USA > Ohio > Brown County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 23
USA > Ohio > Clermont County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 23
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
.
257
Thelion Richen
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
handkerchief, and one pair (the first) of white cotton stock- ings." It is only fair to add for the better half of that house, that the account was squared with linen, beeswax and sugar. No other article can be named, more expressive of house- wifely thrift and pioneer simplicity. The crustiest curmudg- eon that gives a grimace at woman's aesthetic nature, must concede that the master did not spin that linen, or try out that beeswax, or stir off that sugar. And, if kept till now, that linen and wax and home-made sugar would almost buy silver, in- stead of pewter.
The pages of the journal not only show causes for pleasure in the widely scattered cabins, where the purchases were to be compared and envied or emulated, but they also reveal much sickness and sorrow. The accounts of some families prove that their land of promise must have seemed a desert of disappoint- ment. The remedies relied upon were Golden Tincture, Bal- sam De Maltha, Bateman's Drops, Mercurial Ointment, Peru- . vian Bark, Cream of Tartar, Tartar Emetic. Spanish Flies, Salts, Glauber's Salts. Saltpetre, Anderson's Pills, Van Swei- ten's Pills, British Oil. Camphor, Aloes. Senna. Rhubarb, Saf- fron, Jalap, Pink Root, Bark, Ammonia, Mannah, Magnesia, Peppermint, Alum, Allspice, Ginger, Cinnamon, Sulphur, Mad- der, Copperas and Indigo. The three latter, contrasted or com- bined with stains from the forest, dyed their fabrics and tinged their lives. The drug department. however short of the myriad cures for modern ills, was much ahead of the book- shelf. In and after 1805, the Columbian speller was bought for 17 cents, and Testaments cost 35 cents. Several dozen al- manacs were sold, but no other books were mentioned.
Until something could be spared from the fields, all this was paid for with wild life; and the deer paid the larger part at prices that varied, and were stated both by the piece and by the pound. At first doeskins were 50 cents, and fawn skins 30 cents apiece. Credit for $1.00 was given for a deer car- cass, and 20 cents a pound for beeswax. One pound of butter brought 12 cents, and $2.52 was paid for a day with wagon and team. Racoon skins were rated at 25 cents, and $3.00 was the worth of an otter skin. Bear skins ranged from $1.00 to $3.00 for the finest. A full grown buck skin was current at $1.00. In four trips, traders took away the skins of 114 bears,
1
md
258
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
289 racoons, 15 wildcats, about 1,000 deer, 16 foxes, 4 otter, 10 beaver, and 2 panthers. Besides this, much was used for clothing. Corn fell in three years from $1.00 per bushel to 33 cents. All this was not in specie, but in barter. The condition was much the same between the Miami and Eagle Creek. The larger trade of Cincinnati, the army at Fort Washington, and the building of the mills brought more cash into view, yet that did not reach the settlers, with little or nothing to sell. To those who care for the testimony of the past and can find curious gladness in the presence of antiquity, these facts speak with peculiar persuasion ; and even with casual attention, the most heedless of those who crowd the busy throngs of worry will learn something of the sobering truth, that what was, is gone, and what is, shall cease. For such facts tell of a bygone sim- ple life that withered in the blare and jostle of complexer plans, that also passed away before the imposition of another and stronger mode of living, just as our own system must yield to forces that may be dimly discerned but can not be avoided.
We are prone to praise the pioneers, but all were not good, and many were evil. The noblest came in close march with those who were quick to see the chances of rising through the weakness of the simple woodman for the enticing firewater. A student of social science knows how lately the world has become fit, or nearly so, to live in. When people began to plant corn in Ohio, piracy was still permitted by European treaties. The insane roamed at will. The debtor without spot cash was put in prison. The poor were sold at public auction, and those for whom nobody would bid were bid to starve. Slavery was a sacred institution, and slave ships paid so much a head to the English king-the more heads the more revenue. The agitators of that age had spent their force in battling for the privilege of making the world better. When that privilege was gained, the political preser- vation of the nation absorbed attention, and the task of or- ganizing for the benefits of sobriety became the duty of an- other age.
