300 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO the American pressure, just as American domination into this section entered and extended in a military way from Kentucky and later from the United States army base at Fort Washington, so did settlement, commerce, education, religion, and the secondary phases of development enter by way of Cincinnati, and by and through the Symmes Purchase. It cannot be affirmed too strongly nor with too much repetition that West Central Ohio roots at the mouths of the Miamis, that her genesis is at Cincinnati, her origins in Kentucky and backward to Virginia with strong and almost equal influences from Pennsylvania. To New England both by direct contact and via Marietta, West Central Ohio is indebted for text books, tariffs, tin peddlers, theologians, teachers, politicians, pettifoggers, and a bland assumption of social and political paternity. CHAPTER XXXV HARMAR AND ST. CLAIR MILITARY CONDITIONS-HARMER DISGRACED-THE GIRTY'S-WASHINGTON APPOINTS ST. CLAIR-ST. CLAIR SENDS TWO EXPEDITIONS-INDIANS DECLARE WAR. Debt burdened farmers and mortgaged homesteaders of the East, once these Ohio lands were opened to settlement, came with a rush. The Ohio was a procession of flat boats. Fort Finney and Fort Harmar saw them pass daily. The Indian saw them also. He read the sign aright. The white race had leaped the Ohio. There were 600 United States Regulars in the Ohio forts and 6,000 Indian warriors in the Ohio and Indiana woods. It was to be battle to the death. Joseph Brant, Iroquois chief, after writing British officials that the Iroquois had sold themselves to the Devil (Yankees) added that the Shawnees, Miamis and Kickapoos would not give up their horse stealing or any part of their country. Barred by this red array settlement could not safely leave the vicinity of Fort Washington. West Central Ohio waited for the final test of strength. Governor Arthur St. Clair was writing Washington of the situation and went to attend his inauguration where he must have discussed the Ohio situation. St. Clair was back to Fort Washington by January, 1790. Emissaries were sent to the tribes, one Antoine Gamelin, an Indian trader. The Piankeshaws and Kickapoos farther west referred the matter to their elder brethren the Miamis. Here - 301 - 302 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO was an acknowledgment that the Miamis with the recent humiliation of the Shawnees were now Ohio Indian leaders. But the Miamis diplomatically in turn referred the question of peace to other Ohio tribes, Lake Indians and the British commandant at Detroit. Le Gris spoke for the Miamis, Blue Jacket for the Shawnees. The latter seems to have succeeded Moluntha. He doubted the sincerity of the Big Knives. The Indians repudiated the Fort Harmar treaty of January 9, 1789, saying it was signed by "Young men" neither chiefs nor delegates from the tribes. When this survey of Indian sentiment was reported to St. Clair he hurried back from Kaskaskia determined to take war measures against the Indians and to direct the movement under General Harmar to the Miami country on the Maumee, sending the troops through West Central Ohio. Harmar had already in April, 1790, with 100 regulars and 230 Kentucky volunteers taken a flying swing around by Paint Creek in Ross county and back down the Scioto. This had merely flicked at the outlying villages and not touched the Indian strongholds which lay to the north and west of Fort Washington and not northeast. This march carried them out of West Central Ohio and Harmar's Defeat occurred outside the province of this volume. In brief the army destroyed six Miami villages, 20,000 bushels of corn in the ear and retraced toward Fort Washington. Harmar, resolved to retrieve the scant results of his advance party, sent back Colonel John Hardin and Major Wyllis, the latter with the regulars and the main battle opened on October 22, the Indians led by Little Turtle of the Miamis and Blue Jacket of the Shawnees. Some 230 Americans were killed or wounded, the Indians about 100 killed. The shattered remainder of Harmar's command got into Fort Washington November 3 after mutinies in which Harmar had threatened to turn the artillery on the militia. Harmar was disgraced, superceded in command in the spring of 1791 and Arthur St. Clair appointed by Washington to take HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 303 command. Richard Butler, a former Indian trader and commissioner at Fort Finney treaty, was made a major general and second in command. A court of inquiry afterwards exonerated Harmar. The Delawares from around Delaware, Marion, Morrow, Hardin, Logan and Allen counties joined with the Wyandottes in giving the New England settlers around Marietta a slight taste of Indian warfare and on January 8, 1791, eleven men, one woman and two children were massacred at Big Bottom, thirty miles up the Muskingum from Marietta. Simon Girty was flying about in the Ohio territory and had been back and busy therein for the past five years. Girty had been active trying to block every American treaty with the Indians by keeping away the tribesman. In fact Girty had gone to the Wyandottes and Delawares and succeeded in keeping them from the Fort Finney treaty and tried the same tactics vainly with the Shawnees. He was probably fully in touch with and likely James Girty was present at the great council held in October, 1785, at New Coshocton, three miles north of Bellefontaine in Logan county. This council in tribal representation exceeded the council of Wapatomica in 1782. Here were gathered the Delaware, Wyandottes, Shawnees, Mingoes, Cherokees, Pottawatomies, Kickapoos and Miamis while belts and speeches were sent by the Weatenons, Ottawas, Chippewas and Foxes. The proposed alliance against the Americans was not immediately productive of war. Congress the summer of 1790 empowered Washington to call out the militia in Western Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky to rendezvous at Fort Washington, September 15, 1790. It was a delicate situation. The new born American nation, struggling to set up a national government and still spent with the effort of the Revolution and the worse period that followed could not afford a war with England. That country in turn had the French Revolution breaking in Europe, with consequences unforseeable. 304 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Both the Americans and British eyed each other across West Central Ohio. Would the British back the Indians? Would the American use this volunteer army to seize the British posts retained in defiance of the treaty? The British strengthened the fort at Detroit in preparation for war. The eight years since the Revolution and the campaign of 1782 had almost hopelessly deteriorated the militia. Many of the Kentuckians were without guns, unused to the wood campaigning, without equipment for the camp. The Pennsylvanians were a motley crowd of young boys and old men hired by the thrifty Dutch as substitutes. These were mutinous while the Kentuckians were at feud over their choice of commanders. The army, numbering 1453 men including 320 regulars of almost equally poor caliber, moved out of Fort Washington September 26, 1790, under Josiah Harmar, lieutenant colonel of the First United States Infantry, and commander of what American army then existed. The army followed the old Clark trail up the Little Miami through Sharonville, Reading, Waynesville, Spring Valley, Xenia, Old Town, etc. October 3, they encamped thirty-one miles out of Fort Washington; October 4, forty-two miles out on a creek emptying into the Little Miami and on October 5 on Glade Creek, fifty-two miles out. They next pitched camp three miles north of Old Town (Chillicothe). This was north of Bowman's Defeat in 1779. On October 7, camp was pitched on Clark's old battlefield, Piqua on Mad River, four miles southwest of Springfield. The still existing traces of Clark's march to Piqua here stopped and Harmar headed for the Big Miami having detoured much out of his way while following the trace. The Big Miami was crossed on October 10 probably about Piqua and the army headed north along the stream, passing Loramie on October 11 and came to Girty's town on the Auglaize, named after James Girty, and later called St. Mary's. The army here turned and headed for the Miami villages at the forks of the Maumee (Fort Wayne). HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 305 St. Clair sent two expeditions in the summer of 1791 against the Wabash Indians. May 2, General Charles Scott and Colonel James Wilkinson (the infamous traitor) started for and destroyed Weatenon and on July 20, Wilkerson left Fort Washington for the Eel River. St. Clair did not get away on the main expedition against the Miami towns until September, 1791. On September 18 he started building Fort Hamilton (Hamilton) where he was joined by General Richard Butler. St. Clair had been made major general March 4. The descendants of General Peter Muhlenberg are said to relate that the general was first considered for the command but had offended Washington by his blunt Pennsylvanian Dutch rejoinder when Washington had consulted him as to what title should be used in addressing the President. Muhlenberg is said to have thought "Mr. President" sufficient. Whether true or not the choice of St. Clair was unfortunate. It did not have behind it as much prevision as the Duke of Cumberland's appointment of Braddock. The latter's military record and his abilities were far ahead of St. Clair's. The youthful Washington had criticized Braddock. The mature Washington appointed St. Clair. The latter was a Federalist and the naming of Fort Hamilton for the then secretary of treasury and the brilliant brains of the Washington administration may be a straw showing which way the winds blew. Hamilton's whole attitude toward the West was a bit askew such as to provoke from his indulgent mentor, Washington, the unusually tart comment at a later time when Hamilton would have yielded to the British on a boundary matter, that in Hamilton's proposal the cure was worse than the disease. St. Clair had 2,300 men; almost to a man the number Braddock had led in 1755. Otherwise the British war council had equipped Braddock far better than Washington and Hamilton equipped St. Clair. Just as Braddock's army was recruited in England from the scourings of the jails and streets so had been 306 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO St. Clair's. With the wide West open for enterprise only a ne'er do well or vagrant would take military service. There was the same contempt for the volunteers expressed by St. Clair's officers as had been the case with Braddock's survey of the colonial levies. Moluntha had in a long speech attempted to dissuade the Shawnees from this step which was to bring about his death but he was outvoted at the council. (See Butterfield, Life of Girty's, p. 235.) Richard Butler, Indian commissioner for the Americans had in turn been using Thomas Girty, older brother of Simon as American emissary. Simon mitigated his activities at this time in behalf of two American women, namely, Mary Moore and Mrs. Edward Cunningham. Following Harmar's Defeat Girty and McKee attended a grand council of the Indians held at the foot of the rapids of the Maumee, or Omee, Tawa or Miami of the Lakes, as variously called. Simon Girty was put in charge of the giving out of great quantities of supplies from the British to