USA > Ohio > Brown County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 29
USA > Ohio > Clermont County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 29
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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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years as the common pleas judge of the division of Adams, Brown and Clermont counties of the Fifth judicial district. Thomas Quinn Ashburn came next to the bench, with a ser- vice of fifteen years, except the time resigned in 1876 to accept a position in the Supreme Court commission, to which he was appointed by Governor and, a little later, President Hayes, who also appointed Major Thomas M. Lewis to fill the unex- pired term of Judge Ashburn until the October election, in 1876, when Allen T. Cowen, of Clermont, was elected for the rest of Judge Ashburn's term, and for two terms more, serv- ing in all, from 1876 to 1878. Meanwhile, Hon. David Tarbell, of Georgetown, was elected in 1871, and again in 1876, as a judge of the common pleas, made necessary by the growth of the Fifth judicial district. Judge Tarbell was followed, in 1881, by Judge D. W. C. Loudon, who served until February, 1892. Judge Cowen was succeeded by Judge Frank Davis, who served two full terms, from 1888 to 1898, when he was followed by Judge John S. Parrott, after which Judge Frank Davis was elected to the third term, which he is now serving. Judge Loudon, in the Brown county part of the district, was followed, from 1892 to 1897, by Judge Henry Collings, of Adams county. Judge John M. Markley, of Georgetown, was then elected, and has served two terms, reaching from 1897 to 1908, when he was followed by Judge Gottlieb Bambach, of Ripley. In February, 1913, Judge Bambach was suc- ceeded by Judge James W. Tarbell.
The administration of justice in the early days was brought close to the people by the appearance on the bench, with the presiding judge, of three men, held high in social esteem for fine common sense, who must each be a citizen of the county, to assist their chief in reaching conclusions, under the name of associate judges. The system was an adoption and enlarge- ment of the more popular forms of the old court of general quarter sessions. In this triumvir of at least great self-impor- tance, Philip Gatch served twenty-one years and Ambrose Ransom, seven years, but John Wood sickened at court and died in the fifth year of his first term of seven years. The vacancy of two years was filled by John Morris, of Tate township. Alexander Blair, of Williamsburg township, then entered on a service of fourteen years. Judge Blair lived in
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the survey now embracing the town of Batavia. Joseph N. Campbell served a full term of seven years, and then one year on a second term, until the division of the old county. After that he served six years on the bench of Brown county, while the remaining six years of his term in Clermont was filled by the re-appointment of John Morris. Other associate judges in Clermont in the order of appointment and time of service were: John Pollock, seven years; John Beaty, four- teen years ; Israel Whitaker, seven years: Robert Haines, six years ; Andrew Foote, one year ; John Emery, five years ; Sam- uel Hill, seven years; George McMahan, seven years ; Elijah Larkin, thirteen years; Thomas Sheldon, seven years; Jona- than Johnson, and John Buchanan, each one year. In Brown county the same honorable position was held by James Moore, seven years; William Anderson, fourteen years; William White, one year ; James Finley, seven years ; Robert Brecken- ridge, eleven years; David Johnson, four years; Hugh B. Payne, six years ; Benjamin Evans, four years ; Henry Martin, fourteen years; Micah Wood, seven years; John Kay, six years ; Isaac Carey, five years ; and Benjamin Sells, one year. Then, in 1852, under the second State Constitution of Ohio, the office of associate judge ceased to furnish a title much coveted by those who had passed a special and peculiar train- ing in the chair as a justice of the peace.
A still wider departure from the antiquated territorial meth- ods than the judicial changes was the transfer of the manage- ment of local affairs from the court of quarter sessions to a board of commissioners, who directed the public affairs of the ยท county in quite the way that is now familiar. But the trans- actions tell of widely different conditions. Within the seven years including 1810, bounties were paid for the killing of five panthers and nearly two hundred wolves. In tracing the names of the fortunate hunters to their homes it seems that much the larger part of their game was remote from the Ohio. From this, an earlier extirpation must have happened from the Hamilton county settlers, from which the denizens of the woods must have retreated as the danger came nearer. The number killed indicates the presence of many more in ac- cordance with the tradition that the wolves often roamed in dangerous packs. If no person was killed, there are traditions of narrow escapes and even actual injury.
