SOURCE: History of Athens County, Ohio And Incidentally of the Ohio Land Company and the First Settlement of the State at Marietta, etc. By Charles M. Walker - Publ. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & 1869.    

CHAPTER I.

Indian Occupation of Ohio.

 EIGHTY years ago the territory included within the limits of the present State of Ohio was an almost unbroken wilderness.  The beautiful river that forms its southern boundary had, indeed, been threaded by a few eager explorers; but the white man had not yet established himself upon its banks.  So too Lake Erie, on the north, had long before been furrowed by the adventurous craft of civilized men; but on all its borders there was not a hamlet nor a house.  Over the whole region, now so thickly populated, brooded the silence of savage life.  The rivers were ploughed only by the swift canoe of the Indian, and the virgin earth waited for the race that was to develop its riches and its beauty.
     Today, in wealth and population Ohio ranks third among the states of the Union.  Large cities, flourishing towns, peaceful hamlets, and smiling farms enliven and beautify the scene.  Huge steamers, laden with passengers and with wealth, ply upon the rivers and lakes which, less than three generations ago, were silent and desolate.  Railroads traverse the state in all directions; busy manufactories give employment to thousands; institutions of learning and charity abound, and, in all respects, the state ranks as a prosperous and powerful commonwealth.
     History does not elsewhere record such an extraordinary case of rapid development, and the political philosopher finds abundant food for thought in tracing, from their first beginning, the causes that have contributed to so great a growth.  We propose, in these pages, to chronicle some of the events and to sketch some of the individuals connected with the settlement and development of one small portion of this great state, viz: Athens County.
     Before entering, however, upon matters purely local, let us take a general view of the country and its inhabitants prior to its first settlement by the whites, and thus enable ourselves more clearly to appreciate the wildness of the region to which the early settlers came.
     WHATEVER curious speculations may be indulged as to the origin of the Indian races that once inhabited the northwestern territory, it is certain that we have no clear knowledge of them farther back than the middle of the seventeenth century. Beyond that, they disappear in the mists of the pre-historic period, and, even long after that, much that is written concerning them rests on vague tradition. Whether they were sprung from some of the oriental tribes, or what their origin and whence their travels, are. questions that will probably never be answered; they belong to the class of ethnological mysteries which will, in all times, furnish themes for the ingenious researches of learned men, but which will never be solved. It is not proposed to enter into this broad and interesting topic, but merely to glance at the condition of the country and the character of the aboriginal inhabitants of Ohio before its first settlement by the whites.
     In 1650, Ohio was an unbroken forest, occupied principally by a tribe of Indians called the Fries, who had their villages and hunting grounds near the shores of the lake of that name, and whose wanderings were chiefly confined to the present northern portions of the state. The Wyandots (or Hurons) held the peninsula between Lakes Huron, Erie and Ontario, and their hunting excursions extended as far south as the regions about the mouths of the Maumee and Sandusky, while a tribe called the Andastes possessed the valleys of the Allegheny and the upper Ohio.
     During the latter half of the seventeenth century, frequent and terrible incursions were made among these tribes of the west by the more warlike and powerful Iroquois, from New York. These Iroquois, so called by the French, were the noted Five Nations, viz: the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, and they formed the strongest confederation known in Indian history. Tradition relates with what relentless fury and unwearying tenacity the hostile Iroquois warred upon the western tribes until finally the latter were wiped out—either massacred, driven away, or merged into other tribes.
Thus, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Ohio was almost unclaimed and uninhabited by human beings save as it was used as a hunting ground by the Iroquois, or crossed and re-crossed by them in their long war expeditions. But they were not able to maintain complete supremacy over so vast a region, and between 1700 and 1750 Ohio again became occupied by different tribes of savages, which, the active warfare of the Iroquois having measurably ceased, took possession of the whole region as weeds take possession of a neglected field. They probably sprung from the surviving members -of the tribes that had been overcome and dispersed by the Iroquois, and a mere enumeration of them will answer our present purpose. They were,