the Indians at this council held in December, 1790. A general war was declared by the Indians against the Americans. Girty solicited the command of a war party and went to the Fort Wayne area and recruited 300 with whom he marched over to the headwaters of the Big Miami and descended down to Dunlap's station, the most northernly from Fort Washington on the Big Miami twelve miles north of the present Cincinnati. Girty in this march must have come down through Van Wert County to Auglaize, through Shelby, Miami, Montgomery and Butler into Hamilton County following the river. This attack on Dunlap's station made on January 9, 1791, was fiercely conducted and is the only military operation conducted by Simon. Girty on Ohio soil in which he was in command. He was assisted by his brother, George, who had considerable military ability. The horrible torture of Abner Hunt on this occasion is outside the province of this work. (See Life of Girty's, p. 252.) HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 307 At this time the Symmes Purchase had 1,300 inhabitants as against 1,000 at Marietta. Of the two fingers of population the Americans were thrusting into the Indian territory Symmes, but a few months the younger had by 1790 become the larger. The affair at Dunlap's was on the direct march of population toward West Central Ohio, a preliminary as it were to the St. Clair campaign. However St. Clair had no such teriffic obstacles to encounter in the terrain as had baffled and held back Braddock. He had no mountains or rivers to cross and food was available. Like Braddock, St. Clair was old and had the gout. He was equally dictatorial, haughty and far less experienced in military matters. Braddock with a majority of disciplined troops could enforce his orders. Both Braddock and St. Clair had started with a neucleus of trained troops but Braddock had whipped and flogged discipline into his men along the march. Braddock's march was not made carelessly as so often claimed. St. Clair angled off through the present Preble County and came to a spot six miles south of the present Greenville in Darke County. This was forty-four miles from Fort Hamilton. Here he built a post and named it Fort Jefferson, a sop to Hamilton's rival. Singularly enough Hamilton County has always been Hamiltonian in politics while Darke County swears by Thomas Jefferson. By a coincidence Winthrop Sargent, adjutant general of St. Clair's army left the most detailed and authoritative account of the expedition and his son, Winthrop Sargent was author of the Braddock history. Since Sargent's account of St. Clair is not generally available, students are referred to Galbreath's History of Ohio where it is quoted at length. CHAPTER XXXVI ST. CLAIR'S DEFEAT INDIAN WARRIORS GATHER-THE BATTLE-DEATH OF BUTTER-THE ROUTE-INDIAN VICTORY. On the Indian side Butterfield's Life of the Girty's gives some information as does also Stone's Life of Brant. Once St. Clair had started the Indians soon surmised his destination. Little Turtle, of the Miamis, Blue Jacket the Shawnee and Buckongahelas of the Delawares rallied their tribes. Reinforcements came from the Delawares, Wyandottes, Ottawas, Kickapoos, Chippewas, Pottawatomies, also some Mohawks from Canada and even a few Creeks. In all about 1,500 warriors were gathered, with the two Girty's, McKee and Elliott of the British Indian department. James Girty was confining his activities to supplying munitions and the function he performed was rather that of a quartermaster than combatant. He is said to have never fought against the Americans after the Revolution ended. The wise trio of war chiefs detached a young Shawnee chief who was just back from the Southland and who had won his spurs in a few brushes with Simon Kenton and the Wards. He was to scout and report the progress of St. Clair while the chiefs rallied the tribes. This Shawnee was then twenty-three. His name was Tecumseh. To the cool, appraising eye of the young chief, St. Clair's march looked good for the Indian and so he reported. There was the same hienous failure to properly scout the advance such - 309 - 310 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO as had marked Braddock's march and with less excuse, for Braddock marched into a tangle of mountains while the country St. Clair was traversing was simply densely wooded but fairly level. Much as a fox, lolling behind a hillside stone might survey with cunning and laughingly scornful eye the bewildered questing of a mongrel pack, so did the chieftain regard this ragged march of militia and recently recruited regulars. Not such men as had followed Clark and whom he had seen dodging from tree to tree at Piqua and whose sure shooting had sown death along his fleeing path. With courage and high hope the Indian army hurried south. The deadly parallel with the Braddock battle was preserved. An irregular Indian army, veteran to the conditions under which it was to fight and with white men as mentors and instigators was rushing headlong to meet a discontented, poorly fed, inexperienced mass of men led by an old gouty general who could scarcely sit a horse. Just as Braddock had advanced slowly, cutting a road at every step, so came St. Clair, marching straight north from Ft. Jefferson through the present Greenville on through Darke County, toward the present Fort Recovery in the southwest corner of Mercer County and two or three miles from the Indiana line. The Indians were collecting from Girty's town (St. Mary's), and their scouting parties began to run into volunteer scouts of the militia who were out on their own, probably engaged in hunting and foraging. Desertions and sickness and garrisons left at Fort Hamilton and Fort Jefferson had reduced St. Clair to 1,400 men. The two opposing forces were about equal. November 3, 1791: An army settling down in the cold mud of the forest, chilled by long, incessant rains that have changed lately to skifts of snow. Night falling and the wind cold from the northeast, spitting snow. More is in the northeast than wind and it will spit hot hail by morning. Winter blowing its frigid breath over the wide wilderness. A chill damp that shakes HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 311 men's bones. Streaks of snow white as the ribs of death. Wind moans in the tree tops, unseen scalds harping high aloft. All day the wind has thrummed the forest harp, filling the air with thenodies, requiems, rising at times to a Banshee wailing. Now with night deepening the wind has hushed and held its breath a bit then walked slowly into the northwest. It has rolled back the clouds as if to give the galleries of heaven a glance at man's tiny peep show. They see a camp drawn in two lines along the low rise of ground fronting a branch of the Wabash River, just now a fordable stream some fifty feet wide. A winding stream, there some 300 feet away from the gently rising ground, here snaking to within seventy-five feet. Across the stream stretching over a wide bottom is a flat running into other gentle contours in the distance. Here on this high ground are encamped the militia some 900 feet from the stream and utterly detached from the main body. The main body lay down compacted together as so many sardines in a box. They lay in two lines of some 1,100 feet with about 200 feet between the parallel ranks. To their left was a ravine through which ran a small creek, the ravine strewn with old logs. The river bent round to the right and covered that flank. All round the land descended into flats and swamps. To a white man the place looked strong, high and dry with a water moat on each flank. To an Indian the white men seemed to sit packed together, unable to unroll and stretch out, cooped up in plain sight while all around ran declevities which covered the crouching warrior or swamps ready to entangle a charging foe. Over the white men rose a dense wood, not alone a wood of cathedral columns but a wood tangled with underbrush and fallen timbers, a wood that would fling long lines askew and separate and sever shoulder from shoulder. History is too often a page torn clear in two. Little is known of the night march of the Indians; perhaps a party of some fifteen 312 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO warriors driven from the camp site had been Tecumseh's scouting party. It would be a graphic page could it be said authoritatively that Tecumseh, rushing, panting through the cold November night, came loping up to the older war chiefs and cried to the tall, lance like Blue Jacket, the wrinkled, wise, crafty Buckongahelas, the keen, alert Little Turtle that the quarry was in the trap, that soldiers lay held fast in the arms of the swamps and river, that tonight was the night and now or never the time. The young chief, tracing the camp of St. Clair in the dust with his finger, his eyes flashing as eager suggestion as Napoleon bending over the war map at Toulon, the old chiefs smoking reflectively, the fire light flickering its dark shadows up and down, like dancing devils, McKee's cold face alight with diamond hard gleaming, flashing its facets of understanding, Elliott's Irish face aflush with the battle fever, Simon Girty's black brows beetling above his bold nose, the same thrust in McKee's ear like a trumpet to the deaf, whispering the gist of the rapid exchange or George Girty, bending to the companion ear, breathed alike the hot fumes of rum and interjecting the interpretation of the Delaware tongue amid the version of the Miami and Shawnee gutterals. The runners going forth to rouse the sleeping warriors, the rousing and stretching of muscles as do cats before the kill, the long files sneaking through the night, the foot behind falling silently in the foot before, the soundless padding of many feet, the worm of death crawling through the dank, dim wood upon the restless, chilled, weary sleepers. Guns of the sentries cracking in the sharp silence of the frost, spitting red across the white shroud windings of snow and eyes that peered fearfully down the spectral aisles of the wood. St. Clair, stirring on his painful couch, observes that the sentries are more than usually nervous, he may have turned over in his weary mind, the report of Captain Slough, brought in that evening, of parties of Indians passing him toward the camp, of Colonel Oldham of the militia predicting HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 313 an attack before morning, and of Alexander McGuffey come running in from fifty miles out with a warning. Or with authoritative obstinacy he may have held to his opinion expressed that afternoon as he and his staff chatted around a fire made by the waggoners to warm numbed fingers: that the Indians did not watch him with a view to attacking. He may have warmed his two o'clock in the morning fears with the thought of the three six pounders and lighter artillery posted on his front. He had resolved to intrench that morning when light came and await the arrival of the First Regiment then coming on with provisions. Uneasy with the sniping that cracked the darkness intermittedly all night, he roused long before day, ordered his men under arms and held a parade in the dark. Reassured he had dismissed the men. Dawn lighting his camp fire to the East, men groping about in the dark woods feeling in the black for the hobbled horses, sentries calling warnings that the whole place swarmed with Indians, the rested soldiers laughing at the nervous fears of men ridden by the night hags of loneliness and cold. Over across the river a quarter mile away, William Kennan had gone forward to the fire where grouped the chilled sentries of the militia. Kennan's keen eye caught the outline of some thirty dim forms coming out of the wood and crawling toward the fire. Kennan whipped up his rifle and ran forward a few steps, fired and dropped behind some tussocks, thinking it a scouting, scalp hunting party and that his fellow rangers would be at his heels. But the wood split asunder with war whoop of 1,500 throats and the roll of rifles. Soldier McDowell, herding in the horses by the main camp, had his ears buffeted and stretched his legs for the shelter of the regimental ranks. Kennan lay almost under the feet of the Indian charge. His captain called: "Run, Kennan, or you are a dead man." Up leaped Kennan, the Indian van with poised tomahawks were but two jumps away. He whirled, his companions were in full flight 300 feet ahead. 