Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume II, Part 8

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 916

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LICKING COUNTY.

to the improvement. Wheat raised from 25 cents to $1.00 per bushel before the canal was finished.

And now let me say, as I have lived to see all to this time, the Ohio canal was the beginning of the State's prosperity."

TRAVELLING NOTES.

The Drummer Boy of Shiloh .- Newark takes pride in her reputation of having supplied the youngest and smallest recruit to the Union army, and in the person of JOHNNIE CLEM, sometimes called the Drummer Boy of Shiloh, and some- times of Chickamauga. Lossing says he was probably the youngest person who ever bore arms in battle. His full name is John Winton Clem, but the family spell the name Klem and not Clem. He was born in Newark, August 13, 1851, and ran away from home when less than teu years of age and enlisted as a drummer boy in the army ; was in many battles and won singular distinction.

Johnnie Clem's parents were French-Germans, his mother from Alsace. His father was a market-gardener aud huekster, and used to send Johnnie, accom- panied by his sister, Lizzie (now Mrs. Adams), two years younger, from house to house to sell vegetables. Johnnie was a universal favorite with the people, being a bright, sprightly boy, and very small of his age-only thirty inches high.

The family are now living in garden-like surroundings on the outskirts, on the Granville road, where I went to have an interview to get the facts of his history. I knocked at the side-door of an humble home. A sturdy, erect, com- pact little woman answered my knock, and to my query replied, "I am his sister and can tell you everything. Please take a seat and I'll be ready in a few moments." She was the Lizzie spoken of above. It was the kitchen I was in : two young children were by her side, and some pies, with their jackets on, on the table about ready for the oven, and only requiring the trimming off of the over- hanging dough, which she did dextrously, twirling them on the tips of her up- lifted fingers during the operation. Placing them in the oven, and then " tidying up things a little," she took a seat and thus opened up her story for my benefit, while the children in silence looked at me with wondering eyes and listened also :

LIZZIE'S NARRATIVE.

It being Sunday, May 24, 1861, and the great rebellion in progress, Johnnie said at dinner-table : "Father, I'd like mighty well to be a drummer boy. Can't I go into the Union army ?" "Tut, what nonsense, boy !" replied father, "you are not ten years old." Yet when he had disappeared it is strange we had no thoughts that he had gone into the service.

When dinner was over Johnnie took charge of us, I being seven years old and our brother, Lewis, five years, and we started for the Francis de Sales Sunday-school. As it was early he left us at the church door, say- ing, "I will go and take a swim and be back in time." He was a fine swimmer. That was the last we saw of him for two years.

The distress of our father and step-mother at Johnnie's disappearance was beyond meas- ure. Our own mother had met with a shock- ing death the year before : had been run over by a yard engine as she was crossing the track to avoid another train. No own mother could be more kind to us than was our step- mother. Father, thinking Johnnie must have been drowned, had the water drawn from the head of the canal. Mother travelled hither and yon to find him. It was all in vain. Several weeks elapsed when we heard of him

as having been in Mount Vernon ; and then for two years nothing more was heard and we mourned him as dead, not even dreaming that he could he in the army, he was so very small, nothing hut a child.

It seems he went up on the train to Mount Vernon and appeared next day at the house of Mrs. Dennis Cochrane, an old neighbor of ours. He told her that his father had sent him there to peddle vegetables which were to come up from Newark. None arriv- ing, Mrs. Cochrane surmised the truth, and at the end of the week, fearful he would escape, fastened to him a dog chain and put him in charge of a Newark railroad con- ductor to deliver to his home, which he could readily do as it was near the depot. On his arrival here he worked on the sympathies of the conductor to let him go free, saying his father would whip him dreadfully if he was delivered to him. This father wouldn't have done-he would have been but too glad to have got him.

The train carried him to Columbus, where he enlisted as a drummer boy in the 24th Ohio. Finding an uncle in that organization he left it and went as a drummer boy in the 22d Michigan. He was an expert drummer, and being a bright, cheery child, soon made

LICKING COUNTY.

his way into the affections of officers and soldiers.

He was in many battles : at Shiloh, Perry- ville, Murfreesboro', Chattanooga, Chicka- mauga, Nashville, Kenesaw, and others, in which the army of the Cumberland was engaged. He was at one time taken prisoner down in Georgia. The rebels stripped him of everything, his clothes, his shoes, his little gun-an ordinary musket, I suppose, cut short-and his little cap. He said he did not care about anything but his cap. He did want to save that, and it hurt him sorely to part with it, for it had three bullet holes through it.

