USA > Ohio > Fairfield County > Lancaster > Centennial history of Lancaster, Ohio, and Lancaster people : 1898, the one hundredth anniversary of the settlement of the spot where Lancaster stands > Part 1
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entennial
ancaster
Go 977.102 L22W 1182949
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00821 2638
M. L.
-
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
albert Caffee
CENTENNIAL
HISTORY OF LANCASTER OHIO
AND
LANCASTER PEOPLE
1898
THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SETTLEMENT OF THE SPOT WHERE LANCASTER STANDS
By C. M. L. WISEMAN
Go, little booke, God send thee good passage, And specially let this be thy prayere, Unto them all that thee will read or hear, When thou art wrong, after their help to call, Thee to correct in any part or all. - CHAUCER.
LANCASTER, OHIO C. M. L. WISEMAN, PUBLISHER
1898
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1897,
BY C. M. L. WISEMAN, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
PRESS OF J. L. TRAUGER COLUMBUS, OHIO
Bts_ 9.50
Borderland
1182949
This Book is Dedicated to PROFESSOR AND MRS. FRANK V. IRISH, of Columbus, Ohio, in acknowledgement of the indebtedness of the Author for helpful sug- gestions and critical proof-reading.
PREFACE
C HE author of this history has had in mind a his- tory of Lancaster for a number of years, believ- ing that what is known of our historic town ought to be gathered in one volume and preserved. He had hoped, however, that some one more competent as an author would undertake the task. How well it has been done, the reader must judge. All that is recorded of Lancaster in books will be found in this volume, and it is enriched with information obtained in conversation with a number of the pioneers, and notably with General Sanderson.
The author does not claim perfection for his book, but every effort has been made to make it historically correct; the memory of men, some now dead, has been relied upon for many details, and it is possible that there may be occasional errors as to exact dates.
With this brief preface, it is submitted to the "con- siderate judgment" of the charitable reader, believing that its value as a history will compensate for any defects.
In the preparation of this work the author has had access to the Lancaster library, and is indebted to Sanderson's Lecture, John G. Willock's sketches of Merchants and Mechanics (manuscript), Ohio Valley Series, Walker's History of Athens County, Atwater's History of Ohio, Howe's History of Ohio, King's His- tory of Ohio, Kilbourn's Ohio Gazetteer, Graham's
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Preface
History of Fairfield County, Scott's History of Fair- field County, Memoirs of Gen. Sherman, Autobiog- raphy of John Sherman, Autobiography of John T. Brasee, Taylor's History of Ohio, to the proprietors of the Lancaster Gazette, Ohio Eagle, Fairfield County Re- publican, Fairfield County Democrat, and to Picturesque Lancaster, Gen. H. Ewing's sketch of the Ewing Family, Bishop Asbury's Journal, Journal of the Duke of Saxe Weimar; to Miss Boardman of the State Li- brary, also Judge Biddle, of Logansport, Indiana, whose uncle was the first merchant, Dr. Carpenter, of Chicago, the County Auditor and to the County Clerk for favors. The author acknowledges his indebted- ness to Hon. Charles D. Martin for kindly encourage- ment in the preparation of this book.
AUTHOR.
INTRODUCTION
C HE city of Lancaster is beautifully situated in a fertile and picturesque country, on the east bank of the Hockhocking River. The town plot is about one mile square, on a level plain of the second bottom, with the exception of about four squares near the center. Here the land rises from all directions to the height of forty or fifty feet. This elevation is called the hill and on its crest about the center stands the Court House, an imposing building of Fairfield County sand stone. From the Court House roof there is a complete view of the entire city and surrounding country. To the north Mt. Pleasant the
" Tall cliff that lifts its awful form"
and the bluffs and hills that mark the valleys that meet near the city form the back-ground of a picture of sur- passing beauty, especially in the spring-time, when
"All the hills Stretch green to June's unclouded sky."
The emigrants to Fairfield County came, first, from Kentucky over Zane's trail in 1798. Others soon came in over the trace from Pennsylvania and Virginia by the way of Wheeling, Virginia, and the following year from Marietta by the way of the Hockhocking valley. This is the proper place to describe the river of this valley.
