Washington County, Ohio - Chapter 3: Advent of the White Man, 1881

La Salle Upon the Ohio Two Hundred Years Ago. - Possibility of his Having Explored the Muskingum. - The 'Griffin' on Lake Erie. - French Trading Stations. - Routes Through the Wilderness.--The English Supersede the French. - Interest in the West Exhibited by Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, in 1710. - The Transmontane Order Founded. - Licenses Issued for Trading with the Indians, by the Governor of Pennsylvania, in 1740. - Systematic Exploration of the Ohio Valley by Celeron de Bienville. - At the Mouth of the Muskingum in 1749. - Leaden Plate Buried. - Discovered in 1798. - Pickawillamy, the First Building Erected by the English in Ohio.~-Organization of the Colonial Ohio Land Company, in Virginia, in 1748. - Preparation Made to Establish a Colony. - French Resistance. - War of Britain Against the French and Indians. - Its Results. - Franklin's Plans for Western Settlements. - George Washington upon the Ohio. His Favorable Impressions of the Country. - Immense Schemes for Western Colonization. - Indian Hostility and Imperfection of Land Title the Probable Cause of their Failure. - The First English Military Expedition upon Ohio Soil. - Colonel Boquet Wins a Bloodless Victory on the Upper Muskingum. - Thomas Hutchins. - Hostility of the Shawnees. - Logan. - Lord Dunmore's War. - The Battle of Point Pleasant. - The Breaking Out of the Revolutionary War. - An Event of Jmmeasurable Importance in the West. - General George Rogers Clark's Conquest of the Northwest. - Value of His Foresight and Decisive Action. - His Services Unappreciated. - Miscellaneous Military Invasions. - The Establishment of the Moravian Missions on the Muskingum - The Massacre.

THE adventurous La Salle, there is every reason to believe, was the first white man who trod the soil of the destined State of Ohio, and the first whose eyes beheld the Beautiful river. With a few foltowers and led by Indian guides he penetrated the vast country of the powerful Iroquois until, as Parkman says, he reached "at a point six or seven leagues from Lake Erie, a branch of the Ohio, which he descended to the main stream," and so went onward as far as the "falls," or the site of Louisville. His men abandoning him there, he retraced his way alone. 'This, according to the best authorities, was in the winter of 1669-70, over two hundred years ago. And it is not improbable that one hundred and eighteen years before Marietta was settled this intrepid French explorer had encamped at the mouth of the Muskingum. Indeed, there is some reason to believe that he made his way from Lake Erie to the Ohio by the Cuyahoga, the Tuscarawas, and Muskingum, though the preponderance

*It isa fact worthy of note, and one of which we may well be proud, that the title to every foot of Ohio soil was honorably acquired from the Indians.

of evidence points to the Alleghany as the route followed. Ten years later La Salle unfurled the first sail ever set to the breeze upon Lake Erie, and upon the Griffin, a schooner of forty-five tons burden, made the voyage to Lake Huron. In 1682 he reached the Mississippi, descended to its mouth, and there solemnly proclaimed possession of the vast valley in the name of his king.

The French had a trading station on the Maumee near the site of Toledo, as early as 1680, and according to Bancroft they had a route through the western wilderness from Canada to the Mississippi; by the way of the Maumee, Wabash, and Ohio rivers in 1716; and another only a little later from Presque Isle (Erie) by the Alleghany and Ohio. About 1740, however, the French traders were superseded by the English.

Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia became interested in the western country early in the eighteenth century; engaged in exploring the Alleghanies in 1710; discovered a passage through then in 1714, and entered with great ardor upon the scheme of taking practical possession of the Ohio yalley. He founded the Transmontane order, whose knights were decorated with a golden horseshoe bearing the legend 'Sze jurat transcendere montes," and urged upon the British sovereign the importance of gaining a foothold in the west before the French had gained too powerful an ascendancy. His suggestions were not regarded, and many years later the British government had cause to remember with regret the wise policy they had neglected to act upon. Although no systematic plan of exploration or settlement was followed, individuals from time to time passed the great barrier and visited the the valley of the /a belle riviere. There have been handed down certain vague traditions that the English had trading posts on the Ohio as early as 1730, and it is known positively that they had soon after that time. In 1744 the governor of Pennsylvania issued licenses for trading with the Indians as far west as the Father of Waters. John Howard had descended the Ohio in 1742 and been captured on the Mississippi by the French; and six years later Conrad Weiser, acting in behalf of the English, visited the Shawnees at Logstown (below the site of Pittsburgh) bearing gifts with which to win their favor. About the same time George Crogan and Andrew Montour, the half breed of a Seneca chief bore liberal presents to the Miamis, in return for which the Indians allowed the whites to establish a trading post and build a stockade at the mouth of Loramies creek on the Great Miami (within the present county of Shelby). The fort, built in 1751, which was called Pickawillamy, has been cited by some writers as the first English settlement in Ohio. The building, which was undoubtedly the first erected by the British on the soil of the State, was destroyed in June, 1752, by a force of French and Indians.

Prior to the middle of the century the French strenuously reasserted their ownership of the northwest, and did actually take possession of what is now the northern part of Ohio, building a fort and establishing a trading station at Sandusky. Celeron de Bienville made a systematic exploration of the Ohio valley and formally de- clared by process verbal the ownership of the soil. On the sixteenth of August, 1749, he was at the mouth of the Muskingum. 'This fact was revealed in 1798 by the discovery of a leaden plate which had been buried by him and which set forth that the explorer sent out by the Marquis de la Gallissoniere, captain general of New France, agreeably to the wishes of His Majesty, Louis XV, had deposited the plate as a monument of the renewal of possession of /a riviere Oyo, otherwise /a delle riviere, and all those which empty into it, and of all the lands of both sides even to the sources of the said rivers, and which had been obtained by force of arms and by treaties, especially those of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix-lachappelle. 'The plate was found protruding from the bank after a freshet, by some boys, who, ignorant of its antiquarian value, cut away a considerable portion of it to melt into bullets, lead there being very scarce. 'The plate was finally secured by Paul l'earing, one of the Marietta pioneers, and the inscription was translated by William Woodbridge (afterwards governor of Michigan) but then a young man, who had been studying I*rench at Gallipolis. Considerable difficulty was experienced in making the translation as a portion of the inscription had been cut away by the finders of the plate, but the larger part remaining enabled the student to supply the missing words. 'The plate was nearly twelve inches from top to bottom and about seven and a half in breadth.* A similar plate was found in 1846 at the mouth of the Kanawha. 'They were doubtless deposited at the mouths of all the principal tributaries of the Ohio.

The French had a very just claim to the Ohio valley, but it was destined that they should not hold it and already events were shaping which eventually led to the overthrow of their authority and the vesture of title and possession in the English crown.

The Colonial Ohio Land company was organized in Virginia in 1748 by twelve associates, among whom were Thomas Lee, and Lawrence and Augustine, brothers of George Washington. Under their auspices Christopher Gist explored the Ohio as far as the falls, travelling a portion of the time with Croghan and Montour. The company secured a royal grant of half a million acres of land in the Ohio valley. In 1753 preparations were made to establish a colony. The French exhibited an intention of resistance, and the royal governor of Virginia sent George Washington, then a young man, to the commander of the French forces to demand their reason for invasion of British territory. Washington received an answer that was both haughty and defiant. Returning to Virginia he made known the failure of his mission. The project of making a settlement was abandoned, and preparations were immediately made for the maintenance of the British claim to the western valley by force of arms. The result was the union of the colonies, the ultimate involyement of England in the war that ensued, the defeat of the French, and the vesture in the British

* This interesting relic passed into the possession of the learned and eccentric Caleb Atwater, of Circleville, Ohio, in 1821, was by him given to Governor Clinton, of New Yoik, and by him transmitted to the _ Massachusetts Antiquarian society.

crown of the right and title to Canada and of all the territory east of the Mississippi and south to the Spanish possessions, excepting New Orleans and a small body of land surrounding it. Benjamin Franklin had previously tried to effect a union of the colonies and had been unsuccessful. He had proposed a plan of settlement in 1754, and suggested that two colonies should be located in the west - one upon the Cuyahoga and the other upon the Scioto, "on which," he said, "for forty miles each side of it and quite up to its head is a body of all rich land, the finest spot of its bigness in all North America, and has the peculiar advantage of sea coal in plenty (even above ground in two places) for fuel when the wood shall have been destroyed."

