USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 106
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH,
COLONEL W. H. HILL.
Colonel William H. Hill, of Sharonville, was born January 21, 1826, in Humilstown, Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, and is of German descent. His father, Michael, was a merchant, having a store of general mer- chandise. He died in the east, when William was quite young, about. nine years old. The widowed mother, a noble woman, moved with her family of five children from Fort Hunter, Dauphin county, to Winchester, Ran- dolph county, Indiana, in 1839, by team. Here she gave her children the best education in her power, that afforded by the common school. His first effort in busi- ness was when he was quite young, under nine years of age, in the selling of. candies. His capital was twenty-five cents, which, by selling and reinvesting, in a little over one year he increased to more than one hundred dollars. This sum, after removing to the west, his mother invest- ed with other funds in purchasing a home at Winchester, where the colonel to this day is known by the old citi- zens as "the garden spader," because he was regularly employed by them nearly every spring to spade their gardens. After the death of his mother, in 1844 or 1845, his first step upon leaving school was to learn the carding and spinning trade, in which he was engaged until the fall of 1850, when he commenced for himself the mercantile and milling business, which was prose- cuted with the great energy characteristic of Colonel Hill. During his mercantile life he was connected with and had the management of three different mercantile houses, and purchased for two others in the eastern cities. During the same period he was the owner and manager of two mercantile houses in the same place, running one house against the other, and so well was this managed that his own family was not aware that he owned both. This singular business freak was in order to have competition and draw trade to his own town, which old citizens, after learning of it, admitted was a complete success.
In 1862, while Colonel Hill was in the milling bus- iness, when the great war of the Rebellion was fully in- augurated, and all the loyal sons of the United States were preparing to defend our flag, he was among the first to settle his business, enroll his name and organize a company, which was embodied in the Eighty-first regi-
395
HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
ment of Ohio volunteer infantry. He was chosen cap- tain of company A, after which he was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the same regiment, and breveted colonel on the twelfth day of August, 1864. While in the line of his duty in front of Atlanta, Colonel Hill re- ceived a gun-shot wound in the left hand and was sent to the hospital in Cincinnati. Before he had sufficiently recovered to return to his regiment he was assigned to duty on a court-martial. As soon as he was relieved from that duty, on his own application after having been offered a discharge, he returned to his regiment, joining it at Goldsborough, North Carolina, and remained with it until the war closed with the surrendering of General Lee. He was then mustered out with his regiment at Camp Dennison. He entered the service at the com- mencement of the war, as before noticed, with the rank of captain, and attained the position of lieutenant col- onel with a brevet colonel's rank. His war record is one of which he and his friends are justly proud. Very few men who drew their swords at the commencement of that terrible struggle served their country with greater de- votion through the entire Rebellion, from 1862, than did the gallant officer whose name stands at the head of our biographical sketch. On returning to civil life he found thousands of soldiers who, for various reasons, had not yet received the money due them from the United States, and, upon their solicitation, he opened, in Cincinnati, a war-claim and real estate office and was enabled great- ly to aid the noble defenders of the country to collect their dues and secure pensions. It is safe to say that no claim attorney in the State had a larger business.
In the spring of 1868, after suffering from a disease he had contracted in addition to his wound in the service, he removed to a farm in Butler county, where he re- mained until 1870, when he moved to his valuable farm in Sycamore township, his present and no doubt future residence. During the last eleven years he has been largely engaged in farming. Beyond question Colonel Hill has grown more wheat per acre on his farm for the last three years than any other farmer in his township. In August, 1873, he assisted in organizing Eden Grange, No. 97. Patrons of Husbandry, being one of the charter members. When the Hamilton County council was in- stituted Colonel Hill was chosen as its first business agent, without compensation for the first year; and so well were its operations organized by him that on the twenty-ninth of July, 1874, after the council had become thoroughly organized, he was appointed financial busi- ness manager of the Ohio State grange by the State grange executive committee. He accepted the trust under protest, after having repeatedly declined and re- questing others to be appointed. Locating his office at Sharonville, in a room but eight by ten feet in dimen- sions, business increased so rapidly that it became neces- sary to open another house in Cincinnati, which was done April 1, 1875, with local agents in various parts of the State. On the first day of October, 1875, the business had become so extensive, running over millions of dol- lars, a large warehouse was opened at No. 63 Walnut street, after which a still larger house had to be secured
at 22 and 24 East Third street, with business so largely on the increase that he had to enlarge his clerical force until he retired with an increased salary offered him, February 11, 1881.
