The History of Warren County, Ohio, Part 40

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

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The career of Gov. Morrow was one of the happiest and most pleasing in the history of the West. Building his cabin in the frontier woods, with no am- bition but to seek an honest livelihood and do good to those about him, he rose to distinction by the force of his own sound judgment and sterling worth, filled with honor the highest offices in the gift of the people of his State, passed an honored and serene old age in peace and content, and died without a blot on his fair fame.

In person, he was rather below the medium height, strong, compactly built and active, with dark hair and animated eyes. In his dress, he was negligent, but the story of his receiving La Fayette in his working clothes is not true He had a strong relish for the facetious, and told a story admirably. He never was above labor with his own hands, and, when Governor of Ohio, the Duke of Saxe- Weimar found him on his farm engaged in cutting a wagon pole. With a kind and obliging disposition, he was greatly beloved by his neighbors, yet he could say no with decision when necessary, and would not violate a principle to oblige his best friend. He made it a rule never to become surety of another in a business transaction. He served as President of a railroad without com- pensation, but he would not help to pay for printing tickets to elect himself to Congress. He disdained to employ a public position for private ends. The friend of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and the younger Adams, and the sup- porter of their administrations, he never sought or secured an office or a con- tract for any of his relatives. Long at the head of the Public Land System, he never engaged in land speculation, and died in possession of a little more than a competency.

JUDGE M'LEAN ON GOV. MORROW.

The writer believes that he cannot better conclude this sketch than by quoting Justice John McLean's estimate of Gov. Morrow, as given in a letter to Robert F. Adair, of Kentucky, dated at Cincinnati August 10, 1852. Mc- Lean and Morrow were well acquainted. They lived in the same county for several years, and boarded at the same house in Washington, McLean being a Representative and Morrow a Senator:

"Gov. Morrow was an extraordinary man. He was not classically educated, but he had read much and reflected much on what he had read and observed. He was modest and retiring, and seemed not to appreciate his own talents. No man was firmer in matters of principle, and on these, as indeed in matters of detail, he always maintained himself with great ability. His mind was sound and discriminating. No man in Congress who served with him had a sounder

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judgment. His opinions on great questions were of more value, and were more appreciated in high quarters, than the opinions of many others, whose claims of statesmanship and oratory were much higher than his. Mr. Jefferson had great reliance in him, and Mr. Gallatin gave him, in every respect, the highest evidence of his confidence.

"There never sat in Congress a man more devoted to the public interests, and of a fairer or more elevated morality. He was noted for his industry and strict attention to the interests committed to him. Though a decided friend and supporter of the administrations of Jefferson and Madison, he never cast an aspersion upon his political opponents. He was firm in his party views and action, but his opponents were treated courteously, and he never failed to com- mand their respect and confidence. He enjoyed wit in a high degree, and his mind was well stored with the actions and sayings of distinguished men with whom, in the course of his long service, he became acquainted. His memory was tenacious, and, although his utterance was slow, his remarks in conversa- tion and in speaking were characterized by strong sense. He was a most inter- esting companion. It is believed that no one ever doubted his integrity or candor.

"Rufus King, Henry Clay and every leading member of Congress, es- teemed him most highly. He bore his honors so meekly that no one envied his high reputation. As little selfishness could be found in him as in any other human being. In his last session in Congress, he found that he belonged to the past age-an age where the leading men were generally, if not universally, possessed of high talent and of a noble patriotism, which gave elevation to the action of their country. He had not kept up with the progress of Young America. He was a stranger to the spoils system, and knew nothing of those impulses which a hope of public plunder produces. He felt no desire to pro- long a service which in former years had deeply interested him, but had be- come irksome and disgusting. He carried to his retirement melancholy fore- bodings of the future.

"It will be a most happy thing for the country if our young politicians should form their principles by such a model as Jeremiah Morrow. This would bring back the Government to its old way-marks, and make it what it was intended to be, a government of the people. It would dispense with the machinery now used, not so much for the good of the country as for the success of a party.

