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300 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES Esqr., Secretary, Cincinnati, Territory of the United States, North West of the River Ohio. Clermont County, June l0th, 1802. Sir—Agreeable to the Sixth Section of the Act entitled "An act to ascertain the number of free male inhabitants of the age of twenty-one in the Territory of the United States north west of the River Ohio, and to regulate the elections of representatives for the same," passed the 6th Dec., 1799 I do hereby certify that the aggregate amount of free male inhabitants of the age of twenty-one, within their respective townships of this county, are as follows, viz : Ohio Township - 91 Obannon Township - 99 Williamsburg Township - 124 Pleasant Township - 154 Washington Township - 185 Total amount - 653 Total amount, six hundred and fifty-three. Given under my hand and seal of the County afsd this date first above written. WM. LYTLE, Clk, C. C. When compared with William Perry's report on December 3, 1800, of "68o males above 16," Lytle's report, some eighteen months later, of "Total Amt 653," "of the age of twenty-one," does not show that the agitation for statehood had had any perceptible effect on the immigration, which was neither promoted nor retarded by the political aspirations of Massie and his colleagues, or by the waning of St. Clair's influence. Although the contention of the politicians had but little or doubtful effect on immigration, other sorts of persuasion were more effectual. The account of the young Mrs. Lytle's western life had such effect upon her father, John Stall, that he came from Philadelphia with his daughters, Frances and Mary G. While visiting at "Harmony Hill," an acquaintance with Arthur St. Clair, Jr., and Samuel W. Davis resulted in the marriage of young St. Clair with Frances Stall on January 30, 1802, before Esquire William Hunter, in the presence of Governor St. Clair and a fine company of notable guests. Not long after, Mary G. Stall was married to Davies, who, after CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 301 several years' residence in Williamsburg, went to a fine career in Cincinnati. These pleasant events must have had much attention in the cabins of the little town, but outside of the public records no trace of a memory of them existed in the county until the story was reviewed, after a hundred years, by hints from a distant source. Now, it is easy to imagine something of the courtship of those Philadelphia girls, as witnessed by the Old Stone Land Office, on the brow of the hill, where the young lawyer and the' young land dealer came to inspect the surveys, and to make some deeds and much love. And for ten years that stone office, as the housing place of the public records, was the center of the big old county of Clermont. The proclamation of the county and the appointment of the leading officers, practically concluded the constructive force of the Governor's waning power. The executive division of government went into action at once in Clermont and Fairfield counties and also in Belmont county, proclaimed September 7, 18o1. But as no provision for an election had been made for them by the first General Assembly of the Territory, the new counties were not represented in the second General Assembly, which met at Chillicothe, Monday, November 23, 1801. A resolution passed January 23, 1802, extended the election law to the new counties, and then by mutual consent the Governor and the hostile legislators stopped the contention about new counties. There was nothing more with sufficient population for a contention. But the first legislative election in Old Clermont was held under higher authority. In their opposition to St. Clair, Massie and Worthington found potent aid in the national government, that was controlled by the new anti-Federalist party, which then, and for some time to come, wrote all such names and terms with small letters. But while they did not write nation with a capital letter, they had capital designs. The lack of nearly one-third of the population required for statehood was only slight restraint for their vaunting ambition. They reasoned that the same power stipulating sixty thousand inhabitants for a State, could change the terms and be satisfied, if two much-desired United States Senators could thereby be obtained. Therefore, on April 30, 1801, approval was. 302 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES given to what has been called the Enabling Act, directing the creation of the State of Ohio. Much explanation has been made of the associate proceedings so peculiar that the date of the admission of Ohio as a State was not beyond controversy. [t is enough for this relation that an election was authorized to choose representatives to form a convention to form a constitution for the proposed State. That election was ordered to be held October 12, 1802, as fixed by the law of the Territory, with an apportionment of twelve representatives from the county of Hamilton, with this curious direction : Two of the twelve to be elected in what is now known by Clermont county, taken entirely from Hamilton county." The phrasing is curious, because the county is mentioned as something reputed rather than established. St. Clair's alleged usurpation in the formation of Clermont, Fairfield and Belmont counties was not forgotten, ignored or forgiven. Yet, it was good politics to plan for the sympathy of the six representatives from the three new counties and still retain the old grievance against him, who had dared to oppose their monopoly. The opposition organized by Massie, Worthington, Tiffin and Darlington, also included Michael Baldwin, a brilliant, dissolute sot, whose influence with the rabble was so masterful that he called such followers his "bloodhounds," without offense to those who did his bidding. During the first session of the second Territorial Legislature, because of a proposal to hold the next session at Cincinnati, against the proud aims of Chillicothe the "bloodhounds" made one night wild with noise. On the next, Christmas eve, 1801, lead by Baldwin, they gathered to burn the Governor's effigy in the street, by his lodging place, which was forcibly entered by some, who laid violent hands on one of the Legislators; while others called for St. Clair, who came with a pistol in each hand. The timely interposition of a magistrate stopped the riot. Worthington aided in quelling the mob with a threat of instant death to Baldwin. Axe investigation of the affair by the Legislature was finally brushed aside with the conclusion that "the promoters appeared to be actuated by intoxication." 'Lest some should believe that political purity is only a recent necessity, not known or needed in the first golden days of Ohio politics, it is proper to mention that the profligate Bald- CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 303 win, out of regard for such devotion to Chillicothe, or through the favor of the "bloodhounds," was elected a member of the convention to form the State Constitution, and a member of the first State House of Representatives, of which he was chosen the Speaker. There was no slack in the relentless purpose to drive St. Clair from the Territory. Ten charges against him were placed before President Jefferson. One was the abuse of the veto power, of which the bill for "Henry county" was a leading instance. One was the usurpation in the formation of counties, of which Clermont was the chief. A third was the appointment of his son to office and a fourth was the appointment of non-residents, both of which referred to the appointment of Arthur St. Clair, Jr., as the attorney for Clermont. Jefferson called St. Clair's attention to two of the charges in the most gentle terms, and instant compliance was given to the suggested changes. The rest of the charges were mere political claptrap for election use. The burden of the complaint centered in county affairs, on which the action taken had been for the many and not the few. While no further apparent notice was taken of the charges, an able, sincere, fearless but far from politic address to the Constitutional Convention on November 3, 1802, reviewing the peculiar action of Congress upon the admission of Ohio, was made the graceless cause of an order on November 22 for revoking his commission, which took effect December 14, 1802, only ten weeks before his term would have expired by law. The grossly indelicate insult has brought far more historic shame to the contrivers than to the brave old general, who went back to Ligonier, Pennsylvania, where his domain of thousands of acres, with mills and furnaces and tenements and mansion house, shrank to a double log cabin and a space that afforded food for the table and a pony, with a little surplus to sell to passing wagoners. Thus "one of the most striking instances of the mutations that chequer life" went along the decline, through all, a well educated, courteous, honest, gentlemanly man. While driving his pony over a rough road, in his eighty-fourth year, to bring some flour from what was once one of his mills, the sinking of a wheel into a deep rut threw the aged general of many battles to the ground, where he was found insensible and taken home to die on August 31, 1818. Thirty-nine years 304 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES afterward, in 1857, the political descendants of his opponents, still ruling, and in Congress assembled, made an appropriation to pay his heirs the money he had paid for Freedom's cause, not all, but in such measure as would have made the old patriot one of the proudest of men. And, in turn, this page records humble tribute from the Old Clermont that he organized, named and fostered with steady will and for a nobler purpose than he or any would have believed possible. The legal record of whatever happened between the mouth of the East Fork of the Little Miami and the mouth of Eagle Creek before 1801 belongs to Hamilton county, and was kept at Cincinnati. The first court houses there were rented rooms. The Territorial courts were held in Yeatman's Tavern, near the foot of Sycamore Street, and then at the tavern of George Avery, at the corner of Main and Fifth streets, until, in 18o2, the county built a two-story stone court house, forty-two feet front and fifty-five deep, with a yard front east on Main and north on Fifth streets. The jail, next west, faced on Fifth, with a yard in front that was ornamented with a pillory, stocks and whipping post in conspicuous positions. Nothing on record or in tradition has been found to show that any one was ever brought to bar in the house or to post in the yard from Old Clermont. It seems in fact, that attention to the settlements in the eastern part of the county of Hamilton was a matter of slow and slender growth in Cincinnati, where no names from what was to be Clermont are found in the jury or official lists, with the single exception of James Kain, as Supervisor of the road surveyed to Williamsburg by John Donnels in 1797. As a consequence, no litigation was inherited from the mother county, when the law came to take its course in Clermont. Everything appears to have been in condition for man to begin where nature could do no more. After the proclamation of Clermont county on December 6, 1800, and the delivery of commissions to the officers, the next signal performance under that authority was the meeting of the first Court of Quarter Sessions for the county, which had been proclaimed to assemble on the fourth Tuesday, February 24, 1801, in Williamsburg. For this purpose, Owen Todd came from Paxton's neighborhood, near the mouth of the O'Bannon, Philip Gatch, from the Forks of the Miami ; Wil- CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 305 liam Buchanan, from Indian Creek ; Amos Ellis and Robert Higgins, from the Ohio, on the eastern part ; Jasper Shotwell, from Clover Creek, and William Hunter, from north of Williamsburg. They met in a tavern kept by Thomas Morris and entered into a contract with him for a room, to be warmed, lighted, and furnished with seats and table for their court, for sessions of not over three days each, four times a year, for four years, for a total of eighty dollars. In other words, Morris was to have five dollars each for sixteen sessions. He also doubtless expected to gain much prestige through the court at his house. No suits were brought before the court. But there were other things to do of which the most important was the formation of townships. The location of the early townships is a puzzling topic for accurate description. At first the sub-divisions of the counties were directed by the Court of Quarter Sessions. Later on, such authority was shared with the commissioners, until the law of February 16, 181o, gave the commissioners exclusive jurisdiction over the form of townships. The accounts, scattered through the records of various boards, and soon superseded by later divisions and often by new names, were considered unimportant. If found at all, the descriptions, through the obliteration of old names, are difficult to understand, and, except to the very curious, the subject is not worth the trouble of the search. The first division into townships within the limits of Brown and Clermont was made at a general Court of Quarter Sessions in Cincinnati, in 1793, when the people at Gerard's Station and Mercersburg or Newtown were granted the name of Anderson township, eastward from between the mouth of the Little Miami and the mouth of its East Fork. In the same year, upon a petition presented by Nathaniel Massie, Iron Ridge township was constituted eastward from the mouth of Eagle Creek to include the settlements about Manchester, which all went into Adams county in 1797, and then mostly reappeared under other names upon the formation of Brown county. At the last Quarter Session in 1799, about one year before the proclamation of Clermont county, a division of Anderson township that had come to include all of Old Clermont, brought