USA > Ohio > Clinton County > The history of Clinton County, Ohio, containing a history of the county; its townships, cities, towns, etc.; general and local statistics; portraits of early settlers and prominent men; history of the Northwest territory, Volume 2 > Part 9
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107
Mr. Bonnet had thirteen children, four sons and nine daughters-Michael, " namod from his grandfather, Michael Hoblitt, was born December 20, 1789. Ho married Ann Dillon, a daugther of Josse Dillon, Sr. He went to Illinois about fifty years ago, and there died. Phebe, born December 4, 1791, married Elisha Doan, of Wilson's Branch. Her husband died June 22, 1848. She removed to Missouri in 1870. Mary was born April 16, 1793, and married Daniel Mills, of the Sabina neighborhood, in 1815. The husband died and the wife removed to Illinois. Catharine, born March 15, 1795, was married to Joseph Doan, Jr., September 23, 1813. He dying, she afterwards married Elkanah Jacks, of the Sabina neighborhood, May 17, 1829. Sarah, born April 1, 1797, married William Roberds. Nathaniel, born February 25, 1799, went to Illinois. Amy, born January 30, 1801, married James Fisher, May 8, 1818, and removed to Tazewell County, Ill. Margaret, born November 19, 1802, married Isaac Fisher. Keziah, born January 4, 1804, married Caleb Bright, October 20, 1825, and went to Tazewell County, Ill. Eunice, born February 7, 1809, married Isaac Fisher, January 24, 1828, Margaret, his first wife, having
546
HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
died. They removed to Illinois. Jemima, born November 3, 1811, married William Custis, March 4, 1833. Timothy, born April 19, 1813, married Eliza- beth Russell, August 10, 1831, and wont to Buroau County, Ill. All of Timo- thy Bennet's children are dead, as far as we have been able to learn.
With Mr. Bennet came John Hoblitt, his brother-in-law, who purchasod of him fifty acres, which was surveyed for Mr. Hoblitt by Nathan Linton, in Oc- tober, 1805.
George Haworth, grandfather of Goorgo D., Ezokiel, Elijah and others, all well-known citizens of the county, was the grandson of Goorge Haworth, who came to America with William Penn, from Lancanshiro, England, in 1699. Goorge's father, Jamos Haworth, was a nativo of Pennsylvania, but romoved to Frederick County, Va. The subject of our sketch was born in Bucks County, Penn., in 1748, but while still a boy removed with his parents to the neighbor- hood of Winchester, Va., where they lived upon the mountain range, called Applo Pio Ridge. Here he grew up to manhood and was married to Susannah Dillon, but the spirit of omigration having a strong hold upon him, he romoved with his young wife to North Carolina, settling on the Yadkin River, noar the home of Daniel Boone. After Boone had roturned from his wanderings in Kentucky, he gave such a glowing description of the lands of that country that Mr. Haworth was induced to join his party. On the 25th of September, 1771, they left their homes and made the first attempt evor mado to settle Kentucky.
The families of George Haworth and his brother James made two of the six families that accompanied Boone on that occasion. The party proceoded until they wore descending the Alleghanios, near Cumberland Mountain, when they were attacked with great fury by a scouting party of Indians and several of their number slain, among whom was Boone's oldest son. The party, how- ever, soon rallied from the confusion into which they were thrown, and the at- tack was repelled; but the party was so disheartened that they rotreated to Clinch River, forty miles in their roar. The Haworth brothers now roturned to North Carolina, and romainod thero about twelve years, when they again at- tompted to ontor Kentucky, but, finding the Indians still hostilo, turned their courso to Tennessee, and, in what is now Groon County in that State, George selected the place for his new homo. Ho thon returned to North Carolina, and, taking his two little sons, Mahlon and John, with him, wont back to Tennessoo, built a cabin and mado othor preparations for the reception of the other mombors of his family. When their work was dono, the father roturned to North Carolina for his wife, and othor children, leaving the two little boys, aged ten and twelve years, alono in the new home, with provisions onough, as he supposed, to last them during his absenco, which he expected would be of two or three weeks' duration. But high waters and other impediments to travel on pack- horses detainod them for six wooks. During the time, their provisions gave out, and the little boys were obliged to subsist on parched corn, roots and berries, such as they could gather in the woods .. Added to this trouble was the fear of an attack by the Indians, and when at last their parents arrived, the boys ran to meet them with outstretched arms, the mother sprang from her horse, clasped them in her arms and they all wept together for joy. Mr. Haworth's family continued to reside near Greenville, Tenn., until the year 1803, he being en- gaged as a merchant and cattle dealer, when they again left their home for a new one in the unopened forest. This time they came to Ohio, and, in the fall of 1803, made a settlement on Todd's Fork, on the farm known to the early residents of the county as the Stacey Bivan farm, not far from Centre Meeting-House. Mr. Haworth had bought 1,750 acres of land in William Duval's Survey, No. 523.