" Mr. Morrow, early in life, became a member of the Associate Reformed Church, and his whole life was consistent with this profession. His unassum- ing manner and fine sense invited the confidence and affection of all.his ac- quaintances. He was impelled by a nature upright, noble and generous. His acquaintances carried with them, from every interview with him, some new thought or fact worthy of being remembered. He lived more than eighty years. His end was peaceful, as the end of such a life ever must be."

MATTHIAS CORWIN.

The subject of this sketch was a prominent and influential pioneer and the father of Gov. Thomas Corwin. He was born in 1761, in Morris County, N. J .; removed with his father to the Redstone country, in Pennsylvania, thence to Bourbon County, Ky., and thence to what is now Warren County, Ohio, in 1798, and settled on a farm near where Lebanon now stands. He was one of the first Justices of the Peace in Warren County; a member of the first Board of County Commissioners; Representative in the Legislature by annual elec- tions for ten years; Speaker of the House at the sessions of 1815 and 1824;

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and Associate Judge of the Court of Common Pleas from 1816 to 1824. He was also appointed by the Governor one of the appraisers of damages on the Miami Canal at its first construction. These important public positions, held by him without his own seeking, are sufficient to show that he had the confi- dence and respect of his neighbors and acquaintances. The following facts. illustrative of his character, are derived chiefly from the history of the Miami Baptist Association.

He was through life distinguished for his probity. He carried his notions of honesty much further than men generally do, condemning every shade of concealment or act calculated to deceive, as no better than direct fraud. All speculation, in the common acceptation of the term, was in his view wrong. He lived as a matter of choice on a farm, and took great pleasure in making it a pleasant home. In his habits, he was industrious, regular and abstemious, and did not permit any under his control to spend time idly. By this industry. he was able to raise and educate a family of nine children.

He was always a peacemaker, and very often selected as an arbiter to settle disputes between neighbors. All had the fullest confidence in his integrity. The office of Justice of the Peace he restored to its original intention of settling disputes, as well as constraining peace, and sometimes to effect this object, he resorted to measures, which, if not strictly legal, were always really just. It is told of him, and doubtless truly, that a suit once being brought before him . by a man who had been grossly defrauded in a trade of watches, he required both of the watches to be placed on the table before him as the evidence was given, and, the fraud being palpable, as he gave his decision, he took up the two watches, declared the contract of exchange void on account of fraud, and then restored to each his original watch.

Judge Corwin was a member of the Baptist Church at Lebanon for a period of thirty years. During most of that time he was the principal and most active Deacon of that church. When at home he was always at his post, and so constant was he in attendance at the meetings that if he was at any time missed when at home, it was known that something unusual had detained him. He was frequently one of the messengers of the church in the associa- tion, often a messenger of the association to some corresponding body. In the minutes of the Miami Association, the name of no layman occurs so frequently as that of Matthias Corwin. As in society, so in the church of which he was so long a member, the greatest confidence was placed in him and much deference was yielded to his opinions. He possessed that firmness and independence of mind which led him to investigate all opinions for himself before he adopted them. He was, therefore, slow to receive any new dogma on any subject. This gave him, in the eyes of those not well acquainted with him, the appear- ance of being bigoted and prejudiced, but such was not his character.

He is described as above the medium height, very stout, with dark skin, black hair and black eyes. He died of bilious fever September 4, 1829, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. The following is an extract from an obituary no- tice of Matthias Corwin, which is believed to have been written by his intimate personal friend, Judge Francis Dunlevy:

"Judge Corwin, no doubt, partook of the frailties belonging to humanity. but we think we have never known one within the range of our knowledge who had fewer faults. If we should search for them we know not where we would find one. He was not great nor learned, nor possessed of any dazzling talents to attract the admiration of the world; but he had qualities much more en- viable and enduring. He was the friend of the friendless, the comforter of the disconsolate, the affectionate and kind neighbor and relative, and, connected as he was through life, with religious, social and political communities, he was a

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guide and pattern in each. Such was the candor, the mildness, the uniformity of his conduct and so unexceptionable his walk and conversation, that even amidst party strife and sectarian controversy, he never knew an enemy. By all his name was respected, by those who knew him best and longest, we might say, venerated."

