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very high ones, and his dogs were always ready to defend their master's family and property. Hogs became so numerous in the woods, that many of them became wild, and multiplied until the war of 1812 gave their flesh a value, and they were killed. Cattle and horses multiplied greatly in the meantime, and the people had begun to drive them over the mountains, at an early day, to a market. The people lived in log houses, raised Indian corn for their bread, and as to meat they found wild turkeys and deer in abundance in the woods. Domestic fowls and hogs multiplied wonderfully, in a country where there was so little winter for which to provide. And as for pleasure-carriages, we do not believe there was one in the state when it was first organized. Not a few persons, wore moccasins, instead of shoes, and leather made of deer skins for coats or hunting shirts and pantaloons. Thus dressed, equipped with a large knife, and a good rifle gun, the men went about their daily business. When the state was first organized, we do not believe that there was even one bridge in the state. The roads were few and it was no easy matter for a stranger to follow them. For ourselves we preferred following the pocket compass or the sun, to most of the roads, in the Virginia Military tract; and this even ten years after the organization of the state government. Travelers carried their provisions with them, when starting from any of the towns into the then wilderness, now thickly settled parts of the state. Judges and lawyers rode from court to court, through the forest, and carried their provisions or starved on their route. Though they generally got into some settlement before night fall, yet not always, as we shall long remember. When the streams were swelled with rain, they swam every stream in their way.

The people of that day were greatly attached to president Jefferson and DeWitt Clinton, because they had favored the admission of Ohio into the Union. The then administration of the general government were almost worshiped by our people, and were greatly caressed in return, by the objects of their reverence. We were then weak, and not feared; but

now we have become great and powerful. So we are oppressed in all the ways in which littleness seated on high, can reach us. But we will stand our ground on our own legs, on our own soil, relying on our own vast resources. It is, however, honor enough for any common man to be a good and worthy citizen of Ohio, travel where he may, in the Union. We may well contemn all the attempts now made and making to oppress and degrade us. This state of things cannot last long, before Ohio has a voice, and an influence at Washington. No president or attorney general will dare, then, to treat with contempt our citizens, and our members of congress.

During this third period of our history, but two events drew much public attention to them after our state had become properly organized. Of these events we shall treat in their order of time.

BURR'S EXPEDITION IN 1806.

The first event, which agitated the public mind, in this state, after its constitution took effect, and was carried into complete operation, was Barr's expedition. Early in the spring of 1806, rumors of all sorts began to spread throughout this and the adjoining states of an expedition of some sort, about to be set on foot, by Colonel Aaron Burr and his associates. These rumors were circulated through the western country by letter writers in the east, at first, but they soon found their way into the newspapers of that period. In the summer, Burr himself appeared among us awhile, then went to Lexington, Frankfort, and we believe to Nashville, Tennessee and to the Hermitage. The papers were filled with conjectures, as to the Colonel's intentions, views, and ultimate objects. JOHN Sиггн, one of our senators in congress, was suspected of being in the horrid plot, whatever it might be, as he had been, all along, on friendly terms with Burr, while the latter presided in the United States senate! Affidavits of conversations with Colonel Burr, were gotten up against him. Many of these willing witnesses, we knew, and would not believe them, even

under oath, then, or at any other time, during their lives. John Smith was beset, on all sides, for his supposed friendship to the late Vice President. He wrote to Burr, then at Frankfort, Kentucky, inquiring "what his real objects were in visiting the western country?" Burr, answered, and as he said in that answer it would be, so it was; the only one that he ever vouchsafed to give any one, relative to his business in the western country. He said, in substance, "that, he had purchased a large tract of land in Louisiana, on the Washita river, and he wished to engage emigrants, to settle on it. That the position would be a good one for mercantile and agricultural purposes. That these, and these only, were his

objects."

Early in the autumn, perhaps, sooner, Burr's associates, began to build boats, along the navigable waters connected with the Ohio, and Mississippi rivers. Provisions were purchased, such as pork, beef and flour, with which to load these boats. The administration of the general government, sent express after express to the west, in order to save the country, from the ruin, which these boat loads of provisions, and nearly seventy men, without arms, could do by descending the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, possibly, even to New Orleans!