Meanwhile, in the absence of better information, whisky was the sovereign balm for all public and domestic ills, the panacea for the stings of conscience and the bites of serpents. With the guiding revelations of scientific analysis, it is piti-
259
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
ful to note the pathetic confidence of the pioneers in alcohol. In their belief, it cured burns and soothed frosts; it cooled fevers and warmed chills; it promoted the growth of tissues and dissolved the essential bitterness of herbs, which equally hindered harm, helped hurt, and cured complaint. In their practice, it was first in trouble, first in joy, and first in the mouth on every emergency. No one knows the accuracy of a history so well as the historian himself, for no one else knows so much of the material reviewed, and of the selections or omissions, and of the motives that have governed the com- position. It must not be inferred that the first pioneers of Old Clermont, or of Ohio, or of the West, were given to riot- ious potation, or that all who made or handled firewaters were unworthy, according to the understanding of a more enlight- ened age. They knew not what they did; and when the con- dition came to be studied, many changed from a lifelong cus- tom and led their children in a revolt against the usage of mankind. Instead, the subject, properly considered, is a fine instance of a noble change in public opinion.
On March 25, 1801, two missionaries, Kluge and Lucken- bach, from the eastern Moravians, came to David Peter with an order for their outfit to establish a mission among the In- dians on the Wabash. That outfit was prescribed in accord- ance with what had been learned in nearly sixty years of sim- ilar experience with the wild life of the frontier, and, there- fore, must be accepted as an example of what constituted the best possible equipment for a pioneer. Yet, with the addition of a rifle and wagon not one in ten had anything so complete. The list is so well worth while for all who wish an exact view of the conditions then prevailing through all the woodland bor- der, that it is properly presented as a part of a sketch of our social scheme. For the literature of Ohio can be safely chal- lenged for a parallel to that graphic account, of which the items are :
"Saddle bags, wolf skin, line and 4 fish hooks, bear skin, 2 bushels corn, 2 qts. salt, 10 flints. 5 pounds lead, 3 pounds powder, 58 pounds sugar, 29 pounds pork, I pound Bohea tea, I pound pepper, 3 nutmegs, 4 gallons Lisbon wine, 3 yards serge, II yards Russia sheeting, blanket, handsaw, 6 gimlets, twill bag, wooden bowl, broadaxe, 2 axes, hatchet, 2 iron
260
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
wedges, 2 maul rings, frow, drawing knife, cooper's tool, mat- tock, chimney chain, pot hook, 2 brass kettles, stamped paper for draft, and cash." The total amount charged, not against the missionaries, but to account for goods from stock, was $288.67, not including hunting guns and horses. The rest of their equipment for the regeneration of a valley full of de- feated wild men was a reliance on Providence. In this day, judgment halts in saying whether Faith or temerity guided the enterprise ; but there can be no lack of wonder at the en- thusiasm that prompted those young men to give their edu- cation and talent-for they had both in fine degree-to an ideality so lofty and unselfish, on such a slender support.
An entry on January 23, 1803, for "Tall Man," an Indian, "Brass Kettle, Cash, 121/2$" is notable, as the largest cash sale to that date; for the fabulous value of brass, and for the odd use of the $ sign not yet in familiar use, even with the scholar- ly manager. A credit was given to Tschangelenno for 5 dressed doe skins at $1.00 each. Such a curio now would bring the price with interest to date., Wool cards were sold several years before any home-made linseys were taken in exchange, which proves that such products were needed and used at home until larger flocks could be raised. 20 "segars" for 7 cents on October 20, 1806, is the first mention of that luxury. In 1804. $138.00 was paid for bringing 2,400 pounds of goods from Philadelphia. If the wagon had been switched to Wheel- ing and had come by Zane's Trace, the cost would have been more, subject to river rates to the mouth of Eagle Creek or Bullskin.
Many curiously graphic but unstudied phrases depict the awful stress of life. On August 17, 1800, several families went hunting, "to save corn." The luscious roasting ears were tempting them to eat what had to be kept for the coming winter, so they left the corn to grow and ripen and used the more plentiful game. On July 22d of the same year, the peo- ple were busy "flax pulling." We hope for his own sake that the reader is feeling the interest due to these artless words from a time when all the people between Loveland and Aber- deen would not have much, if any. exceeded the limits of one of our larger halls. In October, services at the mission house were omitted several weeks "because of the fever, in which the
..
