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100 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY When General Harrison reached Piqua, he requested Colonel Johnson to furnish him some reliable spies. It was then that Captain Logan entered the service of the American commander. In November Harrison directed Logan to take a small party. and reconnoiter the country in the direction of the Rapids of the Maumee. When near their destination the three scouts were met by a body of the enemy superior to their own, and compelled to retreat. Logan, Captain Johnny and Bright Horn effected their escape to the army of General Winchester, who was duly informed of the circumstances of their adventure. A thoughtless officer of the Kentucky troops without the slightest ground for such a charge, accused Logan of giving intelligence to the enemy. Wounded to the quick by this foul accusation, the red man at once resolved to meet it in a manner that would leave no doubt as to his loyalty. "Accordingly on the morning of the 22d," so runs the account, "he started down the Maumee, attended by his two faithful companions, Captain Johnny and Bright Horn. About noon, having stopped for the purpose of taking rest, they were suddenly surprised by a party of seven of the enemy, among whom were young Elliott, a half-breed; holding a commission in the British service, and the celebrated Pottawatomie chief, Winnemac. Logan made no resistance, but, with great presence of mind, extending his hand to Winnemac, who was an old acquaintance, proceeded to inform him that he and his two companions, tired of the American service, were just leaving General Winchester's army, for the purpose of joining the British. Winnemac, being familiar with Indian strategy, was not satisfied with this declaration, but proceeded to disarm Logan and his comrades, and placing his party around them, so as to prevent their escape, started for the British camp at the foot of the rapids. In the course of the afternoon Logan's address was such as to inspire confidence in his sincerity, and induce Winnemac to restore to him and his companions their arms. Logan now formed the plan of attacking his captors on the first favorable opportunity and while marching along succeeded in communicating the substance of it to Captain Johnny and Bright Horn. Their guns being already loaded, they had little further preparation to make than to put bullets into their mouths, to facilitate the reloading of their arms. In carrying on this process Captain Johnny, as he afterwards related, fearing that the man marching by his side had observed the operation, adroitly did away the impression by saying 'Me chaw heap toback.' "The evening being now at hand, the British Indians determined to encamp on the bank of Turkey Foot Creek, about twenty miles from Fort Winchester. Confiding in the idea that Logan had realdy deserted the American service, a part of his captors rambled around the place of their encampment in search of blackhaws. They were no sooner out of sight than Logan gave the signal of attack upon those who remained behind ; they fired, and two of the enemy fell dead—the third, being only wounded, required a second shot to dispatch him ; and in the meantime the remainder of the party, who were nearby, returned the fire, and all of them 'treed.' There being four of the enemy, and only three of Logan's party, the latter could not watch all the movements of their antagonists. During an active fight, the fourth man of the enemy passed around until Logan was uncovered by his tree, and shot him through the body. By this time Logan's party had wounded two of the surviving four, which caused them to fall back. Taking advantage of things, Captain Johnny mounted Logan, now suffering the pain of a mortal wound, and Bright Horn also wounded, on two of the enemy's horses, and started them for Winchester's camp, which they reached about mid- HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 101 night, When the news of the gallant affair had spread through the camp, and, especially after it was known that Logan was mortally wounded, it created a deep and mournful sensation. No one, it is believed, more deeply regretted the fatal catastrophe than the author of the charge upon Logan's integrity, which had led to this unhappy result." Logan's popularity was very great, and he was almost universally esteemed in the army for his fidelity to the American cause, his recognized bravery, and the nobleness of his nature. He lived two or three days after reaching camp, but in extreme bodily agony. His body was borne by the soldiers to Wapakoneta, where his family dived, and there lie was buried with mixed military honors and savage rites. Previous to his death he related the particulars of this fatal enterprise to a friend, declaring to him that he prized his honor more than life. Having now vindicated his reputation from the imputation cast upon it, he died satisfied. A number of ambuscades by the savages occurred around Fort Winchester. These generally happened to soldiers who had strayed away from the fort either to gather food or to shoot game. Five soldiers were killed and scalped while after the plums that were so plentiful. "Some breaches of discipline were noted, and their punishment relieved the monotony of camp life. On the 8th of October Frederick Jacoby, a young man, was found asleep while posted as guard. He was sentenced by court martial to be shot. A platoon was ordered to take places before the paraded army and twenty paces from the prisoner who, blindfolded, was on his knees preparing for the order to the soldiers to fire. A great stillness pervaded the army. Just as the suspense was at its height a courier arrived with an order from General Winchester saving his life by changing the sentence. This sentence and scene produced a profound effect upon the soldiers. It was their first real view of the sternness of military discipline ; and they recognized its necessity and justness while in the country of the stealthy and savage enemy." The greatest suffering was caused by the lack of provisions and unadequate clothing. Fort Winchester was completed on the 15th of October, 1812. Nevertheless a large number of troops continued to camp outside the enclosure. The longest stay was made at Camp Number Three, several miles down the Maumee, for here there was an abundance of firewood, and the ground was dry. Of this place, one who was with the army said : "On the 25th of December, 1812, at sunrise we bade adieu to this memorable place, Camp Number Three, where lie the bones of many a brave man. This place will live in the recollection of all who suffered there, and for more reasons than one. There comes up before the mind the many times the dead march was heard in the Camp, and the solemn procession that carried our fellow sufferers to the grave ; the many times we were almost on the point of starvation ; and the many sickening disappointments which were experienced by the army from day to day, and from week to week, by the failure of promised supplies." Most of the soldiers were provided only with summer clothing, and it was well into the winter before any heavier outfitting was received. Army life was certainly deprived of its glamor. The rations were constantly short. Some days the rations consisted only of beef and other days only of fdour, or some hickory nuts which were gathered near the camp. The lack of salt was also greatly felt. It is no wonder that sickness increased from the inadequate food and the thin clothing worn by the soldiers. Their weakened conditions made the men an easy prey to pestilence. Three or four deaths a day with the constant 102 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY succession of funeral rites greatly depressed the soldiers. Hunger drove many away from the camp in search of food. The army contractors were largely to blame for the shortage of necessities, but there were contributing causes. "The roads were bad beyond description but those who have actually seen the state of the country seem to have formed a correct estimate of the difficulties to be encountered. The road * * * to Defiance was one continued swamp, knee- deep to the packhorses and tup to the hubs of the wagons. It was found impossible in some instances to get even the empty wagons along, and many were left sticking in the mire and ravines, the wagoners being glad to get off with the horses alive. * * * The only persons who could be procured to act as packhorse drivers were generally the most worthless creatures in society, who took care neither of the horse nor the goods with which they were entrusted." General Harrison, from his headquarters in Franklinton, now Columbus, was kept fully informed, and he in turn advised the department, but communications were slow and the War Department was so demoralized that supplies did not reach this outlying fortress. No other troops operating in this part of the state had to endure such hardships as befell this army in the fadl and early winter of 1812. There was one attempt to send food which is reported as follows : "About the first of December, Major Bodley, an enterprising officer who was quartermaster of the Kentucky troops, made an attempt to send near two hundred barrels of fdour down the River St. Marys in pirogues to the Left Wing of the army below Defiance. Previous to this time, the water had rarely been high enough to venture into a voyage on these small streams. The fdour was now shipped in fifteen or twenty pirogues and canoes, and placed under the command of Captain Jordan and Lieutenant Cardwell with upwards of twenty men. They descended the river and arrived about a week afterwards at Shane's Crossing upwards of one hundred miles by water but only twenty by land from the place they started. The river was so narrow, crooked, fudl of logs, and trees overhanging the banks, that it was with great difficulty they could make any progress. And now in one freezing night they were completely ice bound. Lieutenant Cardwell waded back through the ice and swamps to Fort Barbee with intelligence of their situation. Major Bodley returned with him to the fdour, and offered the men extra wages to cut through the ice and push forwards ; but having gained only one mile by two days' labor, the project was abandoned, and a guard deft with the flour. A few days before Christmas a temporary thaw took place which enabled them with much difficulty and suffering to reach within a few miles of Fort Wayne, where they were again frozen up. They now abandoned the voyage and made sleds on which the men hauled the flour to the Fort (Wayne) and left it there." General Harrison himself reported to the Secretary of War as follows : "Obstacles are almost insuperable ; but they are opposed with unabated firmness and zeal. * * * The prodigious destruction of horses can only be conceived by those who have been accustomed to military operations in the wilderness during the winter season. I did not make sufficient allowance for the imbecility and inexperience of the public agents, and the villainy of the contractors. * * * If the plan of acquiring the navad superiority upon the lakes, before the attempt is made on Malden or Detroit, should be adopted, I would place fifteen hundred men in cantonment at Miami Rapids-Defiance would be better if the troops had not advanced from there." HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 103 Following a custom of the day captives were occasionally brought in to give information. In one official report to Governor Meigs by General Tupper we find as follows : "Camp, Near McArthur's Block-house, November 9th, 1812. "Sir :-I have for some time thought a prisoner from near the Maumee Rapids would at this time be of much service, and highly acceptable to General Harrison. For this purpose, I ordered Captain Hinkton to the Rapids, with his company of spies, with orders to take a prisoner if possible, He had just returned and brought in with him Captain A. Clark, a British subject, who resides two miles above Malden, and was out with a party of about five hundred Indians and fifty British, with two gunboats, six bateaux, and one small schooner at the foot of the Rapids, to gather in and carry over to Malden the corn. Captain Clark had but just arrived with the van of the detachment. The vessels and boats had not yet anchored when the spies surprised him as he advanced a few rods from the shore to reconnoitre, and brought him off undiscovered; and this from a number of Indians, who were killing hogs and beginning to gather corn. At the same time, several of Captain Hinkton's spies lay concealed on the bank within five rods of the place where some of the first boats were landing. Captain Hinkton has conducted this business with great skill and address. Captain Clark was taken prisoner on the 7th instant, a little before sun setting. * * * I am, very respectfully, Your Excellency's Most Obedient Servant, Edward W. Tupper, Brigadier Gen. Ohio Quota." In a letter, dated January 8, 1813, Harrison wrote to the Secretary of War : "My plan of operation has been, and now is, to occupy the Miami Rapids, and to deposit there as much provisions as possible, to move from thence with choice detachment of the army, and with as much provision, artillery and ammunition as the means of transportation will allow, make a demonstration towards Detroit and, by a sudden passage of the strait upon the ice, an actual investiture of Malden. * * * It was my intention to have assembled at the Rapids from 4,500 to 5,000 men, and to be governed by circumstances in forming the detachment with which I should advance." General Winchester had been authorized to proceed to the Maumee Rapids as soon as he had accumulated sufficient supplies to make the advance safe. On his way from Defiance a dispatch reached him from Harrison recommending the abandonment of this project. But Harrison treated Winchester as an equal and not as an under officer. Hence Winchester followed his own ideas and continued the march. On the tenth of January, 1813, he reached a point above the site of the Battle of Fallen Timbers. He had with him an army of 1,300 men. Here he established an improvised encampment and storehouse. The soldiers were able to gather corn from the fields, which was boiled whole and supplied them with some additional food. Some improvised devices were made to pound corn into meal. The enemy were encamped in considerable numbers around and about the site of Fort Miami, but they retreated. A number of messengers arrived at his camp from Frenchtown (now Monroe) representing the danger to which the inhabitants were exposed from the hostility of British and Indians and almost tearfully begging for protection. These representations excited the sympathies 104 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY of the Americans and turned their attention from the main object of the campaign, causing them to forget to a great extent proper military precaution. These messengers reported that the Indians had threatened to kill the inhabitants and burn the town. A council of officers was called by General Winchester and a majority were in favor of sending a strong detachment to the relief of Frenchtown. Cod. William Lewis was first dispatched with 550 men on January 17th. A few hours later Col. John Allen followed with 110 men, and overtook the others at the mouth of the river. Marching along the frozen borders of the bay and lake they reached there on the afternoon of the following day. Attacking the enemy who were posted in the village, they gained possession of it after a spirited engagement. Learning that the savages were collecting in force, General Winchester became alarmed and started from the Maumee Rapids on the 19th with all the troops that he could detach to the relief of that settlement, in all about 250 men. They arrived there on the 20th instant. As soon as General Harrison received word of Winchester's advance he was alarmed and made a quick advance to the Rapids. The artillery was ordered to follow and droves of hogs started. He arrived there on the 20th and immediately sent a courier to Frenchtown. Had General Winchester followed the advice of those wiser than himself, a disaster might have been prevented. But he relaxed himself in the good home of Colonel Navarre, where he was established, and was not as vigilant as he should have been. He left his troops in open ground, and took no precautions against surprise. Scouts reported that a large body of British and Indians were approaching and would attack him that night. Other information of a similar nature was brought in, but he was unmoved by these reports. He seemed to be under an evil spell. As a result, an attack was made upon him in the early morning of the 22d. The British and their dusky allies approached entirely undiscovered. General Winchester attempted to rejoin his troops but was captured by an Indian and led to Colonel Proctor. Winchester was persuaded to order his troops to surrender under promise of protection, but the gallant Major Madison refused until the third request was received. Only a shortage of ammunition induced them to surrender at all. Several hundred of his men were killed in battle or afterwards massacred and the dreaded Indian yell was heard on every side. One troop of a score of men under Lieutenant Garrett were compelled to surrender while retreating and were all massacred except the lieutenant himself. Of another party of thirty which surrendered half were shot or tomahawked. The remainder of his troops were taken prisoners and marched to Amherstburg. Most of them were afterwards released upon parole. General Winchester was kept as a prisoner for more than a year. The surrender was doubtless induced by the statement of the British commander that an Indian massacre could hardly be prevented in case of continued resistance, and a promise of help to all the wounded. But the promise was not kept. Only thirty-three of the Americans escaped death or captivity. This great disaster at the River Raisin was most lamentable, but it was not without its good results. The loss of the enemy has never been known, but it must have been heavy. "Remember the Raisin" became a slogan that spurred many to enlist in the army, and do valiant service for their country. It had the same effect upon them as did "Remember the Alamo" among the Texans. General Harrison was blamed by his enemies for permitting the advance and then for not sending reinforcements. The advance was made without his HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 105 knowledge and he arrived too late to be of assistance. If lie erred at all it was in permitting too great a latitude to General Winchester, when he was the commander-in-chief. The situation for the Americans did indeed begin to look lugubrious. For a year there had been only a succession of disasters. All the military operations in the Northwest had resulted favorably for the enemy. Mackinac had been surrendered. There had been a bloody massacre at Fort Dearborn (Chicago) ; General Hudl had yielded to cowardice; now come the overwhelming defeat and massacre of the troops under General Winchester. Nothing had been achieved to mitigate these losses. The entire frontier was greatly alarmed. From every settlement there came urgent and almost pitiful appeals for protection. The settlers lived in daily fear of war parties of the savages. The man who left home feared he would never again behold his loved ones. Many indeed did flee to Kentucky to escape the dangers of the Ohio country. CHAPTER X A YEAR OF VICTORIES General Harrison was not dismayed by the disasters that had overtaken his forces. All the combativeness in his nature was aroused and he bent his energies to retrieving the Northwestern Army from the year of disasters for which he was not in any sense responsible. Reinforcements were demanded and precautions taken to prevent any further unfortunate happenings to the troops under his command. His earliest efforts were devoted to freeing Northwestern Ohio from the enemy. General Harrison wrote to the Secretary of War from "headquarters, Foot of the Miami (Maumee) Rapids, February 11, 1813," as follows : "Having been joined by General Leftwich with his brigade, and a regiment of the Pennsylvania quota at the Portage River on the 30th ultimo, I marched thence on the 1st instant and reached this place on the morning of the 2nd with an effective force of sixteen hundred men. I have since been joined by a Kentucky regiment and part of General Tupper's Ohio Brigade, which has increased our numbers to two thousand noncommissioned officers and privates. I have ordered the whole of the troops of the Left Wing (excepting one company for each of the six forts in that quarter) the badance of the Pennsylvania brigade, and the Ohio brigade under General Tupper, and a detachment of regular troops of twelve months volunteers under command of Colonel Campbell, to march to this place as soon as possible. "I am