USA > Ohio > Champaign County > The history of Champaign county, Ohio, containing a history of the county; its cities, towns, etc.; general and local statistics; portraits of early settlers and prominent men; history of the Northwest territory etc > Part 58
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The following letter from Gen. Moses B. Walker, who formerly resided in Salem Township with his father's family, and now a resident of Kenton, Ohio, I deem entirely suitable for these pages :
My dear Friend, Thomas Cowgill : John Walker settled near West Liberty, with his family, in 1824, and purchased from Campbell and Neville the property since known as " Pimm's Mills." The country was very sickly, and, after living in that place about one year, he removed to King's Creek, near Kingston, where the family home was fixed, and remained until 1842, when the family, excepting the Rev. George W. and Moses B., removed to Iowa, where John Walker, Sr., died in 1845, and Mrs. Walker died in 1850. The eldest daughter, Harriet, married Charles Lewis; the second daughter, Rebecca, married David Hale ; John D. Walker married Cynthia Corwin, daughter of David Corwin, of Lebanon, Ohio; Zachariah Walker married Ann Thomas ; Dr. Peter Walker married Sarah Stokes, who died in 1856 ; he was again married to an Iowa lady ; Jemima Walker married David Shelby, son of the late Judge Shelby, of Logan County ; Moses B. married, in 1842, Maria C. Van Skayck, of Germantown, Ohio, who died July 3, 1853. Two years after, he married Mary M. Hitt, of Vincennes, Ind., the granddaughter of Rev. Martin Hitt, who settled in an early day at Urbana, and whose family will be remembered by all the old inhabitants of the county. Mary Walker, the youngest child of John and Mary, married Nelson Stokes. John D. Walker, Moses B., Mrs. Stokes and Mrs. Shelby, are all who are living of this large pioneer family. They all live in Iowa except Moses B., who resides at Kenton, Hardin Co., Ohio. He is a lawyer by profession, is still in the practice ; but when the war of the rebellion broke out he accepted a commission in the regular army, and is now a Colonel on the retired list owing to wounds received at the battle of Chickamauga. The children of John and Mary Walker, when grown up, during the eighteen years they lived in Champaign County, were all ambitious to improve their moral and intellectual status. As they had to contend with the want of good schools at that early day, Moses B. only of the sons received a thorough colle- giate education. He began with other boys of his age in the old log schoolhouse. The opportunities- for learning the schools then afforded are by no means to be despised ; and Judge Walker, though now an LL. D., often speaks in terms of praise and veneration of his early teachers- Thomas Goode, John Waller, Robert Findley and Edward L. Morgan. Only the very small boys whose heads would not yet reach the plow handles, went to school in the spring and summer- months. The winter schools were too full to give each scholar a fair opportunity to learn, and only those did learn much who put forth an earnest effort, and were very diligent and attentive. Now and then some of the teachers tried to make learning strike in on the scholars, by a sturdy application of the willow and the apple-tree ; which I think, after all, was a better way than has since been found out in the system of imprisonment (often false imprisonment at that), which keeps in the child after school hours, often to the great annoyance of parents as well as children, and not unfrequently to the great prejudice of the health of the child. In old times, if a boy deserved a licking, the teacher considered it something he owed to the offender, and it was promptly paid, the debt canceled, and the boy, whipped and cleared, felt that he was free again, and had the world even and ready to open new accounts if necessary. Now resort is had to imprisonment of the offender. I am opposed to the keeping-in system. I have not had time allowed me from other engagements to write anything worthy of insertion in your book (of which I wish a copy). My daughter has extracted from print some sketches of which, should you wish, you can make use. I am glad my father's family should be remembered by you and those who read your book. Rev. M. P. Gaddis, of Dayton, wrote and published a memoir of brother George, which you will find with many Methodist families, and from which you could take- extracts, if you desired, touching church and other matters. I write with a crippled hand, and will crave your indulgence if you have trouble in reading.
Kenton, July 27, 1880.
Yours truly, M. B. WALKER.
