Ohio History Journal

406        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

HISTORIC BEGINNINGS OF THE OHIO VALLEY.

W. J. HOLLAND, D. D., LL. D.,

Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg, Pa.

The Ohio River and the Ohio Valley are from the standpoint of

the geologist of very recent origin. There was a time when the greater

part of the water which is discharged through this great stream found

its way to the valley of the St. Lawrence, and thence to the Atlantic

Ocean. At the glacial epoch the great continental glacier creeping down

toward the south opposed barriers to the northward flow of the waters,

and in consequence they were turned toward the southwest, and the

great river, on the banks of which we are today assembled, came into

being. When the ice-sheet retreated, Flora, returning again from the

south, cast her garlands upon the desolated hills. The valleys, the

ravines, the mountains were clothed once more, as they had been clothed

before the Age of Ice, with splendid vegetation. The musk-ox, caribou,

and other boreal animals followed the ice as it retreated, and from the

region of the Gulf of Mexico there pressed up another fauna. And

later came man, moving northward and eastward from the region of

Mexico to which he had wandered, coming originally by way of Asia

and the Pacific coast. There were succeeding waves of human immigra-

tion into the great Valley from the southwest and from the southeast,

whether racially distinct, or not, is a question in relation to which there

is dispute. Traces of this early human occupation are left in objects

of stone and pottery, mounds and earthworks, sprinkled all over the

region. At the time of the discovery of the continent by Europeans

the great valley, so far as it possessed human inhabitants, was occupied

by Indian tribes of the Algonquin stock.

In honor of Queen Elizabeth the eastern shores of the new world

were called "Virginia." Even what we know today as New England

was called "North Virginia." In 1606 James I. issued a charter which

defines the territorial limits of Virginia as extending from the 34th to

the 45th parallel of latitude, the western boundaries being fixed one

hundred miles back of the Atlantic coast. A second charter issued three

years later, extends the boundaries westward from the Atlantic to the

Pacific. There was but a dim comprehension of the geography of the

continent in the minds of those who issued these old charters. In fact,

it was believed that the Pacific Ocean extended eastward as a great

body of water, marked in the old maps as the Gulf of Verrazano, which

was supposed to cover the whole of what we know to be the upper

valley of the Mississippi.

While England was active in establishing colonies along the Atlantic

coast, Frenchmen were equally active in the valley of the St. Lawrence,

and pushing westward by way of the Great Lakes, they discovered the

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broad lands now covered by great American Commonwealths lying about

the headwaters of the Mississippi. The entire Valley of the Mississippi

including the Valley of the Ohio they claimed by right of the discoveries

made by La Salle and others. I cannot take time to recall to your

memories the early movements leading to the discovery of the lakes,

the rivers, the mountains, and the vast territorial expanse of the conti-

nent. As time passed and the truth became known, other charters were

granted by the English crown, trenching to some extent upon the elder

first grant made to Virginia. Lord Baltimore received the grant of

Maryland; New Jersey was a gift to English noblemen; William Penn

obtained the grant of the wooded lands which bear his name. But Vir-

ginia still claimed the lands lying westward of the Alleghany ridges,

and maintained that within her boundaries lay the greater part of what

is now known as western Pennsylvania, and the whole of that vast tract

covered today by the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wis-

consin. She asserted her right to the Valley of the Ohio with all the

lateral valleys drained by its affluents.

For over one hundred years after the grant of the first charter to

the colony of Virginia the settlements made by Englishmen upon her

soil did not advance westward beyond tidewater. The plantations lay

along the shores of the James, the Rappahannock, and the lower Potomac.

Between the westernmost plantation and the blue peaks of the mountains,

which were here and there visible toward the setting sun, was a broad

stretch of forest land tenanted only by the wild deer and the Indian.

