Munger

It was bitterly cold for a mid-April day. The Dayton Daily Transcript for Monday, April 15, 1850, reported the weather this way:

“On Saturday morning we woke up to look upon a ground covered with snow, and the wind driving it around as it would in January. For the 13th day of April, this was extraordinary. We do not remember to have seen such continued cold weather as this season. The nearest to it was the spring of 1844 when the ground was frozen too hard to plow after the first of April.

The trace of snow still remaining on the trees, where it had not been stripped off by the wind, gave some protection from the cold to the immature leaves that had just started to form. In the fields, the wheat barely broke above the snow, which, as the newspaper pointed out, was “favorable” to the crop as it will retard rank growth which brings rust.”

The wild flowers which had burst out of the long dormant earth at the edge of the woods, and the trace of greenery in the plowed garden, were hidden from view by the drifted snow. The sky overhead had the same gray cast as seemed to have settled over the large gathering of somber-faced and shivering men, women and children patiently waiting in the carriages and wagons clustered around the farmhouse on Yankee Street.

As they sat silently waiting and watching, six men came out of the house carrying a plain wood box and placed it in a wagon draped with black cloth -- a wagon which would soon start its funereal journey up Yankee Street on its way to the burial ground of the Baptist Church of Sugar Creek, just north of Centerville. For, on this cold, blustery day of April 1850, was buried one who, although only a farmer and a part-time blacksmith, had devoted a lifetime of service to his neighbors and to his country, culminated by his distinguished service in the War of 1812 -- Brigadier General Edmund Munger.

Edmund Munger’s deeply religious and moral nature, like his patriotism, was an inheritance from his ancestors. The progenitor of his family who was the first Munger to migrate to American was Nicholas Munger. Born in England, probably in County Surrey, about 1630-1631,1 Nicholas came to this country as an apprentice to William Chittenden,2 one of the Puritans who sailed from Cranbrook County, Kent, England in May 1639. This was the Whitfield Colony, and Chittenden’s name appears on the covenant drawn up and signed on shipboard.

After a voyage of about seven weeks, this shipload of Puritans arrived at the New Haven Colony in Connecticut about July 10. These Puritans started a new settlement near New Haven which they first called Monunkatuck, but which was soon changed to Guilford, after the shire town in County Surrey, England.

Nicholas was believed to be the stepson of Henry Goldam, an early settler in New Have Colony who later became a prominent member of the Guilford Colony. He apparently married Nicholas’ widowed mother, Frances. Goldam had a daughter, Susannah, by his first wife. In his will, Goldam gave Nicholas (referred to as “son-in-law”): “All my land in the Neck.”3 The land bequeathed him was situated in the East Parish of Guilford, now the town of Madison on the public road along the bank of the Neck River. Here, Nicholas settled in 1651. Later, he acquired additional land, including two pieces in the village, south of the Common.

Nicholas Munger took the “Oath of Fidelity” and became a “freeman” in 1652. To qualify, he had to be of age, of sober and peaceable conversation, orthodox in religion, and possessed of a ratable estate of at least twenty pounds. While not a wealthy man, he was described as having been “comfortably situated and self-supporting.” However, the History of Guilford 4 states: “Munger was one of the poorer planters.”

On June 2, 1659, he married Esther Hall at Guilford, Connecticut. The couple had two sons: Samuel and John. Nicholas died at the East Parish of Guilford on October 16, 1668. His widow remarried, becoming Mrs. Dennis Crampton. She died on January 31, 1689.

John, the first son of Nicholas and Ester Munger, was born on April 26, 1660 in the East Parish of Guilford.5 Samuel also was born in the East Parish about 1662. John Munger married Mary Evarts on June 3, 1684. The daughter of James and Lydia Guttridge Evarts, Mary was born in 1664. The couple were the parents of five sons: John, Ebenezer, Caleb, Jonathan and Josiah; and four daughters: Abigail, Rachel and two Marys (the first died in infancy). Caleb also died in childhood.

Guilford Land Records state: “John Munger was a weaver, and lived at the Neck. John Munger exchanged a peace or parsell of third division land at a place commonly called the ‘Oxcaps-by-the-Neck’ riverside for a peace or parsell of upland lying and being in the Neck. John Munger’s land containing eighteen acres more or less.”6 His death occurred on November 3, 1732 and his wife lived only until June 1734.

Ebenezer, the grandfather of Edmund Munger, was born to John and Mary Evarts Munger of July 4, 1693 in East Parrish. He first married Anna Scranton on May 29, 1717. The daughter of John and Mary Seward Scranton, Anna was born in East Parrish on December 27, 1697, and died on April 20, 1725 at the age of 32 years. Prior to her death, Anna gave birth to a daughter who was accidentally smothered in bed, and four sons: Ebenezer, Caleb and twins Simeon and Reuben. The mother died shortly after the birth of the twins. Simeon also died a few days later on May 11, 1725.

After the death of his first wife, Ebenezer, Sr., married Susanna Hubbard, the daughter of Daniel and Susanna Bailey Hubbard, on July 6, 1726. By this second wife, Ebenezer fathered a second Simeon. However, one year after his second marriage, Ebenezer “became ill with measles,” and, according to the Munger Book, he “had been better but went to a meeting at Guilford and was took out of his head and died in 1727.”7 After his death, Susanna married Josiah Crampton of Guilford on February 14, 1733. She died on March 25, 1788.

The fourth son of Ebenezer, Sr. and the father of Edmund Munger, Reuben, was born in East Parrish at Guilford, Connecticut on March 28, 1725. On June 8, 1748, he married his cousin Elizabeth Dudley, the daughter of Jonathan and Abigail Munger Dudley. Her birth date was December 24, 1727.

Reuben Munger moved to Norfolk in Littlefield County, Connecticut, probably about 1760. A farmer, his residence was “one-half mile west from the meeting house.” Of Reuben’s eleven children, the first six were born in Guilford. These were Nathaniel, born on January 30, 1749, Abigail, born on August 30, 1750; Reuben, born on April 22, 1752 and who died in infancy; a second Reuben, born on February 26, 1754; Jonathan, born on November 30, 1755; and Elizabeth, whose birth date was January 29, 1758. Those born in Norfolk included Elizur (1761); Edmund, born on September 30, 1763; Naomi (1765); Dudley (1768); and Samuel whose birth date in completely unknown and who also died in infancy.8 Reuben Munger, Sr.’s death occurred in Norfolk in 1808.

Although the eighth of eleven children born to Reuben and Elizabeth Munger, Edmund received a surprisingly fine education, surpassing that of most farmers’ sons in that period, and, apparently, much more than his brothers and sisters. He excelled in penmanship and retained an active interest in books and reading well into his declining years.

On December 5, 1785, Edmund married Eunice Kellogg in Winsted, Connecticut. Eunice was the daughter of Seth and Eunice Judd Kellogg; and she was born in Winsted on August 13, 1767. Two sons were born to the couple while they resided in Norfolk, Warren (1787) and Truman (1789).

Then, in 1789, the family moved from Norfolk to Middlebury in Rutland County, Vermont where they occupied “house lot No. 44 in the first hundred acre division.” This lot was immediately south of the lot owned by Edmund’s oldest brother, Nathaniel Munger, who had been the first member of the family to make the move to Vermont.

Three more of his brothers -- Reuben, Elizur and Jonathan -- had moved to the same division of Middlebury prior to Edmund’s move to Vermont. Elizur only stayed about a year before returning to his father’s homestead in Norfolk. During the eight years in which Edmund farmed the land while supplementing his income by utilizing his trade as a blacksmith, four more children were added to the family: Edmund Kellogg (1790), Minerva (1792), Reuben (1794) and Elizur (1796).

Both Edmund and Jonathan apparently became disenchanted with farming and business prospects in Vermont, where land was relatively expensive and not too fertile. In addition, the rather limited growing season in Vermont restricted the variety of profitable crops which could be grown there. Much publicity, too, had been circulated throughout New England concerning the availability of more fertile soil, better pasture and more wild game in the newly opened Northwest Territory; and these lush lands were available at unbelievably low prices.

The new lands were particularly attractive to veterans of the Revolutionary War who were holding land warrants which had been given to them as pay for their honorable service in the various state militias. These warrants could be exchanged for bounty lands in the west. According to Connecticut military records, Jonathan Munger had served through three enlistments in this war, in both the Seventh and Eleventh Regiments of the Connecticut militia. Edmund did not reach enlistment age until the war had ended.

For these reasons, Edmund and Jonathan decided in 1797 to jointly set out, with their families, for new homes somewhere in the “land between the Miamis” shown on the maps of that period as the Symmes Purchase. A nephew, Benjamin Maltbie, the son of Benjamin and Abigail Munger Maltbie, requested and was granted permission to accompany them on their journey.

First, the farms in Vermont had to be sold and such furniture and trinkets as could not be taken along. The latter were disposed of at a public auction. Many useful items were given to family members who remained in Vermont. A few items were traded for articles which would prove useful on their planned trip and in the new homes.

The Munger brothers decided to travel in two three-horse wagons, the wheel horse driven with lines and the leader to be ridden by a boy. The wagons were selected with great care since the survival of the party depended upon them. In preparation for their departure, the wagons were packed with clothing, cooking utensils, firearms, bedding and such tools as might be indispensable in sustaining the two families and animals on their trip and in their new homes. Edmund’s blacksmith tools were a special burden because of their weight.

The women prepared a complete medicine chest to take along. They also packed hand-sewn sacks with flour, cornmeal, dried fruits and other foodstuff; assembled dishes and cooking utensils; made candles and assembled workbaskets of various sewing tools, thread and other accessories, all of which were packed into the wagons. Farm implements and some cherished furniture were added to the loads. On the outside of the wagons they hung buckets of grease for the axles, barrels of water for humans and stock, and spare parts for the wagons.

The women rode on the seats in front of the wagons. Here they were sometimes joined by one of the men or some of the children, but men generally strode ahead of the wagons constantly on the alert for any unfriendly Indians. The smaller children rode at the back on the extensions built over the back wheels and the feed boxes attached to the backs of the wagons.

The older children trudged along behind, prodding and pushing the recalcitrant hogs who constantly wanted to wander off into the woods or fields on either side of the road or trail. There also were two oxen to prod out of the standing stance they repeatedly assumed. Family histories make no mention that cows were included on the trip, but the probability exists, for the 1809 tax list for Montgomery County shows that Edmund owned eight cows and Jonathan had seven that year.

As told by Joseph Nutt in 1882, and reported in Beers History of Montgomery County: “They travelled by two three-horse wagons, the wheel horses being driven with lines and the leader ridden by a boy. While coming through Pennsylvania, and moving along at a brisk trot, by a sudden jolt, Jonathan Munger, who was riding on one of the wagons, was thrown under a wheel, and before he could extricate himself both wheels passed over him. Such bold spirits were not to be thwarted by a little accident like that, and they moved on to Marietta.”9

About this time, the Shawnees and their new young chief, Tecumseh, were showing signs of dissatisfaction with the terms of the Treaty of GreenVille which the various tribes had agreed to in 1795. The possibility of an Indian uprising caused the Munger party to stay for some months within the friendly walls of the stockade at Marietta, Ohio. Then, early in 1798, they moved down the Ohio River about twelve miles below Marietta to the little settlement of Belpre. Here they stayed long enough to grow a considerable corn crop.

The year 1799 was one of relative amity between the Indians and the white settlers. Tecumseh was holding councils with all the tribes in the south and Midwest as he sought to form a confederation of the Indians strong enough to withstand the continuing encroachment of the white men into Indian Territory. Consequently, for the first time in many months, and then for a very short period only, the Ohio River was free of marauding Indians in their 20-man war canoes.

The Shawnees were masters in hiding behind bushes and trees along the river where they could intercept the boats of the settlers. The area around the mouth of the Scioto River was a favorite spot. Sometimes they dressed in the clothes of the settlers and lured passing boats to shore. In a three-year period, more than 1500 white men, women and children met their deaths along the Ohio River, many by extreme torture.

Taking advantage of this lull in Indian atrocities, the Munger party left Belpre in the early spring of 1799 to travel down the Ohio River in pirogues -- flat bottom boats especially designed for this specific trip. They were intended to be disassembled at their destination so that the rough lumber could be sold for the building of cabins and barns. The boats were decked to protect the women and children, household goods, provisions and clothing. In addition to the above, the boats were loaded with the wagons and harness, the hogs, and much of the corn crop.

Each boat was supplied with a large steering oar at the rear, and the boat was intended to float with the current. The men kept long wood poles available for pushing off from any obstruction or shallow water area. Benjamin Maltbie and the older boys brought the horses and cattle by land, and were reunited with their families each night along the river.

Despite the seeming lack of interest in this party by the Indians, there was an ever present danger of being waylaid by some wandering braves. That the Munger party was extremely lucky is indicated by a letter written just a few weeks after the party completed their journey.

By letter dated 4th May 1799, I am informed from Col. David Strong commanding at Detroit, that there is a report of a body of Indians collecting, who are meditating some hostile operations against some parts of the frontier. I am requested to make it known to the public.

Somewhere along the river, one of the boats struck an unseen object and overturned. A feather bed with one of the younger children, apparently the four-year-old Reuben, youngest son of Edmund, floated away down the river. The child was quickly rescued and the boat was pulled to shore and soon righted. The wagon with all the possessions it contained, presented a more difficult task, but everything was made ship-shape after a drying out period, and the journey was continued.

After a river voyage of approximately 225 miles from Belpre, during which the party traveled from 12 to 20 miles each day, the Mungers finally arrived at Columbia, the tiny settlement just a few miles northeast of Losantiville. Both towns now are incorporated into the city of Cincinnati. As they were landing in Columbia, the hogs became frightened and most of them swam across the wide Ohio River to the Kentucky side and the freedom of the dense forest there.

Almost immediately after arriving at Columbia, the boats were exchanged for some additional supplies, and then the horses were harnessed and hitched to the wagons which were once again loaded with all their possessions. The intrepid settlers then started north following a faint trace along the Little Miami River.

Ahead of them was a vast expanse of wilderness. Once started on their way, the little entourage was virtually swallowed up in the virgin forest that was broken here and there by a gash where an unknown stream wended its way; and even the stream appeared dark and forbidding. Colossal trunks soared upward until their foliage merged together far above the travelers to form a dark, leafy canopy.

The days were shortened by the darkness that closed in as soon as the sun was no longer overhead, and the bent rays of sunlight were diminished by the intermingled tops of the trees. Even at noontime, the light that filtered through the tall trees was dim and eerie.

The overland trip was made more unpleasant and hazardous because they were strangers in a virtually unexplored land and had no guide to lead them. Always there was the fear of hostile Indians who might be silently creeping up on them or waylaying them on their journey. The Treaty of GreenVille had made this Ohio country no longer Indian land, but the Shawnees still considered these settlers to be trespassers.

After nearly ten days of hard travel, the Mungers arrived at their predetermined destination in what is now Washington Township in Montgomery Country, Ohio. As Edmund told it: “We arrived here May 9, 1799, cleared off the spice bushes, girded the trees on nine acres of ground, planted corn and in the fall had a smart crop for our diligence and care.”10

Edmund Munger selected a 504.86 acre tract in Sections 4 and 5 of Township 2 and Range 5 near the headwaters of Holes Creek. The creek rises from springs near Yankee Street and Austin Road. His land was north of Austin Road and Social Row Road, bordering both sides of the present Yankee Street for almost a mile. The land patent issued to Edmund by President Thomas Jefferson is dated October 12, 1805. The 1804 county tax duplicate shows that he already had paid a tax of $2.40 on this property. In 1827, he purchased a 15-acre tract along the west side of Yankee Street, north of the intersection with Spring Valley Road. This land he sold in 1830 for same price he paid for it - $100.

Jonathan Munger selected 208.02 acres of land south of Austin Road and west of Yankee Street, near the Warren County line. Benjamin Maltbie, then 26 years old and single, claimed 208.02 acres almost opposite Jonathan’s farm site on the east side of Yankee Street and south of Social Row Road.

The children of Edmund and Eunice Munger recalled vividly their first days in their new home. The women and younger children continued to sleep in the cloth-covered wagon beds while small long cabins were being built. The men and the older boys slept alongside a large log over which a canopy of bark had been constructed.

The two families pitched in together, and with the help of Benjamin Maltbie, soon erected a log cabin on each prospective farm. Under the strokes of their axes, even the mightiest giants among the trees fell. These men had acquired, through many years of practice, an unbelievable skill with an axe. As children, when they could barely lift an axe, they were called upon to cut firewood for daily needs. They soon learned how to build a house or barn, how to fence a field, how to put handles on a plow, and even how to build a wagon or sled.

