Chapter II: Part 2

As early as 1716 the governor of Virginia proposed to the home Government to seize the interior. No attention was paid to it, but about 1750 Pennsylvania traders were pushing over the mountains and the French traders from the west. In that year the Ohio Land Company sent Gist to survey the Ohio. English traders were shortly after at Pickowilliny, Sandusky and Pittsburgh, but not safely so. The French were the strongest. In 1749 Celeron placed his lead plates on the Ohio. In 1753 the French crossed Lake Erie, established Presque Isle and expelled the English from Fort DuQuesne at Pittsburgh. Washington made his appearance to know what the French were doing. The traders had made no addition to science or geography, but they had called attention to the country. But the military expeditions were to rediscover it

Celeron’s map lays down the Ohio quite creditably, but the legend along the lake is: “All this part of the lake is unknown.” Just the mouth of the Beaver appears. He expelled English traders from Logstown, a little above the Beaver. The great geographer, D’Anville of France, in 1755 lays down the Beaver, with the Mahoning from the west, rising in a lake, all very incorrectly, with Lake Erie rising to the northeast like a pair of stairs and the Ohio nearly parallel to it.

The map published in 1754 with Washington’s report takes good account of Great Beaver creek—Logstown just above it; opposite, on the Ohio, a fort; Delawares on the west at the mouth; Kuskuskas above; and above that, Owendos’ town, “Wyandot.”. The mixed state of the Indians at that time appears in Celeron, who found in Logstown Iroquois from different places, Shawnees, Delawares, also Nepissings, Abenakes and Ottawas.

Being a convenient way of passing to the lake, a trail as an avenue of commerce preceded the canal, and that the railroad.

Evans was to draw and Franklin to publish, in 1755, at Philadelphia, a map plainly in demand by traders, and from information given by them. At the mouth of the Beaver is a Shingoes’ town; a trail up to the forks finds the Kuskuskas; a trail to the east leaves it for “Wenango” and “Petroleum”; the trail to the west goes to “Salt Springs,” and where farther does not appear.

In his “Analysis,” Mr. Evans says: “Beaver creek is navigable with canoes only. At Kushkies, about sixteen miles up, two branches spread opposite ways—one interlocks with French creek and Cherage, the other westward with Muskingum and Cuyahoga. On this are many salt springs about thirty-five miles above the forks. It is canoeable about twenty miles farther. The eastern branch is less considerable, but both are very slow, spreading through a very rich, level country, full of swamps and ponds which prevent a good portage, but will no doubt in future ages be fit to open a canal between the waters of the Ohio and Lake Erie.”

A map often reprinted, and the one which was made the basis of the treaty of peace after the Revolution, was that of John Mitchell, London, 1755.

Kushkies is said to be the “chief town of the Six Nations on the Ohio, an English factory.” On the east branch are “Owendots.” Pennsylvania reaches its protection over the whole of the Mahoning.

My purpose to outline discovery is nearly ended. In 1760, with Quebec, all New France was surrendered to the English, but new wars with Indians were to follow. Hutchins, Geographer-General to the United States, who introduced our admirable land system, was with Bouquet in 1764. On his map, between Kuskuske and Salt Lick Town, on the west of the river, appears “Mahoning Town,” the first appearance in the maps of the name.

The subsequent history of Ohio is familiar. That of the Reserve grew out of that ignorance which supposed the continent narrow. King Charles granted in 1660 to Connecticut a tract seventy miles wide and over three thousand long. The money for the Reserve became the school fund of Connecticut, and led by the example, to our admirable system of free schools, so that the ignorance of years ago leads to the wisdom of this.

“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them as we will.”

The error of making the south shore of Lake Erie east and west came to a curious end. When the association of gentlemen known as the Connecticut Land Company were about to buy the Reserve, they agreed with a prospective competitor to let it have the excess over three million acres. This was the Excess Company, but there was no land for it, and the error of one hundred years led to considerable financial disaster.

I ought to mention, as a matter of curious history, the map of John Fitch, of steamboat memory. He spent considerable time in surveys within the bounds of Ohio and Kentucky, and had previously traveled the country as a prisoner among the Indians. In 1785 he made a map of the “Northwest Country,” containing original and accurate information. He prepared the copper plate, engraved it himself, and printed it with a cider press. He was then living in Bucks county, Pa., and sold the map at six shillings per copy to raise money enough to pursue his inventions relating to steamboats.

We have now reached the period of settlement and can take a retrospect.

From the discovery of the continent in 1494 it was one hundred and seventy-five years to the pioneer discovery of Ohio. In eighty-five years more both France and England set to work in earnest to make good their claims to it. In thirty-four years more England had beaten France, America had beaten England, and the first permanent settlement had been made in Ohio. It took two hundred and ninety-four years to reach this point. There are but ninety-two years left to 1880 for the pioneers of Ohio; but what a fruition to their work! The solitary settlement has become a mighty nation of three million people, as large as the whole United States in the Revolution, and how much stronger and with what an abundance of wealth and comfort—a centre of intelligence and the home of Presidents!

It is a wonderful review. The pioneers found the State covered with large forests, almost without exception requiring the severest labor to remove; and the change, all within a possible lifetime, seems amazing. The world cannot show its parallel, and when one thinks seriously it will be found to be one of the most interesting and important events in the history of man. Peace as well as war has its victories.

