History of Champaign County, Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I, Part 22

Author: Middleton, Evan P., editor
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Indianapolis, B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1196

USA > Ohio > Champaign County > History of Champaign County, Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I > Part 22

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Grandfather Robinson was born in Maryland, but his parents came from Ireland and belonged to the royal family. They were Quaker Irish and had no gibberish on their tongue. He and his brother went to North Carolina and settled in Gullford county. He married a Scotch girl by the name of Clark, had a large family and was one of the constitutional members of the New Garden Quaker Church. the first one in the Colonies.

My father was not a Quaker, and if any member married out of the church they called them runaway weddings and could not be married at home. so my parents were married In Guilford court house, where the Cornwallis battle had been fought. I was born May 15, 1787, in Guilford county, North Carolina. The Robinsons had gone to Virginia, and in 1802 my father moved to Virginia. It was a mountainous country. There were no schools; but when I was seven years old an Irish girl got an old cabin and taught. I went to her six months, and that was all the schooling I ever had. All the books I bad was a Dilworth spelling book, and you would laugh if I would tell you how she taught us to pronounce words, I had a deep creek to cross three times to get to school, and the wolves would be howling as I passed through the woods.

The Quakers had bullt a church, the only house of worship in the country. Two Baptist ministers-we would call them missionaries now-came and the Quakers wouldn't

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let them have their church, so one of our neighbors Invited them to preach in his house. and they made that their preaching place. for a while. By bard coaxing I got to go once to hear them, and I was delighted with their singing. I thought they could not be Christians because they sang. I had heard vain songs, and did not know the difference between vain and sacred . music. I asked grandfather if be thought those preachers were Christians and be sald "I hope so." Said I. "They sing." He said, "That's a merry way they have to go to Heaven."

My mother's brother sald there was a better place for us than that, and he started to explore Ohio and Indiana, and a talk of them seemed like places out of the world. He was gone a year, and gave them all the Western fever. My father sold his farm of two hundred acres, well Improved. for a wagon and two horses, and on the 25th day of September, 1811, we all started for Blue river, Indiana. The country was then known by its water courses, not by counties and towns. Uncle said of all the country be had seen, Mad River was the garden spot of earth; "but," said he, "there's no society, nothing but Indiana, but there is a settlement of Quakers on Blue River. We will go there." That is the site of Richmond. Indiana, the place where General Harrison, then governor of the state, had fought a dreadful battle with Indians ou Tippecanoe; consequently, they were all afraid to go there.

80 we went to Mad River, and I thought we would keep on traveling as long as we lived. When we got within a few miles of the boundary line, as far as we could go [Mra Gutbridge probably meant the Ludlow Line) we stopped at John Williams'. He lived where Billy Williams lives now (1885). My father went on and found a man who had taken what they called a claim-that is, they built a cabin and cleared twenty acres of land, which entitled him to a seven years' lease. This man had built a pole cabin and cleared the land, lived there a while, but got a better house where Samuel Organ now lives. The wild hogs had taken possession of his cabin. A man had built near it and raised a fine crop of corn. Father bought bis lease and corn, but there was no road to it. It was not far from where Samuel Dennington now lives.

When we came in sight of Mingo Valley, near where MeHuans Wheaton lived, it was a beautiful sight ; the green grass and deer feeding on it like sheep on a pasture and the wild turkeys running over it. On the north side I snw two cabins-the John Thomases' in one and the Jacob Johnsons' in the other. On the south side I anw four-Otto Johnson lived in two, where Mrs. Hunter lives or did live; Barnet Johnson, where Mr. Hunt lives, and Isaac Everett on the Everett farm. We stopped at Bar- net's to get fire for our cabin. There were no matches, and If our fire went out we would have to carry fire from some other cabin. Mrs. Johnson, well pleased to see new settlers, gave us a bucket of milk and a roll of butter. She knew where the cabin was and pointed to me and said: "She's little; if she will come every day I will give you butter and milk." So I broke the bushes to mark the way to the good woman's house; and that woman was Aunt Mary Williams' grandmother, who died at Mingo.

