HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

CHAPTER 1.

THE MOUND-BUILDERS-EARTHWORKS AND EVIDENCES OF ANTIQUITY-LOCATION OF MOUNDS IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY-TITLE TO LANDS OF THE NORTHWEST INDIAN TITLE TO OHIO VALLEY AND LOWER LAKE REGION THE FRENCH TITLE-THE ENGLISH TITLE-FRENCH-ENGLISH WAR FOR POSSESSION ENGLISH ACQUIRE POSSESSION-EXPEDITIONS INTO THE INDIAN COUNTRY NORTHWEST TERRITORY IN CONTROL OF THE BRITISH IN 1775-BUT 1775-BUT INDIANS HAD NOT CEDED ANY OF THEIR RIGHTS-GEORGE ROGERS CLARKS EXPEDITION TO ILLINOIS -FORT MCINTOSH AND LAURENS-GREAT BRITAIN'S QUIT CLAIM TO LANDS NORTHWEST OF THE OHIO.

IN writing; the history of Montgomery County, it may not be necessary to go back of the time when the whites began to maneuver for possession of lands west of the Alleghany Mountains; yet it may be interesting to begin the work by appropriating information collected through the intelligent research of our best historians.

Although there is the greatest latitude for theories, the ages that must have elapsed between the time that this Great West was peopled by the Mound Builders, and the advent of the prehistoric tribes of Indians, the predecessors of the earliest tribes of whom history gives us knowledge, have prevented most writers from yielding to the temptation to speculate as to the character, condition and surroundings of that mysterious race, or as to the time they occupied these Western lands. It was in that long, long ago, whose history may never be written. There is nothing as yet developed to justify a hope that memorials may yet be found to enlighten us as to the events of their origin, customs, numbers, mode of life, and disappearance. They came here, lived for many generations, flourished, and have passed away, leaving mounds, earthworks and ,fortifications, as monuments of their existence.

These Mound Builders occupied the whole territory of the present State of Ohio; their earthworks still remain in good condition, and may be found in every valley of the State, and crowning the hilltops in every direction. Some of them are very large; large and small, there are about ten thousand of them still to be found in Ohio.

Whether some were constructed as works of defense; others by the warriors of an invading army; some as memorial mounds or sepulchers; and others for religious celebrations, we can only surmise. To us they are only the relics and ruins of an extinct race.

The chief evidences of their antiquity lie in the fact that the Indians of the last century had no knowledge, traditions or legends, of the existence of

216 - HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

those nations; trees that are 600 years old are still growing upon some of the earthworks. In the mounds are found articles of pottery, ornaments, silver, gold, and implements of war. Archaeologists agree that these works and mounds were built ages ago, by a powerful nation, who were either invading or occupying these Western lands; therefore, so far as the title to the Ohio lands is concerned, we may say that in the beginning were the Mound-Builders.

How the title passed from them to those who came after is not known; it is all surmise as to whether greater nations came in and conquered the country, or whether they, after centuries of possession, became demoralized, degenerated, and divided into tribes, who sunk lower into savage life and barbarism. Certain it is that many, many years elapsed after the Mound-Builders had disappeared until the ancestors of the earliest Indian tribes known to history came to inhabit the forests of the Northwest.

We cannot devote space to a description of important works and mounds throughout the State, but will as briefly as possible refer to those still in existence in this county.

In the Twin Creek Valley, German Township, about two miles south of Germantown, on a commanding bluff, is an earthwork or fortification inclosing about twenty-five acres of land. Near the fort are small mounds, as though for signal stations or lookouts.

At Miamisburg, on the east side of the Miami River, is one of the largest mounds in the West; it is symmetrical in form, sixty-eight feet high, and 800 feet around the base. In the early days of the settlement at Hole's Station, the mound was covered with forest trees, a big maple growing from the top. By archaeologists it is supposed to be the sepulcher of a chief or ruler of the Mound-Builders.

Two miles north of the mound is an earthwork, doubtless a military work, circular in form, inclosing a large tract of nearly level ground; formerly a covered way, or parallel embankments, connected the main work with the river, showing that the inclosure was constructed for military defense.

