USA > Ohio > Jackson County > A history of Jackson County, Ohio, Volume I > Part 5
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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.
pied territory. After long negotiations, the cession of Illinois was made March 1, 1784, and the territory of Jackson county passed under the dominion of the United States. By that time the region north and northwest of the Ohio had come to be regarded as a veritable paradise, and traders, trappers, hunters, hermits and squatters were quietly entering it by hundreds, notwithstanding the hostility of the Indians, and the necessity for establishing a government in the territory northwest of the Ohio became impera- tive. Accordingly, the famous Ordinance, whose provisions are known to all, was approved July 13, 1787. Events now began to crowd. The contract with the Ohio Company was formally signed October 27, 1787. The first settlers sent out by this company landed at the mouth of the Muskingum April 7, 1788, and estab- lished Marietta. The chief executive of the Northwest Territory, Governor Arthur St. Clair, arrived soon after, and the territorial government was installed July 17, 1788. The first law passed, "an act to establish and regulate the militia," was published at Mari- etta July 25, 1788. Another important event was the erection of the County of Washington, July 26, 1788, to include all the ter- ritory east of the Scioto and Cuyahoga rivers. It was while Jack- son county was included in Washington county that the first known settler took up his abode in it.
WILLIAM HEWITT, THE HERMIT-In the fall of 1797 the Postoffice Department established a new office in Jackson county, Ohio, and named it Hewit. Although established simply for the convenience of the inhabitants of the valley of Hewitt's Fork, its name will serve as a fitting memorial of the gentle hermit who was the first permanent settler of the county, and was one of the earliest pioneers to make a home in the forest primeval of the Northwest Territory.
The life story of William Hewitt, the hermit, reads like romance. Much has already been written about the last fourteen years of his life, which were spent in Pike county, and about the several resurrections of his bones, but the story of his youth in Virginia, his early love and its disappointment, his thirty-three years' hermitage among the hills of Jackson county, his varied ex-
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periences with the fierce Shawanese, and his scout life during the War of 1812, is yet a mine of virgin ore, untouched by historian or novelist.
He was born near Staunton, Virginia, in 1764, and the first twenty-two years of his life were spent in the Old Dominion. It was the life of a backwoods boy on the margin of the wilderness, full of hardships and perils from wild animals, and wilder men. But nature had amply equipped him for the struggle, and when he reached manhood's estate he was stalwart of frame, measuring six feet and two inches, and weighing nearly two hundred pounds.
Shortly after reaching his majority he left his home and kin- dred and disappeared into the wilderness to the west. The time and cause of his departure are in dispute, and some of the writers that have discussed the subject have even tampered with his reputation. Colonel John McDonald's version is to the effect that he fled from home, red-handed; that, "returning one night from a journey, he had ocular proof of the infidelity of his wife, killed her paramour, and instantly fled to the woods." McDonald states that this account was related by Hewitt to his father, but the fact that Hewitt related an entirely different account to James Emmitt naturally throws suspicion on both.
Emmitt states that "just after Hewitt had merged into man- hood his father died, and, as is customary to this day, a row occurred over the division of the old gentleman's property, which was quite considerable. Some of the children were disposed to exhibit swinishness, and tried to gobble the old man's estate, to the exclusion of the interests of less aggressive members of the family. The performances of this little knot of family banditti utterly disgusted Hewitt, and he disappeared."
These conflicting versions prove that Hewitt's ready wit never failed him when the curious sought his secret. His disappoint- ment in love was too painful a subject to discuss with every crony, and, besides, few of the prosaic natured pioneers would have believed his romantic tale, although they readily accepted his stories of murder or covetousness.
The truth is that Hewitt loved and lost. Another won for his bride the girl that had won his heart, and the world turned black
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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.
to him. As sometimes happens to shy, gentle hearted, great hearted men, he could not endure his fate, and he fled from it. In Europe he would have entered a monastery, but living in colonial Virginia, he entered the forest, and left behind home, kindred, friends, love and all but life. Some writers claim that this hap- pened in 1790, but the most probable date is 1787.
