USA > Ohio > Montgomery County > Memoirs of the Miami valley > Part 7
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82
The west was too new and too sparsely settled to be interested when the rage for turnpikes spread over the east in the latter part of the first decade of the nineteenth century, but when the great rush of population into Ohio began after the close of the War of 1812, and an increasing agricultural product had to be marketed, there was an agitation for better roads, and several turnpikes com- panies were chartered to build roads connecting Cincinnati with towns in the interior of the state. It was not uncommon, in the advertisements of new town sites, to see presented as one of the advantages of the location that the new town was on proposed turnpike road. Dr. Drake remarked that the policy of constructing from Cincinnati toward the sources of the Miamis a great road which should at all times be equally passable, had been for some time in agitation. He further said: "The benefits which an execu- tion of this plan would confer, cannot be fully estimated, except by those who have traveled through the Miami country in the winter season and have studied the connections in business between that district and Cincinnati. The salt, the iron, the castings, the glass, the cotton and foreign merchandise of eight counties would be transported on this road." But. those who hoped for immediate improvement in road construction in the west were doomed to disappointment, as it was not until early in the thirties that turn- pike construction was seriously undertaken in Ohio.
This lack of good roads, combined with the long journey to New Orleans, made the cost of transporting goods to market so high as practically to prevent shipment from a large part of the interior, thus precluding the development of a surplus that would otherwise have swelled the volume of trade. It has been estimated
44
MEMOIRS OF THE MIAMI VALLEY
that in the early part of the last century the average cost of trans- portation by land was $10 per ton per hundred miles, and that grain and flour could not stand the cost of transportation more than 150 miles at such rate. This estimate was made by McMaster, in his History of the People of the United States, but taking into con- sideration the cost of river transportation and the cost of market- ing, it is doubtful if such articles in the Miami valley could have been hauled profitably more than fifty miles to the place of export. A record of what was actually charged for transportation has been preserved in some instances. Referring to the Centinel of the Northwest Territory, issue of April 4, 1795, it appears that goods for the army were being shipped from Fort Washington to Fort Hamilton by water in private boats, and that the rate was $1.10 per barrel for flour, $1.30 per barrel for whiskey, and fifty cents per hundredweight for corn. And Curwen's History of Dayton is au- thority for the statement that in 1799 the cost of transportation from Cincinnati to Dayton was $2.50 per hundredweight. In 1805 a four-horse stage coach furnished weekly service between Cincin- nati and Yellow Springs, and passengers were charged $5 per single trip. Way passengers paid at the rate of six cents per mile. The line passed through Hamilton, Franklin and Dayton, and two days were required to make the trip.
As the result of these difficulties in the matter of transporta- tion, according to Burnet's Notes, it was not uncommon for corn and oats to sell as low as 10 and 12 cents per bushel, beef at $1.50 per hundredweight, and pork at $1 to $2 per hundredweight. Ash, in his Travels in the United States, tells of a farmer-a Mr. Digby -well situated with an improved farm about forty miles north- east of Cincinnati, who stated that the price of produce was so low and the price of labor so high that very little profit attended the most laborious exercise of industry. Indian corn carried so mean a value that he never offered to sell it, and wheat made into flour sold for $3 per barrel. This farmer could not wait for roads to be built, and in consequence he was about to abandon a system so little advantageous and take to grazing cattle, breeding hogs, and raising horses for distant market where money was to be obtained. In fact, he had already attempted one such venture, having sent his son with a cargo of 200 live hogs to New Orleans, and in the spring he proposed taking a drove of cattle and horses over the mountains to Philadelphia and Baltimore.
Mr. Ash's contemporaries speak most disparagingly of his verac- ity, and his writings are chiefly noted for the all too evident in- tent to misrepresent and ridicule the pepole of the United States. But his statements in regard to economic conditions are in accord with more authoritative writers, and Farmer Digby may be not entirely a myth. Certain it is that the prairies of the upper Miami country and the Scioto valley furnished pasture for droves of cattle that were driven over the mountains to Philadelphia or Baltimore, and the mast of the woods furnished free food for hogs that were in some instances driven northward to Detroit. In 1817 Morris Birkbeck met a drove of very fat oxen on their way from the banks of the Miami to Philadelphia, and as late as 1819, according to Mc-
45
SETTLEMENT OF THE MIAMI VALLEY
Bride's Pioneer Biography, Jeremiah Butterfield, of Butler county, drove a large number of hogs through the woods to Detroit to mar- ket.