We can only live over in stories the life of the pioneers. But theirs was sturdy independence and severe labor, with least encouragement.

“Haply from them the toiler, bent
Above his forge or plow, may gain
A manlier spirit of content,
And feel that life is wisest spent
Where the strong working hand makes strong the working brain.”
C. C. BALDWIN

]

A DESCRIPTION OF FORT HARMAR.

In the autumn of 1785 General Richard Butler passed down the Ohio on his way to attend the treaty with the Indians at the mouth of the Little Miami. He kept a record of his journey, and his journal gives much interesting information, among other things the location of Fort Harmar. In Virginia and Kentucky measures had been taken for what would have been, really, an irresponsible invasion of the Indian country. This action, which threatened to precipitate a disastrous war, hastened in all probability the action of the confederation in taking measures for the effectual strengthening of the frontier. It was determined to establish several posts northwest of the Ohio. Fort Laurens had been built in 1778 upon the Tuscarawas, near the old Indian town of Tuscarawas and one mile south of the site of the present village of Bolivar. It was injudiciously located, and was abandoned one year after its erection. General Butler, while on his journey in 1785, chose the site for Fort Harmar. Before leaving Fort McIntosh he had prepared and left with Colonel Harmar, the commandant of the post, a paper in which he expressed the opinion that “the mouth of the Muskingum would be a proper place for a post to cover the frontier inhabitants, prevent intruding settlers on the land of the United States, and secure the surveys.” In his journal, under date of Saturday, October 8th, he writes:

Sent Lieutenant Doyle and some men to burn the houses of the settlers
on the north side and put up proclamations.

Went on very well to the mouth of the Muskingum and found it low. I
went on shore to examine the ground most proper to establish a post
on; find it too low, but the most eligible is in the point on the Ohio
side. Wrote to Major Doughty and recommended this place with my
opinion of the kind of work most proper. Left the letter, which
contained other remarks on the fort, fixed to a locust tree.

A few days later the general instructed a man whom he met ascending the Ohio to take the letter from the mouth of the Muskingum to Major Doughty.

A short time later Major Doughty, with a detachment of United States troops under his command, arrived at the mouth of the Muskingum and began the erection of a post, which was not fully completed until the spring of 1786.

The fort stood very near the point on the western side of the Muskingum, and upon the second terrace above ordinary flood water. It was a regular pentagon in shape, with bastions on each side, and its walls enclosed but little more than three-quarters of an acre. The main walls of defence, technically called “curtains,” were each one hundred and twenty feet long and about twelve or fourteen feet high. They were constructed of logs laid horizontally. The bastions were of the same height as the other walls, but unlike them were formed of palings or timbers set upright in the ground. Large two-story log buildings were built in the bastions for the accommodation of the officers and their families, and the barracks for the troops were erected along the curtains, the roofs sloping toward the centre of the enclosure. They were divided into four rooms of thirty feet each, supplied with fireplaces, and were sufficient for the accommodation of a regiment of men,[1] a larger number, by the way, than was ever quartered in the fort. From the roof of the barracks building towards the Ohio river there arose a watch tower, surmounted by the flag of the United States. This tower was also used as a guardhouse. There were other buildings within the enclosure—an arsenal, a store-house, and several smaller structures. The main gate was toward the river with a sally-port on the side fronting on the hills. A well was dug near the centre of the enclosure to supply the garrison with water in case of siege, but, happily it was never needed, and we are told that ordinary water was brought from the river. The timber used in the construction of the fort was that of the heavy forest which covered its side and several acres of land around about. The area cleared up was nearly all utilized for gardening purposes under the direction of Major Doughty, who seems to have had a remarkable fondness for tilling the soil and considerable taste and knowledge as a horticulturist.[2] Fort Harmar was named after General (then Colonel) Harmar, who was the commander of the regiment to which Major Doughty was attached, and for some time commandant at the fort at the mouth of the Muskingum.

Joseph Buell (afterward one of the prominent early settlers at Marietta) was on the frontier for nearly a period of three years, dating from the latter part of December, 1785, and he spent a considerable portion of his time at Fort Harmar. His journal affords some interesting glimpses of life in the garrison and affairs in the western country during the years immediately preceding its settlement. Much is said in the beginning of the hardships of army life, the depravity of the troops, and the severity of the punishments inflicted for various offences. Drunkenness and desertion were prevalent evils. The punishment for the former and other venal misdemeanors was not infrequently flogging to the extent of one hundred or even two hundred lashes, and the death penalty, without the process of court-martial, was inflicted upon deserters. The pay of the soldiers at that time guarding the frontier was only three dollars per month.

On the 4th of May, 1786, Captain Zeigler’s and Strong’s companies embarked for Muskingum, and from this date forward the entries in the journal relate to occurrences at Fort Harmar.

May 8th. We arrived at Muskingum, where we encamped in the edge of the
woods a little distance from the fort.

10th. Captain Zeigler’s company embarked for the Miami, and our
company moved into the garrison, where we were engaged several days in
making ourselves comfortable.

12th. Began to make our gardens, and had a very disagreeable spell of
weather, which continued for twenty-two days raining in succession.

June 9th. Two boats arrived from Miami, and report that the Indians
had murdered several inhabitants this spring. We are getting short of
meat for the troops.

10th. Five frontiersmen came here to hunt for the garrison, and
brought with them a quantity of venison.

