History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 95

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp; Williams, L.A. & co., Cleveland, O., pub
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio, L. A. Williams
Number of Pages: 590

USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 95

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In October, 1791, the substantial addition was made to the church of fifteen members by letter and two by experience and baptism. The building of a church edi- fice was the next thing in order, upon a lot given for the purpose by Major Stites, upon a slight eminence in the northern part of Columbia, now near and east of the Little Miami railroad, where a pile of rocks and some ancient graves still mark the spot. The meeting-house was resolved upon in February, 1792, but was more than eighteen months in building, not being regularly occu- pied, probably, till late the next year, though Mr. Dun- levy says there was preaching in it in the spring of 1793.t The structure was frame, thirty-six by thirty feet, with gal- leries and a hipped roof. It stood until 1835, when it was pulled down, having been abandoned for years and become very much dilapitated. A picture of it, in this state, appears in Howe's Historical collections of Ohio, in the first volume of the American Pioneer, and in Mr. Dunlevy's little history. The following lines were written during the later years of the church by an old Columbian :

ON VISITING THE OLD CHURCH AT COLUMBIA.

Near where the Ohio winds its lovely way Through plains with flowers and herbage richly gay,

High on a green, luxuriant, sloping sod, In ruinous mantle clad, stands the lone House of God.

A strange sensation thrilled across my breast

As its drear aisle my wandering footsteps prest;

Its sound alone disturbed the pensive scene, That spoke what it was then and told what it had been.

The pulpit mould'ring nodded from the wall,

From which me thought still rang the watchman's call;

Some ancient seats in circles filled the space, And seemed to say, 'A choir has left this vacant place.'

But 'tis not so-here owls their vigils keep

And driving winds in mournful murmurs sweep;

The bat rejoicing flits along the gloom; All else is still, and calm, and tranquil as the tomb.

Where are those eyes that traced those sacred lines,

Where truth, where majesty, and beauty shines ?

Where are those hearts that have with fervor glowed,

When o'er Death's vale they viewed the Christian's blest abode?

Where is the choir that here so sweetly sang

The song of praise to God and peace to man ?

Methinks, returning through the lapse of years,

I hear their anthem notes soft stealing on my ears.

Deep in the grave, around this falling pile,

They sweetly sleep, forgetful of their toil ;- Have fled and left behind this loud appeal,

'All, all on earth must die -- 'tis Heaven's unchanging willl'

Then fare thee well! Perhaps my feet again

Shall never tread thy silent, black domain, Yes, fare thee well !- for list'ning solitude Waits to resume her throne in dark and frowning mood.

Yet may the hand of Time long spare thy brow,

Though covered o'er with many a furrow now;

That generations yet to come may see Some vestige left-some trace remaining still of thee.

Peace to the inmates that around thee sleep!

May angel bands their slumbering ashes keep, Till Gabriel's trumpet rends the hearing clay, And calls them forth to joys that never shall decay!

Mr. Dunlevy supplies the following interesting facts :

The law then required every able-bodied man attending meetings for worship to carry his firearms with him, prepared to defend the inhabit- ants, as well as those at the meeting, from an attack of the Indians. On the first day the house was opened for worship, Colonel Spencer, one of the early settlers at Columbia and at that time the head of the militia, attended the services, and at the close addressed the militia and pointed out the necessity of strict discipline at these meetings. On another occasion during the same season, when the congregation had assembled for worship, two men came from the woods with an Indian's scalp which they had just taken ;* and during this and the next year two members of the church, Francis Griffin and David Jennings, were killed by the savages. A number more of the inhabitants of Columbia were killed by the Indians during the years 1791-2, and several taken prisoners-among them O. M. Spencer, son of Colonel Spencer above named, and long after a well-known citizen of Cincinnati. All their religious meetings, therefore, until Wayne's victory in the autumn of 1794 (and the treaty of Greenville in the next year) had to be guarded by armed men.

The Columbia church was the vigorous parent, prolific in offspring of other churches scattered up and down the Little Miami valley, at places, where its members settled after the the Greenville treaty. Within little more than a dozen years after its formation, colonies from it had founded, or helped to found, Baptist churches at the Little Miami island, on Carpenter's run, in the present

* McBride's Pioneer Biography, volume II, p. 93.

+ History of the Miami Baptist Association.

