USA > Ohio > Highland County > A history of the early settlement of Highland County, Ohio > Part 10
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Indians learned the cause of his death they demanded Thompson, that they might punish him according to their law, which was of course death. To ly, moral man, tall and cadaverous in enforce this demand, they announced person, and wearing the cockel hat of that if he was not promptly given up, the Revolutionary era. Methodists they would kill every man, woman and were comparatively few at this time, child in the town and burn it down. though there were some of that de- It was known that they could easily nomination among the first settlers.
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A HISTORY OF HIGHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.
Rev. Robert W. Finley was the first possess the rich lands overcame all Presbyterian clergyman, and the Rev. fears of sickness, and the living tide Messrs. Harr and Titlin the first Meth- odist. rolled on, heedless of death. In the , summer of 1798 the bloody flux raged as an epidemic, and for a while threat- ened to depopulate the whole town and its vicinity. Medical skill was exerted to its utmost, but all to no purpose, as but very few who were attacked recov- ered. From eight to ten were buried each day. The Scioto country soon ac- quired the reputation of a very un- healthy country, and many of those who had selected homes on its rich bottoms, after witnessing a sickly seas- on or two, were constrained to class wealth as only secondary to health. They therefore cast about for a region which promised the latter blessing first, and hence the present county of High- land, being then a part of Ross, and in- dicating by its locality comparative freedom from the diseases peculiar to. the valley, rapidly received large acces- sions from the neighborhood of the county-seat.
With all the many merits and attrac- tions of the country in and around Chillicothe, still it had its objection- able points. The new settlements were regularly visited with autumnal fevers. They were of a virulent character and some times the symptoms resembled those of the yellow fever. Fever and ague prevailed to a great extent. These were supposed to result from the ef- fluvia arising from the decomposition of the luxuriant vegetation which covered the bottoms. These fevers were attended with great mortality, and the sufferings occasioned by them were immense. Often there was not one member of a family able to help an- other, and instances occurred in which the dead lay unburied for days, be- cause no one could report to the neigh- bors. This extensive prevalence of sickness did not, however, greatly deter emigration. An inordinate desire to
CHAPTER X.
THE TOWN OF NEW MARKET LAID OFF AND PLATTED, AND THE FIRST HOUSES ERECTED.
JTTHE motives which prompt men to creek, in what is now Highland. The settle new countries need not now be summer and fall of 1797 were employ- the rich bottom lands on the Scioto and Miami having been taken up by the earlier surveyors, he was of necessity confined chiefly to the hill region, then land to divide among their children, in Adams county, and extending north of Manchester some thirty miles. discussed. Observation, however, ed by him in the same way. Most of points to the acquisition of property as by no means the least. The masses are doubtless content with the prospect of better farms, or the certainty of more but there are always those among the first settlers who are ambitious to accu- mulate rapidly large fortunes. This is most readily done by locating towns and inducing settlers to improve, and this gives value to the surrounding lands, as well as the town lots, most of which is, of course, for the benefit of the proprietor.
Henry Massie, a younger brother of Gen. Nathaniel Massie, came out from Virginia shortly after Manchester was located and engaged as an assistant surveyor under his brother. In the become the seat of a new county when summer of 1796, while the settlement it became necessary to establish anoth- about Chillicothe was making, he was engaged in locating and surveying lands on the head waters of Brush-
While making these surveys he be- came particularly impressed with the beauty of an extensive upland tract which he entered and surveyed for himself. The land was not rich, but it lay finely and seemed to occupy a posi- tion which one day might not only give it importance, but make it a source of fortune to him. It was, as near as he could then ascertain, about equi-distant from the only located towns in the Mil- itary district, and he doubted not might
er north of Manchester. Thus impress- ed, he returned with his company to Manchester about the first of Decem-
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A HISTORY OF HIGHLAND COUNTY OHIO.
ber, and during the winter made a visit trees, was as yet an unbroken forest, to his brother at Chillicothe. He was but still it was necessary that people at surprised at the rapid growth of that a distance should know the name of the place and the surrounding country, and place to which they were expected to at once saw the certain prospect of a direct their steps. Massie therefore de- large fortune for his brother, resulting termined, after conning over in his mind many high-sounding nan es, none from the increase in the value of his lands and unsold town lots. Immedi- of which exactly pleased him, to name ately he resolved to lay out a town it for a favorite village in his native Virginia. . So the embryo metropolis of himself early the next spring on his previously selected site, and communi- the uplands received the name of
cated his project to his brother, who warmly approved it and promised him all the aid he could in advancing the enterprise. Accordingly, on the 5th day of April, 1798, the spring having been very late, he set out from Man- chester with a small company to lay off the town on the uplands and commence the foundation of a permanent settle- ment. The party arrived on the even-
NEW MARKET.
