The History of Warren County, Ohio, Part 26

Author: W. H. Beers & Co.
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1081

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Hamilton County was entitled to ten members of the convention. Ninety- nine candidates were voted for. The names and the vote of those who received over fifty votes are given below, several of whom, it will be seen, resided within the bounds of Warren County. The first-named ten were elected:

F. Dunlevy, 1,635; John Paul, 1,630; J. Morrow, 1,536; C. W. Byrd,' 1,338; John Wilson, 1,381; J. Kitchell, 1,172; W. Goforth, 1,128: J. W. Browne, 1,066; John Smith, 964; John Reily, 924; W. James, 910; Thomas Smith, 887; S. Wood. 791; W. C. Schenck, 638: William McMillan, 621; Jacob Burnet, 541; John Bigger, 500; John Ludlow, 571; James McClure, 458; W. Ward, 315; Jacob White, 251; B. Van Cleve, 248; David E. Wade, 183; Abner Gerrard, 150; J. Corbly, 121.

On the second Tuesday of January, 1803, the first election under the State constitution was held. Hamilton County was at this time divided into election districts, the greater portion of Warren County being included in the Deerfield District, with its voting-place at the house of David Sutton in the town of Deer- field. In counting the votes, the vote of the Deerfield District was excluded on account of some irregularity. In Hamilton County, twenty-two persons received votes for Governer, thirty-six for members of the Senate, ninety-seven for mem- bers of the House of Representatives and sixteen for Coroner. The county was entitled to four Senators and eight Representatives.

The following was the vote in Hamilton County for Senators: John Paul, 1,490; J. Morrow, 1,374; F. Dunlevy, 1,362; Daniel Symmes, 754; John Reily, 749; William Ward, 293.

The following was the vote for Representatives: Thomas Brown, 1,372; John Bigger, 1,336; William James, 1,323; James Dunn, 994; Thomas Mc- Farland, 924; E. Kibbey, 915; Robert McClure, 842; William Maxwell, 692; William C. Schenck, 491; John Wilson, 501; John Kitchell, 446: William Ward, 442; Edward Meeks, 237; Daniel C. Cooper, 226; Daniel Reeder, 175; John W. Browne, 157; David Sutton, 135; John Reily, 132; James Silvers, 100; Jacob White, 55.

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PIONEER LIFE.

A truthful account of the mode of life among the early settlers of the Miami forests cannot fail to interest and instruct. As the backwoods period recedes, its interest increases. It is to be regretted that more of the traditions of the pioneers, giving homely but faithful pictures of the every-day life of the early settlers have not been preserved. Their recollections of their journeys. from the older States over the Alleghany Mountains, the flat-boat voyage down the Ohio, the clearing in the wilderness, the first winter in the rude cabin and the scanty stores of provisions, the cultivation of corn among the roots and stumps, the cabin-raisings and log rollings, the home manufacturing of furni- ture and clothing, the hunting parties and corn-huskings, their social customs and the thousand scenes and novel incidents of life in the woods, would form a more entertaining and instructive chapter than their wars with the Indians or their government annals. Far different was the life of the settler on the Little Miami from that of the frontiersman of to-day. The railroad, the tele- graph and the daily newspaper did not then bring the comforts and luxuries of civilization to the cabin-door of the settler; nor was the farm marked out with a furrow and made ready for cultivation by turning over the sod.

The labor of opening a farm in a forest of large oaks, maples and hickuries, was very great, and the difficulty was increased by the thick growing spice bushes. Not only were the trees to be cut down; the branches were to be cut. off from the trunk, and, with the undergrowth of bushes, gathered together for burning. The trunks of the large trees were to be divided and rolled into heaps and reduced to ashes. With hard labor the unaided settler could clear and burn an acre of land in three weeks. It usually required six or seven years for the pioneer to open a small farm and build a better house than his first cabin of round logs. The boys had work to do in gathering the brush into heaps. A common mode of clearing was to cut down all the trees of the diameter of eighteen inches or less, clear off the undergrowth and deaden the larger trees by girdling them with the ax and allowing them to stand until they decayed and fell. This method delayed the final clearing of the land for eight or ten years, but when the trunks fell they were usually dry enough to be burned into such lengths as to be rolled together.

