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CHAPTER VIII. CIVIL ORGANIZATION IN THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY Establishment of Adams Comity, Under a provision of the Ordinance of 1787, the Governor of “The Territory of the United States Northwest of the river Ohio" was authorized to make proper division of said Territory, and directed to proceed from time to time as circumstances might require to lay out counties and townships, subject however to future alterations by the Territorial Legislature, in the parts of the Territory in which the Indian titles had been or might be extinguished. October 5, 1787, General Arthur St. Clair was appointed by the Second Continental Congress first Governor of the Northwest Territory. In July following, the Governor arrived at Marietta, founded the Apri1 previous, and on the twenty-seventh of that month proclaimed the establishment of the county of Washington, the first erected in the Territory. The Governor named the county in honor of his friend, General Washington, with whom he had served in the Revolution. St. Clair was an aristocrat and a staunch Federalist, and it is worth noting that he named the early counties formed in the Territory for leading spirits of that party. The boundaries of Washington County included most of that potion of the State of Ohio lying
east of the Scioto River. The seat of justice was fixed at Marietta and from there the early laws of
the Territory were promulgated. The first court in the Territory was convened September 2, 1788.
It was an impressive ceremony witnessed by a number of Indian Chiefs who had come to the Fort
to make a treaty with the cinnander. The citizens, military officers, the Governor, Judges of the
courts and members of the bar formed an imposing procession as they moved through the forest
to Campus Martius Hall, where the court, after invocation of the Divine blessing by Rev. Dr.
Cutler, was formally opened by Colonel Sproat, the High Sheriff, who proclaimed with his January 2, 1790, the Governor proclaimed the erection of the county of Hamilton, the second county formed in the Territory. This county included the strip of territory lying between the Miamis, and extended to the north to the Standing Stone fork of the Big Miami. Afterwards, on . February 17, 1792, the eastern boundary of the county was extended to the Scioto River. The seat of justice for the county and the Temtory was fixed at Cincinnati. 78 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY After the removal of the Governor and Supreme Judges of the Territory from Marietta to Cincinnati, in 1790, the county of St. Clair was erected in what is now the State of Illinois. This was done by proclaimation April 27, 1790. The fourth county in the Territory was that of Knox, June 20, 1790. The county included the present State of Indiana, and the place of holding the courts was the old French town of Vincennes. Trouble with the Indians prevented the extension of civil growth until after Wayne's Treaty when the county of Randolph was form from the southern portion of the county of St. Clair, October 15, 1795. The sixth county formed in the Territory was Wayne, by proclamation of the Governor, August 15, 1796. This was a very large county and embraced all of northwestern Ohio, a portion of northeastern Indiana, and all of the lower peninsula of Michigan. The Establishment of Adams County. It was organized by proclamation of Governor St. Clair, July 10, 1797. This was the first county organized in the Virginia Military District, the third within the limits of the State of Ohio, and the seventh in the Northwest Territory. It was formed from territory belonging to Hamilton County and a strip east of the Scioto River within the jurisdiction of Washington County. At the time of its organization its northern line extended across what is now territory included within the counties of Logan, Union, Delaware, Morrow, and Knox. Its eastern limit followed very nearly what is now the western, boundary of the counties of Licking, Fairfield, Hocking, Vinton, Jackson, and Lawrence. Its southern boundary was the line of low water mark on the north shore of the Ohio River. And its western limit extended across. Brown County, along the western border of Highland, and crossed the counties of Clinton. Greene, Clark, and Champaign. The original boundaries of Adams County as defined in Governor-St. Clair's proclamation, were as follows: "Beginning upon the Ohio River, at the upper boundary of that, tract of twenty-four thousand acres of land, granted unto the French; inhabitants of Gallipolis, by act of the congress of the United States bearing date the third of March, 1975; thence down the said Ohio River to the mouth of Elk River, (generally known by the name of Eagle Creek) and up with the principal water of the said Elk River or Eagles Creek, to its source or head ; thence by a due north line .to the southern, boundary of Wayne County and easterly along said boundary, so far that a due south line shall meet the interior point of the upper boundary of the aforesaid tract of land of twenty-four thousand acres, and with the said boundary to the beginning." The following year, 1798, by proclamation August loth, at the formation of Ross County, Governor St. Clair changed the western boundary line of Adams County and made , it to be as follows : "To begin on the bank of the Ohio, where Elk River or Eagle Creek empties into the same, and run from thence due north, until it intersects the southern boundary of the county of Ross ; and all and, singular the lands lying between the said north line and Elk River or CIVIL ORGANIZATION IN THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY - 79 Eagle Creek shall, after the said first day of September next, be separated from the county of Hamilton, and added to the county of Adams." This *line remained the western boundary of Adams County until the date of the erection of Brown County, March 1, 1818. At this latter date the western boundary