314 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Indians had dashed past his hiding place and he ran in a converging pocket. The militia hit the river pell-mell. The main camp roared with alarm. The flanking Indians headed across Kennan's path. He swerved, his dodging twisting path taking him a quarter mile; fear lifted his feet; he distanced all save a young chief who hung at his heels close as the shadow of death. Kennan felt for his tomahawk. It was gone. His feet scarce quitted the ground e'er the pursuer's tramped his heels. His glances over his shoulder had confused his course. Before him rose the barrier of a great fallen tree, propped on shattered limbs, it lifted an eight or nine foot wall. Exultant the Indians gave tongue like hounds. It lifted his hair, it lifted his feet in a great, soaring super human leap, a leap that flirted his heels high above the faces of the astounded Indians. Like a deer which had topped a wall no hound could take, Kennan ran in round the rear of St. Clair's men. The sun shot up. It caught the militia cowering under the sheltering arms of the cannon, the charging Indians wheeling to the right and left to encompass the camp much as Beajeu's men had Braddock. St. Clair's front line staggered with the impact of the panic-stricken militia. The light artillery in front and the six-pounders on the left flank opened up with ineffective thunder. St. Clair had staggered to his gouty feet, stifling his groans; no time to don his uniform; not martial pomp but moments counted. His long gray queue hung dankly down all unpowdered below his three-cornered beaver. Out he came, hobbling in a coarse cappo coat flung about his still erect shoulders. A ball cut athwart his face and clipped a gray lock. In the chill gloom of a winter morning he saw his front waver to and fro, men falling in rings round the artillery, the whole front and flanks a blaze of fire, the wood shadows blended with clouds of powder smoke, his army tangled amid logs and brush and men scattering from the rush of frenzied horses. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 315 They brought up a spirited young charger, its eyes distended in terror, leaping and swerving, pawing and plunging. The lamed man could not mount. Three or four boosted his senile weight. In vain. "Shift the horse to a hollow," they bellowed. They heaved; a ball crashed through the head of the charger and it reared and crumpled; the boy who held it clasped a shattered arm. Another horse and a change of saddles; another volley and another dead horse and dead groom. St. Clair desisted and headed on foot for the wavering line, motioning for the third horse to be brought along. Butler was spurring up and down the other line. Each, cold to the other, was hot into the middle of the fight. The men melted about the cannon. The musketry rolled its lead aimlessly into the cover. All the confusion, the huddling, the terror, the blind posing for a target of Braddock's day was repeated. From the coverts of the woods and under the bank the Indian fire converged. Out of the smoke pall came the leaping charge of the Indians. St. Clair called sharply to Col. Darke to give them the bayonet. Darke's rush of steel drove the agile warriors over the creek. Back came Darke's men, their enemies snapping at their heels. St. Clair's gouty feet gave way. A pack horse was brought. His hat and cloak were sieved by eight balls. The swift pursuit of Darke brought the Indians over the ravine on the left and full into the camp. St. Clair rallied his men, heading the charge that threw the invaders back. A group of soldiers huddled about the camp fires in the center. Pistol in hand, St. Clair drove them to the front much as old British wardog Braddock had cursed, kicked and thwacked forth his men on the Monongehela. The Indian tide rolled in, tomahawk in hand, leaping in and out with cat-like quickness. General Butler fell, but from a propped position fought his line. The officers of the Second Regiment, riding high above the line, fell one by one. The lines became blended and backed together. The artillery was silenced. The reserve stores yielded boxes marked flint which opened up to expose gun 316 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO locks. "Powder for the infantry" proved to be damaged cannon powder which would scarce ignite—graft slew side by side with the Indian. All was lost. The Indian fire poured into dense masses. The men milled like cattle seeking to stampede. St. Clair called to Colonel Darke to charge along the rear road. The Indians bent back their elastic line. Darke broke through. The army poured after as would impounded water through a bursted dam. The rush of the rout held open the vent. St. Clair's pack horse pounded along with the fugitives, Butler lay abandoned in the center of the camp. Itch for scalps and lust for booty stayed the pursuit. Cannon, corpses, women, food, raiment, rifles, gaudy uniforms and reeking scalps waited for the first to come. The Indian arm slashed, wrenched and tore until it dropped spent at the side. The wretched women who follow an army cowered amid wagons or darted rabbit-like before bloody outstretched fingers. Some say 50 some say 250 women. None know exactly; camp followers are not carried on the rolls. Catherine Miller was one of the few frantic women able to escape and keep to her feet in the mad rush to Ft. Jefferson. Men who fled with one last desperate look over the shoulder saw the gory heads of hundreds lying "Like red pumpkins in a cornfield." Butler writhed with his wound. Simon Girty came charging in at the head of his Wyandottes. Some say Butler called to Girty to end his misery, that Simon refused but told a warrior Butler was a high officer. Girty had known Butler at Ft. Pitt. Further that the Indian buried his tomahawk in Butler, whereupon his heart was taken out and divided into as many pieces as there were tribes at the battle. Simon loped after the retreat and clutched a white woman. A squaw clamored that women belonged to the women. Girty was furious, but blood-heated warriors menacingly backed the squaw and he relinquished his prize. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 317 Maddened by fear, the whole rout ran four miles much as stampeded cattle. Their frenzy of fear outdistanced pursuit. The road was lined down to Ft. Jefferson with guns, clothing and cartridge boxes. Behind them lay two-thirds of their army. Thirty-seven officers, one major-general, one lieutenant colonel, three majors, twelve captains, ten lieutenants, eight ensigns, two quartermasters, one adjutant, one surgeon and five hundred and ninety-three privates all dead, while strung along the way were the wounded, thirty-three officers and two hundred and fifty privates. A disaster worse than Braddock's and less excusable—a loss greater than any battle in the Revolution, the greatest death roll in American history to that date, a disgraceful defeat and rout by an army of Indians less in number. All artillery lost, two hundred tents, three hundred horses, one hundred and thirty beef cattle, food, clothing, equipment valued at $33,000. The Indians had won their greatest victory over the white race. In bitter mockery they filled the mouths of the dead soldiers with the soil of the land they had sought to seize, William Wells, white son-in-law of Little Turtle, had wielded the scalp knife until his arm was numb. Simon Girty was presented with three captured cannon which he could scarcely thrust in his sash, and so had to leave behind. The wolves that winter rolled six hundred skulls over the snow around where Ft. Recovery stands in Mercer County. Down in Ft. Jefferson the escaped soldiery ruefully made excuses. "It was so cold we had to hold our bullets in our mouth and roll 'em off our tongues down the barrel. Our fingers wouldn't bend to 'em." It was a cold day in American history, one that school books have avoided. When an example of Indian fighting is used, Braddock's Defeat is the classic example. That was British incompetency. In truth no such important results followed St. Clair's Defeat as attended Braddock's. The latter campaign had both acted as the American West Point for the 318 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Revolution and at the same time eliminated the flower of the British roster. St. Clair's defeat for the time being crushed the American army and the Western defenses. Well might Washington storm and rave in one of his rare paroxysms of awful anger. Still St. Clair was not removed as was Harmar, even though Washington had thundered, "0 God, 0 God, he's worse than a murderer. How can he answer to his country? The blood of the slain is upon him—the curse of the widows and the orphans, the curse of heaven." At least the story has gained wide credence and is accepted by weighty authority although subjected to the scorn of doubting Thomases as is almost every historical anecdote. It is in keeping with the probabilities of the times and the Washington character. St. Clair resigned and was exonerated by a Congressional committee. The Americans sparred for time. Numerous councils were held with the Indians during the next two years. The British and the Spaniards made them useless, but behind it all the Americans prepared for revenge and the complete conquest of Western Ohio. CHAPTER XXXVII WAYNE'S PRELIMINARIES COLONEL TAYLOR-CAPTAIN ADAIR-LITTLE TURTLE-WAYNE SUCCEEDS ST. CLAIR-WAYNE MOBILIZED AT PITTSBURG-MOVES WITH CAUTION-CUTS ROADS. History is valueless save as material for thought, for example, and for guidance. Following St. Clair's defeat occurred in Preble County a happening which delights the speculative faculty. The narrow balances which govern destiny were held up in Preble County and dipped perilously toward the obliteration of many a future page of American history. Two of America's greatest victories, two of America's future presidents, two Kentucky governors, senators and congressmen were concerned. Henry Howe, in Vol. 2, p. 452, gives the happenings at Adair's Defeat near Eaton, Preble County, but Howe does not give the Kentucky background. That is found in Collins, History of Kentucky, Vol. 2, p. 32. Neither historian indulges in historical speculations which are the spice of history. The actors in the little drama included some worthies who narrowly escaped with their lives, incurring wounds where the deviation of an inch might well have altered history. Col. Richard Taylor, father of "Old Rough and Ready" and grandfather of the wife of Jefferson