Next

discovered, the party returned to the station. morning, early preparations were made by Massie and his party to pursue the Indians. In doing this they found great difficulty, as it was so early in the spring that the vegetation was not of sufficient growth to show plainly the trail of the Indians, who took the precaution to keep on hard and high land, where their feet could make little or no impression. Massie and his party, however, were as unerring as a pack of well trained hounds, and followed the trail to Paint creek, when they found the Indians gained so fast on them, that pursuit was vain. They therefore abandoned it, and returned to the station.

The Indians took their prisoner to Upper Sandusky, and compelled him to run the gauntlet. As Ellison was a large man and not very active, he received a severe flogging as he passed along the line. From this place he was taken to Lower Sandusky, and was again compelled to run the gauntlet, and was then taken to Detroit, where he was generously ransomed by a British officer for one hundred dollars. He was shortly afterwards sent by his friend, the officer, to Montreal, from whence he returned home before the close of the summer of the same year.

Another incident connected with the station at Manchester, occurred shortly after this time, which, although somewhat out of order as to time, I will take the liberty to relate in this place.

John Edgington, Asahel Edgington, and another man started out on a hunting expedition towards Brush creek. They camped out six miles in a northeast direction from where West Union now stands, and near where Treber's tavern is now situated, on the road from Chillicothe to Maysville. The Edgingtons had good success in hunting, having killed a number of deer and bears. Of the deer killed, they saved the skins and hams alone. The bears, they fleeced; that is, they cut off all the meat

which adhered to the hide without skinning, and left the bones as a skeleton. They hung up the proceeds of their hunt on a scaffold, out of the reach of the wolves and other wild animals, and returned home for pack horses. No one returned to the camp with the two Edgingtons. As it was late in December, no one apprehended danger, as the winter season was usually a time of repose from Indian incursions. When the Edgingtons arrived at their old hunting camp, they alighted from their horses and were preparing to strike a fire, when a platoon of Indians fired upon them, at the distance of not more than twenty paces. Asahel Edgington fell to rise no more. John was more fortunate. The sharp crack of the rifles and the horrid yells of the Indians, as they leaped from their place of ambush, frightened the horses, who took the track towards home at full speed. John Edgington was very active on foot, and now an occasion offered which required his utmost speed. The moment the Indians leaped from their hiding place, they threw down their guns and took after him. They pursued him screaming and yelling in the most horrid manner. Edgington did not run a booty race. For about a mile the Indians stepped in his tracts almost before the bending grass could rise. The uplifted tomahawk was frequently so near his head, that he thought he felt its edge. Every effort was made to save his life, and every exertion of the Indians was made to arrest him in his flight. Edgington, who had the greatest stake in the race, at length began to gain on his pursuers, and after a long race, he distanced them, made his escape, and safely reached home. This, truly, was a most fearful and well contested race. The big Shawnee chief, Captain John, who headed the Indians on this occasion, after peace was made and Chillicothe settled, frequently told the writer of this sketch of the race. Captain John said, that "the white man who ran away was a smart fellow, that the white

man run and I run, he run and run, at last, the white man run clear off from me."

CHAPTER IV.

A PERSON engaged in writing upon a particular subject will, as a matter of course, within the range of his information, collect a mass of materials, from which it will be his duty to select the most useful and interesting. To do this, however, with skill sufficient to please the majority of his readers, is a difficult task. A person usually writes upon subjects about which he has bestowed much thought, and in which he feels a deep interest. Of course, matters which appear to him of great importance, he will discover frequently to be overlooked by the generality of readers. Of such treatment he must not complain, but, on the contrary, he must strengthen himself by a large share of independence, which will make him write with a consciousness, that his narrative will meet with a kind reception from the intelligent, and that it will be found useful for the future.

Such is my situation in writing this sketch. I know that many things I have written may not entertain, yet I believe them to be useful facts and have inserted them. From this cause, and as I am writing the life of the most extensive surveyor and land speculator with us in early times, I shall take the liberty to describe the method by which the titles to lands in the Virginia military district were acquired and perfected, and also the method by which surveying was actually conducted in our wild country.

I have said above, that the lands in this district were entered and surveyed by virtue of military land warrants issued by the state of Virginia to her officers and sol

diers of the continental line. These warrants were issued to satisfy bounties, promised by various acts of her legislature to these officers and soldiers, and prescribed the amount of land to which each person should be entitled, according to rank in the army and the time of actual service. Each person after the expiration of the time of service, received from the governor and council a certificate of his rank in the army, the length of time of service and the number of acres to which he was entitled, which certificate was filed with the register of the land office, and a warrant on printed paper and under the seal of the office, was issued to the owner. In many cases, warrants issued by virtue of special acts or resolutions of the Assembly, and were usually known, on this account, as resolution warrants. A warrant is merely a direction and authority given to the principal surveyor of land to survey and lay off, in one or more surveys for the person entitled, his heirs, or assigns, the given quantity of acres specified in the warrant. These warrants

when issued were delivered to the owners, who were required to file them with the principal surveyor, and pay him a certain fee for receiving them. When filed they at first took their legal order in location.

The holders of warrants were at liberty to locate them, yet as they were unacquainted with the vacant land, they usually employed the deputy surveyors, as their agents, to enter and survey them, on certain agreed, or well known terms.

The first step taken towards the acquisition of land by a warrant is by means of an entry. An entry is the appropriation of a certain quantity of vacant land by the owner of the warrant. It is made in a book kept by the surveyor for that purpose, and contains the quantity of acres intended to be appropriated, the number of the warrant on which it is entered, and then calls for some specific, notorious, and permanent object or objects by

which the locality of the land may be known, and usually concludes with a general description of the courses to be pursued in a survey of it. This particularity was required, that every person holding a warrant might be enabled, without interfering with the prior locations of others, to locate his own warrant, and this could not be done with safety in a wild country, unless prior entries were made with sufficient certainty as to their notoriety. The defect of entries, in this particular, has given rise. to a greater amount of litigation in land titles, than any other cause whatever.

Next, in order, came the survey, which is intended to give a certain and regular form to the entry, by metes and bounds actually marked, and established by the surveyor. The great requisite with the survey was a conformity to a just and reasonable construction of the entry, as to the land intended to be appropriated by it. A want of conformity, in this respect, rendered the survey defective as to all lands without the calls of the entry. Surveys, when made, were returned to the general surveyor with a fair plat of each particular tract of land, and a description of the same by metes and bounds, and was signed by the deputies who executed them, together with the names of the chain-men and markers annexed, who made each survey. The surveys were then recorded, and the plats, with a certificate from the surveyor under his seal of office delivered to the owner, together with the original warrant and the assignments, if any, if the warrant was satisfied; if it was not, then a copy of the warrant and certificate from the surveyor of the fact that the warrant was still unsatisfied. The owner of each survey could then obtain a patent for his land from the President of the United States.

The system of entering and surveying lands, in the irregular manner we find in this district, was adopted from the Virginia and Kentucky land system. In these