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 63
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While residing in West Union, on March 8, 1818, he was married to Hannah Miles, a widow with four children. He believed the water of the "Sinking Spring" in Highland County, to possess remarkable medic- inal properties, conducive to health and longevity, and so persuaded was he of this, that he bought the property having the spring thereon and built a fine brick mansion there, which is standing to-day. It seems that notwithstanding he had been reared in the elegant home in Westover and moved in the highest circles at Philadelphia, he had a strong taste for the primitive and quiet life he found at Buckeye Station at West Union and in the wild country of Highland County. He was very strict in the observance of Sabbath and would not, on that day, ride to church on horseback. He had a very strong liking for the principles and teachings of the Shakers, as appears by his will.
Unlike the typical Virginian, he was a total abstainer from all kinds of liquor, in an age when whiskey was pure and temperance societies unknown. He was very temperate in his eating, and guarded the diges- tion of his children in a manner unknown to the mothers and fathers of this day. He kept small silver scales by his plate, upon which he weighed every article of food which they ate, allowing a certain quantity of fat, sugar, and phosphates, with each portion. He had peculiar ideas as to the preservation of life to longevity, and yet, died suddenly at the com- paratively early age of fifty-eight, when he had never been seriously sick in his life. He was engaged in the trial of a mail robbery case when he took his final sickness. His associate, Judge Todd, of Kentucky, took sick at the same time and they both died within an hour of each other. The cause of the death of these two judges is a mystery to this day. The children of his first marriage were all born between 1798 and 1810, and were Mary Powell, Kidder Meade, William Silonwee and Evalyn Harrison. His daughter Evalyn married her cousin and raised a family. She has two daughters now living at Nicholasville, Mrs. Anna Letcher and Miss Jane Woodson. The children of his second marriage were Jane and Samuel Otway, both deceased. Samuel Otway died at the age of forty-five, and left a son, William O. Byrd, who died a few years since at the age of forty-one.
While a resident of West Union, Judge Byrd lived in the property opposite where Mrs. Sarah W. Bradford lives, and afterward in the Judge Mason property on Mulberry street, where Mr. Riley Mehaffey now lives.
Judge Byrd kept a diary from 1812 to 1827. He writes nothing about his doings in the courts, the lawyers he met, or the judges with whom he sat, but a great deal about his diet. It appears that he was a
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dyspeptic, and suffered with a disordered stomach, and that his private thoughts were largely about his diet and the better preservation of his health. He was constantly making experiments in dieting on himself and his children. He notes Judge Todd's opinion as to medicines. Had he lived in our day, he would have been called a crank. At one time, he thought river water was the best and had three barrels of it hauled to his house for his use. At another time, he thought McClure's well in West Union was the proper water to use. At another time, he thought the water at Yellow Springs was the best, and when he became convinced that the Sinking Spring water was the best, he bought property there and made it his home. He refers to Judge John W. Campbell in his diary on the subject of grape culture only. He refers to the Rev. Dyer Burgess on Free Masonry. He speaks of his horses which he named Dolly, Paddy and Paul. The latter was named after a blacksmith who shod them all, and who was probably an ancestor of the Pauls of Bloom Furnace. At one time, when he was riding to Chillicothe, Dolly shied at a black hog along the roadside. He then had black hogs painted on his barn door where she could shy at them at her pleasure. He, at another time, became of the opinion that ammonia was healthful, and he had a seat fixed in his barn and spent a great deal of time there where he could inhale the fumes of it from the stable.
The Judge was very fond of sauer kraut and made frequent mention of it. Another vanity of his was boiled pullet. He had a horror of bile on the stomach, of jaundice and of epilepsy, and frequently writes of these, though it does not appear that he was ever afflicted with the latter. Occasionally, he wrote about the Erie Canal and of canals projected in Ohio, and frequently gave figures and statistics.
