USA > Ohio > Jefferson County > Steubenville > Century History of Steubenville and Jefferson County, Ohio and Representative Citizens, 20th > Part 67
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83
called into requisition. Prof. Christie wrote a book concerning him about 1830 (which is now out of print. There was no doubt plenty of superstition among the pioneers of this township as well as elsewhere, but all stories about killing of witches by shoot- ing silver bullets through a dummy in- tended to represent them may be set down as apocryphal so far as they apply to this locality.
Joseph McConnell on September 17, 1816, laid ont a small town near Fernwood, called MeConnellsville, but no residents ever came to infuse in it the breath of life
WELLS TOWNSHIP.
Wells Township lying immediately south of Steubenville was originally a part of Warren, and was not made a separate township until 1823, when twenty-three full and five fractional sections were ent off from Warren and named after Bezaleel Wells. It was a sort of enchanted land in those days, a rich soil covered with sugar maples, ehs, white and black walnut, oaks, hickory, cherry, hackberry, spicewood, paw paw, wild phun, wild grape, with intervals of wild rye, pea vines, and all sorts of wild vegetation. The streams were not large, Salt Run and Blockhonse Run emptying into the Ohio, with parts of MeIntyre, Rush Run and other minor streams. Its locality naturally attracted hunters if not settlers at a very early date, and tradition places a blockhouse at the month of the run of that name about a mile and a half below Bril- liant. In fact, it was in this locality that Sam Huston found the flint instrument before described, which indicated the pres- ence of man in this valley possibly 10,000 years ago, but that does not come within the scope of ordinary history. Be all this as it may it seems determined that in Sep- tember, 1792, Henry Nations and Daniel Seamehorn crossed the Ohio River hunting a location in the northwest territory. They landed opposite Charlestown (Wellsburg) and proceeding down the river camped on Blockhouse Run, where they erected a
Dio wod by Google
475
AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS
small cabin with portholes. It may be that their cabin was the original blockhouse, the record on this point is not entirely clear. They made a small clearing but their chief support was necessarily in hunting, and they were waylaid and killed by Indians in the spring of 1793.
Thomas Taylor came from Pennsylvania and settled on Section 30 in 1778, and Oliver and Ebenezer Spriggs the same year. Among other early settlers were Philip Doddridge (the founder of Brilliant), John Barrett (settled in 1799 and was appointed justice of the peace by the governor hold- ing the office for thirty-eight years, and as justice he performed the first marriage ceremony in this part of the county), John Jackson (military), Daniel Tarr (soldier of the War of 1812), Smiley H. Johnston (a descendant, in direct line, of Oliver Cromwell), Joseph Hook, Samuel Dean, James Everson, William Roe, Nathaniel Dawson, William Loniss, Robert Shearer, E. Willet, John Putney, John Armstrong, Archibald Armstrong, Spragne, James Davis, James Moore, John Burns, Gideon Goswell, Israel Cox, Henry Swear- ingen, Ira Dalrymple, J. McCulley, Amos Parsons, John Rickey, Jacob Zoll, Benja- min Linton, Matthew Thompson, Harden Wheeler, Joseph Rose, Henry Hicks, John Jacks. the Doughertys, Milhollands, Grahams, etc.
