History of Knox County, Ohio, its past and present, Part 36

Author: Hill, N. N. (Norman Newell), comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A.A. & Co., Mt. Vernon, Ohio
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Mt. Vernon, Ohio : A. A. Graham & Co.
Number of Pages: 1096

USA > Ohio > Knox County > History of Knox County, Ohio, its past and present > Part 36

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During the progress of the Indian war from 1788 to 1795, the noted scout and Indian fighter, Cap- tain Samuel Brady, on two or three different occa- sions passed through what is now Knox county.

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These expeditions were made in the interest of the military authorities at Fort Pitt, both for the pur- pose of obtaining information regarding the hostile Indians, and to chastise such small parties as might fall in their way.

About 1792 Brady with a party of scouts crossed the Ohio at Wheeling, and directed his course to the forks of the Muskingum (Coshocton), moving thence up the Walhonding and up the Kokosing or Owl creek, to the present site of Mount Vernon. From this point the party turned back, going over to the headwaters of the North fork of Licking and down that stream to its junction with the South fork at Newark; thence they continued down the Licking and Muskingum to Marietta.

Shortly after the treaty at Greenville (1795) ru- mors of peace reached Wheeling, and to ascertain their truth, the commandant of that post dispatched six men of Brady's scouts in the direction of San- dusky. One of the Wetzels was in this party. They crossed the Muskingum at Dresden, came across to the Licking, up that stream to the present site of Newark, where they turned north along the North fork, and passed over onto Owl creek. After going a short distance beyond the present site of Mount Vernon, they became satisfied that Indians were watching them with hostile intent, and turned back. Following the route they came, they encamped one night in the eastern edge of Licking county, where they were fired upon in the night and one of the party killed. They thereupon scat- tered and made their way separately to Wheeling.

It is believed that many other white people passed through the county before any one came to settle permanently. In the treaty which General Boquet made with the Indians at the forks of the Muskingum, in 1764, two hundred and six white captives were given up to him by the Indians. A large number of these captives were among the Wyandots and other tribes in the western and northwestern parts of what is now the State of Ohio, and there is little doubt that a number of these passed along the Indian trail, which followed the Walhonding and Kokosing rivers, from the towns on the Muskingum to those on the Sandusky plains, both while they were being carried into cap. tivity and while on the return journey to be deliv- ered to Boquet.

The renegade Simon Girty and probably his brothers, as well as the notorious British agents, El- liott and McKee, were without doubt through this territory many times while making journeys to and from the eastern part of the State and Fort Pitt. Girty was born about 1745, and was consequently in the prime of life during the half century prior to the first settlement of this part of Ohio. No doubt also the Wetzels, Brady, McCulloch and other scouts and spies, were many times through this territory in the prosecution of their business. This territory was also an excellent hunting ground and much used for that purpose by the Indians at Greentown, among whom were white renegades as early as 1785, who no doubt often accompanied the Indians on their hunting and trapping expedi- tions to the beautiful valley of the Kokosing.

Just prior to the first settlement of the county Andy Craig seems to have located temporarily on Owl creek, and William Leonard in company with a party of scouts came into this territory as early as 1799. Leonard purchased some land on Owl creek and returned with his family and became a permanent settler some years later.

CHAPTER XXI.

SETTLEMENT AND GENERAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTY.

AREA-PRIMITIVE CONDITION-SETTLEMENT ON THE LICK- ING-ANDY CRAIG-CHARACTER OF THE PIONEERS- MILITARY LANDS-NATHANIEL M. YOUNG-FIRST SET- TLERS AND SETTLEMENTS-THE QUAKERS-FIRST ROADS -TRANSPORTATION-THE PRODUCTS OF THE COUNTY- MILLS-THE ACT CREATING KNOX COUNTY -FIRST ELECTIONS-DIVISION INTO FOUR TOWNSHIPS-ITEMS FROM THE COMMISSIONERS' RECORD-SEELEY SIMPKINS RACE.

K NOX county occupies a position near the geo- graphical centre of one of the greatest States in the Union, and contains three hundred and twen- ty-four thousand four hundred and four acres of land, of which about two hundred and sixty-five thousand are cultivated or cultivable, fifty-four thousand in timber, and a little more than five

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thousand waste or uncultivated. In its primitive condition it was covered with a dense growth of timber, but about the time of the advent of the first settlers three or four little patches of prairie or cleared land appeared along Owl creek and other parts of the county, that had probably been cleared by the Indians for the purpose of raising corn. These were long known as the "Indian fields."