1. The Wyandots, who were descended, doubtless, from the undestroyed remnant of the once powerful tribe of that name, which, half a century before, had been driven off by the Iroquois. Freed from the vindictive pursuit of their ancient enemies, this tribe returned to their old hunting grounds, and by the middle of the eighteenth century their right was undisputed to the northern part of the state.
2. The Delawaresy whose principal settlements were on the Muskingum river, where they flourished and became a powerful tribe, asserting a possession over nearly one-half of the state.
3. The Shawanese (written also Shawanoese and Shawnees), who are supposed to have come from the distant south—perhaps from the country bordering on the Gulf of Mexico. They occupied the Scioto and Miami country, and for a long distance eastward, including the present county of Athens and adjacent region, though the Wyandots and Delawares were also frequently found in this section on hunting or war expeditions. The Shawanese had four tribes, or subdivisions, two of which were the Piqua and the Chillicothe tribes; hence the names of those towns. Powerful and warlike, they were among the most efficient allies of the French during the seven years war, and subsequently took an active part against the Americans during the revolution and the Indian war which followed. Their hostility was terminated by the treaty at Greenville in 1795, by which they ceded nearly the whole of their territory. A portion of them, however,. again made war against the United States, having, with Tecumseh, joined the British standard during the war of 1812.
4. The Ottawas (or as they were called by the early white settlers, the Tawas), who dwelt in the valleys of the Sandusky and Maumee rivers, and who, together with the Wyandots, occupied portions of northern Ohio.
     The foregoing enumeration conveys an idea, sufficiently accurate for our purpose, of the Indian tribes that inhabited Ohio during the middle and latter part of the eighteenth century, and up to the time of the first white settlement, under the auspices of the " Ohio Company."  These tribes were roving and active, and in the power to make war by no means contemptible. The long and bloody struggle which they made to keep possession of the country, sufficiently attests their tenacity of purpose and their capacity for concerted action.
     There is reason to believe that in some former age, though how remote can only be conjectured, what is now Athens county was a favorite resort of the Indians. Indeed, remarkable traces of their existence are still to be found here. In Athens and Dover townships, on the level plateau called "the Plains," are several of those Indian mounds which, found in various parts of the Mississippi valley, have so long interested American archaeologists. A still more interesting Indian relic in the same township, is the remains of an ancient earthwork or fortification.¹  Considerably more than an acre is included by an embankment which, though it has been ploughed over for a third of a century, is still very marked with its rude bastions, ramparts, and curtains. It is probable that on this spot, some hundreds of years since, a battle was fought between warring tribes of savages for the possession of the inviting plains of Dover and the lower valley of the Hockhocking.  Numerous skeletons have been found in these mounds, together with Indian hatchets and other weapons of stone.
     Such, then, were the occupants of Ohio in the middle of the eighteenth century, and such, at least, approximately, were the limits of their homes and haunts. During the half century that followed, while the white men were building up a civil society in the East, and events were slowly drifting toward the collision and war which resulted in American independence, the possessory rights of these savages were but little disturbed in Ohio. Here they roamed, and hunted, and made love or war at their pleasure, little conscious of their approaching troubles and doom. It is no part of the purpose of this narrative to treat in detail of the history of this period, of the intrigues and wars of the French and English for the possession of this Western country, and of the fitful and treacherous alliances of the Indians now with one side and now with the other. Our aim is merely to call attention to the character of the Indian tribes that occupied the country by way of showing in some degree the dangers and the obstacles with which the pioneers had to deal; this being cursorily accomplished, we pass to events more nearly connected with our subject.

