USA > Ohio > Champaign County > History of Champaign County, Ohio, its people, industries and institutions, Volume II > Part 99
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Capt. William Boggs, father of Martha, was a true pioneer. He was born in Berkley county, Virginia, and married Jane Erwin. Just when they left Virginia is not known, but Martha was born the year of Lord Dunmore's War, 1774, at Laurel Hill, Pennsylvania, near the summit of the Alleghenies on the Braddock road. Captain Boggs moved down to the vicinity of Wheeling, and Martha was in the fort at the time the Indians attempted to capture it, and it was with kindling eye and animated face that she used to recite to her children the story of that vivid incident in
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her girl's life. Captain Boggs lived in the vicinity of Wheeling Fort for several years, later moving to an island in the Ohio just below Wheeling. which was called Boggs' Island. Here his wife fell sick and died in the night. Having no neighbor nearer than Wheeling Fort, the eldest daugh- ter, Lydia, a girl of sixteen, took a canoe and alone in the darkness, on this great river, paddled up to the fort, arousing the sleeping inmates in order that some of the good women might come to care for the body of her dead mother. At the time of the death of his wife, Captain Boggs had eight children, Lydia, the sixteen-year old girl, being the eldest. A widow by the name of Barr, taking pity on his helpless condition, consented to come and be mother in his household and she accordingly came as she promised bringing along her own family of eight children. To this num- ber of sixteen were later added two. So well did the Boggs and Barr families agree, that two weddings were had without going out of the family. two of the Boggs children marrying two of the Barr children. Shortly after the marriage of Jacob Johnson and Martha Boggs, Capt. Willian Boggs moved to the Pickaway Plains, being the first pioneer settler and suffering much hardship. He settled within a few rods of the spot where the treaty of peace was made at the close of Dunmore's War. He and his. descendants were prominently identified with the settlement and develop- ment of that locality.
WILLIAM AND JACOB JOHNSON COME TO CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
Upon the marriage of Jacob Johnson and Martha Boggs, they went back to Washington county, Pennsylvania, and there on January 26, 1800. their first child, Mary, was born. Jacob was thirty-four years of age and Martha twenty-six, and this crowded Washington county was no place to get on and make a home for the little ones. So a family council was called, the father, William, acting as chief adviser. He and Jacob told the others about the rich "barrens" of Mad river, Macochee and Kings creek, near where the Mingoes lived, and how much better it would be there than in hilly Washington county. The wives thought that though it was a long way from old friends, it would be better, while the children danced in glee in anticipation of the long journey which was to form one enlarged picnic.
So in the spring of 1803 we find them launching a flatboat and putting aboard the household goods of three families, William Johnson. Jacob Jolin- son, his son, and Robert Russell, a son-in-law. Jacob's family consisted of his wife, Martha, the two boys, who bore the name of McFarland; Mary, their
1805 =1905
THIS MEMORIAL IS IN MEMORY OF JACOB AND MARTHA BOGGS JOHNSON, AND MARKS THE SPOT WHERE THE INDIAN CABIN STOOD INTO WHICH THEY MOVED APRIL 1, 1805. WITH OTHER PIONEERS THEY CAME AS THE INDIANS DEPARTED AND WORTHILY BORE THEIR PART IN SUBDUING THE WILDERNESS. THEY AND THEIR DIRECT DESCENDANTS HAVE OCCUPIED THIS LAND FOR A CENTURY AND THIS MEMORIAL IS PLACED IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE.
INSCRIPTION ON THE PLATE IN THE STONE WHICH WAS SET AT THE SITE OF THE INDIAN CABIN INTO WHICH JACOB AND MARTHA JOHNSON MOVED APRIL 1, 1805.
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first born, and Lydia, a second daughter. Robert Russell had married a sister of Jacob, and they were also coming to Ohio.
