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 40
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Mr. Davidson was well equipped for such a struggle, or for the work of the ministry generally. His mind ranged its knowledge systematically, and when he desired to call up any fact or to pursue a chain of reasoning founded upon that fact, it could be found at once. He spoke well extemporaneously. His arguments, although usually prepared beforehand, did not necessarily require this. The stream never ran turbidly. He had an ex- cellent knowledge of the Scriptures; he had read and studied mueb besides; he was familiar with the state- ments of those who sought to overturn Christianity, as well as with those who explain and gloss the whole away. He was familiar with their whole armory, and feared no weapon they could draw from it. It is the modern phase of infidelity that is dreaded by the truly devout clergyman, not the ancient. Voltaire and Paine do not undermine so insidiously as Strauss, Renan, oc Hirsley.
He was attacked, on the 14th of February, 1873, by paralysis, recovering somewhat from it, and preaching a few times afterwards; but his bodily powers were so much lessened that he knew it was time for him to set his house in order. In February, 1874. he gave up his charge, and the pastora! relation was dissolved by the presbytery in April of that year. After that, he pre- pared for the final hour. In June of 1875 he was con- fined in-doors, dying on the 21st of July. He had been patient and considerate even in this, his last sickness.
A volume of his sermons was published in 1856 by the Westera Traet Society, under the title of " Sermons on the Parables." It contained, in addition, an essay ou Mr. Davidson as an orator, preacher, and pastor, by the Rev. Dr. John Y. Seouller, and an excellent biographical sketch by David W. MeCluag, who was for many years an attendant upon his ministrations.
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HISTORY OF BUTLER COUNTY.
JOSEPH HOUGH.
Among the earlier merchants of Hamilton Joseph Hough is, perhaps, best known. He carried on the largest establishment, and his operations were conducted with a vigor unusual at that day. He did not inherit this trait from his parents, who were Quakers, but it seemed entirely the offspring of his own genius. He was born on a farin near Brownsville, Fayette County, Penn- sylvania, on the 26th of February, 1783. In 1788 the family removed to Washington County, at the extreme south-west part of the State, where Mr. Hough died, in 1798, and his wife eighteen months later. Joseph Hough then resolved to learn the watchmakers' trade from his brother-in-law, Israel Gregg, who afterwards also became a resident of Hamilton, and stayed with him till he was twenty-one. Immediately upon completing his majority he engaged with another watchmaker and silversmith in Brownstown, and wrought as a journeyman for two years, saving in the course of that period over one thou- sand dollars. At this time his brother Thomas, who had acquired some capital, proposed to Joseph that they should unite their capital, buy a stock of goods, and go West. . The suggestion seemed good to him, and the two . young men joined their forces aud came out to the Mi- ami country, intending to settle at Lebanon, Warren County. They bought their goods in Philadelphia, wag- oned them over the mountains. and on the 1st of June, 1806, committed them to the Monongahela River. The water in that stream was very low, as was also the Ohio, and the journey was slow and tedious. Cincinnati was reached in twenty-five days, and from that place they hired wagons to take on their goods to Lebanon. Saddle-horses were scarce, and from the river they fol- lowed their wagons on foot. These had started first, and the Hough brothers expeeted to overtake them near Reading, but missed their way, being obliged to stop over night at the house of a friendly miller, Jacob White, about nine miles from their starting-place. Mr. White questioned them as to their intentions, and on learning that they meant to go to Lebanon advised against it. There was, he said, no good building to be obtained there; but in Hamilton there was. John Wingate had just given up business in the latter place, and the Houghs could, no doubt, obtain his house. They thanked him for his friendly advice, and determined to follow it. Early in the morning they started out and overtook the wagons, which they turned in the new direction.
They had been just one month on their journey when they reached this town, on the 1-t of July. No dithenity was experienced in obtaining the house which Mr. Win- gate bad used, and they immediately commenced selling goods. Their stand was on Front Street, near the corner of Basin, on the ground mowy covered by the Catholic church. It was of logs. There was then no other store here, except John Sutherland's, on the east side of Front, between Stable and Dayton Streets. Business went well
with them ; but in September Thomas was attacked with bilious fever, which was then epidemic, and died on the 17th of that month. Four days after his death the sur- viving brother was taken with the same disease, and for some days his life was despaired of. On his final recoy- ery he settled up the estate, giving to his younger sisters his share of his brother's estate, and still continuing the trade.
