Copied from Harbaugh's 1909 History
of
Miami County Ohio
Chapter 2
FIRST WHITE MAN IN THE
COUNTY
The Call of the West; The Pioneer
Settler;
De Bienville's Expedition of 1749; Attack
on Pickawillany;
Location of Pickawillany; Washington's
Journey;
Expeditions of George Rogers Clarke;
Experiences of Abram Thomas; Battle
on the Johnston Farm;
Beauty of the Country at the time of Clarke's Expedition;
Coming of John Knoop; 1797 Pioneer
Settlers;
It is an interesting fact that the trend of discovery,
invasion, and immigration from the earliest times has been westward. The
adventurous prows of the Columbian fleet pointed toward the occident; the
call of the western wild lured the ill-fated De Soto to his grave beneath
the waters of the Mississippi; Coronado marched toward the setting sun
in search of the "Seven Cities of Cibola," and the Chevailier
La Salle carried the sacred symbol of the Nazarene to the forests of the
Illinois. The virgin woods, reflected in the limpid waters of the Miami,
echoed only to the howl of the predatory wolf and the battle cry of the
contending tribes. Long before the coming of the white man the skulking
Indian, decked in the paraphernalia of the warpath, sought his red rival
within the present boundaries of this county, or hunted wild game through
its primeval thickets.
The trading post, that forerunner of civilization, had not yet set up
its stockade. The only craft that cut the western waters were the lithe
canoes of the scarlet legions. From the Miami-of-the- Lakes to the shores
of the Ohio the only pathways of the woods were the Indian and buffalo
trails. It was the age of shadow and savagery. No axe awoke the echoes
of the forests and everywhere, unbroken and in its pristine beauty, lay
the vast hunting grounds of the red man. What must have been the thoughts
of the Boones and Kentons when for the first time they beheld a scene like
this? One naturally wonders if they dreamed of the opening up of the region
of the Miami by the hand of civilization, of the day, not far remote, when
the cabin of the settler should rise upon the wigwam's site and trade and
traffic send up their clarion calls where ran the woodland trails.
It seems a far cry back from the busy present to the distant past. Yet
a century is but a milestone on the highway of Progress. It is man and
man alone who makes history. The song of the first pioneer women has not
been wholly lost in the noise of the myriad wheels of trade. The hand that
reared the first cabin on the banks of the Miami built better it than it
knew.
Let us turn the early of history and trace from the
beginning the opening up of this county. It is well that reliable records
of our birthrights have come down to us. The settler who first penetrated
the wilderness of the Miami has left for us his footprints so that we can
trace him unerringly. As a rule he was not a man of scholastic lore. He
was a person of brain and brawn who, deterred by no difficulties, came
from beyond the Alleghenies and passed with high hopes the portals of the
"New Canaan." All hail the memory of the little band of pioneers
who scaled the mountain barrier and saw the wolf flee from the light of
his campfires!
I shall not deal with tradition, which has been aptly
termed "the unwritten or oral transmission of information," and
it is not reliable. As early as 1749 Celeron de Bienville was sent out
by the Marquis de la Gallissoniere, Governor of Canada, to take possession
for France of the Ohio Valley and prevent the English Ohio Company from
acquiring it by right of settlement. Gallissoniere was governor of Canada
when the peace of Aix-la- Chapelle was signed. He was a naval officer and,
like all the early governors of that province, had a very exalted opinion
of his abilities. Despite his physical deformity (he was a hunchback) he
was animated by a bold spirit and strong and penetrating intellect. Parkman
says that "he felt that, cost what it might, France must hold Canada
and link her to Louisiana by chains of forts strong enough to hold back
the British colonies and cramp their growth within narrow limits."
The treaty had really done nothing to settle the boundaries between France
and England. Slowly but surely the English had been crossing the Alleghenies,
seducing the Indian from his allegiance to France and ruining the fur trade
which even then flourished in the Ohio Valley.