The legislature of Ohio, full of patriotic devotion, to Mr. . Jefferson's administration, passed a long and complicated act, to detect and punish the boat builders and all connected with them. This was in their session of 1806-7.

To look back upon this farce, now, is like reading an account of the Massachusetts witchcraft; or of the plots during the reign of Charles II. of England. Sergeant Dunbar is a fine parallel of Titus Oates.

At the session of the United States courts for Ohio, at Chillicothe, in the winter of 1807, a vast concourse of people attended, expecting many indictments would be found against all who belonged to the expedition, especially if they had been in the state! and of all, too, who had built boats or sold provisions to load them. MICHAEL BALDWIN, a great wit, then our marshal, seeing a citizen of Ashtabula county, in attendance

on court, in expectation of an indictment against him, for some connection with Burr, (never known what it was) contrived to convey the idea, to this man, that a bill was actually found against him, and that he, the marshal, was actually on the point of arresting the culprit. The terrified man fled, as he supposed, from justice, with great speed, seventy miles, to Zanesville.

Burr's boats started from Blannerhassett's island, in the Ohio river, early in January, 1807, and Blannerhassett, his family, and Burr's friends descended peaceably down, we believe to Natchez, in the Mississippi Territory. His other boats, along both rivers, descended likewise, towards the same point of destination.

Before this time, the president had called on this state for troops, to repel the threatened (we know not what to call it) A great many troops had eagerly come forward, and offered their services to the government, and were joyfully accepted and enrolled, and held in readiness for instant action.

In January 1807, Burr himself had descended to Natchez, and there was summoned to appear before the supreme court, of the Mississippi Territory. Having heard that his agents were arrested at New Orleans, and along the river, he did not obey the summons, but fled from Natchez in disguise. He was arrested, we believe on the Tombigbee river, wending his way, on horseback, across the country, to Georgia. The man who arrested him, had never seen him before, but knew him by his brilliant eye, which shone like a diamond, beneath an old, broad-brimmed, flapped hat, under which Colonel Burr sat, warming himself, by the fire, at a small inn.

Colonel Burr was tried before Chief Justice Marshall, at Richmond, Virginia, in the summer of 1807, on two indictments, to wit: one for treason against the United States; the other for setting on foot, an expedition against the Spanish provinces. On both indictments Burr was acquitted, but he was recognized, we believe, in the sum of five thousand dollars, to appear at Chillicothe, before the United States court to answer to any indictment to be found against him, in Ohio. Not

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choosing to appear there, he paid the forfeiture, and went off to Europe. There he wandered about from one monarch's court to another, until 1811, when he returned to his native country, During the remainder of his life, almost twenty-five years, he lived in retirement, until he recently died, and was buried, by the students of the college, of Nassau Hall, Princeton, New Jersey, in their burying-ground, with every mark of respect. There he was born and educated, and there his mortal remains rest.

Whatever his projects were, whether for conquest or settlement, they were defeated almost as soon as they were formed. Late events on this same theatre do not hold out the same terror to ambitious men, who would conquer adjoining provinces, that Burr's fate did, in 1806-7. But Burr is now in his grave.

"No farther scek his merits to disclose,

"Nor draw his frailties from their dread abode,
"There they alike, in trembling hope repose;
"In the bosom of his father and his God."

SWEEPING RESOLUTION OF 1810.

GRAY.

The next subject which during three or four years, produced a great excitement, in the minds of our population, was in its day, called, the "Sweeping Resolution." Our legislature had passed an act, giving justices of the peace, jurisdiction without the aid of a jury in the first instance, in the collection of debts, in all cases, where the demand did not exceed fifty dollars. Inasmuch as the constitution of the United States, gives a jury in all such cases, where the amount claimed, is twenty dollars; and inasmuch too, as any thing in our laws or constitution, contrary to the provisions of the national constitution is utterly void, and of no effect; the judges of all our courts, declared this act of our legislature void and of no effect. This independence of our judges inflamed the legislature to a high degree. So they proceeded to punish these honest and conscientious officers of justice. The house of rep

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