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 44
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To prepare the more timid of our people for a thorough fright, it had been rumored for a year or more that General John H. Morgan's cavalry in overwhelming force was preparing to invade Ohio. The "home guards" had, time and again, been called out to defend the towns along the Ohio River against contemplated assaults from Mor- gan's forces. The little "tin-clad" gunboats kept constant patrol along our river front, and frequent false alarms were sounded "just to steady the nerves" of the expectant citizens. The bloody encounter of a detachment of Morgan's cavalry, under the fiery Colonel Duke, with a body of militia at Augusta, Kentucky, lent color to the rumor of Morgan's contemplated invasion, and kept our people on the tiptoe of expectancy for months before his actual coming. So when the in- vading forces did cross the Ohio, and successfully pass Cincinnati where was concentrated a large force under Burnside, and the head of the marauding column pointed eastward up the river our people began to realize something of the blight cast by an invading army, and to feel their utter helplessness as to means to thwart the invaders in their course. Again rumor with her many tongues and countless eyes, her- alded in advance of the invaders, such awful scenes of fire, murder, and rapine, as rumor only ever beholds.
Looking back now over the line of travel of the invaders, and noting in the light of history the depredations really committed, it is astonishing how insignificant was the injury done. There was one dwelling, a few railroad bridges, and a park of government wagons burned; and, one non-combatant killed, in the 300 miles raiding from Corydon, Indiana, to Piketon, Ohio.
It is true that many village stores were pillaged, seemingly for diversion, certainly not, in most instances, for gain. "Calico was the staple article of appropriation," says Duke, "each man who could get one, tied a bolt of it to his saddle, only to throw it away, and get a fresh one at the first opportunity. They did not pillage with any sort of method or reason; it seemed to be a mania, senseless and purposeless. One man carried a bird cage with three canaries in it for two days. Another rode with a chafing-dish, which looked like a small metallic coffin, on the pommel of his saddle, until an officer made him throw it away. Although the weather was intensely warm, another, still, slung seven pairs of skates around his neck, and chuckled over his acquisi- tion. I saw very few articles of real value taken. They pillaged like boys robbing an orchard. I would not have believed that such a pas- sion could have been developed, so ludicrously among civilized men. At Piketon, Ohio, one man broke through the guard posted at a store, rushed in trembling with excitement and avarice, and filled his pockets with horn buttons! They would, with few exceptions, throw away their plunder, after awhile, like children tired of their toys."
The most serious inconvenience occasioned our people by this raid was the loss of their best horses. The raiders were hard pressed by General Hobson with three thousand cavalry, and in order to out- distance their pursuers, picked up for the purpose, the best horses along the route. And to add to this loss, the good horses that had been secreted from the raiders, were seized the next day when brought in from their hiding places, by Hobson's soldiers. In almost every in-
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stance where a horse was taken by either Morgan's or Hobson's men, one was left in its stead, sore-footed and worn down, but otherwise generally a good horse. And the people would not have been greatly dissatisfied with these exchanges, had they been permitted to retain the horses left with them. But no sooner were the sore and tired-out animals recruited by those in whose care they had been left, than the ever officious, and too often unscrupulous, provost marshal came and claimed all such horses as the property of the government, and took them away. This act of injustice, for but few of these horses were branded and really belonged to the government, left many a man in the midst of harvest and with crops to cultivate, without a team or the means of procuring one. In some few instances when the persons stood for their rights against the cupidity of the provost marshal, they were permitted to retain as their own the horses left with them. And, some there were, who believing that the "greatest thief gets the most booty," picked up the better horses abandoned by the armies, and made off with them to distant localities beyond reach of the provost marshal, and there disposed of them.
In his "History of Morgan's Cavalry," General Duke graphically describes the panic the approach of the invaders produced in the com- munities through which they passed. He says: "A great fear had fallen upon the inhabitants. They had left their houses with doors wide open and unlocked larders, and had fled to the thickets and caves of the hills. At the house at which I stopped, everything was just in the condition the fugitive owners had left it a few hours before. A bright fire was blazing upon the kitchen hearth, bread half made up was in the tray, and many indications convinced us we had interrupted preparations for a meal. The chickens were strolling before the door with a confidence that was touching but misplaced."
