USA > Ohio > Fairfield County > A complete history of Fairfield County, Ohio > Part 16
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HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNLY, OHIO.
PLAYS.
In common with all the frontier settlers, the inhabitants of Raccoon and Rush Creek Valleys practiced the plays common to the times. Mr. Stemen's parents did not approve them. In those times the family discipline was very rigid. The same ruling would be tyranny now. Nevertheless, that kind of dis- cipline gave the world a more noble class of men and women than we shall ever see again.
WILD ANIMALS.
Wolves were very numerous, making it difficult to keep sheep. The State paid premiums for their scalps. Panthers, bears and wild-cats were plenty, deer abundant. Bear's meat was common. Catamounts were also often seen in the woods. (The catamount is of the feline species, and in size is inter- mediate between the domestic cat and the American panther. They were greyish, and sometimes spotted). When wounded, or enraged, they were dangerous enemies.
INDIANS.
There were bands of various tribes of Indians wandering about the country during several years after the white settle- ments commenced. They were peaceable for the most part, but had to be kept in a good humor. Mr. Stemen spoke of an instance where several Indians came to his father's house and asked for something to cat. His mother had a corn pone baked for her family, and little besides to give them. She gave them half of the pone, and they went away, but soon re- turned and demanded more, and to pacify them she gave them all she had.
The writer remembers many similar instances in another part of the State, but there, the Indians, for the most part, had something to give in exchange for what they wanted, such as furs, peltry and venison hams, and sometimes cut money. On one occasion a company of Miamis came to our house when my mother was a hundred yards away at the spring rinsing her clothes. I was the baby, and had been left alone in the cradle in the cabin. As was their custom, they stopped out in the grove and sent their commission of two squaws into the house, who finding no one in besides the baby,
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took me from the cradle and carried me out to their comrades for a show. In a few minutes my mother returned, and find- ing the cradle empty, ran screaming out into the yard, when the squaws seeing her distress, hastened to meet her and re- store the object of her alarm. She at once gave them every- thing she had about the house that could be eaten, and they left in good humor.
They were Miamis, and their town was seven miles from our house. I never heard of them plundering or stealing in time of peace. They always asked for what they wanted.
HON. THOMAS EWING.
Of this truly distinguished citizen and Jurist, I need not write much. His fame is as wide as American history. It is written in books, and in the hearts of the people. I speak only of his citizenship in Fairfield County.
Mr. Ewing settled in Lancaster in 1815, and commenced the study of law with Hon. Philemon Beecher, and was admitted to the bar in 1816. He continued to reside in Lancaster until the time of his death. Of the high positions of trust and honor he was called to fill in the nation, I do not speak ; they are recorded in the archives of the nation. It will not be too much for my humble pen to say, that Mr. Ewing was in some respects a remarkable man. No man living, perhaps, possessed the powers of speech and logic in a superior degree. He used no needless or superfluous words. He was not ver- bose. This was his strong forte in argument. He said much in few words. All understood him at once.
Of Mr. Ewing's family still surviving, are\ Mrs. General Sherman, Mrs. Colonel Steele, Hon. Hugh Boyl Ewing, Gen. Thomas Ewing and Gen. Charles Ewing. On the lid of his burial-casket was engraved-
" THOMAS EWING; Born December 28th, 1789; Died October 26th, 1871."
Mrs. Maria Ewing, consort of Hon. Thomas Ewing, was born in Lancaster. She was daughter of the late Hugh Boyl. She was married to Mr. Ewing in January, 1820, and died in February, 1864. They are buried in the Catholic Cemetery,
Hin, PUB Time,
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HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
east of Lancaster, and their graves are designated by fine marble monuments.
JUDGE CHARLES SHERMAN.
Charles Sherman was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, May 26, 1788. In 1810 he was admitted to the bar, and in the same year married Mary Hoyt, also of Norwalk. In the following year, with his wife and infant child, he came to Lancaster, O., and began the practice of law. In speaking of his emigration, Gen. Wm. J. Reece, one of his sons-in-law, says: "The way to it (Lancaster) from their New England home was far and weary, beset with hardships, and exposed to dangers. They were obliged to journey the greater part of the distance on horseback, carrying their infant child on a pillow before them.
* * * The little boy they carried on the pillow before them is now the Hon. Charles Taylor Sherman, United States District Judge of the Northern District of Ohio."