In 1874 Colonel Hill was a candidate on the Republi- can ticket in Hamilton county for the office of county commissioner ; and although he was not elected, he ran much ahead of his ticket, and his popularity in his own township was so great that he received almost the entire vote of his own precinct In 1877 he was unanimously elected to the presidency of the Hamilton County Agri- cultural society, and took charge January 1, 1878, when the society was at its lowest ebb, not paying more than thirty to fifty per cent on its debts and premiums. When Colonel Hill with the board reorganized, they managed to get the Patrons of Husbandry and farmers interested, so that his first fair (that of 1878), after renovating the old buildings and trimming up the grounds, enough was taken in to pay all premiums and nearly all expenses of improvements made. This success so encouraged Col- onel Hill and the board, that on his second election he went to work to raise funds to rebuild, but did not suc- ceed in getting enough to put the grounds in proper order. But the fair of 1879, like that of 1878, was a pronounced success, realizing funds sufficient to pay all premiums and debts. He was again, for the third time, elected president, and then prepared a bill and got it through the Ohio legislature, of which he was by this time a member, appropriating fifteen thousand dollars for the purchase of more grounds and improving the same, which was done during the summer of 1880, put- ting the grounds in such shape for that year that it was the greatest success of any fair ever held in the county. He was once more reelected, now for the fourth term, by a unanimous vote. At this fair the association accumu- lated funds enough to pay all premiums and debts, and as the reports will show, had a surplus with rental of the grounds and State free, of three hundred to eight hun- dred dollars. Colonel Hill then drew up another bill and got an appropriation of ten thousand dollars, which will enable him and the board to make the Hamilton county fair grounds the finest of any in the State.
In the fall of 1879 Colonel Hill was elected one of the Hamilton county delegation to the Sixty-fourth gen- eral assembly of the State legislature, running the second highest on the ticket. Upon the organization of the committees of the house, Colonel Hill was made chair- man of the agricultural committee, and also put on the committee on turnpikes. As a legislator he was always on hand, and attentive to the interests of his constitu- ents, very seldom losing a bill he presented to the house. On the sine die adjournment of the assembly, and return- ing home to his constituents, he opened, in connection with Colonel Thomas E. Spooner, his old book-keeper when in charge of the State Grange house, an agricul- tural warehouse and general commission business, at Nos. 13 and 15 East Third street, Cincinnati, which, from present indications, will increase as largely as his State grange business did.
Colonel Hill's connection with the financial business
396
HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
of the county and State granges, and his success with the Hamilton County Agriculturial society since it came under his charge, has given him a county, State and national reputation among the patrons of husbandry, and among farmers and business men generally, such as any man can be proud of. While a member of the legisla- ture, in addition to the large amount of work sent him from his county and from the State at large, he secured for the State Agricultural society a larger appropriation than it had ever received before.
Colonel Hill has long been closely interested in the education of the youth of his locality ; has had charge of
the management of the same in Sharonville for several years, and in his efforts to bring them to a higher stand- ard and the establishment of graded schools, so that the children of the poor as well as the rich can be educated, is only waiting time to accomplish it. This, like the rest of his undertakings, will certainly be accomplished in due time.
September 8, 1849, Colonel Hill was married to Char- lotte L. Kelley, at Winchester, Indiana. Nine children have been born of this union, of whom only six are now living.
SYMMES.
DESCRIPTION.
Symmes is one of the later and smaller townships. It was created between 1820 and 1826, solely from the eastern part of Sycamore, to which were added two tiers of sections on the west which had formerly belonged to Springfield township. It is bounded on the south by Columbia township, on the west by Sycamore, on the north by Warren county, and on the east by the Little Miami, which follows a tortuous course of nearly twelve miles along the eastern front of Symmes. When about midway of its course here, it deeply indents the town- ship, reducing its width from the extreme breadth of a little more than four miles on a line a short distance north of West Loveland, to a trifle over a mile in the latitude of Remington, about two and one-half miles from the south line of the township. Below this point the width of the township is no where greater than three and a quarter miles on the section line next north of Camp Dennison. The length of the township on the western border and for more than a mile eastward is the same as that of Springfield and Sycamore townships-seven miles, dwindling down to nothing in the bends north and south of the great bend of the Miami.
