USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 93
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In the year 1816 he married Phoebe Marsh, who had come to Ohio from New Jersey in 1805. From this union there came nine children, five of whom are now living, S. M. Ferris being the eldest. At the early age of sixteen Isaac Ferris became the subject of Divine grace, and soon after united with the Duck Creek church, then almost in its infancy. He was baptized by Elder William Jones. Though an ap- prentice and residing six miles from the church, such was his love for the communion of the saints, and his delight in the public worship of God, that his place in the sanctuary was seldom vacant.
In the year 1825, in the twenty-ninth year of his age, then having been a growing member for thirteen years, he was licensed to preach; and after his aptness to preach and his ability for usefulness was deter- mined by a test of experience, he was-ordained to the work of a minis- ter. For ten years he preached to the church in which he was a mem- ber. He was afterwards thirteen years pastor of the East Fork church. This was the field in which his labors were most signally blessed, a strong church growing up under his care and an organization effected which was a great power for good in that community. Here eighty converts were baptized by him in a continuous revival of eighteen months. He also led the flocks at Newton, Cloughs, Hammer's Run, and elsewhere, and, as was necessary in those days to meet appoint- ments, many hardships were endured. He still labored all those years at his trade, blacksmithing, and farming, and kept up his religions work in the cause he loved so well. He was accustomed to manual labor and was an active, energetic man, and in consideration of the ardnous work performed was truly a great man at that time. He died, loved
and respected, December 22, 1860. Those who knew him credit him with having a meek, humble disposition, and an unassuming manner. His mind was clear; reasoning and understanding, deep; while his arguments and exhortations were very effective, and upon great occa- sions, when aroused into action, the power of the man was most fully felt.
The early life of Samuel M. Ferris, the subject of this sketch, was spent on a farm and in the shop with his father, the latter association predominating and forming his life pursuits in business. In the year 1838 he married Miss Mary Z. Ferris, daughter of J. J. Ferris. She was born April 27, 1818; her father was a cousin and brother-in-law of Andrew, Joseph, and Eliphalet Ferris, who came to Ohio from the east in 1811, and who became prominent men. The two families of Ferris were not related, but the ancestry of all are traceable to the days of William I, the conquerer of England.
S. M. Ferris and his people are characteristically blue-eyed, fair skinned, and light-complexioned; while those of his wife's people are dark-complexioned, with dark eyes and dark hair. For two years after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Ferris lived in Mt. Lookout and then moved to Linwood, in 1841, where for forty years they have resided In 1833 Mr. Ferris was taken into the Duck Creek church, three miles north of Columbia, in which church he has always been a most active and useful member. In this church he was clerk for twenty years; was treasurer and deacon for ten years, and after he moved to Columbia, in 1865, was made deacon in the Baptist church at that place, which position he has held ever since, and in all has had an experience of forty-eight years in church work up to this date. He also took a lively interest and management in the erection of the costly and elegant church building in Columbia in 1866 and 1867. To this work he devoted of his means lavishly, and its success as an organized society is due largely to the efficient and never-tiring labors of Mr. Ferris.
His first business venture, owing to small capital, was as a village blacksmith, which, with that of wagon-making, he followed for many years with some success, for by rigid economy and untiring industry he was able, in 1856, from his earnings, to build a hame shop and open business on a larger scale. In this business, with its additions, he has since continued. Prior to 1865 he carried on his business alone, but at that time he took his two brothers into partnership, built a large, new brick factory, thoroughly equipped it with modern machinery, and has
since conducted a large and growing business under the firm name of S. M. Ferris & Co., of which Mr. Ferris is the financial manager. 0% .;
His children, seven of whom are now living-four daughters .. three sous-are in prosperous ciremstances. Appreciating the adva .. tages of study, Mr. Ferris has given his children liberal education's. Mrs. Anna M. De Armand De Armond, the o'dest daughter, and M?s. Harriet Smith both live in Linwood. Mrs. Emma Hawkins lives in Clark county, Ohio, her husband being a farmer. Mrs. Clara M. Waters also resides in Linwood, her husband, Charles G. Waters, being engaged in mercantile business in Cincinnati. Mr. De Armand is a member of the firm of S. M. Ferris & Co., and Mr. A. E Smith is a member of the firm of Roots & Co., Cincinnati ( ommission merchants). Frank Ferris, the oldest son, resides with his family in Linwood, and is a farmer. Howard, the second son, is an attorney-at law, practicing in Cincinnati, and is a member of the law firm of Cowan & Farris. Elmer E. Ferris, the youngest son, is engaged in the hame factory.
