A history of Adams County, Ohio, from its earliest settlement to the present time, including character sketches of the prominent persons identified with the first century of the country's growth, Part 10

Author: Evans, Nelson Wiley, 1842-1913; Stivers, Emmons Buchanan
Publication date: 1900
Publisher: West Union, O., E.B. Stivers
Number of Pages: 1101

USA > Ohio > Adams County > A history of Adams County, Ohio, from its earliest settlement to the present time, including character sketches of the prominent persons identified with the first century of the country's growth > Part 10

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CONFLICTS AND ADVENTURES WITH THE INDIANS

did not leave there they would; and that I was only waiting a fair op- portunity of bringing the enemy in upon them. As I did not want to break their peace, I thought best to leave them. When I got on the boat, I found two persons on board that I was well acquainted with, and was treated very friendly. Nothing particular occurred on the boat. When we got up. to Limestone, I was greeted by almost every man, woman, and child, particularly those that had been under my tuition. The Captain Bartle above mentioned was among the first settlers of Cincinnati. I had not seen him for forty years, until we met on the twenty-sixth of December, 1838, the time the pioneers were invited to the half Centennial celebration of Cincinnati. We then met, and at his request lodged in the same room. We parted the next day, never more to meet in this world; he was then ninety-four years of age, and has since paid his last debt.

Asahel Edgington Killed by the Indians.

The writer of this article finds the first printed matter of this story in "McDonald's Sketches," published in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1838. That account is copied in "Howe's History of Ohio" in both edi- tions.

It is also copied in "Finley's Book on Indian Life." No written or printed account is known earlier than that of McDonald, who was a contemporary of Gen. Massie, Gen. Simon Kenton and other pioneers, although he was very much younger than either of them. McDonald visited Massie's Station, now Manchester, and spent some time there in the winter of 1795, and was probably there several times before.

The facts as we give them were obtained of William Treber, of Dunkinsville, Adams County, Ohio, who resides on the farm on which Edgington was killed. William Treber's father, Jacob Treber located there with his father, John Treber, in 1796, only three years after the tragic death of Asahel Edgington. Jacob Treber was then a boy of sixteen, having been born in 1780, and he lived until 1875. William Treber was born in 1825, and had the account of the death of Edgington from his grandfather, John Treber, who lived to a ripe old age, and from his father, Jacob Treber, some years since a prominent merchant of Cincinnati, but there the name is spelled Traber.

On the Treber farm, which lies in the valley of Lick Fork of Brush Creek, on both sides of the creek, is a celebrated deer lick. Coming along the turnpike from the south, in passing through the Ellison farm, there is a wide bottom to the left with the creek to the right. The hills form a semi-circle to the west of the Ellison stone house and they approach the creek on the line between the Ellison and Treber farms, and end in a low ridge dropping off to the level of the bottom, just east of the turnpike. The north end of the semi-circular ridge is parallel to the turnpike for two hundred feet and just to the right of it. The foot of the ridge is a few feet inside Treber's field.

From the foot of the ridge, which is rocky and almost barren of tim- ber, trickles a spring, which flows by the roots of a majestic elm, just inside the fence, and empties into the ditch to the west of the turnpike. The creek is not ten feet to the east of the turnpike at the point opposite the spring, which in early times gave out brackish waters, but in 1793,

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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY

the creek flowed thirty feet further east than it does now and there was a little terrace between where the turnpike now is and the creek as it then flowed. The sloping end of the ridge was as bare of timber in 1793 as it is now, but the bottoms were a dense forest.

John and Asahel Edgington were brothers, and young men not over thirty-five years of age. They were noted deer hunters and Indian fighters as were all of Massie's little confederacy, at his station, now Manchester. John Edgington was quite tall and slender and of a taciturn disposition.

While 1793 was a year of Indian depredations, the settlers at Man- chester had no fear of them, when they could meet them on equal terms. The Lick Fork of Brush Creek about ten miles from Manchester, abounded in wild game of all kinds. In December an incursion of Indians was not apprehended and John and Asahel Edgington determined on a hunt. They took with them a third party, whose name is not given by Mc- Donald, but who was probably Cornelius Washburn, and they had a three days' hunt. They camped near the famous deer lick, for there the deer came to them. They killed several deer and two bears. Such of the meat as they cared to save to take back to the station, they hung upon a scaffold, out of danger of the wolves and other wild animals and returned to Manchester for horses upon which they could take the meat to the station.