From Williamsburg in Clermont County, Colonel Dick Morgan with about 500 men made a movement towards Ripley in Brown County where the "home guards" were assembled from all the sur- rounding country to repel the attack of Morgan and prevent his es- cape across the river at that point. This was only a feint on the part of the raiders, and served their purpose admirably, they meeting with no opposition through Brown and Adams counties. Colonel Morgan passed by the way of Georgetown, Russellville, and Decatur, entefing Adams County at *Eckmansville. Here a sad occurrence took place. A foolish, hot-headed resident of Eckmansville, Dr. Van Meter, fired at a squad of the raiders and then hid himself from sight. An old man named William Johnson was near the point from which the shot had been fired, with an ax on his shoulder, which glistening in the sun was mistaken by the raiders for a gun, and supposing him to be the assailant, they fired upon him and instantly killed him. When the raiders learned their mistake, they made dire threats against the little village and its inhabitants, declaring they would burn every house in it, unless their assailant was pointed out to them. Rev. David McDill,
The author was informed by a Mr. Patton, a former resident of Eckmansville. that a lone cavalryman rode into the village on the Russellville road. and discovering Dr. Van Meter with a musket in his hands, ordered him to surrender, which Van Meter refused to do. Both fired at the same moment and William Johnson. being within the range of their shots, was struck by a ball and killed. It is doubtful which killed him.
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now of Xenia, was accused of knowing the offender and his hiding place, and was threatened with death if he did not divulge his where- abouts. But he steadfastly refused, was made prisoner, put astride a "lonesome mule" and taken as far as Locust Grove, when the next morning he was released and permitted to return to his home. Dr. Van Meter escaped summary punishment through the Scotch stub- bornness of his friend Rev. McDill.
From Eckmansville, the raiders passed to Cherry Fork, Youngs- ville, Harshaville, Dunkinsville and Dunbarton, where they encamped on the night of the 15th, and joined the main body under General Mor- gan and Basil Duke, second in command, who had taken their forces from Williamsburg through Mt. Orab, Sardinia, Winchester, Harsha- ville, Unity, Dunbarton and Locust Grove. At Winchester, General Morgan and his staff dined and spent some time resting in the town. (See history of Winchester Township in this volume. Also, "Treason Trial in Ohio" this volume.)
Our people were wrought up to a high pitch of excitement, and many ridiculous things were done. At West Union a tree was felled across the road at the foot of the hill below "Rock Spring," to prevent the raiders from entering the town, although their nearest approach to the town was at Unity.
One excitable matron tied up some bed clothes in a feather bed and deposited the bundle behind the gooseberry bushes in the garden. Another fled to a near-by corn field with a Seth Thomas brass clock, and hid it in a small ravine.
An over-anxious watcher of some horses hid in a thicket, thinking he could get a better view of the surrounding country by climbing to the top of a large growth sapling near by, who, observing some horse- men at a distance, became panicky upon reflection that he might be mistaken for a sharpshooter, let go his hold, and tumbled to the ground, some thirty feet, nearly breaking his neck in the fall.
History records the fact that a terrified matron in a town forty miles from the rebel route, in her husband's absence, resolved to protect the family carriage horse at all hazards, and knowing no safe place, led him into the house and stabled him in the parlor, locking and bolting doors and windows, whence the noise of his dismal tramping on the resound- ing floor sounded through the livelong night like distant peals of ar- tillery, and kept half the citizens awake and watching for Morgan's en- trance.
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CHAPTER XVIII.
MISCELLANEOUS
A Duel in Adams County-Fourth of July Celebration 1825-Scourge of Asiatic Cholera-The Oldest House in Ohio-Trial and Execution of David Beckett-Lynching of Roscoe Parker-Treason Trial in Ohio-Anecdote of Judge Thurman-The Iron Industry-Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad-A Blue Eyed Nigger-Postoffices in Adams County.
A Duel in Adams County. By DR. A. N. ELLIS.
