Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/46

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��HISTORY or OHIO.

��battle, captured it. The traders were taken to Canada. This fort was called by the English " Pickawillany," from which "Piqua" is probably derived. About the time that Kentucky was Set- tled, a Canadian Frenchman, named Loramie, established a store on the site of the old fort. He was a bitter enemy of the Americans, and for a long time Loramie's store was the headquarters of mischief toward the settlers.

The French had the faculty of endearing them- selvjes to the Indians by their easy assimilation of their habits; and, no doubt, Loramie was CKjual to any in this respect, and hence gained great influ- ence over them. Col. Johnston, many years an Indian Agent from the United States among the Western tribes, stated that he had often seen the " Indians burst into tears when speaking of the times when their French father had dominion over them ; and their attachment always remained unabated."

So much influence had Loramie with the In- dians, that, when Gen. Clarke, from Kentucky, invaded the Miami Valley in 1782, his attention was attracted to the spot. He came on and burnt the Indian settlement here, and destroyed the store of the Frenchman, selling his goods among the men at auction. Loramie fled to the Shawanees, and, with a colony of that nation, emigrated west of the Mississippi, to the Spanish possessions, where he again began his life of a trader.

In 1794, during the Indian war, a fort was built on the site of the store by Wayne, and named Fort Loramie. The last officer who had command here was Capt. Butler, a nephew of Col. Richard Butler, who fell at St. Clair's defeat. While here with his family, he lost an interesting boy, about eight years of age. About his grave, the sorrowing ftither and mother built a substantial picket-fence, planted honeysuckles over it, which, long after, remained to mark the grave of the soldier's boy.

The site of Fort Loramie was always an im- portant point, and was one of the places defined on the boundary line at the Grreenville treaty. Now a barn covers the spot.

At the junction of the Auglaize and Maumee Rivers, on the site of Fort Defiance, built by Gen. Wayne in 1794, was a settlement of traders, established some time before the Indian war began. " On the high ground 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 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 apart- ments, 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 McKenzie, a Scot, who, in addition to merchandising, followed the occupation of a silver- smith, exchanging with the Indians his brooches, ear-drops and other silver ornaments, at an enormous profit, for skins and furs.

Still further up were several other fami- lies of French and English; and two Ameri- can prisoners, Henry Ball, a soldier taken in St. Clair's defeat, and his wife, Polly Meadows, captured at the same time, were allowed to live here and pay their masters the price of their ransom — he, by boating to the rapids of the Mau- mee, and she by washing and sewing. Fronting the house of Ironside, and about fifty yards from the bank, was a small stockade, inclosing two hewed-log houses, one of which was occupied by James Girty (a brother of Simon), the other, occasionally, by EUiott and McKee, British Indian Agents living at Detroit."*

The post, cabins and all they contained fell under the control of the Americans, when the British evacuated the shores of the lakes. While they existed, they were an undoubted source of Indian discontent, and had much to do in prolonging the Indian war. The country hereabouts did not settle until some time after the creation of the State government.

As soon as the French learned the true source of the Ohio and Wabash Rivers, both were made a highway to convey the products of their hunt- ers. In coursing down the Ohio, they made trading-places, or depots, where they could obtain furs of the Indians, at accessible points, generally at the mouths of the rivers emptying into the Ohio. One of these old forts or trading-places stood about a mile and a half south of the outlet of the Scioto. It was here in 1740; but when it was erected no one could tell. The locality must have been pretty well known to the whites, however; for, in 1785, three years before the settlement of Marietta was made, four families

��* Narrative of 0. M. Spencer.

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