USA > Ohio > Licking County > Centennial history of Licking County, Ohio > Part 4
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OUR PIONEERS-THER CHARACTERISTICS.
The Pioneer inhabitants of Licking County were not a homo- geneous people, but were composed of a number of different nation- alities, and of immigrants from many different States of the Union, and from various sections of our country. North and South Caro- lina, Maryland and Virginia were the chief Southern States that con- tributed settlers to our County, the two latter most largely. Pennsyl- vania certainly furnished her full quota to our stock of carly-time inhabitants-perhaps more in the aggregate, than any other single State. Massachusetts and Connecticut did their share, and so did Wales; and the German speaking countries of Europe, (although the Teutonics came somewhat later, ) furnished us with more than a tithe of our present population. The proportion of German and Welsh residents of Licking County may be approximately inferred, by the number of religious organizations maintained by them, respectively: the Germans having six, and the Welsh five. The other one hundred and twenty-seven were established by the English speaking races. Only three languages, therefore, are employed in the pulpit ministrations of our County, except what of the Latin language is used in the Catholic Churches.
Our first settlers were, for the most part, a hardy, vigorous race of men,and eminently adapted to the circumstances which characterize life on the frontiers. Some, on emergencies, made out to live, for a short time, in hollow sycamores, many domiciled in small huts built of saplings or poles, whilst most of them lived in log-cabins covered with clab-boards. A few were able to secure hewed log-houses with shingle roofs. Constant labor, unremitting toil, much exposure, and many privations and perils were their lot; but they endured all cheer- fully, nobly. They perseveringly felled the forest, they tilled with persistence and energy, the half cleared fields around their cabins; they braved with courage and hope, the perils and privations incident to their condition, and their successors have entered into the enjoy- ment of those early years' toils, exposures and struggles, luxuriating in elegant and well-furnished frame houses, or in more substantial and stately brick or stone edifices.
And what further of the descendants, the posterity of the Pioneers? Let the annual products of our County, their horses, their cattle, their sheep and swine, their corn and wheat, their wool and manufactures, the payment by them annually, of more than three hundred thousand dollars of taxes, answer for their industry, their
,
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frugality, their prosperity. Let the forty millions of the estimated value of their property respond as to their material wealth-their financial condition. Let their University, their Seminaries, their half dozen or more Union Schools, their two hundred and ten School houses answer as to their estimate of educational interests. Let the aggregate amount of their associated efforts, looking to the improve- ment of their material condition, to the cultivation of the social virtues, to the training of the intellectual faculties, to the promotion of Benevo- lence, to the practice of Charity, and all the moral virtues, speak out their appreciation of those qualities that largely constitute the elements of genuine manhood. And further in this connection, let the one hundred and thirty-eight churches they have erected, indicate to the world the measure of importance they attach to Bible instruc- tion-the value they place upon the ministrations of the Christian Pulpit-the importance they attach to the inculcation of the moral virtues-the obligations they acknowledge thereby, to perpetuate the Christian Institutions established by their fathers-and their appreci- ation of the duty to cherish the graces pertaining to the HIGHER LIFE.
INCIDENTS.
In the further development of our County's history, I present very briefly a few prominent incidents, facts, and events that are part and parcel of the history of our County, followed by very short personal sketches of those who exerted a potential influence in the formation of our habits, customs and general line of thought, and thus intimately connected themselves, for good or evil with our County's history.
JUDGE ELLIOTT AND THE INDIANS.
Towards the close of the last century, an adventurous young Pennsylvanian, of more than ordinary enterprise located himself as an Indian trader, on the point of high land that juts out into the first bottom of the Licking Valley, known as Montour's Point, and upon which stands the mansion of Charles Montgomery, four miles East of Newark, near the Bowling Green Run, and also in sight of where after- wards Hughes and Ratliff' built their cabins. Montour's Point was named in honor of the Seneca Indian, Andrew Montour, whose name will be recalled as that of the companion of Christopher Gist in his
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Western travels in 1751. Here Elliott, the trader, had temporarily established himself in a small hut or wigwam, for money-making purposes, as a dealer in such goods as he might be able to trade to the Indians of the village adjoining, and to such casual wanderers as might come along, for their skins and peltry. Elliott prospered for a time, but one day a friendly squaw notified him of a plot that had been concocted by some indians to take his scalp and appropriate his effects. He took in the situation at a glance, and with commendable haste, gathered together his most valuable trinkets and furs, and secretly mounting his horse, made, with all possible speed, upon the most direct "trail," for the white settlements on the East side of the Ohio river! The savages were in hot pursuit of him, nearly the en- tire distance, and he barely escaped with his life. The thievish Indians confiscated his goods which in his haste, he left behind, but they never secured his scalp. Elliott was probably the first merchant within the territory now composing Licking County, and Archibald Wilson, Jr., was the second. Elliott, afterwards known as Judge Elliott, was the father of the late Benjamin Elliott, of Newton Town- ship.
