Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet Part 5

The French, during this period, erected a line of posts from the mouth of the Mississippi, by way of the Wabash, Maumee and the lakes, to Montreal, and finally, in 1733, established a line of posts from Lake Erie to the junction of the Monongahela and Alleghany Rivers, where Pittsburg now stands, and claimed the whole country north of the Ohio from its source to its mouth.

And here, for the first time, comes into view the majestic form of George Was.h.i.+ngton, then a young man of twenty-two. He was sent by Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia, to visit the several Indian tribes at the head of the Ohio River and the French forces at Venango.

In the dead of winter he made his trip into the wilderness, and soon ascertained that it was the fixed purpose of the French authorities to occupy all the country to the sources of the Ohio, including a large section of what is now a part of Pennsylvania and New York. The commander, St. Pierre, declared his purpose of seizing every Englishman within the Ohio valley. The result of the expedition of Was.h.i.+ngton left no choice to the English government, except to abandon their claim to the northwest territory, or to declare war. The English t.i.tle was based upon their occupation of the sh.o.r.es of the Atlantic coast from Ma.s.sachusetts to Georgia.

It was claimed that this occupation carried the right to possession westward from sea to sea.

In the earliest grants to the colonies, especially to Virginia and Connecticut, their western boundaries extended to the South Sea.

Where the South Sea lay, and what was the breadth of the continent, was not defined by these kingly grants. James I and his councilors then knew but little about America. There was no way to settle this disputed t.i.tle between the two powers but by war. A Virginia company had built a fort on the south side of the Ohio, below the site of the present city of Pittsburg. In 1754 the French troops occupied the point at the junction of the Monongahela and Alleghany, where the city of Pittsburg now is, and erected a fort.

Then followed the well-known war of the French and English, Braddock's defeat, the heroism of Was.h.i.+ngton, the capture of Quebec and the cession of Canada and the northwestern territory to Great Britain.

It is impossible to overrate the importance of these events upon the future of America. The result was that the region east of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio River was the property of Great Britain and the inheritance of the English race. The great northwest was theirs, and fairly won.

The extinction of the French t.i.tle to the Ohio territory was at once followed by the claims of several colonies to parts of this territory under grants from the British crown; but the English government declared all the land west of the sources of the Atlantic rivers as under the dominion of the king for the use of the Indians, and all persons were forbidden to settle or remain within it. This dispute was postponed by the War of the Revolution. An event during the war, apparently of small importance, had a controlling influence in securing to the United States the northwestern territory.

The State of Virginia, claiming t.i.tle under a grant from the British crown to the regions west of the Alleghanies, in 1778, organized an expedition, under Colonel George Rogers Clark, to punish and repel incursions of Indians, and capture the old French posts then held by the English. This he accomplished, so that when negotiations for peace were entered upon in 1782 our plenipotentiaries could maintain the t.i.tle of the United States to the northwestern territory, not only by grants to the English colonies, but by conquest in war, and actual possession at the time of the negotiations. The British insisted on making the Ohio River a boundary of the United States.

Mr. Adams said that sooner than yield the western territory he would exhort his countrymen to continue the war as long as they could keep a soldier in the field. Mr. Jay was equally determined, and finally the line of the lakes was agreed to.

The treaty of peace recognized the St. Lawrence, the lakes and the 49th parallel of lat.i.tude as the dividing line between the United States and Canada. But the question arose whether the western territory was the property of the United States as the result of their joint struggle for independence, or of the several states under the grants of the English crown. This dangerous controversy delayed the formation of the federal government; but it was happily settled by the cession of the territory to the United States, with or without conditions and reservations, by the several states claiming western lands.

As a part of this cession and settlement, and almost equal in importance to the const.i.tution of the United States, was the celebrated ordinance organizing the northwestern territory. This ordinance guaranteed the subdivision of the territory into states, and secured to them, by a perpetual compact, the forms and substance of a republican government, a proper disposition of the public lands, and the formal prohibition of slavery in the territories, and may be properly considered the commencement of the history of the State of Ohio.

We may here pause to consider the condition, topography and characteristics of the Territory, now the State, of Ohio in 1787, when the first territorial government was organized by Congress.

It was bounded on the south and east by the Ohio River, touching on its northeast border the States of Pennsylvania and New York; on the north by Lake Erie, and on the west by an arbitrary line not then defined, and contained about 40,000 square miles. Its topography may be described as an elevated plain, its highest elevation being 1,540 feet above the sea, its lowest depression being 440 feet above the sea, and its mean alt.i.tude about 800 feet above the sea. It is traversed by the comb of a watershed between the river and the lakes, running from northeast to southwest across the state, much nearer the lake than the river, at an elevation above the sea of from 1,000 to 1,300 feet. The shed on either side is penetrated by rivers of clear, pure water, in valleys of great fertility, and usually with hillsides of a gentle slope and fertile soil.

