USA > Ohio > Greene County > History of Greene County, Ohio: its people, industries and institutions, Volume I > Part 18
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In 1805 Davis sold his mill on Beaver creek to Jacob Smith, and re- moved to Miami township where he spent the rest of his life. There, on the present site of the town of Clifton, he erected the first mill in Miami township, the stone foundation of which can still be seen ( 1918) near the saw-mill, east of the present Clifton mill. Here he served his customers until his death on February 18, 1818.
A LATER OWNER OF THE MILL.
The fact that there was a mill in this county had some influence upon the settlement of this section, and it was not long after it was opened for business that the sound of the ax could be heard above the mill on Beaver creek, where John Thomas, John Webb and John Kizer were erecting their cabins out of the logs which they had cut out of the neighboring forest. Soon, however, the little mill proved inadequate for the increasing trade and it was abandoned by its new owner, Jacob Smith, who erected a larger
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one nearby, a frame structure. He converted this into a woolen-mill later. From a woolen-mill it was changed into a cotton-mill and from that back to a woolen-mill.
In October, 1815, James Scott, a young native of Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, came with his brother, John, into Greene county to buy a mill and settle here in business. After a few weeks spent in inspecting the mills in this part of the state, he purchased the old mill and the sur- rounding property from Jacob Smith. After the purchase was contracted, Scott and his brother started back to their native state, but the horse of the former died before they reached the Scioto river. Scott, who was very fond of fine horses, knew that he could not find one to his liking here in the West, and he decided to go the remainder of the distance on foot. His average rate of travel on foot the rest of the journey was from forty-five to forty-seven miles a day. The trip was not without incident, for when the two brothers reached a point twenty-five miles this side of Pittsburgh, John became ill and their progress was delayed for some six weeks pending his recovery. In the February of 1816, Scott returned to Greene county and took charge of the old mill, making the entire journey on foot, because he did not anticipate the immediate use of a horse after his arrival here. In the fall of 1816 he returned to Pennsylvania on horesback for his bride, Elizabeth S. Shannon, and soon after their marriage the young people moved to this county in a wagon. They lived in the cabin which was the first county seat of justice, and John Scott lived with them. A few days after they had arrived in the county, Scott and his bride went to Xenia to purchase some necessary household furnishings, and among the articles they bought at the store of James Gowdy was a Dutch oven, a three-legged affair which the early settlers made constant use of in the preparation of the homely but nutritious fare of the pioneer days.
The nearest market which James Scott had for the surplus product of his industry was at Cincinnati, and he often sent loads of flour to that young city in an early day by four-horse teams. On one occasion he employed one of his neighbors to take a load of flour to Cincinnati and the trip down was without event. On the return trip, however, the driver's difficulty . began. After he entered the forests of Brown and Clermont counties, which were unbroken, he lost his way. He wandered around in the woods there for several days, but finally reached the mill after an absence of three weeks.
JAMES GALLOWAY, SR.
Not long after the settlement on Beaver creek, settlers began to enter other parts of what later became Greene county, and one other region of this section was the north central portion of the county. The first settler
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in this north central part was James Galloway, Sr., that grand old pioneer who was a very active participant in the making of the early history of the county. James Galloway was born in Pennsylvania on May 2, 1750, and there grew to manhood. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War he enlisted in the American cause and, because he was an expert hunter, he was detailed to furnish game for the unit of which he was a member. While the war was in progress, he married Rebecca Junkin, of Cumber- land county, Pennsylvania, November 23, 1778, and then removed to Ken- tucky. There he stayed for several years, associated with Daniel Boone and the other pioneers of that section, and took part in George Rogers Clark's second expedition against Oldtown.
James Galloway's pioneer activities inevitably brought him into con- flict with the Indians and incidentally with Simon Girty. At one time when he was unarmed, he met Girty, who fired upon him. Although his wound was dangerous, he wheeled his horse and galloped back to the camp a mile distant, arriving there in a fainting condition. It was found that the ball had passed through the shoulder and lodged near the back of the neck. After carrying the bullet for many years, it was extracted by Dr. Joshua Martin. Even though the ball was a source of great annoyance to him, it served as a barometer to his neighbors, the wound being much affected by the state of the weather.