erecting here a pretty strong fort (Meigs) capable of resisting field artillery at least. The troops will be placed in a fortified camp covered on one flank by the fort. This is the best position that can be taken to cover the frontier, and the small posts in the rear of it, and those above it on the Miami (Maumee) and its tributaries. The force placed here ought, however, to be strong enough to encounter any that the enemy may detach against the forts above. Twenty-five hundred would not be too many. Rut, anxious to reduce the expenses during the winter within as narrow bounds as possible I have desired the Governor of Kentucky not, to call out (but to hold in readiness to march) the fifteen hundred men lately required of him. * * * Attention will still be paid to the deposit of supplies for the ensuing campaign. Immense supplies of provisions have been accumulating along the Auglaize River, and boats and pirogues prepared to bring them down as soon as the river opens." The experience of General Harrison in frontier warfare, especially under General Wayne in this valley, induced him to select as the site of a fort in this section the high right bank of the Maumee River, just a short distance below the lowest fording place and near the foot of the lowest rapids. The original plan of this fort embraced something over eight acres of ground, and the irregular circumference of the enclosure measured about a mile and a third m length. At short intervals there were blockhouses and batteries, and between these the entire space was picketed with timbers 15 feet long, from 10 to 12 inches in diameter, and placed three feet into the ground. It was built under the personal supervision of Capt. Eleazer D. Wood, chief engineer of the army. As soon as the outlines of the fort were decided upon, the different branches of labor were assigned to the various corps in the army. - 106 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 107 "To complete the picketing," says Captain Wood, "to put up eight blockhouses of double timbers, to elevate four large batteries, to build all the storehouses and magazines required to contain the supplies of the army, together with the ordinary fatigues of the camp, was an undertaking of no small magnitude. Besides, an immense deal of labor was likewise required in excavating ditches, making abatis and clearing away the wood about the camp ; and all this was done, too, at a time when the weather was inclement, and the ground so hard that it could scarcely be opened with the mattock and pickaxe." General Harrison himself was untiring in his movements. He was kept busy visiting the various camps in his work of supervision, for we find dispatches dated from various headquarters. About the 1st of March word reached Fort Meigs that General Proctor had ordered the assembling of the Canada militia and the Indian allies early in April, preparatory to an attack on Fort Meigs. To encourage the Indians, he had assured them of an easy conquest, and had promised that Generad Harrison should be delivered up to Tecumseh himself. That Indian chief had an unquenchable hatred for the American commander since the Battle of Tippecanoe. The mode of attack, so it was reported, would be by constructing strong batteries on the opposite side of the river, to be manned by British artillerists, while the savages would invest the fort on that side of the river. "A few hours action of the cannon would smoke the Americans out of the fort into the hands of the savages," confidently said one of the officers. It was a very difficult matter to maintain an effective force on this frontier owing to the short terms of enlistment and the irregularity of their expirations. The forces within Fort Meigs were so seriously weakened by the expiration of the term of the enlistment of many of the Virginians and Pennsylvanians, that not more than five hundred effective soldiers remainded. The Kentucky Legislature passed an act adding $7.00 a month to the pay of any fifteen hundred Kentuckians adready in the service, who would remain until others were sent to relieve them. General Harrison was almost discouraged at times, for in one communication he writes : "I am sorry to mention the dismay and disinclination to the service, which appears to prevail in the western country." As soon as the ice broke, advantage was taken of the -high water to transport supplies down the river to Fort Meigs from the supply depots farther up on the Maumee and Auglaize. The British kept themselves informed of the American preparations through their savage allies. As Fort Meigs enjoyed comparative quiet for several weeks, the soldiers gradually became more venturesome. In March a small party of soldiers while hunting game near old Fort Miami were shot at by a British reconnoitering party, and Lieutenant Walker was killed. Another bullet lodged in a Bible or hymn-book, carried by a soldier in his breast pocket, saving him from death or a severe wound. Intense excitement again arose about the first of April over a desperate encounter of about a dozen French volunteers who, while reconnoitering by boat in the channels about the large island below the fort, were surprised and violently assailed at close quarters by two boatloads of savages. In the encounter that ensued only one Indian escaped death, but several of the Frenchmen were also slain, and only three came away unscathed. The Canadian militia assembled at Sandwich on the seventh of April, pursuant to call. On the 23d of that month General Proctor's army, consisting of almost one thousand regulars and militia, embarked at Malden on several vessels and sailed for Fort Meigs, being convoyed by 108 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY two gunboats with artillery. The savages, amounting to fully fifteen hundred, crossed the Detroit River and made their way to the rendezvous on foot, although a few sailed the lakes in small boats. The vessels arrived at the mouth of the Maumee River on the 26th inst., and a couple of days later the army landed near the ruins at Fort Miami, about two miles below Fort Meigs, and on the opposite side of the river. "Yesterday the British let loose a part of their savage allies upon the fort from the opposite shore, while the former were concerting plans below. There is little doubt the enemy mtends erecting batteries on the opposite shore. No force can reduce the fort. All are in fine spirits, anxiously waiting a share of the glory to be acquired over the British and their savage allies ; though one thing is certain, whilst their forces are so far superior they cannot be driven from their position on the opposite shore. Captain Hamilton, who was detached with a discovering party estimated their forces at three thousand—independent of the Indians lurking in the neighborhood." The effective force at Fort Meigs at this time numbered about eleven hundred soldiers, which was really inadequate to cope with such a large, well trained, and far better equipped army. General Harrison himself had arrived on the 12th. Most of the savages immediately crossed the river and began to invest and harass Fort Meigs at every possible point, filling the air with their hideous yells and the firing of musketry both day and night. For the purpose of protection the timber had been cleared from the fort on all sides for about three hundred yards, with the exception of stumps and an occasional log. Behind these the savages would advance at night and sometimes disable a picket. These wily foes also climbed the trees at the rear of the fort, from which vantage points they were finally routed with far greater losses than they inflicted. "Can you," said General Harrison in a stirring appeal to his troops, "the citizens of a free country who have taken arms to defend its rights, think of submitting to an army composed of mercenary soldiers, reluctant Canadians goaded to the field by the bayonet, and of wretched naked savages ? Can the breast of an American soldier, when he cast his eyes to the opposite shore, the scene of his country's triumphs over the same foe, be influenced by any other feelings than the hope of glory? Is not this army composed of the same materials as that which fought and conquered under the immortal Wayne ?" The news of Harrison's danger had already reached General Clay and his command of 1,200 men, part of whom were under Col. William Dudley. They dispatched Leslie Combs and some soldiers, together with a Shawnee guide, to inform General Harrison of their approach. Combs and his party began their journey at Defiance on the first of May. His companions—were two brothers named Walker, two others named respectively Paxton and Johnson, also young Black Fish, a Shawnee warrior. With the latter at the helm, the other four engaged with the rowing, and himself at the bow in charge of the rifdes and ammunition, the party pushed off from Defiance, amid cheers and sad adieus, determined to reach Fort Meigs before daylight. The voyage was full of danger. Rain was falling heavily, and the night was intensely black. They passed the rapids in safety, when heavy cannonading was heard in the direction of the fort. For a moment Combs was perplexed. To return would be prudent, but would expose his courage to doubts ; to remain until the next night, or proceed at once, seemed equally hazardous. A decision was soon made by the brave youth. He went forward with many misgivings, for he knew the weakness of HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 109 the garrison, and doubted its ability to hold out long. Great was his satisfaction, therefore, when on sweeping around the last bend in the river he saw the stripes and stars waving over the beleaguered camp. Suddenly a solitary Indian appeared in the edge of the woods, and a moment afterward a large body of them were observed in the gray shadows of the forest, running eagerly to a point below to cut off the party. The gallant captain attempted to dart by them on the swift current, when a volley of bullets from the savages severely wounded Johnson and Paxton-the former mortally. The fire was returned with effect, when the Shawnee at the helm turned the prow toward the opposite shore. There the voyagers abandoned the canoe and, with their faces toward Defiance, sought safety in fdight. After vainly attempting to take Johnson and Paxton with them, Combs and Black Fish left them. At the end of two days the captain reached Defiance, where General Clay had just arrived. The Walkers were also there, having fled more swiftly, because unencumbered. Combs and his dusky companion had suffered terribly. Excessive rains hindered the British in planting their cannon as they wished. At times as many as two hundred men and several oxen would be engaged in the work of pulling a single 24-pounder through the mud. At first the work was carried on only by night but a little later, owing to the impatience of the commander, the work was continued by day, although some of the men were killed by shots from Fort Meigs. By the 30th of April they had completed two batteries nearly opposite Fort Meigs. The first battery contained two 24-pounders, while the other mounted three howitzers. A third battery of three 12-pounders was afterwards placed, as well a§ several mortars, in strategic positions. General Harrison ordered earthworks to be thrown up to protect the men from any cannon shots which might be fired at them from these newly erected batteries. Thus the shots from the enemy's cannon were opposed by solid walls of earth 12 feet high and 20 feet thick at the base. Behind these ramparts the defenders were placed, so that they were fairly well protected from the guns of the enemy. A few guns were placed by the British on the fort side, and to meet this 110 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY new danger other traverses of earth were thrown up. A well was also dug behind the Grand Traverse, in order to provide a certain supply of water in case the investment should become close. The British fired almost incessantly with their cannon at Fort Meigs on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of May. Two Americans were killed on the first day, and one man was so severely wounded that he died of tetanus ten days later. No fewer than five hundred balls and shells were thrown on the first day so it was estimated. The supply of balls and shells within the fort was limited, and the defenders replied only occasionally when a good target offered. In order to increase the supply a reward of a gill of whisky was offered to the soldiers for every British ball brought in by them of a size to fit their guns. At night the soldiers might have been seen outside the stockade searching around for balls whose location they had noticed during the day. It is said that more than a thousand gills of whisky were paid out as rewards. Before completing their plans, the British constructed a third battery of three 12-pounder cannon between the two batteries mentioned above. One of the militiamen voluntarily stationed himself on the embankment, and gratuitously forewarned the Americans of every approaching shot. In this he became so skillful that he could in almost every case predict the probable destination of the missile. As soon as the smoke issued from the muzzle of the gun, he would cry out "shot" or "bomb" as the case might be. Consider the contempt with which a gunner in the Great war who fired a monster that hurled half a ton or More of steel and explosive for a distance of twenty-five miles, would regard these pigmy cannon. It was all these guns could do to heave a six or eight pound ball across the river, a distance of a quarter of a mile. So leisurely was its flight that this man from the embankment could gauge the direction and warn his comrades. It seems like an absurdity to us today in the light of modern development in the matter of man-killing machines. "Hey, there, block-house number one," he cried out. Then the boys of that defense would promptly duck for cover. "Main battery, look out," would come his stentorian voice over the palisades. The men of that battery then had warning to seek shelter and would follow his advice "now for the meat-house." "Good bye, old boy, if you will pass by," was the greeting to a wild shot that missed the fort altogether. But even these leisurely flying iron balls were deadly, when a human target interposed in their flight. One day, while he was watching and jocularly commenting on the course of the balls, there came a shot that seemed to defy all the militiaman's calculations. He could not gauge the angle. He stood motionless and perplexed. No word of warning or jesting came from his lips. His eyes seemed transfixed. But the ball was approaching nearer and nearer, and in an instant he was swept into eternity. The gunners had hit their mark. "The aborigines," says Rev. A. M. Lorraine, who was with the Americans, "climbing up into the trees, fired incessantly upon us. Such was their distance that many of their balls barely reached us but fell harmless to the ground. Occasionally they mflicted dangerous and even fatal wounds. The number killed in the fort was small considering the profusion of powder and ball expended on us. About eighty were slain, many wounded, and several had to suffer amputation of limbs. The most dangerous duty which we performed within the precincts of the fort was in covermg the magazine. Previous to this the powder had been HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 111 deposited m wagons and these stationed in the traverse. Here there was no security against bombs ; it was therefore thought to be prudent to remove the powder into a small blockhouse and cover it with earth. The enemy, judging our designs from our movements, now directed all their shot to this point (particularly from their 24-pounder battery). Many of their balls were red-hot. Wherever they struck they raised a cloud of smoke and made a frightful hissing. An officer passing our quarters said, `Boys, who will volunteer to cover the magazine?' Fool-like away several of us went. As soon as we reached the spot there came a ball and took off one man's head. The spades and dirt fdew faster than any of us had before witnessed." A white flag approached the fort and the bearers asked for a parley. A demand was then made for the surrender of the fortress by General Proctor. This was answered by a prompt refusal. "I believe I have a very correct idea of General Proctor's forces," said General Harrison. "It is not such as to create the least apprehension for the result of the contest, whatever shape he may be pleased hereafter to give to it. Assure the general, however, that he will never have this post surrendered to him upon any terms. Should it fall into his hands, it will be in a manner calculated to do him more honor, and to give him larger claims upon the gratitude of his government, than any capitulation could possibly do." Things had begun to look dark for the besieged when Capt. William Oliver, accompanied by Maj. David Trumble and fifteen soldiers who had evaded the encircling savages, arrived on the night of the 4th with the welcome news that Gen. Green Clay's command in eighteen large fdatboats, had reached the left bank of the Maumee at the head of the grand rapids. The river was so high that the pilot declined to run the boats over the rapids at night. Captain Hamilton, with a subaltern and canoe, was immediately dispatched to meet General Clay and convey to him this command : "You must detach about eight hundred men from your brigade, who will land at a point I (Hamilton) will show, about one or one and a half miles above Fort Meigs, and I will conduct them to the British batteries on the left bank of the river. They must take possession of the enemy's cannon, spike them, cut down the carriages, then return to their boats and cross over to the fort. The balance of your men must land on the fort side of the river, opposite the first landing, and fight their way to the fort through the savages. The route they must take will be pointed out by a subaltern officer now with me, who will land the canoe on the right bank of the river to point out the landing for the boats." General Clay himself remained in charge of the troops landing on the right bank of the Maumee. But the subaltern was not at the rendezvous and some confusion resulted. Sorties were made from the garrison to aid these. They were subjected to a galling fire from the British infantry and the Indians under Tecumseh, but safely reached the fortress. Another detachment under Colonel Boswell landed and drove away the threatening savages. For their relief General Harrison dispatched several hundred men under command of Col. John Miller, who attacked the nearest battery and drove away the enemy four times as numerous. The troops advanced with loaded but trailed arms. The first fire of the enemy did little damange. Then it was that a charge was ordered, and the enemy fded with great precipitation. The American troopers and militia alike covered themselves with glory in this encounter. Twenty-eight Americans were killed in this sortie and twenty-five were wounded. Forty-three prisoners were brought back to the fort. It was one of the bravest incidents of the entire seige. 