USA > Ohio > Darke County > A Biographical history of Darke County, Ohio : compendium of national biography > Part 27
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G EORGE FREDERICK ROOT, a noted music publisher and composer, was born in Sheffield, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, on August 30, 1820. While working on his father's farm he found time to learn, unaided, several musical instru- ments, and in his eighteenth year he went to Boston, where he soon found employ- ment as a teacher of music. From 1839
until 1844 he gave instructions in music in the public schools of that city, and was also director of music in two churches. Mr. Root then went to New York and taught music in the various educational institutions of the city. . He went to Paris in 1850 and spent one year there in study, and on his re- turn he published his first song, "Hazel Dell." It appeared as the work of " Wur- zel," which was the German equivalent of his name. He was the originator of the normal musical institutions, and when the first one was started in New York he was one of the faculty. He removed to Chicago, Illinois, in 1860, and established the firm of Root & Cady, and engaged in the publication of music. He received, in 1872, the degree of " Doctor of Music" from the University of Chicago. After the war the firm became George F. Root & Co., of Cincinnati and Chicago. Mr. Root did much to elevate the standard of music in this country by his compositions and work as a teacher. Besides his numerous songs he wrote a great deal of sacred music and pub- lished many collections of vocal and instru- mental music. For many years he was the most popular song writer in America, and was one of the greatest song writers of the war. He is also well-known as an author, and his work in that line comprises: " Meth- ods for the Piano and Organ," " Hand- book on Harmony Teaching, " and innumer- able articles for the musical press. Among his many and most popular songs of the war time are: " Rosalie, the Prairie-flower," " Battle Cry of Freedom," " Just Before the Battle," "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys are Marching," " The Old Folks are Gone," " A Hundred Years Ago," "Old Potomac Shore,"and " There's Music in the Air." Mr. Root's cantatas include " The Flower Queen" and "The Haymakers." He died in 1896.
PART II.
A BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY
OF
DARKE COUNTY,
OHIO.
DARKE COUNTY, OHIO.
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF DECEASED CITIZENS OF DARKE COUNTY, OHIO.
BY PROFESSOR J. T. MARTZ.
N preparing a biographical sketch of 1 the prominent dead of Darke county the writer has been compelled to refer to such records, books and newspaper reports as are within his reach ; also the per- sonal knowledge and statements of the friends of the deceased, and to depend upon his own recollections. These facts then have been gleaned from the most authentic sources which are associated with the early rise and progress of the county, and are continued down to the present time.
But few who were contemporary with the settlement of the town or county in their earliest stages of history now live. From them might have been obtained, from per- sonal recollections, the trials and hardships. the personal suffering and endurance of the early pioneers and more recent settlers, but they have all passed to the other shore. To the writing and compilation of these events much labor has been given, and the critical reader will perhaps find many imperfections, but tedious and perplexing as the task has been in many of its details, on the whole it has proved a source of gratification to col- lect into one casket what were like "orient pearls at random string:" and we would fain present this sketch to its readers as a 13
variegated bouquet, culled from the many gardens that adorn and diversify the unwrit- ten pages of the history of this county, and its many absent citizens.
The lives of many of our distinguished dead are intimately associated with the early history of the northwest, and particularly with the defeat of St. Clair and its mourn- ful results, which occurrence may be stated as follows: On the evening of November 3. 1791, his army encamped on the banks of the Wabash, which location was once a part of Darke county. Indian scouts in large numbers were seen skulking through the woods during the entire march to this place. St. Clair intended to fortify his camp the next day, but before four o'clock of Novem- ber 4th, the Indians attacked the American camp with a general discharge of firearms and the most horrid yells. Favored by the darkness, they broke into the camp and con- tinued their work of death. The troops were surprised and recoiled from the sud- den shock. The artillerists were so rapidly shot down that the guns were useless. Gal- lant charges were made by Colonel Darkc. after whom this county was named, but not having sufficient riflemen to support him, his troops only exposed themselves to more
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GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
certain destruction. General Butler was killed in the early part of the engagement, and as the only hope of saving the rem- nant of the army. St. Clair "resolved upon the desperate experiment" of charging upon the flank of the Indians and gaining the road, of which the Indians had possession. The charge was led by the General in per- son and was successful. The road was gained. but not until more than six hun- dred of his brave men lay dead upon the field. The soldiers now abandoned the artillery, threw away their arms and equipments, and never paused in their headlong flight until they reached Fort Jefferson, twenty-nine miles distant from the location of the battle. Many were killed in this bloody retreat, and forty years afterward the farmers in the northwestern part of the county would fre- quently find the remains of soldiers who gal- lantly lost their lives in this unfortunate en- counter.
