USA > Ohio > Brown County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 28
USA > Ohio > Clermont County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 28
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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
The trouble grew out of a promise in August, 1800, to pay sixty-five dollars' worth of good wheat at the Round Bottom Mill, by Covalt's, then become the property of Rev. John Smith, merchant, and Representative and soon to become the third United States Senator involved in the transaction. No cause is told for the failure to pay. Wheat may not have been . good that year. Or, more likely, the row of cabins for the tavern and court house required overmuch preparation and - furnishings for the many to be fed and lodged. We are to believe that the tall, adventuring, efficient boy was much
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liked by John Smith, who had no superior in the Territory in ox-driving, log-rolling, horse racing or lifting with a hand- spike. With superb mental powers, he was a successful mer- chant, an adroit politician, a popular legislator and an able preacher. He ranked with the first statesmen of his day, and, but for the blighting spell of Aaron Burr, he might have left a fine renown. Smith was frequent and warm in his praise of the poetry that the youthful Morris attempted, and had the good sense to destroy. But such attempts exercised him in expression and trained him to a command of language not learned in a mere attendance in schools. With such a back- ground, the young tavern keeper, with a wife and baby boy, that was to become a member of Congress, watched the courts and studied law. No one knew the things to be. So he was made the victim of the debtor's law, which he was destined to oppose and efface.
In tracing the steps to the heights reached by Thomas Mor- ris, sympathy is prone to declare the incident of his trial and imprisonment by that cabined court to be one of the most dramatic scenes-in the judicial history of Old Clermont. Most people then, and through his life, regarded the affair in a jocular light, but there is evidence that the memory was deep- ly unpleasant. His speech urging the repeal of the odious law for imprisonment for debt is full of a far-reaching philosophy, that must have originated from his personal reflections, and should be carefully studied by those who think that punish- ment will correct the results of misfortune. Through thirty years of legislative life, from the lower house of the State to the highest hall of the Nation, his voice in both votes and de- bates was full of eloquence for a humane recognition and cul- tivation of a higher motive than fear in the performance of duty. In a full, deep and noble sense, Thomas Morris grew to be a, if not the, leading philanthropist of his time and coun- try. Other captains in the march of reform merely marked time for majorities that must be heeded, or fought as soldiers of fortune in a forlorn hope against arrogant odds. His lot was not to serve, but to lead, a halting constituency. When that constituency wavered and denounced his leadership, Morris consulted his conscience and accepted the nomination for Vice-President with that of James G. Birney for President,
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on the Free Soil ticket. In 1844, when James K. Polk was elected President, that ticket received sixty-two thousand two hundred and sixty-three votes. The mission of the "Prisoner for Debt" was done. A month later, Saturday, December 7, 1844, Thomas Morris died suddenly of apoplexy. Amid the execrations of many and to the amazement of all, he finished his work in the United States Senate by the first speech of the kind ever heard by that august body. In that startling speech he said: "In my infant years I learned to hate slav- ery." The reasons for that hatred have never been more clear- ly stated than in that "Farewell Address," of which the last sentence was: "That all may be safe, I conclude that the negro will yet be set free." After that prophecy, on February 9, 1839, there was no backward step in the coming revolution. In the fourth presidential election succeeding that in which Morris was not elected, yet reserved for triumphant vindica- tion, Abraham Lincoln was victorious, and the negro was set free. No other seemingly improbable human prediction has ever been so wonderfully and magnificently fulfilled.
No claim is made or intended that his philanthropy was in- cited by or sprang from the unfortunate imprisonment. It is easier and better to believe that his splendid mentality and noble purpose were a special endowment that came into action when needed. But a lack of sympathy must have taught him to pity others. Something has been told of his determined study of law amid the difficult life in a log cabin by the light from hickory bark or by the glare from brick kilns, that he burnt for a living. Everybody lived in cabins then, for no other house could be had, except by the very few. The light from blazing hickory bark filling a whole room with an indescribable cheer, is an impossible luxury now not to be imagined by those accustomed to stoves, furnaces, or rayless radiators. The story of studying law in a brickyard in Wil- liamsburg in 1802 was not to be accepted by one who knew that the first brick house between O'Bannon and Eagle creeks was built in 1807, and afterwards made famous as the girlhood home of General Grant's mother. Yet the statement was plainly placed in his biography by his son, Rev. B. F. Morris, that his father, the Senator, often read Blackstone from the light of a brick kiln in Williamsburg. But what had been
GEN. WILLIAM LYTLE'S HOME, WILLIAMSBURG, OHIO. Built in 1800-2. Still Standing. One Among the Oldest Homes in Ohio.