But little advantage was taken by the English of the ascendancy they had gained. About the only men who visited the country northwest of the Ohio were traders. The frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia were settled in due time, but as the title to the soil on the other side of the Ohio was not perfected no attempt was made for several years to occupy the country. Kentucky had even been penetrated by the pioneers, of whom Daniel Boone was a type, and many setttlements founded before attention was again seriously given to the country north of the Ohio.

George Washington made a journey down the Ohio in 1770. He was accompanied by Dr. Craik, Captain (afterwards Colonel) William Crawford (who was burned to death at the stake within the present limits of Wyandot county in 1782), and several other white men, also by a party of Indians. 'The little company embarked on the Ohio from Kort Pitt, October zoth, and on the night of the twenty-fifth camped out "about half way down the Iong Reach" (Grand view). Washington's journal continues:

October 26th. At the lower end of the Long Reach, and for some distance up it, o1 the east side, is a large bottom, but low and covered with beech neur the river shore, which is no indication of good land.

'The Long Reach is a straight course of the river for about eighteen to twenty miles, which appears more extraordinary as the Ohio in general is remarkably crooked. 'There are several islands in this Reach, some containing a hundred or more acres of land, but all | apprehend liable to be overflowed.

On the night of October 26th Washington encamped "at a creek about twelve miles below the Three Islands," which was "pretty large at the mouth and just above an island." This was the Little Muskingum.

Left our encampment a quarter before seven, and after passing the creek near which we lay and another of much the same size, and on the same side [this was Duck creek], also one island about two miles in length, but not wide, we came to the mouth of the Muskingum, distant from our encampment about four miles. This river is about a hundred and fifty yards wide at the mouth; it runs out in a gentle current and clear stream, and is navigable a great way into the country for canoes. From Muskingum to Little Kanawha is .vout thirteen miles. This is about as wide as the mouth of the Muskingum, but the water much deeper. Itruns up towards the inhabitants of Monongahela. About six or seven miles below the mouth of the Little Kanawha we came to a small creek on the west side which the Indians call Little Hockhocking, but before we did this we passed another small creek on the same side near the mouth of that river, and a cluster of islands afterward. The lands for two or three miles below

Largely through Washington was the interest in the west revived. Immense schemes for settlement and land speculation were projected. A huge company was organized which included the Old Ohio company and the Walpole scheme as well as recognizing the bounties of the Virginia volunteers in the French war. Doubtless some of these plans for the devlopement of the west would have succeeded had it not been for Indian hostilities upon the border settlements already established, and the probability of a long continuance of the perturbed condition of affairs generally. Colonel Henry Boquet had made the first English military expedition into the Ohio country in 1764, his purpose being to punish and awe the Indians and recover from them the captives they had taken during the previous years on the Pennsylvania and Virginia borders. He was successful in the accomplishment of each one of his objects.) The expedition was directed against the Delawares upon the Muskingum and Tuscarawas. No blood was shed, the Indians assenting to the terms of a treaty prepared by Colonel Boquet, and delivering to him over two hundred prisoners. Upon the twenty-eighth of November the army of about fifteen hundred men returned to Fort Pitt, which point they had left on October 3d. This expedition for a time tranquilized the Indians of the Ohio country, and the next ten years passed peacefully and without the occurrence of any important event. With Colonel Boquet was Thomas Hutchins (of whom we shall have frequent occasion to speak). He served in the capacity of military engineer and was geographer to the king of Great Britain. Hutchins published a large book upon the western country with which he became very familiar from long continued services as explorer. In later years as geographer of the United States he superintended the survey of the "seven ranges," and it was largely through his influence that the Ohio company was led to locate their purchase upon the Muskingum.