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In the spring of 1798 Ezekiel Dimmitt, with James and John Gest, brothers of his young wife, Phoebe, married November 3, 1797, left her alone in their cabin a mile below Batavia, in . order to plant some corn on open ground rented in the Turkey Bottom below the mouth of the Little Miami. It was a stern but the nearest chance to add some bushels to what might be raised on their first clearing at home. So the three men went over the hills, afterward to be called Olive Branch and Mount Carmel, and through Mercersburg or Newtown, and across Flynn's Ford to their field fifteen miles away. The path they trod had been made historic a few months before, in August and September, 1797, as Donnell's Trace. The brave young bride in the cabin, alone with hope and with none nearer than Jacob Ulrey's family, just come to the vicinity that became Bantam, or McCormick at the Forks of the Miami, or the cabins at Williamsburg, was daunted by the searching gaze of six passing Indians. Then night brought a pack of wolves to rage around with fearful howling. In the same hours, one of the brothers, James, sleepless with a sudden and unaccount- able apprehension, roused Dimmitt, and together they hurried back to find the woman so terrified that she was left alone no more.
Nine years later, in the fall of 1807, Mary Robinson, oldest daughter of that family settled on Lucy Run, started on horse- back to the home of the Mitchells, near Newberry, a distance of twelve miles. A snow storm hid the trace and slackened her speed. As night came near, she dismounted, tied the horse and tried to find her course. Amid the anxious search, she heard the howling of wolves on her track and.hastened to mount, but the frightened horse reared and plunged beyond control. Yet, that kept the wolves at bay, and all she could do was to keep out of their circle and still avoid the kicking horse all through the long, cold night, in which the exercise kept her from freezing. As the day came, the wolves quit, and she succeeded in mounting. and reached the Mitchells be- fore she fainted and passed into a serious illness. She married William Weaver, and reared a happy family, but she shud- dered at the memory of her night in the woods with the wolves.
In those days, Benjamin Morris, then a youth in Bethel, was
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post boy between West Union and Lebanon, through . Wil- liamsburg. His published memories tell that once, after climb- ing the hills north of the Stonelick, on the Deerfield Road from Boston, as night fell, he was appalled by the howling of wolves that came after and seemed to gather from both sides as he rode his frightened horse at headlong speed to- ward the ever hospitable home of Jesse Glancy, who had heard the howling, guessed the cause, and came out on the road with his sons, all armed with fire brands. As the waving brands grew brighter, the chase grew slower, the howling ceased, and a very anxious post boy rode into safety. Within a year or so, over twenty "Old Wolves," measured by the larger bounty for the aged, had surrendered their scalps to the mighty hunt- ers of the region where Mary Robinson and Benjamin Morris rode into the most exciting adventure of their life.
Somewhat later. the same Jesse Glancy was much annoyed by a bear, with a taste for young pork. His dogs, having foiled several attempts to stop the trouble, were shut in the house one night when Glancy took the field and succeeded, as he thought, in giving a fatal shot. But on coming near, the bear got him in its "hug." With uncommon strength and much presence of mind, the powerful man seized the bear by the jaws and rolled its lips inward to make the bite hurt itself. He called for his dogs that raged to get free and were loosened at last by his wife, although she had not heard the call. With the dogs' help he got loose and won the battle. But Glancy felt the effects of a badly bitten shoulder the rest of his life.
A story is told of Adam Bricker that, while hunting near Williamsburg, he made cries like a fawn to call a doe within range of his rifle; but instead, one of the largest of panthers suddenly appeared ready to spring upon him. One of the quick dextrous shots for which he was noted laid the danger dead at his feet. One account claims that this was the last panther killed in the old county, but as no record of a bounty for such a feat has been found. it is more likely that the in- cident occurred before such payments had been established. The last bounty for a panther yet noted was paid in June, 1810. to John Waits. Another was seen near the mouth of Clover, as late as 1825, and, after being fired at. disappeared in the Elklick Hills, which also harbored the last bear.