As already indicated, the Virginians who followed General Lewis into the hills of Southern Ohio in 1774 carried back glowing accounts of the wonderful game resort which they had discovered on one of the smaller branches of the Scioto, where they had seen herds of buffalo, deer, elk and smaller game in great numbers. Hither Hewitt pursued his course. Although tired of the world, he had no intention of throwing his life away, and he had come equipped with rifle, hunting knife and backwoodsman's ax. When he arrived in the neighborhood of Salt creek he found game, as had been described. But he found Indians also. They were engaged in salt boiling. This was not a misfortune, however, and he soon determined upon a course of action. Watching his oppor- tunity, he entered their circle, and they beheld in their power, a pale-faced giant, whose peaceful overtures soon disarmed all sus- picion.
His melancholy mien, which was not assumed, his shyness, reserve and aimless wanderings, impressed the Indians, and ere long they came to regard him as partially demented. Such per- sons were considered by the Indians as under the direct protection of the Great Spirit, and Hewitt soon found himself as secure from hostile attack as if he had been inside a fortress. Permitted to wander at will, he began his hermit career of some forty-seven years, thirty-three years of which were spent in Jackson county, and fourteen years in Pike county.
After flowing past the licks, Salt creek turns suddenly to the northward and flows through a gorge which it cut for itself dur- ing the last glacial period. Along this gorge, which is several miles in length, there are many cave shelters, and in one of them Hewitt made his first permanent home in Ohio. During the sum- mer months he would leave his cave for weeks at a time, tramping hither and thither, camping where night found him, hunting, fish-
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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.
ing, trapping. With game abundant, the Indians always friendly, and life all serenity, Hewitt lived down his sorrow, but did not tire of his solitude. One is almost tempted to envy this hunter hermit, his return to a primeval existence. Clad in buckskin from head to foot, living on venison, fish and bear meat, pawpaws, wild plums and berries, drinking the delicious waters of the conglom- erate springs, and breathing the pure air of the hills, he needed nothing but love to make his life complete, and that he had lost.
The first white salt boilers settled in Jackson county in 1795, and before the end of the century there was a large camp at the Scioto salt licks. Many of these salt boilers had been Revolu- tionary soldiers, who had afterward become rovers, and not a few of them were reckless. In short, this early mining camp much resembled the later camps in the mining regions of the wild west. The proximity of such neighbors did not please Hewitt, and he followed the departing game into the fastnesses of the hills. He established his camp on the headwaters of the creek which now bears his name, and built his house, half dugout, half cabin, on land now owned by Dan D. Davis of Jefferson township. Here he lived for about ten years. Scioto county, which was erected May 1, 1803, took in Hewitt's Fork valley. The coming of homesteaders into the rich bottom lands of the Ohio drove the squatters back into the hills, and Hewitt soon had neighbors more undesirable than the salt boilers, from whose presence he had fled. Many of these early squatters in the hills of Southern Ohio were noted for their thieving propensities, and this brought trouble to Hewitt. In 1808 the sheriff of Scioto county determined to make a raid into Hewitt's Fork after some bold hog thieves. He arrested Hewitt and his nearest neighbor, one William Peterson, took them to Portsmouth and lodged them in jail. Peterson was identified and convicted, and punished at the stake with seventeen stripes. Hewitt declined to defend himself, but as no evidence against him was offered, the sheriff finally dismissed him with an apology. The hermit felt humiliated, and on returning to the hills he determined to abandon his camp, and moved to a cave shelter below the Scioto salt licks, where he spent twelve years.
The War of 1812 was now at hand, and Hewitt deserted the
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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.
paths of peace to serve his country as a soldier. His long life in the woods had prepared him for the duties of scout, and his aver- sion to carrying a gun in the ranks caused him to ask to be assigned to that work. During nearly two years of life as a scout he ren- dered valuable service. He had thrilling experiences and hair- breadth escapes too numerous to describe in this work. In July, 1812, he joined the expedition of General Tupper into Northern Ohio. Tupper had raised about one thousand men in Gallia, Jack- son and Lawrence counties for six months' service, and Hewitt deserves much of the credit for the success of this campaign. On July 29, 1813, he joined Captain Jared Strong's company, as a private, and marched with it into the Indian country for the relief of Fort Meigs, which was then besieged. During his career as scout he remembered the many kindnesses received at the hands of the Indians, and although he captured many of them single- handed, he never shed a drop of Indian blood, and for his treat- ment of them the Indians called him the "mad" scout.
