Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 49

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

USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I > Part 49

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BRIDGEPORT lies upon the Ohio river 135 miles easterly from Columbus, on the old National road and exactly opposite Wheeling, W. Va., with which it is connected by a bridge, and on the C. L. & W. and C. & P. Railroads. It joins the town of Martin's Ferry ; forming with it to the eye but a single city. Back of it rise very bold hills and the site is highly picturesque.

Bridgeport has 1 Presbyterian, 2 Methodist Episcopal and 1 Colored Baptist church. First National Bank, W. W. Holloway, president ; J. J. Holloway, cashier.

Manufactures and Employees .- Standard Iron Co., corrugated iron, 205 hands ; Bridgeport Glass Co., fruit jars, 80 ; Ætna Iron and Steel Co., 610 ; La Belle Glass Works, cut glass, etc., 335 ; L. C. Leech, barrels, etc. ; Diamond Mills, flour, etc .; R. J. Baggs & Son, doors, sash, etc., 35 ; Bridgeport Machine Shop .- State Report 1887.

Population in 1840, 329; in 1880, 2,390. School census 1886, 1,130; T. E. Orr, superintendent. Bridgeport was laid out in 1806 under the name of Canton by Ebenezer Zane.

The locality had long been named Kirkwood from Capt. Joseph Kirkwood, who in 1789 built a cabin on the south side of Indian Wheeling creek.

Indian Attack on Kirkwood's Cabin .- In the spring of 1791 the cabin of Cap- tain Kirkwood, at this place, was attacked at night by a party of Indians, who, after a severe action, were repulsed. This Captain Kirkwood " was the gallant and unrewarded Captain Kirkwood, of the Delaware line, in the war of the revolu- tion, to whom such frequent and honorable allusion is made in Lee's memoir of the Southern campaigns. The State of Delaware had but one continental regiment, which, at the defeat at Camden, was reduced to a single company. It was there- fore impossible, under the rules, for Kirkwood to be promoted ; and he was under the mortification of beholding inferior officers in the regiments of other States, pro-

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moted over him, while he, with all his merit, was compelled to remain a captain, solely in consequence of the small force Delaware was enabled to maintain in the service. He fought with distinguished gallantry through the war, and was in the bloody battles of Camden, Holkirks, Eutaw and Ninety-six."

Captain Kirkwood moved here in 1789, and built his cabin on a knoll. There was then an unfinished block-house on the highest part of the knoll, near by. On the night of the at- tack, fourteen soldiers, under Captain Joseph Biggs, with Captain Kirkwood and family, were in the cabin. About two hours before daybreak the captain's little son Joseph had occasion to leave the cabin for a few mo- ments, and requested Captain Biggs to ac- company him. They were out but a few minutes, and, although unknown to them, were surrounded by Indians. They had re- turned, and again retired to sleep in the up- per loft, when they soon discovered the roof in a blaze, which was the first intimation they had of the presence of an enemy. Captain Kirkwood was instantly awakened, when he and his men commenced pushing off the roof, the Indians at the same time firing upon them, from under cover of the block- house. Captain Biggs, on the first alarm, ran down the ladder into the room below to get his rifle, when a ball entered a window and wounded him in the wrist. Soon the Indians had surrounded the house, and attempted to break in the door with their tomahawks. Those within braced it with puncheons from the floor. In the panic of the moment sev- eral of the men wished to escape from the cabin, but Captain Kirkwood silenced them with the threat of taking the life of the first man who made the attempt, asserting that the Indians would tomahawk them as fast as they left.

The people of Wheeling-one mile dis- tant-hearing the noise of the attack, fired a swivel to encourage the defenders, although fearful of coming to the rescue. This enraged the Indians the more ; they sent forth terrific yells, and brought brush, piled it around the

cabin, and set it on fire. Those within in a measure smothered the flames, first with the water and milk in the house, and then with damp earth from the floor of the cabin. The fight was kept up about two hours, until dawn, when the Indians retreated. Had they attacked earlier, success would have resulted. The loss of the Indians, or their number, was unknown-only one was seen. He was in the act of climbing up the corner of the cabin, when he was discovered, let go his hold and fell. Seven of those within were wounded, and one, a Mr. Walker, mortally. He was a brave man. As he lay, disabled and helpless, on his back, on the earth, he called out to the Indians in a taunting manner. He died in a few hours, and was buried the next day, at Wheeling, with military honors. A party of men, under Gen. Benjamin Biggs, of West Liberty, went in an unsuccessful pur- suit of the Indians. A niece of Captain Kirkwood, during the attack, was on a visit about twenty miles distant, on Buffalo ereek. In the night she dreamed that the cabin was attacked, and heard the guns. So strong an impression did it make, that she arose and rode down with all her speed to Wheeling, where she arrived two hours after sunrise.

