OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List Issue 53 ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgenwebarchives.org ************************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 05 : Issue 53 Today's Topics: #1 Fw: Tid Bits - Part 33 B. ["Ohio Archives EV1" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <0c5501c54ed0$40425420$0300a8c0@margaret> Subject: Fw: Tid Bits - Part 33 B. Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darlene & Kathi kelley" To: Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2005 12:32 AM Subject: Tid Bits - Part 33 B. Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley April 15, 2005 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West Know Your Ohio by Darlene E. Kelley Tid Bits -- part 33 B. notes by S.Kelly +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ part 33 B. Story Told by Judge Welsh The Wyandots Farewell by William Walker. " Farewell, ye tall oaks, in whose pleasant green shade. I've sported in childhood, in innocence played. My dog and my hatchet, my arrow and bow, Are still in remembrance, alas! I must go. Adieu, ye dear scenes which boun me like chains, As on my gay pony I pranced o'er the plains; The deer and the turkey I tracked in the snow, O'ver the great Missi-sippi, alas! I must go, Sandusky, Tyamochtee, and Broken Sword streams, No more shall I see you except in my dreams. Farewell to the marshes where cranberries grow, O'er the great Mississippi, alas! I must go. Let me go to the wildwood, my own native home, Where the wild deer and elk and buffalo roam. Where the tall cedars are and the bright waters flow, Far away from the pale face, oh there let me go." +++++++++++++ The tune seemed well adapted to the words, and become quite popular among the whites. Another poem he wrote while in college: " Oh, give me back my bended bow, My cap and feather give them back, To chase o'er hill the mountain roe, Or follow in the otter's track. You took me from my native wild, Where all was bright, and free and blest; You said the Indian hunter's child In classic halls and bowers should rest. Long have I dwelt within these walls And pored o'er ancient pages long. I hate these antiquated halls, I name the Grecean poet's song. +++++++++++ The Senecas and Mohawks had songs, but there was little meaning to them. They used to call deer with a sort of flute made of reed, blowing in the end as on the whistle. It had holes and was played with the fingers. They could not play a tune but made a harsh shrill noise. At dances an old Indian would beat a skin stretched on a stick, and kept time very correctly. I never saw the Potawatomies here. The latter were on the British side of the war in 1812. The Potawatomies at Wayne's battle called the swords knives komen, and the men big knives Chi-mo-komen. The Wyandot language was harder than the Mohawk and I never got it as well. The Otawa differed some from the Wyandot. If the Ottawas wished to express indignation they would call the object of it Tues-cos-new ( you are not good.) The Potawatomie Indians who sided with the British were utterly detested and pointed at as not being good. In 1817/18 two men, Wood and Bishop of Sandusky, and the Peninsula, went up the Portage River ( then called the Carmine ) trapping coon. They had guns, ponies and considerable fur and other property. There Indians, part Potawatomies and part Ottawas came to camp. The two elder killed the whites. A friendly Indian found the bodies and revealed the crime, giving a clue to the murderers. A Captain Burt, of Milan raised a squad of seventeen or eighteen men in Huron county, then just organized. Burt demanded the murderers, threatening that if they were not given up the Government would exterminate the tribe. The rogues were surrendered, taken to Norwalk and confined, handcuffed and chained to the floor in a hatter's shop. Sometime after, they were let out for a few moments. They slipped their hands out of the cuffs ( an Indian's hand is small like a women's ) caught up their chains and ran. The jailor shot one in the shoulder, but all got away. We then lived five miles south of Norwalk. All that could carry guns turned out and searched the woods around Monroeville, between Norwalk and the river. At night we formed a line just so we could perceive if any one passed, but we could not find them. Two got back to the Indian nation. The old one shot was found two weeks later after a man hunting cattle between Milan and Monroeville. He had lived on roots. His wound was very bad, and had worms in it, which was killed with spirits of terpentine. The other two had already been returned by the Nation, camped on the Maumee. All were tied together at Norwalk. The youngest ( about seventeen ) turned State's evidence. He said he was with them but took no part in the murder, but they compelled him to break the legs of the victim with a hatchet afterwards, so he would not inform. He was a fine looking boy. He was acquited. He sat on the floor and when so informed by an interpreter, he sprang to his feet and gave a terrible yell of rejoicing. The other two were found guilty and sentenced to be hung. Before they were hung there were so many more Indians than whites, there was much excitement, it being