The next Spring he entered into partnership with Thomas Blair, Robert Clark, and Neil Gillespie, of Brownsville, Pennsylvania, under the firm name of Hough, Blair & Co. After a time he ereeted a frame building on the other side of the street, to which he re- moved. His partnership with Blair, Clark, and Gilles- pie lasted until 1811. He then, in partnership with James MeBride, who was a little younger, bat had come to Hamilton the same year, began to buy wheat, which was ground into flour, and then taken to New Orleans to be sold. He understood thoroughly the method of doing this, and he and Mr. MeBride each reaped hand- some returns. These journeys were long, and attended with considerable danger. Often when a young man left this neighborhood to go down the Mississippi, he called on all his friends, shook hands, and bade them good-bye, as he now would to go to Australia. Mr. Hough gave, in 1852, an account of the obstacles he met with :
" The difficulties connected with the mercantile busi- ness of that carly period can not be realized by the mer- chants of this day. We had to travel on horseback from Hamilton to Philadelphia, a distance of six hundred miles, to purchase our goods. We were exposed to all kinds of weather, and were compelled to pass over the worst possible roads. When our goods were purchased, we had to engage wagons to haul them to Pittsburg, a distance by the then roads of three hundred miles. Their transportation over the mountains occupied from twenty to twenty-five days, and cost from six to ten dollars per hundred. Onr goods being landed at Pittsburg, we usually bought flat-boats or kel-boats, and hired hands to take our goods to Cincinnati, and we were able to have them hauled to Hamilton at from fifty to seventy- five cents per hundred. We were generally engaged three months in going East, in purchasing our stock of goods and getting them safely delivered at Hamilton. These three months were months of toil and privation, and of expense of every kind.
"In illustration of the truth of the above remark, I may state that, in one of my trips from Pittsburg to Cincinnati, I was thirty-nine days ou a keel-boat, with six men besides myself to mau the boat. The river was then as low as has ever been known on many of the rip- ples in the deepest channel, if chanel it could be called where there was scarcely a tout of water. My boat drew one foot and a half, after taking out all sica articles as we could carry over the ripple in a large canoe, which was the only kind of lighter we could procure. Uma-
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LEADERS OF THE HALF CENTURY.
quently, we had to scrape out channels at the low ripples of sufficient width and depth to float our boat. We usually found ont the deepest water on the ripple, and all hands would engage in making the channel. When we passed such a ripple we reloaded our goods and pro- ceeded to the next, where the same labor had to be per- formed and the same exposure endured. The extent of the labor which had to be performed in order to pass our boat can be best understood when I state that we were frequently detained three days at some of the worst ripples.
" At that early day the road from Philadelphia to Pittsburg was exceedingly bad. It was only graded and turnpiked to Lancaster: The residue of the road in many places was very stoep and exceedingly rough. From thirty to thirty-five hundred pounds was considered a good load for a good five-horse team. There was only a weekly line of stages from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. and the time occupied in going from one place to the other was six days.
" After the receipt of our goods at Hamilton, our difficulties were by no means all overcome. In order to sell them we were compelled not only to do the ordinary duties of merchants and to incur its ordinary responsibil- ities and risks, but had to become the produce merchants of the country. We were compelled to take the farmers' produce, and send or take it to New Orleans, the only market we could reach. It was necessary for the mer- chant to buy pork and to pack it, to buy wheat, have barrels made, and contract for the manufacture of wheat into flour, and then to build flat-bottomed boats, and with great expense and risk of property commit the whole to the dangers of the navigation of the Miami, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers. The difficulties of the trip were not overcome when we had safely arrived in New Orleans. In returning home we had either to travel eleven hun- dred miles by land, five hundred of which was through the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Cherokee nations of Indi- aus, or else go by sea either to Philadelphia or Baltimore, and thence home by land. I have-descended the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, before steamboat navigation could be relied on to bring one to Louisville; fourteen times. Thirteen trips were made on flat-boats and one on a barge. I_traveled home by land cight times, and we were usually about thirty days in making the trip. The first two trips I made by lant; there were neither ferries nor bridges over any water-course from the Bayou Pierre, at Port Gibson, in the Mississippi Territory, to George Colbert's ferry over the Tennessee River. When we canic in our route to a water-course which would swim our horses, we would throw our sed- dle-bags and provisions over our shoulders, and swim our Horses over. - We were compelled to camp without tents, regardless of rain or any other unfavorable weather, and to pack provisions sufficient to last us through the Indian nations. Notwithstanding the difficulties and dangers of
these trips, our spirits never flagged. The excitement. incident to the trips sustained us, and we were always ready to enjoy a hearty langh whenever the occasion provoked it.