George Haworth is said to have been the second settler in what is now
-
547
UNION TOWNSHIP.
George daword:
Union Township, and one of the earliest in Clinton County. He opened a farm and built a grist-mill. His son James settled the farm long occupied by Eli Gaskill; Richard, the David Myers place, and John, the Morris farm. Goorge owned the John Haines place, while Samuel and Dillon lived at home with their father. A year later, his son Mahlon brought his family from Ten- nessee, and settled on the farin since owned by William Walker, on 'T'odd's Fork, two miles north of Wilmington, on the Dover road. Other sons opened other well-known farms in this part of the county until eight had homes of their own. Here George Haworth continued to roside until about 1825, whon several of his sons, having sold out their possessions in Ohio and removed to the State of Illinois, he also sold out and removed with his two youngest sons, Samuel and Dillon, to Quaker Point, near Georgetown, Vermilion Co., Ill., in order to be near his children. Georgetown was laid out by his son James Ha- worth, and called after his father's given name.
Mr. Haworth was a worthy member of the Society of Friends, and, in the latter years of his life a minister. About 1807 or 1808, he traveled on horse- back to Baltimore to attend the yearly meeting, as a representative from Miami Quarterly Meeting, then, as now, held at Waynesville. The late R. B. Harlan remembered hearing Nathan Linton say, when passing near Center Meeting- House, that the first time . he was on the ground there, engaged in surveying, old George Haworth was preaching. The date of this was 1804.
Nathan Linton was born in Bucks County, Penn., on the banks of the Delaware River, January 17, 1778, and, after a long and eminently useful life, died at his residence in Clinton County, February 11, 1858, in the eighty-first year of his age. He visited Ohio in 1801, and, on his return home, he per- suaded his father and family to emigrato. With his father, Samuel Linton and his family, he removed to Ohio in 1802, arriving in Waynesville the last day of May. On the 31st day of May, 1802, Robert Eachus, on his way up from Cincinnati to Waynesville, campod overnight at Daniel Antram's, be- twoon where Lebanon now is and Waynesville, on the ground which Samuel Linton had occupied the night before when emigrating to the West. Samuel was the fifth child of Benjamin and Jane (Cowgal) Linton, and was born in Bucks County, Penn., December 17, 1741; was reared a farmer, yet learned the trade of a weaver. He was married, May 10, 1775, to Elizabeth Harvey, born March 8, 1748, who became the mother of six children-Samuel, Nathan, David, Jane and Elizabeth (twins) and James. Mr. Linton was a widower when he came to Ohio, and his family consisted of three sons-Nathan, David and James, and two daughters-Elizabeth and Jane. They remained at Waynesville between two and three years, living while there in the field above - the brewery a year.
In the fall of 1803, Samuel Linton bought 500 acres of land from Daniel Murray, on Todd's Fork, in what is now Clinton County, paying for it $1. 75 per acre. In 1804, Nathan and David Linton raised a cropon this land, while their father looked after the land at Waynesville, and the family made prep- arations to move on to the Todd's Fork farm. While the family was thus di- vided, the sisters took turn about staying one with the brothers and the other at the home in Waynesville, changing frequently, as often as every week when possible. Early in 1805, the family all moved on to the Todd's Fork farm, of which Mr. Linton writes: "There are on my tract good springs of water, and above 100 acres of that sort of land that but little timber grows upon it, and what little there is is chiefly walnut and ash; the ground is much overrun with pea-vine and spice wood (sometimes called babywood). Such lands are too strong for wheat in their first culture, but excellent for corn, hemp, potatoes, pumpkins, tobacco, etc."
