USA > Ohio > Butler County > A history and biographical cyclopaedia of Butler County, Ohio, with illustrations and sketches of its representative men and pioneers. Vol. 1 > Part 15
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55
MEETINGS OF THE COMMISSIONERS.
clerk, and stationery, $200; listers and appraisers of prop- erty, $153.51; collectors and county treasurer, 8300; orders drawn by commissioners not yet presented for pay- ment, $150; to be paid towards new court-house, 81.500; to, meet delinquencies and contingent expenses, $1,275.99; total, 84,425.50.
May 1, 1815, the commissioners agreed to have but two windows in the north end of court-house, first floor (instead of four), and three in the second floor (instead of five).
June 5, the rates of ferriage were reduced by the board exactly one-half.
August 7, the estimates of the year's receipts and ex- penditures were made as follows : Receipts, $4,809 ; expenditures, $4,809; allowing $2,000 to run the court- house, and $1,393.17 for contingent expenses.
January 1, 1816, it was ordered that the sheriff should keep in repair the jailer's house (the court-room included), without any compensation, excepting only the use thereof for the accommodation of the jailer.
August 5, the estimates of receipts and expenditures for the current year shows a falling off over the pre- vious year as follows : Receipts, $4,236.96 ; expenditures, $4,236.96; allowing but $1,500 toward the court-house building, and $1,029.01 for contingent expenses.
November 4, Joseph Henderson took his seat as com- missioner, having been re-elected. Daniel Milliken, asso- ciate judge, having presented an account of $102, for duties, such as allowing writs of habeas corpus, examining bills in equity, allowing writs of injunetion, etc., which was not allowed by the Board of Commissioners, gave notice of an appeal to the Court of Common Pleas.
January 6, 1817, ordered that the Public Square be inelosed with a board fence, open work, and that there be left off from each end four poles, on the north side one pole, and that the south side be on a line with the jail and jailer's house. and that Hugh Wilson be the agent to purchase the materials and make the contraet for in- e osing the same.
March 3, Daniel Keyt agrees to inclose the Public Square at the rate of $1.25 per panel, and 85 for mak- ing three gates, one in front of each door of the court- house, the materials to be furnished by the Board of Commissioners.
April 5, Detor William Greenlee was appointed to attend Peter D. Green, a lunatie confined in the jail of Butler County. .
June 24, the license for store-keepers and peddlers for retailing merchandise was placed at $10.
June 3d, Celadon Symmes was offered a contract for putting railings around the court-house square.
August 4th, John Hall, of Rossville, was appointed connaissioner in place of John Withrow, who refused to serve.
September 13th, a bail and spire for the court-house was purchased for $309.
November 10th, Thomas Blair took the cath and his. seat as county commissioner, having been duly elected to said office.
August 4th, James MeBride, for duties as sheriff for previous year and for money expended in erecting a tene- ment pear court-house, $89.42.
John Reily, clerk of conunissioners, for year's serv- ices, 870.50.
October 13th, John Young, for tin-work on cupola of court-house, $7.
December 6th, Pierson Sayre, sheriff-elect, filed his bond of 86,000, with James McBride and John Cald- well as sureties.
John Hall, coroner-elect, filed his bond in the sum of $2,000, with William M. Smith and Henry Traber as sureties.
April 4, 1818, a bridge was ordered built over Two- mile Creek, north of Rossville, at an expense of $100; also a bridge across Elk Creek at Miltonville, to cost $40.
June 18th, Britton Moore was appointed to lay our 820 on the improvement of the county road from Beich's tar- ern to the east boundary of the county on the way to Lebanon. Moore was appointed in the place of Joseph Stevens, who refused to serve.
August 3d, the reesipts of the county for the year were estimated at $6,670.75.
August 12th, Dr. Daniel Millikin was appointed to at- tend John Johnston, a lunatic confined in county jail.
September 10th, John Smith was appointed sender of' measures in place of Hugh Wilson, resigned.
August 12th, Dr. Millikin was allowed $2 for attending John Jolinston, as above.
John E. Scott was voted $1,000 over and above the original contract price for builling the court-house, he having shown that he expended that sum necessarily.
November 7th, William Robison took his seat as com- missioner.
January 5th, 1819, John Snider was allowed $9 for expenses in going to Cincinnati for some stove-pipe.
March 1st, it being found that the moneys then in the treasury, together with the moneys due to the county, and which money it was expected would be collected, would be sufficient to defray the ordinary expenses of the county for that year, it was, therefore, ordered that no tax under the aet entitled " An act regulating county levies" be levied on the county for the year, and that no- tice thereof be given to the listers by publication in the Miami Herald.