When he was exchanged as a prisoner he came home for a week. He was wasted to a skeleton. He had been starved almost to death. I was but a little thing then, but I never shall forget his dreadful corpse-like aspect when the carriage which brought him stopped at our door. He seemed like as if he was done up in a mass of rags. There were no soldier clothes small enough to fit him, and he was so small and wan and not much larger than a babe, about thirty inches high, and couldn't have weighed over sixty pounds.

He returned to the army and served on the

staff of General Thomas until the close of the war. After it, he studied at West Point, but could not regularly enter as a cadet on account of his diminutive size. General Grant, however, commissioned him as a Lieutenant. He is now (1886) Captain of the 24th U. S. Infantry, and is stationed at Fort McHenry, Md. He is still small : height, only five feet, and weight, 105 pounds. He married, May 24, 1875, Annita, daughter of the late General Wm. H. French, U. S. A. Like her husband, she is under size, short and delicate ; can't weigh over seventy pounds. They have had six children, only one of whom is living.

I have told you of the dreadful death of our mother, run over by a yard engine. My brother Louis, five years old on that noted Sunday, also came to a shocking end. I think father will never get over mourning for him. He grew to be very tall, full six feet, but of slender frame and feeble health. He was off West on a furlough for his health when he went with Custer, as a guest, on his last ill-fated expedition, and was with the others massacred by the Sioux, under Sitting Bull, in the battle of Little Big Horn, in Montana, June 25, 1876.

On closing her narrative Mrs. Adams showed me a portrait of her brother as a captain. He is a perfect blonde with large blue eyes, large straight nose, and a calm, amiable expression Another as a child standing by the side of General McClennan, who looks pleased, the natural result of having such a sweet-looking little fellow by him. He was a great favorite with all the generals, as Grant, Rosecrans and Thomas, the latter keeping up with him a fatherly correspondence as long as he lived.

To the foregoing narrative from Mrs. Adams we have some items to add of his war experiences, from an equally authentic source.

When he joined the 22d Michigan, being too young to be mustered in, he went with the regiment as a volunteer, until at length he was beating the long roll in front of Shiloh. His drum was smashed by a piece of shell, which occurrence won for him the appellation of "Johnnie Shiloh," as a title of distinction for his bravery. He was afterwards regularly mustered in and served also as a marker, and with his little musket so served on the battle- field of Chattanooga. At the close of that bloody day, the brigade in which he was was partly surrounded by rebels and was retreat- ing, when he, being unable to fall back as fast as the rest of the line, was singled out by a rebel colonel, who rode up to him with the summons, scoundrel, "Halt ! surrender, yon - little Yankee !" By way of order Johnnie halted, brought his piece to the posi- tion of charge bayonet, thus throwing the colonel off his guard. In another moment the piece was cocked, fired, and the colonel fell dead from his horse. Simultaneously with this the regiment was fired into, when Johnnie fell as though he had been shot, and laid there until darkness closed in, when he arose and made his way toward Chattanooga

after the rest of the army. A few days later he was taken prisoner with others whilst detailed to bring up the supply trains from Bridgeport.

When he returned to service, General Thomas was in command of the army of the Cumberland. He received him with the warmest enthusiasm, made him an orderly sergeant, and attached him to his staff. At Chickamauga he was struck with a fragment of a shell in the hip, and at Atlanta, while he was in the act of delivering a despatch from General Thomas to General Logan, when a ball struck his pony obliquely near the top of his head, killing him and wounding his fear- less little atom of a rider in the right ear.

For his heroic conduct he was made a sergeant by Rosecrans, who placed him upon the Roll of Honor, and attached him to the head-quarters of the army of the Cumberland, while a daughter of Chief-Justice Chase presented him with a silver medal inscribed, Sergeant Johnnie Clem, Twenty-second Michigan Volunteer Infantry, from N. M. C.," which he worthily wears as a priceless badge of honor upon his left breast, in con- nection with his Grand Army medal.

Now (1890) Captain Clem is holding the important positions of Depot Quartermaster, Depot Commissary, ordnance office, Colum- bus, Ohio.

Drawn by Henry Howe in 1846.

PUBLIC SQUARE, NEWARK.

Frank Henry Howe, Photo., 1890.

PUBLIC SQUARE, NEWARK.

LICKING COUNTY.