The tragic fate of the Riley family has already been told in the chapter relating to the pioneers, hut some fresh facts hav- ing been gleaned from Hon. William H. Tarr, of Wellsburg, they are worthy of in- sertion here, especially as they refer to the last Indian massacre in this valley. The victims had taken up a claim and built a cabin about a mile and a half west of Bril- liant, the family consisting of the father, mother and two boys and two girls, aged about fourteen or sixteen years. Early in the spring of 1792 they were engaged in gathering sugar-water when the Indians came upon them. The father, mother and one boy were tomahawked on the spot. The oldest boy fled to the blockhouse on the of the Rileys. No kindred hands are
river and escaped. The Indians took the two girls, and fearing pursuit, hastily fled. One-half mile west of what is now the vil- lage of New Alexandria, at what is still called the Cold Spring, one of the girls became frantic and was killed with a tomahawk. After the peace resulting from Wayne's victory much interest was taken and many conjectures made along the bor- der as to the fate of the captive girl. As the years passed, various rumors came out of the West-rumors of death by toma- hawk, death by grief for her murdered fam- ily and of adoption by the Indians. Noth- ing, however, was sustained by facts or carried with it even a semblance of truth. Among the three volunteers from this vi- cinity in the War of 1812 was James Riley, the boy who escaped to the blockhouse. A rumor having become current after peace was declared that some prisoners from this part of the valley were among the Indians, young Riley obtained a permit from the commandant at Fort Meigs to go among the Indians, and there he found a woman, middle aged, in full Indian dress, morose and 'stupid, with every trait of savage stamped on her appearance. She was the long lost sister, and well remembered the murder of her family, but no amount of persuasion could induce her to return. These were her people, she knew no other, and with them she would re- main. The kindly hand of Fate has cast a veil over the future of the cap- tive girl; most likely she followed in the train of the wandering savages westward until the end came. The three volunteers mentioned above were William Tarr, Felty Mendel and James Riley, all from Brooke County, and some of their descend- ants are living there at this day. The graves of the Rileys are on lands belonging to the estate of the late Smiley H. John- son, just back of Brilliant. The cahin from which the Rileys went to meet their death is still standing; about 100 rods west of the cabin, on slightly elevated ground, in an old orchard is the last resting place
Dig ized by Google
476
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY
near to care for these lonely graves. They, too, have passed to the great beyond. No enclosure surrounds the spot where they lie. The rough unlettered stones crowned with the moss of the passing ages still mark the spot where the martyred Rileys rest. A solitary osage orange tree spreads its bright green leaves protectingly over all, typical emblem of a resurrected life to come. Vandal hands have never disturbed their silent slumber and no other graves have ever been permitted here. Side by side, father and mother, brother and sister, lie. The stormy of winter and the bright sunlight of summer have come and gone for a hundred years over the last martyrs to the cause of civilization.
The first election for township officers was held at the house of widow McAdams on April 5, 1823, David Humphrey, Archi- bald Armstrong and Richard Sperrier be- ing elected trustees, R. A. Sherrard, clerk, and John McAdams, treasurer. The old mills are referred to elsewhere. The town- ship is well supplied with coal mines, the principal output having been at Brilliant, where are located the MeGhie-Deter glass works and the power house of the traction line to Steubenville, to which a franchise has been given for extension down the river to Rayland.
BRILLIANT.
The town of Brilliant is older than the separate organization of the township, hav- ing been laid out by Philip Doddridge in 1819, on land purchased from James Ross. It was not only an attractive site for a town, the river bottom at this point being wide and backed by beautiful, sloping hills, but it was a very important location from a commercial point of view. In the early times all roads led "to a point on the Ohio River opposite Charles Town," and at this point Philipsburg was built. The early records make frequent mention of roads building from all directions to intersect this one very important thoroughfare; im- portant in the fact that great droves of cat- tle were brought over it on the way to the
eastern markets, crossing the river here. Philipsburg was also a shipping point for flour and whisky, large quantities of these products having been hauled over the Charles Town (Wellsburg) road from long distances back in the country to the river for shipment in flatboats to points on the Mississippi. Before the town was laid out there was accommodation for man and beast at the ferry landing. The first tavern was kept by Matthew Thompson and Nathan Dawson, the latter having charge of the bar. Mr. Thompson tried running his hotel on the temperance plan for awhile, calling it Tempo Tavern, but this did not suit the pioneers, so he conformed to the spirit of the times. One of Doddridge's first operations was building a house for hotel purposes, and in 1820 James H. Moore purchased it and opened it for the accommodation of the public. In 1882 Mr. Moore was appointed postmaster, and the same year Harden Wheeler and Joseph Rose opened the first store, followed by several other enterprises. Henry Hicks was the first physician. The town grew slowly until 1836 when Messrs. Means, Collier and Wilson laid out a new addition and called it La Grange, which name was also adopted for the railway station in the fall of 1856, although the postoffice retained the name Philipsburg. It was a quiet little place, one of the attractive sights be- ing a large beehive on Cleaver place, con- spienous from the river as well as the rail- road. In 1850 the village had a population of 363, which dropped to 154 in the next decade, but rose to 228 in 1870 and 361 in 1880. The erection of a glass house and rolling mill during the next decade brought the population up to 646. In the meantime, the town had been incorporated as Bril- liant, after the name of the glass company, and the titles of the postoffice and railroad station were changed to correspond. The destruction of the original glass house and the wrecking of the rolling mill tended to check the advance of population, which nevertheless was 944 in 1900, and is now about 1,000, inchiding the Spaulding Ad-
Dig zed by Google
477
AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS
dition at the south end of town. During this period an Odd Fellows' Lodge No. 772 was organized and also one of United Order of American Mechanics. The mer- cantile establishment of W. H. Rodgers successfully rivaled those in the larger cities and drew trade from a large section of country on both sides of the river. A town building, with city scales, hose com- pany and municipal offices occupies the cen- ter of the village. There has been consid- erable gas development in this section lately, and some oil back in the country.
SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES.
As elsewhere there were schools in the township from an early date, but the first general organization seems to date from September 15, 1826, when the trustees of the township met at the house of the clerk, Robert A. Sherrard, and directed said clerk to divide the township into seven dis- triets as follows: District No. 1 to be known as Point Finley; No. 2 as Middle; No. 3 as Jefferson ; No. 4 as Adams; No. 5 as Monroe; No. 6 as Center; and No. 7 as Franklin. On March 3, 1845, District No. 8 was formed on petition of residents of No. 4 and called La Grange. On petition of other residents of the same district joint sub-district No. 9 named Pleasant Hill was formed of parts of Wells and Cross Creek Townships by arrangement of the two boards in April, 1858. Joint sub-district No. 10 and 11 was formed by the Probate Court on September 17, 1878, after the boards had been unable to agree. It was called Blue's Run, and was formed from Districts 2 and 3 in Wells and District 2 of Warren Township. Brilliant now has a neat three room school house, and the others are located in Section 36 of the first range and the following sections of the sec- ond range: Nine (Tarr), 10 (Salt Run), 11 (Riddle's), 21 (Merryman), 22 (Run- yon), 23 (Cnsiek), 24 (McIntyre), 29 (Wil- lard), 30 (Cole), 34 (Sixsmith), 35 (Scott), 36 (Rose).
The first Presbyterian meetings held in
Wells Township were at the houses of Messrs. Armstrong and Sprague about the year 1800. After that they held meetings in a tent, from which the first house of worship to the name of "Tent Church." It was afterwards called Centre, from a town plat subsequently laid out, although the church, hotel and a blacksmith shop were as far as the town ever developed. It was about midway between Warrenton, Smithfield and Mt. Pleasant, and several annual musters were held on the site of the embryo village. A Scotchman named Robinson was the first minister of whom there is any account, neither is there any record of the erection of the first building. The first person buried in the graveyard was John Armstrong, on July 16, 1810, and the deed for the land was made in 1826 by John Jackson to the trustees.
Oliver's Church, in Section 29, was or- ganized before the formation of the town- ship, Thomas Oliver emigrated from County Donegal, Ireland, in the spring of 1806, and settled on the headwaters of Rush Run, two miles above Sherrard's mill. He was reared a Presbyterian and brought with him a certificate of member- ship from Ireland, and also from a Metho- dist class whose meetings he had attended. In his new home he found the nearest Pres- byterian place of worship to be at Steu- benville, ten miles distant, and the nearest Methodist at Hopewell, five miles. So he formed a Methodist class at his own house, where there was subsequent preaching by the circuit riders. Among the early preach- ers were William Argo, James Wheeler and Henry Oliver (an elder brother), the latter being too Calvinistic to suit his hear- ers. Oliver's house was used for preach- ing until 1817, when a house of hewn logs was built on the edge of Oliver's farm, which was used for about fifty years, when a frame building took its place. It is on Smithfield circuit, with Holmes and Hope- well.
Brilliant was without a place of worship until after the building of the rolling mill in 1883. Then mainly through the influ-
Dig ized by Google
478
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY
ence of the Spaulding family a frame strue- ture was erected in the addition and dedi- cated as n Congregational Church. When the mill ceased operating it was found im- practicable to support it, and the building was sold to the Presbyterians and hus since belonged to that denomination. The trans- fer was made about 1886, and the congrega- tion is supplied by the Mingo minister.
A Methodist organization was formed in Brilliant about 1890, and in 1892 a cir- cuit was formed, including George's Run, Ekey's nnd New Alexandria, with the fol- lowing ministers: W. C. Evans, 1892; T. R. Yates, 1893; J. B. Hawks, 1894; E. S. Smith, 1895-97; G. F. Humble, 1898; A. M. Misel, 1899-1900; J. O. Davidson, 1901-3; W. S. Nicholson, 1904-5; R. B. Van Fos- sen, 1906; W. P. Baxter, 1907; D. B. Cope, 1908-9.
