USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio in three volumes ; an encyclopedia of the state : with notes of a tour over it in 1886 contrasting the Ohio of 1846 with 1886-90, Vol. III > Part 62
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SHAKERS DANCING.
[This picture has a history. It was drawn and engraved by John W. Barber from seeing the Shakers at Lebanon, Con., daneing, and published, in 1838, in his " Historical Collections of Connecticut. Used a second time to illustrate the Shakers at New Lebanon, New York, and published in Barber & Howe's work on that State ; and used a third time in this work. If it had artistie beauty it would lose truth and interest.]
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the year 1805, and now (1846) number near 400 souls. The village extends about a mile on one street. The houses and shops are very large, many of them brick, and all in a high degree neat and substantial. They are noted for the cleanliness and strict propriety of conduct characteristic of the sect elsewhere, and take no part in polities or military affairs, keeping themselves completely aloof from the world, only so far as is necessary to dispose of their garden seeds and other products of agriculture and articles of mechanical skill. They own here about 3,000 acres of land, and hold all their property in common.
The community is divided into five families, each family having an cating- room and kitchen. A traveller thus describes their ceremonies at the table :
"Two long tables were covered on each side of the room, behind the tables
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were benches, and in the midst of the room was a cupboard. At a signal given with a horn the brothers entered the door to the right and the sisters the one to the left, marching two and two to the table. The sisters in waiting, to the number of six, came at the same time from the kitchen, and ranged themselves in one file opposite the table of the sisters ; after which, they all fell on their knees, making a silent prayer, then arose, took hold of the benches behind them, sat down and took their meal in the greatest silence. I was told this manner was observed at all their daily meals. They ate bread, butter and cakes, and drank ..... tea. Each member found his cup filled before him-the serving sisters filling them when required. One of the sisters was standing at the cupboard to pour ont the tea-the meal was very short, the whole society rose at once, the benches were put back, they fell again on their knees, rose again, and wheeling to the right, left the room with a quick step. I remarked among the females some very pretty faces, but they were all, without exception, of a pale and sickly hue. They were disfigured by their ugly costume, which consists of a white starched bonnet .. The men likewise had bad complexions."
The Shaker settlement described above has gradually declined in population. In 1829 the society numbered five hundred members, but has since steadily de- clined, until now there are between seventy and eighty, and the day is probably not far distant when the community will have ceased to exist.
The history of the origin of this society in Ohio is very interesting, and is here abridged from a fuller account by Mr. Josiah Morrow, to whom we are indebted for much concerning the history of Warren county.
In the spring of 1802 there came to the Turtle Creek Presbyterian Church a new pastor, the Rev. Richard MeNemar. This man was a leading spirit in the great revival. He came from Kentucky, where he had seen and assisted in some of its most remarkable scenes. He was tall and gaunt, but commanding in ap- pearanee, with piercing, restless eyes, and an expressive countenance. He was a classical scholar, and read Latin, Greek and Hebrew with ease.
The strange physical phenomena which, from the first, attended the revival in Kentucky, followed MeNemar's preaching in Warren county. The singular bodily exercises and convulsions which accompanied this revival on both sides of the Ohio, wherever there was undue excitement, have often been described. The. Turtle Creek pastor approvingly represents his flock as " praying, shonting, jerk- ing, barking, or rolling, dreaming, prophesying and looking as through a glass at the infinite glories of Zion." The whole congregation also sometimes prayed to- gether, with such power and volume of sound, that, if the pastor does not exagger- ate, " the doubtful footsteps of those in search of the meeting might be directed sometimes to the distance of miles around." Some time in the year 1804 they began to encourage one another to praise God in the dance.
On the 22d of March, 1805, there arrived at Turtle Creek three strangers with broad-brimmed hats and a fashion of dress like that of the followers of George Fox, in England, a generation before. They were John Meacham, Benjamin S. Youngs and Issachar Bates, the first of the sect of Ann Lee ever seen west of the Alleghany mountains. They had set out from New Lebanon, N. Y., on Jan. 1, and had made a journey of 1,000 miles on foot. They had already visited Ken- tucky, but had not fully proclaimed their principles or objects. Nowhere did they - . " find the conditions so favorable for carrying out the purposes of their mission as at Turtle Creek.
