a corrupt dialect, and ignorant of the English tongue, which was a foreign language to them. Their ignorance of the language of their new rulers for a time was a source of much inconvenience to both parties. This made public business, and especially the administration of justice in the Federal courts, slow and tedious. Every word must necessarily pass from mouth to ear through an interpreter for the benefit of the French citizens. The progress in business was not only slow and tedious, but novel, and often amusing; but it was seldom satisfactory to the French. Another cause of dissatisfaction to them was the mode of administering justice through the mummery and tedious process of court forms, and, as they conceived, that useless appendage to a court, a jury.* It created delay; nor could they comprehend its advantages. Formerly, both under the French and English dominion, they had been accustomed to more prompt and speedy action, when the will of the commandant was law, and his decision final, to which all bowed with due submission. This mode possessed the advantage of being prompt without expense or delay, and the decisions were often more correct than the verdicts of juries, and free of the embarrassing quibbles of law. Another source of dissatisfaction prevailed, which also sprang from the American mode of conducting litigated questions. Attorneys were of course interested in encouraging litigation, especially where doubts arose concerning points of law relative to real estates. The attorneys were anxious to test the correctness and validity of the late commandant's decisions, and hence they stirred up questions of law at the expense and cost of the litigants. The attorneys were a new appendage to the forms of judicial proceedings with the French, and, what was more annoying, they encouraged litigation whether the cause was good or bad, provided the parties were good for their fees. Cases of this kind, relative to real estate or landed property, in the course of a few years became numerous, prominent upon the records of the courts, and highly profitable to the attorneys. The expenses of courts, the costs of counsel, and the national or provincial abhorrence of the Americans, or "Bostonais," had but little effect in creating a predilection for American justice or for the Federal government. * Burnett's Letters, p. 63-66, note. + Ibidem. The settlements on the Raisin, Detroit, and Maumee Rivers, as well as those on the Wabash and in the "Illinois country," were composed almost exclusively of Creole French, or French Canadians, remains of the old French colonies. They lived in the old Creole style, each settlement or homestead having a narrow front on the river bank, near which ran the public road, passing each man's door successively. They were generally poor, indolent, illiterate, and credulous, if not superstitious. They were Catholics, as their fathers had been before them, in whose footsteps they had trodden for three generations without change or desire of change.* Ignorant, poor, and contented, it is not surprising that they should deprecate the authority of the Federal government, and what they considered the delays and useless forms of their judicial proceedings. The Counties of the Northwestern Territory in 1796.-The whole of the Northwestern Territory not in the actual possession of the Indian tribes was now organized into five extensive counties, as has been before observed. Washington county comprised all that portion of the present State of Ohio within forty miles of the Ohio River, and between the Muskingum and the Little Miami; Marietta was the seat of justice. Hamilton county comprised all that portion of the state between the Little and the Great Miami, within the same distance of the Ohio River; and Cincinnati was the county seat. Knox county embraced the region near the Ohio River, between the Great Miami and the Wabash Rivers; and Vincennes was the county seat. St. Clair county embraced the settlements upon the Illinois and upon the Kaskaskia Rivers, as well as those upon the Upper Mississippi; and Kaskaskia was the seat of justice. Wayne county, recently organized, embraced all the settlements upon the Maumee, Raisin, and Detroit Rivers; and Detroit was the seat of justice. The jurisdiction of each of these counties extended over a territory but little less in extent than some of the New England States. The settlements were few, comparatively small, and widely separated by an uninhabited wilderness of not less than one hundred miles in extent, except where the solitary hut of the frontier hunter broke the uniformity of the scene. The only routes of intercourse between these remote settlements were either the liquid high-ways of nature, or bridle-paths and *Burnett's Letters, p. 63, 64, note. "blazed-traces," through the deep forests which covered the southern portion of this extensive territory. A cabin, a hunter's hut, or a solitary family residence might be seen on these routes at the distance of ten or fifteen miles from each other, where man and horse might obtain imperfect shelter and scanty fare. In other directions, the traveler might traverse the wilderness for thirty or forty miles without house or shelter, or food for man or beast, except the prolific herbage which covered his route on every side. [A.D. 1797.] Extension of Population in 1797 and 1798.The settlements had extended sparsely up the Scioto Valley and River; a village of more than fifty cabins, log houses, and frames, had sprung into existence upon the site where Chillicothe had been laid out twelve months before; a few scattering settlements were found along the river for twenty miles below, and also upon some of the tributaries within fifty miles of the mouth. Forty-five miles by land above Chillicothe, on the Scioto, were three or four cabins, recently erected near the site of the present town of Franklinton, opposite the present location of Columbus, and not far from the Indian boundary. But this remote portion was a perfect wilderness of woods and wet prairies, and the few settlers were such hunters as live only on the extreme verge of civilization, or who, like John Brickell, had lived with the Indians until they had been "weaned" from civilized life.