USA > Ohio > Coshocton County > Historical collections of Coshocton County, Ohio : > Part 1
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21
G~ 977.101 C82hu 1248178
M.L
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00826 7822
m
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS C
OF
COSHOCTON COUNTY
OHIO.
A COMPLETE PANORAMA OF THE COUNTY, FROM THE TIME OF THE EARLIEST KNOWN OCCUPANTS OF THE TERRITORY UNTO THE PRESENT TIME
1764-1876
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1876, in the office of the Librarian of Congress,
BY WILLIAM E. HUNT
CINCINNATI ROBERT CLARKE & CO., PRINTERS 1876
PREFACE.
1218178
.
29
Southen
THE tastes of the preparer of this volume disposed him to undertake it; a residence in Coshocton of twenty years, and peculiar relations and associations of favorable sort, gave him, as friends claimed, at least a certain fitness to do it; and the Centennial year seemed to be the proper occasion. Amid ill- health and other hindrances wholly unanticipated when the work was begun, the book has been written. If it does not meet all expectations, it is hoped it will not disappoint any reasonable ones. It could scarcely be expected that a work of the sort should be entirely free from errors, but great care has been taken to make it at least correct as far as it goes. Of course, in the line of personal history, regard must be had to the limits and scope of the work. It only purports to be a panorama-not a series of finished portraits, with every shadow and light. Mere mention of every person and thing not amiss in such a volume would indefinitely extend it and add to cost. To those who have kindly assisted in its preparation, I shall ever feel grateful ; and I can confidently say that if there had been on the part of some others such help as those kind friends rendered, and as a little public spirit, local fame and de- nominational interest might well prompt, the book would be a better one. As it is, I respectfully submit it as at least an honest endeavor to put in convenient and permanent form something of the record of a locality of classic (American) interest, and to trace the steps whereby we have reached our present position as a county.
WM. E. HUNT. (iii)
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGES.
Territorial Limits and Subdivisions of the County-Date of Organization of County-Names and Date of Organization of Townships, Villages, etc 1-5
CHAPTER II.
Indian Occupancy, and Early Military Expeditions-The Pre- Historic Race-The French Rule-The Delawares-Their Towns in Coshocton County-Netawatwees, or King New- comer-Killbuck, White Eyes, etc., etc .- Boquet's Expedi- tion-The Coshocton Campaign-The Revolutionary War- The Character of Indians, and subsequent whereabouts .. ..
6-15
CHAPTER III.
Notes on Settlement of County and Growth in Population. 16-22
CHAPTER IV.
Notices of the Earliest Settlers, and other Points of Interest pertaining to each Township ... 23-34
CHAPTER V.
Same Subject continued
35-48
CHAPTER VI.
Advancement of County in Wealth, Matters of Taxation, etc ... 49-51
CHAPTER VII.
Something about Roads, Ferries, Bridges, Canals, Steamboats,
and Rail Roads. 52-59
CHAPTER VIII.
County Buildings and County Officers-Complete lists of latter. 60-68 CHAPTER IX.
Relations to State and National Government-Members of the Legislature, Congress, etc. 69-71
CHAPTER X.
The Courts and the Bar
72-82
(v)
vi
Contents.
CHAPTER XI.
PAGES.
Notes on Agricultural Affairs-Extent of this interest-Corn,
Wheat, etc .- Hogs, Fine Cattle, Blooded Horses, etc .- County Agricultural Society-County Fairs, etc. 83-94
CHAPTER XII.
Notes on Manufacturing and Mining. 95-107
CHAPTER XIII.
Notes on Merchandizing, Banking, Tavern-keeping-Trans-
portation Business, etc.
108-115
CHAPTER XIV.
Physicians-Health Items-Medical Remedies of the Pioneers. 116-122
CHAPTER XV.
Newspapers-Coshocton County Authoresses, etc. 123-127
CHAPTER XVI.
School Matters.
I28-138
CHAPTER XVII.
