USA > Ohio > Knox County > Past and present of Knox County, Ohio, Vol. I > Part 35
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William and Basil Murphy found homes here in 1815-16 and commenced the tanning business in the township, carrying on the same until 1863.
In 1817 came Obediah Stillwell, born in Bedford county, Pennsylvania, in 1776. He located in the northeast quarter of section 9.
In 1817 also came to this township Warren Owen, and William Watkins followed in 1819. The Johnsons, Denmans, Stevenses, Walters, Ebersoles, Grahams, Zolmans, Comforts, Fiddlers, Cravens, McPhersons and Martins were all pioneer settlers of character and stability. It was such men as those already narrated above who felled the first forest trees, cleared up the ground and raised the first crops in Middlebury township.
Saw mills were located here and there, all over this township, wherever
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the little streams would permit of fall enough to run the same. Some were saw and some combined saw and grist mills. Among these may be recalled by some of the very oldest residents of the township the following: The first mill was the Daniel Levering mill at Waterford, about 1815, then followed the Owl Creek mills, by Joel Starmer ; the saw mill, fulling mill and carding machine of 1824, at Bateman, a short-lived concern ; Craft's mill, later Blair's, combined saw and grist mill; Abner Trowbridge, saw mill, on lot 26, 1830; the William Watkins saw mill of 1850; the William Rambo saw mill of 1845; and various others whose wheels have long since rotted and the frame build- ings decayed and floated down stream and in many cases the stream has dried up, so that only when heavy floods come are they looked upon as streams.
In 1850 R. D. Ketchum had a general store at Batemantown, which he managed to conduct about six years, when it was closed up. A Mr. Hall tried the hotel business there, but met with no better success than had others and quit for other parts. In 1881 the town consisted of about a dozen houses which now have disappeared from the face of the earth.
Concerning the many schools and churches within Middlebury township, the reader will find an account of these under proper topic headings in the general chapters of this volume.
WATERFORD AND BATEMANTOWN.
These are the only villages within the township, and Waterford is the larger of the two and the only place of any commercial importance in the township today. It is situated on the north fork of Owl creek, six miles to the north of Fredericktown. It was platted on the northwest quarter of section 3, township 8, range 14, of Congress lands. It is near the Greenville treaty line, and was owned by Josiah Fawcett and Noah L. Levering, being surveyed by Merritt M. Beam, November 26, 1841. Joseph Fawcett erected the first house on the platting. The first store was conducted by John and William Levering before the village had been platted. In 1865 Levering sold to Bene- dict & Smith. Josiah Fawcett commenced to operate his store there in 1835 and continued until 1858, when he removed to Fredericktown. In 1862 Will- iam Killen began a merchandising business at this point, at the old stand left by Mr. Fawcett, and he remained there many years.
A postoffice was established at Waterford in 1836, named "Levering." It was on the postal route from Mt. Vernon to Tiffin, Ohio. While the Democrats were in power, John Levering was secure in holding the office, but when the Whigs came into office it naturally gravitated towards the "shop across the way," kept by Josiah Fawcett, for, then as now, "to the victor belongs the spoils." While these sudden and frequent postal changes were going on at
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Waterford the office was removed to Batemantown. However, this did not continue, for by a united effort the office was relocated at Waterford. From 1853 on, for many years, the office was in the hands of the following : Columbus Levering, Dr. Thomas Waters, J. D. Burke, Dr. Clayton, W. Town- send, Abraham Oberholtzer, Zoe Levering, Monroe Keys, Frank V. Owen, Curtis Hardgrove, 1881. Waterford is still only a country hamlet, with a small amount of commercial business.
TOWNSHIP'S MEN OF NOTE.
While scores of the men who have developed this goodly part of Knox county have been men of brains and distinction in the great busy world of affairs, yet some naturally tower higher in the walks of life than others. Some have taken high rank among the nation's best statesmen and law givers.
Lawrence Van Buskirk, long since deceased, came to this county in 1830, located on the northwest quarter of section 2, a mile east of Waterford. In 1848 he was elected to the Legislature of Ohio and in 1851 to a seat in the state Senate.
Hon. Columbus Delano was reared near Batemantown and went to Mt. Vernon and studied law with talented attorneys and made his way into many high official positions, including Congress and the cabinet. For more con- cerning this product of Middlebury the reader is referred to the other chapters of this work.
