to avenge the murder of some women and children belonging to his own tribe. Meeting an equal number of Osage warriors, a fierce battle ensued, in which the latter tribe lost one-half their number. The Sacs lost only about nineteen warriors. He next attacked the Cherokees for a similar cause. In a severe battle with them, near the present City of St. Louis, his father was slain, and Black Hawk, taking possession of the ‘‘ Medicine Bag,”’ at once announced himself chief of the Sac nation. He had now conquered the Cherokees, and about the year 1800, at the head of five hundred Sacs and Foxes, and a hundred Iowas, he waged war against the Osage nation and subdued it. For two years he battled successfully with other Indian tribes, all of whom he conquered. Black Hawk does not at any time seem to have been friendly to the Americans. When on a visit to St. Louis to see his ‘‘ Spanish Father,” he declined to see any of the Americans, alleging, as a reason, he did not want two fathers. The treaty at St. Louis was consummated in 1804. Thenext year the United States Government erected a fort near the head of the Des Moines Rapids, called Fort Edwards. This seemed to enrage Black Hawk, who at once determined to capture Fort Madison, standing on the west side of the Mississippi above the mouth of the Des Moines River. The fort was garrisoned by about fifty men. Here he was defeated. The difficulties with the British Government arose about this time, and the War of 1812 followed. That government, extending aid to the Western Indians, by giving them arms and ammunition, induced them to remain hostile to the Americans. In August, 1812, Black Hawk, at the head of about five hundred braves, started to join the British forces at Detroit, passing on his way the site of Chicago, where the famous Fort Dearborn Massacre hada few days before occurred. Of his connection with the British Government but little is known. In 1813 he with his little band descended the Mississippi, and attacking some United States troops at Fort Howard was defeated. 7 In the early part of 1815, the Indian tribes west of the Mississippi were notified that peace had been declared between the United States and England, and nearly all hostilities had ceased. Black Hawk did not sign any treaty, however, until May of the following year. He then recog- nized the validity of the treaty at St. Louis in 1804. From the time of signing this treaty in 1816, until the breaking out of the war in 1832, he and his band passed their time in the common pursuits of Indian life. Ten years before the commencement of this war, the Sac and Fox 4 66 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. Indians were urged to join the Iowas on the west bank of the Father of Waters. All were agreed, save the band known as the British Band, of which Black Hawk was leader. He strenuously objected to the removal, and was induced to comply only after being threatened with the power of the Government. This and various actions on the part of the white set- tlers provoked Black Hawk and his band to attempt the capture of his native village now occupied by the whites. The war followed. He and his actions were.undoubtedly misunderstood, and had his wishes been acquiesced in at the beginning of the struggle, much bloodshed would have been prevented. Black Hawk was chief now of the Sac and Fox nations, anda noted. warrior. He and his tribe inhabited a village on Rock River, nearly three miles above its confluence with the Mississippi, where the tribe had lived. many generations. When that portion of Illinois was reserved to them, they remained in peaceable possession of their reservation, spending their time in the enjoyment of Indian life. The fine situation of their village and the quality of their lands incited the more lawless white settlers, who. from time to time began to encroach upon the red men’s domain. From one pretext to another, and from one step to another, the crafty white men gained a foothold, until through whisky and artifice they obtained. deeds from many of the Indians for their possessions. ‘The Indians were finally induced to cross over the Father of Waters and locate among the Iowas. Black Hawk was strenuously opposed to all this, but as the authorities of Illinois and the United States thought this the best move, he was forced to comply. Moreover other tribes joined the whites and urged the removal. Black Hawk would not agree to the terms of the treaty made with his nation for their lands, and as soon as the military, called to enforce his removal, had retired, he returned to the Illinois side of the river. A large force was at once raised and marched against him. On the evening of May 14, 1832, the first engagement occurred between a band from this army and Black Hawk’s band, in which the former were defeated. This attack and its result aroused the whites. A large force of men was raised, and Gen. Scott hastened from the seaboard, by way of the lakes, with United States troops and artillery to aid in the subjugation of the Indians. On the 24th of June, Black Hawk, with 200 warriors, was repulsed by Major Demont between Rock River and Galena. The Ameri- can army continued to move up Rock River toward the main body of the Indians, and on the 21st of July came upon Black Hawk and his band, and defeated them near the Blue Mounds. Before this action, Gen. Henry, in command, sent word to the main army by whom he was immediately rejoined, and the whole crossed the THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. 67 Wisconsin in pursuit of Black Hawk and his band who were fleeing to the Mississippi. They were overtaken on the 2d of August, and in the battle which followed the power of the Indian chief was completely broken. He fled, but was seized by the Winnebagoes and delivered to the whites. On the 21st of September, 1832, Gen. Scott and Gov. Reynolds con- cluded a treaty with the Winnebagoes, i and Foxes by which they ceded to the United States a vast tract of country, and agreed to remain peaceable with the whites. For the faithful performance of the provi- sions of this treaty on the part of the Indians, it was stipulated that Black Hawk, his two sons, the prophet Wabokieshiek, and six other chiefs of the hostile bands should be retained as hostages during the pleasure of the President. They were confined at Fort Barracks and put in irons. The next Spring, by order of the Secretary of War, they were taken to Washington. From there they were removed to Fortress Monroe, ‘‘there to remain until the conduct of their nation was such as to justify their being set at liberty.” They were retained here until the 4th of June, when the authorities directed them to be taken to the principal cities so that they might see the folly of contending against the white people. Everywhere they were observed by thousands, the name of the old chief being extensively known. By the middle of August they reached Fort Armstrong on Rock Island, where Black Hawk was soon after released to goto hiscountrymen. Ashe passed the site of his birth- place, now the home of the white man, he was deeply moved. His village where he was born, where he had so happily lived, and where he had hoped to die, was now another’s dwelling place, and he was a wanderer. On the next day after his release, he went at once to his tribe and hislodge. His wife was yet living, and with her he passed the remainder of his days. To his credit it may be said that Black Hawk always re- mained true to his wife, and served her with a devotion uncommon among the Indians, living with her upward of forty years. Black Hawk now passed his time hunting and fishing. A deep mel- ancholy had settled over him from which he could not be freed. At all times when he visited the whites he was received with marked atten- tion. He was an honored guest at the old settlers’ reunion in Lee County, ‘lllinois, at some of their meetings, and received many tokens of esteem. In September, 1838, while on his way to Rock Island to receive his annuity from the Government, he contracted a severe cold which resulted in a fatal attack of bilious fever which terminated his life on October 8, His faithful wife, who was devotedly attached to him, mourned deeply during his sickness. After his death he was dressed in the uniform pre- sented to him by the President while in Washington. He was buried in a grave ‘six feet in depth, situated upon a beautiful eminence. ‘* The 68 THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY. body was placed in the middle of the grave, in a sitting posture, upon a seat constructed for the purpose. On his left side, the cane, given him by Henry Clay, was placed upright, with his right hand resting upon it. Many of the old warrior’s trophies were placed in the grave, and some Indian garments, together with his favorite weapons.” No sooner was the Black Hawk war concluded than settlers began rapidly to pour into the northern parts of Illinois, and into Wisconsin, now free from Indian depredations. Chicago, from a trading post, had grown to a commercial center, and was rapidly coming into prominence. In 1835, the formation of a State Government in Michigan was discussed, but did not take active form until two years later, when the State became a part of the Federal Union. The main attraction to that portion of the Northwest lying west of Lake Michigan, now included in the State of Wisconsin, was-its alluvial wealth. Copper ore was found about Lake Superior. For some time this region was attached to Michigan for judiciary purposes, but in 1836 was made a territory, then including Minnesota and Iowa. The latter State was detached two years later. In 1848, Wisconsin was admitted as a State, Madison being made the capital. We have now traced the various divisions of the Northwest Territory (save a little in Minnesota) from the time it was a unit comprising this vast territory, until circumstances compelled its present division. 69 POPULATION OF THE UNITED STATES, POPULATION. : POPULATION STATES AND AREA IN MIL’S STATES AND AREA IN MIL’S SQUARE R.R SQUARE R. R. TERRITORIES. MILES nn fear 1882. TERRITORIES. MILae Ao ae 1882, STATES STATES. Alabama \i5. ccs 996,992) 1,262,505|1,802 || Oregon ............0-cees 95,244 90,923} 174,768) 689 Arkansas......... . 484,471} 802,v20/1,U41 || Pennsylvania ........ 46,000) 3,521,791) 4,282,891] 6,690 ASAIALGT INS tees cndesasecs 560,247) 864,694/2,266 || Rhode Island........ - 1,306} 217,353) 276,531) 211 WOIGOTAG ere reeress pense ladetecceesetslesscconeessece| Ub LOS, OaCl2,e04) |) SOuta Caroling...... 29,385} 705,606} 995,577) 1,483 Connecticut : 537,454} 622,700) 958 |; Tenmnessee.............. 45,600) 1,258,520} 1,542,359; 1,973 Delaware ........ eee 2,120} 125,015] 146,608) 278 || Texas ..........5...c0sse0 237,504} 818,579) 1,591,749] 5,344 PT OPIGLA cvectsedacess cesses 59,268} 187,748] 269,493) 793 || Vermont ........scosse 10,212} 330,551) 332,286), 915 GOOTgIA ........0006 essere} 58,000) 1,184,109] 1,542,180/2,581 |] Virginia................ 40,904) 1,225,163) 1,512,565] 2,193 MENTIONS 2, cconcdcsnecocscacs 55,410] 2,539,891) 3,077,87118,3825 || West Virginia........ 23,000} 442,014) 618,457) 711 FACIAL cccsatecsnversssee 33,809} 1,680,637} 1,978,301/4,764 || Wisconsin.............. 53,924] 1,054,670) 1,315,497| 3,441 PO Wil ee stecsntece-ssesccerns 55.045} 1,191,792] 1,624,615|/6,112 SSS IRAUISN S, caesce canave ssodes $1,318] 364,399} 996,096/3,718 Total States...... 1950191198; 115;208)| sseccses conses|pecsosess Kentucky ....cc00 0.2. 37,6vU| 1,321,011] 1,648,690]1,714 Louisiana. ...| 41,846] 726,915} 939,946} 999 TERRITORIES, MVEa1a@) ccadeteusersscdeccts 31,776] 626,915} 648,936/1,021 || Arizona..........cece. 113,916 9,658 40,440) 557 DEN MULLS y SSaere 11,184] 750,894} 934,943)/1,047 |] Colorada ...........00 104,500 SO BOA tsssceceestneslelcscense Massachusetts ......+0 7,8u0) 1,457,351] 1,783,085/1,934 || Dakota ................. 147,490 14,181} 135,177) 1,638 Michigan ........se00004/ 56,451) 1,184,v59} 1,606,93//4,253 || Districtof Columbia 60} 181,700) 177,624)......... IMD TTNCSOCH..ccceseesse sce 83,531| 439,706) 7%0,773/3,390 || Idaho ................0.0 90,932 14,999 32,610) 265 Mississippi Ssaneesiecenss 47,156] 827,922) 1,1381,597|1,231 || Montana..........,..... 143,776 20,595 39,159} 231 IMPIGBOUT1.ccecsecsaee oo oer 82057 ASISNEIDY «0. seeeseseeesereeeeses eeeseeseeseeseeee] 2106” 828 | 27108 | 30888 | Soeey GIStATK. ss ssssesensewescesesseseesssteeecoencene ces oo 12154 | 13958 8 | 30827 36947 Tisummit \.1. ae ee Pacteeennones 12406 31603 17498 20748 tMPrariball :/ 0:7 spe meNuieaactepns make BONO ORC Cnnicid ick 92560 39818 42978 525) 24137 iPOD OM eecsssecececcesaceneeessoeeneon 15546” |"* "36153" 27485 | 27344 | 3467 biger BO URCATAWAS «--eseeseeeeeeerseseeesersceenss neers 28 Pt an 30656 Sense 43788 SiiVan Wert «2000000000 = naanae anna 7? 1996 8422 19304 32463 33840 rie acetate etter itt | “499 | toes | ise | Sas AITO oaseseeseaceseececsarecsasesncecesecorss 14887") 34468" | 938141 853 | 18631 | 15 oe : ini eee 10195 S8idi"| aso0d | atume | dons8 | daspe Pare Ae ee Resreane eels ac 11933 29540 36268 28392 SiVWood ...20.00.2- CCeeedesevscorvogscseces esses OSes Leices aes pen 32981 32483 85116 Bumeandon ci cheap ee Ngo Hid De) 5357 SISTE aaron od ee 23801 , 18553. 