USA > Ohio > Brown County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 30
USA > Ohio > Clermont County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 30
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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
OLD STONE COURT HOUSE AND JAIL IN WILLIAMSBURG, OHIO.
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granted a hundred dollars more for the same purpose. Then with two hundred dollars paid for stone delivered on the pub- lic square, the Commissioners, on June 12, 1805, decided to proceed with the building. One thousand dollars was ap- propriated from taxes to be levied for that purpose on the lands of non-resident owners. By that action, and with the material on hand, twelve hundred dollars was available. On August 1, 1805, the lowest bid was found to be from John Wright and John Charles, who then entered into a contract to finish the house by January 1, 1807, for sums to be paid as the work progressed, to the amount of fourteen hundred and ninety-one dollars. For various causes, of which the lack of money was the chief, the work was not finished until Febru- ary, 1809, having been in the builders' hands about three and one-half years. With the stone on hand, and with an allow- ance for extra work ordered, the total cost appears to have been seventeen hundred and fifty-six dollars and twenty-two and one-fourth cents, which is probably not one fourth the cost of a duplicate in this overwrought age.
The completion of the court house, in February, 1809, was followed in the March meeting of the Commissioners, by a decision to build a jail, of which, after due advertisement, the construction was sold on April 10, 1809, to John Charles, on a bid of two thousand nine hundred and eighty-six dollars. The building proceeded, with payments from time to time, until the last in full was made on December 3, 1811, for the completed building, which was the third jail used in Williams- burg. Next after that jail, in 1812 and 1813, the third build- ing on the public square, known as the "Clerk's office," was completed, in the style of General Lytle's stone land office, ex- cept that it was two rooms long, each room being about eight- een feet square in the clear. All other account of its con- struction has been lost, but its uniformity with the land office, the Davis House, the court house, the jail, and other work of his hands, shows that it was done by the frequently mentioned John Charles. He with his much retiring, but estimable and capable brother, George Charles, was the most notable builder of his time. The date of his removal from Williamsburg is not known; but in September, 1811, a petition was presented for a road from Williamsburg by John Charles' Mill on Stonelick,
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to intersect the road from Milford to Todd's Fork. That mill afterwards long known as the "Shumard's," was almost two miles southwest of Newtonville, which was not located till twenty-seven years later. That intersection on the road to Todd's Fork was taken twenty-two years later as the main crossing in platting the town locally known as "East" Goshen. In 1815, and again in 1818, John Charles was elected a Justice of the Peace in Stonelick township for terms of three years, and in 1819 he built the large stone house for John Metcalf, heretofore mentioned.
The jail farther west and closer to Broadway than the court house, contained one good, large living room, an ample kitchen, two "dungeons," or cells, and a hall on the first floor, with a stairway to three full sized bedrooms on the second floor, all so finished that the jailer's position, or duty, included a residence in this building, was much coveted. It was first occupied by Sheriff Oliver Lindsey, till succeeded in 1813 by George Ely, and then again by Oliver Lindsey, until followed in 1819 by Sheriff Holly Raper, a son of the noted surveyor, Leonard Raper. But during Raper's first four years as sher- iff the jail residence was occupied by his friends, a young married couple, Israel and Polly Kain Foster. Israel was the youngest son of Thomas Foster, an English emigrant to Vir- ginia, who had there married Nancy Trigg. While viewing for land in Kentucky, sometime before Ohio was open for settlement, Foster was killed by the Indians, after which the widow married James Laughlin, and came with the chil- dren of both husbands to Williamsburg about New Year's, 1805. Mary, commonly called Polly, Kain was the only daughter of Daniel and Mary Hutchinson Kain. After the early death of his first wife, Daniel married Eleanor, an older sister of Israel Foster, thus establishing a double kinship for the families. The first son of Israel and Polly Foster was born February 22, 1820, while they were resid- ing in the jail, and, after being named for a special friend of both parents, in the fullness of time, came to be known to the Christian world as the justly celebrated Bishop Randolph Sinks Foster, without whom the annals of the Meth- odist Episcopal church can not be written. And thus another illustrious name was added to the roll of Old Clermont. It is
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told that Bishop Foster sometimes astonished an ultra select audience by holding that there was hope for all, since he him- self was born in a jail. The incident has been connected with the "Old Log Jail," for picturesque effect, in several publica- tions, but the fact is hereby correctly and exactly stated.
