HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY - 25 Altogether Celoron planted six plates at the mouths of the various Ohio tributaries, as of the Kanawha, Muskingum and the Great Miami, signifying a renewal of possession of the country. This was done as follows : His men were drawn up in order ; Louis XV was proclaimed lord of all that region ; the arms were stamped on a sheet of tin nailed to a tree ; the plate of lead was buried at the foot, and the notary of .the expedition drew up a formal act of the entire proceeding. For several years previously the English had served notices on their rivals that they would dispute possession of the Ohio Valley ; in fact, that the Six Nations owned it by right of conquest and had placed it under their protection. Some of the western lands were claimed by the British as having been actually purchased at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1744, by a treaty between the colonists and the Six Nations. About the time the French gave the world notice that they claimed Louisiana, the English formed the Ohio Company for the purpose of establishing trading posts among the Indians. CLASH BETWEEN FRENCH AND ENGLISH TRADERS From October, 1750, to May, 1751, Christopher Gist, a land surveyor and agent of the Ohio Company (an association of Maryland and Virginia gentlemen organized to buy lands in the Ohio Valley), explored the country adjacent to the main river and at various points some distance inland. As he kept a journal of his travels, it is evident that he found a number of traders on the ground, both French and English, the whole region being in the throes of the conflict between the people of the rival nations. In December, 1750, he reached an Indian town a few miles above the mouth of the Muskingum, inhabited by Wyandots, who, he says, were divided in their allegiance between the French and the English. The village consisted of about 100 families. George Croghan was the leading English trader of that region, and had hoisted the English colors at the post. While Mr. Gist lingered there, stories came in of the capture of Mr. Croghan's men by Frenchmen and their Indian allies. He was invited to marry into the tribe, but delicately declined. In January an Indian trader came to town and informed the English traders that the Wyandots of the Lake Erie region had advised him that the region around the great lakes was claimed by the French, but that all the branches of the Ohio belonged to them and their brothers, the English ; that the French had no business there, and it was expected that the southern branch of the Wyandots would desert the French and come over bodily to the English. 26 - HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY THE SCIOTO DELAWARES IN 1751 Mr. Croghan was afterward appointed deputy Indian agent. On the 15th of January, 1751, he and Andrew Montour, an influential man among the Delawares and Shawnees, accompanied Mr. Gist in his visit to an Indian town at the mouth of the Scioto and to the towns on the Big Miami. Their trip to the Valley of the Scioto and down the river to its mouth is described in Mr. Gist's journal. Under date of January 15, 1751, he says: "We left Muskingum and went west five miles to the White Woman's Creek, on which is a small town. This white woman was taken away from New England when she was not above ten years old by the French Indians. She is now upwards of fifty ; has an Indian husband and several children. Her name is Mary Harris. She still remembers they used to be very religious in New England, and wonders how the white men can be so wicked as she has seen them in the woods. "Wednesday, 16th : Set out southwest twenty-five miles to Licking Creek. The land from Muskingum is rich and broken. Upon the north side of Licking Creek about six miles from its mouth, were several salt licks or ponds, formed by little streams or drains of water, clear, but of bluish color and salty taste. The traders and Indians boil their meats in this water, which, if proper care is not taken, will sometimes make it too salty to eat." The course was west and southwest from Licking Creek to Hockhocking, a small Delaware town, and thence to the Upper Scioto, which was descended for about twenty miles to Salt Lick Creek. On the 25th he traveled twenty-eight miles, all the way through a country occupied by the Delaware Indians, and on Sunday arrived at one of their towns on the southeast side of the Scioto, about five miles from its mouth. This, Mr. Gist says, was the last of the Delaware towns to the westward. He remained a few days at that locality and held a council with the friendly Indians, who made several speeches. He continues : "The Delaware Indians, by the best accounts I could gather, consist of about five hundred fighting men, all firmly attached to the English interest. They are not properly a part of the Six Nations, but are scattered about among most of the Indians on the Ohio, and some of them. among the Six Nations, from whom they have leave to hunt upon their land." At the time of Gist's visit a dozen tribes occupied the territory now included within the State of Ohio. The Wyandots occupied the country northwest of the Sandusky River; the Delawares, the valleys of the Muskingum and Tuscarawas, the Lower Scioto and a few other localities; the Shawnees lived along the Scioto and HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY - 27 Mad rivers ; the Miamis, on the Great and Little Miami ; the Mingoes, at Mingo Bottom, near Steubenville, and at several other points; the Ottawas, in the valleys of the Maumee and Sandusky ; and the Chippewas, few in number, were confined to the southern shore of Lake Erie. FRENCH AND INDIANS CAPTURE ENGLISH TRADERS After the return of Mr. Gist the Ohio Company proceeded to take possession of the lands they claimed on the Ohio and established a trading house on the Big Miami about 100 miles from its mouth. This was considered the first settlement in the Ohio Valley which approached permanency. Early in 1752 the French heard of this proceeding and sent a military expedition to the Indians demanding the surrender of the English traders as intruders upon the French lands. As the demand was refused, the past was attacked by the French, assisted by the Ottawas and Chippewas. After a fierce engagement, during which fourteen Indians were killed, the trading house was captured and destroyed and the Englishmen carried as prisoners to Canada. In the following year Washington, with Gist as his guide, recommended the erection of an English fort upon the present site of Pittsburgh, and the fiercest conflicts between the rivals for the possession of the Ohio Valley were waged in that vicinity for the capture of Fort Du Quesne, the military headquarters of the French. THE SCIOTO SHAWNEES The Scioto Valley, and especially Ross County, are more closely identified with the fierce and warlike Shawnees than with any of the other Indian tribes which claimed various portions of the soil of Ohio; they and the Delawares long held the balance of power in both the Muskingum and Scioto valleys. It is generally conceded that the Wyandots, or Hurons, were the first red men of history to dwell within the territory which now comprises Ohio. Then came the Delawares, who claimed to be the elder branch of the Lenni-Lenape and called themselves the grandfathers of the kindred types, but recognized the superiority of the Wyandots. This division has been awarded a high rank by nearly all writers