In 1787 it was an unbroken wilderness covered with great forests and spa.r.s.ely inhabited by savage tribes of Indians, only here and there tempered by the civilizing teachings of the missionary. One of the earliest descriptions I find of the famous Miami Valley is as follows:

"The land beyond the Scioto, except the first twenty miles, is rich and level, bearing walnut trees of huge size, the maple, the wild cherry and the ash; full of little streams and rivulets; variegated by beautiful natural prairies, covered with wild rye, blue gra.s.s and white clover. Turkeys abounded, and deer and elks, and most sorts of game; of buffaloes, thirty or forty were frequently seen feeding in one meadow. Nothing is wanting but cultivation to make this a most delightful country."

This favored land was thrown open for settlement at a time when the people of the states had been impoverished by the war, when there was neither money, credit nor commerce, when the government of the Continental Congress had fallen into contempt, and the new government was pa.s.sing the ordeal of a vote in states jealous of each other. It was the only land subject to sale by the United States, for Kentucky was covered by Virginia grants, Western New York was the property of land companies, and all beyond was a _terra incognita_. There was a struggle for Ohio land among all the northern states, including Virginia and Maryland. Companies were formed, composed mostly of officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary War, to secure from Congress favorable land grants. Virginia and Connecticut had their ample reserves, New York had a large unoccupied region in her territory, and the other northern states demanded their shares in the common property of the United States. The result was that all the states established settlements in Ohio, and, for the first time in our history, the descendants of the Puritans of New England, the Dutch of New York, the Germans and Scotch-Irish of Pennsylvania, the Jersey Blues, the Catholics of Maryland, the Cavaliers of Virginia and the loyal refugees of Canada united their blood and fortunes in establis.h.i.+ng a purely American state on the soil of Ohio.

Among these early settlers were the foremost men of all the states, the Revolutionary stock that won independence, who carried their love of liberty and the principles and instincts of their localities to a soil more fertile than any of the old states, and with natural resources, climate and facilities for settlement and civilization as favorable as any within their reach. The limits of this sketch will not permit details of the progress of this migration. The first difficulty it encountered was the toilsome way to the promised land. All roads, such as they were, crossed the Alleghany Mountains, or followed the longer route by the lakes. A voyage now easily made in a day then occupied sixty days on foot or on horseback, and every article of civilized life had to be transported with painful labor over rude paths and roads, relieved sometimes by barges and canoes on creeks and rivers.

When the first pioneers reached their destination, their land was already occupied. Every part of Ohio was then in the possession of Indians. The war they had maintained with the pioneers of Kentucky only prepared them for the desperate struggle with new invaders. The first settlement of the New England colony was made in Marietta, April, 1788. From that day to the close of the war with Great Britain in 1815 there were hostilities in some part of Ohio with the Indians. There is not a county in Ohio that was not at some time the scene of a battle with the Indians, or a skirmish, or a ma.s.sacre.

The interesting "Historical Collections," recently published by Henry Howe, give many details of this local warfare. But, aside from the danger that lurked at all times over the cabin of the pioneer, there were more regular battles with the Indians fought on the soil of Ohio than in any other state of the Union. The defeat of General Harmer with 1,300 men, in 1790, in two battles in the Scioto valley, laid open to predatory warfare all the settlements in Ohio, and some in Kentucky. Every attempt at negotiations was defeated by British interference.

In the following year, 1791, a force of over 2,000 men was organized at Cincinnati under General St. Clair, and marched against the Indians at the head waters of the Maumee. While encamped they were attacked by the Indians and ignominiously defeated, losing a large number of officers and men. They retreated in disorder, abandoning their baggage and artillery, and throwing away their arms and accoutrements. The loss in this disastrous campaign was more than 900 men, of whom 600 were killed. This calamity spread terror throughout all the settlements as far as Pittsburg, and arrested for a time the migration to Ohio.

The successive defeats of Harmer and St. Clair greatly impressed General Was.h.i.+ngton with the necessity of marching an overwhelming force against the Indians, and he appealed to Congress for the necessary aid; but there was a manifest reluctance in Congress to vote supplies, even if the failure to do so involved the abandonment to the Indians of all the territory northwest of the Ohio. The supplies, however, were granted, and General Wayne, a Revolutionary hero, was placed in command.

