Original Contributions to the American Pioneer

Front matter

EMHRCfliMHCS^&- - — t^„ *-— - >r a--— — sg^,.— ■ ■ -^m - ■ »».. ■ »■ * i ■■■— ..^ ■ — — '' ""_ "n1 n w 'I' 11 A u ;m \ u i n ID ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE AMERICAN PIONEER; By Dr. SJ^LDRETH, rtfeS»«S«ij< SShrn TO THE READER. The Contributions of Dr. Hildreth will be found to possess peculiar in terest, by every one who has a taste for pioneer history and moral reflection. Dr. Hildreth, as a writer, needs no commendation from us. His reputation is deservedly among those of the best writers of the day, to which if we add a long life of close observation in the west, no surprise will be felt that his touches of pioneer history are peculiarly elegant. It was extremely desirable to work off a few copies of his contributions separate from the other matter of the American Pioneer, without re-setting the type.

In this way this little volume was produced, which accounts for certain mechanical defects and blemishes, as well as for small scraps, which occasionally fill vacancies, not from his pen. It is believed, however, that the absorbing interest of the contributions will elevate the reader above the mechanical defects which might otherwise be noticed. — Ed. Pioneer. The American Pioneer, from which this little work is extracted, stands high as being calculated to gather and preserve the rare incidents and true character of the pioneers and their difficulties. Whoever reads these con tributions, and considers that they are a part only of that work, will readily conceive of its value. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, hy John S. Williams, in the Clerk's Office for the District of Ohio.

Fort Harmer. FORT HARMER, THE FIRST PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN OHIO. [SeI FROSTISPrICE.] Our readers are presented below with an account of the settlement, drawn up for the American Pioneer, by the indefatigable Dr. S. P. Hildreth, of Marietta, who for this and his many favors, has our grateful acknowledg ments. To make the favor complete, he has sent to us the original draw ing of the fort and vicinity, taken by Joseph Oilman, Esq. in 1790, with lib erty to take a copy, which has been done, and is presented in the frontis piece. There, directly in front, you have a view of the fort and its syste matic, convenient, and tasteful arrangements ; beyond which move on west wardly, toward the right, the still waters of the Ohio, which, a little to the left on the drawing, receive the waters of the Muskingum, beyond which is a small view of the point now occupied by the city of Marietta.

Chapter I. Introductory

Early times in the West — Ship-building in Marietta — The Nonpariel and her cargo— Crew and passengers — General Mansfield. For several years previous to this voyage, ship-building had been carried on by the enterprising merchants and citizens of Marietta. This town was pleasantly seated on the right bank of the majestic Ohio, at the junction of the clear waters of the Muskingum, in the midst of a thickly wooded country ; whose hills furnished in unlimited abundance the oak, the pine, and the locust ; woods so essential in naval architecture. Having as yet but few returns from the rich soil of their valleys, they directed their attention to the means of wealth so bountifully furnished by Him, who has in various ways provided for the wants of all his creatures. With the productions of the forest wrought into ships and brigs, they could readily exchange them with the rich importers of the Atlantic cities for merchandise, so much needed by the new settlements in the West.

Although the colonists of the Ohio company had been favored with only seven years of peace out of the twelve that had elapsed since they first landed at the mouth of the Muskingum, yet they had so far cleared the soil of the Vol. L— M 8 * immense trees which had shaded it for ages from the blessed rays of the sun, as to be able to raise sufficient food for their own support, with a prospect of soon having a surplus to send abroad. Kentucky and the regions on the Monongahela, lying along the western slopes of the Alleghany mountains, having been much longer settled, had already began, as early as the year 1795, to send considerable quanti ties of flour, whisky, and tobacco, to the towns on the Mississippi, at that time in the possession of the Spaniards. As this was the natur al outlet of the western country through its mighty rivers, it was thought to be the only one by which they could ever send their pro duce to market, no man at that day dreaming of the canals, rail-roads and steam-boats, that have since opened a hundred avenues through which the products of the rich valleys of the West may be conveyed to the Atlantic.

