THE SANDUSKY FORTS.
BY CHARLES A. HANNA, NEW YORK.
Several addresses on "Old Fort
Sandusky," and the in-
scriptions on the monument erected last
spring near the site of
one Sandusky Fort, were printed in the
October, 1912, number
of the
Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society's Quarterly.
Some of these addresses and inscriptions
are so full of in-
accuracies, misleading statements, and
incorrect inferences, that
they should be corrected.
The bronze tablet on the west face of
the Harrison-Perry
Embarkation Monument-erected under the
direction of the Ohio
Historical Society-reads as follows:
"FORT SANDOSKI. 1745-1748.
1750-1751. 1761-1763. The First
Fort built by White Men in Ohio, erected
by British Traders from Penna.
and Va., in 1745, under the protection
of the Huron Chief, Nicolas; and
destroyed by him after his defeat by the
French in 1748, prior to his
removal to the Illinois Country.
"Rebuilt by British in 1750, and
'usurped by the French in 1751.'
Again rebuilt by British soldiers in
1761, after the surrender of Quebec
and French Sovereignty in America."
etc.
The tablet on the south face of the
monument recites that
DeLery landed near the spot on which the
monument stands,
"and discovered the ruins of the
Old Fort, Fort Sandoski, 1745-
1748, 1750-1751."
The first and only Fort erected near
this spot, or on the
north shore of Sandusky Bay, was built
by the French in the
winter of 1750-1751, as stated in John
Pattin's Narrative (Wis.
Hist. Colls., xviii, 145), and in
DeLery's Journal of 1754
(Wilderness
Trail, ii., 168). The Britsh never
built a fort on
the north side of Sandusky Bay. No fort
on either side of the
bay was built by the British in 1750.
The first British Sandusky Fort was
built on the south side
of the Bay by a Company of British soldiers and artisans under
(3 2)
The Sandusky Forts. 323
command of Lieut. Elias Meyer, who wrote
to General Bouquet
September 1, 1761, that he had arrived
at Lake Sandusky, and
had "fixed on 3 spot for a
Block-house, three miles from a village
called by the Indians, Canoutout, where
all the traders unload
[their pack-horses] and load [into
boats] their goods for De-
troit. It is almost in the middle of
Little Lake Sandusky."
(Calendar of Bouquet MSS., Canadian
Archives, 1889, p. 190.)
Lieutenant Meyer wrote Bouquet again
from "Fort Sandusky,"
November 29, 1761: "The Block-house,
palisades, etc., are now
finished."
The late William Darlington, in his Christopher
Gist's Jour-
nals, states that this English Fort Sandusky stood at the
mouth
of Mill's Creek, and cites as his
authority a letter in the Canadian
Archives from Bouquet to Amherst, dated
December 2, 1761.
A "Fort Destroyed" near the
"Little Portage," on the north
side of the bay, is marked on a small
sketch of the bay, made by
an officer in 1761, and now with the
Bouquet MSS. in the library
of the British Museum. This manuscript
map also shows the
location of the Indian villages and the
British block-house on the
south side of the bay.
The correct location of this fort is
also shown on Thomas
Hutchins's map of 1764, published with
his account of the
Bouquet Expedition. Lieutenant Hutchins
visited this fort in
the summer of 1762, and knew whereof he
wrote.
In all probability there never was a
fort built by English
Traders, either on the north side or
south side of Sandusky Bay.
The assumption that there was such a
fort is based on the er-
roneous account of the conspiracy of
Chief Nicolas, published
by Mr. Goodman in his Journal of
Captain William Trent. The
principal incident in the rebellion of
Nicolas was the murder of
five French traders in the spring of
1747, during their return
from the White River to Detroit. Mr.
Goodman, following the
editor of the New York Colonial
Documents, erroneously identi-
fied this White River with the White
River of Southern Indiana,
a tributary of the Wabash; while it was
really the Cuyahoga,
and close to Mr. Goodman's own home.
Nicolas and his band
did not retire to the Illionis country,
as Mr. Goodman thought,
and as stated on the inscription quoted
above; but they fled to
324 Ohio Arch. and Hist.
Society Publications.
the Muskingum, and with the co-operation
of George Croghan,
built a town which they called Conchake,
near the north bank of
the Tuscarawas, just above its mouth. A
town built some years
later by the Delaware Indians, a mile or
two lower down, on the
Muskingum, was given a Delaware form of
the name of the
Wyandot, or Huron, town which it
succeeded, and has ever since
been known as Coshocton.
These facts are mostly set forth in
DeLery's Journal of 1755.
Until some authority can be produced for
Mr. Goodman's
assumption that English traders built a
fort for Nicolas at San-
dusky in 1745, that statement cannot be
accepted as a fact; and
it is a pity that the fiction should be
perpetuated in bronze.
Nicolas's band of Hurons (now called
Wyandots) seem to
have settled on the south side of
Sandusky Bay in the summer
of 1740. "The 16th of September,
1740, Monsieur de Noyan
writes that the third chief of the
Hurons, named Angouirot
[Orontony, or Nicolas, was the great
chief of that nation], had
just arrived from Sandoske, where he had
left nearly all his
brothers, cutting down trees to extend
their fields." (French
manuscript from the Canadian Archives,
printed in Wis. Hist.
Colls., xvii., 286).
De Lery's Journal and maps show
that the fort of Nicolas
was built on the south side of Sandusky
Bay, and the Journal
states that it was built by the Hurons
themselves.
The Pennsylvania traders did build a
fort for the Miami
Indians at Pickawillany, in Ohio, before
1750; and this fort may
have been the "first fort built by
white men in Ohio." It is cer-
tain none of the Sandusky forts were.
It is not improbable that the site of
Nicolas's village and
fort was identical with that of Junundat
(the Ayonontout of the
French). DeLery gives its name as
Aniauton, or Anioton. This
was also the name of another Huron
chief, an ally of Nicolas,
and the village probably took its name
from this chief. Hutchins
locates Junundat three and one-half
miles to the south of the
English Fort Sandusky in 1762, and four
and one-half miles to
the north of the Cold Spring at
Castalia. DeLery does not
locate the village with exactness; but
from the fact that Anioton
was the first Indian village south of
the bay on the Conchake
The Sandusky Forts. 325 Trail in 1755, the location agrees with that of Junundat, as given by Hutchins in 1762. From the record as given above, it would seem that the "Fort Sandoski" tablet on the Harrison-Perry Portage monu- ment contains at least seven untrue statements and suggestions, all of which are set forth as historical facts, and all of which are false. This is indeed a new way of "making history." As a member of the Ohio State Archaeological and His- torical Society, the undersigned wishes to register his vigorous protest against that society standing sponsor for the Fort San- doski tablet. |
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