USA > Ohio > Champaign County > The history of Champaign and Logan counties : from their first settlement > Part 18
USA > Ohio > Logan County > The history of Champaign and Logan counties : from their first settlement > Part 18
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silent. The next day, young Alder having not risen, through fa- tigue, from eating, at the moment the word was given, saw, as his face was to the north, the shadow of a man's arm with an uplifted tomahawk. He turned, and there stood an Indian, ready for the fatal blow. Upon this he let down his arm and commenced feel- ing his head. He afterwards told Akler it had been his intention to have killed him; but as he turned he looked so smiling and pleasant, that he could not strike, and on feeling of his head and noticing that his hair was very black, the thought struck him, that if he could only get him to his tribe he would make a good Indian ; but that all that saved his life was the color of his hair.
After they crossed the Ohio they killed a bear, and remained four days to dry the meat for packing, and to fry out the oil, which last they put in the intestines, having first turned and cleaned them.
The village to which Alder was taken, belonged to the Mingo* tribe, and was on the north side of Mad river, which we should judge was somewhere within or near the limits of what is now Lo- gan county. As he entered, he was obliged to run the gauntlet, formed by young children armed with switches. He passed thro' this ordeal with little or no injury. and was adopted into an Indian family. His Indian mother thoroughly washed him with soap and warm water with herbs in it, previous to dressing him in the Indian costume, consisting of a calico shirt, breech clout, leggins and moccasins. The family having thus converted him into an Indian, were much pleased with their new member. But Jona- than was at first very homesick, thinking of his mother and broth- ers. Everything was strange about him ; he was unable to speak a word of their language; their food disagreed with him ; and, childlike, he used to go out daily for more than a month, and sit under a large walnut tree near the village, and cry for hours at a time over his deplorable situation. His Indian father was a chief of the Mingo tribe, named Succohanos; his Indian mother was named Whinecheoh, and their daughters respectively answered to the good old English names of Mary, Hannah and Sally. Sueco- hanos and Whinecheoh were old people, and had lost a son. in whose place they had adopted Jonathan. They took pity on the
*I am satisfied this town was on the farm of Alfred Johnson. in Mingo Valley.
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little fellow, and did their best to comfort him, telling him that he would one day be restored to his mother and brothers. He says of them, "they could not have used their own son better, for which they shall always be held in most grateful remembrance by me."" His Indian sister Sally, however, treated him " like a slave," and when out of humor, applied to him, in the Indian tongue, the un- ladylike epithet of "onorary, [mean, ] lousy prisoner !" Jonathan for a time lived with Mary, who had become the wife of the chief; Col. Lewis. "In the fall of the year," says he, "the Indians would generally collect at our camp, evenings, to talk over their hunting expeditions. I would sit up to listen to their stories, and fre- quently fell asleep just where I was sitting. After they left, Mary would fix my bed, and with Col. Lewis, would carefully take me up and carry me to it. On these occasions they would often say --- supposing me to be asleep -- "poor fellow ! We have sat up too long for him, and he has fallen asleep on the cold ground :" and theis ho v softly would they lay me down and cover me up. Oh ! never have I, nor can I, express the affection I had for these two per- sons."
Jonathan, with other boys, went into Mad river to bathe, and on one occasion came near drowning. He was taken out senseless, and some time elapsed ere he recovered. He says, "I remember, after I got over my strangle, I became very sleepy, and thought I could draw my breath as well as ever. Being overcome withs drowsiness, I laid down to sleep, which is the last I remember. The act of drowning is nothing, but the coming to life is distress- ing. The boys, after they had brought me to, gave me a silver buckle, as an inducement not to tell the old folks of the occurrence, for fear they would not let me come with them again ; and so the affair was kept secret."
When Alder had learned to speak the Indian language, he be- came more contented. He says, "I would have lived very happy if I could have had health ; but for three or four years I was sub- ject to very severe attacks of fever and ague. Their diet went very hard with me for a long time. Their chief living was meat and homminy; but we rarely had bread, and very little salt, which was extremely scarce and dear, as well as milk and butter_ Honey and sugar were plentiful, and used a great deal in their cooking, as well as on their food."