After this affair Captain Kirkwood moved with his family to Newark, Delaware. On his route he met with some of St. Clair's troops, then on their way to Cincinnati. Exasperated at the Indians for their attack upon his house, he accepted the command of a company of Delaware troops, was with them at the defeat of St. Clair in the No- vember following, "where he fell in a brave attempt to repel the enemy with the bayonet, and thus closed a career as honorable as it was unrewarded."

Elizabeth Zane, who acted with so much heroism at the siege of Wheeling, in 1782, lived many years since about two miles above Bridgeport, on the Ohio side of the river, near Martinsville. She was twice married, first to Mr. M'Laughlin, and secondly to Mr. Clark. This anecdote of her heroism has been published a thousand times.

Heroism of Elizabeth Zane .- When Lynn, the ranger, gave the alarm that an Indian army was approaching, the fort having been for some time unoccupied by a garrison, and Colonel Zane's honse having been used for a magazine, those who retired into the fortress had to take with them a supply of ammuni- tion for its defence. The supply of powder, deemed ample at the time, was now almost exhausted, by reason of the long continuance of the siege, and the repeated endeavors of the savages to take the fort by storm ; a few rounds only remained. In this emergency it became necessary to renew their stock from

an abundant store which was deposited in Colonel Zane's house. Accordingly, it was proposed that one of the fleetest men should endeavor to reach the house, obtain a supply of powder, and return with it to the fort. It was an enterprise full of danger; but muany of the heroic spirits shut up in the fort were willing to encounter the hazard. Among those who volunteered to go on this enterprise was Elizabeth, the sister of Colonel E. Zane. She was young, active and athletic, with courage to dare the danger, and forti- tude to sustain her through it. Disdaining to weigh the hazard of her own life against

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that of others, when told that a man would encounter less danger by reason of his greater fleetness, she replied, "and should he fall, his loss will be more severely felt ; you have not one man to spare ; a woman will not be missed in the defence of the fort." Her services were then accepted. Divesting her- self of some of her garments, as tending to impede her progress, she stood prepared for the hazardous adventure ; and when the gate was thrown open, bounded forth with the buoyancy of hope, and in the confidence of Wrapt in amazement, the Indians beheld her springing forward, and only ex- claiming, "a squaw," "a squaw," no at- tempt was made to interrupt her progress ;

arrived at the door, she proclaimed her er- rand. Colonel Silas Zane fastened a table- cloth around her waist, and emptying into it a keg of powder, again she ventured forth. The Indians were no longer passive. Ball after ball whizzed by, several of which passed through her clothes ; she reached the gate, and entered the fort in safety ; and thus was the garrison again saved by female intrepidity. This heroine had but recently returned from Philadelphia, where she had received her education, and was wholly unused to such scenes as were daily passing on the frontiers. The distance she had to run was about forty yards.

Among the best sketches of backwoods life is that written by Mr. John S. Wil- liams, editor of the American Pioneer, and published in October, 1843. In the spring of 1800 his father's family removed from Carolina and settled with others on Glenn's run, about six miles northeast of St. Clairsville. He was then a lad, as he relates, of seventy-five pounds weight. From his sketch, "Our Cabin ; or Life in the Woods," we make some extracts.

OUR CABIN; OR LIFE IN THE WOODS.

