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250 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES ate loaded a wagon with spinning wheel and implements from the farm left behind, while reluctant cattle and swine lengthened the march. All were guided by the star of hope. Yet, many a woman's heart must have faltered as the miles became many and the days grew weary before their El Dorado was found. Much literary skill has been employed in describing the pioneer house, as if one was the pattern for all. Plainer statement may give a more truthful idea of the conditions than is obtained from the ornate rhetoric of those who have seen little but imagined much. The cabin was a log pen, square or nearly so, and high enough to stand in erect, under a bark or brush roof, with the earth for a floor, until time and chance permitted the architect to improve the design. The logs were chopped and shaped at the ends to fit them closer and to lock them firmly in place. The next step was to cut out spaces for the door on the side and fireplace at the end, which was often delayed by the hurry of life, that required planting in season, and game for food. The inmates often crept into such shelter through half-cut doorways, while the fire was kept outside. The same has occurred all over the woodland of America, and, where there was no wood for a cabin, the dugout on the hillside, or the sod house on the prairie, has repeated the scene c f home planting. Amid all the hurried work, one of the first objects was a better roof. This was made of what was called clapboards, which were frequently brought by, or made on the flatboats, by those who came down the river. The implement used for riving or splitting such boards or shingles, was called a frow, which came next to the rifle and ax as an indispensable tool. With I. frow and a drawing knife a skilled woodman could cover and floor, and even weatherboard his house, and fix the staves for cooperage. The pioneer who practiced borrowing a frow was shiftless, for it was needed most of the time at home, and the man who could not use a frow was pitied. Notwithstanding the importance of this once familiar and still used tool, it is probable that not one is on sale by a dealer in Brown or Clermont counties. Even the word "clapboard," which was the product of the frow, once universally used for roofing in the timbered regions of America, has lost that mean- CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 251 ing, which is not given in Webster's, the most American of all dictionaries. The disuse of the word is a peculiar illustration of changing customs. The 'hearts," or triangular pieces left from riving the clapboards, were used to "chink," or fill the cracks between the logs, and, when neatly done, and plastered with clay, the walls were good, alike against summer heat and winter cold. Split sticks were built into a crib for the chimney, that was thickly daubed with clay to keep the fire in and the cold out. As soon as time could be found, puncheons were hewn for the floor, and leaves were piled against the outside walls as winter drew near. Skins soon had from the game around, were spread on the floor for beds. After awhile, a post with a fork was set at proper distance from the walls to hold poles or bars for the support of clapboards for an elevated bed. But it was some years before "bedcords" were in common use. There can be little hearty belief for any adequate expression for their life of pathetic paucity--we dare not call it poverty, for they were self-reliant and asked no favor that could not be gained through honest effort. Perhaps no small degree of their reputed health was due to the wide-open fireplace, that radiated warmth while it swept the room with constant ventilation. The fire had no encouragement from iron. Blocks of stone answered for the great brass andirons that came fifty years later and are now regarded as curious relics of the middle age. The bodies of hickory saplings were sufficient for the functions of poker and tongs, and a clapboard reduced to the shape of a paddle, served for a shovel. A near-by peg held the johnny-cake board, stained with dough and browned with fire. A few had, and all wanted, a Dutch oven, a shallow, flat bottomed kettle to set over live coals on the hearth, while more coals were, heaped on the dish-like lid. A corn or wheaten loaf baked in this way had a special taste. The wooden bowl for mixing the bread from the meal, in a handy sack hung beneath a shelf that held a few plates and cups and a vessel for the precious salt. In a few days after the start of the cabin, venison and bear meat might be found hanging at the best places for drying. Blocks of wood served as seats, to be rolled to a home-made table or bench, which completed the furniture. 252 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES The rifle rested within instant reach on pins, from which the powder horn and bullet pouch always swung when not in use. Other pegs held the little extra clothing, and bunches of herbs and roots gathered with care and to be used with faith. Until cranes could be fixed, the boiling and stewing was done in camp kettles hung over the fire by hooks and chains from the "lug pole," that was built into and across the chimney. Meats were hung and turned before the fire, while the "drip" fell to a pan beneath, from which the roast was basted. The modern abomination of frying pans was unknown, and broiling was accomplished by placing the meat on the clean, hot coals. It is all but useless to tell the incredulous of the surpassing flavors of such cooking. It is somewhat imitated, but not attained in the expensive grillrooms to which epicures resort. No mention of a musical instrument in the first years has been found, except by reference to the fifings of Joshua Lambert and William McKnight ; unless, by rhetorical license, we include the spinning wheel ; and the hum of that must have been low until flax could have been raised and wool obtained. Such was the home of the pioneer, until time and patient labor accomplished more. Some had a little more and built a little larger, but imperative necessities leveled all to a condition of equally practicing a simple life, for which modern experience affords no parallel. Outside the home the forest had to be cut down and up, and rolled and burned. The ground at first, because of roots, was dug with mattocks and tended with hoes. The fortunate raised enough to last through the first year. As each year measured larger plantings, larger houses were built, with higher and smoother walls. Nature, adverse in many respects, was favorable in one. The virgin soil accepted cultivation kindly and yielded prodigiously ; otherwise the rude implements would have hardly maintained an existence. The farming tools of a hundred years ago were home-made, and of the conventional type, perpetuated by artists. The scythe was copied from the emblem handled by Father Time in the golden age of Greece, or, perhaps, the emblem was copied from the scythe. No improvement was made over the marble type, until men began to think in iron, and that can be remembered by a few of the living. The sickle was, is, and CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 253 will be, the same unto the end. It was the age of wood. Shovels and forks were made of a single piece of wood, and rakes were made of two, besides the teeth. The plow was a puzzling twist in wood, with a point hardened by fire, unless it was tipped with iron. Many an acre was cultivated with a fork of dogwood drawn through the mellow loam by boys who played horse in earnest. Although that life was bound in utterless toil, it would be false to assert that it had no hilarity. As neighborship became possible, log rollings, house raisings, corn huskings, and even meetings to help the unfortunate, became scenes of boisterous glee. When their hold grew firmer and orchards furnished fruit, while flocks gave fleece and fields yielded flax for apple cuttings and quiltings, society passed from the hunter's to the shepherd's life, that will forever be the idyllic dream of American felicity. Yet, in fact, those people lived in a forest-shrouded seclusion that would have been pitiful if it had not been sublime. Their. all-engrossing thought was clearing, planting, reaping, spinning, weaving, which, with rare exceptions, each family was forced to do to the full measure of their strength. They lived close to the soil and all expected much from the land they tried to compass, and for which they scattered apart. In locating those lonely and early homes, wonder grows whether they were so widely scattered by choice or chance. At first they seemed to follow no reasonable law of selection ; nor is there much in later inspection to change the first impression, that in this, as in all other allotments of life, men were the sport of fortune. Most of the newcomers were spurred to their choice by instant need, and so took what could be had with the least delay. While the lands were all a part of a common waste, with little discernible advantage, the artificial divisions of adjoining surveys represented rights that might be held by people who were divided by weeks of weary travel. As all faces look alike in the dark, so did all places look equally forbidding or inviting in the shadows or the wilderness. No one but the surveyors knew enough of the bearings to forecast the trend of travel. The whimsical advice of a hunter, or the weariness of an hour, may have decided the conditions of a family, unto the third or fourth generation. After the search lights of a century, some have been heard to lament the lack 254 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES of ancestral foresight. Such reflection is neither fair to those who did much without seeing, nor honorable in those who see much without doing. Still, wonder at the various fortune of various families is but natural ; for, the mind accustomed to the plenitude of the present, refuses to consider the utter severity of the life of the people, whose enterprise has merited the choicest praise of their posterity. Unless trained with study and strengthened with observation, the liveliest imagination is unable to conceive, and slow to understand the heroism of those who accepted the burdens of civilization on the border, and came to the solitude of the dreary wastes that stretched between the infrequent and scanty clearings about their lonely homes. Imagination