Magazine
of
Western History
Illustrated

NO. 1. NOVEMBER 1884

Portraying the Escape of General Garnett in Tygart’s Valley; the affair of Scarey’s Run in West Virginia; the Capture of Fort Donelson; the Battle of Shiloh Church; the Movement on Cincinnati in 1862, with biographies of Union Generals.

Price, Neatly Bound in Cloth, $1,00.

☞Sent postage prepaid, on receipt of price.

The Qualification of a Voter; Information as to Primary Meetings, Conventions and the Election Laws; a List of State Elections, Senatorial, Representative and Judicial Districts; the Population, etc., of States and Counties; Classes and Grades of Municipal Corporations; a List of all the Governors of Ohio and of all the Presidents and Vice Presidents of the United States, and other matters of interest.

What is designated on the early maps of the United States as the “Territory Northwest of Ohio” embraced all the country east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio River. Great Britain acquired it from France by the treaty of February, 1762, but, having prior claims to it, had before that time granted most of the territory to her several colonies. Probably there were not more than three thousand white people in the territory when this treaty was signed, and these were principally wandering French traders; very few of them cultivators of the soil. In 1778 Virginia conquered the northwest from Great Britain, and erected the entire territory into a county, by the name of Illinois. Soon after the close of the War of the Revolution, in the year 1787, the United States established in the same region its first provincial government, and gave it the above title, which in common parlance was known as the “Northwestern Territory.” Its fixed population did not then exceed five thousand. There are now five States, and the half of a sixth, whose inhabitants number not far from 10,000,000, among whom the French element is scarcely perceptible. The people of these States are intelligent, and take a lively interest in the history of the discoverers of their country, among whom La Salle holds the first place.

Having spent a life of the length usually allotted to man, on the waters of the Ohio, the Upper Mississippi, and the lakes, threading many of the streams on which they floated their canoes, passing over the same trails, 4coasting along the same shores, those intrepid explorers of two centuries since, have often been, in imagination, vividly near to me.

As early as 1840 I saw evidence of the presence of white men in northeastern Ohio, of whom we had then no historical proof. This evidence is in the form of ancient cuts, made by sharp axes on our oldest forest trees, covered by their subsequent growth. In this climate the native trees are endogenous, and take on one layer of growth annually. There are exceptions, but I have tested the accuracy of this habit, in about forty cases where I have had other proof of the age of the tree, and find it to be a good general rule.

The Jesuit relations contain no account of establishments on the south shore of Lake Erie in the seventeenth century. For many years these wooden records remained an interesting mystery, which I think may possibly be solved by recent documents brought to light in France. We know that La Salle in 1680 returned from the Illinois to Montreal most of the way by land, and it is conjectured that he may have traversed the south shore of Lake Erie; but the passage of a few men hastily through a wilderness did not account for the many marks of axes which we find.

The stump of an oak tree was shown me soon after it had been felled in 1838, which stood in the northwestern part of Canfield, Mahoning County, O. It was two feet ten inches in diameter, and, with the exception of the concealed gashes, was quite sound. When about fourteen inches in diameter, this tree had been cut nearly half through; but the scar had healed over so thoroughly that it did not appear externally. I took a section from the outside to the heart, showing both the old and the recent axe marks, which may be seen in the museum of the Western Reserve Historical Society, at Cleveland. Over the old cuts there had grown one hundred and sixty annual layers of solid wood, and the tree had died of age some years before. This would place the cutting between the years 1670 and 1675. The tree stood a few miles south of the great Indian trail leading from the waters of the Mahoning, a branch of the Ohio, to the waters of the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie. In 1848 or 1849, Mr. S. Lapham, of Willoughby, Lake County, Ohio, felled a hickory tree, standing a short distance from the ridge, along which was once the main Indian trail parallel to the lake. The diameter of the stump was about two feet. Near the heart there were very distinct cuts of a sharp, broad-bitted axe. Mr. Lapham preserved a piece of this tree, that is now in our museum, donated by Professor J. L. Cassells. The annual layers 5of growth are very thin, and difficult to count, but are about four hundred in number, outside the ancient chopping. Another tree was found in Newburgh, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, more than thirty years since, with marks of an axe near the centre, represented to have one hundred and fifty to one hundred and sixty layers of growth over it, apparently the work of a sharp, broad-bitted axe.

In the cabinet of the Ashtabula Historical Society, at Jefferson, Ashtabula County, Ohio, there was, some years since, a piece of wood with ancient axe marks of about the same date. I have heard of two others in northeastern Ohio, which I have not seen, and which may have been the work of a dull, narrow-bitted axe in the hands of a savage, and not the work of white men; but the Indians of northern Ohio could not have long been in possession of metal tomahawks or squaw hatchets, in the year 1670. Such cuts, if made by them, could be only a few years more ancient.

The Lake County stump has about twice the number of layers we should expect, and which would carry the chopping to a period before the landing of Columbus. Botanists explain this by the exceptional cases where there is a double layer in a year. If La Salle and his party spent two or three years exploring and trading in furs in the lake country, they might well be the authors of these ancient cuttings. There must have been several hundreds of them, or we should not have met with so many at this late period. Any person examining the pieces in the Western Reserve Historical Society museum will be convinced they are not the work of Indians.

The honor of the first exploration of Ohio has long been claimed by the French for their countryman, Robert Cavalier de La Salle, but the details of this exploration were so meager, its date so doubtful, and the extent of his travels so uncertain, that some historians were not inclined to give credence to his claims.

A romantic mystery still envelopes his movements in the country between Lake Erie and the Ohio River, which it was hoped the papers of M. Pierre Margry would dissipate, and thus place La Salle on record in full and clear terms. If this cannot be effected by the zeal and industry of M. Margry, during a life work in search of manuscripts relating to La Salle, I fear that we must relinquish the hope of a satisfactory solution.

DeCourcelles and Talon, who were respectively governor and intendant in New France, sent out several parties of discovery between 1665 and 61680. They had two principal objects in view: the discovery of copper, and a route to China through the Great Southern Sea.

In a memoir to the king, dated Quebec, October 10, 1670, (New York Colonial Documents, page 64) Talon writes: “Since my arrival I have despatched persons of resolution, who promise to penetrate farther than has ever been done to the west and northwest of Canada, and others to the southwest and south.” These parties were instructed to keep journals, reply to instructions, take possession of the country formally, and were expected to be absent without news for about two years. After all these precautions, a distressing fatality overtook most of their letters, field notes, reports and maps. Joliet was nearly in sight of Montreal on his return in 1674 from the Mississippi River, when his canoe was capsized in the rapids, he was nearly drowned, and every paper was lost. Of La Salle’s memoranda, covering the years 1669 to 1673, nothing has been recovered.

In 1686 Governor DeNonville, writing from Quebec under date of November 8th, to Seignelay, Minister of Marine, says: “I annex to this letter a memoir of our right to the whole of that country (Ohio), of which our registers ought to be full, but no memorials of them are to be found. I am told that M. Talon has the original of the entries in his possession of a great many discoveries that were made in this country, with which our registers ought to be full. Doubtless he has given them to my late Lord, your father.”—Colonial Documents, vol. 9, page 297.

“The River Ohio, otherwise called the Beautiful River, and its tributaries, belong indisputably to France, by virtue of its discovery, by the Sieur de la Salle, and of the trading posts the French have had there since. * * * It is only within a few years that the English have undertaken to trade there.”—Instructions to M. DuQuesne, Paris, 1752, (Colonial Documents, N. Y., vol. 10, page 243).

“It is only since the last war that the English have set up claims to the territory on the Beautiful River, the possession whereof has never been disputed to the French, who have always resorted to that river ever since it was discovered by Sieur de la Salle.”—Instructions to Vaudreuil, Versailles, April, 1755, (Colonial Documents, vol. 10, page 293).

As the Jesuits in Canada were personally hostile to La Salle, they never mention his name in their relations, or the discoveries made by him. They were jealous of him as a discoverer and a trader, despised him as a friend of the Sulpitians, and an apostate from the Society of Jesus, an 7order at that time so powerful in Canada that the governor-general was obliged to compliment them in his open dispatches, while he spoke severely of them in cypher.

Louis XIV. was not required to expend more money in wars than other French monarchs, but his civil projects were ample and his pleasures very expensive. He was habitually straitened for funds, and required the strictest economy in the expenses of all his officers.

In Canada parsimony in public affairs was even more rigid than in France. The governor-general was unable to live on his salary. Intendants, ecclesiastics and local governors were in a still worse predicament. It was expected that all of them would make up this deficiency by traffic in furs. Many of the dispatches from Versailles are laden with warnings against incurring expenses, which amounted to commands. Many of those sent in reply contain passages congratulating the king on acquisitions of territory and glory, which cost him nothing. Three-quarters of a century later, as related above, in negotiations with England, the Ohio country was claimed by the French, on the sole ground of the discoveries of La Salle.

The personal interest which public officers had in the Indian trade, of necessity brought about discord between them. La Salle, having no fortune, was obliged to sustain himself in the same way, which brought him in direct antagonism with officers, priests and traders. This reference is necessary to explain the difficulties under which he labored.

According to the Abbé Galinée, Governor Courcelles requested himself and Dollier DeCasson, another Sulpitian, to join La Salle in a voyage he had long contemplated, toward a great river which he conceived, from the accounts of the Iroquois, to flow westward, beyond which, after seven or eight months of travel, in their way of stating it, the river and country were lost in the sea.

By this river, called by them the Ohio, Olighiny-sipu, or Beautiful River, and by others, Mescha-zebe, or Mississippi, M. de la Salle hoped to find the long sought passage to the Red, Vermillion, or South Sea, and acquire the glory of that enterprise. He also hoped to find plenty of beavers wherewith to meet the expense of the journey.

We must not forget the nature of the French Government when contemplating the history of Canada. The king was absolute, not only in public but in private affairs. When he said: “I am the State,” he expressed a fact, and not a fiction or a boast. The men and women of the 8kingdom were subject to the will of one man, even in their personal relations and occupations. In Canada nothing escaped the supervision of his officers, who were equally absolute, which explains why permission was necessary to engage in any enterprise.

The two parties left Montreal in July, 1669, La Salle having four canoes and fourteen men, the Sulpitians three canoes and eight men. They reached Ironduquoit Bay, in New York, on the 10th of August, making a portage to the Genesee valley and some Indian towns near Victor Station and Boughton Hill, sixteen miles southeasterly from Rochester. The savages told La Salle that the Ohio had its rise three days’ journey from “Sonnontouan,” or the country of the Senecas. After a month’s travel they would reach the Hon-ni-as-ant-ke-rons, and the Chouanons (Shawnees); after passing them and a great fall or chute, there were the Outagamies (Pottawatomies), and the country of the Is-konsan-gos, with plenty of deer, buffaloes, thick woods, and an immense population.

The Jesuits had a mission at “Gannegora,” the Indian name of a town and a fort near Boughton Hill, but were absent when La Salle and the Sulpitians arrived there. The Indians discouraged them from taking the Genesee route to the Ohio, representing that it required six days’ journey of twelve leagues or thirty-six miles each. Charlevoix affirms that the Genesee is navigable for canoes sixty leagues or one hundred and eighty miles, and from thence it is only ten leagues or thirty miles by land to the Allegheny or Ohio, river of the Iroquois. Mr. Marshall has shown that this portage was in Allegany County, New York, from near Belvidere to Olean.

By the united efforts of the Jesuits, the Dutch and the Senecas, they were persuaded to relinquish this route and hasten back to their canoes, to avoid violence on the part of the savages. They coasted along the south shore of Lake Ontario, passing the Niagara without examination, and reached Burlington Bay on the 22d of September. DeNonville, in 1687, states that La Salle had houses and people at Niagara in 1668.—(Historical Documents, vol. 1, p. 244). If this is true, La Salle must have been well acquainted with the portage to Lake Erie, around the falls. Why he should have selected the more difficult route by way of Burlington Bay, and a portage of fifteen miles to Grand River, is nowhere explained.

Not far from the head of the bay was the village of Tenouatouan, on the path to Grand River. Here the party met Joliet and a few Indians, 9on his return from Mackinaw. He had been sent by the intendant to find the copper mines of Lake Superior, and appears to have been the first Frenchman to have navigated Lake Erie. He took that route home at the instigation of the Ottawas, and of an Iroquois prisoner he was taking home to his people.

According to Galinée, when they were fifty leagues west of Grand River, this Iroquois became alarmed on account of the Andasterrionons, Errionons, Eriqueronons, or Eries of the south shore, with whom the Senecas were at war. They were thus obliged to leave their canoes and make the journey to Tenouatouan by land.

La Salle’s plan might have been to cross from Lake Ontario to Grand River, down it to the lake, thence along the north shore of Erie to the mouth of the Maumee River, on the route referred to by him in 1682; up this stream to the portage at Fort Wayne, and down the waters of the Wabash into an unknown world.

In a subsequent letter written from Illinois he speaks of this route, and also in his memorial to Frontenac in 1677, as the best one for traffic between the Great River and Canada, though it does not appear that he ever passed over it.—(Western Reserve Historical Society, Tract 25). Joliet was likewise ambitious of the glory of discovering the Great River, of which the Jesuit missionaries and the Indians gave glowing descriptions. He seems to have persuaded Galinée and DeCasson that this was the better route. La Salle and the Sulpitians here became alienated, and after attending mass separated on the 30th of September, they to find Lake Erie and the Ottawas of Mackinaw; he to pursue his original design. He had been for some days sick of a fever, which Galinée attributed to the sight of several rattlesnakes. He declared it to be so late in the season that his voyageurs, not accustomed to such a rigorous climate, would perish in the woods during the winter.

From the hour of this separation we are without explicit information of his journeyings for a term of nearly three years. During this period the exploration of the Ohio country was effected, and in the opinion of M. Margry, the Mississippi was discovered by him, in advance of Joliet and Marquette. These wanderings, of which after two hundred years we know very little, show more originality of design, more audacity in execution, and a more pertinacious resolution under difficulties, than his later achievements on the Mississippi. No one has set up against him a rival claim to the discovery of the Ohio. His heirs, his admirers, and his countrymen 10should cherish the memory of that discovery as the most wonderful of his exploits. The historical obscurity which has befallen these expeditions is a painful fact, but is in some measure compensated by a glamour of romance, which deepens with the lapse of time. On seeing his favorite plan of an advance by the north shore of Lake Erie frustrated, he may have determined to brave all dangers and enter the lake by way of Niagara. There are many plans which he may have determined upon, of which we can only form a vague conjecture. He may have turned his canoes along the north shore, and spent the winter in hunting in that country. Color is given to this surmise by the statement of Nicholas Perrot that he met La Salle on the Ottawa in 1670, but this is not probable. Taken in the order of the anonymous relation, he was on a river which ran from east to west, before passing to Onontague (Onondaga), but there is no water route passable from Lake Ontario to the Ohio which would pass Onondaga. It is far more probable that the enthusiastic young explorer entered Niagara River with his Shawnee guide and made the portage to Lake Erie. He could soon find one of the portages to the waters of the Ohio, spoken of by the Senecas. One of them was from Lake Erie near Portland and Westfield, N. Y., of six or seven leagues (eighteen to twenty-one miles), to Chatauqua Lake. Another, of about the same length, answers also to their directions, which was afterward the usual route from Erie to French Creek, at Waterford in Pennsylvania. By either of these routes he might have been on the Allegheny, with his goods and canoes, in ten or twelve days, if the weather was good. He would, however, have here been among the Andasterrionons, who were probably the Eries or Errieronons, with whom the Senecas were then at war. These Indians had been represented at “Gannegora” as sure to kill the Frenchmen if they went among them.

Gravier has a theory that instead of Onontague or “Gannontague,” mentioned in the memoir of the friend of Galinée, we should read Ganestogue or “Ganahogue,” the ancient name of the Cuyahoga. It is not improbable that the guide of La Salle knew of this route, along which, ascending the Cuyahoga from Cleveland, the party would be enabled to reach the waters of the Muskingum, by a portage of seven miles at Akron, and from thence the Ohio, at Marietta. La Salle states that after he reached the Ohio, according to the anonymous account, but one very large river was passed on the north shore before reaching the falls. If he failed to 11recognize the Scioto as a very large river, there is only the Great Miami which meets his description.

He may also have concluded to spend the winter in Ohio, where game was abundant and beavers numerous, an event to which I have referred in connection with the axe marks. We have no reliable evidence that he was at Montreal between July, 1669, and August, 1672. The records of Villemarie, quoted by Faillon, contain the first solid proof of his presence on the St. Lawrence, after he departed with Galinée and DeCasson. During this period we may be certain he was not idle. It is far from certain how many men he had, but the anonymous relation affirms that he was deserted by twenty-three or twenty-four of them after leaving the Falls of the Ohio. Where did he get these additional recruits? In the absence of historical proof, it is reasonable to infer that, when he left the Sulpitians, he moved southwesterly in accordance with his instructions, and did not turn back to Montreal. His honor, his interest and his ambition all forced him in one direction, toward the country where he was directed to go and to stay, as long as he could subsist.

What the Abbé Faillon states in the third volume of his French Colonies (page 312) confirms this supposition. According to this authority, about four months after La Salle’s departure, which would be in November, 1669, a part of his men returned, having refused to follow him. He himself could not have returned at this time without observation and public discredit.

Such a brief and fruitless effort to reach the Great South Sea could not have escaped the notice of historians. It is not probable that his foreman, Charles Thoulamion, or his surgeon, Roussilier, (Histoire Colonie Francais, vol. 3, p. 290) were among those wanting in courage to follow him. Some soldiers were of the party, furnished by Talon, who would be likely to remain by force of military discipline.