ELIAS HUGHES AND THE INDIAN HORSE THIEVES.
In ISO1, several Indians went to the Bowling Green and stole four horses, owned respectively by Hughes, Ratliff, Bland and Weedman. Next morning the pursuit of the thieves was commenced by the three first named with the avowed intention to kill them, if possible, where- ever found. The result was the Indian thieves were overtaken the next morning on the banks of the Owl Creek, and killed, the horses were recovered and a speedy and safe return was effected by the pursuers. Retaliation was anticipated, and to meet the emergency the cabin of Hughes was so strengthened as to serve the purpose of a block-house, but there was no attack. One evening, however, after the excitement had measurably subsided, two well-armed Indians entered Hughes' cabin, and in a menacing manner introduced the matter of killing those horse thieves. Bloody work seemed im- minent and Ratliff' was sent for who instantly responded, rifle in hand. Hughes always had a butcher-knife in his belt and his trusty rifle was at hand! An all-night interview between the backwoodsmen and the infuriated red men, who were sometimes engaged in spirited discussions, was the only result, the latter deeming it expedient to retire
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at early dawn, without any hostile act, and never repeated the visit or sought revenge.
Elias Hughes was a man of marked characteristics. He had determination, self-will and firmness, even to mulishness, when the Red Skins were in question. When he said a thing must be done, and he could do it, or cause it to be done, why then it was done. He had decided that the horse thief Indians must be killed and they were. To be overtaken in this case was to be killed!
AN EARLY-TIME SUNDAY IN NEWARK.
In the Summer of 1803, Rev. John Wright a young Presbyterian Minister who was in the service of the Western Missionary Society, visited Newark. He came on Saturday and arranged for preaching two sermons the next day. During the forenoon services, a horse race was in progress, which attracted much the largest number of the village and surrounding country people. In the afternoon how- ever, the horse-racers to a great extent, and others attended, making a very respectable congregation, for numbers, at least. The Minis- ter gave them a sharp pointed discourse on the observance of the Sabbath which elicited commendatory remarks, at its close, from one of the audience at whose suggestion the hat was passed around which resulted in a collection of seven dollars.
In 1804 Rev. John Wright located in Fairfield County, and ministered to a few scattered Presbyterians for two years. These he gathered into the Lancaster and Rush Creek Churches in 1806, and being not far off, he often visited and preached in Newark. He re- mained in Lancaster more than thirty years, and died in Delphi, Indiana, August 31, 1854, aged 77 years.
ENEMIES OF THE EARLY SETTLERS.
Our early settlers found formidable enemies in the venomous serpents as well as the wild animals and ferocious beasts of the forest, and in the birds of prey that abounded while yet this country was a wilderness. Serpents were most to be feared by man, but wild beasts were the natural enemies of young domestic animals, and birds of prey of the poultry of the pioneers. The rattle-snake, the copper- head, the viper were most dangerous, but the black-snake, the garter- snake and the water-snake were probably the most numerous. They often entered the cabins and beds of the settlers, and were a serious
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annoyance, many persons and domestic animals being bitten by them. They were of large size, one rattle-snake having been killed, down the Licking, which was five feet in length, three inches thick and had thirty-one rattles. A den of snakes on the south side of the Licking became so annoying in 1803 that the settlers resorted to gun- powder to destroy them.
So numerous were snakes about Granville, when first settled, and so formidable an enemy to man were they, that the settlers fre- quently turned out in force to kill them. On one occasion the people there organized a general Snake hunt by appointing Elias Gilman and Justin Hillyer Captains, and it is said that the result of the days' hunt was the destruction of about three hundred rattle-snakes and copperheads.
