Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Pioneers With Pone: The Corny Scioto Legacy




Come my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,
Have you your pistols? Have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,
We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Not for delectations sweet,
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious,
Not the riches safe and palling, nor for us the tame enjoyment,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

From Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, 1865

Explorers seeking riches invaded the Native American lands of the Ohio country in the 18th century. These hearty, adventurous souls encountered a wild but plentiful land. Abundant peltries (raw, undressed skins of small animals) lured many trappers and traders into the Ohio Valley where they caught these animals and also obtained valuable furs from Indians. Later, however, the crops, not the wildlife of the region, would become the golden resource of the settlers who followed.

The first authentic exploration of the Ohio River (Belle Riviere) by an expedition organized for that purpose was made in 1749 by Pierre-Joseph Céloron de Blainville, French military officer, and Jesuit Father Joseph Pierre de Bonnecamps. It was ordered by Comte de la Galissoniere, the governor of Canada, to strengthen the French claim on the Ohio Valley.

The expedition included 216 French Canadians and 55 Native Americans in a flotilla consisting of large boats and canoes. It started from La Chine, Quebec (near Montreal) on June 15.


This exploration became known as the “Lead Plate Expedition.” The French used lead plates at the mouths of several principal tributaries declaring the claims of France. At each point, a tin or copper plate bearing the French royal arms was nailed to a tree. Below, an inscribed leaden plate measuring about eleven inches long and seven and one-half inches wide was buried, declaring the claims of possession.

This was a traditional European mode of marking territory, but must have contributed to Native American anxieties about the intentions of the French, and thus ultimately the survey had a counterproductive effect.

In total, Céloron buried at least six lead plates. One was stolen by curious Indians almost immediately, possibly before it was even buried, and placed in British hands. Two more were found in the early 19th Century. The whereabouts of the rest remain unknown.

Celoron's French soldiers proceeded from Pittsburgh to the Great Miami River, planting the plates as they went. Along the route, the soldiers encountered numbers of British traders, especially at a village known as Lower Shawnee Town at the Scioto River's mouth.


The Celoron expedition arrived at the village on the Scioto River on August 22, 1749. The journal of Bonnecamps gives the first reference in history to an Indian settlement at the mouth of the Scioto. It is as follows:

The situation of the village of the Chaouanons (French for Shawnee) is quite pleasant – at least, it is not masked by the mountains, like the other villages through which we had passed. The Sinhioto River, which bounds it on the east, has given it its name. It is composed of about sixty cabins. The Englishmen there numbered five. They were order to withdraw, and promised to do so. The latitude of our camp was 39 degrees 1'.”

Indians were in actual possession of the land at that time. They were alarmed at the invasion of the French in 1749 and were reported by Celoron as giving a warning “salute” that gave the expedition great cause for alarm…

Those Indians discharged well nigh a thousand gun-shots. I knew the powder had been gratuitously furnished by the English. Such a waste of ammunition was proof if its abundance and increased the alarm of the French for their safety.”

Historian Andrew Lee Feight, Ph.D., writes that this tenuous confrontation at Lower Shawnee Town marked the beginning of what modern-day historians refer to as the Great War for Empire, still commonly known as the French & Indian War). The tense meeting of Céloron and Shawnee leaders in the summer of 1749 is immortalized in the Portsmouth Flood Wall murals of Robert Dafford, and its original version by H. H. Wessel (entitled, “Under the Banner of France”) that can be found in what is now the third floor, Law Library of the Scioto County Court House.

Of the meeting, Feight writes …

Céloron and his men came ashore in armor, with their weapons loaded and ready for a fight, but there was none. The French forces most likely encamped on the bottoms, on the east side of the Scioto River, across from the village. When Céloron finally addressed the Indians, he delivered a message from the Governor of Canada, which warned the villagers about the nefarious designs of the English …

The talks proved difficult and Céloron, who had been ordered to expel and plunder English merchants, would leave without evicting the handful of English who were living in the village at the time. Céloron, instead, choose to head down river, without burying one of his famous lead plates, which he attempted to place at the mouth of all major tributaries of the Ohio.”

Following the Celoron expedition, French traders and trappers became active in the Ohio Valley. Historian Henry T. Bannon writes that the French at the time were far more capable than the English in carrying on the fur trade and, in that way, they held the territory after Celoron's voyage. But that region was not long to remain a possession of France; for it was taken from by Great Britain in 1763.