The first dwellings of the settlers were cabins made of round logs notched at the ends, the spaces between the logs filled in with sticks of wood and daubed with clay. The roof was of clapboards held to their places by poles reaching across the roof called weight-poles. The floor was of puncheons, or planks split from logs, two or three inches in thickness, hewed on the upper side. The fire-place was made of logs lined with clay or with undressed stone, and was, at least, six feet wide. The chimney was often made of split sticks plastered with clay. The door was of clapboards hung on wooden hinges and fastened with a wooden latch. The opening for the window was not unfre- quently covered with paper made more translucent with oil or lard. Such a. house was built by a neighborhood gathering with no tools but the ax and the frow, and often was finished in a single day. The raising and the log-rolling were labors of the settlers, in which the assistance of neighbors was considered essential and cheerfully given. When a large cabin was to be raised, prep- arations would be made before the appointed day; the trees would be cut down, the logs. dragged in and the foundation laid and the skids and forks made ready. Early in the morning of the day fixed, the neighbors gathered from miles around; the captain and corner-men were selected, and the work went. on with boisterous hilarity until the walls were up and the roof weighted down.

The cabin of round logs was generally succeeded by a hewed log-house more elegant in appearance and more comfortable. Indeed, houses could be

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made of logs as comfortable as any other kind of building, and were erected in such manner as to conform to the taste and means of all descriptions of persons. For large families, a double cabin was common; that is, two houses, ten or twelve feet apart, with one roof covering the whole, the space between serving as a hall for various uses. Henry Clay, in an early speech on the public lands, referred to the different kinds of dwellings sometimes to be seen standing to- gether, as a gratifying evidence of the progress of the new States. "I have," said he, "often witnessed this gratifying progress. On the same farm you may sometimes behold, standing together, the first rude cabin of round and un- hewn logs, and wooden chimneys; the hewed-log house chinked and shingled, with stone or brick chimneys; and lastly, the comfortable stone or brick dwell- ing, each denoting the different occupants of the farm or the several stages of the condition of the same occupant. What other nation can boast of such an outlet for its increasing population, such bountiful means of promoting their prosperity and securing their independence?"

The furniture of the first rude dwellings was made of puncheons. Cup- boards, seats and tables were thus made by the settler himself. Over the door was placed the trusty flint-lock rifle, next to the ax in usefulness to the pioneer, and near it the powder-horn and bullet-pouch. Almost every family had its little spinning-wheel for flax and big spinning-wheel for wool. The cooking utensils were few and simple, and the cooking was all done at the fire-place. The long winter evenings were spent in contentment, but not in idleness. There was corn to shell and tow to spin at home, and the corn-huskings to at- tend at the neighbors. There were a few books to read, but newspapers were rare. The buckeye log, because of its incombustibility, was valuable as a back- log, and hickory bark cast into the fire-place threw a pleasing light over a scene of domestic industry and contentment.

The wearing apparel was chiefly of home manufacture. The flax and wool necessary for clothing were prepared and spun in the family, cotton being com- paratively scarce. Carding wool by hand was common. Weaving, spinning, dyeing, tailoring for the family were not unfrequently all carried on in the household. Not a few of the early settlers made their own shoes. Wool dyed with walnut bark received the name of butternut. Cloth made of mixed linen and wool, called linsey, or linsey-woolsey, of a light indigo blue color, was common for men's wear. A full suit of buckskin with moccasins was sometimes worn by a hunter, but it was not common. A uniform, much worn in the war of 1812 is described as consisting of a light blue linsey hunting-shirt with a cape, the whole fringed and coming half-way down the thigh, a leather belt, shot-pouch, powder-horn, a large knife and tomahawk, or hatchet, in the belt and rifle on the shoulder. The author of the history of Miami County says he has seen Return J. Meigs, Governor of Ohio, and Jeremiah Morrow, United States Senator, and other high officials, wear this hunting-shirt while on front- ier duty during that war.

