(RETURN TO THE TITLE PAGE)

250 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. Gen. Harmar wrote to the Secretary of War from Fort Harmar, May 14, 1787, concerning the number of emigrants passing down the Ohio: " Curiosity prompted me to order the officer of the day to take an account of the number of boats which passed the garrison. From the 10th of October, 1786, until the 12th of May, 1787, 127 boats, 2,689 souls, 1,333 horses, 756 cattle and 102 wagons have passed Muskingum bound for Limestone and the Rapids." Indian hostilities delayed the settlement of Brown County for several years after the first lands were legally granted to the owners of warrants. More than seven years elapsed from the time the first entry was surveyed and located before it was safe to attempt a settlement in any part of the Virginia Military District without the protection of a fortified station. FIRST SETTLEMENT IN THE VIRGINIA MILITARY DISTRICT. The first permanent settlement between the Little Miami and the Scioto was made by Gun. Nathaniel Massie, at Manchester, in Adams County, five miles east of the Brown County line. At this place several of the earliest pioneers of Brown County located themselves until it became safe to settle upon their lands, and from it as a base of operations for the early surveying parties were large tracts of land in this and adjoining counties surveyed. John McDonald, in his interesting volume of biographical sketches, says: "Massie, in the winter of the year 1790, determined to make a settlement that he might be in the midst of his surveying operations and secure his party from danger and exposure. In order to effect this, he gave general notice in Kentucky of his intention, and. offered each of the first twenty-five families, as a donation, one inlot, one outlot and 100 acres of land, provided they would settle in a town he intended to lay off at his settlement. His proffered terms were soon closed in with, and upward of thirty families joined him. After various consultations with his friends, the bottom on the Ohio River, opposite the lower of the Three Islands, was selected as the most eligible spot. Here he fixed his station, and laid off into lots a town, now called Manchester. at this time a small place, about twelve miles above Maysville (formerly Limestone), Ky. This little confederacy, with Massie at the helm (who was the soul of it), went to work with spirit. Cabins were raised, and, by the middle of March, 1791, the whole town was inclosed with strong pickets, firmly fixed in the ground, with blockhouses at each angle for defense. " Thus was the first settlement in the Virginia Military District, and the fourth settlement in the bounds of the State of Ohio, effected. Although this settlement was commenced in the hottest Indian war, it suffered less from depredation, and even interruptions, from the Indians, than any settlement previously made on the Ohio River. This was no doubt owing to the watchful band of brave spirits who guarded the place- —men who were reared in the midst of danger and inured to perils and as watchful as hawks. Here were the Beasleys, the Stouts, the Washburns, the Ledoms, the Edgingtons, the Denings, the Ellisons, the Utts, the McKenzies, the Wades and others, who were equal to the Indians in all the arts and stratagems of border war. " As soon as Massie had completely prepared his station for defense, the whole population went to work, and cleared the lower of the Three Islands, and planted it in corn. The island was very rich and produced heavy crops. The woods, with a little industry, supplied a choice variety of game. Deer, elk, buffalo, bears and turkeys were abundant, while the river furnished a variety of excellent fish. The wants of the inhabitants, under these circumstances, were few and easily gratified. "When this station was made, the nearest neighbors northwest of the Ohio HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 251 were the inhabitants at Columbia, a settlement below the mouth of the Little Miami, five miles above Cincinnati, and at Gallipolis, a French settlement, near the mouth of the Great Kanawha." The following contract between Massie and his associates in establishing this settlement illustrates the dangers which were apprehended and the necessity of offering rewards to those who were willing to face the dangers: Articles of agreement between Nathaniel Massie, of one part, and the several persons that have hereunto subscribed, of the other part, witnesseth : That the subscribers hereunto doth oblige themselves to settle in the town laid off on the northwest side of the Ohio, opposite the lower part of the Two Islands ; and make said town or the neighborhood on the northwest side of the Ohio their permanent seat of residence for the two years from the date hereof. No subscriber shall absent himself more than two months at a time, and during such absence shall furnish a strong able-bodied man sufficient to bear arms at least equal to himself. No subscriber shall absent himself the time above mentioned in case of actual danger ; nor shall such absence be but once a year. No subscriber shall absent himself in case of actual danger ; or, if absent, shall return immediately. Each of the subscribers doth oblige themselves to comply with the rules and regulations that shall be agreed upon by a majority thereof for the support of the settlement. In consideration whereof, Nathaniel Massie doth bind and oblige himself, his heirs, &c., to make over and convey to such of the subscribers as comply with the above conditions, at the expiration of two years, a good and sufficient title unto one in-lot in said town. containing five poles in front and eleven back ; one out-lot of four acres convenient to said town in the bottom, which the said Massie is to put them in immediate possession of ; also 100 hundred acres of land, which the said Massie has shown to a part of said subscribers, the conveyance to be made to each of the subscribers, their heirs or assignees. In witness whereof each of the parties have hereunto set their hands and seals this 1st day of December, 1790. Nathaniel Massie John Ellison, John Lindsey,  Ellen Simmeral, William Wade, John + McCutheon, John Block, Andrew + Anderson, Samuel + Smith, Matthew + Hart, Jesse + Wethington, Henry + Nelson, Josiah Wade, John Peter Christopher Shanks, John Clark, John Allison, Robert Ellison, Thomas Stout, Zephaniah Wade, George + Wade. Done in presence of— John Beasly, James Jittle. PROGRESS OF SETTLEMENTS. There were no fortified stations or block-houses for defense against the Indians within the limits of Brown County. The long war which ended with Wayne's treaty at Greenville was a cruel one. The Miami country was known as the "Miami Slaughter House." Early in the spring of 1794, a committee of the citizens of the settlements protected by Fort Washington and the blockhouses at Columbia published a notice in the Centinel of the Northwest Territory, offering premiums for the scalps of Indians killed in the Miami country. The premiums offered were from $95 to $136 for each scalp " having the right ear appendant" of an Indian killed within the limits of the district described in the proclamation issued by the committee. The survey of lands and the marking of trees by the surveyors, indicating an intention of permanently occupying the hunting grounds of the Indians, had greatly incensed the savages and increased their cruelty. Wayne's victory over the Indians was achieved August 20, 1794. It did not at once reduce the savages to absolute submission. Six months after the victory, there were occasional reports of white men murdered by Indians. The treaty of peace at Greenville, ratified August 3, 1795, put an end to these murders. It would seem improbable that there could have been any permanent set- 252 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. tlements in Brown County much before the ratification of the treaty at Greenville, although some of, the more daring woodsmen may have ventured to build their huts north of the Ohio without the protection of a fortified station soon after Wayne's victory. If so, they were willing not only to brave dangers from savage foes, but to endure privations of a lonely life in the wilderness. Family traditions concerning the early settlements sometimes confound the date of the first visit of a pioneer to his lands, or the date of his purchase, with that of his settlement. Many of the pioneers had purchased their lands long before it was safe to settle upon them. They may have made frequent visits to their lands, and perhaps begun the work of clearing and making improvements, before becoming permanent residents thereon. Many of the early settlers had selected choice tracts of land in Brown County for their future homes, and remained in Kentucky, anxiously waiting the subjugation of the savages to render it safe to remove north of the Ohio. Doubtless in some cases crops of corn were raised north of the river by those who still lived in the more secure settlements of Kentucky. It has been claimed that Belteshazzar Dragoo built the first cabin and was the first permanent settler on Eagle Creek. In the Atlas of Brown County, published in 1876, it states that " the first settlement within the limits of the county, of which any definite account can be obtained, was made by Belteshazzar Dragoo, who settled on Eagle Creek, about three miles from Ripley, in 1794. He had a family of twelve children, of whom only one (Benjamin) is now living, he being the youngest of the family. He is supposed to have built the first house, a log cabin, in the county." The question whether this was the first settlement in the county must be left an open one. It is certain, however, that Dragoo had his attention directed to the lands on Eagle Greek at a very early period, as is shown by a title bond which was among the first documents recorded in the land records of Adams County, Ohio. In the bond, which was dated August 24, 1791, Alexander McIntyre, of the State of Virginia and District of Kentucky, bound himself in the penal sum of £200 lawful currency to make unto Belteshazzar Dragoo, whose residence is not stated, " a good and sufficient deed for 450 acres of first rate land lying on both sides of and on the waters of Eagle Creek, where it shall be convenient for a mill seat, with four feet head and fall; the said deed to be made as soon as it can be obtained from the office, and the said lands to lie within ten miles of the river." The details of the early settlements belong to the histories of the townships. Leaving the questions of the date of the first settlement in the county and the name of the first settler as unsettled, and now impossible to be determined, we may safely assume from known facts that there were few, if any, families within the limits of the county prior to Wayne's treaty of peace and no considerable immigration to the county until the succeeding spring. The earliest settlers usually established themselves on the Ohio or the streams flowing into that river. It is certain that in the year 1799, there was a considerable population on Eagle, Red Oak, Straight. and White Oak Creeks. It was in the spring of 1796 that the full tide of emigration to the Northwest Territory began to flow in, and, within a few years from that time, most of the fertile tracts in the southern portion of this county were picked out and occupied by actual settlers. The first town within the limits of the county was St. Clairville, laid out by Basil Duke and John Coburn, August 1, 1801. The name was about fifteen years later changed by the Legislature to Decatur. In August, 1803, a census was taken of the white male inhabitants twenty- one years old and upward of the new State of Ohio. The number reported in Adams County was 906; the number in Clermont County, 755. Assuming that HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 253 the territory now forming Brown County contained one-third of the aggregate population of these two counties, there were in Brown County, the first year of the existence of Ohio as a State, 550 white adult males, or a total population of about 2,200. This is a smaller population than was then found in Butler, Warren or Ross, but larger than that in Montgomery or Greene, and about double that of Scioto. A large portion of the land in Brown and Clermont Counties was regarded as an interminable swamp, and was settled slowly. These flat lands were covered with water more than half the year, and were called slashes. Much of this land was regarded as worthless. As late as 1828, large tracts of these wet lands lying along the water-shed between White Oak and East Fork had not been surveyed or located. George Sample, writing in the American Pioneer in 1842, says that in the year 1797 he rode from Manchester to Wood's Mill, on the Little Miami, below Deerfield, and there was then but one house on the trace from Manchester to the Little Miami; that house was situated about seven miles from the site of New Market. As late as 1809, James Finley, writing from West Union, said of Adams County, which then included a large portion of Brown, that the country did not improve very rapidly; that he knew of but one brick or stone building in the country, and that one was unfinished. The Virginia Military Reservation was not settled and improved as rapidly as many other parts of the State. The Virginians who owned the original surveys were indisposed to settle upon them because of the prohibition of slavery in the ordinance of 1787. At the first session of the Legislature of the Northwest Territory, in 1799, petitions were presented from Virginians who owned lands between the Little Miami and the Scioto, asking for a temporary suspension of the provision of the ordinance which prevented them from removing with their slaves to their lands. The Legislature at once decided that they had no authority to grant the prayer of the petitioners. There were other causes of a slower increase in the population of this district—first, the large surveys in which the land was generally divided, which prevented persons of small means from seeking farms here; second, the difficulty emigrants experienced in finding the real owners of the surveys, who generally resided in Kentucky or Virginia and frequently had no agents in the district to subdivide, sell or show the lands; and third, the frequent interference of different entries and surveys with each other, rendering titles insecure and giving rise to litigation. Although only a small portion of the lands of Brown County were subject to this last difficulty, yet it cannot be doubted that many persons were thereby deterred from purchasing lands here and settling upon them. For some years of ter the whites made their homes in the county, small parties of Indians encamped occasionally near the settlements. It is believed that no white man was killed by an Indian in this region after the Greenville treaty of peace. The Indians continued to steal horses from the whites long after that treaty. In a note book of Samuel B. Walker, an early surveyor, it is stated that his horse was stolen by the Indians in the neighborhood of Williamsburg, on the night of May 22, 1799, and Robert Dickey's horse was stolen the same night. In the autumn of the same year, both horses were returned to their owners; and Walker in his lifetime stated that they were returned in response to a proclamation of the Territorial governmental authorities, offering rewards for the return of horses stolen by the Indians. In 1796, Judge John Cleves Symmes wrote that he wished Congress would make it a penal offense for a white man to buy a horse from an Indian, as the Indian would steal another to take the place of the one sold—no Indian being willing to walk if he could 254 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. steal a horse. Oxen were sometimes used by the early pioneers, being much less likely to be run off. There is reason to believe that roving bands of Indians were not so numerous in the settlements of Brown County as they were between the Miami Rivers. An early pioneer used to say that he removed from Columbia to Brown County in order to get out of the way of the Indians. The following old petitions, preserved by their publication in Cist's " Cincinnati Miscellany," in 1845, give the names of some of the earliest settlers in the central portion of Brown County: January 10, 1799. To the Honorable Arthur St. Clair, Esq., Governor of the Northwestern Territory: DEAR SIR—We, a number of inhabitants situated in the aforesaid territory and consider ourselves to labor under—we therefore have thought proper to petition your being at a great distance from a Magistrate, or Justice of the Peace—a grievance which we county of Hamilton, between the waters of Eagle and Straight Creeks, and thereabouts, Honor for Alexander Martin to be commissioned in such an office, as we look upon him to be an honest, well-meaning man, and a citizen here amongst us, whom we have selected for that purpose. This, dear sir, being our grievance, a removal of which, we, your petitioners, humbly pray: Matthew Davidson, Wm. Woodruff, Thos. M'Connell, Geo. J. Jennings, Joseph Lacock, Ichabod Tweed, Amos Ellis, Isaac Ellis, Wm. M'Kinney, James Henry, Wm. Forbes, Wm. Moore, Geo. M'Kinney, Isaac Prickett, Jacob Miller, Tom Rogers, John Mefford, Wm. Long, Joseph Moore, John Caryon, Wm. Lewis, Benjamin Evans, Jacob Nagle, Fergus M'Clain, Lewis Sheek, Richard Robison, Henry Rogers, John Phillips, Thomas Ark, James Prickett, James Young, Valentine M'Daniel, Uriah Springer. January 10, 1799. To the Honorable Arthur St. Clair, Governor of the Northwestern Territory: DEAR SIR—We, a number of inhabitants situated between the waters of Eagle and Straight Creeks, and thereabouts, in the aforesaid territory and county of Hamilton, being destitute of militia officers, such as Captain, Lieutenant and Ensign, we therefore have thought proper to petition your Honor for such, and have selected Thomas McConnell for Captain, John Mefford, Lieutenant, and Amos Ellis, Ensign, if your Honor shall think proper to commission them in that office. This, dear sir, being the desires for which we, your petitioners, do humbly pray: Abel Martin, Thomas Rogers, George M'Kinney, Tom Ash, William M'Kinney, Wm. Moore; Forgy M'Clure, Isaac Ellis, Henry Rogers, Jacob Nagle, N. McDaniel, Geo. J. Jennings, Jno. Henry, Uriah Springer, Thomas Dougherty, Joseph Jacobs, John Redmon, Samuel Tweed, William Forbes; William Lewcas, Jas. Prickett, Jacob Miller, John Caryon, Walter Wall. A JOURNEY THROUGH THE COUNTY IN 1797. In October, 1797, Rev. James Smith, then of Powhatan County, Va., made a journey from his native State through Kentucky to the Northwest Territory. As he rode northward through Mason Couuty, Ky., the first lands north of the Ohio he saw were the hills of Brown County. He afterward rode through the HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 255 wilderness in the northern part of this county. The following are extracts from his manuscript journal: "Monday, 2d October, 1797.