Jackson county was organized March 1, 1816, and Hewitt cast the first vote of his life at the spring election held April 1, 1816. But he did not take kindly to the growth of the Salt Lick settle- ment, for that drove away the game on which he lived. He lin- gered on for a few years, but about 1820 he bade farewell to the licks, in whose proximity he had lived for a generation, and trampea down into the Scioto valley. Finding a suitable cave shelter at the base of Dividing Ridge, in Pike county, he pitched his camp. Enclosing the open front with a stone wall, he soon had a rock house, in which he spent the rest of his life. He had learned one bad habit with age, the love of liquor, and his visits to the towns became more frequent. One day, in 1834, he went to Waverly, and while there was taken ill with pneumonia, which caused his death.
And now begins a chapter in his history like those of the mummy kings of Egypt, or the bones of Columbus. His body was interred in the old Waverly graveyard, but it was not allowed to rest in peace. Dr. Willam Blackstone gave it an immediate resur- rection. After selecting a part of the skeleton for mounting, he buried the other bones in his lot. There they were found in 1852,
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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.
by Edward Vester, a cellar digger. He carefully reinterred them in another part of the lot, and soon forgot all about them. But in 1883, thirty-one years later, they were disturbed again. Vester was engaged in digging a cellarway, and suddenly came upon them a second time. Emmitt had them gathered and shipped to Dr. T. Blackstone of Circleville, who owns the skeleton, and who has kindly furnished me the following descrip- ton of it:
Circleville, O., Feb. 20th, 1897. Mr. D. W. Williams, Jackson, O .:
Dear Sir-All the bones of Hewitt, the hermit, that I now have in my possession are the three bones of the right arm, humerus, radins, ulna, and the entire skull without the lower jaw. The skull has been sawed in two just above the brows. The bones sent me by Mr. Emmitt were crumbling when received from him, and continued to do so till they were in powder. The other bones that I now have are perfect, solid and well preserved. Five teeth and a piece of one remain in the upper jaw, none of them showing signs of decay. One has a large cavity, which has never been filled. The skull is of good size, of symmetrical shape, and is thicker and heavier than the average. It shows, with the teeth, that it belonged to a strong man, past the prime of life.
Yours respectfully, 'T. BLACKSTONE.
Such is a brief outline of the life of William Hewitt, who took up his abode in the Northwest Territory in 1787, one year before the coming of the Marietta pioneers, who lived a hermit for forty. seven years, never shed blood, never willfully harmed man or beast, and yet did not find love in life, or rest in the grave.
ESCAPE OF SAMUEL DAVIS-The last noted prisoner brought to the licks by the Indians was Samuel Davis, the spy employed by the Governor of Kentucky to watch, together with others, the movements of the Indians along the border. In the fall of 1792 the spies were discharged, and Davis and William Campbell went up Big Sandy on a winter's hunt. On their return, they slept one night on a small island, where, before
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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.