JOSHUA COLLETT.

This distinguished lawyer and Judge was born in Berkeley County, Va. (now West Virginia), November 20, 1781. Having obtained a good English education, he studied law at Martinsburg, in his native county. About the time he reached the age of twenty-one, he emigrated to the Northwest Terri- tory, and stopped temporarily at Cincinnati, where he remained about a year. While he was at Cincinnati, the first constitution of Ohio was adopted and Warren was created a county, with a temporary seat of justice at Lebanon. In June, 1803, before the first court had been held in Warren County, he es- tablished himself at Lebanon for the practice of law, and was the first resident lawyer in the place. Here, it may be said, he commenced the practice of his profession, in which he afterward became distinguished, both at the bar and on the bench. Modest, diffident, unassuming and unpretending, to a degree seldom met with, he had great difficulties to overcome. He traveled the whole of the First Judicial Circuit, comprising the counties of Hamilton, Butler, Warren, Clermont, Montgomery, Miami, Greene and Champaign, and was thus brought into competition with the older and distinguished lawyers of Cincinnati and the bar of the whole Miami Circuit. Notwithstanding the embarrassments resulting from his modesty and diffidence, and the learning and eloquence of his competitors, his knowledge of the law and his sound judgment made him a successful practitioner. In 1807, he was appointed Prosecuting Attorney for the First Judicial Circuit, a position he held for ten years, when he was suc- ceeded by his pupil, Thomas Corwin. 'T'he diligence, integrity and ability, with which he discharged the duties of this office, made him widely known and universally respected. In 1817, he was elected by the Legislature, President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the term of seven years, and, at the close of his term, was re-elected. He continued on the Common Pleas Bench until 1829, when he was elected by the Legislature a Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio. His duties as Supreme Judge were onerous; he was compelled to attend courts in distant parts of the State, and to ride on horseback from county to county. At the end of his term, in 1836, he retired to his farm, near Lebanon, where he resided until his death.

After his retirement from the bench, he permitted his name to be placed on the Whig electoral ticket, in 1836, and again in 1840, and, having been elected both times, he twice cast an electoral vote for his friend, Gen. Harrison. He was, for seventeen years, a member of the Board of Trustees of Miami Univer- sity, and, during all that time manifested an earnest solicitude for the welfare of that institution. He was interested in the cause of education, and held for some time the office of School Examiner in Warren County.

Judge Collett, on emigrating to the West, left in Virginia six brothers and one sister, who, about the year 1812, followed him to Ohio. Their descendants are now numerous in Clinton and Warren Counties. Joshua Collett, in 1808, married Eliza Van Horne. William R. Collett, his only son and only child who survived him, was the leading spirit in the organization of the Warren County Agricultural Society. He died on the farm he inherited from his father, July 19, 1860, in the forty-ninth year of his age.

For the last twenty-five years of his life, Judge Collett was a member of the Baptist Church. He was a benevolent and kind-hearted man, and, though

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an able lawyer and Judge, the crowning glory of his life was his spotless purity, his scrupulous honesty and his unsullied integrity. He died on his farm, near Lebanon May 23, 1855, and was buried at Lebanon. A plain tomb- stone was erected at the head of his grave, but it is now fallen to the ground, and is broken into several pieces. It bore this inscription:

JOSHUA COLLETT.

Born in Virginia in 1781; emigrated to Ohio in 1801: resided at Lebanon until his death, in 1855, aged 73 years and 6 months. Fifteen years a Lawyer, eighteen years a Judge of the Common Pleas and Supreme Courts of the State, as a man and a Christian, he maintained a character for Piety, Sim- plicity, Righteousness and Love of Truth, such as only the Fear of God and Faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ can impart.

JOHN McLEAN.