reported that a rescue was to be attempted. Burt gathered his company. Four, of whom I was one, were placed at the door to keep away the crowd. There were many whites from Cleveland, Mansfield, Sandusky and about the bay, men, women, and children. The Indians outside made motions to shoot or bayonet the criminals, also making mutters and shaking their heads at hanging. It is terribly against their nature to be hung like a dog. The captives were placed in a wagon and we opposite the wheels. When we got half way they gave a very savage yell, which made very great excitement, being supposed to be the signal for rescue, but no one came near. It has been reported that they were given liquor. It is a mistake I have desired to correct. The Sheriff ( first in the county, named Farwell, and I think Lyman.), told them that if they went out quietly and walked up to the gallows, he would give them something to drink; he did not say what. When they were seated they were handed a black junk bottle filled with water. One of them put it to his mouth, but at once pushed it away and shook his head. He wanted rum and was angry. When the circle was formed I was inside and within ten feet of the drop. The gallows had a trap door with a key which the Sherriff knocked away with an adze. They fell so that their feet were about two feet below the scaffold and not near the ground. One had his neck broken, I think. I saw no sign of life. The other did not break his neck and struggled for some time, drawng up his shoulders and writhing as it was awful distress. I can not tell how long, but I am sure as long as a man can live without breath. They were hung between 1 and 2 P.M. and after it was over the Indians got to drinking and fighting among themselves. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid Bits continued in part 34. ______________________________ ------------------------------ X-Message: #2 Date: Mon, 2 May 2005 00:35:55 -0400 From: "Ohio Archives EV1" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <0c5b01c54ed0$6e062df0$0300a8c0@margaret> Subject: Fw: Tid Bits - Part 34 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darlene & Kathi kelley" To: Sent: Friday, April 15, 2005 5:35 PM Subject: Tid Bits - Part 34 Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley April 16, 2005 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West Know Your Ohio by Darlene E. Kelley Tid Bits- part 34. notes by S. Kelly +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ part 34. Charles Farrar Brown [ ARTEMUS WARD ] 1834--1867 "It ain't so much what people don't know that hurts as what they know that ain't so. I am happiest when I am idle. I could live for months without performing any kind of labor, and at the expiration of that time I should feel fresh and vigorous enough to go right on in the same way for numerous more months. Why care for grammer as long as we are good? Let us all be happy, and live within our means, even if we have to borrow the money to do it with. When a fellow says it ain't the money but the principle of the thing, it's the money. " ARTEMUS WARD ++++++++++++++ Early Ohio writers were for the most part. priggish idealists with a style that was stiff, overly sentimental and prone to using lessons in morals. Charles Farrar Browne, a tall, thin, red haired scribe with a long nose and drooping moustache, was a exception. He wrote under the pen name of Artemus Ward. In his columns and letters in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, he gained a reputation as a humorist and a debunker whose pun-ridden, misspelled and wierd accounts made readers laugh, with his dead-pan comedy. [ An Early Will Rogers? ] Charles Farrar Browne was born in Waterdord, Maine, on April 26, 1836. His father operated a store in Waterford, engaged in farming and did some surveying. Charles attended local schools and, though he did well, he was more likely to be a prankster and a doodler than a serious student. When he was thirteen his father died and he soon entered the printing trade. He worked for a short time in Norway, Augusta, and Skowhegan, but soon got restless for newer vistas. After traveling throughout New England, he settled in Boston and began his writing career. Before long he was traveling again giving humerous lectures throughout the United States, adopting the name Artemus Ward and the character of an illiterate old showman. He also was a journeyman printer and sojourned for a while in Tiffin, Ohio, where as a reporter and compositor, he received the wages of four dollars a week. Going thence to Toledo, he contributed to the columns of " The Commercial " of that city. His reputation was gaining ground and through vigorously assailed in a series of articles in the " Toledo Blade." He treated his opponents with unfailing courtesy and humor. Charles Ward was a favorite of Abraham Lincoln and influenced Mark Twain's approach to satire. In 1858, at the age of twenty-four, his reputation soared as a reporter with his national character working for " The Cleveland Plaindealer, under the sobriquent of " Artemus Ward.," His best work at this period consisted in burlesque descriptions of prize-fights, races, spiritualistic seances, and political meetings. Towards the close of 1860, he