T
in
Cadi
1 الولد انشى للوزن
-
548
HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
Mr. Linton was a weaver and had a weaving shop in Waynesville. In a letter to Abol Saterthwaite, of Philadelphia, dated May 5, 1804, he says that ho has woven a number pieces of cloth, and made out bravely, but that his worst difficulty was an overrun of custom. In the samo letter, describing his possessions, he says: "We have four head of horses, young and old, and thir- teen head of cattle, young and old." March 12, 1808, he writes to the same Saterthwaite: "I have woven 2,400 yards of different kinds of cloth since I have been in this country." In the same letter, he says further: "I expect there will be near sixty acres of corn planted on my farm this coming spring, by tenants mostly, who work the ground to the share; there are thirty-five in- dividuals living on my farm-a great improvement in the space of three years." In 1810, he writes: "We have gathered in a plentiful harvest of wheat, rye and hay; our oats are not gathered in as yet. I expect there were more than ' 400 bushels of wheat and rye (mostly wheat) gathered in on our plantation the past harvest, and the fall crops are promising."
Jane Linton, daughter of Samuel, married Jesse Arnold. Elizabeth mar- ried John Saterthwaite, who came out from Bucks County, Penn., in 1809, and the following year opened a store in Waynesville. David Linton married Le- titia Silver, at Waynesville, in 1705, and occupied his father's property in that town, engaging in mercantile business with his father-in-law.
Nathan Linton and Rachel Smith were married January 31, 1806. She was the daughter of Seth Smith, then residing on Walnut Creek, Highland County, a brother of Jacob Smith, owner of Smith's mill, on Big Beaver, west of Xenia. Seth Smith lived at one time near the falls of Paint Creek, and, for some time on Walnut Creek, Highland County. The Smiths came to Ohio from Green County, Tenn. To Nathan and Rachel Linton twelve children were born, ten of whom grew up to maturity, and nine of whom, with his wife, survived him. The children were as follows: Elizabeth, Abi, Samuel, Seth, David, James, Mary, Nathan, Benjamin, Cyrus, Ruth and Jane. In 1807, he removed with his young bride into a log cabin, which stood upon the same ground occupied by his residence at the time of his death, and during all the remaining years of his life it continued to be the home of himself and family. During the summer of that year, while he was absent on a surveying expedition, a fearful tornado passed over his residence, unroofing the cabin and blowing large forest trees upon it, his wife, all alone, taking refuge un- der the puncheon floor and under the bed, seemingly the only place of shelter she could have found.
Nathan. Linton began his career as a surveyor in Clinton County in 1803. After Daniel Murray returned to Maryland, being an officer in the United States Navy, he was ordered on board ship to sail to the Mediterranean, to assist in avenging the wrongs done the United States ship Philadelphia by the Tripolitans. Soon after his return to the East, Nathan Linton received full power of attorney to sell the remaining lands in James Murray's patent. Nathan Linton did a great deal of surveying and piloting the claimants of land between the Miami and Scioto Rivers and their agents, to their lands. When the county was organized, in 1810, he was appointed County Surveyor, which office he held twenty years, when he declined re-appointment. During the years in which he held this office, he contributed much to the permanency of legal titles to the homes of the farmers of Clinton County. The accuracy and fidelity with which his duties were discharged, and the faithful record thereof which he made, cannot be too highly appreciated by the people of the county. He was a strong man, both in body and mind. He gave early and much at- tention to fruit culture, and to him in great part our county is indebted for her pre-eminence in fine wool and grafted fruit. He introduced the first fine wool
1
Henry Swingley
MR: ELIZABETH SWINGLEY.
553
UNION TOWNSHIP.
and fine sheep into Clinton County. He was a Friend in religious belief, as were also his ancestors in every generation from his great-grandfather, the co- temporary of William Penn and Georgo Fox.
Mr. Linton was a sincere believer in education, holding that girls, as well as boys, should be thoroughly instructed in arithmetic, a thing not very common in that day. Accordingly, when his daughter Elizabeth (now Mrs. Butterworth) was old enough to begin the study, ho gave her an arithmetic that he himself had used, and the old slate on which he had worked his sur- veying problems for years. Notwithstanding the jeers of the other pupils, that Elizabeth Linton wanted to be a man, etc., she began her work. One. day, having some examples on her slate which she wished to submit to her teacher, she went up to him to show the work. To her great mortification they were not correct, and an exultant laugh passed round the schoolroom. Doubly annoyed at her own mistake and the ridicule of the other pupils, she started for hor seat, and to hide her shame, held the slate up close before her face. In an unfortunate moment she stubbed her too and down she fell, breaking her father's highly prized old slate into many pieces. Mr. Linton's friend and cotemporary, Isaiah Morris, says of him: "In all his relations in life, both public and private, his character will stand the best of scrutiny. His life has been truly useful and beneficial to his family and friends and to the community."
