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HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA

VOLUME 8




  [Illustration: THE OLD VINCENNES TRACE NEAR XENIA, ILLINOIS]




  HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA
  VOLUME 8

  Military Roads of the
  Mississippi Basin

  The Conquest of the Old Northwest

  BY
  ARCHER BUTLER HULBERT

  _With Maps and Illustrations_

  [Illustration]

  THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY
  CLEVELAND, OHIO
  1904




  COPYRIGHT, 1904
  BY
  THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED




CONTENTS


                                            PAGE
  PREFACE                                     11
    I. THE CLARK ROUTES THROUGH ILLINOIS      15
   II. MIAMI VALLEY CAMPAIGNS                 72
  III. ST. CLAIR'S CAMPAIGN                  108
   IV. WAYNE AND FALLEN TIMBER               160
  APPENDIXES                                 219




ILLUSTRATIONS


    I. THE OLD VINCENNES TRACE NEAR XENIA, ILLINOIS     _Frontispiece_

   II. SKETCH MAP OF PART OF ILLINOIS, SHOWING CLARK'S
        ROUTES                                                      21

  III. HUTCHINS'S SKETCH OF THE WABASH IN 1768 (showing
        trace of the path to Kaskaskia; from the original
        in the British Museum)                                      35

   IV. THE ST. LOUIS TRACE NEAR LAWRENCEVILLE, ILLINOIS             62

    V. A PART OF ARROWSMITH'S MAP OF THE UNITED STATES,
        1796 (showing the region in which Wilkinson, Scott,
        Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne operated)                     117

   VI. DR. BELKNAP'S MAP OF WAYNE'S ROUTE IN THE MAUMEE
        VALLEY, 1794 (from the original in the Library of
        Harvard University)                                        197




PREFACE


This volume treats of five of the early campaigns in the portion of
America known as the Mississippi Basin--Clark's campaigns against
Kaskaskia and Vincennes in 1778 and 1779; and Harmar's, St. Clair's, and
Wayne's campaigns against the northwestern Indians in 1790, 1791, and
1793-94.

Much as has been written concerning Clark's famous march through the
"drowned lands of the Wabash," the important question of his route has
been untouched, and the story from that standpoint untold. The history
of the campaign is here made subservient to a study of the route and to
an attempted identification of the various places, and a determination
of their present-day names. Four volumes of the Draper Manuscripts in
the library of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin give a vast
deal of information on this subject. They are referred to by the library
press-mark.

Turning to the study of Harmar's, St. Clair's, and Wayne's routes into
the Northwest, the author found a singular lack of detailed description
of these campaigns, and determined to combine with the study of the
military roadway a comparatively complete sketch of each campaign,
making use, in this case as in that of Clark's campaigns, of the Draper
Manuscripts.

A great debt of thanks is due to Mr. Reuben Gold Thwaites, Secretary of
the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, for assistance and advice; to
Josiah Morrow of Lebanon, Ohio, the author is indebted for help in
determining portions of Harmar's route; and to Francis E. Wilson,
President of the Greenville Historical Society, many thanks are due for
help in questions concerning the pathway of the intrepid leader known to
the East as "Mad Anthony" Wayne, but remembered in the West as the
"Blacksnake" and the "Whirlwind," because he doubled his track like a
blacksnake and swept over his roads like a whirlwind.

                                                              A. B. H.

MARIETTA, OHIO, September 14, 1903.




Military Roads of the Mississippi Basin

The Conquest of the Old Northwest




CHAPTER I

THE CLARK ROUTES THROUGH ILLINOIS


On the twenty-fourth of June, 1778, George Rogers Clark, with about one
hundred and seventy-five patriot adventurers, left the little pioneer
settlement on Corn Island, in the Ohio River, opposite the present site
of Louisville, Kentucky, for the conquest of the British posts of
Kaskaskia and Vincennes in the "Illinois country."[1]

