USA > Ohio > Highland County > A history of the early settlement of Highland County, Ohio > Part 14
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CHAPTER XV.
A SETTLEMENT IS MADE ON ROCKY FORK, AND "SMOKY ROWY IS LAID OUT -- JOHN PORTER'S GRIST MILL-POPE CUTS HIS WHEAT-DEATH OF THOMAS BEALS-ELIJAH KIRKPATRICK, LEWIS SUMMERS, GEORGE ROW, JOSEPHI MEYERS, ISAAC LAMAN AND GEORGE CALEY COME TO NEW MARKET- ADAM LANCE, GEORGE FENDER AND ISAIAH ROBERTS JOIN THE FINLEYS .ON WHITEOAK -- THE VAN METERS SETTLE ON THE EAST FORK-ROBERT AND TARY TEMPLIN SETTLE ON LITTLE ROCKY FORK, AND SIMON SHOE- MAKER, FREDERICK BROUCHER AND TIMOTHY MARSHION LOCATE AT SINK- ING SPRINGS -- ADAM MEDSKER AND ROBERT BRANSON ARE BURIED AT NEW MARKET -- BENJAMIN CARR, SAMUEL BUTLER, EVAN EVANS, EDWARD WRIGHT AND WILLIAM LUPTON SETTLE ABOUT LEESBURG - LUPTON BUILDS THE FIRST SAW MILL AND JAMES HOWARD THE FIRST CORN MILL IN THAT NEIGHBORHOOD-THE FRIENDS ERECT A MEETING HOUSE, WHILE MRS. BALLARD IS THE FIRST TO BE BURIED IN THE GRAVEYARD.
Late in November, 1799, one Mareshah that Peggy determined to do as she Llewellyn pitched his tent on the banks pleased in the trifle of marrying. So of the Rocky Fork, two miles south of she and the Welsliman stole a march on where Hillsborough now stands. He the old man while he was attending as a had set out from the pine hills, near the witness at Rutherford Court House, and Catawba River, North Carolina, early in packing their worldly goods on a pretty the preceding March for the Northwest- stout old horse, which Mareshah hap- ern Territory with the double purpose pened to buy on a long credit, they set of finding more productive land and bet- off one bright moonlight night for Ten- ter hunting grounds. Llewellyn was of nessce. After two weeks pretty brisk Welsh origin, his ancestors having emi- traveling they reached Elizabethtown, grated to America during the time of on the head waters of the Holston, Charles II, and gradually as their wild where they were legally married. From and roving inclination predominated in this place they pushed on to Kentucky, any of the lineal descendants, the family camping out of course at night. Lle- wellyn did some successful hunting as he passed along, frequently stopping name worked itself back from the shores of the Chesapeake into the almost desert of sands, swamps and pines which char- two or three weeks at a good point for acterizes a large part of the "old North that purpose, and thus supplied the State." The inhabitants of this region wants of himself and wife. The skins are, or rather were, at the time of which he saved for market, which, by the time · we speak, sixty years ago, very poor and as a general thing depended much upon hunting in the mountains bordering Eastern Tennessee. They, however, re- tained many of the follies which their ancestors had brought with them from the old country, not the least of which was that of family pride. he reached Boonville, on the Kentucky River, had accumulated to a pretty good horse load. So he and his wife of course had to walk. They spent some time at Boonville, where he exchanged his bear and deer skins for some necessaries, not the least of which was a strong and large iron handmill for grinding corn. Again they set out for the North, but by the time they reached the Blue Licks the horse's back had become very sore and
.
Llewellyn was a young man of twenty- three or four, stout, hearty and not bad looking for the region in which he had the fortune to grow, but all these good the weather so excessively warm, that qualities could not overcome the deep they, as well as the horse, were about seated prejudice of old George Smith, tired out, so they stopped and took em- whose daughter Peggy he hoped to have ployment with some inen who were peaceful permission to marry. Smith boiling salt at the Lieks. They continued was an Englishman and despised the thus employed until the first of October, Welsh and constantly swore he would when they again bundled up, adding a shoot his daughter's suitor if he ever small sack of salt to the saddle, and start- caught him in the vicinity of his cabin. ed North, crossing the river at Lime- The very natural result of all this was stone. After a few days travel they
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A HISTORY OF HIGHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.
