USA > Ohio > Brown County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 19
USA > Ohio > Clermont County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 19
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39
James and Sarah Jacobs Edwards came from Virginia with three sons and three daughters, of whom some were married. Jane, the wife of William Rains, had a son, John, born October 30, 1796; and the Edwards family came, when the grandson was six weeks old, to the survey of a thousand acres just be- low Aberdeen. For that tract Edwards paid one thousand dollars or half what was paid for land about Tobasco a year before, which shows that the prospects of Cincinnati influenced the market. The last name that can be gathered with cer- tainty from all that is remembered of 1796 is that of Colonel Mills Stephenson, who came from Delaware to Pennsylvania and then to Kentucky whence he came to open a farm near
2II
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
Ripley. In 1791 Frank Kilpatrick came from Ireland and started down the Ohio with his motherless daughters, Isabel and Jane, aged ten and twelve years. After vain attempts to decoy them to the Ohio shore, the Indians fired at long range and, by chance, shot the father through the heart. The chil- dren floated on with their dead father to Maysville where they received much kind care from Richard Applegate, with whom they lived until Isabel married James, and Jane, his brother, Mills Stephenson. Beside the pathetic story of his wife, the personal action of Mills Stephenson graces a pleas- ing page in the history of Old Clermont.
It is not claimed that the families named as actual settlers include all who came before 1797, for it is quite probable that there were more whose memory has been neglected by de- scendants who may impute their own omissions to the care- lessness of the writer. Such people have little understanding of the anxiety for a full record, which is modified by a haunt- ing fear that something not sufficiently authentic may be admitted.
However satisfactory the subsequent performance of the first to come, their number is disappointing to those who have been accustomed to proud declamation about the rapid growth of Ohio. The roll of authentic immigrants during the third year is short. Whether that fact is a lack of record or a lack of immigrants or both is uncertain. The hunters, scouts and in some sense professional Indian fighters to and fro between Kenton's and Massie's Stations and about Maysville were well at home in the primeval forests now represented by the homes between Higginsport and Aberdeen. Some had acted as scouts and guides for the various hostile excursions from Kentucky. Some had been in the surveying parties and knew the country better than the settlers. But they mostly followed Massie to the Scioto country. An exception was some of the Beaseley family, but the year of their settlement, while early, is un- certain. Whether first or somewhat later, they did not come as far strangers. Kentucky was still a vastly unoccupied land where the people regarded Ohio as a chance for speculation rather than a place for a home. Those able to own Ohio lands were living in Central Kentucky. The machinery for han- dling real estate north of the river was not ready; and the re-
:
-----
.
212
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
sponse to the call to come west had not begun. Jeptha Bease- ley having married Sarah Fisher came in or about 1797 to clear up the vicinity of Ripley. Thomas Cormick came in the same year and gave his name to Cormick Run where he was joined by James and William Long. In that fall Amos Ellis and Thomas McConnell from Pennsylvania after a year or two in Kentucky opened a clearing on Cormick Run and built cabins to which they came the next spring. Ellis had married Mary McConnell, a sister of Thomas, and lived to be one of the foremost citizens of the old County of Clermont and of the young County of Brown.
Having purchased of Lytle and Taylor in 1795, Ezekiel Dimmitt from Virginia by way of Kentucky came across in 1796 with James Gest, built a cabin and began a clearing. On November 3, 1797, Dimmitt married Phebe Gest in Kentucky, and with her and her brothers, John and James, came at once to Batavia, not yet to be for twenty years to come, and made their home a center of social and religious importance. Six- teen miles to the northwest, but much nearer Paxtons, Samuel Robinson purchased and began to improve the fine tract now partly occupied by Miamiville. Chapman Archer planted his family to grow strong and influential in Pierce township some four miles southwest of Dimmitts. The Nash family came to Little Indian Creek. Theophilus, William and John Simon- ton made a start by the mouth of the O'Bannon.
Jacob Light had much strange, exciting experience including service in the Revolution. In 1786 he went with wife and child to Detroit, but, after four unsatisfactory years, they re- turned along the Big Trail to Wheeling. A year later, he boated with his brothers, Daniel and Peter to Columbia. In July, 1792, he was one of five in a boat that was attacked by Indians. Of the five, one was killed, one captured, and him- self severely wounded. The one captured was the boy, Oliver M. Spencer, whose after life was notable, and whose Narrative of his Captivity is an excellent book of adventure. Five years later, after much wandering, Jacob Light built the first house on the site of New Richmond. Daniel Light settled near New Richmond, and Peter Light settled nearly midway between Williamsburg and Bethel. Jacob was the founder of New Richmond and after the favor of fortune, he brought his father,
...