In the Autumn of ISO5, Jacob Wilson, living within a mile of Newark, was suddenly called to the door of his cabin, by the com- motion among his swine and pigs. A huge panther had just seized a pig, and when in the act of making off with it, was pursued and treed by the dogs, not far from the cabin. The Pioneer at once seized his trusty rifle and brought it to bear upon the ferocious beast, which, at the first fire fell at the roots of the tree among the dogs.
One day during the same year, two of the children of General John Spencer, were playing in the yard of the cabin at the "Big Spring," when a huge bear came along and seized a pig near them and made off' with it. Had Bruin selected the youngest of those children instead of the pig, the career of the late Colonel William Spencer would have been cut short.
Wolves too, were sometimes a troublesome enemy, and one to be dreaded by man. I give the following incident in illustration of this fact. It is related of a son of Theophilus Rees, that on one occasion when some ways from the house, in the night-time, a pack of wolves followed, surrounded and treed him, and then deliberately proceeded to gnaw at the tree which was only a small one, while he was perched upon one of its lower limbs. The unusually fierce howlings of the hungry and ravenous beasts attracted the attention of some persons in a cabin within hearing distance, who opportunely went to the re- lief of the young man. On frequent occasions, in the night season, hungry wolves would encounter persons passing from one cabin to another, whose only relief depended upon making themselves heard so as to be rescued by friends armed with torches or guns.
These and similar incidents, tend to show the condition of things
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during the first half of the Centennial period we are now closing. Now man finds no enemy in either serpents. beasts or birds.
THE GRANVILLE COLONY'S FIRST SABBATH IN THE WILDERNESS.
The Granville Colony held public religious services on the first Sabbath after their arrival, namely, on the 16th of November, 1805. Theophilus Rees, a first-class Welsh settler of ISo2, lived a mile or more North of the point selected for their village by the New England immigrants, and of whose arrival he had not heard. On this Sabbath he sallied forth to look after his cows that had strayed away. On nearing the top of a hill, he heard the singing of the people, at this their first public worship in the wilderness. Judge of his astonish- ment when the reverberations of that unexpected music reached his ears through the tree-tops in the valleys and on the hills that surround- ed him. The impression produced by the melodious but unheralded strains of those grateful worshipers in Nature's Temple, was as favorable upon the mind of the devout Pioneer of the Hills, as the surprise was sudden and profound, and served as a topic of frequent remark, in after years, with the Patriarch of the Welsh people in Licking County, even to the close of the honored veteran's nseful and valuable life. And it is no marvel that he who so unexpectedly and suddenly came within hearing of the sweet sounds of that sacred music coming from human voices, should promptly decide that those worshipers in the wilderness " must be good people." Certainly it was quite natural that those charming strains, so plaintively, it may be so spiritedly, echoed and re-echoed through those " grand old woods" should impress him so favorably as that the relation of the incident would, thereafter, be enjoyed as a luxury.
THE FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION IN NEWARK, IN ISO7.
One of the first celebrations of American Independence, perhaps the very first that took place in Licking County was that of 1807. It was held on the North side of the Public Square, the dinner being the joint production of Maurice Newman and Abraham Johnson, the two tavern-keepers of Newark. A hog, sheep and deer, well roast- ed, graced the table. The hog had an car of corn in its mouth and was trimmed with lettuce; the sheep had a bunch of fennel in its mouth and was trimmed with parsley; and the deer which was killed for the occasion by Hananiah Pugh, was decorated with leaves, vines
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and flowers from the forest. Captain Archibald Wilson, Sr., was President of the day; Rev. John Emmett, a Methodist preacher was Chaplain on the occasion, and Dr. John J. Brice read the Declaration of. Independence. The oration was prepared by Archibald Wilson, Jr., but was read by Dr. John J. Brice, owing to the sickness of the author. The military, under the command of Captain John Spencer, were present in force, and fired vollies in response to the toasts. The best of feeling characterized the occasion, which was finally brought to a close with a ball at night.
Archibald Wilson, Jr., by reason of a fall from his horse a few days before, could not be present to deliver the oration in person. He was the first merchant that established himself in Newark, which was in 1804 or 1805. Mr. Wilson's manuscripts were almost as neat as copper-plate engraving, and the aforesaid oration would be a relic of rare value. He had a collegiate education and possessed consider- able ability. Mr. Wilson served during the war of 1812 on the staff' of General Gaines on our Northern frontiers, in which service his health was greatly impaired. He afterwards devoted himself to school teaching. He was a brother of Enoch Wilson and of the late Dr. J. N. Wilson, Archibald Wilson, Sr., being their father.
