274 - HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
TRIALS OF EMIGRATION.
FREDERICK BONNER, SEN.
As a general illustration of the many hardships and difficulties incident to immigration to this county, we give the experience of Frederick Bonner, sen., nearly as related by his son, F. Bonner, jr.
In the year 1802, father sold his land in Virginia (five hundred acres) for $2,000, and bought two surveys of one thousand acres each, in what was then the Northwest Territory, at a cost of $2,000. Upon visiting it, and finding it well situated, he returned and began preparations for moving on it the following season. On Saturday, April 1, 1803, we started, and went as far as Petersburg, and remained till Monday. Two other families joined us, and our outfit was all put in two covered wagons, including household goods, a chest of carpenter's tools, and a turning-lathe. To each of these were attached four horses, with bells on the leaders. A one-horse wagon carried the provisions, and the females, when they became tired of walking. In addition to these, we had a canvas to sleep under at night. On Monday morning we resumed our long journey to the far west, pursuing a route through southern Virginia, which, in a few days, brought us within view of the mountains; first, the peaks of the Blue Ridge, then the Alleghany and Cumberland. Crossing these in safety, we reached Kentucky, passing along the Crab Orchard road. Arriving at Lexington, we pushed on to Cincinnati (then a village of fifteen hundred), crossing the Ohio River at that place, May 10, 1803, and camped near, the mouth of Deer
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Creek, then some distance from the village. Next morning we went up the river into the Little Miami Valley, crossing the river a little above Cincinnati. Here we encountered our first serious difficulty. The water was high, and running swiftly. Our four-horse wagon crossed without accident ; but when the wagon containing the wife of a Mr. Day proceeded as far as the middle, or swiftest part of the stream, one of the horses fell, and could not rise. Mr. Day, in attempting to assist, was washed off down stream with the horses. Father went in to his assistance, and the water tripped him up; and he also went struggling down the river, to the alarm of all. Fortunately, he got out on the same side from which he entered, while Day was still struggling in the river near his horses. Finally, they succeeded in fastening a chain to the end of the tongue, and hitching our horses to it, we drew it out. All this time Dad's wife and child were in the wagon, in imminent danger of being capsized to the river, and washed away. Mr. Day and family located near the vicinity of this accident, and we followed up the river to the present site of Milford, where we found a vacant cabin, which father rented for a few months. Into this we moved, and remained until we could make arrangements to go to our land in Greene aunty. In June, father and some of the boys went to the land, and selected a spot to build a cabin, near Glady Run, a branch of e Little Miami, which was to accommodate us as our new home the woods.
NIMROD HADDOX.
During the year 1800, Nimrod Haddox started from Fackler county, Virginia, with two pack-horses, and came to Chillicothe, County, and while traveling, at Deer Creek met an old friend ,m Virginia, with whom he stopped over night, and liking the surroundings, he prolonged his stay over winter. In the following ring, he, and five other families, moved up Deer Creek to Lamb's purchase, and squatted on it. After having made a little improvement, learning that his nephew had settled on the Little Miami, he came to visit him, and finally moved in with him. After remaining re a couple of years, he learned that his mother and family had moved to Kentucky, and he determined to visit her. Packing up, started ; and about three miles below Dayton, he fell in with another old friend from Virginia, who persuaded him to remain all
276 - HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
winter, and teach a school in the vicinity. In March, the small-pox appearing in the settlement, he moved across the river, and began making sugar. Having good success in this direction, a fine lot of sugar was the result. About this time the great flood took place. The water began to rise, and he was compelled to cross the river with his sugar, to a cabin on higher ground. The water still rising, he moved to a house . owned by a Mr. Taylor. This, also, being surrounded by water, he put his sugar in the loft, and they all paddled across to an elevated spot, and camped for the night. Mr. Haddox was placed on watch, and about midnight the water reached them, and they were compelled, as a last resort, to cut trees, and fall their tops together, and climb them, and remain on them from Friday till Monday, without food or drink. On Monday the water began to subside, and soon they descended from their perch, and went to the house, which was turned around. They rowed their boat to the upper window, and crawled in; and finding a large iron kettle in the loft, and some meat, they made a fire in the kettle, and broiled some of it; and also finding a sack of meal stowed away in the loft, they mixed this with water, and baking it, also, in the impromptu oven, soon had a good meal. On looking for his sugar, he found that it had mostly disappeared. Fully satisfied with his visit, he returned to his nephew's house, traded a horse for an improvement, and became a citizen of our county.