There are many threads of this tangled skein, which can not yet be drawn out. In the first volume of the Margry documents (pages 371–78) may be seen a long recital by a friend of the Abbé Galinée, already referred to, whose name is a subject of conjecture, but presumed by Mr. Parkman to have been the second Prince of Conti, Armand de Bourbon, a friend of La Salle, seventeen or eighteen years of age, purporting to be the substance of conversations with La Salle, which must have taken place as late as 1677, when he was in France. One portion of this paper is styled a “Life of La Salle,” a large part of which is occupied by his 12troubles with the Jesuits. “He (La Salle) left France at twenty-one or twenty-two years of age, in 1665, well instructed in matters in the new world, with the design of attempting new discoveries. After having been some time in Canada he acquired some knowledge of the languages, and traveled northward, where he found nothing worthy of his attention, and resolved to turn southward; and having advanced to a village of savages on the Genesee, where there was a Jesuit, he hoped to find guides, etc.” * * * * * “M. de la Salle continued his route from ‘Tenouatoua’ upon a river which goes from east to west, and passed to Onondaga (Onontague), then to six or seven leagues below Lake Erie; and having reached longitude 280° or 283°, and to latitude 41°, found a sault, which falls toward the west into a low, marshy country, covered with dry trees, of which some are still standing. He was compelled to take the land, and following a height, which led him very far, he found savages who told him that very far from there the same river, which was lost in the low, marshy country, reunited in one bed. He continued his way, but as the fatigue was great, twenty-three or twenty-four men, whom he had brought thus far, left him all in one night, regained the river, and saved themselves, some in New Holland and others in New England. He found himself alone at four hundred leagues (twelve hundred miles) from his home, where he failed not to return, reascending the river, and living by hunting, upon herbs and upon what the savages gave him, whom he met on the way. After some time he made a second attempt, on the same river, which he left below Lake Erie, making a portage of six or seven leagues (eighteen or twenty-one miles), to embark on this lake, which he traversed toward the north” into lakes Huron and Michigan, and thence to the Illinois.

Aside from the indefinite phrases of this paper, it is characterized by so many geographical errors that it would possess little value without the support of the following statement of La Salle himself:

In the year 1667 and following years he La Salle made many voyages, at much expense, in which he was the first discoverer of much country south of the great lakes, between them and the great river, Ohio. He followed it to a place where it falls from a great height into marshes, in latitude 37°, after having been enlarged by another very large river, which comes from the north, and all these waters, according to appearances, discharge into the Gulf of Mexico, and here he hopes to find a communication with the sea.

No conjecture respecting La Salle’s operations on the Ohio has yet been formed that reconciles these conflicting accounts.

In nothing direct from his pen does La Salle refer to the desertion of 13his men after leaving the falls of the Ohio. According to the supposed recital of Armand de Bourbon, he had made a long journey from thence by land, the direction of which is not known. He may have been at that time in Kentucky or Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, or Ohio. If he proceeded westerly he was constantly increasing the distance from Montreal, and whether he was north or south of the Ohio it is scarcely credible that he should find his way back alone in the winter of 1669–70. In the spring of 1681 he made that sad trip from “Crèvecœur” to Niagara, with an Indian and four men, which occupied sixty-five days. It would consume fully as much time to return from the falls of the Ohio. He could not have examined the country near the river, below the falls, or he would not have reported that it is a vast marsh, with intricate channels, along which it flowed a great distance before uniting in a single bed. He could not have traveled far west of the meridian of the falls without hearing of the Mississippi, and making an effort to reach it, for it was only through this river that he then expected to reach the Red Sea on the route to China.

La Salle could not have explored the falls very minutely, and have spoken of them as very high, nor of the country below as a vast marsh with numerous and intricate channels. If, in his land journey, he had gone in a northwesterly direction, he would have struck the Wabash or its main branches in about one hundred and twenty-five miles. In a southwesterly direction, the Cumberland and the Tennessee are rivers of equal magnitude, the waters of which he must have encountered in a few days’ travel.

Whatever Indians he met would be closely questioned, and if they communicated anything, the Great River must have been the first object of their thoughts. An observation of either of these three rivers by La Salle, in the lower part of their course, or even second-hand information respecting them from the savages, must have led a mind so acute as his, sharpened by his purposes and his surroundings, to the conclusion that he was near the Mississippi.

Did he reach this conclusion, and find himself baffled by the clamors or the desertion of his men? Did he find means to procure other men and supplies without returning to Montreal? It appears from the Colonie Francaise, vol. iii, that in the summer of 1671 he had communication with Montreal, where he obtained a credit of 454 livres tournois. Did this enable him to pass from the waters of the Ohio to those of Lake Erie, 14and undertake a long cruise through the lakes to the Illinois country?

Whatever reply should be made to these queries, it is reasonably evident that when his great work of 1679 was undertaken he did not know that the Ohio is a tributary of the Mississippi, or whether the great unknown river would conduct them to the South Sea. The discoveries of Joliet in 1673 did not remove these doubts from the minds of the governor-general or the geographers of that period.

La Salle, as late as 1682, after having been at the mouth of the Mississippi, was inclined to the opinion that the Ohio ran into a great (but imaginary) river, called Chucugoa, east of the Mississippi, discharging into the Gulf or the Atlantic in Florida. The French had not followed the Ohio from the falls to its junction with the Wabash. On a map made in 1692, ten years later, the Wabash is equivalent to the lower Ohio, formed by the Miami and the upper Ohio, the Wabash of our maps being omitted.

The main facts which residents of the Ohio valley are most curious to know concerning La Salle’s operations here are yet wanting. We have made diligent search for them, and are as yet unable to say, precisely, how much time he spent on the waters of the Ohio and Lake Erie prior to 1673; what trading posts he established, if any; what streams he navigated, or with what tribes he became acquainted. The instructions to Governor-General DuQuesne in 1752, above referred to, claim that the French had occupied this country ever since it was discovered by La Salle. Governor Burnet, of the colony of New York in 1721, states that, three years before, the French had no establishments on Lake Erie.

We may infer that La Salle was busily occupied during the years 1670 and 1671, on the waters of the Ohio and Lake Erie, collecting furs, for he had no other means of support. The credit he obtained at Villemarie in 1671 was payable in furs. If his map should be discovered in some neglected garret in France, we should no doubt find there a solution of many historical difficulties that now perplex us. It was the custom at that time to make very full memoranda on maps, amounting to a condensed report of the author’s travels. If this map exists, Europe does not contain a paper of more value to us.

Mr. Shea, whose labors on the history of French occupation have been wonderfully persistent and minute, is of the opinion that we may presume that unauthorized voyageurs, trappers, traders and coureurs des bois, both French and English, were among the Indians in advance of the explorers.

15The Dutch on the Hudson, and after 1664 the English, were on good terms with the Iroquois, who carried their wars to Lake Superior and the Mississippi. We have no records of the movements of those half savage traders, except in the case of Etienne Brulé, and that is of little value.

La Salle was probably on the waters of the Ohio when Governor Woods, of the colony of Virginia, sent a party to find that river in September, 1671. This party reached the falls of the Kanawha on the 17th of that month, where they found rude letters cut upon standing trees. They took possession of the country in the name of Charles II., of England, and proceeded no farther.—(Botts’ Journal, New York Colonial Documents, vol. iii, p. 194). William Penn’s colony was not then organized. In 1685 or 1686 some English traders penetrated as far as Mackinaw, by way of Lake Erie. They were probably from New York, and having made their purchases of the Ottawas, returned under the protection of the Hurons or Wyandots, of the west end of Lake Erie.

If the Virginians were engaged in the Indian trade at this early period, their route would be up the Potomac to the heads of the Youghiogeny, and from the forks of the Ohio at Pittsburgh to Lake Erie, by the Allegheny River and French creek, or by way of the Beaver, Mahoning, and the Cuyahoga Rivers. These Arabs of the forest would carry axes and hatchets having a steel bit, whether Dutch, French or English; and thus may have done the hacking upon our trees which I have described. None of these people would be likely to leave other records of their presence in a country claimed by their different governments, on which one party or the other were trespassers.

I am aware that this presentation of the most interesting period in the history of Ohio is desultory and incomplete. If there had been a reasonable prospect of more facts, it would have been delayed; but it is doubtful if we may expect much more light on the subject of the discovery of the Ohio valley.

When Columbus found America it was supposed he had reached the eastern coast of Asia. As discovery progressed, names intended for that continent were strung along the Atlantic. One of them, the West Indies, to-day reminds us of the error, as well as Indian, the common name for the aborigines.

It was by and by suspected that America was not Asia, but it was a long time before the reality of a vast continent was understood. Succeeding learned men made it consist of two very long and narrow bodies of land.

South America, coasted by Cape Horn, was first delineated with some accuracy, but North America not until very much later. The feeble colonies along the Atlantic grew slowly, and not until two hundred and fifty years did they really begin to push over the mountains, and there met other colonies from the interior of the continent. The South Sea trade led to many voyages of discovery, and many energetic captains sailed up and down the coast striving and continually hoping to find some strait to the supposed near coast of Asia.

We, in our day, read the early voyages as if the enterprising men who conducted them were voyaging purely for science and adventure, but, then, as now, business was energetic and commerce was reaching out its hands in every direction for larger profits. Only once did a romantic chevalier search for the visionary fountain of youth, and he may have thought that bottled it would be the most popular of mineral waters and there were “millions in it.”

Cartier entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1534, but returned to France to get a new outfit to pursue the new sea channel to the west. The next year he entered the river, but still looked for a passage to Asia. He thought deep Saguenay led to the Northern Sea and continued up the St. Lawrence. Stopped by the rapids he was the first European who made the tour of the mountain, and named the place “Mount Royal.”

17The Indians reported to Cartier that there were three large lakes and a sea of fresh water without end, meaning, no doubt, lakes of middle New York and Ontario Sea. Cartier and his king, the great Francis, supposed he was in Asia.

In a mercator map of 1569, the St. Lawrence is represented draining all the Upper Mississippi valley, while to the northwest is the eastern end of a vast fresh water sea (dulce aquarum) some five hundred or six hundred miles wide, of the extent of which the Indians of Canada, learning of it from the Indians of Saguenay, are ignorant. It looks on the map like Lake Huron, but careful geographers dropped this unfounded report of a great lake, and rightly. The Saguenay Indians no doubt meant the Lake St. John.

Quebec was settled in 1608. In 1615 Champlain reached Lake Huron by way of Ottawa River. On his return he crossed the lower end of Ontario, and met in battle the Iroquois. His allies, the Hurons, wished him to wait for five hundred men from the Eries, the tribe from which our lake took its name. His interpreter, Brulé, visited them and descended the Susquehanna to salt water, and is supposed to have visited the lake; I doubt it. He did not need to cross it to return to the French, and he could hardly have stood on the lake and seen its broad expanse. He reported to Champlain, who, in 1632 made the first map of the lakes. Lake Erie, unnamed, is little but a wide irregular river from Lake Huron, (Mer Douce) to Ontario (Lac St. Louis). Champlain’s ideas of Erie were more likely derived from the north, where Long Point and islands make it look narrower than it does from the south.

The maps of other nations for a long time after show no practical knowledge of the interior, being quite constant differences in grossest blunders. But in the meantime the French—“shut up,” says the English geographer, Heylin, “in a few weak forts on the north of Canada,”—were really by missionaries and teachers, pushing far into the interior. The Jesuit map of Lake Superior, of 1671, is wonderful. In a map published by the Royal Geographer Sanson, in Paris in 1669, Lake Erie is not far from its true shape, and lake Chautauqua appears with a small stream—meant, I think, for a little of the Ohio, known from Indian report.

It is worth while to stop for a moment to glance at the then position of our State. Between it and the east are the Alleghanies, in those days a great natural barrier, and not inaptly called “Endless Mountains.” It was to be nearly one hundred years before the whites were to cross them, 18proposing to drive away the French, but really to meet the most disastrous defeat of Braddock’s field.

At the south was a broad river separating from Kentucky, and not until still later and many a “dark and bloody” fight was Virginia to assert its empire over an unknown northwest by calling it “Illinois county.” Nor was New York to discover Ohio. All along through Western New York, and controlling the easiest avenues, were the Iroquois, the “Romans of the new world,” the conquerors of Ohio, who submitted to neither the English nor the French, and who long asserted an equality with either. The French were more sociable with Indians, but the introduction of the Iroquois to civilization was a battle with Champlain in 1608, which made the Hurons friends of the French, but lost them the conquerors of the Hurons.

The French had been pursuing their occupation, such as it was, over the peninsula north of Lake Erie, and established several posts around Lakes Superior and Huron and at Detroit, where was carried on a valuable trade. The routes north of the lakes or by the Ottawa, were the shortest, easiest and much the safest. All the while they were looking for larger things and full of schemes. Rumors of great rivers reached them, including some report of that which started from the country of the Iroquois and gathered strength for its immense unknown course through distant lands.

No more resolute discoverer than La Salle ever came to New France. A young man, only twenty-three, he was of good family; lost his inheritance by joining the Jesuits, but had given up his intention of becoming a priest. One can see, however, that he had imbibed their enthusiasm for geographical extension, and turned to designs for commerce and the king their zeal for their order. His whole life is so harmonious in its unity that it gives color to the suggestion of Mr. Parkman that he had planned it before he came. He had a grant at once, through the influence of his brother, at La Chine, named, it is said, in ridicule of his plans for a route to China. He palisaded it, traded in furs, and studied with industry the Indian tongues, learning, it is said, seven or eight. The Indians who came there talked of the Ohio, a grand river which rose near Lake Erie, but after a journey requiring eight or nine months to follow, emptied into a vast sea. La Salle believed the sea to be the Gulf of California, then thought to communicate, by a broad passage at its north, with the ocean. Here was the passage to the commerce of the South Sea and valuable 19trade with nations along its banks. In 1667 he asked to be allowed to discover it. He had the privilege, but his company was merged with that of two missionaries, Galinée and Dollier. With them, in 1669, he visited the Iroquois. The river was in its old place, but the Iroquois were not inclined to have the Frenchmen penetrate their country, intercept their trade and supply the nations to their rear with the fire arms which made the Iroquois themselves omnipotent in battle.

They talked of the long, hard journey—almost impossible; of the Andastes, a terrible nation almost sure to kill them, and the still more terrible Shawnees. The courage of the missionaries failed them, and La Salle was obliged to turn with them to the north.

There has lately been published in Paris, by M. Margry, a series of documents which add much to our knowledge of him. In these volumes appear his plans, expenses, poverty, drafts upon his family and friends; how he built upon Lake Ontario and Niagara, and planned to build on Lake Erie and further west.

In 1667 he was in France. He was already famous and of influence. His scheme was vast. He wished to penetrate to the great valley of our continent and lay there the foundation of powerful colonies “in a country temperate in climate, rich and fertile, and capable of a great commerce.” He told the king “such a hold of the continent would be taken, that in the next war with Spain, France would oust her from North America.” He was graciously allowed to pursue this vast enterprise, provided he did so at his own expense.

In 1679 he built the Griffin, the first vessel upon Lake Erie. He founded Fort Miamis upon the river St. Joseph, in southwest Michigan, and Fort Crèvecœur upon the Illinois, intending to there build a vessel to descend the Mississippi. The Griffin returned to bring supplies. He never saw her again. She was lost, he believed, by treachery, and he must return for succor. Arrived overland at Niagara, he found he had also lost a vessel with supplies from France. He reached Montreal May 6, 1680. His creditors had seized his property and his resources seemed entirely wasted. He learned by letter from Tonty, that the men left at Crèvecœur had deserted after destroying the fort, carrying away what property they could and destroying the balance. They also destroyed Fort St. Joseph and seized his property at Niagara. But La Salle was not disheartened. He started to succor Tonty and save the vessel on the Illinois. As he reached Crèvecœur, in the winter of 1680, all was silent; the 20planks of the vessel were there and on one was written “Nous sommes tous sauvages: ce 19, A. 1680.” Was it prophetic that he had named the place Crèvecœur (Broken Heart)? Not at all. His first thought was, did A. stand for April or August, and where was Tonty. The resolute will and wonderful power of La Salle appear nowhere so strongly as in the narrative of the Illinois. There seems almost a direct triumph of mind over matter. He found Tonty at Michilimackinac, and in 1682–3 accomplished his purpose of descending the Mississippi to the sea. He returned up the river and to France, and in 1685 was in a sea expedition to found a colony at its mouth. The captain, against his protest, carried him by and landed him in Texas. He still persisted, with the men left with him, in the resolve to find the Mississippi, with great suffering and opposition on their part, but not at all daunted himself. A part of them revolted from the enterprise, and one of them shot La Salle, exclaiming: “Lie there Grand Bashaw,” and that resolute will was still.

Such was the man, who, almost at the outset of his career, and when hardly twenty-seven, discovered the Ohio. There are no journals or maps of that discovery, and I have traced the man to enable us to judge of the manner in which he no doubt pursued that project. We left him with Galinée in 1669, sadly turning to the north. Of the captive guides furnished by the Iroquois, he got a Shawnee from Ohio, and persisted in wishing to seek that river. He shortly separated from the expedition. The opposition which we have related was not all. The Jesuits were jealous of his schemes—the only ones more vast and energetic than their own. Frontenac, the governor, says: “Their design, as appeared in the end, was to set a trap whichever path I took, or to derange everything; to place the country in disorder, from which they would not hesitate to profit and to ruin M. de La Salle.”

Their annual reports are the main reliance for early Canadian history, and they purposely and sagaciously omitted all mention of his enterprises or discoveries, or even his name.

Until within a few years it has been said that La Salle did nothing for the next two or three years after he left Galinée. With such a man that was impossible. We have the briefest knowledge of what he did. His reports and his maps, known to be in existence as late as 1756, are apparently hopelessly lost. In the papers publishing at Paris is one resulting from conversations with La Salle in 1677, when he was in France, a too brief narrative. It sets forth La Salle’s resolve to turn to the 21south; that Galinée, a missionary, hoped to do good in the north, and in this hope left our hero. “However,” says the narrative, “M. de La Salle continued his journey on a river which goes from the east to the west, and passed to Onontague, then to six or seven leagues below from Lake Erie, and having reached longitude 280 to 283 degrees, and latitude 41, found a rapid which falls to the west in a low, marshy country, all covered with dry trees, some of which were still standing. He was compelled to take to land, and following a height which led him away, he found some Indians who told him that far off the river lost itself in the lower country, and reunited again in one stream. He continued on the journey, but as the fatigue was great, twenty-three or twenty-four men, which he had brought there, left him by night, returned up the river and saved themselves, some in New York and some in New England.

“He was alone, four hundred leagues from home, where he returned, ascending the river and living on game, plants, and what was given him by the Indians.