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done with such quantities of brick-something not easily de- stroyed or hidden?
At last the verities of tradition were established by ocular inspection, and an answer found for the puzzling question. The accounts kept by General Lytle show that John Charles was employed in 1802 to build and finish the full two-story part of the Lytle home on "Harmony Hill," which is filled between the frame work with brick. The large old-fashioned fire places are made of brick. The square stone dairy was built in the same year by the wonderful well dug somewhat earlier. Wonderful to those who came to the Land Office, be- cause in those days homes were located by springs, and deep wells were rare. In the same year Morris built the two-story frame house in with the row of cabins, and furnished it with brick chimneys. That house, still standing, is a strange proof of the resourceful nature of the young man who, while a pris- oner for debt, made his tavern, next to Lytle's home, the most pretentious house between Chillicothe and the Little Miami River. The brick used on Harmony Hill, and the lumber from 'Lytle's Mill in the Morris Tavern imply dealings be- tween the owners and suggest that the prosperous Prothono- tary, who was reputed to be a shrewd judge of affairs, was quick to see the mutually helpful relations between his saw mill and a brick kiln. All that being plain, the conclusion seems probable that an energetic brick maker was deemed bet- ter for the growth of the community than an idle prisoner. The Lytle Home on Harmony Hill and the Morris Tavern at the head of the valley below, after a hundred and ten years, still stand, to show the two far best houses of their time in Old Clermont. In fact, there was, in 1802, but one more frame house-that of John Lytle and his mother-in all the old county. But more were soon to come, and were located on the hill part of Main street, in a form which shows that the early travel between Cincinnati and Chillicothe was expected to go · by Broad Ford and Round Bottom, and not over the hill road by Newtown.
After the Morris trial, more memorable now than seemed possible at the time, there is little, perhaps nothing, in the court records that is more than the common place of rural neighborhoods, until crime came, and that certainly deserves
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i
no remembrance, when so much that was worthy must be left untold. The cost of law was much cheaper then than now. A juror received fifteen cents for each case. Thus, a petit jury of twelve men could be paid with the price of a wolf scalp and have twenty cents left. But grand jurors were paid fifty cents a day and three cents mileage. The sheriff was en- titled to the same mileage, but a witness could have no more than thirty cents a day. Land was listed in three grades for taxation. The first was taxed eighty-five cents, the second, sixty cents, and the third rate, twenty-five cents, for each hun- dred acres. But all this low priced scale was subject to a change, soon to begin, and always upward.
On November 24, 1801, the court of quarter sessions ac- cepted the new jail, provided the corners were sawed down square, which is a certain sign that it was a log affair, like the rest of the row. On February 23, 1802, the commission of Robert Higgins as probate judge was read-the first in the county. As the fourth Tuesday, March 23, the time fixed by territorial law for the election of township officers, was only four weeks away, the court prepared for the first elec- tion ever held in the county. The constables were served with writs directing them to hold elections: At the court house in Williamsburg township; at the house of Nathaniel Donham in O'Bannon township; at the house of Isaac Vaneaton (by Tobasco) in Ohio township; at the house of Joseph Mckibben in Washington township; and at the house of Walter Wall in Pleasant township. John Boude was licensed to keep a ferry from his house on the Ohio.