—Brother McCormick, Brother Teal, Mr. Sewell and myself set out for the Ohio. We traveled about thirty miles and reached a little village called Germantown, about 8 o'clock in the evening, and took up with a Mr. Black. " Tuesday, 3d. —We pursued our journey and reached a little town on the bank of the Ohio, about 11 o'clock. From a high eminence, we had a view of that beautiful country beyond the river, and were charmed with its appearance. I longed to be there. We took some refreshment at Augusta, then took boat, and, about 1 o'clock, made the opposite shore. The Ohio River, of all that I ever saw, is the most beautiful stream. It flows in a deep and gentle current; it is from one-half to three-quarters of a mile in width; it is confined in high banks, which it seldom, if ever, overflows. The adjoining hills are lofty, from which a charming view of the river and lower lands presents itself. How delightful will be the scene when these banks shall be covered with towns, these hills with houses and the noble stream with the produce of these fertile and fruitful countries! We rode down the river three or four miles, to the mouth of the Buliskin Creek; then left the river and passed northwardly through a rich and beautiful country. The land after leaving the river lies high and is very level. The trees, which are mostly white and red oak, are the largest and most beautiful timber I ever beheld. The soil appears deep, clear of stone, and wild peavines are abundant. It was very pleasant to see the deer skipping over the bushes and the face of the country clad in a livery of green. We crossed the waters of Bear Creek, Big Indian and arrived at Dunham's Town, on the waters of Poplar Fork of the East Fork. Dunham's Town, or Plainfield, is about twelve miles and a half from the Ohio. Here we saw the fruits of honest industry. Mr. Dunham is a Baptist minister, who left Kentucky on account of its being a land of oppression. He arrived here last April, and since then has reared several houses, cleared a small plantation, has a fine field of corn growing, a number of vines and garden vegetables, an excellent field of wheat and a meadow already green with the risrng timothy. The old man seems to possess both grace and talents, with a spirit greatly opposed to slavery. He thinks that God will withdraw His spirit from such countries and persons as having the light resist it. * * * * * * * " Monday, 16th. —Brother McCormick, Brother Howard, Mr. Sewell and myself started for the Scioto. We traveled up the East Fork of the Little Miami about twelve miles and encamped in the woods. The lands on East Fork are very rich, lie well, and are of a soft, light nature when cleared, and easy to cultivate. "Tuesday, 17th.—We rose a little before day, fed our horses, and, as soon as it began to be light, pursued our journey. We arrived about 8 o'clock at a little town called Williamsburg, settled last spring by eight or nine families. Here we got breakfast, then set forward, pursuing a course north 75 degrees east, through an amazingly level and sometimes swampy country. It lies about midway between the Miami and the Scioto, on the waters of a creek called White Oak. The growth is mostly gum, maple, white oak, etc. After leaving the waters of White Oak, we fell in upon the waters of the Rocky Fork of Paint Creek. Here night took us and we encamped. " Wednesday, 18th.—We started as soon as we could see, and about 1 o'clock reached a house on the banks of Paint Creek. This house is the first we have seen for upward of forty miles. Here we stopped and got a little refreshment. Paint Creek is a clear, pure stream, and at this place is about one hundred yards wide. It seems to be a fine stream for fish, as we stood on the 256 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. bank and saw a fine shoal of them near the opposite shore, which, from the distance we saw them, must have been very large. "At this house, I saw a curiosity. It was the under part of the beak of a fowl called a pelican. It was about eighteen inches long and nine inches broad. Underneath this was a natural bag, which. when the bird was killed, held about a peck. The whole together seemed to bear a near resemblance to a fisherman's skimming net, and, this bird being one that feeds on fish, it is more than probable that this net is used in catching them. "On the bank of Paint Creek I saw cut in the bark of a beech tree the letters ' T. L. & T. D., 1750.' From this circumstance, it is evident that some white man had been here as long as forty-seven years ago; but whether English or French, white trader or prisoner, we cannot now determine. We rode down Paint Creek about twenty miles, and, for beauty and fertility, it exceeds anything that ever my eyes beheld. Here we traveled over ancient walls, ditches, monuments, etc., etc., at the sight of which a considerate mind feels lost in silent contemplation. We arrived a little after dark at Chillicothe, and took up at Umpston's tavern. "Saturday, 21st.— * * Having now traveled between three and four hundred miles through the country, I think I can form a tolerable judgment concerning the same, and will, as concisely as possible, give a general description of the same before leaving it. The land naturally claims the first place. Bordering on the rivers, the land exceeds description. Leaving the rivers, a high hill skirts the low ground; reaching the top of this hill, another level presents itself. There is generally but little stone. Quarries of free stone are plenty on the Scioto, and limestone in many places. Indian corn grows to great perfection. Grass of the meadow kind grows all over the country, and white clover and blue grass grow spontaneously wherever the land is cleared. A country so favored for grass must, of course, be excellent for all kinds of stock. Here I saw the finest beef and mutton I ever saw fed on grass. Hogs also increase and fatten in the woods in a most surpassing manner. Incredible numbers of bees have found their way to this delightful region, and in vast quantities deposit their honey in the trees of the wood, so that it is not uncommon for the people to take their wagon and team and return loaded with honey." A PIONEER'S EXPERIENCE IN 1800. The father of Elder Matthew Gardner emigrated from Stephentown, N. Y., and settled in Brown County in 1800. Elder Gardner, in his autobiography, says: "It was on a beautiful morning on the 1st of September, A. D. 1800, when we started. I was in my tenth year when we left Stephentown, and well do I remember the scenes of my childhood. We had but one small wagon with three horses, and other means correspondingly limited. We pursued our way patiently, but perseveringly. The mountains were difficult to climb, the streams were dangerous to ford, the undertaking was hazardous and the journey was long; the weather was pleasant, and the journey was as prosperous as we could expect. We reached Pittsburgh by the 1st of October, just one month from the time of starting. We waited two weeks before we found a boat going down the river. Then we embarked on a flat-boat—the boats then used—with four other families, furniture, wagons, horses and all crowded on one small flat-boat. The river was low; the progress was slow; sometimes we floated rapidly and sometimes we were long aground. We were four weeks coming down to Limestone—a little village on the Kentucky side of the river. It had but few houses then. Limestone is now called Maysville. Here Henry Hughs, a HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 259 land trader, came to the boat to sell us land in Ohio. Father went with him to see the land. lie liked it and traded him two horses for 100 acres. We then proceeded on with the boat down the river about twelve miles till we came opposite our land, at a landing two miles below where Ripley now stands. We landed within a few miles of our land, and soon reached our future home, where everything seemed new and strange. We were all in good health, except one brother and sister, who had slight attacks of fever and ague, which soon disappeared. My father rented a little cabin to move into, while he and my two older brothers built a cabin on our land. It was now about the last of November, the most pleasant and delightful autumn I have ever known before or since. This fine weather continued until after Christmas. My father and brother having completed our new home house, we moved into it about the let of January, 1801. The fine weather continued that year all winter, there being no weather to prevent out-door work. " There were but two cabins within some two or three miles of us. There was no ground to rent. Provisions were scarce and only to be procured at any price from a great distance. Our money was about all expended. Our land was covered with a heavy forest, principally of beech and poplar, which must immediately be cleared for crops to prevent starvation the coming year. All who were large enough commenced work. By spring, we had nearly five acres cleared, which we planted in corn and potatoes, which sustained us the corning year. One of our greatest difficulties was to procure those things which the land would not produce. Salt cost from $3 to $4 for a bushel of fifty pounds; other merchandise was proportionately high. We were forced to study economy and compelled to practice it. Wild beasts were plenty. There were birds in abundance. Bears, deer and wild turkeys supplied our table with meat till we reared domestic animals. Sheep and wool were not to be had; our clothing was of flax and hemp. Suits of these served for all seasons, summer and winter alike. Father and the boys prepared the materials, and my mother and sisters manufactured the cloth and made the garments. We wore no shoes, but moccasins, made of dressed deer skins, for we could get no leather. The deer skin, being spongy, absorbed the water from the ground and snow, so that our feet were often wet. Yet we were all stout and healthy. We needed no doctors, which was well, as none were to be had. We did not eat the wheat, because it was called ' sick wheat,' making those sick who ate it. Our swine refused it. We tried other stock, but all animals rejected it. We preferred the corn. It fell to my lot to take care of the cattle. We had no fenced fields, and while they roamed in the forest for food, it was my care to seek them and keep them from straying far away and being lost. Sometimes in cloudy weather I would get lost, and finding the cattle by the tinkling of the bell, they would then pilot me home.' A VISIT IN 1808. The following is an extract from "Sketches of a Tour in the Western Country," by F. Gaming: " Thursday, Friday and Saturday (August 7, 8 and 9, 1808), I was employed in rambling about the woods, exploring and examining a tract of land of 1,000 acres, in the State of Ohio, which I had purchased when in Europe last year, and which had been the principal cause of my present tour. As it was only six miles from Maysville, I crossed the Ohio and went to it on foot. I had expected to have found a mere wilderness, as soon as I should quit the high road, but, to my agreeable surprise, I found my land surrounded on every side by tine farms, some of them ten years settled, and the land itself, both in quality and situation, not exceeded by any in this fine country. The population 260 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. was also astonishing for the time of the settlement, which a muster of militia while I was there gave me an opportunity of knowing—there being reviewed a battalion of upward of 500 effective men, most expert in the use of the rifle, belonging to the district of ten miles square. And now I experienced among these honest and friendly farmers real hospitality, for they vied with each other in lodging me at their houses, and in giving me a hearty and generous welcome to their best fare. Robert Simpson, from New Hampshire, and Daniel Ker and Thomas Gibson, from Pennsylvania, shall ever be entitled to my grateful remembrance. I had no letters of introduction-I had no claims on their hospitality, other than what any stranger ought to have. But they were farmers, and had not contracted habits which I have observed to prevail very generally amongst the traders in this part of the world. " On Saturday, I returned to Ellis Ferry, opposite Maysville. On the bank of the Ohio I found Squire Ellis seated on a bench under the shade of two locust trees, with a table, pen and ink and several papers, holding a Justice's court, which he does every Saturday. Seven or eight men were sitting on the bench with him, awaiting his awards in their several cases. When he had finished, which was soon after I had taken a seat under the same shade, one of the men invited the Squire to drink with them, which he consented to do; some whisky was provided from Landlord Powers, in which all parties made a libation to peace and justice. There was something in the scene so primitive and so simple that I could not help enjoying it with much satisfaction. I took up my quarters for the night at Powers', who is an Irishman from Ballibay, in the county of Monaghan. He pays Squire Ellis $800 per annum for his tavern, fine farm and ferry. He and his wife were very civil, attentive and reasonable in their charges, and he insisted much on lending me a horse to carry me the first six miles over a hilly part of the road to Robinson's tavern, but I declined his kindness, and, on Sunday morning, the 9th of August, after taking a delightful bath in the Ohio, I quit its banks. I walked on toward the northeast, along the main post and stage road, seventeen miles to West Union. The road was generally well settled, and the woods between the settlements were alive with squirrels and all the varieties of woodpeckers with their beautiful plumage, which in one species is little inferior to that of the bird of paradise, so much admired in the East Indies." PIONEER LIFE. A truthful account of the mode of life among the early settlers of the Ohio forests cannot fail to interest and instruct. As the backwoods period recedes, its interest increases. It is to be regretted that more of the traditions of the pioneers, giving homely but faithful pictures of the everyday life of the early settlers, have not been preserved. Their recollections of their journeys from the older States over the Alleghany Mountains, the flat-boat voyage down the Ohio, the clearing in the wilderness, the first winter in the rude cabin and the scanty stores of provisions, the cultivation of corn among the roots and stumps, the cabin raisings and log rollings, the home manufacturing of furniture and clothing, the hunting parties and corn huskings, their social customs and the thousand scenes and novel incidents of life in the woods. would form a more entertaining and instructive chapter than their wars with the Indians or their government annals. Far different was the life of the settler on the Ohio from that of the frontiersman of to-day. The railroad, the telegraph and the daily newspaper did not then bring the comforts and luxuries of civilization to the cabin door of the settler; nor was the farm marked out with a furrow and made ready for cultivation by turning over the sod. HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 261 The labor of opening a farm in a forest of large oaks, maples and beech was very great, and the difficulty was increased by the thick growing bushes. Not only were the trees to be cut down; the branches were to be cut off from the trunk, and, with the undergrowth of bushes, gathered together for burning. The trunks of the large trees were to be divided and rolled into heaps and reduced to ashes. With hard labor the unaided settler could clear and burn an acre of land in three weeks. It usually required six or seven years for the pioneer to open a small farm and build a better house than this first cabin of round logs. The boys had work to do in gathering brush into heaps. A. common mode of clearing was to cut down all the trees or the diameter of eighteen inches or less, clear off the undergrowth and deaden the larger trees by girdling them with the ax and allowing them to stand until they decayed and fell. This method delayed the final clearing of the land for eight or ten years, but when the trunks fell they were usually dry enough to be burned into such lengths as to be rolled together. The first dwellings of the settlers were cabins made of round logs notched at the ends, the spaces between the logs filled in with sticks of wood and daubed with clay. The roof was of clapboards, held to their places by poles reaching across the roof called weight-poles. The floor was of puncheons, or planks split from logs, two or three inches in thickness, hewed on the upper side. The fire-place was made of logs lined with clay or with undressed stone, and was at least six feet wide. The chimney was often made of split sticks plastered with clay. The door was of clapboards hung on wooden hinges and fastened with a wooden latch. The opening for the window was not infrequently covered with paper made more translucent with oil or lard. Such a house was built by a neighborhood gathering, with no tools but the 'ax and the frow, and often was finished in a single day. The raising and the log rolling were labors of the settlers, in which the assistance of neighbors was considered essential and cheerfully given. When a large cabin was to be raised, preparations would be made before the appointed day; the trees would be cut down, the logs dragged in and the foundation laid and the skids and forks made ready. Early in the morning of the day fixed, the neighbors gathered for miles around; the captain and corner men were selected, and the work went on with boisterous hilarity until the walls were up and the roof weighted down. The cabin of round logs was generally succeeded by a hewed log house, more elegant in appearance and more comfortable. Indeed, houses could be made of logs as comfortable as any other kind of building, and were erected in such manner as to conform to the tastes and means of all descriptions of persons. For large families, a double cabin was common; that is, two houses, ten or twelve feet apart, with one roof covering the whole; the space between serving as a hall for various uses. Henry Clay, in an early speech on the public lands, referred to the different kinds of dwellings sometimes to be seen standing together, as a gratifying evidence of the progress of the new States "I have," said he, " often witnessed this gratifying progress. On the same farm, you may sometimes behold, standing together, the first rude cabin of round and