USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 73
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also one time brigade inspector. The family left Eng- land in 1850 for America, but before the water was crossed the mother died. They landed in New Orleans, and from there came to Cincinnati, where John Swift clerked in the store of J. & A. Simpkinson, on Lower Market street, and afterwards opened on the same street in the boot and shoe trade for himself. He went to Clermont county to superintend his farm, but after a three years' stay he came to Pleasant Ridge (1864) and settled down to a retired life. He married Miss Euretta F. Williams, of Walnut Hills, in 1859. Her parents were old settlers of the city. Her grandfather kept store and also manufactured buckskin breeches, the Indians supplying the material. Her father owned much valua- ble property in the city.
Samuel Swift is a brother of John, and is the well known wagon-maker of Pleasant Ridge. He was mar- ried to Miss Rebecca Ashburn in 1864. He has a good trade, and is the only one in the family who is a Demo- crat. Mr. John Swift is Master Mason in the Pleasant Ridge lodge, and has also filled several of the township offices.
William Ferris, of Mt. Lookout, a member of the firm of S. M. Ferris & Co., Linwood, was born in the year 1825, on the fifth of October; was married twice. His first wife, Miss Thompson, is deceasad. His second wife was a Miss Sargent. Mr. Ferris is a member of the Baptist church-has himself located in nice quarters in an elegant house in Mt. Lookout, and is in easy circum- stances. He has a family of four children.
John M. Ferris, brother of S. M. and William Ferris, is also a member of the Ferris Manufacturing company, of Linwood, although he has his beautiful residence in Mt. Lookout. He has born January 13, 1832; was mar- ried to Miss Thompson, sister to his brother's wife, and is, as all the Ferrises are, a member of the Baptist church.
Colonel Zadoc Williams, late of Mt. Lookout, was a native of Lafayette county, Pennsylvania. He came to this State with his father when quite young, in 1800. They landed first in Columbia; he afterwards bought the farm upon which the Cincinnati observatory now stands, which farm was kept in the family for seventy years before it was sold. Mr. Williams was married December 20, 1821, to Ann Giffins, of Red Bank. She was born in 1802, and is still living. Mr. Williams first saw the light of day in 1798, and died February 16, 1881. He was a
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
farmer-sometimes performing the business of a mer- chant and shipping on flatboats to New Orleans the produce of his own farm and that of others. The days in which he lived were noted for its magnificent wants -- as we view the past at the present time-for we hear of his going to Wickersham's floating mill on the river to get his corn ground; of taking his hogs, hay, etc., to New Orleans to find a market; and of doing other things only incident to pioneer times. He finally bought the heirs ont and owned the homestead himself. He reared a family of nine children, six of whom are now living. His eldest daughter is now in Indiana. One son is a physician practising in Indiana. John is a farmer, and Thomas J. Williams is a lumber merchant in Cincinnati. He was with Sherman through the war; held the posi- tion of first lieutenant ; was offered a colonelcy of a negro regiment but refused it.
B. C. Armstrong, of Plainville, was born in the village in which he lives in the year 1821. He has resided in the township with the exception of a few years spent in Butler county farming. His father, John A. Armstrong, came here in 1800 with five of his brothers from Vir- ginia, and bought a large tract of land at this place. These brothers, John, the father of N. S. and B. C .; Nathaniel, father of Mrs. Thomas; William, Thomas, and Leonard were the builders of the three well known mills on the Little Miami river. Of these water powers William and John owned the lower one, at Plainville, now in possession of Mr. Turpin, who lives in Newtown and who married Amanda Armstrong, daughter of John. Thomas and Leonard owned the middle mill, and Na- thaniel the upper one.
B. C. Armstrong married a Miss Sarah Norris, of Maryland, and by her had six children, four of whom are now living-Amanda Turpin, of Newtown; Elizabeth Ebersole, of Madisonville; B. C. and N. S., of Plain- ville.
Mr. Ebersole, deceased, owned a farm at the mouth of the Little Miami, but in late years, being sorely af- flicted with catarrh, retired from business.