Judge Charles Sherman was elected by the Legislature of Ohio to the bench of the Supreme Court in 1823, which place he filled a few months over six years with distinguished ability, when his labors were ended by death. He died at Lebanon, Ohio, while attending Court, on the 24th day of June, 1829, in his 41st year. His companion, Mary Hoyt Sherman, survived him many years. Their tombs are in Lancaster Cemetery.
Judge Sherman was the father of Gen. W. T. Sherman, and Hon. John Sherman, U. S. Senator ; also of Mrs. W. J. Reece, now of Lancaster, besides several other sons and daughters, with whom the writer was not acquainted.
HON. HOCKING H. HUNTER.
Hocking H. Hunter was one of Ohio's leading lawyers. He was once elected to the Senate of Ohio, and subsequently de- clined the poll for Governor. As a lawyer he was eminently successful. He began life in a very humble way, as most of the sons of pioneers did, and worked his way up to fortune and fame by his own personal application and diligence. Mr. Hunter was a man of stern integrity of character, and unsur- passed administrative ability-pre-eminently just and up- right in all the affairs of life. He was the son of Joseph Hun-
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HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
ter, who was the first white man that erected a cabin in Fair- field County.
Mr. Hunter was born in the month of August, 1801, and died February 4, 1872, in the 71st year of his age. Of his children there are six yet living, viz. : three sons and three daughters. It has commonly been believed that Mr. Hunter was the first white male child born in Fairfield County. There are, how- ever, two or three other aspirants to that distinction, but the matter is too far back in history to be settled at this late day.
DR. JOHN WILLIAMS.
Dr. Williams is not mentioned as a pioneer of Fairfield County, though he deserves a place in its history. He is one of the living men who has made his mark, and who will leave a record. He has a brain seldom equaled or surpassed. Few men have lived of his mental capacities in his specialties. As a mathematician, grammarian and general scholarship, he stood, at his meridian, unrivaled. He has been a teacher, and author of school text-books. He was not brilliant ; but as a teacher and general educator he was forcible, clear and con- cise. There are probably more men to-day who owe their suc- cess in the professions and other vocations in life to having been pupils of Dr. Williams, than to any one man living. He was proprietor for several years of an Academy in Greenfield Township, known as "Greenfield Academy ;" and subsequently teacher and Superintendent of Lancaster schools. From age and infirmity, he, five or six years since, retired to his small farm, four miles north of Lancaster, where at present he re- sides.
LETTER OF GEORGE W. BEERY.
UPPER SANDUSKY, O., July 20th, 1876.
DR. H. SCOTT-Dear Sir : I learn that you propose to pub- lish a history of Fairfield County, and desire information in aid thereof. I herewith inclose a letter prepared by me for Dr. Tom. O. Edwards, in 1871. If of any use to you in your work,
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you are at liberty to use the same as you may think proper. When your book is ready, please send me ten copies, and I will remit the price at once.
Very truly Yours, GEORGE W. BEERY.
HON. TOM. O. EDWARDS : Your favor of the 8th inst., contain- ing request to furnish dates and names of early settlers of Fairfield County, is received. In answer, I am only able to state, from memory, conversations had with my father on the subject of his first settlement in your county. He was the youngest of six brothers of his father's family, in the order here given : John, Isaac, Abraham, Jacob, Henry and George. There were two half-brothers, Christian and Joseph, all of whom were among the first settlers of Fairfield County.
George, my father, was born in Rockingham County, Vir- ginia, in the year 1783, and emigrated to the almost unbroken wilderness of your county in the year 1800. He came down the Monongahela and Ohio rivers in a flat-boat, and up the Hocking to the falls, thence through the woods on foot to Lan- caster, and remained over winter, clearing land for others by the acre. He returned to Virginia the next spring, and finally returned to Fairfield County in the fall of 1801, and settled on the Raccoon Creek, near Bremen, clearing land and working for others, thus enabling him to enter eighty acres, which he did in the fall of 1807.
In 1809 he married and settled on this small tract of land, continuing to live thereon, and in the neighborhood of Bre- men, until the spring of 1832, when he moved to the little Raccoon, five miles east of Lancaster, where he died in 1856.
John Beery, his eldest brother, came to the county in 1805, and the other brothers soon after, all settling on and near the streams mentioned, in Rush Creek and Berne townships. They were a hardy, stout and industrious set of men, and did their full share of clearing and improving that part of the county. They are all dead, leaving families scattered all over the country.
