24

"Lord Dunmore's War."-Other Expeditions against the Indians.

treaty of peace with many of the principal chiefs, but the Shawnees of the Scioto river, and the Delawares of the Muskingum, still continued hostile, and would not listen to terms of accommodation.

About the same time that General Bradstreet was occupied in treating with the Wyandots, Colonel Boquet, with a body of Ohio troops, marched from Fort Pitt into the heart of the Ohio country on the Muskingum river. He managed the expedition so skilfully, that but little fighting occurred; and he formed such just treaties of peace with the Indians, that tranquillity prevailed for nearly ten years afterward.

The sword and the hatchet again contended in the valley of the Ohio in 1774, which conflict is generally known as "Lord Dunmore's In the summer of that year, Colonel M'Donald formed a corps at Wheeling, and marched into the Muskingum country, and destroyed the Indian town of Wapatomica, a few miles above Zanesville. Several skirmishes took place during the summer, and in the autumn a severe battle was fought at Point Pleasant, on the Virginia side of the of peace was soon afterward concluded with the Indi Ohio. A treaty ans at Camp Charlotte, Picaway.

When the war of the revolution broke out, a large proportion of the western Indians were won over to the British interest through bribery and base deception, and it was soon found that we had a threefold foe to contend with-the enemy from abroad, the tory enemy within, and the savage enemy of the wilderness. Those of the north and east were more friendly.

In the autumn of 1778, an expedition was planned against Detroit, and the western forces, under General M'Intosh, prepared first to attack the Sandusky Indians. Fort Laurens,t was built upon the Tuscarawas, and other preliminary steps were taken, but the expedition was finally abandoned, and the garrison withdrawn from the fort in 1779. About the same time, Colonel Bowman headed an expedition During against the Shawnees, and burnt Chilicothe, their principal town, situated about three miles north of the present site of Xenia. the summer of 1780, an expedition quite unimportant in its results was directed, under General Broadhead, against the Indian towns on the forks of the Muskingum; and until the conclusion of the war in 1782, there was scarcely a cessation of hostile movements in the valley of the Ohio.‡

*Lord Dunmore was the last of the royal governors of Virginia, and was one of the most impru dent deputies the king of Great Britain ever had in America. It was with him that Patrick Henry contended about the powder of the colonial magazine at Williamsburgh, Virginia, which the governor, fear of an insurrection, had conveyed on board a British ship-of-war.

† So named in honor of the then President of Congress.

in

In June, 1782, Colonel Crawford, with about five hundred men was defeated by the Indians, near the present site of Upper Sandusky, in Wyandot county. The colonel was taken prisoner and burnt at the stake, with horrible tortures.

Claims of the various States to the Soil of Ohio.

We now come to a period when permanent white settlements were beginning to be made in Ohio, and the embryo state began to assume form and feature. When the war of the Revolution was ended, and the united colonies were free and independent states, all of them claimed jurisdiction over the whole domain embraced within their respective charters. As we before observed, the western boundaries of those charters were very indefinite, and the consequence was that several states properly claimed jurisdiction over the same vast region of country west of the Allegany mountains, and north of the Ohio river, or the northwestern territory;* while other states, who possessed no charters, insisted that these wild unappropriated lands belonged equally to all the members of the confederacy, for they had jointly achieved independence. This subject produced one of the gravest questions which the new government was called upon to consider, and the conflicting claims of the states threatened at one time to destroy the federal union, compacted by the blood of thousands slain to procure the freedom of the soil in dispute. Congress urged those states, having western unappropriated lands, to cede them to the United States for the public good, and finally this desideratum was accomplished, and the vexed question was settled. Virginia first came patriotically forward, and in 1784, ceded all her right to jurisdiction over the soil northwest of the Ohio. Connecticut followed suit in 1786, and Massachusetts and New York soon afterward imitated her example. There were other and far more righteous claims to be settled, the claims of the aboriginal proprietors of the soil. This was effected by treaties in 1784 and 1785,† and Congress then began to legislate with a view to settlements in that

* By an act of Parliament of 1774, the northwest territory was annexed to the province of Quebec, or Canada. When the preliminary negotiations for peace were entered into at Paris, in 1782, between John Adams and others in behalf of the United States, and Mr. Oswald on the part of Great Britain, the latter proposed making the Ohio the northwestern boundary of the republic, and leav ing the northwestern territory still annexed to Canada. But the firmness of Mr. Adams prevailed, and that rich domain was secured to us.