unhewn logs, and wooden chimneys; the hewed log house, chinked and shingled, with stone or brick chimneys; and lastly, the comfortable stone or brick dwelling, each denoting the different occupants of the farm or the several stages of the condition of the same occupant. What other nation can boast of such an outlet for its increasing population, such bountiful means of promoting their prosperity and securing their independence?" The furniture of the first rude dwellings was made of puncheons. Clapboards, seats and tables were thus made by the settler himself. Over the door 262 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. was placed the trusty flint-lock rifle, next to the ax in usefulness to the pioneer, and near it the powder horn and bullet pouch. Almost every family had its little spinning-wheel for flax and big spinning-wheel for wool. The cooking utensils were few and simple, and the cooking was all done at the fireplace. The long winter evenings were spent in contentment, but not in idleness. There was corn to shell and tow to spin at home, and the corn huskings to attend at the neighbors. There were a few books to read, but newspapers were rare. The buckeye log, because of its incombustibility, was valuable as a back log, and hickory bark cast into the fire place threw a pleasing light over a scene of domestic industry and contentment. The wearing apparel was chiefly of home manufacture. The flax and wool necessary for clothing, were prepared and spun in the family, cotton being comparatively scarce. Carding wool by hand was common. Weaving, spinning, dyeing, tailoring for the family were not infrequently all carried on in the household. Not a few of the early settlers made their own shoes. Wool dyed with walnut bark received the name of butternut. Cloth made of mixed linen and wool, called linsey, or linsey-woolsey, of a light indigo blue color, was common for men's wear. A full suit of buckskin with moccasins was sometimes worn by a hunter, but it was not common. A uniform, much worn in the war of 1812, is described as consisting of a light blue linsey hunting-shirt with a cape, the whole fringed and coming half. way down the thigh, a leather belt, shot- pouch, powder-horn, a large knife and tomahawk, or hatchet, in the belt, and rifle at the shoulder. The author of the history of Miami County says he has seen Return J. Meigs, Governor of Ohio, and Jeremiah Morrow, -United States Senator, and other high officials, wear this hunting-shirt while on frontier duty during that war. With the early settlers, almost the only modes of locomotion were on foot and on horseback. The farmer took his corn and wheat to mill on horseback; the wife went to market or visited her distant friends on horseback. Salt, hardware and merchandise were brought to the new settlements on packhorses. The immigrant came to his new home not infrequently with provisions, cook ing utensils and beds packed on a horse, his wife and small children on another horse. Lawyers made the circuit of their courts, doctors visited their patients and preachers attended their preaching stations on horseback. The want of ferries and bridges made the art of swimming a necessary quality in a saddle- horse. " Is he a good swimmer? " was a common question in buying a horse. for the saddle. Francis Dunlavy, as President Judge of a district embracing ten counties, made the circuit of his courts on horseback, never missing a court and frequently swimming his horse over the Miamis rather than fail of being present. In 1803, when Jeremiah Morrow was called to the National Capital as the first Representative in Congress from Ohio, he made the journey on horseback, taking with him his wife and their two children, aged, respectively, three years and eighteen months, to the residence of Mrs. Morrow's parents in the old Redstone country in Pennsylvania. Leaving his wife and children at the home of her parents until the close of the session, he continued his journey over the mountains to Washington. For sixteen successive years did Mr. Morrow make this annual horseback ride from his home on the Little Miami to attend the sessions of Congress. The journey was more trying to the strength and endurance of the horse than the rider. Especially was the return homeward in the spring slow and difficult. The forests kept the roads moist longer than they now remain, and in the fresh condition of the soil they often became almost impassable. With one favorite and hardy horse, Mr. Morrow made twelve trips over the Alleghanies. But this was exceptional. With no other horse he owned was it deemed advisable to attempt a third journey. HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 263 The country was infested with horse-thieves. The unsettled condition of the country made the recovery of stolen horses very difficult, The horse- stealing proclivity of the Indians was one of the chief causes of the hatred of the early settlers toward the red men; but, after all depredations by the Indians had ceased, the farmers continued to suffer much from horse-thieves, who were believed to be often organized into gangs. The great value of the horse and the difficulty of recovering one when run away caused the pioneer to look with malignant hatred upon the horse-thief. The early Legislatures were composed almost entirely of farmers, and they endeavored to break up this kind of larceny by laws inflicting severe penalties—corporal punishment, fines, imprisonment and even mutilation. The following is the penalty for horse- stealing prescribed in an act passed in 1809: " The person so offending shall, on conviction thereof, for the first offense, be whipped not exceeding one hundred and not less than fifty stripes on his naked back, and on conviction of each succeeding offense of a like nature shall be whipped not exceeding two hundred nor less than one hundred stripes on his naked back; for the third offense shall have both ears cropped, and in either case shall restore to the owner the property stolen or repay him the value thereof, with damages, in either case, and be imprisoned not exceeding two years, and fined not exceeding $1,000 at the discretion of the court, and be ever after the first offense rendered incapable of holding any office of trust, being a juror or giving testimony in any court in this State." Ear-cropping was prescribed for no other offense, and, as it was the penalty for the third offense of the horse-stealer, it is doubtful whether it was over actually inflicted in Ohio. The railroad and the telegraph, by affording the means for the more certain detection of the criminal and the recovery of the stolen property, did more to put. down this crime than the most severe penalties. The little copper distillery was to be found in most neighborhoods throughout the county. Rye and corn whisky was a common drink. It was kept in the cupboard or on the shelf of almost every family, and sold at all the licensed taverns, both in the town and country. The early merchants advertised that good rye whisky, at 40 cents a gallon, would be taken in exchange for goods; houses and lots were offered for sale, flour or whisky taken in full payment. It was a part of hospitality to offer the bottle to the visitor. Whisky in a tin cup was passed around at the house-raising, the log-rolling and in the harvest field. It is a mooted question not easily settled whether intemperance was more common then than now. That, the spirituous liquors of those days were purer is admitted, but the notion that they were less intoxicating seems not to have been well founded. Excess in drinking then as now brought poverty, want and death. The early settler with the purest of liquors could drink himself to death. CHARACTER OF THE PIONEERS. The early emigrants to Brown County may be described as a bold and resolute, rather than a cultivated people It has been laid down as a general truth that a population made up of immigrants will contain the hardy and vigorous elements of character in a far greater proportion than the same number of persons born upon the soil and accustomed to tread in the footsteps of their fathers. It required enterprise and resolution to sever the ties which bound them to the place of their birth, and. upon their arrival in the new country, the stern face of nature and the necessities of their condition made them bold and energetic. Individuality was fostered by the absence of old familiar customs, family- alliances and the restraints of old social organizations. The 264 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. early settlers of Brown County were plain men and women of good sense, without the refinements which luxury brings, and with great contempt for all shams and mere pretense. A majority of the early settlers belonged to the middle class. Few were, by affluence, placed above the necessity of labor with their hands, and few were so poor that they could not become the owners of small farms. The mass of the settlers were the owners in fee simple of at least a small farm. Perhaps a majority of the pioneers were opposed to slavery. Although the larger proportion of them had emigrated from slaveholding States, they had fled from the evils of slavery and were opponents of the slave system. As a consequence, that form of pride which looks upon labor as degrading never had a foothold in the county. Re-v. James Smith, whose journal is elsewhere quoted, noted this fact. He had been reared in Virginia, but had a great abhorrence for every form of human bondage. Speaking of the inhabitants of the Northwest Territory, he says: " Here the industrious farmer cultivates his farm with his own hands, eats the bread of cheerfulness and rests contented on his pillow at night. The mother instructs her daughters in the useful and pleasing accomplishments of the distaff and, the needle, with all things else necessary to constitute them provident mothers and good housewives. The young man, instead of the cow- skin, or some other instrument of torture, takes hold of an ax or follows the plow. The ruddy damsel thinks it no disgrace to wash her clothes or milk her cows or dress the food of the family. In a word, it is here no disgrace to engage in any of the honest occupations of life, and the consequence is the people live free from want, free from the perplexity and free from the guilt of keeping slaves." The backwoods age was not a golden age. However pleasing it may be to contemplate the industry and frugality, the hospitality and general sociability of the pioneer times, it would be improper to overlook the less pleasing features of the picture. Hard toil made men Old before their time. The means of culture and intellectual improvement were inferior. In the absence of the refinement of literature, music and the drama, men engaged in rude, coarse and sometimes brutal amusements. Public gatherings were often marred by scenes of drunken disorder and fighting. The dockets of the courts show a large proportion of cases of assault and battery and affray. While some of the settlers had books and studied them, the mass of the people had little time for study. Post roads and post offices were few, and the scattered inhabitants rarely saw a newspaper or read a letter from their former homes. Their knowledge of politics was obtained from the bitter discussions of opposing aspirants for office. The traveling preacher was their most cultivated teacher. The tourist from a foreign country or from one of the older States was compelled to admit that life in the backwoods was not favorable to amenity of manners. One of these travelers wrote of the Western people in 1802: "Their Generals distill whisky, their Colonels keep tavern and their statesmen feed pigs." Josiah Espy, author of " Memoranda of a Tour in Ohio and Kentucky in 1805," traveled through the Virginia Military District. In passing from Limestone, Ky., to Chillicothe, Ohio, he traveled over the new State road and over a very rugged and thinly populated portion of the district, and formed an unfavorable opinion of the, region. He thus recorded in his journal his impressions of the people of Ohio: " The emigration to the State of Ohio at this time is truly astonishing. From my own personal observations, compared with the opinion of some gentlemen I have consulted, I have good reason to conclude that, during the pros. ent year, from twenty to thirty thousand souls have entered that State for the HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 265 purpose of making it their future residence. They are chiefly from Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, Kentucky and Tennessee, but, on inquiry, you will find some from every State in the Union, including many foreigners. The inhabitants of the State of Ohio, being so lately collected from all the States, have, as yet, obtained no National character. The state of society, however, for some years to come, cannot be very pleasant—the great body of the people being not only poor, but rather illiterate. Their necessities will, however, give them habits of industry and labor, and have a tendency to increase the morals of the rising generation. This, with that respect for the Christian religion which generally prevails among that class of people now emigrating to the State, will lay the best foundation for their future National character. It is to be regretted, however, that at present few of them have a rational and expanded view of the beauty, excellence and order of that Christian system, the essence of which is divine wisdom. The great body of the people will, therefore, it is to be feared, be a party for some years to priest- craft, fanaticism and religious enthusiasm." Gov. St. Clair, in a letter to Paul Fearing, dated at Chillicothe, December 25, 1801, argued that the people of the Territory' were not prepared for self- government. The following is an extract: " Where is the information necessary for the formation of a constitution for so extended a country, inhabited by people whose manners are so different, and where are the means to support it? Our people are all so poor (a few excepted about this place, who have suddenly raised great fortunes by speculations in lands and many of those not the most honorable), that they can barely live in a very wretched manner; but, of the few towns, there is scarcely a habitation to be seen better than Indian wigwams. The greatest part of the people are new-comers, and you well know that it requires a long time to subdue a country all in forests, and much labor and expense, so that had we even many men of talents and information, as we certainly have some, they have no leisure from the calls to provide for their future welfare, to employ their thought on abstruse questions of government and policy." In an earlier letter to Senator James Ross, Gov. St. Clair said: " A multitude of indigent and ignorant people are but ill-qualified to form a constitution and government for themselves." THE PRIMITIVE FORESTS. It is not easy to describe the forests of Ohio as they appeared in their primitive luxuriance to the eyes of the pioneers. No woodland to-day, even in the most unfrequented spot, wears the rich and exuberant garb which nature gave it. Under the transforming power of civiliziation, the earth assumes a new aspect. Even the woods and the streams are changed. Herbage and shrubs which once grew luxuriantly in our forests have been eaten out by cattle until they can only be found in the most secluded and inaccessible places. Trees cut down are succeeded by others Of a different growth. The general face of the country exhibited to the pioneer a wild luxuriance, which cannot well be described. The native forests covered the whole surface of the county, unrelieved by those open plains or natural meadows so common fifty or seventy-five miles north. Even without the savage war-whoop, it was a wild country. There stood the forests, not, as now, by their contrast with the sunny fields and dusty roads, inviting the traveler and laborer to repose in their shade, but every tree seemed an enemy to be slaughtered by the woodman's steel. Now the grove is the attractive spot; then the clearing which let in the sunlight seemed only inviting. One hundred and three species of trees and herbaceous plants, native of 266 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. the Miami woods, were catalogued by Dr. Daniel Drake at the beginning of this century, thirty of which rise to the height of sixty feet or more. There is no dividing line in nature between a tree and a shrub, but most botanists have agreed arbitrarily upon thirty feet as a minimum height of a species entitled to be called a tree. The richness of the Miami woods will be seen when it is stated that in all Germany, embracing the whole of Central Europe, there are but sixty species of trees. In France, the number is given by some at thirty; by others, as thirty-four. In Great Britain, there are but twenty-nine species above thirty feet high, and of these, botanists describe but fifteen as large or moderately high. The white oak here obtained a remarkable development of size, if it did not quite reach the same strength attained in West Virginia. This noble tree, at the first settlement, was found wherever there was a good clay soil, three or four feet in diameter and three or four hundred years old, but still green and flourishing. Five or six varieties of the oak, were found in Brown County. The wild cherry, so valuable to the cabinet-worker, was scattered throughout the county, and, in some localities, was abundant. Now it is rarely found. Large black walnut trees were cut down and reduced to ashes, a single one of which could now be sold as it stood upon the ground for more than an acre of cultivated land in some parts of the county. Along the margins of the streams were seen the giant sycamores and elms; near by, on the alluvial bottoms, the camp of sugar-maples, with its undergrowth of papaw, indicative of a rich soil; on higher grounds, the poplars, hickories and white walnuts grew to a stately height. ID some places, the beech had almost exclusive possession. The age of the gigantic denizens of our forests has probably been over- stated. Some writers have spoken of them as of many centuries' growth. There are probably very few trees now standing in the Miami Valley -which had 'begun to grow before the discovery of America, in 1492. The greatest portion of even our largest trees are probably less than three hundred years old. Our hardwood species probably attain a diameter of thirty inches in two and a half centuries. There was beauty, as well as magnificence, in the primeval forests. Under the branches of the giant trees grew shrubs and flowers, as perfect as if they had been cultivated by the skillful florist. There were wild lilies and roses. In the early spring were seen the bright green of the buckeye leaves, the