With the early settlers, almost the only modes of locomotion were on foot and on horseback. The farmer took his corn and wheat to mill on horseback; the wife went to market or visited her distant friends on horseback. Salt, hardware and merchandise were brought to the new settlements on pack-horses. The immigrant came to his new home not unfrequently with provisions, cooking utensils and beds packed on horses, his wife and small children on another horse. Lawyers made the circuit of their courts, doctors visited their patients and preachers attended their preaching stations on horseback. The want of ferries and bridges made the art of swimming a necessary quality in a saddle- horse. "Is he a good swimmer?" was a common question in buying a horse for the saddle. Francis Dunlevy, as President Judge of a district embracing

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ten counties, made the circuit of his courts on horseback, never missing a court and frequently swimming his horse over the Miamis rather than fail of being present. CJ

In 1803, when Jeremiah Morrow was called to the national capital as the first Representative in Congress from Ohio, he made the journey on horseback, taking with him his wife and their two children, aged, respectively, three years and eighteen months, to the residence of Mrs. Morrow's parents in the old Red- stone country in Pennsylvania. Leaving his wife and children at the home of her parents until the close of the session, he continued his journey over the mountains to Washington. For sixteen successive years did Mr. Morrow make this annual horseback ride from his home on the Little Miami to attend the sessions of Congress. The journey was more trying on the strength and en- durance of the horse than the rider. Especially was the return homeward in the spring slow and difficult. The forests kept the roads moist longer than they now remain, and in the fresh condition of the soil they often became almost. impassable. With one favorite and hardy horse. Mr. Morrow made twelve trips over the Alleghanies. But this was exceptional. With no other horse he owned was it deemed advisable to attempt a third journey.

The country was infested with horse-thieves. The unsettled condition of the country made the recovery of stolen horses very difficult. The horse-steal- ing proclivity of the Indians was one of the chief causes of the hatred of the early settlers toward the red men; but, after all depredations by the Indians. had ceased, the farmers continued to suffer much from horse-thieves, who were believed to be often organized into gangs. The great value of the horse and the difficulty of recovering one when run away, caused the pioneer to look with malignant hatred upon the horse thief. The early Legislatures were composed. almost entirely of farmers, and they endeavored to break up this kind of larceny by laws inflicting severe penalties-corporal punishment, fines, imprisonment and even mutilation. The following is the penalty for horse-stealing prescribed in an act passed in 1809: "The person so offending shall, on conviction there- of, for the first offense, be whipped not exceeding one hundred and not less than fifty stripes on his naked back, and on conviction of each succeeding offense of a like nature shall be whipped not exceeding two hundred nor less than one hundred stripes on his naked back; for the third offense shall have both ears cropped, and in either case shall restore to the owner the property stolen or repay him the value thereof, with damages, in either case, and be imprisoned not exceeding two years, and fined not exceeding $1,000 at the discretion of the court; and be ever after the first offense rendered incapable of holding any office of trust, being a juror, or giving testimony in any court in this State."

Ear-cropping was prescribed for no other offense, and, as it was the penalty for the third offense of the horse-stealer, it is doubtful if it was ever actually inflicted in Ohio. The railroad and the telegraph, by affording the means for the more certain detection of the criminal and the recovery of the stolen prop- erty, did more to put down this crime than the most severe penalties.

The little copper distillery was to be found in most neighborhoods through- out the county. Rye and corn whisky was a common drink. It was kept in the cupboard or on the shelf of almost every family, and sold at all the licensed taverns, both in the town and country. The early merchants advertised that good rye whisky, at 40 cents a gallon, would be taken in exchange for goods; houses and lots were offered for sale, flour or whisky taken in full payment. It was a part of hospitality to offer the bottle to the visitor. Whisky in a tin- cup was passed around at the house-raising, the log-rolling and in the harvest field. It is a mooted question not easily settled whether intemperance was more common then than now. That the spiritous liquors of those days were

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purer is admitted, but the notion that they were less intoxicating seems not to have been well founded. Excess in drinking then as now brought poverty, want and death. The early settler with the purest of liquors could drink him- self to death.

CHARACTER OF THE PIONEERS.