When we got to the cabin-such a place to live! We were like the children of Israel : "We sat down and cried." They put the fire down where there was a little pen for a chimney and set up some stones to build the fire against. My oldest sister went to laying down the puncheons the wild hogs had rooted up. Mr. Grubbs saw the smoke and came to see if someone had set the cabin on fire. He flew Into helping my sister to lay the puncheons and said: "You are the girl for a new country ; that crying one should not have come." When that night enme and we lay our beda down there was hardly room for all of us to lay down. There were thirteen of us-

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father, mother, grandfather, grandmother and nine children, and I am the last of all, the oldest ploueer woman in three counties .. We all went to work. The men gathered corn in daytime and cut logs and built us another cabin by working at night. The first woman that came to see us was Mrs. Otho Jobnson, and she showed us so much kindness that the name is ever dear to me. They were our first neighbors, but the old ones are gone; yet their children and grandchildren have taken their places in my affections

There was a settlement where Cable now is, of Tharps, Paxtons, Pickerella, More- crafts, Hugheses and some others. They came and made our acquaintance. There was also a settlement of Quakers where Middleburg now is Our folks went there and handed in their letters at a church called Tharps' meeting house. That brought many to visit us. We could get corn ground at John Taylor's mill on King's Creek. but it froze up all that winter and we had to beat our coru in a mortar to get meal to make Johnny-cakes and hominy. We got spice brush and sassafras roots to make tea and our men killed plenty of wild hog, bear. deer and turkeys, so we had plenty to ent. The Indians would come back to their old hunting ground on King's Creek and camp for a month. When we had no church we would go and see the squaws weaving baskets and moccasins and the men kill squirrels with bow and arrow. I saw the old Mingo chief a few days before he died lying on a bunk of straw in bis wigwam. I shall never forget his looks.

In 1812 the war commenced. When Gen. Hull's army was in camp in Urbana for weeks we gathered wild fruit and baked pies and sold them to the soldiers When we heard that he had given his arms to the British It was a sorrowful time. My grandfather sald we would have such a time as they had In Maryland when Braddock was defeated. The Indians would come and massacre our infant settlement, but our brave-hearted men organized a band called "Rangers" and kept them out until the government sent on another army. We had some weary times, We got the word one night that the Indians had gone to Piqua and were burning the town; would be through our country the next day and kill us all. We went to packing up to leave when Mathew Tharp came and asked where we were going. We ald we didn't know, ouly to get away. He said we might as well stay and be killed as to starve to death. He said to the boys: "Meet in Urbana at eight in the morning and we will go and meet them and let them kill us before our wives and children." But it was a false alarm; they had come to join our people to keep the hostile ones away.

There were many things I could tell you about the war. When It closed in 1815 there were many changes; people came and things were brought. We got sheep but had to put them in the house to keep the wolves from killing them. We had to pick the burrs from our wool and seed from our cotton and card and scutch our flax. We spun and wove all we wore. We got roots and barks to color with, and the one that could weave the finest and get the best colors had the finest dress Our men wore linen shirts In summer and we dressed deer skins for winter. Well do I remember working late at nights making deer skin pants and moccasins to wear on our feet. We had troughs to tan leather in, and we made such shoes as we could Row together with strings. If a young man got drunk be was not admitted Into society.

The first Quaker church was built where the old Quaker burying ground now it. Martin Hitt preached at the first camp meeting that I attended, his text being "Go. Moses, for my people must be delivered." Moses McFarland sat near us, and we for fun would tell him that he was ordering bim away. In 1816 they built a log

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Baptist church where the church now stands at King's Creek. They put a frame on the floor and filled It with charcoal, and that was nice to warm our feet by.

I was married to Aaron Guthridge February 25, 1815, in the presence of nearly one hundred people. They have all gone over on the other shore. Enos Baldwin, who died at West Liberty a few days ago, was there, a babe in his mother's arms. In 1851 we moved to Mechanicsburg. My husband's health failed so we came back to Mingo the same year he died. I lived there In fellowship with the good people until the good Lord put It in my niece's heart to come for me to make her house my home. and I am happy In their love and the love of the Lord.

WOMAN DOCTOR'S GOOD WORK IN EARLY DAYS.

