650 - HISTORY OF OHIO. awaiting their prey. When this body of Indians had thought them all but in their possession, again was the presence of mind of McCune signally displayed. He wheeled his horse, followed by Devlan, made his way out of the thicket, by the passage he had entered, and galloped around into the open space between them and the river, where the pursuers were checked by fire from the block-house, at the western angle of the fort. In a few minutes after their arrival their horses dropped dead from fatigue. The Indians had orders to take them alive, as they had not fired until just as they entered the fort ; but in the chase McCune had great difficulty in persuading Devlan to reserve his fire until the last extremity, and they therefore brought in their pieces loaded." The Indians could not be relied upon in the least in any attempt to storm a fort. They would fight very valiantly from behind a tree, stump or rock. But nothing could induce them to come out into the open field, and expose their unprotected persons to the bullets of their foes. For three days many stratagems were resorted to to draw out the garrison, but they were all in vain. One very ingeniously devised stratagem of Tecumseh came very near involving the garrison in destruction. He knew that General Clay was hourly expecting the arrival of reenforcements, who would endeavor to cut their way through the investing lines, and thus greatly strengthen the defenders of the fortress. He therefore caused a strong party of British infantry to be stationed secretly in a ravine, and at a little distance from them, in a dense grove, a squadron of well mounted cavalry. A large body of Indians were then posted in the forest at a little distance from the fort, on both sides of the Sandusky road, from which direction the reenforcements must come. About an hour before dark the Indians commenced among themselves a sham fight. They raised hideous yells, and the battle was apparently very hotly contested. The design was to deceive the Americans into the belief that a deadly struggle was going on between them and a reenforcement endeavoring to gain an entrance to the fort. Thus it was hoped that the garrison might be enticed to sally out to the aid of their friends, who, while rushing to their assistance were in danger of being cut off. Should they do so, they would be instantly surrounded and cut to pieces by overwhelming numbers. The measure was managed with so much skill, that the garris- HISTORY OF OHIO - 651 son instantly flew to arms. The roar of musketry and the resounding war whoops convinced them that a fierce battle was raging. Such a battle could only be between the British forces and their approaching friends. The soldiers clamored to be led forth to the aid of their comrades, who, without such aid, might all perish. Many of the officers of the highest grade were of that opinion, and almost demanded to be led out, as the uproar of the advancing and receding conflict fell upon their ears. There was almost a revolt in the garrison, in consequence of General Clay's refusal to suffer them to march out to the rescue of their friends. The situation of General Clay was embarrassing in the extreme. Should it prove to be true that a reenforcement was struggling to enter the fort, and that they were left unaided to be tomahawked by the savages, the whole community, in its blind indignation would demand that General Clay should be shot as a coward and a traitor. And perhaps every officer and soldier in the garrison would join in that demand. On the contrary, should it be a ruse to draw the garrison into an ambuscade, every man engaged in the sortie would be inevitably cut down, and the fort, with all its contents would fall into the hands of the enemy. This would be a loss second only to the loss of Detroit. These must have been moments of anguish with the brave and heroic general. It was the fortunate arrival of McCune which alone saved the garrison. The intelligence he brought from General Harrison, on the Sandusky, led General Clay to deem it impossible that General Harrison with reenforcements could even have left Sandusky so soon. And he was certain that no reenforcements could come from any other quarter. Therefore, while .he could not account for the firing, he did not deem it possible that any friends were approaching the fort. The common soldiers would listen to no such reasoning. They were indignant and almost mutinous in their demand to be led forth. It was a very narrow escape for the garrison. But for the firmness of General Clay, all must have perished. It is said that during this siege, when five thousand men surrounded the little band within the fortress, General Clay and his men resolved that they would not fall into the hands of General Proctor, who would hand them over to be tomahawked, scalped, and burned at the stake by the savages. Preparations were therefore made to fire 652 - HISTORY OF OHIO. the magazine, in case the enemy should succeed in taking the fort by storm. The terrific explosion would involve all, friend and foe, in common destruction. This alternative.was deemed preferable to perishing at the disposal of the savages. The soldiers in the garrison often beguiled the hours in singing patriotic songs. A verse from one of them will show their general character : " Freemen ! no longer bear such slaughter ; Avenge your country's cruel woe, Arouse and save your wives and daughters ; Arouse and expel the faithless foe. Chorus — Scalps are bought at stated prices, Malden pays the price in gold." General Proctor, finding it impossible to draw the garrison out from the fort, and not deeming it safe to attempt to carry it by storm, on the 28th of July embarked his British troops on board his boats, and sailing down the Maumee, directed his course along the southern shore of the lake to the mouth of the Sandusky. His immense bands of Indians, under Tecumseh, filled the woods with their parties, as they traversed the swampy wilderness which spread out between the two posts. General Harrison was then at Lower Sandusky. It is said that the meaning of the Indian word Sandusky is, At the Cold Water. This valley was in past ages a favorite residence of the Indians. It was occupied by a powerful tribe of Wyandots who were called The Neutral Nation. They had • erected not far from each other two strongly-fortified towns, which were called cities of refuge. All who met there laid aside for the time their animosities and met as friends. " The ground," writes Hon. Lewis Cass, " on which they stood was holy. It was a beautiful institution, a calm and peaceful island, looking out upon a world of waves and tempests." When the French missionaries reached the lake two centuries ago, the Neutral Nation was still in existence. Major Stickney writes, in a lecture delivered at Toledo in 1845 : " The remains of extensive works of defense are now to be seen near Lower San- dusky. The Wyandots have given me this account of them. At a period of two centuries and a half ago, all the Indians west of this point were at war with all the Indians east of it. Two walled towns were built near each other, and each were inhabited by HISTORY OF OHIO - 653 those of Wyandot origin. They assumed a neutral character, and the Indians at war recognized that character. All at the west might enter the western city, and all of the east the eastern. The inhabitants of one city might inform those of the other that war parties were there ; but who they were, or whence they came, or anything more, must not be mentioned. The war parties might remain there in security, taking their own time for departure. At the western town they suffered the warriors to burn their prisoners near it. But the eastern would not permit this. An old Wyandot informed me that he recollected seeing, when a boy, the remains of a cedar post or stake at which they used to burn prisoners. The French historians tell us that these neutral cities were inhabited, and their neutral character respected when they first came here. At length a quarrel arose between the two cities, and one destroyed the inhabitants of the other. This put an end to all neutrality. Where the town of Lower Sandusky now stands there was a picketed fortification, embracing about an acre of land, called Fort Stevenson. It was both a garrison and a trading house. The works were not sufficiently capacious to accommodate more than about two hundred men. The defense of this fort was entrusted to a heroic young man, Major George Crogan, but twenty-one years of age. There were one hundred and sixty privates in the garrison. The officers were bold, vigorous, enthusiastic young men. The fort was on the west bank of the river, about twenty miles from its mouth. The only piece of artillery in the fort was one six-pounder. About twelve miles above Fort Stevenson there was another stockade called Fort Seneca. It was garrisoned by one hundred and forty men. General Harrison had selected this position as the best at which to rendezvous the troops which he was daily expecting from the interior. From that point he could dispatch his forces either up or down the river, to protect the large amount of property which was collected in the Valley of the Sandusky. General Clay immediately sent word to General Harrison that the enemy had left Fort Meigs, and had directed his course towards the Sandusky. A council of war decided that Fort Stevenson was not tenable against a force approaching it with heavy artillery. General Harrison sent an order by Mr. Connor and HISTORY OF OHIO - 655 two Indians, to Major Crogan to abandon Stevenson, set fire to the fort, destroy all the property he could not bring away with him, and retreat to Seneca. But in the night the messenger became lost in the forest and did not reach the fort until II o'clock the next day. But then it was too late to retreat, as Indian bands were already hovering around the fort in considerable force General Harrison had previously said to him : " Should the British troops approach you in force with cannon and you can discover them in time to effect a retreat, you will do so immediately, destroying all the public stores. You must be aware that the attempt.to retreat in the face of an Indian force would be vain. Against the Indians you would be safe in garri son, however great the numbers." Major Crogan, finding that he could not retreat, sent back the following answer, which he worded in reference to the great prob ability that it would fall into the hands of the enemy. He wished. to deceive the enemy into the conviction that he had ample force to repel any of his attacks : "SIR— I have just received yours of yesterday, 10 o'clock P.M., ordering me to destroy this place, and make good my retreat. It came too late to be carried into execution. We have determined to maintain this place, and by heavens we can." General Harrison not understanding the motive which dictated, this response, was much displeased. He immediately sent another. order by Colonels Wells and Ball, supported by a corps of dragoons. The spicy order, signed by the adjutant general, was as follows " July 30, 1813. " SIR-The general has received your letter of this date informing him that you had thought proper to disobey the order issued. from this office, and delivered to you this morning. It appears, that the information which dictated the order was incorrect ; and as you did not receive it in the night, as was expected, it might have been proper that you should have reported the circumstance and your situation, before you proceeded to its execution. This might have been passed over. But I am directed to say to you that an officer who presumes to aver that he has made his resolution, and that he will act in direct opposition to the orders of his general, can no longer be entrusted with a separate command. Colonel Wells is sent to relieve you. You will deliver the coin- 656 - HISTORY OF OHIO, mand to him, and repair with Colonel Bell's squadron to this place. " By command of General Harrison. " A. H. HOLMES, Adjutant General." The dispatch reached the fort in safety. Crogan was arrested and carried to headquarters by the dragoons. On their return to Fort Seneca they encountered a party of twelve Indians and shot eleven of them. General Harrison