USA > Ohio > Brown County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 27
USA > Ohio > Clermont County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 27
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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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afterward, in 1857, the political descendants of his opponents, still ruling, and in Congress assembled, made an appropria- tion to pay his heirs the money he had paid for Freedom's cause, not all, but in such measure as would have made the old patriot one of the proudest of men. And, in turn, this page re- cords humble tribute from the Old Clermont that he organ- ized, named and fostered with steady will and for a nobler purpose than he or any would have believed possible.
The legal record of whatever happened between the mouth of the East Fork of the Little Miami and the mouth of Eagle Creek before 1801 belongs to Hamilton county, and was kept at Cincinnati. The first court houses there were rented rooms. The Territorial courts were held in Yeatman's Tavern, near the foot of Sycamore Street, and then at the tavern of George Avery, at the corner of Main and Fifth streets, until, in 1802, the county built a two-story stone court house, forty-two feet front and fifty-five deep, with a yard front east on Main and north on Fifth streets. The jail, next west, faced on Fifth, with a yard in front that was ornamented with a pillory, stocks and whipping post in conspicuous positions. Nothing on record or in tradition has been found to show that any one was ever brought to bar in the house or to post in the yard from Old Clermont. It seems in fact, that attention to the settlements in the eastern part of the county of Hamilton was a matter of slow and slender growth in Cincinnati, where no names from what was to be Clermont are found in the jury or official lists, with the single exception of James Kain, as Supervisor of the road surveyed to Williamsburg by John Donnels in 1797. As a consequence, no litigation was inherited from the mother county, when the law came to take its course in Clermont. Everything appears to have been in condition for man to be- gin where nature could do no more.
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After the proclamation of Clermont county on December 6, 1800, and the delivery of commissions to the officers, the next signal performance under that authority was the meeting of the first Court of Quarter Sessions for the county, which had been proclaimed to assemble on the fourth Tuesday, Febru- ary 24, 1801, in Williamsburg. For this purpose, Owen Todd came from Paxton's neighborhood, near the mouth of the O'Bannon, Philip Gatch, from the Forks of the Miami; Wil-
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liam Buchanan, from Indian Creek; Amos Ellis and Robert Higgins, from the Ohio, on the eastern part; Jasper Shotwell, from Clover Creek, and William Hunter, from north of Wil- liamsburg. They met in a tavern kept by Thomas Morris and entered into a contract with him for a room, to be warmed, lighted, and furnished with seats and table for their court, for sessions of not over three days each. four times a year, for four years, for a total of eighty dollars. In other words, Mor- ris was to have five dollars each for sixteen sessions. He also doubtless expected to gain much prestige through the court at his house. No suits were brought before the court. But there were other things to do of which the most important was the formation of townships.
The location of the early townships is a puzzling topic for accurate description. At first the sub-divisions of the counties were directed by the Court of Quarter Sessions. Later on, such authority was shared with the commissioners, until the law of February 16, 1810, gave the commissioners exclusive jurisdiction over the form of townships. The accounts, scat- tered through the records of various boards, and soon super- seded by later divisions and often by new names, were consid- ered unimportant. If found at all, the descriptions, through the obliteration of old names, are difficult to understand, and, except to the very curious, the subject is not worth the trouble of the search. The first division into townships within the limits of Brown and Clermont was made at a general Court of Quarter Sessions in Cincinnati, in 1793, when the people at . Gerard's Station and Mercersburg or Newtown were granted the name of Anderson township, eastward from between the mouth of the Little Miami and the mouth of its East Fork. In the same year, upon a petition presented by Nathaniel Massie, Iron Ridge township was constituted eastward from the mouth of Eagle Creek to include the settlements about Manchester, which all went into Adams county in 1797, and then mostly reappeared under other names upon the formation of Brown county.
At the last Quarter Session in 1799, about one year before the proclamation of Clermont county, a division of Anderson town- ship that had come to include all of Old Clermont, brought Washington township into notice, with an assessment of
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$339.61, under Constable William Laycock, a name then fa- miliar on the Ohio. The other division of Anderson township was entered as Deerfield township. with an assessment of $371.74, under Constable William Sears, a very old name in Warren county. No boundaries of these townships have been found, but the conclusion is safe that Washington township extended along the Ohio eastward from some forgotten line of Anderson township to the mouth of Eagle Creek, and that Deerfield township included the region of western Warren and northern Clermont counties. But soon, and probably be- fore this arrangement had become effective, the new authori- ties of Clermont, on the second day of their first session, February 25, 1801, divided their county into five townships, named: O'Bannon, Ohio, Williamsburg, Washington and Pleasant. The boundaries were either not recorded or were lost, but the names of the fourteen officials appointed for each township indicate the settlements provided for, and the boun- daries noted in subsequent townships give a fairly approx- imate idea of the original limits.