* On this occasion, as another account states, Colonel Spencer addressed the people again, advising them to close the meeting and go home and prepare for defence; which they obediently did. See McBride's Pioneer Biography, Vol- ume II, page 186.

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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.

Sycamore township; near Ridgeville, Warren county ; at Turtle creek, now Lebanon; near Little Prairie, now Middletown; and even at Staunton, near the county seat of Miami county, about seventy miles north of Columbia.

According to the recollections of Mr. David Doty, published in McBride's Pioneer Biography, "the order then was for every man to meet on parade on Sunday morning, armed and equipped, and after going through the manual exercise, march to the place of worship, stack their guns in one corner of the cabin until divine service was concluded, and then take them and return to their homes."

Elder Smith preached a part of the time in Cincinnati. In April, 1790, the Columbia church formally resolved "that in view of the entire destitution of preaching in Cincinnati, Brother Smith be allowed to spend half his time in that place." In 1795 he resigned at Columbia, and devoted his work to what was known as the Little Miami Island church, on an islet in the river, about eight miles northeast of Columbia. He was assisted at the latter place by Elder Clark. the ordained of the Septem- ber meeting in 1793, who took sole charge of the church after Smith's retirement, and ministered to it until au- tumn, 1797, when he removed to the northward and or- ganized, successively, the Deer Creek and Turtle Creek (since Lebanon) churches. For a number of years he preached to both, and was the only pastor the latter church had from its formation in 1798 until 1829, or thereabouts, when he became superannuated. He lasted five or six years longer, dying December 11, 1834, in his ninetieth year.

Elder Smith ministered to the pioneer church for over ten years, and then dropped into politics. He was a member of the first Constitutional convention, that which organized the State of Ohio, and was one of the first United States Senators from this State. In 1806, when the storm burst over the head of Aaron Burr, Senator Smith shared in Colonel Burr's obloquy, simply, it would appear, from the hospitality tendered by him to Burr during the latter's visit to Cincinnati, and his firm ex- pression of belief that Burr's projects involved nothing treasonable or injurious to the country.

Mr. Dunlevy says in his History :

A few individuals of very bad character, at Cincinnati, who had themselves been intimate with Burr, and several of whom, it was be- lieved, had been fully committed to his plans, when the clamor became great withdrew their familiarity with Burr, and, to screen themselves, joined in accusing Smith of connection with him. Party political strife at that time ran high, and at Cincinnati a secret organization was formed, and oaths of inviolable privacy were taken. The crimination of Senator Smith originated with the secret society. Its members were the principal witnesses against him, and refused on his trial to answer any questions except such as they pleased, and as they supposed, no doubt, would afford evidence against him.

A bill of indictment was actually found against him, though abandoned without trial. He was put upon trial in the Senate, however, and though vindicated, it was by a majority so meagre that he felt virtually condemned, and resigned his seat. The expenses of his defence were so great, and the pressure of his creditors so persistent, that he was compelled to part with all his property here, and

in 1808 retired to an obscure locality in Louisiana, where he owned a tract of land, and where he thenceforth lived until his death, in 1824.

Other early pastors of the Columbia church were : Elder Peter Smith, from Georgia, 1800-4; William Jones, at Duck creek, 1805-14; John Clark, at Duck creek, 1814-16; and James Lyon, who was still living in 1857.

A notable revival occurred under the ministry of the first named, in the spring of 1801, in which nearly one hundred and fifty persons were baptized and admitted to the church, among them several, as James Lynn, after- wards pastor of the same church, Ezra Ferris and Heze- kiah Stites, who themselves became useful preachers of the gospel. Later in its history others of its young men have gone out to different parts of the country in similar . service.

In 1808 the meeting-place of the membership in this church was removed from Columbia to a more central point two miles north, where it took the name of the Duck Creek church, which it has since borne.

September 23, 1797, the first ecclesiastical gathering of importance in the Miami country took place with this church, in Columbia, to form an association of Baptist churches. It was composed mainly of ministers and delegated laymen from the societies at Columbia, Little Miami Island, Carpenter's run and Clear creek, though two ministers were present from Kentucky. Elder John Smith was elected moderator and David Snodgrass, clerk. After consultation it was resolved "that the churches in this Northwest Territory, and those adjacent, of the Baptist order, should meet at the Baptist meeting- house in Columbia, on the first Saturday of November ensuing.27 At that meeting further arrangements were made to form the Miami association, which was ' fully constituted at a meeting held with the Island church October 20, 1798, still another meeting having been held meanwhile in June, 1798, at Columbia. Such bodies moved slowly in those days.