pure, white blossoms of the dogwood, the purple hue of the red-bud, and on the ground the many hues of more than a hundred species of wild flowers. A tall weed covered the fertile bottoms of . the streams, growing thick as hemp and overtopping horse and rider. WILD ANIMALS. The buffalo and elk, probably never numerous in this vicinity, had disappeared before the approach of the white man, but the bear, the deer, the wolf, the panther, the wild cat, the otter, the beaver, the porcupine, the wild turkey, the rattlesnake, racer, moccasin and copperhead of the fauna, which have now disappeared, remained in greater or less numbers for some years after the occupancy by the whites. The streams were infested with leeches. Swine were the chief means of the destruction of poisonous snakes, from which the county has been almost entirely free for fifty years. Wolves were so numerous and destructive to sheep that several acts were passed by the Territorial and State Legislatures providing premiums for killing them Considerable sums were allowed by the Commissioners of Adams and Clermont Counties for wolf-scalps, the bounty varying it different times HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 269 from $2 to $2.50 for each wolf killed over six months old, and half these sums for those under six months. The wolf-killer, before receiving his bounty, was required by law to produce the scalp of each wolf killed, with the ears entire. The first law required the whole head of the wolf, with the ears entire, to be produced, He was also required to take an oath, which, in 1799, was of the following form: I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that the head now produced by me is the head of a wild wolf, taken and killed by me in the county of _____, within six miles of some one of the settlements within the same to the best of my knowledge, and that I have not wittingly or willingly spared the life of any bitch wolf, in my power to kill, with the design of rncreasing the breed. So help me God. Premiums for killing panthers were also provided for by the law, but panther scalps were rarely presented to the Commissioners of the two counties from which Brown was formed. The records of the Commissioners of Clermont County show the payment of only four premiums for the killing of panthers; three of these were in the year 1801 and one in 1810. On the other hand, $28 were allowed for killing wolves at a single session of the Commissioners of the same county. The last panther killed in this region is said to have been a huge one, measuring eight feet in length, and killed by the celebrated ,hunter, Adam Bricker, in the forests not far from Williamsburg. Bricker had been imitating the cries of the fawn to decoy the doe, but instead of the deer, he was confronted with the ferocious panther. It required quick work to save himself from being torn to pieces. Fortunately, at his first fire the panther fell dead. Countless numbers of squirrels were to be found in the woods, and unceasing vigilance was required on the part of the settler to protect his cornfields from their ravages. They sometimes 'passed over the country in droves, traveling in the same direction. These animals were a nuisance, and were too common to be regarded as valuable for food. The Legislature, in 1809, passed a singular act, having the double object in view of destroying 'squirrels and providing the people with a currency. It was entitled "An Act to Encourage the Killing of Squirrels," passed and bearing date December 24, 1807. Its first section provided " that each and every person within this State, who is subject to a county tax, shall, in addition thereto, produce to the Clerk of the township in which he may reside such number of squirrels' scalps as the Trustees, at their annual meeting, apportion to the currency levies, provided that it does not exceed one hundred nor less than ten. Each taxpayer, at the time his property was listed for taxation, was to be furnished with a list of the scalps he would be required to furnish. On failure or neglect to furnish the required scalps, the taxpayer was required to pay into the treasury of the township 3 cents for every scalp he was in default; and every person producing to the Township Clerk an excess of scalps over and above the number apportioned to him was to receive from the Township Clerk a certificate of the number of scalps, which certificate was a warrant on the Township Treasurer, each scalp being valued at 2 cents. These certificates were for the purpose of furnishing the people with a currency. They were secured by the faith of the township, and were received by the merchant for goods and the mechanic for work. Other kinds of game were abundant. For some years, the red deer were as numerous as cattle to-day. Wild turkeys could be shot or entrapped in great numbers. When mast was abundant, a drove of more than one hundred wild turkeys, all large and fat, might be found in the near vicinity of the settlements, and when mast was scarce large numbers would sometimes come to the barn-yards for grain. 270 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. CHAPTER VI. THE GREAT KENTUCKY REVIVAL AND SHAKERISM IN BROWN COUNTY. THE great revival at the beginning of the present century, which spread from Kentucky into the territory now forming Brown and Adams Counties, was a remarkable event in the religious history of the region. This memorable religious excitement began in Kentucky about 1800, and soon spread into Tennessee, North Carolina, West Virginia and the territory north of the Ohio. It originated in the Cumberland country under the preaching of Rev. James McGready, a Presbyterian clergyman, who is described as a homely man, with sandy hair and rugged features, so terrific in holding forth the terrors of hell that he was called a son of thunder. He pictured out " the furnace of hell with its red-hot coals of God's wrath as large as mountains; " he endeavored to open to the sinner's view " the burning lake of hell, to see its fiery billows rolling, and to hear the yells and groans of the damned ghosts roaring under the burning wrath of an angry God." Under his preaching, several persons fell down with a loud cry, and lay powerless, groaning, praying and crying to God for mercy. The excitement spread. Great camp-meetings were held—the first in the United States. Large numbers fell down and swooned, with every appearance of life suspended. Families came to these meetings a distance of fifty or a hundred miles. The camp-meetings continued three or four days and nights. Those from a distance slept in their wagons, in tents or temporary structures. At Cane Ridge, Bourbon Co., Ky., in August, 1801, it was estimated that 20,000 persons were present, many of whom were from the north side of the Ohio. It was estimated at this meeting that 3,000 persons fell to the ground under the unnatural excitement. There were at these meetings other strange physical manifestations, which increased the excitement and deeply moved the multitude. There were nervous affections, which produced horrible convulsions of the body and contortions of the countenance. The more shocking bodily exercises caused a division among the clergy as to the work. But opposition was compelled too often to succumb to the cry, " It is God's work." At Concord, in May, 1801, seven Presbyterian ministers were present, four of whom opposed the work until the fourth day, when they, too, succumbed, and all professed to be convinced that it was the work of God. The effects of the great awakening began to be felt in what is now Brown County during the year 1801. The movement, both in Kentucky and Ohio, prevailed chiefly among the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches; the Baptists were little affected by it. The first camp-meeting in Northern Kentucky near the Ohio was held at Cabin Creek, beginning May 22, 1801, and continuing four days and three nights. Rev. Richard McNemar, then pastor of the Presby terian Church at Cabin Creek, was the leading spirit of the meeting. He says there were persons at the meeting from Cane Ridge, Concord, Eagle Creek and other congregations, who partook of the spirit of the work and caused it to be spread abroad. " The scene," he continues, " was awful beyond description; the falling, crying out, praying, exhorting, singing, shouting, etc., exhibited such new and striking evidences of a supernatural power, that few, if any, could escape without being affected." The first large camp-meeting north of the Ohio was held at Eagle Creek; HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 271 it began June 5, 1801, and continued four days and three nights. Rev, John Dunlavy was pastor of the Eagle Creek Presbyterian Church, and Rev. Mr. McNemar and probably other ministers were present at the camp meeting. McNemar says of the Eagle Creek meeting: "The number of people there was not so great, as the country was new; but the work was equally powerful according to the number. At this meeting, the principal and leading characters at that place fully embraced the spirit of the work, which laid a foundation for its continuance and spread in that quarter." Rev. John Dunlavy, who was a conspicuous figure in forwarding the great revival, was the son of a Presbyterian emigrant from Ireland, and a brother of the first President Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of the First District of Ohio. He came from Western Pennsylvania to Kentucky, where he taught school for some time. Becoming a Presbyterian minister, he was in 1797 ordained over the congregations at Lee's Creek, Big Bracken and North Bracken. Not long after, he removed to Ohio, and was settled as pastor of Eagle Creek congregation, between the sites of Ripley and West Union. Dr. Davidson, in his History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky, thus describes him with an unfriendly hand: " He was one of the most gloomy, reserved and saturnine men that ever lived; his soul seemed to be in harmony with no one lively or social feeling, and the groans he continually uttered drove away all pleasure in his company. He was above the middle stature and well proportioned, but of a swarthy complexion and dark, forbidding countenance. His manners were coarse, rough and repulsive. His talents were not above mediocrity; his knowledge was superficial; he was never regarded as a leading or influential man, nor was he a popular preacher. His favorite topics were those of terror, not consolation." The singular bodily exercises and convulsions which accompanied this revival on both sides of the Ohio, wherever there was undue excitement, have often been described by eye-witnesses of unimpeachable veracity, and their accounts agree so substantially that all suspicion of exaggeration is dispelled. There are still living a few old persons, who, in early life, saw some of this remarkable work. Mr. McNemar published a brief history of the revival. Peter Cartwright, the pioneer Methodist preacher, in his autobiography gives an account of what he himself saw of the work in Kentucky; and A. H. Dunlavy has published a brief sketch of the revival work at Turtle Creek. With such authorities before us, we feel confidence in the substantial accuracy of the description of the physical manifestations we shall now give. It was not uncommon in large meetings for large numbers to fall in a short time, and to lie unconscious, with hardly any signs of breathing or beating of the pulse. Some would lie for a short time only, others for hours. Almost all the adult persons in a large congregation sometimes fell in this manner. The jerks was the popular name for convulsions, which caused a rapid and spasmodic motion of the head, and sometimes affected the limbs and the whole body. The head would fly backward and forward, or from side to side, with such rapidity that the features could not be recognized. The looker-on would fear a dislocation of the neck, but no such injury is known to have ensued. " I have seen," says Rev. Peter Cartwright, " more than five hundred persons jerking at one time in my large congregations. To see those proud, well- dressed gentlemen and ladies take the jerks would often excite my visibilities. The first jerk or so, you would see their fine bonnets, caps and combs fly; and so sudden would be the jerking that their long, loose hair would crack almost as loud as a wagoner's whip." The disease was sometimes communicated to those who had no serious impressions, and mocked at the revival. There were 272 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. recurring fits of the strange disorder seven or eight years after the revival, and, indeed, sporadic cases at a much later period. The most graphic description of the jerks is that given by Richard McNemar. He says: "Nothing in nature could better represent this strange and unaccountable operation than for one to goad another alternately on every side with a piece of red-hot iron. The exercise commonly began in the head, which would fly backward and forward, and from side to side, with a quick jolt, which the person would naturally labor, to suppress, but in vain, and the more anyone labored to stay himself and be sober, the more he staggered, and the more his twitches increased. He must necessarily go as he was inclined, whether with a violent dash on the ground and bounce from place to place like a foot-ball, or hop round, with head, limbs and trunk twitching and jolting in every direction, as if they must inevitably fly asunder. And how such could escape without injury was no small wonder among spectators. By this strange operation, the human frame was commonly so transformed and disfigured as to lose every trace of its natural appearance. Sometimes the head would be twitched right and left to a half round, with such velocity that not a feature could be discovered, but the face appeared as much behind as before; and in the quick, progressive jerk, it would seem as if the persons were transmuted into some other species of creature. Head-dresses were of little account among the female jerkers. Even handkerchiefs bound tight round the head would be flirted off almost with the first twitch, and the hair put into the utmost `confusion; this was a very great inconvenience, to redress which the generality were shorn, although directly contrary to their confession of faith. Such as were seized with jerks were wrested at once, not only from under their own government, -but that of every one else, so that it was dangerous to attempt confining them or touching them in any manner, to whatever danger they were exposed, yet few were hurt, except it were such as rebelled against the operation, through wilful and deliberate enmity, and refused to comply with the injunctions which it came to enforce." There were other exercises which were not so common, and are sufficiently described by their names, viz., rolling, running, dancing and the holy laugh. There were instances of spinning around on the foot after the manner of the whirling dervishes of the East. The most disgusting of all the exercises was called the " barks" in which the subject not only imitated the bark of the dog, but sometimes ran upon all fours, growling, snarling and foaming at the mouth. That there were cases of this kind of brutish action cannot be doubted, but to the credit of human nature it is to be recorded that they were rare. It is noteworthy here that among the Convulsionists of France, seventy years before, there were persons similarly affected, some being called barkers and some mowers. The subjects of these strange disorders were sincere men and women, who could give no rational account of their movements, and would only say they could not help it. In persons of peculiar nervous organization, over-excitement may result in actions which seem to be wholly involuntary, when there is really a hidden volition of their own, and they are influenced by sympathy with and imitation of what they have seen or heard of others doing under like circumstances. Psychological diseases always have been more or less epidemic and contagious. Emotions which do not seriously affect us when alone may become overpowering when many are affected. Thus, sympathy, " that wonderful instinct that links man to man in a social whole," in the wild excesses of popular feeling becomes a dangerous power that seizes upon all it can reach, and sweeps them round and round until they are drawn into the devouring vortex. Hysterical symptoms in times of great religious excitement should be promptly repressed, or they may become epidemic. There is evidence that HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 273 where the excesses we have described were most encouraged by the clergy and others in authority, they were most common; where they were discouraged, they were kept in check. It is narrated that a Baptist clergyman,who did not believe that convulsions were the work of the Holy Spirit, seeing symptoms of the jerks appearing under his own preaching, exclaimed in a loud voice, " I command all unclean spirits to depart hence," and thus completely stayed the disorder. Soon there were visions, prophecies and revelations among the revivalists. Their sons and daughters prophesied, their young men saw visions and their old men dreamed dreams. The new light which dawned upon them, or the internal manifestations of a Divine wisdom, was such a favorite phrase with them, that for several years the revival party were called New Lights. In 1803, at the meeting of the Presbyterian Synod of Kentucky, it was proposed to enter upon a trial of some of the revivalists for unsoundness in doctrine; five ministers of the revival party, including Dunlavy, seceded from the Synod and formed a separate Presbytery. On the 28th of June, 1804, the ministers of the revival party, three north and three south of the Ohio, members of the Independent Presbytery, becoming convinced that all Presbyteries were unauthorized human devices, dissolved that body by writing its will and subscribing their names as witnesses. The witnesses of the last will and testament of the Springfield Presbytery, as it was called, say that from its first existence the body was knit together in love, lived in peace and concord and died a voluntary and happy death. Before the close of the year 1804, the New Lights, or revivalists, reported seven societies in Southwest Ohio, viz., Trutle Creek, Eagle Creek, Springdale, Orangedale, Clear Creek. Beaver Creek and Salem. They repudiated all creeds and confessions of faith except the Bible. They soon gave up the doctrine of the Trinity, and became immersionists. They declined to be called New Lights, and adopted the name of Christians, and are to-day a distinct and respectable body. The New Light revival swept all the Presbyterian churches in Southwestern Ohio, except those at Duck Creek and Round