“After some time he made a second attempt, on the same river,” which he left below Lake Erie, making a portage of six or seven leagues to embark on that lake, which he left towards the north, going through Lake St. Clair. La Salle himself says in a letter of 1677: “That year, 1667, and those following he made several expensive journeys, in which he discovered the first time the country south of the great lakes, and between them and the great river Ohio. He followed it to a strait, where it fell into great marshes, below 37° latitude.”

A letter from M. Talon to the king, dated November 2, 1671, says: “Sieur de La Salle has not yet returned from his journey to the southward of this country.”

A memoir of M. de DeNonville, March 8, 1688, says: “La Salle had for several years before he built Crèvecœur, employed canoes for his trade in the rivers Oyo, Oubache and others in the surrounding neighborhood, which flow into the river Mississippi.”

A plain meaning of all this is that La Salle entered the Ohio near or at one of its sources, I believe at Lake Chatauqua, six or seven leagues below Lake Erie, and followed it to Louisville. He was engaged in the beaver trade, and in 1671 had a credit at Montreal, payable in beaver. We may be pretty confident that, with his twenty-three or twenty-four men and several canoes, looking for beaver-skins, he did not neglect the Mahoning River, first called Beaver creek.

22La Salle’s latitude is bad; we would expect that. Joliet’s manuscript map of 1674 lays down the Ohio marked “Route of the Sieur de La Salle to go to Mexico.” The unpublished map of Franquelin of 1688 lays down the Ohio more correctly than it appeared in published maps for sixty years. The discovery was the basis of the French claims to Ohio, and La Salle’s likeness is one of the four great discoverers of America in the Capitol at Washington. But the knowledge gained by La Salle was to be in a great measure lost. The English, stopped by Indians and mountains, were not to settle here. The west and northwest were safer territory for the French. The Iroquois roamed over Ohio, warred with the tribes beyond, even to the Mississippi. The Wabash and Ohio became confounded, often laid down as “Wabash or Ohio,” and most often made running almost parallel with the lake and just about on the high land in Ohio which divides the streams of the north from the south. The magnificent sweep of the Ohio, which embraces our State on the east and south, was lost. The lake had various fortunes. La Hontan made it run down like a great bag half way to the Gulf, but that being in time changed, its south shore was drawn nearly east and west instead of to the southwest westward. No subsequent French writer was so sensible and intelligent as Charlevoix, yet in his great work of three quarto volumes on New France our territory hardly appears, and on the south of Lake Erie in his larger map of it, in 1744, is the legend: “Toute cette coste n’est presque point connue”—this coast is almost unknown.

As early as 1716 the governor of Virginia proposed to the home Government to seize the interior. No attention was paid to it, but about 1750 Pennsylvania traders were pushing over the mountains and the French traders from the west. In that year the Ohio Land Company sent Gist to survey the Ohio. English traders were shortly after at Pickowilliny, Sandusky and Pittsburgh, but not safely so. The French were the strongest. In 1749 Celeron placed his lead plates on the Ohio. In 1753 the French crossed Lake Erie, established Presque Isle and expelled the English from Fort DuQuesne at Pittsburgh. Washington made his appearance to know what the French were doing. The traders had made no addition to science or geography, but they had called attention to the country. But the military expeditions were to rediscover it

Celeron’s map lays down the Ohio quite creditably, but the legend along the lake is: “All this part of the lake is unknown.” Just the mouth of the Beaver appears. He expelled English traders from Logstown, 23a little above the Beaver. The great geographer, D’Anville of France, in 1755 lays down the Beaver, with the Mahoning from the west, rising in a lake, all very incorrectly, with Lake Erie rising to the northeast like a pair of stairs and the Ohio nearly parallel to it.

The map published in 1754 with Washington’s report takes good account of Great Beaver creek—Logstown just above it; opposite, on the Ohio, a fort; Delawares on the west at the mouth; Kuskuskas above; and above that, Owendos’ town, “Wyandot.”. The mixed state of the Indians at that time appears in Celeron, who found in Logstown Iroquois from different places, Shawnees, Delawares, also Nepissings, Abenakes and Ottawas.

Being a convenient way of passing to the lake, a trail as an avenue of commerce preceded the canal, and that the railroad.

Evans was to draw and Franklin to publish, in 1755, at Philadelphia, a map plainly in demand by traders, and from information given by them. At the mouth of the Beaver is a Shingoes’ town; a trail up to the forks finds the Kuskuskas; a trail to the east leaves it for “Wenango” and “Petroleum”; the trail to the west goes to “Salt Springs,” and where farther does not appear.

In his “Analysis,” Mr. Evans says: “Beaver creek is navigable with canoes only. At Kushkies, about sixteen miles up, two branches spread opposite ways—one interlocks with French creek and Cherage, the other westward with Muskingum and Cuyahoga. On this are many salt springs about thirty-five miles above the forks. It is canoeable about twenty miles farther. The eastern branch is less considerable, but both are very slow, spreading through a very rich, level country, full of swamps and ponds which prevent a good portage, but will no doubt in future ages be fit to open a canal between the waters of the Ohio and Lake Erie.”

A map often reprinted, and the one which was made the basis of the treaty of peace after the Revolution, was that of John Mitchell, London, 1755.

Kushkies is said to be the “chief town of the Six Nations on the Ohio, an English factory.” On the east branch are “Owendots.” Pennsylvania reaches its protection over the whole of the Mahoning.

My purpose to outline discovery is nearly ended. In 1760, with Quebec, all New France was surrendered to the English, but new wars with Indians were to follow. Hutchins, Geographer-General to the United States, who introduced our admirable land system, was with 24Bouquet in 1764. On his map, between Kuskuske and Salt Lick Town, on the west of the river, appears “Mahoning Town,” the first appearance in the maps of the name.

The subsequent history of Ohio is familiar. That of the Reserve grew out of that ignorance which supposed the continent narrow. King Charles granted in 1660 to Connecticut a tract seventy miles wide and over three thousand long. The money for the Reserve became the school fund of Connecticut, and led by the example, to our admirable system of free schools, so that the ignorance of years ago leads to the wisdom of this.

The error of making the south shore of Lake Erie east and west came to a curious end. When the association of gentlemen known as the Connecticut Land Company were about to buy the Reserve, they agreed with a prospective competitor to let it have the excess over three million acres. This was the Excess Company, but there was no land for it, and the error of one hundred years led to considerable financial disaster.

I ought to mention, as a matter of curious history, the map of John Fitch, of steamboat memory. He spent considerable time in surveys within the bounds of Ohio and Kentucky, and had previously traveled the country as a prisoner among the Indians. In 1785 he made a map of the “Northwest Country,” containing original and accurate information. He prepared the copper plate, engraved it himself, and printed it with a cider press. He was then living in Bucks county, Pa., and sold the map at six shillings per copy to raise money enough to pursue his inventions relating to steamboats.

We have now reached the period of settlement and can take a retrospect.

From the discovery of the continent in 1494 it was one hundred and seventy-five years to the pioneer discovery of Ohio. In eighty-five years more both France and England set to work in earnest to make good their claims to it. In thirty-four years more England had beaten France, America had beaten England, and the first permanent settlement had been made in Ohio. It took two hundred and ninety-four years to reach this point. There are but ninety-two years left to 1880 for the pioneers of Ohio; but what a fruition to their work! The solitary settlement has become a mighty nation of three million people, as large as the whole United States in the Revolution, and how much stronger and with what 25an abundance of wealth and comfort—a centre of intelligence and the home of Presidents!

It is a wonderful review. The pioneers found the State covered with large forests, almost without exception requiring the severest labor to remove; and the change, all within a possible lifetime, seems amazing. The world cannot show its parallel, and when one thinks seriously it will be found to be one of the most interesting and important events in the history of man. Peace as well as war has its victories.

We can only live over in stories the life of the pioneers. But theirs was sturdy independence and severe labor, with least encouragement.

In the autumn of 1785 General Richard Butler passed down the Ohio on his way to attend the treaty with the Indians at the mouth of the Little Miami. He kept a record of his journey, and his journal gives much interesting information, among other things the location of Fort Harmar. In Virginia and Kentucky measures had been taken for what would have been, really, an irresponsible invasion of the Indian country. This action, which threatened to precipitate a disastrous war, hastened in all probability the action of the confederation in taking measures for the effectual strengthening of the frontier. It was determined to establish several posts northwest of the Ohio. Fort Laurens had been built in 1778 upon the Tuscarawas, near the old Indian town of Tuscarawas and one mile south of the site of the present village of Bolivar. It was injudiciously located, and was abandoned one year after its erection. General Butler, while on his journey in 1785, chose the site for Fort Harmar. Before leaving Fort McIntosh he had prepared and left with Colonel Harmar, the commandant of the post, a paper in which he expressed the opinion that “the mouth of the Muskingum would be a proper place for a post to cover the frontier inhabitants, prevent intruding settlers on the land of the United States, and secure the surveys.” In his journal, under date of Saturday, October 8th, he writes:

Sent Lieutenant Doyle and some men to burn the houses of the settlers on the north side and put up proclamations.

Went on very well to the mouth of the Muskingum and found it low. I went on shore to examine the ground most proper to establish a post on; find it too low, but the most eligible is in the point on the Ohio side. Wrote to Major Doughty and recommended this place with my opinion of the kind of work most proper. Left the letter, which contained other remarks on the fort, fixed to a locust tree.

A few days later the general instructed a man whom he met ascending the Ohio to take the letter from the mouth of the Muskingum to Major Doughty.

A short time later Major Doughty, with a detachment of United States troops under his command, arrived at the mouth of the Muskingum and began the erection of a post, which was not fully completed until the spring of 1786.

27

FORT HARMAR IN 1788.

The fort stood very near the point on the western side of the Muskingum, and upon the second terrace above ordinary flood water. It was a regular pentagon in shape, with bastions on each side, and its walls enclosed but little more than three-quarters of an acre. The main walls of defence, technically called “curtains,” were each one hundred and twenty feet long and about twelve or fourteen feet high. They were constructed of logs laid horizontally. The bastions were of the same height as the other walls, but unlike them were formed of palings or timbers set upright in the ground. Large two-story log buildings were built in the bastions for the accommodation of the officers and their families, and the barracks for the troops were erected along the curtains, the roofs sloping toward the centre of the enclosure. They were divided into four rooms of thirty feet each, supplied with fireplaces, and were sufficient for the accommodation of a regiment of men,^[1] a larger number, by the way, than was ever quartered in the fort. From the roof of the barracks building towards the Ohio river there arose a watch tower, surmounted 28by the flag of the United States. This tower was also used as a guardhouse. There were other buildings within the enclosure—an arsenal, a store-house, and several smaller structures. The main gate was toward the river with a sally-port on the side fronting on the hills. A well was dug near the centre of the enclosure to supply the garrison with water in case of siege, but, happily it was never needed, and we are told that ordinary water was brought from the river. The timber used in the construction of the fort was that of the heavy forest which covered its side and several acres of land around about. The area cleared up was nearly all utilized for gardening purposes under the direction of Major Doughty, who seems to have had a remarkable fondness for tilling the soil and considerable taste and knowledge as a horticulturist.^[2] Fort Harmar was named after General (then Colonel) Harmar, who was the commander of the regiment to which Major Doughty was attached, and for some time commandant at the fort at the mouth of the Muskingum.

Joseph Buell (afterward one of the prominent early settlers at Marietta) was on the frontier for nearly a period of three years, dating from the latter part of December, 1785, and he spent a considerable portion of his time at Fort Harmar. His journal affords some interesting glimpses of life in the garrison and affairs in the western country during the years immediately preceding its settlement. Much is said in the beginning of the hardships of army life, the depravity of the troops, and the severity of the punishments inflicted for various offences. Drunkenness and desertion were prevalent evils. The punishment for the former and other venal misdemeanors was not infrequently flogging to the extent of one hundred or even two hundred lashes, and the death penalty, without the process of court-martial, was inflicted upon deserters. The pay of the soldiers at that time guarding the frontier was only three dollars per month.

On the 4th of May, 1786, Captain Zeigler’s and Strong’s companies embarked for Muskingum, and from this date forward the entries in the journal relate to occurrences at Fort Harmar.

May 8th. We arrived at Muskingum, where we encamped in the edge of the woods a little distance from the fort.

10th. Captain Zeigler’s company embarked for the Miami, and our company moved into the garrison, where we were engaged several days in making ourselves comfortable.

12th. Began to make our gardens, and had a very disagreeable spell of weather, which continued for twenty-two days raining in succession.

29June 9th. Two boats arrived from Miami, and report that the Indians had murdered several inhabitants this spring. We are getting short of meat for the troops.

10th. Five frontiersmen came here to hunt for the garrison, and brought with them a quantity of venison.

19th. News arrived here that the Indians had killed four or five women and children at Fish creek, about thirty miles northeast from this garrison.

July 4th. The great day of American independence was commemorated by the discharge of thirteen guns, after which the troops were served with extra rations of liquor, and allowed to get as drunk as they pleased.

8th. We are brought down to half rations, and have sent out a party of men to hunt. They returned without much success, although game is plenty in the woods.

9th. We discovered some Indians crossing the Ohio in a canoe, below the garrison, and sent a party after them, but could not overtake them.

10th. Ensign Kingsbury, with a party of nine, embarked for Wheeling in quest of provisions.

12th. Captain Strong arrived from Fort Pike.

16th. We were visited by a party of Indians, who encamped at a little distance from the garrison, and appeared to be very friendly. They were treated kindly by the officers, who gave them some wine and the best the garrison afforded.

17th. Our men took up a stray canoe on the river. It contained a pair of shoes, two axes and some corn. We suppose the owners were killed by the Indians. Same day Lieutenant Kingsbury returned with only a supply of food for six or seven days.

18th. Captain Strong’s company began to build their range of barracks, to make ourselves comfortable for the winter.

19th. This day buried the fifer to Captain Hart’s company. Our funerals are conducted in the following manner: The men are all paraded without arms, and march by files in the rear of the corpse. The guard, with arms, march in front, with their pieces reversed; and the music in the rear of the guard, just in front of the coffin, playing some mournful tune. After the dead is buried they return in the same order, playing some lively march.

21st. A boat arrived from Fort Pit with intelligence of a drove of cattle at Wheeling for this garrison.

22nd. Lieutenant Pratt, with a party of men, went up by land to bring down the cattle.

23rd. Colonel Harmar arrived at the garrison. The troops paraded to receive him and fired a salute of nine guns.

26th. Captain Hart went with a party of men to guard the Indians of the Muskingum.

27th. Lieutenant Pratt arrived with ten head of cattle, which revived our spirits, as we had been without provisions for several days.

29th. Three hunters came into the fort and informed us that they had seen a party of Indians lying in the woods. We sent out some men, but discovered nothing.

August 2nd. Our garrison was alarmed. Captain Hart was walking on the bank of the river, and said he saw Indians on the other side of the Ohio, and saw them shoot one of the men who was out hunting, and beheld him fall. Colonel Harmar immediately sent the captain with a party of men after them. They crossed the river and found one man asleep on the ground, and another had been shooting at a mark. They had seen no Indians.

11th. Captain Hart’s company were ordered to encamp in the open ground outside of the fort, as the men are very sickly in the barracks.

23rd. Captain Hart and his company embarked for Wheeling with orders to escort and protect the surveyors in the seven ranges.

September 1st. Captain Tunis, the Indian, came to the fort and reported the Indians designed to attack our garrison, and that they were bent on mischief. We were all hands employed in making preparations to receive them, lining the bastions, clearing away all the weeds and brush within a hundred yards of the fort. We likewise cut up all our corn and broke down the bean poles, to prevent their having any shelter within rifle shot distance.

6th. Captain Tunis left the garrison to return to his nation and bring us further information.

307th. The troops received orders to parade at the alarm post at daybreak, and continue under arms until after sunrise.

12th. Still busy making preparations for the Indians, and expect them every day.

21st. Ensign Kingsbury was ordered to take a party of men into the commandant’s house and put it in the best order for defence, and to remain there during the night.

26th. The troops are again brought to half rations. I went with a party of men after a raft of timber to construct our barracks.

27th. Lieutenant Smith embarked in quest of provisions. We are on short allowance, and expect the Indians every day to attack us. Our men are very uneasy, laying various plans to desert, but are so closely watched that it is very difficult for them to escape.

October 2nd. Lieutenant Smith returned with provisions sufficient only for a short time. We are busily occupied in erecting the barracks.

10th. Major Doughty and Captain Strong left here for New England.

11th. The Indians made us a visit and stole one of our horses as it was feeding in the woods.

16th. Captain Tunis called again at the fort and says the Indians had repented of their design to attack the garrison.

November 3rd. Captain Tunis and a number of Indians, with two squaws, came into the garrison. At night they got very drunk and threatened the guard with their tomahawks and knives.

5th. Uling, a trader on the river, arrived with provisions.

9th. The hunters brought in about thirty deer and a great number of turkeys.

25th. Captain Hart’s and McCurdy’s companies came in from the survey of the seven ranges. They had a cold, wearisome time; their clothes and shoes wore out, and some of their feet badly frozen.

December 3rd. Uling arrived with twenty kegs of flour and ten kegs of whiskey and some dry goods. Our rations now consist of a little venison, without any bread; as a substitute we have some corn and potatoes. The weather is very cold and the river full of ice.

13th. Lieutenant Pratt embarked in a boat for Flinn’s Station (now Belleville), distant thirty miles below the garrison, for a load of corn and potatoes. The troops are in great distress for provisions. About twelve miles below they landed on account of the storm, and their boat was carried off by the ice with a considerable amount of goods in it.

19th. Weather more moderate. Ensign Kingsbury embarked for Flinn’s Station to make another trial for provisions.

22nd. Ensign Kingsbury returned with about sixty bushels of corn and about twenty of potatoes.

24th. We drew for our station about a peck of frozen potatoes. As Christmas is so near we are making all the preparations in our power to celebrate it.

25th. This being Christmas day, the sergeant celebrated it by a dinner, to which was added a plentiful supply of wine.

