History of Shelby County
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
Geographical Location of Shelby County—Its Origin and Area—Loramie Trading Post and Its Founder—The French and Indians—Naming of the County—The Pioneers and Their Hardships—The Mound Builders— The Largest Glacier.
By way of preface I hasten to assure the reader that while I have the prime qualification for a historian of a hoary head I have not that of being indigenous to the soil and may often have to say "I read that" or "I was told that" instead of "I recall that." I have been here since 1861, a period of more than fifty years, and less than one hundred years will cover the marvelous changes in our brief history.
We are all interested in first things—in the oldest things—whether they be the work of man or of nature. In the founding of a great state, a county or a city, the interest is just as intense, and we of today love to read the names and recall the deeds of those who felled the primeval forest, bridged the stream, and made the valley blossom like the rose. We are interested in them because they made possible the comforts and refinements of today and it is not only a duty but a pleasure to recall the names and deeds of those who were truly pioneers.
A little more than a century ago Shelby in common with all western Ohio was swamp and forest, the battle ground of Shawnees, Delawares, Wyandottes, Pottawattomies, Ottawas, Miamis, Chippewas and the Wabash tribes. In 1794, only one hundred and eighteen years ago, a council of the big chiefs met in Greenville and discussed scalps and wampum and boundary lines instead of electric light plants, armories, water works, and street paving.
These momentous questions were not settled by Messrs. Brown, Smith and Jones from the first, second, and third wards, but by Little Turtle, New Corn, Tetaboskke, Agoosshaway and Mashipanasiwish. The French and the English both claimed this land. In 1749 Celeron de Bienville was sent from Quebec to bury plates in Ohio and claim it for the French. The same year the English under direction of the Ohio company built Pickawillamy as a trading post with Indians. The exact location is disputed. Some say it was at the junction of Loramie creek with the Miami. Pickawillamy is important as it was the first British settlement in Ohio. Marietta, 1788, the first permanent settlement. There were often as many as fifty traders here at once, among them, Christopher Gist, Trent, Platt, Weiser, Chartier. The Twig tree branch of the
19
20 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY
Miamis was friendly to the English. Pickawillamy did not endure long, but waS destroyed by the French, Chippewas, and Ottawas in 1752. Peter Loramie, in 1769, was sent as a missionary to the Wyandottes and Shawnees but Loramie did not long perform the function of priest for the Jesuit order was suppressed by Pope Clement XIV in 1773. He then became a trader at the place that bears his name. In 1782 Gen. George Rogers Clark was sent to punish these Wyandottes and Shawnees, friends of Loramie's, and Clark burned Loramie's store.
Peter Loramie escaped and made arrangement with Colonel Johnston, Indian commissioner, to emigrate with several hundred Shawnees to a reservation west of the Mississippi. In 1791 St. Clair and Col. Parke were defeated at Fort Recovery in Mercer county. In 1792, General Harmar with Col John Hardin, proceeded against the Indian towns at St. Joseph.
Miami embracing Shelby was at first a part of Montgomery when Miami was detached in 1807. In 1819 Shelby was. detached and named after Gen. Thomas Shelby, of Kentucky, who had much to do in wresting Ohio from the Indians. It had at first jurisdiction over Auglaize and Allen which formed the original Auglaize and Amunda townships of Shelby county. Hardin was treacherously killed by the Indians, where the village of Hardin now stands. In 1794 Gen. Anthony Wayne went north to the Indian village of Maumee, which he captured. He built Fort Wayne and on his return he visited the site of Loramie's store and old Pickawillamy. He rebuilt Fort Loramie, which was occupied till 1812.
Those pioneers who migrated to a forest-encumbered country a century ago to carve a home confronted a most serious proposition which can hardly be realized by those of the present day.
The implements to perform the life-work were clumsy and crude when the struggle for the necessities of life commenced. The luxuries, now so seemingly essential to comfort, were not thought of or were scrupulously eliminated from their thoughts. They faced untiring work no matter which way they looked and were every inch heroes, and not the less were their helpmeets in the brave encounter. When one contrasts what these mothers fared in raising their children in their meager households as compared with the present time he feels that each one deserves a lasting monument of gratitude.