Dumnore's War.

Probably but few of the present inhabitants of Athens county are aware that a fort was established within its limits, and an army marched across its borders, led by an English earl, before the Revolutionary war. The building of Fort Gower at the mouth of the Hockhocking river, in what is now Troy township, and the march of Lord Dunmore's army across the county, thirty years before its erection as a county, forms an interesting passage in our remote history before the earliest settlement by the whites.
     "Dunmore's war" was the designation applied to a series of bloody hostilities between the whites and Indians during the year 1774. It was the culmination of the bitter warfare that had been waged with varying success between the frontier population of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and the Delawares, Iroquois, Wyandots, and other tribes of Indians. One of the most noted of the many massacres of that period was that of Logan's family by the whites, and, in retaliation, the swift vengeance of the Mingo chief upon the white settlements on the Monongahela, where, in the language of his celebrated speech, he "fully glutted his vengeance."
     In August, 1774, Lord Dunmore, then royal Governor of Virginia, determined to raise a large force and carry the war into the enemy's country. The plan of the campaign was simple. Three regiments were to be raised west of the Blue Ridge, to be commanded by General Andrew Lewis, while two other regiments from the interior were to be commanded by Dunmore himself. The forces were to form a junction at the mouth of the Great Kanawha and proceed under the command of Lord Dunmore to attack the Indian towns in Ohio.
     The force under Lewis, amounting to eleven hundred men, rendezvoused at Camp Union, now Lewis-burg, Greenbriar county, West Virginia, whence they marched early in September, and reached Point Pleasant on the 6th of October. Three days later, Lewis received dispatches from Dunmore informing him that he had changed his plan of operations; that he (Dunmore) would march across the country against the Shawanese towns on the Scioto, situated within the present limits of Pickaway county, and "Lewis was ordered to cross the Ohio river at once and join Dun-more before those towns.
     This movement was to have been made on the10th of October. On that day, however, before the march had begun, two men of Lewis's command were fired upon while hunting a mile or so from camp. One was killed and the other came rushing into camp with the alarm that Indians were at hand. General Lewis had barely time to make some hasty dispositions when there began one of the most desperate Indian battles recorded in border warfare—the battle of Point Pleasant. The Indians were in great force, infuriated by past wrongs and by the hope of wiping out their enemy by this day's fight, and were led on by their ablest and most daring chiefs. Pre-eminent among the savage leaders were Logan and " Cornplanter" (or "Cornstalk"), whose voices rang above the din, and whose tremendous feats performed in this day's action have passed into history. The contest lasted all day and was not yet decided. Toward evening General Lewis ordered a body of men to gain the enemy's flank, on seeing which movement about to be successfully executed the Indians drew off and effected a safe retreat. The force on both sides in this battle was nearly equal —about 1,100. The whites lost half their officers and 52 men killed. The loss of the Indians, killed and wounded, was estimated at 233.² Soon after the battle Lewis crossed the river and pursued the Indians with great vigor, but did not again come in conflict with them.
     Meanwhile, Lord Dunmore, in whose movements we are more interested, had, with about twelve hundred men, crossed the mountains at Potomac Gap, reviewed his force at Fort Pitt (now Pittsburg), and descended the Ohio river as far as the mouth of the Hockhocking, within the present limits of Athens county. Here he landed, formed a camp, and built a fortification which he called Fort Gower. It was from here that he sent word to General Lewis of the change in his plan of campaign, and he remained here until after the battle of Point Pleasant. Abraham Thomas, formerly of Miami county, Ohio, who was in Dunmore's army, has stated in a letter published many years ago in the Troy Times, that by laying his ear close to the surface of the river on the day of the battle, he could distinctly hear the roar of the musketry more than twenty-five miles distant.
     Leaving a sufficient force at Fort Gower to protect the stores and secure it as a base, Lord Dunmore marched up the Hockhocking toward the Indian country. There is a tradition that his little army encamped a night successively at Federal creek, and at Sunday creek, in Athens county.
     He marched across the present limits of the county and up the Hockhocking as far as where Logan now stands; and from there westward to a point seven miles from Circleville, where a grand parley was held with the Indians. It was at this council, by the way, that the famous speech of the Mingo chief was made, beginning " I appeal to any white man to say, if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry and he gave him not meat," etc. After the execution of a treaty with the Indians (for we do not propose to detail the movements of General Lewis or the operations of the campaign, except as they had some connection with what is now Athens county), Lord Dunmore returned to Fort Gower by nearly the same route he had pursued in his advance, viz: across the country and down the valley of the Hockhocking to its mouth. It is probable that his army was disbanded at this point, and returned in small parties to their homes.

