USA > Ohio > Brown County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 22
USA > Ohio > Clermont County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 22
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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
Alexander Martin was a resident of Pleasant township. John Cotteral was a part of the Paxton settlement, where lived "one of the Cotterals," who helped Donnells to cut the "Chillycoth- ia Trace." After his marriage to Betsy Paxton, Donnells yielded to his father-in-law's insistence and settled "near him." Jesse Swem, a soldier of '76, was living near the Fergusons, by Twelve Mile, and so was John Fagin, while farther east was John Abraham, William Carothers, and Henry Newkirk. Jo- sephus Waters was still farther east on the Ohio and became prominent in the affairs of Brown County.
Houton Clarke, born in England, and soon afterward brought in 1773 to America, came to Bethel in 1798. where he was married in 1806 to Nancy, the oldest of the thirteen chil- dren of Rev. Gerrard Riley. The resulting family formed one of the most influential through a hundred years to come in Clermont. About the same time that Houton Clark came to Bethel, Williamsburg became the home of some English-born people, whose position was so peculiar among the many Revo- lutionary soldiers there or nearby, that they formed a spe- cial group. That group included the families of Robert Chris-
الد ١١
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tie, Leonard Reaper, Joshua Lambert and John Naylor, who were treated with much kindness. For they also were soldiers in the American Revolution, but, and it was told with a side look, they wore the red coats of King George instead of the Continental blue.
The story of Robert Christie is well worth while, for those who would review the ways of fate that long ago. He was the younger son of a Scottish laird, with a plentiful prospect; but in a boyish rage he left home and, in his seventeenth year, enlisted in the British army, where he became a sergeant un- der Cornwallis at Yorktown. After the surrender, he refused to return to England, and thereby, as a technical deserter, sac- rificed the estate that fell to him upon the death of his only brother, the childless Laird of Beech Green. He married Frances Burdett, of a good Virginia family, and learned the weaving of old-time coverlets, now highly prized. A pair of these won the admiration of William Lyttle, "tired of his ram- bling" and thinking of "some one who would keep him at home." At any rate, some lots were given in exchange, that are now included in the countless values of Fountain Square. But, as with the estate in Scotland, Robert could not bide the time. And so he let another fortune go and came out to Williamsburg to live in a cabin on the lot where is now the writer's home. A little later the family lived in another cabin that stood on the slight rise, a good stone throw south from the eastern end of the Main Street bridge. There, on Sep- tember 3, 1803, was born the youngest of the ten children, William B. Christie, the most eloquent pulpit orator of his generation, who, if we may believe tradition, has not since been excelled in seraphic sweetness of speech. Chilled by want, sorrowing for his father's increasing intemperance, and thrilled with the aspirations of conscious ability, the boy was timid before his rude companions, until their coarse taunts about his poverty aroused his rage, and then his passion brooked no opposition. After awhile it was understood that he was a dangerous subject for sport. But for those who met him fair, he was gentle and obliging. In person, he was tall and slight. His complexion was that striking contrast of pale fea- tures and hectic cheeks, lit by dark, brilliant eyes, all framed by glossy black hair, the combination only found among the black-eyed sons of Scotland. He knew his power and was
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full of pride that he could use it all for his divine Master. He died at the age of thirty-six, in the dawn of his greatness.
Leonard Raper was also surrendered by Cornwallis at York- town, after years of service for the crown. Like Christie, he decided to give the rest of his life to the young Republic. He was born in 1752, and after the Revolution, married Temper- ance Holly, who was eight years younger. Their oldest daughter, Elizabeth, was born April 16, 1783, and was married, probably at Columbia, May 4, 1797, to John Kain, then with his father at Williamsburg, where Margaret, the first child of John and Elizabeth, was born December 23, 1798, making the fourth born in the town. Such authentic incidents and dates are a sure base for the investigation of other relations. Raper had the reputation of great ability in mathematics, and was a fine surveyor, whose work was always on the frontier, and ahead of the settlers, first in Virginia and then in Pennsyl- vania, where his distinguished son, the Rev. William H. Raper, was born September 24, 1793, in a palisaded station, whence the family was soon moved to Columbia. Raper's rep- utation gained the notice of Lytle, who persuaded him to Williamsburg to take up the work that, up to 1798, had been done by Donnell's. The family started a farm in what got the name of Concord, where the once-feared "Red Coat" lived most usefully and peacefully, until his death, March 18, 1831, when the farm was taken by his sons, Samuel and Joseph. Holly was a popular sheriff of Clermont. William H. reached great fame as a Methodist preacher, as may be read on many pages of other annals. In the rough weather when surveyors and children could spare three or four months from regular tasks for school work, Leonard Raper acted as the first teach- er of whom there is any record between Loveland and Aber- deen. If there were no other merit, this should entitle him to. remembrance with the first and best.
