a short time a boat was procured, as they were kept ready made for the
use of emigrants. The one they bought was about forty feet long and
twelve feet wide, but without any roof, as they could not wait for it
to be finished. On board of this they put their wagons, and contrived
to make a temporary shelter with their linen covers. The horses were
sent by land across the country to Buffalo, at the mouth of Buffalo
creek, distant by this route only fifty-three miles from the ferry, but
more than a hundred by water. This was a common practice with the early
emigrants, as the water of the Yohiogany was too shallow in autumn to
float a boat drawing over eighteen or twenty inches. In the stern of
the boat was a rude fire-place for cooking, and their beds were spread
on the floor of the ark.
After laying in a stock of food, they pushed merrily out into the
current of the “Yoh,” as it was familiarly called by the borderers
of that region, and floated rapidly along, sometimes grazing on the
shallows, and at others grounding on the sandbars. By dint of rowing
and pushing they made out to get on; especially after falling into the
larger current of the Monongahela, and reached Pittsburgh in safety
on Sunday evening. They were now at the junction of these two noble
streams, the Alleghany and Monongahela, and saw the waters of the
charming Ohio, the object of all their toils and were, apparently, at
the end of their journey. Near the point of land where the Ohio first
takes its name, they landed their uncouth and unwieldy water-craft,
making it fast to a stake on the bank. It was late in the afternoon,
and the men went up into the town to purchase some articles needed
to make the families comfortable in their downward voyage. Pittsburg
then contained four or five hundred inhabitants, and several retail
stores, and a small garrison of troops was kept up in Old Fort Pitt. To
our travellers, who had lately seen nothing but trees and rocks, with
here and there a solitary hut, it seemed to be quite a large town. The
houses were chiefly built of logs, but now and then one had begun to
assume the appearance of neatness and comfort.
Capt. Haskell and Mr. Rouse, for some cause now forgotten, did not
return to lodge in the boat, but stayed at the tavern; Michael, Isaac,
and Cushing had gone overland with the horses, so that the women and
children were left alone in the boat. In the middle of the night, one
of the older boys was awakened by the water coming into his bed on
the floor. He immediately raised an outcry, and in the midst of the
darkness, bustle, and confusion of the moment, they found the boat
was half leg deep in the water. Great was the consternation of the
older females, who thought, not without reason, that they must all be
drowned. It so happened that the water was not very deep where the
boat was moored, and as the gunwales rested on the bottom at the depth
of two or three feet, it could sink no further. This disaster was
occasioned by the falling of the river during the night; the land side
of the boat rested on the shore, while the outer corner settled in the
stream until the water ran through the seams in the planking above the
gunwale--they being badly caulked. They hurried on shore as fast as
they could. A kind-hearted man, by the name of Kilbreath, whose house
stood on the bank near the boat, heard the screams of the children, and
taking a light came to their assistance. He invited them all up to his
house and provided them lodging by a good warm fire; he then called
some men to his aid, and before morning, got the wet articles out of
the boat, and assisted the females in drying them. When Mr. Rouse and
Capt. Haskell came back in the morning, they were much chagrined at the
accident; as had they been on board, they thought it could have been
prevented. The next morning Mr. Kilbreath gave them all a nice warm
breakfast, and like the good Samaritan, would take nothing but their
grateful thanks for his trouble. Having baled out the boat and got her
once more afloat, they reloaded their household goods, got on board a
stock of provisions, and prepared to renew their voyage in the course
of the day.
It so happened that there was an old trapper and hunter by the name
of Bruce, who was familiar with the river, just ready to start down
stream in a large canoe, or pereauger, on a trapping expedition for
the winter, on some of the more southern waters; him they engaged for
a pilot, as was the custom in those early days, although there was but
little or no danger from the intricacy of the channel. His canoe was
about forty feet long, and had on board a barrel of flour, some fat
bacon, four beaver traps, a camp kettle, two tin cups, and a light axe.