The first convert was Malcham Worley, a man of liberal education, independent fortune and unblemished character, but his excitable temperament had led him into sneh wild exercises during the revival that many doubted his sanity. The pastor soon followed, and in a month a dozen families had embraced Shakerism. Husbands and wives abandoned the family relation and gave all their property to the church. Many who became members owned considerable tracts of land, which they consecrated to the use of the church, and the Shaker Society at Union Village
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is in possession of 4,000 acres of excellent land surrounding the spot where stood the Turtle Creek log-church.
The missionaries were successful elsewhere. They established several commu- nities both in Ohio and Kentucky. Four of the ministers who had been fore- most in the revival work became their converts, and died in the Shaker faitlı, having passed in four years from the creed of Calvin and Knox to that of Ann Lee. The Shaker Society at Union Village was regularly organized May 25, 1805. In the month following there were a number of converts at Eagle Creek, in Adams county, including Rev. John Dunlavy ; in August the work broke out in Kentucky, and, in the spring of 1806, at Beaver Creek, in Montgomery county, Ohio. The society at Union Village is the oldest and has always been the largest of the Shaker communities west of the Alleghanies.
Nearly all the members of the Turtle Creek church, who resided in the imme- diate vicinity of Bedle's Station, became Shakers. Their meetings were held for some time at the house of MeNemar-the space between the two apartments of his double cabin being used for their dancing exercises. Afterward a floor was built near by, much like an early threshing-floor, on which their meetings were held until their first church was erected.
Richard McNemar, who, by his gifts as a speaker and his scholarship, exercised so great an influence as a preacher on both sides of the Ohio river, continued in the faith of the Shakers, and a leader among them, until his death in 1839.
Of late years the society has not increased in numbers. They look with hope on the progress of modern Spiritualism. They say there is nothing new in its manifestations, for long before the era of table-turnings and spirit-rappings they had, as they continue to have, a living intercommunication with the world of spirits.
The Shaking Quakers are a sect founded in England in 1747, at which time an English woman, Ann Lee, joined them. She claimed to be in person the second coming of Christ, had divine revelations, and called herself "Ann, the word." She declared the wrath of the Almighty against marriage. For this she was im- prisoned and put in a mad-house. In 1770 she emigrated to this country and founded here the seet. She died in 1784, after converting many.
/ About six miles east of Lebanon, on the Little Miami river, is a very extensive ancient fortification called Fort Ancient. The extreme length of these works, in a direct line, is nearly a mile, although, following their angles-retreating and salient-they reach probably a distance of six miles. The drawing and deserip- tion annexed are from the article of Caleb Atwater, Esq., in the " Archeologia Americana."
The fortification stands on a plain, nearly horizontal, about 236 feet above the level of the river, between two branches with very steep and deep banks. The openings in the walls are the gateways.' The plain extends eastward along the State road, nearly level, about half a mile. The fortification on all sides, except on the east and west where the road runs, is surrounded with precipices nearly in the shape of the wall. The wall on the inside varies in its height, according to the shape of the ground on the outside, being generally from eight to ten feet ; but on the plain it is about nineteen and a half feet high inside and out, on a base of four and a half poles. In a few places it appears to be washed away in gutters, made by water collecting on the inside.
At about twenty poles east from the gate, through which the State road runs, are two mounds, about ten feet eight inches high,
the road running between them nearly equi- distant from each. From these mounds are gutters running nearly north and south that appear to be artificial, and made to connu- nicate with the branches on each side. North- east from the mounds, on the plain, are two roads, B, cach about one pole wide, elevated about three feet, and which run nearly paral- lel, about one-fourth of a mile, and then form an irregular semicircle round a small mound. Near the southwest end of the fortification are three circular roads, A, between thirty and forty poles in length, cut out of the preci- pice between the wall and the river. The wall is made of earth.
Many conjectures have been made as to the design of the authors in erecting a work with no less than fifty-eight gateways. Several of these openings have evidently been occa- sioned by the water, which had been collected on the inside until it overflowed the walls
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and wore itself a passage. In several other places the walls might never have been com- pleted.
The three parallel roads, A, dug, at a great expense of labor, into the rocks and rocky soil adjacent, and parallel to the Little Miami river, appear to have been designed for per- sons to stand on, who wished to annoy those
Fortifications," to which they appear to have higher claims than almost any other, for rea- sons too apparent to require a recital.
