A history of Scioto County, Ohio, together with a pioneer record, Part 168

Author: Evans, Nelson W. (Nelson Wiley), 1842-1913
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Portsmouth, O. N. W. Evans
Number of Pages: 1612

USA > Ohio > Scioto County > A history of Scioto County, Ohio, together with a pioneer record > Part 168

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The State University went into the Land Office business and undertook to recover all the lands which this decision of February 15 1885, gave it. Wherever the University brought a suit to recover in ejectment a survey which had not been returned to the General Land Office prior to January 1, 1852, it recovered in every instance. The people interested became alarmed,

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as there was a large quantity of unsurveyed lands in the District. Thereupon they appealed to the Legislature for relief, and on the 14th of March, 1889, that body passed what is known as the "Shinn Law." This act provided that holders of these unpatented surveys, who had occupied themselves, or those under whom they claimed had occupied them for more than twenty-one years, might make application to the Board of Trustees of the University, and obtain a deed on the payment of $2.00, and the State should pay the University $1.00 an acre for their lands. This act was passed on condition that the Board of Trustees of the University should accept it, which it did on the 20th of June, 1889, following.

The act of May 27th, 1880, before referred to, was construed by the Supreme Court of Ohio, in 1882, in the case of Coan vs. Flagg, 38 Ohio State, 156, and again in 1895, the Supreme Court of Ohio, in the case of the Board of Trustees vs. Cuppett, et al. 52 Ohio State, 577, and in Fussel vs. Gregg before mentioned. This decision also construed the act of February 18, 1871 and subsequent acts. This was a settlement of the entire controversy.

The manner of acquiring titles in the Virginia Military District was in substance as follows: A soldier in Virginia would proceed to his County Court armed by the certificate of his superior officer, to the effect that he had ren- dered the service authorizing the issue of the warrant. He would make proof of his service and identify himself before his County Court, which would issue him a certificate as to the extent of his military service. Armed with this he would proceed to the Virginia Land Office at Richmond, where he would ob- tain a warrant, authorizing him to locate the quantity of land named in the Virginia Military District. This warrant he would place in the hands of a Deputy Surveyor, who would take it to the Land Office and make an entry in the books of the office, that he proposed to locate so many acres on the war- rant issued on account of the service of such a soldier. The Entry recited that he proposed to make the location near a certain survey, or upon a certain stream. After this entry he would proceed upon the land with a Deputy Sur- veyor, two chain-carriers, a marker and a surveyor's compass, and would make a survey. The Deputy Surveyor would make a written report of this survey, send it to the Virginia Military Land Office, which for a part of the time was at Louisville, Ky., and a part of the time was at Chillicothe, Ohio, where this survey would be recorded and afterwards it was forwarded to Washington with certain certificates by the Principal surveyor. If the papers reached Wash- ington in proper form, a patent was issued.

There was usually a Deputy Surveyor in every county of the Virginia Military District. The first surveyor of the District was Gen. Richard Clough Anderson, who kept his office at Louisville, Ky., and located there as an agent of the Virginia soldiers. He died in October, 1826, and was succeeded by Allen Latham. It was not until the 24th of February, 1829, however, that any sur- veyor of the Virginia Military District had ever been authorized by law of Congress. On that date the Congress of the United States passed an act crea- ting the office of the Surveyor of the Virginia Military District, and required him to keep his office at Chillicothe. He was authorized to receive all the books, records, etc., relating to the office from the personal representatives of Col. Richard Clough Anderson, deceased, and to take charge of them. The fact of the matter is that the books and papers of Col. Richard Clough Ander- son used in locating surveys within the Virginia Military District were his private property. His personal representatives sold the books to Allen Latham, and Latham acted as surveyor, and he sold out his interest to Ebenezer Kendrick of Chillicothe, who was appointed surveyor under the act of February 24, 1829, and held the office until his death in 1885, when his son Samuel was appointed, and surveyed until his death in 1893.

The records of Kendrick's office were purchased by the United States for fifteen thousand dollars, ($15,000) and taken to Washington, D. C. and put in the General Land Office where they remain. This was done by an act approved March 3, 1899, being part of the Appropriation Bill of that date. The act further provided that all holders of outstanding unsatisfied Virginia military warrants should surrender them to the Secretary of the Interior within twelve months from the passage of the act for his action under the scrip law of Au-

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gust 31, 1852, and that all warrants not so presented within twelve months should be forever barred and held invalid.