112 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY Had the wise orders of General Harrison been carried out in full, the terrible massacre which occurred would have been avoided. Colonel Dudley executed his task gallantly and successfully up to the point of the capture of the batteries, and without the loss of a man. He reached them unobserved, the gunners fleeing precipitately. The Americans rushed forward and spiked eleven of the largest guns, hauling down the enemy's flag. Great and loud was the applause that reached them from the fort across the river. But most of Dudley's troops were unused to warfare with the savages. They were extremely anxious for a combat—and they were Kentuckians. Colonel Dudley had landed with 866 men. Of these only 170 escaped to Fort Meigs. Elated with their initial success, and being fired upon by some of the Indians, the Kentuckians became infuriated and boldly dashed after their wily opponents without any thought of an ambuscade. The commands of Colonel Dudley and warnings from the fort were alike unheeded by these impetuous southerners. General Harrison offered a reward of $1,000 to any man who would cross the river and apprize Colonel Dudley of his danger. This duty was promptly undertaken by an officer, but the enemy had arrived on the opposite bank before he could reach it. Many, indeed, were those killed, including Colonel Dudley himself, in the fierce contest that waged for about three hours. Many more were wounded, and the others were taken prisoners. Those who could walk were marched toward Fort Miami. Those who were wounded too badly to move were immediately slain and scalped by the savages, and an equally sad fate met those who were taken to the fort. The Kentuckians had become demoralized and it developed into each man fighting for himself as best he could in the confusion. Lieutenant Underwood has left a vivid account of the battle, from which the following is taken : "While passing through a thicket of hazel, toward the river in forming line of battle, I saw Colonel Dudley for the last time. He was greatly excited ; he railed at me for not keeping my men better dressed (in better line). I replied that he must perceive from the situation of the ground, and the obstacles that we had to encounter, that it was impossible. When we came within a small distance of the river we halted. The enemy at this place had gotten in the rear of our line, formed parallel with the river, and were firing upon our troops. Having nothing to do, and being without orders, we determined to march our company out and join the combatants. We did so accordingly. In passing out we fell on the left of the whole regiment and were soon engaged in a severe confdict. The Indians endeavored to fdank and surround us. We were from time to time ordered to charge. The orders were passed along the lines, our field officers being on foot. * * * We made several charges afterwards and drove the enemy a considerable distance. * * * At length orders were passed along the lines directing us to fall back and keep up a retreating fire. As soon as this movement was made the Indians were greatly encouraged, and advanced upon us with the most horrid yells. Once or twice the officers succeeded in producing a temporary halt and a fire on the Indians, but the soldiers of the different companies soon became mixed, confusion ensued, and a general rout took place. The retreating army made its way towards the batteries, where I supposed we should be able to form and repel the pursuing Aborigines. They were now so close in the rear as to frequently shoot down those who were before me. * * * In emerging from the woods into an open piece of ground near the battery we had taken, and before I knew what had happened, a soldier seized my sword and HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 113 said to me, siSir, you are my prisoner !' I looked before me and saw, with astonishment, the ground covered with muskets. The soldier, observing my astonishment, said 'your army has surrendered,' and received my sword. He ordered me to go forward and join the prisoners. I did so." Tecumseh was far more humane than his white allies. While the bloodthirsty work was proceeding a thundering voice in the Indian tongue was heard from the rear, and Tecumseh was seen approaching as fast as his horse could carry him. He sprang from his horse, rage showing in every feature. Seeing two Indians butchering an American, he brained one with his tomahawk and felled the other to the earth. He seemed torn with grief and passion. After this incident the prisoners were not further molested. It is certainly convincing proof that the British authorities did not discourage the inhumanities of their savage alles, and it is believed that many of the officers encouraged them in their savagery and atrocities. Inimical as was Tecumseh toward the Americans, insatiable as was his hatred of us, we cannot but admire him as a man. In personal courage he was excelled by none. In oratory few were his peers, but in humanity he stood out in striking contrast to the customs of his own tribe, one of the most savage of all. He was never guilty of wanton bloodshed, and ever used every effort to restrain his followers from all deeds of cruelty and torture in dealing with their captives. A British officer, who took part in the siege, tells of a visit to the Indian camp on the day after the massacre. The camp was filled with the clothing and plunder stripped from the slaughtered soldiers and officers. The lodges were adorned with saddles, bridles, and richly ornamented swords and pistols. Swarthy savages strutted in cavalry boots and the fine uniforms of American officers. The Indian wolf dogs were gnawing the bones of the fallen. Everywhere were scalps and skins of hands and feet stretched on hoops, stained on the fdeshy side with vermillion, and drying in the sun. "As we continued to advance into the heart of the encampment," says Major Richardson, "a scene of a more disgusting nature arrested our attention. Stopping at the entrance of a tent occupied by the Minoumini (Menomeni) tribe he observed them seated around a large fire over which was suspended a kettle containing their meal. Each warrior had a piece of string hanging over the edge of the vessel, and to this was suspended a food, which, it will be presumed we heard not without loathing, consisted of a part of an American. Any expression of our feelings, as we declined the invitation they gave us to join their repast, would have been resented by the savages without ceremony ; we had, therefore, the prudence to excuse ourselves under the plea that we had already taken our food, and we hastened to remove from a sight so revolting to humanity." Some of the soldiers, who finally escaped from their captivity, have left us terrible tales of their treatment by the savages, all of which was done without a word of protest from the English officers. The young men were generally taken by the savages as prisoners back to their villages, and some of them were never heard of afterwards by their friends. Most of them, however, were taken on board boats bound for Malden. "I saved my watch by concealing the chain," says Lieut. Joseph R. Underwood, "and it proved a great service to me afterwards. Having read, when a boy, Smith's narrative of his residence among the Indians my idea of their character was that they treated those best who appeared vol. 1-8 114 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY the most fearless. Under this impression, as we marched down to the old garrison (Fort Miami) I looked at those whom we met with all the sternness of countenance I could command. I soon caught the eye of a stout warrior painted red. He gazed at me with much sternness as I did at him until I came within striking distance, when he gave me a severe blow over the nose and cheek-bone with his wiping stick. I abandoned the notion acquired from Smith. On our approach to the old garrison I perceived that the prisoners were running the gauntlet and that the Indians were whipping, shooting and tomahawking the men as they ran by their line. When I reached the starting place, I dashed off as fast as I was able, and ran near the muzzles of their guns, knowing that they would have to shoot me while I was immediately in front or let me pass, for to have turned their guns up or down the lines to shoot me ' would have endangered themselves as there was a curve in their line. In this way I passed without injury except some strokes over the shoulders with their gun-sticks. As I entered the ditch around the garrison the man before me was shot and fell, and I fell over him. * * * How many lives were lost at this place I cannot tell, probably between twenty and forty." "We heard frequent guns at the place during the whole time the remainder of prisoners were coming in," wrote Leslie Combs. "Some were wounded severely with war clubs, tomahawks, etc. The number who fell after the surrender was supposed by all to be nearly equal to the killed in the battle. Their bloodthirsty souls were not yet satiated with carnage. One Indian shot three of our men, tomahawked a fourth, and stripped and scalped them in our presence. * * * Then all raised the war-whoop and commenced loading their guns. * * * Tecumseh, more humane than his ally and employer (Proctor), generously inter- fered and prevented further massacre."' The Dudley massacre was the third great loss suffered by the American armies of the Northwest in less than a year after the beginning of the War of 1812. Harrison said that "excessive ardor * * always the case when Kentucky militia were engaged * * * was the source of all their misfortunes." The main body of the savages now withdrew from the British command, partly because they were tired of the continued siege, and partly because their thirst for blood and butchery was satiated. But Proctor did not retire until he had dispatched another white fdag, with a demand upon General Harrison to surrender. The reply was such as to indicate that the demand was considered an insult. Because of the withdrawal of his dusky allies General Proctor felt himself compelled to give up the siege on the 9th instant and return with his remaining forces to Amherstburg, Canada, where he disbanded the militia. Before finally withdrawing he gave a parting salute from his gunboats, which killed ten or a dozen and wounded twice that number. The British forces are estimated to have numbered more than three thousand men. Of these, 600 were British regulars, 1,800 were Canadian militia, and 1,800 were Indians. Harrison's forces at the maximum did not much exceed 1,000 effective men. This does not, of course, include those under Colonel Dudley. The total loss at the fort during the entire siege was 81 killed and 189 wounded. The British reported loss was only 15 killed, 47 wounded, and 41 taken prisoners. The men welcomed the relief from the terrible tension to which they had been subjected. They were glad to get to the river and wash themselves up, for there had been a great scarcity of water within the stockade. Many had scarcely any clothing left, and that which they wore was so begrimed and torn that they looked more HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 115 like scarecrows than human beings. Of the part taken by his troops, General Harrison had only words of commendation. In his reports to the Secretary of War, he described the savages as the most effective force, A long list of names received special mention. After the enemy had withdrawn, Fort Meigs was greatly strengthened. The damage which the British guns had wrought was repaired, the British battery mounds were leveled, while the open space in front was extended ; better drainage and sanitary conveniences were also established, for the lack of which the garrison had suffered considerable sickness. Reinforcements were hurried forward from Upper Sandusky, while General Harrison made a tour of the various other fortresses within his jurisdiction. The extent of the frontier under his command was indeed extensive, and it required constant watchfulness as well as great executive ability to guard against invasion and to prevent the advance of the enemy within it. Comparative calm followed the abandonment of the siege of Fort Meigs for a couple of months. But Harrison was not inactive during this time. He fully appreciated the strength of the Indian adlies of Britain. Heretofore it had been the American policy not to employ friendly Indians in its service, except in a few instances. This policy the Indians could not understand. In order to clarify the situation a council was called at Franklinton (Columbus) on June 21st. The \Vyandots, Delawares, Shawnees, and Senecas were represented by fifty of their chief and head men. Tarhe, Chief Sachem of the Wyandots, became the spokesman of all tribes present. Harrison said that the time had come for an expression of the tribes as to their stand, for the Great Father wanted no false friends. As a guarantee of their good intentions, the friendly tribes should either move into the settlements or their warriors should accompany him in the ensuing campaign. To this proposal all the warriors present unanimously agreed, asserting that they had been anxious for an opportunity to fight for the Americans. Harrison promised to let them know when their services were wanted. Although the tribes were not called upon to take part in the war, many of the Indians of their own free will did accompany Harrison in his later campaigns. In July General Proctor again headed an expedition for the mouth of the Maumee. On the 20th of the month the boats of the enemy were discovered ascending the Maumee toward Fort Meigs. With him was an army estimated to number at least 5,000. The Indians also began to appear in the neighborhood in considerable numbers. A picket guard, consisting of a corporal and ten soldiers, was surprised about 300 yards from Fort Meigs on the night of their arrival, and all but three were killed or captured. Fourteen soldiers, whose term of enlistment had expired, desired to return home on foot by way of Fort Winchester. They were attacked by savages when only a few miles above the fort, and only two escaped. Reinforcements arrived at the fort, which greatly added to its strength. Among these were Lieutenant Montjoy with twenty United States troops. The American force within the fort was small and numbered only a few hundred. They were in charge of General Clay, who immediately sent word to General Harrison at Lower Sandusky. Harrison said that he was unable to send additional troops at once, but advised great precaution against surprise and ambuscade by the wily enemy. Proctor and Tecumseh had formulated a plan for the capture of Fort Meigs by strategy. A sham battle was staged by Tecumseh along the road toward Lower Sandusky, near enough so that the noise might be distinctly heard by the troops in the fort. When the Indian yells, inter- 116 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY mingled with the roar of musketry, reached the garrison, the men instantly flew to arms. Thinking that a severe battle was being fought, the men could hardly be restrained from marching out to the defense, as they supposed, of their gallant commander-in-chief. This was precisely the purpose of the enemy. The shooting was intended to convey the impression to the besieged that an advancing force of reinforcements was being attacked by the Indians, thus hoping to draw out the garrison. General Clay had had too much experience, however, in Indian warfare and refused to be drawn into their plans. Furthermore, he did not think that Harrison would come thus unannounced so soon after the messenger. After several futile attempts to draw the Americans from their protection the enemy departed from Fort Meigs on July 27th, having been in its vicinity less than two days. After leaving Fort Meigs for the second time, a part of the British army sailed around through Lake Erie and up the Sandusky River to Fort Stephenson, hoping to find it an easy prey. It is rather interesting to read of the doings about camp in tbis early day. There were a number of court martials that we have a record of for drunkenness and insubordination at Fort Meigs. Herewith are two general orders issued at that fortress that make interesting reading in this day of national prohibition. The first relates to what was probably the first official celebration of our national natal day in this vicinity. (General Order) Camp Meigs, July 4, 1813. The General commanding announces to the troops under his command the return of this day, which gave liberty and independence to the United States of America ; and orders that a national salute be fired under the superintendence of Captains Gratiot and Cushing. All the troops reported fit for duty shall receive an extra gill of whisky. And those in confinement and those under sentence attached to their corps, be forthwith released and ordered to join their respective corps. The General is induced to use this lenience alone from consideration of the ever memorable day, and fdatters himself that in future the soldiers under his command will better appreciate their liberty by a steady adherence to duty and prompt compliance with the orders of their officers, by which alone they are worthy to enjoy the blessings of that liberty and independence-the only real legacy left us by our fathers. All courts martial now constituted in this camp are hereby dissolved. There will be fatigue this day. Robert Butler, A. Adjt.-Gen. (General Order) Camp Meigs, July 8, 1813. The commanding General directs that the old guard, on being released, will march out of camp and discharge their arms at a target placed in some secure position, and as a reward for those who may excel in shooting, eight gills of whisky will be given to the nearest shot, and four gills to the second. The officer of the guard will cause a return, signed for that purpose, signifying the names of the men entitled to the reward. G. Clay, Gen. Com. Robert Butler, A. Adjt.-Gen. For a moment let us turn our attention to another momentous event of Northwestern Ohio, although not taking place within the Maumee region. The event was so heroic and the success so wonderful that it will greatly interest all those interested in the history of this section. The HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 117 defense of Fort Stephenson at Lower Sandusky (now Fremont) by George Croghan, a Kentucky youth who had barely passed his majority, ranks high among the achievements of the brave Northwestern Army. In historucal sequence this action took place shortly after the siege of Fort Meigs had been lifted. Fort Stephenson was a ramshackle old stockade which had been begun by Major Wood in April but not wholly completed. It was built of piles 16 feet high, and surrounding them was a dry ditch about 8 or 9 feet wide and 5 or 6 feet deep. About an acre of ground was within the enclosure, with a blockhouse at the northeast corner and a guardhouse at the southeast corner. The piles of logs were set close together and each one was sharpened at the top. In this day we would consider it a very fdimsy structure, but it was the ordinary fort stockade of the frontier days where artillery had little part in the confdicts. When General Harrison visited the fort, even after Croghan had labored day and night to strengthen it, he was extremely dubious about its efficiency in resisting such an attack as might be brought by the enemy. The general had his headquarters at Fort Seneca, only nine miles above on the Sandusky River. Definite orders were finally sent to Croghan to destroy Fort Stephenson, as follows : "Immediately on receiving this letter you will abandon Fort Stephenson, set fire to it, and repair with your command this night to headquarters. Cross the river and come up on the opposite side. If you should deem and find it impracticable to make good your march to this place, take the road to Huron, and pursue it with the utmost circumspection and dispatch." When Croghan received this curt and peremptory command, belated over night, he felt that a retreat could not be safely undertaken, for the Indians were already hovering around the for in considerable numbers. For this reason he sent back the following answer : "Sir, I have just received yours of yesterday, ten o'clock P. M., ordering me to destroy this place and make good my retreat, which was received too late to be carried into execution. We have determined to maintain this place, and, by Heaven, we can !" This reply made General Harrison extremely angry and he summoned Croghan before him at Fort Seneca. But when the gallant Croghan appeared at headquarters and made his explanation, the commanding general's wrath was quickly appeased. He again received orders to destroy the fort, but the swift approach of the enemy prevented their execution. The first sight of the approaching enemy was on the evening of July 31, 1813. It was not many hours before the advance guard of the enemy made their appearance. There were at least five hundred British regulars, veteran troops of European wars, and one or two thousand Indians, according to the best reports. As soon as the Indians appeared on the hill across the river, they were saluted by a charge from the 6-pounder, which soon caused them to retire. Indians showed themselves in every direction, demonstrating that the entire fort was surrounded and a retreat was absolutely impossible. General Proctor sent a fdag of truce demanding a surrender. The mettle of the youthful commander, when told that the Indians could not be restrained in the event of the certain capture, reveals his mettle. His envoy told the British officer that "the commander says that when the fort is taken there will be no survivors left to massacre. It will not be given up so long as there is a man able to resist." With these words the parley ended and the men retired to their respective lines. The enemy promptly opened fire with their howitzer 118 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY and 6-pounders, the firing continuing throughout the night with littde intermission and with little effect as well. During the battle Croghan occasionally fired his 6-pounder, changing its position from time to time in order to convey the impression that he had several cannon. From apparent indications he decided that the enemy would attack the fort from the northwest angle. Hence it was that he removed his 6-pounder to a blockhouse, from which he coudd cover this angle. The embrasure thus made was masked ; the piece was loaded with half a charge of power, and a double charge of slugs and grape shot. He adso strengthened his little fort as much as possible with