was perfectly satisfied with the explanation which Major Crogan gave him. He kept him for the night, treating him with the utmost kindness, and the next morning restored him to his command. Upon his return to Fort Stevenson Major Crogan immediately dispatched a reconnoitering party down the river. The troops returned with the report that the boats of the enemy were just entering the stream. The Indians also began to show themselves in force on the opposite side of the river. A few discharges from the six-pounder compelled them to retire out of sight. Soon the British gun-boats came in sight, and' landed their troops about a mile below the fort ; and the Indians, four thousand in number, began to display themselves in all directions. The troops effected a landing unopposed, and they soon placed in position a five and a half inch howitzer to open fire upon the fort. General Proctor then sent Major Chambers forward. with a flag of truce to summon a surrender. Major Crogan dispatched Ensign Shipp out of the gates to meet him. After the usual ceremonies, the British officer communicated the following message to be borne to Major Crogan : " General Proctor demands the surrender of the fort, as he is anxious to spare the effusion of blood. He can easily reduce the fort with the powerful force of artillery, British regulars and Indians he has under his command. But in that case he cannot possibly restrain his Indian allies. All the garrison will inevitably be massacred.' He then of his own accord, as if appalled by the horrible scenes he had already witnessed, added : " It is a great pity that such a fine young man as you are should fall into the hands of the savages. I intreat you, sir, for God's sake, to surrender, and prevent the dreadful massacre which will be caused by your resistance. We are amply prepared to take the fort, and it cannot possibly hold out against us." HISTORY OF OHIO - 657 Ensign Shipp replied : " The commandant of the fort and his garrison are determined to defend it to the last extremity. No force, however great, can induce them to surrender. They are resolved to maintain their post or bury themselves in its ruins. The fort will not be given up while there is a man to resist. When taken, there will be none left to massacre." The enemy now opened fire from their six pounders in the gun boats and from the howitzer on shore. The bombardment was continued almost without intermission through the night, though it produced but little effect upon the works. The fire was directed against the northwest angle. This led Major Crogan to suppose that the attempt to storm the works would be made at that point. He withheld his own fire, as it could effect but little, and he wished to save his ammunition. He, however, occasionally fired, moving his gun from place to place, to lead the foe to believe that he had many pieces in the fort. The fort was surrounded by .a dry ditch, nine feet wide, and six feet deep. On the middle of the north line of the fort there was a block-house, from which this ditch could be raked, in either direction, by artillery. Major Crogan placed his one cannon in this bastion, and had it loaded almost to the muzzle, with slugs and grape-shot. During the night General Proctor landed three of his six pounders, and placed them in battery at a distance of but about two hundred and .fifty yards from the fort. From this battery and the howitzer he concentrated an intense fire upon the northwestern angle of the fort. Major Crogan strengthened the point, thus assailed, as much as possible with bags of sand. Late in the evening of that day, when the smoke of the firing had completely enveloped the fort, General Proctor pushed forward a strong column of British regulars to the assault. They had arrived within twenty paces of the fort before they were discerned through the smoke and the darkness. A galling fire of musketry, from the fort, was instantly poured in upon them. But with bravery characteristic of British soldiers, they pressed forward and leaped into the ditch, led by their commander, Colonel Short. The masked port-hole was instantly opened. The muzzle of the six-pounder was thurst out. There was a thunderous explosion; and a terrific storm of grape-shot and slugs, tore through the crashing bones and quivering nerves of more than three hun- 658 - HISTORY OF OHIO. fired men, at the distance of but a few feet from the deadly weapon. The carnage was horrible. It was supposed that nearly fifty were struck down by that one discharge. A precipitate and tumultuous retreat ensued. All the efforts of the officers to rally the then for another assault were in vain. Two other columns attacked the fort as feints. They were both easily repelled by a shower of lead, thrown with the unerring aim of the riflemen. Colonel Short, who commanded the regulars composing the forlorn hope, was ordering his men to leap the ditch, cut down the pickets and give the Americans no quarters, when he fell mortally wounded into the ditch. He hoisted his white handkerchief on the end of his sword, and begged for that mercy which he had, a moment before, ordered to be denied to his enemy. During the assault, which lasted about half an hour, the enemy kept up an incessant fire from their howitzer, and from their battery of five-pounders. In this short time the total loss of the enemy was not less than one hundred and fifty. The garrison reported but one killed and seven slightly wounded. The routed foe fled into the adjoining woods, beyond the reach of the fire-arms of the garrison. The wounded, in the ditch, were in a dreadful situation, hour' after hour. The garrison could not rally to their relief, for Indian sharp-shooters were prowling all around, watching for their prey. Neither side could, with safety, afford them any refuge, Major Crogan passed some water over the picketing, in buckets, for the poor mulitated, bleeding, dying creatures, who were but the victims of the crimes of their superiors. A hole was also cut under the pickets, through which all who were able, were urged to crawl into the fort, where they were cared for with the utmost tenderness. Others crept away to a distance where they were rescued by their friends. It was known by the British commander, that General Harrison was up the river, but a few miles, with a rapidly accumulating force. He had supposed that he could easily take Fort Stevenson, and that then, within its intrenchments, he could bid defiance to any force which could march upon him from up the river. But having utterly failed in his attack, and receiving exaggerated reports of the forces accumulated in the fort above, he was quite terror stricken. He could place but little reliance upon the Indians, who would never meet their foes in the open field. He had with him but a thousand British troops. HISTORY OF OHIO - 659 At any moment he might see the solid columns of the Americans sweeping down upon him with artillery and infantry. They would line the shores of the river, and protected by the trees, would pour in upon his crowded barges a murderous fire. Thus the danger was imminent that his whole detachment might be cut off, being either killed or captured. Consequently, with the utmost precipitation, the British regulars fled to their boats in the gloom of midnight. So great was their haste that they left one boat behind containing some clothing and a considerable quantity of military stores. Seventy stand of arms, and also several brace of pistols, were the next day picked up by the garrison around the fort. General Harrison, when the assault commenced, learned by the firing that the enemy had only light artillery. He was confident that they could not thus make any serious impression upon the fort. He knew that any attempt to storm it without having first made an effective breach would prove unavailing. As he was expecting the arrival of two hundred and fifty mounted volunteers every hour, the advance-guard of seven hundred infantry, he decided not to move upon ProctOr until they should reach him. He sent several scouts through the woods to spy out the condition of the fort and the foe. But they found the forest so swarming with Indians that they could make no important discovery. Major Crogan, however, sent a courier who, in the darkness of the night, succeeded in eluding the Indian bands and conveyed to General Harrison the intelligence that the enemy was preparing to retreat. General Harrison now decided to wait no longer for the infantry. The dragoons reached Fort Seneca early in the morning. The general immediately set out for Fort Stevenson, leaving orders for the infantry to follow immediately upon their arrival. But the enemy had all disappeared. The British had descended the river in their boats, and the Indians had fled across the country in the direction of Fort Meigs. In General Harrison's official report of this affair he writes: "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. He is, however, a hero worthy of his gallant uncle, General George R. Clarke. "   CHAPTER XXXV. WAR AND ITS WOES. PEACE AND ITS ISSUES. THE FLEETS ON LAKE ERIE - PERRY'S VICTORY - DETROIT AND MICHIGAN REGAINED - SPEECH OF TECUMSEH - THE BATTLE OF THE THAMES- DEATH OF TECUMSEH - TESTIMONY OF MR, ATWATER - THE TREATY OF GHENT - ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE CAPITOL - THE SQUIRREL HUNT - ANECDOTES OF THE WYANDOTS - REV. MR. FINLEY'S MISSION - TREATIES WITH THE INDIANS - EXTINGUISHMENT OF ALL THEIR CLAIMS - INDIAN SUPERSTITION-THE FIRST STEAMER ON THE OHIO - PHENOMENA OF THE EARTHQUAKE. GENERAL PROCTOR, with his British troops, made all possible haste back to his fort at Malden. The siege had roused all the military energies of the State of Ohio, and troops, from all quarters, were hurrying to the Sandusky. But when they arrived there, there was no foe to be found. Sufficient preparations had not yet been made to attempt the recovery of Detroit. General Harrison was therefore under the necessity of dismissing most of the soldiers, as there was nothing for them to do, and they were only consuming the provisions. In the meantime both parties were making vigorous preparations for a naval battle which would decide who should have command of the lake with all its shores. Ship carpenters were busily employed at Erie, in Pennsylvania, and at some other ports, in building vessels of war. In a few months nine vessels were ready for service, carrying, in all, fifty-four guns, and manned by about six hundred sailors and marines. The fleet, in preparation for the great conflict, anchored just off the mouth of Sandusky Bay. Thence Commodore Perry, who was in command of the squadron, sailed to Put-in-Bay, a harbor on one of the islands of the lake, about thirty miles from Malden, where the British squadron was riding at anchor. It consisted of six vessels under Commodore Barclay, carrying sixty- HISTORY OF OHIO - 661 four guns, manned Jy a crew of about eight hundred. About sunrise of the l0th of September the British fleet was discerned, under full sail, in the distant western horizon. Commodore Perry immediately got under way, and forming in line of battle, bore up upon the enemy. He hoisted his flag with the motto, Do n't give up the Ship. It was greeted with repeated cheers by the crews. The lightness of the wind occasioned the hostile squadrons to approach each other but slowly, and prolonged for two hours the solemn interest of suspense and anxiety which precedes a battle. The order and regularity of naval discipline heightened the dreadful quiet of the moment. No noise, no bustle, prevailed to distract the mind, except at intervals the shrill piping of the boatswain's whistle, or a murmuring whisper among the men who stood around their guns with lighted matches, narrowly watching the movements of the foe, and sometimes stealing a glance at the countenances of their commanders. In this manner the hostile fleets gradually neared each other in awful silence. At fifteen minutes after eleven, a bugle was sounded on board the enemy's headmost ship, the Detroit, loud cheers burst from all their crews, and a tremendous fire was opened upon Commodore Perry's flagship, the Lawrence, from the British long guns, which, from the shortness of the guns of the Lawrence, she was obliged to sustain for