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Centennial History of Lancaster
THE HOCKHOCKING RIVER
In the early days the Hockhocking was a valuable stream, as it was navigable for flatboats as far as the mouth of Rush Creek, and the channel measure is , about one hundred miles in length. Many of the early emigrants came to this valley by that route, landing at the point that is now Sugar Grove. James Con- verse, the first merchant, in 1799 brought his goods by boat from Marietta to the mouth of Rush Creek, and possibly others did the same. At this point for years boats were loaded with produce for the New Orleans market and the boatmen returned overland on foot or on horseback, depending upon their purses. In 1805, the Ohio Legislature by special act author- ized parties at Athens to build a dam for a grist mill, but provided that the dam should have a lock for the passage of boats, and that the proprietors should assist all boats to pass free of toll. In 1808 the same Legis- lature passed an act declaring the Hockhocking River navigable to the mouth of Rush Creek and forbidding all obstructions to navigation without a permit. In 1817, Samuel Carpenter loaded a boat at Rush Creek for New Orleans. For nearly three years before Lan- caster was laid out the "crossings of the Hockhock- ing," near the "Standing Stone" was a famous point on Zane's trace, and in 1799 there was a postoffice and a mail once a week each way, Samuel Coates, Sr., being the postmaster. The office was on the east bank three hundred feet south of the present bridge.
Senator C. A. Cable, of Nelsonville, states that the last loaded boat to run out of the Hockhocking River, above Nelsonville, was built at Wolf's mill in Hocking County. It was in command of E. C. Brown,
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Centennial History of Lancaster
of Nelsonville, and by the time it reached that point the river had fallen. The boat stuck on the dam, was partially unloaded and drawn off by oxen. It passed safely out to the Ohio River. This was about the year 1843.
The name Hockhocking was given to the river by the Delaware Indians, in English "Bottle River." An- other Indian tribe called it the "Bow River." George Croghan, an English officer, passed down the Ohio River in the year 1765, and records in his Journal that he passed the mouth of the "Hockhocken River" or "Bottle River." A writer in the American Pioneer says of this river, "About six or seven miles north- west of Lancaster, there is a fall in the Hockhocking of about twenty feet; above the falls, for a short dis- tance, the stream is very narrow and straight, forming a neck, while at the falls it suddenly widens on each side, and swells into the appearance of the body of a bottle; the whole when seen from above appears ex- actly in the shape of a bottle and from this fact arose the Indian name of Hockhocking."
W. J. Sperry, at the time editor of the Globe, Cin- cinnati, O., wrote a poem called "The last of the Red Men," in which the Hockhocking is mentioned.
" But sad are fair Muskingum's waters, Sadly blue Mahoning raves; Tuscarawas plains are lonely, Lonely are Hockhocking's waves."
It is to be regretted that the beautiful Indian name has been abbreviated and it is now generally known as the Hocking. But few of our people have seen or appreciate the beautiful upper falls, which form the bottle as described in the Pioncer. Art has not
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Centennial History of Lancaster
disturbed it, and with the dark gorge below the falls it is a beautiful and romantic spot.
John Leith, a native of Leith, Scotland, came to America with his parents and settled in South Car- olina. He ran off to Pennsylvania and hired with an Indian trader at Fort Pitt (now Pittsburg). They started with a stock of goods to the West and opened a trade with the Wyandots on the spot where Lan- caster now stands. This was in the year 1765. The trader returned to Pittsburg with furs and to get a sup- ply of goods, the Indians confiscated the goods in his store and carried off the boy. He was a captive twenty-nine years. He married a captive white girl, and the sister of this girl married the father of the late Thomas McNaughten of Walnut Township. The brothers-in-law were among the early emigrants to that township. John Leith died about the year 1835. This story the writer received from the lips of Judge Leith, late of Wyandot County, O., but it is not mentioned, farther than that Leith was a prisoner, in any pioneer history.
In 1793, the Indians captured three boys, Jeremiah Armstrong, John Armstrong, and a young man named Cox, also Elizabeth Armstrong, and on their way north up the Hockhocking they camped at or near where Lancaster now stands. Jeremiah, in 1838, was a hotel keeper in Columbus, O., John died in Licking County, Elizabeth married in Canada and died there. Lewis Wetzel was, as a scout and hunter, an early visitor to this spot.
In the year 1751 the Ohio Company of Virginia sent out Christopher Gist, George Croghan and Andrew Morton to examine western lands as far west as the Miami town of the Indians. They followed the old
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Centennial History of Lancaster
Indian trail leading from Fort Du Quesne to the Sha- wanese town of old Chillicothe on the west bank of the Scioto.
