After the War of 1812

The war was over for the British, although the upper Great Lakes Indian tribes continued to fly the Union Jack through the 1840s, and the British Fort Malden in Canada, across the river from Detroit, gave annual gifts to their former American Indian allies. For the Indians, the fighting continued for more years; but as the months passed, the battleground moved progressively further west.

Shelby County, Ohio, was not organized until 7 years after the War of 1812 so it cannot claim any soldiers at the time the war began. According to the Shelby County Genealogical Society, various records indicate that the following War of 1812 veterans (listed in alphabetical order) are buried in graveyards within the county.

Moses Huffman Ailes, John C. Baker, Isaac Beaver, William Bell, Nehemiah Bennett, James Botkin, Capt. Wm. A. Burrous, Richard Cannon (one of the first men, along with father and brother, to improve the land in what is now Sidney), George Cartley (Gartley?), Joshua Cole, Ensign David Coon, Joshua Cox, Thomas Curts, John Cyphers, Abraham Davenport, James David Davis, William Davis, Richard C. Dill, Daniel V. Dingman, Jr. (father’s land formed "East Sidney"), John Dorsey, Thomas Edwards, Leonard Elliott, Dr. William Fielding (one of Sidney’s first physicians), William N. Flinn, John Coin Geer, John Goble, Corp. James Harvey, Jonathan Howell, George Hutchinson, John (Jacob?) Ifert, Edward Jackson (built second brick house in Shelby County), Jesse Johnson, Charles Johnston, Sgt. John Johnston , George Kemp, Jacob Leapley, Hector Lemon, James Lenox, Richard Lenox, James McCormick, Jr., Michael McDermot, Isaac Mann, Samuel S. Maxwell, Shedrick Montgomery, Corp. John Morris, Ephriam Owen, Samuel Penrod, Jacob Persinger, John B. Reed, John H. Rowell, Moses Russell, Samuel Sarver, Jacob Shank, John Shaw, Thomas Shaw, John H. Smith, Jacob Sneveley, Abraham Stipp, Smallwood Thompson, Samuel Vorhees, James Wells (Shelby County’s first postmaster), Abraham Wilson, John Wilson (built first brick home in Shelby County), Edward Wren, James Wright, and Philip Young.

With the conclusion of the War of 1812, thousands of settlers pointed their wagons west toward the Ohio Valley and the Northwest Territory beyond. Ohio was the first state to be carved out of the territory in 1803. (Although officially a state, Congress neglected to pass a resolution accepting Ohio into the Union. This was rectified one hundred and fifty years later when Congress passed a retroactive resolution accepting Ohio as the 17th state). In 1816, it was Indiana’s turn, followed by Illinois, 1818; Michigan, 1837; Wisconsin, 1848; and Minnesota (part of it was in the Northwest Territory), 1858. The entire area covers a total of 265,878 square miles of land that formerly was home to many different Indian tribes.

There was a Second Treaty of Greene Ville signed in 1814, forging a peace between the Shawnee, Delaware, Seneca, and Wyandot who had been allies of the Americans, and the Miami, Kickapoo, Ottawa and Potawatomi who had supported Tecumseh and the British. Blackhoof continued to peaceably oppose the loss of lands in Ohio, and with only the Shawnee reservations at Wapaughkonetta (Wapakoneta), Hogg Creek, and the mixed reservation of Shawnee-Seneca (Mingo) at Lewistown, the passage, by the government, of the Indian Removal Act in 1831, was his last stand. His date of death has been reported anywhere from September, 1831, through August, 1832, but there is a monument in his name at the Chief Blackhoof Memorial Park (cemetery) in St. John’s, Ohio, located 4 miles east of Wapakoneta, at the intersection of State Route 65 and US Route 33.

Through the 1820s and 1830s, the barges coming down the Ohio River filled with new settlers and immigrants were unstoppable. A few Indians still remained in the area, although most had moved to the Indian Territory (Oklahoma), joined other tribes or simply disappeared. The Shawnee and Miami with ancestral homes in the fertile Ohio Valley lost all they ever wanted, their land. The tribes around the Great Lakes, with swampy areas (poor farmland) as their homeland, fared a little better and today many of them still occupy some of the land that was sacred to their forefathers.

'Indian' segment written in December, 1997 by David Lodge

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