The First Declaration Of Independence Signed In Ohio
Chief Logan - courtesy Wikipedia
Folks on the American east coast rightfully are proud of the part their states played in the Declaration of Independence approved at Philadelphia on July 2, 1776 (not July 4).
Informed Ohioans smile tolerantly at this patriotic indulgence, knowing that the first declaration of independence from British rule was written two years earlier in the wilderness of the Ohio country. The hotheads of Boston may have been stirred to war by the tax on tea, but the rest of the colonists were more concerned about possession of the world's richest farm land west of the Ohio River.
Easterners mark the start of hostilities with the Battle of Lexington. Ohioans start U.S. history with Lord Dunmore's War.
King George had decreed that the western lands beyond the original colonies would be open to white settlement south and east of the Ohio River. Lands in the Northwest Territory would be reserved for Indians.
To impose authority over the Indian reservation, and keep out land-hungry colonists, King George extended the borders of Canada southward to the Ohio River.
This maneuver only angered the frontiersmen and emboldened the Indians. Murderous raids along the Ohio between white and red men escalated.
Flash Point
Matters reached the flash point in the Spring of 1774.
Dr. John Connolly, representative at Fort Pitt for Virginia's governor, Lord Dunmore, issued a proclamation declaring that large-scale attacks by Indians were imminent. He called for frontiersmen to arm themselves. Scattered settlers fled to places of safety.
One of these groups, consisting of surveyors and hunters, gathered at the mouth of Wheeling Creek near Martin's Ferry. Capt. Michael Cresap was elected leader of rough and ready adventurers bent more on defying the Crown than in fending off marauders.
First bloodshed came when two Indians paddling their canoe down the Ohio -- perhaps too close to the eastern shore -- were fired on and killed. Other Indians retaliated, followed by more white vengeance.
Finally the Indians were provoked to organized war by an atrocity that was both vicious and senseless. A band of frontiersmen, under the leadership of a man named Greathouse, gave whiskey to a small tribe of Mingoes.
When all the Indians were drunk, they were murdered in cold blood at Baker's Cabin about 15 miles north of present day Steubenville, Ohio.
Among the victims was the sister of Mingo Chief Tah-gah-jute -- better known to history by his English name of Logan -- and for his eventual speech of surrender.
Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia and a land speculator with personal designs on the Northwest Territory, called out the Virginia militia. He took charge of the forces at Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh) and assigned southern troops to Colonel Andrew Lewis.
Dunmore's plan was to join forces at the mouth of the Big Kanawha River in Kentucky. Then they would cross the Ohio to march against Shawnee towns near present day Columbus.
For some reason, Dunmore came down the Ohio only as far as the Hocking River. Going ashore, he marched northward to the Shawnee towns.
Meanwhile, Lewis encamped at Point Pleasant to wait for Dunmore. Here, on October 20, Lewis was attacked by more than a thousand warriors under the leadership of the able warrior Cornstalk.
The battle raged most of the day, but toward evening the Shawnees began to retire across the Ohio. One fifth of Lewis' force was killed, but he won a clear victory.
A scout took the news to Dunmore as he approached the Shawnee villages at Chillicothe. Cornstalk sent a white man named Elliott under a flag of truce and asked for peace. Lord Dunmore, an ardent loyalist, charged Cornstalk to form an alliance with the Indian confederacy to assist Great Britain against American colonies fomenting a revolution.
Cornstalk agreed to return prisoners and property taken from frontiersmen and to observe the Ohio River as the common boundary.
The Mingoes refused to join the negotiations and so were subdued by an expedition which destroyed many of their villages on the Scioto River near today's Columbus.
Also absent was Chief Logan. He had not fought at Point Pleasant for he was leading an attack against the Virginia frontier at the time.
Chief Logan's Speech
Two weeks later, Dunmore sent a trader named John Gibson to Logan's town to inquire why the chief had not come to the peace parley.
Gibson reported that Logan invited him to go into a nearby woods to talk. There under a great elm tree the old Indian shed copious tears as he delivered a pathetic speech declaimed by school children generations afterward.
He declared:
"I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan's cabin hungry and I gave him not meat; if ever he came cold or naked and I gave him not clothing.
"During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained in his tent -- an advocate for peace. Nay, such was my love for the whites that those of my own country pointed at me as they passed by and said ' Logan is the friend of white men.' "I had even thought to live with you but for the injuries of one man. Col. Cresap, the last Spring, in cold blood and unprovoked, cut off all the relatives of Logan; not sparing even my women and children. There not runs a drop of my blood in the veins of any human creature.
"This called upon me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many and fully glutted my revenge.
"For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace. Yet, do not harbor the thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. "Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one!"
Logan was not quite sincere, however, for he had just returned from an armed foray against Virginia settlers. Years later, while intoxicated, he was killed in a brawl with his cousin Tod-hah-dohs.
Cornstalk and his son were assassinated in 1777 by settlers at Point Pleasant.
Officers Declare
While Lord Dunmore was negotiating with the Indians of Ohio, word was received of the meeting of the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia.
The Virginia militia officers involved in the campaign were indignant with the pro-British attitude of their commanding officer. On the way home, the army camped November 5 at the confluence of the Ohio and Hocking rivers. The officers held a meeting "for the purpose of considering the grievances of British America."
An unnamed officer -- perhaps clerk Benjamin Ashby who recorded the event -- addressed his comrades:
"Gentlemen, having now concluded the campaign, by the assistance of Providence, with honor and advantage of the colony and ourselves, it only remains that we should give our country the stronger assurance that we are ready at all times, to the utmost of our power, to maintain and defend her just rights and privileges.
"We have lived about three months in the woods, without any intelligence from Boston, or from the delegates at Philadelphia. It is possible, from the groundless reports of designing men, that our countrymen may be jealous of the use such a body could make of arms in their hands at this critical juncture.
"That we are a respectable body is certain when it is considered that we can live weeks without bread or salt; that we can sleep in the open air without any covering but the canopy of heaven; and that we can march and shoot with any in the known world.
"Blessed with these talents, let us solemnly engage to one another and our country in particular, that we will use them for no purpose but for the honor and advantage of America and of Virginia.
"It behooves us, then, for the satisfaction of our country, that we should give them our real sentiments by way of resolves at this very alarming crisis."
A committee was chosen to draw up a resolution for consideration. It was agreed to unanimously and ordered to be published in the Virginia Gazette:
"Resolved: That we will bear the most faithful allegiance to his majesty King George the Third, while his majesty delights to reign over a brave and a free people; that we will at the expense of life and everything dear and valuable, exert ourselves in the support of the honor of his crown and the dignity of the British empire.
"But as the love of liberty and attachment to the real interests and just rights of America outweigh every other consideration, we resolve that we will exert every power within us for the defense of American liberty, and for the support of her just rights and privileges, not in any precipitous, riotous, or tumultuous manner, but when regularly called forth by the unanimous voice of our countrymen."
Thus, well before the actual break with Great Britain, the sentiment of liberty was firmly declared on Ohio soil. Thomas Jefferson only said it more succinctly.
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Engraving courtesy John Carter Brown Library
[ Colonial Virginia militia officers negotiate with Indians ]
By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers
