USA > Ohio > Fairfield County > A complete history of Fairfield County, Ohio > Part 15
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157
HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
BIRTHS AND DEATHS IN FAIRFIELD COUNTY IN THE YEAR END- ING APRIL 1ST, 1877.
From the following tables a very just estimate may be formed of the average births and deaths in a given population within a given time. The figures are obtained from the As- sessors' returns for the spring of 1877, and including one year :
CITY OF LANCASTER.
Births.
Deaths.
1st Ward
30
16
2d Ward
14
8
3d Ward
22
14
4th Ward
14
4
5th Ward
17
5
-
Total in city
97
47
COUNTY.
Births.
Deaths.
Hocking Township.
28
9
Amanda Township.
48
10
Richland Township
28
9
Rush Creek Township
40
14
Clear Creek Township
58
16
Greenfield Township.
33
12
Madison Township.
25
17
Bloom Township.
46
9
Walnut Township.
40
17
Violet Township.
66
18
Berne Township.
31
15
Pleasant Township
24
28
Liberty Township.
58
15
Total.
525
189
Births.
Deaths.
Total in city and county
622
236
158
HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
JOHN LEITH;
OR, A WHITE MAN OCCUPYING A TRADING-POST AMONG THE IN- DIANS ON THE SITE OF LANCASTER ONE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN YEARS AGO.
To Judge G. W. Leith, of Nevada, Wyandot County, Ohio, I am indebted for the following passage from the life and highly romantic career of his grandfather, John Leith. The narra- tion concerns so intimately the history of Fairfield County, that it deserves a place. It will be seen that it will not do to say that the Marietta and Hocking scouts, previous to the be- ginning of the nineteenth century, were the first white men that ever trod the Valley of the Hockhocking.
" John Leith was born in the city of Leith, Scotland. His parents being of the Huguenots who emigrated to South Caro- lina near the middle of the eighteenth century, where they died soon after, he was left without relatives. He was put to learn the tailoring business, but soon became dissatisfied and ran away. At Little York, Pennsylvania, he hired with an In- dian trader, and went with him to Fort Pitt (Pittsburg). Soon after, together, they took a stock of suitable goods and started west, and in due time arrived at the Valley of the Hocking and opened a trade with the Delawares and Wyandots, on the very spot where Lancaster now stands, and it is thought near the foot of Mount Pleasant.
"He had not been there long when he felt a strong desire to return to South Carolina, and resolved to do so; and when he had made his determination known to his employer, the lat- ter proposed to him that he wished to go to Fort Pitt to dis- pose of the large stock of furs and skins he had on hand, and that if he (Leith) would remain and take care of the stores until he returned, he would send him under the guidance of an Indian back to Carolina by a near route. This was agreed to, and the trader took his departure.
"He had not been long gone when the Indians informed Leith that the whites were marching on them in force to destroy them, and that he must be adopted and go with them, or die. He was adopted, and the remnant of the goods was parceled out among the tribe, and they left for the north.
159
HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
"He was a captive among the Indians twenty-nine years. He married a white captive girl, by the name of Sallie Lowry ; and in 1791, with his wife and two children, made his escape, and succeeded in reaching Pittsburg, closely pursued by his captors. There was a sister of his wife, also a captive, who was subsequently married to the father of the late Thomas McNaughten, of Walnut Township.
"About the year 1810, John Leith moved into Walnut Town- ship, of this county, where he died about the year 1837, and was buried in the Methodist grave-yard at New Salem. His son, who was the father of Judge Leith, of Wyandot, as well as the Judge, were, I believe, citizens for a time of Walnut Township.
"The occurrence of the traffic with the Indians at Mount Pleasant, was in 1763, just one hundred and fourteen years ago, and thirty-five years before Joseph Hunter built the first cabin on the Hockhocking."
RUSH CREEK TOWNSHIP IN 1806.
The townships assessed for taxation in 1806, and which have already been incorporated into this volume, were Hock- ing, Berne, Bloom, Clear Creek, Greenfield, Licking, Amanda, Pleasant, Clinton, Thorn and Richland. There were several other townships belonging to the county at that time that do not seem to have been taxed; at least the County records show no evidence that they were. Among these were Salt Creek, Jackson, Falls and Redding, none of which were stricken off previous to 1806. Licking County was the first border county to be organized, which took place in 1808. Pickaway and Hocking were incorporated a little later, and Perry in 1817. This took off several townships, which con- tracted Fairfield County to pretty near its present bounds.