This eminent jurist and statesman was born in Morris County, N. J., March 11, 1785. His father, Fergus McLean, was a poor man with a large family, and, four years after the birth of John, he removed to the West, settling first at Morganstown, Va., afterward near Nicholasville, Ky., and finally, in 1799, - found a permanent home in what is now Warren County, Ohio. He opened and cleared a farm near Ridgeville, upon which he resided until his death, forty years afterward. His distinguished son afterward owned and resided upon this farm. The town of Ridgeville was laid out by Fergus MoLean in the year 1814.

John received a good English education, notwithstanding the straitened circumstances of his father; he also studied the ancient languages, one of his teachers being Rev. Matthew G. Wallace, a Presbyterian clergyman. Desir- ing to study law, at the age of eighteen he went to Cincinnati and pursued his studies under the direction of Arthur St. Clair, Jr., a son of the Revolutionary General of that name, and a prominent lawyer, whose law office was at Cincin- nati, but practiced at Lebanon and other places in the Miami Circuit. Young McLean, while pursuing his legal studies, supported himself by writing in the office of the Clerk of Court at Cincinnati. He also at times wrote in the county offices at Lebanon. Some of the early records in the court house at Warren County are in his handwriting. In his younger days, he wrote an excellent hand, and he is said to have been noted for his rapid work as a recording copyist.

In the spring of 1807, he was married to Miss Rebecca Edwards, and about the same time commenced the publication of the Western Star, the first newspaper at Lebanon. In the autumn of 1807, he was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice at Lebanon, editing his paper at the same time. About three years later, he disposed of his paper to his brother Nathaniel. He was successful at the bar, and such were his character and ability that, at the age of twenty-seven, he was elected a Representative in Congress from the district which included Cincinnati, although Warren County had for the preceding ten years furnished Ohio with its sole member of the Lower House of Congress. In 1812, the State was for the first time divided into Congressional districts. McLean was elected to represent the First District, composed of the counties of Hamilton, Butler, Warren and Preble. In 1814, he was re-elected unani- mously, receiving not only every vote cast for Representative, but, what is re-

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markable, the vote of every voter who went to the polls. He declined to be a candidate for the United States Senate in 1815, when his election was con- sidered certain. but, the next year, resigned his seat in Congress to accept the position of Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, to which he had been unani- mously elected by the Legislature of the State. He remained upon the Su- preme Bench of Ohio until 1822, when Monroe appointed him Commissioner of the General Land Office. The next year, he became Postmaster General, and administered the affairs of this department with vigor, method and economy for six years, under the administrations of Monroe and John Q. Adams. In 1830, Judge McLean was nominated by President Jackson, and confirmed by the Senate, to the most honorable position attainable by the American lawyer and jurist-Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. This position he held for thirty years, and until his death.

Judge McLean was first elected to Congress as a Democrat, in favor of the war with England, and a supporter of Madison's administration. He held a position in the cabinet of J. Q. Adams during the Presidential election of 1828, and took no active part in the contest between Adams and Jackson, but both the War and Navy Departments were tendered him by Jackson and declined. His opinions from the Supreme Bench gave him great popularity with the anti- slavery people of the United States, especially in the Dred Scott case, in which he dissented from the opinion of the court as given by Chief Justice Taney, and expressed the opinion that in this country slavery was sustained only by local law. His name was prominently identified with the party opposed to the extension of slavery, and was before the Free-Soil convention at Buffalo for the nomination for President. At the National Republican Convention of 1856, he received 196 votes for the same office to 359 for Fremont. When Lincoln was nominated in 1860, McLean also received a number of votes.

When a young lawyer, John McLean was inclined toward skepticism in religion, but in 1811 he was converted under the preaching, at a private house in Lebanon, of Rev. John Collins, a pioneer Methodist preacher, and from that time until his death he was a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He edited the lives of two Methodist preachers-Philip Gatch and John Collins. In the last years of his life, his home was at Cincinnati, where he died April 4, 1861. He was buried at Spring Grove Cemetery.

THOMAS R. ROSS.

