History of Licking County, Ohio: Its Past and Present, Part 85

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 85

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The present membership of this church is about one hundred.

What is known as the "Liberty Sabbath-school" was organized in this church in 1867, about the time the building was finished, and' has been well sustained since that time. There are probably one hundred pupils or more in attendance at this school. William Barrick is superintendent.

In 1860 the Methodist Episcopal church of Concord was erected, and dedicated in November of that year by Rev. Uriah Heath. The building is a very substantial one, costing about one thou- sand three hundred dollars. The Methodists were probably the first religious society to organ- ize in the township, but it is difficult here, as everywhere, to get at the particulars of their early history, as no records were kept for many years.

CHAPTER LIX.

LICKING TOWNSHIP.

WORKS OF THE MOUND BUILDERS -- EXAMINATION OF A MOUND BY PROFESSOR MARSH-INDIANS-LOCATION AND TO- POGRAPHY-ORGANIZATION-THE PIONEERS-JUDGE BRUMBACK ON HOG RUN-BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF A FEW PROMINENT SETTLERS-REV. ASA SHINN-CHURCHES AND RELIGIOUS MATTERS-OHIO CANAL AND NATIONAL ROAD-JACKSONTOWN-VAN BUREN-AVONDALE-SOME OF THE JUSTICES OF THE PEACE-A FEW ADDITIONAL SETTLERS.

"Land of the forest and the rock, Of dark blue lake and mighty river, Of mountains reared on high, to mock The storm's career and lightning's shock : My own green land forever!"

THE Mound Builders' works are found in vari- T ous parts of Licking township, the stone mound about a mile south of Jacksontown being of the greatest magnitude. It was of gigantic proportions, measuring one hundred and eighty- three feet in diameter at its base, and when found by the pioneer settlers, was between thirty and forty feet in height. Many hundred wagon loads of stone were removed from it, and used in the construction of the reservoir, in the cellar walls in

the neighborhood, and in the villages along the National road, so that at present it will not proba- bly average more than eight feet in height. A tolerably well preserved coffin, containing a skele- ton, was found in it some years ago, with a quan- tity of beads and other trinkets. Other but less authenticated relics are often named in connec-

tion with this mound. The "decalogue stone" with some others require verification. This mound is situated on high ground, and was built of un- hammered stone of tolerably uniform size and very large. Hon. Isaac Smucker, who is well informed on the subject, says it was the largest stone mound of which he has any knowledge. It

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HISTORY OF LICKING COUNTY.

is also the only one of its class in the township. The earth mound on the plank road between Newark and Jacksontown, on the farm of Mr. Taylor, is one of good size, and much interest attaches to it on account of the very careful and scientific examination given it, a few years ago, by Professor Marsh, of Yale college, and who gave it a very extensive notoriety through "Silliman's Journal," as well as in a carefully prepared pamph- let publication. He found in it ashes, charcoal, flint, a broken pipe made of soft limestone, pieces of a tube of the same material, a string of over one hundred native copper beads, strung on a twisted cord of coarse vegetable fibre; also shell beads, human skeletons, decayed layers of reddish brown powder, layers of burned clay, white chaff, implements of various kinds, lance and arrow- heads, six hand axes made of hematite and green- stone, a hatchet, a flint chisel, a flint scraper, many bone implements, five needles or bodkins from three to six inches in length, made of the . bones of. the deer, an implement for moulding pottery, numerous peculiar implements made from the antlers of the deer and elk, a whistle made from the tooth of a young black bear, spoons made of shells, a vessel of coarse pottery, frag- ments of a vase, various animal bones, such as the elk, deer, rabbit, wolf, woodchuck and river mussel, and various other things, including seven- teen human skeletons, in whole or in part. No bones of domestic animals were found. The ex- ploration of the mound was more perfect and thorough than that of any other within the limits of the county, and its yield of archaeological treas- ure was generous. Mr. G. P. Russell, of Harvard college, with a number of gentlemen of Newark, assisted in this examination, and retained posses- sion of some of those valuable mound deposits. This is but a single instance of the richness of this county, archaeologically considered, and shows what treasures are yet in reach of those who would give these mounds a thorough examination.

