History of Greene County, together with historic notes on the northwest and the state of Ohio, Part 27

Author: R. S. Dills
Publication date: 1881
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1037

USA > Ohio > Greene County > History of Greene County, together with historic notes on the northwest and the state of Ohio > Part 27

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were neighbors, Mr. Galloway was frequently consulted. On one occasion he had a horse bitten by a rattlesnake, which Mr. Galloway readily cured by the application of a weed that is said to exist where snakes abound.

In the year 1805, another of those grand weddings occurred, at the house of Squire George Galloway. The parties were James Stevenson and Anna Galloway, half-sister to the squire. The guests were numerous, so much so that accommodations could not be found within, and a large log heap was built without. Mr. Ste- venson was the party who donated the ground for the church and cemetery. He, with his brother John, had settled in the Stevenson neighborhood as early as the year 1797, the year preceding the set- tlement of the Galloways.

January 6, 1806, James Galloway, jr., or Major Galloway, as you please, and Martha Townsley were married by Rev. Armstrong. In the year 1809 the major built a fine brick residence a short dis- tance west of the Fairfield pike, on the farm at present owned by Mr. Joseph Collins. Many will no doubt remember seeing this brick building standing out in the field as they passed along the pike. In the following year James Galloway, sen., built the stone house (which is still standing) on the Yellow Springs pike, but its uses perverted to that of a stable. In the chimney of this build- ing there was a date-stone marked 1810. This stone has been re- moved, and inserted in the rear end of the Galloway building in Xenia, in their late improvement. On the 27th of June, 1812, a terrible tornado passed over this section of country, extending sev- eral miles in length, and about half a mile in width, leaving scarcely a tree or shrub in its track. A portion of the major's brick man- sion was blown down and the balance of the building left in a very unsafe condition, till rebuilt and repaired. In 1813, probably, George Galloway (usually designated Pennsylvania George) and Rebecca Galloway, oldest daughter of James Galloway, sen., were married. Miss Galloway had had a former suiter, which she had rejected, who was no less a personage than the distinguished

TECUMSEH

Himself. He had been a frequent visitor in the family, and took a wonderful liking to the white girl; and, according to the Indian custom, made his advances to the father, who referred the case to

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the daughter. The undaunted chief appeals to the girl herself, offering her fifty broaches of silver. She told him she didn't want to be a wild woman, and work like the Indian women. He told her she need not work. Notwithstanding the rejection of his suit, he ever after remained friendly with the family, though he was sometimes found to be rather a tough customer. On one oc- casion when at the shop of blacksmith James Galloway, and being under the influence of whisky, he proved to be rather annoying, when Galloway took him, much to the disgust of the chieftain, and tied him to a tree till he got more sober and quiet. In the year 1814, Rev. Armstrong sold his first purchase to Mr. Samuel Goe, and bought lands on the other side of the river, in order to avoid the difficulties so often experienced by high waters. About the same time a new congregation was organized in Xenia, and Mr. Armstrong having been released from the Sugar Creek branch of his congregation, the two united in a call for the Rev. Francis Pringle, jr., who was sottled in the united charge of Xenia and Sugar Creek. This left Mr. Armstrong in charge of the Massie's Creek congregation alone, and perhaps no pastor in the entire county has, at any time, presided over a more intelligent congrega- tion in the history of the county. Several of its members were at different times called to fill important positions of honor and public trust. Colonel James Morrow served several years as county com- missioner, and as member of the lower house of the legistature. Esquire Joseph Kyle also served several terms in the legislature. Judge Samuel Kyle was an associate judge for thirty-five consecu- tive years. Robert Moody, whose cool and clear judgment was surpassed by few; David Jackson was a man of intellectual power; Thomas Raugh had a clear and penetrating mind; as well as the MeCoys, Laugheads, MeHattons, Andersons, Greggs, Browns, Bradfutes, Collins, Kings, Turnbulls, Deans, Gibsons, Andrews, Junkins, Bulls, Galloways, and Struthers.

