The History of Union County, Ohio, containing a history of the county; its townships, towns military record;, Part 72

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 72

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).

John Cassil's Addition-Nineteen lots and eight outlots, north of original town, November 25, 1854.

D. D. Welsh's Addition-Eleven lots, January 2, 1855.

William Welsh's Addition of Ontlots-January 3, 1855.

William E. Lee's Addition-Fourteen lots, January 17, 1855.

A. L. Skinner's Addition-Five Lots, September 25, 1855.

Samuel C. Lee's Addition-Thirty-eight lots, south of railroad, on East and Military streets, August 16, 1864.

The Picket Addition-Twelve lots, between Center and North streets and west of Cottage street, June 13, 1865, by John Cassil, agent and attorney for G. A. and Emily H. Cassil.

S. W. Dolbear's Addition-Seven lots, April 7, 1866.

Charles Erb's Addition of Outlots-August 29, 1868.

Brown & Mowry's Addition-By Thomas Brown and A. S. Mowry, February 14, 1871, ten lots east of Vine, between Center and North streets.

William C. Barnett's Addition-Fourteen lots, between Water and Military streets, south of railroad, May 6, 1873.

Robinson's Addition-By James W. and William H. Robinson, seventy- three lots, including two outlots, in southwest part of town, December 10, 1873. Reed's Addition-By Margaret F. Reed and Samuel L. Reed, her husband, four lots on Weaver street, February 20, 1875.

Southwick's Addition-Weaver and Center streets (east of Weaver and south of Center, crossing South street), by E. R. Southwick, May 18, 1876.

Freshwater's Addition-Between Vine and Water streets, and between Cen- ter street and the railroad, by William Burns, executor of will of William Fresh- water, March 2, 1880.

Robb's Addition-South of Center street, west of Kenton avenue, by Will- iam H. Robb, March 26, 1881.

The name " Marysville " was given to the town by Mr. Culbertson when he laid it out, in honor of his daughter Mary, who subsequently became the wife of Gen. Joshua Mathiot. The banks of Mill Creek, at Marysville, are 480 feet above the waters of the Ohio River at Portsmouth-the mouth of the Scioto. The stream is here not large, but furnishes slight power. During the dry season its channel is nearly filled with a vegetable growth.

EARLY SETTLEMENT.

The first cabin on the site of Marysville is said to have been built by a Qua- ker named Jonathan Summers, about 1816. After the town was platted, its first

* Mr. Skinner purchased from the administrators of J. Mathiot, deceased

HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY.

settlers were Matthias Collins, Samuel Miller and John Leeper. George Snod- grass, the oldest living resident of Union County, in a letter dated at Urbana, Ohio, December 18, 1882, contributes from his recollection substantially as fol- lows :

" When I came to Marysville to live, in February, 1824, there were but four families living on the town plat ; it was literally in the woods. Silas G. Strong had just moved in a new log house, just where the house of Judge Woods, de- ceased, now stands, opposite the jail, on land he had purchased at $3.50 per acre. Daniel Miller, a brother-in-law of David Comer, lived in an old log cabin built probably by a squatter. He had four children, was a brick-maker by trade, and died here after a few years ; his widow removed from the place. Matthias Collins was here when I came. He had one or two children. His wife died at an early date. Collins was a carpenter, and built a little one-story house on East Center street, just on the east side of the branch. Dr. Henderson owns the site now. Collins got married in 1830, perhaps ; moved on a farm, lived a few years and died. The fourth family was that of Stephen McLain. He was raised in Cham- paign County, Ohio, married in the fall of 1823, moved to Marysville, and was jailer, living in the jail when I went there in February, 1824. Those were the citizens of Marysville then.

" Between that date and the fall of 1827, two families located in the place- George Minturn and wife, from Champaign County, and Newton Hicks and wife. Minturn was a wheelwright by trade, and made little and big spinning wheels. People at that time manufactured their own wearing apparel. Newton Hicks was a tanner. I built the first two-story frame to live in that was put up in Marys- ville. I think I am safe in saying that I taught the first school that had any scholars, in the corporation or town plat.

