Paint Township (part 5 of 14)

"As has been already intimated, the ten years that immediately followed the Bouquet expedition (from 1764 to 1774), was a period of comparative peace on both sides of the Ohio river. What might be ai^propriately called ' a state of war ' between the Ohio Indians and the Western frontiersmen did not exist at any time during that decade. It is true some outrages were perpetrated by the Indians that provoked some acts of retaliation on the part of the whites during ' those piping times of peace ; ' but, taken all in all, those ten years may be properly styled the halcyon decade of the latter half of the eighteenth century, as between the civilized white men east of the Ohio and the savage red men west of it.

" While, however, it was yet early spring-time, in 1774, rumors of threatened horse-stealing raids, and of contemplated hostile visits by the Indians into the frontier settlements, were rife. The border set- tiers were in a painful state of distrust, of doubt, uncertainty and ap]u-eliension, which culminated in fully arousing the partially smoth. ered hostility mutually cherished by the two hostile races towards each other.

" On the 16th of April, 1774, a large canoe, owned by William Butler, a well-known and leading merchant or trader of Pittsburgh, with a number of white men in it, was attacked by three Indians (supposed Cherokees), while it was floating down the Ohio Kiver, near Wheeling, and one of the men was killed. This outrage soon became known, and was followed ^t once by wild, but generally believed rumors of further contemplated Indian atrocities. It will readily be seen how news of such an outrage, with the accompanying and prob. ably exaggerated reports, would fall upon the ears of the already highly excited and inflammable frontiersmen, many of whom had, probably, for good cause, been long nursing their hatred of the Indian. The outrage, as might have been expected, was promptly succeeded by retaliation, for it was only a few days thereafter when a number of Indians that were going down the Ohio river in a boat were killed by some white men who alleged the murder of one of Butler's men as the provocation and their justilication. It has been often asserted and extensively published, that Captain Michael Cresap, of border a&d revolutionary fame, had command of the murderers of these friendly Indians. I do not think the charge clearly established, but whatever may be the fact on that point, it is probable that the atrocity was perpetrated at the instigation of Dr. John Connolly, who was at this time commandant, under Virginia authority, at the 'Forks of the Ohio;' the fort at that time being called Fort Dunmore, in honor of the usurping Governor of Virginia. The frontiersmen about Wheeling being generally Virginians and Marylanders, naturally and easily became victims of the malign influence of the artful, designing Connolly, a tool of Dunmore's, who was always ready to do his bidding. Captain Cresap recognized Connolly's authority, and was in correspondence with him, Connolly sent an express to Cresaj), which reached him April 21st, informing him ' that war was inevitable ; that the savages would strike as soon as the season permitted.' This message, says Brantz Mayer, was the ' signal for open hostilities against the Indians, and resulted in a solemn and formal declaration of war on the 26th of April, and that very night two scalps were brought into camp.'' Upon the receipt of the letter from Connolly, on the 21st, ' a council was called at Wheeling, of not only the military there then,

" The settlers at and in the vicinity of "Wheeling, and along the Ohio Kiver, were doubtless inveigled into the commission of hostile acts towards the Indians by the infljfmmatory appeals to them by Connolly, whose influence over them was of vicious tendency. He was an ambitious intriguer, a mere instrument in the hands of Dunmore ; and the war of 17Y4 is fairly traceable, to a large extent, to his intrigues, exciting appeals and machinations.

" Brantz Mayer says that ' the day after the declaration of war by Cresap and his men, under the warning authority of Connolly's message, some canoes filled with Indians were descried on the river, keeping under cover of the island, to screen themselves from view. They were immediately pursued and overtaken fifteen miles below, at or near the mouth of Captina creek, where a battle ensued, in which an Indian was taken prisoner, a few were wounded, on both sides, and perhaps, one slain. "On examination, the canoes were found to contain a considerable quantity of ammunition and warlike stores, showing that they were " on the war-patli " in earnest.' Captain Cresap is generally supposed to have commanded the pursuing party, but his biographer. Rev. John J, Jacob, emphatically declares that he was not present. This affair occurred April 27th.

" On the 30th of April, a force of twenty or thirty men, led by Captain Daniel Greathouse, went up the Ohio river to the mouth of Yellow creek, above the present city of Steuben ville, and there, accompanied by circumstances of great perfidy and atrocity, murdered ten Indians, some of whom were the kindred of Logan, the celebrated Mingo Chief. This act was the more dastardly because committed against men, women and children who were known to cherish no hostile purposes toward the whites! After these occurrences, it was" manifest to the most hopeful friends of peace that an Indian war was inevitable! As might have been anticipated, the savages at once furiously took the war-path ! Parties of them, with murder in their hearts, scoured the country east of the Ohio river, and made hostile raids into the settlements and laid them waste ! Men, women and children were murdered, and scalped ; the brains of infants were dashed out against the trees, and their bodies were left exposed, to be devoured by birds of prey and by the wild beasts of the forest ! Terror, gloom, excitement, consternation pervaded all the border settlements !

Histokt Of Ohio. 1G3

rages that clearly indicated a hostile disposition of the Indians toward the whites and a determination to make war npon them, that functionary promjDtly commissioned Colonel Angus McDonald, and authorized hiin to organize the settlers on the Youghiogheny and Monongahela rivers for the defense of the frontiers.

" Lord Dunmore, knowing Michael Cresap to be a man of courage, energy, and force of character, personally tendered him a captain's commission, with a view to the immediate enlistment of a force for co-operation with the troops rapidly organizing by McDonald, west of the Alleghenies. Captain Cresap accepted the commission, and entered upon his duties promptly. Such was his popularity, that more than the required complement of men were recruited in a very short time, and at once marched to join the command of McDonald, the ranking officer of the expedition. The combined forces, numbering four hundred men, after a dreary march through the wilderness, rendezvoused at Wheeling, some time in June. The invasion of the country of the Ohio Indians was their purpose. In pursuance of their object, they went down the Ohio in boats and canoes to the mouth of the Captina creek, and from thence they pursued their march to the Indian towns at and near the mouth of the Wakatomika creek (now Dresden), a point about equi-distant from the present city of Zanesville and the town of Coshocton, both on the Muskingum River, Jonathan Zane being the chief pilot of the expedition.

"About six miles from Wakatomika a force of forty or fifty Indians, lying in ambush, gave a skirmish, in which two of McDonald's men were killed and eight or nine wounded, while the Indians lost one or more killed and several wounded. When McDonald arrived at the chief Wakatomika town he found it evacuated, and the whole Indian force M^ere in ambuscade a short distance from it, which, being discovered, the Indians sued for peace. A march to the next village, a mile above the first, was effected, and a small skirmish ensued, in which some blood was shed on both sides. The result was the burning of the town and the destruction of their corn fields. There was the usual perfidy on the part of the Indians, and really nothing substantial was accomplished, when the expedition returned to Wheeling, taking with them three chiefs as captives, or hostages, who were sent to Williamsburg, the seat of the colonial government of Virginia. This expedition was designed only to give temporary protection to the frontier settlers, and was preliminary to the Dunmore expedition to

" Colonel Angus McDonald was of Scotch parentage, if he was not himself a native of the Highlands of Scotland. He lived near Winchester, Frederick county, Virginia, upon, or near to the possessions early acquired in ' the valley,' and which was then, and is still, known as ' Glengary,' named in honor of the ancestral clan to w^liich the ancient McDonalds belonged in the Highlands of Scotland. Some of Colonel McDonald's descendants, in the fourth generation, are still living near to, or upon, these domains of the earlier McDonalds.

" The summer and early autumn of 1774 resounded with the din of preparation for war in various portions of Yirginia, having in view the raising of armies, ostensibly for the purpose of subjugating the hostile Ohio Indians. Governor Dunmore organized an army numbering labout fifteen hundred men, in the northern counties, principally in Frederick, Hampshire, Berkley and Dunmore (now Shenandoah), which assembled on the banks of the Ohio River, above Wheeling ; while, at the same time, by arrangement, General Andrew Lewis raised over a thousand men in the southern counties for the same purpose, which rendezvoused at Camp Union, on the Greenbriar River. The two armies were to form a junction at the mouth of the Kanawha. Bancroft says ' these armies were composed of noble Yirginians, who braved danger at the call of a royal governor, and poured out their blood to win the victory for western civilization ' Three companies that served in the McDonald expedition to the Muskingumj immediately upon their return in July entered the army of Lord Dunmore, and formed a part of the right wing thereof, which was directly under his immediate command. They were commanded respectively by Captain Michael Cresap, Captain James Wood, and by Captain Daniel Morgan, who all subsequently figured as oflicers in our Revolutionary war, the last named being the distinguished General Morgan of heroic fame, while Captain James Wood reached high military and civil positions, having served as Governor of Virginia from 1796 to 1799. Among others of the Dunmore army who afterwards attained to more or less distinction as military commanders, and whose names, to the present time, are ' household words ' in the West, were Colonel William Crawford, General Simon Kenton, General John Gibson, and General George Rogers Olark. Among those connected with the left wing of the Dnnmore army, who were then, or subsequently hecame, honorably identified with the history of our country, were its gallant commander, Greneral Andrew Lewis ; General Isaac Shelby, a lieutenant then, afterwards the ' hero of King's Mountain ; ' Colonel Charles Lewis, who gave up his life for his country on the battlefield of Point Pleasant, also, Hon. Andrew Moore, who served Yirginia many years in both branches of our national legislature with honor to himself and credit to his State.