I have been requested to prepare a sketch of the only duel that was ever fought on Adams County soil. To me it is a very interesting sub- ject, for that fight took place on the farm where I was born and in the presence of a number of my blood-kin. From my earliest childhood I have heard the affair discussed by all of the old people of our neighbor- hood, especially by my father and mother, while away back yonder when I was a wee small boy I often saw the two principals in the affair eating and drinking and talking and enjoying themselves in my grandfather's hospitable home. Before going any farther permit me to gratefully acknowledge the assistance I have received from Mr. Hixson at the city library in looking up names and dates and details, and the kindness of my venerable friend Mr. John G. Hickman in placing in my hands a long and very interesting letter sent to the Cincinnati Commercial more than a score of years ago, by Col. Thomas M. Green, of Danville. Every- body in this section knows what a charming and accomplished writer Col. Green is. His former residence in Maysville and his long editorial con- nection with The Eagle admirably fitted him to collect and preserve all data connected with the Marshall family, for he is a blood kinsman of the illustrious house.
The very spot where the encounter took place is hallowed by some of the sweetest and saddest associations of my childhood years, for with- in a stone's throw my brother Henry lost his life by drowning in the river, while a few hundred yards across the field toward the hill is our family cemetery where rest my beloved parents. The trees under which the duel was fought have long since disappeared, and gone too is the river bank, swept away by as remorseless current as that other tide that is carrying us all away into the utter oblivion of death and forgetfulness ! Right here premit me to say that I am sorry that the task of putting the record of this historical duel into permanent shape was not committed to
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an abler pen than mine. Once I heard Senator John Sherman say in a public address before the old settlers of Southern Ohio, that there was more of the heroic, the tragic, the poetic and of the melo-dramatic in the history of this border land than in any of those old storied lands beyond the sea.
The bill now pending in the Ohio State Legislature empowering the commissioners of each county to spend as much as $500 in the matter of the presevervation of public records and private memoirs for the use of the future historian is a step in the right direction. By and by some great and gifted writer like Sir Walter Scott will arise in our midst and taking these broken links of individual and family history, personal ex- periences, records of daring deeds by flood and field, frayed out strands of men's fortitude and women's patience and suffering, will blend them all into one glorious warp and woof of authentic history-a book that will be read by all men and find a place in every home and school room.
In looking over the strange and eventful lives of Tom Marshall and Charley Mitchell it will be well to remember that their earlier years were spent in a time when the code duello was looked upon as a christianizer and civilizer, when there was a superabundance of whisky in every house, when schools and churches were few and far between, when the rule of might was the law of the road, when danger lurked in every fence corner, when the courts were powerless to protect the helpless or to punish the guilty, when the conditions of life were so hard that men and women grew old and gray before their time and when the black flag of slavery obstructed the sunshine and threw its ominous shadow across the path- way of the Republic.
The Mitchell family came from Charles County, Maryland, and set- tled in Mason County, just after the war of the revolution. Ignatius Mitchell married a Bourbon County widow by the name of Mildred Mc- Kee. They lived on a fine farm of 900 acres some six miles below Mays- ville and directly across from Charleston bar. From this marriage came eight children, five of whom reached maturity. The eldest son, Richard, became a distinguished officer of the navy and served throughout the war of 1812 with credit. Unfortunately he killed a brother officer in a des- perate duel, which led to his resignation from the service and cast a deep gloom over his later years.
Charles Mitchell was born in 1792. From his earliest childhood he gave indications of the traits which afterward developed into marked characteristics. He could brook no restraint and rebelled at all author- ity ; defiant, proud, revengeful he struck at once at any and everyone who impeded the path he had worked out for himself or who he fancied assumed any superiority over him. For some imaginary slight he had received at home at the age of thirteen years, he swam to a passing flat- boat and worked his wav to Natchez, where lived an uncle with whom he stayed three years. Becoming dissatisfied there he came back to Ken- tucky, but too proud to go back to the home from whence he had fled he sought and obtained the position of deputy in the office of the Clerk of Bourbon County. Next we hear of him as working for a merchant in Maysville, where he stayed till the breaking out of the war of 1812 brought him the opportunity he had always longed for-the career of a
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soldier ! He at once offered his services and was appointed an ensign in the regular army.