Washington township into notice, with an assessment of 306 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES $339.61, under Constable William Laycock, a name then familiar on the Ohio. The other division of Anderson township was entered as Deerfield township, with an assessment of $371.74, under Constable William Sears,.a very old name in Warren county. No boundaries of these townships have been found, but the conclusion is safe that Washington township extended along the Ohio eastward from some forgotten line of Anderson township to the mouth of Eagle Creek, and that Deerfield township included the region of western Warren and northern Clermont counties. But soon, and probably before this arrangement had become effective, the new authorities of Clermont, on the second day of their first session, February 25, 1801, divided their county into five townships, named : O'Bannon, Ohio, Williamsburg, Washington and Pleasant. The boundaries were either not recorded or were lost, but the names of the fourteen officials appointed for each township indicate the settlements provided for, and the boundaries noted in subsequent townships give a fairly approximate idea of the original limits. O'Bannon, changed in the next year to Miami township, extended eastward on the north side, and far enough south to include the Allison plantation, above the mouth of Stonelick. The official list was Owen Todd and Philip Gatch, Justices of the Peace ; Constable, John Pollock ; Tax Lister, John Ramsey ; House Appraisers, Theophilus Simonton and William Robinson ; Supervisors of Roads, Ambrose Ransom and Peter Wilson ; Auditors of Supervisors' Accounts, Thomas Paxton, Francis McCormick and William Simonton ; Overseers of the Poor. Samuel Robinson and Theophilus Simonton ; Fence Viewers, Francis McCormick, Theophilus Simonton and Samuel Robinson. Thus sixteen offices were given to twelve men, all of them quite near the Miami. At the first election of which a record has been found, that of October 11, 1803, thirty-five votes were cast ; but at the next election, April 2, 1804, forty-eight voters were present. At the Presidential election, November 3, 1804, thirty-two votes were cast for President Jefferson, who had no opposition in the county. Ohio township, on the south side of the East Fork, extended eastward from its mouth to include the settlements that marked the beginning of Batavia, Bantam, and New Rich- CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 307 mond. The official list was : Constable and Tax Lister, John Hunter ; House Appraiser, Archibald Gray ; Supervisors of Roads, Ezekiel Dimmitt and John Fagin ; Auditor of Supervisor's Accounts, John Hunter, Archibald Gray and William Whitaker ; Overseers c f the Poor, Ezekiel Dimmitt and Isaac Ferguson; Fence Viewers, John Donham, Jacob Light and John Vaneton. Fourteen offices were given to nine men. The vote at the first election that has been preserved, that of April 2, 1804, was thirty-seven. The poll book for the congressional election, on October 9, 1804, contains only twenty-six names, nearly all of whom have been mentioned. But not one came from the Hamilton county side. The vote for President in 1804 is not on record. As the central township, bounded on the north by O'Bannon, or Miami ; on the west by the Ohio, on the south and southeast by Washington and Pleasant townships, Williamsburg had the most uncertain boundary of all the five. It included the settlements near what is Marathon, and thence southward beyond Bethel, and much of what is the adjacent row of townships in Brown county. But it did not include the Allisons at the mouth of Stonelick, nor Ezekiel Dimmitt, by Batavia ; nor Jacob Ulrey, in what is Monroe township. The official list was : .justices of the Peace, William Hunter and Jasper Shotwell ; Constables, Daniel Kain and Jeremiah Beck ; House Appraisers, Thomas Morris and John Charles ; Supervisors of Roads, James South and John Kain ; Auditors of Supervisor's Accounts, Jonathan Hunt, Henry Willis and Samuel Brown ; Overseers of the Poor, Samuel Nelson and Samuel Brown ; Fence Viewers, Samuel Nelson, Archibald McLean and Ramoth Bunton. Sixteen offices were given to fourteen men. On April 2, 1804, at the first election of which returns have been kept, two hundred and sixty-four votes for three commissioners were divided among eight candidates by the eighty-eight voters present. But at the State election, on October 9, 1804, only seventy voters were present. Among these were four of the Wardlows, from the New Hope settlement. Only forty-two votes were cast for President Jefferson. The names are familiar with few exceptions, after writing the preceding pages, and most of those exceptions are soon to be noted. The same may be said of every authentic list of names of that time yet seen. 308 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES Washington township was east of the people about Twelve Mile, and included the settlements on Indian Creek and Bull-skin, but did not reach to the Higgins neighborhood on the Ohio. The official list was : Justice of the Peace, William Buchanan ; Constables, Joshua Manning and James McKinney; Tax Lister, Thomas Fee ; House Appraisers, John Abraham and Joseph Utter ; Supervisors of Roads, William Carothers and James Buchanan ; Auditors of Supervisor's Accounts, John Wood, William Fee and James Sargent; Fence Viewers, Alexander Buchanan, James Clark and John Wood ; Overseers of the Poor, Henry Newkirk and John Sargent. Sixteen offices were given to fifteen men. The first poll book preserved in the county is for the election held June 21, 1803, in Washington township, and contains the names of one hundred and eight voters. So little interest was taken in the election of President Jefferson without opposition in 1804, that Washington, the most populous township in the county, gave him only twenty-eight votes. Pleasant township included the settlements on White Oak, south of New Hope, and eastward to the old Adams county line. The official list was : Justices of the Peace, Amos Ellis and Robert Higgins ; Constable, Archibald Hill ; Tax Lister, William Higgins ; House Appraisers, Samuel Ellis and Walter Wall ; Supervisors of Roads, Archibald Sills and Richard Hewitt; Auditors of Supervisor's Accounts, Walter Wall, Robert Curry and Samuel. Ellis ; Overseers of the Poor, Alexander Hill and Robert Lucas ; Fence Viewers, Alexander Hill, James Henry and John Liggitt. Sixteen offices were given to thirteen men. On April 2, 18o4, sixty-one votes were counted, and on October 9, 1804, seventy-three voters were returned from Pleasant, which then had very much the larger part of the population in the settlements that were taken from Clermont to form Brown county. After the five townships had been instituted that first Court of Quarter Sessions appointed a board of three commissioners for the county, viz : Amos Ellis, from three miles north of where Ripley was to grow ; Amos Smith, who lived midway on the road from Williamsburg to Bethel, and John Wood, who lived on Indian Creek. A grand jury was impannelled by Sheriff William Perry, viz : Amos Smith, John Charles, John CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 309 Trout, Josiah Boothby, Henry Willis, Samuel Brown, Joshua Lambert, Jonathan Clark, John Kahl, John Cotterall, John Anderson, Samuel Nelson, Benjamin Frazee, John Colthar, Kelly Burke, Harmon Pearson, Ebenezer Osborne, and Absalom Day. Fortunately, the jury had nothing to do. John O'Bannon, not the noted first surveyor, was licensed to keep a ferry just below the mouth of Bullskin. Josephus Waters was also licensed to keep a ferry at points now called Levanna and Dover, but then known as his house and Lee's ,Creek Station, whence the horses were stolen that led to the battle of Grassy Run, in Mara, 1792, between Kenton's Kentuckians and Tecumseh's Shawnees. On Tuesday, May 26, 1801, the second Quarter Session Court met at the court house, to-wit., a room in Thomas Morris's row of log cabins. Justices present : Todd, presiding; Buchanan, W. Hunter, Higgins, Shotwell, and Ellis, of the first court, and Peter Light, from midway to Bethel ; Houghton Clarke, of Bethel, and Alexander Martin, from Pleasant township. The grand jury : Ephraim McAdams, foreman ; Josephus Waters, John Vaneaton, Nicholas Sinks, Adam Bricker, Robert Dickey, John Shotwell, John Colther, Obed Denham, Archibald McLean, Moses Leonard, Adam Snider and Ramoth Bunton, reported no cause requiring action. But such happy conditions did not last, for, on the second day the first indictment found in Old Clermont was presented against John Evans for s lling liquor without legal protection. But on strict search, i was found that the law, or the lack of law, did not fit the se, and so the affair went no farther. The curiosity of some however, will be inclined to point a moral with the fact that the first prosecution, like the most of those to follow, was a liquor case. Nineteen dollars and eight cents was paid for a stray-pen and Sheriff Perry was allowed one dollar per month as the keeper. A bounty of two dollars was generally offered for the scalps of grown wolves, and one dollar each for those under six months old ; and so there was much sport for them of that time. The next and great topic was the opening of roads. Character is learned from the use that is made of power and the spirit of an age is determined by the use made of money. With the guidance of such reflection, the first expenditures of 310 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES those pioneers becomes a study of a condition that needs at least a passing explanation for younger readers, whose environments make the life of those early days appear incredible. The text that there were giants in those days is hardly farther from current sympathy than the hunting stories of our own early wild woods, of which it is well to have conclusive record. Notwithstanding the destruction of wild life by the early hunters, under the stimulus of the fur trade, many wolves were yet to be brought to law for their depredations after the formation of the county. With many bloodthirsty prowlers roaming the woods, security for stock raising was a matter of ceaseless vigilance. The ravage of their flocks was a public menace, but, as the price was promptly paid, the pens and folds were safer and the slumbers of the settlers were less disturbed by the howling in the hills and the panther's curdling shrieking. But it was some years before the packs entirely ceased to come out of the great woods to the north. Until then, the nights were not quite safe from gaunt goblins whose sudden dashes made even the brave pioneer boys thrill and creep. As the heart goes with the treasure, no other proof of human interest is so infallible as the financial test. Those people gave of their scanty treasure for what to them was most needful. From the little that can be found about that expenditure, we learn that their great desire was a stable course of justice, the extirpation of ferocious animals, and the convenience of highways. For that, the chief public effort of the time was given. When a lodgement for refinement is made in a vast wilderness, and savagery is driven to bay, the first duty of a community in proving its fitness to live is the provision of roads, for, without easy lines of travel, trade and pleasure alike are hindered and languish. As told in previous pages, but mentioned again to bring the progress of roads into one view, a road had been laid in 1796, thirty-two miles up the Ohio from the mouth of the Little Miami, by Ichabod Miller, assisted by John Whetsone and Ignatius Ross, in order to bring the up-river settlements into better convenience with Columbia and Cincinnati. In 1797, a road had been laid from Newtown to Williamsburg by John Donnells, assisted by Daniel Kain and Robert McKinney. CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 311 Then Donnells, "accompanied by Robert McKinney, one of the Cotterals, and one of the Bookovers," marked a road from Williamsburg to "Chillicothia. All that was done under the authority of Hamilton county, by which no more roads were laid out eastward beyond the mouth of the East Fork. This does not mean that no other ways were used. Other traces were freely traveled, except that such paths were liable to be fenced in by an owner, which was happening elsewhere and afterwards. Early action was taken to anticipate such inconvenience. John Boucle, with the assistance of Joseph Clark, William Carothers and John Kain, was ordered to lay out a road from his ferry across the Ohio at Augusta to Williamsburg, of which Roger W. Waring was the surveyor. This road left the Ohio by climbing the hills through the southwestern corner of Lewis township, but another and smoother way went down by the mouth of Bullskin, where William Fee petitioned that a bridge should be built. The request was refused for financial reasons. Yet no doubt the most travel avoided the hills when the ford was possible. That was the first of much subsequent talk about 'bridges. Francis McCormick, Philip Gatch, Ambrose Ranson and Charles Redman asked that a road be established from Broad Ford (Milford) to Williamsburg, for which Elisha Hopkins, John Pollock, Jr., and John Kain were appointed to assist Roger W. Waring as surveyor. William Lytle. Obed Denham and Houton Clarke, asked that the toad from Denhamstown be established, for which Captain Daniel Feagans, Thomas Barnes and Jeremiah Light were appointed to assist Peter Light as surveyor. The three roads, from Boude's Ferry, from Broad Ford and from Denhamstown, constituted the once noted Boude's Ferry and Round Bottom Road. As an obvious necessity, Jacob Ulrey, Moses Wood and Asbel Gray were appointed to assist William Perry as surveyor in locating a road from the mouth of Twelve Mile on the Ohio to Williamsburg. In answer to the petition of Josephus Waters for a road from his ferry (Levanna) to Williamsburg, Captain Daniel Feagans, Fielding Feagans (his son), and John Kain were appointed to assist Waters, who