The mound builders, which left traces of their existence in the southern and southeastern part of the state, never invaded this county. This strange people whose origin is unknown, were swept from the earth by a fatal epidemic more universal than the cruel edict of Herod—as it spared neither young nor old—or were exterminated by the ravages of a superior foe, or perhaps smothered under a blanket of mephitic vapor that issued from the earth's gaseous interior. In any event their advent and their fate are alike unknown and unknowable mysteries, but the strange mounds they built defy the corroding tooth of time and are gazed upon with ever increasing interest and are the fruitless source of the wildest and most conflicting conjecture.
AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 21
Sometime in the dark ages of the past a huge glacier sauntered through here from the frozen north and with irresistible force plowed the groove through which the Miami river courses to the Ohio, rounding the cobble stones and grinding rocks to sand and depositing it along the river in numerous banks. In its leisurely travel this glacier loosened its grip upon a huge cubical rock, containing over 1,200 cubic feet and weighing over Too tons, and left it about one mile east of Sidney. This rock, antedating in antiquity the pyramids of Egypt or even profane or sacred history, has been visited by many archaeologists and geologists of note. It is said to be by far the largest rock deposited by a glacier in Ohio.
From the fragments of history that have come down to us from tradition it is learned that this territory was formerly occupied at different periods by the Twigtees, Miamis and Shawnee Indian tribes, but which of these tribes exercised sovereignty over this section is not known. The first white men to visit within the limits of the county were the early French traders. In 1749 a band of English traders settled at a place they named Pickawillany, within or near the southern line of the county. Three years later the French from Canada broke up this settlement and carried the traders off to Canada where they were held as prisoners for several years. A French trader named Loramie established himself here and built up an extensive trade with the Indians. His place became the headquarters of the Indian tribes, who so continuously made war on the Kentucky settlers. In 1792 George Rodger Clark marched an army of Kentucky militia into this territory, defeated the Indians and destroyed Loramie's trading post. Of this post Clark says : "The property destroyed was of great amount and the provisions surpassed all idea we had of Indian stores."
White settlers began coming into the county in 1805, among whom were the Wilsons, Cannons, Marshalls, Mellingers, Careys and McClures—names familiar to every one in the county. These settlers selected for their homes either -the river bottoms or the highest portions of the country on account of much of the other parts being swampy. They came from Kentucky, Virginia and New Jersey principally, brought little of this world's goods, but they possessed that hardy industry, good sense and high character so necessary to the pioneers who have builded beyond their fondest anticipations. From 183o to 185o there was a large immigration from Germany to the county, of those who came here for political freedom. They and the French settlers in the west part of the county have been a valuable acquisition to our citizenship and the wealth and prosperity of Shelby county
Shelby county was detached from Miami county in 1819, and was named after General Shelby, a stern patript and brave soldier in the Revolution, after whom nine counties have been named.' He was afterward governor of Kentucky. The southern part of the county is undulating, rising in places along the Miami into verdure-clad hills. The northern portion is flat table-land, forming part of Loramie’s Summit, 378 feet above Lake Erie, the highest elevation in this part of the state. The soil is based
22 - HISTORY OF SHELBY COUNTY
on clay, with some fine bottom land along the streams. The southern part is best for grain and the northern for grass.
The principal stream in the county is the Great Miami river, which enters the county on the east side and runs southwest, affording a large amount of water-power, by which many mills and other industrial establishments are propelled. There are some creeks of importance, among them the Muchinippi, Tawawa, and Nine Mile creek.
The Miami canal and one of its feeders traverses the county, having direct connection, through the Miami river, with the Lewistown reservoir, located in the townships of Stokes, Washington, and McArthur, in Logan county, and which covers an area of some sixteen thousand acres, including the Indian or Miami lake. This reservoir was built, according to act of Congress, for the purpose of supplying an inexhaustible water-power for the canals.
There are two lines of railroads running through the county : the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis, and the Dayton and Michigan railway, a description of which will be found elsewhere in this work.
