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HISTORY OF DARKE COUNTY.

INDIAN HISTORY-ORGANIZATION AND EARLY SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTY, AND EARLY HISTORY OF GREENVILLE TOWNSHIP AND CITY.

BY JOHN WHARRY.

10 narrate the history of any given locality is a labor that seldom satisfies the

fails to or

the reader. Many things must be omitted from want of information, and the relation of many more, for the want of correct information as to both actors and events, would be better left unattempted. The uncertainty of human memory, and the defects, mutilations and losses of record evidence must frequently expose the labor of the historian to just criticism, and not unfrequently to unjust incredulity. The rise and fall of the "Northwest Territory," from its creation by the ordinance of July 13, 1787, to its present status of five large and populous States, now in a great measure controlling the nation of which they form so important a part, seems so like a vision of Ezekiel, Daniel or John, that the narration of that rise and progress must now, near the close of the first century of that progress, be deemed mythical and incredible.

Ninety-three years ago, there were not within the limits of the Territory, exclusive of fifty or sixty thousand Indians, who have been swept away like the mist on the river, two thousand people, if half that number, of Caucasian lineage, and that thousand or upward have multiplied until the census of the current year, 1880, will show a product of ten millions. This transformation has taken place within three generations, and has never been equaled, save in the close of the fourth and beginning of the fifth century, when the North Pole swarmed and a new race swept down and trod out of sight the old Roman Empire, extending from Thule to the Caspian, and from Ormus to the Pillars of Hercules.

Ohio was the first-born of the ordinance of '87, and is now-if not the " "keystone" of the arch of the Union-the "Valley of Achor and the door of hope" of the Nation (we spell the word with a big N), of which she forms so conspicuous a part.

But the writer has not undertaken to write the history of the United States, the Northwest Territory, nor the State of Ohio; that duty must devolve upon somebody else. His only purpose is to gather up and save from utter oblivion some of the incidents, men and events, where presence and occurrence go to make a part, and a part only, of the history of the town of Greenville, and the township in which it is located.

Some events in its earlier years made it then a place of some note, while many other events of later date may not seem to deserve recital or perusal here, and would be recorded to little purpose, save that the narrator desires to give obedience to the old injunction, "not to despise the day of small things."

The town of Greenville, the county seat of one of the largest and best agricultural counties of Ohio, like many other towns of the State, has a history, and, others whose history dates back to a period beyond the memory of "the

like

many

oldest inhabitant," many events making part of the history are certain, and capable of truthful and accurate narration, whilst many others are of that character that, to now relate them with a truthful regard to time and place, and actors and circumstances, is a duty that requires care and labor to discriminate between myth and truth and between fiction and fact; and this the writer purposes to do as best he may, premising that many events of which mention will be made came to his knowledge half a century ago, from the actors in those events, who are now all passed away.

In the old Territorial days, under the administration of the first President of the United States, attempts were made to subdue the aboriginal race that occupied the Northwest Territory, and open it up for the occupancy of those who would plant and foster civilization; and there were many such, who desired to find homes for themselves and their children after them, in the valleys of the Muskingum, Scioto, and the two Miamis.

Scarcely had a settlement been projected in the Territory by Putnam and Symmes and their associates, founders of Marietta and Cincinnati, when an expedition was organized and force sent against the Indians of Ohio, under the command of Gen. Josiah Harmar.

This foray, ill disciplined, ill provided for and ill commanded, in a very short time was defeated and scattered, with great loss of men and means, and the prospect of the Territory was darkened.

To this day, the accounts of Harmar's defeat are a puzzle and a trouble to historians, and their statements as to time and place disagree, and all are more or less right, and are also more or less wrong.

The facts, when simply and truthfully related, were, that Harmar's army was in a state of mutiny, and had separated into three bodies, each "going on its own hook," that were met and disastrously defeated by the Indians on different days and places, between the headwaters of the Maumee, Miami and Scioto, in the region of what is now Hardin and Hancock Counties. The greater number of these forces thus divided—and nominally under Harmar's command, but in fact under no command whatever-were slaughtered or captured, and those who escaped fled as best they could to Wheeling, Pittsburgh, Limestone or Cincinnati. Of these, there were enough left to tell the tale, and it was told so many different ways, that, although nearly everybody believed a part, scarcely anybody believed but a part of the then current relations of Harmar's campaign and defeat. The disaster occurred in the summer of 1789.

Maj. George Adams, then a soldier in Harmar's army, again in the serv ice as a Captain of scouts under Wayne, and, nearly twenty years later, commandant of the garrison at Greenville, during the negotiations preceding the execution of the treaty of 1814, of which notice will be taken, and, later in life, a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Darke County, was five times shot and severely wounded in one of three several defeats of Harmar. He survived, and was carried on a litter between two horses to Cincinnati, although on the way a grave was dug for him three evenings in succession. With his ashes in the Martin Cemetery, three miles east of Greenville, are two of the bullets of the five, which he carried in his body from 1789 until his decease in 1832.

The next movement against the Indians was set on foot in 1791. At the head of this was placed in command by President Washington, who was a great stickler for red tape and things, Gen. St. Clair, Governor of the Northwest Territory, and with him was placed, as second in command, Gen. Richard Butler, with whom he had not been on speaking terms for ten years, owing to an old feud dating back to the Massacre of Wyoming, in the days of the Revolution.

St. Clair, with an army of half-disciplined and half-provisioned men, marched north from Cincinnati, into an unknown wilderness, in October, 1791, and before he reached the Wabash, which, in the absence of correct geographical knowledge, was supposed to be the St. Mary's River, his command was in almost the same condition

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