USA > Ohio > Brown County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 26
USA > Ohio > Clermont County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 26
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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
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ninety-three millions fifty-three thousand six hundred and thirteen dollars and ninety-nine cents. When and where this sea of success seemed a mere local basin, student Pattison cast his effort for the sake of immediate profits to be used in get- ting the education that youth is apt to consider an end rather than the beginning of earnest life. It is much to believe that he had any perception how those efforts would be tided back when even the leaders were building larger than they knew. He wrote policies to pay his way, and unconsciously learned the market side of the business to come. By the time he was ready, the growing insurance company had money to invest, titles to be searched, claims to be enforced, and rights to de- fend. For some promised share in this, young Lawyer Patti- son settled in Cincinnati. He edited the news of the courts. Whatever he undertook was done with a diligence and finish that secured more work.
Although rather slight than strong, he seemed to have no sense of fatigue. In those early city days, he delighted in passing Sunday at his Owensville home, then reached by an omnibus to and from Milford, ten miles away. In good weather he left the city on a train too late for the "Bus," and walked the entire distance. On Monday morning he walked back to Milford, frequently in time for an earlier train, refus- ing any help and declaring that it did him good and gave him about the only chance he had to think alone. "What do you think about at such times?" he was suddenly asked in a jocu- lar way. "How I can get to be Governor of Ohio," was the equally unexpected answer. "Are you in earnest?" "I'll not be satisfied without it," said the young man, who was looking more than thirty years ahead. There, the incident closed, but was remembered by both, when the prospect seemed much nearer.
With personal prosperity in sight, Pattison claimed his bride and, as the insurance company prospered, friends and relatives in the management retained his service almost ex- clusive of other affairs. Happily for political probabilities and fitting with fairer prospects, he returned to Clermont county and bought the property by Milford, known as "Pro- mont," by whose shadows he had taken the long and lonely. ยท late and early walks only a few years before. In this finest
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home in Brown and Clermont counties, he was suddenly called to act as their State Senator by the death of Judge Thomas Quinn Ashburn. While serving that duty, he was elected to Congress. But the Union Central that had fostered his steady growth soon reclaimed him for the exacting duties of its president, at a salary that, in his faith, commanded his ut- most attention. Yet the position and his success made him a mark for other duties that could not be honorably avoided. His actions and opinions could not be separated from the moral forces of the great institution that he had helped to form and was controlling. After ten years of non-political life, yet, not without some study of how his youthful ambi- tion could be attained, he was chosen to be Governor of Ohio, by a vote marvelously exceeding the strength of the ticket that hoped to win under his name.
It was remarkable among many notable elections in Ohio; and, according to his own frankly avowed ambition, he should have been "satisfied." But it was all strangely, darkly differ- ent from the youthful dream. The incessant activity of an in- tensely motive temperament had exhausted all but the last thread of vitality. He was barely able to take the oath that made him Governor, and then he was carefully taken to his beautiful "Promont."
The nation mourned the weakness that hindered him from standing on the height so worthily won. In Ohio during the winter and spring of 1906, his decline was watched with a painful interest that no success could have gained. Three of her great men, Harrison, Garfield and Mckinley, and Lincoln, too, had been taken from the summit of power amid the pro- tests of universal sorrow that they could not stay to enjoy the reward and confidence of a grateful country. Each of these, more or less, had tested the sweets of authority. But after a long and patient search of the way to the top of his ambition, Governor Pattison, having scarcely heard the shout- ing of his captains, was turned to tread a lingering path to death. After the ardent race was run, the General Assembly, the great judges, the executive officials and many of the chief citizens of Ohio came with a vast array of thousands under arms and formed in a stately march between heavy walls of home friends, as they went by and beyond "Promont" to bury
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him in the lovely sadness of Green Lawn, where the Mound Builders once revelled and worshipped or paraded and per- ished.
John M. Pattison, the only Governor of Ohio born in and elected from Old Clermont, was an evolution of a hundred years in that region. Political prophecy is usually based on what is hoped. Still, it is little to say that such example is apt to inspire emulation, and, as to other ambitions, it is safe to add that probably not one of the exceedingly numerous boy- hood kin would have honored his early meditations upon fu- ture greatness.