In November, 1826, he gave an item of seventeen dollars, travelling expenses from Philadelphia to Maysville, Kentucky; five dollars for tavern bills from Pittsburg to Maysville, and eight days allowed for the trip. At times he contemplated joining the Shakers and would sit down and write in his journal his reasons pro and con. One of his reasons, con, was the weakly state of his health, which would or might render it in- jurious to him to take such a diet as they use, and to rise hours before day as they used to do and sit by their stoves. Evidently the Judge liked good things to eat and to lie abed of mornings. Another reason, con, was that if he joined the Shakers, Hannah could get a divorce from him under the laws of Kentucky, and could marry again and probably would, and that would be sinful in her. Evidently he did not consider the sin of leaving Hannah and his family. His son, Samuel, said that his whole idea of the Shakers arose from a disordered stomach, which was no doubt true. Here is a tribute to his wife: "Mrs. Byrd. this morning after sunrise and before ten o'clock in the morning, April 23, 1827, after dress- ing and washing herself, got breakfast, consisting of excellent coffee, with hot bread and butter, milked three cows, disposing of the milk in the usual way : washed up the breakfast things ; made three pies ; dressed and washed the little boy (Samuel) ; made up other bread, working it over a great deal, setting it away to rise a first and second time; and churned our butter ; all these nine several things after she was dressed and had washed her face and hands, between sunrise and ten o'clock in the morn-
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ing, and without any help from Catherine or any one else." We pause to inquire where the Judge was and what he was doing all the time he was making these observations. We very much suspect he was in bed.
August 22, 1822, he writes that he has put $1,400 in the hands of 1 William Russell, to trade in, to be invested in merchandise, the profits of which he was to account for on fair and just principles and the money was to remain in his hands for four years. He writes that Mr. Russell had purchased $4,000 worth of merchandise and expected it on in one week's time. The same day he wrote that Mr. Sparks stated that in two months last past, he had sold $3,000 worth of goods. On February 26, 1822, he wrote that he had bought 3914 pounds of beet sugar at 271/2 cents per pound.
On December 19, 1822, he made an estimate that a single man may dress decently for thirty-three dollars per annum, including washing, mending, shoes, handkerchiefs and a hat, and for thirty-seven dollars, he may, if he lives in a rented room, with another, get his whole living in addition, his rented room, his washing, his bedding, and his bread and water, included, full total, seventy dollars. What a thing for our young men to look back to, that the young man of 1827 could live for seventy dollars a year. On February 26, 1823, he was living on venison at two cents a pound. Mutton, at the same time, was four and a half cents a pound. It was then fifteen days' passage to Maysville from New Orleans, and that it cost fifteen dollars to go from Maysville to Pittsburg. On June 10, 1822, he devotes two full pages to General Darlinton's, Mr. William Russell's, and Judge Campbell's culture of grapes. In June, 1822, he writes that it takes Paul, the smith, an hour to make nails and fit a pair of shoes and put them on, the shoes being made previously. He devoted a great deal of space in his journals to his children. His objection to a frame house, he wrote, was that it was an ice house in winter and an oven in summer, which has a tendency to produce derangement of the bowels. The Judge had the house at Buck- eye Station in view when he wrote that. He gives a great deal of good ad- vice to his children, but it is so much like what has been stated that we leave it out.
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I have endeavored from the light afforded me, which is meager, to form an estimate of the character of Charles Willing Byrd, first United States Judge in Ohio. There are some strange contradictions in it. Had his father lived, there is no doubt he would have been reared a typical Virginian of the first families, But his father dying at the age of forty- nine, when he was but seven years of age, and his mother being a Phila- delphian and having brothers and sisters living there, he was sent to Philadelphia and placed under the care and instruction of a Quaker who it seems had sufficient influence to mould his character. It was there he received his ideas against the use of liquors and against human slavery. His ideas of Republican simplicity were partly his own and partly from Mr. Jefferson, his personal friend and friend of his father and mother. I have not been able to secure any of his writings except his will, and some of his journals.
That he was a gentleman in the fullest, highest and the purest sense of the term, there can be no doubt. A tinge of sadness was no doubt cast upon his life by the death of his father, and the extraordinary and almost
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inconsolable grief of his mother, which he was compelled to witness. His habits of prudent economy can be attributed to the fact that his father's estate was largely impaired by debts made by a course of liberal and reck- less living incident to his day.
He had been a witness to the curse of slavery in Virginia, of its wastefulness and destruction of fine estates and that embittered him against the institution. Then his instruction in Philadelphia was that the institu- tion was a positive sin. His mother was compelled to live in a less ex- pensive house in order to extinguish the debts of his father and that in- tended to impress upon him the importance of economy and simplicity in living.
When he went to Kentucky, a young man of twenty-seven years, it was natural that he should visit the friend and neighbor of his father, on James River, Virginia, Col. David Meade, then living at Chaumiere Du Prairie, nine miles from Lexington. It was quite natural that he should be well received there and that he should fall in love with and marry the daughter of Col. Meade, whose social standing and his own were equal.