on the Indians. The Ottawas dwelt originally upon the banks of the Canadian river which bears their name, remaining there until driven away by the Iroquois. They were then scattered through Ohio and Canada, along the shores of Lake Erie. The Ohio Indians were, as a rule, fine specimens of the race. None were more so than the Shawnees. They were the only nation among the Indians of the Northwest who had a tradition of a 28 - HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY foreign origin, and for some time after the whites became acquainted with them held annual festivals to celebrate the pale arrival in this country of their ancestors. There is considerable conflicting testimony in regard to them. It is generally conceded that at an early date they separated from the other Lenape tribes and established themselves in the South, through which part of the country they roamed from Kentucky to Florida. The main body of the tribe, encouraged by their friends, the Miamis, is supposed to have crossed the Ohio and, pushing northward on the Scioto, to have made an extensive village and remained in the country until their final defeat and dispersion in 1672 by the Iroquois. After that a considerable portion of them made a forcible settlement on the headwaters of the Carolina, and after being driven away from that locality, found refuge in the Creek country. Another portion joined their brethren in Pennsylvania, and a few may have remained upon the Scioto or gone North to the waters of the Sandusky. Those of the nation who had gone to Pennsylvania were reduced to a humiliating condition by the Iroquois, but still retained their pride and considerable innate independence of spirit, and in 1740, or soon after, carried into effect their long cherished plan of returning to the country northwest of the Ohio, in which they were encouraged by the Wyandots and French. Those who had been settled among the Creeks joined them and the nation was reunited. It is probable that the Delawares peacefully surrendered to the Shawnees the greater part of the Scioto Valley, for when some members of that nation visited Philadelphia in 1776 they spoke "of placing the Shawnees in their laps." However this may have been, the Delawares retained possession of the northern part of the valley and of that portion of the country which was set apart into a county, and still bears that name. It is conjectured by some students that the southern part of the nation lived at one time upon the Shawnee River, and that that well-known name was derived from them, being a corruption of the name of the nation of Tecumseh, whose name and fame add luster to the annals of this tribe, and who is said to have been born to a Creek woman whom his father married during the southern migration. From the time of their establishment north of the Ohio, the Shawnees were almost constantly engaged in warfare against the whites, for over forty years, or until the treaty of Greenville. They were among the most active allies of the French, and after the conquest of Canada, continued in concert with the Delawares, hostilities which were only terminated by the expedition of Colonel Bouquet. The first permanent settlers in Ohio were annoyed and harassed by the Shawnees until 1795. They took an active part HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY - 29 against the Americans in the *War of Independence and in the Indian war which followed. A part of them under the leadership of Tecumseh joined the British in the War of 1812. A title commonly applied to the Shawnees was "the Spartans of the Race," and their constancy in braving danger and enduring the consequences of defeat certainly seems to have made them deserving of the appellation. They have also been styled "The Bedouins of the American Wilderness," which, considering their extensive and almost constant wanderings, is not inappropriate. Definite knowledge of the Shawnees and Delawares of the Scioto Valley had its initiation in the travels and journals of Christopher Gist, already noted, and the Bouquet expedition of 1764 (to be hereafter noted) greatly added to such information. Collectively, the Shawnees were a nation divided into four tribes, one of which was called Chillicothe, signifying a Dwelling Place. They therefore had a number of towns by that name, the one three miles north of Xenia, in what is now Greene County, being generally designated by historical writers of the earlier times who have occasion to refer to Old Chillicothe. The journal of the Bouquet expedition, however, does not mention that town, but comprises, as their chief villages, Old Chillicothe, on the site of what is now Westf all, Pickaway County ; Grenadier Squawtown and Cornstalk's Town, on Scippo Creek, a tributary of the Scioto, and the Old Chillicothe on the north fork of Paint Creek, upon the site of the present Village of Frankfort, Ross County. Besides these there were a number of other small villages along the Scioto, and possibly upon Paint Creek and other tributaries. There was certainly one at the mouth of the Scioto, and it was named Shawneetown. It is described by Christopher Gist in his "Ohio Diary," as it appeared in 1751. It was situated on both sides of the Ohio, and contained about 300 men. "There were about forty houses on the south side of the Ohio, and about a hundred on the north side, with a kind of state house, about ninety feet long, with a tight cover of bark, in which councils were held." Upon the Scioto, Evans' map, made as early as 1755, indicates a town which must have been very near the present northern boundary of Pike County. It was called, upon the old map, Hurricane Tom's Town. According to the Bouquet report, the Scioto Shawnees of 1764 numbered 500 warriors. COMMINGLING OF OHIO INDIAN TRIBES By the beginning of the nineteenth century the several tribes, whose territories were quite clearly defined fifty years previously, had commingled as a means of defense against the common white 30 - HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY enemy, and as the Valley of the Ohio became fringed with the cabins and villages of the palefaces, the tribal lines of the red man became more and more obliterated. In Eastern and Central Ohio, where the Shawnees and Delawares once held almost undisputed sway, there were now to be found also Wyandots, Mingoes, and even Miamis from the western border. This commingling and union of the Ohio Indians resulted largely from their experiences in the French and Indian war of 1755-64. The prompt action of the French in destroying the English trading post on the Big Miami and taking its occupants to Canada as prisoners of war brought counter-action from the British government. Early in the spring of 1755 General Braddock, with a considerable force, was sent to take possession of the Ohio country. His terrible defeat near Fort Du Quesne was followed by a fruitless expedition, the year after, which was directed against the Indian towns on the Ohio. Finally, in 1758, the French were expelled from Fort Du Quesne, and in 1763 France ceded to Great Britain all her North American settlements. The British then gave their attention to the defiant Indians. In 1764 General Braddock, having dispersed the Indian forces besieging Detroit, passed down into the Wyandot country by way of Sandusky Bay. Having ascended the bay and river as far as possible in boats, the party encamped and concluded a treaty of peace with the representatives of many of the Indian tribes. BOUQUET 