stopped, strnek a camp and Llewellyn Market by a jolly set of Irishmen as took a two weeks' hunt. Not meeting ever collected together this side of their native Jsland. Their names were Alex- ander Fullerton, John Porter, Samuel McQuitty, William Ray, William and James Boyd, James Farrier, Hector Murphy and Alexander Carrington. "A little stream"- in the language of a gentleman of New Market, who furnish- ed this information "bearing the class-
the success, however, he had anticipa- ted, he determined to move further to the North, as there were some settlers scattered at intervals of eight and ten miles in the region in which he then was. They passed on, looking out more for hunting than farming grounds, until they reached the banks of Buckrun, named for the great quantity of deer ic name of Smoky Row- in the memory which early herded in the region through which it flows, where they
of a cherished locality in sweet Ireland -wended lazily through the lane of
again stopped for some weeks. His suc- John Porter, who was moved to profit cess was pretty satisfactory here, but he, thereby. John, in the course of a few one day, discovered the smoke of a cabin that the locality was rather too hamper- ed for good winter hunting. So he pull- ed up stakes and pushed out farther to
years, set about building thereon a grist in his range on Flatrun and concluded mill of most singular construction and when it was completed greatly rejoiced thereat ; and as he viewed its zigzag walls and peculiar adaption to the object the northward and did not halt, except for which it was designed, Nebuchad- for rest at night, till he arrived at the nezzar, when viewing his capital and Rocky Fork. This region seemed to exclaiming, 'Is this great Babylon which promise freedom from interruption, as I have built,' could not have felt a well as good hunting, and he determined greater swell of pride. A thunder gust to stop and construct a camp for winter. was seen forming itself in the West, He accordingly selected a site on the affording a prospect of speedily trying sunny side of a thickly wooded hill, the capacity of the mill for business. A near a good spring, and put up a half sack of corn was dashed into the hopper faced camp of poles ; fixed up the spring with a bark spout, and settled down for -a jug of whisky worthy the occasion was speedily procured and all things the winter. This was the first settle- made ready-when the winds blew and ment made on the Rocky Fork and was the rain descended and the flood came on the west side of the present road of such unusual height, that at one mail leading to Hillsborough, known as the rush the dam, the mill, the race and all old West Union road, about three hun- were swept. John hastily snatching up dred yards north of the creek. In the the jug and leaping from the floating spring Llewellyn cleared out a small wreck to the bank, waved high his jug corn patch south of his house and raised in defiance of the storm and mingled his corn, pumpkins, &c. During the sun- shout and huzza with the roar of the mer, having concluded to stay awhile thunder and the flood. Mr. John Port- longer at this place, he went to work er was not, however, the man to quail and built a cabin. In the fall he gath- before adversity, so he rallied his ener- gies and built a horse mill, which he kept in good repair till the year 1812, when he volunteered to fight the Brit- ish and lost his life at the battle of Brownstown."
ered his corn and ground meal on his hand mill for bread, which was a great luxury, being the first they had tasted since they left Kentucky. In the course of the next two years Wm. Dougherty, James Smith, Job Smith, Robert Bran-
In the spring of 1801 Elijah Kirkpat- son, George Weaver and George Caw rick moved from Chillicothe and syllled settled in the neighborhood of Llew- with his family on Smoky Ron. He ellyn, who still continned to hunt and was the first collector of taxes in High- grind corn on his hand mill for the new land county. Lewis Sunnouis moved settlers. Robert Branson died in the into New Market from Pennsylvania summer of 1801. In the course of a few early in the same spring, also George years, however, he grew weary of the Row and Joseph Myers. No other per- mill business and as game had become sons moved during the summer. In the rather scarce, he determined to move fall Isaac Laman and his family moved farther away from the settlement, and out from Virginia and settled in the accordingly left. The remains of his town, also George Caley. Nobody died honse stood until within a few years, in the town up to this time and there but it, together with the cabins and im- was no serions sickness. The first bury- provements of his neighbors, has entire- ings at the New Market grave yard were ly disappeared.
Adam Medsker, who had recently
In the fall of 1800 a settlement was moved into the neighborhood, and formed three or four miles south of New Robert Branson, from the Rocky Fork.
A HISTORY OF IGIILAND COUNTY, OHIO.
This was in the summer of 1801. Old and made improvements on lands which Robert Finley was the first preacher in they had purchased of Henry Massic. New Market and doubtless the first who Robert settled on a branch of the Rocky preached within the present boundaries Fork, known at present as Templin's or of Highland county. The preaching was in the woods. During the year 1801-2, Rev. Henry Smith, a Methodist preacher from . Virginia, occasionally preached in New Market.