Something had to be done to counteract the aggressions of the English
in this particular locality and this determined Gallissoniere to send Celeron
de Bienville westward with the region embraced within the borders of Miami
County as his objective point. De Bienville was a loyal officer of France,
but a man of haughty, disobedient character. As the first Frenchman who
entered the forest in this locality at the head of an armed force he deserves
a brief mention. In some ways the Governor of Canada could not have entrusted
the expedition to a better man, but De Bienville had ideas of his own and
was inclined, when beyond the power of his superior, to exercise them.
He was thoroughly familiar with the Indian character, and his intense hatred
of the English led Gallissoniere to expect great things of him. Bred among
the frivolities and corruptions of a licentious court, Celeron brought
his gay habits into the wilderness, and these, with his innate stubbornness,
threatened to clothe the expedition with failure.
The expedition left Lachine on the 15th of June, 1749, and having ascended
the St. Lawrence, swept across Lake Ontario and from Niagara skirted the
southern shore of Lake Erie and at last gained the headwaters of the Allegheny.
Celeron descended that river and the Ohio. Already the English trader had
penetrated this wilderness, but the Frenchman claimed it in the name of
his king. At different places De Bienville buried six leaden tablets upon
which he described his acts. The first of these plates which marked his
route was buried at the foot of a tree immediately after crossing the Allegheny.
A great ceremony preceded the burial, calculated to impress the French
and Indians with the importance of the expedition. Four leagues below French
Creek, by a rock covered with Indian inscriptions, they buried another
plate, and at the mouth of the Muskingum two more were placed. Fifty years
later a party of boys, bathing in the river, discovered one of these plates
protruding from the bank, and, after melting half of it into bullets, they
gave the last half away and it is still in existence. Celeron or "The
plate planter" as he is called, buried still another plate at the
mouth of the Great Kenawha and this plate was found by a boy in 1846. Three
of Celeron's plates have been found. One that was never buried was found
in Possession of some Indians who brought it to Col. Johnson on the Mohawk
and the scheming Colonel interpreted the inscriptions in a manner to incense
the savages against the French.
The last plate was buried at the mouth of the Great Miami, after which
the little band crossed to Lake Erie and gained Fort Niagara October 19th,
1749. Celeron reached the old Indian town of Pickawillany on the site of
the state dam two miles north of Piqua. In order to show the assurance
and pomposity of the French I transcribe the inscription of the tablet
buried at the mouth of the Great Miami:
"In the year 1749 the reign of Louis XV, King of France we,
Celeron, commandant of a detachment sent by Monsieur the Marquis of Gallissoniere,
Commander in Chief of New France, to establish tranquillity in certain
Indian villages in these cantons, have buried this plate at the confluence
of the Ohio and of To-Ra-Da-Koin, this 29th July near the river Ohio, otherwise
Beautiful river as a monument of renewal of possession, which we have taken
of the said river and all its tributaries and of all the land on both sides,
as far as the source of said rivers inasmuch as the preceding kings of
France have enjoyed and maintained it by their arms and treaties, especially
by those of Ryswick, Utrecht and Aix-la-Chapelle."
Parkman avers that Celeron was ordered to attack
the English who had established themselves at Pickawillany, but he was
loath to obey. At this place the English traders had often gathered to
the number of fifty and Longueill, Governor of Canada, characterized them
as "the instigators of revolt and the source of all our woes."
De Bienville was charged with disobedience and forced to attack. A French
trader named Langlade, who had married a squaw, led a force of 200 Ojibwa
warriors from Michillimackinae and advanced through the forest to attack
Old Britain of the "Demoiselle," who was the controlling spirit
of the English at Pickawillany. This force of savage furies burst upon
the English in the month of June, 1752. The Indian women fled from the
maize fields to the protection of the traders. There were but eight traders
in the fort at the time. Old Britain was killed with fourteen of his Miami's
and the chief was eaten by his cannibalistic enemies. The traders Captured
at Pickawillany were cruelly treated. They were plundered of everything;
even their clothes were taken from them and Langlade carried them in triumph
to Duquesne, the new governor, who recommended him to the Minister for
reward, saying: "As he is not in the King's service and had married
a squaw, I will ask for him only a pension of two hundred francs, which
will flatter his vanity. It was not much of a battle, but it was the initial
clash of the two great nations whose supremacy on these shores was afterward
to be settled on the Heights of Abraham. It is rather notable that on the
borders of Miami County should be fought out one of the early disputes
between Celt and Gaul.