forty minutes without firing a shot. * Their shot pierced the sides of the Lawrence, striking down the men, and killing the wounded in the berth deck and steerage, where they had been carried to be dressed. It seemed to be the plan of the British commander first to destroy the Lawrence. All his largest vessels gathered around her, and opened upon the doomed ship a terrible fire. Every brace and bowline was soon cut away. The wind was so light and in such a direction that the other vessels could not come to her aid. For two hours the ship sustained this awful bombardment, while but two or three of her guns could be brought to bear upon her antagonists. The most perfect discipline was maintained as the men passed through this fearful ordeal. As fast as the men were wounded at the guns they were taken below, and others promptly stepped into their places. The dead were left where they fell until the close of the action. The Lawrence was reduced to a perfect wreck. Her * Perkins' Late War. 39 662 - HISTORY OF OHIO. decks were red with blood, and the mangled bodies of the slain were scattered all around. Nearly every gun was dismounted. All the crew, except three or four, had been either killed or wounded. The last gun capable of service was worked by the commodore and his officers. It was now two o'clock in the afternoon. Captain Elliot, in command of the Niagara, succeeded by the aid of the light breeze in bringing his ship into close action. " The commodore immediately determined to shift his flag on board that ship. Giving his own in charge of Lieutenant Yarnell, he hauled down his union jack, and taking it under his arm, ordered a boat to put him on board the Niagara. Broadsides were leveled at his boat, and a shower of musketry from three of the enemy's ships. He arrived safe, and hoisted his union jack with its animating motto on board the Niagara. " Captain Elliot, by direction of the commodore, immediately put off in a boat to bring up the schooners, which had been kept back by the lightness of the wind At this moment the flag of the Lawrence was hauled down. She had sustained the principal force of the enemy's fire for two hours, and was rendered incapable of defense. Any further show of resistance would have been a useless sacrifice of the relics of her brave and mangled crew. The enemy were also so crippled that they were unable to take possession or her, and circumstances soon enabled her crew again to hoist her flag. " Commodore Perry now gave the signal to all the vessels for close action. The small vessels, under the direction of Captain Elliot, got out their sweeps and made all sail. Finding the Niagara but little injured, the commander determined upon the bold and desperate expedient of breaking the enemy's line. He accordingly bore up and passed the head of the two ships and brig, giving them a raking fire from his starboard guns, and also a raking fire upon a large schooner and sloop from his larboard quarter at half pistol-shot. Having gotten the whole squadron into action, he lulled, and laid his ship along side the British Commodore. The small vessels having now got up within good grape and canister distance, on the other quarter, enclosed their 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." * *Perkins' Late War. HISTORY OF OHIO - 665 This desperate engagement lasted for three hours. The victory obtained by Commodore Perry was complete. The loss on board of the American ships, in killed and wounded, was one hundred and twenty-four. Of these twenty-seven were killed outright. The British lost over two hundred in killed and wounded, and all the remainder of the crew, being more than six hundred in number, were made prisoners. Every British vessel fell into the hands of the victor. Commodore Perry immediately sent a dispatch to General Harrison, who had returned to Fort Meigs, saying, " We have met the enemy and they are ours." " The slain of the crews of both squadrons were consigned to burial in the depths of the still waters of the lake. The next day the funeral obsequies of the American and British officers who had fallen were performed at an opening on the margin of the bay, in an appropriate and affecting manner. The crews of both fleets united in the ceremony. The stillness of the weather, the procession of boats, the music, the slow and regular motion of the oars, striking in exact time with notes of the solemn dirge, the mournful waving of the flags, the sound of the minute-guns from all the ships, and the wild and solitary aspect of the place gave to these funeral rites a most impressive influence, and formed an affecting contrast with the terrible struggle of the preceding day. Then the people of the two squadrons were engaged in the deadly strife of arms. Now they were associated as brothers to pay the last tribute of respect to the slain of both nations." The importance of this victory was incalculable. It was fought near the western extremity of Lake Erie, and in waters within the boundaries of the State of Ohio. The fate of the British Commodore, Barclay, was melancholy indeed. He had lost one arm at Trafalgar. And now, in addition to the terrible and humiliating defeat he had encountered, he lost the other. This was a doom far more dreadful than death. Commodore Perry, in his official dispatch, spoke in the highest terms of respect and commiseration for his wounded antagonist, and begged leave to grant him an immediate parole. The roar of the cannonade was distinctly heard at Malden. An allied force of British and Indians, amounting to five thousand five hundred men, was at that fort anxiously awaiting the result. The defeat of the British squadron would render it necessary for them immediately to vacate their works. General Proctor tried, 666 - HISTORY OF OHIO. for a time, to conceal the disaster from the Indians. But the eagle eye of Tecumseh immediately detected the indications of a retreat. Demanding an interview with General Proctor, for whom he had but little respect, he thus addressed him : " In the war before this, with the Americans, you gave the hatchet to the Indians when our old chiefs were alive. They are now dead. In that war the British were thrown flat upon their backs by the Americans. You took them by the hand and made peace without consulting us. We fear you will do so again. When this war was declared our British father gave us the tomahawk and told us that he wanted our assistance, and that he would certainly get back for us our lands, which the Americans had taken from us. " You told us to bring our families here, and promised to take care of them, and that while our men went out to fight the Americans our women and children should want for nothing. Your fleet has gone out ; we know that they have fought ; we have heard the great guns. But we know not what has happened to the chief with one arm. Your ships have gone one way, and we are much surprised to see our father tying up everything and preparing to run in the other direction. You always told us to remain here, and declared that you would never take your foot from British ground. Now we see that you are drawing back, without waiting to get sight of the enemy. We must compare our father to a fat dog, who, when afrighted, drops his tail between his legs and runs away. " The Americans have not yet defeated us by land. We are not sure that they have by water. We therefore wish to remain here and fight our enemy, should they make their appearance. If they defeat us we will then retreat. " At the battle of the Rapids, in the last war, the Americans certainly defeated us. And when we fled to the British fort the gates were shut against us. We were afraid that it might be so again ; but instead of that we see our British friends preparing themselves to flee from their garrison. You have the arms and ammunition which our British father sent for his red children. If you intend to go away give them to us, and then you may go and welcome. Our lives are in the hands of the Great Spirit. We are determined to defend Our lands, and if it be His will we wish to be buried beneath them." HISTORY OF OHIO - 667 On the 28th September, only eighteen days after Perry's victory, General Harrison landed a force of nearly three thousand men at but a short distance from Malden, and marched upon the works. But he founded them deserted. The fortress and all the storehouses were in ashes. The next day General Harrison with his troops re- crossed the river and took possession of Detroit. There was no force there to resist him. The vast peninsula of Michigan was thus again restored to the United States. General Proctor, with his disheartened Indian allies, was on the rapid retreat towards the heart of Canada. There was a considerable river, called the Thames, flowing from the east through a wild and entirely unbroken wilderness and emptying into Lake St. Clair. Proctor was slowly and laboriously retreating along this pathless valley, encountering inumerable obstacles. General Harrison, having speedily consolidated his conquest at Detroit, on the 2d of October crossed the river to the Canadian shore, and commenced the vigorous pursuit of the foe. He had an admirable army of a little over three thousand men, including a regiment of mounted infantry under Colonel Johnson. Accustomed to Indian warfare, he moved rapidly, but with the greatest caution. On the 5th of the month his army overtook the retreating foe. General Proctor had posted himself very strongly, with the River Thames protecting one flank, and an almost impassable marsh the other. The Indians occupied a very dense forest just beyond the swamp. The battle-field was about eighty miles northeast from the mouth of the Thames. In General Harrison's official account of the battle he writes : " I determined to break the British line at once, by a charge of the mounted infantry I placed myself at the head of the front line of infantry to direct the movements of the cavalry and to give the necessary support. The army had moved on in this order but a short distance, when the mounted men received the fire of the British line, and were ordered to charge. The horses in front of the column recoiled from the fire. Our column, at length getting into motion, broke through the enemy with irresistible force. In one minute the contest in front was over. The British officers, seeing no hopes of reducing their disordered ranks to order, and our mounted men wheeling upon them and pouring in a destructive fire, immediately surrendered. It is certain that three only 668 - HISTORY OF OHIO of our troops were wounded in this charge. In one minute the contest in front was over." General Harrison marched from Detroit with thirty-five hundred men. He left on the way, or held in reserve, one thousand. Thus he brought into the battle about twenty-five hundred. General Proctor had one thousand British regulars, and twenty-five hundred Indians, under Tecumseh. Proctor, seeing his British troops utterly routed, succeeded in effecting his escape with two hundred dragoons. General Harrison then turned all his force upon the Indians. The savages fought very-persistently for a time from behind the trees. But at length, having lost their leader and a large number of their bravest warriors, they fled precipitately with yells into the thick woods, where no mounted foe could follow them. The defeat of the British army was entire. Proctor lost, of his regular troops, sixty-nine in killed and wounded. Six hundred of his soldiers and officers were taken prisoners. The Indians left one hundred and fifty dead on the field of battle. Among the slain was their renowned chieftain, Tecumseh. The artillery which was taken from the British with Burgoyne at Saratoga, and which General Hull had surrendered at Detroit, was all captured. The question is often asked, "Who killed Tecumseh ? " The following narrative, given by Mr. Caleb Atwater, would seem to settle that question : "In this action Tecumseh was killed, which circumstance has given rise to almost innumerable fictions. The writer's opportunity for knowing the truth is equal to that of any person now living. He was personally very well acquainted with that celebrated warrior. He accompanied Tecumseh, Elsquataway, Fourlegs and Caraymaunee on their tour among the Six Nations