Davis and General Dick Taylor, the Confederate general, was wounded, as was also Lieut. George Madison, future governor of Kentucky. Capt. John Adair, commander of the mounted Kentucky volunteers who par- - 319 - 320 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO ticipated in the battle with Little Turtle November 6, 1792, was afterward commander of the Kentuckians at the Battle of New Orleans, a Kentucky governor, congressman and United States senator. Zachary Taylor, future president of the United States, was seven years old when his father narrowly escaped massacre in this engagement. Without doubt the future career of young Taylor would have been greatly changed by the loss of his father that November morning and it is doubtful if the career of Jefferson Daviswould have been the same save that his father-in-law, Zachary Taylor, was in command at Buena Vista where Davis won his claim to military consideration and his future post as secretary of war, all stepping stones to the presidency of half the United States, for Davis was president of eleven states for four years regardless of the title under which he served. A large part of Mexican War and Civil War history hung in the balance that November morning. Gen. James Wilkinson (the traitor) had ordered the construction of Ft. St. Clair a mile west of Eaton as a link between Ft. Hamilton and Ft. Jefferson. Maj. John S. Gano was in charge of construction and another future president, William Henry Harrison, as ensign, commanded the guard. Capt. John Adair guarded the pack train which carried supplies between Fts. Hamilton, St. Clair and Jefferson. Little Turtle with the prestige of St. Clair's Defeat behind him decided to attack Columbia (now in Cincinnati, then a town at the mouth of the Little Miami). Howe claims Little Turtle led 250 Wyandottes and Mingoes. This is unlikely, as Simon Girty generally went with the Mingoes and the Wyandottes, a proud tribe, had chiefs of their own and scarcely would have followed Little Turtle, a Miami, save in alliance and under their own chiefs. It may have been a mixed lot of warriors with a goodly force of Miamis and Little Turtle taking command. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 321 The route of the war party is uncertain; it must have traversed West Central Ohio and passed Ft. Hamilton, where it captured wood choppers and learned from them of the pack horse train. Little Turtle laid an ambuscade but Adair had the habit of resting his men under the walls of one of the forts three nights out of the six it took to make the round trip. Adair was encamped Monday, November 5, near Ft. St. Clair and the Indian runners of the impatient Little Turtle scouted his camp and the chief moved up for a night attack. He surprised Adair in the morning and years afterward when Little Turtle and Adair met in Frankfort, Kentucky, where Adair was land registrar, the latter apologized for his reverses, saying he was "surprised," at which Little Turtle smilingly remarked: "A good general is never surprised," a sentiment which would have endeared Little Turtle to Andrew Jackson, who abominated Adair's military capacities. However, Adair handled his men well on this occasion after the attack, got them formed in three divisions outside the gleam of the camp fires and with their backs toward the fort fought off the attack, although it came to hand-to-hand fighting while the Indians plundered the camp. The whites took the offensive and finally dispersed the Indians on the site of Eaton. The white loss was six killed, five wounded and four missing. John James, one of the wounded, was scalped so effectively that part of his ear was taken in the process, yet he recovered. The dead, Lieut. Job Hale, Orderly Sergt. Matthew English, Pvts. Robert Bowling, Joseph Clinton, Isaac Jett and John Williams, were buried between Ft. St. Clair and Eaton, near the fort walls. Little Turtle next on October 17, 1793, attacked Lieutenant Lowery at Ludlow Springs, Preble County, and repeated on him and his party of ninety officers and privates convoying a train of twenty-one wagons worse fate than befell Adair. General Wayne reported the loss of Lowry, Ensign Boyd, thirteen men and seventy horses. Strange to say, the Indians left the wagon 322 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO train with stores standing in the road, a singular oversight, since as it was Wayne was much harassed from lack of supplies. Had Adair been conversant with this fact he might have pleasantly retorted to Little Turtle Napoleon's axiom of war, "An army travels on its belly." Much has been made of Little Turtle's generalship, but his leaving Adair's rear open to retreat toward Ft. St. Clair, this matter of the wagons with Lowry, his reckless attack on Ft. Recovery, his failure to block the rear of St. Clair and his greater failure to follow up the retreat, place limitations on his ability which the Indian warrior's love of plunder and aversion to discipline does not fully cover. If the great test of a general is to conduct a retreat, the second test is to push a defeated enemy and put in the knockout punch despite the old adage which advises to build a bridge for a fleeing enemy. The expeditions of Bowman, Clark, Logan, Harmar, St. Clair and later Wayne's were more than military in character. Actually they served as explorations through which thousands of soldiers familiarized themselves with Western Ohio. Purely as military operations they do not deserve the space given them, but they led to the wide report of the quality of the lands and tempted the former soldiers or their acquaintances to move to Western Ohio. Moreover, it was Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers which actually opened West Central Ohio to peaceful settlement. After that immigration came as would the rise of waters until the whole land was flooded deep with people. Wayne followed St. Clair as Boquet followed Braddock. The successors profited by their predecessors. Wayne had been cut up a time or two in the Revolution and his fiery blood had learned its dearly bought lesson of caution. Besides the Washington administration had also learned a lesson as to the fighting qualities of the Western Ohio tribes. They really gave Wayne men and material out of which he pounded on the anvil of prepara- HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 323 tion an overwhelming army more than twice St. Clair's in effective troops. Wayne relied heavily upon cavalry. Bowman's experience had shown cavalry could charge in the open woods of West Central Ohio where the trees stood like pillars in cathedral naves and left wide aisles between the towering trunks. Cortez and Pizarro had found the Indians unable to stand the thundering charge of horse. The Ohio Indian was as yet a foot soldier. The horse leaping along with flying mane, irresistible weight and, to the footman, unmatchable speed, is a fearsome sight. It held its rider above the hand-to-hand fighting, gave him the advantage of the downward stroke; horsemen leaped logs, circled and flanked, and when the Indian was roused from cover by the charge, gave him no time to form a new front but whirled him brokenly along as would the rush of waters the light drift in the way of the flood. Wayne had gathered his army at Pittsburgh and come to Cincinnati by boat in April, 1793. On the Licking, opposite Cincinnati, or at the present Covington and Newport, Wayne exercised his cavalry all summer, sending them full tilt over the broken ground, leaping logs and stumps, dodging among trees, wheeling and charging. Wayne soon got a taste of Little Turtle as has been told in the account of Lieutenant Lowry which properly belongs at this point. This check of October 17, 1793, further sobered Wayne and he went into winter quarters on the west branch of the Stillwater, where he fortified fifty-three acres of land with a strong stockade 12 x 25 rods. This he named Ft. Greenville, in honor of his old-time comrade, Nathaniel Greene. He was now secure for the winter, safe from the fate of St. Clair, who had delayed fortifying too long. All winter Wayne drove and drilled his men. By the spring of 1794, he had a disciplined army with two years' hardship and 324 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO discipline behind it, a real army. Moreover, he knew the value of scouting in Indian warfare and had Little Turtle's son-in-law, Capt. William Wells, as scoutmaster. Wells knew every foot of the ground, knew Indians as would one of them, was remorseful of the scalping and killing of his people at St. Clair's Defeat and with the passion of the new convert or renegade, as you may prefer, burned to wipe out his past, the outgrowth of childhood capture and an Indian love marriage. Alexander McGuffey, Robert McClellan and Henry and Christopher Miller were of the seven mounted scouts who tooth-combed the country around Greenville, aided by Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians. Chris Miller was the newest recruit and his enlistment is typical of frontier conditions. In June, 1794, Wayne wanted definite information and sent out Wells, Henry Miller, also a former captive, McClellan, May and Hickman to bring him in an Indian prisoner. What happened must have occurred in Auglaize County. The scouts came on three Indians camped on high, open ground by the Auglaize River. (See Collins, Vol. 2, p. 309, for full account.) A large new-fallen tree, still in leaf, was the only cover in sight. The scouts crept up behind the tree until within eighty yards. Here they halted and whispered. The Indians were roasting meat and making merry. Kill two and run down the other," was the plan. McClellan was a winged Mercury, swift as the deer. He crouched, tomahawk in hand. Wells and Miller fired. Dead shots, their quarry fell. Up bounded the third Indian and McClellan was after him, his eyes piercing the powder smoke. McClellan came out of the cloud and saw the Indian in headlong flight down the river, but the flying feet of McClellan pulled the other toward him. Turning in desperation, the Indian leaped from the bluff into the river. He lit in ooze and went up to his middle. McClellan was on him, brandishing his tomahawk and calling for the Indian to throw away his knife. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 325 Tugging, they pulled out their prisoner, washed him and—found a white man. He would not talk. Henry Miller rode up alongside the sulking prisoner and began talking in Indian. Suddenly Miller remembered a brother captured with him and he called this brother's Indian name. The captive started, flashed an eager query. They were brothers. Still he would not talk to Wayne. Then the guard house, days of confinement. Finally he yielded to his brother. He was Criss Miller, captured in 1783 in Hardin County, Kentucky. Miller later at risk of his life entered the Indian camp to act as peace ambassador. He was promised a fortune by Wayne but which Wayne's death prevented being carried out. Wayne was cutting roads in three directions, one toward Ft. Wayne, one toward the Maumee rapids and one toward the middle course of the Auglaize. From these cunning feints the Indians dubbed him Sukachgook, Delaware for Blacksnake. Wayne moved cautiously. He had on Christmas Day, 1793, sent Capt. Alexander Gibson to St. Clair's battlefield to rebury the dead whom Wilkerson had hastily interred. The burial party had to scrape the bones aside in their tents so they could lie down in comfort, the prodding of skeleton limbs not being conducive to slumber. They built a stockade and named it Ft. Recovery, the site of the present town. Gibson was the first commander. Meanwhile Governor Simcoe at Detroit had ordered Col. Richard English to take three British companies and build, April, 1794, a fort forty miles inside American territory and at the foot of the Maumee Rapids. This was an undoubted invasion of American soil in addition to arming and agitating the Ohio tribes. Ft. Miami, as it was called, was placed under Maj. William Campbell and Alexander McKee, the Tory Indian deputy, had his house a mile and a half above the fort where he, Elliott and Girty handed out the arms. Wayne had to be cautious. It was not clear how far the British would go. The Indians reinforced by a British army 326 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO would be formidable and Wayne had to beware of a general British-American war such as later came in 1812. Little Turtle was emboldened by his successes and British aid. He gathered from 1,500 to 2,000 warriors, aided by a mixture of British and Canadian militia, and including Simon Girty and his Wyandottes. Such a large body far from the British posts and dependent largely on hunting, since the new corn had not come by June 30, must necessarily have gone hungry and there was evidence that they ate some of their pack horses both before and after the battle. Major William McMahon with ninety riflemen and fifty dragoons was convoying provisions up from Ft. Greenville and marched into the hornet's nest. CHAPTER XXXVIII FORT RECOVERY, FALLEN TIMBERS AND GREENVILLE INDIANS PREPARE-WAYNE'S SCOUTS-THE MARCH-WAYNE'S VICTORY- CASUALTIES-GREENVILLE TREATY-PRIMITIVE ERA ENDED. While Wayne gathered his forces the British and Indians were not idle. It was seen that the Miami towns were too exposed to attack and the Indian rendezvous was transferred from Logan County to the mouth of the "Glaize" (Defiance). Wm. May, a dispatch carrier, captured about April 15, 1792, was taken to the towns along the Auglaize and beaten. Here Simon Girty saved May's life, who about May 1 was sent on a war party down into Preble County where they killed a man near Eaton and returned by way of St. Clair's battlefield. This scouting expedition and one led in June by Simon Girty show the Indians were keeping tab on the line of American invasion and harassing communications. Girty, it is thought by Butterfield, led the 100 warriors who on June 25, 1792, attacked a company of soldiers making hay near Ft. Jefferson, Darke County. Sixteen soldiers were missing after the attack, only four bodies being found on the hay field. May reported later that the Indians at this time would make no peace save on the Ohio River boundary line. At this time there were gathered about August, 1792, some 3,600 Indians at the mouth of the Glaize where they were fed by the British during the sessions of a grand council. These were Pottawattamies, Shawnees, Miamis, Ottawas, Wyandottes, Delawares, Munceys and Chippewas. - 327 - 328 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Rev. O. M. Spencer, then a captive, aged eleven, arrived at the Grand Glaize July 13, 1792. Spencer here met the Girty brothers and Blue Jacket and has left valuable information concerning the events of this time. Simon Girty this summer of 1792 planned a war party of 247 Wyandottes and Mingoes to penetrate Preble County and cut off the pack trains between Ft. Hamilton and Ft. St. Clair, but the grand council called for Girty's attention and the expedition was abandoned. Chiefs were present from Canada and from beyond the Mississippi. The sessions of the council were held in October, 1792, and Red Jacket, Seneca chief, succeeded in swaying the council to consent to an armistice until spring, when they could listen to what Washington had to say. But Little Turtle was intractable and stole away from the council with 200 Shawnees and Miamis to make that attack upon Captain Adair in Preble County, under the walls of Ft. St. Clair, as has been described. This was just before Wayne gathered his forces below Pittsburgh. Nevertheless, the United States Commissioners prepared to meet the Indians at the council at the foot of the Maumee Rapids in the spring of 1793. Meanwhile Wayne had left in April, 1793, for Cincinnati. So the Americans were preparing to use either force or diplomacy. The commissioners sailed down Lake Erie and came to Matthew Elliott's house on the Maumee. McKee and Girty were busy handing out presents to the Indians and the Indians sent a delegation to the commissioners demanding that the Ohio River be fixed as the boundary. This was July 29, 1793. The commissioners were not authorized to make such assurances. Simon Girty, doing the interpreting, told the commissioners they might "Go home." Elliott foiled the strategy of Girty by asserting the interpretation of the Indians' answer was wrong. The commissioners were then asked to await the Indian answer from the council. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 329 August 16, 1793, the answer of the council was brought by runners. The Indians held to the Ohio boundary. The negotiations were off. War was again renewed. These events had filled the interval between St. Clair's Defeat and Wayne's march. McKee, the Indian agent, had planned a powerful expedition to attack convoys and to entice the Americans out of their forts, in short to continue the work done against Adair and Lowry. Many of the British joined in Little Turtle's force; Thomas McKee, a son of the Indian agent, was one. It was this force which had marched down the Auglaize and come by June 27, 1794, to St. Marys, winding through Allen County into Auglaize. From there the war party had headed for Ft. Recovery. Thus Wayne's thrust north was to meet the Indian-British thrust south. This long digression is necessary to bring the two conflicting forces into contact. Major William McMahon with ninety riflemen and fifty dragoons was convoying supplies up to Ft. Recovery. Both Wayne and Little Turtle could be criticized for their dispositions. Wayne had sent a force with the convoy not large enough to protect it against all assaults and entirely too large to risk losing. Coming on the heels of St. Clair, Adair and Lowry, it would have been a sad blow to the administration. Little Turtle in allowing McMahon to get under the walls of the fort before making the attack would seem to have not scouted properly or he would either have hurried the attack or held it until the convoy started on its return. Success had made him bold and over-confident. The Indians rushed the convoy and the fort simultaneously about 7:00 a. m., June 30. McMahon's men fought their way into the shelter of the walls and the Indian charge was repulsed and driven back a distance from the fort. That night they carried off most of their dead and returned to the charge the next day. The Indian losses were so heavy they retreated from the scene of their triumph over St. Clair having taken losses more severe than in that former conflict. Since they 330 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO were supposed to have lost about 150 in the St. Clair battle, it can be seen how severely Little Turtle had been punished for his foolhardy assault. It required all the exertions of McKee, Elliott, Girty and the British officers to hold the Indians to the war. This was Simon Girty's last battle against the Americans. Major McMahon, Captain Hartshorn and Lieutenant Craig had been killed, and nineteen other officers and soldiers, while thirty had been wounded. Judge Burnet related that the British expected to find St. Clair's artillery, buried after his defeat, and use it to breach the walls. Indians during the battle were seen turning over logs looking for the cannon which the Americans had found previously and salvaged. Wayne's Choctaw and Chickasaw scouts had trailed the Indian army from June 27 and reported that many white men painted as Indians were along, also three British officers in uniform. James Neill, a pack horse man captured by the Indians, reported they had lost twice as many as at St. Clair's Defeat, which would make about 300, being the heaviest losses they had taken in all the long warfare from Braddock's field to Tippecanoe, and that they claimed no men had ever fought better than they in the assaults on the fort, which was probably true. They were still lamenting their losses at the Greenville treaty and McMahon certainly took the edge off the Indian weapon so that, in ring parlance, Wayne found them "softened" at Fallen Timbers. McMahon, a famous borderer, six feet six, was shot through the head and may have been the American officer whom Thomas McKee, son of the Tory Indian agent, is credited with killing during the fight. In the two battles Ft. Recovery saw the greatest losses and the heaviest fighting ever recorded north of the Tennessee in Indian warfare. The victory tally for white and Indian at Ft. Recovery was one and one. Wayne waited patiently at Ft. Greenville for three weeks after Little Turtle's attack on Ft. Recovery. Gen. Charles Scott HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 331 was quartered in Kentucky with 1,600 mounted men and these were called up, the van arriving July 26. Two days later Wayne's Legion started on the march which was to complete Clark's work, confirm by military might the boundaries of the Paris Peace Treaty and open Ohio to secure settlement. Wayne marched light, little burdened with baggage; he camped that night on the Stillwater. The American camp, much as the one of the Roman legion, was fortified each night. It was a march in mid-summer through a land of swamps, heavy woods, mile long stretches of nettles, waist high; a land of stagnant waters, covered with green frog scum, mosquito infested wood; a country over which the army had to toil prodigiously, keeping an approximate battle formation, with broad front, while at the same time hewing, grubbing and building a roadway for the wagon train. Out of the coverts peered the skulking Indian scouts; every move relayed by runners to the watchful Little Turtle. No doubt in this work Tecumseh was repeating his activities of St. Clair's time. Wayne had his men equally on edge, able to run through the woods, loading as they ran and going to their drills with a whoop, hip, hurrah. Emblematic of the dash and elan of the army was the cavalry, where the companies were divided according to the color of their horses, sorrel, bay, chestnut and gray. Wayne had orders from Washington that if necessary, Wayne should dislodge the British from their fort at the Maumee Rapids. Prisoners brought into Wayne had reported the British promising the Indians to have 1,500 white men in the coming battle. This was according to two Pottawatomies captured June 5, who declared there were 2,000 Indian warriors then assembled with 1,000 Pottawatomies on the verge of joining. Two Shawnees, captured June 22nd (see Annals of the West—Perkins), reported 380 Shawnee warriors at the Grand Glaize (Defiance) under Black Wolf and Tame Hawk, the sachems, and Blue Jacket and Captain Johnny, war chiefs; the Delawares, 480 warriors; 332 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Miamis, 100, the rest having migrated to Vincennes and the Mississippi; the Wyandottes able to muster 150; that the Chippewas would be the most numerous; it all depended upon the British. The Indians were not