It seems a little strange, however, that Rush Creek Town- ship does not appear among the assessed townships for that year, for it was organized in 1804. There were two purposes contemplated in transcribing the names of the tax-payers into this history by townships : first, to exhibit the financial condition of the county in its incipient state ; but especially to show who were the early settlers, and in what townships and neighborhoods they settled. Rush Creek was one of the earliest settled townships in the county, and has always been,
160
HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
and is now, within the present Fairfield County. It is, more- over, among the wealthiest and most populous townships in the county. The second end, however, viz. : to give reference to the names and location of early settlers, will be found to be accomplished if the reader will search the alphabetical lists in Berne, Pleasant and Richland, where he will find all, or most of the names of the early settlers of the territory con- stituting the present Rush Creek Township, which goes to show that that township was made up from these three town- ships. Here we are obliged to leave the matter without further explanation.
LAND TAX.
In addition to the chattel tax of 1806, mentioned in the as- sessments already given, a land tax was assessed and collected in the same year, amounting to about nine hundred and fifty dol- lars ($950), which, added to the chattel-tax, as before, aggre- gates the sum of about two thousand dollars ($2,000). A further evidence that Rush Creek had not yet been separated from the other townships as a distinct municipality, is found in the fact that the land assessments were made on the same townships, numbering eleven.
PHILIP BINNINGER.
In noticing the business men and industries of Lancaster in the year 1876, by a strange inadvertence the establishment of Mr. Binninger was omitted among the list of jewelers and watch dealers. His business place is on the north side of Main street, opposite the Hocking Valley National Bank.
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS.
RECOLLECTIONS OF JUDGE JOHN CHANEY, OF WINCHESTER.
At my strong solicitation, Judge Chaney consented to give me the following statement of his private and public life. He remarked that he had often been asked for similar statements, and that he had concluded now, in view of the near approach of the close of his very long and somewhat eventful life, and because he was pleased with the plan and design of the his- tory of Fairfield County, to give me the statement, especially as I assured him that his numerous and life-long friends asked for it.
STATEMENT.
" I was born in Washington County, Maryland, on the 12th day of January, 1790. At the age of four years, and at the be- ginning of my recollections, my father removed to and settled in Bedford County, Pennsylvania. When I was fourteen years old, my father died. The family then consisted of my mother, three sisters, one brother and myself. Three or four months subsequent to my father's death, my brother died. The death of my father left the family very poor. He was a generous man, and underwrote his friends, who were unfortunate, until he lost his farm, which was a good one, and nearly all his loose property. From my fourteenth to my twentieth year the care of the family devolved almost entirely on myself.
" In the fall of the year 1810, I came west to Fairfield County, Ohio, stopping first on the spot where the village of Waterloo now stands, on the Ohio canal. I did not remain there long, but went over into Pickaway County, where I stayed until the fall of 1812, when my health having become poor, I returned to Bedford County, Pennsylvania.
11
162
HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
"In the fall of 1815, my health having been restored, I again came west and settled in Bloom Township, near its northern border, in the same community where I have resided up to this time; my present home being in the village of Canal Winchester, which was a few years since struck off into Franklin County with a tier of sections, the Fairfield line skirting the east border of the village.
" In the fall of 1816,,I married Mary Ann Lafere, of Bloom Township, and went to housekeeping in a log-cabin fourteen feet square. Its floor was made of rough puncheons split out of forest trees. It had a clapboard roof and clapboard loft, was one low story high, had a stick and mud chimney, wide open fireplace with the primitive back wall, jams and hearth. It was a very rude and humble home, but we were as happy as kings. Our living was that of the frontier settlers. We worked hard and were poor; but did not doubt the future, for our aims were set. We intended to live correct and honorable lives, and take the chances of the coming years. There were wolves and wild turkeys in great abundance, and now and then a bear. There were hawks of a great many varieties, which have nearly entirely disappeared ; and the owls were hooting about the woods all the time. The whole country was new and wild. The little farms were small, and fenced in with rails; and the dwelling-houses were log-cabins; and the stables and barns were built of logs.