99395 ¢ > Oa Jegev ley ita Je HISTORY OF THR STATE OF OHIO GOVERNORS. From the organization of the first civil government in the Northwest Territory, of which the State of Ohio was a part, until the year 1884. Term, Two Years. NAME. COUNTY. TERM. NAME. COUNTY. TERM. Arthur St. Clair (1)........ssscleoserssosseescess Scab 1788-1802 | |Mordecai Bartley........ Sopachc Richland secs 1844-1846 Charles W. Byrd (2)....sec0 ....| Hamilton.........] 1802-1803 ||William Bebb.......0.....0..0000 BUVLCL. ceseascasensy 1846-1849 Edward Tiffin (3).........6.-.00 FROSS hoe cencncdeonss 1803-1807 ||Seabury Ford (8)........c.ese.e« GeaUuga....sereee.| 1849-1850 Thomas Kirker (4)..........006 AGAIMS sec srsccsess | 1807-1808 ||Reuben Wo0d (9).......s0sse0s Cuyahoga.........] 1850-1853 Samuel Huntington............ |Trumbull........ 1808-1810 ||William Medill (10)............. Fairfield.......... 1853-1856 Return Jonathan Meigs (5)..|Washington..... 1810-1814 ||Salmon P. Chase ...............+ Hamilton......... 1856-1860 Othniel Looker*.........:....--2« Hamilton.........) 1814 William Dennison............... Franklin......... 1860-1862 Thomas Worthington......... IROSS Secscssessscesss 1814-1818 ||David TOd.......c00...sscceesesecees Mahoning.,.......} 1862-1864 Ethan Allen Brown (6)........ Hamilton.. 1818-1822 ||John Brough (11)......... Desanne Cuyahoga......... 1864-1865 Allen Trimble*..........00ccsee. Highland... nieese ss 1822 Charles Andersonf............. Montgomery....| 1865-1866 Jeremiah MOrrow......0 Abo Warren ercsces- 1822-1826 ||Jacob D. Cox..........ssssescsseees Trumbull.........] 1866-1868 Allen Trimble...........csccsc0e+.| Highland ....... 1826-1830 ||Rutherford B. Hayes........+.. Hamilton.........] 1868-1872 Duncan McArthur............. ROSS icecccsseses: ce 1830-1832 ||Edward F. Noyes..........0000 Hamilton........| 1872-1874 Robert EuGasi se: cccessesascossasss PikE....cccescoree.| 1832-1836 || William Allens .5.22.......cc.00-. ROSS .eeceeee Peeoecre 1874-1876 JOSEPH VANCE......ccercsccereeces Champaign... 1836-1838 ||Rutherford B. Hayes (12).... Sandusky.........] 1876-1877 Wilson Shannon.....cccocceesese |Belmont...........] 1838-1840 |/Thomas L. Youngt...........0+ Hamilton.........] 1877-1878 Thomas Corwin.......00..s-se00e| W SOM atevenesere 1840-1842 ||Richard M. Bishop.............. Hamilton.. ......] 1878-1880 Wilson Shannon (7) .........../Belmont........ -| 1842-1844 | |Charles FOSter........scecssscerees SENECA... .ceceees- 1880-1884 Thomas W. Bartley*............ Richland --,..-3.. 1844 George Hoadly.........sccscseeees Hamilton.........| 1884-...... (1) Arthur St. Clair, of Pennsylvania, was Governor of the Northwest Territory, of which Ohio was a part, from July 13, 1788, when the first civil government was established in the Territory, until about the close of the year 1802, when he was removed by the President. (2) Secretary of the Territory, and was acting Governor of a, Date after the removal of Gov. St. Clair. (3) Resigned March 3, 1807, Ws accept the office of United States Senator. (4) Return Jonathan Meigs was elected Governor on the second Tuesday of October, 1807, over Nathaniel Massie, who contested the election of Meigs on the ground “that he had not been a resident of this State for four years next preceding the election as required by the Constitution,” and the General Assembly, in joint convention, decided that he was not eligible. The office was not given to Massie, nor does it appear from the records that he claimed it, but Thomas Kirker, Acting Governor, continued to discharge the duties of the office until December 12, 1808, when Samuel Huntington was inaugurated, he having been elected on the second Tuesday of October in that year. (5) Resigned March 25, 1814, to accept the office of Postmaster-General of the United States. (6) Resigned January 4, 1822, to accept the office of United States Senator. (7) Resigned April 13, 1844, to accept the office of Minister to Mexico. (8) The result of the election in 1848 was not finally determined in joint convention of the two houses of the General Assembly until January 19, 1849, and the inauguration did not take place until the 22d of that month. (9) Resigned July 15, 1853, to accept the office of Consul to Valparaiso. (10) Elected in October, 1853, for the regular term, to commence on the second Monday of January, 1854. (11) Died August 29, 1865. (12) Resigned March 2, 1877, to accept the office of President of the United States. * Acting Governor. Succeeded to office, being the Speaker of the Senate. t Acting Governor. Succeeded to office, being the Lieutenant-Governor. 12 lelilis Rola G £0 het ds KOE T is not our province in a volume of this description, to delineate the chronol- ogy of prehistoric epochs, or to dwell at length upon those topics pertaining to the scientific causes which tended to the formation of a continent, undiscov- ered for centuries, by the wisdom and energy of those making a history of the Old World, by the advancement of enlightenment in the Eastern Hemisphere. Naturally, the geological formation of the State of Ohio cannot be entirely separated from facts relative to the strata, which, in remote ages accumulated one layer above the other, and finally constituted a “‘built-up’’ America, from avast sea. The action of this huge body of water washed sediment and what- ever came in its way upon primitive rocks, which were subjected to frequent and repeated submersions, emerging as the water subsided, thus leaving a stratum or layer to solidify and mark its number in the series—a system of growth repeated in trees of the forest—in those descernible rings that count so many years. The southeastern. part of North America emerging a second time from the Silurian Sea, which extended west to the Rocky Mountains and north to the primitive hills of British America, a succession of rock-bound, salt-water lakes remained. These covered a large portion of the continent, and their water evaporating, organic and mineral matter remained to solidify. This thick stratum has been designated by geologists as the water-lime layer. This constitutes the upper layer of rock in the larger portion of the west half of Ohio. In other sections it forms the bed rock. Following the lime-rock deposit, must have been more frequent sweeps of the great sea, since the layers are comparatively thin, proving a more speedy change. During this scientific rising and falling of the sea, other actions were taking place, such as volcanic and other influences which displaced the regular- ity of the strata, and occasionally came out in an upheaval or a regular perpen- dicular dip. A disturbance of this character formed the low mountain range extending from the highlands of Canada to the southern boundary of Tennes- see. This “bulge” is supposed to be the consequence of the cooling of the earth and the pressure of the oceans on either side of the continent. Geolo- gists designate this as the Cincinnati arch. This forms a separation between the coal fields of the Alleghanies and those of Illinois. Passing over several periods, we reach the glacial, during which the topog- raphy of the continent was considerably modified, and which is among the latest epochs of geology, though exceedingly remote as compared with human 73 T4 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. history. Previously, a torrid heat prevailed the entire Northern hemisphere. Now the temperature of the frigid zone crept southward until it reached Cincin- nati. A vast field of ice, perhaps hundreds of feet thick, extended from the north pole to this point. As this glacial rigor came southward, the flow of the St. Lawrence River was stopped, and the surplus water of the great lake basin was turned into the Ohio and Mississippi. This glacial sea was by no means stationary even after its southern limit had been reached. It possessed the properties of a solid and a fluid. Its action was slow but powerful, grind- ing mountains to powder and forming great valleys and basins. Separating into two glacial portions, one moved toward the watershed north of the Ohio River; and, continuing westerly, it hollowed out the basin of Lake Erie and crushed the apex of the Cincinnati arch. From this point, it turned south- ward and swept with a regular course through the Maumee and Miami Valleys to the Ohio River. The southern border constantly melting, and flowing toward the Gulf of Mexico, the great field was pressed forward by the accumulations of ice in the northern latitudes. Thus for ages, this powerful force was fitting the earth for the habitation of man. The surface was leveled, huge rocks broken and reduced to pebbles, sand, clay, etc., other soil and surface-material— while the debris was embedded at the bottom. In some sections, as the ice melted and freed the bowlders and rocks, the lighter material was swept away. The glacier moving forward, and the forces proving an “‘ equilibrium,” the edge of this ice-field was held in a solid stronghold, and the material thus de- posited forms a ridge, called by geologists ‘‘ terminal moraine,”’ first exemplified in Ohio by the ‘ Black Swamp,” in the Maumee Valley. The most extreme rigor of this period beginning to wane, the ice of the Maumee and Miami Valleys began to move slowly forward, toward the north, reaching the points now termed Hudson, Mich.; Fort Wayne, Ind., and Kenton, Ohio—reaching somewhat further south than Limaand Van Wert. The edge of the glacier was defined in outline by the present western border of Lake Erie, and parallel with it. Climatic influences “acting and counteracting,” the glacial force was concentrated, the Maumee Valley being subjected to a grinding proc- ess, and a deposit of material going on, which now forms the boundary of the “Black Swamp.” As our readers are aware, the waters of the St. Joseph and St. Mary’s meet at Fort Wayne, and their united waters form the Maumee; thence the turn is northwest, and, wearing an outlet through the ridge, it reaches the head of Lake Hrie. The torrid zone yet gaining the ascendency, the ice-fields continuing their reverse motion, and retreating toward the north, the basin of the great lakes was formed; and the blocks of ice melting therein, a vast sea of fresh water was formed, which gradually overflowed a portion of Canada and Michigan, But the St. Lawrence, that important outlet, was under the restraint of an ice blockade, and the surplus water of the fresh sea was turned into the Ohio and and Mississippi. HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. 1d Later, mountains of ice-float were drifted from the north by winds and cur- rents, into temperate latitudes, and melting, deposited rocks, stones and general debris. Following the iceberg-drift, came the permanent elevation above the ocean- level. The St. Lawrence outlet was formed. The inland sea was assuming its division into lakes. The united waters of Erie and Huron flowed through the Wabash Valley and into the Ohio, until, through some agency, that section was dry, and the lakes drained in another direction. The action of the glacial period in the Erie basin vicinity created what is known as the “ Niagara lime- stone,” by grinding upper strata and drifting the debris elsewhere. This seems to have occurred at intervals, exposures being made in Seneca, Sandusky and Wood Counties, and beneath the axis of the Cincinnati arch. Oriskany lime- stone is also available in another stratum, which has been brought to the surface. Again, there is a carboniferous stratum of limestone, and along the Maumee is a thin exposure of the Hamilton limestone and shale. A glacier having both fluid and solid properties, it will readily be compre- hended that obdurate projections of rock resisted its action, and created currents — in other directions, for its forces. When this specified epoch had ceased to be, Ohio was a rough, irregular and crude mixture of ridges and knobs and pinnacles, . which were “leveled up ” and finished by iceberg-drift and inland-sea deposits. This settled and accumulated, and the work of hundreds of years produced a beautiful surface, its inequalities overcome, the water having receded and “terra firma’’ remaining. A deep bed of clay, sufficiently compact to hold the germs of organic matter, and sufficiently porous to absorb moisture, was especially adapted to encourage the growth of vegetation. These seeds had been brought by the winds and waves and natural agencies, and now began to produce plants and shrubs, which withered to enrich the soil, after scattering broadcast seeds that would again perpetuate verdure. Worms, land crabs and burrowing ani- mals assisted in the creation of soil, while the buffalo, deer and bear followed, as soon as forestry appeared. Decomposed foliage and fallen timber aided in the great, work of preparing the present State of Ohio for the habitation of man. Prairie, marsh, forest, rivers and lakes were formed, which, in turn, were modi- fied and prepared for a grand destiny by other influences. In glancing over the compiled histories of Ohio, those containing details of her early struggles, afflictions and triumphs, we are especially impressed with its near and sympathetic relation with the great Northwest, and the republic of the United States of America. From the early years when white men built their rude cabins in the then tangled wilderness, to the opulent and magnificent present of this united nation, Ohio has been stanch, loyal and earnest, both in action and principle. We shall endeavor to trace the history of the State concisely and accurately, according to the data given by the most reliable historians. We are obliged to glean the prominent events only, our space being limited, compared with the multitudinous interests connected with this important part of the United States. 