Description: Hand-colored map of the United States dated 1851, published in Hartford by Case, Tiffany & Co. The map includes the United States and territories, as well as Mexico and portions of Canada, South America and the Caribbean Islands. Insets also include an illustrated view of the "Capitol at Washington" and a portrait of George Washington. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: MAPVFM_0303_F
Subjects: Maps--United States; American frontier; Geography and Natural Resources; American Indians;
Places: United States
 

Description: An engraving depicting a flat bottom boat. The caption reads: "Grave par Tardieu l'aine. Sketch of a Flat bottom Boat; such as are used to descend the Ohio and the Mississippi." French part of the caption translates as "Engraved by Tardieu the elder" which indicates that it is most likely work of Jean Baptiste Pierre Tardieu (1746-1816), a prominent French cartographer and engraver. Flat bottom boats or flatboats were rectangular boats intended for short term use. They were built without keels which made them less sturdy and harder to navigate. Their history dates back to May, 1782, when Pennsylvania farmer, Jacob Yoder, became the first person to successfully navigate a flatboat from Brownsville to New Orleans, proving they can be used for commercial shipping. By 1810 there were about 3000 flatboats descending the Ohio river and the boat building business was booming. Flatboats played a significant role in the history of America’s westward expansion. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL07754
Subjects: Ohio River; Mississippi River; Boats; American frontier; Ohio Economy--Transportation and Development
 

Description: This photograph is of an engraved portrait of frontiersman Daniel Boone (1734-1820) sitting on rock with his rifle and with his dog beside him. The engraving's lower border has Boone's signature. American artist and book illustrator Alonzo Chappel (1828-1887) created the original painting ca. 1861. Chappel portrays Boone as an older man with white hair but still rugged and purposeful. Daniel Boone was a legendary man of the frontier in early America. He is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now Kentucky. He was born near Reading, Pennsylvania, but in 1750 the family moved to North Carolina. Boone participated in the French and Indian War, barely escaping with his life during General Edward Braddock’s attack on Fort Duquesne. Boone went to Kentucky in fall 1767 and spent the winter exploring and hunting. The signing of the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768) by the Iroquois Indians encouraged Boone to return to Kentucky in 1769. In 1775, Richard Henderson, the head of the Transylvania Company, hired Boone to assist him in establishing a settlement in Kentucky. Boone and his settlers arrived at the site that they had chosen for their community by April 1, 1775, and immediately began to build Fort Boonesborough, one of the first settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains. He spent the next several years exploring, surveying, and trapping. He also faced constant opposition from local Native Americans. During the American Revolution, Boone played an active role against the British and their Indian allies in the Ohio Country, accompanying both militia forces and regular army troops north of the Ohio River on several occasions to secure this territory for the Americans and to open it up for settlement. In February 1778, Boone and a few settlers were captured by a band of Shawnee Indians at Blue Licks (Kentucky) and held hostage at Old Chillicothe. Boone spent the next five years in various government positions, including sheriff, deputy surveyor, and a delegate to the legislature. The frontiersman also continued to assist the American military in the struggle against the Native Americans in the Ohio Country. He had laid claim to large tracts of land in Kentucky during the 1770s, but he had filed the paperwork establishing his ownership incorrectly. The end result was that he lost all of his Kentucky lands. By 1799 he had left Kentucky for Missouri, where he died in 1820. Boone did much to open the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains, including the Ohio Country, to white settlement. In many respects, he was typical of the British colonists and the settlers who succeeded them after the American Revolution. Many of these people viewed the west as a land of opportunity and endless possibility. They faced innumerable hardships to expand the borders of the United States of America. However, in many cases, entire Native American tribes were displaced and removed due to the settlers' desire for land. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06329
Subjects: Boone, Daniel, 1734-1820; Chappel, Alonzo, 1828-1887; Portraits; American frontier; Folk heroes
 

Description: This image shows the Simon Kenton Memorial in Urbana, Ohio. Simon Kenton (1755-1836) was a legendary frontiersman in Ohio and the Midwest. In 1774, he served as a scout during Lord Dunmore's War. By 1775, Kenton had moved to Boonesborough, Kentucky. For the next few years, he worked as a scout for the settlement, often coming in contact with the local Indians. During the American Revolution, Kenton participated in a number of military engagements against the British and Indians. In 1778, he joined George Rogers Clark on a difficult but successful expedition into the Illinois Country, to attack British outposts as well as Indian settlements. Kenton moved to the Zanesfield, Ohio, around 1820. During the last years of his life, Kenton lived in poverty because of land ownership disputes and mismanagement of his money.In 1836, Kenton died in Logan County near Zanesfield and was buried there. In 1865, his remains were moved to Urbana. The state of Ohio constructed a monument to mark his grave in 1884. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06499
Subjects: American Revolutionary War, 1775-1783; American frontier; Memorials--Ohio
Places: Urbana (Ohio); Champaign County (Ohio)
 

Description: This image shows Fort Recovery, which stands on the spot where Fort St. Clair once stood.In December 1793, General Anthony Wayne ordered one United States artillery unit and eight infantry companies to the site of St. Clair's Defeat. The soldiers were to construct a fort on the former battlefield. Wayne intended to use this fort as a staging area for his assault against the region's American Indian tribes in the spring of 1794. He named the stockade Fort Recovery. Following the Battle of Fallen Timbers in August 1794, most American Indians realized they had little chance in stopping white settlement of their lands. In August 1795, many of the area's tribes agreed to sign the Treaty of Greeneville. They gave up all claims to land south and east of a line that extended south from Lake Erie, along the Cuyahoga River, to the Tuscarawas River, and then to Fort Laurens. From Fort Laurens, the line ran west to Fort Loramie, then northwest to Fort Recovery, and then straight south to the Ohio River. Anthony Wayne had secured from the American Indians the majority of modern-day Ohio with the exception of the northwestern corner of the state. The city of Fort Recovery, Ohio, stands today on the site of the frontier fort. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL06521
Subjects: American Indian history and society; Fort St. Clair (Ohio); American frontier
Places: Fort Recovery (Ohio); Mercer County (Ohio)
 

Description: Portrait of Platt Roger Spencer who created a new style of penmanship known as the semi-angular or Spencerian system.Platt Rogers Spencer was an educator and developer of a popular style of penmanship. Spencer was born on September 7, 1801, in New York. His family moved to Ashtabula County, Ohio in 1810. Spencer's mother placed a strong emphasis on education. She faced great difficulties in providing her children with schooling on the frontier. Legend has it that Spencer loved to write as a young child, but his family could either not find or could not afford paper for him until he was seven years of age. He did not enroll in school until he was twelve when a school opened in nearby Conneaut, Ohio. On one occasion, Spencer purportedly walked twenty miles barefoot to borrow a mathematics book. To help support his family, Spencer took several jobs, primarily as a clerk in local stores and businesses. In these positions, he actively practiced his penmanship. He created a new style of penmanship known as the "semi-angular" or "Spencerian" system. By the early 1860's, schools across the United States were teaching their pupils the Spencerian style. It became the preferred style for clerks working for the United States government. Spencer personally opened schools to teach his system at Geneva and Cleveland, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He also was a strong supporter of the temperance and abolitionist movements. After he died on May 16, 1864 his sons continued to teach their father's method in various schools across the country for a number of years. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL07144
Subjects: Ashtabula County (Ohio); Education--Ohio; American frontier
Places: Ashtabula County (Ohio)