Prior, however, to the assault on the trading post at Pickawillany,
the region of the Miami was invaded by a little force intended to spy out
the land in the interest of France's great rival, England. In 1750 an association
consisting chiefly of Virginians and called the Ohio Company, was formed
to settle the western wilderness. In this association were two brothers
of Washington. The governing committee placed at the head of the exploring
band a hardy scout and guide named Christopher Gist, one of the most noted
backwoodsman of the early days. A grant of 500,000 acres was procured from
the king on condition that one hundred families should be established upon
it within seven years, a fort built and a garrison maintained. The committee
under whose instructions Gist was to operate in the exploring and selection
of the land stipulated that "it must be good, level land. We had rather
go quite down the Mississippi than take mean, broken land." Gist turned
his face toward what was afterward to be the county we now inhabit, Miami.
He as beset with dangers from the first. The Scotch-Irish traders told
him that he would never return in safety and it was not until the old backwoodsman
declared that he was the bearer of a message from the King that he was
permitted to proceed. Gist had with him as interpreter a companion named
Andrew Montour, who was a character of those times. His mother was the
celebrated half-breed, Catherine Montour, who had been carried off by the
Iroquois and adopted by them. Her son Andrew, who became of much service
to Gist, is thus described by one who knew him:
"His face is like that of a European, but marked with a broad Indian
ring of bear's grease and paint drawn completely around it. He wears a
coat of fine cloth of cinnamon color, a black necktie with silver spangles,
a red satin waistcoat, trousers, over which hangs his shirt, shoes and
stockings, a hat and brass ornaments, something like the handle of a basket
suspended from his ears." A real forest dandy of the olden time!
After leaving the Muskingum Gist journeyed to a village on White Woman's
Creek, so called from one Mary Harris, who lived there. She had been captured
when young by the Indians, and at the time of Gist's visit had an Indian
husband and a family of young half-breeds. Moving west through the vast
solitude's of the unbroken forest the little band reached a Shawnee town
at the mouth of the Scioto, where they were well received. Soon after leaving
this village they struck the trail leading to Pickawillany.
The old guide was delighted with the country and in his report to the Ohio
Company he says that "it is rich, level land, well timbered with large
walnut, ash, sugar and cherry trees well watered with a great number of
streams and rivulets, full of beautiful meadows, with wild rye, blue grass
and clover, and abounding with game, particularly deer, elks, wild turkeys
and buffaloes, thirty or forty of the latter being seen on one piece of
land." Such, no doubt, was the condition of this county at that period.
Gist crossed the Miami on a raft and was hailed by Old Britain, the
chief at Pickawillany. At his time the station numbered 2,000 souls, start
page 33 and the traders were secure in a fort of pickets, protected with
logs. Here was held in Gist's honor the first wild dance ever performed
for white men in this region. It was called the "feather dance"
and what it was like let the journal of the old frontiersman say:
"It was performed by three dancing masters, who were painted all
over of various colors, with long sticks in their hands, upon the ends
of which were fastened long feathers of swans and other birds, neatly woven
in the shape of a fowl's wing. In this disguise they performed many antic
tricks, waving their sticks with great skill, to imitate the flying of
birds ,keeping exact time with their music. An Indian drum furnished music
and each warrior, striking a painted post with his tomahawk, would recount
his valorous deeds on the warpath and the buffalo trail."