The same fall Adam Lance and George Fender moved from Virginia and settled in the neighborhood of the Davidsons and Finleys on Whiteoak, and Isaiah the vicinity at Station Prairie.
Roberts moved up from Chillicothe the
Medsker's Run, and Tary on the Little Rocky Fork on the place recently owned by Bennett Creed. They were both at that time unmarried. They were among the first settlers of Chillicothe, having gone in the company which went with Gen. Massie in the spring of 1796 to locate Chillicothe and make the settlement in
In the civil arrangements of Ross next fall and settled on Whiteoak on county, Paxton township, in which Bainbridge now is, was laid off in the
the farm on which his son Isaiah now resides ; James McConnel also came up winter of 1800. Geographically its from the same place the same fall and boundaries embraced nearly all of what settled in the same neighborhood, and is now the country west of Scioto town- two years afterwards came Joseph ship, extending north to the vicinity of Davidson.
Chillicothe, thence extending west over
Joseph VanMeter and Isaac Miller what is now Ross, Fayette and Highland came from Mill Creek, Fleming county, counties. The place of holding the elections, musters, &c., for this great old
Kentucky, and settled on the East Fork of the Little Miami in the spring of 1801. township was at the house of Christian Mr. VanMeter, Joseph's father, and Platter, one mile east of where Bain- bridge now stands. Isaac's guardian, gave each of them a hundred acres of land, axes, hoes, plows, The settlement at Sinking Spring did and enoughi corn meal to last them dur- not receive any additions until 1800, ing the summer. Meat he refused, say- when Simon Shoemaker, sr., came with ing they might hunt for that in the his family from Virginia and settled in woods. Accidentally they lost one of the the neighborhood. During the four hoes on the way, so after they had put in preceding years Frederick Broucher their crop of corn and it had grown suffi- had been engaged slowly in clearing ciently to require boeing, they were at
great loss for another hoe, it never oc- paring his home for the accommodation curring to them that one could plow and of the travel, which began to be con-
the other follow him with a hoe. They
siderable along the trace on which he ont a small farm and building and pre-
saw no way of working their corn but had located. His house was the first for both to plow at the same time till tavern out of Chillicothe on the trace.
that part was done and then both go to work with the hoes. They deliberated over the difficulty and finally came to the conclusion that they could not do without another hoe. The nearest set- tlement was New Market, fourteen miles. So Isaac agreed to go there and try to borrow a hoe. Accordingly he shouldered his rifle one afternoon and struck out through the woods for New Market, where he arrived in good time, and fortunately succeeded in borrowing a hoe of John Eversol, on the promise that if it was damaged in any way it was
Timothy Marshon cared nothing for the elegancies of life, and but little for the comforts. So he was contented to inhabit the little cabin built by Wilcox- on, or rather his wife and children in- habited it, for he was most of the time in the woods hunting. Ite therefore had done little or nothing towards mak- ing an improvement, depending solely for a substance on the bear, deer, &c., which abounded in the surrounding hills.
During the winter of 1801 George Caley and Peter Hoop set out from New to be paid for. The young pioneers had Market for a "good hunt." They travel- a hard time the first summer. Neither were very successful in hunting and sometimes they almost starved, having ed all over the country which is now occupied by the town of Hillsborough and the surrounding farms, but could
nothing for days together to eat but a find nothing. After wandering about piece of corn bread, washed down with for a long time in search of game, they a gourd of water. The Indians were all had nothing to buy with. became very much fatigued and hungry, around them and had plenty of venison and to make their miseries complete, and other game to sell them, but they they discovered they were lost. They continued, however, to travel on, and finally when hopeless and almost fam-
Robert and Tary Templin came up from Chillicothe in the spring of Isof, ished, they joyfully discovered just at
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A HISTORY OF HIGHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.
nightfall the cabin of Tary Templin, The first road cut from the Falls of where they were kindly received and Paint to the settlement on Lees Creek cared for by that most worthy man.