PIONEERS.
In 1809, Jacob Mills came, with his family, from Warren County to near Clifton, in this county, where he and his three sons, Jacob, Daniel, and Thomas, literally hewed a farm out of the heavy forest surrounding them. John Mills was then a lad of about fifteen. They were often visited by the Indians, who lingered in the vicinity to hunt and fish. No hostile demonstrations were ever made by these children of the woods, however aggravating the sight of the white man's cabin, and the sound of the white man's ax, as the grand forest, which afforded him game, disappeared beneath its steady strokes. Jacob Mills was elected, while in Warren County, major of the first regiment of militia ever organized in the state. After his removal to this county, he was elected justice of the peace in Miami Township, serving in this capacity nine years,
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during which, it is said, he performed more marriage ceremonies than any other justice in the state.
In the fall of 1809, an old-fashioned singing-school was taught in Xenia, by David Wilson, oldest son of Daniel Wilson, and John Mills was very anxious to go, both to see the girls, and the town of Xenia., which then consisted of about thirty log houses. The singing-school was held in the court house, then just finished, and the girls came, with their beaux, on horseback, dressed in linsey, and a few of the elite appeared in calico, then the extreme of fashion, aspired to by but few. Young John was gratified, and returned home with enlarged views of creation generally.
At that time all the houses were made of logs, except one frame dwelling and the brick court house. In front of the present site of the Second National Bank was a. stagnant pool of water, a general rendezvous for geese, ducks, and hogs. Opposite the court house was a hewed log structure, kept by Major Beatty as a tavern. On Main Street, on the present site of Trinity Church, a Mr. Barnes built a log cabin in the woods. During the winter of this same year, Mr. Mills, while in Xenia, saw a man selling cider at 12 1/2 cents a, quart. In front of the court house a large stump was standing in the street, by the side of which he built a fire, in which he heated several rods of iron; and when he would make a sale, he would hold the iron rod in the cider, to bring it up to a drinkable temperature.
In the spring of 1810, Mr. Mills again came to Xenia, to attend a murder trial, in which. one William Catrill, of Miami Township, was the defendant. The nature of the case was the murder of a child, belonging to one Jane Richards, his wife's sister. Catrill, the supposed father of the child, and Jane Richards, were both indicted for murder. The latter was acquitted, but Catrill was found guilty, principally upon the testimony of a young girl, who swore that the child was thrown out, one cold night in November among the hogs, but, strangely, not being touched by them, was found next. morning ; and circumstances pointing to the guilty pair, they were at once arrested, and Catrill, after conviction, only escaped by what -was then known as the "Sweeping Resolutions," which are to be found in Chase's Statutes, of 1809-'10.
Mr. Mills says the material of which his wedding-shirt was made cost a dollar a yard, and could be bought now for nine cents. The highest price paid for labor then, was from fifty to seventy-five
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cents per day, acid scarce at that, while every species of merchandise was from ten to twenty-fold higher than at present. Salt, hauled from Cincinnati (four barrels by a four-horse team), was four dollars per bushel. Calico, from sixty-two cents to one dollar per yard.
Major George Gordon was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, September 7, 1786. He came with his father in a wagon across the mountains in 1790, to a spot on the river a few miles above the present site of Pittsburgh; then came down the river on a flat-boat, landing at a place called Limestone, now Maysville, Kentucky, from which they traveled toward Lexington, near which they settled. Leaving there in 1802, they crossed the Ohio at Cincinnati, in a flat-boat, their stock swimming the river. Pushing on towards the northwest, they at last located near Lebanon, Warren County, where. the major remained till 1813. In February of that year he married Miss Anna McDaniel, a daughter of his near neighbor. The young couple moved to this county in the following March, and settled in the woods about three miles west of Spring Valley, on the north side of the present Spring Valley and Centerville pike. After years of hard labor, Mr. Gordon made enough money to buy a four-horse team and wagon, with which he hauled merchandise to and from Cincinnati for some years, getting as high as $1.25 per hundred for carriage from Cincinnati to Xenia. In those days a man would sell a load of grain and lay it out in coarse dry goods, and put them all in his hat. Yet they complain of hard times now, and laud the good old days when whisky was only three cents a quart.
