USA > Ohio > Highland County > A history of the early settlement of Highland County, Ohio > Part 2
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The cost of living, and taxes, increase in proportion to the advances inade in civilization. In 1810, with a population of 5,000 souls, the taxes collected for all purposes in the county did not exceed $1 per capita, while in 1800, with a population not exceeding 35,000, the taxes average almost $9 per capita. More tax is annually collected now from dogs and saloons in the county than there was from all sources eighty years ago, and farm lands have not increased in value during thirty years, while the cost of cultivation is greater and the return ·less therefrom. The cause is evident. While population has been increasing at an enormous ratio, the country has been developing at a much greater one. The few railroads that thirty years ago handled in an indifferent way the products of the country, have been extended until every portion of it is brought within easy reach of a market, the result being that production and transportation have far outstripped consumption and population. A system of fostering home industries by governmental protection at the expense of the agri- culturist, has been another cause, for, while the latter produces more than the country consumes, and is compelled to accept the prices which the surplus will bring in foreign markets, he is prevented from purchasing in return the articles manufactured there until tribute has been first paid to the manufacturer of like articles at home. Whether the advantages of modern civilization haye not proved more burdensome than beneficial is a theme for the philosopher and statesman.
The most visible indication of material improvement is in the turnpike sys- tem of the county. The first roads improved were the Milford and Chillicothe Road and the Hillsboro and Ripley Road. Congress, in 1836, having apportion- ed the surplus in the treasury among the States, the Ohio Legislature divided its portion among the counties. The act of the Legislature apportioning this fund, which was popularly known as the "Jackson Fund," among the counties,
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authorized its expenditure in a number of ways, one of them being by sub- scription to the capital stock of turnpike or railroad companies, and Highland county's part was devoted to aiding the two turnpike companies in construct- ing the roads named. The Milford and Chillicothe Road was a link in a long system connecting Cincinnati with the East, and the people of this county were interested in it, as it furnished an outlet to other than the local markets. The Ripley Road was a more purely local one, which by its completion would accomplish the same object by way of the Ohio River. The sum of $39,450 was subscribed to the Milford and Chillicothe Road and $7,500 to the Ripley Road. The fund was eventually all paid back to the State, so that the only direct ben- efit the county received from it was its temporary use at five per cent. interest. No money was ever received from the roads in the shape of dividends, and the investment was an entire loss, if viewed as a speculation or money-making scheme on the part of the county.
A few years ago the interest of the other stockholders was purchased by the county for the public use and the roads converted from toll to free roads. Both have since then been improved by the adjacent property own- ers, with the exception of a portion of the Milford and Chillicothe Road between Rainsboro and the bridge over Rocky Fork. This is the only Govern- · ment or State aid received by the county for public improvements. The ex- penditure in this case, however, proved to be a blessing in disguise. The only circulating medium at that time was the notes of State and other banks, which fluctuated so rapidly that a person who thought himself wealthy in the morning might find himself a pauper at night. Very little coin was in circulation in the county, and when a piece of it was secured it was religiously hoarded away. For some reason it was determined to pay the assessments on the stock subscribed to the turnpike companies in script, and by making this receivable for taxes, it at once became the most popular circulating medium in the county, which in supplying a great want caused by the scarcity of an acceptable currency, greatly aided iu business, and saved the people of the county from theheavy losses sustained in many other parts from the use of the notes of broken and worthless banks. For many years this was almost the only "money" used in the county. Although the total sum appropriated appears small, it must not be forgotten that it represented more than three times the entire collections of the county for taxes in 1840. An appropriation of one million dollars would not be comparatively larger at this time. The construction of these roads was of great convenience and benefit to the people of the country through which they passed, and was quite an undertaking at the time.
