The Spokesrider

Three books about the War of 1812 that I have been reading: Mahon, John K. 1972. The War of 1812. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Hickey, Donald R. 1989. The War of 1812: a forgotten conflict. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Taylor, Alan. 2010. The civil war of 1812: American citizens, British subjects, Irish rebels, [...]

(More from Labor Day weekend, 2008.)   As stated in the previous post, this marker for the Manary House is just outside of Bellefontaine.   One source says Manary had a trading post here, even before the war broke out.   James Manary’s home and farm were near Bourneville in Ross County, a hundred miles to the [...]

Saturday night we were eating at the Asuka restaurant in Battle Creek when I got to thinking it was time for more bike rides in the  Bellefontaine area in Logan County, Ohio.   That’s because Bellefontaine is another small town that has an excellent Japanese restaurant.    We ate at the Tokyo Grill on September 2, 2008, [...]

A couple of days ago Ronald Irick posted a comment about the buildings in the distance of this scene. He says the “county home” in Logan County, Ohio has now been abandoned. But he also had some information that makes me want to go back there to visit again: Col. James McPherson is buried nearby. [...]

I’ve started to mark my maps with places in Iowa where we can say, “Black Hawk Slept Here.” But so far I have not found a single place where property lines or highways seem to follow one of the old treaty boundaries. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any such places, but the county atlases I’ve looked at so far give no sign of any.

The road stops at the Greenville Treaty line. I spent a good part of the day following parts of the line to Fort Loramie, where the line turns north toward Fort Recovery. These were all parts of the line I had never seen before. I did skip a few places where it left marks on the landscape, though, so as to save some for another time.

he then wanted to enact an ordinance requiring people doing business with Indians to have whiskey available for sale. That episode epitomizes the urge to regulate. But I have not been able to find the anecdote again, despite much searching. I don’t know if the name of the person was given, but if it was, I’d look hard for more information about him and some way to make a Sunday afternoon bicycle ride out of it.