Trees were felled and cut to proper length. The oxen and horses were used to haul the logs to the cabin sites. The longs were notched and placed in position by the men, utilizing the horses to pull the top longs into place by rolling or sliding them up smooth logs slanted against the sides of each structure. The forest was searched for proper logs for making clapboards used on each roof. This called for straight-grained logs. The boards were generally split about four feet in length and used without planing or shaving. Straight logs were split, hewn and smoothed with a broadaxe for the puncheon flooring.

Everyone participated in the work. The children collected stones from he creekbed for the foundations, and it was they who “chinked” the openings between the logs with a plaster made from mud and interlaced with sticks, grass, and animal hair. After a log chimney was built at one end of a cabin, the children plastered it on the inside with the same mud compound. The older children scrambled over the tops of the cabins, fastening the clapboard in place on the roofs using logs placed lengthwise and bound firmly to the structures. Where needed, wood pegs were used in place of nails which were not available.

Trees cut down and not used in building the cabins were stacked for later use in building the barns and fences. The largest trees were left standing but were killed by cutting them with an axe until the bark connection was severed. Such dead trees were removed later as time permitted.

Once the cabins were completed, a rough puncheon table was built for each cabin along with three-legged stools. Wide, low platforms were built to support the featherbed mattresses brought from the East. Long wooden pins were driven into the log walls to support shelves upon which were displayed the pewter or potmetal owned by each family. Other pegs held clothing or strings of fruit being dried for winter use.

Greased paper admitted a dim light through the windows. Later, the paper was replaced with glass when it was brought up from Cincinnati. Once the more essential work was completed, a puncheon ceiling was built and a ladder was added for access to a loft sleeping area for the children.

The women helped by “clearing the land,” cutting off the spice bushes and other undergrowth, and grubbing out their roots so that they could then plant the corn, potatoes, turnips, beans, cabbage and flax. It was a very laborious life for these women.

They still had to do the cooking washing, sewing, cleaning the wild game that the men had killed, and smoking such game as was kept for winter eating. With the help of the children, they made the soap and candles, milked the cows and fed the pigs and cattle. For the first few months, until pens and fences could be built, the pigs were allowed to roam unrestricted in the forest where they found much of their food.

Only Eunice Munger was free of the more laborious tasks. She was “with child” during all of the hazardous trip from Belpre; and less than three weeks after arrival at the new homesite, on May 29, 1799, Festus was born. Perhaps the journey down the Ohio was too hard on Eunice, especially the misadventure when the boat upset, for this sixth child of Edmund and Eunice Munger only lived a very short time.

In those early days, the Mungers never lacked for food. There was an abundance of game all around them -- deer, elk, black bears, beaver, raccoon, rabbits and squirrels as well as wolves, foxes, opossum, wildcats and porcupines. Wild turkeys, pheasants and passenger pigeons were especially plentiful. The passenger pigeons, now extinct, were a primary food source just as they had been for the Indians. They could be knocked off low-lying tree limbs with a club; as many as twenty could be killed with one swing of the club. An ornithologist in 1806 reported a flight of these birds three miles wide and forty miles long. A few years later, another birdwatcher reported a migration of passenger pigeons one mile wide and 240 miles long -- more than two and a quarter billion birds.11 The sun was hidden for many hours.

Beers, in The History of Montgomery County, tells of a man named Clawson, a celebrated hunter, who went to the blacksmith shop of Edmund Munger to have some work done and was told that: “...he could not do the work as his family was out of meat and he (Edmund) must go into the woods to kill some turkeys.” “I can kill more turkeys than you can,” said Clawson, “and if you’ll go into your shop and work on my horse, I’ll go into the woods and do your hunting.” The proposition was accepted, and Clawson, borrowing an old horse with one of the boys as a helper, started into the woods. In the evening he returned and made good his boast, for the old horse was loaded with twenty-one fine, fat turkeys.12

One night, Jonathan Munger, hearing a noise in the top of an old elm tree which he had cut down near his house, fired his rifle in the direction of the sound and re-entered his home. He forgot about the incident until about noon the next day when he discovered his hogs devouring the carcass of a deer which his random shot had killed.13

On another occasion, Jonathan had a run-in with a black bear cub on his property. His children had never seen a bear until one day one of them reported that a “monster black cat” was in a tree near the cabin. Jonathan, a spry man, promptly went after the cub, climbing the tree, clubbing the bear and knocking him to the ground where the dog and the Munger children finished him off. Jonathan never realized the danger he and the children would have been in if the mother bear had shown up; but he said, “Them that knows nothin’, fears nothin’.”14

In addition to the wild game, the Mungers found an abundant supply of wild berries and fruit: strawberries, blackberries, elderberries and grapes. The forest was full of walnut, hickory and butternut trees, plus many hollow trees loaded with honey.

By late August 1799, young Chief Tecumseh again was holding councils with the various Indian tribes in northern Ohio. This led to a panic among the early settlers as ungrounded fears of an Indian uprising increased. A stockade and fort were quickly built on Peter Sunderland’s land near the northeast corner of what is now the intersection of Far HiIls Avenue and the Alexandersville-Bellbrook Road. Actually, the settlers were entering upon an unusually quiet period with the Indians. There were many stories of Indians who shared the game they had killed with the settlers. Still, the men kept their guns nearby when working in the fields and even carried them on the Sabbath when the families went to a neighbor’s house for religious services.

In the next few years after the arrival of the Mungers, there was an influx of settlers in the general area. Noah and Jemima Tibbals arrived from Norfolk, Connecticut and built a cabin on 575 acres of land just north of and adjacent to Edmund Munger’s homestead. Jemima Tibbals was a sister of Eunice Munger.15

Seth and Eunice Judd Kellogg, the parents of Jemima Tibbals and Eunice Munger, followed their daughters by leaving Norfolk in 1805 for a new home in Ohio. They selected a 127-acre tract along the south side of Social Row Road in Section 34. Their two sons, Ethel and Elihu Kellogg, established homesteads in 1808 on the west side of Yankee Street just south of the Miamisburg-Centerville Pike (State Route 725). Ethel Kellogg was married to Charlotte Munger, a daughter of Jonathan.16

With so many families living near one another it was not long before a road was constructed connecting the various properties, which collectively became known as the Yankee Settlement since only families from the East lived there. The road, when it was laid out in 1804, was first known as “the road to Major Munger’s settlement.” Later, the other township settlers who came in large numbers from southern states such as Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky labeled it “Yankee Street”.

The rapid settlement of the township established a security blanket over the area. No longer were the people so afraid of marauding bands of Indians sweeping down on an isolated cabin to kill, plunder and steal horses. Although there still was an encampment at PiquaTown, most of the Indians had gathered in the northwestern part of the state.

While these New Englanders had very little in worldly goods in this new land, their wants were few and exceedingly simple.

Even when game was still plentiful, they depended essentially on agriculture. They soon had fields of corn, wheat, oats and flax growing near their homes, as well as vegetable plots of generous size.

Tools were very primitive. The axe continued to be the most important tool, for with it they grubbed and cleared off the land after which they dug holes with a hoe to plant the corn, flax or vegetable seeds. Later, they used a plow in the fields, but for some years they literally took their lives in their hands when they plowed. There were hidden stumps, roots and rocks in their paths as well as nest of poisonous snakes or angry bees.

These New Englanders were able to be independent and free of major financial entanglements. They provided whatever they needed. The yield from their farm work and hunting was shared with each other in those first years. They enjoyed a very harmonious relationship and they made it a point to always know who needed help or care if someone was ill. They worked together to provide welfare for all.

The settlers assisted one another when a new house or barn was built. They made a joint project out of providing cloth for wear. Children also joined in turning flax into cloth: pulling it, spreading and watering it, winding or “scotching” it, and then hacking, spinning and weaving the final cloth. At harvest time, the children made a game out of thrashing out the small grains by beating them out with flails. Road making and bridge building were community work.

The food was quite plain, consisting generally of coarse cornbread with potatoes, cabbage and turnips to go with the venison or turkey. For winter consumption, meats and carrier pigeons were smoked, herbs and vegetables were dried; and corn was dried and ground by hand into meal for bread, mush and pudding. Corn, barley and rye were parched and used as a substitute for coffee. Tea was made from sassafras roots and sage. Sugar came from maple sap. Every spring, a year’s supply of brown sugar was put away in a barrel. The herd of cows, which grew to twenty-one by 1826 on Edmund’s farm, provided milk in adequate amounts to assure a continuing supply of butter.

The cooking was done on an open fire in the fireplace. A three-legged Dutch oven, some skillets and an iron pot were the chief utensils. A turkey or a joint of meat often was hung in front of the fire, suspended on a strong cord; and one of the children usually was kept busy turning it so it would roast well. Baking was done in the Dutch oven, although, when the weather permitted, it was more often done outdoors in a clay oven kept heated with wood and brush. Cornmeal, molded into “Johnny cakes” was baked on a slanting board before the fire.

The supply of wild game gradually diminished when the saturation of the area with new farms led to the destruction of ground cover as trees and bushes were replaced by tillable land. At the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the larger animals had virtually been eliminated. The last bear to be killed in the township was shot in the fall of 1826 on the farm of Daniel Himes at the southeast corner of the present intersection of Normandy Lane with Alexandersville-Bellbrook Road.17

The Mungers continued to work their respective farms and, as more of their land was cleared, the farms became more productive. The raising of hogs was especially profitable. Hogs were relatively east to raise, for they got fat on the profusion of acorns and beechnuts that covered the floor of the surrounding forest. Edmund’s son, Festus Elizur, recalled frequently driving his father’s hogs through what was still a virtual wilderness all the way to the market in Cincinnnati.18

By this time, there were enough stores and mills in the township that any needed food supplies were readily available to supplement the vegetables, fruits and domestic animals raised on township farms. As trade routes into this newly opened land were developed, better furniture and other necessities became available from the East to replace the more crude, homemade counterparts in the cabins. Also, as the families continued to grow in numbers, the cabins were enlarged by the addition of rooms.

When Edmund and Eunice Munger moved into their Yankee Street home, there were five children in the family: Warren, age twelve years; Truman, age ten years; Edmund Kellogg, age eight years; Minerva, six years; and Reuben, four years. Elizur, who was born in Middlebury, Vermont just a year before the family left that town, died before the Mungers reached their new home; and Festus, as we have noted, also died in infancy. The family continued to grow with the addition of Eunice in 1801, Sarah in 1803, a second Festus Elizur in 1805, Milton in 1807 and Isaac Newton in 1812.

Religion was of major importance in the lives of the Mungers. When they were first establishing their homes in this wilderness, a large group of Baptists from Kentucky formed the first church congregation in Centerville: the Baptist Church of Sugar Creek, now the First Baptist (Cross Point) Church of Centerville. These New Englanders, however, were unswerving Presbyterians. It was almost 30 years before they built a church, probably because of the vast amount of work that had to be done in grubbing out their homesites. The lack of money in those early years also was a major factor in the delayed building of a church.

So, in these first years, these settlers from Vermont and Connecticut met informally on Sundays to observe the Sabbath with seriousness, sincerity and reverence. They first met in the various cabins, but as the little settlement grew, the meetings were transferred to the larger barns on the farms. When the weather permitted, the ceremonies were conducted out-of-doors.

Generally, however, they met in Edmund Munger’s barn, in which case the animals and farm implements were always moved out of the way. There are two barns in back of Edmund’s home on Yankee Street, with the one nearest the house judged to be the older of the two. This may be the barn that sheltered the congregation. James H. Munger, a grandson of Jonathan, recalled that the first religious meetings he ever attended “were held in General (Edmund) Munger’s barn where everything was always in perfect order with rakes and forks all hung up out of the way.”19

At this period in the congregation’s history, the preaching of a virile type was done usually by one of the male members. Sometimes a traveling minister or so-called “circuit preacher” performed these services. Such ministers always found a warm welcome at the homes of both Munger brothers.

These religious meetings performed another function. They became a public clearinghouse for important news of the day. These Sabbath meetings also constituted social gatherings at which neighborhood gossip was exchanged after the more serious religious observance had been completed. For one day of the week, the drudgery and stress of the frontier life was put aside. Prepared lunches were taken to the religious setting, and everyone gathered around for the most sumptuous meal of the week.

Edmund Munger’s Puritan background soon became even more evident as he became active in township and county political, educational and cultural affairs after having first established his farm and his blacksmith business. He entered political affairs shortly after Congress recognized Ohio as the seventeenth state on February 19, 1803 with Dr. Edward Tiffin as the first governor.

With the ratification of the new state, eight new counties were created, including Montgomery County, formed out of a section of Hamilton County. Edmund was one of twelve county residents whose names appeared on the April 3, 1804 ballot for County Commissioner. Of the 769 votes cast, Edmund received 249 to lead the other two elected officials: John Darst and William Browne. Daniel C. Cooper of Dayton received less than half as many votes as Munger’s total.20

The first session of these commissioners was held at Newcom Tavern in Dayton on June 11, 1804. The length of time each commissioner was to serve was determined by lot. Edmund Munger drew the two-year term. The county at that time included the territory in what is now Montgomery County, plus Miami, Preble and a portion of Darke County.

On the next polling date, October 2, 1805, only two county commissioners were to be elected. Again Edmund was the top vote getter with 274 out of the 675 votes cast for nine candidates. It is interesting to note that in this election, Jonathan Munger received 54 votes for county commissioner in Washington Township to only four votes for his brother.

Edmund continued to hold this county political office until 1808, when, on October 21, he was elected to the Ohio Seventh General Assembly which met at the state capitol in Chillicothe in December.21 Daniel Hoover was elected to fill his position as County Commissioner. However, Munger’s service as an elected state representative was of rather short duration, for his duties as an officer in the state militia demanded more of his time in the county as war clouds darkened.

Forced to confine his activities to his home area, Edmund ran for and was elected Clerk of Washington Township on March 10, 1809.22 He continued to be re-elected to this office every year, even through the War of 1812, until he finally withdrew his name from further consideration in 1827. His fine legible penmanship was especially valuable in this post. When he ended this career, he was nearing his 65th birthday.

It was also in March of 1809 that Edmund Munger was first appointed a Grand Juror. There is nothing remarkable about such an appointment except that he was constantly called upon to serve in this capacity. No one else in Washington Township ever was appointed to this service so many times. This service continued through 1828.

With the recognition of Ohio as a state in 1803, it is probable that the first schools were started in Washington Township. Edmund Munger was one of the first to press for the establishment of formal schooling. The Munger children attended school in a log cabin where puncheons were used as desks. The boys sat on one side of the small room and the girls on the other side. The fireplace at one end of the cabin offered the only good light if there was a fire, for the windows were small and, at first, covered with greased paper.

Schoolteachers were hired on subscription contracts whereby room and board was provided in exchange for their services. The teacher would spend a week or two with one family before moving into another household. The Bible and a speller generally were the only books. Hervey Munger, a son of Jonathan, stated that “the first schools were very poor and the children were not given much opportunity for an education.”23 Schooling also had to take second place to farm work. James H. Munger recalled that he sometimes went to school only two or three weeks during the winter, depending on the weather and the work that had to be done.24

After a state education law was passed in the mid-1820’s, and a mandatory county one-mill property tax was imposed, the schools improved as local tax money was made available. In Washington Township, nine district schools were built. Schoolhouse Number 7 was built on land leased from Edmund Munger in 1827.25 The rather extensive collection of books which Edmund owned provide some measure of his continuing interest in education and the acquisition of knowledge and is further evidence of his strict Puritan training. When the executors for his estate were listing his many possessions after his death in 1850, they noted the following titles: the Bible; Statute Laws of Ohio, 1804; Dialogue of Devils (2 volumes); Dodridge’s Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul; John Bunyan’s Works (3 volumes); Publication of the American Tract Society (Volume 3); Bunden Village Sermons; Bunyan’s Holy War; Swift’s Discourses; Blair’s Sermons; and Banter’s Saints.26 This is an unusually large collection of books for a frontier home. Oddly enough, after Edmund’s death, the Court awarded this library to his widow, Eunice, who could neither read nor write.

His interest in books led to Edmund’s joining some other township residents in 1810 to form the first library in Centerville.27 A joint stock company was formed on February 19 by 16 township residents to establish the Washington Social Library Company, incorporated under state law and operated under a state charter. Edmund Munger, Benjamin Maltbie, Daniel Bradstreet, Noah Tibbals, John Harris, Ethel Kellogg and Jeremiah Hole were appointed directors. Five other members of the Munger family were among the charter subscribers.