Captain Thomas Marshall, youngest brother of Chief Justice John Marshall, migrated from Virginia to Kentucky in 1790, settled in Mason County and married the sister of Wm. Kennan, uncle of the late Griffin Taylor of Cincinnati, and noted as one of the most intrepid of men of blood and iron who offered their bodies as ramparts for the defense of the white women against the tomahawk and scalping knife of the Indian! Among Capt. Marshall's sons were Gen. Thomas Marshall of the Mex- ican war and Col. Charles A. Marshall of the Sixteenth Kentucky Regi- ment of the war of the Rebellion.
Young Tom Marshall was from his cradle a born fighter and aristo- crat and from the very beginning could not brook the thought that there was his equal in blood, brains and prowess in all the country around. Hence it will be readily seen that Mason County was too small for two such men as himself and young Mitchell, both of whom aspiring to be considered the "cock of the walk," in any company in which they were thrown.
Mitchell was about twenty years old, six feet high, raw boned, light hair and great big gray eyes-eves that looked you full in the face with a gaze that told you plainly that here was a man who was bent on fight- ing his way through the world, though an enemy should be found at every step.
Marshall was about a year younger than Mitchell, black haired and eyed, six feet in height, very small hands and feet and a model of symmetry and manly beauty. Mitchell had long practiced with a pistol to be in readiness for such emergencies as were almost certain to arise, until he could at twenty paces hit a swinging grape vine an inch in diameter two shots out of every three. Marshall was an expert with the rifle.
They had eyed each other askance for some time, but neither cared to give the other the choice of weapons. The ill feeling originated in the assumption, as Mitchell fancied, of social superiority on the part of Marshall, which he very bitterly resented. At length, on account of some remark attributed to Marshall in reference to the commission in the army given to Isaac Baker and Charles Mitchell the former challeng- ed Marshall, sending the message by the hands of the latter, which was promptly accepted and a meeting arranged. Baker's father and old Tom Marshall, who had been fellow soldiers and intimate friends during the war of the revolution soon put their heads together and resolved that their children should not fight, and so, soon adjusted the whole trouble in terms mutually honorable and satisfactory. But this termination was a sore disappointment to Mitchell, who cherished an ardent desire to figure in an affair of the kind, determined to balk the peace makers. It was not long before he embraced an opportunity of using language ex- ceedingly offensive concerning the younger Marshall, which, being re- ported to the elder, disclosed to his mind a determination to force his son into a duel or degrade him in public estimation. He at once took proper steps to bring aflairs to a focus. A challenge was at once ad- dressed to Mitchell and delivered by the hand of James Alexander Pax- ton, a first cousin of Alex. K. McClung, who afterwards figured in Miss-
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issippi. The challenge was immediately accepted, the next morning named for the meeting. the weapons the old flintlock smoothbore duel- ing pistols, the distance ten paces, the place on the Ohio side, three miles above Aberdeen, on the farm of Washington Ellis. John Bickley was the second of Mitchell, Isaac Baker declining to act on account of the quarrel that had just been settled between him and Marshall. On the field, in attendance of Mitchell, beside his second, were John Chambers, afterwards aid to General Harrison and Governor of Iowa; James C. Pickett, distinguished as a publicist, Secretary of State under Governor Desha, Secretary of Legation to Columbia and Minister to Bolivia; Isaac Baker, distinguished for bravery at the River Raisin and other bloody engagements in the war of 1812.
Everyone knew that Marshal was almost certain to fall. After the ground was measured and all the details arranged Mitchell came canter- ing up on a little bobtail pony, the last man on the ground. Telling his second that he did not intend to kill, but only to wound his antagonist, he took the position assigned to him as coolly as if sitting down to break- fast. The word was given, both pistols were discharged, but Mitchell was the quickest and Marshall fell with a shattered thigh, struck exactly where Mitchell said he would send his ball. Marshall, finding that he could not stand, asked to be placed in a chair and to be allowed another chance, but the seconds would not agree to this and the affair ended.
The following is the formal announcement published by the seconds :
Maysville, Ky., April 19, 1812.