76 ' HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. FRENCH HISTORY. All through early French history, is the fact especially prominent, that in their explorations and expeditions, they united piety and business. They were zealous in sending out their missionaries, but they were always attended by traders and those who were as skilled in the world’s profit and loss, as their companions were in propagating Christianity. Prior to the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers upon Plymouth Rock, the Upper Lakes were visited by the French, and records prove that during the first half of the seventeenth century, a vagabondish set, working in the interests of the fur company of New France, understood the geographical position of the lakes and their tributary streams. M. Perrot, an intelligent explorer, made overtures of peace to the Indian tribes around these bodies of water, and effected a treaty, which, it is claimed, established the right for the French, in the name of their king, to hold the place near St. Mary’s Falls. They further assert that the Mississippi was discovered by the French from Lake Superior, but this is not authenticated, and Father Marquette and M. Joliet are accepted as the first who found this large stream, in 1768. The good missionary won his way with his patient and sympathetic nature. Ohio was, like the other portions of the West, originally in the possession of aborigines or Indians. Of their origin, many suppositions are advanced, but no certainties sustained. From practical evidences, the Mound-Builders were active in Ohio, and here as elsewhere, their work marked retrogression rather than advancement. The territory of Ohio was claimed by the French, and included in that wide tract between the Alleghanies and the Rockies, held by them under the name of Louisiana. Before the year 1750, a French trad- ing-post was established at the mouth of the Wabash, and communication was established between that point and the Maumee, and Canada. Between the years 1678 and 1682, the intrepid La Salle and Father Hennepin, assisted by Fondi, an Italian, with a small band of followers, inaugurated a series of explorations about the great lakes and the Mississippi, building forts on their way and planting the French priority. In 1680, LaSalle erected a stockade at the foot of the rapids of the Maumee, which was a general rendezvous for mission- aries, traders and explorers, besides constituting a primitive “stock exchange.” The English colonies were at this time east of the Alleghanies, while the French were establishing themselves west of this range, gaining an entrance north and south, the two portions separated by hostile and barbarous foes. La Salle’s spirit of adventure led him into new fields, but Father Hennepin was detailed to investigate that part of the world now known as the State of Ohio. The records assert that he published a volume containing an account of his observations ‘in the country between New Mexico and the frozen ocean,” in 1684, together with maps of Lakes Erie, Huron and Michigan, and a plat - of the larger streams in Ohio. HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. ie Apparently, the French mere speedily comprehended the value of their advantages in the New World than‘the English, and vigorously inaugurated and sustained commercial and religious projects. They were essentially benefited by the mediation of the Catholic priests between settlers and Indians, this really earnest class everywhere ingratiating themselves with the savages. The Order of Jesuits were very vigorous, and representatives were stationed at every trading-post, village and settlemeni. The English colonists engaged mostly in agriculture, while the French took a lively interest in the fur trade with the natives, probably from their former settlement in Quebec and thereabouts, where the climate is advantageous for this business. This added to the influence of the priests, and the natural assimilation of French and the Indians, through the tact and amiability of the former, the French possessions gained more rapidly than the English or Spanish. They courted their daughters and married them. They engaged in feasts and trades, and took advantage of those unimpeded times to extend their dominion with surprising celerity. A chain of trading, missionary and military posts extended from New Orleans to Quebec, by way of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, thence via Mackinaw and Detroit to Lakes Erie and Ontario. This route was shortened thereafter by following the Ohio River to the Wabash, following the latter upward, and down the Maumee to Lake Erie. About the same time, and to check the advancement of the French, the Ohio Company was formed by the English. This was an outgrowth of the contest between these two nations for the ascendency, whether empire, settle- ment or individual. After thirty years’ peace between these two nations, “King George’s War” opened the campaign in 1744, but terminated in 1748, the treaty at Aix-la-Chapelle unfortunately omitting a settlement of any division of claims in America. The English, French and Spanish were the first to enter America, and the right of possession by each monarch or empire was held by right of a first discovery. The only right that England could advance regarding Ohio was that the portion of the Six Nations found in the Ohio Valley had placed some of their lands under British jurisdiction, and that other portions had been purchased at Lancaster, Penn., by means of a treaty with the same nations. All this was strenuously denied and ignored by the French. Thus several conflicting influences swept carnage over fair Ohio. The Indians were allied to one side and the other, and were against each other. The Indians and French would advance against the English, and they, in retaliation, would ' take a raid into the Indian territory and overcome a French settlement. Whenever they could as well, Indians would take the cause in their own keep- ing and fight each other. The wide, verdant fields of Ohio were drenehed ghastly red under a glowing sun, and the great forests echoed moans from the dying and distressed. The English colonists had partially overcome their deprivation, caused by a struggle for subsistence, and means to guard against the savages—this distress augmented by campaigns against Canada—by their 78 | HISTORY OF THE STA OF OHIO. increased numbers and wealth, but were noy elarmed by the French rule in America, which gained so rapidly, unmo'esied as it was by Indian raids and other devastating circumstances. A constant conflict was going on between Lake Erie and the Upper Ohio. Atrovitivs and massacres were committed indiscriminately, which opened the way for « desperate class of marauders and villains from the colonies and European Stato, These people enlisted with the Indians on either side for the purpose of !-adership and plunder. Every fortification, trading-post and settlement a: yarrisoned or deserted, and the ground between the Alleghanies and the Maumee became a conflict field, rife with thrilling deeds, sacrifice and adventures, the half never having been chronicled, and many heroes falling uncrowned by even a lasting memory, since during these times the people kept few annals, and cared less for historical memories than anything onearth. They were living, and dying, and struggling, and that was more than they could carry through safely. The French formed a road from the Ohio River to Detroit, via the foot of the Lower Rapids of the Maumee, and the foot of the Lower Rapids of the Sandusky. The Ohio Company obtained a charter under English views, from the British Government, with a grant of 6,000 acres of land on the Ohio. The English now reverted to the times of the Cabots, and protested that by right. they held the entire country between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, bounded by those parallels of latitude defining their Atlantic coast settlements. France claimed the region drained by the Mississippi and tributaries, the great lakes. and their tributaries, the area being west of the Alleghanies. Ohio was thus included in the disputed tract. The Ohio Company was formed in 1748, by a number of Virginians and Londoners, two brothers of George Washington taking conspicuous parts in the movement ; Thomas Lee was especially active. When the surveys were begun, the Governor of Canada entered vigorous protests, and indicated his displeasure by a prompt line of posts from Erie to Pittsburgh, named respectively, Presque Isle, Le Boeuf, Vedango, Kittaning and Du Quesne. The latter was begun by the English, captured by the French, and by them completed. The first English settlement of which we can find traces was a block-house at Piqua, about the year 1752. It was attacked, and a bitter struggle ensued, resulting in the death of fourteen of the assailants. Those within the garrison suffered severely, many being burned, and the remainder captured and dis- patched to Canada. In 1758, the French and Indian war actively began. It did not extend beyond the American continent until 1756, when the home governments took an interest in its progress beyond encouraging their respective colonists to pur- sue the war-path to a direful finale for their adversaries. For four years, the French captured and conquered, spreading terror wherever they went, and they followed every Englishman that set his foot on Ohio soil to the death. We may state that these people had not retained their civilized habits, and HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. 79 constant association with savages had embued them with barbarous methods of warfare which were sickening and revolting to the English, and to which they could not resort. It is highly probable that French success was vastly brought about by these means, together with the assistance of their Indian allies. In 1758, when the English hope was almost exterminated, the elder Pitt being placed at the head of the administration, a new and energetic system was inaugurated, wise measures instituted, and military science triumphed over savage cunning and French intrigue. The first brilliant English achievement was the conquest of Canada. When the home governments interfered, the war assumed the character of a French and English conflict, regardless of Indian right, yet the tribes continued to participate in the carnage. A certain Christian, Frederick Post, a Moravian missionary, located upon the Muskingum, near Beavertown. Heckewelder consented to become his associate. The Indians receiving them kindly, under conditions that Post should serve as tutor, this missionary began clearing a field for the purpose of planting corn for sustenance. This did not accord with Indian logic. They had stipulated that he teach and he was planting corn, which to them was a signal of the coming of other whites, the building of a fort and encroachments upon the Indians. They referred to the French priests, who were in good physical condition, did not till land, but were in charge of the Great Spirit who provided for them, a conclusive proof to them that when divine work was acceptable to the Great Spirit, priests were somehow sustained by other than the plans which disturbed their great hunting-grounds. However, they allowed him a small space, and he remained with them, preaching and teaching during the summer of 1762, when, accompanied by one of the principal chiefs, he returned to Lancaster, Penn., where a treaty was concluded. On his return to his post, he was met by Heckewelder, who imparted the tidings that friendly Indians had warned him that the war was about to sweep over their section, and destruction awaited them if they remained. The mission was accordingly abandoned. ‘This failure was not so bitter as the English effort to sustain their trading-post in 1749, on the Great Miami, afterward called Laramie’s store. It pursued a feeble existence until 1752, when a French raid upon the Twig- twees and English colonists proved fatal. A European treaty ‘now excluded the French from any rights to make treaties with the Indians, and the English, in their flush of victory after Pitt's succession, assumed the authority over Indians and lands. The savages did ~ not accept the situation with anything resembling the gentle spirit of resigna- tion, and the Ottawa chief, Pontiac, led the several tribes into a general war against the intruders. It.was no longer French and English, but Indian and English, the former being instigated and assisted many times by the French, now desperate and unscrupulous in a mad spirit for revenge. The intention of the Indians was to drive the whites east of the mountains, destroying their numerous strongholds in Pennsylvania and Virginia, if they 80 _ HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. failed in their hope of utterly exterminating them. Pontiac had effected a consolidation of the tribes ranging from Mackinaw to North Carolina, thus being enabled to swoop down upon all the settlements simultaneously. A deadly beginning was made in the Ohio Valley, and only two or three English traders escaped out of the one hundred and twenty located in that vicinity. The forts at Presque Isle, St. Joseph and