After fighting some time for the King, John Naylor began to see the justice of the American side and decided his course by deserting from the British and casting his lot with the Patriots. When the war of '12 came around, the old man proved his devotion by volunteering in the American army and going against the King. He married a sister of the Rev. John Miller, whose wife was Eliza, a daughter of Major Daniel Kain. Their descendants went elsewhere.
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Joshua Lambert was a musician, who fifed for the King's marches all the way from Boston Common to Yorktown, and then became a stout American. He finally settled three miles south of Williamsburg, where, on February 12, 1800, was born his daughter, Deborah, who married John Day, a Revolution- ary descendant, at Felicity. from which many can trace to another union of the ancient strife. When he changed flags, Lambert also became a Methodist and a founder on August 29, 1804, of the Clover church.
There was another fife major in Williamsburg, when Lam- bert came, William McKnight by name, and a tailor by trade ; but he kept time for the Continentals, as they called them- selves, for they felt they were fighting for all America. He left no family and none can tell the place of his cabin. Anoth- er tailor was Ebenezer Osborne, who came to Williamsburg before 1800, and lived in one of the cabins grouped about Lot 324, for sake of the big spring around which his children played, all unconscious of the dreadful doom that was to give the eldest a fearful fame, for in all English reading there is no recital of minor life more pitiful than the story of Lydia Osborne, the lost child, which began on the evening of July 13, 1804, and became a dread reality the next day-just fifty- nine years before the Morgan raid thrilled the vicinity with another calamity. But that came later. Thought seems to stray from the task of conning long-gone names, and instead seeks to explore the sea of incidents in the crowded prospect.
Fragmentary records suggest other names that could be mentioned before closing the roll of those who came before the new century began. But it is impossible to fix certain dates for their coming. In a large measure mention has been made of the people present when the questions of civil gov- ernment required and received close attention. Of course, there were others whose names have not survived the wear of time- some who came, tarried awhile and moved on, to repeat their struggle elsewhere. without leaving a token of remembrance- some who remained to spend all their good or ill of life in the toilsome task of taming the wilderness, where their descend- ants have ceased or turned to other sources, and left none to tell of their once prevailing presence-and some whose heed- less posterity neither knows of nor cares for any record.
CHAPTER XI.
THE EARLIEST HOMES.
The Traits and Trials of the First to Come -- The Pioneer's House-The Roof-The Frow-The Floor-The Beds-The Fireplace-Their Cooking-Their Farming Tools-The Age of Wood-The Forest Seclusion-The Glamour of Tradition -The Positive Proof of Journals and Ledgers-Scarcity of Money-Fur Currency-What They Bought-The Drug and Book Trade-Bartering-Whisky-A Complete Pioneer Outfit-The Awful Stress of Life-Maple Sugar Making- Woman's Work-The Philosophy of the Desire for Remem- brance.
It is, indeed, a special task to truly tell the traits and trials of the first to come. Whoever recall the fireside talks of an ancient grandsire or his saintly dame, outworn in making others glad, who told the tales they heard in sunny youth, from those who came when all the world was woods, have fine but fading scenes in what has become a legendary age. Even now, the spirit of the doubting Thomas is abroad de- manding to see and touch the print of the nails. But the wounded hands and tortured side are gone from mortal gaze.
The pioneers are as extinct as their Shawnee opponents. Except for the memory of their virtues and the legacy of their achievement, they are a people whose like will not be seen again. No pen from Fancy's wing can write the page to make them seem as once they were. The homes they built, the tools they used, the dress they wore, the scenes they viewed, have been so changed that scarcely aught remains but the words that told their thought and make their life akin to ours .. If they could repeople the "old clearings" it is doubtful whether their surprise or our wonder would be the greater. The rugged independence of some fell little short of indiffer- ence as they trusted to luck afoot and chanced any change with a rifle, a knife and a hatchet. Others packed traps and ax on a horse or put their little all in a cart. The more fortun-
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ate loaded a wagon with spinning wheel and implements from the farm left behind, while reluctant cattle and swine length- · ened the march. All were guided by the star of hope. Yet, many a woman's heart must have faltered as the miles be- came many and the days grew weary before their El Dorado was found.