We end our quotations with the year 1819. Enough has been given to show how inexpensively the wheels of govenament turned in the early part of the century, and with bow little power men could be controlled. Ohio come forth into the world a full-fledged common wealen, the first keown in history. It was Minerva bussdin full-armed from the brain of Jupiter. Yet every thing moved smoothly.
56
HISTORY OF BUTLER COUNTY.
The reader will notice some things that sound oddly enough. The court was obliged to omit its sessions until a stove could be hired by the sheriff; subseriptions were taken for the public buildings in labor, whisky, pro- visions, or money ; wolves were an object of so mueh fear that a premium was offered for their destruetion, and laying out a new road was one of the commonest occurrences. It may interest those who know at what rate we now pay our publie servants, to see how frugally judges of eleetion, judges, sheriffs, and clerks were paid. There were no expenses worth considering for the poor or for the vicious; no charge for lunaties; the coroner's bills light, and schools were not in existence.
THE EARLIEST ACCOUNT OF THE MIAMI COUNTRY.
THE earliest account we have of the Miami country is from the pen of Dr. Daniel Drake, a learned and sue- cessful practitioner of medicine in Cincinnati, who wrote a book descriptive of that city and the Miami country in 1815. He had evidently devoted much time and atten- tion to the sabjeet, and, as far as we may judge at this length of' time, his accounts were accurate.
"The south-west corner of the State of Ohio," writes Dr. Drake, "is watered chiefly by two rivers, called the Great and Little Miamis. Their genera! course is south- west; their medium distance apart, twenty miles.
"The Great Miami is about one hundred and thirty yards wide for forty miles from its mouth ; its head- waters, between forty and forty-four degrees north lati- tude, interlock with the Massassinaway, a branch of the Wabash, the Auglaize and St. Mary, branches of the Maumee, and the Scioto. It has generally a rapid eur- ient, but no considerable falls. It flows through a wide and fertile valley, which, in Spring and Autumn, is liable to partial inundation. Its principal tributary streams on the west are Loramie's Creek, which joins it about one hundred and thirty miles from its mouth ; Stillwater, which enters it about fifty miles below; and Whitewater, which it receives within seven miles of the Ohio. The first of these is navigable for batteaux nearly twenty miles, and in this respect is superior to the others. On the east side Mad River only is deserving of notice. This beautiful stream originates in a pond on the Indian boundary of 1795, and glides through a tract finely di- versified with prairie and woodland. It is too shallow for navigation, but at all times furnishes water enough for the largest milis. Its mouth is nearly opposite that of Stillwater, and immediately above the town of Dayton. From this place to the Great Miami it is navigable, in moderate freshets, for keel and flat-bottom boats; in high floods the same navigation may be han from Loramie's Creek; bat the frequent formation of new bass by the
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drifting of sand and gravel renders the navigation, even near its mouth, difficult in low water. This river has a number of islands. The largest is two miles above the town of Hamilton. It was formel, sinee the settlement of that place, by a portion of the river enlarging a mill- raee which ran into one of its branches, ealled Seven- mile. Near the village of Troy is a group of about twenty more, the principal of which is nearly three- quarters of a mile long. The valley of the river, at this place, is a mile wide, and the banks are low and loose. The current among the islands is rapid, but the naviga- tion is not entirely obstructed."
A few pages further on Dr. Drake gives a description of Butler County. He says:
"This county lies west of the one last described (War- ren), and to the north of Hamilton. The Great Miami traverses it diagonally. The soil of the north-east and south-west quarters is said to be generally poor; that of the south-east and north-west fertile.
" Hamilton, the seat of justice, is situated twenty-five miles north-north-east of Cincinnati, on the east bank of the Miami. Its site is elevated, extensive, and beautiful; but near it, to the south, is a pond which has contrib- uted much to the injury of health. The materials for building are neither very plentiful nor excellent. Good timber can not be had nearer than the neighboring hills; the limestone in the bed of the river is indifferent, but some better quarries have been opened in the uplaids ; the brick-clay yet discovered is inferior. abounding in fragments of limestone. The dwelling-houses, about zev- enty in number, are chiefly of wood ; well-water is obtained at the depth of twenty-five feet.
"This town was laid off about the year 1794, and in- corporated in 1810. The donations for public use are a square near the center of the village, for county purposes. and another fer a church and cemetery. Its only public building is a stone jail. It has a post-office, an office for the collection of taxes on non-residenty' lands in the west- ern part of the State, and a printing-office, which issues a newspaper called the Miami Intelligencer.