Military Affairs.
..
...
139-150
CHAPTER XVIII.
County Bible Society-S. S. Association-Temperance Move- ments-Secret Orders. 151-158
CHAPTER XIX.
Miscellaneous Matters-1. The Pre-Historic Race. 2. Ancient Burial Grounds. 3. Meaning of the names Muskingum, Tuscarawas, and Walhonding. 4. Prose Legend of the Walhonding. 5. Heckwelder's Famous Ride. 6. Temper- ance Crusade among the Indians. 7. The Gnadenhutten Massacre. 8. Curious Stories Touching Captives Reclaimed by Boquet. 9. Description of the Hunting-Shirt. 10. The Houses and Furniture of the Pioneers in Coshocton County. 11. Louis Philippe at Coshocton. 12. How to Raise a Large Family. 13. Indian Stories. 14. Backwoods Sports
159-177
CHAPTER XX.
Miscellaneous Matters-1. The Killing of Cartmill, the Post Boy. 2. Shocking Murders in Coshocton County. 3. Col-
vii
Contents.
PAGES.
ored People in Coshocton County. 4. Fires in Roscoe-An Incident and a Joke. 5. A Bundle of First Things. 6. Relics and Curiosities in Personal Possession. 7. Coshoc- ton Wags in Early Days. 8. The Treasury Robbery. 9. Humors of the Crusade. 178-191
CHAPTER XXI.
The Churches-General Statements-Detailed Accounts of ยท the Baptist, Christian, Catholic, and Lutheran Churches. ..... 192-204
CHAPTER XXII.
The Churches-Detailed Accounts of the Methodist Episcopal, Methodist (Protestant), Presbyterian, United Presbyterian, Protestant Episcopal, Christian Union Churches, etc. 205-231
CHAPTER XXIII.
Brief Biographical Sketches-Charles Williams. Thomas L. Rue. James Renfrew. Abraham Sells. Dr. Samuel Lee. James Robinson. Thomas Darling. Benjamin Ricketts. John Carhart. James Le Retilley. Thomas Johnson. Jo- seph Burns. John Burns. John Jolinson. Wm. K. John- son. Robert Hay. John Elliott. Taliaffero Vickers. Wm. Brown. Alexander Renfrew. Eli Nichols. Nathaniel Conklin. G. W. Silliman. Robert M. Lamb. David Spangler. Peter Humrickhouse. Arnold Medberry. Mat- thew Scott. John Lockard. Sharon Williams. Isaac Dar- ling. Matthew Trimble. William Pancake. Reuben Whittaker. James W. Pigman. Samuel Brillhart. Mat- thew Ferguson. John C. Tidball. Joseph B. Crowley. Clark Johns. C. C. Nichols. Wm. B. Glover. Joel Clark Glover. Thomas Carroll, Jr. Robert S. McCormick. Asa G. Dimmock. M. C. McFarland. Samuel Ketchum. Sam- uel Morrison. John Morgan. Charles S. Barnes. Wm. Henderson. Geo. Darling. Samuel Squire. Nicholas Bas- sett. W. H. Vickers. Thompson Carnahan. 232-264
[Many scores of sketches, scarcely less brief than many of these, will be found in other parts of this work.]
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS
OF
COSHOCTON COUNTY.
CHAPTER I.
TERRITORIAL LIMITS AND SUBDIVISIONS OF THE COUNTRY.
THE territory embraced in what is now the State of Ohio (and even a large territory adjacent *) was at one time divided into only three counties - viz. : Washington, Hamilton, and Wayne. The boundaries of Washing- ton county, as constituted in 1788, were as follows : " Be- ginning on the bank of the Ohio river, where the western boundary line of Pennsylvania crosses it, and running with that line to Lake Erie; thence along the southern shore of said lake to the mouth of the Cuyahoga river ; thence up said river to the portage between it and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum river ; thence down that branch to the forks at the crossing above Fort Laurens (near the present town of Bolivar) ; thence with a line to be drawn westerly to the portage of that branch of the Big Miami on which the fort stood that was taken by the French in 1752, until it meets the road from the Lower Shawneetown to Sandusky ; thence south to the Scioto river ; thence with that river to its mouth, and thence up the Ohio river to the place of beginning."
