History of the Log Cabin on the Armory Lot - Putnam Street

The Marietta Leader, June 26 1888

Marietta, June 23, '88

My Dear Sir:

I have not the time at my command just now to write to you in full of the cabin. Dr. Hildreth in his Pioneer History says:

"In the month of September 1788 the Cornplanter, principal chief of the Seneca tribe, with about forty Indians arrived at Fort Harmar escorted by a company of soldiers. This chief was an influential man with the six nations, and very friendly to the United States.

A son of the celebrated Brant, with two hundred warriors, was at the falls of the Muskingum in November, and sent a messenger to Gov. St. Clair with the request that the treaty might be held at that place. He returned a mild, but decided refusal.

On the 13th December about two hundred Indians from the different tribes arrived at the garrison.

The following day the council fire was kindled in the Council house, which was a large log house that stood near the north east bastion, on the outside of the fort.

Governor St. Clair was quite ill with an attach of the gout, to which he was subject, during the course of the treaty, and was carried daily by the soldiers in a large chair to the Council.

The treaty was on the 9th of January 1789, signed by Governor St. Clair and 24 of the chief men of the six nations."  

But how about the cabin, say you?

Dr. Hildreth says the Council was in a log house that stood near the northeast bastion of the outside of the fort. What became of that log house?

David Barber, Esq., (son of Col. Levi Barber) who died last year, and who from childhood lived near the old fort location, repeatedly told me that Solomon Dickey removed and lived in that log house near the west bank of the Muskingum. Capt. Levi Barber, who was born in the same locality, and never lived elsewhere, repeatedly told me the same thing and in one of his recent long illnesses, we visited the old cabin, which he identified and reaffirmed what he often before had to me stated.

The oldest son of Esq. Dickey says that this is the identical cabin in which the family lived from about 1818 to the death of his father, which occurred as he thinks in 1835.

I distinctly remember Solomon Dickey. He was a character in his day and generations. I remember to have heard him on one public occasion (rather in a boastful way) claim that he lived in a log cabin that had the Indian smell on it yet, and further claiming it as the house in which St. Clair's treaty was held.

I have written to a very old lady at Mansfield who should know much on this subject.

I might here add that all above claimed is verified by the recollections of a very old and honorable man who from childhood lived in this county and only left us five years ago, and is now among us to renew old friendship.

George M. Woodbridge.