In a Columbus, Ohio newspaper an advertisement dated November 23, 1832 offers 500 barrels of "Onondaga Salt". Onondaga is a lake near Syracuse in upstate New York, known in the early 19th century for its salt works. How did all that salt get shipped to Columbus before the railroads? Probably via canal boat from Cleveland via the Columbus Feeder Canal connection to the Ohio and Erie Canal, which connected the waters of the Cuyahoga with the Ohio River. The first canal boat arrived on the Scioto at Columbus in 1831. This is several years before an overland route was cleared in the form of the Columbus and Sandusky Turnpike, which opened in 1834.
Before that, salt was shipped from Onondaga through the finger lakes region of New York, to Lake Ontario, and then portaged around the Niagara Falls to Black Rock and Buffalo, where it was shipped by schooner to Erie, Pennsylvania. There was a well-worn wagon road between Erie and Waterford, Pennsylvania, where goods could be shipped on keelboats down French Creek and the Alleghany River to Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh and the rest of the Ohio valley got most of their salt this way. During the War of 1812, when Oliver Hazard Perry built his fleet at Erie, much of the iron fittings and other things needed for the ships came north from Pittsburgh by this route in reverse.
James L Barton, an early pioneer of the Buffalo area, recalled a trip he made in 1811-1812 to Central Ohio to trade for hogs in an account printed in 1848 [Address on the early reminiscences of western New York and lake region of country : delivered before the Young Men's Association of Buffalo, February 16, 1848 (Buffalo: Steam Press of Jewett, Thomas & Co, 1848)].
In 1811, after a very tempestuous passage (in the schooner Catherine, afterwards the Somers, in Commodore Perry's fleet) of nineteen days over the lake, when I first landed on the Peninsular point in that bay, there was no person living where the city of Sandusky now stands--the only building in it was a log hut, where an old Indian had, or did then live, called "Oganse" [the Odawa or Ottawa chief Ogontz--more on him in a future post], and this was the name of the place.
I was then in the employ of my brother-in-law, Captain Sheldon Thompson, now of this city, bound south of the Sciota [Scioto] River, with a quantity of goods and salt, to purchase hogs, which were to be killed and packed on the Peninsula [the Marblehead Peninsula of Sandusky Bay], near the lake. No large vessels had, at that time, been known to enter that bay, and Captain Tucker did not venture to make the attempt, as the weather was cold and stormy, with some snow flying--it being the last days of October. He ran his vessel as near the shore as was prudent, and landed the loading on the beach, from whence it was rolled far enough back, to be out of reach of the swells of the lake.
The few people residing on the Peninsula, in four or five log buildings, were suffering from the effects of the fever and ague, and had a most ghastly appearance. They had but few comforts and none of the luxuries of life. At that time they were without flour and tea. They made bread from corn meal; the corn on the ear was first put into a large kettle and boiled until it had swelled out and softened the kernels, and was then grated. The graters were made by breaking a tin lantern to pieces and nailing them on a board. Sage was used for tea. Meat was plenty; all it required to get this, was to shoot down a hog; there were many running in the woods, fat from the quantities of mast they fed upon. I soon improved the living by getting out some tea and sugar, and taking some powder and shot, soon killed ducks (the bay was then full of them), enough daily, to supply the family where I stopped, as long as I remained with them.
Capt. Thompson soon joined me at this place; he came up the lake on horseback. From the place where the goods were landed on the beach, we conveyed them in a boat to Lower Sandusky [Fremont, Ohio]. Here the United States had a factory or trading house for distributing to the Indians their annuities; it was then under the charge of Judge Samuel Tupper, who afterwards resided and died in this city [Buffalo]. This trading establishment was enclosed by picket work, and afterwards formed Fort Stephenson, where Colonel Croghan severly defeated the British and Indians in 1813. A few white squatters lived around here, who subsisted principally on corn and game in the woods, and fish caught in the Sandusky River. We had left a number of men on the Peninsula, to put up log buildings for slaughtering, smoking and packing the pork and hams, and coopers to manufacture the barrels. These men I brought up the lake in the vessel with me.
At Lower Sandusky we fortunately met with four large wagons, drawn by four horses each, from the Mad River country [Urbana, Springfield, and Dayton in southwestern Ohio]. These, I believe, were the first that had ever come through. They were hired to convey our goods through to Delaware, where we intended to stop.
The road to Tymoctee Creek, 31 or 32 miles, through thick woods, had just been opened and there was no house the whole distance. Three miles beyond Tymoctee was a cluster of log huts called Negro town, inhabited by Indians, except an old Negro called "Tom," and his family, and a white man name Wright, who was married to old Tom's daughter. He was a silversmith, and made silver work for the Indians. Here commenced the openings, or prairies, which continued to the little Scioto River. These openings had clusters of bushes and trees that appeared like and were called islands. Near one of these I was shown the spot where Colonel Crawford was said to have been defeated, and the tree was pointed out to me under which he was taken prisoner. He was burned to death at the Indian town on the Tymoctee, four or five miles westerly from Negro town. Three or four miles from Negro town we came to two log buildings where an old Indian named Winne Hankie, a kind and hospitable old man, lived. From this until I passed the Little Scioto, I found no building or human being.