     Charles Whittlesey, in Fugitive Essays, says:
"In 1831 a steamboat was detained a few hours near the house of Mr. Curtis, on the Ohio, a short distance above the mouth of the Hockhocking, and General Clark, of Missouri, came ashore. He inquired respecting the remains of a fort or encampment at the mouth of the Hockhocking river. He was told that there was evidence of a clearing of several acres in extent, and that pieces of guns and muskets had been found on that spot; and also that a collection of several hundred bullets had been discovered on the bank of the Hockhocking, about twenty-five miles up the river. General Clark then stated that the ground had been occupied as a camp by Lord Dunmore who came down the Kanawha with three hundred men in the spring of 1775, with the expectation of treating with the Indians here. The chiefs not making their appearance, the march was continued up the river twenty-five or thirty miles, where an express from Virginia overtook the party. That evening a council was held and lasted till very late at night. In the morning the troops were disbanded, and immediately requested to enlist in the British service for a stated period. The contents of the dispatches, received the previous evening, had not transpired when this proposition was made. A major of militia, named McCarty, made an harangue to the men against enlisting, which seems to have been done in an eloquent and effectual manner. He referred to the condition of the public mind in the colonies, and the probability of a revolution which must soon arrive. He represented the suspicious circumstances of the express, which was still a secret to the troops, and that appearances justified the conclusion that they were required to enlist in a service against their own countrymen, their own kindred, their own homes.
     "The consequence was that but few of the men re-enlisted, and the majority, choosing the orator as leader, made the best of their way to Wheeling. The news brought out by the courier proved to be an account of the opening combat of the Revolution, at Lexington, Mass., April 20, 1775.
     "General Clark stated that himself (or his brother) was in the expedition."
     Of this account, Mr. Whittlesey says it was related to him "by Walter Curtis, Esq., of Belpre, Washington county, Ohio, and transmitted by me in substance to the secretary of the Ohio Historical Society. Mr. Curtis received it from General Clark, an eminent citizen of Missouri, a brother of General George Rogers Clark, of Kentucky." Mr. Whittlesey admits that, cc though it comes very well authenticated, it seems to contradict other well-known facts. "We are decidedly of opinion that General Clark's statement was erroneous in respect of the time, nature, and object of Lord Dunmore's expedition up the Hock-hocking, and that he never made but one expedition to that region, which was the one we have already described. In the first place, there is not a scrap nor particle of history extant to show that Dunmore made any western expedition in the "spring of 1775." Secondly, we know that he was there in the summer and autumn of 1774, that Fort Gower was built at that time, and, probably, the buried bullets, etc., were deposited at the same time. Thirdly, hostilities with the mother country had begun in the spring (April) of 1775; Lord Dunmore was one of the most active and determined royalists in the colonies, and it is not likely that he was spending his time chasing after the Indians when his master's empire in America was crumbling to pieces. Finally, we know that Dunmore was at Williamsburg, Virginia, on the 3d day of May, 1775, for on that day he issued a proclamation to "the disaffected persons of the Colony," calling on them to return to their allegiance.³ There is evidence that he was there in April of the same year; and in June, 1775, a letter written from Baltimore says: "A gentleman who last night came here from Williamsburg, which he left on Friday last, June 9th, brings an account of Lord Dunmore having the day before gone on board a man-of-war at York, with his lady and family, for safety."⁴ These considerations we think, render it quite clear that Lord Dunmore did not make an expedition to the Hockhocking country in the spring of 1775, and doubtless the one made in the summer of 1774 was the only one he ever made to this region.
     As a matter of historical curiosity we give the following:
     "Proceedings of a Meeting of Officers under Earl Dunmore.
     "At a meeting of the officers under the command of his Excellency, the Right Honorable the Earl of Dunmore, convened at Fort Gower, situated at the junction of the Ohio and Hockhocking rivers, November 5, 1774, for the purpose of considering the grievances of British America, an officer present addressed the meeting in the following words:
" ' Gentlemen: Having now concluded the campaign, by the assistance of Providence, with honor and advantage to the colony and ourselves, it only remains that we should give our country the strongest assurance that we are ready, at all times, to the utmost of our power, to maintain and defend her just rights and privileges.' We have lived about three months in the woods, without any intelligence from Boston or from the delegates at Philadelphia. It is possible, from the groundless reports of designing men, that our countrymen may be jealous of the use such a body would make of the arms in their hands at this critical juncture. That we are a respectable body is certain, when it is considered that we can live weeks without bread or salt; that we can sleep in the open air without any covering but the canopy of heaven, and that our men can march and shoot with any in the known world. Blessed with these talents, let us solemnly engage with one another, and our country in particular, that we will use them to no purpose but the honor and advantage of America in general, and of Virginia in particular. It behooves us then, for the satisfaction of our country, that we should give them our real sentiments, by way of resolves, at this very alarming crisis.'
     "WHEREUPON the meeting made choice of a committee to draw up and prepare resolves for their consideration, who immediately withdrew; and after some time spent therein, reported that they had agreed to and prepared the following resolves, which were read, maturely considered, and unanimously adopted by the meeting:
      "Resolved, That we will bear the most faithful allegiance to his Majesty King George the Third, whilst his Majesty delights to reign over a brave and free people; that we will, at the expense of life and everything dear and valuable, exert ourselves in support of the honor of his Crown and the dignity of the British Empire. But as the love of liberty, and attachment to the real interests and just rights of America, outweigh every other consideration, we resolve that we will exert every power within us for the defense of American liberty, and for the support of her just rights and privileges ; not in any precipitate, riotous, or tumultuous manner, but when regularly called forth by the unanimous voice of our countrymen.
     "Resolved, That we entertain the greatest respect for his Excellency the Right Honorable Lord Dunmore, who commanded the expedition against the Shawanese; and who, we are confident, underwent the great fatigue of this singular campaign from no other motive than the true interest of this country.
 "Signed, by order and in behalf of the whole corps,
                                                           BENJAMIN ASHBY, Clerk."⁵
     On his return to Virginia, Lord Dunmore received the congratulations of various towns, and the thanks of the Assembly, on the successful issue of his expedition and his execution of a treaty with the Indians. He at once ardently espoused the cause of the King, was one of his most influential and obstinate adherents in the colonies, and spent the remainder of his brief stay in this country in the vain effort to resist the consummation of American independence. But the doom of the cause which Lord Dunmore thus earnestly espoused was as clearly written in the book of fate as was that of the savage race, against whose towns he had marched up the banks of the Hockhocking. ⁶
     It is to be regretted that the name of the river is now almost invariably abbreviated to Hocking. True, it takes longer to write or pronounce the real name—Hockhocking; but the whites have never rendered such distinguished favors or services to the Indian race as to entitle them to mutilate the Indian language by altering or clipping the few words that cling to the geography of the country. Some of these Indian names are not only expressive in their original signification, but are really musical. The following verses, written many years ago, by a former editor of Cincinnati—Mr. William J. Sperry, of the Globe—though not highly poetical, are worth insertion in this connection :

