USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > The Cincinnati pioneer > Part 11
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There has been observed throughout the United States, and throughout most of the European countries, where the people are al- lowed to assemble with security and in peace, a striking propensity for . all the different classes, and all orders of the community, to assemble periodically to promote their peculiar or special interests. We can not pick up a paper without seeing that there is a convention of some portion of the American people, for some specific purpose. All this implies-first, an unrestricted freedom upon the part of the peo- ple to meet and consult for their own benefit and their own welfare. Secondly, it implies a vivid interest on the part of every subdivision of the great American community to take care of its own welfare, and to promote prosperity toward the accomplishment of its own object. Instead of its being considered as an evidence of public discontent, it is an evidence of popular satisfaction with the government under which they live, and the determination of every branch of the com- munity to profit by that liberty which invites all to seek in the future that happiness which, it is hoped, is in store for us all. I know of no association of any kind, out of ten thousand that yearly are observed among the people-I know of no association more rational, more disin- terested, more worthy of a great and free people, than an association of the aged, the intelligent periodical renewal of their recollection of the" deeds of their Pioneer Fathers [applause] to promote through all com- ing time the true history of that extraordinary race of men that we call Pioneers. [Applause.] From the very nature of things, this country could have been civilized in no other way than that in which it was civilized [applause], by sending stout hearts and determined spirits away into the unmeasured wilderness [applause] to find out what was there, and who was there. [Applause.] Organized armies could not do this. Organized armies want roads, and all the facilities for mov- ing great masses of men to the point proposed. Organized armies were impossible. This country had been pervaded by the stout hearts and the determined spirits that first entered Ohio and Kentucky, long before the Government had an organized army west of the Alle- ghany Mountains. [Applause.]
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THE CINCINNATI PIONEER.
There were two classes of Pioneers. One was those who went forward as men of enterprise, who loved the life and the perils of the frontier settler ; men who went without intending to locate land or to make money ; men that belonged to the class of Boone, who went out there when they had not the least idea of making a permanent loca- tion for themselves, for that was absolutely impossible, the Indians being so thick. I can not now go into a detailed history embracing all that class of first adventurers. I will name one or two as con- nected more immediately with the history of this vicinity and the vicinity of the Scioto Valley.
THE FIRST PIONEER.
As early as 1771-mark you, the Declaration of Independence did not occur until 1776-as early as 1771, Simon Kenton [applause] left his home in Virginia and struck out for the West. Where the West was he could only teil by the setting sun [applause], for he had no compass. He was a young man. The West that he struck out for was Red Stone, Pennsylvania, now known as Brownsville. He and men of kindred spirits and kindred purposes, at that point descended the Alleghany to Pittsburg, and further to the falls of the Ohio River. Having examined the shores on both sides, they spread themselves out in the vast region of forests on both sides ; they traversed Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and a part of Illinois. How? In wagons? In groups of fifteen or twenty men? Not at all. They traversed them occasionally on horseback, when the rider and the horse were equally -loaded down with rifles and rifle-balls and powder for self-protection. It would seem from the life of Simon Kenton, that on his arrival in the vicinity of Kentucky, to his surprise, he found that one or two white men had gone in advance of him. These were Boone and one or two others. [Applause.]
Now, there is one fact with regard to these first Pioneers that I notice, because it is a fact that connects the history of that extraor- . dinary body of men. They continued in the woods, defending them- selves at temporary posts, and with no intention of making permanent locations, for many years. The second set of Pioneers started out with the view of making permanent settlements, surveying lands. All the survivors of the first class necessarily blended with; and became a part of, the second class of Pioneers. These were the permanent settlers.
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THE CINCINNATI PIONEER.
It is necessary to notice another fact-that the perils of the early settlements increased greatly by the Declaration of American Inde- pendence, and the bringing on of war with what was called the mother country-a strange kind of mother, to strangle her offspring. [Ap- plause.] But we will call her the mother country, because, after all, great old England is something not to be overlooked in the history of the world. Up to the time of the Revolutionary War, there was no especial hatred between the Indians and the few whites who came among them. But after the war commenced, it became one of the objects of the English Government to embitter the Indian savages against the whites, and then it was that the war between the white man and the red man became desperate, and almost interminable, as it appeared then.