January 17, 1751, they camped at "the great swamp," now known as Buckeye Lake, and passed on westward, crossing the head waters of the Hock- hocking at a point shown on Thos. Hutchin's map, called Beavertown. Hutchins was the engineer of Col. Bouquet's expedition against the Indians in 1764. This map states that the Hockhocking is navigable for canoes a distance of eighty miles. Col. James Smith, a pioneer of Kentucky, was a prisoner among the Indians in 1755 and with them camped at Buffalo Lick, the great swamp of Gist. Here they hunted and killed deer and fine buffalo. The Indians made with their small brass kettles a half bushel of salt. If Smith's statement is true, and he was a respectable man, the salt lick has been lost or buried under the waters of the great reservoir. Taylor, in his history of Ohio, says that there is but little doubt Beaver was the same town known as Tarhe and mentioned by Sanderson, and that the great Indian trail passed from Buffalo Lick to Tarhe, thence to Tobey (Roy- alton) and on to the Shawnee town, afterwards called by the whites Westfall.
General Sanderson states that the Wyandots had a town named Tarhe on the present site of Lancaster, and that in 1790 it contained 500 souls.
Pownall's map of 1773 shows Tarhe and calls it Hockhocking or French Margarets south of the Big Swamp. The Hutchin's map gives the distance from Dresden or Wakatomica as twenty-seven miles to Buffalo Lick, and forty miles from the Lick to Shaw- nee. From the Buffalo Lick, by way of Lancaster
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Centennial History of Lancaster
and Royalton, to Westfall is just forty miles. With- out doubt Gist and his companions were the first white men to visit the spot where Lancaster now stands. This occurred in 1751.
CAPT. JOSEPH HUNTER
Captain Hunter is recognized by General Sanderson as the first settler of Fairfield County. Sanderson was here himself in 1799, and had the opportunity to learn the truth. His cabin was built on ground west of the Hockhocking now within the corporate limits of Lancaster. Here is what the General says:
"In April, 1798, Captain Joseph Hunter, a bold and enterprising man, with his family, emigrated from Kentucky and settled on Zane's trace, upon the edge of the prairie west of the crossings, and about one hundred and fifty yards northwest of the present turn- pike road.
"Captain Hunter cleaned off the underbrush, felled the forest trees, and erected a cabin, at a time when he had not a neighbor nearer than the Muskingum and Scioto Rivers. This was the commencement of the first settlement in the upper Hockhocking val- ley; and Captain Hunter is regarded as the founder of the flourishing county of Fairfield."
Captain Hunter died in the year 1826; his widow survived him more than thirty-six years, dying De- cember 19, 1861. Captain Joseph Hunter was the father of Hocking H. Hunter, the first child born in the present limits of Lancaster. He had a numerous family of children, but they have all passed to the great beyond except a daughter, Mrs. John C. Cassel, one of the oldest residents of Lancaster, now in her eighty-seventh year.
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Centennial History of Lancaster
JAMES CONVERSE
The second settler in the Hocking valley closely identified with Lancaster was James Converse, the first merchant. . He came from New England to Marietta, O. His ancestors had lived in New Eng- land for more than one hundred years and are fav- orably mentioned in the local histories. Two mem- bers of the family graduated at Harvard. From Mari- etta, in 1799, he came to the "crossings of the Hock- hocking" by boat (keel boat) to the mouth of Rush Creek, bringing with him a stock of goods. He opened his store in a cabin near that of Joseph Hun- ter. Here he sold goods until Lancaster was laid out, when he purchased a lot on Main Street, built a home and opened the first store. He was the fore- man of the first Grand Jury of the county in 1803, and his name is on the records as a taxpayer in 1806. In 1811 he loaded flatboats at Chillicothe, O., for the New Orleans market. They arrived safely at New Madrid, to be swallowed up by the great earthquake of that year, and as he never returned, it is supposed he went down with his boats.
Judge Horace P. Biddle, in 1838 a law student of H. H. Hunter, is a nephew of Converse. The Judge resides at Logansport, Ind. He had a brother who lived in Hocking County with his sister, Mrs. Biddle; Royal Converse; he died in 1827. Another brother, Simon Converse, was a Lancaster merchant previ- ous to 1807. Royal Converse was in the year 1819 engaged in the Clerk's office at Logan, Ohio.