in New York in 1809, and acted as their interpreter among those Indians. In 1829, at Prairie Du Chien, the two latter Indians, both then civil chiefs of the Winnebagos, were with the writer, who was then acting as Commissioner of Indian Affairs in the United States service. "From the statement of these constant companions of Tecumseh during nearly twenty years of his life, we proceed to state that Tecumseh lay with his warriors at the commencement of the battle, in a forest of thick underbrush on the left of the American army. These Indians were at no period of the battle out of the HISTORY OF OHIO - 669 thick underbrush. No officer was seen between them and the American army. Tecumseh fell at the very first fire of the Kentucky dragoons, pierced by thirty bullets, and was carried four or five miles into the thick woods, and was there buried by the warriors who told the story of his fate. " This account was repeated to me three several times, word for word, and neither of the relators ever knew the fictions to which Tecumseh's death had given rise. Some of these fictions originated in the mischievous design of ridiculing the person who is said to have killed this savage, and who, by-the-by, killed no one, that day at least, either red or white. General Harrison, who planned this well-fought and successful battle, has never been applauded for what he so richly merited, while an individual, a subordinate, who merely did his duty, as every other officer and soldier did, has been applauded to the very echo for killing an Indian ! If that had been true, he deserved no more credit than any one common soldier in the engagement. "A few Mohawks, and some other Indian chiefs and warriors belonging to the Canadian Indians about Lake Ontario, were mixed with the British regulars in the front line of the enemy. Some of these savages were killed in the action, and the remainder of these Indians on horseback fled with Proctor. The Indian found dead belonged to these Indians, and not to the Winnebagos or Shawanese, who, in this battle, lay in ambush beyond a morass on the left of the American army." The annihilation of the British fleet on Lake Erie, the re-conquest of Detroit, and the utter overthrow and dispersion of the British army at the battle of the Thames, brought peace to the northwestern frontier. The population of Ohio was now three hundred thousand. At the conclusion of Wayne's war, eighteen years before, it numbered but five thousand. The battle of the Thames was fought on the 5th of October, 1813. President Madison, in his message to Congress of November 4, 1812, speaking of this employment of the savages by the British, writes : " The enemy has not scrupled to call to his aid the ruthless ferocity of the savages, armed with instruments of carnage and torture, which are known to spare neither age nor sex. In this outrage against the laws of honorable war, and against the feelings sacred to humanity, the British commanders cannot resort to 670 - HISTORY OF OHIO. the plea of retaliation, for it is committed in the face of our example. They cannot mitigate it by calling it self-defense against men in arms, for it embraces the most shocking butcheries of defenseless families. Nor can it be pretended that they are not answerable for the atrocities perpetrated, for the savages are employed with a knowledge, and even with menaces, that their fury cannot be controlled. Such is the spectacle which the deputed authorities of a nation boasting its religion and morality have not refrained from presenting to an enlightened age." Peace was made with Great Britain at Ghent, on the 24th of December, 1814. The Indians, after the fall of Tecumseh, renounced all hope of arresting the advances of the white men. Tribe after tribe renounced its hunting-grounds, and, receiving in exchange rich annuities from the United States, retired beyond the Mississippi. Previous to the year 1812 there was no permanent state capital in Ohio. In the year 1816 the state government was established at Columbus. The sessions of the Legislature were held at Chillicothe until 1810, and then at Zanesville. In 1812 the high bank of the Scioto River, just opposite Franklinton, was selected by a committee of the Legislature as a site for the future capital. The region was then an unbroken wilderness. In December, 1816, the state authorities met there for the first time in legislative session. The location was very beautiful, and was on the same parallel of latitude with Philadelphia, from which it was distant four hundred and fifty miles. It was also on the same longitude with Detroit, being one hundred and seventy miles south of that city. The proprietors of the land entered into a contract with the state. The town, covered with the primeval forest, was carefully surveyed and laid out, and on the 18th of June, 1812, the first sale of lots by public auction was held. On that day war was declared with Great Britain. The city grew very rapidly, emigrants flowing in from all quarters. A curious incident occurred in Columbus in the year 1822, which is worthy of record. The Columbus Gazette of August 29 contains the following notice : " Grand Squirrel Hunt. The squirrels are becoming so numerous in the county as to threaten serious injury, if not destruction, to the hopes of the farmer during the ensuing fall. Much good might be done by a general turn out of all citizens whose conven- 672 - HISTORY OF OHIO. ience will permit, for two or three days, in order to prevent the alarming ravages of these mischievous neighbors. It is therefore respectfully submitted to the different townships, each to meet and choose two or three of their citizens in a hunting caucus at the house of Christian Heyl, on Saturday, the 31st instant, at two o'clock P. M. Should the time above stated prove to be too short for the townships to hold meetings as above recommended, the following persons are respectfully nominated and invited to attend the meeting at Columbus." Thirty-four persons were then nominated from the several townships. A subsequent paper says, " The hunt was conducted agreeably to the instructions in our last paper. On counting the scalps it appeared that nineteen thousand six hundred and sixty scalps were produced. It is impossible to say what number in all were killed, as a great many of the hunters did not come in." Continuous efforts were now made to extinguish the Indian titles to all their lands within the state. During the year 1817 Honora- ble Lewis Cass and Honorable Duncan Walker met a large delegation of the Indian chiefs at the foot of the Maumee Rapids, and succeeded in purchasing an immense expanse of territory. The Wyandots reserved twelve miles square in Wyandot County, on the Upper Sandusky, and there were also two other very small reservations. The Wyandots were considered the bravest of all the Indian tribes. Several of their chiefs were men, not only of highly moral, but of religious character. In the early occupation of Canada by the French, the Catholics, with a spirit of devotion and self-sacrifice which has never been surpassed, established a mission there. The first Protestant who preached to them was John Stewart, a mulatto, of the Methodist denomination. He was followed by a regularly established mission of the Methodist Church. Rev. James B. Finley, one of the best of men, formed a church here and organized a school. One of the Wyandot chiefs, Between-theLogs, became quite a celebrated preacher. Another of these Christian chiefs, Sum-mun-de-wat, was brutally murdered by some miscreant white men. He had been out, accompanied by his family, on a hunting expedition in the wilderness of what is now Hancock County. He had returned to his lodge with a good supply of food, and was sitting with his wife and children at his fire when three white men entered. The HISTORY OF OHIO - 673 hospitable Indian treated them with the utmost kindness. His wife immediately cooked a supper for them. Sum-mun-de-wat,, after they had finished their supper, according to his custom, kneeled with his wife and children in family prayer. He then provided his guests with a comfortable couch of skins for sleep. In the night these wretches rose and murdered the chief and his wife, and plundered the lodge of all its valuables. They were so bold and unblushing in this crime that they were easily arrested. They were, however, allowed to escape, and were never punished. In speaking of this case, Colonel Johnston says, that in a period of fifty-three years, since he first went to the West, he never knew of but one instance in which a white man was tried, convicted, and executed for the murder of an Indian. Such were the outrages which often stung the Indians to madness. This one exception was brought about by the efficient action of Colonel Johnston himself, aided by the promptness of the Hon. John C.. Calhoun, who was then Secretary of War. He took an interest in bringing the offender to justice, which was very unusual on the part of the officers of our government. Rev. Mr. Finley, in his interesting History of the Wyandot Mission, often alludes to this Christian chieftain. The following anecdotes which he relates will be read with interest : "Sum-mun-de-wat amused me after he came home by relating a circumstance which occurred one cold evening just before sundown. I met,' said he, on a small path not far from my camp a man who asked me if I could talk English. I said, " Little." He ask me, " How far is it to a house ? I answer, " I don't know, maybe ten miles, maybe eight miles." " Is there a path leading to it? " " No ; by-and-by dis go out (pointing to the path they were on), then all wood. You go home with me, sleep, me go. show you to-morrow." "'Then he came to my camp ; so take horse, tie, give him some corn and brush, then my wife give him some supper. He ask me where I come. I say Sandusky.' He say, You know Finley ? Yes,' I say. He is my brother, my father.' Then he say, He is my brother.' Then I feel something in my heart burn. I say, You preacher ? ' He say, Yes ;' and I shook hands and say, My brother ! Then we try talk. Then I say, You sing and pray.' So he did. Then he say to me, Sing and pray.' So L did; and I so much cry I can't pray. No go sleep ; I can't, I 674 - HISTORY OF OHIO. wake, my heart full. All night I pray and praise God, for He send me preacher to sleep in my camp. Next morning soon come, and he want to go. Then I show him through the woods, until we come to big road. Then he took me by hand and say, Farewell, brother ; by-and-by we meet up in Heaven.' Then me cry, and my brother cry. We part ; I go hunt. All day I cry, and no see deer jump up and run away. Then I go and pray by some log. My heart so full of joy that I cannot walk much. I say, 'I cannot hunt.' Sometimes I sing. Then I stop and clap my hands and look up to God, my Heavenly Father. Then the love come so fast in my heart I can hardly stand. So I went home, and said, This is my happiest day.' " Rev. Mr. Finley relates another anecdote of one of these Wyandot chiefs, who, subsequently to the event here recorded, became a Christian. He was one of the most brave and sagacious of their warriors, and was selected by the tribe to kill Adam Poe, who resided in a lonely hut near the mouth of the Yellow Stone River. We have previously described the desperate conflict in which Poe and his party killed five out of six of an Indian band. " The Wyandots chose chief Rohn-yen-ness as a proper person to kill him, and then make his escape. He went to Poe's houSe, and was met with great friendship. Poe not having any suspicion of his design, the best in the house was furnished him. When the time to retire to sleep came, he made a pallet on the floor for his Indian guest to sleep. He and his wife went to bed in the Same room. Rohn-yen-ness said that they both soon feel asleep. There being no person about the house but some children, this afforded him a fair opportunity to execute his purpose ; but the kindness they had both shown him worked in his mind. He asked himself how he could get up and kill even an enemy that had taken him in and treated him so well, so much like a brother. "The more he thought about it the worse he felt. But still, on the other hand, he was sent by his nation to avenge the death of two of