" The right wing of the Dunmore army reached the Ohio River by way of ' Potomac Gap,' about the first of October ; and the left wing, undei- command of General Lewis, encamped at the mouth of the Kanawha River near the same time, where he soon received a dispatch from Lord Dunmore, changing the place of the junction of the two wings of his army to the vicinity of the Indian towns on the Scioto, near the ' Pickaway Plains.' Meanwhile Dunmore, with his command, went down the Ohio to the mouth of the Hock-Hocking River, and there built * Fort Gower.' From, thence he marched his army up said river through the territory that now constitutes the counties of Athens, Hocking, Fairfield, and portions of Pickaway, and encamped on Sippo Creek, a tributary of the Scioto, within a few miles of the Sliawanese towns, where he erected some entrenchments, naming ills encampment ' Camp Charlotte.'

" General Lewis intended to start with his command towards the Indian towns on the Scioto on the 10th of October, to join Governor Dunmore, but at sunrise on that day he was unexpectedly attacked by about one thousand chosen warriors, under the command of Cornstalk, the celebrated Shawanese chief, who had rallied them at the Old Chillicothe town, on the Scioto, near the ' Pickaway Plains,' to meet the army of General Lewis, and give them battle before the two corps could efl:"ect a union. The battle lasted all day, and terminated with the repulse of Cornstalk's warriors, with great slaughter on both sides. It has been generally characterized by histoi-ians as ' one of the most sanguinary and best fought battles in the annals of Indian warfare in the west.' Seventy-five ofiicers and men of Lewis's army were killed, and one hundred and forty were wounded. The loss was, probably, equally as great on the part of the Indians, who retreated during the night.

" General Lewis was reinforced to the extent of three hundred men, soon after the battle, and then started upon his march of eighty miles, through the wilderness, for the Indian towns on the Scioto, arriving within four miles of ' Camp Charlotte ' on the twenty-fourth of Octo- ber. His encampment, which was named Camj) Lewis, was situated on Congo Creek, a tributary of Sippo Creek, near the southern termination of the ' Pickaway Plains,' and within a short distance of the Old Chillicothe town.

" The principal chiefs of the Indians on the Scioto met Lord Dunmore at ' Camp Charlotte,' and agreed with him lipon the terms of a treaty. Cornstalk, who had been defeated by General Lewis, was present, and, being satisfied of the futility of any further struggle, was especially anxious to make peace, and readily obtained the assent of the chiefs present to it. The Mingoes were not a party to the treaty, but remained rebellious ; whereupon Captain Crawford was sent, with a small force, against one of their towns on the Scioto, which they destroyed, and took a number of prisoners, who were not released until the next year. And it is a noteworthy fact, too, that Logan, the great Mingo Chief, woidd not attend the council at - Camjp Charlotte? He could not be prevailed upon to appear, and in any way make himself a party to the treaty. Dunmore greatly desired his presence and acquiescence, at least, if he could not secure his approval of the terms of the treaty. To this end, he sent Colonel John Gibson as a messenger to the Old Chillicothe town, across the Scioto, where Logan usually spent his time when not ' on the warpath,' to ascertain the reasons for his absence, and, if possible, to secure his presence.

"Logan was found, but he was in a sullen mood. At length, becoming somewhat mollified under the gentle and persuasive manipulations of Gibson, and from the effects of freely administered ' fire-water,' he moved from the wigwam in which this preliminary interview was held, and, beckoning Dunmore's messenger to follow, 'he went into a solitary thicket near by, where, sitting down on a log, he burst into tears, and uttered some sentences of impassioned eloquence, charging the murder of his kindred upon Captain Michael Cresap.' Those utterances of Logan were committed to paper by Colonel Gibson immediately on his return to ' Camp Charlotte,' and probably read in the council and in the presence of the army. And this is substantially the history of the famous speech of Logan, until it appeared in the Virginia Gazette, of date February 4, 1775, which was published in the city of Williamsburg, the then seat of government of the colony of Yirginia. Its publication was, doubtless, procured by Dunmore himself. It was neither a speech, an address, a message, nor a promise to assent to, or comply with, the provisions of a treaty, but simply the wild, excited, passionate utterances of a hlood-stained sav- age^ given, as near as remembered by Colonel Gibsoii, and which consisted, in part, of slanderous allegations, based on misinformation, against Captain Michael Cresap - charges known by every officer at ' Camp Charlotte' to be unfonnded - allegations that have been persistently propagated to the present time, to the detriment of the fair fame and memory of an injured patriot, a valnable, enterprising, adventurous pioneer on the western frontiers, and a brave soldier and gallant officer in the Revolutionary army, who died a patriot's death while in the service of his country !

" Colonel Gibson, knowing that Captain Cresap had not participated in any way in the murder of Logan's kindred at Yellow Creek, immediately after the close of the very spirited recital of his injuries, corrected Logan's impressions as to Cresap's guilt, but the half-frantic savage persisted in the false charge he had made, or at least declined to withdraw it, and Colonel Gibson felt bound to put Logan's words on paper, as near as he could, j%i8t as they were sjpoken. Soon after Logan's speech, as it was called, was published in "Williamsburg, it was republished in New York and elsewhere, and its further republication by Thomas Jefferson, in his ' Notes on Virginia,' in 1784, as a specimen of aboriginal eloquence, gave it still greater currency, and, tacitly, an apparent indorsement of the charge it contained against Captain Cresap. But Mr. Jefferson published it without any reference to the truth or falsity of said charge, but to disprove the statements of Buffon and Raynal, who alleged the inferiority of Americans, and charged that there was a natural tendency to physical, mental, and moral degeneracy in America !

" Colonel (afterwards General) Gibson was a man of talents, and abundantly capable of executing the agency attributed to him in this matter. He enjoyed the confidence of General Washington, who, in 1781, intrusted him with the command of the 'Western Military Department.' General Gibson was Secretary of Indiana Territory, and sometimes acting Governor, from 1800 to 1813, and held other positions of honor. He died near Pittsburgh, in 1822. Most of the foregoing facts are obtained from the sworn deposition of General Gibson himself, and from the corroborative statements of General George Rogers Clark, Colonel Benjamin Wilson, Luther Martin, Esq., Judge John B. Gibson, and other gentlemen distinguished for talents and veracity.

" During the summer of 1774 Logan acted the part of a murderous demon! He was a cruel, vindictive, bloody-handed savage! He took thirty scalps and some prisoners during the six months that intervened between the time of the unjustifiable, wanton, unprovoked murder of his friends at Yellow Creek, and his interview with Colonel Gibson ! He had had his revenge ! To quote his own vigorous language, ' he had fully glutted his vengeance P And nothwithstanding he had indulged his savage propensities even to satiety, one would suppose, he nevertheless subsequently engaged in other hostile crusades against the frontiersmen, one of these being the murderous expedition into Kentucky which resulted in the capture of Eiiddell's and Martin's Stations, and the taking of many prisoners! He also went on a similar mission to the Holston River settlements, in 1779. Logan was a savage, but had been friendly to the whites. After the brutal murder of his friends, the frontiersmen east of the Ohio Eiver, and the red men west of it, assumed an attitude of intense hostility towards each other, the latter embracing every opportunity to rob, capture, and murder the former, and those outrages were met by the white settlers in a determined spirit of retaliation and revenge ! The conduct of Logan, therefore, was not surprising ! The fact that he was a savage is the best plea that can be offered in mitigation of his enormities ! And he had g^^eat provocation^ too !

" Logan, after the murder of his kindred and friends, in 1774, gave way, in a great lueasure, to intemperance and vindictiveness, : and became a sullen, harsh, cruel, drunken vagabond. His acts of barbarity finally brought him to a violent death on the southern shore of Lake Erie, between Sandusky Bay and Detroit, in 1780, at the hands of one of his own race !

" Colonel Michael Cresap, upon the breaking out of the Eevolutionary war, in 1775, raised a company of volunteers at the call of the Maryland Delegates in Congress, and became their commander. He promptly marched to Boston, where he joined the Continental army of General Washington. His health, however, soon failed, and he attempted to return to his home in Maryland, but when, on the 12th of October, he reached New York, he found himself too feeble to proceed further. Daily declining, he died October 18, 1775, in the thirty-third year of his age, and was buried the day after his death, with military honors, in Trinity churchyard. A widowed wife and four children survived him. Thus died, in early manhood, the gallant soldier, the pure patriot, the cruelly defamed pioneer, the meritorious Revolutionary officer, the greatly maligned and unjustly assailed Captain Michael Cresap !

" Lord Dunmore, after negotiating M'ith the Indians for peace, and for the restoration of prisoners and stolen propert}^, returned to VirtTtSTORY OF OHIO. l69 ginia, pursuing very nearly the route by which he came, leaving a hundred men at the mouth of the Kanawha, and a small force at ' Fort Fincastle,' afterwards called ' Fort Henry' (now Wheeling) ; also a limited number of men at the ' Forks of the Ohio,' for the protection of the frontier settlements. Fort Henry was named in honor of Patrick Henry, who became Governor of the colony of Virginia as the successor of Lord Dunmore, immediately after the latter's espousal of the cause of the mother country against the colonies, and of his ignominious flight from WJlliarasburg, in June, 1775, and taking refuge on board of a British man-of-war.

" It may be recorded to the honor of Dunmore's officers that they were loyal to the colonies and patriotic to the core, which they made manifest when, at ' Fort Gowar,' at the mouth of the Hock-Hocking, while on their homeward march, they resolved, in view of the approaching rupture with England, 'that they would exert every power within them for the defense of American liberty, and for the support of America's just rights and privileges.'

" For the purpose of more effectually organizing civil government northwest of the Ohio River, after the conquest of the country by Colonel George Rogers Clark, the House of Burgesses of Virginia, in October, 1778, erected the county of Illinois out of the western part of Botecourt county, which had been established in 1769. Illinois county was bounded on the east by Pennsylvania, on the southeast and south by the Ohio River, on the west by the Mississippi River, and on the north by the northern lakes, tlius making the territory that now constitutes the State of Ohio an integral portion of it. John Todd, Esq., was appointed County Lieutenant and Civil Commandant of Illinois county. He was killed in the battle of Blue Licks, August 18, 1782, and was succeeded by Timothy de Montbrun. The Moravian missionaries on the Tuscarawas, a few scores of Indian traders, and a small number of French settlers on the Maumee, made the sum total of white men at that time in what is now Ohio.