bags of sand and flour and whatever else was available. Late in the evening the enemy proceeded to make an assault. It was only when the codumns were quite near that the men could be distinguished by the besieged. They were then thrown into confusion by a galling fire of musketry directed toward them from the fort. Codoned Short, who was at the head of the advancing column, soon rallied his men, however, and led them with commendable bravery to the brink of the ditch. Pausing for a moment, he leaped into the ditch and called upon his men to follow him. "Cut away the pickets, my brave boys, and show the d-d Yankees no quarter," Short shouted, and his words were carried across the palisades. In a few minutes the ditch was filled with men. Then it was that the masked porthole was opened and the 6-pounder, at a distance of only thirty feet, poured such destruction upon the closely packed body of "red coats" that few were fortunate enough to escape. This brief assault, which lasted about half an hour, cost the British twenty-seven lives. Coloned Short fell mortally wounded. A handkerchief raised on the end of his sword was a mute appeal for the mercy which he had a few moments before denied to the Americans. A precipitate retreat of the enemy followed this bloody encounter. The whole of the attacking troops fded into an adjoining woods where they were beyond the reach of the guns of the fortress. The loss of the British and Indians was 150, including about twenty-six prisoners, most of them badly wounded. The casualties of the garrison were one man killed and seven slightly wounded. The one man who was killed met his death because of his reckdessness, by reason of his desire to shoot a red coat. For this purpose he had climbed to the top of the blockhouse, and, while peering over to spot his victim, a cannon ball took off his head. This long planned and carefully arranged assault' by a powerful enemy lasted less than an hour. With it the storm cloud which had been hovering over this section passed northward and westward. Before daybreak the entire British and Indian forces began a disorderly retreat. So great was their haste that they abandoned a sailboat filled with clothing and military stores, while some seventy stands of arms and braces of pistols were gathered about the fort. Croghan immediately sent word to Harrison of his victory and the departure of the enemy, and it was not long until Harrison himself was on the road to Fort Stephenson. "It will not be among the least of General Proctor's mortifications that he has been baffled by a youth who has just passed his twenty-first year," wrote General Harrison in his official report. The rank of lieutenant- colonel was immediately conferred upon Croghan by the President of the United States for his courageous defense on this occasion. His gallantry was further acknowledged by a joint resolution of Congress approved in February, 1835, and by which he was ordered to be presented with a HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 119 gold medal and a sword was awarded to each of the officers under his command. The third of the great victories of this year of victories in Northwestern Ohio occurred on the water. Its significance was fully as great as the successful land campaigns of which we have just read, and it occurred only a little more than a month after the Fort Stephenson repulse. Thus the most wonderful naval victory of the War of 1812 occurred within a short distance of our homes. While General Harrison and his officers were winning their victories inland along the Maumee and the Sandusky, the construction of an American fdeet of war vessels was in process of building at Erie, Pennsylvania, in order to co-operate with the land army in offensive operations. This important undertaking was entrusted to Oliver Hazard Perry, then a navy captain at Newport, Rhode Island, and only twenty-eight years of age. It was his judgment that Lake Erie was the place where Great Britain could be struck a severe blow. Within twenty-four hours after his order to proceed was received, in February, 1813, he had dispatched a preliminary detachment of fifty men and he himself quickly followed. There was nothing at Erie out of which vessels could be built, excepting an abundance of timber still standing in neighboring forests. Shipbuilders, naval stores, sailors, and ammunition must be transported over fearful roads from Albany or from Philadelphia. It was indeed a discouraging situation that conf ronted the youthful officer. Under all these embarrassments, and hampered as he was in every way, by August 1, 1813, Commodore Perry had provided a flotilla, consisting of the ships Lawrence and Niagara, of twenty guns each, and seven smaller vessels, to-wit : the Ariel of four guns, the Caladonia of three, the Scorpion and Somers with two guns each and three of one gun each named Tigress, Porcupine and Trip. In all he had a battery of fifty-four guns. Having gotten his fleet in readiness, Commodore Perry proceeded to the head of Lake Erie and anchored at Put-in-Bay, opposite to and distant about thirty miles from Malden, where the British fdeet lay under the guns of protection of the fort. He remained at anchor here several days, determined to give battle at the first favorable opportunity. On September 10th, at sunrise, the British fleet, consisting of one ship of nineteen guns, one of seventeen, one of thirteen, one of ten, one of three, and one of one—amounting to sixty-three and exceeding the Americans by ten guns, appeared off Put-in-Bay and distant about ten miles, Commodore Perry immediately weighed anchor. Commodore Perry, or board the Lawrence, then hoisted his Union Jack, having for a motto the dying words of Captain Lawrence, "Don't Give Up the Ship.' Before he hoisted the ensign he turned to his crew and said : "My bray( lads, this flag contains the last words of Captain Lawrence. Shall I hoist it?" The answer came from all parts of the ship, "Ay ! Ay ! Sir !" The act of raising was met with the hearty cheers of the men. Perry formed his line of battle and started for the enemy. The day was a beautiful one, without a cloud on the horizon. The lightness of the wind enabled the hostile squadrons to approach each other but slowly and for two hours the solemn interval of suspense and anxiety which precedes a battle was prolonged. The American commander had never heard the thunder of a hostile ship, but he was versed in the theory of naval war. At fifteen minutes before twedve the enemy opened his fir( but it was not returned for ten minutes by the American fleet, which was inferior in long-range guns. Then the battle began on both sides. Th( British fire was found to be the most destructive. It was chiefly directed against the fdagship Lawrence. In a short time every brace and bowline 120 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY of the Lawrence was shot away, and she became unmanageable. In this situation she sustained the conflict upwards of two hours until every gun was rendered useless, and the greater part of her crew were either killed or wounded. Perry himself, assisted by his chaplain and the purser, fired the last shot. Fortunately, one might almost say, providentially, at half past two the wind raised and enabled the captain of the Niagara to bring her up in gallant style. Perry then entrusted the Lawrence to the command of Lieutenant Yarnell, and proceeded toward the Niagara standing erect in an open boat bearing his fdag with the motto : "Don't Give Up the Ship." Perry expressed his fears to Captain Elliot that the day was lost because the light wind prevented the other vessel from approaching nearer to the enemy: As the breeze again stiffened, Captain Edliot volunteered to bring up the other vessels. He embarked in a small boat, exposed to the gun-fire of the enemy, and succeeded in bringing up the remotest vessels so that they could participate in the final encounter. Protected by the stouter vessels, they poured in a destructive fire of grape and canister, wreaking terrible destruction upon the enemy. Commodore Perry now scented victory. He gave the signal to all the boats for close action. The small vessels, under the command of Captain Elliot, set all their sails. Finding that the Niagara had been only slightly injured, the commander determined upon the bold and desperate expedient of breaking the enemy's lines. Accordingly he bore up and passed the head of three of the enemy vessels, giving them a raking of fire from his starboard guns. "Having gotten the whole squadron into action, he luffed and laid his ship alongside of the British commodore. The small vessels having now got up within good grape and canister distance on the other quarter, enclosed the enemy between them and the Niagara, and in this position kept up a most destructive fire on both quarters of the British until every ship struck her colors." "Cease firing," came the order from Perry as he saw the white flag. "Call away a boat and put me on board the Lawrence. I will receive the surrender there." The entire engagement lasted about three hours and never was a victory more decisive and complete. It was found that more prisoners had been taken than there were men on board the American squadron at the close of the action. The greatest doss in killed and wounded was on board the Lawrence. Of her crew, twenty-two had been killed and sixty wounded. At the time her fdag was struck, only a score of men remained on deck fit for duty. The killed on board all the other vessels numbered only five and there were thirty-six wounded. The British loss must have been much more considerable. The commander himself was dangerously wounded. Immediately after the action the slain of the crews of both squadrons were committed to the waters of Lake Erie. On the fodlowing day the funeral obsequies of the American and British officers, who had fallen during the engagement, took place at an opening on the margin of the bay in an appropriate and affecting manner. The crews of both fleets united in the ceremony. At the time of the engagement General Harrison was at his headquarters at Fort Seneca. A couple of days later, just as he was about to set out for Lower Sandusky, filled with anxiety for the fdeet because he had received reports of a terrific cannonading on the 10th, the short and laconic message of Commodore Perry reached him. All of Northwestern Ohio was aroused by his remarkable victory and the residents began to have visions of the peace and quiet which did actually follow. HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 121 As time passes the victory of Commodore Perry assumes greater and greater proportions in the eyes of the students of history. This is not because of the numbers of vesseds or men engaged. In the light of modern warfare, judged by the standard of the superdreadnaught, and its monster guns, it was a small affair. Nine small sailing vessels on the one side and six on the other, with probably a thousand men all told, the greater part of whom were not even seamen-such were the forces that met at Put-in-Bay. One gun from a modern man-of-war would throw more metad in one charge than an entire broadside from the 117 guns of the opposite fleets. It is by its results that the action must be judged. It cleared the waters of Lake Erie of hostile vessels and made possible the invasion of Canada that followed. Likewise because of the heroism displayed as a struggle between man and man, it deserves to be remembered. After the victory of Put-in-Bay General Harrison lost no time in preparing to embark his army for Canada. On September 20th his army commenced to embark at the mouth of the Portage River, at Port Clinton. Perry's vessels were used as transports, including the captured British vessels. A quarter of a thousand Wyandots, Shawnees, and Senecas sailed with him as regudarly enlisted troops. They had pledged themselves to follow the methods of civilized warfare. He promised to deliver General Proctor to them if they would put petticoats on him, which greatly pleased the Indians. The little fdeet sailed on the 27th and seven hours later had touched Canadian soil. The Battle of the Thames followed on October 5th, in which Tecumseh was killed. General Proctor escaped by a swift flight. The casualties were not large on either side, but several hundred British prisoners were left in Harrison's hands. A few days later Detroit was occupied by the American troops. Harrison's campaign freed Northwestern Ohio from danger. Actual peace did not come at once, for the peace treaty was not signed until December, 1814. But the death of Tecumseh, their fiery leader, broke the spirit of the hostile red men. With Detroit, Mackinac and Fort Wayne in American hands, there were no British to disturb the quiet of this region. The principal troubles along the Maumee were economic. "I think I would hang half of the quartermasters and all the contractors," wrote one general. Eighty soldiers were reported sick at Fort Meigs in January, 1814. Two months later the supplies there were reported as follows : "9,461 rations of meat, 29,390 of flour, 25,688 of whisky, 1,271 quarts of salt, 1,0183/4 pounds of soap ; 948 pounds candles and 1,584 pounds tallow and grease." The discharge of volunteers and drafted militiamen quickly fodlowed the official news of peace with Great Britain. The forts in this region were rapidly dismantled and abandoned. Fort Winchester (Defiance) was abandoned in the spring of 1815, the equipment being taken down the Maumee to Detroit. The garrison at Fort Meigs had already been reduced to forty men and four small cannon. In May the garrison and all the military stores were loaded on a schooner and taken to Detroit. Fort Wayne was thus left as the only military post in the Maumee region. CHAPTER XI OHIO-MICHIGAN BOUNDARY DISPUTE Northwestern Ohio was the theater of one of the most unique clashes between governmental jurisdictions that the United States has witnessed. As we look backward and review the events that transpired, many are inclined to smile at the controversy and dismiss the incident. Although it possessed both serious and comic phases, the tragic far outweighed the lighter features. On several occasions the shedding of blood was narrowly averted. It only needed the throwing of the firebrand, for the tinder had already been prepared. Passions were aroused and a hot-headed leader might have started a bloody affray in which American would have been fighting American in a civil war. "A disputed jurisdiction," wrote Lewis Cass to Edward Tiffin, in 1817, "is one of the greatest evils that can happen to a country. There is nothing that will so arouse the combativeness of an individuad as the belief that someone is infringing on the boundaries of his individual and exclusive domain. This has been proved many times by the bloody scrimmages which have taken place between adjoining owners over the location of a seemingly unimportant line fence. In the prolonged litigation that has followed in the courts, even the victor has been the loser. The same bellicose spirit was aroused in the State of Ohio and the territory of Michigan by an imbroglio over the. sovereignty of a strip of ground extending from the Maumee River to the western boundary of Ohio. This disputed land was eight miles in width at Toledo, and five miles broad at the western boundary. The problem was recognized as early as 1802, when the first constitution of Ohio was formed. Congress should have settled the question at that time, as it was well within the power of that body, but, like many others, it was negdected. As Ohio and Michigan increased in wealth and political importance, however, the factious boundary question began to protrude itself upon the horizon in a threatening manner. Toledo was the chief cause and Lucas County was the chief result of this dissension. The Ohio-Michigan boundary dispute was not a struggle between two bellicose governors, Mason of Michigan and Lucas of Ohio. The real disputants were not the Territory of Michigan and the State of Ohio. They were the sovereign State of Ohio and the Government of the United States. Governor Lucas said : "As I have before stated to you, we have no controversy with the Territory of Michigan. A territory can have no sovereign rights, and no arrangement that could be made with territorial authorities on the subject of boundary would be obligatory." It was the most serious boundary question that has occurred in the Northwest. The question arose through a previous grant in which one of the lines of demarkation began at "a line drawn East and West, through the southerly extreme of Lake Michigan." The old maps were not very accurate, for the latitude and longitude had not been well established and the uncertainty was caused by inaccurate knowledge as to where the exact southern boundary of Lake Michigan lay. In the act of Congress granting to Ohio the right to form a constitution, the northern boundary was described as follows : "On the north by an east and west line drawn through the southerdy extreme of Lake Michigan, running east after intersecting the due north line from the mouth of the Great Miami, until it shadl intersect Lake Erie or the territorial line and - 123 - 124 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY thence with the same through Lake Erie to the Pennsylvania lme." When Michigan was organized as a territory from the northern part of Indiana territory, in 1805, the description of its southern boundary was very similar. "An East and West line, drawn through the Southerly extreme of Lake Michigan, running East until it shall intersect Lake Erie, or the Territorial line ; provided. That if the Southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan should extend so far South, that a line drawn due East from it would not intersect Lake Erie. or if it should intersect Lake Erie East of the mouth of the Miami of the Lake, then, and in that case, with the assent of Congress, the Northern boundary of this State shall be established by, and extending to, a direct line running from the Southern extremity of Lake Michigan to the most Northerly Cape of Miami Bay, after intersecting the due North line from the mouth of the Great Miami River." The Ohio Constitution was approved by Congress as prepared by the convention. The great issue of a foreign war, threatening a common danger, united all the people of the frontier in the support of the general interests. The number of persons whose interests were involved were also extremely few. The attention of Congress was attracted, however, for two surveys were made under congressional authority. It was not many years before official notice is recorded of the disputed claims which gave all of the site of the nesent City of Toledo, with its wonderful harbor, to Michigan. This is shown by the following letter to Governor Meigs : Miami Rapids, January 23, 1812. Sir :—It appears to be the general wish of the people in this settlement (which consists of about fifty families), to have the laws of the State of Ohio extended over them, as we consider ourselves clearly within the limits of said State. The few who object are those who hold offices under the Governor of Michigan and are determined to enforce their laws. This is considered by a great majority of the inhabitants as usurpation of power which they are under no obligation to adhere to. If no adjustment should take place, I fear the contention will ere long become serious. Sir, will you have the goodness to inform the people here whether there has been any understanding between the State of Ohio and the Governor of Michigan on the subject of jurisdiction, together with your advice ? I am, sir, with high esteem, Your obedient servant, Amos Spafford, Collector of Fort Miami. To His Excellency, Return Jonathan Meigs, Esq. N. B. The foregoing letter is written at the request of the inhabitants. The question undoubtedly became dormant for a while because of the war which followed between England and the United States, in which many important actions and events occurred in this vicinity. For several years Ohio's representatives in Congress endeavored to induce that body to settle the boundary question, but it could not be brought to consider a question so unimportant as the boundary of so distant a state. While the Michigan authorities were also worrying themselves about this question. Indiana was formed with a boundary ten miles north of this Lake Michigan-Erie line, thus depriving her of a thousand square miles of territory. But it was a sparsely settled region and little known to the territorial inhabitants. The Ohio territory was different. It was near the center of the territory's population. One of these which laid off the northern boundary of the state practically as it is today, was known as the Harris Line ; the other, which more nearly conformed to the claims of Michigan, was called the Fulton Line. William Harris made HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 125 his