its most valiant warriors ; and their spirits would not be appeased until the blood of Poe was shed. There he said he lay, in this conflict of mind, until about midnight. The duty he owed to his nation and the spirits of his departed friends aroused him. He seized his knife and tomahawk and crept to the bedside of his sleeping host. Again the kindness which he had received from Toe stared him in the face ; and he said, ' It is mean—it is un- HISTORY OF OHIO - 675 worthy the character of an Indian warrior to kill even an enemy who has so kindly treated him.' He went back to his pallet and slept till morning. "His kind friend loaded him with blessings, and told him that they were once enemies, but that now they had buried the hatchet and were brothers, and that he hoped they would always be so. Rohn-yan-ness, overwhelmed with a sense of the generous treatment he had received from his once powerful enemy, but now his kind friend, left him to join his party. He said that the more he reflected on what he had done, and the course he had pursued, the more he was convinced that he had done right. This once revengeful savage warrior was overcome by the kindness of an evening, and all his plans frustrated. This man became one of the most pious and devoted of the Indian converts. Although a chief, he was as humble as a child. He used his steady influence against the traders and their fire-water." In the treaty which Messrs. Cass and Walker made with the Indians at the Maumee Rapids, in 1819, the Delawares retained a tract of three miles square on the south side of the Wyandot tract. The Senecas also reserved forty thousand acres on the east side of Sandusky River, mainly in Seneca County. But in the year 1829 the Delawares ceded their reservation to the United States; and the Senecas theirs in 1831. In the year 1842 the Wyandots surrendered their territory also. And thus every foot of the soil of Ohio passed from the red men, who had so long roved its savage wilderness, into the hands of the white man, who was destined to make the wilderness bud and bloom as the rose. Mr. Brish relates the following incident as illustrative of the superstition of the Seneca Indians, and of the composure with which their warriors would meet. The tribe had diminished to about four hundred souls. About the year 1825 three of the prominent chiefs went on an excursion to seek a new home and fresh hunting-grounds for their people. Their names were Coonstick, Steel and Cracked Hoof. They returned after an absence of nearly three years. Coonstick and Steel were brothers. They left behind them an older brother, Comstock, who was chief of the tribe, and a younger brother, John The two brothers who went West finding, on their return, that their elder brother, Comstock, was dead, and that their younger 676 - HISTORY OF OHIO. brother was chief in his stead, charged John with having caused the death of Comstock by witchcraft. He denied the charge most earnestly. " I loved my brother Comstock," said he, " more than I loved the green earth I stand upon. I would give up myself, limb by limb, piecemeal by piecemeal I would shed my blood, drop by drop, to restore him to life." But his protestations of innocence and love for his brother were all unavailing. His brothers told him that he must die, and that it was their duty to be his executioners. John calmly replied: " I am willing to die. I ask only that you will allow me to live until to-morrow morning, that I may see the sun rise once more. I will sleep to-night in the porch of Hard Hickory's lodge, which fronts the east. There you will find me at sunrise." They acceded to this request. Coonstick and Steel, awaiting the morning when they were to kill their brother, passed the night in a lodge near by. In the morning they proceeded to the but of Hard Hickory, who himself told this story to Mr. Bliss. He said that just as the sun was rising he heard the approaching footsteps of the brothers, and opened the door of his but to peep out. There he saw John asleep, wrapped in his blanket. His brothers awoke him. He rose and took from his head a large handkerchief which was wound around it. His hair, which was very long, fell upon his shoulders. The doomed chief looked calmly around for the last time upon the landscape and upon the rising sun, taking evidently a farewell view, and then said to his brothers that he was ready to die. The brothers had brought with them another Indian warrior by the name of Shane. Coonstick with Shane each took John by the arm, and led him along towards the place of his execution. Steel followed behind, with his gleaming tomahawk in his hand. They had advanced about ten steps from the porch when Steel struck his brother a heavy blow with his tomahawk upon the back of his head. He fell to the ground as the blood gushed from the dreadful wound. Supposing him to be killed, they dragged him beneath a tree near by. There, perceiving signs of life, Steel drew his knife and cut his brother's throat from ear to ear. The next day the corpse was buried with the customary Indian ceremonies. This horrible scene occurred in Seneca County, Ohio, in the HISTORY OF OHIO - 677 year 1828. Steel was arrested and tried in Sandusky County, and was acquitted. When the tribe removed far away beyond the Mississippi, the two brothers carefully leveled the ground around the grave, so that no vestige of the burial might remain. The first steamboat which descended the Ohio River was called the New Orleans. It was a vessel of about four hundred tons burden, and was built at Pittsburgh in 181i. The success which bad attended steam navigation on the Hudson led to a careful examination of the western rivers, to ascertain their adaptation to be navigated by steam. The result was that this first boat was built, which was designed to ply between Natchez and New Orleans. In October, 1811, the boat commenced its adventurous voyage down the whole length of the Ohio and the Mississippi. As the object was merely to convey the boat to her station, no freight or passengers were taken. The distance from Pittsburgh to the mouth of the Ohio is nine hundred and fifty-nine miles. From the mouth of the Ohio to New Orleans there is another thousand miles of water to be traversed. As wood was burned, and there were no wood-yards on the way, many delays were unavoidable. The only persons on board the boat were Mr. Rosevelt, of New York, his young wife and family, Mr. Baker, the engineer, Andrew Jack, the pilot, six hands and a few domestics. Mr. Rosevelt was the agent of Chancellor Livingston and Mr. Fulton, Who, it would seem, had caused the boat to be built. Mr. Rosevelt, in surveying the stream, had discovered two beds of coal, about one hundred and twenty miles below the rapids of Louisville, on the Indiana side of the river. He took some tools with him to try the experiment of using that fuel. The voyage down the river from Pittsburgh to Louisville, of seven hundred miles, was accomplished in seventy hours, being at the rate of ten miles an hour, aided by the current. The novel appearance of the boat, and the fearful rapidity with which it seemed to rush through the waters, upon which only flat-bottomed boats had thus far appeared floating upon the current, excited the amazement of all who dwelt upon the banks of the lonely stream. The boat entered Louisville in the middle of a bright moonlight night. The strange noise created by the steam rushing through the valves, as the boat rounded to at the landing, created a general alarm in the settlement. The citizens generally 678 - HISTORY OF OHIO. rose from their beds, and come out in the streets to ascertain the cause of the strange disturbance. In consequence of the small depth of water upon the rapids, the boat was detained at Louisville for three weeks. It improved the time in running several trips between Louisville and Cincinnati. The last week in November the waters rose, and the steamer resumed her voyage. We transcribe from the Great West, with some slight abbreviation, an account of the fearful earthquakes which were soon encountered. When the steamer arrived about five miles above the Yellow Banks, they moored the boat opposite the first vein of coal, and which had been purchased in the interim of the government of Indiana. They found a large quantity already quarried to their hand, and conveyed to the shore by the depredators, who had not found means to remove it. With this they commenced loading their boat. While thus employed they were accosted in great alarm by the people of the neighborhood, who inquired if they had not heard strange noises on the river and in the woods in the course of the day. The said that the shores of the river shook, and that they had repeatedly felt the earth tremble beneath their feet. Hitherto nothing extraordinary had been perceived on board the boat. The following day they pursued their monotonous voyage in those vast solitudes. The weather was observed to be oppressively hot ; the air was misty, still and dull. Though the sun was visible, like a glowing ball of copper, his rays hardly shed more than a mournful twilight on the surface of the Water. Evening drew nigh, and with it some indications of what was passing around them became evident. As they sat on deck, ever and anon they heard a rushing sound and violent splash, and large portions of the shore tearing away from the land and falling into the river. It was an awful day; so still that you could have heard a pin drop upon the deck. They spoke little, for every one appeared thunderstruck. The second day after leaving the Yellow Banks, the sun, hanging over the forest, presented the same dim ball of fire, and the air was thick, dull and oppressive as before. The portentous signs of this terrible natural convulsion continued and increased. The pilot, alarmed and confused, affirmed that he was lost, as he found the channel everywhere altered. Where he had hitherto HISTORY OF OHIO - 681 known deep water there lay numberless trees with their roots upward. The trees were seen waving and nodding on the bank without a wind; but the adventurers had no choice but to continue their route. Towards evening they found themselves at a loss for a place of shelter. They had usually brought to under the shore; but everywhere they saw the high banks disappearing, overwhelming many a flat-boat and raft, from which their owners had landed and escaped. A large island which had been in the mid-channel of the river, and which the pilot knew very well, was sought for in vain. It had entirely disappeared. Thus, in doubt and terror, they proceeded hour after hour until dark, when they found a small island and moored themselves at its foot. Here they lay, keeping watch on deck during the long winter's night, listening to the sound of the waters, which roared and gurgled horribly around them ; and hearing, from time to time, the rushing earth slide from the shore, and the commotion as the falling mass of earth and trees was swallowed up by the river. The lady of the party, who was in very delicate health, having a babe in her arms, who was born as their boat lay off Louisville, was frequently awakened from her restless slumber by the jar given to the furniture and loose articles in the cabin, as several times in the course of the night the shock of the passing earthquake was communicated from the island to the bow of the vessel. It was a long night. But the morning showed them that they were near the mouth of the Ohio. The shores and channel were now not recognizable. Everything seemed changed. About noon of that day they reached the small town of New Madrid, on the right bank of the Mississippi. Here they found the inhabitants in the greatest distress and consternation. Part of the population had fled in terror to the higher grounds, others begged to be taken on board, as the earth was opening in fissures on every side, and their houses were hourly falling around them. Proceeding thence they found the Mississippi unusually swollen, turbid and full of trees. After many days of great danger, though they felt and perceived no more of the earthquakes, they reached their destination at Natchez, at the close of the first week in January, 1812, to the astonishment of all. The escape of the boat had been considered an impossibility. 