Johnson Island Civil War Prisoner Of War Depot, Lake Erie. Did your Ancestor Escape?

Escapes from Johnson’s Island

Those who planned to escape and those who actually did

In 1863 and 1864, there were many prisoners who thought about leaving Johnson’s Island, with or without being exchanged. One group consisted of escape planners who organized the men into five details or groups from the 12 prison blocks. General Trimble was the ranking officer in charge but would not participate, nor order the men to attempt the escape. The reason was that one of his legs was amputated at Gettysburg making it physically impossible for him participate. The generals in charge of the details were M. Jeff Thompson, James J. Archer, William N. R. Beall, John R. Jones, and John W. Frazer. Each of the five generals then chose ten colonels whom they knew and could trust. The colonels then chose ten officers each whom they knew to be trustworthy. In this way a force of 500 men that could be trusted was created. Of the many plans that were discussed, the one that was adopted consisted of rushing the main gate when it was opened for the wagon carrying goods shipped by the Express company; then overpowering the guards and then rushing and capturing the steamer that delivered the express packages from Sandusky. Perhaps this was the best mass escape plan since the guard garrison on duty was only half of the Hoffman Battalion, about 200 soldiers. Once the prisoners had control of the island, they would sail to Sandusky and capture boats at anchor in the harbor. The boats would then take all the prisoners to Canada which was only a few hours away. Unfortunately the escape was delayed for three days because one of the groups was not ready. On the third day, the escape attempt was abandoned when the U.S.S. Michigan, with her 14 cannon, steamed into Sandusky Bay and anchored off of Johnson’s Island.

There were twelve prisoners known to have escaped from Johnson’s Island. Many more tried to leave but were apprehended before leaving the island. It is difficult to determine the total number of escape attempts, as some men realized they would be caught and therefore returned to their blocks before being detected. At times, the entry in the remarks column of the list of prisoners simply said – not here, must have escaped. Most of the successful attempts were by deception – dressing in clothing similar to the guards and walking across the ice to Sandusky or Marblehead, thence to points south to the Confederacy or north to Canada.

One prisoner, Lt .Charles Pierce, 7th Louisiana, was the most persistent and unlucky prisoner when it came to escape attempts. His seven attempts included tunneling, scaling the stockade wall and crossing the ice to Cedar point, and two attempts posing as a Union guard. Unfortunately, he was caught every time and remained on the island until the war was over. In contrast to Pierce’s bad luck is the experience of 2nd Lieutenant D. Woodson of Company K of the 28th Virginia. He was captured at Green Castle, Pennsylvania on July 2, 1864. Fortunately for Woodson, he escaped in February of 1864, but the escape was not reported until June 30th, 1864. Apparently, his prison mess mates knew how to keep a secret while they enjoyed Woodson’s rations.

Another hard luck prisoner was Col. D.R. Hundley who was commander of the 31st. Alabama Infantry. On January 2, 1865, Hundley, dressed as one of the guards who called the role of the prisoners each day, slipped out of the stockade gate. The guards were distracted by friends of Hundley’s who started a fight just as he reached the gate. The morning was extremely cold, and Hundley pulled the cape of his outer coat around his head so that the guard at the gate could not recognize him. Once out of the stockade, he made his way to the ice and crossed Sandusky Bay to the city of Sandusky. At the railroad terminal, he had second thoughts about taking a train to Detroit because of the number of Union soldiers at the terminal. Instead he started to walk in the direction of Detroit, through a blinding snowstorm, following the railroad tracks. To his disappointment, after walking for four days, he came to the city of Fremont which was only about 25 miles southwest of Sandusky. He was able to convince a hotel night clerk that he had fought at the front, and the clerk gave him a room. However after seeing a wanted poster for another prisoner, the clerk alerted the local authorities about Hundley. After some sleep and two good meals, Hundley was arrested and returned to Johnson’s Island. Hundley remained on the island until he was released on July 25, 1865.

Escape to Canada

Four prisoners were successful in escaping from Johnson’s Island to Canada in January 1864. Their journey started by scaling the stockade wall on January 1, 1864, one of the coldest nights ever experienced by the prisoners while on the island. Six prisoners started, but only four made it all the way to Canada. Led by Major John R. Winston of North Carolina, the group scaled the stockade wall late in the evening, during the change of guard. One of the group, Major Stokes dropped out quickly because he felt he was not dressed warmly enough. Captain Thomas Stoakes set out by himself to cross Sandusky Bay after being seen by a guard. The remaining men, Major Winston, Captain G. H. Davis, Lt. C.C. Robinson and Captain J. H. McConnell, crossed the ice of Sandusky Bay to the Marblehead peninsula. They then walked to Port Clinton, stole two draft horses and eventually made it to Detroit without being detected. All that remained was to cross the Detroit River which was not frozen solid. They accomplished this by jumping from ice slab to ice slab and finally set foot in Canada.