" I recollect David Comer distinctly. He was a man of considerable ability, and a gentleman. He was our Captain ; I have mustered under him. Ile was elected Commissioner of Union County at an early date. He owned a good farm three miles west of Milford, and died about the year 1830. Some years after that the widow married a fine man by the name of Ralph Cherry. They are both gone. As regards Clark Provin, I can say but little. My recollection is that he was appointed Clerk of the Court until one could be elected ; if so, then Silas G. Strong was elected. I am not able to state what became of him.

"Silas G. Strong was an Eastern man. He had a good education, and was smart, shrewd, and capable of filling any office in the county or State. He came to Marysville soon after the organization of the county. He was of the Presby- terian order. When I came to live with him he was Clerk of the Courts, County and Township Recorder, Justice of the Peace and Postmaster. He was a good surveyor, was agent for a good many tracts of land, and his having no family ex- cept his wife was the reason I went to live with him ; he wanted some one to as- sist him in his business. I was to stay with him three years. When I was not engaged for him, he was to educate me in his own house. He was to give me $33 the first year, $66 the second, $100 the third, and board me and do my washing ; I was to furnish my own clothing. I lived with him three years, then got mar- ried, rented his house and kept tavern, Strong and his wife boarding with me. He always treated me well, never a cross word passing between us. During that time, I taught school nine months in one place, a mile and a half from Marysville, at $12.50 per month.

" Amos A. Williams was then Sheriff of the county. He was a carpenter by trade, and as the business of his office did not give him constant employment, he made me his deputy and left the entire business with me. I was then twenty years of age. He was elected for a second term, and I still remained with him, making three years altogether, to the satisfaction of all concerned."

Mr. Snodgrass further says : " My father's name was Robert Snodgrass. He came from Pennsylvania and settled near Milford in the year 1800, with five or six

S. g. Robinson

PARIS TOWNSHIP.

other families-relatives. At that time the country was a wilderness ; Indians were very plenty, but friendly. Our family numbered ten persons, of whom four were born in the bounds of Union. I was born June S. 1805."*

About 1835-40, Silas G. Strong changed his religious views and went, with his wife, to the Shakers. After one year he became dissatisfied and returned to Marysville. He then embraced the doctrine of the Second Adventists and be- came enthusiastic in that belief. W. C. Malin relates of him that he had his " as- cension robe " ready on several occasions, and at one time took a man's cow and horse team as balance of payment on a farm. The man came in afterward and wanted the cow back, saying that his family was nearly starving. Strong told him it made no difference ; the people would all be " called up" in a few days any way-referring to the predicted " end of the world." After a number of years Strong went to Nauvoo, Ill., and joined the Mormons, and there died. Some time later his wife returned to her friends in the East.

David Wittert was the third Sheriff of Union County, elected in 1828 and re-elected in 1832. He was a native of Pennsylvania, born in 1786. His father, Elijah Witter, removed to Ontario County, N. Y., about the beginning of the present century. In that county, near Geneva, David continued to reside until he was about twenty-eight years old. He was a soldier in the war of 1812. and as such participated in the battle at Queenstown Heights, in Canada, fought in Octo- ber, 1812. He belonged to the force under Col. S. Van Rensselaer, which as- saulted and took the enemy's works, but a re-enforcement of the enemy came up and retook them.

In 1814, Mr. Witter moved to Ohio and bought land and settled in Union County, on the Darby Plains. Here he improved a large and valuable farm, and was greatly prospered while he resided on it. At the public sale of town lots in Ma- rysville, in 1820, Mr. Witter bought a large number of lots, among others the lot on which the American Hotel building now stands. He erected that structure in the summer and fall of 1829. It was one of the best hotel buildings then in this section of the State ; there was at that time none superior to it either in Spring- field, Delaware or Columbus. Mr. Witter owned some three hundred acres of land adjoining Marysville on the east, coming up to what is now known as Weaver street, including the Richey farm, part of the D. Longbrake farm, and part of Mrs. McFadden's farm. The land that he then owned in this vicinity is now of im- mense value, but was sold by him before it had appreciated much.