There are also several mounds on the lands of Mr. Parr, in the vicinity of the great stone mound already described; and one west of the plank road, on the farm of Mr. J. R. Moore, about two miles south of Newark; also, one nearly a half mile east of the cemetery, a mile north of Jackson-

town. These are not remarkable for size, nor pe- culiar in any respect; but one on the farm of the late William Bussey, at Fairmount, is remarkable for size, it being one hundred and fifteen feet diameter at its base, with an altitude, at present of twenty-five feet. There is also near the banks ci the South fork, two miles from Newark, on whur: is called Cochran's hill, a work or fortification af the Mound Builders.

A few acres are enclosed, perhaps between five and ten, by a bank several feet high, which appears to have been thrown from the inside, the ditch being within the enclosure. Fronting the creek, where the banks are very steep, there is no ditch for a number of rods. So far as the work was con- structed, it is an accurate circle.

There is also an earth enclosure of low banks and small extent, on the farm of Mr. Ronan. hal' a mile south of the foregoing, covering about one acre. It has a good sized mound standing in the ditch and bank, thirty feet in diameter and twelve feet high.

There is also, on the farm of Mr. J. Sutton near the northern boundary of the township - small mound of earth, and also a fort or enclosure of an oblong square, enclosing half an acre & more, whose banks have been plowed over anc almost obliterated. It is situated near "Fort Spring."

The Indians, it is known, had a camp on the farm owned by Mr. J. R. Moore; and there was also an Indian encampment in a large sugar grove near Hog run, since the property of Mr. Jacob Brownfield, where the Indians often made sugar. "Big swamp," or "Two lakes," some- times, also, called by the Indians "Big lake." and "Little lake," or what is now called the Reser. voir, was resorted to by the Indians, in consider- able numbers, for the purpose of fishing. There was an Indian trail through this township, and along the Reservoir, leading from the mouth of the Wakatomika (near Dresden), crossing the Licking river at or below the mouth of the Bow- ling Green run, to King Beaverstown, near Picker- ington or Lithopolis, in Fairfield county, about the head-waters of the Hock-Hocking. That the In- dians often camped along this trail, in Licking township, is most probable; and it seems also to be

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a well authenticated fact that the Wyandots, Dela- wares and perhaps Shawnees, had more permanent homes here than the foregoing remarks indicate. Little that is entirely reliable, however, in relation to Indian history, anterior to the settlement of the county by the whites, is known to a certainty.

The trail above mentioned is doubtless the one followed by Christopher Gist and Andrew Mon- tour in 1751. Gist was, probably, the first white man to pass through what is now Licking town- ship. His expedition is referred to in another chapter.

A strip of land, two and a half miles wide across the southern part of this township, once belonged to what was known as the "Refugee lands," and the remainder to the United States military or army lands. This division and designation is ex- plained in another chapter. The military lands, of which about two thirds of this township is com- prised, were surveyed pursuant to authority granted by act of Congress, passed June 1, 1796. This township, except what belongs to the Refugee tract, on the original survey, was in the tier of townships numbered one, in range twelve.

The township was originally well timbered, abounding in the usual variety and extent of forest trees, the oak, walnut, hickory, and sugar being the principal. It is agreeably, and about in equal proportions, diversified with hill and valley; one- third being low, level or flat land of superior fertil- ity; another third being gently undulating and the remainder made up of more abrupt and less pro- ductive elevations or hills.

The South fork of Licking, which forms the west- ern boundary of this township; Hog run and its trib- utaries ; Swamp run and Dutch fork, are its principal streams. The bottom lands along these streams are among the best in the county, the soil being deep, rich, enduring and exceedingly productive.

A portion of the Reservoir is in the southern part of this township, and is fully described in an- other chapter.

The township was organized in 1801, as one of the townships of Fairfield county, and then em- braced the whole of the territory (except the Refu- gee tract,) which now constitutes the county of Licking, and perhaps a portion also of what is now Knox county. Thus it continued until 1807,

when it was reduced to half the limits of Licking county, by the formation of the township of Gran- ville. Subsequently, by the formation of Union township on the west, and of Bowling Green on the east, both in 1808; and of Newark on the north in 1810, and Franklin on the east in 1812, it was reduced to its present dimensions. The county lines of Fairfield and Perry, which run through the Reservoir, form its southern boundary.

The pioneers of this township were Phillip Sut- ton, Job Rathbone, John and George Gillespie, who arrived in 1801; Benjamin Green, Richard Pitzer and John Stadden, in 1802; Major An- thony Pitzer, Jacob Swisher, Stephen Robinson and perhaps others, in 1803.