Mackinaw, were captured amid scenes of slaughter too terrible to perpetuate in description. The years 1763 and 1764 were literally drenched in human carnage and anguish. Ohio was a great field of crime, murder, pain and horror. The expeditions of Bradstreet and Bouquet crushed the war in 1764, and Pontiac with his Ottawas removed to the Maumee and settled. English settlement now progressed with great rapidity, but this was destined to be disturbed in 1774, by the action of Lord Dunmore, who led an expedition against the tribes of the Ohio country, termi- nated by his treaty on the Scioto plains. At this period, the colonists were not in strict harmony with England, and the spirit of revolution was spreading every day. When Lord Dunmore made his treaty, the affirmation was made and gained ground that he, being a thorough loyalist, had compromised under such terms as held the Indians British allies against the settlers. Directly following this treaty, was the deliberate murder of a number of Indians, near Wheeling, including the family of the great chief, Logan—which inaugurated retaliating atrocities. In the year 1778, July 4, the first white child was born within the present limits of Ohio, and was christened John L. Roth, son of a Mora- vian missionary. All the settlers of these Moravian towns on the Muskingum were made prisoners in September of the same year. Heckwelder was trans- ported to Detroit, but English tyranny failed to find any evidence against him or his colaborers, and they were reluctantly released, and returned to their fam- ilies in Sandusky. Poverty added to their sufferings, and in the forlorn hope of finding a remnant of their property at the old settlements, which might assist In mitigating their necessities, they wearily went thitherward. They began gathering their grain, but the Wyandots attacked them, and many lives were lost. Frontiersmen had also grown jealous of them, and a body of about ninety marched out together, for the fiendish purpose of pillaging, slaughtering and laying waste all Moravian towns and posts. With the wily insidiousness of savages, they went about their diabolical plan. The Moravians were cordial and bade this band welcome, when they reached their towns in the guise of friend- ship. Williamson, the leader, and the gleaners, were called from the fields, when, to the dismay of these trusting and frank people, they were all bound, and only fifteen out of the marauding band of ninety were in favor of even sparing the lives of these hapless. men, women and children. Forty men, twenty-two women and thirty-four children were then cruelly and heartlessly murdered, their sufferings laughed to scorn, and the last sound that fell on their HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. 83 ears was exultant derision. Succeeding this tragic event was the expedition against the Indian towns upon the Sandusky. The hostile Indians had been making frequent incursions upon the settlements of Western Pennsylvania and Virginia, destroying both life and property. There seemed to be no bounds to their bloody work, and it became necessary, for the peace and safety of the settlers, to take some measures to prevent their outrages. Accordingly, in May, 1782, Gen. William Irvine, who was then commander of the Western Military Department, with headquarters at Fort Pitt, called a council of the officers of his department to meet at Fort Pitt. At this meeting it was de- cided to form and equip a body of men, and make an expedition into the Indian country. Upper Sandusky, then the rendezvous of the hostile Wyan- dots, Delawares, Shawanese and Mingoes, was to be the point of attack. Col. William Crawford led the expedition, which counted 480 men. Warn- ing had in some manner reached the towns, and the troops found them de- serted. But the Indians were incensed, and their wrath had not driven them to hiding-places, but to a preparation to meet their foes. They fought desper- ately, and Crawford’s troops were defeated and scattered, many being capt- ured, and among them Col. Crawford himself. It is hardly probable that Crawford could justly expect much mercy at the hands of his captors. Ac- counts state that Crawford implored the aid of Girty, and at last secured a promise to use his power to obtain the Colonel’s pardon. However, this was of no avail, and it is doubtful whether Girty was disposed to intercede. The prisoners were tortured and put to death, and Crawford’s agonies were pro- tracted as long as possible. Dr. Knight managed to disable the Indian who had him in charge, and made his escape to the settlements, where he related the result of the expedition and the tortures of the captured. On October 27, 1784, a treaty was concluded at Fort Stanwix, with the sachems and warriors of the Mohawks, Onondagas, Senecas, Cayugas, Onei- das and Tuscaroras, and the Six Nations then ceded to the Colonial Govern- ment all claims to the country west of a line defined by the western boundary to the Ohio—thus rendering the Indian claim to a large portion of Ohio lands practically extinct. Although the French and Indian war was a series of heart-rending events, it was a serious and remarkable school of discipline for the untrained troops which soon engaged in the Revolutionary struggle. On the fields of Ohio, many valuable officers, who earned distinction in the war of independence, learned their first lessons in intrepid valor. During the Revolution, the colonial troops were engaged east of the mount- aius, and western settlements and frontier people were left alone to defend themselves and their property against encroachments and attacks. The Indian tribes again became belligerent, and united with the English against the “ Americans.” The latter held a line of posts along the Upper Ohio, while the British were stationed in the old French strongholds on the lakes and the Mississippi. The unscrupulous whites and Indians ranged at ran- dom between this boundary and the Cuyahoga, thence southerly to the Ohio, 5 84 ss HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. thus including the Scioto and Miami Valleys. Southeastern Ohio constituted “‘the neutral ground.”’ Gen. Clarke’s expedition, although chiefly confined to Indiana and Illinois, greatly influenced the settlement of Ohio. His exploits and the resolution of his troops were chiefly instrumental in holding the country west of the Alle- ghanies, and insuring its possession by the United States during the Revolution. The British had been emphatic, in the Paris treaty, at the time of the settlement of the French and English difficulties, in demanding the Ohio River as the northern boundary of the United States. The American Commissioners relied upon Gen. Clarke’s valor and energy in holding the country west of the Alle- ghanies, which he had conquered, and the British Commissioners were compelled to give their consent, under civil and military measures. In 1783, by the treaty of Paris, at the close of the Revolutionary war, the English relinquished all rights to the fertile territory between the Alleghanies pe the Mississippi, and the United States held undisputed possession. January 10, 1786, Gens. Rufus Putnam and Benjamin Tupper circulated a pamphlet, proposing the formation of a company for the purpose of settling the _ Ohio lands, and soliciting the attention and consideration of all those desiring a future home and prosperity. A meeting was also called, to assemble during the following February, and select delegates to represent each county in Massachu- setts. These dignitaries should convene during the month of March, at the ‘‘ Bunch of Grapes” tavern, in Boston, for the purpose of definitely forming the © association, and adopting such measures as would benefit all directly interested. The meeting and “‘ convention ”’ followed, and the subscription books were opened. One million dollars, chiefly represented by Continental certificates, was the price of the land. The shares were valued at $1,000 each, and there was a division of a thousand shares. The first payment was to be $10 per share, this money to be set aside for such expenses as might accrue. A year’s interest was to be devoted to the establishment of the settlement, and those families who were unable to incur the expense of moving were to be assisted. Those who purchased shares to the number of twenty were entitled to a representation by — an agent, who was permitted to vote for Directors. This plan matured and was acted upon during the following year. It may be that the action of Connecti- cut, in ceding her territorial claims to the General Government, with few excep- tions, greatly encouraged this new undertaking. That tract was, until recently, designated the “‘ Western Reserve ’’—an extent 170 miles from the western boundary of Pennsylvania, and parallel thereto, being reserved. On October 27, 1787, a contract was made between the Board of the Treas- ury, for the United States, and Manasseh Cutler and Winthrop Sargent, agents for the Directors of the New England Ohio Company, for the purchase of a tract of land, bounded by the Ohio, and from the mouth of the Scioto to the inter- section of the western boundary of the seventh townships, then surveying; thence by said boundary to the northern boundary of the tenth township from HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. 85 the Ohio; thence, by a due west line, to the Scioto ; ;, thence, by the Scioto, to the beginning. However fertile and attractive Ohio was known to have Hen settlement did not gain rapidly after the close of the war with England, although the United States has gained her freedom. It was more than six years after Cornwallis laid down his sword, before a white settlement was formed on the Ohio side of the river. The French and Indian war had incited the English to be jealous of her colonial conquests, and mistrusting their loyalty, they had, so soon as the French claims were annulled, taken measures to crush all colonial claims also, and a royal proclamation rescinded all colonial land grants and charters, holding all the country west of the sources of the Atlantic rivers under the protection and sovereignty of the king of Great Britain, for the use of the Indians. All white persons were forbidden to remain or settle within the prescribed limits. Parlia- ment then attached this tract to Quebec, and the English Government felt assured that the thirteen colonies were restricted and held secure east of the Alleghanies. The result of the war between the colonies and England did not constitute an Indian treaty. Although England signed over her title and right, the sava- ges held the land and ignored all white agreements, one way or the other. Whenever an attempt at settlement was undertaken, Indian depredations proved disastrous. The tribes were encouraged by the English fur traders, and the English commandant at Detroit incited them to destroy all Americans who attempted to usurp the rights of red men. Added to this serious difficulty was the unsettled debate regarding State claims, which rendered a title precarious. A treaty, signed at Fort McIntosh, previous to the war, and authenticated, shows that during the conflict the Dela- wares and Wyandots occupied the Indian and British frontier, on the southern shore of Lake Erie, from the Cuyahoga to the Maumee, and from the lake to the sources of its tributaries. Later, these two tribes ceded to the United States “the neutral ground,” by warranty deed, and by quit-claim, the terri- tory south and west of the described tract, set apart for their use. By special measures, the grant of Congress in the matter of the Ohio Com- pany extended to nearly 5,000,000 acres, valued at $3,500,000... The original Ohio Company obtained 1,500,000 acres, the remaining being reserved by indi- viduals, for private speculation. The same year, Congress appointed Arthur St. Clair, Gavernor and Win- _ throp Sargent, Secretary, of the Territory. _ Fort Harmar had previously been built, at the mouth of the Muskingum, and in 1788, a New England colony attempted the ‘“‘ Muskingum settlement,”’ on the opposite side, which was afterward named Marietta. In July, 1788, the Territorial officers were received in this village, and there established the first form of civil government, as set forth in the Ordinance of 1787. Three United States Judges were appointed, and Courts of Common Pleas, Probate and Justice were established. 