The Deputy Surveyors in the District were Elias Langham, John O'Ban- non, Arthur Fox, Nathaniel Massie, John Beasley, William Lytle, Cadwallader Wallace, Allen Latham, Robert Todd, Benjamin Hough, Joseph Riggs, E. P. Kendrick, James Taylor, Joseph Kerr, James Poage, John Ellison, Jr., John Barrett, William Robe, G. Vinsonhaler and others.

Gen. Richard Clough Anderson, referred to, was appointed principal sur- veyor of the District by a Board of Officers named in an act of the Virginia Legislature passed in October, 1783. He opened his office in Louisville, Ky., August 1, 1784, but the District was not opened by Congress until August 10, 1790. However, many surveys had been made before that time and returned. The first survey north of the Ohio river was made on the 13th day of November, 1784, in Indiana opposite the mouth of the Wabash river. It was for 1,000 acres on Warrant No. 2,219 and was numbered 5. Lipscomb Noel was marker. M. Oliver and I. Designer were chain carriers. It was dated, Louis- ville, Ky. The first survey in the Virginia Military District of Ohio, was No. 455 in Scioto county by John O'Bannon, Deputy Surveyor, November 16, 1787.

The first settlement in the Virginia Military District was made in the winter of 1790, at Manchester which was then called Massie's Station. At that time in making surveys, the Deputy Surveyor usually had three assistants. Each Deputy Surveyor was accompanied by six men, which made a mess of seven, and four surveying parties would keep together making the whole party amount to twenty-eight persons. Every man had his prescribed duty to per- form. Their operations were conducted in this manner: In front went the hunter, who kept in advance of the surveyor two or three hundred yards, looking for game and prepared to give notice should any danger from Indians threaten. Then followed, after the surveyor, the two chainmen, marker, and pack-horse man with the baggage, who always kept near each other, to be pre- pared for defense in case of an attack. Lastly, two or three hundred yards in the rear, came a man, called a spy, whose duty it was to keep on the back trail and look out, lest the party in advance might be pursued and attacked by surprise. Each man, the surveyor not excepted, carried his rifle, his blanket, and such other articles as he might stand in need of. On the pack-horse were carried the cooking utensils and such provisions as could be most conveniently taken. Nothing like bread was. thought of. Some salt was taken, to be used sparingly. For subsistence, they depended on the game which the woods af- forded, procured by their unerring rifles. When night came, the four parties came together and four fires were made for cooking, that is, one for each mess. Around these fires, till sleeping time arrived, the company spent their time in social glee, singing songs and telling stories. When resting time arrived, the chief surveyor would give the signal, and the whole party would leave their comfortable fires, and carrying with them their blankets, their firearms, and their little baggage, walk in perfect silence to two or three hundred yards from their fires. They would then scrape away the snow, and huddle down together for the night. Each mess formed one bed; they would spread down on the ground one-half of the blankets, reserving the other half for covering. They kept their rifles in their arms, and their pouches under their heads for pillows; lying, "spoon fashion," with three heads one way and four the other. When one turned the whole mess turned, or else the close range would be broken, and the cold let in. In this way they lay till broad daylight, no noise and scarcely a whisper being uttered during the night. When it was perfectly light, the chief surveyor would call up two of the men in whom he had the most confidence and send them to reconnoiter, and make a circuit around the fires, lest an ambuscade might be formed by the Indians to destroy the party as they returned to the fires.

In all surveys made between the Spring of 1791 and Wayne's victory in 1794, the surveyor took his life in his hand, and expected the crack of an In- dian rifle at any time. There was one large survey two miles south of Locust Grove in Adams county, Ohio, which was made during the Indian War in Feb- ruary, 1793. In the early history of the Virginia Military District there was a great deal of litigation, owing to conflicting surveys, and much legal learning

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GENERAL RICHARD CLOUGH ANDERSON.

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has been accumulated in the Reports, on the doctrine of conflicting titles in the Virginia Military District. Of the lawyers who were prominent in this litiga- tion, there were Vachel Worthington, Sr., of Cincinnati; Allen G. Thurman, of Chillicothe and Columbus; James H. Thompson, of Hillsboro, O .; Benjamin Leonard, of Chillicothe; Edward P. Evans, of Adams county; Hocking H. Hunter of Franklin county, and Henry Fulsom Page, of Circleville, Ohio; but the litigation as to conflicting grants in the Virginia Military District have simply become history, as all the lines have been settled.