19th. News arrived here that the Indians had killed four or five women
and children at Fish creek, about thirty miles northeast from this
garrison.

July 4th. The great day of American independence was commemorated by
the discharge of thirteen guns, after which the troops were served
with extra rations of liquor, and allowed to get as drunk as they
pleased.

8th. We are brought down to half rations, and have sent out a party of
men to hunt. They returned without much success, although game is
plenty in the woods.

9th. We discovered some Indians crossing the Ohio in a canoe, below
the garrison, and sent a party after them, but could not overtake
them.

10th. Ensign Kingsbury, with a party of nine, embarked for Wheeling in
quest of provisions.

12th. Captain Strong arrived from Fort Pike.

16th. We were visited by a party of Indians, who encamped at a little
distance from the garrison, and appeared to be very friendly. They
were treated kindly by the officers, who gave them some wine and the
best the garrison afforded.

17th. Our men took up a stray canoe on the river. It contained a pair
of shoes, two axes and some corn. We suppose the owners were killed by
the Indians. Same day Lieutenant Kingsbury returned with only a supply
of food for six or seven days.

18th. Captain Strong’s company began to build their range of barracks,
to make ourselves comfortable for the winter.

19th. This day buried the fifer to Captain Hart’s company. Our
funerals are conducted in the following manner: The men are all
paraded without arms, and march by files in the rear of the corpse.
The guard, with arms, march in front, with their pieces reversed; and
the music in the rear of the guard, just in front of the coffin,
playing some mournful tune. After the dead is buried they return in
the same order, playing some lively march.

21st. A boat arrived from Fort Pit with intelligence of a drove of
cattle at Wheeling for this garrison.

22nd. Lieutenant Pratt, with a party of men, went up by land to bring
down the cattle.

23rd. Colonel Harmar arrived at the garrison. The troops paraded to
receive him and fired a salute of nine guns.

26th. Captain Hart went with a party of men to guard the Indians of
the Muskingum.

27th. Lieutenant Pratt arrived with ten head of cattle, which revived
our spirits, as we had been without provisions for several days.

29th. Three hunters came into the fort and informed us that they had
seen a party of Indians lying in the woods. We sent out some men, but
discovered nothing.

August 2nd. Our garrison was alarmed. Captain Hart was walking on the
bank of the river, and said he saw Indians on the other side of the
Ohio, and saw them shoot one of the men who was out hunting, and
beheld him fall. Colonel Harmar immediately sent the captain with a
party of men after them. They crossed the river and found one man
asleep on the ground, and another had been shooting at a mark. They
had seen no Indians.

11th. Captain Hart’s company were ordered to encamp in the open ground
outside of the fort, as the men are very sickly in the barracks.

23rd. Captain Hart and his company embarked for Wheeling with orders
to escort and protect the surveyors in the seven ranges.

September 1st. Captain Tunis, the Indian, came to the fort and
reported the Indians designed to attack our garrison, and that they
were bent on mischief. We were all hands employed in making
preparations to receive them, lining the bastions, clearing away all
the weeds and brush within a hundred yards of the fort. We likewise
cut up all our corn and broke down the bean poles, to prevent their
having any shelter within rifle shot distance.

6th. Captain Tunis left the garrison to return to his nation and bring
us further information.

7th. The troops received orders to parade at the alarm post at
daybreak, and continue under arms until after sunrise.

12th. Still busy making preparations for the Indians, and expect them
every day.

21st. Ensign Kingsbury was ordered to take a party of men into the
commandant’s house and put it in the best order for defence, and to
remain there during the night.

26th. The troops are again brought to half rations. I went with a
party of men after a raft of timber to construct our barracks.

27th. Lieutenant Smith embarked in quest of provisions. We are on
short allowance, and expect the Indians every day to attack us. Our
men are very uneasy, laying various plans to desert, but are so
closely watched that it is very difficult for them to escape.

October 2nd. Lieutenant Smith returned with provisions sufficient only
for a short time. We are busily occupied in erecting the barracks.

10th. Major Doughty and Captain Strong left here for New England.

11th. The Indians made us a visit and stole one of our horses as it
was feeding in the woods.

16th. Captain Tunis called again at the fort and says the Indians had
repented of their design to attack the garrison.

November 3rd. Captain Tunis and a number of Indians, with two squaws,
came into the garrison. At night they got very drunk and threatened
the guard with their tomahawks and knives.

5th. Uling, a trader on the river, arrived with provisions.

9th. The hunters brought in about thirty deer and a great number of
turkeys.

25th. Captain Hart’s and McCurdy’s companies came in from the survey
of the seven ranges. They had a cold, wearisome time; their clothes
and shoes wore out, and some of their feet badly frozen.

December 3rd. Uling arrived with twenty kegs of flour and ten kegs of
whiskey and some dry goods. Our rations now consist of a little
venison, without any bread; as a substitute we have some corn and
potatoes. The weather is very cold and the river full of ice.

13th. Lieutenant Pratt embarked in a boat for Flinn’s Station (now
Belleville), distant thirty miles below the garrison, for a load of
corn and potatoes. The troops are in great distress for provisions.
About twelve miles below they landed on account of the storm, and
their boat was carried off by the ice with a considerable amount of
goods in it.

19th. Weather more moderate. Ensign Kingsbury embarked for Flinn’s
Station to make another trial for provisions.