" General Lachlin Mcintosh, commander of the Western Military Department, made an expedition in 1778, with discretionary powers, from ' Fort Pitt to the Tuscarawas, with about one thousand men, and th^re erected Fort Laurens, near the present town of Bolivar, in

Tuscarawas county. He garrisoned it with one hundred and fifty men, under command of Colonel John Gibson, and then returned to ' Fort Pitt.'

" The original purpose was to march his army to Detroit, or at least as far as the Sandusky Indian towns, but various causes prevented, and the campaign was comparatively fruitless. Kot receiving reinforcements as expected, and probably lacking in energy, and having no special capacity for Indian warfare, his expedition was a failure, and he resigned his command of the ' Western Military Department in February, 1779.

" General Mcintosh was a Scotchman, born in 1727.. His father's family, himself included, came with General Oglethorpe to Georgia in 1736 ; became Colonel of the First Georgia Regiment in the early part of the Revolutionary war ; was soon made a Brigadier-General ; killed Hon. Button Gwinnett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, in a duel fought in 1777 ; commanded the Western army in 1778-9 ; was captured at Charleston, South Carolina, May 12, 1780 ; became a member of Congress in 1784, and an Indian commissioner in 1785, and died in Savannah, Georgia, in 1806.

Erection Of Fort Laurens In 1778

" Fort Laurens (named in honor of the then President of the Continental Congress, Henry Laurens), was the first parapet and stockade fort built within the present limits of Ohio - Fort Gowar, and others previously constructed, being of a less substantial character. Disasters attended it from the beginning. The Indians stole their horses, and drew the garrison into several ambuscades, killing fourteen men at one time and eleven at another, besides capturing a number also. Eight hundred warriors invested it at one time, and kept up the siege for six weeks. The provisions grew short, and when supplies from ' Fort Pitt ' had arrived within a hundred yards of the fort the garrison, in their joyousness, fired a general salute with musketry, which so frightened the loaded pack-horses as to produce a general stampede through the woods, scattering the provisions in every direction, so that most of the much-needed supplies were" lost ! Although it was regarded very desirable, for various military reasons, to have a garrisoned fort and dejyoi of supplies at a point about equi-distant from the forts on the Ohio River and the hostile Indians on the Sandusky Plains, yet so disastrous had been the fate of Fort Laurens, on the Tuscawaras River, that it was abandoned in August, 1779.. Fifty y Gal's ago the Ohio canal was cut through it, and but little remains to show where this, the first of our military earthworks erected by the white race, stood. Though this stockade was constructed less than a hundred years ago, it is now numbered among ' the things that were, but are not ! '

" To guard against the recurrence of predatory incursions into the frontier settlements east of the Ohio River, and to avenge the cruelties and atrocious barbarities of the savages, General Daniel Brodhead, in April, 1781, organized a force of about three hundred effective men, at Wheeling, with which he marched to the Muskingum River. The result of this campaign was the taking of the Indian town situated at the 'Forks' of said river (now Coshocton), with all its inhabitants, and the capture of some prisoners at other villages. Among the prisoners taken were sixteen warriors who were doomed to death by a council of war, and accordingly dispatched, says Doddridge, with spears and tomahawks, and afterwards scalped ! A strong determination was manifested by the soldiers to march up the Tuscarawas to the Moravian towns and destroy them, but General Brodhead and Colonel Shepherd (the second officer in rank), prevented this contemplated outrage. The famous Lewis Wetzel killed, in cold blood, a chief who was held as a hostage by General Brodhead ! Other atrocities were committed by the infuriated men on their return march, who were resolved to adopt the most sanguinary measures, if necessary, to prevent in the future the murderous incursions of the savages into the frontier settlements !

" The border wars of this period were prosecuted on both sides as wars of extermination, and the cruelties and barbarities perpetrated by the Indians had produced such a malignant spirit of revenge among the whites as to make them but little less brutal and remorseless than the savages themselves ! Some of their expeditions against the Indians were mere murdering parties, held together only by the common thirst for revenge ; and it is not likely that any discipline calculated to restrain that pervading feeling, or that would be efficient in preventing or even checking it, conid in all cases have been enforced. It is certainly unfortunate for the reputation of General Brodhead that his name is thus associated with the murder of prisoners ; but it is highly probable that he never sanctioned it, and could not have prevented it !

" General Daniel Brodhead's home was in Berks county, Pennsylvania. He entered the Kevolutionry army as a Lieutenant-Colonel, his commission bearing date July 4, 1 TT6 ; was engaged in most of the battles fought by General "Washington's army until early in 1779, when, on receiving a Colonel's commission, he was placed in command of the Eighth Pennsylvania Regiment. On March 5, 1779, he was appointed to -the command of the ' Western Military Department ' (succeeding General Mcintosh), with headquarters at ' Fort Pitt.' This position he retained until 1781, when he was succeeded by General John Gibson, who was himself succeeded by General William Irvine, September 21, 1781.

" In 1789, General Brodhead was elected Surveyor-General of Pennsylvania, an office which he continued to hold until 1799, when he retired to private life. His death occurred at Milford, Pennsylvania, November 15, 1809. He was one of four brothers, who all rendered essential services during our Eevolutionary struggle.

" In the early summer of 1781, Colonel Lochry, the County Lieutenant of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, was requested by Colonel George Rogers Clark to raise a military force, and join him in his then contemplated military movement against Detroit, and the Indian tribes of the Northwest generally. The mouth of the Big Miami river was first named as the place of general rendezvous, but was, subsequently, changed to the 'Falls of the Ohio.' Colonel Lochry raised a force of one hundred and six men, who, on the 25th of July, ' set out for Fort Henry (Wheeling), where they embarked in boats for their destination.' They passed down the Ohio river to a point a few miles below the mouth of the Big Miami, where, having landed, they ' were suddenly and unexpectedly assailed by a volley of rifleballs, from an overhanging bluif, covered with large trees, on which the Indians had taken position in great force.' The result was, the death of Colonel Lochry and forty-one of his command, and the capture of the remainder, many of whom were wounded - some of the captured being killed and scalped, while prisoners! This occurred August 25, 1781, and such of the captured as were not murdered, died, or escaped, did not reach their homes again until after the peace of 1783, when they were exchanged at Montreal, and sent home, arriving there in May, 1783. The murder of prisoners was alleged to be in retaliation for the outrages committed by Brodhead's men a few months before ; and it has been said that this treatment of Lochry's men was one of the provocations for the brutal nuirder of the Moravian Indians, on the Tuscarawas^ in 1782!

" The wife of William "Wallace, and three of her children, also John Carpenter, all of "Washington county, Pennsylvania, were captured by the Indians in 1782, and carried off. Mrs. Wallace and her infant were found, after having been tomahawked and scalped ! The frontiersmen were greatly exasperated, and at once organized an expedition of nearly a hundred men to pursue and chastise the murderers. On arriving at the Tuscarawas Eiver, and finding the Moravian Indians there, in considerable force, gathering coi-n at the villages from which they had been forcibly removed, by British authority, the preceding autumn, to the Sandusky Plains, for alleged favoritism to the American cause, the conclusion was soon reached that they had found the murderers of Mrs. Wallace and her child, and at once made prisoners of those at Gnadenhlitten and Salem, to the number of ninety-six. The Indians at Shonbrun made their escape, on hearing of the capture of those at work at the other villages. It has been stated that some clothing was found with those Indians that was identified as that of the murdered friends of some of Williamson's men ; but even if that were so, it did not prove tliat these Indians were the murderers, or had even aided or abetted the murderers.

" Colonel Williamson, on March 8, 1782, submitted the fate of his helpless captives to his excited men. The alternative was whether they should take them to ' Fort Pitt,' as prisoners, or kill them I Eighteen only voted to take them to ' Fort Pit,' the others voted to butcher them, and ' they were then and there murdered in cold blood with gun and spear, and tomahawk and scalping-knife, and bludgeon and maul ! ' Two only escaped ! There are many details of this atrocious massacre - this infamous butchery of an innocent people - but I omit them. History characterizes it as an atrocious and unqualified wholesale murder - as a terrible tragedy - a horrid deed ! Would that it could be blotted from our history ! Colonel Williamson opposed the masscre, but could not control his men !

duskj Plains, was determined upon, their destruction being deemed essential to the protection of the frontier settlements east of the Ohio, Nearly all of Colonel Williamson's men volunteered, and recruiting went on so rapidly that by the 25th of May, four hundred and eighty men rendezvoused at the Mingo Bottoms, three miles below the present city of Steubenville. An election for commander of the expedition was held there, when it was found that Colonel William Crawford was elected, having received 235 votes, while 230 were cast for Colonel David Williamson. The latter gentleman was then promptly and unanimously chosen the second officer in rank. The entire force was composed of mounted men, who, following the ' Williamson trail ' to the Tuscarawas, passed rapidly on to the Sandusky. On reaching a point three miles north of Upper Sankusky, and a mile west of the Sandusky Kiver, within the present limits of Wyandot county, a battle ensued (known as the battle of Sandusky, fought June 4-5, 1782), followed by the defeat of Colonel Crawford and the loss of over a hundred men in killed and prisoners. Colonel Crawford was captured and tortured to death in a slow fire, accompanied by circumstances of barbarity unparalelled in the annals of Indian warfare. Some historians have misapprehended the purpose of the Crawford campaign. s think it clearly established that the design was not the pursuit and chastisement of the Moravian Indians, but the destruction of tiie Wyandot villages of the Sandusky Plains, and for the leasons above stated. The details of this disastrous expedition are so well known to the general reader that I omit them.