After the town was laid out and care- fully transferred to paper, Massie com- menced running off his lands adjoining in lots to suit the probable demands of new comers. While thus engaged Ross and Huston officiated as chainmen. They continued in this service till they earned sufficient wages to purchase for
ing of the 7th at the place of their fu- each a hundred acre lot of land adjoin- ture operations, and camped near a fine ing the town plat. Having prepared
spring. The next day they cominenced copies of the plat of his town, Massie sent one, with a brief description of the country, together with the induce- ments which he believed it to be .to his erecting some permanent huts for their accommodation. They had brought with them on their pack horses meal, bacon, salt, &c., sufficient for their im- interest to hold out to actual settlers, mediate wants, also axes and other im- to Maysville, Manchester, Chillicothe, plements. The company consisted of &c. In consequence a number of per- Henry Massie, Oliver Ross and his sons visited his encampment during the daughter, a girl of fifteen, Robert Hus- summer, among whom were Jonathan ton and another. Miss Ross went as Berryman and William Wishart, who tent-keeper and cool:, and was then be- were pleased with the country. Berry- lieved to be the first white woman ever man purchased a hundred acre tract of in the present county of Highland, in land adjoining the town plat on the consequence of which Massie gave her south, while Wishart bought a corner a lot in the town when it was laid off. lot in the town. Berryman returned to Huston and Ross were both Irishmen, Manchester, his temporary residence, and had emigrated only a few years be- fore.
while Wishart remained and commenc- ed improving his purchase by cutting out the trees and brush and building a log cabin, designed for a tavern house. This cabin was the first house erected
Massie had indulged in his dream of founding a town so long. that he had become firmly convinced it would soon rival his brother's already successful in the present town of New Market, enterprise on the Scioto. He accord- and stood on the lot on which stands ingly proceeded to lay the town out on the residence of the late Lewis Couch. a grand scale. The universally admir- ed plan of Philadelphia was adopted,
Wishart was an energetic and perse- vering Scotchman, and soon got his and carefully applied, which formed building in a condition to assume for it the plat into regular and compact the name of tavern. But the anticipated squares and intersected the streets at right angles. The two main cross streets were ninety-nine feet wide and all the others sixty-six. The town plat covered over four hundred acres, and looked superb on paper. Each in-lot
rush of new settlers did not come, and the new hotel, small though it was, sel- dom received a crowd of strangers be- yond its capacity. The fame of the rich lands about Chillicothe and the wonder- fully rapid growth of that place, drew was eighty-two and one-half feet in most of the immigrants, who had but front and one hundred and eighty-five little respect for oak hills as farming in depth. The public square, designed land, and no dread of fever and ague. for the court house, contained four in- As an inducement to settlers, Massie offered to every man who purchased of him one hundred acres of land an out- lots, and was the northeast corner at the intersection of the two main cross streets. One lot was donated for school lot of three acres, and in order to get the purposes, and an out-lot for a cemetery. country opened up and in a condition The town being thus blazed ont on the for cultivation, he employed men to
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A HISTORY OF HIGHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.
.
clear out land adjoining the town plat, safe and sound on his land, to which he giving fifty acres of land for clearing cut a path and halted his wagon near ten. The first year there was no crop the spot he had selected for his cabin. raised, and all the breadstuff used had It was in the forenoon when they reach- to be brought on pack horses from ed the end of their journey, and the day Manchester. The settlers and surveyors had, however, little difficulty in supply- ing their wants from the game, which was found in great abundance in the woods, almost within reach of their own doors. They also found service berries,
was calm, beautiful and pleasant as autumn days often are. Knowing that there was no time to be lost if he would winter in his own cabin and have it in a condition to afford a reasonable amount of comfort, he requested his wife to un- mulberries, &c., in profusion, and in the hitch the horses from the wagon and fall great quantities of mast, hazel nuts, take off the harness, while he went to
hickory nuts and walnuts. They had
work vigorously with his axe to cut logs taken cows with them, so that milk was for his cabin. The horses were a valu- plenty and could be kept cool and nice able pair, and Mrs. Berryman having at the excellent spring near Ross' camp, which was the headquarters for the sur- veyors and for a time, till Wishart's tavern was opened, for visitors and new comers. .