morning, they were found by Indians, who made them prisoners, and at once started for their towns in Ohio. After they had reached the Licks, they camped for the night, securing their prisoners in the following manner. They took a strong tug made from the raw hide of the buffalo or elk. This tug they tied tight around the prison- er's waist. Each end of the tug was fastened around an Indian's waist. Thus with the same tug fastened to two Indians, he could not turn to the one side or the other without drawing an Indian with him. Notwithstanding all their precautions, Davis finally es- caped. The story of his escape, as told by McDonald, is as follows:
One morning, just before day began to appear, as Davis lay in his uncomfortable situation, he hunched one of the Indians to whom he was fastened, and requested to be untied. The Indian raised up his head and looked round, and found it was still dark, and no Indians up about the fires. He gave Davis a severe dig with his fist, and bade him lie still. Davis' mind was now in a state of desperation. Fire and fagot, sleeping or awake were constantly floating before his mind's eye. This torturing suspense would chill his soul with horror. After some time a number of Indians rose up and made their fires. It was growing light, but not light enough to draw a bead. Davis again jogged one of the Indians to whom he was fastened, and said the tug hurt his middle, and again re- quested the Indian to untie him. The Indian raised up his head, and looked round, and saw it was getting light and a number of Indians about the fires. He untied him. Davis rose to his feet, and was determined, as soon as he could look around and see the most probable direction of making his escape, to make the attempt at all hazards. He screwed his courage to the sticking point. It was a most desperate undertaking. Should he fail to effect his escape, death, instant, cruel death, was his doom. He rose to his feet, stood a minute, between the two Indians, to whom he had been fastened, and took a quick glance at the Indians who were standing around hin. In the evening the Indians had cut two forks, which were stuck into the ground; a pole was laid across these forks, and all their rifles were leaned against the pole. If he made his start back from the Indian camp, the rifles of the Indians,
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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY. .
ยท who were standing round the fires, and who, he knew, would pursue him, would be before them, and as they started after him, they would have nothing to do, but pick up a rifle as they ran. On the contrary, if he made his plunge through the midst of them, they would have to run back for their guns, and by that time, as it was only twilight in the morning, he could be so far from them that their aim would be very uncertain. The success of his daring enter- prise depended on the swiftness of his heels. He knew his bottom was good. A large active Indian was standing between Davis and the fire. He drew back his fist and struck that Indian with all his force, and dropping him into the fire; and with the agility of a buck he sprang over his body and took to the woods with all the speed that was in his power. The Indians pursued, yelling and screaming like demons. But as Davis anticipated, not a gun was fired at him. Several Indians pursued him some distance, and for some time it was a doubtful race. The foremost Indian was so close to him that he sometimes fancied that he felt his clutch. However at length Davis began to gain ground upon his pursuers, the breaking and rustling of brush was still farther and farther off. He took up a long sloping ridge. When he reached the top, he for the first time looked back, and to his infinite pleasure saw no person in pursuit. After many privations for several days, he reached Manchester.
WAYNE'S CAMPAIGN-The sixty years' war with the Ohio Indians was now drawing to a close. Congress had been awakened to a sense of the situation by the defeats of Harmar and St. Clair. General Anthony Wayne was sent across the mountains with an army like himself. His mission was to subdue the Indians and ex- tend the domain of the United States to the boundaries defined by the treaty with England. He took every step with care, fortified posts of advantage, advanced further and further into the Indian country, and on the morning of August 20, 1794, he found the Indian army and forced the fighting. By nightfall the victory of Fallen Timbers had been won, and the power of the Ohio Indians broken forever. Peace was secured and the border warfare was virtually over.
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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.
GREEN'S EXPEDITION-When the news of the victory reached the settlements an expedition was at once organized to go to the Scioto Lieks before winter set in. This expedition was the first of the kind that proved a success. Others had sought the lieks, but as long as the Indians remained in possession none suc- ceeded in making salt and escaping with their lives. We are in- debted to Hildreth, the Ohio valley historian, for the following graphic account of the visit of Green's expedition to the licks:
Among the other privations and trials of the early settlers in the Ohio company's lands, was the dearness and scarcity of marine salt. From 1788 to some years after the close of the war, their salt was all brought over the mountains on pack horses at an expense to the consumer of from six to ten dollars a bushel. The salt was of the coarse, Isle of May variety, of an excellent quality and measured instead of weighed as it now is. A bushel of this salt weighs about eighty pounds, while one of our present bushels weighs only fifty pounds. It was as late as the year 1806 when the change took place in the mode of vending this article, after salt was made in considerable quantities at the new salines on the Big Kanawha.
