PILOTS OF THE REPUBLIC
THE ROMANCE OF THE PIONEER
PROMOTER IN THE MIDDLE WEST
_UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME_
THE GLORY SEEKERS: The Romance of Would-be Founders of Empire in
the Early Days of the Great Southwest. By WILLIAM HORACE BROWN.
With sixteen portraits, and illustrative initials to chapters.
12mo. $1.50 _net_
A. C. McCLURG & CO., CHICAGO
[Illustration: ZEISBERGER PREACHING TO THE INDIANS]
PILOTS OF THE REPUBLIC
THE ROMANCE OF THE PIONEER PROMOTER
IN THE MIDDLE WEST
BY
ARCHER BUTLER HULBERT
_Author of "Historic Highways of America," "Washington
and the West," etc._
WITH SIXTEEN PORTRAITS, AND ILLUSTRATIVE INITIALS
BY WALTER J. ENRIGHT
[Illustration]
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1906
COPYRIGHT
A. C. MCCLURG & CO.
1906
Published October 29, 1906
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
To
CHARLES G. DAWES, Esq.
THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED
IN TOKEN OF THE AUTHOR'S APPRECIATION OF
A MODERN PROMOTER
WHOSE IDEALS AND CHIVALRY TAKE RANK
WITH THOSE OF THE OLDEN TIME
PREFACE
The student of European history is not surprised to find that
individuals stand out prominently in every activity that occupied
man's attention; that even though there be under consideration great
popular movements, such as the Crusades or the Reformation or French
Revolution, attention centres around significant personalities. In the
day of monarchies and despotisms, individual initiative very naturally
led the way in outlining policies, selecting lieutenants, finding ways
and means.
It is singular to what a great extent this is true in the history of
democratic America, preëminently the land where the people have ruled
and where the usurper of power has had, comparatively, no opportunity
whatever. And yet it is not too much to say that the history of our
nation may be suggested in a skeleton way by a mere list of names, as,
for instance, the history of the fourteenth century in Europe might
easily be sketched. While we are proud to proclaim that America has
given all men an equal opportunity, that the most humble may rise to
the proudest position known among us, it yet remains singular that
in this land where the popular voice has ruled as nowhere else almost
every national movement or phase of development may be signified by the
name of one man.
This comes with appealing force to one who has attempted to make a
catalogue of the men who have in a personal sense _led_ the Star of
Empire across this continent; men who have, in a way, pooled issues
with their country in the mutual hope of personal advantage and
national advance. It then becomes plain to the investigator, if he
never realized it before, that, at times, the nation has waited, even
halted in its progress, for a single man, or a set of men, to plan what
may have seemed an entirely selfish adventure and which yet has proved
to be a great national advantage. In certain instances there was a
clear and fair understanding between such promoters and the reigning
administration, looking toward mutual benefit. At times the movement
was in direct defiance of law and order, with a resulting effect of
immeasurable moment for good. Again, there may have been no thought
of national welfare or extension; personal gain and success may have
been the only end; and the resultant may have been a powerful national
stimulus.
Perhaps the most remarkable feature that appears on an examination
of American history along these lines (compared, for instance, with
that of European powers) is that comparatively few leaders of military
campaigns are to be classed among promoters who advanced national ends
in conjunction with personal ambitions. In the Old World numberless
provinces came into the possession of military favorites after
successful campaigns. In the many expeditions to the westward of the
Alleghanies in America what commanders turned their attention later
to the regions subdued? Forbes, the conqueror of Fort Duquesne, never
saw the Ohio Valley again; Bouquet, the other hero, with Gladwin,
of Pontiac's Rebellion, never returned to the Muskingum, nor did
Gladwin come back to Detroit; Lewis, the victor at Point Pleasant,
led no colony to the Ohio again; "Mad Anthony" Wayne never had other
than military interest in the beautiful Maumee Valley, where, in the
cyclone's path, he crushed the dream of a powerful Indian confederacy
lying on the flanks of the new Republic. To a singular degree the
leaders of the military vanguard across the continent had really
little to do personally with the actual social movement that made
the wilderness blossom as the rose. True, bounty lands were given to
commanders and men in many instances, as in the case of Washington
and George Rogers Clark; but it was the occupation of such tracts by
the rank and file of the armies that actually made for advancement
and national growth, and in perhaps only one case was the movement
appreciably accelerated by the course of action pursued in a civil
way by those who had been the leaders of a former military expansion.