accepted an engagement in New York with " Vanity Fair," a comic paper edited after the manner of the London " Punch " and ere long succeded the editor Charles G. Leland. In this some of his best contributions were given to the public. It was, however, as a lecturer that Artemus Ward acquired both fame abd fortune. His first appearance on the lecture platform in New York was in a travesty called " Babes in the Woods." His next hit was a lecture on " Sixty Minutes in Africa," given in Music Fund Hall, Philadelphia. In 1866 he sailed for England where success far beyond his expectations awaited him. His stay in London id spoken of as " an ovation to the genius of American wit." He became at once a great favorite with the Literary Club of London and his letters in " Punch " recalled the days of "Yellowplush." But sickness brought his career to an unexpected close in the seventh week of his engagement at Egyptian Hall in London, and his death occurred a few months later. When he felt the end was near, he asked his friend Arthur Sketchly to procure him the ministrations of a priest. So Sketchly took steps to carry out his friend's instructions. His remains were brought to his native land and laid to rest besides his father and brother in the cemetery at Waterford, Maine. The below is what appeared in the Cleveland PlainDealer, March 8, 1867; "Artemus Ward was a consummate humorist and represented a type distinctly American. His fun was a fountain that always bubbled, ministering naturally to the happiness of himself and others. In leading up to a joke whatever art was employed was carefully concealed, and the joke itself when it came was always a surprise but never an awkward or unwholesome one. The depth and strength of his character are revealed as well in the interest excited by his lectures and sayings as in the friendships he formed and retained to the end. His witt and humor will be sorely missed. Fare Well Dear Friend! " ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid Bits continued in part 35. ______________________________ ------------------------------ X-Message: #3 Date: Mon, 2 May 2005 00:37:49 -0400 From: "Ohio Archives EV1" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <0c6101c54ed0$b264c600$0300a8c0@margaret> Subject: Fw: Tid Bits -- Part 35. Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darlene & Kathi kelley" To: Sent: Saturday, April 16, 2005 4:28 PM Subject: Tid Bits -- Part 35. Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley April 17, 2005. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West Know Your Ohio by Darlene E. Kelley Tid Bits -- part 35. notes by S. Kelly +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Part 35. Captain Brady's Leap The famous leap of Captain Samuel Brady across the Cuyahoga is only a sliver of history of the historic challenges that befell the early pioneer in the early Ohio settlements. Brady's leap changed no boundaries, won no wars, but it did save his life. Beyond that, however, he set an example of what endurance a threatened man can muster. In 1780, General Brodhead, charged with defense of the northwest fontier, received a letter at Fort Pitt from General Washington instructing him to select a suitable officer to lead a patrol to Lower Sandusky in the Ohio country to spy out the strength of British and Indians assembling there. Brodhead chose Captain Samuel Brady. Brady was a noted Ohio Indian fighter. Brady chose four soldiers and four Chickasaw guides. They arrived at Lower Sandusky, west of the Cuyahoga, where they did get a good look at the enemy strength. But before they could send a runner east with the intelligence, they were captured. Brady escaped and was pursued. But it was not the tactical situation which made Brady's leap more famous than any other single historical event on the Cuyahoga, it was men's curious nature , to want to know if it could be done. Over the many years between Brady's leap and to the present day, men have measured the width of the Cuyahoga at the point where Brady jumped to see if that in certain crucial moments in life, when everything is at a make or break situation, a man could jump further than he can jump. But when visitors to Kent, Ohio look at the place where the accounts say Capt Samuel Brady jumped, they now find a distressing amount of water. They now wonder if that leap is not history, but just a legend. They are eager and willing to grant three or four extra feet, if it could be proved. Perhaps Brady had wind at his back. Many just shrug their shoulders and walk away. Further study of the Brady leap does show that under certain conditions and pressures a man can jump farther than he can jump. Brady was not a tall man, but was an extremely powerful man. He was plank flat but broad, big boned and had much muscle. As a Captain of Rangers under Colonel Brodhead at Fort Pitt, Brady's missions were mostly those of an Indian scout, but as a man, it must be said he was an Indian hunter. Lonely, self-contained, self-reliant, useful to the Republic, such men stalked along the national fringe; intelligent predatory animals, reporting to Philadelphia via their army units anything moving on the frontier. These were giant loners like Boone, Brady, Girty, William Hogland, Lou