History of Licking County, Ohio: Its Past and Present, Part 42

Author: N. N. Hill, Jr.
Publication date: 1881
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 826

USA > Ohio > Licking County > History of Licking County, Ohio: Its Past and Present > Part 42

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His diet was very simple, consisting of milk, when he could get it, of which he was very fond; potatoes and other vegetables, fruits, and meats; but no veal, as he said this should be a land flow-

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ing with milk and honey, and the calves should be spared. He would not touch tea, coffee or tobac- co, as he felt that these were luxuries in which it was wicked and injurious to indulge. He was averse to taking the life of any animal or insect, and never indulged in hunting with a gun.

He thought himself "a messenger, sent into the wilderness to prepare the way for the people, as John the Baptist was sent to prepare the way for the coming of the Saviour." He gathered his apple- seeds, little by little, from the cider presses of western Pennsylvania and putting them carefully in leather bags, he transported them, sometimes on his back, and sometimes on the back of a broken- down horse or mule, to the Ohio river, where he usually secured a boat and brought them to the mouth of the Muskingum, and up that river, plant- ing them in wild, secluded spots all along its numer- ous tributaries. Later in life, he continued his operations further west. When his trees were ready for sale, he left them in charge of some one to sell for him. The price was low-"a fippenny-bit" apiece, rarely paid in money, and if people were too poor to purchase, the trees were given them. One of his nurseries was located on the farm of the late Judge Wilson, in Mary Ann township. His residence in this vicinity covered the period of the war of 1812, and several years following it. He would occasionally make trips further west, and return again after an absence of two or three months. On these excursions he probably visited his sister, Persis Broom, who lived in Indiana.

Mr. C. S. Coffinberry, an early settler of Mansfield, Ohio, who was personally acquainted with him, writes thus: "Although I was but a mere child, I can remember as if it were but yesterday, the warning cry of Johnny Appleseed, as he stood before my father's log cabin door on that night-the cabin stood where now stands the old North American in the city of Mansfield. I remember the precise lauguage, the clear, loud voice, the deliberate exclamations, and the fearful thrill it awoke in my bosom. 'Fly! fly! for your lives! the Indians are murdering and scalping the Zimmers and Copuses.' These were his words. My father sprang to the door, but the messenger was gone, and midnight silence reigned without. Jonathan Chapman was a regularly con-

stituted minister of the church of the New Jerusa- lem, according to the revelations of Emanuel Swe- denborg. He was also a constituted missionary of that faith under the authority of the regular asso- ciation in the city of Boston. The writer has seen and examined his credentials as to the latter of these." He always carried in his pockets books and tracts relating to his religion, and took great delight in reading them to others and scattering them about. When he did not have enough with him to go around, he would take the books apart and distribute them in pieces.

. It does not appear that he operated as largely in this county as in those further north, and es- pecially those immediately bordering on the Mus- kingum. In Knox, Ashland and Richland coun- ties he was well known, and many old settlers ye: remember him. He had nurseries near Mt. Vernon, and several in Richland county. He often visited Hon. William Stanberry, and always manifested his eccentricities by sleeping out on the porch Being once interrogated as to his views about "hell," he replied that he thought it resembled Newark, except that it was on a larger scale. Mrs. Stadden, who knew him well, did not think much of him; however this might be, he did a great deal of good.

Besides the cultivation of apple-trees, he was extensively engaged in scattering the seeds of many wild vegetables, which he supposed possessed me- dicinal qualities, such as dog-fennel, penny-royal, may-apple, hoarhound, catnip, wintergreen, etc. His object was to equalize the distribution, so that every locality would have a variety. His opera- tions in Indiana began about 1836, and were continued for ten years, In the spring of 1847, being within fifteen miles of one of his nurseries on the St. Joseph river, word was brought to him that cattle had broken into this nursery and were de- stroying his trees, and he started immediately for the place. When he arrived he was very much fatigued; being quite advanced in years, the jour- ney, performed without intermission, exhausted his strength. He lay down that night never to rise again. A fever settled upon him, and, in a day or two after taking sick, he passed away. "We buried him," says Mr. Worth, "in David Archer's grave- yard, two and a half miles north of Fort Wayne."

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CHAPTER XXIX.

THE WELSH HILLS SETTLEMENTS.