A Disciples Church has recently been formed in Brilliant, with a good beginning.
WARREN TOWNSHIP.
Warren was one of the original five townships into which greater Jefferson County was divided in 1802, the other four being Stenbenville, Knox, Short Creek and Archer. Previous to this the civil divisions were as follows: Richland Township- Jacob Coleman being tax collector for 1799, the returns having been made to Jacob Martin, William Wells and Alexander Holmes, commissioners; York-Thomas Richards being collector in 1798; Kirkwood -Thomas Richards, also collector for this township in 1799; Warren- John McElroy. collector for 1798 and 1799; he prodneed a discharge signed by William Bell and Benjamin Doyle, two of the for- mer commissioners; Wayne-David Mood- ey, collector for 1799; Wayne is again men- tioned in the commissioner's journal for 1802, in that John Hannah, collector for the townships of Richland, Wayne, Knox, St. Clair and Beaver, had made returns. In the same record it is noted that the county tax listers had made returns: Robert Me- Cleary for Warren, John Matthews for
Cross Creek, Charles King for Steuben- ville, George Day for Wayne, Isaac West, Jonathan Paramore and Enos Thomas for St. Clair. The lister for Beaver had not made returns.
Township 1, Range 1, takes in the north- east corner of Wells Township. Wells Township ineludes Fractional Township 1, Range 1. Had the surveyed township been complete it would have extended east of Warrenton six miles, or to the Pennsyl- vania line. Warren Township was grad- ually reduced in size, and when Wells was taken off the northern end in 1823 it left twenty-five full sections and five fractional sections. Rush Run, Short Creek and Deep Run have cut through the hills, exposing rich coal veins, which have contributed greatly to modern industrial development, as did the stremus themselves in pioneer days nfford power for manufacturing to an extent that made this one of the busiest sec- tions of the country. Settlers were early on the ground, and with the settler came the necessary blockhouses for protection, for the savage conflict was continuous and irrepressible. Several were located at the month of Short Creek, the original prob- ably being cabins of more than ordinary strength fitted with port holes and other means of defense. The well known Car- penter's Fort was originally, no doubt, a structure of this kind, about a hundred yards up the creek from the site of the present C. & P. R. R. station at Portland, now Rayland. It was built in the summer of 1781 by John Carpenter, whose his- tory is related elsewhere, and was soon followed by others. George Carpenter, a noted Indian spy, built a blockhouse below the month of Rush Run about 1785, and the next year Enos Kimberly, Robert Me- Cleary. Benedick Wells, John McElroy, Jolm Humphrey and others settled at the mouth of Short Creek, where the town of Warrenton now stands. About the same time John Tilton, Charles Kimball and two or three others, with their families, set- tied on the present site of Tiltonville. In a blockhonse here Caleb Tilton was born,
Deiized by Google
479
AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS
and it has been claimed that he was the first white child born west of the Ohio River. His descendants still live in the neighbor- hood. It will thus be seen that at the time the Marietta contingent passed down the river there was a regular chain of settle- ments along the water front of Jefferson County, from Yeilow Creek almost to what is now the Belmont County line, from which they doubtless procured supplies and information, and then coolly arrogated to themselves the title of first settlers of Olio. New England was never backward in this respect. Robert MeCleary came to the township in 1790, Joseph Tilton about the same time, Solomon Scamehorn in 1797, Lisbys and William Lewis in 1801-2, James McCormick in 1810, and Maxwells the same year. In fact, the lands fronting the river were soon taken up mostly by settlers from Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and then pushed back into the country, which was well adapted to agriculture and subse- quent wool growing, flouring and other mills dotting the streams.