In Van Buren Township, two miles southwest of Dayton, on top of the hill west of Calvary Cemetery, at the corner where the canal running west turns south, are earthworks evidently erected for the defense of that as a point of observation. From it there is a commanding view for miles up and down the valley, and of the range of hills to the west of the river.

In the Wolf Creek Valley, in Madison Township, there are a number of mounds, none of them now over fifteen feet high. Human skeletons have been found in any of the mounds that were opened, and beneath the bones were beds of charcoal.

THE INDIAN TITLE TO THE OHIO VALLEY AND LOWER LAKE REGION.

The wigwams and villages of the once powerful Eries lined the. southern shore of Lake Erie, and we learn from Indian traditions that their merciless. enemies, the Six Nations, at the foot of the lake, crossed in great fleets of canoes, with such a host of fierce warriors, as to conquer the country and utterly destroy the nation of Eries.

The Twightwees (afterward known as the Miamis), the Wyandots (called Hurons by the French) and the Delawares then became the powerful tribes; the Shawnee nation emigrated in a body from the Southeast; these, with the other Ohio tribes, were in peaceful possession of the soil about the year 1 1700, from which time we have more reliable record of events.

Whether by conquest or succession, or whether they came to this as an uninhabited wilderness, or whatever may have been results of wars among the Indian tribes and nations of this country, and whatever way have been their loca-

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tion and tribal relations, we are bound to concede that their titles to this continent were clear and perfect. This, also, was the situation exactly in the territory north of the Ohio River, and between the Mississippi River and the Alleghany Mountains, when, in 1740, the French began to more completely occupy the country within those bounds. Neither the French nor English contemplated settlement or improvement of that territory, except to control the Indian trade in pelts.

The powerful confederacy of tribes in Western New York, known as the Six Nations, called Iroquois by the French, by the English, Mingoes, consisted of the following-named tribes: Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Sene cas and the Tuscaroras. One or two other tribes were afterward united with the confederacy, but it was always known as the Six Nations. As opposed to the Six Nations, the Miami Confederacy was a union of tribes that could be readily concentrated on the Maumee, or at the head-waters of the Great Miami River. This Miami Confederacy was composed of the following-named tribes: Miamis, Wyandots, Pottawatomies, Ottawas and Shawnees. The Delaware and Chippewa tribes at times made common cause with the Miamis against the incursions of the Six Nations, as did also the Weas and Eel River Indians, the Kickapoos, Munsees, and other Wabash tribes; to these in the wars against the whites in later years were united the Seven Nations of Canada, the Indians of the Upper Lake tribes, and the Illinois Indians.

During the war between the French and the English, or after that, but before 1792, the Senecas, a powerful tribe, composed mostly of Senecas, but in which there were many Indians from the other tribes of the Six Nations of New York, came West and located on the Sandusky River, near where the city of Sandusky now is.

The Sac Indians seem to have been included as a tribe of the Miami Confederacy in a treaty made at Fort Harmar in 1789, by Gov. St. Clair, with the Six Miami Nations, but they never appear again in negotiations or wars until in 1804, we find them west of the Mississippi River, where the tribe was granted a reservation by the Government.

The claim of the Six Nations of New York to the country along the south shore of Lake Erie to the Detroit River, was based upon an invasion of that region by them some time between the years 1.673 and 1680. There can be no doubt that they did meet and conquer all of the tribes as far west as the Wabash, and possibly to the Mississippi River: and that they did plant one or two colonies in the lands between Lake Erie and the Ohio River; yet they had no just claim to the territory, from the fact that, after their return to their lands in New York, the Ohio tribes had undisputed possession and rule.

Their claim to the Ohio Valley may have been based upon a similar victorious expedition, but there is no evidence to show this, except the fact, that, for some reason, at the time the whites began coming into the valley, there were but one or two Indian villages on or near the banks of the Ohio, the tribes being generally located from sixty to eighty miles back in the interior. The claim of the Six Nations to the Western lands was never recognized by any authorities, except by the English, who needed some basis for a claim of their own.

After the Revolution, when the United States desired control of this territory, they treated with the Ohio tribes alone.

The title to the Ohio lands rested in the following-named tribes: Shawnees, Wyandots, Miamis, Pottawatomies, Ottawas, Sacs, Delawares, Chippewas, Senecas, of Sandusky, and Munsees; the Weas and Eel River Indians also had some interest that was recognized.