Of course, it was impracticable to feed all the surplus product of the farm to live stock and send it to market on its own legs, and so the farmers, in common with other frontier communities of the time, solved the problem of reducing bulk and weight for purposes of shipment by turning their grain into whiskey and their fruit into brandy. Beers' History of Montgomery County states that during this early period a large number of the well-to-do farmers each had his own small still and thus turned his surplus fruit and sometimes grain into a marketable product. Larger distilleries began to be erected about the time that water-power gristmills came into use. and whiskey became an important article of export.
Lebanon seems to have been a particularly attractive town for settlers and travelers alike. Birkbeck, who visited it in 1817, de- scribes it as one of those wonders which are the natural growth of the back woods. In fourteen years it had grown from two or three cabins of half savage hunters to be the residence of a thousand per- sons, with habits and looks in no way different from their brethren from the east. At this time Lebanon contained a courthouse, a jail, two churches, a school, a postoffice, a printing office, a public library, and a bank with a capital of $250,000. Franklin, with fifty-five families, and Waynesville, were the other towns of im- portance in Warren county. Dayton claimed 130 dwellings and contained a courthouse, two churches and an academy, a library, a postoffice, a printing office, and several grist and sawmills were located near the town. Hamilton had become a place of seventy- five buildings and the other chief towns of Butler county were Rossville, Oxford and Middletown. Besides Cincinnati, the chief towns in Hamilton county were: Columbia, Newtown, Reading, Montgomery, Springfield, Colerain, Harrison, Crosby, and Cleves.
The section of country bordering on the Ohio river in the vicinity of Cincinnati and extending back about one hundred miles was described by Fearson, in his Sketches of America, as being an excellent body of land, well settled, though but small improvements had been made, except in a few places near the towns. The price of land varied much according to situation. Farms which were called improved could be bought at from $8 to $30 per acre. The improve- ments, however, often consisted of rough log buildings and from twelve to twenty acres under partial cultivation. A better class of farms had from twenty to fifty acres under cultivation. Grazing was still the chief occupation on the prairies near the headwaters of the Miamis.
There was a noticeable evolution in social and intellectual con- ditions along with this economic advance. Fast disappearing were the manners that had been acquired and the ignorance that had been induced while settlers were living in forts and getting their bread and meat at the peril of their lives, and even later when al- most all of the people were battling with the wilderness. Schools and even libraries were established, and a limited education and some culture took the place of the ignorance and rude life of the
46
MEMOIRS OF THE MIAMI VALLEY
frontier, as cultivated farms took the place of forests and towns came into existence. In the interior, of course, there continued to be found the various types of settlers characteristic of the frontier. Travelers have generally divided them into three classes: First, the squatter, or man who "sets himself down" upon land which is not his own, and for which he pays nothing; cultivates to a suffi- cient extent to supply himself and family with the necessaries of life; remains until he is dissatisfied with his choice, had realized a sufficiency to become a land-owner, or is expelled by the real proprietor. Second, the small farmer who had recently immigrated, had barely sufficient to pay the first installment for his 80 or 160 acres of $2 land; cultivates, or what he calls improves, ten to thirty acres ; raises a sufficient "feed" for his family ; has the females of it employed in making or patching the wretched clothing of the whole domestic circle; is in a condition which, if compelled by legislative acts, or by external force to endure, would be con- sidered truly wretched; but from being his own master, having made his own choice, from the having "no one to make him afraid," joined with the consciousness that, though slowly, he is regularly advancing towards wealth; the breath of complaint is seldom heard to escape from his lips. Third, the wealthy or "strong-handed" farmer, who owns from five to twelve hundred acres, has one-fourth to one-third under cultivation, of a kind much superior to the for- mer ; raises live stock for the home and Atlantic city markets ; sends beef, pork, cheese, lard, and butter to New Orleans; is perhaps a legislator, at any rate a squire (magistrate) ; is always a man of plain businesslike sense, though not in possession, nor desirous of a very cultivated intellect ; understands his own interest, and that of his country ; lives in sufficient affluence, and is possessed of com- fort; but, in conclusion, and a most important conclusion it is, the majority of this class of men were, ten or fifteen years ago, in- habitants of the eastern states, and not worth, upon their arrival in Ohio, $20.
