History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio, and incidentially historical collection pertaining to border warfare and the early settlement of the adjacent portion of the Ohio Valley, Part 107

Author: Caldwell, J. A. (John Alexander) 1n; Newton, J. H., ed; Ohio Genealogical Society. 1n
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Wheeling, W. Va. : Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 728

USA > Ohio > Jefferson County > History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio, and incidentially historical collection pertaining to border warfare and the early settlement of the adjacent portion of the Ohio Valley > Part 107
USA > Ohio > Belmont County > History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio, and incidentially historical collection pertaining to border warfare and the early settlement of the adjacent portion of the Ohio Valley > Part 107

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JAMES G. WILEY .- Mr. Wiley was born in Belmont county in 1811. He was a son of William Wiley, a native of York county, Pa., who came to this county in 1801. James was raised a farni- er and received a limited education, as hard work was the order of the day in his boyhood. In 1846, he married Miss Ellen Cochran, daughter of James Cochran, a pioncer of Belmont eoun- ty. Mr. Wiley is a member of the Presbyterian church and is a good neighbor. He has a finely improved farm, known as the Wiley Homestead.

JOHN ALLEN was born in Belmont county in 1814. His father was a native of Scotland, but emigrated to America before the Revolutionary war. Mr. Allen was raised a farmer and received his education before there were free schools in the county. In 1848, he married Sarah Greenlee, who died in 1859. He again married in 1877, Miss Margaret McGregor. His first wife had seven children, of whom but two are living. Mr. Allen has five hundred and fifty-two acres of land with good improvements. He is a fariner and stock raiser.

G. M. BARTHOLOMEW was born in Lancaster, Pa., in 1821. and came to Belmont county in 1848. He first located in Wheeling township, where he remained until 1857, when he moved to Bridgeport and commenced the manufacture of threshing ma- chines, which enterprise he did not continne for any length of time. Since 1867 he has been engaged in the manufacture of various articles, and at present is in the blacksmith and wagon business. Mr. Bartholomew is a natural mechanic, both in wood and iron.

MRS. S. A. RICE .- This lady was born in Bridgeport in 1829 She is a daughter of David Allen and granddaughter of Captain Joseph Kirkwood. In 1850 she married Albert Rice, a native ol New York, and has had eight children, two sons and six daughters, one of which, Annie C., married D. P. Putnam, of Iowa. Mr. Rice moved west a number of years ago and en. gaged in the lumber business, where he died in 1872. Mrs. Rice then returned to her native home in Bridgeport, where she now resides.

GOETLIEB HEIL .- Mr. Heil was born in Germany in 1834, and came to this country in 1853. lle first located in Wheel. ing, where he learned the butcher trade, and remained there un - til 1865, when he moved to Belmont county and purchased a home for himself with his hard earnings of a few years, lle engaged in business near Bridgeport on his own account, and has been very successful.

MRS. A. S. ALLEN .- This lady was a daughter of Robert Kirk - wood, and was born in the village of Kirkwood, in 1812. hu 1828 she married David Allen, who was born in Fayette county, Pa., in 1796, and came to Belmont county in 1823, where he en- gaged in the mercantile business. He was elected Auditor of Belmont county for one term, and in 1857 was elected State Seu- ator from this district, serving two terms with honor to himself and the people who elected him. After leaving the Senate he engaged in the real estate and insurance business, which he con - tinued for a number of years. Mr. Allen was an active business man and well liked by all who knew him. He died October 23. 1872. Mrs. Alen is still living nud is quite active.

1-39-B.&.I.Cos.

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HISTORY OF BELMONT AND JEFFERSON COUNTIES.

JAMES MOORE, was born in Pease township, December 7, 1836. He was a son of James and a grandson of Joseph Moore, who were very early settlers in this part of the county. They were ot Irish origin, came to America in 1792, and finally in 1799 lo- cated on Scotch Ridge. James, the subject of this sketch, was raised a farmer and received his education at the common schools. He married Mary J. Marlen, of Richland county, Ohio. They have three children, two sons and a daughter.

CLARK MOORE, is a son of Joseph Moore. pioneer of Belmont county, and was born in Pease township in 1811. He was raised a farmer and educated at Cannonsburg College, Washington county. Pa. He graduated in 1832, but preferred the occupation of farming to anything else, which he has followed with success. JOSEPH MOORE occupies the old homestead that has been in the Moore family ever since 1799. It is situated on Scotch Ridge.