It was early in the spring of 1798 that James Galloway, Sr., brought his family from Bourbon county, Kentucky, and settled five miles north of the present site of Xenia, west of the Little Miami river, opposite the place where the Miami Powder Mills now stand. His family consisted at first of four sons, James, Jr., Samuel, William, Andrew and one daughter, Rebecca, whose influence on the distinguished Shawnee chieftain, Tecum- seh, has already been alluded to. Afterward the family was enlarged by the birth of another son, Anthony, and a daughter, Ann.
It is a matter of interesting conjecture as to how Galloway erected his cabin, for there were no settlers in that part of the county, since his sons were mere children, the oldest, James, Jr., being only a lad of sixteen years. Suffice it to say, the resourceful pioneer soon had a place for his family. Again, the matter of providing food must have been a serious problem to this old settler whose family was quite large, as he could not carry with him many provisions when he entered this wilderness. Fortunately, the surrounding woods were full of game and James Galloway was a hunter almost without a peer.
In those early days the settlers almost universally were moderate users of whisky, but seldom imbibed it to excess. Men in all walks of life had
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their supply, and any occasion of note, such as the sale of a farm or the signing of a contract, was duly celebrated by an appropriate drink. As the country became settled, a continuous supply of whisky became a necessity, for, although it was not so essential as bread, it was used to a great extent as a medicine. The country was new and chills and ague prevailed. Ac- cordingly, Galloway erected a distillery on the small stream which formerly crossed the Yellow Springs pike, and there he supplied the wants of the settlers.
In 1802, Galloway and his son, James, started to Louisville to see about the latter receiving the appointment of surveyor, and during their journey they heard Rev. Robert Armstrong preach. It was by the former's influence and persuasion that Reverend Armstrong came to what later became Greene county to minister to the needs of the settlers here. In this manner the first church society was formed here. A detailed description of this occur- rence was written by Andrew Galloway, and this appears elsewhere in this chapter. The church society formed was the old Massies Creek congregation.
OTHER PIONEERS.
Other families became residents of the northern central part of the county. James Galloway, Jr., the blacksmith, and Adam McPherson had accompanied James Galloway, Sr., from Kentucky, and in the same year, 1798, Thomas Townsley settled near the falls of Massies creek. In 1799 or 1800 George Galloway settled on what became the Yellow Springs pike, just north and west of the Little Miami river. In the opening year of the century, Solomon McCully settled north of the Little Miami river on what is now the Fairfield pike. Later, Arthur Forbes located on the farm which afterward became the holding of Robert A. Mitchell. John, James and David Anderson settled on what used to be called the Kershner farm, on the Yellow Springs and Dayton pike, and Ezekiel Hopping even farther north in the county. Reverend Armstrong bought a tract of three hundred and one acres from James Galloway, Sr., adjoining the holding of the latter, and James Andrews, the father-in-law of Reverend Armstrong, moved northward from Tennessee into Greene county and settled on a farm just west of the holding of Reverend Armstrong. James Andrews had a large family, consisting of Nancy, the wife of Reverend Armstrong, James, Will- iam, Rebecca, John, Hugh, George, Ebenezer and Elizabeth. He was a valuable asset to the settlement of the country, because he was a craftsman, making large and small spinning-wheels, stocking plows with wooden mold- boards and doing the general repair and wagon-making work of the neigh- borhood. George Junkin, one of the first blacksmiths of the county, estab-
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lished his shop near the Fairfield pike, south of the R. A. Mitchell homestead. In this same neighborhood Matthew Quinn settled in 1803.
When Frederick Bonner, Sr .. came to Greene county in 1803, he bought two thousand acres of land, two miles south of Xenia. He was a Methodist and formed the nucleus of the Union settlement of that denomination in this county. He was joined by James Butler, Thomas Perkins and Gray Gary in 1804, and in the following year Tinsley Heath, J. and I. Lloyd and mother, John Fires, Isaac Maitland and John Lewis came to this settlement. The year 1806 saw the arrival of Bennet and Horatio Maxey, and in 1807 Peter Pelham came, at which time the settlement became known as . the Union settlement. In 1808 their numbers were increased by the coming of Philip Davis, Theodoric Spain and Alexander Stowel, most of whom had families.