Mr. Andrews, of whom we formerly spoke, for years continued his occupation of wheelwright and stocking plows. Mr. George Junkins had established a blacksmith shop near the Fairfield pike, south of R. A. Mitchell's present residence. A culprit had stolen a set of plow irons of John Ellis, (grandfather of Samuel Ellis, who lives near the railroad crossing on the Clifton Pike,) and taken them to Junkins' shop to be relaid. The irons were taken thence to Mr. Addrews to be stocked with wooden mold-boards, etc.

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The irons were stamped, and it was the design of the thief to have the marks obliterated in order to avoid detection; but in this he failed, which led to his arrest and punishment. At this time there was a sugar tree on the public square, Xenia, which served as a whipping-post. His sentence was to receive eight lashes on his bare back. This occurred on the 8th of October, 1808, and is said to have been the last public whipping for crime in Greene County.

The lands west of the Little Miami River were congress lands, and were disposed of very differently from those on the other side of the river. In the following manner, to-wit: "James Madison, President of the United States of America. To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting : Know ye, that James Andrew, of Greene County, having deposited in the Treasury a certificate of the Register of the Land Office, at Cincinnati, whereby it appears that he has made full payment for the northeast quarter of section thirty-five, of township number four, in range number seven, of the land lying between the Great Miami River and the Virginia Reser- vation, etc., etc. Dated, Washington, February 12th, 1810. Signed by James Madison, President of the United States, and R. Smith, Secretary of State." A similar patent was issued for the southeast quarter of section thirty-six, to the same, in the year 1816. They were printed and written on parchment, and are antique in appear- ance.

Mr. Andrew, having served his generation, fell asleep in the year 1822, aged 72 years. Of his ten children, but two remain, Mr. Hugh Andrew, of Xenia, and Ebenezer Andrew, of Sugar Creek Township. James, IIugh, and George carried on farming operations quite successfully for many years on the old homestead and lands adjoining, each owning fine farms of two or three hun- dred acres. Two of James' sons, William and Harvey, are in the ministry in the United Presbyterian Church; H. M., living in Xenia, and Samuel, George's son, near Frost's Station. Others are scattered through the West, with not a single one living within five miles of the old homestead. Such radical changes does time make, that the place that knows us now will soon know us no more for- ever.

THE OLD CABIN AND PIONEER CHURCH.

The main portion of the house occupied by Mr. Andrew Hol- land, with two enormous stone chimneys, was built in the year 1800

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by George Galloway, Esq. It is built with logs and weather-board- ed. In this, Mr. Armstrong ministered through the winter of 1804 and 1805.

Subsequently, "a church was built on a lot of three acres donat- ed by Mr. James Stevenson for church and cemetery purposes. The building was thirty feet square, and built of peeled hickory logs, and had neither loft, nor floor, save mother earth. In it were neither stoves nor chimneys. There was but one door, and it was in the center of one end of the house. From the door there was an aisle that run to the foundation of the pulpit, in the center of the other end of the house. The pulpit was constructed of clap- boards, on a wooden foundation, and on each side was a window of twelve 8x10 lights. It was seated with two rows of puncheons from twelve to fifteen inches broad and twelve feet long, split out from poplar near by, and from four to six inches thick, hewed on the upper side and dressed with a jack-plane. In each end and center there were uprights some three feet long, mortised in, and on these uprights two or three slats were pinned, which formed quite a com- fortable back. These seats had four substantial legs, like a stool, one end standing against the wall, the other extending to the aisle. This edifice was on the north bank of Massie's Creek, about four miles from where it empties into the Little Miami River. Men and women would walk or ride on horseback from two to twelve miles, and sometimes fifteen miles, to this house, and sit without fire in the coldest weather and hear two sermons.".