THOMAS PHILLIPS AND SONS-THEOPHILUS REES-OTHER EARLY WELSH EMIGRANTS-THEIR SETTLEMENT IN PENNSYL- VANIA-THEIR PURCHASE OF LAND IN GRANVILLE TOWNSHIP-THEIR APPEARANCE IN THE WELSH HILLS- - "JIMMY JOHNSON," THE LEWISES AND OTHERS-THE ADDITIONS TO THEIR NUMBERS-SAMUEL WHITE, SR .- JONATHAN WHITE-SAMUEL WHITE, JR .- DR. THOMAS AND SONS-A FEW OF THE SETTLERS SUBSEQUENT TO 1810-THE BOUNDARIES OF THE WELSH SETTLEMENTS-ITS TOPOGRAPHY-HARDSHIPS AND ADVENTURES OF THE EMIGRANTS-GRADUAL INTRODUCTION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE-THEIR RELIGION -- THEIR PATRIOTISM AND OBEDIENCE TO LAW AND ORDER-THEIR HONESTY AND ADHERENCE TO THE PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE-GRADUAL AMERICANIZATION.

"Lives of good men all remind us We may make our lives sublime; And departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time." 1

TN 1787 John H. Phillips and his two younger -1 brothers, Thomas and Erasmus, sons of Thomas Phillips, a Welshman of large fortune, were students at a college in Wales. John H. was the reputed author of some seditious or treasonable literature, and, to avoid arrest and punishment, he decided to emigrate to America. Accordingly he sailed for Philadelphia, accompanied by his broth- ers, who were more or less implicated with him, ar riving in the above named year. They soon went to live in a Welsh settlement in Chester county, in the vicinity of Philadelphia. . Here they met with Chaplain Jones, a Welsh minister, a sketch of whose life appears elsewhere. General Anthony Wayne was also a resident of Chester county, and when he organized the expedition against the In- dians in the Northwest territory, in 1792, through the influence of Chaplain Jones he appointed John H. Phillips a member of his staff.

These sons of Thomas Phillips succeeded, after much persuasion, in obtaining the consent of their father, who was a man of wealth, to close his busi- ness affairs and follow them to America.

Mr. Theophilus Rees, a neighbor and friend of Thomas Phillips, both residents of Carmarthen- shire, in South Wales, who likewise was a man of liberal means, after a full consideration of the sub- | ject, also decided to try his fortune in the New |

World, and forthwith proceeded to make arrange- ments to that end.

They accordingly closed up their business, and, when that was accomplished, they bade adieu to their native hills in "Wild Walia," and sailed in the ship Amphion, Captain Williams, April 1, 1795 (or, as some accounts have it, 1796), for the United States, where they arrived after a passage of nine weeks.

Many of their old Welsh neighbors, by arrange- ment, through the kind generosity of Messrs. Rees and Phillips, came as emigrants in the same ship with them, though many of them were unable to pay their passage, but agreeing to do so upon earning money enough after their arrival here.

In October after their arrival, most of this colo- ny removed to Big Valley, in Chester county, Penn- sylvania, where there was a Welsh settlement. Messrs. Rees and Phillips resided some time in or near Philadelphia: but both removed to the Welsh settlement in Chester county, Pennsylvania. Here, however, they did not remain long, but soon, probably in 1797, together with others who had crossed the Atlantic with them, removed to Bulah, Cambria county, Pennsylvania, where they formed a portion of a considerable Welsh settlement. In this community Mr. Phillips' son, Thomas, who came over in 1787, died in 1801. The other son, Erasmus, died in Philadelphia some years later.

In 1801, or earlier, when all this county consti- tuted Licking township, Fairfield county, Thomas Phillips and Theophilus Rees purchased two thous-

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and acres of land situated in what is now the northeast quarter of Granville township. It bor- dered on the McKean township line and extended almost to Newark township. They purchased this land of Mr. Sampson Davis, a Welshman of Phila- delphia, who was then an extensive dealer in west- ern lands. The purchase was made upon condi- tion that the land proved as represented, the pur- chasers not having seen it. Chaplain Jones, Mor- gan Rees, and Simon James were selected to view the land. They accepted the commission, dis- charged the duty assigned them, and, upon their report, the contract was ratified. Mr. Rees and his son-in-law, David Lewis, visited this purchase in 1801.

In 1801 David Lewis and David Thomas, left Bulah, Pennsylvania, to settle on the Welsh Hills. On arriving at Marietta they found stonemasons' work and remained until the spring of 1802, when they came up the Muskingum and during said year built cabins on the Welsh Hills. In the same year Mr. Theophilus Rees with his family, and Simon James without his family, left their homes in Bulah, Cambria county, Pennsylvania, for the purpose of permanently occupying and improving the Welsh Hills purchase.

