Ohio History Journal

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A GRAVE IN THE WILDERNESS

A GRAVE IN THE WILDERNESS.

 

 

BY BYRON R. LONG.

When one considers the amount of material collected and

published having to do with the story of Ohio and the North-

west Territory, he is apt to hesitate before he sets himself the

task of adding to that collection. So many details of that his-

tory have been published already that one fears he may be

traversing the same grounds when he attempts to narrate a

detail that has grown familiar to him through personal and

intimate association. And then, except one is giving himself

wholly to the business of writing history, he scarcely feels com-

petent for the task of setting before his readers a narrative

that is altogether new, or that has not in part, at least, been

told before.

One may be comforted in the thought, however, that well-

established historical data have been provided in this very way.

Many writers dealing with the same event or incident and at

different angles of observation give to the general historian.

when he comes to sum up details, such a vision of the whole as

enables him to present a narrative that appeals to the candid

and serious student who makes history contribute to the

philosophy or science of human government.

In presenting this detail the writer has no ambition other

than to call attention to it as having some part in the beginning

of great commonwealths that now stand as monuments to the

faithful and heroic men and women who performed their tasks

at the close of the eighteenth and at the beginning of the nine-

teenth centuries.

Scarcely had the ordinance of 1787 been created when

a vaster pilgrimage set in toward the Ohio country. Every

day in the year, winter and summer alike, witnessed the new

arrivals; their miniature crafts touching the wilderness borders

on the south shore of Lake Erie, or their caravans wending

6 -Vol. XXIII.         (81)