ively, and for this last-mentioned and difficult work he was, and with good health would still be, specially fitted and useful. He was a welcome help to the pastors, not only by occasionally supplying the pulpit, but in visiting and comforting the sick. How many, upon beds of pain and death, have had their faith and their hopes revived by his counsels and prayers? Always mindful of the temporal as well as spiritual interests of the church, while growing in ability, he has also enlarged in Christian liberality. He bought the lots on which the Francis Street church and parsonage stand, and turned them over to the church at first cost, aiding liberally in the erection and subsequent improvement of these buildings. He contributed liberally to the cost of the Tenth Street Methodist church and to the East Side Mission, since called by the trustees Hoagland chapel, in St. Joseph, and has given material aid to all of the enterprises of the church with which he is connected, at home as well as to others abroad.

Among his more recent connectional as well as undenominational contributions, we may mention during the Methodist centenary year-$1,000 to general church extension; $1,000 to missions; and $1,000 to Christian education under the direction of Central college at Fayette, Missouri; also more recently $500 to conference church extension; $500 to the Conference Ministerial Education society; and $500 to Central Female college at Lexington, Missouri.

6

He also gave a valuable building, with ten acres of ground, to the Home of the Friendless in St. Joseph, which, while it could not be made available for the purposes of the Home, yet it is believed that the generous offer, with his subsequent contributions to this object, was a chief incentive in securing the present valuable premises occupied by the Home. He also more recently gave $5,000 towards purchasing ground and erecting a building for the Y. M. C. A., of which association he had been a member and supporter from the date of its organization in this city-while no doubt many of his gifts to charities and religious objects are unknown, it may be, to his most intimate friends.

Mr. Hoagland cannot be far from, if he has not already passed his three-score years and ten, and for a decade or more has been much of his time in poor health, but we trust that a life so long and so actively identified with the good, and so uniformly opposed to the evil, may yet be considerably protracted, and that he may live to be in the future as in the past, a means of blessing in many ways to those of his adopted city as well as to others.

ST. JOSEPH, Mo.

Dr. Van Deventer is one of the most able and revered of St. Joseph's clergy

men.

WILL L. VISSCHER.

[TRACT NO. 51 of the Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical society, published in December, 1879, contains a paper by the late Colonel Charles Whittlesey upon the part taken by General Wadsworth's division of Ohio militia in the War of 1812. In the concluding paragraph of that paper the writer uses the following words: "It is remarkable that the only engagement known to have been fought on the Western Reserve was not fully described until after the lapse of half a century. We have found only one detailed account of it by a party who participated in the affair. It was written by the late Honorable Joshua R. Giddings of Ashtabula county, a volunteer from Captain Burnham's company. It was first published in the Fire Lands Pioneer, Volume I, No. 4, for May, 1859, the details of which must be reserved for a future paper." By the kindness of Honorable C. C. Baldwin, president of the Historical society, we are now permitted to lay before the public Colonel Whittlesey's promised account. Aside from its historical value it will possess an added interest to our readers in the fact that the honored name of the venerable writer once more appears in the list of contributors to these columns, after his labors in this life have ended forever.

An interesting paper upon this same

battle, from the pen of Honorable A. G. Riddle, appeared upon page 398, Volume I, of this magazine.-THE EDITOR.]

Captain Cotton's detachment, seventytwo men, landed on the peninsula soon after sunrise. Eight of them were left with the boats under Corporal Coffin. Skirmishers under Sergeants Root and Hamilton, with twelve men each, spread themselves to the right and left of the trail, in the woods. Within ten minutes from the time their feet were on the shore the forward movement commenced. The command rapidly crossed the peninsula to Ramsdale's place on the lake shore, a distance of about eight miles in direction somewhat to the west of north. No Indians were there, but the fires seen by scouts the day previous where the slaughtered cattle were cooked, and other evidences of a savage feast, were abundant.

Beyond Ramsdale's house was the wheat field which had been already harvested, but required some attention in order to make it more secure. This grain was too precious to be lost. The force was collected in the field, when Captain Cotton concluded to return to the boats, Hamilton and his flankers on the right, and Root on the left.

They had abandoned the expectation of a fight, but had not wholly given them

selves up to false security. Their flankers were still in position, covering the rear. Root's little party remained a while at the wheat field, following leisurely past Ramsdale's deserted house, about a mile in the direction of the boats, where he was near to the command of Captain Cotton. It was between eleven and twelve in the morning of a clear and pleasant autumn day. They were moving through open timber, the ground covered with a luxurious growth of native grass as high as the waists of the men. A party of Indians rose from the grass, fired a volley into the flankers under Root, gave a savage yell and dropped out of sight. Ramsdale's son was killed and one man wounded, leaving only nine, each of whom sprang behind a tree. In the words of J. R. Giddings, "Root directed his men to shelter themselves behind trees, and by his cool and deliberate movements stimulated them to maintain their ground. Whenever an Indian showed any part of his person he was sure to receive the salutation of our backwoodsman's rifle. The firing was kept up in an irregular manner, constantly interspersed with the yells of the Indians, until the little guard were reinforced from the main body. As the sound of the enemy's rifles first struck the ears of Captain Cotton and his party, they stopped short and stood silent for a moment, when they began to lead off from the rear without orders and without regularity. Many of them raised the Indian yell as they started. As they reached the scene of action each advanced with circumspection as the whistling of balls informed him that he had obtained the post of danger. The firing