Pushing away in their commodious flatboat in the early spring of 1803. when the current was swift, one can imagine the light, happy hearts of all the company as they floated down the noble river with eager anticipa- tions of the goodly country in the Mad river valley. Of course, sharp lookouts had to be kept for the perils of the navigation, and dangers from the lurking Indian and the river pirates. The beauty of the blossoming killikinic and the snowy dogwood appealed to them as they swept between the heights of the lower Monongehela. How eager were they all, especially the women and the younger children, to see old Ft. Duquesne, now newly named Ft. Pitt; and how interested they all were when William and Jacob pointed out the mouth of Yellow creek, where the Logan family had been so brutally murdered; and with what interest was noted all that Martha had to tell when they reached Wheeling Fort, of her girlhood and her friend- ship with the hero of Indian warfare, Lewis Wetzel, and the heroic defense of the little fort; how they landed at the island in midriver for a last look at the lonely grave of Martha's mother; of the eagerness to see where the "Yankees" had settled at Marietta, and what progress they had made in founding a New England in the Ohio wilderness; the great desire to see Point Pleasant at the mouth of the Kanawaha, where the Indian slaughter took place October, 1774; and doubtless they all joined in singing its com- memoration song :
"Let us mind the tenth day of October. Seventy-four, which caused our woe; The Indian savages they did cover The pleasant banks of the Ohio."
We do not know how much time was consumed in this journey. If all conditions were favorable, ten days time was considered a quick trip from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, floating by night as well as by day.
Reaching Cincinnati, they prepared to come to their new Ohio home. They passed through Dayton, on the Miami, where there was a mill and where they could get "flour for bread." They passed through what is now Springfield, and probably stopped at the public house kept by Griffith Foos. Later they came through the site of Urbana and here were four log cabins. They were a little indefinite as to just where they would finally locate their habitation. The low land at that time was very productive of "chills and fever," and the early settler chose, if wise, some more elevated place for building his home. So they passed over the bottoms or flat land and came
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up the south branch of Kings creek and halted on the gravelly bluff just south of the creek, and a few rods east of the present Ludlow road.
Here they all remained during the fall of 1803 and all of 1804, and the winter of 1805. They had very few neighbors. Upon the site of the house formerly occupied by Col. John Thomas, lived a man by the name of Davis. but no other white inhabitants occupied this smiling valley at that time.
JACOB JOHNSON SETTLES IN MINGO VALLEY.
During the winter of 1805, Jacob planned to move to Mingo valley and arrangements were made for the purchase of the Denny and Tarbell surveys containing four hundred and seventy-eight acres on the north side of the valley, where the Indians had lived. In pursuance of this plan, on April 1, 1805, Jacob and Martha with their five children came across the prairies from Kings creek and occupied the log cabin out of which the Indians had moved. There was very little timber of much size in the valley, and standing where the old Johnson cabin stood, one could look across the valley to the higher land at the south. Martha in telling her children of one of one of the incidents of the moving day, said that in the valley were a great many wild-plum trees and that she remembered well how beautiful they looked with the snowy burden of bloom that April after- noon from this new home.
The Indian cabin into which they moved was not a suitable place for this mother to bring up her daughters, who must be good housewives, so a new cabin had to be built. During the early fall of that year the father and other members of the family were busy in getting ready the new house, so as to be comfortable for the winter, as well as to have the newest and finest house in the valley. The chimney was the last part of the house to be finished and great anxiety was manifested by the good housewife that they might be able to have supper in the new house the day they moved. There was some uncertainty about the chimney, but fortunately it had been finished as the day closed, and there was no doubt that the supper could be prepared in the new home. As she looked up from her work of putting things on the table, lo! there stood Mr. Davis, their nearest neighbor, who had come two miles to sit with them at their first meal in the new house.
The "Indian field" had been cleared and cultivated, but it was of com- paratively small area. So. Jacob went busily at work, clearing away the brush and small timber in the "barrens," as it was called, so as to be able to put in the crops. His father, William, during the year of 1805. purchased
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three hundred and seventy-five acres immediately south of Jacob's purchase, and in the spring of 1806, William moved from Kings creek to the south side of the valley and erected a house. A short distance east of the house built by William, his son, Barnet, erected a house and later the youngest son, Otho, who lived there until the year 1838, when he moved to Illinois.