As soon as ship-building commenced at Marietta, in the year 1S00, the farmers along the borders of the Ohio and Muskin gum rivers turned their attention to the cultivation of hemp in addi tion to their other crops. In a few years sufficient was raised not only to furnish cordage to the ships of the WTest, but large quantities were worked up in the various ropewalks, and sent as freight in the vessels to the Atlantic cities. Iron, so important an article in all the mechanical arts of civilization, and without which it is said by phil osophers we should still have remained in the savage state, was made in abundance at the forges on the Juniata, and furnished an article, which to this day is justly celebrated in the West foi its strength and tenacity. By the year 1S05, no less than two ships, seven brigs and three schooners, had been built and rigged by the citizens of Marietta.

Captain Jonathan Devoll ranked amongst the earliest of Ohio ship. wrights. He was a native of Rhode Island, and at Howland's ferry, had wrought at the art of ship and boat building for several years during and after the war of independence. He was one of the ad vance party sent on in the fall of the year 1787, by the Ohio company, under general Rufus Putnam. They spent the winter at " Simrel's ferry," on the Yougliiogeny, and constructed a large boat, which they named the " May-flower ;" and from which, in April following, they landed at the mouth of the Muskingum, and commenced laying tho coiner stone of the great state of Ohio. After the Indian war he settled on a farm five miles above Marietta, on the fertile bottoms of the Muskingum. Here he built "a floating mill" for making flour; and in 1801 a ship of two hundred and thirty tons, called the Muskin gum; and the brig Eliza Greene, of one hundred and fifty tons.

In 1804, he built a schooner on his own account ; and in the spring of the year 1805, she was finished and loaded for a voyage on the Mississippi, aided by his sons, Charles and Barker Devoll, young men in the heyday of life, and Richard Greene, who was a partner and owned a share in the vessel and cargo. She was small, being only of seventy tons burthen; of a light draft, intended to run on the lakes east of New Orleans. In shape and model she fully sustained her name, the Nonpariel. She was completely rigged except in sails, of which she had only one large square-sail, this being thought sufficient to navigate her to New Orleans, where a full suit was to be purs' 1)1 18 Commencement of the Voyage. chased. She had a large cabin to accommodate passengers, was beautifully painted, and sat on the water like a duck in its native ele ment.

Her load was made up of assorted articles ; amongst which were two hundred barrels of flour, fifty barrels of kiln-dried corn meal ; four thousand pounds of cheese, six thousand of bacon, one hundred sets of rum puncheon shooks, and a few grindstones. The flour and meal were manufactured at captain Devoll's floating mill, and the cheese made in Belprie, at that time one of the most flour ishing agricultural districts in the state of Ohio. The crew consisted of Barker Devoll, commander ; Charles Devoll and Richard Greene, supercargoes; "old Thom," a French Canadian, long accustomed to inland navigation on the great northern lakes, having been " a voyageur" in the fur trade, and now acting in the capacity of sailor and cook. He was a most inveterate smoker and dear lover of whisky. An Irishman, called " old Bill," as strongly attached to usquebaugh as " old Thom" to his pipe, was shipped as a common hand, and completed the crew.

All things being ready, and having taken out the regular shipping papers, Marietta being at that time, and for several years after, a port of clearance, they unmoored from the landing and floated merrily along to the mouth of the Mus kingum. Here, after a short delay in getting a few necessary stores for the table, they took on board as passengers, Mr. Mansfield, the then U. S. surveyor general, with his family, consisting of his wife, his son, nephew and servant girl. General Mansfield had lived in Marietta since the year 1803; having been appointed to this impor tant trust to succeed general Rufus Putnam, who had been removed, not for incompetency or unfaithfulness, but by one of those political tornadoes which sometimes sweep across our American republic. He was now about to make Cincinnati his headquarters, as more central and nearer to the new tracts of government lands ordered to be sur veyed in Ohio and the adjacent western territory.