But returning to the period from which we retrograded to speak of the Boquet expedition, we find in 1774 that the Shawnees have become bitterly hostile, principally on account of the prospect of losing their land and because of the murder of the kindred of Logan, the famous Mingo, who was now dwelling with them at the Old Chillicothe town on the Scioto (where is now the village of Westfall, Pickaway county). Logan had "fully glutted his vengeance" upon the white settlements of the Monongahela country, and numerous atrocities had been committed all along the border. To quell the turbulence that prevailed Lord Dunmore, the then royal governor of Virginia, organized an army of invasion of the Indian country. He had a desire for military renown and decided to assume personal command of the larger division, while he entrusted the other, consisting of about eleven hundred men raised west of the Blue Ridge, to

*The journey extended to the Big Kanawha. On his way back Washington, accompanied by Crawford, walked across the big bend, now in Meigs county, and again taking his boat proceeded up the river, arriving at Fort Pitt November 21.

General Andrew Lewis. The forces of the latter were attacked by the Indians on the tenth of October south of the Ohio, and the ensuing combat, known as the battle of Point Pleasant, was one of the most desperate and bloody in the annals of the west. The contending forces were very nearly equal, it is claimed by most writers, but there is strong probability that the Indians were much weaker in numbers than the army which they assailed. The whites lost half of their officers and fifty-two men killed, while the Indian loss was estimated at two hundred and thirty-three. Lord Dunniore's division passed through a bloodless campaign. They descended the Ohio to the mouth of the Hocking river, and there built Fort Gower. The governor was here at the time of the battle of Point Pleasant, and had sent messengers to Lewis ordering him to march toward the Scioto towns. Dunmore marched through the territory included in Athens county and onward to the Pickaway (originally Piqua) plains, below the site of Circleville. There he was met by Lewis' decimated division, whom he could hardly keep from falling upon the Indians to avenge the death of their comrades at Point Pleasant. A treaty was held at Camp Charlotte, which was attended and acquiesced in by all of the leading chiefs of the villages except Logan. Lord Dunmore dispatched John Gibson to confer with the haughty Mingo, and his visit elicited the famous speech, which Jefferson pronounced equal in eloquence to any ever made by the great orators of civilized nations.

Already the premonitory signs of that discontent which developed into the Revolution of American independence were exhibiting themselves, and soon the conflict was begun which rivited the attention of the world upon the colonies. The Revolutionary period was almost barren of event in the west. There was one event, however, of immeasurable importance. The time had come when the destiny of the Great West - of the Northwestern Territory - was to be decided. The man who was to shape its destiny was, in 1774, an officer in Lord Dunmore's army, and in 1776 a pioneer settler in Kentucky - George Rogers Clark. He was a realization of the ideal soldier - cool, coruageous, and sagacious, and at once the most powerful man and the most picturesque character in the whole west. It was his foresight and prompt, efficient action which at the close of the war made the Northwest Territory a portion of the United States instead of leaving it in the possession of the British.* He foresaw that even if the colonies should be victorious in their war for independence they would be confined to the eastern side of the Alleghanies, unless the west was a special field of conquest. After failing to interest the house of Burgesses he made an appeal to Patrick Henry, the governor of Virginia, and from him he succeded in obtaining the authority which he needed, viz.: commissions that empowered him to raise seven companies of soldiers, and to seize the British posts in the northwest.

'The cession of that great territory, under the treaty of 1873, was due mainly to the foresight, the courage and endurance of one man, who never received from his country an adequate recognition of his great service." - Hon. Fames A. Garfield: Address, 187}. ~

In January, 1778, he was at Pittsburgh securing provisions and ammunition; in June he was marching through the unbroken forest at the head of a small but valiant army, principally composed of his fellow pioneers from Kentucky. His march was directed towards the Illinois country. His able generalship and courage soon placed the garrisons of Cahokia, Kaskaskia, and St. Vincent in his possession, and his equally great tact enabled him to win over the French inhabitants to the American cause and make of them warm allies.