is prone to robe these times with romantic fancy, rather than with sober reality. In the haze of far-off days, the men appear as giants ; in the glamour of tradition, the forest seems an enchanted land ; and even stable achievements rising from the all-submerging void, offer little that is discernible between the fixity of the purple ridges and the glow of the embracing mist. The zest of their adventures and the success of their efforts equally blind us to the meagerness of their living. Therefore, it is fortunate to have positive proof of their environment, and it is well to perpetuate a record of their privations. Otherwise, the time is not far away, when even their posterity amid luxury will doubt the want and trial of their ancestors. The chance whereby the doubting may "put a finger into the print of the nails" came with a lengthy, fire-protected and highly prized possession of the Journals and Ledgers of the trading station or store, at Gnadenhutten, Ohio, maintained as a part of the second mission there, under the authority of the Moravian Church of Europe and America. These books were opened October 25, 1799, by David Peter, a scholarly man, deputed to the important duty of business manager, by the bishops, from the position of head teacher of Greek and Latin at Nazareth Hall, at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the chief school or college of the American Moravians. For nine years after that till 1809, the accounts of a morally systematic business with both white and red people, and one black man, occupying the entire upper region of the Muskingum River, were CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 255 faithfully recorded by a thoroughly competent hand. By descent, these records are the precious property of a grandson, Oliver Peters, a most worthy man, in the city of Uhrichsville, Ohio. In all the ancient archives of the State, there is nothing that competes with these ample volumes in their peculiar sphere. While restricted to a local, yet considerable, scope comparison with the meagre relics of the sort in other places shows that these models of neatness and skill generally represent the trade values of the time in other Ohio settlements. In the absence of anything found at home, there is nothing that can be quoted with more confidence. Of all the flotsam of that time, there is nothing that so helps imagination to enter the door and sit at the hearth with the pioneers, as David Peter's long-posted annals of their homely dealings and petty destinies. From those laconic lines we learn what they had of simplest need for sternest want, and what they lacked of adventious aid from the perfumed fragrance and cushioned ease of modern life, and what they missed by passing before the crush and strain of fashion's rout began. But the journal does not explain the evolution of the skimp skirts of their necessity into the scanter patterns of present abundance. Such speculation should consider that every age has its ministers of grace, and, that it is more courteous to compare the mothers of eras with angels of mercy than with each other. It is also best to remember that those who strive in the noon of present convenience, have thrice nine times the comforts of those who watched before the dawn. No attempt will, or should be, made to classify the items ; for it will be truer to life and better for the reader to have the impressions obtained as the pages were turned. But first we must anticipate that money was scarce. The cash transactions of the first two years amounted to just $2.08, of which $1.00 was received and subsequently paid to one of the helpers who was going east, and had to expect some expense. The other 8 cents was apparently reserved. At first, the cumbersome fractions of the antiquated English currency were used, and values were often stated in thirds of a cent. But the lack of specie was filled by a substitute not easily counterfeited. There was a plenty of fur. Amid all the scarcity, there was an abundance of the life that bore fur, without 'which fashion 256 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES was miserable, and royalty unhappy. For that frivolous badge of wealth, the rude voyageurs and hazardous traders penetrated the wilds and adventured the caprice of savagery many years and many leagues in advance of the tillers and gleaners. Of all things destructive to animal life, gunpowder has been the worst. The first purchase noted by David Peter, included two pounds of gunpowder at $1.50 per pound, and four pounds of lead at 27 cents per pound. Zeisberger, the great Ohio Apostle, bought twelve pounds of coffee at 5o cents per pound, and four quarts of peeled barley at 40 cents per quart, which appears much like the first sale of breakfast food in Ohio, and at an appalling price. Salt brought 25 cents a quart. Swanskin—a thick flannel—went at $1.00 per yard. Chintz and muslin were booked at 50 cents per yard, but purple plains was $3.00 per yard. Three flints for gunlocks were sold for ten cents. One rifle gun was sold for $20.00, but $24.00 was paid for another. Sugar was charged at 27 cents per pound. A candle mold for six candles was listed at 5o cents, for which the wick yarn was II cents per ounce, and tallow 13 cents per pound. Bear's fat was 7 cents a pound, and pint tin cups 20 cents each. A dozen needles sold for 13 cents, and 13 cents bought a dozen skeins of thread. "Calicoes" was 67 cents per yard. A silk handkerchief and a wool hat brought $1.36 apiece. A yard of scarlet cloth cost $5.33, but $3.00 bought a yard of green cloth. A quire of writing paper cost 33 cents. Two dozen shoe tacks cost 12 cents, and an ink cake 13 cents. Pins brought 22 cents a paper. A few nutmegs were taken at 16 and 20 cents apiece. A horse bell was sold for 90 cents. The tell-tale bell, now disowned and forgotten, was the largest prime factor in the care of stock, when cattle were fenced out, instead of in. The small purchases of "calicoe" often included a sheet of pasteboard, at 13 cents, which was used to shape the bewitching sunbonnet, sometimes adorned with a yard of bright ribbon at 24 cents. That alone was the beginning and end of the millinery department. Leather, awls, shoe knives and shoe thread first appeared in 1803, and, in the next year some brides wore white cotton stockings at $1.40 per pair. The most extravagant account in the nine years was for "A pewter dish, a smaller pewter dish, 6 pewter plates, 6 metal table spoons, 6 knives and forks, a Jaconnett muslin 257 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES handkerchief, and one pair (the first) of white cotton stockings." It is only fair to add for the bet ter half of that house, that the account was squared with linen, beeswax and sugar. No other article can be named, more expressive of housewifely thrift and pioneer simplicity. The crustiest curmudgeon that gives a grimace at woman's aesthetic nature, must concede that the master did not spin that linen, or try out that beeswax, or stir off that sugar. And, if kept till now, that linen and wax and home-made sugar would almost buy silver, instead of pewter. The pages of the journal not only show causes for pleasure in the widely scattered cabins, where the purchases were to be compared and envied or emulated, but they also reveal much sickness and sorrow. The accounts of some families prove that their land of promise must have seemed a desert of disappointment. The remedies relied upon were Golden Tincture, Balsam De Maltha, Bateman's Drops, Mercurial Ointment, Peruvian Bark, Cream of Tartar, Tartar Emetic, Spanish Flies, Salts, Glauber's Salts, Saltpetre, Anderson's Pills, Van Sweiten's Pills, British Oil, Camphor, Aloes, Senna, Rhubarb, Saffron, Jalap, Pink Root, Bark, Ammonia, Mannah, Magnesia, Peppermint, Alum, Allspice, Ginger, Cinnamon, Sulphur, Madder, Copperas and Indigo. The three latter, contrasted or combined with stains from the forest, dyed their fabrics and tinged their lives. The drug department, however short of the myriad cures for modern ills, was much ahead of the bookshelf. In and after 1805, the Columbian speller was bought for 17 cents, and Testaments cost 35 cents. Several dozen almanacs were sold, but no other books were mentioned. Until something could be spared from the fields, all this was paid for with wild life ; and the deer paid the larger part at prices that varied, and were stated both by the piece and by the pound. At first doeskins were 50 cents, and fawn skins 30 cents apiece. Credit for $1.00 was given for a deer carcass, and 20 cents a pound for beeswax. One pound of butter brought 12 cents, and $2.52 was paid for a day with wagon and team. Racoon skins were rated at 25 cents, and $3.00 was the worth of an otter skin. Bear skins ranged from $1.00 to $3.00 for the finest. A full grown buck skin was current at $1.00. In four trips, traders took away the skins of 114 bears, 258 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES 289 racoons, 15 wildcats, about 1,000 deer, 16 foxes, 4 otter, 10 beaver, and 2 panthers. Besides this, much was used for clothing. Corn fell in three years from $1.00 per bushel to 33 cents. All this was not in specie, but in barter. The condition was much the same between the Miami and Eagle Creek. The larger trade of Cincinnati, the army at Fort Washington, and the building of the mills brought more cash into view, yet that did not reach the settlers, with little or nothing to sell. To those who care for the testimony of the past and can find curious gladness in the presence of antiquity, these facts speak with peculiar persuasion ; and even with casual attention, the most heedless of those who crowd the busy throngs of worry will learn something of the sobering truth, that what was, is gone, and In hat is, shall cease. For such facts tell of a bygone simple life that withered in the blare and jostle of complexer plans, that also passed away before the imposition of another and stronger mode of living, just as our own system must yield to forces that may be dimly discerned but can not be avoided. We are prone to praise the pioneers, but all were not good, and many were evil. The noblest came in close march with those who were quick to see the chances of rising through the weakness of the simple woodman for the enticing firewater. A student of social science knows how lately the world has become fit, or nearly so, to live in. When people began to plant corn in Ohio, piracy was still permitted