They left Manchester the morning after their return from the hunt, each taking a pack horse. They approached their former camp which was near the elm, coming over the hill from the southwest and came direct to it without making an examination for Indian signs. Had they left their horses to the south of the hill over which they came and made an entire circle of their camp, as was customary with Gen. Massie in such cases, the former story and this one would not have been written, but instead they came right on through the creek and upon the little bottom to the east of the turnpike, where, without any examination of their surroundings, they alighted from their horses and began to make a fire. At this time, the Indians fired upon them and Asahel Edgington was instantly killed, but John and his companion were unhurt. The Indians no doubt rose up from behind the ridge to fire, and to this fact is due the escape of John Edgington. John dashed through the creek, over the bottom on the other side and half way up the long slope of the hill where he stopped behind a large white oak tree, which was standing until quite recently. There he undertook to take a view of the situation. The Indians were in possession of the camp and two of them had started in pursuit. He undertook to fire on the nearest Indian from behind the white oak, but the powder in the prim- ing-pan of his gun had been moistened in dashing through the creek and his gun would not go off. Then it was he turned to run and was pursued until the Indians discovered he was a swifter runner than any of them. There were seven Indians in the party. John Edgington came back the next day with a party from the station. The horses and meat were gone. His brother's body was found where it had fallen, but the Indians had cut off the head and placed it on a small cedar tree near by, and which has now grown to a considerable tree and is pointed out to this day.

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CONFLICTS AND ADVENTURES WITH THE INDIANS

The party buried Edgington's body in the small bottom to the left of the creek. The creek began washing out the bottom, and in 1835, Edgington's skull was exposed and was taken to the Treber tavern, near by, where it remained some years, and finally was taken away by a Ken- tucky visitor, who claimed to have been a relative of Asahel Edgington.

In a few years more the bones of his skeleton made their appear- ance in the steep clay bank to the left of the creek. These were rev- erently gathered up and reinterred in a field in front of the Treber tavern.

Edgington's death was not unavenged. After the peace of 1795, the Indians were frequent visitors to the white settlements. On one occasion, soon after the Greenville treaty, a party of three Indians visited Manchester. As was usual in those days, they were treated to fire water, and one of them, in his cups, boasted of having been in the party which killed Asahel Edgington. This came to the ears of John Edgington, his brother, then living in Manchester. The Indians remained several days, and left one morning, going up the Ohio River on its right bank. Island Creek empties into the Ohio about two miles above Manchester, and at that time was crossed by a foot log at a place where there was a great deal of timber. The three Indians went onto the foot-log together, but never walked off the other end. There were three rifle reports and three bodies dropped into the waters of Island Creek and floated out into the Ohio. Thus was the death of Asahel Edgington revenged. Little was ever said of this tragedy while the participants in it survived, and it has never appeared in print till the writer published it, but as all the avengers have for sixty years been be- yond the jurisdiction of the courts to try them for the murder, there is now no longer any reason why the story should not be told. No stone marks the place of the tragic death of Asahel Edgington. Cap- tain Johnny, the Shawnee chief, who commanded the band of Indians on the occasion of Asahel Edgington's death, was a scout for General Harrison's army before the battle of the Thames.

Asahel Edgington was a young married man. He left a wife and one daughter, then an infant. She lived to maturity, married, and has left numerous descendants.

Capture of Andrew Ellison.

In the spring of the year 1793, the settlers at Manchester com- menced clearing the outlots of the town; and while so engaged, an inci- dent of much interest and excitement occurred. Mr. Andrew Ellison, one of the settlers, cleared a lot immediately adjoining the fort. He had completed the cutting of the timber, rolled the logs together and set them on fire. The next morning, a short time before daybreak, Mr. Ellison opened one of the gates of the fort and want out to throw his logs to- gether. By the time he had finished this job, a number of the heaps blazed up brightly, and as he was passing from one to the other, he ob- served, by the light of the fires, three men walking briskly towards him. This did not alarm him in the least, although, he said, they were dark-skinned fellows; yet he concluded they were the Wades, whose complexions were very dark, going to hunt. He continued to right his log-heaps, until one of the fellows seized him by the arms, and called

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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY

out in broken English, "How do? How do?" He instantly looked in their faces, and to his surprise and horror found himself in the clutches of three Indians. To resist was useless. He therefore submitted to his fate, without any resistance or an attempt to escape. The Indians quickly moved off with him in the direction of Paint Creek. When breakfast was ready, Mrs. Ellison sent one of her children to ask their father home, but he could not be found at the log-heaps. His absence created no immediate alarm, as it was thought he might have started to hunt after the completion of his work. Dinner time arrived, and, Ellison not returning, the family became uneasy, and began to suspect some accident had happened to him.