It was natural that he should receive the appointment of Secretary of the Northwest Territory from President John Adams. From one of the best families of Virginia and protege of Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution, that followed.
It was natural that he should receive the appointment of United States Judge from Jefferson, for the latter knew him as a scion of one of the most prominent families of Virginia, and in sympathy with his Republican notions of simplicity, which he had imported from France and which were much in vogue in those days.
There is, however, one feature of his character I cannot understand. He had been residing in Cincinnati on Fifth Street from 1798 till 1807. His eldest child was but nine years of age and he had five younger. He bought a tract of 700 acres of land in the then wilderness of Adams County and moved there, where he resided till 1815, or about that time. Why he should want to take his wife and young children into this wilder- ness, when he had a life position, which required him to discharge his duties in the large cities, seems strange.
Judge Campbell, one of his successors, when appointed, resided in Adams County but moved to Columbus where he was required to hold court. On the other hand, Judge Byrd, after having occupied his office for four years, removed to the country and continued to reside there for the remaining twenty-one years for which he held the office of Judge. At Buckeye Station, he could see all the steamboats or craft which passed up and down the river and could take boats to Cincinnati or points up the river. Being a Virginian he loved the country, as the English, their ancestors do, and have always done. At that day, few, if any, Virginian gentlemen would live in cities or towns, who could live in the country.
Why he removed to West Union in 1815, we cannot conjecture, un- less on account of the death of his wife, he desired to see more of society. He resided in Chillicothe for one year, but did not seem to like that place and returned to West Union. In traveling from his home to hold his courts, he went from West Union through Dunbarton, Locust Grove and Bainbridge to Chillicothe. Sinking Springs was on his route, and hav-
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ing tasted the water there, he became satisfied there were some wonderful qualities in it, though it was not considered peculiar before, nor has any- one since Judge Byrd's time regarded it as anything extraordinary. He, however, had the water brought to him at West Union for some time and finally purchased the property on which the spring is located, built a home there, which was an extraordinary one for his day, and resided there until his death.
The home is still standing and till lately was occupied by his grand- son, William Otway Byrd. The neigborhood of Sinking Springs was, in 1825, much more remote from haunts of men than Buckeye Station, and why Judge Byrd, who had been reared in the most elegant society, and in his youth and young manhood had moved in the best circles of Virginia and in the city of Philadelphia, then the metropolis of the United States, who had moved in the best society in Cincinnati, should want to seclude hmself and family in the wilds of Highland County, seems un- accountable.
His childish and youthful ideas of religion were derived from two sources, that of his father and mother who were attached to the Episcopal Church, and from his uncle, Mr. Powell, of Philadelphia, who was a Quaker.
It seemed the Quaker ideas predominated with him, and at the time he wrote his will he appeared to think the Shakers had the true ideas of religion.
None of his decisions have been reported. McLean's Reports do not begin until 1829, the year after his death, and no reports on his cir- cuit were published during this time.
He sat in the celebrated case of Jackson vs. Clark, Ist Peters, page 666, when it was tried in Columbus, Ohio, in July, 1826, and the decision of the Circuit Court was affirmed in the Supreme Court.
The generation which knew Judge Byrd personally and that which followed him has passed away and thus the avenues to a knowledge of his character are closed. Had any of his decisions been reported, or had we any of his writings, or were there extant any of the books he had written, we could judge of him, but as it is, our judgment of him is very meagre and narrow. Tradition tells us that he was learned in the law and had the training of a complete and thorough education. He was evidently a good judge, or we should have heard to the contrary. He must have had a large capacity for business, or Robert Morris would never have entrusted him with an important mission on his own private business in Kentucky. President John Adams had a good opinion of him and his abilities or he would not have appointed him Secretary of the Northwest Territory. President Thomas Jefferson must have had a good opinion of him or he would not have made him United States Judge.
