Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ... THE SQUIRREL HUNTERS OF OHIO; OR, GLIMPSES OF PIONEER LIFE. CHAPTER I. OHIO--EARLY SETTLEMENTS. From the time the Mayflower landed at Fort Harmar (Marietta) in 1788 until 1795, emigration had not materially increased the population of the North-west, owing to the unstable and dissatisfied condition of the Indians. All this time, the soldier, who had served his time in the cause of independence and been honorably discharged without pay: --the povertystricken patriot, unable to procure subsistence for himself and family in the bankrupt colonies, had been listening to accounts of a land "flowing with milk and honey," and was anxious to get there. It was described as a country "fertile as heart could wish: "--"fair to look upon, and fragrant with the thousand fresh odors of the woods in early spring." The long cool aisles leading away into mazes of vernal green where the swift deer bounded by unmolested and as yet unscared (i) by the sound of the woodman's ax or the sharp ring of the rifle. "He could imagine the wooded slopes and the tall grass of the plain jeweled with strange and brilliant flowers;' but there the redman had his field of corn, and would defend his rights. The success of General Wayne in procuring terms of peace with the warlike tribes of Indians in the spring of 1795, caused such an influx of emigration into the Ohio division of the Northwest Territory, that in 1798 the population enabled the election of an Assembly which met the following year, and sent William Henry Harrison as a delegate to Congress. So rapidly did the country fill up with new settlements that the prospective state at the beginning of the nineteenth century was knocking at the door for admission, with all the pathways crowded by pedestrians--men, women, ...