Now, I can not go into a general detailed history of all these transactions. That will be the business of the careful and truth- telling historian. But I will take this occasion to name some of the few incidental facts which may interest this audience. In 1792, owing to the bitterness that the English Government had excited among the Indians toward the whites, they became extremely troublesome, and especially in the vicinity of Cincinnati and the adjoining regions of Kentucky. The Government of the United States,
HEADED BY GEORGE WASHINGTON
[Applause], called upon the States of Pennsylvania and Kentucky for a draft of volunteers to be sent westward for the protection of the settlements in this vicinity against the gathering masses of Indians who were crowding in upon them. Among those volunteers from Pennsylvania-and here I shall ask the pardon of these good people before me, if I indulge in a little of that vanity so common, but yet somewhat excusable, in human nature, in alluding to the name of a man with whom I am connected by marriage-a man from whom my daughter and her grandchildren draw their blood. Among these vol- unteers from Pennsylvania was Duncan M'Arthur [applause] whose after life, as well as whose preceding life, proved that he was a frontier and a pioneer man of the very first class. He was tall, stout, robust, eighteen years of age, and as courageous as Mars himself. [Applause.] He volunteered, and, under the command of General Harmar, his first encampment was at a place over which I drove the other day, in the heart of Cincinnati, called Fort Washington. [Applause.] This was the beginning of his pioneer frontier life. Yet, afterward, when the army
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THE CINCINNATI PIONEER.
had been partially disbanded in consequence of the receding tide of In- dians, General Massie -- Nathaniel Massie-whose name ought to be held in everlasting reverence by all those who participate in the pros- perity and glory of the State, for he was a noble, energetic, and enter- prising man-[applause]-having some means, became the leader of the second class of Pioneers who went to make a settlement in this Little Miami Valley, and afterwards in the great Scioto Valley. Massie and M'Arthur, and all that class of men, just like those who landed from the first English ships upon the coasts of New England and the coasts of the South, just like that singular breed of men, had the energy of mind, the breadth and strength of intellect, and the determination of soul, which fitted them to be the Pioneers of one-half of the world. [Applause.] They were a class of men singu- larly fitted-in fact, they were picked out and assorted, and set apart for this work from the very necessity of the work itself.
Birth-place of Washington.
George Washington was the head of the type-the lead, the front, and will forever be the type of the great family of American Pioneers. [Applause.] Just such men as he was, with the varying degrees of intellect, and the varying circumstances by which he was surrounded, yet in every essential particular, just such a man as he was, was Mas- sie, M'Arthur, Kenton, and Boone, and all the great Pioneers of the West. [Applause.]
Massie was here at your own Fort Washington. In 1792, being a man of some moneyed means, of fine education, a leader of men
1 :
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THE CINCINNATI PIONEER.
by nature, with great enterprise and great courage, he concluded that there was some country along the shores of the Little Miami that was worth looking after, and he made up a company at Fort Washington and went up as far as the present city of Xenia. I passed along there the other day, and it would have delighted me to have picked out the very spot where the incident happened that I am going to narrate.
ALL WAS WILDERNESS,
And all was Indian. But these men wanted to see about that land on the Little Miami, and they went up there, every man with a rifle on his shoulder, of course ; and every man that was hired to tomahawk the trees to show where the surveys had been made, every one of them, carried a rifle on his shoulder, and every one of them was not only ready and willing, but rather anxious to get a shot at an Indian. [Applause and laughter. ] There were no roads in those days, and hardly any thing that could be called a path, except now and then a little straight line. Massie started out one morning, but got ahead of his company, with the exception of one man, who followed close be- hind him. The name of that man is still very dear to the people of Cincinnati, and I am induced to tell the anecdote in order to bring home to the people of Cincinnati, and especially to the part of it as- sembled here,
AN HONORABLE AND GALLANT INCIDENT
In the history of the life of one of their men. There went Massie along the path, and there followed this other man, and this other man was none other than General William Lytle. [Applause.] Lytle dis- covered that an Indian from the side brushes was drawing a bead on Massie with his rifle, and, jerking up his own rifle, he drew a bead upon the Indian and shot him down and left Massie. There could . not have been a more unfortunate death for the interests of the West- ern country in the Western country than the death of Massie at that time.