Governor Spotswood in 1716, looking toward the distant peaks which he

saw, determined upon visiting them and crossing them. The expedition

which he organized partook of the nature of a junketing party. Fifty

of the leading citizens accompanied by their servants, provided with

abundant supplies for the comfort of the inner man, set out upon the

journey and arrived at last at the summit of the Blue Ridge, not very

far from Harpers Ferry. In the eastern part of the state, where the

soil was sandy, it was not the custom in those days to often shoe the

horses, but on this expedition among the rocky ridges it was found

necessary to frequently shoe the beasts, and on their return the Gover-

nor presented his companions with a souvenir of their trip in the form

of a stickpin made of gold surmounted by a horseshoe, and the members

of the gay company were thereafter known as "the Knights of the Golden

Horseshoe." What Spotswood saw and what Spotswood learned through

other sources impelled him to recommend to the powers in England,

whom he represented, that efforts should be made at once to press for-

ward across the mountain ridges into the great valleys lying in the

direction of Lake Erie, which was known to be one of the channels of

communication for the French with the lands in the West. Spotswood

himself offered, if allowed to do so, to plant a colony upon the shores

of Lake Erie and thus to break the hitherto uninterrupted progress of

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the French occupation. Governor Spotswood was a man who, though

he possessed many faults, was endowed with statesmanlike qualities and

admirable foresight.  The question of the occupation of the western

lands, having been thus raised, was never forgotten. In 1748 Thomas

Lee of the King's Council in Virginia associating with him a number of

prominent gentlemen in the colony, among whom were Lawrence Wash-

ington and Augustine Washington, elder brothers of George Washington,

succeeded in forming the Ohio Company, obtaining a grant from the

English Crown of five hundred thousand acres of land to be taken up

between the Monongahela and the Kanawha. The condition of the grant

was that two hundred thousand acres of the land should be selected im-

mediately, to be held for ten years free from quitrents and taxes, the

company to settle one hundred families on the land within seven years,

build a fort, and maintain a garrison for the protection of the settlement.

In 1751 Christopher Gist as the agent of the Ohio Company crossed

the mountains and made a preliminary survey. In 1752, accompanied by

Joshua Fry and two other Virginian commissioners, Gist made a treaty

at Logstown on the Ohio just below Pittsburgh with the Shawanese.

The French had already been negotiating with these Indians and it was

deemed expedient without loss of time to win them over to an alliance

with the Virginians. The French, intent upon occupying the valley of

the Ohio, had already in 1752 established themselves in the vicinity of

Presque Isle. Leguardeur de St. Pierre had established his headquarters

as French Commandant at Venango, now Franklin, Pennsylvania.

Thither in 1753 George Washington, a young surveyor, but twenty-one

years of age, was sent by Governor Dinwiddie to warn the French that

their occupation of the territory was regarded by Virginia as an encroach-

ment, and to demand the withdrawal of the French forces. Unable to

obtain any satisfactory concessions from the French, Washington returned

to report the failure of his mission, and on his return, as you well know,

experienced some hairbreadth escapes from deadly peril. In 1754 his

advice to occupy the point of land at the confluence of what is now

known as the Monongahela and the Ohio was accepted, and Captain

William Trent and Ensign Ward with a company of militia were pushed

forward to the present site of Pittsburgh, with instructions at the junc-

tion of the rivers to build a fort. While laboring at their task, Trent

being for the moment absent, an overwhelming company of French and

Indians, numbering seven hundred strong, led by Captain de Contrecoeur

came down the Alleghany in their bateaux, ordered the Virginians to

desist from their work, and allowing them to take their tools with them,

assumed possession of the spot and began themselves to erect a fort

which in honor of the Governor-General of the French possessions in

Canada they named Fort Duquesne.

Captain Trent and Ensign Ward with their handful of men retreated,

and on the 25th day of April, at Will's Creek, joined the command under

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Lieutenant Colonel George Washington who was encamped there await-

ing the arrival of Colonel Joshua Fry, who was to bring up the remainder

of the regiment, numbering three hundred men, that had been sent for-

ward by the Virginians, the House of Burgesses having voted ten thou-

sand pounds for the defense of the colony. Washington pushed forward

as rapidly as possible. While Washington was halting at the mouth of

Redstone Creek on the evening of May the 27th, an Indian runner came

to him bringing the information that a party of hostile Frenchmen were

encamped in a nearby ravine. Washington, taking forty men with him,

proceeded to investigate. When the Frenchmen flew to arms at his

approach he gave the order to fire. Monsieur Jumonville, the officer

in command, was killed with nine of his men. The rest were taken

prisoners with a single exception.  "When on this memorable night

Washington gave the command to fire," says Bancroft, "that word

kindled the world into a flame. Here in the western forest began that

battle which was to banish from  the soil and neighborhood of our

republic the institutions of the middle age and to inflict on them fatal

wounds throughout the continent of Europe."

