History of Coshocton County, Ohio, its past and present, 1740-1881, Part 68

Author: Hill, Norman Newell, jr., [from old catalog] comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A. A., & co., Newark, O., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Newark, Ohio, A. A. Graham & co.
Number of Pages: 854

USA > Ohio > Coshocton County > History of Coshocton County, Ohio, its past and present, 1740-1881 > Part 68

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at the time Mr. Neff came, there were but four families of those already mentioned still living here. Much of Main street was at that time cov- ered with hazel bushes. In June, ISI1, Dr. Sam- uel Lee, the first resident physician, settled in Coshocton. In the spring of 1811 Wright War- ner, and in the fall of the same year Aaron Church, the first two resident lawyers of the vil- lage, took up their abode here. The career of Church was of short duration and unfortunate in its termination. He was the son of a New Eng- land clergyman, and received an education at an eastern college. Upon its completion he read law, was admitted to the bar, and opened an of- fice at Hartford, Connecticut, soon acquiring a good reputation as a lawyer. He married well and settled into a remunerative practice. Drink was his enemy and proved his downfall. He neg- lected his business, quarreled with and separated from his wife and came West to begin life anew. The opening in Coshocton was promising and he settled here, soon gaining a practice which ex- tended into the surrounding counties, but his ap- petite again gained ascendency over him and soon made him mentally and physically a wreck. He died of "cold plague " in the spring of 1815.

Adam Johnson came 1811, married a daughter of Colonel Williams and was associated with him in business for many years. He was the first clerk of the court and recorder, captain of a con- pany in the war of 1812 and a prominent and in- fluential citizen up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1829.

About 1815, the town began to settle up more rapidly. In the fall of that year, John Crowely came from Maryland ; he was a carpenter by trade, was for a time ferryman for Charles Wil- liams, and was afterwards sheriff of the county. About the same time John Darnes, also a carpen- ter, emigrated from Virginia, near Washington City. Richard Stafford was here at this time, coming from the South Branch of the Potomac, Virginia. He was a wagonmaker, and served as an early justice of the peace. Albert Torry, a blacksmith, from the State of Maine, was also living in town at this time. He afterwards set- tled on Killbuck creek. James Renfrew, Sr., an carly merchant, came about 1815. William and Alexander McGowan came in 1815, with their

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mother, from New Jersey. Their father, a Bap- tist minister, was killed, near Mount Pleasant, while they were on their journey hither, by the accidental upsetting of the wagon. Mrs. Mc- Gowan died in 1816. The boys were long known as the proprietors of the hotel, corner Second and Main streets. Abram Sells, a cabinetmaker, came from Marietta, in 1814. He was for some time a justice of the peace, and also coroner of the county. He died in 1869. Samuel Burns moved here from Philadelphia, in 1816. He was born in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, and was a hatter by trade. He purchased the tools of Abraham Wisecaver, who had previously removed to Muskingum county, and followed his calling for a number of years. For sixteen or eighteen years he was a justice of the peace in this township. He died in 1852. A few more years brought in Benjamin Ricketts, Otho and Daniel Cresap, John Forrest, Hezekiah Robinson, John McCullough, William Carhart. Garrett and Joseph Buckingham, John Smeltzer, Sanford Madden and others, and by 1820, the population had probably reached one hundred and fifty. No statistics are at hand, but this is the estimate of several old settlers who were living here at the time.

The earliest pioneers of Coshocton deserve a more extended account, and of a few, concerning whom information is had, short sketches are herewith given.

Charles Williams, the first resident of the county seat, was among the first emigrants to cross the Ohio, and the principal personage in the first company that made a permanent settle- ment within the present limits of Coshocton county. He was born near Hagerstown, Wash- ington county, Maryland, in 1764. His parents were of Irish and Scotch descent, and during the Revolutionary war removed to Washington county, Pennsylvania; at its close they moved a little farther west, in the vicinity of Wellsburgh, Virginia. This was then the frontier, and Wil- liams grew to manhood here amidst the perils of border warfare. At twenty or twenty-one he left his father's house, crossed the Ohio into what is now Jefferson county, and soon after became en- gaged to Susannah Carpenter, one of seventeen

children connected with the principal family of the settlement in wealth and influence, her father having given his name to the settlement, "Car- penter's Fort," or Carpenter's Station, as it was sometimes called. The attachment of the parties was mutual, but the stern old gentleman refused his consent, and was inexorable. Consequently an elopement was determined upon. The good old man was decoyed from home one day, upon one pretense or another, by Samuel Morrison, who was among the first settlers of this county, and afterward brother-in-law to Williams, and the young couple made good their escape, crossed the Ohio and were married in the usnal every- day dress of carly settlers. After changing his place of abode several times in different parts of Ohio, he came to Muskingum county and en- gaged for a while in the manufacture of salt. Not succeeding here as he desired, in the spring of 1800 he removed to Coshocton county.