Rev. George W. Walker was an elder brother of Gen. Walker. His home- was for many years in Salem Township. He was an able preacher of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and regarded as a good man. I append the fol- lowing from the "Cyclopedia of Methodism, by Bishop Simpson," which was kindly copied for my use by Gen. Walker's daughter :
George W. Walker was born in Frederick County, Md., November 26, 1804, and died at Del- aware, Ohio, July 31, 1856. His parents were members of the Roman Catholic Church, in which he received his religious training. In 1810, the family removed to Ohio, and his father, chiefly out of curiosity, purchased a Bible. In a short time, his mother united with the Methodist Episcopal Church, which held services in the neighborhood. The father was indignant, but a
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«compromise was made, in which it was agreed that the matter should rest for one month, during which he was to read the Bible and pray for direction, and if, at the end of the month, his op- position remained, the mother should leave the Methodists forever. In a few days, the father was converted, and also united with the church. The son was licensed to preach in 1825, and, in 1826, entered the Ohio Conference. He had a vigorous constitution, and did effective service until the close of his life. He spent two years of his ministry in Michigan, at a time when it was a field of great privation ; " but no swollen river, no dismal swamp or dangerous fen, could «daunt the lion heart that beat in the bosom of George Walker." He filled important appoint- ments in Cincinnati and Dayton ; was Presiding Elder of several districts, and was engaged in agencies connected with the Wesleyan Female College. When on the Hillsboro district, he was stricken with his fatal illness. For his wife's sake, he had a desire to live, but, when he saw the physicians hesitating, he said, " Speak candidly, gentlemen ; I am not afraid to die." As a preacher, he was both argumentative and declamatory. He had a sound understanding and a «clear judgment. His brethren showed their confidence in him by electing him several times in succession to the General Conference, and giving him other tokens of their regard.
One of the early settlers of Salem Township was Richard Stanhope, a Vir- ginian and a man of color. Sixty-five years ago Richard lived on the hill a little north of the late residence of Solomon Clark, deceased, about one mile morth of King's Creek, in sight of that creek and its beautiful valley. A short distance east of the spot where Richard then lived and on the brow of the hill, which inclines to the south, lie buried the moldering remains of a number of human beings, white, red and black, without a stone to mark the place of their earthly repose. A few short years, and the place where their ashes lie will pass from the memory of man.
Richard was a member of the Baptist Church, and was converted to that faith on the banks of the Potomac more than eighty years before his death. It is said he was one of the body-guard of Gen. Washington during the Revolutionary war. Richard lived to a great age, and died a few years ago at about one hun- dred and twelve years. He was a Baptist preacher, and was well known to many of the people of Champaign County sixty-five years ago. At that time he was in the prime of life, and, although comparatively an illiterate colored man, was one of the ablest preachers of his time. His comparisons and illustrations were mostly drawn from living nature as it then existed, and could be easily understood by the learned scholar or the unlettered plow-boy. Judge Edward L. Morgan, deceased, relates that he once heard him preach the funeral sermon of a young colored woman, at the graveyard before mentioned. After describing the punishment of the wicked in their place of torment in another world, he spoke of the happiness of the righteous in heaven, and when he came to describe that happy place, he pointed toward the beautiful valley which lay before us, then clothed with wild prairie flowers of every color and variety that was pleasing to the eye, from the "Rose of Sharon " to the humblest " Jump-up-Johnny," and said that to us was a beautiful sight, but only a faint resemblance of the country to be hereafter inherited by the righteous. The writer frequently saw
Richard Stanhope sixty years ago in his traveling round to dig wells. He dug a well for Garlant Wade on the farm where we now reside, and a well for William H. Baldwin, and for William Mayse, on the farm where Archibald R. Mayse now lives, and for John McAdams and many others. Richard was re- garded as a good well-digger and a good preacher. He was a very stout, hardy, heavy-set, chunky, fine-looking man. About the year 1856, Richard was on the stand at a Fourth of July celebration at Urbana, and was introduced to the audience by the orator as the venerable Richard Stanhope, the body-guard of Washington. Thomas Anderson was a noted well-digger in Salem Township at the same time Richard Stanhope was here. He was a soldier of the war of 1812; was not as steady a man as Richard; he would sometimes "drink too much and fight too much," vet with all had many good qualities, and was well
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
known in Champaign County, and was honored as an old soldier. He has no doubt long since gone the way of all the earth, but do not quite remember the manner of his death.