Mr. James was to build a cabin on the Phillips tract, clear some land, then return to Cambria, which he did. He, however, removed, with his family, to the Welsh Hills settlement in 1804.

Upon the arrival of this colony of emigrants at or near Wheeling, they fell in with a frontiersman, hunter, scout and Indian fighter named Jimmy Johnson, who felt quite willing to be transferred to regions further west, as his business had become very dull in that section.

Mì. Rees thinking that an expert in those occu- pations, and a man of such diversified genius and talents might be useful to him in his wilderness home, engaged him to accompany him, agreeing to sell him one hundred acres of land, to be paid for in such services as he might be able to render. David Thomas stopped in Newark, and lived in a cabin on the Park House lot until he could build a cabin on his land, when, late in the same year, or early in 1803, he removed to the Welsh Hills and occupied his cabin.

Mr. David Lewis, also, stopped in Newark and

worked as a stone mason, but his father-in-law, Theophilus Rees, having given him one hundred acres of his land, Mr. Lewis soon took measures to occupy it, and with the help of Patrick Cun- ningham and his sons, erected a cabin upon it. This cabin was probably erected in 1802. But Theophilus Recs, Simon James, and Jimmy Johnson, established themselves on the Hills in 1802; Mr. Rees most likely temporarily occupying. with a portion of his family and laborers, until a better one could be erected; and Messrs. John- son, Thomas and Lewis constructing cabias for themselves and families, Simon James' occupancy, however, in accordance with the or- iginal intention, was only temporary. Theophilus Rees, David Lewis, David Thomas, Simon James, and Jimmy Johnson were the Welsh Hills pioneers. Thomas was afterward known as "Big Davy Thomas," to distinguish him from a smaller man of the same name, who was also a son-in-law of Theophilus Rees, and who, in 1810, settled on the purchase of Mr. Rees, he having been presented with one hundred acres of it.

Theophilus Rees, the patriarch of the Welsh Hills, was a gentleman and a scholar; a man of integrity and great usefulness to his countrymen and his church. He spoke the English language imperfectly, but after the arrival of the Granville colony in 1805, he was a regular attendant upon the services of the church in Granville until the organization of the Welsh Hills church in 1808.

John H. Phillips, the youthful sedtitious writer. who left his country to secure his own safety, ar- rived for the first time on the Welsh Hills in 1803. or the year after, but remained only a short time. He returned to Chester county, where his family lived, and superintended the construction of a bridge over the Schuylkill near Philadelphia. In 1806 he returned to the Welsh Hills, where he taught school, and made himself generally useful for eight years, when he removed to Cincinnati where he died in 1832. He was one of the earli- est school teachers in the Welsh Hills, and a man of fair abilities, good scholarship, and made his mark wherever he went. He held some official positions in Cincinnati, and was highly esteemed there.

Thomas Phillips was largely engaged in business

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in Cambria county, Pennsylvania, and moving on his land immediately was found impracticable. He, however, visited it in 1804, accompanied by his wife, whose adaptation to frontier life, business capacity, energy and force of character were pro- verbial. They remained some time, and then re- turned to Cambria county, with a determination to bring their business affairs there to a close. This was accomplished in two years; and in 1806 Thomas Phillips and family returned to the Welsh Hills where he lived' until his death, which occur- red May 26, 1813. Mrs. Phillips died some years before in Philadelphia, whither she had gone on business.

Mr. Phillips, like his neighbor and friend, Deacon Rees, was a well educated gentleman of large ex- perience and extensive information and reading.

In 1803 James Evans, James James, and a Mr. Shadwick who, however, was not a Welshman, set- tled on the Welsh Hills.

Thomas Cramer, son-in-law of Jimmy Johnson, and his brother, Peter Cramer, came from West Virginia in 1804, as did also Mr. Simon James, who, two years before, accompanied the Rees colony. During the years 1805 and 1806, John Price, Benjamin Jones, John H. Phillips and Thomas Powell were added to the list of Welsh- men in the Welsh Hills' settlement.

