536 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
UNION TOWNSHIP.
LOCATION, TOPOGRAPHY, SOIL, TIMBER, STREAMS, ETC.
THIS, the central township of Clinton County, and one of the earliest settled, is bounded as follows: On the west it joins Chester and Adams; on the north, Liberty; on the northeast, Wilson; on the east, Richland; on the southeast, Green; on the south, Washington, while Vernon and Wayne corner it on the southwest and east respectively. From Wilmington to the east township line, the lands are level, and in its primeval state this portion of the township was covered by a thick growth of ash, hickory, elm, oak; also some maple, beech and other woods. The soil is generally a dark loam, extending to some depth, very rich and productive and well adapted to the culture of the cereals and the grasses.
The southeast portion of the township is somewhat undulating. Cowan's Creek passes across this corner and following its meanderings from Burtonville southwest the surface is rather rough and broken. Along this stream the timber growth was very large, consisting principally of walnut, poplar, ash, elm oak, beech and sugar tree. The soil here is a mixture of dark and yellow loam, and is much prized for wheat-growing. Between Cowan's Creek and Wilmington, the country is more level, and here, on Wilson's Branch, settled one of the pioneers after whom that stream is named.
Lytle's Creek flows in a westerly direction, near the center of the township, immediately south of Wilmington, which is located on its branches. The soil is about the same as along Cowan's Creek, the yellow loam, however, predominating. In passing from the center to the southwest line of Union, there are many hills with small bottom lands along the creek, all of which are very rich and productive. The timber growths are the same as those on Cdwan's Creek.
Todd's Fork is the largest stream in Union Township, and is its principal water-course. It runs through the north part of the township, from east to west, with many small rivulets emptying into it along its entire distance. Its head-waters are located mostly in the eastern and northeastern parts of Union, although the sources of some are still farther north and east. The lauds along this stream, north and west of Wilmington, are undulating and well drained. The bottoms and hills were originally covered with fine large, thrifty oak, walnut, cherry, linn, hickory, ash, sugar, hackberry and buckeye, with a great variety of undergrowth, presenting to the eye an almost impenetrable forest. The soil on the undulating lands is a mixture of loam and clay, while along the streams the yellow loam is on the surface. The bottoms, although small, are highly valued by leading agriculturists, and, in fact, the soil all over this township ranks among the best in the county.
Dutch Creek, a small stream which empties into Todd's Fork, in Adams Township, runs across the northwest corner of Union, taking a southwesterly direction. Todd's Fork, Dutch Creek, Lytle's Creek and Cowan's Creek, with their numerous branches, constitute the water-courses of Union Township, supplying ample drainage facilities, as well as an abundance of good water for stock and other purposes.
In the pioneer days the grazing along those streams was very fine, but as the population increased, the grasses and shrubbery disappeared. The bottoms were covered with spice bushes and pea vines, the twigs of the former
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being used by the early emigrants in making tea, which they thought possessed a fine flavor. The pea vine in full growth resembled buckwheat in the summer and fall seasons, and cattle and hogs were fond of it. When ripe it was about the height of full-grown flax and grew very thickly on the ground. The white clover, or, as it was then called, buffalo clover, was very abundant and grew in height from eighteen to twenty-four inches. These wild growths afforded fine grazing for all classes of stock, and proved a great blessing to the pioneer.
No stone crops cut on Cowan's, Lytle's or Dutch Creeks, in this township, but on Todd's Fork, northwest of Wilmington, stone in large quantities and of good quality has been quarried for many years and is easy of access. Here it was that the early settlers found stone in abundance, which they used in building their rude chimneys, and at a later day in the erection of more commodious residences and outbuildings, as well as in the construction of streets and roads. Though the Legislature of 1803 had passed an act establishing some sixteen or eighteen State roads, yet but a small number of them had been cleared out in 1806. Up to that year, there were no roads opened in the settlement comprised in Union Township, but each neighborhood established its line of travel by blazing and marking trees. There were paths or trails running from Todd's Fork to Chillicothe, one of which crossed that stream near Centre Meeting-House, passing through the wilderness to Van Meter's, and thence to the Scioto Valley. The origin of those trails was not known to the early settlers, but they were supposed to have been made by the Indians in their social intercourse with their brothers on the Maumee and Scioto. The township to-day is a network of good gravel roads, which are free of toll. Radiating in every direction from Wilmington, the traveler will find a well improved, well-developed country, and, if good roads are evidence of prosperity and intelligence, then indeed may Union Township be proud of her position in Clinton County.
LAND ENTRIES.
Survey No. 550, a portion of which is within the limits of Union Township, located in the eastern part thereof, was the first entry made. It embraces 4,000 acres of land, and was entered August 4, 1787, by Richard C. Anderson and Mayo Carrington. The surveying was done by John O'Bannon, March 3, 1794, assisted by Andrew Porter and Charles Pigman, chain carriers, and David Flough, marker. Other entries made in the township are as follows:
No. 730-August 8, 1787, Lieut. Nathaniel Anderson enters 1,000 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Bannon, March 4, 1794.
No. 885-August 10, 1787, Col. Theodorick Bland enters 1,334 2/3 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Bannon, April 3, 1794.
No. 961-August 11, 1787, Lieut. Nathaniel Anderson enters 1,000 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Bannon March 6, 1794,
No. 1,554-February 19. 1793, Gen. H. Gates enters 2,000 acres of land, surveyed by Nathaniel Massie March 6, 1793.
No. 1,556-February 19, 1793, Gen. H. Gates enters 2,000 acres of land, surveyed by Nathaniel Massie March 6, 1793.
No. 1,558-February 20, 1793, Gen. H. Gates enters 1,000 acres of land, surveyed by Nathaniel Massie March 8, 1793.
No. 2, 248-February 20, 1793, Gen. H. Gates enters 1,000 acres of land, surveyed by Nathaniel Massie March 9, 1793.
No. 1,561-February 23, 1793, Gen. H. Gates enters 1,000 acres of land, surveyed by Nathaniel Massie March 9, 1793.
No. 2,246--February 20, 1793, William Boyle enters 666 2/3 acres of land, surveyed by Nathaniel Massie March 12, 1793.
538 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
No. 2,279-April 19, 1793, Thomas Banks enters 777 2/3 acres of land, surveyed by Nathaniel Massie October 4. 1793.
No. 1,735-December 19, 1793, Lieut. Col. William Nelson enters 880 acres of land, surveyed by Nathaniel Massie February 11, 1794.
No. 1,338--December 1:1. 17'93, Gen. Peter Muhlenburg enters 1,000 acres of land, surveyed by Nathaniel Massie May 7, 1793.
No. 2,386-March 13, 1794. Archibald Johnson, Patrick Moore and Betty (his wife) devisees of George Johnson, deceased, enter 6,000 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Bannon into three 2,000 acre tracts November 3, 1795, November 4, 1795 and November 5, 1795.
Nos. 986 and 2,433- March 13, 1794, Lieut. Col. Ed Carrington enters 1,367 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Bannon June 17, 1794.
No. 1,162-April 15, 1794, Thomas Buckner enters 1,000 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Bannon November 7, 1795.
No. 1,170-April 15, 1794, Thomas Gaskins enters 1,500 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Bannon November 8, 1795.
No. 1,085--January 27, 1795, Col. William Heath enters 1,100 acres of land, surveyed by Nathaniel Massie, January 30, 1795.
No. 523-January 28, 1795, Daniel Duval enters 1,750 acres of land, surveyed by Nathaniel Massie, May 28, 1800.
No. 1,230-January 28, 1795, John Anderson enters 1,000 acres of land, surveyed by Nathaniel Massie January 30, 1795.
No. 2,471-January 28, 1795, Daniel Duval enters 1,177 acres of land, surveyed by Nathaniel Massie January 31, 1795.
No. 1,057-January 28, 1795, Thomas Posey enters 2,820 acres of land, surveyed by Nathaniel Massie January 3, 1795.
No. 625-June 14, 1796, Thomas Fenn enters 1,000 acres of land, surveyed by John O' Bannon June 26, 1796.
No. 2,027-June 15, 1796, Thomas Ridley enters 1,000 acres of land, surveyed by John O' Bannon June 27, 1796.
No. 996--June 15, 1796, Thomas Fenn enters 1,000 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Bannon, June 26, 1796.
No. 2,694-June 15, 1796, Thomas Fenn and John O'Bannon (assignees) enter 550 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Bannon January 27, 1796.
No. 1,096-June 15, 1796, John Roberts enters 1,000 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Bannon June 27, 1796.
No. 699-June 15, 1796, John Roberts enters 1,000 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Baunon June 27, 1796.
No. 2,693-June 15, 1796, Gen. Ed Stephens enters 715 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Bannon June 29, 1796.
No. 2,690-June 15, 1796, William S. Hawkins, heir, enters 1,383 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Bannon June 28, 1796.
No. 2,692--June 15, 1796, William S. Hawkins, heir, enters 895 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Bannon July 6, 1796.
No. 1,088-June 15, 1796, John Spotswocd enters 900 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Bannon.
No. 2,714--June 22,1796, William White enters 1,450 acres of land, surveyed by John O'Bannon June 24, 1796.
No. 4,613-December 5, 1804, Daniel Bailey (assignee) enters 4, 000 acres of land, surveyed by. James Galloway, Jr., December 20, 1804.
No. 4,634-January 14, 1805, James Towler (assignee) enters 1,745 acres of land, surveyed by James Galloway, Jr, February 1, 1805.
No. 4,693-June 17, 1805, Francis Dade enters 1,636 acres of land, surveyed by James Galloway, Jr., July 1,
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UNION TOWNSHIP. - 541
No. 5,991-June 6, 1808, James Galloway, Jr. (assignee), enters 346 2/3 acres of land, surveyed by James Galloway, Jr., June 7 and 8, 1808.
PIONEERS.
"They came to the West when the forest stood
Mighty and solemn and grand,
And built their homes in the shades of the wood,
That covered our Western land."
In the pioneer settlements a close union existed; kindness, benevolence and friendship were cultivated. In locating and improving their new homes, they all had to work and soon became a community of self-reliants. The lives and property of all were vigilantly guarded, while courage and manhood were held in high esteem. The man possessing the greatest physical power was a hero, yet strength, power and manhood could only be tested by honorable and fair means. As a general rule, the sons and descendants of the pioneers have been content with agricultural pursuits, and there are not many instances where they have abandoned soil-culture for the :allurements of commerce, trade, the arts and the sciences. This is strong proof of their good judgment and independence of spirit, for the man who owns the soil and possesses the art to cultivate it is an independent sovereign-the peer of any in this land, no matter what his vocation may be.
The brain and intellect of the early pioneer shared the increased energy of his physical being. Constant labor developed the powers of the muscles, the brain and the nervous system, and hence in these early communities of emigrants there were men of full stature of body, possessing capacious brain power. The lives and histories of these brave old pioneers should not be forgotten, and the man who feels no interest in perpetuating the memories of those men who spent their time and energy in fitting the soil of the great State of Ohio for culture, deserves not the respect of his fellow citizens. The sketches of pioneers in the history of Union Township up to and including Col. Thomas Gaddis, were written by the late Judge Robert B. Harlan, or from the notes collected by him ere his death.
Timothy Bennet was one of the most prominent, as well as one of the first settlers, of what is now Clinton County. He came to the Northwest Territory, now the State of Ohio, in the year 1800, and to his well-known home; about one and a half miles nearly east of where Wilmington now is, about the middle of March, 1801. He was a native of the State of New Jersey, born near the city of Philadelphia on the 27th of January, 1765. Of his early history little is known other than that he was reared on a farm and spent his boyhood like other boys brought up to agricultural pursuits. Soon after arriving at manhood, he left his native State, and took up his residence in Westmoreland County, in Western Pennsylvania. Here, early in the year 1789, the precise date not ascertained, he was married to Elizabeth Hoblitt, daughter of Michael Hoblitt, a native of Germany, and ancestor of the Hoblitts of Clinton and Greene Counties.
Stimulated by the reports which had reached him of the fertile lands of Kentucky, Mr. Bennet, in the fall of 1789, determined to remove there, and, in company with his wife's father and family, he descended the Ohio River in boats to Limestone, now the town of Maysville, Ky. The Indians at that time were exceedingly troublesome on the river. Few boats were allowed to pass with impunity. If captured, as they frequently were, the entire party were slain in the most barbarous manner, or, what was little better, carried away into Indian captivity. Mr. Bennet and his party proper had the good fortune to pass through this cordon of savages without sustaining any disaster; but a boat in their convoy was not so lucky, for, being permitted to fall too far in
542 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
the rear it was attacked with great fury by the Indians, and, though it escaped being captured, sustained a loss of two men killed. The party of emigrants to which Mr. Bennet belonged, before landing at Limestone, proceeded to the interior of the country by way of the Lower Blue Licks and Lexington. At the latter place, a halt of some weeks was made, for the purpose of examining the country for a suitable location. After a pretty thorough exploration in various directions, the party made choice of a point in what is now Woodford County, near the site of the present town of Versailles, and here Mr. Bennet resided for about ten years.
In the fall of 1790, Mr. Bennet joined the expedition of Gen. Harmar, which was sent by the Government to destroy the Indian towns near where the Rivers St. Mary and St. Joseph unite and form the Maumee. The forces collected for this purpose rendezvoused at Cincinnati, then a small village about two years old. From here, they marched nearly north for about fifteen or twenty miles, until the Ohio River hills had been overcome, when their course was changed to about northeast, which led across Muddy Creek and Turtle Creek to the Little Miami. They crossed the stream about one mile below the mouth of Caesar's Creek, and continued up the river to the mouth of Glady Creek, near Spring Valley, then up Glady to near the point where Xenia now is, to Old Chillicothe, now called Old Town. Near this point, it is said that Mr. Bennet became too lame to travel, from a cancer in the leg, and was there fore honorably discharged and sent home. He thus escaped the disgrace of Harmar's abortive campaign and the dangers of Hardin's disastrous defeats. The route taken by the army led through a most beautiful and productive country. That Mr. Bonnet should have placed a high estimate on the lands through which he passed may well be assumed. A few years later, he is found acquiring land, supposed at the time to be near the line of his march, and soon after coming to settle upon it.
In the fall of 1799, he purchased about 200 acres of land from William S. Hawkins, one of his Kentucky neighbors, who was an extensive land-holder in the Virginia Military District, lying between the Little Miami and Scioto Rivers. The land purchased was a part of Survey No. 2,690, but the location of the survey was represented to Mr. Bennet to lie between the Little Miami and Caesar's Creek, and so of course in the region of country through which he had marched nine or ten years previous, while in the army of Harmar. Confiding in this representation, he made his purchase. In 1799, a few settlers had established themselves between these streams, and many more on the west side of the Miami opposite to and in the neighborhood of where Mr. Bennet's land was said to lie. Indeed, at that time, the country between the Great and Little Miamis, as far north at least as Dayton, was beginning to be well dotted with settlers' cabins and improvements, and attracted the attention of emigrants far and near. Having, as he supposed, acquired valuable lands near new but thriving settlements, Mr. Bennet began at once to make arrangements to settle upon them. The land, however, turned out, as will hereafter appear, to lie in a very different locality from that supposed.
He removed from Kentucky in the spring of 1800, with his family, which at that time consisted of his wife and six children, two sons and four daughters. He regarded the removal as the best step to take, in order to advance the interests of himself and growing family. At the time of leaving Kentucky, the only means of transportation within the reach of Mr. Bennet was pack horses. a common one in that day. Accordingly, pack-horses were provided to carry Mrs. Bennet and the infant Nathaniel, the bedding, wearing apparel, provisions, agricultural tools, cooking utensils and such of the children as were not able to walk. The cows, calves and other stock were driven in the
UNION TOWNSHIP. - 543
wake of the pack-horses by the older children. Mr. Bennet, with rifle on shoulder and shot-pouch and powder-horn slung to his side, and hunting knife in scabbard, sometimes led the van and sometimes brought up tho rear, according as his presence seemed to be most required. At times, he would quit the trace and march for hours on the right or left of the moving column, in pursuit of game, and, being it most successful hunter, he was generally able to keep the family supplied with the most palatable meats. He came north by the "Dry Ridge" road to Cincinnati, then but recently named. From Cincinnati, he took Harmar's trace to a point near where Lebanon has since been laid out, and from there, nearly a north course to a point near where Centerville, Montgomery County, has grown up, distance from the Ohio River, forty-five miles. In what is now the Centerville neighborhood, he found his brother-in-law, Soboston Hoblitt, and a number of his old neighbors in New Jersey and his recent neighbors in Kentucky, as the Nutts, Robbins. Becks and Archers, who had settled there three years before. The town of Centerville, in Montgomery County, Ohio, was laid out afterward in the same neighborhood by one of his old New Jersey friends. From some of these Mr. Bennet expected pilotage to his land, but his friends had only been there a short time and ever since their arrival had been busy raising cabins for themselves or neighbors, or planting and raising something to live on. They had found no time to look much beyond the narrow circle of their own concerns, and really knew no more about Hawkins' Survey, No. 2,690, in the Virginia Military District, than we of Clinton County in this day know of some Spanish Don's land grant in Florida or New Mexico. And what made it worse, the records pertaining to the surveys in the Virginia Military District were kept in the Principal Surveyor's office in Louisville, Ky. After an inpatient waiting for information in regard to the location of his land, he at last had the good fortune to learn of a Mr. McFarland, living on the Little Miami, near the mouth of Todd's Fork, who, it was supposed, could give him the desired information. Without delay, Mr. Bennet called upon Mr. McFarland, and was conducted by him up Todd's Fork, by the way of Smalley's, near where Clarksville now is, to the Deserted Camp Corner, a well-known landmark from which the line of an intervening survey conducted them to a corner of Mr. Bennet's land. This land is situated south of Todd's Fork, about one and a half miles nearly northeast of the present town of Wilmington, and includes lands owned by James S. Garland, the tract included in the home farm of Samuel R. Glass, and about fifty acres on the Prairie road, late the residence of Miss Catharine McWhorter.