213
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
also a soldier of the Revolution, to share his plentiful home that had become a landmark on the early Ohio. Under Tay- lor's management, the land between Nine Mile and the Little Miami, now known as Anderson township of Hamilton County was being settled, and Newtown was becoming a trading point. Farther up the Miami, Waldschmidt gave employment and then his daughter to Matthias Kugler than whom few brought more nervous vigor for the development of Western Clermont.
On the riverside from Nathan Ellis at Aberdeen, by his brothers and others at Ripley and Higginsport. by Salt at Bullskin, by Ferguson, Light, Morin and others above and be- low Twelve Mile, by John at Nine Mile, by McCormick and Conrad near Broad Ripple, by Robinson near Indian Ripple,. to Simonton at the Mouth of the O'Bannon and then over the hill to Paxton's, a traveller, watchful for signs of life on Christmas, 1797, might have seen the smoke from certainly not more than forty cabins-perhaps less. All the interior, not counting from the banks of the bounding waters but in- cluding the fires of Williamsburg, might have been as many as forty more. One can not be certain about how many may have come and gone and left no sign.
But far back in the woods at a future cross roads, where some not over plentiful springs give their waters to the clayey banks of a nameless runlet, Providence prepared the plans and gathered leading actors for one of the most momentous con- flicts in the refinement of mankind. Obed Denham, a Virginian by birth and a Kentuckian by migration, through personal ex- perience had become an unrelenting opponent of human slavery. Rejoicing at the promise of an escape from the im- mediate presence of the peculiar institution, he made deliber- ate arrangements for his dependents and crossed the Ohio with ample means to found a rustic home in the land of free speech and free conscience. Guided by an impulse higher than reason, he purchased fifteen hundred acres of the huge Breck- enridge Survey in the unbroken forest of Tate township, where he proceeded on a well considered plan to found a con- genial society for people of his opinion.
With him came his wife. Mary, anl their children : Timothy, John, James, Obed, Jr., Charity and Sarah; also his brother,
!
214
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
the Rev. John Denham, an aged man, with a son, James, and a daughter, Rebecca; also Jeremiah Beck and his children, Jeremiah, Samuel, Levi, Stephen, Hannah, Ruth and Sarah; also Kelly Burke, a son-in-law of the leader. They all pro- fessed the Baptist faith. Within a year, as soon as the build- ing and clearing permitted, Denham platted a town which he called Plainfield, but which others called Denhamstown, but which all, at a later date called Bethel. In this town, among other things, he gave "Two lots for the use of the Regular Baptist Church, who do not hold slaves or commune at the Lord's table with those that do practice such tyranny over their fellow creatures, for to build a home for the worship of Almighty God and to bury the dead." This was the first legally organized practical emancipation society west of the Alleghanies, and about it we will find marvelous memories.
With the advantage of a wealth not possessed by Massie or Lytle General James Taylor, Sr., of Newport, Kentucky, be- came the holder of many large tracts in the Virginia Military District. Much of this land was surveyed for Taylor by Lytle, who became the older man's agent, attorney in fact, adviser and intimate friend. This association included Massie, and the three men became the chief, earnest and deeply in- terested promoters of the settlement of the Virginia Military Lands. Taylor having the money and Lytle the energy, they resolved to attract attention eastward from the Miami and northward from the Ohio by building a grain and saw mill at Lytlestown on the East Fork, which would anticipate the first vital needs of a desired class of settlers. The platting of the town suspended because of a blizzard, November 26, 1796, was resumed with spring weather and, on April 13, 1797, that work was finished.
From the attention given to the descriptions of the various primitive methods of reducing grain to breadstuff, we might conclude there was a long era of a mortar and pestle, de- veloped into a scooped out stump, with an overhead pounder swung from a springy limb or bent-over sappling, where the scanty grains were smashed by the women, whose leading thought was to fix for another meal. Such a time, if any there was for any in Old Clermont, was of short duration, especially at Williamsburg. The mill at Covalt's Station early in 1789
:
.
