History of Greene County, Ohio, Part 28

Author: Robinson, George F., 1838-1901
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 934

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lar per yard and was not so fine as the one which he had on when we talked with him. the material of which cost him but nine cents per yard. Salt having to be hauled from Cincinnati, three or four barrels mak- ing as much as four horses. could pull over the new roads, was four dollars per barrel, calico from sixty-two cents to one dollar per yard. coffee fifty cents per pound. tea three dollars per pound, and sugar thirty- two cents per pound. Mr. Mills was mar- ried in Clifton, in 1816, to Mrs. Elizabeth Stevenson, the daughter of William Steven- son, a Kentuckian, who was a cousin to the father of Colonel Robert Stevenson. Mr. Mills remained about his father's farm, working and doing what became necessary until 1820, when he moved to some land he had bought in Fayette county, just over the line from Greene. He first went there with two or three men to assist in building a cabin and getting things ready for his fan- ily. They went into the woods two miles from any habitation and camped out. doing their own cooking and washing until the cabin was completed. In February, that year, he took his family, consisting of his wife and three children, to their new home. They moved on sleds, the snow being about two feet deep. The next day after their arrival, while at dinner, a large flock of wild turkeys walked up to their door and Mr. Mills took down his gun and killed a very large gobbler. The woods around the cabin abounded with game of all kinds. An occasional bear made its way into the vicin- ity, and wolves could be heard howling at all hours of the night in the winter season, and now and then a human-like scream of a panther wailing dismally through the for- ests. . Wolves sometimes approached with- in a hundred yards of the cabin after lambs

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in daylight. Mr. Mills lived on this farm fifty-five years. During this time he and his wife reared a family of nine children to be married, the youngest child being the wife of T. J. Lucas. They had twelve chil- dren, three of whom died in infancy. Mrs. Mills died in 1875 at the age of eighty-one years. After her death Mr. Mills sold the farm and moved near Jamestown, Ohio, making his home with his son in-law, Mr. .A. W. Bryan.

PAYTON MOORM.IN

Died in Xenia, Ohio, March 5, 1861, aged eighty years. Buried in Woodland ceme- tery, Xenia, Ohio.

Few persons perhaps are so peculiarly constituted as not to relish pleasing anec- dotes of those good old persons who have preceded us. In order to interest and amuse those of a later date, we would refer them to a couple of very eccentric individ- uals, who in the early history of Greene county were somewhat famous on account of their eccentricity. One of these gentle- men we will be pleased to introduce to our readers is the venerable Payton Moorman, of whom perhaps it will be recollected by some now living that he died in the city of Xenia. . A great many funny anecdotes have from time to time been related of him. He had an old ox cart. "once upon a time." with a box bed of his own manufacture, which he called his buggy. He would at- tach his oxen to his buggy, and he and his good old lady ( who was just as eccentric as himself) would mount in and ride to church, or to a neighbor's house to pay a friendly visit. On one occasion they had been out on a friendly call, or visit, and were returning home when a "ghost" arose

immediately before the oxen in the road. They became terribly frightened and in spite of all that Payton ( who was walking ) could do the oxen ran away with "Becca," his good wife, in the buggy, sweeping fences and everything that came in the way. Becca barely escaped with her life. The "ghost" which caused the stampede was some mischievous fellow wrapped in a shect. Suffice to say the "buggy" bed was somewhat defaced by the intervention of fence rails, and brush. On one occasion Mr. Moorman was out paying a visit with "Bally," his old mare, and by some means altogether unperceived by the old gentleman some evil minded fellow had, while he was preparing to start, succeeded in adjusting a brick bat under the saddle. The old man mounted to go, but he had no time for the interchange of compliments, "Bally" start- ing off like a locomotive, rearing and pitch- ing, the old gentleman "whoa, whoa, at every bound." On another occasion still, some fellow came (it being nightfall) and attached "Bally's" tail to a. log of the stable. The next morning when the old gentleman gave "Bally" her breakfast in the trough she refused to approach it, whereupon the old gentleman became angered at the poor old mare and fell to whipping her, remarking "Bally, I will make thee walk up to the trough and eat thy corn," and gave the old mare several licks before he discovered his mistake.