"The first time I descended the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, I left Cincinnati in December, 1808, with five flat-boats, all loaded with produce. At that time there were but few settiers on the Ohio River below the present city of Louisville. The cabins were few and fur between, and there were only two small villages between Louisville and the mouth of the Ohio. One was Hen- derson, known then by the name of Red Banks; the other was Shawneetown. The latter was a village of a few cabins, and was used as a landing-place for the salt- works on the Saline River, back of the village. The banks of the Mississippi, from the mouth of the Ohio to. Natchez, were still more sparsely settled. New Madrid, a very small village, was the first settlement below the mouth of the Ohio. There were a few cabins at Little Prairie, a cabin opposite to where Memphis now is, and on the lower end of the bluff on which that city is built there was a stockade fort, called Fort Pickering, garri- soned by a company of rangers. Cabins were to be seen at the mouth of White River, at Point Chico, and at Walnut Hills, two miles above where the city of Vicks- burg now is. From this place to Natchez there were cabins at distances from ten to twenty miles apart. The whole country bordering on the Mississippi, from the mouth of the Ohio to Natchez, might be regarded as an almost unbroken wilderness. The Indians seldom visited the banks. except at a few points where the river ap- proached the high lands.
" The bands of robbers who had infested the lower part of the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers had not been entirely dispersed, and were yer much dreaded by the merchant navigators of those rivers, so that the men on the boats were well armed, and during the night, when lying at the shore in the wilderness country, a sentinel was kept on deck to prevent surprise."
Mr. Hough descended these rivers shortly after the earthquake which so violently convulsed a great portion of the Mississippi Valley, in the Winter of 1811-12. Many boatmen who had lost, or in their fright aban- doned, their boats, were returning home in despair, giv- ing frightful accounts of the dangers they had encoun- tered. Mr. Hough, however, persevered in his trip. On entering the Mississippi and approaching New Madrid, the effects of the earthquake became apparent. On the west side of the river. tor a long distance, the cotton- wood and willows that lined the shore were bent or pros- trated up-stream, showing that the current bad rushed violently in that dirvetion, contrary to its natural course. The town of New Madrid suffered severely. At Little Prairie, about thirty miles below New Madrid, where had been a small settlement, a large portion of the bank had sunk into the river, including the burying-ground. Not
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a house was left standing, and the inhabitants had all fled. The surface of the ground was fractured in many places, leaving deep and wide chasms. In other places circular holes, or depressions, resembling sink-holes, re- mained, from which hadl issued water and sand, the sand forming an elevation round the margin of the holes. Where these hai occurred under large trees they were often riven and split up for ten or twenty feet, and so remained standing. Other trees in the forest were shiv- ered and broken off as by the effects of a great tornado. Large masses of the banks, sometimes many acres in extent, had sunk so as to leave only the tops of the high trees above the surface of the water. Occasionally shocks were still felt, preceded by a rambling sound like dis- tant thunder, agitating and convulsing the shores and waters of the river, and jarring the boats as though they had grounded on the bottom. An island below Little Prairie had totally disappeared. Iu some places the bot- tom of the river had been elevated, and numerous boats were wrecked on the snags and old trees brought near the surface. So numerous were they in some places that they presented the appearance of an overflowed field covered with old deadened timber. On several occasions the boats had to be tied up while Mr. Hough went for- ward with a skiff to explore for a passage. The earth- quake was also felt in Butler County.