Mr. Bennet does not seem to have been transported with pleasure on beholding his possessions for the first time. They were part of an immense tract of woodland, and were covered with large forest trees of almost every kind growing in the country. In that day a considerable part was wet land. The only settler within ten miles of the land known to Mr. Bennet, was William Smalley, whose cabin he and Mr. McFarland had passed ten miles below on their way up Todd's Fork. Smalley had in early life been taken prisoner by the Shawnee Indians, and had been brought up among them. His color was much like an Indian's; his hair was straight and black; his eye had the wild piercing glance of a bird of prey, truly Indian. The rims of his ears had been cut from the cartilaginous parts, and hung down in strings as a sort of trimming, after the fashion of a ladies' eardrop. His history up to this time was not calculated to make him desirable as a neighbor, even at a distance of ten miles off, for only eight years before he had been the interpreter for Col. Hardin, when sent by Gen. Washington on a peace mission to the Shawnee Indiana, and had suffered Hardin to be killed by an Indian man and boy while asleep
544 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
in the night before the fire. If Mr. Bennet had other neighbors nearer than the banks of the Little Miami, he had not seen nor heard of them. The land being found, Mr. McFarland returned home as he came, by Todd's Fork, and Mr. Bennet hired an Indian to pilot him to Waynesville, on the Little Miami, while he followed with a tomahawk and blazed the way so as to be able to find it again.
In the summer of 1800, Mr. Bennet raised a crop in the Centerville neighborhood, and, on the 30th day of January, 1801, at the same place, his daughter Amy was born. A few days later, Mr. Bennet, with his brother-in-law, John Hoblitt, and his four eldest children, came to erect a house and make an opening on his wilderness lands, taking with them cooking utensils, farming tools and provisions. They selected small trees for house logs, so that when cut to their proper length two men could place them in the walls of the house. Boards were made for roof, loft and door, and puncheons for the floor, and the house nicely prepared to receive Mrs. Bennet. Leaving Mr. Hoblitt and the children to keep house, Mr. Bennet returned to the Centerville neighborhood for his wife. On their way back, they found the Miami out of banks, and, there being neither bridges nor boats on the river in that day, the passage had to be effected by swimming their horses. Mr. Bennet led the way, carrying the infant Amy in his arms, and Mrs. Bennet followed at a proper distance, riding her horse for greater safety, after the fashion of a cavalier. Other streams, of large size when swollen, lay between the Miami and their home, as Caesar's Creek and Todd's Fork; but whether the horses were put to a swim or not has not been ascertained. The same evening, after a ride of twenty-five miles through a pathless wood and without a solitary house for fifteen miles, Mrs. Bennet was rewarded by seeing, for the first time, her home among the trees.
The spring and summer of 1801 was a busy season for the Bennet family. Land had to be prepared for a crop. To remove all the great oaks, elms, hickories and beech from any considerable number of acres of land, between the 1st of March and the time for planting, was too great a task to be for a moment seriously entertained. Mr. Bennet, therefore, cut away the trees of small growth, grubbed up the spice bushes, girdled the large trees and removed the down timber by cutting and burning. All was inclosed with a substantial fence. In this work all could engage. The seed was planted in the loose, rich ground without plowing, and the crops cultivated with the hoe and hand. It required unceasing vigilance to protect the corn from the squirrels by day and the raccoons by night, but enough was saved to keep famine from the door.
After Mr. Bennet made his settlement, for several years the Indians came in the fall season to make their annual hunt. They were generally divided into bands, numbering from three to fifty. The larger companies were attended by the women; children, ponies and dogs. In such cases, they invariably retired at the approach of winter to their towns farther to the north. A few stragglers not infrequently stayed in the country through the winter to trap. They were mostly Shawnees and Wyandots, with an occasional Delaware. A favorite place for camping for them was along Todd's Fork, near Mr. Bennet's residence, above and below where Starbucktown now is. Another was on Anderson's Fork, extending up the creek from the Telfair farm to near the site of Centerville, Wayne Township. In the fall of 1811, the Indians seemed less friendly than usual, and at times created uneasiness among the settlers. About the beginning of November, all their young men disappeared. After an absence of about three weeks they were noticed as having returned. While they were gone the battle of Tippecanoe had been fought. They had brought the result of the fight several days in advance of the Cincinnati and
UNION TOWNSHIP. - 545
Chillicothe newspapers. William Smalley was a frequent visitor at their camps, staying for several days together, and no doubt eating with unfeigned gusto their dirty cookery.
The first child born to Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, after their removal to what is now the Wilmington neighborhood, was their daughter Margaret. She was born November 19, 1802, on what has since been known as the farm of Judge Hinkson, on the north side of Anderson's Fork, near where the Radcliffe road now runs, at the house of James Mills, father of James R. Mills. Mr. Mills and his brother-in.-law, Amos Wilson, from whom Wilson Township has been named, were, at the time spoken of, living in the same dooryard, but each having a separate dwelling. Mrs. Bennet had been taken to Mr. Mills' house some days before, in anticipation of her accouchement, that she might have the aid and attention of Mr. Wilson's mother, the wife of Hon. John Wilson. a member of the first Constitutional Convention of Ohio. who had come over from between the Miamis to be at hand to perform the same part for her daughter-in-law as necessary in the case of Mrs. Bennet. The only white women in that day within what are now the limits of Clinton County are believed to have been Mrs. Mary Van Meter, wife of Morgan Van Meter; Mrs. Miller, wife of the late Esquire Samuel Miller, Mrs. Amos Wilson, Mrs. Mills and Mrs. Bennet.
Mr. Bennet was a most successful hunter. He killed a great many deer on what is now the original town plat of Wilmington, at the licks along the branch south of the residence of Richard and Mary Peirce. It is said by early settlers that, after his health became enfeebled, his wife was in the habit of often bringing him on a horse to these licks. He would climb up into one of the old beech trees above the lick, situated upon what is now known as the old hill residence of the late Robert B. Harlan, and remain there through the day, watching for the deer to come to the lick, when he would shoot them. In the evening, the horse was brought for him to return home with his game. Other early settlers speak of having often hunted over this same ground. It was then covered with an undergrowth of spice and hazel bushes and was a noted hunting-ground. Michael, Mr. Bennet's eldest son, at the age of twelve years, is said to have killed a large bear, near where the present residence of Mrs. Margaret Treusdell, in Wilmington, is situated. Mr. Bennet is believed to have been twice elected to the office of County Commissioner of Clinton County; he ceased to be a Commissioner in 1815. He was in feeble health for many years prior to his death. He made his will in 1823, and died early in the year 1827.
Mr. Bennet had thirteen children, four sons and nine daughters-Michael, named from his grandfather, Michael Hoblitt, was born December 20, 1789. He married Ann Dillon, a daughter of Jesse Dillon, Sr. He went to Illinois about fifty years ago, and there died. Phebe, born December 4, 1791, married Elisha Doan, of Wilson's Branch. Her husband died June 22, 1848. She removed to Missouri in 1870. Mary was born April 16, 1793, and married Daniel Mills, of the Sabina neighborhood, in 1815. The husband died and the wife removed to Illinois. Catharine, born March 15, 1795, was married to Joseph Doan, Jr., September 23, 1813. He dying, she afterwards married Elkanah Jacks, of the Sabina neighborhood, May 17, 1829. Sarah, born April 1, 1797, married William Roberds. Nathaniel, born February 25, 1799, went to Illinois. Amy, born January 30, 1801, married James Fisher, May 8, 1818, and removed to Tazewell County, Ill. Margaret, born November 19,102, married Isaac Fisher. Keziah, born January 4, 1804, married Caleb Bright, October 20, 1825, and went to Tazewell County, Ill. Eunice, born February 7, 1809, married Isaac Fisher, January 24, 1828, Margaret, his first wife, having
546 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
died. They removed to Illinois. Jamima, burn November 3, 1811, married William Custis, March 1, 1833. Timothy, born April 19, 1813, married Elizabeth Russell, August 10, 1831, and went to Bureau County, Ill. All of Timothy Bennet's children are dead, as far as we have been able to learn.
With Mr. Bennet came John Hoblitt, his brother-in-law, who purchased of him fifty acres. which was surveyed for Mr. Hoblitt by Nathan Linton, in October, 1805.
George Haworth, grandfather of George D., Ezekiel, Elijah and others, all well-known citizens of the county, was the grandson of George Haworth, who came to America with William Penn, from Lancanshire, England, in 1699. George's father, James Haworth, was a native of Pennsylvania, but removed to Frederick County, Va. The subject of our sketch was born in Bucks County, Penn., in 1718, but while still a boy, removed with his parents to the neighborhood of Winchester, Va.. where they lived upon the mountain range, called Apple Pitt Ridge. Here he grew up to manhood and was married to Susannah Dillon, but the spirit of emigration having a strong hold upon him, he removed with his young wife to North Carolina, settling on the Yadkin River, near the home of Daniel Boone. After Boone had returned from his wanderings in Kentucky, he gave such a glowing description of the lands of that country that Mr. Haworth was induced to join his party. On the 25th of September, 1771, they left their homes and made the first attempt ever made to settle Kentucky.
The families of George Haworth and his brother James made two of the six families that accompanied Boone on that occasion. The party proceeded until they were descending the Alleghanies, near Cumberland Mountain, when they were attacked with great fury by a scouting party of Indians and several of their number slain, among whom was Boone's eldest son. The party, however, soon rallied from the confusion into which they were thrown, and the attack was repelled; but the party was so disheartened that they retreated to Clinch River, forty miles in their rear. The Haworth brothers now returned to North Carolina, and remained there about twelve years, when they again attempted to enter Kentucky, but, finding the Indians still hostile, turned their course to Tennessee, and, in what is now Green County in that State, George selected the place for his now home. He then returned to North Carolina, and, taking his two little sons, Mahlon and John, with him, went back to Tennessee, built a cabin and made other preparations for the reception of the other members of his family. When their work was done, the father returned to North Carolina for his wife, and other children, leaving; the two little boys, aged ten and twelve years, alone in the new home, with provisions enough, as he supposed, to last them during his absence; which he expected would be of two or three weeks' duration. But high waters and other impediments to travel on packhorses detained them for six weeks. During the time, their provisions gave out, and the little boys were obliged to subsist on parched corn, roots and berries, such as they could gather in the woods. Added to this trouble was the fear of an attack by the Indians, and when at last their parents arrived, the boys ran to meet them with outstretched arms, the mother sprang from her horse, clasped them in her arms and they all wept together for joy. Mr. Haworth's family continued to reside near Greenville, Tenn., until the year 1803, he being engaged as a merchant and cattle dealer, when they again left their home for a new one in the unopened forest. This time they came to Ohio, and, in the fall of 1803, made a settlement on Todd's Fork, on the farm known to the early residents of the county as the Stacey Bivan farm, not far from Centre Meeting-House. Mr. Haworth had bought 1,750 acres of land in William Duval's Survey, No. 523.
George Haworth is said to have been the second settler in what is now
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Union Township, and one of the earliest in Clinton County. He opened a farm and built a grist-mill. His son James settled the farm long occupied by Eli Gaskill; Richard, the David Myers place, and John, the Morris farm. George owned the John Haines place. while Samuel and Dillon lived at home with their father. A year later, his son Mahlon brought his family from Tennessee, and settled on the farm since owned by William Walker, on Todd's Fork, two miles north of Wilmington, ton, on the Dover road. Other sons opened other well-known farms in this part of the county until eight had homes of their own. Here George Haworth continued to reside until about 1825, when several of his sons, having sold out their possessions in Ohio and removed to the State of Illinois, he also sold out and removed with his two youngest sons, Samuel and Dillon, to Quaker Point, near Georgetown, Vermilion Co., Ill., in order to be near his children. Georgetown was laid out by his son James Haworth, and called after his father's given name.
Mr. Haworth was a worthy member of the Society of Friends, and, in the latter years of his life a minister. About 1807 or 1808, he traveled on horseback to Baltimore to attend the yearly meeting, as a representative from Miami Quarterly Meeting, then, as now, held at Waynesville. The late R. B. Harlan remembered hearing Nathan Linton say, when passing near Center Meeting House, that the first time he was on the ground there, engaged in surveying, old George Haworth was preaching. The date of this was 1804.
Nathan Linton was born in Bucks County, Penn., on the banks of the Delaware River, January 17, 1778, and, after a long and eminently useful life, died at his residence in Clinton County, February 11, 1858, in the eighty-first year of his age. He visited Ohio in 1801, and, on his return home, he persuaded his father and family to emigrate. With his father, Samuel Linton and his family, he removed to Ohio in 1802, arriving in Waynesville the last day of May. On the 31st day of May, 1802, Robert Eachus, on his way up from Cincinnati to Waynesville, camped overnight at Daniel Antram's, between where Lebanon now is and Waynesville, on the ground which Samuel Linton had occupied the night before when emigrating to the West. Samuel was the fifth child of Benjamin and Jane (Cowgal) Linton, and was born in Bucks County, Penn., December 17, 1741; was reared a farmer, yet learned the trade of a weaver. He was married, May 10, 1775, to Elizabeth Harvey, born March 8, 1748, who became the mother of six children-Samuel, Nathan, David, Jane and Elizabeth (twins) and James. Mr. Linton was a widower when he came to Ohio, and his family consisted of three sons-Nathan, David and James, and two daughters-Elizabeth and Jane. They remained at Waynesville between two and three years, living while there in the field above the brewery a year.
In the fall of 1803, Samuel Linton bought 500 acres of land from Daniel Murray, on Todd's Fork, in what is now Clinton County, paying for it $1.75 per acre. In 1804, Nathan and David Linton raised a crop on this land, while their father looked after the land at Waynesville, and the family made preparations to move on to the Todd's Fork farm. While the family was thus divided, the sisters took turn about staying one with the brothers and the other at the home in Waynesville, changing frequently, as often as every week when possible. Early in 1805, the family all moved on to the Todd's Fork farm, of which Mr. Linton writes: "There are on my tract good springs of water, and above 100 acres of that sort of land that but little timber grows upon it, and what little there is is chiefly walnut and ash; the ground is much overrun with pea- vine and spice wood (sometimes called babywood). Such lands are too strong for wheat in their first culture, but excellent for corn, hemp, potatoes, pumpkins, tobacco, etc."
548 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
Mr. Linton was a weaver and had at weaving shop in Waynesville. In a letter to Abel Saterthwaite, of Philadelphia, dated May 5, 1804, he says that he hits woven a uumbor pieces of cloth, and made out bravely, but flint his worst difficulty was an overrun of custom. In the same letter. describing his possessions, he says: "We have four head of horses. young and old, and thirteen head of cattle, young and old." March 12, 1808, he writes to the Santo Saterthwaite: "I have woven 2,400 yards of different kinds of cloth since I have been in this country." In the same letter, he says further: "I expect there will be near sixty acres of corn planted on my farm this coming spring, by tenants mostly, who work the ground to the share; there afro thirty-five individuals living on my farm----:a great improvement in the space of three years." In 1810, he writes: "We have gathered in at plentiful harvest of wheat, rye and hay; our oats are not gathered in as yet. I expect there were more than 400 bushels of wheat and rye (mostly wheat) gathered in on our plantation the past harvest, and the fall crops are promising."
Jane Linton, daughter of Samuel, married Jesse Arnold. Elizabeth married John Saterthwaite, who came out from Bucks County, Penn., in 1809, and the following year opened a store in Waynesville. David Linton married Letitia Silver, at Waynesville, in 1705, and occupied his father's property in that town, engaging in mercantile business with his father-in-law.
Nathan Linton and Rachel Smith were married January 31, 1806. She was the daughter of Seth Smith, then residing on Walnut Creek, Highland County, a brother of Jacob Smith, owner of Smith's mill, on Big Beaver, west of Xenia. Seth Smith lived at one time near the falls of Paint Creek, and, for some time on Walnut Creek, Highland County. The Smiths came to Ohio from Green County, Tenn. To Nathan and Rachel Linton twelve children were born, ten of whom grew up to maturity,. and nine of whom, with his wife, survived him. The children were as follows: Elizabeth, Abi, Samuel, Seth, David, James, Mary, Nathan, Benjamin, Cyrus, Ruth and Jane. In 1807, he removed with his young bride into a log cabin, which stood upon the same ground occupied by his residence at the time of his death, and during all the remaining years of his life it continued to be the home of himself and family. During the summer of that year, while he was absent on a surveying expedition, a fearful tornado passed over his residence, unroofing the cabin and blowing large forest trees upon it, his wife, all alone, taking refuge under the puncheon floor and under the bed, seemingly the only place of shelter she could have found.
Nathan Linton began his career as a surveyor in Clinton County in 1803. After Daniel Murray returned to Maryland, being an officer in the United States Navy, he was ordered on board ship to sail to the Mediterranean, to assist in avenging the wrongs done the United States ship Philadelphia by the Tripolitans. Soon after his return to the East, Nathan Linton received full power of attorney to sell the remaining lands in James Murray's patent. Nathan Linton did a great deal of surveying and piloting the claimants of land between the Miami and Scioto Rivers and their agents, to their lands. When the county was organized, in 1810, he was appointed County Surveyor, which office he held twenty years, when he declined re-appointment. During the years in which he held this office, he contributed much to the permanency of legal titles to the homes of the farmers of Clinton County. The accuracy and fidelitv with which his duties were discharged, and the faithful record thereof which he made, cannot be too highly appreciated by the people of the county. He was a strong man, both in body and mind. He gave early and much attention to fruit culture, and to him in great part our county is indebted for her pre-eminence in fine wool and grafted fruit. He introduced the first tine wool
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and line sheep into Clinton County. He was a Friend in religious belief, as were also his ancestors in every generation from his great-grandfather, the contemporary of William Penn and George Fox.