His gun rack was examined, and there hung his rifle and his pouch in their usual place. Massie raised a party and made a circuit around the place and found, after some search, the trails of four men, one of whom had on shoes; and as Ellison had shoes on, the truth that the In- dians had made him a prisoner was unfolded. As it was almost night at the time the trail was discovered, the party returned to their station. Next morning early preparations were made by Massie and his party to pursue the Indians. In doing this they found great difficulty, as it was so early in the spring that the vegetation was not of sufficient growth to show plainly the trail of the Indians, who took the precaution to keep on hard and high land, where their feet could make little or no impressions. Massie and his party, however, were as unerring as a pack of well-trained hounds, and followed the trail to Paint Creek, where they found the Indians gained so fast on them that pursuit was vain. They therefore abandoned it and returned to the station. The Indians took their prisoner to Upper Sandusky, and compelled him to run the gaunt- let. As Ellison was a large man and not very active, he received a se- vere flogging as he passed along the line. From this place he was taken to Lower Sandusky and was again compelled to run the guantlet, and was then taken to Detroit, where he was generously ransomed by a British officer for one hundred dollars. He was shortly afterwards sent by his friend and officer to Montreal, from whence he returned home before the close of the summer of the same year.

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THE WILSON CHILDREN'S HOME, WEST UNION

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CHAPTER VIII.

CIVIL ORGANIZATION IN THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY

Establishment of Adams County.

Under a provision of the Ordinance of 1787, the Governor of "The Territory of the United States Northwest of the river Ohio" was author- zed to make proper division of said Territory, and directed to proceed from time to time as circumstances might require to lay out counties and townships, subject however to future alterations by the Territorial Legislature, in the parts of the Territory in which the Indian titles had been or might be extinguished.

October. 5, 1787, General Arthur St. Clair was appointed by the Second Continental Congress first Governor of the Northwest Territory. In July following, the Governor arrived at Marietta, founded the April previous, and on the twenty-seventh of that month proclaimed the establishment of the county of Washington, the first erected in the Territory. The Governor named the county in honor of his friend, Gen- eral Washington, with whom he had served in the Revolution. St. Clair was an aristocrat and a staunch Federalist, and it is worth noting that he named the early counties formed in the Territory for leading spirits of that party.

The boundaries of Washington County included most of that por- tion of the State of Ohio lying east of the Scioto River. The seat of justice was fixed at Marietta and from there the early laws of the Terri- tory were promulgated. The first court in the Territory was convened September 2, 1788. It was an impressive ceremony witnessed by a num- ber of Indian Chiefs who had come to the Fort to make a treaty with the commander. The citizens, military officers, the Governor, Judges of the courts and members of the bar formed an imposing procession as they moved through the forest to Campus Martius Hall, where the court, after invocation of the Divine blessing by Rev. Dr. Cutler, was formally opened by Colonel Sproat, the High Sheriff, who proclaimed with his solemn "O, yes" that a "court is now opened for the administration of even-handed justice to the poor and the rich, to the guilty and the in- nocent without respect to persons; none to be punished without a trial by their peers, and then in pursuance of the law and evidence in the case."

January 2, 1790, the Governor proclaimed the erection of the county of Hamilton, the second county formed in the Territory. This county included the strip of territory lying between the Miamis, and extended north to the Standing Stone fork of the Big Miami. Afterwards, on February 17, 1792, the eastern boundary of the county was extended to the Scioto River. The seat of justice for the county and the Territory was fixed at Cincinnati.

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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY

After the removal of the Governor and Supreme Judges of the Ter- ritory from Marietta to Cincinnati, in 1790, the county of St. Clair was erected in what is now the State of Illinois. This was done by proclama- tion April 27, 1790.

The fourth county in the Territory was that of Knox, June 20, 1790. The county included the present State of Indiana, and the place of hold- ing the courts was the old French town of Vincennes.