As there was a "confusion of tongues" at
Babel so there is a confusion of statements concerning the exact site of
Pickawillany. Some writers place it in Shelby County and others confuse
it with Loramie's Store, and vice versa. Let us sift the different assertions
for a moment and settle, if we can , the location of this important frontier
post. Parkman, who is a very authentic historian, in his "Montealm
and Wolfe" says that Celeron de Bienville in 1749 "reached a
village of the Miamis lately built at the mouth of Loramie Creek,"
and again refers to it as "the Indian town on the upper waters of
the Great Miami. Howe, in his account of Shelby County, locates Pickawillany
"about a mile south of the Shelby County line" and adds, in the
interest of accuracy, that its exact location was "on the northwest
side of the Great Miami, just below the mouth of what is now Loramie Creek
in Johnston's prairie." This would locate it in Washington Township
and nine miles southwest of Sidney. But in the first edition of his "Historical
Collections" Howe says, "The mouth of Loramie's Creek is in this
(Shelby) county, sixteen miles northwest of Sidney." Loramie's Store
or post could not have occupied the site of Pickawillany. The two sites
are entirely different. In the "History of Fort Wayne" is given
a speech of Little Turtle, chief of the Miamis, made at the Treaty of Greenville,
1795, in which he locates Pickawillany within the present boundaries of
Miami County. Dr.Asa Coleman of Troy, one of the earliest and most intelligent
of the pioneers, in his "Historical Recollections," remarks:
"Howe places the trading post (Pickawillany) here described in Shelby
County northwest of Sidney, evidently confusing it with Loramie's Store
and Fort Loramie, a point located sixteen miles distant from the Miami
River up Loramie's Creek when the trading post of the Towightewee towns
and the trading establishment here described was a mile southwest of the
Shelby County line in Miami County, below the mouth of Loramie's Creek
in Johnston's prairie.
Gen. George Rogers Clark attacked Pickawillany in 1782, as will be described
later, and he locates it at the mouth of Loramie's Creek, nine miles south
of Sidney, while Loramie's Store was nearly fifteen miles northwest between
the waters of Loramie's Creek and the head waters of the St. Mary's. This
is proven by the fact that Clark, after attacking Pickawillany, marched
fifteen miles to Loramie's Store and burned all the buildings.
That the Indian Piqua stood on what was called the Johnston Prairie
is attested by the fact that the ground today when freshly plowed shows
discoloration, probably from the disturbance of the soil in digging the
trenches and the well. Many old time relies have been found on the site
of this historic old fort. Summing up everything presented by different
writers the conclusion is reached that the trading post of Pickawillany
was situated within the borders of this county, which conclusion places
the first settlement here thirty-nine years before the coming of the whites
to Marietta. Of course the settlement at Pickawillany was not a permanent
one, but our county should have all the credit it is entitled to. It is
rather perplexing to read the accounts of writers who should have written
with more care than they have done. Some of the early maps are also confusing,
but the Evans map made in 1755 places Pickawillany at the mouth of Loramie's
Creek, and this map is undoubtedly right. One of the most important events
connected with this old station is the fact already mentioned that there
occurred the first conflict, small though it was, in the "Braddock"
or French and Indian War which established English supremacy on this continent
and broke the sway of the French.
The beauty, fertility and worth of the Ohio valley early excited the
grasping propensities of France and England. Each wanted what the other
had, and each was ready to take by force that which promised to enrich
her rival. The fleur-de-lis could not float where the banner of Saint George
kissed the breezes and vice versa. The two ruling courts of Europe, each
corrupt, balked at nothing that would advance their interests and fill
their coffers. Long before Washington shed the first blood in the French
and Indian War through the death of Jumonville, the land which lies today
within the borders of Miami County was a bone of contention between the
continental rivals. The story carried back by Gist, his flowery description
of the country he had seen, acted as a spur to the English. The two kingdoms
girded their loins for the conflict.
