USA > Ohio > Coshocton County > Centennial history of Coshocton County, Ohio, Vol. I > Part 5
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Foremost among the frontiersmen and recorded as the first white
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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY
settler in what is now Coshocton County was the bluff, hearty, hail- fellow-well-met Charley Williams, roving from Virginia and locating here in 1799. The date is from his autobiographical sketch, the orig- inal manuscript of which passed into the possession of Joseph Miser of Keene. Mr. Williams' writing and his private ideas of spelling were deciphered by Mr. James R. Johnston. The document by Mr. Williams is dated August 25, 1831, and his notation therein regarding thirty-two years' residence in Coshocton would indicate his arrival here in 1799. This incident of the date has its bearing on a subsequent historical experience of a French king in Coshocton.
"I ben a man of strong mind but no larnen and fought it to the last," Williams declared with engaging frankness. According to his own account early life on the border was a round of "injin" killing, whisky trading, fur-selling, and high living, dancing, card-playing, horse-racing and spending money as fast as it was made. Speaking of his fiancee, Miss Susanna Carpenter, he wrote:
"I had to steel hur a way and wee was poor onable to get lisens for want of mony but all Cam right thar was a jestes of the pes in virginy and hee agread to mary mee for a buckskin and wee went over the river in Ohio thar wee got mared on a big rock in the woodes." The narrative continues that some of the wedding guests went bare- footed, and that at the dance afterward "som bar footed."
When at thirty-five Williams came up the Muskingum with his wife and two children, they camped for a season in an open spot in the wilderness, named after its eastern owner, Denman's prairie, a few miles up the Walhonding. The following year they came down to the forks, selecting the same bank of the Muskingum where the Delaware capital had stood. Williams started a salt works.
Other settlers were coming. The woodman's ax rang through the forest. Log cabins rose in little clearings here and there over this region. The bear-killing, deer-killing, pone-eating life of the white man had begun, mixed with much corn planting, cattle raising, whisky trading, and some Indian killing.
For travelers passing this way there were tavern accommoda- tions in the rambling log cabin of Charley Williams, under whose hos- pitable roof the lively-spirited made merry over cup and song, while the dancing few shuffled over the rough floor to the tremulous strains of the fiddle and
HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY
"First couple right ; ladies swing out ; Gents swing in, swing out and promenade. Doe, doe, gents, slow ; Doe, ce, ladies, don't you know !"
Shuffle-shuffle went the feet. The back-woodsmen put in all their fancy steps, Charley Williams most frolicsome of all. The pace was hot. The skirts of the pioneer daughters swished through the air to the vibrant music and
"Balance the next; three hands round; Ladies swing out ; and gents swing in : Three hands out and go it ag'in ; Gents swing out and go it ag'in."
In the breathing spell one night while the "gents" smiled and breathed hard and the ladies looked moist and happy the tavern door was flung open. All eyes turned to the stranger on the threshold.
He was dressed in black from head to foot. A fold of his long cloak was held back by the gauntleted hand resting on his hip. Though he had but one attendant the man in black wore an air of consequence as though he boasted a train of courtly followers. His manner jarred on the democratic simplicty of the landlord.
"Supper," the stranger ordered curtly.
While the guest was served, the landlord's aversion, formed in- stinctively, did not diminish. Nor was the dislike one-sided. The stranger, haughtily disdaining any condescension to commonplace conversation, steadfastly held aloof. But soon his caustic comment on the accommodations of the tavern reached Williams, and the blood of the southerner rose. There was a short, sharp exchange of hot words. The man in black rose abruptly, nearly overturning the table.
"Plebian!" he sneered. "I'll not bandy words with you."
"This is my house," bristled Williams. "If you don't like it thar's the door."
The stranger looked him over, head to foot, and shrugged his contempt.
"Bah!" was his only comment.
Williams came closer.
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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY
"I don't care what devilish trash you are," and the knuckles of his fist whitened. "I'll not be attacked by every stinkin' upstart that comes to our country !"
The onlookers were expectant. The stranger rested his con- temptuous gaze on the landlord, then shifted it to the guests as he announced coolly :
"I am Louis Philippe-the heir to the French throne."
Whatever of surprise the exiled prince of singular vicissitudes may have expected to follow his announcement there was one hearer who refused to be nonplussed or impressed.
"King of France-what of it?" Williams retorted. "We're all kings here! And I'll show you."