General Richard Clough Anderson,

Principal Surveyor of the Virginia lands to pay the Continental troops, was born upon his father's estate of "Goldmine," Hanover county, Virginia, Jan- uary 12, 1750, and died at his country place "Soldier's Retreat," near Louis- ville, Kentucky, October 6, 1826. Upon the 26th day of January, 1776, he was appointed Captain of the Hanover county Company in the Fifth Virginia Reg- iment of the Continental Line. In this capacity he took a prominent part in the battle of Trenton, for it was liis attack upon the outposts on the night be- for the general engagement, a movement ordered by General Stephan in direct opposition to General Washington's commands, that led the Hessians to be- lieve they had repulsed the threatened assault and led them to be careless in their watch. Captain Anderson was wounded severely in the engagement at Trenton bridge, which closely followed the battle of Trenton, and General Ar- thur St. Clair told Judge Yaple that his conduct in this campaign won for Captain Anderson the respect and friendship of General Washington. Captain Anderson served with the Fifth Virginia in the battles of Brandywine and Germantown. On the 10th day of February, 1778, he was promoted to be Ma- jor of the First Virginia Continental Line. With this command he took part in the battle of Monmouth.

Major Anderson accompanied the Count D'Estaing in the attempt to re- duce Savannah and he was severely wounded in the shoulder, during the as- sault, by a sword thrust from "his friend the enemy" Captain James of the British service, James having been formerly on terms of intimacy with An- derson. Major Anderson was surrendered at Charleston when serving with Scott's brigade, and for nine months suffered many privations, as a prisoner of war. Upon his release he joined General Morgan, and was with him on his retreat through the Carolinas. Upon his arrival at Richmond, he found an order directing him to report to General, the Marquis de Lafayette, as it was supposed that Major Anderson's intimate knowledge of the country would prove of assistance to the Marquis in determining his movements. Major An- derson served for six months on the staff of the Marquis de Lafayette, and then as Lieutenant Colonel of the Sixth Virginia Continentai Line and Briga- dier General of Virginia Militia, he was directed to report to Governor Nelson of Virginia. There are letters from the Marquis de Lafayette and others in the Cincinnati Art Museumn showing the high opinion the Marquis had for the subject of this sketch.

In October, 1783, the Legislature of Virginia passed a law appointing Major Generals Peter Muhlenberg, Charles Scott and George Weden, Brigadier Generals, Daniel Morgan and James Wood, Colonel William Heft, Lieutenant Colonels Stowles, Hopkins, Clarke, Temples and Captains Nathaniel Bur- well and Mayo Carrington, a commission to appoint a Surveyor for the Vir- ginia Military District. They appointed Colonel Richard Clough Anderson, and it was under this law that he acted in such office until his death.

The office of the Surveyor of the Virginia Military District was opened July 20, 1784, at the falls of the Ohio, now the City of Louisville. Colonel An- derson was then a pioneer. and with General George Rogers Clarke and other such spirits he did much to open up the Western country. In 1787, Colonel Anderson married a sister of General George Rogers Clarke, and the next year he built a log house ten miles from the falls, and with his wife, a babe, and some negro servants, moved into the wilderness. Here Colonel Anderson could gratify his taste for the chase, but the most fearless would hardly con- sider "Soldier's Retreat" a very safe refuge. His nearest neighbors, at Linn's Station, were five miles away, and in another direction, but a little further

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removed, lived Captain Chenoweth. No record has been left of the heedless travelers who fell victims to the murderous redmen of this region, but so wary a backwoodsman as Colonel Linn was killed by a wandering party of Indians within half a mile of Colonel Anderson's house, and the Chenoweth Massacre is one of the noted horrors of those early Kentucky days.

On the 16th day of October, 1826, after a painful illness, borne with char- acteristic fortitude, Colonel Anderson gave up his life, which, though passed in unceasing labor, and amidst great and constant perils, must be held to have been a happy one. He was at an early age inured to the hardships that the soldier and the pioneer must undergo, and he found pleasure in the excitements of the camp and of the border. Although he never held a political office, his career was a public one, and he was thoroughly respected. He lived long enough to see his children exhibit characters which promised to reflect credit upon him.

He had six sons: Richard twice represented his district in the National Congress, was Minister to the United States of Columbia, and died, greatly re- gretted, at Carthagena, on his way to the Congress at Panama, as Commis- sioner; Larz Anderson, of Cincinnati, a scholar and the conscientious steward of his large fortune; General Robert Anderson of Fort Sumpter; William Mar- shall Anderson, one of the first to cross the Rocky Mountains, and who, when three score years of age, made a scientific journey through Mexico; John An- derson of Chillicothe, and Charles Anderson, who at the risk of his life, made the speech before the secession meeting at San Antonio, in 1861, in favor of sustaining the Union. The five last named children were from a second mar- riage with Sarah Marshall daughter of William Marshall, of Caroline county, Virginia, a niece of the first wife.