by European treaties. The insane roamed at will. The debtor without spot cash was put in prison. The poor were sold at public auction, and those for whom nobody would bid were bid to starve. Slavery was a sacred institution, and slave ships paid so much a head to the English king—the more heads, the more revenue. The agitators of that age had spent their force in battling for the privilege of making the world better. When that privilege was gained, the political preservation of the nation absorbed attention, and the task of organizing for the benefits of sobriety became the duty of another age. Meanwhile, in the absence ,of better information, whisky was the sovereign balm for all public and domestic ills, the panacea for the stings of conscience and the bites of serpents. With the guiding revelations of scientific analysis, it is piti- CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 259 ful to note the pathetic confidence of the pioneers in alcohol. In their belief, it cured burns and soothed frosts ; it cooled fevers and warmed chills ; it promoted the growth of tissues and dissolved the essential bitterness of herbs, which equally hindered harm, helped hurt, and cured complaint. In their practice, it was first in trouble, first in joy, and first in the Mouth on every emergency. No one knows the accuracy of a history so well as the historian himself, for no one else knows so much of the material reviewed, and of the selections or omissions, and of the motives that have governed the composition. It must not be inferred that the first pioneers of Old Clermont, or of Ohio, or of the West, were given to riotous potation, or that all who made or handled firewaters were unworthy, according to the understanding of a more enlightened age. They knew not what they did ; and when the condition came to be studied, many changed from a lifelong custom and led their children in a revolt against the usage of mankind. Instead, the subject, properly considered, is a fine instance of a noble change in public opinion. On March 25, 1801, two missionaries, Kluge and Luckenbach, from the eastern Moravians, came to David Peter with an order for their outfit to establish a mission among the Indians on the Wabash. That outfit was prescribed in accordance with what had been learned in nearly sixty years of similar experience with the wild life of the frontier, and, therefore, must be accepted as an example of what constituted the best possible equipment for a pioneer. Yet, with the addition of a rifle and wagon not one in ten had anything so complete. The list is so well worth while for all who wish an exact view of the conditions then prevailing through all the woodland border, that it is properly presented as a part of a sketch of our social scheme. For the literature of Ohio can be safely challenged for a parallel to that graphic account, of which the items are : "Saddle bags, wolf skin, line and 4 fish hooks, bear skin, 2 bushels corn, 2 qts. salt, 10 flints, 5 pounds lead, 3 pounds powder, 58 pounds sugar, 29 pounds pork, i pound Bohea tea, 1 pound pepper, 3 nutmegs, 4 gallons Lisbon wine, 3 yards serge, ii yards Russia sheeting, blanket, handsaw, 6 gimlets, twill bag, wooden bowl, broadaxe, 2 axes, hatchet, 2 iron 260 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES wedges, 2 maul rings, frow, drawing knife, cooper's tool, mattock, chimney chain, pot hook, 2 brass kettles, stamped paper for draft, and cash." The total amount charged, not against the missionaries, but to account for goods from stock, was $288.67, not including hunting guns and horses. The rest of their equipment for the regeneration of a valley full of defeated wild men was a reliance on Providence. In this day, judgment halts in saying whether Faith or temerity guided the enterprise ; but there can be no lack of wonder at the enthusiasm that prompted those young men to give their education and talent—for they had both in fine degree—to an ideality so lofty and unselfish, on such a slender support. An entry on January 23, 1803, for "Tall Man," an Indian, "Brass Kettle, Cash, 12 1/2$" is notable, as the largest cash sale to that date; for the fabulous value of brass, and for the odd use of the $ sign not yet in familiar use, even with the scholarly manager. A credit was given to Tschangelenno for 5 dressed doe skins at $1.00 each. Such a curio now would bring the price with interest to date. Wool cards were sold several years before any home-made linseys were taken in exchange, which proves that such products were needed and used at home until larger flocks could be raised. 20 "segars" for 7 cents n October 20, 1806, is the first mention of that luxury. In 1804, $138.00 was paid for bringing 2,400 pounds of goods from Philadelphia. If the wagon had been switched to Wheeling and had come by Zane's Trace, the cost wpuld have been more, subject to river rates to the mouth of Eagle Creek or Bullskin. Many curiously graphic but unstudied phrases depict the awful stress of life. On August 17, 1800, several families went hunting, "to save corn." The luscious roasting ears were tempting them to eat what had to he kept for the coming winter, so they left the corn to grow and ripen and used the more plentiful game. On July 22d of the same year, the people were busy "flax pulling." We hope for his own sake that the reader is feeling the interest due to these artless words from a time when all the people between Loveland and Aberdeen would not have much, if any, exceeded the limits of one of our larger halls. In October, services at the mission house were omitted several weeks "because of the fever, in which the CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 261 well had to wait on the sick." That condition was the annual experience along the Miami and Ohio until malaria ceased to frighten. "January 1, 1801, the new century opened with snow all day, and ice floating in1801..iver." "Sunday, February 22, 1801. In consequence of very fine weather our people spent all the past week in boiling sugar." Whether it be to taste a harvest feast, to pick the luscious berry, to find the nuts .of autumn, to drive the prowling fox, or to gather the blossoms of May, there is no blither time for people who seek a closer walk with nature, than when they share in the charms of the old-fashioned sugar camps, once common and now forever rare. When the white man came, the huger maples here and there bore the scars of mangling tomahawks ; and heaps of ashes and charcoal, more lasting than the logs from which they came, showed that the Indians knew where and how to get the sticky sweet that he mixed with bear grease and thickened with parched corn to eat with venison, which does not seem so very bad, if the venison were real. In the pioneer's home sugar was not until made by himself. The machinery positively required was an ax, augur and kettle. More might be handy, such as a gimlet for making spiles and more kettles to hurry the boiling. If the augur failed, the more dextrous could make a flat spile for an ax-cut channel, which badly marred a tree. It was also well to have an adz to dig out troughs from the solid blocks. Still, in extreme necessity, the ax sufficed. Next to the rifle, it was the pioneer's choicest possession. On rainy days and during long winter evenings, spiles were made, and troughs that were to last a lifetime were shaped and scooped and smoothed and soaked free from acid or bitter taste. Another trunk large enough for a war canoe was dug out for a reservoir and placed near the kettles, hung in a row by logs, or set in a furnace that climbed a hillside to a chimney of "cat and clay" that finished the end of a log house open to the south and covered with long boards of riven oak. When disappearing snows, relenting frosts and brighter skies were the welcome harbingers of spring, and while the chattering crow, the jabbering jay and the babbling blackbird met in many conventions to proclaim the good times coming, 262 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES the sire, expert in needed lore, went forth "to tap the camp." Troughs were brought on a sled to the trees, where others came to fit the spiles and fix the vessels to catch the trickling sap. Then, convenient trees were felled across the brooks for foot bridges, and wood was gathered from lightning blasted trunks that were dry and quick to burn. A little later the girls and smaller boys came racing with buckets to empty the troughs into a barrel reclining on a sled drawn by the pet of the stable along the banks or across the riffles of the brooks, while the roguish rider performed antics on the horse's. back unknown to modern gymnasiums, or bent her head to dodge the drooping branches threatening her glossy curls with the fate of Absalom. And then the inspector general Mother came to give the final cleasing touches. On the "master sugar day," the constant drops all but mingled in a stream as they stirred the pellucid, crystal store below with the dimples of a ceaseless smile. Ere long, the threatened waste required the "boiling down" to begin at once. The night long fires were kindled and, as the moon put on a golden glow. the reducing syrup was dipped from kettle to kettle steadily replenished from the gathered waters, until the trickling mass was ready to be cleared and sugared off ; after which the solid cakes or crumbly harvest was borne in triumph to a guarded shelf in the sylvan home. And thus the sweet toil went on from day to day and night after night till even the saucy squirrels ceased to wonder at the fierce invasion of their antique domain. When the season was over, the reward was many gallons of syrup and many pounds of the most delicious sweet that regales the taste of man. Of all they did, nothing is more fragrant with mellow memories of pioneer gladness than maple sugar making. But the primeval trees are losing their greenness and soon not a "camp" will be left to prove the reality of what even now seems an Arcadian tale. In the few camps still to be found, the early implements have been replaced with labor saving and care taking devices. The word has been given by chemical experts that the old-time wooden ways were all wrong and that maple sugar water must touch nothing but metal through every stage of the changing process. Such a product may be "pure," but it is not more dainty nor joyful to the taste, for the sap of the tree and the heart of man remain the same. CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 