"Rossville, lying on the west side of the river, oppo- site to Hamilton, is a small place. Middletown, on the road from Hamilton to Franklin, is Atuated east of the river. Like most of the villages in the Miami country, it has a post-office. Oxford, in the western part of the county, has less population and improvement but more notoriety than either of them, from having been fixed on as the seat of a university. The land is held in trust. by the Legislature, which, in 1810, enacted a law direct- ing the lots to be disposed of on leases for ninety-nine years, renewable forever, at the rate of six per cent per annum on the purchase-money, to be paid anumnally. Being on the frontier of the Suite, and almost surronuled by forest instead of cultivated country, it has received but litile attention."
. A page is given to the value of land. " Within three
57
THE EARLIEST ACCOUNT OF THE MIAMI COUNTRY.
miles of Cincinnati, at this time;" he says, " the prices of good unimproved land are between fifty and one hundred and fifty dollars per acre, varying according to the dis- tance. From this limit to the extent of twelve miles they decrease from thirty to ten. Near the principal vil- tages of the Miami country it commands from twenty to forty dollars; in remoter situations it is from four to eight dollars-improvements in all cases advancing the price from twenty-five to one hundred per cent. An average for the settled portions of the Miami country, still supposing the land fertile and uncultivated, may be stated at eight dollars; if cultivated, at twelve.
" Of tracts that had the same local advantages. those alluvial or bottom lands that have been recently formed command the best price. The dry and fertile prairies are esteemed of equal value. Next to these are the np- lands, supporting hackberry, pawpaw, boney locust, sugar-tree, and the different species of hickory, walnut, ash, buckeye, and elm. Immediately below these, in the scale of value, is the level clothed in beech timber, while that producing white and black oak chichy com- mands the lowest price of all.
"These were not the prices in 1812; the war, by promoting immigration. having advanced the nominal value of land from twenty-five to thirty per cent.
" The agriculture of this, as of other new countries, is not of the best kind. Too much reliance is placed on the extent and fertility of their fields by the farmers,
. who, in general, consider them a substitute for good tillage. They frequently plaint double the quantity they can properly cultivate, and thus impoverish their lands and suffer them to become infested with briars and nox- ious weeds. The preservation of the forests of a country should be an object of attention in every stage of its set- tlement; and it would be good policy to clear and plant no more land in a new country than can be well cul- tivated.
"The most valuable timber trees are the white flow- ering locust, white, black, lowland chestnut and burr- oaks, black walnut, wild cherry, yellow poplar, blue and white ash, mulberry, honey locast, shell-back hickory, coffee-nut and beech ; all of which, except the first, are common throughout the Miami country. Many other species, such as the sweet buckeye, sassafras, sugar-trce, red maple, tinder-tree, and box-elder, are seldom used for timber; but are of great value in the mechanical arts. Experience has shown that the timber of the Western country is softer, weaker, and less durable than that of the Atlantic States ; which is no doubt owing to its more rapid growth in a fertile, calcareous soil and hamid at- mosphere.
" The most elegant flowering trees and shrubs are the following, which excel in the order of their enumera- tion : Dagwood, real-bud, white flowering locust, emab- apple, honeysuckle, black haw, the different species of roses, plums, and haws, the buckeyes and yellow poplar,;
most of which are common, and for that reason are sel- dom transplanted into our streets and gardens.
"The beech, white oak, sugar-tree, and some kindx of walnut, hickory, and ash, are the most numerous of any trees in the Miami country. The flowering locust, abundant in Kentucky and along the Ohio, is rarely found more than twenty miles north of that river. The chestnut, persimmon, fox grape, and mountain chestnut oak, are still srarcer."