The library was kept in operation under the charter provisions for 30 years, and was a source of culture and knowledge for the entire township. It came to an end when a stranger in the community deviously gained control by surreptitiously buying up a controlling number of shares. Even though the charter had been obtained with a pledge that it would only be used for a library, the conniving stranger converted the charter to the establishment of a bank in Miamisburg that soon failed.

Early in 1804, Governor Edward Tiffin issued a call for the organization of a state militia in Ohio. All free, able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 45 were enrolled in the militia “with the exception of preachers, judges of courts, jailkeepers, customs and post officers, stage drivers and ferrymen on mail routes.” They were required to have a good smooth-bore, muzzle loading flintlock or musket or a more modern rifle, a bayonet, belt and knapsack, two spare flints, a pouch for 24 cartridges, or a powder horn, a fourth pound of powder and 24 balls. Officers had to wear a sword or hanger. Training days and the Fourth of July were big days for all citizens whether in the militia or not; but, in truth, there was very little training the first two years.

The First Division of the Ohio militia included recruits from Hamilton, Clermont, Warren, Butler, Greene, Montgomery and Champaign Counties. When first formed, recruits from Greene, Montgomery and Champaign Counties made up the Third Brigade. By 1807, Miami County was established, with Preble County being formed in 1808. As the population grew and more counties were formed, a reorganization of the militia, just prior to the War of 1812, led to Montgomery County being assigned to the Fifth Brigade along with Preble and Miami Counties.

Major General John S. Gano of Cincinnati was appointed by Governor Tiffin to command the First Division. Brigades nominally were under the command of brigadier generals, battalions under majors, and companies under captains. The company officers were elected by the amateur soldiers who sometimes ended up dismissing them, too. Brigadier generals, lieutenant colonels and majors were elected by company officers.

Unswerving in his service to his neighbors and to his country, Edmund Munger was one of the first to sign up for militia duty although he was then 41 years old. Too young to serve in the Revolutionary War, he lacked battle experience and command experience. Yet, his qualities of leadership were so evident that he was immediately elected a major. As Lazarus Munger, one of his grandsons wrote: “He was a man of great enterprise and strong individuality, looked up to and considered as one having authority.”28

Sometime before July 17, 1809, Edmund was promoted to colonel and was assigned to the temporary command of the Fifth Brigade of the First Division of Ohio militia, for on that date he wrote a letter to General Gano: a letter now in the files of the Cincinnati Historical Society, and signed it Col. Edmund Munger. On May 25 of that year, an election was held to name a brigadier general to command the Fifth Brigade. Munger won the election to this high rank although a contingent of officers from Miami County contested the election of the basis that they had not been properly notified or polled.

In his letter to General Gano on July 17, 1809, Colonel Edmund Munger stated, in part:

“I understand that the officers in Miami County have contested the Election for Brigadier General. But I think they have the least reason to complain of any in the Brigade, for they had notice before any other Regiment in the Brigade and had all their strength collected at the Election and how they knew that they had not gained the Election is more than I can tell for I never have heard how the votes turned out.

“I received Notice that they intended to contest the Election on the grounds that they were not legally Notified, agreeable to the 6th Section of the Militia Law. The General Orders were read when the officers were all present, except two in the Regiment, at the Election for Colonel, the 16th day of May and the Election for General was on the 25th which was at least nine days notice.”29

There must have been considerable delay in the formal notification of his higher rank, for on October 20, 1809, he submitted a Return of the Fifth Brigade and signed it as Colonel Commanding. There were then 1,824 men under his command, including 150 officers, 224 non-commissioned officers and 1,449 rank and file. This total included a detachment of 44 cavalrymen and another of 194 riflemen. There also were 40 musicians, either fife or drum. Barely 15 percent of the men were properly equipped with a musket or rifle.30

The Shawnee chief, Tecumseh (Rising Star) and his younger brother, Tenskwatawa (The Prophet) had been stirring up the Indian tribes for several years. The fear that Tecumseh would lead an uprising had led President Thomas Jefferson to issue a call on October 29, 1808 to hold the Ohio militia in readiness for combat service. While this order was rescinded by President James Madison on May 18, 1809, the order did serve to bring the militia to full strength and to be more completely equipped.

Tecumseh had a dream -- a dream of a confederation of all Indian tribes east of the Mississippi River from the south of Canada all the way to Florida. He believed that such a confederation, united in one purpose and under his direction, could form a barrier against any further penetration of the white man into Indian lands; and, conceivably could drive the white settlers back to the sea from whence they had come.

Only Tecumseh could create such a confederation of the various Indian tribes which seldom were united in any endeavor and often fought with one another. Tecumseh was a most unusual Indian chief. In fact, he was one of the most outstanding individuals of his day -- a born leader and a military genius. Born near the Indian village of Chillicothe in Ohio on March 9, 1768, the son of the Shawnee chief, Puckeshinwah, he was one of nine children delivered of a Creek woman. The Prophet was one of younger triplet brothers and made claim to psychic powers as he sought to lead the Indian tribes back to their old way of life and morality.

Extremely intelligent, Tecumseh was a statesman, a visionary, an eloquent speaker; and, apparently, he was endowed with considerable psychic power, considering the accuracy of his predictions. He had learned to speak and write the English language. William K. Beall, the assistant quartermaster in the Army of the Northwest during the War of 1812, wrote in his diary that Tecumseh “...is a very plane man, rather above middle size, stout built, a noble set of features and an admirable eye.”31

Others who had met him described Tecumseh as handsome, naturally pleasant and gentle except when he believed that he and other Indians were being mistreated or deceived. He was said to have been about five feet ten inches tall, perfectly proportioned as a natural athlete, strong, and possessed of an enormous power of endurance. He never allowed any torturing or scalping of his enemies.

Governor William Henry Harrison of the Territory of Indiana may have helped to precipitate the War of 1812 in the West when he effected a treaty on September 30, 1809, with a select few peaceable chiefs of the Miami, Eel River, Delaware and Potawatomi tribes. This fraudulent treaty, made at Fort Wayne, transferred to the United States approximately three million acres of Indian land lying east of the Wabash River -- land not solely theirs to barter away since a previous treaty had assigned this land to a dozen tribes for their exclusive community use as hunting grounds. Some said that Harrison hoped to emulate his father-in-law (John Cleves Symmes) by acquiring a large portion of this land for his own use and at a very low price. The treaty, however, was arranged with the approval of President Madison; and cost a cash price of only $8,000 plus an annuity totaling $2,350.

Harrison waited to arrange the treaty meeting until he received word that Tecumseh had left the Territory on one of his trips to unite the southern tribes. When Tecumseh heard about this treaty that gave away the hunting grounds of the Shawnees, he was infuriated and refused to abide by it. He began seriously to plan a campaign of retribution against Harrison and the settlers.

By 1811, the settlers on the western frontier were convinced that another war with the British and the Indians was inevitable. Once again, Governor William Henry Harrison executed a military action that certainly speeded up the outbreak of the war. Disturbed by the mass movement of Indian tribes in the area, he marched into Indian lands with an army of 1020 men. They ascended the Wabash River Valley to Terra Haute where they built a fort.

Then, using the stealing by the Indians of some horses from the settlers as an excuse, Harrison marched his army to Prophet’s Town at the junction of the Wabash River and the Tippecanoe River where there was a large enclave of Indians. There, at 4:00 a.m. on November 7, 1811, the aroused Indian warriors attacked Harrison’s army. The fighting continued until the Indians discovered that the Prophet had deserted them. Tecumseh was out of the state at the time.

The Indians then fled their town, leaving it for Harrison to destroy by burning, after first carting away the cases of new British rifles his men found in the town. He claimed an impressive victory, even though he lost 82 men plus over 100 wounded versus 36 Indians killed. Tecumseh, furious over this disruption of his carefully planned campaign, branded his brother for his cowardice, to be forever shunned and despised. He then traveled to Canada where he offered his services to the British and accepted a command post equivalent to a general in the regular army.

Almost simultaneously with the Battle of Tippecanoe, the Ohio militia were mustered. Brigadier General Edmund Munger reported on November 10, 1811 that the strength of the Fifth Brigade had increased to 2,413 men, including 147 officers, 297 non-commissioned officers and 1,969 rank and file. Among these were 79 in the cavalry and 290 riflemen, plus 62 musicians. Still not completely equipped, there was a vast improvement over the previous report -- for now the brigade had 794 muskets and 631 rifles, while the officers were equipped with 38 swords and 18 pistols. The cavalry had 73 horses, only six less than the minimum needed.32

Apparently gifted with psychic power, as noted earlier, Tecumseh had been preaching to the Indians for some months that the Great Spirit was behind their efforts to drive back the settlers into the sea, and that he would give them a sign when the time had come. The Indians were told to expect the most extraordinary sign ever to fall upon the land, when rives would run backward, mountains and lakes would disappear and new ones would form.33

Between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. on Monday, December 16, 1811, everything that Tecumseh foretold happened just as he had stated. Beginning near St. Louis, the earth shook and continued to shake throughout a wide area that included Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana Territory, Tennessee, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and the Southwest. The quake was felt as far away as Boston and Philadelphia. Another violent shock occurred the same morning at 8:00, continuing for half a minute.

For a time the waters of the Mississippi River reversed and ran upstream, and its banks were forever changed. Near the Kentucky-Tennessee border, a few miles from the Mississippi River, a huge section of earth sank and water gushed forth to form for the first time Reelfoot Lake. Riverbeds rose in the air and became dry land from then on. The contour of the land changed as Tecumseh had predicted. Whole forests fell in tangles. Streams abruptly ran dry while new ones broke out of the land. Giant waves broke over Lake Erie and Lake Michigan even though there was no wind.

On the Western plains, the land shuddered with a loud grinding sound and herds of buffalo fell to the ground, then staggered to their feet to stampede in utmost terror. Homes through the general area fell in clouds of debris. Bridges collapsed and dams built by man and beaver were torn asunder. No one ever anticipated such a phenomenal happening except Tecumseh.

A third earthquake struck on January 23, 1812, and a fourth four days later. Finally, on February 13 occurred the last and most severe of all -- one that lasted for an hour, with the motion from the southwest. Little material damage occurred in Dayton or Washington Township; just some chimneys cracked, windows broken and pottery that broke when it was jarred off tables or shelves. The settlers and the animals, both domestic and wild, were much alarmed.

Never had the Indians experienced such powerful medicine, and nevermore would they question Tecumseh. Quietly they began to drift north to join with him and his British allies. Those who chose to remain in their villages began savage attacks upon the settlers. A cabin was burned here and there, a horse stolen, cattle slaughtered.

Governor Return Jonathan Meigs at Zanesville received a letter on January 14, 1812, from the commanding officer of the state militia near Greenville in Darke County on the subject of such terror tactics:

“The people of this county are much alarmed at this time by the near approach of the Indian Prophet and his party, consisting of about forty-five warriors, who are hunting about thirty miles from here. We were told by two Mingo Indians who say they are camped about ten miles from this place, that the Prophet and his party are hunting about twenty miles from here, in a western direction. They say they were told by two of the Prophet’s men who came to their camp and said the Prophet’s men would kill every white man they came across. We are about to send out spies immediately to discover whether the Prophet is there or not. Our exposed position would render us an easy prey to the Indians should they attack us...The inhabitants have earnestly requested that troops be send for our protection, and the sooner they are here the better.”34

On April 29th, a man was tomahawked and scalped near the mill at Greenville. Another man was killed near Springfield, still another near Urbana, and a soldier was killed near Fort Recovery. Three men on the Detroit Trace near Fort Defiance were used as targets in a knife-throwing contest. The hostilities had begun.

The second war with England, usually called the War of 1812, developed out of a long series of oppressions on the part of Great Britain. The treaty of peace signed by representatives of the two countries in 1783 was succeeded by a nominal cessation of hostilities. Great Britain, however, continued to flout the authority of the United States and to ignore the provisions of the treaty by maintaining forts and trading posts on American soil near Detroit and along the Great Lakes.

The western settlers were convinced that the British were encouraging barbarities by Indians, even paying the “savages” for American scalps. There was considerable proof that the Indians were encouraged to murder Americans, to plunder their property and, in general, to spread depredation and devastation throughout the land. There were about 75,000 Indians in twenty tribes in and around Ohio. Their raids in early 1812 were beginning to terrorize the settlers.

In its arrogance, England also assumed the right to stop American ships on the high seas and to search for and impress into British naval service all seamen who had at any time been its subjects. Since this had been true of most American citizens born before the Revolutionary War, many of them, as well as naturalized citizens entitled to protection by the United States, were impressed into British service -- in all, about 7,000 citizen of this country. The British officers were the judges as to whether a seaman should be pronounced a native of America or Britain, and if their ships were short of crew, the decisions were always in favor of Britain.

England, at the beginning of 1812, already was at war with France; and “Orders in Council” were issued to prohibit Americans from trading with the French. An embargo virtually destroyed for a time all American commerce on the seas. At least 400 American ships were captured by the British.

Still the clamor for another war came from the west and the always belligerent south, with New England strongly opposing it. Ohio had much to do with precipitating the war, for the settlers wanted to eliminate the Indian menace on the frontier for all time and to spread out over the territory that had been set aside for the Indian tribes. The greed for cheap land by restless pioneers who always imagined the distant lands to be better than where they were located, was a strong force in the promotion of new hostilities with Great Britain.

For Ohio, a war at this time would be the culmination of a struggle that had been going on for years as the settlers constantly pressured the Indians into smaller and smaller areas of land set aside by treaties now broken. Still, Ohio was woefully unprepared for war. The militia was ignorant of military discipline, lacking in equipment and far short of commissary supplies and transportation.

There was widespread evidence of a lack of unity throughout the nation in support of war. An almost total lack of recruits for the regular army seemed to reinforce this sagging support. Problems of organization, logistics and leadership were staggering. Still, Congress approved a bill early in April 1812, to enlist an additional 15,000 men into the army for a period of 18 months, each man to be paid a bounty of $16 in addition to his regular pay.

Following the action by Congress, President Madison released a requisition for 1,200 of Ohio militia for one year’s service. Governor Meigs then issued orders to Ohio major generals to furnish the required quota of 300 men from each militia division. He designated Dayton as the place for such troops to report to by April 29, armed and equipped as the law required. In Dayton, these men were to be outfitted with new muskets and uniforms.

Dayton at this time was just a small village of fewer than 500 inhabitants. The unusually broad Main Street was lined with 13 log houses, two frames and two brick houses, a tavern and a brick courthouse.

The governor also issued an order to organize a company of rangers with necessary equipment and horses. They, too, were to serve one year’s active duty in the outposts of the frontier. General Edmund Munger received the orders to be published at the muster of the militia in Dayton on April 14. He called for volunteers and only 20 men offered to enlist. Munger then ordered all militia members to assemble on the 16th at Adams’ Prairie at the bend of the Miami River near Alexandersville, in what was then Washington Township. Major Adams also was ordered to report there with his battalion.

General Munger conducted a draft at this assemblage to fill out the company of rangers under command of Captain William Perry. Showing no bitter feelings over the attempt by the Miami contingent to contest his election as brigadier general, Munger omitted the Miami militia from this draft, along with those from Preble County because of the Indian skirmishes near their homes. On August 27, Captain Perry and his rangers passed through Dayton on a march to Fort Loramie.

Among the first to volunteer for service with these rangers was the father and son team of Thomas and John Hatfield from Washington Township. According to local historian, Joseph Nutt, Thomas Hatfield “...fired with that spirit of hatred against the same old foe he had helped humiliate in 1776, enlisted in the same company (with his son) and did an excellent service as scout and guide, and being of fearless nature was ever the first man to ford any stream that lay in their pathway.”35

With the governor’s call to the militia for active duty, more than 40 men from Washington Township answered the call, including many of the first settlers such as Peter and Richard Sunderland, John Harris, Joseph and William Ewing, William Luce, Henry Stansell, Peter Clawson, David Lamme, Thomas Kelsey, James and Joseph White, Thomas Bigger, Richard and John Benham, John, Daniel and Simeon Wilson, Isaac Harrison, Amos and William Irvin, William Duncan, Abraham and James Russell, in addition to the Hatfields. General Munger’s son, Truman, was elected a lieutenant; the nephew, Benjamin Maltbie, served as recruiting officer, and another nephew, Hervey Munger (son of Jonathan), served as a teamster.36

The first companies of militia recruited outside the county reached Dayton on May 1, but no arrangements had been made for their comfort, either by the state or the citizens of Dayton. These men were without tents or blankets until the middle of the month, and the weather was unusually cool. Governor Meigs arrived in town on May 6 to inspect the troops and issue further orders. His arrival was announced by a salute of 18 guns by the citizens of Dayton. By that date, there were 12 companies, number 800 men, encamped in the town. On the 7th, the governor reviewed these troops.

