USA > Ohio > Brown County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 36
USA > Ohio > Clermont County > History of Clermont and Brown Counties, Ohio, from the earliest historical times down to the present, V. 1 > Part 36
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No regular steamboat went to and fro for passengers along the riverside till about 1830, and then the calls were not fre-
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quent. Most of such service was done by what would now be called tramp boats. The public conveyance of passengers through the interior was by stages. From a time unknown to a date not determined, a stage passed to and from Chilli- cothe to Cincinnati through Williamsburg. After Georgetown had gained importance, the travel turned in that direction to West Union and so continued well up to, if not through, the Mexican War. The line advertised by Joshua B. Davis came from West Union through Decatur, Russellville, Georgetown, Hamersville, Bethel, Bantam, Perinsmills, Milford and Mad- isonville to Cincinnati. The stage was the kind with the body hung upon broad straps of leather to swing along after two or four horses, according to the state of the roads, or the size of the loads. When the pikes came, the uncertain tri-weekly stage gave place to the daily omnibus, and then travel so in- creased that daily trips were made down the river road and from Bethel down the Ohio Pike, and from Williamsburg through Batavia and by Newtown, and from Fayetteville through Boston to Milford, and from far up the Wooster Pike down through Goshen to the trains at Milford. That was a time of bi-daily excitement along those pikes, for the 'Bus nev- er passed either way without large attention to the speed and minute speculation at every stop, as to the number and quali- ty of the passengers. The period also included the passing of four and even six horses to a wagon loaded with produce for the city market. At times such wagons in sight on the great Wooster Pike could be counted by the score. And the droves that caused Cincinnati to be nicknamed "Porkopolis," were fabulous in number. One of the novel sights about holiday times was the droves of turkeys stalking along to a fate both certain and helpless. Such were the scenes along the wonder- ful Wooster Pike, "Before the War," then the greatest com- mercial highway for displaying the inner wealth of Ohio. But the railroads have changed all that, and now the grass has grown towards the center until the narrow track on the broad way, despite the deep grades, looks like a country lane. Ex- cept for a local use, hardly more than a township needs, that once stupendous work of the State is almost as obsolete as the canals.
The course of the road from Milford to Todd's Fork, that
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became a part of that pike was crossed a hundred years ago by the "Upper road from Williamsburg by the John Charles Mill and on to Lebanon. That cross roads became the center of 'East Goshen,'" which was the scene of some incidents that present a view not quite like the ordinary northern conception of the Underground Railroad times. At that crossing in 1834. Dr. Samuel G. Meeks built a fine two-story brick house on a full basement story of smooth dressed, blue lime stone, making three stories in all. In its prime that house was the show place for many scores of miles on the then famous Wooster Pike. About 1837, the property passed to Captain Tubal Early, a relative of General Jubal Early, noted as one of Lee's greatest generals, until his crushing defeat by Sheridan at Winchester. Captain Early, a fine specimen of the tall and stately Virginia cavalier, came to Ohio to emancipate some two score slaves. While the theory was beautiful the practice, speaking with caution, was offensive to many otherwise phil- anthropic men of Goshen. A somewhat patriarchal disposi- tion of the proud captain to advise and even direct some va- grant ex-bondsman, for whose good conduct the Ohio law had required his former master to become a bondman, afforded a pretext for criticism that soon become anything but mild. The fine home was made unhappy by a personal and then furious legal contention about a worthless scalawag, whose idea of freedom was a state of utter idleness. In the midst of the controversy, the bewildered emancipator passed to a peculiar tomb in the Goshen cemetery and left the case of Prejudice vs. Philanthropy to perplex his widow, Charlotte, until the depreciated house was brought to sale and she was driven south of the Ohio in search of sympathy for her folly in believing that truth alone will pay the price. One of the manumitted women died, leaving two little boys also fatherless. They were at once taken into the "Big Early House," until large enough to do some simple chores, requisite for both physical and moral health. Then sympathy for the enslaved and antipathy for their misunderstood guardian had a busy time taking downtrodden boys from where they were learning civil- ity, in order to bind them out to the lowest bidders. One was fixed to learn the saving service of cleaning a tavern stable and the other was sent to the tender task of grubbing stubs in a
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clearing. Of such freedom they were finally deprived by their Virginia mistress and taught to read and write much better than was common at that time. And when Mrs. Early went to Kentucky, one of the youths went with her into voluntary slavery in order that he might serve the good angel of his life. Verily, not many in the South knew the North, and few in the North could understand any of the South, and so both went stumbling on to dreadful strife.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE MEXICAN WAR AND THE GOLD FEVER.
