by Greybeard
[pen-name of Isaiah J. Morris]
Chapter 2
In 1840, Lower Sandusky was considered the western verge of civilization.
Sunday as a day of rest and religious meditation and instruction
had not as a permanent fixture yet crossed the rolling waters
of Sandusky. Every man did that which seemeth right in his own
eyes, and spent the day in hunting, sporting or in such manner
as seemed best to him. Here in company with three others I entered
the famous black swamp lying between Sandusky and Perrysburg a
distance of thirty miles. This swamp was at that time one of the
most dismal and forbidding looking regions known to the West,
and was a real terror to emigrants. A soft, spongy, loose, black
soil, covered during most of the year with water, a wagon, with
a moderate load, would sink to the axle for miles and miles at
a stretch.swamp extends from near Muncie in this State, running
in a southeast direction, terminating on the shore of Lake Erie.
Movers dreaded the great barrier, and well they might, for often
they were compelled to leave their wagons and go a few miles ahead,
stay all night, return in the morning, and by hard labor, bring
the wagon up to the tavern, or to the camping ground, during the
day, stay a second night, move forward the next day a mile or
two, return, stay a third night, and then all move forward and
repeat the dose. It usually took from six to ten days to pass
this wilderness of sin, according to the weather and ability of
the team. It required an unusual amount of patience, endurance
and an abundance of hard work to pass this formidable barrier
at any season of the year between 1836 and 1842, when a stone
pike was commenced and finished in 1844. Today a trip to Colorado
could be performed with less labor and much more pleasure, than
a trip from Sandusky to Warsaw could at the time referred to.
Arriving at Perrysburg, curiosity led us to take a view of old
Fort Meigs, the breast-works of which remained ranging from three
to five feet high, and was built by General Harrison, in 1813.
On the opposite side of the river stood Maumee City, at the lower
extremity of which stood the remains of the British garrison commanded
by the insolent Col. Campbell at the time Gen.defeated the Indians
in 1794, at the battle of The Fallen Timbers, in the neighborhood,
and re-built and occupied by the British Col. Proctor, in 1813.
The site with its decayed works was plainly visible, and a spot
easy of defence and well selected. These historic locations have
lost much of their prestige, importance, and sacredness, and have
been permitted to pass from memory since the great campaigns of
the rebellion. Yet, to the older inhabitants of the west, and
especially of the Ohio frontier, whose annoyance and suffering
from the merciless savage was anything but pleasant, they have
a deep significance, and call to mind the names and memory of
more than one friend or relative, who fell a victim to the tomahawk
and scalping-knife of the savages. An uncle of the writer's father-in-law,
in the person of Col. Crawford, was burned near Bucyrus, Ohio,
in 1782, and I have often seen uncle Samuel Waugh, from whose
skull an Indian stole a full-sized scalp. Waugh afterwards avenged
the insult, by lifting seven Indian scalps from their warm and
bony locations, sending their former wearers to the happy hunting
grounds.
Perrysburg and Maumee City were rival towns. Situated at the head
of steamboat navigation on Maumee bay, and each striving to vanquish
the other. The opening of the Wabash and Erie canal, with an outlet
into the bay, was the advantage of Maumee, and from which she
expected to reap a large commercial harvest, while Perrysburg
was working for the new turnpike, and a railroad of a peculiar
pattern to Sandusky; and being the county-seat of Wood county,
she struggled for the ascendancy. Maumee City, in connection with
Miami, extended along the river for a distance of over two miles.
The engineers or stock-jobbers of this rising metropolis of the
west, designed not only to eclipse Perrysburg, but to annihilate
the city of Toledo itself. Expectation was on tip-toe, and in
a few years large fortunes were swallowed up in the experiment,
which proved a disastrous failure. One young man in particular,
from Buffalo, was unusually unfortunate. He invested largely in
lots, built hotels and storehouses, and in three years lost over
three hundred thousand dollars. Both towns, since Toledo has become
the railroad center for that region, have dwindled into comparative
insignificance, the county-seat being removed from Perrysburg,
leaving it on an equal footing with its rival.