Mr. Linton wits a sincere believer in education, holding that girls, as well as boys, should be thoroughly instructed in arithmetic, a thing not very common in that day. Accordingly, whoa his daughter Elizabeth (now Mrs. Butterworth) wits old enough to begin the study, he gave her an arithmetic that he bimself had used, and the old slate on which he had worked his surveying problems for yeah. Notwithstanding the jeers of the other pupils, that Elizabeth Linton wanted to be it man, etc., she began her work. One day, having some examples on her slate which she wished to submit to her teacher, she went up to him to show the work. No her great mortification they were not correct, and an exultant laugh passed round the schoolroom. Doubly annoyed at her own mistake and the ridicule of the other pupils, she started for her seat, and to hide her shame, held the slate up close before her face. In an unfortunate moment she stubbed her toe and down she fell, breaking her father's highly prized old slate into many pieces. Mr. Linton's friend and cotemporary, Isaiah Morris, says of him: "In all his relations in life, both public and private, his character will stand the best of scrutiny. His life has been truly useful and beneficial to his family and friends and to the community."
Samuel Linton, father of Nathan, seems to have been a man of unusual intelligence and information. His old letters, which have fortunately been preserved in the family, show him to have been an attentive reader, and to have had no small knowledge of the politics of his day, both in Europe and America. He was an ardent admirer of Thomas Jefferson and an enthusiastic defender of that great man's administration. His letters are of rare value to one interested in the early condition and growth of our own and 'Warren County.
Robert Eachus was the son of a Philadelphia inn-keeper of the same name, and Mary, his wife, whose maiden name was Mary Griffith. He was born in the city of Philadelphia on the 23d day of November, 1763. He was one of a family of six children--one daughter and five sons. The daughter was the oldest. Of the sons, two were older and two younger than Robert. Mary Griffith was born May 4, 1733. The Griffith family seem to have been Bible readers. There is now in the possession of Mary Kirby, first child of the subject of this notice, named from her grandmother, a Bible, printed in London, in 1044, the gift of the grandmother to the grand-daughter. It had been in the Griffith family, doubtless, long prior to its coming into the hands of Mary Griffith, as it was eighty-nine years old when she was born.
The father of young Robert died while he was yet a lad, and shortly afterward he was sent a short distance into the country, it is thought, to be taken care of by some of his relatives. His mother continued the business of the house, but whether she kept her other children with her or not cannot now be ascertained. From the time Robert left the paternal mansion until about 1788, we have very scant accounts of him. Such occasional glimpses of him as are furnished by those who knew more or less of him in early life, very clearly indicate that at that early period, as well as later in life, he was a person of excellent habits and character. He had also acquired a knowledge of the trade of wagon-making, and had spent considerable time in working at the business. In 1788, he was residing in Frederick County, Va., near Winchester, and, November 20, of that year, he married Phebe Thornburgh. Not long after that event, Mr. Eachus settled in Martinsburg, Berkeley Co., Va., and opened a shop for the manufacture of wagons. It is represented that he carried on
554 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
the business extensively for that day, and with success. In 1794, Mr. Eachus made arrangements to visit the West, with the view of locating here, and, in company with another, came as far as Western Pennsylvania. Here they found the people in the midst of the rebellion known as the "Whisky Insurrection," and such was the unreasoning madness of the insurgents that Mr. Eachus and his companion deemed it unsafe to prosecute their journey farther, and therefore returned home.
In 1798, Mr. Eachus emigrated to East Tennessee, and settled in Washington County near Jonesboro; he resided there nearly four years. In the spring of 1802, he commenced his long and weary journey to Ohio. That season of the year was chosen as affording better pasturage on the way for the horses and cattle. Their route was by the Cumberland Gap, Crab Orchard, Lexington, Ky., and Cincinnati, arriving at Waynesville, Warren County, then a noted stopping-place for emigrants, on the 1st day of June, 1802. On their way up from Cincinnati, they camped at Daniel Antram!s, between where Lebanon now is and Waynesville, on the identical ground occupied by Samuel Linton (father of Nathan) and familyas a camping-ground on the night before when emigrating to the West. He remained at Waynesville but a short time and then removed to Clear Creek, Warren County, locating on a farm known in that day and for many years afterward, as the John Reppy farm, seven miles north of Lebanon. . Here George Haworth, Sr., found him living, and stopped with him in 1803. The house left vacant by his removal from Waynesville was immediately occupied by Isaac Perkins and family, recently arrived from North Carolina, accompanied by Jacob Haines and James Moon. Perking, Haines and Moon were afterward his near neighbors on Todd's Fork.
In the fall of 1803, Daniel Murray, a son and agent of Dr. James Murray, of Maryland, came to Ohio to make sale of parts, or the whole, of the many surveys of land in what is now Clinton County, which had been entered and surveyed in the name of Gen. Horatio Gates, of Revolutionary memory, whose daughter and only heir James Murray had married. He found at Waynesville a large number of emigrants who had come to the country desiring to purchase between the two Miamis. The greater number were from North and South Caroliua, some from Virginia and a few from Pennsylvania. All were able to buy more or less land, and nearly all were members of the Society of Friends. Many of them had been at Waynesville over a year, doing little or nothing, waiting for the Miami lands to be opened for entry; and yet they were withheld from sale. Symmes' purchase of 1,000,000 acres of land included the lands most desired by these emigrants, but in consequence of big failure to make due payments, much the larger part of his purchase reverted to the United States. Murray, finding these unsettled emigrants sick from hope long deferred, prevailed on many of them to visit his lands. They examined them and were well pleased with their general appearance. Murray offered to donate fifteen acres of land for a meeting-house for Friends. He offered to deduct liberally from the price of 160 acres which Mr. Eachus proposed to buy, if he would erect a mill on his land. By these and other liberal offers, he succeeded in selling considerable quantities of land to Mr. Eachus and others, mostly in what is now known as the Centre neighborhood. The deeds for these lands range in date from December 12 to December 19, 1803. In the fall of 1804, Robert Eachus removed to his purchase, situated in Survey 1,558. He had taken the precaution to have a house erected on his land before bringing his family to it. It has been satisfactorily ascertained that he took possession of his house on the 22d day of October, 1804.
A part of the consideration for the land was the building of a grist-mill on Todd's Fork, on part of the land. The mill was accordingly built, to which
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many of the early settlers contributed liberally in work and otherwise. How long the mill was kept up has not been definitely ascertained, but it has long since disappeared and no other has been erected in its stead. Vestiges of the dam and rare are still traceable on the ground. His new residence was in Warren County (since Clinton); the house was made of hewed logs, and stood near the spot on which he afterward resided for many years, and where William Doan, his son-in-law, lived for many years subsequently. While his residence continued to be a part of Warren County, he was elected to the office of Justice of the Peace. The precise time has not been ascertained, but it is believed to have been in 1806, and that he continued a Justice in that county until Clinton County was erected and he was thrown into the new county.
After Clinton County was created, it was divided into three townships Chester, Vernon and Richland. To each township three Justices were allowed. Mr. Eachus belonged in Chester Township. At the first election, he was one of the three elected. The other Justices elected were George Arnold and William Haynes, the last named the father of Archibald Haynes, late County Commissioner. This was in 1810. The first meeting of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas of the county was for a special purpose, on the 28th day of March, 1810. Present, Francis Dunlavy, President Judge, and Jesse Hughes and Thomas Hinkson, Associate Judges. On that day, among other things, Mr. Eachus was appointed Recorder for Clinton County.
Early after Mr. Eachus came to the neighborhood, the importance of a meeting-house and the establishment of a meeting became manifest. Accordingly, a meeting of men and women Friends was convened at the house of Mr. Eachus, which was selected because it was the largest in the neigbhorhood. In May, 1805, Miami Quarterly Meeting allowed the holding of the proposed meeting. Soon after, a house made of unhewn logs, without door or floor, was built, and meetings were held twice a week therein. This house is believed to have been the first house of worship erected in what is now Clinton County. It stood where Centre Meeting-House stands.
Robert Eachus and Phebe, his wife, had born to them three daughters and one son, who arrived at maturity. Mary, the oldest of the family, married Benjamin Kirby; she was many years a widow. Betsy was married in Clinton County to William Doan; the husband and wife are deceased; the wife has been dead many years. Juliana was married to John Leonard Perkins; she has been long deceased. David was born December 5,1804; he resides in Greene Township, near New Antioch. Robert Eachus had a birth-right to membership in the Society of Friends, but during the Revolutionary war he showed more military spirit in behalf of his country than was consistent with his peaceable profession. For this he was dealt with by the society and disowned. He lived many years out of the pale of the church, but some years previous to his death he applied for restoration to membership and was accepted. He died in peace with all men, March 24, 1829. In 1800, Mahlon Haworth, son of George Haworth, who settled on Todd's Fork in 1803, visited Ohio on a prospecting tour and prosecuted his exploration up the Little Miami and Mad Rivers, returning by way of Van Meter's. He seems to have been well pleased with the country, for, in 1804, we find him and his family, in company with John and James Wright and their families, making their way from their home in Tennessee to the then wilderness of Southern Ohio. They crossed the Ohio River at Cincinnati, then containing, it is said, but eighteen houses, came through Lebanon, then newly laid out, and in the streets of which were trees, stumps and brush-heaps, to Waynesville, the old stoppingplace for a large proportion of the emigrants to this part of the country. This party of four families made the journey in four-horse wagons, driving behind
556 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
what cows and other stock they brought with them. It is said of Mahlon Haworth that he rode the wheel-horse and drove the team over Clinch Mountain, carrying an infant in his arms. This child, then near two years old, was his daughter Susannah, who afterward married Maarmaduke Brackney (late of Clinton County). Besides Susannah, he brought to Ohio his three children older than she-Rebecca, George D. and Ezekiel.
This little company of emigrants made choice of the lands on Todd's Fork for their settlement, north of where Wilmington now is. Mahlon Haworth purchased his law l of a man by the name of Tolls. It is now owned by William Walker and lies on the Jamestown road, two miles north of Wilmington. It is said that those four families- George Haworth, Mahlon Haworth, James and John Wright-were among the first white families to settle in Clinton County north of Wilmington, though several others came in soon afterward. One son of Mahlon Haworth says they arrived at their new home the 27th day of October; another says it was the 2d of November. Their arrival wits so late in the season that it was impossible to build comfortable houses, but they immediately began the arduous task of preparing a home and opening up a farm in the wilderness. A temporary shelter for the family was the first structure, and was made of round logs or poles, with the cracks filled with moss. This was the work of the first day, and without having time to make a floor, fire-place or shutter for the door, the family moved in, making a fire in the center of the house and letting the smoke pass out at an opening left in the roof. A bed quilt supplied the place of a shutter to the door. In the night the horses were heard in motion so much, restlessly shaking their chains and moving from place to place, that Mr. Haworth arose from his couch and went out to see what was the matter. Upon looking out and seeing the prospect, he called to his wife and said: "Phebe, there is hard times at the door." A deep snow had fallen and it continued to fall until it was two feet deep. This cabin stood on the hillside, about half-way between where the road now runs and where they afterward erected their dwelling, the same that is now standing; the brick house, however, was preceded by a log house, but the brick house has been standing there for considerably more than fifty years.
In the bottom, on the opposite side of Todd's Fork, was a camping ground of the Indians. In the seasons when they occupied the ground, the lights of their camp were plainly seen from the pioneer's cabin. Indians were not unfrequent visitors at the cabin. They gave the children a great many frights, but they always seemed to be friendly. The writer has heard Mahlon Haworth say that the Indian Logan had often been at his house. Some think he referred to Logan, the famous Mingo chief, but it is probable that it was Logan, the Shawnee chief, though they both doubtless roamed over the hunting-grounds in this part of the country, as the celebrated speech of Logan, the Mingo chief, was delivered not more than forty miles from here. One evening, Indian meal mush had been prepared for supper, and, just as it was being placed upon the table, an Indian came in. Mr. Haworth invited him to eat, and, sitting down, he took a spoonful of hot mush in his mouth, which caused him to spring up very angry, believing he had been made the butt of a joke. But Mr. Haworth showed him by signs how to cool the mush by putting it in the milk, when he soon became pacified and resumed his repast. Once when the father was from home, a large Indian came, and, lifting the quilt that filled the place of a door, peeped into the house, then leaving his gun on the outside, walked in, seated himself on a .stool. and deliberately took his butcher knife from his belt and commenced scraping the Spanish needles from his leggings. Then in broken English he asked for food. After being supplied with a hearty meal, he quietly departed. The same day, three bears came
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within a few feet of the house. Stuck were some of the early experiences of that little family in their snow-bound home.
Soon after their arrival, Mr. Haworth exchanged a horse, which he had brought from Tennessee, with Timothy Bennet for 100 bushels of corn, a small lot of hog meat and a small hog. This, with wild turkey, bear meat and veni son, was all the meat they had until they could raise it. For some time they ground corn for bread with a hand-mill. Aside from this, their breadstuffs were procured froze, the Miami near Waynesville, and this was packed home on the backs of horses. Can we of the present generation have any idea of the trials our forefathers endured before our now greatly blessed country was brought into its present prosperous condition ?
In this rude cabin and during this cold winter weather, a daughter, Mary Haworth, or Polly, as she was called, was born. She grew so beautiful that she was the admired of all the surrounding country; but, in the midst of her loveliness, in her early womanhood, spa was called away. Mahlon and Phebe Haworth had also born unto them upon this farm other children, as follows: Phebe, Mahlon, John, Elijah, James and Richard. Rebecca died in early womanhood; John and James in infancy. The retraining eight children all lived to be respected and influential citizens of Clinton County, and heads of families.
At the close of the war, there came to Mr. Haworth's house a company of Light Horse, as they were then called, who had been in the service during the war of 1812. The horses were nearly dead; they were poor, with sore basks, and their legs terribly swollen with "the scratches." He took them all in, fed them and helped to doctor them for some weeks, until they were well and able to travel, with the exception of one horse that died and was hauled out into the woods. The howling of the wolves around its carcass at night was hideous and terrified the children so they could not sleep.
During the month of December, 1804, Mordecai Walker and his son Azel came up from Waynesville to see their lands, which they had purchased adjoining and in the neighborhood of the Haworths; and Mahlon and his brother James went to pilot them to and show them their lands. On their return, about where the residence of Mr. Dryden now is, they came upon an immense bear, which they shot and killed. It was so heavy that they had to call for the aid of a horse from home before they could get it there. There are many other circumstances related of Mahlon Haworth killing wild animals. He had a firm, steady nerve and was a good shot. He was a man of strong intellectual powers, possessed of an extraordinary memory. It never lost aught that he had ever seen, or heard, or read. He was an active, useful man in everything that related to the advancement of the people and the good of the country. High official positions in the State were offered and urged upon him by influential friends, but he declined in deference to the feelings of his wife. She was a Friend of the most conscientious type. She accepted the Apostle James' illustration of pure religion literally, and believed there was a great danger of persons in public life being overcome by temptations, and, as we read in the parable, like the seed which fell among thorns, after "they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection." His friend, Isaiah Morris, in writing of him, said: "He was a kind and affectionate husband and father, esteemed by all his neighbors, and enjoyed the confidence of his fellow-citizens, having filled for many years after the organization of the county a very responsible county office, the duties of which he discharged with the strictest fidelity and approbation of the people. The writer enjoyed an intimate acquaintance, marked by an uninterrupted friendship with him for forty-eight years, and can duly
558 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
appreciate his many virtues. He had the privilege of visiting him a few days before his death, found him in great affliction of body, but tranquil and peaceful in mind, imbued with that spirit which breathes good will toward all mankind, and enjoying consolation which the world can neither give nor take away. In view of this eventful life and peaceful and happy death, the writer was brought to realize the expression, `let me die the death of the righteous and let my last end be like his."' Mahlon Haworth was born in Frederick County, Va., in 1775, and died March 23, 1850, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, at his residence where he first settled when the country was almost an unbroken wilderness.
Nathan Hines came from North Carolina to Ohio in 1804, early in the year, and purchased land of James Murray. Many of the emigrants of that early period started on their journey early in the spring in order to have the benefit of the early grass for their stock, as grain was costly and scarce along the road. It is said that he arrived on Dutch Creek before many emigrants, from North Carolina, who started before him The reason of this was that they stopped for some time at Waynesville, while he came directly on without making any halt. On his arrival, he at once set to work to build a cabin to live in. He soon had one erected twelve feet square; into this he moved his family, which was by no means small. In a few weeks, Hur Hodgson arrived with his family, corresponding in numbers with that of Hines. He also took up his quarters in the cabin, and both families occupied it together in great harmony for several weeks.
Stephen Mendenhall bought of James Murray 142 acres of land in Survey 2,248, in the northwest corner. Date of the deed, February 4, 1812; consideration, $200. Stephen Mendenhall was an Englishman. His brothers were Aaron, Mordecai and Moses. He was the father of John Mendenhall, who had the following children: John, Maris Howell, Nathan, Isaac, Sarah (who mar ried Jeremiah Kimbrough), Rachel, Hannah, Stephen, Mordecai, Thomas and James. Murray had sold a lot to Daniel Linton, a distant connection of Nathan Linton, the old surveyor and early pioneer. Ezekiel Leonard was deranged for some time before going West, and one of his sons became deranged and died so. Thomas Leonard purchased land in Duvall's Survey, thirty-one acres, one rood and thirteen poles, which was surveyed for him by Nathan Linton September 10, 1824.
Isaac Perkins was born June 30, 1762. His wife, Phena Leonard, was born March 14, 1763. He started with his family to Ohio from North Carolina in November, 1802, and arrived at Waynesville January 8, 1803. He came to what is now Clinton County on the 12th day of March, 1804. Phena Perkins was wont to boast, especially in hay harvest, that she pitched nine tons of hay for three haystacks, each of three tons, on the day she was married.