General Mans field possessed a high order of talents, especially as a mathematician, with every qualification necessary to conduct the department under his control with honor to himself and advantage to his country. To a handsome personal appearance was added the most bland and pleasant address, rendering him a very desirable companion.

Chapter II. Commencement Of The Voyage

The Nonpariel sets out — The season and its beauties — Parkersburgh and Belprie — Blannerhasset's island and its delights — Blannerhasset's downfall, arrest, &.C. — Farmers' Castle and Belprie — Belville — Letarts' Falls — Gallipolis land clearing, and French grant — Point Pleasant, and the battle of. The Nonpareil left Marietta on the twenty-first day of April, and shoving off into the stream, with the aid of her broad sail and the current, careered gaily along on the smooth bosom of the Ohio. The season of the year abounded in life and beauty. The deep forests that covered the hillsides, and laved their branches in the waters of the "belle riviere," were now arousing themselves from the slumbers of winter; many of the trees were in full foliage, while others were just unfolding their buds to the mild rays of the sun, and the soft breezes of the spring.

Along the southern slopes the full blown dogwoods displayed their snowy petals, standing in clustered groups like the trees in some fair orchard. In rich contrast, the pink colored blossoms of the redbud shed a joyous beauty over the scene, unequalled by the most skilful gardener's art. The woodlands were at that day like a well pruned park, open and free from the incum brance of underbrush, kept down by the autumnal fires of the hunter. The water and the air were both teeming with life. The Ohio abounded in fish. The agile pike, the fat grovelihg cat-fish, and the silver scaled perch, full of spirit and action, felt the waters to be too heavy an element, and with sportive leaps bounded into the lighter air. Flocks of birds, dressed in the gayest plumage, were traversing the windings of the river, on their annual migration from the warm regions of the south, to incubate and spend the summer in the cooler districts of the north ; while the indigenous and more constant resi dents of the country, had already chosen their mates and commenced their architectural labors preparatory to rearing their young.

The bald eagle and the turkey-buzzard, were then amongst our commonest birds, while now they are rarely seen in the vicinity of Marietta. Twelve miles below the mouth of the Muskingum, at the junction of the Little Kanawha with the Ohio, they passed without landing, the little town of Newport, since changed to that of Parkersburg. Although it was at that time the seat of justice for Wood county, it consisted of only a few log houses. It has since grown into a town of considerable importance, with many large brick buildings. The settlement commenced about the same time with that at Marietta. On the opposite shore lay the township of Belprie, composed of New England farmers, a large proportion of whom had been officers and soldiers during the stormy period of the revolutionary war, and had emigrated to this distant region to spend the remnant of their days on the borders of the placid Ohio.

Ten years of peace had enabled them to clear and cultivate their farms, plant orchards and erect comfortable frame dwelling houses ; so that the state of improvement was in advance of any other place between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. In the cultivation of fruit they greatly excelled, and to this day the ap ples of Washington county are justly celebrated in all the river towns. They are now one of the staple exports of Belprie. One mile below the mouth of the Little Kanawha, they passed the seat of Herman Blannerhasset, erected near the head of a large island, then known by the name of Backus' island. The original owner of this island was colonel P. Devoll, of Virginia, who located it, with that just above the mouth of the Muskingum, in his own name as early as the year 1774. Having soid it to Elijah Backus, about the period of the settlement of the Ohio company, Mr. Backus in the year 1798 disposed of the upper half, containing about one hundred and fifty acres, to Mr. Blannerhasset, who shortly after commenced im proving it.

At this time it was in its zenith of beauty, and fully an swered the glowing description of Wirt in the trial of Burr at Rich mond in 1807. In addition to large and splendid buildings, garden, orchard, &c, he possessed a voluminous library of choice and valu able books ; a full set of chemical apparatus and philosophical instru- Commencement us the Voyage. 93 ments, to the accommodation of which one wing of the dwelling house was appropriated. He was a fine scholar, well versed in the languages, and refined in taste and manners. So tenacious was his memory that he could repeat the whole of Homer's Iliad in the original Greek. With an ample fortune to supply every want, a beautiful and highly accomplished wife, and children just budding into life, he seemed surrounded with every thing which can make ex istence desirable and happy.