January 31, 1787. Hamilton Kerr, our hunter, began to build a house on the island, a little above the mouth of the Muskingum, and some of our men were ordered out as a fatigue party, to assist him, under the command of Lieutenant Pratt.

February 11th. The weather has been very fine, and there is prospect of an early spring.

15th. Sergeant Judd went with a party of men to assist some inhabitants to move their families and settle near the garrison.

16th. Hamilton Kerr moved his family onto the island.

18th. Several families are settling on the Virginia shore, opposite the fort.

24th. Isaac Williams arrived with his family to settle on the opposite shore of the river. Several others have joined him, which makes our situation in the wilderness much more agreeable.

27th. Major Hamtramck arrived from Fort Steuben in order to muster the troops. The same day some of the hunters brought in a buffalo, which was eighteen hands high and weighed one thousand pounds.

April 1st. The Indians came within twelve miles of the garrison, and killed an old man and took a boy prisoner.

315th. Lieutenant Smith went out with a party of men on a scout and discovered Indians on a hill within half a mile of the garrison.

9th. Ensign Kingsbury went on command with a party to bring in one of the hunters, fifty miles up the Muskingum, for fear of the Indians, who, we hear, are bent on mischief.

25th. One of our men discovered two Indians attempting to steal our horses a little distance from the fort....

May 1st. This is St. Tammany’s day, and was kept with the festivities usual to the frontiers. All the sergeants in the garrison crossed the Ohio to Mr. Williams’, and partook of an excellent dinner.

7th. Twenty-one boats passed on their way to the lower country, Kentucky. They had on board five hundred and nine souls, with many wagons, goods, etc.

14th. John Stockley, a fifer in Captain Strong’s company, deserted. He was pursued and overtaken twelve miles from the garrison, brought back and ordered to run the gauntlet eleven times, through the troops of the garrison, stripped of his Continental clothing, and drummed out the fort with a halter around his neck, all of which was punctually executed.

21st. This evening I sent a young man, who cooked for me on Kerr’s island, about half a mile above the fort after some milk; he was seen to jump into the river near the shore, when about a third of a mile from the garrison. We supposed some of the people were playing in the water. He did not return that evening, which led me to fear he had lost his course. In the morning a party was sent after him. They discovered fresh signs of Indians, and found his hat. They followed the trail, but did not find them. We afterwards heard that they had killed and scalped him. The Indians were a party of Ottawas.

Far away upon the Atlantic sea board forces were at work a score of years anterior to 1788 which were not only to form the first settlement but to plant New England morals, law and institutions upon this vast inland domain of the nation. Ideas were in inception which, as the prime impetus in a long chain of causes and effects, were to swell the tremendous result and effect the destiny not alone of the west but of the Republic from sea to sea.

It is a pleasant thought that in the British war against the French, General Putnam (at the time of his enlistment in 1757, nineteen years of 33age) and many others assisted in wresting from the enemy and securing to their sovereign the very territory which was to become their home; and it is a disagreeable fact that they had finally so dearly to purchase a small portion of the domain which they had twice bought by bravery of arms. The men who fought to win for England the territory which the French disputed, in 1755–1760, were foremost to win it from her twenty years later, and thus twice exhibited the hardihood and heroism of their natures.

Something of the spirit of emigration manifested itself in New England after the conclusion of the French and Indian war, and in fact was an outgrowth of that struggle. An organization of ex-soldiers of the colonies was formed, called “The Military Company of Adventurers,” whose purpose it was to establish a colony in West Florida (now Mississippi). Although the project had been entered upon soon after the establishment of peace, it was not until the year 1772 that anything was accomplished. General Lyman, after several years’ endeavor, succeeded in procuring a tract of land. It was decided to explore the tract, and a company of surveyors, of which the celebrated Israel Putnam was the leader, went out in January, 1773, for that purpose. Rufus Putnam was a member of the party. The examination was satisfactory, and several hundred families embarked from Massachusetts and Connecticut to make a settlement. They found to their chagrin that the king’s grant had been revoked, and the settlement was therefore abandoned. Those who did not fall sick and die returned to their homes. Such was the disastrous end of this project of settlement, which, had it succeeded, might possibly have changed the whole political history of the United States. It seems at least to be within the realm of probability that had a settlement been planted in Mississippi, Massachusetts would not have made the initial settlement in the Ohio country and extended her influence over the territory from which five great States have been created. The enterprise of founding a colony in the far south, thwarted as it was, undoubtedly had its effect upon the New England mind, and was one of the elements which prepared the way for the inauguration of a new scheme of emigration in later years. The dream which had been fondly indulged in for a long term of years, was not to be forgotten even when the opportunity or its realization had passed away.

Soon, however, there arose a subject for thought which overshadowed all others. What men of shrewd foresight had long expected had come to pass. The colonies were arrayed against the mother country 34in a battle for independence. We shall not here attempt to follow Generals Putnam, Parsons, Varnum and Tupper, Major Winthrop Sargent, Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, and the many other brave soldiers who became Ohio Company emigrants through the perils of those seven dark years of the Revolution. But is it not natural to suppose that some of them who had been interested in the old colonization project talked of it around their camp fires? Is it not possible that the review of the past suggested the possibility of forming in the future another military colony, in which they should realize the bright hopes that had once been blasted? It seems natural that, in the long lulls between the periods of fierce activity, this topic should have come up frequently in conversation, or at least that it should have appeared as a vague but alluring element in many pictures of the future painted by hopeful imaginations. It is very likely that General Putnam had indulged the hope of emigration “to some remote land rich in possibilities” for many years before he led the little New England colony to the Muskingum. He had very likely cherished the hope unceasingly from the time when the military company of adventurers was organized, and doubtless the journey to that far away, strange and beautiful Mississippi had served as a stimulus to quicken his desire for the realization of a project which would employ so much of his energy and enterprise, and afford so fine an opportunity for the achievement of a life success. We know that Washington, during the darkest days of the Revolution, directed the attention of his companions at arms to the west, as a land in which they might take refuge should they be worsted in the struggle, but happily it was not to be that contingency which should cause the movement of emigration toward the Ohio. If, during the war, the western country was the subject of an occasional estray, light thought, the time was to come when it should be uppermost in the minds of many of the soldiers and practically considered, not as a land in which they must seek to take refuge from a victorious foe, but as one in which they might retrieve the losses they had sustained in repelling the enemy. It must be borne in mind that the independence of the American colonies was dearly bought, as indeed has been all the great good attained in the history of the world. The very men by whose long continued, self-sacrificing devotion and bravery the struggle against the tyrannical mother country had been won, found themselves, at the close of the war, reduced to the most straitened circumstances, and the young nation ushered into being by their heroism was unable to alleviate their condition. These 35were the times which tried men’s souls. Nowhere was the strain any more severe than in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The joy which peace brought after seven years of war was in most localities too deep to be voiced by noisy demonstration, and it was not unmingled with forebodings of the future. “The rejoicings,” says a local historian,^[3] “were mostly expressed in religious solemnities.” There were still difficult problems to be solved—and there was the memory of husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, and lovers who would not return with the victorious patriots, and it may in many cases have been difficult “to discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people.”

General Benjamin Tupper, in the early autumn of 1785, had gone to the Ohio country to engage in surveying under the ordinance passed by Congress May 20 of that year, but owing to the hostility of the Indians and consequent hazard of entering upon the work, he returned to New England. General Tupper was one of the men who had been most intently engaged in planning western settlements, and was undoubtedly a co-worker with his intimate old friend, General Putnam, advocating and agitating the scheme which had proved unsuccessful. He returned from the west filled with admiration of that portion of the country which he had seen, and made enthusiastic through the descriptions given by traders of the region farther down la belle riviere than he had journeyed. Doubtless he pondered upon the idea of removing to the west, during the whole time spent there, and was chiefly occupied with the subject while making the tedious return to his home. Early in January he visited, at his house in Rutland, Worcester County, Massachusetts, General Putnam, and there these two men, who may be properly called the founders of the Ohio Company, earnestly talked of their experiences and their hopes in front of the great fire, while the night hours fast passed away. In the language of one whom it is fair to suppose had preserved the truthful tradition of that meeting: “A night of friendly offices and conference between them gave, at the dawn, a development—how important in its results!—to the cherished hope and purpose of the visit of General Tupper.”^[4] As the result of that long conversation by a New England fireside, appeared the first mention in the public prints of the Ohio Company. The two men had thought so deeply and carefully upon the absorbing theme of colonization, were so thoroughly impressed with the feasibility 36of their plans as they had unfolded them, so impatient to put them to that test, that they felt impelled to take an immediate and definite step. They could no longer rest inactive. They joined in a brief address, setting forth their views to ascertain the opinion of the people. It appeared in the newspapers on the twenty-fifth of January, and read as follows:

INFORMATION.

The subscribers take this method to inform all officers and soldiers who have served in the late war, and who are by a late ordinance of the honorable Congress to receive certain tracts of land in the Ohio country, and also all other good citizens who wish to become adventurers in that delightful region, that from personal inspection, together with other incontestible evidences, they are fully satisfied that the lands in that quarter are of a much better quality than any other known to the New England people; that the climate, seasons, products, etc., are in fact equal to the most flattering accounts that have ever been published of them; that being determined to become purchasers and to prosecute a settlement in that country, and desirous of forming a general association with those who entertain the same ideas, they beg leave to propose the following plan, viz.: That an association by the name of The Ohio Company be formed of all such as wish to become purchasers, etc., in that country, who reside in the commonwealth of Massachusetts only, or to extend to the inhabitants of other States as shall be agreed on.

That in order to bring such a company into existence the subscribers propose that all persons who wish to promote the scheme, should meet within their respective counties, (except in two instances hereinafter mentioned) at 10 o’clock A. M. on Wednesday, the fifteenth day of February next, and that each county or meeting there assembled choose a delegate or delegates to meet at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern in Boston, on Wednesday, the first day of March next, at 10 o’clock A. M., then and there to consider and determine upon a general plan of association for said company; which plan, covenant, or agreement, being published, any person (under condition therein to be provided) may, by subscribing his name, become a member of the company.

Then follow the places of meeting:

At Captain Webb’s, in Salem, Middlesex; at Bradish’s, in Cambridge, Hampshire; at Pomeroy’s, in North Hampton, Plymouth; at Bartlett’s, in Plymouth, Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket Counties; at Howland’s, in Barnstable, Bristol; at Crocker’s, in Taunton, York; at Woodbridge’s, in York, Worcester; at Patch’s, in Worcester, Cumberland and Lincoln; at Shothick’s, in Falmouth, Berkshire; at Dibble’s, in Lenox.

Rutland, January 10, 1786.

The plan suggested by Generals Putnam and Tupper was carried out, and upon the first day of March the delegates from the several counties assembled at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern, the designated place in Boston (which was then a considerably smaller city than is now the capital of Ohio), and there discussed, in conventional form, the proposed organization of the Ohio Company. The delegates present at that historical meeting were: Manasseh Cutler, of Essex; Winthrop Sargent and John Mills, of Suffolk; John Brooks and Thomas Cushing, of Middlesex; Benjamin Tupper, of Hampshire; Crocker Sampson, of Plymouth; Rufus Putnam, of Worcester; Jelaliel Woodbridge and John Patterson of Berkshire; Abraham Williams of Barnstable.

37General Putnam was made chairman of the convention, and Major Winthrop Sargent, secretary. Before adjournment a committee of five was appointed to draft a plan of an association, as “from the very pleasing description of the western country, given by Generals Putnam and Tupper and others, it appears expedient to form a settlement there.” That committee consisted of General Putnam, Dr. Manasseh Cutler, Colonel Brooks, Major Sargent, and Captain Cushing.

On Friday, March 3, the convention reassembled and the committee reported the following:

Articles of agreement entered into by the subscribers for constituting an association by the name of the Ohio Company.

PREAMBLE.

The design of this association is to raise a fund in Continental certificates, for the sole purpose and to be appropriated to the entire use of purchasing lands in the western territory belonging to the United States, for the benefit of the company, and to promote a settlement in that country.

Article 1st.—That the fund shall not exceed one million of dollars in Continental specie certificates, exclusive of one year’s interest due thereon (except as hereafter provided), and that each share or subscription shall consist of one thousand dollars, as aforesaid, and also ten dollars in gold or silver, to be paid into the hands of such agents as the subscribers may elect.

Article 2nd.—That the whole fund of certificates raised by this association, except one year’s interest due thereon, mentioned under the first article, shall be applied to the purchase of lands in some one of the proposed States northwesterly of the river Ohio, as soon as those lands are surveyed and exposed for sale by the Commissioners of Congress, according to the ordinance of that honorable body, passed the twentieth of May, 1785, or on any other plan that may be adopted by Congress, not less advantageous to the company. The one year’s interest shall be applied to the purpose of making a settlement in the country and assisting those who may be otherwise unable to remove themselves thither. The gold and silver is for defraying the expenses of those persons employed as agents in purchasing the lands and other contingent charges that may arise in the prosecution of the business. The surplus, if any, to be appropriated as one year’s interest on the certificates.

Article 3rd.—That there shall be five directors, a treasurer and secretary, appointed in manner and for the purposes hereafter provided.

Article 4th.—That the prosecution of the company’s designs may be the least expensive, and at the same time the subscribers and agents as secure as possible, the proprietors of twenty shares shall constitute one grand division of the company, appoint the agent, and in case of vacancy by death, resignation or otherwise, shall fill it up as immediately as can be.

Article 5th.—That the agent shall make himself accountable to each subscriber for certificates and invoices received, by duplicate receipts, one of which shall be lodged with the secretary; that the whole shall be appropriated according to articles of association, and that the subscriber shall receive his just dividend according to quality and quantity of lands purchased, as near as possibly may be, by lot drawn in person or through proxy, and that deeds of conveyance shall be executed to individual subscribers, by the agent, similar to those he shall receive from the directors.

Article 6th.—That no person shall be permitted to hold more than five shares in the company’s funds, and no subscription for less than a full share will be admitted; but this is not meant to prevent those who cannot or choose not to adventure a full share, from associating among themselves, and by one of their number subscribing the sum required.

Article 7th.—That the directors shall have the sole disposal of the company’s fund for the purposes before mentioned; that they shall by themselves, or such person or persons as they may think proper to entrust with the business, purchase lands for the benefit of the company, where and in such way, either 38at public or private sale, as they shall judge will be the most advantageous to the company. They shall also direct the application of the one year’s interest, and gold and silver, mentioned in the first article, to the purposes mentioned under the second article, in such way and manner as they shall think proper. For these purposes the directors shall draw on the treasurer from time to time, making themselves accountable for the application of the moneys agreeably to this association.

Article 8th.—That the agents, being accountable to the subscribers for their respective divisions, shall appoint the directors, treasurer and secretary, and fill up all the vacancies which may happen in these offices respectively.

Article 9th.—That the agents shall pay all the certificates and moneys received from subscribers into the hands of the treasurer, who shall give bonds to the agents, jointly and severally, for the faithful discharge of his trust; and also, on his receiving certificates or moneys from any particular agent, shal make himself accountable therefor, according to the condition of his bonds.

Article 10th.—That the directors shall give bonds, jointly and severally, to each of the agents, conditioned that the certificates and moneys they shall draw out of the treasury shall be applied to the purposes stipulated in these articles; and that the lands purchased by the company shall be divided among them within three months from the completion of the purchase, by lot, in such manner as the agents or a majority of them shall agree, and that on such division being made, the directors shall execute deeds to the agents, respectively, for the proportions which fall to their divisions, correspondent to those the directors may receive from the Commissioners of Congress.

Article 11th.—Provided, that whereas a sufficient number of subscribers may not appear to raise the fund to the sums proposed in the first article, and thereby the number of divisions may not be completed, it is therefore agreed that the agents of divisions of twenty shares each shall, after the seventeenth day of October next, proceed in the same manner as if the whole fund had been raised.

Article 12th.—Provided, also, that whereas it will be for the common interest of the company to obtain an ordinance of incorporation from the honorable Congress, or an act of incorporation from some one of the States in the Union (for which the directors shall make application), it is therefore agreed that in case such incorporation is obtained, the fund of the company (and consequently the shares and divisions thereof) may be extended to any sum, for which provision shall be made in said ordinance or act of incorporation, anything in this association to the contrary notwithstanding.

Article 13th.—That all notes under this association may be given in person or by proxy, and in numbers justly proportionate to the stockholder or interest represented.

These articles of agreement were unanimously adopted and subscription books were immediately opened. A committee was appointed, consisting of three members, to transact necessary business, and some other measures taken to advance the project of the association; but in spite of all the exertions made, there was but little progress in the affairs of the Ohio Company. When the next meeting was held—a little more than a year from the time of the first, that is, upon March 8, 1787—it was found that the total number of shares subscribed for was only two hundred and fifty. And yet, all untoward circumstances considered, that was probably a fair exhibit, and more than was expected. One active friend of the movement, General Tupper, was the greater part of the year in the west. The influence of the others was very largely counteracted by events of an alarming nature—the dissatisfaction which finally culminated in Shay’s rebellion. That civil commotion growing out of the imposition of heavy taxes upon the already impoverished people threatened for a time exceedingly 39dire results, but fortunately it was speedily quelled. It served as a startling illustration, however, of the great depression in New England, and of the desperation to which men can be driven by ill condition. Possibly the outbreak gave a slight impetus to the progress of the Ohio Company’s project, by way of increasing the disposition of some citizens to seek in the west a new home. General Tupper, whose immediate neighborhood was “deeply infected with the sedition,” returned from his second visit to the Ohio country in time to take a prominent part in subduing the revolt. The dawn of 1787 witnessed the pacification of the troubled country, but no marked increase in prosperity.

It was reported at the meeting held on the eighth of March at Brackett’s tavern in Boston, that “many in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, also in Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, are inclined to become adventurers, who are restrained only by the uncertainty of obtaining a sufficient tract of country, collectively, for a good settlement.”