The platting of new towns was another characteristic of west- ern development, especially between the years 1814 and 1820. In the territory immediately contiguous to Cincinnati more than thirty towns were laid out within that time. Some have long since been forgotten, while others still exist as prosperous towns or villages. Among the towns established within that period that are still thriv- ing communities is Carthage. An enterprising proprietor of a tract of land that was situated in a region already somewhat settled and favorably located on a navigable stream, near a mill site, or on an established highway, would see a chance for increasing his wealth by the rise in value of real estate. He would employ a surveyor and have a portion of his land laid out in town lots, then advertise in a Cincinnati newspaper, setting forth the advantages of the pro- posed town and announcing that on a certain day lots would be sold at auction on the premises, usually on a credit of six months or a year.
Some of these land owners dreamed of towns on a magnificent scale that were never realized; but while many of the speculations failed, many prospered and are today the centers of thriving com-
47
SETTLEMENT OF THE MIAMI VALLEY
munities. Birkbeck has given a most interesting account of the rise and development of these frontier towns: "A storekeeper builds a little framed store, and sends for a few cases of goods; and then a tavern starts up, which becomes the residence of a doctor and a lawyer, and the boarding house of the storekeeper, as well as the resort of the weary traveler; soon follow a blacksmith and other handicraftsmen in useful succession; a schoolmaster, who is also the minister of religion, becomes an important accession to this ris- ing community. Thus the town proceeds, if it proceeds at all, with accumulating force, until it becomes the metropolis of the neighbor- hood. * * Thus trade begins and thrives, as population grows around these lucky spots; imports and exports maintaining their just proportion. * * * The town being fairly established, a cluster of inhabitants, small as it may be, acts as a stimulus on the cultiva- tion of the neighborhood; redundancy of supply is the consequence, and this demands a vent. Water mills, or in defect of water power, steam mills, rise on the nearest navigable stream, and thus an ef- fectual and constant market is secured for the increasing surplus of produce. Such are the elements of that accumulating mass of commerce; in exports, and consequent imports, which will render the Mississippi the greatest thoroughfare in the world."
Mr. Birkbeck wrote in a prophetic vein and the fulfillment of his prophecy in regard to transportation on the Mississippi and on the Ohio river as well is an interesting story. But the navigation of the great Miami deserves mention in this connection. Beers History of Montgomery County says the first flatboat that navi- gated the Great Miami was built by David Loury at Dayton, in 1800, and was sent to New Orleans loaded with grain, pelts, and 500 venison hams. From that time till the completion of the canal between Cincinnati and Dayton, in 1829, flatboats continued to navigate the Great Miami river. The stream was navigable during the greater part of the year, but boats were usually built and launched with the spring floods and loaded with flour, bacon, whiskey and other staple products, bound for New Orleans. Mc- Bride, in his Pioneer Biography, says it was not uncommon for one of the more prosperous farmers on the Ohio or Great Miami to load a flatboat with his own produce. These boats frequently carried as much as 300 or 400 barrels and were five to six days in passing from Dayton to the Ohio river. And Dana, in his Geographical Sketches of the Western Country, says that in April, 1818, 1,700 barrels of flour were shipped from Dayton to New Orleans.
That the navigation of the Great Miami was not all that could be desired appears from the narrative of Thomas Morrison, left by him in the form of unpublished manuscript. He left Dayton with a boat load of produce, Nov. 17, 1822, and on the evening of the second day his boat struck a rock and upset near Franklin, but he was fortunate in saving the cargo. The boat was repaired, but he did not feel safe in continuing down the river with the full cargo. Two wagon loads were hauled to Cincinnati at a cost of $1 per hun- dredweight, put on another flatboat and floated to the mouth of the Great Miami, while the balance was floated to the Ohio. The boat
48
MEMOIRS OF THE MIAMI VALLEY
from Cincinnati was then lashed to the one from Dayton and they proceeded down the Ohio. In 1825 Mr. Morrison made another trip to the south with a cargo of flour; but this time he hauled his flour from Dayton to Cincinnati, floated his boat empty down the Great Miami to its mouth, ran her up to Cincinnati and loaded there.