The adjacent settlements of Belprie and Marietta, although secluded in the wilderness, contained many men of cultivated minds and refined manners, with whom he held con stant and familiar intercourse ; so that he lacked none of the benefits of society which his remote and insular situation would seem to indi cate. Many were the cheerful and merry gatherings of the young people of these two towns beneath his hospitable roof, while the song and the dance echoed through the halls. In one year after this date, or in 1S06, Aaron Burr entered this fair and blooming paradise, and after the manner of the tempter of old, by his smooth and fascinating manners beguiled the woman, who had great influence over the mind of her husband, and induced him to engage in the wild and extravagant project of erecting a new repub lic in the eastern provinces of Mexico.

The military preparations of Burr in the western states and territories drew upon him the suspicions of the government, and in December, 1S06, an order was re ceived by colonel Phelps, the commandant of the militia of Wood county, Virginia, for his arrest, with his associates. Blannerhasset received a hasty notice of what was doing ; and a few hours before the arrival of the colonel on the island took his departure in the night by water, leaving his wife to meet his accusers and to follow after with his children and household goods. And well did she defend her ab sent husband's rights ; facing the militia with unblanched cheeks, and forbidding their touching any thing not expressly mentioned in the warrant. By the aid of some of her kind neighbors in Belprie, who were friendly to her husband and greatly pitied her unpleasant condi tion, she was enabled to embark a few days after, with her two little sons, the most valuable of her effects and black servants in a boat, but did not rejoin Mr. Blannerhasset until he reached Louisville.

Well might they look back in after years, with fond regret to the fair Eden from which they had been expelled by their own indiscretion, and the deceptive blandishments of Aaron Burr. In the year 1812, the dwelling house and offices were destroyed by an accidental fire. The garden with all its beautiful shrubbery, was converted into a corn field, the ornamental gateway which graced the graveled ave nue from the river to the house was thrown down ; and for many years not a vestige has been left of the splendid and happy home of Herman Blannerhasset but the name. Nearly forty years have elapsed since some of these events were transacted, aud the thousands of passengers who annually travel up and down the Ohio in steam boats still eagerly inquire after, and gaze upon the "island of Blan nerhasset" with wonder and delight.

As the Nonpariel glided smoothly along by the island, near its low er end she passed the site of Farmer's Castle," a strong stockaded garrison, where the first settlers of Belprie had passed five long and weary years during the Indian war. It had been the scene of much suffering from pinching famine, wasting disease, and the cruel savage. Charles and Barker Devoll, as well as R. Greene, had been sheltered by its walls, and witnessed all the stirring events that had befallen it during that trying period. Several of the blockhouses were yet standing, and recalled many of the feats of their boyhood to mind. After passing the settlements of Belprie, no improvements but scat tering clearings, with here and there a solitary cabin, were seen until they reached Belville, four miles below the mouth of the great Hock hocking river, on the Virginia shore.

This settlement was com menced in the year 17S6, by a mercantile house in Philadelphia, un der the agency of Joseph Wood, Esq., who is still living in Marietta, aged eighty-two years. It was now a thriving settlement, with well cultivated farms stretched across the broad alluvions of nearly a mile in width. This spot was the site of a strong garrison during the In dian war, and many tragic events had transpired around it. It now exhibited the busy hum of industry and peace. G. Avery, an enter prising merchant from the East, had purchased a large tract of land and made Belville his home for several years past. The locality being favorable for ship-building, he had commenced that business, and had already launched two large, vessels. An extensive ropewalk was also built and in full operation.