The first step or among the first was to warn the
French from the Valley of the Ohio. This delicate and important task was
assigned to a youth of twenty-one, who was destined to be known in time
to the whole world -George Washington. Clothed with the proper authority
by Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, Washington in 1753 turned his face toward
the Ohio wilderness, accompanied by Gist as guide. While the future chieftain
of the American armies did not reach the banks of the Miami, there is no
doubt that his report stimulated immigration and started the wave which
was soon to top the Alleghenies in its westward course. The French were
loath to give up their possessions along the Ohio. They knew that each
surrender but strengthened their adversary. The previous wars on this continent
had permanently settled nothing. There could be no peace while the two
nations faced each other this side of the Atlantic. The prize was not only
Canada, but that vast and, as yet, unpeopled region which stretched so
southward to the Ohio, and westward to the banks of the Mississippi. This
tract included the lands watered by the Miami.
The Treaty of Paris, which was the concluding event of the French and
Indian War, saw the Gaul with but a limited foothold on the North American
continent. The fleur-de-lis was hauled down and the banner of Saint George
took its place. Sullenly the French withdrew from the regions they had
held and William Pitt stood forth as the great diplomat of his day. With
the gigantic struggle at an end the tide of immigration, interrupted by
the war, turned westward. The time was near at hand when the foot of the
white man should crinkle the leaves of the Miami forests and when the sound
of his axe should startle the foxes in their coverts.
Previous to the expedition of George Rogers Clark,
which penetrated to the present domain of Miami County, as I shall show,
in 1782, the Indians had been unusually troublesome. They were constantly
crossing the Ohio from the Kentucky wilderness, carrying the war among
the unprotected white settlements. Previously, or in 1780, Clark struck
and destroyed the Indian towns on Mad River, and the Shawnees, to which
people belonged the great leader Tecumseh, abandoning their burning wigwams,
sought the banks of the Great Miami, where they built another town, naming
it Piqua. From this point of vantage they swept viciously in every direction
carrying torch and tomahawk even into Kentucky. The intrepid Clark once
more took the forest trail and in 1782 led 1,000 Kentuckians northward.
He commanded a force of resolute men arrayed in buckskin and homespun,
and all were inured to fatigue of every kind and at home with the rifle.
The leader of this foray had gained fame by his capture of the British
post at Vincennes and was in every way calculated to head just such a body
of men. He as the friend of Washington who had followed his career with
interest and had complimented him for his bravery. The first Clark expedition
had forced the Indians northward and they were now firmly established in
the Miami country.
Eager for vengeance and never forgetting their chastisement in 1780,
they again took up the hatchet and swept the wilderness far and wide with
the ferocity of tigers. In short the destruction of every white settler
in Ohio and Kentucky seemed imminent, and if not given a salutary lesson
the lands just opening up to civilization would for a number of years remain
in the hands of the red man. It was this terrible state of affairs that
led to Clark's second expedition. He crossed the Ohio at a point where
Cincinnati now stands, but where at that time there was nothing but a fort
and a stockade. The wily Clark was well acquainted with the Indian character
and threw out scouts to guard against surprise as he progressed through
the wilderness. People living at the present day cannot estimate the trials
of a march like that made by Clark and his little band. They were headed
for the Indian towns on the Miami. The forest was then unbroken, its trails
were those made by the red hunters and the wild animals. The branches of
the great trees overlapped, casting the whole ground in shadow and the
long howl of the wolf was the only sound that broke the silences. Roads
had to be cut through this lonesome tract of country, roads for the Packhorses,
the teams and the men and all the time the latter had to be on the alert
against an Indian surprise such as had overwhelmed Braddock on the Monongahela.
At night the camp was well guarded and the little army slept on its arms.
The inmates of the solitary cabins scarcely dared retire at night for fear
of attack, and nightly the darkness was illuminated by the flames of burning
homes. The sparse settlements were ever in the shadow of the tomahawk.
The warery of the Indian was liable at any moment to fall upon the settler's
ears. There was fear by day and dread by night. The babe was taken from
its mother's arms and dashed against the nearest tree. Crops were destroyed
and the blossonied fringed pathways of the forest became scenes of massacre.
Where today stand the cities and hamlets of this county and where the industrious
farmer follows his plow in peace, the Indian struck with the ferocity of
a fiend and left desolation in his wake. Language cannot adequately depict
the dangers and horrors of this period.