Two other expeditions were made by General Clark - both against the Indians upon the Miamis - one in 1780 and the other in 1782. Other expeditions into or through Ohio territory were made as follows: by Colonel Bradstreet (simultaneously with Boquet's expedition - 1764) along Lake Erie to Detroit, accompanied by Major Israel Putnam (the major general of the Revolution); by Colonel Angus McDonald (just prior to Dunmore's invasion); by General Lachlin McIntosh in 1778 (to the 'Tuscarawas, where he built the first English fort, with a parapet and stockade, intended as a permanent work, in Ohio); by Colonel John Bowman in 1779; by General Daniel Broadhead in 1781; by Colonel Archibald Lochry in the same year; by Colonel Williamson in 1782; bythe fated William Crawford in the summer of the year last mentioned; by Colonel Benjamin Logan in 1786; and still others of less importance by Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, Colonel Edwards, and Colonel Todd, at various times during the decade preceding the settlement of the territory. In drawing a rapid outline of the history of this western land it is sufficient merely to mention these various military incursions of the Indians' domain, and we have spoken more at length of General Clark's expedition because its results have a wide, general interest, and of Dunmore's invasion, because nearer the legitimate field of our work. Enough has been said to bring to mind the fact that prior to the arrival of the New England pioneers the Ohio country was the scene of many actions and events, and though a wilderness inhabited only by the roving savage had already a history.

One other topic remains to be touched upon briefly in the conclusion of this chapter, and it is one of painful and peculiar interest. We have in mind the Moravian missions on the Muskingum, and use the word painful, as the horrible massacre perpetrated there - the blackest stain on Ohio history - comes to mind. We say alsoa peculiar interest, and that phrase is suggested by the fact that the Moravians had better claims to be considered as settlers than any other dwellers north of the Ohio, prior to the arrival of the New England colony, and however inadequate such claims may appear it must at least be admitted that these "monks of Protestantism"* presented to the western world a phase of civilization and religion which was both picturesque and inspiring, and, also, that one of them at least, the Rev. John Heckewelder, was in after years prominently identified with affairs of State and in close association with the Marietta settlers.