'S EXPEDITION But the Shawnees of the Scioto River and the Delawares of the Muskingum continued hostile. For the purpose of subduing or placating them, Colonel Bouquet was sent from Fort Pitt into the heart of the Ohio country on the Muskingum River. This expedition was conducted with great prudence and skill ; but few lives were lost, a treaty of peace was effected with the Indians about a mile from the forks of the Muskingum, but not before all the white prisoners, amounting to some three hundred, had been delivered to the colonel and his force. Accompanying Colonel Bouquet as an engineer was Thomas Hutchins, who afterward became geographer of the United States. Mr. Hutchins drew a map of the country through which the expedition passed. It was published in London two years after the return of the expedition and covers much of the territory now embraced in the valleys of the Muskingum and Upper Scioto. LORD DUNMORE 'S WAR Various expeditions were sent against the Delawares, Wyandots, and Iroquois of Western Pennsylvania, Virginia and Eastern HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY - 31 Ohio, in 1774, and as they were chiefly under the direction of Lord Dunmore, governor of Virginia, they are usually designated as "Dunmore's War." These actions did not spread far into Ohio, although Lord Dunmore's march took him up the Hocking Valley and over into what is now Pickaway County, where, in the fall of 1774, he made a treaty with all the hostile Indians at Camp Charlotte, near the present site of Circleville. BATTLE OF POINT PLEASANT One of the wings of Lord Dunmore's army was commanded by General Lewis. In October, 1774, he started with his soldiers for the Valley of the Scioto, his express purpose being to destroy the Shawnee towns in that section. At that time Logan, the famous chief, who had been driven from Pennsylvania into Ohio, was living at the Pickaway Village of Old Chillicothe. Although he was born a Cayugan and had previously lived at a Mingo village, at the mouth of Indian Cross Creek, in what is now Jefferson County, Eastern Ohio, he afterward settled in the Pickaway Village of the Scioto Shawnees and became one of their most powerful leaders. The killing of Logan's kindred by a party of Virginians, and the rising of his infuriated supporters, led to the invasion of Lord Dunmore's forces, the most important expedition ever made against the Shawnees of the Scioto country. The greatest native leader of the Shawnees was Cornstalk, and both he and Logan were renowned orators, as well as warriors and men of peace. The murder of his relatives threw Logan into a fury of action, and he eagerly joined a large force of Shawnees, led by Cornstalk and directed against the Lewis expedition headed for the Scioto Valley. CORNSTALK AND LOGAN The division under Lewis was attacked by the Shawnees with sudden fury at Point Pleasant on the banks of the Ohio in what is now Clermont County, October 10, 1774. The battle raged from early morning to noon, with Cornstalk and Logan in the front ranks of the Indian warriors, and, although the Shawnees withdrew during the night, after General Lewis had received reinforcements, it was not until after they had inflicted heavy losses in killed and wounded upon the British force. The division which Lord Dunmore led in person was at the mouth of the Hocking, twenty-five miles below Marietta, at the time of the battle of Point Pleasant. When tidings of it reached him he marched his force up that valley to the present Town of 32 - HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY Logan, Hocking County, and thence west to Scippo Creek, at a point seven miles southeast of Circleville, near Cornstalk's town. There he established Camp Charlotte, named after the reigning Queen of England, and soon after made a treaty of peace with the warring Shawnees. Cornstalk and all the leading chiefs of the allied tribes were present except Logan, who refused to appear. Lord Dunmore sent an interpreter to him at the Pickaway town of Old Chillicothe, and he there delivered the speech which has come down through history as one of the most famous examples of Indian eloquence, commencing, as every schoolboy knows, with "I appeal to any white man to say if he ever entered Logan's cabin hungry and he gave him not meat ; if ever he came cold and naked and he clothed him not." As is generally known, he became a gloomy, crushed and vindictive man, and sunk deeper and deeper into the mire of strong drink. In 1780 he was killed on the lake shore, between Sandusky and Detroit, while sitting with bowed head by his camp fire ; an Indian, who imagined that he had been wronged by Logan, stole up behind him and sunk his tomahawk into his brain. There is a monument erected to Logan at Auburn, New York, and Nature has placed another in the Scioto Valley three miles east of Chillicothe, in the massive hill known as Mount Logan. Cornstalk was killed by some American hunters in revenge for the death of one of their number by an unknown Indian, at the fort at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, Kentucky, opposite Point Pleasant, where the great battle had been waged four years before. HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY - 33 THE SHAWNEES AGAIN AT WAR The Shawnees, who had rested in the lull of peace, after the truce of Lord Dunmore in 1774, were again wrought into hostility by the assassination of their great chief, Cornstalk, and for several years thereafter were constantly at war with the whites. They seemed determined to wipe out of existence the little frontier settlements of Kentucky, which they regarded as having encroached upon their hunting grounds, and the tributaries of the Ohio, the Scioto and the two Miamis often bore the canoes of their war parties. To push their thin, light bark boats silently up the Licking and Kentucky rivers, make a sudden attack and a swift retreat, was an easy matter. But the line of battle was constantly sweeping to the westward. While in 1774 and previous to that time, the scenes of action were upon the Kanawha, the Muskingum and the Scioto, we find that in succeeding years the expeditions of the whites were principally directed to the Indian towns on the Miamis, and into the territory now included in the State of Indiana. It is probable that the Scioto Shawnees, who had been amazed by the size of Dunmore's army, and only saved from complete destruction by their submission to the terms dictated at Camp Charlotte, were less anxious to carry on hostilites than those tribes of their nation which had their seats farther to the west. Nearly all of the retaliatory incursions of the Kentuckians were made in the valleys of the Big and Little Miamis and the Mad River, in which territory stood the Town of old Chillicothe, the site of which is three miles north of the present Town of Xenia ; Piqua, noted as the birth place of Tecumseh, on the north bank of Mad River, seven miles west of Springfield, and upper and lower Piqua, in Miami County. As has been stated, the Indians were unrelenting in their warfare upon the pioneers of Kentucky, and those intrepid men, trained in woodcraft and even more sagacious in border war than their dusky enemy, were not slow to strike back. It was the long succession of fierce and sudden forays, battles, skirmishes, and silent, single murders by the Indians, that led to the application of the name, "the dark and bloody ground," to the then sparsely settled northern part of Kentucky. SHAWNEES