Mr. Witter was a man of great enterprise and activity, and very successful in business for many years ; but in 1840 he engaged in buying hogs and cattle, and sustained heavy losses. He subsequently sold out and paid his debts, and in 1845 removed to Logan County, Ill., where he had entered one thousand acres of land in 1835. Ile remained on this land until 1857, when he sold out and moved to Pike County, Ill., where he died in June, 1857. Mr. Witter was married three times ; first to Sally Witter, a distant relative ; this was in 1810. She died in 1838, and he married Mrs. Eliza Moran, in 1839, in Union County, Ohio. In 1857, he married a Mrs. Fuller, in Illinois. By his first wife he raised six children, five daughters and one son, as follows :

Clarissa, born in 1812, married to T. L. Campbell ; moved to Texas, raised a large family, and died just before the breaking-out of the rebellion.

Joshua, born in 1815, married in Union County ; moved to Illinois in 1845, and from thence to Texas in 1853. He remained there until the opening of the rebellion, when he was compelled to leave on account of his undisguised Union

*George Snodgrass was married February 7, 1828, and his wife, Hannab, died December 9, 1881. Mr. Snodgrass was one of the chain-carriers for the surveyor who was authorized to lay out the Marion road, also the Newton road. Iu running the entire distance from Marysville to the north part of the county. they saw but two or three cabins. One was in the valley of Boke's Creek, just north of Pharisburg, and another on Fulton Creek. The latter was occu- pied by Cyprian Lee. Levi Phelps, who surveyed the road, was then a young, unmarried man, and at Mr. Lee's house, where the party made its headquarters for several days, he met, in the person of Mr. Lee's sister, the lady who subsequently became his wife.

+ The sketch of Mr. Witter is furnished by Judge P. B. Cole.

HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY.

sentiments. His son made his way to the North before his father did, and joined the Union forces and served during the balance of the war.

Anna, the second daughter, married Hosea Ardes, in Illinois, in 1845 ; re- moved to Texas about 1853, where she still resides.

Dolly B. intermarried with P. B. Cole, of Marysville, where they still reside. Mary married Horace G. Ballou, who removed from Marysville to Logan County, Ill., in 1850, where he practiced with success until 1855, when he died. His widow died in 1865.

Armuda P. married George Downing, in Logan County, III., in 1845. He died in 1853, and she afterward married John England, who died in 1869. She is now a widow, and resides at Lincoln, 111.

Sarah Ann married Levi Rinker, in Logan County, Ill. He was a soldier in an Illinois regiment, and fell in battle near Atlanta, Ga. She resides near Fort Scott, Kan., and is a widow.

Eliza was the only child by his second marriage. She married a man by the name of James Iden ; they now reside in Lincoln, Ill.

Mr. Witter had been unfortunate in business just before he left Ohio, but had repaired most of his losses before his death and left a good property to his chil- dren at his death.

Adam Wolford, Sr., was raised in Guernsey County, Ohio, where he was prob- ably born. He removed to Mt. Vernon, Knox County, where he was married on the 10th of May, 1821. Immediately after his marriage, he came with his wife to Union County and settled on a farm near the site of the present fair ground. a short distance outside of the corporation as it now exists. His daughter (Maria) was born December 18, 1825, and before she was a year old her parents moved into the village and located on a lot on the north side of South street, just east of the " town run; " the family took up its residence in a log house on said lot. At that date it is likely that log houses were the only kind to be seen within the limits of the place. Mr. Wolford was a carpenter by trade, and had most of the work in that line to perform for a considerable period; a great portion of the car- penter work in the court house recently abandoned was done by him. He after- ward moved to the lot in the southwest part of town, on which the West School building now stands. When said building was erected, the frame house which occupied the site, and in which Mr. Wolford lived, was moved to the south side of the street and is now occupied by R. L. Partridge and family. Mr. Partridge mar- ried Mr. Wolford's daughter (Maria), mentioned above. Mr. Wolford died June 10, 1863, at the age of sixty-five years. His wife (Katharine Wolford), died Octo- ber 17, 1865, aged sixty years.