Granville in 1846 .- Granville is six miles west of Newark on Raccoon creek, a branch of the Licking, and is connected with the Ohio canal by a side cut of six miles in length. It is a neat, well-built town, noted for the morality and intelli- gence of its inhabitants and its flourishing and well-conducted literary institutions. It contains 6 churches, 6 stores, 3 academies-(beside a large brick building, which accommodates in each of its stories a distinct school,-and had, in 1840, 727 inhabitants. The Granville College belongs to the Baptists, and was chartered in 1832. It is on a commanding site, one mile southwest of the village: its faculty consists of a president, two professors and two tutors. The four institu- tions at Granville have, unitedly, from 15 to 20 instructors, and enjoy a generous patronage from all parts of the State. When all the schools and institutions are in operation, there are, within a mile, usually from 400 to 600 scholars .- Old Edition.

GRANVILLE is six miles west of Newark, on the T. & O. C. R. R., about thirty- five miles from Columbus. It is the seat of Dennison University, Granville Female College and Shepardson's Institute for Women. Newspaper : Times, Republican, Kussmaul & Shepardson, editors and publishers. Churches : 1 Presbyterian, 1 Episcopal, 1 Baptist, 1 Welsh Congregational, and 1 Welsh Cal- vinistic. Bank : Granville (Wright, Sinnett & Wright), Theodore F. Wright, cashier. Population, 1880, 1,127. School census, 1888, 363. City officers, 1888 : T. J. Durant, Mayor; H. A. Church, Clerk ; W. J. Pond, Treasurer ; Abner Evans, Marshal. Census, 1890, 1,293.

The annexed historical sketch of Granville township is from the published sketches of the Rev. Jacob Little.

In 1804 a company was formed at Granville, Mass., with the intention of making a settlement in Ohio. This, called "the Scioto Company," was the third of that name which effected settlements in Ohio. The project met with great favor, and much enthusiasm was elicited ; in illustration of which, a song was composed and sung to the tune of "Pleasant Ohio," by the young people in the house and at labor in the field. We annex two stanzas, which are more curious than poetical.

When rambling o'er these mountains And rocks, where ivies grow Thick as the hairs upon your head, Mongst which you cannot go ; Great storms of snow, cold winds that blow, We scarce can undergo ;

Says I, my boys, we'll leave this place For the pleasant Ohio.

Our precious friends that stay behind, We're sorry now to leave ;

But if they'll stay and break their shins, For them we'll never grieve ;

Adieu, my friends ! come on, my dears, This journey we'll forego,

And settle Licking creek, In yonder Ohio.

The Scioto Company consisted of 114 pro- prietors, who made a purchase of 28,000 acres. In the autumn of 1805, 234 persons, mostly from East Granville, Mass., came on to the purchase. Although they had been forty-two days on the road, their first business, on their arrival, having organized a church before they left the East, was to hear a sermon. The first trec cut was that by which public worship was held, which stood just front of the site of the Presbyterian church. On the first Sabbath, November

16, although only about a dozen trees had been cut, they held divine worship, both forenoon and afternoon, at that spot. The novelty of worshipping in the woods, the forest extending hundreds of miles every way, the hardships of the journey, the winter setting in, the fresh thoughts of home, with all the friends and privileges left behind, and the impression that such must be the accommo- dations of a new country, all rushed on their nerves and made this a day of varied interest. When they began to sing, the echo of their voices among the trees was so different from what it was in the beautiful meeting-house they had left, that they could no longer restrain their tears. They wept when they remembered Zion. The voices of part of the choir were for a season suppressed with emotion.

An interesting incident occurred, which some Mrs. Sigourney should put into a poetical dress. Deacon Theophilus Reese, a Welsh Baptist, had two or three years before built a cabin a mile and a half north, and lived all this time without public worship. He had lost his cows, and hearing a lowing of the oxen belonging to the company, set out towards them. As he ascended the hills overlooking the town-plot, he heard the sing- ing of the choir. The reverberation of the

LICKING COUNTY.

sound from hill-tops and trees threw the good man into a serious dilemma. The music at first seemed to he behind, then in the tops of the trees or the clouds. He stopped, till by accurate listening, he caught the direction of the sound, and went on, till passing the brow of the hill, when he saw the audience sitting on the level below. He went home and told his wife that "the promise of God is a bond ; " a Welsh phrase, signifying that we have security, equal to a bond, that religion will prevail everywhere. He said "These must be good people. I am not afraid to go among them." Though he could not understand English, he constantly attended the reading meeting. Hearing the music on that occasion made such an im- pression on his mind, that when he became old and met the first settlers, he would always tell over this story. The first cabin built was that in which they worshipped succeeding Sabbaths, and before the close of winter they had a school and school-house. That church, in forty years, has been favored with ten

revivals, and received about one thousand persons.