* Two years afterward, a cabin might be seen in this region every ten or twelve miles upon the principal routes and traces. Upon the Muskingum but few settlements had extended above the present site of Zanesville, which was near the limits of the Indian country, and was occupied by a few squatters with their half-formed cabins, barely giving them a shelter from the inclemency of the seasons. In the mean time, since the treaty of Greenville, a large number of emigrants from Kentucky and Virginia had advanced into the extreme eastern portion of Hamilton county, on the west side of the Scioto River, within the limits of the "Virginia Military District." Hundreds of settlements had been already made, and the population had augmented until it became expedient to divide the county of Hamilton. The governor and council, accordingly, on the 10th day of July laid VOL. II.-X * American Pioneer, vol. i., p. 55. off and organized Adams county, which comprised the eastern half of what had been Hamilton county. Manchester was made the seat of justice, and the first court was held in September following. The same year the seat of justice was fixed at "Adamsville," four miles above the mouth of Brush Creek, by Secretary Sargent.* Nathaniel Massie was colonel of militia, and Thomas Worthington, Hugh Cochran, and Samuel Smith were the first magistrates for these settle ments. Emigrants from New England and from Pennsylvania continued to arrive in the eastern portion of the territory, and had already formed numerous settlements west of the Ohio for more than fifty miles north of the Muskingum, and beyond the Ohio Company's purchase. This region was organized into the county of Jefferson, and embraced the country upon the Ohio for more than thirty miles above Wheeling, and as far below. For nearly eight years past, Cincinnati had presented an animated scene of military parade, with the pomp and circumstance of war, and the thrilling music of the drum and fife, diversified by the roar of the morning gun as its echo reverberated along the hills which form the shores of the Ohio; but Fort Washington having ceased to be the headquarters of the army, and the general rendezvous of all the troops destined for the northwestern campaigns and frontier posts, Cincinnati lost much of its former consequence, which had been imparted by the arrival of droves of pack-horses, with all the attendant business of the commissary department. Stripped of all these incitements to life and enterprise, Cincinnati began to assume the appearance of a quiet commercial town,† and Fort Washington, with its imposing outworks and block-houses, lay useless and neglected.‡ [A.D. 1798.] The year 1798 found the population of Hamilton county greatly augmented by recent emigration. The same increase by emigration existed at different points on the Ohio, from Hamilton eastward to Jefferson county. But the strongest tide of population was beginning to flow into the Scioto Valley, not only from the East, but also from Kentucky and Tennessee. The Scioto country had become noted † American Pioneer, vol. ii., p. 98, &c. * Ohio Gazetteer, p. 51, 52. for its fine wooded bottoms, no less than for its level plains, which spread out almost boundless in extent a few miles north of Chillicothe. Hence it became a center of attraction to the advancing emigrants. Before the midsummer of 1798, the governor deemed it expedient to organize the country north of Adams, to comprise the upper settlements on the Scioto; and, on the 20th of August, in council, he laid off and organized the county of "Ross," named in honor of James Ross, an enterprising agent of the Ohio Company. Chillicothe, having about two hundred inhabitants, was the county seat. The first Court of Common Pleas was held in Chillicothe during the same autumn, and the first case on the docket was conducted by William Creighton, Jr., a lawyer of great worth and talents. 66 As yet Chillicothe was in the midst of an isolated settlement of not more than ten miles in extent, and Ross county contained large regions of country unexplored. The " Piqua Plains," intersected by "Zane's Trace," twenty miles from Chillicothe, presented only one cabin near the eastern margin, and three miles south of it was another; thence to the present site of Lancaster one more cabin was seen near the trace; from thence to the mouth of Licking Creek several improvements were commenced; but from that point eastward to Indian Creek, near the Ohio, the route was through an unsettled region. A "blazed trace" of sixty miles opened a communication between the frontier settlements of Western Virginia, near Clarksburg and Marietta. About the first of October, 1798, Felix Renick and Joseph Harness, surveyors from the south branch of the Potomac, and Leonard Stump, set out on a tour of exploration in the Scioto Valley in search of the fine lands seen by their friends more than twenty years previous in Lord Dunmore's campaign. Provided each with a good rifle, a pack-horse laden with supplies, and ammunition, they passed by way of Clarksburg, on the west branch of the Monongahela, to the Muskingum Valley, and thence westward to the Scioto Plains. Advancing upon Zane's Trace, they found upon the present site of Zanesville only a wilderness house of entertainment, near which were encamped a few white hunters, surrounded by Indian wigwams, occupied by the native savages employed in hunting, fishing, trading, and drinking. The region near Columbus, the present state capital, was a dense forest; one mile distant, near the present town |