In writing these pages, we copy largely form the collection of the late Judge Edward L. Morgan, believing that his descendants will not object. Judge Morgan says, what is now the King's Creek Baptist Church, was organized, and twelve years later, in 1816, a log meeting-house, 26x20 feet, was built where the large Baptist meeting-house now stands. John Taylor, a Virginian, and not a member of any church, had previously given the society one acre of land for a burial-ground, and on which to build a meeting-house. The first grave made at King's Creek was the grave of Ann Turner, wife of James Turner. We have not yet learned where the first Methodist meeting was held in Salem Township, nor who preached the first Methodist sermon in that township, but believe the first Methodist society was formed at Mount Tabor about the year 1814. The late Archibald Hopkins, Esq., says: "The first religious meeting I attended here was held at Griffith Evan's house. About the year 1816, a small log meeting-house was built at Mount Tabor. The first camp-meeting was held at Mount Tabor in 1816, which was continued there a few years. Lorenzo Dow preached at Mount Tabor in 1826. The writer's home here was near the place where Simon Kenton was once tied on a wild colt by the Indians, with the ex- pectation that the colt would run through the plum thickets and soon tear him to pieces. Instead of that, the colt was as gentle as a lamb, and quietly followed the Indians without doing him any harm. Simon Kenton informs us that the Indians made a mound, yet standing in John Enoch's field, on which the Indian chief used to stand and see the white men run the gauntlet on the track in the prairie near by."
The first grave made at Mount Tabor, was for a daughter of Griffith Evans, buried about the year 1815. Among the first Methodist preachers in Salem Township were Samuel and Martin Hitt, Robert Casebolt and Joshua Inskip.
A religious meeting of the Society of Friends was held regularly at the cabins of the settlers in the year 1812-John Robinson's, Jacob Stratton's and Isaac Gray's houses-and one summer the meeting was held in Silas Williams' sugar camp. Mildred Ratliff, a lady minister, resident in North Carolina, was probably the first minister of the Society of Friends who preached in Salem
Township. In the fall of the year 1812, she held meetings at the houses of Jacob Stratton, John Robinson and Isaac Gray. She was an old acquaintance of Isaac Gray's family. When she was at Isaac Gray's house, in conversation with Aunt Lydia Gray, she said, "Lydia, we may not live to see it, yet in the order of Divine Providence, the slaves will be set free, and will probably have as much dominion over their former masters as their masters now have over them." This meeting was held near the northeasterly corner of Salem Town- ship, where Silas and Mary Williams settled, in the year 1813. Phineas Hunt settled here about the same year, and William H. Baldwin in 1814. Aaron L. Hunt and Enos Baldwin, with their families, settled at the same time on what was then called the " Round Prairie," about three miles south of where the vil- lage of Kennard now is. Probably in the year 1815, a small log meeting-house was built in this neighborhood, near the source of the North Fork of King's Creek, near by where a grave-yard now is, known as the " Old Friends' Grave- yard," where perhaps one hundred and fifty graves are made. The first grave made at this place was for John Williams, who died in the summer of 1815. He was the father of the late Nicholas Williams, of Logan County, and brother
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
of Hon. Micajah T. Williams, one of the first Canal Commissioners of Ohio, and long an honored resident of Cincinnati, who died about forty years ago, and brother to Hon. Jesse L. Williams, a distinguished civil engineer of Indiana, long a resident and active business man of Fort Wayne ; he is yet living, I be- lieve ; also uncle to Hon. Micajah T. Williams, now an eminent lawyer and a. Judge, in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Phineas Hunt and his sister, Mary Williams, fre- quently ministered and gave council at this meeting in early times. Thomas. Antrim was probably the first resident minister of the Society of Friends in Ohio, north of Waynesville. He was father of Joshua Antrim, the historian, and was an able preacher, and regarded by all as a good man. He spent much. of his time in traveling and preaching and doing good, without any pecuniary compensation. He settled in what is now Logan County, near where West Middleburg now is, in 1803. In the year 1815, he removed to Salem Town- ship and there spent six of the latter years of his life. He died in 1821. His moldering remains now lie in the cemetery near where he settled in 1803. Phineas Hunt was noted as a peace man ; he did not believe in using violence, even in self-defense-perhaps never met with a case where it would have done- any good. His armor was justice to all men and faith in God. Phineas Hunt was of large stature ; he was over six feet high, well proportioned, very muscu- lar, rather corpulent, and, at fifty-five or sixty years of age, walked erect. His appearance was venerable, noble and commanding. He was a native of North Carolina, and crossed the Ohio River from Virginia into the Northwestern Territory some years before the beginning of the eighteenth century. He lived in the Southern