Of the carly steamboat navigation Mr. Hough says : "I was at New Orleans, in the Spring of 1816, when Captain Henry Shreve, of Brownsville, Pennsylvania, was at the wharf of that city with the steamboat Wash- ington, a new boat of one hundred and fifty tons burden. She was preparing for her trip to Louisville. The price asked for a cabin passage was one hundred and fifty dol- lars, and for freight five dollars per hundred pounds. I regarded the charge most exorbitant, and, in preference, bought a horse, and went home by land. Captain Shreve made his trip at that time in twenty-five days, and ou his arrival at Louisville the citizens gave him a publie dinner for having made the trip in so short a time. In a few remarks he made on the occasion, he told them he be- lieved that the time would come when the trip would be made in fifteen days. He was regarded as being insane on the subject ; the event was regarded as impossible.
" Those engaged in steamboat navigation of the great rivers at the present day kuow but little, if any thing, of the difficulties that were encountered by Captain Shreve and other pioneers in steamboat navigation. Wood could not be obtained as now; no wood-yards had been estab- lished. The officers were often compelled to take their crews into the woods, and cut and haul a sufficient quan- tity to last the usual time of running. The wood thus obtained was necessarily green, and but little suited for makine stoum. The officers had every thing to learn in relation to their business. Engineers had no science, and but little experience in operating an engine. Pilots were generally that-boatmen, who knew the channels of the | the present.
river imperfectly and nothing about the management of a steamboat. In fact, Captain Shreve labored under .. many difficulties that it was not to be wondered at that he should have occupied twenty-five days in making the trip.
" My first trip on a steamboat from New Orleans was made in the Spring of 1819, with Captain Israel Gregz (the person to whom I bound myself as an apprentice), on board the steamboat Genera! Clark. We were nineteen days in making the trip, and perfectly satisfied with the result."
In March, 1815, Mr. Hough made a partnership with Samuel Millikin, and afterwards with Lewis West, and continuel' in the Orleans trade until 1825, when he removed to Vicksburg, where he conducted a store until 1828. His landed property in Hamilton was not dis- posed of, and he used to come up to this place in the Spring of the year, returning in the Fall. He ownedl a valuable farm in the southern part of the county, where, for many years, he raised choice fruit. In 1853 he was attacked with typhoid fever in Vicksburg, which ended his life on the 23d of April, being then seventy years old. His remains were brought to Hamilton by his sou- in-law, Major John M. Millikin, and were interred in Greenwood Cemetery, on the 3d of May, 1853.
Mr. Hough had but one child, Mary Greculee Hongh, now the wife of Major Millikin. She was the daughter of Jane Hnoter, whose father was Joseph Hunter, a well-known farmer in this county. Mr. and Mrs. Hough were married ou the 27th of December, 1810, the wife dying in 1840. She was an excellent Christian woman, and was highly respected and loved.
The character of Mr. Hough was eminently practical. He saw instantly what was to be done, and the way to do it. He was not deterred by obstacles, and he was so methodical and punctual that the failure of any enter- prise, if it depended upon these qualities, was impossi- ble. He was kind-hearted and generous in his intercourse with the poor, and he did not turn aside from those who were unfortunate, when ill-luck was not the consequence of negligence or bad faith. He was afleetiomite and kind in his family, and his loss was deeply felt by those who knew him best.
FERGUS ANDERSON.
Fergus Andersou died early in April, 1880, at his residence in Venice, from general debility, aged eighty- three years. His death had been expected for some time, as he had gradually become very weak. The life of Fergus Anderson stands out prominently in Batter County history. His period of greatest activity in po- Ftical affairs extended from 1828 to 1840. These times are beyond the recollection of men now approachin_ mid- dle lite, but are not forgotten by hundreds of our older citizens, who are more identified with the past than
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LEADERS OF THE HALF CENTURY.
Fergus Anderson came of good stock. His father was Isaac Anderson, mentioned elsewhere in this book. Fergus was the second oldest son, and was born in Cin- cinnati June 14, 1797. He was married to Miss Mary Dick. daughter of Samuel Diek, an old associate pioneer of Isaac Anderson, June. 28, 1821. Fergus was brought up to the business of farming, and after he was married settled on a farmi on Indian Creek, near the residence of his father. In 1828 he was sent to the Legislature. He served two years, and was then elected to the senate, where he stayed the same length of time. In 1935 he was chosen a justice of the peace in Ross Township, in which office he served until he was elected associate judge of Butler County by the Legislature. This office he retained seven years. For many years he was also president of the board of trustees of Miami University, and a member of the county agricultural board. In all these varied capacities he served the public faithfully and well.
