USA > Ohio > Highland County > A history of the early settlement of Highland County, Ohio > Part 15
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ty arose as to wool. None of that il- portant article, now so abundant in Ohio, was then to be had nearer than Kentucky. Stroup was not the man, mediately went to warm and cook however, to be deterred or impeded by breakfast, When the party arrived at trifles, so he mounted a horse and start- the mill, Kenton was not there, and ed South for wool. A sufficient supply they could get nothing to eat. So they of the most approved quality was not set off in search of him. They found obtained till he reached Lexington, him at his cabin about four miles from where he purchased one hundred the mill, but he neither had money to pounds for one hundred dollars. This pay them for their hard services nor he sacked up and packed on his horse provisions to supply their immediate back to New Market. All things were now ready and the business of hat mak- ing commenced on a pretty extensive scale, and the new settlements were sup- plied with wool hats in considerable abundance. Maysville and Chillicothe
wants. In this state of affairs they started back and got a meal at Spring- field on credit of a hospitable log cabin tavern keeper, recently located at that place. From there they hurried back to New Market, where they arrived on furnished a certain market for all the the nineteenth day after they set out to cut the road, almost famished, and their clothes literally torn to pieces.
surplus hats not demanded at the shop, and many a horse load of them was packed to these places from the New Market factory. Wool hats sold at that time at eighteen dollars per dozen, which
Stroup was not a little vexed at the re- sult of his efforts to raise money by road cutting, but in the true pioneer spirit he high price was owing in part to the fact went to work and in a short time man-
that logwood, said to be used for color- aged to get sufficient money to purchase ing black, cost twenty-five cents per trimmings for his stock of hats, and he pound in the block. This fact was there soon forgot the eighteen days lost in the well attested, it is said, by the number wilderness, which were, however, lost of maple trees in the neighborhood only to him and his companions, for the stripped of their bark as high up as the result of their labors was a permanent arm of a man could reach.
road, important to this day as a public Mr. Stroup set ont from Huntingdon, highway, under the title of the "Old l'a, as a journeyman hatter, and arrived
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A HISTORY OF HIGHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.
at a settlement just formed on the banks shall have paid a Territorial tax," were of the Scioto, called Franklinton, in the authorized to choose one representative spring of 1798. The inhabitants of that to the convention for each twelve hun- settlement had no corn for bread, the dred inhabitants, and were required to little they had planted the fall before hold the election on the second Tues- having been destroyed by the frost. day of October, and the convention Stroup went with others to the Pee Pee was required to meet at Chillicothe on bottoms to buy corn. They had to pay the first Monday of the succeeding No- one dollar and a quarter per bushel for vember. Accordingly, the people, anx- badly frost bitten corn, which they ious to assume the high functions of boated in a perogue up to the settlement. sovereignty, complied with the act and They attempted to make meal of it by their representatives met regularly at pounding it in a hominy block, but it the designated time and place and after was so soft from the effects of the frost a session of a little over twenty-five that it would only flatten-it would not days reported the Constitution on sieve. They made it up into bread and which the State was admitted into the Union, without any ratification by the people.
when they put it to bake, went out to hoe corn. When they were gone the Indians would steal in and eat up the A few weeks before theadmission of the State and the termination of the Territorial existence of the government, Mr. Jefferson, then President of the United States, thought proper to re- move Gov. St. Clair on a charge of un- warrantable interference in the delib- erations of the convention. No other Governor was appointed. St. Clair was appointed by Washington and held the office about fourteen years. half baked bread. Stroup found this place very sickly and was induced to leave it, because there were but few to buy hats, and they were as a general thing too poor to pay for them. While he remained here he helped lay out the town of Springfield. At the age of seventeen he was out against the "Whisky Boys," and knew by sight and personally inost of the officers, including Washington. He left Franklinton and Arthur St. Clair was a Scotchman by birth, having been born in Edinborough in 1731. After receiving a classical education in one of the most celebrated went to Chillicothe where he remained some months, working at his trade, until he finally settled upon New Market as his future place of residence. The same institutions of his native country, he year Anthony Stroup, his brother, came studied medicine; but having a taste out and settled in New Market.
