EDITORIALANA. |
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THE AMERICANISTS AT FORT ANCIENT. The International Congress of Americanists, made up of delegates from the leading states of Europe, and nearly all of the Countries of the Americas, held their biennial meeting in New York City, beginning October 22, 1902. At this meeting many addresses were made, and papers were read by distinguished scholars pertaining to the Archaeology of North and South America. The full proceedings of this meeting, with the addresses, will be published in book form during the present year. This congress is an institution of great importance, and is rather unique in its character. The delegates to it were from various foreign countries, and were appointed, and had all their expenses defrayed, by the re- spective governments which they represented. At the close of their regu- lar conference in New York, they were made the particular guests of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, which conveyed them by special cars from New York to Washington, D. C. where they investigated the Government Museums. Thence they were to proceed to Chicago by way of Cincinnati, their ultimate destination being St. Louis, that they might visit the great mound of Cahokia, which is on the Mississippi river nearly opposite St. Louis. It was the expressed and almost universal desire of the delegates to this congress that they have an opportunity of visiting Fort Ancient, and negotiations between he Secretary of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, and Mr. M. H. Saville, the general secretary of the congress and Assistant Curator of the American Museum of Natural History of New York, resulted in the accomplishment of the wish of the members of the congress. By the action of the Trustees of the Ohio So- ciety, the Americanists were made the guests of the Society at Fort Ancient, on Thursday, October 30, 1902. The train conveying the foreign party reached Columbus in the early morning of the date in question, and they were met and greeted by the following trustees and officers of the State Society: Gen. R. Brinkerhoff, G. F. Bareis, A. R. McIntire, M. D. Follett, H. A. Thompson, J. P. MacLean, C. L. Martz- olff, B. F. Prince, C. P. Griffin, N. B C. Love, E. O. Randall, W. C. Mills and E. F. Wood. The guests and hosts proceeding over the Little Miami Railroad arrived at Fort Ancient at 10 A M., where carriages had been provided by the custodian Mr. Warren Cowen, to convey the entire party to the 7 Vol. XII. 97 |
98 Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.
hill, and about the Fort. After a
substantial lunch had been partaken of,
an address of welcome was made to the
guests by General Brinkerhoff,
on the part of the Society, and remarks
explanatory of the Fort were
made by Professors J. P. MacLean and W.
C. Mills. The entire grounds
were then inspected, many of the party
putting in much of their time
in looking for relics, mostly with
disappointing results. The weather
proved to be the most propitious, and
the visitors were greatly delighted
by their examination of these
world-renowned prehistoric remains.
Many of them had become familiar with all that is generally known
concerning Fort Ancient, from
Archaeological literature, and the in-
spection of models in foreign museums.
The European delegates
were peculiarly interested and
astonished. Even the youthful and practi-
cal United States could exhibit
prehistoric remains of surpassing magni-
tude and perfection. They all declared
that it was the most wonderful
specimen of its kind, probably, in the
world, and all complimented the
Ohio Society on being its possessor, and
for keeping it in such excellent
condition. They all declared it was the
most enjoyable and interesting
day they had experienced since their
visit to America. Mr. George F.
Bareis took several photographs of the
party. Altogether it was a red-
letter clay for the Ohio Society whose
representatives present were none
the less delighted and entertained than
were the guests. The foreign
party embraced many of the most
distinguished Archeologists in the
world, and indeed, all of them were men
of ripe scholarship and of more
or less widespread fame. The following
is a list of the guests present at
the Fort Ancient visit:
Edward H. Thompson, Merida, Yucatan,
Mexico.
David Boyle, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Juan B. Ambrosetti, Buenos Ayres,
Argentine Republic.
M. Gonzalez de la'Rosa, Paris, France.
Arthur Farwell, Boston, Mass.
Arthur M. J. Hirsh, Munich, Germany.
Waldemar Borgoras, St. Petersburg,
Russia.
Alfred M. Tozzer, Peabody Museum,
Cambridge.
Francisco Belmar, State of Oaxaca,
Mexico.
Henri Pittier de Fabrega, Costa Rica.
Leon Lejeal, College of France, Paris.
Alfredo Gonzalez, Mexico.
Chevalier L. C. van Panhuys, The Hague,
Netherlands.
Prof. Eduard Seler, Berlin, Germany.
Juan F. Ferraz, Costa Rica.
Mary Endora Lyon, Salem, Mass.
Mrs. Jessie Crellin Pepper, Newark, New
Jersey.
Mrs. Annie Lyon Saville, New York City.
Mrs. Grace Hyde Trine,
Oscawana-on-Hudson, N. Y.