That he would have made a strong Governor is to be in- ferred from the survival of tendencies impelled by his elec- tion. If any should ask, Whence that strength? the answer should include his almost incredible industry. Yet, that vir- tue had high price in the long adjustments of time. Under the never relaxing strain, his years did not much exceed half the span of the hardy immigrant, and fell much short of the aver- age longevity of the other ancestors. Yet, without that indus- try, the quality of the work would have been lower and he would not have been called higher.
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CHAPTER XIII.
EARLY DAYS OF THE COUNTY.
Nearest Settlement to the North Line-Bugler William Sloane -The King of the Hay Haulers-The Price Paid for the Union by the Sloanes-Other Settlers in Territorial Times -Report on Population-Elections-Exit St. Clair-Early Courts-Log Court House-Thomas Morris' Taverns- Formation of Townships-Roads-Thomas Morris-Log Jail-The End of Territorial Times and the Beginning of Statehood.
One of the justly treasured gems of literature from the pen of Lincoln, the poetic President, is the letter of sublime con- solation to Mrs. Bixby, of Boston, Massachusetts, the mother of five sons, who died gloriously on the field of battle to save the Republic. Each reader may judge how far and how well the sentiment of that noble consolation can be applied to a mother and eight children whose combined education prob- ably did not amount to thrice as many winters in the Old Stone School House built near and probably by John Charles in the north part of Stonelick township. The first settlement in what is now the northeastern part of Clermont county and in a scope that is represented by the northern parts of Goshen and Stonelick townships, and by all of Wayne township, and also by all of Brown county that is north of Four Mile in Sterling township. was made in Wayne township in 1802 by William Sloane, who had been a soldier in the Revolution and again in Wayne's Army. It was claimed that his bugle sound- ed Wayne's orders for the fierce charges that drove the Indians from their refuge in the Fallen Timbers on the Maumee, and thereby won that great victory for northwestern civilization. Few, perhaps none, of the once numerous family are left to confirm or doubt the stirring tradition that was rife among the many sons and daughters of William and his brother, George, who soon settled in the same neighborhood. For, when the "new country of Illinois" was "opened," the younger Sloanes
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forthwith started on what was reported to be a successful search for larger farms.
One, John, a son of Bugler William Sloane, having married a daughter of Mrs. Osborne-Charles, a sister of Lydia, the Lost Child, and having thereby come to possess a part of the tract that William Lytle paid for the improvement of "Harmony Hill," elected to stay in Clermont. As Cincinnati grew large with a business that had to be wagoned through the streets and to the steamboats, the demand for hay as "fuel" for the motive power made timothy the most valuable of crops on the plains and slopes of the land that should have been clothed with the herd-feasting and soil-protecting native blue grass. The vicious "farming" that took all and returned nothing while sending a yearly crop of hay to market, though profitable at the time, ranks next to the destruction of the for- ests among the deeply regrettable consequences of civilization in the Land of the Blue Limestone, which, with its natural growth of blue grass, under wholesome care, promised not only continuous but increasing fertility. Like some conditions of this time, all that was dimly seen by but few and practically ignored by all before and during the Civil War. In fact. one of the strongest arguments in the decade of 1850 for the extension of the "State Turnpikes" of 1830 and 1840 was the certain special increase in the value of haylands that could reach a market sure to be best when the roads were worst. It is idle to deprecate the natural craving of man to master what his hand findeth to do; for it is his labor under the sun, which, by divine command, must be done with his might. What the captains of commerce may have honorably done in the widest fields of effort, John Sloane also did in humble ways invented by himself. Roughly calculating that if a profit could be made on one load, still more could be made on more loads, he built barns with many stalls, bought wagons and hired drivers, with which he took meadows on the shares or handled crops on commission, besides much that was bought outright. All that was frequently taken in quantities which called curious idlers to count the wagons passing to the city market, where he came to be called "The King of the Hay Haulers." Being well known, the man with calloused hands and a vice-like grip also knew the worth of a reputation or the
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lack of it. His word as to the quality of a load was final, and, if, by chance, he was deceived in buying or tricked in selling a load, his wrath was something for the discovered object to remember. For he was much disposed to settle what he con- sidered a strictly personal affair without any resort to courts. The rude and ready independence of the man was a long sur- vival of pioneer manners, and his methods in business were a curious phase in a social state that cannot be repeated but, for the sake of the olden time, should be mentioned.