survey in 1817, under appointment of Governor Cass of Michigan. As he had been provided with a copy of the Ohio Constitution, and had followed its provision, his report caused much ill feeling in that territory. In 1819 President Monroe commissioned John Fulton to make the survey and his line, following the Ordinance of 1787, was just as displeasing to Ohio. In 1821 the matter became somewhat acute when the assessor of Waynesfield Township (now Maumee), Wood County, undertook to list for taxation the property in the disputed region. It began to be recognized that the line designated by Congress was an impossible one, for it would have placed parts of the lake counties east of Cleveland in Michigan. This made the issue more than a local one. In December, 1823, Dr. Horatio Conant wrote from Fort Meigs to Senator Ethan A. Brown : "The jurisdiction of the Territory of Michigan is extended to the territory between the two lines with the decided approbation of the inhabitants of the disputed ground, which makes it impossible for the State officers of Ohio to interfere with the exciting disturbance. We are anxious to have some measure adopted to ascertain the limits of our jurisdiction. * * * Almost any line that could be run would be preferred to the present, cutting off, as it does, the bay and mouth of the river." The mooted problem was brought to a head by the prospect of securing the location of the terminus of the Miami and Erie Canal. Toledo naturally offered the most desirable terminus for the canal, but the thought of Ohio constructing so expensive an undertaking and turning its traffic into a Michigan port was not to be entertained. Maumee City and Perry sburg were not worried. They both declared that the proper finality was there. But year-old Toledo was wide awake. The advantage of a canal in those days was of inestimable advantage in building up a town. This in a measure explains the excessive zeal manifested by these early Toledoans. Unless under the jurisdiction of Ohio, they felt there was no canal for them. A public meeting was held in Toledo in 1834 and the majority of those present expressed themselves in favor of the jurisdiction of Ohio. A petition to that effect was signed and forwarded to the executive of the state. Sentiment was not unanimous, however, for the following letter was sent to Governor Mason : Monroe, March 12, 1835. To Hon. Stevens T. Mason, Acting Governor of Michigan Territory : We, the citizens of the Township of Port Lawrence, County of Monroe, Territory of Michigan, conceive ourselves in duty bound to apply for a special act of the place appointed for holding our Township meetings. By a vote of the last Town meeting (1834) our meeting of this year must be held at Toledo, on the Maumee River. We apprehend trouble, and perhaps a riot may be the consequence of thus holding the meeting in the heart of the very hot-bed of dissatisfaction. We therefore pray your Excellency and the Legislative Council to aid us in our endeavors to keep the peace and sustain our claims to the soil as part of the Territory of Michigan, by an act removing the place for the Town meeting from Toledo to the Schoolhouse on Ten-Mile Creek Prairie, to be held on the day of April, in preference to the usual day and place appointed. J. V. D. Sutphen, Coleman I. Keeler, Cyrus Fisher, Samuel Hemmenway. Delegates from Port Lawrence to the County Convention at Monroe. 126 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY Because of the urgent demands from the citizens of Toledo, Governor Lucas made the boundary question the subject of a special message to the Legislature. That body passed an act extending the northern boundaries of the counties of Wood, Henry and Defiance to the Harris Line. That part west of the Maumee River was created into Sylvania Township and that part east mto Port Lawrence Township. The authorities of Michigan had previously exercised jurisdiction over the territory dying between the two dines. Under this act three commissioners were designated to resurvey and mark the Harris Line. The men appointed by the Governor were Uri Seely of Geauga, Jonathan Taylor of Licking and John Patterson of Adams counties. The 1st of April (1835) was named as the time of commencement. Urgent appeals were sent to the authorities at Washington by the territorial officials of Michigan that protection be afforded from Ohio which "has swollen to the dimensions of a giant." The Legislative Council of Michigan rashly passed an act called "The Pams and Penalties Act," which provided severe penalties for anyone within the limits of the territory who shoudd acknowledge any other sovereignty. A challenge followed when an election was ordered in the disputed strip by the Ohio authorities. Benjamin F. Stickney, Platt Card and John T. Baldwin acted as judges of this election, which caused excitement to run very high. Michigan at once retaliated by appointing officials who were instructed to enforce "The Pains and Penalties Act." That the acts of the Legislature of Ohio and of Governor Lucas thoroughly aroused the Governor of Michigan is clearly indicated by the following letter to his chief military officer : Executive Office, Detroit, March 9, 1835. Sir :—You will herewith receive the copy of a letter just received from Columbus. You now perceive that a collision between Ohio and Michigan is inevitable, and will therefore be prepared to meet the crisis. The Governor of Ohio has issued a proclamation, but I have neither received it nor have I been able to learn its tendency. You will use every exertion to obtain the earliest information of the military movements of our adversary, as I shadl assume the responsibility of sending you such arms, etc., as may be necessary for your successful operation, without waiting for an order from the Secretary of War, so soon as Ohio is properly in the field. Till then I am compelled to await the direction of the War Department. Very respectfully your obedient servant, Stevens T. Mason. Gen. Jos. W. Brown. Although not having a direct bearing upon this controversy, it may be said that the inhabitants of Michigan were belligerent in more ways than one. Having been denied permission to form a state in January, they were at that very time engaged in an effort to form an organization in accordance with the Ordinance of 1787. A convention was called to "form for themselves a constitution and State government," whether Congress consented or not. Thus it was that the territory being refused permission to become a state was about to establish a state government for itself. By these acts Michigan did not gain friends in Washington. The Michiganders even went so far as to elect their state officials in the autumn of 1835. Governor Lucas came to Toledo, accompanied by his staff and his boundary commissioners. Gen. John Bell of Lower Sandusky, who was in command of the seventeenth division of the Ohio militia, had under him a voluntary force of about six hundred men fully armed and HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 127 equipped. This force went in camp at old Fort Miami, and there awaited the orders of the Governor. In order to enlist recruits General Bell sent a drummer named Odle to Perrysburg, believing that the best way to stir up the requisite enthusiasm. Accompanied by a man carrying a flag, Odle marched up and down the streets of that village beating his drum with the greatest vigor. The courthouse was on his route, and court was in session. The judge ordered the sheriff to stop the noise. The drummer said he was under orders to "drum for recruits for the war" and that he should not stop until assured that the court had more authority than had his office. Even while replying, he did not stop his beating. Odle was arrested and Captain Scott summoned. Scott replied that Governor Lucas was at Spafford's Exchange Hotel, Perrysburg, and had sanctioned the course. Judge Higgins ordered the captain and drummer to jail. Captain Scott said that when the state was invaded the military authority was paramount, and that he would declare martial law if the imprisonment was made and arrest the court. The outcome was that the judge simply continued the case at hand and Odle resumed his drumming more vigorously than ever. As a result the number of recruits was greatly increased. General Brown, in command of the Michigan forces, issued orders to the militia of Michigan, stating that if there is an officer "who hesitates to stake life, fortune and honor in the struggle now before us, he is required promptly to tender his resignation. * * * We are determined to repel with force whatever strength the State of Ohio may attempt to bring into our Territory to sustain her usurpation." He had under his command a body estimated from eight to twelve hundred men, ready to resist any advance of the Ohio authorities to run the boundary line or do anything upon the disputed territory. With him was Governor Mason. The two executives eyed each other (at a safe distance) like pugilists preparing for battle. •The "Pains and Penalties Act" of the Legislative Council of Michigan provided a fine of $1,000 and five years' imprisonment for any person other than United States or Michigan officials to exercise or attempt to exercise any official authority in the disputed territory. Both parties were in a belligerent attitude and the excitement was most intense. Governor Lucas had fully made up his mind to order General Bell to Toledo with his troops as scion as the necessary preparations had been made and risk the consequence, whatever they might be. But before his preparations were completed two commissioners from the President of the United States, Richard Rush of Pennsylvania, and Colonel Howard of Baltimore arrived and used their personal infduence to stop all warlike demonstration. A conference was held on April 7, 1835. The commissioners submitted the two following propositions for the assent of both parties : "1st. That the Harris Line should be run and remarked, pursuant to the act of the last session of the Legislature of Ohio without interruption. 2nd. The civil elections under the laws of Ohio having taken place throughout the disputed territory, that the people residing upon it should be left to their own judgment, obeying the one jurisdiction or the other, as they may prefer, without molestation from the authorities of Ohio or Michigan, until the close of the next session of Congress." To this armistice Governor Lucas assented, but Governor Mason refused to acquiesce, insisting that he could not honorably compromise the rights of his people. Believing that no obstruction would be placed in the way of making the survey, Governor Lucas permitted his commissioners to proceed upon 128 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY their work and disbanded his military. Things did not run smoothly, as is shown by report at Perrysburg, dated May 1, 1835, of which the following is a copy in part : * * * "We met at Perrysburg on Wednesday, the 1st of April last, and after completing the necessary arrangements, proceeded to the Northwestern corner of the State, and there succeeded in finding the corner as designated in the field notes of Surveyor Harris. * * * Thence your commissioners proceeded eastwardly along said line, which they found with little difficulty, and re-marked the same as directed by law in a plain and visible manner, the distance of thirty-eight miles and a half, being more than half the length of the whole line. During our progress we had been constantly threatened by the authorities of Michigan, and spies from the territory, for the purpose of watching our movements and ascertaining our actual strength, were almost daily among us. On Saturday evening, the 25th ult., after having performed a laborious day's service, your commissioners, together with their party, retired to the distance of about one mile south of the line, in Henry County (now Fulton), within the State of Ohio, where we thought to have rested quietly and peaceably enjoy the blessings of the Sabbath-and especially not being engaged on the line, we thought our- -selves secure for the day. But contrary to our expectations, at about twelve o'clock in the day, an armed force of about fifty or sixty men hove in sight within musket shot of us, all mounted upon horses, well armed with muskets and under the command of General Brown of Michigan. Your commissioners observing the great superiority of force, having but five armed men among us, who had been employed to keep a lookout and as hunters of the party, thought it prudent to retire, and so advised our men. Your commissioners with several of their party, made good their retreat to this place. But, sir, we are under the painful necessity of relating that nine of our men, who did not leave the ground in time after being fired upon by the enemy, from thirty to fifty shots, were taken prisoners and carried away into the interior of the country. Those who were taken were as follows, to wit :—Colonels Hawkins, Scott and Gould, Major Rice, Captain Biggerstaff and Messrs. Ellsworth, Fletcher, Moale and Rickets. We are happy to learn that our party did not fire a gun in turn and that no one was wounded, although a ball from the enemy passed through the clothing of one of our men." One of the men arrested, J. E. Fletcher, refused to acknowledge the authority and jurisdiction of Michigan by giving bail. He wrote to Governor Lucas as follows : "Lenawee County Jail, Tecumseh, May 5, 1835. "Sir :-I am at present incarcerated in jail—was committed yesterday. * * I dined with General Brown yesterday. Governor Mason was there. He strongly urged me to give bail. * * * My reply has been that the right to demand bail is the question at issue. * * * Governor Mason expressed himself as being very anxious that the difficulties might be settled without further hostilities. General Brown was silent upon the subject. There is reason to believe that he does not wish to have this case amicably settled, but that he secretly wishes a collision between the State and Territory that he may have an opportunity to distinguish himself. * * * The Sheriff expressed regret that the citizens of Ohio were fired upon. General Brown replied 'it was the best thing that was done ; that he did not hesitate to say he gave the order to fire.' * * * I will add that I shall remain as I am until further instructions, which I doubt not will be forwarded in due time. "I have the honor to be your obedient servant, J. E. Fletcher." HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 129 Maj, Benj. F. Stickney sent the following letter to the editor of the Toledo Gazette, dated April 13, 1835: * * * "On the morning of the 9th, then on my return home, I was met by some gentlemen some 14 miles from Toledo, with the intelligence that a band of ruffians of 30 or more had at dead of night come to my house from Monroe, and in a ferocious manner demolished the door leading to the principal avenue of my house and seized a gentleman (Mr. Naaman Goodsell), bore him off and treated his lady and daughter (the only females in the house), with brutish violence, notwithstanding I had exhorted all to exercise moderation. * * * When my daughter gave out the cry 'murder,' she was seized by the throat and shaken with monstrous violence, and the prints of a man's hand in purple were strongly marked, with many other contusions. Mrs. Goodsell exhibited marks of violence also. This Michigan banditti proceeded likewise to the sleeping quarters of another gentleman (Mr. George McKay), burst in the door, seizing him in bed ; and as the first salutation, one of the villians attempted to gouge out one of his eyes with a thumb. * * * After two days of Court-mockery at Monroe, these gentlemen were admitted to bail. "On the 10th, it was reported that an armed force was assembling under General Brown, to march to Toledo, and take as prisoners such as accepted office under Ohio (about a dozen). On the 11th, they arrived in force, about 200 strong, armed with muskets and bayonets. The officers of Ohio having been lulled into security by assurances of the Commissioners of the United States (Messrs. Rush and Howard), were not prepared for defense, and retired, giving them full space for the display of their gasconading, which was exhibited in pulling down the fdag of Ohio, and dragging it through the streets at the tail of a horse, with other similar acts. "Cyrus Holloway of Sylvania Township, a very good man, was elected Justice of the Peace, under the laws of Ohio, and with others was spotted for vengeance. Apprehending that Michigan officers were after him, he took to the woods, hiding for several days in a sugar-camp shanty. He being a pious man, some of his partisan friends, fond of the marvelous, reported that Providence had wrought a miracle in his behalf ; that little obins daily went to his home, there got food and took it to him during his seclusion in the forest. Many believed this and accepted it as strong proof of the justness of the claim of Ohio to the disputed territory. The miraculous part of the story had a very slight foundation in the fact that Mr. Holloway's children, who daily carried food to their father, had a pet robin and usually took it with them on such visits ; hence the robin story." In addition to the outrages upon the surveying party, there were numerous assaults upon individuals. Throughout the entire spring and summer Toledo was the center of incessant excitement. Each incursion of Michigan officials for the purpose of making new arrests was the occasion for renewed excitement.. Attempts were made by Wood County to arrest Michigan partisans, but the proposed victims somehow would get advance information and remain out of sight. Major Stickney went to Monroe on the Detroit steamer to pay some social calls. He was there arrested and imprisoned for acting as a judge in an Ohio election. He was considered an important prisoner. He wrote to Governor Lucas : "Monroe Prison, May 6th, 1835. "Here I am, peeping through the grates of a loathsome prison, for the monstrous crime of having acted as the Judge of an election within the Vol. 1-9 130 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY State of Ohio. From what took place the other day at Port Miami, at a conference between yourself and the Commissioners of the United States wherein we had the honor of being present, we were led to believe that a truce at least would be the result. In this we were again deceived. I left my residence in Toledo in company with a lady and gentleman, from the interior of Ohio, to visit my friend A. E. Wing of Monroe, and others, conceiving that respect for the ordinary visits of hospitality would have been sufficient for my protection under such circumstances. But vindictiveness is carried to such extremes that all the better feelings of men are buried in the common rubbish, The officer who first took me treated me in a very uncivil manner, dragging me about as a criminal through the streets of Monroe, notwithstanding there are a number of exceptions to this virulent mass." "7th, 7 o'clock A. M.