USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Memoirs of the Miami valley > Part 24
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Robert Robitaille, an engaging French-Canadian of good family, also is known to have lived in Zane's Town, possibly as early as 1793 or 1794, bringing with him from Montreal a stock of goods with which he set up a trading post with the Wyandot Indians. There seems to be undoubted grounds for the statement that his store was the first to be established in the county, for it was in operation when the first settlers arrived, and he had married Eliza- beth Zane previous to 1800, while at the time of his removal to the Ludlow district south of Bellefontaine, they had two sons. The legend that John Gunn had a tavern on the Ludlow road, and that Robitaille had a store near this tavern in 1800, can have no foun-
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dation, for the Ludlow line was not surveyed until 1800, did not immediately become a route, and the Gunn tavern at that place was not licensed until 1805, which was the actual date of Robitaille's removal thither from Zane's Town. Both store and tavern had a brief existence, the land company of which Gunn was agent deciding that a tavern at another point (Belleville) would be more profit- able, and sell land faster for them. The chief result of the tavern settlement on the Ludlow line had been the populating of a lonely little burying ground in which the merchant Robitaille reposed with several other early settlers, among them some of the Moores. Gunn closed his tavern in 1806, and settled west of Bellefontaine (or its site), where he opened a stone quarry and built the first stone residence in the county, a structure long pointed out as a landmark. Robitaille's young widow left with two little boys, James and Robert, jr., afterward married James M. Reed. At her death, relatives from Montreal came and took the boys to Canada, where they were educated and rose to distinction.
There is a claim that Simon Kenton, the doughty hero of a hundred hairbreadth escapes from death at the hands of the Indians, came back to these retreats as early as 1800, drawn, it may be inferred, by the charm which they possessed even in danger and captivity to the very scenes where he had possibly more than once run the gauntlet, or momentarily expected to have the fagots lighted at his feet, in the days of his daring youth. He is said to have tar- ried a while in the neighborhood of the Zanes, who had been his friends in former times, and later took up permanent residence near "New Jerusalem," where he rounded out his life in the pursuits of peace, always an honored counselor in questions between the Indian and settler and able to keep the good will of both. Whatever may be the truth in regard to Simon Kenton's early exploits and his connection with the outlaw, Simon Girty, and it is probable that he was misled for a time by the glamour which makes a hero of such a desperado in the eyes of imaginative youth, it is none the less true that he was a welcome and valuable presence among the settlers of Logan county, which still proudly claims him as one of its sons. In recognition of his service, military and otherwise, to the government through twenty years of almost constant strug- gle, he was awarded a pension in his old age. His sons and daugh- ters married into the best families among the settlers, whose earliest arrival he is believed to have antedated by one year.
Margaret Moore, the white wife of Blue Jacket, had returned to her own people long before the period of conflict in which her husband was so prominent a figure. She was stolen from her home in Pennsylvania (or Virginia) when a child of nine years, carried into captivity but well treated, as were many captive white chil- dren, and married to the young chief, Blue Jacket, when she arrived at womanhood. Claiming to be still devotedly attached to him, she responded to the entreaties of her relatives and paid them a visit after the peace of 1772, expecting to return. Suspecting the out- come of the visit, Blue Jacket kept their son, Joseph, with him, for surety. The Moores would not permit their daughter to leave them again, and Margaret's daughter, Nancy, afterward the wife of
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James Stewart, was born in Virginia, and never permitted to see the face of an Indian "except," as Mrs. Sarah M. Moore wrote in 1872 (Antrim's Hist.), "when she looked in a mirror," until 1805, when she came to Logan county with her husband and settled on a section of land which had been granted near Lewistown. Mrs. Moore goes on to say that the mother, Margaret, was once a guest at the Moore home in company of her daughter, the two women presenting a great contrast, the mother being a handsome elderly lady, while Mrs. Stewart had decidedly Indian features and was badly marked with smallpox. The Indian son, Joseph, came to visit his mother about 1812. Reared in the manners and customs of the half-civilized aborigines, he was most unattractive, and presently disappeared, probably to enlist with the British in the War of 1812. Of Nancy Stewart's four children, none married, the race of Blue Jacket thus becoming extinct. The Stewarts were buried in the cemetery of Muddy Run church, below West Liberty.