Out of this territory nearly thirty counties as they now exist have been erected. The northern central part of Washington county was, in 1804, erected into Muskingum
* Including parts of what are now the States of Indiana and Illi- nois, and most of Michigan and Wisconsin.
2
Historical Collections of Coshocton County.
comty, and in 1811, by the Legislature then in session at Zanesville, the northern part of Muskingum county was set off under the name of COSHOCTON * county ; Guernsey, Tusearawas, Knox, and Licking having all been previously organized. As originally constituted, Coshocton county embraced a considerable part of what is now Holmes, ex- tending to the Greenville treaty line, six miles north of Millersburg ; but that county having been organized in 1824, the limits of Coshocton county were fixed as they now are. Prior to the adoption of the present State Constitution, in 1851, there was considerable agitation about a new county to be formed out of parts of Guernsey, Tuscarawas, and Coshocton, with New Comerstown as the county-seat. There was also a movement contemplating a county, with Walhonding as the county-seat. But that instrument ren- dered such movements hopeless. The territory embraced in Coshocton county is part of that designated as United States Military Land District-so called from the fact that Congress, in 1798, appropriated it to satisfy certain claims of the officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary War. These lands were surveyed into townships five miles square, and these again into quarter townships, containing four thou- sand acres, and subsequently some of these into forty lots, of one hundred aeres each, for the accommodation of soldiers or others holding warrants for that number of acres. What land was not required for the satisfaction of the military warrants was subsequently sold by act of Con- gress, under the designation of Congress land. Twenty- two and a fraction of these original townships were em- braced within the limits of Coshocton county as finally fixed in 1824. Owing to the inconvenience arising from the intermediate rivers, part of Tuscarawas township was attached to the one west of it .; As the population of the
* The name is unquestionably a modification of the name of the old Indian town at the forks of the Muskingum-Goschachgunk-as some- what variously spelled according to sound by the old chroniclers in different languages. Different and quite contradictory definitions of the name have been given.
+ After the Ohio canal was made, and before the bridges were built.
-
3
Territorial Limits and Subdivisions.
townships warranted, they were named (having been pre- viously designated as yet in all conveyances by numbers), and elections for justices of the peace and other officers ordered by the county authorities.
The townships first organized were Tuscarawas, Wash- ington, New Castle, and Franklin, in 1811. The territory adjacent embraced in originally surveyed townships was connected with these for purposes of government and tax- ation, and afterward set off and organized as population might require. Oxford was thus set off in the fall of 1811, and Linton in 1812. Perry township was organized in 1817; the election for officers was appointed to be held in April, at the house of Elias James. Mill Creek was orga- nized in July of the same year, and the election held at the house of John P. Wilson. Pike was organized in August, 1818, the election being at the house of James Bryan. The next township organized was White Eyes, in 1823 ; then fol- lowed Tiverton and Monroe and Keene the next year. Bed- ford was organized in 1825, and Bethlehem and Jefferson in 1826; Crawford, Virginia, and Jackson in 1828, and Clark in 1829. Adams township was organized in 1832, and Lafayette (the last) in 1835.
There are in the county at this writing one incorporated village-Coshocton-and the following other villages, viz .: Roscoe, Warsaw, West Carlisle, West Bedford, Jacobsport, New Castle, Walhonding, East Union, Keene, New Bed- ford, Bakersville, Chili, Canal Lewisville, Spring Moun- tain, New Princeton, West Lafayette, Linton Mills, Mo- hawk Village, Plainfield, Evansburg, Orange, Bloomfield. Moscow, and Avondale.