:
1 1
215
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
was the first in the Cincinnati reigon to be driven by water power. In 1790, Wickersham's floating mill began to run and so continued for years at the first ripple of the Little Miami. A hand mill was a well known implement a hundred years and much more ago. Something like a huge iron coffee mill to be fastened to an upright post and operated with a crank for two men is still to be seen among the Moravian relics at Gnadenhutten. The work was easier when the grain was parched, and the meal from freshly parched corn was and is delicious. The Ferguson family had a hand mill of which the two stones were brought over the Alleghanies on a pack horse. Such a mill was run by pushing or revolving the stone with levers that travelled in a circle. When larger and run by a sweep they were called horse mills. Yet, these could be used with enough man-power. Two stones for a horse mill for grinding grain were brought by James Kain from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to Fort Red Stone, and then to Columbia and finally to Williamsburg, where they ceased to travel but not to grind. After ten or twelve years Captain Stephen Smith came and married James Kain's daughter, Sarah; and, among other things done about his plow and wagon shop before his service in the "War of '12," he set up a horse mill on Lot No. 122. While not positively affirming that Smith refitted Kain's mill, tradition leads to that conclusion ; and the two mill stones used by Captain Smith in his long ago grinding are now in the possession of his nephew, Enoch West Smith, a veteran of the Union Army. With this evidence we must believe that very little if any of the early life of Williamsburg subsisted on pounded grain.
Despite the stories of long trips to the Miami Mills, Lytle and Taylor made 1797 memorable by building the first mill west of Chillicothe and east of the Little Miami. According to Lytle's papers still preserved, the work was begun in March, 1797, by Robert Winslow, John Campbell. James Ster- ling and Henry Dunham. In September, John Jackson's name appeared on the account to which David Snell and William Morris were added in December. Trees were to be cut for logs that must be flattened for a dam and squared for framing. The channel of the river was leveled across and graded back with an under dip up stream for long timbers laid side by side
:
216
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
and riprapped with huge blocks of stone covered with gravel and earth, that became thicker as the wall of logs below rose higher and higher for a fall of water, that went directly to the wheels without passing through a race, or at most, a very short one. The site was on the west bank, and south of the foot of Mill street, the most northerly and shortest street on the an- cient plats of Williamsburg. In considering the amount of provisions required by the people and their cattle in that un- dertaking, reason is found for admiring the foresight that be- gan with the clearing and planting of the Big Field. For the transportation of the needed grain at that time would have added much to the cost of the mill.
Notwithstanding the gravity of the enterprise, neither of the owners could afford the time for personal supervision. Among the artisans of pioneer days none exceeded the im- portance of the millwright. The guiding master chosen for that and much subsequent mill building in Brown and Cler- mont was Peter Wilson, who came from much similar experi- ence in Kentucky. The personal representative in charge of General Taylor's interests was William Perry from Kentucky, who remained in Williamsburg and became the first Sheriff of Old Clermont. He was looked upon as an enterprising man. Afterward, the first house in Madisonville, raised in 1809, and made of logs, was occupied by him as an inn, where, amid much attention to patrons, he seldom kept a long time very sober.
Among the assistants much employed by Lytle was John Donnells, a young Irish surveyor, who was one of the com- pany at the camp. He also helped to lay off the town in 1796, and, for work on the mill, he was paid £ 37 19s 6d, of the old-fashioned currency in which the accounts were kept. William Perry was paid £ 199 IOS 4d, and James Kain was paid £ 120 5s 4d, for boarding. That was only in part. Be- tween July and October Taylor advanced £258 13s Iod. The total expenditure for the enterprise was $2,804.92, in Federal currency. In spite of the cash supplied, the work was slow.
Every one in business with the government then had cause to complain of the law's delay-especially, when anything was coming to the individual. Because of various needs in general and vexing trouble in "getting their patents down," Lytle re-
1
1
1
1
:
217
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
turned to the East in the summer of 1797, with the sympathy of Massie and Taylor. To him at Philadelphia, Taylor wrote on August 28, 1797, "We shall very soon be ready for the millwright to go framing." Yet the frame of the grist mill did not go up till the following April. On May 1, 1798, John Harris rendered a bill of $60 for a pair of millstones. The same bill quotes 200 pounds of saw mill irons at 18 pence per pound. In another bill, burr iron is charged at 14 pence per pound, and nails at 30. Peter Wilson was paid a total of £225, partly in cash and partly in land. No statement has been found when the grinding began, but on January 23, 1799, Perry wrote: "It is the completest mill in this country-but people say Earhart don't know how to tend mill." If this was John Earhart, the name was soon restored to popular favor, for he was known as a plow maker with no superior. On. February 9, 1799, O. Beatie wrote: "The saw mill is gen- erally going, the grist mill is in tolerable order." On March 8, 1799, William Campbell engaged to manage the mills for one year "for two hundred acres of land within ten miles of Wil- liamsburg" which came to pass.