Miss Alice Edmands Putnam, Cambridge,
Mass.
Editorialana. 99
George H. Pepper, Am. Museum Nat. History, New York. Harlan I. Smith, Am. Museum Nat. History, New York. Cecilie Seler, Berlin, Germany. Hjalmar Stolpe, Stockholm, Sweden. Luis A. Herrera, Uruguay. Marshall H. Saville, New York. Adelaf Breton, London, England. C. T. Hartman, Stockholm, Sweden. At the station, before departure, Mr. Saville made a neat little speech in behalf of the guests, thanking their hosts for the pleasure and profit of the day, and three cheers were given by each party in be- half of the other. The guests proceeded, under the escort of President Howard Ayres of the Cincinnati University, and Mr. C. L. Metz, the distinguished Archaeologist of Madisonville, to Cincinnati, where they were the guests of the Society of Natural History, and the Cincinnati Museum of Archaeology.
HON. CHARLES. P. GRIFFIN. Hon. Charles P. Griffin died at noon, of heart failure, at his resi- dence on Collinwood Avenue, Toledo, December 18, 1902. Mr. Griffin was born at Tipton, Lorain County, Feb- |
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1868, he removed to Toledo, where he engaged successfully in real es- tate and insurance business. He was trustee of Hillsdale College from 1876 to 1886, and when the college buildings were rebuilt after their destruction by fire, one of the largest was named in his honor "Griffin Hall." Although retaining his residence in Toledo, his business head- quarters were in New York from 1874 to 1879, and in Chicago from |
100 Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.
1879 to 1883; since which time he was
profitably engaged in the busi-
ness of real estate and farming. When
some two or three years ago,
the Toledo and Indiana Electric Line was
organized, Mr. Griffin was
elected president, and up to the time of
his death devoted his entire
time to its construction. Mr. Griffin was an ardent Republican, and
was the choice of a large number of
Toledoans for Congress, three times
losing the nomination to Congressman
James Southard. He served
with distinction in the Ohio
Legislature, being elected in 1887, on the
Republican ticket; member of the 68th
General Assembly, by a majority
of five hundred, reelected in 1889 by
twice that majority; elected for the
third time in 1891 by over fifteen
hundred majority; and elected for
a fourth term in 1893 by a majority of
four thousand. He was elected to
the 74th General Assembly, in which he
championed the legislative
enactment promoting the Ohio Centennial,
which was to have been held
at Toledo. He displayed great energy and
diplomacy in carrying the
bill through in spite of most determined
opposition. The bill was after-
ward declared inoperative by the Supreme
Court.
Mr. Griffin was, from its early days, a
most stanch, active and
effective member and friend of The Ohio
State Archaeological and His-
torical Society. At the annual meetings
on March 7, 1890, and February
18, 1891, he personally participated,
and at the dinner on each of those
occasions delivered an eloquent address
upon the "History of the Mau-
mee Valley." In 1891, Governor
James Campbell appointed him a trustee
of the Society. He served until 1894,
when he was re-appointed by
Governor William McKinley, serving until
1897 when he was again re-ap-
pointed by Governor Asa Bushnell, and at
the expiration of that term, he
was re-appointed in February, 1900, by
Governor George K. Nash, to
serve until February, 1903. He was
therefore in continuous service, as
trustee by appointment, for twelve
years, the longest service of that kind,
by any trustee. On the visit of the
Trustees of the Society with the Ameri-
canists to Fort Ancient, of which we
give an account in this number,
Mr. Griffin was present, and took a
lively interest in the events of the
day, and said to the writer of these
lines that he proposed from then
on to give the Society much of his
attention and effort. Mr. Griffin was an
indefatigable worker in everything that
he undertook. He was a man of
strong convictions and courageous
action. He was an ardent friend,
and a fearless foe. He was a ready
speaker, an expert parliamentarian,
and a skilled and shrewd debater.
Several times during the history of the
Society, as the writer can personally
testify, Mr. Griffin was its champion
on the floor of the legislature, and
more than once was the leader in
carrying through measures promotive of
the progress and efficiency of
The Ohio State Archaeological and
Historical Society. Well does the
writer remember a particular incident in
the general assembly of one of
the early 90's. It was an evenng
session, the temper of the house was one
of restlessness and impatience. A bill
in the interest of the Society was
Editorialana. 101
under discussion; the tide was against
the enactment on the ground
that the Society did not merit the
State's aid. Mr. Griffin hastily summoned
the writer to the cloak-room of the
House and asked a full explanation of
the situation. It was given. Mr. Griffin
returned to the floor and in a
most vigorous argument and enthusiastic
plea changed the prevailing senti-
ment and carried the bill through. He
was the friend of the Society and
deserves the kindliest thought and most
grateful memory of its members.
