Columbia Presbyterian & Fulton Mechanick's Cemetaries

Sargent William Brown

The Cemetery dates to 1794 and is comprised of Columbia Presbyterian Cemetery and Fulton Cemetery. Together, the cemeteries are the burial places of Jacob Allen, John Campbell, John Langron, and other veterans of the Revolutionary War. It is also believed that William Brown is buried here. Brown was one of the first three Revolutionary War soldiers to receive the Badge of Military Merit, predecessor of the purple Heart.

William Brown settled in Columbia, Hamilton County, in 1789. He was born in Connecticut in 1759 or 1760. As the American Revolution began in 1775, Brown enlisted in the Connecticut Line of the Continental Army and rose to the rank of sergeant. Brown fought in battles at Stony Point, New York in 1779 and in the siege of Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781. George Washington recognized Brown's assault against Redoubt No. 10 at Yorktown with the Badge of Military Merit. Brown led a ''forlorn hope,'' so-called because soldiers were not expected to survive, and acted with ''great bravery, propriety, and deliberate firmness.'' In Ohio, he served in the militia, surveyed roads, and was a respected member of the community. He died in 1805.

The Treaty of Camp Charlotte

In an effort to maintain peace with Native Americans, the British imposed the Proclamation Line of 1763, which prohibited colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. Some settlers did not recognize British authority and continued to move westward. Virginia Governor Lord Dunmore, realizing that peace with Native Americans was improbable, amassed troops and headed west, camping on the Hocking River to meet with a unit under Andrew Lewis. En route, on October 10, 1774, Lewis's troops were attacked at present day Point Pleasant, West Virginia, by Delaware and Shawnee Indians led by Cornstalk. After intense battle, the Indians retreated back across the Ohio River to villages on the Pickaway Plains. Lord Dunmore headed to the Shawnee villages to make peace and set up Camp Charlotte at this site. The Treaty of Camp Charlotte ended Lord Dunmore's war with the Indians and stipulated that they give up rights to land south of the Ohio River and allow boats to travel undisturbed.

Chief Logan

Tah-gah-jute, the Mingo chief named Logan, was a native of Pennsylvania. Logan moved to Ohio in 1770 and settled on the Pickaway Plains. Logan and his father, Shikellimus, had long supported friendships between Native Americans and white men. However, in the spring of 1774, his tribesmen and family were brutally murdered at Yellow Creek along the Ohio River. Once an advocate of peace, Logan went on the warpath and raided settlements in present day Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Tennessee. These and similar raids along the Ohio frontier precipitated Lord Dunmore's War in October 1774. After the Shawnees and their allies were defeated in Point Pleasant, Virginia Governor, Lord Dunmore, marched up the Hocking River to the Pickaway Plains. Dunmore asked his interpreter, Colonel John Gibson, to assist in negotiations with Cornstalk and other Indian leaders, including Logan. Logan declined to attend the conference but spoke to Gibson about his anger and betrayal.

Logan Elm

It was here under a large Elm tree that Chief Logan was said to have delivered his powerful speech on Indian white relations, which Gibson delivered to Lord Dunmore at Camp Charlotte. Logan's lamentation was printed widely and appeared in newspapers in New York, Philadelphia and Williamsburg in 1775. The speech is inscribed on the Chief Logan Monument, worded as it was related to President Thomas Jefferson. Once considered to be one of the largest Elms in the United States, the 65 feet tall Elm died in 1964 after being stricken with blight and damaged by storms. In October 1912, through efforts of the Ohio History Day Association, this location was dedicated as Logan Elm Park. The Ohio Historical Society currently operates the Logan Elm State Memorial.

The Moravian Church in America began missionary work among the Delaware and Mohican tribes in the mid 1700s. David Zeisberger (1721-1808), one of the best known Moravian missionaries, came to the Ohio country in May, 1772 with Delaware converts from a mission in western Pennsylvania, and founded nearby Schoenbrunn in the Tuscarawas River valley, about eight miles upriver. Joshua, a Mohican missionary leader, settled Gnadenhutten (Tents of Grace) with Mohican and Munsee Christians here in October 1772. By 1775, the village numbered about 200 inhabitants. Zeisberger served as lead missionary at both villages. The British, with their Wyandot and Delaware allies, suspected the Christian Indian of helping the Americans, and they were forcibly removed in 1781 and taken to Captive's Town on the Sandusky River.

The Gnadenhutten Massacre - "A Day of Shame"

Facing starvation on the Sandusky, a group of Gnadenhutten Indians returned here early in 1782 to harvest crops left when the village was abandoned. While gathering their harvest, the Gnadenhutten Indians were mistakenly identified as raiders who had attacked western Pennsylvania settlements a few weeks easier. Seeking vengeance, a group of Pennsylvania militia captured the Christian Indians and sentenced them to death. The captives, men in one cabin, and women and children in another, prayed and sang all night before their executions. On March 8, 1782, an estimated 90 men, women and children were brutally killed. Only two young boys were known to have escaped. The massacre did not ease hostilities in western Pennsylvania, but instead fueled more frontier attacks by Wyandot, Delaware, and Shawnee Indians.