They were laid out sixty feet wide, and cleared of stumps, trees and logs -no small task in itself. Next they were graded, and the work done is equal to the best accomplished in recent years. Then they were covered with broken stone. As the material had to be hauled long distances over bad roads, and afterwards broken and placed on the road-bed, the cost was very great. Stone culverts were placed at the runs and ditches, and bridges over the larger streams. No figures can be procured at this day from which to learn the cost, but it was not less than $5,000 per mile. The Milford and Chillicothe Road became the thoroughfare from Chillicothe and Zanesville to Cincinnati, and continued to be so until the railroads changed this mode of travel. The merchants from all the larger places made annual trips by stage over this road and across the mount. ains by the National Road to Philadelphia and the East, where they laid in a year's supply of goods, to be sent home by wagon.
Nothing further was done in the way of building roads until about the year 1966, when the people of Sinking Springs and vicinity determined to build a
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road from that place over the old Maysville and Zanesville Road to the Pike county line. This was the first road built under the free turnpike laws of the State in the county. An assessment was levied according to benefits upon the land owners within a district extending two miles on each side of the proposed improvement, and the same placed upon the tax duplicate. In this case the property owners "worked out" their assessment on the improvement, making it in effect a voluntary contribution from all for the general benefit. From this time there was a general movement in the county for better roads, and by the + year 1876 roads had been completed or were rapidly approaching completion from Hillsboro to Belfast and Locust Grove, Hillsboro to Lexington, Hillsboro to Danville and Pricetown, Greenfield to Cynthiana, Greenfield to Carr's Ford, Greenfield to the county line, Greenfield to Centerfield, Samantha to Leesburg, Lynchburg to Dodsonville and Mccarthys, and Lexington to the county line. These roads were built under the same general act as that at Sinking Springs, and were macadamized, but the work was not so elaborate as that done on the Milford and Chillicothe Road, although it cost almost as much per mile. The discovery of gravel about this time in large quantities where before it was not known to exist gave new zest to the movement, and from then until the present more than two hundred miles of turnpike roads have been built, making the total aggregate of 341 miles of free macadamnized roads in the county. The total number of roads improved at present is sixty-eight. Two, the Milford and Chillicothe and the Ripley Roads, having been built by private corporations and afterwards purchased and made free by the county, twenty- one built under the "two mile law" and the remaining forty-five under the "one mile law," which is similar to the "two mile law" except in the extent of terri- tory included in the assessing district and that all persons within the bounds are assessed equally. The cost of this work has been very great. The expense of building the roads has not been less than three-quarters of a million dollars while the bridges and culverts have cost at least a half million more. There is not a principal road and but few by-roads of importance now unimproved, and it is possible at any season of the year to reach all parts of the county over roads better than are the streets of many cities far exceeding in numbers the popula- tion of the county. The advantage from these improvements has been so great that the cost has been scarcely a burden, and when in a short time it is entirely paid off the' returns will greatly compensate for the immediate trouble and labor of the work, and posterity for a long time will reap the benefits of the fore- sight and enterprise of the present generation.
There was nothing jejune about the religion of the pioneer preachers. It was of the positive kind and their sermonizing literally that of soldiers in the army of the church militant, who unweariedly wrestled with Satan not "until the breaking of the day," but all through life. The dangers from wild beasts and men, and the sufferings from exposure to the elements were not nearly so real to them as were the "roaring lion" and the sufferings of the damned in "the lake of fire." Hell was a positive reality, and its terrors were pictured to the congregations gathered at some lonely house or under the sylvan awning of the virgin forest in a manner and with a fervor more striking and terrifying than could have been done by the genius of a Milton or a Dante. "Flee from the wrath to come," was the refrain of their discourses, and on this text they played as upon a harp of a thousand strings. Fired with the zeal of martyrs, they earnestly believed in the terrible realness of the doctrines they taught. With homely illustration, quaint humor, and fervid imagination, they expounded the doctrines of a terrifying creed. A physical Heaven and Hell, a future exist- ence of rewards and punishments, a straight and narrow way to one and the
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broad and tempting one to the other, the efficacy of the vicarious atonement as a means of attaining the first, and the wiles and snares of the devil to seduce the unwary into the latter, constituted, with occasional denunciations of the "scarlet woman," the sum and substance of their preachings. It was a religion suited to their listeners, strong, vigorous, actual and positive. Creeds there were, and denominations, but the end was sought along the same well-blazed trace. Theories of the creation had not mystified them, scientists had not cast doubt upon the existence of Adam and Eve, Darwin had not announced the doctrine of evolution and aspersed the progenitors of the human race, nor philol- ogists discovered that Hades did not mean a place of unceasing torment. Pro- destination and foreordination, election and free will, were not subjects which troubled them. The changes in modes of worship and doctrines of religion as practiced and held to-day would appear as remarkable to them as the advances in the physical world.
