that the settlement at Grave Creek, consisting of several families,
was broken up. It was a frontier station, and lower down the Ohio than
any other above the mouth of the Great Kanawha. It was in this year
that the Indians made the memorable attack on the fort at Wheeling.[24]
Mr. Williams and his wife, with her father’s family, moved to the
Monongahela river, above Redstone, old fort, where they remained until
the spring of 1783. They then returned to their plantations on Grave
Creek, but in 1785 were obliged to remove again into the garrison at
Wheeling. While there, Mrs. Williams excercised the healing art for
the benefit of the soldier, as no surgeon could be procured. With the
assistance of Mrs. Zane, she dressed the wounds of one wounded in
fourteen places by rifle shots while spearing fish by torchlight, and
with fomentations and simple applications, not only cured his wounds,
which every one thought an impossible undertaking, but saved an arm and
leg that were broken. Dr. Hildreth mentions that many years afterwards,
while he was attending on a man with a compound fracture of the leg, in
the neighborhood of Mrs. Williams’ house, she was present at one of the
dressings, and related several of her cures in border times.
It has been stated that Rebecca Martin, before her marriage to Mr.
Williams, acted as housekeeper for her brothers for several years. In
consideration of which service, her brothers, Joseph and Samuel, made
an entry of four hundred acres of land on the Virginia shore of the
Ohio river, directly opposite the mouth of the Muskingum, for their
sister; girdling the trees, building a cabin, and planting and fencing
four acre’s of corn, on the high second bottom, in the spring of the
year 1773. They spent the summer on the spot, occupying their time with
hunting during the growth of the crop. In this time they had exhausted
their small stock of salt and bread stuff, and lived for two or three
months altogether on boiled turkies, which were eaten without salt. The
following winter the two brothers hunted on the Big Kanawha. Some time
in March, 1774, they reached the mouth of the river on their return.
They were detained here a few days by a remarkably high freshet in the
Ohio.
That year was long known as that of Dunmore’s war, and noted for Indian
depredations. The renewed and oft repeated inroads of the Indians, led
Mr. Williams to turn his thoughts towards a more quiet retreat than
that at Grave Creek. Fort Harmer, at the mouth of the Muskingum, having
been erected in 1786, and garrisoned by United States troops, he came
to the conclusion that he would now occupy the land belonging to his
wife, and located by her brothers. This tract embraced a large share
of rich alluvions. The piece opened by the Tomlinsons in 1773, was
grown up with young saplings, but could be easily reclaimed. Having
previously visited the spot and put up log cabins, Williams finally
removed his family and effects thither, the twenty-sixth of March,
1787, being the year before the Ohio company took possession of their
purchase at the mouth of the Muskingum.
In the January following the removal to his forest domain, his wife
gave birth to a daughter, the only issue by this marriage. Soon after
the Ohio company emigrants had established themselves at Marietta, a
pleasing and friendly intercourse was kept up between them and Mr.
Williams; and as he had now turned his attention more especially to
clearing and cultivating his farm than to hunting, he was glad to see
the new openings springing up around him, and the rude forest changing
into the home of civilized man. Settlements were commenced at Belprie
and Waterford the year after that at Marietta; as yet little being done
in cultivating the soil, their time chiefly occupied in building cabins
and clearing the land.
A brief account of the progress of this first settlement made in Ohio
will be interesting, and may here be appropriately introduced It is
prepared from a large volume of Notes on Pioneer History, by Dr. S. P.
Hildreth.
The country on the Ohio river was little known to the English till
about 1740, after which traders went occasionally from Pennsylvania and
Virginia, and at later periods attempts were made to make settlements
in different localities. In 1787 the Ohio company was formed to
purchase land and form settlements; funds were raised and a large
number of acres contracted for, and surveyors and boat-builders were
set at work. In April, 1788, a company of pioneers started in the
“Adventure” galley from Simrell’s Ferry, thirty miles above Pittsburgh,
on the Yohiogoany, and landed at the mouth of the Muskingum. Vegetation
was already advanced in the wild spot selected for their residence;
the trees were in leaf, and the rich clover pastures offered abundant
sustenance for their stock. Lots were surveyed, and the new town
laid out on the right bank of the Ohio, at the junction of the clear
waters of the Muskingum, was called Marietta, in honor of Queen Marie
Antoinette, whose friendly feeling towards the American nation had, as
it was well known, strongly influenced her royal consort.