And not too long after the contact from these early explorers, many English pioneers began settling the Scioto Valley. The first attempt at permanent settlement was said to be in 1785. From the American Pioneer the following article is taken, contributed by George Corwin of Portsmouth. It reads:

"In April, 1785, four families from the Redstone settlement in Pennsylvania descended the Ohio to the mouth of the Scioto River, and there moored their boat under the high bank just below where Portsmouth now stands. They commenced clearing the ground to plant seeds for a crop to support their families, hoping that the red men of the forest would suffer them to remain and improve the soil.

"Soon after they landed, the four men, heads of the families, started up the Scioto to see the paradise of the West, of which they had heard from white men who had been captured by the Indians, and traversed it while in captivity. Leaving their little colony of four women and their children to the protection of an over-ruling providence, they wandered over the beautiful bottoms of the Scioto as far up as the prairies above, and opposite to where Piketon now stands. One of them, Peter Patrick by name, pleased with the country, cut the initials of his name on the beech tree near the river, and upon the margin of a little stream that flowed into the Scioto. These letters afterward being found, gave the name of 'Pee Pee' to the creek, and then to the prairies through which the creek flowed. And from this also came the name of Pee Pee Township in Pike County.”

The Seeds, the Crops, the Subsistence

Of course, the pioneers' very existence depended upon what they could attain from the earth. In the fertile Scioto Valley both the abundance of wildlife, the streams and rivers, and the rich soil gave them great sustenance. Whenever possible, they chose a location for home near a spring of pure water. Their first labor was to build a shelter, and the next was to prepare the soil to raise a crop of grain.

The first settlers brought their corn meal with them, and as soon as this supply was exhausted, they sought more supply. Bannon writes that “two men traveled to Manchester or Limestone by canoe to secure more.” Manchester had been founded in 1791 by Nathaniel Massie. At the time the old buffalo trace at Maysville (Limestone) had been settled by Frontiersman Simon Kenton.

No pork was to be had, but bear meat was often used in its place. Later, pork and cornbread became the principal articles of pioneer food.

Thus, the old couplet:

You can have plenty of pork and pone,
If you don't like this, you can let it alone.”

* Historical Note – “Pone” is an Indian word and corn pone originated with the American Indian. In the Indian language cornbread is “Aughpone.” From the Journal of Nicoholas Cresswell of Virginia (1774). Colonists didn’t just borrow the word for cornbread; they also borrowed Native American ways of preparing cornmeal, adapting the recipes to suit English palates. Native Americans made cornbread in one of two ways: with a paste of crushed green corn kernels, or from a batter made by adding water, salt, and animal fat to cornmeal. They would use a thin paste to make flatter cakes, resulting in something more like a cornmeal pancake. They treated a thicker batter as bread dough, shaping by hand into loaves for baking.

As long as the game supply was forthcoming, settlers could vary their bill of fare with venison, wild turkey, or grouse. They drank tea made of sassafras, sage, or sycamore. Coffee, when available, was so expensive that ten pounds of rye were browned and mixed with every pound of it. And, once more exhibiting the dependence upon a crop, distilled spirits were in general use as beverages.

Bannon writes that distilling of spirits led to their free use in home, at public celebrations, and at house raisings. However, not everyone imbibed. Samuel Marshall, Jr., son of whom local historians claim to be the first “permanent settler of Scioto County,”was among the first opponents of use of intoxicating beverages. In 1824, Marshall gave notice of his intention to have a house raising at which no liquor would be furnished. His skeptical neighbors thought no one would attend the sober affair, but on the day of the labor, a huge crowd was on hand to see “this a miracle performed.” And, under these novel conditions, “all hands went to work with enthusiasm and the house was erected.

So, for many good reasons – food, barter, drink (for most tastes) – the first mechanical problem the pioneer had to solve was the construction of a device with which to grind corn into hominy meal. The first contrivances were primitive mortar and pestle operations. Bannon concludes …

A cavity was cut in a tree stump, and a pestle was made by driving an iron wedge into a heavy stick. A small quantity of corn was put into this homemade mortar and pounded into meal with the iron wedge and the assistance of a spring pole. (After one stroke upon the corn in the mortar, it would rebound for another.)

The next appliance used for grinding corn, consisted of two stones, one laid flat upon the other. The lower stone was stationary and upper stone was revolved upon it by hand power. Corn was fed into this crude mill through the eye of the revolving stone and then ground into meal. This form of mill was succeeded by the ordinary hand mills, having two cranks, and operated by two men, but these soon gave way to the water mill. To separate the bran from the meal, the pioneer used a sieve, made by stretching a piece of perforated deerskin over a hoop.”

As time passed, extensive, fertile fields in the region yielded annual crops of corn much greater than needed for the requirements of the inhabitants. Excess corn, ever becoming more readily at hand, was very bulky. This corn was sold occasionally as low as ten cents per bushel. Still, trade was very limited as no adequate means of transports existed. Thus, any labor expended by farmers in growing more than sufficient supplies for their own use, was of little avail.