The county seat was originally located at Hardin, and the first court was held there, in a log cabin, May 13 and 14, 1819. Honorable Joseph H. Crane, of Dayton, was the presiding judge ; Samuel Marshall, Robert Houston, and William Cecil, associates ; Harvey B. Foot, clerk ; Daniel V. Dingman, sheriff; and Harvey Brown, of Dayton, prosecutor. In 182o the county seat was moved to Sidney, where the courts were at first held in the residences of the citizens, until some two years afterwards, when the first court house was erected. It was a small frame structure, twenty-four by thirty feet. The jail was sixteen by eighteen feet, and built of logs ; and on the occasion of a prisoner escaping the commissioners were compelled to pay the fine for the nonpayment of which the prisoner was incarcerated.
Shelby county is situated not far from the intersection of the fortieth parallel of latitude and the eighty-fourth meridian of longitude and midway between Lake Erie and the Ohio river, one hundred miles, in round numbers, from each.
At one time, when counties were much larger than now, it was embraced by Montgomery county, then was a part of Miami county and subsequently was detached from it and included Auglaize and Allen counties. They were eventually sliced off and Shelby county was pared down to its present area of 407 square miles, about the exact size of Miami .county. As early as the year 1752 there existed on the banks of the Miami a trading post. It was located at the mouth of Loramie creek and was the first place settled by the English in Ohio. The French having heard of this trading post which they designated as the "English trading house of the Miami," detached a party of soldiers to demand a surrender of the store, which was probably a block house. This place was known as Loramie's store and was used to mark one of the boundaries of the Greenville treaty line. The house was inhabited by a number of friendly Indians and some English traders. On the demand of the French for the surrender of the
AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 23
place they refused to deliver up their friends. An attack was made and after a severe fight in which fourteen natives were killed, the remainder were taken prisoners and marched to Canada. The fort and trading house were called Pickawillany. Loramie, who was a French Canadian, was a founder of the trading post and was a bitter enemy of the Americans.
Howe in his early history of Ohio says of Loramie :
"The French had the faculty of endearing themselves to the Indians; and no doubt Loramie was in this respect fully equal to any of his countrymen, and gained great influence over them. They formed with the natives an attachment of the most tender and abiding kind. 'I have,' says Colonel Johnson, 'seen the Indians burst into tears when speaking of the time when their French father had dominion over them; and their attachment to this day remains unabated.'
"So much influence had Loramie with the Indians that when General Clarke, of Kentucky, invaded the Miami Valley in the autumn of 1782 his attention was attracted to the spot. He came on and burnt the Indian settlement here, and plundered and burnt the store of the Frenchman. The store contained a large quantity of goods and peltry, which were sold by auction afterwards among the men, by the general's orders. Among the soldiers was an Irishman, named Burke, considered a half-witted fellow, and the general butt of the whole army. While searching the store he found done up in a rag twenty-five half-joes, worth about two hundred dollars, which he secreted in a hole he cut in an old saddle. At the acution no one bid for the saddle, it being judged worthless, except Burke, to whom it was struck off for a trifling sum, amid roars of laughter for his folly. But a moment elapsed before Burke commenced to search, and found and drew forth the money as if by accident. Then shaking it in the eyes of the men, exclaimed, 'An' it's not so bad a bargain after all.' Soon after, Loramie emigrated, with a party of Shawnees, to the Spanish territories west of the Mississippi.
"In 1794 a fort was built at the place occupied by Loramie's store, by Wayne, and named Fort Loramie."
There are many evidences of the former presence of the Indians still remaining. Frequently, during excavations, skeletons are found bearing an unmistakable resemblance to the gigantic and well-formed aborigine. In Turtle Creek Township there remain to this day several graves, wherein repose the dust of some noble red men, whose spirits have departed to the "happy hunting-grounds." The Indians in this vicinity were generally of a peaceful disposition, after the appearance of the white settlers among them. In 1792, however, Colonel John Hardin was murdered in this county, while on a mission of peace to the Indians. The town of Hardin was laid out on the spot whereon accurred the tragedy. This, and that of a man named Boyier, were the only murders by the Indians from 1792 to 1811.
According to the same authority, the first white family who settled in the county was that of James Thatcher, in 1804, who settled in the west part, in Painter's Run. Samuel Marshall, John Wilson, and John Kennard came soon after.
Thus we see that Shelby county was once the theatre of Indian wars, Indian massacres, and sanguinary conflicts.