Permanent establishments were made at different points; and from this time the French colony west of the Alleghanies steadily increased in numbers and strength. Previous to the year 1725, the colony had been divided into quarters, each having its local nor, or commandant, and judge, but all subject to the superior authority of the council general of Louisiana. One of these quarters was established north west of the Ohio.

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At this period, the French had erected forts on the Mississippi, on the Illinois, on the Maumee, and on the lakes. Still, however, the communication with Canada was through Lake Michigan. Before 1750, a French post had been fortified at the mouth of the Wabash; and a communication was established through that river and the Maumee with Canada. About the same time, and for the purpose of checking the progress of the French, the Ohio Company was formed, and made some attempts to establish trading houses among the Indians. The French, however, established a chain of fortifications back of the English settlements, and thus, in a measure, had the entire control of the great Mississippi valley. The English government became alarmed at the encroachments of the French, and attempted to settle boundaries by negotiations. These availed nothing, and both parties were determined to settle their differences by the force of arms.

The claims of the different European monarchs to large portions of the western continent were based upon the first discoveries made by their subjects. In 1609, the English monarch granted to the London Company, all the territories extending along the coast for two hundred miles north and south from Point Comfort, and "up into the land, throughout, from sea to sea, west and north-west." In 1662, Charles II. granted to certain settlers upon the Connecticut all the territory between the parallels of latitude which include the present State of Connecticut, from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean. The claims which Massachusetts advanced, during the revolution, to an interest in the western lands, were founded upon a similar charter, granted thirty years afterwards.

When the king of France had dominions in North America, the whole of the late territory of the United States, north-west of the river Ohio, was included in the province of Louisiana, the north boundary of which, by the treaty of Utrecht, concluded between France and England in 1713, was fixed at the 49th parallel of latitude north of the Equator. After the conquest of the French possessions in North America by Great Britain, this tract was ceded by France to Great Britain, by the treaty of Paris, in 1763.

The principal ground whereon the English claimed dominion beyond the Alleghanies was, that the Six Nations owned the Ohio valley, and had placed it with their other lands under the protection of England. Some of the western lands were also claimed by the British as having been actually purchased, at Lancaster, Penn., in 1744, at a treaty between the colonists and the Six Nations at that place. In 1748, the "Ohio Company," for the purpose of securing

the Indian trade, was formed. In 1749, it appears that the English built a trading house upon the Great Miami, at a spot since called Loramie's Store. In 1751, Christopher Gist, an agent of the Ohio Company, who was appointed to examine the western lands, made a visit to the Twigtwees, who lived upon the Miami river, about one hundred miles from its mouth.

Early in 1752, the French having heard of the trading house on the Miami, sent a party of soldiers to the Twigtwees and demanded the traders as intruders upon French lands. The Twigtwees refused to deliver up their friends. The French, assisted by the Ottawas and Chippewas, then attacked the trading house, which was probably a block house, and after a severe battle, in which fourteen of the natives were killed and others wounded, took and destroyed it, carrying away the traders to Canada. This fort, or trading house, was called, by the English, Pickawillany. Such was the first British settlement in the Ohio valley, of which we have any record.

After Braddock's defeat, in 1755, the Indians pushed their excursions as far east as the Blue Ridge. In order to repel them, Major Lewis, in Jan., 1756, was sent with a party of troops on an expedition against the Indian towns on the Ohio. The point apparently aimed at was the upper Shawanese town, situated on the Ohio, three miles above the mouth of the Great Kanawha. The attempt proved a failure, in consequence, it is said, of the swollen state of the streams, and the treachery of the guides. In 1764, Gen. Bradstreet, having dispersed the Indian forces besieging Detroit, passed into the Wyandot country by way of Sandusky Bay. He ascended the bay and river as far as it was navigable for boats, and there made a camp. A treaty of peace was signed by the Chiefs and head men. The Shawnees of the Scioto river, and the Delawares of the Muskingum, however, still continued hostile. Col. Boquet, in 1764, with a body of Ohio troops, marched from Fort Pitt into the heart of the Ohio country on the Muskingum river. This expedition was conducted with great prudence and skill, and without scarcely any loss of life, as treaty of peace was effected with the Indians, who restored the prisoners they had captured from the white settlements. The next war with the Indians was in 1774, generally known as Lord Dunmore's. In the summer of that year, an expedition, under Col. M'Donald, was formed at Wheeling, marched into the Muskingum country and destroyed the Indian town of Wapatomica, a few miles above the site of Zanesville. In the fall, the Indians were defeated after a hard fought battle at Point Pleasant, on the Virginia side of the Ohio. Shortly after this event, Lord Dunmore made peace with the Indians at Camp Charlotte, in what is now Pickaway country.