JOSEPH MCCONNAUGHEY was born in Maryland in 1801, and came to Belmont county in 1831. He had learned the trade of bricklaying, but found so little to do when he first came here that he went at common labor. He married Miss Rebecca Glass, April 12, 1852. They have had eleven children, of whom seven are living. Mr. McConnaughey has been a devoted church mem- ber and built a church at his own expense. He has been one of the most charitable men in Bridgeport. He is engaged in eoal mining on a large scale and is one of Bridgeport's most active business men.

JOHN YOUNG .- Mr. Young was born in Germany, but came to America when quite young and located in Belmont county. He is a finely educated gentleman, and is engaged in farming and gardening. He has a good improved farm near Bridgeport, is very congenial, and has been seccessful in business.

HISTORY OF BARNESVILLE.

JAMES BARNES, THE FOUNDER OF BARNESVILLE.

It is well to premise the history of Barnesville, with a sketch of the man who not only gave it a name, but made it a place of no mean importance.

HIS ANCESTORS.

It affords a pleasure to the inhabitants of great empires, states. or kingdoms to be able to trace the origin of their founders up to noble sources, and it is alike agreeable to the residents of cities, towns or villages to do the same. The citizens of Barnes- ville have reason to congratulate themselves that in this respect their town stands in an advanced rank.

The ancestors of James Barnes were of English origin, and the pedigree of the family may be pursued back very distinctly to the troublous days of Charles I. At that time the parental progenitors of Mr. Barnes resided in the north of England, held high positions under that unfortunate monarch, and through- ont the vehement and boisterous contentions between that sov- creign and the Parliament remained rigid adherents to his fail- ing cause. During the Commonwealth of necessity they sank into obscurity, but at the Restoration were again advaneed to place and power.

The Bairns, as the name was then spelled, possessed large landed estates, and the various lucrative offices filled by them added much to their great wealth. Shortly after the Restora- tion the Bairns became converts to the religious opinions of Fox, Penn and Barclay, and, abandoning the allurements of public office, retired to the privacy of their landed estates, to be the better prepared to carry on that spiritual communion with the Most High, so greatly desired by the "Seekers," as the " Friends" were then called. Their influence at court still continued to be powerful, out of consideration for their ancient attachment to the Crown, and to the Bairns is dne much of the honor for the liberal enactments toward the Quakers in the subsequent reigns of William and Mary and George I.

The English law of descents as to real estate has the effect, however, of making a few of a family rich, while the larger unmber are thrown off on the world in moderate circumstances, or poor and penniless. By this means the great bulk of the

aristocracy of the kingdom, as far as property is concerned, are forced to the lowest levels of society, to be again elevated to distinction by services to the state, snecess in business, or by the commanding influence of talents. It is to this perpetual revo- lution of pecuniary position that much of the stability and tenacity of the British government is to be attributed.

The rule of primogeniture had its usual effect on the Bairns family, and the immediate ancestry of Mr. Barnes were of those reduced by it to slender fortune. So about the year 1758 three brothers of the family determined to try the mutations of life in the New World. They took ship at Liverpool, and, on arriv- at New York, one of them settled in that colony, another in Pennsylvania, and the third, David, the father of James Barnes. selected Maryland as his future home. He located in Baltimore county, purchased a small plantation, and in a year afterward was married.

James Barnes, a son of this marriage, was born in that county in the year 1772. His father being a man of feeble constitu- tion, his health failed him, and the maintenance of the family fell upon his sons. So when James arrived at his majority, he had not one cent with which to begin the battle of life. But he rented farms of others on the shares, and raised crops during the summer, and in winter made shoes for the neighbors, having taken np the trade of cord-wainer without the assistance of a reg- ular apprenticeship. In a few years he married Elizabeth Har- rison, whom our readers of middle age will well remember as the old Quaker lady who used to blow the dinner horn at the front door of Mr. Barnes' residence in the long ago, regulating by the punctuality of its occurrence, the time-pieces of the little village.

In the year following his marriage, he rented a mill, but still continued his shoemaking during the winter. But a short time elapsed before he was able to buy a farm in Montgomery county, Maryland. On this farm, he laid ont a town called Barnesville, which name it still bears.

In this village he opened a little store, his wife acting as clerk, while he made shoes. The Indian troubles in the Missis- sippi valley having ceased, and the flood of emigration setting in for that region, Mr. Barnes concluded to remove to the West.

He arrived at St. Clairsville, in 1803, and immediately opened a tavern on the present site of the Frasier House. This busi- ness was carried on by him for a year or so, when he commenced a dry goods trade near the southeast corner of Main and Mariet- ta streets, where he remained until be removed to Barnesville in 1812.

ENTERING LANDS.

