DEFIANCE COUNTY
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DEFIANCE
COUNTY was erected March 4, 1845 from Willliams,
Henry and Paulding, and named from Fort Defiance. It is watered by the Auglaize, the
Tiffin and the Maumee; this last-named street was anciently called “Miami of the Lake,” and sometimes
“Omee.” The Maumee is navigable by streamers, in
high water, to Fort Wayne, and I ordinary stages to that place for keel boats
carrying sixty tons. The Auglaize
is navigable for keel boats to Wapakoneta, and the Tiffin, which is a narrow,
deep stream, is navigable, for pirogues of a few tons, received a large part of
its supplies by the Maumee. Much of this county within the Black Swamp region, and where
cleared and drained as fertile perhaps as the aimed valley of the Nile. It was covered by abundant forests of
oak, hickory, ash, and elm and other trees, mostly of gigantic size, rendering
the clearing away a heavy labor. Area 420 square miles. In 1885 the acres cultivated
Page 540
Were 113,070;
pasture, 12,019; woodland, 65,823; lying waste, 906; produced in wheat, 342,352
bushels; oats 242,330; corn, 650,887; wool, 66,570 pounds. School census 1886,
8,2038; teacher, 148. It has 49 miles of railroad.
Township and Census |
1840. |
1880. |
Township and Census |
1840. |
1880. |
Adams, |
188 |
1,509 |
Mark, |
|
1,096 |
Defiance, |
1,044 |
6,846 |
Milford, |
175 |
1,460 |
Delaware, |
201 |
1,505 |
Noble, |
|
912 |
Farmer, |
281 |
1,302 |
Richland, |
|
1,427 |
Hicksville, |
67 |
2,381 |
Tiffin, |
222 |
1,526 |
Highland, |
542 |
1,226 |
Washington, |
98 |
1,325 |
Population of
the country in1840 was 2,818; in 1850, 2,818; in 1860, 11,983; in 1870, 15,719;
and in 1880, 22,515, of whom 16,711 were Ohio-born; 1,780 born in Germany, 867
Pennsylvania; and 553 New York.
The annexed
plan and description of Fort Defiance is found in the memoranda of Benj. VAN
CLEVE, communicated by his son, John W. VAN CLEVE, of Dayton to the American Pioneer.
At each angle
of the fort was a block-house. The
one next the Maumee is marked A, having port-holes, B, on the three exterior
sides, and door D and chimney C on the side facing to the interior. There was a line of pickets on each side
of the fort, connecting the block-houses by their nearest angles. Outside of the pickets and around the
block-houses was a glacis, a wall of earth eight feet thick, sloping upwards
and outwards from the feet of the pickets, supported by a log wall on the side
of the ditch and by fascines, a wall of fagots, on the side next the
Auglaize. The ditch, fifteen feet
wide and eight feet deep, surrounded the whole work except on the side toward
the Auglaize; the diagonal pickets, eleven feet long and one foot apart, were
secured to the log wall and projected over the ditch. E and E were gateways. F was a bank of
earth, four feet wide, left for a passage across the ditch. G was a falling
gate or drawbridge, which was raised and lowered by pullies,
across the ditch, covering it or leaving it uncovered at pleasure. The officers’ quarters were at H,
and the storehouses at I. At K two lines of pickets converged
toward L, which was a ditch eight feet deep, by which water was procured from
the river without exposing the carrier to the enemy. M was a small sand-bar at
the point.
FORT DEFIANCE.
The lands now
embraced with Defiance county were ceded by the
Indians to the United States by the treaty of Sept. 29, 1817, at the rapids of
the Miami of Lake Erie. Surveys
were made from the Indiana line east to the line of the Western Reserve and
south to the Greenville treaty line.
The base line of this survey is the 41st degree of north
latitude and it is also the south line of the Connecticut Western Reserve. On the 12th of February,
1820, the legislature of Ohio passed an act erecting these coded lands
“into fourteen separate and distinct counties.”