86 _ HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. If the stormy times were supposed to be of the past, that composure was rudely broken by the utter disregard of the Shawnee and other Indian tribes, who soon induced the Delawares and Wyandots to repudiate their consent in the matter of settlement. The miseries of frontier horrors were repeated. The British commandant at Detroit instigated many of these hostilities, yet the American Government took honorable action in assuring the English represent- ative that American military preparations in the West was not an expedition against Detroit, or other British possessions, although the possession of Detroit by that nation was in direct opposition to the treaty of 1783. Gov. St. Clair, to avert the direful consequences of a border war, dispatched a Frenchman, Gameline, to the principal Indian towns of the Wabash and Maumee countries, to request them to meet the United States agents, and make a compromise for the benefit of both parties, at the same time reiterating the desire of the General Government to adhere to the Fort Harmar treaty. The Miamis, Shawnees, Ottawas, Kickapoos and Delawares received this representative kindly, but declined the wampum sent by the Governor, and deferred giving an answer until they had considered the subject with the “ father at Detroit.” Blue Jacket, chief of the Shawnees, informed the Frenchman that the Indi- ans doubted the sincerity of the Americans. The new settlement on the Ohio was a proof that the whites intended to crowd further and further, until the Indians were again and again robbed of their just right. He then emphatically asserted that unless the north side of the river was kept free from these inroads there could be no terms of peace with the Shawnees, and many other tribes. Blue Jacket was unusually intelligent and sagacious, and expressed himself eloquently. He was persistent in his determination to engage in the war of extermination, should the white settlements continue north of the Ohio. These overtures were continued, but they failed in producing any arrange- ment that permitted the whites to locate north of the Ohio. Congress called upon Kentucky and Pennsylvania to lend the aid of their militia. Gen. Harmar was instructed to destroy the Miami villages at the head of the Maumee. Late in the fall of 1790, he executed this order. The Indians had stored a large quantity of provisions, in expectation of a campaign, and this dependence was devastated. Without authority, and with undue carelessness, he divided his army and attempted to achieve other victo- ries. He more than lost what he had gained. Two raids upon the Wabash In- dians, thereafter, proved successful, but the campaign under Gov. St. Clair was not calculated to establish peace or obtain power, and was deemed but little less than a failure. The year 1792 was a series of skirmishes, so far as a settlement was con- cerned, but 1793 succeeded well enough to convene a meeting of United States Commissioners and representatives of the hostile tribes, at the rapids of the Maumee. It is highly probable that a satisfactory treaty might have been arranged, had it not been for the intervention and malicious influence of the HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. 87 British Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Col. McKee, his assistant Capt. Elliott, and the notorious Capt. Simon Girty, who instigated the savages to deeds more horrible than their own barbarisms. It was evident that a severe struggle must ensue, and Capt. Wayne, in 1792, appointed to the command of the Western army, was called upon to con- duct the campaign. He exhibited his wisdom in the beginning, by preparing his men in military discipline and fully equipping them before marching to meet a savage foe in a wilderness. Various causes detained the army, and it was not until the fall of 17938, that the force marched from Fort Washington (Cincin- nati) to begin the battle. It was already late in the season, and, before any progress had been made, the army went into winter quarters at Greenville, on a branch of the Big Miami. , In the mean time, the Ohio Company had not matured its practical “ settle- ment plan,” although a generous grant had been obtained. In 1792, they received a clear title to 750,000 acres of land, for which the full price had pre- viously been paid, in Continental currency. Congress set aside 214,285 acres as army bounties, and 100,000 acres to actual settlers. The two latter appro- priations joined that of the Ohio Company. There had been numerous conventions, discussions and other fruitless attempts to somehow form a plan for the government of the Northwest Terri- tory, but it was not until July 13, 1787, that an ordinance was passed, and that was the result of Dr. Cutler’s efforts. Every State sustained its measures. This ordinance was the foundation of the constitution of the future State of Ohio, and indeed, permeates the entire Northwestern creed. ORDINANCE OF 1787.—No. 82. An ORDINANCE FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THE TERRITORY OF THE UnITED States, NORTHWEST OF THE OHIO RIVER. Be it ordained by the United States in Congress assembled, That the said Territory, for the pur- pose of government, be one district; subject, however, to be divided into two districts, as future cir- cumstances may, in the opinion of Congress, make it expedient. Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, That the estates of both resident and non-resident proprietors in the said Territory, dying intestate, shall descend to and be distributed among their children and the descendants of a deceased child, in equal parts; the descendants of a deceased child or grandchild to take the share of their deceased parent in equal parts among them. And when there shall be no children or descendants, then in equal parts to the next of kin in equal degree; and among collaterals, the children of a deceased brother or sister of the intestate shall have, in equal parts among them, their deceased parent’s share; and there shall in no case be a distribution between kindred of the whole and half blood, saving in all cases to the widow of intestate, her third part of the real estate, for life, and one-third part of the personal estate; and this law relative to descents and dower, shall remain in full force until altered by the Legis- lature of the district. And until the Governor and Judges shall adopt laws as hereinafter mentioned, estates in said Territory may be devised or bequeathed by wills in writing, signed and sealed by him or her in whom the estate may be (being of full age), and attested by three witnesses; and real estate may be conveyed by lease and release, or bargain and sale, signed and sealed, and delivered by the person (being in full age) in whom the estate may be, and attested 88 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. by two witnesses, provided such wills be duly proved, and such conveyances be acknowledged, or the execution thereof duly proved and be recorded within one year after proper magistrates, courts and registers shall be appointed for that purpose. And personal property may be trans- ferred by delivery, saving, however, to the French and Canadian inhabitants and other settlers of the Kaskaskias, St. Vincent’s and the neighboring villages, who have heretofore professed them- selves citizens of Virginia, their laws and customs now in force among them, relative to the descent and conveyance of property. Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, That there shall be appointed from time to time, by Congress, a Governor whose commission shall continue in force for a term of three years, unless sooner revoked by Congress. He shall reside in the district and have a freehold estate therein, of a thousand acres of land while in the exercise of his office. There shall be appointed from time to time by Congress, a Secretary whose commission shall continue in force for two years, unless sooner revoked. He shall reside in the district, and shall have a freehold estate therein in 500 acres of land, while in the exercise of his office. It shall be his duty to keep and preserve the acts and laws passed by the Legislature, and the public records of the district, and the proceedings of the Governor in his executive department, and transmit authentic copies of such acts and proceedings every six months, to the Secretary of Congress. There shall also be appointed a court to consist of three Judges, any two of whom to forma court, who shall have a common law jurisdiction and shall reside in the district and have each therein a freehold estate in 500 acres of land, while in the exercise of their office, and their commissions shall continue in force during good behavior. The Governor and Judges, or a majority of them, shall adopt and publish in the district such laws of the original States, criminal and civil, as may be necessary and best suited to the circumstances of the district, and report them to Congress from time to time, which laws shall be in force in the district until the organization of the General Assembly therein, unless disapproved by Congress. But afterward, the Legislature shall have authority to alter them, as they shall think fit. ) The Governor, for the time being, shall be commander-in-chief of the militia, appoint and commission all officers in the same, below the rank of general officers. All general officers shall be appointed and commissioned by Congress. Previous to the organization of the General Assembly, the Governor shall appoint such mag- istrates and other civil officers in each county or township, as he shall find necessary for the preservation of the peace and good order in the same. After the General Assembly shall be organized, the powers and duties of magistrates and other civil officers shall be regulated and defined by the said Assembly, but all magistrates and other civil officers not herein otherwise directed, shall, during the continuance of this temporary government, be appointed by the Governor. For the prevention of crimes and injuries, the laws to be adopted or made shall have force» in all parts of the district, and for the execution of process, criminal or civil, the Governor shall make proper divisions thereof, and he shall proceed from time to time as circumstances may require, to lay out the parts of the district in which the Indian titles shall have been extin- guished, into counties and townships, subject, however, to such alterations as may thereafter be made by the Legislature. So soon as there shall be 5,000 free male inhabitants of full age in the district, upon giving proof thereof to the Governor, they shall receive authority with time and place, to elect representatives from their counties or townships, to represent them in the General Assembly. Provided, That for every 500 free male inhabitants, there shall be one representative, and so on progressively with the number of free male inhabitants, shall the right of representa- tion increase, until the number of representatives shall amount to twenty-five. After which, the number shall be regulated by the Legislature. Provided, That no person be eligible or qualified to act as a representative unless he shall have been a citizen of one of the United States three years, and be a resident in the district, or unless he shall have resided in the district three years, and in either case, shall likewise hold in his own right in fee ay 200 acres of land within the same. HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. 89 Provided, Also, that a freehold in 50 acres of land in the district, having been a citizen of one of the States, and being a resident in the district, or the like freehold and two years’ resi- dence in the district, shall be necessary to qualify a man as an elector of a representative. The representatives thus elected, shall serve for the term of two years. And in case of the death of a representative or removal from office, the Governor shall issue a writ to the county or township for which he was a member, to elect another in his stead, to serve for the residue of the term. The General Assembly or Legislature shall consist of the Governor, Legislative Council, and a House of Representatives. The Legislative Council shall consist of five members, to continue in office five years, unless sooner removed by Congress; any three of whom to be a quorum. And the members of the Council shall be nominated and appointed in the following manner, to wit: As soon as representatives shall be elected, the Governor shall appoint a time and place for them to meet together, and when met, they shall nominate ten persons, residents in the district, and each person in a freehold in 500 acres of land, and return their names to Congress, five of whom Congress shall appoint and commission as aforesaid. And whenever a vacancy shall hap- pen in the Council by death or removal from office, the House of Representatives shall nominate two persons, qualified as aforesaid, for each vacancy, and return their names to Congress, one of whom Congress shall appoint and commission for the residue of the term. And every five years, four months at least before the expiration of the time of service of the members of the Council, the said House shall nominate ten persons qualified as aforesaid, and return their names to Congress, five of whom Congress shall appoint and commission to serve as members of the Council five years, unless sooner removed. And the Governor, Legislative Council and House of Representatives shall have authority to make laws in all cases, for the good government of the district, not repugnant to the principles and articles in this Ordinance, established and declared. And all bills having passed by a majority in the. House, and by a majority in the Council, shall be referred to the Governor for his assent. But no bill or legislative act whatever, shall be of any force without his assent. The Governor shall have power to convene, prorogue and dis- solve the General Assembly, when in his opinion it shall be expedient. The Governor, Judges, Legislative Council, Secretary, and such other officers as Congress shall appoint in the district, shall take an oath or affirmation of fidelity and of office. The Gov- ernor before the President of Congress, and all other officers before the Governor. As soon as a Legislature shall be formed in the district, the Council and House assembled in