Adam Wolford, Jr., brother to the wife of Adam Wolford, Sr., settled in Marysville with his widowed mother, Charlotte Wolford, about 1828. She after- ward married Jacob Slicer, and both are now deceased. Adam Wolford, Jr., was only four years of age when his mother came with him and his brother and two sisters to Marysville. After a residence of forty-one years in the town, he removed to Missouri in 1869. He now resides near North Lewisburg, Ohio.

Richard Bancroft was born August 11, 1797, at Wakefield, England; came to America when nineteen years of age; married Mary Graham, February 14, 1822, in Clark County, Ohio, and soon after located at Marysville, where he resided over fifty years. He died August 22, 1880, in Iowa, while on a visit with his wife to their daughter. Mrs. Bancroft died at Anamosa, Iowa, at the residence of her daughter, July 13, 1881, in the seventy-eighth year of her age.

Thomas Snodgrass died at Marysville on the 21st of April, 1880, aged sev- enty-three years. He was a native of the county, and had spent the greater part of his life in Marysville. He established the first Methodist Sunday school in the place, connected himself with the church in 1828, became a class leader, and led the singing until about 1859. He remained a prominent member of the church until his death, and was a citizen greatly respected and esteemed. He was a man of marked character, and will long be remembered by those who knew him.

PARIS TOWNSHIP.

The following sketch of Cyprian Lee, a prominent pioneer of the town and county, was furnished by his brother, William Lee, of Marysville:

" Several of the older States were represented by the pioneer settlers of Union County, and Connecticut had a representative in Cyprian Lee, who was born in Berlin, Hartford Co., Conn., April 10, 1792. He was the son of John and Mary (Hart) Lee, and spent the early years of his life on the farm homestead of his father, in Kensington, in the town of Berlin. After he had become of legal age, he spent several years with his uncle, John Hart, who had removed from Connect- icut to Petersburg, Va. On the failure of the health of his uncle, who then re- turned to Connecticut, his business was committed to him to settle up, and through this arrangement he became the owner of an undivided half of a tract of about 2.000 acres of land situated on Fulton Creek, in what is now Claibourne Town- ship, Union Co., Ohio. He first visited Ohio about the year 1820, remained for a time in Delaware, and there, about 1821, married Elizabeth Cooper, whose parents were from Vermont. In 1822, he concluded to settle upon his land in Union County, and with this view he obtained an order of partition of the tract referred to, and the boundaries of the half belonging to him were established. He then sold a small parcel to a man who engaged to locate upon it and assist him for a time in the preliminiaries of his own settlement. The first work to be accomplished was the opening of a way for about four.miles through a heavily timbered region. to get access with teams and wagons to the spot where he was to locate his log cabin; then the rearing of his cabin and the beginning of the clearing of the land for cultivation.

" Such an enterprise for a young man and a young wife, who had not been inured to life under such conditions, demanded courageous and resolute spirits, with willing and strong hands, to endure the hardships and overcome the difficul- ties incident to such an undertaking, and of his wife it can be truly said that she united the courageons, heroic spirit with the gentle and amiable traits of a true woman. He was a man of large frame, of great muscular strength, very supple and active, and he had courage and resolution. Addressing himself to the diffi- culties of his situation with ambitious earnestness, his exertions resulted in sub- jecting him to rheumatic disease, which so interfered with his farming pursuits that after two or three years he found it expedient to seek a different location and a different occupation ; accordingly, in 1824 or 1825, he removed to Marysville,