The lands of the township lie altogether in the entire range one, township five, the whole of which is in Symmes, and the southernmost tier of sections in the entire range two, township five. They comprise thirteen full and twelve fractional sections-the latter lying alto- gether along the Little Miami. The total number of acres is twelve thousand five hundred and thirty-eight. The boundary lines were run in this part of the Pur- chase with tolerable regularity, though some slightly broken ones appear in the north half of the township, and some singularly wide sections in the south part. Sections numbered thirteen, nineteen, twenty-five and thirty-one, lying in both ranges, are duplicated in this township.
The little Miami railroad crosses about a mile and a half of the territory of Symmes in its southeastern part, on a line through Camp Dennison, averaging a half-mile's distance from the river. The Marietta & Cincinnati railroad enters at Allendale, near the opposite or south- west corner of the township, strikes the vicinity of the river at Remington and Montgomery stations, and thence follows the Little Miami closely, where it crosses into Clermont and shortly into Warren counties. The Cin- cinnati & Wooster turnpike passes through the township on the general line of the Little Miami railroad, crossing the river like that just below Miamiville. The old State road, from Columbia via Montgomery toward Chillicothe, also intersects the township, as do numerous other turn- pikes and common roads.
Symmes township lies almost wholly in the valley of the Little Miami, and partakes of its general character. At some distance back from the river, however, especial- ly in the northwestern part, the hill country infringes upon the territory of the township, and variegates its topography, and to some extent its capacity of produc- tion. It is abundantly watered by several small streams, which mostly take their rise in Warren county and Spring- field township, and flow into the Little Miami. Across this river are several fine bridges crossing from Symmes township-as a large iron one at Loveland, and a long bridge above Miamiville. One of the finest bridges in southern Ohio is that between Branch Hill and Symmes' Station-places respectively in Clermont and Hamilton counties, and on the little Miami and Marietta & Cin- cinnati railroads. It is a suspension bridge three hun- dred and fifteen feet long, built at the joint expense of the two counties connected by it, and costing seventy thousand dollars. It was formally dedicated and opened to travel at a great celebration at this point on the Fourth of July, 1872, when appropriate addresses were
-
397
HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
delivered by Governor Noyes and the Honorable Samuel F. Hunt.
JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.
The following named gentlemen have served as justices in Symmes township at the period named: 1829, Thomas Rich, Ezekiel Pollock, William Bell; 1865, George W. Brown, I. M. Migley, George Apgar; 1866, Brown and Apgar; 1867-72, Brown, W. Beard; 1873-77, Brown, A. J. Kizer; 1878-79, Kizer, A. N. Rich; 1880, Kizer, Brown.
EARLY SETTLEMENT.
In 1796, the advance guard of a German colony ar- rived from Norristown, Pennsylvania, all members of a Pietist church, which was offensive to the authorities in their native land, and from their connection with it they were compelled to leave the country. Then, and within three years, the following named came: Christian Wald- schmidt (commonly Waldsmith), Ludwig Freiberger, George Harner, Johannes Kugler, Andreas Freis, Wilhelm Lauden, Joseph Bohne, Jacob Lefeber, Hans Leckie, Christian Ogg, Friederick Beckenbach, Kasper Spaeth, Samuel Ruethi, Hans Rodecker, Valentine Weigans, Hans Maddern, Daniel Prisch, Samuel Bachenheim (Buckingham)), Andreas Orth, Johannes Montag. They stopped for a time at Columbia, exploring the back country, and presently decided upon locating at the tract since known as "Big Bottom." Waldschmidt and Harner were the moneyed men of the party, and they made purchases from Judge Symmes of a sufficient quantity for the entire colony, getting most of it for about one dollar per acre. The following account of the journey and settlement is given by Mr. Thomas Fitz- water, a descendant of William Fitzwater, who settled in Clermont county. Mr. Fitzwater was a little boy at the time. The narrative is given in the History of Clermont county, recently published :
C. Waldsmith, our own family, and four other families started for this State on or near the first of May, 1796. I have but little recol- lection of the journey to Juniata; but I recollect that place. The next place l recollect seeing was Bedford Springs; then nothing more until we came to Redstone. Here we were detained near three weeks wait- ing for our flat-boats. At Pittsburgh we met General Wayne's regular army. I have a distinct recollection of seeing the soldiers firing the cannon; then the drum would beat and the fife would play a short time. The army was then going to Erie. General Wayne died the next October. A day or two after leaving Pittsburgh, Christopher Waldsmith was walking on a sand-bar, when he picked up a fife which looked very ancient. The brass on the ends was black and somewhat corroded, and it was full of sand. It was supposed it had been in the river since Braddock's defeat-nearly forty-one years. I saw the fife hundreds of times in after years. They lent it to an old rev- olutionary fifer, and never recovered it again.