The militia was organized into three regiments. Men from the Scioto Valley were placed under Colonel Duncan McArthur as the First Regiment. The Second, from the Miami Valley, was assigned to the command of Colonel James Findley; and the Third, from Fostoria, Ohio, was placed under Colonel Lewis Cass. The Second and Third Regiments bivouacked on the Common (now Daniel Cooper Park adjacent to the Dayton-Montgomery County Public Library) between Second and Third Streets in Dayton. The First Regiment assembled south of Dayton at Hole’s Creek.

On May 7, acting on orders from the President, Colonel John Johnston, the United States Indian Agent, met at Piqua with the Shawnee chiefs from “Wapackanetta.” The chiefs, in council, gave their assurance that friendly relations with their white neighbors would be continued, and Colonel Johnston expressed much reliance on their sincerity. The settlers, however, placed no confidence in the council agreement. A week later, on May 15, a party of five or six settlers who were plowing corn near Greenville was attacked by Indians. One white man was wounded and one Indian was killed.

Also on May 7, Governor Meigs made an appeal for blankets from his headquarters in McCullom’s Tavern at the southwest corner of Second and Main Streets. This appeal was printed on the front page of the Ohio Centinel newspaper published in Dayton, Ohio on May 14, 1812:

“The situation of our country has compelled the Government to resort to precautionary measures of defense. In obedience to the call, eight hundred men have abandoned the comforts of domestic life and are here assembled in camp at the distance of some hundred miles from home, prepared to protect our frontier from the awful effects of savage and civilized warfare. But the unprecedented celerity with which they have moved precluded the possibility of properly equipping them. Many, very many of them are destitute of blankets; and without these indispensable articles, it will be impossible for them to move to their point of destination.

“CITIZENS OF OHIO! This appeal is made to YOU. Let each family furnish one or more BLANKETS, and the requisite will be completed. It is not requested as a boon, the moment your blankets are delivered, you will receive their full value in money -- they are not to be had at stores...”

“By the direction of Governor Meigs, Gen. Munger, with a small number of the Dayton troop of horse, performed a tour to Greenville last week to inquire into the situation of the frontier settlements. The General returned on Sunday. He states, among other things, that an Indian trader by the name of Conner, who resides at Fort Recovery, had been advised by the friendly Indians to move in -- That the Prophet was within seventy miles of Greenville, and that an attack would be made in about six weeks.

“It is said that the Prophet is engaged in rebuilding his town, and that his party is as strong as ever.

“The Governor has ordered a company of riflemen, completely equipped, from General McArthur’s corps, to march to Greenville, and another to Picqua, to protect the frontier inhabitants, who are flying in every direction. It is supposed that not less than one hundred families have fled from Miami and Darke counties in consequence of the late hostile conduct of the Indians.”

In this same issue of the newspaper, but under a date of April 16, 1812, appeared the General Orders for the militia of Indiana as issued from Vincennes:

“As the late murders upon the frontiers of this and the neighboring territories leave us little hope of our being able to avoid a war with most of the neighboring tribes of Indians, the Commander-in-Chief directs that the Colonels and other Commandants of corps, should take immediate measures to put their commands in the best possible state for active services.”

This issue of the Ohio Centinel also printed, on the first page, a letter received by the editor from a “respectable authority at Detroit.” The letter, dated April 13, was received on May 13, 1812, and read as follows:

“Our neighbors, the British, are making preparations for war. They are erecting at Amherstburgh (Walden, Canada) some additional fortifications of considerable strength, and are also building a sloop of war. These preparations, together with the liberal presents made to the savages, and the great attention paid to them, induce me to believe that they are determined to defend that port to the last.

There is a British regiment of regular troops arrived at Niagara and will be shipped to Amherstburgh so soon as the navigation is open. Should the Government of Canada be convinced that war with us is inevitable, I am fearful they will attack us before we are ready, as no reinforcement is expected here before the latter end of May.”

On Wednesday, the 16th, General Gano and Colonel Cass arrived in Dayton with between 600 and 700 men. Then, on May 20, Captain Mansfield arrived from Cincinnati with his company of light infantry. This brought the total number of troops in Dayton to 1,500. These men were formed into the First, Second and the Third Regiments.

President Madison appointed a number of old soldiers to command posts simply because they were old soldiers who had experience gained in the Revolutionary War. Henry Dearborn, a veteran of the Quebec Campaign in 1775, and who assisted in the capture of Burgoyne, was appointed a major general and commander-in-chief of the army. There were many cases, however, where the officers appointed were long past their prime and were not fit to command.

Such was the case with William Hull, the Governor of Michigan, who was appointed a major general and ordered to command the Army of the Northwest, assembling in Dayton. A graduate of Yale University, he had served with distinction as a lieutenant colonel with the Massachusetts troops in nine battles of the Revolutionary War.

Then 58 years old, he was described by one reporter who saw him in Dayton as a short, corpulent, good-natured old gentleman who bore the marks of good eating and drinking. In truth, he was a flabby old soldier, indecisive, hesitant of command, and suspicious of the militia because he thought they were unruly, untrained and untrustworthy. A slight stroke, suffered about a year earlier, apparently had adversely affected his military judgment.

It was true that the militia were ignorant of discipline, unruly, noisy, insubordinate and largely untrained. To some extent they were poorly officered. One prominent Ohioan estimated that seven-tenths of the militia officers were “entirely ignorant of the military discipline.” Some officers worried more about keeping their men in good humor than in keeping them under good, sound military control.

Infrequently the actions of a militia man was so outrageous that disciplinary action was taken, and even that appears rather bizarre when viewed today. For example, a John Moseby, who threatened to blow up a magazine and tried to join the enemy, was given a variety of punishments after a court-martial. “...(he was) to be confined, tied to a post or log in a tent by himself for a month, to have a handcuff on his right hand, to ride a wooden horse 30 minutes each week for one month with a 50-pound ball fastened to each foot, to wear a ball and shackle the whole time, to have one eyebrow and the side of his head shaved, and to be fed on bread and water only. After confinement to be drummed out of camp.”37

General Hull also had to contend with an undercurrent of unrest and dissatisfaction among some of the militia. C. Butterworth is quoted in the Munger Book: “...Munger’s men did not like to march away under Hull; they wanted Munger to command them. They had seen what stuff he was made of. When he could find no one to shoe certain oxen that were to haul supplies, he sent to his farm for needed tools and his leather apron, and shod the oxen himself.”38 Such resentment among the men was sensed by Hull who was bothered by it, and allowed it to influence his future actions.

With the arrival of General Hull and his retinue from Cincinnati on May 24, Dayton really became a bustling focal point of activity. Overnight the quiet little town became a noisy staging area and supply center for the army. The broad and generally poorly frequented streets, often knee-deep in mud, became alive with uniformed soldiers on foot, companies drilling, officers galloping madly on horseback, packhorses and wagons laden with supplies and ammunition. Everywhere, too, there were men, women and children from the town and nearby farms gazing curiously at all this excitement.

Land values had skidded downward in the frontier areas as the fear of Indian outrages drove people from their homes; but Dayton enjoyed a sudden building boom as people hurried to take advantage of a large and ready market. Prices rose and profits boomed. Farmers sold their grain, stock and surplus garden items to army contractors at inflated prices. Contractors advertised in the Ohio Centinel for such items as 3,000 barrels of flour, 600 head of cattle and 400 horses. There were other advertisements for bacon, whiskey, vinegar, salt. Most of flour for the Army of the Northwest was supplied by William Waugh from his mill on the Hole’s Creek tributary which runs along the north side of West Rahn Road.

The transfer of command by Governor Meigs to General Hull was made on May 25 with appropriate ceremony. In the morning, the governor and the general with their respective staffs rode to the camp of the First Ohio south of Dayton at Hole’s Creek where they reviewed and addressed the troops. After lunch at McCullom’s Tavern, the governor and the general rode to the Common to inspect arms and fittings and review the two regiments stationed there. In a flowery speech to these men, Governor Meigs orated that they were being honored by being able to serve under the leadership of such an able hero, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs and Governor of Michigan, who was so well fitted by training and experience to conduct a successful campaign. The governor ended his peroration with the charge to: “Go then! Fear not! Be strong! Quit yourselves like men, and may the God or Armies be your shield and buckler.”39

As reported by the Ohio Centinel, General Hull responded with a grandiose speech addressing the soldiers as “the patriotic officers and soldiers of Ohio,” he reminded them that:

“On marching through a wilderness, memorable for savage barbarity, you will remember the causes by which the barbarity has been heretofore executed. In viewing the ground stained with the blood of your fellow citizens, it will be impossible to suppress the feelings of indignation. Passing by the ruins of a fortress erected in our territory by foreign nation in times of professed peace, and for the express purpose of exciting the savages to hostility and supplying them with the means for conducting a barbarous war, must remind you of that system of oppression and injustice which the spirit of an indignant people can no longer endure.”40

Hull’s dignified bearing, with his eloquent words, inspired confidence. The troops were favorably impressed and more inclined to accept his leadership. As it turned out, however, a more unfortunate selection could not have been made of a leader to take charge of this campaign whose purpose it was to secure Detroit and eventually to acquire part or all of Canada.

The next morning, May 26, the three regiments broke camp. Marching in full uniforms, back of General Hull and his staff, they left town, crossing the Mad River at the Staunton Road ford, almost opposite Webster Street, and continued up the west bank of the river to a prairie about three miles from town. General Hull’s son, Abraham, who served his father as aide-de-damp, distinguished himself when, in full uniform and blind drunk, he toppled off his spirited horse into the Mad River.

A camp was laid out on the prairie and the troops were made reasonable comfortable in tents hauled up from Cincinnati.

General Hull named the military encampment Camp Meigs in honor of Ohio’s governor. Here, a rigid discipline was better maintained than in town, and the regular duties in camp became a way of life. Officers and men were drilled in outpost and guard duty with noticeably increased energy.

On the 26th of May, Governor Meigs ordered Captain William Van Cleve’s company of riflemen, then in camp at Adam’s Prairie near Hole’s Creek, to march to the frontier west of the Great Miami River under the command of Colonel Jerome Holt. They were to assist in erecting blockhouses in suitable places. Colonel Sloan’s troop from Cincinnati arrived at Camp Meigs on the 27th.

Patrols of militia kept the roads clear of Indians on both sides of the Great Miami River from Camp Meigs to Piqua. A wagon train plus packhorses were organized to haul supplies. Rations, consisting of cornmeal, fat bacon, parched corn and salt, were issued to each man. Cattle were to be driven along the route of the march to provide an occasional ration of fresh beef. Whiskey was available when required during bad weather or extra duty.

On May 31, the order was issued to “strike tents early in the morning,” and on Monday, June 1, 1812, 1,600 men of the First, Second and Third Regiments of Ohio militia and a troop of cavalry set forth from Camp Meigs for an unannounced destination. Although the troops were not told, their destination was Detroit which at that time was guarded by only 100 soldiers. This town was the center for trade and diplomacy with the Indians. The army command believed that by operating from this base they could eliminate the Indian menace concentrated on the northwestern frontier, and deprive the Indians of their base in Canada. It was believed that the army could then move eastward into Upper Canada.

Most of the troops were dressed in regular army uniforms of blue cords with scarlet collars and cuffs; but some wore tow linen hunting shirts and breeches. All wore a low-crowned cocked hat with cockade or plate on the side with a white plume. Each officer wore a saber and two so-called “horse-pistols.”

The First Army of Ohio, designated by the federal government as the Army of the Northwest, broke camp at 4:30 in the morning and marched for several miles by crowds of people that included the Governor of Ohio, almost the entire population of the county, and many residents of Cincinnati and Kentucky. There was no easy or well-defined route from Dayton to Detroit. So the army marched north up an old country road then known at the Staunton Road (now the Old Troy Pike). Camp was made the first night at Staunton, a mile east of Troy. The intent was to march along the east bank of the Great Miami River as far as Fort Loramie, then cross over to the Auglaize River and cut to the rapids of the Maumee River.

The army was to be supplied by hatteaux and keel boars paddled up the Great Miami River. However, even in 1812, the river that was defined as navigable by the Army Engineers Corps in 1983, was too shallow and the boats became stranded on the first day. This caused a change in plans, and the army was marched across the state to Urbana.

There, on the afternoon of June 8, the army paraded before Governor Meigs and the principal chiefs of 12 tribes of Shawnees, Wyandots and Mingoes who were there assembled for a council. After some hours, the chiefs entered into a written agreement that General Hull should have permission to open a road to the foot of the rapids of the “Miami of the Lake,” and to build blockhouses en route.

With the departure of General Hull and the Army of the Northwest, General Munger’s command of militia was ordered into Dayton to garrison the town, protect stores and public property and keep open a line of communication and supplies with the army at the front. This was a service of utmost importance, as the quartermaster’s ordnance and commissary supplies were to be forwarded through Dayton.

General Hull’s army was reinforced during the stay at Urbana by the 450 men of the Fourth Regiment of United States Infantry under the command of Lieutenant Colonel James Miller, and several militia companies, thereby increasing the army to 2,250 effectives. The First Regiment, under Colonel McArthur, left camp on June 11 to cut a road through the woods to the Scioto River. Five days later, after traveling only 24 miles from Urbana, the regiment stopped to build Fort McArthur. On the 15th of June, the rest of the army left Urbana.

Detroit was 200 miles from Urbana. The direct route, proposed by Hill, took the army through a portion of the morass known as the Black Swamp (covering an extensive portion of Sandusky, Henry and Wood Counties and formed by the last great glacier). The route taken was approximately the same as the current State Route 68. There were no roads then north of Urbana, only sodden trails; and the march necessarily was slow and quite arduous. It took 35 days to complete the march.

The Ohio regiments took turns cutting the road through the wilderness. Part of the time the soldiers had to hack the road through the trees and brush, and part of the time they were wading knee-deep in the swampy land. Many men became ill with malaria and ague. Even the supply train animals sickened and died by the dozens. Troop morale was maintained only by a constant supply of spirits of corn liquor. The road that was cut out of the morass and woods soon became nearly impassable as it was cut up by the packhorses and 106 heavily loaded wagons. Thirteen wagons had to be abandoned.

Worried by the constantly lengthening supply line and its exposure to increasingly large bands of Indians flitting through the surrounding wilderness, Hull left men behind at five places. He built forts at every 20 miles along the lines of communication. On arriving at Toledo Bay on June 30, he ordered his officers to commandeer the packet Cuyahoga under command of Captain Luther Chapin. Hull placed 30 sick officers and men and three wives on this ship for easy transport to Detroit. Some supplies also were entrusted to the ship; and Abraham Hull again made a foolish move by placing his father’s personal luggage on board, including all General Hull’s confidential papers.

On June 1, 1812, President Madison asked Congress to recognize the fact that England had created a state of war. The British had continued to repeat the errors which led to the Revolutionary War. They looked upon the colonists with contempt and besmirched the honor of this new nation repeatedly. England did make an effort to allay the resentments in America by conditionally revoking the “Orders of Council,” the orders which had virtually prohibited Americans from trading with France. The action came five days too late, for Congress had already declared war.

The United States was poorly prepared financially for a war with Great Britain. Congress had been having great difficulty in raiding money to keep the country solvent. There were only 11,000 officers and men in the regular army as compared with the adversary’s 300,000. The American navy consisted of 16 small men-of-war and 200 gunboats totaling 15,000 aggregate tonnage and equipped with 442 guns and 5,000 officers and men. Great Britain had a navy of 1,048 men-of-war with an aggregate tonnage of 870,000 tons and 28,000 guns manned by over 150,000 officers and men.

The formal declaration of war was made on June 18, 1812. It was approved in the House by a margin of 77 to 49. In the Senate, the vote was 19 to 13. Rather surprisingly, however, neither of Ohio’s Senators voted for the declaration of war; and one of them, Thomas Worthington, actually voted in the negative.

Unfortunately, the Secretary of War, William Eustis, apparently did not consider this act to be too important, for he failed to notify his field commanders until some days later. General Hull did not receive notification about the action taken by Congress until July 5 when he arrived in Detroit.