one room, shall have authority by joint ballot to elect a delegate to Congress, who shall have a seat in Congress, with a right of debating, but not of voting, during this temporary gov- ernment. And for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which forms the basis whereon these republics, their laws and constitutions, are created; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions and governments, which forever hereafter shall be formed in said Territory. To provide for the establishment of States, and permanent governments therein, and for their admission to a share in the Federal, Council on an equal footing with the original States, at as early periods as may be consistent with the general interest. It is hereby ordained and declared by the authority aforesaid, That the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact between the original States and the people, and States in said Territory, and forever remain unaltered unless by common consent, to wit: Articte II. The inhabitants of said Territory shall always be entitled to the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus, and of the trial by jury; of a proportionate representation of the people in the Legislature, and of judicial procedure according to the course of common law. All per- sons shall be bailable, except for capital offenses, where the proof shall be evident or the pre- sumption great. All fines shall be moderate, and no cruel or unreasonable punishment shall be inflicted. No man shall be deprived of his liberty or property, but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land. And should the public exigencies make it necessary for the common preservation, totake any person’s property, or to demand his particular services, full compensation 90 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. shall be made ‘for the same. And in the just preservation of rights and property, it is under- stood and declared that no law aught ever to be made or have force in the said Territory, that shall in any manner whatever interfere with or effect private contracts or engagements bona fide and without fraud, previously formed. Arr. III. Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. The utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property, rights and liberty they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress. But laws founded in justice and humanity, shall from time to time be made for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them. Art. IV. The said Territory and the States which may be formed therein, shall ever remain a part of the confederacy of the United States of America, subject to the articles of confedera- tion, and to such alterations therein as shall be constitutionally made, and to all the acts and ordinances of the United States in Congress assembled conformable thereto. The inhabitants and settlers in said Territory shall be subject to pay a part of the federal debts contracted or to be contracted, and a proportional part of the expenses of the Government, to be apportioned on them by Congress, according to the same common rule and measure by which apportionments thereof shall be made on the other States, and the taxes for paying their proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and directions of the Legislature of the district or districts or new States, within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled. The Legisla- tures of those districts or new States, shall never interfere with the primary disposal of the soil by the United States in Congress assembled, nor with any regulations Congress may find neces- sary for securing the title in such soil to the bona-fide purchasers. No tax shall be imposed on lands the property of the. United States, and in no case, shall non-residents be taxed higher than residents. The navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carry- ing places between the same, shall be common highways, and forever free as well to the inhabi- tants of the said Territory as to the citizens of the United States and those of any other States that may be admitted into the confederacy, without any tax, impost or duty therefor. Art. V. There shall be formed in said Territory not less than three, nor more than five, States, and the boundaries of the States, as soon as Virginia shall alter her act of cession and consent to the same, shall become fixed and established as follows, to wit: The western State in the said Territory shall be bcunded by the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Wabash Rivers; a direct line drawn from the Wabash and Post St. Vincent, due north to the Territorial line between the United States and Canada; and by the said Territorial line to the Lake of the Woods and Missis- sippi. The middle State shall be bounded by the said direct line, the Wabash from Post St. Vin- cent to the Ohio, by the Ohio, by a direct line drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami to the said Territorial line. The eastern State shall be bounded by the last-mentioned direct line, the Ohio, Pennsylvania and said territorial line. Provided, however, and it is further understood and declared, that the boundaries of those three States shall be subject so far to be altered, that, if Congress shall hereafter find it expedient, they shall have authority to form one or two States in that part of the said Territory which lies north of an east and west line drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan. And whenever any of the said States shall have 60,000 free inhabitants therein, such State shall be admitted by its delegates into the Congress of the United States on an equal footing with the original States in all respects what- ever, and shall be at liberty to form a permanent constitution and State government. Provided, The constitution and government so to be formed, shall be represented, and in conformity to the principles contained in these articles; and so far as it can be consistent with the general interest of the confederacy, such admission shall be allowed at an earlier period, and when there may be a less number of free inhabitants than 60,000. Arr. VI. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. Provided always, That any person escaping into the same from whom labor or service is lawfully HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. 91 claimed in one of the original States, each fugitive may be lawfully claimed and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or services as aforesaid. Be tt ordained by the authority aforesaid, That the resolutions of the 23d of April, 1784,° relative to the subject of this ordinance, be and the same are hereby repealed and declared null and void. COMMENT BY S&. P. CHASE 1833. It would be difficult to find a more comprehensive review of the founda- tions of our system of laws than is given in the “ Preliminary Sketch of the History of Ohio,” by this distinguished representative of the bench and the bar of America. The work is now out of print, and is not easily obtained; besides, its great author has passed away; so these extracts are made more with a view of preserving old historical literature, than of introducing new; furthermore, the masses of the people have never had convenient access to the volumes, which, for the most part, have been in the hands of professional men only. The publication of the work first brought its compiler before the public, and marked the beginning of that career which, during its course, shaped the financial system of our country, and ended upon the Supreme Bench of the nation. “By the ordinance of 1785, Congress had executed in part the great national trust confided to it, by providing for the disposal of the public lands for the common good, and by prescribing the manner and terms of sale. By that of 1787, provision was made for successive forms of Territorial government, adapted to successive steps of advancement in the settlement of the Western country. It comprehended an intelligible system of law on the descent and conveyance of real property, and the transfer of personal goods. It also con- tained 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 and indestructible, except by that final and common ruin, which, as it has overtaken all former systems of human polity, 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 fire 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 cove- nants, so far as its conditions did not conflict with the terms of the cessions of the States. | x * x * * * * * * 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 ¢ 92 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. labors. At the time of its promulgation, the Federal Constitution was under discussion in the convention ; and in a few months, upon the organization of the new national government, that Congress was dissolved, never again to re-as- semble. Some, and indeed most of the principles established by the articles of compact are to be found in the plan of 1784, and in the various English and American bills of rights. Others, however, and these not the least important, are original. Of this number are the clauses in relation to contracts, to slavery and to Indians. On the whole, these articles contain what they profess to con- tain, the true theory of American liberty. The great principles promulgated by it are wholly and purely American. They are indeed the genuine princi- ples of freedom, unadulterated by that compromise with circumstances, the effects of which are visible in the constitution and history of the Union. x xk x x xk * x x x The first form of civil government, provided by the ordinance, was now formally established within the Territory. Under this form, the people had no concern in the business of government. The Governor and Judges derived their appointments at first from Congress, and after the adoption of the Fed- eral Constitution, from the President. The commission of the former officer was for the term of three years, unless sooner revoked; those of the latter were during good behavior. It was required that the Governor should reside within the Territory, and possess a freehold estate there, in one thousand acres of land. He had authority to appoint all officers of militia, below the rank of Generals, and all magistrates and civil officers, except the Judges and the Sec- retary of the Territory ; to establish convenient divisions of the whole district for the execution of progress, to lay out those parts to which the Indian titles might be extinguished into counties and townships. The Judges, or any two of them, constituted a court with common law jurisdiction. It was neces- sary that each Judge should possess a freehold estate in the territory of five hundred acres. The whole legislative power which, however, extended only to the adoption of such laws of the original States as might be suited to the cir- cumstances of the country, was vested in the Governor and Judges. The laws adopted were to continue in force, unless disapproved by Congress, until re- pealed by the Legislature, which was afterward to be organized. It was the duty of the Secretary to preserve all acts and laws, public records and executive proceedings, and to transmit authentic copies to the Secretary of Congress every six months. | Such was the first government devised for the Northwestern Territory. It is obvious that its character, as beneficent or oppressive, depended entirely upon the temper and disposition of those who administrated it. All power, legisla- tive, judicial and executive, was concentrated in the Governor and Judges, and in its exercise they were responsible only to the distant Federal head. The expenses of the Government were defrayed in part by the United States, but were principally drawn from the pockets of the people in the shape of fees. HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. 93 This temporary system, however unfriendly as it seems to liberty, was, perhaps, so established upon sufficient reasons. The Federal Constitution had not then been adopted, and there were strong apprehensions that the people of the Territory might not be disposed to organize States and apply for admission into the Union. It was, therefore, a matter of policy so to frame the Territorial system as to create some strong motives to draw them into the Unicn, as States, in due time. The first acts of Territorial legislation were passed at Marietta, then the only American settlement northwest of the Ohio. The Governor and Judges did not strictly confine themselves within the limits of their legislative author- ity, as prescribed by the ordinance. When they could not find laws of the original States suited to the condition of the country, they supplied the want by enactments of their own. ‘The earliest laws, from 1788 to 1795, were all thus enacted. The laws of 1788 provided for the organization of the militia; for the establishment of inferior courts; for the punishment of crimes, and for the limitations of actions; prescribed the duties of ministerial officers ; regu- lated marriages, and appointed oaths of office. That the Governor and Judges in the enactment of these laws, exceeded their authority, without the slightest disposition to abuse it, may be inferred from the fact that except two, which had been previously repealed, they were all confirmed by the first Territorial Legislature. * x x x x k xk x x At this period there was no seat of government, properly called. The Governor resided at Cincinnati, but laws were passed whenever they seemed to be needed, and promulgated at any place where the Territorial legislators hap- pened to be assembled. Before the year of 1795, no laws were, strictly speak- ing, adopted. 