22nd. Ensign Kingsbury returned with about sixty bushels of corn and
about twenty of potatoes.

24th. We drew for our station about a peck of frozen potatoes. As
Christmas is so near we are making all the preparations in our power
to celebrate it.

25th. This being Christmas day, the sergeant celebrated it by a
dinner, to which was added a plentiful supply of wine.

January 31, 1787. Hamilton Kerr, our hunter, began to build a house on
the island, a little above the mouth of the Muskingum, and some of our
men were ordered out as a fatigue party, to assist him, under the
command of Lieutenant Pratt.

February 11th. The weather has been very fine, and there is prospect
of an early spring.

15th. Sergeant Judd went with a party of men to assist some
inhabitants to move their families and settle near the garrison.

16th. Hamilton Kerr moved his family onto the island.

18th. Several families are settling on the Virginia shore, opposite
the fort.

24th. Isaac Williams arrived with his family to settle on the opposite
shore of the river. Several others have joined him, which makes our
situation in the wilderness much more agreeable.

27th. Major Hamtramck arrived from Fort Steuben in order to muster the
troops. The same day some of the hunters brought in a buffalo, which
was eighteen hands high and weighed one thousand pounds.

April 1st. The Indians came within twelve miles of the garrison, and
killed an old man and took a boy prisoner.

5th. Lieutenant Smith went out with a party of men on a scout and
discovered Indians on a hill within half a mile of the garrison.

9th. Ensign Kingsbury went on command with a party to bring in one of
the hunters, fifty miles up the Muskingum, for fear of the Indians,
who, we hear, are bent on mischief.

25th. One of our men discovered two Indians attempting to steal our
horses a little distance from the fort....

May 1st. This is St. Tammany’s day, and was kept with the festivities
usual to the frontiers. All the sergeants in the garrison crossed the
Ohio to Mr. Williams’, and partook of an excellent dinner.

7th. Twenty-one boats passed on their way to the lower country,
Kentucky. They had on board five hundred and nine souls, with many
wagons, goods, etc.

14th. John Stockley, a fifer in Captain Strong’s company, deserted. He
was pursued and overtaken twelve miles from the garrison, brought back
and ordered to run the gauntlet eleven times, through the troops of
the garrison, stripped of his Continental clothing, and drummed out
the fort with a halter around his neck, all of which was punctually
executed.

21st. This evening I sent a young man, who cooked for me on Kerr’s
island, about half a mile above the fort after some milk; he was seen
to jump into the river near the shore, when about a third of a mile
from the garrison. We supposed some of the people were playing in the
water. He did not return that evening, which led me to fear he had
lost his course. In the morning a party was sent after him. They
discovered fresh signs of Indians, and found his hat. They followed
the trail, but did not find them. We afterwards heard that they had
killed and scalped him. The Indians were a party of Ottawas.

]

ORGANIZATION OF THE OHIO LAND COMPANY.

Far away upon the Atlantic sea board forces were at work a score of years anterior to 1788 which were not only to form the first settlement but to plant New England morals, law and institutions upon this vast inland domain of the nation. Ideas were in inception which, as the prime impetus in a long chain of causes and effects, were to swell the tremendous result and effect the destiny not alone of the west but of the Republic from sea to sea.

It is a pleasant thought that in the British war against the French, General Putnam (at the time of his enlistment in 1757, nineteen years of age) and many others assisted in wresting from the enemy and securing to their sovereign the very territory which was to become their home; and it is a disagreeable fact that they had finally so dearly to purchase a small portion of the domain which they had twice bought by bravery of arms. The men who fought to win for England the territory which the French disputed, in 1755–1760, were foremost to win it from her twenty years later, and thus twice exhibited the hardihood and heroism of their natures.

Something of the spirit of emigration manifested itself in New England after the conclusion of the French and Indian war, and in fact was an outgrowth of that struggle. An organization of ex-soldiers of the colonies was formed, called “The Military Company of Adventurers,” whose purpose it was to establish a colony in West Florida (now Mississippi). Although the project had been entered upon soon after the establishment of peace, it was not until the year 1772 that anything was accomplished. General Lyman, after several years’ endeavor, succeeded in procuring a tract of land. It was decided to explore the tract, and a company of surveyors, of which the celebrated Israel Putnam was the leader, went out in January, 1773, for that purpose. Rufus Putnam was a member of the party. The examination was satisfactory, and several hundred families embarked from Massachusetts and Connecticut to make a settlement. They found to their chagrin that the king’s grant had been revoked, and the settlement was therefore abandoned. Those who did not fall sick and die returned to their homes. Such was the disastrous end of this project of settlement, which, had it succeeded, might possibly have changed the whole political history of the United States. It seems at least to be within the realm of probability that had a settlement been planted in Mississippi, Massachusetts would not have made the initial settlement in the Ohio country and extended her influence over the territory from which five great States have been created. The enterprise of founding a colony in the far south, thwarted as it was, undoubtedly had its effect upon the New England mind, and was one of the elements which prepared the way for the inauguration of a new scheme of emigration in later years. The dream which had been fondly indulged in for a long term of years, was not to be forgotten even when the opportunity or its realization had passed away.