There were other families among the earliest settlers of the county. Those in the Beaver creek, Little Miami and Massies creek neighborhoods were Alexander Forbes, William Jenkins, - Bromagen, Mrs. Creswell, Alexander McCoy, John and James Stephenson, John Townsley, Josiah and Benjamin Grover, William Maxwell, David Puterbaugh, George Wolf, Jacob Nesbitt, James Tatman, Martin Shoup, Nathan and David Lamme, James Mitchell, Isaac Miller, Alexander McHatton, Andrew Stewart and Col. James Marrow.
On Caesars creek Isaiah and William Sutton had settled shortly before 1803. Among the other early settlers of the Sugar creek neighborhood, besides the Vances and the Wilsons, were James Clancy, John and Joseph McKnight, Captain Lamb, William Tanner, James and William Snodgrass, James and Jacob Snowden, Abraham Von Eaton, David McLane and Joseph Robinson.
REMINISCENCES OF FREDERICK BONNER, JR.
In the early days when the pioneers began entering this new country which bore so much promise of becoming very fruitful, their means of trans- portation and communication were very rude and caused innumerable and almost unsurmountable difficulties to stand in the way of the incoming set- tlers. There were no roads except the narrow paths which were used by the military expeditions which had been sent into the heart of the state against the Indians. It is true that the trails of the redskins sufficed as some means of communication, but their utility was negligible, because they only joined the sites of their former villages. There were no bridges and the fords were dangerous. Nothing remained for the early residents of this county but to strike out across the country, following the line of least re- sistance, to the site of their intended abodes.ª
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Such travel was fraught with danger as is shown in the following reminiscences of Frederick Bonner, Jr., who related the experience of his father, Frederick Bonner, Sr., one of the early settlers of this county when he traveled northward from Cincinnati through the dense forest which bor- dered the banks of the Little Miami, toward the territory which was erected into Greene county in the year in which he became a resident of this section.
In the year 1802, father sold his land in Virginia (five hundred acres) for two thou- sand dollars, and bought two surveys of one thousand acres each, in what was then the Northwest Territory, at a cost of two thousand dollars. Upon visiting it, and finding it well. situated, he returned and began preparations for moving on it the following season. On Saturday, April 1, 1803, we started, and went as far as Petersburg, and remained until Monday. Two other families joined us, and our outfit was all put in two covered wagons, including household goods, a chest of carpenter's tools, and a turning-lathe. To each of these were attached four horses, with bells on the leaders. A one-horse wagon carried the provisions, and the females when they became tired of walking. In addition to these we had a canvas to sleep under at night. On Monday we resumed our long journey to the far west, pursuing a route through southern Virginia, which, in a few days, brought us within view of the mountains; first, the peaks of the Blue Ridge, then the Alleghany and Cumberland. Crossing these in safety, we reached Kentucky, passing along the Crab Orchard road. Arriving at Lexington, we pushed on to Cincinnati (then a village of fifteen hundred), crossing the Ohio river at that place, May 10, 1803, and camping near the mouth of Deer creek, then some distance from the village. Next morning we went up the river into the Little Miami valley, crossing the river a little above Cincinnati. Here we encountered our first serious difficulty. The water was high, and running swiftly. Our four-horse wagon crossed without accident; but when the wagon containing the wife of a Mr. Day proceeded as far as the middle, the swiftest part of the stream, one of the horses fell and could not rise. Mr. Day, in attempting to assist, was washed off down the stream with the horses. Father went to his assistance, but the water tripped him up, and he also went struggling down the river to the alarm of all. Fortunately, he got on the same side from which he entered, while Day was still struggling in the river near his horses. Fin- ally, they succeeded in fastening a chain to the end of the tongue, and hitching our horses to it, we drew the wagon out. All this time Day's wife and child were in the wagon, in immi- nent danger of being capsized into the river and washed away. Mr. Day and family located near the vicinity of this accident and we followed up the river to the present site of Milford, where we found a vacant cabin which father rented for two months. Into this we moved and remained until we could make arrangements to go to our land in Greene county. In June father and some of the boys went to the land, and selected a spot to build a cabin near Glady run, a branch of the Little Miami, which was to accommodate us as our new home in the woods.