How are we to explain the interesting fact that none of the generals
who led into the West the armies that won it for America are to be
found at the head, for instance, of the land companies that later
attempted to open the West to the flood-tide of immigration? Did they
know too well the herculean toils that such work demanded? Why should
General Rufus Putnam, General Moses Cleaveland, General Benjamin
Tupper, General Samuel Holden Parsons, Colonel Abraham Whipple,--famous
leader of the night attack on the _Gaspee_ in the pre-Revolutionary
days,--Judge John Cleve Symmes, Colonel Richard Henderson, lead
companies of men to settle in the region which Andrew Lewis, Arthur
St. Clair, Joseph Harmar, Anthony Wayne, and William Henry Harrison
had learned so well? Of course more than one reason, or one train of
reasons, exist for these facts; but it is not to be denied that those
best acquainted with the existing facts, those having the clearest
knowledge of the trials, dangers, and risks, both as regards health
and finances, were not in any degree prominent in the later social
movements. Many, of course, were soldiers by profession, and itched
not in the least for opportunity to increase their possessions by
investment and speculation in a hazardous undertaking. But, had there
been certain assurance of success, these men, or some of them, would,
without doubt, have found ways and means of taking a part. Had one
attempt proven successful, an impetus would have been given to other
like speculations; yet one will look in vain for a really profitable
outcome to any undertaking described in these studies. The judgment of
those best posted, therefore, was fully justified.
But at the same time the American nation was greatly in the debt of
the men who made these poor investments; and, in one way or another,
it came about that no great hardship resulted. This was no secret when
these propositions were under consideration, and the men interested
were influenced not a little by the fact that their adventure would
result in benefit to the cause of national advance. There was a kind of
patriotism then shown that is to be remembered by all who care to think
of the steps taken by a weak, hopeful Republic; in some ways the same
body politic is still weak, and vastly in need of a patriotism not less
warm than that shown in those early days of wonderment and anxiety.
The reader of the succeeding pages may conceive that the author has not
taken up each study in the same method, and judged the performances of
each so-called "Pilot" by the same rule and standard. In the present
instance the writer has considered that such treatment would be highly
incongruous, there being almost nothing in common between the various
exploits here reviewed, save only those that were incidental and
adventitious. Each chapter may seem an independent study, related to
that one following only through the general title that covers them
all; this, in the author's opinion, is better far than to attempt to
emphasize a likeness, or over-color apparent resemblances, until each
event may seem a natural sequence from a former. A babe's steps are
seldom alike; one is long and inaccurate, another short and sure, with
many a misstep and tumble, and the whole a characterless procedure
bespeaking only weakness and lack both of confidence and knowledge.
Such, in a measure, was the progress of young America in the early days
of her national existence.