AN INCIDENT OF ISIO.
William Kinning, a Scotch batchelor, reputed to have some means, boarded with a family that lived in the North Fork Valley in ISIo, eight miles above Newark. While in the act of crossing the North Fork on a log, near the present village of St.Louisville, he re- ceived a rifle ball in his body, which it was long supposed would prove fatal, but he ultimately recovered. Tracks on the snow and other circumstances pointed to a man living in that vicinity by the name of Hoyt, as the would-be assassin. The suspected culprit fled but was pursued, captured and imprisoned in the Newark jail. William Stanbery, then a rising young lawyer, of Newark in the second year of his practice in Licking County, was engaged to defend Hoyt, but before the day set for his trial arrived, he broke jail and fled to parts unknown, and so far as is known, never return- ed to our County; indeed he was never heard from afterwards! This incident brings upon the surface three young men each of whom had then just fairly entered upon his publie career, and all of whom sub- sequently attained to a good degree of professional distinction. Those were Rev. James B. Finley, Dr. John J. Brice and Hon. William
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Stanbery; the first named being then an itinerant Methodist minister in our County, it being the second year of his itinerancy; the second nained gentleman being the physician who applied the skill of the healing art upon Kinning to his recovery and final restoration to health, and the last named as already stated, who recently deceased at the ripe age of 85 years. Rev. J. B. Finley heard the report of Hoyt's gun, and the screams of his poor victim-he was also witness to the agony of the supposed dying man and ministered to his spiritual comfort in his extremity !
JOHNNY APPLESEED AND CHAPLAIN JONES.
Our early settlers were frequently honored with the visits of an eccentric visionary who was generally called "Johnny Appleseed." He acquired this nick-name from the singular habit he had of going to a point East of the Ohio river and collecting quantities of apple- seeds and then planting them in or a little in advance of the border settlements. He would clear away the rubbish and undergrowth of a small plat of ground, perhaps enclose it with a brush fence, then plant the seeds and leave his embryo nurseries to their fate. The result was that Johnny's well-meant labors seldom came to be of much practical utility. Only one nursery was started by him with- in the present limits of Licking County, and that was on what is known as the " Scotland farm," about three miles in a Northeasterly direction from Newark. It was neglected, the enclosure was broken down and the young apple-trees were browsed upon by animals, so that few of them were ever transplanted. Johnny's true name was Jonathan Chapman, and he was a native of New England-a stray Yankee-whose clothing was made of skins, who generally traveled barefooted, slept out of doors when the weather permitted, had strong faith in Emanuel Swedenborg, and who died in Allen County, Indi- ana, in 1843. His line of nurseries extended from Western Pennsyl- vania, through Ohio and Indiana into Illinois.
CHAPLAIN JONES was also an eccentric character who was familiar with the early settlers of Licking County. I have already named him as a sojourner or lodger in the Indian village on the Bowling Green in 1773. He was of Welsh descent, born in Pennsyl- vania in 1736. He became a Baptist preacher in 1761, missionated as such among the Indians of the Northwest in 1772-73, and served as Chaplain in the commands of St. Clair, Gates, and Wayne during the Revolutionary war. Ile preached the first sermon delivered in the Miami valley, at Columbia. in January 1790, and also the first
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Baptist sermon in Granville, which was in 1806. When General Anthony Wayne took command of the Northwestern army in 1792, he appointed his old friend to a chaplaincy, and he served in that capacity to the close of the war. Early in the war of 1812, he, al- though seventy-six years of age, entered the army as a Chaplain, and served under Generals Wilkinson and Brown until the close of the war. His death took place in his native State, February 5, 1820, in his eighty-fourth year.
Rev. David Jones, (for that was his name, ) was a man of talents and of many singularities. He was a gentleman of the" Old School"' in bearing and dress, wearing the buckles on shoes and breeches, the short clothes, the cocked hat, the queue, and it is said, the small cockade, until his death or near it. Chaplain Jones was fond of the "pomp and circumstance of war," and was a true patriot.
AN EARLY TIME INCIDENT.