WILLIAM SANDERS.

William Sanders was born in North Carolina, and married Elizabeth Lynders. They came to Greene county, Ohio, in 1801, and located first in Sugarcreek town- ship, where they resided about two years,

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when Ebenezer Thomas offered to trade a farm of sixty acres, situated in sight of the present town of Jamestown, for a horse. The exchange was made, and in 1803 he removed to the said farm, where he lived the remainder of his life, dying July 3, 1801, at the ripe old age of eighty-five years, and is buried in the Baptist church yard soutil- west of Jamestown. His youngest son. Moses, is still ( 1899) a resident of Silver Creek township, residing on part of the old farm, with many acres more added to it.

Some one writing for "The Torchlight" November 26, 1873. giving pen pictures of some of the old pioneers of Silvercreek, relates the following of Uncle Billy San- ders :

"Mr. Sanders once purchased a clock (a wall sweeper) from Thomas Bryan, a clock peddler, and remarked at the time that he did not know much about clocks, but that 'Betty,' his wife, knew all about clocks. The clock was carried into the house and laid upon its back prior to pu !- ting it up, and while remaining in that po- sition "Betty' came around and accosted her husband with "Billy, Billy, is it going?' Mr. Bryan put the clock up, which being done, he next directed that in order to facilitate the running of the clock an ap- plication of tar be made to the machiner; thereof. Accordingly 'Billy' ordered his sen. Jack, to take some tar and get up into the loft and pour it down into the clock : he did so and of course it ran.

"The old gentleman was fond of imitat- ing the conduct of others. He had on a cer- tain occasion dined with one of his neigh- hors, and fried beans were served. Billy thought that this was the most delicious mess he ever ate. On day he had a log rolling, and he told .Betty' that she must

have fried beans for dinner. Accordingly when dinner time came 'Betty' served up the beans, but they were so hard that he could not masticate them; whereupon the old gentleman exclaimed. 'Betty, your beans are not done,' to which she responded. 'the more I fried them the harder they got.' She had fried the beans without previousiy boiling them.

"The old gentleman was perhaps one of the most eccentric men of his time. His custom made him more so. He wore very plain clothes consisting of the old fashioned round-about and pantaloons the latter ex- tending downward to a point about midwas between the knee and ankle, and his feet clad with shoes. Some few people in Greene county may still remember Uncle Billy Sanders. Peace to his ashes."

EDWARD WARREN, A SOLDIER OF THE REVO- LUTION.

His name appears first as a resident of Greene county, Ohio, in the enumeration that was taken of Silver Creek township for the year 1813. On the 20th day of October. 1820. personally appeared in open court (it being a court of record ) Edward War- ren, aged seventy-one years being duly sworn, doth on his oath declare. "I served as a private soldier in the company com- manded by Captain John Holladay, in the First Regiment of foot from the state of Pennsylvania, commanded by Colonel James Chambers in the service of the United States, and I am the same Edward Warren, that in conformity with the law of the United States of the 18th of March. 1818, late a private in the army of the Rev- olution. and inscribed on the pension roll of the Ohio agency, at the rate of eight

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dollars per month, to commence on the 5th of October, 1819." He was at the time of making this application seventy-one years okl, and was a cripple in the left hand by reason of a wound received by a ball in the battle of White Plains, in the state of New York. He also says that he is debilitated in body by reason of old age, not able to work, in consequence of the wound in his left hand and old age. His wife, Susanna. (lied, and he had two children living with him at this time, one son, Samuel, who was sixteen years of age, and his daughter. Lydia, aged nine years. His son, Samuel, was sickly and not able to do much work. Mr. Warren says that he served sixteen months in the Revolutionary war, and was discharged in consequence of the wound in his left hand as above stated.

JOIIN GORDON.

John Gordon was born near Salem, Virginia, on the 15th day of February, 1802. and died in Ross township. Greene county. Ohio, on the 15th of February. 1880. and was buried in the cemetery cast oi Grapegrove, Ross township. Ilis fa- ther. Richard Gordon, was born in Buck- ingham county, Virginia. December 12. 1774, two years before the declaration of independence was declared. Ilis grandfa- ther, Giles Gordon, was a soklier in the war of the Revolution and participated in one of the hardest fought battles of that war in Virginia.