The British had received word four days earlier, and immediately sent out a gunboat to intercept and capture the Cuyahoga. Thus, all of Hull’s field notes and maps, a complete roster of troops including names and rank, the strength of regiments, battle plans and outlines of strategy plus all correspondence with the Secretary of War, came into the possession of the British and were immediately forwarded to Major General Sir Isaac Brock, the military commander of Upper Canada.

When General Hull learned of this embarrassing episode, he immediately sent a rather petulant letter to General Brock requesting in the interest of fair play and good sportsmanship that his personal papers be returned to him since he had not known that there was a war going on. It may be assumed that the British officers got a chuckle of this letter, if not a good belly laugh.

While Hull was establishing a base in Detroit for an ostensible move into Canada, General Edmund Munger was busy in Dayton reorganizing and strengthening the militia forces left behind. Lacking any previous battle experience or field command, Munger had been relegated to rear line duty. After the departure of the army from Camp Meigs, General Munger marched his militia from Hole’s Creek to this camp. Among his duties, as previously stated, were those of guarding all public stores and keeping the roads open as far as Piqua and Urbana.

Quartermaster commissary and ordnance stores moved forward through Dayton to Detroit. Captain Perry’s company of rangers was constantly scouting through the country between St. Mary’s and Fort Wayne, skirmishing with skulking parties of Indians and killing all they captured. Camp Meigs being an expedient location, a considerable backup force was kept assembled there and held ready for any required action on short notice. During slack periods, Daniel Cooper employed the militia to dig a race from First Street to Fifth Street, just east of Madison Street to a sawmill he built at Fifth Street.

The regular army opened a recruiting office in a tavern, enlisting men for five years service. A 16-dollar bounty was offered; and if the recruit served his term or was disabled in service, he was to receive three months additional pay and 160 acres of land. Men who enlisted for 18 months received the bounty but no land. On July 10, Governor Meigs, who was then in the state capitol at Chillicothe, ordered General Munger to disband his militia, as it was thought their services would no longer be needed.

General Hull was encouraged by his officers to make an immediate attack upon the opposing British forces in Canada. At the time, the British were woefully weak. General Brock at Fort Malden in Canada, about 20 miles south of Detroit at the mouth of the Detroit River on Lake Erie, had a force far inferior to the Americans. On July 12, Hull did lead 2,000 men across the river at Detroit to Sandwich, Ontario; but there, only 16 miles from Fort Malden, doubt assailed him as to his superiority in numbers. Also, many militia members, including two regiments from Michigan, refused to fight on foreign soil.

Frightened when he learned that reinforcements were on their way to Fort Malden, on August 8, Hull ordered an about-face and recrossed the river to Detroit. He probably also was influenced into making this decision when he received word that the garrison of 64 regular soldiers under Lieutenant Porter Hanks at Fort Michillimackinac on Lake Huron had been surprised and had been captured by a force of 600 British soldiers and Indians. This fort fell with incredible ease because the commandant had never been notified that the country was at war.

Hull, informed that Governor Meigs was sending reinforcements and more supplies under Captain Henry Brush, ordered Major Thomas B. VanHorne, and a detachment of 600 men to conduct the supply train to Detroit. Drawn into an ambush near Brownstown, VanHorne was badly defeated by Tecumseh with only 40 soldiers and 70 of his Indians.

Hull then ordered Fort Dearborn to be evacuated as well as the adjacent village of Chicago. Captain Nathan Heald was in command of 57 regular army men and some militia at Fort Dearborn; and he was ordered to bring these men to Detroit.

While en route, 400 Potawatomi and Winnebago Indians attacked under Chiefs Blackbird and Black Partridge. In the dreadful massacre that followed, one half the regulars were killed as well as 12 militia, plus two women and 12 children.

Among those killed was Captain William Wells who, as a boy, had lived for many years with Little Turtle and the Miami Indians. With his return to the white man’s society, he became despised by the Indians who swore to kill him. So, on this day, he blackened his face with gunpowder (an Indian act of defiance) and rode his mount at full gallop directly at the Indians hoping to be killed and thus avoid torture. His plan worked, for he was shot and killed by Chief Blackbird who then slit open his chest, ripped out his heart and ate part of it raw so that he could absorb some of Wells’ bravery.

Stories of these victories by the Indians brought 700 more of them to the British side; and to General Hull it brought a feeling of despair. General Brock, now aware of Hull’s mental paralysis and fear, took the offensive. He moved his force of 330 regulars, 400 Canadian militia and 600 Indians to Sandwich on August 13. Unaware of this action by the British, Hull send 350 of his men under his most capable officers, Colonels Duncan McArthur and Lewis Cass, to convoy the still expected relief expedition led by Captain Brush.

On August 15, General Brock opened fire on Detroit by lobbying a few shells into the fort without an answering fire. Playing upon Hull’s fears, the British general had dressed all his militia in regular army uniforms. The 600 Indians then trotted in double file across a clearing in the woods where they could be seen from the fort, then circled back through the woods to repeat their maneuver twice more. Thus, the Americans counted between 1,600 and 1,800 Indians with the British.

Brock called upon Hull to surrender unconditionally, declaring that he would not be able to control his large body of Indians once the attack began. The American commander was frightened by the prospect of a massacre of the many women, children and old people packed into the fort, including his own daughter and two grandchildren. The lack of discipline among the militia, the fall of Fort Michillimackinac and the truce on the Niagara front all affected Hull’s thinking. Possibly under the influence of alcohol, Hull’s behavior became increasingly disorganized and his speech became incoherent. He began crouching in the corners of the fort, dribbling tobacco juice and consulting with no one.

Hull waited on August 16 until the enemy was within a quarter mile of the fort and then disgracefully ran up a white flag, surrendering the fort without firing a shot. His officers could not believe what he had done and wept with the shame and frustration of it. Everything was surrendered to the British -- the fort and all its contents; 600 regular army men and 1,600 militia, 2,500 muskets; 33 pieces of heavy artillery; 40 barrels of gunpowder; a 16-gun brig, the Adams, a great many smaller craft; a baggage train of 100 pack animals, 300 cattle and provisions for 20 days.

The shameful surrender even included the detachment under Colonels McArthur and Cass which arrived at the fort to find the Indians butchering the cattle. The regular army men were sent as prisoners to Lower Canada. Out of contempt or compassion, the militia members were allowed to return home on parole without their muskets. Among them were some from Washington Township such as Peter Sunderland and Daniel Wilson. Tecumseh restrained his warriors and there was no general bloodshed.

Later, on September 10, 1812, Colonel Cass wrote to the Secretary of War expressing his indignant feelings on this sad event as follows:

“To see the whole of our men flushed with the hope of victory, eagerly awaiting the approaching contest, to see them afterwards dispirited, hopeless, desponding; at least five hundred shedding tears because they were not allowed to meet their country’s foes, and to fight their country’s battles, excited sensations which no American has ever before had cause to feel; and which I trust in God will never again be felt while one man remains to defend the standard of the Union.”41

It was a complete reversal of the plans and hopes of the Army of the Northwest. Instead of invading and conquering Canada, the American army had been eliminated without a real fight. The British forces now held all of the outlying American forts north and west of the Wabash Valley. On August 16, General Brock declared the territory of Michigan reannexed to Great Britain. His army had not suffered a single casualty.

Such an unprecedented victory marked the high point in a brilliant military career for Major General Sir Isaac Brock. It was his last victory. On October 13, 1812, he was killed in a battle at Queenstown, New York, when he led an assault to recapture a British gun position against an American force led by Major General Stephen Van Rensselaer. Brock’s death was a calamitous loss for the British. He was succeeded in command by the much less talented Colonel Henry A. Proctor.

A number of prisoners were eventually exchanged for General Hull; and nearly two years later, he was tried by court martial for treason, cowardice and conduct unworthy of an officer. On March 26, 1814, Hull was found guilty of the last two charges, and the death sentence was passed upon him. However, President Madison pardoned him on account of his service in the War for Independence. He lived until 1825, a virtual outcast, scorned by all his countrymen.

Since thousands of fighting men from Ohio were humiliated and disgraced by Hill’s betrayal, the people of Ohio were especially bitter and anguished. An Ohio ballad writer wrote a song that was sung all over the state. It began:

With Hull’s army completely erased, the entire frontier erupted in bloody skirmishing between Indians and settlers. Tecumseh was joined by many scattered bands of Miamis, Winnebagoes, Sacs, Ottawas, Sioux, Potawatomies, Cherokees, Creeks, Delawares, Kickapoos, and Shawnees. Much of Ohio from Lake Erie to the Ohio River was left unprotected except for the hastily reassembled militia, with the governor calling on General Edmund Munger to organize the defense.

News of Hull’s disgraceful surrender reached Dayton on Saturday, August 22, 1812, creating consternation and wide alarm among all the people there and in neighboring settlements. The first word of Hull’s surrender was brought to Dayton by one of local teamsters, who, seeing what was happening at Detroit, took his best horse and made his escape. The Ohio Centinel, when it received the news, immediately issued a handbill calling upon every able-bodied man to come to the aid of his country.

There was little sleep that Saturday night. Families worried about the fate of their loved one’s in Hull’s army. It was days later before their fate became known as the British released the militia along the shore of Lake Erie from Detroit to Cleveland to find their way home. Every man in Montgomery County who could furnish a musket or rifle reported for duty. By Sunday morning, less than 24 hours after the news came, a mounted company of 70 fully armed and equipped men under Captain James Steele was on its way to Piqua to guard the military stores there.

Five companies of volunteers and two companies of drafted men from all parts of the county assembled in Dayton. Captain Johnson, with a rifle company from Warren County, reported to Camp Meigs. Captain Caldwell, with a troop of horse from the same county, rode through the town on the way to Piqua. By Monday morning, six of the infantry companies had been organized into a battalion with Major George Adams in command; and that afternoon, 341 strong, they march north. Two companies of drafted men remained at Camp Meigs subject to the governor’s orders.

Monday evening and Tuesday morning several companies from adjoining counties marched through Dayton. Major Jenkinson with a battalion of 350 regular army men halted at Camp Meigs that Tuesday on their way to the front. A Greene County brigade under Brigadier General Benjamin Whiteman pushed to the front through Dayton. The rallying music of fife and drum could be heard continuously on the streets of Dayton. Never before or afterwards was there such an intense display of patriotism and excitement in the town.

From Urbana, Governor Meigs wrote the following order to General Munger, placing the organization of troops and the responsibility for defense squarely on his shoulders:

Sir – You will take immediate measures for the defense of the frontier within your command. You will cause blockhouses to be erected at suitable places. Advise the inhabitants to associate and erect suitable stations of defense in such way as to accommodate families. The astonishing fate of General Hull’s army has exposed the frontier to barbarians. I have written by express to the Secretary of War on the subject of defense. I hope soon to see the Kentucky army here, when a regular system of operations will be adopted. In the meantime, you will direct and advise the most judicious course.

General Munger immediately marched his brigade to Piqua where he directed the removal of public stores to Dayton and ordered Captain Steele’s company to advance to St. Mary’s where they built blockhouses for the defense of the town. This was the most advanced post along the Ohio frontier. Additional blockhouses were built for other small settlements in the area.

Prior to Hull’s surrender, the State of Kentucky enlisted thousands of settlers in their militia; and, contrary to law, since he was not a citizen of that state, the 39-year-old William Henry Harrison was appointed on August 20 to lead them to the relief of Hull. The federal government quickly commissioned him a brigadier general of the United States Army; but placed him second in command to Brigadier General James Winchester, a Tennessee planter and a Revolutionary War soldier who, like Hull, was old, fat, stubborn and pompous. He knew nothing of strategy and was actually thought by some to be somewhat dense.

Without awaiting orders from General Winchester, Harrison rode with his staff officers to catch up with the army of Kentuckians already on the march to Dayton. He intended to proceed to the relief of Fort Wayne then besieged by Indians. While en route to Cincinnati Harrison learned of Hull’s surrender. He continued his pursuit of the Kentucky army along the old Deerfield Road through Deerfield (now South Lebanon), Lebanon and Centerville.

The Jonathan Watkins family, who were building their stone house at the corner of what is now State Route 48 and Nutt Road, ran half a mile west through the woods to see the army as it marched along what is now Sheehan Road. The army encamped for the night in the prairie at the southeast corner of State Route 48 and Whipp Road. It was here that Harrison caught up with his army.

The story is told that as the general passed through Centerville, he observed a young girl making a desperate effort to mount a colt. Believing that the martial music of his escort was disturbing the animal, he ordered the music to cease. Meanwhile, the girt succeeded in mounting the skittish horse. “Strike up the band,” ordered the general, “there is no danger of that girl being thrown.” Arriving at the Sign of the Crossed Keys Tavern at the northeast corner of Main and Franklin Streets, he inquired as to the girl’s name so he could compliment her on her horsemanship. It can be assumed that he also assuaged his thirst while there. The girl was Sally Archer, daughter of John Archer who built the log tavern in 1802 and operated it for 20 years.44

On Monday afternoon, August 31, Colonel Samuel Wells arrived in Dayton with nearly 400 men of the 17th United States Regiment as did Captain William Garrard with a volunteer troop of horse from Bourbon County, Kentucky. The following morning, September 1, General William Henry Harrison entered the town. As a mark of respect for the hero of Tippecanoe and as a measure of their relief, the citizens fired off a salute of 18 guns. Just as the general was being received in front of the courthouse, Brigadier General John Payne arrived in town, marching some 1,800 members of three Kentucky regiments up Main Street to Second Street where they were greeted with the discharge of cannons.

While engaged in firing the salute to Harrison, a Mr. Wright had one hand shot off and the other badly injured. On the following day, the Ohio Centinel printed a letter from Harrison’s aide-de-camp, Asa Payne, in which he first expressed Harrison’s thanks to the citizens of Dayton for the respect paid the Kentuckians and ended with the statement: “They feelingly commiserate with the citizen who, in paying them that tribute, was maimed by the accidental going off of the cannon, and they beg leave to present to him a small sum of money, a voluntary contribution of the officers toward defraying the expense of his care.”45 This kind note only served to increase the admiration of local people for Harrison.

General Harrison left Dayton for Piqua on the morning of September 2. At this time two regiments of Montgomery County militia were stationed at Piqua. Major George Adams’ battalion at Piqua was ordered to Fort Barbee at St. Mary’s and Colonel Jerome Holt and his regiment was ordered to Greenville where they were directed to build a fort and stockade. Fort MacArthur was garrisoned with Ohio militia, and the fortifications there and at Urbana were enlarged. Reinforcements were sent to Fort Loramie, and the defenses there were strengthened. General Munger went back to organizing militia reinforcements and protecting the ever increasing flow of supplies to the various army units.

Both Governor Meigs and General Harrison issued calls for more volunteers from Ohio as the Indian threat increased. Fort Wayne already was under siege. The request was for just 30 days service, with the volunteers to provide their own horses, rifles, salted provisions and biscuits. The army provided the ammunition and other essentials. Horses became an acute necessity; and Harrison issued a personal call for 800, fully equipped with saddles and bridles, for which he offered to pay fifty cents a day. This almost equaled the daily pay of the militia.

Kentucky volunteers continued to pour into Dayton and Camp Meigs. Three hundred mounted infantry, commanded by Major Richard M. Johnson, arrived in town on Sunday, September 6, and bivouacked on Main Street. They left the next day for Piqua. The brigade under command of General Payne which had proceeded to Piqua after a few days stay in Dayton, was ordered to St. Mary’s; and a thousand men also marched there from Urbana.

The Potawatomies and Ottawas under Chief Winnemac attacked Fort Wayne on September 3. This fort was defended by 70 men under the command of Captain Oscar Rhea. After losing 18 braves, these Indians fled on the 12th just ahead of the arrival of General Harrison and his imposing army. Simultaneously with the attack on Fort Wayne, a body of Miamis, Winnebagoes and a few Kickapoos attacked and set fire to Fort Harrison at Terre Haute but a band of only 50 men, commanded by Captain Zachary Taylor, held them off. They hovered about for eight days, then frustrated, they left and went to the white settlement of Pigeon Roost, on a branch of the White River, and massacred twenty-one men, women and children.

General Harrison left St. Mary’s for Fort Wayne on September 9, and arrived three days later with an army which by then numbered 4,000 men. Finding that the Indians had fled, he ordered a number of Indian villages destroyed, and he then marched his army back to St. Mary’s. Major Adams’ battalion was discharged from duty at St. Mary’s and sent home. It was on September 24 that Harrison learned he had been promoted to Major General and commander-in-chief of the entire Army of the Northwest with orders to retake Detroit.