Trouble with the Indians prevented the extension of civil growth until after Wayne's Treaty when the county of Randolph was formed from the southern portion of the county of St. Clair, October 15, 1795. The sixth county formed in the Territory was Wayne, by proclama- tion of the Governor, August 15, 1796. This was a very large county and embraced all of northwestern Ohio, a portion of northeastern Indiana, and all of the lower peninsula of Michigan.

The Establishment of Adams County.

It was organized by proclamation of Governor St. Clair, July 10, 1797. This was the first county organized in the Virginia Military Dis- trict, the third within the limits of the State of Ohio, and the seventh in the Northwest Territory. It was formed from territory belonging to Hamil- ton County and a strip east of the Scioto River within the jurisdictiction of Washington County. At the time of its organization its northern line extended across what is now territory included within the counties of Logan, Union, Delaware, Morrow, and Knox.

Its eastern limit followed very nearly what is now the western boundary of the counties of Licking, Fairfield, Hocking, Vinton, Jack- son, and Lawrence.

Its southern boundary was the line of low water mark on the north shore of the Ohio River. And its western limit extended across Brown County, along the western border of Highland, and crossed the counties of Clinton. Greene, Clark, and Champaign.

The original boundaries of Adams County as defined in Governor St. Clair's proclamation, were as follows :

"Beginning upon the Ohio River, at the upper boundary of that tract of twenty-four thousand acres of land, granted unto the French inhabitants of Gallipolis, by act of the congress of the United States, bearing date the third of March, 1975; thence down the said Ohio River, to the mouth of Elk River, (generally known by the name of Eagle Creek) and up with the principal water of the said Elk River or Eagle Creek, to its source or head; thence by a due north line to the southern boundary of Wayne County and easterly along said boundary, so far that a due south line shall meet the interior point of the upper boundary of the aforesaid tract of land of twenty-four thousand acres, and with the said boundary to the begining." The following year, 1798, by proclamation August 20th, at the formation of Ross County, Governor St. Clair changed the western boundary line of Adams County and made it to be as follows :

"To begin on the bank of the Ohio, where Elk River or Eagle Creek empties into the same, and run from thence due north, until it interects the southern boundary of the county of Ross; and all and singular the lands lying between the said north line and Elk River or

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CIVIL ORGANIZATION IN THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY 79

Eagle Creek shall, after the said first day of September next, be separated from the county of Hamilton, and added to the county of Adams." This *line remained the western boundary of Adams County until the date of the erection of Brown County, March 1, 1818. At this latter date the western boundary of the county was made a "due north and south line drawn through a point eight miles due west from the court house in the town of West Union." A special act of the Legislature provided that this line should be run by the compass without making any cor- rections for the variation of the needle.

By the establishment of this last line, Adams County lost all that ter- ritory comprised within Eagle, Jackson, Byrd and Huntington, the greater portions of Union and Jefferson, and a part of Franklin and Washington Townships in Brown County. The northern boundary of Adams County, as herein shown, originally extended to the south line of Wayne County, which was in part a line extending from a point on the portage between the waters of the Cuyahoga and the Tuscarawas Rivers, near old Fort Laurens, westerly to the eastern boundary of Hamilton County, which at that time was the Scioto River and a due north line to Lake Erie, from the lower Shawnee town on the Scioto.

In 1798, Ross County was formed from the northern portion of Adams, and the north line of Adams was then fixed as follows: "Begin- ning at the forty-second mile tree, on the line of the original grant of land by the United States to the Ohio Company, which line was run by Israel Ludlow, and running from thence west, until it shall intersect a line to be drawn due north from the mouth of Elk River on Eagle Creek."

* At a Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace held at Washington, in and for the county of Adams in the Territory of the United States, Northwest of the river Ohio, before John Beasley, Moses Baird, Noble Grimes, John Russell and Joseph Moore, Esquires, justices as. signed to keep the peace and to grant orders for highways, etc .. in the county aforesaid. on the thirteenth day of March in the year of our Lord 1801, appointed and ordered Thomas Middleton to run measure and mark the west boundary line of Adams County, being in length twenty-two miles from the Ohio, beginning at the mouth of Eagle Creek and the Ohio River and make return to our June sessions. At which time, to-wit: at a Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace, held at Washington, in and for the county of Adams, in the Territory of the United States, Northwest of the river Ohio, before John Bellie, Noble Grimes, John Gutridge, John Russell, Mills Stephenson. Samuel Wright and Kimber Barton, Esquires, justices assigned to keep the peace and to grant orders for the surveys, etc., on the ninth of June, 1801, agreeable to the order of March sessions last past, Thomas Middleton returned the survey of the lower line of the county, and it was read the first time, and on the tenth was read a second time, to-wit: In obedience to an order of the Honorable Court of Adams County, to me directed. I proceeded on the twenty-fifth day of May, 1801, to run the west line of said county: Beginning at the mouth of Eagle Creek on the Ohio River at a large elm, and running from thence north 820 poles to a