taken off' the gears and adjusted the bells around their necks, turned then loose to graze on the luxuriant growth of pea vine which was then common all over the surrounding hills. She then Ross selected his lot of land adjoining the town plat on the east, but made no improvement that year, being constantly engaged as chainman for Massie, who set about preparing some dinner, to which she and her husband sat down on the ground, carpeted with autumn's variegated fallen leaves, with a peculiar had become the principal surveyor in relish, which proceded not so much that region and therefore received large from appetite, which was always good in numbers of military warrants to locate, those days, as from that undefinable chiefly ou the shares. Joseph Carr, who - sense of pleasure flowing from dining at was a surveyor and land jobber, came to home after an absence-they were at the new settlement during the summer home, though they had neither house and engaged to a considerable extent in nor field, and they therefore doubly en- surveying lands.
joyed their simple repast, washed down
When Berryman went back to Man- by a gourd of pure cold water from the chester, after selecting his land, he in- adjacent spring.
tended to return in season to make the necessary preparation for winter, but one of his horses getting crippled, he The labor of preparing the logs, and clearing off the ground for the cabin was interrupted a few days after by the was compelled to postpone it until late absence of the horses. They had wan- in the fall. He was a native of the State dered off, Mrs. Berryman having forgot- of New Jersey and had come to Man- ten to put on their hobbles. So Berry- chester with his wife and effects the man had to start out in search of them. previous autumn. When his horse re- and after several days' hunt he found .covered so as to be able for service he one of thent some miles north of New loaded his few articles of household Market dead, evidently from the effects :goods into his light Jersey wagon and of a snake bite on the nose. The other about the first of October set out for he entirely failed to find after long New Market. There was no road for a search, and never afterwards heard of it. wagon, none ever having passed into He supposed that it had been taken by the country north. A pack horse trace some strolling party of Indians, as the led him into Kenton's trace, which was country twelve or fifteen miles north
ithe route followed by Massie and all was then pretty thickly settled by Shawnees and Wyandotts. This was a serious loss to him, for good horses were then an object, and both difficult and expensive to replace. He returned and recommenced his work at his cabin. Finally about the middle of November he got all in readiness for the raising. Hands were of course scarce, but what few could be had were kind and neigh- who had gone to the new settlement. He supplied himself with the necessary provisions for himself and wife and set ·out, cutting his way through the woods iby day and camping out at night, using the closely covered wagon to sleep in, his horses, hobbled and belled, grazing around and his dog under the wagon. His progress was very tedious, as well as laborious and lonely in the extreme, borly. They turned out, some four or particularly at night when the wolves, five of them, and by hard lifting they panthers, owls, &c., combined to make managed to carry the logs to the place it hideous. But he finally, on the elev- and raise his cabin. The remainder of enth day after his departure, arrived the work, such as roofing, laying the
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1 HISTORY OF HIGHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.
puncheon floor, building the cat and made in 1795, as announced in our clay chimney, making the clap-boards, history, generally believed to be the door, ¿e., he, of course, had to do him- first in the present county of Highland. self. After this was all done he moved That spring they planted four aeres of in, for previously, for near two months, corn. Their nearest towns were Chilli- the wagon had been his home. Towards cothe, Cincinnati and Manchester. the first of December a spell of cold They still lived in their camp during rainy weather set in and continued for the summer. Their carpet, says Mr. two weeks, during which Berryman was Ross, was nature's green earth-their unable to finish his cabin by chinking table a split log with the flat side up, and danbing, and employed the time part- and their standing food was corn meal ly in hunting. He killed a bear one morn- ing from his cabin door, and could get
gruel, thickened with wild onions. Oc- casionally this was varied with a roast any quantity of deer and turkeys any of venison or other game. Their nearest time within half a mile. The weather, mill was eighteen miles distant. Their however, changing to cold and freezing, nearest-indeed their only neighbors, he became alarmed lest he should be were the Indians. They were very unable to get his cabin daubed, and as a numerous and soon became very trouble- winter residence it would be untenable some, stealing their horses, cows and
every thing worth carrying away they
without it. He therefore went to work and cut logs sufficient to make four could get their hands on. large log heaps, one of which he built
The next permanent settler that came on each of the four sides of his house. to New Market was Jacob Bram. Then He then, after chinking, commenced came McCafferty and some others daubing, having fired the log piles, the dates not remembered -- about the same heat of which kept the daubing from time. Robert Boyce arrived from Man- freezing and also dried it. This was chester with the first wagon ever finished between Christmas and New brought out to the settlement at New Year, and his cabin was comfortable, Market. This was in the fall of '08. not only for that winter, but stood and He sent word to New Market that he was tenanted until within a few years was coming, requesting the settlers to past, the last survivor of the pioneer turn out and eut a road to meet him. settlement.
