A sad crisis arose in our history when others differed from us in this respect. They differed from our fathers; they maintained that this great union of states was a mere rope of sand from which any state could withdraw at will. Out of this controversy arose long continued war. The struggle went on from 1861 to 1865. Three hundred thousand gallant soldiers from Ohio enlisted in the cause of the Union and for the purpose of maintaining the theory which had been taught them by their fathers. (Applause.) After war, victory perched upon the banners of the Union. The edict of battle settled this controversy and declared that every state in this nation, as well as the states of the Northwest Territory, should forever remain a part of the United States of America. (Loud applause.)

This happy result is now acquiesced in by all the people of this country; by the people of the South, by the people of the North, by the people of the East and by the people of the West, and they now unite in proclaiming the doctrine of our fathers that all the states of this Union shall forever remain a part of the United States of America. In this fact they now all rejoice and all are united in saying that our beautiful banner shall forever remain the loved banner of all the people of the Republic. (Loud and long continued applause.)

Upon the things accomplished in our first one hundred years, not only for the state of Ohio, but for the entire country, I congratulate you.

Fellow-citizens, I have a story that I desire to tell you. It is a story of patriotic effort and yet it seems to me that it furnishes the best example of the ingratitude of republics of any that has come within my knowledge.

In 1758 there was a young Scotchman about to leave his home. He was a graduate of the University of Edinburgh. He was thoroughly educated, he was tall, handsome and twentythree years of age. He enlisted in the army of the king of Great Britain and became an ensign in one of his regiments. He left his home in Scotland and came to America under Amherst. In the French-English War he served faithfully and bravely before the walls of Louisburg. For gallantry in that action he was promoted to the position of second lieutenant in his com

pany. Then a few years later he was joined to the command of the great and gallant Wolfe in the final struggle between the French and English, for the possession of Canada. Upon the Plains of Abraham, in the attack upon Quebec, he was one of the brave soldiers who followed the gallant Wolfe, who fell upon that bloody field. One of the color bearers fell, bearing down with him the colors of his regiment. This lieutenant seized those colors covered with blood and carried them bravely until the end of that conflict, which has been told in history and sung in song for nearly one hundred and fifty years.

That brave Scotchman was Arthur St. Clair (applause), the first governor of the Northwest Territory. (More applause and cheers.)

He resigned from the English army; he became the husband of a loved wife; he was endowed with ample fortune, and in 1766 he went to western Pennsylvania near Pittsburg and settled among her beautiful hills and became one of the leading pioneers of this western country.

Time went by; the Revolution for our freedom commenced and St. Clair was called upon by John Hancock in 1775 to raise a regiment to engage in our great struggle for liberty. He responded as a patriotic man always responds.

At this time he wrote to an intimate friend:

I hold that no man has a right to withhold his services when his country needs them. Be the sacrifice ever so great, it must be yielded upon the altar of patriotism.

He raised a regiment of Pennsylvanians. He joined in the expedition of Arnold against Montreal for the capture of Canada. He was there barely in time to save the army of Arnold from utter rout. Then he was called by Washington to New Jersey. He was then made a major-general in the Revolutionary army. He engaged with Washington in the battles of Trenton and Princeton. There he gave advice to our gallant chief which was esteemed most highly. After those victories he returned to the northern territory and with his command sought to stay the invasion of Burgoyne. He was through all those conflicts which finally resulted in the surrender of Burgoyne and his

army. Then he joined Washington, again became his faithful adviser, was a favorite of Alexander Hamilton, was a friend of LaFayette, the brave Frenchman who came to our rescue. By them all he was esteemed and honored. At Valley Forge, Washington called upon this brave general, with his fortune to come to the rescue of his army. With his own money he assisted in feeding Washington's soldiers; with his own money he partially clothed them; by his patriotism he impoverished himself.

Later, when the war was over, he became president of the Continental Congress. He was its president when the Ordinance of 1787 was framed. In the making of its provisions he took an active part. That ordinance became the law of this territory. Then the Continental Congress saw fit to elect Arthur St. Clair as the governor of the territory, whose ordinance he helped to frame. For fourteen years he remained here as the governor of the Northwest Territory. His labors were very irksome. The value of what he did for our pioneers can never be over-estimated. At length there came the time in 1802 when he must retire from office. He went back to his beloved Pennsylvania hills.

He was an old man, yet he sought to recuperate the fortune which he had lost. He pleaded with Congress to restore the money to him which he had expended upon the army that gave us our liberties; but that Congress, poor and impoverished, too, made the lame excuse that St. Clair's claims were outlawed, and they were not paid.

He went back to his home in Pennsylvania and lived in a hovel with his widowed daughter. At last one day, with some truck that might give him the sustenance of life, he started with his pony and cart to a nearby town and on the way a wheel fell into a rut. The aged general was thrown from his cart upon the stony ground and severely injured. There he lay nearly a day before he was discovered and rescued. In a few days he died. He was by his Masonic brothers buried in a little country graveyard at Greensburg. They erected a plain, brown sandstone monument over his tomb and inscribed upon it these words:

The earthly remains of General Arthur St. Clair are deposited beneath this humble monument; which is erected to supply the place of a nobler one, due from his country.

It is too late to do justice to St. Clair, but we can honor his memory by erecting over that lonely grave the monument which is due from his country.

And, now, fellow-citizens, I propose, if you concur in the proposition, in my next message to the General Assembly of Ohio, to ask that body to appropriate a sufficient sum to erect a monument over the grave of St. Clair, the patriot and the first governor of the Northwest Territory. (Loud and long-continued applause and cheers.)

GENERAL KEIFER, the chairman: I move - and the Governor shall put the motion-that it is the sense of this assemblage that the Governor ask the State to erect a monument to Governor St. Clair.

Motion seconded and unanimously carried.

GOVERNOR NASH: It is carried, and I will convey your will to the General Assembly of the State.

The remarks of Governor Nash were followed by a song by the children's chorus. The enthusiasm of the young singers was unbounded and their voices rang out with joyous spirit, that clearly expressed their patriotism and civic pride. The numbers they rendered during the morning were: "Hurrah for the Schools of Ohio," "Ohio Beautiful" and "The Buckeye." The words and music of all the songs were the product of Ohio authors. The youthful singers were skillfully directed by Miss Florence Purdum, the music directress of the public schools. At the close of the first song Governor Nash introduced Hon. Judson Harmon, of Cincinnati.

THE HISTORY

OF THE

NORTHWEST TERRITORY TO THE MARIETTA SETTLEMENT.

JUDSON HARMON.

Evidence has been found that men existed in this region while the glaciers were pushing their way over it. After its hills. were raised up and its plains and valleys formed it became the home of a numerous race, as the thousands of their earthworks and relics show. But the story of these peoples remains. untold.

Then came the red men whose vague and conflicting traditions give only confused glimpses of warfare and migration.

JUDSON HARMON.

There were very few white men and hardly anything that could be called organized society or government north of the Ohio River before the settlement at Marietta, so that the history of this region before that time, so have one, is chiefly an abstract of title. finds its origin in daring enterprise and perilous adventure, its muniments in fire and blood and its chain in the compacts of the greatest nations of the world.

far as it can be said to But it is a title which

The charters of the colonies of Virginia, Massachusetts and Connecticut did not fix their western boundaries, and they accordingly insisted that their territory reached as far as the roval domain. But there was nothing to define the extent of that domain. No rule of international law established the limits.