Hur Hodgson came to Ohio and to Clinton County in 1804. He settled where John L. Thompson afterward lived, south of Joel Hodgson's present residence. His first wife was a sister of Judge Isaac Thornburgh, Associate Judge of Clinton County. His second wife was Achsah Dillon, daughter of Jesse Dillon. Hur Hodgson was born in Guilford County, N. C., May 16, 1767, and was the father of the following children: Mary, Isaac, Jesse, Jonathan, John, Elizabeth, Hannah, Ira, Nathan and Joel. Mr. Hodgson bought 100 acres of land of Miller & Studebaker, believed to be in 1804, part of Survey No. 2,248.
Francis Hester lived on the farm formerly owned by Samuel Myers, south, or a little east of south, of the Myers house. He came with Hur Hodgson in the fall of 1804.
Dr. John E. Greer bought out Francis Hester. He moved to Waynesville:
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in 1822, and remained there till 1837. Re removed to Indiana and died there. His wife was a sister to Job Jeffries, Sr.
Samuel Vestal was born October 26, 1796, in Chatham County, N. C. His father, John Vestal, came to the neighborhood of where Portsmouth now is in the spring of 1799, and raised a crop there. How long he stayed there is not known, but he was at Waynesville in the spring of 1803, and soon after came to Todd's Fork and cleared a few acres, nine or ten. But he did not live long to enjoy his new home While living on the Scioto, he had been greatly afflicted by diseases arising from stagnant water and decaying vegetation, and, although he sought relief in the new location in Clinton County, the disease had too firm a hold upon him, and he died in the fall of 1804. His burial was the second in the old graveyard at Centre. He was a brother to Jemima Doan, wife of Joseph Doan, one of the proprietors of the land on which the original town of Wilmington was laid out. Samuel Vestal was the only son of John Vestal, who settled on the Thomas Whinery place, near the spring, but west of the deep hollow. The hurricane passed when the corn was about knee-high. It took off the top of the house down to the square, and the chimney down to the mantel-piece. Edith (Ballard) Vestal, wife of Samuel, came to Ohio with her parents in 1803, when she was but three months old. Her father shot a wolf on the lot in Wilmington on which the jail now stands. Samuel Vestal and Edith were married April 3, 1825. John Vestal made his will on the 10th of July, 1804, and appointed James Moon and William Jay his executors. He divided his land among his five children. To Samuel, his son, he gave 200 acres on the north end of his tract of 690 acres, and the rest of his land, after his debts were paid, he divided among his four daughters Jemima, Rachel, Mary and Elizabeth.
James Odle bought land of James Murray, in Survey 1,558, on the 13th of December, 1803; number of acres, 159. This he sold April 16, 1810, to John Lewis for $750. Spencer Ballard was the son of Moorman Ballard, who was born May 15, 1747, and died April 27, 1821, aged nearly seventy-four years. Spencer Ballard was born August 29, 1771; he married Rebecca Haworth, daughter of George Haworth, December 7, 1796, and she bore him the following children: Amos, Benajah, Lydia (who married Jesse Doan), Edith (who became the wife of Samuel Vestal), Minerva, John, Olive, Jordan, Phoebe, Rebecca, Mary and an infant unnamed. Spencer Ballard left, among other things in his memorandum book, these entries: "In the year 1813, I was' drafted and fined $120 and property taken to the amount of $249.75 and sold for $150. Demand $120." "In the year 1812, harness, chains, back and belly-bands and blind bridles, worth $5, were taken for military fines, the demand $2." "For demand of $3.94 was taken one mattock, one clevis, one pair of horseshoes, one sledding bar, worth about $6, in the year 1813."
David Ballard, Bowater Sumner and William Hiatt came with Thomas Bales in 1775 to what is now the State of Ohio, on a visit to the Indiana. David Ballard was a brother of Moorman Ballard, who owned a part of the farm formerly owned by Brazilla Leonard, and uncle to Spencer Ballard. He bought 122 3/4 acres of land, part of Horatio Gates' Survey, No. 1,556. It was laid off in the southeast corner of the survey, and was run off to him by Nathan Linton, December 21, 1809. Simeon, son of Moorman Ballard, moved to Illinois about 1821, and settled in Vermilion County. John Ballard bought seventy-five acres of land, in H. Gates' Survey, No. 1,556, adjoining David Ballard on the north and Henry Babb on the east. The land was ran off to him by Nathan Linton December 21, 1807. He owned the John Hendricks farm. John Stout arrived on Todd's Fork with his family November 4, 1804.
560 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
He bought part of Gates' Survey, No. 1, 556; sixty acres of Samuel G. Martin and 105 acres of the estate of John Vestal, who had died two weeks before. The two purchases made up the farm now owned by Franklin Mitchell.
Daniel Dillon, the senior member of the Dillon family, was a cousin to Susannah Haworth, the progenitor of the Haworth family of Clinton County. He came to Todd's Fork in 1804, and bought and settled on 100 acres of land, mostly in Murray's Survey, No. 2.248, with a small hart in No. 1,558. He sold the land to Samuel Stanton before receiving a deed. The conveyance was made by Murray to Samuel Stanton, the well-known Quaker preacher, June 19, 1807; consideration, $200. He bought 300 acres of George Haworth and his son James. The land was the Brackney farm on Todd's Fork. His son Jesse owned the Levi Smith farm and sold it to Smith. He had a large family of children. His son Walter owned the home place of Elijah Haworth; Thomas, the John Peeble's farm. Nathan Dillon married a Hoskins. He was a Justice of the Peace in Greene Township. He moved to Illinois and served as Justice there. William Dillon bought land in the Hoskins neighborhood, and lived there in early times. He, too, moved to Illinois. Absalom and Joseph also went West. One of his daughters married Daniel Hodgson. Jane was James Fife's first wife and the mother of his children. Ann married Michael Bennett. Jesse Dillon, brother of Daniel Dillon, settled on and improved the Denver farm. He bought the whole of the Heath Survey, on Todd's Fork, No. 1,085, containing 1,292 acres. The land was surveyed for him by Nathan Linton September 28, 1815. His oldest daughter, Achsah, married Hur Hodgson. Susan married Gayer Starbuck Martha married Dora Fisher, who owned the William Rannells farm. He sold that and afterward owned the David Bailey farm. He removed to Illinois. Sarah married Robert Dwiggens, Sr., Hannah married William Wright, who owned a part of the Jacob Jenkins place; this he sold to Joseph Oren, and Oren, in turn, sold it to Isaac Wright, William's brother, both sons of James Wright. Abigail married Isaac Wright. Jonathan Dillon owned the farm known as the Zimri Whinery farm, near Gurneyville. There were about 290 acres in the farm. It was part of the Banks Survey, No. 2,279. It was can oft for him by Nathan Linton August 18, 1809. Luke obtained the Denver farm and sold it to George D. Haworth; he removed to Illinois; his wife was Charity Wright, a sister of Isaac Wright.
Joseph Doan arrived in Clinton County November 4, 1804; he came in company with John Stout, from Chatham County, N. C., by the Flower Gap. John Vestal, his wife's brother, died before they arrived on Todd's Fork. January 22, 1805, he bought 238 acres of land in Posey's Survey, No. 1.057, at $1.50 per acre. He paid in hand $357-$300 to Posey and $57 to Nathan Linton. November 27, 1806, he paid on his land $100." December 4, 1807, he paid on the same $100. Joseph Doan was born October 23, 1759, and died May 28, 1838. Jemima Vestal, his wife. was born May 8, 1762. His children were: Thomas, John, Ruth (who married Joseph Haines), William, Elizabeth, Joseph, Jesse, Jonathan, Jacob, Rachel (who married Isaac Hines), Elisha and Mary. He could not have been on the land long before, according to all accounts; he was succeeded by Stephen Mendenhall, one of the family who settled at an early day and built one of the first mills on Todd's Fork. He died on these premises, and is said to have erected the first brick house in that part of the country.
Ezekiel Leonard came to Waynesville in the fall of 1803, and to Clinton County as it is now, the following year. His wife was a sister to Daniel Hodgson. the step-son of Nathan Hines, and a daughter of Thomas Hodgson, deceased, brother of Hur Hodgson. After the death of Thomas Hodgson, his
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widow married Nathan Hines. Hines' wife was a daughter of Jesse Dillon, father of Luke and the sister of James Fife's first wife. Ezekiel Leonard sold out to Thomas Hibben, and went to Illinois with the Haworths and Dillons. Leonard bad 107 1/4 acres of laud, part of Survey No. 2,248.
Jesse Hughes, Sr., one of the first Associate Judges of Clinton County, and a native of Berkeley County, Va., removed with his parents at an early age to Chester County, Penn., and subsequently (1784), when seventeen years of age, was taken by his father's brother to Jefferson County, Ky. This uncle was one of a colony which made the first settlement on the site of what is now Louisville, the place being long known as Hughes' Station. Young Hughes became, like all frontier residents of that day, an Indian fighter and a soldier, and served under Gen. George Rogers Clark in 1786. He was married, in 1790, and, in March, 1805, came to what is now Clinton County and settled with his family two miles southeast of Wilmington, having to cut his own road through the heavy timber. In 1810, upon the organization of Clinton County, Mr. Hughes was elected by the General Assembly as one of the three Associate Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, and the first term of said court was held in his barn, in the spring of that year. He was re-elected to the same office three successive terms, filling the position for a continuous period of twenty-eight years. His death occurred August 9, 1853, when he had reached the ripe old age of fourscore and six. He was married, in Kentucky, to Elizabeth Drake, a native of that State, who bore him nine children, as follows: David, Delilah, Jesse, Jr., Catherine, Jemima, Elizabeth, Charles D., Mary and Morgan, all of whom grew to manhood and womanhood, and became the, heads of families, except the last mentioned, who died in infancy. Of this well-known family but two are now living-Mrs. Elizabeth Smart, of Greenfield, Ohio, and Charles D., who is engaged in the dry goods trade in Wilmington. After the death of his wife Elizabeth,. Judge Hughes was again married, his second wife surviving him. Few of the early settlers wielded a wider influence for good than this old pioneer, who passed away nearly thirty years ago.
Joseph, or, as he was generally called, "Squire" Roberds, was an early, well-known and much-respected citizen, being one of the first Justices of the Peace and the second Sheriff of Clinton County. He was born in Union District, South Carolina, on the waters of Broad River, on the 4th day of February, 1766. At the age of twenty-two years, he was married, in his native State, to Anna Randall, with whom he lived in great harmony for about sixty-two years. Mr. and Mrs. Roberds were members of the Society of Friends, but their marriage was not consummated according to the custom and rules of that society. This violation of rules in that day was regarded as a far more serious matter than it is at present. The transgression, if one it was, was brought before the meeting, and no satisfactory acknowledgment being made for it, the offending parties were "disowned." Some years afterward, Mrs. Roberds attached herself to another branch of the Christian Church, and remained a member in good standing until her death; but Mr. Roberds, although holding sound religious views, and having an experimental knowledge of sins forgiven, never afterward became a member of any religious society.
In 1804. Mr. Roberds left South Carolina, on account of slavery, and took up his residence in Ohio. His way West was through the States of North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky, by the Cumberland Gap, the Crab Orchard, near Danville, and Lexington, Ky., to Cincinnati. Much of the country through which they came was sparsely populated, and the residue, with slight exceptions, was an out and out wilderness, broken by a succession of lofty mountains and interspersed by deep and rapid streams, which they generally
564 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
had to ford in the absence of bridges, ferries or even canoes. His first settlement north of the Ohio River was on the Little Miami, near Waynesville, Warren County, a place where many emigrants made short halts for the purpose of viewing the country before locating. At this place it is supposed that he tarried long enough to raise a summer crop. In 1805, he removed to a point on Lytle's Creek, about three miles below where the town of Wilmington now stands. At this place, he raised his second crop in Ohio. The following spring, having purchased a small tract of land in the green wood, on the south side of Cowan's Creek, he removed to it and commenced an improvement. His cabin and other buildings stood about forty rods nearly due east from the present residence of Thomas Custis.
From the spring of 1806 to 1810, he appears to have engaged industriously in opening his land to the sun, erecting buildings and cultivating crops. Early in 1810, Clinton County was created. At first it was divided into three townships-Chester, Vernon and Richland. To each township was given the election of three Justices of the Peace. The first election for filling that office in Clinton County was fixed by Judges Hughes and Hinkson for April 21, 1810. Mr. Roberds' residence was included in Richland Township. Mr. Roberds, Absalom Reed and William Venard were returned as elected for Richland. In 1813, Mr. Roberds was elected to the same office. April 3, 1813, he was appointed by the County Commissioners Collector of the State revenue and county tax for Clinton County. April 8, 1814, he was re-appointed by the Commissioners to the same office. At the election on the second Tuesday in October, 1814, he was elected Sheriff of Clinton County, succeeding Jonathan Harlan, the first Sheriff of the county, who, having served two terms, was ineligible to re-election. In 1816, he was re-elected to the office of Sheriff; his term expired in 181.8, and he in his turn became ineligible tore-election. His successor in office was Joel Woodruf. On the second Tuesday in October, 1819, Mr. Roberds was elected County Commissioner for Clinton County. At the same time, the electors of Union Township, which had been created in August, 1813, elected him to the office of Justice of the Peace for that township.
Early in 1818, an action of ejectment was brought against Mr. Roberds for the 100 acres of land on which he lived, including the fifty acres purchased in 1805 or 1806, and fifty adjoining, which he had acquired afterward. The same suit embraced several of his neighbors, who, like Mr. Roberds, had purchased lands in Survey No. 625, and had paid for them in full, supposing that they had an unimpeachable title. All had purchased their lands of one Samuel G. Martin, an early settler in the neighborhood, who had purchased fairly enough, but had not paid the purchase money, and now was wholly unable to pay it. The suit in the Court of Common Pleas went against the tenants at the October term, 1818; it was appealed to the Supreme Court, where it was decided in the same way. In 1822, application was made to the court for pay for the improvements made on the land. The court recognized the validity of the claims and appointed three commissioners to value these improvements.
On the first Monday in April, 1821, he having previously removed from Union Township to Wilson's Branch, north of where Sabina now is, he was elected a Justice. of the Peace for Richland Township. At the spring election in 1824, and again in 1827, he was re-elected to the office of Justice of the Peace for Richland Township. At the annual October election in 1822, he was re-elected to the office of County Commissioner, and again re-elected in October, 1826, to the same office. His last term as County Commissioner expired in the fall of 1829, and his last term as Justice of the Peace in the spring of 1850 Esquire Roberds was now old. From this time, it is believed,
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be declined further service. In the fall of 1833, Esquire Roberds removed to Indiana, and settled near Jonesboro, Grant County. In 1850, his wife died. He died in July, 1863, in the ninety-eighth year of his age.
Nathan Van Horn bought of Thomas Posey 125 acres of land in Survey No. 1,057, at $1.50 per acre. Mr. Van Horn was a shoemaker by trade, and made this purchase November 4, 1805 The land is now owned by Isaiah F. Miars, whose father, David, acquired it from Van Horn at an early day. In the year 1805, Azel, son of Mordecai Walker, came to Clinton County and located immediately north of the present site of Wilmington, on the land where his children yet reside.* He was born in Virginia in 1774, and there married to Hannah Jackson, who bore him the following children: William, Josiah J.. Lewis M., Joseph S., Rachel, Ruth, Elijah. Abel, Betsey Ann and Samuel, some of whom are yet living in this township and among its leading citizens. Mr. Walker and family came to Warren County, Ohio, in 1804, and, leaving his wife and two children at Waynesville with some friends, he came to this point, erected a camp as a temporary shelter and lived alone for about three months, while clearing a lot of ground and erecting a cabin for the reception of his family. In the meantime, bears, wolves and other wild animals were thick around him, and often in the night their glistening eyeballs would reflect back upon Azel the light of his shanty fire. Having at length brought his family (t) to his new home in the woods, he soon 'made a large clearing, and, with the passing years, came peace and plenty. His third child, Lewis M., was born in this cabin October 10, 1807, at a time when the town of Wilmington was unknown, and all this country was covered by a dense forest. At the time of what is known as the Separation in the Friends Church, Azel, with his father, adhered to the Hicksite branch and remained during life well satisfied with their choice. The year following the settlement of Azel Walker, his brother-in-law, Joseph Smith, came to this township. He had married Lydia Walker in Virginia, who became the mother of twelve children, as follows: Rachel, Mordecai, Samuel, Elizabeth (who married Joseph Painter), Mary (who became the wife of David Butler), Rebecca (who married Jesse Doan), Will iam, Edwin, Lydia (who married Joseph Anderson), Joseph, Henry and Elijah. Of these but three are now living-Rebecca, William and Elijah.
Henry Babb came to Ohio in 1806, from Frederick County, Va., and settled about one and a half miles north of the court house in Wilmington. His wife's father, Mordecai Walker, early in the year 1805, purchased 1,000 acres of land of Thomas Posey, the owner of the survey on which Wilmington was laid out, and divided the same into four equal parts, and gave each of his four children, two sons and two daughters, one of these parts, Elizabeth Babb, wife of Henry Babb, receiving her portion in the northeast corner of the 1,000-acre purchase, including the land on which Mr. Babb had settled. At the first election of county officers, Henry Babb was elected County Commissioner, in which office he served two years. He was the father of five sons and four daughters. The sons were Peter, Thomas, Henry, Azel and Sampson; the daughters Mary, who married Thomas Babb; Rebecca, who married William Crumly; Rachel, who married;, John Waiters; Hannah, who married Joseph Smith; Lydia married a Smith and Betsey a Wall.
In 1806 or 1807, a settlement was made on Edward Carrington's Survey, No. 986, one of the five surveys which have a corner at the Deserted Camp. Of this party, Martin, David, Abraham and Peter Hester, William Venard and Jonas Vandervort are remembered. Conrad Haws about the same time settled
* Mr. Walker had been given one-fourth of a thousand acres of land previously purchased by his father Mordecai walker.
t Early in 1805.
566 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
on the White Survey. No. 2,711 of which be was sole owner. The White Survey also corners at the Deserted Camp, and was bounded on the southeast by the Carrington Survey.
