Part 1

Produced by David Widger

STORIES OF OHIO

By William Dean Howells

Copyright, 1897, by American Book Company.

PREFACE.

In the following stories, drawn from the annals of Ohio, I have tried to possess the reader with a knowledge, in outline at least, of the history of the State from the earliest times. I cannot suppose that I have done this with unfailing accuracy in respect to fact, but with regard to the truth, I am quite sure of my purpose at all times to impart it.

The books which have been of most use to me in writing this are the histories of Francis Parkman; the various publications of Messrs. Robert Clarke and Co. in the “Ohio Valley Series”; McClung’s “Sketches of Western Adventure”; “Ohio” (in the American Commonwealths Series) by Ruf us King; “History and Civil Government of Ohio,” by B. A. Hinsdale and Mary Hinsdale; “Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley,” by W. H. Venable; Theodore Roosevelt’s “Winning of the West”; Whitelaw Reid’s “Ohio in the War”; and above all others, the delightful and inexhaustible volumes of Henry Howe’s “Historical Collections of Ohio.”

W. D. H.

CONTENTS.

I. The Ice Folk and the Earth Folk

II. Ohio as a Part of France

III. Ohio becomes English

IV. The Forty Years’ War for the West

V. The Captivity of James Smith

VI. The Captivity of Boone and Kenton

VII. The Renegades

VIII. The Wickedest Deed in our History

IX. The Torture of Colonel Crawford

X. The Escape of Knight and Slover

XI. The Indian Wars and St. Clair’s Defeat

XII. The Indian Wars and Wayne’s Victory

XIII. Indian Fighters

XIV. Later Captivities

XV. Indian Heroes and Sages

XVI. Life in the Backwoods

XVII. The First Great Settlements

XVIII. The State of Ohio in the War of 1812

XIX. A Foolish Man, a Philosopher, and a Fanatic