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
Annual Meeting Ohio Valley Historical
Association. 407
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
408 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
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
Annual Meeting Ohio Valley Historical
Association. 409
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
410 Ohio Arch. and Hist.
Society Publications.
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.
Annual Meeting Ohio Valley
Historical Association. 411
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
412 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
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
Annual Meeting Ohio Valley Historical Association. 413
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
414 Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.
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
Annual Meeting Ohio Valley Historical
Association. 415
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.