dogs to be set on alone. Not all of Scott's cavalry were up with the advance. General Barbee with 900 men was on the trail making forced marches. Wayne hit Beaver Creek July 30, then struck out for the Little St. Mary's and crossed August 1 but fearful of the ground and wondering where Little Turtle was and when he might burst forth from cover, he retraced to better ground and sent out his scouts. He had to solve the question, "Was Little Turtle at the Miami towns (Ft. Wayne) or at the Grand Glaize (Defiance) or hovering near at hand ?" Captain Wells, Little Turtle's son-in-law, asked for 200 men. Wayne would not risk the division. Newman, one of the quartermaster's men, had deserted or been captured. He might tell the dispositions of Wayne to the enemy. Wayne began to fortify. This was known as Ft. Adams, although some historians have located that at St. Mary's. 0. W. Priddy declares the latter post was built on Wayne's return. Howe and Randall and Ryan give Ft. Adams as on the St. Mary's River. This fort was on the south bank of the St. Mary's, a trifle east of the bridge on the Celina-Van Wert highway. Here Wayne narrowly escaped death from a falling tree. That same day Barbee's men came panting through the sticky heat of the woods, and the army was at last one. Wayne was now over the divide, facing that flat, swampy country left by the retreat of the Great Glacier, when the waters piled between the edge of the glacier and the height of land. A country so level and swampy that it could be penetrated only in the drought of August. Wayne's route ran down the St. Mary's to Rockford, then northeast to Town or Middle Creek, thence down the Little Auglaize where he camped August 6. The army was now marching HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 333 through great cornfields coming into ear; it had reached the granary of the Indian Confederacy. Wayne built Ft. Defiance at the Grand Glaize, August 8, and started down the Maumee August 15. Singularly enough he now had the gout, the disease which hampered St. Clair and Braddock. If he rode his horse with difficulty, his young aide, William Henry Harrison, was as active as young Washington had been under Braddock. The northern Indians had not come in. The Wabash warriors were indifferent. Little Turtle hesitated. Not for nothing had he watched Wayne's advance, beheld through the eyes of his scouts the drill and precautions. Cannilly he advised peace. Wayne was coming with the sword in one hand, the olive branch in the other, but he twirled the latter indifferently. As he marched, he brushed aside the continuous string of Indian villages. Wayne was as ruthless as a drove of swine in a garden. August 20, Wayne came to Fallen Timbers, a tangle of tornado-twisted trees, piled in a windrow or flung promiscuously with tall grass growing in between. Below was the British fort. In the tangle lay Blue Jacket with from 1,500 to 2,000 warriors. Wayne threw out his dragoons as feelers, formed his infantry in two lines and flung out his cavalry much as two encircling arms, the Kentucky mounted men to the right under Scott, the dragoons to the left under Campbell. The screen of cavalry in front touched off the hidden Indians, and fell back before the fire, then Wayne threw in the first line of infantry with a bayonet charge, with orders to hold fire until they roused the Indians, when it was to be delivered point blank in their backs. Probably the dragoons had drawn the Indian fire. With empty firelocks the warriors saw a long line of cold steel driving come gleaming on. Young Tecumseh saw his brother drop at his side, saw the bared steel fangs bear down upon him. His frantic hands wedged his ramrod. He snatched a fowling piece. The scattered Indians were rising as would flushed game. The AmeH- 334 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO can line came on huzzaing. Around him the rout slipped away; he was like to be left a piece of drift when the tide goes out. Raging, he was sucked back by the swirl of the retreat. The rush of the first American line had beaten the flanking cavalry. It walked the Indian line back two miles in forty minutes. Behind the lines McKee, Girty and Elliott saw their life work going down as the Indian corn had before Wayne's sickles. The English slammed the gates of Ft. Miami in the face of the headlong Indian flight. Raging, the betrayed red men fled by into the farther woods. The Americans rode up under the guns and hurled curses at the British garrison standing with lighted matches by the leveled cannon. War with England hung by a hair. Wayne waited three days to destroy the cornfields, the house of McKee the Tory, to gather his dead and wounded and record the fact he found whites among the enemy dead. He had lost 5 officers and 28 privates killed; 16 officers and 84 privates wounded; total, 133 out of the 900 in the first line. The Indians were saved by the impetuosity of the first line ; had the flanking cavalry been able to close in through the timber tangle, the Indians would have been nearly annihilated. Ohio was open for settlement in all save the formalities. Wayne marched down to where Ft. Wayne now stands, laid flat the Miami towns and came back by the St. Mary's River to Greenville, there to await the submission of the crushed Indians. Vain were the British endeavors, the English bounty. The Indian land was waste, their pride low as their fields of maize; their hopes in the dust with the ashes of their homes. The history of the Indian and white is strewn with treaties, many of which mean nothing but broken faith, almost universally on the part of the white. But there are a few treaties that stand out as milestones, that mark the march of destiny; treaties that are honored by observance or mark the end of an era. Such was Penn's treaty, which preserved peace in Pennsylvania; such was the Ft. Stanwix treaty, which established definite and en- HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 335 during boundaries. Such was the Greenville Treaty, which was to the Indian power in Ohio what Appotomax and its apple tree was to the Confederacy. To give the Indian his due, he accepted the fate of war, abided by the treaty and save for irresponsibles such as Tecumseh was then, honored and maintained its terms. Tecumseh as a young chief had little influence as yet and only represented the natural trait of the Shawnees to be first in battle and last to a treaty. His tribe, however, held out for war much longer than the other Indians. A Wyandotte chief approached Wayne to negotiate as early as September 17, 1794. Warfare was over, save that Col. Robert Elliott enroute through Butler County, was killed, October 6, 1794. Here occurred the grotesque and grimly serio-comic episode of the Indians scalping Elliott, who wore a wig. The Indian held up his spurious trophy to his companions and uttered his huge disgust at the white man's perfidy which had robbed him of glory. The sententious "Dam lie" addressed to the wig could just as well be leveled at the white man and all his ways. The British strove in vain against the Indian urge for peace. The warriors had seen three armies come and began to see that the American could and would send them on endlessly. Shortly after Fallen Timbers the British in council at Ft. Miami temporarily held the Indian away from Wayne. The latter had reached Greenville November 2, 1794, after a ninety-seven day campaign, during which time it had marched 300 miles, building wagon roads and three forts, Adams, Defiance and Wayne. It had fought a victorious battle, crushed the Indians, intimidated the British. Here came the Indian emissaries to see the "Wind," the "Blacksnake." By December 28-29 the Chippewas, Ottawas, Sacs, Pottawatomies and Miamis had chiefs at Greenville. The Dalawares, Wyandottes and Shawnees entered into a preliminary article on January 24, 1795, through Tarhe. Despite his victory, Wayne had serious problems. His men were reaching 336 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO the end of their period of enlistment and were sick of the camp life. The Shawnees were reported getting ready to steal horses along the Miami and Scioto and transport their families beyond the Mississippi. Reinforcements for the British might yet turn the tide and precipitate general war. It is probable that only the fact of the French Revolution in Europe held England's hand at this time and even thus it was a clenched hand upheld. Indians began gathering at Greenville by June 1. The initial session was held June 16. The main leaders were not yet in, but Buckongehelas came soon after and Little Turtle on June 23rd and soon expressed a desire for some wine, pork chops and mutton. Little Turtle and Wayne both had gout at various times from their over-feeding and his request must have struck a sympathetic cord in the heart of the "Black Snake." Wayne uncovered the council fire July 15 and had the interpreter sworn (William Wells and Isaac Zane, the captive sons-in-law of Little Turtle and Tarhe, functioning). Blue Jacket of the Shawnees did not come in until July 18th. The palavering and high-flown heroics continued almost endlessly until July 17, when Wayne eased in the greased barb of the American demand, calling for the cession of 25,000 square miles and sixteen separate tracts including forts and lands. The Indians were to get $20,000 in presents and $9,500 annually. The treaty was signed August 3, 1795, by Wayne and the chiefs and ratified by the United State Senate, December 22, 1795. The line or boundary was so far as concerned West Central Ohio, from Ft. Laurens to the Miami-Maumee portage near Laramie, thence westerly to Ft. Recovery, thence southerly in a direct line to the Ohio opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River. Some 1,180 Indians had attended the treaty, the last session of which was held August 10. Whether the Indian chiefs signed in the jealous, exacting precedence of Washington society is a mooted question. Some of the great chiefs appear far down in the list. It is significant that HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 337 the Wyandottes, keepers of the Grand Calumet, signed first; the Delawares next, then the Shawnees, the Ottawas, the Chippewas, Pottawatomies of St. Joseph, Pottawatomies of Huron, Miamis, Kickapoos and Kaskaskias, Delawares of Sandusky. Wayne's signature led all and the signatures of his staff followed the chiefs, the interpreters last of all. These last were William Wells, Jacques Lassell, M. Morins, Bt. Sans Crainte, Christopher Miller, Robert Wilson, Abraham Williams, Isaac Zane. The standing of the tribes represented age-old prestiges and not status of the day of signing, so the signatures of the chiefs may have taken due account of the Indian reverence for age. The work was done. The war was over. The almost perpetual struggle for the Ohio Country begun by Washington in 1754 was ended. The dauntless defiance of a handful of Indians to the march of the white race had succumbed. The Ohio Indian had demonstrated for forty years that he was the finest warrior who ever trod the war trail. They had fought with the heroism of the Greek confronting the Persian. Caesar conquered Gaul, an extent similar to the Northwest Territory, in eight years. It took Washington, Braddock, Grant, Forbes, Boquet, Dunmore, Lewis, McDonald, McIntosh, Hand, Lewis, MacDonald, Crawford, Clark, Boone, Kenton, Bowman, Todd, Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne forty years to take Ohio. The struggle had been marked the greatest disaster handed the white race in America. The battles had ranked with major ones of the French and Indian War or the Revolution. The fighting had been on occasion of an intensity equal to the stricken fields of history, the losses on either side as proportionately heavy as in the decisive battle of the world. The Ohio Indians had triumphed over Braddock's British regulars, Grant's Highlanders, Boone's backwoodsmen, Crawford's militia, St. Clair's regulars, Harmar's United States troops. They had fought draw battles with Lewis at Point Pleasant and Boquet at Bushy Run. They had strewn ruin through the ranks of their adversaries at 338 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO Braddock's Field, at Grant's Defeat before Duquesne; at Blue Lick's Crossing, Crawford's Defeat, Harmar's Defeat, Lowry's Defeat, Adair's Defeat, Estill's Defeat, Holder's Defeat, Bowman's Defeat. In return they had taken hard reverses from Clark and Wayne alone in the open field. They had suffered severly at Boonesborough, Ft. Recovery in seiges. Man for man they had more than held against equal numbers on most occasions. The frontiers for forty years and for a thousand miles had been deluged in blood. They had turned aside the march of the whites westward as does a rock in mid channel. The era of the primitive ended at Greenville. The age of settlement emerged from its stockades. The flood gates of immigration were opened. The waters of white people overspread the land in a sea. The long storm was over save that seventeen years later there was to roll the final thunderclap of Tippecanoe, Ft. Meigs, Ft. Stephenson, River Raisen, and the Thames, the storm that hovered over West Central Ohio so long had blown north and westward into other lands. If it be thought too much space has been given to these things, the answer is : This was Ohio's heroic age, the idyll and the epic; the bud that held the flower; the glory that is Ohio's is more than half an Indian glory; the glory of real men; if not noble red men at least noble patriots; who are in their stern virtues to present day Ohio as the Roman is to Italy. CHAPTER XXXIX EARLY DAY IMMIGRATION BRITISH DIPLOMACY-TREATIES-EARLY SETTLERS-SOME INDIAN TROUBLES -SIMON KENTON-TECUMSEH-SETTLEMENT IN MIAMI VALLEY-OTHER PIONEER SETTLEMENTS. During the time Little Turtle was assaulting Ft. Recovery, and Wayne was making his march and fighting Fallen Timbers, Washington was moving heaven and earth in an attempt to avert war with England. With the one hand he thrust forward Wayne to hold the frontier and be ready for war in the West and with the other he played John Jay on the chess board of diplomacy, seeking the surrender of the British posts upon which the Indian war was based. John Jay reached England June 8, just twenty-two days before Little Turtle attacked Ft. Recovery. Before Wayne reached the St. Mary's, Jay and Grenville, the British minister, had agreed that nothing unfriendly should be done along the Canadian frontier. But that was in the days of sailing vessels and Wayne was on the march; the British in Canada had not been notified of the English change of heart. It was not known in Boston that the treaty had been signed until January 29, 1795, and in that interval Fallen Timbers had carried the American army, as has been told, to the very ditches of Ft. Miami. Jay's Treaty was ratified June 24, 1795, the very month Wayne was negotiating at Greenville. This doubly desirable outcome at once settled the Indian problem and started the processes - 339 - 340 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO of delivering over the British posts on American soil. It was in reality the latter menace that prevented any secure settlement in West Central Ohio. It shows on the face of it what were the key points of the Northwest, not Vincennes and Kaskaskia, held by the Americans for nearly seventeen years without ensuring safe settlement. When on July 17, 1796, Ft. Miami and Detroit passed into American hands the work of Clark and Wayne was completed. The Northwest Territory was actually American in point of possession. The impatient spirit of the longing immigrants had anticipated the action and the ink was not dry upon the Greenville Treaty until settlers were surging up into the newly acquired country. The rush was on. The line of settlement leaped up to the Montgomery and Clark County boundaries of today. Israel Ludlow on November 4, 1795, laid out the town at the forks of the Miami and called it after Jonathan Dayton, one of the proprietors. Since Marion, Hardin, Delaware, Morrow, Union, Madison and Fayette counties drain mainly into the Scioto, similar movements up that valley were preliminary to the ultimate settlement of these counties. However, it was Wayne's victory on the Maumee and his campaign in the Miami country which was the determining factor. Not only was this evidenced in the Miami country but was attested by the settlement of Cleveland in 1796 and Manchester on the Ohio by Nathaniel Massie in 1795. Thus wedges entering from opposite directions were to meet in West Central Ohio in the Scioto headwaters. It was Massie's wedge which was the more important to West Central Ohio. He had moved out of Manchester with a force toward Brush Creek, a Scioto tributary, while the Greenville Treaty was being negotiated and had run into seventy Shawnee warriors under Pucksekaw. Perhaps these were the 100 reported to Wayne as seeking to steal horses so as to move west. HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 341 At any rate Massie after a brush with the band retreated to Manchester while Pucksekaw, hearing of the general surrender, hurried to Wayne to promise future good behavior. Once Wayne's Treaty was in force, Massie hurried back and by April 1, 1796, was plowing the site of Chillicothe. Thence by steps, slow but sure, settlement mounted to the headwaters and tributaries of the Scioto. The first inward drift was always up from the south, along the rivers, rather than west across the rivers. However, Wayne's victory now made possible the first of the east and west routes, which Washington was authorized by Congress in 1796 to provide in the shape of what afterwards became Zane's Trace, a feeder from the east which while not hitting West Central Ohio was by the turn of the century bringing its quota direct without the roundabout way of river travel. Union County had its first town laid out in 1797, even before there was a white settler in the county. Lucas Sullivant, who was so prominent in the early surveys, laid this out in Darby Township and named it North Liberty. James and Joshua Ewing are said to have been brought to North Liberty in 1797 or the spring of 1798. The Indians clung to that section until 1800, camping around Plain City on the banks of Big Darby. Early settlers found them living in brush and bark wigwams. White settlers who were edging up into the country had to be conciliatory to the Indians who still roved it despite the Greenville Treaty. It is said the settlers found the Indians familiar with the treaty but regarded the game as not going with the land. Their attitude was much as that of the English poacher or the country-born white hunter who for long bitterly resented the posting of farm land and refused to regard trespass as a crime. It has been claimed that white settlers took to killing Indians in Delaware County as trespassers. While the white settlers in all sections did commit murder of Indians without much fear of the law, yet the story that Indian bodies were frequently seen 342 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO floating down the Olentangy must have been after the turn of the century; for following Greenville the Indian spirit was still too staunch and their numbers too great for them to have submitted to it. By another ten years the whites had increased in numbers and the Indians degenerated by whiskey and diseases until white men did murder them with impunity, the first trial for murder in Clark County being that of Robert Rennick, acquitted for killing an Indian, while ostensibly making an arrest.  This infiltration into the wilderness was not unattended with dangers. Nathaniel Massie when surveying Clark County after the Greenville Treaty recorded his party was in constant fear of Indians. He related to McDonald his party would divide into groups around scattered fires so as to not form too compact a target at night. When it was time to turn in, at Massie's signal they would bank fires, walk away single file for 200 to 300 yards, scrape away the snow and sleep spoon fashion. This for warmth. When one had to turn, all turned. At dawn, Massie sent two men to circle the camp looking for Indians. Not until all was reported as well would the men go to work.  This preface brings us to a matter which needs comment in all local histories. Too often tradition handed down by word of mouth becomes garbled and dates are hazily placed. A typical instance is the story of John Paul, claimed to have settled Clark County in 1787, eight years before the Greenville Treaty. This story did not appear in print until 1880, when Beer's Clark County History mentioned it but did not vouch for it. By the time Prince's history appeared in the early 1920's it had become incorporated as a fact. The story in substance is that John Paul and his sister had escaped a massacre of their parents and built a cabin on Honey Creek in Bethel Township, Clark County, where the Pauls lived for more than a year without contact with whites, Paul, then a youth in the teens, raising a crop of corn and frequently returning to the cabin with a dead Indian over his horse. The whole story was based on the account of Benjamin Suddoth,  HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 343 who lived with the Pauls and died about 1906. Suddoth even pointed out the site of the Paul Cabin. It was claimed the Paul family emigrated north along the Miami with wagons and built a stockade which was attacked while the Paul family were in the clearing, only John and his sister escaping. John Paul in consequence was awarded the prize at the Lebanon Centennial for raising the first corn in the Miami Valley. The story could only be believed by those unfamiliar with attendant conditions. That the Paul family were massacred north of the Ohio is conceded. That John Paul settled on Honey Creek in Clark County is admitted. But that this was in 1787 is preposterous. Let it be remembered that later than that date John Filson was cut down in the woods around Cincinnati, that. Indians raided Kentucky well into the 90's, that at Marietta, far to the south and east, the settlers had to fortify the town and the outlying settlements were raided and the people massacred. The United States Government kept its troops in forts on the Ohio after this date of 1787. Symmes was in terror of the Indians at Cincinnati after 1790. Logan had moved north to Macachack and considered a thousand men necessary in 1786, just one year before Paul's alleged journey to Clark County. Harmar was defeated three years after the date of the supposed journey. St. Clair was defeated four years later; Wayne did not fight Fallen Timbers until seven years later. Simon Kenton did not think it advisable to enter Ohio in the Mad River country until 1799, then he built a stockade. Tecumseh is said to have returned from the south and ranged Mad River in 1790 after the Paul's