The Bicentennial Minute
As noted in a previous Bicentennial Minute for many years in its early history, this location was better known as Girty’s Town as opposed to St. Marys. Mapmakers used this nomenclature even for years after the filing of the original plat.
The Girty brothers, Thomas, Simon George and James, were the sons of an Irish immigrant who had settled in Pennsylvania. They emerged by far as the most infamous family in the early frontier history of the Ohio region.
While Simon Girty (17411818) was the better-known of the brothers, it was James Girty (1743-1817) who based his activities at the headwaters of the St. Marys River. Simon was more active in eastern Ohio where he has been the subject of an outdoor pageant held near New Philadelphia. Because he was allied with the British and Native Americans he was much feared by settlers from the thirteen colonies. A recent biography by Phillip W. Hoffman labels him “the most hated man in the early American frontier.”
In realty, James may have been even crueler than his infamous brother. James conducted his trading post at this location from about 1783 to 1790. From this location he could ship furs up the St. Marys River and then via the Maumee River ultimately to Detroit. Local legend is that trading post was on the west bank of the St. Marys River at the current location of the railroad trestle over the river. This would be just north of the location of Ft. St. Marys, built years later by General Wayne’s forces.
Lyman C. Draper, an educator and historian, collected an amazing repository of manuscripts, clipping and interviews from early settlers of the Northwest Territory. In this collection, which is housed in the Wisconsin Historical Society, there is recorded Draper’s interview with Sarah Girty Munger which he conducted in December, 1864. At that date she was the only surviving child of Simon Girty.
Sarah describes James as tall and slim. He had a very long neck, a log flat nose, blue eyes and did not resemble his brother Simon. Married to a Shawnee woman, he had two children being a son (James Girty Jr. ) and a daughter.
While perhaps a prejudiced witness, she opines that James was much crueler than Simon, recounting a story where while on a war party and returning with prisoners, Simon prevented James from executing, by means of a tomahawk, a female prisoner who was lagging behind. She tells that this was not the first time that Simon had attempted to stop James’ cruelties, but in this case he succeeded after a “knock down fight” whereas Simon had been “worsted” in the past.
When in 1790, General Harmar approached St. Marys in St. Marys in the first of the several American attempts to quash Native American raids, James Girty fled from his St. Marys post and relocated to the Defiance area at the confluence of the Auglaize and Maumee rivers.
Later he (and also his brother Simon) moved on to Canada. While there, the British recruited them to serve as liaisons with the Indian tribe during the War of 1812. Shortly after the conclusion of the war they both died within a year of each other.