With all of them, as well as all other of the Western and Northern tribes, the French were upon the most friendly terms.

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THE FRENCH TITLE.

All of the vast territory west of the Alleghanies and north of the Ohio River, together with the Canadian country, was, by reason of the explorations of Marquette and Joliet, in 1673, and of the subsequent military expeditions of La Salle, claimed as French territory, and placed under the government of Frontenac, the Governor General of Canada, or New France.

French Jesuit missionaries closely followed these movements, and, by their mild, conciliatory course, obtained great influence over most of the stronger tribes of Western Indians. Thus to the French Government in Canada was thrown open the valuable extent of country now included within the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. Michigan, Wisconsin, and so much of Minnesota lying east of the Mississippi River. In 1701, De la Motte Cadillac. with a force of a hundred men, built Fort Pontchartrain, on the Detroit River, and within the next twenty years a chain of forts and trading stations were built by the French from the upper lakes across to the Mississippi, and on down to their settlements in Louisiana; most of them were garrisoned by small detachments of troops; and at some of them Catholic schools were established. Afterward, a chain of similar posts was constructed to protect a line of communication up the Ohio to the Wabash, thence up that valley and via the Maumee Valley to Fort Pontchartrain.

There is some authority. yet not much of detail, tending to fix the year 17 35 as the time that the post at Vincennes was established; but there is very little to show that that line was ever very much used as a channel of communication between the French possessions in the Northwest and their Lower Mississippi stations.

About 1.740, the French located a military post at Presque Isle (now Erie, Penn.), to control trading stations along the southern shore of Lake Erie, and as a base for operations down through the Ohio Valley; although it was not a point of much importance until six or eight years after it was built.

English traders from Pennsylvania and Virginia crossed the mountains in 1740 to trade with the tribes on the Ohio River and adjacent territory: in 1744, the treaty of Lancaster was made; in 1745. the Ohio Company was organized to settle land on the south side of the Ohio River, above the mouth of the Kanawha. Appreciating that the result of these movements would be a loss to France of all the Ohio Valley lands. the Governor of Canada at once determined to perfect the French title by placing along the Ohio River evidences of their claim. To this end, in the summer of 1749, Capt. Celeron, with 300 soldiers, was ordered to march from Presque Isle across the portage to French Creek, and on down to the Alleghany and Ohio, then down that valley to the Mississippi, to plant in the river banks, near the mouths of streams, and in other prominent places, plates of lead, on which were engraved, in plain letters the claims of France to all the lands of the Ohio Valley and its tributaries.

These plates were about a foot long, nearly eight inches wide; and a quarter of an inch thick. They were buried at the various points, and a wooden cross erected over each; and thus did the French, for Louis XV, take formal possession of the Ohio Valley, and of all the streams emptying into it.

While engaged on this expedition, Celeron, the commander of the detachment, officially notified Gov. Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, to prevent further trespassing on French territory.

One of these plates of lead, that had been planted probably at the mouth of French Creek, and shortly afterward dug up by the Indians, bore the date July 29, 1749. In the summer of 1798, another was found at the mouth of the Muskingum River, by some boys in swimming; a similar plate was found, in March, 1846, on the south bank of the Ohio River, just above the mouth of the

HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY. - 219

Kanawha. After accomplishing the object of the expedition, the detachment marched up the Wabash River, and across to Detroit.

The next year, 1750, the French strengthened the works at Presque Isle; built Fort Le Beouf at the little lake at the head of French Creek; then at the old Indian town Venango, at the mouth of the creek, they began the construction of Fort Venango. Strong garrisons were stationed at each of them, and trading stations were established; and a force was kept at the junction of the Monongahela and Alleghhany Rivers to keep English traders out of the Ohio Valley.

For four years, the French were at work upon fortifications along the line from Fort Venango down the Alleghany and Ohio to the Mississippi, so that, when the war broke out between them and the English, they had strong forts, well garrisoned, as follows:

Presque Isle, Le Beouf, Venango, Du Quesne, Mouth of the Wabash, Mouth of the Ohio, Vincennes, Pontchartrain, Miami on the Maumee, Sandusky, and on the upper lakes, in Illinois and on the Mississippi. They had complete pos session of the whole Northwest; the Indian tribes were either friendly or neutral; there could be no fairer claim than the French had to the Ohio Valley.