and for a time kept a hotel. At the time of his residence on Fulton Creek, and during the earlier years of his residence in Marysville, there were some men in the vicinity who, while they were physically powerful, were of quarrelsome dispo- sitions and fighting habits ; and there were several instances in which men of this sort challenged the manhood of Mr. Lee in ways which he could not allow to pass without asserting his manhood in a contest, the result of which was that in each case the assailing parties met their master. These demonstrations of his power and prowess becoming known to the near residents, led them to regard him with more than common respect ; and, as he was of a very social nature, kind and gen- erous hearted, and in his disposition the opposite of a quarrelsome man, he had many and warm friends. Besides being of a genial, social nature, he had a cheer- ful, joyous temperament, and entered heartily into the innocent sports of the time -engaged in the games of ball with the men or the boys, as also in the hunts for game, and made himself an agreeable companion with all who were disposed to conduct themselves with moral propriety ; and very naturally, in such associa- tions, he often took the place of leader, or captain, as for a period of several years he was the chosen Captain of the local militia.

"Such were some of the incidents of the early years of his life in Union County, and such were some of his natural characteristics. He did not remain long at hotel keeping. but leaving that, engaged in mercantile business. He en- tered into the latter in company with others, having a number of different part- ners during the period in which he was engaged in trade, which continued up to

HISTORY OF UNION COUNTY.

the time of his death, which occurred September 24, 1854. He was elected Treas- urer of the county, and held that office from 1845 to 1851 ; was elected Coroner in 1851, and served one year, and was once elected Mayor of Marysville, but de- clined to serve. He was not ambitious of official distinction, nor was he ever actuated by an eager desire to accumulate property. His business yielded him a sufficient income for the comfortable support of his family, with something more with which to gratify the generous and benevolent impulses of his nature. He had no disreputable habits, and his character was not stained by any immoral practices. It remains now to speak of him in relation to his religious character, and in this respect it may be said that he was a man of religious faith and pre- cepts for some years before he made a public profession by connecting himself with a Christian Church ; but, in 1841, he became a member of the Presbyterian Church of Marysville, was elected an Elder in 1843, and the same year became the clerk of the church session. and continued to hold these offices until his death, a period of twelve years. In 1841, he was elected Depositary of the County Bi- ble Society, and in 1842 was elected to the Presidency of this society, and was continued in this office for twelve years. These facts are significant of the esti- mation in which his religious character was held by those with whom he was asso- ciated in the church. and in the County Bible Society ; and they show that in some good degree he was true to his genealogical lineage. There coursed in his veins and pulsated in his heart the blood of Rev. Thomas Hooker, Deacon Ste- phen Hart and John Lee, all of whom were of that company of colonists that re- moved in 1636 * from Cambridge, Mass .. to Hartford, Conn., and made the first settlement there. The John Lee of that colony, then a youth, subsequently mar- ried Mary Hart, daughter of Deacon Stephen Hart. At a later period, Samuel Hart, a grandson of Stephen Hart, married Mary Hooker, a grand-daughter of Rev. Thomas Hooker. Still later, John Lee, of the fifth generation from Jolm Lee, the colonist, married Mary Hart, a descendant of Deacon Stephen Hart and Rev. Thomas Hooker ; and this John Lee and Mary Hart Lee were the parents of Cyprian Lee.

" Few men were more prominent in the early history of Connecticut in shap- ing the religious and civil institutions of the State than Rev. Thomas Hooker : and both the Harts and the Lees, for successive generations, were of devout religious proclivities, and stanch supporters of the religious institutions of their State. as also earnest advocates of the liberty of conscience and the natural rights of men under governmental arrangements, both civil and ecclesiastical. Cyprian Lee owed it to his ancestors to belong to the Christian Church, and to stand for the distribution of the Bible as he did. His children were : Mary, born October 10, 1823; Lewis Hart, born January 8, 1826; Samuel Cooper, born August 6. 1828. These are all living and have families, but none of them are now residents of Union County. The young wife, who shared heroically and affectionately with him the hardships and privations of pioneer life on Fulton Creek, died before the lapse of ten years from the time of their marriage. He subsequently married Mary Irwin, of this county, who survived him but a few years, but left no chil- dren.'