Robert A. Sherrard, in his diary of events in Warren Township, states that old George Carpenter, as early as 1778, had made an improvement on the west side of the Ohio River, on the bottom abont a mile and a half above the month of Short Creek, and about one mile below the mouth of Rush Run. And like many others of these Parly settlers, he expected to hold it by in- provement right. And for better security against the Indians he had a blockhouse built, in which his family and others who had made improvements above and below his blockhonse on the river bottom fre- quently took refuge in case of Indians skulking about. Mr. Sherrard truthfully says that not all the border ontrages conld be justly chargeable to the Indians. White men, dressed and painted in Indian style, frequently murdered and plundered in cold blood innocent families, and the blame was laid on the poor redskins and vengeance taken upon them for crimes with which they had nothing to do. The Indians would
naturally retaliate, and a general Indian war would follow. The diary continues :
"In the summer of 1781 Old George Carpenter, father of young George, and his family occupied the blockhouse on the west aide of the river, and raised corn, flux, potatoes, pumpkins, beans, etc., on land he and his wife had cleared, for be it remembered that in these early times women turned out and helped the husband to pick brush, make fence, hoe corn and potatoes, reap, bind and sbock grain, muke hay, pull flax, and sentch, spin and weave it. The Carpenter family occupied the block- house the chief of the time until the final overthrow of the Indians by Wayne's army in the fall of 1794, and the death of Old George and his wife, George Car- peuter, Jr., the second son, kept possession of the home- stend after his father's denth. Notwithstanding it hail been so long settled and at so much risk of life or cap- tivity by the Indians when the land office was opened in Steubenville in 1801 young Carpenter had to enter and pay for that part of the section on which their improvement had for a long time been made. An apple orchard had been planted on it at an early period, for when I saw it first the spring of 1812 the apple trees looked large enough to be half a century old, but bo doubt the rich virgin soil of the river bottom was of such a nature as to forre young trees forward of the apple kind very rapidly. When we first settled in Warren Township, five miles out from the month of Short Creek, the exploits of old and young George Carpenter were much talked of as deer and Indian hun- ters. It was common tulk that for several years after peace was made by Wayne's treaty. August 20, 1795, George Carpenter, Jr., was in the habit of going out on Stillwater hills, bordering on the Tuscarawas river, for the special purpose of having a deer bunt, and would camp out and stay and hunt for the space of two or three weeks before he would return home. This was his practice each fall after the skin of the deer had become what hunters termed good, for it must be kept in mind that from June to September derr skins taken by the hunter were worthless, as they would not grain, and for that reason skin dressers would not purchase Them. These raids Carpenter generally made before the Stillwater hills were settled and the ground occupied by white settlers, yet there were some few pioneer set- tlers wenttered here and there along Stillwater Bottoms and also on the rich bottom lands of the Tuscarawaa River. Uriek, an old German, had a mill in operation in 1805 at the time we arrived and made a settlement in Jefferson County, not far from where the village of Urielisville now stands, It seems to me that it was built in 1904, and at that time there must have been a number of settlers scattered around and the pros- pect of more soon. It was further anid of George Car- peuter, Jr., that on more than one occasion he brought home on his return from a hunting excursion a good rifle, which he said he found in u hollow tree. But it was generally believed that he had come across some solitary Moravian Indian from one of the Moravian vil- lages on the Muskingum River, who, like t'arpenter, was out alone deer hunting. So great was Carpenter's hatred and antipathy against the Indians, whether friend or foe. that even in those peaceful times he could screw np his conscience to such a point that he could shoot down a harless Indian and bring home hia gun. He had been taught by his father and all the old Indian bunters with whom he associated from childhood that
Dgiized by Google
480
HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY
it was right to kill the Indians as it was to kill rattle- snakes. tieorge Carpenter, Jr., came to a severe and untimely death. lle had sold the old homestead on the Ohio River to Thomas Shannon, of Warrenton, and with the proceeds purchased a farm on Stillwater, within the bounds of his old hunting ground, to which he moved bis family in 1817. Having learned to tipple and drink whisky at a very early period, as was commun with many of the pioneers, he practiced drinking in the little unfor- tunate town of Warrenton, that had the good luck almost every spring of having all its rats drowned by overflow from the river, which was a place of con- siderable resort for the purpose of whisky drinking for the first twenty years or more of its existence up to 1823.
** After Carpenter moved to Stillwater the habit of using spirituons liquors grew ro strong ou him that he maile daily use of it. At the last sugar making be ever lived to see he kept whisky by the jug full at the sugar camp, and whether he had drank to such excess as to bring on delirium tremens I am not able to say, but be that as it may, one night as he lay sleeping in the sugar camp he either dreamed or ennjectured that the Indians were after him, and to get clear of them he jumped up and stepped into the first kettle of eight, each filled with boiling sugar water set in a furnace, and from one kettle to another he splashed in and out of each until he landed in all the kettles and their boiling con- tents. So badly scalded were his legs and feet that he lived but a few days, lingering in great misery, and died, as he had lived, without repentance. It is worthy of remark that the Indians he murdered in time of peace so hannted him as to bring about his death finally. ">
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.