The rich bottoms about Belville producing large crops of hemp, afforded the means of manufacturing all kinds of cordage, not only for rigging his ships, but also for trans portation. A few miles below this place the Ohio commences a series of bends and curves, varying its direction to every point of the compass. In passing Buflington's island and " Letart falls," as they were called, although only a strong ripple made by the rocky bottom of the river, the schooner was kept in the channel by the aid of long ash oars, as the wind was so baffling, and blowing as often up stream as down with the varying course of the river, that the sail was of little or no use. With care however they threaded all these passes without accident, and sailing gaily along by the mouth of the Great Ka nawha, brought their little vessel to for a short time at the town of Gallipolis.

This place was settled by a colony of four hundred Frenchmen in the year 1790. They had purchased a large tract of land from Joel Barlow, the agent of the Scioto land company in Paris. But this company having failed to complete its contract with the government of the United States, could not make legal conveyances to the pur chasers; while they, poor fellows, having expended all their money in the purchase, voyage and journey to Ohio, now found themselves in a strange country, without a home and in poverty. The tract for which the Scioto company were bargaining embraced the region lying between the western boundary of the Ohio company's lands a.nd the Scioto river ; resting on the Ohio river and extending hack to the northern line of said company. The French emigrants located their town on a high bank of the river, two miles below the mouth of the Kanawha, which spot proved to be within the territory of tha Commencement of the Voyage. 95 Ohio company.

They however immediately sell to work clearing away the huge trees which encumbered the soil with all the life and activity of Frenchmen, cheering the solitary hours of night with the merry dance and the melody of the fiddle. From their total ignor ance of woodcraft and the manner of felling trees, several of their number were crushed to death beneath them. Their manner was to place as many men around a huge poplar or sycamore as could con veniently wield their axes, while one man watched the progress of the work, and gave notice of the first indication of its falling by a loud yell. Every one then took to his heels and fled with all speed from beneath the descending giant. In this attempt they sometimes ran in the direction of the falling tree and were killed under its branches. When fairly down they went to work in dismembering it.

In the mean time another party with spades dug a deep pit along side the trunk, into which it was rolled and covered with earth, while the top and branches were thrown into heaps and burnt. Dr. J. B. Reigner, then a young man, delicately brought up and educated in Paris, with whom I became acquainted in after life, was one of the company, and toiled a whole season in this manner, receiving one third of an acre as his share of the cleared land. The Indian war commencing in 1791, he left the country and settled in the state of New York, until peace was restored. Disheartened by sickness, war, famine and disappointment, many of the colony dispersed to the French settlements on the W abash and Mississippi. Congress com miserating their misfortunes, made them a donation of twenty-four thousand acres of land on the Ohio river a few miles above the mouth of the Scioto, known to this day by the name of the " French grant."

At this period the town had began to increase, and now and then a frame house was seen taking the place of the diminutive log cabins in which they had heretofore dwelt. At the mouth of the Great Kanawha, which is in sight of Gallipolis, there was a small town called Point Pleasant. During the Indian war a garrison was kept here with a guard of soldiers at the charge of the state of Virginia. It is memorable as the spot where, in the year 1774, was fought one of the most bloody and well contested battles which has, at any time, been enacted on the waters of the Ohio. It took place on the tenth of September, and continued through the whole day. The forces engaged were thought to have been about equal in numbers. The Virginia troops were commanded by general Andrew Lewis, and amounted to eleven hundred men.

The leader of the Indians was the celebrated chief Cornstalk. About sunset the savages withdrew their warriors, leaving a number of their dead in the hands of the whites. The loss of the Virginians was seventy -five killed and one hundred and forty wounded. Isaac Shelby, after wards governor of Kentucky, commanded a company in this battle. This war was known in the West by the name of " Dunmore's war," after lord Dunmore, then governor of Virginia. In the spring of the year 1777, Cornstalk and his son, Ellinipsico, were basely murdered at this garrison while on a friendly visit to the whites. He was the great chief of the Shawanees, and possessed of courage and talents equal to those of any Indian who ever lived. 31 CHAPTER IH. FROM GALLIPOLIS TO NORTH BEND. Guyandotte and the Iroquois Indians — Big Sandy, cane, bears — Ginseng, timber trees and iron — Alexandria, Portsmouth Saltworks — Limestone, Manchester — Cincinnati, improvements — Barge navigation — North Bend, Miami purchase.

