USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 68
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The St. John's Catholic church, which supplies the wants of Catholicism here and at Dry Ridge, is minis- tered to by the Reverend Father J. Voit.
Near this place, upon the farm of Martin Bevis, is the camp-meeting ground formerly leased by a Cincinnati as- sociation of Methodists, but since abandoned in favor of the site now used near Loveland, in Clermont county. "Camp Colerain," which occupies a little space in the war history of Hamilton county during the late rebellion, was upon the former ground, where the buildings erected for camp-meeting purposes gave shelter to the soldiers. It was, however, used but a short time, and was never a regular camp of rendezvous or instruction.
GROESBECK.
One mile north of the south line of the township, and nearly the same distance from the east line, at the north- west corner of section one, also on the Colerain pike, is the hamlet of Groesbeck, which bears the name of one of the most famous Cincinnati families.
PLEASANT RUN
is situated upon the little stream whose name it bears, and immediately upon the east line of the township, half a mile south of the Butler county line. One of the early Baptist churches was located in this region, which had twenty-five members in 1836. The Reverend Wilson Thompson was pastor in 1816, and for some time after.
At this place the rebel General John Morgan's force occupied the Colerain pike, moving eastward, during the famous raid of 1863. Two or three of his men were captured by citizens here, and one resident, who was mis- taken in the dusk of the evening for a rebel, was killed by the Federal cavalry who were in the rear of Morgan.
TAYLOR'S CREEK
is a post-office and hamlet in the southwestern part of the township, on the Harrison pike, at the sharp bend westward of the stream from which it takes its name, one and a half miles due east of Miamitown and the Great Miami river.
BARNESBURGH
is a recent and small village in this township, on the Blue Rock turnpike, about four miles from New Baltimore. It is a straggling village along the road for a mile or more, with a stream running on the east side of it.
POPULATION.
By the tenth census, that of 1880, Colerain township had three thousand seven hundred and twenty-six inhabitants.
·
Bradbury Tilley
Mrs Harriet Villeys
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
JARED CLOUD,
of Colerain township, was born on St. Patrick's day, the seventeenth of March, 1808; is of Welsh, and English descent on his father's side and of French descent on that of his mother. Mason Jones Cloud, his grand- father, came from Virginia about the year 1778, and settled in Boone county, Kentucky. Unfortunately for the fate of Mason, he was required to return to Virginia for a sum of money there due him, and after only a three days' stay in his new home, in company with two others, set out on his perilous trip, and, with his companions, was massacred on Licking river by the hostile Indians.
Mason was the father of eleven children, three sons and eight daughters. Of these sons Baylis was the old- est, was the father of Jared, and was about nineteen years of age, when the family came to Kentucky. He was born in 1774 in Virginia; was married in 1803 to Miss Elizabeth Tebbs, daughter of an old pioneer of Boone county, Kentucky. In 1811 Baylis removed to Dearborn county, Indiana, when Jared was but three years of age.
Indiana was then a mere wilderness; bridle-paths led here and there instead of our present highways. The Indians were sometimes troublesome, while the flocks had to be constantly guarded against the ravages of the wolf and the bear.
The principal product of mercantile value then to the family was tobacco. This article could be raised and packed to Cincinnati-then a mere town-and a profit sufficiently large could be realized to keep the family in the luxuries of that day. Clothing was manufactured in toto; flax and wool were spun and woven, and the more tasty articles of dress were manufactured from these. The deer furnished the family with moccasins and hunt- ing shirts, and sometimes other wearing apparel. When Jared was sixteen years of age he commenced life for himself, and for twenty-two years after worked for An- thony Harkness, an engine-builder, on Front street, be- tween Pike and Lawrence, in Cincinnati, Ohio. The first two or three years, while learning the business, Jared received nothing, but afterwards a salary was paid, and finally, during the last seven years of his stay, he was made foreman of the shop, which at that time was the largest of the kind in the west. They manufactured locomotives [the first one used in the west], steamboat engines, and others for sugar-mills, saw-mills, etc.
Mr. Cloud was married in the year 1840, and in 1843 moved his present home to the Bank Lick farm, since which time he has been engaged in agricultural pursuits wholly. His farm consists of two hundred and sixty acres, and lies partly in Hamilton and partly in Butler counties. His wife is now dead, and also one son, who was fatally kicked by a horse, dying in a few days there- after. He had been in the hundred day service, and had just returned home when the accident occurred in his father's barnyard. Mr. Cloud is of a long-lived fam-
ily, has never been sick, and at this late day retains the sprightliness of his youth to a remarkable degree.
