General Harmar's Campaign

by Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County

THE FATHER DREW THEM TO SHORE

SPEECH OF JAMES McGREW

Ladies and Gentlemen:

As I stand in your presence, I remember that my father, John McGrew, was born in York County, Pennsylvania, in 1766, ten years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I remember that he was married in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and moved to near Georgetown, Kentucky, in 1788. He was one of those men who commenced the settlement of the Ohio Valley, the centennial of which is being so generally celebrated this year. I remember that in 1788 my father’s brother, sick on a flatboat that was decoyed to the shore just above the mouth of the Licking River opposite where Cincinnati now stands, was thought to have been tomahawked, for he was never heard from afterward. It was the custom of the Indians to tomahawk all sick persons who could not be carried into captivity. I also remember that my father was in the bloody and disastrous Indian fight just across your own Maumee River in 1790.

I say I remember these facts. Yes, as they with a multitude of other events come rushing upon my memory, I feel as though I belonged in the dim distance of the past age. Yet, I am glad to be among you today to assist in calling up these recollections and in doing honor to the brave and heroic men—and women, too, God bless them—who blazed their way through the dense forests of this northwestern region ninety to one hundred years ago.

I do not know that I can do better than to recite much of what I wrote to Allan H. Dougall. My letter to him was written last December at the suggestion of the Honorable Charles F. Muhler, mayor of your city. It came about in this way. I saw in the CHICAGO DAILY NEWS of October 23, 1887, that Henry M. Williams of your city had erected a handsome iron fence around the ground formerly occupied by the old fort. He had also erected a flagpole, from the top of which floated a beautiful American flag. And he had formally presented the whole to your city on October 22, 1887, the ninety-third anniversary of the dedication of the old fort. It was stated that this was also the ninety-seventh anniversary of General Harmar’s battle with the Indians at the ford of the Maumee River.

This statement called to my mind the fact that my father was in that engagement with the Indians, and I stated this in a letter to Mayor Muhler. In reply, he wrote me that Colonel Dougall was greatly interested in the early history of Fort Wayne and the Maumee Valley, and that the Colonel would be glad to learn any facts from me relating to the early history of this area. This caused me to write the letter I will now read. Some of you may have read it last winter when it was published in one of your city papers. But as there are doubtless many persons here who have not seen or heard it, you will excuse my reading it before your society.

Kankakee, Illinois

December 11, 1887

Allan H. Dougall, Esq.

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Dear Sir:

Mayor C. F. Muhler states in his letter, dated November 22, that you are the local secretary of the Maumee Valley Monumental and Historical Association, and that you are greatly interested in the early history of Fort Wayne and the Maumee Valley. As my father was with General Harmar in his 1790 campaign against the Indians of the Old Northwest, Mayor Muhler wrote that you thought I must have gained a good deal of traditional information about the Indian campaigns between 1790 and 1794 and about the early history of Fort Wayne.

Well, such is the case, especially in reference to General Harmar’s defeat on the twenty-second of October, 1790. In order to come to a better understanding of what gave rise to General Harmar’s campaign and other expeditions against the Indians of the Northwest, it is necessary for us to recall the treaty made at Fort Harmar on January 9, 1789, by Governor St. Clair with the chiefs and warriors of the Wyandot, Chippewa, Potawatomi, and Sauk nations. This treaty was a renewal and confirmation of the agreement previously made at Fort McIntosh, and it was hoped that the early settlers would be secure in a large degree from molestation by these and the other Indian tribes in the Ohio Valley and the Miami of the Lakes. Undoubtedly this treaty, which gave the general impression that immigrants to the Ohio Valley would be secure against serious molestation, induced the tide of immigration in this direction immediately thereafter.

But it was soon found that notwithstanding this treaty, roving bands of Indians were continuing to commit depredations upon all the new settlements. Horses, cattle, and other forms of property were stolen; settlers were captured and carried off as prisoners; and quite a number of white men were killed near the Miami River. The feeling of alarm and insecurity became very general, and blockhouses were erected in nearly all the new settlements.

In June, 1789, Major Doughty with about 140 men commenced building Fort Washington where Cincinnati now stands. In the fall of that year, General Harmar with three hundred men arrived and took possession of the fort. After all negotiations with the Indians had failed, General Harmar was ordered to attack their towns. In compliance with this order, in the summer and fall of 1790 he gathered a force of thirteen hundred men at Fort Washington. Less than one fourth of the men were regular soldiers; the others were volunteer militiamen. In September he commenced his march against the Indians of the Maumee country, known in early times as the Miami of the Lakes. The Indians were constantly committing depredations upon the white settlers in southern Ohio, northern Kentucky, and, indeed, throughout the entire Ohio Valley.

My father, who had moved from Pennsylvania to Kentucky in 1788, was one of the mounted volunteers who accompanied General Harmar. They marched, as I now recollect, via Greenville, Ohio, to the Maumee country, where they destroyed a few patches of corn and an Indian village near the site of Fort Wayne. Having accomplished this, General Harmar proposed to march back to Fort Washington. This caused great dissatisfaction among the volunteer forces; and a proposition was made to recruit volunteers to attack the Indians, who were known to be not far beyond the north side of the Maumee River.