Not long before Clark's invasion the Indians, during a foray into Kentucky,
captured a white woman named Mrs. McFall. She was compelled to accompany
her captors into Ohio and the band was headed toward the Piqua settlements.
A grand pow-wow was about to be held and savages from every quarter were
flocking to the place of rendezvous. Warriors hurried thither afoot and
on horseback and the forest seemed to swarm with them. As the red marauders
reached the river they were astounded to behold the advance guard of Clark's
little army. Instantly there was consternation among the Indians. They
stood not on the order of their going but scattered in every direction,
terror-stricken at meeting the rifles of the resolute borderers. Mrs. McFall
and the squaws were abandoned to their fate and fell into the hands of
Clark, who carried them with him.
When the Piqua towns were reached they were found
to be stripped of nearly everything portable, but many bits of Indian furniture
were left behind by the frightened warriors. Upper as well as Lower Piqua
was found in the same condition. Clark halted for the night. With his usual
precaution he threw out his guards to prevent surprise, and silence settled
over the forest. Suddenly the woods rang with shots, for the wily foe,
creeping through the underbrush, had opened fire on the sentries. In a
moment the whole army was aroused and firing was kept up till the break
of day. Notwithstanding the disadvantages under which the border men labored
five Indians were found dead on the leaves, the survivors, satisfied with
their punishment, having decamped. During the previous evening a detachment
sent out by Clark had burned Loramie's Store a few miles away. The total
loss on the part of the army was Capt. McCracken and a man whose name is
unknown. The chastisement inflicted had for a time a salutary effect on
the Indians. They discovered that the whites were determined to put an
end to their depravedness, cost what it might, and the scattered settlements
ad this region enjoyed a brief repose.
Among those who accompanied Gen. Clark was one of
the first settlers of Miami County, a courageous man named Abraham Thomas.
He afterward published an account of the expedition in the Troy Times from
which I make the following extract:
"I again volunteered in an expedition under General Clark, with
the object of destroying Indian villages about Piqua on the Great Miami
River. On this occasion nearly 1,000 men marched out of Kentucky by the
route of the Licking River. We crossed the Ohio at the present site of
Cincinnati, where our last year's stockade had been kept up and a few people
resided in log cabins. We proceeded immediately onward through the woods
without regard to our former trail and crossed Mad River not far from the
present site of Dayton. We kept on the east side of the river -the Miami-
and crossed it four miles below the Piqua towns. Shortly after gaining
the bottoms on the west side of the river, a party of Indians with their
squaws on horseback came out of a trace that led to some Indian towns near
the present site of Greenville. On arriving at Piqua we found that the
Indians had fled from their villages, leaving most of their effects behind.
During the following night I joined a party to break up an encampment of
Indians said to be lying about what was called the French Store (Loramie's).
We soon caught a Frenchman on horseback, tied him to a horse for our guide
and arrived at the place in the night. The Indians had taken the alarm
and cleared out. We, however, broke up and burned the Frenchman's store,
which for a long time had been a place of outfit for Indian marauders and
returned to the main body early in the morning. Many of our men were stocked
with plunder. After burning and otherwise destroying everything about upper
and lower Piqua towns we commenced our return march."
"In this attack five Indians were killed during the night the
expedition lay at Piqua. The Indians lurked around the camp, firing random
shots from the hazel thickets without doing us any injury; but two men
who were in search of their stray horses were fired upon and severely "wounded.
One of these died shortly afterward and was buried at what is now called
'Coe's Ford' where we recrossed the Miami on our return. The other, Capt.
McCracken, lived until we reached the site of Cincinnati, where he was
buried. On this expedition we had with us Capt. William Barbee, afterward
Judge Barbee, one of my primitive neighbors in Miami County, a most worthy
and brave man, with whom I have marched and watched through many a long
day and finally removed with him to Ohio."
Since the first bloodshed in the French and Indian War occurred within
the limits of Miami County, one of the last battles between the rival nations
took place within the same territory. In 1763 the adherents of France and
England came together on the Col. John Johnston's farm at Upper Piqua.