Soon, however, there arose a subject for thought which overshadowed all others. What men of shrewd foresight had long expected had come to pass. The colonies were arrayed against the mother country in a battle for independence. We shall not here attempt to follow Generals Putnam, Parsons, Varnum and Tupper, Major Winthrop Sargent, Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, and the many other brave soldiers who became Ohio Company emigrants through the perils of those seven dark years of the Revolution. But is it not natural to suppose that some of them who had been interested in the old colonization project talked of it around their camp fires? Is it not possible that the review of the past suggested the possibility of forming in the future another military colony, in which they should realize the bright hopes that had once been blasted? It seems natural that, in the long lulls between the periods of fierce activity, this topic should have come up frequently in conversation, or at least that it should have appeared as a vague but alluring element in many pictures of the future painted by hopeful imaginations. It is very likely that General Putnam had indulged the hope of emigration “to some remote land rich in possibilities” for many years before he led the little New England colony to the Muskingum. He had very likely cherished the hope unceasingly from the time when the military company of adventurers was organized, and doubtless the journey to that far away, strange and beautiful Mississippi had served as a stimulus to quicken his desire for the realization of a project which would employ so much of his energy and enterprise, and afford so fine an opportunity for the achievement of a life success. We know that Washington, during the darkest days of the Revolution, directed the attention of his companions at arms to the west, as a land in which they might take refuge should they be worsted in the struggle, but happily it was not to be that contingency which should cause the movement of emigration toward the Ohio. If, during the war, the western country was the subject of an occasional estray, light thought, the time was to come when it should be uppermost in the minds of many of the soldiers and practically considered, not as a land in which they must seek to take refuge from a victorious foe, but as one in which they might retrieve the losses they had sustained in repelling the enemy. It must be borne in mind that the independence of the American colonies was dearly bought, as indeed has been all the great good attained in the history of the world. The very men by whose long continued, self-sacrificing devotion and bravery the struggle against the tyrannical mother country had been won, found themselves, at the close of the war, reduced to the most straitened circumstances, and the young nation ushered into being by their heroism was unable to alleviate their condition. These were the times which tried men’s souls. Nowhere was the strain any more severe than in Massachusetts and Connecticut. The joy which peace brought after seven years of war was in most localities too deep to be voiced by noisy demonstration, and it was not unmingled with forebodings of the future. “The rejoicings,” says a local historian,[3] “were mostly expressed in religious solemnities.” There were still difficult problems to be solved—and there was the memory of husbands, fathers, sons, brothers, and lovers who would not return with the victorious patriots, and it may in many cases have been difficult “to discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people.”

General Benjamin Tupper, in the early autumn of 1785, had gone to the Ohio country to engage in surveying under the ordinance passed by Congress May 20 of that year, but owing to the hostility of the Indians and consequent hazard of entering upon the work, he returned to New England. General Tupper was one of the men who had been most intently engaged in planning western settlements, and was undoubtedly a co-worker with his intimate old friend, General Putnam, advocating and agitating the scheme which had proved unsuccessful. He returned from the west filled with admiration of that portion of the country which he had seen, and made enthusiastic through the descriptions given by traders of the region farther down _la belle riviere_ than he had journeyed. Doubtless he pondered upon the idea of removing to the west, during the whole time spent there, and was chiefly occupied with the subject while making the tedious return to his home. Early in January he visited, at his house in Rutland, Worcester County, Massachusetts, General Putnam, and there these two men, who may be properly called the founders of the Ohio Company, earnestly talked of their experiences and their hopes in front of the great fire, while the night hours fast passed away. In the language of one whom it is fair to suppose had preserved the truthful tradition of that meeting: “A night of friendly offices and conference between them gave, at the dawn, a development—how important in its results!—to the cherished hope and purpose of the visit of General Tupper.”[4] As the result of that long conversation by a New England fireside, appeared the first mention in the public prints of the Ohio Company. The two men had thought so deeply and carefully upon the absorbing theme of colonization, were so thoroughly impressed with the feasibility of their plans as they had unfolded them, so impatient to put them to that test, that they felt impelled to take an immediate and definite step. They could no longer rest inactive. They joined in a brief address, setting forth their views to ascertain the opinion of the people. It appeared in the newspapers on the twenty-fifth of January, and read as follows:

INFORMATION.

The subscribers take this method to inform all officers and soldiers
who have served in the late war, and who are by a late ordinance of
the honorable Congress to receive certain tracts of land in the Ohio
country, and also all other good citizens who wish to become
adventurers in that delightful region, that from personal inspection,
together with other incontestible evidences, they are fully satisfied
that the lands in that quarter are of a much better quality than any
other known to the New England people; that the climate, seasons,
products, etc., are in fact equal to the most flattering accounts that
have ever been published of them; that being determined to become
purchasers and to prosecute a settlement in that country, and desirous
of forming a general association with those who entertain the same
ideas, they beg leave to propose the following plan, viz.: That an
association by the name of The Ohio Company be formed of all such as
wish to become purchasers, etc., in that country, who reside in the
commonwealth of Massachusetts only, or to extend to the inhabitants of
other States as shall be agreed on.

That in order to bring such a company into existence the subscribers
propose that all persons who wish to promote the scheme, should meet
within their respective counties, (except in two instances hereinafter
mentioned) at 10 o’clock A. M. on Wednesday, the fifteenth day of
February next, and that each county or meeting there assembled choose
a delegate or delegates to meet at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern in
Boston, on Wednesday, the first day of March next, at 10 o’clock A.
M., then and there to consider and determine upon a general plan of
association for said company; which plan, covenant, or agreement,
being published, any person (under condition therein to be provided)
may, by subscribing his name, become a member of the company.