With that he threw open the door. There was no mistaking the hint. The royal visitor from France saw there was no alternative. With another shrug he passed out of the tavern. It is even said, in the brief chronicle from which this account has been somewhat embel- lished, that the royal exit was assisted by the toe of "King Charley's" boot, while the sovereigns looking on cheered.
There has been some skepticism over the visit of Louis Philippe to Coshocton. It is known that the prince sailed from New York for England just before 1800, the year which some have recorded as the date of Charley Williams' arrival in this region. However, accepting the earlier date of 1799 as the year of "King Charley's" coming, it requires no stretch of the imagination to view his tavern in full blast on the banks of the Muskingum at the time of the titled Frenchman's travels through the American wilderness.
Whether or not the prince's Coshocton experience with demo- cratic sovereignty instilled any of those ideas of advanced political liberalism which he afterward took with him to the throne is perhaps open to speculation. But that the king cherished some resentment toward the keeper of a tavern at the forks was told in after years by George W. Silliman, one-time lawyer of Coshocton, who went abroad as the bearer of dispatches when his grandfather, Major Cass, was in the diplomatic service. Silliman said that, in conversation with Louis Philippe, the king recalled that he had been "shabbily treated" at the tavern which from the description given was believed to be Williams' inn at Coshocton.
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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY
No more picturesque stage setting presents itself in all the drama of pioneer Coshocton than the inns which greeted travelers in those early years. It was not long until houses of public entertainment ap- peared every few miles along the new highways and at river ferries. One was "The Blue Ball" on the Cadiz road in what is now Oxford Township. Another in that direction held forth at the sign of George Washington on a white charger. "The Black Horse" inn was in Franklin Township on the road from Zanesville. There were several on the road along the Walhonding.
"King Charley's" tavern at the forks was the social and political center, and the nearest approach to a newspaper. Genial, whole-souled Charley Williams was popular, even more so after the episode of the French king. Conscious always of his own deficiencies he learned what reading and writing he could from William Whitten. This blacksmith-tutor was elected the first justice of the peace. The elec- tion was characteristic. The settlement here had risen to the need of some government. A dozen men met in the tavern at "King Char- ley's" invitation. Nobody could buy. It was the "king's" treat. They toasted him and severally toasted one another. When all were in a highly receptive mood for the consideration of candidates the host nominated his choice and the guests whooped unanimous approval.
"You call that an election!" exclaimed Richard Fowler, who had been looking on.
"It's good enough for them," grinned Williams.
This region was originally included in Washington County, which embraced eastern Ohio in the territorial days. Later Wash- ington was divided into numerous counties. One was Muskingum which included this.
April 1, 1811, Coshocton County was organized by the Legisla- ture then in session at Zanesville. It included a part of what is now Holmes until that county organized thirteen years afterward.
Concerning the meaning of the name Coshocton this interesting contribution is offered by Thomas H. Johnson, chief consulting engi- neer of the Pennsylvania Lines: In the Delaware tongue "Cush" is bear; "Cush-og" black bear and "Wenk" is town. In Central Penn - sylvania the word survives in the names of several streams in the fol- lowing forms: Cush Creek, Bear Creek; Cushian Creek, Cub Creek: Cush-Cushian, Bear and Cub Creek. The terminal "Wenk" was An-
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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY
glicized by the early settlers, and the place became known as Cush-og- town, from which is derived the later form, Coshocton.
The United States government awarded tracts of land in Ohio to soldiers of the Revolution. Some tracts remaining were ordered sold by Congress. Coshocton County was in the military land district. Among the earliest settlers were soldiers of the Revolution.
Title to the land here is traced back three hundred years, through copies of the earliest documents on record, by Solomon Mercer, ab- stractor, whose desk incidentally with a separate drawer for each town- ship is a map of Coshocton County. Mr. Mercer's records covering this county begin with the first charter of Virginia, 1606, and continue through the treaty between Great Britain and the United States, 1783, with George III's relinquishment of all claims to the States; the ces- sion from Virginia to the United States, 1784; the Land Ordinance; the act of Congress, 1796, regulating the granting of land for military service and for the Society of the United Brethren "for propagating the gospel among the heathen."
Four thousand acres at the forks were granted in 1800 to Elijah Backus of Marietta. President John Adams signed the deed. Backus sold the tract in 1801 to those well-known surveyors, John Matthews and Ebenezer Buckingham, Jr., for $10,000. These early residents, April 30, 1802, laid out on paper the town lots and streets for the place growing around "King Charley's" tavern. They named it Tus- carawa. The Legislature changed the name to Coshocton, January 30, 18II, when the plan of the town was established.
