ANNUITIES DUE, PAID AND DELIVERED TO THE DIFFERENT ABORIGINE TRIBES FROM MARCH 3, 1811, TO MARCH 3, 1815.

In addition to these amounts $496.647.14 was expended by the United States at Sandusky, Fort Wayne, Detroit, Mackinaw, Vincennes, Kaskaskia, Chicago, at the seat of government, and other points in effort to keep these wretched people neutral during the war; but the British appealed to and gave free rein to their savagery and thereby readily won their alliance.

The "Harrison-Tarhe Peace Conference" at Franklinton (Columbus) could not keep the Wyandot warriors from the British. It only resulted in adding a few worse than useless old men to the Northwestern army at its advance into Canada. This action, however, was insignificant for good, as they had no part, even in remote influence, in turning the tide in favor of the American arms. The repulses of the British and their savage allies at Fort Meigs, at Fort Stephenson, and on Lake Erie, were

more than enough to dishearten all the hostile Aborigines and to turn many of them from the British before and during their flight from Amherstburg. They at once sought favor with the victors, and fully attended the numerous magnanimous treaties to which the United States invited them.2

2 See History of the Maumee River Basin by Charles E. Slocum, pages 309, 312, 365, 385, 442 passim, for reference to authorities and evidence against other misconceptions.

COLONEL JOHN O'BANNON.

NELSON W. EVANS.

It is and has been utterly impossible to fix, with absolute certainty the date, or place of the birth of Colonel John O'Bannon. It was not later than the year 1756, and may have been several

years previous. The place, as near as can be determined, was called Neville, Virginia. John Presley and Morgan Neville, prominent officers in the Revolutionary War, were her kinsmen, and likely brothers. We are not certain as to her father's name. From the best information obtainable, we are led to the conclusion that the O'Bannon family was of prominence in Virginia, and that John O'Bannon had a fair education. Among his other acquirements, he learned the art of surveying. We find that on April 14th, 1784, Thomas Jefferson wrote him a letter on the subject of a military commission as Major. It was addressed to Captain John O'Bannon. It speaks of his men being in the field and of the expected resignation of Major Buckner. From the fact that Captain John O'Bannon is not found in Heitman's Register, we infer that his service must have been in the state line. Mr. J. H. O'Bannon, public printer at Richmond, Va., is sure that the Captain addressed by Thomas Jefferson, April 14, 1781, is the same one we describe. We are unable to account for John O'Bannon between April 14, 1781, and April 1786. In that

JOHN O'BANNON.

period he probably married. His wife was a daughter of Minor Wynne, of Loudon County, Virginia. In April, 1786, he was in Kentucky, and in an expedition against Indians, composed of ten persons. His party overtook the Indians and fired upon them. The Indians returned the fire and wounded Col. W. Christain. Alex Scott Bullitt and John O'Bannon fired on the Indians, and two of them fell. One Kelley, a member of the party, approached one of the fallen Indians, believing him to be dead. The Indian raised on his knees, fired on Kelley and killed him. The Indian then fell back and expired. Some time in the summer of 1787, John O'Bannon was appointed a Deputy Surveyor of the Virginia Military District of Ohio, by Col. Richard C. Anderson, then at Louisville, Kentucky. The Virginia Military District of Ohio, had been ceded by Virginia to the United States, March 1, 1784, but Congress did not open the District to location until August ro, 1790. Notwithstanding this fact, John O'Bannon began making surveys in the District. The first he made, or rather which the record shows that he made was No. 386, for Mace Clements, which lies just east of Ripley, on the Ohio River, and was for 1,000 acres out of a 7,000 acre warrant. The record shows that on the same day he made a survey for his relative, John Neville, in Washington Township, Clermont County, Ohio, for 1,400 acres on Warrant 937 for 7,777 acres. The record shows that one John Williams was a chain carrier on both surveys, and that he chained around 2,400 acres in one day, and that James Blair was a marker on both surveys. When we reflect that the locations were an absolute wilderness at that time, and that the parties might expect the crack of an Indian rifle at any moment, we see the absolute impossibility of these two surveys having been made in one day. The records show that John O'Bannon, Deputy Surveyor, continued to make these surveys right along until May 29, 1788, when he stopped work.

In that time he had surveyed along the Ohio River, between the mouth of the Scioto and Little Miami Rivers, 163,548 acres, and that it was distributed among the counties afterward formed, as follows:

The Surveys from 1 to 386 had been made in Indiana, opposite Louisville, Kentucky, and near that vicinity. The record

shows that on November 17, 1787, John O'Bannon surveyed 5,000 acres of land; Survey 459, at the mouth of Ohio Brush Creek, on the right bank, for 1,000 acres; Survey 436 for 1,000 acres just above Vanceburg, Kentucky; Survey 496 for 1,000 acres for Byrd Hendricks in Sprigg Township, Adams County, Ohio, and 1,000 acres for John McDowell, in Liberty Township, Adams County, Ohio; Survey 418 for 1,000 acres on Warrant 386, for James Page, embraces the site of Ripley, Ohio.

Here were 5,000 acres purporting to be surveyed in one day and Sylvester Moroney was certified as a chain carrier on four of these surveys.. When it is stated the Survey 496 is just above Maysville, Ky., and 386 opposite Vanceburg, Ky., and Survey 418 is at Ripley, Ohio, and when we reflect that the entire country north of the Ohio River was then an unbroken wilderness, without a single settlement of white men, we realize the utter impracticability of 5,000 acres of land between Vanceburg, Kentucky, and Ripley, Ohio, being surveyed in one day. 640 acres of land in one section is only one mile square, but 1,000 acres on a warrant was a favorite number to be entered by O'Bannon in the warrants he held. On November 19, 1787, he certifies to have surveyed 3,600 acres, all in Adams County, Ohio, in three surveys, lying close together and the same chain carriers and markers are used to each of the three surveys, which were some seven miles back from the river. On Christmas Day, 1787, he surveyed 4,239 acres of land in seven different surveys, in Clermont County, Ohio.

Evan Shelby, father of Isaac Shelby, afterwards Governor of Kentucky, was put down as a marker in four of the different surveys. George Marshall was put down as chain carrier in four of these different surveys.

To think that anyone would survey on Christmas Day is bad enough, but to survey 4,239 acres of land, over six square miles in a wilderness in one day, is more than human nature could stand. But there is worse and more to come. 839 acres of these 4,239 acres were for the immortal George Washington. The latter had a warrant for 3,000 acres of land, which could not be located in the Virginia Military District of Ohio, and yet O'Bannon had it there and not only located the 839 acres of it on

Vol. XIV.-21.