Mr. Ferris has always lived an active and useful life. He is a quiet, u nasuming man, cares little for office notoriety; although, had he been an aspirant in that direction, we presume he could have secured high positions of trust and responsibility. In his township, for the sake of good government and needed reforms, he has held every office except that of clerk. He helped organize his school district, and for eighteen years following served as one of the trustees on the board of education. He has always believed in the power of the school to elevate society, and so he has been a generous friend to educational interests, all his children, save one, having enjoyed the advantages of collegiate studies at the schools at Granville.
Mr. Ferris, though conservative in his habits of thought and retiring in his disposition, is emphatic and pronounced in his views. His judg- ment is formed slowly and his conclusions are generally well rega ded by his neighbors. Though he has been engaged in active busine & for over forty years, yet he has not neglected to improve his mind byfread- ing and study. He has been a most faithful student of history, not only of our own but also of other countries, and having enlarged his views by travel in this and foreign countries, he has a fund of informa- tion which makes him a most agreeable companion. In business and | in church circles Mr. Ferris is highly esteemed; but it is in his home re- lations that his influence is most deeply felt and appreciated. Here, surrounded by a large family of children and grandchildren, he is the central object of interest.
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349
HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
The original agreement with Judge Symmes, when the oject of the Miami purchase was broached to him by Sifies, in the spring or summer of 1787, provided that Stites should have ten thousand acres about the mouth of the Little Miami, lying as nearly in a square as possi- ble, as a reward for his discovery of the country and his consequent scheme of purchase, and should be allowed as much in addition as he could pay for. He appears by the receipts, however, finally to have had to pay for all the lands he acquired.
. During the long wait at Limestone, in September, a party of about sixty went down the river, landing at the mouth of the Little Miami, and exploring the back coun- try thoroughly for some distance between that point and the great North Bend, where Symmes afterwards planted his colony. The judge was with them, but Stites was not. He was busily engaged with preparation for his settlement, making plans for the village plat and the fort, and getting out clapboards for roofs from the woods about Limestone, with the hearts of timber prepared to fill the spaces between the logs of his prospective cabin, cut of boat-plank doors, with their hangings all ready, were also made. He and his son Benjamin were mainly en ged in this work, and in storing them in a boat ready for he movement. At this time a sharp lookout had to be kept against Indian attack; and people walked about the streets and vicinity of Limestone habitually with arms in their hands. Nehemiah Stites, indeed, a nephew of the major, was killed by the savages while passing to or from the woods in which his relatives were at work.
Another important item of preparation was also ac- complished during the delay at Limestone, in the execu- tion and signature of an agreement required by Stites, and assented to by about thirty persons, to form a settle- ment at the mouth of the Little Miami. Some were scared off afterwards, by the persistent rumors of disaf- ៛ -d Kentuckians, pehaps anxious to divert immigrants toward Lexington and other settlements on their side of the Ohio, that a large party of hostile Indians was en- camped at or near the point of intended settlement. The majority held to their signatures, however, and it is pretty well settled that the original body of the pioneers of Columbia and the Miami purchase was composed as follows :*
Major Benjamin Stites and family, including Benjamin Stites, jr .; Elijah Stites and family, including Jonathan Stites; Greenbright Bailey and family, including John F. Bailey and Reason Bailey; Abel Cook and family, Jacob Mills and family, Hezekiah Stites, John S. Gano, - Ephraim Kibby, Elijah Mills, Thomas C. Wade, Edmund Buxton, Daniel Schumacher, Allen Woodruff, Joseph Cox, Benjamin Cox, Evan Shelby, Mr. Heampstead, twenty stout stalwart men, with two well- grown, capable boys (the Stites sons), were of this band.
"And there was woman's fearless age, Lit by her deep love's truth; There was manhood's brow, serenely high, And the fiery heart of youth."
Mr. Robert Clarke in his useful pamphlet on Losanti-
ville, has added the following names of subsequent but still early colonists at Columbia:
James H. Bailey.