Then follow the places of meeting:

At Captain Webb’s, in Salem, Middlesex; at Bradish’s, in Cambridge,
Hampshire; at Pomeroy’s, in North Hampton, Plymouth; at Bartlett’s, in
Plymouth, Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket Counties; at Howland’s, in
Barnstable, Bristol; at Crocker’s, in Taunton, York; at Woodbridge’s,
in York, Worcester; at Patch’s, in Worcester, Cumberland and Lincoln;
at Shothick’s, in Falmouth, Berkshire; at Dibble’s, in Lenox.

RUFUS PUTNAM,
BENJAMIN TUPPER.

RUTLAND, January 10, 1786.

The plan suggested by Generals Putnam and Tupper was carried out, and upon the first day of March the delegates from the several counties assembled at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern, the designated place in Boston (which was then a considerably smaller city than is now the capital of Ohio), and there discussed, in conventional form, the proposed organization of the Ohio Company. The delegates present at that historical meeting were: Manasseh Cutler, of Essex; Winthrop Sargent and John Mills, of Suffolk; John Brooks and Thomas Cushing, of Middlesex; Benjamin Tupper, of Hampshire; Crocker Sampson, of Plymouth; Rufus Putnam, of Worcester; Jelaliel Woodbridge and John Patterson of Berkshire; Abraham Williams of Barnstable.

General Putnam was made chairman of the convention, and Major Winthrop Sargent, secretary. Before adjournment a committee of five was appointed to draft a plan of an association, as “from the very pleasing description of the western country, given by Generals Putnam and Tupper and others, it appears expedient to form a settlement there.” That committee consisted of General Putnam, Dr. Manasseh Cutler, Colonel Brooks, Major Sargent, and Captain Cushing.

On Friday, March 3, the convention reassembled and the committee reported the following:

_Articles of agreement entered into by the subscribers for
constituting an association by the name of the Ohio Company._

PREAMBLE.

The design of this association is to raise a fund in Continental
certificates, for the sole purpose and to be appropriated to the
entire use of purchasing lands in the western territory belonging to
the United States, for the benefit of the company, and to promote a
settlement in that country.

ARTICLE 1st.—That the fund shall not exceed one million of dollars in
Continental specie certificates, exclusive of one year’s interest due
thereon (except as hereafter provided), and that each share or
subscription shall consist of one thousand dollars, as aforesaid, and
also ten dollars in gold or silver, to be paid into the hands of such
agents as the subscribers may elect.

ARTICLE 2nd.—That the whole fund of certificates raised by this
association, except one year’s interest due thereon, mentioned under
the first article, shall be applied to the purchase of lands in some
one of the proposed States northwesterly of the river Ohio, as soon as
those lands are surveyed and exposed for sale by the Commissioners of
Congress, according to the ordinance of that honorable body, passed
the twentieth of May, 1785, or on any other plan that may be adopted
by Congress, not less advantageous to the company. The one year’s
interest shall be applied to the purpose of making a settlement in the
country and assisting those who may be otherwise unable to remove
themselves thither. The gold and silver is for defraying the expenses
of those persons employed as agents in purchasing the lands and other
contingent charges that may arise in the prosecution of the business.
The surplus, if any, to be appropriated as one year’s interest on the
certificates.

ARTICLE 3rd.—That there shall be five directors, a treasurer and
secretary, appointed in manner and for the purposes hereafter
provided.

ARTICLE 4th.—That the prosecution of the company’s designs may be the
least expensive, and at the same time the subscribers and agents as
secure as possible, the proprietors of twenty shares shall constitute
one grand division of the company, appoint the agent, and in case of
vacancy by death, resignation or otherwise, shall fill it up as
immediately as can be.

ARTICLE 5th.—That the agent shall make himself accountable to each
subscriber for certificates and invoices received, by duplicate
receipts, one of which shall be lodged with the secretary; that the
whole shall be appropriated according to articles of association, and
that the subscriber shall receive his just dividend according to
quality and quantity of lands purchased, as near as possibly may be,
by lot drawn in person or through proxy, and that deeds of conveyance
shall be executed to individual subscribers, by the agent, similar to
those he shall receive from the directors.

ARTICLE 6th.—That no person shall be permitted to hold more than five
shares in the company’s funds, and no subscription for less than a
full share will be admitted; but this is not meant to prevent those
who cannot or choose not to adventure a full share, from associating
among themselves, and by one of their number subscribing the sum
required.

ARTICLE 7th.—That the directors shall have the sole disposal of the
company’s fund for the purposes before mentioned; that they shall by
themselves, or such person or persons as they may think proper to
entrust with the business, purchase lands for the benefit of the
company, where and in such way, either at public or private sale, as
they shall judge will be the most advantageous to the company. They
shall also direct the application of the one year’s interest, and gold
and silver, mentioned in the first article, to the purposes mentioned
under the second article, in such way and manner as they shall think
proper. For these purposes the directors shall draw on the treasurer
from time to time, making themselves accountable for the application
of the moneys agreeably to this association.

ARTICLE 8th.—That the agents, being accountable to the subscribers for
their respective divisions, shall appoint the directors, treasurer and
secretary, and fill up all the vacancies which may happen in these
offices respectively.