LAST OHIO INDIANS TO SURRENDER During and after the Revolutionary war various American expeditions were sent against the warlike Shawnees, but the scenes of these fora* and conflicts were in the Upper Valley of the Scioto. In 1779 Colonel Bowman headed an expedition against them, and their Village of Chillicothe was burned; but the Shawnee Vol. I-3 34 - HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY warriors showed an undaunted front and the whites were forced to retreat. In the summer of the following year General Clarke led a body of Kentuckians against the Shawnees. On their approach the Indians burned Chillicothe and retreated to their Town of Piqua, six miles below the present site of Springfield. There they gave battle and were defeated. In September, 1782, this officer led a second expedition against them and destroyed their towns of Upper and Lower Piqua, in what is now Miami County. Other expeditions from Kentucky were directed against the stubborn Shawnees of the Upper Scioto Valley and along the Miami rivers further west, these conflicts covering 1786-8. FIRST WHITES TO ATTEMPT HOME-MAKING IN THE SCIOTO VALLEY While the Shawnees were making their last stands against the oncoming tide of white civilization, the first attempt was made by a little colony of pale faces to found homes in the Valley of the Scioto. It is true that for a number of months stragglers from Lord Dunmore's disbanded army had "squatted" at various points in the Ohio Valley, but they were not there to make homes. In April, 1785, the men, women and children of four families made the bold adventure of real home-making. An account of their disastrous failure was written by George Corwin, of Portsmouth, in the American Pioneer : "In April, 1785, four families from the Redstone settlement in Pennsylvania descended the Ohio to the mouth of the Scioto River, and there moored their boat under the high bank just below where Portsmouth now stands. They commenced clearing the ground to plant seeds for a crop to support their families, hoping that the red men of the forest would suffer them to remain and improve the soil. "Soon after they landed, the four men, heads of the families, started up the Scioto to see the paradise of the West, of which they had heard from white men who had been captured by the Indians and traversed it while in captivity. Leaving their little colony of four women and the children to the protection of an ever-ruling Providence, they wandered over the beautiful bottoms of the Scioto as far up as the prairie above and opposite to where Piketon now stands. One of them, Peter Patrick by name, pleased with the country, cut the initials of his name on the beech tree near the river, and upon the margin of a little stream that flowed into the Scioto. These letters afterward being found gave the name of Pee Pee to the creek, and then to the prairies through which the creek flowed. And from this also came the name of Pee Pee Township in Pike County. "Encamping near the site of Piketon they were surprised by HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY - 35 the Indians and two of them killed as they lay near the fire, while the other two escaped over the hills, reaching the Ohio River at the mouth of the Scioto just as some white men going down the river in a pirogue were passing. Their cry for help was heard, the two men were taken aboard and rowed to their claim, and the household goods hastily packed away amid the lamentations of the women who had lost their husbands. No time was lost, as their safety depended upon instant flight and, getting their movables, they put off to Limestone, now Maysville, as a place of greater safety, and the owners of the boat there left them and pursued their own way to Port Vincent, their destination." CHAPTER III EXTENSION OF LAW AND ORDER ACQUIRING NATIONAL TITLE TO OHIO SOIL-DUNMORE 'S SQUATTERS EVICTED— AMERICAN SYSTEM OF LAND SURVEYS-THE ORDINANCE OF 1787—OHIO COMPANY'S PURCHASE—MILITARY AND CIVIL FRICTION-SURVEYS OF OHIO PUBLIC LANDS-THE VIRGINIA MILITARY LANDS-CONGRESS LANDS-C HILLICOT HE LAND DISTRICT-SURVEY OF THE MILITARY LANDS-FIRST SETTLEMENT IN THE SCIOTO COUNTRY-SETTLEMENTS EXTEND NORTHWARD FROM MANCHESTER- CHILLICOTHE OF THE WHITES FOUNDED-WASHINGTON COUNTY ORGANIZED- FIRST JUDICIARY-INDIANS AT LAST. SUBDUED-MORE PIONEER COUNTIES OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY-THE ORIGINAL ROSS COUNTY OF 1798—PROCESSES OF DIVISION AND REDUCTION-CHILLICOTHE NATURAL SEAT OF EARLY GOVERNMENT-FIRST TERRITORIAL REPRESENTATIVES-LOOKING TOWARD STATEHOOD-COMMONWEALTH BORN AT CHILLICOTHE-SHIFTING OF POPULATION CENTER MAKES COLUMBUS THE CAPITAL. At the conclusion of the Revolutionary war, the United States took active steps to absorb the territory northwest of the Ohio River into the national domain. For that purpose it was necessary to obtain the formal session of the lands claimed by Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York, as well as to conclude treaties with the Indians who claimed the original titles. ACQUIRING NATIONAL TITLE OF OHIO SOIL By the Treaty of Paris, concluded between Great Britain and the United States in 1783, the western boundary of the United States was declared to be the Mississippi instead of the Ohio River. The British commissioner stoutly contended that the Ohio was its legitimate limits ; but sturdy John Adams, the American representative, carried the day for the Mississippi River, thus saving for his countrymen the splendid Northwest Territory. The next great step in the building of the nation was to satisfy the land claims of the original occupants of the soil. The first negotiations were with the Six Nations of the East. Finally, at - 36 - HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY - 37 Fort Stanwix, in October, 1784, the Mohawks, Onondagas, Senecas, Cayugas, Oneidas and Tuscaroras ceded all their claims to the western lands to the Government of the United States. But citizens could not settle in that great domain until every other Indian title was lifted, and the individual states also relinquished their claims. By the year 1786 all the commonwealths of the Union had ceded their claims to the general Government; then remained the task of extinguishing the Indian claims other than those ceded by the Six Nations. Efforts had been continuous since the conclusion of peace with Great Britain. But the problem was a difficult one. The Indian tribes were allies of the English, with such minor exceptions as the Moravian Indians, or Christian Delawares of the Muskingum and Tuscarawas valleys, and did not surrender their homes without a struggle. For several years there was a series of hostile movements and numerous acts of revenge, but about 1786, when the general Government had adjusted all the state claims, a conciliatory policy was adopted toward the Indians, and by a series of purchases and treaties, made at various dates, their titles were peaceably extinguished. It is a fact worthy of note and pride, that the title to every foot of Ohio soil was honorably acquired from the Indians. DUNMORE'S SQUATTERS EVICTED But for more than a decade "squatters" had planted themselves in the fertile soil of Dunmore's valley. When Lord Dunmore's army of 1,200 men was disbanded at the mouth of the Hocking River in 1774, there is much evidence that not a few of them saw that the land was good to look upon and decided to occupy it. At least, in January, 1785, when the commissioners appointed by the Government