was a surveyor, in locating a way of much importance to the settlers by Eagle Creek, Bed Oak, Straight Creek and upper 312 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES White Oak, who were called to the county seat. As might have been expected, and as was proper, the road was laid, to go by the Feagan's settlement at Georgetown, by the influential Walter Walls, to the middle of the east side of Clark township, to the common western corner of Clark and Pike townships and near the tract of four hundred acres in Pike that James Kain had got for clearing eighty acres of Lytle's Harmony Hill plantation, and thence to the intersection with the Bethel and Williamsburg road, long known as the "Boot Jack." That way was also long known as the "Waters Road," but very few at this time know the name or significance. And then came the first pioneer mill builder, Peter Wilson, with a petition for a road from his mill on O'Bannon Creek, which he built there next, after finishing Lytle's mill in 1797-8. The site, among the rugged hills of the O'Bannon, in the southwest corner of Goshen township, may be, given as a striking example of how far some of the pioneers were from picking the winning places. But it seemed different then, with the Paxton settlements close by, and the little mill, in its time IN as a great convenience for all that part of Clermont and Warren counties that is about Loveland. The road from Wilson's Mill to Williamsburg in 18m, which merged into the Round Bottom road, with a trace from Deerfield and Lebanon, was by the house and first blacksmith shop, built by Conrad Harsh in the next year. Peter Wilson's petition obtained such respect that Robert Dickey, William Perry, John Ramsey and Owen Todd were appointed to assist Surveyor Waring in locating the road. An outline of these roads on a map of Brown and Clermont counties will show that the settlements of that day could not have been better accommodated with the same amount of mileage. Very few cabins were more than five miles from a road. As the permits granted by Hamilton county expired, the renewal was granted by the authority of the new county, regardless of the objections made by Massie's faction. Thomas Morris paid eight dollars for the first tavern license granted in Old Clermont. The main room in his middle building was engaged for a jail, if needed, which must have been deemed probable, for Sheriff Perry was .ordered to get two pairs of handcuffs, a lock, hasp and staple. After three busy days the court adjourned. CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 313 On Monday, June 22, 1801, Justices Owen Todd, Jasper Shotwell, Peter Light and William Hunter met, and, after considering the fees for ferries, adjourned. On Tuesday, August 25, 1801, Justices Jasper Shotwell, William Buchanan, William Hunter, Robert Higgins, Peter Light, Philip Gatch, Amos Ellis and Houton Clarke, met in quarter session and were presented with an indictment against Andrew Cotteral for an assault upon James Kain, which argues well for the self restraint of his stalwart sons, Daniel, John and Thomas. The indictment was presented by the following grand jurors : John Boude, foreman, Daniel Colglazer, Ezekiel Dimmitt, John Gaskins, Joseph Lakin, James Buchanan, William Dixson, John Abrahams, John Ramsey, Silas Hutchinson, Samuel Bodine, John Mitchell and Joseph Clark. The reports on the roads were all favorably considered, but remonstrance was made against the Boucle's Ferry report and also against the Stepstone road, or the one from the mouth of Twelve Mile, which were thereby postponed. The first Common Pleas Court having no business to perform, merely met and adjourned February 25, 1801. When met for the May term, on May 26, 1801, Jacob Burnet, attorney for David Zeigler (both noted in Cincinnati history) obtained a judgment for one hundred and twenty-nine dollars and sixty-two cents. That was the first judgment taken in the county. But at the August term for 1801, two notable judgments were taken. One was tried before the first petit jury in the county. The names of that jury pre-eminent over all the others, were: John Donham, Charles Baum, John Trout, Joseph Gest, John Charles, Jacob Ulrey, Ichabod Willis, John Gest, Samuel Nelson, Nicholas Sinks, William Simonds and James Woods. Jacob Burnet, attorney for the plaintiff, obtained a verdict of one hundred and one dollars and sixteen cents, with twenty-one dollars and two and one-half cents costs. In the next suit, Burnet, as attorney for David Blew, without a jury, took judgment against Thomas Morris on a debt dated August 2, 1800, to the amount of seventy-two dollars and seventy-nine cents, with fifteen dollars and thirty-three and one-half cents costs, making a total of eighty-eight dollars and twelve and one-half cents. One horse and one cow levied upon, not being sufficient to pay the judgment, 314 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES the sheriff was ordered to take and safely keep the body of the said Morris, that is, to put him in prison. On May 26. 1802, Blew, still unpaid, disgraced his name as long as his act shall be remembered, by having a writ issued, under the barbarous law of that age, to put Morris in jail. The documents set forth that this was thine July 21, 1802. But the incident was closed in the August term next following. That Morris suffered more chagrin than inconvenience is probable, for the law provided that a debtor should have a limit of eighty rods and the jail was under his own roof. According to the record, his body was taken, but there is nothing to show that the "lock, hasp and staple" (for which and for some nails, John Kain drew seventeen dollars), were ever used for the actual imprisonment of Thomas Morris. It is altogether probable that the restraint put upon his proud spirit was technical. The word proud is chosen because the accounts of those who saw him at home, concur in saying that he was "proud, and handsome as a prince." A feature of the story easily verified by State and National records, but never before mentioned to my knowledge, is the strangely remarkable parallel between Morris and the opposing attorney, Burnett. Both became members of the General Assembly of Ohio at the same time, Burnett in the House and Morris in the Senate. Both became Judges of the Supreme Court of Ohio. Both became members of the United States Senate in days made classic by the eloquence of Clay and Webster. Burnett attained great wealth and left a name without which the history of Cincinnati cannot be written. But Morris achieved a distinction for his name without which no truthful story of the downfall of slavery in American can be told. The trouble grew out of a promise in August, 1800, to pay sixty-five dollars' worth of good wheat at the Round Bottom Mill, by Covalt's, then become the property of Rev. John Smith. merchant, and Representative and soon to become the .third United States Senator involved in the transaction. No cause is told for the failure to pay. Wheat may not have been good that year. Or, more likely, the row of cabins for the tavern and court house required overmuch preparation and furnishings for the many to be fed and lodged. We are to believe that the tall, adventuring, efficient boy was much CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 315 liked by John Smith, who had no superior in the Territory in ox-driving, log-rolling, horse racing or lifting with a handspike. With superb mental powers, he was a successful merchant, an adroit politician, a popular legislator and an able preacher. He ranked with the first statesmen of his day, and, but for the blighting spell of Aaron Burr, he might have left a fine renown. Smith was frequent and warm in his praise of the poetry that the youthful Morris attempted, and had the good sense to destroy. But such attempts exercised him in expression and trained him to a command of language not learned in a mere attendance in schools. With such a background, the young tavern keeper, with a wife and baby boy, that was to become a member of Congress, watched the courts and studied law. No one knew the things to be. So he was made the victim of the debtor's law, which he was destined to oppose and efface. In tracing the steps to the heights reached by Thomas Morris, sympathy is prone to declare the incident of his trial and imprisonment by that cabined court to be one of the most dramatic scenes in the judicial history of Old Clermont. Most people then, and through his life, regarded the affair in a jocular light, but there is evidence that the memory was deeply unpleasant. His speech urging the repeal of the odious law for imprisonment for debt is full of a far-reaching philosophy, that must have originated from his personal reflections, and should be carefully studied by those who think that punishment will correct the results of misfortune. Through thirty years of legislative life, from the lower house of the State to the highest hall of the Nation, his voice in both votes and debates was full of eloquence for a humane recognition and cultivation of a higher moth e than fear in the performance of duty. In a full, deep and noble sense, Thomas Morris grew to be a, if not the, leading philanthropist of his time and country. Other captains in the march of reform merely marked time for majorities that must be heeded, or fought as soldiers of fortune in a forlorn hope against arrogant odds. His lot was not to serve, but to lead, a halting constituency. When that constituency wavered and denounced his leadership, Morris consulted his conscience and accepted the nomination for Vice-President with that of James G. Birney for President, 316 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES on the Free Soil ticket. In 1844, when James K. Polk was elected President, that ticket received sixty-two thousand two hundred and sixty-three votes. The mission of the "Prisoner for Debt" was done. A month later, Saturday, December 7, 1844, Thomas Morris died suddenly of apoplexy. Amid the execrations of many and to the amazement of all, he finished his work in the United States Senate by the first speech of the kind ever heard by that august body. In that startling speech he said : "In my infant years I learned to hate slavery ." The reasons for that hatred have never been more clearly stated than in that "Farewell Address," of which the last sentence was : "That all may be safe, I conclude that the negro will yet be set free." After that prophecy, on February 9, 1839, there was no backward step in the coming revolution. In the fourth presidential election succeeding that in which Morris was not elected, yet reserved for triumphant vindication, Abraham Lincoln was victorious, and the negro was set free. No other seemingly improbable human prediction has ever been so wonderfully and magnificently fulfilled. No claim is made or intended that his philanthropy was incited by or sprang from the unfortunate imprisonment. It is easier and better to believe that his splendid mentality and noble purpose were a special endowment that came into action when needed. But a lack of sympathy must have taught him to pity others. Something has been told of his determined study of law amid the difficult life in a log cabin by the light from hickory bark or by the glare from brick kilns, that he burnt for a living. Everybody lived in cabins then, for no other house could be had, except by the very few. The light from blazing hickory hark filling a whole room with an, indescribable cheer, is an impossible luxury now not to be imagined by those accustomed to stoves, furnaces, or rayless radiators. The story of studying law in a brickyard in Williamsburg in 1802 was not to be accepted by one who knew that the first brick house between O'Bannon and Eagle creeks was built in 1807, and afterwards made famous as the girlhood home of General Grant's mother. Yet the statement was plainly placed in his biography by his son, Rev. B. F. Morris, that his father, the Senator, often read Blackstone from the light of a brick kiln in Williamsburg. But what had been CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 317 done with such quantities of brick—something not easily de- stroyed or hidden? At last the verities of tradition were established by ocular inspection, and an answer found for the puzzling question. The accounts kept by General Lytle show that John Charles was employed in 1802 to build and finish the full two-story part of the Lytle home on "Harmony Hill," which is filled between the frame work with brick. The large old-fashioned fire places are made of brick. The square stone dairy was built in the same year by the wonderful well dug somewhat earlier. Wonderful to those who came to the Land Office, because in those days homes were located by springs, and deep wells were rare. In the same year Morris built the two-story frame house in with the row of cabins, and furnished it with brick chimneys. That house, still standing, is a strange proof of the resourceful nature of the young man who, while a prisoner for debt, made his tavern, next to Lytle's home, the most pretentious house between Chillicothe and the Little Miami River. The brick used on Harmony Hill, and the lumber from 'Lytle's Mill in the Morris Tavern imply dealings between the owners and suggest that the prosperous Prothonotary, who was reputed to be a shrewd judge of affairs, was quick to see the mutually helpful relations between his saw mill and a brick kiln. All that being plain, the conclusion seems probable that an energetic brick maker was deemed better for the growth of the community than an idle prisoner. The Lytle Home on Harmony Hill and the Morris Tavern at the head of the valley below, after a hundred and ten years,, still stand, to show the two far best houses of their time in Old Clermont. In fact, there was, in 1802, but one more frame house that of John Lytle and his mother—in all the old. county. But more were soon to come, and were located on the hill part of Main street, in a form which shows that the early travel