Much literary skill has been employed in describing the pioneer house, as if one was the pattern for all. Plainer state- ment may give a more truthful idea of the conditions than is obtained from the ornate rhetoric of those who have seen lit- tle but imagined much. The cabin was a log pen, square or nearly so, and high enough to stand in erect, under a bark or brush roof, with the earth for a floor, until time and chance permitted the architect to improve the design. The logs were chopped and shaped at the ends to fit them closer and to lock them firmly in place. The next step was to cut out spaces for the door on the side and fireplace at the end, which was often delayed by the hurry of life, that required planting in season, and game for food. The inmates often crept into such shelter through half-cut doorways, while the fire was kept out- side. The same has occurred all over the woodland of Ameri- ca, and, where there was no wood for a cabin, the dugout on the hillside, or the sod house on the prairie, has repeated the scene of home planting.
Amid all the hurried work, one of the first objects was a better roof. This was made of what was called clapboards, which were frequently brought by, or made on the flatboats, by those who came down the river. The implement used for riving or splitting such boards or shingles, was called a frow, which came next to the rifle and ax as an indispensable tool. With a frow and a drawing knife a skilled woodman could cover and floor, and even weatherboard his house, and fix the staves for cooperage. The pioneer who practiced borrowing a frow was shiftless, for it was needed most of the time at home, and the man who could not use a frow was pitied. Notwith- standing the importance of this once familiar and still used tool, it is probable that not one is on sale by a dealer in Brown or Clermont counties. Even the word "clapboard," which was the product of the frow, once universally used for roofing in the timbered regions of America, has lost that mean-
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ing, which is not given in Webster's, the most American of all dictionaries. The disuse of the word is a peculiar illustra- tion of changing customs. The 'hearts," or triangular pieces left from riving the clapboards, were used to "chink," or fill the cracks between the logs, and, when neatly done, and plas- tered with clay, the walls were good, alike against summer heat -
and winter cold. Split sticks were built into a crib for the chimney, that was thickly daubed with clay to keep the fire in and the cold out.
As soon as time could be found, puncheons were hewn for the floor, and leaves were piled against the outside walls as winter drew near. Skins soon had from the game around, were spread on the floor for beds. After awhile, a post with a fork was set at proper distance from the walls to hold poles or bars for the support of clapboards for an elevated bed. But it was some years before "bedcords" were in common use.
There can be little hearty belief for any adequate expres- sion for their life of pathetic paucity-we dare not call it poverty, for they were self-reliant and asked no favor that could not be gained through honest effort. Perhaps no small degree of their reputed health was due to the wide-open fire- place, that radiated warmth while it swept the room with constant ventilation. The fire had no encouragement from iron. Blocks of stone answered for the great brass andirons that came fifty years later and are now regarded as curious relics of the middle age. The bodies of hickory saplings were sufficient for the functions of poker and tongs, and a clap- board reduced to the shape of a paddle, served for a shovel. A near-by peg held the johnny-cake board, stained with dough and browned with fire. A few had, and all wanted, a Dutch oven, a shallow, flat bottomed kettle to set over live coals on the hearth, while more coals were heaped on the dish-like lid. A corn or wheaten loaf baked in this way had a special taste. The wooden bowl for mixing the bread from the meal, in a handy sack hung beneath a shelf that held a few plates and cups and a vessel for the precious salt.
In a few days after the start of the cabin, venison and bear meat might be found hanging at the best places for drying. Blocks of wood served as seats, to be rolled to a home-made table or bench, which completed the furniture.
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The rifle rested within instant reach on pins, from which the powder horn and bullet pouch always swung when not in use. Other pegs held the little extra clothing, and bunches of herbs and roots gathered with care and to be used with faith. Until cranes could be fixed, the boiling and stewing was done in camp kettles hung over the fire by hooks and chains from the "lug pole," that was built into and across the chimney. Meats were hung and turned before the fire, while the "drip" fell to a pan beneath, from which the roast was basted. The modern abomination of frying pans was unknown, and broil- ing was accomplished by placing the meat on the clean, hot coals. It is all but useless to tell the incredulous of the sur- passing flavors of such cooking. It is somewhat imitated, but not attained in the expensive grillrooms to which epicures re- sort. No mention of a musical instrument in the first years has been found, except by reference to the fifings of Joshua Lambert and William McKnight; unless, by rhetorical li- cense, we include the spinning wheel; and the hum of that must have been low until flax could have been raised and wool obtained. Such was the home of the pioneer, until time and patient labor accomplished more. Some had a little more and built a little larger, but imperative necessities leveled all to a condition of equally practicing a simple life, for which mod- ern experience affords no parallel.