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When he was old enough, he was given an old English musket, and told that he must go out and learn to hunt. So he used to fol- low along the water courses, where mud turtles were plenty, and commeneed his first assay upon them. He generally aimed under them, as they lay basking on the rocks; and when he struck the stone, they flew sometimes several feet in the air, which afforded great sport for the youthful marksman. Occasionally he killed a wild turkey or a raccoon ; and when he returned to the village with his game, generally received high praise for his skill-the In- dians telling him he would make "a great hunter one of these days."
We cannot, within our assigned limits, give many of the inci- dents and anecdotes related by Aller, or any thing like a connected history of his life among the Indians. In the June after he was taken, occurred Crawford's defeat. He describes the anxiety of the squaws while the men were gone to the battle, and their joy on their returning with scalps and other trophies of the victory. He defends Simon Girty from the charge of being the instigator of the burning of Crawford, and states that he could not have saved his life, because he had no influence in the Delaware tribe, whose pris -. oner Crawford was. Alder was dwelling at the Macacheek towns when they were destroyed by Logan in 1786; was in the attack on Fort Recovery, in 1794, and went on an expedition into "Kain- tucky to steal horses" from the settlers.
Alder remained with the Indians until after Wayne's treaty, in 1795. He was urged by them to be present on the occasion, to obtain a reservation of land which was to be given to each of the prisoners ; but ignorant of its importance, he neglected going, and lost the land. Peace having been restored, Alder says, "I could now lie down with out fear, and rise upand shake hands with both the Indian and the white man."
The summer after the treaty, while living on Big Darby, Lucas Sullivant made his appearance in that region, surveying land, and soon became on terms of intimacy with Alder, who related to him a history of his life, and generously gave him the peice of land on which he dwelt ; but there being some little difficulty about the title Alder did not consent and so lost it.
When the settlers first made their appearance on Darby, Alder could scarcely speak a word of English. He was then about 24
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years of age, 15 of which had been passed with the In lions, Two of the settlers kindly taught him to converse in Engli !. Head taken a squaw for a wife some time previous, and now began to farm like the whites. He kept hogs, cows and horses, cold milk and butter to the Indians, horses and pork to the whites, and ac- cumulated property. He soon was able to hire white laborers, and being dissatisfied with hissquaw-a cross, peevish woman-wished to put her aside, get a wife from among the settlers, and live like them. Thoughts too, of his mother and brothers, began to obtrude, and the more he reflected, his desire strengthened to know if they were living, and to see then: once inore. He made inquiries for theni, but was at a loss to know how to begin, being ignorant of the name of even the State in which they were. When talking one day with John Moore, a companion of his, the latter questioned him where he was from. Alder replied that he was taken prisoner somewhere near a place called Greenbriar, and that his people lived by a lead mine, to which he used frequently to go and see the hands dig ore. Moore then asked him if he could recollect the names of any of his neighbors. After a little reflection, he replied, "Yes ! a family of Gulions that lived close by us." Upon this, Moore drop- ped his head as if lost in thought, and muttered to himself, "Gulion! Gulion !" and then raising up replied, "My father and my self were out in that country, and we stopped at their house over one night, and if your people are living, I can find them."
Mr. Moore after this went to Wythe county, and inquired for the family of Alder; but without success, as they had removed from their former residence. He put upadvertisements in various places, stating the facts, and where Alder was to be found, and then returned. Alder now abandoned all hopes of finding his family, supposing them to be dead. Some time after, he and Moore were at Franklinton, when he was informed there was a letter for him in the post office. It was from his brother Paul, stating that one of the advertisements was put up within six miles of him, and that he got it the next day. It contained the joyful news, that his mother and brothers were alive.
Alder, in making preparations to start for Virginia, agreed to separate from his Indian wife, divide the property equally, and take and leave her with her own people at Sandusky. But some difficulty arose in satisfying her. He gave her all th - cows, 14 in number, worth $20 each, 7 horses, and much other property, reserv-
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ing to himself only 2 horses and the swine. Besides these, was a small box, about 6 inches long, 4 wide and 4 deep, filled with silver, amounting probably to about $200, which he intended to take, to make an equal division. But to this she objected, saying the box was her- before marriage, and she would not only have it, but all it contained. Alder says, "I saw I could not get it without making a fuss, and probably having a fight, and told her if she would pron- ise never to trouble nor come back to me, she might have it; to which she agreed."