The two parallel lines, B, are two roads very similar to modern turnpikes, and are made to suit the nature of the soil and make of the ground. If the roads were for foot- races, the mounds were the goals from
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FORT ANCIENT.
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who were passing up and down the river. The Indians, as I have been informed, made this use of these roads in their wars with each other and with the whites. Whether these works all belong to the same era and the same people I cannot say, though the general opinion is that they do. On the whole, I have ventured to class them among "Ancient
whence the pedestrians started, or around which they ran. The area which these par- allel walls enclose, smoothed by art, might have been the place where games were cele- brated. We cannot say that these works were designed for such purposes ; but we can say that similar works were thus used among the early inhabitants of Greece and Rome.
Franklin in 1846 .- Franklin is twelve miles northwest of Lebanon, on the Dayton and Cincinnati turnpike, with the Miami Canal running east of it and the Miami river bounding it on the west. It was laid out in 1795, a few months after the treaty of Greenville, within Symmes' purchase, by its proprietors, two young men from New Jersey, Daniel C. Cooper and William C. Schenck. The first cabin was built by them, on or near lot 21 Front street. In the spring of '96 six or cight cabins stood on the town-plot. A church, common for all de- nominations, on the site of the Baptist church, was the first erected ; it was built about the year 1808.
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The town is on a level plot and regularly laid out. The view shows on the right the Methodist church, next to it Merchants' block, beyond the Baptist church, and on the'extreme left the spire of the Presbyterian church. Franklin
Drawn by Henry Howe in 1846.
VIEW IN FRANKLIN.
contains 3 churches, a high school, 4 dry goods and 2 grocery stores, 2 forward- ing and commission houses, and had, in 1840, 770 inhabitants .- Old Edition.
FRANKLIN is twelve miles northwest of Lebanon, on the Great Miami river, the Miami Canal, the C. C. C. & I., N. Y. P. & O. and C. J. & M. Railroads. The Franklin Hydraulic was built in 1870.
City Officers, 1888 : John M. Dachtler, Mayor ; J. A. Rees, Clerk ; W. S. Van Horne, Treasurer ; Lew Hurst, Marshal. Newspaper : Chronicle, Independent, Calderwood && Harding, editors and publishers. Churches : 1 Catholic, 1 Pres- byterian, 1 Christian, 1 Methodist Episcopal and 1 Baptist. Banks : First Na- tional, L. G. Anderson, president, W. A. Boynton, cashier ; D. Adams & Son.
Manufactures and Employees .- Buchner & Duffy, job machinery, 6 hands ; The Eagle Paper Co., wood pulp, 10; The Harding Paper Co., rag sorting, etc., 80; The Harding Paper Co., writing papers, 98; J. S. Van Horn, builders' woodwork, 10; Rantzahn and Brother, flour, 4; The Friend and Forgy Paper Co., paper, 61 ; The Franklin Paper Co., wood pulp, 10; The Franklin Paper Co., paper, 70; The Perrine Paper Co., paper, 19; The Eagle Paper Co., paper, 87 .- State Report, 1888.
Population, 1880, 2,385. School census, 1888, 850 ; Hampton Bennett, super- intendent of schools. Capital invested in manufacturing establishments, $100,000. Value of annual product, $125,000 .- Ohio Labor Statistics, 1888.
Gen. Wm. C. Schenck, the founder of Franklin, was at that time a young sur- veyor, only twenty-three years of age. He was the father of Gen. Robert C. Schenck and Admiral James F. Schenck, each of whom were born here. Mrs. Mary Small Campbell, mother of Hon. Lewis Campbell and grandmother of Gov. James E. Campbell, one of the pioneer women of Franklin, died April 20, 1886, aged one hundred years and one month. She saw the growth of the town from a collection of straggling huts to a centre of wealth and comfort.
BIOGRAPHY.
JEREMIAH MORROW was born in Gettysburg, Pa., October 6, 1771. He was of Scotch-Irish descent, the family name being originally Murray. In 1795 he
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removed to the Northwest Territory and settled at the mouth of the Little Miami river, but soon moved up to what is now Warren county.
In 1801 he was elected to the Territorial Legislature; was a delegate to the
first constitutional convention in 1802; was elected to the State Senate in 1803, and in the same year to Congress, serv- ing for ten years as the sole representa-) tive of Ohio in the Lower House.