-
--
261
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
well had to wait on the sick." That condition was the annual experience along the Miami and Ohio until malaria ceased to frighten. "January 1, 1801, the new century opened with snow all day, and ice floating in the river." "Sunday, February 22, 1801. In consequence of very fine weather our people spent all the past week in boiling sugar."
Whether it be to taste a harvest feast, to pick the luscious berry, to find the nuts of autumn, to drive the prowling fox, or to gather the blossoms of May, there is no blither time for people who seek a closer walk with nature, than when they share in the charms of the old-fashioned sugar camps, once common and now forever rare. When the white man came, the huger maples here and there bore the scars of mangling tomahawks; and heaps of ashes and charcoal, more lasting than the logs from which they came, showed that the Indians knew where and how to get the sticky sweet that he mixed with bear grease and thickened with parched corn to eat with venison, which does not seem so very bad, if the venison were real.
In the pioneer's home sugar was not until made by himself. The machinery positively required was an ax, augur and ket- tle. More might be handy, such as a gimlet for making spiles and more kettles to hurry the boiling. If the augur failed, the more dextrous could make a flat spile for an ax-cut channel, which badly marred a tree. It was also well to have an adz to dig out troughs from the solid blocks. Still, in extreme neces- sity, the ax sufficed. Next to the rifle, it was the pioneer's choicest possession. On rainy days and during long winter evenings, spiles were made, and troughs that were to last a lifetime were shaped and scooped and smoothed and soaked free from acid or bitter taste. Another trunk large enough for a war canoe was dug out for a reservoir and placed near the kettles, hung in a row by logs, or set in a furnace that climbed a hillside to a chimney of "cat and clay" that finished the end of a log house open to the south and covered with long boards of riven oak.
When disappearing snows, relenting frosts and brighter skies were the welcome harbingers of spring, and while the chattering crow. the jabbering jay and the babbling blackbird met in many conventions to proclaim the good times coming,
-
·
262
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
the sire, expert in needed lore, went forth "to tap the camp." Troughs were brought on a sled to the trees, where others came to fit the spiles and fix the vessels to catch the trickling sap. Then, convenient trees were felled across the brooks for foot bridges, and wood was gathered from lightning blasted trunks that were dry and quick to burn. A little later the girls and smaller boys came racing with buckets to empty the troughs into a barrel reclining on a sled drawn by the pet of the stable along the banks or across the riffles of the brooks, while the roguish rider performed antics on the horse's back unknown to modern gymnasiums, or bent her head to dodge the drooping branches threatening her glossy curls with the fate of Absalom. And then the inspector general Mother came to give the final cleasing touches.
On the "master sugar day," the constant drops all but min- gled in a stream as they stirred the pellucid, crystal store be- low with the dimples of a ceaseless smile. Ere long, the threat- ened waste required the "boiling down" to begin at once. The night long fires were kindled and, as the moon put on a golden glow, the reducing syrup was dipped from kettle to kettle steadily replenished from the gathered waters, until the trick- ling mass was ready to be cleared and sugared off ; after which the solid cakes or crumbly harvest was borne in triumph to a guarded shelf in the sylvan home. And thus the sweet toil went on from day to day and night after night till even the saucy squirrels ceased to wonder at the fierce invasion of their antique domain. When the season was over, the re- ward was many gallons of syrup and many pounds of the most delicious sweet that regales the taste of man. Of all they did, nothing is more fragrant with mellow memories of pioneer gladness than maple sugar making. But the primeval trees are losing their greenness and soon not a "camp" will be left to prove the reality of what even now seems an Arcadian tale. In the few camps still to be found, the early implements have been replaced with labor saving and care taking devices. The word has been given by chemical experts that the old-time wooden ways were all wrong and that maple sugar water must touch nothing but metal through every stage of the changing process. Such a product may be "pure," but it is not more dainty nor joyful to the taste, for the sap of the tree and the heart of man remain the same.