Taking leave of the rival cities, we moved up the Maumee towards
Fort Wayne, which was our next objective point. The soil was entirely
different from any we had as yet seen, being remarkable for its
great adhesive qualities and great susceptibility of being reduced
to the toughest and most detestable and annoying mortar, clinging
with the denacity of soft wax to our clothes, boots, and whatever
it may come in contact. A footman was compelled to carry enough
mud on each boot to make an ordinary brick. The weather was damp
and rainy, hence our progress was not so rapid as under other
circumstances. After traveling half a day we came to "The
Fallen Timbers," or Wayne's old battle ground. Nothing extraordinary
remained to mark the spot, save an old rock beneath which an old
Indian Chief by the name of Turkey was buried. He sought refuge
behind this rock during the battle, and was shot by one of the
Federal soldiers. His Indian friends cut the likeness of an eagle
or turkey foot upon the rock, placing upon it an offering of tobacco
to appease the wrath of the Great Spirit, and lighten the punishment
of the defunct Chief. Next came Fort Defiance, at the confluence
of the Auglaze with the Maumee, with its hight breastwork and
big appletree. It is no mystery as to how the fort came there,
but at what period that appletree was planted, or by whom, was
then, and is to this day, a profound mystery. It was near, if
not altogether, twenty inches in diameter, with a very wide spreading
top, and gave evidence of great age. The grounds of the old fort
are preserved by a neat substantial fence, and is under the care
of the town authorities.
The roads from Defiance to Fort Wayne were but little better than
those of the Black Swamp. It did seem as though the great dead
level from near Defiance to within six miles of Fort Wayne was
about as sorry a piece of property as a man could own. What remains
a sealed mystery to this day, was the fact that narrow-leafed
spatterdock grew luxuriantly, not only on the lower grounds, but
equally so around and directly between the spur roots of the oak
timber. The wonder is not so much at the spatterdock, for it certainly
was rioting in its native element; but that large thrifty oaks,
straight as a pikestaff, should live and have its being in such
a cold, clammy, wet, clay soil, is the mystery. Henry Breckbill,
an old acquaintance from Pennsylvania, located within a few miles
of Defiance, in 1835. In clearing up his farm he would chop off
a given tract and burn the brush during the summer and fall, then
let it lay over until spring, when the water would rise; he would
then go in the clearing with a skiff, or "dug-out",
and float the timber all together in one corner. When the water
asuaged and the ground dried, he fired the mass and burned it
up. The same thing has been successfully practiced in the dutch
flats, near Huntington, as late as 1850. The Breckbill farm is
now one of the best in Defiance county, and has for years produced
heavy crops where he caught fine fish during the first years of
his citizenship.
After five days hard work we reached Fort Wayne, which contained,
at that time, about two thousand inhabitants, and was the centre
of trade for a district of fifty or sixty miles in diameter, and
carried on a large trade by means of keel and flat boats with
Maumee, Perrysburg and Toledo; the Wabash and Erie canal being
then in course of construction. The Indian name of the city originally
was Kekionga. The old fort was yet standing. It consisted of a
two-story hewed log house, with a hewed log partition through
the centre, and in size did not appear to be more than twenty-six
or twenty-eight feet by forty, and was by no means an attractive
structure. The old appletree on the opposite side of the river,
under which the Indian Chief Lafountain, or Russiaville, (I think
the first) was born, and from whose branches an Indian was shot
by a white soldier from the fort, was pointed out. The distance
of this tree from the fort appeared to be about twelve or fourteen
hundred yards, and was considered to be a crack shot, as it was
done with an old-fashioned flint lock U. S. musket or yaugher.