Samuel-Linton, father of Nathan, seems to have been a man of unusual intelligence and information. His old letters, which have fortunately been preserved in the family, show him to have been an attentive reader, and to have had no small knowledge of the politics of his day, both in Europe and America. He was an ardent admirer of Thomas Jefferson and an enthusiastic defender of that great man's administration. His letters are of rare value to one interested in the early condition and growth of our own and Warren County.
Robort Eachus was the son of a Philadelphia inn-kooper of the same name, and Mary, his wife, whose maiden name was Mary Griffith. He was born in the city of Philadelphia on the 23d day of November, 1763. He was one of a family of six children-one daughter and five sons. The daughter was the eldest. Of the sons, two wore older and two younger than Robert. Mary Griffith was born May 4, 1733. The Griffith family seem to have been Bible readers. There is now in the possession of Mary Kirby, first child of the subject of this notice, named from her grandmother, a Bible, printed in London, in 1644, the gift of the grandmother to the grand-daughter. It had been in the Griffith family, doubtless, long prior to its coming into the hands of Mary Griffith, as it was eighty-nine years old when she was born.
The father of young Robert died while he was yet a lad, and shortly afterward he was sent a short distance into the country, it is thought, to be taken care of by some of his relatives. His mother continued the business of the house, but whether she kept her other children with her or not cannot now be ascertained. From the time Robert left the paternal mansion until about 1788, we have very scant accounts of him. Such occasional glimpses of him as are furnished by those who knew more or less of him in early life, very clearly indicate that at that early period, as well as later in life, he was a person of excellent habits and character. He had also acquired a knowledge of the trade of wagon-making, and had spent considerable time in working at the business.
In 1788, he was residing in Frederick County, Va., near Winchester, and, November 20, of that year, he married Phebe Thornburgh. Not long after that event, Mr. Eachus settled in Martinsburg, Berkeley Co., Va., and opened a shop for the manufacture of wagons. It is represented that he carried on
.
السـ
1
A
554
HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
the business extensively for that day, and with succoss. In 1794, Mr. Eachus made arrangements to visit the West, with the view of locating here, and, in company with another, came as far as Western Pennsylvania. Hore they found the people in the midst of the rebellion known as the "Whisky In- surrection," and such was the unreasoning madness of the insurgents that Mr. Eachus and his companion deemed it unsafe to prosecute their journey farther, and therefore returned home.
In 1798, Mr. Eachus emigrated to East Tennessoo, and settled in Wash- ington County near Jonesboro; he resided there nearly four years. In the spring of 1802, he commenced his long and weary journey to Ohio. That season of the year was chosen as affording better pasturage on the way for the horses and cattle. Their route was by the Cumberland Gap, Crab Orchard, Lexington, Ky., and Cincinnati, arriving at Waynesville, Warren County, then a noted stopping-place for omigrants, on the 1st day of June, 1802. On their way up from Cincinnati, they camped at Daniel Antram's, between where Lebanon now is and Waynesville, on the identical ground occupied by Samuel Linton (father of Nathan) and family as a camping-ground on the night before when emigrating to the West. He remained at Waynesville but a short time and then romoved to Clear Creek, Warren County, locating on a farm known in that day and for many years afterward, as the John Reppy farm, seven miles north of Lebanon. Here George Haworth, Sr., found him living, and stopped with him in 1803. The house left vacant by his removal from Waynes- ville was immediately occupied by Isaac Perkins and family, recently arrived from North Carolina, accompanied by Jacob Haines and James Moon. Por- kins, Haines and Moon were afterward his near neighbors on Todd's Fork.