History informs us that Adjutant-Gen- eral Sargeant wrote in his diary that the army had been defeated and at least half had been killed and wounded, making a loss of over nine hundred men. Following the army were about one hundred women, wives of officers and men, only a few of whom es- caped. General Wilkinson, who succeeded St. Clair in the command of the army, sent a detachment from Fort Washington to the battle ground in the following February for the purpose of burying the dead. The bodies were horribly mutilated, and those who had not been killed outright during the battle had been put to death with tortures too terrible and revolting for description. There being a deep snow upon the ground at this time they failed to find many of the bodies.
In September. 1794, nearly three years
after the battle, General Wayne sent a de- tachment to build a fort upon the scene of the disaster, which was done, and the struct- ure was very significantly called Fort Re- covery. It is said that in order to find all the remains there unburied rewards for finding skulls were offered. The ground in places was literally covered with bones; the detachment found more than six hundred skulls. On some the marks of the scalping knife were plainly visible. Some were hacked or marked by the tomahawk, while others again were split open by a blow of that weapon. The remains were buried, and these facts prove the correctness of General Sargeant's statement. that more than nine hundred men lost their lives in this bloody affair. Two desperate attempts were made by the Indians to obtain possession of Fort Recovery, but in each attempt they were re- pulsed with severe loss. These transactions render Fort Recovery one of the most memo- rable in the history of our country. On the 7th of July, 1851, many of the remains of these soldiers were found partly exposed, and on that and the two following days they were taken up by the citizens of Fort Re- covery, and on the Ioth of the following September were reinterred at a mass meet- ing of citizens from Kentucky, Indiana, Vir- ginia and Ohio, the meeting being called ex- pressly for that purpose. Thirteen coffins were prepared, and it was intended to fill each one partly full, but the remains entire- ly filled these coffins, and also a large box prepared for this purpose. They were in- terred in the old cemetery at Fort Recovery, by the side of Samuel McDowell, one of their comrades who died and was buried there in 1842, where they now rest-a low circular mound of earth and stone marking the spot.
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GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
These soldiers lost their lives in the de- fense of their country and while in the em- ployment of the United States government. A committee appointed by congress investi- gated the facts and details of this campaign and exonerated General St. Clair from all blame. It was the result of the fortunes of war, and we can only honor our noble dead by respecting their memory in the proper way. No other place in American history is more deserving of a suitable monument to commemorate our nation's loss and to mark the spot of her fallen heroes than is Fort Recovery. Five or six acres of ground within the limits of the fort should be pro- cured suitable for a park.
Let this be done and a monument worthy to commemorate these sad events be erected there ; the remains of these soldiers should be transferred to this monument as a suitable location for their last resting place. This is a matter that concerns the states of Mary- land, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana, as well as Ohio. But these soldiers did not sacrifice their lives for the protec- tion of the citizens of these states merely. It was to protect and defend a territory be- longing to the general government from the encroachments of a savage foe instigated by the emissaries of a government glad to seek an opportunity to continue a strife, that by treaty had been settled in the independ- ence of our country years before. It is earnestly hoped that congress will soon take such action, and that a suitable monument commemorating the events herein named will be erected at Fort Recovery.