Its great scarcity was a serious drawback on the prosperity of the country, and a source of annoyance to the people. The domestic animals suffered from its want, as well as man; and when ranging in the woods, visited the clay banks that some times contained saline particles, licking and gnawing them into large holes. The deerlicks so common at that day were seldom anything more than holes made in the clay by wild animals and filled with water, sometimes of a brackish quality. Nearly all the salines, since worked, were pointed out to man by the deer and the buffalo. This was the fact at Salt Creek and Kanawha. It was hoped that as the country was opened and cultivated, salt springs would be found sufficient for the wants of the inhabitants; but it was a dark and doubtful feature in the future prosperity of the country.
In the autumn of the year 1794, Griffin Green, esq., whose fer- tile mind was always full of projects for the benefit of the country, had heard from the report of some white man, who had been a
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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.
prisoner with the Indians, that while he was with then, they had made salt from a spring on a tributary branch of the Scioto river, afterward known as Salt Creek. He described the spot as some- where near the present location of the town of Jackson, and although it was in the midst of the Indian war, and in the vicinity of their towns, so great was the anxiety to ascertain its truth that a company was formed to visit and search out the spring.
Mr. Green associated with him in the enterprise Major Robert Bradford and Joel Oaks, he paying one-half the expense and his- two partners the other. A large pirogue was provided with provis- ions for twelve men, for ten or twelve days, the period supposed necessary to accomplish the journey. They hired some of the most experienced woodsmen and hunters from Bellville as guides and guards. Among them were Peter Anderson, Joshua Dewey and John Coleman, all noted for their bravery and knowledge of the woods.
They left Farmer's Castle in the fall of the year, at a time when the water in the Ohio was quite high; accompanied with the good wishes of their neighbors for their success, but damped with many fears and evil forebodings from the dangers that attended the enterprise. The Indians had for many years kept with jealous. care the knowledge of the locality from the whites, viewing the spring as a valuable gift from the Great Spirit to the Red men, and with the game and fish, as perquisites to which the pale faces had no right. It was not known that any white man had ever been at the salines, except when visited by some prisoner in company with the Indians, and who even then did not let him actually see the spot, but only the salt made by them at the time of the visit.
At the mouth of Leading creek the adventurers landed their boat, secreting it among the trees and bushes as well as they could. This point is about forty miles from Jackson, and probably about thirty miles from the heads of the south branch of Salt creek, but of the actual distance they were ignorant, only knowing that it lay some distance beyond the west boundary line of the Ohio com- pany lands. After several days travel and making examinations, they fell upon a stream which led in the right direction, and fol-
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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.
lowing it down, soon met with paths leading as they supposed to the spring. They soon discovered where fires had recently been made, and searching carefully in the bed of the creek found a hole. which had been scooped out by the Indians in the sandrock and filled with brackish water. A small brass kettle which they had with them for cooking, when filled with water and boiled away, made about a tablespoonful of salt.
Although the water was weak, yet it proved that they had dis- covered the long talked of and desirable fountain, whose waters afforded the precious article of salt. It was like the discovery of the philosopher's stone to the alchemist, for every ounce of it could be turned into gold. After spending one night and part of a day at the place, they commenced their homeward journey, well pleased with the success of their search. They dare not stay longer and make a larger quantity, lest some straggling Indians should dis- cover them and give notice to the village at Chillicothe, distant about twenty-five miles. They were too numerous to fear any small. hunting party.
Their return to the mouth of Leading creek was accomplished in a much shorter period than in going out. The night after they left Salt creek, while all were buried in sleep by their camp fire, they were awakened by a terrific scream. All sprang to their feet, seized their arms, and extinguished the fire, expecting every moment to hear the shot and shouts of the savages. After listen- ing a minute or two, and no enemy appearing, they began to inquire into the cause of the alarm, and found that one of the party had been seized with cramp in his sleep and made this terrible outery. They were rejoiced that it was from no worse a cause, and lay down quietly until morning. When they reached the mouth of Leading creek the water had fallen ten or twelve feet, and had left the pirogue high and dry on land. It required half an hour or more to launch the boat and get under way.
By the time they had reached the middle of the Ohio, proposing to cross over and go up on the Virginia shore, a party of Indians appeared on the bank at the spot they had just left, in hot pursuit. Fortunately, they were out of reach of their shot. The adventurers-
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