About the close of the war, his wife (John's grandmother) stated that in her back yard where she was standing she heard the booming of the cannon, when the battle was raging at the same time, knowing that her husband was at that time engaged in

that deadly combat. After the battle was over and his grandfather came home. he related that it was dreadful, the dead and dying were everywhere, and had they been gathered and seattered over a ten-acre field he could have walked over them without touching the ground. His grandfather moved to Rockingham county, Virginia. when John's father was about ten years oki. and was overseer for his brother Robert for some time. From there he moved to Campbell county, where they resided until John's father was twenty-one years oldl. John's father, Richard, was a resident when Salem, Virginia, was laid out as a town, and built the first house in the place. He was married to Miss Anna Garst, near Salem, January 15. 1801. John was born two miles from this place on Harrison creek, his mother not yet seventeen years old when he was born: his brothers, James and William, were also born there.

In the fall of 1805 John's father re- moved to Highland county, Ohio, crossed the river where Maysville, Kentucky, is now located and settled on White Oak creek. ten miles from Hillsboro, where he resided for two years, and there his brother Andrew was born in the fall of 1800.

In the fall of 1807 John's father sold his land in Highland county, Ohio, and started back to old Virginia, and after a long and tiresome journey they reached the home of John's grandfather in Botetourt county. There again John's father settled on Mason's creek, not far from Salem, John's birthplace, where they continued to reside for about nine years, or up to 1810. October 7. 1816, his father, after trying hard to make a living. became discouraged at the result of trying to raise his family on rented land, and at the above date again

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started back t Ohio, and after a long and tiresome journey, arrived at the mouth of Licking river, crossed over and again be- came a "Buckeye." from there to Hamilton and Dayton, and from there to a place two miles west of Springfield, Ohio where they arrived at the house of Creston Frantz, an uncle of John's mother, on the 12th ( i No- veniber, 1816. At this time there were twelve of the family. John and his wife and ten children. John being the eldest and in his fifteenth year.

They rented a house of Daniel Frantz for a year, and while living in this tem- porary home his father heard of a farm four miles from Springfield which after a good deal of traveling he secured, and Jan- uary to, 1817, commenced work on the same. Snow fell that winter fourteen inches deep. Ile continued to work, and in the fall of that year had erected a house of hewn logs two stories high, twenty-one by twenty-six feet, with one door and one window. John continued to live here with his father until about the year 1822, he then being twenty-one years old. he began to think of doing for himself.

Ile had been having pretty good times socially and had been "smitten" with the charms of a pretty young lass, the young- est daughter of Jacob Wagoner, living in the neighborhood. She at the time was the "belle" of that vicinity, and as both families were well pleased, so was Mary, and John continued to pay his respects to her for about two years, and finally. April 1. 1824. they were married.

They went to housekeeping on his fa- ther's farm, where he continued for two years, when an opportunity was offered and he lecame the owner of forty acres of his ( \'11. lle immediately went to work and

put up his cabin and moved into it soon aft- crwards. He added to it twenty acres more, so he had a farm of sixty acres, but in the winter of 1833 he began to think he must have more land. Ilis brother Andrew was married and located in Ross township. Greene county, Ohio. In February, 1833. he went down to see his brother Andrew, and they went out to see a tract of land which was for sale, and each purchased one hundred and eighty-three acres. He then went back home, sold his sixty acres to his father and commenced work on his purchase in Greene county.

In the month of October, having at that time five children, he removed to his farm, where he continued to live until his death. Mr. Gordon said that the first time he saw Springfield was in the fall of 1816, there being at that time but three brick buildings. small in size, in the place. It was then in Champaign county, Urbana being the coun- ty seat. In the fall of 1817 Clark county was organized, taken from the adjoining counties of Greene, Champaign and Madi- son, and Springfield became the county seat of Clark county. Saul Hinkle, a Meth- (Klist preacher, was the first clerk of the courts of Clark county, and held the office as long as he lived.