The appletree still stands as a sentinel at his post, but is not
cared for with that tenderness and respect bestowed upon the old
Charter Oak, of Hartford. A few years ago, Peter Kiser, the representative
from Allen county in the State Legislature, introduced a bill
into the House, asking an appropriation of six thousand dollars
for the erection of a monument in honor of Gen. Wayne, and in
his speech urging the passage of the bill, he said that "Mad
Anthony," as Wayne was called, fought a desperate battle
with the Indians upon the ground occupied by the old fort, and
such was the terrible slaughter that human blood flowed down the
Maumee three miles deep, and declared it a fact that could be
proved by history. Peter failed to prove the fact, or make the
members believe it, and the bill failed to pass.
It was in the month of October that we came to Fort Wayne. Work
was plenty, and wages good. Mechanics, such as carpenters, masons,
plasterers, and painters, were scarce. I was offered two lots
on the west side of Calhoun street, directly opposite where the
Aveline House now stands, for one month's work, (plastering) but
we all supposed the town about as large and full of dutchmen as
it ever would get, and lots would not advance in price, or could
not be converted into cash at any reasonable figure, consequently
they did not swindle me into the purchase of any of their worthless
real estate. Circumstances, and the present condition of that
city, proves most conclusively the wisdom of the decision, and
our great foresight.
We left Fort Wayne and struck northwest for Warsaw, by the old
Yellow River road. Towards evening of the second day we passed
through Columbia City, a fact of which we were profoundly ignorant
until we had passed it four or five miles. The only mark or indication
of a city at the time was a guide-board, with letters burned upon
it with a hot iron, and nailed to an oak tree. Universal stillness,
rendered oppressive by a heavy humid atmosphere, reigned in, over,
and around the embryo city, which, during the late unpleasantness,
became famous on the account of the terrible battle of Shenaman's
Hill, wherein Brig. Gen. Lamb immortalized himself by deeds of
noble daring. Somewhere to the northwest of the guide-board city,
we passed what was known as Bond's Mill, which at that period,
and for some time afterwards, was noted as a neighborhood in which
dwelt a lot of counterfeiters. These individuals produced an excellent
imitation of American half, and quarter eagles in gold, and Mexican
dollars, and American half dollars in silver, many of which, especially
the latter, found their way undetected into the treasury of the
different land offices. There were numerous gangs of thieves and
counterfeiters all through the country. The Haw Patch was a rendezvous,
and many other places, and they had a regular underground railroad
from Central Indiana to Michigan for the transportation of stolen
horses. Forthport, situated on the north side of the Fort Wayne
and Michigan canal feeder, and near the present site of Rome City,
was the headquarters of these lovers of horse flesh, and by the
way, they did a lively business. They had a depot and resting
place on what was called Bogus Island, situated in the tamarack
swamp immediately east of Warsaw. This rendezvous was on that
small plat of dry ground northeast of the graveyard, and south
of the P.Ft.W.& C. R.R. They made a bridge of short tamarack
sticks, covered with whortleberry bushes and grass, from the main
land to the island, over which they passed the horses. The island
was difficult of access, even on foot, and the existence of the
bridge was not known for some years after, only to the initiated.
The fact of the existence of this island camp was a profound secret
at the time, and the discovery of the bridge revealed the whole
matter. Feeding places for horses, and a low brush booth for the
thieves, were found, and gave unmistakable proof of having been
extensively used. In 1846 the island gave fresh evidence of being
used for concealing horses, and a suspicion that some persons
in Warsaw were engaged in an illicit traffic in horse flesh, led
to a close watch being kept over the island, but nothing was discovered.
This practice of counterfeiting and stealing horses, was kept
up for ten or twelve years. A man by the name of Vancamp appeared
to be the head-centre of the band during the later years of their
existence; but the arrest and imprisionment of some of his accomplices,
and some narrow escapes of his own, caused him to leave the country.
People were very particular in those days when they received silver
or gold, for fear it was bogus, as all counterfeits were called.
Northern Indianian Feb. 26, 1874
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