The population of the Northwestern Territory had continued to spread out from the country between the Miamis, Quebec. After the peace of 1763, he as well as the Military District, and the portion east of the Scioto to the Pennsyl- in the State of Pennsylvania. He held vania border became checkered with several civil offices prior to the Revo- farms and abounded in indications of an lutionary war, and when that broke out industrious and thriving people. Dur- he at once received the appointment of ing the winter of 1801, Congress passed an act dividing the Northwest Territory into two territories, the western of which -Indiana Territory-to have a similar government to the east.
for military pursuits, he sought aud . obtained a subaltern's appointment and was with Wolf at the storming of was assigned to the command of a fort
Colonel of Continentals. In August, 1776, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier and took an active part in the battles of Princeton and Trenton. Subsequently he was created by Con- gress a Major General, in which capac- ity he served with reputation until the close of the war. He was chosen a
On the 30th of April, 1802, an act pass- ed Congress authorizing the eastern di- vision of the Territory northwest of the river Ohio, to call a convention to frame member of the Continental Congress a State Constitution, the western bound- and elected by that body its President. ary of which new State was fixed at a Judge Burnet, who knew him well, line running due north from the mouth says: "He was plain and simple in his of the Great Miami. The act fixing the dress and equipage, open and frank in boundaries of the Territory authorized his manners, und accessable to persons the people to assume such name for the of every rank. He was unquestiona- State as they should think proper and bly a man of superior talents, of exten- settled the qualification of voters and sive information and great uprightness apportioned the same. By this act, "all of purpose, as well as suavity of man- male citizens of the United States, who ners. His general course, though in shall have arrived at full age, and resid- the main correct, was in some respects ed within the said Territory at least one injurious to his own popularity, but it year previous to the day of election, and was an honest result of an honest oxer.
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HISTORY OF HIGHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.
cise of his own judgment."
tary still refused, claiming that it had
Soon after he wasremoved from office been paid.
he returned to his farm in Legonier After spending the best part of two sessions in useless efforts, subsisting on Valley, in Pennsylvania, poor and des- titute of the means of subsistence, and the bounty of his friends, he abandon- ed the pursuit in despair and returned to his lonely and desolate home, where he lived several years in the most ab- unfortunately, too much disabled by age and infirmity to embark in any kind of active business. While terri- torial Governor he had assumed the re- ject poverty in the family of a widow- sponsibility for government and be- ed daughter as destitute as himself. came personally liable for the purchase of a number of pack-horses and other articles necessary to fit out an expedi- tion against the Indians to an amount
ยท
At length Pennsylvania, his adopted State, from considerations of personal respect and gratitude for past services. as well as from a laudable feeling of of near three thousand dollars, which State pride, settled an annuity on him he was compelled afterwards to pay, of three hundred dollars, which was and having no use for the money at the soon after raised to six hundred and time he did not present hisclaim to the fifty dollars. That act of beneficence government; and, after he was remov- gave to the gallant old soldier a com- fortable subsistance for the little rem- naut of his days which was then left. He lived, however, but a short time to enjoy this bounty. On the 31st of Au- gust, 1815, this venerable officer of the Revolution, after a long, brilliant and useful life, died of an injury occasioned
ed from office he looked to that fund as his dependance for future subsistence, and under a full expectation of receiv- ing it he went to Washington City and presented his account to the proper officer of the Treasury. To his utter surprise and disappointment it was re- jected on the ground that it was barred by the running away of his horse, near by the Statute. Congress finally passed Greensburgh, in the eighty-fourth year an act exempting his claim from the of his age. operation of the statute, but the Socie-
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CHAPTER XVII.
JOHN GOSSETT ERECTS A GRIST MILL -- SOMETHING ABOUT LEWIS GIBLER BRUSHCREEK CURRENCY -- THE FIRST SETTLER IN UNION TOWNSHIP - THOMAS DICK SETTLES IN MARSHALL, ESTABLISHES A SCHOOL, AND FOUNDS THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF THAT NEIGHBORHOOD - SINKING SPRINGS AND VICINITY RECEIVES ADDITIONAL INHABITANTS IN THE PER- SONS OF SIMON SHOEMAKER, JR., AND HIS BROTHERS PETER AND MARTIN, JOHN HATTER, JOHN FOLK, GEORGE SUTER, JAMES WILLIAMS, JACOB ROADS, DAVID EVANS, JACOB FISHER, ABRAHAM BOYD, PETER STULTZ, DR. JOHN CAPLINGER, CAPTAIN WILSON, HENRY COUNTRYMAN AND BEV. BENJAMIN VAN PELT.