Knowing that he might certainly expect to be attacked in force by

the French, Washington, upon whom the chief command now developed,

owing to the death of Colonel Fry at Will's Creek, fell back to a bit of

meadow-land under the shadow of the Laurel Ridge, and here entrenched

himself, naming the spot Fort Necessity.  On the 3rd of July, De

Villiers, a brother of Jumonville, appeared with a force of nine hundred

men, completely outnumbering the Virginians, who mustered only four

hundred. The battle lasted all day until the night fell. The French

fired from the cover of the woods and from the rising ground. Rain

fell in torrents. In the dark the French sent a flag of truce and pro-

posed a parley. The result was an agreement by which Washington

was permitted to retire with the honors of war upon condition that he

would surrender his artillery and give hostages for the delivery in

safety of the prisoners who had been taken in the affair with Jumon-

ville. The hostages given were Captains Van Braam and Stobo, who

were sent by the French to Quebec, where for weary years they lan-

guished as prisoners, Governor Dinwiddie persistently refusing to re-

spect the honorable stipulations which had been made by Washington.

Captain Stobo has left us a record of the long years of imprison-

ment at Quebec and of his romantic escape, and upon this strange story

Sir Gilbert Parker has founded his fascinating romance entitled "The

Seats of the Mighty."

Beaten back by the French, the Virginians determined to redouble

their efforts. The shot fired at the mouth of Redstone Creek in western

Pennsylvania had been heard by kings and courts. An army led by

Braddock, who was accompanied by the young hero of Fort Necessity,

returned in the following year and advanced bravely to the attack of

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Fort Duquesne. Through the insensate unwillingness of the Commander

to heed the advice of the officers of the Colonial forces, among them

Washington, who were well acquainted with the methods of Indian war-

fare, the English platoons marched as if on dress parade to their death,

while the shaggy hillsides resounded to the wild cries and the savage

war-whoop of their Indian enemies directed by a handful of Frenchmen.

It was not until the 25th day of November, 1758, just one hundred

and fifty years ago day before yesterday, that the stain placed by Brad-

dock's defeat upon the British arms was wiped out by the capture of

Fort Duquesne. The capture was effected by a brave Scotchman, born

in the old royal city of Dunfermline, who, although he was carried on

a litter across the mountains of Pennsylvania, already stricken by a fatal

disease, with lion-hearted courage held his way, supported, counseled,

and cared for by Colonel Armstrong and Colonel Washington, the leaders

of the forces sent to support the British regulars by Pennsylvania and

Virginia. Associated with the Pennsylvanians and Virginians were sev-

eral troops of soldiers from Maryland and North Carolina. In the dusk

of the evening of November the 25th, 1758, Colonel Armstrong raised the

cross of St. George where in the dawn the lilies of France had floated,

and Forbes gave to the spot the name of "Pittsburgh" in honor of the

"Great Commoner" whose political genius laid the foundations of Eng-

land's supremacy in India and on the seas, and whose counsel, had it

been followed, would have prevented the loss to England of the greater

part of her vast possessions upon the soil of the new world. "Pitts-

burgh is," says Bancroft, "the most enduring monument to William

Pitt. America raised to his name statues which have been wrongfully

broken, and granite piles of which not one stone remains upon another,

but long as the Monongahela and the Alleghany shall flow to form

the Ohio, long as the English tongue shall be the language of freedom

in the boundless valley which their waters traverse, his name shall stand

inscribed on the Gateway of the West."

The first step taken after the occupation of Fort Duquesne and the

naming of the spot as Pittsburgh, was the reconstruction of the fortifica-

tions at the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela. The fort

which was erected was called Fort Pitt, and was situated in part upon

the ground occupied by the ruins of Fort Duquesne. The first Fort Pitt

was subsequently replaced by a second and much larger fortification,

likewise known as Fort Pitt, covering a wide area at the junction of the

two rivers. Within the enclosure of this greater fortification in the

year 1764 was erected on the edge of the parade-ground a block-house.