263 Most of this, however, came later. An ample supply was possible only to the most fortunate of the earliest ; for the sugar harvest was limited by the lack of kettles. In short, there was a' lack of everything but fortitude for the task. Their heart vanquished, though many fell before plenty smiled. The simple huts they called home required little of woman's care, and so her slighter strength took the lighter work afield. While man chopped and grubbed, woman planted the seed and coaxed the tender blades of the corn and all the garden growth. It was not a lack of affection but a life of devotion to a common purpose, in which there was no room for squeamish sentiment. When flax could be pulled and wool be shorn, woman returned to her ancient lot of spinning, weaving and knitting, with sewing for all. The first yield from their tilling added to household cares, for all that could be fitted for winter use must be fixed, and of this, the long garlands of dried pumpkin were not the least. Without fish from the stream and game from the hills, civilization would have lagged ; and thus, perforce, the first farmers were hunters with the double motive of providing meat for the table and securing fur as a currency. A consideration of the possible results of such severely isolated living suggests a lapse from refine-merit. Instead, the traditions of their descendants and the recorded observations of competent writers agree that none were more gracious than those who survived the ordeal of making the first settlements, and of wearing the linsey woolsey and tow-cloth dress or wamus and the deer skin hunting shirt and leggings with moccasin footwear. The first mention of shoes in David Peter's journal is the sale of a pair for $2.32, on December 4, 1802. An all worthy grandmother, born after her mother had come with several older children, told the writer years ago; that her mother in telling of their move to the West mentioned that they came directly to the Clermont cabin of some Eastern friends, who had come still earlier. In rehearsing the ever fascinating story, the pioneer sometimes, and to confidential ears, would add : "When we found them that summer, Mrs. Blank and her big girls and the children had no clothes but one dress apiece, like a coffee sack, and the men wore a mixture of tow-cloth trousers and buckskin shirts. But now !" That "now !" meant that the grandchildren of the 264 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES family, then striving to get more land, had at last reached high social position—some in authority at home, and some touring Europe. That family is better remembered for latter refinement than for the early sacrifice of those who founded its fortunes. Yet, if consultation were possible, it is probable that the much enduring ancestors, with all of Nature's longing to be remembered, would choose to have more mention of the proud effect than of the humbly patient cause. It is natural to shrink from decay and to protest against the dumb forgetting of engulfing time. This desire to surpass the mortal state and to linger longer in the tide of thought is the source of humanity's finest sentiment. Religion encourages virtue with faith that claims an endless perpetuity of re ward for meritorious conduct. Patriotism inculcates that the noblest employment of citizenship is to transmit the institutions of liberty for increasing reverence, and that the happiest allotment for the close of life is to die for the chosen land and forever share the praise that glory hymns for noble deeds. And thus the illusions of hope are fair with the promise of a succession of generations to keep the memory of worthy achievements. He is indeed a careless observer who has failed to not ice the force of this potent incentive to loftier aspirations that are equally inspiring and complimentary to humility. The gratification of this amiable emotion is a peculiar motive with a writer of history, whose pleasure is made melancholy by the reflection that approbation can neither reach the long dulled ears nor move the stilled hearts which would have thrilled at the thought that recalls the good they did. If some just reason for local patriotism is not found by the reader of these pages, then much of them will have been written to little purpose for that reader. The early pioneers have been grouped with regard to both time and place. No pretense is made that all have been named, but it is fair to claim that a zealous effort has been made to perpetuate information from frail and perishing sources. He must be careless of his own reputation who would discourage such effort or say that such study is misapplied. The ancients taught that filial gratitude is one of the cardinal duties, and, however great the hurry of modern life, he is to be pitied who cannot recall the memory of some ancestor who has left him an inheritance of CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 265 mental and moral excellence that is as surely transmitted as the tones of the voice or the cast of the features. Whosoever disregards the good his parents did deserves himself to be as quickly forgotten. Those people, grouped as they lived, with prodigious toil, founded a society that has had a noble share in establishing and perpetuating what they deemed sacred. Out of their common purpose to be good and free they forged a chain of circumstance that binds their posterity to a ceaseless struggle for the rights of man. All this they did in humble but certain ways, with a devotion that deserves a common remembrance. For, the extreme individual independence and personal aims that had scattered them to lonely homes soon yielded to the social instinct, that forms communities and accepts guarantees of government instead of the fickle fortunes of the forest. CHAPTER XII. THE FORMATION OF THE ANCIENT COUNTY OF CLERMONT. Governor St. Clair's Proclamations o Counties—Speculation in Land—Major-General Arthur St. Clair—The Conditions of 1798—The First Territorial Legislature—Origin of Massie's Opposition—St. Clair's Ideal of Duty—Bills for New Counties Vetoed and Consequent Censure—The Second Session of the Legislature--Clermont County Proclaimed with 68o Males Above 16—The Political Tumult of the Time—The Name, Clermont—The County Officers—Thomas Morris—William Lytle—Harmony Hill—John Charles—The Old Stone Land Office—The Lost Child Found—The Settlement of the New County—The First Wagon Through by Chillicothe—St. Clairsville or Decatur—General Beaseley Oscar Snell—Governor John M. Pattison. Governor St. Clair's division of the huge Territory Northwest of the Ohio for civil government, by practically indicating three of the great States to come, through a change from the Indian. Country into the counties of Washington and Hamilton for Ohio, into the county of St. Clair for Illinois, and into the county of Knox for Indiana, as told on other pages, was followed on February 11, 1792, by a proclamation that extended Hamilton county eastward to include all between the Little Miami and the Scioto, until the settlement between those rivers would justify a new county. On October 15, 1795, St. Clair made the administration of justice more convenient for the widely scattered French residents of Illinois by instituting the county of Randolph. The belated surrender of the once greatly hated Detroit to General Wayne by the reluctant British was soon followed, on August 15, 1796, by the institution of the county of Wayne, which included the northwest of Ohio, the northeast of Indiana, and all of Michigan, with justice, at last, seated in Detroit. Thug, by the close of 1796, the Territory Northwest was divided into six counties, from which the later counties 268 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES were organized. The people planted at Manchester by Massie's enterprise, and others westward from the Scioto and along the Ohio, were the first to be set off in a county made from those already formed. This was done on July 10, 1797, by taking the eastern side of the big county of Hamilton for a new county named Adams, of which the western boundary ran from the mouth of Elk River, now called Eagle Creek, up the principal stream of the source and then due north to the southern boundary of Wayne county. Then, on July 29, nineteen days later, the northeastern part of Washington county was proclaimed as Jefferson county, with the county seat at Steubenville. A cherished ambition of Massie was gratified on August 20, 1798, with the proclamation that established Ross county, with the county seat at Chillicothe, just two years from the month in which that town was platted. On the same day, a strip was taken from Hamilton and added to Adams county, so that the new boundary ran due north from the mouth of Eagle Creek to the southern boundary of Ross county. But, some two months before, on June- 22, 1798, as a consequence of Wayne's. Treaty, Hamilton county had been greatly enlarged to include all of Knox county west of the Great Miami and east of a line drawn from the mouth of the Kentucky River to Fort Recovery. In following the example of Virginia in ceding claims in the Territory Northwest, to the general government, Connecticut also reserved a region that thereby gained the name of the Western Reserve, which was all in Ohio, north of the forty-first parallel of north latitude and extending westward one hundred and twenty miles from the Pennsylvania line. Connecticut finally ceded all claims on that Reserve to the United States, on May 3o, 'Soo; and, on July 10, 1800, Governor St. Clair proclaimed the entire Western Reserve a county, with the name of Trumbull. The next county established was Clermont, the eleventh county in Northwest Territory, and the seventh in Ohio. But, before that was accomplished, a regrettable controversy arose between the Governor and those who posed for public favor. Speculating in land was then the wanton way to wealth. Of modern wiles to win the golden showers of fortune there CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 269 was neither knowledge nor chance. The total volume of commerce was not large enough to tempt many to commercial paths. The first object of that time was to get land, and the next was to increase its value. The difference between a laudable purpose and a mercenary motive also measures the distinction between fair dealing and a merciless method. Lytle and Taylor's expenditure of nearly three thousand dollars to attract