Among these was
Williams county.
When Williams was organized in 1824 Henry, Paulding and Putnam counties
were attached to it for judicial purposes, with the town of Defiance as the
county-seat of Williams county, and it so remained for many years, when Bryan,
then covered with a dense forest, was selected as the site of the new
county-seat of Williams.
Dissatisfaction with this change led to the creation of Defiance county, with Defiance as the seat of justice.
The
nucleus of the early settlement of these counties was at Defiance, and it was
chiefly settled in what now constitutes Defiance county
by those who were active in the early official life of Williams county.
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The first
court-house (a brick structure) for
Williams county was, as late as 1883 standing on the banks of the Maumee in
Defiance and used as a private dwelling.
A large part of the settlers of Defiance county
was Germans. Many were laborers
upon the railroads, who remained and took up lands.
Drawn
by Henry Howe in 1846.
DISTANT VIEW OF DEFIANCE FROM THE
NORTH BANK OF THE MAUMEE.
DEFIANCE IN
1846—Defiance, the county-seat, is on the south bank of the Maumee, at
its junction with the Auglaize, on the line of the canal, 152 miles north-west
of Columbus, 58 from Toledo and 50 from Fort Wayne. It was laid out in 1822 by Benj. LEVEL
and Horatio G. PHILIPS and contains 1 Methodist and 1 Catholic
L. E.
Beardsley, Photo, Defiance, 1887
NEAR VIEW OF DEFIANCE FROM THE NORTH
BANK OF THE MAUMEE.
church, 5 mercantile and a population of about 700. It is destined, from its natural
position, to be, when the country is fully settled, a large and flourishing
place; it already has an extensive trade with a large district of country. Defiance is on the site of a large
Indian settlement, which extended for miles up and down the
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river. Gen. Wayne, on his advance march, arrived at this
place Aug. 8, 1794, His army found it surrounded by a highly cultivated
country, there being vegetables of every kind in abundance, and not less than
one thousand acres of corn around the Indian town, besides immense apple and
peach orchards. It had been a great trading point between the Canadian French
and the Indians. On the 9th of August Wayne commenced the erection of a fort,
which he called Fort Defiance. The army remained here several days and then
moved northward, and on the 20th routed the Indians at the Maumee rapids. On
their return they completed the fortress. Fort Defiance was built at the
confluence of the Auglaize and Maumee, traces of which work are now plainly
discernible. The situation is beautiful and commanding: it is indicated in the
view of Defiance by the flag shown on the left. Gen. Winchester, previous to
his defeat at the river Raisin, in the war of 1812, encamped in a picketed
fort, which he built on the Auglaize, about 100 yards south of the other and
named Fort Winchester.
Defiance
is 115 miles
northwest of Columbus and 49 southwest of Toledo, at the confluence of the
Auglaize and Maumee, formerly called “The Miami of the Lake,”
rivers. It is on the line of the W. St. L. & P. R. R. and the B.
& O. & C. R. R. County officers in 1888: Probate Judge, John H.
BEVINGTON; Clerk of the Court, Simon M. CAMERON; Sheriff, Henry WONDERLY;
Prosecuting Attorney, John W. WINN; Auditor, Wyatt T. HILL; Treasurer, John F.
DOWE; Recorder, Geo. A. HEATLEY; Surveyor, Martin W. STEINBERGER; Coroner, D.
P. ALDRICH; Commissioners, Jacob KARST, David MILLER, Frank J. CLEMMER.
Newspapers: Defiance County Express, Rep., Jos. Ralston, proprietor;
Democrat, Dem., W. G. BLYMER, editor; Weekly Herald, Dem., German, J. A.
DIENDORFER, editor; Local News, Rep., Aaron F. SCHRACK editor.