It was now decided to make direct and immediate application to Congress for the purchase of lands, and General Putnam, Dr. Manasseh Cutler and General Samuel H. Parsons were appointed directors and especially charged with this business. General Parsons had previously been employed to negotiate for a private purchase, had petitioned Congress, and a committee of that body had been appointed to confer with him. “To that committee,” says Dr. Cutler, “he proposed a purchase on the Scioto River,” but as the proprietors in Massachusetts “were generally dissatisfied with the situation and lands on the Scioto, and much preferred the Muskingum,” the negotiation was suspended. The directors now employed Dr. Cutler to make a purchase upon the Muskingum. It was considered desirable that the negotiations be commenced and the purchase consummated as soon as possible, as other companies were forming, the spirit of private speculation rapidly increasing, and there was a fear that the lands which the Ohio Company wished to possess would be bought by some other organization, or perhaps some part of them by individuals.

Just here the query arises: why were the New Englanders so anxious to purchase lands upon the Muskingum, rather than upon the Scioto, or elsewhere in the territory? To this question there are various answers. In the first place the greater part of the Federal territory was unfitted for settlement by the fact that it was occupied by the Indian tribes. None of these, however, had their residence in the lower Muskingum region, and it was only occasionally resorted to by them, when upon their hunting 40expeditions. Then, too, the people who proposed making a settlement beyond the Ohio were very naturally influenced by the proximity of well established stations upon the east and south of the river; they doubtless preferred the Virginians rather than the Kentuckians, as neighbors. The lower Scioto offered no more alluring an aspect than the lower Muskingum. The best bodies of lands on each river are fifty miles from their mouth. To penetrate so far into the interior, however, as the site of either Chillicothe or Zanesville would have been, at the time the Marietta settlement was made, was unsafe. The location of Fort Harmar, which we have seen was built in 1785–86, doubtless had its influence upon the Ohio Company. Thomas Hutchins, the United States geographer, who had formerly been geographer to the king of Great Britain, and had traveled extensively in the west, had said and written much in favor of the Muskingum country, and strongly advised Dr. Cutler to locate his purchase in this region. Other explorers and travelers had substantiated what Hutchins had said. General Butler and General Parsons, who had descended the Ohio to the Miamis, were deeply impressed with the desirableness of the tract of country now designated as southeastern Ohio, and the latter, writing on the twentieth of December, 1785, from Fort Finney (mouth of the Little Miami) to Captain Jonathan Hart, at Fort Harmar, said: “I have seen no place since I left you that pleases me so well for settlement as Muskingum.” General Benjamin Tupper doubtless added important testimony supporting that of Hutchins, Parsons, Butler and others. General Parsons, it has been asserted, became most strongly possessed of the belief that the Muskingum region was the best part of the territory, because one of the Zanes, who had been many years in the west, told him that the Scioto or Miami regions offered superior attractions, and he suspected that the old frontiersman artfully designed to divert attention from the Muskingum that he might have the first choice of purchase himself when the lands were put on sale. It is probable, too, that the prospect of establishing a system of communication and commerce between the Ohio and Lake Erie, by way of the Muskingum and Tuscarawas and Cuyahoga, and between the Ohio and the seaboard, by way of the Great Kanawha and the Potomac (a plan which Washington had thought feasible before the Revolutionary war), had its weight.

During a long period—one which, perhaps, had its beginning soon after the forced exodus of the semi-civilized, pre-historic people, and which extended down to the era of the white man’s actual knowledge—the upper Ohio valley was probably devoid of any permanent population. The river teemed with fish, and the dense, luxuriant wood abounded in game, but no Indian wigwams dotted the shores of the great stream, no camp fires gleamed along its banks, and no maize-fields covered the fertile bottom lands or lent variety to the wild vernal green. An oppressive stillness hung over the land, marked and intensified rather than broken, and only made more weird by the tossing of the water upon the shores and the soft mysterious sounds echoed from the distance through the dim aisles of the forest. Nature was lovely then as now, but with all her beauty the valley was awful in the vastness and solemnity of its solitude. Nowhere was human habitation or indication of human life.

This was the condition of the country when explored by the early French navigators, and when a century later it became the field for British and American adventurers. There was a reason for this desertion of a region rich in all that was dear to the red man. The river was the warway down which silently and swiftly floated the canoe fleets of a fierce, relentless, and invincible enemy. That the dreaded devastators of the country, when it was occupied by the ancient race, had made their invasions from the northward by way of the great stream, is suggested by the numerous lookout or signal mounds which crown the hills on either side of the valley, occupying the most advantageous points of observation. The Indians who dwelt in the territory included in the boundaries of Ohio had, when the white men first went among them, traditions of oft repeated and sanguinary incursions made from the same direction, and dating back to their earliest occupation of the country. History corroborates their legends, or at least those relating to less ancient times. The Iroquois or Six Nations were the foes whose frequent forays, made suddenly, swiftly, and with overwhelming strength, had carried dismay into all the Ohio 42country and caused the weaker tribes to abandon the valley, penetrated the interior and located themselves on the upper waters of the Muskingum, the Scioto, the Miamis, and the tributaries of the lake, where they could live with less fear of molestation. The Six Nations had the rude elements of a confederated republic, and were the only power in this part of North America who deserved the name of government.^[5] They pretentiously claimed to be the conquerors of the whole country from sea to sea, and there is good evidence that they had by 1680 gained a powerful sway in the country between the great lakes, the Ohio and the Mississippi, and were feared by all the tribes within these limits. The upper Ohio was called by the early French the River of the Iroquois, and was for a long time unexplored through fear of their hostility.

But little is definitely known of the Indian occupation of the Ohio country prior to 1750, and scarcely anything anterior to 1650. As far back in American history as the middle of the seventeenth century it is probable that the powerful but doom-destined Eries were in possession of the vast wilderness which is now the thickly settled, well improved State of Ohio, dotted with villages and cities and covered with the meshes of a vast net-work of railroads. Most of the villages of this Indian nation, it is supposed, were situated along the shore of the lake which has been given their name. The Andastes are said by the best authorities to have occupied the valleys of the Allegheny and upper Ohio, and the Hurons or Wyandots held sway in the northern peninsula between the lakes. All were genuinely Iroquois, and the western tribes were stronger than the eastern. The Iroquois proper (the Five Nations increased afterward to Six by the alliance of the Tuscarawas) formed their confederacy in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and through consolidation of strength overwhelmed singly and successively the Hurons, the Eries, and the Andastes. The time of the massacre of the Erie nation—for the war upon them culminated in a wholesale murder—is usually set down by antiquarians and historians as 1655, and the victory over the Andastes is, on good evidence, placed in the year 1672. About the same time a tribe, supposed to have been the Shwanees, were driven from the Ohio valley and far towards the Gulf of Mexico. And so the territory now Ohio became a land without habitation and served the victorious Iroquois as a vast hunting ground. Whether the Iroquois conquered the Miamis and their allies, the Illinois, is a question upon which leading students of Indian 43history have been equally divided. The Miamis had no traditions of ever having suffered defeat at the hands of the great confederacy, and their country, the eastern boundary of which was the Miami River, may have been the western limit of the Six Nations’ triumph. That they were often at war with the Iroquois is not disputed, however, by any writers of whom we have knowledge.

Although the Six Nations were the nominal owners of the greater part of the territory now constituting the State of Ohio, they did not, after the war with the Canadian colonists broke out in 1663 (and probably for some years previously), exercise such domination over the country as to exclude other tribes. Such being the case, the long deserted and desolate wild was again the abode of the red man, and the wigwams of the race again appeared by the waters of the Muskingum, the Scioto, and the Miamis; by the Tuscarawas, the Cuyahoga, and the Maumee.

Concerning what, so far as our knowledge extends, may be called the second Indian occupation of Ohio, we have authentic information. In 1764 the most trustworthy and valuable reports up to that time secured were made by Colonel Boquet as the result of his observations while making a military expedition west of the Ohio. Previous to the time when Colonel Boquet was among the Indians, and as early as 1750, traders sought out the denizens of the forest, and some knowledge of the strength of tribes and the location of villages was afforded by them. The authentic history of the Ohio Indians may be said to have had its beginning some time during the period extending from 1750 to 1764.

About the middle of the last century the principal tribes in what is now Ohio were the Delawares, the Shawnees, the Wyandots (called the Hurons by the French), the Mingoes, an offshoot of the Iroquois; the Chippewas and the Tawas, more commonly called the Ottawas. The Delawares occupied the valleys of the Muskingum and Tuscarawas; the Shawnees, the Scioto valley; and the Miamis, the valleys of the two rivers upon which they left their name; the Wyandots occupied the country about the Sandusky River; the Ottawas had their headquarters in the valleys of the Maumee and Sandusky; the Chippewas were confined principally to the south shore of Lake Erie; and the Mingoes were in greatest strength upon the Ohio, below the site of Steubenville. All of the tribes, however, frequented, more or less, lands outside of their ascribed divisions of territory, and at different periods from the time when the first definite knowledge concerning them was obtained down to the era of white settlement, 44they occupied different locations. Thus the Delawares, whom Boquet found in 1764 in greatest number in the valley of the Tuscarawas, had, thirty years later, the majority of their population in the region of the county which now bears their name, and the Shawnees, who were originally strongest upon the Scioto, by the time of St. Clair and Wayne’s wars had concentrated upon the Little Miami. But the Shawnees had also, as early as 1748, a village known as Logstown, on the Ohio, seventeen miles from the site of Pittsburgh.^[6] The several tribes commingled to some extent as their animosities toward each other were supplanted by the common fear of the enemy of their race. They gradually grew stronger in sympathy and more compact in union as the settlements of the whites encroached upon their loved domain. Hence the divisions, which had in 1750 been quite plainly marked, became, by the time the Ohio was fringed with the cabins and villages of the pale face, in a large measure, obliterated. In eastern Ohio, where the Delawares had held almost undisputed sway, there were now to be found also Wyandots,^[7] Shawnees, Mingoes, and even Miamis from the western border—from the Wabash, Miami and Mad Rivers. Practically, however, the boundaries of the lands of different tribes were as here given.

The Delawares, as has been indicated, had their densest population upon the upper Muskingum and Tuscarawas, and they really were in possession of what is now the eastern half of the State from the Ohio to Lake Erie. This tribe, which claimed to be the elder branch of the Lenni-Lenape, has, by tradition and in history and fiction, been accorded a high rank among the savages of North America. Schoolcraft, Loskiel, Albert Gallatin, Drake, Zeisberger, Heckewelder, and many other writers have borne testimony to the superiority of the Delawares, and James Fennimore Cooper, in his attractive romances, has added lustre to the fame of the tribe. According to the tradition preserved by them, the Delawares, many centuries before they knew the white man lived in the western part of the continent, separated themselves from the rest of the 45Lenni-Lenape and migrated slowly eastward. Reaching the Allegheny River they, with the Iroquois, waged war successfully against a race of giants, the Allegewi, and still continuing their migration settled on the Delaware River, and spread their population eventually to the Hudson, the Susquehanna, and the Potomac. Here they lived, menaced and often attacked by the Iroquois, and finally, as some writers claim, they were subjugated by the Iroquois through stratagem. The Atlantic coast became settled by Europeans, and the Delawares also being embittered against the Iroquois, whom they accused of treachery, turned westward and concentrated upon the Allegheny. Disturbed here again by the white settlers, a portion of the tribe obtained permission from the Wyandots (whom they called their uncles, thus confessing their superiority and reputation of greater antiquity) to occupy the lands along the Muskingum. The forerunners of the nation entered this region, in all probability, as early as 1745, and in less than a score of years their entire population had become resident in this country. They became here a more flourishing and powerful tribe than they had ever been before. Their warriors numbered not less than six hundred in 1764. The Delawares were divided into three tribes—the Unamis, Unalachtgo, and the Minsi, also called the Monseys or Muncies. The English equivalents of these appellations are the Turtle, the Turkey, and the Wolf. The tribe bearing the latter name exhibited a spirit that was quite in keeping with it, but the Delawares as a rule were less warlike than other nations, and they more readily accepted Christianity.

The principal chiefs among the Delawares were White Eyes and Captain Pipe. The former was the leader of the peace element of the nation and the latter of the tribes who were inclined to war. There was great rivalry between them and constant intrigue. White Eyes died about the year 1780, and Captain Pipe gained the ascendancy among his people. It was principally through his influence that the Delawares were drawn into a condition of hostility towards the whites, and he encouraged the commission of enormities by every artifice in his power. He was shrewd, treacherous, and full of malignity, according to Heckewelder, Drake and other writers on the Indians of the northwest, though brave, and famous as a leader in battle. White Eyes, though not less noted as a warrior, seemed actuated by really humane motives to fight only when forbearance was impossible. He encouraged the establishment of the Moravian Indian missions and was the firm friend of their founders, though he never 46accepted Christianity. His greatest influence was exerted over the Delawares after the death, in 1776, of Netawatmees, a celebrated chief, who, during his lifetime, had combatted the reforms which White Eyes advocated. Buckougahelas was another of the Delaware chiefs, and was celebrated principally for his action in what is now the western part of the State. Others were King Newcomer (after whom the present Newcomerstown was named) and Half King. There dwelt among the Delawares of the upper Muskingum at one time a white woman, who had great influence among them, and after whom a creek was named—Whitewoman’s Creek.

Most of the Delaware towns were at the vicinity of the forks of the Muskingum, or the confluence of the Tuscarawas and Muskingum, and that region is rich in the old Indian names. The Delawares had no village on the lower Muskingum and, so far as is known, none in what is now Washington County, this region, like most the whole of the Ohio valley, being devoid of inhabitants and regarded as a hunting ground.

The Muskingum River derives its name from the Delawares, and was originally Mooskingom. The literal meaning of this term is Elk’s Eye, and it was probably so called because of its clearness. The Tuscarawas undoubtedly took its name from an Indian town which was situated where Bolivar now is. The name, according to Heckewelder, meant “old town,” and the village bearing it was the oldest in the valleys.

The Shawnees were the only Indians of the northwest who had a tradition of a foreign origin, and for some time after the whites became acquainted with them they held annual festivals to celebrate the safe arrival in this country of their remote ancestors. Concerning the history of the Shawnees there is considerable conflicting testimony, but it is generally conceded that at an early date they separated from the other Lenape tribes and established themselves in the south, roaming from Kentucky to Florida. Afterward the main body of the tribe is supposed to have pushed northward, encouraged by their friends, the Miamis, and to have occupied the beautiful and rich valley of the Scioto until driven from it in 1672 by the Iroquois. Their nation was shattered and dispersed. A few may have remained upon the upper Scioto and others taken refuge with the Miamis, but by far the most considerable portion again journeyed southward and, according to the leading historians, made a forcible settlement on the head waters of the Carolina. Driven away from that locality they found refuge among the Creeks. A fragment of the Shawnees was 47taken to Pennsylvania and reduced to a humiliating condition by their conquerors. They still retained their pride and considerable innate independence, and about 1740, encouraged by the Wyandots and the French, carried into effect their long cherished purpose of returning to the Scioto. Those who had settled among the Creeks joined them and the nation was again reunited. It is probable that they first occupied the southern portion of their beloved valley, and that after a few years had elapsed the Delawares peacefully surrendered to them a large tract of country further north.^[8] It is conjectured by some students that the branch of the Shawnees who lived for a term of years in the south were once upon the Suanee River, and that the well known name was a corruption of the name of the nation of Tecumseh. This chief, whose fame added lustre to the annals of the tribe, is said to have been the son of a Creek woman whom his father took as a wife during the southern migration. The Shawnees were divided into four tribes^[9] the Piqua,^[10] Kiskapocke, Mequachuke, and Chillicothe.

Those who deny to the American Indians any love for the beautiful and any exercise of imagination might be influenced to concede them the possession of such faculties, and in a high degree, by the abundance of their fanciful traditions, of which their account of the origin of the Piqua is a good example. According to their practical legend the tribe began in a perfect man who burst into being from fire and ashes. The Shawnees said to the first whites who mingled with them, that once upon a time when the wise men and chiefs of the nation were sitting around the smouldering embers of what had been the council fire, they were startled by a great puffing of fire and smoke, and suddenly, from the midst of the ashes and dying coals, there arose before them a man of splendid form and mien, and that he was named Piqua, to signify the manner of his coming into the world—that he was born of fire and ashes. This legend of the origin of the tribe, beautiful in its simplicity, has been made the subject of comment by several writers, as showing, in a marked manner, the romantic susceptibility of the Indian character. The name Megoachuke 48signifies a fat man filled—a man made perfect, so that nothing is wanting. This tribe had the priesthood. The Kiskapocke tribe inclined to war, and had at least one great war chief—Tecumseh. Chillicothe is not known to have been interpreted as a tribal designation. It was from this tribe that the several Indian villages on the Scioto and Miami were given the names they bore, and which was perpetuated by application to one of the early white settlements. The Shawnees have been styled “the Bedouins of the American wilderness” and “the Spartans of the race.” To the former title they seem justly entitled by their extensive and almost constant wanderings, and the latter is not an inappropriate appellation, considering their well known bravery and the stoicism with which they bore the consequences of defeat. From the time of their re-establishment upon the Scioto until after the treaty with Greenville, a period of from forty to fifty years, they were constantly engaged in warfare against the whites. They were among the most active allies of the French, and after the conquest of Canada, continued, in concert with the Delawares, hostilities which were only terminated by the marching of Colonel Boquet’s forces into the country of the latter. They made numerous incursions into Pennsylvania, the Virginia frontier, harassed the Kentucky stations, and either alone or in conjunction with the Indians of other tribes, actually attacked or, threatening to do so, terrorized the first settlers in Ohio from Marietta to the Miamis. They took an active part against the Americans in the war for independence and in the Indian war which followed, and a part of them, under the leadership of Tecumseh, joined the British in the War of 1812.

The Wyandots or Hurons had their principal seat opposite Detroit and smaller settlements (the only ones within the limits of Ohio, probably, except the village on Whitewoman Creek) on the Maumee and Sandusky. They claimed greater antiquity than any of the other tribes, and their assumption was even allowed by the Delawares. Their right to the country between the Ohio and Lake Erie, from the Allegheny to the Great Miami, derived from ancient sovereignty or from the incorporation of the three extinct tribes (the Eries, Andastes and Neutrals) was never disputed, save by the Six Nations. The Jesuit missionaries, who were among them as early as 1639, and who had ample advantages for obtaining accurate information concerning the tribe, placed their number at ten thousand. They were both more civilized and more warlike than the other tribes of the northwest. Their population being, comparatively 49speaking, large and at the same time concentrated, they naturally gave more attention than did other tribes to agriculture. Extensive fields of maize adjoined their villages. The Wyandots on the score of bravery have been given a higher rank than any of the other Ohio tribes.^[11] With them flight from an enemy in battle, whatever might be the odds of strength or advantage of ground, was a disgrace. They fought to the death and would not be taken prisoners. Of thirteen chiefs of the tribe engaged in the battle of Fallen Timbers, Wayne’s victory, only one was taken alive, and he badly wounded.

