The History of Union County, Ohio, containing a history of the county; its townships, towns military record;, Part 29

Author: Durant, Pliny A. [from old catalog]; Beers, W. H., & co., Chicago, pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, W. H. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 1254

USA > Ohio > Union County > The History of Union County, Ohio, containing a history of the county; its townships, towns military record; > Part 29

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16 16 1751

274

HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY.

From the field notes of James Galloway. Jr., the following minutes are made:

November 7, 1805-Speaks of "the road from the little lake to Darby."

November 13-" Went down Otter Creek to the mouth," etc.

November 14-" Went down Mill Creek about two miles on a straight line; came back to the forks, where, crossing on a log, it being a rainy day and the log wet and slippery, I fell and broke the glass of my compass, and came to Job Sharp's, where I fortunately got a pane of glass, and succeeded in cutting it under water with scissors so as to fit the compass as well as the one I had broken did."

November 22 -- Surveying on the South Fork of Treacle Creek, near a large pond * *

* " here begins good bottom * thin land *

good land below a prairie *

* encamped all night near a beaver dam."

November 23 -- " Went down Treacle Creek to Johnston's, and on the 24th returned home, being out twenty days. Alexander Kerr and James Stevens, chain carriers."

May 22, 1806-" Returned home after an absence of eleven days."

January 2, 1807-Speaks of "road from Springer's old mill to Frank- linton."

February 16-" Set out from home in company with David Blue, David Sroufe and Ephraim Myers."

February 20-"Crossed a creek where David Blue and the pack-horse he was riding fell in through the ice and got completely wet. Called the creek Blue's Creek."*

February 24-" Steered a course through the woods to Job Sharp's, on Beaver Run."

February 26-" Went to Little Darby and began on the creek ten poles below where the track from Widow Reed's to Buck Creek crosses it at the mouth of a branch."

Same day-" Crossed Treacle Creek to two black oaks in a prairie near the road to George Reed's"

March 7-" Returned home after a tour of twenty-one days."

November 12-"Began on the Spring Fork of Treacle Creek

run * * to a stake in a prairie; here we started a large bear, which Samuel Galloway took after with our own and Michael Dickey's dogs; thence [to a point given in the notes] where we found S. Galloway and the bear, which he had killed."

November 19-Speaks of " big road down Darby to Dyer's mill."

November 20-"Arrived at home, having killed among the company one bear, one deer, sixteen raccoons and twelve turkeys, and been absent twenty- four days."

On this trip William Townsley and William Townsley, Jr., were chain carriers, and Samuel Galloway, marker.

May 26, 1808-Speaks of State road from Franklinton to Springfield. Same day, speaks of "the State road " and "the road from Graham's to Urbana." In noting one of his measurements this day, he says, " at 200 yards I killed a buck."

May 28-" Laid off Paul Alder's land I sold him." This was a brother to Jonathan Alder, of whom a sketch is found in Chapter II of this volume.

May 17, 1809-" Lost my horse and spent the next day in hunting him, to no purpose."

* By which name it is still known.

Fullow

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HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY.

CHAPTER IV.

PIONEER HISTORY.

PRE-HISTORIC-EARLY EVENTS, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS-EARLY SCHOOLS, RE- LIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS, ETC .- MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS OF INTEREST CONCERNING PIONEER TISIES.

PRE-HISTORIC.

THE mysterious race called for the sake of convenience the Mound Build- ers, whose works are scattered so thickly over a great portion of the State of Ohio, seems to have almost ignored the territory now included in the county of Union, for, from all accounts, there is not a notable mound within the entire county, while the relics found in the way of arrow points, stone axes, etc., are very few in number. Along the valleys of the Scioto, the Miamis and other streams, the remains of ancient fortifications and other works are often met with, and it appears strange that nothing should have been constructed along any one of the numerous streams coursing through Union County. In conse- quence of the absence of these remains, it is unnecessary to give an extended article on the subject in this connection.

EARLY WHITE OCCUPANTS OF OHIO .*

In correspondence between W. Jackson, Assistant Secretary of War, and Gen. William Irvine, in the fall of 1783, mention is made of settlements which had been made and were making between the Muskingum and Wabash, and Irvine was apprehensive of the renewal of war between those settlers and the Indians. Congress obtained knowledge of the condition of affairs, and issued the following proclamation:

By the United States in Congress assembled. A proclamation:

WHEREAS, By the ninth of the articles of confederation, it is among other things de- clared that " the United States in Congress assembled have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the trade, and managing all affairs with the Indians not members of any of the States ; provided, that the legislative right of any State within its own limits, be not infringed or violated." And Whereas, It is essential to the welfare and interest of the United States, as well as necessary for the maintenance of harmony and friendship with the Indians, not members of any of the States, that all cause of quarrel and com- plaint between them and the United States, or any of them, should be removed and pre- vented; therefore, the United States, in Congress assembled, have thought proper to issue their proclamation, and they do hereby prohibit and forbid all persons from making set- tlements on lands inhabited or claimed by Indians without the limits or jurisdiction of any particular State, and from purchasing or receiving any gift or cession of such lands or claims, without the express authority and directions of the United States in Congress assembled; and it is moreover declared that every such purchase or settlement, gift or cession, not having the authority aforesaid, is null and void, and that no right or title will accrue in Congress.

Done in Congress, at Princeton, this twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, and of our sovereignty and independence the eighth.

ELIAS BOUDINOT, President. CHARLES THOMSON, Secretary.

*Years before a white settler had located in Ohio, the French traders and travelers had a route across the State which passed up the Sandusky River from Lake Erie to the mouth of the Little Sandusky; thence a short distance up that stream to a portage to the upper waters of the Little Scioto-the portage being about four miles long-and after reaching the latter stream, canoes could easily float down It. The French used the route in traveling from Canada to the Mississippi. Even before LaSalle saw this region, the Northern Indians used this same water route when pro- ceeding on their war Incursions into the territory of the Southern tribes.

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IHISTORY OF UNION COUNTY.

No attention was paid to this proclamation, and settlers poured into the forbidden country so rapidly that the government found it necessary to drive them out. On the 24th of January, 1785, the Commissioners of Indian Affairs instructed Lieut. Col. Josiah Harmar, of the First American Regiment, to em- ploy such force as he might deem necessary "in driving off persons attempting to settle on the lands of the United States." Ensign John Armstrong was detailed with a force of twenty men and fifteen days' provisions to perform the task of driving off all within 150 miles of Ft. McIntosh, located at the mouth of the Beaver River, in Pennsylvania. Armstrong dispossessed settlers at points on the Ohio as far down as Wheeling, or a point opposite that place, and in his report to Col. Harmar appears the following:

"As the following information through you to the honorable the Congress may be of some service, I trust you will not be displeased therewith. It is the opinion of many sensible men (with whom I conversed on my return from Wheeling) that if the honorable the Congress do not fall on some speedy method to prevent people from settling on the lands of the United States west of the Ohio, that country will soon be inhabited by a banditti whose actions are a disgrace to human nature. You will in a few days receive an address from the magistracy of Ohio County, through which most of those people pass, many of whom are flying from justice. I have, sir, taken some pains to dis- tribute copies of your instructions, with those from the honorable the Com- missioners for Indian affairs, into almost every settlement west of the Ohio, and had them posted up at most public places on the east side of the river. in the neighborhood through which those people pass. Notwithstanding they have seen and read those instructions, they are moving to the unsettled countries by forties and fifties. From the best information I could receive, there are at the falls of the Hockhocking upward of three hundred families; at the Musk- ingum, a number equal. At Moravian Town, there are several families, and more than fifteen hundred on the Rivers Miami and Scioto. From Wheeling to that place, there is scarcely one bottom on the river but has one or more families living thereon. In consequence of the advertisement by John Emer- son, I am assured meetings will be held at the times therein mentioned. That at Menzons' or Haglin's town, mentioned in my report of yesterday, the inhab- itants had come to a resolution to comply with the requisitions of the adver- tisement."

This adverisement was as follows, as given in Mr. Butterfield's work, Washington-Irvine correspondence, in the shape of a foot-note:

MARCH 12, 1785.

Notice is hereby given to the inhabitants of the west side of the Ohio River, that there is to be an election for the choosing of members of the convention for framing a constitution for the governing of the inhabitants, the election to be held on the 10th day of April, next ensning, viz .: One election to be held at the mouth of the Miami River, and one to be held at the mouth of the Seioto River, and one on the Muskingum River, and one at the dwelling house of Jonas Menzons, the members to be chosen to meet at the mouth of the Scioto on the 20th day of the same month.

I do certify, that all mankind, agreeable to every constitution formed in America, have an undoubted right to pass into every vacant country, and there to form their consti- tution, and that from the confederation of the whole United States Congress is not em- powered to forbid them, neither is Congress empowered from that confederation to make any sale of the uninhabited lands to pay the public debts, which is to be by a tax levied and lifted [collected] by authority of the Legislature of each State.

JOHN EMERSON.