Churches: 1 Presbyterian, 1 Baptist, 1 Episcopal, 2 Catholic, 2 Methodist
Episcopal, 1 German, and 1 English, 2 Lutheran, 1 Albright Methodist and 1
United Brethren. Banks: Defiance National, James A. ORCUTT, president, Edward
SQUIRE, cashier; Merchants’ National, Wm. C: HOLGATE, president, E. P.
HOOKER, cashier.
Industries
and Employees—Karst & Fenger, doors, sash, etc., 34 hands; Burgland & Shead, butter tubs, etc., 69;
Defiance Woollen Mills, 37; Defiance Machine Works, wood-working m chinery, 176; Corwin
& Kiser, carriages, etc., 10; Kuhn Brothers, tobacco boxes and lumber, 75; Christ. Diehl, beer, 13; Turnbull Wagon
Co., wagons and: agricultural supplies, 190; L. Archembeault,
wagons, etc., 5; Peter Schlosser &
Son, carriages, etc., 20; C. Geiger & Son, furniture, 36; Wilhelm &
Son, flour, 12; Levi & Ginsburg, cigars, 32; Defiance Paper Co., wrapping
paper, 25; John Marshall, lumber,
etc., 11; J. V. Olds, spokes and hubs, 11; George H. Dicus,
cooperage, 15; Alexander Friedman,
cigars, 5; Arbuckle, Ryan & Co.,
flour, etc., 13; Oconto Box and Barrel Co., barrels and boxes, 40; Marshall and
Greenlen, hoops and staves, 30; D. F. Holston & Son, hoops, 65; Crowe & Hooker, hoops and staves, 53; John Rowe & Son, hoops; Trowbridge
& Eddy, staves and heading, 65.—State Report for 1887. Population in
1880, 5,907. School census in 1886, 2,113; C. W. BUTLER, superintendent.
From
early times Defiance has been an important historical point. It occupies the
site of the ancient “Tu-en-da-wie” of the
Wyandot and “En-sa-woe-sa” of the
Shawnee. Wm. C. HOLGATE, in an address before the Historical Society of the
Maumee Valley, describes it as the heart of the Indian nations, the great
centre where the ancient races came to live, trade and counsel. He ascribes it
to the peculiar topography of the Maumee valley, extending, 100
miles east and west and 100 miles north and south, of which Defiance is the
centre. The valley is the territory drained by the Maumee and its tributaries,
which consists of bout twelve counties in Ohio and parts of Michigan and
Indiana. The chief tributary streams from the north, the Little St. Joseph and
the Tiffin, originate in Hillsdale county, Mich.,
about fifty miles north of Defiance. All these streams
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were navigable to
a certain extent. The other two tributary streams from the south, the Auglaize and St.
Mary’s, originate as far south of’ Defiance. Au Glaize
and Grand Glaize were the names given by the French
to this place, and it was so called in all historical accounts prior to the
erection of Fort Defiance. It is claimed on good authority, says KNAPP, that
the noted chief PONTIAC was born here, one of his parents being a Miami and the
other belonging- to the Ottawa tribe. HECKEWELDER states “the Miami of
the Lake, at the junction of the Auglaize with that river,” was the place
of abode and refuge in 1781 for a remnant of the Moravian Christian Indians
after the massacre of the Muskingum.
In 1780, during
the Revolutionary war, an expedition under Col. Byrd was fitted out at Detroit,
consisting of 600 men, including Indians and Canadians, with two pieces of
artillery, destined for the invasion of Kentucky. This expedition took Au Glaize on their route and, it is inferred, erected a
stockade here and rested on both going and returning from Detroit. This was the
force that appeared before” “Bryant’s Station” and
“Ruddle’s Station” and compelled
their surrender, and, after promising protection to the prisoners, massacred
them in cold blood. One of the early historical accounts speaks of a great
council of all the Indian tribes, held at Au Glaize
in October, 1792, and says it was the largest Indian council of the times; that
the chiefs of all the tribes of the Northwest were here, and representatives of
the seven nations of Canada and of the twenty-seven nations beyond Canada; that
CORNPLANTER and forty-eight chiefs of the six
nations of New York repaired here; that three men of the Gora nations were in attendance, whom it took a whole
season to travel to this point. “Besides these,” says CORNPLANTER,
“there were so many nations that we cannot tell the names of them.”
