CHAPTER XII. 66 ADVANCE OF THE WHITE POPULATION INTO THE NORTHWESTERN TERRITORY.-ADMISSION OF THE STATE OF OHIO" INTO THE FEDERAL UNION.-A.D. 1795 TO 1804. Argument.-Security of the frontier Population after the Treaty of Greenville.-Amicable Intercourse with the Indians.-Emigrants advance upon the Muskingum, Scioto, and Miami Rivers.-Population of Northwestern Territory in 1796.-Of Cincinnati in 1797.-Population advances into the Virginia Military District.-Nathaniel Massie, Pioneer of Scioto Valley.-Chillicothe first Settled.-Tribute to Memory of Massie. First Mail-route opened from Wheeling to Limestone.-Population advances to the "Western Reserve."-" County of Wayne" organized.-Old French Settlements near Detroit.-Traits of Character in French Population.-Retrospect of Northwestern Territory in 1796.-Extension of Settlements up the Scioto and Muskingum Valleys.—“Adams County" organized.-"Ross County" organized.Condition of Chillicothe in 1798.-Extreme Settlements north of Chillicothe.-Herman Blannerhasset emigrates to Ohio in 1798.-His Traits of Character.-Blannerhasset's Island.-Steubenville laid off and settled.-Territorial Population in 1798.Second Grade of Government assumed.-First Territorial Legislature.-Public Surveys.-Counties of Trumbull and Fairfield organized.-Belmont County organized.Indiana Territory organized into a separate Government.-Congress authorizes a Convention to form a State Constitution.-Convention assembles and adopts a Constitution.-"State of Ohio" admitted into the Union.-State Government organized March 1st, 1803.-Character and Merits of Governor St. Clair.-New Counties organized.-Governors of Ohio.-Subsequent Increase of Population and Extension of Civil Government.-Population in 1840.-Character of Emigration to Ohio. [A.D. 1795.] THE treaty of Greenville was hailed with joy throughout the West; in Kentucky, Western Virginia, and Pennsylvania, no less than in the Northwestern Territory. The whole western population of these states was deeply interested in the peace and security of the frontier, for all had participated in the dangers and privations incident to the state of hostilities which had called forth the previous unfortunate campaigns into the Indian country. Several months before the treaty, the greater portion of the Indian tribes had been anxious for peace, and had discontinued their incursions against the Ohio border; yet the exposed settlements in the Northwestern Territory were not altogether secure from outrages committed by a few desperate malcontents, belonging chiefly to the Shawanese nation. The apprehension of danger from such was sufficient to prevent the extension of population beyond the immediate vicinity of forts, stations, and stockades. But no sooner had the treaty of war. Greenville been concluded, than the frontier inhabitants, in conscious security, began to advance; while the Indians, relieved from the toils and privations of war, confidently approached the settlements, anxious to open a friendly intercourse and trade in the sale of their furs, peltries, and game for cash, or to exchange them for powder and lead, and for such necessaries and comforts as were adapted to their mode of life. On the part of the whites, all apprehension of danger ceased, and friendly intercourse succeeded to outrage and The disaffected Indians who persisted in their hostility had retired either into the Far West or to their allies in Canada. Repose and security lighted up the path of the pioneers with new hopes, and renewed energy and enterprise for peopling the fertile and boundless regions before them; and again they prepared to explore the lands which lay inviting their advance in the valleys of the Muskingum, the Hockhocking, the Scioto, and the two Miamis. Forts, stations, and stockades, having lost their importance, began to crumble and decay; while the restless pioneer confidently advanced, pitched his tent, and erected his cabin in the dense forest, or the remote plains which expand near the sources of these beautiful streams. Men of capital and enterprise in the older settlements soon became interested in securing claims and titles to extensive bodies of land, and in leading forth colonies for their occupation. Emigrant families from Kentucky, from Western Virginia, and from Pennsylvania were also advancing across the Ohio, by way of Cincinnati, Marietta, and Wheeling, into the valleys of the Little Miami, Scioto, and Muskingum. Among the most active of the early landed proprietors in the Miami country were Winthrop Sargent, Secretary of the Northwestern Territory, and General James Wilkinson, of Kentucky. These two officers, anxious to speculate in lands, associated themselves with Jonathan Dayton and Israel Ludlow, a surveyor, and made a joint purchase of a large body of lands from J. C. Symmes, lying high up the Little Miami, and extending westward to the Great Miami as high as Mad River. This purchase was made on the 20th day of August, and only seventeen days after the treaty of Greenville had been signed. Preparations were made for the early distribution of this purchase into suitable family tracts, and on the 4th day of November Israel Ludlow commenced surveying the plot of a town, which was named "Dayton," in honor of one of the proprietors.* This town was laid out at the mouth of Mad River, and about one mile below the mouth of Stillwater Creek. The following spring witnessed the erection of the first houses and the arrival of the first families in Dayton. But it was doomed to insignificance as a town for thirteen years, until it became the seat of justice for Montgomery county in the year 1809, although some settlements sprang up in the vicinity before the close of the second year. [A.D. 1796.] Extension of Settlements into the Miami, Scioto, and Muskingum Valleys.