At the session on May 25, 1802, the boundary of Wash- ington was made to run from the mouth of Big Indian Creek six miles in a direct line toward the mouth of Cloverlick Creek on the East Fork. The point reached is now nearly witnessed by Nicholsville. Thence the line ran to the road crossing on the main branch of Big Indian Creek about midway between Bethel and Felicity, thence due east to White Oak Creek on a line perpetuated in the north line of Lewis township. From that, the line was down White Oak and the Ohio to the mouth of Big Indian Creek. With Washington, the central town- ship, thus clearly marked, the other four primary divisions of Old Clermont can be better understood. Before adjourning,
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· Peter Light, Jasper Shotwell and John Charles were appointed to report a plan for a new court house. But at the next ses- sion, August 24, 1802, the proposed court house was post- poned until subscriptions for that purpose could be taken. Thomas Morris renewed the license for his tavern by the pay- ment of eight dollars. On payment of four dollars Robert Townsley was licensed to keep a tavern at the foot of the hill. about a mile below what is Batavia, on the road to Newtown, which is proof that all the travel to and from Cincinnati did not go by the Round Bottom Road. In the November session of the quarter court. Houton Clarke was granted a tavern li- cense in Bethel, upon payment of four dollars. The name Bethel was first used in the court proceedings in February, 1802, in a petition for a review of the road to Williamsburg, which was refused. A petition for a road from Bethel to New- market, on the Chillicothe road to Williamsburg, was re- fused at the last session, and that was the first mention of that early settlement in Highland county. Of the territorial courts but little more can be found. The repetition of names in various relations and places is proof of the limited popula- tion.
While county regulation was being instituted, the plans for Statehood were successful in every particular. As the date for the "Fall Election," October 12, approached, the arrange- ments for the township election were continued except that the election in Ohio township was held at the house of John Donham, on Ten Mile, and, in O'Bannon township at the house of Thomas Paxton. Every local record of that election has perished. But it is known by the State records that Philip Gatch and James Sargent were elected and served as delegates from Clermont county to the Territorial Convention in session from the first to the twenty-ninth day of November, 1802, where and when the Constitution was framed under which Ohio was admitted as a State by the action of Congress with- out a ratifying vote by the people of Ohio. Some have writ- ten that Ohio became a State on November 29, 1802. by the vote of the Convention to adopt their work as the Constitu- tion. Gatch and Sargent. we are assured by Jacob Burnett, also a delegate, were elected because of their record in opposi- tion to slavery, which was generally, perhaps unanimously,
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unpopular in Old Clermont. At the same election William Buchanan and William Fee were chosen as representatives to the Fourth Territorial Legislature, which was superseded by the State and never met. Instead the Constitution pro- vided for a Governor and General Assembly, to be chosen Tuesday, January 11, 1803. At that time, William Buchanan was elected State Senator and Amos Ellis and Roger Walter Waring were elected Representatives from Clermont in the First General Assembly of the State of Ohio. That body met on March 1, 1803, the date generally accepted as the end of "Territorial Times" in Ohio. Yet, Secretary Charles W. Byrd continued as Acting Governor in place of St. Clair, removed, until the inauguration, on March 3, 1803, of Edward Tiffin as Governor of the State of Ohio. Eight new counties were established by the first State Legislature. Among these were the counties of Butler and Warren, by which the Mother County of Hamilton was reduced to the present boundaries. The nearest comparison of population at that time is found in the report of the State Senate in 1804, of "An Enumeration of Free White Male Citizens of the Age of Twenty-one Years." Out of a total of 14,762 in the State, Hamilton county had 1,700, and Clermont had 755; or, in other words, the popula- tion of Old Clermont was almost half as large as that of Hamilton county, with the prestige of Cincinnati and several villages.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE COUNTY UNDER STATE LAW.
State Courts Organized-Judge Francis Dunlavy-The First State Court in Old Clermont-The First Grand Jury for the State-Early County Officials-The Presiding Judges of Clermont and Brown-The Associate Judges-The County Commissioners-The Extirpation of Wild Animals-Adven- tures of Phoebe Dimmitt and Mary Robinson-Benjamin Morris Rescued by Jesse Glancy-Jesse Glancy's Fight with a Bear-Adam Bricker and a Panther-The Last Bear- Buffalo-Game-The Turkey Trap-The Squirrel Scalp Currency-The Need of Roads. and Bridges-Amos Ellis, Amos Smith and Other Early Commissioners-Roads with Names Now Strange-Public Buildings-John Charles- The Old Stone Court House-Stone Jail-Stone Clerk's Of- fice-Bishop R. S. Foster-The Whipping Post-Traditions of the Second Log Jail-First of Many Bridges-The Sec- ond Bridge Where the Glancys Met Wolves-State Roads -The Anderson State Road-The Xenia State Road-The Formation of New Townships-Population in 1818.