The question of peace or war was long and earnestly discussed: the chiefs of
the Shawnees being for war, and RED JACKET, the Seneca chief; for peace. This
convention represented a larger territory than any convention of Indians we
have an account of, before or since, being held on the American continent. It
seems to have been a natural intuition that led the red men of the forest to see
that this was the strategetic centre of North
America.
Captivity of Two White Boys.—Captives
were brought to Au Maize; and what is singular two
boys, when captured, one nine years of age. John BRICKELL, from Pittsburg; the
other eleven years of age, Oliver M. SPENCER, from Cincinnati, have left written accounts of their experience. BRICKELL was
taken in February, 1791, and was adopted by a Delaware Indian named WHINGY
POOSHIES and lived with his family four years. In his narrative he says he was treated
very kindly, every way as one of themselves, and had every opportunity of learning their manners, customs and
religion, and thinks he has been influenced to good more from what he learned
among these Indians than from what he has learned from amongst people of his own color. Honesty, bravery and
hospitality were cardinal virtues among them. When a company of strangers come
to a town and encamp, they are not asked if they
want anything, but a runner starts out proclaiming “strangers have
arrived.” On this every family provide of
the best they have, and take it to the strangers, for which not a
thought is had of anything being
received in return, and when they start out they are helped on their journey.
Worshipping the Great Spirit, whom they call Manitou,
“never,” says BRICKELL, “even on one occasion did I know of their using the name irreverently,”
and they had no term in their language by which they could swear profanely.
Their young honor the aged. The first corn that is fit to use is made a feast-offering.
The first game that is taken on a hunting expedition is dressed whole without
the breaking of a bone, with the head, ears, and hoof on, and being cooked
whole, all eat of it, and if any is left it is entirely burnt up; and in
respect to things clean and unclean they follow the Jewish customs. They have
no public worship except the feasts, but frequently observe family worship, in
which they sing and pray. They believe in a resurrection after death, and in
future rewards and punishments. Their cruel treatment of their enemies in war
seems but the acting out of the precepts, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for
a tooth, and blood for blood.” Young BRICKELL was trained to hunt and
much of his time was out on hunting
expeditions. These were generally to the streams of the Maumee in summer, but in winter extended to the Scioto, the
Hocking and Licking rivers. During his four years’ sojourn here, two very
important events occurred—St Clair’s defeat, in 1791, and Wayne’s victory, August 20, 1794.
He gives some interesting items in regard
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to Wayne’s victory. The
following winter his people had to winter at the mouth of Swan creek, on the
site of Toledo. He says: “We were entirely dependent upon the British,
and they did not half supply us. The starving and sickly condition of the
Indians made them very impatient, and they became exasperated at the British.
It was finally concluded to send a flag to Fort Defiance in order to make a
treaty with the Americans. This was successful. Our men found the Americans
ready to treat, and they agreed upon an exchange of prisoners. I saw nine white
prisoners exchanged for nine Indians. I was left, there being no Indian to give
for me. PATTON, JOHNSTON, SLOAN and Mrs. BAKER were four of the nine; the names
of the others I do not recollect.
On the breaking-up of spring we
all went to Fort Defiance, and arriving on the shore opposite, we saluted the
fort with a round of rifles, and they shot a cannon thirteen times. We then
encamped on the spot. On the same day WHINGY POOSHIES told me I must go over to
the fort. The children hung around me, crying, and asked me if I was going to
leave them. I told them I did not know. When we got over to the fort and were
seated with the officers, WHINGY POOSHIES told me to stand up, which I did. He
then arose and addressed me in about these words: ‘My son, these are men
the same color with yourself, and some of your kin may
be here, or they may be a great way of. You have lived a long time with us. I
call on you to say if I have not been a father to you; if I have not used you
as a father would a son? ‘I said, ‘You have used me as well as a
father could use a son.’ He said, ‘I am glad you say so. You have
lived long with me; you have hunted for me; but your treaty says you must be
free. If you choose to go with people of your own color I have no right to say
a word; but if you choose to stay with me your people have no right to speak.
