Centennial History of Columbus and Franklin County. William Alexander Taylor
at the point of the junction of the Great Miami and Loranaie creek, upon an extensive prairie, in 1749, and was named Pickawillany, English improvement on the Pickqualines, a tribe of Indians. It was to visit this post that Gist and his companions made the trip now under discussion. It was, in fact, the first point of English occupation within the present boundaries of Ohio, and here the English traders throughout the entire trading belt met and conferred between themselves and their Indian friends and allies.
On October 31, 1750, Gist set out from Old Town, on the Potomac, in Maryland, and crossed the Alleghenies, following the usual route of travel to the Ohio river that seems to have existed from time immemorial. Crossing the upper Ohio, he made his way to the then Indian village at the forks of the Muskingum, where the city of Coshocton (Goshocking, the Place of the Owls), now stands, much more pacific and inviting than its Indian name would portend.
From that point Gist and his two companions came westward, holding conferences in the Indian villages at Wacatomika, Black Hand (so named for the black print of an enormous human hand on a high rock overhanging the Pataskala river, through which a tunnel of the Columbus, Newark and Zanesville electric road is pierced), where an Indian potentate was located; thence to the present Buckeye lake, then, little more than a great sedgy morass, full of fish, which the naked Indian children waded in and caught with their hands, which they skirted, coming on to the High Bank, where they crossed by canoe ferry to the Indian town or village that occupied a portion of what is now the west side.
Here a conference was held in February, 1751. Later the three travelers went down the Scioto and the Ohio to the mouth of the Great Miami, up which they journeyed to Pickawillany, where a prolonged conference was held, under the direction of Gist, between the English traders and the tribal representatives of the Weas, Pickqualines, Miamis, Piankeshaws, and other sub-nations contiguous thereto, and a treaty, practically of alliance, was agreed upon, the French flag, which had for years floated over the chief tepee of Pickawillany, was hauled down and British sovereignty was recognized.
Under the terms of the treaty the town rapidly rose in importance, Gist recording in his journal that it was the strongest town in the western country, as well as the most important one.
But the French government in Canada was not in the dark as to the progress of events on Riviere a la Roche, or Rock River, as the Miami was called, but was kept constantly informed by their Indian and half-breed spies.
So it came about, a few years later, that, in an unexpected moment, the combined French and more northern Indians swooped down upon Pickawillany, and the "coming" emporium of the great Ohio wilderness went up in smoke and flame, and it was blotted off the map. But this part of the story belongs not to a Columbus history, but to the more comprehensive history of the state and its parent, the Northwest Territory.
Enter Mr. James Smith.
There may have been other white men at that period (between 1751 and 1760) who threaded the mazes of the then Columbus, but history fails to present another than James Smith, who was held a captive among the Indians west of the junction of the two rivers and who hunted and trapped along the rivers and their principal tributaries in this territory. Mr. Smith's personal narration is full of interest and gives one a fine insight into the character of the Indian nomads of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A complete resume of his graphic narrative appears in an appropriate chapter devoted to early reminiscences and later day historical gossip of the Buckeye capital.
In the meantime, James Smith must rest upon his laurels of being the second early comer of the white race into the future capital, illuminated with this brief description, written by him, of the then site of the present city: "From the mouth of Olentangy (applied to the Big Darby), on the east side of Scioto, up to the carrying place (in Marion county), there is a large body of first and second rate land, and tolerably well-watered. The timber is ash, agar tree, walnut, locust, oak and beech." This is no doubt the first written description of the point at and neighboring upon the lands on which the city of Columbus stands.
The First Permanent Resident.
The honor of being the first permanent resident within the present boundaries of Columbus seems to belong, without question, to Lucas Sullivant, a native of Virginia, born in 1765. He migrated to Kentucky when an orphan lad. where he learned surveying in the field, not in the schools.
As a deputy under General Richard C. Anderson, surveyor general of the Virginia Military District of Ohio. Mr. Lucas led a body of assistants into the wilderness of the Scioto valley northward, and in the summer and autumn of the year 1797 surveyed and platted, and became proprietor of the town of Franklinton, long since made an integral part of Columbus. Here he erected his house, installed his helpmeet, set up his lares and penates; here he reared his children, and here he lived until he passed into the Great Beyond at the age of fifty-eight.
Some of Sullivant's Compatriots.
Among those who came with Sullivant into Franklinton as permanent settlers the following names have been handed down by the earlier historians: Joseph Dixon, George Skidmore, William Domigan, James Marshall, three families named Dearduff, Mcllvain and Sells respectively, consisting of several persons, young and old, but not separately designated; John Lisle and family, William Fleming, Jacob Grubb, Jacob Overdier, Arthur O'Harra. Joseph Foss, John Blair, and John Dill, the latter of whom seems to have come unaccompanied from the town of York, Pennsylvania; Jeremiah Armstrong and John Brickell, and probably others whose names are forgotten. These, of course, were the first citizens, and among them Messrs. Armstrong and Brickell were the heroes of adventures which will be presented in the chapter of local historical events and gossip.
Sullivant was married in 1801 and led in the settlement of the town, of course. A little later than those aforenamed were Lyne Starling, Robert Russell. Colonel Culbertson of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, with numerous sons, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law. unmarried sons and unmarried daughters, and withal a man of wealth and of distinction.
The First White Woman.
The first white woman born east of the Scioto river and in Columbus proper was Keziah Hamlin, who afterward married David Brooks, proprietor of "The White Horse Tavern," one of the famous early hostelries of the Ohio capital. She was born October 16, 1804 in a log cabin which stood upon what is now the site of Hosier's brewery.
At that time there lived in the vicinity a sub-tribe of Wyandots, who were on friendly terms with the scattered white settlers. They had a great fondness especially for Mother Hamlin's corn bread, and were in the habit of paying the family informal calls and helping themselves informally to whatever they might find in the larder. The only explanation they offered was to leave with Mrs. Hamlin the finest cuts and quarters of venison, so that if she and the lord of the household were left temporarily short on bread they found themselves long on meat. While this kind of exchange was one-sided, the Hamlin firm never had occasion to complain that they had been cheated.
When little Keziah came the Wyandots took great interest in the little pale face and never lost an opportunity to admire her in a sort of ecstasy of silence, punctuated with grunts of satisfaction; and the larger she grew, and when she began to toddle about on the dirt floor of the cabin, their admiration knew no bounds, and then and there the Trilby inspiration took shape and form.
One busy day, when Father Hamlin was on a journey to the mill and Mother Hamlin was busy with her household cares and duties and Baby Hamlin slept like a top in her sugar trough cradle, a delegation of Wyandots in gala attire invaded the cabin and, instead of depleting the larder, depleted the cradle and marched Indian file, the chief leading, with Keziah in his arms, and disappeared in the direction of the Indian village, in the dense forest at the bend of the Scioto, where the Harrisburg bridge now spans the river.
It would be impossible to depict the feelings of the mother. She simply endured the terrors of the situation for hours, which passed like slow-paced centuries, buoyed up only by the faint hope that the children of the forest were merely playing some good-natured prank on her. Realizing the uselessness of pursuit, nothing was left her but to cling to hope and endure and long for the return of her husband. Hours before his return (far past nightfall)