Logan County, Ohio - Chapter 8, 1880

WHILE these six years of Indian wars were in progress, Kentucky was admitted as a State, and Pinckney's treaty with Spain was completed. This last occurrence was of vital importance to the West, as it secured the free navigation of the Mississippi, charging only a fair price for the storage of goods at Spanish- ports. This, though not all that the Americans wished, was a great gain in their favor, and did much to stop those agitations regarding a separation on the part of Kentucky. It also quieted affairs further south than Kentucky, in the Georgia and South Carolina Territory, and put an end to French and Spanish intrigue for the Western Territory. The treaty was signed November 24, 1794. Another treaty was concluded by Mr. John Jay between the two governments. Lord Greenville representing the English, and Mr. Jay, the Americans. The negotiations lasted from April to November 19, 1795, when, on that day, the treaty was signed and duly recognized. It decided effectually all the questions at issue, and was the signal for the removal of the British troops from the Northwestern outposts. This was effected as soon as the proper transfers could be made. The second article of the treaty provided that, " His Majesty will withdraw all his troops and garrisons from all posts and places within the boundary lines assigned by the treaty of peace to the United States. This evacuation shall take place on or before the 1st day of June, 1796, and all the proper measures shall be taken, in the interval, by concert, between the Government of the United States and His Majesty's Governor General in America, for settling the previous arrangements which may be necessary respecting the delivery of the said posts ; the United States, in the mean time, at their discretion, extending their settlements to any part within the said boundary line, except within the precincts or jurisdiction of any of the said posts.

" All settlers and all traders within the precincts or jurisdiction of the said posts shall continue to enjoy, unmolested, all their property of every kind, and shall be protected therein. They shall be at full liberty to remain there or to remove with all, or any part, of their effects, or retain the property thereof at their discretion ; such of them as shall continue to reside within the said boundary lines, shall not be compelled to become citizens of the United States, or take any oath of allegiance to the Government thereof; but they shall be at full liberty so to do, if they think proper; they shall make or declare their election one year after the evacuation aforesaid. And all persons who shall continue therein after the expiration of the said year, without having declared their intention of remaining subjects to His Britannic Majesty, shall be considered as having elected to become citizens of the United States."

The Indian war had settled all fears from that source ; the treaty with Great Britain had established the boundaries between the two countries and secured peace, and the treaty with Spain had secured the privilege of navigating the Mississippi, by paying only a nominal sum. It had also bound the people of the West together, and ended the old separation question. There was no danger from that now. Another difficulty arose, however, relating to the home rule, and the organization of the home government. There were two parties in the country, known as Federalist and Anti-Federalist. One favored a central government, whose authority should be supreme ; the other, only a compact, leaving the States supreme. The worthlessness of the old colonial system became, daily, more apparent. While it existed no one felt safe. There was no prospect of paying the debt, and, hence, no credit. When Mr. Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, offered his financial plan to the country, favoring centralization, it met, in many places, violent opposition. Washington was strong enough to carry it out, and gave evidence that he would do so. When, therefore, the excise law passed, and taxes on whisky were collected, an open revolt occurred in Pennsylvania, known as the "Whisky Insurrection." It was put down, finally, by military power, and the malcontents made to know that the United States was a government, not a compact liable co rupture at any time, and by any of its members. It ta,ught the entire nation a lesson. Centralization meant preservation. Should a " compact " form of government prevail, then anarchy and ruin, and ultimate subjection to some foreign power, met their view. That they had just fought to dispel, and must it all go for naught ? The people saw the rulers were right, and gradually, over the West, spread a spirit antagonistic to State supremacy. It did not revive till Jackson's time, when he, with an iron hand and iron will, crushed out the evil doctrine of State supremacy. It revived again in the late war, again to be crushed. It is to be hoped that ever thus will be its fate. " The Union is inseparable," said the Government, and the people echoed the words.

During the war, and while all these events had been transpiring, settlements had been taking place upon the Ohio, which, in their influence upon the Northwest, and especially upon the State, as soon as it was created, were deeply felt. The Virginia and the Connecticut Reserves were at this time peopled, and, also, that part of the Miami Valley about Dayton, which city dates its origin from that period.

As early as 1787, the reserved lands of the Old Dominion north of the Ohio were examined, and, in August of that year, entries were made. As no good title could be obtained from Congress at this time, the settlement practically ceased until 1790, when the prohibition to enter them was withdrawn. As soon as that was done, surveying began again. Nathaniel Massie was among the foremost men in the survey of this tract, and locating the lands, laid off a town about twelve miles above Maysville. The place was called Manchester, and yet exists. From this point, Massie continued through all the Indian war, despite the danger, to survey the surrounding country, and prepare it for settlers.