Now reflect on it and take your choice and tell us as soon as you make up your
mind.’ I was silent for a few
minutes, in which time I seemed to think of most everything. I thought of the
children I had just left crying; I thought of the Indians I was attached to,
and I thought of my people whom I remembered; and this latter thought predominated,
and I said, ‘I will go with my kin.’ The old man then said,
‘I have raised you. I have learned you to hunt;
you are a good hunter. You have been better to me than my own sons. I am now
getting old and I cannot hunt. I thought you would be a support to my old age.
I leaned on you as on a staff. Now it is broken—you are going to leave me
and I have no right to say a word, but I am ruined.’ He then sank back in
tears to his seat. I heartily joined him in his tears, parted with him, and
have never seen or heard of him since.”
On his return from his captivity BRICKELL settled
in Columbus, and became one of its most esteemed citizens. O. M. SPENCER, the
eleven-year-old Cincinnati boy, was taken in 1792, while a little way from
home, by two Indians. His captor was a Shawnee, but he shortly transferred his
rights to his companion, WAH-PAW-WAW-QUA or WHITE LOON, the son of a Mohawk
chief. At their arrival at the confluence of’ the Auglaize and the
Maumee, after disposing of their furs to a British Indian trader, they crossed
over to a small bark-cabin near its banks, and directly opposite the point,
and, leaving him in charge of its occupant—an old widow, the
mother-in-law of WAH-PAW-WAW-QUA—departed for their homes, a Shawnee
village, on the river about one mile below. COOH-COO-CHE, the widow in whose
charge young SPENCER had been left, was a princess of the Iroquois tribe. She
was a priestess, to whom the Indians applied before going on any important war
expedition. She was esteemed a great medicine-woman. The description of the
settlement at that time is from the narrative of SPENCER:
On this high ground (since the
site of Fort Defiance, erected by General Wayne in 1794), extending from the
Maumee a quarter of a mile up the Auglaize, about two hundred yards in width,
was an open space, on the west and south of which were oak woods, with hazel
undergrowth. Within this opening, a few hundred yards above the point, on the
steep high bank of the Auglaize, were five or six cabins and log-houses,
inhabited principally by Indian traders. The most northerly, a large hewed
log-house, divided below into three apartments, was occupied as a warehouse,
store and dwelling by George IRONSIDE, the most wealthy and influential of the
traders on the point. Next to his were the houses of PIRAULT (Pero), a French baker, and M’KENZIE a Scot, who, in
addition to merchandising, followed the occupation of a silversmith, exchanging
with the Indians his brooches, ear-drops, and other silver ornaments, at an
enormous profit, for skins and furs. Still farther up were several other
families of French and English; and two American prisoners, Henry BALL, a
soldier taken at St. Clair’s defeat, and his wife, Polly MEADOWS,
captured at the same time, were allowed to live here, and by labor to pay their
masters the price of their ransom; he by boating to the rapids of the Maumee,
Page 545
From this station I had a fine
view of the large village more than a mile south, on the east side of the
Auglaize, of BLUE JACKET’S town, and of the Maumee river for several
miles below, and of the extensive prairie covered with corn, directly opposite,
and forming together a very handsome landscape. and
she by washing and sewing. Fronting the house of IRONSIDE, and about fifty
yards from the bank, was a small stockade enclosing two hewed log-houses, one
of which was occupied by James GIRTY (brother of Simon), the other,
occasionally, by M’KEE and ELLIOTT, British Indian agents, living at
Detroit.