The volunteer force was organized under Colonel Hardin and other brave officers. On the morning of October 22, 1790, they forded the Maumee River and pushed north to a small prairie, with a boggy strip in the middle which was troublesome to cross on horseback. The Indians lay concealed in the timber on the opposite side. The two rangers and the greater part of the command had crossed the bog and were approaching the timber, wholly unconscious of impending danger, when suddenly the rangers were shot down. My father said:

“There was an awful pause; then all at once the whole forest seemed on fire (this was the result of flintlocks), accompanied by the reports of hundreds of rifles, which sent a shower of bullets into our ranks and resulted in fearful loss of life. My comrades fell on all sides.”

In the hasty retreat that followed, the horses made a rapid approach to the bog and naturally sank into it. While they were struggling through the quagmire, the Indians had a decided advantage. The greatest loss of life occurred here and at the attempted refording of the river. The survivors were scattered in every direction.

My father was one of the five who, under the leadership of “Indian Davie” (who at one time had been an Indian prisoner), pushed northward through a terrible tangle of grapevines, greenbriers, and hazel brush which grew along the St. Joseph River. They succeeded in crossing the river quite a distance above its junction with the St. Mary’s. Then they made their way back on the west side of the river to a point nearly opposite Harmar’s headquarters. Here they crossed the St. Mary’s River and came into camp with their clothes almost torn off them and their flesh fearfully lacerated by thorns and greenbriers.

My father was very severe in his denunciation of General Harmar. He said that Harmar neither sent help to cover the retreating forces nor provided help which the wounded men needed to get back to camp. All Harmar did was to keep a cannon booming so that the stragglers might know where the camp was. Once, after having heard what someone had written in palliation of Harmar’s conduct on that occasion, my father replied: “There is not a word of truth in what he says; Harmar was a distressed old coward.”

To give you some idea of my father’s courage and daring, I will mention one instance. He moved from Kentucky in 1796 and located five miles south of Dayton, Ohio. Soon after he settled there, the Indians stole a mare and two colts from him. Later he found two of the horses at an Indian camp just across the Miami River from Dayton. He tried to get someone in Dayton to go with him to get the mare and colt, but no one dared go. He went to the camp about sundown. As there were only two or three squaws in camp, he took his mare and colt and made all possible speed toward home, which he reached in safety and where he stood sentinel all night.

Mrs. Shroyer saw him pass two miles south of Dayton. A short time later she was shocked and trembled with fear as she saw three Indians in hot pursuit with rifles and tomahawks. Fortunately, night came on, and they lost his trail. The next day my father took his rifle and went alone to the camp. By signs he made them understand that he had retrieved the mare and colt that they had stolen from him. He demanded the other two-year-old colt. By signs, they indicated that it was dead. The Indians never disturbed him again.

My father was engaged in forwarding supplies for General William Henry Harrison’s forces at the time of the fight with the Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe. I was with my father at Germantown, Montgomery County, Ohio, in the summer of 1840, when he met General Harrison (afterward President Harrison) for the first time after the Tippecanoe campaign. Had I time, I could tell you other exploits of my father with the Indians, but I forbear wearing out your patience. I doubt if there is another man living whose father was in that fight with the Indians on October 22 at the ford of the Maumee.

Most of this information is traditional, handed down from father to son. I have been greatly helped in calling to mind many of these incidents and occurrences by my brother-in-law, Dr. Samuel H. Binkley, of Alexanderville, Montgomery County, Ohio. He is a geologist of high standing and is one of the noted archaeologists in the country. Dr. Binkley has one of the finest geological and archaeological cabinets to be seen in the West. This collection is closely related to historical and monumental matters.

I will mention that I, too, have some early recollections of Fort Wayne. In the fall of 1838 I passed through here, driving a three-horse team moving a relative to Whitley County, Indiana, near where Columbia City now stands. As I now recollect, Fort Wayne was then a town of log houses, principally. I think the courthouse was a square building with a roof run up to a point from all four sides. If I am not right in this, some of you old settlers can correct me. I passed through this city in 1846 or 1847 on a canalboat with Mr. Tabour, an early settler at Logansport. About the same time, I passed through with Mr. Elsworth, of Lafayette, who was at that time commissioner of patents at Washington. In 1856 Olif Johnson and Colonel Sweet of Galva, Illinois, General Thomas Henderson, now in Congress from the seventh Illinois district, and I went bathing (we called it swimming) in the Maumee River a short distance below your then small city.

Sincerely yours,

JAMES McGREW

You will agree that I have some personal recollections of your city and the Maumee country. I think of Fort Wayne and the Maumee country as historic ground, baptised with the blood of brave and patriotic men. These men were as heroic as any who have lived in this country; and their toils, hardships, daring, and courage, as well as their patriotism, deserve to be kept green in our memories.

FORT WAYNE JOURNAL, August 16, 1888