Here the Tewightewee towns inhabited by the Miamis were then established.
The Indians, with the Wyandots, Ottawas and kindred nations, espoused the
cause of France. They were assisted by Canadians and French, the whole
forming a motley confederacy against the common enemy. I may premise by
saying that the French by their lenient treatment of the red man had drawn
to their interest some of the most powerful of the northern tribes, whereas,
on the other hand, the English were not so fortunate. They (the English)
were aided by the Shawnees, Delawares, Munseys, Senecas, Cherokees and
Catawbas, and these warriors with a sprinkling of traders laid Siege to
the fort. For a whole week, according to the most authentic records obtainable,
the siege went on with all the attending incidents of border warfare. The
besieging army suffered severely. The resisting force was also badly crippled
and lost such property as was exposed. Blackhoof, one of the Shawnee chiefs,
with his accustomed exaggeration, informed Col. Johnston after the siege
that he could have gathered baskets full of bullets. The allies of France,
discouraged and shut off from further active warfare by the peace which
had been signed, turned their footsteps from this part of the country and,
returned to the region of the Maumee, and came back no more. In their place
came the Shawnees, the parent race which produced Tecumseh, the most formidable
of the many leaders of the scarlet legions.
For some years comparative peace reigned about Upper Piqua, yet the
boats which plowed the waters of the Miami were not always out of danger
at the hands of the restless savages. In 1794 Capt. J. N. Vischer, the last
commandant at Fort Piqua, was compelled to almost witness the massacre
of the officers and crews of two freight boats which he was powerless to
aid. It is believed that the boats were attacked for the purpose of drawing
the garrison from the fort, but the discreet commander was not to be drawn
into the snare.
At the time of Clark's expedition the country of the Miami was a primitive
paradise. The first beauty of the woods came with the spring. At first
the landscape looked bare and desolate, but before many days the air was
sweet with the blossoms of the wild grape, plum, cherry and crabapple and
the whole land beautiful with the contrasting red and white of the dogwood
and rosebud, or of elder and wild rose, and the fresh green of the young
leaves. The country on both sides of the Miami was for many miles unbroken
forest or a thicket of hazel bushes and wild fruit trees. Pioneers could
in the summer, step out of their back doors into a boundless wild park
of garden. Delicious perfumes, sweet as attar of roses, delicate, pungent,
aromatic, and countless flowers, pink, white, purple, scarlet, blue, and
bending with every shade of yellow and green delighted the senses.
Gist, in his description of the forests of the Miami, had spoken of
the great variety of trees that covered the ground. Many of these were
of the lordliest kind and hid stood for ages before the foot of man pressed
the soil about their roots. Oak, hickory, walnut, beech, and butternut
stood everywhere in the greatest profusion. Their nuts afforded food for
the settler as well as for the wild hogs that roamed the woods. Everywhere
on both sides of the Miami stretched the great woodlands, which today are
things of the past. In summer the air was mild and pleasant. The winters
were cold but the forests acted as "breaks" and kept the icy
blasts from the inmates of the cabins. A pioneer writer in the Troy Times
thus refers to the aspect of this country a century ago:
"The country around the settlements presented the most lovely
appearance. The earth was like an ash-heap and nothing could exceed the
luxuriance of primitive vegetation. Indeed, our cattle often died from
excess of feeding and it was somewhat difficult to rear them on that account.
The white weed or bee-harvest, as it is called, so profusely spread over
our bottoms and woodlands, was not then to be seen, the sweet anise, nettles
and wild rye, and pea vine, everywhere abounded-they were almost the entire
herbage of our bottoms. The two last gave subsistence to our cattle and
the first with their nutritious roots were eaten by our swine with the
greatest avidity. In the spring and summer months a drove of hogs could
be scented at a considerable distance from their flavor of the anise root.
Buffalo signs were frequently met with, but the animals had entirely disappeared
before the first white inhabitant came into the country, but other game
was abundant.''