The Ottawas existed in the territory constituting Ohio only in small numbers, and have no particular claims for attention. They seem to have been inferior in almost all respects to the Delawares, Wyandots and Shawnees, though as the tribe to which the great Pontiac belonged they have been rendered quite conspicuous in history.

The Miami Indians were, so far as actual knowledge extends, the original denizens of the valleys bearing their name, and claimed that they were created in it. The name in the Ottawa tongue signifies mother. The ancient name of the Miamis was Twigtwees. The Mingoes or Cayugas, a fragment of the Iroquois, had only a few small villages, one at Mingo Bottom, three miles below Steubenville, and others upon the Scioto. Logan came into Ohio in 1772 and dwelt for a time at the latter town, but two years later was on the Scioto.

St. Clair is an honored name in history. First in Normandy, and after the eleventh century for many generations in Scotland, its possessors were men of wealth and a high order of intelligence, and were among the most prominent characters of the realm. They remained loyal to the crown through its varying fortunes, and when Scotland passed under the dominion of England, continued their allegiance to royalty. They showed a rare genius for military life. This bent of mind was characteristic of the St. Clair whose career in part is here briefly outlined.

50Arthur St. Clair, whose father was a younger son and possessed neither lands nor title, was born in the year 1734, in the town of Thurso in Caithness, Scotland. Thurso is a place of some 3,500 inhabitants, a quiet village lying to the north of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and close to the Atlantic seaboard. Its chief claim to fame no doubt rests upon having been the birthplace of one who became so prominent in American affairs, gave such valuable aid in securing American independence, and had so large a share in the formation and administration of the government of a considerable portion of the American people. To his father he owed little, to his mother much. Educated at the University of Edinburgh, his parents intended him for a professional career. At an early age he began the study of medicine, which, upon the death of his mother in 1757, he abandoned, and through influential friends obtained a commission as ensign in the second battalion of the Sixtieth Regiment of Foot, known as the Royal American Regiment. It consisted of four battalions of 1,000 men each. In 1758 Major-general Amherst was made colonel of this regiment, and commander-in chief of all the forces in America, and on the 28th day of May of the same year, arrived in Canada with his army. Thus came to the western world in the twenty-fourth year of his age, Arthur St. Clair, with the laudable ambition of making, if possible, a fortune, but certainly a good and honored name. His first lessons in the art of war were taken under the tuition of such veterans as Lawrence, Murray and Wolfe, the story of whose heroic deeds for English supremacy in Canada is familiar to every reader. In every position in which he was placed young St. Clair acquitted himself with rare bravery. He soon received a lieutenant’s commission, serving with distinction in the battle at the mouth of the Montmorency, and in the siege of Quebec, where Gen. Wolfe lost his life, but where the French, on the 8th day of September 1759, surrendered, and Canada became an English province, though articles of capitulation were not executed until nearly a year later.

From Canada St. Clair went to Boston, where he made the acquaintance of Miss Phœbe Bayard, daughter of one of the first families of that city, whose mother was a half sister of Governor James Bowdoin. For Miss Bayard young St. Clair formed a strong attachment, and they were married, probably in the year 1761. In the Ligonier Valley, western Pennsylvania, St. Clair, for services in Canada, received a grant of one thousand acres of land, and thither, in the year 1764 or 1765, he removed. 51He set actively to work to improve his property. He built a handsome residence, and the first grist mill in western Pennsylvania. Many Scotch families sought a residence in this beautiful and fertile valley. He was the leading spirit in this western colony, and in 1770 was appointed surveyor, a justice of the court of quarter sessions and common pleas, and a member of the Governor’s council for the district of Cumberland, or Cumberland County. When Bedford County was formed in 1771, and Westmoreland in 1773, he was appointed to fill like offices of trust for these counties respectively. Here he led a busy life for two years, when upon the outbreak of hostilities with England he unsheathed his sword and proffered his services in defence of the country of his adoption.

It is not within the scope of this sketch, which is more immediately concerned with the relation he bore to the Ordinance of 1787, and that part of his history which records the acts of his administration as the first governor of the Northwest Territory, to follow the fortunes of Gen. St. Clair through the war for independence. Suffice it to say that quitting private life when its comforts were greatest and his financial affairs the most prosperous, he rendered to his country valuable service in Canada in the summer of 1776, at the battles of Trenton and Princeton in the winter of 1776–7, rose to the rank of Major-general in the northern department in 1777, and afterwards, as a member of Washington’s military family, won the confidence and friendship of his chief to such a degree that they were never withdrawn even when he was overtaken by reverses; and that he returned to civil life at the close of the struggle to find that to his country he had sacrificed not only eight years of the very prime of his life, but likewise his fortune and the emoluments of his lucrative offices. His first office after the war was that of member of the board of censors, whose duties were to see that the laws were efficiently and honestly executed. St. Clair became a member of Congress in 1786, and in 1787 its President. This was the year in which the ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory was adopted. It is a remarkable coincidence that this gentleman should have presided over the body that enacted this grand Charter of Freedom, and afterwards should have been the first executive officer, as governor of the Northwest Territory, to administer and enforce its laws. General St. Clair’s connection with this great and beneficent ordinance is of very great interest, intensified, however, by the fact that Mr. William Frederick Poole, in an able and well written contribution to the North American Review in 1876, on the authorship of 52the Ordinance, did him a great injustice by imputing to him improper motives wholly foreign to his character. For a full understanding of the charge and its complete refutation a brief history of the Ordinance will be necessary.

In 1784 Thomas Jefferson had prepared and reported a comprehensive measure for the government of the Northwest Territory, from which ten States were to be formed. It contained among other provisions the following stipulation: “That, after the year 1800 of the Christian era, there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said (ten) States, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted to have been personally guilty.” This provision was stricken out, and the ordinance was passed, but owing to the fact that the lands had not been surveyed nor Indian titles perfected, it became inoperative and remained a dead letter. In 1786, a memorial having been received from the inhabitants of Kaskaskia, praying for the organization of a territorial government, a committee consisting of Mr. Johnson of Connecticut, Mr. Pinckney of South Carolina; Mr. Smith of New York, Mr. Dane of Massachusetts, and Mr. Henry of Maryland, was appointed to draft a suitable measure, and April 26, 1787, reported a code of laws for the temporary government of the Territory, which reached a third reading on the 10th of May, but was not brought to a final vote. At this juncture there appeared at the door of Congress a gentleman to whom more than to any other the people of the northwestern States are indebted for the prompt action by Congress which gave them this great bill of rights, aptly called the Ordinance of Freedom.

This gentleman was the Rev. Manasseh Cutler of Ipswich, Massachusetts. He came before Congress as the agent of the Ohio Land Company. He wished to purchase for that company a million and a half—and finally did purchase nearly five million—acres of land in the Northwest Territory. He was well fitted for the business he had undertaken. He was a ripe scholar, a graduate of Yale College, a distinguished scientist, an able divine, an eloquent speaker, and more than all, a wily diplomatist, possessed of a fine and commanding presence and courtly manners. He came to Congress armed with letters of introduction to Gen. St. Clair, the President of that body, General Knox, Richard Henry Lee, Melancthon Smith, Colonel Carrington and others.

Dr. Cutler greatly desired to make the purchase for his company, but stipulated, as a necessary condition of purchase, for the passage of a suitable 53charter of laws for the government of the Territory. The Ohio Company was composed chiefly of Massachusetts men, accustomed to good laws wisely administered, and would not invite their neighbors and friends to immigrate to the far west to settle in a country for which no good system of government had been provided. Hence this was the first matter to be looked into. Dr. Cutler arrived in New York on the 5th day of July, Thursday. On Friday, the 6th, he presented his letters of introduction to President St. Clair and a number of members of Congress. The 7th he passed in extending his acquaintance and explaining his business. The 8th was Sunday. On the 9th he secured the appointment by President St. Clair of a committee who favored such a system of laws for the Northwest Territory as Dr. Cutler wished to see adopted. This committee consisted of Colonel Carrington, a personal friend, as chairman, and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, Mr. Dane of Massachusetts, Mr. Kean of South Carolina, and Mr. Smith of New York. These gentlemen prepared an ordinance, the famous Ordinance of 1787, submitted it to Dr. Cutler for his opinion or Amendment, introduced it to Congress, had it read, amended, and on the 13th day of July procured its passage. This was quick work, and the way was now clear for the main business which Dr. Cutler had in hand—the negotiation of the purchase of lands for the Ohio Company. A committee on lands was appointed for the purpose of negotiating with the Ohio Land Company’s agent for the sale of the lands, having the same chairman, Dr. Cutler’s friend, Colonel Carrington, with Rufus King, James Madison, Mr. Dane and Mr. Benson as the other members.

The Ordinance having become a law on the 13th day of July, the negotiation for the Ohio Company’s purchase was concluded on the 27th of the same month, and terms agreed upon. On the 5th day of October, 1787, officers for the government of the new territory were elected by Congress as follows: Arthur St. Clair, Governor; James M. Varnum, Samuel Holden Parsons and John Armstrong, Judges, and Winthrop Sargent, Secretary. Mr. Armstrong declining, the vacancy was filled by the appointment of John Cleves Symmes. The charge against General St. Clair, made by Mr. Poole, is that Dr. Cutler, when he arrived in New York and called on the President of Congress to obtain the appointment of a committee to draft and report a system of laws for the Northwest Territory that should be friendly to his terms of purchase, met with a cool reception, and, to quote from Mr. Poole, “he found that 54General St. Clair wanted to be Governor of the Northwest Territory; and Dr. Cutler, representing the interests of the Ohio Company, intended that General Parsons, of Connecticut, should have the office. But he must have General St. Clair’s influence, and found it necessary to pay the price. From the moment he communicated this decision, General St. Clair was warmly engaged in his interests.”

This is an extremely unjust imputation upon a gentleman who in all the affairs of life showed himself to be the very soul of honor. That it is false in every particular, a bare recital of the above facts, coupled with the additional fact that Dr. Cutler in the daily journal he kept makes no reference to General St. Clair in connection with the governorship until the evening of the 23rd, ten days after the passage of the ordinance, is clear and sufficient proof. The extract from the journal containing this reference is as follows:

July 23rd. * * * * Spent the evening with Colonel Grayson and members of Congress from the southward, who were in favor of a contract. Having found it impossible to support General Parsons as a candidate for Governor, after the interest that General St. Clair had secured, and suspecting that this might be some impediment in the way (for my endeavors to make interest for him [Parsons] were well known), and the arrangements for civil officers being on the carpet, I embraced the opportunity frankly to declare that for my own part—and ventured to engage for Mr. Sargent—if General Parsons could have the appointment of first judge, and Sargent secretary, we would be satisfied; and I heartily wished that his excellency, General St. Clair, might be governor, and that I would solicit the eastern members to favor such an arrangement. This I found rather pleasing to the southern members, and they were so complacent as to ask repeatedly what officer would be agreeable to me in the western country.

That General St. Clair should have received the Ohio Company’s agent coolly on the 6th day of July, and on the 9th of the same month appointed as chairman of the committee to treat with Dr. Cutler the very man the latter wished appointed, Col. Carrington, a personal friend; that General St. Clair wanted the governorship, and remained hostile to Dr. Cutler’s plans, until Dr. Cutler gave up Parsons and came to his support on the 23rd day of July, is on the face of it so improbable that, without any direct evidence to the contrary, no fair minded person at all familiar with St. Clair’s character could give it credence. However, we have the very best proof of the untruthfulness of Mr. Poole’s statement in General St. Clair’s own words. ^[12]In a letter to the Hon. William Giles, written some time after his election as governor, he says the office was forced upon him by his friends; that he did not desire it and would not have accepted it but for “the laudable ambition of becoming the father of a country, and laying the foundation for the happiness of millions then unborn.”

55All this shows conclusively that General St. Clair was friendly to the land negotiation from the start; that he clearly saw the advantages to the government of the sale of so large a body of western lands; that he received Dr. Cutler cordially, and warmly espoused his cause from the first; that he had no thought of the governorship until pressed by his friends for the office; that Dr. Cutler discovering the drift of sentiment in his favor concluded it would be futile to longer endeavor to obtain interest for General Parsons, the man of his choice. St. Clair, before Dr. Cutler announced himself in his favor for the governorship, appointed a committee favorable to the land negotiation to draft the ordinance for the government of the Territory; and in fact there is good reason for believing that some of the grand principles of that great charter owe their incorporation in that instrument to his wisdom and foresight. Everything convinces that General St. Clair’s relation to Dr. Cutler, to the land negotiation and to the governorship, was in all respects creditable to the dignity of his office and to his personal honor.

The Ordinance of 1787 was the product of the highest statesmanship. It ranks among the grandest bill of rights ever drafted for the government of any people. It secured for the inhabitants of the great States formed from the Northwest Territory religious freedom, the inviolability of private contracts; the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus and trial by jury; the operation of the common law in judicial proceedings; urged the maintenance of schools and the means of education; declared that religion, morality and knowledge were essential to good government; exacted a pledge of good faith toward the Indians; and proscribed slavery within the limits of the Territory. It provided for the opening, development and government of the Territory, and formed the basis of subsequent State legislation. Chief Justice Chase says of it: “When they (the people) came into the wilderness, they found the law already there. It was impressed on the soil while as yet it bore up nothing but the forest. * * * Never probably in the history of the world did a measure of legislation so accurately fulfill, and yet so mightily exceed, the anticipation of the legislators. * * * The Ordinance has well been described as having been a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night in the settlement of the Northwest States.” Judge Timothy Walker, in 1837 in an address delivered at Cincinnati, says: “Upon the surpassing excellence of this Ordinance no language of panegyric would be extravagant. The Romans would have imagined some divine Egeria for its author. It approaches 56as nearly absolute perfection as anything to be found in the legislation of mankind. * * * It is one of those matchless specimens of sagacious foresight which even the reckless spirit of innovation would not venture to assail.” Daniel Webster, in his famous reply to Hayne, bore this testimony to the excellence of this measure: “We are accustomed to praise the lawgivers of antiquity; we help to perpetuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked and lasting character than the Ordinance of 1787. We see its consequences at this moment, and we shall never cease to see them, perhaps, while the Ohio shall flow.”

The people of Ohio, of the farther west, and of the whole country cannot become too familiar with a measure which has received so great praise from such high sources. We publish the Ordinance in full.

An ordinance for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio:

Be it ordained by the United States in Congress assembled, That the said Territory for the purpose of temporary government be one district, subject, however, to be divided into two districts, as future circumstances may, in the opinion of Congress, make it expedient.

Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, That the estates both of resident and non-resident proprietors in said Territory dying intestate, shall descend to and be distributed among the children, and the descendants of a deceased child in equal parts—the descendants of a deceased child, or grandchild, to take the share of the deceased parent in equal parts among them; and where there shall be no children or descendants, then in equal parts to the next of kin in equal degree; and among collaterals, the children of a deceased brother or sister of the intestate shall have, in equal parts among them, the deceased parent’s share, and there shall in no case be a distinction between kindred of the whole and half blood, saving in all cases to the widow of the intestate her third part of the real estate for life, and [where there shall be no children of the intestate] one third part of the personal estate; and this law relative to descents and dower shall remain in full force until altered by the legislature of the district. And until the governor and judges shall adopt laws, as hereinafter mentioned, estates in the said Territory may be divided or bequeathed by wills, in writing, signed and sealed by him or her, in whom the estate may be [being of full age] and attested by three witnesses; and real estate may be conveyed by lease or release, or bargain and sale, signed, sealed and delivered by the person, being of full age, in whom the estate may be, and attested by two witnesses, provided such wills lie duly proved, and such conveyance be acknowledged, or the execution thereof duly proved, and be recorded within one year after proper magistrates, court and registers shall be appointed for that purpose; and personal property may be transferred by delivery, saving, however, to the French and Canadian inhabitants and other settlers of the Kaskaskies, St. Vincent’s and the neighboring villages, who have heretofore professed themselves citizens of Virginia, their laws and customs now in force among them, relative to the descent and conveyance of property.

Be it ordained by the authority aforesaid, That there shall be appointed, from time to time, by Congress, a governor, whose commission shall continue in force for the term of three years, unless sooner revoked by Congress. He shall reside in the district and have a freehold estate therein in one thousand acres of land while in the exercise of his office. There shall be appointed, from time to time, by Congress, a secretary, whose commission shall continue in force for four years, unless sooner revoked; he shall reside in the district and have a freehold estate therein in five hundred acres of land while in the exercise of his office; it shall be his duty to keep and preserve the acts and laws passed by the legislature, 57and the public records of the district, and the proceedings of the governor in his executive department; and transmit authentic copies of such acts and proceedings every six months to the secretary of Congress. There shall also be appointed a court to consist of three judges, any two of whom to form a court, who shall have a common law jurisdiction, and reside in the district, and have each therein a freehold estate in five hundred acres of land while in the exercise of their offices; and their commissions shall continue in force during good behavior.

The governor and judges, or a majority of them, shall adopt and publish in the district such laws of the original States, criminal and civil, as may be necessary and best suited to the circumstances, and report them to Congress, from time to time; which laws shall be in force in the district until the organization of the general assembly therein, unless disapproved by Congress; but afterwards the legislature shall have authority to alter them as they shall think fit.

The governor, for the time being, shall be commander-in-chief of the militia, appoint and commission all officers in the same below the rank of general officers; all general officers shall be appointed and commissioned by Congress.

Previous to the organization of the general assembly, the governor shall appoint such magistrates and other civil officers, in each county or township, as he shall find necessary for the preservation of the peace and good order in the same. After the general assembly shall be organized, the power and duties of magistrates and other civil officers shall be regulated and defined by the said assembly; but all magistrates and other civil officers not herein otherwise directed, shall, during the continuance of this temporary government, be appointed by the governor.