A. B. H.
MARIETTA COLLEGE,
MARIETTA, OHIO, May 31, 1906.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
INTRODUCTORY: THE BROTHER OF THE SWORD 19
CHAPTER II
WASHINGTON: THE PROMOTER OF WESTERN INVESTMENTS 37
CHAPTER III
RICHARD HENDERSON: THE FOUNDER OF TRANSYLVANIA 81
CHAPTER IV
RUFUS PUTNAM: THE FATHER OF OHIO 103
CHAPTER V
DAVID ZEISBERGER: HERO OF "THE MEADOW OF LIGHT" 129
CHAPTER VI
GEORGE ROGERS CLARK: FOUNDER OF LOUISVILLE 149
CHAPTER VII
HENRY CLAY: PROMOTER OF THE FIRST AMERICAN HIGHWAY 179
CHAPTER VIII
MORRIS AND CLINTON: FATHERS OF THE ERIE CANAL 207
CHAPTER IX
THOMAS AND MERCER: RIVAL PROMOTERS OF CANAL AND RAILWAY 233
CHAPTER X
LEWIS AND CLARK: EXPLORERS OF LOUISIANA 257
CHAPTER XI
ASTOR: THE PROMOTER OF ASTORIA 279
CHAPTER XII
MARCUS WHITMAN: THE HERO OF OREGON 299
CHAPTER XIII
THE CAPTAINS OF "THE AMERICAN SYSTEM" 339
INDEX 363
LIST OF PORTRAITS
PAGE
ZEISBERGER Preaching to the Indians at Coshocton,
Ohio, in 1773 _Frontispiece_
DANIEL BOONE 30
GEORGE WASHINGTON 68
RUFUS PUTNAM, Leader of the Founders of Marietta, Ohio 106
REV. MANASSEH CUTLER, Ohio Pioneer 113
JOHN HECKEWELDER, Missionary to the Indians 142
REV. DAVID JONES, Companion of George Rogers Clark 165
HENRY CLAY, Statesman and Abolitionist 184
ALBERT GALLATIN, Promoter of the Cumberland Road 190
GENERAL ARTHUR ST. CLAIR, Appointed Governor of
Ohio by Congress 205
GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, Promoter of the Erie Canal 212
DE WITT CLINTON, Friend of the Erie Canal Project 230
MERIWETHER LEWIS, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition 262
WILLIAM CLARK, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition 274
JOHN JACOB ASTOR, Founder of Astoria 288
PRESIDENT JAMES K. POLK 344
CHAPTER I
_The Part played in American History by the Pioneer's
Axe.--Several Classes of Leaders in the Conquest of the
Wilderness.--Patriotism even in those that were Self-seeking.--The
Achievements of Cleaveland, Henderson, Putnam, Morris, and
Astor, respectively.--Feebleness of the Republic in its
Infancy.--Its need of Money.--The Pioneers were of all
Races.--Other Leaders besides these Captains of Expansion
accused of Self-seeking.--Washington as the Father of the
West.--His great Acquisitions of Land.--His Influence on other
Land-seekers.--Results of Richard Henderson's Advance into
Kentucky.--Zeisberger's Attempt to form a Settlement of Christian
Indians thwarted by the Revolution.--Rufus Putnam as a Soldier
and a Pioneer.--As Leader of the Ohio Company of Associates,
he makes a Settlement Northwest of the Ohio.--Three Avenues of
Westward Migration: Henry Clay's Cumberland Road; the Erie Canal;
the Baltimore and Ohio Railway.--These Avenues not laid between
Cities, but into the Western Wilderness._
INTRODUCTORY: THE BROTHER OF THE SWORD
[Illustration]
THERE is some ground for the objection that is raised against
allowing the history of America to remain a mere record of battles
and campaigns. The sword had its part to play, a glorious part and
picturesque, but the pioneer's axe chanted a truer tune than ever
musket crooned or sabre sang. And with reference to the history of our
Central West, for instance, it were a gross impartiality to remember
the multicolored fascinating story of its preliminary conquest to the
exclusion of the marvellous sequel--a great free people leaping into a
wilderness and compelling it, in one short century, to blossom as the
rose.
To any one who seriously considers the magic awakening of that
portion of the American Nation dwelling between the Alleghanies and
the Mississippi, there must sooner or later come the overpowering
realization that the humble woodsman's broadaxe--that famous "Brother
of the Sword"--has a story that is, after all, as fascinating and
romantic as any story ever told.
Lo, 'tis myself I sing,
Feller of oak and ash!
Brother am I to the Sword,
Red-edged slayer of men!
Side by side we have hewn
Paths for the pioneer
From sea to sun-smitten sea.