to treat with the Delawares and Wyandots arrived in the Ohio country they found white "squatters" at Hocking Falls, at the Muskingum, the Scioto and Miami, and along the north bank of the Ohio. The largest settlement appeared to have been Hocking, and there was quite a town on the Mingo Bottoms opposite what is now Wheeling. The Indian commissioners, George Rogers, Richard Butler and Arthur Lee, were compelled to cease negotiations with the Delawares and Wyandots until all the lands west of the Ohio were dispossessed of the whites. Ensign John Armstrong was sent by Colonel Harmer to drive the white invaders from Indian soil, and by March most of them had left the country, although some failed to leave and kept hiding until the titles to the lands were made clear. In 1784, ten years after the disbandment of Dunmore 's army PAGE 38 - TERRITORY NORTHWEST OF THE OHIO RIVER HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY - 39 at the mouth of the Hocking River, Congress passed an ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory, all claim to which had been relinquished by Great Britain, by the Treaty of Paris. So far as the organization of any civil government under it is concerned, it was a dead letter, but under its general provisions one very important step was taken toward the realization of the white man's order and the security of property rights. On May 20, 1785, a supplementary ordinance was passed for the survey of the western lands. AMERICAN SYSTEM OF LAND SURVEYS A surveyor was chosen from each state which originally laid claim to the domain west of the Alleghenies, who was to act under the geographer of the United States, Thomas Hutchins, in laying off the land into townships of six miles square. The geographer was instructed to designate the townships by numbers, from south to north, and the ranges were to be numbered from east to west. It is this simple system of describing land that has been followed by the Government and private surveyors since, and may be called the American system. The survey of the western lands was well under way at the time of the passage of the permanent and living ordinance of 1787, which has been described as "the last gift of the Congress of the old Confederation to the people of the States." THE ORDINANCE OF 1787 As to the author of the famous Ordinance of 1787, credit is now generally accorded to Dr. Manasseh Cutler, whose depth of scholarship, grace of diction and breadth of practical ability, as well as loftiness of purpose, endowed him with all the qualities which breathe through that noble document. Undoubtedly he embodied the views of Thomas Jefferson, as expressed in the Ordinance of 1784, with his own commanding personality. Doctor Cutler had come before Congress to purchase for a company composed chiefly of Massachusetts men, a large body of public lands. In the opinion of the associates of the Ohio Company, the purpose would be virtually useless if uncovered by the guarantee of civil law and order. The Ordinance of 1787 was the answer, and the necessary predecessor of the first substantial colonization to the Northwest Territory. Congress wisely considered that such a colony would form a barrier against the British and Indians, and that the initial movement would be speedily followed by other purchases and extending settlements. The southern states had even a greater interest in the West than New England, and Virginia especially was eager for the develop- 40 - HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY ment of the country beyond the Ohio. The South in general warmly supported the planting of colonies of men in the West whose energy and patriotism were well known ; and this, notwithstanding the anti-slavery provision. The ordinance provided that there should be formed from the territory between the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers and the Canadian boundary, not less than three and not more than five states. If only three states were erected, the westernmost was to be bounded by the Mississippi, the Ohio and the Wabash rivers ; a direct line drawn from the Wabash River and Port Vincent (Vincennes) north to the international boundary, and westward along the Canadian line to the Lake of the Woods and the Mississippi River. Thus Illinois. The middle state was to be blocked off between the Ohio and the international boundary, Illinois, and a line drawn due north from the mouth of the Great Miami to Canada. That was Indiana. The easternmost state was to be Ohio, whose southern and eastern boundaries were to be the Ohio River and Pennsylvania, and its northern limits the Dominion of Canada. But, as is well known, advantage was eventually taken of the proviso that Congress might form two other states from the territory between the Ohio, the Mississippi and the international boundary, north of a line drawn east and west from the southernmost bend to Lake Michigan. Under that proviso were created Michigan and Wisconsin, and the establishment of the boundaries of Ohio, as we know them today. OHIO COMPANY'S PURCHASE On the 27th of October, 1787, a contract was made between the treasury of the United States and the New England Ohio Company of Associates for the purchase of a tract of land north of the Ohio River from the mouth of the Scioto to the western boundary of the survey mentioned, thence by a line north to the northern boundary of the tenth township from the Ohio River, thence by a due west line to the Scioto River, and down that stream to its mouth, or point of beginning. The settlement of this purchase commenced at Marietta in the spring of 1788, and constituted the first permanent colony planted within the limits of Ohio. MILITARY AND CIVIL FRICTION Under the provisions of the ordinance, Gen. Arthur St. Clair was appointed governor of the Northwest Territory, Winthrop HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY - 41 Sargent, secretary, and Samuel H. Parsons, James H. Varnum and John Armstrong, judges. Judge Armstrong declined the judiciary and John Cleves Symmes was appointed in his place. With the exception of Judge Symmes, the territorial officers reached Marietta on the 9th of July, 1788. The former joined his associates soon after. At first there appears to have been some friction between the governor and the judiciary. The chief executive, a man of long military training and experience, called the attention of the judges to the efficiency of the militia in the conduct of affairs in a new country, but they paid no attention to his suggestions. Instead, they formulated a land-law for dividing and transferring real estate, which was rejected by Congress because of its general crudities and especially because, under its provisions, non-resident land holders would have been deprived of their property rights. SURVEYS OF OHIO PUBLIC LANDS As has been noted, a survey of the western lands had been commenced under authority of an ordinance passed by Congress in 1785. Thus authorized, the Government surveyors laid out the first seven ranges bounded by Pennsylvania on the east and the Ohio River on the south. The surveys of the Government lands were commenced in July, 1786, under the management of Thomas Hutchins, the geographer of the United States. There were surveyors appointed—one from each state, but only nine entered upon the work in 1786. Among them were Anselm Tupper, Joseph Buell, and John Matthews. Rufus Putnam was appointed from Massachusetts, but was then engaged in surveys in what is