-Have been here fourteen hours, and no refreshment of any kind yet furnished. It appears probably that it is intended to soften us by starvation. Those bands of ruffians of the United States, hanging upon the northern border of Ohio, require chastisement. They have become very troublesome * * * kidnapping and abducting individuals who have become offensive to them. * * * "I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, B. F. Stickney." Mr. Goodsell wrote to Governor Lucas concerning his experiences after being captured by the Michigan authorities. He says : "My journey was rendered unpleasant by the insolence of some of the party and my life jeopardized by being obliged to ride upon a horse without a bridle, which horse, being urged from behind, became f rightened and ran with me until I jumped from him. I arrived at Monroe and was detained there until next day, as they refused me any bail from day to day. I was taken before the grand jury, then in session, and questuoned concerning our meeting, officers, etc., etc. During the second day a large military force, or posse, was raised, armed and started for Toledo, After they had gone nearly long enough to have reached Toledo, I was admitted to bail, and returned—passed the force on the road-inquired of the Sheriff whether that was to be considered an armed force or a Sheriff's posse. He answered that he considered it an armed force at this time, but it was so arranged that it might be either-as circumstances should require ; that General Brown and aide were along, who would act in case they assumed a military force. * * * When about half way from this place to Monroe, on the morning of my abduction, our party was joined by the one having Mr. McKay in custody, who had also been abducted, or made prisoner, as they termed it. About his person there were marks of violence. He rode with his feet tied under his horse." The Legislature of Ohio was convened in extra session by Governor Lucas "to prevent the forcible abduction of citizens of Ohio." The members were greatly aroused by the illegal arrests, and passed an act providing heavy penalties for any attempted forcible abduction of a citizen of Ohio. The offense was made punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary for not less than three nor more than seven years. In spite of all this, a posse of about two hundred and fifty armed men again visited Toledo, on July 18th, and made seven or eight arrests, chiefly for individual grievances. This posse also committed several overt acts, among which was damage to a newspaper office. The office of the Toledo Gazette was visited by a posse bearing muskets. The door was demolished and a "pi" made of the type already set for the next issue. "We have barely enough type and materials enough saved from the outrages, HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 131 we are about to relate, to lay the particulars before the public," said the Gazette in its next issue. An act was also passed by the Ohio Legislature to create the new County of Lucas out of the northern part of Wood County, including the disputed territory, together with a portion of the northwestern corner of Sandusky County. Of this county, Toledo was made the temporary seat of justice. The Court of Common Pleas was directed to hold a session there on the first Monday of the following September, at any convenient house in the village. Three hundred thousand dollars was appropriated out of the public treasury, and the governor was authorized to borrow on the credit of the state $300,000 more to carry out the laws in regard to northern boundary. Governor Lucas called upon the division commander of this state to report as soon as possible the number of men in each division who would volunteer to sustain him in enforcing the laws over the disputed territory. Fifteen of these divisions reported over one hundred thousand men ready to volunteer. These proceedings on the part of Ohio greatly exasperated the authorities of Michigan. They dared the Ohio "million" to enter the disputed .ground, and "welcomed them to hospitable graves." Prosecution of citizens within this territory for holding offices under the laws of Ohio were prosecuted with greater vigor than ever. For a time the Monroe officials were kept busy. Most of the inhabitants of that village were employed in the sheriff's posse making arrests in Toledo. The commencement of one suit would lay the foundation for many others. There are few towns in the United States in which the citizens have suffered as much for their allegiance to a state as did those of Toledo. The highly inflammable condition of public sentiment in Michigan is revealed in the following extract from The Detroit Free Press of August 26, 1835 : OHIO CONTROVERSY.—The Legislative Council yesterday had this subject under consideration. They have made an appropriation of $315,000 to meet any emergency which may rise, and we learn that every arrangement will be made to afford a warm reception to any portion of the "milhon" of Ohio that may visit our borders. Michigan defends her soil and her rights, and we wish our fellow citizens of Ohio to recollect that "thrice armed is he who hath his quarrel just." WAR! WAR !!—Orders have been issued for volunteers to rendezvous at Mulholland's in the County of Monroe, on the 1st of September next, for the purpose of resisting the military encroachments of Ohio, The Territory, it is expected, will be on the alert, and we understand services will be accepted from all quarters. The latter movement evidently had reference to preventing the holding of the court at Toledo, September 7th. On June 8th Governor Lucas called an extra session of the Legislature and delivered a message of which the following is a part : "It appears to me the honor and faith of the State is pledged, in the most solemn manner, to protect these people in their rights, and to defend them against all outrages. They claim to be citizens of Ohio. The Legislature by a solemn act has declared them to be such, and has required them to obey the laws of Ohio, which, as good citizens, they have done, and for which they have been persecuted, prosecuted, assaulted, arrested, abducted and imprisoned. Some of them have been driven from their homes in dread and terror, while others are menaced by the authorities of Michigan. These things have been all done within the constitutional boundaries of the State of Ohio, where our laws have been directed to be enforced. Are we not under as great an obligation to command 132 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY respect and obedience to our laws adjoining our northern boundary as in any other part of the State, Are not the inhabitants of Port Lawrence, on the Maumee Bay, as much entitled to our protection as the citizens of Cincinnati, on the Ohio River ? I feel convinced they are equally as much. Our commissioner appointed in obedience to the act of the 23d of February, while in discharge of the duty assigned them, were assaulted while resting on the Sabbath day, by an armed force from Michigan. Some of the hands were fired on, others arrested, and one, Colonel Fletcher, is now incarcerated in Tecumseh, and for what ? Is it for crime? No; but for faithfully discharging his duty, as a good citizen of Ohio, in obedience of our laws. * * * The question necessarily arises, what shall be done? Shall we abandon our just claim, relinquish our indisputable rights and proclaim to the world that the acts and resolutions of the last session of the General Assembly were mere empty things ? Or, rather, shall we not prepare to carry their provisions into effect? The latter, I doubt not, will be your resolution ; and I trust that by your acts you will manifest to the world that Ohio knows her constitutional rights ; that she has independence enough to assert them ; and that she can neither be seduced by fdattery, baffled by diplomatic management, nor driven by menaces from the support of those rights." The loyal citizens of Toledo were "getting discouraged having no arms nor succor sent them, which they construed to neglect. It was difficult to comfort them." The confusion is revealed in an old copy of The Toledo Gazette, published in "Toledo, Wood County, Ohio," in which there is an administrator's notice of "the estate of John Babcock, late of Toledo, in the County of Monroe and the Territory of Michigan," as well as other official notices of the same purport. The arrests by Michigan authorities continued. The following affidavit by a Michigan officer who had a warrant for the arrest of Two Stickney, a son of B. F. Stickney, and the rearrest of Mr. McKay, affords most interesting reading and sheds light upon the mtensity of public feeling : Territory of Michigan, ss. Monroe County. Personally came before Albert Pennett, a Justice of the Peace within and for the county aforesaid, Lyman Hurd, who, being duly sworn, said that on the 15th day of July, 1835, this deponent, who is a constable within the county aforesaid, went to Toledo in said county, for the purpose of executing a warrant against Geo. McKay in behalf of the United States. This deponent was accompanied by Joseph Wood, deputy sheriff of said county. Said Wood had in his hands a warrant against Two Stickney. This deponent and said Wood went into the tavern of J. B. Davis, m the village of Toledo, where they found said Stickney and McKay. This deponent informed McKay that he had a warrant for him, and there attempted to arrest McKay. The latter then sprang and caught a chair, and told this deponent that unless he desisted he would split him down. This deponent saw McKay have a dirk in his hand. At the time this deponent was attempting to arrest McKay, Mr. Wood attempted to arrest Stickney. Wood laid his hand on Stickney's shoulder and took him by his collar and after Wood and Stickney had scuffled for a short time this deponent saw Stickney draw a dirk out of the left side of Wood and exclaim, "There, damn you, you have got it now." This deponent then saw Wood let go from Stickney and put his hand upon his side, apparently in distress, and went to the door. This deponent asked Wood if he was stabbed. Wood said, very faintly, that he was. This HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 133 deponent then went with Wood to Ira Smith's tavern. A physician thought it doubtful whether Wood could recover. This deponent thinks there were from six to eight persons present at the time this deponent and Wood were attempting to arrest McKay and Stickney. None of them interfered. At the time Wood informed Stickney that he had a precept against him, Stickney asked Wood whether his precept was issued under the authority of Ohio or Michigan. When Wood showed him the warrant, Stickney said he should not be taken ; but if it was under Ohio he would go. This deponent thinks that at the time Wood was stabbed it was between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, and this deponent remained there about three hours. Before this deponent left the inhabitants of Toledo, to the number of forty or fifty, collected at Davis' tavern. This deponent was advised, for his own safety to leave the place, and, also by the advice of Wood, he returned to Monroe without having executed his precept. And further deponent saith not. Lyman Hurd. Subscribed and sworn to before me this sixteenth day of July, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five. Albert Burnett, J. P. The proceedings of this case were reported by Governor Mason to President Jackson, who realized that it was necessary to take some action in order to prevent serious trouble. Governor Lucas himself conferred with the President on the subject of the boundary difficulties. The result of this mission was the urgent plea of the President for the mutual suspension of all action by both parties, until the matter could finally be settled by Congress, and that no prosecutions be commenced for any violations of the acts. As court had been ordered held in Toledo, as county seat of the new County of Lucas, the Michigan authorities were determined to prevent it. For this purpose the Detroit militia arrived in Monroe on the evening of September 5th. Together with volunteers these forces rendezvoused near Toledo, and marched into that city on the 6th. Their numbers were variously estimated at from eight to twelve hundred, and they were led in person by Governor Mason and General Brown. The associate judges had assembled at the village of Maumee, with Colonel Van Fleet and one hundred soldiers sent by Governor Lucas for their protection ; but wise peace counsels prevailed, and Ohio won the victory without shedding a drop of valiant Michigan blood. Strategy was adopted instead. As September 7th was the day set for holding the court, it was decided that the day began at midnight, and as no hour was specified, one hour was as good as another. At 1 o'clock in the night the officers accompanied by the colonel and twenty soldiers, each carrying two cavalry pistols, started on horseback down the Maumee. They arrived about three and went quietly to a schoolhouse. About 3 o'clock the judges opened the court. The three associated judges were Jonathan H. Jerome, Baxter and William Wilson. They appointed a clerk and three commissioners for the new County of Lucas. They transacted a little other necessary business and "no further business appearing before said court," it adjourned in due form. The clerk's minutes, hastily written on loose sheets of paper, were deposited in his hat according to the custom of men in those days. All present then quickly started through the woods up the Maumee River to the town of the same name. In their haste the clerk's hat was knocked from his head as a result of coming in contact with the limb of a tree. 134 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY Not a little apprehension was experienced until the scattered papers, containing the invaluable minutes of the court, were found. The entire session had been held between two days. All arrived safely at Maumee City, clearly outside the disputed territory, but yet within Lucas County, where Michigan civil officers or troops dare not pursue. Here the first victory was quietly enjoyed, and plans matured for complete discomfiture of the enemy. Colonel Van Fleet signalized their success by firing two salutes. This is the account that appeared in the Michigan Sentinel, published at Monroe, under date of September 12, 1835: "WOLVERINES OF MICHIGAN !—In anticipation of the proposed organization of the Court of Ohio at Toledo, and the approach of Lucas's `Million' Acting Governor Mason made a large requisition on the brave Wolverines of Michigan ; and on Saturday last (September 5th) they approached our Town under arms by hundreds, from the Counties of Monroe, Wayne, Washtenaw, Lenawee, Oakland, Macomb and St. Joseph. The whole body entered the disputed territory on Monday, accompanied by Governor Stevens, Generals Brown and Haskall, and Colonels Davis, Wing and others, to the number of 1,200 to 1,500 and encamped on the plains of Toledo. Governor Lucas did not make his appearance. The Court is said to have been held at the dead of night, by learned Judges dressed in disguise ; and the insurgents of Toledo precipitately fled from the scene of action." The Michigan authorities continued to make trouble, but the success of the above strategy practically closed the contest. An order came from Washington removing Governor Mason from the office of chief executive of the territory of Michigan because of his excessive zeal for its rights. His secretary, John S. Homer, immediately became acting governor. This had little effect upon the people of Michigan. Mason had been elected governor under the election held without authority and he still proceeded to administer the affairs of state until the mortified Horner betook himself into the wilds beyond Lake Michigan. Senators had been elected and immediately went to Washington and demanded admission to the Senate. But the representatives of Indiana and Illinois worked against Michigan, for their own boundary lines were affected. While the advocates of Michigan called it tyranny to keep 80,000 people shackled by a territorial government its opponents prophesied the eventual destruction of the federal government when its people were allowed to makes states for themselves. But behind all was the disputed boundary question. On June 15th, 1836, Michigan was admitted into the Union with her southern boundary next to Ohio limited to the Harris line. The disputed territory was given to Ohio. As compensation for her loss Michigan was awarded the northern peninsula, with its rich beds of mineral ore, which had proved to be a most valuable possession. The new state lost 400 miles of territory but 9,000 were added to it. Nevertheless the State Legislature when it met would not agree to the conditions. The bill of admission was called a "Bill of Abomination" for Michigan was "mutilated, humbled and degraded" and it was not desirable to enter a union with "Gamblers and Pickpockets." A convention was called to which delegates were elected and consented to the conditions imposed. It was not until January, 1837, that Michigan became in fact a state. Thus it was that the angry strife which for a time threatened a sanguinary war, was happily settled, and fraternal relations have ever since existed between the authorities of Ohio and Michigan. The Ohio Legislature in 1846 passed an act appropriating $300 to compensate Major HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 135 Stickney for damage to property and for the time he passed in prison at Monroe. Michigan afterwards bestowed $50 upon Lewis E. Bailey for the loss of a horse while in the service of the territorial militia. The people of both states immediately took the matter good naturally, and treated the whole affair as a joke. Songs were sung, of which a couple of verses of the Michigan "War Song" are as follows : Old Lucas gave his order all for to hold a Court, And Stevens Thomas Mason, he thought he'd have some sport. He called upon the Wolverines, and asked them for to go To meet this rebel Lucas, his Court to overthrow. Our independent companies were ordered for the march, Our officers were ready, all stiffened up with starch ; On nimble-footed coursers our officers did ride, With each a pair of pistols and sword hung by his side. CHAPTER XII THE PASSING OF THE RED MAN Prior to the War of 1812, there were comparatively few Americans in Northwestern Ohio and not a great number of French or British. On the right bank of the Maumee, on a site now within the City of Toledo, there was a French settlement consisting of a number of families. There were probably three score of white families living at or near the foot of the rapids at Maumee. Of these Amos Spafford was the most prominent, since he was collector of customs at that port. Some of these were also French, and Peter Manor, or Manard, did valiant service for the American cause. There were a number of white traders residing at Defiance, and other points along the Maumee and Auglaize. The entire number, however, was very inconsiderable. The red man as yet felt no crowding in the vast domain over which he hunted. For the thirty years succeeding the second war with Great Britain the principal history of this region relates to the various treaties with the Indian tribes by which the sovereignty of the rich Maumee Valley was transferred from the red man to his white successor. The total number of Indians residing in Ohio at the time of the incoming of their successors was not great, as we reckon numbers today. At the time of Pontiac's Conspiracy, it was estimated that 15,000 Indians lived in Ohio, who were capable of putting 3,000 warriors on the warpath. More than one-half of these doubtless resided in Northwestern Ohio, for none made their homes adong the Ohio River. This probably conflicts with the prevalent notion that the forests literally swarmed with the savages. There were a few Indian villages, many isolated groups of lodges in the forests, which were the homes of hunters, and narrow trails winding among the trees and bushes. So thin and scattered was this native population that, even in those parts where they were most numerous, one might journey for days together through the twilight forests without encountering a single savage form. Escaped captives have traveled from the Maumee River to Wheeling or Pittsburg in daytime without casting eyes upon a single human being. There were many Indian tribes resident in Northwestern Ohio. In fact, tribal relations were constantly changing among the aborigines. Tribe was giving place to tribe, language yielding to language all over the country. Immutable as were the red men in respect to social and individual development, the tribal relations and local haunts were as changeable as the winds. The Hurons, or Wyandots, were scattered during the French occupation of Canada through the animosity of the Iroquois. The Eries along the southern shores of Lake Erie had been exterminated by the same implacable foes. Their blood was constantly being diluted by the adoption of prisoners, whether white or red. In fact it was the policy of many tribes to replenish their losses in war by adopting the young braves captured from the enemy. The tribes most intimately associated with the Maumee region are the Wyandots, Shawnees, Miamis, Ottawas, Senecas and Delawares. At the time of the settlement of Northwestern Ohio, the Wyandots were admitted to be the leading nation among the Indian tribes of the Northwest. This was not because of numbers, but for the reason that they were more intelligent and more civilized in their manner of life. To them was entrusted the Grand Calumet, which united the Indians in - 136 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 137 that territory into a confederacy for mutual protection. They were authorized to assemble the tribes in council, and to kindle the council fires. The signature of Tarhe, the Crane, is the first signature under that of General Wayne in the Treaty of Greenville. The name of Wyandot is the Anglicized form for Owendots, or Yendats. They were divided. into tribes or totemic clans, and their head chief was taken from the Deer Tribe until the Battle of Fallen Timbers. This tribe was so decimated at that battle that the chiefs thereafter were selected from the Porcupine Tribe. The descent always followed in the female line. The principal home of the Wyandots was along the Sandusky River, but many dwelt along the Blanchard and their hunting ground covered the entire Maumee region. In fact, they claimed it all and only permitted the other tribes to reside here through sufferance. The Wyandots were always a humane and hospitable nation. This is clearly manifested in permitting their former enemies to settle on their lands, when driven back before the advancing white