The Mexican War a Preliminary Campaign in a Greater Struggle-The Volunteers from Brown-The Company from Clermont and Brown-General Thomas L. Hamer, His Youth, Political Success, Oratory and Death in Mexico- Discovery of Gold in California-The Light Family-Dr. William Wayland Light, One of the Argonauts-A Deadly Fight.
While Brown and Clermont were rapidly increasing in population, and while the people were clearing larger fields, making smoother ways, building better homes, contriving more convenience, seeking more trade, turning from canals, wonder- ing at railroads, planting villages and shuddering at the thought of abolition, the country was moving steadily toward the Mexican War. In the light thrown back from what follow- ed, the Mexican War takes the importance of a preliminary campaign in the greater struggle of a still longer strife to decide the supremacy between the systems of free and slave la- bor that had threatened the stability of the Union from the be- ginning. No premise of history is clearer than that war was waged with Mexico for the extension of slavery; and no re- sult is more conclusive than the utter confusion of the plans that overwhelmed the designs of its promoters. Measured by our standards it was still a time of inconceivable incon- venience. The country entered the strife with a spirit that was largely a question of distance. Those near gained a rep- utation for "eating fire," that did not extend to the more dis- tant northerners, and thus the boastings of the promoters of slavery were assumed as evidence of superior courage. The correction of that mistake was a bitter lesson for the South. Although there was so little to urge and so much to repress the aspirations of free labor, Ohio answered the call of the President with more troops than went from any other northern State, for it was the first chance for the native born to test the mettle of their hearts.
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The volunteers from Brown county were mustered in for one year at Cincinnati, June 22, 1846, as Company G, of the First Ohio Regiment. Their captain was Sanders W. Johns- ton; but there is no need to use space in this work to perpet- uate the names or particulars of each one of the company, for all that is to be found in the fine Roster, that Ohio has pub- lished in honor of her splendid soldiering. The same is true of a second company enlisted from both Brown and Cler- mont, which was mustered in eighty-five strong, under Captain John W. Lowe, at Cincinnati, on September 11, 1847, for one year, as Company C., of the reorganized Second Ohio Regi- ment. Besides the State Roster, Lieutenant Milton Jamieson of that company, published a fine story of its service and his personal experience. The Major of the Second Ohio, Wil- liam Wall, who had been a cadet at West Point, was a citizen of Brown county.
The hero of his town and county and region and State in the Mexican War, and one honored and lamented by the nation was Thomas Lyon Hamer. A detailed account of a life so full of incidents as his cannot be combined within the scope of this history, where only lines can be given while pages would be a pleasant task. Born in July, 1800, and obtaining a fair schooling under parental care in Northumberland coun- - ty, Pennsylvania, he came with the family, then moving to Butler county, Ohio. But the boy stopped at the mouth of Nine Mile and took his first employment as the slender, red headed teacher of a school in the fall of 1817, at Withams- ville. While there he borrowed some books on law of Hezekiah Lindsey, and some general books from Dr. William Porter, who were among the foremost men of that region. He came then to Bethel as a teacher of subscription schools. By one paper signed for seventeen pupils, on October 16, 1820, he agreed to teach reading, writing and arithmetic to each pupil for $2.00 for thirteen weeks. If grammar was taught, $1.00 more was to be paid, and the subscribers were to furnish a room and fuel. While thus employed, he became an inmate of the home of Thomas Morris then established as one of the foremost lawyers. Morris liked the youth and took all but parental charge of his studies. As compared with this day, Hamer's lot was tough. As compared with other boys of his
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day, his chance was very fine. In 1821, when lacking four months of twenty-one years he went with Morris to the old stone court house in Williamsburg, where, after examination and with the certifying statement of Morris, he was admitted to the bar, although he had never been in a court house before. Six months later he went to live in Georgetown, where he practiced law, wrote editorials for The Benefactor and be- came deeply interested in politics as a study. He was a mem- ber of the General Assembly of the State, became Speaker of the House, and then three times a Member of Congress, where he ranked with the first. After achieving all this be- fore the age of forty, he avowed the duty of securing comfort for his family, rather than fame for himself.