But, the innovative settlers soon discovered the crops were a boon to business. To provide the logical sale for corn and perishable fruits, farmers erected distilleries at which corn was condensed into whiskey and fruits were turned into brandy. These resourceful farmers and distillers sought new markets and turned to local merchants who operated local taverns and saloons with good success.

* Historical Note – Similar conditions caused the Whiskey Insurrection (Rebellion) of 1794 in western Pennsylvania in which farmers who condensed grain into distilled spirits rebelled against federal taxation. They resisted the internal revenue tax levied in 1791 upon the spirits because it was a tax upon a form of manufacture necessary to enable the small farmers to find a market.
It is true that a wagon trail to Chillicothe existed as early as 1799, but it was not a highway created by law. Four dollars per hundred pounds was the rate charged for transporting goods from Portsmouth to Chillicothe over this road by wagon. That was an extremely hefty charge for delivery, and unaffordable to the masses.

Then, the first roads were commissioned, and these early routes greatly increased markets for farm goods. In 1803 the first public road was opened in Scioto County and consisted of a way cut through a dense forest. Bannon writes it was located upon the line of Gallipolis Road. Trees were cut sufficiently near the ground so that the stumps would clear the axles of a wagon. Brush was removed from the roads and “mile trees” were marked.

*Historical Note – Gallia Street was named after its original destination, Gallipolis, Ohio. The name was shortened in the 1800’s to Gallia Pike. Gallia Pike was the road to Gallipolis outside the city limits of Portsmouth while the road inside the limits was called Gallia Street. Gallipolis is home to “The French 500,” a group of French aristocrats, merchants, and artisans who were fleeing the violence and disruption of the French Revolution in 1790.

The Ohio and Scioto river valleys figured most prominently in the settlement of Ohio. European settlers had already touched the soil and surveyed the territory there even before Congress set aside 3.8 million acres in 1783 for the Revolutionary War veterans of Virginia as the Virginia Military District. These valleys became the lands of hopes and dreams for the new settlers. And, sadly, they became the ghost settlements of their longtime native inhabitants. As I explore the history of the place, I cannot underestimate the role of the rich natural resources that support all life there.


1612 J. Smith Map of Virginia 17 Eating the broth with the bread which they call Ponap.

    From maize to pone to moonshine to field corn, corn is the great sustainer of existence. In her new book, Midwest Maize: How Corn Shaped the U.S. Heartland (2015), author Cynthia Clampitt acknowledges how corn practically created the center of the country. Clampitt says …

    "Some have compared the spread of corn across the United States to the sweeping conquest of the great empire builders. It is an apt comparison. Corn made it possible to 'conquer' the frontier with astonishing speed and created an empire of farms, transportation, and cities that made the country wealthy. The Midwest is not where corn started, but it is where it became powerful.

    "The Corn Belt was born in Ohio. Chillicothe and the Scioto River Valley is where the paradigm of farming shifted to feeding corn to animals.”

    Like so many human residents of the valleys, corn is an overachiever. It is a rugged plant from the grass family and it grows fast, compared to other grains. Every resident of Ohio can look with pride and wonder upon these beautiful fields filled with the simple, lofty crop of corn. As Bernard L. Herman Ph.D. Professor of Folklore and Folklife at the University of North Carolina, so descriptively states ...

    The corn—all ringed and jointed stalks, sibilant leaves, greenish-blond silk going brunette—teased the senses with transient pleasure …

    My thoughts wandered to the scent of corn and an August afternoon a lifetime ago in the company of my friend and fabled local antiquarian Ms. Jean. The redolence of corn in scorching summer perfumes the imagination, flavors recollection – and there’s plenty of corn and memory to go around in our corner of the world.”

    Ohioans could well be blessed with the nickname “Pones” instead of “Buckeyes” if legislators had looked to the fields instead of to the trees for a fitting moniker. Sweet, indelible memories, indeed.

    A light wind swept over the corn, and all nature laughed in the sunshine.”
    --Anne Bronte

    Sources

    Henry T. Bannon. Stories Old and Often Told: Chronicles of Scioto County, Ohio. University of Michigan. 1927

    Cynthia Clampitt. Midwest Maize: How Corn Shaped the U.S. Heartland. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015.

    Andrew Lee Feight, Ph.D. “Lower Shawnee Town & Céloron's Expedition.” Scioto Historical, https://www.sciotohistorical.org/items/show/35. Accessed December 5, 2018.

    Bernard L. Herman. “Remembering Jean Mihalyka.” Southern Culture. Accessed December 5, 2018.


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