There came with him his wife and two child- ren, his brother-in-law, William Morrison, and Isaac and Henry Hoagland, with their wives and one or two children each. Their place of settle- ment was on Denman's prairie, several miles up the Wolhonding from Coshocton. This spot of open prairie land seems to have been especially inviting in the midst of the dense forest which surrounded it. It began near the mouth of what has since been called Stone creek, and extended several miles up the river, varying in width ac- cording to the course of the stream. The margin of the river was skirted with timber. The set- tlers ran a fence between the prairie land and this strip of timber. They were unable, from the fewness of their number, to erect cabins im- mediately, and dwelt for some time in a kind of tent. The cabins, when built, stood away from the river at the foot of the hills, which bounded the prairie at the north. The following year, as already mentioned, Mr. Williams removed to Coshocton, where he remained until his death, August 2, 1840.

The life of Colonel Williams is intimately as- sociated with the carly history of Coshocton. He was a successful trapper, hunter, Indian scout and trader, and held every office, being almost all the time in some position in the county, from road supervisor and tax collector to member of

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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY.

the State legislature. He was famous as a tavern keeper, and in that and other capacities became very popular. Clever, genial, naturally shrewd, indomitable in purpose, not averse to the popu- lar viees of his day, and even making a virtue of profanity, he was for forty years & controlling spirit of the county, and for twenty-five years the controlling spirit. He was a man of great nat- ural ability, though he never learned to read or write till he came to Coshocton. 'Squire Whitten gave him what little assistance he needed in learning to read and write. He was a man, too, of many good qualities, generous, enterprising and possessed of a commanding influence over others, so much so that he was familiarly known as "King Charlie." He obtained his military title from a promotion to the office of colonel in the militia of the State.

Ebenezer Buckingham, Sr., was born at Green- field, Connecticut, November 1, 1748. His father having been lost at sea while Ebenezer was yet a youth, he lived with his brother-in-law, Albert Sherwood, until he became of age. He was mar- ried at his native place in 1771, to Esther Brad- ley, daughter of Rev. Elanthan Bradley. After liv- ing at several places in New York, he determined in 1799, to move West. Two sons, Ebenezer, Jr., and Stephen,-the former of whom had gone to the settlements at Marietta, Ohio, as early as 1796, followed not long after by Stephen-returned home to Cooperstown, New York, with such glowing accounts of the beautiful and fertile country on the Muskingum river, that they all concluded to emigrate to that land flowing with milk and honey. They left Cooperstown, De- cember 25, 1799, on two sleds drawn by one yoke of oxen each, leaving the two oldest daughters who were married, and taking ten children with them. A Mr. Spencer and wife, accompanied them with another sled across the mountains to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by the way of Cove Gap, where they waited six weeks for the ice on the Ohio river to break up, when the cattle were sent by land through what was then a wilderness, under the care of his son Stephen, to Middle Is- land, on the Muskingum above Marietta, while the balance of the family with their goods and effects, descended the Ohio on a flat boat, reaching

Marietta in March, 1800. They poled the boat up the Muskingum, passing Zanesville, with its two or three cabins (the cattle going up by land), and finally settled at the mouth of Killbuck creek. It is said they were accompanied by one or two other families from Marietta, whose names are unknown. They immediately put up their cabins, made of logs with clapboard roofs and dirt floors. The doors were hung with wooden hinges and not a nail or piece of iron was used in the construction of the cabins. Herc they traded with the Delaware Indians, the older oncs of whom were very expert in the use of the bow and arrow. They raised fine erops of corn and potatoes the first spring, and also in 1801 and IS02. He probably occupied for a while the house at Coshocton, built by his son, Ebenezer, Jr , and suffering much from sickness here in the fall of 1802 he removed to the mouth of the Hockhocking on the Ohio. Here he raised a crop of corn, then settled in Carthage where he resided until his death, October 24, 1824. His widow removed to Putnam, Muskingum county, where she remained with her son, Ebenezer, till her death, several years later.