"At the time of my settlement in Bloom Township, the price of a day's work was a bushel of wheat, or two bushels of corn. Cash was seldom paid for work, and when it was, twenty-five cents a day was the wages. Almost everything was paid for with trade. A few things had to be paid in cash. The taxes were cash; and coffee and a few other commodities commanded cash when anybody could get it to pay with. Our markets, whatever they amounted to, were at Lancaster and Franklin- ton. The little mills of the settlements sometimes went dry, and we had to go all the way to Chillicothe or Zanesville to get our grain ground. The streams were not bridged, and in the muddy seasons of the year the roads were sometimes des- perate. I made rails for fifty cents a hundred, and cut cord- wood for twenty-five cents a cord.
" My sisters having married, I went and brought my mother out to this county. She subsequently went back on a visit,
163
HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
but was taken sick there and died, and was buried beside my father. I went, and was with her during her last illness.
"Our schools were the primitive schools of the early West. After the passage of the first Ohio School Law, we built a little log school-house at the cornerings of sections 1, 2, 11 and 12. We obtained a lease of the land for that purpose for thirty years. The log school house stood a great many years, when it was removed, and a brick built on the same ground, which is still standing.
[I am not positive whether he said the brick house was built on the same site, or in the same district .- ED.]
" We accepted the situation, and struggled on to better times and better life. There were no inducements to change our habitation. Ohio was rapidly filling up, and with every revolving year conditions were improving. Markets were im- proving, and by slow degrees we began to have better roads. Rough bridges began to be constructed over the smaller streams. The first bridges were made of logs cut from the forests for sills and butments, and the top, or platform, was made of slabs split from sections of trees, and generally hewed to a level, on the upper side, with the broad-ax, or leveled down with the foot-adz. These were the first or primitive bridges ; but after saw-mills became plenty, oak planks of the thickness of one and a half or two inches were used for the platform.
" There was another method of bridging the low, marshy, or swamp lands. These were called ' pole bridges,' or 'corduroy bridges.' They were common all over the West. The follow- ing was the manner of constructing them : Poles or logs were cut from the woods, of the length of ten or twelve feet, and laid down side by side across the road for the distance to be corduroyed. Then on top of this ground-structure was placed a foot or more of earth dug up along the sides, if it were not under water, or hauled in on wagons. This bed of earth filled the space between the logs or poles, and when sufficiently packed made a passably good road. And it was a part of the work of the Supervisor to repair these roads by adding ad- ditional earth when the logs became too much exposed by wearing or the washing rains.
"On the north were the Indians; and west, in Indiana, the county was still newer and less promising, much of it still in
164
HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
a condition of nature. We therefore concluded to remain in Bloom Township; for, however much we might have desired to re-cross the mountains back to my native and older State, we were too poor to do so.
" At the time of my settlement here, I mention the follow- ing names, who, with their families, were my predecessors in Bloom, and my neighbors: Abram Plummer, Henry Tumlin- son, Henry Dove, Chaney Rickets, Charles Rickets, Rev. Geo. Bennadum, Rev. Elijah Spurgeon, Isaac Meason, Martin Felt- ner, the Courtrights, Zebulon Lee, Dorsey Meason, Henry Himebaugh, Major Bright, the Glicks, and the Alspaughs.
" In Violet Township I mention: Abram Pickering, Jacob Pickering, Samuel McCollum, George Wells, George Long, Jonathan Looker, Mordecai Fishbaugh, the Cramers and the Kraners, the Donaldsons, Frederick Bauer. All the fore- going, and others, were residing here in 1812. Not over two or three of them are living now.
" In the early years of my residence in Bloom Township, I bought a mill on Spring Run, near me (Spring Run is fed by three or four springs), where for several years I run a grist- mill, a saw-mill, and a distillery, which enabled me to form the acquaintance of a pretty wide circle of citizens.
" At the time of my settlement, the Lutherans and German Reforms were the principal religious denominations of the neighborhood. The Betzer Church was their place of meeting in common. The church is situated four miles north-east of Lithopolis. There was also a church south of Lithopolis, known as the Glick Church. Both are still meeting places.
"I was elected Justice of the Peace in 1821, 1824, and in 1827, serving in all three terms, or nine years. I served as Township Trustee twenty-three years. In the Ohio Militia, old system, I served at various times as Major, Colonel, and Paymaster.
"In the years 1828, 1829, and 1830, I was elected to the Legis- lature as Representative of Fairfield County. In the spring of 1831, the Legislature elected nre as one of the Associate Judges of Fairfield County.
"In the fall of 1832 I was elected to the Lower House of Congress, from the district composed of Fairfield, Perry, Mor- gan and Hocking counties. Was re-elected from the same
165
HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
district in 1834, and in 1836. In 1842 I was again returned to the Ohio Legislature, Lower House, and was at that session elected Speaker. In 1844 I was elected to the Ohio Senate, the term being two years; and again in 1855 returned to the Lower House.