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 1792, the Secretary of the Territory discharged, under the author- ity of an act of Congress, the functions of the Governor. ‘The earliest laws, as has been already stated, were published at Marietta. Of the remainder, a few were published at Vincennes, and the rest at Cincinnati. In the year 1789, the first Congress passed an act recognizing the binding force of the ordinance of 1787, and adapting its provisions to the Federal Con- stitution. This act provided that the communications directed in the ordinance to be made to Congress or its officers, by the Governor, should thenceforth be made to the President, and that the authority to appoint with the consent of the Senate, and commission officers, before that time appointed and commis- sioned by Congress, should likewise be vested in that officer. It also gave the Territorial Secretary the power already mentioned, of acting in certain cases, in the place of the Governor. In 1792, Congress passed another act giving to the Governor and Judges authority to repeal, at their discretion, the laws by 94. HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. them made; and enabling a single Judge of the general court, in the absence of his brethren, to hold the terms. At this time the Judges appointed by the National Executive constituted the Supreme Court of the Territory. They were commissioned during good behavior ; and their judicial jurisdiction extended over the whole region north- west of the Ohio. The court, thus constituted, was fixed at no certain place, and its process, civil and criminal, was returnable wheresoever it might be in the Territory. Inferior to this court were the County Courts of Common Pleas, and the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace. The former consisted of any number of Judges, not less than three nor more than seven, and had a general common-law jurisdiction, concurrent, in the respective counties, with that of the Supreme Court; the latter consisted of a number of Justices for each county, to be determined by the Governor, who were required to hold three terms in every year, and had a limited criminal jurisdiction. Single Judges of the Common Pleas, and single Justices of the Quarter Sessions were also clothed with certain civil and criminal powers to be exercised out of court. Besides these courts, each county had a Judge of Probate, clothed with the ordinary jurisdiction of a Probate Court. y Such was the original constitution of courts and distribution of judicial power in the Northwestern Territory. The expenses of the system were defrayed in part by the National Government, and in part by assessments upon the counties, but principally by fees, which were payable to every officer con- cerned in the administration of justice, from the Judges of the General Court downward. In 1795 the Governor and Judges undertook to revise the Territorial laws, and to establish a complete system of statutory jurisprudence, by adoptions from the laws of the original States, in strict conformity to the provisions of the ordinance. or this purpose they assembled at Cincinnati in June, and continued in session until the latter part of August. The judiciary system underwent some changes. The General Court was fixed at Cincinnati and Mari- etta, and a Circuit Court was established with power to try in the several coun- ties, issues in fact depending before the superior tribunal, where alone causes could be finally decided. Orphans’ Courts, too, were established, with jurisdic- tion analogous to but more extensive than that of aJudge of Probate. Laws were also adopted to regulate judgments and executions, for limitation of actions, for the distribution of intestate estates, and for many other general purposes. Finally, 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 within the Territory. The law thus adopted was an act of the Virginia Legislature, passed before the Declaration of Independence, when Virginia was HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. 95 yet a British colony, and at the time of its adoption had been repealed so far as it related to the English statutes. | The other laws of 1795 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 first establishment, ever had one so good. * x *k x * x * And how gratifying is the retrospect, how cheering the prospect which even this sketch, brief and partial as it is, presents! On a surface covered less than half a century ago by the trees of the primeval forest, a State has grown up from Colonial infancy to freedom, independence and strength. But thirty years have elapsed since that State, with hardly sixty thousand inhabitants, was admitted into the American Union. Of the twenty-four States which form that Union, she is now the fourth in respect to population. In other respects her rankis even higher. Already her resources have been adequate, not only to the expense of government and instruction, but to the construction of long lines of canals. Her enterprise has realized the startling prediction of the poet, who, in 1787, when Ohio was yet a wilderness, foretold the future connec- tion of the Hudson with the Ohio. And these results are attributable mainly to her institutions. The spirit of the ordinance of 1787 pervades them all. Who can estimate the benefits which have flowed from the interdiction by that instrument of slavery and of legislative interference with private contracts? One consequence is, that the soil of Ohio bears up none but freemen; another, that a stern and honorable regard to private rights and public morals characterizes her legislation. There is hardly a page in the statute book of which her sons need be ashamed. The great doctrine of equal rights iseverywhere recognized in her constitution and her laws. Almost every father of a family in this State has a freehold interest in the soil, but this interest is not necessary to entitle him to a voice in the concerns of government. Every man*may vote; every man is eligible to any office. And this unlimited extension of the elective franchise, so far from pro- ducing any evil, has ever constituted a safe and sufficient check upon injurious legislation. Other causes of her prosperity may be found in her fertile soil, in her felicitous position, and especially in her connection with the union of the States. All these springs of growth and advancement are permanent, and upon a most gratifying prospect of the future. They promise an advance in population, wealth, intelligence and moral worth as permanent as the existence of the State itself. They promise to the future citizens of Ohio the blessings of good government, wise legislation and universal instruction. More than all, they are pledges that in all future, as in all past circumstances, Ohio will cleave fast to the national constitution and the -national Union, and that her growing energies will on no occasion, be more willingly or powerfully put forth, than in the support and maintenance of both in unimpaired vigor and strength.”’ 96 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. INFLUENCE OF THE ORDINANCE OF 1787. The passage of this ordinance, since known as the ‘“ Ordinance of 1787,” was immediately followed by an application to the Government, by John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, in behalf of the country, between the Miamis, and a contract was concluded the following year. The Ohio Company were exceed- ingly energetic in inaugurating settlements. Gen. Putman, with a party of forty-seven men, set out on an exploring expedition, accompanied by six boat builders. On the Ist of January, 1788, twenty-six surveyors followed, from Hartford, Conn. They arrived in Ohio on the 7th of April, 1788, and their active energy founded the permanent beginning of this great Western State- When we review the dangerous experiments that have been made, in this land west of the Alleghanies, the horrors which had overwhelmed every attempt, we can faintly realize the stalwart courage that sent these men on their way, and sustained them in their pioneer hardships. With characteristic vigor, they began their little town. Hnthusiastic and happy, they did not rest from their toilsome march over the old Indian. roads, but kept busily at work to estab- lish an oasis in this wide expanse of wilderness, before they should take nec- essary ease to recuperate their strength. The wise men met on the 2d of May, and the little town was named Marietta. Situated as it was, in the midst of danger, they had used precaution to build and equip a fortified square, which was designated Campus Martius ; Square No. 19 was Capitolium, and Square No. 61 was Cecelia, and the main street was Sacra Via. Marietta was especially fortunate in her actual “first families.” Ten of the forty-eight men had received a thorough college education ; the remaining were individuals of sterling merit, honorable, and several had already attained reputations for superior excellence of abilities. Patriotic and brave, the settlement certainly possessed a foundation that promised well for the future. The following 4th of July was an auspicious event, and the Hon. James M. Varnum was the eloquent orator of the occason. The opening of the court, on the 2d of September, was a solemn ceremonial, the High Sheriff leading with drawn sword, followed by citizens, with an escort of officers from Fort Harmar, the members of the bar, the Governor and Clergy- men, the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas—Gen. Rufus Putman and Benjamin Tupper—all these constituted an imposing spectacle, as they pro- gressed over a path which had been cut through the forest to Campus Martius Hall, the edifice of law and order. The Judges took their seats, a prayer was offered by the Rev. Dr. Cutler, and immediately the Sheriff, Col. Ebenezer Sprout, proclaimed the response, and the court of impartial justice was convened. HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. 97 This ceremonial was, perhaps, made all the more impressive by the presence of several powerful Indian chiefs, who had journeyed to Marietta for the pur- pose of making a treaty. The settlement now increased rapidly, new cabins were erected constantly. On the 17th of December, a society event occurred, in the form of a grand ball, fifteen ladies being present. John Cleves Symmes had contracted for 2,000,000 acres of land, and suc- ceeded in obtaining his grant, but circumstances prevented him from meeting his part of the obligations, and the specification was reduced to 1,000,000. After vain attempt to make his payments, a settlement was finally effected for 248,540 acres, and Symmes was prepared to dispose of clear titles to new-com- ers. In 1788, a town was established within the boundaries of his grant, at the mouth of the little Miami, known as Columbia, and in the early part of 1787 - another was formed opposite the mouth of the Licking River, by name Losanti- ville, analyzed by a frontier scholar—ville, the town; antz, opposite to; os, the mouth of; L, Licking. | Judge Symmes had projected building his main town at North Bend. This plan was frustrated by reason of Ensign Luce—who had been commissioned by Gen. Harmar to erect a fort—deciding that North Bend was not suitable for the purpose. He selected Losantiville for the purpose, and Fort Washington was the result. In 1790, Gov. St. Clair was called to inspect the settlement, and proceeded to organize Hamilton County, at the same time calling the town Cincinnati. It will be remembered that Connecticut ceded most of her western lands to General Government, retaining, however, a minor portion. As the settlements began to increase on the ‘‘ Virginia Reserve’ and between the Scioto and Miami Rivers, all those holding claims were not disposed to part with them, while others were anxious to secure grants for the purpose of speculation, rather than the advancement of civilization. The Scioto Company was a questionable ad- herent of the Ohio Company, and began operations, which resulted well, what- ever their purpose may have been. Gen. Putnam cleared the land and directed the building of 100 dwellings and six block-houses. During 1791, the colony arrived, consisting of 500 persons. Only ten of these were tillers of the soil. Viscount Malartie ventured into the wilderness, but instead of settling, joined Gen. St. Clair’s army, and was ulti- mately his aid-de-camp. Indian conquests were not to his taste, and he soon returned to France. This new colony was essentially French, and its location was Gallia County. The name “ Gallipolis’ was selected. These settlers, being unaccustomed to severe toil, and disinclined to learn its hard lesson, soon became demoralized, through deprivation and absolute want. Congress came to their aid with a land grant of 24,000 acres, but few of them cared to enter claims, and soon all traces of the old town were lost, and its inhabitants scattered. 