More from the May 9 ride to Fort Amanda. Early in the ride I had my eye on a little dot on the map named Evansport, on the Tiffin River. I didn’t know if anything was left of the town, but I thought it worth a look even if I had to take a couple miles of gravel to get across the river.

At the point where the gravel began was a sign: “Northwest Ohio Rivers Council Memorial Trail.” I didn’t know what the Northwest Ohio Rivers Council was and that high wheeler bike didn’t seem like the right thing for gravel, but it was a good sign, just the same.

A couple miles later I was back on pavement. I was surprised to find that Evansport is more than just a crossroads.

I have since learned that I’m not the only one who needed to learn that. The following is from a “Stryker Area Heritage Council” web site:

In 1983, two Northwest State Community College researchers included Evansport on a list of northwest Ohio ghost towns, catching the village’s 300 residents completely unaware of their own demise.

As proof that the unincorporated Tiffin Township village is still very much alive and well, the Evansport Terquasquicentennial Committee has met monthly for the last year to plan events to commemorate the 175th anniversary of Evansport’s founding in 2010.
Choosing “Ghost Town Alive at 175” as its theme, the committee—composed of area residents and Stryker Area Heritage Council members—has published a brochure on Evansport’s history that is available on the SAHC website (see the bottom of this page), www.strykerahc.org, along with other Evansport historical information and vintage photographs. Committee members hope to publish a more detailed community history this year.

The anniversary celebration is scheduled for late June.

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Here’s Evansport on the GoogleMap of the day’s ride.

There were more of the signs on the road south along the river. Here is a link to a Bryan Newspaper issue from 1993 in which a page 3 article tells about the dedication of the trail. It explains the high-wheeler, too.

Yesterday’s ride: 33 miles. Today’s ride: 66 miles. (I’ll post photos later.) YTD mileage: 943

You can’t see this monument from the cemetery at Fort Amanda, at least not when leaves are on the trees. When I was there in 2007 I spent some time looking around in the cemetery, then took off figuring I had seen everything there was to see. But from the road that heads south I saw this monument back towards the river. So I turned back, walked again to the far corner of the cemetery, and took the path that leads down and across the ravine. Upon coming up out of the ravine one sees this view of the monument.

Many of the web sites about Fort Amanda tell about a journal that was kept by Ensign William Schillinger, who was stationed here during part of the War of 1812. I finally, just now, figured out where it was published. It’s in the Volume 41 of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications, published in 1932. That is not a volume that is online anywhere, so it will have to wait until I can read a library copy.

What I’m really looking for is any information about William Schillinger’s life in case it will lead to more ride destinations. From census records it looks like a few generations of William Schillingers lived in Cincinnati. If that’s the guy, it doesn’t sound so promising. I don’t usually go for urban destinations unless there is a really excellent story to go with them.

While looking for this I learned of another resource that looks promising: “Early Midwestern travel narratives: an annotated bibliography, 1634-1850″ by Robert R. Hubach, first published in 1961 and then re-published in 1998. (Google Books says it contains an entry for William Schillinger’s diary.) Alibris had an inexpensive copy that should be on its way to me shortly.

YTD mileage: 698.5

We stayed at the Plaza Motel in Bryan, OH for a three-day weekend. (But there were only two days of bicycling. Saturday’s weather was not conducive to riding.)

This motel made a good base camp for us. It was inexpensive, which is important, but also neat and clean. It is right at the intersection with an east-west county road that makes it a good starting point for rides. We were pleasantly surprised to find that in addition to the room we also got a continental breakfast — one with better fare in a more pleasant setting than at a lot of more expensive motels.

We’d definitely stay here again. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot more bicycling destinations within riding distance of Bryan. Bryan is in the northwest corner of Ohio — on an ancient bed of Lake Erie that wasn’t settled until relatively late on account of wetlands that needed to be drained before the land could be farmed. So there aren’t history places of the 1790-1832 period close by. But there are some good places within a day’s ride, e.g. at nearby Defiance and further downstream on on the Maumee River. So this will be a good base camp for a few more outings.