Various orders were issued by Col. Harmar, and a Congressional Commit- tee approved his conduct; also authorizing him to remove his troops from Ft. McIntosh and post them at some point at or near the Ohio, between the Muskingum and the Great Miami, "which he shall conceive most advisable for further carrying into effect the beforementioned orders." and appropriat-

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HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY.

ing $600 for the purpose of transporting the troops and their baggage. Un- der this order, Ft. Harmar was constructed at the mouth of the Muskingum.

Gen. Richard Butler, in passing down the river at the commencement of October, to hold a treaty with the Indians at the mouth of the Miami River, found settlements at intervals from the mouth of Yellow Creek nearly to the mouth of the Great Kanawha, and did what he could to warn the settlers off. even giving orders to one of the officers of the army who was to descend to the Muskingum, " to pull down every house on his way." some which had been re- cently torn down having been rebuilt by the determined men of the border. Whether all the settlers were driven out or not is not known, but it is cer tain that no constitution for governing the inhabitants was framed at that day. and the scheme for a new State on the northwest side of the Ohio was not carried until seventeen years later.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS IN UNION COUNTY.

In 1797, before a white settler had found a home in the tract of country now forming the county of Union, a town was laid out on a large scale in what is now Darby Township, on the south side of Big Darby Creek, by Lucas Sullivant, who named it North Liberty. The in-lots numbered 209 and the out-lots 116, and the plat is now on record in Volume II. page 79, of Ross County, Ohio, deed records, this county then being partly included in Ross. Doubtless Mr. Sullivant expected his town would at some not distant day be a busy metropolis, but he ruined its prospects by laying out in August of the same year (1797), the town of Franklinton, on the west side of the Scioto River, opposite the subsequent site of Columbus.

Whether Mr. Sullivant ever made deeds for any of the lots in North Lib- erty is not positively known, but he probably did. At all events, the first settlement made in what is now Union County was at the prospective city, in 1798-this being the date generally agreed upon, although one authority gives it as early as 1795, which is not possible.

The honor of being the first settlers in the county is awarded to James and Joshua Ewing, and it is said that Mr. Sullivant, induced them to locate at North Liberty in order to begin the settlement at that place, and if such was the fact. which is probable, it must have been as late as the fall of 1797 or the spring of 179S. The latter year is given by the best authority as the date of their arrival.

Joshua Ewing was born in Kentucky, and moved from Lexington County in that State, to Ohio, his brother James accompanying him. Joshua Ewing became one of the first Commissioners of Madison County, upon its organiza- tion in 1810, but when Union County was formed, the brothers found their farms included in it. James Ewing brought four sheep to his place-the first seen in the county, and in 1812 became postmaster at Darby Creek, * the first post office established in what is now Union County.

He was subsequently a director of the Franklin Bank, at Franklinton, and accumulated a large property. He issued a style of currency over his own signature, and transacted a large banking business in that way. James Ewing died in 1850, and Elizabeth, his wife, in 1865. Joshua Ewing died in 1821, and Margaret Ewing about 1837-38. Their mother, Hannah Ewing, who came with them to Ohio, died in 1815 or 1816. The family was originally from New Jersey.

In 1870, some controversy existing regarding the locality of the first settlement in Union County, William M. Robinson, Esq., of Marysville,

* This office was established in 1812, the route extending over the " Post Road" from Worthington to Urbana, both then important towns. It was long the only post office in the county, and there was but one other on the route, located at Dublin, Franklin County.

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IIISTORY OF UNION COUNTY.

wrote to William B. Irwin, at Lebanon, Ohio, for his recollection of the mat- ter. Mr. Irwin was a former resident of Union County, and a well known surveyor. His reply was as follows:

LEBANON, OHIO, April 25, 1870.