The Ohio River was low, and the three flat-boats had great difficulty in getting along. They only travelled in the daytime, always tieing up to the shore at night. At the mouth of Bracken river two families left and went into Kentucky. After being on the river seven weeks, we landed at Columbia. The Miami was pouring out muddy water and driftwood, This was the first sight I got of that river.
Not far above the mouth of the Miami the boat which contained Waldsmith's family ran aground. The four men and a boy tried to get it afloat that afternoon and into the night, but did not succeed. The next morning another boat came along, when they hailed the inmates for assistance. This boat landed close to ours, and I recollect seeing three or four go to the boat which was aground; in two or three hours the boat was afloat. About twenty years ago old Father Durham told me the same story, and further said that Waldsmith was so pleased to
get his boat afloat that he told them he would give them ten gallons of whiskey for their services. They bought a keg which held three gal- lons, and he filled that.
It was about the middle of July when we landed at Columbia. In fifteen or eighteen days, after the Miami got low, we arrived at our journey's end. Waldsmith went vigorously to work building a mill. Some time in the summer of 1797 I saw the frame of his grist-mill put up. That same fall he started one run of stones, and also two copper stills for making whiskey. This year (1797) Matthias Kugler came to the territory. I have heard him laughingly tell about his losing his hat in the river, and shoes he had none on when he started. He was landed at Columbia in a skiff; when he arrived within reach of shore he jumped as far as he could, but lighted in the soft, black mud, where it was so deep he got mired. After some floundering about, he got to solid ground. He then had ten miles to travel, without shoes or hat, and his legs well plastered with mud. He arrived at his stepfather's the same night. Soon after he commenced working for Waldsmith, and in September, 1798, he married his daughter.
The Riggs came from the State of Delaware, starting with three thou- sand dollars in gold, a negro man worth eight hundred dollars, a wagon, and four good horses. They came to the Redstone country, and stayed there some time. He had a son and daughter living there. It is probable they stayed over winter, as early in the spring of 1790 they stopped at Limestone. Here his negro man gave them the slip, and they never again saw him. Old William Riggs sold the chance of him for one hundred dollars.
Landing at Columbia, they put the wagon together out on shore, and tied the horses to the tongue, two boys sleeping in the wagon. Next morning every horse was gone, and they never saw them again. They could not ascertain whether Indians or white people took them. The next I knew of them they were at Covalt's station, in 1791, raising a crop of corn. The fall after, Timothy Covalt and Major Riggs took a basket, intending to bring in a basket of pawpaws; crossed the Mi- ami somehow, arrived at the foot of the gravelly hills east of John Kug- ler's distillery, and were there fired on by three Indians, from the brow of the hill, fifteen or eighteen yards distant. The Indians raised the yell. Covalt, being a few yards in the rear, seeing Riggs fall, wheeled and ran. The Indians followed him to the water's edge. He ran through the Miami, and when over met men from the station coming to their assistance. The Indians got Riggs' scalp, but they were too much hurried to take any part of his clothing. Shortly after the news of St. Clair's defeat reached the station. His mother was so near fretted out of her senses that they packed up and went somewhere into Kentucky. How long they stayed there I don't know-probably over the next winter. When they came back, finding the stations much stronger, and things better prepared for defence, they ventured to one of the frontier stations -[ think to Jarrett's (Gerrard's) station. This station was near where Turpin's house now stands.