The "Clerk's office" stood back of the court house from Main street and back of the jail from Broadway so that the three buildings framed a considerable space at the northeast- ern corner of the public square. The space between and some- what secluded by the three buildings, was adorned by a whip- ping post, with a cross bar, to which the securely fastened vic- tim might stand facing the post, or hang by his extended wrists while cringing from the lash upon a naked back, where stripes and scars were made into an indelible record of in- famy. Some considerable account can be found of such doings that may well be forgotten in an effort to perpetuate good example. Every one in love with the natural beauty of the "Old Public Square"-the oldest piece of public property in the old county-can rejoice that it has no suggestions of ignominious death. But the whipping post must be admitted. The jail was accepted on Tuesday, December 3, 18II, and on the following Saturday, at four o'clock in the afternoon, an outlaw, a murdering robber, was whipped by Sheriff Lindsey with forty-nine stripes. At the same time, he was under sen- tence for another crime to receive thirty-nine lashes save one, but that sentence was humanely suspended three weeks in order that his back could be healed for another Roman holi- day, for in their lonely monotony, such events were never neg- lected by a jeering crowd, much disposed to add gloating insult to the lashing pain.
But more of the tragic has come down in the story of the second jail, within whose wooden walls some temporary re- straint was placed over crimes from which no state of society can long go free. The most common offense was horse steal- ing, for which the punishment was swift and stern in fine, res- titution, imprisonment and merciless whippings. The lash was given at that jail between two posts, to which the uplifted and outstretched hands were tied, but where those posts stood is not known. Several escapes happened, among which was one accused of murdering his own neice. One man, a stranger,
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and a German, while held for slight cause, grew despondent and was found dead in a noose fixed by his own hand. Another falsely accused, brooded over his trouble till his mind was lost and never restored. A much discussed escape was that of a noted horse thief who, finding himself hard pressed, man- aged to join in his own pursuit, till a chance came to take the best horse in the chase and get free from all. But in the end, another among the pursuers was strongly suspected of com- plicity in the joke upon his neighbors. Years afterward a company from Kentucky tracked their man to the home of the suspected person, whence the captured was taken, without requisition papers, and eventually convicted and hanged for the murder of a peddler. The severity of life then that made the noble brave and resolute, also made the wicked bold and des- perate; and the loneliness that caused the honest to organize for mutual welfare, also made the criminal combine for a com- mon security. There was much belief in the existence of a banded gang for stealing and passing counterfeit money through a wide range of settlements. The extirpation of the local lodges of that gang was the work of more than one gen- eration and involved several neighborhoods, and the removal of several families, whose members had grown familiar with crooked paths, that brought them to evil fame at the old seat of justice.
The big stone court house, with jail and clerk's office, was intended and expected to put the seal of perpetuity on the leg- islation of the State, which on February 18, 1804, had estab- lished Williamsburg as that county seat. The appearance of the three buildings combined on the brow of the hill was strong, useful, durable and quaintly pleasing. Acres of room still vacant were left for adding to the buildings that would have lasted centuries and become more interesting with every passing year. But fate planned otherwise. Before a score of years they were deserted and the roofs had no care. Amid a frenzy of improvement the demolition began in order to make room for a "modern" school house, as if no other place would do in all the ample vacancy around. A part of the stone was piled into what is the foundation of the replacing structure. Another part was wagoned back to build a retaining wall along the river at the foot of Main street, as if no other stone were
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SCHOOL BUILDING ON SITE OF THE OLD STONE COURT HOUSE, WILLIAMSBURG, OHIO.
