Part 7 (1/2)
A much graver calamity, coming not long after, was the Indian wars, which were not to end for five long, weary years. During this time the town was strained to its generous capacity to receive under the shelter of the Campus Martius the men, women and children from remoter settlements. The settlers worked in the fields like the Israelites at the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem,--every man with his weapon in his hand. On the puncheon cabin-floors, mothers rocked their babies in the first cradles of Ohio, while often, on some far-off hill, they could see savage warriors brandis.h.i.+ng their blood-stained hatchets in defiance at the fort.
The news of the defeat of General St. Clair's expedition caused consternation, and threatened for a time to break up the settlement. So disastrous was the defeat that when in 1793 Mad Anthony Wayne camped on the General's battlefield, his soldiers could not lie down to sleep for the bones of the unfortunate army. Humiliated by his misfortune and its implied disgrace, the Governor soon left his Marietta home. The colonists mourned with his loss that of his daughter Louisa, so brave, so lovely, so brilliant, that it seems no mere legend that the great Indian chief, Brandt, was madly in love with her.
In the grim terror of the times, an amusing incident now and then comes like a lilt of girlish laughter. Once the signal gun gave the alarm that the Indians were besieging the town. The night was dark and the confusion indescribable. Men rushed to their posts and the women and children scuttled to the central blockhouse. Colonel Sproat led the way with a box of valuable papers; next came a woman with her bed and children, and tumbling after her, old Mr. Moulton, with his leathern ap.r.o.n full of goldsmith's tools and tobacco. His daughter Anna carried the china tea-pot.
Lyddy brought the great Bible. When all were in the frightened cry was raised that Mrs. Moulton was missing--that she had been scalped by the Indians. ”Oh, no,” said Lyddy calmly, ”she'll be here in a minute. She stopped to put things a little to rights; she said she _would not_ leave the house _looking so_.” And in a few moments the old lady scuttled in, bearing the looking-gla.s.s--a triumph of New England housewifery!
A certain regularity of living was maintained in spite of the continuous fear. Every Sabbath morning church was held in a blockhouse where Psalms were droned with Puritan unction, and the sermon by Mr. Story, the scholarly Ma.s.sachusetts divine, was tasted with much critical ac.u.men by the learned backwoodsmen, many of whom were graduates of Harvard and Dartmouth. On the long Sabbath afternoons the children of the settlement studied their catechisms in the simple log cabin of Mrs. Mary Lake, the earnest woman who thus started what was perhaps the first Sunday-school in the United States. On week days they were gathered together for lessons, nor was the rod kept in less perpetual pickle because of the proximity of the Indians.
[Ill.u.s.tration THE MILLS HOMESTEAD, MARIETTA.]
The war once over, a busy activity ensued. Mills were built, bridges made, and more comfortable houses erected. It was not strange that the sons of the old coast States, with the siren voice of the sea still in their ears, should become notable builders of s.h.i.+ps. The great trees of the forest were masts ready for felling, and many a stately vessel slipped into the water from this inland s.h.i.+p-yard, to glide down the Ohio into the Mississippi, and from thence to the s.h.i.+ning ocean beyond. The town became a centre of industry and traffic, a position which she was not long to keep, for gradually trade drifted from her, and by and by she fell asleep commercially beside her pleasant waters, to nod and dream serenely through years to come. But not only was the early Marietta noted for her industrial prosperity; she was a centre of culture as well, and her place in this regard she has never lost. As soon as a greater wealth and leisure came to the pioneer colony, there bloomed abundantly the flowers of an intellectual refinement, which was the birth-right of those heroic men and women.
[Ill.u.s.tration HARMAN BLENNERHa.s.sETT.]
It is with this gracious era, redolent of sweet old customs and stately courtesies, that there is a.s.sociated the romantic, old-time tragedy of the Blennerha.s.setts. On the lovely island lying some twelve miles below Marietta, Harman Blennerha.s.sett, the dreamy Irish exile, built his idyllic mansion, whose grandeur was the wonder of the West.
”A shrubbery that Shenstone might have envied,” wrote Wirt, ”blooms around him. Music that might have charmed Calypso and her nymphs, is his. An extensive library spreads its treasures before him. A philosophical apparatus offers him all the secrets and mysteries of nature. Peace, tranquillity, and innocence shed their mingled delights about him. And to crown the enchantment of the scene, a wife, who is said to be lovely even beyond her s.e.x, and graced with every accomplishment that can render it irresistible, has blessed him with her love.”
[Ill.u.s.tration MRS. BLENNERHa.s.sETT.]
Here he plotted a new empire with the bad and brilliant Aaron Burr, whose hands were still red with the blood of the murdered Alexander Hamilton; and from here he fled accused of treason to his country, disgraced and ruined.