between Cincinnati and Chillicothe was expected to go by Broad Ford and Round Bottom, and not over the hill road by Newtown. After the Morris trial, more memorable now than seemed possible at the time, there is little, perhaps nothing, in the court records that is more than the common place of rural neighborhoods, until crime came, and that certainly deserves 318 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES no remembrance, when so much that was worthy must be left untold. The cost of law was much cheaper then than now. A juror received fifteen cents for each case. Thus, a petit jury of twelve men could be paid with the price of a wolf scalp and have twenty cents left. But grand jurors were paid fifty cents a day and three cents mileage. The sheriff was entitled to the same mileage, but a witness could have no more than thirty cents a day. Land was listed in three grades for taxation. The first was taxed eighty-five cents, the second, sixty cents, and the third rate, twenty-five cents, for each hundred acres. But all this low priced scale was subject to a change, soon to begin, and always upward. On November 24, 1801, the court of quarter sessions accepted the new jail, provided the corners were sawed down square, which is a certain sign that it was a log affair, like the rest of the row. On February 23, 1802, the commission of Robert Higgins as probate judge was read—the first in the county. As the fourth Tuesday, March 23, the time fixed by territorial law for the election of township officers, was only four weeks away, the court prepared for the first election ever held in the county. The constables were served with writs directing them to hold elections : At the court house in Williamsburg township; at the house of Nathaniel Donham in O'Bannon township ; at the house of Isaac Vaneaton (by Tabasco) in Ohio township ; at the house of Joseph McKibben in Washington township ; and at the house of Walter Wall in Pleasant township. John Boude was licensed to keep a ferry from his house on the Ohio. At the session on May 25, 1802, the boundary of Washington was made to run from the mouth of Big Indian Creek six miles in a direct line toward the mouth of Cloverlick Creek on the East Fork. The point reached is now nearly witnessed by Nicholsville. Thence the line ran to the road crossing on the main branch of Big Indian Creek about midway between Bethel and Felicity, thence due east to White Oak Creek on a line perpetuated in the north line of Lewis township. From that, the line was down White Oak and the Ohio to the mouth of Big Indian Creek. With Washington, the central township, thus clearly marked, the other four primary divisions of Old Clermont can be better understood. Before adjourning, CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 319 Peter Light, Jasper Shotwell and John Charles were appointed to report a plan for a new court house. But at the next ses sion, August 24, 1802. the proposed court house was postponed until subscriptions for that purpose .could be taken. Thomas Morris renewed the license for his tavern by the payment of eight dollars. On payment of four dollars Robert Townsley was licensed to keep a tavern at the foot of the hill, about a mile below what is Batavia, on the road to Newtown, which is proof that all the travel to and from Cincinnati did not go by the Round Bottom Road. In the November session of the quarter court. Houton Clarke was granted a tavern license in Bethel, upon payment of four dollars. The name Bethel was first used in the court proceedings in February, 1802, in a petition for a review of the road to Williamsburg, which was refused. A petition for a road from Bethel to Newmarket, cm the Chillicothe road to Williamsburg, was refused at the last session, and that was the first mention of that early settlement in Highland county. Of the territorial courts but little more can be found. The repetition of names in various relations and places is proof of the limited population. While county regulation was being instituted, the plans for Statehood were successful in every particular. As the date for the "Fall Election," October 12, approached, the arrangements for the township election were continued except that the election in Ohio township was held at the house of John Donham, on Ten Mile, and, in O'Bannon township at the house of Thomas Paxton. Every local record of that election has perished. But it is known by the State records that Philip Gatch and James Sargent were elected and served as delegates from Clermont county to the Territorial Convention in session from the first to the twenty-ninth day of November, 1802, where and when the Constitution was framed under which Ohio was admitted as a State by the action of Congress without a ratifying vote by the people of Ohio. Some have written that Ohio became a State on November 29, 1802, by the vote of the Convention to adopt their work as the Constitution. Gatch and Sargent, we are assured by Jacob Burnett, also a delegate, were elected because of their record in opposition to slavery, which was generally, perhaps unanimously, 320 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES unpopular in Old Clermont. At the same election William Buchanan and William Fee were chosen as representatives to the Fourth Territorial Legislature, which was superseded by the State and never met. Instead the Constitution provided for a Governor and General Assembly, to be chosen Tuesday, January II, 1803. At that time, William Buchanan was elected State Senator and Amos Ellis and Roger Walter Waring were elected Representatives from Clermont in the First General Assembly of the State of Ohio. That body met on March 1, 1803, the date generally accepted as the end of "Territorial Times" in Ohio. Yet, Secretary Charles W. Byrd continued as Acting Governor in place of St. Clair, removed, until the inauguration, on March 3, 1803, of Edward Tiffin as Governor of the State of Ohio. Eight new counties were established by the first State Legislature. Among these were the counties of Butler and Warren, by which the Mother County of Hamilton was reduced to the present boundaries. The nearest comparison of population at that time is found in the report of the State Senate in 1804, of "An Enumeration of Free White Male Citizens of the Age of Twenty-one Years." Out of a total of 14,762 in the State, Hamilton county had 1,700, and Clermont had 755 ; or, in other words, the population of Old Clermont was almost half as large as that of Hamilton county, with the prestige of Cincinnati and several villages. CHAPTER XIV. THE COUNTY UNDER STATE LAW. State Courts Organized—judge Francis Dunlavy—The First State Court in Old Clermont—The First Grand Jury for the State—Early County Officials—The Presiding Judges of Clermont and Brown—The Associate Judges—The County Commissioners—The Extirpation of Wild Animals—Adventures of Phoebe Dimmitt and Mary Robinson—Benjamih Morris Rescued by Jesse Glancy—Jesse Glancy's Fight with a Bear—Adam 'Bricker and a Panther—The Last BearBuffalo—Game—The Turkey Trap—The Squirrel Scalp Currency—The Need of Roads and Bridges—Amos Ellis, Amos Smith and Other Early Commissioners—Roads with Names Now Strange--Public Buildings—John Charles—The Old Stone Court House—Stone Jail—Stone Clerk's Office—Bishop R. S. Foster—The Whipping Post—Traditions of the Second Log Jail—First of Many Bridges—The Second Bridge Where the Glancys Met Wolves—State Roads —The Anderson State Road—The Xenia State Road—The Formation of New Townships—Population in 1818. As the State government came into action, the courts of the general quarter sessions of the peace and of common please, so much desired and highly prized by our great grandfathers ceased forever. Instead of justice administered by men whose daily custom was a subject of intimate observation, the law was now to be determined and applied by men learned in legal complexities and protected by the awe always inspired by certain, yet unknown, power. For judicial purposes, one supreme and three common pleas courts every year were enacted for each county. To make that protection of person and property regular and efficient, the State was divided into three circuits, over which the judges should travel at stated times and places. The first circuit was through the counties of Hamilton, Clermont, Butler, Montgomery, Greene and Warren ; and the judge chosen for that round of duty by a joint ballot of the State 322 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES Senate and House of Representatives, for a term of seven years, was Francis Dunlavy, who served fourteen years in that office. He was born in Virginia in 1761. The family moved to the region of Fort Pitt in 1776, where he was nurtured in the Western border war of the Revolution. He was in the detachment that built and garrisoned Fort McIntosh. He was in Crawford's terrible defeat. He came to Kentucky in 1787, to Columbia in 1791, and to Warren county in 1797. Without a chance to go to school, he became a teacher, a surveyor and a lawyer. Although defeated by Lytle for a vacancy in the first, he was a member of the second Territorial 'Legislature, a delegate in the Constiutional Convention, and a member of the first State Legislature. He lived in 'Lebanon till his death, in 1839, after a most meritorious service that entitles him to a place among the honored fathers of Ohio. How justice was obtained or escaped during the year of change from the Territorial to the State courts will never be known, for there is neither record nor tradition left of such happening for some thirteen months to come, after the November term of 1802. But in 1803, and on the fourth Tuesday of December, which then fell on the twenty-eighth, the first court in all that is east of the Little Miami River and west of Eagle Creek was formally opened at Williamsburg, the seat of justice for Old Clermont. A procession was formed on Front street, in front of the considerable row of cabins known as James Kain's Tavern. If William Lytle had continued writing his "Personal Narrative," he could have told that the procession formed on the spot, where he, as a surveyor in his twenty-third year, had fixed his camp, ten years before, in an absolutely unbroken and hostile wilderness. With the perils passed and in a full tide of prosperity, as the proprietor of many thousand acres, and as the optional owner of a hundred thousand more, the occasion for him must have been full of a proudly optimistic significance. The Main street at that time was a mere country lane through the bottom, still winding around the larger trees and over the stumps and roots of the smaller growth. The slough between Second and Third streets had a "corduroy crossing." The procession turning from Front into Main was lead by Sheriff John Boude, who had come from his ferry to Au- CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 323 gusta. He was followed by the citizens in a body, from which all Revolutionary soldiers were selected to form a distinct class that came next. The members of the bar came after the heroes of the great war. Then the justices of the peace formed a fifth small, but honored, division. All those were followed by the officers of the county. Roger W. Waring was appointed clerk and Aaron Goforth was prosecuting attorney for the occasion. James Boothby was court constable and Daniel Kain deputy sheriff. As such, he, Daniel Kain, probably assisted Sheriff Boucle as marshal for the procession, a duty for which he was specially adapted, and to which he, was generally called for forty years to come. Then, in the rising scale of importance, came the ministers of the Gospel, but who was there has not been found. Last of all was the judicial division—the associate judges, Philip Gatch and Ambrose Ransom, from the Forks of the Miami, and John Woods, from Woods and Manning's Station, on Big Indian Creek, with his honor, the presiding judge, Francis Dunlavy, preceded by all on the march up Main street to Broadway, but first of all to enter the log court house, still rented of Thomas Morris. After a prayer by some one not named, the court was proclaimed. The first grand jury in Clermont county to act for the State of Ohio, traced to their homes and expressed in terms now in use, was made up as follows : John Hunter, foreman, near Withamsville ; Robert Dickey, near Monterey ; George Ear-hart, west of Mt. Orab ; Ramoth Bunton, the father of Polly Bunton, above the mouth of Clover Creek ; near by, on Clover, Joseph Perrine, the father of James Perrine, who married Polly Kain, thus continuing the association of the two girls named Polly, who were the first of all white women in Old Clermont to go far back into the woods from the Ohio river ; Robert Townsley, from a mile down the East Fork from Batavia ; Jacob Whetstone, from six miles farther down Donnel's Trace to Newtown, where his tavern was the start of Mount Carmel ; Peter Emery, from the mouth of Shaylor's Run, above and across, from Perintown ; John Donham and Joseph Fagin, from Ten Mile ; William Whitaker, from Tobasco : Isaac Ferguson, from Twelve Mile ; William Simmons, once near the mouth of Bullskin, but then probably from near Laurel, in Monroe township ; Ezekiel Dimmitt, from just be- 324 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES low Batavia ; Ephraim McAdams and Samuel W. Davies, at Williamsburg. "The Miami Circuit," as established by the Rev. John Kobler, after his visit to Francis McCormick, in 1796, was served in 1803 by preachers John Sale and Joseph Ogelsby. Because of such service, the Rev. John Sale was licensed by the court to solemnize marriage. The Rev. Judge Philip Gatch and Rev. Maurice Witham were also granted the same authority, and thus marriage, according to church rituals; was placed under the authority of the State. By commencing at 6 o'clock on the second, third and fourth days, the court, after disposing of several minor cases, closed Friday, December 30, 1803. The original record of the courts in Clermont county until 181o, are lost, and only fragmentary sketches