The Day of the Settler
Previous to and accompanying the date of first settlement, the presence of white "squatters" is a possibility, but these should not be confused with those who came to find homes. So far as is known, the white persons and families mentioned heretofore con- stituted the entire white population, when, at the opening of the new century, the Logan county of the future lay, its fertile acres awaiting that place in the sun which only the white man's methods could give it. Its wealth was only half suspected. Its magnificent timber, in the absence of transportation facilities, was regarded as an incumbrance to lands which promised rich agricultural results. Its immense deposits of fine building and paving gravel and sand, its beds of marl, and its vast stores of limestone, exposed by glacial action and remote upheaval, to easy quarrying, were untouched. Its very geography was incomplete, and its peculiar topography as well as its high altitude unrecognized. A statement that the summit of all Ohio was to be found within its borders would have been received at that time, and for more than half a century after- ward, with incredulity. That the Great Miami owed its origin to sources contained in the same territory would have been scouted in like manner-and until a very recent date-so positively had the early geographers ascribed it to the northern watershed. Nor was the altitude of the original water level of Indian Lake yet known to engineers, though afterward utilized as a reservoir for the Miami canal, but means of the state dam, since which it has become the largest body of natural water between Lake Erie and the Ohio river.
Water power and water supply, afforded by its rapid streams and its multiude of pure springs added to the prospects for farm- ing, however, and it was to no uncertainty that the early home- seekers from the south and east bent their steps.
It was a December sun, smiling wanly down on a landscape white with snow, which witnessed the arrival in this land of prom- ise of the first overland emigrants, Joe Sharp, his wife, Phoebe, and
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three children, Achsa, the oldest daughter; Joshua, their only son, and Sarah, the youngest child. Accompanying them was Mrs. Sharp's young brother, Carlisle Haines. The journey was made with a team of four horses, but whether by vehicle is not known. But we are told that the first wheeled vehicle of any description did not enter the county until two or three years later than the Sharp family, so that if there was a vehicle at all it could only have been a "drag" or mud sled. They brought with them all their supplies for the winter that lay ahead of them. The day was Christmas, 1801. By nightfall their camp had been cleared and their first rude cabin con- structed from the logs that had been felled that day.
The presence of dead bees lying on the snow led, also the same day, to the discovery of four "bee trees," a variety of Christmas tree which even a Quaker family must have approved, and the bounty of the bees was added to the stock of provisions in the little log cabin. Backed by health and imbued with hardy courage, the pioneers who came so well provided as these were already wealthy. Not every white settler who braved the wilderness in search of a spot to call his own, came with hands so full.
By the opening of spring, 1802, sufficient space had been cleared for planting the first corn crop, and four acres were devoted to setting out an apple orchard, the first in the county. Mrs. Sharp had brought from Chillicothe a sapling pear tree, which she had used as a riding switch on the way to the new home on the Darby, and this was set out beside the cabin door, where it took root and survived in a bearing condition as long as the apple orchard-a period of seventy to seventy-five years.
The Sharp family were Quakers, as has been intimated, native in New Jersey, but of later residence in Virginia, from whence they came to try their fortunes in a newer field. Following them, in the years 1802-3-4-5 came relatives and acquaintances, also Quakers, forming a nucleus around which gathered many others of the same worthy sect, a splendid foundation for the building of a new community. The first of these were Thomas and Esther Antrim, Esther being a daughter of the Sharps. Thomas was a blacksmith, and doubtless entitled to be recorded as the first of his ancient and honorable calling to settle in this new country. He was also a Quaker preacher of much ability, and he took an active part in the organization and building of the first Quaker church, which was the first church of any name to be erected in the wilds of Logan. A school was also conducted in the same (log) building, and nearby was established that pathetic necessity, the first burying ground.
Daniel, the son of Thomas and Esther Antrim, is stated author- itatively to be the first white child born among the incoming settlers, but his title has been disputed by another claimant in the person of a daughter born to the Sharps. It might be safe to say that Daniei Antrim was the first white boy born in the county, and that his very young aunt was the first white girl, were it not that a daughter of the Inskeeps contests this latter claim.
