Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 130

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006

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Turkey Bottom .- At this delightful season, the inhabitants of our village went forth to their labor, inclosing the fields, which the spring flood had opened, tilling their ground, and planting their corn for their next year's sustenance. I said, went forth, for their prin- cipal corn-field was distant from Columbia

about one and a half miles east, and adjoin- ing the extensive plain on which the town stood. That large tract of alluvial ground, still known by the name of Turkey Bottom, and which, lying about fifteen feet below the adjoining plain, and annually overflowed, is yet very fertile, was laid off into lots of five acres each, and owned by the inhabitants of Columbia ; some possessing one, and otherc two or more lots ; and to save labor, was en- closed with one fence. Here the men gen erally worked in companies exchanging labor, or in adjoining fields, with their fire-arnis near them, that in case of an attack they might be ready to unite for their common defence. Here, their usual annual crop of corn from ground very ordinarily cultivated was eighty bushels per acre ; and some lots, well tilled, produced a hundred, and in very favorable seasons, a hundred and ten bushels to the acre. An inhabitant of New England, New Jersey, or some portions of Maryland, would scarcely think it credible, that in hills four feet apart, were four or five stalks, one and a half inches in diameter, and fifteen feet in height, bearing each two or three ears of corn, of which some were so far from the ground, that to pull them an ordinary man was obliged to stand on tiptoe.

BIOGRAPHY. GOVERNORS OF OHIO FROM CINCINNATI.

Thirteen of the Governors of the State have been at some time citizens of Cincinnati, one of whom only, William Dennison, was born in the city. They were Othniel Looker, 1814; Ethan Allen Brown, 1818-1822 ; Salmon P. Chase, 1856-1860; William Dennison, 1860-1862 ; John Brough, 1864, 1865; Charles Anderson, 1865, 1866 ; Jacob D. Cox, 1866-1868 ; Rutherford B. Hayes, 1868- 1872; also 1876, 1877; Edward F. Noyes, 1872-1874; Thomas L. Young, 1887, 1888 ; Richard M. Bishop, 1878-1880; George M. Hoadley, 1884-1886 ; Joseph B. Foraker, 1888-1890.

We annex slight sketches of those not elsewhere noted :

OTHNIEL LOOKER was born in New York, in 1757 ; was a private in the war of the revolution and a man of humble origin and calling, and of whose history but little is known, but, being Speaker in the Ohio Senate, by virtue of that office became acting Governor for eight months when General Meigs resigned to go into Mr. Madison's cabinet. He was later defeated as a candidate for Governor against Thomas Worthington.

ETHAN ALLEN BROWN was born in Darien, Conn., July 4, 1766 ; studied law with Alexander Hamilton ; settled in Cincinnati in 1804; from 1810 to 1818 was a Supreme Judge, when he was elected Governor and began agitating the subject of constructing canals. In 1820 was re-elected over Jeremiah Morrow and General Wm. Henry Harrison ; in 1822 was elected to the United States Senate ; from 1830 to 1834 U. S. Minister to Brazil ; later Commissioner of Public Lands ; then retired to private life and died in 1852 in Indianapolis after a long and useful career.

THOMAS L. YOUNG was born on the estate of Lord Dufferin, in North Ireland, Dec. 14, 1832 ; came to this country at fifteen years of age ; served ten years as a private in the regular army, entering on the last year of the Mexican war; in 1859 came to Cincinnati ; graduated at its law school. When the rebellion broke out was assistant superintendent of the House of Refuge, Reform School, and on the 18th of March wrote a letter to Gen. Winfield Scott, whom he personally

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knew, offering his services for the coming war, thus becoming the first volunteer from Hamilton county. He eventually entered the army, was commissioned colonel and for extraordinary gallantry at Resaca was brevetted general. In 1866 he was elected to the legislature ; in 1872 served as a Senator, and in 1876 elected Lieut .- Governor and succeeded R. B. Hayes when he became President. As Governor of Ohio during the railroad riots he showed extraordinary pluck. Being asked to call upon the general government for aid from the regular troops he replied tersely : "No, not until the last man in Ohio is whipped." He died July 19, 1888, singularly admired for his thorough manliness.