O'Bannon, changed in the next year to Miami township, extended eastward on the north side, and far enough south to include the Allison plantation, above the mouth of Stonelick. The official list was Owen Todd and Philip Gatch, Justices of the Peace ; Constable, John Pollock ; Tax Lister, John Ramsey ; House Appraisers, Theophilus Simonton and William Robin- son ; Supervisors of Roads, Ambrose Ransom and Peter Wil- son; Auditors of Supervisors' Accounts, Thomas Paxton, Francis McCormick and William Simonton; Overseers of the Poor, Samuel Robinson and Theophilus Simonton; Fence Viewers, Francis McCormick, Theophilus Simonton and Sam- uel Robinson. Thus sixteen offices were given to twelve men, all of them quite near the Miami. At the first election of which a record has been found, that of October 1I, 1803, thir- ty-five votes were cast ; but at the next election, April 2, 1804, . forty-eight voters were present. At the Presidential election, November 3, 1804, thirty-two votes were cast for President Jefferson, who had no opposition in the county.
Ohio township, on the south side of the East Fork, extended eastward from its mouth to include the settlements that marked the beginning of Batavia, Bantam, and New Rich-
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mond. The official list was: Constable and Tax Lister, John Hunter; House Appraiser. Archibald Gray; Supervisors of Roads, Ezekiel Dimmitt and John Fagin; Auditor of Super- visor's Accounts, John Hunter, Archibald Gray and William Whitaker; Overseers of the Poor, Ezekiel Dimmitt and Isaac Ferguson; Fence Viewers, John Donham, Jacob Light and John Vaneton. Fourteen offices were given to nine men. The vote at the first election that has been preserved, that of April 2, 1804, was thirty-seven. The poll book for the con- gressional election, on October 9, 1804, contains only twenty- six names, nearly all of whom have been mentioned. But not one came from the Hamilton county side: The vote for Pres- ident in 1804 is not on record.
As the central township, bounded on the north by O'Ban- non, or Miami; on the west by the Ohio, on the south and southeast by Washington and Pleasant townships, Williams- burg had the most uncertain boundary of all the five. It included the settlements near what is Marathon, and thence southward beyond Bethel, and much of what is the adjacent row of townships in Brown county. But it did not include the Allisons at the mouth of Stonelick, nor Ezekiel Dimmitt, by Batavia; nor Jacob Ulrey, in what is Monroe township. The official list was: Justices of the Peace, William Hunter and Jasper Shotwell; Constables, Daniel Kain and Jeremiah Beck; House Appraisers, Thomas Morris and John Charles ; Supervisors of Roads, James South and John Kain; Auditors of Supervisor's Accounts, Jonathan Hunt, Henry Willis and Samuel Brown; Overseers of the Poor, Samuel Nelson and Samuel Brown; Fence Viewers, Samuel Nelson, Archibald McLean and Ramoth Bunton. Sixteen offices were given to fourteen men. On April 2, 1804, at the first election of which returns have been kept, two hundred and sixty-four votes for three commissioners were divided among eight candidates by the eighty-eight voters present. But at the State election, on October 9, 1804, only seventy voters were present. Among these were four of the Wardlows, from the New Hope settle- ment. Only forty-two votes were cast for President Jeffer- son. The names are familiar with few exceptions, after writ- ing the preceding pages, and most of those exceptions are soon to be noted. The same may be said of every authentic list of names of that time yet seen.
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Washington township was east of the people about Twelve Mile, and included the settlements on Indian Creek and Bull- skin, but did not reach to the Higgins neighborhood on the Ohio. The official list was: Justice of the Peace, William Buchanan; Constables, Joshua Manning and James McKin- ney; Tax Lister, Thomas Fee; House Appraisers, John Abra- ham and Joseph Utter; Supervisors of Roads, William Carothers and James Buchanan; Auditors of Supervisor's Accounts, John Wood, William Fee and James Sargent ; Fence Viewers, Alexander Buchanan, James Clark and John Wood; Overseers of the Poor, Henry Newkirk and John Sar- gent. Sixteen offices were given to fifteen men. The first poll book preserved in the county is for the election held June 21, 1803, in Washington township, and contains the names of one hundred and eight voters. So little interest was taken in the election of President Jefferson without opposition in 1804, that Washington, the most populous township in the county, gave him only twenty-eight votes.