Outside the home the forest had to be cut down and up, and rolled and burned. The ground at first, because of roots. was dug with mattocks and tended with hoes. The fortunate raised enough to last through the first year. As each year measured larger plantings, larger houses were built, with higher and smoother walls. Nature, adverse in many respects. was favorable in one. The virgin soil accepted cultivation kindly and yielded prodigiously; otherwise the rude imple- ments would have hardly maintained an existence. The farming tools of a hundred years ago were home-made, and of the conventional type. perpetuated by artists. The scythe was copied from the emblem handled by Father Time in the golden age of Greece, or, perhaps, the emblem was copied from the scythe. No improvement was made over the marble type, until men began to think in iron, and that can be re- membered by a few of the living. The sickle was, is, and
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will be, the same unto the end. It was the age of wood. Shov- els and forks were made of a single piece of wood, and rakes were made of two, besides the teeth. The plow was a puzzling twist in wood, with a point hardened by fire, unless it was tipped with iron. Many an acre was cultivated with a fork of dogwood drawn through the mellow loam by boys who played horse in earnest. Although that life was bound in utterless toil, it would be false to assert that it had no hilarity. As neighborship became possible, log rollings, house raisings, corn huskings, and even meetings to help the unfortunate, became scenes of boisterous glee. When their hold grew firmer and orchards furnished fruit, while flocks gave fleece and fields yielded flax for apple cuttings and quiltings, society passed from the hunter's to the shepherd's life, that will forever be the idyllic dream of American felicity.
Yet, in fact, those people lived in a forest-shrouded seclu- sion that would have been pitiful if it had not been sublime. Their all-engrossing thought was clearing, planting, reaping, spinning, weaving, which, with rare exceptions, each family was forced to do to the full measure of their strength. They lived close to the soil and all expected much from the land they tried to compass, and for which they scattered apart. In lo- cating those lonely and early homes, wonder grows whether they were so widely scattered by choice or chance. At first they seemed to follow no reasonable law of selection ; nor is there much in later inspection to change the first impression, that in this, as in all other allotments of life, men were the sport of fortune. Most of the newcomers were spurred to their choice by instant need, and so took what could be had with the least delay. While the lands were all a part of a com- mon waste, with little discernible advantage, the artificial di- visions of adjoining surveys represented rights that might be held by people who were divided by weeks of weary travel. As all faces look alike in the dark, so did all places look equally forbidding or inviting in the shadows of the wilderness. No one but the surveyors knew enough of the bearings to fore- cast the trend of travel. The whimsical advice of a hunter, or the weariness of an hour, may have decided the conditions of a family, unto the third or fourth generation. After the search lights of a century, some have been heard to lament the lack
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of ancestral foresight. Such reflection is neither fair to those who did much without seeing, nor honorable in those who see much without doing. Still, wonder at the various fortune of various families is but natural; for, the mind accustomed to the plenitude of the present, refuses to consider the utter se- verity of the life of the people, whose enterprise has merited the choicest praise of their posterity. Unless trained with study and strengthened with observation, the liveliest imagi- nation is unable to conceive, and slow to understand the hero- ism of those who accepted the burdens of civilization on the border, and came to the solitude of the dreary wastes that stretched between the infrequent and scanty clearings about their lonely homes.
Imagination is prone to robe these times with romantic fancy, rather than with sober reality. In the haze of far-off days, the men appear as giants ; in the glamour of tradition, the forest seems an enchanted land ; and even stable achievements rising from the all-submerging void, offer little that is discern- ible between the fixity of the purple ridges and the glow of the embracing mist. The zest of their adventures and the success of their efforts equally blind us to the meagerness of their living. Therefore, it is fortunate to have positive proof of their environment, and it is well to perpetuate a record of their privations. Otherwise, the time is not far away, when even their posterity amid luxury will doubt the want and trial of their ancestors.