RICHARD M. BISHOP was born in Fleming county, Kentucky, in 1812, and at the age of thirty-six came to Cincinnati, where for many years he was at the head of a wholesale grocery house ; in 1859 was elected Mayor of the city and in 1877 Governor of the State. He has ever been a public-spirited and highly respected citizen and now, in advanced life, is erect as in youth and possesses a fine patriarchal presence, wearing a long flowing beard, as grand we dare say as that Moses had when on Pisgah. From early life he has been one of the most promi- nent men of the Disciples or Campbellite Baptist Church, the same as that with which President Garfield was identified.

JOHN CLEVES SYMMES-Father.

ANNA HARRISON-Daughter.

WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON was born at Berkley, on James river, twenty-five miles from Richmond, Virginia, in 1773. He was the youngest of three sons of Benjamin Har- W. H. Hanijon rison, who represented Virginia in Congress in 1774-1776 and was chairman of the committee of the whole house, when the declaration of independence was agreed to, and was one of its signers. He was elected Governor of Virginia, and was one of the most popular officers that ever filled the executive chair. He died in 1791.

Wm. Henry Harrison entered Hampden Sydney College, which he left at seventeen years of age. He then began the study of medicine, but the death of his father checked his professional aspirations ; and the "note of preparation "

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which was sounding through the country, for a campaign against the Indians of the West, decided his destiny, and he resolved to enter into the service of his government.

His guardian, the celebrated Robert Morris, opposed his wishes ; but it was in vain that he placed the enterprise before the enthu- siastic youth in all its hardships and priva- tions. General Washington yielded to the importunities of the youth ; presented him with an ensign's commission. With charac- teristic ardor he departed for Fort Washing- ton, now Cincinnati; where, however, he arrived too late to participate in the unfortu- nate campaign of St. Clair. The fatal 4th of November had passed, and he was only in time to learn the earliest intelligence of the death of Butler, and of Oldham, and of the unparalleled massacre of the army of St. Clair.

The return of the broken troops had no effect in damping the zeal of young Harrison. He devoted himself ardently to the study of the theory of the higher tactics ; and when, in the succeeding year, Wayne assumed the command, Ensign Harrison was selected by him for one of his aids, and distinguished himself in Wayne's victory.

After the treaty of Greenville, 1795, he was given command of Fort Washington ; and shortly after married the daughter of Judge Symmes, the proprietor of the Miami pur- chase.

The idleness and dissipation of a garrison . Territory, thus defenceless, presented a life comported neither with the taste nor active temper of Captain Harrison. He re- signed his commission, and commenced his civil career, at the age of twenty-four years, as secretary of the Northwestern Territory. He was elected, in 1799, the first delegate in Congress. The first and general object of his attention as a representative was an alteration of the land system of the Territory. He was appointed chairman of the committee on lands, and though meeting with much opposition from speculators, secured the passage of a law for the subdivision of public lands into smaller tracts. To this measure is to be imputed the rapid settlement of the country northwest of the Ohio.

The reputation acquired by the young delegate from his legislative success created a party in his favor, who intimated a desire that he should supersede the venerable governor of the Territory. But Mr. Harrison checked the development of this feeling as soon as it was made known to him. He cherished too high a veneration for the pure and patriotic St. Clair to oppose him. Shortly after, when Indiana was erected into a separate Territory, he was appointed by Mr. Adams the first governor. Previously, how- ever, to quitting Congress, he was present at the discussion of the bill for the settlement of Judge Symmes' purchase ; and although this gentleman was his father-in-law, he took an active part in favor of those individuals who had purchased from him before he had obtained his patent. This was the impulse

of stern duty ; for at the moment he felt he was jeoparding a large pecuniary interest of his father-in-law.

In 1801 Governor Harrison entered upon the duties of his new office, at the old military post of Vincennes. The powers with which he was vested by law have never, since the organization of our government, been con- ferred upon any other officer, civil or military ; and the arduons character of the duties he had to perform can only be appreciated by those who were acquainted with the savage and cunning temper of the northwestern Indians, with the genius of the early pioneers, and the nature of a frontier settle- ment. Among his duties was that of com- missioner to treat with the Indians. In this capacity he concluded fifteen treaties, and purchased their title to upwards of seventy million of acres of land.

