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Ohio History and the Beginnings of Settlement
Taken from an essay by Nevin O. Winter
The student of history is generally attracted by events which occurred at some remote place. It is another illustration of distance lending enchantment. In Europe it is seen where Americans are walking over the scenes of battles which had no significance in the world's history. They were simply scenes of conflicts between rival factions in local disturbances. Some of these same Americans have passed by battlefields near their own homes, without pausing for a moment to visualize what these conflicts meant in American history. For the same reason the American traveler is lured to foreign lands in search of scenic beauty, when more beautiful panoramas can be found within a short journey of his own habitation.
It is not necessary for a resident of Northwest Ohio to journey to distant fields in search of places of absorbing historical interest. Within the twenty counties of this section of that great commonwealth occurred battles between red man and white, and between rival white races, which have left their permanent impress upon American history in the western march of the empire. There is scarcely a foot of the bank of the Sandusky or the Maumee River which is not pregnant with virile history. At Fort Stephenson there was displayed a spirit which savors of that heroism shown by the Greeks at Thermopylae. The Girty brothers contributed the villains, the ingrates, whose presence seems as necessary to make the drama complete as the heroes, who, in this instance, include General Anthony Wayne, General William Henry Harrison, Captain Croghan, Commodore Perry and many others.
The Northwestern Territory was the first experiment by the new United States in expansion. Heretofore the Americans had made little effort to subdue the wilderness beyond the Alleghenies. The Northwestern Territory offered a new and inviting problem, but before this vast and fertile tract could be utilized it was necessary to conquer the original occupants of the soil. The collision naturally came in Ohio, which was then the frontier region, and the fiercest contacts between the reds and whites took place in Northwest Ohio. Here it was that the French and English contended for the mastery of this region. Here it was that the oncoming Americans waged their battles for supremacy with the British, and here it was that they were compelled to subdue the red men.
Northwest Ohio has produced many great men. It has furnished a Justice of the Supreme Court and two Presidents as well as many other men who contributed to our country's welfare. But the red men also produced some outstanding leaders in this same region, who ranked high in savage history. It was in Sandusky County that Chief Nicholas of the Wyandotte tribe lived, and he was the brains of the movement which had for its purpose to drive the French from the western country. The greatest Indian chief of which we have knowledge was Pontiac, who engineered that remarkable movement known as Pontiac's conspiracy, which aimed to break the British power. Pontiac was born and lived the greater part of his life near Defiance. Although Tecumseh was not born within Northwestern Ohio, yet the larger part of his activities in opposing the march of the whites into the hunting-grounds of his ancestors occurred in this same region.
History becomes vivid to the imaginative mind when one considers the truly remarkable events that have occurred in Northwestern Ohio. At Bucyrus are the grounds over which Colonel Crawford and his Pennsylvania Volunteers traveled on their way to meet the Wyandottes. They were full of hope as they journeyed westward, but it was a sadder, a wiser and a less numerous force that retreated over this same ground a few days later.
Ohio had long been the stronghold of the savages, since the woods and streams abounded in game which furnished sustenance. Their numbers were augmented by the broken tribes which were compelled to move westward. President Washington realized that this power of the savages must be broken, and he decided to take decisive measures leading to this end. He entrusted the first expedition to General Harmar. This officer started from Cincinnati and proceeded toward what is now Fort Wayne. It was there that tie met a disastrous defeat. In his forward march and his return also he passed through portions of Northwest Ohio. The second expedition was placed in the hands of General St. Clair, a personal friend of the President, with the specific instructions to avoid every possibility of ambuscade. The result of this expedition was the bloody encounter in Mercer County, which was followed by the horrible butchery of hundreds of his troops. They had been outwitted by the savages, even after the definite warning of his superior. This encounter at Fort Recovery is one of the most horrible savage reprisals that American history records.
President Washington realized that the savage power must be broken or the Northwestern Territory, rich as it might be in natural resources, would be useless to the new republic. He decided upon General Anthony Wayne to head the third expedition. In this instance he had selected the proper man. General Wayne left nothing to chance. He carefully surveyed the situation and prepared himself for every possibility. In easy marches he proceeded from near Cincinnati northward to the Auglaize River. He then followed this stream to Defiance and, after complete preparations, followed the Maumee toward its mouth. Between Maumee and Waterville he encountered the savages in a hollow where the timber had been destroyed by a hurricane. Here the savages had prepared to meet the white soldiers, and the Battle of Fallen Timbers followed. The result was an overwhelming defeat for the Indians. It forever broke their power and made them willing to enter into the Greenville Treaty in the following year. It was probably .the most decisive defeat that the Indians ever experienced. It made possible the oncoming of thousands of white pioneers into the western country, many of whom settled in Northwest Ohio along the Sandusky and Maumee Rivers within the next few years.
During the War of 1812 Northwest Ohio was the scene of the most significant events that occurred in the western country. It was here that the Americans clashed with the British and their savage allies in a series of conflicts. General Harrison, Commodore Perry and George Croghan are the outstanding figures in these impacts. The heroism of these commanders and their followers equals that exhibited in any incidents in American history. Warned by the disastrous experiences of General Hull, who basely surrendered at Detroit, and General Winchester, who was caught unprepared at Monroe, General Harrison carefully planned his campaign. As a result the year 1813 retrieved the failures of 1812. British and savages alike learned at Fort Meigs that the American commander who opposed them was a man of skill, foresight and courage. Their bitter experiences at Fort Stephenson only deepened the impression that the Americans could not be driven from this country by force and they could not be intimidated by threats of butchery by the savages in the event of defeat or capture. Their numbers were terribly decimated. They gained nothing excepting the scalps of Colonel Dudley's brave Kentuckians and a few stragglers. Fear of the savages no longer existed. The victory at the Thames River was only the finishing touch, the death stroke, upon the body which had received its fatal wound in Northwest Ohio. With the capture of the British fleet by Commodore Perry, the power of both the British and Indians was forever broken in this fair region. Those Indians who remained for from twenty to thirty years longer buried the tomahawk and resigned themselves to the supremacy of the white man.
In 1817, by treaty the Indians ceded to the United States all their claim to lands in Ohio, except certain reservations. |
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