LANCELOT JUNKIN

Was born in Kentucky on the tith day of January, 1806, and was seventy-seven years old at the time of his death. He took part in educating a great number of citizens in this county, and he should not be allowed to pass away without some notice. His grandparents and uncles were of the col- ony that left Kentucky on account of slav- ery, and settled in this county, thus estab-

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lishing a center of religious influences that made a rallying point for that class of emi- grants. No other incident did so much for Greene county. The following named are a few of these colonists: The Galloways, Andrews, McCoys, Townsleys, Kyles, Mor- rows. Laugheads.

Lancelet was the son of James Junkin. and in early life commenced as a teacher. teaching in all parts of the county. When the law came in force requiring certificates of qualifications he was the first in the county to receive a certificate. It was about 1848 that Mr. Junkin removed to Lima, Ohio, where he continued to teach until the infirmities of age made him stop and rest. lle could not. hu wever, remain idle in vid age, and engaged in the sale of family med- icines, selling only those that he believed to be useful. A year or more later he re- turned to this county with his aged partner in life, who survives him, and was residing in Jamestown, until his final illness, with his son-in-law, William Junkin, but was re- moved by his wife to his home, where he died, August 11. 1883. aged seventy-seven years.

THE OLD JUNKIN SCHOOL HOUSE.

Main street. Nenia and Limestone street. Springfield, cross each other two miles south of Cedarville, Ohio. In early days one was called Federal and the other Limestone road. In the northeastern cor- ner of the crossing was the "nigger field." From 1825 to 1833 its appearance was that of a dense thicket of bushes and small sap- ligs woven together with briars and wild vines. The nigger cabin was a local land- mark, tumbled down and no signs of a chinmey being visible. When the negro

cleared the field and when he died are dates that are not known. Across the Limestone road from the cabin the brick school house was built, in which Mr. Lancelot Junkin was the first teacher. A long open fireplace was at each end, while the door was in the middle of the south side, and the girls sat at the left and the boys at the right. Mr. Junkin remembered having seen the colored man, but his recollection of him was faint. He was called Dave, and tradition says he died in his cabin and was never buried.

Southwest from this school house was nearly three thousand acres of woodland and a few miles eastward was a still larger forest called the Big Woods, wild deer be- ing found in both. The first day that school was held here seventeen deer walked leisure- ly across the road about one hundred yards from the cross roads. In 1825 wolves were not uncommon in these woods. I can re- member seeing them by moonlight prowling around my father's sheep house, and recall the gossip about Uncle James Cresswell, fa- ther of Samuel Cresswell shooting one on the Sabbath day. Sheep were killed by them, and a wolf hunt was organized. More men than I supposed were in existence met at my father's house and arranged themselves along the road, thinking to drive them out of the woods, then shoot then. No wolves were shot, and the woods were wild with the howling the following night. Hogs ran wild in these woods, and in the winter the people would kill them and divide them according to their ear marks, each farmer having had his hogs marked before going to the woods. Often they would find a litter of pigs, and the one finding theny would mark them. if the mother hap- pened to be his : but rascality took advantage of this state of affairs, and a dishonest man

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wandering in the woods finding a litter of young pigs would mark them his, when he had never owned them. A man of this kind was called a "hog-or-an-nary."

The woodland adjacent to the brick school house was traversed by an obscure wagen way called Kenton's trace. Tradi- tion says it had been opened by Simon Ken- ton as a passway from Limestone. Ken- tucky, now called Maysville, to Old Chilli- cothe, on the Miami, or Old Town north of Xenia, which was the old Chillicothe of the Shawnee Indians. It was made when the Shawnee Indians were friendly with the white settlers of Kentucky.

Some horses being stolen from the whites afterward, they blamed the Indians and raised an army and came northward to clestroy Old Chillicothe and kill the inhabi- tants. They rested for supper at a small creek close to the present residence of Nixon Brown, having followed Kenton's frace thus far. Their plan was to wait until the moon would rise at midnight, then go and sur- prise and kill the Indians. One of the offi- cers had a slave with him named Caesar. who learned of the plan, and also the fact that Kenton's trace led to the Indian town. When the whites had quieted down he crept away, followed the trace, notified the In- dians and fled with them. The party came on, destroyed the crops and burnt the town. but found no one to kill. The creek was afterwards known as the creek where Caesar ran away.