The whole Territory consisted of three settlements; so widely separated that it was impossible for them to contribute to their mutual defence. The first was Clarke's grant at the falls of Ohio ; the second, the old French establishment at Vincennes; and the third extended from Kaskaskia to Kahokia, on the Mississippi ; the whole comprising a population of about five thousand souls. The

frontier, assailable almost at every point, on the northeast, north, and northwest bounda- ries. Numerous tribes of warlike Indians were thickly scattered throughout the northern portion of the Territory, whose hostile feelings were constantly inflamed by the intrigues of British agents and traders, if not by the immediate influence of the English government itself, and not unfrequently by the uncontrollable outrages of the American hunters themselves. Governor Harrison applied himself with characteristic energy and skill to his duties. Justice tempered by mildness ; conciliation and firmness, accom- panied by a never slumbering watchfulness ; were the means he used. These enabled him to surmount difficulties, under which an ordi- nary capacity must have been prostrated.

During the year 1811, however, the intrigues of British agents operating on the passions of the Indians, brought affairs to a crisis which rendered hostilities unavoidable. Harrison called upon Colonel Boyd, of the 4th United States regiment, then at Pittsburg (who immediately joined him), and embodied a militia force as strong as the emergency would permit. To these were added a small but gallant band of chivalrous volunteers from Kentucky, consisting of about sixty-five individuals. With these he commenced his march towards the prophet's town at Tippe- canoe. On the 6th of November he arrived in sight of the Indian village, and made several fruitless attempts to negotiate with the savages. Finding it impossible to bring

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them to any discussion, he resolved to encamp for the night, under a promise from the chiefs to hold a conference next day. The men reposed upon the spot which each, individually, should occupy, in case of attack. The event justified the anticipations of the chief. On the morning of the 7th, before daylight, the onset was made with the usual yells and impetuosity. But the army was ready ; Harrison had risen some time before, and had roused the officers near him. The Indians fought with their usual desperation, and maintained their ground for some time with extraordinary courage. Victory declared in favor of discipline, at the expense, how- ever, of some of the most gallant spirits of the age. Among the slain were Colonels Daveis and Owen, of Kentucky, and Captain Spencer, of Indiana. Governor Harrison re- ceived a bullet through his stock, without touching his neck. The legislature of Ken- tucky, at its next session, while in mourning for her gallant dead, passed the following resolution, viz. :

"Resolved, That Governor William H. Harrison has behaved like a hero, a patriot and general ; and that for his cool, deliberate, skilful and gallant conduct, in the battle of Tippecanoe, he well deserves the thanks of the nation."

From this period, until after the declara- tion of war against England, Governor Har- rison was unremittingly engaged in negotia- ting with the Indians, and preparing to resist

a more extended attack from them. In . the country as its chief magistrate. His August, 1812, he received the brevet of major- general in the Kentucky militia, to enable him to command the forces marching to relieve Detroit. The surrender of Hull changed the face of affairs ; he was appointed a major-general in the army of the United States, and his duties embraced a larger sphere. Everything was in confusion, and everything was to be done ; money, arms and men were to be raised. It is under circum- stances like these that the talents of a great general are developed more powerfully than in conducting a battle. To do justice to this part of the biography of Harrison requires a volume of itself. Becoming stronger from President Harrison was distinguished by a generosity and liberality of feeling which was exercised beyond what strict justice to him- self and family should have permitted. With ample opportunity for amassing immense wealth, he ever disdained to profit by his public situation for private emolument. His theory was too rigidly honest to permit him to engage in speculation, and his chivalry was too sensitive to permit him to use the time belonging to his country for private benefit. After nearly fifty years devotion to his duties in the highest stations, he left at his death but little more to his family than the inherit- ance of an unsullied reputation. reverses, collecting munitions of war, and defending Fort Meigs, were the prominent features of his operations, until we find him in pursuit of Proctor, on the Canadian shore. On the 5th of October, 1813, he brought the British army and their Indian allies, under Proctor and Tecumseh, to action, near the river Thames. The victory achieved by militia over the disciplined troops of England, on this brilliant day, was decisive ; and like the battle of the Cowpens, in the war of the revolution, spread joy and animation over the whole Union. For this important action, Congress presented General Harrison with a gold medal. The success of the day is mainly attributable to the novel expedient of charging through the British lines with mounted in- fantry. The glory of originating this manœu- vre belongs exclusively to General Harrison.