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to be had. Other parts were used, some to be broken on the streets, and some beyond recall. And thus a thoughtless pos- terity ruined a dignity they did not appreciate and could not replace. For, it was the fittest of all monuments for the noble pioneers who piled the stone with heroic sacrifice, and who, in all the wide old county they reclaimed from barbarism, have no other memorial than such as can be made with word and pen. Were those buildings intact today, or were the roof- less walls still standing, it is safe to say that none could be found rude enough to dash them down. Their easy restoration would afford rooms for public utility, unique beyond an ar- tist's fancy, strong beyond a builder's plan, suggestive beyond the power of eloquence, and pleasing as a poetical dream. It is grossly wrong to judge the pioneers by their rude homes and deem them incapable of appreciating the refinements of life. Within their limitations they fostered ideals of plentiful convenience, according to the invention within their knowl- edge, which comprehended that the fruition of such hope was not for them, but for posterity. Alas, that posterity should ever forget.
While providing a commodious home for the county, the bridge question was considered by the Commissioners, with much desire and slight result. At their June meeting, in 1811, thirty-five dollars was granted to build a bridge across a branch of Clover Lick creek, on the State road, which was done to favor the increasing travel between the county seat and the southeastern settlements, and also to better the road from West Union. That was the first of the many bridges be- tween Eagle Creek and the O'Bannon. At the same meeting the people about Denhamstown sought another road to the Ohio by an intersection with the road from Williamsburg to the mouth of "Big Indian Creek." Some imagination is re- quired to fully understand that this proposed road was to be traveled just ten years to a month later, by a wedding party in which Jesse R. Grant took his young bride Hannah, from Father John Simpson's home to their simple, but neat, little frame cottage-not log hut as often told-by the tannery at Point Pleasant. where the most romantic life in America was to begin. At that meeting the Commissioners took the first action on a road from the mouth of Stonelick, by Dr. Allison's,
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to Glancy's Lane and Mckinney's Old Improvement. That road was the first to meander up the Stone Lick toward the mill sites in Linton's Survey, for which General Massie risked his life with the Indians nineteen years before.
No other appropriation for that purpose was made until June, 1814, all but three years later, when Nicholas Sinks was paid ten dollars for making a bridge across Little Stirling Creek, which was the second bridge in the county and the first on Donnell's Trace between Newtown and Chillicothe. For miry reasons that was worse among the many bad places along that road. The tales of my maternal ancestors show that the family in coming from York county, Pennsylvania, by way of Zane's and then Dannell's Trace, after being de- layed by sickness, were pressing west of New Market, in Highland county, on Saturday, December 22, 1804, when the harbingers of a blizzard forced the strict, old-style Presby- terian, Jesse Glancy, against his custom to keep moving on Sunday. On coming to a west branch of White Oak, the for- ward of his two "Conestoga" wagons stuck in the bank and all the brooding stock was harnessed in one line. Then the big, strong captain, who did things in a strong way, mounted his special saddle horse and went crushing through the snow with all the collar wearing stock to one wagon and all his driven cattle and all the cattle that young Thomas Foster was driving overland while his family were boating down the Ohio, and all the people in the company, except his eldest son, William Glancy, then just twenty years old, and his orphaned nephew, James Glancy, six years younger. While the main company urged their march to Williamsburg, the two boys were left to guard the second wagon. After a fire had been started near a hut of poles and bark by the crossing, a hunt was undertaken to pass a part of the afternoon, in which Wil- liam shot a deer. The quarters of venison were fastened into the tops of sapplings bent down by their weight and thus lifted out of reach; but before that was fully accomplished, wolves began to gather about, at which one shot, while the other loaded so as always to have one gun ready for the pack that grew larger and circled a beaten space around their fire, and filled the woods with the howling of what seemed more than a score. And thus the night of Sunday, the twenty-third,
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wore into Monday. More and less than seventy years later that William, a great-uncle, always had close attention and made sympathy thrill as he firmly declared that the sweet- est sound he ever heard was the tinkling of the bells that hung above the hames of the several teams his father was bringing through the frosty morning for the second wagon, which reached the ford and went up the "dug way" at Wil- liamsburg, "where we all," he would add, "ate our Christmas eve supper in 1804 at James Kain's tavern."
While a bridge across Little Stirling Creek, where the set- tlers had been impeded from the time William Hunter came west that way with a wagon, sixteen years before, had been bettered with slight expense, yet, that expense was too large for imitation or application where the total land tax collected in the big county had not reached eighteen hundred dollars a year. It is easy to see how little could be given for special improvement. And that little was probably suggested by lo- cal competition rather than a progressive intention; and the explanation of that condition involves a consideration of an- other form of highways that date from the early days of the State.