Young SPENCER was redeemed from captivity on the
last day of February, 1793, and through the solicitation of Washington to the
governor of Canada. The latter instructed Col. ELLIOTT, the Indian agent, to
interpose for his release. He was taken down the Maumee in an open pirouge, thence paddled in a canoe by two squaws along the
shore of Lake Erie to Detroit. His route thence was by Lake Erie in a vessel to
Erie, Pa., thence to Forts Chippewa and Niagara, across New York State, then
mostly a wilderness, to Albany, down the Hudson to New York city,
thence through Pennsylvania to Cincinnati. The distance was 2,000 miles, and
such the difficulties to be overcome that two years were consumed in the
journey; but for the protecting auspices of those highest in authority it could
not have been accomplished at all.
Young SPENCER became a Methodist minister, and
reared a family of the highest respectability; one son became postmaster of
Cincinnati about 1850, another judge
of its superior court.
Wayne was eight days in building Fort Defiance; began
on the 9th of August and finished on the 17th. After surveying its
block-houses, pickets, ditches, and fascines, Wayne exclaimed, “I defy
the English, Indians, and all the, devils in hell to take it.” Gen.
Scott, who happened at that instant to be standing at his side, remarked,
“Then call it ‘FORT DEFIANCE!”‘ and so Wayne, in a
letter to the Secretary of War written at this time, said: “Thus, sir, we
have gained possession of the grand emporium of the hostile Indians of the
West, without loss of blood. The very extensive and highly cultivated fields
and gardens show the work of many hands. The margin of those beautiful
rivers—the Miamis of the lake (or Maumee) and
Auglaize appear like one continued village for a number of miles both above and
below this place; nor have I ever before beheld such fields of corn in any part
of America from Canada to Florida. We are now employed in completing a strong
stockade fort, with four good block-houses, by way of bastions, at the
confluence of the Auglaize and the Maumee, which I have called Defiance.”
When first known, there
was an abundance of apple trees at Defiance. The bank of the Auglaize at one
spot was lined with these trees, and there were single trees scattered about in
various places. It is supposed they were planted by French missionaries and
traders during the French dominion on the lakes, and cared for afterwards by
the Indian trappers and traders. The fruit of these trees was better than that
of the so-called natural trees of the present time; they grew larger, and had a
more agreeable taste. The stocks were more like the forest trees; higher to the
branches, longer to the limbs than the grafted trees of the present day.
Probably the shade and contracted clearings m which they were grown had much to
do with this large growth. There was then no civilization to bring in borers,
worms, and curculios, and so the trees thrived without hindrance. The
“County History,” published in 1883, from which the above was
derived, says: “Defiance has been famed for the possession of a monstrous
apple tree. Strangers have seldom failed to visit it, to measure its
proportions, and speculate upon its age and origin. It stands on the narrow
bottom, on the north side of the Maumee, and nearly opposite the old fort. It
has never failed, in the knowledge of present settlers, in producing a crop of
very excellent apples. One large branch, however, has of late years been broken
off by the storms, which has much marred its proportions; the remainder is yet
healthy and prospering. Before the town was laid out there were many trees,
equally thrifty and not less in size, in
Page
546
this vicinity.” The famed apple tree was
destroyed by a gale in the fall of 1886. It was judged to be 150 years old, and
was much dilapidated. It has produced in some seasons 200 bushels of apples.
In the war of 1812 Fort Defiance was an important
point for the concentration of troops, under Gen. Harrison, against the British
and Indians on the frontier. On one occasion a revolt tool: place in the
Kentucky regiment of Col. Allen. Gen. Harrison was not present, but luckily
arrived that night in camp, and had retired, when he was suddenly awakened by
Col. Allen and Maj. Hardin with the bad tidings. The outcome illustrates the
knowledge of his men and the inimitable tact which Gen. Harrison appears to
have possessed in his management of them. The details are from Knapp’s
“History of the Maumee Valley:”
Col. Allen and Major D. Hardin
informed the General that Allen’s regiment, exhausted by the hard fare of
the campaign, and disappointed in the expectation of an immediate engagement
with the enemy, had, in defiance of their duty to their country and all the
earnest impassioned remonstrances of their officers,
determined to return home. They begged the General to rise and interfere, as
the only officer who could bring the mutineers to a sense of their duty.