attention to their lands in the vicinity of Williamsburg, when that place was the only clearing on a trace yet to be cut between the Miami and the Scioto, was not only a bold, but a laudable undertaking, that was fortunate, and, in due time, was properly remembered and rewarded by the Governor. The cutting of a trace from Wheeling to Chillicothe and the consequent location of Zanesville and Lancaster is a fine record of Colonel Zane's worthy service. Taylor and Lytle's private project of "our road" eighty odd miles eastward through Lytlestown to anticipate Zane's Trace at Chillicothe was another highly commendable, important and successful performance. With such examples, the Territory was a field for many imitators, who would have carved counties and fixed county towns to fit every sale. Such greed was opposed by the inflexible integrity of not a vote watching politician, but of a patriotic general trained to an exact performance of duty through not less than fourteen years on the battle line of actual war. Because of that opposition the resolute Governor was denounced as an obstruction to the growth of the country, and blamed for anything that malice chose to invent. In the end, no other American of note has suffered more from such vindictive attack, while living, and no other has been so completely vindicated after death, and restored to the respect of posterity. The formation of Old Clermont county was the event that tested his quality to rule, and also marked the ebb of his political fortunes. Therefore, it is fitting for the people of that region to consider what manner of man he was. The magnificent services of Major General Arthur St. Clair adorn the most brilliant pages of American history. A student of the University of Edinburgh, well grounded in medical science, an officer in His Majesty's army, promoted for gallant conduct at the capture of Louisburg, and again distin- 270 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES guished upon the Plains of Abraham, a citizen of Pennsylvania, a man, of princely fortune for that time, all ventured for the cause of freedom, with a military training that was worth a dozen regiments in the field of war, a bold leader in battle, a man brave in retreat, a master of strategy, who could lose a fortress to gain a State, rash in the crashing fire but wise in the cautious council, he was the chosen confident of Washington and the brother of Lafayette. The list of his glorious fields is the battle story of the Conquest of Canada, and the Revolution. His troops marched to the rescue of Arnold at Quebec, from Champlain and Crown Point, to Trenton and Princeton, and back to Ticonderoga, where his retreat enticed Burgoyne to his destruction ; and then to Brandywine and Valley Forge, where his fortune melted to keep his soldiers from freezing. Every student of war perceives that Burgoyne's Surrender would have beep a British victory but for St. Clair's skillful retreat, for which some, who believed in nothing but fighting any odds, would have had him disgraced. It is well proved that his suggestions to Washington produced the brilliant victory of Princeton, which won the favor of France. Trusted with the command of West Point, after Arnold's treason, and present at Yorktown, he was made the President of Congress, and promoted the action that resulted in the second Declaration of Liberty, the Ordinance of '87. Next to Washington, he was the most manifold character among the celebrities of the Revolution. Though fitted in every respect to cope with the brightest wits of Europe, and though accustomed to obsequious obedience by long years of military command, this noble gentleman was rewarded for his losses by an ironic fate that sent him to spend his old age amid a wilderness in curbing the importunity of men whose life in the woods had taught them absolute independence, with little or none of the finesse acquired in long settled communities. The governorship of the Northwest Territory, justly regarded as the most important office that Congress could give, was thrust upon St. Clair by his friends, as an opportunity to restore his fortune. He declared the acceptance the most imprudent act of his life, and so it proved, for in his own phrase, he had neither the taste nor the genius for speculation in lands, nor did he con- CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 271 sider it consistent with the office. After all his noble service, he went back to the hills of Pennsylvania at the age of sixty-eight, a proud but poor man. That his more than fifteen years' service as Governor of the Northwest was performed in a spirit of lofty patriotism is admitted by all whose opinion is valuable. But some said otherwise at the time, and that contention should be remembered at home, so that gratitude may be rendered to whom it is clue. The year 1798 brought much satisfaction to the inhabitants of the Ohio Valley, who were beginning to realize the fruits of Wayne's victory and the prospective advantage of possessing Detroit. Spain at last consented to the free navigation of the Mississippi, and, on October 5, General Wilkinson occupied Loftus' Heights, on the east bank of the river, and at once built Fort Adams, six miles north of the thirty-first parallel of north latitude. It was also found in that year that the Territory Northwest held the five thousand white male inhabitants required by the Ordinance of '87 as the base for a developing change in the mode of government. Governor St. Clair gladly proclaimed the fact and called upon the people to elect representatives to take part in the founding of States yet to be named. Upon a basis of one for each five hundred or large fractional surplus, twenty-three representatives were elected, who met in Cincinnati, February 4, 1799, for the purpose of selecting ten names from which the President of the United States was to appoint five persons to form the Legislative Council, whose duty was that of an Upper House or Senate. The qualifications, without which no one could vote, were a white skin, actual residence, absolute possession of fifty acres of land, and an unconquerable hostility to Great Britain. The clause against Great Britain was not written in the law, but it was in force and well understood. The one elected must own two hundred acres of land, or he could not serve. The voting was viva voce, meaning that each voter must stand before the judges and call aloud the name of his choice. After making nominations for the Council, the Representatives adjourned until the appointments selected and made by the President could be returned and proclaimed by the Governor. In this way the first Territorial Legislature was con- 272 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES vened at Cincinnati, on September 16, to conclude their organization, but, for lack of a quorum, that purpose was not accomplished until September 23, 1799. From the records, profound respect was shown to the Governor, whose stately dignity was considered very appropriate to the ceremonies of founding a great State. Beneath it all were rivalries and aspirations enough for any political mess ever set astew in Ohio. The temporary success of some of the actors, the disappointment of many, and the humiliation of others, so dazzled or confused the beholders of the scene that it was a mystery for three generations. At last, the dust has been shaken from unsuspected and forgotten documents and manuscripts that tell a pitiful tale of both State and National ingratitude, for which only tardy and inadequate requittal has been made. While St. Clair was lured from his high position in Eastern society by a worthy ambition to be known as the founder of future States, others came to found immense personal estates in the cheap lands from which they expected immeasurable profit. The chance to hasten this profit, through the power to lay out counties, fix the county seats, and locate other points of vantage, was so obvious and tempting, and so easily warped to suit every locality, that discussion ended in bitter dissension. The condition had been sharply defined by the Governor in a letter from Cincinnati, where he was living, to Massie and others, under date of June 29, 1798. The proclamation of Adams county was highly pleasing to Massie, who also desired that the county seat should be Manchester, which he had founded, and fostered with incredible courage, which was the largest settlement, and where he held much of the land that would be made more desirable. If this were all, sympathy for the founder would be complete. But Manchester was far from central. During the Governor's absence on .an Eastern trip, Secretary Sargent, as acting Governor, as provided in the Ordinance of '87, appointed a commission which reported the mouth of Brush Creek, where a town was laid out and called Adamsville, as the county seat. Under Massie's masterful leadership, the judges for the county refused to go to "Scant," as Adamsville was nicknamed, and held their court at Manchester. To St. Clair, this was a violation of law by those CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 273 sworn to administer the law ; and, therefore, he wrote : "Your transaction .. .. has, indeed, astonished me .. as contrary to every principle of good order. .. .. Where there are conflicting opinions on the subject, investigation and deliberation are necessary." Massie did not accept the reproof kindly and planned with other large landholders to rule or ruin those who stood in their way. No open hostility marked the first session of that General Assembly, which proceeded on the lines set forth in the Governor's Message. No man can write a better exposition of the purpose of his eventful life than St. Clair hits unconsciously placed in the conclusion of that message. After the brilliant service, the high honor, the great wrong, and the cold neglect, that make his fame, no one can point to an act that is beneath the lofty ideal for which he gave life and fortune : "The providing for and the regulating the lives and morals of the present and the rising generations. for the repression of vice and inmorality, for the protection of virtue and innocence, for the security of property and the punishment of crime, is a sublime employment. Every aid in my power will be afforded, and I hope we shall bear in mind that the character and deportment of the people and their happiness, both here and hereafter, depend very much• upon the genius and