" Colonel Crawford was born in Orange county, Virginia, in 1732 (now Berkley county, West Virginia). Pie and General Washington were of the same age and were intimate friends from early life until Crawford's death, both being engaged while young men in the same pursuit, that of land surveyors. Both were officers in Braddock's disastrous campaign in 1755 - both were officers in General Forbes' army in 1758, which successfully marched against Fort Duquesne. Colonel Crawford served as a captain in Dunmore's war, in 1774 - recruited a regiment for continental service - became Colonel of the Seventh Virginia Kegiment - was in the Long Island campaign, also in the retreat through ISTew Jersey, and participated in the battles of Trenton and Princeton. In 1778 he had command of a Virginia regiment in the vicinity of ' Fort Pitt,' and built Fort Crawford, sixteen miles above the ' Forks of the Ohio.' He also participated in the erection of Fort Mcintosh and Fort Laurens, and rendered other valuable services. He removed to ' Stewart's crossings ' (now Connelsville) in

1769, it being the point where Braddock's army crossed the Yonghiogheny River in 1755, and where he frequently received the visits of his old friend, General Washington, whose land agent he was. And here he lived when he took command of the ill-fated Sandusky expedition. Colonel William Crawford possessed the highest qualities of true manhood, and justly ranked as a hero among the heroes of those heroic times.

" Colonel David Williamson, the ranking officer after the cajjture of Colonel Crawford, took command of the defeated, demoralized, retreating forces, who were pursued by the victors at least thirty miles, and displayed considerable ability as such, particularly at the battle of Olentangy, which was fought June 6th, during the retreat, at a point now in Whetstone township, Crawford county, about live miles southeasterly from Bucyrus. Colonel Williamson lived in Washington county, Pennsylvania, and died there, after having served it in the cajjacity of sheriff. I repeat the statement to his credit that he was' personally opposed . to the murder of the Christian Indians, but could not prevent it.

*' In the autumn of 1782, soon after the battle of Blue Licks, and in retaliation upon the Ohio Indians, for that and other marauding and murderous incursions into Kentucky, General George Rogers Clark, with a force of over one thousand men, marched against the Indian towns on the Miami River. One division of the army was under command of Colonel Logan, and the other was commanded by Colonel Floyd. The two divisions marched together from the mouth of the Licking to a point near the head waters of the Miami River, now in Miami county, and there destroyed some Shawanese towns and other property, including Loramie's store, which was at' the mouth of Loramie's Creek, within the present limits of Shelby county. Ten Indians were killed and a number of prisoners taken.

" General George Rogers Clark was born in Albemarle county, Virginia, November 19, 1752. He commanded a company in the right wing of Dunmore's army in 1774, and settled in Kentucky in 1776. In 1778 he led an army into the Northwest and conquered it. He served under Baron Steuben in 1780, during Arnold's invasion of Virginia, and rendered other valuable military services. He was also a legislator, and served as a commissioner in making treaties with the

Indians at Fort Mcintosh, in 1785, and at Fort Finney in 1786. General Clark was a man of ability, of skill, energy, enterprise, and of wonderful resources. He died at Locust Grove, near the Falls of the Ohio, in February, 1818.

" In 1786 Colonel Benjamin Logan crossed the Ohio River at Limestone (now Maysville), with four hundred men or more, and marched to the Mack-a-cheek towns on Mad River, to chastise the Shawanese there, who were intensely hostile to the Kentuckians. The result of the campaign was the burning of eight of their towns, all of which were situated within the present limits of Logan county ; also the destruction of much corn. Twenty warriors were also killed, including a prominent chief of the nation, and about seventyfive prisoners were taken. Colonel Daniel Boone, General Simon Kenton and Colonel Trotter were officers in this expedition; The two first named rendered valuable services in Dunmore's expedition, and afterwards, and the latter also made a good pioneer and war record.

" Several minor expeditions, accompanied by comparatively unimportant results I leave unnoticed, as details would add unnecessarily to the length of this paper. Those of Colonel Edwards to the Big Miami in 1787, and of Colonel Todd to the Scioto Yalley in 1788, before the organization of the ' Territory northwest of the River Ohio,' were of this class.

"The first treaty establishing boundaries in Ohio between our Government and the Ohio Indians was formed at Fort Mcintosh, in January, 1785. Its provisions were given in last year's volume of ' Ohio Statistics.'

'.'This treaty was followed on May 20, 1785, by an ordhiance of Congress which provided for the first survey and sale of the public lands within the present limits of Ohio. Under that ordinance the tract known as the Seven Ranges, whose boundaries were also given in last year's volume, was surveyed, and sales eftected at New York, in 1787, to the amount of $72,974. The tract of the Ohio Land Company was surveyed and sold, pursuant to the provisions of an ordinance of July 23, 1785 ; and Fort Harmar, situated at the mouth of the Muskingum River, was built during this and the next year, for the protection of the immigrants that might settle upon it. The title to the Ohio Land Company's purchase was not perfected until October 23, 1787, and until then, settling upon the public lands was discouraged and indeed forbidden by the Government ; but, notwithstanding a number of settlements were made between the time of the treaty of Fort Mcintosh, in January, 1785, and the perfecting of the title of the Ohio Land Company in October, 1787. These were chiefly along the Hock-Hocking and the Ohio Elvers, and were broken up by military force, and the settlers dispersed or driven east of the Ohio Kiver. Settlements that were attempted at the mouth of the Scioto, and other places, were prevented. Proclamations by Congress were issued against settling upon the public domain as early as 1785, and enforced by the military power when disregarded. Hundreds of families probably had attempted to settle permanently west of the Ohio River, previous to the arrival of the colony of New Englanders, at the mouth of the Muskingum, in April, 1788, but were not permitted to do so. The fact, therefore, remains that the settlement was the first jpermanent one within the present limits of Ohio - all others heioig hut temporary, hy reason of the compulsory dispersion, previously, of the settlers elsewhere, and the destruction of their huts.

The First White Child Born In Ohio

" Considerable effort has been made by various persons, to ascertain, if possible, who was the first white child born within the present limits of Ohio, also when and where born, and the name as well. The following claims to that distinction have been presented, and I give them in chronological order, with the remark that some Indian traders who resided among the Ohio Indians, before the Bouquet expedition, in 1764, were married to white women, who probably had children born unto them, but the evidence to establish it is lacking.

" In April, 1764, a white woman whose husband was a white man, was captured in Virginia, by some Delaware Indians, and taken to one of their towns at or near Wakatomika, now Dresden, Muskingum county. In July of said year, she, while yet in caj)tivity at the above named place, gave birth to a male child. She and her child were among the captives restored to their friends November 9, 1764, under an arrangement made by Bouquet, her husband being present and receiving them. It was, as far as I am informed, the first Jcnown white child born upon the soil of Ohio, but the exact time and place of its birth, and its name, are alike unknown.

" In 1770, an Indian trader named Conner, married a white woman who was a captive among the Shawanese, at or near the Scioto. During the next year she gave birth to a male child, probably at the above named point. Mrs. Conner, in 1774, with her husband, removed to Shonbrun, one of the Moravian villages on the Tuscarawas, and there they had other children born to them.

"In April, 1773, Eev. John Koth and wife arrived at Gnadenhiitten, on the Tuscarawas, and there, on the 4th day of July, 1773, she gave birth to child, at which, the next day, at his baptism, by Eev. David Zeisberger, was named John Lewis Roth. He died at Bath, Pennsylvania, September 25, 1841. It is clear to my mind that JoJin Lewis Roth is the first white child born within the limits of our State, whose name, sex, time, place of birth and death, and biography, are known with certainty.

" Howe in his ' Ohio Historial Collections,' states upon the authority of a Mr. Dinsmore, of Kentucky, that a Mr. Millehomine, in 1835, (who then lived in the parish of Terre-Boime, Louisiana), informed him that he was born of French-Canadian parents, on or near the Loramie portage, about the year 1774, while his parents were moving from Canada to Louisiana ; but there is nothing definite or authentic in this case either as to time or place.

" Joanna Maria Hechewelder, daughter of Eev. John Ileckewelder, was born at Salem, one of the Moravian villages on the Tuscarawas, April 16, 1781, and she was the first white female child born upon Ohio territory, as to whose time and place of birth, and death, and subsequent history, there is positive certainty. Her death took place at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, September 19, 1868, in the eighty-eighth year of her age.

"I believe it is generally conceded that the first white child born within our State, after the permanent settlement at the mouth of the Muskingum, was Leicester G. Converse, whose birth took place at Marietta, February, 7, 1789, and who died near said river, in Morgan county, February 14, 1859.

" The Governor having satisfactorily ascertained that the conditions existed entitling the territory to the second grade of government, that is, that there were ' five thousand free male inhabitants, of full age,' within the territory, he, on the 29th day of October, 1798, took the preliminary steps to effect that object, by issuing his proclamation, directing the qualified voters to hold elections for Territorial Representatives on the third Monday of December, 1798. The election waa held in pursuance of said proclamation, which resulted in the following gentlemen being chosen to constitute the j)opular branch of the Territorial Legislature for the ensuing two years :

Members Of Territorial Legislature Of 1799-1800

" The above named gentlemen met at Cincinnati on the 22d of January, 1799 and nominated ten men, whose names they forwarded to the United States Congress, five of whom were to be selected by that body to constitute the Legislative Council of the Territory. They then adjourned to meet on the 16th of September, 1799.