"Caesarcreek." taking its name from the first fugitive slave within the bounds of Greene county. These facts ] got from Thomas Coke Wright, who claimed to have gutten them from Simon Kenton.

The brick school house was built in 1826 and school began in it that fall with-

out waiting to have it plastered. The di- rectors ordered the patrons of the school to furnish one cord of wood four feet long for each pupil. As my father had sub- scribed for four scholars, my brothers pro- vided the four cords, which made the first fires of the school. Though four subscribed, nine of us attended the first day. The room was very full the first few days, many of the pupils being adults. One of the pu- pils. Miss Harriet Bower, afterwards be- came the wife of the teacher. This district was late in being organized, but to make up for lost time school was kept continu- ously for two years which was very un- common in that day. Lancelot Junkin was our teacher for these two years.

The vast amount of woodland unsettled within this district tended to keep it weak for many years. Over two thousand acres of these woods were bought by Jacob Brown, father of George and Nixon Brown, in 1832 or 1833. but they were only partial- ly opened for several years after. Boys were often lost in the woods and sometimes men. Two of my sisters had quite an ad- venture in them. Several members of a family living in a corner of this land were ill and my sisters started to help nurse them through the night. A dim pathway led across the corner of the woods, much shorter than the plainer road which they followed quite rapidly at first. Cattle had followed this path part of the way and then diverged to a spring, making a new path more distinet than the original one. In the dim twilight they followed this until reach- ing the spring, when they recognized their mistake, retraced their steps. but darkness overtook them and they could not see the pathway and so were lost, remaining in the woods the entire night, and until nearly

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noon the next day. Not returning when ex- pected. it was inferred that some of the sick were worse. One of my brothers was sent to ascertain the facts, and was surprised to find that they had not been with the sick at all. He rushed home, and the fog horn, once the property of one of our uncles who had been a boatman, was blown every few minutes, and thus they were guided home, although going, it is said, directly from home when they first heard the horn. Dur- ing the night they had heard the yelping of several packs of hounds on the tracks of deer or raccoons. Not being able to find their way back they climbed upon a trunk of a big tree and sat there until morning.

FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE, CEDARVILLE TOWN-

The following account of the pioneer school house located in what is now known as Cedarville township, was contributed to the Pioneer Association of Greene county, by that veteran school teacher, Lancelot Junkin: "Come with me away back to 1813, and let me introduce you to that school house of early days, by a description of the first one which it was my lot to attend as a pupil. This house was built in 1812 in Ross township, now Cedarville township, about two miles south of Cedarville and five miles north of Jamestown. It was con- structed in true log cabin style in a dense forest. The farmers and citizens within a circle of six or eight miles met on a day previously appointed and with axes they proceeded to cut down trees suitable to be used for the building. The logs were cut in length to make a house twenty-five by thirty feet and these were built to a height of twelve or thirteen feet. The roof was made of clapboards four feet in length split

from timber cut down the same day. These were laid in courses on slim logs called ribs. and these were held in position by smaller logs called weight poles. The ceiling was also made of split clapboards laid on joists of round poles, the logs being left in nat- ural roundness with the bark left on, and the spaces between them were closed with clay morter. Its one window was made by cutting out a log and fastening small pieces of timber perpendicularly about a foot apart, and on these paper was pasted, light coming through it. The floor was made of slabs split from large timbers and made smooth on one side by a large broadaxe and these were laid on joists or sleepers and fastened down by wooden pins. The door was made from the same material as was the floor, and hung in place by wooden hinges and fastened together by wooden pins. The fireplace was made by cutting out a section of logs some five or six feet in length and by building up short pieces of tiniber outside as high as the joists at the point where the logs were cut, thus making a back wall and jambs, which were well lined with clay and mortar mingled with straw to make it more cohesive. A chimney was built up from the back wall by using short split sticks which were covered from within and without by mortar similar to that which lined the fire place. This house was a type of those generally used in those days and as was common by a judicious division of labor was completed in a single day. It is probable that William Junkin was the first teacher in the house that I have described."

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History of Greene County, Ohio, Part 28

Author: Robinson, George F., 1838-1901 Publication date: 1902 Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Company Number of Pages: 934

Author: Robinson, George F., 1838-1901
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 934