A little while after this Massie went down to a place on the Ohio River, then called Manchester, twelve miles from Maysville. This was in 1793-4. From that point he sent word to some Kentuckians and Ohioans that he proposed to pass into the Scioto Valley. Whether this world was six days or six years in making, there is not any better spot upon its surface than the Scioto Valley. [Applause and a voice- "They make strong men there."] Yes, they are all of good blood.
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THE CINCINNATI PIONEER.
Well, Massie formed his company and took a bee-line across the in- tervening wilderness for the Scioto Valley. There was a good deal of rough land to cross to get there.
AN INVITATION EXTENDED BY THE GOVERNOR.
And now, when you come, in one of your future assemblages, to hold a meeting at Chillicothe, as you will be bound to do, for I in- tend to make it a point that you shall come down and do honor to the old Capital of the State in due time [applause] ; if you should do me the kindness to hold one of your meetings there, you will find every man with open arms to receive you. They will take it as a great act of kindness and no small act of honor to be recognized by so large and so respectable a body of Pioneers and the descendants of Pioneers that cleared out this beautiful country for us. If you come there, mark you! you could not possibly hope that we could allow it that you should go away from there without treading on the first piece of land that ever a Virginia military warrant was laid on in that county ; and when you come there you will find a certain house which has got some little notoriety of late by being called " Fruit Hill." [Applause.] As you come up from the public pike to this house you will pass along the southern border of my farm, and those of you who are sharp- sighted may still see vestiges of the old Indian trail over which these Pioneer Fathers marched when they came to settle for the first time the
VALLEY OF THE SCIOTO.
[Applause.] I have never allowed it to be plowed up, and I never will allow it. [Applause and cries of "Good."] Massie was the head of the expedition.
This was six years before the commencement of the present century and eight years before State government was organized. Military war- rants had been issued in large numbers by the Governor and Council of Virginia, to pay off as a bounty in land the Revolutionary soldiers of the State of Virginia, in that portion of Ohio which lies between the west end of the Scioto and the east bank of the Little Miami. These men cast along this old route, and in the Fall of that year they stuck down the first Jacob-staff that ever was stuck down in the Scioto Valley. They built themselves a little block-house. They were not all men. One or two of them had their wives and sisters with them, and these ladies were kept in these block-houses during the day, with a guard of stout and gallant men standing sentinel over
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THE CINCINNATI PIONEER.
them, while the balance went out, every man with his ritle on his shoulder, to survey the land. At night they would come back, hav- ing had a fight with the Indians. One would be killed that day ; an- other shot through the leg the next day. But it made no odds ; they went out the day after and continued their surveys. [Applause.]
Among that number, under the command of Massie, was General M'Arthur, whose life forms a very considerable chapter in the early history of the settlement of this country, and likewise in the political history of the country since that time. Another one was Colonel M'Donald, who had his sister with him. After they had surveyed the part of one year they concluded to lay out a place to be called a town.
The trees were very thick then on it, and they laid out what is now known as the town of Chillicothe. They laid it out after the manner of Philadelphia, a perfect square. There was no town there, but there was in the opinion of the first settlers, and they acted upon that idea and located it. [Applause.] It was well located, too. Massie em- ployed General M'Arthur as a Deputy Surveyor for twelve months, helping him to locate land there, and his price was one out-lot and one in-lot in the town of Chillicothe. Why, there was no town there- [laughter]-and a military grant for one hundred and fifty acres of land. M'Arthur worked a whole year for that, surveying land for Massie. But he had a strong heart, and was a strong-headed man, and always understood distinctly what he was about. He worked out his year, and clapped his warrant upon a piece of adjoining territory, which ran down to the very edge of the town, and there he built the first log- cabin in that valley. And in order to show that he was in earnest in making the location, he married M'Donald's sister. [Laughter.] And there they went and occupied the cabin. There never was any hum- bug about M'Arthur ; on that very spot he reared his very large fam- ily, and had the satisfaction of long life and happiness, his wife dying only a year or two before him.