David Jennings.
Zephu Ball.
Henry Jennings.
Jonas Bowman.
Levi Jennings.
W. Coleman.
Ezekiel Larned.
Benjamin Davis.
John McCulloch.
David Davis.
John Manning.
Owen Davis.
James Matthews.
Samuel Davis.
Aaron Mercer.
Francis Dunlevy. Ichabod B. Miller.
Hugh Dunn.
Patrick Moore.
Isaac Ferris.
William Moore.
John Ferris.
John Morris.
James Flinn.
- Newell.
Gabriel Foster.
John Phillips.
Luke Foster.
Jonathan Pitman.
William Goforth.
Benjamin F. Randolph.
Daniel Griffin.
James Seward.
Joseph Grose.
John Webb.
John Hardin.
- Wickerham.
Cornelius Hurley.
The names of Kibby and Schumaker (or Shoemaker) appear in the list of grantees of donation lots at Losanti- ville, distributed by lottery January 1, 1789. Several other Columbia pioneers also acquired property, and some made permanent settlements at Cincinnati, their names being identified with the early annals of both places. Colonel Spencer, the Rev. John Smith, Colonel Brown, Captain Jacob White, afterwards of White's sta- tion, Mr. H -- John Reily, the schoolmaster, and others, were also of the early Columbia-all, says Judge Burnet, "men of energy and enterprise."
The Columbia argonauts-"more numerous," says Burnet's notes, "than either of the parties who com- menced the settlements below them on the Ohio"-led by Stites in person, he, as Symmes wrote shortly after to Dayton, "having a great desire to plant himself down there, " floated out upon the broad river from Limestone, it is believed, on the sixteenth of November, 1788. The first stage of their journey took them to the mouth of Bracken creek, on the Kentucky side. An interesting incident of the voyage is thus related by Dr. Ferris :
They descended the river to Bracken creek; and from that place they started, as they supposed, in time to float down the Little Miami by sunrise, so as to have the day before them for labor. Previons to their leaving Maysville, a report had been in circulation that some hunters had returned from the woods who had seen five hundred Indians at the month of the Little Miami, and that the Indians had heard the white people were coming there to settle, and intended to kill them all as soon as they should arrive. On its being announced at break of day that they were near the month of the Miami, some of the females were very much alarmed on account of the report alluded to. To allay their fears, five men volunteered their services fo go forward in a canoe, and examine. If there were no Indians they were to wave their hand- kerchiefs. and the boats, which were kept close to the Kentucky shore, were to be crossed over and landed. If there were, the men were to pass by and join the boats below. The token of "no Indians" was given, and the boats were crossed over and landed at the first high banks (about three-fourths of a mile) below the mouth of the Little Miami, a little after sunrise on the morning of the eighteenth of November, 1788. .
This landing was on the present soil of Spencer town- ship, outside the corporate limits of Columbia, a few hundred yards further up the river, where is still a con- siderable settlement, some of the buildings in which are very old. The traditional place of landing is pointed
*For the accuracy of this list, as well as for many other facts em- braced in this narrative, we confidently rely upon the statement of the Rev. 1 ... Ferris, D. D., long of Columbia, afterwards of Lawrence- burgh, as embodied in his communication to the Cincinnati Daily Gazette, date of July 20, 1844.
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
out, in front of an old two-story brick dwelling, near the lower part of the settlement.
Dr. Ferris proceeds with these interesting details of the landing :
After making fast, they ascended the steep bank and cleared away the underbrush in the midst of a pawpaw thieket, where the women and children sat down. They next, as though to fulfil the commands of the Saviour, "watch and pray," placed sentinels at a small distance from the thicket, and, having first united in a song of praise to Almighty God, to whose providence they ascribed their success (Mr. Wade taking the lead in singing), upon their bended knees they offered thanks for the past and prayer for future protection; and in this manner dedi- cated themselves (and probably their thicket) to God, as solemnly and acceptably as ever a stately temple, with all the pomp and splendor at- tending it, was dedieated. There were in this little group six persons, viz: Benjamin Stites, John S. Gano, Thomas C. Wade, Greenbright Bailey, Edward Buxton, and Mrs. Bailey, who were professors of the Christian religion of the Baptist ebureh.