" On the 22d of March, 1799, either the United States Senate, the United States House of Representatives, or the President of the United States (authorities are not agreed), chose from among those whose names had been suggested to them the following gentlemen, to compose the first Legislative Council of the Northwest Territory, their term of office to continue five years, any three of whom to form a quorum :

Jacob Burnet, of Cincinnati, Hamilton county. Henry Vandenburg, of Vincennes, Knox county. Robert Oliver, of Marietta, Washington county. James Findlay, of Cincinnati, Hamilton county. David Vance, of Vanceville, Jefferson county.

" The ordinance of 1787 named Congress as the authority in whom was vested the right to select five from the list of ten persons to constitute the Territorial Council. But it will be borne in mind that said ordinance was passed by a Congress that legislated in pursuance of the Articles of Confederation, while yet we had neither President nor United States Senate, hence authority was given to Congress to make the selection. But it is highly probable that the aforesaid authority was subsequently transferred to the President, or to the Senate, or to them jointly.

First Council And House Of Eepeesentatives

" Both the Council and House of Representatives met at Cincinnati, September 16, 1799, and effected a permanent organization. The Council perfected its organization by the election of the following officers :

" Thirty bills were passed at the first session of the Territorial Legislature, but the Governor vetoed eleven of them. They also elected William H. Harrison, then Secretary of the Territory, a delegate to Congress, by a vote of 11 to 10 that were cast for Arthur St. Clair, Jr., son of the Governor, then a promising young lawyer of Cincinnati, and who then held the office of Attorney-General of the Territory. The first session of the Territorial Legislature was prorogued by the Governor December 19, 1799, until the first Monday of November, 1800, at which time they reassembled and held the second session at Chillicothe, which, by an act of Congress of May 7, 1800, was made the seat of the Tentorial Government until otherwise ordered by the Legislature. This, the second session of the Territorial Legislature, was of short duration, continuing only until December 9, 1800.

" On May 9, 1800, Congress passed an act establishing the Indian Territory, with boundaries including the present States of Indiana and Illinois, and William H. Harrison, having accepted the office of Governor of said Territory, it devolved upon the Territorial Legislature, at its second session, not only to elect a delegate to fill the vacancy occasioned by his resignation, but also to elect a delegate to

Histohy Of Ohio

" By the organization of the Indiana Territor}^, the counties of St. Clair, Knox and Randolph were taken out of the jurisdiction of the ISTorthwest Territory, and with them, of course, Henry Vandenburg, of Knox county. President of the Council ; also Shadrack Bond, of St. Clair county ; John Small, of Knox county, and John Edgar, of Randolph county, members of this popular branch of the Legislature.

" On the 23d of November, 1801, the third session of the Territorial Legislature was commenced at Chillicothe, pursuant to adjournment. The time for which the members of the House of Representatives were elected having expired, and an election having been held, quite a number of new members appeared. The Council remained nearly as it was at the previous session, there being not more than two changes, perhaps only one, that of Solomon Sibley, of Detroit, Wayne county, who took the place of Henry Yandenburg, thrown into the new Territory. Robert Oliver, of Marietta, Washington county, was chosen President of the Council in place of Henry Vandenburg.

to meet at Cincinnati on tlie fourtli Monday of November following, hut that fourth session was never held, for reasons made obvious by subsequent events.

" Congress, on tlie 30th of April, 1802, bad passed an ' act to enable the people of the eastern division of the Territory northwest of the river Ohio to form a constitution and State government, and for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, and for other purposes.' In pursuance of the aforesaid enactment, an election had been ordered and held throughout the eastern portion of the Territory, and members of a Constitutional Convention chosen, who met at Chillicothe on the first day of November, 1802, to perform the duty assigned them. When the time had arrived for commencing the fourth session of the Territorial Legislature, the aforesaid Constitutional Convention was in session, and had evidently nearly completed its labors, as it adjourned on the 29th of said month. The members of the Legislature (eight of whom being also members of the Convention), therefore, seeing that a speedy termination of the Territorial government was inevitable, deemed it inexpedient and unnecessary to hold the proposed session.

" The Territorial government was ended by the organization of the State government, March 3, 1803, pursuant to the provisions of a constitution formed at Chillicothe, November 29, 1802, by the following named gentlemen : Joseph Darlinton, Israel Donalson, and Thomas Ivirker, of Adams county ; James Caldwell and Elijah Woods, of Belmont county ; Philip Gatch and James Sargent, of Clermont county; Henry Abrams and Emanuel Carpenter, of Fairfield county ; John W. Browne, Charles Willing Byrd, Francis Dunlavy, William Gof orth, John Kitchel, Jeremiah Morrow, John Paul, Jolm Reily, John Smith, and John Wilson, of Hamilton county ; Kudolph Bair, George Humphrey, John Milligan, Nathan Updegrafi:, and Bazaliel Wells, of Jefferson county; Michael Baldwin, Edward Tiffin, James Grubb, Thomas Worthington, and Nathaniel Massie, of Eoss county ; David Abbot and Samuel Huntington, of Trumbull county ; EjDhraim Cutler, Benjamin Ives Gilman, Rufus Putnam, and John Mclntire, of Washington county.

"Joseph Darlinton, of Adams county; Francis Dunlavy, Jeremiah Morrow, and John Smith, of Hamilton county; John Milligan, of Jefferson county ; Edward Tiffin and Thomas Worthington, of Ross county; and Eijliraim Cutler, of Washington county, were the eight gentlemen of the last Territorial Legislature that were also elected members of the Constitutional Convention."

The Admission Of Ohio Into The Union

The mooted question as to the exact date of the admission of Ohio into the Union, may be illustrated thus : A man knocks at my door; I give the old-fashioned response, " come in." Now, is he in when I say " come in," signifying consent, or is he not in until he comes in f The enabling act, for the formation of the State of Ohio, was approved April 30, 1802 ; the Constitution was formed November 29, 1802. The act empowering tli'e State to execute laws, was not passed until the 19th day of February 1803, and by which she was admitted and fully recognized as one of the States of the Union.

Political History

The first General Assembly under the State constitution, convened at Chillicothe, March 1, 1803. The Legislature enacted such laws as the new State required, and created eight new counties. The first State ofticers elected by this body were, Michael Baldwin, Speaker of the House of Representatives ; Nathaniel Massie, Speaker of the Senate ; William Creighton, Jr., Secretary of State ; Colonel Thomas Gibson, Auditor; William McFarland, Treasurer; Return J. Meigs, Jr., Samuel Huntington, and William Sprigg, Judges of the Supreme Court ; Francis Dunlavy, Wyllys Silliman, and Calvin Pease, Judges of the District Courts.

The second General Assembly met the following December, which passed a law giving to aliens the same proprietary rights in Ohio as native citizens. Acts were also passed, improving the revenue system, providing for the incorporation of townships, and establishment of a board of commissioners of counties.

In 1805 Ohio gained possession of a part of the Western Reserve, through treaties with the Indians at Fort Industry, and subsequently, all the country of the Maumee was ceded to the United States.

Aaron Burr, whose bold and gigantic scheme for the dismemberment of the Union and conquest of Mexico fully developed itself ; all under the ostensible purpose of settling the Washita lands. At this period a war with Spain seemed inevitable ; and Burr's plan was, to seize Mexico, and with the aid of Generals Wilkir.son, Swartwout, Blannerhasset, Davis Floyd, Tyler Sparks, and Smith, with an army of seven thousand men, which would be strengthened as they proceeded on their way to New Orleans, Yera Cruz, and finally to the City of Mexico. HapjDily, through the exertions of United States Attorney Da vies, of Kentucky, and a Mr. Graham, the scheme was discovered ; which led to the trial and acquittal of Burr. IS'othing of great historical importance occurred from this time, until the smouldering fire of Indian hate and revenge, which had for years been kindling under the eloquence of Tecumseh and the cunning of the Prophet, his brother, broke out in 1810.

After various councils between General Harrison and the Indians, all prospect of an amicable settlement was put to flight by open hostilities. The Prophet and Tejcumseh had assembled an army at Tijipecanoe, in what is now Cass county, Indiana, which the former had, through conjuration and other means, inspired with a kind of religious enthusiasm, which led them to expect certain victory over the pale-faces, whom the Great Spirit hated. In 1811 General Harrison marched against them, and gained a decisive victory over them, which broke the Prophet's power, and, for a time, secured peace to the frontiers. During this year, the first steamhoat launched upon western waters, made a trip from Pittsburgh to New Orleans.

The year 1812 found the Indians generally in their villages. Tenskwatawa, the Prophet, like JEsop's braying donkey dressed in a lion's skin, had proved himself a boasting liar, deserted by all his band. But the indefatigable Tecumseh was ever active, and, though the battle of Tippecanoe was fought without his knowledge, and against his advice, and his plans for uniting all the tribes frustrated, various depredations were committed, and several councils held, in which Tecumseh always took a haughty part, until at last, in June, 1812, he went to Fort Wayne and imperiously demanded ammunition. Ammunition was refused, and the agent made him a conciliatory speech. Tecumseh replied that his "British father would not deny him," and after a few moments' reflection, gave the war-whoop, and lef* for Maiden- where he joined the English.

In the same month war was formally declared between - the United States and Great Britain, of which the West was the principal arena. Opened by the disgraceful surrender of General Hull, by which Detroit, Michigan, and the Canadas were ignominiously given up to the British, followed by defeat in other directions, the national reputation was only regained by a series of brilliant victories achieved by gallant Croghan at Fort Stephenson, Oliver H. Perry on Lake Erie, Harrison at the Thames, and the crowning triumph of Jackson at New Orleans. In all of these glorious records Ohio's sons took a prominent part ; scarcely a battle was fought, not participated in by Ohio troops ; and the words of the immortal Miller, at Lundy's Lane, " I will try, sir," still ring proudly in the ear of every true patriot.