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Centennial History of Lancaster
GENERAL GEORGE SANDERSON
General George Sanderson came with his father's family to Fairfield County in the year 1800. They came here from Kentucky, as the Hunters and Mat- lacks did. It is certain, however, that the General was born in Pennsylvania. He was the mail-carrier over Zane's trace from Zanesville to Chillicothe in 1799; this was before his father arrived, but was the statement of Sanderson himself. In April 1801 he became a resident of Lancaster. Later on he went to Chillicothe and entered a printing office, where he became an expert printer. He returned to Lancaster in 1810 and soon thereafter established a weekly paper which he called the Independent Press; this he con- tinued until he enlisted for the War of 1812. He was an active young man and patriotic, and undertook to raise a company; in this he was successful, and was immediately elected captain. With this company he marched to the Northwest and joined the army of General Hull, at Detroit. Here, with all of his men, he was surrendered and paroled. He was much dis- gusted with Hull's conduct, and rather than hand over his sword to the British, he broke it on a stump. He returned to Lancaster, raised another company, and joined the army of General Harrison. He knew that, if captured, his fate would be certain death, on account of his parole, but he had the good fortune to serve during the war without being captured. In the year 1816 he was elected Sheriff of Fairfield County, and served four years. In 1820 he was elected a justice of the peace, and served as such thirty years. In 1821-22-23 he was a member of the Ohio Legis- lature. In 1826, he established the Lancaster Gazette
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Centennial History of Lancaster
and, with Mr. Oswold, published it seven years, Reese and Borland being his successors. He was a Major- General of the 7th Division Ohio Militia in 1828, and held the position many years. Whether continuous or not, he was a Major-General in 1846. He appeared on dress parade in citizen's clothes with a long queue and presented a very striking appearance. General Sanderson was of tall and commanding figure and always attracted attention. He died in the year 1872, aged eighty-two years.
REV. JAMES QUINN
James Quinn was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, in the year 1775, and was licensed to preach by Bishop Francis Asbury of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the year 1799, the year that he made his missionary trip to the Hockhocking valley. May 1, 1803, he was married to Patience Teal, daugh- ter of Edward Teal, near Baltimore, Md. Soon there- after he moved with his family and father-in-law to Ohio. He entered upon his work upon the Hock- hocking Circuit, which included the valleys of the Muskingum, Hockhocking and Scioto Rivers and the adjacent territories. He died in the year 1847, his wife Patience had preceded him to the other shore February 1, 1820. In the year 1799 the Rev. James Quinn of the M. E. Church came up the Hockhocking on horseback; he preached to three families at the great Falls. In the neighborhood of the crossings of the Hockhocking he spent one week, visiting and preaching in the cabins of the settlers. This was in the month of December of that year. It may there- fore be stated with absolute certainty that he was the first preacher to enter the wilderness of Fairfield
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Centennial History of Lancaster
County and preach to the settlers. He afterwards became a well known Methodist preacher of pioneer times. His voice was heard in every neighborhood of Fairfield County and of the Hockhocking valley for more than thirty years. He preached the first sermon in the first house of worship erected in Lan- caster, a frame building, erected by the Methodist Society in the year 1816.
He had often before this time preached in the Court House at Lancaster. The mention of the name of Jimmy Quinn revives more recollections of pioneer Methodist times than that of any other man. The body of Rev. James Quinn was buried at Auburn Cemetery, Highland County, Ohio.
COLONEL EBENEZER ZANE
Colonel Ebenezer Zane, the founder of Lancaster, and his three brothers, Jonathan, John and Noah, were frontiersmen, hunters, scouts and prospectors long before Marietta was settled in 1789. Jonathan was the guide to an expedition against the Indians to a point where Dresden now stands on the Mus- kingum, from Wheeling, Va., in the year 1774. As early as 1785 General Parsons from Massachusetts, afterwards one of the judges of the territory north of the Ohio, while on an inspection tour in the interests of the then proposed Ohio Company, made a trip up the Muskingum River. At Salt Creek, ten miles below the mouth of Licking, he met and conversed with a brother of Colonel .Zane about the Ohio country. Zane was there making salt. Prior to the year 1796, Colonel Zane had surveyed and blazed a road from Pittsburg to Wheeling for the Gov- ernment. Congress having been informed by Gov-
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Centennial History of Lancaster
ernor St. Clair that there were no roads in the Territory, decided, in May 1796, to give the Pres- ident power to contract with Ebenezer Zane to open a road and arrange for ferrys from Wheeling to Lime- stone, Ky., Zane to receive as compensation one section of land at the crossing of the Muskingum, one at the "Standing Rock" near the crossings of the Hockhocking, and one opposite Chillicothe. This contract was made and the work commenced either in the year 1796, or early in the year 1797. Colonel Zane intrusted the work to his brother Jonathan and his son-in-law, John McIntire. At first, this trace was a mere bridle path through the woods; later it was improved so that wagons could pass over, and the marshy places made passable by corduroy bridges (poles laid side by side and covered with earth). With such improvements as the farmers made from time to time it was the only road to Zanesville for forty years. Jonathan Zane and John McIntire laid out Zanesville and sold the lots. John and Noah Zane laid out Lancaster and commenced the sale of lots in November 1800. They had a power of attorney and made the deeds. It is not known that Ebenezer Zane was ever in Lancaster. John and Noah Zane purchased lots and also became owners of some out- lots north of the Zane section. This road has always been known as Zane's trace. Over this route the mail was carried once a week each way from Chilli- cothe to Zanesville, and General Sanderson, a small boy then, was the post-boy. He braved the dangers of the wilderness, crossed swollen streams, and en- dured hardships unknown at this day, passing not more than a half dozen cabins on the entire route.