ARTICLE 9th.—That the agents shall pay all the certificates and moneys
received from subscribers into the hands of the treasurer, who shall
give bonds to the agents, jointly and severally, for the faithful
discharge of his trust; and also, on his receiving certificates or
moneys from any particular agent, shal make himself accountable
therefor, according to the condition of his bonds.

ARTICLE 10th.—That the directors shall give bonds, jointly and
severally, to each of the agents, conditioned that the certificates
and moneys they shall draw out of the treasury shall be applied to the
purposes stipulated in these articles; and that the lands purchased by
the company shall be divided among them within three months from the
completion of the purchase, by lot, in such manner as the agents or a
majority of them shall agree, and that on such division being made,
the directors shall execute deeds to the agents, respectively, for the
proportions which fall to their divisions, correspondent to those the
directors may receive from the Commissioners of Congress.

ARTICLE 11th.—Provided, that whereas a sufficient number of
subscribers may not appear to raise the fund to the sums proposed in
the first article, and thereby the number of divisions may not be
completed, it is therefore agreed that the agents of divisions of
twenty shares each shall, after the seventeenth day of October next,
proceed in the same manner as if the whole fund had been raised.

ARTICLE 12th.—Provided, also, that whereas it will be for the common
interest of the company to obtain an ordinance of incorporation from
the honorable Congress, or an act of incorporation from some one of
the States in the Union (for which the directors shall make
application), it is therefore agreed that in case such incorporation
is obtained, the fund of the company (and consequently the shares and
divisions thereof) may be extended to any sum, for which provision
shall be made in said ordinance or act of incorporation, anything in
this association to the contrary notwithstanding.

ARTICLE 13th.—That all notes under this association may be given in
person or by proxy, and in numbers justly proportionate to the
stockholder or interest represented.

These articles of agreement were unanimously adopted and subscription books were immediately opened. A committee was appointed, consisting of three members, to transact necessary business, and some other measures taken to advance the project of the association; but in spite of all the exertions made, there was but little progress in the affairs of the Ohio Company. When the next meeting was held—a little more than a year from the time of the first, that is, upon March 8, 1787—it was found that the total number of shares subscribed for was only two hundred and fifty. And yet, all untoward circumstances considered, that was probably a fair exhibit, and more than was expected. One active friend of the movement, General Tupper, was the greater part of the year in the west. The influence of the others was very largely counteracted by events of an alarming nature—the dissatisfaction which finally culminated in Shay’s rebellion. That civil commotion growing out of the imposition of heavy taxes upon the already impoverished people threatened for a time exceedingly dire results, but fortunately it was speedily quelled. It served as a startling illustration, however, of the great depression in New England, and of the desperation to which men can be driven by ill condition. Possibly the outbreak gave a slight impetus to the progress of the Ohio Company’s project, by way of increasing the disposition of some citizens to seek in the west a new home. General Tupper, whose immediate neighborhood was “deeply infected with the sedition,” returned from his second visit to the Ohio country in time to take a prominent part in subduing the revolt. The dawn of 1787 witnessed the pacification of the troubled country, but no marked increase in prosperity.

It was reported at the meeting held on the eighth of March at Brackett’s tavern in Boston, that “many in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, also in Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, are inclined to become adventurers, who are restrained only by the uncertainty of obtaining a sufficient tract of country, collectively, for a good settlement.”

It was now decided to make direct and immediate application to Congress for the purchase of lands, and General Putnam, Dr. Manasseh Cutler and General Samuel H. Parsons were appointed directors and especially charged with this business. General Parsons had previously been employed to negotiate for a private purchase, had petitioned Congress, and a committee of that body had been appointed to confer with him. “To that committee,” says Dr. Cutler, “he proposed a purchase on the Scioto River,” but as the proprietors in Massachusetts “were generally dissatisfied with the situation and lands on the Scioto, and much preferred the Muskingum,” the negotiation was suspended. The directors now employed Dr. Cutler to make a purchase upon the Muskingum. It was considered desirable that the negotiations be commenced and the purchase consummated as soon as possible, as other companies were forming, the spirit of private speculation rapidly increasing, and there was a fear that the lands which the Ohio Company wished to possess would be bought by some other organization, or perhaps some part of them by individuals.

