The Spokesrider » Shelby County OH

Manary gets no respect

Spokesrider — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 06:11:47 +0000

(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 [...]

No treaty lines in Iowa

Spokesrider — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 02:37:37 +0000

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.

Greenville Treaty Line in Jackson Township

Spokesrider — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 07:35:17 +0000

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.

Roadside memorials

Spokesrider — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 07:48:28 +0000

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.

Latecomers

Spokesrider — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 09:09:20 +0000

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.

Connecting the Greenville Treaty Line Dots

Spokesrider — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 04:24:03 +0000

In an article from last September 25 I told about the quick bike ride I did after we arrived in Fort Loramie that evening. It was a warmup for four days of riding. I took advantage of the opportunity to see a small segment of the Greenville Treaty Line I had not yet seen. This [...]

Dairy King Motel

Spokesrider — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:54:52 +0000

At the end of September we stayed at this place in Fort Loramie, Ohio, for five days of bicycle riding. The Dairy King is the only motel in town, and it worked out very well for us. The price was very reasonable — for four nights it came to something like $35/night — and our [...]

GPS-CS1

Spokesrider — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 19:23:05 +0000

This is a screen shot from the output of my Sony GPS, a GPS-CS1. It’s from the September 26 ride from Fort Loramie (in the upper left) to Urbana, OH (lower right). I usually attach the device to the outside of the single pannier I carry with me, or else put it inside on days [...]

A leveling influence

Spokesrider — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:18:33 +0000

(September 26, continued.) This railroad underpass is not too far north from the site where the Edward Jackson blockhouse may have been. I suppose you could say it’s in the valley of the Great Miami River, though the water level is quite a bit lower than the road, even. The structure reminds one that railroad [...]

Edward Jackson blockhouse

Spokesrider — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 08:26:55 +0000

After leaving the site of the Wilson home (and War of 1812 blockhouse) I rode to the east side of the Great Miami river. I wondered if I would find an old brick house in Section 14 of Orange Township, where a Mrs. Clancy had owned land in 1883. It would have been another site [...]