N. S. Armstrong lives in Plainville. He was agent for the Little Miami railroad company for seventeen years, and also owned a store, but has lately sold out. He married a Miss Morton, of Clermont county. B. C. Armstrong married Miss Martha Lyons, of Pennsyl- vania.
Jacob Thomas, deceased, was born in 1802 in Ches- ter county, Pennsylvania; came to Columbia township in 1832, and purchased a tract of land near Plainville, which he farmed until he departed this life, which oc- curred in 1879. He married Miss Naomi Armstrong in the year 1833. She was a daughter of Nathaniel Arm- strong, who owned the upper mill on the Little Miami river. The mill was afterwards run by Jacob Thomas, and was one of the three old-fashioned water-wheel powers of that kind built by the Armstrong brothers in a very early day.
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 valne 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 whool were spun and woven, and the more tasty articles of dress were manufactured from these. The deer furnished the family with moccasons 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 county. 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-
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
ily, has never been sick, and at this late day retains the sprightliness of his youth to a remarkable degree.
JOSEPH CILLEY
was a member of General Washington's staff, and was a colonel of a New Hampshire regiment in the war of the Revolution. His son, Jonathan, was the father of Brad- bury, 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 Miami, 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 Washinton, 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.
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 now living.
The Bedinger families living in Boone county occu- pied the land once owned by Daniel Boone.
36
CROSBY.
GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY.
Crosby is bounded on the south by the Great Miami and Whitewater townships, on the west by Harrison township, on the north by Butler county, and on the east by the Great Miami river, which separates it from Cole- rain township. Its present lines begin at the point on the Great Miami where the parallel between sections twenty four and twenty-five intersects the river, thence west of the southwest corner of section twenty-two, thence north to the Butler county line, thence east to the Great Miami, and down that stream along its course to the place of beginning. The south line, separating this township from Whitewater, is but two and three-fourths miles long, its west line four miles, its north line six and a half miles.
Crosby township, as cut down to its present limits by the formation of other townships, is the smallest in the county, with the exception of its neighbor, Harrison, and of Delhi and Spencer. It comprises but fifteen full sections and seven fractional sections, the latter being those which abut upon the Great Miami river. Its total acreage is twelve thousand three hundred and eighty- two. The section lines in this township are exceedingly irregular, far more so than in any other township of Hamilton county west of this stream, a fact thoroughly surprising in view of its location altogether upon the Congress lands, with which Judge Symmes' blundering surveyors and surveying purchasers are supposed to have had nothing to do. The second tier of sections from the west, for example, has an average breadth scarcely more than half as great as that of the sections in the tier next on either side of it. Those in the westernmost tier are considerably broader from east to west than from north to south, but are tolerably perfect parallelograms, while those next to the east, the three entire sections in the third tier from the west, and the two full sections in each of the next succeeding tiers-that is, to say, all the full sections in the township, except those of the westernmost tier-are trapezoids, by virtue of the divergence or con- vergence of their meridian lines. The other lines are parallel, and the north line of the county, west of the Great Miami, separating Crosby and Harrison town- ships from Butler county, is perfectly straight, unlike the boundary line resulting from Symmes' surveys between the Miamis. It, however, strikes the Great Miami about half a mile below the point where the north line of Cole- rain intersects that stream. Had the parallel of Colerain been continued westward, as the north boundary line of the county west of the river, it would have brought into Hamilton the village of Venice, now in Butler county,
and a very valuable strip of land in the Whitewater and Miami valleys, now lost to Hamilton and gained by Butler.
The ranges in which Crosby township lies are: Range one, township three, comprising within it the three western tiers of sections, and so by far the larger part of the township; and range two, township two, comprising the five full and six fractional sections east of the range line
The principal waters of Crosty are the Great Miami river and the Dry fork of the Whitewater river. The former curves in and out in a most remarkable manner on the eastern and southern fronts of this township, and con- trives to wash about nine linear miles of its territory, in making southward across but four miles of latitude. Its general course is to the southwestward, though it flows toward every point of the compass in passing this town- ship, and making its wonderful twists and bends. The great bend noted at some length in the history of Colerain township, as nearly enclosing the peninsula upon which stand the famous ancient work and the site of Dunlap's station, projects its nose into Crosby township. The river receives, near the northeast corner of this town- ship, a small tributary which heads across the line near Venice; a mile below New Baltimore it welcomes the waters of Paddy's run, which also takes its rise in Butler county, but, a little more than midway of its course, upon section seven, gets a small affluent which is al- together in Hamilton; and just before leaving the town- ship has another but petty tributary.