The river fortunately was low enough for the wagons to ford it with their loading, without being under the necessity of building rafts or floats to carry them over. We now entered thick woods, the road being very bad, and in four or five miles came to a small Welch settlement in the township of Radnor. From this place we soon reached Delaware. The country was heavily timbered all round for many miles and the settlements were in detachments in different parts. Columbus was not yet established as the seat of the State Government.
After putting up our goods in an unfinished brick building, built for a dwelling house, Mr. Thompson went into the several settlements and employed agents to buy hogs and corn to fatten them. In payment the agents drew orders on me at the store. The hogs were very wild in the woods and quite fat from the nuts and the acorns which they found. After buying them we put them into pens and fed them six or eight weeks to harden the meat. When in a proper condition nearly two hundred were brought in at a time from the different agencies to Delaware, and put together in a lot of two or three acres. Before starting the drove for the Lake shore, the drivers, who well understood the character of Ohio hogs in those days, would arm themselves with strong clubs and go into the lot and drive them round as hard as they could to tire them down so that they would drive well. With all this precaution we lost a number from each drove. They would break out and run through the woods faster than man or horse could pursue. During the winter we drove eight or nine hundred. As there were no settlements on the road to get corn to feed them, we had to send wagons along carrying it with them. Mr. Thompson went himself with two droves. That winter was colder than usual, and a good deal of snow fell. In crossing the plains, where the cold was most severely felt, the drivers at night would make up log fires, and after eating their supper, roll themselves up in a blanket, lie down before the fires and go to sleep. The great heat from the fire and the warmth of their heads, which, getting into the snow while asleep, caused it to melt; many of the drivers wore cues or long hair; this would settle in the snow, and towards daylight, after the fires began to go out, a cold blast of wind coming over the plains would freeze the snow and their hair in it, and they had to be chopped loose before they could get up.
I remained in Delaware until the last of April, 1812. I left that place with four large teams carrying property we had purchased, and eight or ten cows which I had to drive, with an old crippled negro for an assistant. While with the wagons our provisions were carried in them. On reaching Negro town I found the Tymoctee creek too high for the wagons to cross, much rain having fallen. After waiting two days for the water to fall, without success, and directing the wagons to follow as soon as they could, the old negro and myself took each a loaf of bread and a piece of pork, which we put into a blanket and carried on our backs, and thus started with the cows for Lower Sandusky. I got two Indians to aid us in the wilderness. We stopped, made a fire by flint and steel, and ate our supper, and then laid down to sleep, the cows feeding close around us. It was a long time before we could get to sleep, the woods seemed full of wolves which kept up a terrible howling and not far away. I had a small horn of powder, but no gun, and the negro said it would keep the wolves off, if we could scatter some gunpowder around and flash it, and that the smell of it would frighten them away. We did so, but it did not start them nor stop their noise, they kept it up until near daylight; when the wild turkeys began to gobble in the woods, and they made nearly as much noise. In the morning we collected our cows and started, and after traveling two days and lying in the woods two nights we got through. On the way we had to wade a good many streams, the water coming up to our middle. I caught a bad cold, and was nearly exhausted. At Sandusky they gave me a sweating. I was laid on the floor with a large blanket fastened down at the corners over me, given plenty of hot herb tea to drink, hot stones were put under the blanket and a large quantity of clothing put over me. The perspiration ran most profusely from me, and I thought I should drown. I hallooed to get up, but more hot drink and more hot stones were applied. After several hours I was let up, free from pain and as well as ever.
A boat was sent up from the Lake for me and the property I had with me. When we started to go down the river, only 36 miles, we expected to get through that night, and carried only one day's provision with us. On getting to the head of the bay, a hard north wind was blowing, and we could not cross over that day nor during the night. We ate up for supper all we had, and next morning began to be hungry, the wind still continuing to blow too strong for us to start. I had a fish hook and with some twine made a line, got some bait and tried to eat without bread or salt. The perch went well, but the more we broiled the sheep's head the tougher it became. We could not master it. This was the first as well as the last time I ever attempted to cook and eat a "sheep's head."
On the way down the Sandusky river, I passed two or three hundred newly made Indian bark canoes, they were collecting to go to Malden to sell their services or make pretense of doing so, to the British, preparatory to the war which was then close at hand. [Actually, these canoes probably belonged to Ogontz's Odawa people, who were preparing to join their tribesmen in Canada and sit out the war as neutrals. They returned to Sandusky Bay after the war but were eventually forced to move to the upper Maumee River valley].
I waited on the Peninsula three or four weeks for the vessel to come up to carry away our pork &c. In the meantime we built a log blockhouse for the settlers to protect themselves in from the Indians. After the declaration of war the people removed, and the Indians burnt down the blockhouse. [This blockhouse may have been occupied by local militia during a skirmish in September, 1812]
When the vessel arrived, she was brought into the bay near Bull's Island [now called Johnson's Island, the site of a Confederate prisoner of war camp during the American Civil War]. We boated the pork to her until she was nearly full, and then took her over the bar outside, and boated the remainder to her. We started with a fair wind, ran over the Lake finely, and "came to" under the lee of Bird Island, at the entrance into the Niagara River. I found a regiment of volunteers at Black Rock. The same afternoon when I arrived at Black Rock, I started on foot for Lewiston, and in a few days war was declared.
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