It must be remembered that the sword made many conquests in this
West, while the broadaxe made but one. France, and then England,
possessed the West, but could not hold it, for the vital reason that
this brother of the sword did not march in unison with those armies.
In fact, both France and England attempted to keep the axe-bearing,
home-building people back in order that the furs and the treasure
yielded by the forests might not be withheld. But when the sword of a
free people came across the Alleghanies the axe of the pioneer came
with it, and a miracle was wrought in a century's time beside which the
Seven Wonders of the Old World must forever seem commonplace.
Of the men who led this army of real conquerors of the West to the
scenes of their labors there were many. Some were leaders because
of the inspiration they gave to others, some were leaders because
they in person showed the way, enduring the toil, the privation, the
pestilence, and the fate of pioneers. In whatever class these men may
be placed, they were in reality patriots and heroes, even though at the
time they were accused of seeking private gain and private fortune.
But through the perspective of the years it seems clear that whatever
may have been their private ends,--good, bad, or indifferent,--they
were extremely important factors in the progress of their age. Whether
seeking lands as a private speculation, or founding land companies or
transportation companies in conjunction with others, they turned a
waiting people's genius in a new direction and gave force and point
to a social movement that was of more than epoch-making importance.
Whether it was a Cleaveland founding a Western Reserve on the Great
Lakes, a Henderson establishing a Transylvania in Kentucky, a Putnam
building a new New England on the Ohio River, a Morris advocating an
Erie Canal, or an Astor founding an Astoria on the Pacific Sea, the
personal ambition and hope of gain, so prominent at the time, does not
now stand preëminent; in this day we see what the efforts of these men
meant to a country whose destiny they almost seemed unwittingly to hold
in their hands.
It will ever be difficult to realize what a critical moment it was
when, for a brief space of time, only Providence could tell whether
the young American Republic was equal to the tremendous task of
proving that it could live by growing. The wisest men who watched its
cradle wondered if that babe, seemingly of premature birth, would live.
But that was not the vital question; the vital question was, Could
it grow? The infant Republic possessed a mere strip of land on the
seaboard; the unanswerable argument of its enemies was that a weakling
of such insignificant proportions, surrounded by the territories of
England and Spain, could not live unless it could do more than merely
exist; after winning (by default) a war for liberty, it must now fight
and win or lose a war of extermination. And where were the millions of
money, the men, and the arms to come from that should prevent final
annihilation? The long war had prostrated the people; the land had been
overrun with armies, farms despoiled, trade ruined, cities turned into
barracks, money values utterly dissipated.
Just here it was that the mighty miracle was wrought; a strange army
began to rendezvous, and it was armed with that weapon which was to
make a conquest the sword could never have made. It was the army of
pioneers with axes on their shoulders. So spontaneously did it form and
move away, so commonplace was every humble detail of its organization
and progress, so quietly was its conquest made, so few were its
prophets and historians, that it has taken a century for us to realize
its wonder and its marvel.
America here and now gave the one proof of life--growth. Not from one
point in particular, but from every point, the ranks of this humble
army were filled; not one sect or race gave those rough and shaggy
regiments their men, but every sect and every racial stock.
That army had its leaders, though they wore only the uncouth
regimentals of the rank and file. It is of certain of these Pilots
of the Republic that these pages treat,--men who were moved by what
were very generally called selfish motives in their days. Yet against
what human motive may not the accusation of self-interest be cast?
It has been hurled against almost every earnest man since Christ was
crucified in ignominy nineteen centuries ago. Scan the list of men
herein treated, and you will not find a single promoter of the Central
West who was not accused of harboring an ulterior motive, if not of
downright perfidy. Some of the best of these leaders of the expansion
movement were most bitterly maligned; the heroic missionaries who
forgot every consideration of health, comfort, worldly prosperity,
home, and friends were sometimes decried as plotting ambassadors of
scheming knaves.