Gen. Harrison informed the officers
that he would take the matter in hand, and they retired. In the meantime, he
sent an aid to Gen. Winchester to order the alarm, or point of war, to be beat
the following morning instead of the reveille. The next morning, at the roll of
the drum, every soldier sprang to his post, all alert and eager to learn the
cause of the unexpected war alarm. Gen. Winchester formed them into a hollow
square; at this moment Gen. Harrison appeared upon parade. The effect on the
assembled troops of this sudden and unexpected appearance in their midst of
their favorite commander can be easily imagined. Taking advantage of this Gen.
Harrison immediately addressed them. He began by lamenting that there was, as
he was informed, considerable discontent in one of the Kentucky regiments;
this, although a mortification to himself, on their account, was happily of
little consequence to the government; He had more troops than he knew what to
do with at the present stage of the campaign; he was expecting daily the
arrival of the Pennsylvania and Virginia quotas. It is fortunate, said this
officer, with the ready oratory for which his native Virginia is so famed, that
lie had found out this dissatisfaction before the campaign was farther
advanced, when the discovery might have been mischievous to the public
interests, as well as disgraceful to the parties concerned. Now, so far as the
government was interested, the discontented troops, who had come into the woods
with the expectation of finding all the luxuries of home and of peace, had full
liberty to return. He would, he continued, order facilities to be furnished for
their immediate accommodation. But he could not refrain from expressing the
mortification he anticipated for the reception they would meet from the old and
the young, who had greeted them on their march to the scene of war, as their
gallant neighbors.
What must be their feelings, said
the General, to see those whom they had hailed as their generous defenders, now
returning without striking a blow and before their term of plighted service had
expired? But if this would be the state of public sentiment in Ohio, what would
it be in Kentucky? If their fathers did not drive their degenerate sons back to
the field of battle to recover their wounded honor, their mothers and sisters
would hiss them from their presence. If, however, the discontented men were
disposed to put up with all the taunts and disdain which awaited them wherever
they went they were, General Harrison again assured them, at full liberty to go
back.
The influence of this animated
address was instantaneous. This was evinced in a manner most flattering to the tact
and management of the commander. Col. J. M. Scott, the senior colonel of
Kentucky, and who had served in the armies of Harmar,
St. Clair and Wayne, in the medical staff, now addressed his men.
These were well known in the army
as the “Iron Works” from the neighborhood from which they had come.
“You, my boys,” said the generous veteran,” will prove your
attachment for the service of your country and your general by giving him three
cheers.”
The address was attended with
immediate success, and the air resounded with the shouts of both officers and
men.
Colonel Lewis next took up the same
course and with the same effect.
It now became the turn of the noble
Allen again to try the temper of his men. He begged leave of the general to
address them, but excess of emotion choked his utterance. At length he gave
vent to the contending feelings of his heart in a broken but forcible address,
breathing the fire which ever burned so ardently in his breast. At the close of
it, however, he conjured the soldiers of his regiment to give the general the
same manifestation of their patriotism and returning sense of duty which the
other Kentucky regiments had so freely done. The wishes of their high-spirited
officer were complied with, and a mutiny was nipped in its bud which might, if
persisted in, have spread disaffection
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through the Kentucky troops, to the disgrace of that gallant
State and the lasting injury of the public cause. No troops, however, behaved
more faithfully or zealously through the remainder of their service till the
greater part of them offered up their lives in defence
of their country on the fatal field of Raisin.