From the foregoing it will be apparent to the reader that dur- ing the earlier period of development in the Miami valley disin- tegrating conditions existed to a considerable extent. The move- ment of live stock over the mountains or to Detroit, and the trans- portation of produce down the Great Miami cannot be regarded otherwise. But from the beginning Cincinnati was the natural metropolis of this whole region of country. These disintegrating tendencies were gradually overcome as the city grew and roads were improved, and by 1829 the completion of the Miami canal definitely gave Cincinnati control of the entire trade of the Miami valley.
A matter which is entirely germane to the subject of this chap- ter-the settlement of the Miami valley-is the Great Kentucky revival, and its subsequent camp-meetings, which lasted for a period of over fifty years. Owing to the rapidity of the increase in population and the advent of foreigners with their variant sectaries, it is difficult to measure the depth of the influence of the enthusiasm resultant from that religious upheaval, but certain it is that the effort of the reformers made a marked impression upon the people of the valley. The settlements were almost wholly com- munities of farmers. Books and newspapers were but sparingly supplied to them, and religion was their chief intellectual food. Without the advantages enjoyed by their descendants, scattered, though naturally gregarious, a religious revival naturally held out its allurements to all alike.
The early settlers, for the most part, were Christians by pro- fession, and different denominations were early in the field, employ- ing their zeal in making proselytes and propagating their respective tenets. The great majority ranked among the Presbyterians, Bap- tists, and Methodists. The first church organized in Ohio was the Baptist church at Columbia, near Cincinnati, in 1790, and the build- ing, erected in 1793, stood until 1835. In 1797, besides the Presby- terian church at Cincinnati, there were preaching points at (a short distance south of Franklin), Turtle creek (now Union, or Shaker village, west of Lebanon), Bethany (two miles east of Lebanon), and Big Prairie (at the mouth of Dick's creek in Butler county, afterward called Orangedale). Of these country congregations the largest and most influential was Turtle Creek.
Acknowledging one another as of the same parent stock, the various sects "stood entirely separate as to any communion or fellowship, and treated each other with the highest marks of hostility ; wounding, captivating and bickering another, until their attention was called off by the appearance of deism." As early as 1796 a religious apathy appears to have pervaded the pulpit. One writes, "the dead state of religion is truly discouraging here, as well as elsewhere"; another says, "I have this winter past preached with difficulty, my heart but little enjoyed," and still another, "I
49
SETTLEMENT OF THE MIAMI VALLEY
see but little prospect of encouragement." But however dark the picture may be painted, the despondent were soon awakened to what they deemed a season of refreshment.
In the year 1800, on the Gaspar, in Logan county, Kentucky, there began a religious revival which was the precursor of the most wonderful upheaval ever experienced in Christian work. The ex- citement commenced under the labors of one John Rankin, and almost immediately James McGready, also a Presbyterian clergy- man, was seized with the same spirit. McGready has been described as a homely man, with sandy hair and rugged features, and was so terrific in holding forth the terrors of hell that he was called a son of thunder. He pictured "the furnace of hell with its red-hot coals of God's wrath as large as mountains"; he would open to the sinner's view "the burning lake of hell, to see its fiery billows rolling, and to hear the yells and groans of the damned ghosts roaring under the burning wrath of an angry God." Under his preaching the people would fall down with a loud cry and lie powerless, or else groan- ing, praying, or crying to God for mercy. The news of the excite- ment spread not only over Kentucky, but also into Ohio and Tennessee, and people rushed to the Gaspar to witness the scenes, and returned to their homes carrying a measure of the enthusiasm with them.