are alleged to have been killed, but the idea that young John Paul could with a single rifle have beaten off the Shawnees or been allowed to remain in peace after killing Indians whenever he saw one in a country that was then fully in the possession of Indians able to muster 2,000 warriors is silly, or that they would pass Paul's to go 200 miles farther to look for scalps and be cowed by Paul's lone rifle is twaddle. That Paul 344 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO and his sister could remain for years without supplies of powder is impossible. Admitting that Suddoth heard the story from the Paul's nothing is more probable than that he confused the early attack near Cincinnati with the later location in Bethel Township. Interesting light on the penetration of the white man into Clinton, Fayette and Clark counties along the line of Massie's thrust up from Manchester is contained in the "Reminiscences of a Pioneer" by Thomas Rogers. Rogers' account is a picture of pioneer life and settlement in the Virginia Military Lands. He was born in Loudon County, Virginia, in 1782, like most early settlers, had come into Ohio via Kentucky, where his family were intimate friends with Col. James Smith, the Indian captive of 1755, and Daniel Boone. Students of Smith's fight against slavery in Kentucky, so in keeping with his leadership of the Paxton Boys in Pennsylvania, where they took the first British fort in the struggle for liberty; and those who desire to follow Boone after the Revolution will find interesting information in Rogers concerning these worthies. Rogers also gives a full account of Massie's campaign up to Paint Creek in 1795. Lovers of hunting will find a tale of a bear hunt around Bloomingburg, Fayette County. Also Rogers' methods of killing deer by using a candle in the bow of a canoe, the candle shielded the birch bark, the light attracting the deer which, when he raised his head, saw nothing but the light, since the bark shielded the hunter crouched in the canoe, his fore gun-sights illuminated by the candle. The expedition to Springfield came about as follows. In 1802 or 1803, the tomahawking and scalping of Captain Herrod was reported and created an Indian alarm. Rogers volunteered when the governor ordered Major Mchary to investigate the matter with an armed force. Rogers related that when the party came to the site of Herrod's death, the volunteers cooled off and none but he hitched his horse by Major Mchary and Gen. (Duncan) HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 345 McArthur. After a dispute about a leader the party, 150 in numbers, plunged along helter-skelter past Bloomingburg's future site where a bear hunt eventuated. Part turned back, the remainder proceeded to Joshua Clark's on Paint Creek. Here more turned back, there being no leader. The next camp was Willow Springs. A night of rain, no blankets, and little to eat evaporated the courage of all but ten. Travellers told these latter the Indians were encamped on Mad River. Several Indians were met who knew but little English. They did make it plain Roundhead was on Mad River. Rogers says: "So we went on the Mad River where Springfield now stands. Here we found two white men just settled in their cabins (Ed.'s note : James Demint and Griffith Foos), one a Mr. Foos who was proprietor of the town. (Ed's note : Demint was proprietor; Foos ran the tavern but was virtually the town leader.) At length we learned that Chief Roundhead was somewhere in that part hunting. So the next day a call was made for volunteers to go on the hunt of the chief. I turned out for one, with man of the place and two others of the company. In the evening we brought in the chief, and the next day he conducted us to another camp where James Logan was camped on the headwaters of Rattlesnake. Logan could speak English; he was part white man. (Ed's note : James Logan was not a white man but had learned English while residing in the family of Gen. Ben Logan, who had adopted him after the Mac-a-chack fight in 1786. Jim Logan had returned to his people and become a civil chief.) Here we held a council. They all declared their innocence and promised to investigate the matter and if they found the murderer to bring him to justice." This treaty was broken up by the murder of Waywilewa, an old chief who had not heard of Herrod's murder and came up to a party of white men hunting cattle. The old Indian asked for salt for his meat as the weather was warm. He asked why all the people ran away from him. They told him of the murder. 346 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO He declared some bad white man had done it. The party shook hands. Waywilewa walked away; when about twenty yards off, Wolfe, the white leader, shot him in the back. Mortally wounded, the old chief wheeled and drew a bead on Wolfe, who took cover` behind his horse. Waywilewa then shot Williams off his horse and charged Wolfe with his knife. Wolfe was downed but kicked the chief's feet out from under him. Waywilewa feeling he was dying, thrust his knife in Wolfe's thigh, staggered a few yards and fell dead. The chief's two sons left their camp on Rattlesnake at the mouth of Pardon's Creek and went to the Indian towns and demanded justice. The governor tried to buy them off but they brought Tecumseh, who threatened to destroy the whole settlement if they did not satisfy the sons of the chief. The whites paid a large sum to settle the death and appease the murder. By Rogers' account it can be seen that Tecumseh was a force to be reckoned with in 1802. The records throw light on a very barren period of history in Clark, Fayette and Madison counties. One of the expeditions which has escaped attention from local or state historians and that properly belongs in the St. Clair period of invasion rather than the penetration period was that of the "Edwards Blackberry Campaign" under Col. John Edwards of Bourbon County, Kentucky, which contained 300 men, rendezvoused at Maysville, Kentucky, and penetrated to within three miles of a "Great camp of horse thieving Indians at the headwaters of Mad River." This would be about Zanesfield, Logan County, 1791 or 1792. Simon Kenton was along as scout and captain of the advance company. Kenton while at Limestone or Maysville was having occasional brushes with Young Tecumseh and penetrating up into what are the Virginia Military Lands. Kenton's emigration to the forks of Mad River in 1799 had an ultimate effect upon the history of Clark, Champaign and Logan counties in that he here again re-enacted his role as guardian angel of the frontier, en- HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 347 gaging in milling, land speculation and running a trading store, being at this time possessed of wealth and hundreds of thousands of acres. His stockade near where the Ohio Edison power plant stands in Clark County, his later farm (now the Hunt farm) north of Springfield, the Lagonda mill, his Urbana home where he was at once jailer and prisoner of himself and the Zanesfield home where he died are milestones in the march of the whites northward. It was through Kenton that the Wards, the Whitemans, the Dowdens, Owens, Jarboes and Berrys came up from Limestone along the trace Kenton cut, according to Edna Kenton, but what is far more likely he did not go through a "roadless wilderness" but soon hit the Logan trace which coincided with the old war trail which came down from Oldtown to Eagle Creek. Edna Kenton gives the Kenton Trace as running from Lagonda to New Market, nearly opposite Limestone, and says that Kenton lost 250,000 acres of land with the canceling of Symmes' rights through Congress. In 1804 and 1806 there was considerable Indian trouble along Mad River with Tecumseh holding councils at Stoney Creek, and James McPherson, "The Red Faced Man," when down the west bank of Mad River and Kenton the east bank, warning the scattered settlers. Mrs. Wm. Owen took her two youngest children and fled to Kentucky on horseback. The rest gathered at Thomas Kenton's and later at Joseph Reynold's. February 16, 1806, Kenton, McPherson, Charles Mcllvane and Major Thomas Moore went to Stoney Creek to see Tecumseh. Kenton, William Ward, McPherson and James Reed went to Greenville in 1807, where 750 warriors were said to be assembled. They reported their observations to the governor. After this came the council at Springfield in the fall of 1807, the Indians and whites passing through Urbana, armed to the "teeth, two and two abreast, an Indian and a white man together throughout the whole line of march." 348 - HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO The main thrust of settlement which was up the Miami Valley, in Cincinnati's Beginning, Miller records that following news of Wayne's victory there was such a movement northward that North Bend lost half its population, and that cabins were deserted by the dozens in a street. Also settlers had squatted under the shelter of the forts and these started surging northward in a rush. Once these were located there came the Cabin Raising, next the "deadening' of the trees by girdling the forest trees with an axe so the flow of sap was interrupted. Then while the first crop was reared among the blasted trees, there remained the work of feeding the family by hunting and furnishing the house by labor of the hands. At first the family had to wear deerskins or linens. It took several years to accumulate means to buy a few sheep so as to have wool to weave linsey-woolsey as the mixture of wool and flax was called. Not all were so poor in world's goods. There were men of property such as Jonathan Dayton and Judge Turner, James Wilkinson, Israel Ludlow and Winthrop Sargent, men with means enough to found cities. Waynesville was settled by Quakers in 1798 and long was the seat of that faith in West Central Ohio. By 1797 a man by the name of Wood built a mill on the Little Miami, yet a traveler in that same year passed but one cabin between the Little Miami and Manchester on the Ohio. However there were about 45,000 people in the Miami Country by 1800, although there were practically none north or west of Dayton at that time. The land law of 1800 facilitated settlement, with its minimum price of $2 the acre. Woodland in 1809 brought about $5 an acre. By 1806 Dayton had forty houses, and a good road to Hamilton. Lebanon had a church and school house, a mill and 200 people. William Bruce laid out Eaton, the first town of consequence west of the Big Miami, in 1806. Cincinnati, while the port of entry, grew slowly and by 1805 had less than 1,000 inhabitants. The town had to wait while the interior got squared away with HISTORY OF WEST CENTRAL OHIO - 349 its cabin raising, deadenings, clearing and accumulating of a surplus for shipment. The purchase of Louisiana, the opening of the Mississippi, the embargo of 1807 sending immigrants west, all boomed the Miami Country. In 1810 the Miami Country held one-third the population of the state. Warren County had 23 to the square mile, Greene, 17; Preble, 8.2; Montgomery, 15; Miami, 9.9. At this time Dayton had doubled in three years; Lebanon had 100 houses, Xenia, 50; Springfield, 50; Urbana, 60. It was not until 1815 that Wilmington, Troy and Greenville could be listed as villages of a few cabins. Land was around $8 in wood and $12 cleared. At first the War of 1812 checked things but soon the hard times in the east started immigration with another great rush rolling along in full tide by 1813.