† A council was held at Fort Stanwix, in New York, and a treaty of cession of all lands west of a line extending along the west boundary of the state of Pennsylvania, from the mouth of the Oyorenayea to the Ohio river, was concluded with the sachems of the six nations, the Mohawks, Onondagas, Senecas, Cayugas, Oneidas, and Tucarawas or Tuscaroras. A treaty was also made at Fort M'Intosh, on the 21st of January, 1785, with the Wyandots, Delawares, Chippewas, and Ottawas, by which it was declared that the boundary line between the United States and the Wyandot and the Delaware nations, was to begin at the mouth of the Cuyahoga river, and extend up said river to the portage between that and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum, thence down that branch to the crossing place above Fort Laurens, then westerly to the portage of the Big Miami, which runs into the Ohio, at the mouth of which branch stood the fort which the French took possession of in 1752; then along the said portage to the Great Miami, and down the south side of the same to its mouth; then along the south shore of Lake Erie, to the mouth of the Cuyahoga river, the place of beginning. All the lands contained within the said line, were allotted to the Wyandots and Delawares, and such of the Ottawa nation as were there, to live and hunt upon. The United States, however, reserved for the establishment of trading posts, six square miles at the mouth of the Miami; the same at the portage on the branch of the Big Miami; and the same on the lake at Sandusky; and two miles square on each side of the lower rapids of the Sandusky

river.

CAMPUS MARTIUS, AS IT APPEARED IN 1791.‡

established a territorial government in the northwestern territory, and appointed General Arthur St. Clair, a distinguished officer of the revolution, governor, assisted by Winthrop Sargent, as secretary, and

*The first seven ranges, bounded on the east by Pennsylvania, and south by the Ohio, were first surveyed and sales effected to the amount of $120,000 in 1787, and 1796. No further sales were made in that district, until 1801, when a land office was opened at Steubenville.

+ For the description of the various titles of districts in Ohio, such as the "Western Reserve," "Fire Lands," "Salt Sections," &c., &c., see the appendix.

Soon after the settlement of Marietta (so called in honor of Maria Antoinette, the queen of France) commenced, the people began to build a stockade fort, and named it Campus Martius. It was completed in the winter of 1791. The wall formed a parallelogram, the sides of which were one hundred and eighty feet. At each corner was a strong block-house, twenty feet square. Within In the west and south fronts, were were a number of dwelling-houses, which, with the fort, were constructed of wood, whip-sawed into timber, four inches thick, and laid up as log-houses are. strong gateways. Port holes for musketry and artillery were made, and in the block-houses, sentries were posted every night. A row of palisades, sloping outward extended from corner to corner of the block-houses. The dwellings contained nearly three hundred persons. Outside of the whole was a row of strong palisades about ten feet in height.

St. Clair's Treaty with the Indians.-Expedition under General Harmer.

Samuel Holden Parsons, James Mitchell Varnum, and John Cleves Symmes, as judges. A government was organized, and a county, named Washington, including one half the territory,* was formed by proclamation of the governor.

After the government was formed, various purchases and settlements were made by companies and individuals, and population began to increase rapidly as the fertility of the country became known. Dissatisfaction, however, still existed among the Indian tribes, the fear of whom greatly retarded the formation and growth of settlements. Governor St. Clair formed a treaty with the sachems of the Wyandot, Chippewa, Pottawatomie, and Sac nations, in 1787, but it availed little.

MIAMI. R.

Oh

A

B

FORT HAMILTON

The

new settlers became alarmed, and built block-houses and other defences, among which was Fort Washington, erected in 1789. This fort was garrisoned toward the close of that year, by General Harmer, and about three hundred

men.

In 1790, General Harmer, with a force of about thirteen hundred men, marched against the Indian villages on the Miami of the Lakes, to intimidate them. But they resisted, and he destroyed their villages and their standing corn. The Indians were dispersed, but collecting again, a severe battle ensued in which General Harmer was defeated with great loss. Governor St. Clair then raised an army of twenty

It was in the eastern part of the territory, extending westward to the Scioto river, Ohio northward to Lake Erie.

and from the

+ In the autumn of 1788, John Cleves Symmes, and others, purchased a large tract of land between the Great and Little Miami rivers, and upon that purchase, the second settlement in Ohio, commenced in November, of that year. For a brief account of other purchases, grants, &c., see the appendix, p. 124.

Fort Hamilton, (of which the above is a plan) was built by General St. Clair, in September, 1791, at the crossing of the Great Miami, where the town of Hamilton now stands. It was a stockade, fifty yards square, with four bastions and platforms, for cannons. The following reference to the cut will better explain its construction, than a description. A. The old fort built by St. Clair. B. Addition. a. Officers' quarters. b. Mess-room. c. Magazine. d. Artificers' shop.

houses. C. The present bridge which spans the Miami.

e,f,g. Block.