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Bear may be stated as originally numerous. William and John Lucas, who came as the first of that family and built the first cabin by the mouth of Red Oak Creek, are said to have had twenty-one bear skins ready for the rest of the family, when they came a week later. James Bunton, the brother of Polly Bunton, one of the first two white women on the East Fork, claimed that he once counted nine bear on the way between Williamsburg and his home on Clover, three miles away. The fact that he was returning from town does not affect the count, for he was a staid man and no braggart. Al- though not in that time, no better place will be found to re- cord that two bear were seen on the hill toward Bantam from the mouth of Clover, in 1835, by Harvey and Elizabeth Wright, then twelve and fourteen years old, and going from Williamsburg to visit their grandfather, John Jenkins, who lived in the "Old Bethel" neighborhood, and was then attend- ing that church with the family of John Simpson, the maternal grandfather of General U. S. Grant. Upon the report of the excited children, men and dogs gathered, pursued and killed that pair. A year or so later, John Peterson, Sr., found a bear on his farm in the first great "horse shoe" or "pocket" of the East Fork below Williamsburg. After giving a wounding shot he and others followed and killed the game in Pike town- ship. This happened in 1836 or 37, and that was the last wild bear in the story of Brown and Clermont. No account of the last of the wolves can be made; but it is certain that strag- glers from northern lairs snapped and snarled from the dark- ness at belated travelers for several years after the packs ceased to howl. Such events were not uncommon after the War of 1812, but no such personal experience is now remem- bered by the oldest of the living.
Among archaeological bones, in printed pages, or through traditon, nothing has been found that in a clear and undoubted manner proves the existence of buffaloes within the limits of Old Clermont. One writer suggests that the buffalo and elk had probably disappeared before the approach of the white man. The name first given Eagle Creek was Elk River. The first name did not last because it did not fit, and a more significant name was chosen. Another writer briefly states: "A few buffaloes were seen as late as 1805." The nearest men-
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tion is the official report of Christopher Gist in 1751 that the meadows of the Little Miami abounded with such game. But his observation probably did not reach much below the north line of Warren county. And it is not supposable that the in- stinct of the buffalo kind would wander from those savannahs free from trees to where a dense woods usurped the home of the blue grass.
Notwithstanding the demand for man's use, it is probable that the extirpation of ferocious life favored an increase of herb-eating game. Venison and wild turkey were familiar dishes on the tables of all of the first and many of the second generation. The still hunt for both made a race of sharp shooters. The chase then, as in all ages, was a sport for kings. But trapping is well night a lost art. The turkey trap was based on the bird's nature to gather food with head to the ground, but to stretch up and peer around when dis- turbed. A' wild looking but secure pen was so constructed and artfully concealed that the "bait" required the turkey to grope under the lowest rail. Domestic grains, for which a piratical taste had been cultivated along the edge of the fields, was so scattered as to induce many to come about the pen for more. After passing under and lifting its head the wit- less turkey never again looked down, but bent every energy to escape upward, while its anxious clucks brought others to share the trouble until a square pen, made from fencerails, would be found well filled with prisoners, that would not stoop to gain their freedom. In this way the finest of all were caught and sold for a price that would not pay for a pound of turkey now.
There were no game laws, except for the destruction of evil animals. The individual independence was intense. Within the ten commandments, each person was the law unto him- self. With few boundaries scarcely discernible, the provisions of nature not plainly marked, were a fund from which each helped himself at will. It was a condition where each man fenced not his own cow in, but his neighbor's cow out. Swine ran wild except for a few mutilating ear marks, and so the cost of pork depended upon salt rather than pigs. The scarcity of money hampered all enterprise, and the raising of grain was made more laborious by a conflict with the animals that
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threatened to devour every seed between planting and har- vest. The worst of many pests was the now much admired and protected squirrel, of which the droves were many times more destructive then than rats have ever been. The want for more currency and the need of relief from squirrels resulted in one of the oddest laws on record, which was entitled "An act to encourage the killing of squirrels," and should have added, "to provide more money." That law provided that every tax- payer, upon notice from the authorities of his township, should bring them not more than one hundred, nor less than ten squirrel scalps, for which a certificate should be issued at the rate of three cents for each scalp ordered, and two cents for each scalp extra. A penalty of three cents was exacted for each scalp lacking under the number ordered. The certifi- cates pledged the township for payment, and so became a cir- culating medium, known as the "Squirrel Scalp Currency," which effected the double benefit, first of less squirrels, and then of more money. The method was elastic, according to local needs, and had the merit of immediate advantage and lasting convenience. The loss of all such township records has obliterated all trace of that law or its operation in old Clermont.