Isaac Gray located on a farm about a mile southwest of Middletown, about half way between Middletown and Cable. At first he bought a squatter's lease from John Ballinger and eighteen months later bought one hundred and fifty acres from a Dutchman by the name of John Barret. pay- ing the Hollander two horses and a wagon for it. For the lease to the first tract on which he lived a year and a half, he had given two horses and a wagon, while in return he was to get all the corn he could raise in 1812. Gray died in 1831 and his wife in 1843. His wife was the nurse and physi- cian for a wide stretch of territory. While without any professional medi- cal education, yet she had the gift of concocting teas and various and sundry potions, ointments and decoctions which brought her services into constant demand. Her services were eagerly sought and freely bestowed on all the suffering settlers: "by day and by night, in sunshine and storm, over roads next to impassible, sacrificing her own personal comfort, enduring fatigue, without pecuniary reward. she cheered the faint, raised the fallen and com- forted the dying."

FIRST METHODIST CLASS MEETINGS.

The other prominent settler of 1811, Alexander St. Clair Hunter, was born in Virginia in 1795, came to Wayne township in 1811 and located on a farm adjoining the present village of Mingo. He died in April, 1856, and his wife, Sarah, died in September, 1859. He was a great worker in the Methodist church and the first class meetings were held in his house. They had two sons, James W. and John S .. both of whom were born in the town- ship. John S. married Charlotte Moots in 1868 and James W. married Sarah L. Price in 1858. James moved to Illinois in 1867, where he lived the remainder of his days, while John located on the old home farm and passed his declining days in the village of Mingo. Of the two daughters of

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Alexander Hunter and wife, Mary Ann died unmarried at the age of twenty-four, and Sarah Jane became the wife of William Johnson.

A VERITABLE "MOTHER IN ISRAEL."

The Morecraft family, headed by Hester Morecraft, became prominent factors in the history of early Wayne township. In 1812 this widow, with four sons and two daughters, located on a tract near the present village of Cable. One of her sons, Richard, the eldest, did not come with the family, remaining in Cincinnati, where he died. The original home of the More- crafts was in New York state. The other children were James, who lived in northwestern Ohio in later life; Samuel, who located in Auglaize county ; Polly, who married Jesse Wickson: Jonathan, who died unmarried at the age of thirty-seven; Nancy, who married George Williams and lived at Kingston during her declining years; Simeon, who married Elizabeth Rice. Of these children, Jonathan and Simeon took the more active part in Wayne township affairs. Jonathan was known as the strongest man in the neighbor- hood, a man of fine character, a great favorite with everyone and possessed of unusual financial ability. He had accumulated a comfortable fortune by the time of his death in 1835. His mother was accustomed to remark, "I have raised a number of sons, but only one Jonathan." Simeon Morecraft was married in 1828 to Elizabeth Rice, an Irish girl, and then moved to Allen county, but four years later found him back in Champaign county where he lived until his death, on March 26, 1876. His wife died on January 1, 1875. He started working as a farm hand in this county in 1806 and at the time of his death owned five hundred and forty acres of land and had six thousand dollars in specie. He had three children, James, John and Mary. Hester Morecraft, the founder of the family of this name in the county, was one of those motherly souls who were a blessing to the community in which they lived. She was always visiting the sick and suffering: always making sacri- fices for those unable to provide for themselves ; always constituting herself as sort of a visiting nurse, willing to go anywhere at any time. She was such another woman as Lydia Gray who has been previously mentioned.

AN EARLY MURDER RECALLED.

The year 1814 added Jack M. Sally and Boyd Richardson to the settle- ment. Sally was a bibulous Virginian who is remembered chiefly because of his connection with the murder of Thomas Blocson while the two con-

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vivial spirits were returning from Urbana. It seems that both were under the influence of whiskey and got into an altercation while in the wagon which resulted in a fight. In the midst of the fracas Sally drew a pocket knife and stabbed Blocson in the ribs, with the result that the latter died six days later. Sally was arrested, convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary for one year, but was reprieved by Gov. Wilson Shannon after serving only a short time. The stepson of Sally. Hiram Durnell, was largely responsible for the grant- ing of the reprieve. Sally disposed of his farm to Alexander Pickard and the latter willed it to Bethany College of West Virginia. Pickard was a great worker in the Christian (Campbellite) church and left a will bequeathing his farm of one hundred and nine acres to the college of his church. The atlas of 1872 has the farm of one hundred and nine acres, west of Cable about a mile, marked as "Bethel College." It should have been marked "Bethany College." The college sold it in 1881 for three thousand six hundred dollars.