The Dry fork of Whitewater intersects with an exceed- ingly tortuous course the entire western part of the town- ship, entering upon section three, near the northwestern corner of the township, passing to the south and eastward until near the eastern line of the second tier of townships from the west, and thence making its way southwestward to its point of exit almost at the southwestern corner of Crosby. In its many turnings and windings it must, like the Great Miami, measure scarcely less than nine miles in length of channel while making the four miles of dis- tance across the township. It takes its singular name from the disappearance of its waters in the dry season before reaching their usual debouchure into the White- water west of Hunt's grove, in Whitewater township. Two of its larger tributaries-Howard's creek, which rises in Butler county and enters the Dry fork at New Haven; and Lee's creek which comes from Harrison township, joining the Dry fork not far from the town line in section twenty-two-take their names from noted old pioneers .. Several other streams of moderate size, mostly flowing
282
MOSS ING TO. N.Y
THOMAS ENOCH SATER.
This gentleman was born November 2, 1831, in Crosby township, as were all his brothers and sisters. He is the youngest child of William and Nancy (Jones) Sater. He married Mary Ellen Pottinger, of the well- known pioneer family, December 19, 1855. She was the daughter of James W. and Mary Pottinger, of New Baltimore and then of Harrison township, Dearborn county, Indiana. Her day of birth was October IO, 1837, of death May 25, 1858, after a lingering illness with con- sumption. By this marriage was born one son-James Pottinger, born November 14, 1856; married February 14, 1878, to Miss Libbie Crocker, of Middleton, Iowa. They have two children-Arthur C., born December 29, 1878, and a daughter, not yet named, born January 28, 1881. He resides at the old home of his mother in Dearborn county, Indiana. A second time Mr. Sater was married, September 26, 1860, to Miss Mary Gwaltney. By her he has children as follows: Olive May, born October 26, 1861; Eliza Ann, born February 4, 1865; Joseph T., born June 5, 1870. All these are with their parents at home. Mr. Sater was educated simply in the district schools of his childhood and youth, but has supplemented early deficiencies by much reading and observation of the world. His father died when he was but sixteen years old; he continued at home, assisting in the manage- ment of the farm until the property was divided in 1850, when the homestead, with seventy-five acres attached, fell to him, to which he has since made substantial additions, owning now one hundred and one-half acres. He has remained a quiet farmer at the old home since, but has often been called to fill public offices, as township clerk, assessor, and the like, and was member of the house during the Sixty- first general assembly of Ohio, in 1874-5, being elected on the Demo- cratic ticket, to which he has given a lifelong allegiance. Here he was assigned to service on the important committees of agriculture and retrenchment. In all public and private stations he has borne himself as a man of integrity and energy, and bears a high reputation among his acquaintances and friends. In connection with his brother, presently to be noticed, he has been influential in the counsels of the Democratic party and in keeping his township generally true to that faith. He has been a Free and Accepted Mason since May, 1852, and has advanced to the degree of Knight Templar. In this order he has filled about all
MRS. THOMAS E. SATER.