Their education being very limited, and their habits sober and industrious, were content with the occupation of farming, except my father, who was always far in advance of his neighbors in schools and public improvements. He took an active part in the construction of the canal from Carroll to
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Lancaster ; also in building the Zanesville and Maysville Turnpike-road; was one of the Commissioners of the county, I think, in 1828; and assisted in locating and building the County Infirmary.
In 1834 he laid out the town of Bremen; and in the next year, in partnership with Mr. Hedges, commenced the busi- ness of selling goods, an occupation yet followed by several of his children, who received their first lessons under his super- vision.
In the war of 1812, he was pressed into the service with his team, and while Major Crogan was defending Fort Stevenson, at Lower Sandusky, with team and provisions he was encamped at Fort Ball, now Tiffin, and within hearing of the guns of the fort.
He was a personal friend and admirer of Hon. Thos. Ewing, claiming that he had no superior as a lawyer and statesman in the Union. Such was his admiration of this truly great man, that he called his tenth and youngest son Thos. Ewing.
As a citizen, he was public-spirited ; as a neighbor, kind and benevolent ; as a father, strict in his requirements, yet tenderly devoted to his children. .
My mother was a Cradlebaugh, a daughter of a revolutionary soldier, a German Reform minister, and a man of considerable influence in his day. He emigrated to Western Pennsylvania soon after the war closed, and in 1810 or 1811, to Fairfield County, where he soon afterwards died. My mother was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, in the year 1789, emi- grated to Fairfield County in 1806 or 1807, and died in 1870. She was a woman of more than ordinary force of character; positive in her opinions, and free to express them ; industrious and economical ; loving right and hating wrong; prompt and active in every duty ; exercising a marked and controlling influence over her husband and family-a mother of the old type, in every sense of the word. They had twelve children, nine of whom still survive. Four are living here, one near Urbana, Ohio, and the balance in and near the family village of Bremen.
GEORGE W. BEERY.
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HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
WILLIAM McCLUNG.
William McClung died at the residence of his daughter, in West Rushville, on Friday, September 8th, 1876, aged 83 years, 7 months and 19 days.
Judge McClung came into Fairfield County in 1803, where he resided continuously until his death, and was among the last of the surviving pioneers. Few men have lived and passed away within the limits of the county, who more emi- nently deserved the reputation of a good man. He was up- right, just and reliable in all the affairs of life, and, so far as the writer knows and believes, he had few, if any, enemies. Of him it may be very justly said, that he was one of that noble class of first men who helped to break the wilderness, and who lived to give character and prosperity to the country- a class that, very much to the world's detriment, is rapidly passing away.
Judge McClung, during his protracted and useful life, filled successively, and with the popular approval, the offices of Jus- tice of the Peace, State Legislator, and Associate Judge under the old Constitution, as also many minor positions of trust in the civil and military service. He was one of the volunteers who enlisted under Captain George Sanderson in the war of 1812, and was included in the surrender of Gen. Hull in front of Fort Detroit.
He was likewise an officer in the church of his choice ; and it is said of him, by those who best knew him, that Christi- anity was illustrated by all his intercourse with the world, both in his public and private walks.
STATEMENT OF MRS. KING.
One of Fairfield's pioneer mothers is still living in Lancas- ter, at the venerable age of 87 years. Mrs. Flora Buttler King has been in most respects a very remarkable woman. Follow- ing is a condensed synopsis of her statement recently made to me :
Her father, Ebenezer Buttler, and the father of Gerrit Smith, were first pioneers in Onondagua County, N. Y. She was
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HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
born in Onondagua County in January, 1790, and during her early childhood and youth was the school companion of Gerrit Smith. She was the first female child born in that county. In 1812 she came to Ohio, and soon after to Lancaster. She was the first female teacher in Lancaster. Her school-house was a rough cabin built by Christian King, and stood where Doctor Turner's office now is, on Main street. In February, 1813, she was married to Christian King. She was mother of two children-William, who died many years ago in Califor- nia, and Flora, wife of Charles Deshler, of Columbus, O.
After the death of her husband, Mrs. King devoted herself to painting and drawing, by which she accumulated a con- siderable amount of cash. Receiving intelligence of the death of her son in California, she made the trip there alone, by the Isthmus, and brought back his three children, their mother also being dead. She raised two of the boys, who are now in honorable positions. The other one died young. She wit- nessed the riot at Panama, when one hundred Americans were killed, and barely escaped with her own life by paying the natives a gold bonus.
William and Christian King came t› Lancaster in 1799, and sold goods under the firm name of W. & C. King. Christian King built a toll-bridge across the prairie, west of town, on the track of the present turnpike-road.