Tobias Beightler, from Fairfield County, Ohio. removed to Paris Township, Union County, in 1825, when twenty-one years of age. He was then possessed of limited means, but in the subsequent years accumulated enough to make him comfortable. According to his recollections as published in the Marysville Trib- une in 1880, there were only seven voters in Marysville upon his arrival in the town; those were Matthias Collins, Thomas Collins, Eli Lundy. George H. Houser, Hezekiah Bates-a blacksmith, who had a shop on the site now occupied by the People's Bank; Samuel Osborn, who had a small tannery where the city hall now is, and Silas G. Strong. The walls of the oldl American House, according to the

*This date should be October, 1635, at which time a colony of sixty persons left Boston, and, after passing across Central Massachusetts, settled at Hartford, Windsor and Wethersfield, in Connecticut .- P. A. D.

PARIS TOWNSHIP.

memory of Mr. Beightler, were laid by Squire Gladhill and a man named Sprague. George H. Houser was a brother-in-law of Mr. Beightler, and in the year the lat- ter arrived here killed seventy-seven deer, two bears and seven wolves, while Eli Lundy killed the same number of deer and two wolves.

Charles L. Mullen was born in Madison County, Ohio, in 1814. and in 1829 came with his father to Marysville, where he resided until his death, February 4, 1882. It is said that he carried the first brick and mortar used in the construc- tion of the old court house. He was twice married-first, in January, 1843, to Sarah Bancroft, who died seven years later, and second, to Elizabeth J. Marfield, who survived him; each bore him four children.

Calvin Winget was born in 1801, and very soon afterward his father, Stephen Winget, Sr., removed from Marietta, Ohio, to what is now Darby Township, Union County, where he died in March, 1807. The family was originally either from Pennsylvania or Virginia. Calvin Winget married Cynthia Irwin, sister of Gen. William B. Irwin. who is mentioned elsewhere. He lived for a time at Milford, where his son, William M. Winget, now of Marysville, was born June 1, 1829; four months after that event, he removed with his family to Marysville, where for a number of years he was engaged in the cabinet-making business, as were also his brothers, Stephen and David. Calvin Winget. on his arrival in the town, or soon after, occupied a house-part frame and part logs-which stood on the site of the present brick dwelling immediately east of the Congregational Church. He sub- sequently owned a house on the west side of Main street. opposite the American Hotel. This. together with the dwellings of two men named Hicks and Thornton, and a new building erected by John Adamson for a store and dwelling and not yet occupied by him, were destroyed by an incendiary fire in 1831. Adamson had a stock of goods in his store, and thieves had entered and stolen quantities thereof, afterward setting fire to the building. Two white men and a colored man were arrested the following day for the offense, tried and sentenced to the peniten- tiary. The families who had been burned out took rooms in the upper part of the hotel which David Witter had built, although it was not yet quite completed. The widow of Stephen Winget, Jr., from whom this information was derived, does not recollect who was then keeping the hotel, which had, in its incomplete state, been thrown open to the public, but thinks a man named Rice became its landlord soon after. Calvin Winget died in 1840, of milk sickness. In the possession of his son, Squire William M. Winget, is the original seal of Union County. It is made of brass and has upon its face the State coat-of-arms. the words " Common Pleas of the County of Union," and the date 1820. The impression was made by plac- ing its face over the instrument to be sealed and striking the back side with a hammer, and it bears many a dent from the blows inflicted. Squire Winget is one of the prominent citizens of the town and county, and has been honored with nu- merous official positions-Justice of the Peace, County Clerk, etc.

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.

The History of Union County, Ohio, containing a history of the county; its townships, towns military record;, Part 72

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