40 682 - HISTORY OF OHIO. The Orleans continued to run between New Orleans and Natchez for a couple of years. She was then wrecked near Baton Rouge, by striking on a snag. In the course of a few years several other steamers were built and launched on the Western rivers. The confidence of the community in these boats was of slow growth. But when, in the Spring of 1817, a boat of four hundred tons made the voyage from Louisville to New Orleans and back in forty-five days, the universal voice declared that steamboats on the western waters were proved to be a success. CHAPTER XXXVI. PHYSICAL AND MENTAL PHENOMENA. THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE - EXTENT OF THE AGITATION- SINGULAR EFFECTS- INFLUENCE UPON THE MINDS OF THE PEOPLE - ANECDOTES - TERROR AND SUFFERING - ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY - THE GREAT TORNADO - ITS FEARFUL POWER - DEVASTATION - WONDERFUL EFFECTS - SINGULAR BODILY PHENOMENA - THE JERKS - ITS RISE AND PROGRESS -GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION - SOLOMON SPAULDING'S BOOK - JOE SMITH - HIS CHARACTER AND CUNNING - SPREAD OF THE DELUSION-THE MORMONS DRIVEN FROM OHIO. THE GREAT earthquake to which we have alluded in the last chapter, was an event so extraordinary that it calls for a more minute record. It not only shook the whole majestic Valley of the Mississippi to the center, but the Alleghany Mountains trembled beneath its gigantic throes, and its convulsions agitated the waves of the Atlantic. The subterranean forces which could have produced such results, must have been of inconceivable magnitude. The region on the west bank of the Mississippi, and in the southern part of the State of Missouri, seems to have been the center of the most violent shocks. The first shock occurred on the night of the 15th of December, 1811. They were repeated at intervals for two or three months. These shocks, in their terrible upheavings of the earth, equal any phenomena of the kind of which history gives any record. The country was very thinly settled, and there were but few educated men in the whole region who could philosophically note the phenomena which were witnessed. Fortunately, most of the houses were very frail, being built of logs. Such structures would sway to and fro with the surgings of the earth, but they were not easily thrown down. Vast tracts of land were precipitated into the turbid, foaming current of the Mississippi. The graveyard at New Madrid was, at one swoop, torn   684 - HISTORY OF OHIO. away, and with all its mouldering dead was swept down the stream. Most of the houses in New Madrid were destroyed. Large regions of forest, miles in extent, suddenly sank, disappearing entirely, while the waters rushed in, forming upon the spot almost fathomless lakes. Other lakes were drained, leaving only vast basins of mud, where apparently for centuries in the solitudes of the forest the waves had rolled. The whole wilderness territory, extending from the mouth of the Ohio three hundred miles to the St. Francis, was so convulsed as to create lakes and islands, ravines and marshes, whose numbers never can be fully known. There were some effects produced which it was very difficult to account for. Large trees were split through the heart of the tough wood. They were thrown together and their branches were almost inextricably intertwined. They were inclined in every direction, and were lodged in every angle towards the earth and the horizon. The undulations of the earth resembled the surges of a tempest-lashed ocean, the billows ever increasing in magnitude. At the greatest elevation these earth-billows would burst open, and water, sand and coal would be ejected as high as the loftiest trees. Some of the chasms thus created were very deep. Wide districts were covered by a shower of small white sand, like the ground after a snow-storm. This spread of desolation would render the region quite uninhabitable. Other immense tracts were flooded with water from a few inches to a few feet deep. As the water subsided, the coating of barren sand was left behind. " Indeed, it must have been a scene of horror in these deep forests and in the gloom of the darkest night, and by wading in the water to the middle to fly from these concussions which were occurring every few hours with a noise equally terrible to beasts and birds as to men. The birds themselves lost all power and disposition to fly, and retreated to the bosoms of men their fellow sufferers in this general convulsion. A few persons sank in these chasms, and were providentially extricated. A number perished who sank with their boats in the Mississippi. A bursting of the earth just below the village of New Madrid arrested the mighty Mississippi in its course, and caused a reflux of its waves by which in a little time a great number of boats were swept by the ascending current into the mouth of the bayou, carried out and left upon the dry earth when the accumulating waters of the river had HISTORY OF OHIO - 685 again cleared the current. The remainder of this account I give mainly as it is recorded in " The Great West " : There were a number of severe shocks, but the two series of concussions were particularly terrible ; far more so than the rest. The shocks were clearly distinguishable into two classes — those in which the motion was horizontal, and those in which it was perpendicular. The 'latter were attended with explosions, and the terrible mixture of noises that preceded and accompanied the earthquakes in a louder degree, but were by no means so desolating and destructive as the other. The houses crumbled, the trees waved together, the ground sunk ; while ever and anon vivid flashes of lightning, gleaming through the troubled clouds of night, rendered the darkness doubly horrible. After the severest shocks a dense black cloud of vapor overshadowed the land, through which no struggling sunbeam found its way to cheer the heart of man. The sulphurated gases that were discharged during the shocks tainted the air with their noxious effluvia, and so impregnated the water of the river for one hundred and fifty miles as to render it unfit for use. In the intervals of the earthquake there was one evening, and that a brilliant and cloudless one, in which the western sky was a continued glare of repeated peals of subterranean thunder, seeming to proceed, as the flashes did, from below the horizon. The night which was so conspicuous for subterranean thunder, was the same period in which the fatal earthquakes at Caracas, in South America, occurred, and it is supposed that these flashes and those events were part of the same scene. One result from these terrible phenomena was very obvious. The people in this region had been noted for their profligacy and impiety. In the midst of these soenes of terror all, Catholics and Protestants, the prayerful and the profane, became of one religion and partook of one feeling. Two hundred people, speaking English, French and Spanish, crowded together, their visages pale, the mothers embracing their children. As soon as the omen which preceded the earthquake became visible, as soon as the air became a little obscured, as though a sudden mist rose from the east, all in their different languages and forms, but all deeply in earnest, betook themselves to the voice of prayer. The cattle, much terrified, crowded about the people, seeking to demand protection or community of danger. 686 - HISTORY OF OHIO. The general impulse, when the shocks commenced, was to run.. And yet when they were at the severest point of their motion, the people were thrown upon the ground at almost every step. A French gentlemen told me that, in escaping from his house, the largest in the village, he found that he had left an infant behind; and he attempted to mount up the raised piazza to recover the child, and was thrown down a dozen times in succession. The venerable lady in whose dwelling we lodged was extricated from the ruins of her house, having lost everything that appertained to her establishment which could be broken or destroyed. The people at the Little Prairie who suffered most had their settlement, which consisted of a hundred families, and which was located in a rich and fertile bottom, broken up. When I passed it, and stopped to contemplate the traces of the catastrophe, which remained after several .years, the crevices where the earth had burst were sufficiently manifest, and the whole region was, covered with sand to the depth of two or three feet. The surface. was red with oxydized pyrites of iron, and the sand blows, as they were called, were abundantly mixed with this kind of earth and with pieces of pit coal. But two families remained of the whole settlement. The object seems to have been, in the first paroxysm of alarm, to escape to the hills. The depth of water that soon covered the surface precluded escape. The people without exception were unlettered backwoodsmen of the class least addicted to reasoning. And yet it is remarkable how ingeniously and conclusively they reasoned from apprehension sharpened by fear. They observed that the chasms in the earth were in the direction from southwest to northeast, and they were of an extent to swallow up not only men, but houses, down. deep into the pit. And these chasms occurred frequently, within intervals of half a mile. They felled the tallest trees at right angles to the chasms, and stationed themselves upon the felled. trees. Meantime their cattle and harvests, both there and at New Madrid, principally perished. The people no longer dared to dwell in houses. They passed that Winter and the succeeding one in bark booths and camps like those of the Indians, of so light a texture as not to expose the inhabitants to danger in case of their being thrown down.. Such numbers of laden boats were wrecked above the Mississippi, and the lading driven into the eddy at the mouth of the bayou at: HISTORY OF OHIO - 687 the village which makes the harbor, that the people were amply provided with provisions of every kind. Flour, beef, pork, bacon, butter, cheese, apples, in short everything that is carried down the river, was in such abundance as scarcely to be matters of sale. Many of the boats that came safely into the bayou were disposed of by the affrighted owners for a trifle, for the shocks continued daily, and the owners deeming the whole country below sunk, were glad to return to the upper country as fast as possible. In effect a great many islands were sunk, new ones raised, and the bed of the river very much changed in every respect. After the earthquake had moderated in violence, the country exhibited a melancholy aspect of chasms, of sand covering the earth, of trees thrown down, or lying at an angle of forty-five degrees, a split in the middle. The Little Prairie settlement was broken up. The Great Prairie settlement, one of the most flourishing before on the west bank of the Mississippi, was much diminished. New Madrid dwindled into insignificance and decay, the people trembling in their miserable hovels at the distant and melancholy rumbling of the approaching shocks. The general government passed an act allowing the inhabitants of the country to locate the same quantity of lands that they possessed here in any part of the territory where the lands were not yet covered by any claim. These claims passed into the hands of speculators, and were never of any substantial benefit to the possessors. When I resided there this district, formerly so level, rich and beautiful, had the most melancholy of all aspects of decay. The tokens of former cultivation and habitancy were now mementos of desolation and desertion. Large and beautiful orchards were left unenclosed, houses were deserted, and deep chasms in the earth were obvious at frequent intervals. Such was the face of the country, although the people had for years become so accustomed to frequent and small shocks, which did no essential injury, that the lands were gradually rising again in value, and New Madrid was slowly rebuilding with frail buildings adapted to the apprehensions of the people. Another very remarkable phenomenon, which occurred a few years after the great earthquake, is worthy of special record. On the 18th of May, 1825, there occurred one of the most violent