Even with all the supplies moving forward through Dayton, there was a shortage of warm clothing and blankets. On September 27, General Harrison wrote a letter to the ladies of Dayton soliciting their “assistance in making shirts for the brave defenders.” The shirts were to be made of materials furnished by the Indian Department that had been purchased originally for the now hostile Indians. The ladies of Montgomery County, without compensation, had 1,800 shirts ready by October 14.

General Harrison with his cavalry of almost 1,000 men, under the command of General Edward W. Tupper, rode up the Auglaize River. They erected Fort Ferree at Upper Sandusky, Fort Ball at the site of Tiffin and Fort Stevenson at Lower Sandusky. General Winchester, after a pause for refreshments in Dayton, rode with his troops to Fort Defiance at the confluence of the Auglaize and Wabash Rivers. Finding the fort in ruins, they rebuilt it on a larger scale and renamed it Fort Winchester on October 15.

With the bulk of the army in the northern area of the state, the Indians became more aggressive around Dayton, generating considerable alarm. They were very troublesome in Preble and Greene Counties. A number of people were murdered by roving bands of Indians, including two little girls who were killed October 2 within half a mile of Greenville. Two blockhouses were built just outside North Dayton as the scare continued.

General Harrison had to delay until spring his campaign to retake Detroit. Food and ammunition were in short supply. Heavy rains in November had made quagmires of the supply routes and prevented any military movements for the winter. The Pennsylvania and Virginia troops established a base at Upper Sandusky, while the Ohio, Indiana and some Virginia volunteers under the command of General Tupper were in Urbana. Harrison and his Kentucky volunteers established a headquarters at Franklintown (Columbus).

From this time on through September of 1813, Government agents were stationed in Dayton to buy all that farmers and dealers would sell of pickled pork, bacon, whiskey, cornmeal, flour, tow-linen, cattle, horses and grain. Business in all surrounding towns was brisk. Supplies were forwarded by pack animals and wagons; and, when possible, by boats up the Miami, Auglaize and Maumee Rivers with portages between as necessary.

With colder weather and frozen ground, sleds were employed. Colonel Robert Patterson, who was in charge of the transportation of supplies to the army, advertised for fifty ox-sleds and fifty horse-sleds to be leased or sold to the Government by local farmers. Supplies were delivered to a Government warehouse on the west side of Main Street between Water Street (Monument Avenue) and First Street. Three dollars a day was paid for sleds that would haul six barrels of flour. Eight dollars a barrel was paid for flour delivered to Piqua or Urbana, and ten dollars if delivered at St. Mary’s.

About December 1, Lieutenant Colonel John B. Campbell of the Nineteenth United States Infantry arrived in Dayton. These new troops under his command included a squadron of Kentucky dragoons, two companies of United States Infantry, a Pennsylvania troop of horse and a detachment of Michigan militia plus a troop of horse; altogether 700 strong. They remained in town until the 11th to obtain horses for all the men, and then, after drawing ten days rations and forage, they moved on to the Mississinewa River. There, near Muncietown on December 12, they surprised a large village of Delawares and Miamis, killing, wounding and capturing many of the Indians. Three other villages were destroyed that same bitter cold day.

These troops were attacked the following day by reinforced Indian warriors, but after an hour’s battle, they were again victorious. They paid a price for the victory with eight of Campbell’s men killed and 48 wounded. The Indian losses were 30 killed, 60 wounded and 43 prisoners. However, this small army had used up its supply of food and forage, the wounded lacked surgical attention and nursing care, and exposure to the extreme cold had frosted either the feet or hands, and ears of nearly everyone. Even the horses were in a starving condition and nearly one-half had been killed or lost.

On the 22nd, Major Adams arrived with his 95 men from Fort Greenville and supplied the starving soldiers with half rations. The next day, Colonel Jerome Holt came to their assistance so that they were able to march to Greenville utilizing litters to cart the wounded. They arrived back in Dayton on Sunday, the 27th, where they rested for a few days before moving on to Franklintown. Only 203 of the men were fit for duty. Two had died on the road. Dayton homes were opened to the wounded and their weary companions. Every home had four or five soldiers and the churches suspended all Sunday services so the ladies could minister to those who needed care, as Dayton became a sprawling hospital. Several sounded did not survive and were buried in the town.

More than 30 captive Indians were paraded through the streets of Dayton, and then held as hostages for the good behavior of their tribes. One thousand Indians of the Miami and Delaware tribes, which had been reduced to a starving condition by Campbell’s expedition, came to Piqua to place themselves under the care of the Indian agent employed by the government.

In his annual message in December 1812, Governor Meigs made an emotional appeal for vigorous persecution of the war:

“On the ocean your impressed brethren are compelled by the torturing lash to raise their unwilling arms against the country of their birth, and in maritime exile drag out an unhappy existence. On the west, the hordes of barbarians stimulated by British influences, tear alike the scalp from the mother and the infant in her arms, and with relentless fury stain the land of freedom with the blood of her sons.”46

Even while the governor was making this appeal at a time when the fortunes of war still favored the British, the Eleventh Legislature of the State of Ohio turned to more important affairs. A law was enacted whereby “...any person who has a billiard table in their house, outhouse or other building,” or procuring such a table would “...be fined $100 for the use of the county where such offense is committed,” The evils of such “devil’s play” seemingly were far more important to control than the defense of the nation. Faro was singled out by this same Legislature with a special law that made playing the game “punishable by fines of $50 to $200.” Anyone bringing a pack of playing cards into the state was made subject to a fine of $5 to $20.47

Eventually, however, the members of this Legislature did get around to the subject of the war and passed an act appropriating $40,000 to enable General Harrison to carry out contemplated action against the British forces. This was by far the largest appropriation for any single purpose since the state had come into existence.

Contrary to the instructions of General Harrison, an army of 1,300 men under General Winchester started down the Maumee River in January. They had been ordered southward to Fort Jennings to protect the supply route. Instead, Winchester responded to the citizens of Frenchtown (now Monroe, Michigan) at the mouth of the Raisin River, who appealed for protection against a possible massacre by a large force of British and Indians that was marching toward the town. A detached force of 660 men under Colonel William Lewis attacked the enemy on January 18, 1813, and the Americans won a spirited engagement among the snowdrifts.

General Winchester arrived later with 300 more men on the 20th and established himself in a fine home about three-quarters of a mile from his men, where he could enjoy good living. Like Hull, Winchester was far past his prime as a soldier. He disregarded the warnings of spies about a larger force of British and Indians in the area, and failed to take precautions against a surprise attack. He did not even order pickets or patrols and the officers were billeted at some distance from their troops. Entirely undiscovered, the enemy force of 1,200 under Colonel Henry Proctor attacked at daybreak on the morning of the 22nd. General Winchester was captured in the first minutes of the attack by the Wyandotte Chief Roundhead and was persuaded to order his troops to surrender.

The men did not give up until they were assured that their wounded would be cared for and all would be protected from the Indians. Proctor gave his word, but after the surrender was consummated, he turned the wounded over to Chiefs Roundhead and Walk-in-Water and their tribes. Two houses containing about 30 bedridden wounded were put to the torch. The approximate 100 ambulatory wounded, for the most part were tomahawked along the march back to Fort Malden. Only 33 survived the march. In all, Winchester sacrificed 32 officers and 474 non-commissioned officers and rank and file killed, wounded and missing. Still another monumental defeat for the American forces, the battle did make “Remember the Raisin” an inspiring slogan and a future battle cry.

When word reached Harrison of Winchester’s impetuous move north, he immediately recognized the danger and sent a detachment under General Payne to render aid; but when word reached Payne concerning the total defeat of Winchester’s army, he wisely turned back. Disgusted with their leadership, and with their term of enlistments having expired, many Ohio and Kentucky troops returned home through Dayton in February; and usually spent a night on Main Street.

Following Winchester’s defeat, General Harrison with 1,200 men marched to the Maumee River where, on a high plateau 150 yards from the bank of the river near the Rapids, he caused to be built in February a magnificent fortification in the form of an irregular ellipse with eight two-story blockhouses. Fort Meigs, near the present town of Perrysburg, was ideally located for receiving supplies. Harrison, now short of manpower, was forced to give up his campaign to retake Detroit until spring when reinforcements might be available.

General Munger continued his efforts during the winter to recruit more volunteers for his militia brigade whose ranks were constantly being reduced as more and more men were called into front-line service. At the end of 1812, he submitted still another “Return” to General Gano in Cincinnati. His command was still at substrength as he reported that the Fifth Brigade of the First Division numbered just 1,813, including 142 officers, 329 non-commissioned officers and 1,342 rank and file. Among these were 88 in the cavalry and 238 riflemen, plus 45 musicians. Sadly, these men were poorly equipped; as the report shows they had only 860 rifles and 150 muskets, plus four pairs of pistols and 67 swords. There were even eight fewer horses than there were cavalrymen.48

By March 10, 1813, the supply situation was so desperate that General Munger wrote to General Gano the following letter:

By the Bearer, Mr. Lowry, you will be informed of the Situation of our frontier. There has been application made to me for A Number of arms to be sent to Troy for use of the Militia in that neighborhood -- the Arms that Mr. Phillips brought up we wanted for those men that are sent in on the frontier Posts at Greenville and other Places. The greatest part of the Arms we drew last fall from Newport was Delivered to the thirty-day men under General Harrison’s call. The Officers who received them became accountable for them, but by an Order from Genl. Harrison, the Arms were left at St. Marys - and by that means we are Destitute of arms in this Brigade. If there could be any got on the Orders the Governor gave me which is in your hands, Mr. Lowry would Convey them up. I expect our frontier will be Harraassed this Spring by the savages and it becomes me to be prepared to meet such an Event. I have the fullest confidence that you will use every Endeavor to assist us that is in your Power.

I received a letter from Genl. Harrison on the 17th of Decb. he informed me that the Miamis had returned to Chicago and united with the Pottawattomies. We Expect they will be very active the Ensuing Season.

By the Governor’s recommendations, I have convened the field Officers of this Brigade and Consulted the most Imminent measures to be adopted for the defense of our frontiers. It was Concluded necessary Place five Companies on the frontiers of this Brigade and the Command was given to Major Price of the 3rd Regt. Since his appointment I received A Letter from Major Lanier of 1st. Regt. in which he Claims his right as Seignor Officer. You, sir, will recollect that both Commissions have one date and it is Stated to me you had by their request Decided in favor of Major Price.

I wish, Sir, you would be so kind as to send by Mr. Lowrey, your Decision on that subject, as Major Lanier appears to be Determined to obtain the Seigniority.

Sir: Yours of the 10th I Recd. by Mr. Lowrey, yesterday and at the same time an Express from Govn. Meigs ordering me to send 3 Companies more to the St. Marys which I have ordered to Rendievous at Dayton on the 24th. I have ordered them from the 3 lower Brigades -- as I am confident the 4th & 5 will have as much necessity for their men as ever they have had, at present it is out of my power to furnish you with more arms the order you mention was delivered to the Military Store Keeper Newport with a Receipt on it for the number Recd. as it has to be reported to the Secretary of War and the State charged with them which makes it necessary that when they are Delivered to the public at any post or Place they should be receipted for as a Credit. I have drawn near 3,000 Stands on the Govn. of my own order and have not 150 on had and have been strongly solicited for 3 times that number on the N. West which is much exposed. The Govn. ordered me to keep 400 Stands in care of emergency in that quarter. Tho I have sent to you a part and the Volunteers last summer a part, which was also Deposited at St. Marys which I have Receipt for. I expect Genl. Harrison here Daily as soon as he arrives I will apply to him on your behalf and if possible have arrangements made to meet your request.

There were others in short supply of food and basic necessities, and, in particular, manpower. The wives and children who were left behind had a most difficult time as noted in the memoirs of the daughter of United States Senator Thomas Worthington who wrote:

“The horrors and sufferings of the first year of the war can never be forgotten by the people of that generation. The country was depopulated of men, and farmer-women, weak and sickly as they often were, and surrounded by their helpless little children, were obliged, for want of bread, to till their fields until frequently they sank exhausted and dying under the toil to which they were unequal.”51

In March 1813, the enlistment period for many of the Virginia and Pennsylvania troops expired and their return to their homes weakened the forces stationed at Fort Meigs. Only 1,100 effective soldiers remained. It was at this low point, on April 23, that newly commissioned General Henry A. Proctor with 522 British regulars, 462 Canadian militia and 1,200 Indians crossed the Detroit River. By the 30th, the British had two batteries of cannon set up: one almost opposite Fort Meigs on the northern shore of the Maumee River and the other in a clearing on a hill on the south bank within 250 yards of the fort.

Harrison ordered all tents erected side by side the entire length of the fort. Behind them and hidden from the view of the British observers, he had two traverses dug during a continuous downpour of rain. The main traverse was 900 feet long and the second several hundred feet shorter. Both were 12 feet high and 20 feet wide. A number of rooms for protection during the anticipated cannonade were dug at angles from the bottom of the trenches.

The siege began at 2:00 a.m. on May 1 when two British gunboats opened fire. Then, for three days the British fired their cannon almost incessantly from the batteries across the river. Harrison’s traverses, however, kept the loss of life surprisingly low. The soldiers within the fort were helped in dodging the shot by one audacious soldier who exposed himself above the walls of the fort and informed the troops below where the flight of each cannonball indicated it would fall. Unfortunately, after a couple of days, he became careless and had his back turned toward the British lines for a moment and an undetected shot took away his head.

General Harrison offered a gill of whiskey for every cannonball turned in for re-use in American guns. By the end of the third day over a thousand gills of spirits had been earned by the soldiers who made a fun contest out of what might have been a disaster.

Some of the soldiers even sneaked outside the fort after dark to pick up shot they had located during the previous day. After the siege was lifted, the Americans had more shot than when it started.

When a Major Chambers appeared at the fort on May 4 under a flag of truce to demand an unconditional surrender of the few American troops the British thought to be alive, he was chagrined to find no bodies lying around and seemingly no wounded. The Americans all appeared quite cheerful, and they did cheer when Harrison informed the British officer that they never would surrender. During the siege, the British had fired 1,700 shot and shell into the fort; yet, thanks to Harrison’s planning only 16 men were killed within the fort and 66 were wounded.

General Green Clay approached the fort on May 7 with 1,200 Kentucky militiamen who had spent one April night encamped in the mud of Main Street in Dayton en route to join up with Harrison. They had traversed the Auglaize River on 18 flat bottom boats. A detachment of 866 men under Colonel William Dudley, including 250 men from the fort, overran the British batteries and spiked eleven of the guns. The troops under Colonel Dudley, whose enthusiasm could not be restrained, disregarded orders and chased after the British and Indians until they were led into a planned ambush and were trapped in a ravine by a superior force.

More than 700 of Dudley’s men, including Colonel Dudley, were killed, wounded or captured. Only 170 escaped. General Proctor gave the Indians leave to kill any of the captured Americans by whatever method desired. The massacre continued for two hours until Tecumseh arrived on the scene and put a stop to the carnage by burying his tomahawk in the head of a defiant chief. In his contempt for Proctor who claimed he couldn’t control the Indians, Tecumseh told him to “put on petticoats,” as he was not fit to command.

Under a flag of truce while captives were being exchanged, Harrison successfully managed to obtain the supplies and ammunition General Clay had brought in his boats.

Tired of the long siege, the main body of Indians drifted away. By May 8, only Tecumseh with 20 other chiefs and 400 warriors were left. Tecumseh is reported to have said, quite disgustedly: “It is hard to fight people who live like groundhogs.” The Canadian militia announced their intention to return home to plant their crops. On May 9, the completely baffled and badly crippled British army lifted the siege, withdrew and departed for Detroit.

On July 24, with 950 regulars and between 3,000 and 4,000 Indians, Proctor started another expedition against Fort Meigs then under the command of General Green Clay; but again the British gave up after a couple of days when they failed to breach the fort or to draw out the Americans. Tecumseh had planned and his warriors carried out a sham battle in the woods hoping that the troops in the fort would rush out thinking that reinforcements were involved. The troopers did importune General Clay to do just that but the general was not fooled by the subterfuge.

Proctor then sailed into Sandusky Bay while a reduced force of Indian allies walked through the swamps of the Portage River to the small post of Fort Stephenson near the Sandusky River on the site of the present city of Fremont. This fort was manned by 160 troops under command of 21-year-old Major George Croghan, a nephew of General George Rogers Clark. Ordered by Harrison to abandon the fort in the face of over-whelming odds, the young officer decided it would be safer to stay since the fort was surrounded by Indians.