In the spring of 1801 John Gossett was not only a man of considerable completed and put in successful opera- scientific attainments, but is remembered tion a grist mill, the first built in the as remarkably amiable and honorable in present county of Highland. This mill all his intercourse with others. His was located on Whiteoak, two miles modesty and ditlidence caused him to south of New Market, a short distance seek retirement-thus hiding his talents above where Sonner's mill now stands. from public view. For his services in The mill house was a pretty good sized constructing his mill, he received one structure of hewn logs and clapboard hundred acres of land, on which lie set- roof, sufficiently capacious for all the tled quietly down and spent the remain- business it was capable of doing. One der of his days in the peaceful and pleas- John Smith, a Scotchman, familiarly ant occupation of a farmer. Building known throughout the then sparcely even a small tub mill was not, in those populated settlement, as "Scotch days, a trifling undertaking Workmen Johny," was the mill wright. Smith were difficult to obtain and much of the
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A HISTORY OF HIGHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.
indispensable machinery still more so. from Redstone to Bourbon county, Ken- For this little pioneer mill all the irons tucky, where he built himself a cabin had to be brought from Kentucky, while and settled down. When Wayne's the necessary plank for the fore-bay, army moved West in '94, Gossett en- gaged in transporting supplies to them at their encampment in the wilderness of the Northwest. After the treaty of peace he resumed his business of farm- ing and hunting in Kentucky, where he continued to reside till the autumn of '97, when he moved his family to the settlement at Chillicothe. He resided at that place two years, and during that time purchased land in the vicinity of New Market. The fever and ague con- tinned greatly to afflict new comers in the Scioto Valley, and compelled many of them to move away from the rich lands which they had at first so much admired. Gossett was among these and started with his family to his lands on Whiteoak, where he arrived in the fall of '99. He put up a half faced camp,
chests, water-wheel, &c., had to be cut at great labor, with a whip saw, from the solid log. The mill stones were made by Mr. Gossett himself, out of two large boulders, which he was so fortunate as to discover in the neighborhood. He also did the necessary mason work him- self. Pretty nearly a year was employed in the completion of this most valuable and important improvement. When it was finished much and heart-felt were the rejoicings throughout the settlement. Almost from the very hour of its com- mencement had it been known by all the men, women and children that they were to have a mill, and its progress was marked with intense interest by the needy settlers for many miles around. Some there were who doubted and others that feared the success of the which continued the dwelling of his project, but when it was known that a family for many years. Game was then of course abundant and the wolves ex- mill was actually grinding corn within two miles of New Market and that the tremely ferocious, so much so that two tedious journeys of the mill boy to the calves which he had brought with his two milchi cows, had to have a strong pen built for them immediately adjoin- ing the camp of the family. Even then falls of Paint were among the things of the past, a thrill of joy pervaded every heart and beamed from the countenance of each individual; and, as the good the wolves managed to get at them, one honest hearted pioneers, threading the of which they wounded badly in their efforts to get it out. After Gossett sold out on Whiteoak he purchased land and settled on the road leading from New Market to the falls of Paint about two miles east of New Market, on which place he continued to reside during the remainder of his life. forests adjacent to the banks of White- oak fifty-six years ago in pursuit of game, in search of the cows, returning from logrollings, or cabin raisings, saw the modest little mill house through the openings of the woods, they pointed to "our mill" with a feeling of pleasure and pride, which can not be appreciated at this day, but which then fully ex- pressed the value they attached to the tirely away by a flood. He did not at- first mill.