The northwestern frontier being thus re-

lieved, Gen. Harrison left his troops at Sack. et's Harbor, under the command of Col. Smith, and departed for Washington by the way of New York, Philadelphia and Balti- more, and on the whole route he was received with enthusiasm.

Owing to a misunderstanding between Mr. Secretary Armstrong and himself, Gen. Har- rison resigned his commission in the spring of 1814. Mr. Madison sincerely deplored this step, and assured Governor Shelby, in a letter written immediately after the resigna- tion, " that it would not have been accepted had he been in Washington." It was re- ceived and accepted by Secretary Armstrong, while the President was absent at the springs.

Gen. Harrison retired to his farm at North Bend, in Ohio, from which he was success- ively called by the people, to represent them in the Congress of the United States, and in the legislature of the State. In 1824-5 he was elected to the Senate of the United States ; and in 1828 he was appointed minis- ter to Colombia, which station he held until he was recalled by President Jackson, not for any alleged fault, but in consequence of some difference of views on the Panama question. Gen. Harrison again returned to the pursuits of agriculture at North Bend. In 1834, on the almost unanimous petition of the citizens of the county, he was appointed prothonotary of the Court of Hamilton county.

In 1840 Gen. Harrison was called by the people of the United States to preside over election was a triumphant one ; of 294 votes for President he received 234. From the time when he was first nominated for the office until his death, he had been rising in public esteem and confidence ; he entered upon the duties of his office with an uncommon degree of popularity, and a high expectation was cherished that his administration would be honorable to himself and advantageous to the country. His death, which took place April 4th, 1841, just a month after his inaugura- tion, caused a deep sensation throughout the country. He was the first President of the United States that had died in office.

BENJAMIN HARRISON, son of Senator John Scott Harrison and grandson of Gen. Wm. Henry Harrison, was born in North Bend, Ohio, August 20, 1833 ; graduated at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, in 1852. While at college he formed an attachment for Caroline

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L. Scott, daughter of John W. Scott, presi- dent of Oxford Female Seminary, and they were married Octoher 20, 1853. .

He studied law in the office of Storer & Gwynne, in Cincinnati, and in 1854 removed to Indianapolis, Ind. He was elected re- porter of the State Supreme Court in 1860, and in 1862 entered the army as second lieu- tenant of the 70th Indiana Volunteers-a regiment which he assisted in raising. and of which, when completed, Governor Morton appointed him colonel.

He was a valuable and efficient officer, greatly beloved by his men, to whom his many acts of kindness and consideration greatly endeared him, and he was by them called "Little Ben." His actions at the battle of Peach Tree Creek greatly pleased Gen. Hooker, who said of him : "My atten- tion was first attracted to this young officer by the superior excellence of his brigade in discipline and instruction-the result of his labor, skill and devotion. With more fore- sight than I have witnessed in any officer of his experience, he seemed to act upon a prin- ciple, that success depended upon the thor- ough preparation in discipline and esprit of his command for conflict more than on any influence that could be exerted upon the field itself ; and when collision came, his command vindicated his wisdom as much as his valor. In all of the achievements of the 20th Corps in that campaign (from Chattanooga to At- lanta), Col. Harrison bore a conspicuous part. At Resaca and Peach Tree Creek the conduct of himself and command was especially dis- tingnished."

He served to the close of the war, and was mustered out in the grand review in Wash- ington, in June, 1865, with the rank of brevet brigadier-general.

Gen. Harrison had been re-elected, in 1864, while still in the army, to the office of State Supreme Court reporter, and assumed the duties of the office on his return to Indian- apolis. In 1879 he was appointed by Presi- dent Hayes a member of the Mississippi River Commission. At the National Repub- lican Convention of 1880, held in Chicago, he was chairman of the Indiana delegation, and his name was placed in nomination, but he withdrew it. In 1880 he was chosen U. S. Senator, and held that seat until March 3, 1887. In 1884 he was a delegate at large from Indiana to the National Republican Convention; and his name was again men- tioned in connection with the presidency.