Judge Brumback contributes to the pioneer pa- pers an interesting article on Hog run and the early settlers along that stream. It is freely quoted from.

Probably about 1804, the hogs of one John Ward, of Granville township, running at large, in the fall of the year, strayed across the South fork of Licking, and wintered on or near the land since owned by Jeremiah Grove, and along the little creek just south of it. The animals found in the abundant mast ample food. In the ensuing spring the owner discovered his stock, numerically in- creased and in good condition, and immediately, it is said, named the stream "Hog run." Richard Green thus accounts for the name. He also states that the settlers often thereafter called Mr. Ward "Hog Ward."

Authority, perhaps equally good, exists for say- ing, that about the same time the hogs of Isaac Stadden, then residing below Newark, near the Bowling Green, having strayed away were found on the same stream, and that it received its name from that circumstance. This opinion was enter- tained by Mrs. Stadden, widow of Isaac Stadden, who died July 3, 1870, in the ninety-first year of her age.

Others account for the name on the theory that some one else's hogs multiplied and fattened along the stream, and their owner, with an early settler's natural gratitude for an abundant stock of pork, gave it the same, suggestive if not elegant, name. Certain it is (and perhaps little else regarding the name is certain) that soon after the whites began

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to settle in the county, the stream received this name. Doubtless the abundance of beech-nuts and acorns, found in the valley at that time, made it a good place for hogs at large. This circum- stance alone might have suggested the name to several persons at the same time.

The first settlers on Hog run, according to the recollection of Mr. Richard Green, were Phillip Sutton and John Rathbone, who settled on the tributary reaching toward Jacksontown, in the vi- cinity of Harvey T. Black's residence and lower down. They must have settled in i800, or not later than 1801. Rathbone settled on land after- ward owned by Mr. Black, and Sutton on land afterward owned by James Davis. Of these per- sons there is little known except the single fact that they came from Pennsylvania.

The records show that during the year 1800 and 1801, a number of conveyances of land were made. Early in 1801, George and John Gillespie settled on the same tributary, and September 21, 1801, George executed a conveyance of two hun- dred acres in the southwest corner of the fourth quarter, part of which was afterward owned by James Davis. The Gillespies remained in this vicinity but a few months.

In 1799, Benjamin Green and family, consisting of a wife and ten children, all the latter unmarried; and Richard Pitzer, son-in-law of Mr. Green, with his family, came to Marietta from Maryland. In the spring of 1800, they started for the Licking valley. The women and children under charge of Mr. Pitzer, with eight pack-horses, came up by land, along a trail. They drove through with them several head of cattle. Benjamin Green and his son Richard, with a hired hand, a Mr. John Kelley, manned a large canoe, or barge, in which they con- veyed their household goods and other freight by water to the mouth of the Licking, present site of Zanesville. Among this freight were flour from fifteen bushels of wheat, and the running gears of a wagon, probably the first one brought into the county. In August of the same year Isaac Stad- den brought in a wagon, probably the second one. With it he moved his family from Northumberland county, Pennsylvania.

Mr. Green found it necessary to make two voy- ages to Marietta in order to bring up all the goods

of the party. From Zanesville to Shawnee run they cut their own road. When they arrived at Bowling Green they found the families of Hughes. Ratliff and that of a man named John Carpenter. Mr. Green thinks these were all the families then within the limits of Licking county. If Jone, Benjamin and the Fords came, as some think, during this year, it was probably at a later period. Messrs. Green and Pitzer located first on Shawnee run, on lands afterwards owned by Rev. P. N O'Banor., where they resided two years.

February 25, 1802, Benjamin Green acquired lands on Hog run, and soon after he and Mr. Pit- zer occupied these lands. The land where Green settled was afterward owned by James Davis; and Pitzer located a little lower down, between him and the run on what was afterward known as the lower Beard farm. They were the first settlers on that part of Hog run, after Rathbone, Sutton and the Gillespies. Green bought one hundred and fifty acres for three hundred and fifty dollars, and in two years sold it to Stephen Robinson for nine hundred dollars. He had cleared off thirty acres.