THE LAST OF THE RED MEN.
Sad are fair Muskingum's waters,
Sadly, blue Mahoning raves;
Tuscarawas' plains are lonely,
Lonely are Hockhocking's waves.
From where headlong Cuyahoga
Thunders down its rocky way,
And the billows of blue Erie,
Whiten in Sandusky's bay;
Unto where Potomac rushes
Arrowy from the mountain side,
And Kanawha's gloomy waters
Mingle with Ohio's tide ;
From the valley of Scioto,
And the Huron sisters three,
To the foaming Susquehanna,
And the leaping Genesee;
Over hill, and plain, and valley,
Over river, lake, and bay—
On the water, in the forest,
Ruled and reigned the Seneca.
But sad are fair Muskingum's waters,
Sadly, blue Mahoning raves;
Tuscarawas' plains are lonely,
Lonely are Hockhocking's waves.

By Kanawha dwells the stranger,
Cuyahoga feels the chain;
Stranger ships vex Erie's billows,
Strangers plough Scioto's plain.
And the Iroquois have wasted
From the hill and plain away;
On the waters, in the valley,
Reigns no more the Seneca.
Only by the Cattaraugus,
Or by Lake Chautauqua's side,
Or among the scanty woodlands
By the Allegheny's tide :
There, in spots, like sad oases,
Lone amid the sandy plains,
There the Seneca, still wasting,
Amid desolation reigns.
    

^1. On the farm now owned by David Zenner.
^2. Amer. Archives, vol. 1, p. 1018.
³. Amer. Archives, vol. 2, p. 466.
⁴. Idem, p. 975
⁵. Amer. Archives, vol. 1, p. 962.
⁶. Hockhocking is a Delaware (Indian) -name, and meant, in their language, Bottle river. In the spring of 1765, George Croghan, a sub-commissioner of the British government, embarked at Pittsburg, with some friendly Indians, intending to visit the Wabash and Illinois country, and conclude a treaty with the Indians. ' Five days from Pittsburg, he notes in his journal that "we passed the mouth of Hochocen, or Bottle River." This translation of the word Hochocen or Hockhocking, is also given by Heckewelder and Johnson, and is undoubtedly correct. The Shawanese called the river Weathak-agh-qua, which meant, in their dialect, the same as Hockhocking; and one of the other tribes called it by a name signifying Bow river. All of these names had reference to the winding, crooked course of the stream. The origin of the name Hockhocking—Bottle river—is thus explained by a writer in an old number of the American Pioneer, who says: "About six or seven miles northwest of Lancaster, there is a fall in the Hockhocking of about twenty feet; above the falls, for a short distance, the stream is very narrow and straight, forming a neck, while at the falls it suddenly widens on each side, and swells into the appearance of the body of a bottle. The whole, when seen from above, appears exactly in the shape of a bottle, and from this fact arose the Indian name of Hockhocking."

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