In June, 1794, General Wayne com- menced his campaign against the Indians of the northwest, marching from Greenville with a force of about three thousand men. When near the northeastern line of Darke
county, the Indians held a council for the purpose of settling the question as to the ex- pediency of attacking Wayne's army at once. Some of General Wayne's scouts, disguised as Indians, with their faces painted with all the hideousness of the savage on the war- path, attended this savage council, listened to all the arguments there advanced, and re- ported the same to the General. Major George Adams, who had so far recovered from wounds received five years before as to be in the service of Wayne's army, was present at this council, disguised in full In- dian rig and paint. He reported that Lit- tle Turtle strongly urged that an onslaught be made before morning. This advice was withstood by the Crane, head chief of the Wyandots, and by the Shawnee and Potta- watomie chiefs, and the head men of other tribes who were in the Indian force. The reasons given by those who opposed the Turtle's council were that they desired Wayne to be farther away from his home, as they designated Fort Greenville, and that they could better engage him when they were near their friends, as they designated a British fort and garrison on the Maumee, which had been kept up in defiance of the stipulation of the treaty of 1783 ; but the true reason of their opposition to the Turtle's ad- vice was their distrust of him excited the previous autumn at Fort Recovery. Major Adams had previously been a soldier in Gen- eral Harmar's army, again in the service as a captain of scouts under Wayne, as above intimated, and nearly twenty years later commandant of the garrison at Greenville, during the negotiations preceding the exe- cution of the treaty of 1814, and later in life was judge of the court of common pleas of Darke county, Ohio. He was five times shot and severely wounded in one of the
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GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
three several defeats of Harmar. He sur- vived, and was carried on a litter between two horses to Cincinnati, although on the way a grave was dug for him three even- ings in succession. With his ashes in the Martin cemetery, three miles east of Green- ville, are two of the bullets of the five which hic carried in his body from 1789 until his decease in 1832.
On the 20th of August, 1794, the battle of Fallen Timbers was fought, which for a number of years subdued the Indians and caused them to sue for peace, which lasted until 1812, when Tecumseh stirred up the Indians to such an extent as to bring on the war resulting in the battle of the Thames. This celebrated Shawnee chief was born at what was known as the ancient town of Piq- ua, located on the north side of Mad river, and about five miles west of Springfield. In 1805 he and his brother, Lau-le-was'-i-ka, the prophet, took a large part of his tribe to Greenville, and built an Indian town on what is known as the Wiliam F. Bishop farm on Mnd creek. One writer says that Tecum- seh and the prophet resided from 1805 to 1808 on the tongue of land between Mud creek and Greenville creek, which place is still known as Tecumseh's Point. This point was held sacred by the red men, and to such an extent did this feeling prevail among the Indians that when orders were issued in 1832 to remove them from the set- tlements at Wapakoneta to their reservation beyond the Mississippi river, the officer in charge designed taking them through Miami county to Cincinnati, but they insisted on being taken through Greenville that they might once more visit the home of their chief and prophet, and their request being granted. they remained several days. The two loca-
tions are about three miles apart, and there seems to be but little doubt of the brothers having resided at both places. Here they lived, and as the early settlers testify, they carried on their thieving propensities the same as they had done at "Old Piqua," from which place they had been driven because of these depredations. Nothing that the set- tlers owned was safe, and they lived in con- stant dread that they would not only lose their property, but they felt that their lives were not safe while surrounded by these savages. Shortly after coming to Green- ville the prophet announced an eclipse of the sun, and that, happening at the time he pre- dicted, increased the belief in his sacred char- acter. Hostile movements resulted in the expedition led by General Harrison, who, on the 7th day of November, 1811, encountered the Indians at Tippecanoe, Indiana, and gained a decisive victory over them. Te- cumseh was not present at the battle, but the Indians were commanded by the prophet, who had promised them an easy victory. Not accomplishing what he as a prophet fore- told, he lost the confidence of the Indians and was never able to restore his influence over them. In 1812 Tecumseh was early in the field. He fought at Brownstown, was wounded at Magreaga and made a brigadier- general by the British. He took a part in the siege of Fort Meigs, and fell, bravely fighting, in the battle of the Thames, in the forty-fourth year of his age. His death shot is ascribed to a pistol in the hands of Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. We thus make brief mention of these renowned leaders of the aboriginal races to whose lands we have become heirs, and in whose biogra- phy Darke county has the honor of being so prominently connected.
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GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
MURDER OF THE WILSON CHILDREN.