In 1816 the State house and other public buildings, for the accommodation of the legislature and State officers, having been erected, the seat of State government was removed from Chillicothe to Columbus.

The first legislation relating to a canal connecting the Ohio with Lake Erie, took place in January, 1817 ; no further steps were taken until 1819, when the subject was again agitated, but not until 1820 was any tangible proof of the success of the scheme evident. On the recommendation of Governor Brown, an act was passed appointing three Canal Commissioners, who were to employ a competent engineer and assistants for the purpose of surveying the route of the canal. The action of the Commissioners, however, was made dependent upon the acceptance by Congress of a proposition made by the State for a donation and sale of the public land lying upon, and adjacent to, the route of the canal. By reason of this restriction, active measures were delayed for two years.

In 1822 the subject was referred to a committee of tlie House, and its feasibility having been strongly urged, James Geddes, of New York, a skilful and experienced engineer, was employed to make the preliminary examination and surveys.

After all the routes had been surveyed, and the proper estimates laid before the legislature, that body passed an act, February, 1825, providing " for the internal improvement of the State by navigable canals." Immediately after, the State carried out the provisions of the act, in excavating the present canal, which has been of so great value to her commercial interests.

On the 4th of February, also, in 1825, the same act authorized the making of a canal from Cincinnati to Dayton, and the creation of a canal fund ; the vote in the House being fifty-eight to thirteen ; in

During the previous year, the Miami University was established at Oxford, Butler county, Ohio, deriving its endowment from a township of land six miles square in the northwest corner of Butler county, which had been located there in lieu of a township originally granted by the United States, for the endowment of an institution of learning, in Symmes's purchase between the Miamis.

During the years 1836 and 1837, serious apprehensions of a civil war were felt, arising out of the disputed southern boundary of Michigan. The ordinance of 1787 provided that three States should be formed out of the northwest territory, also giving Congress the power to form one or two others north of an east and west line through the head or southern extremity of Lake Michigan. This, at the time Ohio was admitted, was construed to mean that the two said States were not to extend south of the east and west line thus specified, which would include Maumee Bay in Ohio.

Michigan disputed this construction, and when Ohio sent surveyors to fix the line as thus defined, the Michigan territorial authorities organizea an armed force, and drove them out, and stationed a military party on the ground.

Commissioners were sent by the President to the disaffected parties, urging them to await a decision by the proper tribunal ; and when Michigan sought admission into the Union, she was required to recognize the boundary as claimed by Ohio, which she finally did.

In 1837 and 1838, a rupture between the United States and Great Britain was threatened by a revolutionary movement in Canada. Among the States that gave aid and sympathy to this movement, was Ohio, who sent a regiment under the command of Lucius Y. Bierce, of Akron, which engaged the provincial militia in a severe - fight, and eventually cut their way through Windsor, and escaped to Detroit.

In 1839, W. H. Harrison was nominated on the whig ticket, and in the summer and autumn of 1810, a very exciting canvass ensued. It was assumed that inasmuch as Gen. Harrison was an old pioneer, and lived in a pioneer structure, that his latch string was always hanging out, and that a perennial stream of hard cider flowed for all who might apply. As a natural result there was a lively log cabin and hard cider emigration to his home, and much consumption of spirituous liquors, dissipation and drunkenness.

Political History Of Ohio

N"o important events in the history of the State occurred till the second constitutional convention in 1850 and 1851, which, among other things, provided for the election of a lieutenant-governor.

At about this time Ohio had assumed the third rank in the Union. Her population in 1830, numbered 937,903 ; in 1850, 1,980,329 ; in 1860, nothwithstanding a vast emigration to the west and Oregon, it was 2,313,739. Agriculture and manufacturing industries were in the ]iig]iest state of prosperity; free schools gave to every child the means of an education, and this was the prosperous condition of Ohio when Abraham Lincoln was elected President.

In 1861, the seeds of rebellion sown by John C. Calhoun, sprang up and dehigcd our country with a civil war the most devastating that had ever torn through the entrails of any nation on earth. Through the almost prophetic foresight of Gov. S. P. Chase, the militia of Ohio, which had long previously been neglected, were reorganized, and the old rusty cannon only used for Fourth of July celebrations, was brought into requisition, an"d the small arms were brightened up, and in the face of jeering opposition, companies were recruited and drilled in the cities and towns ; and before his second term expired, he had the pleasure of reviewing at Dayton, about thirty companies from different parts of the State, which maintained their organization until consolidated into the First regiment in 1861, participating in the war which followed. As a natural sequence, the militia of Ohio were superior to that of all other States.

Prior to the fall of Sumpter and the insult offered to our country's flag, much political difference existed ; but the blood of Sumpter dis solved all factions, and with few exceptions connected all in patriotism. On April 18, 1861, a bill was passed by a unanimous vote of ninetynine, appropriating $500,000 to carry into effect the requisition of the President. Said sum to be borrowed, and the bonds of the State free from tax and drawing ten per cent interest to be given therefor. Various bills were passed, viz : Declaring the property of volunteers free from execution for debt during their term of service. Any resident of the State giving aid and comfort to the enemy, guilty of treason, to be punished by imprisonment for life, etc. The wliole State militia was organized. Arms or munitions of war were proiiibited from passing through Ohio to any of the disaffected States. The legislature of 1861 nobly met the extraordinary exigencies imposed upon it, and for patriotism, zeal, and cool judgment, proved itself fully the equal of its successors.

tute nothing better than the language of Whitelaw Reid : When Lee surrendered at Appomatox Ohio had two hundred regiments of all arms in the national service.

In the course of the war she had furnished two hundred and thirty regiments, besides twenty-six independent batteries of artillery, five independent companies of cavalry, several companies of sharpshooters, large parts of five regiments credited to the West Virginia contingent, two regiments credited to the Kentucky contingent, two transferred to the United States colored troops, and a large portion of the rank and file of the Fifty-fourth and Sixty-fifth Massachusetts colored. Of these, twenty -three were infantry regiments, furnished on the first call of the President, being an excess of nearly one-half over the State's quota. One hundred and ninety-one were infantry regiments, furnished to subsequent calls of the President, one hundred and seventeen of them for three years, twenty-seven for one year, two for six months, two for three months, and forty-two for -one hundred days; thirteen were cavalry, and three artillery regiments for three years ; and of these, over 20,000 re-enlisted as veterans at the end of their long term of service to fight till the close of the war. As original members of, or recruits for, these organizations, Ohio furnished for the National service the magnificent army of 310,654 soldiers. As comparison, we may say that the older State of Pennsylvania gave only 28,000 more, Illinois 48,000 less, Indiana 116,000 less, and Kentucky 235,000, while Massachusetts was 164,000 less.

Ah through the war Ohio responded in excess to every call, and we may repeat with pride the words of her war governor : " If Kentuck} refuses to fill her quota, Ohio will fill it for her."

Of these troops, 11,237 were killed or mortally wounded in action, B,56H of whom were left dead on the field of battle. Within forty-eight hours after the telegraphic call of the President in April, 1861, two Ohio regiments were on their way to Washington. An Ohio brigade, in good order, covered -the retreat from the first battle of Bull Run. Ohio troops formed the bulk of the army that saved to the Union what subsequently became West Virginia. Also she took the same active part in preventing the secession of Kentucky, the same at Fort Donaldson, Island No. 10, Stone River, Chickamauga, Mission Ridge, Atlanta, Fort McAllister, to the sea, and through the Carolinas and Virginia. They fought at Pea Ridge, charged at Wagner, helped to redeem North Carolina; laid siege to Vicksburg, Charleston, Richmond and Mobile ; at Pittsburg Landing, Antietam, Gettysburg, in the Wilderness, Five Forks, in front of Nashville and

Early Laws Of Ohio

Appomattox Court House, and Corinth ; " their bones reposing on the fields they won, are a perpetual pledge that no flag shall ever wave over their graves but the flag they died to maintain." Their sufferings, their death, will ever be cherished and remembered by tlieir grateful countrymen ; and, as evidences of the veneration in which they are held, we behold the beautiful Home, near Dayton, and the Asylum near Xenia.

Since the war Ohio has steadily advanced in agriculture, manufacturing, and in all commercial directions. Politically she stands in the front ranks, and in the production of Presidents, her soil seems as prolific as the Old Dominion. The Mediterranean State in geographical position, her advantages are fast making her the leading State in our glorious Union.

Early Laws In Ohio

To those who complain of the rigidity of the present law of our State, a glance at some of the punishments inflicted in "ye olden times " for petty offenses will soon dispel any such idea.

In those times, when the present State was governed by the Territorial laws, the court house yards were invariably ornamented with the pillory, stocks and whipping-post. The first law for whipping was made by Governor St. Clair and Judges Parsons and Varnum at Marietta, September 6, 1787, which provided that in case a mob were ordered to disperse, and refused so to do, each person, upon con vie. tion, should be fined in a sum not exceeding three hundred dollars, and 'whipped not exceeding thirty-nine stripes, etc. -

For arson, thirty-nine stripes, put in the pillory, confinement in the jail three years, and forfeiture of property, and in case death was* caused by such crime the offender was punished with death.

If a child refuse to obey his or her parents, or master, on complaint shall be sent to the jail or house of correction until he or she, or they shall humble themselves to the parent's or master's satisfaction; and if any child shall strike his parent, he shall be whipped not exceeding ten stripes.