About two years after the completion of this mill Lewis Gibler, from Shenan- doah county, Virginia, moved into the neighborhood, in company with several other families from the same place, and bought Gossett out. Gibler at once en- tered on possession of the mill, and by his kind and generous deportment added much to its value. One word as a trib- ute of respect to the memory of modest, place. When a stranger would apply for meal or flour, Gibler asked him if he had the money to pay for it. If answer- ed in the affirmative, he would tell him he could go and purchase elsewhere ---- that his surplus meal and flour was for the poor who had just come into the settlement and who, without money, might not be able to procure bread.
Some time in the spring 1803 Massie's mill at the falls of Paint was washed en- tempt to rebuild it, but' the following year bought out Jacob Smith on the op- posite side, who moved away. The next year, (1804) Massie laid out the town of Bainbridge, which he named in honor of America's great Naval hero, Commodore William Bainbridge. Soon after the town was laid off, Massie employed Jacob and John Rockhold, who settled at the falls of Paint two years previous, to build a hewed log house for a store
unobtrusive worth, may not be out of room. This was the first house built on
the town plat and was filled as soon as completed with a stock of goods belong- ing to Massie. From that time New Amsterdam rapidly declined and the site, once so big with promise, has long since been plowed up and cultivated as a cornfield.
During the summer and fall of 1802, there were several families who moved
John Gossett was a native of Pennsyl- into the present township of Brush- vanfa and emigrated at an early day creek, Among them were Simon Shoe-
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A HISTORY OF HIGHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.
maker, jr., and his brothers, Peter and when an occasional traveler left a few Martin, from Virginia. Simon was in small pieces at the taverns on the Zanes- the war of 1812 and was taken prisoner ville and Maysville road. Not much at Hull's surrender. The British com- money could get into circulation in this mander after a time released him on his way. So to supply their immediate wants they naturally adopted the most convenient facility the country afforded try, grindstones and ginseng ; thus ex- promise that he would go home and not fight them any more. He accordingly went home, but soon returned again to and made a circulating medinm of pel- the army as a substitute. He was in no general action. The company he was in hibiting, in this important partienlar of modern times, a total indifference and complete independence of Government.
was, however, attacked several times by small bands of Indians and appears to have been always whipped. John Hat- The "root of evil" never having taken ter, a Revolutionary soldier, came this root among them, the settlers built their year from Pennsylvania and settled in cabins and made their little clearings in Brushcreek township. John Fulk came peace, free from annoyance of specula- with his family from Virginia to Brush- tors, and plowed their field and gathered creek this year. He was in the war of their corn, hunted bear and deer in the 1812 and is now dead. George Suter, woods, fished in the creeks, gathered James Williams, Jacob Roads, David berries and nuts, and passed in harmony Evans, George Cursewell, Jacob Fisher,
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the bright summer days and the long Abraham Boyd, Peter Stultz, Dr. John winter evenings in the unstrained en- Caplinger, Captain Wilson, the first joyment of social life, utterly free from Militia Captain in that township and all the annoyances so characteristic of afterwards a Major- was in the war of later times- they literally reposed be- 1812-and Captain John Roads, the sec- neath their own vine and fig tree, with cond Captain in the township, also in none to disturb or make them afraid. the war of 1812, all moved into the township in 1802 from Virginia, and are all now dead. The same year came
The first settlement made within the bounds of the present township of Union in Highland county, was by a James Washburn, James Reed, Leonard man named Adams, in 1802. He built a Reed, Michael Snively and John Low- curious kind of cabin on Turtle Creek, man from Pennsylvania. These settlers on land afterwards owned by Robert are also all dead. Lowman settled east McDaniel. The cabin had five corners, of Sinking Springs about three miles, on one of which was appropriated as a fire- Sunfish Creek.
place. It is not known where Adams came from nor where he went, when he
Henry Countryman and his three sons, Martin, John and Henry, moved out left, which was within a year or two from Rockingham, Virginia, in the after he built his cabin. He was a sort spring of 1802 and settled in the vicinity of nondescript, possessed of little or no of Sinking Spring. Martin built a property, and apparently caring for cabin about three miles northwest of none. Unsocial and solitary in his the Spring, with help brought from habits, he made the acquaintance of Manchester for that purpose. The few or none of the scattering settlers Countrymans built the first water mill in then in the country, and depended al- the present township of Brushcreek in most exclusively for subsistance on 1803; it was a small affair and stood two and a half miles northwest of Sinking Spring, where Bobb's mill now stands, on the East Fork of Brushcreek. Henry Countryman, sr., was a soldier of the Revolution.