HICKSVILLE is
twenty miles west of Defiance, on the line of the B. & O. & C. R. R. It
has two newspapers: Independent, Republican,
T. G. DOWELL, editor; News, Independent,
W. C. B. HARRISON, editor. Churches: 1 Catholic, 1 Christian, 1 Methodist, 1
Episcopal, 2 Presbyterian, and, in 1880, 1,212 inhabitants. Hicksville was laid
out in 1836 by Miller ARROWSMITH for John A. BRYAN, Henry W. HICKS, and Isaac
S. SMITH. The next spring the Hon. ALFRED P. EDGERTON (born in Plattsburg, N:
Y., in 1813) came out here in 1837 and assumed the management of the extended
landed interests of the “American Land Company “ and of the Messrs.
HICKS, their interest being known as the “ Hicks Land Company.” He
revised and added to the layout of the town, built mills, and made extensive
improvements, and was a generous contributor to every good work or thing
connected with the welfare of the community. In his land-office in Hicksville,
up to October 5, 1852, he sold 140,000 acres, all to
actual settlers. In 1857 he removed to Fort Wayne, Ind., but remained a citizen
of Ohio until 1862, and now, late in life, is Civil Service Commissioner
“under the general government.
Mr. EDGERTON is a
man of remarkable intellectual and physical vitality, and his life has been
strongly and usefully identified with the history of this region and the State.
In 1845 was elected to the State Senate from the territory embraced by the
present counties of Williams, Defiance, Paulding, Van Wert, Mercer, Auglaize,
Allen, Henry, Putnam, and part of Fulton, where he became the leader of the
Democratic party, and electrified the Senate by his clear, logical speeches in
opposition to some of the financial measures advocated by the late Alfred
Kelley, the Whig leader. It was stated that “while the debate between the
two was one of the most noted of the times, that the respectful deference shown
by Mr. EDGERTON to Mr. KELLEY, who was the senior, won for him the respect of
the entire Whig party of the State and secured to him ever after the warm
friendship and respect of Mr. Kelley, which he often exhibited in kind and
valuable ways.” This was during the period of our original tour over the State,
and we well remember seeing him in his place in the Senate, being impressed by
the keen, sharp, intellectual visage of the then young man. That memory has
prompted us to this full notice.
He was elected
to Congress in 1850 and again in 1852, and during the latter, term,
with several others of the more sagacious members of the Democratic party, opposed the rescinding of the Missouri Compromise.
On closing up
the affairs of the land company Mr. EDGERTON bought a large amount of land of
them at a merely nominal price. We terminate this account of him by the
relation of a very pleasant incident of honorable history, as related by Mr.
Frank G. CARPENTER:
Along early in the seventies Mr. EDGERTON was worth
between $800,000 and $1,000,000, and he was helping his brother, Lycurgus EDGERTON, who was doing business in New York. His
brother had only his verbal promise for surety, and when the panic of 1873 came
around and caused him to fail to the extent of $250,000, EDGERTON was not
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legally responsible for his debts. Nevertheless, he paid very
dollar of them, though in doing so it cost him the larger part of his
fortune.” In order to get the ready money he had to sell valuable stocks,
such as the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago railroad stock, and others which
are not away above par, but which went then at a sacrifice. Upon EDGERTON’S friends urging him
not to pay these debts of his brother, stating that he could not be held for
them, he replied that the legal obligation made no difference to him. He had promised his brother that he
would be his surety, and had he made no such promise he would have paid his
brother’s debts rather than see his notes dishonored. Such examples as
that above instanced by Mr. CARPENTER of a fine sense of honor on the part of
public men are of extraordinary educational value to the general public,
especially so to the young. Hence
it pleases us to here cite another illustrative instance on the part of one of
Ohio’s gallant officers, Gen. Chas. H. GROSVENOR, the member of Congress
from the Athens district. He made claim for an invalid pension, which was
allowed. Later, finding he could
attend to business so as to support his family he felt it wrong to accept of
his pension, and ordered the check in his favor, which was about $5,000 to be
cancelled.