-A large portion of the emigrants from the New England States, and from Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia, advanced by the way of Brownsville and Wheeling. Here a portion descended the Ohio to Limestone, and other points in Kentucky, to make preparations for their final residence. Others proceeded across the Ohio River at Wheeling and other convenient points, and thence by land to the section of country which they had selected for their homes. The colonies for the Muskingum and Scioto valleys passed chiefly by this route into the interior of the territory. Before the close of the year 1796, the white population of the Northwestern Territory increased to about five thousand souls of all ages, who were distributed chiefly in the lower valleys of the Muskingum, Scioto, and Miami Rivers, and upon their small tributaries within fifty miles of the Ohio River. Such were the extent and condition of the white settlements previous to the year 1797. The Ohio Company's purchase continued to receive emigrants, and numerous settlements had been made on the banks of the Ohio and upon its small tributaries south of the Muskingum. The purchase of Symmes on the Miami presented numerous small villages, besides those near Fort Washington and Columbia, both of which had greatly increased their population since the treaty of Greenville. Cincinnati had increased its population and improved the style of its buildings. In the year 1792 the town contained about thirty log cabins, besides the buildings and appurtenances of Fort Washington, and not above two hundred and fifty. inhabitants. In the beginning of the year 1796 it contained * Ohio Gazetteer of 1841, p. 157. As more than one hundred cabins, besides about one dozen frame houses, with a population of nearly six hundred persons.* yet, brick houses had not been used at Cincinnati; those chimneys not built of wood and clay were made of stone. Stone abounded in the hills in the rear of the town, and supplied abundant material for all the purposes to which brick is usually applied; and, as stone was much more easily obtained than lumber or mechanics in a new country, it soon became a substitute for wood in the construction of houses. Within the Virginia Military District, between the Little Miami and the Scioto Rivers, were several new settlements in the vicinity of Manchester, and less than thirty miles from the Ohio. Within three years a few settlements had been extended ten miles up the Little Miami and twenty-five miles up the Scioto Rivers, or as far as the present town of Piketon. Surveys had been executed by Nathaniel Massie, the enterprising pioneer of the Scioto Valley, over most of the fertile lands westward to the Little Miami, as far north as Todd's Fork, and upon all the branches of Paint Creek, and eastward to the Scioto, near Westfall. He had done much to extend the settlements upon the Scioto, and his name deserves to be enrolled among the hardy pioneers who led the van of civilization into the western wilderness. Nathaniel Massie was an early emigrant to Kentucky; born in Goochland county, Virginia, near the close of the year 1763, he was a soldier in the Revolutionary war at the age of seventeen. A surveyor in 1783, he set out for the West in quest of employment, where, for more than two years, he was engaged in exploring, locating, and surveying the fine lands upon the north side of the Kentucky River. In the autumn of 1787 he engaged with zeal as a surveyor under Colonel Richard C. Anderson, surveyor-general for the Virginia Military Land Districts, and surveyed north of the Ohio in the Virginia Military District, between the Little Miami and Scioto Rivers. Near the close of the year 1790, he commenced the first settlement in the Virginia Military District by laying out the town of Manchester, twelve miles above Limestone. In March following his stockade was completed as a defense against Indian hostility, and contained a population of thirty families. * Cincinnati in 1841, p. 28. † Burnett's Letters, p. 11, 12. During the year 1795, Massie, having secured large bodies of excellent lands west of the Scioto, upon the branches of Paint Creek, led out an exploring party for the purpose of laying off a town at some advantageous point on the Scioto; but encountering hostile Indians near Reeve's Crossings, on Paint Creek, he returned to Manchester. But the design of laying off a town was not abandoned. Early in March, 1796, he assembled another party, and again advanced up the Scioto to the mouth of Paint Creek, where he erected a "station," and, early in April, planted a crop of corn. The colony was well supplied with horses, stock, farming utensils, and all the requisites of a new settlement. Cabins were erected, and in May three hundred acres of fertile prairie had been turned up by thirty plows, ready for pitching a crop of corn.† Thus commenced the first settlement on the waters of Paint Creek, at "Station Prairie," three miles below the present city of Chillicothe. While the settlers were employed in the duties of a pioneer colony, Massie, assisted by Duncan M'Arthur, was engaged in the selection of a site for the contemplated town upon the banks of the Scioto River. The elevated alluvial plain three miles above was selected for the town, and was soon laid off into two hundred and eighty-seven town lots, and one hundred and sixty-nine out-lots, regularly intersected at right angles by wide streets and lanes alternately. According to the original plan of settlement, one hundred town lots and one hundred out-lots were selected by lot as a donation to the first hundred settlers. To others, the price of a choice town lot was ten dollars, and each owner proceeded to erect upon his lot the stipulated house or tenement for future residence. The town sprang up almost, as it were, by magic. Before the close of the year, it contained, besides private residences, several stores, taverns, and mechanical shops. The arts of pioneer life began to multiply, and to give competence in the midst of the wilderness. Emigrants constantly arrived; the population, trade, and enterprise of the place continued to increase under the liberal policy of its enterprising founder.‡ The town was called "Chillicothe," a term which in the Indian dialect signifies town. It was the first town west of the mountains which was built in peace and quietude, and not requiring the protection of stockades and forts against Indian hostility. * M'Donald's Sketches, p. 56-58. † Idem, p. 60, 61. Idem, p. 62, 63. |