Ohio History Journal

THE ANCESTRY OF THE OHIOAN.

A. M. COURTENAY, D. D.

[The following is a portion of an address delivered in Zanesville by

Rev. Courtenay, who for many years has been an enthusiastic student of

Ohio history, upon which subject he has delivered many admirable ad-

dresses. He has written frequently in prose and in verse for current re-

views, magazines and journals. He wrote for and read at the Ohio Cen-

tennial Celebration the poem entitled "The Ohio Century."-EDITOR.]

At a recent notable assembly in one of Ohio's universities, a

revered bishop paid tribute to the greatness of the state, which

he ascribed to its New England origin. This he did without

qualification, as a compliment, in a confidence as naive and un-

doubting as emphatic. No axiom could be carved in harder o-

line. He evidently believed that the Northwest Territory was

peopled from Connecticut's "Western Reserve;" or if there were

among its settlers a few stragglers from less favored regions, they

were obscure, insignificant, and soon dominated by the persua-

sive Yankee notions

It was not strange speech. Indeed, its tone was familiar to

those who have long been accustomed to hear and read asser-

tions from our Down-East brethren-persistent as the "flood

of years from an exhaustless urn" - to the effect that everything

good and great in our civilization is, like the "pants" advertised

by an enterprising Boston firm, stamped "Plymouth Rock."

None will question the potency of Puritan ideas, or the vigor

and moral value of the Pilgrims. The contribution by New Eng-

land of genius, of virtue, to the growth of the Republic in let-

ters, state-craft, commerce, invention, reform, religion, is a fact

so far beyond dispute that her sons supererogate in constant af-

firmation. We all cheerfully admit that our Yankee brother has

enriched the national life with every good element - except mod-

esty. Yet he had no option on all the virtues and valors. It

would be well to consider a few things, such as the first settle-

ment was in Virginia; the first legislative assembly of white men

(73)

74       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

on this continent was at Jamestown 1619; the first ordinance of

religious liberty was in Maryland ;the first Declaration of Inde-

pendence was made at Mecklenburg, in the Carolinas; the first tea

thrown overboard was from the Peggy Stewart, in Annapolis

harbor; the first steamboat floated on the Potomac; the first rail-

road was at Baltimore. Of course, this only means that each

section may play an Oliver to the other's Roland.

In the case of Ohio, one may enter a bill of exceptions, to

wit, that the marvelous development of this most typical of Amer-

ican states is due, not alone, nor even chiefly, to its New England

blood, but to that mingling of vital currents which has made

strong the heart of the Commonwealth.

This will be obvious to a slight scrutiny of the colonization of

the Territory. The whole Western country passed by cession of

conquest to Great Britain in 1763, and thence to the United States

in 1783. But while the paper title was thus wrested from the

French by the English and in turn by the Americans from the

British, the original occupants, the Indians, who were not party

to these compacts, held the land by the "nine points of law" until

dispossessed by the steady pressure of the frontiersmen from be-

yond the Alleghenies. The final writ of ejectment was served by

a posse under General Anthony Wayne, consisting of two thou-

sand United States regulars, and fifteen hundred Kentucky

mounted volunteers, at the battle of Fallen Timbers, in 1794, when

the savages suffered a defeat from which they never rallied.

Thus the new Canaan had long allured the tribes of our Israel;

eager with desires awakened by those spies, the hunters and trad-

ers, who brought back reports of an "exceeding good land;" yet

they were withheld their forty years from entering and possess-

ing it by fear of the "sons of Anak." When, however, the sword

of the Lord and of Wayne hewed the way, population poured into

the land like floods, gathering to and radiating from five centers

of settlement on the Ohio, the Lake, or the border of Pennsyl-

vania, whence the natives were already expelled.

These five nerve centers of the nascent state were in the order

of time as follows:

1. The "Ohio Company," formed in Connecticut, purchased

1,500,000 acres, and in April, 1788, settled their colony about the

Indian Attack on Fort Dunlap.            75

mouth of the Muskingum, with Fort Harmar, now Marietta, as

their citadel. It was a notable society. Many of its people were

Revolutionary officers, and the most possessed intelligence and

education. They and their descendants have cut a broad, deep

mark in the history of the state.