Introduction

Cheops, Ceplirenes, and the mighty Sphynx, Obelisk of Cleopatra, and ruins of Xochicalco, stand forth as monuments upon which are engraven the mutations of time, the inevitable destroyer of all visible nature, and products of art: into whose Lethean gulf ancient Ilium, Nineveh, Thebes, and all the architecture of distant ages have been plunged in eternal slumber. Nay, the very stars shall cease to shine, the sun eclipsed in gloom, and all nature swallowed up in oblivion. Nothing is immortal, save the soul, which shall outlive the warfare of clashing elements and destruction of worlds. The flight of a single day is perceptibly impressed upon surrounding nature. The faded flower, the withered tree, both speak of something gone. Indeed, the flmty pyramids that so long have opposed the blasts of the desert sands ; the tower that for centuries has withstood the furies of old ocean's winds and waves, finally must yield to the universal destroj^er - time - and, crumbling, moulder to earth, and "doting with age, forget their founder's name." Our lives are but an awakening, transition, sleep, and forgetting. Yet notwithstanding these numerous evidences of the general devastations of time, the soothing voice of resurrection whispers all is not lost ; for -

" See dying vegetables, life sustain ; See life dissolving, vegetate again ; All forms that perish, other forms supply ; By turns we catch the vital breath and die. Like bubbles on the sea of water borne, They rise, they break, and to that sea return."

and what we call death is but transition ; for the book of nature plainly teaches the perpetuity of all created things. As the one grows old and dies, straightway in quick succession springs up the new, nourished by the moldering remains of its ancestor. We, ourselves, may pass away, but ere the eating canker begins its work, closely follows youth again, our second selves. All things new spring from and are nourished by things that have passed away. Not one beauty of nature takes its flight, but in untold centuries hence, by transition leaves behind the freshness of its distant genesis. We should, therefore, preserve and keep fresh, like flowers in water, the transitory fruits of the past, and bind them upon the same stock with the buds of the present.

Through reminiscence we love to dwell upon pleasing objects of the past, and calling them up we seem to gaze upon them one by one as they in panorama pass before us ; meditate upon them, and in imagination, live over again the happy days that are forever gone. Our old and fond associates are once more mingling with us; we enjoy again the life we have left behind; but break the spell, the bubble bursts, and all melts into the past. So in our dreams, the untrammeled intelligence revels amidst the materialized spirits of departed friends. We breathe again the balmy air of youth, and through the endless chain of recollection, link to link, as wave succeeding wave, we hold enchanting communion with the past, and imbibe intoxicating draughts from the sparkling fountain of youth, until we are in fancy transported to the happy realms of the morning of life; and truly has it been said that the mind can make substances, and people planets of its own with beings brighter than have been, and give a breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.

Decaying organisms are by process of petrefaction metamorphosed into everlasting forms, bearing exact identity with their prototypes, through whose interpretation we are enabled to unlock the profoundest mysteries of geognosy. If nature, therefore, has bequeathed to us the key to her created forms, so likewise should we receive, preserve, and keep fresh forever the history of those who suffered so long, endured so much, in order to secure for themselves a resting place, and bequeath to us the beautiful homes we now enjoy, undisturbed by any of the dangers that surrounded our forefathers.

Introduction, 193

they do not pass into tradition, and still fading, through laj^se of time sink forever beneath the wave of oblivion. The labor and embarrassments attendant upon, and research, and patience necessary to the resurrection of moldy facts and ethereal traditions which have so long slumbered in the matrix of obscurity, is little realized save by those who undertake to write a history based upon facts and traditions, w^hose genesis springs from the aboriginal tribes that roamed at large throughout the winding labyrinths of their own primival forests, beneath whose sylvan shades the panting deer lay down in peace ; amidst whose branches the winged choristers built their homes, and chirped their matin songs, caroling with angelic sweet and trembling voices, gently warbling with the murmuring brook and rustling leaves below. The forest patriarchs had not looked down frowning upon the white man's cabin. They stood sentinel above the fragile wigwam of the painted savage, nestled alone within their sequestered shades ; within whose folds the forest maiden gave modest ear to the love song^of the dusky warrior, as he displayed the gory insignia of his prowess which adorned his girdle, and sang the deeds of war and the chase, and with equal ardor woos the maid, or scalps the captive, and burns the victim at the stake,

Original Possessors

While it would transcend our province to trace beyond prehistoric data the original owners of the territory now comprehended within the limits of Fayette County, yet we deem it essential to a perfect elucidation of its complete history that we utilize all the facts within our grasp, and trace tliem until the line fades out in myth.

Therefore, so nearly as can with clearness be ascertained from chaotic masses of documents and traditions, we infer that the first inhabitants belonged to the Algonquin family, the most populous no doubt in the United States; whose language was comparatively uniform throughout all the tribes and subdivisions, very complex, yet capable of lofty flights of oratory, beautiful rlietorical figures, and ill-adapted to light and trifling speech. Inasmuch as there is a great deal of conflicting testimony in regard to the specific tribes comprehended in this great family, we shall, in this connection, state that the territory now called Fayette County, was originally ill the*possessiori of the Twigtwees, culled by the French Miamis, leaving its full discussion to another part of the work. Cursorily we may say, that at the time they were visited by Christopher Gist, the English agent for the Ohio Land Company, in 1751, they were superior in numbers to the Huron Iroquois, with whom they were at deadl}^ enmity. Their country extended on the west as far as the watershed between the Wabash and Illinois. On the north were the Pottawatomies, who were slowly encroaching upon the Miamis, who in turn were gradually extending their western limits into Ohio, and absorbing the territory claimed by the Huron Iroquois ; and according to the best of authority, they were tlie undisputed claimants of Ohio as far as the Scioto.

It appears that the Piankeshaws, or Peanzichias-Miamis, a subdivision of the great Twigtwee confederacy, owned or occupied the southern part of Ohio, including the present territory of Fayette County.

"The Wyandots, long prior to the advent of the English and French, had resided in the territory now embraced in Ohio. In the beginning of the present century they numbered 2,300 persons. In 1841-2 they ceded their lands to the United States commissioner. Col. John Johnston, and removed beyond the Missouri.

In about 1750 the Shawanoes came from Florida, under Blackhoof, and as tenants at will of the Wyandots took possession of the valleys of the Maumee, Scioto, Mad and Miami rivers.

From the fact that the ownership and occupancy of the soil re^ sided first in the Twigtwees, and subsequently in the Wyandots and Shawanoes, it is diflicult to ascertain the exact date or dates at which the Indian title became totally extinct (a full discussion of which will be given in the body of the work).

Thus we have endeavored, in so far as possible, to disentangle from the hetrogeneous mass of uncertainty, the original owners, the extinction of the original title, and the final vesting of the same in such a shape as to lay it open for individual purchase and settlement.

Political And Military History

This county, occupying a portion of the Virginia Military Reservation, reaches hack in its poKtical history into early colonial times, hefore the organization of the general government of the United States, and when all the territory northwest of the River Ohio, extending west to the Mississippi, was clfiimed by Virginia.

In the years 1774 and 1775, before the Revolutionary War began, the thirteen colonies then existing, so far as their relations to one another were concerned, were separate, independent communities, having, to a considerable extent, different political organizations and different municipal laws; but their various population spoke, almost universally, the English language, and, as descendants from a common English stock, had a common interest^and a common sympathy.

In the year 1773, on the 7th day of July, Dr. Benjamin Franklin, then in England, w^rote an official letter to the Massachusetts Assembly, strongly urging a general assembly of the representatives of the people of all the colonies, that they might make such a declaration and assertion of their rights as would be recognized by the king and parliament of Great Britain. Pursuant to this advice a congress, called the First Continental Congress, assembled at Carpenter's Hall, in Philadelphia, on the 5th day of September, 1774, and remained in session until the 26tli day of October, following. A second Continental Congress met on the 10th day of May, 1775. This congress, styled also the revolutionary government, on the 4th day of 'July, 1776, published to the world the Declaration of Independence, and on the 15th day of N"ovember, 1777, agreed to articles of confederation and perpetual union between the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Article I. recited tliat " The style of this confederacy shall be The United States of America;" and Article II. that "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, Avhich is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States in congress assembled." These articles of confederation, thirteen in number, which defined the powers and privileges of congress, and the rights of the several states, after their adoption by each state, constituted the supreme law until the adoption of the constitution in 1788. It was under this confederacy that the great discussions arose concerning the disposition of the public lands.

Virginia

The territory of Virginia, granted by the charters of King James I., was very extensive. The first charter authorized a company to plant a colony in America, anywhere between 34° and 41° north latitude, embracing about 100 miles of coast line, and extending back from the coast 100 miles, embracing also the islands opposite to the coast, and within 100 miles of it. The second charter granted to the Virginia Company a much larger territory, extending from Old Point Comfort (a point of land extending into Chesapeake Bay, a little to the north of the mouth of James River), 200 miles north and 200 miles south, along the coast, and thence with a breadth of 400 miles, to the west and northwest, through the continent to the Pacific Ocean. The third charter added to this immense territory all the islands in both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans, within 300 leagues of either coast. By the treaty of peace between France and Great Britain, in 1763, the Mississippi River was made the western boundary of the British provinces. Thus restricted, the territory of Virginia included all that territory now occupied by Pennsylvania, North and South Carolina, Kentucky, and all the land northwest of the River Ohio.

On the 29th day of June, 1776, just five days before the Declaration of Independence by the United States in congress assembled, Virginia adopted her constitution or form of government, in Article XXI. of which she ceded the territories contained Avithin the charters creating the colonies of Maryland, Pennsylvania, !N"orth and South Carolina, to those respective colonies, relinquishing all her rights to the same, except the right to the navigation of certain rivers, and all improvements that had been or might be made along their shores. But this article affirms that "the western and northern extent of Virginia shall in other respects stand as fixed by the charter of King James I., in the year 1609, and by the published treaty of peace between the court of Great Britain and France, in the year 1763, unless, by act of legislature, one or more territories shall be laid otf, and governments established west of the Allegheny Mountains.'' The charter of King James I., referred to in this article, was the second charter, so that now, on the sea coast, Virginia was restricted to her present limits, but her western boundaries were unchanged. She claimed Kentucky, and all the northwestern territory.