Memories of the ”Blennerha.s.sett days” are many, for the great man was for several years a partner of Dudley Woodbridge, the first merchant of Marietta, and both he and his accomplished wife were familiar figures in Marietta homes. Fancy, inspired by local annals, has a charming glimpse of the loving mistress of the hospitable mansion, das.h.i.+ng through the woods on her spirited horse, like some brilliant tropical bird, in her habit of scarlet cloth, and white hat with the long drooping plume. A pretty story is told of her wit and beauty at the famous ”Burr ball” which the fas.h.i.+on of Marietta once gave in honor of the crafty statesman and his daughter Theodosia. To-day, the site of the regal dwelling is marked only by an old well and some magnificent trees. ”Blennerha.s.sett's Island” is a point of attraction for pleasure-seekers, who give little enough thought to its sad story; but sometimes there journeys to it a lover of past years who looks with blurred eyes at the spot where once was enacted one of the most pathetic little tragedies in all American history.
But Marietta is not altogether a tale of yesterdays; she has as well her to-day, with its rich promise for the morrow. To-day, a stranger in the town has pointed out to him ”New” and ”Old” Marietta. In New Marietta, brought into existence by the discovery of vast surrounding oil-fields, there are thriving factories, modern business blocks, new hotels, improved school-buildings, electric cars; there are evidences of wealth and business prosperity, and signs of an increasing population. This commercial progress, from a civic standpoint, is undeniably a benefit, yet it must be admitted, for the time being, it gives Marietta a little the appearance of a kindly, old-style grandmother, startled from a long afternoon nap in the chimney-corner, to find her cap gone, her scanty petticoats replaced by strangely ample frills, and the caraway seeds in her limp black bag supplanted by indigestible bon-bons. In Old Marietta the scene s.h.i.+fts. Here is the drowsy peace of a New England village; here are wide streets shaded by avenues of splendid trees, and ancient houses, generous-portalled, serene. Here is the burring of bees in old-fas.h.i.+oned gardens. And is not this lingering fragrance the smell of the lotos-flower?
[Ill.u.s.tration MARIETTA COLLEGE BUILDINGS.]
The glory of the old dispensation is the venerable college, whose buildings cl.u.s.ter picturesquely on the green lift of College Hill. Founded in the fear of G.o.d by the first scholars of Ohio, it has behind it a proud history. At its head have stood men of rich culture and ability, among whose names s.h.i.+nes pre-eminently that of Israel Ward Andrews. In the list of its instructors have been scholars who have led it upward to all that is n.o.blest and best. From its cla.s.ses have gone out students who have taken a fitting and often distinguished place in the professions and in politics.
When the call of 1861 came, the student sons of Marietta responded with a gallant patriotism and a devoted service, some among them winning the highest recognition. To-day, with its able faculty, its fine library, its well equipped cla.s.s-rooms, it holds no mean place in the roll of American colleges. It pays to its past the precious thanks of a worthy present. And with happy confidence it looks forward to its future, under the guidance of its sixth and latest President, Alfred Tyler Perry, but recently called to its leaders.h.i.+p from Hartford Theological Seminary.
[Ill.u.s.tration MOUND CEMETERY, MARIETTA.]
In the old Mound Cemetery sleep an honored dead. In its center is the prehistoric mound, as well preserved to-day as when it was discovered by the pioneer fathers, a vast monument to the unknown fittingly encircled by the quiet dignity of this ancient Acre of G.o.d. General Putnam's grave is marked by a plain granite monument, bearing the simple inscription more touching than the loftiest eulogy:
GENERAL RUFUS PUTNAM
A Revolutionary Officer And the leader of the Colony which made the First settlement in the Territory of the North-West.
Born April 9, 1738, Died May 4, 1824.
[Ill.u.s.tration OHIO COMPANY'S LAND OFFICE.]
Not far from him are the majority of the Revolutionary heroes who came with him from New England. It is claimed that there are buried here more officers of the Revolution than in any other burying-ground in the United States. About them lie thirteen soldiers of the War of 1812, and a number of the brave men who fought in the Mexican War. Here too, are the resting-places of many early citizens of Marietta, who are as a ”Choir Invisible”
”Of those immortal dead, who live again In minds made better by their presence.”
The gates are seldom open now to the silent caravans, for the graves in the cloistral gra.s.s lie close.
Many relics of bygone days make Old Marietta interesting. The streets running north and south bear yet the names given them by the early settlers, of Was.h.i.+ngton and his generals. The ”Sacra Via” and the breezy ”Capitolium” and ”Tiber Way” bear witness to an old scholars.h.i.+p. ”The Point” recalls the picketed Point of the Indian wars. There still stands the Ohio Company's Land Office, a wee, weather-beaten building, gray with time, probably the oldest structure in Ohio. Opposite this is the old homestead of Rufus Putnam, which stood within the Campus Martius. On the park, fronting the river, is the quaint Two Horn Church of the Congregationalists, erected in the wilderness in 1806 and now Ohio's oldest church building. On the same street where it stands is the stately old mansion of Governor Meigs, which was built two years earlier and which still holds an honored place among Marietta's beautiful homes. In families whose names mark their descent from the ”forty-eight immortals” are treasured numerous heirlooms,--ancestral portraits which look from their tarnished frames pink-cheeked, confident and calm; old dresses, dim and faintly odorous; and divers warming-pans, candlesticks and Blennerha.s.sett chairs, together with sundry bits of sprigged, delightful china.