Wetzel, Adam Poe. They reported agressions and alliances of the English, French, Spanish, and other flags, but especially the Indians. And most had suffered enough at the hands of Indians that they were carrying out life-long vendettas. This required a superior physical condition. Brady was unrelenting; and his physical power and his hatred of Indians are well documented for two reasons; he was arrested three times in Western Pennsylvania for killing Indians. In all three arrests proof was positive, but he was allowed to escape. These escapes became notorious. As the story goes, when Brady was a young boy and growing up in his uncle's cabin, he returned from hunting one day to to find the cabin burning and his uncle's family slain. People said that young Brady promised himself a lifetime of revenge. More documation of Brady's immense physical power is available to all of us wherever his name still appears on the land. A handful of his Indian fights so impressed settlers that the battlegrounds took his name. In Beaver County, Pennsylvania, we find Brady's Run and Brady's Hill in Freemont, Ohio, Brady's Island; in Portage County, Ohio, Brady's Lake. In all these areas local histories abound and speak of Brady's physical power. The last such place to be named was Brady's Leap. Now the question arises-- did he or didn;t he? In Brady's day the river was not so wide as it is today. In fact it flowed in a narrow gorge about 30 feet deep, with 20 feet of rushing water at the bottom. Three quarters of a mile upstream it widened some. And in the wearing-in of the gorge the waters left standing in midsteam one piller of rock as big around as a desperate hope and topped with a growth of small brush. Hearing of this, the doubting person takes hope. Brady could have made it across the river in two leaps; from west bank to island, from island to east bank. But this was not the case. Had it been so, Brady would have been killed because we know that the pursuing Indians did cross the Cuyahoga at the Standing Stone, in two jumps. Brady made it in one. It was not at the Standing Stone, but at Brady's Leap. In 1840, the engineers building the Ohio-Pennsylvania turned this part of the Cuyahoga into a slack water by widening and damming the river. Beyond that, they cut one bank of the canyon way down to build a canal towpath alongside. So one must measure the river's width before the canal was built. Now, moving backwards, in 1812, a brdige was built about 40 rods from Brady's Leap, and we find that the stringers for the bridge was only 44 feet. In assuming the stringers needed to overlap the land on each end, this would bring us to 24 feet, a stiff amount for a superb leap for a man already exhausted from his escape. Now having looked at Brady and the river, perhaps we than should review his story. After his three arrests and being allowed to escape in the summer of 1780 from Lower Sandusky, Brady raced from there out of Indian country toward the American border which was the Cuyahoga. Running by day, and resting and eating and repairing his shoes by night, he ran over 100 miles, sometimes being no more than 20 rods ahead of the red man. Most of the way he was using the Indian trail that ran east out of Sandusky toward Salt Springs, south of Warren in Trumbull county. He was making for the famous place were the trail crossed the major Indian trail which came north from the spot where the Beaver enters the Ohio River. His stated reason was that this intersection was at Standing Stone which stuck up in the center of a narrow place in Cuyahoga in Franklin Township, now Kent. One mile above Franklin Village, it would be easy crossing. Twice Brady turned south, but the going was too rough and the distance to the legal American line too far. Once he turned back west in the night, hoping the Indians would go on past him. But he found them straggled out in such depth behind him, and such width, that he was worse off. He escaped from the Indian box, only by waiting for the following night. Brady learned to use heel when he left the trail through soft uneven footing. He found that landing on his heels saved him from turing his ankles, and it was a safer way to run in the dark. and as he ran, his eyes searched ravines for hiding places. Several times he felt he had passed a good hiding place, but was afraid to turn back, lest he be wrong. Th slightest rise in the ground on the trail came to feel like a mountain until he he literally stumbled upon a way to run uphill at less expense of strength. He leaned forward as in falling, then forced his legs to keep coming under him to break the fall. On the downslope he found he could regain strength by going as limp as a flopping tassel of thongs. He learned in the hollows that a sudden cold air rasped his hot throat, and he ran with his hand over his open mouth. Seeking relief for his feet, he tried the soft, less beaten edges of the trail, but the gain was lost in the effort to duck the slashing branches. When the hot air scorched his throat, he got some comfort by arching his neck forward and holding his mouth downward and only a riged crack. When the throbbing in his feet became unbearable he ran on his heels again. Brady assumed that the further east he moved, the clearer