Company of the Hoffman Battalion at roll call. The barracks building was the same type built for the prisoners. The lean-to buildings on each end were kitchens. In the background is a portion of the stockade wall showing the parapet used by the guards while on duty. (Sandusky Library, Charles E. Frohman Collection).

All information from web site:http://www.johnsonsisland.org/history/war.htm

Genealogy the ever changing Social History Science

So we have gone from documentation and reasonable exhaustive search's.  Now to Genetic.

Are we rethinking Who We Are????

We must be careful before it all falls in our face.

Lake Erie Ship Wrecks

In seeking out one of my ancestors origins there was a ship wreck in Lake Erie spoke of. 

Finding out such information based in fact has been very difficult.  

There are several Lake Erie shipwreck web sites to use:  

http://greatlakeshistory.homestead.com/

http://www.alcheminc.com/shipwrck.html

http://www.shipwreckworld.com

http://www.ohioshipwrecks.org/Shipwrecks.php

http://www.lakeerieimprovement.org/shipwrecks/

http://seagrant.psu.edu/education/stear/SHIPWRECKS%20Lost.pdf

Great Lakes Shipwrecks

greatlakeshistory.homestead.com/files/m.htm

http://www.northernmaritimeresearch.com/famous-gls.html

Enjoy the information & Good Luck!
You have to check them out and see if you can gain information for yourself.

Lake Erie Shipwrecks What can you add?

Even before the Lake Erie region of Michigan, New York Ohio Pennsylvania, had cities on their coastlines.  Well did you know there was a well established Shipping route on Lake Erie?



  Do you have an Ancestor who was involved with Lake Erie shipping in the early 1800's  say before 1812?

Picture above  from  greatlakesboating.com

The Mohawk (Iroquois) Trail

©1995 by Beverly Whitaker, Genealogy Tutor

Route of the Mohawk Trail

Albany, NY
Schenectady, NY
Utica, NY
Oneida, NY
Syracuse, NY
Auburn, NY
Batavia, NY
Buffalo, NY (on Lake Erie)

Ohio  

_________________________

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ohio ⁱ/oʊˈhaɪ.oʊ/ is a state in the Midwestern United States. Ohio is the 34th largest (by area), the 7th most populous, and the10th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state's capital and largest city is Columbus.

The name "Ohio" originated from Iroquois word ohi-yo’, meaning "great river" or "large creek".^{[17][18][19][20]} The state, originally partitioned from the Northwest Territory, was admitted to the Union as the 17th state (and the first under the Northwest Ordinance) on March 1, 1803.^[9][21] Although there are conflicting narratives regarding the origin of the nickname, Ohio is historically known as the "Buckeye State" (relating to the Ohio buckeye tree) and Ohioans are also known as "Buckeyes".^[2]

The government of Ohio is composed of the executive branch, led by the Governor; the legislative branch, which comprises theOhio General Assembly; and the judicial branch, which is led by the Supreme Court. Currently, Ohio occupies 16 seats in theUnited States House of Representatives.^[22] Ohio is known for its status as both a swing state^[23] and a bellwether^[23] in national elections.

History

Main article: History of Ohio

Native Americans

Archeological evidence suggests that the Ohio Valley was inhabited by nomadic people as early as 13,000 BC.^[46] These early nomads disappeared from Ohio by 1,000 BC, "but their material culture provided a base for those who followed them".^[46] Between 1,000 and 800 BC, the sedentary Adena culture emerged. As Ohio historian George W. Knepper notes, this sophisticated culture was "so named because evidences of their culture were excavated in 1902 on the grounds of Adena, Thomas Worthington's estate located nearChillicothe".^[47] The Adena were able to establish "semi-permanent" villages because they domesticated plants, which included squash, sunflowers, and perhaps corn. Cultivation of these in addition to hunting and gathering supported more settled, complex villages.^[47] The most spectacular remnant of the Adena culture is the Great Serpent Mound, located inAdams County, Ohio.^[47]

Iroquois conquests during the Beaver Wars (mid-1600s), which largely depopulated the upper and mid-Ohio Rivervalley.^[48]

Around 100 BC, the Adena were joined in Ohio Country by the Hopewell people, who were named for the farm owned by Captain M. C. Hopewell, where evidence of their unique culture was discovered.^[49] Like the Adena, the Hopewell people participated in a mound-building culture. Their complex, large and technologically sophisticated earthworks can be found in modern-day Marietta, Newark, andCircleville.^[49] The Hopewell, however, disappeared from the Ohio Valley in about 600 AD. Little is known about the people who replaced them.^[50] Researchers have identified two additional, distinct prehistoric cultures: the Fort Ancient people and the Whittlesey Focus people.^[50] Both cultures apparently disappeared in the 17th century, perhaps decimated by infectious diseases spread in epidemics from early European contact. The Native Americans had no immunity to common European diseases. Some scholars believe that the Fort Ancient people "were ancestors of the historic Shawnee people, or that, at the very least, the historic Shawnees absorbed remnants of these older peoples."^[50]

