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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