To the surviving wife, son Mark and
daughter Ethel of Toledo
and daughter Mrs. N. Coe Stewart, of
Worcester, Mass., we extend the
sympathy and well wishes of the members
of the Ohio State Archaeo-
logical and Historical Society.
OHIO AND THE WESTERN RESERVE.
Mr. Alfred Mathews, recently made
honorary member of the Ohio
State Archaeological and Historical
Society, has given the public one of
the most valuable little books on Ohio
history that has been issued
within recent times. The book bears the
title Ohio and her Western
Reserve, with a story of three states,
the states being Connecticut,
Pennsylvania and Ohio. Mr. Mathews is a
tireless student of history.
He has apparently exhausted the subject
of his volume. With great
detail, but always in a delightful and
polished style he gives the history
of the Connecticut colony, its claim of
a wide strip of territory across
Pennsylvania and the northern part of
Ohio into Michigan and Indiana.
His chapter on Wyoming gives the most
complete and satisfactory his-
tory of the Connecticut settlement at
Wyoming, the tragic history of
that settlement, the battle and massacre
of Wyoming, that we have ever
seen in print. It will be recalled that
this settlement by the Connecticut
colonists at Wyoming was the first
pioneer settlement of the Connecti-
cut people within the boundary of Penn's
province on the Susquehanna
river, and within the territory claimed
by Connecticut, and was made
largely to preempt and establish by
right of possession the title of Connecti-
cut to that western extension. "It
represented the first overt act of an
inter-colonial intrusion; the initial
movement of that persistent, general,
systematic invasion which resulted in
the settlement of Wyoming and the
establishment of a Connecticut
government on Pennsylvania soil; a de-
termined effort to dismember the state
and to create another, to be
carved from the territory of
Pennsylvania." Wyoming was founded by
what was known as the
Connecticut-Susquehanna company, which made
its settlement with about two hundred
Connecticut men about a mile
above the site of Wilkesbarre in the
Wyoming valley in the early spring
of 1762. As early as 1754 the company
sent agents to Albany to purchase
from the Indians of the Six Nations the
land in the Wyoming Valley.
This was all done under the protest of
the Pennsylvanians and their
102 Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.
governor Hamilton. What was known as the
"Pennamite" war subse-
quently ensued. There was much incipient
warfare against and perse-
cution of the Wyoming settlers until the
early summer of 1778 when the
Wyoming wives besought their husbands to
return from the Continental
Army of the Revolution to their Wyoming
homes to protect their threat-
ened destruction. At the same time these
people called upon the Con-
tinental Congress and the Pennsylvania
authorities for justice and pro-
tection for the threatened settlement.
But the sorm could not be stayed.
The Indian and British and Tory forces
were concentrated at Tioga on
the Susquehanna some distance above
Wyoming. "No more heterogen-
eous herd of murderous soldiers and
savages was ever seen in America.
Its total is not far from twelve hundred
fighting men. There were
four hundred British provincials with a
rabble of Tories from New Jersey,
New York and Pennsylvania. There were
not far from seven hundred
Indians chiefly Senecas with detachments
from the Mohawks and other
tribes. This army was in almost every
conceivable dress from the mar-
tial dignity of trained soldiers down to
the ruffian type of the low
abandoned and depraved of the Tories.
The regulars were in smart uni-
forms. Col. John Butler's Rangers in
rich green; the Tories and rene-
gades in every form of backwoods
rusticity and tattered motley; the
Indians half naked were in savage attire
with their war-paint and bar-
barous adornment varied with martial
trappings of soldiers slain in
northern battles." This nondescript army was under the command
of
Colonel John Butler a remote relative of
Colonel Zebulon Butler who
was in command at Wyoming. The real
leader of the Indian contingent
under Colonel John Butler was Catherine
Montour a halfbreed and reputed
daughter of one of the French Governors
of Canada. She had been
liberally educated, and the best society
of colonial Philadelphia, Albany
and New York had petted and feted her as
a romantic and engaging
young woman in whose veins coursed a
mingling of cultured and savage
blood. She was now the widow of chief,
known as Queen Esther, and
enjoyed the repute of a seeress. She
possessed peculiar power over her
Indian race.
The forces at the Wyoming settlement and
fort numbered all told
only about three hundred men, and nearly
all of these, according to
the inscription of the monument erected
in their honor, were "The un-
disciplined, the youthful and the
aged." There were two hundred and
thirty enrolled men, many in fact
minors, and the remaining seventy were
all either boys or old men. They were
divided into six companies, and
mustered at Forty Fort on the west side
of the river where the families
of the settlers on the east side had
taken refuge. Such was the situation
on that memorable day, the third of
July, 1778, when the British and
Indians having advanced intrepidly down
the valley were finally met in
battle. The result was inevitable. Col.