Coshocton was laid out in 1802, by Ebenezer Bucking- ham and John Matthews, who called it Tuscarawas. In 1811 it became the county seat, and its name was changed to Coshocton. At that time a number of blocks of town lots at the southern end were vacated and laid out into what were designated as south out-lots, answering to those called east out-lots, being east of the present Fifth street. The town plat embraced a territory about three-quarters of a mile square. The first addition to the town plat was
4
Historical Collections of Coshocton County.
Lamb's-a strip of several subdivided aeres on the north- east, in 1837. For more than thirty years there was no fur- ther addition. Then, just east of Lamb's, Dr. S. H. Lee's addition was made. In 1869, the corporation limits were extended so as to include these additions; also the ground of the Agricultural Society, still further east, subdivided at a later day, and that included in John Burt's sub- division and Riekett's subdivision, together with adjoin- ing tracts, making the village plat embrace territory a mile and a half square. The first subdivision was the " county commissioners'." The original proprietors of the town donated the square south of the present public square to " the public ;" but when the town was made a county seat, on petition of the proprietors, and subject to the approval of the lot-holders of the town, the Legislature authorized the county commissioners to subdivide that square and sell the lots, and use the proceeds for the erec- tion of public buildings .* The next subdivision was De La Mater's; and the principal ones of later date are James M. Burt's, Williams', John Burt's, Spangler's, John- son's, Triplett's, Agricultural Society's, Steel Works, and Rickett's.
In 1808, a town called New Castle was laid out by Robert Giffin, but does not seem to have come to much. In 1830, John Clark laid out one called West Liberty; and the new town and the old name became one some time thereafter. In 1816, James Calder laid out Caldersburg. After the Ohio canal was built, Ransom and Swayne made an addi- tion on the north, and the town thus extended was called Roscoe, after a then famous English author, Wm. Roscoe.
Thomas Johnson laid out the town of Plainfield in 1816.
* The ownership of the public square has been much discussed. Originally it was given to "the public." It was never given to the town nor formally to the county, but impliedly in 1811 to the latter. The commissioners have controlled it from that time on. They authorized certain citizens of the town to build a school house on the square; they also leased a piece of it to the Presbyterians, and pro- posed to lease another piece to the Methodists.
5
Territorial Limits and Subdivisions.
It has been of late supplanted by the adjoining village of Jacobsport, laid out by Jacob Waggoner in 1836.
West Bedford was laid out, in 1817, by Micajah Heaton. Keene was laid out, in 1820, by James Beal ; Farwell's addition being made in 1839.
Wm. Brown and Wm. Henderson laid out West Carlisle in 1821, and John Gonser, New Bedford, in 1825. Evans- burg was laid ont, in 1830, by Isaac Evans ; Canal Lewis- ville, in 1832, by Solomon Vail and T. Butler Lewis; War- saw, in 1834, by Wm. Carhart-additions since by Eldridge and N. Buckalew; Chili, in 1834, by John and Samuel Fernsler; Walhonding, in 1841, by Wm. K. Johnson, G. W. Silliman, and T. S. Humrickhouse; Bakersville, in 1848, by John Baker; West Lafayette, in 1850, by Robert Shaw and Wm. Wheeler-Rue's and Ketchum's and James M. Burt's additions made since; and Mohawk Village, in 1859, by James and William Thompson.
The old-time chronicles tell of Lima, Newport, Mays- ville, Birmingham, Zeno, Providence, New Princeton, Cavallo, and Rochester; but these, and even others, never got beyond the infantile condition, and some of them are now entirely undiscernable by the eye.
6
Historical Collections of Coshocton County.
CHAPTER II.
INDIAN OCCUPANCY, AND EARLY MILITARY EXPEDITIONS.