Williams' tavern stood in what is now Water Street, at the north- east corner of Chestnut. It faced the river, its friendly light guid- ing the ferryman in the night. In time a two-story frame addition was built to the log house, and the long, rambling structure was still standing until twenty years ago.
Williams was accompanied here by his brothers-in-law, the Car- penters, and William and Samuel Morrison who went to Holmes County. A brother of Williams was also early on the ground, along with Isaac and Henry Hoagland, with their families; Buckingham's father and sister: William Scritchfield and daughter who married George Mccullough, probably the first pioneer wedding here.
Primitive Coshocton started bravely to justify the faith of its founders. Back in Philadelphia at the time of the military land rush
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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY
when Elijah Backus drew this prize the surveyors bought it from him as the best town site in the district.
A flourishing town rose on this flourishing frontier, instinct with the spirit of Americanism, the new life challenging the old, the new land of men and women who could dare and do, the new Coshocton with no Yesterday, only Today and the promise of Tomorrow. The game of civilization was on. The optimism of the hour rang from the anvil and blazed from the iron under every swing of Asher Hart's strong arm. It echoed in Tom Evans' shoe shop, Zebedee Baker's saddler shop, Abe Sells' furniture shop, and Joe Neff's tailor shop. It bustled in Jim Calder's store, hummed in J. Fulton's mill, and smelled to high heaven in Andy Lybarger's tannery. It paraded in Wilson McGowan's gold-headed cane and pig-tailed wig, and rustled in the law papers of Aaron Church and Wright Warner. It quick-stepped in Adam Johnston, that hustler of them all, the storekeeper and post- master who married "King Charley's" daughter, became the county's first recorder and clerk of courts, and served as all-round official; his son, William A. Johnston, saw marvelous changes in eighty-five years until the end in 1908; his grandson, Paul B. Johnston, is lieutenant of police in Coshocton.
A thing unknown today was early Coshocton's experience with a malarial condition. There was an ague epidemic, and half the town had chills and fever. Wherefore the arrival of Dr. Samuel Lee in 18II was welcomed.
The country round began changing from howling wilderness to cultivated acres. The story of first families was the story of log-cabin life. Among those near town were the Cantwells, Fultons, Moores, J. Workman, and the ferrymen John Noble and Benjamin Fry. Be- fore them Isaac and Henry Evans, Charles and Esaias Baker were the first white men to plant corn along the Tuscarawas about 1801, at what is now Orange. Seth and Thomas McClain were in Lafayette Township, 1804, also Thomas Wiggins, and in 1806 George Miller.
On what is now the Haight farm near Roscoe, Henry Miller, a soldier of the Revolution, located with six sons in 1806.
In nearby Franklin Township was a dash of the Virginia spirit which radiated southern hospitality and good cheer. That was in the home of Major William Robinson, who had been led captive through here by Logan twenty-seven years before. When he came to Franklin
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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY
Township in 1801 his son Benjamin accompanied him. Later came three other sons and six daughters. More 1801 pioneers in the neigh- borhood were Michael Miller and his family.
On Denman's "prairie" in Bethlehem Township were James Craig and Ira Kimberly in 1801. John Bantham, a Marylander in the Rev- olution, and Henry Carr reached that section in 1806. Other early settlers were William Speaks who served in the Revolution, Samuel Rea and Andrew Wilson in the War of 1812, Joseph Burrell and Adam Markley.
Virginia's representation among first families included the Dar- lings in the Walhonding Valley, 1806, whose neighbors were the But- lers, the Merediths, the Giffens, Duncans, Elys, Pigmans, Johns,, Coxes and John Elder.
Two Virginians, Garrett Moore and James Oglesby, were early in Keene Township, preceding the New Englanders. East of Canal Lewisville was the home of the McGuires.
Along Wills Creek in 1806 were the Miskimens, the McCunes of Revolutionary stock, and the Addys, contemporaneous with the Oxford Township pioneers: the Wolfes, the Leighningers, the Waggoners, Mulvains and Loos family.
About the same time the McCoys, Wrights, Norrises and Tiltons were in Virginia Township; the Ashcrafts, Hardestys, Chalfants and Croys in the southwest; and the Drapers of Virginia in the northwest.
Early in the nineteenth century the Wolfords, the Haines and James families arrived in Bedford Township; while in Adams Town- ship, then a part of Oxford, were Robert Corbit, William Norris, Rob- ert McFarland and John Baker, founder of Bakersville.