A Methodist Episcopal class was formed at Columbia in 1799, by the Rev. John Kobler, the pioneer of Meth- odism in this region, and Francis McCormick, who lived near the mouth of the East fork of the Little Miami, and died near Mount Washington in 1836.

The Columbia Congregational church was organized December 22, 1867, with twenty-nine members. For some time divine worship was regularly held at the town hall, but in 1870 the present edifice was commenced and completed. It is a neat, frame building, with bell, cost- ing about five thousand dollars. The auditorium or main room has a seating capacity of two hundred and seventy-five; while the room at the rear, which may be thrown open with the other, will comforta- bly seat sixty or seventy-five more. This is commonly used for the infant department of the Sabbath school, and for prayer meetings. The church has a pipe-organ, which has a distinct and peculiar history : It was ob- tained and given to the church by Mrs. H. P. B. Jewett, who now resides in New York city. In the death of

357

HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.

Deacon Jewett, which occurred April 2, 1877, the church lost an invaluable member, and the community was deprived of a consistent Christian citizen.

The church has had five pastors, viz: Rev. J. W. Pe- ters, Rev. H. L. Howard, Rev. D. I. Jones, of Pleasant Ridge, Rev. R. M. Thompson, of Mount Washington, and Rev. D. F. Harris, who has been pastor since the fall of 1876.

Like all suburban churches, this one labors under the disadvantages of a transient population. People are constantly coming and going, so that stability is almost out of the question. In the last few years the church has suffered on account of the removal of some of its most efficient members, notably Mr. O. W. Nixon, of the Inter-Ocean, Chicago, who was a few years ago the treasurer of Hamilton county. During the four years' pastorate of Rev. Mr. Harris, there have been fifty-seven additions to the church-thirty-two by letter and twenty- five by profession. The present membership is one hundred and thirty-four. The ladies of the church and congregation have two missionary societies, the Home and the Foreign; while a third, in the interest of both, is carried on by the young people. Besides this work, the church regularly contributes her proportion, with sister churches of the Miami conference, toward the Oberlin ministerial fund. The church also contributes toward the support of the great missionary and benevolent so- cieties, such as the American Board, the American Mis- sionary association, the Home Missionary association, and the Congregational Union.

The first school in the county was opened in Columbia June 21, 1790, by John Reily, the settler before noticed. It was a six-months' subscription school, and appears to have been kept right through the warm season. The next year Francis Dunlevy joined his pedagogic interests with Mr. Reiley's, the former taking the classical department, while the other taught the English studies. In 1793 Reily gave the school over altogether to Dunlevy, and went to settle in the Mill Creek valley, seven miles from Cincinnati. The system of "boarding round" must have existed in his time of teaching in Columbia, since he records in his journal: "In the month of August boarded twelve days with Mr. Patrick Moore; in the month of September boarded twelve days with Hugh Dunn; and in the month of December boarded with John McCulloch six days." He must have had a school-building put up for him, as Dr. Gofroth's diary names "Reiley's school- house" as a certain place of meeting. If so, this was the first temple of learning in the Miami country.

A little more than eight years after the settlement of Columbia, it entertained a distinguished visitor in the person of a young Englishman named Francis Baily, afterwards an "F. R. S."" and president of the Royal As- tronomical society. The following extracts are from his journal of a tour, which was not published until 1856, and then appeared as an appendix to a memoir of Baily, by the late Sir John Herschel:

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1797. This morning we dropped down the river about half a mile to a con-

venient landing, and here we had a much better view of the town than we had where we lay last night. The houses lie very scattered along the bottom of a hill which is about one-eighth of a mile from the river. The town is laid out on a regular plan, but was never in a very flourish- ing state. The neighboring and well-settled country round and at Cincinnati prevents it from being a place of any great importance ; he- sides, it lies very low, and is often overflowed from the river, which prevents any houses being built immediately on the banks, as is cus- tomary in these new settlements. One-quarter of the land on which the town was intended to be laid out is now under water.