part of the now State of Ohio until 1812, consequently he lived a number of years in the vicinity of hostile Indians. In the year 1812, he removed to Champaign County, and lived a year or two near where Cable now is. He then removed to Salem Township, near the present line of Logan County, on a tract of land now owned by William Scott, where he lived until the year 1830, when he removed to Northern Indiana, near La Porte, and soon after removed to Logan County, Ohio, where he died in 1836. A pioneer friend thus writes of Phineas Hunt : "It was my privilege to spend. a few minutes with him and his wife in their very advanced age, not long before his close. It was among the sweet moments of my life. His countenance shone with brightness, while he declared the love and mercy of the Savior, and his confidence in Him. I thought they were both very near the Kingdom." William H. Baldwin and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Phineas Hunt, settled in Salem Township in 1815. William H. Baldwin's death occurred in 1855, and his wife's death occurred in 1878, she having resided in Salem Township sixty-three years, and in what is now the State of Ohio over eighty years. Dr. John D. Elbert, Sr., who died near Mount Moriah, in Logan County, Ohio, about fifty years ago, was the first resident physician in Salem Township. He settled on Dugan Prairie in 1811, and practiced medicine there a few years. Dr. Elbert was an eminent physician, very extensively known, and regarded as being one of the best of men. His daughter Catharine, in her life-time the wife of Rev. George W. Walker, thus speaks of her father :
" Beneath the moss-grown apple-tree A sacred spot we press'd, When we knelt in silence, by the grave, Where our sainted father rests. A pilgrim-angel, here below, He seemed to mortals given, Dispensing, 'mid earth's deepest woes, The healing balm of Heaven."
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
Dr. Elbert's wife, and son, Dr. John D. Elbert, Jr., are buried in Van Buren County, Iowa.
In August, 1818, the writer attended his first camp-meeting at Mount Tabor ; was then six years old and went with his father on second day, Mon- day morning. Was much interested to see so many wagons and tents around. The tents were mostly built of small logs, in the form of a three-faced cabin ; but many tents were stretched with linen . covers. Our attention was immedi- ately arrested with the exercises of the meeting. A large company was col- lected on and around the preacher's stand ; nearly all were standing on their feet, some on benches, some on chairs and some on the ground. It seemed that all were engaged, either in preaching, singing, praying, shouting, crying or laughing ; had never beheld such a scene. The jerks were then a common exercise at the Methodist meetings ; the young women were mostly affected in this way. Stout young women would be taken with the jerks, and it would seem they would be jerked to pieces ; their long hair would come down on their shoulders and become disheveled, and, in their jerking, would crack like a wagon whip ; and sometimes they would fall down, backward, or in any way, over the rough benches or logs and lay for hours in a state of apparent suspen- sion of life, and, after awhile, get up all well.
In a conversation with the late John Hunter, a few years since, he said that he had not known any of this remarkable exercise since the camp-meeting that was held at Mount Tabor in 1820. Some of the old Methodist friends remarked that Simon Kenton attended camp-meeting at Mount Tabor about this time and became so excited with the exercises of the meeting, that, without hat or coat, he ran through the woods at full speed toward the site of the present town of West Liberty, and probably made as good time as he did when the Indians were after him nearly on the same ground.
The Friends' meeting in Salem Township was frequently favored with the ministry of traveling ministers from a distance-some from Virginia, Pennsyl- vania, Eastern Ohio and other places, who came to visit the scattered little meetings in the wilderness, and on their journeys frequently had to camp out at night without shelter, and hobble their tired horses out to graze. Among those early ministers was Christopher Anthony, an eminent preacher among the Friends in Virginia. He was grandfather of Hon. Charles Anthony, late of Springfield, Ohio. About the year 1816, he held a meeting at Jacob Strat- ton's house, in Mingo Valley, and in the evening of the same day, in company with Thomas Antrim, held a meeting at the house of Matthew Stewart, Sr., on King's Creek. Some time previous to this date, a lady minister, aged about seventy years, traveled on horseback through the wilderness, from her home in North Carolina, camping out mostly at night, and wherever she could find a little settlement of her own society, or others who wished to have a meeting among them, she would have them collected together and preach to the lonely settlers the glad tidings of mercy and peace. This aged and devoted Christian seemed to be willing to bear any privation or face any difficulty to do the Master's will. In passing through the woods from a meeting held in " Mar- mon's Valley," to an appointment at Job Sharp's house, near the site of West Middleburg, the party was overtaken by a heavy rain, accompanied by much wind, thunder and lightning. Some of her companions proposed to halt and shelter under the trees as best they could ; she at once said "No, go on, go on ; we shall be too late to meeting." Her shield was faith in God. There were. many instances of equal devotion and energy among the early ministers and