Hon. William Windom, born in Belmont county, Ohio, in 1827, came to Middlebury township with his parents when but a youth. His father was Hezekiah Windom, who located on the northwest quarter of section 2, a mile and a half east of Waterford. He learned the trade of a tailor in Waterford, with J. D. Burke, and the first coat he made after serving his apprenticeship was for John Walters, which, it is said, was not the best of a fit. Young Windom disliked farming and was not a success as a stylish tailor, but the world had a place for him. He studied law under Judge Hurd at Mt. Vernon, Ohio, and rose to become a leading lawyer and prosecuting attorney for Knox county, elected as a Whig in 1852. While studying law he delivered temper- ance lectures through the country, when, by reason of his advanced grounds, he was threatened with mob violence in Morrow county. He went to his ap- pointment and laid his pistol down on the desk and delivered his lecture with- out any interference. He went to Minnesota in 1855, and was made United States senator ; later was a member of the cabinet and talked of strongly for President, but his life was suddenly snapped from him, while delivering a toast at a banquet in New York city. His was, indeed, a noble manhood. one this township may ever refer to with pride.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
MILLER TOWNSHIP.
Previous to 1815 this township, with numerous others, belonged to and constituted a part of Morgan township, but on September 4th of that year Morgan was divided by the county commissioners, forming a now civil pre- cinct to be known, the record says, as "Sychamore," and whether the orthog- raphy was correct or not, its territory comprised what is now included in the townships of Miller, Milford and Hilliar, and a strip one mile wide from off Morgan township, as well as one section from the southwest corner of Pleasant township. The name Sycamore (or Sychamore) did not suit the people, who protested that it should be changed, so at an election-possibly the very first one held in the township-it was determined to give it a new name. William Bair, Jonathan Hunt, Jr., and Lemuel Chapman were the trustees elected, and John Mott, clerk. Several names were suggested for the township name, each urging his as being the best. The state election was to be held on the following October, and wisely it was agreed that the privilege of naming it should be postponed till then, but the method was what today would seem irregular and somewhat questionable, since the county of Knox has gone "dry" on the liquor question. It was to be awarded to the voter who should put up the most good whisky for election purposes. Whisky was then almost a regular legal tender for all debts, "both public and private." James Miller was the successful bidder, he agreeing to furnish five gallons and a half of his best whisky, then worth fifteen cents per gallon. The township was named "Miller" for him, and so remains to this day. Among those seventeen voters were Riverius Newell, Ottis Warren, Samuel Rowley, Gideon Mott, Riverius New- ell, Jr., Aaron Hill, Abner Hill, Alpheus Chapman and James Miller.
In 1818 it was petitioned to have the township of Miller separated and. this was effected and the newly made township was called Hilliar. Again, in 1823. another township was required by the people who had Milford township created by order of the county commissioners March 3d of that year. In March, 1825, a petition was granted asking for the organization of Pleasant township; thus Miller was materially reduced and took on its present bound- aries. It is five miles long and four and a half miles in width from east to west. This township was composed of military lands, save the northwest
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quarter, which had not been appropriated yet. William Stanbury owned the northeast quarter, which contained twenty-four hundred acres; the southwest quarter was owned by George Bomford and contained four thousand acres ; the southeast quarter was held by George B. Jackson and contained three thou- sand acres. In 1808 Mr. Jackson sold the first piece of land that was ever sold to an actual settler in the township. It was sold to John Vance, Sr.
THE SETTLEMENT.
The first settler was John Vance, Jr., son of the man above named. He sold lot number 3 to his son, who, in 1808, erected the first house in this town- ship. In the eighties this land was still held in the Vance family and doubt- less some of it still remains intact, as the homestead of one of the Vance heirs. The old original log house stands a monument to the pioneer days in Miller township. There was born the first child in the township, Hannah Vance, later the widow of Daniel Houck, the date of her birth being June 10, 1809. Daniel Vance, a son, was also born in this log structure and was proud of the fact, too.