BRADBURY CILLEY.
Joseph Cilley was a member of General Washington's staff, and was a colonel of the New Hampshire regiment in the war of the Revolution. His son, Jonathan was the father of Bradbury, the subject of this sketch.
Jonathan was born March 18, 1763, came to the wilds of Ohio in Colerain, in 1803, having left his native State in 1802, but spending the winter in Wheeling, did not arrive until 1803.
Jonathan was in the service with his father as a servant, and after coming to Ohio was associate judge for some years.
Of Jonathan's sons, Benjamin Cilley was a farmer in Whitewater township; Joseph, who was the eldest son, was a lieutenant in the War of 1812, was wounded while rallying his men; and Bradbury Cilley lived on the old homestead near Colerain.
Bradbury was born in Nottingham, New Hampshire, May 16, 1798. When he was four years of age his parents, with their family of eight children, emigrated to Ohio. Their tedious journey over the mountains was made in a four-horse wagon and a two-horse carriage. At Wheeling they sent their horses by land, and the family came in a boat to Cincinnati, then a village, where they wintered.
In the spring of 1803, they purchased a section of land on the Big Miama, at what was then called Dunlap's Station, about sixteen miles from Cincinnati. This sta- tion was founded in 1790, by John Dunlap, and was the first settlement in the interior, back from the Ohio river.
The Indians gave the settlers so much trouble that General Harrison, at Fort Washington, now Cincinnati, sent for their protection a detachment of soldiers under Lieutenant Kingsbury. In 1791 the fort was attacked by about four hundred Indians, but being gallantly de- fended the Indians desisted, and after Wayne's treaty, in 1795, the garrison was dismissed.
Colerain was laid out by Dunlap, who named it after his native place in Ireland. The settlers who bought of him lost their claims for want of perfect titles to the land.
In 1807 Jonathan Cilley died of asthma, and left five sons and four daughters, who were taught the rudiments of an education by the eldest sister.
Bradbury went to study mathematics, but soon went ahead of his teacher. The most of his education was acquired in later years by acute observation and rough contact with the world. He early developed a taste for trading, and when twenty-one years of age built a flat- boat, loaded it with farm produce and floated it down the Miami, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, where he sold all and came back on horseback, a dis- tance of eleven hundred miles. These trips he contin- ued every year-sometimes twice a year-for fifteen years. If not suited with the New Orleans market he would go on to Cuba, where he would be almost certain
HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
to find a ready and also a profitable sale for his goods.
About this time he was captain of a company, and af- terwards major of a militia regiment, but was never called into active service.
When a bachelor of thirty-six years he married a neigh- bor's daughter, who was twelve years his junior. He never held or coveted public office, preferring the retire- ment of a farmer's life. He was industrious and enter- prising, and gathered around him considerable property. He had a strict sense of right and justice, was stern, un-
yielding, and almost unflinching, and quite unchangea- ble in his opinion.
Bradbury's wife was the daughter of Elias and Eliza- beth Gasten Hedges, of Morristown, New Jersey. Of their children Mrs. James Poole (Groesbeck) is the eld- est; Mrs. Mary Bedmyer and Mrs. Elizabeth Bedinger, of Boone county, Kentucky ; Mrs. Harriet Turner, Sa- rah J. Morehead, and Agnes Cilley, of Venice, are living.
The Bedinger families living in Boone county occu- pied the land once owned by Daniel Boone.
COLUMBIA.
ORGANIZATION.
Columbia is the oldest born of the townships of Ham- ilton county. Upon its soil, as originally constituted, was planted the first colony in the Miami Purchase-the first white settlement, indeed, anywhere in the Ohio val- ley between Limestone or Maysville and the falls of the Ohio, otherwise the mouth of Beargrass creek, or Louis- ville. From this lodgment of Major Stites and his peo- ple near the mouth of the Little Miami, annd his desig- nation of the cluster of cabins by the patriotie title then (1788) much more in vogue than now, the subsequent township of course derived its name. The history of that settlement, and to some extent of the gallant men who founded it, will be told very fully in the chapter de- voted to Spencer township, with which Columbia, as a country village, was last associated, and to whose history its own seems properly to belong.