It is beyond the scope and purpose of this chapter to follow minutely the individual composition and genealogy of each settle-
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ment, nor is such detail necessary to a clear story of local develop- ment, although, in a larger work, merely to have been among the "first settlers" is ample cause for the immortalization of names. But from time to time certain strong characters or groups must be projected on the screen in the telling of Logan's story, in such light as they were vital factors in the life of the infant commonwealth. It is but just to say at this point that it was not individuals, how- ever, but the whole pioneer body, men and women, from whom arose the social structure of today. Upon that foundation, built with successive acquisitions of enduring value, cemented by mar- riage bonds weaving intricately but clearly throughout the fabric of its walls, the Logan county of today stands like one family, and that family like its sturdy forebears, "All American."
Beginning with the early spring of 1802, settlement began to occur quite generally all over the county, wherever traces of former occupation by Indians or their white associates survived, or where the already mentioned forerunners had planted their cabins. The Indians may be said to have pointed the way, having so thorough a knowledge of the advantages of different localities. Particularly at Zane's Town, the oldest and most familiar of the Indian towns, numerous Quaker families grouped about the headwaters of Mad river, while still others followed down the fertile valley to the Mac-a-chack, forming new groups in the neighborhood of West Liberty. To the central and western parts, attracted by the prox- imity of the McPhersons and others, came settlers of equal mettle, all hastening to avail themselves of the rich lands of which such marvelous accounts had been sent "back home." The extreme west and north sections were, perhaps, a little later than the others to attract a rush of settlers-partly on account of the Indian reserva- tion, and the remote and lonely position at the time-yet there, too, not a few of the "first families" located in quite early years.
The tide of immigration, once started, set steadily, if not with spectacular rapidity, overspreading gradually all the territory not reserved to the Indians, who, by the way, did not retire from the white man's neighborhood with noticeable haste. Not many of the first settlers came here under the influence of "emigration fever," however, but with carefullly calculated preparation and foreknowl- edge of the conditions they were to meet. They were pioneers born and bred, and almost without exception the children of parents who had left the older civilization of the Atlantic colonies or states for frontier life in Virginia, Maryland, and Kentucky, and the Ohio valley on the north, and they had doubtless imbibed a love for virgin fields of effort as they grew up. They were ready in spirit to encounter whatever difficulties the pioneer life presented in this new country. Its hardships were accepted as a matter of course, and the emigration was voluntary and eager. Nor were all the refinements to which they were heirs in the eastern centres left behind them in these successive migrations, for refinement lies deeper than material belongings. Religion, education, and the skilled hand were in their stock of implements, and high aspiration and the energy which is required to attain high objects. With these they wrought for themselves new lares and penates, and from the
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logs of the forest primeval reared themselves new temples of wor- ship and of learning.
At Zane's Town, early to feel the impulse of immigration, the family of Isaac Zane, with its sons and daughters-in-law, already made the nucleus of a town, in the settlers' sense, when the first newcomers arrived. The Zanes were a notable race of men wher- ever the name appears in colonial records. The grandfather of Isaac, who came to America from England (the family originated in Denmark), with William Penn, left his mark on the city of brotherly love in one of its streets, which bears the name of Zane. Ebenezer Zane, the eldest brother of Isaac, had taken as deep root in the Scioto valley, while Isaac himself, while yet a captive in the wilderness, had merely by force of personality impressed the name of Zane indelibly on the Indian village which sheltered him. Isaac and his wife were, from the first, powerful instruments in promoting friendliness between the Indians and the whites. Their children, three sons and four daughters, were: William, Ebenezer and Isaac, Jr., and Nancy, Elizabeth, Kitty and Sally. Of the sons, the names of whose helpmates are not disclosed, the first is William, who removed, in 1820, to the Upper Sandusky, and became leading counselor for the Wyandot Indians; Ebenezer, who built the one- story log part of the house now known as the McCormick house, in 1804. (This is the oldest house now standing either in the village or the county.) The two-story part was added in or near 1814. Ebenezer removed to Wyandot county in 1832. Isaac, Jr., by his father's will, settled on the farm afterward owned by E. O. Wicker- sham, near "Wickersham's Corners." The house, still standing, was a fine residence for the times in which it was built, and be- came known as "Zane Mansion." It was constructed by a man named Bishop, who received for his compensation a farm, which is now owned by the Pennock estate. Isaac also removed to Wyandot county in the thirties, dying there.