Zebulon Butler's brave three
hundred, like those of Leonidas at
Thermopylae, were cut down. One
Editorialana. 103
hundred and sixty men were killed, and a
hundred and forty escaped only
to be subsequently captured. A debauch of blood followed for the
special delectation of Queen Esther who
personally participated in the
battle. "That seemingly insane
savage ordered a score of the prisoners
brought before her for torture. They
were compelled to kneel above a
large rock, and then the fanatical fury
chanting a wild song swept swiftly
around the circle and dashed out the
brains of sixteen victims while
the warriors crowded closely about the
scene of butchery expressing their
fierce joy with leaps and
yells." Nearly all of the three
hundred men
were killed in the attack or subsequent
massacre. Of the wretched people
remaining there were made that day in
the valley one hundred and fifty
widows, and nearly six hundred orphans.
Mr. Mathews deals at much length upon
the settlement of the
Western Reserve by the Connecticut
Yankees. This phase in our state
history he entitles "Connecticut
Triumphant in Ohio." He does full
justice to the great influence of the
New England character in its trans-
plantation from Connecticut to the
shores of Lake Erie on the Western
Reserve. The part which the Western
Reserve has played through its
distinguished characters, military,
political, literary and otherwise is
fully set forth. There is a very
admirable and succinct statement of the
origin and nature of the great ordinance
of 1787, and the Marietta settle-
ment which immediately followed the
creation of the North West Terri-
tory. Mr. Mathews also briefly states
the chain of events leading to the
evolution of Ohio from the North West
Territory into statehood. "Ohio
was never formally admitted as all other
states since the original thirteen
have been, to the Union; and it has been
a matter of much contention
as to which one of a half dozen dates is
the true one from which to
compute her age." That of April 30,
1802 is not the true one, that date
was simply the one upon which Congress
passed the first enabling act
paving the way for the admission of Ohio
into the Union. A better
one would be that of November 29, in the
same year, when the consti-
tution was adopted by the convention at
Chillicothe, or January 11, 1803,
when the first state election was held;
but these and several others are
unsupportable for various reasons. On
February 19, 1803, Congress passed
an act for the execution of the laws of
the Union within the state of Ohio,
"and so is the nearest approach to
the act of admission, from which the
existence of other states is determined.
This date has been generally sanc-
tioned by historians as the true one.
But the legislature first assembled
on March 1, 1803, and the Ohio
Archaeological and Historical Society
has officially designated that date to
be the proper one of the state's
origin and it is therefore now generally
so accepted." Mr. Mathews de-
votes an interesting chapter to the
analysis of Ohio's ascendency in the
sisterhood of states. This he attributes
mainly to its mixture of racial
forces. "It has been tritely told
that New England was sown with selected
seed from Old England, but Ohio was sown
with selected seed from all
104 Ohio Arch. and
His. Society Publications.
New England and all the colonies. Her
uniqueness, historically speak-
ing, lies in the fact that hers was the
first soil settled by the United States.
New England was peopled by the Puritans
and others from Old England;
New York by Dutch and English;
Pennsylvania by Quakers and Ger-
mans and Scotch-Irish; Virginia again by
the English but quite differ-
ent from those of Massachusetts and
Connecticut; Maryland by still
another element; and so on. Of the
states not included among the
original thirteen, but admitted to the
Union before Ohio: Vermont was
settled by Massachusetts and New York;
Kentucky by Virginia; and Ten-
nessee by North Carolina; but Ohio was
settled by all of these-by
elements from each and every state in
the confederacy; in other words,
Ohio was settled by the people of the
United States. Ohio was the first
territory to be representative of the
entire people, colonists of English
Puritans and Cavaliers and Quakers, of
Scotch-Irish and Germans. And
thus in a certain senese were not the
Ohioans truly the first Americans?"
THE ACOLHUANS.
This is the age of the historical novel.
It is being produced from the
press ad infinitum if not indeed ad
nauseum but it has remained for
General John Beatty, a life and honored
member of the Ohio State
Archaeological and Historical Society,
to be the author of a prehistoric
novel. General Beatty's book is
therefore unique as a literary feature
of the day. This volume, as confessed in
the apology, purports to be
a free translation from the Norraena of
the story of a man living in the
tenth century. It is the self-told
narrative of the hero Ivarr Bartholds-
son, a grandson of a former king of
Norway, which king spent many
years of his early life in the court of
Athelstan of England. Ivarr with
his father had drifted to Greenland,
whence Ivarr with an adventurous
party travels to the land of the
Acolhuans who occupied the Ohio val-
ley, and were none other than the Mound
Builders of that territory.
