Found on Pg 512:
People desiring to found homes began to gather along the lower Maumee River
early in the 18th century. It is supposed that Colonel John Anderson was at Miami, site of the British
Fort Miami two miles below the foot of the lowest Maumee rapids, from the year 1796 as a trader and
farmer also William Dragoo. Several American families were with or near the Ottawa Aborigine villages
there and below in 1806. The French were in the majority on the right bank at the mouth of the river,
among the number being the Navarres, Peltier, J. B. Beaugrand, Mominie, and Antoine La Pointe. It is
also supposed that in 1807 there dwelt by the lower Maumee, at the site of Fort Miami, families of, or
individuals named, William Carter, Andrew and William Race, three families named Ewing,
and David Hull a trader and tavern keeper with the assistance of his sister. These were joined in 1807
by James Carlin a former Government blacksmith from Detroit by way of Frenchtown, now Monroe.*
During the year 1810 there came to and near Miami, Major Amos Spafford as
Collector of the Port of Miami, Erie District, Thomas and Halsey W. Leaming, Stephen Hoyt, George
Blalock, Daniel Purdy, James Slason or Slawson, Jesse Skinner, Thomas Dick, William Peters, Ambrose
Hickok, David and Robert Race, Daniel Murray, Samuel Merritt, Richard Gifford, and
Captain Jacob Wilkinson who built a schooner for the river and lake trade. At the opening of the War of
1812 there were sixty-seven families of Caucasion blood at or tributary to the small Village of Miami, as
seen by General Hull's army.
W. Perrin, daughter of Captain Wilkinson, regarding the alarms of these times
is the following:
One morning in the summer of 1811, a man came riding down the river warning
the settlers that a
large body of savages, hideously painted, was forming above and their appearance and actions indicated
that they were upon the war-path. The rumor created terrible alarm in the vicinity, and the thoughts of
each were immediately directed to finding a place of safety for themselves and their children. Father
took his family to the woods, some distance away, and there left them (mother and her four children)
concealed in a brush heap, with the promise to return as soon as he was assured of their safety, and
enjoined them to keep quiet and closely concealed. All that long day they remained there, scarcely daring
to move for fear of attracting the attention of some lurking savage. In his haste father had forgotten to
bring anything to eat, but fear of the Aborigines kept the little ones quiet and caused them to forgej
their hunger, except the baby which nursed until it drew blood. As the dread hours of that long, weary,
terrible day passed slowly, one by one, and father did not come, mother's anguish grew almost unendurable,
for she imagined he had fallen at the hands of the savages. When he finally appeared, just as the darkness
of night was closing around us, there was a most joyous reunion. It seems that the uncertainty of the
purpose of the Aborigines had prevented him from returning to us sooner. The savages were merely out upon
'a lark' and had gobbled up a number of white men, father among the number, and pestered them just by way
of amusement.
The following is also taken from the reminiscenses of Mrs. Hester
Green, daughter of Daniel Purdy:
We lived in security until a messenger arrived informing us that General Hull
had sold his army, and that
we would have to leave. Then all was fright and confusion. We and most of the others, excepting the
soldiers, gathered what we could handily and left. We stopped at Blalock's a short time, and there an
Aborigine messenger arrived and told us to come back as they would not kill us, but only wanted some of
our property. Looking around until he found Blalock's gun he took it, went out and got a horse my mother
had ridden to this point, and departed. We went back and remained three days in which time the Aborigines
were pretty busy in driving off our live stock (we lost sixteen head) and in plundering the houses of such
as had not come back. Mr. Guilliam was one who fled leaving everything behind ; and had not the presence
of danger filled us with alarm, we would have been amused to see the Aborigines plundering his house.
The feather beds were brought out, ripped open and the feathers scattered to the winds, the ticks alone
being deemed valuable. But our stay was short, only three days, when the commandant of the fort informed
us that he would burn the fort and stores and leave, inviting us to take such of the provisions as we
might need. Consternation again seized upon us, and we hastily reloaded our wagons and left. We stayed
the first night at a house eight or ten miles south of the [foot of the] Rapids. In the Black Swamp the
load became too heavy, and they rolled out a barrel of flour and a barrel of meat which they had obtained
at the fort. Mr. Hopkins, John Carter, Mr. Scribner. and William Race went back the next
fall [1814] to gather their crops, and they were all killed by the savages. John Carter
was attacked while in a boat on the river, and they had quite a hard fight before they got his scalp.
Rumor has it that William and the other men who were killed by the indians in 1814 were laid to rest inside the
stockade of Fort Meigs. I am working to confirm this.
Mary Race, daughter of William and Leah Marilla (Carter) Race was born
posthumously after her father was killed in the Indian raid of 1814. It had been in 1813 when the British
ordered the Indians to drive the settlers from the Maumee River. The Races fled to Cleveland for safety but
it was in the fall of 1814 that William Race and his brother-in-law, John Carter, returned to the Valley
to check on their cabins. William was caught in his cabin, John was caught in a pirogue (a dug-out canoe)
on the River. They were both scalped and tomahawked. Their bodies were buried inside the stockade at Fort
Meigs. Mary, born after her father's death, was raised by her mother Leah Marilla (Carter) Race along with her
two brothers, Lewis and David Race. Mary's mother Leah remarried a man from Champaign County, Martin Wygant, on April
23, 1816. To this union was born John, Henry and Kesiah. On February 1,1832, Mary became the bride of Charles Beaupre
from Assumption, Quebec, Canada. She and her husband opened a hotel in Dunbridge, Ohio, and ran the post office called
"The Ten Mile House." Mary and Charles had 16 children. She died at Ironville in Lucas County of "general disability"
at the age of 74.
The Beaupre's, Charles and Mary would have been my 3rd Great Grandparents.