The location proved fortunate in point of health as well as fertility;
and game being abundant, the emigrants wanted for nothing. The ground
was soon broken, and corn and vegetables planted. The temporary
regulations for the government of the little community, were written
out, and posted on the smooth branch of a large beech tree, near the
mouth of the Muskingum. The fourth of July was celebrated by a public
dinner set out in an arbor on the bank; and Gen. Varnum, one of the
judges, delivered the oration, while the officers of the garrison drank
and responded to the toasts. The bill of fare on this occasion, which
has been recorded, presented an array of venison, bear and buffalo
meat, and roast pigs; and among the fish, a pike weighing a hundred
pounds, speared at the mouth of the Muskingum. On the 20th July,
William Brook, of New England, preached the first sermon ever preached
to white men in Ohio, Moravian missionaries having hitherto been
employed to spread the truths of the Gospel among the savages. It may
be interesting to know what was the text on this memorable occasion;
it was in Exodus xix., 5, 6: “Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice
indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure to
me above all people; for all the earth is mine; and ye shall be unto me
a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
On the 20th August, the north-west blockhouse was so far completed,
that a dinner was given by the directors of the company to Governor St.
Clair and the officers of Fort Harmer, which the principal citizens
attended, with the wives of many of the officers, and several other
ladies, who had thus early ventured into the wilderness. A fine
barge, rowed by twelve oars, brought the company from the fort up the
Muskingum to the opposite bank, from which the appearance of the new
fort was grand and imposing.
The first death is noticed as that of a child, on the 25th of August.
The number of settlers this year, after a reinforcement from New
England, was one hundred and thirty-two, and Marietta was at this time
the only white settlement in the territory now constituting the State
of Ohio. In December, about two hundred Indians came to make a treaty,
and the council fire was kindled in a large log-house outside the fort.
Articles were adjusted and agreed to, and the Indians departed well
pleased with the settlers, whom they pronounced very different from the
“long knives” and stern backwoodsmen of Kentucky. During the winter
succeeding, the Ohio was filled with ice, and no boat moved up or down
till March, which caused a great scarcity of provisions, for nothing
could be procured but venison and bear’s meat, and it was difficult to
find either deer or bears in the vicinity of the town. The inhabitants
were obliged to live for weeks without bread, eating boiled corn, or
coarse meal ground in a hand-mill, with the little meat they could
procure. As soon as the river opened, flour could be purchased from
boats trading from Redstone and the country near Pittsburg, and before
long a road was cut through to Alexandria. The first marriage, between
the Hon. Winthrop Sargent, secretary of the North West Territory, and
Miss Rowena Tupper, daughter of Gen. Tupper, was celebrated on the 6th
February, 1789, by Gen. Rufus Putnam, judge of the Court of Common
Pleas for Washington, the first organized county. A public festival
was appointed for the 7th April, the anniversary of the commencement
of their settlement, and was observed for many years, till the country
became peopled with strangers, who knew nothing of the hardships and
trials encountered by the primitive settlers. It is now sometimes kept
as a holiday, for picnic excursions or social parties.
Flint says he distinctly remembers the wagon that carried out a number
of adventurers from Massachusetts, on the second emigration to the
forests of Ohio; its large black canvass covering, and the white
lettering in large capitals, “To Marietta, on the Ohio.”
Belprie was a branch settlement made by the direction of the Ohio
company; the name taken from “belle prairie,” or beautiful meadow.