tornadoes of which history gives any account. It has usually been called the " Burlington Storm," because its greatest severity 688 - HISTORY OF OHIO. was experienced in that township. It commenced between one and two o'clock in the afternoon in Delaware County, upon the upper waters of the Scioto, and in the very heart of the state. It seemed for a time with incredible fury to sweep the surface of the earth of Ohio. It then apparently rose into the air, rushing along above the tops of the highest trees. Soon it desoended with increased violence and tore its destructive way in an easterly direction, through Licking, Knox, and Coshocton Counties. Its general.course was a little north of east. The force and violence of the wind which accompanied this tempest have probably never been equaled in a northern latitude. Gigantic forests were instantly uprooted, and enormous trees were whirled like feathers through the air. Some were carried several miles. There was no strength of trunk or root which for a single instant could withstand the assault. Cows, oxen and horses were lifted bodily from the ground and carried to the distance of one or two hundred rods. There was a creek flooded with recent rains over which the tornado passed. The gale so emptied it of its flood that in a few minutes there was only a small, trickling stream to be seen in its bed. There had been so much rain that the roads were very muddy and the fields were like sponges saturated with water. The tornado seemed to dispel every particle of moisture, and both roads and fields were left dry and almost dusty. The track of the tornado through Licking County was about two-thirds of a mile in breadth, gradually increasing as the blast advanced. The air was so filled with trees, buildings, and every kind of debris, whirled as high as the clouds, that the spectacles resembled immense birds pressing along in hurried flight. The very ground trembled beneath the gigantic tread of this terrific storm. Many persons who were at the distance of more than a mild from the track of the tornado testified that they distinctly felt the earth to vibrate beneath their feet. Those who experienced the fury of the tempest state that the roar of the wind, the darkened sky, the trembling of the earth, the crash of falling timbers, and the air filled with trees, fragments of houses and cattle, presented a spectacle awful in the extreme. The cloud from which this terrific power seemed to emerge was black as midnight. It was thought by some careful observers that it rushed along at the rate of about a mile a minute. It some- HISTORY OF OHIO - 691 times seemed to sink low to the ground, and again to rise some distance above the surface. Tremendous as was the velocity of the storm, sweeping in one continuous course, it is remarkable that no one could tell from the fallen timber in which direction the wind had blown, for the trees were spread in every way. There were many well authenticated incidents which seem almost incredible. An iron chain, about four feet long, and of the size of a commo plow chain, was lifted from the ground and hurled through th air, with almost the velocity of a shot from a gun, for the distance of half a mile, and was there lodged in the topmost branches of a maple tree. A large ox was carried eighty rods and was then so burried beneath a mass of fallen trees that it required several hours chopping to extricate the animal, which, strange to say, was not materially injured. From the same field with the ox a cow was carried forty rods, and was lodged in the thick branches of a tree. The tree was blown down and the cow was killed. An ox cart was carried through the air forty rods, and was then dashed to the ground with such violence as to break the tough axle and to entirely demolish one of the wheels. Colonel Wright had a house strongly built of heavy logs. His on was standing in the doorway when the gale struck him, and hurled him across the room with such violence as to kill him instantly. The house was torn in pieces. A coat which was hanging up in the same house, was found six months afterwards in Coshocton County, more than forty miles from the demolished building. It was taken back to Colonel Wright's and was clearly identified. Many light articles, such as shingles, books and pieces of furniture, were carried twenty and thirty miles. A little girl, Sarah Robb, twelve years of age, was taken from her father's house, lifted several feet from the earth, and carried more than an eighth of a mile, when she was gently deposited upon the ground unharmed, as the gale left her Fortunately the tornado passed over a wilderness region very sparsely settled, and but three lives were lost. Having thus alluded to remarkable physical phenomena, we ought not pass in silence a mental phenomenon, totally inexplicable upon any known principles of intellectual philosophy, and yet thoroughly attested by competent witnesses. The Rev. Joseph Badger was the first missionary on the Western Reserve. He graduated at Yale College about the year 1785, 692 - HISTORY OF OHIO. and was the highly esteemed pastor of the Congregational Church in Blanford, Massachusetts, for fourteen years. He was a man of enterprising spirit as well as fervent piety, and became deeply interested in the religious welfare of the Indians in Northern Ohio. Aided by a missionary society he visited the country, and was so well satisfied that a field of usefulness was opened before him there, that he returned for his family and took up his residence among the Wyandots of the Upper Sandusky, extending his services to the tribes on the Maumee. His labors among the Indians and the scattered inhabitants of the Reserve were very arduous, but interesting and valuable. He was appointed by Governor Meigs chaplain in the northern army as war broke out with England. He was in Fort Meigs during the memorable siege of 1813, and was afterwards attached to General Harrison's command. Mr. Badger had a high reputation for sound judgment, energy of character and superior intellectual endowments. He died in 1846, at the age of eighty-nine. Quite a powerful revival of religion commenced under his preaching in the Towns of Austinburg, Morgan and Harpersfield, where, at that time, 1803, he was alternately preaching. The revival was attended by a strange bodily agitation called the jerks. We find in The Historical Collections of Ohio a very graphic account of this strange occurrence. It was familiarly called the jerks, and the first recorded instance of its occurrence was at a sacrament in East Tennessee, when several hundred of both sexes were seized with this strange. and involuntary contortion. The subject was instantaneously seized with spasms or convulsions in every muscle, nerve and tendon. His head was thrown backward and forward and from side to side with inconceivable rapidity. So swift was the motion that the features could no more be discerned than the spokes of a wheel can be seen when revolving with the greatest velocity. No man could voluntarily accomplish the movement. Great fears were often awakened lest the neck should be dislocated. The whole body was often similarly affected, and the individual was driven, notwithstanding all his efforts to prevent it, in the church over pews and benches, and in the open air over stones and the trunks of fallen trees, so that his escape from bruised and mangled limbs seemed almost miraculous. It was of no avail to attempt to hold or restrain one thus affected. The paroxysm HISTORY OF OHIO - 693 continued until it gradually exhausted itself. Moreover, all were impressed with the conviction that there was something supernatural in these convulsions, and that it was opposing the spirit of God to attempt by violence to resist them. These spasmodic contortions commenced with a simple jerking of the forearm, from the elbow to the hand, violent, and as ungoverned by the will as what is called the shaking palsy would be. The jerks were very sudden, following each other at short intervals. Gradually and resistlessly they extended through the arms to the muscles of the neck, the legs, and all other parts of the body. The convulsions of the neck were the most frightful to behold. The bosom heaved ; the features were greatly distorted, and so violent were the spasms that it seemed impossible but that the neck must be broken. When the hair was long, as was frequently the case with these backwoodsmen, it was often thrown backward and forward with such velocity that it would actually snap like a whip-lash. We are not informed whether the victim suffered pain under these inflictions or not. An eye witness gives the following graphic description of this inexplicable phenomenon : " Nothing in nature could better represent this strange and unaccountable operation than for one to goad another alternately on every side with a piece of red hot iron. The exercise commonly began in the head, which would fly backward and forward and from side to side with a quick jolt, which the person would naturally labor to suppress, but in vain ; and the more any one labored to stay himself and be sober, the more he staggered and the more his twitches increased. He must necessarily go as he was inclined, whether with a violent dash on the ground and bounce from place to place like a foot-ball, or hop, around with head, limbs, and trunk twitching and jotting in every direction, as if they must inevitably fly assunder. And how such could escape without injury was no small wonder among spectators. " By this strange operation the human frame was commonly so, transformed and disfigured as to lose every trace of its natural appearance. Sometimes the head would be twitched right and left, to a half round, with such velocity that not a feature could be discovered, but the face appeared as much behind as before ; and in the quick, progressive jerk, it would seem as if the person was transmuted into some other species of creature. Head-dresses. 694 - HISTORY OF OHIO. were of little account among the female jerkers. Even handkerchiefs, bound tight round the head, would be flirted off almost with the first twitch, and the hair put into the utmost confusion. This was a very great inconvenience, to redress which the generality were shorn, though contrary to their confession of faith. Such as were seized with jerks were wrested at once, not only from their own government, but that of every one else, so that it was dangerous to attempt confining them or touching them in any manner, to whatever danger they were exposed. Yet few were hurt, except it were such as rebelled against the operation through wilful and deliberate enmity, and refused to comply with the injunctions which it came to enforce. All who witnessed this unaccountable movement agree in the declaration that the convulsions were not only involuntary but resistless. Stout, burly, wicked men, would come to the meetings in scorn and to revile. Suddenly the paroxysms would seize them, and they would be whirled about and tossed in every direction, though cursing at every jerk. Travelers passing by, and who from curiosity looked in upon the religious meetings, would be thus seized. These facts are apparently as well authenticated as any facts can be from human testimony. There is no philosophy which can explain them. The faithful historian can only give them record and leave them there. In this same County of Ashtabula, laved by the waters of Lake Erie, where the jerks were so prominently exhibited, Mormonism, one of the most amazing and incomprehensible fanaticisms of earth, seems to have had its birth. Mr. Solomon Spaulding. About the year 1809 he moved to Conneaut, where the first settlement of the Connecticut Reserve had been commenced about twelve years before. He seems to have been a very worthy man, and was for a time a preacher of the Gospel. He probably was not successful in this calling, and turned his attention to mercantile affairs, in which he also failed. The theory was then advocated by many speculative men that the Indians were descendants of the Jews, of the lost tribe of Israel. Several books and pamphlets had been published in advocacy of that view. Conneaut was rich in monuments, mounds and fortifications, relics of a past race. Mr. Spaulding, a man of eccentric