· large beech, No. 1 mile; thence crossing red oak at 240 poles ; thence 80 poles to a small hickory, No. 2 miles; thence 320 poles to a small buckeye, No. 8 miles; thence 820 poles to a large white walnut standing near James Prickett's house, No. 4 miles: thence 320 poles to a hackberry stand- ing in Rodgers' field, No. 5 miles; thence 320 poles to an ash No. 6 miles; thence crossing the big road leading from Thomas' Mill to Waters' Ferry at 240 poles; thence 80 poles to an ash stand- Ing on a branch of the east fork of Straight Creek, No. 7 miles; thence 820 poles to an ash stand- ing near the east fork of Straight Creek, No. 8 miles; thence crossing the said east fork at 84 poles ; thence 1d1 poles to the second crossing of Thomas's road ; thence 125 miles to a beech, No. 9miles; thence 320 poles to an elm, No. 10 miles; thence 820 to a beech. No. 11 poles; thence $20 to a maple, No. 12 miles; thence 820 to a poplar. No. 18 miles: thence 890 to a large white oak. No. 14 milas; thence crossing Straight Creek at 210 poles ; thence 110 poles to a beech No. 15 miles ; thence 820 poles to a red oak. No. 16 miles ; thence 320 poles to a red oak, No. 17 miles; thence 180 poles to the crossing of Denham's trace leading from Denham's Town [Bethel] to Chillicothe at a maple marked "O L;" thence 180 poles to a white oak. No. 18 miles; thence 820 poles to & white oak. No. 19 miles; thence 820 poles to a white oak, No. 20 miles ; thence crossing the east fork of White Oak Creek at the end of eighty poles; thence 240 poles to a beech. No. 21 miles : thence $20 poles to a beech marked " W. B." of "A. C.," supposed to be three miles from the forks of said White Oak Creek.

Thomas Middleton, Surveyor. Harry Bailey and Gideon Palmer, Chain Carriers. Thomas Middleton. Marker. All being sworn.

Whereupon all and singular the premises being seen, and by the justice here fully under" stood, and due consideration thereon had, it is ordered the same be recorded.

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HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY

In 1805, at the formation of Highland County, the north line of Adams was again removed to the southward, and defined as follows: "Beginning at the twenty-mile tree, in the line between Adams and Cler- mont Counties, which is run due north from the mouth of Eagle Creek, on the Ohio River, and running thence east twelve miles ; thence north- eastwardly until it intersects the line which was run between the counties of Ross and Scioto and Adams, at the eighteen-mile tree from the Scioto River."

Again at the time of the erection of Pike county in 1815, a portion of the northern line of Adams was changed from the "highlands between the waters of Scioto Brush Creek and Sunfish southwardly with said highlands so far that an east line will strike" the line between townships three and four on the Scioto River, range twenty-two.

On May 1, 1803, when Scioto County was formed, the eastern line of Adams was altered so as to begin "on the Ohio, one mile on a straight line below the mouth of Lower Twin Creek; thence north to the Ross County line;" now the Pike County line since the erection of the latter county.

The southern boundary is low water mark on the north shore of the Ohio River. We have accurately traced so far, the restriction of the boundary lines of the county from the period when it embraced nearly one-fifth of the area of the State of Ohio, down to its present limits within which are contained about 625 square miles.

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A history of Adams County, Ohio, from its earliest settlement to the present time, including character sketches of the prominent persons identified with the first century of the country's growth, Part 10

Author: Evans, Nelson Wiley, 1842-1913; Stivers, Emmons Buchanan Publication date: 1900 Publisher: West Union, O., E.B. Stivers Number of Pages: 1101

Author: Evans, Nelson Wiley, 1842-1913; Stivers, Emmons Buchanan
Publication date: 1900
Publisher: West Union, O., E.B. Stivers
Number of Pages: 1101