Читать книгу Centennial History of Columbus and Franklin County - William Alexander Taylor - Страница 16

What the Tarhe-Harrison Conference Secured.

From the date of that conference the tide turned strongly in favor of the American forces. The English and Indians were again in force along the Maumee, and in July, 1813, again besieged Fort Meigs, but it had been so strengthened and reinforced that they made no assault upon it, but retired after a few days—Proctor by water to Sandusky bay and the Indians through the forest to Sandusky river. This demonstration was quite formidable, both by land and water. Fort Stevenson, at the mouth of the Sandusky river, where the city of Fremont now stands, was first besieged. On July 31, 1813 the British approached Fort Stevenson by water and landed about five hundred British troops, with some light artillery, while Tecumseh, with about two thousand Indians, besieged the fort on the land side.

It is not our purpose here to narrate the history of that assault. Suffice it to say here that Major Croghan, in command of the fort with but one hundred and sixty men in the garrison, successfully repelled the assault of the British and Indians and compelled them to retire after heavy losses. This brilliant victory was succeeded on August 10 by the celebrated and world-renowned victory of Commodore Perry, by which the British fleet on Lake Erie was destroyed. This enabled General Harrison to move his army across Lake Erie to the Detroit river and to invade Canada.

On the 5th of October he was able to bring the allied forces under Proctor and Tecumseh to issue at the battle of the Thames, where a complete victory was gained over the allied forces. Tecumseh was killed in that battle and Proctor ignominiously fled the field. His army was captured or destroyed.

The battle of the Thames and the death of Tecumseh practically ended the war in the northwest, although the British still held a few small forts like Mackinac and St. Joseph's, around the head of Lake Huron; but these were powerless of any offensive operations.

The war, however, between the United States and Great Britain continued in full force and destructiveness for more than a year after the battle of the Thames, during which time the commerce of both nations upon the high seas was largely ruined. In August, 1814, the British gained possession of the city of Washington and burned and destroyed all the public buildings and threatened further serious destruction. A year had now elapsed since the battle of the Thames, during which time quiet had reigned among the Indians in the northwest. The neutral tribes of the northwest remained favorable to the cause of the United States, and many of those who had served under Tecumseh a year before had become angered and embittered toward the British for want of their fulfillment of their promises so lavishly made before the war, and were anxious to assist in the war against their former allies.

The Greenville Conference.

In this situation the government authorized and directed General Harrison and General Lewis Cass to meet the Indian tribes in conference at Greenville, Ohio, where the Treaty of Greenville had been concluded nineteen years before. Accordingly, the commissioners met at that place with the chiefs of the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanese, Senecas, Miamis, Pottawattomies and Kickapooa and concluded a treaty of peace as follows:

Article 2. The tribes and bands above mentioned engage to give their aid to the United States in prosecuting war against Great Britain and such of the Indian tribes as still continue hostile, and to make no peace with either without the consent of the United States. The assistance herein stipulated for is to consist of such number of their warriors from each tribe as the president of the United States, or any officer having his authority therefor, may require.

Article 3. The Wyandot tribe and the Senecas of Sandusky and Stony creek, the Delaware and Shawanese tribes, who have preserved their fidelity to the United States throughout the war, again acknowledge themselves under the protection of the said United States, and of no other power whatever, and agree to aid the United States in the manner stipulated for in the former article and to make no peace but with the consent of the said states.

Article 4. In the event of the faithful performance of the conditions of this treaty the United States will confirm and establish all the boundaries between their lands and those of the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanese and Miamis as they existed previously to the commencement of the war. Thus the Franklinton conference was embodied in treaty form.

No call was made for Indian help under this treaty, as on December 24, 1814, the commissioners of the United States and the commissioners of Great Britain concluded the Treaty of Ghent, putting an end to the war. This second Treaty of Greenville was the last peace or war treaty ever entered into between the United States and any of the Indian tribes within the boundaries of the state of Ohio; and with the exception of an unimportant treaty concluded at Detroit the following year, the last made east of the Mississippi.

A Heroic Figure.

Tarhe, the Crane, knew every foot of Columbus and its vicinity, his capital for a long period being at Lancaster, and the sentinel tower of his prophets and watchmen was that matchless piece of scenery. Mount Pleasant, that rises abruptly from and overlooks the beautiful Hoek-Hocking valley. Mr. Emil Schlup, of Upper Sandusky, thus estimates his personal or moral character and places him among the great characters of history, demonstrating that the soil of Ohio, while yet a wilderness, was capable of and did producement of great souls, as witness Tarhe, Cornstalk, Tecumseh and others. Of Tarhe Mr. Schlup says:

A Man of Noble Traits.