Here Jacob and Martha faithfully did their duty toward making a home and getting on in the world. The neighborhood began to fill up and relatives began to locate in the vicinity. The usual pioneer development went steadily forward. The lives these pioneers led were very simple. They were ambitious to get the farms cleared and put under cultivation. Their personal wants were few. They were very much interested in their neighbors and there was a feeling of brotherhood that is little known today. When misfortune came there was no lack of sympathetic friends, who came with hearts full of help and comfort. There was a feeling of mutual interest through the entire community. The lives of our pioneer ancestors were doubtless narrow and their contact with the great outside world was limited. but they were honest and sincere men and women, and, though they knew nothing of fashionable society and their clothing did not hang as on the tailor's model, yet they worthily wore the habilaments of true manhood and womanhood.
The fall of 1805 found this couple installed in the new house, and the Indian cabin abandoned. As was the fashion in those old days, each two years found a new baby in the home, and Mary had, as she thought, no end of cradle rocking, and the trundle bed kept getting more crowded year by year. God was good; the rains came: the sun shone; seed time always came around, and harvest invariably followed. Assuredly, this home was the dwelling place of peace and of filial and parental love.
THE CALAMITY OF 1821.
The children were growing up. Mary had been married at the age of seventeen and Hiram and Nelson were vigorous, healthy boys able to do quite a little, when a calamity came to the family. On Christmas eve of 1821, the father, Jacob, was hauling some logs, having one end loaded upon a sled, the other end dragging upon the ground. One of the horses was young and spirited. He was driving, walking behind the sled, when suddenly the free end of the log slid round, catching his foot between the heavy log and a tree stump. He stopped the team and called to Nelson to come and release him, but the horses became restive, and he could not
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control them, and consequently his foot was pulled round as the team started, the bones broken, and the tendons badly torn. Here at this Christmas time was a calamity indeed; the father wholly incapacitated and three boys to do the work and pay for the farm, the eldest of whom was barely thirteen.
Every effort was made to save the foot, but surgery in those days was only in its infancy, and so it was finally decided that the leg must be amputated. I wish an artist could paint the scene as it has been pictured to me, so that it might be put upon the wall of some great hospital to tell the story of the progress made in surgery during the years intervening. This was long before the blessed days of chloroform, and nothing was known of antiseptics. The day was fixed to take off the leg of Jacob Johnson, and it happened to be a bitterly cold day in February. The whole countryside was interested, and everybody came for ten or more miles. The house was small and could not contain all who came, so big heaps of logs were made outside and set on fire to provide warmth for the neighbors. Doctor Mosgrove, from Urbana, Doctor Carter, and a student, Doctor Lord, were in charge of the operation. A large table was brought near the middle of the room and upon this the patient was placed. The room was crowded with people. Upon a bed opposite, so as to see that all was going well, sat Martha, and by her side the youngest son, Alfred, then about five years old. Near them were interested and sympathetic neighbors. The surgeons began the work, and to many it seemed grewsome, but when they vacated their places, others eagerly sought them. Sitting by the side of the five-year- old boy was a near neighbor, Thomas Lindsay, who, like some others, feeling that such exhibitions are not wholesome, fell over in a faint. The work stopped for a moment while the fainting man was carried into the open air. The patient was of stoic mould, and bore the pain unflinchingly ; except once, he groaned when an unusually painful period canie. I say I should like to see some artist faithfully put this scene on canvas-the face of him so brave under the knife; the lineaments of rugged old Dr. Mosgrove, a name so long honored in this county; the face of her sitting on the bedside, looking into the future as she thought of the battle with the wilderness; the face of the five-year-old lad as he sat with his hand in that of his mother. fear and wonder alternately running across his child's countenance; the features and expression of the curious, and yet kindly sympathetic friends and neighbors, anxious to help this helpless man in his awful trouble, and this woman in what seemed to them worse than widowhood. Such a picture by a competent artist would tell a story which this generation can only know
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as it comes to it from those who lived in the period of the "cabin and the clearing."
The year of 1822 finds this family with the father disabled, but the blow became softened by time. The boys grew up and the mother became cheery and happy, having learned as a girl, the necessity of making the best of everything. Thus things assume a more cheerful aspect.
The boys as they grew up toward manhood felt that they must make a success in life, and while the father could not be of any actual physical help. he was ready with wise advice and suggestion. Hard and faithful work counted in those days, as always, and it was evident that the farm would be paid for and all would go well. So it was decided that they would have a new house, and that a part of it, at least should be of brick. During the summer and fall of 1832, the brick was made and the house completed. It was a one-story house, with a low attic, and it had the large rooms and cavernous fireplaces of the day. Later, a frame part of substantially the same size was built. This house was occupied by the family until 1870.