Notwithstanding the personal disposition to stay aloof from the law's control, when the ability to pay for public improve -? ments is considered, they were not more moderate in petitions for civic attention then than now. As had happened in Terri- torial times, the most importunate appeals to the commission- ers under State authority, were for roads. For, when Ohio assumed statehood, there was neither bridge nor road, as we use the word, to help the constant worry and frequent peril of those days of much mud and many floods. Then, when the forest covered all, the shaded earth treasured the rains in the spongy mold of the fallen leaves, from which the waters oozed to brooks that babbled a promise to flow forever. As the heroic immigration passed on to remoter wilds, the read- iest path to the nearest neighbor was the beginning of roads that grew longer and were beaten smoother as the homes became more plentiful along the trails, where surveyors blazed a plainer trace. As these trails and then traces became highways, little lanes led off from cabin to cabin, and often
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by the homes of men whose names can never be called again.
In reviewing their environment, imagination craves the chance to ponder how completely the landmarks of the path- makers have been effaced. Yet, in spite of their heroic strug- gle with forbidding nature, contemplation mourns to record that, already, the pioneers are more remembered for what they destroyed than for what they built. The denuded hills and plains stripped of verdure, alike lament the vanquished groves whose vanished wealth may never be restored. The wariest Shawnee would find no vestige of his secreted camp, and many a fairy haunt has been devastated that should have been kept for this electric age to lure wealth from city strife to rustic joy. Not a stone is left of all the dams that forced the waters to grind the grain for those who won Ohio. Here and there a rare and ancient well may wait with a welcome cup. Hardly more than a score of homes remain that thrilled with the tidings from the War of '12. Otherwise, the roofs of thousands of people have fallen, and their once glowing hearths are shapeless cairns. To those who care for the tes- timony of the past and can find curious gladness in the vis- ible presence of antiquity, such reflection speaks with pecu- liar persuasion. Even with casual attention, the most heed- less 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 attention once obtained needs to study the by-gone simple life that withered in the blare and jostle of complexer plans, that also passed beneath the im- position 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.
Those appointed to office in the Territory were generally honored with election under the State. Amos Smith, appoint- ed first as a Commissioner, after six months became the first Treasurer. Amos Ellis, of the first Board of Commissioners, was elected as a member of the first General Assembly of the State. George Conrad was appointed a Commissioner. On April 2, 1804, Amos Smith, George Conrad and Robert Towns- ley were elected as the first Board of Commissioners under the State constitution. Their first meeting was held on Mon- day, June 4, 1804, at the usual place, which on that occasion,
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was for the first time, called the tavern of Nicholas Sinks, Thomas Morris having sold the tavern and its goodwill to Sinks and moved to Bethel that spring. They chose Roger W. Waring clerk for the board, and then cast lots for the short term, until the October election, which fell to Townsley. He was succeeded by Amos Ellis, who by re-elections, served twelve and one-half years as Commissioner, and two terms as State Representative. He was thus largely on duty from the institution until the division of the county; when he was elected Recorder for Brown county, from 1819 to 1822, and then County Treasurer from 1822 to 1829. The long term was won by Amos Smith, who, through re-election, served eleven years as Commissioner, besides a year and a half as Treasurer. These two, Amos Ellis of Pleasant, and Amos Smith of Wil- liamsburg townships, seem to have directed the county affairs of Old Clermont from 1801 to 1817, with a common and har- monious intent to promote the public convenience to the limit of what was possible with the slender public revenue .
Under their almost continuous management, with the cas- ual co-operation of various colleagues, one at a time, more was accomplished for the lasting comfort of the social scheme than is likely to happen again in any several score of years to come.
Ferocious animals, as has been told, were well-night exter- minated. As fast as was justified by the increase of popula- tion, the country was partitioned for local control into town- ships, of which the present system is merely a continuation, developed by increasing need of convenience. By their judg- ment, only modified by the financial necessity that compelled them to take the lines of least risistance, a practical arrange- ment was made of the roads still existing, for both the wants and the pleasure of ages to come. With zeal and long con- tinuity of purpose, that was approved by an unusual series of re-elections, they provided their county with public buildings that were at the time only equalled or exceeded in Ohio by the State House in Chillicothe, or the court house in Cin- cinnati.