2. The "Symmes Purchase" of 311,622 acres was nego-

tiated by a New Jersey company of twenty-four gentlemen, head-

ed by Judge John Cleves Symmes, a member of Congress from

that state. In November, 1788, the first settlement was made by

a party of twenty at a spot within the present limits of Cincin-

nati. This was a brood of the "blue hen's chickens"; but a con-

siderable contingent from Kentucky soon moved into the region.

Thus the basis was formally New Jersian, with its mixture of

Scotch-Irish and Hollanders, but actually there was a vast major-

ity of Virginians.

3. The "Virginia Military District" consisted of 3,000,000

acres, ranging north from the Ohio, between the Scioto and

Miami Rivers, and was reserved by the Old Dominion to satisfy

the land warrants issue to its soldiers of the Revolution. Its first

settlements were at Manchester in 1791, and at Chillicothe in

1796, which latter became not only the center of this projection of

Virginia into Ohio, but to a good degree of the political and so-

cial life of the whole Territory in the earlier years. It was the

seat of the first legislatures, and of the capital until 1813. In this

region the first tide of population was partly Marylandic, but

mostly Virginian, in two streams; that of the hardy backwoods-

men who had earlier crossed the Alleghenies from the valleys of

the Upper Potomac and Shenandoah, and built their cabins on the

Cheat and Monongahela as far as Redstone, which was the head

of navigation to the "Western waters," and that of the settlers

who had already entered Kentucky by way of the southern passes

through the Blue Ridge. They were of the usual pioneer type;

but with them came families of substance and cultivation, who

moved direct from the Old Dominion, who brought with them

their colonial furniture, silver teapots, silks and laces with a touch

of old world dignity and courtesy. Such were the Tiffins, Worth-

ingtons and Massies. They were largely influenced by conscience

against slavery, for the Jeffersonian idea of its evil was then prev-

76       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

alent in the South. Tiffin freed his slaves, valued at $5,000 (a

full half of his wealth), and brought them into that Northwest

Territory, which was "consecrated to freedom."

4. The "Western Reserve" was a strip of land equal to

1,800,000 acres, extending from the border of Pennsylvania along

Lake Erie. Its colonists were mainly from Connecticut, which

state had reserved this tract in making over to the General Gov-

ernment its rights and claims in the Western country. The first

settlement was made at Cleveland in 1796. Its foundations were

hewn from the granitic rock of New England Calvinism.

5. The "Seven Ranges" consisted of a tract extending from

the Pennsylvania line between the Ohio Company on the south

and the Western Reserve on the north. Its lands were the first

ever sold by the United States out of the public domain, and the

purchasers were a few native-born Quakers, some Germans of

the stock which has produced the variety known as "Pennsylvania

Dutch," and many Scotch-Irish, which body nearly pre-empted

and still largely controls Southwestern Pennsylvania.

No mention need be made of two curious and tragic attempts

at settlement; that of the French colony at the site of Gallipolis,

because it was insignificant and evanescent; and that of the Mo-

ravian missionaries, because there were few white families, and all

were swept from the face of the earth in a massacre, not by red

men but white, and not by British or French, be it said to our

shame, but Americans.

Now these five centers of life were long isolated by vast for-

ests before the era of roads, and engrossed by the severe labor of

subduing the wilderness, with little need or chance for travel, or

any form of commercial and literary intercourse. They differed

widely in custom, training, prevailing idea, and religious cultus.

And it was long before social fusion began. Ultimately all were

subdued to a predominant type, while there are still marked char-

acteristics in the various sections, traceable rather in the domestic-

ities than the publicities.

Despite, however, minor differences, the state has attained

social solidarity, and uniformity of educational system, of legal

procedure, of political aspiration, through the weaving process

of ceaseless interchange of business, literary and religious inter-

The Ancestry of the Ohioan.             77

ests. This has tended to the obliteration of individuality in the

sections, but marks of the original variation nevertheless distin-

guish each; for example, Southern Ohio from Northern, as clear-

ly as the New England of today from those commonwealths

known - in a phrase now happily historic only - as the "Border

States."