THE SONS OF JACOB JOHNSON.
I have spoken of the three boys working together, and this they did to an unusual degree, for all they had was in common and all there was belonged to each. Somehow, each seemed to feel it a duty to remain at the family hearthstone. When Hiram reached the age of forty-three, he concluded he was sufficiently mature to take a wife, but he waited until after the father had passed out of life, and it was evident that Nelson and Alfred could and would care for the aged mother. Jacob died on July 4. 1845, lacking but eight days of having reached the age of seventy-nine years. On March 6, 1854, death came and ended the busy life of Martha --- it had indeed been a busy life during the eighty-one years of its existence.
Three years before her death, in 1851, Hiram had married, and now Nelson and Alfred were alone in the world. Alfred, being younger and more venturesome perhaps, insisted that there must be a housewife and one who had more interest than the mere housekeeper. He took into the house very shortly after his mother's death as his wife, one who had ministered unto that mother in her last months of life. A new farm was bought and Hiram went and occupied it, and Nelson and Alfred stayed on in the old house. Other farms were bought and whatever was purchased was the property of the three brothers. The common money bought the dresses of the wives, and the clothing of the children; whatever was had. What they
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possessed belonged to the three. They did business as H., N. and A. Johnson, or more familiarly "the Johnson boys."
They had bought, from time to time, large amounts of land, so they owned at one time something like' two thousand acres, and were largely engaged in the live-stock business. In 1868 Nelson married Anne E. Gil- bert, and went to live on the farm about a mile east of the village of Mingo, Hiram sometime prior having moved to a farm south of Kings Creek, near the Ludlow road. About the time of Nelson's marriage, as the children of Hiram and Alfred were growing up, it was thought best that a division of their property be made. This was done to the entire satisfaction of each, and the only necessity for calling in a lawyer was to take the acknowledg- ments to the respective quit-claim deeds. I think I am warranted in saying the business dealings of these brothers were somewhat unusual. They were partners for forty years without a serious difference, and they divided a large property without a word of dispute.
CHILDREN OF JACOB AND MARTHA JOHNSON.
Mary, the eldest child of Jacob and Martha Johnson, was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, January 26, 1800. At the age of seven- teen she married Robert Blair. To this marriage two children were born. Jacob and Alonzo, both of whom, inheriting the pioneer instinct, in early manhood sought their homes in Illinois. In 1831 Mary married Col. John Thomas, and for many years resided near Kennard. Three children were born to this second marriage, and two, Ivan and Marion Thomas, were long prominent citizens of this county. Mary Thomas, familiarly called by the neighbors "Aunt Polly." died in January, 1884.
Lydia. second child of Jacob and Martha, was born in 1802, and mar- ried James O'Neal. The newer West had great attractions for them, and in 1830 they moved to Indiana. Lydia died in 1868. Lavinia, the third child born in 1806, died at the age of eighteen.
Hiram, the eldest son to reach manhood, was born on August 6, 1808. He was a stalwart man, standing something over six feet and possessing great strength. In 1851 he married a neighbor girl, Margaret Brown, who was a helpmate to him in every sense. They lived on a farm about a mile east of Mingo until 1868, when they moved to a farm recently purchased. east of the Ludlow road, about four miles northeast of Urbana. Here they lived out their lives, worthy of the great respect in which they were held by their neighbors. Hiram died in October. 1900, and in a few years Mar- garet followed. Four of their children grew to adult years. Jacob, the
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youngest, died in early manhood. Maria married Ellwood Mcclellan and now resides a short distance north of Urbana, and Boggs Johnson, still unmarried, resides with his sister, Mrs. McClellan. The youngest son, Ivan, lives near the old farm on the Ludlow road.
Nelson Johnson, second son of Jacob and Martha, was born July 1. 1810. He was a great lover of books and reading, and especially of history. and had a great interest in the lore of the early settler. He possessed a remarkable memory and was fond of telling Alfred's children stories of the early days. The story of many of the incidents narrated in this sketch came from his lips. In 1868 he married Anna E. Gilbert, and in this marriage he had the good fortune to secure a wife who admirably fitted his nature and temperament. He died in August, 1895. His widow still resides at the old home east of Mingo, and with her lives their only daughter, Mary. Their two sons died: Rodney, in early childhood, and Amos, in recent years, in the prime of young manhood.