As the State government came into action, the courts of the general quarter sessions of the peace and of common please, so much desired and highly prized by our great grandfathers ceased forever. Instead of justice administered by men whose daily custom was a subject of intimate observation, the law was now to be determined and applied by men learned in legal complexities and protected by the awe always inspired by cer- tain, yet unknown, power. For judicial purposes, one supreme and three common pleas courts every year were enacted for each county. To make that protection of person and property regular and efficient, the State was divided into three circuits, over which the judges should travel at stated times and places. The first circuit was through the counties of Hamilton, Cler- mont, Butler, Montgomery, Greene and Warren ; and the judge chosen for that round of duty by a joint ballot of the State
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Senate and House of Representatives, for a term of seven years, was Francis Dunlavy, who served fourteen years in that office. He was born in Virginia in 1761. The family moved to the region of Fort Pitt in 1776, where he was nurtured in the Western border war of the Revolution. He was in the detachment that built and garrisoned Fort McIntosh. He was in Crawford's terrible defeat. He came to Kentucky in 1787, to Columbia in 1791, and to Warren county in 1797. Without a chance to go to school, he became a teacher, a surveyor and a lawyer. Although defeated by Lytle for a vacancy in the first, he was a member of the second Territorial Legislature, a delegate in the Constiutional Convention, and a member of the first State Legislature. He lived in Lebanon till his death, in 1839, after a most meritorious service that entitles him to a place among the honored fathers of Ohio.
How justice was obtained or escaped during the year of change from the Territorial to the State courts will never be known, for there is neither record nor tradition left of such happening for some thirteen months to come, after the No- vember term of 1802. But in 1803, and on the fourth Tues- day of December, which then fell on the twenty-eighth, the first court in all that is east of the Little Miami River and west of Eagle Creek was formally opened at Williamsburg, the seat of justice for Old Clermont. A procession was formed on Front street, in front of the considerable row of cabins known as James Kain's Tavern. If William Lytle had continued writing his "Personal Narrative," he could have told that the procession formed on the spot, where he, as a surveyor in his twenty-third year, had fixed his camp, ten years before, in an absolutely unbroken and hostile wilderness. With the perils passed and in a full tide of prosperity, as the proprietor of many thousand acres, and as the optional owner of a hun- dred thousand more, the occasion for him must have been full of a proudly optimistic significance.
The Main street at that time was a mere country lane through the bottom, still winding around the larger trees and over the stumps and roots of the smaller growth. The slough between Second and Third streets had a "corduroy crossing." The procession turning from Front into Main was lead by Sheriff John Boude, who had come from his ferry to Au-
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gusta. He was followed by the citizens in a body, from which all Revolutionary soldiers' were selected to form a distinct class that came next. The members of the bar came after the heroes of the great war. Then the justices of the peace formed a fifth small, but honored, division. All those were followed by the officers of the county. Roger W. Waring was appointed clerk and Aaron Goforth was prosecuting attor- ney for the occasion. James Boothby was court constable and Daniel Kain deputy sheriff. As such, he, Daniel Kain, prob- ably assisted Sheriff Boude as marshal for the procession, a duty for which he was specially adapted, and to which he was generally called for forty years to come. Then, in the rising scale of importance, came the ministers of the Gospel, but who was there has not been found. Last of all was the judicial division-the associate judges, Philip Gatch and Ambrose Ran- som, from the Forks of the Miami, and John Woods, from Woods and Manning's Station, on Big Indian Creek, with his honor, the presiding judge, Francis Dunlavy, preceded by all on the march up Main street to Broadway, but first of all to enter the log court house, still rented of Thomas Morris. After a prayer by some one not named, the court was proclaimed.
The first grand jury in Clermont county to act for the State of Ohio, traced to their homes and expressed in terms now in use, was made up as follows: John Hunter, foreman, near Withamsville; Robert Dickey, near Monterey; George Ear- hart, west of Mt. Orab; Ramoth Bunton, the father of Polly Bunton, above the mouth of Clover Creek; near by, on Clover, Joseph Perrine, the father of James Perrine, who married Polly Kain, thus continuing the association of the two girls named Polly, who were the first of all white women in Old Clermont to go far back into the woods from the Ohio river ; Robert Townsley, from a mile down the East Fork from Batavia; Jacob Whetstone, from six miles farther down Don- nel's Trace to Newtown, where his tavern was the start of Mount Carmel; Peter Emery, from the mouth of Shaylor's Run, above and across from Perintown; John Donham and Joseph Fagin, from Ten Mile; William Whitaker, from To- basco; Isaac Ferguson, from Twelve Mile ; William Simmons, once near the mouth of Bullskin, but then probably from near Laurel, in Monroe township; Ezekiel Dimmitt, from just be-
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low Batavia; Ephraim McAdams and Samuel W. Davies, at Williamsburg.