In the year 1806 he entered the lands then entirely in woods, on which Barnesville now stands. In 1808 he associated him- self with Rev. James Rounds in the tanning business, and Mr. Rounds removed to the lands to open up the tan yards. On November 8, 1808, Mr. Barnes laid out the town of Barnesville, and at once offered all the lots for sale, except the first block cast of Chestnut, fronting on Main and Church streets. That block he reserved for himself and family.

Mr. Barnes in 1809 cansed to be erceted on "lot No. 18" a frame storeroom and dwelling under one roof, and in 1810 opened out a mercantile establishment under the supervision of William Philpot, the first in the village. Mr. Barnes with his family removed from St. Clairsville to Barnesville in 1812. The first house occupied by him in the town, was the front part of the present residence of Robert Harper, on lot No. 42. In 1813 or 1814, he removed to lot No. 17, on which he resided till his death.

OLD ORCHARDS.

Some time in 1809, Mr. Barnes had ten acres of land cleared np for an orchard. The work of clearing was performed by John and Thomas Shannon, to whom Mr. Barnes paid fifty dol- lars in cash for the labor. These ten acres extended from the road in front of Kelion Hager's residence, cast beyond the man- sion house of Adam Bentz. The orchard was planted in 1810, with fruit trees consisting of the best varieties then known, and occupied the grounds upon which Hager's first addition to the town of Barnesville is situated.

How many of our readers have sported in the shade of that old orchard, regaled themselves on the odors of its sweet scented blossoms, and in the transports of childish delights, have feasted on its fruits? But the old orchard is gone, and hard beaten streets and stately mansions now occupy its place.

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HISTORY OF BELMONT AND JEFFERSON COUNTIES.

OLD MILL AND FACTORY.

As soon as Mr. Barnes had located himself permanently in the town he began efforts to make it a prominent business place. He erected on lot No. 20 a house for clarifying ginseng, and entered very largely into its purchase. Some years he bought, clearified and shipped as high as thirty thousand pounds of this article. In 1814, he set on foot a joint stock company to erect a flonring mill and woolen factory, and succeeded in having them built under one roof. They were erected in 1815 and went into operation. In a few years the company failed and the entire pressure of its indebtedness fell on Mr. Barnes and so damaged his fortune that he never recovered from its effect.

The woolen mill was kept running until about 1835, when the machinery was removed and a saw mill attached to the flouring mill in its stead. The saw mill has long since disappeared, and the flouring mill a few years ago succumbed to the devouring flame. The woolen factory was the largest and did the greatest variety of any similar manufacturing establishment ever erected in Belmont county, Its machinery consisted of six carding ma- chines, two spinning jennys, two pickers, one power loom and six hand looms, dressers proportioned to the looms, falling stocks and press.

The work made by it embraced every kind of cloth, Kentucky jeans, satinetts and cassimeres, beside all the country work for the surrounding region to the distance of ten to twenty miles. Mr. Barnes operated it at a constant loss, for the competition of custom and imported fabrics prevented profits.

ITS BELL.

As there had to be a simultaneous assembling of the operatives of the factory, there was placed on the summit of the mill a little belfry and a bell weighing about forty pounds, suspended to it. That jolly little old bell was an institution in its day. Its com- ing was greeted with an excitement commensurate with its im- portance. Crowds of men, women and children gathered to see it and give it welcome. And on the day it was suspended in the belfry, a multitude equally as large as that brought together at the advent of a menagerie now, stood then about the old mill, with upturned faces, anxiously awaiting the first outburst of its pealing sounds.

So fascinating were its notes to the juveniles of the town that for years afterward hundreds of urchins and lasses would perch on the stumps and fences around just before the time for calling the hands together, to catch the dulcet chimes of the little old bell of the mill.

TOBACCO TRADE.

About 1823 or 1824 Mr. Barnes commenced dealing in the leaf tobacco trade. For a year or two he packed his tobacco in a large barn which stood precisely where the present mansion of Kelion Hager is situated. In 1826 he erected a large tobacco house on the present site of the Presbyterian church, at which he managed the business until 1842. The old packing-house was subsequently purchased by Henry T. Barnes, a nephew of James Barnes, and was removed to a site west of the Presbyte- rian Church.

James Barnes bought great quantities of leaf tobacco each year, and some years packed as many as eight hundred hogs- heads of it, thereby furnishing the farmers with means to pay for their farms, to build their dwellings, and increase in wealth, He sustained heavy losses on that article in the years 1828 and 1832, and suffered an immense one in 1838, which finally ended in his bankruptcy.

RELIGIOUS VIEWS.

