Ohio History Journal

Old Fort Sandoski and the De Lery Portage.     371

 

Indians which eventually led to his dismissal from the service.

His distinguished engineer, Montresor, was left to rebuild the

fort, which, however, was only partially accomplished.

There is not much more recorded concerning the portage

of old Fort Sandoski until the War of 1812, when, after the

victory of Commodore Perry, on September 10, 1813, General

Harrison, with his entire army, moved down from his head-

quarters at Fort Seneca, on the Sandusky river, first to Fort

Stephenson at Fremont, and then to the old portage from Fort

Sandoski, at Port Clinton. Here, following the example of

the French expeditions of earlier times, he hauled his vessels

and his supplies across the famous de Lery portage, where we

now stand, ready to transport his army for a final conflict on the

banks of the Thames. He constructed a fence across this pen-

insula in order to confine the thousands of horses connected

with his command, until he should return from his expedition

across the lake. Within the Marblehead peninsula, thus inclosed,

he turned loose the horses to be guarded by a small force until

his return. After the battle upon the Thames the victorious

army returned to Port Clinton, gathered up their horses and sup-

plies and joyfully started upon their homeward journey.

Thus it will be seen that my opening remarks were amply

justified by the facts. The deeds here recorded deserve to be

imprinted upon the memory of every citizen of Ohio. They

should be reiterated in the presence of our children at home, and

should be incorporated into the text-books prepared for the in-

struction of schools. As a slight effort to perpetuate their

memory, we erect these monuments, and leave to future gen-

erations the record engraved upon these tablets. May no care-

less hand ever deface them, and no ruthless hand ever do them

violence.

 

 

MR. RICHARDSON'S ADDRESS.

This is a day for memory, when our thoughts revert to other

times and scenes. We stand today upon historic ground. In

the breezes there once floated over this spot the milk-white ban-

ner of Navarre, bespangled with the golden lilies of the Bourbon

house. Here, too, floated the meteor flag of England-the cross

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372       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

in a field of blood; and later was unfurled the starry banner of

the free-which we love to think will never be supplanted.

We can close our eyes, and see again in imagination the

swarms of bark canoes, touching with their bows the sandy

shores, while files of painted warriors grasp and carry them

across this narrow isthmus, to embark again upon the waters

of the great lake.  We can hear again the laughter and song of

those merry sons of France as they glide in richly laden batteaux

over the surface of lake or bay. We see the files of the soldiers

of the line, the voyagers, the hunters and trappers as they make

their way across this portage. Here, too, we hear the savage

war-whoop, the rattle of musketry and see the smoking ruins

of the old blockhouse, and the stark bodies of the slain.

You have done well to mark these places, for they teach

the lessons of the past to those of the present and the future.

The ceremonies here today give added evidence to the high state

of civilization now attained. That people with no monuments

to build have no history worth remembering. You build monu-

ments to mark the pathway across this narrow neck of land,

for it is the way by which civilization marched, and barbarism

waged its unsuccessful resistance.

This was strategic ground. Here, to and fro, the contending

strength of Britain and France ebbed and flowed in the Colonial

wars. Here, far remote from the armies along the sea-board,

Americans and British sought to serve the cause of king and

country in the Revolutionary struggle; and here embarked those

gallant sons of Virginia and Rhode Island, who saved the north-

west and broke the power of Britain in 1813-William Henry

Harrison and Oliver Hazard Perry.

Erect your stately monuments, unveil your tablets of en-

during bronze that the youth of these more favored generations

may pause and consider the rugged path-the bloody footprints

-the suffering unto death by which our fathers won our price-

less heritage of free institutions. Teach the lessons of the past,

remembering that the triumphs already won are only to be en-

joyed while they are deserved, the lesson, that our free in-

stitutions are ours only while we loyally preserve them under

the salutary restraints of law.

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Old Fort Sandoski and the De Lery Portage.    373

 

We hear much in these latter days of reviving the rule of

the people, as though the people had not always ruled this land.

Who are "the people?" Some would have us believe that "the

people" is some mighty separate entity other than the individual

members of every community, who taken together constitute the

whole people of each community. "The people," my friends,

are simply you and me and all of us, with our individual

needs, individual ambitions and individual rights that each may

indulge and exercise freely so long as we do not try to inter-

fere with every other individual in the indulgence and exercise

of his ambition and his rights. Now, men have been for long

ages engaged in devising something to make human relations

possible, where each shall be free, and yet bound to respect the

freedom of every other individual. That something is called law.

Freedom under law is not a mushroom growth. It is the

product of long ages of evolution through tears and blood, be-

cause it had human greed and avarice coupled with ignorance

and degradation to contend against.

America has been for a century and a quarter the great

exemplar of this highest achievement in the science of free gov-

ernment. Shall we throw it all away at the demand of the

demagogue who, using "the people" as a name to conjure with,

seeks the overthrow of the representative form of government

founded by the fathers? Under it, we have made the most mar-

velous material, intellectual and social progress the world has

ever seen. There are those, who, impatient of restraint, seeking

short cuts to selfish ends loudly proclaim that our constitution

is outgrown and obsolete. They would pluck the fruit and kill

the tree. They do not know its first principles. It has met suc-

cessfully every exigency of our national life, and is no more

obsolete than is the "Sermon on the Mount."

If your reading of history has taught you any one thing

more than another, it is this: That every great crime against

civilization has been committed in the name of "the people."

Every great despotism that has cursed the world, has been set

up by popular acclaim, either purchased or coerced.

Every civilization that has crumbled into ruin has gone to

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374       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

its doom because men quenched the fires upon the altars of their

religion and corrupted the people by appeals to their cupidity.

There are some aspects of our national politics which at

this present time would be laughable if they were not so serious

in possible consequences. I doubt not that if Phinius T. Barnum

were alive now, he would recognize a great opportunity, and he

would probably be working his old game of fooling the American

public by running for the presidential nomination, with "Let the

people rule and elect me" inscribed upon his banner.

The serious thing about it is, that matches in the hands of

vicious boys near a straw-stack, with the wind toward the house

and barn-make a combination that needs watching.

Our population, being much more inflammable than when

cool blood of northern latitudes predominated, is more in danger

than ever, for the violent harangue of the oratorical firebrand

who has his own "axe to grind."

These patriotic societies will do their full duty only, as they

strive to educate the mind and awaken the conscience, so that

men may heed the lessons of the past and feel their moral re-

sponsibility to the present.

Thus, may we also place the coming generations in our debt,

because, in these times of class animosities and factional con-

fusion, we will have stood fast by the principles of the fathers,

proven by the test of time and experience.

The voices of the past-the spirit of our fathers-the call

of ancestral ties-speak to us today. We bear a grave responsi-

bility laid upon us by our very blood and lineage. Shall we not

resolve to do our part worthily, that the principle of repre-

sentative self-government, by free men under the restraints of

just and equitable laws, shall not perish from the earth?

 

 

INSCRIPTION ON MONUMENT OLD FORT SANDOSKI, OF 1745.

[West Face]

FORT SANDOSKI,

1745-1748, 1750-1751, 1761-1763

"The first fort built by white men in Ohio, erected by British traders

from Pennsylvania and Virginia in 1745, under the protection of the

Huron Chief, Nicolas, and destroyed by him after his defeat by the

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