After the lots were drawn, the settlers moved to their farms in April,
1789, and when their log cabins were built, commenced cutting down and
girdling the trees on the rich lowlands. From the destructive effects
of frost in September of this year, the crops of corn were greatly
injured, and where planted late, entirely ruined. In the spring and
summer of 1790, the inhabitants began to suffer from a want of food,
especially wholesome bread-stuffs. The Indians were also becoming
troublesome, and rendered it hazardous boating provisions from the
older settlements on the Monongahela, or hunting for venison in the
adjacent forests. Many families, especially at Belprie, had no other
meal than that made from musty or mouldy corn; and were sometimes
destitute even of this for several days in succession. This mouldy corn
commanded nine shillings, or a dollar and a half a bushel; and when
ground in their hand-mills and made into bread, few stomachs were able
to digest it, or even to retain it for a few minutes.
During this period of want, Isaac Williams displayed his benevolent
feeling for the suffering colonists. Being in the country earlier he
had more ground cleared, and had raised a crop of several hundred
bushels of corn. This he now distributed among the inhabitants at
the low rate of three shillings, or fifty cents a bushel, when at
the same time he had been urged by speculators to take a dollar for
his whole crop. “I would not let them have a bushel,” said the old
hunter. He not only parted with his corn at this cheap rate, but
prudently proportioned the number of bushels according to the number
of individuals in a family. An empty purse was no bar to the needy
applicant; but his wants were equally supplied with those who had
money, and credit was given until more favorable times should enable
him to discharge the debt. Capt. Jonathan Devoll, hearing of Williams’
corn, and the cheap rate at which he sold it, made a trip to Marietta
to procure some of it; travelling by land, and in the night, on
account of the danger from Indians, a distance of twelve or fourteen
miles. Williams treated him with much kindness, and after letting him
have several bushels of corn at the usual price in plentiful years,
furnished him with his only canoe to transport it home.
Like Isaac and Rebecca of old, this modern Isaac and Rebecca were
given to good deeds; and many a poor, sick, and deserted boatman has
been nursed and restored to health beneath their humble roof. Full of
days and good deeds, and strong in the faith of a blessed immortality,
Williams resigned his spirit to him who gave it, the 25th of September,
1820, aged eighty-four years, and was buried in a beautiful grove on
his own plantation, surrounded by the trees he so dearly loved when
living.
In spite of treaties, the Indians continued to harass the settlements
in western Virginia, and in August attacked a surveying party employed
by the Ohio Company in running the lines of the townships. The savages
seemed to hold the surveyor’s chain and compass in utter detestation.
In the winter of 1790, the governor of the North West Territory, St.
Clair, removed his family from his plantation at “Potts’ Grove,” in
Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, to Marietta. One of his daughters,
Louisa, was long remembered as one of the most distinguished among
the ladies of that day. In strength and elasticity of frame, blooming
health, energy and fearlessness, she was the ideal of a soldier’s
daughter, extremely fond of adventure and frolic, and ready to draw
amusement from everything around her. She was a fine equestrian, and
would manage the most spirited horse with perfect ease and grace,
dashing at full gallop through the open woodland surrounding the
“Campus Martius,” and leaping over logs or any obstacle in her way.
She was also expert in skating, and was rivalled by few, if any young
men in the garrison, in the speed, dexterity, and grace of movement
with which she exercised herself in this accomplishment. The elegance
of her person, and her neat, well-fitting dress, were shown to great
advantage in her rapid gyrations over the broad sheet of ice in the
Muskingum, which for a few days in winter offered a fine field, close
to the garrison, for this healthful sport; and loud were the plaudits
from young and old, from spectators of both sexes, called forth by the
performance of the governor’s daughter. As a huntress she was equally
distinguished, and might have served as a model for a Diana, in her
rambles through the forest, had she been armed with a bow instead of
a rifle, of which latter instrument she was perfect mistress, loading
and firing with the accuracy of a backwoodsman, killing a squirrel on
the top of the tallest tree, or cutting off the head of a partridge
with wonderful precision. She was fond of roaming through the woods,
and often went out alone into the forest near Marietta, fearless of
the savages who often lurked in the vicinity. As active on foot as on
horseback, she could walk several miles with the untiring rapidity of
a practised ranger. Notwithstanding her possession of these unfeminine
attainments, Miss St. Clair’s refined manners would have rendered her
the ornament of any drawing-room circle; she was beautiful in person,
and had an intellect highly cultivated, having received a carefully
finished education under the best teachers in Philadelphia. Endowed
by nature with a vigorous constitution and lively animal spirits,
her powers, both of body and mind, had been strengthened by such
athletic exercises, to the practice of which she had been encouraged
from childhood by her father. He had spent the greater part of his
life in camps, and was not disposed to fetter by conventional rules
his daughter’s rare spirit, so admirably suited to pioneer times and
manners, however like an amazon she may seem to the less independent
critics of female manners at the present day. After the Indian war,
Miss St. Clair returned to her early home in the romantic glens of
Ligonier valley.