SAMUEL PETERSON, A REAL PIONEER.
Although not numbered among the first comers to Greene county, Sam- uel Peterson was a real pioneer of Greene county, where he lived the rugged life of the early settler. He was a native of Virginia, but he left his native state for Greene county in 1815, where he assisted his brother-in-law, Joseph Bootes, on the latter's farm. He made the long trip on horseback, but after he had remained here during the summer, he returned to the Old Dominion. In the fall following, his father came to this county, bringing with him the
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entire family of five sons and two daughters, and located on a five-hundred- acre tract on Caesars creek south of Xenia, which he had previously pur- chased. Soon after the arrival of the family, one of the daughters married Jonathan Ketterman, a former resident of the county, and Samuel was sent by his father to Chillicothe to buy a new saddle, a present for the bride, before she began her journey back to her native state with her husband.
The father and his five stalwart sons immediately began a vigorous assault upon the dense forest that surrounded them and soon a few acres were cleared and ready to be planted in corn. Markets for this grain were not easily found in those days and if one wished to gain the money equivalent for his crop, he had to pass it through a long process of exchanges. The Petersons first shelled the corn and they then took it to a distillery where they had it made into whisky. The liquor was taken to an iron furnace where it was traded for iron which they sold for a good price. In this manner, decidedly indirect as it was, they found a market for their corn.
Samuel Peterson was a powerful man and his feats of strength made him the envy of the young men far and near. He could outlift any young man in the neighborhood with a hand spike at a log-rolling or house-raising, and could cut the timber and make four hundred and fifty rails in one day.
It was difficult in those early days to market such a valuable product as flour. When Samuel Peterson was only twenty-one years of age he and four other young men each took a four-horse load of flour to Cincinnati from the Oldtown mill for William Beall. They started early in the morning with ten barrels each and they succeeded, by doubling their teams at the hills, in reaching the present location of Spring Valley by nightfall. By the end of the next day, they stopped within a mile of Waynesville, where Beall hired another team which enabled them to push forward more speedily. After they had reached Cincinnati, they were paid one dollar a barrel for the hauling and started home, making the entire trip in eleven days. The miller, however, was not able to dispose of his product in Cincinnati and he shipped it to New Orleans, from which point he walked back home.
In 1882 Peterson was married, after which he lived with his parents for a few years. He then moved to a tract of one hundred acres of unbroken wilderness which was given him by his father. Being a progressive young man, he had previously erected a hewed-log house on his holding, which was considered one of the most imposing structures in the county in those days. As the clearing of his farm progressed very slowly, since he worked by him- self, he removed to Xenia in 1825, where he engaged in wagon-making, but he returned to his farm in 1827. He remained there until 1865, bringing his farm to a high state of cultivation. He then sold his farm and bought another about five miles southeast of Xenia. After the death of his wife
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in 1872, he removed to Xenia, where he spent the rest of his life in well- earned retirement.
PIONEER PRICES.
Jacob Mills, the companion of Daniel Wilson, the first settler of Greene county, left his home in Warren county in 1809 and removed with his family to Greene county, settling near Clifton, where he and his sons, Jacob, Jr., Daniel, Thomas and John literally hewed a farm out of the wilderness which surrounded their cabin home. Indians often visited the Mills home, but they did not offer any resistance to the entrance of the white men. Jacob Mills, Sr., while a resident of Warren county was appointed major of the first regiment of militia that was organized in the state. After his re- moval to this county, he was elected justice of the peace of Miami township and during his incumbency of nine years, he performed more marriage cere- monies than any other justice in the state.
In the autumn of 1809 an old-fashioned singing-school was taught in Xenia by David Wilson, the oldest son of John Wilson, the first settler in Greene county. Young John Mills was anxious to attend in order to cul- tivate his musical talent, and to see the town of Xenia, which then consisted of some thirty log houses. The singing-school was conducted in the court house, then just finished, and the pioneer girls came on horseback, escorted by their beaux who gallantly assisted them from their mounts. The young ladies were dressed in linsey and a few of the elite appeared in calico, then the extreme of fashion aspired to by a few. All of this, as well as the session of the singing-school, was a source of great interest to young John Mills, and he sallied forth to see the other points of interest in the town.