"The Miami Circuit," as established by the Rev. John Kobler, after his visit to Francis McCormick, in 1796, was served in 1803 by preachers John Sale and Joseph Ogels- by. Because of such service, the Rev. John Sale was licensed by the court to solemnize marriage. The Rev. Judge Philip Gatch and Rev. Maurice Witham were also granted the same authority, and thus marriage, according to church rituals, was placed under the authority of the State. By commencing at 6 o'clock on the second, third and fourth days, the court, after disposing of several minor cases, closed Friday, December 30, 1803.
The original record of the courts in Clermont county until 1810, are lost, and only fragmentary sketches have been com . piled from scattered sources, chiefly with the friendly care of the Hon. Reader Wright Clarke, who only found enough while some of the actors were still living to show the quality of the lost. Offenses against the law seem to have been hot- headed, and few that were black-hearted mar the early annals. The most flagrant wrong doings would have no memory but for some mention outside of the records of the courts.
The orders of the Territorial courts were executed by sher- iffs, appointed by Governor St. Clair, who were William Perry, Peter Light and John Boude. The sheriffs elected under the State constitution in Old Clermont, or up to 1817, were, Joseph Jackson of Washington township, Daniel Kain and Levi Rogers of Williamsburg township, Allen Wood of Pleasant township, Oliver Lindsey and George Ely of Wil- liamsburg township, and then Oliver Lindsey again. The clerks were, William Lytle, before the State Convention, after which, Roger W. Waring served seven years, and then David . C. Bryan (all three of Williamsburg) served eighteen years. The coroners elected under State authority before and up to 1820 were, Jeremiah Beck, James Kain, Allen Wood, Samuel Lowe, Samuel Shaw and Thomas Kain. The office of county surveyor under State law was filled by judicial appointment until 1834. The surveyors so appointed were, Peter Light for ten years, George C. Light for five years, and John Boggess. for fifteen years. The duties now allotted to auditors and re
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corders were then performed by the clerk of the common pleas courts. The treasurers appointed by Governor St. Clair, and then by the associate judges served terms of one year. Amos Smith, the first, appointed, served but half of his second term and then resigned. The six months' vacancy was filled by Roger W. Waring, but upon his becoming county clerk, Nichols Sinks was appointed treasurer and continued so to act for seventeen years, and then John Kain for seven years. The prosecuting attorneys were, Arthur St. Clair, Jr., Joshua Collet, Martin Marshal, Aaron Goforth, Arthur St. Clair, Jr., again for two years, David C. Bryan before he was clerk, Levi Rogers, and David Morris up to 1811, when Thomas S. Foote began a service of fourteen years.
By a change to meet the growth of the State, Old Cler- mont, in 1810, became a part of the Fourth circuit, over which the Hon. John Thompson, of Fayette county, was the presid- ing judge until 1816, when the county was attached to the First circuit, under Judge John Parish, for one year, and for another year under Judge Joseph H. Crane. But in 1818 to 1820 Cler- mont and the new county of Brown were included in the Seventh circuit, of which the presiding judge was the soon to be supreme judge, Joshua Collet, who, as a young lawyer, had been in Williamsburg, from 1803 to 1809, in order to serve the old county as prosecuting attorney, and to practice in the old log court house. Yet, notwithstanding his subsequent lofty station, such is the transient nature of local action, there is no other trace of his residence there. Then, for two years, Judge George P. Torrence presided. But in 1824 to 1826 Judge Collet returned. Then Judge Torrence served seven years, till 1833, and was followed for one year by Judge John M. Goode- now, also of Hamilton county. Judge John W. Price served seven years, and was followed from 1841 to 1848 by Judge Owen T. Fishback, of Clermont county. the first resident of long standing in Old Clermont to reach the high honor. Judge George Collings, of Adams county, was then chosen from 1848, but because of failing health resigned in 1851, just before the adoption of the Second State Constitution, which changed the term of office from seven to five years. Shepard F. Norris, born in Adams' county, admitted to the bar in Georgetown, and then living in Batavia, was twice elected and served ten
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