was cut by Pope and Walters for the ac- commodation of their friends who were moving out from Quaker Bottom, after which the neighborhood began to settle pretty rapidly. Daniel, John and Jacob
When N. Pope's field of wheat ripen- ed, he found it necessary to send off, not only for hands to cut it, but the re- quest that they would bring with them sickles, as there were none in his neigh- Beals, sons of old Thomas Beals, came borhood. Accordingly; he dispatched with their widowed mother, and were the first to communicate the sad intel- two of his sons with orders to go down
Paint until they got the promise of a ligence of the death of the venerable sufficient munber of hands and a keg of and loved Thomas, the preacher, whisky. The hands arrived in fotce, which happened on their way out, and was caused from a hurt received by his horse running under a stooping tree. He died in a few hours after- wards in the woods on the banks of
and pitched into the little field and soon ent it down. They then went to work and gathered it all to one point, made a temporary threshing floor, and with fails made of young hickories, thresh- Salt Creek. His sons and others who ed it all out and cleaned it before night. were with him found it utterly im- Some of them then went hunting, and possible to get plank or any material others out to cut a bee tree in the neigh- out of which to make a coffin, so they
borhood. At night they had a went to work and cut down a walnut feast of venison, honey, whisky, &c. tree and made a trough, which they This was the first harvesting done in covered with a slab. Thus prepared, Highland.
they performed the sad rites, and the
Hardins Creek was a favorite range remains of the pure and good man
for bears about 1801-2. Samuel Pope killed three bears on this stream in one day. In the fall of 1802, William Pope, while ranging through these woods with gun and dogs, started up a very large bear, which he shot at and wound- were left to repose amid the profound solitudes of the unbroken forests. The Friends' meeting of Fairfield, in this county, have recently sent down a committee for the purpose of enclosing the grave, which was done by erecting (dl. It soon got into a fight with the a permanent stone wall around it. dogs. He loaded his gun as quick as About this time, Benjamin Carr, father
possible, by which time the bear had of Hezekiah Carr, near Leesburg. canght and was killing one of his dogs. Samuel Butler, father of Nathan But- Ile rushed up to the bear in hopes to ler, Evan Evans and their families rescue his dog, and put the muzzle of moved from Virginia. Edward Wright the gun against it to shoot it whilst it came to the falls of Paint from Tennes- held the dog in its deadly embrace. see in 1801, where he took the fever The gun missed fire, at which the bear and died. Shortly after his widow, released the dog and pitched at the Hannah Wright, and her two sons, hunter. He gave back a step or two, William and Dillon, moved up to Har- in doing which he fell over a log back- dius Creek.' In 1803 William Luptou wards. The bear caught him by the moved out from Virginia, and bought heel which stuck up over the log. The out N. Pope and built a saw mill on dogs now rushed to the rescue of their Lees Creek, in the course of the next master, and seized the bear in the rear, two years. The first corn mill in that which was thus forced to release its neighborhood was built by James hold on the hunter's foot, who raised Howard ou Lees Creek. The first and joined in with the dogs, and finally Friends' meeting house in the present killed it by repeated and well directed blows with his tomahawk. It was with the greatest difficulty he got to the
county of Highland was a log structure erected in 1803-4, on the ground now occupied by the brick meeting house camp, where he lay three weeks with near Leesburg, and Barshaba Lupton his foot swung up to a sapling. He and a few other old Friends' were its was badly wounded, and left the bear founders. The first burial at that lying where he had killed it.
graveyard was a Mrs. Ballard, in 1504.
CHAPTER XVI.
MICHAEL STROUP SURPRISES THE PEOPLE OF NEW MARKET, AND WITH WIL- LIAM FINLEY AND ROBERT BOYCE CUT A WAGON ROAD TO MAD RIVER- AFTER SUFFERING MANY PRIVATIONS, STROUP ENTERS INTO PARTNERSHIP' WITH GEORGE .PARKINSON AND THEY MAKE WOOL HATS AT $18 PER DOZEN-ARTHUR ST. CLAIR, THE TERRITORIAL GOVERNOR, BEING RELIEV- ED BY THE ADMISSION OF OHIO INTO THE UNION, RETURNS TO PENNSYL- VANIA, WHERE HE DIES IN POVERTY.