Pleasant township included the settlements on White Oak, south of New Hope, and eastward to the old Adams county line. The official list was: Justices of the Peace, Amos Ellis and Robert Higgins; Constable, Archibald Hill; Tax Lister, William Higgins ; House Appraisers, Samuel Ellis and Walter Wall; Supervisors of Roads, Archibald Sills and Richard Hew- itt; Auditors of Supervisor's Accounts, Walter Wall, Robert Curry and Samuel Ellis; Overseers of the Poor, Alexander Hill and Robert Lucas; Fence Viewers, Alexander Hill, James Henry and John Liggitt. Sixteen offices were given to thirteen men. On April 2, 1804, sixty-one votes were counted, and on October 9, 1804, seventy-three voters were returned from Pleasant, which then had very much the larger part of the population in the settlements that were taken from Cler- mont to form Brown county.
ยท After the five townships had been instituted that first Court of Quarter Sessions appointed a board of three commissioners for the county, viz: Amos Ellis, from three miles north of where Ripley was to grow ; Amos Smith, who lived midway on the road from Williamsburg to Bethel, and John Wood, who lived on Indian Creek. A grand jury was impannelled by Sheriff William Perry, viz: Amos Smith, John Charles, John
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Trout, Josiah Boothby, Henry Willis, Samuel Brown, Joshua Lambert, Jonathan Clark, John Kain, John Cotterall, John Anderson, Samuel Nelson, Benjamin Frazee, John Colthar, Kelly Burke, Harmon Pearson, Ebenezer Osborne, and Absa- lom Day. Fortunately, the jury had nothing to do. John O'Bannon, not the noted first surveyor, was licensed to keep a ferry just below the mouth of Bullskin. Josephus Waters was also licensed to keep a ferry at points now called Levanna and Dover, but then known as his house and Lee's Creek Sta- tion, whence the horses were stolen that led to the battle of Grassy Run, in March, 1792, between Kenton's Kentuck- ians and Tecumseh's Shawnees.
On Tuesday, May 26, 1801, the second Quarter Session Court met at the court house, to-wit., a room in Thomas Morris's row of log cabins. Justices present: Todd, presid- ing; Buchanan, WV. Hunter, Higgins, Shotwell, and Ellis, of the first court, and Peter Light, from midway to Bethel; Houghton Clarke, of Bethel, and Alexander Martin, from Pleasant township. The grand jury: Ephraim McAdams, foreman ; Josephus Waters, John Vaneaton, Nicholas Sinks, Adam Bricker, Robert Dickey. John Shotwell, John Colther, Obed Denham, Archibald McLean, Moses Leonard, Adam Snider and Ramoth Bunton, reported no cause requiring action. But such happy conditions did not last, for, on the second day the first indictment found in Old Clermont was presented against John Evans for selling liquor without legal protection. But on strict search, it was found that the law, or the lack of law, did not fit the case, and so the affair went no farther. The curiosity of some, however, will be inclined to point a moral with the fact that the first prosecution, like the most of those to follow, was a liquor case. Nineteen dol- lars and eight cents was paid for a stray-pen and Sheriff Perry was allowed one dollar per month as the keeper. A bounty of two dollars was generally offered for the scalps of grown wolves, and one dollar each for those under six months old; and so there was much sport for them of that time. The next and great topic was the opening of roads.
Character is learned from the use that is made of power and the spirit of an age is determined by the use made of money. With the guidance of such reflection, the first expenditures of
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those pioneers becomes a study of a condition that needs at least a passing explanation for younger readers, whose en- vironments make the life of those early days appear incredible. The text that there were giants in those days is hardly farther from current sympathy than the hunting stories of our own early wild woods, of which it is well to have conclusive record. Notwithstanding the destruction of wild life by the early hunt- ers, under the stimulus of the fur trade, many wolves were yet to be brought to law for their depredations after the for- mation of the county. With many bloodthirsty prowlers roaming the woods, security for stock raising was a matter of ceaseless vigilance. The ravage of their flocks was a public menace, but, as the price was promptly paid, the pens and folds were safer and the slumbers of the settlers were less disturbed by the howling in the hills and the panther's curd- ling shrieking. But it was some years before the packs entire- ly ceased to come out of the great woods to the north. Until then, the nights were not quite safe from gaunt goblins whose sudden dashes made even the brave pioneer boys thrill and creep.
