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60 - HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO. CHAPTER IV. WHY CALLED WAYNE COUNTY. THE county of Wayne derived its name from the daring and impetuous Major General Anthony Wayne, an ambitious officer and ardent patriot of the American Revolution. He was a native of Waynesborough, Chester county, Pa., where he was born January I, 1745. The rolling hills, bleak mountains and rugged scenery which furnished the romance of his boyhood, no doubt, imparted to him that brusque, austere and apparently savage manner which achieved for him, from his followers, the sobriquet of " Mad Anthony." A glance at the ancestry of General Wayne makes the fact prominent that he inherited his soldierly qualities, and that he was but another link in a chain of warriors. His father was at the head of a company of dragoons at the decisive battle of the Boyne, fought July 1, 1690, between William III. and his father-in-law, James II. His son Isaac, and father of Anthony, bore a heroic and conspicuous part in the cruel conflicts with relentless and barbarous hordes of Indians, who brandished the slaughtering tomahawk where the genial sun first blessed with grateful light the early home of his infant child. Unlike Major General Wooster, he had not the opportunity, nor had he availed himself of an academic nor collegiate course, nor do the facts warrant us in believing that he was inhabited with any very serious proclivity for books or study. The whole bent and inclination of his mind seemed to have been in a military direction, though we believe he made his debut upon the theater of public action as a surveyor. Bitter and irreconcilable collisions WHY CALLED WAYNE COUNTY - 61 occurring between the Crown and the Colonies, and which ultimately precipitated the Revolution and secured our independence, aroused his positive and passionate disposition and ingulfed him in the controversy. His spontaneous and enthusiastic patriotism soon acquired for him "the first wish of his heart "—a military appointment. During the year 1775 he recruited a regiment of volunteers and was made colonel of the same. In 1776 the Continental Congress placed him in command of a Pennsylvania regiment, when he joined the northern forces, receiving in the battle of Three Rivers a most painful wound. In 1777 he was commissioned a Brigadier General and directed to assume command of Ticonderoga, an important fort, situated two miles below the present village of that name, on a point of land at the entrance of the outlet of Lake George into Lake Champlain. The aforesaid fort had been surprised and captured by Ethan Allen on the 9th of May, 1775. About the middle of September, 1777, the battle of Brandywine was fought, upon the result of which suspended the destiny, for the time, of the sedate city of William Penn. Grand, indeed, was the prize for which the American and English armies contended ! Wayne bore the brunt of the fight upon this occasion, but was compelled to endure the keen sting and mortification of defeat ; and not that alone, but the deep and intense chagrin of witnessing, on the 26th of September, 1777, the city of Philadelphia fall into the hands of Cornwallis—" the first marquis, the second earl and the sixth baron of that name." His reputation as a forager was sustained co-ordinately with his fame as a soldier. If the country surrounding afforded subsistence and was within the reach of camp, or marquee, he was vigorously inclined to avail himself of it. In this role he distinguished himself, in the winter of 1777-78, when our army was lying at Valley Forge, on the banks of the Schuylkill. His irruption into New Jersey resulted in the capture of herds of cattle and stores of army provender. A satirical ballad, or rather linked stanzas of slangy, clinking doggerel, supposed to have been distilled from the adroit pen of 62 - HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO. the cultured Major Andre, and who, on the 2d of October, 1780, on the fatal gibbet, expiated his crime, was published and circulated, concerning that foraging expedition. Here is one verse, as a specimen : " But now I end my lyric strain— I tremble as I show it, Lest this same warrior-drover, Wayne, Should ever catch the poet." General Greene was president of the court-martial before which Andre was tried, though it is understood Wayne received him after his capture. At Stony Point, at the head of Haverstraw Bay, on the Hudson, he was shot in the knee and fell, but rising to his feet, he exclaimed, " Forward, my brave boys," when a desperate assault wrenched the fort from the British, on the night of July 15, 1779. This presents itself as one of the most brilliant exploits of the war. When in 1781, the Pennsylvania troops revolted on account, as was alleged, of unliquidated arrearages and a dispute respecting the terms of enlistment, General Wayne energetically, but fruitlessly, attempted to restore harmony and suppress discontent. In spite of his interposition, and all the officers, 1,300 men defied their authority, and under arms, marched toward Philadelphia with the pronounced purpose of enforcing acquiescence to their