Bottom. The church at Cincinnati was largely tainted with the new doctrines and methods. The public meetings of the revivalists were often scenes of tumult and confusion. There would be singing, praying and exhorting at the same time. They invented what was termed the " praying match," which is stated to have had for its object the determination of " the brightest, boldest and loudest gift of prayer." According to McNemar, it was a custom, when one would begin to preach or exhort and was deemed uninteresting, that he would presently be confronted with a prayer by some one else, and whichever manifested the greatest warmth and awakened the liveliest sensations, gained the victory and secured the general shout on his side. The Turtle Creek pastor approvingly represents his flock as " praying, shouting, jerking, barking or rolling, dreaming, prophesying, and looking as through a glass at the infinite glories of Zion." The whole congregation, also, sometimes prayed together with such power and volume of sound that, if the pastor does not exaggerate, " the doubtful footsteps of those in search of the meeting might be directed sometimes to the distance of miles around." Some time in the year 1804, they began to encourage one another to praise God in the dance. Twenty years before, there had died in the wilds of New York an illiterate woman, who had been the wife of a blacksmith until her religion had taught her to abandon the marriage relation. During her whole life, she endured great tribulations, saw visions, had frequent communications with the world of spirits, and was believed to be mad. A native of England, she had been imprisoned at Manchester for raising a tumult by street preaching. She believed 274 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. that the Savior appeared to her in her prison cell and, in some mysterious manner, became united to her, and through her Heaven set up a church which is never to be destroyed. She gathered around her a little knot of followers, who called her "Mother Ann," and styled themselves " Believers in Christ's Second Appearing," but they were usually known as Shakers, an appellation at which they took no offense. Coming to America in 1774, a band of eight persons, they made a settlement near Albany, and continued few in numbers until a great revival in 1779 occurred at New Lebanon, N. Y., which was attended with physical manifestations, not altogether unlike those just described. A number of the subjects of this revival visited Mother Ann, and found the key to their religious experience. Thus did the Shakers receive their first considerable accession to their numbers. The Shakers at New Lebanon, N. Y., heard of the remarkable religious work in the forests of Kentucky and Ohio, and resolved to send missionaries to proclaim to the subjects of the revival the mystical creed in which they had found peace. On the 1st day of January, 1805, John Meacham, Benjamin S. Youngs and Issacher Bates set out from New York, and made the journey to Kentucky and Ohio for the most part on foot. They wore broad-brimmed hats and a fashion of dress much like that of the followers of George Fox. They passed through Kentucky and arrived in Southwestern Ohio about the 20th of March. They visited the different societies of the revivalists, and taught the doctrines of Ann Lee. Their first converts in the West were at Turtle Creek, in Warren County, where the largest Shaker society in the West still exists. The Shakers obtained their first converts among the revivalists of Brown County at Eagle Creek in June, 1805. In the following month, Rev. John Dunlavy espoused the new faith, and was thenceforward a leading light in the Society of United Believers. He wrote "The Manifesto," which has been regarded by the Shakers as one of the strongest arguments ever published in favor of their doctrines. Within two years, twenty-five or thirty families at Eagle Creek embraced Shakerism. Husbands and wives abandoned the family relation, and consecrated all their property, personal and real, to the sacred use cf the church. Some of the best men in the new settlements, honest, conscientious and benevolent, joined the community under the conviction that they were seeking salvation by renouncing the world and all its temptations. Their sincerity no one can question. The society established several communities in Kentucky and Ohio, all among the subjects of the great revival. Four of the ministers who had been foremost in the revival work became converts, and died in the Shaker faith, having passed in four years from the creed of Calvin to that of Ann Lee. The Shakers never established a village at Eagle Creek, but lived in scattered houses, meeting on Sunday in the open air for worship by singing, dancing and preaching. They were all removed from Brown County about 1809 or 1810. A large proportion of them established themselves at the society called West Union or Buseron, on the Wabash, in Indiana. When that community was abandoned on account of the unhealthiness of the location, most of them then moved to Union Village, near Lebanon, Warren Co., Ohio. Among the converts at Eagle Creek was Belteshazzer Dragoo, believed by many to have been the first permanent settler in Brown County; he died in the faith at Union Village. HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 275 CHAPTER VII. CIVIL ORGANIZATION. THE territory comprising Brown County was a part of Clermont and Adams Counties from the organization of the Government of the State of Ohio until March 1, 1818. Prior to the formation of the State Government, the territory had belonged, in whole or in part, to Hamilton, Adams and Clermont Counties. Hamilton was the second county formed by the proclamation of Gov. St. Clair. As originally organized, it did not include any part of Brown. It was organized January 2, 1790, and was at first bounded on the south by the Ohio, on the east by the Little Miami, on the west by the Great Miami, and on the north by a line drawn due east from the Standing Stone Fork, or branch of the Great Miami. The Standing Stone Fork is supposed to have been Loramie's Branch, which flows into the Great Miami near the northern boundary of Miami County. On August 15, 1796, in a proclamation forming Wayne County, Gov. St. Clair declared that the eastern boundary of Hamilton County is "a due north line from the lower Shawnees' town upon the Scioto River." From this date until the organization of Adams County, the whole of Brown County was a part of the large county of Hamilton. Adams, the fourth county of the territory northwest of the Ohio, dates from July 10, 1797. Its original boundaries were as follows: “Beginning upon the Ohio River at the upper boundary of that tract of 24,000 acres granted unto the French inhabitants of Gallipolis, by an act of Congress of the United States, bearing date the 3d of March, 1795; 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 Eagle 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 24,000 acres, and with said boundary to the place of beginning.” On the 20th of August, 1798, a proclamation was issued, to take effect September 1, 1798, changing the western boundary of Adams, and attaching a part of Hamilton to Adams, 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 Eagle Creek, shall, after the said 1st day of September next, be separated from the county of Hamilton, and added to the county of Adams " "The first court in Adams County was held in Manchester. Winthrop Sargent, the Secretary of the Territory, acting in the absence of the Governor. appointed Commissioners, who located the county seat at an out-of-the-way place, a few miles above the mouth of Brush Creek, which they called Adamsville. The locality was soon named, in derision, Scant. At the next session of the court, its members became divided, and part sat in Manchester and part at Adamsville. The Governor, on his return to the Territory, finding the peo- 276 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. ple in great confusion, and much bickering among them, removed the seat of justice to the mouth of Brush Creek, where the first court was held in 1798. Here a town was laid out by Noble Grimes, under the name of Washington. A large log court house was built, with a jail in the lower story, and the Governor appointed two more of the Scant party Judges, which gave them a majority. In 1800, Charles Willing Byrd, Secretary of the Territory, in the absence of the Governor, appointed two more of the Manchester party Judges, which balanced the parties, and the contest was maintained until West Union became the county seat." ' Clermont County was formed by proclamation December 6, 1800, with the following boundaries: " Beginning at the mouth of Nine-Mile or Muddy Creek where it discharges itself into the Ohio, and running from thence with a straight line to the mouth of the East Branch of the Little Miami River to the mouth of O'Bannon's Creek; thence with a due east line until it shall intersect a line drawn north from the mouth of Elk River, or Eagle Creek; thence with that line south to the mouth of the said Elk River or Eagle Creek; and from thence with the Ohio to the place of beginning." The county seat of Clermont, from its organization until the formation of Brown County, was at Williamsburg—a very convenient location for the county as originally organized. Bethel was the principal contestant against Williamsburg for the seat of justice. At the time of the organization of Clermont, there was a protracted dispute between Gov. St. Clair and the Territorial Legislature as to whom belonged the power of creating new counties. The Governor claimed that this power was legally invested in himself alone, and he placed his absolute veto on all acts of the Legislature establishing new counties. It is an interesting fact that, among the acts vetoed by Gov. St Clair, was one passed at Cincinnati at the first session of the Territorial Legislature, which was organized September 27, 1799, creating a county to be called Henry, and which embraced a portion of the present county of Brown. The act was entitled, "An act to establish a new county on the Ohio between the Little Miami River and Adams County." Denhamstown (Bethel) was made the temporary seat of justice, and the following persons were named in the act as Commissioners for the purpose of fixing on the most eligible place in the said county of Henry for the permanent seat of justice, some of whom resided within the present limits of -Brown: Richard Allison, Samuel C. Vance. William Buckhannon, Robert Higgins, Hezekiah Conn, Alexander Martin, William Perry and Peter Light. It thus appears that all that portion of Brown County between its present western boundary and a line drawn due north from the mouth of Eagle Creek formed a part of Hamilton County, with its seat of justice at Cincinnati from August 15, 1796, until December 6, 1800, and from the latter date until March 1, 1818, a part of Clermont, with its seat of justice at Williamsburg. That portion lying between Eagle Creek and a line drawn due north from the mouth of Eagle Creek was a part of Hamilton from August 15, 1796, until September 1, 1798, and from the latter date a part of Adams until the organization of Brown County. And all that portion lying between Eagle Creek and the eastern boundary of Brown was a part of Hamilton from August 15, 1796, until July 10, 1797, when it became a part of Adams, and so remained until the organization of Brown. But at Still earlier dates, this territory had been made a part of political divisions called counties. During the Revolution, this region would have been marked on the map of the North American colonies as a part of Virginia, whose extensive domain, making her the mother of States, as well as of Presidents, HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 279 reached to the Mississippi. Out of this broad territory, vast counties were formed. The county of Kentucky included the whole of the present State of that name. In October, 1778, Virginia, by statute, declared that: "All the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia, who are already settled or who shall hereafter settle on the western side of the Ohio, shall be included in a distinct county, which shall be called Illinois County." This territory, then, once formed a part of the vast western county of Virginia called Illinois. But, going back a few years further, we find this region included in a county of still more vast extent. South of the Natural Bridge, between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies, and intersected by the James River, is a county of Virginia, with Fincastle for its seat of justice, named Botetourt, in honor of Norborne Berkeley, Lord Botetourt, a conspicuous actor in American colonial history, and Governor of Virginia. That county was established in 1769, and originally included our county within its limits. It was bounded on the east by the Blue Ridge, on the west by the Mississippi, and comprised Western Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Fincastle then, as now, was the county seat. The following curious provision is found in the act of Virginia creating Botetourt County: "And whereas, the people situated on the Mississippi, in the said county of Botetourt, will be very remote from the court house, and must necessarily become a separate county as soon as their numbers are sufficient—which probably will happen in a short time: Be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid (House of Burgesses), that the inhabitants of that part of the said county of Botetourt which lies on the said waters shall be exempted from the payment of any levies to be laid by the said County Court, for the purpose of building a court house and prison for said county." AN ACT TO ERECT THE COUNTY OF BROWN. SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, That so much of the counties of Adams and Clermont as comes within the following boundaries, be, and the same is, hereby erected into a separate and distinct county, which shall be known by the name of Brown, to wit: Beginning at a point eight miles due west from the court house, in the town of West Union, in the county of Adams; thence running due north to Highland County line; thence west with Highland County line to Clermont County line ; thence north with Clermont County line to Clinton County line; thence west with Clinton County line so far that a line running south will strike the Ohio River two miles above the mouth of Bulskin Creek; thence up the Ohio River, and with the same so far that a line running due north will intersect the point of beginning. SEC. 2. Be it further enacted, That all suits or actrons whether of a civil or criminal nature which shall be pending; and all crimes which shall have been committed within the lrmits of those parts of Adams and Clermont Counties, so to be set off and erected into a separate county previous to the organizing of the said county of Brown, shall be prosecuted to final judgment and execution, within the said counties of Adams and Clermont, in the same manner as they would have been if the county of Brown had not been erected; and the Sheriffs, Coroners and Constables of the counties of Adams and Clermont, shall execute all such process as shall be necessary to carry into effect such suits, prosecutions and judgments, and all the collectors of taxes for said counties of Adams and Clermont, shall collect all such taxes as shall have been levied and unpaid within those parts of the aforesaid counties previous to the taking effect of this act. SEC. 3. Be it further enacted, That all Justices of the Peace within those parts of the counties of Adams and Clermont, which by this act shall be erected into a new county, shall continue to exercise the duties of their offices, until their term of service expires, rn the same manner as if they had been commissioned for the county of Brown. SEC. 4. Be it further enacted, That the electors within the fractional townships which may be occasioned by the erection of the county of Brown, shall elect in the next adjoining townships. SEC. 5. Be it further enacted, That on the first Monday of April next, the legal voters residing within the county of Brown, shall assemble in their respective townships at the usual places of holding elections, and shall proceed to elect their several county officers who shall hold their office until the next annual election. 