Alfred, the youngest son of the pioneers, Jacob and Martha, was born June 10, 1817. He was of a quiet disposition, but active and energetic, a man of unusually deep feeling and affection; but was brought up in the old school which preached the doctrine that the exhibition of all feeling should be stifled, lest it be an expression of weakness.
Of the three brothers, Alfred was the more active in meeting the public in the conduct of their business. Shortly after his mother's death in 1854. he married Ann Elizabeth Stone, and they lived together for over fifty- one years in a most happy companionship. It was his earnest desire that he should live to help commemorate the one-hundredth anniversary of the settlement of his parents on the farm at Mingo, and that wish was granted: He died September 9, 1905, and at his request his body was taken to the little cemetery on the farm, where lie four generations of his family. His widow continued to reside in Mingo, until the last few years, when failing health prompted her to make her home with her daughter in Marion during the winter. She was always eager to get "back home" among her friends in the village. On June 28, 1917, at the age of almost eighty-eight years, she passed into the Beyond, and she sleeps in the little cemetery on the "Johnson farm."
CHILDREN OF ALFRED AND ANNE ELIZABETH JOHNSON.
The children born to Alfred and "Lizzie" Johnson were as follow :
Thomas L. Johnson, the eldest son, became a lawyer, went to Cleveland as a young man, and is now a practicing attorney in that city.
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John B., the second son, lived for some years in Kansas, and then in Chicago, and has recently moved to DeFuniack Springs, Florida.
Otho G. lived for many years on the old farm, but now resides in the village of Mingo.
Martha, eldest daughter, married Daniel W. Strayer, and resided in Degraff for a few years, and later moved to Marion, Ohio.
Charles N. until recently lived in Kansas City, where he was engaged in the live-stock business. He recently returned to this county, and now resides on the John Enoch farm, near West Liberty.
Alfred, the youngest son, lived in the West and died at Mexico, Mis- souri, in 1912.
Merton, the youngest child, married Adolphus Russell, and now resides in the village of Mingo.
THOMAS N. OWEN.
Thomas N. Owen, a farmer of Rush township, this county, was born in that same township on July 1, 1837, a son of John Owen, also a native of that township, whose parents came here from Virginia, locating in Rush township in pioneer days. There they cleared and developed a farm and spent the rest of their lives. They had only one son, John Owen, father of the subject of this sketch. John Owen married Margaret Hazel. After his death she married Samuel Rogers and four children were born to that union, namely: Catherine, Maria, Emily and Frank. John Owen followed farm- ing on the homestead, the place where his son Thomas N. now lives. The father spent his life there from the age of seven years. His death occurred in 1889 at the age of seventy-six years. His wife was a native of Cham- paign county, where she was reared. She was a daughter of Isaac Hazel and wife, natives of Pennsylvania, who came to Rush township, this county in an early day and devoted their lives to farming here. They were parents of six children, namely : Thomas, James, Augusta, Sarah, Margaret and Arte- misia. To John Owen and wife were born four children, of whom the sub- ject of this sketch was the second in order of birth, the others being Arte- misia, who married Richard Swisher and after living in Rush township for some time moved with her husband to Kansas, where both died; Sarah, now deceased, who was the wife of Henry Swisher; Nancy Ann, who died in young womanhood, unmarried.
Thomas N. Owen grew up on the home farm and attended the rural
THOMAS N. OWEN.
DR. THOMAS M. GAUMER.
MRS. T. M. GAUMER.
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schools in Rush township. He remained at home until his marriage and later bought the old home place of two hundred and twenty-two acres. He was married in November, 1858, to Margaret Clark, who was born in Hutit- ington, Pennsylvania. She is a daughter of Asa Clark, a native of Pennsyl- vania. who was an early settler in Union county, Ohio.
Mr. Owen has devoted his life to active agricultural pursuits and has been very successful. He has kept the home place well improved and well cultivated and raises a great deal of grain annually, most of which he feeds to live stock for the market. He has kept the buildings well repaired.
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