the offices of the Blue Lodge, and is now a member of Council, Chap- ter, and Commandery, of Cincinnati. Mary (Gwaltney) Sater is a danghter of the late Dr. Samnel and Sarah Gwaltney, of Crosby, for- merly of Anderson township, where the father is believed to have been born November 2, 1799. In this township he was married to Sarah Wheatley, January 6, 1820. She was born April 1, 1794, and died October 16, 1871. He died May 25, 1872, also at New Haven. Their daughter Mary was born November 4, 1828, in Colerain township. Other children of the family were: James, born April 2, 1821, married Sarah Sater February 7, 1843, and resides in Morgan township, Butler county; Martha Ann, born December 7, 1822, died Jannary 4, 1861; Josiah, born Angust 26, 1834, married Mary Ann Atherton September 12, 1859, and after her death, Mrs. Catharine Mason in 1875 or 1876, and resides on a farm adjoining that of his brother-in-law, Mr. Sater; Robert J., horn August 3, 1826, married Elizabeth Smith September 3, 1854, and is a physician living in Fayette county, Indiana; Washing- ton, born October 21, 1830, died July 19, 1831; Elizabeth, born May 14, 1832, resides with her brother-in-law, Thomas E. Sater; Rhoda, born May 14, 1832, married Oliver W. Clark October 1859, and lives near Rockport, Spencer county, Indiana.
Dr. Gwaltney was in his day, and for many years, a prominent phy- sician in Anderson and Colerain townships, in Crosby township from 1825 to 1844, and Fayette county, Indiana, from 1844 to the fall of 1849, when he moved back to the village of New Haven, Crosby town- ship, where he spent the remainder of his days, being at the time of his death by far the oldest physician in this region. It was at his house, in July, 1863, during the passage of John Morgan's rebel force through New Haven, that Morgan and Colonel Basil Duke held a council in regard to their future movements through Hamilton county and the State.
Mary Gwaltney remained with her parents in Colerain and Crosby townships until her marriage with Mr. Sater. She was educated in the district and village schools. Since her marriage her history has been almost altogether that of her husband." She was reared in the Baptist faith, to which her parents were attached.
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
from the north, swell the waters of the Dry fork before it leaves Crosby township.
So well-watered a tract, considering the general char- acter of the Miami valleys, naturally does not abound in hill-country. The township is largely taken up by the level, fertile belts of alluvial land adjoining the stream; but is pleasantly diversified in places by higher spots, in hills and ridges, none of which, however, are lofty or particularly abrupt.
Crosby is the only township in Hamilton county, ex- cept Colerain, which has not a foot of railway upon its soil. The route of the projected Liberty, Connersville, and Richmond railroad is, however, surveyed to enter this township from Butler county, near the centre of the north line of section six, running thence south and east about four miles to New Baltimore, a little east of which it will cross the Great Miami. There is also a rather unsual paucity of wagon-roads in the township, but seem- ingly sufficient for the needs of the people.
The township has at present but three villages-New Haven and Whitewater, in the western part, and New Baltimore, in the southeast, about five miles from New Haven.
ANCIENT WORKS.
A number of mounds, and at least one enclosure of some importance, exist in this township. The latter is a little north of New Baltimore, on the Great Miami, in a bend of which it is located, and corresponds to its curves, making an imperfect semi-circle. Human remains have recently been taken from a mound at this place.
Two miles and a half southeast of New Haven, on the farm of Mr. Daniel Whipple, is an ancient burying- ground, now thickly overgrown with underbrush. It is said the graves in this are marked by stones. On the same range of hills, three miles south of New Haven, on J. W. Scott's place, is a superb mound, the finest in this region, which has never been excavated. Both of these lie not far from the lower or shorter road from New Ha- ven and New Baltimore.
Upon a hill west of John Meyer's farm, in this town- ship, are two or three mounds, from which portions of skeletons have been taken. Similar remains have been found in the township, exactly south of New Haven, on the range of hills along the Dry fork of Whitewater, where seems to be a regular ancient cemetery, in which, it is said, the bodies were placed in square spaces, protected on all sides by a kind of red limestone. About fifty graves have been identified there, with one or two mounds. Dr. Bartlett, the veteran practitioner at New Haven, declares that the bones found here are not those of the red man.
Southwest of New Haven, half or three-fourths of a mile, on the Simonson farm, is another mound, of eight to ten feet height. Besides human remains, there have been taken from the ancient works of Crosby township well-executed pipes, stone articles of admirable workman- ship and finish, pottery in various shapes, and other evidences of at least a partial civilization.
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