Our Cabin Described .- Emigrants poured in from different parts, cabins were put up in every direction, and women, children and goods tumbled into them. The tide of emi- gration flowed like water through a breach in a mill-dam. Everything was bustle and con- fusion, and all at work that could work. In the midst of all this the mumps, and perhaps one or two other diseases, prevailed and gave us a seasoning. Our cabin had been raised, covered, part of the cracks chinked, and part of the floor laid when we moved in, on Christ- mas day ! There had not been a stick cut except in building the cabin. We had in- tended an inside chimney, for we thought the chimney ought to be in the house. We had a log put across the whole width of the cabin for a mantel, but when the floor was in we found it so low as not to answer, and removed it. Here was a great change for my mother and sister, as well as the rest, but particularly my mother. She was raised in the most deli- cate manner in and near London, and lived most of her time in affluence, and always comfortable. She was now in the wilderness, surrounded by wild beasts, in a cabin with about half a floor, no door, no ceiling over- head, not even a tolerable sign for a fireplace, the light of day and the chilling winds of night passing between every two logs in the building, the cabin so high from the ground that a bear, wolf, panther, or any other ani- mal less in size than a cow, could enter with- out_even a squeeze. Such was our situation on Thursday and Thursday night, December 25, 1800, and which was bettered but by very slow degrees. We got the rest of the floor laid in a very few days, the chinking of the cracks went on slowly, but the daubing could not proceed till weather more suitable, which happened in a few days; door-ways were sawed out and steps made of the logs, and

the back of the chimney was raised up to the mantel, but the funnel of sticks and clay was delayed until spring.

Our family consisted of my mother, a sister, of twenty-two, my brother, near twenty-one and very weakly, and myself, in my eleventh year. Two years afterwards, Black Jenny followed us in company with my half-brother, Richard, and his family. She lived two years with us in Ohio, and died in the winter of 1803-4.

In building our cabin it was set to front the north and south, my brother using my father's pocket compass on the occasion. We had no idea of living in a house that did not stand square with the earth itself. This ar- gued our ignorance of the comforts and con- veniences of a pioneer life. The position of the house, end to the hill, necessarily elevated the lower end, and the determination of hav- ing both a north and south door added much to the airiness of the domicil, particularly after the green ash puncheons had shrunk so as to have cracks in the floor and doors from one to two inches wide. At both the doors we had high, unsteady, and sometimes icy steps, made by piling up the logs cut out of the wall. We had, as the reader will see, a window, if it could be called a window, when, perhaps, it was the largest spot in the top, bottom, or sides of the cabin at which the wind could not enter. It was made by sawing out a log, placing sticks across, and then, by pasting an old newspaper over the hole, and applying some hog's lard, we had a kind of glazing which shed a most beautiful and mel- low light across the cabin when the sun shone on it. All other light entered at the doors, cracks and chimney.

Our cabin was twenty-four by eighteen. The west end was occupied by two beds, the centre of each side by a door, and here our symmetry had to stop, for on the opposite side of the window, made of clapboards, sup-

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ported on pins driven into the logs, were our shelves. Upon these shelves my sister dis- played, in ample order, a host of pewter plates, basins, and dislics, and spoons, scoured and bright. It was none of your new-fangled pewter made of lead, but the best London pewter, which our father himself bought of Townsend, the manufacturer. These were the plates upon which you could hold your mcat so as to cut it without slipping and without dulling your knife. But, alas! the days of pewter plates and sharp dinner knives have passed away never to return. To return to our internal arrangements. A ladder of five rounds occupied the corner near the window. By this, when we got a floor above, we could ascend. Our chimney occupied most of the east end ; pots and kettles opposite the win- dow under the shelves, a gun on hooks over the north door, four split-bottom chairs, three three-legged stools, and a small eight by ten looking-glass sloped from the wall over a large

towel and comb-case. These, with a clumsy shovel and a pair of tongs, made in Frederick, with one shank straight, as the best manufac- ture of pinches and blood-blisters, completed our furniture, except a spinning-wheel and such things as were necessary to work with. It was absolutely necessary to have three- legged stools, as four legs of anything could not all touch the floor at the same time.

The completion of our cabin went on slowly. The season was inclement, we were weak-handed and weak-pocketed; in fact, laborers were not to be had. We got our chimney up breast-high as soon as we could, and got our cabin daubed as high as the joists outside. It never was daubed on the inside, for my sister, who was very nice, could not consent to "live right next to the mud." My impression now is, that the window was not constructed till spring, for until the sticks and clay was put on the chimney we could possibly have no need of a window; for the

OUR CABIN ; OR LIFE IN THE WOODS.

flood of light which always poured into the cabin from the fireplace would have extin- guished our paper window, and rendered it as useless as the moon at noonday. We got a floor laid overhead as soon as possible, per- haps in a month ; but when it was laid, the reader will readily conceive of its impervious- ness to wind or weather, when we mention that it was laid of loose clapboards split from a red oak, the stump of which may be seen beyond the cabin. That tree grew in the night, and so twisting that each board laid on two diagonally opposite corners, and a cat might have shook every board on our ceiling.