In the fall of 1803, Daniel Murray, a son and agent of Dr. James Mur. ray, of Maryland, came to Ohio to make sale of parts, or the whole, of the many survoys of land in what is now Clinton County, which had been entered and surveyed in the name of Gon. Horatio Gatos, of Revolutionary memory, whose daughter and only hoir Jamos Murray had married. Ho found at. Waynesville a large number of omigrants who had come to the country desiring to purchase between the two Miamis. The greater number were from North and South Carolina, some from Virginia and a few from Pennsylvania. All were able to buy more or less land, and nearly all were members of the Society of Friends. Many of them had been at Waynesville over a year, doing little or nothing, waiting for the Miami lands to be opened for entry; and yet they were withheld from salo. Symmes' purchase of 1,000,000 acres of land in- cluded the lands most desired by these emigrants, but in consequence of his failure to make duo payments, much the larger part of his purchase reverted to the United States. Murray, finding these unsettled emigrants sick from hope long deferred, prevailed on many of them to visit his lands. They examined them and were well pleased with their general appearance. Murray offered to donate fifteen acres of land for a meeting-house for Friends. He offered to deduct liberally from the price of 160 acres which Mr. Eachus proposed to - buy, if he would erect a mill on his land. By these and other liberal offers, he succeeded in selling considerable quantities of land to Mr. Eachus and others, mostly in what is now known as the Centre neighborhood .. The deeds for these lands range in date from December 12 to December 19, 1803. In the fall of 1804, Robert Eachus removed to his purchase, situated in Survey 1,558. He had taken the precaution to have a house erected on his land before bringing his family to it. It has been satisfactorily ascertained that he took possession of his house on the 22d day of October, 1804.
A part of the consideration for the land was the building of a grist-mill on Todd's Fork, on part of the land. The mill was accordingly built, to which
-
555
UNION TOWNSHIP.
many of the early settlers contributed liberally in work and otherwise. How long the mill was kept up has not been definitely ascertained, but it has long since disappeared and no other has been erected in its stead. Vestiges of the dam and race are still traceable on the ground. His new residence was in Warren County (since Clinton); the house was made of hewed logs, and stood near the spot on which he afterward resided for many years, and where William Doan, his son-in-law, lived for many years subsequently. While his residence continued to be a part of Warren County, he was elected to the office of Justice of the Peace. The precise time has not been ascertained, but it is believed to have been in 1806, and that he continued a Justice in that county until Clin- ton County was erected and he was thrown into the new county.
After Clinton County was created, it was divided into three townships- Chester, Vernon and Richland. To each township three Justices were allowed. Mr. Eachus belonged in Chester Township. At the first election, he was one of the three elected. The other Justices elected were George Arnold and Will- , iam Haynes, the last named the father of Archibald Haynes, late County Com- missioner. This was in 1810. The first meeting of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas of the county was for a special purpose, on the 28th day of March, 1810. Present, Francis Dunlavy, President Judge, and Jesse Hughes and Thomas Hinkson, Associate Judges. On that day, among other things, Mr. Eachus was appointed Recorder for Clinton County.
Early after Mr. Eachus came to the neighborhood, the importance of a meeting-house and the establishment of a meeting became manifest. Accord- ingly, a meeting of men and women Friends was convened at the house of Mr. Eachus, which was selected because it was the largest in the neigbhorhood. In May, 1805, Miami Quarterly Meeting allowed the holding of the proposed meeting. Soon after, a house made of unhewn logs, without door or floor, was built, and meetings were held twice a week therein. This house is be- lieved to have been the first house of worship erected in what is now Clinton County. It stood whore Centre Mooting-House stands.
Robert Eachus and Phebe, his wife, had born to them three daughters and one son, who arrived at maturity. Mary, the oldest of the family, married Benjamin Kirby; she was many years a widow. Betsy was married in Clin- ton County to William Doan; the husband and wife are deceased; the wife has been dead many years. Julianna was married to John Leonard Perkins; she has been long deceased. David was born December 5, 1804; he resides in Greene Township, near New Antioch. Robert Eachus had a birth-right to membership in the Society of Friends, but during the Revolutionary war he showed more military spirit in behalf of his country than was consistent with his peaceable profession. For this he was dealt with by the society and dis- owned. He lived many years out of the pale of the church, but some years previous to his death he applied for restoration to membership and was accept- ed. He died in peace with all men, March 24, 1829.
In 1800, Mahlon Haworth, son of George Haworth, who settled on Todd's Fork in 1803, visited Ohio on a prospecting tour and prosecuted his explora- tion up the Little Miami and Mad Rivers, returning by way of Van Meter's. He seems to have been well pleased with the country, for, in 1804, we find him and his family, in company with John and James Wright and their families, making their way from their home in Tennessee to the then wilderness of Southern Ohio. They crossed the Ohio River at Cincinnati, then containing, it is said, but eighteen houses, came through Lebanon, then newly laid out, and in the streets of which were trees, stumps and brush-heaps, to Waynesville, the old stopping- place for a large proportion of the emigrants to this part of the country. This. . party of four families made the journey in four-horse wagons, driving behind
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.