Pausing here for a moment, the reader will be interested to listen to the account given of the scenes enacted in and near this dwelling of pioneer days, by Daniel Vance, who gave it a third of a century ago :
"At the time John Vance came to what is now Miller township the Indians were numerous. After Mr. Vance had erected his log cabin (size sixteen by sixteen feet), and moved into it, he used a blanket for a door. He worked away from home and frequently remained over night, leaving his wife and one child alone, the child later known as Mrs. Houck. The Indians were her frequent callers, and frequently brought venison to trade for corn. One In- dian, especially, was fond of the white family. Upon one occasion he came to the cabin in the dusk of evening and asked Mrs. Vance if her husband was going to be at home that night, calling him 'Pale-face.' Mrs. Vance's first impulse was to say yes, as she did not know his real designs in asking such a question, but she thought it would not do to tell him a falsehood, so she said, 'No, he would not be home that night, as he went to work for corn.' The Indian replied, 'Pale-face sha'nt be hurt ; pale-face need not be afraid.' He then lay down in front of the door, and remained all night, which he did on several subsequent occasions."
Returning to a description of other settlers who made up the pioneer colony in this township, it may be stated that in 1809 Abraham Cairnes, from Virginia, purchased lot number I in the Jackson tract, being in the southeast corner of the township. The same season Andrew Thompson bought lot number 2.
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In 1810 came Cornelius Thompson, from Hardy county, Virginia, pur- chasing lot number 4. He died within a few years, leaving a son, Enoch Thompson, who remained in the township.
In 1812 Daniel Bailer bought lot number 9, William Campbell lot 10, and Henry Row lot number 5.
Peter Weaver came in 1816. That year George B. Jackson died and the remaining land fell to his heirs. The remainder was really a wilderness and so remained until about 1840. To trace further the comings and goings of the men who came into this township is almost useless, as the names are al- most obliterated from the memory of those now in Knox county. Some were good men and others of the baser sort, who loved whisky and the huntsman's chase more than refined homes and schools. The last piece of government land taken up in this township went to Richmond Hillard, it being the north- west quarter of section 6, which in the last records at hand ( 1881) was in the name of J. M. Hillard.
POPULATION OF TOWNSHIP.
The population of Miller township in 1830 was 548; in 1840, 977; in 1850, 1,064; in 1870, it was 925; in 1880, it was 827; in 1890, only 750: in 1900, it was 755, and according to the last official count, in 1910, it had a population of only seven hundred.
EARLY HARDSHIPS, ETC.
The occupation of these first settlers in Miller township was that of hint- ing and farming, cutting timber, splitting rails and clearing up the land as fast as possible. In the spring of the year, a large amount of maple sugar and syrup was made from the immense quantities of sap-bearing trees. This was taken to Zanesville to market and exchanged for groceries and such things as could not well be supplied at home. Each farmer kept a small flock of sheep, and wool was spun and woven into cloth with which the family was clothed in winter time. Flax was raised, too, on every clearing patch in the township, and from this was made the shiny linen summer-wear goods. All farm prod- ucts were extremely low priced; wheat seldom reached forty cents and corn was eight to ten, sometimes fifteen cents a bushel. Good cows sold at eight to ten dollars, and even at these rates it was next to impossible to obtain money. The only thing high was postage-twenty and twenty-five cents a letter. Wheat was made up into flour and packed into barrels, as was pork, and much of the surplus corn crop made into whisky. All this made a demand for cooperage
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and Mr. Miller furnished his share of coopers. Among the pioneer coopers can now be recalled Messrs. Levi Ward, Cyrus Gates, Emor Harris, James Sealts, Oliver Squires and Chester Coleman.
After 1850, the farmers were generally engaged in wool growing, this coming to be known as the banner wool township in the county.
VILLAGE OF BRANDON.
Near the center of the township is the village of Brandon, at the point where the Sycamore road crosses the Granville road. James Hare erected the first house here, five rods from the Sycamore road and two from the Gran- ville road. The next house was built by C. L. Bennett. In 1824 Phineas Squires purchased the land in the northeast corner-eighty acres in a wilder- ness-and there built a hewed log house, said to have been the largest log house ever raised in the township. It was twenty-eight by forty-five feet in size. It took two lengths of logs to reach across one end; it was a two-story building and very high ceilings. The chimney was built in the exact center and a fire-place on either side of its dingy walls. Phineas Squires was captain of the militia company and the neighbors all called this house the "war office."
In 1830 Manley Rowley bought one acre in the corner to the southwest, on which he erected a building for hotel purposes. The same year Samuel A. Bagley and Enos Barnes formed a partnership as blacksmiths and wagonmak- ers. In 1831 they built a brick shop, twenty by fifty feet. It was soon burned and one of the firm operated alone, in the half rebuilt structure.