In 1831 Mr. Gordon purchased a farm on Massie's Creek, now the property of Henry Conklin, to which he moved the same year and erected buildings. In 1851 he bought the ground between north Detroit and King Street, to which he moved in 1853, and where he died at the age of ninety-four.
In the spring of 1815, Samuel Peterson came from Virginia to this county for the purpose of assisting his brother-in-law, Joseph Bootes, on his farm. In company with a Mr. Hegler, he made the - long journey on horseback, remained all summer, then with a few friends, returned to Virginia by the same mode of conveyance. In the fall following, his father came to this county with his family of five sons and two daughters, and located on a tract .of five hundred acres on Caesar's Creek, south of Xenia, which he had previ-
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ously purchased. Soon after his arrival, one of his daughters was married to Jonathan Ketterman, who had formerly lived in this county. When he started back to Virginia, with his bride on horseback, his father-in-law sent Samuel to Chillicothe with them to buy the bride a new saddle, which was presented to her as a bridal-gift. The father and his five sons, Samuel, Joel, Moses, Jacob and Felix, immediately began a vigorous assault upon the dense forest that surrounded them; the effect of which was soon visible in the sweeping crash of the mighty oak, the burning heap, and the crackling brush. When a few acres was thus cleared, it was planted in corn, for which not finding a ready market in the ear, they tramped it out on the puncheon floor, took it to a distillery, had it made into whisky, took the whisky to all iron-furnace, traded it for iron, which they sold, and thus realized a good price for their whisky.
Samuel was a powerful man, and on one occasion lifted a trip hammer weighing seven hundred pounds. He cut the timber and made four hundred and fifty rails in one day. When about twentyone, he and Samuel Hegler, Colonel Mallow, and Peter Price, all young men, each took a four-horse load of flour from Oldtown Mills to Cincinnati, for William Beall. Starting early in the morning with ten barrels each, they succeeded, by doubling teams at every hill, in getting as far the first day as the present locality of Spring Valley. Camping out all night, the next day they drove within a mile of Waynesville, when Beall hired another team, which .enabled them to travel more speedily. Reaching Cincinnati, they were paid one dollar per barrel for hauling, and started for home, making the round trip in eleven days. Beall, not being able to dispose of his flour in Cincinnati, shipped it to New Orleans, and walked back.
February 22, 1821, Samuel Peterson was married to Miss Hannah Heaton, who had come to this county a few years previous. He lived with his parents for some time, then moved to a tract of one hundred acres given him by his father, upon which he had previously built a hewed log house, considered in those days one of the most imposing structures in the country. Being entirely alone, the labor of clearing out the forest proceeded very slowly, until 1825, when he leased the premises, and moved to Xenia where he engaged in the wagon-maker trade. The first year he lived in a log house on Main Street, near where the old pottery stood; the
280 - HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
second in a house hear the northeast corner of Second and Whiteman streets. The man to whom he had rented proving worthless, he returned to the farm in 1827, where he remained until 1849, in the meantime bringing it under a high state of cultivation; when, leaving it in charge of his son, he returned to Xenia. Bringing a span of good horses and a wagon with him, he followed teaming until 1865, when, having sold his farm to Jonas Peterson and bought another of a Mr. Tressler, five miles southeast of Xenia, he removed to it in the same year. At this place his wife died suddenly of heart disease, April 22, 1872, aged seventy-one. After this, Mr. Peterson spent the balance of his days with his son-in-law, William Rader, in Xenia.
Mr. James Scott was born in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, January 1, 1794. In October, 1815, he came on a tour of inspection to this and adjoining counties, accompanied by his brother John. They were acquaintances and friends of Mr. John Jacoby (who then owned and operated the Oldtown Mills) and his family, and during their stay in this section partook of their hospitality. General Robert D. Fossman was then a single man, and lived with Henry Jacoby, with whom he engaged in partnership to build and run a distillery near the Oldtown Mill. Not long after the building of this distillery, he sold out his interest to his partner.
During this trip Mr. Scott saw but little of Xenia, as he only made a few short visits to the place. It. then contained very few brick or frame buildings. The principal business houses were of log, and nearly all the dwellings were log structures` of various styles and sizes. There was a tavern where John Glossinger's saloon now stands, kept by an Englishman, and another just above it kept by Thomas Gillespie, who was afterwards appointed land commissioner in the northern part of the state by President Jackson. Connelly then kept the tavern near the old Hiveling corner. At the same time, James Collier was running his famous house on Detroit Street, and a Mr. Watson was proprietor of another on the south side of Main Street, west of Detroit.
