LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
| [Frontispiece.] | |
| Home of the Pioneer, | [7] |
| This is Freedom! | [9] |
| The Gum Tree, | [12] |
| Stray Pup, | [30] |
| Gamer, | [33] |
| Our Cabin, 1821, | [37] |
| Ground Hog Club—Certificate of Membership, | [58] |
| Ohio School-house from 1796 to 1840, | [64] |
| School-house of 1851, in which President Garfield Taught, | [92] |
| The Olive Branch, | [95] |
| Hunter and Dog, | [118] |
| Man of Special Providences, | [128] |
| Church, Residence, and Court-house, | [131] |
| Public School Building, Pickaway County, O., 1851, | [148] |
| A Squirrel Hunter, | [171] |
| A Herd of Bison, | [174] |
| Camp Red River Hunters, | [176] |
| Turkey River, Iowa, 1845, | [221] |
| Sequoia Park, | [235] |
| Conflict in Pre-emption Claims, | [250] |
| Chillicothe Elm, | [252] |
| Logan Elm, | [253] |
| Map—Lord Dunmore’s Campaign, | [256] |
| Monument, Boggs Family, | [263] |
| Indian Raid, | [264] |
| Spinning Wheel, | [275] |
| Canal Era, 1825, | [290] |
| Log Cabin Luminary, | [292] |
| Ohio Stage Coach, | [301] |
| Prairie Schooner, | [306] |
| New Passenger Car on the Toledo and Adrian R’y, 1837, | [320] |
| Pontoon Bridge over the Ohio River, | [337] |
| Governor’s Certificate of Honorable Membership, | [343] |
| The Squirrel Hunter’s Discharge, | [344] |
| Draft Wheel, | [349] |
THE SQUIRREL HUNTERS OF OHIO;
OR,
GLIMPSES OF PIONEER LIFE.
CHAPTER I.
OHIO—EARLY SETTLEMENTS.
From the time the Mayflower landed at Fort Harmar (Marietta) in 1788 until 1795, emigration had not materially increased the population of the North-west, owing to the unstable and dissatisfied condition of the Indians.
All this time, the soldier, who had served his time in the cause of independence and been honorably discharged without pay:—the poverty-stricken patriot, unable to procure subsistence for himself and family in the bankrupt colonies, had been listening to accounts of a land “flowing with milk and honey,” and was anxious to get there. It was described as a country “fertile as heart could wish:”—“fair to look upon, and fragrant with the thousand fresh odors of the woods in early spring.” The long cool aisles leading away into mazes of vernal green where the swift deer bounded by unmolested and as yet unscared by the sound of the woodman’s ax or the sharp ring of the rifle. “He could imagine the wooded slopes and the tall grass of the plain jeweled with strange and brilliant flowers;” but there the redman had his field of corn, and would defend his rights.
The success of General Wayne in procuring terms of peace with the warlike tribes of Indians in the spring of 1795, caused such an influx of emigration into the Ohio division of the North-west Territory, that in 1798 the population enabled the election of an Assembly which met the following year, and sent William Henry Harrison as a delegate to Congress. So rapidly did the country fill up with new settlements that the prospective state at the beginning of the nineteenth century was knocking at the door for admission, with all the pathways crowded by pedestrians—men, women, and children—dogs and guns; crossing the perilous mountains to reach a country where a home was a matter of choice, and subsistence furnished without money or price.