Columbia township was erected by the court of gen- eral quarter sessions of the peace, in 1791, at the same time Cincinnati and Miami townships were formed; but seems to claim priority by virtue of its cattle brand, which was fixed to be the letter A, the others taking respectively the letters B and C. The boundaries of this town were then assigned as follows:
"Beginning at the foot of the second meridian east of Cincinnati, on the Ohio bank; thence north to the third entire (or military) range; thence east to the Little Mi- ami; thence down the Miami to Ohio river; thence down the Ohio to place of beginning."
This was a vast township, larger than some counties are now. Cincinnati and Miami townships, with it, in- cluded the whole of Hamilton county on the Purchase, south of the military range. Beyond their north line, in the Miami country, there was probably at this time not a single white settler, and the extensive boundaries of the township were supposed to be sufficient to include all probable settlement on the east side of the Purchase for years to come. It was not many years, however, before the call was made for the erection of townships in the further tracts of the Purchase now covered by Butier and Montgomery counties, as settlement rapidly progresssd in them.
Upon the reconstruction of the Hamilton county town- ships in 1803, after the erection of Butler county by the first State legislature, the boundaries of Columbia were thus changed :
"Commencing at the southeast corner of Cincinnati township, thence north to the northwest corner of sec- tion thirty-six in fractional range two, township four; thence east to the Little Miami; thence south to the Ohio; thence westward to the place of beginning."
This arrangement gave the township just the entirety of its present territory, with the whole of the later Spencer township, including so much of the city as is now east of "the second meridian east" of the old city of Concinnati. The voters were at this time required to meet at the house of Samuel Muchmore, upon the pres- ent site of Madisonville, and elect three justices of the peace.
The first officers of the township, under appointment of the quarter sessions court in 1791, were as follows:
Ephraim Kibby, clerk; John Gerrard, John Morris, constables; Luke Foster, overseer of roads; James Mat- thews, overseer of the poor.
The following memoranda for justices of the peace for Columbia township have also been found:
1819, John Jones, Abner Applegate; 1825, Abner Applegate, William Baxter, James Armstrong; 1829, Wil- liam Baxter, Batia Evans, Eleazer Baldwin, John T. Jones; 1865-8, Francis A. Hill, William Tingley, James Julien ; 1859-70, F. A. Hill, Leonidas Bailey, L. A. Hendricks; 1871, L. A. Hendricks, C. W. Magill, Louis W. Clason; 1872-3, Clason, Magill, Hill; 1874, same, with E. W. Bowman; 1875-7, Clason, Hill, Tingley; 1878, Clason, Hill, William Arnold, Charles S. Burns; 1879, Clason, Arnold, George Reiter; 1880, Clason, Reiter.
GEOGRAPHY.
When Spencer township was formed Columbia was cut down to its present limits, and lost the famous old village from which it took its noble and high-sounding name. The township is now bounded on the west by the "second meridian line" aforesaid, to a point about a mile and a quarter north of the Ohio, separating it from Mill Creek township ; on the north by the old line of 1803, from the northwest corner of section thirty-six in the fractional range two, township four, to the Little Miami, dividing it from Sycamore and Symmes town- ships; on the south by that river, Spencer township, and a part of Cincinnati, and on the east by the same stream, which separates it from Anderson township and a short front of Clermont county. It is nine miles long on its north line, which is the greatest length of the township; and but four miles and a quarter in its shortest length, at the south of the township. It is five miles broad on the west, and for more than four miles thence to the eastward, and is then of variously reduced width, accord- ing to the windings of the Little Miami, until, on its eastern border, it is less than two and a half miles wide. The Little Miami River, with its ins and outs, has a bank of about nine miles in this township. Forty sec- tions, twenty-nine whole, and eleven fractional, are in- cluded in the present territory of Columbia, making
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
eighteen thousand eight hundred and sixty acres, of which two hundred and thirty-nine are covered by the site of Madisonville. They are much more regular in their boundaries than sections in most other parts of the Symmes Purchase-thanks, perhaps, to the superior skill or care of Major Stites and his surveyors-and each full section comprises exactly or very nearly a square mile.