At the beginning of this century no white man had set foot on the virgin soil of Knox for the pur- pose of settlement. It was a vast wilderness, oc- cupied by wild animals and wilder men. The territory then belonged to Fairfield county, and so remained until 1808, when it was organized into a separate county and named in honor of General Knox, Washington's Secretary of War.

Perhaps the nearest white settlement to the pres- ent border of Knox county at the beginning of this century, was that on the Licking river, about four miles below the present city of Newark, on what was known as the "Bowling Green" prairie. Here Elias Hughes and John Ratliff, with their families, settled in 1798, and were the only settlers here early in 1800. The wave of white emigration was at that time approaching this territory, and within the next three years came the "first low wash of waves where now rolls a human sea." This was in the shape of Andy Craig, who, however, can hardly be called a settler in the proper sense of that term. He was one of those restless, reckless creatures who continue while they live the picket-guard of civilization. They are always just beyond the white settlements, but never settle permanently anywhere. Andy Craig was here, however, just in advance of the permanent white settlers, and re- mained here until 1809, though it is not believed that he purchased any land or ever intended to make this his abiding place. His character may be fairly inferred from what Norton writes of him, as follows :

From our research into early statements, we are led to believe that Andrew Craig was the first white man who located within the present county limits. He was, at a very early day, a sort of frontier character, fond of rough and tumble life, a stout and rugged man-bold and dare-devil in disposition-who took delight in hunting, wrestling and athletic sports, and was " hail fellow well met" with the Indians then inhabiting the country. He was from the bleak, broken, mountainous region of Virginia, and as hardy a pine knot as ever that country produced. He was in this country when Ohio was in its territorial condition,

and when this wilderness region was declared to be in the county of Fairfield, the sole denizen in this entire district, whose history is now being written, tabernacled with a woman in a rough log hut close by the little Indian Field, about one-half mile east of where Mount Vernon city now exists, and at the point where Centre run empties into the Kokosing. There Andrew Craig lived when Mount Vernon was laid out in 1805- - there be was, upon the organization of Knox county, its oldest inhabitant-and there he continued until 1809. Such a harum- scarum fellow could not rest easy when white men got thick around him, so he left and went to the Indian village-Green- town-and from thence migrated further out upon the frontier, preferring red men for neighbors.

The early settlers of this region were largely from Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, with quite a "sprinkling" from the New England States. They were generally Revolutionary stock, and this may be the reason why Ohio has taken such a prominent position in the Nation, politically and socially. The sub stratum of its population was composed of Revolutionary heroes, whose seven years of struggle and privation had made them men-giants they might be called. From such stock and from the veterans of the War of 1812, the people of this county largely trace their ances- try. It was fortunate for Ohio that her territory was upon the frontier at the close of the Revo- lution. The old soldiers, without money, but with land warrants in their pockets, sought the wilder- ness beyond the Ohio for their future homes. This State caught the larger share of these most desirable emigrants, for the reason that it was the most promising territory then open to settlement in the west. A treaty with the Indians had been made by the Government which opened the larger part of the State to white settlement, and a con- siderable portion of the State was especially re- served for the soldiers, and was known as United States military lands. These lands amounted to two million six hundred and fifty thousand acres. The tract was bounded on the east by the west line of the seven ranges; on the south by Congress lands and the Refugee tract; on the west by the Scioto river, and on the north by the Greenville treaty boundary line, which passes through the northwest corner of Knox county, and forms a portion of its northern boundary line. All of this county was, therefore, "Military Lands," except frac- tions of Middlebury, Berlin and Pike townships.

The first permanent white settler in this county was probably Nathaniel Mitchell Young, the "axe-

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maker," who came in 1803, soon after Andy Craig, and following up Owl creek, some ten miles beyond Craig's cabin, settled on a branch of that stream, in what is now Wayne township. This settlement, subsequently known as the "Jersey settlement" receives attention in the chapter on Wayne town- ship.