Morals and Religion .- The first Baptist sermon was preached in the log church by Elder Jones, in 1806. The Welsh Baptist church was organized in the cabin of David Thomas, September 4, 1808. "The Baptist church in Christ and St. Albans," was organized June 6, 1819. On the 21st of April, 1827, the Granville members were organized into "the Granville church," and the corner-stone of their church was laid September 21, 1829. In the fall, the first Methodist sermon was preached under a black walnut; the first class organized in 1810, and first church erected in 1824. An Episcopal church was organized May 9, 1827, and a church consecrated in 1838. More recently, the Welsh Congregationalists and Calvinistic Methodists have built houses of worship, making seven congregations, of whom three worship in the Welsh language. There are, in the township, 405 families, of which 214 sustain family worship; 1431

FIRST HOUSE IN GRANVILLE.

persons over 14 years of age, of whom nearly 800 belong to these several churches. The town has 150 families, of which 80 have family worship. Twenty years ago, the township furnished 40 school-teachers, and in 1846 70, of whom 62 prayed in school. In 1846, the township took 621 periodical papers, besides three small monthlies. The first temperance society west of the mountains was organized July 15, 1828, and in 1831, the Congregational church adopted a by-law, to accept no member who trafficked in or used ardent spirits.

Snake Hunt .- There are but six men now living who came on with families the first fall, viz : Hugh Kelly, Roswell Graves, Elias Gill- man, William Gavit, Levi and Hiram Rose. Other males, who arrived in 1805, then mostly children, and still surviving, are, El- kannah Linnel, Spencer, Thomas and Timothy Spelman, Dennis Kelly, William Jones, Franklin and Ezekiel Gavit, Cotton, Alex- ander and William Thrall, Augustine Munson, Amos Carpenter, Timothy, Samuel, Heland,

Lemuel, C. C. and Hiram P. Rose, Justin and Truman Hillyer, Silvanus, Gideon, Isaac ~ and Archibald Cornel, Simeon and Alfred Avery, Frederick More, Worthy Pratt, Ez- ekiel, Samuel and Truman Wells, Albert, Mitchell, Joshua, Knowles and Benjamin Linnel, Lester and Hiram Case, Harry and Lewis Clemens, Leverett, Harry and Charles Butler, and Titus Knox : which, added to the others, make forty-one persons.

When Granville was first settled, it was supposed that Worthington would he the capital of Ohio, between which and Zanes- ville, this would make a great half-way town. At this time, snakes, wolves and Indians abounded in this region. On the pleasant spring mornings, large numbers of snakes were found running on the flat stones. Upon prying up the stones, there was found a singular fact respecting the social nature of serpents. Dens were found containing very discordant materials, twenty or thirty rattle- snakes, black-snakes and copper-heads, all coiled up together. Their liberal terms of

SHEPARDSON'S COLLEGE FOR WOMEN.

GRANVILLE FEMALE COLLEGE.

DENNISON BAPTIST UNIVERSITY, LITERARY INSTITUTIONS, GRANVILLE, 1890.

Drawn by Henry Howe.

LITERARY INSTITUTIONS, GRANVILLE, 1846.

On left lower is the Baptist College; on the right lower Male Academy ; on left upper Presbyterian Female Seminary ; and on right upper Episcopal Female Seminary.

LICKING COUNTY.

admission only seemed to require evidence of snakeship. Besides various turnouts to kill them, the inhabitants had one general hunt. Elias Gillman and Justin Hillyer were the captains, who chose sides, and the party beaten were to pay three gallons of whiskey. Tradition is divided as to the number killed that day. Some say 300. They killed that year between 700 and 800 rattle-snakes and copper-heads, keeping no account of the black and other harmless serpents. The young men would seize them by the neck and thrash them against the trees, before they had time to bite or curl round their arms. The copper-head, though smaller, was much more feared. The rattle-snake was larger, sooner seen, and a true Southerner, always living up to the laws of honor. He would not bite without provocation, and by his rattles gave the challenge in an honorable way. Instead of this well-bred warfare, the copper-head is a wrathy little felon, whose ire is always up, and he will make at the hand or foot in the leaves or grass before he is seen, and his bite is as poisonous as that of his brother of the larger fang. The young men tested his temper, and found that in his wrath he would bite a red-hot coal. Very few were bitten by the rattle-snake, and all speak well of his good disposition and gentle- manly manners ; but so many were bitten in

consequence of the fractious temper of the copper-head, that he has left no one behind him to sound a note in his praise.