The early immigrants to Warren County may be described as a bold and resolute, rather than a cultivated people. It has been laid down as a general truth that a population made up of immigrants will contain the hardy and vigorous elements of character in a far greater proportion than the same num- ber of persons born upon the soil and accustomed to tread in the footsteps of their fathers. It required enterprise and resolution to sever the ties which bound them to the place of their birth, and, upon their arrival in the new country, the stern face of nature and the necessities of their condition, made them bold and energetic. Individuality was fostered by the absence of old familiar customs, family alliances and the restraints of old social organizations. The early settlers of Warren County were plain men and women of good sense, without the refinements which luxury brings and with great contempt for all shams and mere pretense.

A majority of the early settlers belonged to the middle class. Few were, by affluence, placed above the necessity of labor with their hands, and few were so poor that they could not become the owners of small farms. The mass of the settlers were the owners in fee simple of at least a quarter of a section of land, or 160 acres. Many possessed a half section or a section. After the settlements were begun, few persons owned land in large tracts of two or more thousand of acres; while the poorest immigrant, if industrious and thrifty, could lease land on such terms that he would soon become the owner of a small farm in five or six years.

A large majority of the pioneers were anti-slavery in their sentiments. Although many of them were from slave-holding States, they fled from the evils of slavery and were the strongest opponents of the slave system. Many had manumitted their slaves before emigrating to the Northwest Territory. As a consequence, that form of pride which looks upon labor as degrading never had a foothold in Warren County. Rev. James Smith, the ancestor of many fami- lies in Warren County, noted this fact on his first visit to the Northwest Terri- tory. He had been reared in Virginia, but had a great abhorrence of every form of human bondage. In his journal he says: "Here the industrious farmer cultivates his farm with his own hands, eats the bread of cheerfulness and rests contented on his pillow at night. The mother instructs her daughters in the useful and pleasing accomplishments of the distaff and the needle, with all things else necessary to constitute them provident mothers and good house- wives. The young man, instead of the cow-skin, or some other instrument of torture, takes hold of an ax or follows the plow. The ruddy damsel thinks it no disgrace to wash her clothes or milk her cows or dress the food of the family. In a word, it is here no disgrace to engage in any of the honest occu- pations of life, and the consequence is the people live free from want, free from the perplexity and free from the guilt of keeping slaves."

The backwoods age was not a golden age. However pleasing it may be to contemplate the industry and frugality, the hospitality and general sociability of the pioneer times, it would be improper to overlook the less pleasing feat- ures of the picture. Hard toil made men old before their time. The means of culture and intellectual improvement were inferior. In the absence of the refinements of literature, music and the drama, men engaged in rude, coarse and sometimes brutal amusements. Public gatherings were often marred by scenes of drunken disorder and fighting. The dockets of the courts show a

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large proportion of cases of assault and battery and affray. While some of the settlers had books and studied them, the mass of the people had little time for study. Post roads and post offices were few, and the scattered inhabitants rarely saw a newspaper or read a letter from their former homes. Their knowl- edge of politics was obtained from the bitter discussions of opposing aspirants for office. The traveling preacher was their most cultivated teacher. The traveler from a foreign country or from one of the older States was compelled to admit that life in the backwoods was not favorable to amenity of manners. One of these travelers wrote of the Western people in 1802: "Their Generals distill whisky, their Colonels keep taverns and their Statesmen feed pigs."

Josiah Espy, author of "Memorandums of a Tour in Ohio and Kentucky in 1805," traveled through Warren County. He landed at Columbia July 25, 1805, after a voyage of ten days from Wheeling in the keel-boat " Mary." He visited his brothers, Thomas and David Espy, in Deerfield Township, Warren County, and afterward, his mother, who resided in Greene County, and whom he had not seen for seventeen years. He thus recorded in his journal his im- pressions:

"The emigration to the State of Ohio at this time is truly astonishing. From my own personal observations, compared with the opinion of some gentle- men I have consulted, I have good reason to conclude that during the present year from twenty thousand to thirty thousand souls have entered that State for the purpose of making it their future residence. These are chiefly from Penn- sylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, Kentucky and Tennessee, but, on inquiry, you will find some from every State in the Union, including many for- eigners. The inhabitants of the State of Ohio being so lately collected from all the States, have, as yet, obtained no national character. The state of society, however, for some years to come, cannot be very pleasant-the great body of the people being not only poor, but rather illiterate. Their necessities will, however, give them habits of industry and labor and have a tendency to increase the morals of the rising generation. This, with that respect for the Christian religion which generally prevails among that class of people now emigrating to the State, will lay the best foundation for their future national character. It is to be regretted, however, that at present few of them have a rational and expanded view of the beauty, excellency and order of that Chris- tian system, the essence of which is Divine wisdom. The great body of the people will, therefore, it is to be feared, be a party for some years to priestcraft, fanaticism and religious enthusiasm."