HONEST PRIDE.
Now, I have said that I was not a Pioneer myself, and that was true, for I came to the State after it was nineteen and three-fourth years old, in January, 1822. I have been here ever since, what little there is left of me. [Applause and laughter.] Now, I have been drawn in to make some remarks about the old settlement of Chilli- cothe, because I love the place, and I mean to love it as long as I have a heart to love any thing. [Applause.] It received me when I
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THE CINCINNATI PIONEER.
: was an adventurous boy, when after traversing four hundred miles over the snowy mountains I entered the town, and every man, woman, and child seemed to welcome me with an air and heart of friendship, and have showed it to this day.
[Applause.] But I have alluded to these things for another reason. I married the daughter of a Pioneer, not only the daughter of a Pioneer father, but the daughter of a Pioneer mother. [Applause.] And when I am talking to my daughter and my little grandchildren, I never forget to remind them of their ances- tors-what they did, where they came from, and what they made of themselves after they arrived. [Applause.] I feel more personal pride in referring the blood of my children for its origin to the old Pioneer Society of the Valley than I would to refer it to the proudest baron who ever followed William the Conquerer. [Great applause.]
But I believe, as far as I can judge, that I am drifting into something of a speech [laughter, and cries of "Go, go "], and must bring it to a conclusion.
BORDER SKETCHES BY M'DONALD.
I wish to say a word to some of my old Pioneer friends. I hold a book in my hand which is entitled "Sketches by John M'Donald." This is the man that was with M'Arthur, and whose sister M'Arthur married and lived with until a few years ago, having passed over all the scenes of Pioneer life, and died in Ross County, on a farm which he called Poplar Ridge. In 1838 he published, in Cincinnati, this book, his sketches of Pioneer Life. M'Donald was a man of no very extraordinary education, but he had a mind singularly gifted with liter- ary ability. His book is well written, and every scholar would see that it was written by a man who understood how to express himself from one sentence to another. He was an humble farmer, who made no pretensions to any thing but conducting his farm, and that obscurity of his life let this book fall into similar obscurity, so that it became very little known, except in parts of Ross and the adjoining counties. There is not one single page of all the charming romances of Sir Walter Scott that is more charmingly romantic than the facts of this frontier life under the pen of M'Donald, and my judgment is, that if published now, people, especially the younger portion, who are so greedy after every romance that comes out, called a French novel, if they would get this book and read it, would find more romance blended with facts, and they would find more cause to stay up late at night than with any of these French novels of Parisian life. [Applause.]
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THE CINCINNATI PIONEER.
CONCLUSION.
Now, my friends, I thank you most profoundly for the kindness with which you have received me, for the attention with which you have heard me, and I lay no greater tax upon you in the form of a speech than simply to say this: Chillicothe was the first capital of the State ; I presume from what our friend [Mr. Caldwell] said there, that in 1805 or 1806 it had about the same population as Cincinnati. It became historic from the fact that it was the first capital, that it was the first settlement in the Scioto Valley which was permanent; from the fact that it has sent into the service of the United States and the State of Ohio some men who thought they could render the country faithful , service. It is an agricultural country. We have no large cities, but we have large farms-[laughter]-no mistake about that. An Ameri- can must have something large, you know. [Applause and laughter.] And if he can not have a large city he will have a large farm.
Owing to the old recollections of the Scioto Valley, to the peculiar pre-eminence of Chillicothe in the political history of the State-owing to the whole-hearted hospitality of its people and the very nature of your organization, being of a Pioneer character -- it seems to me that it would be an act of peculiar propriety that the Society hold one of its meetings at Chillicothe. [Applause.] I have no doubt that every man in the Scioto Valley would respond to my declaration now made.
I thank you, my friends, once more for your kindness, your atten- tion, and for the honor you have done me by inviting me among you.