In August, 1794, with a force of over 3,000 men, he advanced to the confluence of the Maumee and the Auglaize, and there destroyed the Indian villages and their abundant crops.

Following the Indians down the Maumee to a fort recently built by the British, the forces of General Wayne attacked the Indians and inflicted upon them a disastrous defeat. This victory settled forever the occupancy of this territory by the white man, and the irreversible fate of the poor Indian, though, as it will appear hereafter, he struggled for this, his favorite region, for twenty years more.

In looking back over a period of one hundred years it is impossible to suppress a sense of injustice, and a feeling of sympathy for the Indian in his unequal struggle. After their defeat by General Wayne, a general conference of all the Indian tribes in the northwest was proposed, and agreed upon, to be held during the following year at Greenville. The full details of this conference are given by Judge Burnet, in his "Notes on the Northwestern Territory." General Wayne, in many "council fires," explained to the chiefs of the numerous tribes the terms of the treaties made at Forts McIntosh and Harmer, and demanded that they be ratified with additional concessions and grants. Many of the replies, in the figurative language of the Indians, are eloquent appeals to their "Great Father" and their "Elder Brothers" to allow them to possess in peace the land of their fathers; that they were not represented when these treaties were made, and that their terms had not been observed by their white brethren.

It was the same old story of injustice and wrong, of might against right. They were compelled to accept the terms offered them. The result was the cession by the Indians to the United States of 25,000 square miles of southern and eastern Ohio and many other tracts west of Ohio. The Indians were to receive in return $20,000 in presents, and an annuity of $9,500, to be distributed among the tribes. By this treaty confidence was restored to the settlements, and the tide of migration was renewed, and continued until the breaking out of the War of 1812. But the treaty of Greenville did not put an end to Indian hostilities. They still occupied northwestern Ohio, and that part of the reserve west of the Cuyahoga River.

Occasional aggressions by both races led to outrages and murder, usually followed by encroachments on Indian territory. In 1805 the remainder of the Western Reserve was ceded by treaty. In 1818 the northwestern part of Ohio was purchased by the United States by treaty, subject to certain reservations, all of which were subsequently ceded to the United States, the last by the Wyandots in 1842, when the remnant, about 700 souls, moved to Kansas.

The most important, and by far the most dangerous, conspiracy of Indians since the treaty of Greenville was organized by the "Prophet,"

a crazy enthusiast denounced as an impostor and accused of witchcraft, and his brother, Tec.u.mseh, a warrior of approved courage, possessed of all the craft of the Indian, with remarkable intelligence and comprehensive views. They united most of the tribes who had partic.i.p.ated in that treaty, and threatened with death all the chiefs who were concerned in the subsequent treaties. This excited the attention of General Harrison, then Governor of the Territory of Indiana, who, in 1811, after many ineffectual conferences with Tec.u.mseh and the "Prophet," organized a force of 800 men and marched against the "Prophet's" town, in what is now Ca.s.s county, Indiana.

The battle of Tippecanoe ensued, in which the Indians were totally defeated and the town burned. The loss of the troops was so great that General Harrison made a speedy retreat. The war with Great Britain soon followed, and Tec.u.mseh entered the British service.

He partic.i.p.ated in most of the battles in Ohio and Michigan during that war, and was killed at the battle of the Thames on the 5th of October, 1813. With him ended all organized Indian hostilities in Ohio.

Prior to 1798 all the laws governing the northwestern territory were selected from the laws of the states by the territorial judges appointed by the President. In that year it was ascertained that the territory contained 5,000 white male inhabitants, when they were authorized, as a matter of right, to organize and elect representatives to a general a.s.sembly, who, with a legislative council, were authorized to pa.s.s laws, subject to the veto of the governor. The general a.s.sembly was duly organized on the 16th of September, 1799, and was remarkable for the ability and distinction of its members, most of whom had been soldiers in the Revolutionary War. This was the beginning of home rule in Ohio. The life of the territorial legislature was brief. Early in January, 1802, a census was taken of the inhabitants in the eastern division of the Territory, now the State of Ohio, by which it was found that it contained 45,028 persons. Congress promptly authorized the people to form a const.i.tution and state government. This authority was speedily acted upon, a convention of thirty-five members was elected, and a const.i.tution adopted November, 1802, without being submitted to the people.

This const.i.tution remained unaltered in a single particular for fifty years. It was regarded at the time, and ever since, as a model framework of state government, clear and brief in its provisions, but comprehensive enough to meet the necessities of a people growing in population from 45,000 to 1,980,329 in 1850.