The early settlers of Greenville suffered many hardships, and were exposed to many dangers from 1808 to 1816. Indians were numerous, and while they were generally considered friendly, the settlers lived in con- stant alarm, and a ceaseless dread of treach- ery and violence hung like a threatening cloud over them. There were many In- dian tribes at that time friendly to the whites, and while scouts were constantly on the move and vigilant in their efforts to give the first alarm of danger, these friendly In- dians were supplied with white flags, prop- erly marked, which permitted them to pass the outposts of the whites in safety. This feeling of dread was not produced by the acts of the Indians alone, but the whites did much to increase the anxiety and danger. At one time a party of whites discharged a volley into a body of Indians carrying one of these flags, and approaching with the ut- most confidence. Two Indians were in- stantly killed, a third was wounded, and the rest were taken prisoners and robbed. One of the settlers, Andrew Rush, was killed by the Indians, and it was reported that a trader at Fort Recovery had been killed by his partner, but the Indians were accused of the crime. Greenville was then a stock- ade, and in the summer of 1812 many of the men were away rendering military service to the government, and but few men re- mained at the fort. It is said about this time a number of white men came upon a party of Indians with their women and chil- dren. The whites treated the Indian chil- dren with cruelty, taking them by the feet and swinging them around their heads, and when the Indians remonstrated and asked them to desist, one man dashed out the
brains of one of the children. An attempt would have been made to punish the mur- derer immediately, but the whites were too strong, and the Indians awaited a future time in which to obtain their revenge. This time soon came. In July, 1812, Patsy and Anna Wilson, daughters of "Old Billy Wilson," and aged respectively fourteen and eight years, accompanied by their brother older than they, left the stockade in the afternoon to gather berries. The brother took a gun with him for safety, as it is said that some time previous he had been chased by the In- dians, and being hard pressed he took shel- ter behind a tree, then placed his hat on the muzzle of his gun, exposed the same to the fire of the Indians, and while they stopped to load their guns he made his escape. The three crossed Greenville creek near N. Kuntz's saw-mill, and were picking berries under the trees when they were attacked by three Indians. The brother had left his gun near by, and the three were some distance apart at the time of the surprise. Not being able to secure his gun, the brother escaped by swimming the stream. His cries and the screams of the girls attracted the attention of Abraham Scribner and William Devor, who immediately ran to the spot, but the Indians had fled, after killing the girls by blows on the head with the poll or back of their tomahawks and scalping one of them, they not having time to scalp the other one. When the help came the girl that had been scalped was already dead, the other gasped a few times after they reached her. The dead bodies were carried into the fort and the aların given, but the Indians escaped. Two innocent lives were thus sacrificed in retalia- tion for the death of the Indian child. The sisters were buried under the tree near where
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GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
they were murdered, and this was the last tragedy of those perilous times. It was not safe for Indians to show themselves in this vicinity after that atrocious butchery, and the war being carried to the northwest, fol- lowed by the treaty of 1814, left the inhab- itants of Greenville in comparative safety. About the Ist of July, 1871, the remains of these two sisters were taken up, and on the fourth of the same month, the "Nation's Birthday." they were deposited in the Green- ville cemetery with appropriate ceremonies. a large assembly of the people being in at- tendance to show their respect for the dead. On the same day a large granite boulder. weighing perhaps four tons, swung under a wagon drawn by six horses, was driven into the cemetery and placed over their grave. Here let them rest in peace, and may their monument be a constant reminder to us of the trials and dangers through which the early settlers of our peaceful city passed, and may it admonish us of the importance of properly appreciating the privileges and blessings we enjoy.
ANDREW RUSH.
About the 28th of April, 1812, Andrew Rush started for a little mill which had been built on Greenville creek, a few rods above where the Beamsville road to Greenville marks a crossing. He got his grist and set out to return home. On his way home he stopped to make a call on Daniel Potter, who, with Isaac Vail, was occupying each his own end of a double log house, which stood be- tween the late residence of Moses Potter and the creek. The two settlers from some cause had become fearful of trouble, and had gone down the Miami for assistance to take back their families to their former homes. Mrs. Potter asked Mr. Rush if he were not
afraid of the Indians, and he put his hand through his hair and replied jokingly, "No: I had my wife cut my hair this morning so short that they could not get my scalp." Some time about 4 p. m, he left for home, and had not proceeded half a mile when he was shot from his horse, tomahawked and his scalp taken. Uneasiness was felt because of his not returning home, but all the fore- noon next day rain fell steadily and it was thought he might have stayed with a settler ; but in the afternoon Mr. Hiller's oldest son and Mr. Rush's brother-in-law took a horse and set out to look for him. The boys fol- lowed the track made by Rush to Greenville creek, just above the place known as Spiece's Mill, and there found the body lying on the sack of meal, mutilated as described. The boys then visited the houses of the settlers, but found all the cabins silent and deserted. They then hastened to the cabin of Henry Rush, and it was abandoned. The truth was evident that a panic had seized upon all, and they had fled for their lives. Next morning men from Preble county moved out on the road to the body of Andrew Rush and gave it burial.