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In 1839 H. C. Lockwood purchased the property, including fifteen acres. In 1824 John Mott owned all the land on the southeast corner and he and Mr. Lockwood agreed to lay out a town site there. They engaged a surveyor who went to Mt. Vernon to attend to it and there got "full" and was gone so long they gave the enterprise up and while some lots were sold, the town was never legally platted. A dispute arose over what the place should be named and finally Brandon was the popular name it has always gone by ; whether it suited the other partner or not, history is silent at this late day. A postoffice was established there in February, 1839, called Hildreth, with Miner Hildreth as postmaster. About 1842 Hildreth resigned as postmaster and H. C. Lock- wood was appointed in his place, when the name was soon changed to Brandon (probably what he wanted it called originally ). At present there are the usual number of stores and shops found in country hamlets.
In Civil-war days Miller township certainly did her share towards filling up the quotas for soldiers and in supplying the soldiers' families with food, etc. The number of men enlisted from Miller township was one hundred and fourteen ; number killed, five : number died in service, sixteen.
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CHAPTER XXXVIII.
MORRIS TOWNSHIP.
When Knox county was first divided into townships, Morris was equally divided between Wayne and Clinton townships. Occupying a central position, being well supplied with water courses, the chief of which is Kokosing, which made the township one of the best for agriculture in the entire domain of the county, it was no wonder that settlers flocked hither before they did to other parts of the state of Ohio. The western half of the present township com- prises two military sections of four thousand acres each, the southwest quarter of the territory being known as the Canfield section and the northwest quarter as the Armstrong section. The eastern half was laid off in lots of a hundred and sixty acres each. The former half is most level bottom land, with a rich deposit soil, while the eastern half is of a more undulating upland, abounding in good springs of living water.
A mile and more to the east of Fredericktown may be seen a mound some twenty feet high and sixty feet in diameter, surrounded by a ditch and an em- bankment, the latter being outside of the former. On the William Loveridge farm north from the village of Clinton is the work of the Mound Builders of ancient days, which object is treated elsewhere in this book.
THE TOWNSHIP'S SETTLEMENT.
Hon. William Bonar, years ago, furnished much of the material from which this part of the chapter is compiled, and he was certainly good authority.
William Douglass left his home in Morris county, New Jersey, and, after weeks of journeying, finally pitched his tent on the banks of Owl creek, just below the confluence with its principal branch in 1804 and this made him the first white settler in Morris township. He it was who erected a saw mill on Owl creek above Mt. Vernon. Assisted by his son, Aaron Douglass, he dug a race, put in a dam and completed his saw mill. Then, wanting a grist mill, but not having the necessary capital, he bethought himself to do the next best thing for the community, by adding a corn-cracker, which served well till the completion of his flouring mill in 1806. Two years later he built his fulling mill and carding machine attachment. When sheep were kept for their wool and this made up into clothing for the family, it was a necessary thing that a
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fulling mill and carding machine be near at hand. And so much was this enterprise appreciated by the county at large that the county commissioners, May 2, 1809, declared : "The tax on William Douglass' mill is ordered to be taken off, as it is a public benefit."
When the first grand jury was made up, Mr. Douglass was among its honorable number. He was also elected county commissioner in 1808. He rendered valuable service in the war of 1812 as captain of a volunteer rifle company and later escorted the Greentown Indians beyond the lines. He was a large stockholder in the old Owl Creek Bank and sold out his seventy shares for six hundred dollars and moved to Indiana, where he later died. His daughter Phoebe married Richard Ewalt and Sarah married James Rodgers.
James Walker came in from Pennsylvania in 1804, locating near the Douglass mill site. He occupied, at first, a small cabin said to have been built by Captain Fitting in 1803. Mr. Walker and his good wife died and were among the first buried in the old Clinton graveyard; no stone now marks their resting place.
John Simpkins first located in this township in 1804, but soon removed to Monroe township.
Samuel H. Smith, from New England, came in from the east and soon platted the village known for years as Clinton, in section 4, township 7, range 4, United States military district. See its history in the early chapters and in county-seat contest affair. It was Smith and one McArdle who established the first newspaper in Knox county, the Ohio Register. Captain Nye was another associate of Smith's, and he lived across the street from Smith in Clinton village.