These, with his rifle, blanket, and ammunition, formed his stock for
the winter. The canoe was lashed alongside the boat, and he came on
board as pilot.
It was near the middle of the afternoon, on Monday, when they put
out from Pittsburgh. The day had been cloudy and threatened rain
from the south. Just at evening the wind shifted to the northwest
and blew quartering across the bend of the river in which they were
then floating. It soon rose to a complete gale, and knocked up such
a sea, as threw the crests of the waves over the side of the boat,
threatening to upset, if not sink, the unwieldy craft. In this dilemma,
the pilot and all hands exerted their utmost at the oars, to bring
the boat to land on the “Federal,” or Pennsylvania shore; but the wind
and the waves were both adverse. The boat could have been landed on
the right, or “Indian shore,” but they feared to do so, lest in the
night they should fall into the hands of the Indians, who although
it was apparently a time of peace, robbed the boats and killed the
straggling whites at every favorable opportunity. The large pereauger
bounded and thumped against the side of the boat, threatening to break
in the planks, and was cut loose by the hand of the pilot. In this
extremity, when every fresh wave threatened to overwhelm them, Bruce
cried out to his shipmates, in a voice that was easily heard above the
storm, “We must put over to the Indian shore, or every man, woman and
child will be lost!” Previous to this, the more feeble portion of the
passengers had kept tolerably quiet, although exceedingly alarmed; but
this announcement, to the women and children, sounded like their death
knell, and the boat instantly resounded with their screams of despair.
Capt. Haskell, who had been accustomed to perils of various kinds, and
was a man of iron nerves, did what he could to calm their terrors.
Bruce, who was in fact a skilful pilot, as well as a brave man,
instantly laid the bow of the boat over to the Indian shore. The wind
and the waves both favored the movement, and with a little aid from the
oars in a few minutes she was riding in safety under a high point of
land, which sheltered them from the wind in comparatively quiet water.
The sudden transition from the jaws of death to this tranquil haven,
filled the hearts of the females with songs of gratitude; and the
boat was hardly moored to the bank before they sprung upon the land,
rejoiced once more to tread the solid earth, although it was the
dreaded Indian shore. Bruce soon kindled a fire by the side of a large
fallen tree, and setting up some forked sticks and poles, stretched
some blankets across, in such a way as to make a rude tent. Beneath
this shelter they spread their beds, choosing rather to risk the chance
of an attack from Indians than to trust themselves on the water again
that night. From the hunting camp of some white men, whose smoke the
pilot had noticed just before the storm came on, he procured a fine
fat saddle of venison, and the whole party feasted with cheerful hearts
that evening on the nice steaks of this delicious meat. Some they
broiled on the coals, while Bruce showed them how to roast it, hunter
fashion, on a hickory skewer filled full of pieces and stuck up in the
earth before the fire; this, with a cup of hot coffee, furnished a
very comfortable meal. They slept undisturbed that night; though ever
and anon, the sighing of the winds in the tops of the trees led the
more timid of the females to fancy they heard the stealthy approach of
Indians.
In the morning, the ground was covered with snow to the depth of
several inches, which had fallen while they were asleep. The day
following the storm was fine and pleasant, and the smooth, calm
surface of the Ohio exhibited a striking contrast to the tumult and
uproar which had agitated its bosom only a few hours before. From
Fort McIntosh, at the mouth of the Beaver, to the new settlement at
Muskingum, no white man had dared to plant himself on the Indian shore
of the river, with the exception of a small blockhouse a few miles
below Buffalo, which some hunters had built as a place to which they
might retreat if attacked by their enemies, while out hunting in the
region west of the river. Even here there was little or no clearing,
and all else was unbroken wilderness. They embarked early in the
morning and reached Buffalo that evening. In the course of the forenoon
they found the pereauger of Bruce lodged on the shore and filled with
water. It still contained the barrel of flour, meat, axe, etc., with
all the traps but one. The buoyancy of the light poplar wood of which
it was made, prevented it from sinking, and the ballast of the traps,
axe, etc., from upsetting; so that, quite unexpectedly, the old trapper
recovered his boat and goods, which he had given up as utterly lost. At
Buffalo, they were greeted with the loud laugh and boisterous welcome
of Isaac, who, with Michael and Shaw, had been waiting one or two days
with the horses for their arrival.