Woman kept her place in the church as directed by St. Paul, and was rever- enced for her meck and gentle virtues. She ministered to the sick, tanght her children, kept her house, and while assisting with her labors in the struggles for existence amidst the wilds of nature, by her kindly deeds and brave heart made life possible to the pioneer. and preserved the morals and education of the com- munity and saved the settlers from drifting back into barbarism. To the men was left the conduct of affairs. She did not dabble in politics, nor attempt to regulate the conscience of the public, and was unknown as a moral or religions harangner; and with a modesty which perhaps might be becoming to some of her daughters, she was more interested in her home, her husband and her child- ren than she was in the notoriety and adulation so loved and sought by the demagogue.
The Presbyterians, who emigrated from the valley of Virginia, brought to this part of the country all the piety and bigotry of their homes, and soon the churches of Rocky Spring, Nazareth, Fall Creek and New Market were organ- ized. The discipline was rigid, and the history of its enforcement seems ludi- crous at this distance, although it was real enough at the time. Many of their descendants who hold their fidelity to the cause of temperance as a particular evidence of their zeal and earnestness in the cause of religion, would doubtless be surprised to know that persons had been expelled from the church for join- ing such a society a century ago. And those who speculate on the providence of God and gamble on their mortal existence by taking out policies in life in- surance companies, may not be aware that such a proceeding would have been considered by their grand-fathers a grievous offense, requiring admonition, and if contumaciously persisted in, expulsion from the communion of the church.
The pioneers were temperate in temperance. One of the officers in the church of Nazareth conducted a distillery on Clear Creek, and "bitters" before breakfast was as much a part of the daily habits of the preachers and the people as was the morning prayer. It is related that in an adjoining county one fine morning about the year 1811, a Presbyterian clergyman, an Elder in the church, and a Judge of the Court all chanced to meet, each with a gallon jug, which he had filled with whisky at the still-house of another Elder of the church, and it is said that the reason the other two judges who sat with the one mentioned were not also there was that they owned distilleries of their own and preferred their own brewing. The sin of intemperance then did not consist in the drink- ing, but in the getting drunk, and the distinction was preserved until within recent years. Lately, however, it is not made and temperance and teeto- talism are synonymous.
Many of the settlers had been owners of slaves before emigrating, and had man-
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umitted these after bringing them to Ohio. Others located land warrants in the Virginia Military District, and freeing their slaves placed them on the lands so secured. One notable case of this kind was that of one .Samuel Gist, who own- ed a great number of slaves and left a large estate. The slaves he freed, giving them certain tracts of land in Highland and Brown counties, and provided a fund to be handled by trustees for their assistance while clearing the lands and securing to themselves the benefits of freedom. The persons of this race brought to the county were therefore doubtless better than those remaining in slavery, and certainly had decided advantages in the means afforded to better their con- dition, but it is sad to relate that either from inherent mental weakness or con- stitutional perversity of disposition, they have failed miserably to meet the ex- pectation of their humanitarian friends. Almost without exception they have squandered the property given them and have sunk in two generations far lower in the scale than those now here who were freed by the general emanci- pation of 1863. It is not surprising, therefore, that the people of Highland . county should have taken an interest in the slavery question. It was on the line of the "Underground Railway," and regular stations were arranged where escaped slaves were received and provided for and hidden if necessary until they could be moved on to the next station, and so on until they were safely landed in Canada. So strong was this feeling that the Chillicothe Presbytery, which included this with a number of other counties, protested against the position taken by General Assembly on the question of slavery, holding that the Assembly was wrong in permitting communion and fellowship with persons owning slaves, and after many efforts to move that body, eventually declined to send commissioners to its meetings. Better counsels, however, prevailing, these ultra views were moderated to the extent of declining to sever connection with the body of the church, but protests and petitions were prepared and presented with constant persistency for many years.