Amariah Watson arrived from Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and put up with William Douglass in 1805, but moved to Fredericktown in 1806.
In the spring and summer of 1806 came many of the first Quakers who took land in this and adjoining townships. The venerable Henry Roberts headed this colony from Maryland. This family at once proceeded to farm the land they had secured. With a four-horse team and breaking plow they turned over nine acres of the virgin sod the first season. In the fall of the same year came William Y. and William W. Farquhar, from which little settlement sprang the large settlement of Friends in that section of Knox county.
John Johnson, of Chester county, Pennsylvania, came into the township in 1806, locating near a large spring on property later owed by the heirs of William Day. This magnificent spring was situated on the Indian trail from Greentown. While the Indians were still in the county some trouble was had with them pilfering, but it was not long until they were legally removed.
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William Mitchell came to the township in 1807. Daniel Cooper, from Butler county, Pennsylvania, came here in 1809, locating west of the main branch of Owl creek and a little later was followed by his brothers, Carey and Elias. Daniel Cooper had seven children, Thompson, William, George, Hen- rietta, Julia, Josiah and Sarah. Of the Bell family there were Hiram, Uzziel, Cyrus and Timothy, who came from New Jersey, locating on the Owl creek bottofs where their father had bought one thousand acres of choice land.
The first physician in this township was Dr. Timothy Burr, whose notice in the old Ohio Register in December, 1813, reads as follows: "Samuel H. Smith having added a large stock of goods to his former assortment, will trade for butter, sugar, country linen, rye, corn, hides, deer skins and furs. Dr. T. Burr is duly authorized to attend to his business and will prescribe gratis to purchasers of drugs and medicines."
Barnet Bonar came from Pennsylvania in 1812, located on Granny's creek. He died in 1844, aged eighty years.
DISTILLERIES OF THE TOWNSHIP.
Morris township, at an early day, was famous for its distilleries and for its favorite brands of whisky. Among the earliest enterprises of such a char- acter were Simeon Carpenter and his brother Freeman. William Douglass also had a distillery a short distance from his mill. Richard Philips carried on a like business on the west side of the Fredericktown road, near Smith's tannery ; Smith Hadley, on low land now owned, or was later, by James Ram- sey, and Robert and James Rogers on the old Harvey Cox place, east of the road to Fredericktown. Then there were several more still-houses in opera- tion at other points within Morris township. The only reason why such in- dustry was conducted in those days was the fact that whisky was almost uni- versally used in the home. This applied to all classes, church people and all, except the one temperate sect, the Friends, who settled in the west part of this township; they would have no lot or part in the "fire water," as called by the Indians hereabouts.
OLD VILLAGE OF CLINTON.
Clinton, the village of pioneer days that contested for the county seat of Knox county and lost, has long years been vacated and the stranger of this generation cannot find its lines or its streets. It has been legally vacated many years, but it had a history worth recording and worth preserving, being a part
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of the pioneer history of the county of which we now write an interesting chapter.
Samuel H. Smith, a New Englander, laid out Clinton in section 4, town- ship 7. range 4. It had one hundred and sixty lots, streets, and a public square. The platting was duly acknowledged before Abraham Wright, a justice of the peace, December 8, 1804, and was named in honor of Governor DeWitt Clin- ton, of New York state. The great fight for the location of the county seat has already taken up its share of space in the opening chapters of this volume. Smith built the first house; Samuel Ayers got out the native lumber and Amriah Watson, James Loveridge and William Douglass raised the structure. Smith opened the first store of Clinton. He also built a brick hotel in 1808. In 1812 he added a tannery and advertised to pay two dollars and a half a cord for oak bark. In July, 1813, he, with Mr. McArdle, established Knox county's first paper, the Ohio Register. In 1809 Smith helped form the first Masonic lodge in this county, the ninth in Ohio. With all of his tact and energy, this shrewd Yankee character finally failed in business and, just before the breaking out of the Civil war, left for Texas, where he was engaged at land surveying. James Loveridge built the first tannery in this township and was followed by Messrs. Samuel H. Smith, proprietor of the town, Benjamin Corwin, John McMahon, James S. Banning and possibly others. Loveridge erected his tannery in 1807 and when the men returned from Hull's surrender during the war of 1812-14, many of them halted at Clinton in very destitute circumstances. Loveridge cut up his hides and made them moccasins.
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