The chance whereby the doubting may "put a finger into the print of the nails" came with a lengthy, fire-protected and highly prized possession of the Journals and Ledgers of the trading station or store, at Gnadenhutten, Ohio, maintained as a part of the second mission there, under the authority of the Moravian Church of Europe and America. These books were opened October 25, 1799, by David Peter, a scholarly man. deputed to the important duty of business manager, by the bishops, from the position of head teacher of Greek and Latin at Nazareth Hall, at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the chief school or college of the American Moravians. For nine years after that till 1809, the accounts of a morally systematic business with both white and red people, and one black man, occupy- ing the entire upper region of the Muskingum River, were
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faithfully recorded by a thoroughly competent hand. By de- scent, these records are the precious property of a grandson. Oliver Peters, a most worthy man, in the city of Uhrichsville, Ohio. In all the ancient archives of the State, there is nothing that competes with these ample volumes in their peculiar sphere. While restricted to a local, yet considerable, scope comparison with the meagre relics of the sort in other places shows that these models of neatness and skill generally repre- sent the trade values of the time in other Ohio settlements. In the absence of anything found at home, there is nothing that can be quoted with more confidence.
Of all the flotsam of that time, there is nothing that so helps imagination to enter the door and sit at the hearth with the pioneers, as David Peter's long-posted annals of their homely dealings and petty destinies. From those laconic lines we learn what they had of simplest need for sternest want, and what they lacked of adventious aid from the perfumed fragrance and cushioned ease of modern life, and what they missed by passing before the crush and strain of fashion's rout began. But the journal does not explain the evolution of the skimp skirts of their necessity into the scanter patterns of present abundance. Such speculation should consider that every age has its ministers of grace, and, that it is more courteous to compare the mothers of eras with angels of mercy than with each other. It is also best to remember that those who strive in the noon of present convenience, have thrice nine times the comforts of those who watched before the dawn.
No attempt will, or should be, made to classify the items ; for it will be truer to life and better for the reader to have the impressions obtained as the pages were turned. But first we must anticipate that money was scarce. The cash transac- tions of the first two years amounted to just $2.08, of which $1.00 was received and subsequently paid to one of the help- ers who was going east, and had to expect some expense. The other 8 cents was apparently reserved. At first, the cumber- some fractions of the antiquated English currency were used. and values were often stated in thirds of a cent. But the lack of specie was filled by a substitute not easily counterfeited.
There was a plenty of fur. Amid all the scarcity, there was an abundance of the life that bore fur, without which fashion
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was miserable, and royalty unhappy. For that frivolous badge of wealth, the rude voyageurs and hazardous traders penetrat- ed the wilds and adventured the caprice of savagery many years and many leagues in advance of the tillers and gleaners. Of all things destructive to animal life, gunpowder has been the worst. The first purchase noted by David Peter, included two pounds of gunpowder at $1.50 per pound, and four pounds of lead at 27 cents per pound. Zeisberger, the great Ohio , Apostle, bought twelve pounds of coffee at 50 cents per pound, and four quarts of peeled barley at 40 cents per quart, which appears much like the first sale of breakfast food in Ohio, and at an appalling price. Salt brought 25 cents a quart. Swan- skin-a thick flannel-went at $1.00 per yard. Chintz and muslin were booked at 50 cents per yard, but purple plains was $3.00 per yard. Three flints for gunlocks were sold for ten cents. One rifle gun was sold for $20.00, but $24.00 was paid for another. Sugar was charged at 27 cents per pound. A candle mold for six candles was listed at 50 cents, for which the wick yarn was II cents per ounce, and tallow 13 cents per pound. Bear's fat was 7 cents a pound, and pint tin cups 20 cents each. A dozen needles sold for 13 cents, and 13 cents bought a dozen skeins of thread. "Calicoes" was 67 cents per yard. A silk handkerchief and a wool hat brought $1.36 apiece. A yard of scarlet cloth cost $5.33, but $3.00 bought a yard of green cloth. A quire of writing paper cost 33 cents. Two dozen shoe tacks cost 12 cents, and an ink cake 13 cents. Pins brought 22 cents a paper. A few nutmegs were taken at 16 and 20 cents apiece. A horse bell was sold for 90 cents. The tell-tale bell, now disowned and forgotten, was the largest prime factor in the care of stock, when cattle were fenced out, instead of in. The small purchases of "calicoe" oft- en included a sheet of pasteboard, at 13 cents, which was used to shape the bewitching sunbonnet, sometimes adorned with a yard of bright ribbon at 24 cents. That alone was the be- ginning and end of the millinery department. Leather, awls, shoe knives and shoe thread first appeared in 1803, and, in the next year some brides wore white cotton stockings at $1.40 per pair. The most extravagant account in the nine years was for "A pewter dish, a smaller pewter dish, 6 pewter plates, 6 metal table spoons, 6 knives and forks, a Jaconnett muslin
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