It is said that the first woman who came to Marietta was the wife of
James Owen, and that she received a donation lot of one hundred acres
from the Ohio company on this account. She gave shelter to a man who
had been put ashore from a boat on the way to Kentucky, and took the
small-pox from him, which soon spread, and most of the inhabitants were
inoculated to preserve them from the terrible ravages of the disease.
Hardly was this anxiety over than the great scarcity of provisions
already noticed prevailed; good corn rising to the price of two dollars
a bushel, and the distress increasing as the summer approached. There
were few cows and no oxen or cattle to spare; hogs were scarce, and the
woods were bare of game, the deer and buffaloes within twenty miles
having been killed or driven away by the Indians. In this extremity
great kindness was shown among the settlers, each sharing what he
had with his neighbors, and those who had cows dividing their milk.
The poor obtained supplies of fish from the river. The Indians this
year--1790--commenced a new species of warfare, by attacking boats in
the river usually owned by emigrants on the way to Kentucky. Their
principal rendezvous was near the mouth of the Scioto, and a favorite
device to get possession of a boat, was to make a white man stand on
the bank and entreat the crew to land and take him on board, saying he
had just escaped from Indian slavery and if recaptured would be put to
death. By this mode of appeal to the compassion of emigrants, the men
in several boats were induced to land, when the savages lying in ambush
would seize the boat or shoot down the crew from their hiding-place.
The decoy was sometimes an actual prisoner, whom they forced to act his
part, and sometimes a renegade white who joined them voluntarily for
the sake of a share in the plunder.
In October a large company of French emigrants arrived at Marietta,
coming down the Ohio in “Kentucky arks,” or flatboats. Many were from
Paris, and wondered not a little at the broad rivers and vast forests
of the West. The distress and destitution into which they were thrown
by the failure of the Scioto company to fulfil their contracts, and the
substitution of lands on the Ohio below the Kanawha, are mentioned in
another sketch. Gen. Rufus Putnam was commissioned by the principal men
in the Scioto company to build houses and furnish provisions for these
colonists, and did so at great loss, the company eventually failing
and dissolving. Indian hostilities commenced in January, 1791, with
an attack on the blockhouse at Big Bottom. This building stood on the
first or low bottom, a few rods from the shore on the left bank of
the Muskingum, four miles above the mouth of Meigs’ Creek and thirty
from Marietta. A few rods back, the land rose several feet to a second
or higher bottom, which stretched out into a plain of half a mile in
width, extending to the foot of the hills. Big Bottom was so called
from its size, being four or five miles in length, and containing
more fine land than any other below Duncan’s falls. Excepting the
small clearing round the garrison, the whole region was a forest. This
settlement was made up of thirty-six young men, but little acquainted
with Indian warfare or military rules. Confident in their own prudence
and ability to protect themselves, they put up a blockhouse which
might accommodate all in an emergency, covered it, and laid puncheon
floors, stairs, &c. It was built of large beech logs, and rather open,
as it was not chinked between the logs; this job was left for a rainy
day or some more convenient season. They kept no sentry, and had
neglected to set pickets around the blockhouse, and their guns were
lying in different places, without order, about the house. Twenty men
usually encamped in the house, a part of whom were now absent, and each
individual and mess cooked for themselves. One end of the building was
appropriated for a fire-place, and at close of day all came in, built a
large fire, and commenced cooking and eating their suppers,
A party of Indians came into a cabin occupied by a few of the men, near
the blockhouse, and spoke to them in a friendly manner, partaking of
their supper. Presently taking some leathern thongs and pieces of cord
that had been used in packing venison, they seized the white men by
their arms, and told them they were prisoners. Another party attacked
the blockhouse so suddenly and unexpectedly that there was no time for
defence, shooting down and tomahawking the men. One stout Virginia
woman, the wife of Isaac Meeks, who was employed as their hunter,
seized an axe and made a blow at the head of the Indian who opened the
door; a slight turn of the head saved his skull, and the axe passed
down through his cheek into the shoulder, leaving a huge gash that
severed nearly half his face; she was instantly killed by the tomahawk
of one of his companions before she could repeat the stroke. This was
all the injury received by the Indians, as the men were killed before
they had time to seize their arms which stood in the corner of the
room. While the slaughter was going on, a young man in the prime of
life sprung up the stair-way and out upon the roof; while his brother,
a lad of sixteen, secreted himself under some bedding in the corner of
the room. The Indians on the outside soon discovered the former, and
shot him in the act of begging them to spare his life, “as he was the
only one left.”