have been compiled from scattered sources, chiefly with the friendly care of the Hon. Reader Wright Clarke, who only found enough while some of the actors were still living to show the quality of the lost. Offenses against the law seem to have been hotheaded, and few that were black-hearted mar the early annals. The most flagrant wrong doings would have no memory but for some mention outside of the records of the courts. The orders of the Territorial courts were executed by sheriffs, appointed by Governor St. Clair, who were William Perry, Peter Light and John Boude. The sheriffs elected under the State constitution in Old Clermont, or up to 1817, were, Joseph Jackson of. Washington township, Daniel Kain and Levi Rogers of Williamsburg township, Allen Wood Of Pleasant township, Oliver Lindsey and George Ely of Williamsburg township, and then Oliver Lindsey again. The clerks were, William Lytle, before the State Convention, after which, Roger W. Waring served seven years, and then David C. Bryan (all three of Williamsburg) served eighteen years. The coroners elected under State authority before and up to 1820 were, Jeremiah Beck, James Kain, Allen Wood, Samuel Lowe, Samuel Shaw and Thomas Kain. The office of county surveyor under State law was filled by judicial appointment until 1834. The surveyors so appointed were, Peter Light for ten years, George C. Light for five years, and John Boggess for fifteen years. The duties now allotted to auditors and re CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 325 corders were then performed by the clerk of the common pleas courts. The treasurers appointed by Governor St. Clair, and then by the associate judges served terms of one year. Amos Smith, the first, appointed, served but half of his second term and then resigned. The six months' vacancy was filled by Roger W. Waring, but upon his becoming county clerk, Nichols Sinks was appointed treasurer and continued so to act for seventeen years, and then John Kain for seven years. The prosecuting attorneys were, Arthur St. Clair, Jr., Joshua Collet, Martin Marshal, Aaron Goforth, Arthur St. Clair, Jr., again for two years, David C. Bryan before he was clerk, Levi Rogers, and David Morris up to 1811, when Thomas S. Foote began a service of fourteen years. By a change to meet the growth of the State, Old Clermont, in 181o, became a part of the Fourth circuit, over which the Hon. John Thompson, of Fayette county, was the presiding judge until 1816, when the county was attached to the First circuit, under Judge John Parish, for one year, and for another year under Judge Joseph H. Crane. But in 1818 to 1820 Clermont and the new county of Brown were included in the Seventh circuit, of which the presiding judge was the soon to be supreme judge, Joshua Collet, who, as a young lawyer, had been in Williamsburg, from 1803 to 1809, in order to serve the old county as prosecuting attorney, and to practice in the old log court house. Yet, notwithstanding his subsequent lofty station, such is the transient nature of local action, there is no other trace of his residence there. Then, for two years, Judge George P. Torrence presided. But in 1824 to 1826 Judge Collet returned. Then Judge Torrence served seven years, till 1833, and was followed for one year by Judge John M. Goode-now, also of Hamilton county. Judge John W. Price served seven years, and was followed from 1841 to 1848 by Judge Owen T. Fishback, of Clermont county, the first resident of long standing in Old Clermont to reach the high honor. Judge George Collings, of Adams county, was then chosen from 1848, but because of failing health resigned in 1851, just before the adoption of the Second State Constitution, which changed the term of office from sex en to five years. Shepard F. Norris, born in Adams county, admitted to the bar in Georgetown, and then living in Batavia, was twice elected and served ten 326 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES years as the common pleas judge of the division of Adams, Brown and Clermont counties of the Fifth judicial district. Thomas Quinn Ashburn came next to the bench, with a service of fifteen years, except the time resigned in 1876 to accept a position in the Supreme Court commission, to which he was appointed by Governor and, a little later, President Hayes, who also appointed Major Thomas M. Lewis to fill the unexpired term of Judge Ashburn until the October election, in 1876, when Allen T. Cowen, of Clermont, was elected for the rest of Judge Ashburn's term, and for two terms more, serving in all, from 1876 to 1878. Meanwhile, Hon. David Tarbell, of Georgetown, was elected in 1871, and again in 1876, as a judge of the common pleas, made necessary by the growth of the Fifth judicial district. Judge Tarbell was followed, in 1881, by Judge D. W. C. Loudon, who served until February, 1892. Judge Cowen was succeeded by Judge Frank Davis, who served two full terms, from 1888 to 1898, when he was followed by Judge John S. Parrott, after which Judge Frank Davis was elected to the third term, which he is now serving. Judge Loudon, in the Brown county part of the district, was followed, from 1892 to 1897, by Judge Henry Collings, of Adams county. Judge John M. Markley, of Georgetown, was then elected, and has served two terms, reaching from 1897 to 1908, when he was followed by Judge Gottlieb Bambach, of Ripley. In February, 1913, Judge Bambach was succeeded by Judge James W. Tarbell. The administration of justice in the early days was brought close to the people by the appearance on the bench, with the presiding judge, of three men, held high in social esteem for fine common sense, who must each be a citizen of the county, to assist their chief in reaching conclusions, under the name of associate judges. The system was an adoption and enlargement of the more popular forms of the old court of general quarter sessions. In this triumvir of at least great self-importance, Philip Gatch served twenty-one years and Ambrose Ransom, seven years, but John Wood sickened at court and died in the fifth year of his first term of seven years. The vacancy of two years was filled by John Morris, of Tate township. Alexander Blair, of Williamsburg township, then entered on a service of fourteen years. Judge Blair lived in CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 327 the survey now embracing the town of Batavia. Joseph N. Campbell served a full term of seven years, and then one year on a second term, until the division of the old county. After that he served six years on the bench of Brown county, while the remaining six years of his term in Clermont was filled by the re-appointment of John Morris. Other associate judges in Clermont in the order of appointment and time of service were : John Pollock, seven years ; John Beaty, fourteen years ; Israel Whitaker, seven years ; Robert Haines, six years ; Andrew Foote, one year ; John Emery, five years ; Samuel Hill, seven years ; George McMahan, seven years ; Elijah Larkin, thirteen years ; Thomas Sheldon, seven years ; Jonathan Johnson, and John Buchanan, each one year. In Brown county the same honorable position was held by James Moore, seven years ; William Anderson, fourteen years ; William White, one year ; James Finley, seven years ; Robert Breckenridge, eleven years ; David Johnson, four years ; Hugh B. Payne, six years ; Benjamin Evans, four years ; Henry Martin, fourteen years ; Micah Wood, seven years ; John Kay, six years ; Isaac Carey, five years ; and Benjamin Sells, one year. Then, in 1852, under the second State Constitution of Ohio, the office of associate judge ceased to furnish a title much coveted by those who had passed a special and peculiar training in the chair as a justice of the peace. A still wider departure from the antiquated territorial methods than the judicial changes was the transfer of the management of local affairs from the court of quarter sessions to a board of commissioners, who directed the public affairs of the county in quite the way that is now familiar. But the transactions tell of widely different conditions. Within the seven years including 1810, bounties were paid for the killing of five panthers and nearly two hundred wolves. In tracing the names of the fortunate hunters to their homes it seems that much the larger part of their game was remote from the Ohio. From this, an earlier extirpation must have happened from the Hamilton county settlers, from which the denizens of the woods must have retreated as the danger came nearer. The number killed indicates the presence of many more in accordance with the tradition that the wolves often roamed in dangerous packs. If no person was killed, there are traditions of narrow escapes and even actual injury. 328 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES In the spring of 1798 Ezekiel Dimmitt, with James and John Gest, brothers of his young wife, Phoebe, married November 3, 1797, left her alone in their cabin a mile below Batavia, in - order to plant some corn on open ground rented in the Turkey Bottom below the mouth of the Little Miami. It was a stern but the nearest chance to add some bushels to what might be raised on their first clearing at home. So the three men went over the hills, afterward to be called Olive Branch and Mount Carmel, and through Mercersburg or Newtown, and across Flynn's Ford to their field fifteen miles away. The path they trod had been made historic a few months before, in August and September, 1797, as Donnell's Trace. The brave young bride in the cabin, alone with hope and with none nearer than Jacob Ulrey's family, just come to the vicinity that became Bantam, or McCormick at the Forks of the Miami, or the cabins at 'Williamsburg, was daunted by the searching gaze of six passing Indians. Then night brought a pack of wolves to rage around with fearful howling. In the same hours, one of the brothers, James, sleepless with a sudden and unaccountable apprehension, roused Dimmitt, and together they hurried back to find the woman so terrified that she was left alone no more. Nine years later, in the fall of 1807, Mary Robinson, oldest daughter of that family settled on 'Lucy Run, started on horseback to the home of the Mitchells, near Newberry, a distance of twelve miles. A snow storm hid the trace and slackened her speed. As night came near, she dismounted, tied the horse and tried to find her course. Amid the anxious search, she heard the howling of wolves on her track and hastened to mount, but the frightened horse reared and plunged beyond control. Yet, that kept the wolves at bay, and all she could do was to keep out of their circle and still avoid the kicking horse all through the long, cold night, in which the exercise kept her from freezing. As the day came, the wolves quit, and she succeeded in mounting, and reached the Mitchells before she fainted and passed into a serious illness. She married William Weaver, and reared a happy family, but she shuddered at the memory of her night in the woods with the wolves. In those days, Benjamin Morris, then a youth in Bethel, was CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 329 post boy between West Union and Lebanon, through Williamsburg. His published memories tell that once, after climbing the hills north of the Stonelick, on the Deerfield Road from Boston, as night fell, he was appalled by the howling of wolves that came after and seemed to gather from both sides as he rode his frightened horse at headlong speed toward the ever hospitable home of Jesse Glancy, who had heard the howling, guessed the cause, and came out on the road with his sons, all armed with fire brands. As the waving brands grew brighter, the chase grew slower, the howling ceased, and a very anxious post boy rode into safety. Within a year or so, over twenty "Old Wolves," measured by the larger bounty for the aged, had surrendered their scalps to the mighty hunters of the region where Mary Robinson and Benjamin Morris rode into the most exciting adventure of their life. Somewhat later, the same Jesse Glancy was much annoyed by a bear, with a taste for young pork. His dogs, having foiled several attempts to stop the trouble, were shut in the house one night when Glancy took the field and succeeded, as he thought, in giving a fatal shot. But on coming near, the bear got him in its "hug." With uncommon strength and much presence of mind, the powerful man seized the bear by the jaws and rolled its lips inward to make the bite hurt itself. He called for his dogs that raged to get free and were loosened at last by his wife, although she had not heard the call. With the dogs' help he got loose and won the battle. But Glancy felt the effects of a badly bitten shoulder the rest of his life. A story is told of Adam Bricker that, while hunting near Williamsburg, he made cries like a fawn to call a doe within range of his rifle ; but instead, one of the largest of panthers suddenly appeared ready to spring upon him. One of the quick dextrous shots for which he was noted laid the danger dead at his feet. One account claims that this was the last panther killed in the old county, but as no record of a bounty for such a feat has been found, it is more likely that the incident occurred before such payments had been established. The last bounty for a panther yet noted was paid in June, 181o, to John Waits. Another was seen near the mouth of Clover, as late as 1825, and, after being fired at, disappeared in the Elklick Hills, which also harbored the last bear. 310 - CLERMONT AND DROWN COUNTIES Bear may be stated as originally numerous. William and John Lucas, who came as the first of that family and built the first cabin by the mouth of Red Oak Creek, are said to have had twenty-one bear skins ready for the rest of the family, when they came a week later. James Bunton, the brother of Polly Bunton, one of the first two white women on the East Fork, claimed that he once counted nine bear on the way between Williamsburg and his home on Clover, three miles away. The fact that he was returning from town does not