٦
263
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
Most of this, however, came later. An ample supply was possible only to the most fortunate of the earliest; for the sugar harvest was limited by the lack of kettles. In short, there was a lack of everything but fortitude for the task. Their heart vanquished, though many fell before plenty smiled. The simple huts they called home required little of woman's care, and so her slighter strength took the lighter work afield. While man chopped and grubbed, woman plant- ed the seed and coaxed the tender blades of the corn and all the garden growth. It was not a lack of affection but a life of devotion to a common purpose, in which there was no room for squeamish sentiment. When flax could be pulled and wool . be shorn, woman returned to her ancient lot of spinning, weav- ing and knitting, with sewing for all. The first yield from their tilling added to household cares, for all that could be fitted for winter use must be fixed, and of this, the long gar- lands of dried pumpkin were not the least. Without fish from the stream and game from the hills, civilization would have lagged ; and thus, perforce, the first farmers were hunters with the double motive of providing meat for the table and securing fur as a currency. A consideration of the possible results of such severely isolated living suggests a lapse from refine- ment. Instead, the traditions of their descendants and the re- corded observations of competent writers agree that none were more gracious than those who survived the ordeal of making the first settlements, and of wearing the linsey woolsey and tow-cloth dress or wamus and the deer skin hunting shirt and leggings with moccasin footwear. The first mention of shoes in David Peter's journal is the sale of a pair for $2.32, on De- cember 4, 1802. An. all worthy grandmother, born after her mother had come with several older children, told the writer years ago, that her mother in telling of their move to the West mentioned that they came directly to the Clermont cabin of some Eastern friends, who had come still earlier. In re- hearsing the ever fascinating story, the pioneer sometimes, and to confidential ears, would add: "When we found them that summer, Mrs. Blank and her big girls and the children had no clothes but one dress apiece, like a coffee sack, and the men wore a mixture of tow-cloth trousers and buckskin shirts. But now!" That "now!" meant that the grandchildren of the
264
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
family, then striving to get more land, had at last reached high social position-some in authority at home and some touring Europe. That family is better remembered for latter refine- ment than for the early sacrifice of those who founded its for- tunes. Yet, if consultation were possible, it is probable that the much enduring ancestors, with all of Nature's longing to be remembered, would choose to have more mention of the proud effect than of the humbly patient cause.
It is natural to shrink from decay and to protest against the dumb forgetting of engulfing time. This desire to surpass the mortal state and to linger longer in the tide of thought is the source of humanity's finest sentiment. Religion encourages virtue with faith that claims an endless perpetuity of re -. ward for meritorious conduct. Patriotism inculcates that the noblest employment of citizenship is to transmit the institu- tions of liberty for increasing reverence, and that the happiest allotment for the close of life is to die for the chosen land and forever share the praise that glory hymns for noble deeds. And thus the illusions of hope are fair with the promise of a succession of generations to keep the memory of worthy achievements. He is indeed a careless observer who has failed to notice the force of this potent incentive to loftier aspirations that are equally inspiring and complimentary to humility. The gratification of this amiable emotion is a peculiar motive with a writer of history, whose pleasure is made melancholy by the reflection that approbation can neither reach the long dulled ears nor move the stilled hearts which would have thrilled at the thought that recalls the good they did.
If some just reason for local patriotism is not found by the reader of these pages. then much of them will have been writ- ten to little purpose for that reader. The early pioneers have been grouped with regard to both time and place. No pre- tense is made that all have been named, but it is fair to claim that a zealous effort has been made to perpetuate information from frail and perishing sources. He must be careless of his own reputation who would discourage such effort or say that such study is misapplied. The ancients taught that filial grat- itude is one of the cardinal duties, and, however great the hurry of modern life. he is to be pitied who cannot recall the memory of some ancestor who has left him an inheritance of
1
265
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
mental and moral excellence that is as surely transmitted as the tones of the voice or the cast of the features. Whosoever disregards the good his parents did deserves himself to be as quickly forgotten. Those people, grouped as they lived, with prodigious toil, founded a society that has had a noble share in establishing and perpetuating what they deemed sacred. Out of their common purpose to be good and free they forged a chain of circumstance that binds their posterity to a cease- less struggle for the rights of man. All this they did in humble but certain ways, with a devotion that deserves a common remembrance. For, the extreme individual independ- ence and personal aims that had scattered them to lonely homes soon yielded to the social instinct, that forms commu- nities and accepts guarantees of government instead of the fickle fortunes of the forest.
1
CHAPTER XII.
THE FORMATION OF THE ANCIENT COUNTY OF CLERMONT.