The limb bitten became immediately swol- len, turned the color of the snake, and the patient was soon unable to walk. In some cases the poison broke out annually, and in others the limb was exposed to frequent swellings. After all that was suffered from poisonous reptiles, it was proved to a demon- stration that no animal is so poisonous as, man. Carrying more poison in his mouth than any other creature, he can poison a venomous serpent to death, quicker than the serpent can him. Martin Root and two other young men, chopping together, saw a rattle- snake, set a fork over his neck, and put in his mouth a new quid from one of their mouths. They raised the fork, and the poor creature did not crawl more than his length before he convulsed, swelled up and died, poisoned to death by virus from the mouth of one of the lords of creation. Deacon Hayes and Worthy Pratt tried the same experiment upon copper-heads, with the same results. Many others killed venomous reptiles in the same way, and one man pre- tended that, by the moderate use, he had taught a copper-head to take tobacco without injury.

AN EARLY TRAVELLER'S VISIT TO GRANVILLE.

From the narrative of the visit to the American churches by the divines, Reed and Matheson, deputies from the Congregational Union of England and Wales, published in 1835, we make an extract descriptive of the religious state of Granville as they found it. It was certainly an unique community : it is doubtful if in the entire Union then-and much less so now-was there another like it. The writer of this account was Rev. Dr. Reed. The pastor of whom he speaks was the Rev. Jacob Little, the author of the foregoing historical sketch, who ministered here from 1828 to 1864, over thirty-seven years, as we learn from Rev. Henry Bushnell's valuable History of Granville, recently published.

Some of the new-made towns present a delightfully religious aspect. Of these, I might name Columbus, Zanesville and Gran- ville. The first has 3,000 persons, 3 churches, and 5 ministers. The second has 3,200 per- sons and 6 churches ; and Granville is a small town, which I believe is wholly religious. As a settlement it deserves notice.

It was made by a party of ninety persons from New England. On arriving at this spot they gave themselves to prayer, that they might be directed in choosing their resting- place in the wilderness and enjoy the blessing of God. At first they rested with their little ones in the wagons ; and the first permanent building they erected was a church. The people retain the simple and pious manners of their fathers.

They all go to church, and there are four hundred in a state of communion. They give $1,000 a year to religions institutions. One plain man, who never allowed himself the luxury of a set of fire-irons, besides what he

does at home, gives $100 a year to religious objects. The present pastor is a devoted man and very prosperous in the care of his flock. Some of his little methods are peculiar, and might be objectionable or impracticable elsewhere. He meets his people in districts once a week in turn for instruction. He keeps an alphabetical list of the members, and places each name opposite a day of the month throughout the year, and on that day all the church are to pray for that member.

He has overseers in the districts. who are to make an entry of all points of conduct under separate heads during the year, and to furnish full reports to him at its close. This report, and the names of the parties, he reads from the pulpit, with rebuke or commenda- tion, and the year begins afresh.

Every one, therefore, knows that he is sub- ject to report, and in a small community. where there is neither power nor will to resist. it must act as a strong restraint. Of course, the drunkard, the fornicator, the Sabbath-

LICKING COUNTY.

breaker, are not found here; and what is yet better, on the last report there was

only one family that had not domestic wor- ship.

THE GRANVILLE RIOT.

In 1834 the anti-slavery movement was first agitated in Granville township. Theodore D. Weld, after a narrow escape from death by drowning, arrived in Granville, Friday, April 3, 1835. He had been an agent of the American Col- onization Society in Alabama, an inmate of Judge Birney's family, and was one of forty-two young men, who, influenced by the reputation of Dr. Beecher, had gathered at Lane Seminary to study for the ministry. Not satisfied with the position taken by that institution on the anti-slavery question, they had left in a body.

He lectured at the conference-room of the Congregational Society, and the mob pelted him and his audience with eggs, not sparing the ladies. On another occasion he was ad- dressing an audience from a window of a pri- vate dwelling-house-every public building in the village being closed against him-the male portion of his bearers were in the en- closed yard about the house, when a man in the crowd was heard muttering threats against the speaker. One of the Whiteheads, of Jersey, a man of great strength, stepped quietly up to the disturber, and grasping him under one arm, lifted him over the picket- fence and set him down in the street, saying, "There, my little man, keep quiet ! We do not allow such language in the yard. Do not make any noise." The meeting proceeded without further disturbance.

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume II, Part 8

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 916

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 916