The present const.i.tution of Ohio was framed by a convention, which met at Columbus, on the 6th of May, 1850, and adjourned on the 10th of March, 1851. This const.i.tution was ratified by a majority of the people, and is still in force.

The decennial growth of the population of Ohio is here shown:

1802 . . . . 45,028 1810 . . . 230,760 1820 . . . . 381,295 1830 . . . 937,903 1840 . . . . 1,519,467 1850 . . . 1,980,329 1860 . . . . 2,339,511 1870 . . . 2,665,260 1880 . . . . 3,198,062 1890 . . . 3,672,316

In 1802 Ohio was eighteenth in rank among her sister states; in 1810 the thirteenth; in 1820 the fifth; in 1830 the fourth; in 1840 the third, and so continued until the recent census when the marvelous growth of Chicago placed Illinois in advance of Ohio.

This remarkable growth was accompanied by rapid changes in the habits and conditions of the people. Within a century they had their struggle with the Indians; then their contest with nature in a new country covered by forests--the "age of the pioneers;" then the period of internal improvements, when roads and ca.n.a.ls and means of transportation were the great objects of desire; then the marvelous development of railroads, followed by manufactures.

These changes, following in succession, are the most striking features of the history of Ohio. I have already referred to the pioneers who planted the first settlement, who bore the brunt of Indian warfare, and firmly founded free inst.i.tutions in Ohio.

After this period, and the organization of the state government, the great migration to Ohio commenced which, within a century, was destined to extend across the continent. The settler was generally poor, bringing all his earthly possessions, with wife and children, in a covered wagon, slowly traversing difficult roads to the new and only land, then open to settlement. But the land was cheap, the t.i.tle clear, the soil good, and all were on the same footing, willing to help each other. The task before him was discouraging.

He found his quarter-section in the unbroken forest, its boundary blazed on the trees by the surveyor, and all around him a wilderness.

His first work was to erect a rough cabin of logs for a shelter; his next to clear an opening for a crop. Every new settler was a welcome neighbor, though miles away. The mail, the newspaper, the doctor and the preacher were long in coming. In this solitary contest with nature the settler had often to rely upon his gun for food, upon simple remedies for new and strange diseases, and upon the hope that his crop would be spared from destruction by wild beasts.

This was the life of the early settler in every county in Ohio, as each in its turn was organized and opened to settlement. A life so hard, was yet so attractive that many pioneers, when a few neighbors gathered around them, preferred to sell their clearings and push further into the wilderness. In the meantime the older settlements attracted newcomers. Mechanics and tradesmen came along them. Then towns sprang up, and incipient cities, with corner lots and hopeful speculators, tempted eastern capitalists to invest their money in Ohio.

Ohio, in these early days, was the only outlet of the population of the northern and middle states. Emigrants from the south, following lines of lat.i.tude, went into Kentucky and Tennessee.

The great west, with its vast prairies and plains, was not then accessible. Had it been so, the forests of Ohio might have been left in solitude for many years to come. During all this period, which we may properly call the pioneer stage, the settlers had no market for their produce, except to supply the demand of incoming immigrants. Grain and fruit would not bear the expense of transportation. The only way to obtain ready money was to convert corn and grain into hogs, horses and cattle, which were driven on the hoof to Pittsburg and eastern cities. But little money circulated, and that was chiefly irredeemable bank notes. The clothing of the people was mainly of linsey-woolsey, home-made.

The spinning wheel, big and little, was to be found in every household. Settlers near the banks of the Ohio River, and its tributaries, had the advantage of floating their surplus products in rough barges down the Ohio to New Orleans for a market, so that the southern part of the state advanced rapidly, while the northern part was still in the possession of the Indians.

When the Indian t.i.tle was extinguished settlers came from Pennsylvania into the counties immediately west of it, which are still, in the habits of the people, in the location of houses and barns and the cultivation of the soil, the precise counterpart of the region from which the settlers came. The "Connecticut Reserve" was slowly filled by the northern route of the lakes, almost exclusively from New England, and the habits and customs of that region were transported to their new homes, so that the "Western Reserve" to- day is a striking type of old Connecticut in habits, and with the same ideas. The lakes became the highway of commerce, and the inhabitants of the interior carried their surplus grain and produce in long lines of wagons to the new towns along the lake sh.o.r.e, where it was exchanged for the necessaries of life and enough money to pay taxes. All trade in the interior was by barter with merchants, who became the bankers of the people.

The construction of the Erie Ca.n.a.l, and the introduction of steamboats on the rivers and lakes, was the beginning of a great revolution.