From Gallipolis the Nonpariel sailed pleasantly along past the out lets of the Little and Big Guyandotte rivers, the latter of which is thirty-five miles below. The names of these streams are now all that remain as memorials of a tribe of Indians who once lived on the banks of the Ohio. The whole tribe was destroyed before the country was known to the whites, by the warriors of the merciless Iro quois, or " Six Nations" — the Romans of the savage tribes, who spread their conquests from the lakes to the Ohio river. Between the mouths of these two streams, are seen uncommonly extensive ranges of mounds, with the remains of embankments and relics of those ancient towns and forts, so peculiar to the western country. At the mouth of the Big Sandy, the dividing line between Virginia and Kentucky, the Ohio makes its extreme southern bend, and ap proaches nearer to the climate of the cane ( arundinaria macrosper ma,) than at any other point between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.

At this period it grew in considerable quantities near the falls, thirty miles from the mouth, and had been visited in 1804 by Thomas Alcock, of Marietta, for the purpose of collecting its stems to manu facture weavers' reeds. It was the highest point, near the Ohio, where this valuable plant was known to grow, and has long since been destroyed by the domestic cattle of the inhabitants. In Tennes see and Kentucky it furnished the winter food for their cattle and horses many years after their settlement. The head waters of the Sandy and Guyandotte interlock with those of the Clinch and the Holstein, amidst the spurs of the Cumberland mountains. In their passage to the Ohio, they traverse the most wild and picturesque re gion to be found in western Virginia ; abounding in immense hills of sand rocks, cut into deep ravines by the water courses, containing caverns of various sizes and extent.

At this period it was the most famous hunting ground for bears in all the country. In the years 1805, 6 and 7, eight thousand skins were collected by the hunters from the district traversed by these rivers and a few adjacent streams. It was the paradise of bears ; affording their most favorite food in ex haustless abundance. The bear is not strictly a carniverous animal, but like the hog, feeds chiefly on vegetable food. On the ridges were whole forests of chesnuts, and the hillsides were covered with oaks, on whose fruits they luxuriated and fattened until their glossy hides afforded the finest peltry imaginable. The war in Europe created a great demand for their skins to decorate the soldiers of the hostile armies ; and good ones yielded to the hunters four and five dollars each. ' Since that day the attention of the sojourners of this wild region has been turned to the collection of the roots of the ginseng.

This beautiful plant grows with great luxuriance and in the most wonder ful abundance in the rich virgin soil of the hill and mountain sides From Gallipolis to North Bend. 97 For more than thirty years the forests have afforded a constant sup ply of many thousand pounds annually, to the traders stationed at re mote points along the water courses. No part of America furnishes a more stately growth of forest trees, embracing all the species of the climate. The lofty Liriodendron, attains the height of eighty and a hundred feet without a limb, having a shaft of from four to six feet in diameter. The white and yellow oak are its rivals in size. The magnolia acuminata towers aloft to an altitude uncommon in any other region ; while its more humble relatives, the tripetala and my crophilla flourish in great beauty by its side.

It may be considered the store house for building future cities, when the prolific pines of the Alleghany river are exhausted. In addition to all these vegetable riches, the hills are full of fine beds of bituminous coal, and argilla ceous iron ores. From the mouth of the Sandy to the Scioto, a distance of nearly forty miles, the country abounds in iron ores of vari ous qualities ; no less than six workable beds being found at different elevations from the bottom of the river to the tops of the hills. They are portions of those immense deposits which are known to accompany the coal measures of the Ohio valley, from the Cumberland range to the foot of the Alleghany mountains. At the period when the Nonpariel floated along this division of the river, they were not known to exist at all ; and the iron castings used by the inhabitants were brought from "head waters."