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Yesterday I go in my longest ride of the year so far, an 87.5 mile ride to Fort Amanda in Auglaize County.  (Shown in red in the google map.)   The last couple of years I haven’t done nearly as many rides of that length as I used to. Even though I’m crediting myself with a long ride, this one was almost like cheating. The country is very flat and the wind was more or less at my back for over 90 percent of the miles. Even near the rivers there was little that could be called hilly. For much of the ride I followed an old canal route — one that didn’t have much need of locks in this kind of country. However, my best find of the whole ride was an old canal lock in an unexpected, unmarked location. I’ll tell about that later.

The Auglaize river has eaten away a little more of the river bank since I was last there three years ago. But the graves of the War of 1812 soldiers are not in danger yet.

Sunday’s mileage: 87.5. Monday’s mileage: 20.0. YTD mileage: 690.0.

Tuesday edit:  Fixed the map

In the last post I wondered why some of the land patents for some of the places just outside the Wapakoneta Reservation were issued a couple of years after those for the lands inside.

The above photo is of some more of those lands outside. It was taken as I rode south from the old boundary towards the Auglaize-Shelby county line, which is where the road in the photo ends. I had to jog to the east to go south into Shelby county.

This scene is in Jackson County Township, about a mile south of the county line.

In re-reading some of the history of Shelby County, I came to realize I should not have been surprised by the sequence of Issue Dates on the land patents. This part of Shelby County, just north of the Greenville Treaty Line, was not settled until the 1830s. Settlement proceeded mostly from the south to the north, and this was north — about the last part of Shelby county to be settled.

In a way that seems strange. Settlement of southern Michigan was well underway by that time — the very best lands were already taken, and there was a fairly sizeable population by the time the Black Hawk war broke out in 1832. Much of Ohio had been settled a generation earlier. Not far from here were places that already had settlers by the time of the War of 1812. But this part of Ohio around Wapakoneta did not get settled until the 1830s — relatively late in Ohio settlement history.

So it’s not the case that the land around the reservation had all been sold and settled, after which pressure was put on the Shawnee people to sell out and leave. Something like that is what happened to the Wyandot reserve around Upper Sandusky, but it was not the pattern that was followed here.

Why that is, I haven’t yet learned. Did it have to do with geography and the suitability of the land for farming? Or were there political considerations that kept this land off the market until the early 1830s? For now I’ll have to put it in the “wish I knew” category.

After having done a late ride to this site the evening before, I rode here again the next morning. It was a bit out of my way and added extra miles for the ride to Piqua. I sort of regretted this detour by the end of the day. But it worked out OK in the end.

The road here follows the south boundary of the Wapakoneta Reservation. The land on the other side of the road had been ceded to the United States in the 1817 Treaty of St Mary’s. The land on the near side was a reservation that was “owned” by Shawnee people until 1832.

Both sides of the road are in Section 20, Clay Township, Auglaize County. Tonight I went to the Land Patent database at www.glorecords.blm.gov to see who the original purchasers were. I specified Auglaize County, Township 6 South, Range 7 East, Section 20. The result is shown above.

I didn’t find anything particularly interesting about any of the persons listed. The name Helmlenger is still shown as a landowner in the 1880 atlas, except it’s spelled Helminger there (as well as in the 1905 county history).

One point that surprised me a little is the Issue Dates on the patents. The lands that were purchased at the Lima land office were the lands outside the reservation. I would have expected those purchases to have been made well before those inside the reservation. But the patents for those lands were actually issued a couple of years later.

I don’t know the explanation, but one possibility is that the lands outside the reservation actually were purchased earlier, but that the General Land Office took a lot longer to process them than it did the ones from the Wapakoneta Reservation. It’s hard to say.

There are many times when I’ve wished the data on the purchase dates were easily available. This is one, though it’s not a matter of any great significance.