To Proctor’s demand on August 1 for surrender to his army of 1,300 British regulars and Indians, Croghan replied: “When the garrison surrenders there will be none left to massacre, as it will not be given up while there is one man able to fight.”52 The British opened their attack with the six-pound cannons on their gunboats and from howitzers positioned on land just 250 yards from the fort. Croghan had but one cannon, “Old Betsy,” which he kept loading with slugs and scraps of iron. The location of the gun was constantly changed to create the impression of several cannon in the fort.

When it became evident from the intensity of artillery fire that the British intended to force the fort at the northwest angle, Croghan moved his gun to the blockhouse where its position was masked. Late in the afternoon, when the assault was made, the British forces weathered the deadly fire of the Kentuckians to reach the 18-foot deep ditch around the stockade. When the ditch was filled with soldiers and Indians, “Old Betsy” was unmasked and a double charge of slugs and scrap metal was fired down the length of the ditch. This action was repeated as the British sent in a second wave of soldiers.

In a half hour, Proctor lost 150 men, including two officers, while the small garrison lost but one man and seven were wounded. Early in the morning of August 3, Proctor, repulsed in Ohio for the third time, and afraid of Harrison arriving with reinforcements, sailed down the Niagara River for Lake Erie, leaving a sailboat, considerable military stores and his dead to the Americans. The defense of this fort by a handful of Kentuckians, commanded by a virtual youth, ranks at the very top of brilliant victories in the history of the United States.

While this land fighting was going on in Ohio, 28-year-old Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry designed and built, with the expert help of Captain Daniel Dobbins, a fleet of five ships at Black Rock near Erie, Pennsylvania. The ships were built behind the protection of a sandbar at the entrance of Presque Isle Bay, safe from enemy attack. There were no ships or mills nearby. Every detail of the vessels had to be wrought by hand. Sails, fittings and cannon had to be dragged over Indian trails from the East. Carpenters were sent from Pittsburgh along with militia to guard the workers.

All this activity was closely scrutinized by the British who could do nothing as long as the ships being built were kept out of Lake Erie. On July 31, the British fleet, under the direction of Commodore Robert H. Barclay, left their screening post and sailed to the aid of General Proctor in withdrawing from Fort Stephenson. Perry immediately had his new ships stripped of everything -- guns, ballast, ammunition, etc., and by a laborious procedure employing two large scows, he was able to float his new fleet over the sandbar. He sailed westward toward Put-in-Bay in the Bass Islands.

In the early morning of September 10, 1813, the British fleet of six ships and 69 guns left Amherstburgh and Fort Malden, and moved in short formation across Lake Erie to a position off Catawba Point. By noon, the British had opened fire with their long guns on the fleet of nine American vessels (55 guns). The British had the advantage of long-range guns, while the American firepower was superior at close quarters, and they had the faster ships.

In the early going, the American flagship, The Lawrence, was rendered useless and in a sinking condition with only twenty men out of its crew of 103 still able to fight. Transferring in an open boat under enemy fire to the Niagara, Perry directed the firepower of the American ships so well that at 2:50 p.m. the British surrendered with every commanding officer and his second officer either killed or severely wounded.

Shortly after the battle, Perry wrote his famous note to General Harrison on the back of an old letter. It read:

We have met the enemy and they are ours: two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop.

The British lost 44 killed and 103 wounded while the American loss was 21 killed and 63 wounded. Six hundred of the enemy were made prisoners. This was the first time that a whole British squadron ever surrendered to an enemy. The sea victory was decisive not only for yielding control of Lake Erie to the Americans, but it was a decisive factor in the entire military campaign in the northwest. It also proved quite influential later during the peace negotiations.

The loss of the British fleet made continued operation in Ohio and Michigan by the British army and Indian allies impossible because their supply lines had been effectively cut off. Conditions for Proctor were becoming disastrous as he needed food supplies for 14,000 Indians as well as his own men. General Proctor was forced to order a retreat from Fort Malden up the Thames River in Ontario on September 27. The fort was set afire as 830 British Redcoats and 1,700 Indians pulled out. Nothing salvageable was left behind; only the realization that the campaign to conquer Ohio was finished.

While all of this was happening in September, General Isaac Shelby, the Governor of Kentucky, passed through Dayton with an army of 3,500 Kentuckians on his way to join General Harrison. On October 2, this relief army joined the 5,000 soldiers in Harrison’s army, plus 200 friendly Indians and Colonel M. Johnston’s mounted regiment. Most of the soldiers under Harrison had embarked at Sandusky Bay on September 27 on the American fleet supplemented by the captured British ships to cross Lake Erie and go ashore at Fort Malden. Colonel Johnston and his mounted regiment rode overland around the western end of the lake.

Five miles from the mouth of the Thames River, the army was met by a band of Wyandots under Chief Walk-in-Water. They became the first Indians to surrender to the Americans. On October 5, there was a brief skirmish with the remaining Indians under Tecumseh before the final battle with the British and their allies near a Delaware Moravian Indian town on the Thames River about 85 miles from Fort Malden. Colonel Johnston and his mounted soldiers broke through the two English lines with ease and almost before the battle was joined, the English, faced now with an enemy at their front and back, surrendered. General Proctor fled in terror with 246 of his soldiers. The British had even failed to fire their cannon.

Harrison, in his report, said: “Our column broke through the enemy with irresistible force. In one minute the contest in front was over. The British officers, seeing no hope for reducing their disordered ranks to order, and our mounted men wheeling upon them and pouring on a destructive fire, immediately surrendered.”54 The fame achieved by Colonel Johnston in this battle led later to his election as a Vice President of the United States. General William Henry Harrison, of course, became the ninth President of this nation.

The 1,000 remaining Indian allies of the British fought with savage desperation, but, they, too, soon melted away into the forest when it became known that Tecumseh, as he had predicted the night before, had been slain in the battle. Colonel Johnston claimed that he had been the one who fired the fatal shot. Tecumseh’s body quickly disappeared. The Indians apparently removed it from the battlefield. On October 13, 1813, General Harrison issued a proclamation announcing an armistice arranged with all the warring Indian tribes. The Indian confederacy was ended. The war in Ohio was unofficially over.

In the decisive Battle of the Thames almost 600 British officers and men were killed, wounded or captured. Harrison reported his casualties to be 29, of whom seven were killed. Proctor and his small band of survivors made a fast but orderly retreat to Burlington, Ontario.

There were still some small skirmishes along the lower end of Lake Erie, and a few of the Ohio militia did not return home until 1814. Dayton and the nearby towns were filled with excitement and rejoicing. The town was crowded for many days with families from every part of Montgomery County waiting to joyously greet husbands, fathers and sweethearts. For many nights there were Kentucky regiments bivouacking on Main Street. These were riotously happy and noisy days.

Some of the Ohio militia, as mentioned, were retained in service into 1814 while others were called out for short tours of duty early in that year at St. Mary’s, Greenville, Fort Wayne, Fort Defiance and Detroit. General Harrison abruptly resigned his commission on May 11, 1814. He had been given very little to do by Secretary of War John Armstrong even though the war continued in other parts of the nation.

Armstrong had never liked Harrison and faulted his campaigns with the Army of the Northwest. Then, in 1814, the War Department questioned Harrison’s financial accounts. His disposition of funds, purchases made at inflated prices, and use of private purchasing agents was considered quite irregular, self-serving and possibly bordering on the corrupt.

The war officially ended on February 15, 1815, with the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent by the United States Senate. The Governor of Ohio designated Friday, March 31, 1815 as a day of thanksgiving for peace with Great Britain. The State of Ohio had carried more than its share of the burden of the war: 24,521 enlisted men and 1,759 officers served their state in the military forces. Ohio furnished almost three times as many soldiers, in proportion to the population of the state, as any state east of the Alleghenies -- ten times as many as some of them.

Still, little glory was achieved by Ohio volunteers. Harrison, for some personal reason, was partial to the use of Kentuckians in combat. So bitter was General John S. Gano that he expressed his feeling to a friend in these words: “The militia of Ohio have been made packhorses and merely served as convenience for others to receive the honor and glory.”55

An unpopular war in much of the country, costly and commercially damaging, it probably need never have been fought. None of the stated objectives for the war were achieved except for effectively ending the large scale harassment of American frontiers and shipping by the British. However, for the first time there was general recognition by the Old World that here was a new nation capable of defending its rights and prepared to command respect.

With the ending of the war, and at age 52, Edmund Munger resigned his commission in the militia. He had been denied the opportunity for meritorious service in combat, but he earned the respect and accolades of his men, his peers and his neighbors for a solid performance in raising militia troops, organizing and training them, guarding supply lines, and in preventing any massacres in southwestern Ohio.

He never faltered or failed a command or assigned duty. When Hull so ignominiously surrendered, he quickly mustered a militia force that stood for a time as the only deterrent to the sweep of the British and their Indian allies through Ohio. Edmund Munger could always look back on his notable military career with pride and an inner satisfaction.

With the ending of the war, Edmund returned to his more prosaic life as a farmer and blacksmith, although he did begin to curtail the size of his farming activities. He continued his service to his community. Somehow he had managed to fulfill his duties as the township clerk during the war years, and as previously mentioned, he continued to serve in this capacity through the year 1827.

In 1815, Edmund and Eunice Munger began parceling out their farm acreage among four of their older sons. Starting with the land immediately north of Social Row Road and east of Yankee Street, they transferred 86 acres to their son Edmund Kellogg and his wife Mary Cole Munger. Edmund Kellogg retained the land but a short time, for the family sold out and moved to Fayette County, Indiana. The house on this land at 10268 Yankee Street was probably built by Jacob Hibbert in 1835.

Just north of the land given to Edmund Kellogg Munger, the parents gave another 86 acres to their son, Reuben, not then married. Reuben Munger kept his land only four years, selling it just before his marriage in 1820 to Laura Harris. The house at 9890 Yankee Street was probably started by John and Mercy Haines who purchased the farm from Reuben.

Truman and his wife, Elizabeth Cole Munger, received the remaining section of 86 acres off the farmland lying on the east side of Yankee Street. Truman joined his brother Edmund Kellogg in 1821, moving to Fayette County, Indiana. Later, the couple moved to Illinois.

A fourth segment of the original farm, this one of 81 acres north of Edmund’s house on the west side of Yankee Street, was deeded over to his son Milton Munger and wife Malinda Maltbie. Milton built a one-room house on this land. The couple eventually moved to Piqua, selling the farm to Moses Marquis in 1851, who then enlarged the house now standing at 9579 Yankee Street, retaining the original house as the living room. Edmund and Eunice Munger retained 171 acres of their original land grant.

It is interesting to note that all four sons who received land from their father soon sold it and eventually moved out of the county, although Reuben returned in 1827. After selling their land, all four moved where cheaper land was available. Only Festus Elizur Munger remained loyal to the old homestead. In 1852 he purchased his father’s farm when it was ordered sold by order of the court following the death of Edmund.

After the War of 1812, life improved considerably for all the folks on Yankee Street. By 1816, money was in greater supply and more goods were available from the East. The farms became self-supporting. Crops were marketed more widely. The raising of hogs became quite profitable as the market demand in Cincinnati began to grow. With improvement in their financial position, the farmers and merchants in Washington Township gave consideration to investments that would further advance their living standards.

In 1816, David and Nancy Hole, a son and daughter of Dr. John Hole, sold 61 acres on the north boundary of Section 32 to Thomas Clawson and William Luce. These men were the principal motivators in forming the Farmers and Mechanics Manufacturing Company at an October 15 meeting at the home of John Archer.56 The company constructed a five-story brick spinning and weaving mill, dam and raceway in 1817 along the north branch of Holes Creek -- a mill that eventually employed 200 persons and utilized 1,200 spindles.

The stockholders elected Benjamin Maltbie, Thomas Clawson and Thomas Newton was managers. Edmund Munger was one of the 37 stockholders in the company. The company also platted and sold lots in the town of Woodbourne built around the mill. Edmund bought a number of the lots, eventually selling the last one in 1845.

At the time that Woodbourne was platted, it was believed that it would soon rival Dayton in size. Edmund Munger, however, sensed that everything was not as rosy as it had been painted, and on July 3, 1819, he sold his stock in the enterprise. The mill and the town continued their faltering existence until 1847 when a flooding of Holes Creek forced the closing of the mill. The town gradually disappeared.

Edmund Munger next turned his attention to providing his wife and younger children with a more comfortable home. In the spring of 1820,57 Edmund ordered 120 loads of stones from the nearby Garard quarry on Sheehan Road (at 80 cents a ton). These stones undoubtedly were used in building the foundation and basement for the large, two-story brick house at 9955 Yankee Street, and probably for the foundation of the large barn back of it. His brother, Jonathan, an expert stonemason, may have been responsible for the stonework.

The 1826 tax records, which are the earliest to list the value of land (including houses) show that a substantial house was there by that time. The brick exterior of this house shows great craftsmanship combining Flemish and American bond brickwork with corbelled brickwork as decoration. It set a standard for fine brickwork for homes built later on Yankee Street. The interior of the house, however, was extensively remodeled near the turn of the century and no longer reflects the early design.

The Washington Township Trustee Minutes help to establish the location of General Munger’s brick home in his tract. In 1834, the trustees were to meet with the Miami Township trustees at Schoolhouse Number 7 “near General Munger’s house.” The location of this schoolhouse is established by deeds and maps as being located near the present site of the Yankee Street substation of the Dayton Power and Light Company. The general’s house, now owned by the utility, is immediately north of the substation.

In 1826, General Munger was called upon once again to serve his neighbors. That year, in the June session, the county commissioners appointed Abraham Darst, John Folkerth, John C. Neely, Abraham Troxell, Henry Oldfather, John Erhstim and Edmund Munger to take charge of and manage the affairs of the poor. At the June 19 meeting of the committee, Munger was elected president.58

With a rapidly growing population in the county, the number of paupers also increased each year. To meet the growing need of the poor and homeless, the committee, with the approval of the county commissioners, purchased the 166-acre James B. Oliver farm a few miles southwest of Dayton in Jefferson Township. There they had a 16x40 foot log building erected to house the indigent. The expenses for the first year were $309.81-1/4. With the termination of this particular service, Edmund Munger ended his public service career.

The first recorded congregational meeting of the Washington Presbyterian Church took place on November 29, 1813. At that time three trustees were chosen. Jonathan Munger, Edmund Munger and Ira Mead. Four years later, the first minutes of a church session were recorded and these persons were taken into full membership in the church: Noah Tibbals, Benjamin Maltbie, George and Peggy Reeder, Edmund and Eunice Kellogg Munger, Jonathan and Elizabeth Lawrence Munger, Seth and Eunice Kellogg, Andrew Bailey and Olive Porter. Three of these members were elected elders of the church and ordained. They were Edmund Munger, George Reeder and Benjamin Maltbie.59

In the spring of 1829, almost two acres of land were purchased upon which to build a church. Jonathan Munger is said to have provided this land which was sold to him for 35 dollars. The original plan was to locate in Centerville, and $906 was raised by subscription for a building. Later, Miamisburg parishioners succeeded in changing the plan to consider a more central location between the two towns. So, a quaint brick church was built on the Miamisburg-Centerville Pike at what is now Washington Church Road.

With a church building finally a reality, the congregation brought in the Reverend John Belville, an influential and well-known minister, on March 24, 1830 as the ordained head of the little church. This minister, who also was one of the most affluent residents in the township, gave another quarter acre of land to the church so there would be an adequate area for a burial ground.

After so many years of harmonious meetings in homes and barns, a dispute soon arose after the new church building was completed. The congregation became severely split, and Edmund Munger was a dominant force in the altercation. In 1833, the trustees were empowered to raise money for the minister’s salary by selecting a number of seats or pews and selling them for a set price. This action brought forth all the Puritan morality in the Munger brothers. They could not accept a practice of religion that restricted freedom, including the right to unrestricted seating in the church regardless of financial status.

The following year some of the parishioners circulated a petition expressing dissatisfaction with this method of paying the minister. The pastor called a meeting requesting that the grounds for dissatisfaction be presented; and General Munger acted as spokesman for the dissenters. A vote was taken and Mr. Belville retained his payment plan. Edmund and Jonathan Munger, among others, “declined to vote.” The names of these founders of the church were never entered again in church minutes after they were disciplined for their disaffection. Oddly enough, in this same year of the controversy, Isaac Newton Munger, the general’s youngest son, married Elizabeth Belville, the minister’s daughter.