It may be well to inform the unlearned reader that clapboads are such lumber as pio- neers split with a frow, and resemble barrel staves before they are shaved, but are split longer, wider and thinner ; of such our roof and ceiling were composed. Puncheons were planks made by splitting logs to about two and a half or three inches in thickness, and hewing them on one or both sides with the

broad-axe. Of such our floor, doors, tables and stools were manufactured. The eave- bearers are those end logs which project over to receive the butting poles, against which the lower tier of clapboards rest in forming the roof. The trapping is the roof timbers, composing the gable end and the ribs, the ends of which appear in the drawing, being those logs upon which the clapboards lie. The trap logs are those of unequal length. above the eave bearers, which form the gable ends, and upon which the ribs rest. . 111? weight poles are those small logs laid on the roof, which weigh down the course of clap- boards on which they lie, and against which the next course above is placed. The knees are pieces of heart timber placed above the butting poles, successively, to prevent the weight poles from rolling off. .

The evenings of the first winter did not pass off as pleasantly as evenings afterwards. We had raised no tobacco to stem and twist, no corn to shell, no turnips to scrape; we had

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no tow to spin into rope-yarn, nor straw to plait for hats, and we had come so late we could get but few walnuts to craek. We had, however, the Bible, George Fox's Journal, Barkley's Apology, and a number of books, all better than much of the fashionable read- ing of the present day-from which, after reading, the reader finds he has gained noth- ing, while his understanding has been made the dupe of the writer's faney-that while reading he has given himself up to be led in mazes of fictitious imagination, and losing his taste for solid reading, as frothy luxuries de- stroy the appetite for wholesome food. To our stoek of books werc soon after added a borrowed copy of the Pilgrim's Progress, which we read twice through without stop- ping. The first winter our living was truly scanty and hard; but even this winter had its felicities. We had part of a barrel of flour which we had brought from Fredericktown. Besides this, we had part of a jar of hog's lard brought from old Carolina ; not the taste- less stuff which now goes by that name, but pure leaf lard, taken from hogs raised on pine roots and fattened on sweet potatoes, and into which, while rendering, were immersed the boughs of the fragrant bay tree, that imparted to the lard a rich flavor. Of that flour, short- ened with this lard, my sister every Sunday morning, and at no other time, made short biscuit for breakfast-not these greasy gum- elastic biscuit we mostly meet with now, rolled out with a pin, or cut out with a cutter ; or those that are, perhaps, speckled by or puffed up with refined lye called salæratus, but made out, one by one, in her fair hands, placed in neat juxtaposition in a skillet or spider, pricked with a fork to prevent blistering. and baked before an open fire-not half-baked and half-stewed in a cooking-stove.

The Woods about us .- In the ordering of a good Providence the winter was open, but windy. While the wind was of great use in driving the smoke and ashes out of our cabin, it shook terribly the timber standing almost over us. We were sometimes much and needlessly alarmed. We had never seen a dangerous looking tree near a dwelling, but here we were surrounded by the tall giants of the forest, waving their boughs and uniting their brows over us, as if in defiance of our disturbing their repose, and usurping their long and uncontested pre-emption rights. The beech on the left often shook his bushy head over us as if in absolute disapprobation of our settling there, threatening to crush us if we did not paek up and start. The walnut over the spring branch stood high and straight ; no one could tell which way it in- clined, but all concluded that if it had a preference it was in favor of quartering on our cabin. We got assistance to cut it down. The axeman doubted his ability to control its direction, by reason that he must necessarily cut it almost off before it would fall. He thought by felling the tree in the direction of the reader, along near the chimney, and thus favor the little lean it seemed to have, would be the means of saving the cabin. He

was successful. Part of the stump still stands. These, and all other dangerous trees, were got down without other damage than many frights and frequent desertions of the pre- mises by the family while the trees were being eut. The ash beyond the house crossed the searf and fell on the cabin, but without damage. .