During the revolutionary war, most of the western Indians were more or less united against the Americans. In the fall of 1778, an expedition against Detroit was projected. As a preliminary step, it was resolved that the forces in the west, under Gen. M'Intosh, should move up and attack the Sandusky Indians. Preliminary to this,

Fort Laurens, so called in honor of the President of Congress, was built upon the Tuscarawas, a short distance below the site of Bolivar, Tuscarawas county. The expedition to Detroit was abandoned and the garrison of Fort Laurens, after suffering much from the Indians and from famine, were recalled in August, 1779. A month or two previous to the evacuation of this fort, Col. Bowman headed an expedition against the Shawanees. Their village, Chillicothe, three miles north of the site of Xenia, on the Little Miami, was burnt. The warriors showed an undaunted front, and the whites were forced to retreat. In the summer of 1780, an expedition directed against the Indian towns, in the forks of the Muskingum, moved from Wheeling, under Gen. Broadhead. This expedition, known as "the Coshocton campaign," was unimportant in its results. In the same summer, Gen. Clark led a body of Kentuckians against the Shawnees. Chillicothe, on the Little Miami, was burnt on their approach, but at Piqua, their town on the Mad River, six miles below the site of Springfield, they gave battle to the whites and were defeated. In September, 1782, this officer led a second expedition against the Shawanese. Their towns, Upper and Lower Piqua, on the Miami, within what is now Miami county, were destroyed, together with the store of a trader.

There were other expeditions into the Indian country from Kentucky, which, although of later date, we mention in this connection. In 1786, Col. Logan conducted a successful expedition against the Mackachack towns, on the head waters of Mad River, in what is now Logan county. Edwards, in 1787, led an expedition to the head waters of the Big Miami, and, in 1788, Todd led one into the Scioto valley. There were also several minor expeditions, at various times, into the present limits of Ohio.

The Moravian missionaries, prior to the war of the revolution, had a number of missionary stations within the limits of Ohio. The missionaries, Heckewelder and Post, were on the Muskingum as early as 1762. In March, 1782, a party of Americans, under Col. Williamson, murdered, in cold blood, ninety-four of the defenceless Moravian Indians, within the present limits of Tuscarawas county. In the June following, Col. Crawford, at the head of about 500 men, was defeated by the Indians, three miles north of the site of Upper Sandusky, in Wyandot county. Col. Crawford was taken prisoner in the retreat, and burnt at the stake with horrible tortures.

By an act of the Parliament of Great Britain, passed in 1774, the whole of the late north-western Territory was annexed to, and made a part of, the province of Quebec, as created and established by the royal proclamation of the 7th of October, 1763. But nothing therein contained, relative to the boundary of the said province of Quebec, was in any wise to affect the boundaries of any other colony.

The colonies having, in 1776, renounced their allegiance to the British king, and assumed rank as free, sovereign and independent States, each State claimed the right of soil and jurisdiction over the district of country embraced within its charter. The charters of

several of the States embraced large portions of western unappropriated lands. Those States which had no such charters, insisted that these lands ought to be appropriated for the benefit of all the States, according to their population, as the title to them, if secured at all, would be by the blood and treasure of all the States. Congress repeatedly urged upon those States owning western unappropriated lands, to make liberal cessions of them for the common benefit of all.

The claim of the English monarch to the late north-western Territory was ceded to the United States, by the treaty of peace, signed at Paris, September 3d, 1783. The provisional articles which formed the basis of that treaty, more especially as related to the boundary, were signed at Paris, November 30th, 1782. During the pendency of the negociation relative to these preliminary articles, Mr. Oswald, the British commissioner, proposed the river Ohio as the western boundary of the United States, and but for the indomitable perseverance of the revolutionary patriot, John Adams, one of the American commissioners, who opposed the proposition, and insisted upon the Mississippi as the boundary, the probability is, that the proposition of Mr. Oswald would have been acceded to by the United States commissioners.

