OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Ohio -- The Frontier (Part 1)
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Darlene E. Kelley
http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374
September 30, 2001
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Historical Collections of Ohio
The Kelley Family Collections
Newspaper article, Plains Dealer
compiled by S.J. Kelley-- 1925
And Then They Went West
by Darlene E. Kelley  1998
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Ohio -- The Frontier  Part 1

The history of Ohio is the story of its people. Its early years were
shaped by courageous Men and Women, the best that New England had to
offer. The ability to swing an ax, outwit the cunning Indian, bring down
game with a trusty rifle, and maintain equilibrium in spite of potent
raw whiskey, proved the mettle of the frontiersman. From the trees of
the forest, he built his cabin home, fashioned its furnishings and
utensils, and secured his fuel. Having laboriously cleared a parcel of
land and planted it with seeds from his homeland, a meager crop of
essential foods and grains, would result if the weather was favorable.
Nothing was wasted, out of necessity, as the fontiersman had
resourcefulness and put everything to use. There was work for every
member of the household. Clothing was the product of the spinning wheel
or was made of the hide of an animal. Grain was pounded into meal before
the advent of the grist-mill. Tallow candles and whale oil lamps
furnished illumination. Salt was a luxury that either came from Onondaga
or from Pittsburg, and sold for $20.00 a barrel. It was soon found that
it could be secured at the salt springs, nine miles west of Youngstown.
It was made by boiling down the saline waters. Wild honey and maple
sugar was a great blessing to the homemaker.

Indian tribes, reluctantly, gave up their lands to Ohio. At the opening
of the decade, the Western Reserve became established legally, and
shortly afterward became the State of Ohio. The new proprietors assumed
the responsibility for their real estate purchases in the reserve.
Trails became widened to accompany clumsy wagons making their way into
the frontier. Mail service was inaugurated bringing the outside world a
little bit closer to Ohio. The port on the Cuyahoga was officially
opened launching Cleveland's shipbuilding industry.

The Birth of Ohio --

To understand the origins of Ohio, we must go back over 200,000 years
ago, when 3/4 of Ohio lay thick under a sheet of ice a mile thick. Vast
glaciers covered much of North America. Eventually the ice field melted
away, leaving hills and valleys. rivers and small lakes, and a clear
evidence of natural advantages that played an important part in the
march of civilization.

These glaciers helped to shape the Great Lakes, a mighty influence upon
Ohio's growth and progress. They were responsible for the natural
setting of the Erie canal through the Mohawk Valley, and for the Portage
Lakes that largely determined the location of the Ohio Canal. Another
heritage was fertile soil that made Ohio surpassingly rich in
agriculturial products.

Discoveries have indicated that men lived in Ohio during the glacial
period, evidence found in the form of stone impliments and other relics
left in terraces formed by the glaciers.

The advent of the mound builders, a later race, is variously placed
between six  and twelve centuries ago.  Their mysterious entrance into
history and their veiled exit from human records are matters that
research has been unable to explain. Ohio has many evidences of their
early civilization in the form of earthern mounds built for various
purposes. Villiage sites, fortifications, and burial grounds have been
found. Relics, consisting of tools, utensils, and fabrics have also been
found.

With the coming of the red man, the wilderness that became Ohio was a
hunting ground of migrating, warfaring tribes.  In the North, the most
prominent were the Wyandots, Huron, Ottawas, Neutral Nation, Andastes,
Iroquois, and Eries, for whom Lake Erie was named. The Eries developed
great power, and gained control of the Southeren shore of the Lake from
Sandusky Bay to the site of Buffalo. Their kin, the Iroquois, however,
became their bittter enimies, and organized smaller tribes into the
mighty Five Nations to oppose them.

In the middle of the seventeenth century came a merciless war and the
Iroquois. with their allies, superior in numbers, practically
exterminated the Eries, to become masters of Northeastern Ohio.
Early in the eighteenth century, the Five Nations became the Six Nations
when the Tuscarora came North. The Cuyahoga River was the boundry line
between the shores of Lake Erie, finding customers among venturious
French and English traders.

Among the early Missionaries in 1772, was Dr David Zeisberger and John
Heckewelder, who were Moravan missionaries, and built the Gnadenhutten
and Schoenbrunn villages for friendly Christian Indians on the
Tuscarawas River. The ninety inhabitants were brutally murdered or
massacred in 1782 by irresponible whites, and acts of revenge by furious
Indians of several tribes followed.

Hoping to establish a new colony, and believing that the bitter
conflicts were over, Zeisberger and Heckewelder founded a settlement
called Pilgerruh, meaning Pilgram's Rest, in May, 1786 near the junction
of the Cuyahoga River and Tinker's Creek. A chapel and log cabins were
built and a few of the residents engaged in agriculture. Indians and
hostile whites interfered and the new project became abandoned. The
Moravians left a map and a discription of the area which has been housed
and preserved by the Western Reserve Historical Society.

The Indians were not the sole claimants of Northeastern Ohio. The
Cabots, who stumbled against Newfoundland's bleak shore. led England to
claim North America. The French, because of their explorations and
discoveries, considered themselves the rightful owners. Connecticut,
Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia had vague claims under early
charters, granted by English Kings. These monarchs, through geographical
ignorance or political expediency, made their gifts with little
consideration for boundry lines, and often one King gave what his
predecessor had already given.

In 1662, the State of Connecticut persuaded Charles II of England. whose
knowledge of liqueur was said to have been greater than his
understanding of geography, granted her a vast territory of western
land, for her questionable title deed. It lay between the parallels
which bounded the State, and extended from sea to sea. Ownership was a
confused issue and was settled only after the thirteen States had agreed
to relinguish disputed lands to the Federal Government so that they
might be admitted to the Confederation as new states. Connecticut waived
part of her claim, on Sept 14, 1786 and reserved a tract of land in
which became northeastern Ohio as compensation for her comparatively
small size. This area became known as the Western Reserve. It extended
southward from the Lake to the forty first parallel of North latitude,
and continued westward 120 miles from the Pennslvania line. It was
called New Connecticut.

The Ordinance of 1787, passed in July by the Congress of Confederattion,
provided the machinery for government in the Northwestern Territory.
This vast area. appended to the Thirteen States, was originally bounded
by the Ohio River on the south, the Mississippi on the west, the Great
Lakes on the North and Pennsylavania and Virginia on the east. The
Ordinance was a significant achievement, setting the form by which
subsequent western territories were created and later admitted into the
Union, marking the beginnings of western expansion and increasing the
powers of the Federal Government. A scholarly soldier, Arthur St.Clair
was chosen governor, and the seat of government was established at
Marietta, Ohio, on July 15, 1788. Slavery was prohibited within the
Territory.

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Con't in part 2--