Mr. Barnes was a member of the Society of Friends, and con- tribnted largely to the building up of that denomination of Christians in Warren township. When the disastrous schism occurred between Elias Hicks and the Church he rejected the opinions of Mr. Hicks, and continued till his death to commune with the Friends. Although Mr. Barnes was a rigid adherent to the tenets of his ancestral faith, he was no bigot, but was liberally munificent to all other divisions of Christians in the neighborhood. He not only donated the two acres of ground on which the old Methodist Church stands, but also aided gen- erously in its erection.

11IS RAILROAD IDE.A.

When the National road was about to be located Mr. Barnes used all his influence to obtain its passage through Barnesville,

but other counsels ruled. "Never mind, gentlemen," said Mr. Barnes, "thee have refused to put the pike on the natural route, but let me say to thee, that after awhile a railroad will come through Belmont connty, and then thee'll see that it will pass right through my big meadow." And so it did.

HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE, ETC.

The personal appearance of Mr. Barnes was very command- ing. Hle was over six feet in height and of portly build. His complexion was slightly florid, with auburn hair, blue eyes and a very benevolent countenance. He always dressed in drab- colored clothes, cut to the precise pattern of the Quaker cos- tume, and always wore a broad-brimmed hat. His voice was very strong and sonorous, and so powerful in compass that he could be heard, when in ordinary conversation, at a distance of a hundred yards. He walked slowly, with a deliberate and measured step, and if once seen would never be forgotten by the beholder.

He was kind, generous and benevolent to a fault. No poor man who asked assistance was refused, if in Mr. Barnes' power to help him; and no person ever approached him for consola- tion but received the assuaging influence of his compassionate regards. He sold his town lots on casy terms, to secure popul- lation, and leased his farms at low rents to enable the indns- trious poor to prosper. To the needy he parcelled out his lands, that they might have homes, and exhausted his means that the community might grow rich on the aid afforded by the distribution.

He throughout life was a man of indomitable energy. When the calamitous accidents of trade had overwhelmed his property. and it was being frittered away by the consuming processes of law and the depreciation incident to mortgaged realty when of- fered for sale, the unconquerable old man struck out on the sea of life for himself with the will and strength of early manhood.

He went to Baltimore and made arrangements with some friends to start a commission business in leaf tobacco. On his way home to make final preparation for removal to that place, he died in the mountains of Pennsylvania. He dropped deadin 1844 just as he stepped from a stage coach to take breakfast at a wayside tavern, and so ended the life of the founder of Barnes- ville and the greatest benefactor the people of that village have ever had.

THE OLD PULTNEY ROAD.

About the close of the last century the Legislature of the Northwest Territory authorized the opening out of a road from Dillie's Bottom through Belmont county to Smithton-a settle- ment a short distance south of the present site of Washington, Guernsey county. This road was called the Putney road, or rather Pultney, as was the original spelling, and the blazing's pursued the present line of that highway, with only slight de- viations. The pioneers in locating their roads always followed the tops of the ridges, or the margins of the creeks, very rarely crossing either.

The Putney, in passing over the present location of Barnes- ville, followed Main street to Arch ; here it deflected a little to the north, passed with the apex of the ridge to where Chestnut and Church streets cross each other; thence with Church street to the residence of William Piper ; thence south to Main street, and with it out of town. After Mr. Barnes had entered the lands, private enterprises changed the line of the Putney to the present thread of Main street. These were the only openings made in the woods which covered the site of Barnesville, until 1808, when Barnes and Round had a half acre cleared off for residence and tanyard, the same being lots Nos. 33 and 54. The old house was pulled down by Mr. Mills many years ago, and the logs used in reconstructing his old house on lot No. 53. It too was torn away, but some of the okl Round house were piled, till a few years ago, on the lot.

FIRST TAVERN.

The first tavern kept in Barnesville was on lot No. 57. This house is still standing and occupied. It was kept by Henry Barnes, a nephew of James Barnes. The tavern had as its sign, swinging from a corner to a post beyond the sideway, the im- portant information :

"LIQUOR AND ENTERTAINMENT."

This symbol of good cheer for the traveler and grog for the jolly, was scrawled in lampblack letters, uncouth and straggling,

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HISTORY OF BELMONT AND JEFFERSON COUNTIES.

like the "big hand" of the ancient schoolmaster, on a plain board without border. Barnes, the boniface of the humble little tavern, was a shoemaker, and the first one too that ever "plyed" an awl in the village; but on Saturdays he had no time to wax an end, or ponnd a sole. These days were the balance sheets-occasions for the jars, discords and troubles of the rustic denizens of the neighborhood. Whisky was three cents a drink, and large tumblers and bountiful supplies occasioned many a blacked eve. As a rule, the quarrels would be satisfactorily adjusted, and at night they parted friends.