As early as 1761 the Delaware Indians on the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum were visited by a Moravian missionary, the Rev. Christian Frederick Post. In March of the following year John Heckewelder became his companion and assistant. Only a few months, however, were spent in missionary labor, for in the fall the Indians who had first welcomed them, became suspicious that their sojourn there was only a ruse through which a foothold was to be gained leading to settlement, and Post and Heckewelder were obliged to leave the country to save their lives. Not until ten years had passed by was another attempt made by the zealous religionists to plant a mission among the savages. In 1772 Rev. David Zeisberger founded Schoenbrunn (Beautiful Spring) on the west side of the river and near the site of New Philadelphia, 'Tuscarawas county, and twenty-eight persons located there. Gnadenhutten ('Tents of Grace) was established the same year seven miles below Schoenbrunn. The Rev. George Jungman, Rev. John Roth and Rev. John Etwin came out as missionaries from Pennsylvania the same year; and with the last named, immigrated to Zeisberger's station a large company of converted Indians, bringing with them the implements of industry. (Good log huts were built in the regularly laid out village, a large chapel reared in which to hold religious services, the ground tilled, and every measure taken that was considered needful in the formation of a permanent settlement. The simple, quiet life went on very pleasantly, and all was peace and prosperity. Much did the Dela: ware chiefs and the few traders who visited Schoenbrunn marvel to see so many Indians living together after the manner of the whites, and devoting themselves to agriculture rather than the chase. 'They had abjured war and all savage customs. New converts were made almost daily, and the pious missionaries felt well rewarded for their patient toil and gave praise to Him whom they regarded as the prime author of their success. So many accessions were made by the Moravians that in 1776 Zeisberger formed another colony, village or station, near the present town of Coshocton, and gave it the name Lichtenan. In 1780 Salem was founded five miles below Gnadenhutten, and the Rev. John Heckewelder became its regular preacher. All went well with the people at the mission stations until the British, fearing or pretending to fear, that they were performing various services for the Americans, forcibly removed them in September, 1781, to Sandusky. There they were sorely distressed by lack of provisions, and in the latter part of the following winter obtained permission to return to their old stations and gather the corn which they had planted the summer before, and to secure if possible any of the valuables they had been obliged to leave behind them when they were hurried away. They came down from Sandusky in February, and the first of March found them busily engaged in plucking the corn which had been left standing during the winter, and packing it for transportation to their famishing brethren. 'The weather during the greater part of February," says Doddridge, "had been uncommonly fine, so that the war parties from Sandusky visited the settlements and began depredations earliey than usual. One of the parties fell upon a family named Wallace and murdered all of its members, exhibiting even greater brutality than usually characterized their atrocities. The early period at which the fatal visitation was made led to the conclusion that the murderers were either Moravians or that the warriors had their winter quarters at their towns on the Muskingum. In either case the Moravians being at fault, the safety of the pioneer settlements required the destruction of their establishments at that place.*" A force of eighty or ninety men was immediately organized, and led by Colonel David Williamson set out for the Muskingum. On their arrival at Gnadehutten they found the Indians in the fields gathering their corn and with their arms by them as was the common custom, for the purpose of shooting game, and also to guard against attack. The unsuspecting Indians hearing the whites' protestations of peace and good will, and being informed that they had come to remove them to Fort Pitt and place them under the protection of the Americans, gave up their arms and began with all speed to prepare food for the white men and themselves for the proposed journey. A party of men sent out for the purpose soon brought in the Indians from Salem, and with the Gnadenhutten Indians they were placed in block-houses and confined under an armed guard. Colonel Williamson then cooly put the question to his men, should the prisoners be taken to Pittsburgh or dispatched. Sixteen or eighteen men only out of the eighty or ninety men leaned towards the side of mercy. The majority were for murdering them and were impatient to begin their hellish work. The Moravians had foreseen their fate as soon as they had been placed in confinement, and in the hour of extremity exhibited the steadfastness of their simple faith by singing the hymns and breathing the prayers that Heckewelder and Zeisberger had taught them. Some of them appealed for mercy when the murderers came among them to begin their work, but the greater number, sustained by their acquired religious faith or natural stoicism, met death with majestic composure. The executioners, with tomahawks, war-clubs, and knives, entering the crowded slaughter-pens struck down the defenseless and innocent captives until their arms grew tired, and then their places were taken by others of those white savages who thirsted for blood; and the dreadful carnage went on until ninety-six lives had been taken. Of these sixty-two were grown persons, of whom one-third were women, and the remaing thirty-four were children of various ages, from those just entering manhood or womanhood down to babes on their mothers' breasts. Neither the grey hairs of old age nor the mute, appealing innocence of childhood were protection from the fury and the brutality of these fiends in the form of men. Of all the Indians gathered in the block-houses only two escaped. Those at Schoenbrunn fled before the approach of Williamson's men and none of them were taken. This massacre occured on the seventh of March, 1782, just six years and one month

The wanton butchery of these inoffensive Moravians, more than any other event in western history, had the effect of making the Indians hostile to the Americans, and therefore, naturally, inclining them to amity with the British. This was an end which the latter people constantly sought to effect by every method of intrigue. There is some reason, too, for the belief that Williamson's men were led to the Moravian towns and incited to the commission of the stupendous massacre through the shrewd wiles of the British. It seems to be authoritatively established that the murderers of the Wallace family retreated by way of Gnadenhutten, and that one of them bartered with an unsuspecting young woman there for food, and in payment gave her a garment which he had stripped from Mrs. Wallace or one of the other victims, and that this garment was seen and recognized by some of the pursuing party as one which had been familiar to them at theirhomes. This fact may partly explain, but cannot in the slightest measure justify, the murder of ninety-six persons. It is sufficient, at any rate, to suggest the suspicion that to a dark stratagem of the English emissaries in the west was attributed the foulest deed in the history of the border. The Indians, wrought into frenzied passion, began that malignant, remorseless, and unceasing raiding of the borders which terrorized the frontiers from Fort Pitt to the falls of the Ohio. 'Their evil deeds were more numerous than ever before and their treatment of prisoners more inhuman. One of the first acts of retaliation upon the Americans, strangely enough, was visited upon Colonel William Crawford, an intimate friend and companion at arms of Colonel Williamson. But the diabolical cruelty that was practiced upon him was only one of the many horrible deeds which were the outgrowth of the white man's crime.