280 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That the courts of the said county of Brown shall be holden at the house of Alexander Campbell in the town. of Ripley, until the permanent seat of Justice shall be established for the said county of Brown. This act to take effect and to be in force from and after the first day of March next. DUNCAN M'ARTHUR, Speaker of the House of Representatives,  ABRAHAM SHEPARD, Speaker of the Senate. December 27, 1817. The county was named in honor of Gen. Jacob Brown, who had distinguished himself in the late war with England. He was born in Bucks County, Penn., May 9, 1775, and died in Washington City February 24, 1828. He was an early surveyor in the public lands of Ohio; entered the army in 1812 as a Brigadier General, and had distinguished himself at the battles of Chippewa and Niagara Falls and the siege of Fort Erie, At the time of the organizatidn of this county, he was a Major General in the regular army, and, three years later, succeeded to the supreme command The curious reader will be interested in knowing the origin of the six lines forming the boundaries of Brown, some of which had been described in statutes long before the organization of the county. The northern boundary of Perry Township, which is also the northern boundary of the "boot-leg" of the county, is part of a line drawn due east from the mouth of O'Bannon's Creek, which empties into the Little Miami at Loveland. This line is first mentioned in a proclamation of Gov. St. Clair, dated December 6, 1800, and was the original northern boundary of Clermont. The county line forming the northern boundary of Washington and Eagle Townships is part of the southern boundary of Highland County, and is first described in the act creating that county, passed February 18, 1805. It is an east and west line, drawn past the Twenty-Mile Tree, in the Original boundary between Adams and Clermont, which was a due north line from the mouth of Eagle Creek. The eastern boundary of the " boot-leg " is the western boundary of Highland, and is a due north line drawn from a point on the North Fork of White Oak Creek, where that fork is intersected by the southern boundary of Highland, just described. The eastern boundary of Brown is a due north and south line drawn through a point eight miles west of the court house in West Union. A special act of the Legislature provided that this line should be run by the compass without making any allowance for the variation of the needle. The western boundary is a due north line drawn from the Ohio River at a point two miles above the mouth of Buliskin Creek. The southern boundary of the county is the State southern boundary, which has been judicially determined to be the low-water mark on the northern side of the Ohio, and not the middle of that stream—a fact which is explained by the cession of the lands forming Ohio in 1784 by Virginia, which cession is described in the deed accepted by Congress as "lands northwest of the Ohio." The line drawn due north from the mouth of Eagle Creek is frequently mentioned in the proclamations of Gov. St. Clair, and in the acts of the Territorial and early State Legislatures. Gov. St. Clair at one time suggested this line as a suitable west boundary for the eastern State to be formed out of the territory northwest of the Ohio. An act of the Territorial Legislature passed January 23, 1802, provided that this line should be run and completed before the 1st day of May following. All traces of the line in Brown County seem to have disappeared. EARLY COURTS AND COMMISSIONERS' PROCEEDINGS. The judiciary under the Government of the Northwest Territory consisted of the Courts of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace and of the Common HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 281 Pleas. The law provided that the Court of General Quarter Sessions should be held four times a year in each county. A competent number of Justices of the Peace were commissioned by the Governor in every county, and these Justices, or any three of them, constituted Judges of the Court of Quarter Sessions. Usually the magistrates composing the Court of Quarter Sessions were the same as those composing the Court of Common Pleas. The law establishing these courts was adopted from the statutes of Pennsylvania, and was framed and published at Cincinnati June 1, 1795. Corporal punishment, even for light offenses, was the usual penalty, and an old statute of the Northwestern Territory was entitled, "An act directing the building and establishing of a court house, county jail, pillory, whipping post and stocks in every county." Among the names of the early Judges and Jurors of the Territorial courts of Adams and Clermont Counties, some will be recognized as early pioneers of Brown County. The first court of Adams County was that of the Quarter Sessions, held at Manchester in September, 1797. The Judges of the court were Nathaniel Massie, John Beasley, John Belli, Thomas Wetherington, Hugh Cochran, Benjamin Goodin, Thomas Scott and Thomas Kirker; Sheriff, David Edie; Coroner, Andrew Ellison; Crier, Job Denning. The first Grand Jury of the county consisted of James January, foreman; Thomas Massie, John Barrett, John Ellison, Duncan McKenzie, Jesse Eastburn, Elisha Waldron, John Lodwick, Stephen Bayless, Robert. Ellison, William MCIntyre, Nathaniel Washburn, Zephaniah Wade, James Naylor and Jacob Piatt. At this session of the court, the county was divided into six townships, named, respectively, Cedar Hill, Manchester, Iron Ridge, Union, Scioto and Upper. The first-named township was the only one which included any portion of the present county of Brown. The boundaries of Cedar Hill Township began at the mouth of Eagle Creek, and extended up the Ohio to a point opposite the mouth of Cabin Creek, in Kentucky, at Lawson's Ferry, thence north to the northern boundary of the county, thence west to the west line of the county, thence with the west line of the county to the place of beginning. William Rains was Collector of Cedar Hill Township in 1798. The townships of Adams County were re-organized by the County Commissioners in 1806. The first court ever held in Clermont County was that of the General Quarter Sessions, convened at Williamsburg on the fourth Tuesday in February, 1801, with the following magistrates as Judges: Owen Todd, Presiding Jusice; William Hunter, Amos Ellis, William Buchanon, Philip Gatch, Robert Higgins and Jasper Shotwell. The court was organized with William Lytle as Prothonotary, and William Perry, Sheriff. The following persons were impaneled as a Grand Jury—the first in Clermont: Amos Smith, John Charles, John Trout, John Boothby, Henry Willis, Samuel Brown, Joshua Lambert, Jonathan Clark, John Kain, John Cotteral, John Anderson, Samuel Nelson, Benjamin Frazee, John Colthar, Kally Burke, Harmon Pearson, Ebenezer Osborn and Absalom Day. This Grand Jury of staid men, appointed to inquire into crimes and misdemeanors committed in their county, reported that they found no indictments, as did also the Grand Jury at the next session—a good report of the people of that day. Thomas Morris, who had recently removed from Columbia to Williamsburg, entered into a contract with the Judges to furnish a suitable house for the meetings of the court, with tables, benches, fuel, etc., for the term of four years, at $20 per year. In addition to the Judges of this court, the names of the following persons appear in the minutes of subsequent Territorial courts of Clermont as magistrates who sat upon the bench, viz. : Peter Light, Houghton Clark, Alexander Martin and John Hunter. 282 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. The foremen of the Grand Juries of Clermont County during the Territorial stage of government were as follows: Ephraim McAdams, May 26, 1801; John Boude, August 25, 1801; May 25, 1802, Bernard Thompson; August 25, 1802, Jonathan Hunt; November, 1802, Jeremiah Beck. The Justices' Court of the General Quarter Sessions of Clermont County, at its first term, February 25, 1801, divided the new county, Clermont into five townships—Williamsburg, Ohio, Washington, O'Bannon (a year or two later changed to Miami) and Pleasant (now in Brown); but the records of the court, so far as they can now be found, fail to give the boundaries of these townships. We, however, may date the existence of Pleasant Township from February 25, 1801. Lewis Township was formed by the Commissioners of Clermont County June 2, 1807. A number of the inhabitants of the east end of Washington Township having petitioned for the formation of a new township, the prayer was granted and the new township was named Lewis. It extended from the east end of Washington Township (the Adams County line) down the Ohio to Bullskin Creek, and northward to the Denhamstown road. Clark Township was created by the Commissioners of Clermont County October 18,1808, with the following boundaries: " Beginning where the State road from Denhamstown to West Union crosses White Oak; thence running with the State road to the Adams County line; thence north with said line to Highland County; thence with said county line to the corner of Highland, and continuing west so far as to include Aaron Leonard and Moses Moss; thence south to Lewis Township line; thence with the same to the place of beginning." Perry, the last of the townships within the limits of Brown formed by the Commissioners of Clermont, dates its existence from June 6, 1815. Its original boundaries were as follows: "Beginning on the Clermont County line at the corner of Warren and Clinton Counties; thence a straight course to Samuel Ashton's old place on Anderson State road; thence east by south to the line between Clermont and Highland Counties; thence north with Clermont County line to the Clinton County line; thence with Clermont and Clinton County line to the place of beginning." At the first session of the Clermont County Commissioners at Williamsburg, beginning on the first Monday in June, 1804, Edward Hall was allowed $5 for services as Supervisor of Highways in Pleasant Township. Thomas McFarland was granted $1.50 for killing one old wolf, January 22, 1804. On July 23, 1804, Henry Chapman was allowed $1 for returning the poll book of Pleasant Township. In 1804, the name of William White appears as Lister of Taxable Property in Pleasant Township. In June, 1805, the rates for tavern licenses were established as follows: In Williamsburg, $8; in Bethel, $6; in White Haven (Higginsport), $4; in Staunton (Ripley), $4; all other taverns, $4. Ferry licenses were priced as follows: At Staunton (Ripley), $2; at Waters' Ferry, $4; at Samuel Ellis', above the mouth of White Oak, $1.50; at White Haven, $4; at Boude's and Bolander's, $4 each; at the mouth of Bullskin, $5; at or within one mile of Twelve Mile Creek, $3; at all other ferries that may be established across the Ohio, $2. TERRITORIAL ELECTIONS. The first elections for Representatives in the Territorial Legislature were held at the seats of justice of the respective counties. There was so little of democracy in the government established by the celebrated ordinance of 1787 that the settlers were seldom called on to exercise the right of suffrage. Under that ordinance, no one could vote unless he was the owner of fifty acres of HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 283 land. All the officers of the Territory were required to be residents for specified periods, and all to be land-owners-the Governor to own 1,000 acres; the Secretary and Judges, 500 acres each; the members of the Legislative Council, 500 acres each; the members of the House of Representatives, 200 acres each, The first election for Representatives was held on the third Monday of December, 1798. At this time, the greater portion of Brown County was included in Hamilton County. In October, 1880, an election was held for Representatives in the second Territorial Legislature. This election was held under a law, passed by the first Territorial Legislature, which required the polls to be open in each county at the court house on the second Tuesday in October, 1800, between the hours of 10 and 11 in the forenoon, and to be kept open until 5 o'clock in the afternoon, and again opened the next day from 10 until 5 o'clock, and then finally closed, unless some candidate or the Judges desired the election to be continued, in which case the poll was to be open the third day from 10 until 3 oclock. The election at Cincinnati continued three days. The vote was taken viva voce. There were seven Representatives to elect from Hamilton County, and the following is the vote of the successful candidates: M. Miller, 284; J. Smith, 273; F. Dunlavy, 229; J. Morrow, 212; D. Reeder, 204; J. Ludlow, 187; J. White, 162. On the same day, William Lytle was elected for the ensuing session in place of Aaron Cadwell, who had removed from the Territory. The vote stood: William Lytle, 153; F. Dunlavy, 140. Thirty-five persons had been announced by their friends in the columns of the Western Spy as candidates, and at least twenty-four of them received votes. The total number of votes cast at this election cannot now be ascertained. In both the first and second Territorial Legislatures, Nathaniel Massie and Joseph Darlington were the Representatives from Adams County. At the election for members of the convention to form a State constitution, held in October, 1802, the electors of Clermont County voted at Williamsburg. The delegates chosen from Clermont County were Philip Gatch, a Methodist minister, who had been a member of an abolition society in his native State; and James Sargent, who had freed his slaves in Maryland before removing to the Western country. It is said that both were elected because they were anti-slavery men. Joseph Darlington, Israel Donalson and Thomas Kirker were elected Delegates from Adams County. This election was attended with great excitement. It was the first election north of the Ohio in whiCh entered questions of national party politics. One of the, questions before the people was, whether a State Government at all should at that time be formed. The enabling art of Congress, under which the election was held, provided that, after the members of the convention had assembled, they should first determine, by a majority of the whole number elected, whether it was or was not expedient to form a constitution and State Government at that time. The friends of Gov. Arthur St. Clair and the Federalists generally were opposed to the formation of a State Government; the Republicans generally favored an immediate admission of the Territory into the Union as a State. At the last session of the Territorial Legislature, the opponents of a State Government had been largely in the majority, and, under the lead of Jacob Burnet, of Cincinnati, had passed an act having for its object the division of the Territory into two future States, a measure which, had it received the sanction of Congress, would long have delayed the admission of both into the Union. The act passed the Council unanimously, and the House by a large majority. A minority of seven Representatives entered their solemn protest against it, and began an appeal to the people and to Congress with a fixed determination to defeat the division of the Territory and to secure an 284 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. early State Government. They were successful. Congress not only refused to divide the Territory, but passed an act to enable the people to form a State Government. The canvass which preceded the election of members of the convention was one of great bitterness; fast friends became enemies for life. The increasing unpopularity of Gov. St. Clair, who was accused of a tyrannical and arbitrary exercise of the powers of his office, and the declining fortunes of the Federalists in the States, intensified the popular excitement. A large majority of the people of Adams and Clermont Counties at this time were anti-Federalists. THE COUNTY SEAT CONTEST. The contest for the seat of justice of Brown County was a heated one, and continued for several years. The contest was between the advocates of Ripley and the advocates of a central location. Ripley was the largest and most important town in the county, but it was thirty-five miles distant from the northwest corner of the new county. The act Creating the county designated the house of Alexander Campbell, in Ripley, as the place of holding the courts until the permanent seat of justice should be established. On January 29, 1818, one month after the passage of the act creating the county, the Legislature, by joint resolution, appointed Gen. Isaac Cook and William McFarland, of Ross, and Philip Good, of Green, Commissioners to locate the seat of justice in Brown. Their duties were defined by a general law. They were required to give twenty days' notice of the time and place of their meeting, and, after taking an oath to discharge their duties faithfully, "to proceed to examine and select the most proper place as the seat of justice, as near the Center of the county as possible, paying regard to population and quality of land, together with the general convenience and interest of the inhabitants." They were required to make a report of their proceedings to the next Court of Common Pleas held in the county. The three Commissioners met, and, after examination, made a report, on March 27, 1818, in favor of a place on Straight Creek, since known as Bridgewater, or the " Old County Seat." On July 23, 1818, George Edwards was appointed by the court a Director to purchase the land at the place selected, lay out a town and sell lots for the erection of county buildings. The friends of Ripley were much dissatisfied with the selection made, and used every means in their power to prevent the seat of justice from being established at Bridgewater. It was Claimed that the title of the land selected was imperfect. A majority of the Judges of the court were opposed to the location made, and, after much controversy, decided to reject the report of the Commissioners, and ordered them to return to the county and select another place. In the meantime, the Legislature passed the following act, which shows that the report of the Commissioners was not regarded as a final settlement of the question: AN ACT TO AMEND THE ACT ENTITLED "AN ACT TO ERECT THE COUNTY OF BROWN." SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, That from and after the first day of June next the courts of the county of Brown shall be holden at the place fixed upon as the seat of justice by the Commissioners appointed by the General Assembly at its last session, until a permanent seat of justice shall be established for said county, and that so much of the act to which this is an amendment, as refers to holding the courts of said county at the house of Alexander Campbell, in the town of Ripley, be and the same is hereby repealed. This act to take effect and be in force from and after the passage thereof. JOSEPH RICHARDSON, Speaker of the House of Representatives, ROBERT LUCAS, Speaker of the Senate. February 8, A. D. 1819. HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 285 The Commissioners appointed by the Legislature were induced to meet again and make a new selection, and this time Ripley came off victorious. The following is their report to the Court of Common Pleas: We, the undersigned commissioners, appointed by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, for fixing the seat of justice for the county of Brown, did proceed to examine the various sites in sard county, and made report on the 27th of March, 1818, in favor of one on the east side of Straight Creek, near where the State road from West Union to Cincinnati crosses said creek, on the land of James Poage and John Abbott ; and, whereas the Court of Common Pleas of said county of Brown gave official notice to us that the title to said land was incomplete, we again met in said county, and, after further examination and consideration, have fixed on the town of Ripley, on the banks of the Ohio, for the permanent seat of justice for the county of Brown. Witness our hands this 8th day of April ,1820. WM. MCFARLAND ISAAC COOK The County Commissioners, on June 7, 1820, let the contraCt for the erection of a court house at Ripley to George Poage for $2,999. The citizens of Ripley and vicinity had subscribed $7,488 for the erection of county buildings, the subscriptions being conditioned on the location of the county seat at that place. The question now arose, Where should the courts of the county be held P —at Bridgewater, in accordance with the act of February 8, 1819, given above, or at Ripley, under the proceedings of the Commissioners in their second report of April 8, 1820. The contest, of course, was carried into the Legislature at its next session. A bill was introduced and passed the House of Representatives by a vote of forty-six yeas to sixteen nays, declaring that " the permanent seat of justice of Brown County be, and the same is hereby, declared to have been legally established on the east side of Straight Creek, near where the State road from West Union to Cincinnati crosses said creek, on the lands of James Poage and John Abbott, as fixed by the Commissioners appointed for that purpose