Dr. Samuel Lce settled in Coshocton as a regu- lar practicing physician in June, ISII. He was born and spent his boyhood on a farm near Pult- ney, Vermont, studied medicine at Castleton, Vermont, and, in 1809, came to Ohio in company with Rev. Timothy Harris, of Granville, Ohio. The journey was performed on horseback through the wilderness. On the route they encountered Indians and swollen streams, and camped out at night by watch-fires. The doctor stopped first at Granville nearly two years, where he married Miss Sabra Case; then resided a few months in Mount Vernon. He came to Coshocton in search of an estrayed or stolen horse. The town was then a mere hanlet and wanted a physician, and he removed at once with his wife and one child. He lived during a part of the first year in a small cabin on Second street, built by Mr. Neff for a tailor shop, but about Christmas of the same year he removed to a small cabin on the southeast cor- ner of Main and Fourth streets, then surrounded by a thick growth of hazel bushes. Surgery was a more prominent element of practice then than

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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY.

at present. Fighting was common-almost uni- versal -- and bruised or broken limbs must often be mended. Among the doctor's first patients were two men who had been fighting, one having his ear bitten off and the other his eye gouged. Nor were his services always called into requisi- tion in those self-reliant days. Witness the fol- lowing: An individual was thrown into spasms one day at Charlie Williams' tavern, and fell writhing to the floor. The doctor's residence was some distance away, and the case seemed to demand immediate action. The inquiry, " What is good for fits?" passed through the crowd as- sembled there, and the prevailing opinion seemed to be that bleeding was the proper remedy. Ac- cordingly, an energetic, muscular man seized the prostrate patient by the hair with his left hand, raised his head from the floor, and, with his clenched fist, dealt him a powerful blow upon the nose as the most available point and nearest the supposed seat of disease. This heroic treatment was successful, and the man speedily recovered his senses.

At the time the doctor came here there was no other physician within the radius of thirty miles and a ride of this distance and even farther was of eommon occurrence, often necessitating an ab- senee from home of several days. He remained a life-long citizen of Coshocton and died March 19, 1874, having completed within four months his eighty-ninth year.

Dr. Lee had undoubted adaptations for his time and place. The roughness and freedom and economy of pioneer life did not misfit him. He was very genial; could tell a good story and crack a joke with the jolliest of the men and women of that day. Although holding publie office but twice-that of county treasurer in very early days, and that of State senator in 1826-27-he was always interested in public affairs. There are abundant evidenees of his friendly disposition in his readiness to go on their official bonds, and otherwise stand for his neighbors. His conscien- tionsness and diligence in his profession none have questioned. He had a quick-wittedness and strong common sense that often stood in lieu of profundity of attainment. He was not what might be called a scholarly man but always the friend of intelligence. His shrewdness and striet

honesty in business transactions were prominent features of his character. His ereditors were generally few and debtors many. The doctor at an early day owned almost the entire square bounded by Fourth, Fifth, Main and Walnut streets. He had a farm just east of town; but his residence was for the most of his life in the briek house at the corner of Fourth and Main streets.

One of the cherished traditions of Coshoeton is that Colonel Williams once kieked out of his tav- ern Louis Phillippe, afterward king of France. The story runs somewhat as follows: Louis was putting up at the tavern and was not satisfied with the accommodations. An altercation en- ›ued between him and the tavern-keeper, ending in his telling Williams that he was heir to the French throne, and would not, as the coming sovereign, condescend to bandy words with a backwoods plebian. Williams replied that in this backwoods of America there were no plebians. " We are all sovereigns here," said he, "and I'll show you our power," and suiting the action to the word, he kicked Louis Phillippe out of the house, at which the "sovereigns" loitering around the tavern gave three cheers. The statement that he was once in Coshocton rests upon the fact that when George W. Silliman, attorney at law in Coshocton, visited Paris, in a reported interview with Louis Phillippe, then on the throne, the king told him that he onee went to a point in the Northwest Territory, where two rivers came to- gether, and gave such a description of the place and the landlord of the tavern, who, he said, treated him very shabbily, as to satisfy Silliman that Coshocton was the place and Williams the tavern-keeper. Colonel Williams, on being spo- ken to about it afterward, stated that he recol- leeted the occurrence. It is a historical fact that Louis Phillippe came to America in 1796, and it seems to be well established that he visited the Muskingum valley, but it is equally true that he sailed from New York to England, reaching it in January, 1800, before Colonel Williams kept tav- ern in Coshocton.