demands. His soldiers loved and respected him, however, and only sought what they imagined a reasonable redress. His field of operations was then transferred to Virginia, where he campaigned with Washington, and "the good and great Lafayette," and here he had the grand satisfaction of beholding the plumed and titled Cornwallis, " the lord of the bed-chamber," on the 19th of October, 1781, surrender his sword to the victorious Washington. We detect his next important movements on the frontier, inaugurating a campaign against the now boastful and arrogant Indian tribes of the West. To this service he addressed himself with much of that peculiar zeal which was so typical of the man. WHY CALLED WAYNE COUNTY - 63 This time, and for this work, the right man had been chosen. " Knaves, fall back," was the luminous inscription upon his shield. There was no kitey philosophizing about the transaction. It had a blood-meaning against the wampum-belt and its perfidous wearer. St. Clair's unfortunate defeat on the Miami, where General Butler and Major Ferguson fell, was well understood by the Indians. Unopposed by any forcible check, and unmolested by any military movement since their recent success, true to the fiendish propensity which triumph engenders in their barbaric natures, they became insolent, exacting and imperious. They seriously obstructed the tide of emigration to the West ; looked upon the white man an intruder, and, emboldened by victory, induced and courted conflict, seeming to prefer the death-revel, rather than the calms of peace. It was evident that the code of force had to receive its most rigid interpretation. Bullet-logic was the only alternative—the proper discipline and just corrective for these ruthless recalcitrants the continent over. Necessary precaution was observed. Military posts were fortified. Every suggestion of prudence and foresight was adopted to prevent a second defeat. An army was collected and the command settled upon the gallant Pennsylvanian. A violent assault was made June 3o, 1794, upon Fort Recovery by the Indians, aided by some unhung Canadians, or cut-throat English, which was repulsed. August, _____ " rich arrayed In garment, all of gold down to the ground," Witnessed the inception of the gory drama. The very heart of Fiend-land was penetrated. The army moved with amazing rapidity. Their settlements on the Miami were pillaged. At the junction of the Auglaize with this river Fort Defiance was constructed. Here General Wayne tendered " the olive branch," the pipe of peace, before he would awake the " slumbering sword of war." They rejected his overtures, though it was apparent there was distrust in their ranks. One of the chiefs, Little Turtle, appeared to have a prevision 64 - HISTORY OF WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO. of their fate, " for," said he, " the Americans are now led by a chief who never sleeps ; the night and the day are alike to him." They entertained a sort of inherent dread of Wayne, denominating him " the Black Snake ; " but their animosity and pride were too overwhelming to negotiate. So the boards were cleared, the war-cotillion arranged, and the grim dancers put in position. The American camp was posted in the midst of such extensive and highly-cultivated fields as excited the admiration of the invaders. For miles the country presented the appearance of a single village, and rich corn fields spread on either side. The Indians had retreated down the river from their settlement upon the advance of the army, and had taken up a position in the immediate vicinity of a British fort, near the Miami rapids. This was one of those posts retained by Great Britain in defiance of former treaties, and constituted, as was generally believed, a depot where the Indians could procure arms and counsel. Somehow, our border history, all the way through, is blackened by the dastardly and unwarranted interference of British scamps, red-jacketed bacon-thieves, and post-loungers. On the 20th of August, 1794, General Wayne made an onslaught upon their chosen position. The smeared warriors fought with courage. Skilled in the use of fire-arms, and acquainted with the maneuvers of battle, they were more formidable adversaries than in the covert of the thicket, the deeps of the dense wood, or the sinuous ravine. Better had they accepted the olive branch, than to have allowed the "summer flies " of success to " have blown them full of maggot ostentation." The eagle of the North was too daring and strong. They were destined to defeat and slaughter ; a vigorous and spirited bayonet charge routed the merciless array. At Fort Greenville, now known as Greenville, and county-seat of Darke county, Ohio, eighty-one miles west by north of Coplumbus, on the 3d of August, 1795, General Anthony Wayne met the Indians in council, and, then and there, concluded a treaty of peace. WHY CALLED WAYNE COUNTY - 65 His life of terrible daring and terrible activity closed, in 1796, in a cabin at Presque Isle. At his own request, he was buried under the flag-staff of the fort ; but, in 1809, his son removed him to Radnor cemetery, in Delaware county, Pennsylvania, where a monument is erected to his honor. |