affect the count, for he was a staid man and no braggart. Although not in that time, no better place will be found to record that two bear were seen on the hill toward Bantam from the mouth of Clover, in 1835, by Harvey and Elizabeth Wright, then twelve and fourteen years old, and going from Williamsburg to visit their grandfather, John Jenkins, who lived in the "Old Bethel" neighborhood, and was then attending that church with the family of John Simpson, the maternal grandfather of General U. S. Grant. Upon the report of the excited children, men and dogs gathered, pursued and killed that pair. A year or so later, John Peterson, Sr., found a bear on his farm in the first great "horse shoe" or "pocket" of the East Fork below Williamsburg. After giving a wounding shot he and others followed and killed the game in Pike township. This happened in 1836 or 37, and that was the last wild bear in the story of Brown and Clermont. No account of the last of the wolves can be made ; but it is certain that stragglers from northern lairs snapped and snarled from the darkness at belated travelers for several years after the packs ceased to howl. Such events were not uncommon after the War of 1812, hut no such personal experience is now remembered by the oldest of the living. Among archaeological bones, in printed pages, or through traditon, nothing has been found that in a clear and undoubted manner proves the existence of buffaloes within the limits of Old Clermont. One writer suggests that the buffalo and elk had probably disappeared before the approach of the white man. The name first given Eagle Creek was Elk River. The first name did not last because it did not fit, and a more significant name was chosen. Another writer briefly states : "A few buffaloes were seen as late as 1805." The nearest men- CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 331 tion is the official report of Christopher Gist in 1751 that the meadows of the Little Miami abounded with such game. But his observation probably did not reach much below the north line of Warren county. And it is not supposable that the instinct of the buffalo kind would wander from those savannahs free from trees to where a dense woods usurped the home of the blue grass. Notwithstanding the demand for man's use, it is probable that the extirpation of ferocious life favored an increase of herb-eating game. Venison and wild turkey were familiar dishes on the tables of all of the first and many of the second generation. The still hunt for both made a race of sharp shooters. The chase then, as in all ages, was a sport for kings. But trapping is well night a lost art. The turkey trap was based on the bird's nature to gather food with head to the ground, but to stretch up and peer around when disturbed. A wild looking but secure pen was so constructed and artfully concealed that the "bait" required the turkey to grope under the lowest rail. Domestic grains, for which a piratical taste had been cultivated along the edge of the fields, was so scattered as to induce many to come about the pen for more. After passing under and lifting its head the witless turkey never again looked down, but bent every energy to escape upward, while its anxious clucks brought others to share the trouble until a square pen, made from fencerails, would be found well filled with prisoners, that would not stoop to gain their freedom. In this way the finest of all were caught and sold for a price that would not pay for a pound of turkey now. There were no game laws, except for the destruction of evil animals. The individual independence was intense. Within the ten commandments, each person was the law unto himself. With few boundaries scarcely discernible, the provisions of nature not plainly marked, were a fund from which each helped himself at will. It was a condition where each man fenced not his own cow in, but his neighbor's cow out. Swine ran wild except for a few mutilating ear marks, and so the cost of pork depended upon salt rather than pigs. The scarcity of money hampered all enterprise, and the raising of grain was made more laborious by a conflict with the animals that 332 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES threatened. to devour every seed between planting and harvest. The worst of many pests was the now much admired and protected squirrel, of which the droves were many times more destructive then than rats have ever been. The want for more currency and the need of relief from squirrels resulted in one of the oddest laws on record, which was entitled "An act to encourage the killing of squirrels," and should have added, "to provide more money." That law provided that every taxpayer, upon notice from the authorities of his township, should bring them not more than one hundred, nor less than ten squirrel scalps, for which a certificate should be issued at the rate of three cents for each scalp ordered, and two cents for each scalp extra. A penalty of three cents was exacted for each scalp lacking under the number ordered. The certificates pledged the township for payment, and so became a circulating medium, known as the "Squirrel Scalp Currency," which effected the double benefit, first of less squirrels, and then of more money. The method was elastic, according to local needs, and had the merit of immediate advantage and lasting convenience. The loss of all such township records has obliterated all trace of that law or its operation in old Clermont. Notwithkanding the personal disposition to stay aloof from the law's control, when the ability to pay for public improvements is considered, they were not more moderate in petitions for civic attention then than now. As had happened in Territorial times, the most importunate appeals to the commissioners under State authority, were for roads. For, when Ohio assumed statehood, there was neither bridge nor road, as we use the word, to help the constant worry and frequent peril of those days of much mud and many floods. Then, when the forest covered all, the shaded earth treasured the rains in the spongy mold of the fallen leaves, from which the waters oozed to brooks that babbled a promise to flow forever. As the heroic immigration passed on to remoter wilds, the readiest path to the nearest neighbor was the beginning of roads that grew longer and were beaten smoother as the homes became more plentiful along the trails, where surveyors blazed a plainer trace. As these trails and then traces became highways, little lanes led off from cabin to cabin, and often CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 333 by the homes of men whose names can never be called again. In reviewing their environment, imagination craves the chance to ponder how completely the landmarks of the path-makers have been effaced. Yet, in spite of their heroic struggle with forbidding nature, contemplation mourns to record that, already, the pioneers are more remembered for what they destroyed 'than for what they built. The denuded hills and plains stripped of verdure, alike lament the vanquished groves whose vanished wealth may never be restored. The wariest Shawnee would find no vestige of his secreted camp, and many a fairy haunt has been devastated that should have been kept for this electric age to lure wealth from city strife to rustic joy. Not a stone is left of all the dams that forced the waters to grind the grain for those who won Ohio. Here and there a rare and ancient well may wait with a welcome cup. Hardly more than a score of homes remain that thrilled with the tidings from the War of '12. Otherwise, the roofs of thousands of people have fallen, and their once glowing hearths are shapeless cairns. To those who care for the testimony of the past and can find curious gladness in the visible presence of antiquity, such reflection speaks with peculiar persuasion. Even with casual attention, the most heedless of those who crowd the busy throngs of worry will learn something of the sobering truth, that what was is gone, and what is shall cease. For attention once obtained needs to study the by-gone simple life that withered in the blare and jostle of complexer plans, that also passed beneath the imposition of another and stronger mode of living, just as our own system must yield to forces that may be dimly discerned, hut can not be avoided. Those appointed to office in the Territory were generally honored with election under the State. Amos Smith, appoint- , ed first as a Commissioner, after six months became the first Treasurer. Amos Ellis, of the first Board of Commissioners, was elected as a member of the first General Assembly of the State. George Conrad was appointed a Commissioner. On April 2, 1804, Amos Smith, George Conrad and Robert Townsley were elected as the first Board of Commissioners under the State constitution. Their first meeting was held on Monday, June 4, 1804, at the usual place, which on that occasion, 334 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES was for the first time, called the tavern of Nicholas Sinks, Thomas Morris having sold the tavern and its goodwill to Sinks and moved to Bethel that spring. They chose Roger W. Waring clerk for the board, and then cast lots for the short term, until the October election, which fell to Townsley. He was succeeded by Amos Ellis, who by re-elections, served twelve and one-half years as Commissioner, and two terms as State Representative. He was thus largely on duty from the institution until the division of the county ; when he was elected Recorder for Brown county, from 1819 to 1822, and then County Treasurer from 1822 to 1829. The long term was won by Amos Smith, who, through re-election, served eleven years as Commissioner, besides a year and a half as Treasurer. These two, Amos Ellis of Pleasant, and Amos Smith of Williamsburg townships, seem to have directed the county affairs of Old Clermont from 1801 to 1817, with a common and harmonious intent to promote the public convenience to the limit of what was possible with the slender public revenue Under their almost continuous management, with the casual co-operation of various colleagues, one at a time, more was accomplished for the lasting comfort of the social scheme than is likely to happen again in any several score of years to come. Ferocious animals, as has been told, were well-night exterminated. As fast as was justified by the increase of population, the country was partitioned for local control into townships, of which the present system is merely a. continuation, developed by increasing need of convenience. By their judgment, only modified by the financial necessity that compelled them to take the lines of least risistance, a practical arrangement was made of the roads still existing, for both the wants and the pleasure of ages to come. With zeal and long continuity of purpose, that was approved by an unusual series of re-elections, they provided their county with public buildings that were at the time only equaled or exceeded in Ohio by the State House in Chillicothe, or the court house in Cincinnati. Their colleagues from time to time were Ambrose Ransom, of Miami township, for two and one-half years ; Samuel Ellis, of Pleasant township, for one year ; Robert Townsley, of Ohio CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 335 township, for six months ; George Conrad, of Miami township, for one year and three months ; William S. Jump, of Washington township, for three years ; Henry Chapman, of Pleasant township, for three years ; Gideon Minor, of Washington township, for five years ; Levi Pigman of Washington township, then, and later on, for eight years ; John Shaw, of Ohio township, for three years, and Andrew Foote, of Williamsburg township, for three years, the last of all elected before the division of the old county. Petitions for new roads, or for any change in those granted were placed with a body of "Viewers," and a surveyor, who was sometimes one of the "Viewers," for a report to the Commissioners for final action. The descriptions have a strange, unreal, and at times, almost fanciful sound to modern ears. The road from Denhamstown to the mouth of Bullskin having been viewed, was adopted and ordered "opened," which implies that some one or more along that ancient "trace" had tried to stop or change its course. A road was asked from Denhamstown through the Yankee settlement to Zumatts, and another from' Indian Riffle, on the Miami, to Wilson's Mill on the O'Bannon. It is quite plain that the people at Denhamstown were anxious to share the attention that brought previous roads to Williamsburg, but in 1806, the name began to give way to "Bethel," from which a road was asked to a point on the Ohio river opposite the mouth of Step-stone ; also from Bethel to near Alexander Buchanan's ; also from Bethel to John Harmon's. The roads in what is Brown county, except along the Ohio, have such terminals as, from Williamsburg by Thompson's Mill to John Legate's farm, probably another spelling for Leggett. Efforts toward West Union were made from both Williamsburg and Bethel, and a road from West Union was made to combine with the Cincinnati road, by way of "Witham's Settlement." A road from the mouth of Nine Mile to the mouth of the East Fork was considered important. In 1808 a road was laid from Milford to connect with a road from Smalley's Mill, on Todd's Fork, which was fated to be the Clermont part of the famous Cincinnati, Columbus and Wooster Turnpike, one of the three historic highways of Ohio, the other two being Zane's Trace and the National road, which much of the way were the same. 336 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES It is hardly possible and by no means profitable to transcribe the descriptions of the primitive roads into modern phrase. The liveliest curiosity will soon tire of the baffling task, and, if done, not one in a thousand would care to read more than would relate to his own associations. Yet, there should be melancholy satisfaction in grateful hearts in remembering those who prepared the accustomed ways and