The women and children, still impressed with dread lest another storm
should overtake them, concluded to lodge on shore, and accordingly took
quarters for the night on the floor of a small log hut that stood at
the extremity of the point of land at the mouth of Buffalo creek. In
the morning Mrs. Devoll came near losing a part of her bedding. A gaily
ornamented new woollen blanket had attracted the attention of Mrs.
Riley, the mistress of the cabin, as it lay spread over the sleepers in
the night, and in the hurry and bustle of rolling up the bed clothes,
she adroitly managed to secrete it among her own bedding, stowed away
in the corner of the room. Mrs. Devoll soon missed it, and after a
careful but fruitless search among her own things, did not hesitate to
accuse the woman of secreting it. She roundly denied any knowledge of
the blanket. Being a resolute woman, and determined not to give it up
in this way, Mrs. Devoll made an overhauling of Mrs. Riley’s chattels,
when much to the chagrin and disappointment of the border woman, she
pulled out the lost article, rolled up in her dingy bedding. Thinking
they had recovered all the missing goods, they hurried aboard their
boat at the exciting call of Isaac, who was ready to depart, and in no
very good humor with the hospitality of Mrs. Riley. At Wheeling, where
they stopped for some milk, they discovered, much to their vexation,
that they had also lost a new two-quart measure, which they had brought
all the way with them for the purpose of measuring the milk they should
need to purchase on the road. In a few years after this adventure,
during the Indian war, this family of Rileys, who still lived in the
same spot, were all massacred by the savages.
At Grave creek they took on board a stout, hearty old man, as a
passenger, by the name of Green. He assisted Bruce and their crew, each
by taking turns at the oars and rowing all night, and with the music of
Isaac and the old man, who proved an excellent singer, they made out
to reach the mouth of Muskingum just at dark on Thursday evening, the
fourth day after leaving Pittsburg. Ice had been making in the Ohio
for the last twenty-four hours, and the travellers were fortunate in
arriving as they did, for the following morning the Muskingum river was
frozen over from shore to shore. Great was the consternation of Mrs.
Rouse, who had an instinctive dread of Indians, at seeing the woods
and side hill, back of Fort Harmer lighted up with a multitude of
fires, when she was told that they were the camp fires of three hundred
savages. They had come in to a treaty, which was held the ninth of
January following. It was early in December, and the emigrants had been
more than eight weeks on the road. The news of their arrival was soon
carried to Campus Martius, the name of the new garrison. Capt. Devoll
hurried on board, delighted once more to embrace his wife and children,
from whom he had been absent more than a year. Their goods and chattels
were put into the “Mayflower,” which was used as a receiving boat for
the emigrants, and with the women and children, landed at the Ohio
company’s wharf. Devoll had built a comfortable two-story house in one
of the curtains of the garrison, to which all were removed that night,
and his happy family slept once more under their own roof, in the far
distant region of the Northwest Territory.
The following spring, a company or association was formed to commence
the settlement fourteen miles below, on the right bank of the Ohio,
afterwards called Belprie. Capt. Devoll, Mr. Rouse, Michael, Capt.
Haskell and Isaac, joined this association. The latter returned to New
England, and moved out his family in the fall of 1789. By the time the
settlers were about to begin to reap a little of the fruits of their
hard labor, in clearing land, building cabins, etc., the Indian war
broke out, and they were all driven into garrison for some five years.
Many were the dangers and hardships they here endured, suffering most
from the small pox and scarlatina maligna.