Mrs. King remembers, that in 1812 the Kings and John Creed were merchants; Philemon Beecher, Robert F. Slaughter and William Irvin were practicing law ; Drs. Wilson, Tor- rence and Shawk were practicing medicine; Thos. Sturgeon kent tavern where Mrs. Creed now lives, and Mr. Swoyer on the Shaeffer corner.
William King died in 1831, and Christian, her husband, in 1840.
STATEMENT OF JOHN ASHBAUGH.
John Ashbaugh was my grandfather, and Andrew Ashbaugh was my father. They came into Fairfield County in 1801, and settled near where Bremen now is, and died there. My father's
12
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HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
brothers were: Jacob, John, Frederick and Joseph ; his sisters, Elizabeth, Mary, Patsy and Polly.
The Indians stole our horses, and were followed, and the horses recovered at Bowling Green, north of Zanesville, by paying the Indians one dollar a head for them.
Andrew Ashbaugh, my father, and a big Indian had a hop- ping-match, in which the Indian got beaten, and became ang- ry, but others interfered, and all ended well.
On one occasion the Indians removed the bells from some horses and slipped them away, but fearing the consequence, as was believed, they restored the bells and the horses.
John Davis and Edward Young came and settled in Rush Creek Township in 1802.
THE REAM FAMILY.
BY JONAS A. REAM.
Abraham Ream was born in Reamstown, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in 1746, and removed to Fairfield County, Ohio, in 1798, at the age of fifty-two years. He came to Pittsburg in wagons, then down the Ohio river in a flat-boat as far as the mouth of the Hocking river, thence up that river to its falls (now one mile above Logan), in dug-outs, or canoes, thence by land up the stream to the point yet known as Ream's mill, where he settled down. He there entered four and a half sec- tions of land in a body. His family consisted at the time of twelve children, viz .: five sons and seven daughters. In 1804 he built the mill which still retains his name.
His daughters were married to the following persons, viz : John Panebaker, Abraham Sheafer, Isaac Sheafer, Joseph Stukey, Lewis Hershberger, Henry Aneshensel. The young- est of the daughters died single, from the effects of a stroke of lightning.
His sons' names were : Sampson, William, Absalom, Abra- ham and George. Abraham died at the age of twenty years (single). The others married and raised families. Not one of the children of Abraham Ream are now living.
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HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
In early days, the Ream men were all great hunters -strong, fearless and daring.
When they arrived in Fairfield County they were the sixth family of white settlers. The Indian villages were not entire- ly broken up where Lancaster is.
Jacob Ream, half-brother to Abraham, came a little later- four years, I think. He located south of Ream's mill, about one mile. Jacob L. Ream, who died recently, was his son. The Ream family was very numerous, and are widely inter- married, so that in that region, now, almost every third per- son one meets can claim relationship to them.
Of Sampson Ream's family, there are but three out of thir- teen living. Two died in the Mexican war, and one in Cali- fornia. Of the sons-in-law of Abraham Ream, two yet survive -Aneshensel and Hershberger. The first winter the family were here they killed eighteen bears and twenty-seven deer. They also killed numerous wolves, wild-cats and panthers. A bear-skin then was worth seventy-five cents, and a deer-skin fifty cents. Deer-skins were dressed and made into panta- loons and moccasins, and bear-skins were used for bed-covers.
RECOLLECTIONS OF LEVI STEWART.
Levi Stewart (now a citizen of Lancaster) was born in Greenfield Township, in 1800, and is therefore now in his 77th year. His father was one of the first settlers of Fairfield County. He came in 1799, and settled near the Hocking, immediately south of the residence of the late Judge John Gra- bill, two miles north-west of Lancaster, on the Columbus pike. Mr. Stewart has spent his long life in the vicinity of the place of his birth, and has made it his care to preserve a recol- lection, not only of the first settlers, but of the places where they located, as well as of the general condition of the coun- try, and domestic life of the pioneers. The following is a con- densed note of his statement :
At his first recollections, the country was almost a literal wilderness, interspersed with rude cabins of unhewed logs,
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HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY, OHIO.
one story high. The country abounded with wolves, deer, bears, wild-cats and panthers. Indians were more or less numerous, who lingered about until about the year 1810, be- fore they entirely disappeared.
FIRST SETTLERS.