continued for some fifteen minutes after the first arrival of assistance from the main body, when it appeared to subside by common consent of both parties. As the firing became less animated, the yells of the savages grew faint, and the Indians were seen to drag off their dead and wounded. About the time of these manifestations of a disposition on the part of the enemy to retire from the conflict, Captain Cotton ordered a retreat. It was a matter of much doubt among the officers and men whether the Indians who attacked Root's flank guard were the same who appeared in the bay early in the morning, and who sunk the boats left by Corporal Coffin and his guards. It has always been the opinion of the writer that it was a different party and far less in numbers. Captain Cotton retired and was followed by a large portion of his men. A few remained with Sergeants Root and Rice and maintained their position until the enemy apparently left the field. Mr. Rice was an orderly sergeant in the company to which the writer belonged. He was a man of great physical power, and while in the field exhibited such deliberate courage that he soon after received an appointment from the brigadier-general as a reward for his gallant conduct. He was also permitted to command the next expedition which visited the mouth of the bay a week subsequently. When the firing had entirely ceased, Our intrepid sergeants had a consultation, and thought it prudent to retire to where the main body had taken up a position some sixty or eighty rods in the rear of the battle ground. Sergeant Hamilton and his guard were so far distant at the time of

the attack, that they arrived in time to share only in part of the dangers of this skirmish. As soon as they reached the party under Captain Cotton, that officer proposed to take up a line of march directly for the orchard at which they landed in the morning. To this proposal Sergeant Rice would not consent until the dead and wounded were brought off. He was then ordered to take one-half the men and bring them away. This order was promptly obeyed. The dead and wounded were brought from the scene of action to the place where Cotton was waiting with his men. The dead were interred in as decent a manner as could be done under the circumstances, and the line of march was again resumed. There were but two dead bodies left on the ground at the time of the retreat. Ramsdell, who fell at the first fire, and Blackman, who belonged in the southern part of Trumbull county. James S. Bills was shot through the lungs, and after being carried back to where Cotton had made a stand, and after leaving his lust request with a friend, he died before the bodies of Blackman and Ramsdell were interred, and the three bodies were buried together between two logs covered with leaves, dirt and rotten wood. There was but one man so wounded as to be unable to walk. A ball had struck him in the groin, and he was carried on the back of Sergeant Rice most of the distance. Rice was a man of great determination of purpose, and refused to leave his charge during the subsequent skirmish.

There was a very general expectation that the enemy would make an attempt to retrieve their evident discomfiture. They

had lost some of their men, but had not taken a single scalp, which, with them, is regarded as disreputable, particularly when they are the aggressors, as in this instance.

The order of march was the same as it had been previously. All proceeded regularly and silently towards the place of landing. When the main body moving along the road had arrived in sight of the improvement at the middle orchard, there suddenly appeared two Indians, some thirty or forty rods in front of the foremost numbers of our party. The Indians appeared to have suddenly discovered our men and started to run from them. Our men in front made pursuit, while others, more cautious than their comrades, called loudly for them to stop, assuring them there was danger near. Our friends stopped suddenly, and at that instant the whole body of Indians fired upon our line, being at farthest not more than twenty rods distant, entirely concealed behind a ledge of trees that had been prostrated by the wind. It was a most unaccountable circumstance that not a man of our party was injured at this fire. The Indians were on the right of the road, and, of course, between the road and bay. Our party betook themselves each to his tree and returned the fire as they could catch sight of the enemy. The firing was irregular for some three or five minutes when Sergeant Hamilton, with the right flank guard,

the road in front of the main body, who by this time had been joined by Sergeant Root and the left guard. Having crossed the road, the Indians turned about and resumed the fire.

At this time Captain Cotton began to retire towards a log building standing within the cleared land. The retreat was very irregular, some of the men remaining on the ground and keeping up an animated fire upon the enemy until Cotton and those who started with him reached the house in which they took shelter. Those in the rear at last commenced a hasty retreat also, and were pursued by the Indians until they came within range of the rifles of those who had found shelter in the house. The Indians commenced a fire upon those in the house and kept it up for a short time, keeping themselves concealed behind the brush and small timber. Captain Cotton, with about twenty men, entered this building and very handsomely covered the retreat of those who remained longest on the field. There were about thirty of those who passed by the house and proceeded to the place where we had landed in the morning, expecting to find the boats in which they might escape across the bay. There were six wounded men brought away that evening, making with the guard left in the boat thirty-seven. These were joined by those who had remained on Cedar Point from the time they left Bull's island on their way from Lower Sandusky, so that the whole party who reached Huron that night were between forty and fifty. The guard and two of the boats were gone. The other two boats were scuttled. They dare not venture to the house, naturally

supposing that it was surrounded by the enemy. Some of them pulled off their clothes and attempted to stop the holes in one of the boats, so as to enable them to cross the bay in it. Others fled at once down the shore of the bay in order to get as far from the enemy as they could, entertaining a hope that some means would offer by which they might cross over to Cedar Point. Others followed, and before sunset all those who had not sought shelter in the house were on the eastern point of the peninsula with their six wounded comrades. The firing was distinctly heard on Cedar Point by Corporal Coffin and his guard of seven men, who, under a state of extreme anxiety for the fate of their companions, put off from the point and lay as near the peninsula as they thought safe from the rifles of the enemy, should there be any there. They rejoiced to see their friends coming down the point, bringing their wounded, wet with perspiration, many of them stained with blood, and all appearing ready to sink. under the fatigues and excitement of nearly twenty-four hours' unmitigated effort.

The boats were small, and one of them was loaded at once and crossed to Cedar Point and returned, with the assistance of the other took in all that remained on the point of the peninsula, and crossed over. All were now collected on the beach at Cedar Point. Sergeant Wright was the highest officer in command. Eight men were detailed as oarsmen and ordered to take in the six wounded men and move directly for the mouth of Huron river. I do not recollect the number of men placed in the other boat, but believe it was eight. The remainder took up the march