The following are given by the author as a catalogue of the forest trees then known to exist. Michaux, he says, names ninety kinds of trees in the United States which grow above forty feet in height, while in the Miami country there are forty-five which atraiu to that elevation. According to the same authority, there are, in the Union, ninety species which rise above sixty feet ; in this quarter there are at least an equal number which grow to that height. "Hence, it appears that the soil of this tract," remarks the doctor, "is superior to that of the United States generally, for it affords as many trees above sixty feet in height as all the States takeu together, while it has only half the number of species." Here is the list of Dr. Drake :
Button tree, dogwood, swamp dogwood, alternate branched dogwood, rose or red willow, shrub teafoil, witch-hazel, fox grape, fall grape, Winter grace, ivy, New Jersey tea, Indian arrow, wood, evergreen arrow- wood, staff tree or bitter sweet, honeysuckle, gooseberry; black currant, slippery elm, white ehn, common eller, red-berried elder, black haw, bladdernut tree, poisen vine, sumach, stag's-horn sumach, lentiseus-leaved su- mach, trifoliate sumach, common or fetid buckeye, sweet buckeye, marsh leather-wood, long-leaved vac- cineum, sassafras, spice-wood, red-bud, coffee-tree, mock ! snow-bali, wild cherry, plum, haw, erab-apple, wild roses, swamp rose, blackberry, raspberry, wine bark, downy spiroa, black linden-tree, oblique-leaved linder, cucumber-tree, pawpaw-two varieties poplar -- yellow and white, trumpet flowe:, flowering locust, St. Peter's wort, red mulberry, black birch, common alder, beech, chestuut, hornbeam, hop hornbeam, black walnut, but- ternut, shellbark hickory, pig-nut, balsam hickory, hem- lock, sycamore, burr oak, chestnut oak, mountain chest- nut oak, upland willow oak, black oak, Spanish oak, red ! oak, hazel-unt, American arbor vitre, rough-barked willow, ozier, mistletoe, prickly ash, cotton-tree, aspen, Canadian yew-tree, red cedar, sugar-tree, red or water maple, mountain maple, box-eller, hackberry, per-im- mion, honey locust, sour gum, white ash, swamp ash, greenbriar and blue ash.
Dr. Drako gives the following as the time for flower- ing and for the growth of vegetables in this country :
March 9th, commons becoming groen; 10th, bads of the water maple beginning to open; buds of the life beginning to open : 11th, buds of the weeping willow be- giuning to open; 12th, buds of the gooseberry beginning
58
HISTORY OF BUTLER COUNTY.
to open; 16th, buds of the honeysuckle beginning to open; 30th, buds of the peach-tree beginning to open; radishes, peas, and tongue-grass planted in the open air.
April 12th, peach-tree in full flower; buds of the privet beginning to open; 19th, buds of the cherry tree beginning to open ; red currants beginning to flower; 221, buds of the flowering locust beginning to open; lilac in full flower; 24th, apple-tree in full Hower; 28th, dog- wood in full flower.
May 13th, flowering locust in full bloom; 16th, In- dian corn planted; honeysuckle beginning to flower.
June 6th. cherries beginning to ripen; raspberries be- ginning to ripen ; 10th, strawberries beginning to ripen ; red currants beginning to ripen ; 28th, bay harvest.
July 8th, rye harvest begun ; 14th, wheat harvest be- gun; 16th, Nackberries ripe; 19th, unripe Indian corn in market; 22d, Indian corn generally in flower; 25th, oat harvest.
August 9th, peaches in market.
September 16th, forests becoming variegated.
October 21st, Indian corn gathered; 26th, woods leafless.
In 1806, the weeping willow unfolded its leaves about the 20th of February.
MIAMI UNIVERSITY.
THE Miami University is situated in the town of Ox- ford, and at one time was the leading school of higher education in the West. It derives its permanent endow- ment from a township of land, six miles square, situated "in the north-west corner of Butler County, being located on the west side of the Great Miami River, in lieu of a township of land which had been originally granted hy Congress for the endowment of an "academy and other seminaries of learning" in Symmes's purchase between the Miami Rivers.
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Judge Symme, had, in his published " terms of sale," made a reservation (among others) of a township of land "to be given perpetually for the purposes of an academy or college to be laid off by the purchaser or purchasers as nearly opposite the mouth of the Licking River as an entire township may be found eligible in point of soil and situation, to be applied to the intended object by the Legislature of the State." Notwithstanding this published reservation, Judge Symmes and associates, in aetna! prac- tice, disposed of their laud as though there had been Do reservation for college purposes, whether knowingly or not. The settlers, fearing that they would lose the whole endowment, petitioned Congress to grant them an entire township, and the result of these applications moved it to pass a law, March 3, 1803, giving a towaship of land on the west side of the Great Miami River, within
the land office district of Cinchmati, to be located uuder the direction of the Legislature of Ohio, in lieu of the township intended originally to be reserved in Symmes's purchase. In pursuance of this law, the Legislature of Ohio. April 15, 1803, appointed Jacob White, Jeremiah Morrow, and William Ludlow commissioners to locate a college township, which was done in due time, they se- lecting what is now known as Oxford Township, Butler County, being an entire township of thirty-six sections, execpt section 25, and the west half of sections 11, 14, and 24, which had been sold previous to the location ; and to supply their place sections 30 and 31 in Milford Township and the west half of section 6 in Hanover Township were selected.