Moore accompanied him to his brother's house, as he was unac- customed to travel among the whites. They arrived there on horseback, at noon, the Sunday after new years. They walked up to the house and requested to have their horses fed, and pretend - ing they were entire strangers, inquired who lived there. "I had concluded," says Alder, "not to make myself known for some time, and eyed my brother very close, but did not recollect his features. I had always thought I should have recognized my mother, by a mole on her face. In the corner sat an old lady, who I supposed was her, allthough I could not tell, for when I was taken by the Indians her head was as black as a crow, and now it was almost perfectly white. Two young women were pressent, who eyed me very close, and I heard one of them whisper to the other, "he looks very much like Mark," (my brother.) I saw they were about to discover me, and accordingly turned my chair around to my brother, and said, "You say your name is Alder ?" "Yes," he re- plied, "my name is Paul Alder." "Well," I rejoined, "my name is Alder, too." Now it is hardly necessary to describe our feelings at that time ; but they were very different from those I had when I was taken prisoner, and saw the Indian coming with my brother's scalp in his hand, shaking off the blood.
"When I told my brother that my name was Alder, he rose to shake hands with me, so overjoyed he could scarcely utter a word, and my old mother ran, threw her arms around me, while tear- rolled down her cheeks. The first words she spoke, after she grasped me in her arms, were, "How you have grown !" and then she told me of a dream she had. Says she, "I dreamed that you had come to see me, and that you was a little onorary [mean ] look- ing fellow, and I would not own you for my son ; but now I find I was mistaken, that it is entirely the reverse, and I am proud to
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own you for my son." I told her I could remind her of a few cir- cumsiances that she would recollect, that took place before I was made captive. I then related various things, among which was that the negroes, on passing our house on Saturday evenings, to spend Sundays with their wives, wauld beg pumpkins of her, and get her to roast them for them against their return on Monday morning. She recollected these circumstances, and said she had now no doubt of my being her son. We passed the balance of the day in agreeable conversation, and I related to them the history of my captivity, my fears and doubts, of my grief and misery the first year after I was taken. My brothers at this time were all married, and Mark and John had moved from there. They were sent for, and came to see me ; but my half brother John had moved so far, that I never got to see him at all."
REMARKS OF JOSHUA ANTRIM
AT THE PIONEERS' PIC-NIC AT THE LOGAN COUNTY FAIR GROUNDS, SEPTEMBER 10, 1870.
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN :
If I understand the object of the Western Ohio Pioneers' Asso- ciation, or any other association of this character, it is to record and preserve, and hand down to posterity, a reliable history of all the important events and incidents that have occurred since the first settlement of our country. The Western Pioneer Association, as its name would indicate, has a considerable breadth of territory to explore, and would cordially invite all those within its bounds to aid them in their labors. I shall not on this occasion attempt to explore but a very small part of this domain, but shall confine my remarks principally to the early settlement of Logan County. I find in the transactions of kindred associations, and in the history of Ohio, incidents recorded which in themselves are apparently of very little importance, yet they are links in the chain of events that unite the pleasant memories of the past with the present. A desire for immortality is an instinct of our nature, and anything that will secure it is eagerly sought for by mankind. Individuals and nations have expended millions of money and hundreds of lives to reach the North Pole, all for what? Why, if nothing more than this is achieved, the man, as Professor Sontag says, who first sets foot on the North Pole has won for himself an imperishable name. Columbus first discovered America, and his name is as familliar to us as our own. Balboa first looked upon the broad expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Desoto was the first to see the great Mississippi and bathe in its turbid
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waters. Penn settled Pennsylvania, and Boone Kentucky. Her- ostratus burned the great Temple of Diana at Ephesus for no other purpose but to immortalize his name. Beyond this, very little is known of many of them, vet they have secured an imperishable name.
I say now, as I did about one year ago at this place, that the first settlers of this county did not come here actuated by the spirit of adventure. They did not come merely for the purpose of hunting and trapping, like Boone, Kenton and others-not that I would say anything disparagingly of those venerated names-but they were a different class of men.