THE PRIMITIVE FORESTS.

It is not easy to describe the Miami Valley as it appeared in its primitive luxuriance to the eyes of the pioneers. No woodland to-day, even in the most unfrequented spot, wears the rich and exuberant garb which nature gave it. Under the transforming power of civilization, the earth assumes a new aspect. Even the woods and the streams are changed. Herbage and shrubs which once grew luxuriantly in our forests have been eaten out by cattle until they can only be found in the most secluded and inaccessible places. Trees cut down are succeeded by others of a different growth.

The general face of the country exhibited to the pioneer of the Miamis a wild luxuriance which cannot well be described. The great fertility of the soil was attested by the variety and exuberance of its vegetation. The native forests covered the whole surface of the county, unrelieved by those open plains or natural meadows so common fifty or seventy-five miles north. Even without the savage war-whoop, it was a wild country. There stood the forests, not as now, by their contrast with the sunny fields and dusty roads inviting the trav-

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eler and laborer to repose in their shade, but every tree seemed an enemy to be slaughtered by the woodman's steel. Now the grove is the attractive spot; then the clearing which let in the sunlight seemed only inviting.

One hundred and three species of trees and herbaceous plants, native of the Miami woods, were catalogued by Dr. Daniel Drake at the beginning of this century, thirty of which rose to the height of sixty feet or more. There is no dividing line in nature between a tree and a shrub, but most botanists have agreed arbitrarily upon thirty feet as a minimum height of a species en- titled to be called a tree. The richness of the Miami woods will be seen when it is stated that in all Germany, embracing the whole of Central Europe, there are but sixty species of trees. In France, the number is given by some as thirty; by others, as thirty-four. In Great Britain, there are but twenty-nine species above thirty feet high, and of these, botanists describe but fifteen as large or moderately high.

In Warren County many species of valuable hardwoods grew to magnifi- cent size and of good texture. The white oak here attained a remarkable de- velopment of size, if it did not quite reach the same strength attained in West Virginia. This noble tree, at the first settlement, would be found wherever there was a good clay soil, three or four feet in diameter and three or four hundred years old, but still green and flourishing; now these monarchs of the forest no longer flourish. The old and large white oaks are dying throughout Warren County; scarcely any large ones can be found which are not dead at the top. Other valuable trees are also dying slowly but surely from the top downward. The wild cherry, so valuable to the cabinet-worker, was scattered throughout the county, and, in some localities, was abundant. Now it is rarely found. On the plain between Muddy Creek and Turtle Creek, west of South Lebanon, stood an extensive forest of wild cherry trees of large size, which long since disappeared. Large black walnut trees were cut down and reduced to ashes, a single one of which could now be sold as it stood upon the ground for more than an acre of cultivated land in some parts of the county. Along the margins of the streams were seen the giant sycamores and elms; near by on the alluvial bottoms, the camp of sugar-maples, with its undergrowth of papaw, indicative of a rich soil; on higher grounds, the poplars, hickories and white walnuts grew to a stately height. In some places, the beech had almost exclusive possession. But a single grove of native chestnut trees was found between the Miami Rivers. It stood near the boundary line between Butler and Warren Counties, not far from Pisgah Church. The trees reached a diameter of four feet and produced large quantities of chestnuts. Of the trees and plants whose fruit might furnish food for man or mast for game and swine, the fox grape, fall grape and winter grape, the gooseberry, the black currant, the haw, the crab-apple, the mulberry, the beech, the black walnut, the butternut, the hickory and several varieties of the oak, the hazel nut and the persimmon, were all natives of the Miami forests.

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The History of Warren County, Ohio, Part 26

Author: W. H. Beers & Co. Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1081

Author: W. H. Beers & Co.
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1081