St. Clair Ross was one of the small party
Oliver Ross came out in the fall of who went to meet Boyce and open the 1797, and assisted in laying out the way for the first wagon. It was a toler- town of New Market. Early in the fol- ably light wagon, drawn by two first- lowing spring, the 14th day of March, rate horses. Mr. Ross also helped out. his eldest son, St. Clair Ross, in com- the road from New Market west to the pany with his father, one brother and crossing of Whiteoak, thence to Wil- sister, left Manchester for the settle- liamsburg, or Lytlestown, as it was then ment at New Market, where they arrived named. The wilderness in every direc- on the 16th, having camped out over tion from New Market was very dense.
night on the way. They erected a tem- In the spring of 1799, says Mr. Ross, a porary camp, and after remaining a day traveler by the name of Jones, from or so, commenced clearing a piece of Tennessee, on his way from Chillicothe ground for a corn patch. There were to Cincinnati, took rather a circuitous no persons living at that time in the route, with the design of seeing more of newly laid out town, or around the site the lands, and gave little or no attention of it-the town being laid out in the fall to the trace then blazed out between and all parties engaged in that work the two points. Whilst riding along having returned to Manchester for the one day through the wilderness, he dia- winter. Oliver Ross was at this time a mounted and tied his horse to a sapling. comparatively old man, and when he and went a short distance to the head of and his sons went on the ground to a hollow in search of a spring, which he commence the clearing, which was on found. He drank, and after resting a the 17th day of March, 1798, he request- few minutes, returned to where he be- ed St. Clair to take the axe and cut lieved he had hitched his horse ; but, down a sapling. After this was done he to his amazement, nowhere could he handed him a grubbinghoe and request- find him. After vainly wandering about ed him to take up some grubs, remark- all that day and night through the 'ing that he wanted him to have it to woods, about daylight he heard chickens say when he became an old man that he erowing, the first indications of human had cut the first tree and taken up the habitation that had greeted his ear first grub in the New Market settlement, during all his lonely wanderings. He which was then, and until the settle- directed his steps to the quarter from ment at Sinking Springs by Wilcoxon, which came the welcome sound, and
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A HISTORY OF HIGHLAND COUNTY, OIIIO.
· soon found himself at Brougher's tavern, spanceled with hickory withes, grazing near Sinking Spring, on the Zanesville in an open space in the valley. He and Maysville road, eighteen miles from knew the horses as soon as he saw them, and supposed the party of Indians that he had just met, had lett them there till they returned ; but never dreamed in New Market. He entered the house, his clothes torn with the brush and briers, and himself half dying from fatigue, and told his story. Brougher his anxiety to recover Mr. Boyce's prop-
listened patiently till he was through, erty, that any of the Indians had re- mained to guard them. He therefore went up to them and stopped the bells with leaves the first thing, he then un- did the withes from their legs and start- ed with them. He had scarcely got to where he left his sister before he was aware that Indians were in pursuit of them, dodging from tree to tree in hopes to take him by surprise. Hastily tell- and then bluntly told him he did not believe a word of it. The whole thing seemed so utterly improbable, that the honest mind of old Frederick Brougher could not comprehend it, so he prompt- ly pronounced it a falsehood. The stranger having money in his pocket, and being almost famished, procured a good substantial breakfast, after which he set out again, on foot, for New ing his sister the state of the case and Market, and reached Oliver. Ross' Tav- ern about bed time on Sunday night, speed, he started on the fresh horses
directing her to follow him with all and all the others in the rear. The Indians then showed themselves but at a distance beyond the reach of their rifle-balls. They fired several shots at the retreating party, but without doing any harm, and they soon reached New Market in safety, and returned Boyce his lost horses. The Indians were pur- sued the next morning by Mr. Ross, with six others, and several other horses recovered, by temporizing with them
where he remained some time, spend- ing most of each day in searching for his lost horse. It was a very busy season with the settlers, and no one could spare the time to assist him, until the follow- 'ing Sunday, when a company of some eighteen started out, keeping sight of each other all the time. After a search of several hours the horse was found by John Emrie, father of J. R. Emrie, hitched just as his owner had left him, with saddle, bridle, two blankets on him, and making them presents of corn and and a pair of saddle-bags, in which were rum. They numbered when in pursuit two hundred dollars in specie, all safe.