Freyburg, OH has a big German catholic cemetery. I was looking for an excuse to post the photos I took of it on my August 29 starter ride, but haven’t found any good connections to the settlement-era stories, other than to note that this place was part of the Wapakoneta Reservation before 1832.

This is looking south of the town. The 1905 county history tells about a John Lenox who supposedly lived about a mile down this road.

John Lenox, one of the early pioneer of Pusheta township, was born in Fairfield county, Ohio, October 18, 1809. When he was two years old his father moved to Shelby county, Ohio, and settled near Sidney. The family suffered all the privations and dangers peculiar to that turbulent time. Six thousand Indians were encamped around the Indian agency at Piqua from 1812 to 1814. It was not until after the battle of the Thames that any pioneer north of Dayton could consider himself safe from marauding Indians.

February 14, 1833, Mr. Lenox, having accumulated one hundred dollars, attended the public land sale at Wapakoneta. Having made a memorandum of a number of desirable tracts of land, he bid on each one in succession, as it was presented by Van Horn, the auctioneer, and was over-bid in each instance, until the last tract on his list was reached. He bid one hundred dollars for the east half of the southeast quarter of section twenty-three. and was again overbid; at that moment his father-in-law, Ebenezer Stevens, tapped him on the shoulder and told him to bid higher, that he would be responsible for the additional cost. After a few more bids Mr. Lenox was declared the purchaser. It would be difficult to convince any person of the present day that the purchase was not the best one that he could have made. He afterward became the owner of two hundred acres of land. Immediately after the purchase of his land he moved into an Indian cabin, that was so small that it became necessary when he had company to move the chairs and table out of the building to make room for beds on the floor.

The road shown ahove will take one to that 80-acre parcel. But there is a problem. The 1880 atlas doesn’t show that southeast quarter of section 23 as belonging to anyone named Lenox. And that 80 acres is just south of the old reservation. The land that Lenox was bidding on was a part of land that Shawnee people had been pressured into ceding to the United States just the year before. The south part of section 23 lies outside that.

I then checked the GLO database. It shows John Lenox as having purchased 80 acres all right, but it was in section 8, not section 23. And it was the west half of the southwest quarter, not the east half of the southeast quarter. And the 1880 atlas does show Lenox as owning 200 acres there.

I’m guessing a typo. Maybe the writer or printer made a mistake in reading a handwritten information. But how someone could get 23 out of an 8 is not so clear, even in a case of bad handwriting.

Whatever the case, sometime I’ll need to make a visit to section 8 to see if there are any clues as to what made is so valuable a property for a farm.

The driveway shown in this photo is part of the old boundary of the Wapakoneta reserve. The land on the far side was in the reserve, which existed from 1817 to 1832.

Before the War of 1812, before this reserve existed, the Shawnee leader Black Hoof was caught between the United States and the Shawnee brothers, Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa, who opposed the United States. He threw in his lot with the U.S.

According to R. David Edmunds

Black Hoof’s people reaffirmed their loyalty to the United States, increased their acreage of corn and potatoes, and sent repeated petitions to the Quakers asking for missionaries to return and ‘assist us as soon as possible’ so that Shawnee children could become educated and both Indians and whites ‘will be more united until we all land in heaven together.’

(This is from “The Loyal Shawnees and the War of 1812,” by R. David Edmunds. It’s a chapter in the book, “The Sixty Years’ War for the Great Lakes, 1754-1814″, edited by David Curtis Skaggs and Larry L. Nelson (2001). Some of the information might have been from Indian agent John Johnston, but I’m not sure about that. (Johnston’s place was the destination for my ride that day.) )

After the war the Shawnees were made to cede more land, and Black Hoof got this Wapakoneta Reserve.

At Wapakoneta Black Hoof’s people continued to walk a path of accommodation. But they still selected what they needed and rejected what they could not accept. They raised cattle and pigs to help offset the decline in hunting off their reservations. The Quakers established another reservation at Wapakoneta and sent missionary Henry Harvey, who later wrote a history of the Shawnees. The Quakers also opened a school. But, John Johnston wrote, they did not yet try to instruct the Shawnees in the principles of Christianity, believing that they were ‘not yet sufficiently acquainted with the arts of civilized life.’ They remained ‘bitterly opposed to Christianity,’ arguing that God had given Shawnees their own religion, just as he had given white people theirs.”