The topography of Columbia township, for picturesque and varied character, and eligibility for suburban pur- poses, is scarcely equaled anywhere else in Hamilton county. The valley of the Little Miami stretches broadly along its eastern and southeastern districts, with the heights beyond Milford and Newtown in the distance, and others closer to the course of the stream-in one instance, near the northeast corner of Anderson township, coming down close to the course of the stream. Across the en- tire length of the township, in a general east and west direction, spreads another great, deep valley, evidently very ancient in its formation, but now with no large stream in its bed-probably an old channel through which the waters of Mill creek found their way to the Little Miami. The township may be said to consist pretty nearly of this and the Miami valleys. The result of the great operations of nature, by which they have been channeled, has been to afford a very large number and variety of beautiful sites for human habitation. Indian Hill and the Norwood Heights, Pleasant Ridge, Oakley, Madisonville, Mount Lookout, and indeed, almost every square mile of the higher ground in the township, are excellently adapted to the purposes of suburban resi- dence, as well as for farming. Neighborhood to a great city has naturally called attention to these advantages, and every one of its numerous villages has more or less of the suburban character.
Apart from the Little Miami, Columbia has no stream of size within it or upon its borders. Duck creek, and perhaps a dozen other brooks and rivulets, traverse some part of the township, most of them toward the Little Miami, but two or three, in the northwestern part, mak- ing their way to the valley of Mill creek. The Marietta & Cincinnati railroad enters the township near Norwood, about a mile and three-quarters from the southwest cor- ner, traverses about half its breadth on a general east and west line to Madisonville, whence the route makes rapid- ly northward and northeastward to its emergence from the township beyond Madeira station, near the southeast corner of Sycamore township. About seven miles of the course of this railroad lie in Columbia. The Little Mi- ami railroad[has about the same length along or near the river in this township, entering at the southeast corner, at Red Bank station, and proceeding by the Batavia junction, Plainville, and several other points, to its exit from the county at the northeastern corner, opposite East Milford, and a mile and a half further crossing the river and leaving the county altogether. The Cincinnati & Eastern narrow-gauge railroad tracks also intersect the southern tier of sections; but its arrangements for enter- ing Cincinnati from the north and west are not yet con- summated, and the road is not much used west of Batavia junction, where it connects with the Little Miami rail-
road. The Cincinnati Northern narrow-gauge, now in course of construction, crosses the township from south to north, entering from the direction of Walnut Hills, and passing through Norwood. Several fine turnpikes, as the Cincinnati & Wooster, once the main line of communication eastward; the Madison, the Montgomery, and others, with many well-kept, ordi- nary wagon-roads, add to the facilities of communi- cation with the city and surrounding country. Upon some of them, as over the Montgoniery pike to Pleasant Ridge, lines of omnibuses are regularly run to and from Cincinnati.
ANCIENT REMAINS.
One of the richest fields for antiquarian research in the world, for the extent of it, is presented in this township, notably in the eastern and southeastern parts of it. It has been industriously and very intelligently worked dur- ing the few years last past by the members of the Madi sonville Scientific and Literary society ; and in this sketch we freely use the results of their labors, particularly as set forth in Dr. Charles L. Metz's article on the pre-his- toric monuments of the Little Miami valley, in the Jour- nal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History for Oc- tober, 1878, and his chart accompanying the paper.
I. Dr. Metz and his co-laborers arrange the works in groups. Group A is mostly upon the property of Charles F. Stites, one mile west of Plainville, between the Woos- ter turnpike and the Little Miami railroad and river, upon the second bottom or plateau, in section nine. This plateau has a general elevation above the river of nearly two hundred feet; and above it, at a height varying from ten to twenty-five feet, is a narrow ridge, mainly com- posed of reddish sand, upon which the most notable work of the group is situated. This and the remaining works in this locality are thus described by Dr. Metz:
Commencing at the east end of the ridge, and in a wood known as "Stites' grove," we find an earthwork consisting of a circle, central tumulus, and an oval-shaped tumulus impinging on the outer southeast edge of the circle. The following extract, from an article entitled "The Mound Builders," by Mr. Florien Giauque, published in the Har- vest Home Magazine, August, 1876, describes this work as follows :
"In the grove in the 'picnic woods' owned by Mr. Charles Stites, of Columbia, on the top of this ridge, there is a circular enclosure made by a ditch and an earthen embankment outside of and immediately ad- joining this ditch, and no doubt made of the material which was taken from it. From the bottom of this ditch to the top of the embankment, the present height is five and one-half feet; the diameter of the ditch from deepest cut on either side is seventy-five feet ; the enclosing em- bankment, from crest to crest, is one hundred and five feet ; and the diameter of the entire work, from outside to outside, is about one hun- dred and forty-five to one hundred and fifty feet. On the east this em- bankment is enlarged into a regular mound, abont forty-eight feet in diameter and about six feet high above the adjacent ground. At the southeast part of the enclosure there is left an entrance-way about ten feet wide-that is, there is here neither ditch nor embankment. This entrance faces and is about forty feet away from the edge of the ter- race or bluff, which is here quite steep, and about one hundred feet (estimated) high above the river, which is here quite near the foot of the bluff. The edges of the terrace and ridge coincide here."