Boyd Richardson, a native of Grayson county, Virginia, came to Cham- paign county in 1814 and bought a tract in the southern part of the town- ship and made his home on it until his death in April, 1852. His reputation rests upon his ability as a hunter and his interest in the welfare of the Baptist church.

The Middleton family made its first appearance in the township in 1815. In that year Thomas Middleton, a native of Virginia. came to the township and made his home there until his death.

ACTIVE WORKERS IN FRIENDS CHURCH.

The Cowgill family, originally from Virginia, came to Ohio in 1801, and settled in Columbiana county. In 1817 Thomas Cowgill, the head of the family, brought his wife and children to Champaign county and located in the western part of the township near Mt. Carmel church. The Cowgills were members of the Friends church and became the nucleus of the denomina- tion in this county. The original family of this name consisted of the father and mother, seven sons and four daughters. The seven sons were Henry, Daniel, Thomas, Joseph, Levi, John and Eli; the daughters were Ann, Susanna, Sarah and Lydia.

Thomas Cowgill, Sr .- ( there were three Thomas Cowgills-the first Thomas was born July 27, 1777: the second Thomas in 1811; the third Thomas in 1840)-was born in Frederickstown, Virginia, in 1777, and died in Champaign county, September 14, 1846. His wife died on June 18, 1868.

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The second Thomas was six years of age when the family came to the county and he became a physician and surveyor of the county. The third Thomas, was a member of the Legislature and the first representative from Cham- paign county to be elected speaker of the House of Representatives. Eli Cowgill and his wife, Abrilla, were ministers of the Friends church, and probably traveled more widely than any ministers who have ever been con- nected with the churches of Champaign county. In 1876 they went to Europe in the interest of their church and before their return in May, 1878, they had traveled more than fifteen thousand miles. They spent nine months in Ireland and Scotland; several weeks in Norway ; passed over to Denmark and worked in the churches there; passed through Germany and Holland. visited such churches of their denominations as were established; next spent nine months in the northern part of England and Wales, where they worked among the members of their denomination. After spending some time in London they sailed for home on April 16, 1878, and reached home on the 5th of the following month.

THE IGOU FAMILY.

The first member of the Igou family to locate in Wayne township was Peter Igou, a native of Virginia, who first settled in Ross county, Ohio, and came to Champaign county about 1820. A few years later Paul Igou, a brother of Peter, located in the same vicinity with his brother, but removed to Christian county, Illinois, in 1853, where he lived to a ripe old age. The Igou brothers were substantial citizens of very different characteristics. Peter first located on the banks of Kings creek near Mason's mill, and later sold his farm to Thomas Baldwin and bought a farm in the extreme south- western part of the township. In 1848 he decided to quit farming and move to Middletown. He built a building on the Pearce corner and lived in the village until his death in 1852. Among many other characteristics he is reported as being "a man of generous heart. liberal in his views, well read on the current topics of the day, gifted in conversation, a little too fond of litigation, a professed Universalist. a good neighbor, a kind father and a good husband." He was a "squire" for several years and also served in other local official capacities. During the course of a long and eventful life he had two wives and three sons and three daughters, all of his children growing to maturity. One of his sons, Silas, studied law and became a noted politician before his death in 1877.

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Paul Igou, as has been said. came to the township after his brother had lived here several years. He was a hard-working man and a shrewd money- maker, although he always entertained his friends with a lavishness quite uncommon in those days. Many stories are told showing his peculiar ways. His wife was Ellen Westbrook, a native of Ross county, and to them were born twelve children, eleven of whom grew to maturity. The sons were Lewis, Joseph, Marion, Harrison and Reuben; the daughters were Martha. Mary, Mahala, Susan. Elizabeth, Melinda and Nancy. Paul Igou is repre- sented as being "an honest man, rude in his manners, a great reader, a fine talker, careless in his attire, very fond of company, a man of liberality and extensive hospitality and always lived well about the house."

TWO ECCENTRIC BACHELOR BROTHERS.