now the State of Maine. The geographer planted his Jacob staff on the Pennsylvania line at the north bank of the Ohio River. Having been one of the Pennsylvania commissioners on the western boundary in 1784 he was familiar with the country from the Ohio River to Lake Erie. He ran a line west over the hills of Columbiana and Carroll counties in person, now known as the " Geographer's Line," a distance of forty-two miles. At each mile a post was set and on each side witness-trees were marked. Every six miles was a town corner. From these corners surveyors ran the meridian or range lines south to the Ohio, and the east and west town lines. Hutchins began the numbers of the sections, or No. 1, at the southeast corner of the townships, thence north to the northeast corner. The next tier began with No. 7 on the south line, and so on, terminating with No. 36 at the northwest corner. This system of numbering was followed in the survey of the Ohio Com- 42 - HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY pany 's purchase and in the Symmes purchase. It was changed to the present system by the act of 1799, without any apparent reason. The towns in the seven ranges were, by law, numbered from the Ohio River northward, and the ranges from the Pennsylvania line, westward. In the history of land surveys this is the first application of the rectangular system of lots in squares of one mile, with meridian lines, and corner posts at each mile, where the number of the section, town, and range was put on the witness-trees in letters and figures. It should be regarded as one of the great American inventions, and the credit of it is due to Hutchins, who conceived it in 1764 when he was a captain in the Sixtieth Royal-American Regiment, and engineer to the expedition under Col. Henry Bouquet to the Forks of the Muskingum, in what is now Coshocton County. It formed a part of his plan for military colonies north of the Ohio, as a protection against Indians. The law of 1785 embraced most of the details of the new system. It was afterwards adopted by the State of Massachusetts in the surveys of her timber lands in the Province of Maine, and by the purchasers of her lands within the State of New York ; also by the manager of the Holland purchase in Western New York and the State of Connecticut in the Western Reserve. Although the Indian tribes had ceded Southern Ohio to the United States they were bitterly opposed to its survey and settlement by white people. They were so hostile that troops were detailed from Fort Harmar for the protection of surveyors. The geographer's line ended on the heights south of Sandyville, in Stark County, about three miles east of Bolivar. In September, 1786, Major Doughty, of Colonel Harmar's Battalion, advised them that he could not guarantee their safety. The subdivision of very few townships was completed that year. In 1787 the work was pushed more rapidly. The west line of the seven ranges, as they have ever since been designated, was continued southward to the Ohio River, a few miles above Marietta, being about fourteen (14) towns or eighty-four miles in length. After the death of Geographer Hutchins, in April, 1789, the entire management of the surveys devolved upon the board of the treasury, until the Constitution of 1787 went into operation, and for some years after. Before the Constitution there was no Federal executive, or cabinet, and executive business was transacted by committees, or boards filled by members of Congress, subject to the direction of that body. Legislation was a very simple matter. A convention of delegates from the several states, in such numbers as they chose to select and to pay, each state having one vote, constituted the supreme power. Their legislative acts took the form HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY - 43 of resolutions and ordinances, which were final. As early as August, 1776, it was resolved to give bounties in land, to soldiers and officers in the war of liberation. A tract was directed to be surveyed for this purpose in Ohio, in 1796. It was known as the "military bounty lands," lying next west of the seven ranges, fifty miles down the line to the south, bounded north by the treaty line of 1796, and extending west to the Scioto River. Its southwest corner is near Columbus. For this tract the surveyors were able to bring supplies up the Muskingum and the Scioto rivers in boats. In the bounty lands the townships were directed to be five miles square, with subdivisions into quarters, containing 4,000 acres. The allotment of the quarter towns was left to the owners. Gen. Rufus Putnam, of Marietta, was appointed to the place, which he held until the State of Ohio was admitted into the Union. Putnam was a self-taught mathematician, surveyor and engineer, on whom Washington relied for the construction of the lines investing the City of Boston in 1775-76. He comprehended at once the rectangular system of surveys, and so did the surveyors of the New England states. He served until the State of Ohio was organized in 1803 and was succeeded by Jared Mansfield, of the United States Military Engineers. Both these gentlemen were, for their times, accomplished mathematicians and engineers. The sale of lands in the seven ranges was so slow that there was for several years no necessity for additional surveys. At $2 per acre, and in tracts of not less than a section of 640 acres, the western emigrant could do better in other parts of Ohio and in Kentucky. The purchasers of the Symmes' purchase paid for the entire tract, 67 cents per acre. In the Reserve the State of Connecticut offered her lands at 50 cents. In the Virginia military reservation, the whole was available in state warrants that were very cheap. The Ohio Company paid principally in continental certificates. After 1796 the military bounty land came in competition, which could be had in tracts of 4,000 acres for bounty certificates, issued under the Resolutions of 1776 and 1780. In 1795 the Western Reserve was sold in a body at about 40 cents per acre. These large blocks covered fully half of the State of Ohio. By the act of May, 1796, additional surveys were provided for. First : In the district between the Ohio Company and the Scioto River. Here it was found that a correctional meridian was necessary, because of the excess in the sections, abutting on the west line of the company at range 15. The correction was made by establishing a true meridian between ranges 17 and 18 with sections of an exact mile square. Between the Ohio River and Hamden, in Vinton County, the correction north and south amounted 44 - HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY to a mile. The errors from the variation of the needle were such that quarter sections abutting on the true meridian on the east were nearly as large as full sections on the west. From 1779 to 1785 parties holding Virginia State land warrants located them on the north side of the Ohio. This was done against the law of Virgina and her cession of 1784. The Valley of the Hocking River was occupied as far as Logan, when, in the fall of 1785, the claimants were removed by the United States troops. In the Virginia military tract the private surveys were so loose as to be entirely useless for geographical purposes. In order to fix the Little Miami River on the official maps, an east and west line was run from near Chillicothe through the reservation, connecting the United States surveys from the Scioto River to the Little