THE ENGLISH TITLE.

Great Britain regarded her title to all of the lands west of the colonies to the Pacific Ocean as good, by right of original discovery and settlement along the Atlantic coast, where, with little respect for the rights of Indians, colonies had been located and governments organized for them.

The home government was deficient in knowledge as to the geography of the new continent, but made grants of large tracts of lands west of the colonies, through by parallel lines to the South Sea, or to the Pacific Ocean.

Gov. Spotswood, of Virginia, had, in 1710, caused some observations to be made through the mountain passes of the Alleghanies, with a view to more complete exploration and occupation of the country beyond by the English.

Gov. Keith, of Pennsylvania, had at various times from 1719 to 1731, tried to impress upon the home government the necessity of strengthening the claim to these Western lands; very little was done, however, and the fates were left to take of the t for the Western wilds.

Prior to 1740, therefore, the English Government and people were almost entirely ignorant of the value of the region west of the mountains and north of the Ohio River; the colonists, however, were not so indifferent. Vague information had come in through English traders, who had crossed the mountains to the Ohio in 1740, and learned from Indians of the operations of the French around Presque Isle.

John Howard, a Virginian, descended the Ohio in 1742, in a canoe, and was captured on the Mississippi by the French; he was the first Englishman to explore the Western country, but this could give Great Britain no claim to the territory, for he made no settlement, and the Freneh were then practically in. possession of the West, and, as we have shown, were pushing to fully occupy the country, to the exclusion of all others. With this situation, then, Great Britain's claim by right of discovery could not alone be relied on.

Lord Howard, Governor of Virginia, had, in 1684, induced the Six Nations to place themselves under the protection of England; this treaty was renewed in 1701. In 1726, a deed was executed by the chiefs of the Six Nations, conveying to England all their lands in trust, " to be protected and defended by His Majesty, to and for the use of the grantors, and their heirs."

At Lancaster, Penn., in 1744, were assembled Commissioners from Maryland and Virginia, the Governor of Pennsylvania also being present, and 250

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Indians of the Six Nations, with their squaws and children, to renew former treaties. After liberally supplying the Indians with whisky and wine for six days, the Maryland Commissioners opened the goods with which they desired to buy the Indian claims to the lands on which settlements had been made; another spree of two days was necessary before the Indians were in condition to execute the deed. The part the Virginia Commissioners were to play was to induce the Indians to acknowledge "the King's right to all the lands that then were, or by His Majesty's appointment shall be, within the colony of Virginia.'' Sufficient "fire-water" was again issued to induce the Indians to release all claim to the lands.

For the sale to the Marylanders, the savages received, as consideration, goods valued at £220. For the quit-claim to the Virginians, they were paid £200 in gold, and a like sum in goods, with the promise that, as the settlements were extended, more money should be paid.

Under this treaty and purchase, the English supported their claim to an unlimited extent of country in the West; but at a subsequent treaty, held in 1752, at Logstown, an Indian village on the Ohio side of the Ohio River, seven teen miles below Fort Du Quesne, the Indians declared that " the Lancaster treaty did not cede any lands west of the first range of hills on the east side of the Alleghany Mountains; " they agreed, however, not to disturb any settlements that might be made on the southeast side of the Ohio River; and that was satisfactory to the Virginians, as confirming the Lancaster treaty in its fullest extent.

WAR BETWEEN FRENCH AND ENGLISH FOR POSSESSION OF THE NORTHWEST.

The occupation of the Northwest by the French; opening of trading stations and construction of forts to protect them; the perfect lines of communication by water; and all the attending advantages of monopoly of trade, and control of this vast fertile country of the West, alarmed the English, lest the French should gain a foothold of which they could not easily be dispossessed. Preparations for the contest, and dispositions for advantage, were made by both nations; Presque Isle was to be the base of operations for the French. for the lake regions and down the Ohio Valley.