spirit of their laws." The formation of counties was tested by passing six bills each to establish a county of which that between the Little Miami River and Adams county was named "Henry," with the seat of justice at "Denham's Town." The name for the orator, Patrick Henry, fixes the origin of that scheme at Chillicothe which was as largely from Virginia as Marietta from New England or Cincinnati from about New York. The Territory was sometimes divided into "Upper," "Middle" and "Lower" districts, and some said "The Eastern, Middle and Western Settlements." Among these a strife for the state house was taking form. The people everywhere, were dividing on party lines, with many uncertain which way to start. William Henry Harrison was chosen delegate to Congress by one vote over Arthur St. Clair, Jr. Then, on December 19, 1799, the first session of the Assembly closed. The Governor vetoed the six county bills. The designation of Denhamstown for the county 274 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES seat proves that Lytle was not promoting "Henry" county, but that he was with the Cincinnati faction, as the defenders of the Governor were styled. The land owners grew less and less punctilious and soon omitted no chance in their frequent meeting with the people to calumniate the "Old Tyrant" as they termed the venerable patriot whose chief offense was a steadfast purpose to protect the public from their rapacity. For the time, that rapacity was artfully hidden by the old, and ever new, but always plausible device of noble zeal for the individual welfare of the people, of whom some came to believe that they were wrongfully restrained in their growth and grossly deprived of justice. It all seems trivial now, since the actors have ceased from troubling to establish a landed aristocracy, that crumbled at the will of the people they sought to delude. But it was very serious then, and criticism pro and con was loud and long in the log taverns to which every traveler brought a newer tale colored by the fancy of the speaker, and strengthened by the spirits from the bar. The discussion was almost entirely oral ; for a newspaper came so seldom and lasted so long that it could be read backwards by those who knew it so well, that it made no odds whether they held the paper up or down. The Virginians holding undisputed sway through the Scioto settlements were led by Massie and Worthington. After the adjournment of the Legislature in December, 1799, Worthington went as their agent to lobby Congress, against St. Clair, who had written on May 28 advising the division of the Territory into three parts, having Marietta as the seat of government for all east of the Scioto, Cincinnati for all between the Scioto and a line due north from the mouth of the Kentucky River, and Vincennes for all farther west, until the increase of population should determine a better plan. This hastened the Statehood of Ohio, for Worthington, through political favor, pulled both ways to Chillicothe, while Harrison obtained all west of the line due north from the mouth of the Great Miami, to be known as the Territory of Indiana, of which he was named Governor. Flushed with partial but great success, Massie filed charges against St. Clair, of which the active part was hatred, and Worthington worked his might CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 275 to prevent the reappointment of St. Clair, whose term was to expire December 9, 1800. In accordance with the change, all the government people "went up" from Cincinnati and elsewhere to Chillicothe on November 2 for the second session of the Legislature. The all absorbing question of new counties was the pivot around which all other intrigues revolved. The legislators in terms revealing their zeal insisted on their authority. The Governor, with perfect punctilio, interposed his prerogative. The region best entitled to recognition, as a county, was east of the Little Miami. Massie's junto conspired to delay legislation till the Governor's term should be done, when, as they planned, Secretary Byrd, a sympathetic Virginian, would become the Acting Governor. St. Clair discovered the plot and blasted it, as if by a stroke of lightning, with a message on Tuesday, December 2, announcing to the legislators that their work would cease on December 9, for, on that day his term would expire, and it was a case not provided for by law that Mr. Byrd could be his successor. Mere words hardly sufficed the baffled intrignants in expressing their wrath, upon which St. Clair poured no balm on the following Saturday, the 6th, by proclaiming the new county of Clermont, with Williamsburg as the seat of justice, in spite of their threats to fill every court with their protest, which so intimidated the brave old General that, on the following Tuesday, he instituted the county of Fairfield by a proclamation that the legislators could read on their way home. The boundary of Clermont was from the mouth of Eagle Creek down the Ohio to the mouth of Nine Mile, thence straight to the mouth of the East Fork on the Little Miami, then up the Little Miami to the mouth of O'Bannon Creek, thence due east to the intersection of a line due north from the mouth of Eagle Creek, including all of the county of Clermont and much the larger part of the county of Brown, as they are now known. In a letter still preserved, dated at Williamsburg, December 3, 1800, addressed to William Lytle, and carried by horse to Chillicothe, William Perry reports : "Result of Enumeration ; Number of Male Inhabitants between the Little Miami and 276 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES Eagle Creek, between 16 and 26 is 217; and all above 26 is 313, making 53o; not counting those above the mouth of the East Fork up the Miami. They must be 15o." The report of a male population of 680 "above 16" was no doubt the basis of the Governor's proclamation of the county three days later. That this enumeration, a strictly personal enterprise, was fairly taken, is proved by subsequent official reports. The county of Old Clermont thus came to life in the midst of an almost hand-to-hand struggle for supremacy between the gray-haired dignity of Revolutionary patriotism, and the young spirit of aggression that would have dug down the antique mountains of precedent to fill the harbors of conservatism, as ruthlessly as it turned the forests to ashes on the field of progress. No sterner conflict of ideas has ever surged through the official circles of Ohio than that which marked the dawn of its Statehood. This turmoil was all the more personal because the aggressive faction was not trammeled by the unwritten laws that, however intangible or inperceptible, still certainly control the strategy of a long established political party. Without regard to the future alignment of the actors with the Federalists or the Jeffersonian Republicans, the issue then was intensely local and personal on the part of those who made the uproar. It is idle to assert that St. Clair did not understand the famous Ordinance of '87, that was enacted by the Congress of which he was President, and thereby the Presiding Citizen of the Continent. The same Congress elected him to administer the sacred behests of that celebrated constitution. Not a line of proof has survived to show that the great Governor either magnified or belittled a jot or tittle of its provisions, which he executed under Washington for eight years, and for four years more under John Adams, by whom he was reappointed, February 3, 1801, for three years longer. While the affair has had only little attention, there is ample proof that his proclamation of Clermont county was the event that marked the total divergence between St. Clair and those who drove him with righteous claims unpaid into unjust poverty beyond the State that will be a monument to his virtues long after the names of his detractors shall have otherwise ceased to provoke the curiosity of the most bookish anti- CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 277 quary. But however deep the regret for the misfortunes of the noble Governor, the gallant General, and the most suave gentleman of the Revolution, every true son of her hills must rejoice that something hindered the misplaced name of Henry. Although the record is lost the origin of the fittest name possible is not hard to find. His names for counties before had been chosen to compliment his brother patriots, until he may have had a thought that frequent repetition might grow stale, or he may have been reluctant to throw the name of a friend into the doubtful strife. But whatever the motive, his choice was one of such fitness as warrants the belief that it was suggested by personal observation. St. Clair was proud of his martial Norman name, and with voice or pen easily used the French tongue with a skill and sweetness that proved he felt its song and romance. He had often seen the waving hills of green through dripping oars, or mounted their dim blue crest with bridle rein in hand, and he knew the fact, all but forgotten now, that, perhaps a hundred years before, the trading voyageurs, gone as he would go, had drifted after the retreating sun or urged the toilsome return to the dawn, lulling their rest and cheering the task with genial songs of ',a Belle Revere and Clairmont. It is regretful that he did not follow tie old French spelling which would have linked his own name with the genius of Grant. Thus the first steps in the political life of the county were taken in the first days of the Nineteenth Century, amid the angry protests of a raging faction ; but when the dismissed legislators returned home, the people accepted the new privileges and were governed accordingly. The part performed by William Lytle was found not in words, but in results. His affiliations were with the Cincinnatians, generally friendly to the Governor ; and his reward was the control of Clermont, of which he was appointed to the chief office of Prothonotary or Clerk, to or from whom all writs came or went, and by whom all records were made or kept. His agent, or in the style of this day, his private secretary, William Perry, was appointed sheriff. Owen Todd, a brother of Colonel Robert Todd, Lytle's much loved brother-in-law, was appointed the senior justice of the peace, and thereby became the presiding judge of the 278 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES court of quarter sessions, before which the Governor's