Connecticut had, as has been stated, ceded her lands, save a tract extending one hundred and twenty miles beyond the western boundary of Pennsylvania. Of this Connecticut Reserve, so far as the Indian title was extinguished, a survey was ordered in October, 1786, and an ofiice opened for its disposal. Part was soon sold, and, in 1792, half a million of acres were given to those citizens of Connecticut who had lost property by the acts of the British troops during the Revolutionary war at New London, New Haven and elsewhere. These lands thereby became known as " Fire lands " and the "Sufferer's lands," and were located in the western part of the Reserve. In May, 1795, the Connecticut Legislature authorized a committee to dispose of the remainder of the Reserve. Before autumn the committee sold it to a company known as the Connecticut Land Company for $1,200,000, and about the 5th of September quit>claimed the land to the Company. The same day the Company received it, it sold 3,000,000 acres to John Morgan, John Caldwell and Jonathan Brace, in trust. Upon these quit-claim titles of the land all deeds in the Reserve are based. Surveys were commenced in 1796, and, by the close of the next year, all the land east of the Cuyahoga was divided into townships five miles square. The agent of the Connecticut Land Company was Gen. Moses Cleveland, and in his honor the leading city of the Reserve was named. That township and five others were reserved for private sale; the balance were disposed of by lottery, the first drawing occurring in February, 1798.

Dayton resulted from the treaty made by Wayne. It came out of the boundary ascribed to Symmes, and for a while all such lands were not recognized as sold by Congress, owing to the failure of Symmes and his associates in paying for them. Thereby there existed, for a time, considerable uneasiness regarding the title to these lands. In 1799, Congress was induced to issue patents to the actual settlers, and thus sfecure them in their preemption.

Seventeen days after Wayne's treaty, St. Glairs Wilkinson, Jonathan Dayton and Israel Ludlow contracted with Symmes for the seventh and eighth ranges, between Mad River and the Little Miami. Three settlements were to be made: one at the mouth of Mad River, one on the Little Miami, in the seventh range, and another on Mad River. On tSie 21st of September, 1795, Daniel C. Cooper started to survey and mark out a road in the purchase, and John Dunlap to run its boundaries, which was completed before October 4. On November 4, Mr. Ludlow laid oiF the town of Dayton, which, like land in the Connecticut Reserve, was sold by lottery.

A gigantic scheme to purchase eighteen or twenty million acres in Michigan, and then procure a good title from the Government - who alone had such a right to procure land - by giving members of Congress an interest in the investment, appeared shortly after Wayne's treaty. When some of the members were approached, however, the real spirit of the scheme appeared, and, instead of gaining ground, led to the exposure, resulting in the reprimanding severely of Robert Randall, the principal mover in the whole plan, and in its speedy disappearance.

Another enterprise, equally gigantic, also appeared. It was, however, legitimate, and hence successful. On the 20th of February, 1795, the North American Land Company was formed in Philadelphia, under the management of such patriots as Robert Morris, John Nicholson and James Greenleaf This Company purchased large tracts in the West, which it disposed of to actual settlers, and thereby aided greatly in populating that part of the country.

Before the close of 1795, the Governor of the Territory, and his Judges, published sixty-four statutes. Thirty-four of these were adopted at Cincinnati during June, July and August of that year. They were known as the Maxwell code, from the name of the publisher, but were passed by Governor St. Clair and Judges Symmes aiid Turner. Among them was that which provided that the common law of England, and all its statutes, made previous to the fourth year of James the First, should be in full force within the Territory. " Of the system as a whole," says Mr. Case, " with its many imperfections, it may be doubted that any colony, at so early a period after its first establishment, ever had one so good and applicable to all."

The Union had now safely passed through its most critical period after the close of the war of independence. The danger from an irruption of its own members ; of a war or alliance of its Western portion with France and Spain, and many other perplexing questions, were now effectually settled, and the population of the Territory began rapidly to increase. Before the close of the year 1790, the Northwest contained over five thousand inhabitants, the requisite number to entitle it to one representative in the national jDongress.

Western Pennsylvania also, despite the various conflicting claims regarding the land titles in that part of the State, began rapidly to fill with emigrants. The "Triangle" and the " Struck District " were surveyed and put upon the market under the act of 1792. Treaties and purchases from the various Indian tribes, obtained control of the remainder of the lands in thai, part of the State, and, by 1796, the State owned all the land within its boundaries. Towns were laid off, land put upon the market, so that by the year 1800, the western part of the Keystone State was divided into eight counties, viz., Beaver, Butler, Mercer, Crawford, Erie, Warren, Venango and Armstrong.

The ordinance relative to the survey and disposal of lands in the Northwest Territory has already been given. It was adhered to, save in minor cases, where necessity required a slight change. The reservations were recognized by Congress, and the titles to them all confirmed to the grantees. Thus, Clarke and his men, the Connecticut Reserve, the Refugee lands, the French inhabitants, and all others holding patents to land from colonial or foreign governments, were all confirmed in their rights and protected in their titles.