Rev. Benjamin VanPelt, a Methodist minister from Virginia, was the first preacher who officiated in that capacity in the region about Sinking Spring, where he first preached in 1802.
hunting. It is quite probable he dis- liked the rapid encroachments of the settlers on his hunting grounds and growing discontented and sulky, de- termined to move farther west. At any rate he packed his wife and two or three white headed children on a bit of an In- dian pony and shouldering his ritle, struck out into the pathless woods and was no more heard of in that region of country.
The currency of Brushcreek in these There were two classes of persons who, in the early days of the Northwest, formed the vanguard of advancing civili- zation, both of whom disappeared at its approach. The first was the regular In- dian tighter-the spy, trapper and hunt- er, who scorned any labor less noble delicious meat of the buffalo and bear early times was of an exceedingly simple and primitive character. The settlers had not then acquired the insatiable ap- petite for the dollar, which so distinctive- ly characterizes the people of the pres- . ent day, and they therefore knew but few wants in that way and scarcely ever than that which brought for reward the saw coin or heard it ,spoken of, except
A HISTORY OF HIGHLAND COUNTY, OHIO.
and the rich peltries of the beaver and Dick in his own house in the winter of martin. They despised the effeminacy 1802. The branches taught were spell- that erected a house for shelter and re- ing, reading and perhaps writing. quired bread for subsistance. No sound of the axe, therefore, accompanied their wide and fearless range through the for- ests ; and no traces of improvements marked the extent of their explorations.
Mr. Dick, though possessed of a vigor- us and cultivated mind, seemed indif- ferent to the honors within the power of society to confer, and his retiring and mnodest nature limited to a small circle The second partook somewhat of the of immediate friends the interesting story of his life. Few, indeed, there are at the present day who know that there was a man of that name, a quiet, but useful and exemplary citizen of our
nature of the first. Indian fighters they were of necessity, if not, as was most comnonly the case with them, from choice. Hunters, they were compelled to be, or subsist without meat ; but they country for more than forty years, who at the same time appreciated the value faithfully discharged all the duties of a Christian, and the father of a large and worthy family, whose history was. so full of the vicissitudes and dangers incident to frontier life as his. of bread and the comforts of a cabin with a wife in it. Small clearings sur- rounded by pole and brush fences, with the little cabin in the midst evidenced the presence of this class of pioneers on the extreme frontier. however, purchased the lands on which they settled or remained long enough to become the tenants of the real owners. Restless and roving in their natures, they soon pulled up and again sought their appropriate and peculiar sphere on the blending ground of civilization and barbarism, where they could but faintly hear
"The tread of the Pioneers, of nations yet to be ;
The first low wash of waves where soon should roll a human sea."
He was born and educated at Belfast, They rarely, Antrum county, Ireland. Immediately on the completion of his education he determined to seek his fortune in Amer- ica, and having some friends in Phila- delphia he sailed for that place, where he arrived in safety after a long voyage. He remained there some time, but find- ing it difficult to get employment to suit him, he concluded to seek it in the country. He was a school master by profession and preferred a situation as such. In pursuit of this object he jour- neved on, intending to try his fortune in Pittsburg, then a frontier town of the State, though a place of some note and business. About the first of June, 1789, when nature wore her most fascinating dress, he crossed the Laurel Hill and en-
To this class belonged Adams and many others of whom the world knows nothing, save a vague tradition that they made settlements at a day so early that the recollection of it has dimmed into a tered the secluded and beautiful district twilight scarcely one remove from total of country lying between that mountain darkness. But their cabins and little and Chestnut Ridge, known as Legonier fields remained, and persons yet live Valley. The vicinity of this country to who have seen them and noted the the old French post, Duquesne, had places which have long since yielded up their first marks by the hand of man, and been forced to assume new features and form under the successive ways of made it an object of interest to the bold and sagacious adventurers of that nation and they planted a colony of their coun- trymen there at an early day. But their culture and refinement, which more splendid schemes of empire soon failing than half a century has rolled over they were driven to the north and very them.
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