Waldsmith, about 1840, founded the village of Ger- many, a small plat south of the present Camp Dennison, and near the southeast corner of the township, on the turnpike road running north and south through the township. It was a short-lived hamlet, and little sign of it now remains, except the old stone dwelling of Wald- smith on the turnpike, bearing the date 1808, and be- ing the oldest stone dwelling in the county, except one -- the old residence of Colonel Sedam, near Gaff, Fleisch- mann & Company's distillery, at Sedamsville. He also built the first paper-mill in the country west of Red- stone. In the early spring of 1810 the mill there was burned, and the river frozen up. The Spy and Gazette, at Cincinnati, was obliged to suspend publication for want of paper, and Carpenter, the publisher, was also caught with a contract on his hands for printing the Terri- torial laws. In this emergency Waldsmith, who had been an expert paper-maker in Europe, was urged to try his hand here, and, in a rude way at first, he made enough soon to start the Cincinnati presses again. The Spy started again, after a suspension of a month and a half; and Waldsmith's success encouraged him to enlarge and
398
HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
otherwise improve his facilities. The Liberty Hall of December 1, 1811, contains this advertisement :
Christian Waldsmith is now preparing in his paper-mill another vat, and will employ some experienced hands, who understand how to work at the vat, in the paper-making business. Such will find encour- agement at his mill on the Little Miami. . Store-keepers and printers may be supplied with all kinds of paper at the store of Baum & Perry, Cincinnati, or at the mill.
Waldsmith's paper-mill stood on the island in the Lit- tle Miami, near the southwest corner of Symmes town- ship, opposite the saw-mill, which was upon the mainland near his house. This sturdy old German pioneer and his son died in March, 1814, of the "cold plague."
Another note of operations in this region in the early day is found in the Cincinnati Almanac of 1811, which says that October roth of the previous year a company had been formed at Round Bottom, thirteen miles from Cincinnati, with one thousand shares of stock of fifty dollars each. The directors of the company were An- drew Megrue, Thomas Sloo, Jacob Broadwell, Michael Debolt, James C. Morris, William Lytle, John Smith, William Bardley, Enoch Buckingham, Thomas R. Ross, Thomas Heckewelder. Mr. Broadwell was president, and Mr. Sloo cashier of the company.
About the same time the Bockenheims, or Bucking- hams, had a small saw-mill on the bank of the Little Miami, opposite Miamiville.
Elsewhere, further north on the Little Miami, the Cin- cinnati Paper Fabric company has its buildings.
Jabez Reynolds, oldest child of William and Elizabeth Reynolds, was born in Washington county, Rhode Is- land, January 31, 1803, emigrated to Pennsylvania in the year 1829, and remained there until the year 1832, when he came to Cincinnati, Hamilton county, Ohio, and has been a resident of the county since that time. He was married to Miss Mercy Oatley, daughter of John and Susan Oatley, of South Kingston, Washington county, Rhode Island, March 22, 1825. The fruit of this union was ten children : William B., born May 17, 1826; Elizabeth, born February 16, 1828; Lydia, born June 26, 1830; William, born December 20, 1832; Charles O., born April 25, 1835; Jabez, born December 4, 1836; Caroline E., born January 26, 1838; Mercy, born November 3, 1840; Jabez, born April 25, 1843; Thomas H., born September 13, 1845. Of these, but five are still living -- Lydia, William, Mercy, Jabez, and Thomas H .- all married. Lydia married William Phipps, and is a resident of Norwood, Hamilton county, Ohio. William married Bell Ashcraft, and is a resident of Bond Hill, Hamilton county, Ohio. Mercy married Hiram D. Rodgers, and is a resident of Linwood, Hamilton county, Ohio. Jabez married Miss Estella Sanders, and is a resident of New York. Thomas H. married twice- first to E. P. Pullen; the second time he married Ade- lia B. Conklin, and is a resident of Bond Hill, Hamil- ton county, Ohio. Mr. Reynolds is a member of the Quaker church.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.