Governor St. Clair's Proclamations of Counties-Speculation in Land-Major-General Arthur St. Clair-The Conditions of 1798-The First Territorial Legislature-Origin of Mas- sie's Opposition-St. Clair's Ideal of Duty-Bills for New Counties Vetoed and Consequent Censure-The Second Ses- sion of the Legislature -- Clermont County Proclaimed with 680 Males Above 16-The Political Tumult of the Time- The Name, Clermont-The County Officers-Thomas Mor- ris-William Lytle-Harmony Hill-John Charles-The Old Stone Land Office-The Lost Child Found-The Set- tlement of the New County-The First Wagon Through by Chillicothe-St. Clairsville or Decatur-General Beaseley- Oscar Snell-Governor John M. Pattison.
Governor St. Clair's division of the huge Territory North- west of the Ohio for civil government, by practically indicat- ing three of the great States to come, through a change from the Indian Country into the counties of Washington and Ham- ilton for Ohio, into the county of St. Clair for Illinois, and into the county of Knox for Indiana, as told on other pages, was followed on February II, 1792, by a proclamation that extend- ed Hamilton county eastward to include all between the Little Miami and the Scioto, until the settlement between those rivers would justify a new county.
On October 15, 1795, St. Clair made the administration of justice more convenient for the widely scattered French resi- dents of Illinois by instituting the county of Randolph. The belated surrender of the once greatly hated Detroit to Gen- eral Wayne by the reluctant British was soon followed, on August 15, 1796, by the institution of the county of Wayne, which included the northwest of Ohio, the northeast of Indi- ana, and all of Michigan, with justice, at last, seated in De- troit. Thus, by the close of 1796, the Territory Northwest was divided into six counties, from which the later counties
266- 267
268
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
were organized. The people planted at Manchester by Mas- sie's enterprise, and others westward from the Scioto and along the Ohio, were the first to be set off in a county made from those already formed. This was done on July 10, 1797, by tak- ing the eastern side of the big county of Hamilton for a new county named Adams, of which the western boundary ran from the mouth of Elk River, now called Eagle Creek, up the principal stream of the source and then due north to the south- ern boundary of Wayne county. Then, on July 29, nineteen days later, the northeastern part of Washington county was proclaimed as Jefferson county, with the county seat at Steu- benville.
A cherished ambition of Massie was gratified on August 20, 1798, with the proclamation that established Ross county, with the county seat at Chillicothe, just two years from the month in which that town was platted. On the same day, a strip was taken from Hamilton and added to Adams county, so that the new boundary ran due north from the mouth of · Eagle Creek to the southern boundary of Ross county. But, some two months before, on June 22, 1798, as a consequence of Wayne's Treaty, Hamilton county had been greatly en- larged to include all of Knox county west of the Great Miami and east of a line drawn from the mouth of the Kentucky River to Fort Recovery.
In following the example of Virginia in ceding claims in the Territory Northwest, to the general government, Connecticut also reserved a region that thereby gained the name of the Western Reserve, which was all in Ohio, north of the forty- first parallel of north latitude and extending westward one hundred and twenty miles from the Pennsylvania line. Con- necticut finally ceded all claims on that Reserve to the United States, on May 30, 1800; and, on July 10, 1800, Governor St. Clair proclaimed the entire Western Reserve a county, with the name of Trumbull.
The next county established was Clermont, the eleventh county in Northwest Territory, and the seventh in Ohio. But, before that was accomplished, a regrettable controversy arose between the Governor and those who posed for public favor. Speculating in land was then the wanton way to wealth. Of modern wiles to win the golden showers of fortune there
269
CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES
was neither knowledge nor chance. The total volume of com- merce was not large enough to tempt many to commercial paths. The first object of that time was to get land, and the next was to increase its value. The difference between a laud- able purpose and a mercenary motive also measures the dis- tinction between fair dealing and a merciless method. Lytle and Taylor's expenditure of nearly three thousand dollars to attract attention to their lands in the vicinity of Williams- burg, when that place was the only clearing on a trace yet to be cut between the Miami and the Scioto, was not only a bold, but a laudable undertaking, that was fortunate, and, in due time, was properly remembered and rewarded by the Gover- nor. The cutting of a trace from Wheeling to Chillicothe and the consequent location of Zanesville and Lancaster is a fine record of Colonel Zane's worthy service. Taylor and Lytle's private project of "our road" eighty odd miles eastward through Lytlestown to anticipate Zane's Trace at Chillicothe was another highly commendable, important and successful performance.
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.