by the General Assembly." The Representatives from Brown, Adams and Clermont all voted in the affirmative. When the bill came up in the Senate, an amendment by way of a substitute was proposed, which provided for " submitting all the papers, etc., in relation to the establishment of a seat of justice in Brown County to the Supreme Court for judicial investigation and determination whether any seat of justice has been fixed in said county, and if any, where it is." The vote on the substitute stood, yeas, eighteen; nays, fourteen, Mr. Pollock, of Clermont; Mr. Russell, of Adams; and Mr. Nathaniel Beasley, of Brown, voting in the negative. The proposed amendment was then, on leave, withdrawn, and a substitute by way of amendment was, on motion of Mr. Beasley, agreed to, appointing new Commissioners to fix the seat of justice. The act, as it finally passed both Houses, is as follows AN ACT TO ESTABLISH A PERMANENT SEAT OF JUSTICE IN THE COUNTY oF BROWN. SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, That there shall be three commissioners appointed by a joint resolution of both Houses of the present General Assembly, whose duty it shall be to fix on a place for the permanent seat of justice for the county of Brown, who, in discharge of their duty, shall be governed in all respects by the provisions of the act, entitled "An act to establish seats of justice," and the place fixed upon by said Commissioners shall be the permanent seat of justice for said county. any place heretofore selected by commissioners for the seat of justice to the contrary notwithstanding. SEC. 2. Be it further enacted, That the County Commissioners of said county shall not make any further contract for the erection or completion of any public buildings in the county of Brown until the commissioners to be appointed to fix the permanent seat of justice in said county shall have performed that duty. SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That no exception shall ever be taken against the proceedings of the Court• of Common Pleas for the County of Brown, on account of said 286 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. court having been holden in the town of Ripley, and the several courts for said county shall continue to he holden in said town of Ripley until the first day of June next, and until said commissioners shall have fixed on a permanent seat of justice of said county, after which time the courts of said county shall be holden at the place selected by the commissioners appointed by virtue of this act. JOSEPH RICHARDSON, Speaker of the Rouse of Representatives, ALLEN TRIMBLE, Speaker of the Senate. January 19, 1821. On January 29, 1821, the General Assembly, by joint resolution, appointed John Pinkerton, of Preble County ; Francis Dunlavy, of Warren County; and Henry Weaver, of Butler County, Commissioners under the provisions of the foregoing act. The following is their report: To the Honorable the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas in and for the county of Brown. We, the undersigned, having been appointed Commissioners by the General Assembly of the State of Ohio, by virtue of an act entitled, " An act to establish a permanent seat of justice in the county of Brown," passed January 19, 1821, beg leave to report: That, having assembled at the present place of holding courts for said county, in the town of Ripley, on Thursday the 10th of the present instant, according to a previous notice duly published, and having taken the oath prescribed by law, we proceeded to examine said county as the law directs, and are unanimously of opinion that Georgetown previously laid out and duly recorded, is the most proper place for the seat of justice in said county, and that we have accordingly selected the said town of Georgetown for the permanent seat of justice for said county of Brown. And we, the Commissioners aforesaid, further report to your Honors that a certain tract of land containing fifty acres adjoining said town of Georgetown can be procured for the price of $5 per acre, and which we are of the opinion is a reasonable price, and which we, therefore, limit to the price of $5 per acre as aforesaid, all of which will more fully appear by certain documents herewith enclosed, and which are numbered. We, the Commissioner aforesaid, beg leave also to refer to your Honors certain documents proposing certain benefits, privileges and facilities for the advantage of said county of Brown, and the inhabitants thereof, which last mentioned are also herewith enclosed and numbered 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, all which is most respectfully submitted by FRANCIS DUNLAVY, HENRY WEAVER, JOHN PINKERTON. RIPLEY, Ohio, May 13, A. D. 1821. The courts had been held at Ripley, except one or two terms which were held in a log structure at Bridgewater. The Court of Common Pleas was in session at Ripley when the foregoing report was presented. On the second day of the term, the Judges proceeded to Georgetown, which has ever since been the seat of justice. The agitation of the County seat question, however, was continued for some years later. The propriety of a law submitting the question to a vote of the people was discussed. The continued agitation of the subject is shown by the following editorial from the Benefactor and Georgetown Advocate, of the date October 1, 1824, a paper then edited by Thomas L. Hamer: " The settlement of the county seat has been again brought up as a pivot on which the election is to turn. This hobby has been prodigiously useful to the politicians of this county. The people have been duped once or twice by it, and it is to be hoped they will not tie again. The candidates who expect to be elected by declaring their determination to support the law for fixing it by vote do not believe such a law can he passed. They are men of too good sense. It is impossible in the nature of things it should be passed. Whoever brings in a bill and petitions to that effect before the Legislature will feel a sensation they never experienced before. They will be laughed out of countenance Their sensibility will be wounded, and they will feel ashamed of the project and of themselves. " No county in the State (except, perhaps, Clermont) has had so much done for it by the Legislature as this one. We have been listened to; our HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 289 grievances redressed; our claims investigated; and everything granted us consistent with justice and good policy. We may rest assured the Legislature will not listen to complaints and petitions such as are now talked of. They cannot with propriety do so. Suppose they should pass such a. law as Gen. Cochran and Capt. Brackenridge are in favor of—what would be the consequence? Have they any assurance that we will be satisfied with the result of one election? What security have we to give them against future applications for relief ? None; none at all. Our former proceedings are proof against us that we will not be satisfied. If a majority of one vote should fix the county seat at Ripley or Georgetown or Bridgewater, is it probable that the minority would be satisfied? Would not the malcontent parties unite and crowd their claims before the Legislature again? Have they not done so heretofore in this county? Have they not done it in Clermont, and in every County where there are two parties? They have; and if a majority is to govern in this way, then we have no stability, no security-no prospect of any. Whenever that part of the county which has lost the seat of justice (say by one vote) gets a half-dozen more voters in it, they will be able to show a majority of petitions and voters, and then huzza for Republican principles; away goes the county seat again to some other part of the County. This simple consideration is sufficient to show the fallacy of the project, and to convince every unprejudiced man that no reasonable Legislator would ever vote for a law of that kind." 290 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. CHAPTER VIII. GENERAL PROGRESS OF THE COUNTY. COUNTY BUILDINGS. THE first court house was built at Ripley; work on its construction was commenced in 1820. By a special act of the Legislature, the contractor, George Poage, was allowed $3,350, with interest thereon from the time the building was accepted by the County Commissioners. This building, after the location of the seat of justice at Georgetown, was sold at public auction for a small sum. The contract for the erection of the first court house at Georgetown was let by the Commissioners on August 1, 1823. The contractors were Thomas L. Hamer, William White, Michael Weaver, William Butt and David Johnson. The sum agreed upon for the construction was $3, 999.99, which was to be paid out of the proceeds of the sale of lots donated to the county by James Woods, Abel Reese and Henry Newkirk. This building was accepted by the Commissioners August 2, 1824, and, for twenty-five years, was the court house of Brown County. A representation of this quaint old building, as it appeared, a few years before it was taken down, may be found in Howe's Historical Collections of Ohio. The first jail was erected at the expense of parties who were interested in having the seat of justice at Georgetown. The date of its completion cannot be ascertained from the records. It stood on the site of the present jail, and was constructed of stone. Before the erection of the first jail, a defendant was committed on a writ of capias to the custody of the Sheriff. There being no prison, the defendant escaped. The plaintiff in the case brought suit against the Sheriff for damages sustained by reason of the escape, and obtained judgment. The Sheriff, William Butt, paid the judgment, and brought suit against the County Commissioners for the amount he had paid. The case of William Butt against the Commissioners of Brown County was finally decided in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was divided in their opinions, but a majority of the Judges held that, where an escape happens in consequence of the want of a jail, the Sheriff is liable to the party sustaining damages, and the Commissioners, in their official capacity, liable to the Sheriff, who has been compelled to pay damages thus resulting. April 18, 1827, the Commissioners contracted with John Walker for the erection of Auditor's and Clerk's offiCes, at $390. Thomas L. Hamer and Jesse R. Grant were the sureties of Walker for the faithful performance of his contract. The rooms were completed and accepted by the Commissioners on the 4th of December following. On January 14, 1828, the Commissioners sold the old Clerk's office to the highest bidder for $3.50. The Commissioners, on January 15, 1828, authorized the Auditor to advertise for the purchase of land and proposals for building a poor house. On January 16, 1829, the Commissioners purchased of Michael Weaver a farm for the use of the county, for which they paid $522. On the same day, Job Egbert, Edward Thompson and Noah Ellis were appointed the first Poor House Directors. On March 18, 1835, the Commissioners contracted with David Johnston HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 291 for building a new jail, at the sum of $2,389. This jail stood on the southwest corner of Cherry and Pleasant streets, and the building is now used as a residence. March 7, 1849, the Commissioners, being of the opinion that the old court house was insufficient, employed Hubbard Baker to prepare a draft of a plan for a new court house, and at the same time rented, for the use of the county, the basement of the Methodist Church, at an annual rental of $100. The contracts for the erection of the new court house were let May 22, 1849. The building, which has served the purpose for which it was lerected until the present time, was completed and accepted by the county in 1851. The contracts for the erection of the present substantial stone jail were let on August 13, 1868. It was completed in 1870, at a total cost of $34,- 314.57. On May 18, 1870, the old jail was sold. ROADS. The first roads in Brown County were mere traces or paths for horses. The public highways located by the authorities of Adams and Clermont Counties were for several years little more than tracks through the woods, cleared of timber, without bridges, and, in the fresh condition of the soil, became almost impassable in the wet seasons. Wagoning, however, was an important business, and it was common for several wagons to travel together for the mutual aid to be derived from combining teams when a wagon stuck fast in the mud. Zane's trace, the most important thoroughfare of the Northwest Territory, struck the Ohio River at the site of Aberdeen. In May, 1796, Congress passed an act authorizing Ebenezer Zane to open, a road from Wheeling, Va., to Limestone, Ky,, and, in the following year, Mr. Zane, accompanied by his brother, Jonathan Zane, and his son-in-law, John McIntyre, all experienced woodsmen, proceeded to mark out the new road, which was afterward cut out by the two latter. The cutting, however, was a very hasty work, nothing more being attempted than to make the road passable for horsemen. As a compensation for opening this road, Congress granted to Ebenezer Zane the privilege of locating military warrants upon three seCtions of land, not to exceed one mile square each; the first of these, at the crossing of his road at the Muskingum; the second, at the Hockhocking; and the third, at the Scioto. One of the conditions annexed to the grant to Mr. Zane was that he should keep ferries across these three rivers during the pleasure of Congress. Zane's trace was a great route of travel for forty years of Ohio's history. In 1798, the first overland mail in Ohio was carried over this route, the mail from Wheeling meeting that from Limestone at Zanesville. After the admission of Ohio into the Union, Congress applied 3 per cent of the proceeds of the public lands sold within the State to the construction of roads. This 3 per cent fund was appropriated for the purposes intended by the Legislature, and the roads thus established were known as State roads. The first appropriation of money for a State road extending into Brown County was made February 18, 1804, when $1, 200 were appropriated "for opening and making a road from Chillicothe by West Union, in the county of Adams, to the River Ohio, where it may intersect the same in the most convenient and proper route to Limestone, in the State of Kentucky." Under this somewhat unintelligible expression of the law, a State road was constructed, which was elsewhere described as " the road from Chillicothe by West Union to Limestone." Josiah Espy, in his " Tour in Ohio and Kentucky," under the date of October 16, 1805, writes: " In passing from Lrmestone to ChilliCothe, I took 292 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. what is called the new State road, which passes through a poor, hilly country, almost uninhabited. This circumstance (aided, no doubt, by my indisposition) led me to think very unfavorably of the soil of Ohio, compared with Kentucky, which I had left with most favorable impressions." The poor and hilly portions of the country over which he passed were chiefly in Adams County. An appropriation was also made in 1804 for a State road from Chillicothe to Cincinnati. The road passed through Perry Township; it was opened about 1806, and, being surveyed by Col. Richard C. Anderson, was usually known as the Anderson State road. The first appropriation for this road was $1,650. The first Legislature which met after the organization of Brown County appropriated $1,000 for the benefit of roads in the county, and appointed Commissioners, under whose direction the money was to be expended, as follows•: On the State road leading from Ripley to Hillsboro, $430— Commissioner, William Dunlap; on the State road leading from West Union to the mouth of Clough Creek, $420-Commissioner, Abram Evans; on the part of the State road leading from Limestone to West Union which lies within the county of Brown, $50—Commissioner, Evan Campbell; on the part of the road leading from Hillsboro to Williamsburg which lies within the county of Brown, $100 —Commissioner, Thomas Ross. TURNPIKES. The first turnpikes in Ohio were completed in the decade from 1835 to 1845. The Milford & Chillicothe Turnpike Company was chartered February 11, 1832, and constructed an important road, seventy-eight miles in length, less than half of which was macadamized in 1839. The road did much for the development of the northern part of Brown County. Gov. Allen Trimble, of Hillsboro, was long the President of the company. Its capital stock was $344, - 000, held in equal portions by the State and individuals. For the year ending November 15, 1849, its receipts were $10,498.60, and its expenditures $4,- 115.72, leaving profits of over $6,000 to be divided between the State and indiyidual stockholders. The Ripley & Hillsboro Turnpike Company was chartered February 19, 1833, to construCt a macadamized road thirty-five miles and twenty-six poles in length. The officers reported in 1839 that five and one-fourth miles near Ripley were completed, and ten miles on the northern end were wider construction. At that time, A. Liggett was President, and William V. Barr, Engineer. The Zanesville & Maysville Turnpike Company was chartered to construct a road 126 miles in length, of which eighty miles were reported as completed in 1839. The pike follows the general direction and route of Zane's trace. Although this turnpike passes over one of the most hilly regions in Ohio, the report of its engineer shows the remarkable fact that 104 miles were graded with an elevation of but two degrees with the horizon; fifteen miles, with from two to three degrees; four miles, with from three to four degrees; and only three miles with an elevation of four degrees--the maximum allowed. Since 1866, a large number of free pikes have been constructed in Brown County, and most of the toll pikes have been made free. In 1880, the county had thirty-four pikes, with an aggregate length of 215 miles. Only two of these, with an aggregate length eight miles, belonged to incorporated companies. OHIO RIVER NAVIGATION. The navigation of the Ohio River has always been a matter of vast importance to Brown County. The first boats employed on its waters were canoes and flatboats, the latter made of stout and heavy green oak plank. In HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 293 January, 1794, a line of keelboats was established between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, each boat making a trip in four weeks. These boats were covered so as to be protected against rifle and musket balls, and had port-holes to fire from; each boat was armed with six cannon, carrying pound balls, and a number of muskets, and well supplied