When the localities to be accommodated were in two or more counties, uniformity was sought through State control, and the roads were classed as State roads. When traveled by a mail carrier they gained the dignity of post roads, and a still more special name attained still later was stage roads. The first of the State roads was Donnell's trace's to and from Cincinnati and Chillicothe, by Williamsburg, but the exact date of that dignity has not been found. A road from West Union by way of Bethel to the mouth of Clough Creek, in Hamilton county, was established by the State in 1804, but its popularity was of slow growth, for as late as 1836 the stage from West Union went by Bethel and Milford to Cincinnati. The bridgeless streams nearer the Ohio were also often ford- less. In the same year, 1804. the State instituted another road from Chillicothe toward Cincinnati, by way of Milford and appointed the noted surveyor. General Richard C. Anderson, to locate the course, which was done by 1806. That course through Old Clermont is now marked by the towns of Fay- etteville, Marathon, Owensville, Perintown and Milford. In
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honor of the surveyor, it was officially called "The Anderson State Road," until the name was changed, after 1831, to the Milford and Chillicothe Turnpike. After the creation of High- land county, in 1805, and the founding of Hillsboro, travel was so turned from the old road as to impair the tavern profits at Williamsburg; hence the bridge across Little Stirling Creek was undertaken by Nicholas Sinks, who still kept the Old Tom Morris House. In 1808 the eastern part of the Augusta and Round Bottom Road was included by the State in a road from the mouth of Bullskin to Xenia, which went north through Bethel and Williamsburg and then inclined to the northwest so that the Anderson State road was crossed at the Dickey Tavern, now in Jackson township, which was the first southwest corner of Wayne township as originally insti- tuted. The course was called the Xenia State road, and was probably much like that taken by Daniel Boone in his cele- brated escape from the Indians.
The two appropriations mentioned constituted all the bridge work done between Adams county and the Little Miami River before the War of 1812-15; and, with a few exceptions, all that was done for twenty years after the war. The other most important work accomplished by the commissioners was the erection of new townships. But before any change from the five original townships, the State Legislature, on February 18, 1805, erected Highland county, for which Clermont was re- quired to sacrifice enough wilderness for two modern town- ships, but not one inhabitant. Then, on June 18, 1805, the commissioners constituted the township of Tate, composed from the northeastern part of Ohio, and still more largely from the southern part of Williamsburg. On June 2, 1807, Lewis township was taken from the eastern end of Washington township; and on October 18, 1808, Clark township was made to include lands north of Lewis township to Highland county On December 4, 1811, the western part of Ohio township was placed in what is Union township, in Clermont county. On March 4, 1812, Stonelick township was made from parts of Miami and Williamsburg townships. On June 6, 1815, the northeastern vacancy of the old county, then having but twen- ty-three voters, was included in one township, with the newly glorious name of Perry. On September 5, 1815, parts of Ohio
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and Williamsburg townships were united in a township with the name of Batavia, the twelfth and last township erected un- der the authority of Old Clermont.
While the political divisions were coming into convenient forms for government, while the accommodation of roads was marked out, and, while buildings for the administration of justice were provided, the social relations were also increasing. "The enumeration of 755 white male citizens of the age of 21 years" made for the State Senate in 1804, by the census of 1810, had become a total population of 9,965, an increase of certainly not less than three fold in six years. There is no certain figure for the population of Clermont at the division of the county. But in 1820 the combined population of Brown and Clermont counties, excluding the townships taken from Adams county, was nearly 25,000. The conclusion seems rea- sonable that 20,000 people were living in 1818 between the limits of Loveland and Ripley.
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CHAPTER XV.
THE TONE OF THE TIME.