Out of all accounts that have come to hand, the first birth noted between Eagle Creek and the O'Bannon is that of Mary Day on January 28, 1797. The next in Williamsburg is that of her sister, Sarah Day, on December 1, 1798. In the letter of January 23, 1799, Perry briefly reported: A child born to Dan Kain, to John Kain, to Ed Mitzer, to Captain John Arm- strong and to myself. With seven babies added to the list, the little settlement was making fine progress. This same let- ter from Perry also contained some news that gives an idea of the political gossip of the day that may have made Lytle smile with surprise or grit his teeth with defiance. "I have been told the county is to be laid off this spring. The county town will be below the mouth of Bullskin. That seems 'impos- sible. Col. Massie has settled some men on Big Indian and says the town will be there. Many say this place should be it. They say three men are to be elected and lay the county and fix the seat of justice, the Miami to be one line and Eagle Creek another, until the forks, and then run due north till it meets the Miami." By the "Miami" Perry doubtless meant the East Fork at or near Lynchburg. With this understand-
218
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
ing the proposed boundaries, although nearly two years ahead of the action taken, were almost prophetic and show that the county was well studied before the people came, for whom it was to be formed. This letter has the special interest of giving the first known intimation of "the county" in question, and the sentence, "Many think that this place should be it," is a revel- lation of Lytle's purpose, from the first, to make it so. But that purpose was not ready for performance.
In his report to the Cabinet in 1795, Governor St. Clair briefly stated a most important and vivid fact: "There is not a road in the country." In his letter to Lytle already men- tioned under date of August 28, 1797, written from his man- sion "Belle Vue," now an important Kentucky suburb of Cin- cinnati, General Taylor says:
"I have got the road established to Williamsburg, and from thence to Chillicothe on the Scioto. Have got $150 subscribed for the immediate cutting it out, a good bridle path from the town to Chillicothe. Captain Armstrong has been very friendly in this business. I attended court myself and had this matter fixed. Donnells started on the 25th inst., accompanied by Rob- ert Mckinney, one of the Cotterals and one of the Bookovers. They expect to be gone about three weeks. Ludlow has re- turned from running the boundary between the United States and the Indians, and intends very shortly to set out to survey the military lands on the Scioto, and he and a number of gen- tlemen from Cincinnati will travel our road."
The directness with which this man of many affairs stated his achievement to his partner indicates that he was telling of something that had been a subject of mutual planning. "Our road" to Chillicothe was in two sections. The first section was from Cincinnati by roads laid out at various times and over short distances eastward :-
From Fort Miami along Turkey Bottom to Wickersham's mill on the Little Miami, in 1790-
From Wickersham's mill three miles from the mouth of the Little Miami to Mercersburg (Newtown) in 1792-
From the "Garrison" at Mercersburg (Newtown) to Dry Run and thence by Broadwell's clearing to the Little Miami in 1793.
From Newtown in 1797, John Donnells, as directed by Gen-
.
---
i 1 1 1 1 1 : --
!
1
-----
-------
219
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES 1
eral Taylor and assisted by Daniel Kain and Robert McKin- ney, laid a trace to Williamsburg, as related by Taylor, which was finally adopted by the next Court of Quarter Sessions, November 24, 1797. Robert Mckinney's name had been fa- miliar at Covalt's Station. The work was under the authority of Hamilton County, and the continuation to Chillicothe is proved by a letter from Donnells to John Lytle, who was taking care of the Kentucky side of their affairs during William Lytle's trip to the East. The lively quaintness of the brief gossip preserved is a sufficient reason for its publication, but the letter, written without thought of publication, supplies a missing link in the story of a great historic highway and also answers several otherwise obscure questions. The copy is exact :
"Williamsburg, October 4, 1797.