straightened the familiar paths of daily life. For, though a new or at least peculiar application of the principle that sets all things even, it is but just to affirm that, whosoever ignores a benefit received deserves to have his own best deeds quickly forgotten. Perhaps the most tangible evidence of what the pioneers of Old Clermont were proudest, among the results of their new citizenship, was their public buildings. In the beginnings, even before the first settlers, while planning the town around which his early fortune was to circle, General Lytle designed that his home should occupy a hill, or rather ridge, facing southward to an ample "plantation," and northward upon many homes, that should cluster about a 'central hill, where the Broadway and Main street met at the brow. At this intersection, out of all the thousands at his command, a block of six acres, including the sidewalks, stretching westward and northward, and overlooking all the country around, was selected for a public square. This square was dedicated to the use of the public and as a place for the erection of a court house, and for no other use forever. Only slight study of the locality is needed to show that the streets and lots of Williamsburg were skillfully laid to suit the sightly situation. An early attempt was made for its improvement. On May 25, 1802, John Charles, Peter Light and Jasper Shotwell were appointed by the Court of Quarter Sessions to report a plan for a court house, but at the next session the business was postponed until subscriptions could be solicited. At the August session of 1803, some action was taken, of which the record is lost. For, at the first meeting of the Commissioners elected under the State law, William Perry was granted one hundred dollars on June 4, 1804, for hauling stone for the court house, according to the arrangement fixed in the August before. On November 19, 1804, John Kain and Archibald McLean were CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 337 granted a hundred dollars more for the same purpose. Then with two hundred dollars paid for stone delivered on the public square, the Commissioners, on June 12, 1805, decided to proceed with the building. One thousand dollars was appropriated from taxes to be levied for that purpose on the lands of non-resident owners. By that action, and with the material on hand, twelve hundred dollars was available. On August 1, 18o5, the lowest bid was found to be from John Wright and John Charles, who then entered into a contract to finish the house by January I, 1807, for sums to be paid as the Work progressed, to the amount of fourteen hundred and ninety-one dollars. For various causes, of which the lack of money was the chief, the work was not finished until February, 1809, having been in the builders' hands about three and one-half years. With the stone on hand, and with an allowance for extra work ordered, the total cost appears to have been seventeen hundred and fifty-six dollars and twenty-two and one-fourth cents, which is probably not one fourth the cost of a duplicate in this overwrought age. The completion of the court house, in February, 18o9, was followed in the March meeting of the Commissioners, by a decision to build a jail, of which, after due advertisement, the construction was sold on April 10, 1809, to John Charles, on a bid of two thousand nine hundred and eighty-six dollars. The building proceeded, with payments from time to time, until the last in full was made on December 3, 1811, for the completed building, which was the third jail used in Williamsburg. Next after that jail, in 1812 and 1813, the third building on the public square, known as the "Clerk's office," was completed, in the style of General Lytle's stone land office, except that it was two rooms long, each room being about eighteen feet square in the clear. All other account of its construction has been lost, but its uniformity with the land office, the Davis House, the court house, the jail, and other work of his hands, shows that it was done by the frequently mentioned John Charles. He with his much retiring, but estimable and capable brother, George Charles, was the most notable builder of his time. The date of his removal from Williamsburg is not known ; but in September, 1811, a petition was presented for a road from Williamsburg by John Charles' Mill on Stonelick, 338 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES to intersect the road from Milford to Todd's Fork. That mill afterwards long known as the "Shumard's," was almost two miles southwest of Newtonville, which was not located till twenty-seven years later. That intersection on the road to Todd's Fork was taken twenty-two years later as the main crossing in platting the town locally known as "East" Goshen. In 1815, and again in 1818, John Charles was elected a Justice of the Peace in Stonelick township for terms of three years, and in 1819 he built the large stone house for John Metcalf, heretofore mentioned. The jail farther west and closer to Broadway than the court house, contained one good, large living room, an ample kitchen, two "dungeons," or cells, and a hall on the first floor, with a stairway to three full sized bedrooms on the second floor, all so finished that the jailer's position, or duty, included a residence in this building, was much coveted. It was first occupied by Sheriff Oliver Lindsey, till succeeded in 1813 by George Ely, and then again by Oliver Lindsey, until followed in 1819 by Sheriff Holly Raper, a son of the noted surveyor, Leonard Raper. But during Raper's first four years as sheriff the jail residence was occupied by his friends, a young married couple, Israel and Polly Kain Foster. Israel was the youngest son of Thomas Foster, an English emigrant to Virginia, who had there married Nancy Trigg. While viewing for land in Kentucky, sometime before Ohio was open, for settlement, Foster was, killed by the Indians, after which the widow married James Laughlin, and came with the children of both husbands to Williamsburg about New Year's, 1805. Mary, commonly called Polly, Kain was the only daughter of Daniel and Mary Hutchinson Kain. After the early death of his first wife, Daniel married Eleanor, an older sister of Israel Foster, thus establishing a double kinship for the families. The first son of Israel and Polly Foster was born February 22, 1820, while they were residing in the jail, and, after being named for a special friend of both parents, in the fullness of time, came to be known to the Christian world as the justly celebrated Bishop Randolph Sinks Foster, without whom the annals of the Methodist Episcopal church can not be written. And thus another illustrious name was added to the roll of Old Clermont. It is CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 339 told that Bishop Foster sometimes astonished an ultra select audience by holding that there was hope for all, since he himself was born in a jail. The incident has been connected with the "Old Log Jail," for picturesque effect, in several publications, but the fact is hereby correctly and exactly stated. The "Clerk's office" stood back of the court house from Main street and back of the jail from Broadway so that the three buildings framed a considerable space at the northeastern corner of the public square. The space between and somewhat secluded by the three buildings, was adorned by a whipping post, with a cross bar, to which the securely fastened victim might stand facing the post, or hang by his extended wrists while cringing from the lash upon a naked back, where stripes and scars were made into an indelible record of infamy. Some considerable account can be found of such doings that may well be forgotten in an effort to perpetuate good example. Every one in love with the natural beauty of the "Old Public Square"—the oldest piece of public property in the old county—can rejoice that it has no suggestions of ignominious death. But the whipping post must be admitted. The jail was accepted on Tuesday, December 3, 1811, and on the following Saturday, at four o'clock in the afternoon, an outlaw, a murdering robber, was whipped by Sheriff Lindsey with forty-nine stripes. At the same time, he was under sentence for another crime to receive thirty-nine lashes save one, but that sentence was humanely suspended three weeks in order that his back could be healed for another Roman holiday, for in their lonely monotony, such events were never neglected by a jeering crowd, much disposed to add gloating insult to the lashing pain. But more of the tragic has come down in the story of the second jail, within whose wooden walls some temporary restraint was placed over crimes from which no state of society can long go free. The most common offense was horse stealing, for which the punishment was swift and stern in fine, restitution, imprisonment and merciless whippings. The lash was given at that jail between two, posts, to which the uplifted and outstretched hands were tied, but where those posts stood is not known. Several escapes happened, among which was one accused of murdering his own neice. One man, a stranger, 340 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES and a German, while held for slight cause, grew despondent and was found dead in a noose fixed by his own hand. Another falsely accused, brooded over his trouble till his mind was lost and never restored. A much discussed escape was that of a noted horse thief who, finding himself hard pressed, managed to join in his own pursuit, till a chance came to take the best horse in the chase and get free from all. But in the end, another among the pursuers was strongly suspected of complicity in the joke upon his neighbors. Years afterward a company from Kentucky tracked their man to the home of the suspected person, whence the captured was taken, without requisition papers, and eventually convicted and hanged for the murder of a peddler. The severity of life then that made the noble brave and resolute, also made the wicked bold and desperate; and the loneliness that caused the honest to organize for mutual welfare, also made the criminal combine for a common security. There was much belief in the existence of a banded gang for stealing and passing -counterfeit money through a wide range of settlements. The extirpation of the local lodges of that gang was the work of more than one generation and involved several neighborhoods, and the removal of several families, whose members had grown familiar with crooked paths, that brought them to evil fame at the old seat of justice. The big stone court house, with jail and clerk's office, was intended and expected to put the seal of perpetuity on the legislation of the State, which on February 18, 1804, had established Williamsburg as that county seat. The appearance of the three buildings combined on the brow of the hill was strong, useful, durable and quaintly pleasing. Acres of room still vacant were left for adding to the buildings that would have lasted centuries and become more interesting with every passing year. But fate planned otherwise. Before a score of years they were deserted and the roofs had no care. Amid a frenzy of improvement the demolition began in order to make room for a "modern" school house, as if no other place would do in all the ample vacancy around. A part of the stone was piled into what is the foundation of the replacing structure. Another part was wagoned back to build a retaining wall along the river at the foot of Main street, as if no other stone were CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 341 to be had. Other parts were used, some to be broken on the streets, and some beyond recall. And thus a thoughtless posterity ruined a dignity they did not appreciate and could not replace. For, it was the fittest of all monuments for the noble pioneers who piled the stone with heroic sacrifice, and who, in all the, wide old county they reclaimed from barbarism, have no other memorial than such as can be made with word and pen. Were those buildings intact today, or were the roofless walls still standing, it is safe to say that none could be found rude enough to dash them down. Their easy restoration would afford rooms for public utility, unique beyond an artist's fancy, strong beyond a builder's plan, suggestive beyond the power of eloquence, and pleasing as a poetical dream. It is grossly wrong to judge the pioneers by their rude homes and deem them incapable of appreciating the refinements of life. Within their limitations they fostered ideals of plentiful convenience, according to the invention within their knowledge, which comprehended that the fruition of such hope was not for them, but for posterity. Alas, that posterity should ever forget. While providing a commodious home for the county, the bridge question was considered by the Commissioners, with much desire and slight result. At their June meeting, in 1811, thirty-five dollars was granted to build a bridge across a branch of Clover Lick creek, on the State road, which was done to favor the increasing travel between the county seat and the southeastern settlements, and also to better the road from West Union. That was the first of the many bridges between Eagle Creek and the O'Bannon. At the same meeting the people about Denhamstown sought another road to the Ohio by an intersection with the road from Williamsburg to the mouth of "Big Indian' Creek." Some imagination is required to fully understand that this proposed road was to be traveled just ten years to a month later, by a wedding party in which Jesse R. Grant took this young bride Hannah, from Father John Simpson's home to their simple, but neat, little frame cottage—not log hut as often told—by the tannery at Point Pleasant, where the most romantic life in America was to begin. At that meeting the Commissioners took the first action on a road from the mouth of Stonelick, by Dr. Allison's, 342 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES to Glancy's Lane and McKinney's Old Improvement. That road was the first to