son, Arthur St. Clair, Jr., and a soon to be brother-in-law of Lytle, had the honor, as what we call prosecuting attorney, in August, 1801, of addressing the first petit jury in the county This patriarchal administration of government by families has had several repetitions in Brown and Clermont counties, but none that show such a close communion of interest. Lytle plainly knew what he wanted and how it should be got. However perplexing the formation of the county may have been to the old Governor, the event was full of satisfaction for the surveyor thus placed in his thirty-first year in the position that fulfilled his designs and promised abundant wealth from the honorable enterprise of promoting the settlement of his chosen portion of the Land of the Blue Limestone and the Home of the Blue Grass. The newly found county, shortly before, had become the residence of two men, of whom one came to begin and the other to continue a most superior influence over affairs, both at home and abroad. Thomas Morris, born in Pennsylvania, January 3, 1776, was the fifth of the twelve children of Isaac and Ruth Henton Morris. When the father died, in 1830, at the age of ninety-one, after sixty years' service as a Baptist preacher, their descendants had reached the number of three hundred. The family has trended westward, with many marks of hardy ancestry, and many states have been thereby benefitted. The most illustrious of the connection was, and is, Thomas, who came to Columbia in 1795, and began as a clerk for Rev. John Smith, another Baptist preacher of much note, an active member of the Territorial Legislatures, and the first United States Senator from Ohio. Among Smith's activities was a general store, where young Morris probably learned that he, too, could aspire to political honors. On. November 29, 1797, Morris married Rachel, a daughter of Benjamin and Mary Davis, who were two of the nine members that started the Columbia Baptist church, the first church organized in the Northwest Territory. With such training towards the Baptist faith, Morris moved to Williamsburg in June, 1800, to keep tavern in a row of cabins fronting on Broadway, on Lots 275, 277 and 279. He was a tall, strong, fine looking man, with swarthy cheeks, dark, CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 279 searching eyes, and a noble mind, that then, in his twenty-fifth year, was meditating the course that finally made him a link from which depends a stupendous chain of events in the story of Liberty. During his second visit to the East, which was made in 1797-8, William Lytle, having fond the "one to keep him at home" all that his fancy had painted, was married in Philadelphia, on February 28, 1798, to Miss Elizabeth Stall, whom he formerly described in a letter of that time to his brother, John, as "A young lady of good family and respectability in this city." The same letter gives a rather gloomy view of his long absence, still to be extended, because of the "raskality" with which he had to contend. Upon his return, in the summer of that year, his affairs were complicated by the death of his father, so that he had little chance and probably less inclination for looking after the first Ohio election. The father's death decided the removal of the family to Williamsburg. The "Public Vendue" of the estate lasted seven days. A letter shows that the removal to Ohio had been accomplished before August 10, 1800. The people who came with himself and wife were his mother, brother John, and sister Elizabeth. Well preserved receipts, given on a settlement of accounts February 12, 1801, show that William Campbell, James Arthur, Thornton Moss and George Galbreath, were paid $30 each, "for hauling four loads of goods from Lexington, Ky., to Williamsburg, 0." Each of these four so liked the country that he came to stay. But Peter Oitzel charged $31 and 5 shillings for ferriage, and was heard of no more. This payment of $151:00 for moving five loads a bird's flight of seventy-five miles, was not looked upon at that time as a subject for historic remark, yet no unusual imagination is needed to construct a comparison between then and now. Some of the work in the saw mill, early in 1799, was to get out the material for a frame house that was built somewhat up the hill, southwest from the foot of Front street, which was the first frame house in the new county, and was occupied by John, Elizabeth and their mother. The site of the Lytle home, still standing, was named "Harmony Hill," upon which work was immediately begun. The brothers, Daniel and John Kain, were paid $48 for clearing four and three-fourth acres 280 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES about the house. Their father, James Kain, on contract, received "400 acres on Clover Lick Creek" for clearing eighty acres of the farm by the rising home. The first part of the building, that was finished two years later, was one-story, made of sawed logs, covered without, and ceiled within with fine poplar lumber. The interior was then lathed with riven strips and plastered, the first mention of plastering in the county. On October 14, 15, 16, 1800, at an election held in Cincinnati, William Lytle was chosen, by a vote of 153 over 146 for Francis Dunlavy, to fill the remainder of the term made vacant in the Legislature by the removal of Aaron Caldwell from the Territory. The election, according to the custom then, was held at the court house by the Sheriff from 10 a. m. to 5 p. m., and might be prolonged three days. A letter dated November 10, 180o, states : "Mr. Charles is working," and "Mr. Howard by spells." Howard was the pioneer who gave the name still in use for a very deep pond in the East Fork, and of him nothing more has been found. But "Mr. Charles" was John Charles, the first stone mason in the county. His chief work in 1800 was the stone building known as the "Land Office." Many incidents in the intense mental and physical activity of more than forty years of business, with all sorts of people, confirm the estimate that William Lytle had no disposition to gain and hoard idle dollars. His ambition craved. a vast estate, which he founded in the midst of a not easily imagined physical and personal peril, at an age when most of youths incline to "Caper nimbly in a lady's chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute." As he attained financial opportunities, he spent money as generously as he had freely and bravely risked his life in the raids on the border, not blindly, but with a keen understanding of the desired purpose. Having reached the reputation of a large landowner and dealer, he appreciated the advantage of a prosperous appearance. The business could have been done in a cabin. But he was planning to have the prestige of the Prothonotary of the new county, which would be en- CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 281 hanced by a stable aspect. Therefore, while the four rooms of solid, sawed-log walls were taking the shape that some, in this day, would call a bungalow, "Mr. Charles" was finishing the still more important office for Lytle's personal work, and for the public records of the county, that were made and kept there until succeeded by the buildings on the Public Square, nine years later. This "Old Stone Land Office," so far as I have learned, is the oldest stone structure still standing in Ohio. The amount of business transacted within its walls may be judged from the "Lytle Papers," which show that over two hundred acres were sold and bought there in one year. The office was aligned with Second Street, but the house some yards away, as the home of a surveyor, was "set with the compass," overlooking the fine southward sweep of bottom land that the proprietor chose from all his many thousand acres for his own plantation. The plan included a two-story main frame building, filled between the framework with brick, not to be had until 1802, but that is another story. Then, John Charles, for his "work on Harmony Hill," received in part, on account of $801, a deed for two hundred and thirty-one acres, in Young's Survey, 2055, on the most northerly stretch of Stonelick Creek, in Stonelick township, where he, "Mr. Charles," built a superior two-story, hewed-log house, chinked with stone and lime mortar,, and still standing as a rare example of that style of pioneer building. The place became the home of the pioneer, Zebina Williams, and is now owned by his grandson, Albert Williams. The house has melancholy interest, as long being the home of the mother of Lydia Osborne, the Lost Child, whose story may be conveniently found by most readers in the section given to Clermont county in Howe's Historical Collections of Ohio. After the death of Ebenezer Osborne, broken hearted because of his daughter Lydia's tragic disappearance, Mrs. Osborne, her mother, became the wife of John Charles. While living in old age in the Stonelick home, a stranger, who had wandered westward as a trapper or trader, told of having seen a white woman with Indians once, living about Muncietown, who said that she had been found by them, when lost in the woods. The tale awakened the sorrow of the aged mother, so that some of her sons took up the trail of the tribe and found 282 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES the woman, who answered to her name, and remembered their mother to their satisfaction that she was their lost sister. She had been found near "Lydia's Camp," in Perry township, by a passing band and taken to their village, where she had grown up as one of their own, and taken an Indian husband. She was interested in the story of her family and wanted to see her mother. But she resolutely refused to leave her own children and the friends who had done much to relieve her misfortune. Against all persuasion, she decided not to visit her mother and revive emotions that must have ended in deeper sorrow for all. She accepted her fate, from which there was no escape. The sorry story was taken to the mother, whose grief was soon to cease. The tribe also soon went beyond the Mississippi. At a time when the press gave scant notice to local happenings, the discovery of the family was not mentioned. In fact, they were more inclined to conceal than to disclose or renew their trouble. The printed accounts of the. Lost Lydia all close with the sentence : "The lost was never found." Whether the sequel, as it was told to me by Thomas Sloane, a grandson of Mrs. Osborne-Charles, strengthens or