Once, on a holiday, or perhaps when the market was "up." which was better, the "King." in true festal spirit, took his troop of drivers for a special "treat," where they tarried long enough for one of the waggish to slip some spoons into the coat pocket of a comrade. As they filed out, the joker lingered to tell that the youngster was getting away with a lot of sil- ver. A hasty search of the plated ware resulted in a pursuit that easily found the spoons on the astonished victim. Not- withstanding his stoutly protested innocence, the youth was handed over to a policeman to be treated as a hardened thief in the court, where the crowd followed with Sloane in front. believing, but unable to prove, the unhappy driver's honesty. As the investigation proceeded, he was formally asked what all knew, "Where do you live, Mr. Sloane?" "In the State of Stonelick, sir." "Stonelick! Stonelick, eh, that's noted for horse thieves, is it not?" The question at the time seemed scorching hot to the man highly wrought between his anger and the necessity for caution with the court. The fact was ad- mitted that such people once troubled the country. "But it is forty years since we shot them out, and," with an explosive woodland oath, "I'll have you to know, Judge, Stonelick is more refined now." The sudden assertion of his strong, pro- vincial pride, with all sincerity, caused a laughter that relieved the strain and permitted the landlord to say, that he had ac- cepted the repentant joker's explanation of no criminal inten- tion. and that the prosecution would rest.
But the old hay hauler was right. Everything was more refined. The Nation was fighting to right the wrongs of a race. Old Clermont had furnished the victorious commander. Maligned Stonelick was nourishing the Governor for a moral crisis. And the rude, unlettered Sloane had raised a family
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marked for rare devotion to patriotic duty. When Grant, divined the intention of his foe at Fort Donelson and made the famous remark, "They'll be quick if they beat me now," and then gave the order for the charge that won the first great victory for the Union and made himself a Major General; in the hour when all this happened, it was told by his comrades in that charge, that Simeon Sloane, of the Eleventh Illinois, was the first man to mount the breastworks from which he fell. inside, pierced by three bayonets. Corporal William Sloane, of Company C, of the Thirty-fourth Ohio, while act- ing as a scout, became engaged in a race for life with a Confed- erate soldier on a similar mission. As he rode after the South- ron, he fired a wounding shot that caused his foe to reel and stop. But, as Sloane's horse dashed by, the wounded man rallied and fired a killing shot, after which the rebel was seen to escape, clinging to his horse's neck. This tragic event happened on September 3, 1864, near Berryville, Virginia. Richard Sloane, of Company E, of the Thirty-fourth Ohio, after being severely wounded at the Battle of Cloyd's Moun- tain, Virginia, recovered and returned to duty. In the terrible Battle of Cedar Creek. Virginia, he was mortally wounded, and died in the field hospital. On July 25, 1863, the youngest of the family, Josiah Sloane, a mere boy, under the boyish Captain Joseph B. Foraker, of the Eighty-ninth Ohio, suc- cumbed under hard marching, and died in a hospital at Mur- freesboro, Tennessee. The fifth and sixth of the brothers, after much arduous service, escaped the fatalities of battle, but not the ravage of disease. The husbands of their two sisters also enlisted, so that the entire fighting force of the family of the "King of the Hay Haulers," amounting to eight soldiers, was in the Union Army. Thus, the fate of the house, from the loss of Lydia, to the tragic end of four and the not remote death of all, appears an inheritance of anxiety.
In 1800 Ezekiel Dimmitt gained near neighbors on the East Fork, below Batavia, by the coming of Robert, James and William Townsley and three more on the west, Shadrach, Samuel and Robert Lane, and their three sisters. Jacob Smith settled near Williamsburg, on Crane Run, but not one of his large family can be traced. William Crouch, born in Hol- land in 1777, came in his twenty-fourth year to Poplar Creek,
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in Tate township. John Boggess came to the same township in 1802 and left many descendants. Jacob Stultz came to be a neighbor in southern Tate, with Mordecai Winters. John Scott of Virginia, came to Huntington township. Alexander Martin was named in 1799 as one of the commissioners for the purpose of fixing on the most eligible place for the seat of justice in "Henry County." He was probably of that family at Ripley, but no other trace has been found. Hugh and Joseph Mckibben came north on the Trace from the Bullskin landing about 1800 and raised large families that must be sought else- where. Zadock Watson also settled then near the site of the future Felicity. John Conrey, a Revolutionary soldier, set- tled a few miles farther north and west. William Bradley, from London, came to that vicinity in 1802, and Henry Camerer, Frederic Sapp and John Abraham came then or before to increase the population along Indian Creek.