HISTORY OF LANCASTER OHIO
C HE town of Lancaster was laid out in 1800 by Ebenezer Zane, of Wheeling, Va. The original plat was bounded on the west by Front Street, through which the canal passes; on the east by Broad Alley, which is the alley running north and southeast of Fourth Street; on the north by one tier of lots on the north side of Mulberry Street; and on the south by one tier of lots on the south side of Chestnut Street, and was covered by a luxurious growth of forest timber, consisting of the several varieties of oak, black and white walnut, elm, sugar, honey lo- custs, buckeye, mulberry and hickory. The pawpaw, wild plum, maple, blackhaw, grape vine and spice bush made up a thickly set undergrowth. Soon after the town was laid off a sale of lots took place and were taken by purchasers at prices varying from five to one hundred dollars per lot, according to the sit- uation. There were some inequalities on the surface of the plat, but they have all been removed long since by improvement. The first purchasers were, gener- ally speaking, mechanics and laborers, who forthwith commenced clearing off their lots and erecting cabins. And so rapidly did the work of improvement progress during the fall of 1800 and the following winter, that in the spring of 1801 the principal streets were opened and a number of dwellings erected. Rude and un- comfortable as they were, they gave Lancaster the
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Centennial History of Lancaster
appearance of a thriving town in the wilderness." The above graphic sketch of the town site of Lancaster is from the pen of General George Sanderson.
Caleb Atwater, in his history of Ohio, says of Lan- caster: "Before Lancaster was laid out, travelers, who passed along Zane's trace, through the then, vast forest of Ohio, called this spot, 'the place where they crossed the Hockhocking, near the Standing Rock.'" In 1838, he said, "Lancaster now contains about three thousand people; the houses, three hundred in num- ber, are large, durable and handsome ones; the peo- ple of Lancaster are an industrious, well informed community, who have always stood high with the people of the State." A vast improvement since the land sales of November 1800.
Maple Street, Lancaster, is on the east line of the original Zane section; the north line is now the alley just north of the German Lutheran Church; the south line is now a part of the south line of the Mithoff farm; the west line starts at a point on the south line near the sugar grove on the Mithoff farm, running thence north.
ZANE'S AGREEMENT
"Article of agreement made and entered into by and between Ebenezer Zane, of Ohio County, Va., and the purchasers of lots in the town of Lancaster, county of Fairfield, territory northwest of the Ohio River, now for sale in lots, on the east side of the Hockhocking River, by Ebenezer Zane.
SECTION 1. The lots to be numbered in squares beginning with the northwest corner of the town, and then alternating from north to south and from south to north, agreeable to the general draft of the town.
SEC. 2. One-fourth of the purchase money will be re-
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Centennial History of Lancaster
quired two weeks from the date of this article. The residue of three-fourths will be required on or before 14th of Novem- ber, 1802. To be approved by secured notes bearing lawful interest from the 14th day of November, 1800.
SEC. 3. Square No. 16, including five lots in the south- east corner of the town, was thereafter to be held in trust, for the use of a graveyard, erection of a school house, a house of worship, and such other buildings as may be found neces- sary. All of which are to be under the direction of the trus- tees for the time being. Also four lots at the intersection of the two main streets running east and west and north and south, known by appellation of the Center Square, are given for the purpose of erecting public buildings not heretofore specified.
SEC. 4. Possession will be given immediately to pur- chasers complying with Section 2 of this Article. When fully complied with the said Ebenezer and his heirs, bind them- selves to make a deed to the purchasers, their heirs and assigns. If the terms be not fully complied with the lots shall be considered forfeited and returned again to the origi- nal holder.
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