The first white men that set foot on the soil of Logan county, were reared-the most of them-near Philadelphia, in New Jer- sey, where they were familiar with the refinements, comforts and conveniences of a highly cultivated people. Bred to agricultural pursuits, they sought a home in the State of Virginia ; from thence they came to this county to seek a permanent home. Being Qua- kers, they were actuated by the noble spirit of the illustrious foun- ders of their sect, Fox and Penn ; nor were they prompted by any mercenary motives of speculation. Out of the reach of civiliza- tion, one hundred miles from any markets-Zanesville, Chilli- cothe and Cincinnati being the nearest-we see them wending their way through the majestic forests of Ohio, to their new home in this county, surrounded by an entirely different class of circum- stances from those they had ever seen before. They set them- selves down in the dead of winter, in their little tents, with no one to greet or welcome them to their new home. Naught was heard save the sighing of the winter's wind as it passed through the naked tops of the lofty forest trees, that waved for miles around, to the winter's blast. They soon became familiar to the crack of the Indian's rifle and the war hoop. Thus defenseless and alone did they trust to the God of their fathers; in peace and quietness did they pass through life.
The first white settler in Logan county was Job Sharp, who came to what is now Zane township, on Christmas day, 1801, with a four horse team. His wife Phebe, and three children, Achsah, his old- est daughter, Joshua his only son, Sarah his youngest daughter, and Carlisle Haines, his brother-in-law, composed the little group. He settled on the farm now owned by Lucius Cochran, where he
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lived until his death, which occurred in January, 1822. They hastily erected a rude shelter to protect them from the winter blast, from the majestic forest that waved over their defenseless heads. It was what is called by backwoodsmen a three-faced camp. The day they arrived, the ground being covered with snow they found four bee trees; they discovered these trees by seeing the bees lying on the snow. In the spring of 1802, Mr. Sharp set out the first apple orchard, containing about four acres ; most of the trees are still standing, and bearing fruit sufficient for the family on the farm, though of an inferior quality. A pear tree now stands by the door, that was brought from Chillicothe as a riding switch by his wife the next year after they had settled here, which has borne fruit more or less every year since it commenced bearing. Here, too, in 1805, was built the first grist mill. It was run by the water that came from two fine springs on the premises, which were united near the headgate. The traces of the ditches are still visible. Though Mr. Sharp built this little mill for his own ar- commodation, with no thought of public utility, yet as soon as it was known people came from a great distance to get their corn and wheat ground. Here, too, the first respectable hewed log house was erected, in 1808, with a shingle roof. It is yet a good house, of two stories, three rooms and cellar, and two bedrooms up stairs -in all, five rooms. I am told by an old pioneer that the first roof was put on with wooden pins, and the lumber was all sawed with a whip-saw. About the years 1802-3-4-5, the relatives and ac- quaintances of Mr. Sharp settled around him, and like himself, most of them being Quakers, they built the first meeting-house in the county, which was also used for a school-house. It was built in 1807, near where the present school-house now stands, and hard by the first regular graveyard laid off in the county, about one mile north of Middleburg. I would say just, here that the Metho- dists, those indomitable pioneers of religion, were among the carly settlers of the county, and they and the Quakers held their meet- ings alternately in the same log meeting-house. Around this little nucleus, in a course of time, a great many others gathered, who settled in various portions of the county, and among the rest, our venerable chaplain, George McCulloch.
Among the incidents worthy of note, to be recorded and placed among the archives of this association, is the birth of the first white child in the county, which occurred in the year 1804, in Zane
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township. This was Daniel Antrim, son of Thomas Antrim and Esther his wife. Mr. Antrim does not claim any special merit for his being the first white child born in the county in which you live, as it is evident he could not well help it.