The pure and upright Washington, looking westward with clearer eye
and surer faith than any of his generation, was besmirched by the
accusations of hypocritical self-aggrandizement. Yet he must stand
first and foremost in the category of men who influenced and gave
efficiency to that vital westward movement. This man, as will be shown,
was more truly the "Father of the West" than he ever was "Father
of his Country." A decade before the Revolution was precipitated in
sturdy Massachusetts, he had become fascinated with the commercial
possibilities of the trans-Alleghany empire. He explored the Ohio and
Great Kanawha rivers, and conceived what the future would bring forth;
he took up large tracts of lands. Before he died he owned many patents
to land in what is now New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia,
Kentucky, Maryland, and Florida, as well as his home farms along the
Potomac. He had a keen business sense, and demanded his full rights; he
forcibly ousted from his lands men who knowingly usurped them; and all
through the years he was accused of using his preponderating influence
to further selfish plans; he was called a land-shark and a robber. It
is interesting to know that his own private conclusion was that his
investments had not paid; his words were that they had resulted more
"in vexation than profit." And when he spoke those words he was master
of between twenty and thirty thousand of the most fertile acres in the
Ohio River basin.
Yet Washington had marvellously influenced the nation's destiny by
these "unprofitable" investments. The very position he occupied and
which he was accused of misusing had powerfully stimulated the army
that was carrying the broadaxe westward. In countless ways this man
had given circulation to ideas that were inspiring and hopeful, and
just so far as he believed he had failed as a private speculator, he
had in reality triumphed mightily as the leading exponent of a growing
Republic which was called upon to prove that it could grow.
Richard Henderson stands out prominently as an honest leader of this
army of conquerors. We can never read without a thrill the sentence in
that letter of Daniel Boone's to Henderson in which the bold woodsman
pleads the necessity of Henderson's hastening into Kentucky in 1775.
All that Kentucky was and all that it did during the Revolution seems
to have hung suspended on the advance of Richard Henderson's party
through Cumberland Gap in that eventful April; and those words of the
guide and trail-blazer, Boone, imploring that there be no delay, and
emphasizing the stimulating effect that Henderson's advance would
have on the various parties of explorers, have a ring of destiny in
them. True, Virginia and North Carolina both repudiated Henderson's
Indian purchase, and the promoter of historic Transylvania was decried
and defamed; but his advance into the valley of the Kentucky gave
an inspiration to the scattered parties of vagrant prospectors that
resulted in making a permanent settlement in that key-stone State of
the West, which was of untold advantage to the nation at large. And
later Virginia and North Carolina made good the loss the founder of
Transylvania had suffered because of their earlier repudiation.
In Washington and Henderson we have two important factors in the
advance of the pioneer army into the old Southwest--the region between
the Alleghanies and the Mississippi south of the Ohio River.
[Illustration: DANIEL BOONE]
Turning to the rich empire lying north of that river, a chapter
belongs to that resolute herald of religious and social betterment,
David Zeisberger, who led his faithful Moravians from Pennsylvania to
found an ideal settlement in central Ohio. The marvellous story of
the indomitable Catholic missionaries in America has been receiving
something of its share of attention by the reading world, a story
so noble and inspiring that it is one of the precious heritages
of the past; that of the equally noble Protestant missionaries in
the Middle and Far West has not yet received its due. The Moravian
Brethren received the first acre of land ever legally owned by white
men in Ohio. Here, in "the Meadow of Light" on the Tuscarawas River,
Zeisberger and his noble comrade, John Heckewelder, attempted to found
a civilized colony of Christian Indians. But for the Revolution, he
would doubtless have succeeded. The story of his temporary success
is of great romantic interest and of moment especially by way of
comparison. A legal right to land was secured by this migrating colony
of Indians under the leadership of white missionaries; it was to be,
to all intents and purposes, a white man's settlement, and agriculture
was to be the colony's means of support. Laws and rules of conduct were
formulated, and for five interesting years a great degree of success
attended the effort. Then came war, despoliation, and a thrilling
period of wandering. But never was the fact of legal ownership ignored;
when the United States first enacted laws for the disposal of land in
the Northwest Territory it excepted the district "formerly" allotted to
the Moravian Brethren.