Stephen Wilson Compton
was born September 25, 1800, in Harrison County, Kentucky. He was the son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Harper) Compton. His parents em- igrated from Virginia in 1790. His mother's (Elizabeth Harper) father was the original proprietor of Harper's Ferry in Jefferson County, Vir- ginia. Samuel Compton settled in Adams County where Dunkinsville now stands in about 1806. When old enough to be apprenticed, he was
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indentured to William Roff, of West Union, to learn the saddler's trade and served out his indenture. At the end of his apprenticeship, he trav- eled about and worked at different places, including Newport, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio, which then had a population of only 20,000 people. When in Cincinnati, he worked on Main Street when there was only one building on it, on the west side of the street between Fourth and Fifth Streets, the old Presbyterian Church.
He married Harriet Donalson at Manchester in 1826 and settled in that town. He engaged in the saddler's business there in all its branches and carried it on there until 1844. He was a rapid and expert workman in his business. Owing to the sparsely settled condition of the country, he sometimes made more work than he sold, and then he would travel about and dispose of it by barter, trading with the merchants and taking their goods in exchange for his work, as much of the business of that time was transacted in that way, owing to the scarcity of money.
In 1844 he bought a farm near Winchester and removed to it and remained there until 1857 when he removed to the vicinity of Hillsboro. He resided in Highland County until 1860 when he removed to a small farm in Harveysburg, Warren County, Ohio. He had seven children, all of whom lived to maturity. His oldest son was named Israel Donalson, after his wife's father. He entered the service of his country on the fourteenth of August, 1862, in the 79th O. V. I. as First Lieutenant of Co. H, at the age of 33. He died at Gallatin, Tennessee, December 31. 1862.
His daughter, Ann E., married William Crissman and lives near Eckmansville, Ohio.
Samuel W. lives at Fayette, Fulton County, Ohio. He enlisted at the age of 28, on the nineteenth of April, 1861, in Co. F, 2d O. V. I., for three months' service, and was mustered out June 19, 1861. On the same day, he enlisted for three years in Co. F, 12th O. V. I., and served until the first day of July, 1864.
A daughter, Mary J., unmarried, lives at Stout's P. O., Ohio.
Another daughter, Carrie, married J. N. Patton, and lived in Wash- ington, D. C. She died some three years ago.
A son, Joseph William, now a clerk in the Postoffice Department in Washington, D. C., enlisted in Co. F, 12th O. V. I., for three months' service, on June 19, 1861, at the age of twenty-one. He was mustered out July 11, 1864.
The youngest son, John Donalson Compton, who is Deputy United States Marshal at Covington, Kentucky, living at Dayton, Kentucky, en- listed in Co. F, 12th O. V. I., January 28, 1861, for three years and was transferred to Co. H, 23rd O. V. I., July 1, 1864. In July, 1864, the 12th O. V. I. was consolidated with the 23rd O. V. I. and the new organ- ization called the 23rd O. V. I. He was discharged from this service August 8. 1865. Thus it will be seen that Mr. Compton's four sons all served in the army in the Civil War.
In 1866, he sold his farm in Warren County and removed to Stout's P. O. in Adams County. and engaged in the grocery business. He was postmaster and resided there until his death in 1882, at the age of eighty- two. He is buried at Manchester, Ohio. His widow survived him until 1893, when she died at the age of eighty.
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He always tok an active interest in politics, but never sought or held any public office with the single exception of school trustee. He felt a great interest in education, desiring to provide the advantages which were denied him in his childhood. He had no school education but was able to keep his accounts and correspondence very creditably. He was first a Whig and afterward a Republican when the latter party was formed. He was very loyal during the war and had no toleration for those who were not. He was anxious that all his sons should serve their country and while he could not go in the service himself, he did all he could to pro- mote the comfort of those in the field and to aid and encourage them in their services. He was a member of the Presbyterian Church and lived up to all that implies. He was a man of strict integrity, honorable in all his dealings and in his intercourse with his fellow men. He had the respect and good will of the entire community in which he resided. He was a useful citizen and his life's work is best exemplified in his sons and daughters, who are all honorable and useful members in the community.
John Campbell.