He tells us that at that time all the dwellings were made of logs, ex- cepting one frame house and the brick court house. In front of the site of the present Xenia National bank was a stagnant pond of water, which was the common meeting place of all the geese, ducks and hogs of the neigh- borhood. Opposite the court house stood a hewed-log structure in which Major Beatty kept a tavern. The forest extended almost up to the court house, for on the present site of the Trinity Methodist Episcopal church stood a log cabin belonging to a Mr. Barnes, who had erected his residence in the woods. During the winter of the same year, 1809, John Mills had another occasion to visit Xenia, and he saw a business-like young settler sell- ing cider in front of the court house at twelve and one-half cents, one "bit", a quart. He had his stand beside a large stump in the street, by the side of which he built a fire. Being desirous of pleasing his customers as nearly as possible, he heated the cider to a drinkable temperature by placing in the cider a rod of iron which he had heated in the fire. As the rod sizzled in the liquor, he served his patrons.
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Prices of many commodities then were much higher than they are now. John Mills related that the material for his wedding suit cost one dollar a yard; the same could now be purchased for a few cents. Labor was cheap, fifty and seventy-five cents being the usual daily wage. Salt, which was so necessary to the early settler, but yet so very dear, was hauled from Cincin- nati, four barrels by a four-horse team, and it was sold readily for four dollars a bushel. Calico was from sixty-two cents to one dollar a yard. In those days a man could sell a load of grain and expend the entire price he received for a small quantity of coarse dry goods. Whisky was then only three cents a quart.
THE CABIN OF THE PIONEER.
As soon as possible after the settler and his family had entered the settlement and had decided upon the site for his cabin, his neighbors set a day for the "house raising," which was the occasion for a holiday in the settlement. On the appointed day, the people from the surrounding neigh- borhood, sturdy men, young boys and girls, the pioneer matrons, young swains and laughing maidens, gathered at the site for the establishment of the new home. A party was delegated as wood-choppers whose business it was to fell the trees and cut them to proper lengths, and a man with a team was near at hand to drag to the cabin site the logs as they were cut, but if they were near enough, the logs were "snaked" along by strong hands and a log chain. The logs were then sorted and placed conveniently for the builders, and two or more men who were expert with the ax went in search of a tree whose grain was straight enough for making clapboards. Another party was employed in making puncheons, split logs hewed on the flat side, for the cabin floor. When all was ready for the raising of the house, four experts were placed, one at each corner, to notch and place the logs, while the rest of the party laid the puncheon floor. Three openings were left in the wall, one about four feet wide for the door, another for the window, and a large one for fireplace, on the outside of which the wooden chimney was erected. The chimney was made of sticks laid across each other, with the interstices and the inside plastered up with clay. After the walls were raised to the desired height, the chinks between the logs were filled with "cat" and clay. The clapboard roof was held down by the trunks of small saplings split and laid lengthwise and bound firmly to the structure underneath. Not a nail was used in the structure, wooden pegs being used.
After the rollicking house-raisers had gone home, for building a new settler's cabin was always an occasion of festivity, the new resident of the neighborhood began planning to make his house habitable. He soon fash- ioned a rude puncheon table and some three-legged stools, for those with
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four legs would not adjust themselves to the rough floor. He then made his bed, a low platform built in a convenient corner. As the family grew, a puncheon floor was laid on the rafters, leaving a hole through which a ladder extended into the attic thus formed. Shelves which were supported by wooden pins driven into the walls were placed at convenient points, and on these the pioneer housewife displayed her treasured pewter dishes, basins, and spoons. After the first visit to the nearest supply store, pots were pur- chased and hung under the shelves. The settler's long rifle hung on a rack behind the door. A rude shovel and a pair of clumsy tongs stood by the wide fireplace. In a corner was the spinning wheel. On pegs driven in the walls hung the extra clothing and bedding of the household. In winter, festoons of dried apples and pumpkin hung from the rafters. Before the day of the candle, the cabin was lighted in the evening by pine or hickory knots, and sometimes the roaring fire in the wide mouth of the fire place furnished the only illumination. Because of the strenuous life of the times and the want of any reason for remaining up at night, the tired pioneer sought his bed early and lighting the cabin was not a necessity.
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