Samuel J. Phillips and Thomas Owens were among the Welsh settlers of 1807 and 1808; Jacob Reily and a Mr. McLane, not Welshmen, were immigrants of the same year. Morris Morris, David James and Joseph Evans, father of Joseph and Lewis, of Newark, came in 1809; and "little" David Thomas, son-in-law of Theophilus Rees, and Mr. Samuel White, sr., came in 1810. Mr. White was a son-in-law of Thomas Phillips, and though not a Welshman, albeit his wife was a native of Wales, he yet became very closely identi- fied with the history of the Welsh Hills' settlement. He was born March 4, 1762, in Peterborough, near Boston, in Massachusetts, and entered college upon reaching manhood; but before the comple- tion of his college course, he commenced a sea- faring career which he pursued for twelve years. He visited the four quarters of the globe while a seaman, and during the time, was shipwrecked near Cape Horn. He thereupon resolved to

abandon the life of a sailor, and returning to Phil- adelphia, entered the service of Thomas Phillips as a teamster in 1797. Mr. Phillips was running a wagon line between Philadelphia and Cambria county. Mr. White, in the same year, married the daughter of his employer, and in 1810, removed to the Welsh Hills. Soon after his arrival the large hearted settlers of the "Hills" met in force, and welcomed the newcomer by building him a cabin. These pioneers spent their Christmas of 1810, in this delighttul and hospitable way, finishing the cabin ready for its occupant the same day.

Mr. White was a man of more than ordinary in- telligence and education; possessing an inquisitive mind, and an independent, frank, upright char- acter. He was the father of a number of sons, and died September 13, 1851, at the ripe age of eighty-nine.

Jonathan White, son of the foregoing, was born in Cambria county in 1800, and came to the Welsh Hills with his father in 1810. He became a good scholar under the teaching of Rev. Thos. D. Baird, of Newark, and was a young man of very fine talents, excelling in oratory. He died in 1827, in Stark county, Ohio, where he was engaged as canal contractor.

Samuel White, jr., was born in the Welsh Hills settlement, March 3, 1812. He was the first stu- dent on the list on the first day of the first term of Granville college. He remained there some time, but difficulties, growing out of the discussion of the slavery question, led him to complete his education at Oberlin. Leaving college in 1836, he entered the law office of the late Colonel Mathiot, and was admitted to the bar in 1837. In 1843 he was a successful candidate for the State legislature and became a leader in that body. In 1844 he received the nomination of the Whig party for Congress in the district composed of the counties of Knox, Licking and Franklin, in opposition to Colonel C. J. McNulty, one of the most able and accomplished stump speakers and political campaigners in Ohio. They conducted the canvass with extraordinary vigor, and it is generally conceded that it was owing to the herculean labors of Mr. White during this campaign that he contracted a fever which so utterly prostrated him as to end in his death, which oc- curred July 20, 1844. Columbus Delano took his

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place on the ticket, and was elected by a majority of twelve votes.

Samuel White, jr., for some time edited, in part, the Newark Gazette; but in this vocation it cannot be said that he exhibited extraordinary ability. He was not remarkable as a writer. He made the re- ception speech in 1843, on the occasion of the ar- rival of John Quincy Adams in Newark, which was universally conceded to have been a preeminent success. He was a man of remarkable force and power as a public speaker. It is undoubtedly true that his equal as an orator, before a promiscuous assembly, and in cases of a certain kind before a jury, has never been produced in this county. His sarcasm was withering; his invective powerful. He was exceedingly ready and pointed in repartee, and of very great severity in his strictures upon party measures and party leaders. In declamatory har- angues and satirical oratory he was perfectly over- whelming. In aptness of scriptural quotations he could not be excelled. To work up an audience to the fever heat of excitement, and to sway the multitude by inflammatory appeals, were to him matters of easy accomplishment. He was indeed a man of wonderful power, and his early death is probably all that prevented him from taking a front rank among the popular orators of America. In logicał argumentation, in philosophical reasoning, 'in legal acumen or ability he did not excel, but in the elements of a popular stump orator, young as he was, he has had but few equals and fewer superiors. Many still remember that he and B. B. Taylor, a Democrat, made much music of the rambling, dis- cordant sort, during the famous log cabin and hard cider campaign of 1840. They were often pitted against each other in the three or four subsequent contests, producing uniformly music of the harsh- est sort.

Samuel White was fearless, independent, out- spoken, frank, honest, never uttering opinions he did not believe, and always gave expression to thoughts he entertained, without "fear, favor or affection." In the famous crusades of his times against slavery and intemperance, he was always in the front rank, playing well the part of Richard, the lion-hearted.