Out of the Kentucky revival there originated three sects, or religious denominations entirely new to the western country. The one which exerted the most power in the Miami valley is generally called New Lights, and sometimes Schismatics. The sect repudiates both these names, and styles itself The Christian church, which name it assumed in 1804. In 1802, Richard McNemar took charge of the Turtle Creek church (near Lebanon, Ohio), where his labors met with abundant success. At the meeting of the Presbytery in Cincinnati, Oct. 6, 1802, an elder entered a verbal complaint against him, as a propagator of false doctrine. The accused insisted the question was out of order, for charges must be made in writing. Nevertheless the Presbytery proceeded to examine him "on the fundamental doctrines of the sacred scriptures," which were election, human depravity, the atonement, etc. The finding was that Mc- Nemar held these doctrines in a sense different from that in which Calvinists generally believe them, and that his sentiments were "hostile to the interests of all true religion." Notwithstanding this condemnation he was appointed one-half his time at Turtle Creek, until the next stated session; two Sabbaths at Orangeville, two at Clear Creek, two at Beulah, one at the forks at Mad river, and the rest at discretion.
At the next session at Springfield (now known as Springdale, some eleven miles north of Cincinnati, in April, 1803, a petition from a number of persons, in the congregations of Beulah, Turtle Creek, Clear Creek, Bethany, Hopewell, Dick's Creek, and Cincin- nati, was presented, praying for a re-examination of McNemar, and that Rev. John Thompson undergo a like examination. The Pres- bytery refused to acquiesce. A petition, signed by sixty persons of the Turtle Creek congregation, asked for the whole of McNemar's time, which was granted. The matter was brought before the
50
MEMOIRS OF THE MIAMI VALLEY
Synod, held at Lexington, Ky., in September, 1803, with the result that McNemar and others were suspended and their parishes were declared as being without ministers.
Up to the time of these charges of heresy being made against him McNemar has been described to have been a mild and unassum- ing man. But his trials appear to have awakened all the resources of his strong nature. With enthusiasm he began his work at Turtle Creek, and in summer his congregations were so large that the meet- ings were held in the grove near the church. Strange physical phenomena of the revival attended his ministrations in Warren county. At Turtle Creek almost all the adult persons in a large congregation would fall to the ground in a short time and lie un- conscious, with hardly a sign of breathing or beating of the pulse.
At the same meeting of the Presbyterian Synod at Lexington, when McNemar was suspended, the dissolution of the Springfield Presbytery was ordered, and this launched a new denomination in the west. The preachers carried their churches with them. Every Presbyterian church in southwestern Ohio was swept into this new organization, with one or two exceptions, and even the church at Cincinnati was fairly tainted with the new doctrines and methods. The Turtle Creek church, with uplifted hands, was constituted a schismatic church. The influence of Richard McNemar was ir- resistible. Before the close of the year 1804, Turtle Creek, Eagle Creek, Springheld (Springdale), Orangedale, Clear Creek, Beaver Creek, and Salem had jomed the new movement. A demand for more preachers was made. Camp meetings were popular and were used to extend the general influence. The names of "brother" and "sister" were applied to church members, and the custom of giving the right hand of fellowship was introduced. The spirit of the Kentucky revival, especially in camp meetings was kept aflame. "Praying, shouting, jerking, barking, or rolling; dreaming, prophesying, and looking as through a glass, at the infinite lories of Mount Zion, just about to break open upon the world." A his- tory of the Kentucky Revival says: "They practiced a mode of prayer, which was as singular as the situation in which they stood, and the faith by which they were actuated. According to their proper name of distinction, they stood separate and divided, each one for one ; and in this capacity they offered up each their separate cries to God, in one united harmony of sound ; by which the doubtful footsteps of those who were in search of the meeting, might be directed, sometimes to the distance of miles."
Troubles, however, rapidly accumulated on the infant sect. Notwithstanding the fact that it started with established churches and possessed with unbounded enthusiasm, yet the leaders were not equal to the occasion. The early preachers inveighed against a hireling ministry, which forced into the ranks many whose minds were diverted to the question of sufficient support; there was a want of organization and a wise administration of government. The power of other churches forced them into intellectual lines, which they were not slow, in the later years, to take advantage of. But the Miami valley owes much to the Christian church, and the showing of that church, contrasted with other sects, will compare
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.