As the heart goes with the treasure, no other proof of human interest is so infallible as the financial test. Those people gave of their scanty treasure for what to them was most needful. From the little that can be found about that ex- penditure, we learn that their great desire was a stable course of justice, the extirpation of ferocious animals, and the con- venience of highways. For that, the chief public effort of the time was given. When a lodgement for refinement is made in a vast wilderness, and savagery is driven to bay, the first duty of a community in proving its fitness to live is the pro- vision of roads, for, without easy lines of travel, trade and pleasure alike are hindered and languish.
As told in previous pages, but mentioned again to bring the progress of roads into one view, a road had been laid in 1796, thirty-two miles up the Ohio from the mouth of the Lit- tle Miami, by Ichabod Miller, assisted by John Whetsone and Ignatius Ross, in order to bring the up-river settlements into better convenience with Columbia and Cincinnati. In 1797, a road had been laid from Newtown to Williamsburg by John Donnells, assisted by Daniel Kain and Robert Mckinney.
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Then Donnells, "accompanied by Robert Mckinney, one of the Cotterals, and one of the Bookovers," marked a road from Wil- liamsburg to "Chillicothia." All that was done under the au- thority of Hamilton county, by which no more roads were laid out eastward beyond the mouth of the East Fork. This does not mean that no other ways were used. Other traces were freely traveled. except that such paths were liable to be fenced in by an owner, which was happening elsewhere and afterwards. Early action was taken to anticipate such incon- venience.
John Boude, with the assistance of Joseph Clark, William Carothers and John Kain, was ordered to lay out a road from his ferry across the Ohio at Augusta to Williamsburg, of which Roger W. Waring was the surveyor. This road left the Ohio by climbing the hills through the southwestern corner of Lewis township, but another and smoother way went down by the mouth of Bullskin, where William Fee petitioned that a bridge should be built. The request was refused for financial reasons. Yet no doubt the most travel avoided the hills when the ford was possible. That was the first of much subsequent talk about bridges. Francis McCormick,. Philip Gatch, Ambrose Ranson and Charles Redman asked that a road be established from Broad Ford (Milford) to Williams- burg, for which Elisha Hopkins, John Pollock, Jr., and John Kain were appointed to assist Roger W. Waring as surveyor. William Lytle. Obed Denham and Houton Clarke, asked that the road from Denhamstown be established, for which Cap- tain Daniel Feagans. Thomas Barnes and Jeremiah Light were appointed to assist Peter Light as surveyor. The three roads, from Boude's Ferry, from Broad Ford and from Denhams- town, constituted the once noted Boude's Ferry and Round Bottom Road. As an obvious necessity, Jacob Ulrey, Moses Wood and Asbel Gray were appointed to assist William Perry as surveyor in locating a road from the mouth of Twelve Mile on the Ohio to Williamsburg. In answer to the petition of Josephus Waters for a road from his ferry (Levanna) to Williamsburg, Captain Daniel Feagans, Fielding Feagans (his son), and John Kain were appointed to assist Waters, who was a surveyor, in locating a way of much importance to the settlers by Eagle Creek, Bed Oak, Straight Creek and upper
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White Oak, who were called to the county seat. As might have been expected, and as was proper, the road was laid to go by the Feagan's settlement at Georgetown, by the influen- tial Walter Walls, to the middle of the east side of Clark town- ship, to the common western corner of Clark and Pike town- ships and near the tract of four hundred acres in Pike that James Kain had got for clearing eighty acres of Lytle's Har- mony Hill plantation, and thence to the intersection with the Bethel and Williamsburg road, long known as the "Boot Jack." That way was also long known as the "Waters Road," but very few at this time know the name or signifi- cance. And then came the first pioneer mill builder, Peter Wilson, with a petition for a road from his mill on O'Bannon Creek, which he built there next, after finishing Lytle's mill in 1797-8. The site, among the rugged hills of the O'Bannon, in the southwest corner of Goshen township, may be given as a striking example of how far some of the pioneers were from picking the winning places. But it seemed different then, with the Paxton settlements close by, and the little mill, in its time was a great convenience for all that part of Clermont and Warren counties that is about Loveland. The road from Wilson's Mill to Williamsburg in 1801. which merged into the Round Bottom road, with a trace from Deerfield and Lebanon. was by the house and first blacksmith shop, built by Conrad Harsh in the next year. Peter Wilson's petition obtained such respect that Robert Dickey, William Perry, John Ram- sey and Owen Todd were appointed to assist Surveyor War- ing in locating the road. An outline of these roads on a map of Brown and Clermont counties will show that the settle- ments of that day could not have been better accommodated with the same amount of mileage. Very few cabins were more than five miles from a road.