The church continued in active ministry until the early 1900’s growing to a congregation of 120. After 1926, the church building was used as a residence. Then, in 1971, the building was razed by the state highway department to allow the widening of the Miamisburg-Centerville Pike.

This church controversy and its unsatisfactory solution apparently left Edmund Munger with the most bitter feelings as we shall read later. It may have been the culminating factor in his withdrawal from all future civic and social service. Never again did he accept any position of responsibility.

Edmund continued to work his farm on Yankee Street, although he did reduce the number of livestock. A stout, sturdy man whose powerful physique had been development by many years of working with blacksmith tools, he apparently never suffered a serious illness until January 31, 1849. Then, he was placed under the care of Dr. Julius S. Taylor, although there are no records as to what illness he suffered. Despite the apparent continued attendance by the doctor, Edmund insisted on handling the farm chores. The intransigence resulted in the shortening of this pioneer’s life.

When Edmund Munger looked out the kitchen window that Sunday morning, April 14, 1850, and saw that yesterday’s heavy and unexpected snowfall had not melted, but had piled up around the house under the driving wind, he knew that he could not turn his cows and horses out to graze that day. So, calling to Eunice to tell her where he was going, he put on a hat and jacket and went out to the large barn.

Since the cows and horses would have to stay in the barn another day, he climbed a ladder to the hayloft so he could fork down some of the hay to the cattle below. Near the top of the ladder something happened; just exactly what occurred we will never know. The old general may have slipped on a rung, or, perhaps his recent illness caused a spell of dizziness, or he may have suffered a stroke; but whatever the cause, he fell to his death on the floor below.

Edmund Munger was one of many hardy pioneer settlers who left a life of comparative physical comfort and security in an established eastern state where products and services were readily available either for cash or barter. Well educated for that period and a deeply religious man, he gave unselfishly of his time and efforts to community, county and state affairs. Then, when his nation called, he answered immediately and served with honor and distinction. Throughout the 182 years that Washington Township has been in existence and until the present day, no other individual has served so splendidly in so many different ways with such benefit to all his neighbors.

Edmund Munger left no will. His assets, not including his home and farm, far exceeded his few debts. In fact, he was carrying the notes of six local residents that more than compensated for his debts. The Court of Common Pleas in Montgomery County appointed two of the general’s sons, Warren and Festus Elizur Munger, as administrators of the estate, with Thomas Tibbals, William Silver and Arthur Maltbie as impartial appraisers.60

The Court decided that there was no suitable property in the general’s estate to set off to the widow, Eunice Munger, for her year’s maintenance, so she was allowed $100 paid in cash. The home and the farm, as previously mentioned, were purchased by the son, Festus Elizur, at an auction on February 26, 1852 for $4,795. The Superior Court records for 1857 described this farm as containing “...a good brick building, barn, crib and tenant house, orchard and spring ... Seventy acres in timber, the remainder cultivated land.” 61

In addition to the cash allowance, the court set off the following property without appraising it, as directed by statute: “3 spinning wheels; 1 cow; 3 sheep; the cloth, yarn and thread made for or by the family; 4 beds, bedsteads, and bedding; one cooking stove and furniture; the clothing of the deceased; one table; six chairs; six knives and forks; 6 plates; 6 teacups and saucers; a sugar dish; one milk pot, one teapot and 12 spoons; the clothes and wearing apparel of the widow.” Also the school books of the family, plus the family library previously mentioned. All other furniture and cooking and laundry equipment, farm equipment, blacksmith tools, cows, pigs, crops, cords of wood, etc., were auctioned off.

The court also awarded Eunice Munger $150 which was really her money, received from the estate of her father, Seth Kellogg.

On August 22, 1855 an application was filed with the Pension Office, in her name, for the award of bounty lands due veterans of the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.62

Eunice Munger was a very humble person, kind-hearted, brave and selfless. Lacking a formal education -- she never did learn to read or write -- Eunice was most adept in the needed skills of the frontier woman: helping to plant crops, reap them, feeding the hogs and cattle, milking cows and making butter, spinning, weaving and knitting clothes, cooking, preserving and smoking foods, laundering clothes and on and on. It made for long days of hard work.

Eunice handled it all, and raised ten children without complaint; and still found time to fully support her husband in all his endeavors. She found the inner strength to endure the early privations and had the courage to face the uncertainties of a wilderness. A grandson, Felix Munger, who grew up on Yankee Street, remembered his grandmother as “a woman of medium size, wonderful energy, famous as cook and dairy woman; in sickness, full of helpfulness and good cheer.”63

After the death of her husband, Eunice moved to Indiana to live with her son, Edmund Kellogg, on his farm in Posey Township, Fayette County. She celebrated her hundredth birthday there, but just five months later, on January 8, 1868, she died. At that time, nine of children were still living, the eldest being 80 years old, and the youngest 55. On her last birthday she could count 66 grandchildren, 131 great-grandchildren and 16 great-great-grandchildren.64

Eunice Kellogg Munger is buried in the burial grounds of the Baptist Church of Sugar Creek, now the Old Centerville Cemetery off North Main Street. The pride of this fine pioneer wife in her husband and his career is reflected by the inscription on her tombstone.

The slow-moving, funeral cortege made the turn in Centerville onto North Main Street, headed toward the burial grounds of the Baptist Church just a short distance away. Edmund Munger was taking his last ride. Apparently the general had not permitted his burial in the Washington Presbyterian Church cemetery although he had been a principal founder of the church, and even though his brother, Jonathan, and his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Munger, were buried there. His Puritan heart refused to soften.

The services for Edmund, in keeping with his wishes, were kept extremely simple. Even the coffin was a very plain wood box for which Mahlon Moon was paid six dollars. A find headstone made by Door and Hamilton, was erected above the grave; but this stone has disappeared, and the grave is no longer marked. We can assume that Edmund’s grave is alongside and to the right of the well-marked grave of his widow.

Felix Munger, the grandson, summarized Edmund Munger’s characteristics and life very briefly with these words:

“Grandfather Edmund was fond of young people and his stories of the East and West were ever the delight of us boys. He told of the long journey from the East, of the settlement in Ohio when that State was largely a wilderness. Of eating under the trees and sleeping in the wagonbed while a log house was being built, of the opening up of the farm on Yankee Street and the clearing off of the forests where bears and wolves and deer, and other game abounded. He told of Tecumseh and his braves; of the Prophet and incidents of the War of 1812. How the wilderness gave place to fertile fields, and the Redman to the White.”65

Notes and References

1 Harry L. Munger, Family Notes, page 1

2 J. B. Munger, The Munger Book, page XIV

3 Genealogical and Family History of the State of Connecticut, Volume 1, page 328

4 J.B. Munger, The Munger Book, page XV

5 All references to John Munger and his descendants from the Genealogical and Family History of the State of Connecticut, page 32B

6 Harry L. Munger, “Family Notes,” page 1

7 J. B. Munger, The Munger Book, page XVII

8 J. B. Munger, The Munger Book, page 12

9 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Book III, page 5 and 6

10 J.B. Munger, The Munger Book, page 28

11 T. Gilbert Pearson, Birds of American, Part II, page 40

12 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Book III, page 7

13 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Book III, page 7

14 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Book III, page 6

15 Howard R. Houser, A Sense of Place, page 137

16 Howard R. Houser, A Sense of Place, pages 137 and 138

17 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Book III, Page 7

18 J. B. Munger, The Munger Book, page 61

19 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Book III, Page 270

20 Howard R. Houser, A Sense of Place, page 211

21 John F. Edgar, Pioneer Life in Dayton, page 137

22 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Book III, page 13

23 J. B. Munger, The Munger Book, page 54

24 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Book III, page 270

25 Howard R. Houser, A Sense of Place, page 144

26 Probate Court Records, Montgomery County, Ohio, Case 2286

27 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Book III, page 15

28 Lewis Publishing Company, Biographical and Genealogical History of Wayne, Fayette, Union and Franklin Counties, Indiana, page 13

29 Cincinnati Historical Society, “The Gano Papers,” Volume 1:4 (51b)

30 Cincinnati Historical Society, “The Gano Papers,” Volume 1:4 (53)

31 Pierre Barton, The Invasion of Canada, page 126

32 Cincinnati Historical Society, “The Gano Papers,” Volume 1:5 (75)

33 Allan W. Eckert, The Frontiersman, pages 619, 632, 636

34 Charles B. Galbreath, History of Ohio, Volume II, page 411

35 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Book III, page 265

36 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Book III, page 15

37 Emanuel Hallaman, The British Invasion of Ohio

38 J. B. Munger, The Munger Book, page 28

39 Emilius O. Randall, History of Ohio, page 267

40 Emilius O. Randall, History of Ohio, page 262

41 Emilius O. Randall, History of Ohio, page 266

42 Emilius O. Randall, History of Ohio. page 267

43 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Book II, page 330

44 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Book III, page 17

45 Harvey W. Crew, History of Dayton, page 118

46 Eugene H. Roseboom and Francis P. Weisenburger, A History of Ohio, page 81

47 Charles B. Galbreath, History of Ohio, Volume III, page 418

48 Cincinnati Historical Society, “The Gano Papers,” Volume 1:10 (215)

49 Cincinnati Historical Society, “The Gano Papers,” Volume II:5C

50 Cincinnati Historical Society, “The Gano Papers,” Volume II:11a

51 Charles B. Galbreath, History of Ohio, Volume II, page 413

52 Charles B. Galbreath, History of Ohio, Volume I, page 572

53 Edward S. Ellis, History of the United States, Volume 2, page 688

54 Simeon D. Fess, Ohio - The History of a Great State, Volume 1, page 219

55 John K. Mahon, The War of 1812, page 186

56 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Book III, pages 8 and 9

57 Howard R. Houser, A Sense of Place, page 144

58 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of M5ontgomery County, Ohio, Book III, pages 518 and 519

59 W. H. Beers and Company, The History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Book III, page 20

60 Probate Court Records, Montgomery County, Ohio, Case 2286

61 Howard R. Houser, A Sense of Place, page 145

62 National Archives, Pension Office, Application 254.415

63 Martha Boice, The Munger Family, page 11

64 Martha Boice, The Munger Family, page 11

65 J. B. Munger, The Munger Book, page 30

Bibliography

Manuscripts and Articles

Boice, Martha, The Munger Family, The Centerville Historical Society, Centerville, Ohio, 1976

Brien, Lindsay M., Genealogy of Miami Valley Families, Dayton and Montgomery County Public Library

Brien, Lindsay M., Our Forefathers, Clippings complied by the Dayton and Montgomery County Public Library from the Sunday Dayton Journal, September 10, 1933 to May 7, 1939

Davila-Aponte, Robert, A History of Return Jonathan Meigs’ Involvement in the War of 1812 While Serving in the Office of Governor of the State of Ohio, Anthony Wayne Parkway Board, The Ohio State Museum, 1975

Hallaman, Emanuel, The British Invasion of Ohio, Anthony Wayne Parkway Board, The Ohio State Museum, 1958

Munger, Harry L., Family Notes, Centerville Historical Society, Centerville, Ohio

Selected Books

Barrows, Frederic Irving, History of Fayette County, Indiana, B.F. Bowen and Company, Indianapolis, 1917

Beers, W. H. and Company, History of Fayette County, Indiana, Chicago, 1885

Beers, W. H. and Company, History of Montgomery County, Ohio, Chicago, 1882

Beers, W.H. and Company, History of Warren County, Ohio, Chicago, 1882

Berton, Pierre, The Invasion of Canada (1812-1813), Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1980

Coles, Harry L., The War of 1812, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1965

Conover, Charlotte Reeves, Dayton and Montgomery County, Lewis Publishing Company, New York, 1932

Conover, Charlotte Reeves, The Story of Dayton, The Otterbein Press, Dayton, 1917

Crew, Harvey W., History of Dayton, Ohio, United Brethren Publishing House, Dayton, 1889

Cutler, William Richard, Genealogical and Family History of the State of Connecticut (Vol. 1), Lewis Historical Publishing Company, New York, 1911

Drury, Rev. A.W., History of the City of Dayton and Montgomery County, Ohio, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, Chicago and Dayton, 1909

Eckert, Allan W., The Frontiersman, Little, Brown and Company, Boston and Toronto, 1967

Edgar, John F., Pioneer Life in Dayton and Vicinity, United Brethren Publishing House, Dayton, 1896

Edmunds, R. David, Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership, Little, Brown and Company, Boston and Toronto, 1984

Elliott, Celia, Once Upon a Town and Township, Centerville Historical Society, Centerville, Ohio, 1971

Ellis, Edward S., History of the United States (Vol. II), Peter Fenelon Collier and Son, New York, 1900

Fess, Simeon D., Ohio – A Four Volume Reference Library on the History of a Great State, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago and New York, 1937

Galbreath, Charles B., History of Ohio (Vols. 1 and 2), The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925

Gruver, Rebecca Brook, An American History, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1972

Hildreth, S. P., M.D., Memoirs of the Early Pioneers of Ohio, A.W. Derby and Company, Cincinnati, 1854

Houser, Howard R., A Sense of Place, Centerville Historical Society, Centerville, Ohio, 1977

Howe, Henry, Historical Recollections of the State of Ohio, C.J. Krebiel and Company, Cincinnati, 1904

Knepper, George W., An Ohio Portrait, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, 1976

Law, Robert O. and Company, Memoirs of the Miami Valley, Chicago, 1919

Lewis Publishing Company, Biographical and Genealogical History of Wayne, Fayette, Union and Franklin Counties, Indiana, Chicago, 1899

Mahon, John K., The War of 1812, University of Florida Press, Gainesville, 1972

Mahon, John K., History of the Militia and the National Guard, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1983

McCabe J.D., Pictorial History of the United States, The National Publishing Company, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, Dayton, 1871

Munger, J.B., The Munger Book (1894-1914), The Tuttle, Morehouse and Taylor Company, 1915

Pearson, T. Gilbert, Birds of America, Garden City Books, Garden City, New York, 1931

Randall, E.O., History of Ohio, The Century History Company, New York, 1912

Reilly, Robin, The British at the Gates, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1974

Roseboom, Eugene H. and Weisenburger, Francis P., A History of Ohio, The Ohio Archeological and Historical Society, Columbus, 1969

Stagg, J.C.A., Mr. Madison’s War, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1983

Steele, Robert W. and Davies, Mary, Early Dayton, U.B. Publishing House, Dayton, 1896

Williams, T. Harry, The History of American Wars, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, 1981

Public Records

Adjutant General’s Department, Division of Soldier’s Claims, Veterans Affairs, Columbus, Ohio

Centerville Historical Society, Centerville, Ohio

Cincinnati Historical Society, Cincinnati, Ohio

Dayton and Montgomery County Public Library, Dayton, Ohio

General Services Administration of the United States, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

Montgomery County Probate Court, Dayton, Ohio

Montgomery County Recorder’s Office, Dayton, Ohio

Wright State University Library, Dayton, Ohio

Illustration Credits

“On the Way West” – Artist unknown

“The Stockade at Marietta, Ohio” – From Samuel P. Hildreth’s Pioneer History

“A Home in the Wilderness” – Harry Howe’s Historical Collections of Ohio, Volume 1

“1812 Map of Washington Township” – Centerville Historical Society, Centerville, Ohio

“Open Fireplace Cooking” – Artist unknown

“First Statehouse of Ohio” – Eugene H. Roseboom and Francis P. Weisenburger’s History of Ohio

“Tecumseh, Chief of the Shawnees” – Field Museum of Natural History Chicago

“Tenskwatawa, The Prophet” – History of the Indian Tribes of North America, Volume 1, McKenney and Hall, 1842

“Governor Return Jonathan Meigs” – Ohio Statehouse

"William Hull” – Simeon D. Hess’ Ohio – The History of a Great State, Volume 1

“The Detroit Frontier” – Henry Howe’s Historical Collection of Ohio, Volume II

“William Henry Harrison” – 1814 Portrait by Rembrandt Peale, Frances Vigo Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution Vincennes, Indiana

“Fort Greenville” – Greenville Treaty Memorial Association, 1935, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio

“Fort Meigs and Its Environs” – Henry Howe’s Historical Collections of Ohio, Volume II

“The Edmund Munger Home” – Centerville Historical Society, Centerville, Ohio

“The Washington Presbyterian Church” – Centerville Historical Society, Centerville, Ohio

“The Edmund Munger Barn” – Centerville Historical Society, Centerville, Ohio