American Indians in the Ohio Valley were greatly affected by the aggressive tactics of the Iroquois Confederation, based in central and western New York.^[51] After the so-called Beaver Wars in the mid-17th century, the Iroquois claimed much of the Ohio country as hunting and, more importantly, beaver-trapping ground. After the devastation of epidemics and war in the mid-17th century, which largely emptied the Ohio country of indigenous people by the mid-to-late 17th century, the land gradually became repopulated by the mostly Algonquian-speaking descendants of its ancient inhabitants, that is, descendants of the Adena, Hopewell, and Mississippian cultures. Many of these Ohio-country nations were multi-ethnic (sometimes multi-linguistic) societies born out of the earlier devastation brought about by disease, war, and subsequent social instability. They subsisted on agriculture (corn, sunflowers, beans, etc.) supplemented by seasonal hunts. By the 18th century, they were part of a larger global economy brought about by European entry into the fur trade.^[52]

The indigenous nations to inhabit Ohio in the historical period included the Miamis (a large confederation); Wyandots (made up of refugees, especially from the fractured Huronconfederacy); Delawares (pushed west from their historic homeland in New Jersey); Shawnees (also pushed west, although they may have been descended from the Fort Ancient people of Ohio); Ottawas (more commonly associated with the upper Great Lakes region); Mingos (like the Wyandot, a group recently formed of refugees from Iroquois); and Eries(gradually absorbed into the new, multi-ethnic "republics," namely the Wyandot).^[53] Ohio country was also the site of Indian massacres, such as the Yellow Creek Massacre,Gnadenhutten and Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre.^[54]

Colonial and Revolutionary eras

During the 18th century, the French set up a system of trading posts to control the fur trade in the region. In 1754, France and Great Britain fought a war that was known in North America as the French and Indian War and in Europe as the Seven Years War. As a result of the Treaty of Paris, the French ceded control of Ohio and the remainder of the Old Northwest to Great Britain.

Pontiac's Rebellion in the 1760s, however, posed a challenge to British military control.^[55] This came to an end with the colonists' victory in the American Revolution. In the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Britain ceded all claims to Ohio country to the United States.

Northwest Territory: 1787–1803

Plaque commemorating the Northwest Ordinance outside Federal Hall in lowerManhattan

The United States created the Northwest Territory under the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.^[56] Slavery was not permitted in the new territory. Settlement began with the founding of Marietta by the Ohio Company of Associates, which had been formed by a group of American Revolutionary War veterans. Following the Ohio Company, the Miami Company (also referred to as the "Symmes Purchase") claimed the southwestern section, and the Connecticut Land Company surveyed and settled the Connecticut Western Reserve in present-day Northeast Ohio.

The old Northwest Territory originally included areas previously known as Ohio Country and Illinois Country. As Ohio prepared for statehood, the Indiana Territory was created, reducing the Northwest Territory to approximately the size of present-day Ohio plus the eastern half of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan and the eastern tip of the Upper Peninsula.

Under the Northwest Ordinance, areas of the territory could be defined and admitted as states once their population reached 60,000. Although Ohio's population numbered only 45,000 in December 1801, Congress determined that the population was growing rapidly and Ohio could begin the path to statehood. The assumption was that it would exceed 60,000 residents by the time it was admitted as a state. Furthermore, in regards to the Leni Lenape Native Americans living in the region, Congress decided that 10,000 acres on theMuskingum River in the present state of Ohio would "be set apart and the property thereof be vested in the Moravian Brethren . . . or a society of the said Brethren for civilizing the Indians and promoting Christianity."^[57]

Adena culture  From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    

The Adena culture was a Pre-Columbian Native American culture that existed from 1000 to 200 BC, in a time known as the Early Woodland period. The Adena culture refers to what were probably a number of related Native American societies sharing a burial complex and ceremonial system. The Adena lived in a variety of locations, including: Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and parts of Pennsylvania and New York.

Importance[edit]

Adena sites are concentrated in a relatively small area - maybe 200 sites in the central Ohio Valley, with perhaps another 200 scattered throughout Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, although they may once have numbered in the thousands. The importance of the Adena complex comes from its considerable influence on other contemporary and succeeding cultures.^[1] The Adena culture is seen as the precursor to the traditions of the Hopewell culture, which are sometimes thought as an elaboration, or zenith, of Adena traditions.