tastes and habits, and of considerable antiquarian lore, became quite HISTORY OF OHIO - 695 interested in the subject of the origin of the aborigines of our country. As the past was entirely buried in obscurity, he undertook to write an imaginary narrative of the wanderings of the lost tribes. The book was intended as a historical romance written in the style of the Bible, and founded upon the supposition that the American Indians were descendants of the Jews. Mr. Spaulding's brother John visited him while he was writing the book, which he entitled " Manuscript Found." John writes : " It gave a detailed account of the journey of the Jews from Jerusalem, by land and sea, till they arrived in America. They afterwards had quarrels and contentions., and separated into two distinct nations. Cruel and bloody wars ensued, in which great multitudes were slain. They buried their dead in large heaps, which caused the mounds so common in this country. Their arts, sciences and civilization were brought into view, in order to account for all the curious antiquities found in various parts of North and South America." Mr. John Spaulding testifies that the Mormon Bible, so called, is essentially this book. Mr. Henry Lake, of Conneaut, also corroborates this testimony, in the following emphatic words : " I left the State of New York late in the year 1810, and arrived at Conneaut the 1st of January following. Soon after my arrival I formed a co-partnership with Solomon Spaulding, for the purpose of rebuilding a forge, which he had commenced a year or two before. He very frequently read to me from a manuscript which he was writing, which he entitled the ' Manuscript Found,' and which he represented as being found in this town. I spent many hours in hearing him read said writings, and became well acquainted with their contents. He wished me to assist him in getting his production printed, alleging that a book of that kind would meet with a rapid sale. I designed doing so, but the forge not meeting our anticipations, we failed in business, when I declined having anything to do with the publication of the book. " This book represented the American Indians as the descendants of the lost tribes, gave an account of their leaving Jerusalem, their contentions and wars, which were many and great. One time, when he was reading to me the tragic account of Laban, I pointed out to him what I considered an inconsistency, which he promised to correct. But by referring to the Book of Mormon, I 696 - HISTORY OF OHIO. find, to my surprise, that it stands there just as he read it to me then. Some months ago I borrowed the Mormon Bible, put it into my pocket, carried it home, and thought no more about it. "About a week after my wife found the book in my coat-pocket, as it hung up, and commenced reading it aloud, as I lay upon the bed. She had read but a few minutes till I was astonished to find the same passages in it that Spaulding had read to me more than twenty years before from his ' Manuscript Found.' Since then I have more fully examined the said Mormon Bible, and have no hesitancy in saying that the historical part of it is principally, if not wholly, taken from the ' Manuscript Found.' I well recollect telling Mr. Spaulding, that the so frequent use of the words : ' And it came to pass,' Now it came to pass,' rendered it ridiculous. Mr. Spaulding left here in 1812, and I furnished him means to carry him to Pittsburgh, where he said he would get the book printed and pay me. But I never heard any more from him or his writings, till I saw them in the Book of Mormon." The testimony of six other witnesses is equally explicit upon this point. Mr. Spaulding was vain of his writings, and was continually reading them to his neighbors. It is much easier to write such a book than it is to get a publisher who is willing to risk his capital by issuing it from the press. Mr. Spaulding could not find a publisher for his book. What disposition he made of the manuscript is not known. He remained in Pittsburgh two or three years and died in Amity in 1816. Several years afterwards, when this manuscript, with sundry additions and alterations, appeared as the Morman Bible Solomon Spaulding's widow testified that it was her impression that her husband took the manuscript to the publishing house of Messrs. Patterson and Lambdin, but that she did not know whether it was ever returned. In the meantime Mr. Lambdin had died. The establishment was broken up. Mr. Patterson had no remembrance of any such manuscript. He said, however, that many manuscripts were at that time brought to the office and remained upon the shelves even for years unexamined. About the year 1823, a man by the name of Sidney Rigdon, came to Pittsburgh. He was a very eccentric character, with an unbalanced mind, and somewhat of a monomaniac upon the subject of the Bible. He had been a wandering preacher, without any special ecelesiastical connection. He became very intimate HISTORY OF OHIO - 697 with Mr. Lambdin, was often in the printing office, where all the manuscripts, which were candidates for publication, were on the shelves. For three years he deemed it is duty to abandon all other employment, even preaching, that he might devote his whole time to the study of the Bible. He is described, by those who knew him, as a man of some versatility, a kind of religious Ishmaelite, sometimes a Campbellite preacher, and sometimes a printer, and at all times fond of technical disputations in theology. This man, looking over the manuscripts, fell upon Mr. Spaulding's, which he read and re-read with the greatest interest. It was peculiarly adapted to his half-crazed state of mind. He be-'came so much absorbed in the work that he copied it, as he himself frequently stated.* Mr. Rigdon, in his wanderings, fell in with a very singular man, known as Joe Smith. He professed to possess certain arts of divination, by which there were revealed to him treasures hidden in the ground. He was, at that time, digging for money on the banks of the Susquehanna. He is represented, by those opposed to his pretensions, as a man of low associates, averse to all regular industry, very voluble in speech, having great self-confidence, and with unusual powers of duping others. He had some seer stones, by which he could look into futurity, as well as into the bowels of the earth. Smith was ever traveling about the country, appearing suddenly and in unexpected places. He was confined to no particular branch of business. At times he would be very active in a religious revival, praying and exhorting with unusual fervor, in that exuberance of words which he had wonderfully at his command. The human mind is so singular in its varied operations that it is very difficult to tell where hypocrisy loses itself in a sort of sincerity of fanaticism. Joe Smith and Sidney Rigdon, both fanatics and monomaniacs, taking the Manuscript Found as their guide, undoubtedly originated the system of Mormonism. It is by no means certain that in deluding others, they did not in a certain degree delude themselves into a belief that they were guided by the movements of the Holy Spirit to establish a new religion. Smith was endowed with the requisite cunning and volubility. He had seer stones, in which the illiterate had faith. Be had already exhumed from the Indian mounds many mys- * See Utah and the Mormons, by Benjamin G. Ferris. 698 - HISTORY OF OHIO. terious antiquities, not a few of which, it was conjectured, were of his own manufacture. Sidney was a printer, a preacher, who had but to open his mouth and there came from it a wonderful flow of religious verbiage; and he had Spaulding's manuscript not only in his hand but thoroughly in his mind. Joe Smith had the commanding energies and that self-confidence which nothing could embarrass or cause to blush. He took the lead in the new enterprise, being sagaciously guided by events as they occurred. "A portion of mankind," writes Mr. Ferris, "have been looking for the last days for the past eighteen hundred years, and at the period in question were ready to run into Millerism, or any other ism, whereby their notions could be accommodated in this respect. A prophet, therefore, who could superadd to the discovery of a golden Bible, a proclamation of the speedy destruction of all mundane things, a power of attorney for the restoration of an authorized priesthood, and the gathering of the saints, and make a formidable display of miraculous powers, was the most acceptable gift which could be made to popular superstition. Here then would seem to have been combined the elements of an imposture which has since branched out and gathered strength, until it has become the most noted instance in modern times of the development and growth of religious fanaticism." Joe Smith's story is as follows: He says that in the year 1820, as he in a retired place was earnestly engaged in prayer, two angels appeared to him. They informed him that God had forgiven all his sins, and that he was the chosen instrument to introduce a new dispensation ; that all the then religious denomination were in error; that the Indians were the descendants of the lost tribes; that they had brought with them to this country inspired writings; that these writings were safely deposited in a secret place, and that he was selected by God to receive them, and translate them into the English tongue. There was considerable negotiation before the angel condescended to put the plates into his hands. At length the angel informed him where they were to be found About four miles from Palmyra, New York, there was a small hill or mound. Smith dug down on the left side of this mound and found a large stone box so carefully sealed that no moisture could enter it. Here the plates were found. Orson Pratt, one of the first converts to HISTORY OF OHIO - 699 Mormonism, and one of its most distinguished advocates, gives the following account of the plates as then found: "These records were engraved on plates which had the appearance of gold. Each plate was not far from seven by eight inches in width and length, being not quite so thick as common tin. They were filled on both sides with engravings, in Egyptian characters, and were bound together in a volume, as the leaves of a book, and fastened at one edge with three rings running through the whole. This volume was something like six inches in thickness, a part of which was sealed. " The characters or letters upon the unsealed part were small and beautifully engraved. The whole book exhibited many marks of antiquity in its construction, as well as much skill in the art of engraving. With the record was found a curious instrument, called by the ancients the Urim and Thummin, which consisted of two transparent stones, clear as crystal, set in the two rims of a bow. This was in use in ancient times by persons called seers. It was an instrument by the use of which they received revelation of things distant or of things past or future." Joe Smith boldly exhibited these apparently golden plates, but no unsanctified hands were permitted to touch them. He also showed a very highly polished marble box, which he said had contained the plates, and which in that case must have miraculously retained its lustre for countless centuries. But it had been observed some time before that Joe Smith, his brother Hiram, and another man by the name of McKnight, were very busily employed in some secret work, which particularly engrossed theif time in hours of darkness. It was suspected that they were engaged in some counterfeiting operations. According to Joe Smith's account, they were engaged in lonely vigils and in prayer. It was emphatically true of the new prophet that he had but very little honor in his own country. His peculiar claims excited ridicule and contempt. Mobs beset his house, demanding a sight of the famous plates. At length the annoyance became so great that he fled from Palmyra and took refuge in the Northern part of Pennsylvania, where his father-in-law resided. He secreted his plates for the journey in a barrel of beans. Being quietly housed in his retreat, he commenced, by divine inspiration, translating the Egyptian hieroglyphics. As he scarcely knew how to write himself he employed a scribe, one Oliver Cowdry. Stationed behind a 41