(This quote is from Colin G. Calloway’s book, “The Shawnees and the war for America.” (2007). Page 157).

We checked into a motel in Wapakoneta late on August 29. There was just enough time for me to get in a brief starter ride, shown in green on the above Google map.

I decided that a reachable destination before dark was a small piece of road that follows the old boundary of the Wapakoneta Reservation. This was a Shawnee reservation that was in existence from 1817 to 1831. The place is marked with a green marker.

The reservation boundary forms a rectangle that is shown by a thin violet line. I drew it with the help of this 1880 atlas map at HistoricMapWorks.com . If you examine that map, you’ll see that although it’s rectangular in shape, the boundary doesn’t quite align with the section lines of the rectangular survey system.

Just to the south of the old reservation, almost adjoining it, is St Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. The cornerstone says the congregation (though not the building) dates back to 1835. That was just three years after the Shawnee people were forced to leave.

This view is to the north of the church, where the road makes a turn to the right, i.e. to the east, where it follows the old reservation boundary for all of a quarter mile.

The most prominent leader of the Shawnee people at Wapakoneta was Black Hoof. There is at least one street in the town that’s named after him, and there are monuments and markers about him at St Johns, which I visited on a ride in July 2007.

Black Hoof was a Shawnee who allied himself with the United States during the War of 1812, much to the displeasure of Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa, who were allied with the British and who wanted to drive the Americans out.

The reservation was sort-of a reward for Black Hoof’s service during the war, though I suppose it’s not everyone’s idea of a reward. The result of the war was that the Shawnee people had to cede land north of the old boundary, the Greenville Treaty Line. The Wapakoneta Reserve was a part of that land that the Shawnee were allowed to keep — for a while.

I thought I had read elsewhere that Black Hoof had wanted to own land in fee simple so it could not be taken away from him, but that the United States was not willing to let Indians hold land under those terms. (This despite the fact that the U.S. kept telling Indians that they needed to settle down and farm, and use their land like the white people did.)

I just now read the relevant parts of the treaty document by which the Wapakoneta reserve was granted and the treaty document by which it was taken away. I was somewhat surprised at what I found. The treaty that “granted” the reserve was the 1817 Treaty of St. Mary’s. It says:

The United States also agree to grant, by patent, in fee simple, to Catewekesa or Black Hoof, Byaseka or Wolf, Pomthe or Walker, Shemenetoo or Big Snake, Othawakeseka or Yellow Feather, Chakalowah or the Tail’s End, Pemthala or John Perry, Wabepee or White Colour, chiefs of the Shawnese tribe, residing at Wapaghkonetta, and their successors in office, chiefs of the said tribe, residing there, for the use of the persons mentioned in the annexed schedule, a tract of land ten miles square, the centre of which shall be the council-house at Wapaghkonetta.

That sounds just like what Black Hoof wanted: “by patent, in fee simple.”

Black Hoof refused to sign the 1831 treaty by which the land was taken away. That document also refers to the “fee simple” ownership.

The tribe or band of Shawnee Indians residing at Wapaghkonnetta and on Hog Creek in the State of Ohio, in consideration of the stipulations herein made, on the part of the United States, do for ever cede, release and quit claim to the United States the lands granted to them by patent in fee simple by the sixth section of the treaty made at the foot of the Rapids of the Miami river of Lake Erie on the 29th day of September in the year of our Lord 1817, containing one hundred and twenty-five sections or square miles, and granted in two reservations and described in the said sixth section of the aforesaid treaty as follows:—“A tract of land ten miles square, the centre of which shall be the council house at Wahpaghkonnetta;” and “a tract of land containing twenty-five square miles, which is to join the tract granted at Wapaghkonnetta, and to include the Shawnee settlement on Hog creek, and to be laid off as nearly as possible in a square form,” which said two tracts or reservations of land were granted as aforesaid to the said Shawnee Indians by the patents signed by the Commissioner of the General Land Office and certified by the Secretary of War dated the 20th day of April 1821. Also, one other tract of land, granted to the said Shawnees by the second article of the treaty made at St. Mary’s in the state of Ohio, on the 17th day of September in the year 1818, and described therein as follows: “Twelve thousand eight hundred acres of land to be laid off adjoining the east line of their reserve of ten miles square at Wapaghkonnetta,” making in the whole of the aforesaid cessions to the United States by the aforesaid Shawnees, one hundred and forty-five sections or square miles, which includes all the land now owned or claimed by the said band or tribe of Shawnees in the State of Ohio.