On the question of secret societies, this church gave fortli no uncertain sound. A people who could discipline and suspend Elder William Wilson, of Rocky Spring Church, for "the improper use of the lot" in tossing a chip to de- cide which of two parties of men should first dine, would not be likely to look favorably on secret societies, and as early as 1831, they decided that a connection with the Masonic fraternity "was unlawful and inexpedient," and in 1853 they resolved "that this Presbytery would again declare its opinion that Masonry and Odd Fellowship are unchristian and sinful in principle and practice," and such remained the law until 1867, when it was modified to a statement of the the belief that "we have reason to fear there are some features in these socie- ties called religious, that do not harmonize with the gospel system, and there- fore we advise our church members to have no connection with them." That the religious features of these societies do harmonize with the gospel system, or that people prefer those features to the gospel system is evident when it is con- sidered that both orders named are very strong in the county, the Masons having a few years since erected a handsome edifice for a temple, and the Odd Fellows having in its membership many of the best and most devoutly Christian citizens.
The liberalizing of the sentiments of the Presbyterians was not brought about without a great deal of earnest discussion on both sides, and the like ques- tions were met and discussed by other congregations, so that the changes in the one may be accepted as an example of all the religious bodies having churches in the county. Truly the world has advanced, when the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the year of grace 1889, shall so concede the possibil -; ity of error as to submit to the Presbyteries the question of the advisability of
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modifying the Confession of Faith on those tried and tested articles, election and justification.
The Methodist Church was the church of the pioneer, and under the leader- ship of such men as Peter Cartwright it grew like a green bay tree until in numbers it far surpassed any other in the rural districts. While itineracy was common to all denominations in the early stages of the settlement of Ohio, it was not a part of the church discipline of any except this one; in all others the preacher being as quickly as possible settled in charge of a single society. This and a missionary or proselyting spirit, combined with the practice of holding camp-meetings and "revivals," and a more liberai church government, gave the Methodists an advantage over others. Quite a number of those who expounded the gospel in this section, and whose memory is yet held in respectful remem- brance, are mentioned by Scott in this volume. Owing to the transitory char- acter of their ministry, few of their successors are generally known to the pres- ent generation.