After this sale he contracted with Samuel Dick. a large proprietor, who had two thousand eight hundred acres of land lying on both sides of Hog run, and west of the road from Newark to Jack- sontown. He located at the spring, on this land. on that part afterwerd owned by Jesse R. and Jo- seph J. Moore, near where a small, old brick house now stands, north of the residence of John Bruni- back. This spring, or rather collection of springs, forming a little swamp, was well known. Richard Green says that he, on different occasions after 1804, saw Shawnee Indians encamped in the tim- ber near to and south of the springs, and between these and the house of John Brumback. At one time he saw thirty encamped there, who came from Raccoon town, near Johnstown.

The Greens must have settled here before 1805, and here Benjamin Green lived until the death of his wife in 1822, when he went to reside with his son, Daniel Green, near Moscow, Licking county. In 1823 he married Mrs. Martha Lewis, daughter of Theophilus Rees, and widow of David Lewis. and died in 1835, aged seventy-six years. He had a family of fourteen children, some of whom after- ward became prominent in the affairs of the coun-

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ty. Richard, one of the sons, lived in this county seventy-two years, dying April 16, 1872, aged eighty-seven years. Mr. Pitzer died in 1819, on Hog run. In 1802, soon after Green settled on Hog run, Jacob Swisher, a settler from Hardy county, Virginia, located on a one hundred acre tract, now part of the homestead of Mr. Benjamin Green. He had expended all his means in reach- ing the country, and, without money or assistance, undertook to open up and pay for his purchase. He erected a "pole cabin" near the present residence of Mr. Green. The forest afforded him abundance of game, and the stream a good supply of fish. In after years he used to claim to his wife and daughters, that he was a better cook than they, for while he kept house in his cabin, his corn bread and mush never adhered to the skillet, but came out smooth and unbroken. They in defense always urged that this circumstance was not attributable to the superiority of his cooking, but rather to the fact that he cooked and roasted much fat bear meat and venison, and then made mush or baked pone without washing the skillet thoroughly enough to get off all the grease.

In this solitary way, Mr. Swisher lived several years, when he erected a second cabin of round logs, in dimensions, fourteen by sixteen feet. Into this establishment of two rooms, he, in 1804, in- stalled his new wife, Phebe, the daughter of his old neighbor, Benjamin Green. Mr. Swisher earned part, if not all, the price of his one hun- dred acres of land (one hundred and seventy-five dollars), by packing salt on horseback from the Scioto salt works, in the vicinity of Chillicothe to his neighborhood. This was before any road had been cut out. One man took two horses, and fol- lowed the trail through the woods. Each horse carried four bushels of salt, which cost at the works one dollar and fifty cents per bushel, and sold here at four dollars per bushel. It took five or six days to make the round trip. Several years after- ward, or about 1809, the settlers thought them- selves fortunate in being able to exchange wheat for salt at Zanesville, bushel for bushel.

Mr. Swisher continued to reside on the same tract until his death June 23, 1843, at the age of sixty-four.

Hog run pioneers seem to have realized fair

prices for produce during those early years. Mr. Green says that during the first two or three years, corn sold for fifty cents per bushel, and pork seven dollars per hundredweight. Wheat was not much raised at first, but when produced in quantities exceeding the wants of the neighborhood, often sold as low as twenty-five cents a bushel. The first two calico dresses Mrs. Swisher purchased, cost her one dollar per yard, but they lasted her many years, even until her daughters grew into woman- hood.

Colonel John Stadden was one of the earliest settlers of this township. A sketch of this gentle- man will be found elsewhere.

Mr. Alexander Holden was also an early settler in Licking township. He was a man of more than ordinary capacity and intelligence. He was a justice of the peace several years; commissioner of the county from 1817 to 1820, and from 1824 to 1827, and was also elected to the legislature in 1808. He was a man of meritorious character, generally esteemed, and of much decision and firmness. He died nearly fifty years ago.

Major Anthony Pitzer was also an early settler, and rendered valuable military services during the war of 1812. In 1816 he was elected to the office of associate judge, in which capacity he served several years; and in 1818 and 1819, was a member of the legislature. He was a man of much force and many excellent qualities, but of limited scholarship and attainments. He was a native of Virginia, and came to Ohio from Allegheny county, Maryland, in 1803, settling on Hog run, where he died May May 14, 1852, aged eighty-six years.

Samuel Patterson who was elected to the Ohio senate in 1848, and Nicholas Shaver who col- lected the taxes of Licking township from 1820 to 1822, were also pioneers of this township.