Thomas R. Ross was born in New Garden Township, Chester Co., Penn., October 26, 1788. He was the eldest child of Dr. John Ross and his wife, Catherine Randolph. On his mother's side, he was related to John Randolph, of Roanoke, Va. His parents were Quakers, and Thomas R. was educated in a Quaker institution at West Town in his native county, and afterward studied law with his uncle, Thomas Ross, in Philadelphia. He opened a law office in Chester County soon after his admission to the bar, in 1808, but in 1809 he emigrated to the West, stopping for awhile in Cincinnati, and in 1810 came to Lebanon and practiced his profession. He was a forcible speaker, and, not- withstanding the ability of the lawyers he encountered in the Miami Circuit, he rose to distinction. In 1818, Mr. Ross was elected a Member of Congress from the First Ohio District, which consisted of the counties of Hamilton, But- ler, Warren and Preble, as the successor of Gen. William Henry Harrison. He was twice re-elected, and served as Representative in Congress from 1819 until 1825. Early in his Congressional career, Mr. Ross was called on to par- ticipate in one of the most exciting and agitating controversies in the history of the country-that which was settled by the adoption of the Missouri Compro-

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mise of 1820. Mr. Ross boldly opposed the compromise measures, which were really the work of the South, and were opposed by the majority of the members of the House from the non-slaveholding States. In 1824, Mr. Ross failed of a re-election, and was succeeded in Congress by Hon. John Wood, the district at that time being composed of the two counties of Butler and Warren.

A personal friend of Mr. Ross, in an obituary notice, wrote of him as fol- lows: "Associated in Congress with so many good and great men, it is not strange that his defeat for another term was to him a severe blow, and one from which he could never rally. The loss of his seat subjected him to a trial too great for him, and perhaps for any man of his ardent temperament. Truth requires me to say this much, and for years afterward he seemed to find relief from disappointed hopes only in the effects of stimulating drinks. Giving way to this indulgence, the appetite soon became uncontrollable, and for years his life was worse than a blank. But, with an iron constitution and a mind still unimpaired, when friends had almost given him up, he determined to resist the destroyer, and, by the blessing of God, as he himself recognized, was en- abled to overcome this great foe to man's health and happiness. For many of his last years, he lived a temperate and considerate life, and was restored to the confidence and respect of his friends." He practiced law for some years after his retirement from Congress. In 1835, he was elected a Repre- sentative in the State Legislature. During the last years of his life, he re- sided on a farm one and a half miles east of Lebanon. During the last two years of his life, he was blind from cataract of the eyes. He died on the 28th of June, 1869, in the eighty-first year of his age.

In 1811, Mr. Ross was married to Harriet Van Horne, a daughter of Rev. William Van Horne, a Baptist clergyman and a Chaplain during the Revolu- tionary war. She survived her husband, with a family of six children.

THOMAS CORWIN.

This eminent orator, statesman and wit was born in Bourbon County, Ky., July 29, 1794. He was the son of Judge Matthias Corwin, and, in 1798, came with his father to a farm near Lebanon. The ancestors of Thomas Corwin had moved from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, and thence to Kentucky. They had long lived on Long Island, N. Y. The original ancestor of the family in America came from England about 1630. David Corwin, an uncle of Thomas, claimed that his family was of Welsh origin, which may have been suggested by the fact that there is a town named Corwen in Wales. The statement has often been published, and, among other works, in the American Cyclopedia, that the family came originally from Hungary. This extraction seems to have been suggested by the similarity of the name to that of the Hungarian King, Matthias Corvinus. Thomas Corwin, in 1859, wrote to Rev. E. T. Corwin, author of the " Corwin Genealogy," that he had in his possession several letters showing the connection of the family with the Hungarian Corvinus, and that. at the time he read them, the account struck him as quite probable. He added: "I could never bring myself to feel interest enough in the subject to withdraw me from necessary labor long enough to enable me to form even a plausible guess as to the persons who might have been at work for ten cen- turies back in the laudable effort to bring me nolens volens into this breathing world on the 29th of July (a most uncomfortable time of the year), in the year of grace 1794."

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The History of Warren County, Ohio, Part 40

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