With these people, the all absorbing question of homes, only to be attained through incessant attention to rude re- quirements, left neither time nor art to make records of their deeds or merits. Their children often followed the ways of the parents and were heedless in preserving the personal in- formation that has become an object of persistent and gener- ally futile search. The migratory tendency that brought some also carried many to other places farther west. How futile a search through such conditions may be is only known by those who have tried the baffling work. The names heretofore pre- sented frequently stand for families already large and well grown. In every instance, the intention has been to include those who came before the Territory was changed to a State, and to exclude all for whom such a claim is doubtful. The territorial records contain names of which no other mention can be found. This account has been restricted to those founding homes that can be located, and for whom roads were soon to be provided. How far this attempt has succeeded may be judged by a document finely preserved among the manuscripts filed by General Lytle and marked "copy," which shows that the original was reported as indicated, and as fol- lows :
His Excellency, Ar. St. Clair, Esquire, Governor of the Terri- tory N. W. Ohio. If absent, to the Honble. Charles Byrd,
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Esqr., Secretary, Cincinnati, Territory of the United States, North West of the River Ohio.
Clermont County, June 20th, 1802.
Sir-Agreeable to the Sixth Section of the Act entitled "An act to ascertain the number of free male inhabitants of the age of twenty-one in the Territory of the United States north west of the River Ohio, and to regulate the elections of representa- tives for the same," passed the 6th Dec., 1799:
I do hereby certify that the aggregate amount of free male inhabitants of the age of twenty-one, within their respective townships of this county, are as follows, viz :
Ohio Township 91
Obannon Township 99
Williamsburg Township 124
Pleasant Township 154
Washington Township 185
Total amount. 653
Total amount, six hundred and fifty-three.
Given under my hand and seal of the County afsd this date first above written.
WM. LYTLE, Clk, C. C.
When compared with William Perry's report on December 3, 1800, of "680 males above 16," Lytle's report, some eighteen months later, of "Total Amt 653," "of the age of twenty-one." does not show that the agitation for statehood had had any per- ceptible effect on the immigration, which was neither pro- moted nor retarded by the political aspirations of Massie and his colleagues, or by the waning of St. Clair's influence.
Although the contention of the politicians had but little or doubtful effect on immigration. other sorts of persuasion were more effectual. The account of the young Mrs. Lytle's western life had such effect upon her father. John Stall, that he came from Philadelphia with his daughters, Frances and Mary G. While visiting at "Harmony Hill." an acquaintance with Arthur St. Clair. Jr., and Samuel W. Davis resulted in the marriage of young St. Clair with Frances Stall on January 30, 1802, before Esquire William Hunter, in the presence of Governor St. Clair and a fine company of notable guests. Not long after, Mary G. Stall was married to Davies, who, after
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several years' residence in Williamsburg, went to a fine ca- reer in Cincinnati.
These pleasant events must have had much attention in the cabins of the little town, but outside of the public records no trace of a memory of them existed in the county until the story was reviewed, after a hundred years, by hints from a distant source. Now, it is easy to imagine something of the court- ship of those Philadelphia girls, as witnessed by the Old Stone Land Office, on the brow of the hill, where the young lawyer and the young land dealer came to inspect the surveys, and to make some deeds and much love. And for ten years that stone office, as the housing place of the public records, was the center of the big old county of Clermont.
'The proclamation of the county and the appointment of the leading officers, practically concluded the constructive force of the Governor's waning power. The executive division of government went into action at once in Clermont and Fairfield counties and also in Belmont county, proclaimed September 7, 1801. But as no provision for an election had been made for them by the first General Assembly of the Territory, the new counties were not represented in the second General Assembly, which met at Chillicothe, Monday, November 23, 1801. A resolution passed January 23, 1802, extended the election law to the new counties, and then by mutual consent the Govern- or and the hostile legislators stopped the contention about new counties. There was nothing more with sufficient population for a contention.