popudation. They kindly received the homeless or exiled Senecas, Cayugas, Mohegans, Mohawks, Delawares, and Shawnees, and spread a deer skin for them • to sit down upon. They allotted a certain portion of their country, the boundary of which was designated by certain rivers, or points on certain lakes, to these outcasts, which was freely given for their use, without money and without price. This fact was clearly developed when the different tribes came to sell their lands to the Government, when the Wyandots pointed out these bonds. Although never behind other tribes in their wars against the whites, they were far more merciful toward their prisoners. They not only saved the lives of most prisoners taken by them, but they likewise purchased many captives from other tribes. Thus they became allied with some of the best families in this and other states. The Browns, an old Virginia family, the Zanes, another well-known family, the Walkers of Tennessee, the Armstrongs and Magees of Pittsburg, were all represented in the tribe. The Wyandots was the last Indian tribe to be removed from Ohio. It therefore remained longest on the borders of the incoming white population. Many of this once noble tribe therefore sank into degrading vice, becoming the worst as well as most ignoble and worthless of their race. 138 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY This is not very much to the credit of the Caucasians, who should have protected the weak aborigine and endeavored to show him a better life, instead of trying to exploit him and enrich himself at the expense of his weaknesses. The tribe numbered about twenty-two hundred at the time of the Greenville treaty, including the men, women, and children. From that time until their removal, almost a half a century later, they lost but few men in battle. It is a fact, nevertheless, that during these fifty years through drunkenness, with its accompanying bloody brawls, and other vices, the tribe was reduced to fewer than half the original members. The Wyandots were great hunters and wandered all over extreme Northwestern Ohio in their winter hunting expeditions. Bear hunting was the favorite sport. During the winter the bears were generally hibernating, but one would occasionally be discovered in a hollow tree. When they found such a tree they would examine the bark to see if one had ascended. Their keen eyes would soon detect the scratches of his claws upon the bark. It might be thirty or forty feet up to the entrance to his winter dormitory. A sapling was quickly felled against the tree and an agile hunter would ascend. He would then cut a branch and scrape the tree on the opposite side of the hole, crying like a young bear. If a bear was inside, he would either make a noise or come out. If inside and he failed to appear, a piece of rotten wood would be lighted and dropped inside. This would fire the tree. It would not be long until Mr. or Mrs. Bear appeared in great wrath, sneezing and wheezing, and blinded by the smoke. A bullet or arrow would quickly soothe his troubles. They were also experts at trapping, and especially at ensnaring the raccoon. When other game was difficult to obtain they subsisted largely on these little furry animals. "One man will have, perhaps, 300 raccoon traps, scattered over a country ten miles in extent. These traps are `dead falls,' made of saplings, and set over a log which hes across some branch or creek, or that is by the edge of some pond or marshy place. In the months of February and March the raccoons travel much, and frequent the ponds for the purpose of catching frogs. The hunter generally gets around all his traps twice a week, and hunts from one to the other. I have known a hunter to take from his traps thirty raccoons in two days, and sometimes they take more. From three to six hundred is counted a good hunt for one spring, besides the deer, turkeys, and bears." The Wyandots understand the art of making sugar from the sap of the maples, and devoted themselves to this industry for several weeks after the sap began to run. They fashioned bark troughs, which held a couple of gallons, for the trees that they tapped, and larger troughs to hold the collections. These were shaped like canoes. They cut a long perpendicular groove, or notch in the tree, and at the bottom struck in a tomahawk. This made a hole into which they drove a long chip, down which the sap flowed into the bark vessel. As an instance of life in a Wyandot camp, Rev. James Finley says : "The morning was cold, and our course lay through a deep forest. We rode hard, hoping to make the camps before night, but such were the obstructions we met with, from ice and swamps, that it was late when we arrived. Weary with a travel of twenty-five miles or more through the :woods, without a path or a blazed tree to guide us—and, withal, the clay was cloudy—we were glad to find a camp to rest in. We were joyfully received by our friends, and the women and children came running to welcome us to their society and fures. It was not long after we were HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 139 seated by the fire, till I heard the well-known voice of Between-theLogs. I went out of the camp, and helped down with two fine deer. Soon we had placed before us a kettle filled with fat raccoons, boiled whole, after the Indian style, and a pan of good sugar molasses. These we asked our heavenly Father to bless, and then each .carved for himself, with a large butcher knife. I took the hind-quarter of a raccoon, and holding it by the foot, dipped the other end in the molasses, and ate it off with my teeth. Thus I continued dipping and eating till I had pretty well finished the fourth part of a large coon. By this time my appetite began to fail me, and thought it was a good meal, without bread, hominy, or salt." The Shawanees, Shawanoes or Shawnees, were a tribe that command considerable attention in the history of Northwestern Ohio. Fearless and restless, wary and warlike, they were the vagrants of the trackless forests. Nomadic as were all the savages, the Shawnees bear off the palm for restlessness, and they were the equal of any in their undying hostility to the whites. They had wandered from the waters of Lake Erie to the warm shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Prior to that they are known to have been along the Delaware River. They were proud and haughty, and considered themselves superior to the others. The Shawnee traditions said that the Creator made them before any other tribe of people, and that from them all red men were descended. Their arrogant pride and warlike ferocity made them the most formidable of all the nations with which the white settlers had to contend in Ohio. They reveled in their prowess and cunning. When driven from the Carolinas and Georgia, the Shawnees decided to repossess their former hunting grounds. Instead of resorting to force, however, they betook themselves to diplomacy. At a council of reconciliation, they were given permission to settle on the lands of the M iamis and Wyandots. They first established themselves along the Scioto, and later along the Auglaize and Miami. This matter of ownership was raised by both the Miamis and \Wyandots at the Greenville Treaty. When the Miamis moved to Indiana, after the burning of Pickawillamny in 1782, the Shawnees under Blue Jacket and Blackhoof established themselves at Wapakoneta and others settled at St. Marys, Lewis- 140 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY ton, and the mouth of the Auglaize (Defiance). Skulking bands were ever harassing the whites along the Ohio River. As a famous council house was located at Wapakoneta, many of their captives were brought there. At least one hundred and fifty Shawnee warriors took part in the defeat of St. Clair. Blue Jacket lived in the style befitting a great chief. At the Treaty of Greenville, the Shawnees withheld participation for several weeks through their obstinacy. When the chiefs finally decided to join with the other tribes, they were reserved and haughty. But the warm-heartedness of General Wayne was irresistible. When they deft Blue Jacket, Blackhoof and Red Pole expressed their undying personal regard for Wayne, and they never again took up arms against the United States. The Shawnees returned to their former vocations of hunting and trapping, with an increased cultivation of the soil. The men lounged about during the summer, when the skins and furs were not fit for market. In the fall season nearly all the villages commenced making elaborate preparations for their winter's hunt. When everything was ready, the whole village, men, women and children, together with their dogs, cats, and ponies, with as much of their furniture as they could conveniently carry, set off for the donely woods. "I have seen many of these companies moving off in cold weather," says a pioneer, "among whom were to be seen the aged, gray-headed grandmothers, the anxious care-worn and nearly forlorn mother with her half naked children, and often a little infant on her back, with its little naked head to the cold wind over its mother's shoulder ; the whole company headed by a nimble-footed and stout-hearted warrior, with his blanket drawn close around his body, a handkerchief curiously twisted to a knot on his head, with his gun on his shoulder and gunstick in his hand, his tomahawk in his belt, which is so constructed that the poll is his pipe and the handle the stem, and he carries his tobacco in the skin of some little animal, often a polecat skin." The Ottawas were a Canadian tribe which formerly dwelt along the river of that name. Accompanying the Wyandots, with whom they were on friendly terms, they went west only to be again hurled back by the Sioux. Scattering bands finally found asylums along an affluent of the Maumee, and there gave their name to the river also known as the Auglaize. The Delawares also occupied lands with the Wyandots. They called themselves Lenape, or Leni-Lenape, meaning "real men." They were in many respects a remarkable people. They were generally peacable and well disposed towards the whites and redigious teachers. When the Iroquois subdued them they "put petticoats on the men," to use their expression, and made "women" of them. They were deprived of their right to make war, change their habitation or dispose of their land without the consent of their overlords. Those found in Northwestern Ohio had fded there to escape the humiliation of such surroundings. One of the smaller of the tribes was the Senecas, who dwelt along the lower Sandusky. Prior to the incoming of the white man, they remained there by the sufferance of the hospitable Wyandots. They were renegades from the Iroquois nation. Among them were also a few Oneidas, Mohawks and Tuscaroras. About the beginning of the nineteenth century, these "Senecas of the Sandusky," as they were frequently called, numbered about four hundred souls. At this time they were more dissipated than their neighbors, the Wyandots. Virtue was indeed at a low ebb, for the marriage relation was maintained in name only, and their free practices led to many quarrels and difficulties of a serious nature. HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 141 Along the Maumee River the dominant tribes were the Miamis. The British called them Twightwees, meaning "the cry of the crane." They were one of the most powerful tribes of the west, numbering many hundreds of warriors. Members of this tribe were reported as far as Illinois and Wisconsin. Of his people, Little Turtle, their famous chief, said: "My fathers kindled the first fire at Detroit ; thence they extended their lines to the head waters of the Scioto ; thence to its mouth ; thence down the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash and thence to Chicago over Lake Michigan." The tribe gave its name to three rivers, Big Miami, Little Miami, and Maumee. They are said to have been above the average of the aborigines in intelligence and character. They were also credited with better manners and dispositions than most of the savages. Their chiefs also had a greater degree of authority over their warriors. About the time of Pontiac's Conspiracy they settled along the Maumee. A French traveler early in the eighteenth century wrote of them as f ollows : "The Miamis are sixty leagues from Lake Erie, and number 400, all well-formed men, and well tattooed ; the women are numerous. They are hard working, and raise a species of Maize unlike that of our Aborigines at Detroit. It is white of the same size as the other, the skin much finer and the meat much whiter. This Nation is clad in deer and when a married woman goes with another man, her husband cuts off her nose and does not see her any more. This is the only nation that has such a custom. They love plays and dances, wherefore they have more occupation. The women are well clothed, but the men use scarcely any covering and are tattooed all over the body." "Each Indian," wrote the British agent at Detroit to the home office, "consumes daily more than two ordinary men amongst us, and would be extremely dissatisfied if stinted when convened for business." Consider the agent's distress when almost a thousand had already arrived for a treaty, and they were still coming in hungry groups. All those who had charge of Indian treaties bear witness to the same characteristics of these aborigines. They were like grown-up children, and like youngsters they expected to be fed and fed well. Even Little Turtle, one of the wisest of the chiefs, and extremely abstemious in the use of alcoholic spirits, was as uncontrolled as his followers in the matter of eating. The virtues as well as the vices of these aborigines were those of primitive man. The men spent their time in hunting and fighting, while the women performed the household work and cultivated the fields. The squaws did all the menial work. But they had commendable sense of justice among themselves, and they were far better before the white man came in contact with them. It is no wonder that the squaws, who were frequently comely when young, soon lost all their comeliness and degenerated into smoke- begrimed, withered and vicious hags, whose ugliness and cruelty frequently showed itself toward the white captives. About the only actual labor that the warriors would deign to perform was in the making of bark canoes or the dug-outs, called pirogues, in both of which they were very proficient. Before the white men brought horses the squaw on the land the the canoe on water were the Indians beasts of burden. In infancy the males were generally placed on boards, and wrapped with a belt of cloth, or skin, in order to make them straight. In early life they were stimulated to acts of courage and activity. That the men possessed a lively imagination is shown by their speech. One of the astonishing things is the retentiveness of the memory. In a speech made to them, every point was retained, considered and answered distinctly. 142 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY Their history and traditions were all preserved in this same way. They were calm and cool in their deliberations and, when their minds are once made up, are almost immovable. From the "superior race" the Indians imbibed the vices of civilization rather than the virtues. "Every horror is produced," says General Harrison, "among these unhappy people by their intercourse with the whites. This is so certain that I can at once tell, upon looking at an Indian whom I chance to meet, whether he belongs to a neighboring or more distant tribe. The latter is generally well clothed, healthy, and vigorous, the former half naked, filthy, and enfeebled by intoxication; and many of them without arms, excepting a knife, which they carry for the most villainous purposes." Of the vices received from the civilized white man the taste for "firewater" was not the least. For their own selfish purpose the traders cultivated this taste with diabolical persistency. When the red man's head was muddled with liquor, Ile recognized neither friend nor foe. He did not always consider the color of the skin, for his befuddled brain could not distinguish tints. As a result, there were innumerable murders. of his own kin, as well as of his white 'friends and enemies. It has been estimated that fully 500 deaths from murders and accidents occurred among the Maumee alone in the decade following the close of the War of 1812, and most of them were traceable to liquor. This is the worst condemnation that can be brought against the malevolent influence of the whites. A trader at Fort Miami reported (1802) that the Indians were then growing worse year after year. That spring he said that he had known them to lay drunk around the trading stations as much as ten or fifteen days, during which time scarcely a mouthful of victuals would be taken. Many of the Indian chiefs recognized this evil. Little Turtle did all that he could to eradicate this unnatural and depraved appetite. But the great Wyandot chief Monocue expresses himself in the following telling words : "You, my friends, must leave off bringing your water of death (meaning whisky), and selding to my people, or we never can live in peace, for wherever this comes, it brings fire and death with it ; and if you will still give or sell it to Indians, it will take away all their HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 143 senses ; and then, like a mad bear, they may turn around and kill you, of some of your squaws and children ; or if you should escape, they will go home, and be very apt to kill a wife, a mother, or a child ; for whenever this mad water gets into a man, it makes murder boil in his ear, and he, like the wolf, want blood all the time, and I believe it makes you white people as bad as it makes us Indians, and you would murder one another as we do, only that you have laws that put those people m jail, and sometimes hang them by the neck, like a dog, till they are dead ; and this makes white people afraid. We have no such laws yet ; but I hope that by and by we shall have. But I think they ought first to hang all people that make and send this poison abroad, for they do all the mischief. What good can it do men to make and send out poison to kill their friends ? Why, this is worse than our Indians killing one another with knife and tomahawk. If the white people would hang them all up that make it and sell it, they would soon leave it off, and then the world would have peace." The Indians were just as intemperate in their eating as in their drinking. When a hunting party returned home after the long winter hunt, burdened with large quantities of bear, oil, sugar, dried venison, etc., they were improvident both in the eating and the giving away of their spoils. Such a thing as a regular meal was unknown but, if anyone visited a house several times in a day, he would be invited each time to partake of the best. After his etiquette it was impolite to decline food when offered, for refusal was interpreted as a sign of displeasure or anger. Through this lack of foresight they were often reduced to great distress, and sometimes actually perished from hunger and exposure, even though they were capable of enduring great hunger and fatigue. They seem to have believed literally in the injunction to take no thought for the morrow. It was not uncommon for the Indians to be without sustenance for days at a time, but they never seemed to profit by such experiences. They were sometimes compelled to boil the bones’ thrown from the feasts of their prosperous days, and even to gnaw the skins upon which they slept. That the Indian was naturally kind hearted and hospitable is testified to by nearly all the early settlers and missionaries. While cruel, crafty and treacherous in dealing with enemies, he could be generous, kind and hospitable among f riends, and oftentimes magnanimous to a foe. Although a savage by nature, he was not a stranger to the nobler and tenderer sentiments common to humanity. He was not always the aggressor by any means, for history records no darker or bloodier crimes than some of those which have been committed by our own race against the poor Indians. The testimony of the missionaries as to the disposition of the Wyandots is most favorable. Says Mr. Finley : "I do not recollect that I was ever insulted by an Indian, drunk or sober, during all the time I was with them, nor did any of them ever manifest any unkindness toward me. The heathen party did not like my religion, nor my course m establishing a Church ; but still I was respected, for I treated all with kindness and hospitality. Indeed I do not believe there are a people on the earth, that are more capable of appreciating a friend, or a kind act done toward them or theirs, than Indians. Better neighbors, and a more honest people, I never lived among. . They are peculiarly so to the stranger or to the sick or distressed. They will divide the last mouthful, and give almost the last comfort they have, to relieve the suffering. This I have often witnessed." 