But it means pages to name the county's early settlers, so else- where between these covers the ancestral roll has a place of its own. They were the earliest of the wilderness conquerors, men in a world of new-found freedom. Theirs was the fighting chance: the chains of British bondage had been broken; here as freemen they were to prove themselves empire-builders in the heart of the forest, by sheer strength of might.
The militant spirit found vent in militia organization. Very soon after their arrival they formed companies. Colonel Charles Williams was in command. In 1809 there were first and second battalions of the second regiment, fourth brigade, third division of the Ohio militia.
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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY
When these were on parade we may well believe all Coshocton and his Wife and his Daughter were there to see and admire the lines "For- ward right-Quick MARCH-Oblique left-Halt-Dress!" and to applaud as the battalion wheeled, right-about faced, and charged the mimic enemy on the run. Of course, as there always has been in mi! itary drill and ever will be, they had their awkward squads and the raw recruit who would stare straight ahead at a pretty face while a purple-faced commander shrieked "Eyes left!" Something of a de- spairing pang that he never could master the intricacies of the back step, side step, change step, or support-ARMS! runs through the statement of David Wolgamot in the record: "I do hereby resign my commission as lieutenant because I am too big a fool in the military.'
Generally speaking our early Coshoctonian was a good shot, liked the dance, had his social glass, and relished sport. They went in for horse racing, and over a straightaway course, now Fifth Street, Peter Casey's "Whistle Jacket" and "Highflyer" and Colonel Wil- liams' "Medley" made the dirt fly.
The first court in the county was held in 1811 on the second floor of "King Charley's" tavern. Doubtless, after the court had "taken in" evidence at the bar below, the judicial ascent up the outdoor stairs was attended with becoming gravity. By grace of the Legislature and the old constitution, three citizens served as associate judges on the common pleas bench in those days, along with the president judge who was the only one expected to know the law. He was absent the first session in Coshocton. The three associates were there-Peter Casey, Isaac Evans and William Mitchell. Their commissions from the Legislature were there, bedizened with all the impressive verbiage of legal ponderosity. Adam Johnston was there, and they forthwith appointed him clerk. Notwithstanding all the machinery of the law there, the temple of justice was without a case. Some one discovered the court could order elections for justices of the peace, which solemn duty was painstakingly performed, and court adjourned.
Later that year, at the second term, the docket swelled with three cases. Two were dismissed. One was continued, proof that even in those times justice was initiated into the law's delays. Thomas L. Rue was appointed temporary clerk. The first grand jury was im- paneled as follows: James Tanner, foreman, James Craig, Benjamin Fry, Samuel Clark, Samuel Hardesty, John Hanson, Isaac Workman,
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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY
Charles Miller, Michael Miller, Philip Waggoner, W. Miller, Francis McGuire, Henry Miller and John Mills. These fourteen men good and true reported "No business." Court appointed William Lockard county surveyor, and adjourned.
At the December term there was a suit for $9.56 by Charles Williams against Adam Markley. "King Charley" retained Zanes- ville counsel, Lewis Cass, who won the verdict of the county's first petit jury-John D. Moore, Frederick Wolford, William Beard, John Hanson, John G. Pigman, H. Ballentine, Philip Wolfe, George Smith, John Bantham, W. Miller, John McKearn and Elijah Moore. Court appointed Wright Warner prosecuting attorney for the county. Fights and slander suits were filling the docket.
The whipping-post was here. Passing counterfeit money cost one man thirty-nine lashes across his bare back, besides $20 fine and thirty days in jail. This jail of oak logs was built by Adam Johnston where the present courthouse stands. Cornelius P. Van Kirk was the first sheriff.
Whatever of religious observance there was in those first years little survived in the public memory and nothing at all in current chronicles, save that an occasional traveling minister gave a talk at a home meeting. "There was not a praying family in the town in 1810," wrote the Rev. Mr. Calhoun. For a while after that, the Rev. Timothy Harris, a Congregationalist, held occasional meetings in people's cabins.
The schoolmaster arrived early. Israel H. Baker taught in Franklin Township in 1806. About that time boys and girls up the Walhonding were writing with a quill and spelling through a reader. Joseph Harris was teaching near the Evans settlement up the Tus- carawas. "King Charley" sent his daughter up there. She was a girl of dash and spirit who liked a swift gallop over the Indian trail through the forest. She knew the saddle before she was in her teens. It was her mission, before Coshocton had a mill, to ride six miles into the country for a sack of grain and take it to Zanesville. When Adam Johnston won her for his bride, her schoolmaster came here from the country to sharpen the quills and intellect of young Co- shocton.