Concerning this northwestern territory there were conflicting claims. New York claimed a portion of it. Massachusetts also asserted a separate claim, and Connecticut, by her grant from the council of Plymouth, in 1630, was to extend westward from the Atlantic Ocean to South Sea,"" or Pacific Ocean. This would take a large portion of the territory included under the Virginia charter. These conflicting claims were never adjusted between the states, but were finally settled, as will soon appear, by cession to the United States in congress assembled.

In 1779 Virginia opened an office for the sale of her western lands. This attracted the attention of the other states, several of which regarded the vacant region in the west as a common fund for the future payment of the expenses of the war for independence, in which the colonies had been engaged. This claim in behalf of the United States was asserted on the ground that the western lands had been the property of the crown. By the treaty of 1763, France had ceded to Great Britain all her possessions in !N^orth America, east of the Mississippi, and naturally these lands would fall, on the declaration of independence, to the opponent of the crown, that is, to the United States in congress assembled, and not to individual states. It was contended, therefore, that it was manifestly unjust that a vast tract of unoccupied country, acquired by the common eflbrts and tlie common expenses of the whole union, should be appropriated for the exclusive benefit of particular states, while others would be left to bear the unmitigated burdens of debt, contracted in securing that independence by which this immense accpiisition was wrasted from Great Britain. These separate claims by the several states were opposed by those states that

On the 25tli day of June, 1778, nearly one year before the opening of the Virginia land office, New Jersey made objection to the confederation, on the ground that the public lands now claimed by Virginia and other states, under ancient charters, should belong to the United States in common, that each separate state might derive a proportionate benefit therefrom.

Maryland instructed her delegates in congress not to sign the articles of confederation, unless an article or articles were added thereto, looking to a cession of the public lands.

The council of the State of Delaware, on the 23d day of January, 1-779, before passing a laAV instructing their delegates in congress to sign the articles of confederation, resolved, that the state was justly entitled to a right in common with the other members of the union to that extensive tract of country westward of the frontier of the United States, which was acquired by the blood and treasure of all, and that it ought to be a common estate, to be granted out on terms beneficial to the United States.

Such were the vigorous protests against the union under the articles of confederation, while Virginia was left a vast empire within the confederacy, a power, as many supposed, dangerous to the liberties of the smaller states; and when Virginia opened her land office for the sale of her western lands, the excitement became more intenseJ Congress, in opposition to the pretensions of all the states claiming lands, as the common head of the United States, maintained its title to the western lands upon the solid ground that a vacant territory, wrested from the common enemy by the united arms, and at the joint expense of all the states, ought of right to belong to congress, in trust for the common use and benefit of the whole union ; hence she earnestly recommended to Virginia, and to all the states claiming vacant lands, to adopt no measures that would obstruct the final cession of such lands to congress. New York was the first to listen to the appeals of the complaining states and to congress. On the 29tli of February, 1780, she authorized her delegates in congress to restrict her western border by such lines as the}' should deem expedient, and on the 20th day of December, 1783, Virginia passed an act authorizing her delegates in congress to convey to the United States in congress assembled, "all the right of this commonwealth to the territory

Virginia Military Survey Virginia Military Survey

"That a quantity not exceeding one hundred and fift}^ thousand acres of land, promised by this state, shall be allowed and granted to Gen. George Rodgers Clark, and to the officers and soldiers of his regiment to be laid oif in such place on the northwest side of the Ohio as a majority of the officers shall choose, and to be afterwards divided among the said officers and soldiers in due proportion according to the laws of Virginia. That in case the quantity of good lands, on the south side of the Ohio, upon the waters of the Cumberland River, and between the Green River and the Tennessee, wiiich have been reserved by law for the Virginia troops, upon continental establishment, should prove insufficient for their legal bounties, the deficiency should be made up to said troops in good lands, to be laid oif between the rivers Scioto and Little Miami, on the northwest side of the River Ohio, in such proportions as have been engaged to them by the laws of Virginia."

The land embraced in this reservation, between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers, constitutes the Virginia Military District in Ohio. The district comprehends the entire counties of Adams, Brown, Clermont, Clinton, Highland, Fayette, Madison and Union; and a portion of the counties of Scioto, Pike, Ross, Pickaway, Franklin, Delaware, Marion, Hardin, Logan, Champaign, Clarke, Greene, Warren and Hamilton.

Although this cession jtnd reservation was made in 1783, its definite boundary was not determined until a decision of the Supreme Court was made in reference to it some time in 1824, The Scioto was the eastern line, and A^irginia claimed the right to run the western line of the tract direct from the source of the Scioto to the mouth of the Little Miami. Such a line would run considerably west of some parts of the Little Miami. The source of the Scioto is in the w^estern part of Auglaize County, and a straight line drawn from this point to the mouth of the Little Miami, would have run entirely west of Gi^enc County, and would have included in the Militar}- District, a portion of Auglaize, Shelb}', Miami and Montgomery c(^unties.

the United States and certain Indian tribes, being a part of the boundary of this military district, it is quite important that it be described here. It begins at the mouth of the Cuyahoga and runs south, up that river through the portage between it and the Tuscarawas, down the Tuscarawas to the northern line of Tuscarawas County at its middle point; thence west, bearing a little south, forming the northwestern line of this county to Holmes; passing through Holmes County, it forms the eastern part of the northern boundary of Knox. It then passes through the northwestern part of Knox, through the middle part of Morrow, the southern part of Marion, through Logan, forming the northern line of Lake and Harrison townships, through Shelby County, forming the northern boundary of Salem Township. From a point in the western part of Shelby Count}' the line bears a little to the north of west, and extends through the southern part of Mercer County to Fort Recovery, in the western part of the county; thence it extends in a straight line south, bearing west through the southeastern part of Indiana, to the Ohio River, at a point in Indiana opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River.

In May 1800, congress passed a law for the sale of lands in the western territory which were not included in the Virginia Military District, and in the execution of this law the survej^or general caused a line to be run from the source of the Little Miami toward what he supposed to be the mouth of the Scioto, which is denominated Ludlow's line, and surveyed the lands west of that line into sections as prescribed in the act of congress.

In 1804, congress passed a law concerning the boundary of the Virginia Military District which enacted' that Ludlow's line should be considered the western boundary line of the reserved territory north of the source of the" Little Miami, provided the State of Virginia should within two years recognize it as the boundary of this territor}'. Virginia did not accept the proposition, and the rights of the parties remained as if nothing had been done. Again, in 1812, congress authorized the president to appoint three commissioners to meet three other commissioners, to be appointed by the State of Virginia, who were to agree upon the line of military reserve, and to cause the same to be surveyed. Should the commissioners from Virginia fail to meet them, they were to proceed alone, and make their report to the president. In the meantime, and until the line should be established b}' consent, Ludlow's line should be considered the western boancLary. The commissioners of the United States were met by those of Virginia, at Xenia, on the 26tli da}^ of October, 1812, and proceeded to ascertain the sources of the two rivers and to run the Hue. They employed a Mr. Charles Roberts to survey and mark a line from the source of one river to that of the other. This line is called Roberts' line, and is drawn from the source of the Little Miami to the source of the Scioto. The Virginia commissioners refused to accede to this, and claimed, as has been stated before, that the line should be drawn from the source of the Scioto to the mouth of the Little Miami. On the 11th day of April, 1818, congress passed an act, declaring that from the' Little Miami to the Indian boundary line, established b}' the Greenville treaty, Ludlow's line should be considered as the western boundary of the military reserve. This, however, was the act of only one party to the contract, and did not necessarily determine the boundary. But the subsequent decision of the Supreme Court of the LTnited States, made in 1824, based upon the language in the act of cession defining the phrase, "good lands to be laid off between the Rivers Scioto and Little Miami," to mean. the whole countr}- from their sources to their mouths, bounded on either side by said rivers. It would be clear from this decision that the most direct line from the source of one to the source of the other would complete tfie boundary. This decision of the Supreme Court practically settled the question, and the Ludlow line to the Indian l)oundary, and the Roberts line from the Indian bonijdary, together with a portion of the Indian line itself, became the established boundary line of the Virginia Militar}' District between the sources of the Scioto and Little Miami rivers. The Ludlow line begins at the source of the Little Miami River, in the ijortheast corner of Madison Township, Clarke County, a little more than three miles cast by north from South Charleston, at a point on the Columbus and Xenia Railroad, about a half a mile southwest of the point where the road crosses the county line, and extends north by west through Champaign County, passing about live miles east of Urbana. In Logan County, it runs through the eastern part of Bellefontaine, and strikes the Indian boundary line in the northeast corner of Harrison Township, about three and a half miles north by west from Bellefontaine. From this terminus of the Ludlow line, the Indian boundary line extends west by south along the nortliern border of Harrison Township, about four miles, to the Roberts line.

This Roberts line begins abont one and a half miles east of the northwest corner of Harrison Township, and extends north by west, throngh the middle of Lewiston Reservoir, to a point in a swampy or marshy region, abont a mile and three-fonrths south by east from the center of Wayne Township, in the southeastern part of Auglaize County. Here the line makes very nearly a right angle, and extends in a direction east bj" north about two miles and a half to the eastern limit of Goshen Township, where it terminates in the Scioto River. The original Roberts line must have begun at, or very near, the beginning of the Ludlow line, but its bearing was so far to the west that it ran a little to the west of the Scioto's source. The Ludlow line,,on the other hand, did not bear enough to the west. It ran a little to the east of the source. It was proper, therefore, that a part of both lines, in the absence of a- third survey, should have been made the real boundary.