The speech over, it would then have been regularly in order to spend some time in hand-shaking and telling of old recollections ; but Elder Stratton remarked that the hall was not well suited for that part of the exercises, and owing to the lateness of the hour it had been thought advisable to formally dismiss the Association, and give all who wished an opportunity to shake hands with His Excellency. He said that he was not exactly authorized to say that the Governor would grant the Pioneers an audience, but he felt sure he would do so if not already fatigued ; and he very neatly gave instructions to the audience, which they followed, in paying their respects to the Governor. Before the assembly broke up, however, Mr. Maguire, Ex. Com. of the Miami and Whitewater Valley Pioneer Association, extended a cordial invitation to our old people to meet those he rep-
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THE CINCINNATI PIONEER.
resented early in August, at Hunt's Grove, where they would pass the day pleasantly together in talking over Indians and trackless wilds.
SONGS.
Mr. Stratton thought it would hardly be the thing to dismiss with- out having a rousing song or two from Professor Lemon ; and the wisdom of that remark was shown by the hearty appreciation which followed the singer through " Long Live the Memory of Old Uncle Sam," and two encores of "Captain Schmidt, of the Horse Dragoons," in ludicrous half and-half German and English style, both familiar. They were mach enjoyed by the Pioneers, and were very nicely sung.
CONGRATULATIONS.
Then came the formal dismissal, and the Governor walked to the broad corridor, where he stood patiently and good-naturedly, while
" Round him thronged the fathers, To press his honest hand ; "
Also, the mothers and grandmothers. Many had come from the Chillicothe district, and had watched the record of the Governor from boyhood up ; and he needed only a name, however softly spoken, to start a smile of greeting, a word of welcome, and a warm grasp of the hand. Mrs. Slough reminded him that she had gone to school to his sister in her early days. Mrs. Harris, a resident of the city, and now eighty-eight years old, seemed almost overcome with emo- tion when she spoke of the past. The oldest man on the grounds, however, was Mr. Earhart, of Madisonville, now ninety-one years of age, and whose firm step hardly shows that he came to Ohio Terri- tory in 1792.
And then the kind-hearted Governor had opportunities to enjoy the sacred perquisite of his office by kissing the children, the Pio- neers to have their celebration-say in 1925, or thereabouts, and we blush to say that some young ladies would not let him be particular about the statute of limitations as to age. His rule is not to go above fourteen, though he makes exceptions in favor of the beautiful on Pi- oneer days. That closed the celebration of 1874.
Governor Allen, from the balcony of the Gibson House, reviewed the military parade of the Lytle Grays and the Cincinnati Light Guards.
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THE CINCINNATI PIONEER.
SEVENTH OF APRIL, 1875.
Anniversary of the Settlement of Ohio.
THE Pioneers met at the City Council Chamber in honor of the eighty-seventh anniversary of " First Settlement day." President E. D. . Mansfield in the Chair; John D. Caldwell, Secretary. Exercises opened by singing, reading of the Scriptures-nineteenth Psalm. Prayer by the Chaplain, Elder W. P. STRATTON. Singing-" Come thou fount of every blessing."
ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT MANSFIELD.
But a summary is given of this effort. He announced that the occa- of the assemblage was in pursuance of the custom of the Association annually to meet together, and by public observation of the anniver- sary day, keep in mind the debt we all owe to the worthy founders of the Ohio Company purchase, at the mouth of the river Muskingum, which resulted in the settlement of the State of Ohio. This was on the 7th of April, 1788.
Amongst the early emigrants to the North-west Territory was Jared Mansfield, his father, who with his family, including the speaker, then a youth, came to Cincinnati, an inconsiderable village, in 1801. After a few days' residence in the town, their home was made in the mansion at Ludlow Station. His father succeeded General Rufus Putnam, as Surveyor-General of the United States. In 1807 his father was to sur- vey the Greenville Treaty line.
Incidents were given of the earthquake in 1811, continuing its tremu- lous effects for four months. Its effects in Madrid, Missouri, being to convert the site of a settlement into a lake. At Cincinnati, the shock on 16th December shook pendulum in father's office, and the chimney tottered and fell. The undulations continued at intervals until Ist May, 1812. Also his remembrance of the "Calling out the Militia," in 1812, by Governor Meigs. There were two volunteer companies from Cincinnati. He was then a boy, and with his father in carriage, going East, saw the movements along the route on the way to Carlisle.
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