"In 1832 my friends placed my name on the Presidential electoral ticket, and I had the honor of helping to make An- drew Jackson President of the United States. In 1851 I was a member of the Constitutional Convention that framed the present Constitution of the State of Ohio. I am now within a few days of the close of my eighty-eighth year, and in the enjoyment of good health.'"
From the friends and long acquaintances of Judge Chaney, I have received the information, that never once during his public life did he solicit office. But, when placed in nomina- tion by his political friends, he entered into the spirit of the canvass, and helped the ticket through.
In parting with the venerable Judge, as he grasped my hand cordially, he remarked, while his voice swelled up in volume and animation, that, whatever his life may have been, there was one thing that he was proud of, and that was the good opinions of his neighbors and constituents. That good opinion has been merited. And how blessed it would be, if every one could say at the close of life, that he, or she, was proud of the good opinions or their acquaintances.
STATEMENT OF B. W. CARLISLE.
The following is, in substance, the statement of B. W. Car- lisle, in regard to his mother and others of the first emigrants into the Hocking Valley :
" Mrs. Sarah Carlisle was a resident of Greenfield Township for the full period of sixty-four years, ending with her death on the 14th of January, 1866, at the residence of her son. She was one of the pioneer mothers of this county. She, with her father's family, in true pioneer fashion, came with wagons, rifle-guns and trusty dogs, passing through where the city of Lancaster now stands, when nothing was there but an un-
166
HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
broken wilderness. Where Lancaster is, no white man had settled. "
This was in 1799. Across the prairie, near the present resi- dence of Mr. Mithoff, was a small encampment of Indians. "Her father, John Edwards, located on Buckskin, west of Chil- licothe, in that year, where she underwent the hardships and enjoyed the novelties of pioneer life, until the fall of 1802, when she was married to James Wilson, brother of old Colo- nel Robert and Nathaniel Wilson, formerly residents of Hock- ing Township." She moved with her husband on the farm now owned by her son, B. W. Carlisle, in Greenfield Town- ship, the same year of her marriage. In 1807, she was left a widow by the death of Mr. Wilson.
"'Subsequently, she was united in marriage to Thomas Car- lisle, on the 23d day of January, 1813, with whom she lived until the fall of 1844, when she was again left a widow by the death of her second husband. "
Mrs. Sarah Carlisle descended from Scotch parentage, who were Presbyterians, she herself uniting with that church in Lancaster soon after her first marriage, Rev. John Wright be- ing pastor.
Mrs. Margaret Ewing, late of Pleasant Township, and mother of Thomas E., William and James Ewing, was Mrs. Carlisle's sister. She, also, with her husband, were among the earliest settlers of Fairfield County.
Mrs. Carlisle was fond of dwelling on the scenes and incidents of the pioneer age, and had a fund of highly interesting anec- dotes and amusing incidents to narrate. Among her early ac- quaintances of the new settlement, she often spoke of the fol- lowing persons : the Whites, the Coateses, the Bradshaws, the Wilsons, the Stewarts, the Lackeys, the Greens, the Bigger- staffs, the Builderbacks, the Burtons, George Sanderson, and numerous others.
Mrs. Carlisle saw Lancaster spring from the wild woods, where the white man never trod before. She spoke of the first two cabins she remembered-one near the present steam-mill at the foot of Chestnut (Jail) street, the other near a spring at the foot of what is now Wheeling street, on the canal. She lived to see Lancaster a flourishing city of over five thousand inhabitants. Like most of the women of frontier life, she was an expert horseback rider. She often rode from her home in
167
HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
Greenfield to her father's, forty miles distant, in a day, carry- ing her babe on her lap.
An incident of her romance is well worth telling, because such occurrences were common to the pioneers. Returning from Lancaster, she came upon a young fawn in the woods, at a point somewhere near the cabin of Joseph Hunter. She knew it had strayed from its mother, and springing dex- trously from her horse, she threw the bridle over a limb, made chase, and captured the little spotted fugitive, carried it home, and raised it as a pet.
Her second husband, and father of the present B. W. Car- lisle, who is remembered as Thomas Carlisle, late of Green= field Township, entered what is known as the war of 1812 the same year of his marriage, viz. : 1813. He served in Captain Richard Hooker's mounted men, who went to the relief of Colonel Croggan, who was besieged by the Indians at San- dusky.