The States who owned western unappropriated lands, with a single exception, redeemed their respective pledges by ceding them to the United States. The State of Virginia, in March, 1784, ceded the right of soil and jurisdiction to the district of country embraced in her charter, situated to the north-west of the river Ohio. In September, 1786, the State of Connecticut also ceded her claim of soil and jurisdiction to the district of country within the limits of her charter, situated west of a line beginning at the completion of the forty-first point degree of north latitude, one hundred and twenty miles west of the western boundary of Pennsylvania; and from thence by a line drawn north parallel to, and one hundred and twenty miles west of said line of Pennsylvania, and to continue north until it came to forty-two degrees and two minutes north latitude. The State of Connecticut, on the 30th of May, 1801, also ceded her jurisdictional claims to all that territory called the "Western Reserve of Connecticut." The States of New York and Massachusetts also ceded all their claims.

The above were not the only claims which had to be made prior to the commencement of settlements within the limits of Ohio. Numerous tribes of Indian savages, by virtue of prior possession, asserted their respective claims, which also had to be extinguished. A treaty for this purpose was accordingly made at Fort Stanwix, October 27th, 1784, with the Sachems and warriors of the Mohawks, Onondagas, Senecas, Cayugas, Oneidas, and Tuscaroras; by the third article of which treaty, the said Six Nations ceded to the United States all claims to the country west of a line extending along the west boundary of Pennsylvania, from the mouth of the Oyounayea to the river Ohio.

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A treaty was also concluded at Fort McIntosh, January 21st, 1785, with the Wyandot, Delaware, Chippewa, and Ottawa nations, by which the boundary line between the United States and the Wyandot and Delaware nations was declared to begin at the mouth of the river Cuyahoga, and to extend up said river to the Portage, between that and the Tuscaroras branch of the Muskingum, thence down that branch to the crossing place above Fort Laurens, then westerly to the Portage of the Big Miami, which runs into the Ohio, at the mouth of which branch the fort stood which was taken by the French, in 1752; then along said Portage to the Great Miami, or Omee river, and down the south side of the same to its mouth; then along the south shore of Lake Erie to the mouth of the Cuyahoga river, where it began." The United States allotted all the lands contained within said lines to the Wyandot and Delaware nations, to live and hunt on, and to such of the Ottawa nation as lived thereon; saving and reserving for the establishment of trading posts, six miles square at the mouth of the Miami, or Omee river, and the same at the Portage, on that branch of the Big Miami which runs into the Ohio, and the same on the Lake of Sandusky where the fort formerly stood, and also two miles square on each side of the Lower Rapids of Sandusky river.

The Indian title to a large part of the territory within the limits of Ohio having been extinguished, legislative action on the part of Congress became necessary before settlements were commenced; as in the treaties made with the Indians, and in the acts of Congress, all citizens of the United States were prohibited settling on the lands of the Indians, as well as on those of the United States. Ordinances were accordingly made by Congress for the government of the North-western Territory, and for the survey and sale of portions of lands to which the Indian title had been extinguished.

In May, 1785, Congress passed an ordinance for ascertaining the mode of disposing of these lands. Under that ordinance, the first seven ranges, bounded on the east by Pennsylvania, and on the south by the Ohio river, were surveyed. Sales of parts of these were made at New York, in 1787, the avails of which amounted to $72,974, and sales of other parts of said range were made at Pittsburg and Philadelphia, in 1796. The avails of sales made at the former place amounted to $43,446, and at the latter, $5,120. A portion of these lands were located under United States military land warrants. No further sales were made in that district until the Land Office was opened at Steubenville, July 1st, 1801.

On the 27th of October, 1787, a contract in writing was entered into between the Board of Treasury for the United States of America, of the one part, and Manassah Cutler and Winthrop Sargeant, as agents for the directors of the New England Ohio Company of associates, of the other part, for the purchase of the tract of land bounded by the Ohio, from the mouth of the Scioto to the intersection of the western boundary of the seventh range of townships then surveying; thence by said boundary to the northern boundary of