Towards the close of a cloudy and seemed to open to make. a little ready rather raw day, late in the autumn of money, which he at once embraced. 1801, an athletic young man of medium height, and dressed in the rough and simple style of the time, except that instead of a skin cap, an eighteen gal- lon copper kettle appeared on his head, entered the promising town of New Market by the trace from the east. He had a large bundle strapped on his back with buffalo ings, and bore a
Simon Kenton had constructed a mill on Mad River, the other side of Springfield, and employed Robert Boyce, of New Market, to carry the stones from Maysville. Boyce reached New Market without much difficulty, as there was then a passable road for a wagon, but from that place to Spring- field lay an unbroken wilderness, and smaller one under his left arm, while of course a road had to be cut for the in his right hand he carried something wagon the whole of the distance. Kenton had authorized Boyce to em- ploy hands to go before him and make the route passable, promising the money when the mill stones arrived. Stroup, Wm. Finley and George Caley which bore quite a resemblance to an Indian bow. This individual was Michael Stroup, just arriving from Chillicothe, with the view of establish- ing a hatter shop, and the kettle, whichi he had carried all the way on his head, offered their services and were employ- was a hatter's kettle. The pack con- ed at one dollar per day. tained his tools. all except the hurl They set out about the middle of February, 1802, taking with them two large pones of corn bread and two flitches of bacon. No surveyor had been provided. So they struck Ken- ton's old track and followed it the en- tire way. A day or two after the par- ty started Caley got sick and had to bow, which was in his hand, and a few pounds of wool for manufacturing wool hats. Such an oddly accoutered personage, treading the half-cleared streets of the village, attracted per- haps less attention at that day, than would a similar occurrence at the pres- ent, for the citizens were accustomed turn back, leaving Stroup and Finley to the various modes which new-comers to do all the work, Boyce being fully were compelled to adopt in moving employed with his wagon and team, from the old to the new settlements. which consisted of two horses and one However, Stroup cared little for any oxen. remarks that might be made, He was
The party camped out of course every a go-ahead fellow, and speedily had night, and were fifteen days engaged his kettle set in a cabin, and soon the in cutting the road, most of which sound of his bow was heard preparing time the weather was rough and cold. the wool for the fulling process. He They had no time to hunt, and conse- worked on till he got through hissmall quently were obliged to rely upon the stock of material, colored his hats and pones and flitches for substance. On finished off a few, which sold readily, several occasions their supplies came but the proceeds did not more than near being materially reduced by the meet the expenses which he had already most unaccountable conduct of one of incurred, and being a prompt as well the oxen. In spite of everything they as an industrions and enterprising man, could do lie would find the flitch and he first paid his debts, which left him suck it. One night he got it and snck- without money to lay in new materials, ed it, till when it was discovered and unless he could sell more hats. This pulled from his throat, it was the he readily could have done, but for shape of a tit three feet long, the small want of trimmings to finish them. end of which extended down his throat Just at this time a good opportunity the full length of it. After this they
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A HISTORY OF HIGHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.
took the precaution to throw the Mad River road."
bacon on top of their camp at night.
In the course of the spring of this year
When within about twelve miles from (1802) George Parkinson, a hatter to Springfield the party came near freez- trade, having arrived at New Market ing to death. They had traveled sever- from Pennsylvania, he and Stroup set about building a shop, which they suc-
al hours in the midst of an unusually severe storm of rain and snow, and ceded in erecting of hued logs and cov- were wet first hued log house with a shingle roof through and through. ering with lap-shingles. This was the Night came on them in the midst of a prairie, and soon became so dark that built in the town of New Market. One they could not proceed. They took Thomas Kincade, a carpenter, was the shelter under the wagon, and attempt- boss workman in the building of this ed to strike fire, but lost their flint and shop. The two hatters kept bachelor's all hopes with it. It occurred, how- hall and, of course, boarded their hands. ever, to Stroup that the mill stone The food was wild meat and corn bread might be sufficiently hard for a substi- made of meal pounded in a hominy tute. So he went to work as well as mortar with the head of an iron wedge, the numbness of his hands would per- and unsifted. One day at dinner, which mit, and after repeated efforts, finally
consisted of corn dodger and water, it
succeeded in drawing a spark with his occurred to Kincade that a little whisky knife from one of the stones in the would be a valuable acquisition to their wagon, but before they could manage creature comforts. Accordingly a pint to gather fuel on the broad and half of this beverage was procured from Wis- iced prairie, the three men had nearly hart's tavern. A gill of this whisky was perished. Their clothes were frozen measured into the tin cups of the on their bodies long before the fire was Messrs. Stroup, Parkinson, Kineade, and sufficient to thaw them. During the another hand, which gave such a zest night one of the horses broke loose and and relish to the repast that Kincade wandered off to escape the rigor of the declared, with joyous sincerity, that it storm in a distant grove. Boyce start- was the best dinner he had ever eaten. ed after it, and traveled several hours The hatter shop was soon finished and over the prairie at the imminent risk ready for business. But here a difficul- of freezing. In the morning they dis- covered that they had stopped the pre- vious night within a mile of a large Indian encampment, to which they im-
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