In moral as well as material progression, Highland county has not been slotliful. The appraisers of real estate in 1880 reported 101 church editices in the county, of a value, including grounds, of $139,226; and the decennial appraise- ment of 1890 will show an increase in number and value. No data is obtain- able from which to arrive at an estimate of the sum annually devoted to the maintenance of religion by the people of the county, but it is very large. This chapter might be extended to much greater length in the illustration of the proposition that the world has made very rapid and great strides toward a higher civilization during the last half of the Nineteenth Century. People are more intelligent, better educated, enjoy more of the comforts of life, and have more liberal habits of thought than they had fifty years ago. Their moral tone is more elevated, and their religion more charitable and humanitarian. The pro- gress made in labor-saving devices affords the farmers and residents of rural sections greater leisure time to devote to reading and study, and no longer is it customary to find the Bible, and an agricultural report or two, the only books in their libraries. The opportunities offered by the public school system for acquiring an education, and an ambition on the part of many youths to secure the still further advantages of the High Schools, have given the farming popu- lation of the State a class of thinking men of advanced and progressive ideas. The majority of the people who settled Highland county were not constitution- ally energetic, and only necessity furnished the incentive to their labors. They have quickly taken advantage of the chances to shift the burden of continual toil and devoto themselves to mental improvement. This disposition, and the character of the country, has led them largely to the raising of cattle, horses and sheep, and to the cultivation of orchards and the production of small fruits and vegetables. A tabulated statement of the amount and value of the annual productions of the county, and a comparison with surrounding counties, while it might be interesting, is not within the scope this chapter. It is sufficient to say that in all that goes to make up the sum of human happiness, the people of the county enjoy advantages equal, at least, to those of any other portion of the State. In closing, it may not be improper to add that while Daniel Scott might not have been willing to say with Horace, Fregi monumentin dere per- enning, he as little thought that his writings would prove a ver- itable store-house, from which every one who attempted a history of the county would draw liberally, and usually withont rendering credit. . The most braven instance of this sort of theft is fonod in a pretentious volume misnamed a "His- tory of Ross and Highland Conn ies, Ohio," published by Williams Bros., of Cleveland, Ohio, in 1850. There is scarcely an incident related in it of the
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early settlement of either county that is not stolen bodily and without credit, or garbled in an attempt to rewrite it, from Scott's writings. While his sketches remained in their scattered form, it may not have been considered a very great sin to steal from him, but now that these homeless waifs of his brain have been gathered together and given an acknowledged parent, it is to be hoped that those who in future may write histories for pay, will have the courtesy to render eredit to one who, though long since dead, lives in the memories of many who in his life-time respected him for his ability as a writer and his care as a historian, and mourn him dead as a departed friend.
HILLSBORO, OHIO, January 1st, 1890.
R. M. DITTEY.
CHAPTER I.
THE DESTRUCTION OF HANAHSTOWN -WHERE THE PIONEERS EMIGRATED FROM-PETER PATRICK'S ADVENTURE AND THE FIRST SETTLEMENT IN THE STATE-SOMETHING OF THE MAGNITUDE OF THE ENTERPRISE AND DANGERS INCURRED BY THE EMIGRANTS WHO CAME BY THE OHIO)- GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF HIS LABORS TOLD BY COLONEL WILLIAM KEYS.
ple, had not manifested itself to any '1 THE spirit of emigration, now so ed no charins to the hardy sons of the characteristic of the American peo- forest. They collected all these togeth- er, ripped open the ticks and consigned comparative extent, in the old thirteen the contents to the little river that States prior to the close of the Revolu- flowed by, after which, with one pris- tion. Sufficient territory was contain-
oner and a considerable drove of ed within their boundaries for the lim- horses, heavily ladened with plunder, ited agricultural purposes of the in- they inade off, leaving the denizens of habitants, and, up to the period of the the once promising village of Hanahs- commencement of their troubles with town utterly destitute-clothing, kiteh- the parent country, they seem to have en furniture, farming utensils, grain. been contented with the homes, which an occupancy by them and their ances- tors, of more than a hundred years, had rendered dear to their hearts. Most of
provisions-everything, including their houses, but themselves, their wives and children, was gone. So they had temporarily to break up the settlement
these old States, it is true, had their and take the women and children back border lines and their frontier settle- to their friends in the eastern part of ments, which were comparatively new the State. This is but one of many in- and exposed to the dangers incident to stances that could be given, illustrative outposts beyond which extends the of the school in which the pioneers of wilderness home of the treacherous Kentucky and Ohio were trained; for and blood-thirsty savage. The stories most of those who first emigrated West of Indian warfare along the Susque- were of this class-the frontier men of hanna and the massacre of the inhabit- their own State. Only two years after ants of the lovely valley of Wyoming, the burning of Hanahstown several of and other similar incidents in that the families who witnessed, from the beautiful but unfortunate region, have block houses, the reckless destruction been recorded by the pen of the histori- whichleft them homeless and destitute, an and embalmed in deathless verse of emigrated to Kentucky. the poet; with them, therefore, the
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