with ammunition, as a protection against the Indians. There were separate cabins for ladies and gentlemen. The proprietor of the line, Jacob Myers, announced in the Western Spy that " a table of the exact time of the arrival and departure to and from the different places on the Ohio between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh may be seen on board each boat. Passengers will be supplied with provisions and liquors of all kinds, of the finest quality, at the most reasonable rates possible. Persons desiring to work their passage will be admitted on finding themselves, subject, however, to the same order and directions from the Master of the boat as the rest of the working hands of the boat's crew." The first steamboat which made a voyage down the Ohio left Pittsburgh in October, 1811, and, in four days, arrived at Louisville. This boat was called the New Orleans, and was intended to ply between Natchez and New Orleans. On the voyage down the Ohio, no freight or passengers were lcarried. The novel appearance of the vessel, and the rapidity with which it made its way over the waters, excited a mixture of terror and surprise among many settlers along the banks, whom the rumor of such an invention had never reached. Several smaller steamboats were constructed at Pittsburgh, Brownsville and Wheeling within the succeeding five years, but it was not until the successful voyages of the Washington between Louisville and New Orleans, in 1817, that the public were convinced that steamboat navigation of the Western waters would succeed. The General Pike, built at Cincinnati in 1818, to ply between Louisville, Cincinnati and Maysville, is said to have been the first steamboat on the Western waters for the exclusive convenience of passengers. This vessel measured 100 feet keel, twenty-five feet beam, and drew three feet three inches of water. At one end were six and at the other eight state-rooms. The cabin was forty feet long and twenty-five feet broad. She was described as having ample accommodations, spacious and superb apartments and perfectly safe machinery. RAILWAYS. Many years elapsed after the completion of the first railroads to Cincinnati before it was thought practicable to construct a railway through a river county situated as is Brown. The Cincinnati & Eastern Railway Company was organized at Batavia January 10, 1876. It was called at first, and for a short time only, the Cincinnati, Batavia & Williamsburg Railroad Company. In May, 1876, it was resolved to extend the line from Williamsburg to Portsmouth. The road was completed as a three-feet gauge road from it junction with the Little Miami Railroad to Batavia, OCtober 18, 1876; I o Williamsburg, March 1, 1877; to Mt. Orel). April 19, 1877; to Sardinia, June 4, 1877; to Winchester, it September, 1877. This was the first railroad running east and west through the central portions of Clermont County, and the first of any kind to reach Brown and Adams Counties. The Cincinnati & Portsmouth Railroad Company was incorporated March 1, 1873, for the purpose of constructing a narrow-gauge railway through the counties of Hamilton, Clermont, Brown, Adams and Scioto. The work of construction did not begin until three years after the organization of the company. In July, 1880, the road was in running order from Columbia to Cleveland's, one mile east of Amelia. The road was completed to Hamersville in December, 1881. The great cost of the long and high bridge necessary for 294 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. the crossing of White Oak Creek has delayed the completion of the road to Georgetown. The Georgetown & Sardinia Railroad dates from May 9, 1879, when the Legislature passed an act authorizing the village of Georgetown, after an affirmative vote of its electors, to construct a railroad. The people of Georgetown having given their approval, bon Is for the construction of the road to the amount of about $17,000 were issued by the municipal authorities. Three Trustees having charge of the construction were appointed by the Court of Common Pleas. Nearly all the grading of the road-bed was completed in the autumn of 1882, and the road was then leased to the Columbus & Ohio River Railroad Company. The right of way was donated by the land-owners along the line of road. The line of the road passes over a level country, and it has between the towns it connects but two variations from a straight course, and each of these is only one degree. CHURCHES. The pioneer preachers were mounted rangers. The Methodist preachers were Circuit-riders, and their circuits extended a hundred miles. The Presbyterian and Baptist ministers had several congregations or preaching stations under their charge, which were often at a great distance apart. All were expected to seek out and preach to the scattered members of their fold over a large territory. They traveled on horseback, with their capacious saddle-bags under them; but these seldom contained manuscript sermons; a sermon written out and read to a congregation would have been received with little favor. The first preaching in a community was almost always at a private house. The first churches were made of logs, hewed inside and outside. They were larger and built with more care than the schoolhouses, and, when the spaces between the logs were properly filled in with mortar, they proved to be comfortable rooms, cool in summer and warm in winter. The itinerant clergy were important teachers among the early settlers. They lodged in their cabins and Conversed with their families. Newspapers and periodicals of every kind were rare. Religious newspapers were then unknown. The preacher was usually a welCome guest. The Baptists established the first church in Southwestern Ohio at Columbia, in 1790. The Miami Baptist Association, organized in 1799, was the earliest institution of the kind in Ohio. The earliest Baptist Churches of Clermont and Brown Counties were members of this association. The minutes of the Miami Baptist Association, which are still in existence, and have been carefully examined by the writer, give more authentic information concerning the Baptist Churches of the Northwest Territory than any other source. The first Baptist Church within the present limits of Brown County of which we have any account was the Straight Creek Church, which was admitted into the Miami Association at a meeting at Columbia in September, 1799. The Straight Creek Church then reported twenty-one members. William Lacock was the first messenger of this Church to the association. In 1813, a new association was formed, embracing the churches of Brown and some of the adjoining territory, which was called the Straight Creek Association. A large proportion of the early pioneers of Brown County were Presbyterians. The territory, on the first preaching of the Gospel by Presbyterian ministers, belonged to the Transylvania Presbytery of Kentucky. The minutes of this body show that, at a meeting held April 1, 1798, at Cabin Creek, north of Maysville, " a settlement of people living on Eagle Creek, Straight Creek and Red Oak Creek asked to he taken under the care of Presbytery, and to be known as the congregation of Gilboa." In October, 1798, the territory HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 295 of Brown County was placed in a new Presbytery, called Washington Presbytery, from the town of Washington, Mason Co., Ky. The church of Red Oak was the first Presbyterian Church organized in Brown County. Its first log meeting-house was probably erected in 1799. Rev. John Finley, a member of the Washington Presbytery, was pastor of the church near the close of the last century. The Methodists of Brown County, at the time of the first organization of churches of that denomination in Southern Ohio, were included in the Miami Circuit. Rev. John Kobler was the first regularly ordained minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Miami Valley. Henry Smith was the first minister in charge of the Miami Circuit in 1799. Early in the present century, there were several local preachers in this large circuit. They went everywhere preaching the Word. They preached not only on Sundays, but on other days. They held two-days' meetings, and kept up a system of quarterly meetings, which, by this time, were attended by large numbers. Men and women would walk twenty and sometimes thirty miles to attend them. At night, the men would be quartered in barns and out-houses; the women, in the cabins. In 1802, Elisha W. Bowman, then a beardless youth, was sent to the Miami Circuit. In 1803, John Sale and Joseph Oglesby were the preachers for this large circuit. Francis McCormick, Phillip Gatch and John Collins all resided within the present bounds of Clermont County. In 1808, the White Oak Circuit was formed, with David Young as the first minister in charge. In 1810, there were in this circuit 766 white members and one colored member. The Straight Creek Circuit was formed in 1820, William P. Finley being the first minister in charge of it. The Christian denomination originated in the West, in the revival known as the Great Kentucky Revival, at the commencement of the present century. No churches of this denomination were organized within the limits of Brown County for several years after the close of the revival. In 1810, a Christian Church was organized by Archibald Alexander, and a good stone meetinghouse was built for the society on the east bank of the West Fork of Eagle Creek. This was the first church erected by the Christian denomination in Brown County. Elder Matthew Gardner says that it was " the first erected by the Christians in Southern Ohio." The Union Church, two miles from Higginsport, was organized in 1818 : the Bethlehem Church, in Huntington Township, in 1820; Georgetown Church, in 1822-23; Pisgah, about 1824; and Russelville, about 1826. The Southern Ohio Christian Conference was organized at the forks of Brush Creek, in Adams County, October 20, 1820. Religious statistics and materials for a history of the progress of religion are not readily accessible in a country where there is no State church or governmental support of religion. The State of Ohio requires full statistical reports to be made annually of the condition and growth of the schools maintained by public taxation, but the chief matters pertaining to religion which have been noticed by the State or national statisticians are the number of church organizations and church edifices, the amount of church sittings or accommodations for public worship, and the value of church property; and our information concerning these is derived chiefly from the census returns of the United States since 1850, According to the census of 1850, there were in Brown County sixty-one churches, valued at $66,740. In 1870, the churches had increased to seventy- nine, and were valued at $279,850. It thus appears that, in twenty years, the cost of churChes increased much more rapidly than their number. The aggregate church aCcommodations or sittings in the county had not increased from 1850 to 1870, being returned in both years at about twenty-six thousand. Com- 296 - HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY. paring this number with the population of the county at the same dates, and making but a slight deduction from the population for infants, the sick and the infirm, it appears that at both periods there were seats in the churches for more than the entire population of the County who could attend public worship. The statistics of churches given in census returns do not in all cases agree with the statements put forth by the denominational organs of the various sects. The census superintendents have their own point of view, and apply tests different from those known to the compilers of religious year books and registers. It should be borne in mind, too. that reports of the number of church edifices, their accommodations and value, are not always true measures of the religious activity of a community. A strong denomination with numerous churches may often strengthen itself by suffering a weak church to cease to exist when it becomes unable to support itself. There are churches which find a place on the rolls of a denomination, and may be enumerated in census returns, whiCh, having a legal title to an edifice, and maintaining some kind of an organization, have ceased to gather congregations or support a minister. Great changes have taken place in the mode of public worship since the first rude churches of hewed logs sprang up beside the green fields. In the former days, sermons were from an hour and a half to two hours in length. while the other services were protracted by long prayers and commentaries on the chapter read from the Scriptures, to a length that would now be thought unendurable. Often there were two services, separated by an intermission of fifteen minutes. During both services, horses, in the absence of a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals stood, without food or water, haltered to trees, from which they gnawed the bark. The autumn sun was low in the horizon before the benediction was pronounced and the worshipers departed, some to distant homes. The singing was not artistic. The innovation of singing hymns without lining them out caused many a difficulty in the older churches. Sometimes there was a compromise between the opposing parties, and one hymn each Sunday was sung without being read line by line, and the others in the old way. A new tune, which all could not sing, caused some to grieve. The introduction of a Choir or of a musical instrument caused serious dissension. Instrumental music was not common in the rural churches until after the introduction of the cabinet organ. The sin of wearing legant attires and adornment with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array, was a favorite topic in the pulpit. Flowers on the sacred desk would have been considered as ministering to a worldly vanity. The most beautiful comedies and the surliest tragedies to be seen on the stage were declared unfit for Christian eyes. Many pastimes and divertissements which scatter sunshine and sweetness over the cares and hardships of life were regarded as inconsistent with the seriousness, gravity and godly fear which the Gospel calls for. It cannot be doubted that there was less harmony among the different denominations formerly than now. The religious men of former generations were sincerely and intensely sectarian. They believed that they had "thus saith the Lord" for their distinctive tenets. They believed themselves to be, and were determined to remain, rigidly " orthodox "—a term which, according to Dean Stanley, " implies, to a certain extent, narrowness, fixedness, perhaps even hardness of intellect and deadness of feeling, at times, rancorous animosity." Sermons were more controversial and doctrinal than now. It can hardly be doubted that, with the increase of culture and refinement in the clergy and laity, have come a larger religious sympathy and a higher and broader view, which would break down the party wall of sectarianism and sweep away the petty restrictions on thought and opinion. HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY - 299 The early Presbyterian and Baptist Churches were severely Calvinistic, and their pulpits dwelt more frequently and more strenuously than their modern successors on the five points of their creed—predestination, particular redemption, total depravity, effectual calling and the certain perseverance of the saints. The terrors of the eternal torment of the wicked were more frequently and more vividly portrayed than in the modern days. The belief in a material fire in hell for the future and endless punishment of the unregenerate was common in all the churches. The doctrine of a literal fire in hell was preached by Rev. J. B. Findlay and other early Methodist preachers, in which they followed the explicit teachings of the sermons of John Wesley. It is doubtful if a person known to be a disbeliever in eternal punishment would have been suffered to remain a' member of any of the early orthodox churches. To-day, a belief in the final holiness and happiness of all mankind is not an insurmountable bar to a place among the laity of the evangelical denominations. . But let us not judge the religious men of former days harshly. They were noble men, and the county owes them a debt of gratitude. We cannot believe in all things as they believed, but we cannot fail to recognize their virtues and their worth. Most of the changes in the religious beliefs and modes of worship that have taken place since the establishment of the pioneer churches are not such as result in modifications of creeds and articles of faith. They are the result of inevitable tendencies, and are brought about, not so much by theological discussions as by the changes in human modes of thinking, feeling and believing, which, taken together, we call the spirit of the age. The advance of the refinements of civilrzation may render the religious doctrines of good men in one age repugnant to those of the text. THE LEGAL PROFESSION. Biographies of some of the most distinguished members of the legal profession in Brown County will be found elsewhere in this work. It is proposed in this place to narrate, with some regard to chronological order, some facts concerning the bar of the county not elsewhere recorded. The sketch must necessarily be imperfect. The legal business of the early pioneers of Brown County, before the organization of a State Government, was transacted at Cincinnati and various towns in Kentucky. In 1796, there were nine practicing attorneys at Cincinnati, all of whom, except two, became confirmed drunkards, and descended to premature graves. Several of the early lawyers in Cincinnati and the towns in Northern Kentucky attended the courts of Clermont and Adams Counties until the organization of Brown County. Judge Jacob Burnet says: "It was always my opinion that there was a fair proportion of genius and talent among the early members of the bar. Some of them, it is true, were uneducated, and had to acquire their legal knowledge after they assumed the profession. These were not numerous, but were noisy and officious, and, for some time, were able to procure a considerable amount of practice. This may be accounted for, in part, by the fact that the docket contained a large number of actions for slander, and assault and battery, and indictments for larceny, libels and the like." It is worthy of note that Francis Dunlavy, the first President Judge of the circuit which embraced Cincinnati and the south western third of the State, was not a regularly educated lawyer, nor was he admitted to the bar until after his retirement from the bench. He was, however, a classical scholar, and had served as a member of the convention which formed the State constitution, and