Again, the history of the Middle West contains no sturdier or sweeter
character than Rufus Putnam, the head of the Ohio Company of Associates
who made the first settlement in the Northwest Territory at Marietta.
As evidence of what he was in time of danger, his long record in the
old French War, the Revolution, and the Indian War in the West is open
to all men; what he was in days of peace--how he was the mainstay
of his fellow officers in their attempt to obtain their dues from
Congress, how he cheered westward that little company which he led in
person, how for two decades he was the unselfish friend of hundreds
of this struggling army of pioneers--is a story great and noble. As
we shall see, General Washington, in a secret document never intended
for other eyes than his own, describes Putnam as little known outside
of a definite circle of friends. If this militated against his being
appointed commander-in-chief of the American armies (for which honor
General "Mad" Anthony Wayne was named), it made the man the more
beloved and helpful. Not seeking in convivial ways the friendship of
the notables of his time, Rufus Putnam went about the commonplace
affairs of his conscientious life, doing good; yet in the most critical
hour in the history of the Northwest it was to Putnam that Washington
turned in confidence and hope. In the formation of the Ohio Company,
in the emigration from New England, in the hard experiences of hewing
out homes and clearings on the Ohio, and in the humble, wearing
vicissitudes of life on the tumultuous frontier, the resolution, tact,
and patient charity of this plain hero made him one of the great men
in the annals of our western land.
This Ohio Company of Associates made the first settlement in the
territory northwest of the River Ohio, from which were created the five
great States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In
the actual peopling of that region no one man, perhaps, exerted the
influence of Rufus Putnam; and though, as a company, the Associates
never were able to keep their contract with the Government, the great
value of the movement led by Putnam was recognized, as Virginia and
North Carolina recognized Henderson's influence to the southward, and
Congress agreed to an easy settlement.
The empire of the Ohio Basin being thrown open to the world by the
armies of pioneers inspired by Washington and led by such men as
Henderson and Putnam, a great factor in its occupation were the men
who succeeded Washington in carrying out his plan for opening avenues
of immigration. Three great routes to the West, and their projectors,
call for notice in this phase of our study. The rise of Henry Clay's
famous National Road running from Cumberland, Maryland, almost to St.
Louis was a potent factor in the awakening of the West. It was the one
great American highway; it took millions of men and wealth into the
West, and, more than any material object, "served to cement and save
the Union." Three canals were factors in this great social movement,
especially the Erie Canal, which was conceived by the inspiration of
Morris and achieved by the patient genius of Clinton. As a promoter
of the West, Thomas, father of our first railway, must be accounted
of utmost importance. Is it not of interest that the famed Cumberland
Road was not built to connect two large Eastern cities, or a seaport
or river with a city? It was built from the East into the Western
wilderness--from a town but little known to an indefinite destination
where the towns were hardly yet named. Its promoters were men of faith
in the West, hopeful of its prosperity and anxious as to its loyalty.
Now the same was singularly true of our first three great canals, the
Erie, the Chesapeake and Ohio, and the Pennsylvania. These were not
built as avenues of commerce between great Eastern cities, but rather
from the East to the awakening West, to the infant hamlets of Buffalo
and Pittsburg. And, still more remarkable, our first railways were not
laid out between large Eastern cities, but from the East into that
same country of the setting sun where the forests were still spreading
and little villages were here and there springing up. The Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad was distinctly promoted in the hope that Baltimore
might retain the trade of the West which the canals then building
seemed to be likely to take from her. It was their faith in the West
that inspired all these men to the tasks they severally conceived and
enthusiastically completed. It would hardly be possible to emphasize
sufficiently the part played in the history of early America by this
supremely momentous intuition of the westward advance of the Republic,
the divine logic of that advance, and its immeasurable consequences.