meander up the Stone Lick toward the mill sites in Linton's Survey, for which General Massie risked his life with the Indians nineteen years before. No other appropriation for that purpose was made until June, 1814, all but three years later, when Nicholas Sinks was paid ten dollars for, making a bridge across Little Stirling Creek, which was the second bridge in the county and the first on Donnell's Trace between Newtown and Chillicothe. For miry reasons that was worse among the many bad places along that road. The tales of my maternal ancestors show that the family in coming from York county, Pennsylvania, by way of Zane's and then Dannell's Trace, after being delayed by sickness, were pressing west of New Market, in Highland county, on Saturday, December 22, 18o4, when the harbingers of a blizzard forced the strict, old-style Presbyterian, Jesse Glancy, against his custom to keep moving on Sunday. On coming to a west branch of White Oak, the forward of his two "Conestoga" wagons stuck in the bank and all the brooding stock was harnessed in one line. Then the big, strong captain, who did things in a strong way, mounted his special saddle horse and went crushing through the snow with all the collar wearing stock to one wagon and all his driven cattle and all the cattle that young Thomas Foster was driving overland while his family were boating down the Ohio, and all the people in the company, except his eldest son, William Glancy, then just twenty years old, and his orphaned nephew, James Glancy, six years younger. While the main company urged their march to Williamsburg, the two boys were left to guard the second wagon. After a fire had been started near a hut of poles and bark by the crossing, a hunt was undertaken to pass a part of the afternoon, in which William shot a deer. The quarters of venison were fastened into the tops of sapplings bent down by their weight and thus lifted out of reach ; but before that was fully accomplished, wolves began to gather about, at which one shot, while the other loaded so as always to have one gun ready for the pack that grew larger and circled a beaten space around their fire, and filled the woods with the howling of what seemed more than a score. And thus the night of Sunday, the twenty-third, CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 343 wore into Monday. More and less than seventy years later that William, a great-uncle, always had close attention and made sympathy thrill as he firmly declared that the sweetest sound he ever heard was the tinkling of the bells that hung above the hames of the several teams his father was bringing through the frosty morning for the second wagon, which reached the ford and went up the "dug way" at Williamsburg, "where we all," he would add, "ate our Christmas eve supper in 1804 at James Kain's tavern." While a bridge across Little Stirling Creek, where the settlers had been impeded from the time William Hunter came west that way with a wagon, sixteen years before, had been bettered with slight expense, yet, that expense was too large for imitation or application where the total land tax collected in the big county had not reached eighteen hundred dollars a year. It is easy to see how little could be given for special improvement. And that little was probably suggested by local competition rather than a progressive intention ; and the explanation of that condition involves a consideration of another form of highways that date from the early days of the State. When the localities to be accommodated were in two or more counties, uniformity was sought through State control, and the roads were classed as State roads. When traveled by a mail carrier they gained the dignity of post roads, and a still more special name attained still later was stage roads. The first of the State roads was Donnell's trace's to and from Cincinnati and Chillicothe, by Williamsburg, but the exact date of that dignity has not been found. A road from West Union by way of Bethel to the mouth of Clough Creek, in Hamilton county, was established by the State in 1804, but its popularity was of slow growth, for as late as 1836 the stage from West Union went by Bethel and Milford to Cincinnati. The bridgeless streams nearer the Ohio were also often fordless. In the same year, 1804, the State instituted another road from Chillicothe toward Cincinnati, by way of Milford and appointed the noted surveyor, General Richard C. Anderson, to locate the course, which was done by 1806. That course through Old Clermont is now marked by the towns of Fayetteville, Marathon, Owensville, Perintown and Milford. In 344 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES honor of the surveyor, it was officially called "The Anderson State Road," until the name was changed, after 1831, to the Milford and Chillicothe Turnpike. After the creation of Highland county, in 1805, and the founding of Hillsboro, travel was so turned from the old road as to impair the tavern profits at Williamsburg; hence the bridge across Little Stirling Creek was undertaken by Nicholas Sinks, who still kept the Old Tom Morris House. In 1808 the eastern part of the Augusta and Round Bottom Road was included by the State in a road from the mouth of Bullskin to Xenia, which went north through Bethel and Williamsburg and then inclined to the northwest so that the Anderson State road was crossed at the Dickey Tavern, now in Jackson township, which was the first southwest corner of Wayne township as originally instituted. The course was called the Xenia State road, and was probably much .like that taken by Daniel Boone in his celebrated escape from the Indians. The two appropriations mentioned constituted all the bridge work clone between Adams county and the Little Miami River before the War of 1812-15 ; and, with a few exceptions, all that was done for twenty years after the war. The other most important work accomplished by the commissioners was the erection of new townships. But before any change from the five original townships, the State 'Legislature, on February 18, 1805, erected Highland county, for which Clermont was required to sacrifice enough wilderness for two modern townships, but not one inhabitant. Then, on June 18, 1805, the commissioners constituted the township of Tate, composed from the northeastern part of Ohio, and still more largely from the southern part of Williamsburg. On June 2, 1807, 'Lewis township was taken from the eastern end of Washington township ; and on October 18, 1808, Clark township was made to include lands north of Lewis township to Highland county. On December 4, 1811, the western part of Ohio township was placed in what is Union township, in Clermont county. On March 4, 1812, Stonelick township was made from parts of Miami and Williamsburg townships. On June 6, 1815, the northeastern vacancy of the old county, then having but twenty-three voters, was included in one township, with the newly glorious name of Perry. On September 5, 1815, parts of Ohio CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 345 and Williamsburg townships were united in a township with the name of Batavia, the twelfth and last township erected under the authority of Old Clermont. While the political divisions were coming into convenient forms for government, while the accommodation of roads was marked out, and, while buildings for the administration of justice were provided, the social relations were also increasing. "The enumeration of 755 white male citizens of the age of 21 years" made for the State Senate in 1804, by the census of 181o, had become a total population of 9,965, an increase of certainly not less than three fold in six years. There is no certain figure for the population of Clermont at the division of the county. But in 1820 the combined population of Brown and Clermont counties, excluding the townships taken from Adams county, was nearly 25,000. The conclusion seems reasonable that 20,000 people were living in 1818 between the limits of Loveland and Ripley. CHAPTER XV. THE TONE OF THE TIME. The Jersey Settlement—John Collins—Charles H. Collins—Collins Chapel—Old Bethel—The Congregation Replete with Notable Names—White—Swing—Jenkins— Johnson --Simpson— Ulrey—A Student Group of Four—Influence of the Pulpit on Settlement—The Baptists at Bethel—At Ten Mile—At Twelve Mile—The Robbs—Charles Robb, the Teacher Poet—The Poets' Union—Dr. T. W. Gordon"Eulalie"—Eliza Archard Conner—Robert Todd Lytle—William Haines Lytle, the Soldier Poet—Charles J. Harrison—Churchly Affairs—Hopewell Church—The Congregation of Gilboa—John Dunlavy—Muscular Christianity—Camp Meetings—Effects on Presbyterianism—James Gilliland—Robert B. Dobbins—The First Schools—The Best School House from 1804 to 1819—Dr. Alexander Campbell —Dr. Levi Rogers and His Son John G.—Surgeon-General Richard Allison—The Early Healers—Peddlers First, Then Merchants—James Burleigh—Isaac Lines—William Waters and Benjamin Ellis—Postal Affairs—Newspapers. In viewing the magnitude of what was doing among so many then, a writer may well shrink from the task of merely mentioning even family names still existing in public records and grateful memories, notwithstanding the ceaseless rasp of time. Still, a decent regard for humble virtue, as well as conspicuous conduct, requires that some shall be named from whom the tone of the time may be learned. A locality of far-reaching influence of the highest order was the Jersey Settlement, that clustered on or near the East Fork, about the contiguous corners of Williamsburg, Tate and Batavia townships. The origin of that settlement was largely due to the personal influence of Rev. John Collins, born in New Jersey in 1769, and, after his twenty-sixth year, a zealous preacher for the Methodist Episcopal church. Having temporal means to invest, he came to William Lytle's 348 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES land office in Williamsburg, in 1802, who "tried him out" with many tracts personally inspected until the choicest in hand was shown at the Horse Shoe Bend of the East Fork, now forming the southeast corner of Batavia township. Entranced with its beauty Collins bought the entire survey, made in the name of Philip Clayton, but owned by General Massie. Of the more than a thousand measured acres, he kept four hundred of the best, in the midst of which his son, Richard, built the noble mansion celebrated in both prose and song. In that home Charles H. Collins, Esquire, native of Clermont, but late of Hillsboro, Ohio, received impressions afterward wrought into many poems of charming beauty, in both thought and rhythm. Among much that has been written about the lovely scene, nothing is in finer- taste than this from his own hand, or rather heart : Still flows the stream in curves around the farm ; And memories linger while time has past From those who gave the place an added charm. 'Twas years ago—at least to us it seems— When all this scene was radiant with delight, When each and all in day or nightly dreams Thought home no fairer rose on earthly sight. So far away that time and yet so near, When measured on infinity's long scroll ; No wonder recollection holds it dear, As when the farm home satisfied each soul. Still flows the East Fork—gentle river— In curling outlines where glows the west, And still the red sun with golden quiver Gleams o'er "the Bend" where all of yore were blest. Coming from the author after he had traveled wide and far, this tribute to a native heath common to both, along with much delightful verse found in a volume of his poems personally presented makes the gift something always to be treasured. Although his later life was elsewhere, Charles H. Col- CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 349 lins should be remembered as a brilliant poetic product of Clermont. After securing "the Bend," John Collins returned East to preach that his hearers should repent and go West. He then led an example by returning, in 1803, with Isaac Higbee, Cornelius McCollum and Edward Doughty, with their families, and three unmarried men, Joseph and Peter Frambes and Lucas Lake. Their clearing was not made in time to plant corn, but in 1804 they raised one hundred measured bushels to the measured acres, which was duly reported and so believed in and about Tuckerton and Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey, that an Exodus occurred there, and the numbers were found in Ohio, with a large count in Clermont. A curious proof of how Methodist people were sometimes locally contemned then is preserved in the claim that John Collins delivered the first regular sermon in 1804 yet heard from a Methodist preacher in Cincinnati. As soon as his cabins were raised, his invitation went abroad for the people to come there and hear the Gospel. In 18o7 a log meeting house was built on a large lot, donated from his farm, which was called Collin's Chapel, and then took the name of "Bethel Church." After eleven, years a superior frame house was built, and in the lapse of time the church and burying ground came to be known as "Old Bethel" in distinction from the town of Bethel, over four miles away. For him who can read the language of their mute appeals a stroll among the frail memorials amid the tented turf of Old Bethel is full of reminiscent thought. But the recent granite or the mossy marbles will have less attention from a curious visitor than the lichened slabs of sand stone, some prone in the sod or leaning with the hill, and some upholding names not soon to be forgotten by those who honor worth. Some who walked close together in life now lie near in death. Among such were three couples who were closely associated in the church and social affairs of Old Bethel. One was David and Nancy Vaughan White, who came there in 1804. The second was John and Catherine Vaughan Jenkins, who came in 18o5. The third couple was John and Sarah Simpson, who came in 1818, and, all unmindful of the lofty destiny of their grandson, Ulysses Simpson Grant, lived in a delightful fellowship to the end with those whose dust reposes with their own in an