The above quotation is substantially as we find it in a communi- cation referred to before, and published by Andrew Galloway, Esq., in the Xenia News, in the year 1859. Thus these good old seceders continued to worship till about the year 1812 or 1813, when they built a larger, nobler, and more comfortable house of hewed logs, a short distance from the first. In the building of this house, the labor was divided up among the members of the congregation. Mr. Armstrong was to furnish a gallon of whisky, and Squire George Galloway was to haul the logs, which had to be done with oxen. For some reason the squire couldn't manage the oxen very well, and employed a wicked gentile to take his place, who attributed the squire's want of success to the fact that he didn't swear. However this may have been in regard to the driving of oxen, profane swearing being a violation of law-human and divine-the squire, from a double sense of duty, faithfully inflicted

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its penalties on its perpetrators. On one occasion a violator of this law was fined fifty cents, and gave a dollar in payment of his fine; but the squire being unable to make change, the perpetrator let off another oath. "There," said the squire, " that makes the change."

Through the above contributions we have been enabled to give the names of many settlers from 1800 to 1805. We shall start from this period with the name of John Todd, who emigrated from Virginia in 1780, first to Nashville, Tennessee, then from Nashville to Xenia in 1805 ; followed in September, 1806, by his son-in-law, HIenry Phillips, wife, and Rebecca, daughter of Mr. Todd. Mr. Todd and family lived in a hewed log house, on Main Street, a. little east of the old Towler cabin, in which Phillips, and others succeeding him, kept a tavern as late as 1820. In June, 1807, Dr. Andrew W. Davisson and Rebecca Todd were married by William McFarland, justice of the peace. Dr. Davisson was the first physi- cian in Xenia. He also built the first brick house in Xenia, in 1811, on Main Street, near the site of B. Knox's saddler shop; and in 1814 the first stone house was built by him on Main Street. Doctor and Mrs. Davisson were members of the old seceder congregation under Francis Pringle in 1811. She died in Chicago, in 1870, at the age of eighty.

The "union neighborhood" was a settlement of Methodists, with the Bower family, who came in 1803, as a neuclus. They were joined by James Butler, Thomas Perkins, and Gray Gary, in 1804. In 1805, Tinsley Heath, J. and I. Lloyd, and mother, John Fires, Isaac Maitland, and John Lewis, were added to their nun- bers. The year 1806 witnessed the arrival of Bennet Maxey, and Horatio Maxey. In 1807, Peter Pelham came here, at which time it received the name of Union. After this, in 1808, it was increas- ed by Philip Davis, Theodoric Spain, and Alexander Stowel, most of whom had families, and nearly all members of the Methodist Church.

From this period the population of the county, both from in- ternal growth and the increasing flow of immigration, increased so rapidly, that we shall cease the specific enumeration of individuals, and expand into broad generalities. We shall, however, subjoin a partial list of some of the early settlers of Xenia, which will be followed by three or four reminiscenses, which will carry us to a period within the memory of those now living.

Among the earliest settlers of Xenia were John Marshall, John

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Paul, Josiah Grover, James Collier, Henry Barnes (carpenter), William A. Beatty (tavern keeper), John Alexander (lawyer), James Towler, John Stull (tailor), Benjamin Grover (school-teacher), John Williams (blacksmith), John Milton (wheelwright), Mr. Porter, Captain Steels (tanner), Mr. Wallace (tanner), Jonathan Wallace (hatter), Dr. Davidson, James Gowdy (merchant), Robert Gowdy (tanner), Samuel Gowdy, William Elsbury (lawyer), John Davis (merchant), James Galloway (surveyor), John Hivling (merchant), Abraham Lawrence (carpenter), - Bunton (joiner), most of whom were young married men, just beginning in the world.

TRIALS OF EMIGRATION.

FREDERICK BONNER, SEN.

As a general illustration of the many hardships and difficulties incident to immigration to this county, we give the experience of Frederick Bonner, sen., nearly as related by his son, F. Bonner, jr. : In the year 1802, father sold his land in Virginia (five hundred acres) for $2,000, and bought two surveys of one thousand acres each, in what was then the Northwest Territory, at a cost of $2,000. 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 re- mained till 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 morning 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 Cin- cinnati (then a village of fifteen hundred), crossing the Ohio River at that place, May 10, 1803, and camped near the mouth of Deer

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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, or swiftest part of the stream, one of the horses fell, and could not rise. Mr. Day, in attempting to assist, was washed off down stream with the horses. Father went in to his assistance, and the water tripped him up, and he also went struggling down the river, to the alarm of all. For- tunately, he got out on the same side from which he entered, while Day was still struggling in the river near his horses. Finally, they succeeded in fastening a chain to the end of the tongue, and hitch- ing our horses to it, we drew it out. All this time Day's wife and child were in the wagon, in imminent 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 a few 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.