"Probably no other Indian chieftain was ever more admired and loved by his own race or by the outside world. He was either a true friend or a true enemy. Born near Detroit, Michigan, in 1742, he lived to see a wonderful change in the great northwest. Being born of humble parentage, through his bravery and perseverance he rose to be the grand sachem of the Wyandot nation. This position he held until the time of his death, when he was succeeded by Duonquot. Born of the Porcupine clan of the Wyandots and early manifesting a warlike spirit, he was engaged in nearly all the battles against the Americans until the disastrous battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. Tarhe saw that there was no use opposing the American arms or trying to prevent them planting corn north of the Ohio river. At that disastrous battle thirteen chiefs fell, and among the number was Tarhe, who was badly wounded in the arm. The Americans generally believed that the dead Indian was the best Indian, but Tarhe sadly saw his ranks depleted and at once began to sue for peace. General Wayne had severely chastised the Indians and forever broke their power in Ohio. Accordingly, on January 24, 1795, the principal chiefs of the Wyandots, Delawares, Chippewas, Ottawas, Sacs, Pottowattomies, Mianiis and Shawnees met. The preliminary treaty with General Wayne at Greenville, Ohio, in which there was an armistice, was the forerunner of the celebrated treaty which was concluded at the same place August 3, 1795. A great deal of opposition was manifested to this treaty by the more warlike and turbulent chiefs, as this would cut off their favors on the border settlements.

Always Kept Faith.

"Chief Tarhe always lived true to the treaty obligations which he so earnestly labored to bring about. When Tecumseh sought a great Indian uprising, Tarhe opposed it, and awakened quite an enmity among the warlike of his own tribe, who afterward withdrew from the main body of the Wyandots and moved to Canada. The Rev. James B. Finley had every confidence in Tarhe, as evidenced in 1800, when, returning from taking a drove of cattle to the Detroit market, he asked Tarhe for a night's lodging at Lower Sandusky, where the Wyandot chief then lived, and entrusted him with quite a sum of money from the sale of cattle, and the next morning every cent was forthcoming.

"From 1808 until the war of 1812 Tarhe steadily opposed Tecumseh's treacherous war policy, which greatly endangered Tarhe's life, and it is claimed he came near meeting the same fate that Leather Lips met on June 1, 1810. he even went so far as to offer his services, with fifty other chiefs and warriors, to General Harrison in prosecuting the war against Tecumseh and the English under General Proctor. He was actively engaged in the battle on the Thames. So earnest was he in the success of the American cause, so sincere did he keep all treaty obligations, that General Harrison in after years, in comparing him with other chiefs, was constrained to call him 'The most noble Roman of them all.'

He Abjured Strong Drink.

"Tarhe never drank strong drinks of any kind nor used tobacco in any form. Fighting at the head of his warriors in Harrison's campaign in Canada at the age of seventy-two years is something out of the ordinary. Being tall and slender, he was nicknamed 'The Crane.' On his retiring from the second war for independence, he again took up his abode in his favorite town—the spot is still called 'Crane Town,' about four and one-half miles northeast from Upper Sandusky, on the east bank of the Crane run, which empties into the Sandusky river. Here, surrounded by a dense forest, he spent his old age in a log cabin fourteen by eighteen feet. Just south of the old cabin site are a number of old apple trees—likely of the Johnny Appleseed origin—the fruit being small and hard; a short distance south of the cabin is the old gauntlet ground, oblong and about three hundred yards long; to the westward from the village site is a clearing of about ten acres, still known as the Indian field and still surrounded by a dense forest. Here Tarhe died in his log cabin home in November, 1818. In 1850 John Smith, then owner of the land, had most all of the cabin taken down for firewood. At that time a small black walnut twig, about the thickness of a man's thumb, was growing in the northwest corner of the cabin, and is quite a tree at the present writing—a living and growing monument to the memory of the great and good Wyandot chief."

The Chieftain's Widow.

"Aunt Sally Frost was Tarhe's wife when he died. To them one child was born, an idiotic son, who died at the age of twenty-five years. Sally had been a captive from one of the border settlements and refused to return to her people. After the death and burial of Tarhe, the principal part of Crane Town was moved to Upper Sandusky, the center of the Wyandot reservation, twelve miles square. Here the government at Washington paid them an annuity of ten dollars per capita until the reservation reverted back to the government in March, 1842.

"Cabin sites are plainly discernible in the old historic town, which was usually a half-way place between Fort Pitt and Detroit. Here in the early days Indian parties found a resting place when on their murderous missions to the border settlements. This was one of the 'troublesome' Indian towns on the Sandusky river that the ill-fated Colonel William Crawford was directed against in the spring of 1782. Traces of the old Indian trail may be seen meandering southward through the forest, where the war whoop was frequently given and the bloody scalping knife drawn over many defenseless prisoners. The springs, just westward from the town site, are cattle tramped, but still bubble forth a small quantity of water, but likely not nearly so active as when they furnished the necessary water for the nations of the forest a century and more ago.

"On June 11, 1902, Mr. E. O. Randall, the able and efficient secretary of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, in company with the writer, gave the place a visit. Numerous locusts were chirping away at their familiar songs quite loud enough to drown out the voices of the intruders.