William Venard was born, it is believed in Pennsylvania, but was taken by his parents when a child to Kentucky. He came with his father to Ohio, and, in 1802., was a chain carrier with William Walker, when Capt. John Dunlap laid out the Old Miami trace from Waynesville to Chillicothe. The trace was run an easterly course and passed near where Harveysburg now is, through what is now the Dover neighborhood, and also what is now called the Hinkson Prairie, near where Amos Wilson and James Mills then lived, leaving Sabina on the left, to the old Indian town on Paint Creek. At the first election held in the county, in June, 1810, Mr. Venard was elected one of the Justices for Richland Township. He was re-elected in the spring of 1813. In October, 1813, he was elected Justice of the Peace for Union. He was a private in Tupper's Brigade in the war of 1812; was wounded at the siege of Fort Meigs for which he was allowed a pension by the United States; total sum, $442.32. He died near Kokomo, Ind. He bought of John S. Wills fifty acres in the east corner of Survey No. 961, in the name of N. Anderson. It was run off for him by Nathan Linton November 6, 1811.
Two old men, brothers, by the name of Hester, came to this county. The name of one is not remembered; the other was Martin, the father of Abraham, Peter, David and Martin. He had daughters married to William Venard, Esq., Jordan Rix, George Bodkin, Richard Bodkin, Absalom Johnson and John Vandervort, son of Jonah. Abraham Hester bought of Wills fifty acres in Survey No. 961. Absalom Johnson also bought fifty acres in 961, beginning at Abraham Hester's north corner.
Moses Frazier was born in Frederick County, Va., August 4, 1791, and, in the fall of 1792, was taken by his parents to Green County, Tenn., where he remained until 1806, at which time the family removed to this county and located in the Dover neighborhood, where the parents subsequently died. In 1813, Moses was married to Lydia Pusey, who died in the fall of 1823, leaving to his care five small children. In 1825, he married Elizabeth Farr, who survived him. Mr. Frazier died January 17, 1874, at his old home, where he had passed nearly seventy years of his life. Being one of the first to locate in Clinton County, he was identified with its interests from its earliest history. Enduring all of the hardships incident to pioneer days, he yet lived to enjoy the triumph of success. He was a Friend in religious belief and practice, and his remains were laid at rest in the burying-ground at Dover belonging to that denomination.
Jacob Haines was born in Pennsylvania February 19, 1778, and when quite young removed with his parents to Guilford County, N. C., and, in 1800, was married to Mary Leonard. In 1803, he emigrated to Ohio, remaining at Waynesville a short time; he came to Union Township, Clinton County, in the spring of 1804. His family consisted of his wife, Mary, and one child. Here he resided until his death, June 17, 1854. His son, Zimri Haines, is yet a resident of Clinton County, where he has passed his entire life.
Thomas Rich, a native of Vira, born July 4, 1785, was taken to North Carolina when two years old, where he lived until 1809, when he came to this county and located on Lytle's Creek, west of Wilmington.
Hezekiah Hiatt, born in Guilford County, N. C., March 23, 1786, came to Union Township, Clinton County, Ohio, in 1808, and, in July, 1810, married Ann Perkins, daughter of Isaac Perkins. Jacob Strickle and William Shields were also early settlers of Union Township.
John Hains came out from North Carolina in 1808; his first residence
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was in a cabin on the south side of Dutch Creek, say 100 yards from the creek, near where several old apple; trees still stand, on the farm of Joshua Haines. south of his house. He did not remain there long. His next residence was on the northwest side of the road, from the crossing of Dutch Creek on the Wilmington & Waynesville road. to Gurneyville, on a farm recently owned by Amos Davis, about 200 yards from the road; no house or other building is now there. His next residence was where he died, on the farm now owned by his son, Samuel Haines, near the present residence of Joshua Haines, a few rods from the same, south and west from the house and on the west side, not more, perhaps, than two rods west of the west side of the lane. Joshua Haines now owns nearly all of the farm which his father owned at that place. The only vestige of the residence is the excavation made for a cellar, now partly filled up, which Joshua and Judge Haines concur in saying was under the sleeping apartment of the dwelling.
Job Haines, the elder, first settled on Survey No. 2,279, in the name of Thomas Banks, north and east of the residence of Azariah Wall, Sr., now owned by his son, Azariah L. Wall. The site of big dwelling, now gone, is the same as the present site of Martin Haines', son of Joshua Job Haines' blacksmith shop was on the south and west side of the branch, between where the dwelling stood and the present road. The farm is now owned by Joshua Haines. This information was communicated on the ground on May 30, 1875, by Joshua Haines and Judge Abner Haines, of Eaton, Ohio. Joseph Haines had a still-house on Dutch Creek, the site of which is in Joshua Haines' pasture, opposite his house. Vestiges of his cooling-tubs in Dutch Creek, as Jbshua Haines says they were, are still visible opposite to a large bowlder in the mar gin of the creek. His dwelling, now gone, stood a few rods south of Joshua Haines' present brick house. Joshua pointed out the spot. Their father was Joshua Haines, born in Pennsylvania; his wife was a Rich, aunt to Thomas Rich, late of Clinton County. Jacob Haines and brothers were first cousins of Noah Haines, an early settler at Waynesville; also, it is said, of John Haines, who built the first mill at that point.
Gayer Starbuck was born on the Island of Nantucket in 1777. In 1785, he removed with his parents to Guilford County, N. C. In 1799, he was married to Susannah Dillon, daughter of the elder Jesse Dillon, with whom he lived nearly sixty-two years, up to the time of her death. In 1807, they emigrated to Ohio, locating in Greene County, and, in 1810, they settled on the farm where they spent the remaining years of their lives. Susannah died in 1861; Gayer in 1866. His farm was the one now occupied by his son, Jesse G. Starbuck, in the Dover neighborhood. They were the parents of five sons and five daughters, all of whom grew to maturity and became the heads of families, excepting one son, who died at the age of twenty-two. Gayer Starbuck learned the blacksmith trade in North Carolina, and for many years followed that vocation. His father, Hezekiah, was also a native of Nantucket Island, born April 10, 1749; was a seafaring man and Captain of a whaling vessel for some years. He was married in 1771, and, in 1785, he removed with his family to Guilford County, N. C., where his wife, Mary, died in 1806. He subsequently came to Clinton County, where he passed away in 1830.
Latham Starbuck, a brother of Gayer, settled in the extreme northern portion of Union Township in 1811. He was accompanied by his wife and one child and had lived a season in Tennessee, where he raised one crop and lost a child by death. They came through from Tennessee in a " Carolina wagon," drawn by one horse, and their prospects on arriving in Clinton were not promising, but with characteristic pioneer energy he leased some land entirely unimproved and began his labors to make a home. Upon that farm his son John
568 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
T. was born, and he is still a resident of the township. Mr. Starbuck subsequently visited his birthplace, in North Carolina, and. upon his return to Clinton County, purchased fifty acres of law' in Wilson Township, and four years later traded it for the farm of 101) acres in Union Township, upon which he spent the remainder of his life, dying about 1871.
John McWhorter, it native of Wilmington, Del., carne from Loudoun County, Va., to Ohio in 1809, but remained until the following spring at "High Bank Prairie," on the Scioto River. In the sluing of 1810, he removed to Union Township, Clinton County, and lived in the old schoolhouse on the Walker place for a short time. while erecting it log cabin for himself on the land now owned by Zimri Dwiggins. Mr. McWhorter was a member of the Society of Friends, and died December 24, 1856.
Joseph Whinery was born in York County, Penn., February 27, 1787; came to Ohio about 1810, and, in the spring of 1813, returned to the Keystone State. In October. 1813, he again came to Ohio, in company with his brother, Thomas Whincry, and Robert Way, the celebrated school-teacher, settling on Dutch Creek in the northwestern part of Union Township. In 1814, he married Lydia Perkins, who bore him five sons and five daughters. In 1837, he removed to Indiana, where he died April 24, 1873.
In very early times, Mordecai Walker, a minister of the Society of Friends in Virginia, bought a large tract of land immediately north of the site of Wilmington, which he divided among his four children--Lydia, Elizabeth, Azel and William. Although some of the children came to Clinton County as early as 1805 or 1806, Mordecai did not settle here until about 1811 or 1812, when he built the log house in which Henry B. Crumly lately lived, and that was his home until near the time of his death, which occurred about 1833. His daughters Lydia and Betsey married Joseph Smith and Henry Babb respectively; Azel married Hannah Jackson, and the sketches of all will be found preceding this biography; William married Martha Faulkner, and their children were as follows: Mordecai, Azel, David, Phebe, Eli, Asa, Rachel, Lewis and John S.
April 21, 1810, Col. Thomas Gaddis received from Abraham Pittenger and wife and others, of Shelby County, Ky., a deed in fee for 325 acres of land, part of William S. Hawkins' Survey, No. 2,692; consideration, £280 current money. The granters derived title direct from William S. Hawkins. Col. Thomas Gaddis was born December 28, 1744, and died June 10, 1834. Hannah (Rice) Gaddis, his wife, died February 4, 1835, in her eighty-eighth year. Thomas Gaddis and family came, to Clinton County to reside in September, 1814. They descended the Ohio River in boats, on which the teams, wagons and household goods were embarked. The party, with their effects, were landed at Manchester, Ohio, twelve miles above Maysville, Ky. His son, Col. Gaddis, came by Van Meter's to Wilmington, where they remained over night in Warren Satin's tavern. The next day, Henry Babb, between whom and Col. Gaddis some acquaintance and relationship existed, came and invited Col. Gaddis to take possession of a house belonging to him, saying that it was empty and he had kept it for his use. The offer was accepted and the party moved into it and remained there the following winter.* On the 22d of February, 1815, Nathan Lintou surveyed for Col. Gaddis 325 acres of land in Survey No. 2,692. Col. Gaddis commanded a regiment under Washington throughout the Revolutionary war, and in his later years took great pride in showing his commission and discharge, both signed by his great commander, "the father of his country." He hated and despised the English Government,
* For account of Rice caddis, eon of the above, and the establishment by him of a newspaper at Wilmington see Chapter XIII.
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and advocated the vigorous prosecution of the war of 1812. It is said that many of the bitterest articles published in the Trite American against the English were directly inspired by that old Revolutionary hero, who knew well the treachery of his country's would be oppressors. May his memory long be cherished and his name never be forgotten.
From material furnished by Dr. A. Jones, we give the following record of early settlers in Union Township:
The first settler with in the present limits of Union Township was Timothy Bennet, who came in 1801, and located about one mile and a half northeast of the site of Wilmington, a short distance from the Deserted Camp, where, with the assistance of his brother-in-law, John Hoblitt. he erected his cabin and became monarch of all he surveyed. The neat to settle in Union Township belonged to a colony of emigrants consisting of eighteen families, who came to Ohio about 1802 and settled temporarily at Waynesville, whence, in the following year, came James Moon, George Haworth and John Vestal, who all lo cated in Union Township, on Todd's Fork. In 1804, Hur Hodgson settled on land close to James Moon; these two pioneers being great lovers of fishing and hunting became warm friends, spending many a happy hour in these amusements.
In the year 1802, James Moon and family emigrated from North Carolina to Waynesville, Warren Co., Ohio, where he made a temporary location while exploring the surrounding country. He made choice of land in Gates' Survey, on Todd's Fork, four miles north of the present town of Wilmington, and, in the spring of 1803, erected a three-sided camp in the forest, a rude log struct. ure after the style of sugar camps, with one side open for an entrance. In 1872, Dr. A. Jones interviewed Mr. Moon, and, in telling the Doctor about his pioneer days, he said: " I covered my camp with bark so nicely that it protected me from the rain storms of summer. I went to work and soon cleared out a place for corn and garden stuff. All the summer and fall of 1803, I was the only inhabitant on the creek. I was not alone, however, for, as was common then, I had my dog and gun. Wild game was very plenty. My gun and fishing tackle supplied my wants until my garden stuff and wild fruits were added to the list of edibles. Deer-skins and leaves served for my bed." Mr. Moon was fond of relating his hunting stories, and, like all old pioneers, had many interesting ones to tell. Many a deer and not a few bears and other denizens of the forest fell beneath his unerring aim, supplying his cabin home with plenty of fresh meat. He got his corn from Timothy Bennet, who was his nearest neighbor, and his wheat from Gillespie, who lived about twelve miles away.
In 1804, be erected his cabin and brought his wife from Waynesville, where she had remained up to this time. He says: "During the summer of 1804, several families settled near me. North Carolina and Tennessee seemed to unite in forming a colony; Robert Eachus, Jacob Haines. Joseph Doan, Isaac Perkins, John Stout, Christopher Hiatt, John Vestal, William Jay, Peter Rightman, John Griffith, Mahlon Haworth and others erected cabins. Just below us on the creek, Mendenhalls, Wrights, Farquhars, Nickersons, Hales, Lintons and others settled some time later." Up to 1811, the settlement increased rapidly, but the indian troubles of that year caused a falling off in the flow of emigration. He also says: "I think it was in 1804 that a settlement was formed farther up the creek. The Haworths, Dillons and their relations composed nearly all the settlers. They formed the nucleus for the Society of Friends at Dover, as our settlement did at Centre." Todd's Fork was then much larger than it is now. The forest along its banks was very dense and
570 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
evaporation a slow process. Fish were abundant and easily caught, as they could journey from its mouth to its head-waters. "
Mr. Moon says: "In the fall of 1803, I occasionally saw an Indian skulking about through the woods. Since the treaty with den. Wayne, at Greenville, they only occasionally visited Todd's Fork. Whether they did so for the purpose of hunting or to visit the graves of their dead I could not learn. I found many of their vaults or graves on the banks of the creek. They seem to have selected the places where loose flat stones were plenty, and built stone walls about three by six and from one to two feet high, arching them over with flat stones. In some of these vaults I found two or three skeletons, with clay pipes and pans. The ware had been made out of blue clay and broken up shells and dried in the sun. I could not find any implements made out of metal or any metallic substances. Many of the skeletons were in a pretty good state of preservation. The head and bones of the extremities still preserved their form, while the teeth were all perfect. From all the facts that I could gather, I was not able to fix the time the skeletons had remained in their vaults. I had read that the human hair was almost indestructible. I founds good many of the skulls, but no signs of the hair covering. I never had much veneration for the Indian, dead or alive, and the little that I had was lessened by their treachery and theft. A dirty rascal stole my pony. I pursued him and soon recovered my horse. There are some things in the history of every man that it is best not to publish, but that Indian didn't steal any more horses." The reader can easily see that James Moon was possessed of many characteristics necessary in pioneer life. He was strong, vigorous, cunning and brave; industrious, honest and imbued with that earnest sincerity and determination of purpose for which many of the early settlers were specially noted. He and wife died on the old farm, childless, both living to a ripe old age.
Joseph Doan spent the winter near the Centre Meeting-House, and, in the spring of 1805, bought land and built his cabin, in Posey's survey, now known as the old Doan farm, within the corporate limits of Wilmington. He was in his day a very useful citizen, and filled the office of County Commissioner several years. It was in 1804 that Robert Eachus built his cabin and the following year erected a small grist-mill on Todd's Fork, in compliance with the contract made with Daniel Murray, who sold him the land, for 75 cents per acre, on condition that he would erect a mill. Mr. Eachus was a valuable acquisition to the settlement along Todd's Fork, and before the organization of Clinton County served for several years as Justice of the Peace for Warren County, which then included his settlement. He subsequently held many offices in Clinton.
As mentioned in James Moon's reminiscences, John Stout, Samuel and Nathan Linton came in 1804, locating on Todd's Fork. Nathan Linton made a tour through this country in 1801, coming on horseback from Chillicothe to Waynesville, traversing the territory between the Scioto and Little Miami Rivers. Returning to Bucks County, Penn., in 1802, he induced the whole family to remove to the West, finally locating on and clearing up a large farm in Union Township, Clinton County, Ohio. Nathan Linton was the leading surveyor of Clinton County for many years after the early settlement began, and always took a prominent part in the settlement, growth and development of the county. Many of the persons mentioned in Moon's sketch settled outside the present limits of Union Township, and therefore do not belong to its history.
In 1804, John Hobson built his cabin near to the site of Centre Meeting House, but he soon fell a victim to malarial poison and was one of the first burials at Centre Graveyard. During the year 1804, several of the colony of
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eighteen families made improvements on Todd's Fork. Jonathan Dillon, Isaac Perkins, Peter Rightman, William Jay. Ezekiel Leonard, Samuel Stanton and Michael Moderman were among those who built cabins in 1804 and 1805. On either side of Todd's Fork the settlement continued for some miles up and clown the creek. Perhaps fewer changes have taken place in the manners and customs of the Todd's Fork settlements than in any other locality of Clinton County.
John Leonard, another of the pioneers, was born in Guilford County, N. C., and, in .1805, was married to Lydia Starbuck. In the beginning of 1806, with one child and a small outfit, they left their native State for Ohio, and, after a long and weary journey through Tennessee and Kentucky, crossed the Ohio River at Cincinnati, finally locating on Todd's Fork in Union Township, Clinton County, Ohio, where some of their friends had previously settled. Mr. Leonard was a man of herculean frame, great physical strength and well fitted for pioneer life. Early in 1806, he selected land, built his rude log cabin and united his destiny with the other colonists He went to work with vigor and soon had a patch cleared off and his first crop in Ohio planted, while in the meantime he obtained corn-meal for bread at the mill of Robert Eachus, which had previously been erected on Todd's Fork. Mr. Leonard says, in an interview with him, written and published by Dr. A. Jones: " In the early part of 1806, when I arrived at the settlement on Todd's Fork, I found but one sheep, as it was impossible to keep them from being killed by the wolves, which infested the whole country." As to their clothing, it was all made by hand. Flannel and linsey were used in winter, while flax and tow linen were worn in summer. All the fabrics in the manufacture of clothing were prepared by hand from the raw material, as no fulling-mills existed at that period in this locality.