For the prevention of crimes and injuries the laws to be adopted or made shall have force in all parts of the district, and for the execution of process, criminal and civil, the governor shall make proper divisions thereof; and he shall proceed, from time to time, as circumstances may require, to lay out the parts of the district, in which the Indian titles shall have been extinguished, into counties and townships, subject, however, to such alterations as may thereafter be made by the legislature.

So soon as there shall be five thousand free male inhabitants of full age in the district, upon giving proof thereof to the governor, they shall receive authority, with time and place, to elect representatives from their counties or townships to represent them in the general assembly; provided that for every five hundred free male inhabitants, there shall be one representative, and so on, progressively, with the number of free male inhabitants shall the right of representation increase until the number of representatives shall amount to twenty-five; after which the number and proportion of the representatives shall be regulated by the legislature; provided that no person be eligible or qualified to act as a representative unless he shall have been a citizen of one of the United States three years, and be a resident in the district, or unless he shall have resided in the district three years; and in either case, shall likewise hold in his own right, in fee simple, two hundred acres of land within the same; provided also that a freehold in fifty acres of land in the district, having been a citizen of one of the States and being resident in the district, or the like freehold and two years’ residence in the district, shall be necessary to qualify a man as an elector of a representative.

The representatives thus elected shall serve for the term of two years; and in case of the death of a representative, or removal from office, the governor shall issue a writ to the county or township for which he was a member to elect another in his stead, to serve for the residue of the term.

The general assembly or legislature shall consist of the governor, legislative council, and a house of representatives. The legislative council shall consist of five members to continue in office five years, unless sooner removed by Congress, any three of whom may be a quorum; and the members of the council shall be nominated and appointed in the following manner, to wit: As soon as representatives shall be elected, the governor shall appoint a time and place for them to meet together, and when met they shall nominate ten persons, residents in the district, and each possessed of a freehold in five hundred acres of land, and return their names to Congress, five of whom Congress shall appoint and commission to serve as aforesaid; and whenever a vacancy shall happen in the council by death or removal from office, the house of representatives shall nominate two persons, qualified as aforesaid, for each vacancy, and return their names to Congress, one of whom Congress shall appoint and commission for the residue of the term. And every five years, four months at least before the expiration of the time 58of service of the members of the council, the said house shall nominate ten persons, qualified as aforesaid, and return their names to Congress, five of whom Congress shall appoint and commission to serve as members of the council five years, unless sooner removed. And the governor, legislative council, and house of representatives shall have authority to make laws, in all cases, for the good government of the district, not repugnant to the principles and articles in this ordinance established and declared. And all bills having passed by a majority in the house and by a majority in the council, shall be referred to the governor for his assent; but no bill or legislative act whatever, shall be of any force without his assent. The governor shall have power to convene, prorogue and dissolve the general assembly when, in his opinion, it shall be expedient.

The governor, judges, legislative council, secretary, and such other officers as Congress shall appoint in the district shall take an oath or affirmation of fidelity, and of office; the governor before the President of Congress, and all other officers before the governor. As soon as legislature shall be formed in the district, the council and house assembled in one room, shall have authority, by joint ballot, to elect a delegate to Congress, who shall have a seat in Congress, with a right of debating, but not of voting, during this temporary government.

And for extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, which form the basis whereon these republics, their laws, and constitutions, are erected; to fix and establish those principles as the basis of all laws, constitutions, and governments, which forever hereafter shall be formed in said Territory; to provide, also, for the establishment of States, and permanent government therein, and for their admission to a share in the Federal councils on an equal footing with the original States, at as early periods as may be consistent with general interest.

It is hereby ordained and declared by the authority aforesaid, That the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact between the original States and the people and States in the said Territory, and forever remain unalterable unless by common consent, to wit:

“Article 1. No person demeaning himself in a peaceable and orderly manner shall ever be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments in the said Territory.

“Article 2. The inhabitants of said Territory shall always be entitled to the benefits of the writ of habeas corpus and of trial by jury; of a proportionate representation of the people in the legislature, and of judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law. All persons shall be bailable except for capital offences, where the proof shall be evident or the presumption great. All fines shall be moderate, and no unusual or cruel punishment shall be inflicted. No man shall be deprived of his liberty or property but by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land; and should the public exigencies make it necessary, for the common preservation, to take away any person’s property, or to demand his particular service, full compensation shall be made for the same; and in the just preservation of rights and property it is understood and declared that no law ought ever be made, or have force in the said Territory, that shall in any manner whatever interfere with or effect private contracts or engagements, bona fide, and without fraud, previously formed.

“Article 3. Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged. The utmost good faith shall always lie observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property, rights and liberty they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars, authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity, shall, from time to time, be made for preventing wrong being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them.

“Article 4. The said Territory, and the States which may be formed therein, shall forever remain a part of this confederacy of the United States of America, subject to the articles of confederation, and to such alterations therein as shall be constitutionally made, and to all the acts and ordinances of the United States in Congress assembled, conformable thereto. The inhabitants and settlers in said Territory shall be subject to pay a part of the Federal debts, contracted or to be contracted, and a proportional part of the expenses of government, to be apportioned on them by Congress, according to the same common rule and measure by which the apportionments thereof shall be made on the other States; and the taxes for paying their proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction 59of the legislatures of the district or districts, or new States, as in the original States, within the time agreed upon by the United States in Congress assembled. The legislatures of those districts or new States shall never interfere with the primary disposal of the soil by the United States in Congress assembled, nor with any regulation Congress may find necessary for securing the title to such soil to bona fide purchasers. No tax shall be imposed on lands, the property of the United States; and in no case shall non-resident proprietors be taxed higher than residents. The navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between the same, shall be common highways, and forever free, as well to the inhabitants of the said Territory as to the citizens of the United States, and those of any other States that may be admitted into the confederacy, without any tax, import or duty therefor.

Article 5. There shall be formed in the said Territory not less than three nor more than five States; and the boundaries of the Stales as soon as Virginia shall alter her act of cession and consent to the same, shall become fixed and established as follows, to wit: The western State in the said Territory shall be bounded by the Mississippi, the Ohio and Wabash Rivers; a direct line drawn from the Wabash and Port Vincent’s due north to the territorial line between the United States and Canada; and by the said territorial line to the Lake of the Woods and Mississippi. The middle State shall be bounded by the said direct line, the Wabash from Port Vincent’s to the Ohio, by the Ohio, by a direct line drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami to the said territorial line, and by the said territorial line. The eastern State shall be bounded by the last mentioned direct line, the Ohio, Pennsylvania, and the said territorial line; provided, however, and it is further understood and declared, that the boundaries of these three States shall be subject so far to be altered that, if Congress should hereafter find it expedient, they shall have authority to form one or two States in that part of the Territory which lies north of an east and west line, drawn through the southerly bend or extreme of lake Michigan. And whenever any of the said States shall have sixty thousand free inhabitants therein, such State shall be admitted by its delegates into the Congress of the United States, on an equal footing with the original States, in all respects whatever, and shall be at liberty to form a permanent constitution and State government; provided the constitution and government so to be formed shall be republican, and in conformity to the principles contained in these articles; and so far as it can be consistent with the general interest of the confederacy, such admission shall be allowed at an earlier period and when there may be a less number of free inhabitants in the State than sixty thousand.

“Article 6. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said Territory otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted; provided, always, that any person escaping into the same from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any one of the original States, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or services as aforesaid.”

The authorship of this grand charter of rights, vouchsafed to a people who to-day number many millions and are living happily under its benign influence, bears the marks of wisdom the most profound, of statesmanship of the highest order, of foresight akin to inspiration. The question then very naturally arises for eager solution, “Who was the author?” or if more than one, “Who were the authors?” The question has never been, probably never will be, fully and definitely answered to the satisfaction of every inquirer. The claims of Thomas Jefferson, of Nathan Dane, of Dr. Manasseh Cutler have in turn been ably supported by various writers. The truth no doubt is that all these gentlemen, together with Colonel Carrington and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, and Arthur St. Clair, the President of Congress, were concerned in its preparation. More importance 60is attached to the authorship of Articles III and VI, especially of the latter, than to any other portion of the instrument. Religious liberty, the provision for the spread of education, the manner in which the Indians should be treated, and the inhibition of slavery, are its distinguishing features. To whom are we chiefly indebted for their place in the Ordinance?

Jefferson has a strong claim upon our gratitude, for it was he who drafted the anti-slavery clause in the inoperative ordinance of 1784, from which the anti-slavery clause (Article VI) of the Ordinance of 1787, no doubt, was copied. The similarity in the phraseology of the two clauses is too striking to admit of a doubt of this, as any one who will carefully read and compare the two will readily perceive. To Jefferson, then, we owe much, but it must be remembered that he was not a member of the last Congress of the old confederation, but was at that time our minister to France. Nathan Dane was the committee’s secretary, and no doubt the original draft is in his handwriting. He had prepared and reported an ordinance in May previous which was not passed, and which contained none of the grand principles that characterized the ordinance under question. If he were the author of any part of the latter, it was an unessential part, as he afterwards, in a letter to Mr. Rufus King published in Spencer’s History of the United States, clearly shows that he had no adequate conception of the grand features of the Ordinance. Moreover he declined to offer the anti-slavery clause as a part of the Ordinance at its first reading because he believed it could not pass, and only presented it the day before the final adoption of the Ordinance, after having learned the feeling of Congress toward the slavery question.

It is undoubtedly true that to no one man are the people who have enjoyed and to-day enjoy the benefits of the Ordinance, so much indebted as to Dr. Manasseh Cutler. It was he who directed the battle in its favor; it was he who secured the appointment of his friends, Carrington and Lee, on the committee; who urged the necessity of the adoption of the Ordinance before the land purchase could be made; who insisted, as representative of the company which was most immediately concerned in the nature of the laws that should form the government of the Territory, upon the anti-slavery clause, and, to win the southern members to its support, favored the addition of the proviso for the rendition of fugitive slaves; and without doubt it was he who urged the insertion of what relates to religion, morality and education. At this time anti-slavery sentiment in 61Virginia was popular with the leading men of that State, and with the protection to the property rights in the slave which the proviso afforded, the Virginia members of the committee were readily won to the support of the anti-slavery clause. What, therefore, Dr. Cutler accomplished in behalf of the Ordinance was of the greatest importance. He obtained the appointment of a new committee favorable to such a measure as he was solicitous to have adopted; urged the insertion of many of the grand principles it contained; won such friendly interest for it from opposing elements as to insure for it certain victory, and was instrumental in securing its passage.

Judge Ephraim Cutler, in 1849, received a letter from his brother, Temple Cutler, in which he says: “Hon. Daniel Webster is now convinced that the man who suggested some of its articles was our father,” and in the same year Judge Cutler wrote as follows:

I visited my father at Washington during the last session he attended Congress (1804).... We were in conversation relative to the political concerns of Ohio, the ruling parties, and the effects of the constitution (of Ohio) in the promotion of the general interest; when he observed that he was informed that I had prepared that portion of the Ohio constitution which contained the ‘part of the ordinance of July, 1787, which prohibited slavery. He wished to know if it was a fact. On my assuring that it was, he observed that he thought it a singular coincidence, as he himself had prepared that part of the ordinance while he was in New York negotiating the purchase of the lands for the Ohio Company. I had not seen the journal he kept while he was in New York at that time....^[13]

Arthur St. Clair’s connection with the Ordinance must have been, from the nature of the position he occupied as well as from the character of the man, of very considerable importance. There is good reason for believing him to be the author of the clause relating to the treatment of the Indians. No other member of the House had a better acquaintance with the Indian character, or better appreciated what was by right due to the red man, and it is therefore more than likely that the preparation of this clause was entrusted to him, though there exists no positive proof of the fact.

General St. Clair’s history as Governor of the Northwest Territory will be reserved for future publication in this Magazine.

Washington’s early education was in the direction to fit him in an especial manner for the practical work of the surveyor. After having exhausted the possibilities of the elementary school, which he had before attended, he was taken into the family of his brother Lawrence, that he might have the benefit of a better one than existed in that neighborhood. It seems to have been intended that he should attain a thorough and practical business education—such as should fit him for all the duties of an extensive colonial land owner and planter. Perhaps the possibility of his becoming a magistrate or burgess was also present, as the place that awaited him in the society of Virginia was such as to warrant so modest an ambition. There are now in existence several of his school books, into one of which are copied, with infinite pains, forms for contracts, land conveyances, leases, mortgages, etc. In another are preserved the field-notes and calculations of surveys, which he made as a matter of practice—kept and proved with the same exactness that would have been expected had the result been intended to form the basis of practical transactions. Not the least advantage of Washington’s sojourn with his brother, was the fact that it introduced him, at once, into the highest and, at the same time, the best society of the colony. Lawrence had become one of the most honored and prominent men in Virginia. His wealth, his social position and that of the Fairfax family, his sterling character and unquestioned ability, had united to advance him, and he was a member of the House of Burgesses, as well as adjutant-general of his district, with the rank and pay of a major.

But a few miles below Mount Vernon, as Lawrence Washington had called his estate, and upon the same wooded ridge that bordered the Potomac, was Belvoir the seat of the Fairfax family. Occupying the ample and elegant appointed house, was the Hon. William Fairfax, father-in-law of Lawrence Washington—a gentleman who had attained social, political and military prominence in England, and in the East and West Indies. He had come to Virginia to take charge of the enormous 63estate of his cousin, Lord Fairfax, which, according to the original grant from the crown, was “for all the lands between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers.” This grant had been very liberally construed to include a large part of the land drained by affluents of these streams, embracing a considerable portion of the Shenandoah valley. In the midst of this princely domain, the Fairfaxes lived in the style of English gentry. Their house was always open to guests of the right class and to no others. The monotony of life was occasionally broken by the arrival in the Potomac of an English war vessel, when its officers were certain to be found at the Fairfax and Washington tables, telling their stories of service in distant seas, of battle, travel, and all the various experiences that a naval life involves. Washington was made a sharer, on terms nearly approaching equality, in much of this social intercourse; he felt the refining and broadening influence of contact with accomplished and experienced men of the world, and, not least important, he heard the tales and jests of the seafaring visitors, and hearing, was enthralled. At the age of fourteen he became infatuated with the idea of entering the British navy. His age was suitable, the profession was an excellent one for a young gentleman desiring to push his fortunes, a frigate at that time lay in the river, Lawrence Washington and Mr. Fairfax approved, and nothing seemed necessary to carrying the plan into effect but the consent of the lad’s mother. Even this difficulty yielded to argument. George’s clothes were packed, and he was ready to go aboard, when the mother’s heart failed her, and she withdrew her consent, thus saving Washington to his country. It is more likely, considering his training and disposition, that, had the boy sailed upon that cruise, he would have directed a vessel or fleet against the revolting colonies; called them rebels, not patriots; served the king, not the people. Back to school he went, no doubt chagrined and crestfallen, and remained for nearly two years. At the end of that time his teacher discharged him as finished, as, no doubt he was, so far as the capacity of that master was concerned. These two years were passed in the study of the higher mathematics, his intention being to fit himself for any business or professional emergency, civil or military.

After leaving school, Washington was much more frequently at Belvoir than before. Lord Fairfax, the owner of the estate, was now an inmate of the house, having come to inspect his possessions, and determined to make Virginia his home. He was much impressed by the fertility and beauty of the country, and also, gossip had it, having never recovered 64from a wound to his heart and pride, inflicted in his youth by a fickle beauty, who preferred a ducal cornet to his more modest rank after the wedding dress was made, was glad to escape from England to the freedom and retirement of Virginia. Lord Fairfax was not far from sixty years of age, tall, erect, and vigorous in figure; kind-hearted, generous but eccentric, and not a man to take every comer into his friendship and confidence. He at once showed a marked liking for the tall, handsome, reserved and dignified young man, whom he so often met at Belvoir. No one longer regarded Washington as a boy, though he was but fifteen years of age. Lord Fairfax was a devoted sportsman, and set up his hunters and hounds at Belvoir, as he had been accustomed in England. Had anything been necessary to confirm his friendship for Washington, it was only to find, as his lordship did, that the latter was as hard and intrepid a rider as he, and would follow a fox over the dangerous and difficult hunting grounds of Virginia with as little faltering or fatigue.

So this oddly assorted couple became close friends and constant companions, in the hunt and elsewhere. The old nobleman, litterateur, and man of the world, treated the sturdy young man as a social and intellectual equal, and, from the fullness of experience, unconsciously added, day by day, to his slender knowledge of the world; while the latter, probably quite as unconsciously, in a measure repaid the debt, as his knowledge of the country and of colonial life enabled him to do. One important effect of his intimacy was that it resulted in securing to Washington his first opportunity for testing his new-found freedom, by undertaking an independent enterprise. This happened incidentally, yet was the starting-point of the young man’s fortunes.

As has been said, Lord Fairfax’s estate in Virginia extended beyond the Blue Ridge, and to a considerable distance up the eastern slope of the Alleghanies. West of the former range no survey had ever been made, and reports had come that the country was filling up with lawless squatters, who invariably selected the best lands for settlement, and were in danger of gaining such a foothold that to oust them would be a matter of no little difficulty. Lord Fairfax desired a survey of this wild and uncivilized territory to be made. It was a service requiring not only skill as a surveyor, but ability to endure great fatigue, courage to face danger, determination and ingenuity to meet and overcome difficulties—yet all these qualities he deemed combined in Washington, who had barely reached the age of sixteen years. The committing of so important a trust to one so young seems almost inconceivable, and this fact is one of the best indications of what the youth must have been, not only in bone and muscle, but in brain, self-reliance and maturity, at an age when most boys are thinking more of their balls and kites than of the serious duties of life.

65

WASHINGTON ON A SURVEYING EXPEDITION.