This rude structure, alone of all the fortifications at the junction of the

rivers, has escaped the ravages of time and today, carefully guarded and

cared for by the Daughters of the American Revolution, stands as a

memorial of the first occupation of the region by the British forces.

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The story of the French and Indian War is familiar to you, and I

need not even recapitulate its salient features. Suffice it to say that the

contest between the French and English terminated by a definite treaty

of peace signed on February the 10th, 1763, by which France renounced

the occupation of all territories claimed by her on the soil of the new

world east of the Mississippi River.

The western borders of the territory acquired by Great Britain

were not, however, to be left in peace. The Indians who had been allied

with the French, viewing with alarm the westward progress of the waves

of immigration, resolved upon making a stand against the occupation of

their lands, and under the leadership of Pontiac, who has been called

the "Napoleon of the red men," entered into a widespread league to beat

back the advancing whites. The storm of Indian warfare broke in 1763.

Parkman in his charming narrative has given us the history of these

stirring times, which you will do well to reread. The fort at the head-

waters of the Ohio was made one of the points of attack. The few

scattered settlers in the neighborhood, who had received some timely

intimation of the hostile intent of the Indians, were gathered within the

Fort, which was beleaguered by an overwhelming number of red men.

For a long time the issue of the conflict hung in doubt; provisions

were running short; the supply of ammunition had almost given out

when Colonel Bouquet, at the head of a small army, rapidly advanced

from the east and, after delivering to the Indians, who attacked him at

Bushy Run, a bloody defeat, succeeded in raising the siege, and then

coming westward into Ohio, by a display of tact and firmness, which

marked him as a most able commander, succeeded in pacifying for the

time being the Indian tribes occupying the country immediately to the

west of Pittsburgh.

The movement on the part of the whites to occupy the region

about the headwaters of the great river was at first slow and marked

by timidity. The lands were not yet surveyed; there existed a conflict

of titles between Virginia and Pennsylvania; the fear of Indian hostili-

ties hung over the western mountain valleys. The means of subsistence

to be won from the forest and the soil were at best but precarious.

Nevertheless bold and adventurous spirits here and there crossed over

into the region. They were mainly Scotchmen who came from the

settlements made in the region of the Cumberland Valley, or Virginians,

who having come from the south in the forces led by Washington had

divined something of the possible future greatness and prosperity of the

country. The men of Pennsylvania pressed westward by way of Bed-

ford, Frankstown, and the Kittanning trail. The men of Virginia came

by way of what is now Cumberland (Maryland) and the valley of the

Youghiogheny. Those who came engaged in hunting and trapping, trad-

ing with the Indians for peltries, and established themselves here and

there in the open glades in the woodlands where they were saved the

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trouble of chopping down the huge forest growths with which the whole

country was covered. Failing to secure such favored spots, with axe in

hand they hewed down the great oaks and broke the soil about their

rude cabins to create in the forest their little farms. Their lives were

lives of toil and peril. In 1768 there had already gathered about the

Fort a small settlement representing the elements of the frontier, and

here and there in lonely clearings dwelt men of iron mould, who, fearless

and self-reliant, set about to convert the wilderness into gardens.

Fergus Moorhead was one of these early settlers, and as his life

is typical of the lives of many of these pioneers, you will pardon me

if in a few words I sketch his career, because the story is familiar to

me, and is one which I hope my children will hand down to their

children. He was the son of a Scotch-Irishman, who had settled in the

Cumberland Valley and had acquired, in obedience to the Anglo-Saxon

"hunger for land," large tracts in that fertile country. Like Daniel

Boone, in spite of the large holdings of his father, he found himself

cramped by the presence of too many men about him, and so he wandered

forth across the Alleghany ridges with his rifle in hand, and established

himself about 1770 on the very outposts of civilization, in the midst of

the wilderness, where he took up tracts which promised in time to be-

come fruitful farms. He built a cabin for himself on a small prairie-

like opening which he found in the forest near the site of the present

county seat of Indiana County, of which he was the first settler. He was

a man of force and character. Together with his brother Samuel, who

joined him at a later day, he formed a body of frontiersmen into a

company of militia for the protection of the western settlements. At

the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, when the Indians, incited by the