The Ohio Land Company was chartered in 1748, as a check to French aggressions and settlements; the next year, a small party of English traders, with a stock of goods, descended the Ohio to the mouth of the Great Miami River, and proceeded up that stream to the portage t the headwaters of the Miami and St. Mary's Rivers, and there established a trading post, building a stockade or blockhouse for defense, sixteen miles northwest of Sidney. The passage up the Miami of these traders is the first record there is of the presence of white men anywhere in the Miami Valley. As the Indian hunting and war parties traveled mostly in canoes, the early trading stations were located at the portages, as the thoroughfares over which such parties must pass, and where pelts and grain could conveniently be brought for exchange.

This trading post was afterward known as Loramie's store. Loramie was a Frenchman, who came there after the English were driven out. It was an important point for three-quarters of a century afterward first as a trading station, then as the location of large Indian villages and farms, where large quantities of grain, tobacco, &c., were raised and stored. It was the scene of many fierce battles; was several times destroyed by the whites and rebuilt by the Indians. It was at the head of navigation on the Miami River, and, in the war of 1812, was the point at which supplies were unloaded to be hauled across the portage to St. Mary's; and, from 1800 to the time of the completion of the canal, was on the line of communication by water between the Ohio River and

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Lake Erie; the unloading of the little fleets of batteaux made that a point of considerable activity and business importance.

The Ohio Company sent out Christopher Gist as an explorer in the fall of 1750; Sunday, February 17, 1751, he, with George Croghan, Andrew Montour and Robert Kallender, reached the Great Miami River and remained at the trading post for some time, studying the character of the country and forming friendly relations with the Indian tribes.

The next year, a French force was stationed at the forks of the Ohio to keep the valley clear of traders and settlers; learning of the trading post on the Miami, they crossed the country and demanded of the Miami Indians the sur render of the traders as intruders upon French lands. The Indians refused to deliver up their friends, and prepared for battle with the invaders.

The French, with a number of Indian allies from the Ottawa and Chippewa tribes, attacked the trading house and stockade; a fierce, bloody fight ensued; fourteen savages were killed. and many wounded; the English traders were captured and taken as prisoners to Canada. The stockade and buildings were destroyed; the goods and other plunder were carried off. For thirty years after this, the Miami Valley remained undisturbed, except by hunting parties from tribes to the North and West, for winter supplies of meat.

Pennsylvania afterward made a donation of £200 to the Miamis, for the brave defense of the traders from that colony.

From Presque Isle, the French troops marched south to the Alleghany in the spring of 1754, and, on the 17th of April, surprised the Virginians, who were building a fort at the forks of the Ohio, taking all prisoners, but releasing them shortly afterward. The captors at once finished building the fort, and called it Du Quesne, in honor of the then Governor General of Canada. The bloody history of Fort Du Quesne, as the key to the Western situation, is made up by criminal mistakes of the English, and the awkward campaigns of the French. The results of Braddock's disastrous expedition are well known; being absolutely ignorant of Indian warfare, he rejected the advice of Washington and other Virginians who had been fighting the savages all their lives. Braddock was led into an ambush, his army totally routed and he killed.

In 1756, a garrison of French troops was stationed at a small fort at the mouth of the Scioto River, above and below it were the Shawnee towns.

Early in the year 1758, the Indians were not so zealous in the cause of the French; their friendship began to waver; the tide of success was changing in favor of the English. In the last week of November, Fort Du Quesne was abandoned and burned by the French; the English troops at once occupied the place and began rebuilding it. It had been a mere stockade, unfit to resist a siege or attacks of artillery. In the following year, a substantial fort was built, costing the British Government £60,000 sterling. The name was, changed to that of Fort Pitt.

From the fall of Fort Du Quesne, active hostilities in the West ceased; the French troops retreated down the Ohio River; peace was made with most of the Western tribes; and the forts and trading posts were garrisoned by the English.

The treaty of Paris was concluded February 10, 1763, by which the French relinquished her possessions in the Canadas, and the territory lying east of the Mississippi down to the thirty first degree of latitude. As the Indians had not released their right to any of the lands south of the lakes, this treaty was in fact but a quit claim to the English. The feelings of the tribes on this subject can be fully given in the following speech, made by one of the most prominent chiefs in the lake region:

"Englishmen! Although you have conquered the French, you have not yet conquered us! We are not your slaves! These lakes, these woods, these

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mountains, were left to us by our ancestors. They are our inheritance, and we will part with them to none. Your nation supposes that we. like the white people, cannot live without bread and pork and beef. But you ought to know that He, the Great Spirit and Master of Life, has provided food for us upon these broad lakes and in these mountains."