In the summer of 1790, Bathsheba Rouse taught a school of young boys
and girls at Belprie, which is believed to be the first school of
white children ever assembled within the bounds of the present State
of Ohio. The Moravian missionaries had Indian schools at Gnadenhutten
and Schönbrunn, on the Tuscarawas, as early as the year 1779, eleven
years before this time. She also taught for several successive summers
within the walls of “Farmer’s Castle,” the name of the stout garrison
built by the settlers sixteen miles below Marietta. After the close of
the war the colonists moved out upon their farms. Mr. Rouse and his
family remained in Belprie. Bathsheba married, soon after the close of
the war, Richard, the son of Griffen Greene, one of the Ohio company’s
agents, and a leading man in all public affairs. Cynthia married the
Hon. Paul Fearing, the first delegate to Congress from the Northwest
Territory, and for many years a judge of the court. Elizabeth married
Levi Barber, for many years receiver of public moneys, and member of
Congress for this district during two sessions. The children of these
emigrant females, for wealth and respectability, rank among the first
of our citizens.
Thus closes this sketch of the early emigrants to Muskingum, whose
adventures are only the counterpart of other families who crossed the
Alleghany ranges in the year 1788. It is in fact a portion of the early
history of Ohio, and should be preserved for the same reasons that
Virgil has preserved the incidents of the voyage of Æneas from Troy to
Italy--they were the founders of a new state. Those days of hardship
cannot be reviewed with other than feelings of the highest respect for
the individuals who dared to brave the difficulties and uncertainties
of a pioneer life.[27]
XII.
SARAH WHIPPLE SIBLEY.
Sarah W. Sproat was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on the 28th
of January, 1782. She was the only child of Col. Ebenezer Sproat,
a gallant and accomplished officer of the Revolution, and the
granddaughter of Commodore Abraham Whipple, who also repeatedly
distinguished himself during that war by his activity and bravery.
At the commencement of the struggle. Commodore Whipple was wealthy,
but had impoverished himself by his advances to Government in fitting
out vessels and men for the public service, for which he was never
remunerated, and at its close he found he could no longer sustain the
style of living befitting his position in society, and to which he was
accustomed. His son-in-law, Col. Sproat, was in the same situation,
and both being too proud and high-spirited to conform patiently to
their change of circumstances, they determined to join a party of
their companions-in-arms, who were about to seek a new home in the yet
unexplored wilderness of the West.
They were of the advance party who landed in 1788 at the mouth of the
Muskingum, and commenced the settlement of Marietta. Burnet says in
his notes--“The early adventurers to the Northwestern Territory were
generally men who had spent the prime of their lives in the war of
Independence. Many of them had exhausted their fortunes in maintaining
the desperate struggle, and retired to the wilderness to conceal
their poverty, and avoid comparisons mortifying to their pride, while
struggling to maintain their families and improve their condition. Some
were young men descended from Revolutionary patriots who had fallen in
the contest, or became too feeble to endure the fatigue of settling a
wilderness. Others were adventurous spirits, to whom any change might
be for the better.”
The following year the new settlers were joined by their families.
It is difficult now to conceive the extent of the difficulties
against which these pioneers had to contend, besides the dangers that
surrounded them. So great was the difficulty of transportation that
they were only able to bring the most simple necessaries of life with
them. After their cabins were built, some of them were for months
without other doors than blankets, and with no furniture but the boxes
and trunks they had brought, which were converted into seats, beds,
and tables as the occasion required; and just as they were becoming
comfortable in their new homes, the fearful Indian war broke out, and
every day brought fresh accounts of horrible murders committed in the
immediate vicinity, almost at their doors. Col. Sproat determined
to remove his daughter to a place of safety, where she might at the
same time receive the necessary instruction which during the existing
disturbances she could not enjoy at home.
The Moravian school at Bethlehem then bore a high reputation, and in
1792, when Miss Sproat was but ten years old, she accompanied her
father over the mountains to Bethlehem, most of the way on horseback;
a journey that would be thought formidable at the present day. She
remained there three years, and then went to Philadelphia to receive
lessons in some accomplishments which she had no opportunities for
acquiring in Bethlehem. She resided while in that city in the family of
a friend of her father’s, and became strongly attached to its members.