In 1803 Rev. Asa Shinn, then a very young but promising minister of the Methodist church, was appointed to the Hock-Hocking circuit, then just organized, and which turned out to be one which took him four weeks to travel over. It led him into what are now the counties of Fairfield, Lick- ing, Muskingum, Coshocton, Knox, Delaware and Franklin. There was upon it but one regular ap- pointment in this county, and that was at the house -a good sized double-cabin-of Mr. Benjamin

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Green, in the valley of Hog run. Mr. Shinn's ap- pointment before reaching this one, was on the Hock-Hocking river, at or near Lancaster; and the next one after it, was at, or near the mouth of the Wakatomika, or a few miles beyond it, at the house of a Mr. Wamsly.

Mr. Shinn continued his labors a year, begin- ning late in 1803, and ending in the autumn of 1804. This organization at the house of Mr. Green was, doubtless, the pioneer religious society of Licking county.

Mr. Green was a Baptist, and until near the close of his life, occasionally exercised the functions of a minister of that denomination, and might prop- erly be ranked with the pioneer preachers of Lick- ing county. He was tolerant of all religions, and as his wife and children were disposed to cherish the Methodist faith, he gave support and encour- agement to Mr. Shinn's enterprise.

The following are some, and perhaps nearly all, the church members, and those who became such during Mr. Shinn's ministry: Richard Pitzer, Mrs. Pitzer, Jocob Swisher, Mrs. Swisher, John Stadden, Mrs. Stadden, Sarah Green and Mrs. Green, wife of Benjamin Green. It was rather a family church, the male members being sons-in-law of Mr. Green, and the female members his wife and daughters.

The great promise of Mr. Shinn's early career as a pioneer preacher in the west was fully realized on reaching the full maturity of his intellect, for he became eminent as an author, no less than as a divine. Hon. Isaac Smucker gives it as his judg- ment that no man of better intelleet or of a higher order of pulpit talent, ever exercised the functions of a minister of the gospel in this county. He was born in New Jersey, May 3, 1771. His par- ents were Quakers, and the boy did not enjoy any educational privileges. He had natural ability, however, and while yet in his "teens" attracted attention as an exhorter.

Without making any application for a license to preach, he was urged to this calling by a presiding elder of the Methodist church, who procured for him a license, and before he was twenty-one years of age was employed as a traveling preacher. He received his first appointment in 1801, and contin- ued in the itinerancy of the Methodist Episcopal church more than twenty-seven years.

His parents moved to the vicinity of Clark- burgh, Virginia, when he was yet young, wher. schools or institutions of learning of any kind were scarce, and educational matters almost wholly ne .- lected. The little education he possesed was et- tained from reading and from his association with men of improved minds.

He became a great favorite, at one time, wit the people of Baltimore, and his residence theft enabled him to improve his mind and complete a literary work upon which he was engaged, caled the "Plan of Salvation." The work evinced a great deal of thought and discrimination, but gaw him trouble with his brethren, on account of some peculiar views therein expressed, which some thought sounded like heresy. He afterward pub- lished a work on the rectitude of the "Supreme Being."

Rev. John Burns spent two years with Mr. Shinn at Allegheny City station, commencing in 1840. He had ample opportunity to know him. and his decided convictions were that he was the best man he ever knew. He was social and com- panionable, and in all his intercourse governed by unaffected, natural simplicity of manners. A hearer at a camp meeting at Baltimore, in 1813- thus describes him :

"There he stood, with a rather youthful appearance, pale. calm and self possessed, with a round, full, mellow voice, cash reaching the most distant hearer. He seemed an angel in ht- man flesh, come from a higher region on that great occasion te instruct mankind in their highest interests. He was strong Ľ argument, apt and clear in illustration, fervent and impressit in his manner, and the latter half of his discourse was.ove .. whelmingly eloquent. He had very little power of imagination -- massive thought made him eloquent."

He preached in Newark, when on a preaching tour to the west, one or two sermons, as late as 1833. He died January 11, 1853, and was buried in the beautiful cemetery near Pittsburgh, Pennsyl vania. Thus passed away the pioneer preacher of Licking county.

The little pioneer church organized by Mr. Shins on Hog run, in 1804, has maintained its existence to the present day, a period of seventy-six years The society erected a log church in 1818, or a year later, near where Mr. Shinn organized it. This was afterward moved to the farm of Rev. Benjamin. Green, north of where it stood originally, and was.

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History of Licking County, Ohio: Its Past and Present, Part 85

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