AZOR AND ABRAHAM SCRIBNER.
Among the first settlers of Greenville was Azor Scribner. Late in 1806 or early in 1807, he came to Greenville with a small stock of Indian goods, including tobacco and whisky, and began business in a cabin built by a Frenchman who had deserted the same two years before because of the thiev- ing depredations of the Indians. He did not bring his family, consisting of a wife and two daughters, from Middletown until 1808, but what time of the year is not known. It is conceded that the first white man who, with a wife and children, emigrated to the
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GENEALOGICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
county and settled in Greenville township was Samuel Boyd, who came in 1807 and bulit himself a cabin about two and one-half miles north by east of the site of Fort Green- ville on the bank of a branch that yet goes by the name of Boyd's creek. Boyd was a native of Maryland, had lived in Kentucky, and was probably married there before he emi- grated to Ohio and had, as far as we are able to learn, stopped one or two years near the Miami in Butler county, before emigrat- ing to the wilderness, that, two years after- ward, created the county of Darke. Boyd lost his wife about 1816. and she was the first person buried in the old graveyard below the railroad bridge ; the early settlers having pre- viously used as a cemetery the lot on which the Catholic church is erected, but during the occupancy of the fort by General Wayne's army his hospital was located on the lot now ocupied by Judge George A. Jobes, while his graveyard was located upon the lot now oc- cupied by the dwelling house of R. S. Fri- zell. Boyd died in 1829 or 1830; one of his daughters, the wife of John Carnahan, had died in 1821 or 1822; and another, the wife of Robert Martin, lived until about thirteen years ago, recognized as the oldest inhabitant of the county at that time. Soon after Boyd came, Azor Scribner removed his family and, abandoning the cabin on the west side of the creek, occupied one of the buildings of the fort that had escaped the fire which in a measure destroyed the fort inside of the pickets. Azor died in 1822 and his widow, in the early part of 1825, married a Yankee adventurer, who in less than a year deserted her, and the last ever heard of him was that he was in jail in Canada, on a charge of treason, having been involved in what was there known as Mckenzie's rebellion.
Abraham Scribner, brother of Azor, came to Greenville in the summer or early fall of ISII. He had previously been master of one Or more vessels engaged in the navigation of the Hudson river, from New York to Troy. or in the coasting trade from Passamma- quoddy bay to the capes of the Chesapeake. and, sometimes, as far south as Cape Hat- teras. When he came to Darke county he was about thirty years old. From exposure while commander of a vessel a year or two before he nearly lost the sense of hearing, and this infirmity in connection with some. other peculiarities made him a man singular and exceptional in character and deport- ment. Part of his time he spent in Green- ville, in the family of Mrs. Armstrong, until his death in January, 1812, and part of the time in Montgomery county in the family of John Devor, one of the proprietors of Green- ville, whose daughter Rachel he married in 1814. What he did to make a living for him- self for a year or more after lie came to this county none now living knows. He appeared to be always busy, and yet no one could tell whether he was doing anything. Being at Dayton in the spring of 1813, he enlisted in Colonel Dick Johnson's mounted regiment. and with it went to upper Canada where, in the fall of that year, he participated in the battle of the Fallen Timber, where Proctor was defeated and Tecumseh was killed. After being discharged from the service he married Miss Rachel Devor, and having en- tered the prairie quarter-section of land above the mouth of Mud creek, now owned by the estate of J. W. Sater, deceased, he erected a log house upon it ; also brought his wife from Montgomery county, and began housekeep- ing. In about two years Scribner sokdl his quarter-section, on which he had paid only
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