He had a magical sway over men as an orator, and his aid on the stump was eagerly sought by the most distinguished men of his party. Before the age of forty, all that ambition craved was deemed possible, and his friends were only wait- ing his sanction to urge his name for the highest honors of State. He was in accord with what seemed the popular trend. He urged the Mexican War. The readiness of his county for the service was ascribed to his influence. He volunteered as a private and modestly consented to act as Major of his regi- ment. Within a week he was appointed a Brigadier-General by President Polk. He shared in the fine success of General Taylor's army at Monterey, September 23, 1846. On October 13, 1846, he was, without opposition, elected to Congress for the fourth time. But a constitution not strong was yielding to the unfamiliar service in a trying climate, and he died De- cember 3, 1846, in what should have been the prime of his life, and was the dawn of his fame. For he had won fame abroad, and place beyond rivalry at home. After while all that was mortal of the boyish teacher, the skillful lawyer, the popular politician, the fascinating orator, the able states- man, the heroic general-the brilliant Hamer was brought from Mexico by the proudly sorrowful State and given to his people at home as a precious charge forever.
Whatever any man may have planned, the immediate influ- ence of the Mexican War was far beyond the wildest flight of fancy and something most confusing in all political calcula- tions. For, judged by the acid test of financial gain, the most
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important event of that period in American history was the discovery of gold in California. The immediate result in Brown and Clermont was a rearrangement of the plans of scores and scores of the most ardent youths, who at once went farther than any had dared before. As soon as the lands had been taken and the price had increased, immigration sought the "new countries." Soon after the War of '12, many crowded to the Wabash. Late in the '30s, Illinois was the cause of much interest. Ten years later, hundreds were starting for Iowa. But after 1849. the bolder were resolving to go where gold could be gained more quickly than by raising grain or herding flocks. No estimate is obtainable of the number who went from Brown and Clermont to California, some by the "Isthmus," and some across the "Plains," some to return, and not a few to stay. For lack of modern comparison the first to go were given the classical name of "Argonauts." Among these was one from Clermont and of a family with a story of more than ordinary adventure. John Light, a Revolutionary soldier, was the father of Jacob, Daniel and Peter, who had share in the border warfare of western Pennsylvania, that in full sense was a part of the Revolution. . Jacob went with his wife to Detroit from which, after four anxious years, they re- treated. Then in 1791, the three sons came to Columbia, where in July, 1792, Jacob was one in the party from which resulted the famous narrative of "Spencer's Captivity." Having come to the site in 1797, he platted the first part of New Richmond in 1813, to which Thomas Ashburn added the upper part in 1816. Daniel Light was shot through the body in an Indian fight, but recovered and raised a large family on Twelve Mile. Peter* Light, previously mentioned as a territorial pioneer on Clover Creek, was County Surveyor for ten years and also the Sheriff ordered to imprison Thomas Morris for debt. His son, George C. Light, was County Surveyor for five years, and then a member of the State House of Representatives. He then acquired national reputation as a Methodist minister, and died in Vicksburg, on his birthday, February 27, 1860, aged seventy-five years. Peter Light's son, David, married Sarah Strickland in 1812, and their son, William Wayland Light. born July 29, 1817, was one of the "Argonauts," having gone to California with the first onset of the "gold seekers" in 1849.
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He had studied pharmacy with an older brother, George S. Light, but later, was finely successful in dentistry.