English in Canada, rose in hostility, Moorhead's troop, garrisoning Kit-

tanning, held the western line of defenses in safety. But Fergus was

waylaid at Blanket Hill by the Indians when going from the Fort at

Kittanning to visit his wife, whom he had left in their lonely cabin. His

sole companion, Simpson, a private in the troop, was shot dead. His

horse was shot under him, and he was taken prisoner. Placing the

saddle of his horse upon his back, his captors led him through the

seemingly trackless wilderness north toward Canada. Again and again

he tried to escape, but the vigilance of the Indians prevented. At last

they brought him to Quebec and there for a year he languished in

captivity. His wife waited and waited for his promised return, but he

did not come. One of his children died. His wife with her own hands

dug a grave and in it laid the body of her child. Then mounting a

horse, with one of her children behind her and another in her arms,

she set out alone through the forest to Fort Ligonier, thence across the

Alleghany mountains, returning to Carlisle to her father's house. Here

a year and a half afterwards, as she was seated one day upon the

veranda looking down through the hot summer haze she saw coming

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up the street a familiar form. She raised her hand to shade her eyes

and then, with a scream, exclaimed, "Oh God! If Fergus Moorhead

were still living, I would say that that is he coming up the street." In

a few moments more he had her in his arms. Exchanged as a pris-

oner of war he had walked from New York to his home. You would

think that an experience like that would daunt a man, but we find him

the next year back again, rebuilding the cabin which the Indians had

burned. His son Joseph, whom   the mother had carried across the

mountains, grown to man's estate, accompanied St. Clair on his memo-

rable expedition into the Northwest Territory and was wounded at St.

Clair's defeat. In return for his services he received the right to take

up land within the State of Ohio. He chose as his portion a tract of

land on the banks of this great river at the point where the City of

Cincinnati now  stands. His sister had married Isaac Anderson, a

young man engaged in trade with the Indians. He made an exchange of

his holdings of land in Ohio for the business of young Anderson. An-

derson going to the banks of Black Lick felled a huge tulip-poplar tree,

hollowed it out into a canoe, and into this he put his small store of

household goods, his wife and children, and then floated down the Black

Lick into the Kiskiminitas, thence into the Alleghany, and thence into

the Ohio. He came down the river and established himself at Cincin-

nati. One of his descendants, the Rev. W. C. Anderson, D. D., was

the honored President of Miami University, assuming that position in

the year 1849 and holding it for many years afterward. Of the descend-

ants of Fergus Moorhead many have risen to wealth, a score or more

have been lawyers and clergymen of distinction, and one of them a

justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. It was men like these

who laid the foundations and who have given to the family of American

Commonwealths, which now fill the great Valley from east to west, that

courage and virility which has characterized their population.  This

man of whom I have spoken is only one of thousands like him, whose

blood is telling today in the veins of those who come after them.

The contention between Virginia and Pennsylvania as to who should

occupy and claim the upper valley of the Ohio, the metropolis of which

is Pittsburgh, was continued for a number of years. The name of Fort

Pitt was changed to Fort Dunmore in honor of the governor of Vir-

ginia. Western Pennsylvania was included in what was by Virginians

styled the province of West Augusta. Courts were held at Fort Dun-

more and elsewhere with appeal from their decisions to the court at

Staunton, the seat of government of the province. The followers and

representatives of the Penns protested; they caused the arrest of Dr.

John Connelly, the representative of the Virginian governor. He was

taken to Hannastown, the county seat of Westmoreland County, Penn-

sylvania, and gave bail to appear at the next term of court. He kept

his word, and returned to meet his judges. But he was accompanied

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by a considerable body of armed men, who captured the court and took

them off to Staunton in Virginia as themselves trespassers. The merry

war went on until the outbreak of the Revolution, and even after that

time, and was not discontinued until in 1787 Virginia ceded to the con-

federacy of the thirteen states her claim to that great territory out of

which Ohio and her sister states were at a later date erected.

But there was another element represented among the waves of

immigration. Coming with the troops as chaplains, following the settlers

into their remote homes, Bible in hand, were the ministers of Christ.