Mathew Mason, born in Virginia in 1789, came to Champaign county about 1824 and bought land in survey No. 4284. He was the principal part owner in the flouring-mill on Kings creek which bore his name for over half a century. He was a cheerful old bachelor. who enjoyed life, worked hard, and lived until he was eighty years of age, dying on October 3. 1869. For several years he carried on a distillery in connection with his grist-mill. His brother, John, also addicted to celibacy was, if possible, still more eccen- tric than his brother. He lived more secluded and more to himself than Mathew. He died at the age of ninety-five, surviving his brother a few years.

THE BALDWIN FAMILY.

The Baldwin family in this county was introduced by Richard Baldwin, who was born in Virginia in 1795; came to Ohio with his parents in 1805. and to Champaign county in 1824. He lived in Salem township until 1839 and then bought a farm near Mason's mill in survey No. 4284, paying a dollar and a quarter an acre for a part of it and twelve dollars an acre for the remainder. He added to his possessions until he owned six hundred and twenty-seven acres, and. by combining farming and the buying and selling of stock, he became one of the wealthy men of the township. About 1850 he built a fine brick home-a mansion it was called in those days-which was - probably the finest country home in the county up to that time. There he continued to reside until his death in 1870. He married Eleanor Williams and they had a number of children: Wilson, who married Mary Ann John-

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son ; Sophia, who married William R. Clark; Isaac Newton, who moved to Cincinnati and engaged in business; Mary Ann, who married Amos M. Wil- son; Luretha, who married Joseph W. Johnson; Hannah E., who lived in Cincinnati with her brother: Richard Watson, who died while serving as a soldier during the Civil War; Eliza E., who married George W. Cable; Sally O., who became the wife of John M. Hunter, and Clara M., who married Moses E. Taylor.

MOVED GOODS ON A SLED.

One of the largest landowners of ante-bellum days was Cephas Atkin- son, a native of York county, Pennsylvania, born in 1790, and a resident of Ohio from 1815 until death in 1860 at the age of seventy. His wife was Abigail Owen, born in Tennessee in 1795, and a woman of more than usual strength of character. They were members of the Friends church and after their marriage at Center Meeting in Clinton county, Ohio, in 1815, they put all of their household belongings upon a little sled and hauled it out to their little cabin, where they began housekeeping in a truly primitive fashion. They lived very frugally and in a few years bought a hundred acres in Greene county and a few years later added a thousand acres in Clark. By this time Atkinson was giving most of his attention to stock raising. In 1838 he sold his Clark county land and came to Champaign county and for twenty-five dollars an acre bought three hundred and thirty-three acres, part of which included the present site of the town of Mingo. This land was bought from Otho Johnson and Maria Hunter and later passed into the hands of his son- in-law, James Hunt.

Atkinson expected to devote this large farm to stock and grain raising but changed his mind. He was getting along in years and did not care to launch out into extensive operations as he had been doing for several years previously. Later in life he purchased one thousand five hundred acres in Madison county, but he continued to make his home in Wayne township until his death in November, 1860, at the age of seventy. He left an estate valued at one hundred thousand dollars. While he was engaged so extensively in farming and stock raising, his memory is revered for the part he took in the abolition movement in the county. Being a Quaker he was averse to war. At one time he refused to turn out for a militia muster and as a result he was arrested and fined. He refused to pay the fine and when the officers of the law came to collect they seized the side-saddle of Mrs. Atkin- son and sold it to meet the fine. His house was the home for every fugitive

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negro who passed through the county. The colored man always found a warm friend in Cephas Atkinson; a friend who fed him, clothed him, fur- nished him with money and the means of transportation to the next place of concealment. No one will ever know how many negroes were carried through Champaign county by way of "the underground railroad" during the two decades before the Civil War, but it is certain that no man in the county did more to facilitate their journey than the good old Quaker, Cephas Atkinson.

Atkinson and his wife had eight children who grew to maturity, but only one of the number, Margaret C., who married James Hunt, became a resident of Champaign county. The other children were Isaac, Levi, John, Joseph, James. William and Thomas. The mother of these children died in December. 1875, at the age of eighty.

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History of Champaign County, Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I, Part 22

Author: Middleton, Evan P., editor Publication date: 1917 Publisher: Indianapolis, B.F. Bowen Number of Pages: 1196

Author: Middleton, Evan P., editor
Publication date: 1917
Publisher: Indianapolis, B.F. Bowen
Number of Pages: 1196