Coshocton in its infancy was frequently visited by the Indians, upon trading or other excursions, and sometimes difficulties arose, but nothing more serious than an occasional fight. Just as

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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY.

the war of 1812 was breaking out, they came several times, in war paint, to Col. Williams' tavern, where they were accustomed to trade, and boasted of the depredations they were about to commit upon the whites. After the war opened, most of the able-bodied citizens of Co- shoeton and vicinity were drawn off in mili- tary companies and stationed at different points in the northern part of the State. A rumor was spread abroad one day that the town was to be attacked that night by a force of savages, and the people congregated at Colonel Williams'cabin for safety, but it proved a false alarm.

During the winter of 1814-15, the town was visited by what was called "the cold plague." It was a most fatal disease, of which many died, sometimes whole families. On Cantwell's run, in Roscoe, Andrew Craig's whole family per- ished, and some forty or fifty persons are said to have died in Coshocton and the country around. The consternation which its ravages produced was great. The same disease reappeared in 1823, or about that time, but was less fatal in its attacks.

The following narrative of a lost child, in Co- schocton, in pioneer times, is from the pen of Rev. H. Calhoun. It well represents the " condi- tion of things," as they existed here years ago:

It was a cloudy, September day in 1812, in the early history of Coshocton, when Malona Lee, an only child, eighteen months old, was lost. The country was then all very new; Indians were often seen, and at night hungry wolves were heard howling near the settlement. There were but few people then in the place, perhaps not over fifty all told, and these were scattered in some ten or twelve families over nearly all the present limits of the town (in 1850). Between many of the cabins and log houses, for there were only one or two frame houses, there were aeres of ground covered with hazel thickets, and a narrow foot path might here and there be seen running from one cabin to another. There was a road which ran along the river bank, and an- other which ran out into the hills in the direc- tion of Cadiz. Besides these two roads and the foot paths we have mentioned communicating between the dwellings in different parts of the settlement, there was another, which had been cut out for the purpose of getting wood by the

inhabitants, and which extended out a mile and a half from the river east, and was lost in the dense forest beyond. The residence of Dr. S. Lee was situated about midway between this wood path and the Cadiz road, some distance from any neighbor.

The doctor had been engaged during the day ·in his professional business, and, having returned home late in the afternoon, went into the garden to secure some vegetables which were growing there. He had not been there long when Mrs. Lee called to him to know if he had seen Malona. The reply was that he had not, when she re- turned and made further search for her. Not being alarmed, the doctor continued his work, thinking nothing more of it, for he had seen the child in the house as he passed through on his way to the garden.

After some time Mrs. Lee again returned to the garden, saying that she had searched the house and been to the neighbors', but could hear nothing of the child. By this time both were much concerned about her safety, knowing that if she were lost in the hazel thickets, in the midst of which they lived, it would be impossi- ble for one so young to find her way home, and next to impossible for them to find her.

Both now set out in a new, thorough and anx- ious search for the lost child; for lost in earnest, she seemed to be. Again they made seareh all over their premises, and all the child's resorts for play, and again they went through the town, call- upon every one to know if they had seen the child. But it was all in vain. It was now grow- ing dark, and no trace of the lost one was yet found, and the dreadful thoughts of their only child lost in the wilderness around them, with all its dangers, filled the hearts of the anxious parents with an almost breathless solicitude, and with distressing forbodings for her safety.

Nearly the whole settlement were soon alarmed, and without respect to age or sex, gathered at the house, every heart beating with sympathy for the afflicted parents. It was resolved at once to commenee the search of the thickets north of the house. It was a very still and cold, though cloudy and dark night. Candles and torches were soon lighted up, and every individual tak- ing one in hand, they formed a line a few feet

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apart from each other, and commenced their march north through the thickets, every one carefully searching on every side until they came out to the Cadiz road. Several times they passed through and through, until they became satisfied that the child must have wandered away in a dif- ferent direction.