Miami. According to the present practice there are corrective lines and guide meridians within thirty to fifty miles of each other. The towns and sections are thus made nearly equal by these frequent checks upon errors of chaining, of the variation of the needle and the convergence of meridians. It was not until 1804 that sales were made in quarter sections, and it was 1820 before the price was fixed at $1.25 per acre, which could be located in half or quarter sections as it has been ever since. THE CLAIMS OF STATES For some time before and after the ratification of the treaty of peace in 1784, between the United States and Great Britain, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut asserted claims to portions of the lands now included in Ohio, and Virginia claimed the whole and much more, even to the entire extent of "the territory northwest of the Ohio river." Virginia's claim was founded upon certain charters granted to the colony by James the First, and bearing date respectively, April 10, 1606, May 23, 1609, and March 12, 1611; also upon the conquest of the country between the Ohio, Mississippi, and the northern lakes, by Gen. George Rogers Clark, in 1778 and 1779. Though possessing as valid a claim as any other state, Virginia was the second to relinquish her hold upon the disputed territory, for the good of the United States, which was done by a deed of cession, granted March 1, 1784. The charters of Massachusetts and Connecticut each embraced territory extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and that of New York, obtained from Charles the Second, included territory that formerly had been granted to the other two colonies. Their charters, covering, to some extent, the same territory, there arose conflicts between them and Virginia as to the ownership of the soil of Ohio. New York made a deed of cession May 1, 1782. Virginia HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY - 45 followed, reserving the military lands, in 1784, and Massachusetts, on the 13th of November of the same year, authorized her delegates in Congress to cede the title of the state to all lands west of the western boundary of New York. The measure was consummated in 1785. Connecticut ceded all of her claim west of what is now known as the Western Reserve, in September, 1786, making what Chief Justice Chase characterized as "the last tardy and reluctant sacrifice of State pretentious to the common good." When Ohio was admitted to the Federal Union as an independent state, one of the terms of admission was that the fee simple to all the lands within its limits, especially those previously granted or sold, should be vested in the United States. The different portions of the lands have, at various times, been granted or sold to various companies, bodies politic, and individuals. The principal divisions were known as follows: 1, Congress Lands; 2, United States Military Lands; 3, Virginia Military District; 4, Western Reserve; 5, Fire Lands; 6, Ohio Company's Purchase; 7, Donation Tract; 8, Symmes' Purchase; 9, Refugee Tract; 10, French Grant; 11, Dolerman's Grant; 12, Zane's Grant; 13, Canal Lands; 14, Turnpike Lands; 15, Maumee Road Lands; 16, School Lands.; 17, College Lands; 18, Ministerial; 19, Moravian; 20, Salt Sections. THE VIRGINIA MILITARY LANDS The public lands comprising the present territory of Ross County were embraced by the classes known as Virginia Military (west of the Scioto River) and Congress lands (east of that stream). At its session, beginning October 20, 1783, the General Assembly of Virginia passed an act to authorize its delegates in Congress to convey to the United States, in Congress assembled, all the right of that commonwealth to the territory northwest of the Ohio River. Congress stipulated to accept this cession upon condition that the region should be formed into states, containing a suitable extent of territory and that the states so formed should be distinctly republican, and admitted members of the Federal Union, having the same rights of sovereignty and freedom as the other states. On the 17th of March, 1784, Thomas Jefferson, Arthur Lee, James Monroe, and Samuel Hardy, the Virginia delegates to Congress, conveyed to the United States "all right, title and claim, as well as of jurisdiction, which the said commonwealth hath to the territory, or tract of country, within the limits of the Virginia charter, situate, lying and being northwest of the Ohio river." This act of cession contained, however, the following reserva- 46 - HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY tion : "That in case the quantity of good land on the southeast side of the Ohio, upon the waters of Cumberland river, and between the Great and Tennessee rivers, which has been reserved by law for the Virginia troops upon continental establishment, should, from the North Carolina lines, bearing in further upon the Cumberland lands than was expected, prove insufficient for these legal bounties, the deficiency should be made up to the said troops in good lands, to be laid off between the rivers Scioto and Little Miami on the northwest side of the river Ohio, in such proportions to them as have been engaged to them by the laws of Virginia." The land embraced in this reservation constituted the Virginia Military District in Ohio, and comprised the present counties of Adams, Brown, Clinton, Clermont, Highland, Fayette, Madison, and Union, and portions of Scioto, Pike, Ross, Pickaway, Franklin, Delaware, Marion, Hardin, Logan, Clark, Greene, Champaign, Warren and Hamilton. Congress passed an act authorizing the establishment of this reservation and location as defined, upon the report of the executive of Virginia that the deficiency of good lands upon the waters of the Cumberland existed. The Virginia soldiers of the Continental line who served in the Revolutionary war, were compensated in bounty awards of these lands according to their rank, time of service, etc. The first step necessary, after securing the proper certificate of actual service, was that of procuring a printed warrant from the land officer, specifying the quantity of lands and the rights upon which it was due. This military warrant was issued from the land office, in the State of Virginia, which empowered the person to whom it was granted, his heirs or assigns to select the number of acres specified in the lands reserved for that purpose, and to have the same appropriated. After the location was made, and the boundaries ascertained by surveying, the owner of the warrant returned it to the state authorities, and received in its place a patent, or grant, from the Government. This grant was equivalent to a deed in fee simple, and passed all of the title of the Government to the grantee. On the same day on which the act was passed, Richard C. Anderson, a colonel in the army, was appointed surveyor for the Continental line of the army, by the officers named in the act and authorized to make such appointments as they saw fit. He opened his office at Soldiers' Retreat, near Louisville, for entries in the Kentucky lands, on the 20th of July, 1784. When the Kentucky grant was exhausted, August 1, 1787, he prepared for entries in the Ohio tract. He held his position up to the time of his death, October 16, 1826, and during the long period faithfully discharged the onerous duties devolving upon him. His son-in-law, Allen HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY - 47 Latham, was appointed surveyor some time after Colonel