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The expedition burned a village on the Scioto; and then Colonel Hardin, detached with some hundred and fifty men in pursuit of the Indians, was caught in an ambush and his regulars cut off, the militia running away apparently quite successfully. Thereupon Harmer retreated; but, changing his mind in a day or two, advanced again, and again sent out Hardin with a larger force than before.
At Mound City on the Scioto River there is a group of twenty six mounds in one inclosure an engraving of one of which taken from Mr. Squier's paper is shown in Fig 49. It is seven feet high by fifty five feet base and contained the artificial clay basin in question. 'F' is the basin which is round, and measures from c to d nine feet, and from a to e five feet.
Still he kept doggedly on, seldom more than ten or fifteen miles behind, but unable to close that gap till his opponent should be delayed or brought to bay. The militia of the Scioto valley were ordered to destroy the bridges, in the hope that that river would delay him, but they were tardy or indifferent, and it was a day or two later before the means of obstruction were efficiently used.
They did not yet know that the Scioto Company, which failed to pay the Marietta people for building their village, had no power to give them titles to their land, and they hopefully spent their money in hiring American hunters to supply them with game.
The first of these statements, that relating to the Ohio, confused, vague, and in great part incorrect as it certainly is, is nevertheless well sustained as regards one essential point. This "autre riviere," which, it seems, was above the fall, may have been the Miami or the Scioto.
With a great roar the levee at the foot of Broad Street let go shortly before eleven o'clock, sending down a deluge of water that swelled the Scioto River and covered a great area. Several small buildings collapsed. Just before the break the police ordered all persons in the lowlands to leave their homes quickly and flee for high land. All fire and police apparatus assisted in the work.
Congress took pity upon them and granted them twenty-four thousand acres in Scioto County, the tract being known as the French grant; but no gift of wild land was able to insure their prosperity. The trouble these poor French settlers had with their lands was far from unique. The early system of land sales in the West was most unwise.
The object was to bring the Indians to a general engagement; or, if that might not be, to destroy their establishments on the waters of the Scioto and the Wabash. General Harmar was appointed to the command of this expedition. Major Hamtranck, with a detachment, was to make a diversion in his favor up the Wabash.
Upon arrival in Alexandria, Va., they found that their deeds were valueless, the land never having been paid for by the Scioto speculators; moreover, the tract was filled with hostile Indians. However, five hundred of them pushed on to the region, by way of Redstone, and reached here by flatboat, in a destitute condition.
After lingering a half hour or so he turned to the north and traveled rapidly a long time, having now effected a complete circuit since he left his comrades. It was his purpose now to rejoin them, which he did not believe would prove a very difficult task. Shif'less Sol, the leader in his absence, was to come with the party down the bank of the Scioto, unless they found Indians in the way.
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