In 1814 he was commissioner to treat with all of the Indians west of the Miami river. From 1813 to 1819 he was a member of the United States Senate, and served as Chairman of the Committee on Public Lands. In 1822 he was elected governor and re-elected at the end of his term. He served as canal commissioner in 1820-22. He was also the first president of the Little Miami Railroad Company.
In 1841 he was again elected to Con- gress. He died March 22, 1852.
While in Congress, Mr. Morrow drafted most of the laws providing for JEREMIAH MORROW. the survey and disposal of public lands. Hle introduced measures which led to the construction of the Cumberland road ; and in February, 1816, presented the first report recommending a general system of internal improvements.
As governor of Ohio, he industriously furthered the interests of the public works, which were commenced during his administration.
Hon. William Henry Smith delivered an address at Marietta, April 7, 1888 (Ohio Centennial Celebration), in which he gave an interesting and instructive sketch of the life and services of Gov. Morrow, and from which we make a few extracts. Speaking of the first meeting of Gov. Morrow and the Duke of Saxe- Weimar, in 1825, Mr. Smith gives an account, as related by the duke some years later to a party of Ohioans, who made his acquaintance while travelling abroad.
"And thereupon he related how, taking a carriage at Cincinnati, he travelled to Colum- bus to pay his respects to the governor, but, . on the advice of a Cincinnati friend, he called en route at the farm of Gov. Morrow. When he reached the farm he saw a small party of men in a new field, rolling logs. This scene of a deadening, or clearing, is familiar to those of us fortunate enough to have been brought up in Ohio, but to a European, raised in courts, it must have been an amaz- ing sight. Accosting one of the workmen, a homely little man in a red flannel shirt, and with a smutch of charcoal across his check, he asked, 'Where is your master, sir?' 'Master !' exclaimed the other, 'I own no
master-no master but Him above.' The duke then said, rather testily, 'It is the governor of the State, Gov. Morrow, I am inquiring for.' 'Well, I am Jeremiah Mor- row,' replied the son of toil, with unaffected and unconscious simplicity. The Grand Duke stood amazed. This little man, in a red flannel shirt and home-made tow-linen trousers, leaning on a dogwood hand-spike, with a coal-smutched face and the jeweled sweat-drops of real labor now on his brow, and a marked Scotch-Trish brogue when he spoke ! He the governor of Ohio? Was it possible ? He could scarcely credit his senses."
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In our edition of 1847 we gave the following extract from the "Travels of the Duke :"
The dwelling of the governor consists of a plain frame-house, situated on a little eleva- tion not far from the shore of the Little Miami, and is entirely surrounded by fields.
The business of the State calls him once a month to Columbus, the seat of government, and the remainder of his time he passes at his country-seat, occupied with farming-a
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faithful copy of an ancient Cincinnatus ; he was engaged at our arrival in cutting a wagon- pole, but he immediately stopped his work to give us a hearty welcome. Ile appeared to be about fifty years of age ; is not tall, but thin and strong, and has an expressive physi- ognomy, with dark and animated eyes. He is a native of Pennsylvania, and was one of the first settlers in the State of Ohio. Ile offered us a night's lodging at his house, which invitation we accepted very thank- fully. When seated round the chimney-fire
in the evening, he related to us a great many of the dangers and difficulties the first settlers had to contend with. . . . We spent our evening with the governor and his lady. Their children are settled, and they have with them only a couple of grandchildren. When we took our seats at supper, the governor made a prayer. There was a Bible and sev- eral religions books lying on the table. After -g breakfasting with our hospitable host, we took our leave.