Anderson's death (probably in 1827), and opened his office at Chillicothe, in July, 1829. Any soldier who held a warrant, or the heir or assign of any soldier who held a warrant, was at liberty to locate his lands wherever he pleased within the Virginia Military lands, and in consequence of the irregularities with which many locations were made, and the encroachment of some locations upon others, far more litigation arose relative to lines and titles in this district, than in those which were regularly surveyed and laid off in sections. The Virginia Military Tract was never surveyed into townships until it was done in the different counties, by order of the county commissioners, when it became desirable to organize the townships for civil purposes. Hence their irregular shape and size. CONGRESS LANDS As heretofore stated, all of that part of Ross County lying east of the Scioto is within the Congress lands. These lands were so called, because they were sold directly by the officers of the Government, under such laws as were from time to time enacted. Offices were opened at convenient places for the sale of these lands—at Marietta, Steubenville, Zanesville, Chillicothe and elsewhere—and the districts were called after the names of these towns. The Congress lands were surveyed and put in the market in conformity with the ordinance passed in 1785, after the several states claiming ownership had all granted deeds of cession to the United States, and after the title had been made perfect by treaty with the Indians. The lands were surveyed into townships six miles square, or as nearly that size as was practicable, and were divided into sections, each a mile square. Four sections in each township were reserved for future sale by the United States, and one section was set apart for the use of schools. Originally a provision was made for the reservation of one-seventh of the lands surveyed, for the use of the Continental troops, but this plan was subsequently abandoned. The system of the survey and sale of the Congress lands underwent many changes, which it is unnecessary here to relate. CHILLICOTHE LAND DISTRICT The Chillicothe District for the entry of Congress lands was composed of the seven westernmost of the twenty-two ranges of townships in that tract south of the Refugee Tract—a body of 100,000 acres, 4 1/2 miles from north to south, and extending forty- 48 - HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY eight miles eastwardly from the Scioto River—and was bounded south by the Ohio River, west by the Scioto, and east by the Zanesville Land District and the Ohio Company's Purchase. The land office at Chillicothe was not closed until about 1880, the old records then being moved to Washington, D. C., and Columbus. SURVEY OF THE MILITARY LANDS Chillicothe, which was platted two years before the County of Ross was created, was an outgrowth of the Virginia Military lands survey. The work was commenced early in the spring of 1787. Maj. John O'Bannon and Arthur Fox, with their companies, came across the Ohio and made examinations of the lands lying along its northern bank, along the Scioto, the Miami and some of their tributaries, with a view to making entries as soon as Col. Richard C. Anderson's office should be opened for that purpose. On the 1st of August the office was opened at "Soldiers' Retreat," near Louisville, and soon after entries were made of the lands in the Ohio, Scioto and Little Miami bottoms. Owing to ignorance in regard to the extent of jurisdiction that the United States had over the lands of the Virginia Military Grant, much difficulty arose. As stated, it was one of the conditions imposed by Congress, that the lands lying in the grant, in Ohio, should not be entered until the amount of the deficiency in the Kentucky Grant should be known. In July, 1788, a congressional act was passed by which all locations and surveys, previously made between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers, should be held invalid. The passage of this act, together with the wholesome dread of Indian hostilities, caused a cessation in the making of surveys in the district until in 1788. All difficulty of a legal nature being thus removed, the survey of the lands in the Virginia Military District was resumed. But little is known of the surviving expeditions that were made previous to 1790. Nathaniel Massie, who afterwards did so much in the way of exploring and surveying the Virginia Military District, made his first venture in 1788, probably in company with Fox and O'Bannon. All of the work, at that time, had to be done by stealth, and the surveyors undoubtedly had some thrilling exploits, but their history is lost, beyond all hope of recovery. FIRST SETTLEMENT IN THE SCIOTO COUNTRY The first effectual effort to establish a condition of civilization in the Scioto country of which we have any reliable information, was made in 1791. Massie, who for some time previous had been HISTORY OF ROSS COUNTY - 49 engaged in writing in Colonel Anderson's office, in order to acquire a complete knowledge of the business of locating and surveying, determined, in the winter of 1790, to make a settlement north of the Ohio that he might live in or near the actual field of his future operations. He selected the site of the present Town of Manchester, in Adams County, and made such proposals to some of the Kentuckians that he succeeded in establishing there a colony of about thirty families, early in 1791. By the middle of March cabins had been erected and the primitive village enclosed by strong pickets, or palings, with block-houses at the corners, for defense, in case of an Indian attack. SETTLEMENTS EXTEND NORTHWARD FROM MANCHESTER In 1795 the settlements of the whites began to extend from Manchester into the country along the Ohio, and to the northward. Many cabins were erected which were unoccupied, because of apprehension of Indian hostilities. About this time the reports of Massie and his companions, who had been almost constantly busy in making surveys, began to attract the attention of the Kentuckians to the remarkable fertility of the soil in the Scioto Valley and along Paint Creek. As Massie was the owner of several large tracts along the Scioto, he determined to attempt a settlement at some favorable locality, and immediately began his preparations, following the same plan that had proved so successful in the establishment of Manchester. To attract settlers, he gave notice that he intended to lay off a town upon the Scioto, and offered as a gift to each of the first 100 settlers one in-lot and one out-lot of four acres. This announcement was favorably received in Kentucky, and an exploring party came out soon after by way of Manchester. Owing to the fact that Indians were met with on Paint Creek, and a skirmish ensuing, the party retreated, and the exploration was abandoned for that year. CHILLICOTHE OF THE WHITES FOUNDED Notwithstanding the failure of the first expedition and the severe experience of the bold men who undertook it, another was made early in 1796. About the last of February, or the first of March, the company assembled at Manchester, and immediately went forth to establish a settlement upon the Scioto. A part of the company went in boats up the Ohio, and thence up the Scioto, and the others went overland. They were to meet at the mouth of Paint Creek. Those who made the journey by water, carried, in addition to their arms and provisions, the few articles absolutely Vol. I-4