The boats running day and night, the party reached Clark's first
stopping-place, an island in the Ohio near the mouth of the Tennessee
River, in four days. Just below this island was the site of old Fort
Massac--now occupied by Metropolis, Massac County, Illinois--built
probably by a vanguard from Fort Duquesne, a generation before, when
the French clearly foresaw the end of their reign on the upper Ohio.
Here, almost a century before that, was the old trading-station of
Juchereau and the mission of Mermet--the subsequent "soul of the mission
of Kaskaskia," as Bancroft describes him. The situation was strategic on
two accounts: it was a site well out of the reach of the Ohio floods,
and it was near the mouths of both the Tennessee and Cumberland
Rivers--valleys known of old to the Shawanese and Cherokees. As a coign
of vantage for traders and missionaries, it had been of commanding
importance. It was, likewise, near the Ohio terminus of several old
buffalo routes across Illinois, roads which became connecting links
between Kaskaskia, on the river bearing that name near the Mississippi,
and the mission at Fort Massac. The old paths of the buffalo, long known
as hunting traces, offered the traveler from the Ohio to the old-time
metropolis of Illinois a short-cut by land, saving thrice the distance
by water, and obviated stemming the swift tides of the Mississippi. One
of the principal backbones of Illinois was threaded by these primeval
routes, and high ground between the vast cypress swamps and mist-crowned
drowned lands of Illinois was a boon to any traveler, especially that
first traveler, the bison. This high ground ran between Kaskaskia and
Shawneetown, on the Ohio River, the course becoming later a famous state
highway. Its earliest name was the "Kaskaskia Trace."

Clark's spies, sent out to Illinois a year before, undoubtedly advised
him to land at Fort Massac and, gaining from there this famous highway,
to pursue it to Kaskaskia. His plan of surprising the British post
necessitated his pursuing unexpected courses. It was well known that the
British watched the Mississippi well; therefore he chose the land route.
Here, at the mouth of the Tennessee, his men brought in a canoe full of
white traders who had recently been in Kaskaskia; certain of these were
engaged to guide Clark thither. The party dropped down to Massac Creek,
which enters the Ohio just above the site of the old fort, and in that
inlet secreted their flat-boats ready to begin their intrepid march of
one hundred and twenty miles across country.[2]

As this little company of eight or nine score adventurers drew around
their fires on Massac Creek, they little dreamed, we may be sure, of the
fame they were to gain from this plucky excursion into the prairies of
Illinois. It was impossible for them to lift their eyes above the
commonplaces of the journey and the possibilities of the coming
encounter, and see in true perspective what the capture of Illinois
meant to poor Kentucky. It is not less difficult for us to turn our eyes
from these general results, which were so brilliant, and get a clear
insight into the commonplaces of this memorable little campaign--to hear
the talk of the tired men about the fires as they cleaned the heavy
clods of mud from shoes and moccasins, examined their guns, viewed the
night, and then talked softly of the possibilities of the morrow, and
dreamed, in the ruddy firelight, of those at home. Of all companies of
famous campaigners on the Indian trails of America, this company was the
smallest and the most picturesque. Clark had but little over half the
force which Washington commanded at Fort Necessity in 1754.

Little Massac Creek is eleven miles in length but drains seventy square
miles of territory. This fact is a significant description of the nature
of the northern and central portions of Massac County. From the Cache
River a string of lakes extends in a southeast and then northeast
direction to Big Bay River, varying in width from one to four miles;
around the lakes lies a much greater area of cypress swamps and
treacherous "sloughs" altogether impassable. The water of these lakes
drains sometimes into the Cache and at other times into the Big
Bay--depending upon the stage of water in the Ohio.[3]

There were three routes from Fort Massac toward Kaskaskia; one, which
may well be called the Moccasin Gap route, circled to the eastward to
get around the lakes and swamps of Massac County; it passed eastward
into Pope County, where it struck the Kaskaskia-Shawneetown highway.
This route ran two and one-half miles west of Golconda, Pope County, and
on to Sulphur or Round Spring. From thence through Moccasin Gap, section
3, township 12, range 4E, Johnson County; thence it ran directly for the
prairie country to the northward. As noted, this route merged into the
famous old Kaskaskia and Shawneetown route across Illinois--what was
known as the Kaskaskia Trace--in Pope County. It was this course which
in earliest times had been blazed by the French as the safest common
highway between Kaskaskia and the trading and mission station (and later
fort) at Massac. The trees along the course were marked with the proper
number of miles by means of a hot iron, the figures then being painted
red. "Such I saw them," records Governor Reynolds, "in 1800. This road
made a great curve to the north to avoid the swamps and rough country on
the sources of the Cash [Cache] river, and also to obtain the prairie
country as soon as possible. This road... was called the old Massac
road by the Americans."

[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF PART OF ILLINOIS
Showing Routes of George Rogers Clark]

The second route circled the Massac County lakes to the westward,
cutting in between them and the canyons of the Cache River, near what is
familiarly known as Indian Point (section 33, township 13, range 3E,
Massac County), or one mile south of the northwest corner of Massac
County; thence, running north of northwest, it crossed the Little Cache
(Dutchman's Creek) one and one-half miles north of Forman. Thence the
route is up the east side of the Cache and through Buffalo Gap, section
25, township 11, range 2E, Johnson County, to the prairie land beyond.
The third