Regarding the first settlements in this county, Mr. Norton thus writes:

After many years of solitary residence on the beautiful Ko- kosing, the solitude of Craig's retreat is broken by the entrance of a lone Jerseyman, who, in the spring of 1803, penetrates some ten miles further into the wilderness, so as not, by too close proximity, to annoy each other, and there raises a little log cabin and settles down. This follower of the trade of Vul- can soon gets in readiness to blow and strike, and sets about supplying the sons of the forest with the first axes they had ever seen, and by making for them tomahawks, scalping knives, etc., he acquires the sobriquet of the "axe-maker," which for more than half a century has attached to Nathaniel Mitchell Young.

A year passes by before any white accession is made to society on Owl creek. Then a stalwart backwoodsman breaks the silence by the crack of his rifle, and at the spot where James S. Banning now lives, near Clinton, the pioneer, William Douglass, drives his stake.

The skilful navigator plies his oar, and Robert Thompson as- cends Owl creek to where Mt. Vernon now stands, and on the rich bottom land, about one mile west, commences another im- provement. George Dial, of Hampshire county, Virginia, in another pirogue comes up the creek, and, pleased with the beau- tiful country about where Gambier now flourishes, pitches his tent at the place now occupied by John Troutman. Old Cap- tain Joseph Walker, from Pennsylvania, settles on the bank of the creek where Mt. Vernon now is. John Simpkins, from Vir- ginia, with his son, Seeley, for capital, located about a mile above Douglass, where George Cassel's beautiful farm now ex- ists. While these plain men from Virginia, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are preparing their cabins for occupation, and mak- ing a little clearing, a stray Yankee, solitary and alone, with a speculative eye and money-making disposition, is, with pocket compass, taking his bearings through the forest, soliloquizing about the chance of making a fortune by laying out a town and selling lots to those who may come after him into this charming new country. Having, as he thought, found the exact spot for his future operations, he blazes a tree, and wends his way to the nearest town-Franklinton-west of the Scioto, then a place of magnificent pretensions, where he gets chain, compass, and paper, and returns and lays out the town of Clinton, in section number four, township seven, range four, United States Mili- tary district, with its large "public green," its North street and South street, its Main street, First, Second, Third, and Fourth streets, and one hundred and sixty lots, and, taking his town plat in his pocket, he walks to New Lancaster, being the first white person ever known to have made a journey in that direc- tion from this infant settlement, and before Abraham Wright, justice of the peace, acknowledges the important instrument, and on the eighth of December, 1804, places it upon record. Thus Samuel H. Smith, subsequently the first surveyor of Knox

county, for many years a resident, its leading business man, and largest landholder, made his entrance into this district.

Shortly afterwards a large accession was made to the popula- tion of the county by the emigration from Ten Mile, Washing- ton county, Pennsylvania, of John Mills, Henry Haines, Eben- ezer and Abner Brown, and Peter Baxter, who settled a short distance south of Owl creek, where the Beams, Merits and La- fevers have since lived. This settlement, by the increase of the Leonards, was in 1805-6 the largest and-best community in the county, and upon the organization of the county, and for sev- eral years thereafter, it furnished the leading men. This settle- ment is referred to elsewhere.

Benjamin Butler, Peter Coyles, and Thomas Bell Patterson, in the spring of 1805, augment the. Walker settlement, where Mount Vernon was located shortly after. William Doug- lass is joined by James Loveridge, who emigrates from Morris county, New Jersey, and with his wife takes quarters on the sixth of July upon the clapboards in the garret of his little log cabin, and is mighty glad to get such a shelter as that to spend the year in. The next year Loveridge starts off, under pretense of hunting a cow, and goes to the land office and enters and pays for the tract of land, where shortly after he erected a dwelling, and has ever since resided. Upon this land there is an uncom- mon good spring, which caused him to select it, and he tells with much glee the circumstances under which he obtained it. The only Yankee then in the county claimed to have located it, and proposed to sell it to him at a higher price than the Government rate, which was then two dollars per acre. Concealing his in- tention from all but his wife, Loveridge slipped off and exam- ined into and purchased it himself from the Government, and when he returned with his patent, Bill Douglass laughed heartily at the Jersey Blue overreaching the cunning Yankee. Amariah Watson, of Wyoming county, Pennsylvania, also put up with Douglass, and thus this settlement was made up of Douglass, Smith, Watson and Loveridge, in 1805. The old axe-maker,. in the meantime, is followed np by some of his relations and friends, who start what has ever since been known as the Jersey settlement. Jacob Young, Abraham Lyon and Simeon Lyon are the first to settle upon the South fork of Owl creek, and are succeeded by Eliphalet Lewis, John Lewis, and James Bryant. The Indians they found very numerous. and through the kind feelings towards the old axe-maker, they were very friendly, and really quite an advantage in ridding the country of wolves, bears, and other varmints.