Thus, in a little more than one year from his first conception of this great enterprise, Major Stites with his little company was on the ground, prepared to commenee that immense labor necessary to ehange this then vast wilderness into a fruitful field.
The first duty was to build a defence against the ma- rauding savage. Plans for this had already been pre- pared, and without delay the strong arms of the settlers began to make inroads upon the forest, in the prepara- tion of material for a simple military work. Part of the men stood guard, while others toiled, while laborers and guards from time to time exchanged places. The site of the first block-house was selected near the point of landing, and about half a mile below the mouth of the Little Miami-just in front, it is said, of the subsequent residence of A. Stites, esq. It is also said that the en- croachments of the river long since washed away this site. The work was so far advanced by the twenty-fourth of November that the women, children, and portable goods of the party were moved into it. The troops who came from Limestone soon after, to form a garrison, erected another block-house, below the first-west of the other, as tradition runs, and between the present toll-gate of the New Richmond pike and the river. Some say that four block-houses in all were erected, and so situ- ated as to form, with a stout stockade connecting them, a square fortification, which took twenty months after- wards the name of a work erected by the British on the Maumee about this time, near the scene of Wayne's vic- tory, Fort Miami.
Oliver M. Spencer, who was a boy nine years old when he came with his father to Columbia, says in his Narration of Captivity that at that time Columbia was "flanked by a small stockade, nearly half a mile below the mouth of the Miami, with four block-houses at suit- able distances along the bank."
In the immediate neighborhood, but below the fort, cabins were then put up as rapidly as possible, and the settlers housed themselves for the winter. They had scarcely got comfortably located, however, when the in- undation of January drove them from every cabin except one, which had fortunately been perched upon the high- er ground. The soldiers in the block-house-a garrison of eighteen men and a sergeant, had been sent in De- cember from Captain Kearsey's company at Limestone -- were crowded into the loft of the structure by the rapid-
ly rising waters, and were rescued from their uncomfort- able and perilous position by a boat, in which they crossed to the hills on the Kentucky side. Much of the loose property of the settlers was lost by the flood. The Hon. A. H. Dunlevy, in his History of the Miami Bap- tist Association, among other things, says of the conse- quences of this unhappy experience :
A winter of bloody conflict with the Indians was anticipated ; but, contrary to expectation, the colony remained undisturbed during all that winter and until autumn of the next year. The settlers labored ineessantly in building eabins for themselves upon the beautiful plain which lies east of most of the present buildings in Columbia ; but on the first of January, 1789, a high flood in the Ohio proved that they bad made a bad selection for a town. The whole bottom was over- flowed, but one house escaping the deluge. Afterwards improvements were made below and further from the river, on higher ground; but that flood forever ruined the prospects of Columbia. During the In- dian war many stayed there because they could not move further into the country on account of the savages. But as soon as Wayne's vic- tory, in the fall of 1794, seeured the safety of the settlements in more interior localities, the people began to leave Columbia; and after the treaty of Greenville, in 1795, many more left, and Columbia ever after had the appearance of a deserted town.
The sturdy colonists did not abandon the ground at the first flood, however, but returned to them when the waters abated, and meantime provided themselves with such shelters as they could. They were often hard pressed for food this first winter, and some suffered much for want of their wonted articles of sustenance. Wild game abounded, but there was no salt or breadstuff to eat with the fresh meat, except what could be had in small quantities from passing boats. The women and children resorted much to Turkey bottom, when the weather and the condition of the ground permitted, to scratch up the bulbous roots of beargrass, which they boiled and mashed, and so ate them, or dried the sub- stance and pounded it into a sort of flour. In the spring, with the growth of vegetables on the Turkey bottom and other fertile tracks, the situation improved, and the abundant crops of the first year rendered starvation thenceforth exceedingly improbable. There was even a surplus for Fort Washington, as the following incident shows:
Luke Foster, of the pioneers at Columbia, was one of the lieutenants appointed for the militia of Hamilton county by Governor St. Clair. He performed a most patriotic act in 1789, when the troops at Fort Washington were ou particularly short commons, and General Har- mar sent two of his officers to Columbia to get supplies. Captain James Flinn had corn to sell, but would not let the soldiers have it, saying that, while he lived near Marietta, the year before, he had sold corn to the garri- son at Fort Harmar and had never been paid for it. Captain Strong answered that the men at the fort had been living on half rations for nine days, and if they were not supplied they must leave or starve. Mr. Foster, who was standing by, upon this instantly offered to lend them a hundred bushels of corn, which was part of the growth from two and a half acres in Turkey bottom, planted with six and a half quarts of corn, for which he had exchanged the same quantity of corn meal. His offer was gratefully accepted; but so remiss was the gar- rison afterwards in payment, or so poorly supplied, that,
351
HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
when in need himself, he had to ride six times to the fort to get as much as nineteen bushels of it returned. Mr. Foster, it may be of interest here to note, finally settled two miles south of Springdale, in Springfield township, where he lost his life on the tracks of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad, August 28, 1851, being struck by a gravel train. He was cighty-eight years old, had become deaf, and was otherwise greatly enfeebled. For many years he was an associate judge of the court of common pleas, under the old system, and was one of the first appointees to that office in Hamilton county.