his destination would be to the Indians. The worst part of his ordeal was deciding whether to stop and regain his strength or continue at a constantly fading pace, hoping the Wyandots would turn back. But as it turned out, he never had to make the descision. Stopping after dark, he fell asleep and did not wake until he heard the chatter of human voices. Witout time to repair foot leather this time, he forced himself up. Moving his legs was like breaking dried branches. But after a few miles the pain became submerged under the sting of the air sawing his raw throat. The Wyandots guessed Brady's plan; some went cross-country to cut him off. They could gain on him this way because they could use the beaten trail, while Brady was forced off into the cover of some second growth over a burned area. As he ran now, he knew he was bracketed; Indians were upstram of him at the Standing Stone; a few were below him at the shallows; some were behind him combing him east toward the Cuyahoga. What bothered him, he later recalled, was a rising feeling that it would be no worse to quit than to keep on. Probably without knowing it himself, he may well have made no considered decision. His jump may have been the desperate reaction of any cornered animal. He was surrounded on three sides, and if he waited much longer the Indians could string men all along the river. They might already have done so. Suddenly, even to the Indians surprise, Brady broke out of cover. Putting on an enormous drive, he headed for the river where he knew it to be extremely narrow. To his surprise, the Indians wer suddenly numerous there, and were converging toward the spot where he must cross or die. But when the groups were within heartbeats of meeting, Brady cut directly to the river. He later recalled there was no thought of turning back or studing the riverbank. When he hit the escarpment, he sprang. The Indians stood stunned. None followed. The leap was not level. In the jump from the high west bank Brady dropped some. He landed on a shelf of rock about five feet below the top of the embankment, brabbed some brushes and began scrambling up the bank. By now several Indians recovered from amazement and aimed rifles. One shot hit Brady in the right thigh, but he pumped his legs unmercifully, cleared the top, and dropped out of their sight. He stumbled now over familiar ground to a place he knew which already bore his name from a previous Indian fight. Brady Lake. It was only minutes away. When the Indians shook off their tranced surprise, about a half ran upstream to cross at the Standing Stone, the others downstream to cross at the shallows. Brady left a trail of blood the whole mile and a half to Brady Lake. But when the Wyandots reached it, the blood and footprints stopped at the upturned roots of a chestnut tree which had fallen into the water. They combed the woods for the rest of the day and far into the night. After dark, Captain Samuel Brady came out of the water where the top of the fallen chestnut tree floated. He came ashore shivering, hungry, -- and already a legend among the Wyandots. Still we wonder - how long was this leap? A famous chapter by Geneal L.V. Bierce held in the publications of the old Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society is the one titled Tract Twenty nine., and in it, it includes in part a letter from an F. Wadsworth of Wadsworth to Seth Day. Day had asked for proof of Brady's leap. He knew that Wadsworth had lived in Pittsburg among Brady's friends who would have told all versions of the tale. One especially close was Brady's friend, John Summerall. He confirmed the story. He said the Cuyahoga at the place of the leap was very narrow, between 25 and 40 feet wide. The water was 20 feet deep and the banks rose another 30 feet above water. But Wadsworth went beyond Summerall's story. He says; " I went with a man who lived in Franklin, by the name of Haymaker, to examine and satisfy myself if I could, where Brady had jumped across the Cuyahoga. Mr. Haymaker was personally acquainted with Brady and often heard the story, which agreed wit what Summerall had told me. We measured the river where we supposed the leap was made, and found it between 24 and 26 feet; my present impression is that it was a few inches less than 25 feet." The Drapper Manuscripts, now in the Wisconsin Historical Society, include a letter from General Sam C.D. Harris who arrived at Ravenna, Ohio, and, knowing the story, went to te Cuyahoga to measure Brady's leap. Harris was a practical surveyor. He recorded the leap as 22 feet. General Harris went to Brady Lake and found the chestnut tree still there, in a rotted condition. Let us concude, however, that 22 feet is jumped only by highly trained athletes who carefully rehearse every move, but beyond Brady's jump was a lifetime of physical training, a hundred mile approach and a pack of Indians who considered his scalp a prize. Ahead of him was no mere blue ribbon, but survival. This writer does believe it is true that Brady did make that leap. He lived on to tell the tale -----. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid Bits continued in part 36. -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V05 Issue #53 ******************************************