Howling Wolves .-- The monotony of the time for several of the first years was broken and enlivened by the howl of wild beasts. The wolves howling around us seemed to moan their inability to drive us from their long and undisputed domain. The bears, panthers and deer seemingly got miffed at our approach or the partiality of the hunters, and but seldom troubled us. One bag of meal would make a whole family rejoicingly happy and thankful then, when a loaded East Indiaman will fail to do it now, and is passed off as a common business transaction without ever once thinking of the giver, so independent have we become in the short space of forty years ! Having got out of the wilderness in less time than the children of Israel we seem to be even more forgetful and unthankful than they. When spring was fully come and our little patch of eorn, three acres, put in among the beech roots, which at every step contended with the shovel-plough for the right of soil, and held it too, we enlarged our stock of conveniences. As soon as bark would run (peel off) we could make ropes and bark boxes. These we stood in great need of, as such things as bureaus, stands, ward- robes, or even barrels, were not to be had. The manner of making ropes of linn bark was to cut the bark in strips of convenient length, and water-rot it in the same manner as rot- ting flax or hemp. When this was done the inside bark would peel off and split up so fine as to make a pretty considerably rough and good-for-but-little kind of a rope. Of this, however, we were very glad, and let no ship- owner with his grass ropes laugh at us. We made two kinds of boxes for furniture. One kind was of hickory bark with the outside shaved off. This we would take off all around the tree, the size of which would determine the calibre of our box. Into one end we would place a flat piece of bark or puncheor. cut round to he in the bark, which stood on end the same as when on the tree. There was little need of hooping, as the strength of the bark would keep that all right enough. Its shrinkage would make the top unsightly in a parlor now-a-days, but then they were considered quite an addition to the furniture. A much finer article was made of slippery. elm bark, shaved smooth and with the inside out, bent round and sewed together where the ends of the hoop or main bark lapped over. The length of the bark was around the box, and inside out. A bottom war made of a piece of the same bark dried flat, and a lid, like that of a common band-box, made in the same way. This was the finest furniture in a lady's dressing-room, and then, as now, with the finest furniture, the lapped or sewed side was turned to the wall and the

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prettiest part to the spectator. They were usually made oval, and while the bark was green were easily ornamented with drawings of birds. trees, etc., agreeably to the taste and skill of the fair manufacturer. As we be- longed to the Society of Friends, it may be fairly presumed that our band-boxes were not thus ornamented. .

Pioneer Food .- We settled on beech land, which took much labor to clear. We could do no better than clear out the smaller stuff and burn the brush, etc., around the beeeles which, in spite of the girdling and burning we could do to them, would leaf out the first wear, and often a little the second. The land, however, was very rich, and would bring better corn than might be expected. We had to tend it principally with the hoe, that is, to chop down the nettles, the water-weed and the touch-me-not. Grass, careless, lambs-quarter and Spanish needles were re- served to pester the better prepared farmer. We cleared a small turnip patch, which we got in about the 10th of August. We sowed in timothy seed, which took well, and next year we had a little hay besides. The tops and blades of the corn were also carefully saved for our horse, cow and the two sheep. The turnips were sweet and good, and in the fall we took care to gather walnuts and hickory nuts, which were very abundant. These, with the turnips which we scraped, supplied the place of fruit. I have always been partial to scraped turnips, and could now beat any three dandies at scraping them. Johnny-cake, also, when we had meal to make it of, helped to make up our evening's repast. The Sunday morning biscuit had all evaporated, but the loss was partially sup- plied by the nuts and turnips. Our regular supper was mush and milk, and by the time we had shelled our corn, stemmed tobacco, and plaited straw to make hats, etc., etc., the mush and milk had seemingly decamped from the neighborhood of our ribs. To relieve' this difficulty my brother and I would bake a thin Johnny-cake, part of which we would eat, and leave the rest till the morning. At daylight we would eat the balance as we walked from the house to work.

The methods of eating mush and milk were various. Some would sit around the pot, and every one take therefrom for himself. Some would set a table and each have his tin- cup of milk, and with a pewter spoon take just as much mush from the dish or the pot, if it was on the table, as he thought would fill his mouth or throat, then lowering it into the milk would take some to wash it down. This method kept the milk cool, and by frequent repetitions the pioneers would con- tract a faculty of correctly estimating the proper amount of cach. Others would mix mush and milk together. ..

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 49

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