NIMROD HADDOX.

During the year 1800, Nimrod Haddox started from Fackler County, Virginia, with two pack-horses, and came to Chillicothe, Ross County, and while traveling, at Deer Creek met an old friend from Virginia, with whom he stopped over night, and liking the surroundings, he prolonged his stay over winter. In the following spring, he, and five other families, moved up Deer Creek to Lamb's purchase, and squatted on it. After having made a little improve- ment, learning that his nephew had settled on the Little Miami, he came to visit him, and finally moved in with him. After remaining here a couple of years, he learned that his mother and family had moved to Kentucky, and he determined to visit her. Packing up, he started; and about three miles below Dayton, he fell in with an- other old friend from Virginia, who persuaded him to remain all

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winter, and teach a school in the vicinity. In March, the small-pox appearing in the settlement, he moved across the river, and began making sugar. Having good success in this direction, a fine lot of sugar was the result. About this time the great flood took place. The water began to rise, and he was compelled to cross the river with his sugar, to a cabin on higher ground. The water still rising, he moved to a house owned by a Mr. Taylor. This, also, being surrounded by water, he put his sugar in the loft, and they all pad- dled across to an elevated spot, and camped for the night. Mr. Haddox was placed on watch, and about midnight the water reached them, and they were compelled, as a last resort, to cut trees, and fall their tops together, and climb them, and remain on them from Friday till Monday, without food or drink. On Monday the water began to subside, and soon they descended from their perch, and went to the house, which was turned around. They rowed their boat to the upper window, and crawled in ; and finding a large iron kettle in the loft, and some meat, they made a fire in the kettle, and broiled some of it; and also finding a sack of meal stowed away in the loft, they mixed this with water, and baking it, also, in the impromptu oven, soon had a good meal. On looking for his sugar, he found that it had mostly disappeared. Fully satisfied with his visit, he returned to his nephew's house, trad- ed a horse for an improvement, and became a citizen of our county.

PIONEERS.

In 1809, Jacob Mills came, with his family, from Warren County to near Clifton, in this county, where he and his three sons, Jacob, Daniel, and Thomas, literally hewed a farm out of the heavy forest surrounding them. John Mills was then a lad of about fifteen. They were often visited by the Indians, who lingered in the vicinity to hunt and fish. No hostile demonstrations were ever made by these children of the woods, however aggravating the sight of the white man's cabin, and the sound of the white man's ax, as the grand forest, which afforded him game, disappeared beneath its steady strokes. Jacob Mills was elected, while in Warren County, major of the first regiment of militia ever organized in the state. After his removal to this county, he was elected justice of the peace in Miami Township, serving in this capacity nine years,

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during which, it is said, he performed more marriage ceremonies than any other justice in the state.

In the fall of 1809, an old-fashioned singing-school was taught in Xenia, by David Wilson, oldest son of Daniel Wilson, and John Mills was very anxious to go, both to see the girls, and the town of Xenia, which then consisted of about thirty log houses. The sing- ing-school was held in the court house, then just finished, and the girls came, with their beaux, on horseback, dressed in linsey, and a few of the elite appeared in calico, then the extreme of fashion, aspired to by but few. Young John was gratified, and returned home with enlarged views of creation generally.

At that time all the houses were made of logs, except one frame dwelling and the brick court house. In front of the present site of the Second National Bank was a stagnant pool of water, a general rendezvous for geese, ducks, and hogs. Opposite the court house was a hewed log structure, kept by Major Beatty as a tavern. On Main Street, on the present site of Trinity Church, a Mr. Barnes built a log cabin in the woods. During the winter of this same year, Mr. Mills, while in Xenia, saw a man selling cider at 12} cents a quart. In front of the court house a large stump was stand- ing in the street, by the side of which he built a fire, in which he heated several rods of iron; and when he would make a sale, he would hold the iron rod in the cider, to bring it up to a drinkable temperature.