67Washington eagerly accepted the proposal of Lord Fairfax, and immediately set about his preparations for departure, which occupied but a few days. In company with George William Fairfax, a young man of twenty-two years, son of William Fairfax, he set out in the saddle, during the month of March, 1748. Mr. John S. C. Abbott, in his ‘Life of Washington,’ describes the experience of the young men in a manner characteristically picturesque. He says:

“The crests of the mountains were still whitened with ice and snow. Chilling blasts swept the plains. The streams were swollen into torrents by the spring rains. The Indians, however, whose hunting parties ranged these forests, were at that time friendly. Still there were vagrant bands wandering here and there, ever ready to kill and plunder. * * * Though these wilds may be called pathless, still there were, here and there, narrow trails which the moccasined foot of the savage had trodden for uncounted centuries. They led, in a narrow track, scarcely two feet in breadth, through dense thickets, over craggy hills, and along the banks of placid streams or foaming torrents. * * * It was generally necessary to camp at night wherever darkness might overtake them. With their axes a rude cabin was easily constructed, roofed with bark, which afforded a comfortable shelter from wind and rain. The forest presented an ample supply of game. Delicious brook trout were easily taken from the streams. Exercise and fresh air gave appetite. With a roaring fire crackling before the camp, illumining the forest far and wide, the adventurers cooked their supper and ate it with a relish such as the pampered guests in lordly banqueting halls have seldom experienced. Their sleep was probably more sweet than was ever found on beds of down. Occasionally they would find shelter for the night in the wigwam of the friendly Indian.”

In amusing contrast to this rose-colored view of life in the woods are the terse and evidently feeling words from the pen of Washington himself, recorded in his journal under date of March 15, 1748: “Worked hard till night and then returned. After supper we were lighted into a room, and I, not being so good a woodman as the rest, stripped myself 68very orderly and went into the bed, as they call it, when, to my surprise, I found it to be nothing but a little straw matted together, without sheet or anything else, but only one threadbare blanket, with double its weight of vermin. I was glad to get up and put on my clothes and lie as my companions did. Had we not been very tired, I am sure we should not have slept much that night. I made a promise to sleep no more in a bed, choosing rather to sleep in the open air before a fire.” Again, after being much longer away from home, Washington says in a letter to a friend: “Yours gave me the more pleasure as I received it among barbarians and an uncouth set of people. Since you received my letter of October last, I have not slept above three or four nights in a bed. But after walking a good deal all the day, I have lain down before the fire on a little hay, straw, fodder, or bear skin, whichever was to be had, with man, wife and children, like dogs and cats, and happy is he who gets nearest the fire. I have never had my clothes off, but have lain and slept in them, except the few nights I have been in Fredericksburg.”

With these and similar experiences, Washington and his companion, with their little party, consisting of an Indian guide and a few white attendants, continued through the weary weeks and months occupied in the fulfillment of their mission. This work was well and thoroughly done; the surveys made were afterwards proved to be careful and accurate. The party finally returned to civilization on the 12th day of April, 1749, more than a year after they set out. The report made to Lord Fairfax proved a source of immediate profit to Washington, who, though but a little more than seventeen years of age, was soon after made one of the official surveyors of the colony of Virginia. His late employer soon removed to a point in the newly surveyed territory, beyond the Blue Ridge, where he set aside ten thousand acres of land, to constitute his home estate, and projected a grand manor and house, after the English style. The proposed site of this dwelling—which, though Abbott describes it in glowing terms, was never built—is about twelve miles from the present village of Winchester.

Washington pursued his labors with the additional sanction given by his office, which entitled his surveys to become a matter of official record. As will be readily understood, the demand for such services in a new country was great, and, as the number of competent men was small, his labors commanded a correspondingly large remuneration. So for three years he continued patiently working, his ability and industry commanding 69respect and gaining a daily wider recognition. He was so accurate in all his processes that no considerable error was ever charged against him, and a title, finding its basis in one of his surveys, was rarely disputed. The minute acquaintance with the soil, timber and other natural advantages of the region, thus obtained, proved of great practical value to him in after years, when his increased wealth needed investment; much of the finest land which he surveyed passed into his hands, and was later owned by members of the Washington family. He held his office of colonial surveyor for three years, when he resigned to accept more important trusts.

The purposes which this publication is intended to subserve are the promotion of historical studies in general and an increased familiarity with the history of the western portion of this country in particular. The field is a broad and inviting one. The early annals of every locality possess a peculiar charm for its own people, while they furnish something of interest to the people of every other locality. The conductors of this Magazine invite the aid and co-operation of every person interested in the development and preservation of local history, and shall rely in a special manner upon the friendly offices of Historical and Pioneer Societies. These organizations accomplish great good in the work they are carrying forward from year to year, and they should increase in number until every county, or section of the country, shall have a Pioneer Society. The publishers of this monthly now have in course of preparation by an able and well informed writer, the history of Ohio, which will be published serially in the numbers of this Magazine, to be followed by the history of other States. A department will be devoted to local history, in which county and town annals, and sketches of pioneer settlers and of representative men and women will have chief place. The contributions of students of history, who have something to say of interest to the general reader, will be welcomed to the pages of this publication. We have received already the proffer of papers by able and experienced writers, and hope to make the Magazine of indispensable value to a large number of readers. To furnish essays on historical subjects by writers of experience and ability; to provide a history of each of the great Western States that have not already satisfactory State histories; to afford a medium for the publication of the proceedings of Historical and Pioneer Societies, and to publish such other information regarding these and similar organizations as will enable them to become better acquainted with one another; to give sketches of the lives of early settlers, and of others who have largely aided in the development of the material interests, or in promoting the advancement, in other respects, of the community in which they dwell; to add to the interest of the printed text by the help of engravings where they can be employed to advantage, and especially to employ the services of art in portrait illustration; and to use skill and taste on the part of the printer in giving a neat appearance to the Magazine—these are the chief features of the programme which we have formed for the work we have undertaken. We do not lightly esteem the labor, or overlook the difficulties which lie before us. We expect the Magazine will have friends if by its excellence 71it merits them. It has a field of its own, differing from that occupied by any other publication, and its success will be sure and enduring if it achieves it by deserving well of its patrons and readers.

The American Historical Association held its first annual meeting at Saratoga, September 9, under the friendly auspices of the Social Science Association. The importance of this movement, whose object is the promotion of historical studies throughout the country, cannot be overestimated. No society of like aim, national in character, seeking to create an interest in the study of American history in every section of the country, has ever existed. The nearest approach to it was the “American Historical Society” organized in 1836, at Washington, D. C., with John Quincy Adams as President. Its membership, however, was made up from residents of Washington, Congressmen, and a few persons outside of the Capital who however, were only honorary members. The meetings were of irregular occurrence and were held in the House of Representatives. The active spirit of this old Historical Society was Peter Force, whose work in the publication of rare collections of early colonial history was of incalculable value to the Nation, and to whom the country is likewise indebted for the collection of the “American Archives.” This society was, however, only local in character, and had only such purposes in view as were of easy attainment at the National Capital. On the other hand, the new organization, having no one place for its habitation, is a national association of students of history, who may come from any section of this and other lands. Historical specialists and active workers everywhere, whether from academic centres or State and county historical societies, if approved by the committee, will be welcomed. The annual membership fee is $3.00, the life membership $25. Forty-one active members were enrolled at Saratoga, and the Executive Council has selected 120 more persons, students of history, resident in various sections of the country, to whom invitations to become active members are to be extended. A constitution was adopted and the following distinguished persons selected as officers: President, Andrew D. White, President of Cornell College; two Vice-Presidents, Professor Justin Winsor, of Harvard and Professor Charles Kendall Adams, of the University of Michigan; Secretary, Dr. Herbert B. Adams of John Hopkin’s University, Baltimore; Treasurer, Clarence Winthrop Bowen of the New York Independent, New York City. These gentlemen, with three associates—Mr. William B. Weeden of Providence, Professor Emerton of Harvard College, and Professor Moses Coit Tyler of Cornell University—form the Executive Council, which is empowered to pass judgment upon all nominations which may be made through the secretary, and which has charge also of the general interests of the Association. President White delivered an admirable address on “Synthetic Studies in History,” and several other important papers were read—all of which, together with a record of the proceedings, will soon be published in pamphlet form.

72Hon. Harvey Rice, who has attained the ripe old age of 84 years, celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of his arrival in Cleveland on the 24th day of last September. Nearly two hundred persons, acquaintances and friends, assembled at his residence, 427 Woodland Ave., Cleveland, to pay him their respects—a very fitting tribute to one to whom not alone the citizens of the Forest City, but also the people of Ohio, and in a certain sense of the whole country are very largely indebted for valuable services. For his able efforts in behalf of the improved management of common schools he has for many years been appropriately called the father of the Ohio system of common school instruction, which has been largely imitated by other States. Mr. Rice is the author of several books, some of which have had a very good circulation. He is a graceful writer of poetry as well as of prose.

No other branch of knowledge is so neglected as that of history. Many who are familiar with mathematics, philosophy, the sciences, and the languages are almost totally without historical knowledge. Many who do give it attention too often study it inadequately, considering it a dry statement of facts, events and dates. History, when rightly studied, affords information of the greatest profit and rarest interest. It unfolds to our understanding not merely the chief events of the past, but the purposes, the efforts and achievements of the great minds of each age in the actual drama of life, and gives us many pleasant glimpses into the world of thought, purpose and feeling of another time.

In importance and value history is excelled by no other story. It does not possess an equal interest for every student, for the very evident reason that every student of history does not evince for it the same degree of fidelity and love. But to every disciple it brings a reward. It widens the horizon of his thought, solves for him many an intricate problem in the affairs of life, acquaints him with the events of the human race, brings him in contact with the greatest minds and loftiest spirits of every age, and enables him to gain a better understanding of the fellow-beings with whom he mingles.

The earliest Historical Society in this country, we believe, is the American Philosophical Society, of Philadelphia, organized in 1743. If any reader knows of an earlier historical organization we shall be obliged for the information. In fact, we would like a complete list of all the historical societies in the country. Who can furnish it?

The editors of this Magazine will be very thankful for such news relating to Pioneer and Historical Societies as will be of interest to the general reader. These organizations are doing an important work, and deserve great commendation. We make brief mention of the proceedings of a few societies, of whose annual meeting we have had information.

The Ashtabula County Pioneer Association held its last annual reunion August 28, at Jefferson, O., and was well attended. An interesting address was delivered by Judge Darius Cadwell of Cleveland, O. The next regular reunion will be held at Jefferson, July 4, 1885. The following gentlemen are the officers of the society: A. Udell, President; J. A. Howells, Secretary; N. E. French, Treasurer.

The Western Reserve Pioneer Association—On the same day, the 28th of August, the members of the W. R. Pioneer Association held their annual meeting in Burgess Grove, near North Solon, in sight of the log cabin in which James A. Garfield was born. The association has reached its fifteenth year, and its membership includes residents of Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lorain, Summit, Portage, Lake and Ashtabula counties. Gen. A. C. Voris of Akron, delivered the annual address, while interesting speeches were also made by Judge Tilden and R. C. Parsons of Cleveland. The officers are: W. H. Curtiss, President; Samuel Patrick, Secretary, and J. M. Burgess, Treasurer.

The Geauga County Historical Society held its annual gathering August 23, in Newberry township, in a delightful grove near the shore of what has recently been christened Emerald Lake. The membership of this society is very large. Hon. Lester Taylor, a venerable and worthy man, is its presiding officer; James M. Bullock, Vice-President; W. R. Munn, Secretary; Donald Johnson, Chairman of the Executive Committee. Hon. Geo. H. Ford was the orator of the day, and delivered an exceedingly able address, and was followed by W. L. Utley of Wisconsin and Hon. A. G. Riddle, of Washington, D. C., who spoke in a delightfully entertaining manner. The number of people who attended this interesting reunion was estimated at two or three thousand. The people of Geauga County attested their interest in local history by the publication, in 1881, of a very full and thorough history of their county.

The Mahoning Valley Historical Society held its eleventh annual session at Youngstown, September 17. John M. Edwards, its venerable presiding officer, delivered an interesting address, in which he urged the members to contribute such information respecting the history of the Western Reserve and its early pioneers, as they were able to furnish, which information 74it is intended to preserve, with a view to collation and publication. After making brief biographical mention of such pioneers as had passed away since the last meeting of the Society, Mr. Edwards spoke as follows:

I will now speak briefly of another matter suggested by what has just been said. After the death of Benjamin Stevens, of Warren, at the age of 96 years, a question was raised as to who was the oldest person residing there or in that or neighboring counties. Daniel Warner, of Mesopotamia, was reported as saying that he thought himself the oldest man in the county, being 92 years old. There were also reported in the newspapers the names of Mrs. Lucy Adams, of Warren, aged 90; John Langley, of Vernon, aged 93; Hezekiah Howe, of Bloomfield, aged 98, all old residents of the Reserve. Mr. Howe has resided in Bloomfield from an early period. His daughter, Mrs. Baker, is said to have been the third child born in the township. He is probably the oldest citizen and pioneer of that county.

But Mahoning County has among its citizens the oldest man in this part of the Reserve, and perhaps in the State. Charles Birch, of Lowellville, in Poland township, was born in Staffordshire, England, January 4, 1778 or 1779, being at this time 105 or 106 years old. He is not positive as to his age within a year, but thinks he was 106 years old in January last. He was a soldier in the British army—was at the burning of Moscow, fought under Wellington at Waterloo, receiving two wounds in that battle, and draws a pension from the English Government. He came to the United Slates in 1851, and is residing with a daughter. His memory of events in which he was a participator is still good. Two other questions of interest, and of like import, are frequently asked:

First—Who is the oldest living pioneer on the Reserve?

Second—Who is the oldest living native born citizen of the Reserve?

We have heard several names as the probable persons, given in response to each question, but the precise dates necessary to solve the question are wanting. We request our friends, who can do so, to furnish us names, dates, place of present residence, etc., sufficient to enable us to satisfactorily answer the questions.

At our last reunion, after discussion, it was resolved unanimously to continue the reunions annually. Our citizens have accordingly made preparations for your reception and enjoyment. We are pleased to see so many of you here to-day, and we extend to all a hearty welcome.

The Firelands’ Historical Society.—This society, which was organized in 1857, held an interesting meeting at Peru, Huron County, October 8, and was addressed by Rev. J. N. Lewis, P. N. Schuyler, Dr. J. C. Sanders, and Rev. T. F. Hildreth. Dr. Sanders, of Cleveland, the orator of the day had for his subject “The Pioneer Physician,” and spoke in a very able and interesting manner. P. N. Schuyler, of Bellevue, O., than whom no other person has been more deeply interested in the welfare of the society, or has done more for its well-being, made an earnest appeal to the members to sustain the society’s publication, The Firelands Pioneer. There were thirteen persons at the meeting who had settled on the Firelands before the year 1820, and sixty who have been residents for forty-five years or more. There were seventeen persons present over seventy-five years old; six over eighty, and one over eighty-six. Captain C. Woodruff is the presiding officer of the society, and H. Stewart, Secretary. The Secretary being absent, C. E. Newman, Esq., of Norwalk, Ohio, an active member and earnest worker, performed the duties of that officer.

The Licking County Pioneer, Historical and Antiquarian Society, Newark, Ohio, Isaac Smucker, President, C. B. Griffin, Secretary, has a total membership of 377, of which 125 are pioneer resident members; 78 antiquarian members, the rest being associate, corresponding and honorary members.

G. P. Putnam’s Sons will soon publish ‘Life and Times of Augustus Adolph,’ by John L. Stephens; ‘The Works of Alexander Hamilton,’ including his contributions to the Federalist, by Henry Cabot Lodge; and a translation of the Marquis de Nadaillac’s work on ‘Prehistoric America.’

James R. Osgood & Co. will have ready in November, ‘Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife,’ by Julian Hawthorne, a book that will prove acceptable to many readers.

Harper & Brothers announce ‘Indian History for Young Folks,’ by Francis S. Drake, and ‘History of the Four Georges.’

The Appletons have ready the fifth volume of the newly revised edition of Bancroft’s ‘History of the United States’; the second volume of Mr. McMaster’s History of the People of the United States,’ and the ‘First Essays and Speeches of Jeremiah S. Black,’ edited by C. F. Black.

Mr. William O. Stoddard and Col. John Hay have each prepared ‘A Life of Abraham Lincoln.’ Each of these gentlemen was President Lincoln’s secretary during the civil war and had exceptionally good opportunities for studying his life and character. Mr. Stoddard’s biography has just been given to the public from the press of Fords, Howard & Hulbert, and is an octavo book of 508 pages, with illustrations. The story of Mr. Lincoln’s life, though often told, is always new and interesting, and in the hands of Mr. Stoddard is so entertaining, so rich in anecdote and incident, and sparkles with so much humor, that it is invested with a greater charm than ever; while the book contains so much information that is of permanent value to the student of history that it cannot fail to receive an unusually cordial welcome.

Leopold Von Ranke, the eminent historian, is the author, and G. W. Prothero, the English editor and translator, of an important work on ‘Universal History,’ the first volume of which has just been published by Harper and Brothers. We quote from Harpers’ Magazine as follows:

The entire work, when completed, will be a universal history of the world from the earliest historic period until our own day. Of this great undertaking he has completed four volumes, covering the earlier periods, and the volume now published relates to the oldest historical group of nations—the Egyptians, the Hebrews, the Assyrian and other Asiatic nations—and the Greeks. Every page is instinct with broad and philosophic generalization, and the statement of unexpected but most convincing facts and conclusions. Its style is perfect; the reader is delighted by the charm of its steadily flowing narrative, while he is instructed by its revelations of the origins and development of things which have exerted, and continue to exert, a powerful influence upon mankind, and have thus a universal interest and application. Those who are curious may here find the record of the first development of small independent communities into nations, of the first maritime expedition and the first systematic war by land, of the first endowment of the individual in society with those rights and immunities which are the foundation of all civil order, of the first tragic person in history, of the first establishment of the principles of hereditary monarchy and democracy, of the first conquering power which we encounter in the history of the world, of the first time that the power of money made itself felt in the internal affairs of an important community, of the first employment of mercenary troops, and a multiplicity of other “first things” in history, whose analogues, parallels and counterparts are traced by the great historian down through the centuries to our own day. The volume before us brings the history down to the struggle of Hellas and Carthage for the supremacy, and the rise of the new power, Rome, that was destined to vanquish both.

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