But no ordinary employment could restrain his adventurous disposition from undertaking many hazards of fortune. He sent for his brother, Hopkins Light and for Julian, a son of their brother, George S., and gathering all his means into the ven- ture, went into prospecting and mining schemes among the mountains of Sonora, in Old Mexico. That was amid the restless conditions following the French invasion of Mexico, and our Civil War. While seeking a richer place in the elus- ive lode, the three men with a Mexican chore boy, built a remote camping shack by a stream in which on June 25, 1868, Hopkins and Julian, while taking a bath were ambushed and killed by a party of eight lurking Indians, who took the mo- ment that left their victims most defenseless. Flushed with success, the band rushed upon the hut, where Dr. Light was taking a much-needed rest, from which with no aid but the boy to load and hand out guns, he met the assailants with a fire that killed four and wounded others before they gave up the fight and left the white man victorious, but also badly wounded with a shot through one foot and several arrows sticking in his body. The rifle, powder horn and wounding arrows, with other pioneer relics of the family, are now among the priceless treasurers of Dr. Wayland Light's niece, Mrs. Georgie Girardey Strickland, who holds the ancestral lands of Peter Light. The fierce fight is in column with the bravest deeds of pioneer times from ocean to ocean. The story is not complete without stating that the mining inter- ests were sold for an immense sum obtained and paid to a trusted agent, who fled and left the adventurous Dr. Light to gather another fortune in Sacramento and become presi- dent of the Sacramento Pioneers' Association, at his death, June 14, 1895. There is peculiar satisfaction in pondering this story of one of a large connection in Brown and Clermont as typical of their vast traditions both at home and in both East and West, and in the romance of the Pacific coast.
CHAPTER XX.
IN THE CIVIL WAR.
Change in Fashion and Custom-The Note of Preparation- The Roster of Ohio in the War-Those Who Heard the Call-The Terror of the First Tidings-The Fall of Sum- ter-A General Statement of the Organizations from Brown and Clermont-The Nearest Battle-The Morgan Raid- The Course of the Longest Single March on Record-The Conduct of the Raiders-A Fight for a Horse-The Story of Captain George Harris of Morgan's Artillery-The Recep- tion of the Union Army in Pursuit of Morgan-The Dif- ference Between the Armies-The General Service of the Troops from Brown and Clermont-When the Boys Came Marching Home.
A wide, evident result of the discovery of gold in California was the impulse to the building of railroads. For, coolly con- sidered, the Little Miami and the Marietta railroads were not built by the people of Clermont, but by foreign capital ; and the work was managed by non-residents and to connect distant points. Before the merit of travel by steam was made familiar to the mass of population, the Civil War overwhelmed all other intention and absorbed every interest. As that awful political, moral and social revolution went by, and when its marvelous heroism had passed into history, the people had put on new fashions and adopted a new mode of living. Men ceased to wear long hair combed into a huge roll on top with ends rolled under and made stable with pasty pomatums and glossy with perfumed oils. For some years the loveliest maidens ap- proved the sensible change of the men by cutting off their braids and by looking their best in loose locks, which was only a phase in an experimental period in which everyone was test- ing the effect of something new. The brim of the outre "stove pipe hat" was narrowed to the proportions of the head, and the roofs that before barely edged the walls, were projected for a needed protection to the building. Sixty years ago the
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floors, now polished and rugged, had rag carpets or none, ex- cept one in a hundred had a three-ply ingrain. The preten- tious had a dozen silver teaspoons, a half dozen silver table- spoons and a Brittannia tea pot. The next in the social scale were provided, if not satisfied, with German silver or pewter spoons. Much of the cloth was homespun, and even the factory goods was cut and made at home. The bleaching of factory muslin helped to keep women busy. Those who deplore woman's present extensive occupation as wage earners are for- getful that invention has invaded and utterly destroyed the ancient custom where she was spinner, weaver and garment maker. This change was largely invoked and surely hastened by the American conflict, which was the most costly in tears and treasure that the white race has yet endured. The prodi- gious Asiatic slaughters of which there is no certain estimate, cannot be brought into a just comparison, for the annihilation of many millions more or less of them often wrote no change in a glorious progress. But the vast destructive energy of the war for the Union called forth the finest constructive ability that man has ever shown in both war and agriculture. It was the first real test of steam in war, and that test involved prob- lems of which Napoleon never dreamed and which vastly mod- ified the art of war that he practiced. All the world feels the change in navies that was inaugurated by the Monitor and the Merrimac. But popular intelligence has not yet sufficiently recognized the special strategy of war by railroads that was solved by Grant.