Mr. Leonard was well pleased with his new home, and says: " We found the lands undulating and well drained by the creeks and their branches. No country ever presented greater variety in timber growth. The bottoms, as well as the hill lands, were heavily timbered. From the richness of the soil, it yielded finely and without much labor." In speaking of the early settlers, Mr. Leonard said: " There was not much contention among us. In physical development, we had many stout men. In muscular power, we seldom met our equals. By strength of arms I could raise a barrel of whisky and drink from the bung. Few men had the strength of arm to do so." To John and Lydia Leonard were born fourteen children, thirteen of whom-seven boys and six girls-grew to manhood and womanhood and became the heads of families, leaving the aged parents the sole tenements of the home where they had lived since 1806. John Leonard died December 7, 1870, aged eighty-eight years one month and eleven days. His wife survived him nearly four years, dying May 30, 1874, aged ninety-one years, seven months and twenty-one days, and their remains lie side by side in the cemetery at Centre. Thus passed away this aged pioneer couple, who lived to see the country converted from a wilderness into a garden of agricultural prosperity.
In 1807, George McManis, Sr., emigrated from Kentucky and located about three miles southeast of'the site of Wilmington, and, upon the organization of Clinton County in 1810, he was appointed as one of the Associate Judges of the county. Judge McManis was a farmer all his life and a gentleman of fair literary attainments and high moral character. His eldest son, John, was appointed at one time to perform the duties of Auditor and Recorder of Clinton County, and was a man of fine ability and good reputation. His other son, George, was one of the Associate Judges of Clinton County, was strongly imbued with a living faith in Christianity, and spent some of his later
574 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
years in preaching the Gospel. The daughters of Judge McManis were women of fine personal appearance and all made good marriages. The Judge died as he had lived, without a stain upon his character, and, after the custom of Kentuckians, he was interred upon his farm, which he had passed his days in clearing and cultivating.
The settlement in the southeast part of Union Township was made in 1804 and 1805. John McKenzie and the Spencers were the first to locate here, building their cabins on Cowan's Creek. They had previously come from Kentucky to Warren County, Ohio, whence they removed to this township. Though the families of McKenzie and the Spencers were unfriendly, yet it became a necessity with them to assist each other in raising cabins and log-rolling. At this period, a number of Indian camps still remained along the brow of the hill facing the creek, where McKenzie and the Spencers were making their improvements, but they were friendly to the whites, whose children often visited the Indian wigwams. Hunting parties of the Shawnee tribe made annual visits to their old camping-ground on Cowan's Creek, until 1811, when, on account of the approaching troubles with the whites, their hunting expeditions ceased.
There were several of the Spencer family who settled adjoining McKenzie. The grandfather, "Bill," as he was called, was a wild, reckless man, defying the civil law and disregarding good morals. The others were James, Peter, Thomas, William and Joseph, the last of whom attained considerable celebrity as a fighter. He was the most reckless of the family. At one time, he was confined in the old jail for offense against the law, and whilst in prison he burned the lock off the door, came out and let the jail burn down without giving any alarm or trying to save the building. This family, however, with all their recklessness, were industrious, and, in the Indian war of 1811, James served as Captain of the Pack-Horse Brigade, under Gen. Harrison, carrying provisions for the use of the army.
About the same time that McKenzie and the Spencers came, Isaac Wilson emigrated from Kentucky and built his cabin on the north side of Cowan's Creek, about two miles northwest of the site of Burtonville, and is said to have been the first to settle on the north side of the creek south of Wilmington. His farm was on a small stream since known as Wilson's Branch. In the fall of 1804, or early in 1805, other emigrants from Kentucky settled near to Wilson, viz., John and Charles McGrew, Thomas Wright and others. From 1805 to 1810, there were but few settlers from Wilson's to the western line of Union Township.
At an early period in pioneer history, probably during or soon after the war of 1812, Nathan Stalker, Isaac Stout, Adam Reynard, Caleb, Joshua and Haines Moore located in the southwestern portion of Union Township, building their cabins along and south of Lytle's Creek. The lands of some of those settlers are now in Adams Township, while the township line runs through the lands of others. This portion of Union was soon dotted over with the cabins of the pioneer, and small improvements made. Along Cowan's Creek and Indian Run, in the immediate vicinity of Burtonville, emigrants from Virginia settled, among whom were J. J. Lacy, John Jacks, John and Samuel Martin and perhaps a few others. Thus it will be seen that most of the earliest settlers of Union Township were natives of the Southern States, who brought with them into their new homes the manners and hospitable customs of the Southern people. Here and there settled some of the sturdy, go-ahead Eastern people, who infused into their Southern neighbors some of the vigor, vim and shrewdness for which the Yankee is characterized. Alongside of those settled the warm-hearted, genial, brave and witty Irishman, and the mixing of those
UNION TOWNSHIP. - 575
races by intermarriage land. has produced a people second to none in this broad
TOWNSHIP ORGANIZATION.
Union Township was organized at a special meeting of the County Commissioners August 21, 1813, from the three original townships into which the county was divided, namely, Vernon, Chester and Richland. It was formed from land lying in the center of the county, and received the name of Union from its formation of the union of those subdivisions. Its boundarv lines were described as follows:
"Beginning at an elm in Enos Clevenger's lane, marked three hacks and a blaze; thence running east three and one-half miles to a black ash marked for a corner as before, easterly corner of said township; thence north three and one-half miles to a large hickory, corner of the division line between Richland and Green Townships; thence same course four and one-half miles to two elms, northerly corner to said township; thence west seven miles to a large beech, westerly corner to said township; thence south eight miles, southerly corner to said township; thence east three and one-half miles to the place of beginning. The first election ordered to be held September 10, 1813."
JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.
The following are the names of the persons commissioned to the office of Justice of the Peace in Union Township, with the time of service in most cases:
Eli Gaskill, October 3, 1813, to 1816; Joseph Roberds, October 3, 1813; William Venard, October 3, 1813, to 1816; Thomas Wright, 1815;. Joel Woodruff, April, 1816, to December 9, 1820; Daniel Radcliffe, 1819, 1822, 1825, 1828; Jesse Dillon, February, 1821, to February, 1824; William Millikan, 1824, to 1827; Lewis McCoole, June 3, 1828; Amos T. Sewell, January 31, 1829, 1832, 1835, 1838, 1841, 1843, 1853; Samuel McCune, May 31, 1829; re-elected June 1, 1837; George B. Moore, April 16, 1832, to 1834; George Bruce, September 3, 1826, to 1829; Bebee Treusdell, October 25, 1835, July, 1838, 1841, 1844, 1847, 1850, 1853, 1856, 1859; Jacob Taylor, June 19, 1841; August 7, 1843; Charles N. Osborn, 1858; February 20, 1862; James Killin, April 7, 1843, to 1846; Junius Carpenter, April 25, 1867; Thomas R. Thatcher, April 3, 1861; William B. Fisher, April 5, 1855, 1858, 1861, 1864, 1867; Andrew H. Chapman, April 5, 1855, 1858, 1861. 1864; Henry S. Doan, April 10, 1862, 1865, 1868; Junius Carpenter, April 5, 1867, 1870, 1873, 1876;. I. W. Quinby, April 5, 1867, to 1870; W. H. Grantham, April 9, 1870, to 1873; M. L. Ent, April 9, 1870, to 1873; L. J. Walker, April 9, 1870, 1873, 1876; C. W. Swain, April 8, 1876, 1879, 1882; term expires April 14, 1885; C. B. Dwiggins, April 8, 1876, to 1879; Z. G. Haworth, April 10, 1879, to 1882; J. V. Ellis, April 14, 1880, to 1883: C. N. Osborn, December 13, 1881; term expires 1884.
SCHOOLS.
Schools were established in Union Township almost as soon as a neighborhood settlement had been effected. The clearings of Todd's Fork had scarcely been made and cabins erected, when an effort was made for a school. In 1803, ground located in Survey No. 1,558, in the northwestern part of the township, was conveyed by James Murray, of Annapolis, Md., to Nathan Linton, James Moon and Isaac Perkins, Trustees of the Society of Friends, for a meeting house and schoolhouse. Just what time this settlement built a cabin for school purposes, we cannot say; but, from the following statement of the late John Leonard, given to Dr. A. Jones in an interview some years before his
576 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
death, it is evident. that the house was built prior to the year 1906. In speaking of the settlement on Todd's Fork, Mr. Leonard says: "When I arrived at the settlement, the Society of Friends had erected a small log house at Centre to hold their meetngs in. and near the creek. on the east side of Eachus' Mill. had a small log cabin to teach in-it schoolhouse." Mr. Leonard settled on Todd's Fork in the•. early part of tho year 1806. At a pioneer meeting held in Wilmington October 9, 1875, Jesse Doan said: "I came to Clinton County in 1804; was born in 1796. P. Dicks taught the first school at Centre, and Glideon Tizer taught the second: I went to both."
There was a schoolhouse on what is now the Samuel Walker farm, situated about one. and one-half miles north of Wilmington, in which school was taught by Thomas Powel, probably in the fall and winter of 1809-10. According to the recollection of William Walker, the first term continued six months. Powel was an Englishman, who had served in the British Navy, and, at the time he was teaching here, it is thought he was living in the northeast part of the county. After his first term here, he went to Center and taught one term, then he returned and taught a three months' term on the Walker place. Among the pupils in this first school were William (son of Azel) Walker, and the children of Mahlon and James Haworth, Daniel Dillon, James Wright, Shubael Ellis, Henry Babb, Timothy Bennet; also Joel (son of Conrad) Hayes, who resided some distance away on what was known as the " Crane Pond," David Hughes, Jesse Hughes, and Moses (son of Ezekiel) Frazier. In the same old log schoolhouse, the site of which Samuel Walker still points out, the teachers were Joel Pusey and Jerry Armstrong. After this building had been in disuse some time, another log schoolhouse was built about a third of a mile farther south, on the same farm, the site of which is still plain, although the building is not in existence. There is evidence that school was in session in this latter structure February 7, 1822, and the term had probably commenced in the fall of 1821. The first man who taught here was Amos T. Sewell, succeeded by his brother Peter, William Crumly (who was teacher in December, 1823), and possibly a man named Miars.
John McWhorter, from Loudoun County, Va., dune to Ohio with his family in the fall of 1809. and remained until the following spring, at " Highbank Prairie," on the Scioto River. He was a native of Wilmington, Del. In the spring of 1810, he removed to Union Township, Clinton County, and lived in the old schoolhouse on the Walker place a short time, while erecting a log house for himself on the place a short distance east, now owned by Zimri Dwiggins. McWhorter sent children to Powel's second term of school, at the Walker Schoolhouse. He was a member of the Society of Friends; died December 24, 1858.
As early as the year 1813, a schoolhouse stood in the northwestern part of the township, and was called Dutch Creek Schoolhouse. Here Robert Way commenced teaching in November, 1813. Another schoolhouse of " ye olden times" was built by Robert Eachus and his neighbors, on Stony Ridge, some two miles northwest of Wilmington. A more lengthy account of these schools is given further on, in the biography of Robert Way, a well-known pioneer school-teacher in this section of the State. About the year 1818, Nathan Linton built on his farm, situated in the western part of the township, a two-story milkhouse, and gave the upper story for the use of the neighborhood as a schoolroom. We learn from Mr. Seth Linton, who attended school here, that only two or three schools were held in the milkhouse, and they were taught by a Miss Catharine Saxton. A writer in the Republican in 1872 gives the following interesting sketch of the early schools ; of Union Township:
UNION TOWNSHIP. - 577
"Schools were necessarily very primitive. The teachers were neither taught in Normal schools, nor trained in institutes, but were of the rough, pioneer sort. One qualification for a good teacher was great physical strength; another, his ability to manifest stoicism in his countenance, so that he might strike terror into the big and unruly boys. The rod was often and freely used; in fact, the schools were generally governed in the old Southern slavery style. Their sports were mostly of the rougher kind; wrestling, jumping and foot racing were indulged in, and possibly a little fighting now and then to make the occasion spicy. Instead of Christmas holidays, it was enjoined upon the teacher to treat to a bushel or two of apples, or a bucket full of cider, and woe be unto the teacher that would dare to refuse or neglect to comply with this imperious custom. If he did, the big boys would conceal themselves in the schoolhouse on Christmas Eve, or come very early on Christmas morning, and when the teacher arrived he would find every entrance to the house completely barricaded, with the scholars inside, complete masters of the situation. Generally, when he found he was `barred out,' he would succumb and give the customary treat. Now and then one would resist this kind of treatment, climb upon the roof, cover the top of the chimney, and smoke his scholars out; then he would often have to be fleet of foot as well as strong of muscle, or be caught and carried to the nearest water and `ducked' until he would have to yield at last.
"The branches usually taught were spelling, reading, writing and arithmetic. Instead of using the Federal money of our day, all their lessons were taught in pounds, shillings and pence. If a scholar mastered the primary and compound rules of arithmetic and understood the' single rule of three, he was quite an adept at calculation; and if by his own exertions or in any other way he should go through vulgar fractions and master the square and cube root, he was a prodigy indeed. The girls seldom studied arithmetic, for many of the mothers in those early days, in all their innocence, believed it was not necessary for 'gals' to learn to ` cipher,' for if they could become good spinners and weavers, and were adepts at housekeeping, they were quite accomplished young ladies (and in the latter they judged rightly, too).
"John Haworth exercised a squatter's right and built a log house on the banks of Todd's Fork, near the gravel pit on Denver's farm, but soon left it. Daniel Dillon taught the first school that was ever taught in the neighborhood in that house, and if tradition tells us rightly, Cupid threw his arrows and love glances were exchanged in those days as well as now; for at that school, a sprightly girl, in half playful earnest, carried a bashful boy's hat home with her one evening. As hats were expensive in those days, he had to go after it. This visit was but the forerunner of another, and another, until the first marriage in the vicinity had to be celebrated.
"The next school the Dover boys and girls attended was kept in a house on the lands now owned by Samuel Walker, by a man by the name of Powel. Dover meeting was now established-of which I will speak more by and by and the meeting-house was used for school purposes; and my informant remarked that 'such a school was never seen by mortal man before nor since.' The teacher was rather effeminate, and the scholars would play ball, wrestle, and even throw their feet over the joist and swing head downward, all while school was in session.
"One more move and Dover school became a permanent institution. A lot was purchased where the present schoolhouse is located, and, in order that the children who attend that school now, and other children, too, may know what kind of a house their grandfathers and grandmothers received their education in I will attempt to picture it. The walls were made of round logs,
578 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
slightly hewn after being raised; the floor and door were matte of puncheons; the roof of clapboards held on by weight-poles. Nearly one entire side of the house was made into a fire-place, and a stick and clay chimney carried the smoke away. It was lighted by cutting one log out the entire length of the building, and covering the opening with greased paper. The desks were made by placing wooden pins in the wall and nailing boards upon them. The seats were benches made of puncheons, and they sat with their faces to the wall. The above is no fancy picture, but a true description of the first schoolhouse built at Dover. They procured their drinking-water from a brook near by, little dreaming then that the great wealth of chalybeate water that has since been discovered was so near the surface of the earth."
Robert Way, * an early pioneer teacher of this State, and probably the most widely known educator of Southern Ohio for nearly sixty years, was born at Newberry, York Co., Penn., July 17, 1788. In 1794, his parents removed to St. Clair Township, Bedford County, Penn., where his father built a mill on Bobb's Creek. Here Robert grew up to manhood. An old friend of Mr. Way speaks of five of the Way brothers whom he knew in Pennsylvania, David, Robert, Samuel, James and Thomas, and says that one of his earliest recollections is of seeing the Way family riding by his father's house to Quaker Meeting. Robert Way went to school at Ellicott's Mills, Md., and afterward taught school in Bedford County, Penn. In the early part of October, 1813, in company with Joseph and Thomas Whinery, he came to Clinton County, Ohio, and, in November of the same year, began teaching on Dutch Creek, near Azariah Wall's residence, three or four miles northwest of Wilmington. Among his pupils here, were Judge Abner Haines, late of Eaton, and the celebrated traveler, Jeremiah N. Reynolds. The former thus describes the schoolhouse where Robert Way taught his first term in Ohio: "It stood on the east bank of Long Branch, and on the south side of the Wilmington road, about half a mile southeast of where Azariah Wall formerly resided. It was quite a primitive structure, built of logs and covered with clapboards sustained by ridge and held down by weight poles. The old neighbors, Azariah and John Wall, Amos Lundy, John Lewis, Anthony Stanley, Jonathan Dillon, John, Jacob, Joseph and Job Haines, and others met in the primitive forest and agreed on the site. In two days they cut the logs, hauled them together, reared and unclosed the house. Azariah Wall, Amos Lundy, Anthony Stanley and Job Haines notched the ends of the logs and carried up the corners in cabin style. Jonathan Dillon rived the clapboards, and Joseph Haines did the carpenter work. Thomas Whinery superintended the stick and clay chimney. The house was about 18x20 feet, with a puncheon door on the south side. The logs were removed on the north and south sides, nearly their whole length. These space, were cross-barred by small oak stiles, to which paper was pasted, and oiled with opossum or coon grease, for the purpose of letting in the light. West of the house about one hundred and fifty yards, was the spring used by the scholars for water. Near by the spring stood a smooth beech tree which bore the name of Jeremiah N. Reynolds, and in a line just below that of Robert Way, elegantly carved in the bark by a knife. The scholars used to discuss the respective merits of these autographs, and were much divided in opinion as to which was the most elegantly executed."
Mr. Way returned to Pennsylvania and spent the summer of 1814 with his friends and relatives, but came again to Ohio in the fall, and again taught during the winter of 1814-15 a six months' term at the Dutch Creek School house. Robert Eachus, who was a warm friend of Robert Way, with the assistance of his neighbors, built a schoolhouse about two miles northwest of
* This .ketch was furnished us as it appears by the widow of the late Judge B. B. Harlan.