The book is thenceforth an account of
the lengthy sojourn of Ivarr among
its prehistoric people, whose customs,
life, habitations, government, and
social system so far as it went, are
ingeniously and in imagination de-
scribed. The author takes this form to
tell what is supposed to be known
about these people who left no written
records. Ivarr in his wanderings
strikes the northern boundary of the
present Ohio at the mouth of the
Sandusky river where was a chief
settlement of the Acolhuans. The
hero and his friends assist these people
in one of their campaigns against
a rival race known as the Skraelings.
There is a naval encounter on the
lake in their rude boats, and a hand to
hand contest with clubs and bows
and arrows on the land. Ivarr visits the
various chief settlements such
as those at Chillicothe, Newark and
Marietta. These Mound Building
settlements are graphically portrayed,
the business and domestic life of
Editorialana. 105
the people as one might suppose it to
have been in the days of the tenth
century. The author carries the
credulity of his reader to the very limit.
For instance, he fully describes the
girls' and boys' schools at Lekin,
the name which he gives to the present
site of Newark, in the vicinity
of which there still stand to-day vast
and complete earth-works of those
long lost tribes. These people, as General
Beatty pictures them with a
graphic pen, reached a stage of
considerable civilization, one far beyond
that of their successors the Indians.
They had a written language, a
commerce that extended to foreign
nations in South America, and en-
gaged in many of the amusements
prevalent among our smartest set.
They indulged freely, and often too
frequently, in palatable wines, and
appear to have been especially fond of
gambling. Indeed the indulgence
in this pastime got the hero Ivarr into
very serious trouble from which
he had most thrilling escapes. Ivarr
takes a long journey from the
country of the Acolhuans to Central
America, and Mexico the country
of the Taltecs, who, the author states,
were the kinsfolk and contem-
poraries of the Acolhuans of the Ohio
valley. There is of course a love-
thread running through the story. One
lady Gunhild, a princess among
the Acolhuans, is the beloved of Ivarr,
and with her he subsequently re-
turns to Norway, where they live, in
their later life enjoying the mem-
ories of their experiences among the
Mound Builders of Ohio. General
Beatty has woven into this interesting
story very much that the Archaeo-
logists claim in behalf of these
prehistoric people. The "Acolhuans" is
not only an excellently imagined story
itself, with many thrilling scenes
and graphic descriptions, but is,
moreover, well calculated to attract our
attention to and interest us in the days
and life of the Mound Builders,
as we see them in our mind's eye. The
book is embellished with several
illustrations of the rehabilitated
cities and localities of the Mound Build-
ers, the special one of which is that
reproducing Fort Ancient as it was
in the day of its habitation. Fort Ancient
the author describes as the
city of refuge and the capital of the
province. This is in accordance
with a much accredited belief that Fort
Ancient was the great central
capital of these people in the Ohio
valley. General Beatty very fittingly
dedicates his volume to Colonel E. L.
Taylor, a life member of the Ohio
State Archaeological and Historical
Society, and one than whom there
are few, if any, so well versed in the
life and character of the Mound
Builders and their followers the
American Indian. General Beatty's book
is published by McClelland & Co. of
Columbus, Ohio.
THE GREATEST MAN -AN
OHIOAN.
A most attractive and interesting little
pamphlet has just been
published by Mr. S. F. Harriman,
Columbus, O., under the pretentious title
"The Greatest Living Man." The
author is Col. William Jackson Arm-
strong, the distinguished writer, and
who, under Grant's Administration,
*8 Vol. XII.
106 Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.
was inspector of foreign consulates. Colonel Armstrong is a most forceful and accomplished writer. His style is more that of the early English essayists than of the modern facile but less elegant wielders of the pen. Colonel Armstrong, in this little monograph, displays a wonderful range of reading, marvelous insight into human nature, and most exact powers of analysis and comparison. He touches upon the leading characteristics of all the great living men, authors, poets, generals, artists, philosophers, scholars, actors, scientists, engineers, inventors, and great captains of industry both foreign as well as American. His essay is a remarkable condensation of vast intellectual sweep and study. He comes to the rather startling conclusion that the greatest living man is none other than Thomas Edison, the inventor, and a native Buckeye, having been born at the little town of Milan, near Norwalk. It is possible that all the world will not agree with Colonel Armstrong's deduction, but, in any event, considering the care and range which he has given to his subject, the Colonel is entitled to very great consideration. |
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