The first mill built in the county was a small log structure erected in 1798, near the site of the Harbine Mills, at Alpha. Some years after it proved too small for the increasing trade, and was abandoned for a larger one a frame building erected near by. A woolen mill was also built at the same place, and put into opera-
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tion. It was afterwards used as a cotton factory, and then again converted into a woolen mill. The mill property then belonged to Jacob Smith, who was a member of the Fourth General Assembly of the State, in 1805, as a senator from this and County, which office he filled several times afterward.
After spending a few Weeks in the inspection of the different mills in this part of the state, Mr. Scott and his brother negotiated for the purchase of this property from Mr. Smith, and started back to Pennsylvania. James' horse died before they had journeyed as fax as the Scioto River. The animal was a very fine one, and as those usually found in the West at that time were of an inferior stock, Mr. Scott would not purchase one with which to complete his journey home, but proceeded on foot. Some days he traveled fifty miles, and would very often reach the point designated in the morning as the stopping place for the following night, sometimes in advance of his brother, who was on horseback. Their average rate of travel during the entire journey, was between forty-five and forty-seven miles. Twenty-five miles this side of Pittsburgh, at, a place then called Brickling's cross-roads, his brother was taken very ill, and they had to remain at this place some six weeks, until the sick man was able to proceed on the journey, arriving home during the holidays. In February, 1816, Mr. Scott. returned to this county, and took charge of the mill purchased of Mr. Smith. Not anticipating the immediate use for a horse after his arrival here, he declined to bring one with him, and made the entire journey on foot. In the fall of the year he again returned to Pennsylvania, this time making the trip on horseback.
On the 17th of October, 1816, he was married to Miss Elizabeth S. Shannon, who was then living with her parents not far from Milton, Pennsylvania. She was born July 6, 1796. Mrs. Scott has a brother living in Piqua, Ohio, and another in Pennsylvania, these three being the only surviving members of a large family. John Shannon, who once lived at Alpha., this county, was another brother. Soon after their marriage, the young couple moved to this county in a wagon. They lived in the house in which was held the first court in this county, which was then the residence of Peter Borders, and in which he kept a tavern for many years. John Scott, who had accompanied James on his first visit to this county, lived with them. He was a millwright, and erected a number of mills in this and adjoining counties. He afterward
282 - HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
settled in Miami County, where he died in the eighty-second year of his age. Captain Snyder, James Fulton, and two of James Scott's sons-William and David-learned their trade with him.
Mr. Scott tells of a case of sharp practice, which occurred in the neighborhood of Alpha, some time before he came to the county, but which he often heard related after his arrival here. Jacob Herring was the owner of a tract of land near Beaver Creek, north of Alpha. An adjoining tract, lying between his land and the creek, contained some very excellent bottom land, which Herring desired to possess, because on it were some fine springs. Benjamin Whiteman learned of this desire, and knowing that the land had not yet been entered by any one, went to Herring, assumed the right to sell the land, bargained with him for its sale, at five dollars per acre, went immediately to Cincinnati and entered it in his own name at less than half that price, then returned and made Herring a deed for the laud, making quite a sum of money in the operation.
While running the mill, Scott, on one occasion, sent his team to Cincinnati with a load of flour. On returning, the driver missed the way, and after wandering about in the forests of Clermont. and Brown counties for many days, finally reached the mill again, after an absence of about three weeks.
A few days after moving to this county with his wife, Mr. Scott came to Xenia, to purchase some necessary household articles. Among others, was a " Dutch oven," selected at James Gowdy's store. He had them set aside, and then drove his team to John Mitten's chair factory, which stood on the spot now occupied by the Owing House, to purchase some chairs. Having driven away from the store without paying for the articles he had selected, or telling Gowdy where he was going, Gowdy thought he intended to leave the goods, and had gone home without them, and sent John Ewing, then a young clerk in the store, in search of Scott, and to inquire if he had forgotten the articles set aside for him. Scott satisfied him, however, by returning to the store, after he had gotten the chairs, paying him for the articles, and taking them all. home.
PIONEER GIRLS.