MR. W. M. ROBINSON, Esq .- Dear Friend: I am trying to answer your letter respect- ing the organization of Union County, but am so feeble and nervous I fear I cannot write so it can be read. * * * As to the fact of the Ewings' first settlement being at North Liberty, I submit the following facts: My mother's brother, Rev. Archibald Steele, was a licentiate of the Presbytery of Washington. Synod of Kentucky. In the spring of 1799, he was commissioned as a missionary in Southwest Ohio, then a Territory. His mission was to visit all new settlements, make out a list of all members of the church wherever they wanted an organization, and report to Presbytery for proper action. In fulfilling this mission, Mr. Steele kept a regular day journal, yet in the hands of his heirs, to which I have always had free access, and from it I got part of the history of the church of Milford Center. In that journal, after following it from place to place, we find the following: "Leaving Buck Creek, took the trail for Darby; at 4 o'clock arrived at the house of my old friend, Joshua Ewing, where the family, consisting of Joshua and his family, James, his brother, Betsey, their sister, and their aged mother, lived in a new town on the west bank of Big Darby, named North Liberty." In June, 1808, I was passing this place in company with Joshua Ewing and his oldest son, Scott (now dead), James Ewing, Samuel Robinson and others; Joshua showed me the remains of the house in which he lived, also his brothers, at the time Mr. Steele called on him; stated that one was memorable from the fact that in it he and Mr. Steele made up the roll of members which in after years made up the North Liberty congregation. In further confirmation of the above fact, on ex- amination of the record of Presbytery, at the succeeding spring session, a commission was appointed to visit this place, with others reported by Mr. Steele, and organize churches where expedient. The record shows this last commission, in obedience to instructions, did in the fall of 1800 organize a church in this place by the name of North Liberty. Joshua Ewing and Samuel Kirkpatrick were then and there elected members. * * * A good part of this would be more appropriate for a church history than for a history of the county. but the facts of the two were so interwoven that they give strength to each other. The appointment of a mission to look after the sheep in the wilderness, and then the report of Mr. Steele and the subsequent action of Presbytery, adding the standing monument of those organized churches with the record of these divisions up to their pres- ent position, is abundant proof of the facts in the case. I have heard Mr. Steele and Mr. Ewing often speak in after years of the settlement of North Liberty, and of the visit of the former there, and of many circumstances relating thereto. Now, my old friend, I re- member well our buckskin breeches, linsey hunting shirts, corn huskings and singing schools. Those days are gone. I will be glad to hear from you as often as you can find time to write. Yours truly,

WILLIAM B. IRWIN.

At the conclusion of Mr. Irwin's letter, Mr. Robinson remarks: "In addition to Gen. Irwin's recollection on this subject, I had a conversation with William and David Winget, nephews of James Ewing, and very early settlers in this county, and they both say they saw the cabins they lived in in North Liberty, many a time. This is the way I became acquainted with the fact. I also know from my own recollection that after they left those cabins and went down into what is now Jerome Township, the Indians occupied the cabins and grounds they vacated."

A history of Franklin County, Ohio, was published in 1858, by William T. Martin, who writes as follows concerning the early settlements in this region :

" Next after the settlement at Franklinton was a few families on Darby, near where Mr. Sullivant laid out his town of North Liberty, and a scattering settlement along Alum Creek. This was probably about the summer of 1799. * About the same time, improvements were made near the mouth of Gahannah (formerly called Big Belly), and the settlements thus gradually ex- tended along the principal water-courses. In the meantime, Franklinton was the point to which emigrants first repaired to spend some months, or per- haps years, prior to their permanent location. *

* For several years there was no mill nor considerable settlement nearer than the vicinity of Chillicothe. In Franklinton, the people constructed a kind of hand-mill, upon which they generally ground their corn; some pounded it, or boiled it, and occasionally a

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HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY.

trip was made to the Chillicothe mill. About the year 1799 or 1800, Robert Balentine erected a poor kind of mill on the run near Gay street, in the Co- lumbus plat, and, near the same time, Mr. John D. Rush erected an inferior mill on the Scioto, a short distance above Franklinton. They were. however. both poor concerns, and soon fell to ruins. A horse-mill was then resorted to and kept up for some time; but the first mill of any considerable advantage to the county was erected by Col. Kilbourne, near Worthington, about the year 1805. About the same time, Carpenter's mill, on Whetstone, in what is now Delaware County, and Dyer's, on Darby, were erected. * *

* During the first years of the settlement, it was extremely sickly-perhaps as much so as any part of the State. For a few of the first years, the fever and ague pre- vailed so generally in the fall seasons as to totally discourage many of the settlers; so that they would, during the prevalence of the disease, frequently resolve to abandon the country and remove back to the old settlements. But on the return of health, the prospective advantages of the country, the noble crops of corn and vegetables, the fine range for stock and the abundance of wild game-deer, turkeys, etc., with which the country abounded-all con- spired to re-animate them and encourage them to remain another year. And so on, year after year, many of the first settlers were held in conflict of mind. unable to determine whether to remain or adandon the country, until the en- largement of their improvements or possessions, the increasing conveniences and improvements of the country. together with the fact that the seasons had become more healthy, determined them generally to remain. Although sick- ness was so general, deaths were comparatively few, the disease of the country being principally ague-or so it was called. There was the shaking ague, and what is now familiarly termed chills and fever, which was then called the dumb ague."*

The record of the Court of Common Pleas for Franklin County has the following entry under date of January 10, 1804: "Ordered, that there be paid unto James Ewing, out of the treasury of Franklin County, the sun of $8.75, it being the compensation due to him for seven days' services in taking the list of taxable property and the enumeration of white males in Darby Township for the year 1803."