It is the mingling of these diverse elements into a new com-

pound which has enriched Ohio. And it is to be noted that here

first occurred the blend of native bloods, which has since con-

tinued on so vast a scale throughout the West. Up to the close of

the eighteenth century the colonies on the Atlantic coast were sep-

arate. Their people mingled little. They were as diverse as the

English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish. But from them all poured

streams of people into that fair land which lies between the Lake

and the "beautiful river" - the gateway of the West-and the

children of Puritan and Cavalier, Hollander and Huguenot, Teu-

ton and Scotch-Irish, married and begot a new race. Moreover,

just as the early migrants from Europe were a picked people, so

their descendants who crossed the Alleghanies were especially

brave, hardy, and enterprising. The seed-plot was fertile, and

the shoots choice, which by cross-fertilization have produced the

Ohio stock.

No one section can claim a monopoly, or even a controlling

interest, in Ohio's greatness. This is the more apparent when

we examine the scroll of her famous men. It will be found that

they have arisen with an astonishing impartiality from all quan-

ters and conditions. Thus of the thirty-three governors, up to

1890, twelve came from the South, twelve from New England,

three from Pennsylvania and six were born in Ohio of Scotch-

Irish, Welsh, or Irish ancestry.

Again, consider the following last of fifty-two other distin-

guished children of the state, viz: Tiffin, Worthington, Symmes,

Corwin, Ewing, Lytle, Piatt, the Cary sisters, Coates Kinney,

Howells, Whitelaw Reid, S. S. Cox, Powers and Ward, the sculp-

tors; the Coxes, Tourgee, George Kennan, McGahan, Giddings,

Wade, Chase, Stanton, Waite, Ormsby, Mitchel, Edison, Brush,

the Shermans, the Ammens, Rosecrans, Sheridan, McDowell, Cus-

ter, McPherson, the Presidents Harrison, Grant, Hayes, Garfield,

78        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

McKinley, and the Churchmen Durbin, Simpson, Foster, Harris,

Merrill, Walden, Joyce, McCabe, Cranston, Thoburn. Of these

the tally runs, New England eleven, Virginia and Kentucky

eleven, Scotch-Irish eight, Dutch two, New Jersey three, New

York two, Irish three, French one, Canadian one, and unknown

ten. If to these we add the fifteen "fighting McCooks," then the

tale of this strenuous Scotch-Irish race must be advanced to twen-

ty-three in the foremost rank, from which have sprung most of

the war leaders.

Further, it can not be established that any section produced

the great men of any particular profession or pursuit. In fact,

this survey disproves Howell's generalization that "the South

gave Ohio perhaps her foremost place in war and politics; but

her enlightenment in other things was from the North." More-

over, in the two things whereof this claim has been urged - viz.,

the contest against slavery and for equal rights for all races, and

the effort to establish public schools - it will be found from an

examination of the records of the legislature that the pioneers of

civilization were from all quarters. Indeed, it is more than prob-

able, though not capable of demonstration in the absence of com-

plete biographies, that Ohio's greatest men, the finest products of

her powers, came from mingled strains.

Rawlinson has said that "it is admitted by ethnologists that

the mixed races are superior to the pure ones." It is true, with

the qualification that the law acts within the limits of a similar

origin, as in the case of the Greeks, the Romans, the British, and

above all, the Americans. Thus Tennyson sings, "Saxon and

Norman and Dane are we," and he might have added, if the exi-

gencies of verse had permitted: Celt and Gaul, French Hugue-

not, and German Palatine.

And one of our own poets recited, on the Nation's century,

these elements of our new type: Scottish thrift, Irish humor, Ger-

man steadfastness, French vivacity, Scandinavian patience and

English moral worth; declaring of the genius of America:

"In his form and features still

The unblenching Puritan will,

Cavalier honor, Huguenot grace,

The Quaker truth and sweetness,