As the permits granted by Hamilton county expired, the renewal was granted by the authority of the new county, re- gardless of the objections made by Massie's faction. Thomas Morris paid eight dollars for the first tavern license granted in Old Clermont. The main room in his middle building was engaged for a jail, if needed, which must have been deemed probable, for Sheriff Perry was ordered to get two pairs of handcuffs, a lock, hasp and staple. After three busy days the court adjourned.
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On Monday, June 22, 1801, Justices Owen Todd, Jasper Shotwell, Peter Light and William Hunter met, and, after considering the fees for ferries, adjourned.
On Tuesday, August 25, 1801, Justices Jasper Shotwell, William Buchanan. William Hunter, Robert Higgins, Peter Light, Philip Gatch, Amos Ellis and Houton Clarke, met in quarter session and were presented with an indictment against Andrew Cotteral for an assault upon James Kain, which argues well for the self restraint of his stalwart sons, Daniel, John and Thomas. The indictment was presented by the following grand jurors: John Boude, foreman, Daniel Colglazer, Eze- kiel Dimmitt, John Gaskins, Joseph Lakin, James Buchanan, William Dixson, John Abrahams, John Ramsey, Silas Hutch- inson, Samuel Bodine, John Mitchell and Joseph Clark. The reports on the roads were all favorably considered, but remon- strance was made against the Boude's Ferry report and also against the Stepstone road, or the one from the mouth of Twelve Mile, which were thereby postponed.
The first Common Pleas Court having no business to per- form, merely met and adjourned February 25, 1801.
When met for the May term, on May 26. 1801, Jacob Bur- net, attorney for David Zeigler (both noted in Cincinnati his- tory) obtained a judgment for one hundred and twenty-nine dollars and sixty-two cents. That was the first judgment taken in the county. But at the August term for 1801, two notable judgments were taken. One was tried before the first petit jury in the county. The names of that jury pre-eminent over all the others, were: John Donham, Charles Baum, John Trout, Joseph Gest. John Charles, Jacob Ulrey, Ichabod Wil- lis, John Gest, Samuel Nelson, Nicholas Sinks, William Sim- onds and James Woods. Jacob Burnet, attorney for the plain- tiff, obtained a verdict of one hundred and one dollars and six- teen cents, with twenty-one dollars and two and one-half cents costs. In the next suit, Burnet, as attorney for David Blew, without a jury, took judgment against Thomas Morris on a debt dated August 2, 1800, to the amount of seventy-two dollars and seventy-nine cents, with fifteen dollars and thirty- three and one-half cents costs, making a total of eighty-eight dollars and twelve and one-half cents. One horse and one cow levied upon, not being sufficient to pay the judgment,
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the sheriff was ordered to take and safely keep the body of the said Morris, that is, to put him in prison. On May 26. 1802, Blew, still unpaid, disgraced his name as long as his act shall be remembered, by having a writ issued, under the barbarous law of that age, to put Morris in jail. The docu- ments set forth that this was done July 21, 1802. But the inci- dent was closed in the August term next following. That Morris suffered more chagrin than inconvenience is probable, for the law provided that a debtor should have a limit of eighty rods and the jail was under his own roof. According to the record, his body was taken, but there is nothing to show that the "lock, hasp and staple" (for which and for some nails, John Kain drew seventeen dollars), were ever used for the actual imprisonment of Thomas Morris. It is altogether prob- able that the restraint put upon his proud spirit was technical. The word proud is chosen because the accounts of those who saw him at home, concur in saying that he was "proud, and handsome as a prince." A feature of the story easily verified by State and National records, but never before mentioned to my knowledge, is the strangely remarkable parallel be- tween Morris and the opposing attorney, Burnett. Both became members of the General Assembly of Ohio at the same time, Burnett in the House and Morris in the Senate. Both became Judges of the Supreme Court of Ohio. Both became members of the United States Senate in days made classic by the eloquence of Clay and Webster. Burnett attained great wealth and left a name without which the history of Cincin- nati cannot be written. But Morris achieved a distinction for his name without which no truthful story of the downfall of slavery in American can be told.
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