144 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY With a white race, the British, actually offering a bonus for every American or French scalp brought into their posts, and feasting the returning war parties upon rich foods and exciting drinks, the ideas of the "palefaces" and their ideals must have been sadly confused in the poor benighted brain of the ignorant savage. "Running the gauntlet" was one of the most savage amusements of the Indians. Heckewelder describes this trying ceremony as follows : "In the month of April, 1782, when I was myself a prisoner at Lower Sandusky, waiting for an opportunity to proceed with a trader to Detroit, three American prisoners were brought in by fourteen warriors from the garrison of Fort McIntosh. As soon as they had crossed the Sandusky River to which the village lay adjacent they were told by the captain of the party to run as hard as they could to a painted post which was shown to them. The youngest of the three without a moment's hesitation immediately started for it and reached it fortunately without receiving a single blow ; the second hesitated for a moment, just recollecting himself, he adso ran as fast as he could and likewise reached the post unhurt. The third, frightened at seeing so many men, women and children with weapons in their hands ready to strike him, kept begging the captain to spare him, saying that he was a mason and would build him a fine large stone house or do any work for him that he would please. " 'Run for your life,' cried the chief to him, 'and don't talk now of building houses.' But the poor fellow insisted, begging and praying to the captain, who at last finding his exhortations vain and fearing the consequences turned his back upon him and would not hear him any longer. Our mason now began to run, but received many a hard blow, one of which nearly brought him to the ground, which, if he had failed would have decided his fate. He, however, reached the goad, and not without being sadly bruised and he was besides bitterly reproached and scoffed at all around as a vile coward, while the others were hailed as brave men and received tokens of universal approbation." The Indian did not greatly esteem some of the American customs for he believed that his own were better. An aged Indian, who for many years had spent a great deal of time among the white people, observed that the Indians had not only a much more easy way of getting a wife than the paleface, but they were adso much more certain of getting a satisfactory one. "For," said he, in his broken English, "white man court—court—maybe one whole year—maybe two year, before he marry. Well, maybe, then he get a very good wife—maybe not, maybe very cross. Well, now suppose cross ; scold as soon as get awake in the morning! Scold all day ! Scold until asleep—all one, he must keep him ! (The pronoun in the Indian danguage has no feminine gender.) White people have law against throwing away wife, be he ever so cross-must keep him always (possibly not so true today). Well, how does Indian do, Indian when he sees good squaw, which he dikes, he goes to him, puts his forefingers close aside each other—make two look like one--look squaw in the face see him smile—which is all one ; he says yes. So he take him home—no danger he be cross ! No! No ! Squaw know very well what Indian do if he cross. Throw him away and take another. Squaw love to eat meat. No husband, no meat. Live happy ! Go to Heaven !" Many captives were formally adopted into the Indian families. Almost invariably they formed such attachments for their foster parents and relatives that they could scarcely be induced to return to their own people in after years. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to revert to the primitive ways and customs of their foster parents. The HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 145 Indians treated them indulgently, and in exactly the same way as they did their own offspring. There was an old white woman living among the Shawnees, who had been taken a prisoner when very young. Several years afterwards her friends tried to induce her to return, but in vain. She had then become more of a squaw than any other female in the tribe. Similar instances will be found along every section of our former frontier. John Brickell was captured by the Indians of Northwestern Ohio at the immature age of nine, and remained with them until he had reached manhood. In accordance with a treaty he was taken to the white encampment to be delivered over to his own people. His own account reads as follows : "On breaking up of spring, we all went to Fort Defiance and arriving on the shore opposite, we saluted the fort with a round of rifles, and they shot a cannon thirteen times (for thirteen states). We then encamped on the spot. On the same day Whingy Pooshies told me I must go over to the fort. The children hung around me, crying, and asked me if I was going to leave them. I told them I did not know. When we got over to the fort and were seated with the officers, Whingy Pooshies told me to stand up, which I did. He then arose and addressed me in about these words : 'My son, these are men the same color with yourself, and some of your kin may be here, or they may be a great way off. You have lived a long time with us. I call on you to say if I have not been a father to you ; if I have not used you as a father would a son.' " 'You have used me as well as a father could use a son,' was the answer. "'I am glad you say so. You have lived long with me ; you have hunted for me ; but your treaty says you must be free. If you choose to go with people of your own color I have no right to say a word ; but if ou choose to stay with me your people have no right to speak. Now Vol. 1-10 146 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY reflect on it and take your choice and tell us as soon as you make up your mind.' "I was silent for a few minutes, in which time I seemed to think of most everything. I thought of the children I had just left crying ; I thought of the Indians I was attached to, and I thought of my people whom I remembered ; and this latter thought predominated, and I said, `I will go with my kin.' He then sank back in tears to his seat. I heartily joined him in his tears, parted with him, and have never seen or heard of him since." On his return from his captivity Brickell settled in Columbus, and became one of her esteemed citizens. Not every f ather or foster father of the Caucasion race treats his son with such marked affection, or regrets parting so sincerely as did this simple unlettered red man of the wilderness. We get another first-hand description of the character of those Indians who either roamed or dwelt along the Maumee, together with the trials and discouragements attending the efforts of the missionaries among them, from the journal kept by Reverend McCurdy, a mussionary along the Maumee : "They have been collecting for ten days past (1808) from different places and tribes, and this is to be the week of their Great Council. Hundreds more are yet expected. The plains are now swarming with them, and they appear to be full of devilish festivity, although they can scarcely collect as much of any kind of vegetables as will allay the imperious demands of nature. They are here almost every hour begging for bread, milk, meat, melons, or cucumbers ; and if they can get no better, they will eat a ripe cucumber with as little ceremony as a hungry swine. And, notwithstanding this state of outward wretchedness and these mortifying circumstances, they are swollen with pride, and will strut about and talk with an air as supercilious as the Great Mogul. Their ceremonies, also, are conducted with as much pomposity as if they were individually Napoleons or Alexanders. "Their houses, when they have any, are wretched huts, almost as dirty as they can be, and swarming with fdeas and lice. Their furniture, a few barks, a tin or brass kettle, a gun, pipe, knife and tomahawk. Their stock are principally dogs. Of these, they have large numbers, but they are mere skeletons, the very picture of distress. These unhappy people appear to have learned all the vices of a number of miserable white men, who have fded to these forests to escape the vengeance of the law, or to acquire property in a way almost infinitely worse than that of highwaymen. They are so inured to white men of this description that it is next to impossible to make them believe you design to do them good, or that your object is not eventually to cheat them. It is vain to reason with them. Their minds are too dark to perceive its force, or their suspicions bar them against any favorable conclusions. Such is their ingratitude, that whilst you load them with favors they will reproach you to your face, and construe your benevolent intentions and actions into intentional fraud or real injury. They will lie in the most deliberate manner and to answer any selfish purpose. They will not bear contradiction, but will take the liberty to contradict others in the most impudent and illiberal manner." Edmund Burke, a Catholic priest was sent from Detroit to the Indians living near Fort Miami in 1796. Within the limits of the present village of Maumee, he constructed and occupied a long house as his chapel. Here he resided for a time, ministering to the few Catholic soldiers in the fort and endeavoring to Christianize the Indians in the neighborhood. His efforts met with little success, so that he remained only about a HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 147 year. From that time no priest was stationed in this territory for a score of years. The Friends, or Quakers, early became interested in the Indians of Northwestern Ohio. As early as 1793, a commission from that religious body started to attend an Indian council on the lower Maumee River, in company with the United States Commissioners. They reached Detroit but did not succeed in getting any farther. In 1798, a belt of wampum, and ten strings of white beads, with a speech attached, was sent by a number of Indian chiefs to the yearly meeting of the Friends held in Baltimore. Appended to this letter were the names of Tarhe the Crane, Walk-on-the-Water and a number of other chiefs. They invited the Friends to visit the Wyandots and Delawares at their villages on the Sandusky River. When the designated representatives of the Friends arrived at Upper Sandusky in the following year, they found shocking and terrible scenes of drunkenness, and were subjected to indignities. Tarhe himself was not able to meet them for a day or two because of his intoxicated condition. These men returned to the East without any satisfactory result for their long and tedious journey. Nothing was heard from the Wyandots in response to their visit. The good name of the Society of Friends had spread by degrees to many western tribes. In 1796 Chief Little Turtle visited Philadelphia with Capt. William Wells, his brother-in-law, as interpreter, and endeavored to enlist the assistance of the Friends in civilizing the Miamis living at Fort Wayne and in its vicinity. No immediate result followed, but the matter was not dropped. Some agricultural implements were forwarded. At a meeting held in 1804 it was decided to make a visit to the Miamis in order to decide on the best course to follow. Four men were named as a committee for this visit, and they made a little more progress than had any of the other emissaries dispatched to the Maumee Basin. Philip Dennis was left with the tribe as a permanent instructor. This was the first serious effort to instruct the aborigines of the West in agriculture, and it was not very successful. When the novelty had worn away, the warriors refused to work. At the close of the War of 1812, the work of the Friends commenced among the Shawnees at Wapakoneta in a permanent form. A dam was constructed across the Auglaize River, and a flouring-mill and saw-mill were erected for their instruction and benefit in 1819. The expense of building and operation of the mill was borne by the Society of Friends, while the corn of the Indians was ground free of toll. The women soon learned to bake bread, which was much easier than pounding hominy. The Indians were furnished with plow irons and taught how to cultivate corn, beans, pumpkins, etc. Cows were furnished them and they were taught how to use them. As a result of their work, the Indians in that neighborhood began to improve and to build better homes. They wandered after game less and less, and turned to the rearing of domestic animals. The faithful and devoted Friends worked diligently and faithfully without compensation. Many times they divided the last morsel of food with the needy Indians, whether the subject of their alms were worthy or unworthy. An annual payment of $3,000 did not keep starvation and want away from these improvident people. They taught the Bible and religious ethics by example as well as by word, and they taught the industrial arts to as great an extent as possible. A school in manual training was organized, which was the first school of its kind in Ohio. Friend Isaac Harvey moved there in 1819, and took charge of the work. He was a man of good judgment and good policy, and got on very well with his charges. It was not long until the holdings of the Indians 148 - HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY around Wapakoneta numbered 1,200 cattle and as many hogs, which speaks very well indeed for the work done among them. Much superstition existed among the Shawnees. Soon after Harvey's arrival, it was aroused to an unwonted pitch by The Prophet, brother of Tecumseh. A woman of the tribe named Polly Butler was accused of witchery. One night Harvey was startled by the hasty arrival of Polly Butler, a half-breed, who came with her child to his house asking protection from the Shawnees, who were seeking to put her to death as a witch. "They kill-ee me ! they kill-ee me !" she cried in terror. They were taken into the house by Harvey who at once strangled a small dog accompanying them that it might not betray their whereabouts. The next day Chief We-os-se-cah or Captain Wolf came and told Harvey the occurrences and the resulting excitement, whereupon Harvey told him of the sinfulness of such proceedings. We-os-se-cah went away much disturbed in mind, but soon returned and, intimating that Harvey knew the whereabouts of the woman, was told that she was out of their reach ; and if they did not abandon her with desire to put her to death, he would remove his family and abandon the mission entirely. We-os-se-cah desired Harvey to go with him to the Council house, where twenty or more chief and head men, painted and armed were in session. Harvey went to the United States blacksmith, an important man with the aborigines, on account of his keeping their guns and knives in repair, and took him and his son along as interpreters. Upon their entering the Council House, where some of the Indians were already in their war paint, Chief We-os-se-cah commanded the Council "to be still and hear," whereupon he repeated what had transpired between Harvey and himself, which caused great commotion. "Harvey then addressed them in a composed manner through the interpreter, interceding for the life of the woman who had been so unjustly sentenced to be put to death. But seeing them determined to have blood, he felt resigned and offered himself to be put to death in her stead ; that he was wholly unarmed and at their mercy. We-so-se-cah stepped up, took Harvey by the arm, and declared himself his friend, and called upon the chiefs to desist, but if they would not, he would offer his life for the Qua-kee-lee (Quaker) friend. This brave and heroic act of Harvey, and the equally unexpected offer of this brave chief checked the tide of hostile feelings. The chiefs were astonished but slowly, one by one, to the number of six or eight they came forward, took Harvey by the hand and declared friendship. "Me Qua-kee-lee friend," they would say. They promised if the woman was restored to her people, that she would be protected ; and they called on the blacksmith to witness their vow—and he became surety for its fulfillment. It required considerabde effort to assure the woman of her safety, but eventually she returned to her dwelling and was not afterwards molested. The Protestant missionary work was begun along the Maumee on or about the year 1802, when the Rev. D. Bacon, under the auspices of the Connecticut Missionary Society. visited this region. With two companions he set out from Detroit for the Maumee River in a canoe, and was five days in making the trip. He found here a good interpreter by the name of William Dragoo, who had been with the Indians since he was ten years of age. Upon arrival at the mouth of the river, he found most of the chiefs drunk at a trading post above and then concluded to pass on to Fort Miami, where he stored his belongings. The next day he returned to the mouth of the river, where most of the chiefs were still drunk. Little Otter, the head chief, was a little more sober than the rest, and he replied in friendly terms that Mr. Bacon should have HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY - 149 a hearing with the tribe. Owing to the death of a child, another period of debauch followed, and the missionary was delayed still longer. After about ten days' delay Mr. Bacon secured a hearing for his cause, which he eloquently presented. But he found many objections. One of the most potent was that they would subject themselves to the fate of the Moravians, if they should embrace the new religion. One objection, says he, "I thought to be the most important, and the most diffucult to answer. It was this : That they could not live together so as to receive any instructions on account of their fighting and killing one another when intoxicated. Two had been killed but a few days before at the trader's above ; and I found that they seldom got together without killing some ; that their villages were little more than places of residence for Fall and Spring, as they were obliged to be absent in the Winter on account of hunting, and as they found it necessary to live apart in the Summer on account of liquor ; and that the most of them were going to disperse in a few days for planting, when they would be from 10 to 15 miles apart, and not more than two or three families in a place." Becoming convinced that any further attempt he then might make would be fruitless, Mr. Bacon abandoned the field and journeyed on to Mackinac. The Presbyterian Church was the next denomination, in order of priority, to send missionaries into Northwest Ohio. At the opening of the nineteenth century, the Rev. Thomas E. Hughes made two missionary tours throughout these regions. On one of these journeys he was accompanied by James Satterfield, and on the other by Rev. Joseph Badger. One of these early missionaries in speaking of the Indians on the Lower Maumee writes as follows: "My interpreter advised me to go with him to see them that evening ; and I had a desire to be present as I supposed I might acquire some information that might be useful. But I thought it would be imprudent to be among them that night as I knew some of them were intoxicated and that such would be apt to be jealous of me at that time, and that nothing would be too absurd for their imaginations to conceive, or too cruel for their hands to perform. "Anderson, a respectable trader at Fort Miami, told me that they had been growing worse every year since he had been acquainted with them, which is six or seven years ; and that they have gone much greater lengths this year than he has ever known them before. He assured me that it was a fact that they had lain drunk this spring as much as fifteen days at several different traders above him, and that some of them had gone fifteen days without tasting a mouthful of victuals while they were in that condition." It cannot be said that the Presbyterians ever gathered unto themselves a very large following among the Indians of this section. Their principal station was along the Lower Maumee, about half way between Fort Meigs and Grand Rapids, then called Gilead. There the mission owned a farm, a part of which was a large island, and ministered unto the Ottawa tribes. Upon this was erected a large mission house and a commodious school building. It was established in the year 1822. The aim of the missionaries was to make the mission as near self-sustaining as possible, and to benefit the Indian in every way. The children were given board and clothing, educated and trained in farming. The report of this mission, published by the United States in 1824, gives the number of the mission family as twenty-one. Some taught domestic science, others instructed in agriculture, while others attempted to instill book learning and religious truth into their pupils. It was allowed $300 every six months from the congressional fund for the civilization of the