THE GREAT TRAIL - Gateway to the Ohio Country

The ancient trail that passed near this spot was the major overland route entering the Ohio Country from the east through the 1700s. Also known as the Tuscarawas Path; the Great Trail was used by Native Americans, European explorers, fur traders, missionaries, military expeditions, land agents and settlers after Ohio became a state In January 1761, during the French and Indian War, Major Robert Rogers and thirty eight rangers passed en route to Fort Pitt after taking Fort Detroit from the French. In 1763, during "Pontiac's Conspiracy,"' Colonel Henry Bouquet crossed herewith an army of 1,100 men on his way to Goshachgunk (Coshocton), where he treated with the Delaware and freed captives. During the American Revolution, the Continental Army under General Lachlan McIntosh camped here for two days in November.

THE OHIO COUNTRY IN THE REVOLUTION

The western wilderness that later became the state of Ohio played a major role in American, British, and Native American strategy during the American Revolution. In 1778, General George Washington ordered General Lachlan McIntosh to establish a new fort in Ohio to provide a base for a spring campaign on Fort Detroit, held by the British and allied tribes. That fall McIntosh set out from Fort Pitt with over 1,200 troops. On the nights of November 13 and 14, 1778, McIntosh's expedition camped nearby at the mouth of Sandy Creek They subsequently joined forces with friendly Delaware's and proceeded west to the Tuscarawas River, where they fulfilled their mission by establishing Fort Laurens. Located at present day Bolivar, it was the only Continental Army Fort built in Ohio during the Revolution.

BIRTHPLACE OF TECUMSEH

The great Native American Shawnee leader, Tecumseh, was born on the bank of a large spring at this site in 1768, at the very instant that a great meteor seared across the skies. The birth occurred while his parents, Shawnee war chief, Pucksinwah, and his wife, Methotasa, were en route from their village of Kispoko Town, on the Scioto River, to a major tribal council at the Shawnee tribal capital village of Chalahgawtha (Chillicothe now Oldtown), which was located "two arrow flights" northwest of this site. Though prohibited by tribal tradition from becoming chief of the Shawnees, Tecumseh rose to become one of the greatest warriors, orators and military strategists of any tribe in America.

To oppose the grave threat of rapidly encroaching white settlement on Indian lands, Tecumseh successfully molded and became the leader of a confederation of tribes numbering some 50,000 warriors. This opposition might well have succeeded had it not been for his jealous younger brother, Tenskwata; the prophet, whose rash acts precipitates the Battle of Tippecanoe and undermined all Tecumseh's efforts. Forced by circumstance to ally himself and all his remaining followers with the British in the War of 1812, Tecumseh was killed at the Battle of the Thames near present Chatham, Ontario, Canada on October 5, 1813.

THE DUNMORE WAR 1774

The Shawnee and Delaware Indians grew restless as the number of Virginians encroached on their lands by settling along the Ohio River. On October 10, 1774, Lord Dunmore, of the Virginia Colony, ordered Colonel Andrew Lewis and his 1100 Virginia militiamen to attack the Shawnee Indians near Chillicothe, Ohio. While Lewis' army camped across the Ohio River at Point Pleasant, West Virginia, Shawnee Chief Cornstalk, with 1000 warriors, crossed the river upstream for a surprise attack on the Virginia militia. After a five hour battle, the Shawnee retreated across the Ohio. Some refer to this as the last battle fought by the Colonists while subject to British rule, and really, the first battle of the American Revolution. On November 5, 1774, following a peace treaty between Cornstalk and Lord Dunmore at Camp Charlotte on the Pickaway Plains, Dunmore's officers. met at Fort Gower, Hockingport, Ohio 48 miles upstream and passed this resolution of "liberty":

"Resolved, that we will bear the most faithful allegiance to His Majesty, King George the Third, whilst His Majesty delights to reign over a brave and free people; that we will, at the expense of life, and everything dear and valuable, exert ourselves in support of his crown, and the dignity of the British Empire. But as the love of liberty, and attachment to the real interests and just rights of America outweigh every consideration, we resolve that we will exert every power within us for the defense of American liberty, and for the support of her just rights and privileges; not on any precipitate, riotous or tumultuous manner, but when regularly: ailed forth by the unanimous voice of our countrymen. Signed by order and in behalf of the whole corps.

"Benjamin Ashby, Clerk".

French Claims

At Sawyer Point Park on the Ohio River in downtown Cincinnati learn about the 1749 French claims to the Ohio River Valley. Although French explorers had been the first to visit these and claim lands more than the 100 years before, their claims were usurped by the British due to the failure of the French to settle the territory. So the French buried six lead plates up and down the river at the mouths of tributaries to the Ohio to re-establish their claim of ownership. Neglected lands must be retaken from time to time and taken by force of arms even to this day.