Twelve persons were killed in this attack. The savages had vowed that
before the trees put forth leaves, the smoke of a white man’s house
should not rise north-west of the waters of the Ohio. The inhabitants
assembled at the three stations at Marietta, Belprie and Waterford,
new blockhouses were built at the expense of the Ohio company, and
two hunters were employed to act as spies for each garrison. Gen.
Putnam complained to President Washington of the danger in which the
settlements stood of being entirely swept away without a reinforcement
of troops, and a military force was sent for their defence in the
ensuing summer.
The following incident is illustrative: “On a day in March, Rogers
and Henderson sallied out of the garrison at an early hour, to scout
up the Muskingum. They ranged diligently all day without seeing any
Indians, or discovering signs of their being in the neighborhood. Just
at night, as they were returning to the garrison by a cow-path, and had
come within a mile of home, two Indians rose from behind a log, fifty
yards before them, and fired. Rogers was shot through the heart, and as
he fell, Henderson attempted to support him, but he told him he was a
dead man, and he must provide for his own safety. He turned to escape
down the side of the ridge, to the bottom, and two more savages who
had reserved their fire, rose and discharged their rifles at him as he
ran; one of the balls passing through the collar of his hunting-shirt,
the other through the silk handkerchief which was bound round his
head, and formed a part of a ranger’s dress, barely grazing the scalp.
His blanket, folded like a knapsack on his back, probably saved his
life,--shielding the vital part by its numerous folds, from the passage
of a bullet. The Indians well knew what a protection this would be,
and therefore aimed at his head. After running a few hundred yards on
the back track, he discovered that the savages had taken a shorter
course and got ahead of him, and making a short turn to the right, up
a ravine, he crossed the ridge and came out into the valley of Duck
Creek, unmolested. While making this detour, he fell quite unexpectedly
on the camp of the savages, and saw one busily engaged in kindling a
fire, and so diligently occupied that he did not observe the white man.
Henderson could easily have shot him, but as his pursuers had lost the
direction of his course, he thought it imprudent by firing to give them
notice of his whereabouts, and went on to the garrison at the point.
The alarm gun was fired, and answered from Fort Harmer and Campus
Martius. The story spread through the village that Rogers had been
killed, and Henderson chased to the garrison by Indians, who were then
besieging its gates. The darkness of night added to the confusion of
the scene. The order, in case of an alarm, was for every man to repair
to his alarm post, and the women and children to the blockhouses. Some
idea of the proceedings of the night may be obtained from the narration
of an eye-witness:
“‘The first applicant for admission to the central blockhouse was Col.
Sproat, with a box of papers for safe keeping; then came some young men
with their arms; next, a woman with her bed and her children; and after
her, old William Moultin, from Newburyport, with his leathern apron
full of old goldsmith’s tools and tobacco. His daughter, Anna, brought
the china tea-pot, cups and saucers. Lydia brought the great bible;
but when all were in, ‘mother’ was missing. Where was mother? She must
be killed by the Indians. ‘No,’ says Lydia, ‘mother said she would not
leave the house _looking so_; she would put things a little to rights.’
After a while the old lady arrived, bringing the looking-glass, knives
and forks, etc.’”