To Barnes' tavern, and his good whisky is to be traced the habitude of the residents of the township, to congregate in Barnesville on Saturdays-a custom of universal obligation even unto the present day.

GINSENG GATHERERS.

The grounds on which Barnesville stands were, when in woods, much noted for the quantity of ginseng that grew upon them- hundreds of pounds being gathered therefrom annually. The ginseng gatherers, when operating on these grounds, carried their dimmers with them, and used to eat on the knob where Watt's foundry stands -- drinking from a spring that gurgled from the bank at the head of the hollow where the saw mill stands. When the oldest of the party thought it was time for dinner, be called by whooping through his hands. and immedi- ate obedience was give to the signal.

Among the persons who dug ginseng and snake-roots on these grounds were Annt Rachael Parsons and Governor Shannon. The former dng many hundreds of pounds, dried and then trans- ported it to St. Clairsville, to buy salt and other groceries. She resided near Barnesville several years before the lands upou which it is situated were entered by Mr. Barnes. She was present at the first burial in the old Methodist graveyard ; heard the first sermon ever preached in the place, and was a constant and faithtul member of the M. E. Church for over sixty years.

Governor Shannon, when a little boy in tow linen pants and shirt, used to dig these roots, and many a day he toiled here, slaked his thirst with the limpid water of the springs, and hur- ried with honest childhoods' joy at dinner call, to sit under the out-stretching branches of the great trees to cat his humble lunch.

OLD TOWN WELL.

At the very center of the crossing of Main and Chestnut streets was a very strong spring, and out from it to the south extended a marsh. This marsh was a great bear wallow. Bears in warm weather carry off the surcharge of beat by laying and rolling in muddy waters as swine do. John Shannon. when quite a boy. shot a bear at this wallow, which, when cleaned, weighed over four hundred pounds. As soon as the Rev. Round settled in the place, he planted a barrel in the spring to accumu- late the water for the use of his family and tanyard. John M. Round, when a little "shaver," tumbled into this barrel and came very nearly drowning. He was rescued by his mother, who continued to move him about on a puncheon till he was restored to consciousness. Mr. Round often remarks that "he was born in a log cabin, rocked in a sugar trough, drowned in a barrel, and brought to lite by being rolled on a puncheon."

Subsequently the Round barrel was removed, the spring dug out several feet in depth, walled up like a well, boxed in, with windlass and bucket and an iron ladle chained at its side. At the northwest corner of the platform a post was planted, and four finger-boards put up, pointing out the way and distance to the then conspicuous places of McConnellsville, Ok Wheeling Road, Cambridge and Flats of Grave Creek.

At this old well the Duck Creekers and Captiners used to as- semble after they had exchanged their ginseng and pelts for salt, coffee, muslin and whisky. Here for hours men and wo- men, in hunting shirts and linsey gowns, wool hats and ban- dana headdresses, barefooted and in flashing Monroes, danced and sang and drank, and drank, sang and danced, like Swiss and French about the May-pole. While horses, geared in blind bridles, husk collars, rope traces, pack saddles and drag poles, laden with precious burdens, were circled round, with moody and hungry looks.

But the finger-post, well boxing, well, dancers, and horses are all gone, and where they used to be are macadamized streets, over which hum the glittering equipage of the aristocrat, the rattle of drays, and the heavy roll of omnibus and coach.

MEASURES TAKEN TO FORM A NEW COUNTY WITH THE SEAT OF JUSTICE AT BARNESVILLE.

In 1818 a strong effort was made by the inhabitants of Barnes- ville and the vicinity, to get the Legislature to erect a new coun- ty out of parts of the counties of Belmont, Guernsey and Mon- roe, with seat of Justice at Barnesville. The measure failed, however. Mr. Patterson, a son of the then representative for Belmont, has kindly furnished us with the original petition just as it was presented to the General Assembly. The petition is in the handwriting of Win. G. Shankland, and is on paper ruled with a lead pencil. It is of admirable penmanship, and in a good- state of preservation. The length of the petition with signatures, is about seven feet, by fourteen inches in width. The number of petitioners is four hundred and two.

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History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio, and incidentially historical collection pertaining to border warfare and the early settlement of the adjacent portion of the Ohio Valley, Part 107

Author: Caldwell, J. A. (John Alexander) 1n; Newton, J. H., ed; Ohio Genealogical Society. 1n Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Wheeling, W. Va. : Historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 728

Author: Caldwell, J. A. (John Alexander) 1n; Newton, J. H., ed; Ohio Genealogical Society. 1n
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Wheeling, W. Va. : Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 728