One Township's Yesterdays Chapter XVIII  

THE HOMESEEKER LISTENS

"And what is so strong as the summons deep, Rousing the torpid soul from sleep?" ... Angela Morgan.

OUT OF THE WEST in the early decades of the Nineteenth Century came a summons; out of the West that was wild came a call. The white man heard it. He listened. Restless, ambitious, discontented with the older settlements, he listened intently. He read the tales of the travelers who had visited that West, beyond the Alleghenies, in the region of the Great Lakes. He gave ear to the yarns of those who had been there and who had returned to tell of the wonders that were in the backwoods. His soul was roused. The West appealed to his adventurous nature and, above all, seemed to be the answer to his desire for freedom.

Despite the scarcity of notepaper and other writing materials on expeditions to the new country, the word was spread more thoroughly than one could imagine; the message "got across."

Affairs had not been progressing very well in the East; certain conditions were far from satisfactory. Perhaps it was high time to be a-moving.

As early as 1787 a group of New England men, including 285 officers of the Continental army, petitioned Congress (oh, yes, Congress was very much alive in those days, listening to petitions, scheming what to do about the soldiers, the unemployed, and others, and in general doing what Congresses usually do) ; they asked Congress to determine, please, the conditions of settlement in that part of the Northwest (of that period) where their bounty lands were to be located. "Their representative, Dr. MANASSEH CUTLER," writes KATHERINE COMAN, "submitted the conditions that the would-be settlers held essential: political and civil liberty, religious toleration, and the prohibition of slavery.

Early Government.
"The Ordinance of 1787 guaranteed representative government to the people who would inhabit the Northwest Territory, and provided for the ultimate formation therein of from three to five states that should be coordinate under the Constitution with the original thirteen. Thus was it settled for all time that the new colonies were not to be exploited for the benefit of the parent states, but were to become autonomous and coordinate commonwealths. Schools and the higher education were to be maintained by the proceeds of land sales, one section in every township being reserved for its public school. By far the most important clause in this fundamental compact between the original states and the settlers of the territory was the stipulation that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except for crime, was to be admitted into the region. Persons already held as slaves were not emancipated, and fugitive slaves taking refuge in the territory were to be restored to their masters; but slavery as a labor system was forever debarred."

The great purchase by the Ohio Company followed the Ordinance of 1787. One million, five hundred thousand acres of land at the mouth of the Muskingum River! So the settlement of the territory north of the Ohio River was undertaken under national auspices, since the difficulties were too great to be mastered by individual enterprise.

This was the background, and this the beginning of that vast westward migration that led to Ohio, then on toward the setting sun... into Indiana. . . to the shores of Maxinkuckee.