Thomas Carlisle came from Virginia, and setted in Fairfield County in 1811; was married in 1813, and lived on what is known as the Carlisle farm until the time of his death, in 1844. Mr. Carlisle was an active business man and a highly useful citizen. He served many years as a Justice of the Peace. At the time of his death he was one of the acting Commissioners of the county.
STATEMENT OF NICHOLAS STEMEN.
Henry Stemen came from Virginia, and settled on Raccoon, in 1803. His wife was Mary Beery, sister of the late George Beery. Nicholas Stemen was one year old at the time his father came to Fairfield County. He continued to reside in Fairfield until he was about thirty years old, and then moved across the line into Perry County, where he still resides. Mr. Stemen stated that his father helped to clear off some of the first ground where Lancaster now stands. Below is his state- ment of the
168
HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
BEERY FAMILY,
Who came into the Raccoon neighborhood a little before the Stemens. Nicholas Beery was the father of eight sons and seven daughters, viz .: John, Jacob, Abraham, Isaac, Henry, George, Joseph and Christian ; Barbara, Magdalene, Elizabeth, Mary, Susanna, Fanny and Rebecca. Most of his large family settled in the east part of Fairfield County, and became thrifty and useful farmers and citizens. Most of them are buried in the county.
THE HUFFORDS.
Caspar Hufford settled on the Raccoon at a very early day. He built the first mill, on the site where Lobenthall's, and since, Mike Moyer's mill stands. It was a small Raccoon Burr Mill, of the capacity of eight or ten bushels of corn a day. Mr. Hufford's sons were : Solomon, Abraham, Daniel, Jacob and John. These all settled on the Raccoon. Catharine Hufford, daughter of Caspar, married John Friezner ; and Susan married David Beery, son of John Beery, and grandson of Nicholas Beery. David Beery built the brick house in which Solomon Beery, son of George, now lives, on the Bremen road.
Mr. Nelson built a mill on Raccoon in 1805, on the land now owned by James Driver. Mr. Stemen remembers that, when a mill-boy, about 1812, he saw the miller carrying the ground wheat in a half-bushel up the steps, and turning it into the hopper of the bolting-chest, while the owner of the grist stood turning the bolting-cloth by means of a crank. (The writer has witnessed the same operation many times about the same era.) William Johnson built a mill on Rush Creek, a little below Rushville, during the year 1812, or about that time. Johnson's mill is well remembered. Jacob Rhodes built a still- house on Rush Creek at a very early day. Mr. Harmon, father of Fred. Harmon, erected a distillery in Pleasant Township.
RELIGIOUS.
The first religious societies formed in the Raccoon settle- ments were : Dunkers, Mennonites, Presbyterians, Seceders, German Reforms and Methodists.
.
169
HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
SCHOOLS
Were kept in small log school-houses about three months in the year. Reading, writing, and "cyphering," as far as the Rule of Three, was the course of instruction. Webster's and Dillworth's spelling-books, and Pike's Arithmetic were used. For readers: The Testament, English Readers, Columbian Orator, and the American Preceptor. This was the English course. Some of the first schools were exclusively German, and others were German and English.
MANNER OF LIVING.
Corn-bread, vegetables, milk and butter, and wild meats, constituted the principal subsistence, but even these were sometimes scanty. When the mills were stopped for lack of water, breadstuffs became very scarce, and the neighbors would borrow from one another as long as there was any in the community. Venison was quite plenty, and also wild-turkey. Coffee and tea were dear, and hard to come at. As substitutes the people used spice-wood and sassafras teas; and for coffee, burned rye and wheat. Pounded and lye hominy were univer- sal. The forms of corn-bread were johnny-cake, hoe-cake, dodger, ash-cake and pone.
WEARING APPAREL.
The wearing apparel of the settlers was nearly entirely home-made, consisting of flax and tow linens, linsey and flannels. Every farmer raised a patch of flax, from which the linens were made. The flax and tow were spun on hand- wheels. Wool was carded at first on hand-cards, and after- wards by carding-machines run by water or horse-power. The weaving was done on hand-looms. Every neighborhood had its weavers, and sometimes nearly every house. The girls often spun, wove .and made up their own wedding-dresses in the most primitive times of frontier life. Puckskin pants, and sometimes vests, were very common as men's wear. Shoes were almost wholely home-made, and boots were nearly un- known.
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