Allen Latham

was born in Lyme, New Hampshire, in March, 1793. He was a graduate of Dartmouth College in 1813 and came to Ohio and was admitted to the bar at New Philadelphia. He then removed to the old State Capitol, Chillicothe, in 1815. He was married to Maria W. Anderson, daughter of Colonel Richard C. Anderson. They had one son who died at the age of twelve years. Allen Latham was the Surveyor of the Virginia Military District from 1826 to 1838 as the representative of Col. Anderson. He was always a democrat. He rep- resented Ross, Pike, Jackson and Hocking counties from 1841 to 1843 in the State Senate. In 1838, he was defeated for Congress by 138 votes. He removed to Cincinnati in 1854 to help out a nephew who was engaged in operating an omnibus line and remained there until his death. He died March 28, 1871.

William Marshall Anderson

was the son of General Richard Clough Anderson. He was born in Jefferson county, Kentucky, in 1807. He was a graduate of Transylvania University in Kentucky. He studied law but never practiced it. When his father died in 1826, he assisted in the Surveyor's office of the Virginia Military District, though it was controlled by Allen Latham as one of the personal representa- tives of Colonel Richard Clough Anderson, from 1826 to 1838. In 1834, he went overland to Salt Lake and returned. He accompanied a party of trappers. On October 12, 1838 he was temporarily appointed Surveyor of. the Virginia Military District in Ohio and permanently appointed January 21, 1839. He served until January, 1848, when he was succeeded by Eleazer P. Kendrick. In 1838, he married Eliza, daughter of Gen. Duncan McArthur and made his home near Chillicothe and later in Pickaway county, where he died in 1881. He was a student all his life. He was an archaeologist and an explorer. In his old age, he made a trip through Mexico to study Aztec antiquities. He at one time owned the "Raven Rock" farm below Portsmouth, now owned by William B. Grice.

Eleazer Porter Hendrick

was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, September 16, 1790, the youngest of six brothers. He attended Moore's school at Hanover afterwards Dartmouth Col- lege. At eighteen he began teaching school and kept it up three months. What he did from 1808 till 1818 is not reported to us. In the latter year he

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taught a school in Troy, New York. In 1819, he came to Ohio, at the instance of Allen Latham, an old schoolmate. He opened a shoe store in Chillicothe, but closed it in 1821. He became a Deputy Surveyor under Allen Latham, from 1826 to 1838, and a dealer in Virginia Military Lands and assisted him in the Surveyor's office from time to time until 1847, when he purchased the books and papers of the Anderson estate and on June 14, 1847, was made Surveyor of the Virginia Military District. He held that office until his death, although for the last fifteen years of his life, the duties of the office were discharged by his son, Samuel.

He was a democrat all of his days. He was postmaster at Chillicothe, Ohio, from 1829 to 1841. He was Surveyor of Ross county in 1828, for one term. Allen G. Thurman was a clerk in the Chillicothe postoffice under him, as was Daniel Gregg. He was a communicant and vestryman of St. Paul's P. E. church of Chillicothe. He was senior warden of the church many years. He was president of the Ohio Insurance Company and at one time a director of the Ross County Bank. He was a Mason and a Knight Templar, but demitted long before his death. The last twenty years of his life he spent at his country home on the Milford and Chillicothe turnpike, near Chillicothe, Ohio. He en- joyed the confidence of the public all his life.

He was married in Chillicothe, Ohio, March 20, 1821, to Miss Mary Cissna Beard, who died September 4, 1870. They had seven children, three sons and four daughters. Their son, Andrew D., well known in the Virginia Military District, was born December 31, 1821, and died May 19, 1857. Their son, Sam- uel, succeeded his father in the office. Mr. Kendrick died April 30, 1885.

Sam Kendrick

the last Principal Surveyor of the Virginia Military District, was born at Chil- licothe on December 31, 1829. The sketch of his father, Eleazer Porter Ken- drick, precedes this.

Sam Kendrick attended school for a while at Gambier, Ohio, and then studied civil engineering with his father at Chillicothe, and rapidly acquired proficency in his profession. He was one of the corps of engineers who located the old Cincinnati & Belpre railroad in the early fifties, and while so engaged he met and married, on April 25, 1852. Miss Eliza Wilson, at New Vienua, Ohio.