Just here the query arises: why were the New Englanders so anxious to purchase lands upon the Muskingum, rather than upon the Scioto, or elsewhere in the territory? To this question there are various answers. In the first place the greater part of the Federal territory was unfitted for settlement by the fact that it was occupied by the Indian tribes. None of these, however, had their residence in the lower Muskingum region, and it was only occasionally resorted to by them, when upon their hunting expeditions. Then, too, the people who proposed making a settlement beyond the Ohio were very naturally influenced by the proximity of well established stations upon the east and south of the river; they doubtless preferred the Virginians rather than the Kentuckians, as neighbors. The lower Scioto offered no more alluring an aspect than the lower Muskingum. The best bodies of lands on each river are fifty miles from their mouth. To penetrate so far into the interior, however, as the site of either Chillicothe or Zanesville would have been, at the time the Marietta settlement was made, was unsafe. The location of Fort Harmar, which we have seen was built in 1785–86, doubtless had its influence upon the Ohio Company. Thomas Hutchins, the United States geographer, who had formerly been geographer to the king of Great Britain, and had traveled extensively in the west, had said and written much in favor of the Muskingum country, and strongly advised Dr. Cutler to locate his purchase in this region. Other explorers and travelers had substantiated what Hutchins had said. General Butler and General Parsons, who had descended the Ohio to the Miamis, were deeply impressed with the desirableness of the tract of country now designated as southeastern Ohio, and the latter, writing on the twentieth of December, 1785, from Fort Finney (mouth of the Little Miami) to Captain Jonathan Hart, at Fort Harmar, said: “I have seen no place since I left you that pleases me so well for settlement as Muskingum.” General Benjamin Tupper doubtless added important testimony supporting that of Hutchins, Parsons, Butler and others. General Parsons, it has been asserted, became most strongly possessed of the belief that the Muskingum region was the best part of the territory, because one of the Zanes, who had been many years in the west, told him that the Scioto or Miami regions offered superior attractions, and he suspected that the old frontiersman artfully designed to divert attention from the Muskingum that he might have the first choice of purchase himself when the lands were put on sale. It is probable, too, that the prospect of establishing a system of communication and commerce between the Ohio and Lake Erie, by way of the Muskingum and Tuscarawas and Cuyahoga, and between the Ohio and the seaboard, by way of the Great Kanawha and the Potomac (a plan which Washington had thought feasible before the Revolutionary war), had its weight.

ALFRED MATHEWS.

INDIAN OCCUPATION OF OHIO.

During a long period—one which, perhaps, had its beginning soon after the forced exodus of the semi-civilized, pre-historic people, and which extended down to the era of the white man’s actual knowledge—the upper Ohio valley was probably devoid of any permanent population. The river teemed with fish, and the dense, luxuriant wood abounded in game, but no Indian wigwams dotted the shores of the great stream, no camp fires gleamed along its banks, and no maize-fields covered the fertile bottom lands or lent variety to the wild vernal green. An oppressive stillness hung over the land, marked and intensified rather than broken, and only made more weird by the tossing of the water upon the shores and the soft mysterious sounds echoed from the distance through the dim aisles of the forest. Nature was lovely then as now, but with all her beauty the valley was awful in the vastness and solemnity of its solitude. Nowhere was human habitation or indication of human life.

This was the condition of the country when explored by the early French navigators, and when a century later it became the field for British and American adventurers. There was a reason for this desertion of a region rich in all that was dear to the red man. The river was the warway down which silently and swiftly floated the canoe fleets of a fierce, relentless, and invincible enemy. That the dreaded devastators of the country, when it was occupied by the ancient race, had made their invasions from the northward by way of the great stream, is suggested by the numerous lookout or signal mounds which crown the hills on either side of the valley, occupying the most advantageous points of observation. The Indians who dwelt in the territory included in the boundaries of Ohio had, when the white men first went among them, traditions of oft repeated and sanguinary incursions made from the same direction, and dating back to their earliest occupation of the country. History corroborates their legends, or at least those relating to less ancient times. The Iroquois or Six Nations were the foes whose frequent forays, made suddenly, swiftly, and with overwhelming strength, had carried dismay into all the Ohio country and caused the weaker tribes to abandon the valley, penetrated the interior and located themselves on the upper waters of the Muskingum, the Scioto, the Miamis, and the tributaries of the lake, where they could live with less fear of molestation. The Six Nations had the rude elements of a confederated republic, and were the only power in this part of North America who deserved the name of government.[5] They pretentiously claimed to be the conquerors of the whole country from sea to sea, and there is good evidence that they had by 1680 gained a powerful sway in the country between the great lakes, the Ohio and the Mississippi, and were feared by all the tribes within these limits. The upper Ohio was called by the early French the River of the Iroquois, and was for a long time unexplored through fear of their hostility.

But little is definitely known of the Indian occupation of the Ohio country prior to 1750, and scarcely anything anterior to 1650. As far back in American history as the middle of the seventeenth century it is probable that the powerful but doom-destined Eries were in possession of the vast wilderness which is now the thickly settled, well improved State of Ohio, dotted with villages and cities and covered with the meshes of a vast net-work of railroads. Most of the villages of this Indian nation, it is supposed, were situated along the shore of the lake which has been given their name. The Andastes are said by the best authorities to have occupied the valleys of the Allegheny and upper Ohio, and the Hurons or Wyandots held sway in the northern peninsula between the lakes. All were genuinely Iroquois, and the western tribes were stronger than the eastern. The Iroquois proper (the Five Nations increased afterward to Six by the alliance of the Tuscarawas) formed their confederacy in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and through consolidation of strength overwhelmed singly and successively the Hurons, the Eries, and the Andastes. The time of the massacre of the Erie nation—for the war upon them culminated in a wholesale murder—is usually set down by antiquarians and historians as 1655, and the victory over the Andastes is, on good evidence, placed in the year 1672. About the same time a tribe, supposed to have been the Shwanees, were driven from the Ohio valley and far towards the Gulf of Mexico. And so the territory now Ohio became a land without habitation and served the victorious Iroquois as a vast hunting ground. Whether the Iroquois conquered the Miamis and their allies, the Illinois, is a question upon which leading students of Indian history have been equally divided. The Miamis had no traditions of ever having suffered defeat at the hands of the great confederacy, and their country, the eastern boundary of which was the Miami River, may have been the western limit of the Six Nations’ triumph. That they were often at war with the Iroquois is not disputed, however, by any writers of whom we have knowledge.