After breakfast we went ashore to view the town, and H. introduced me to Mr. [ Rev. John] Smith and Dr. Bean. The former gentleman is a man of very good property, which he has acquired in several different ways in this place : he is a farmer, a merchant, and a parson ; all these occupations, though seemingly so different, he carries on with the great- est regularity and without confusion. The latter is a man of good edu- cation and practices physic here, somewhat in the same manner as our country apothecaries in England do, for which he is dubbed doctor. As those gentlemen rank with the first in the place, a description of their habitations, manners, and society will serve, without any great vari- ation, for that of the bulk of emigrants in a similar state of life.

As Dr. Bean would insist upon our sleeping at his house, and in fact stopping with him during our residence here we accompanied him home. His house was built of logs, as all the houses in these new settlements are, and consisted of a ground floor containing two rooms, one of which was appropriated to lumber, the other served all the purposes of parlor, bed-room, shop, and everything else (though there was a little out- house where they occasionally cooked their victuals and also washed), and it did not appear as if it had been cleaned out this half-year. There were two windows to throw light into the room, but there had been so many of the panes of glass broken, whose places were supplied by old hats and pieces of paper, that it was very little benefitted by the kind intention of the architect. I saw a few phials and gallipots on a shelf in one corner of the room, and near them a few books of different de- scriptions. Such is the force of example that very few of the emigrants who come into this kind of half-savage, half-civilized, state of life, however neat and cleanly they might have been before, can have resolution to prevent themselves from falling into that slovenly practice which everywhere surrounds them; and it is not till the first class of settlers are moved off, that any of these new countries are at all desirable to a person brought up in different habits of life.

At dinner-table I observed a table prepared in the middle of the room, with some knives and forks and pewter plates placed on it, but without anv table-cloth; and when the dinner was ready, two of his servants who were working out in the field were called in, and sat down at the same table and partook of the same provisions as ourselves.

. Our provisions consisted of some stewed pork and some beef, together with some wild sort of vegetable which had been gathered out in the woods, as it must be observed that in all these new settlements fresh provisions, both in meat and vegetables, are at some seasons very scarce, particularly at the time we were there. The inhabitants live a great deal upon deer and turkeys, which they shoot wild in the woods, and upon bacun, which they keep by them in case of need, and as to vegetables,' they are seldom to be procured, except in summer. The bread which is made here is chiefly of Indian meal; it is a coarse kind of fare, but after a little use becomes not all unpleasant.

When the time drew nigh for us to retire to rest, we were shown to one corner of the room where there was a ladder, up which we mounted into a dismal kind of a place without a window, but instead of these there were a number of crevices between the logs, which had never been filled up, and in the room there were three beds, or rather three bedsteads, with a few blankets thrown over them.

I went to breakfast with Mr. Smith, and here I found things a little more in order, though far from that degree of refinement and comfort to be met with in the more civilized parts of this country. This house bore the marks of industry and cleanliness, and we were regaled with tea and coffee and boiled chicken for our breakfast, attended with buck- wheat cakes, which are common in this part of the country. .

The farm of this gentleman consists of several acres of land adjoining his house, which he keeps in high cultivation-chiefly meadow ground-and from which he has realized a great deal of money. His warehouse was near the water side. It consisted of but one room, where he brings down the river such articles of European manufacture as are most in demand. There are but two or three other stores of the same kind in Columbia. The profits of this trade are generally one hundred per cent., and sufficiently compensate the trade for the trouble of a journey once or twice a yearto Philadelphia.

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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.

Some lots in Columbia sold lately for thirty dollars.

That inveterate romancer, Thomas Ashe, who after- wards made away with Dr. Goforth's admirable collection of fossil remains, passed Columbia on his way to Cin- cinnati in 1807, and made the following note in his book :

Just below the junction of this stream [the Little Miami] with the Ohio is the town of Columbia, which rose out of the woods a few years ago with great rapidity and promise, and now is on the decline, being sickly and subject to insulation, when the waters of the Miami are backed up the country by the rise of the Ohio in the spring, the cur- rent of the Ohio being so impetuous as to hinder the Miami from flow- ing into the stream.[!]