The ridge to the east of this work slopes gently until it reaches the general level of the platean. On this slope numerous relics are found. The above-described work was explored by Mr. Gianque and others, and several fine relics were found. The finding of one he describes as follows:
"One of the trenches was begun about the north of the mound, and the writer [Mr. Giauque], while working here, hardly a foot below the surface of the mound and about seven fect from the centre of it, found
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
a very fine relic. It is a tube six inches long, a little less than an inch in diameter, made of crinoidal limestone, highly polished, though somewhat coated and discolored in places by the oxide of iron which has collected on it during its long burial. The hole extends entirely through from end to end, but grows rapidly smaller near one end, being about five-eighths of an inch in diameter most of the distance, and about three-sixteenths of an inch at the smaller end. This relic is, in fact, a cylinder for about four and one-half inches of its length to a diamond-shaped perforation."
I have measured the circumference of some of the larger trees grow- ing on this work. An oak has nine and one-half feet, beech eight and one-half feet in circumference on the central tumulus, maple six and three-tenths feet, an oak six and seven-tenths feet in circumference.
Northwest of this work, and about two hundred feet distant, at the foot of the sand-ridge, and on the general level of the plateau, is a mound which has been recently explored. Its diameter east to west is forty-five feet, elevation seven feet. An oak tree on its western slope has eight and seven-tenths feet, and a beech on its eastern slope five feet of a circumference. An interesting account of the exploration of this mound, by Mr. Giauque, was published in the Harvest Home Maga- zine, in the article from which I quoted above. The circumstances of exploration are of considerable interest to the archæologist, and I make the following extracts from Mr. Giauque's article:
"About eleven feet from the outside and two feet above the original surface, the shovel, hitherto working pretty freely in clayey sand, struck the first big stone. It was a flat limestone, possibly brought from the neighboring hill about a half a mile away, as there was none nearer; and it was much reddened and softened by fire, the fossil shells in it being whitened or more nearly calcined than the other parts. This, together with charcoal and ashes, pieces of bone, pieces of bowlder bro- ken by fire, were very encouraging indications of a 'find.' Further digging showed that the rock struck was the part of a stone arch, rude- ly made of undressed limestone.
"That part of the arch first found was removed, and under it was found a skeleton, the tibia (shin-bone) being the first part of it discov- ered. The arch was then entirely uncovered, the earth removed between it and the skeleton, and the skeleton taken out. . If the mound had been divided into four parts, by drawing a line through its centre from north to south and another similarly from east to .west, the arch would have been entirely within the northwest section of the mound, and the skeleton which it covered lay with its head nearly towards the northeast (N. E. E.) Perpendicular sections of the mound, as dug away that day, showed from the bottom upwards:
"I. The skeleton resting on or near the original surface, which was a sandy clay, qnite compact and hard.
"2. About a foot of sandy earth, possibly mixed with ashes, but no charcoal nor pieces of bowlder or bones, and, especially in places where the rock above had relieved it from pressure, quite loose and soft.
"3, The arch, hitherto so called for convenience, but perhaps hardly entitled to the name. This was made, as has been said, of undressed but flat limestone, averaging about twenty to thirty and six to eight inches in length and breadth, four inches in thickness, and approxi- mately most of them being about a medium between these extremes. The arch was about seven feet long and five and a half or six wide, its highest part being in a line with and directly over the body, and arch- ing downward on either side till its edges on the right and left of the skeleton nearly reached the clay on which the skeleton lay. But the stones were not set up on edge, so that the structure, while really an arch in form, was probably not self-sustaining. It contained three layers of stone, one over the other, making about a foot in thickness.
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