In middle life Mr. Anderson was a wealthy man, but he gave much money to his married sons, and two of them dying, many thousands of dollars went out of the home estate, and he finally found himself in embarrassed circumstances -- principally through these means.
In disposition his principal characteristics were his kindness of heart and gentleness. Enemies he had none, while his friends, especially among the older generation now living, could be numbered by hundreds.
JAMES MCBRIDE.
James McBride, the historian, was of Scotch descent. His grandfathers, on both the paternal and maternal side, were born in North Britain, not long after the incorporation of Scotland with England, and emigrated to Pennsylvania about the time of the French and In- dian war. His father was also James MeBride. While still a young man he went to Kentucky, then the scene of perpetual Indian warfare, and fell a victim to the attacks of the red men. There was a trace leading from the mouth of the Licking to the site of the present city of Lexington, and while on this path he was cut off by the Indians in 1789, on the Dry Ridge. His wife, whose maiden name was M. Roberts, had been left at Lome, while he was out on the frontier, and there she lived until her death, which occurred in September, !>08. Her residence was on the farm. near Conoco- chragne Creek, where she had been born. She had but one child, the subject of this sketch.
Jaines McBride, the son, was born November 2, 1788, on the farm above mentioned, a short distance from fireencastle, Franklin County, Pennsylvania. He re- wed ne set education. but improved what opportunities 1. . And for reading, and, en coming to this county, in the eighteenth your of his age, was discovered to possess a very large amount of useful knowledge. He had been well Histructed in penmanship, and his neat and painstaking
chirography can be traced in the public records of the county almost from the time of his coming until his death. His first employment, it is believed, was as clerk for John Reily, but he soon found other openings. Every one had the utmost confidence in him, and he was constantly in request. His patrimony was not large, but it enabled him sometimes to try new plans for bettering his fortune. Just before the war with Great Britain, in the early part of this century, he engaged with Joseph Hough in a venture to New Orleans. Flour was bought and shipped to that port with a large profit, and thence- forth Mr. McBride was easy in his circumstances. He never attained riches.
In 1813 he was elected sheriff, and was again chosen in 1815. This office was then considered as being the chief one in the county, and it shows the confidence his fellow- citizens must have had in him, as he was but twenty-five when elected. While holding this office he was married to Hannah, daughter of Judge Robert Lytle, who dwelt a few miles from town. and with her he lived forty-five years, having three cons and two daughters.
Mr. McBride had scareely removed to this county when he began his rescarches in the early history of this region. He foresaw its progress, and knew that where there was then only a wooded plain would soon be villages and cities. The pioneers were still alive who could recount the tale of the defeat of St. Clair, the triumphal march of Wayne, the building of the first houses, and the birth of the first children. Some of the older ones had been in the Revolutionary struggle, and yet older ones remem- bered the last long and tedious war we waged with France, ending with glorious victories in 1763. These stories were not wasted npon an inattentive car. He listened to the narrations, and put down upon paper the material portions relating to the early settlement of the Miami country: He verified the relations by comparison with others, and then wrote out a rough draft for publication. This again was changed and altered until, in some cases, three drafts of the same narrative were extant at once. It is impossible to say how much he wrote, but there are probably now in existence, in his handwriting, not less than three thousand pages of manuscript bearing upon Butler County and the country adjacent. Among the most valuable of these is the work issued in 1869 by Robert Clarke & Co., of Cincinnati, under the title of "Pioneer Biography of Butler County." This is in two handsome Octavo volumes, and contains sketches of nearly thirty pioneers, besides incidental allusions to more than a his- dred others. By the indulgence of Mrs. Stembel, his daughter, and of Mr. Robert. Clarke, we have nsel much of the matter in these pages, without indicating from what source it has been taken. It is safe to say that with these, and what we have been able siace to chemin, there will be ne county in the State better informed of it's beginning than Butler. Our " shepherd kings" are not mythical.
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