She made many warm friends in Philadelphia, and left it with regret.
But her father had become impatient for her return, and went for her
in the spring of 1797. He at that time purchased a piano for her in
Philadelphia, the first taken west of the Alleghany mountains.
On her return, she found Marietta much changed and improved: the
inhabitants were no longer in fear of Indian incursions, and many new
settlers had been added to their number. It had become quite a town,
with a very pleasant society, and the danger they had shared in common
had tended to strengthen the bond which already united the early
colonists.
The years intervening between Miss Sproat’s return and her marriage,
passed away swiftly and happily. Being the only child, she was of
course much caressed by her parents, and her natural gaiety and
affectionate, generous disposition made her a favorite with her young
friends. Her father had taken great pains to make her an accomplished
horsewoman, and she was the constant companion of his rides. To this
habit of exercise she was indebted for the ease with which she made the
long and fatiguing journeys she was compelled to take in after life.
After the establishment of the Northwest Territorial Government the
General Court had its sessions alternately at Cincinnati, Detroit,
and Marietta. Mr. Sibley was a young lawyer of high standing, who had
removed from Massachusetts to Ohio in 1797, and soon afterwards to
Detroit. Judge Burnet says of him--“He possessed a sound mind, improved
by a liberal education, and a stability and firmness of character which
commanded general respect, and secured to him the confidence and esteem
of his fellow members.” He constantly attended the sessions of the
Court, and was of course frequently in Marietta. It was there that he
first became acquainted with Miss Sproat. They were married in October,
1802, but she did not go to Detroit until the following spring.
The way to Detroit at that time was by the Ohio river to Pittsburg,
across to Erie, and thence by water to Detroit; the least fatiguing but
a very tedious route. Being entirely at the mercy of wind and weather,
travellers were often ten days crossing the lake, and in one instance
a family was detained three weeks between Erie and the city of the
straits.
Mrs. Sibley was warmly welcomed on her arrival by her husband’s
friends, and so kindly treated that she soon felt at home. The society
was delightful at that time. The fort was strongly garrisoned, and
most of the officers were Southerners, possessing the warmth and ease
of manner peculiar to the South. The inhabitants of the town and its
vicinity were principally French. Some of these were descendants
of noble families in France, and prided themselves upon their
superior polish and refinement. For about six months in the year all
communication with the rest of the world was cut off by ice and snow.
At these seasons the people seemed determined to make up for their
isolation by increased sociability among themselves, and every one kept
open house. Some very agreeable persons resided on the opposite side
of the river, families of British merchants who had formerly lived in
Detroit, but on its cession to the Americans had removed to Canada. A
constant intercourse had always been kept up, and they joined in all
the gaieties of the place.
In August, 1804, Col. Sproat came to Detroit to take his daughter
home to visit her mother. As public business required Mr. Sibley’s
attendance at Washington during the winter, it was arranged that Mrs.
Sibley should return with her father to Marietta, and remain until
the following spring. Their journey was made on horseback. The whole
of the northern part of Ohio was at that time a dense wilderness, and
travellers were obliged to camp out at night. Mrs. Sibley often spoke
of an incident which occurred on this journey. The horse she rode was
one which Col. Sproat had brought on expressly for his daughter’s use,
and was a great favorite. He was unfortunately taken sick on the way,
and with difficulty they reached a spot suitable to encamp for the
night. Everything possible was done for the relief of the poor animal,
but all was in vain, and it was most distressing to hear his groans of
agony. The woods around seemed to be swarming with wolves attracted by
the cries of the horse, and they yelled and howled like so many demons.
The fires around the camp were all that prevented them from rushing
upon its inmates. Mrs. Sibley said she never spent such a fearful
night. The poor horse died towards morning, and they left him with
regret. Their journey was a long and fatiguing one, but they arrived in
safety at Marietta.