A just review of the patriotic service of any considerable community should include the note of preparation, the tented field and the desolated homes. The scenes in Brown and Cler- mont during the strife for the Union were such as history proudly records of the whole wide Northland. There were hurryings to and fro, and gathering tears ; there was trembling distress and cheeks all pale and choking sighs; there was mounting in hot haste, and mustering squadrons swiftly rushed to the ranks of war. And then there was grief for the un- returning brave, for there was none but had some friend or brother there.
The insolent enemy professed equal contempt for the home- grown and scorn for the foreign born of the North. A mere
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roll of the brave men who went forth to defend their chosen flag from such insult is beyond the limit of this work, which in no sense is a reprint of what can be found elsewhere. Ohio's proudly published Roster of her soldiers and sailors sets forth their service beyond the power of private enterprise. And yet, it must be regretfully admitted that ample credit has not been attained in every instance. The reason for this is found in the character of the volunteer service in which each individual attached himself to whatever- organization seemed best. In this manner many crossed local lines in ways that cannot be followed by neighborhoods or even counties or states. But the State Roster, as far as the facts were stated on the company and regimental rolls, will keep the general enlistments as long as the book can be made to last. Yet who- ever looks at any muster roll must remember that individuals and groups of volunteers often went far or came a long distance to be with special commands or chosen friends. And so remembering, the best that can be done is a general state- ment of such organizations as will guide a search of the most exact official sources.
The eventful scenes of '61 are of such vivid personal mem- ory for many, that a writer may well ponder long in selecting thoughts to give younger readers an adequate impression of the conditions that inspired the golden age of our heroism. Yet, many of the homes remain in which the Union soldiers were bred and taught a love of country that has peculiar ex- ample. For they fought, not for their own homes alone, but for an ideal of human rights that included another race with whom they did not live and would not mingle.
The call for such extraordinary service from Brown and Cler- mont counties came to a population with the peaceful purpose of farming, and to the tradesman connected with that occupa- tion before it was complicated with the infinite divisions of today. There was little or no corporate direction, and each one largely followed an independent course not easily realized when almost every branch of living is controlled by a com- pany, directed by a union, or managed by a trust. The young men thus grown to glory in the utmost limit of personal free- dom had no training in the value of the strict discipline that is an imperative requisite for military success. For many
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years the greatest excitement of their happy lives had been found on the school boys' play ground, or in hunting and fish- ing within sight of their homes. The greatest public enthusi- asm they had shared was the torch-light political processions that marked the presidential campaign of 1860. Unto a genera- tion that otherwise might have organized peace societies and have given endless energy to every useful art, the fall of Sum- ter's flag was a signal for a strife that changed the course of time. Again the waiting fates struck the choicest hour for mortal hopes. The careful students of the unrolling charts for the ships of state across the troubled seas of international politics know that the Union Army fought for more than Grant dreamed, or Lincoln planned. Meanwhile the masters of inven- tion, after providing railroads for the rapid transportation of the freedom-giving armies, also made haste to furnish the lo- comotive with a guiding spirit. For without the telegraph the railroad engine would be a blind and destructive giant. The most momentous message that had traversed those all but celestial wires was the call to rescue Sumter. A pious mind may delight in believing that a gracious Providence was still directing the preparation of material and spiritual means so that both should be ready at the appointed time that com- bined mortal good and divine design.
Ah, who was living then that can forget those rural homes, piled with plenty, blest with the bounty of fruity orchard, decked with bloom and clad with clambering vine, amid wav- ing harvests bordered with daisied pastures, where the lazy herds wore winding paths to spicy groves o'erspread with sunny flecks on heaven's serenest blue?
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