After his marriage he moved with his wife to Iowa and lived there about five years, and then returned to Chillicothe, where he found employment as Deputy Auditor, under his father, who had meanwhile been elected Auditor of Ross county. In March, 1863, he succeeded his father as Auditor for one term, but was elected to the office again in the fall of 1866, and served as Auditor of Ross county continually until 1871.

Meanwhile his father had made over to him all of the books and papers relating to the records of the lands of the Virginia Military District in Ohio; which records and papers had been held by the courts to be the pri- vate property of the Principal Surveyor. After leaving the Auditor's office, Mr. Kendrick devoted himself largely to matters relating to business growing out of the land titles in the Military District; and finally offered to sell the records of his office, first to the State of Ohio, and then to the United States government. It was while in Washington upon the latter business that he died suddenly on January 4, 1893.

Mr. Kendrick was a large man, and in the latter years of his life grew to be somewhat unwieldly in size. He was a man of keen wit, and kindly hu- mor, a genial companion and an entertaining talker. He was fond of all the good things of life, not omitting the intellectual. He was a great reader, a man of strong and retentive memory and thus acquired a large fund of infor- mation. He was a man of courteous and popular manners, and very popular as a political leader in Ross county, where he was a long while a prominent member of the Democratic party. His wife and seven children survived him, five sons and two daughters, viz :- Thomas, Sam, Charles, Albert and Robert; Anna, married to John M. Reed; and Fannie.

He was a prominent member of the Masonic orders, and by them his funeral was conducted and his remains interred in beautiful "Grandview" cemetery at Chillicothe.

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CONGRESSIONAL LANDS OF SOUTHERN OHIO.

The present system of survey of the public lands was inaugurated by a committee appointed by the Continental Congress consisting of the following delegates: Thomas Jefferson, chairman, Virginia; Hugh Williamson, North Carolina; David Howell, Rhode Island; Elbridge Gerry, Massachusetts; Jacob Real, South Carolina. On the 7th day of May, 1784, the committee reported "An ordinance for ascertaining the mode of locating and disposing of lands in the western territory and for other purposes therein mentioned." This or- dinance required the public lands to be divided into "hundreds" of ten geo- graphical miles square and those again to be sub-divided into lots one mile square each to be numbered from 1 to 100 commencing in the northwestern corner and continuing from west to east and from east to west consecutively. This ordinance was considered, debated and amended, and reported to Congress April 26, 1785.

It required the surveyors to divide the said territory into townships of seven miles square by lines running due north and south and others crossing these at right angles. These were to be sub-divided into sections of one mile square or 640 acres and numbered from 1 to 49. This is the first record of the rise of the terms "township" and "section." May 3, 1785, on motion of Wil- liam Grayson and seconded by James Monroe, this ordinance was amended by making the township "six miles square," but left the number from 1 to 49. An amendment on May 6, 1785, to change the numbers so that a township should contain 36 sections was defeated, but, on May 20, 1785, this ordinance was finally passed providing for townships six miles square containing 36 sections. one mile square. The act of May 18, 1796, amended said ordinance by beginning with number 1 in the northeast section and proceeding west and east alternately through the township with progressive numbers until the thirty-sixth be com- pleted and is the southeast section of said townships. An ordinance for ascer- taining the mode of disposing of land in the Western territory, passed May 20, 1785, directs the manner of surveying the territory ceded by individual states.

The surveys of the government lands were commenced in July, 1786, un- der the management of Thomas Hutchins, the geographer of the United States, who continued in said office until his death in April, 1789, after which the entire management of the surveys devolved upon the Board of the Treasury until the Act of Congress approved May 18, 1796, provided for the appointment of a Sur- veyor General and directed the survey of the lands northwest of the Ohio river and above the mouth of the Kentucky river. In 1799, the surveys were again placed in charge of a special officer with the title of Surveyor General, accord- ing to the above ordinance, and General Rufus Putnam, of Marietta, Ohio, was appointed to this office, which he held until the State of Ohio was admitted into the Union. In 1803, he was succeeded by Jared Mansfield of the United States Military Engineers. But the credit for the present system of surveying the public lands into ranges, townships and sections is due to Hutchins who con- ceived the idea in 1764.

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A history of Scioto County, Ohio, together with a pioneer record, Part 168

Author: Evans, Nelson W. (Nelson Wiley), 1842-1913 Publication date: 1903 Publisher: Portsmouth, O. N. W. Evans Number of Pages: 1612

Author: Evans, Nelson W. (Nelson Wiley), 1842-1913
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: Portsmouth, O. N. W. Evans
Number of Pages: 1612