In drawing a contrast. between the past and the present, we are led to inquire, What have all the refining influences of Christianity and civilization done to elevate the standard of the female sex to a
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higher position of excellence in society? Suppose a youth of eighty years ago should call to pass an hour or so with *his lady-love, and find her hair done up in frizzles and frouzles, bangs, spit-curls, gum tragacanth, quince seeds, etc., playing on the piano, or reading the latest novel, while her poor old mother was bending over the wash tub ; conversely, let us suppose a youth of to-day, with' his fancy livery turnout, buttonhole bouquet, red silk rag dependent from his coat pocket, cigar at an angle of forty-five, in the northeast corner of his mouth, gold-washed chronometer, patent-leather boots, and hair parted on the meridian of his brainless skull, should call to see his inamorata, and find her pulling flax, or in the barn, swingling the same, dressed in linsey, her feet uncramped by side lace, her hair unconfined, " wooed by every wind." The result, in each case, can be imagined by the reader. The clothes for the pioneer family were manufactured from the raw material; no muslin, in the first decade of the nineteenth century, supplied the place of hone-made linen. The men generally sowed the flax, gathered, and broke it, leaving to the women the succeeding steps in its transformation into wearing material, namely, pulling, spreading to water, rolling, taking up, swingling, hackling, spinning, weaving, and making into garments. With all this before them, and without that inevitable modern appendage, a hired girl, they kept themselves and their houses neat and tidy; and when the bride of those days of natural simplicity and hard work, when the hands find plenty to do, and the mind is pure and innocent, leaves the arms of her mother, the ceremonies attendant upon her nuptials were unostentatious. No broadcloth scissor-tailed coat, no stove-pipe beaver, no Alexandre seamless, no flash of the diamond, nor the gauzy real point lace, nor silks, nor satins, adorned the scene; but the honest pioneer, in his home-made hunting-shirt, buckskin breeches, moccasins on his feet, with dried leaves for stockings, and his big heart frill of love, stood by the side of -the innocent girl, in her linsey-woolsey frock, guiltless of all "magnolia balm," or "bloom of youth," quince seed, frizzles, etc., except that which nature gave her; for she is nature's child, pure and artless.
THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE.
During the initial steps toward educational advancement in this county, the facilities for literary attainments were not so varied as
284 - HISTORY OP GREENE COUNTY.
are thrown around the youth of to-day. Following our cicerone along a blazed path, through the woods, to the old log school house; rapping, a voice from the far interior says, "Come in ; " we pull the latch-string, enter, and, at the request of the "master," settle down upon a puncheon bench, the cynosure of all eyes. The first thing we observe is, that nearly the whole end of the house is occupied by a fire-place, within whose capacious depths the crackling blaze sends forth light, heat, and cheerfulness. Our gaze being attracted to the outside, we look, not through French plate, but a hole, made by sawing out a log, and replacing it with paper, greased with lard. Our attention is recalled by a shrill voice, "Master, mayn't I git drink?" The urchin goes to the bucket, setting on a bench near the door, takes the tin from the accustomed peg, dips it full, drinks a few sips, holding it over the bucket meanwhile, pours the balance back, looks around awhile, goes back to his seat, and, with his dog'seared book close to his face, is soon lost in study. We observe the benches are made out of flat rails and puncheons, with wooden pins in them for legs ; backs, they have none. The" master" has a table, made by driving pins in the wall, and placing hewed puncheons on top of them. Under each window, a similar contrivance accommodates the scholars.
While examining these unique writing-desks, we are again startled by a sharp cry, apparently in agony, of, " Master, please mayn't I go out?" Consent is given, and the boy hurriedly moves toward the door, pausing to take down a crooked stick and carry it out with him. Our curiosity is excited, and while the master's back is turned, we ask a big, white-headed boy near us, what it is for, who, opening his mouth wide, and staring at us in blank amazement, says, "No other boy don't darst go out while that stick is gone."
As incentives to close application to study, we observe a rule, of about a pound in weight, and a formidable-looking beechen rod, whose acquaintance every boy in school has long ago formed. Dilworth's Arithmetic, Webster's Spelling-book, and the Testament, were the text-books. It seemed to be an expressly-settled fact, that during a recitation a boy could get up a better spirit of inspiration by stentorian competition with his fellows; and in the spelling-class, the boy that could spell the loudest should stand head. It was interesting to see the boys at the end of the bench, standing on tiptoe, with every muscle in a quiver, waiting for the master to say "noon," in order to get out first, and raise the biggest yell.