On the 17th of February, 1809, the Legislature of Ohio chartered the Miami University, and vested the proceeds of the township in the hands of the president and trustees ; and appointed Alexander Campbell, Rev. James Killburn, and Rev. Robert Wilson commissioners to seleet a suitable and permanent site for the university. The commissioners knowing that, in conformity to the grant made by Congress, the purchasers of land front Judge Symmes who located high up the Miami Rivers had an equal claim with those on the Ohio River regu- lated their conduct accordingly. They, therefore, in their view for a proper site, looked at Dayton, Yellow Springs, Hamilton, Lebanon, and Cincinnati. By the act charter- ing the university, it was prescribed that it should be located in "that part of the country known as John Cleves Symmes's purchase," and that the commissioners for locating the university should hold their first meeting at Lebanon, Warren County. - At the time appointed for the meeting of the commissioners, the Rev. Robert Wilson was detained at home by sickness. The other commission- ers attended, and having examined all the places pre- sented for their consideration, they selected the town of Lebanon, Warren County, as the seat of the university, and made their report accordingly to the Legislature.
It was then generally considered! that the seat of the university was unalterably fixed, although many from other places were greatly disappointed ; but at the next session of the Legislature a proposition was brought for- ward by Mr. Cooper, of Dayton, to establish the univer- sity on the College Township, without the Spanne- pur- . chase, The law appointing the locating commissioners required that three should act. and as one was abseut, the Legislature set aside the selection at Lebanon, and established the site of Miami University where it now is, at Oxford.
The first meeting of the Board of Trustees was held at Lebanon, ou the seventh day of June, 1809. The trustees present were John Bigger and Ichabod B. Holes of Warren County: Boujamin Whiteman, of Green. Stuer; James Brown, of Miami County ; Benjamin Van &love. of Montgomery County; Thomas Irvin. of Butter County: and John Riddle, of Hamilton County. John Bigger
59
MIAMI UNIVERSITY.
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was chosen president, and Benjamin Van Cleve secretary, pro tem.
A committee was appointed to contract with a surveyor to subdivide the college lands into lots of five or six to each section, to be laid off as nearly equal as the situation of the land, water-courses, and situations for building would admit; and to make out seven complete plats and ficki-notes of the survey (one for the trustees of each county in the Miami purchase), for which the surveyor was to be paid $2 per mile for all new lines to be run and marked. To this position James Heaton, of Butler County, was appointed.
The second meeting of the trustees was held at Haul- ilton, on the first Monday of March, 1810, William Lud- low, John Reily, and Ogden Ross attending, but adjourn- ing from day to day until the 26th of March, when the following trustees were present: William Corry, James Findlay, Thomas Irvin, William Ludlow, John Reily, John Riddle, Ogden Ross, James Shields, and Joseph Vanhorne. Daniel Symmes appeared next day. The board was organized by the appointment of Joseph Van- horne as president, and John Reily, secretary, pro tem.
They passed an ordinance to regulate the leasing of the lands of the university. This provided that not more than one-third of the farm lots should be offered for lease at any one time, and at a price not less than $2.50 per acre. It also provided for laying out the town of Oxford, and directed that not more than one-half of the lots should be offered for sale. No in-lot should be sold for less than $16.663. The lot was to be subject to a quit-rent of six per cent on the amount of the purchase money, payable annually forever. The four-aere lots were not to be sold for less than $5 per acre, on the same conditions as the in-lots.
The board appointed a committee consisting of Messrs. Ludlow, Irvin, Ross, Reily, and Vanhorne to select a suitable tract of one mile square on which to lay out the town of Oxford, to designate the lots and lands to be first offered for sale, and to select certain reser ations.
The board, before adjournment, appointed William Ludlow president, James McBride secretary, and William Murray treasurer, pro tem.
The committee proceeded to the college lands, and, after two days spent in the examination, selected the south-east quarter of section 22, the south-west quarter of section 23, the north-west quarter of section 26, and the north-east quarter of section 27 of the college lands as the site of the town of Oxford. On this site the first portion of the town of Oxford was laid out by James Heaton. It consisted of one hundred and twenty-eight in-lots, ten poles in length by four poles in width; the streets six poles in width, and alleys one podle wide ; and forty out-lots of four aeres each. At the first sale there Were to be offered only the odd numbers of the lots in the town of Oxford, and the lands of the two tiers of see- tions from south to north, which included the town.
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