Andrew Baird served as Sheriff of Licking County from ISIo to 1814. During his term an event transpired which shows that a ruder, a more sanguinary feature, marked the civilization of the first than the last half of this Centennial period.
A theft of no great extent had been committed by a man named Courson. He was found guilty, after having had a fair trial, and sentenced to be whipped on his bare back with a cow-hide, and the sentence was carried into effect on the Public Square in the presence of many spectators, by Sheriff Baird. The culprit prepared himself for his punishment by drinking half a pint of whisky.
In few, if any States of our Union except Delaware, is such barbarous mode of punishment practiced at the close of the first Centennial of American Independence.
THE FAMOUS CIRCULAR HUNT OF IS23.
In the early settlement of this County, the people were often very much annoyed by depredations made on their sheepfolds, by the wild beasts of the forest. Among these, wolves were the most destructive, but, writes Rev. Timothy W. Howe, "up to IS23, no general and combined effort had been made to destroy them. Who was the originator of the scheme we are not informed, but in the fall of 1823 the people of the County determined to make an effort to rid the country of this troublesome animal. To make the experiment as
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effectual as possible, they determined to surround a specified territory in a methodical and thorough manner, and by marching and driving them to the center, bring them at last, if not sooner, within the reach of the rifle bullet.
"For this purpose, James Holmes, Esq., surveyor of Licking County, was employed to survey, in the Western part of our County a tract of land four miles square. The most of this, if not the whole, was in Harrison Township. The East line was where the road is, running North from Kirkersville, and the South line running West a little North of Mr. Isaac White's dwelling house. This territory was selected on account of its embracing the most of 'Gibbon's Deadening,' as it was familiarly called. There were some fifteen hundred acres in this 'Deadening,' and none of it yet cleared for cultivation. It had been deadened some fifteen or sixteen years, and the second growth of timber was in the very best of condition to be a complete harbor for all kinds of wild animals. So dense was the undergrowth, that it was with difficulty men could pass through it on foot.
"A day was appointed, and notice given in all parts of the County for the men to meet at sunrise on that day ready to take their place on the line. Mr. Holmes had run the lines and caused the trees to be blazed, so that the lines were seen. He run lines also diagonally through from corner to corner, so that we should have no confusion or blunder, in gaining the center. He gave notice also more than any other man in the different sections of the County, to turn out and assist in destroying these pests of civilization. I well remember his pleasant, loud and cheerful voice, as he called to us to be on the ground with promptness-bringing our own dinners, but no whisky. 'No whisky,' said he, 'is to be allowed on the ground.'
"By sunrising, on the day appointed, a vast crowd was gathered at the 'old Ward place,' as it was then called, but more recently it has the name of 'the Cheese Farm,' four miles west of Granville, on the Columbus road. This company was to form the East linc.
" Before separating and being placed on the line, hornsmen were appointed who were to be stationed at equal distances around the square, and when the lines were filled on every side, the horns- men were to sound their trumpets, commencing at a given point, and sound around the square to let all know that the lines were filled. A second sounding of trumpets around was the signal for all to march. Then the excitement commenced. The lines had advanced but a short distance before we began to see the frightened deer running parallel
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with the line, seeking a place to escape from the terrible enemy, by which they were surrounded. As soon as the deer were seen the guns commenced to crack along the line. Those of us passing through the 'Deadening,' could do little more than prevent the game from passing the lines. The bushes and trees were so thick that it was impossible to see the game so as to shoot twenty yards. The deer before discovering the men on the line would come within thirty or forty feet, and wheel and fly from us. The wolves kept at a greater distance from the lines; they were not seen on the East line until we were out of the 'Deadening,' and in more open woods. Then three were seen about so often, running parallel with the lines, but so far from them that our best shot did not bring them down. When we had gained the open woods and the deer had formed larger flocks, the volleys fired at them sounded as they do when armies are in battle. As the deer passed along the line, the firing would be continuous, sometimes for minutes in succession. It would be one continued roar of musketry. Thus the day passed and few indeed were the intervals when guns could not be heard in one direc- tion or another. We were just emerging from the thick undergrowth of the 'Deadening,' when a huge black bear was discovered, making his way in a lazy gallop towards the Southeast corner of the enclosure. No gun was fired at him until he was within twenty or thirty yards of the line. Then simultaneously fifteen or twenty guns were fired and Bruin fell to rise no more.
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