He asserted the right of free discussion-in- deed he became the acknowledged champion of

freedom of press and speech, and more than once braved ignorant, infuriated, brutal mobs, who tyranically denied the liberty of speech. He never shrank from the open avowal of his sentiments under any amount of popular odium, and therein he attained, in those heroic times, to the highest point of independent manhood.

Mr. Isaac Smucker, speaking of him politically, says :

"He and I held opposing political opinions, but we were in harmony on the question of the right of free discussion, and now, after he has been a tenant of the tomb more than a third of a century, I avail myself, with the highest degree of pleasure, of the opportunity to bear testimony to one of nature's highly gifted ones, with whom I was not in political harmony, and sometimes not on terms of friendly personal relations. But he had a noble nature and was, therefore, placable, forgiving. gen- erous, magnanimous."

A Welshman, who passed current on the "Hills" as Dr. Thomas, settled there about the year 1834. He derived most of his consequence from the fact that he placed five sons in the Baptist ministry, who were all more or less distinguished They were named David, John, Benjamin, Daniel and Evan, and all entered the pulpit very young. David, the eldest, was, for a number of years. pastor of the church in Newark, as was also Ben- jamin. David was a man of wonderful volubility in the .pulpit, and stood in the first class of the school known as "revival orators." His brothers. also, had similar gifts, and all were liberally en- dowed with talents as public speakers. They were remarkable men, whose fame spread abroad, and who made considerable stir in the world as pulpit orators of more than average natural powers. They never enjoyed superior educational advan- tages, nor attained to any distinction in scholar- ship.

From the foregoing it will be seen that the pur- chase of Messrs. Rees and Phillips formed the nucleus of the Welsh settlement in this county. Theophilus Rees settled on his half of the pur- chase, and surrounded himself by his sons, The- ophilus and John, and his sons-in-law, the two David Thomas', and David Lewis, and his hunter, "Jimmy Johnson," giving to each of them about one hundred acres of his land.

Mr. Thomas Phillips settled upon his portion of the purchase, and likewise surrounded himself by his sons, John H. and Samuel J., and his sons-in- . -

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law, Thomas Owens, Samuel White, William Mor- rison and John Evans. To all of them he gave one hundred acres of land, but the two last named sons-in-law did not occupy their land. Morrison lived on land in the vicinity, but Evans never came to Licking county. To a granddaughter Mr. Phil- lips gave two hundred acres of land, but she never occupied it.

It is impracticable to give the names of the emi- grants from Wales who settled in this county sub- sequent to 1810. Additions were made to their number from year to year, so that, notwithstanding the numerous deaths and removals, the number of Welsh inhabitants in Licking county, including those who are in whole or in part of Welsh parent- age, cannot be much less than twenty-five hundred at the present time. They live principally in the Welsh Hills settlement, and in the city of Newark, and village of Granville.

Of those immigrants from Wales, who settled in the Hills subsequent to 1810, there were Daniel Griffith (1812), Walter and Nicodemus Griffith (1815), David Pittsford (1816), and Hugh Jones (1819).

Edward Price and Edward Glenn came in 1821, and Rev. Thomas Hughes in 1822.

Of those members of the families of Messrs. Rees and Phillips, who came from Wales in 1795, Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas, wife of "Little" David Thomas, and daughter of Theophilus Rees, was the last survivor. She died May 3, 1855, after a residence in America of sixty years.

The portion of Licking county in which the first Welsh settlers located, has ever since been known and designated as the "Welsh Hills settle- ment." It was originally limited to the northeast quarter of Granville township, but the settlement gradually extended in all directions, and its pres- ent boundaries, though somewhat indefinite, may be given with some degree of approximation to accuracy. It is mainly in the townships of New- ark and Granville, but extends slightly into the townships of Newton and Mckean. It begins at Sharon valley, at a point about two miles north- west of Newark, and extends in a northwesterly direction into Mckean township, and is between five and six miles long. It has a width of four miles or more, extending on the northeast into

Newton township; its southwestern boundary be- ing in Granville township, near the village of Gran- ville. It is all between the road running north from Newark to Utica and that running west to Alexandria.

The country embraced in this settlement, be- longs to the class known as "hilly," but it may be regarded as fertile, particularly in the production of cereals. It was originally all heavily timbered, but is now mostly cleared land. Farms are not generally large, and timber for present and pros- pective purposes is found on each of them with rare exceptions.

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History of Licking County, Ohio: Its Past and Present, Part 42

Author: N. N. Hill, Jr. Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Number of Pages: 826

Author: N. N. Hill, Jr.
Publication date: 1881
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 826