In the National Republican Convention, held in Chicago in June, 1888, he was nomi- nated for the presidency on the eighth bal- lot, receiving 544 votes. The Democratic party renominated Grover Cleveland, and the tariff issue became the main question of the campaign. All through the campaign Gen. Harrison made almost daily speeches to visiting delegations, giving free expression to his views and opinions on almost every ques- tion of the day; and his remarkably sound judgment and comprehension of all vital questions was signally illustrated in language of unusual simplicity and clearness. He re- ceived 233 votes in the Electoral college against 168 for Grover Cleveland.

"LET us go in; these ladies have some conspiracy together." Such was a remark playfully made to us in a garden, near sunset, on an August even- ing in the summer of 1845. Two old gentlemen and their wives, two old ladies, were present, beside the writer ; the ladies were a little one side, look- ing at the flowers glinting in the de- clining rays, and, true to their sex, busy talking. The speaker was Henry Clay, and this was his home, Ashland, near Lexington, Ky. He had invited us to tea, and directed through the house but a few moments before, we had found him in his garden. The other was JACOB BURNET, to whom he had introduced us. No man then living had made such an impress as he upon the history of Ohio and the Northwest. He looked every inch the peer of Mr. Clay, as indeed he was. They were JACOB BURNET. strong friends ; but in person and man- ners antipodal. Mr. Clay was all geniality, his voice deeply sonorous and musical. Judge Burnet was a trifle less in stature than Mr. Clay, but

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broader. He was then seventy-six years of age; Mr. Clay several years younger. The Judge was a thorough gentleman of the old school, of Scotch descent, his complexion very dark, swarthy ; eyes black, and general expression forbidding, and manner reserved and dignified. He walked with a cane, his hair in a queue, and we think he wore a ruffled shirt. His residence at this time was in.a large old-style mansion, square in shape, with a broad hall running through the centre, on Seventh street, corner Elm, Cincinnati, of which city he was its first citizen.

This eminent man was the son of Dr. Wil- liam Burnet, surgeon-general of the Revolu- tionary army, and a member of the Conti- nental Congress ; was born at Newark, N. J., in 1770; was educated at Princeton, and in 1796, when twenty-six years of age, came to Cincinnati to practise law, then a village of a few log-cabins and 150 inhabitants. The entire territory, now comprising five States and ten millions of people, was mostly a wil- derness, containing scarcely the semblance of a road, bridge, or ferry. This territory was divided into four counties-Washington, Hamilton, St. Clair, and Knox. The seats of justice were respectively at Marietta, Cin- cinnati, Kaskaskia, and Vincennes, in each of which Courts of Common Pleas and Gen- eral Quarter Sessions of the Peace were es- tablished. From 1796 to 1803 the Bar of Hamilton county occasionally attended the General Court at Marietta and Detroit, and during the whole of that time Mr. St. Clair (son of the General), Judge Symmes, and Judge Burnet never missed a term in either of those counties. These journeys were made with five or six in company and with pack- horses. They were sometimes eight or ten days in the wilderness, "and at all seasons of the year were compelled to swim every water-course in their way which was too deep to be forded." They had some hair-breadth escapes. One night their horses refused to go any farther, and they were obliged to camp ; the next morning they found they had halted on the verge of a precipice.

In 1799 Judge Burnet was selected by the President of the United States as a member of the Legislative Council of the Territorial Government, of which he was the leading mind.

"Thus," said the late Judge Este, "in less than four years he was at the head of the bar of the West, the popular, intelligent and of- ficial leader of the Legislature. Almost an entirely new system of laws was undertaken, and the labor devolved on him. He cheer- fully engaged in it and was so clearly convinced of the necessity of giving himself up to the business of legislating for the Territory that he would not listen to the friends who urged him to be a delegate to Congress. Thus early and permanently did his mind make its im- press upon the legislative history of the country."

Judge Burnet was the author of the first constitution of Ohio. From 1812 to 1816 was a member of the State Legislature. In 1821 he was appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, serving until 1828, when he resigned to accept the position of United

States Senator, to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of General Harrison. As a senator he was the intimate personal and po- litical friend of Webster. From the notes taken by Senator Burnet in the celebrated discussion between Hayne and Webster the latter in part framed the reply which stamped Webster as the matchless orator of our country.

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 130

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 1006

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006