The day after the occupation of Fort Duquesne it is a matter of historic

record that a Thanksgiving service was held on the spot conducted by the

Rev. Charles Beatty, whose grandson, the late Rev. Charles C. Beatty

of Steubenville, Ohio, was not only an eminent clergyman, but also an

eminent philanthropist, who consecrated his large fortune to the educa-

tion of young men. Eight years afterward we find the Rev. Charles

Beatty, accompanied by Rev. Mr. Duffield, visiting the region and then

returning to their homes in the east to stir the hearts of men to send

Christian ministers to teach the truth amidst the scattered settlements

of the frontier. The very flower of the eastern colleges, which were

then in their infancy, were selected for the work. Men like John Mc-

Millan, whom Albert Gallatin at a later date called "Cardinal" McMillan,

so potent was his influence,-James Powers, Thaddeaus Dodd, and

Joseph Smith, graduates of Princeton, were leaders in the work of

evangelization and founders wherever they went of schools and colleges.

Out of the log college established by John McMillan on the banks of

Chartiers Creek grew Washington and Jefferson College, and we find

this same McMillan, associated with the others, whom I have named,

more than a hundred and twenty years ago in the Board of Trustees

of the institution now known as the University of Pittsburgh.

While Presbyterian clergymen were laboring to organize congrega-

tions among the Scotch-Irish settlers in the valleys of the Alleghany

and Monongahela, the Moravian missionaries were laboring to teach

the red men of the wilderness the same truths and to educate them.

David Zeisberger, whose mortal remains now sleep under the sod of

Ohio, so preached the gospel to the hostile Monseys who were on

the war trail upon the upper waters of the Alleghany, that they laid

down their hatchets and were baptized in the name of Him who is

the Prince of Peace. John Heckewelder, many of whose descendants

live upon the soil of this State and whose daughter was, I believe, the

first white girl born within the State of Ohio, did a work among the

Indians that has made his name forever historic.

The close of the Revolutionary War brought to Pittsburgh a num-

ber of men who had been officers in the Continental armies. They were

men of influence and culture. Associated with them as leaders in the

early settlements were others, likewise men of culture, among whom

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may be mentioned Hugh Henry Brackenridge, the author of a satirical

romance entitled "Modern Chivalry," in which he sarcastically depicts

the political conditions of his time. "The Pittsburgh Gazette," the first

newspaper printed west of the Alleghany mountains, contains in its early

columns a number of contributions from the pen of this versatile son

of Princeton, who had been a classmate of James Madison, who at a

later time became President of the United States. Brackenridge had un-

bounded faith in the future of the Ohio Valley, and he used his influence,

not merely as a prophet, but as a very active politician and lawyer, to

bring about the realization of the dreams which he had dreamed. One

hundred and fifty years have passed since Hugh Henry Brackenridge

prophesied, and it is interesting today to those who take the trouble to

read what he wrote, to see how even far beyond his fondest fancies has

been the issue of events.

It would be to me a fascinating task in detail to sketch to you

how influences of various sorts have been woven together to bring

about those conditions which we see at present. The portion assigned

to me, however, has been in a few words to tell of the early beginnings

of the settlement of the Valley. There is no time for me to do more

than I have done, with a few bold strokes to recall to memory the

stirring deeds from 1752 to 1787, in which in rapid succession we see

the Virginian Cavalier and the Pennsylvanian uniting to expel the chiv-

alry of France from the coveted valley, and then turning to contend

between themselves for the possession of the gateway of the West; to

picture to you the sturdy advance of the pioneer settlers, men whose

implements were the rifle and the axe, to remind you of the warfare

which they waged with the wild men of the forest and with the obdurate

might of sullen Nature, to show how with that culture which comes

through the plow there came the culture which comes through the

printed Word, and how thus foundations were laid by the hands and

the heads and the hearts of men for that triumphant civilization which

has taken possession of the vast domain. New England has her tradi-

tions of Plymouth Rock, Virginia of her Jamestown, New York of her

early life on the banks of the Hudson; but no less consecrated and no

less stirring are the traditions which linger along the shores of what the

poetic Frenchman called "la belle riviere," the fair Ohio, the shining

waters of which flow past this historic town.

 

SKETCH OF OHIO RIVER IMPROVEMENTS.

COLONEL JOHN L. VANCE, Columbus.

President Ohio Valley Improvement Association.

It is impossible in the limits of a paper for such an occasion as

this to go into a detailed statement of the various movements looking

to the improvement of the Ohio. A brief summary, only, may be given.

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