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
members of the Society of Friends. They were remarkable for their zeal and perseverance in attending their religious meetings. They were seldom deterred by cold, rain, storm or high water in the streams, which were then generally unbridged. The writer has seen his father and mother start out in the rain, thunder and lightning on horseback and travel three miles to attend their meeting in a log cabin, when, perhaps, there were very few there besides them- selves. In August, 1819, I attended a camp meeting at Mount Tabor, and heard Revs. James B. Finley, Robert Miller and Martin Hitt preach to the Indians. A very large colored man named Jonathan Stuart acted as inter- preter. We well remember how closely he seemed to listen while the preacher spoke a few sentences ; he would then speak almost in a voice of thunder and interpret to the Indians, with many motions and gestures ; the Indians would then give a loud grunt, I suppose, of approbation. This Stuart was of the Baptist persuasion, and spent many years as a missionary among the Indians about Upper Sandusky, and, I suppose, did much good. About 4 o'clock in the evening, a prayer meeting was held for the Indians. I heard a number of them pray ; their prayers were not interpreted ; I do not know what they said. One old chief, I think it was " Between-the-logs," sometimes seemed to be at a loss for a word. He would frequently appear to make out a sentence with a long groan. A large number of Indians attended this meeting, mostly Wyan- dots, some Senecas and perhaps some of other tribes. They had a great many ponies and dogs with them.
On the 23d of August, 1880, on a visit to an aged friend, James Black, Esq., of Salem Township, the writer found the old man in his eighty-fourth year, weak and feeble in body and mind, but strong in honesty, honor and noble feeling. With the assistance of his obliging sons, John and James, he gave the follow- ing historical incidents. His father, Capt. Alexander Black, settled on Mad River, in Salem Township, in 1809. Judge McPherson, then an Indian trader, lived on what is now known as the Samuel Black farm. This point was first settled by a Frenchman named Deshicket, in 1794 ; he was probably the first resident white settler in what is now Champaign County. In the spring pre- ceding Wayne's decisive battle, August 20, 1794, Deshicket resided near the Greenville treaty ground.
He warned the Indians that they had better remove, if they remained where they were they would have trouble. The white woman named Molly Kiser, spoken of elsewhere in this work, resided at this place in the family of Judge Mc- Pherson, as a servant or help. Judge McPherson was grandfather or great-grand- father of Gen. McPherson, who was murdered by guerrillas during the war of the rebellion. Sometimes there were five hundred Indians or more camped around McPherson, on Mad River. At one time the whole company of Indians left for Detroit market with thirty horses loaded with furs. On such trips they would return loaded with goods and rum ; they would put two kegs of rum in a leathern sack and carry one keg on each side of the horse. Judge McPherson would send any number of Indians to help the white settlers raise their cabins, with strict orders that there should be no whisky on the ground. As long as there was a white man left to direct the Indians how to build the cabin they were good and faithful hands.
" Roundhead " was much of the time about McPherson's, and was a trouble- some Pottawatomie Chief. "Battecast" was also at McPherson's and along Mad River a considerable portion of the time. He had a remarkable nose; it covered his face and hung down over his chin.
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HISTORY OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY.
During the war of 1812, at the time when Fort Finley was besieged, Gov. Meigs, whose headquarters was at Urbana, visited Capt. Black one evening and requested him to raise his company and go immediately to the relief of Fort Finley. Capt. Black's company were almost immediately in motion, fol- lowing Hull's trace toward Fort Finley. In crossing the Scioto River, the Captain ordered his men to let their horses drink, and not stop to water them any more till they arrived at Fort Finley. The next stream to cross was Eagle Creek. There was a flank trace on each side of the main Hull trace, about two hundred yards from the latter. Capt. Black ordered his men to divide in two equal numbers and march along the flank traces, about ten feet apart, in single file. Before the company approached the crossing of Eagle Creek, they noticed the grass was much tramped down. The company moved quietly over Eagle Creek on the flank traces, and soon after learned that Battecast, with eight hundred Indians, was hid in the grass on each side of the creek, waiting for the company to stop at the creek, on the main trace, to water their horses, and then intending to exterminate the company in a few minutes. The adroit management of Capt. Black in marching his men on the flank traces saved the lives of his men.
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