WHEN the English-speaking white man first came into the territory now embraced in Coshocton county, it was in the occupancy of the Delaware Indians. It is quite cer- tain that just before them the Shawnee Indians were in the land, retiring, as the Delawares came in, to the more westerly and southerly regions. The French were then claiming dominion of all the Mississippi Valley, and the head of the Muskingum, as an interesting and favored locality, was not unknown to their soldiers, traders, and missionaries. Some have been pleased, without any very clear evidence, to believe that the famous French explorer La Salle, more than two hundred years ago, traversed these valleys.
Indefinitely before that period was the pre-historic race, who have left their traces in numerous mounds and circles and grave-yards, proving their number and power, and per- plexing the men of subsequent times, concerning which things some statements and speculations will be found in another part of this volume.
The Delawares, crowded out by the white settlers about the Delaware river and in Eastern Pennsylvania-their In- dian name means " People from the Sunrise "-found a home to their taste in the beautiful and fertile Tuscarawas, Walhonding, and Muskingum valleys.
Their language at least will abide in the land as long as the names just mentioned, and also those of White Eyes, Mohican, and Killbuck continue to be accepted as the de- signations of the rivers and creeks to which they are now attached. Within the limits of the county as now bounded, there were, a hundred years ago, at least five considerable Indian towns, the houses being built of bark and limbs and logs, and arranged in lines or on streets. One of these
7
Early Military Expeditions.
towns was called White Eyes (Koguethagachton) town, in the neighborhood of Lafayette. Two other towns were located-one three and the other ten miles up the Wal- honding-and were called the Monsey towns, the more dis- tant being occupied by a faction of the Delawares under control of Captain Pipe, who became disgusted with the generally peaceful and Christian policy of the nation, and seceded from it, desiring more indulgence for their base and bloody passions. The lower town was Wengimunds' .* The fourth town was Goschachgunk, occupying that part of the present town of Coshocton (a name said to be a modification of the name of the old Indian town) between Third street and the river. This was much the largest town, and for many years was the capitol of the Delaware nation, where the grand councils were held and whither the tribes assembled. It was the residence of Netawatwees, their great chief, and was often visited by the famous coun- cilors, White Eyes and Killbuck (Gelelemend), as well as the big captains and braves of numerous tribes. The fifth . town was situated about two miles below Coshocton on the east side of the Muskingum river (on the farms now in the possession of Samuel Moore and the Tingle heirs), and was called Lichtenau (" Pasture of Light "). It was occupied by Christian Indians under the direction of Rev. David Zeisberger (and afterward Rev. Wm. Edwards in conjunc- tion with him), the famous Moravian missionary.
At the request of Netawatwees, Killbuck, and White Eyes, the town was established in close proximity to the capital (which afterward was sometimes distinguished as " the heathen town "), in hope of its Christian influence thereupon. On the 12th of April, 1776, Zeisberger, with John Heckewelder as his assistant, at the head of eight families numbering thirty-five persons, encamped on the site of the future town, and began the next morning the work of felling the trees for the houses. The town grew rapidly ; the mission work prospered greatly ; a grandson
* There was also a small Shawnee town in Washington township on the Wakatomica.
S
Historical Collections of Coshocton County.
of old Netawatwees and many of the head men at the cap- itol were baptised into the Christian faith, and became resi- dents of the town. The place soon fitted the name, "a meadow beautiful by nature, and brightened by the light of grace." At one time the Christian Indians from all the Tusearawas towns were gathered into Lichtenau to escape the evil influences and persecutions to which they were ex- posed through the machinations of evil-disposed white men, and, even worse, apostate and bloody-minded Indians. They remained for over a year, then returning to the Tus- carawas valley.
The Indian towns about the forks of the Muskingum were the objective points of two famous military expedi- tions. The first, both in order of time and importance, has been usually designated as " Boquet's Expedition."