The same spring, and shortly after the occurrence above narrated, St. Clair Ross and his sister went to Manchester with pack-horses for provisions. On the
of Ross and his sister, from sixteen to twenty.
The Indians, says Mr. Ross, were quite troublesome about New Market for some time after the town became a way home, some few miles the other place of business, and he recollects his side of New Market, they met seventeen father driving them away from his Indians on horse back in Indian file house frequently. On one of these oc- casions, an Indian attempted to toma- hawk him. When the alarm occurred on the murder of Capt. Herrod and Wa-will-a-way, the inhabitants were in great dread, and were actually making preparations to commence building a fort, when they received word that the difficulty had been adjusted and the danger averted.
with Simon Kenton at their head. Ross and his sister exhibited some alarm, which Kenton observing, rode up to them, and with a most benevo- lent smile told then not to be alarmed, that there was no danger, so both parties passed on. A short time after the Indians passed, Ross heard a bell off some distance in a valley, and re- membering that Robert Boyce had lost St. Clair Ross was married to Miss Rebecca Eakins in 1807. Samuel Evans, then a justice of the peace, solemnized the contract at the residence of the his two fine horses and doubted not that the Indians had stolen them, he told his sister to remain where she was while he rode over to where they heard bride's father, Mr. Joseph Eakins, near the bell. He soon discovered the horses, New Market.
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CHAPTER XI.
JACOB AND ENOCH SMITH SETTLE AT THE FALLS OF PAINT-GENERAL. MCARTHUR SELECTS A SITE AND LAYS OFF THE TOWN OF GREENFIELD.
IN the autumn of 1796 Jacob Smith and the owner of all the surrounding lands, his brother Enoch led a party of set- and was more than gratified to learn tlers, consisting of from ten to fifteen that he could purchase on favorable families, from Virginia to the Scioto terms, as that enterprising and generous proprietor ever looked more to the im- provement of the country and the ad- vantage of his fellow-man than to his own immediate aggrandizement ; yet, like most industrious and liberal-minded men, he had rapidly accumulated a for- Valley. They came by the river to Man- chester, and followed the trace from that place, on their pack-horses, to the falls of Paint. The Smiths, being mill- wrights and on the lookout for a good water power, at once perceived the tnerits of that at the falls, while the tune in rich lands, being at that time apparent richness of the surrounding the most extensive landed proprietor in lands settled in their minds the value of the Territory. Massie had determined the location. They therefore aban- at this early day on making his home- doned their original idea of settling in stead near the falls of Paint, and he at the immediate vicinity of Chillicothe, once made a proposition to Smith to give and crossing over to the north side, one hundred acres of land for every they unloaded their horses and at once twenty of his own that was cleared and brought into cultivation. This offer was readily accepted, ând in the spring all the male settlers at the falls found abun- dant employment. It was unnecessary for them to clear corn land for them- selves, as Massie's generous proposal in- cluded the first two crops. This not on- ly supplied them with an abundance of corn, but each man thus acquired a farm for himself, and was enabled during the two years to clear a sufficient number of acres to be prepared to put in a crop on his own land at the end of that time, and some did it before. They, however, con- tinued clearing land for Massie and thus adding to their own farms, as long as he desired. The Virginians selected their lands on the north bank of the creek, while Massie planned his farm on the south side, and had much of the clearing done there, on which he, in the course commenced preparations for passing the winter. Being pretty strong handed, they soon erected and made confortable a sufficient number of cabins to house the party. During the greater part of October and November the weather was delightful, and the new settlers had ample time, not only to prepare their cabins but to examine the surrounding country, and kill an abundance of game. The first corn crop of the settlers at the mouth of Paint, had turned out most abundant, and the new comers at the falls found their wants, in that impor- tant particular, comparatively easily supplied. The excitement always at- tendant upon making a settlement in a country, the novelty of every thing around them and the unsually pleasant weather, combined to both please and satisfy the Virginians with their new home. But little was, however, done in of a couple of years, settled some tenants the way of improvement or clearing the land during the winter, though a great
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