A topographical description of the State of Ohio, In- diana Territory, and Louisiana, by J. Cutler, published in 1810, gives a paragraph to Columbia:

Immediately below the mouth of the Little Miami is the town of Co- lumbia. It was laid out by Colonel Symmes, and is the oldest seltle- ment in the State, on the Ohio river, except Marietta, but has increased very little in the number of its inhabitants. At present it is only a neat, pleasant village, consisting of about forty houses, built at some dis- tance from each other, on a rich bottom or interval. Nor is it probable, from its situation, that it will ever become a place of much business.

In 1819 Columbia is noticed in the Ohio State Gazet- teer as "a post town of Hamilton county, six miles east- wardly from Cincinnati. It is situated on the north bank of the Ohio river, one mile below the mouth of the little Miami, and contains about fifty houses."

The first marriages in Columbia, as reported under the law of the court of general quarter sessions of the peace, are believed to have been those of Captain James Flinn and Jane Newell, June 27, 1790, and of Bethuel Covalt and Rachel Blackford, December 29, 1790.

Columbia village was regularly incorporated in 1868 .. By the last census taken before its annexation to Cincin- nati, that of 1870, it had a population of one thousand one hundred and sixty-five. It was taken into the city in 1873. Among its mayors have been-J. L. Thomp- son, 1869; W. J. M. Gordon, 1870; Benneville Kline, 1872-4.

LINWOOD.

This place has a large site-one thousand three hun- dred and fifteen acres, or over two square miles-com- prising four hundred and forty-six acres more than all the rest of Spencer township. It is situated in the north- east part of the township, on the hills west of the Little Miami railroad, and southwest of the observatory at Mount Lookout. It was founded in 1848 for L. A. Chapman, by Israel Wilson, and has been greatly en- larged and otherwise improved since by the operations of the Linwood Land company. January 16, 1874, the village was incorporated for general purposes, and its mayor that year was Mr. John P. Langdon.

It is mainly a place for suburban residence, with Meth- odist, Congregational and Baptist churches, and a good graded school; but a beginning of manufacturing has been made with a hame-factory, etc. It has a population of seven hundred and twenty-two by the census of 1880.

Linwood station is half a mile south of the main part of Linwood, at the junction of the Union Bridge and Wooster turnpikes, and on the Little Miami railroad. A

considerable settlement has also been made here. 'The fine Undercliff road passes through it.

James L. Langdon settled in Columbia township in 1806. He was born in Orange county, Vermont, in 1792, and emigrated to Ohio, where he still lives. He has followed the business of farming on the Miami bot- toms. At times also he has served as a Methodist preacher. His wife, Sarah Phelps, was born in Maine in 1799, and died in 1863. They have three children liv- ing in this county: John P .; Elam C., a resident of Lin- wood; and Mrs. Harriet Williams, of Springfield. Mr. Langdon is one of the oldest men living in Columbia township; he is eighty-eight years old, has lived a life that commands the respect of all who know him, and his two sons are worthy representatives of himself.

RED BANK STATION

is on the Little Miami railroad and river, at the south- east corner of the township, on the Spencer line, about a mile east of the observatory, and two and a half miles northeast of Columbia. Batavia Junction, where the Cincinnati & Eastern narrow guage joins the Little Miami, is a few hundred yards northeast of it.

MOUNT LOOKOUT

is at the extreme northeast corner of Cincinnati, and lies both within and without the city. The observatory at- tached to the University of Cincinnati is located here, in charge of Director Stone. A fine private park lies just inside the city limits, which is much in request for picnic parties and celebrations. A dummy railroad connects the locality with the horse-cars at Pendleton.

O'BRYANVILLE.

A village on the Madison pike, now included in the First ward of the city, at the northwest corner of the old Spencer township. It was laid out in 1875 by Scar- borough & Williams, executors of the will of Benjamin Hey.

PENDLETON.

Also an old village, but more considerable, lying be- tween the hills and the river, from Fulton to Sportsman's Hall or the East End garden. The Delta station, on the Little Miami railroad, and the termini of the Colum- bia and Mount Lookout dummy railroads, are at the latter point.

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History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 95

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp; Williams, L.A. & co., Cleveland, O., pub Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio, L. A. Williams Number of Pages: 590

Author: Ford, Henry A., comp; Ford, Kate B., joint comp; Williams, L.A. & co., Cleveland, O., pub
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, Ohio, L. A. Williams
Number of Pages: 590