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On September 26, 2015, the Belpre Historical Society will unveil a granite marker to commemorate the saga of Ohio Company settler James Patten of Bedford, New Hampshire. The Belpre Township Trustees approved a site near the flagpole at the entrance of the Cedarville Cemetery in Belpre. The White-Schwarzel Funeral Home in Coolville has mounted it. Sammye Miller Jonas of Little Hocking, project manager, coordinated that effort. Nancy Sams, president of the Belpre Historical Society, and Charlotte Powell, curator of their museum, and members are organizing the event. Jean Yost of Barlow is arranging Patten’s military recognition. The Dworzynski family, owner-operators of the Carlinville Monument Company in Carlinville, Illinois, donated the marker, including the engraving, and Stockport native Rich Walker, who lives in Illinois, transported it to Ohio.
On January 2, 1791, Delaware and Wyandot warriors surprised the fledgling settlement at Big Bottom near present-day Stockport. Twelve people were killed, two men escaped to Waterford, and five men were force-marched to villages on the Auglaize and Maumee rivers. Some were sold there, others were indentured at Detroit, and one was ransomed. The five captives were brothers Francis (1756-1810) and Isaac Choate Jr. (1759-1822), Thomas Shaw (age unknown), young Philip Stacy (1773-1791), and James Patten. Shaw, good with an ax, was not a settler, but a company contractor, hired to help build cabins and erect the blockhouse.
The warriors discovered the five men gathered for supper in an isolated cabin, joined them for dinner, quietly took them hostage, and then led them across the river on the ice to their camp. While they were held captive on the west side, warriors returned to kill the rest, fire the blockhouse, and plunder the settlement. The frozen bodies of the victims were partially mangled, burned, and devoured by their dogs. The next day their remains, only two or three of whom could be identified, were buried in the charred blockhouse in which many of them had taken refuge.
Big Bottom State Park memorializes the site of the attack. An obelisk, standing on the site of the mass grave, bears the names of those slain and the two who escaped. A roadside historical marker describes the event. But nothing indicates the fates of the captives.
James Patten was born in 1755 in Bedford, New Hampshire, a son of Matthew and Elizabeth McMurphy Patten. James was twenty years old when the Revolutionary War started. In August 1778 he joined the local militia and served in Rhode Island. After the war he returned to the family farm at Bedford, sorely enveloped in post-war depression. In 1789, still single, he, along with several neighbors, set out to join the Ohio Company settlement. Too poor to buy a share of stock, he was among those “poorer sort” (as Rufus Putnam called them) at Marietta called “nonproprietors” to whom the Ohio Company allocated, via a bond-for-deed, one hundred acres if they joined an association of twenty or more males. If they lived on the land for five years and made all of the required improvements, the Company promised to grant them title.
In 1790, thirty-six men formed the Big Bottom Association, intent on establishing a settlement thirty miles up the Muskingum River. But General Josiah Harmar’s defeat in late October 1790 caused many associates to temporize or abandon the project. Actual settlement was neglected and the Association missed its original deadline. But rather than cancel the project or postpone it until spring, the Company’s Donation Committee ignored the risk. When the Association petitioned for an extension, the committee demanded settlers to be onsite by December 1 or forfeit their bond. The few who took the risk went under duress, undermanned, over exposed, and often unguarded. At the time of the attack, only thirteen (thirty-six percent) of the original thirty-six associates were there. Subsequent Company apologists blamed the tragedy on the settlers themselves – all of whom but two were either dead or in captivity.
Because Putnam’s account in eastern newspapers in late January cited only three persons as missing, namely, the Choate brothers and Shaw, Patten’s parents in New Hampshire assumed James was one of the unidentifiable victims found in the blockhouse rubble. But in June, six months after the attack, recently freed Isaac Choate Jr., reported that Patten was held alive. Patten’s parents ran ads in newspapers to raise ransom money and pay a go-between. In one instance, Patten’s Indian master refused the offer; in another, the go-between at Detroit apparently absconded with the money. Patten was held for four years. Patten’s captivity, release, and return to Marietta will be presented in the next article.
The monument dedication will be at Cedarville Cemetery at 1:30 p.m. Following Farson Street, turn left on Washington Boulevard for one-fifth mile and turn right on West Street toward the Ohio River until you reach Old Cemetery Drive. There will be refreshments afterwards at the Belpre Historical Society Museum Annex at 509 Ridge Street; anyone planning to attend the get-together at the Annex, please call 740-989-2764 or 740-423-7588 with the number in your party. All activities are free to the public.
Phillip L. Crane, a Waterford resident and Marietta history teacher for 32 years, will share historical events in the Lower Muskingum Valley.