Their colleagues from time to time were Ambrose Ransom, of Miami township, for two and one-half years ; Samuel Ellis, of Pleasant township, for one year ; Robert Townsley, of Ohio
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township, for six months; George Conrad, of Miami township, for one year and three months; William S. Jump, of Wash- ington township, for three years; Henry Chapman, of Pleas- ant township, for three years; Gideon Minor, of Washington township, for five years; Levi Pigman of Washington town- ship, then, and later on, for eight years; John Shaw, of Ohio township, for three years, and Andrew Foote, of Williamsburg township, for three years, the last of all elected before the division of the old county.
Petitions for new roads, or for any change in those granted were placed with a body of "Viewers," and a surveyor, who was sometimes one of the "Viewers," for a report to the Com- missioners for final action. The descriptions have a strange, unreal, and at times, almost fanciful sound to modern ears. The road from Denhamstown to the mouth of Bullskin hav- ing been viewed, was adopted and ordered "opened," which implies that some one or more along that ancient "trace" had tried to stop or change its course. A road was asked from Denhamstown through the Yankee settlement to Zumatts, and another from Indian Riffle, on the Miami, to Wilson's Mill on the O'Bannon. It is quite plain that the people at Denhamstown were anxious to share the attention that brought previous roads to Williamsburg, but in, 1806, the name began to give way to "Bethel," from which a road was asked to a point on the Ohio river opposite the mouth of Step- stone; also from Bethel to near Alexander Buchanan's; also from Bethel to John Harmon's. The roads in what is Brown county, except along the Ohio, have such terminals as, from Williamsburg by Thompson's Mill to John Legate's farm, probably another spelling for Leggett. Efforts toward West Union were made from both Williamsburg and Bethel, and a road from West Union was made to combine with the Cin- cinnati road, by way of "Witham's Settlement." A road from the mouth of Nine Mile to the mouth of the East Fork was considered important. In 1808 a road was laid from Milford to connect with a road from Smalley's Mill, on Todd's Fork, which was fated to be the Clermont part of the famous Cin- cinnati, Columbus and Wooster Turnpike, one of the three his- toric highways of Ohio, the other two being Zane's Trace and the National road, which much of the way were the same.
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It is hardly possible and by no means profitable to tran- scribe the descriptions of the primitive roads into modern phrase. The liveliest curiosity will soon tire of the baffling task, and, if done, not one in a thousand would care to read more than would relate to his own associations. Yet, there should be melancholy satisfaction in grateful hearts in re- membering those who prepared the accustomed ways and straightened the familiar paths of daily life. For, though a new or at least peculiar application of the principle that sets all things even, it is but just to affirm that, whosoever ignores a benefit received deserves to have his own best deeds quickly forgotten.
Perhaps the most tangible evidence of what the pioneers of Old Clermont were proudest, among the results of their new citizenship, was their public buildings. In the beginnings, even before the first settlers, while planning the town around which his early fortune was to circle, General Lytle designed that his home should occupy a hill, or rather ridge, facing southward to an ample "plantation," and northward upon many homes, that should cluster about a central hill, where the Broadway and Main street met at the brow. At this inter- section, out of all the thousands at his command, a block of six acres, including the sidewalks, stretching westward and northward, and overlooking all the country around, was select- ed for a public square. This square was dedicated to the use of the public and as a place for the erection of a court house, and for no other use forever. Only slight study of the locality is needed to show that the streets and lots of Williamsburg were skillfully laid to suit the sightly situation. An early at- tempt was made for its improvement. On May 25, 1802, John Charles, Peter Light and Jasper Shotwell were appointed by the Court of Quarter Sessions to report a plan for a court house, but at the next session the business was postponed until subscriptions could be solicited. At the August session of 1803, some action was taken, of which the record is lost. For, at the first meeting of the Commissioners elected under the State law, William Perry was granted one hundred dol- lars on June 4, 1804, for hauling stone for the court house, ac- cording to the arrangement fixed in the August before. On November 19, 1804, John Kain and Archibald McLean were
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