"Mr. Thomas Marshall and Mr. Chas. Mitchell met this day, agreeable to their appointment in the State of Ohio, where the gentlemen took their stations and exchanged a shot. Mr. Mitchell, when the word was given, being quicker than Mr. Marshall, shot him in the hip, which extracted Mr. Marshall's fire.
" Both gentlemen acted with great firmness and bravery, as well as good conduct. "James A. Paxton,
"John Bickley."
Old Capt. Marshall had arranged for a signal to be given by the party bringing his son, in case he should be hit, as every one expected, and on hearing it turned to his wife and said: "Fanny, they are bring- ing Tom home!" which was the first intimation she had that her son was in peril. In a few minutes he was brought to her, stretched upon a board. He wrestled for some time with death, but lived to win a commission in the war. His second, Paxton, was afterwards aid-de- camp to both Gen. Harrison and Gen. Shelby. Marshall afterwards became identified with the Democratic party, and represented Lewis County twelve years in the Kentucky legislature, one term of which he was speaker of the house. During the Mexican war he was a brigadier general, and served with distinction and great address under both Generals Scott and Taylor. He was a prominent factor that led to the displacement of Gen. Scott by Gen. William O. Butler in the presidential campaign of 1848, when Cass, of Michigan, headed the ticket. He had a fine estate of 2,000 acres in Lewis County, where he dispensed a royal and free-handed hospitality to all of his old friends and visitors. Finally he was treacherously murdered by one of his tenants by the name of Tyler, in 1853. His remains rest by the side of
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his parents in the Washington Cemetery. Peace to his ashes! No one that ever met him could forget him.
Ensign Mitchell was promoted for gallantry to a first lieutenancy of rifles, and served with distinction during the war, during which time he fought two duels, the first with a lieutenant by the name of Bayless, the other with a captain whose name is unknown to the writer of these lines. In both of these encounters he came off without a scratch, but inflicted serious damage on both of his opponents.
In 1819, while in Cynthiana, Ky., he got into a fight with a Dr. Mc- Millen, whom he left for dead in the street and fled to Texas. On his way to that part of the country-on the gulf between New Orleans and Galveston-the vessel was wrecked on an island, and almost all on board perished. Mitchell was washed ashore and came near dying from hunger and starvation. Little is known of his life in Texas, as he would never talk about his ups and downs there. Hearing that Dr. McMillen was not dead, he returned to Kentucky, and soon got into trouble with his brother-in-law-a man by the name of Masterson. They fought in a hotel in Ripley, in a room all to themselves-with knives. When the thing was over, Mitchell had only a few cuts, while Masterson was almost dead from the wounds he had received. The floor and walls of the room looked like a slaughter pen. The next fight he had was with a great big man by the name of Stephen Lee, who quietly and quickly picked him up and threw him down a stairway-a distance of some twelve or fifteen feet. He struck on his head and was so badly hurt and stunned that he was not able to get out his favor- ite pistol. This also took place at Ripley. Mitchell was chosen as sec- ond by William H. McCardle, of Vicksburg, in the fight that did not come off between him and the late R. H. Stanton, of Maysville.
Gen. Tom Marshall was "the friend" of the latter. This brought the two old chaps together, and over a bottle of Madeira they made up, and afterwards lived on terms of friendship.
In 1844 John M. Clay, of Lexington, the youngest son of the great orator and statesman, was challenged by a Philidelphian named Hop- kins, and both proceeded to Maysville to fight. Clay had a letter from his father to Mitchell, who at once proceeded to put him in training. The next morning Clay remarked to Mitchell that were it not for his age and probable unwillingness to participate in such an affair, that he would prefer him as a second to any one living.
"Oh, no," said Mitchell, firing under his left leg and peeling a two- inch sapling at twenty yards, "By Gad, sir, not too old yet to enjoy life." This idea of enjoying existence was quite a novel one to young Clay, whose blood ran cold at the suggestion. Hopkins withdrew his chal- lenge, and the fight did not come off.
In his later years he was sent to the legislature from Mason County and served one term. He died in June, 1861, of heart disease. He was a strong Union man, and his last days were spent in lamenting that he was not at Fort Sumter with Major Anderson and been buried be- neath the ruins. He wanted to die amid the storm and whirlwind of battle instead of on a bed of a painful and lingering disease.
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