Before the close of 1796, the upper Northwestern posts were all vacated by the British, under the terms of Mr. Jay's treaty. Wayne at once transferred his headquarters to Detroit, where a county was named for him, including the northwestern part of Ohio, the northeast of Indiana, and the whole of Michigan.

The occupation of the Territory by the Americans gave additional impulse to emigration, and a better feeling of security to emigrants, who followed closely upon the path of the army. Nathaniel Massie, who has already been noticed as the founder of Manchester, laid out the town of Chillioothe, on the Scioto, in 1796. Before the close of the year, it contained several stores, shops, a tavern, and was well populated. With the increase of settlement and the security guaranteed by the treaty of Greenville, the arts of civilized life began to appear, and their influence upon pioneers, especially those born on the frontier, began to manifest itself. Better dwellings, schools, churches, dress and manners prevailed. Life began to assume a reality, and lost much of that recklessness engendered by the habits of a frontier Ufe. ;

Cleveland, Cincinnati, the Miami, the Muskingum and the Scioto Valleys were filling with people. Cincinnati had more than one hundred log cabins, twelve or fifteen frame houses and a population of more than six hundred persons. In 1796, the first house of worship for the Presbyterians in that city was built.

Before the close of the same year, Manchester contained over thirty families ; emigrants from Virginia were going up all the valleys from the Ohio; and Ebenezer Zane had opened a bridlepath from the Ohio River, at Wheeling, across the country, by Chillicothe, to Limestone, Ky. The next year, the United States mail, for the first time, traversed this route to the West. Zane was given a section of land for his path. The population of the Territory, estimated at from five to eight thousand, was chiefly distributed in lower valleys, bordering on the Ohio River. The French still occupied the Illinois country, and were the principal inhabitants about Detroit.

South of the Ohio River, Kentucky was progressing favorably, while the '' Southwestern Territory," ceded to the United States by North CaroUna in 1790, had so rapidly populated that, in 1793, a Territorial form of government was allowed. The ordinance of 1787, save the clause prohibiting slavery, was adopted, and the Territory named Tennessee. On June 6, 1796, the Territory contained more than seventy-five thousand inhabitants, and was admitted into the Union as a State. Four years after, the census showed a population of 105,602 souls, including 13,584 slaves and persons of color. The same year Tennessee became a State, Samuel Jackson and Jonathan Sharpless erected the Redstone Paper Mill, four miles east of Brownsville, it being the first manufactory of the kind west of the Alleghanies.

In the month of December, 1796, Gen. Wayne, who had done so much for the development of the . West, while on his way from Detroit to Philadelphia, wa.s attacked with sickness and died in a cabin near Erie, in the north part of Pennsylvania. He was nearly fifty-one years old, and was 'one of the bravest officers in the Revolutionary war, and one of America's truest patriots. In 1809, his remains were removed firom Erie, by his sou. Col. Isaac Wayne, to the Radnor churchyard, near the place of his birth, and an elegant monument erecte'd on his tomb by the Pennsylvania Cincinnati Society.

After the death of Wayne, G-en. Wilkinson was appointed to the command of the Western army. While ho was in command, Carondelet, the Spanish governor of West Florida and Louisiana, made one more efibrt to separate the Union, and set up either an independent government in the West, or, what was more in accord with his wishes, effect a union with the Spanish nation. In June, 1797, he sent Power again into the Northwest and into Kentucky to sound the existing feeling. Now, however, they were not easily won over. The home government was a certainty, the breaches had been healed, and Power was compelled to abandon the mission , not, however, until he had received a severe reprimand from many who saw through his plan, and openly exposed it. His mission closed the efforts of the Spanish authorities to attempt the dismemberment of the Union, and showed them the coming downfall of their power in America. They were obliged to surrender the posts claimed by the United States under the treaty of 1795, and not many years after, sold their American possessions to the United States, rather than see a rival European power attain control over them.

On the 7th of April, 1798, Congress passed an act, appointing Winthrop Sargent, Secretary of the Northwest Territory, Governor of the Territory of the Mississippi, formed the same day. In 1801, the boundary between America and the Spanish possessions was definitely fixed. The Spanish retired from the disputed territory, and henceforward their attempts to dissolve the American Union ceased. The seat of the Mississippi Territory was fixed at Loftus Heights, six miles north of the thirty-first degree of latitude.

The appointment of Sargent to the charge of the Southwest Territory, led to the choice of WilUam Henry Harrison, who had been aid-de-camp to Gen. Wayne in 1794, and whose character stood very high among the people of the West, to the Secretaryship of the Northwest, which place he held until appointed to represent that Territory in Congress.