UNION TOWNSHIP. - 579
Wilmington, on Stony Ridge, which Mr. Way called Todd's Fork Schoolhouse. Here Mr. Way taught two years, during 1816-17, and again went to Pennsylvania, where, in the winter of 1817-18, he taught a six months' term at Dunning's Creek, in that State, and afterward a three months' term in Warren County, Ohio, near the residence of Isaac Wales. In the winter of 1818-19, he taught a quarter school at Springboro, Warren County. In 1817, a Masonic Lodge at Wilmington was established by a dispensation charter from the Lebanon Lodge, and Arnold Truesdell made Worshipful Master. About this time, Robert Way took the first three degrees of Masonry at Wilmington, and he remained a member of the order up to the time of his death in 1871. He was consequently one of the oldest Masons in Ohio.
In 1819, he went to the Ohio University at Athens, accompanied by Arnold Truesdell and his former pupil, Jeremiah N. Reynolds, to take a course of study. He remained there until January, 1821, when he again visited Penn sylvania, and taught at Dunning's Creek until the following September, when, in company with his old friend, Edwin A. Vickroy, who had formerly been his pupil in Bedford County, Penn., he returned to Springboro, Warren Co., Ohio. They made the journey from Bedford County to Pittsburgh on foot, and in the latter place purchased a skiff, in which they descended the Ohio as far as Belpre, stopping first at Wheeling, where Nathan Hammond, who had accompanied them thus far, left them. After spending a few days in Wheeling, they continued the journey to Marietta, where they spent a few days visiting at the houses of Mr. Skinner and Mr. Putnam, son of Gen. Rufus Putnam, whose sons had been college mates of Mr. Way at Athens. They neat visited Belpre, stopping at the home of Squire Browning, who also had a son a student at Athens. At Belpre they abandoned their skiff, continuing their journey on foot, first to Athens, where they spent a week among the students, attending the debating clubs, of which Jeremiah N. Reynolds was a prominent member, and other places of college interest. While they were in Athens a Revolutionary soldier died, and Mr. Way and Mr. Viokroy were chosen to serve among the pall bearers. After a pleasant visit at this point, they continued their journey on foot to Wilmington, spending some days in the company of their friends, Mr. Morris, Samuel H. Hale, Dr. Farquhar, James Fife, etc. Their neat stopping place was near Harveysburg, where they visited an aunt of Mr. Way, and attended Friends' meeting, where Mr. Vickroy was greatly frightened by sitting neat a man who had a severe ague chill, the first Mr. Viokroy had ever witnessed.
At Springboro, Mr. Viokroy became assistant teacher. Was it fate that had led them there? For here both met as young girls the women who two years later became their wives. At this school, Robert Way met as his pupil, Abigail William, daughter of Ennion Williams, formerly of Randolph County, N. C. Two years later she became his wife. And here Mr. Viokroy also formed the acquaintance of Cornelia Harlan, daughter of Hon. George Harlan, of the Ridgeville neighborhood. In 1823, she became the wife of Mr. Viokroy, accompanying him to Pennsylvania, where they spent fifty-seven years of happy married life together. After his marriage, which took place at Fairfield Meeting-House, Highland County, according to the ceremony of Friends, Mr. Way taught at Clear Creek, Leesburg and Hillsboro, in that county. In 1832 and 1833, he reported speeches; in short-hand in the Ohio House of Representatives, and was consequently located at Columbus; but he soon returned to his old occupation, teaching, about two miles north of Hillsboro for about eighteen months, where Judge John Matthews is said to have acted as assistant a part of the time.
In 1837, he again went to Springboro, where he conducted a boarding-
580 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
school for two years. He next tried willing in Cincinnati: but this proving unsuccessful, we find him in IN 1:3 teaching in the Butterworth neighborhood, near Foster's Crossing, then at Martinsville. then at Waynesville. In 1845, he removed to the Cadwalader neighborhood, near Morrowtown, where Beach Grove Academy was built for him in which he taught for six years. He afterward taught a term at Selma, Clark County and. in the spring of 1852, opened a school for boys at Springfield, that county, where be taught two years. Here a number of Wilmington boys became his pupils. In 1854, he removed to Wilmington, where he resided until his death, nearly twenty years. His old residence was built by samuel Buck, one of the early lawyers of Wilmington, but was purchased by Mr. Way from Judge Benjamin Hinkson. Here, at his residence, he received pupils, both day scholars and boarders, for eleven years. As he was then in his seventy-seventh year, he gave up teaching, which had been his occupation for sixty years. During these years a large proportion of the early residents of this and the adjoining counties were his pupils. His life-long friend, Mr. E. A. Vickroy, of Johnson, Penn., says of him: " Of all the teachers I ever went to, Robert Way was the model schoolmaster." He made teaching his life work; what more useful and noble calling?
To Robert and Abigail Way were born five sons and two daughters. The sons all survived their parents; the daughters died in infancy. Abigail Way died in Wilmington February 24, 1809. In the various relations which she sustained as wife, mother, matron and friend, she exerted the influence of a good life, unostentatious but benign and attractive; truly benevolent and charitable, with a deep seated sympathy which was felt by all who came within the circle of her friendship. By her sons she was held in the greatest reverence, and by all who were her friends she was best loved by those who had the most intimate knowledge of her character. She was born in Randolph County, N. C., in 1802, and was brought by her parents to Ohio in 1804. They settled near Leesburg, Highland County, where she was married.
Forty-six years of her life were spent with her husband, and the loss of her had a marked effect upon him physically and mentally. He survived her but two years. Both are buried in Sugar Grove Cemetery, at Wilmington. There are now in the township fourteen school districts, with as many good, substantial school buildings, the greater number of which are constructed of brick There is also a school taught at the infirmary. Fourteen teachers are employed, and the average school year is eight months. The school tax for the vear 1881, was $3,474.04; and the amount paid teachers that year was $3,489.37. The school property is valued at $15.000. The enumeration of youth in the schools of the township as given in 1881, was 093, of which number 77 were between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one years.
The story of Jeremiah N. Reynolds"* life is probably the most romantic one chronicled in the history of Clinton County. He was born in Cumberland County, Penn., in 1799, and enjoyed but few advantages of early education. In 1807, his mother married Job Jeffries, who regarded learning as of little value. He had made his own way in life without much education, and expected the same of others. In 1806, the family removed to Clinton County, Ohio, and Reynolds attended the schools taught by Robert Way, at Dutch Creek and Todd's Fork, parts of the years 1813, 1814, 1815 and 1810, in all a little less than two years. He paid his own tuition and board, and, in order to do so, was obliged to work mornings and evenings and on Saturdays. When short of means he is known to have gone to the prairies of Clark County and engaged in ditching to accumulate sufficient means to pay his expenses at school.
He was considered a boy of much promise by his teacher. A schoolmate
* Prepared by Mrs. Harlan.
PAGE 581 - PICTURE OF STEPHEN EVANS
PAGE 582 - BLANK
UNION TOWNSHIP. - 583
of his. the late Judge Abner Haines, of Eaton, says: " He came to school clad in leather breeches and a linsey wamus. and recited by himself to the teacher. He was a very diligent student. "Judge Haines relates this anecdote of him, illustrative of his character: "He had a step-brother by the name of Darlington Jeffries, a son of Job Jeffries, and the neighbors called them in fun ` Job's oxen and often ran the joke to the chagrin of young Reynolds. On one occasion there was a log-rolling at Azariah Wall's, when the neighbors were pretty generally collected and among them Darlington Jeffries and Jeremiah Reynolds. In the afternoon, Reynolds was carrying the end of a handspike opposite to Peter Wrightman, a small but well-built and compact man, and young Reynolds, though large of his age, was unable to move with the weight and broke down, which incident created much merriment among the hands, and one of them remarked that one of Job's oxen was a calf. This remark so offended Reynolds that he left the field, and, as he crossed the fence near by, he set his feet on the outside lower rails, and in the most stately attitude thus addressed them: `Gentlemen, I have no father to guide and protect me in life, and you have had your fun with me to-day. Many of you are old enough to be ashamed of thus rallying a young and unprotected boy; but, gentlemen, you know little about him of whom you are making fun to-day, for I assure you the time is coming when you will feel proud that you ever rolled logs with Jeremiah N. Reynolds, and with this sentiment I bid you good-bye.' This little speech produced quite a. sensation among the hands; some said it was an outburst of chagrin and spite, bat others looked upon it as the outcropping of his coming manhood. But be this as it may, I myself have heard several of these men, in after life, refer to this incident in the very light in which young Reynolds expressed it from the fence." Jeremiah N. Reynolds taught two terms of common school during 1818 and 1817. He also taught several terms of writing school, making this his whole business, and he taught two terms of writing school jointly with Robert Way.
In 1818, he was made a Master Mason in Wilmington Lodge. In 1819, he was a student in the Ohio University at Athens, where he pursued a course in science; he remained there three years. Returning to Wilmington, he taught school one term, and then engaged in editing a newspaper called the Wilmington Spectator.
On the 14th day of April, 1824, Jeremiah Reynolds made and filed this affidavit in the case of Eliza Carrington, widow of Col. Edward Carrington, and a sister of Chief Justice Marshall, of Virginia, plaintiff, and George Carrington, et al., defendants, then pending in the Court of Common Pleas of Clinton County, in which affidavit he describes himself as Jeremiah Reynolds, editor of the Wilmington Spectator, printed at Wilmington, Clinton Co., Ohio, and made oath that a notice of the pendency of said suit was published in said newspaper for nine weeks successively, prior to the setting of the court at the November term, 1823. Signed Jeremiah Reynolds, editor. Fee for publishing, $16. After disposing of his newspaper in Wilmington, Reynolds entered into an agreement with Capt. Symmes, of Cincinnati, to lecture jointly with him on the system of "Hollow Spheres," which system alleged that the earth was composed of several spheres, one within another and all widely open at the north and south poles. They two traveled and lectured together until they reached Philadelphia, when Capt. Symmes was taken sick and obliged to return home, and shortly after died. Reynolds persevered, however, and lectured in Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, Boston, Portland, Providence, Hartford and other cities, always to full houses and charged 50 cents admission. He thus accumulated quite a large fund; this, with the influence and co-operation of Messrs. Rush and Southerd, members of President John Quincy Adams'
584 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
cabinet, fitted out a ship in connection with two small tenders. in order to explore the ocean toward the, south pole to test the truth of the theory of "Hollow Spheres."* But, on the election of Andrew Jackson to the Presidency, he vetoed the whole proceeding.
Reynolds soon found a congenial spirit in Dr. Watson, of New York. Watson being a man of wealth. he and Reynolds united their means and fitted out a ship and two small tenders for southern explorations. Soon the vessels were manned with ollicers and men, and provisioned for twelve months. They sailed in fine style, full of enthusiasm, with the idea that they would soon have the superlative pleasure of entering into the South Pole.
Their vessel, the Annawan, N. B. Palmer, Captain, sailed from New York Harbor in October, 1829. " They at length arrived in sight of land, which they afterward discovered to be a southern continent, which seemed completely blockaded with islands of ice. A landing was determined on. The long boat was launched, with a crew of twenty men. In attempting to reach the shore in the storm, while the waves were roiling mountain high, they were obliged to pass along between the shelving rocks of the shore and the heaving masses of floating ice for a considerable distance, every moment liable to be crushed to atoms. They, however, arrived at a landing-place, and immediately, with joy, drew their boat upon shore, which proved to be a solid rock. On careful observation, they found they were on an extensive continent, covered completely with solid ice, and no vegetable growth to be seen. Now that they were landed, no provisions were to be obtained, and starvation seemed to stare them in the face. But behold! Providence seemed to provide the means of support in the sea lion. He exhibited himself at the mouth of a cave, and ten men, in two squads, were sent out to bring him in. They soon returned with his carcass, which weighed 1,700 pounds. His flesh was excellent eating. By an accurate astronomical observation, they found their latitude to be eighty-two degrees south, exactly eight degrees from the South Pole. After some ten days of anxious delay on land, the sea becoming calm, they put out to sea in their long boat to endeavor to discover the ships. They sailed on and on for nearly forty hours. At length, being very weary, late in the night, they drew their boat upon a high inclined rock All, in a few minutes, were sound asleep except Reynolds and Watson. They stood sentinels over the boat's crew, and felt too anxious to sleep. About 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, they saw a light far distant at sea. The crew was soon wakened, and all embarked in their boat and rowing with might and main for the ships. They soon arrived, and the meeting of the two parties was full of enthusiastic joy. They were convinced that they could not enter the South Pole, as it was blocked up with an icy continent; hence they were willing to turn their faces homeward. They soon arrived at Valparaiso, Chili. Here the seamen mutinied against the authority of the ship, set Reynolds and Watson on shore, and launched out to sea as a pirate ship."
[That part of the above, narrative inched in quotations is from Robert Way's sketch.]
Reynolds now traveled by land through the Republic of Chili, and the Araucanian and Indian territories to the south. It is said that, while among the Araucanian tribe, he was engaged as a Colonel of a regiment at war with a neighboring tribe, and, while marching through a deep and narrow gorge, was thrown from his horse and severely wounded. He was at Valparaiso in October, 1832, when the United States frigate Potomac, under Commodore John Downes, arrived there. This vessel, in August, 1831, had been sent to the coast of Sumatra to avenge the wrongs done the United States ship Friendship, of Salem, at Quallah-Battoo, on that coast, in the month of February preced-
UNION TOWNSHIP. - 585
ing the Malays having treacherously seized that vessel and massacred part of her crew. who were taking on board a cargo of pepper. After calling the treacherous Malays to account. the Potomac Was to cross the Pacific and take command of the squadron on the west coast of South America. The Potomac set. sail from New York August 26, 1831, going by way of the Cape do Verd Islands and Rio Janeiro, around the Cape of Good Hope to the coast of Sumatra. After they had subdued the piratical Malays and re-established our national honor, they sailed, via the Straits of Sunda, to Java, thence to the coast of China, anchoring in Macao Road and visiting several of the principal ports, thence to the Sandwich and Society Islands, and thence to Valparaiso, reaching this port October 24, 1832. They had now more than circumnavigated the globe by one degree and forty-six minutes.
At Valparaiso, Reynolds joined the Potomac as private secretary to the Commodore, and continued in this service until they lauded in Boston Harbor. Commodore Downes now sailed to Callao, Lima, the Galapagos Islands. and again returned to Callao; revisited Valparaiso on the 9th of February, 1834, having spent sixteen months on the west coast of South America. They now set sail for the United States via the Falkland Islands, again touching at Rio de Janeiro, and anchored in Boston Harbor May 23, 18:34. Reynolds was selected by the United States Government to write an authentic account of this voyage of the Potomac, which, with the aid of a copious record kept day by day by one of the officers, he accomplished with great ability.
Jeremiah N. Reynolds now began the study of law in the city of Now York; was soon admitted to practice, both in the Common Pleas and Supreme Courts of that State, and afterward in the Supreme Court of the United States. He soon became an able advocate. In 1848, he became a member of the stock company organized in Now York for mining in Leon, Mexico. He was elected President of the company, and, after a few years of persistent effort, he made quite a success in this field; but his health soon failed, and he died near New York City in 1858, aged fifty-nine years. He was buried in that city.
RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES, CHURCHES AND GRAVEYARDS.
Centre Meeting.-In the preceding pages of this work devoted to the pioneer history of Union Township, it will be seen that the first settlements made were by the class of people styled Friends, and that they at once looked after their spiritual wants. The manner and circumstances leading to the formation of the society at the point long known as Centre is. identical with the settlement there, in connection with which its inception is given, and the want of space will forbid a repetition here. Suffice it to say that the first meeting is said to have been held at the cabin of Robert Eachus, where the heads of families assembled to take steps toward the establishment of a Friends' society. The meeting was held at the dwelling of Mr. Eachus on account of it being more roomy than any other in the neighborhood. James Murray's deed for fifteen acres of ground for a meeting-house and schoolhouse, made to Nathan Linton, James Moon and Isaac Perkins, Trustees of the Society of Friends on Todd's Fork, bears date of December 19, 1803. After diligent search, the writer failed to find any record showing when the first meeting-house was built, or when either an indulged or preparative meeting was granted. The late Judge Harlan, in the sketch of Robert Eachus, says: "In May, 1805, Miami Quarterly allowed the holding of the proposed meeting, soon after which a house made of unhewn logs, without door or floor, was built, and meetings were held twice a week therein. This house is believed to have been the first house of worship erected in what is now Clinton County." Quoting again from John Leonard, in the sketch prepared by Dr. A. Jones, who says: "When I arrived
586 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
at the settlement, the Society of Friends hall erected a small log house at Centre to hold their meetings in * * * " We find that the meeting-house was built prior to the beginning of the year 1806, when Mr. Leonard settled in that neighborhood.
A monthly meeting was granted and established at Centre on the 7th of 2d month, 1807. The log meeting-house soon became too small for the growing settlement, and another of the same material, but much larger, having two apartments, was built some eight or ten rods southeast of the present site, the old one serving as a wood house. The first quarterly meeting bold at Centre was on the 13th of 3d month, 1826. The records show that application was made for a quarterly meeting in 1824, and that the visiting committee reported favorably, but there is no evidence that such meeting was established before 1826. The one-story brick building now standing, a very substantial and commodious edifice, was erected in 1828. The brick work was done by William McMillan, under contract of Jonathan McMillan, and the wood work by John B. Posey. In size, the building is fifty by eighty feet, and has two apartments, and otherwise is in keeping with houses of worship of the Society of Friends.
The burying-ground here is on the Murray land set apart for church purposes in 1803. Interments were made in it as early as the summer or autumn of 1804. The first adult person here interred is said to have been John Vestal, there having been buried prior to his death twin children by the name of Hodgson. In an interview on this subject some years prior to the death of Samuel Vestal, the latter stated that his father, John Vestal, was the first adult person buried at Centre; that he was buried in June, 1804. He stated further that twin children, belonging to whom he did not remember, were buried there in the same year, previous to the interment of his father. The second adult person buried there was Susan Haworth. This was in 1804, but in the fall of the year. It appears that John Vestal did not make his will until July 10, 1804.