Another incident occurred, of a more startling character, that aroused the sympathies of the people. It was the fearful announce- ment on the second day of June, 1816, that the little son of James Curl, about seven years of age, was lost in the woods. Mr. Curl then lived in what is now Perry township, on the farm now owned by Joshua Ballinger. For eight days this little fellow wandered in an unbroken wilderness infested by wolves, panthers and other voracious animals, unharmed, and finally on the evening of the eighth day he found his way to the house of a Mr. Tyler on the Scioto river, being between twenty and thirty miles in a direct line from where he started, having traveled more than one hundred miles in his wanderings through a trackless forest, naked and al- most famished ; he was joyfully received and kindly cared for by Mr. Tyler and his family, and speedily returned to his bereaved but now happy parents.
Nothing occurred seriously to mar the peace and happiness of this part of the country until 1812, when the tocsin of war was again sounded, and public attention was diverted from the peace- ful pursuits of domestic life, when the British again attempted to place the iron heel of despotism on the neck of the American people, and aroused the slumbering malice of the Indian against his white brother by offering a price for American scalps. They then threw down the calumet of peace they had been smoking, and grasped the war club and scalping-knife, and flourished them again over the heads of the defenceless pioneers. It was then that our young men, always ready to respond to the call of their country, left the peaceful pursuits of life and buckled on their armor and rushed to the rescue of their country from British tyranny. It was then that those rude defences called block-houses were built in this country, namely, Zanesfield, McPherson's, Vance's and Manary's. The one at Zanesfield I have seen. It was here Capt. Joseph Euans had his men quartered in 1813. Among those now living that were quartered here are Jose H. Garwood, Caleb Bal- linger, Isaac Warner, Walter Marshal and John Sharp. All of them are still living in this county except Mr. Garwood, who now lives in North Lewisburg, Champaign county.
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In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, I would say, just fifty-seven years ago to-day, Oliver Hazard Perry might have been seen in all open boat leaving the wreck of the Lawrence, his flag ship, and making his way in the midst of a heavy fire from the enemy, to the Niagara, where he ran up his flag just as the Lawrence went down, and before night be was master of the lakes and sent the ever memorable dispatch to General Harrison: "We have met the enemy and they are ours."
THE NEW COURT-HOUSE.
A SKETCH OF THE EARLY CIVIL HISTORY OF LOGAN COUNTY, DE- LIVERED BY DR B. S. BROWN, AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE OF THE NEW COURT HOUSE.
Logan county was organized in 1818, and its boundaries at that time extended north to the Maumee river, and included what is now Hardin, Hancock and Wood counties, and also on the east side a small part of what is now Union and Wyandotte counties. A very large proportion of the country included within these bound- aries, was, however, what was called Indian Territory, it not hav- ing been ceded to the United States till after that time. All that part of the present limits of our county north of the Greenville Treaty Line belonged to the Indian Territory, and cut off about one-third of the county. This line was run from the northern part of Darke county through several counties northeast of Logan. It passed about four miles north of Bellefontaine, crossed near the middle of Rushereek Lake, and was nearly two miles south of the present village of Huntsville. The present limits of the county was divided into nearly equal halves by what is called Ludlow's line, which was to be run from the head of the little Miami to the head of the Scioto river. This line passes through the eastern part of our village. The part lying northeast of that line was called Virginia Military Land ; all between the heads of the Little Miami and the Scioto rivers having been reserved by the State of Virginia for the payment of her Revolutionary soldiers when she ceded the N. W. Territory to the United States. This land was not regularly surveyed into townships, sections, &c., but warrants were issued by Virginia to each soldier entitled to them, and they might locate them in whatever place and shape they pleased, so that it had not
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been previously located and surveyed. This produced great con- fusion in the surveys, and often in the titles, and frequent litiga- tions which greatly enhanced the business of the lawyers and of the courts. These individual land warrants were, however, mostly bought up by speculators and land-jobbers, at a merely nominal price-if at any price at all-so that many could estimate their lands by tens of thousands, and some by hundreds of thousands of acres. The first courts of common pleas of Logan county were held in 1818, in the town of Bellville, a small village of five or six houses a mile and a half directly south of the public square in Bellefon- taine. The common pleas courts of those days were composed of three Associate Judges elected by the people of each county, and one Presiding Judge for a distriet composed of several counties. The first associate judges of this county were James Mellvain, Levi Garwood and John Shelby, and the first presiding Judge was Orris Parish of Columbus.
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