Then followed in Ohio the era of internal improvement by the construction of two lines of ca.n.a.l across the state, one from Cleveland, on Lake Erie, to Portsmouth, on the Ohio River, and the other from Toledo, on Maumee Bay, to the city of Cincinnati, with the lateral ca.n.a.l to Pittsburg, and the improvement of the Muskingum River by locks and ca.n.a.ls.

Salmon P. Chase, then a young attorney at Cincinnati, in his introduction to his compilation of the laws of the state, published in 1833, thus describes the effect of these improvements upon the prosperity of Ohio:

"They have afforded to the farmer of the interior an easy access to market, and have enhanced the value of his farm and his productions.

They have facilitated intercourse between different sections of the state, and have thus tended to make the people more united, as well as more prosperous. They have furnished to the people a common object of generous interest and satisfaction. They have attracted a large accession of population and capital. And they have made the name and character of Ohio well-known throughout the civilized world, as a name and character of which her sons may be justly proud."

This period of prosperity continued for twenty years, when, in 1846, a still greater revolution was introduced by the building of railroads. The first object of this was to furnish cheaper transportation of the produce of the farmer to the Ohio River and Lake Erie. The first railroads were from the interior, north and south. They were little better than tramways, supported by cross- ties with longitudinal stringpieces covered with thin strips of iron. The carriages were propelled by feeble engines, and it was thought a matter of great importance when, by this new motive power, a bushel of wheat could be transported from the interior to distances of from fifty to a hundred miles for from six to ten cents. While a young attorney, I thought it a grievous injustice that my client, one of the new railroad companies, was compelled by a jury to pay $2,000 for the right-of-way over twenty miles of farm land. It was soon discovered that railroads were to be so successful that they would supersede for the transportation of persons and pa.s.sengers all kinds of water transportation, and that lines running long distances east and west would have the benefit of the through travel and traffic. In rapid succession several lines of railroad were built from the eastern cities across the state to the northwest, west and southwest. Within twenty years from the first construction of railways they had almost superseded all former modes of communication, and had reduced the rates of travel and transportation to less than one-half the former rates.

After the close of the Civil War the construction of railroads rapidly increased, so that in 1890 the total miles of railway track in Ohio was 10,464, and the valuation for taxes was $102,950,642, a development in a single branch of industry far greater than in any other. This improvement led to the adoption of a system of free turnpikes in most of the counties in Ohio, constructed by local taxation, so that now Ohio is as well supplied with well- constructed turnpikes and railroads as any state in the Union, and perhaps, as well as many European states.

Another great change in the industry of the people of Ohio rapidly followed the construction of railroads. Manufacturing establishments of almost every kind were rapidly constructed, mostly since the war.

It appears by census, prior to 1890, that in 1850 the total value of manufactures of Ohio was $62,692,279; in 1860 it was $121,000,000; in 1870 it was $269,713,610; in 1880 it was $348,298,300. In 1890 it was over $500,000,000. During the single year 1889 there were incorporated over 400 new companies with a capital stock of $25,584,500. Almost every article needed for use by the people is thus produced at home, and great quant.i.ties of machinery, especially of farming machines of every variety, are exported to every state of the Union and to many foreign countries. The manufacturing industry has thus become second only to that of agriculture, and it is believed that, under the great impetus given by our protective laws, the time is not far distant when the value of manufactured products will be equal to, or greater than, the productions of the farm.

The most striking result of the change in the industries of Ohio is the rapid increase of city population, compared with farming population. The following table will show the population of twenty cities, by the censuses of 1850 and 1890:

1850. 1890.

Akron . . . . . . . 3,266 27,601 Canton . . . . . . 2,603 26,189 Chillicothe . . . . 7,100 11,288 Cincinnati . . . . 115,435 296,908 Columbus . . . . . 17,882 88,150 Cleveland . . . . 17,034 261,353 Dayton . . . . . . 10,977 61,220 Findlay . . . . . 1,256 18,553 Hamilton . . . . . 3,210 17,565 Ironton . . . . . ---- 10,939 Lima . . . . . . . 757 15,987 Mansfield . . . . 3,557 13,473 Newark . . . . . . 3,654 15,286 Portsmouth . . . . 4,011 12,394 Sandusky . . . . . 5,087 18,471 Springfield . . . 5,108 31,895 Steubenville . . . 6,140 13,394 Tiffin . . . . . . 2,718 10,801 Toledo . . . . . . 3,829 81,434 Zanesville . . . . 7,929 21,009 221,553 1,053,910