We again quote from Mr. Smith's address as follows :
These homely ways occasionally led ambi- tious and officious politicians to the conclu- sion that he would be as potters' clay in their hands. His pastor, the Rev. Dr. MacDill, of the Associate Reformed, or United Pres- byterian Church, of which Mr. Morrow was a life-long and consistent member, relates that "when his first gubernatorial term was nearly expired, some gentlemen about Co- lumbus, who seemed to regard themselves as a board specially appointed to superintend the distribution of offices in the State of Ohio, had a meeting, and appointed a com- mittee to wait on him and advise him as to his duty. The committee called, and speed- ily made known their business. It was to
prevail on him (for the public good, of course) not to stand as a candidate for a sec- ond term, but to give way in favor of all- other. They promised that if he would do -- this they would use their influence to return him to the United States Senate, where, they assured him, he would be more useful to the State. Having patiently heard them through, he cahnly replied : 'I consider office as be- - Để - longing to the people. A few of us have no right to make bargains on the subject, and I have no bargain to make. I have concluded to serve another term, if the people see fit to elect me, though without caring much about it.' "
Mr. Smith, in summing up Gov. Morrow's career, gave the following eloquent tribute to the value of character :
" This all too briefly related is the story of a useful life. There is not a trace of genius ; nothing of evil to attribute to eccentricity. It is clear that Mr. Mor- row was not 'a child of destiny,' but a plain man, who feared God and loved his fellow-men. And here, friends of Ohio, I wish to proclaim in this age of unbe -. lief, of the false and meretricious, the ancient and divine doctrine of CHARACTER as being the highest type of manhood. Wit may edify, genius may captivate, but it is truth that blesses and endures and becomes immortal. It is not what a man seems to be, but what he is, that should determine his worth."
The following incident is related by A. H. Dunlevy :
"When Gov. Morrow was first elected governor of Ohio, in the fall of 1822, a num- ber of the citizens of Lebanon determined to visit him immediately, announce to him the faet of his election, and give him a proper ovation on the occasion. To that end, some dozen of the most respected citizens speedily prepared to go together as a company of cavalry, on horseback, to the governor's res- idence, some ten miles from town. Among these was William M. Wiles, an eccentric man, but a man of ready talent at an off- hand speech. Wiles was anxious to make the address, and took the night previous to the visit to prepare it. Early next morning the cavalcade set off, and reaching Gov. Mor- row's residence they found he was at his mill, a mile distant. Thither they went, deter- mined that Wiles should not miss the chance of making his prepared speech. But when they reached the mill, they found the govern-
or-elect in the forebay of his mill, up to his middle in water, engaged in getting a piece of timber out of the water-gate, which pre- + vented the gate from shutting off the water from the wheel. This, however, was soon .... effected, and up came the governor, all wet, without coat or hat; and in that condition the cavalcade announced to him his election. Thanking them for their interest in his suc, - cess, he urged them to go back to his resi- dence and take dinner with him. But Wiles, disgusted at finding the governor in this con- dition, persuaded the party from going to dinner, and started home, declaring that he could not make his speech to a man who looked so much like a drowned rat. When he saw that, he said, all his eloquent speech vanished from his mind and left it a naked blank. This speech would have been a curi- osity, but no one could ever induce Wiles to show it."
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JUDGE FRANCIS DUNLEVY, who died at Lebanon, in 1839, was born in Virginia in 1761. When ten years of age his family removed to Western Penn- sylvania. At the early age of fourteen years he served in a campaign against the Indians, and continued mostly in this service until the close of the revolution. He assisted in building Fort MeIntosh, about the year 1777, and was afterwards in the disastrous defeat of Crawford, from whence, with two others, he made his way alone through the woods without provisions, to Pittsburg. In '87 he re- moved to Kentucky, in '91 to Columbia, and in '97 to this neighborhood. By great perseverance he acquired a good education, mainly without instructors, and part of the time taught school and surveyed land until the year 1800. He was returned a member of the convention from Hamilton county which formed the State constitution. 'He was also a member of the first legislature in 1803 ; at the first organization of the judiciary was appointed presiding judge of the first circuit. This place he held. fourteen years, and though his circuit .embraced ten counties, he never missed a court, frequently swimming his horse over the Miamies rather than fail being present. On leaving the bench he practised at the bar fifteen years and then retired to his books and study. He was a strong-minded philanthropic man, of great powers of memory, and a most useful member of society.
WHY PRESIDENT JEFFERSON REMOVED GOVERNOR ST. CLAIR.
The venerable Hon. A. H. Dunlevy (son of Judge Dunlevy), beginning with the issue of January 24, 1867, communicated to the Western Star (Lebanon) his reminiscences of the early history of Lebanon and vicinity. In this series he gave the reasons for the removal of Gov. St. Clair from the Governorship of the Northwest Territory and the appointment of Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison in his place. This change occurred as follows, as stated by him :
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