OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Tidbits of Ohio -- Part 23 ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information is included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgenwebarchives.org ************************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 March 26, 2005 ************************************************************************** Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West Know Your Ohio by Darlene E. Kelley Tid Bits - part 23 from notes of S. Kelly +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Part 23. Instructions to Cleaveland. Here are the instructions of the directors to their agent: To Moses Cleaveland, Esq., of the County of Windham, and State of Connecticut, one of the Directors of the Connecicut Land Company, Greeting; We, the Board of Directors, of said Connecticut Land Company, having appointed you to go on to said land, as Superintendent over the agents and men, sent on to survey and make locations on said land, to make, and enter into friendly negotiations with the natives who are on said land, or contiguous thereto, and may have any pretended claim to the same, and secure such friendly intercourse amongst them as will establish peace, quiet, and safety to the survey and settlement of said lands, not ceded by the natives under the authority of the United States. You are hereby, for the foregoing purposes, fully authorized and empowered to act, and transact all the above business in as full and ample a manner as we oursleves could do, to make contracts in the foregoing matters in our behalf and stead; and make such drafts on our Treasury, as may be necessary to accomplish the foregoing object of your appointment. And all agents and men by us employed, and sent on survey and settle said land, to be obedient to your orders and directions. And you are to be accountable for all monies by you received, conforming your conduct to such orders and directions as we may, from time to time, give you, and to do and act in all matters, according to your best skill and judgement, which may tend to the best interest, prosperity, and success of said Connecticut Land Company. Having more particularly for your guide the Articles of Association entered into and signed by the individuals of said Company. Pittsburgh and Canandaigua were the outlying posts for travelers to the Western Reserve. The Connecticut Land Company instructed the surveying party to gather at Canandaigua and proceed. Several of the journals of these young surveyers are in the passession of the Western Reserve Historical Society, and the entries in some of them which have never been published are curious. Mr. Seth Pease says under several dates in close succession: " I began my journey, Monday May 9, 1796. Fare from Suffeld to Hartford, six shillings; expenses four shillings six pence. ****** At breakfast, expense two shillings. Fare on my chest from Hartford to Middletown, one shilling, six pence." In telling about his trip to New York, he says; " Passage and liquor 4 dollars and three quarters." When he arrived in New York we find the following entry; " Ticket for play 75 cents; Liquor 14 cents; Show of elephants, 50 cents; shaving and combing, 13 cents. " Apparently Mr. Pease was seeing New York. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Usual Route to The Reserve And diobedience of Mr. Stow. It will probably pay the reader to take a map and follow their route from Connecticut to Schenectady, up the Mohawk river into Oneida lake, on to the Oswego river, into Ontario lake, alng the southern shore of this lake to Canandaigua, and then to Burffalo, from there touching at least once at Presque Isle ( Erie ), on past the Pennsylvania line. They sailed and walked the shore. Sometimes part of them turned back to help bring up those delayed, or went ahead of the party to counsel with military officers or to make necessary preparations for the party. It was a tedious trip. The four batteaux filled with provisions, baggage and men were heavy, and most of the men were unused to river boating. One of them records that pulling up the Mohawk was as hard work as he ever did in his life. It was a relief when they began going down the Oswego and came to Fort Stanwix ( Rome, New York ). Here Mr. Joshua Stow procured the necessary papers to allow the party to pass Fort Oswego, which was in the hands of the British. At this very time an agreement had been reached which provided that Americans could have access to the Lakes. The party therefore rapidly proceeded only to find they had been too sanguine ( optimistic ). The officers in charge of the fort had no new orders from Fort Niagrara; the old orders allowed no Americans to pass. The party, somewhat disappointed, put into a little bay in the river. The land was low, the soldiers at the fort where many of them were ill and dying, and the surveyers, ready and anxious for work in the far west, were not pleased at the thought of lying idly in this unwholesome spot until a messenger could go to Niagara and return. The directors of the Land Company had anticipated this trouble, as said above, and instructed Mr. Stow, who was a commissary, not to pass the fort if there was opposition. The situation was trying to Mr. Stow. Since he disobeyed orders and brought the party through successfully, we consider him an intelligent, faithful employee. Had the winds been a little stronger, the waves a little higher, conditions a