The Jersey Settlement-John Collins-Charles H. Collins- Collins Chapel-Old Bethel-The Congregation Replete with Notable Names-White-Swing-Jenkins-Johnson- Simpson-Ulrey-A Student Group of Four-Influence of the Pulpit on Settlement-The Baptists at Bethel-At Ten Mile-At Twelve Mile-The Robbs-Charles Robb, the Teacher Poet-The Poets' Union-Dr. T. W. Gordon- "Eulalie"-Eliza Archard Conner-Robert Todd Lytle- William Haines Lytle, the Soldier Poet-Charles J. Har- rison-Churchly Affairs-Hopewell Church-The Congre- gation of Gilboa-John Dunlavy-Muscular Christianity- Camp Meetings-Effects on Presbyterianism-James Gil- liland-Robert B. Dobbins-The First Schools-The Best School House from 1804 to 1819-Dr. Alexander Campbell -Dr. Levi Rogers and His Son John G .- Surgeon-General Richard Allison-The Early Healers-Peddlers First, Then Merchants-James Burleigh-Isaac Lines-William Waters and Benjamin Ellis-Postal Affairs-Newspapers.
In viewing the magnitude of what was doing among so many then, a writer may well shrink from the task of merely mentioning even family names still existing in public records and grateful memories, notwithstanding the ceaseless rasp of time. Still, a decent regard for humble virtue, as well as con- spicuous conduct, requires that some shall be named from whom the tone of the time may be learned.
A locality of far-reaching influence of the highest order was the Jersey Settlement, that clustered on or near the East Fork, about the contiguous corners of Williamsburg, Tate and Batavia townships. The origin of that settlement was largely due to the personal influence of Rev. John Collins, born in New Jersey in 1769, and, after his twenty-sixth year, a zealous preacher for the Methodist Episcopal church. Hav- ing temporal means to invest, he came to William Lytle's
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land office in Williamsburg, in 1802, who "tried him out" with many tracts personally inspected until the choicest in hand was shown at the Horse Shoe Bend of the East Fork, now forming the southeast corner of Batavia township. Entranced with its beauty Collins bought the entire survey, made in the name of Philip Clayton, but owned by General Massie. Of the more than a thousand measured acres, he kept four hun- dred of the best, in the midst of which his son, Richard, built the noble mansion celebrated in both prose and song. In that home Charles H. Collins, Esquire, native of Clermont, but late of Hillsboro, Ohio, received impressions afterward wrought into many poems of charming beauty, in both thought and rhythm. Among much that has been written about the lovely scene, nothing is in finer taste than this from his own hand, or rather heart :
Still flows the stream in curves around the farm ; And memories linger while time has past From those who gave the place an added charm.
- 'Twas years ago-at least to us it seems- When all this scene was radiant with delight,
When each and all in day or nightly dreams Thought home no fairer rose on earthly sight.
So far away that time and yet so near, When measured on infinity's long scroll ;
No wonder recollection holds it dear,
As when the farm home satisfied each soul.
Still flows the East Fork-gentle river- In curling outlines where glows the west. And still the red sun with golden quiver Gleams o'er "the Bend" where all of yore were blest.
Coming from the author after he had traveled wide and far, this tribute to a native heath common to both, along with much delightful verse found in a volume of his poems per- sonally presented makes the gift something always to be treas- ured. Although his later life was elsewhere, Charles H. Col-
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lins should be remembered as a brilliant poetic product of Clermont. After securing "the Bend," John Collins returned East to preach that his hearers should repent and go West. He then led an example by returning, in 1803, with Isaac Higbee, Cornelius McCollum and Edward Doughty, with their families, and three unmarried men, Joseph and Peter Frambes and Lucas Lake. Their clearing was not made in time to plant corn, but in 1804 they raised one hundred meas- ured bushels to the measured acres, which was duly reported and so believed in and about Tuckerton and Little Egg Har- bor, New Jersey, that an Exodus occurred there, and the num- bers were found in Ohio, with a large count in Clermont. A curious proof of how Methodist people were sometimes locally contemned then is preserved in the claim that John Collins de- livered the first regular sermon in 1804 yet heard from a Meth- odist preacher in Cincinnati. As soon as his cabins were raised, his invitation went abroad for the people to come there and hear the Gospel. In 1807 a log meeting house was built on a large lot, donated from his farm, which was called Collin's Chapel, and then took the name of "Bethel Church." After eleven years a superior frame house was built, and in the lapse of time the church and burying ground came to be known as "Old Bethel" in distinction from the town of Bethel, over four miles away.
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