The Adena were notable for their agricultural practices, pottery, artistic works and extensive trading network, which supplied them with a variety of raw materials, ranging from copper from the Great Lakes to shells from the Gulf Coast.^[2][3][4] The Adena culture was named for the large mound on Thomas Worthington's early 19th-century estate called "Adena", in Chillicothe, Ohio.^[5]

Art and religion[edit]

Mounds[edit]

Lasting traces of Adena culture are still seen in their substantial earthworks. Once Adena mounds numbered in the hundreds, but only a number of Adena earthen monuments still survive today. These mounds generally ranged in size from 20 feet (6.1 m) to 300 feet (91 m) in diameter and served as burial structures, ceremonial sites, historical markers and possibly gathering places. These mounds were built using hundreds of thousands of baskets full of specially selected and graded earth. According to archaeological investigations, Adena mounds were usually built as part of burial ritual, in which the earth of the mound was piled immediately atop a burned mortuary building. These mortuary buildings were intended to keep and maintain the dead until their final burial was performed. Before the construction of the mounds, some utilitarian and grave goods would be placed on the floor of the structure, which was burned with the goods and honored dead within. The mound would then be constructed, and often a new mortuary structure would be placed atop the new mound. After a series of repetitions, mound/mortuary/mound/mortuary, a quite prominent earthwork would remain. In the later Adena period, circular ridges of unknown function were sometimes constructed around the burial mounds.^[1] Adena mounds stood in isolation from domestic living areas.^[6]

Prominent mounds[edit]

Main article: List of Adena culture sites

Site	Image	Description
Adena Mound		Adena Mound, the type site for the culture, a registered historic structure near Chillicothe, Ohio
Biggs Site		The site, located in Greenup County, Kentucky, is a conical abide surrounded by a series of circular ditches and embankments. It is connected to the Portsmouth Earthworks directly across the Ohio River in Portsmouth, Ohio.[7][8]
Criel Mound		A 35-foot (11 m) high and 175-foot (53 m)-diameter conical  mound, is the second largest of its type in West Virginia.  It is located in South Charleston, West Virginia.  P. W. Norris of the Smithsonian Institution oversaw the excavation. His team discovered numerous skeletons  along with weapons and jewelry.[9]
Enon Mound		Ohio's second largest conical burial mound, it is believed to have been built by the Adena.
Grave Creek Mound		At 69 feet (21 m) high and 295 feet (90 m) in diameter, is the  largest conical-type burial mound in the United States.  It is located in Moundsville, West Virginia. In 1838, much  of the archaeological evidence in this mound was destroyed when several non-archaeologists tunneled into the mound.[9][10]
Miamisburg Mound		Once serving as an ancient burial site, the Mound is the most  recognizable landmark in Miamisburg. It is the largest conical  burial mound in Ohio, and remains virtually intact. Located in  a city park at 900 Mound Avenue, it is an Ohio historical site and serves as a popular attraction and picnic destination for  area families. Visitors can climb to the top of the mound, via stone-masonry steps.
Wolf Plains Group		A Late Adena group of 30 earthworks including 22 conical mounds and nine circular enclosures.[11] located a few miles to the northwest of Athens, Ohio,

Shamanism[edit]

Although the mounds are beautiful artistic achievements themselves, Adena artists created smaller, more personal pieces of art. Art motifs that became important to many later Native Americans began with the Adena.^[6] Motifs such as the weeping eye and cross and circle design became mainstays in many succeeding cultures. Many pieces of art seemed to revolve around shamanic practices, and the transformation of humans into animals—particularly birds, wolves, bears and deer—and back to human form. This may indicate a belief that the practice imparted the animals' qualities to the wearer or holder of the objects. Deer antlers, both real and constructed of copper, wolf, deer and mountain lion jawbones, and many other objects were fashioned into costumes, necklaces and other forms of regalia by the Adena.^[12] Distinctive tubular smoking pipes, with either flattened or blocked-end mouthpieces, suggest the offering of smoke to the spirits. The objective of pipe smoking may have been altered states of consciousness, achieved through the use of the hallucinogenic plant Nicotiana rustica. All told, Adena was a manifestation of a broad regional increase in the number and kind of artifacts devoted to spiritual needs.^[6]

Stone tablets[edit]

The Adena also carved small stone tablets, usually 4 or 5 inches by 3 or 4 inches by .5 inches thick. On one or both flat sides were gracefully composed stylized zoomorphs or curvilinear geometric designs in deep relief. Paint has been found on some Adena tablets, leading archaeologists to propose that these stone tablets were probably used to stamp designs on cloth or animal hides, or onto their own bodies.^[12] Its possible they were used to outline designs for tattooing.^[6]