little less favorable, so that the boats and the passengers had been lost, he would always have been referred as to a guilty, incompetent hireling. The officers of the fort of Oswego knew that the party arrived in four boats; consequently, when Mr. Stow, with one boat, went by the fort, he was not disturbed. These officers did not observe he carried provisions, they only thought he was going to Fort Niagara to obtain permission for the party to move on. The guard not being on the outlook, the three other boats passed the fort under the protection of night. Thus the party safely reached Lake Ontario. They had been hindered and bothered in many ways, but now they believed their troubles to be over. However, as is often the case when people are sanguine, the worst they were to see was at hand. A storm came up quickly and violently, throwing the three boats into Sodus Bay, where one of them was utterly disabled and where the whole party, almost miraculously, escaped drowning. One can imagine the anxiety of Mr. Stow, who had gone on to Irondequoit ( the port for Rochester ) when he learned that the three boats following him had been lost and nothing saved but an oar and a gun, thrown on shore at Sodus Bay. Either he or Augustus Porter ( accounts disagree ) with some men, turned about from Irondequoit to go to Sodus, hoping to learn how the shipwreck occurred. They were overjoyed to meet Captain Beard, who told them that instead of all being lost except the oar and gun, the oar and gun were the only thing which really were lost. One of the boats, however, which was useless, was abandoned, and the party proceeded on its way to Irondequoit, Canandiagua and the new home. The Indians at Buffalo were expecting them, and like all traders they were wondering what they dare demand; that is, how much they could get for their right to land. It's a wise man who offers neither too much nor too little. A man who proceeded the party with horses was forced to pay three dollars for pasture. Since the grass was neither cared for nor used by anybody, this was exorbitant. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Bargaining with the Indians It exasperates the reader of today to watch the slow movement of this party of surveyers. When they arrived at Buffalo, some of them went to Fort Niagara, possibly on business; some took a look at the Falls, while Holly, under the date of June 18th, says; " Porter and myself went on the Creek ( Buffalo ) in a bark canoe a fishing and caught only three little ones." How could people with such uncertainty ahead of them stop to angle ? Finally, the council with the red man was had, and a picturesque scene it was. On the shore of the lake, under the starry June sky, the white men, forerunners of the Western Reserve citizens, with joy in their faces and hope in their hearts, sat around the blazing fire prepared by the red men. Speeches were made on both sides, diplomatic messages exchanged, and while part of the Indians performed a swinging dance, the rest grunted an accompaniment from their sitting position on the ground. Negotiations were not completed then --- not at all; it was too soon. The Indian was " long on time " and short on whiskey. They must get drunk, of course. What was the good of a treaty without a pow-wow? What was good of the white man except for his whiskey ? So pow-wow and whiskey it was, fortunately with no bad results. On June 23rd, " after much talking on part of the Indians, Cleaveland offered Capt. Brant 500 pounds New York currency, which equals $1,000, provided he would peacefully relinquish his title to the western land. This sum was not large enough to please the captain, but after much parley he finally agreed to it, provided Cleaveland would use his influence with the United States and obtain from the government the sum of $500 annually for his tribe. In case he could not accomplish this he was to promise that the Land Company would pay an additional $1,500 in cash." Whether this agreement was kept, and whether either the government or company paid this sum is not known to the author, but as white men were treating with Indians, we presume this money is the last they saw. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Title Bought of the Red Man. Cleaveland then gave two beef cattle and 100 gallons of whiskey to satisfy the eastern Indians, and a feast followed. The western Indians were also given provisions to help them home and all had been entertained during the council. It is greatly to the credit of the Connecticut Land Company, and a source of much satisfaction to the residents of the Western Reserve today that the title to the land was not stolen, but was bought and paid for, even if the price was low; further, that possession of the new country was given and taken under the best feeling and without one drop of bloodshed. To be sure, our forefathers must have had a little larger supply of whiskey than the sentiment of today would alow them, when we remember they gave away hundred gallons and had plenty for all summer. History must have studied from its own time. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Early Drunkeness Whiskey was plentiful during the early days of the colonization as was food. To be sure, it was not our adulterated stuff of today, but it was whiskey, and it did what alcohol always has done and always will do to men. Its stimulating qualities for a time relieved the lonesomeness and fatique, but depression following surely more than overbalanced the good. All of the misunderstandings among travelers and early settlers and Indians were caused more or less by whiskey. The women in the early settlements abhorred it. They feared to have their husbands take it, lest trouble should follow. Anxiously these women in their own cabins, with wolves howling nearby outside, and babies huddled close within, awaited the coming of the husband who had been to an adjoining clearing, not knowing what animal or savage might have made way with him because of his drunkeness. These women saw their neighbors succeed and become prosperous because of self-control, while they remained poor because of the " fruit of the corn." Many and many over-worked wife who had looked forward to a log-rolling for weeks went home from the same with weeping eyes and heavy heart, her husband too drunk to guide the horse or act as her protector. Some people believe that there wa not as much drunkeness than as now, and will bring proof to bare upon it. This is not the place to discuss the temperance question, but, when we know that in range one, number one, Poland, there were eighteen stills; that in many settlements ministers were paid in whiskey, we can scacely believe the drunkenness of today is greater. Then, as now, women are temperate; then as now, they suffered from drunkenness and its consequences; then, as now, they persuaded and begged their very own t desist; then, as now, they wept and prayed, and then, as now, a few heeded, while more were not. One woman of this section whose husband took much at stated intervals, when he came home in that condition, obliged him to sit in a straightback chair till he was sober. If he started to move, she raised a stick of wood as if to strike him, when he immediately resumed his seat. He finally declared there was no use in drinking if one had to sit still until sober, and he reformed. As a rule, however, the stick, in a real or metaphorical sense, was, and is, in the hand of man. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ First Independence Day At last the surveyors had reached their destination. Even though they were adults, they had said good-bye to their home friends with thick throats and heavy hearts. They had paddled slowly the New York rivers, had outwitted the British officers, had suffered shipwreck, had endured the discomforts of long, slow travel, had successfully treated with Indians, and now, in the afternoon of a summer day, they had come upon the " promised land." The blue waters of the lake lapped the shore, the creek sliggishly sought its bay, the great forest trees were heavy with bright green leaves, the grass was thick and soft, the sky was blue, and, the lowering sun bathed the landscape with delicate reds and yellows. It was the Fourth of July, Independence Day, for which their fathers, twenty years before, had fought, and for which they themselves held holy reverence. They had double reason to rejoice, and they shouted, sang, fired guns across the water, adding an additional salute for the new territory. They drank water from the creek and whiskey from the jug; they named the spot Fort Independence, and drank toasts to the president of the United States, the state of Connecticut, the Connecticut Land Company, the Fort of Independence, and " the fifty sons and daughters who have entered it this day." When the camp fires had died down, and the stars were thick and bright, they went to sleep in the new land which was shortly to be broken up into thirteen counties ( Astabula, Geauga, Cuyahoga, Lake, Trumbull, Mahoning, Portage, Summit, part of Medina, part of Ashland, Erie, Huron, and Lorain.) If anyone dreamed that night that in one hundred and fifteen years these thirteen counties would have almost as much influence in the world as the thirteen original colonies had at the time; that most of the huge forests would be subplanted by cultivated fields and prosperous towns; that Indian paths would be macadam roads; that over tiny wires one could talk to any part of this New Country as easily as they could talk to each other that night on the lake shore; that school houses and churches would be thick throughout that region; and that both would be free; that over the very spot where they lay sleeping, powerful engines would carry sleeping passengers at the rate of sixty miles an hour; that vehicles without horses would spin along the lake front from Buffalo creek to the Cuyahoga in less time than it took them to put their camp in order; that mountains of ore would lie in the lake ships a few miles from them; that no man wilder then they would be east of the Mississippi; that the widest animals would be the youthful bull or the aged house-dog; and that in the nearby valleys would be some of the most wonderful industrial plants in all the world, and that hundreds of men would have sufficient money to buy and pay the whole Western Reserve without inconvenience; that on this territory would stand the sixth largest city in the United States; that slavery would not exist; that women would have a voice in making the school laws, and that men would float or fly through the air above their heads in machines made for flying, -- if anyone of the party had dreamed any of these things, and related them in the morning, he would have been declared untruthful or as suffering too much from taken from the gurgling jug. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid Bits to be continued in part 24..