Among the first white settlers to establish themselves
in Miami County was John Knoop. He came from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania,
in 1797. In the spring of that year he came down the Ohio to Cincinnati
and cropped the first season at Zeigler's stone- house farm, four miles
above the post. During the summer he ventured into the Indian country north
of the Ohio. At one time he made a journey with a surveying party and selected
land not far from the banks of the Miami. At that time the forest swarmed
with Indians, principally of the Shawnee nation, but there were others
here at the time, roving bands of Mingoes, Delawares, Miamis and Pottawatomies.
These bands were peacefully inclined and made no efforts to disturb the
first settlers. In the spring of 1798 Knoop moved to near the present site
of Staunton where, with Benjamin Knoop, Henry Gerard, Benjamin Hamlet,
John Tildus and others, he established a station for the safety of the
pioneer families. It was the victory of Clark that gave to the first settlers
in this county a sense of security. Fear of the whites kept the red men
in abeyance, and those who first awoke the echoes of the woods with their
axes were permitted to inhabit the land in peace. The inmates of "Dutch
Station", as the settlement. was called, remained within it for two
years, during which time they were occupied in clearing and building on
their respective farms. Here was born in 1798 Jacob Knoop, the son of John,
the first civilized native of Miami County. At this time there were three
young men living at the mouth of Stony Creek and cropping out on what was
known as Freeman's prairie. One of these was D. H. Morris, for a long time
a resident of Bethel Township. At the same time there resided at Piqua
Samuel Hilliard, Job Garrard, Shadrach Hudson, Josiah Rollins, Daniel Cox,
and Thomas Rich. All these, with the tenants of Dutch Station, comprised
the inhabitants of Miami County from 1797 to 1799. From this time all parts
of the county began to receive numerous immigrants.
In the fall of 1796 Benjamin Iddings came
from Tennessee in search of a new home and located in the Weymire settlement
within the limits of Montgomery County, but after one winter there he removed
with a family of six children to Newton Township, where he located on the
east side of Stillwater. When Judge Symmes made the extensive "Symmes
Purchase" which embraced many thousands of acres between the two Miamis,
he offered inducements to settlers. Immigration thus given an impulse,
began to push northward and some of those who had already bought land of
Symmes entered the present limits of Miami County and established themselves
near the mouth of Honey Creek as early as 1797. These people, among whom
were Samuel Morrison and David Morris, established the first permanent
settlement in the county. They laid out opposite the mouth of the creek
a town called "Livingston," which name long ago disappeared.
Rollins and Hudson already mentioned located near the mouth of Spring Creek,
perhaps a few months prior to the settlement at Dutch Station.
The various "stations" so called, erected by the first settlers
were formed by erecting logs in a line and the cabins were all joined together,
forming one side of a square with the remaining three sides enclosed by
palings eight feet high, firmly driven in the ground. All the openings
inside the square were secured by a strong gateway. On Gerard's and Gahagan's
prairie near Troy, which had once been tilled by the Indians, the tenants
of Dutch Station remained two years. In 1799 their numbers were increased
by the arrival of John Gerard, Uriah Blue, Joseph Coe, Abram Hathaway,
Nathaniel Gerard, and Abner Gerard. These were the first actual settlers
of the county.
From whence did our first pioneers come? Nearly all the states that
comprised the original Union furnished their quota. Those from Pennsylvania,
New Jersey and Virginia were perhaps most numerous, but Georgia and the
Carolinas sent a goodly number. There were a few from New England and New
York and even little Delaware contributed to the settlement of the county.
All the pioneers were men of nerve and determination. They did not shrink
from the arduous task of carving out new homes in the unbroken wilderness.
Some were of hardy Scotch-Irish stock, while German blood flowed in the
veins of others. All had traversed leagues of wild land to the homes they
found in the beautiful region of the Miami. Nothing daunted them. They
met dangers seen and unseen in order that they could raise their children
in a new land and give them a heritage enriched by toil and self-sacrifice.
--- end of chapter 2 ----
Harbaugh's History Of Miami County Ohio, 1909
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