And now the search began south of the house, down the river road running out into the hills and forests before referred to. All the hazel thickets were examined carefully in that direc- tion. At length the impression of her little foot was found in the sand, in the road nearly south of the house from which she had innocently strayed away. A few impressions only were found and all further traces of her were lost, and again all was bewilderment and anxiety as be- fore; for a child so young was as likely to forsake as to follow the beaten path. By this time it was far on in the night. Nothing had as yet been found to allay in the last the solicitude for the child's safety. It was a grand spectacle which those fathers of the present generation and hardy pioneers there formed. The deeply solicitous father, the distressed mother, with lights in hand, hurrying to and fro, and many anxious parents around them feeling almost as though it were their own child. Scattering out on each side of the way they now conclude to search and follow the road out into the deep forest; for the traces found indicated she had gone in that direction. A few rods further on brought them again upon the tracks which the child had made; and not far from that she had lost a little shoe which lay in the road. It was a cloth shoe of her own moth- er's contrivance, just such a shoe as the ingenuity of a kind mother had readily contrived amid the stern necessities of a pioneer life.

Thus they follow on, finding no more traces of the child until the road is lost in the hills and deep forest. Then the search was suspended; while some busied themselves in kindling large fires to give light and warmth, and as defense from wild animals, and others continued their examinations, believing the child to be some- where in the vicinity.

It was now the dead of night. The fires were blazing high among the trunks and branches of the heavy forest trees, and the scene was distress-

ing, gloomy and grand enough. But none slept -- the woods were all alive with fires and the torches of those hurrying here and there, still continuing the search. In vain was the anxious mother entreated to return home to rest. Though worn down with fatigue, none moved swifter to and fro and continued the fruitless search with seemingly so little sense of fatigue as she did, so absorbed were her thoughts in her care and so- licitude for the child-her only child.

Many were coming and going on all sides with lights and torches, and many anxious inquiries were made as they passed, if any trace of the child had been found. Old Squire Whitten, a hardy blacksmith and the first justice of the peace of Coshocton county, having carelessly ex- amined a cluster of underbrush, and being dis- satisfied with his search went back to look again, and lo! there was the dear object of all their search, folded in the arms of sleep lying upon the leaves, unconscious of her danger or of the many friends so near. Awakened by the noise she looked up, and discovering the Squire, she ex- claimed in her joy, " Pretty Papa!" " Pretty Papa!"

A shout was raised by the overjoyed man, a genuine Indian war-whoop, to which the ears of many of the early settlers were familiar. When the friends and father and mother gathered around, the lost one was enjoying the caresses of the good man, sitting upon his knee, stroking his hardy features, and saying "Pretty Papa!" " Pretty Papa!" There was no indication that she had so much as shed a tear-probably falling asleep from over-fatigue.

A famous organization in the carly annals of Coshocton was the "Whoo-whoo Society," which was organized in 1828, on the 8th day of January. For many days a heavy storm of mingled wind, rain, sleet and snow had poured down, and its effects were soon visible in the melting of the pre- vious snow and the rapidly rising streams. The waters of the Walhonding and Tuscarawas were swollen beyond all precedent. They soon left their accustomed banks and completely flooded the low lands in the forks. Residents on the low lands by the river began to look about for a place of refuge. Some sought a home among hospita- ble friends, while others packed themselves away in their cabin lofts and the second stories of their

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HISTORY OF COSHOCTON COUNTY.

dwellings, fastening a canoe to the upper window as a last resort. Timber, drift-wood, hay and grain, farming implements, hogs and cattle in one confused medley, went hurrying by. Appre- hensions being entertained that there might be distress in some of the cabins, a skiff was manned and started up the river for the cabin of John Elder, two miles from the forks, partly from sym- pathy and partly for the sake of adventure. Ar- riving at their destination, the crew found that the family had deserted the cabin and found safety on high land. On the return, as the expe- dition promised nothing more romantic, the ad- venturers made an inroad upon the turkeys and chickens, which, chilled with the cold, sat on the limbs of the trees down almost to the water's edge; and arriving safely among their friends with the trophies, gave out that they had fallen in with a flock of "owls."

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History of Coshocton County, Ohio, its past and present, 1740-1881, Part 68

Author: Hill, Norman Newell, jr., [from old catalog] comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A. A., & co., Newark, O., pub. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Newark, Ohio, A. A. Graham & co. Number of Pages: 854

Author: Hill, Norman Newell, jr., [from old catalog] comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A. A., & co., Newark, O., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Newark, Ohio, A. A. Graham & co.
Number of Pages: 854