98 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. Gen. St. Clair having become unpopular, through repeated failures in Indian campaigns, and Gen. Anthony Wayne having wintered at Fort Washington, the spring of 1793 was opened by a march of the army, well disciplined and led by ‘Mad Anthony,” on a campaign that must crush the rapidly increasing depredations of the Indians, notwithstanding which these new settlements had been made. All winter, Gen. Wayne had dispatched scouts, spies and hardy frontiersmen on errands of discovery, and his plans were, therefore, practically matured. His army cut its way through the forests, gathering horses, provis- ions, etc., as they marched, and finally came nearly up to the enemy before dis- covery. They again returned to Fort Washington, as the Commander-in-Chief, under the order of the Executive, had’ proclaimed inaction until the Northern or British Commissioners and Indians should convene and discuss the situation — and prospects. Gen. Wayne, meantime, drilled his men at ‘“‘ Hobson’s Choice,” a place near Fort Washington. The Commissioners came from Detroit, and assembled at Capt. Matthew Elliot’s house, at the mouth of the Detroit River. A meeting was called at Sandusky, and twenty Indian representatives were present, to argue the grounds of a treaty. Simon Girty acted as interpreter, and has been vehemently accused of unfaithfulness in this trust, since he did not advocate the adjustment of matters on any grounds. The Indians reiterated their rights and wrongs, and offered to receive the half of the purchase money, provided the actual settlers would accept it as the price of the land, move away, and leave the original owners the proud possessors of their lands. The Govern- ment would then expend less money than they would have done in a full Indian purchase, or a long and cruel war. This being out of the question and rejected, a decided specification was made that the Ohio boundary was to be obliterated, and a new one adopted, that encompassed a mere fraction of territory. This was also rejected, ‘The Indians indignantly bade the Americans to go back to their father, and they would return to their tribes. The council was terminated in confusion. It is highly probable that some settlement might have been made, had it not been for English influence which instigated the savages, in the hope of ultimately making conquests for them- selves. The commander at Detroit evinced great uneasiness whenever there was a shadow of an opportunity for a peaceful understanding. On Christmas Day, 1793, a detachment of the army encamped on the identical ground made memorable by St. Clair’s horrible defeat. A reward was offered for every human skull that was found, and 600 were gathered. The bones of the victims were removed from the spot where they built Fort Recovery. This point was left in charge of Alexander Gibson. Karly in the year 1794, Lord Dorchester addressed the Commissioners in behalf of the English. Even at this time, Gen. Wayne, to avoid the terrors of a.great war, again made overtures of peace, dispatching Freeman, Trueman and Hardin, all initiated in savage tactics, on errands of mercy—and the three men ° HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. 99 were inhumanly murdered. The English went so far as to order Gov. Simcoe to erect a fort, in April, 1794, on the Rapids of the Maumee, thus rousing the Indians by a bold proof that they had espoused their cause. In May, the Spanish, who were ever jealous of colonial encroachments, were willing to aid in a general raid against the Americans. In June, a scouting party from Fort Recovery, fell into an Indian ambush and suffered severely, their foes following them to the very entrance. The siege continued for two days. It was plainly evident that white men augmented the Indian force; ounce balls and buck-shot surely came from their rifles. Again, the Indians immediately began a search beneath the logs where pieces of artillery were hidden during the great battle of St. Clair, but fortunately, Fort Recovery had the use of them and they accomplished much. On July 26, Scott joined Wayne at Greenville, with 1,600 mounted Kentuckians, and on the 28th, the legion took up its line of deadly march. Halting at Girty’s Town, they built Fort Mary’s, later on Fort Adams. Throw- ing the enemy off their guard by feints and counter-marching, the troops surprised the Indians, and without the slightest resistance took possession of their villages at the confluence of the Auglaize and Maumee. They found provision in abundance, and tarried a week building Fort Defiance. Again Gen. Wayne would have made terms of peace, on the principle of the Government to arrest bloodshed, but the Indians were rendered cruelly intent on war by an addition of a body of British militia from Detroit, and by regulars stationed at a fort they had built on the left bank of the river, below the rapids, called Fort Miami. The “Fallen Timber” ground was selected as the field for a battle by the savages, in the expectation that the trees cast down by a tornado and there remaining, would seriously impede American progress. August 15th, Wayne marched down the river, and at Roche de Boeuf, erected a fortification for their stores and luggage, naming it “‘ Fort Deposit.”” On the 20th, the American army began the attack. Maj. Price and Maj. Gen. Scott were heroic in their assistance, and after a sharp, deadly conflict, the enemy was routed, fleeing in confision, and leaving their dead and wounded strewn thickly over the field. The savages were pressed to the front always, and when the carnage was painful, the British troops not engaged looked on coolly from the fort and offered no assistance, aiding their own, however, when possible. Gen. Wayne being an ardent soldier, was apt to forget his position, and impetuously place himself constantly in danger. Lieut. Harrison is reported to have requested the General not to forget to give him field orders, in his own partici- pation in the battle, and to have received the reply that the standing order was always to charge bayonets. Notwithstanding the treaty of 1783, and the fact that the British were tres- passing, they encroached upon the Ohio soil, and essayed to vindicate their action by discarding American claims and recognizing the Indian rights, whereby - they might seek their own colonization and make treaties. 6 100 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. Maj. Campbell was in command at Fort Miami, and when he saw the sava- ges being cut down almost mercilessly, he not only refrained from offering aid, but when, in their desperate retreat, they attempted to enter the fort for pro- tection, he ordered the doors closed in their faces. On the following day, Campbell sent a message to Wayne, demanding a reason for hostile action, adding that Great Britain was not now at war with the United States. He received a characteristic reply. During the Revolution, Detroit was an important British point, and the Maumee was its outlet. Therefore, the English clung tenaciously to this pos- session, giving, as it did, the advantage of the great fur trade. . The English Government evidently regretted ceding so much of her territory in the West, and were searching for an excuse to quarrel and attempt to regain at least a part of what they had lost. Their policy was to sustain the bitter hatred between the Indians and the Americans. The settlement of the Maumee Valley had been rapid, but the very name was an agony of remembrance of frightful massacres and atrocities. ol. McKee, the British Indian agent, and his assistant, Capt. Elliott, were from Pennsylvania, but being Tories, they had assimilated with the Indians. They joined the Shawnee tribe and married Indian wives, and made their fortunes thereby, through British appointments to secure the savage interests: The Indians were directly served by McKee and Elliott, with ammunition and sup- plies, during the Wayne conflict. Several skirmishes ensued, but severe weather approaching, the troops moved for quarters, and on the 14th day of September, they attacked the Miami villages, captured them with provisions and stores, and erected a fort, leaving it in charge of Lieut. Col. Hamtramck. With cheers and rifle-shooting, this post was named Fort Wayne. The main army marched into Greenvilleand went into winter quarters. Wayne had achieved a brilliant victory, but his success did not overcome his practical reasoning, and he was unwilling to subject his men to a severe winter’s campaign unless necessity was peremptory. | Gov. Simcoe, Col. McKee and a few of the most savage Indian chiefs attempted to rally the Indians for a new attack. Gov. Simcoe, of Detroit, was aware that the mounted volunteers under Wayne had been allowed to return home, and that the term of service of a portion of the ‘“ Legion ” was about to expire. The British and Indians held a conference, but the latter were weary with fighting for the glory of the Great Father at Detroit, and did not enter into the plan. The winter proved most poverty stricken to them, the English failing to supply them, and their crops and sustenance having been destroyed by Wayne. They were then fully prepared to listen to the faintest signal from Wayne to conciliate affairs, and the Wyandots and Delawares were the first to confer with him on the subject. Their position was exposed and they had suffered severely. HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHIO. 101 They soon influenced other tribes to consider the question. As a mass, they were convinced of their inability to overcome the- Americans, and had become impatient and disgusted with the duplicity of their British friends, who had not hesitated to sacrifice them in every instance, and who deserted them in their hour of distress. United, they sued for peace. Terms were made, and about the Ist of August, the famous Greenville treaty was ratified and established, and the old Indian war in Ohio terminated. The Wyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawatomies, -Miamis, Eel Rivers, Weas, Kickapoos, Biankeshaws and Kaskaskias were thus conciliated. The old Indian boundary line, settled upon at the Fort McIntosh treaty, was retained, and the southwestern line was prolonged from old Fort Recovery, southwest of the Ohio River. ‘¢ The general boundary lines between the lands of the United States and the lands of the said Indian tribes shall begin at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, and thence run up the same to the portage between that and the Tus- carawas Branch of the Muskingum; thence down that branch to the crossing- place above Fort Laurens; thence westerly to a fork of that branch of the Great Miami River (running into the Ohio), at or near which fork stood Lar- amie’s store—Mary’s River, which is a branch of the Miami that runs into Lake Erie; thence a westerly course to Fort Recovery, which stands on a branch of the Wabash ; thence southwesterly on a direct line to the Ohio, so as to inter- sect that river opposite the mouth of the Kentucky or Cuttawa River.” This boundary line has, ever since this memorable treaty, been a prominent landmark, and may now be traced as the southern boundary line of Stark, Ash- land, Richland and Marion Counties, and the northern line, in part, of Tuscar- awas and Knox. Old Fort Recovery was located in Mercer, near the Indiana line. lLaramie’s store was in Shelby. Within the Indian Reservation, the United States held sixteen distinct sec- tions of land, for the purpose of military posts, so arranged that the Govern- ment had full right of way north and west. The “‘ Joy treaty ’’ between England and the United States was ratified early in 1796, and the British were obliged to vacate Detroit and Fort Miami, and recall the fact that they had no claim or right to either points. Gen. Wayne received them, and accompanied by Gov. St. Clair, proceeded to Detroit. Here the lat- ter laid out a county, calling it Wayne, and designated Detroit as its seat of justice. This was the fifth county in the Northwest Territory, north of the Ohio River. Washington County, with Marietta as a seat of justice, was first established ; next Hamilton, with Cincinnati as a county seat. Wayne County was organized in 1796, and included about twenty-six of the present counties, in the northwest part of the State, covering about a quarter of its area, besides parts of Indiana and Michigan. In other parts of the State, the population was rapidly increasing. In May, 1795, the Legislature authorized a committee to institute measures for the = & 102 HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OHO. disposal of their Western lands. The Virginia and Connecticut Reservations required some action on the part of Government, inasmuch as ceding a portion and re-selling had in a measure disturbed free titles. Fifty-six persons negoti- ated and purchased lands, receiving quit-claim titles and entire rights. They re-sold to John Morgan and John Caldwell and Jonathan Bruce, in trust. Thus 3,000,000 acres were prepared for settlement. Upon the quit-claim deeds of these representatives, the full title of lands included within the old Western Reserve rests. | . Judge Symmes began his active odpdaons in 1796, and by the close of 1797 all lands east of the Cuyahoga were laid out in townships, five miles square. The agent of the Connecticut Land Company was Gen. Moses Cleveland, and in his honor the leading city in the Reserve was named. Some townships were retained for private sale, and others were disposed of by lottery, in 1798. _ Wayne’s treaty led to the formation of Dayton, and the peopling of that section.