The Indians of the Northwest having started on the war- path, General Gage, whose headquarters were at Boston, in the spring of 1764, directed Colonel Boquet to organize a corps of fifteen hundred men, and to enter the country of the Delawares and Shawnees at the same time that General Bradstreet was engaged in chastising the Wyandots and Ottawas of Lake Erie, who were then infesting Detroit. As a part of Colonel Boquet's force was composed of militia from Pennsylvania and Virginia, it was slow to as- semble. On the 5th of August, the Pennsylvania quota rendezvoused at Carlisle, where three hundred of them de- serted. The Virginia quota arrived at Fort Pitt on the 17th of September, and uniting with the provincial militia-a part of the Forty-second and Sixtieth regiments-the army moved from Fort Pitt on the 3d of October. When Col- onel Boquet was at Fort London in Pennsylvania, between Carlisle and Fort Pitt, urging forward the militia-levies, he received a dispatch from General Bradstreet notifying him of the peace effected at Sandusky. But the Ohio In- dians, particularly the Shawnees of the Scioto river, and some of the Delawares of the Muskingum river, still con- tinued their robberies and murders along the frontiers of Pennsylvania ; and so Colonel Boquet determined to pro- ceed with his division, notwithstanding the peace of Gen-
9
Early Military Expeditions.
eral Bradstreet, which did not include the Shawnees and Delawares. From Fort Pitt, Boquet proceeded westward along the Ohio and Little Beaver and across the highlands to the waters of Yellow creek, then to Sandy creek, and along it to a point near the present village of Bolivar. There he erected a stockade and completed his arrange- ments. The Indians being convinced that they could not succeed in any attempt against him, made a treaty of peace, engaging to restore all their white prisoners. The expedition then passed down the Tuscarawas on the north side, and encamped on the high ground between the rivers near the Indian town at the forks of the Muskingum, and, erecting a stockade, there awaited the arrival of the pris- oners. On the 9th of November, two hundred and six captives had been delivered, and on the 18th, the army broke up its cantonment and marched for Fort Pitt, arriv- ing there on the 28th of the same month.
The second expedition is commonly known as the "Cosh- octon Campaign." It was undertaken in the summer of 1780, and grew out of the deepened feeling of antipathy to the Indians because of some recent depredations and outrages committed upon settlers in Pennsylvania, West- ern Virginia, and Eastern Ohio. It was also understood that the Delawares, contrary to pledges, were joining the British.
The number of regulars and militia was about eight hundred, under the command of General Broadhead. It marched from Wheeling directly to the Tuscarawas valley. A part of the militia were anxious to go up the river and destroy the Moravian villages, which they regarded as at least shelters and half-way houses for Indian marauders, but they were restrained from executing their project by special exertions of General Broadhead and Colonel Shep- herd. They kept on toward Coshocton, and observing some Indian scouts (one of whom was shot) a few miles therefrom, they made a forced march and surprised both Goschachgunk and Lichtenau, capturing, without firing a gun, all the Indians then in them. Among those captured in Lichtenau were several Christian Indians from Gnaden-
IO
Historical Collections of Coshocton County.
hutten. These were released promptly by the commander of the expedition, and started in a canoe for their home, but some of the militia followed after and fired at them. For- saking their canoe, they took to the hills, and all except one, who was wounded, reached their home in safety. Six- teen of the other prisoners, having been pointed out by Pekilon, a friendly Delaware chief who was with the army of Broadhead, were doomed to death by a council of war, and having after dark been taken a little ways from the town, were speedily dispatched with spear and tomahawk and scalped. Having destroyed the towns, the army, at eleven o'clock the next day, set out on its return. The prisoners (twenty odd in number) were under guard of the militia, and, after marching about half a mile, these com- menced to use their knives and tomahawks, slaughtering all of them, except a few women and children, who were taken to Fort Pitt and subsequently exchanged for a like number of white ones. Tradition locates the site of this butchery near a spring about three-fourths of a mile east of Coshocton, on a tract of land now owned by Mrs. S. H. Collier .* Goschachgunk and Lichtenau were both subse- quently rebuilt, to some extent, and became for some years the home of more intense haters of the white race, by rea- son of the associations of the place. But the towns never
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.