of the county was made a "due north and south line drown through a point eight miles due west from the court house in the town of West Union." A special act of the Legislature provided that this line should be run by the compass without making any corrections for the variation of the needle. By the establishment of this last line, Adams County lost all that territory comprised within Eagle, Jackson, Byrd and Huntington, the greater portions of Union and Jefferson, and a part of Franklin and Washington Townships in Brown County. The northern boundary of Adams County, as herein shown, originally extended to the south line of Wayne County, which was in part a line extending from a point on the portage between the waters of the Cuyahoga and the Tuscarawas Rivers, near old Fort Laurens, westerly to the eastern boundary of Hamilton County, which at that time was the Scioto River and a due north line to Lake Erie, from the lower Shawnee town on the Scioto. In 1798, Ross County was formed from the northern portion of Adams, and the north line of Adams was then fixed as follows : "Beginning at the forty-second mile tree, on the line of the original grant of land by the United States to the Ohio Company, which line was run by Israel Ludlow, and running from thence west, until it shall intersect a line to be drawn due north from the mouth of Elk River on Eagle Creek. * At a Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace held at Washington, in and for the of Eagle Creek on the Ohio River at a large elm, and running from thence north 320 poles to a , large beech, No. 1 mile; thence crossing red oak at 240 poles; thence 80 poles to a small hickory, No. 2 miles, thence 320 poles to a small buckeye, No. 3 miles; thence 320 poles to a large white walnut standing near James Prickett's house, No. 4 miles; thence 320 poles to a hackberry standing in Rodgers' field, No. 5 miles; thence 320 poles to an ash No. 6 miles; thence crossing the big road leading from Thomas' Mill to Waters' Ferry at 240 poles; thence 80 poles to an ash standing on a branch of the east fork of Straight Creek, No. 7 miles; thence 320 poles to an ash standing near the east fork of Straight Creek, No. 8 miles; thence crossing the said east fork at 34 poles; thence 161poles to the second crossing of Thomas's road; thence 125 miles to a beech, No. 9 miles; thence 320 poles to an elm, No. 10 miles; thence 320 to a beech. No. 11 poles; thence 320 to a maple No. 12 miles; thence 320 to a poplar, No. 13 miles; thence 320 to a large white oak. No. 14 miles; thence crossing Straight Creek at 210 poles ; thence 110 poles to a beech No. 15 miles thence 320 poles to a red oak, No. 16 miles ; thence 320 poles to a red oak, No. 17 miles; thence 180 poles to the crossing of Denham's trace leading from Denham's Town [Bethel] to Chillicothe at a maple marked "C L;" thence 180 poles to a white oak, No. 18 miles; thence 320 poles to a , white oak, No. 19 miles; thence 320 poles to a white oak, No. 20 miles ; thence crossing the east fork of White Oak Creek at the end of eighty poles; thence 240 poles to a beech, No. 21 miles ; thence 320 poles to a beech marked " W. B." of "A. C.," supposed to be three miles from the laid forks of saidWhite Oak Creek. Thomas Middleton, Surveyor. Harry Bailey and Gideon Palmer, Chain Carriers. Thomas Middleton, Marker. All being sworn. Whereupon all and singular the premises being seen, and by the justice here fully understood, and due consideration thereon had, it is ordered the same be recorded. 80 - HISTORY OF ADAMS COUNTY In 1805, at the formation of Highland County, the north line of Adams was again removed to the southward, and defined as follows: "Beginning at the twenty-mile tree, in the line between Adams and Clermont Counties, which is run due north from the mouth of Eagle Creek on the Ohio River, and running thence east twelve miles ; thence north eastwardly until it intersects the line which was run between the counties of Ross and Scioto and Adams, at the eighteen-mile tree from the Scioto River." Again at the time of the erection of Pike county in 1815, a portion of the northern line of Adams was changed from the "highlands between the waters of Scioto Brush Creek and Sunfish southwardly with said highlands so far that an east line will strike" the line between townships three and four on the Scioto River, range twenty-two. On May 1, 1803, when Scioto County was formed, the eastern line of Adams was altered so as to begin "on the Ohio, one mile on a straight line below the mouth of Lower Twin Creek; thence north to the Ross, County line ;" now the Pike County line since the erection of the lattee county. The southern boundary is low water mark on the north shore of the Ohio River. We have accurately traced so far, the restriction of the boundary lines of the county from the period when it embraced nearly one-fifth of the area of the State of Ohio, down to its present limits within which are contained about 625 square miles The student of our territorial history will note the fact that during the political conflict between Governor St. Clair, the Federalist, and Nathaniel Massie and his Democratic associates, over matters pertaining to the government of the Territory, the line "due north from the mouth of` Elk River or Eagle Creek," so often mentioned by St. Clair in his gubernatorial proclamations and in the acts of the Territorial and early State: Legislatures, was proposed at one time by the Governor as the proper western boundary for the first of the five States to be erected out of the Northwest Territory as provided for in the Ordinance of '87. An act of the Territorial Legislature, passed January 23, 1802, provides that this line should be run and completed before May 1, 1802. Another curious historical fact in connection with the civil organization of Adams County, is that the territory within its limits at one time was under the jurisdiction Botetourt County, Virginia, and that the county seat was then the old town of Fincastle in that county. |