In the spring of 1810, Mr. Mills again came to Xenia, to attend a murder trial, in which one William Catrill, of Miami Township, was the defendant. The nature of the case was the murder of a child, belonging to one Jane Richards, his wife's sister. Catrill, the supposed father of the child, and Jane Richards, were both indicted for murder. The latter was acquitted, but Catrill was found guilty, principally upon the testimony of a young girl, who swore that the child was thrown out, one cold night in November among the hogs, but, strangely, not being touched by them, was found next morning ; and circumstances pointing to the guilty pair, they were at once arrested, and Catrill, after conviction, only escaped by what was then known as the "Sweeping Resolutions," which are to be found in Chase's Statutes, of 1809-'10.

Mr. Mills says the material of which his wedding-shirt was made cost a dollar a yard, and could be bought now for nine cents. The highest price paid for labor then, was from fifty to seventy-five

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cents per day, and scarce at that, while every species of merchan- dise was from ten to twenty-fold higher than at present. Salt, hauled from Cincinnati (four barrels by a four-horse team), was four dollars per bushel. Calico, from sixty-two cents to one dollar per yard.

Major George Gordon was born in Cumberland County, Penn- sylvania, September 7, 1786. He came with his father in a wagon across the mountains in 1790, to a spot on the river a few miles above the present site of Pittsburgh; then came down the river on a flat-boat, landing at a place called Limestone, now Maysville, Kentucky, from which they traveled toward Lexington, near which they settled. Leaving there in 1802, they crossed the Ohio at Cin- cinnati, in a flat-boat, their stock swimming the river. Pushing on towards the northwest, they at last located near Lebanon, Warren County, where the major remained till 1813. In February of that year he married Miss Anna McDaniel, a daughter of his near neighbor. The young couple moved to this county in the follow- ing March, and settled in the woods about three miles west of Spring Valley, on the north side of the present Spring Valley and Center- ville pike. After years of hard labor, Mr. Gordon made enough money to buy a four-horse team and wagon, with which he hauled merchandise to and from Cincinnati for some years, getting as high as $1.25 per hundred for carriage from Cincinnati to Xenia. In those days a man would sell a load of grain and lay it out in coarse dry goods, and put them all in his hat. Yet they complain of hard times now, and laud the good old days when whisky was only three cents a quart.

In 1831 Mr. Gordon purchased a farm on Massie's Creek, now the property of Henry Conklin, to which he moved the same year and erected buildings. In 1851 he bought the ground between north Detroit and King Street, to which he moved in 1853, and where he died at the age of ninety-four.

In the spring of 1815, Samuel Peterson came from Virginia to this county for the purpose of assisting his brother-in-law, Joseph Bootes, on his farm. In company with a Mr. Hegler, he made the long journey on horseback, remained all summer, then with a few friends, returned to Virginia by the same mode of conveyance. In the fall following, his father came to this county with his family of five sons and two daughters, and located on a tract of five hun- dred acres on Cæsar's Creek, south of Xenia, which he had previ-

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ously purchased. Soon after his arrival, one of his daughters was married to Jonathan Ketterman, who had formerly lived in this county. When he started back to Virginia, with his bride on horseback, his father-in-law sent Samuel to Chillicothe with them to buy the bride a new saddle, which was presented to her as a bridal-gift. . The father and his five sons, Samuel, Joel, Moses, Jacob and Felix, immediately began a vigorous assault upon the dense forest that surrounded them; the effect of which was soon visible in the sweeping crash of the mighty oak, the burning heap, and the crackling brush. When a few acres was thus cleared, it was planted in corn, for which not finding a ready market in the ear, they tramped it out on the puncheon floor, took it to a distil- lery, had it made into whisky, took the whisky to an iron-furnace, traded it for iron, which they sold, and thus realized a good price for their whisky.

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History of Greene County, together with historic notes on the northwest and the state of Ohio, Part 27

Author: R. S. Dills Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1037

Author: R. S. Dills
Publication date: 1881
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1037