The earliest ancestor of which we have any account was Duncan Campbell, of Argyleshire, Scotland. He married Mary McCoy in 1612, and removed to Londonerry in Ireland the same year. He had a son, John Campbell, who married in 1655, Grace Hay, daughter of Patrick Hay, Esq., of Londonderry. They had three sons, one of whom was Robert, born in 1665, and who, with his sons, John, Hugh and Charles Campbell, emigrated to Virginia in 1696, and settled in that part of Orange County afterward incorporated in Augusta. The son, Charles Campbell, was born in 1704, and died in 1778. In 1739, he was married to Mary Trotter. He had seven sons and three daughters. He was the historian of Virginia. His son, William, born in 1754, and died in 1822, was a soldier of the Revolution, and as such had a distinguished record as a General at King's Mountain and elsewhere. He married Elizabeth Willson, of Rockbridge County, Virginia, a member of the distinguished Willson family. They had eleven children. Their son, Charles, was born December 28, 1779, and died September 26, 1871. He was married September 20, 1803, to Elizabeth Tweed, in Adams County. He had five sons. The third was John Campbell, of Ironton, born January 14, 1808, in Adams County, Ohio.
The Willson family intermarried with the Campbell family, who also have a distinguished record. Colonel John Willson, born in 1702, and died in 1773, settled near Fairfield, then Augusta County, Virginia, and was a Burgess of that county for twenty-seven years. He once held his court where Pittsburgh now stands. His wife, Martha, died in 1755, and both are buried in the Glebe burying ground in Augusta County, Vir- ginia. His brother, Thomas, had a daughter, Rebekah, born in 1728, and died in 1820, who married James Willson, born in 1715 and died in 1809. This James Willson, with his brother, Moses, was found when a very young boy in an open boat in the Atlantic Ocean. They were accom- panied by their mother and a maid. The mother died at the moment of rescue and the maid a few moments after. The captain of the rescuing ship brought the boys to this country where they grew up, married and spent their lives.
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JOHN CAMPBELL
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James Willson had a large family of sons and daughters. His daughter, Elizabeth, born in 1758 and died February 27, 1832, married William Campbell, the Revolutionary General. Her brother, Moses, was the father of Dr. William B. Willson, of Adams County, who has a sketch in this work, and also of James S. Willson, the father of Dr. William Finley Willson, who also has a sketch herein. Judge John W. Campbell, United States District Judge, who has a sketch herein was a son of the Revolutionary General, William Campbell, who removed from Virginia to Kentucky in 1790 and from Kentucky to Adams County, Ohio, in 1798. Our subject was a resident of Adams County from his birth until 1857, when that portion of Adams County where he resided was placed in Brown County. He was reared on his father's farm and received what education he could obtain at home. He clerked for his uncle, Wiliam Humphreys, who had married his father's sister, Elizabeth, at Ripley, in 1828. After learning enough of the business, as he thought, he induced his uncle to go in partnership with him and they started a store at Rus- sellville, Ohio. Here John was popular with every one and would have succeeded, but the place and business was too slow for him. He had $600 saved up and he sold out the business and put his capital in the steamboat, "Banner," of which he became clerk. The boat was in the Cincinnati and Pittsburg trade. After his second trip on the steamboat, he made up his mind that was not his vocation. While coming down the river on this trip he met Robert Hamilton, the pioneer master of the Hanging Rock iron region and made inquiries for any opening in the iron business. Mr. Hamilton invited him to get off at Hanging Rock. He left the boat and accepted a clerkship at Pine Grove Furnace. This was in 1832. Mr. Campbell was anxious to stand well in the estimation of Mr. Hamilton. Shortly before his steamboat venture, he had met in Ripley, a young lady named Elizabeth Clarke, niece of Mr. Hamilton's wife. He fell in love with her. She made her home with her aunt, Mrs. Hamilton, who was a daughter of John Ellison and a sister of William Ellison, of Manchester. Naturally, Mr. Campbell would accept an invitation to go to Pine Grove Furnace. He was ambitious to succeed as a business man and he believed he could do so under Mr. Hamilton's teaching. He wanted to marry his niece who stood to Mr. Hamilton as a daughter. He succeeded in both purposes. The next year, 1833, he took an interest with Mr. Hamilton in building the Hanging Rock Forge at Hanging Rock. The same year he and Andrew Ellison built Lawrence Furnace for the firm of J. Riggs & Co. This year was formed the celebrated partnership of Campbell, Ellison & Company, of which he was a partner and which con- tinued in existence until 1865. In 1834, he and Robert Hamilton built Mt. Vernon Furnace and he moved there and became its manager. The furnace was the property of Campbell, Ellison & Company for thirty years, and largely the source of the fortunes made by the members of that firm. It was at this furnace Mr. Campbell made the change of placing the boilers and hot blast over the tunnel head, thus utilizing the waste gases, a method after generally adopted by all the charcoal furnaces of that region and in the United States.
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