Of the daughters, Nancy, the oldest, had made a visit, about the date of 1796-7, to her grandfather, Tarhe, who was at the time living in the vicinity of Lancaster, Ohio, and while there had met her fate, a happy one, in the person of William McColloch, who was assisting her uncle, Ebenezer Zane, Sr., in cutting the early thor- oughfare known as "Zane Trace." William and Nancy were mar- ried in 1797, and did not come to Zane's Town to live until 1803. when their son, Noah Zane McColloch, was five years old. (Little Noah was already distinguished as the first white child born in the village of Zanesville.) It may be told that the Zanes and McCol- lochs had long been neighbors and friends in the Culpeper vicinity in Virginia, and that the marriage of William and Nancy was the second tie of wedlock between different branches of the family. Solomon and Samuel McCulloch arrived to settle permanently in Zane's Town in the same year (1803), bringing their families.
Kitty Zane married Alexander Long, who came very early to the village, and their part of the Zane estate lay on the south side of the road leading to Bellefontaine (then still Blue Jacket's Town), while that of her brother, Ebenezer, jr., lay on the north. These two tracts, with a few scattered houses and the store of Lanson
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Curtis (successor to Robert Robitaille), the man who imported the "first wheeled vehicle" into Logan county, comprised the village of Zane's Town in 1815. In 1819 it was "layed out," as quaintly stated, by joint agreement of Zane and Long, who rechristened it "Zanesfield." Three additions have since been made to this oldest town in Logan county, and first of all new world towns to bear the name of Zane.
Sally Zane married Robert Armstrong, who was instrumental in discovering the real headspring of the Scioto river, for which advantage to the Virginia Military Surveys Gen. Arthur deeded to him one hundred acres in the southeastern corner of the increase of territory gained by the relocation of the Ludlow line north of the Greenville treaty line.
Elizabeth Zane, who, after the death of her first husband, Robert Robitaille, married James M. Reed, died about 1819 or 1820, leaving a young daughter, as well as the two Robitaille boys.
Job Sharp had, before the date 1803, built on his own farm on Darby creek a small mill operated by water power obtained from two fine springs which he united in a headgate. Very rude and primitive the mill was, and designed for the use of his own family, but it produced a meal that was far superior to the grits which the settlers had thus far produced for themselves by pounding corn between stones, or by using a boulder for a pestle with a hollowed stump for a mortar, so the fame of "Sharp's Mill" spread rapidly and settlers came from far and near to patronize it.
But, closely following the Sharp mill, William McColloch, who settled with Nancy a little south of the village at Zane's Town, had built a mill expressly for public patronage, the first real mill in the county, distinguished by a millrace one mile long, traces of which may still be seen.
In 1812, William McColloch organized a company of volun- teers to serve the country in the war with Great Britain. He furnished the necessary horses and cattle, and maintenance for the same without remuneration, and, at the head of his scouts, joined Gen. Hull at Belleville. He was killed in the defeat of Brown- town, the site of Detroit, when the British were commanded by Gen. Brock and the Indians by Tecumseh. There is a story that Tecumseh commanded McColloch's heart to be eaten by his braves, to imbue them with the courage of the valiant pioneer soldier. His body lies in an unknown spot. Nancy, his widow, a few years later (1816) built a school house and employed a teacher for it, the whole being a free offering in the interest of education. This was the first free school in Logan county. Nancy died in 1848 and was buried, by her own request, in the orchard of her home farm.
Solomon McColloch at once entered actively into the affairs of the settlements, after his arrival in Zane's Town, his marked ability making him valuable in many lines. When, fifteen years later, it became necessary to choose a site for the county seat of Logan, he was appointed by the court to be the first director of the new town. He it was who received the deeds from the original owners, laid out the town, after the survey, into its original six- teen squares, and subdivided these into lots which he brought to
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public sale. One of his daughters married Miller Kenton, a son of Gen. Simon Kenton, and a sister became the wife of James M. Workman, one of whose daughters married Simon Kenton, jr.
Samuel McColloch was an officer in William McColloch's com- pany in the war of 1812, and his son, George, was also a member of the same band of scouts. Both survived the war, the father hav- ing lost an arm, becoming thereby one of the early pensioners of the government in Logan county. The son, who was but fifteen years of age when the family located in Logan county, married the daughter of George Henry of Culpeper, Virginia, in 1809, the Henrys being also pioneers here. George McColloch became one of the earliest Baptist ministers in the county, and was a pastor of old Tharp's Run Baptist church. He spent an honored life, known to the whole county, and attained the grand old age of ninety-six years, dying universally mourned in 1886.