Samuel Bush came in 1802, and settled on the spot which is the present farm of Daniel Bush, his grandson, one and a half miles north-west of Lancaster, on the Columbus road. David Fink settled near the same time one and a half miles north of Lancaster, to the right of the Baltimore road. Ralph Donelson settled first where Samuel Bush (son of the pioneer) now lives. Henry Cline, about the same time, settled on the farm, as he thinks, now owned by Judge Shaw, near Shimp's Hill. Alexander Sanderson (father of the late Gen. Sander- son), settled in 1798, and located in the same neighborhood. Jacob Sells, in 1800, entered a large tract of land embracing the site of the present village of Dumontsville, four miles north of Lancaster. John Sells came in the same year. David Bright (father of the present David and John Bright), came in 1800, and located where John Bright now resides. Henry Abrams came in 1800, and settled on the place now owned by David Bright. John Bailar settled where James McCleary now lives, in 1800. Adam and John Westenberger, brothers, settled in the McCleary neighborhood in 1800. Mr. Nail, about the same time, located on the William McCleary place. John McArthur settled where Newton Peters at pres- ent resides, probably in 1800. John Morgan located about the same time on the John Grabill farm. Joseph Stewart, father of Levi, first settled a short distance south-west of the Grabill place, in 1799, and on the north side of Hocking. In the year 1805, Samuel Grabill, father of John, Jacob, Gabriel, Christopher and Samuel, succeeded Mr. Morgan on what has ever since been known as the Grabill farm, where Judge Gra- bill was born and died. In the year 1800, Gideon Geary set- tled on the place now known as the G. H. Smith farm, on the pike, west of Grabill's. About the same time, Samuel Tall- man located immediately joining the Smith farm on the west. At Yankeytown (Claypool's), James Brooks, Mr. Cook and Drake Taylor squatted in the year 1799. Jacob Claypool, father of Isaac, bought them out in 1805, and opened a farm
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Isaac Meason came into Greenfield, in 1798, first locating on the Carroll road, where the late Elijah Meason resided. Isaac Meason was the father of the late John Meason. Patrick Lusk, in 1800, settled on the place afterward known as the . Isaac Wilson farm, south of Carroll. John McFarland, father of the late Walter McFarland, in 1798, located on the spot where Walter lived and died. Isaac Rice located near the present woolen factory, below the rock-mill, in 1799. Wil- liam and James Reed, brothers, in 1798, settled a little east of the subsequent Rice place, in 1798. Their places were near the Hocking. Thos. McCall, about the same time, settled near the Reeds. James Wells settled on the present Hooker land, in 1799. William Wilson, in 1798, located a little south of Hooker's. His son James now resides on the same place. Samuel Wilson settled the same year, adjoining William. James Wilson, Sr., settled on the Carlisle farm. He was the first husband of the late Mrs. Thos. Carlisle.
David Pence, Henry Gearhart, Daniel Gearhart, David Wintermuth, Daniel Wintermuth, Adam Wagner, David Baugher, John Hanna, James Hanna, Abraham Fairchild, William Wiseley, Edmund Wiseley and John Miller settled in the north-east part of Greenfield Township, in the years 1800 to 1805.
Henry Abrams built the first hewed log-house in Green- field. David Bright built a still-house near where John Bright lives, at a very early day. William and James Reed built a saw mill on the Hocking, below rock-mill, very early. John Goolthrite taught the first school that is remembered in Greenfield. Another school is said to have been taught in the " Spook's Hollow, " east of the Grabill farm, at a very early day. School-houses were log-shanties with oiled-paper win- dows.
The Indians procured lead not far from the present rock- mill, but the mine, if any, has not been discovered to this day. No inducements could prevail on them to tell where they got the lead. They had rifles, and knew how to handle them.
The intercourse between the log-cabins of the pioneers of Greenfield was over paths worn by following the blazed trees, at first. Mr. Stewart remembers a tornado which passed over the country in 1809, that he has not seen equaled in his nearly
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fourscore years. The timber was so blown down as to block- ade the roads seriously.
The subsistence of the pioneers was corn-bread, wild meats, wild-honey, milk and butter, and vegetables. Roasted rye and wheat were used for coffee, which could not be had, or sel- dom, and then at enormous prices. They carried their corn on horseback to the falls of Hocking (Logan), to get it ground, and sometimes had to wait several days for their turn. Salt was packed from the Scioto below Chillicothe, and from the Muskingum, and cost about $5.00 a bushel. He had known seasons of three to five weeks when the whole community was out of breadstuff, because the mills were stopped for want of water. They pounded hominy, grated corn, and cooked vegetables, and made other shifts.
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