But the first legislative election in Old Clermont was held under higher authority. In their opposition to St. Clair, Mas- sie and Worthington found potent aid in the national govern- ment, that was controlled by the new anti-Federalist party, which then, and for some time to come, wrote all such names and terms with small letters. But while they did not write nation with a capital letter, they had capital designs. The lack of nearly one-third of the population required for state- hood was only slight restraint for their vaunting ambition. They reasoned that the same power stipulating sixty thousand inhabitants for a State, could change the terms and be satis- fied, if two much-desired United States Senators could there- by be obtained. Therefore, on April 30, 1801, approval was
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., given to what has been called the Enabling Act, directing the creation. of the State of Ohio. Much explanation has been made of the associate proceedings so peculiar that the date of the admission of Ohio as a State was not beyond contro- versy. It is enough for this relation that an election was at- thorized to choose representatives to form a convention to form a constitution for the proposed State. That election was ordered to be held October 12, 1802, as fixed by the law of the Territory, with an apportionment of twelve representatives from the county of Hamilton, with this curious direction : "Two of the twelve to be elected in what is now known by Clermont county, taken entirely from Hamilton county."
The phrasing is curious, because the county is mentioned as something reputed rather than established. St. Clair's alleged usurpation in the formation of Clermont, Fairfield and Bel- mont counties was not forgotten, ignored or forgiven. Yet, it was good politics to plan for the sympathy of the six rep- resentatives from the three new counties and still retain the old grievance against him, who had dared to oppose their monopoly. The opposition organized by Massie, Worthing- ton, Tiffin and Darlington, also included Michael Baldwin, a brilliant, dissolute sot, whose influence with the rabble was so masterful that he called such followers his "bloodhounds," without offense to those who did his bidding.
During the first session of the second Territorial Legisla- ture, because of a proposal to hold the next session at Cincin- nati, against the proud aims of Chillicothe the "bloodhounds" made one night wild with noise. On the next, Christmas eve, 1801, lead by Baldwin, they gathered to burn the Governor's effigy in the street, by his lodging place, which was forcibly entered by some, who laid violent hands on one of the Legis- lators ; while others called for St. Clair, who came with a pistol in each hand. The timely interposition of a magistrate stopped the riot. Worthington aided in quelling the mob with a threat of instant death to Baldwin. An investigation of the affair by the Legislature was finally brushed aside with the conclusion that "the promoters appeared to be actuated by intoxication." Lest some should believe that political purity is only a recent necessity, not known or needed in the first golden days of Ohio politics, it is proper to mention that the profligate Bald-
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win, out of regard for such devotion to Chillicothe, or through the favor of the "bloodhounds," was elected a member of the convention to form the State Constitution, and a member of the first State House of Representatives, of which he was chosen the Speaker. There was no slack in the relentless pur- pose to drive St. Clair from the Territory. Ten charges against him were placed before President Jefferson. One was the abuse of the veto power, of which the bill for "Henry county" was a leading instance. One was the usurpation in the formation of counties, of which Clermont was the chief. A third was the appointment of his son to office and a fourth was the appointment of non-residents, both of which referred to the appointment of Arthur St. Clair, Jr., as the attorney for Clermont. Jefferson called St. Clair's attention to two of the charges in the most gentle terms, and instant compliance was given to the suggested changes. The rest of the charges were mere political claptrap for election use. The burden of the complaint centered in county affairs, on which the action taken had been for the many and not the few. While no further apparent notice was taken of the charges, an able, sin- cere, fearless but far from politic address to the Constitutional Convention on November 3, 1802, reviewing the peculiar action of Congress upon the admission of Ohio, was made the grace- less cause of an order on November 22 for revoking his com- mission, which took effect December 14, 1802, only ten weeks before his term would have expired by law. The grossly indel- icate insult has brought far more historic shame to the contriv- ers than to the brave old general, who went back to Ligonier, Pennsylvania, where his domain of thousands of acres, with mills and furnaces and tenements and mansion house, shrank to a double log cabin and a space that afforded food for the ta- ble and a pony, with a little surplus to sell to passing wagon- ers. Thus "one of the most striking instances of the muta- tions that chequer life" went along the decline, through all, a well educated, courteous, honest, gentlemanly man. While driving his pony over a rough road, in his eighty-fourth year, to bring some flour from what was once one of his mills, the sinking of a wheel into a deep rut threw the aged general of many battles to the ground, where he was found insensible and taken home to die on August 31, 1818. Thirty-nine years
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