The year 1806, once accepted as the year of first settlement, was, in fact, the date of a wave of immigration into Champaign county proper, a part of which wave overflowed into what was afterward set apart as Logan. This group came from the Western Reserve, and did not differ essentially in the character of its per- sonnel from the contingent which preceded it, a goodly community, indeed, and though widely scattered, of remarkable unity of aim and sympathy. No better idea can be formed of the population at this time than is briefly conveyed in the election list of 1806, the occasion of the first election ordered in "Zane township," which then comprised the whole of Logan county, as given in the inti- mate little volume of Joshua Antrim, published in 1872, and now, it is to be regretted, nearly vanished from the bookshelves of the county. Quoting the list in full :
"Judges, James McPherson, George M. Bennett, Thomas Antrim.
"Clerks, Thomas Davis, Henry Shaw.
"Certified by William McColloch, J. P.
"Names of Electors [the spelling of many names is crude] : Jiles Chambers, Isaac Zane, John Stephenson, William McCloud, Matthew Cavanaugh, Abner Cox, Alexander Suter, John Tucker, William C. Dagger, John Fillis, sen. [Tullis], George Bennett, Thomas Davis, Daniel Phillips, Thomas Antrim, James McPher- son, John Provolt, Job Sharp, Jeremiah Stansbury, Samuel McCol- loch, Edward Tatman, James Frail, William McColloch, Isaac Tits- worth, Arthur McWaid, John Lodwork, Henry Shaw, Carlisle Haines, Samuel Sharp, John Sharp, Charles McLain, John Tilis [Tullis] jr., Daniel Tucker."
Among the candidates for election were Daniel Mckinnon, for sheriff ; Solomon McColloch, for commissioner, and William Powell, for coroner. Other names entered in the county records previous to 1812, include the Inskeeps, Reames, Garwoods, Euans, Outlands, Newells, Blacks, Ballingers, Curls, Moots, Randalls, and Dr. John Elbert, who came in 1809. When peace was permanently established after the war of 1812, immigration became so rapid that it is only possible to mention those who became most prominent in the
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development of the country and the building of towns and indus- tries.
During all the years of settlement, one figure, quaint, fantastic, yet unobtrusive, had become familiar to every accessible part of the country. Even where conditions seemed to defy access, he came and went, ministering, self-appointed, to the welfare of the wilder- ness and its pioneers. This was Jonathan Chapman, "Johnny Appleseed," who was neither settler nor homeseeker, who had, in fact, no home, but who for forty years or more traversed the valleys of Ohio and Indiana, planting apple orchards, asking no compensation from whomsoever would suffer his service and his trees. He was a native of New England, and a Swedenborgian in religious faith, and he preached his doctrines wherever he found a listener. He also endeavored to live up to the Scriptures, which he interpreted with a literalness which caused him to be regarded by the average observer as mentally unbalanced. This gentle and kindly old itinerant, however, merely practiced (a policy as unusual then as it is now) what he preached, and the worst that should be said of him is that he was consistent. Savage and settler alike respected him, when once they knew him ; little children loved him, and rejoiced when he made his rounds ; in all his life he inspired fear in no one but that solitary German backwoodsman who met him suddenly in the woods, attired in his familiar rags and tatters, and found it a fearsome sight. But his orchards were, as he intended, a blessing, and left the wilderness fragrant long after he ceased to tread it. True, the varieties were haphazard, and his conscien- tious objection to grafting and pruning stood in the way of improv- ing the stock, A niece of Jonathan's (daughter of his sister, who followed him to the west) living in Fort Wayne, Indiana, who learned the facts of his life motive from her mother, explains that "Uncle Jonathan believed it to be a sin to interfere with the divinely ordained processes of nature, and so would never graft his stock." Also, the "cast-off tin can or cooking utensil" which he wore as a hat was not adopted as a matter of taste, but from what he deemed necessity. The stew-pan was indispensable on his travels ; so was a cover for his head. Hands and back were already overloaded, and the only place available for carrying the pan was his head, which could not accommodate both pan and hat. There- fore Jonathan sacrificed the hat, just as he sacrificed every other thing which stood in the way of his service to his fellowman. His coat of coffee-sacking, which he "found to be a very good garment," was only adopted in an emergency, and he would not discard it for a handsomer garment lest he should, by having something better than he actually needed, deprive some other man more needy than himself.
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