English traders began at once to push through the forests to the Indian villages, and the savages realized they were coming to possess the country.

Under the great Ottawa chieftain; Pontiac, the tribes of the West combined to drive out the invaders, the warriors, at a designated time, surrounded the forts, and all but Detroit were surrendered to the savages, who murdered the prisoners, soldiers and citizens alike. Forts Pitt and Niagara were saved; but the savages pushed into the settlements along the frontier, killing the inhabitants, burning the buildings, and destroying everything they could not carry off. Their failure to take the three most important forts discouraged the Indians, and in the fall the tribes separated. The next spring, an expedition under Col. Bouquet was sent in the Ohio country, and one render Gen. Bradstreet in the north along Lake Erie; all of the tribes again sued for peace, and quiet was restored. Two years later, settlers again crossed the mountains for the West. In 1768, the treaty of Fort Stanwix was made, by which the Six Nations of New York released their title to lands south of the. Ohio, and quiet prevailed until the year 1774, when the whites in the settlements around Fort Pitt committed many cruel acts against the Indians, murdering many warriors, squaws and children, and preparations for war were made by savages and whites.

Because of hostilities growing out of these acts, two expeditions were organized in Virginia to march into the Ohio country; the one under Gov. Dunmore, from Fort Pitt; the other under Gen. Andrew Lewis, from the Greenbrier Valley. At the mouth of the Kanawha River, Gen. Lewis was attacked by the celebrated chief, Cornstalk, of the Shawnees, with a thousand of his warriors; the savages were repulsed with great slaughter, the loss on both sides being about equal.

The two armies united and camped on the Pickaway Plains, where Gov. Dunmore made peace with the Indians, and negotiated for the return of white prisoners that were held by the savages, the Shawnees further agreeing not to hunt south of the Ohio, nor molest travelers on the river.

When the war of the Revolution began, the French settlements in the Illinois country were in a flourishing condition.

Detroit was the British post in the North, and had a population of about three hundred, besides the garrison: all of the northwest country was in control of the British; although the territory now included within the States of Ohio and Indiana was substantially in possession of the Indians, who had steadily refused to cede to the whites any of the lands northwest of the Ohio; and, in the preparations for the struggle between the colonies and old England, generally inclined to the British. The efforts of the colonial authorities were to keep the savages from forming an alliance with the British, thus averting horrible savage warfare and butchery along the frontiers, the Indians themselves only remaining neutral until partial results should develop which was the stronger side. Warriors from all of the tribes removed toward the head of Lake Erie, to be near the British; with whom they intended to operate; most of the Indians, however, remained to hold their lands a country so dear to them that it is no wonder they defended it with such obstinacy against the incursions of the whites. For this they need no excuses.

In 1778, George Rogers Clark's first expedition down the Ohio into the Illinois country was made to get possession of the British posts in that section. In the summer, Fort McIntosh was built on the north side of the Ohio, just be-

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low Fort Pitt. It was the first fort built by the whites north of the Ohio, and was intended as a base of operations against the Lake Erie Indians. The same year, Fort Laurens was built, at the Tuscarawas portage. This expedition, and the building of these two forts, was part of a plan for a campaign against hostile Indians on the Sandusky Plains; the disastrous result caused uneasiness and anxiety among all of the Ohio tribes and white. settlements of the West.

By the treaty of peace, proclaimed in 1783, Great Britain acknowledged the sovereignty of this country, and whatever title she had in the Northwestern Territory passed to the United States; but we have already shown how flimsy her title was. It was not even that of conquest, for the Indians had never been conquered, nor had they in any way surrendered a foot of the lands north of the Ohio. England simply had a quitclaim of jurisdiction from the French, and that was the character of the title that the United States acquired.

Virginia's claim to these Western lands was no more tenable; the Indian owners of the soil always protested and fought against it. It was not by aggressions of the whites, not by planting of settlements in the territory, that a clear title was to be acquired, as the history of subsequent events will show.

The record of such events, and of the Indian treaties made by the Government in the earlier years of the settlement of the Northwest Territory and State of Ohio, will be given further along, in the order of accomplishment. By them, good and clear titles were fairly acquired by the United States.