"Respected Sir :- I received your letter by Mr. Townsley, by whom I reply. I tried my best to accommodate him. I have no doubt but he will be satisfied in land of your brothers, but I rather expect the land alluded to in your letter to me will not suit him. Be assured I did my duty. I am badly circum- stanced at present. I was married last Thursday to Betsy Paxton on O'Bannon's Creek, and have only been home about three weeks from running a road from Williamsburg to Chilly- cothia on Sciota. The distance between the two towns is 601/2 miles.
"Dear Sir :- It is at law with me how to manage concerning where to begin housekeeping. My father-in-law insists on my settling near him, but this perhaps would not be doing justice to Mr. William Lytle-my best friend. I would rather than twenty pounds I could see him before I fix a place of living. Notwithstanding, I am fully determined to aid and assist him in all his business till he returns. The mill work is going on very well but it will be a dreadful expense-I suppose not less than 1,200 pounds, this currency. This is only a supposition of my own. The town is growing rapidly and everything seems to be in its-favor. Scarcely a night since I cut the road to Sciota, but 10 or 12 travellers lodge here. I conclude by re- maining your Sincere friend,
"JOHN DONNELLS."
220
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
The marriage of Betsy Paxton to John Donnells on Thurs- day, September 28, 1797, is the first wedding on the Clermont side of the Little Miami. The first marriage in the Scioto Valley occurred on April 17, 1798, over six months later. A date is fixed for the first visit of Mr. Townsley, whose family had long duration about Batavia. No stronger proof of devo- tion to Lytle need be asked than is stated in this evidently sincere letter.
Ludlow and his surveyors travelled on "our road" to Chilli- cothe and began on the Military Lands before the arrival from the East of the party that cut Zane's Trace. That celebrated road had been greatly desired by Taylor and Lytle. and their success in reaching Chillicothe first was a signal instance of eastern enterprise surpassed by western energy. Williamsburg could be reached by Donnell's Trace through Newtown ; or by the west side of the Miami to the much safer ford at Broad Ripple by Round Bottom, and up the north side of the East Fork to Stonelick and Backbone, and across the level lands to the town, whence Donnell's second Trace bore north 79 de- grees East, through New Market to meet the road from the east.
During the Indian War, safety was sought along the road by Crab Orchard, in Kentucky; but when the danger ceased, con- venience required a shorter road through Ohio. The best that could, be done with a Congress always doubtful and hesitating about internal improvements was a permission to Colonel Ebenezer Zane to cut a Trace from Wheeling to Maysville by way of Chillicothe; for which he was to have the privilege of locating warrants that he already owned for three sections of six hundred and forty acres each, at three different points, where he should also have the mixed privilege and duty of maintaining the necessary ferries. From one side, this was very inadequate pay for the undertaking, but, on the other hand, he had the golden chance of founding and controlling the markets of the new country. When they came to lay the road, in 1797, there was but one white man's house on the course between Wheeling and Chillicothe, and none for forty miles east of Williamsburg. Zane's share of the project was the sites of Zanesville and Lancaster, for he gave the third section at East Chillicothe to his helpers in the work. Massie attained his
---
---
1
221
. CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
desire by fixing Chillicothe on the new road, and Massiesburg opposite Maysville, which, after twenty years was revived as Aberdeen. All to the west was left to make its own chance, and eventually get the most good from the road.
Before steamboating superseded staging the travel over that road was animated beyond any comparison within modern ex- perience. A perpetual procession of movers marching to the West made a little market at the cross roads that were soon established, at which every extra bushel or pound of the prod- ucts for miles on either side found ready sale at stimulating prices. The accounts of Taylor and Lytle's mill for 1799 show that corn was 75 cents, rye $1.00 and wheat $1.25 per bushel ; that sawing was done at 50 cents per hundred, and that good lumber was sold at $10.00 per thousand feet. A novel feature was the mounted people, who each generally led a horse and usually travelled in companies for mutual protection. The carriages were so few as to be curious. All visiting was done by horseback, and, if the length of the absence or the conse- quence of the individual required a surplus, the extra luggage was carried on an extra horse. The merchant who went East for goods and returned in less than ten weeks was considered over hasty, if not reckless, in making investments. An occa- sional horseman might have been seen with a fellow rider of the gentle sex clinging sidewise at his back. But all that came later and went long ago.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.