As soon as practicable after the landing, Stites had his proposed city surveyed, which he fondly hoped might be- come the metropolis of the west. According to the narrative of Oliver M. Spencer, published long after- wards, it was to occupy the broad and extensive plain between Crawfish creek and the mouth of the Little Miami-a distance along the Ohio of nearly three miles --- and to extend up the Miami about the same distance. It was actually laid out over a mile along the Ohio, stretching back about three-quarters of a mile from that stream, and reaching half-way up the high hill which formed in part the eastern and northern lines. This tract was platted, partly in blocks of eight lots, each of half an acre, and the rest in lots of four and five acres each. Nine hundred and forty-five inlots are said to have been staked off by Stites' surveyors. The streets intersected each other at right angles. A different plat of Columbia, corresponding more nearly to the village of recent years, bears date May 5, 1837.
Major Stites' title to his entire large tract in this region was afterwards threatened, by the apparent determination of the Government authorities to draw the eastern boun- dary of the Miami purchase from a point twenty miles up the Ohio from the mouth of the Great Miami, which would have left him outside of the purchase, and alto- gether destitute of valid title from Symmes. It is to the honor of the judge that in this crisis he stood bravely by his friend, writing to his associates of the East Jersey company: "If Mr. Stites is ousted of the settle- ment he has made with great danger and difficulty at the mouth of the Little Miami, it cannot be either politic or just." Governor St. Clair at once issued his proclamation warning settlers off the Miami country east of the afore- said line; but the matter was afterwards arranged, and the east and west boundaries of the purchase were fixed as originally proposed, upon the two Miamis.
During its first two years Columbia flourished hope- fully, and was then remarked as a larger and more promising place than Losantiville or its successor, Cincin- nati. It was the largest settlement in the Miami country, and was expected to increase rapidly; "but," says Dr. Drake, in his picture of Cincinnati, "the bayou which is formed across it from the Little Miami almost every year, and the occasional inundations of nearly the whole site, have destroyed that expectation, and it is now [1815] in- habited chiefly by farmers." The village was not only superior in population, but also in the convenience and appearance of their dwellings. But for the floods, and the establishment of Fort Washington and then the
county seat of Cincinnati, which naturally gave it great advantage, it might have been the metropolis of Miami- dom. Many excellent citizens, as Colonel Abram and Ezra Ferris, who came December 12, 1789, and Colo- nel Spencer, who landed a year thereafter, joined the colony during these years. We subjoin some notices of the more noted among the immigrants of the first de- cade:
John Reily, one of the early settlers of Columbia, was but twenty-five years old when the colony came, having been born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, April 10, 1763. He had seen much service, however, in the army of the Revolution; was engaged at Camden, Guilford Court House, Ninety-six, and Eutaw Springs, and served through his eighteen months' term honorably and safely. After a few years in the wilds of Kentucky, he removed from Lincoln county, near the present site of Danville, to the Columbia settlement, December 18, 1789, and the next year taught the first school kept there, or any- where in the Miami purchase. He took full part in the scouts and expeditions into the Indian country, and in 1794 removed to Cincinnati, where he became success- ively deputy clerk of the county court, clerk of the terri- torial legislature, and clerk and collector of the town. He removed to Hamilton in 1803, and there spent the remainder of his days, dying in that place June 7, 1850, after a long and highly honorable career.
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