The late Judge Harlan, in his sketch of Vestal, says that he died in the fall of 1804, and that his burial was the second in the old graveyard at Centre. There are no tombstones marking any of the graves of the above-mentioned persons. Some of the tombstones marking the graves of the pioneers have fallen down, and on others the inscriptions are almost illegible. Many graves are unmarked and others are designated by rough stones, without any inscription. Below will be found a list of names of persons buried here who were born prior to 1800, as taken from such tombstones as could be read:
NAME. DIED AGE
Mary Green.................................. June 24, 1873....................... 89
Samuel Schooley ..........................January 27, 1844.................... 59
Rachel Schooley............................ April 11, 1863....................... 71
Samuel Hollingsworth................... September 21, 1850 .............. 53
Sally Miars................................... February 15, 1875................. 75
David Miars.................................. December 19, 1879................ 85
William Doan................................ April 24, 1869....................... 80
Betsey Doan ......................... . .. ... July 28, 1863......................... 69
Dr. J. K. Sparks.............................. September 17, 1873....... . . .. 83
William Wickersham........................June 17, 1839.......................
Rachel Wickersham ........................ May 23, 1867....................... 83
William Walker.............................. February 19, 1846..................69
Margaret Oren................................ November 20, 1869................72
James Oren .................................. September 11, 1849...............58
Joseph Doan ................................. March 1, 1861....................... 66
Rebecca Ballard.............................. February 9 1856.................... 82
Hur Hodgson................................... February 5, 1851.................. 83
UNION TOWNSHIP. - 587
NAME DIED AGE.
Elizabeth Hodgson........................... November 5. 1868 ................... 62
Spencer Ballard.............................. September 5, 1852................... 81
Rebecca Ballard.............................. September 11, 1839........ ..........62
Isaac Underwood............................. August 22, 1853....................... 63
Richard Vantress . . .. . . .. .. ........ .....August 4, 1866...................... 76
Elizabeth Sparks ............................. October 28, 1842 .................... 50
John Wall........................................... February 28. 1859................... 61
Mary Wall.......................................... March 22, 1855......................... 78
Rebecca Wall ..................................... October 13, 1857 ...................... 59
Azariah Wall....................................... August 29, 1853........................ 80
Elizabeth Smith................................... July 7, 1842 ............................. 73
Nathan Linton ..................................... February 11, 1850...................... 80
Rachel Lipton...................................... April 30, 1859............................ 69
Israel Taylor......................................... November 24,1822.................... 30
Henry Babb .......................................... November 2, 1821...................... 55
* R. Eachus........................................... March 24, 1829 ......................... 86
Robert Eachus....................................... March 24, 1829.......................... 65
Isabella Rich........................................... July 14, 1860.............................. 65
Joshua Haines........................................ August 25, 1829.......................... 31
Sarah John............................................. July 3, 1864................................. 77
Sarah Haines........................................... September 1, 1843....................... 46
John W. Wall........................................... January 9, 1857........................... 78
John Leonard.......................................... December 7,1870........................ 88
Lydia Leonard........................................ May 30, 1874. ........................... 91
.John Leonard, Jr............................. ....... February 18,1872 ................... ... 61
Jacob Haines........................................... June 16,1854.............................. 76
Mary Haines............................................. October 9, 1855......................... 78
Michael Wollary........................................ November 2, 1857..................... 72
Elizabeth Wollary...................................... April 25, 1858 .......................... 65
Henry Lewis.............................................. January 9, 1863......................... 71
Lydia Haines............................................... December 3, 1860...................... 87
John Haines................................................ October 5, 1853.......................... 80
Elizabeth Sheppard..................................... March 11, 1878..........................: 84
Samuel Vestal................. . ........................ March 10, 1876........................... 79
Edith Vestal............................................... September 20, 1877..................... 74
E. Birdsall.................................................. August 28, 1869 .......................... 72
William Birdsall........................................... November 20, 1865.................... 80
Hezekiah Hiatt............................................. July 2, 1872 ............................... 86
Ann Hiatt....................... ............................ June 10, 1872.............................. 87
Christopher Probasco.................................. August. 25, 1850......................... 64
George B. Moore ........................................ October 30, 1835......................... 37
Dover Meeting.--Some years after the monthly meeting was established at Centre, the Friends of Dover settlement requested the privilege of holding indulged meetings, which was granted by Centre Monthly Meeting, and meetings were held for a time at the dwelling of Ezekiel Frazier. The meeting was after awhile made a preparative one, and, the neighborhood becoming thickly settled, it became necessary to have a monthly meeting, which was established in the ninth month, 1824. The first meeting-house these people erected was of round logs, and stood several rods northeast of the building now at Dover. The present one-story brick meeting-house was erected about the year 1844 or 1845, on ground deeded by Amos Hodgson to Daniel Bailey and Gayer Starbuck, Trustees for the Dover Meeting, in consideration of $3. The amount of land given was one and one-half acres, in Survey No. 1,236. The deed bears date of January 13, 1824. The recorded ministers of Dover Monthly Meeting since 1824 have been as follows: John Parson, 1845; Wilson Carter, 1850; John H. Douglass, 1858; Cyrus C. Carter, 1859; John M. Pidgeon and Louis Hunt, 1866; William P. Gallimore, 1869; Isaac Peelle, 1871; Micajah F. Moorman, 1872; Joseph Haskins, 1874.
The graveyard at the meeting-house is as old as the place of worship, and
* There are two tombstones marked R. Eachus and Robert Eachus, with death and age as given.
588 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
in it rest the remains of many of Dover's first settlers. Since the settlements of Centre and Dover were effected, though nearly three - quarters of a century have come and gone, the religious societies have not changed much. Those persons professing the faith of the Friend or Quaker still occupy and posses the lands. They were attracted here, no doubt, from the Carolinas, Tennessee, Virginia, Pennsylvania and other States, by the reports of the character and quality of the soil, and the prospect of independent homes in a free territory. They were a frugal and industrious people, and their principles have very largely influenced the people of the township.
Some thirty years ago, there existed in the eastern part of the township a religious society of the Christian denomination. The church building occupied by them is still Standing, but it has been used for other purposes for a number of years, and the meeting is numbered with events of the past.
Beech Grove Meeting. -Meetings of the Friends of Beech Grove neighborhood, some three miles southwest of Wilmington, were held as early as 1858 or 1859, yet it was not established as a meeting of worship until the 23d of 5th month, 1861. Their house of worship was built in the fall of 18(10, on ground deeded by Isaac R. McElwee to Franklin Spencer, Azel Walker and Samuel H. Hadley, Trustees of the society. and the amount paid for it was .$75. The date of the deed is December 26, 1804. The only recorded minister the society has had was Peter Osborn. The heads of families originally comprising this meeting were William Osborn, Peter Osborn, Rowland Green, Azel and Asa Walker, Harlan Madden, Charles Osborn, Eli Hadley, S. H. Hadley and perhaps others, nearly all of whom are now dead.
For a number of years past, the Methodists residing in the northeastern part of the township have held services in what is known as Dutch School-house, and in February, 1882, ati organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church was effected, which is a part of the Bowerville Circuit. Mrs. Sarah Hawes has been active in the interests of this society, and, mainly through her efforts, a subscription has been raised and a one-story church edifice commenced, located on ground donated by John R. Peudry.
The Gaddis Graveyard, situated about three miles northeast of Wilmington, on the Prairie road, is of uncertain age. It is on land formerly owned by Col. Thomas Gaddis, and is almost, if not quite, as old as the village of Wilmington. Timothy Bennet, Union Township's first pioneer, was buried here, and, among other pioneer families, we find recorded on the cold marble the following names: Sewell, Custis, Ford, S Shinn, Carroll, Russell, Rannells, Parrott, McWhorter, Gaddis, McCool.
In wandering through these old burying-grounds and looking upon the moss-covered and almost defaced memorials, we notice that many of the tenants have occupied these tombs for more than half a century-surely long enough to fulfill the great truth, " Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return."
MILLS.
The first mill in the township, and, most likely, the first in the county, was the Eachus Mill heretofore mentioned in the sketch of that pioneer. It stood on Todd's Fork, in the Centre neighborhood, in Survey No. 1,558, and was built by Robert Eachus in 1805. The mill has long since disappeared, and no other has been erected in its stead. Traces of the old dam and race are still discernible. For further particulars concerning this mill, the reader is referred to the account given of the pioneer, Robert Eachus.
Mahlon Haworth built and operated a grist-mill on Todd's Fork. It was run by both water and horse power, and was erected about the year 1805 or 1806.
UNION TOWNSHIP - 589
George Haworth also built a grist-mill at an early day, which stood on the same+ stream as those above described, just west of where the Xenia pike crosses the creek, now the site of the Cline Mill.
During the war of 1812-15, William Bntler, then residing on a farm west of Wilmington, built a small saw and grist mill on Lytle's Creek, one mile from the village. The mill passed from tile hands of Mr. Butler to David Stratton, then engaged in the mercantile business in Wilmington. Under his ownership the mill was operated for fifteen or twenty years, whoa the dam was destroyed by high water and the buildings were suffered to decay; and in after years, every particle of the mill and dam were swept away, and now not a vestige of the enterprise is traceable. At that period in the history of the county, the streams were full throughout the year, and mills were operated from eight to ten months. Dr. A. Jones, who gives the above information, relates the following incident in connection with it: "On a Sunday evening in 1825, William Hale and our self walked down to the old mill-dam, and there witnessed a most exciting scene-a young man in the act of drowning. A number of young men and boys were bathing, and among them was one who boasted greatly of his power as a swimmer. The company soon wearied of their sport; all came out of the water but the swimmer, who had ventured too far and was in the act of sinking. Elisha Doan went to his relief, and, in taking hold of the man, Doan was drawn under by him, and both were in great danger. A line of assistance was formed, and both were drawn out on the bank. The expert swimmer was, to all appearances, dead, but in a few moments, however, he was resuscitated, and able to speak, and his first words were, `Darn you, boys, you like to let me drown!' The fact was evident that the boasting swimmer could not swim in deep water."
About the year 1815, Nathan Stalker built a small grist-mill on Lytle's Creek, not far from the line now separating Union and Adams Townships. After carrying on the milling business for some years, he sold his land and mill to Joshua Moore, who operated it for a period of years, when it was purchased by his brother, Haines Moore, who is yet in possession of the premises, although the old mill rotted down years ago.
In 1825, Nathan Linton built a sawmill on Todd's Fork, near the Waynesville road, about three miles northwest of Wilmington, and, about the year 1841, on the same stream and site, he erected a large four-story grist-mill, forty-four feet square. This mill was destroyed by fire during the late war.
Peyton Burton, a millwright of some note in this section of the country, built and remodeled a number of the mills of Clinton County. He erected a steam grist-mill just south of Wilmington, which, though not large, did an extensive business, as there was no mill then in operation in Wilmington. He next built another grist-mill, run by steam, on Cowan's Creek, near the vicinity, of the present settlement of Burtonville, and, later, erected a grist-mill, with a water-power, on the site of the present mill at Burtonville, which was sold to Thomas Custis, and later was destroyed by fire, and the present mill erected about 1840 by Mr. Custis. It is the property of William Schofield.
TILE FACTORY.
An important industry of the township is the tile factory of John A Sprowle, one mile east of Wilmington, where are manufactured all kinds of round tiling for drainage purposes. The works were built in the spring of 1881, by the present proprietor and J. G. Starbuck. The dry house is sixty by twenty-five feet, and the mill has a capacity fur making 2,000 feet of four inch tile per day.
590 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
CONCLUDING NOTES AND INCIDENTS.
A writer in the Republican in 1872 gives the following interesting sketches pertaining to the early history of the township of Union:
"Although our county has no old ruined fort or battle-field to give it notoriety, there are two or three places in it which, in early times, were known to the settlers for quite a distance in the surrounding country. The Deserted Camp, at Starbucktown, is one of them. What circumstance gave it that name is not positively known to me, the accounts being somewhat conflicting; but, from the best information I can get, an army, during the Indian wars in the last century, had its encampment there, and its guide deserted and notified the Indians of its approach. Whether the army now became panic-stricken and deserted its camp, or whether the circumstance of the guide deserting gave the name to the location, I am unable to tell; but it was undoubtedly one or the other.* After this it was the headquarters for surveying parties, and survey 'lines extend from this point to a great distance in almost every direction.
"Down the creek a short distance from the Deserted Camp is a piece of bottom land, now owned by Andrew Gaddis, that the people used to call Logan's Bottom, and tradition points to it as once the home of Logan, the Mingo chief-the same Logan that made the speech to Lord Dunmore, which almost every school boy and girl has read.
"The `Fallen Timber' was another place of notoriety, and to this belongs a tale: About the year 1808, a terrible tornado passed through Dover neighborhood, entirely destroying the timber for a distance of forty or fifty rods in width. Its track is plainly discernible to the present day. Upon the day it occurred, Timothy Bennet, who then lived upon the farm now owned by S. R. Glass, and his son Michael, were following the Indian trace from Xenia, or Old Town, to their home, and were overtaken by this terrible storm at a point near where John Prebles now resides. They found it impossible to escape; so, with an humble prayer to God for their preservation, they were compelled to face the war of elements. The most vivid flashes of lightning and deafening peals of thunder burst upon them, and a roar as if the foundations of the great deep were breaking up; then came a whirl as the fiercest typhoon that bent and broke even the strongest oak to the earth. Thus the storm passed by-but where were our friends? Standing there unscathed; no hair of themselves or their horses had been hurt, but they were standing with fallen timber on every side of them; all. of a heavy forest had been thrown around them. They cut their way out and went on their way home, with their hearts raised in thankfulness to the Lord that their prayer had been answered.
"Another instance, which I have often heard one of these old patriarchs relate, in which he thought Providence had a guiding hand, I will give: It was late in the fall, and he was on one of those dreary trips to Waynesville, to mill, on horseback, with a sack of corn, also with his cache of furs, which he intended to trade for either cash or merchandise. He had to stay all night, and, in the morning, found the wind had shifted to the northeast, and was blowing a fierce gale. He was thinly clad and without an overcoat, but was away from home and must return. So, mounting his horse, on his sack of meal. and. with his package of goods in his naked hands, he started. As he crossed those bleak Miami hills in a drizzling rain that froze to his thin garments, he thought he must perish; but the Father that tempers the wind to the shorn lamb' was not unmindful of him, for, after traveling some distance, he chanced to look into the woods some distance from the path, and saw a little smoke. On approaching it, he found the smoldering ashes covered a splendid fire that some
* See account in general chapter.
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roving band of Indians or white hunters had left. He dismounted, thawed and dried his thin garments, warmed his chilly person, then struck into the deep woods and came safely home. I have often heard this worthy father relate this incident, and tears of gratitude would roll down his furrowed cheeks as he would express his thankfulness to the Lord for his preservation.
"A settler, perhaps more enterprising than some others, penetrated the forest in the dry season of the year, into the swamp known as the ' Crane Pond,' and built a cabin not far from where ex-Sheriff Stamats now resides, and, before he made any-or but little improvement, the rains came on and raised the swamp until his house was almost surrounded by water. While things were in that condition, two men on horseback, in search of stray cattle, came slashing through the pond and came suddenly upon this cabin. The occupants saw them stop, and one in surprise threw up his hands and exclaimed to his companion, 'My God! somebody lives here!' The other replied, `God help the man that lives here!'"
Some time in 1809, Caleb Perkins, a son of Isaac Perkins, while out early in the morning hunting, treed a raccoon, and Richard Henderson, a neighbor, was called to the spot with his gun. After firing away all his ammunition without bringing the animal down, he finally felled the tree. A branch of the falling tree struck Caleb Perkins, mortally injuring him, and, although his death did not occur until eleven months later. during all of this time he was a great sufferer.
On the 28th of August, 1840, a young man named Calvin Rees, living in the family of James Moon, on Todd's Fork, blew into the muzzle of a rifle to see if the weapon was loaded. He discovered that it was, but lost his life upon . making the discovery.
The following is Dr. A. Jones' account of the cyclone which caused the windfall known as the " Fallen Timbers: " " Soon after the beginning of the settlement on Todd's Fork occurred one of the most extensive and widespread cyclones that ever passed over the Miami Valley. Its starting point was is the locality between the villages of Sligo and Clarksville, passing north and northeast over the country traversed by Todd's Fork, running generally oii the south side of that stream. It was very irregular in width, contracting and widening frequently, while its estimated length was from ten to twelve miles. As to the date of this atmospheric phenomenon, some differences of opinion still exist, but the best authenticated accounts give the summer of 1808 as the correct date."
Eli Harvey, one of. the earliest settlers on Todd's Fork, in an interview with Dr. Jones, says: " This storm occurred late in the summer of 1808: I had erected my cabin on the west side of Todd's Fork, in the dense forest. When the wind storm began, I was but a short distance from my cabin. The force of the storm was truly terrific; all the large and small timber from my standpoint to my cabin was blown down, and when the cyclone had passed over, my little dwelling could not be seen. When the storm commenced, my family were in the house; when it ended, to my eye they were coveted up by the fallen timber. Approaching my cabin by climbing over the brush and fallen trees, I saw the little log house still standing, and to my loud calls my wife answered. This to me was indescribable joy, and I hastily extricated my family from their imprisonment, thanking God that they were safe and uninjured,"
To many of the early pioneers, the "Fallen Timbers" storm was familiar, as its great extent was unusual and an unshapen mass of trees was thrown and twisted into every form. Where the trail of the cyclone was narrow, the fallen
594 - HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY.
trees and brush were the highest. At that period in the county's history, wild animals were numerous, and the "Fallen Timbers" afforded them a fine hiding place from the keen eye of the hunter. Here they sought concealment and made the night hideous with their fierce cries. More than three-quarters of a century has come and gone since this cyclone swept over Todd's Fork, but in later years we have a vivid recollection of our amazement on viewing the effects produced upon the forest by this wonderful combination of the elements.*
* Dr. Jones.