Louis Schultz to speak at BWAHS

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

Though it was pio­neer ter­ri­tory and largely unde­vel­oped, Ohio played a sig­nif­i­cant part in the War of 1812; and on Tues­day, Novem­ber 13, Louis Schultz will be at the Big Wal­nut Area His­tor­i­cal Society’s 7:30 p.m. meet­ing in the Myers Inn Meet­ing Room to share some of that history.

As set­tlers con­tin­ued to pour into Amer­ica, Native Amer­i­cans were pushed fur­ther west. Many east­ern tribes moved into Ohio. As more pio­neer set­tlers moved in skir­mishes between the tribes and the set­tlers began to increase until Mad Anthony Wayne defeated the Indi­ans at Fallen Timbers.

The Greenville Treaty was signed in 1795 form­ing a line across Ohio divid­ing land for the Native Amer­i­cans to the north and set­tlers to the south. This line went through south­ern Mor­row County.

A sec­ond Greenville Treaty was signed in 1814 that brought sup­port of the Wyan­dot, Delaware, Miami, Shawnee, Seneca and Potawatomi to the Amer­i­cans dur­ing the War of 1812. The British recruited other tribes to fight against the Americans.

Born and raised in San­dusky, Lou Schultz, a Galena res­i­dent, went to Fort Stephen­son in Fre­mont on a third grade field trip, lead­ing to his inter­est in the War of 1812. He earned a degree in his­tory at Allegheny Col­lege and a degree in Ger­man from Ohio State University.

Lou served as Direc­tor of Admis­sions and Finan­cial Aid at Colum­bus Acad­emy before he retired, and today serves on the Ohio War of 1812 Bicen­ten­nial Com­mis­sion. His exten­sive col­lec­tion of mate­ri­als relat­ing to the War of 1812 in the North­west will be dis­played in the Hayes Pres­i­den­tial Cen­ter from Feb­ru­ary through Sep­tem­ber 2013.

“Ohio was the scene of many of the major engage­ments of the War of 1812 in the North­west,” Schultz said. “The British and their Native Amer­i­can allies invaded Ohio on sev­eral occa­sions; and Ohio served as the base for an amphibi­ous attack on Canada that cul­mi­nated in the cap­ture of the British Army and the death of Tecumseh.”

Schultz said the War of 1812 marked the end of the long strug­gle of Native Amer­i­cans to pre­serve their inde­pen­dence. Soon after the war, the North­west Ter­ri­tory was opened for set­tle­ment and Native Amer­i­cans were put on reser­va­tions and even­tu­ally moved west of the Mississippi.

The Novem­ber Big Wal­nut Area His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety meet­ing is the last edu­ca­tional meet­ing of the year; there is no reg­u­lar meet­ing in Decem­ber. As always, BWAHS meet­ings are free and open to the public.

The his­tor­i­cal soci­ety oper­ates the Myers Inn Museum at 45 South Colum­bus Street in Sun­bury (the museum faces the south­west cor­ner of the Sun­bury Vil­lage Square). The museum is open from 12 noon to 3 p.m. Thurs­days, Fri­days and Sun­days, and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays.

Posted by Gary Henery on Nov 7 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.