Now I am not a lawyer, but that sounds to me like a special definition of “fee simple.” Land patents certified by the Secretary of War? I haven’t seen any other land patents at the GLO database like that. The one that includes the small acreage we own in Michigan is not like that. I just now did a search in the database for all the land patents in Township 5S, Range 6E, in Auglaize County, to see if there were any for Black Hoof or any Algonquian-sounding names. I didn’t see any.

If the chiefs owned the land in fee simple, they should have been allowed to sell or not sell, as they saw fit, using the ordinary legal system for land transactions. That would have had its own dangers for the Shawnee people, but the process by which they ceded the land was not anything like it is when most of us sell property.

It must have been a very special definition of “fee simple” by which Black Hoof and the other chiefs owned this land — and not at all what he had in mind. I wonder if he brought up that point when he refused to sign. Maybe it was considered an eminent domain proceeding — a very eminent domain.

Edit:  Here is a link to the googlemap that’s not constrained by the dimensions of my WordPress blog.

]]> http://www.spokesrider.com/2009/01/22/fee-simple/feed/ 2 http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/09/25/four-ohio-counties/ http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/09/25/four-ohio-counties/#comments Fri, 26 Sep 2008 04:58:25 +0000 Spokesrider http://www.spokesrider.com/2008/09/25/four-ohio-counties/

We’re in Fort Loramie, Ohio, for a few days. We got here barely in time for me to get in a quick 20-mile starter ride before sundown. This photo was taken at the farthest point on the ride, where a piece of road follows the Greenville treaty line.

The ride took me to four counties: Shelby, Auglaize, Mercer, and Darke. Not bad for such a short ride!

Fort Loramie is a good place to use as a base camp. It’s an old canal town. There are no B&Bs and no chain motels, but there is a Ma ‘n Pa type motel, the Dairy King Motel. To register we walked up to the same sidewalk window where we later got an ice cream. The room is clean, spacious, and inexpensive. $140 for four nights. Sometimes one can’t go camping around here for less than that.

Winds tomorrow are forecast to be from the northeast. Too bad I don’t have any destinations picked out to the southwest, say in Randolph County, Indiana. But I need to do more study before I’m ready to ride there again. So I’ll go to the southeast, to Champaign County.

On my August 30 ride from Wapakoneta to Fort Loramie and Piqua, I first did a detour to the east. In Clay Township I came across a tumbledown log building. It didn’t appear to be an old building that went back to settlement days, but I wondered if there was any interesting history associated with it anyway. Today I looked on old plat maps and then tried to search for anything interesting about the landowners, but I haven’t found anything worth telling about.

I did find out that the original land buyer was a David W. Barber. He “entered” the land at the land office in 1837, and was issued a land patent in 1840. So at this time and place, it took roughly 3 years for the government to process the sale. It was always a struggle for the General Land Office to keep up with the paperwork, and sometimes Congress enacted laws that made the process extra slow and cumbersome. But I am under the impression that three years wasn’t considered too bad.

It’s fairly easy to find out when the land patents were issued, but not so easy to find out when people had gone to the land office to make their purchases. In this case, I learned about the year of purchase from “History of Western Ohio and Auglaize County,” by C.W. Williamson (1905). It’s available as a download via Google Books.

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Here’s the location on a google map.