A benevolent joke wandered into town from the East one day, his head topped with a tin can, Happy Hooligan style, his eager desire
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BASS FISHING IN MIDDLE BASIN, COSHOCTON
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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY
to help humanity beaming large as the patch on his knee. As Happy would express it he "wouldn't hoit a fly." He carried apple seeds found around Pennsylvania cider presses, and planted them here and there along his route through the wilderness. He planted a nursery in New Castle Township and Tiverton Township, returning at inter- vals from long trips to care for the young trees and sell them to set- tlers. "Johnny Appleseed" they called him. But back in the East he had been John Chapman, which was a time he wanted to forget along with a romance and a disappointment.
And the pioneer life moved on, the new country in the making- a victory of peace wrested from the forest by stout hands that cracked and crinkled and brave hearts that knew no despair. Then a shadow darkened the cabin homes. Grave-faced men gathered at "King Charley's" tavern and counciled over news of war.
Their old enemy's hand was raised against them. British in- trigues among the Indians to strangle the young republic and yoke it again to the king's dominion were aggravated by British searching of ships to capture American citizens. The war of 1812 found vol- unteers in plenty from Coshocton County.
At that day hostile Delawares and Shawanees had gone westward to the Maumee country where Tecumseh was inciting them to recover lands lost by the Wayne treaty, but Harrison dealt them a finishing stroke in the battle of Tippecanoe on the Wabash.
A camp of Delawares and Mohawks near Mansfield was ordered to move. The Indians protested against leaving their home. Colonel Williams and his Coshocton troops were on their way to the front. An Indian was killed. A few days afterward eight settlers were tomahawked.
"Johnny Appleseed" rushed from Mansfield down the Wal- honding Valley through Coshocton County to warn the settlers. The tin can fell off his head unheeded. A bareheaded, barefooted Paul Revere he was now, on a day and night run. He pounded on cabin doors, panting and almost breathless, calling out with gasping pauses between words, "Fly !- Fly for your lives !- Indians are murdering and scalping-at Mansfield!" Then away he dashed. Yet the inci- dent had its grotesque features, painfully serious as it was. Families fled precipitately from cabins to block-houses, peering cautiously
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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY
around corners and waiting with leveled guns for the enemy that never came.
Colonel Williams' command was detailed to protect the Mansfield frontier. The "Washingtonian Yellow Jacket Riflemen" they were called, and in their white-fringed, yellow hunting shirts, with knap- sacks and rifles slung over shoulders, and powder horns filled from the saltpetre caves near Roscoe, they marched to the music of fife and drum. Captain Isaac Meredith commanded a company, Captain Tanner another, Captain Beard a third, and the fourth mustered as follows-the only roll preserved :
ADAM JOHNSTON, CAPTAIN.
WILLIAM MORRISON, Lieutenant
ABRAHAM MILLER, Ensign
THOMAS FOSTER, First Sergeant
JOHN M. MILLER, Second Sergeant
FREDERICK MARKLEY, Third Sergeant
ROBERT CULBERTSON, Fourth Sergeant
JOHN H. MILLER, First Corporal
ZEBEDEE BAKER, Second Corporal
JOHN M. BANTHAM, Third Corporal JOHN D. MOORE, Fourth Corporal PRIVATES
SAMUEL MORRISON
JAMES WINDERS
EDWARD MILLER
JOHN McKEARN
ISAAC M. MILLER
WINDLE MILLER
MICHAEL MILLER
JOHN MILLER
ISAAC HOAGLAND ISAAC MILLER
GEORGE ARNOLD GEORGE MCCULLOUGH
JAMES BUCKLEW
DANIEL MILLER
JOHN BAKER
JOSEPH MCFARLAND
MATTHEW BONAR ANDREW LYBARGER
JOSEPH NEFF HENRY CARR
ALLEN MOORE MATTHEW WILLIAMS
BENJAMIN WORKMAN THOMAS L. RUE, Sutler
JOHN STEERMAN
DR. S. LEE, Mustering-in Surgeon
Fragmentary information regarding men who served from this county supplies the following names of
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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY
OTHER SOLDIERS IN THE WAR OF 1812
RICHARD FOWLER
JOHN GLENN
PETER MOORE
JAMES WILLIAMS
CHARLES MILLER
LEVI MAGNESS
THOMAS JOHNSON
GEORGE MAGNESS
RICHARD JOHNSON
JOHN PORTMESS
ANDREW McCLAIN
DUGAN PATTERSON
SAMUEL ELSON
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