It was not long after the Ewings had made their home in Darby Township before other arrivals were noted, and the chain of settlements extended along Big Darby Creek, in what are now the townships of Jerome. Darby and Union. The Mitchells, Robinsons, Reeds, Sagers, Mcculloughs and others will be found noted in the histories of the townships in which they located. Long after the southern portion of the county was settled, the northern part was a wilderness. As has been stated, that part of the county north of the Green- ville treaty line was not in condition to be settled umtil 1819, and it was a number of years later than that in some of the townships, before the cabin of the pioneer was seen in the small clearing in the midst of the heavy forest.

On the 31st day of October, 1800, Lucas Sullivant and wife, of Franklin- ton, then Ross County, Ohio, conveyed to Samuel Reed, of Fayette County, Penn., 500 acres of land, for $1,150, or at the rate of $2.30 per acre This was the first tract of land sold in what is now Union County, and the deed was carried to Chillicothe and recorded. Union County was then included in the territory comprising Ross County, of which Chillicothe was the seat of justice. The Sullivants appear to have been successful traders in military land warrants and by that means became the possessors of large tracts of land in the Virginia Military District, much of it lying in what is now Union County.

* John F. Sabine, Esq., of Marysville, states that the last year in which the ague prevailed generally over Ohio was about 1823-24. Since then it has been confined to certain localities.

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HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY.

After this county was organized, the first warranty deed recorded was made by Je-se Woodson to Allen Leeper, conveying 225 acres of land for a considera- tion of $795. This deed was made November 29, 1819, and recorded April 25, 1820, by Thomas Reynolds, first Recorder of Union County.

In 1799, Samuel Mccullough settled on the northeast side of Big Darby Creek, at the mouth of Buck Run, in what is now Darby Township, at the locality known as Bridgeport. His death occurred in the spring of 1800, being the first death of a white person in what is now the county of Union. There was no lumber with which to make a coffin nearer than Chillicothe, eighty miles away, and Samuel Robinson, the only carpenter in the county, was absent at that point to procure a load of salt. The remains were kept until his return. when he and his brother James cut down a walnut tree, split out some slabs and made a coffin of them, in which the body was placed and buried at a spot a short distance down the creek since known as the Mitchell Graveyard. Nothing was ever placed to mark his resting place, and the exact locality of the grave is not now known. Mr. Mccullough left a wife and two sons-Alexander and Samuel.

The first white child born in Union County was Jesse Mitchell, whose birth occurred in the latter part of 1799. His death occurred in 1880 or 1881, at his home in Jerome Township. Eliza M. Ewing, daughter of Joshua Ewing, one of the first settlers in the county, was born May 23, 1800, and was the second white child and the first white female child whose birth occurred in the county. Her parents then resided a short distance above the present site of Plain City. The lady never married, and was for many years a resi- dent of Fontanelle, Iowa, where she was living in 1881. Robert Snodgrass, the third white child whose birth took place in the county, was born Dece m- ber 2, 1800, on the north bank of Darby Creek, opposite the village of Mil- ford, in a cabin situated not far from where the railroad water tank now stands. In his early childhood, he had for playmates the Indian children of the vicinity. He was the first white child born in Union Township. On the Ist of January, 1828, at the residence of Mrs. Jane Robinson, a widow. who lived about a mile below Unionville, on the north bank of Darby Creek, he was married to Ellen, the daughter of the lady named. and lived to celebrate his golden wedding His wife bore him seven children, and with five of them survived him. He died February 9, 1878. He had been for forty years a member of the Presbyterian Church and was always an earnest reader and a deep thinker. Such edneation as he possessed was obtained in the log school- houses common in his early years. Elizabeth Mitchell, daughter of Judge David Mitchell, born in Darby Township, in May, 1803, was possibly the sec- ond white female child born in the county. She became the wife of John W. Robinson, son of Rev. James Robinson and father of Hon. James W. Robinson and Col. A. B. Robinson. of Marysville. Her death occurred in 1878.

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The History of Union County, Ohio, containing a history of the county; its townships, towns military record;, Part 29

Author: Durant, Pliny A. [from old catalog]; Beers, W. H., & co., Chicago, pub. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago, W. H. Beers & co. Number of Pages: 1254

Author: Durant, Pliny A. [from old catalog]; Beers, W. H., & co., Chicago, pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, W. H. Beers & co.
Number of Pages: 1254