In the winter of 1805-6 that settlement entered into a written agreement to give nine bushels of corn for each wolf scalp that might be taken; and three of the men caught forty-one wolves in steel traps and pens! The description of these pens, and one of the stories told of their operation, we give in the words of an old settler : 'Wolf pens were about six feet long, four feet wide, and three feet high, formed like a huge square box, of small logs, and floored with puncheons. The lid, also of pun- cheons, was very heavy, and moved by an axle at one end, made of a small, round stick. The trap was set by a figure 4, with any kind of meat except that of wolf's, the animals being fonder of any other than their own. On gnawing the meat, the lid fell and caught the unamiable native. To make sport for the dogs, the legs of the wolf were pulled through the crevices be- tween the logs, hamstrung, and then he was let loose, when the dogs soon caught and finished him. In Delaware county an old man went into a wolf trap to fix the spring, when it sprung upon him, knocking him flat upon his face, and securely caught

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him as though he were a wolf. Unable to lift up the lid, and several miles from any house, he lay all one day and night, and would have perished but for a hunter, who passing by heard his groans and came to his rescue."

North, west and east of these embryo settlements all was wilderness for many long miles. A place bearing the name of Newark had been laid out by General W. C. Schenck, but it had not any greater population than these little scattered settle- ments aforementioned. The principal towns of note to the early settlers were Lancaster, Chillicothe and Zanesville. Nei- ther of them were much larger then than our usual > roads' villages now are. The people were exceedingly neighborly, and performed all manner of "kind chores" for each other, in going to mill, laying in goods, dividing what they had with each other, etc. The nearest mill in 1805, was in Fairfield county. Our old friend James Loveridge informs us of a trip he made to that mill, which was seven miles up the Hockhocking river from Lancaster, It belonged to Loveland & Smith, and was situated in a little crack between some rocks, and he went down into the mill through the roof. He made the trip there and back, about one hundred and twenty-five miles, and brought home with him in his wagon about nine hundred pounds of flour, one barrel of whiskey, and one barrel of salt. How the settlement must have rejoiced at the arrival of the great staples of frontier life, salt, whiskey and flour.

The spring of 1806 brought with it a new element into the wilderness region, in the form of the Friends-the forerunners of large numbers of that society, who by their quiet yet indus- trious ways have contributed very much to the prosperity and peacefulness of our people. The venerable father Henry Rob- erts may be justly regarded as the head of this emigration from Maryland. In 1805 he left Frederick county, in that State, with his family, and directed his course to the far west, but on reaching Belmont county, found it necessary to winter his family there, and sent his wagon and team back to Maryland with a load of ginseng and snake-root, and on their return with a load of goods he started with his family and plunder, and on the seventh of April, 1806, he landed at Henry Haines', in the Ten Mile settlement,* and after spending a week looking for a good location, on the fourteenth of that month settled down with his family at the little prairie five miles above Mount Vernon, of late widely known as the Armstrong section. The family consisted of his wife, his sons-William, now living in Pekin, Illinois ; Isaiah, now residing near Pilot Knob, Missouri ; Richard Rob- erts, of Berlin-and a daughter, Massah, who married Dr. Timo- thy Burr, and died at Clinton, March 9, 1814. Nine acres of that beautiful prairie were at once broken up and planted in corn. It was very hard work to break the virgin soil with a first rate four-horse plow team, but it paid for that labor by one of the finest crops of corn ever raised in this country. In the fall William Y. Farquhar, a cousin of Henry Roberts, came with his family, and after him came William W. Farquhar with his family. They all stopped with Henry Roberts, and thus com- posed the first settlement of Friends in this district. From this nucleus came the numerous society of Quakers in Wayne, Mid- dlebury and Berlin, in after years. Shortly after this we find other Quakers, Samuel Wilson, and John Kerr in what subse- quently became Wayne township, and John Cook and Jacob

Cook just above, in what is now Middlebury township, and Amariah Watson goes from Douglass' to the tract of land above, where Fredericktown was the next year laid out, and which he subsequently sold to Jacob Ebersole, a place now easy to be identified by all. In the spring of 1806, there were within the after limits of Knox county but fifteen persons who turned out to vote, and but nine liable to perform military duty out to muster.

The earliest settlers in this, as in all other parts of the State came into the country by Indian trails, and by canoes up the streams. A few of the earliest settlers in Mount Vernon came up the Muskingum and Whitewoman rivers in canoes, and thence up Owl creek; but these primitive modes of ingress and egress could not long be endured, roads must be cut through the great woods. As early as January 23, 1800, Mr. Holden presented at the clerk's table of the house of representatives of the State, a petition from sundry inhabitants of Licking county; also a petition from sundry inhabitants of Licking and Knox, setting forth their remote situation from water carriage, and the necessity of having good roads; "that they have no road whereby they can receive letters, or any kind of intelligence, or any property from any part of the United States, or this State, except by chance or private conveyance, nearer than Newark or Zanesville; and praying for the establishment of a road from Newark, in Lick- ing county; thence to Mount Vernon, in Knox county; thence to Mansfield, in Richland county; and thence to the mouth of the river Huron, Lake Erie, etc., which were read.

On motion, and on leave being granted by the house, Mr. Merwin presented at the clerk's table a petition from sundry in- habitants of Fairfield county, of a similar nature to the before mentioned petitions, praying for the establishment of a road from Lancaster, in said county, through Mount Vernon, in Knox county, to the portage, in Cuyahoga."-House Journal, page 177.

The north and south road was the first one opened at the public expense. Private roads were made by the pioneers themselves, to the different settlements in the county limits.

It was not until February, 1829, that the State road from Mount Vernon to Columbus was author- ized, by act of legislature, to be opened. Prior to this, however, a road had been cut by the pioneers along Dry creek, and the commissioners, James McFarland, of Knox, Adam Reed, of Franklin, and John Myers, of Licking, established the State road partly upon the line already opened. The road south to Newark, via Martinsburgh, was among the first opened. Over these crude roads the advanc- ing pioneers made their way, among stumps and over corduroy bridges, the only kind of bridge then known in the new country.

The War of 1812 checked immigration somewhat, but after it ended the tide began again to flow in greater volume than ever. The passage of troops during the war had served to make new roads and

* So called from the fact that the settlers were from Ten Mile, Penn- sylvania. The settlement was made a short distance below Mount Ver- non, near the present residence of Hon. Columbus Delano.

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widen the old ones, and the war also introduced to the new country hundreds of men who would not otherwise have known of its beauty and advantages, and who, when at liberty to do so, returned and settled in it. The country no doubt settled far more rapidly than it would have done had there been no War of 1812.

Where no roads existed numerous "blazed" trails led off through the woods in every direction to the cabin of the solitary settler.

The most important of the early roads, to the prosperity of Mount Vernon, was the one leading north to the lake. This was the great out-let for grain and other produce. Great covered freight wagons, with tires seven or eight inches broad and an inch thick, drawn by six horses or mules, made regular trips from Baltimore and Philadelphia over the National road to Zanesville; thence over this "mud road," stopping at the little stations on the way to receive and discharge freight. Many of these teamsters were men of high character, stand- ing, and credit, and in transacting their business, would require persons who shipped goods by their wagons to make out three bills of lading, all prop- erly signed, with as much regularity as a ship at sea, or the freight trains of to-day; one bill to ac- company the goods, one to be retained by the ship- per, and one to go by mail to the consignee. One of these teams would to-day be a greater curiosity than a steamer or a train of cars. They are yet to be found on the great praries of the west, trans- porting freight to points not yet reached by the iron horse.

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History of Knox County, Ohio, its past and present, Part 36

Author: Hill, N. N. (Norman Newell), comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A.A. & Co., Mt. Vernon, Ohio Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Mt. Vernon, Ohio : A. A. Graham & Co. Number of Pages: 1096

Author: Hill, N. N. (Norman Newell), comp; Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-; Graham, A.A. & Co., Mt. Vernon, Ohio
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Mt. Vernon, Ohio : A. A. Graham & Co.
Number of Pages: 1096