weakens the tragic interest of the story of the Lost Child, is a question about which opinion may well and easily differ. Among -others who came with Lytle, or soon followed him from Lexington, was Roger W. Waring, and his sister, Dorcas, who was to be a living link with the present. Others doubtless were a part of the population at the new county seat in territorial days for brief periods. But one family that came to make much mark was that of Nicholas and Margaret Pence Sinks, who came from Rockingham county, Virginia, to Newtown, in 1797, to follow tanning, and then to Williamsburg, in 1801, for the same purpose. Richard Hall came from Pennsylvania to be one of the garrison at Gerard's Station, where he was said to be in command. From a sketch of that station, his title is not clear. But he came to Stonelick township in 1800 and was addressed by all as "Captain." Some of the Fletchers were at Covalt's Station, as told on previous pages, and some at Gerard's Station, to which the people, once at least, retreated from Covalt's. From this combination, William, David and Jesse Fletcher came to Stonelick township and were neighbors of Hall. The Fisher family, now prom- CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 283 inent in Clinton, can trace back to Adam Fisher, who settled in Washington township, where he raised a son, David, who was a member of Congress in 1847-48, while living in Clinton county. Thomas Jones, a Revolutionary soldier, and a brother-in-law of Adam Fisher, settled there at the same time. Christopher Armacost came from Maryland in 1801 to that vicinity, and raised a large family. Thomas West came in 1801 from forty miles south of Alexandria, Virginia, with five sons and two daughters, to improve a large tract southwest of Bethel. Shortly after, John Colthar and four sons came from New Jersey to begin the first settlement in the northwest corner of Clark township. In 1801 Robert Curry began a clearing south of what is Georgetown. One of his sons, William, was a sheriff of Clermont county. Henry Ralston came the next year. Henry Zumatt, who was later to be a colonel, came from Kentucky in 1801, to make a home about one mile south of New Hope. Issachar Davis and Jonathan Moore came to Pleasant township in 1801 or 2. James and Charles Waits settled in 1802 on Four-Mile Creek, in Sterling township. Nathan and Jane Stewart Wood came from that camping place on the westward march of many families, Washington county, Pennsylvania, to their since continuous stay in Brown county. Isaac Reed settled near Bethel, whence his descendants soon took homes farther north, on both sides of the present county line. Thomas Brady was the first of a family in Brown that dates from 180o. John and Elanor West were among the first in Byrd township, where, by one account, they came in 1798, and certainly not much later. In 1801, John Brown came over from Kentucky and located on Upper Straight Creek. Others followed Lytle's imposing train of five wagons and went farther westward to the valley of the East Fork : and some crossed the Miami from Symme's Purchase, looking for more and cheaper acres ; and others came from the East, where the call of the West was beginning to be heard. Maryland lost two brothers, Daniel and William South, who added much to Miami township and then more eastward, as their descendants traveled up the valley of that "Fork of the Miami." In a study of "The Olden Time," the common recurrence of names in different localities suggests the question of ,a common origin. This is more 284 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES likely to happen if the name is otherwise somewhat uncommon. There is nothing to show that James and John Prickett, heretofore mentioned pioneers of Franklin township, in Brown, were relatives of John and Isaiah Prickett, who brought families to Union township in Clermont county, or that any of them were connected with the Revolutionary soldier, Josiah Prickett, who established his family in Stonelick township. Yet the supposition of a common origin is not improbable, for they all came from Pennsylvania to Old Clermont, between 1798 and 1801 ; and well authenticated instances of similar migrations of even larger connections are not unusual. But every such trace is lost and their descendants meet as strangers. Christopher Hartman, a Revolutionary soldier from New Jersey, came to be a neighbor of the Dickey brothers, in Jackson township, Clermont county, in 1801, then in his fifty-second year. His descendants gave his name to one of the largest "Reunions" in the northern townships of Brown and Clermont counties. One of Hartman's neighbors was Ichabod Willis, who came to Williamsburg in 1801, and after five years made a final home in Jackson township, in Clermont. Another neighbor was William Hunter, who was the first man on record to bring a wagon through from the East over Zane's and Donnell's Trace to Williamsburg, where he arrived November 1, 1798. The same wagon then went to the mouth of Bullskin, to bring his family up north through Denhamstown over the Trace that was soon to be the Round Bottom Road. Other wagons may have preceded Hunter's over one or both of these roads, but such a fact has not been noted. The incident has peculiar value in fixing a date for the use of that historic highway. In Byrd township and all to the north and west that was a part of Adams county, notwithstanding the early protection and prestige of the fort at Manchester, the occupation seems to have been still slower. The actual settlement of the chief landholder, General Nathaniel Beaseley, is not certain ; but he laid out the town of St. Clairsville—now Decatur—and built the first house there in 1802. The name was changed because of the prior and larger claim of St. Clairsville, the seat of justice for Belmont county. General Beaseley intended his town CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 285 to be the county seat of Adams county, as a compromise in the contention for that honor between the Manchester and Adamsville or "Scant" factions. But the course. of such empire took the way that went to West Union, and all that section of Old Adams became a part of Brown. Henry Knox settled on the East Fork of Eagle Creek in 1796. In 1801, Stephen Reynolds fixed his home far up on the West Fork of Eagle Creek, south of Carlisle. John and Margaret Wright, of Virginia, came from Lexington, Kentucky, with seven children, in 1801, and opened a large farm north of. Decatur. James Moore had come from Pennsylvania still earlier to Byrd township, where his son, James, Jr., born in 1800, was the first native child in that part of what is Brown county. Before Ohio was a State, the Abbotts planned to settle on the upper course of Straight Creek, where John Abbott came in 1800, some time ahead of the rest. Abraham Shepherd settled in what is Jefferson township in 1802, and became a man of much note in the war of '12 and in civil life. Stephen Pangburn, Silas Bartholomew, and Isaac Washburn came to that township about that time. Mordecai Winters brought his family in 1795 from Virginia to Lexington, Kentucky, when he followed Lytle in 1800, and stopped in the southern part of Williamsburg township. In 1801 his oldest son, William Winters, came with his wife, Nancy, and their oldest son, John, to a tract of eight hundred acres on Upper Indian Creek, in the southern part of Tate township, between Bethel and what is now Felicity. There he was soon joined by Mordecai, with his younger brothers and sisters. And that was the beginning of settlement in that large scope. About the same time, Mordecai's brother, James Winters, settled on upper Clover, in Tate township. Both of these homes in time held large families that spread across the line, and also made the name of Winters frequent and honorable in Brown county. David and Daniel Snell, brothers, from Maryland, settled in 1801 on Donnell's Trace to Chillicothe, a mile and a half east of Williamsburg. David was killed in the battle of Lundy's Lane. Daniel married Edna Malott and of their eight children, Holly Ann married Thompson Smith, who were the parents of Adella, the wife of Joseph Harvey Smith, of Williamsburg. Peter M., a son of Daniel, married Kate McAdams, 286 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES and their son, Oscar, achieved the fine distinction of being for a series of years the editor-in-chief of "The American Inventor," one of the leading scientific periodicals of his time. While such duty was performed elsewhere his ability deserves mention in the land of his birth. Oscar Snell was born December 9, 1849, in Williamsburg, where his schooling hardly reached the ordinary amount of the rudimentary branches, until his seventeenth year gave a chance to study philosophy, astronomy, botany and geology, as explained in the ponderous volumes of that day. Then and at once the boy, hungry for the unexplained reason of everything, glowed with an innate perception of natural phenomena, that easily passed all competition. Before manhood took the place of boyish grace, he could minutely describe the notable achievements of mechanism. His life was given to scientific books. His energy shunned no detail, and he dreamed large designs as he turned from recorded knowledge to the field of invention. But the genial currents of his thought were chilled by conditions, for which he was not responsible. The struggle for existence in Williamsburg became the foundation for much larger employment. Knowing the need of written expression, he studied the pages of the masters and acquired a rapid, vigorous command of words to tell what he wished others to know. At last the chance came, even beyond his expectation. On Saturday, September 3, 1885, he relinquished the lever of a saw mill, and on the following Monday took up the editorial charge of the American Inventor, a promotion without a parallel in recent literature. For big business reasons nothing was said of his antecedents at the time, for which he cared nothing in the whirling haste of new duties. After three years of able, successful writing, he accepted larger pay as a designer for a large machine-making company. With still larger plans, he was accepted in Chicago as an expert mechanical advisor. As such he received fees that would have seemed fabulous in his earlier, and perhaps happier, manhood. In addition to a large personal consulting practice, he had a fine stated salary as the special expert of the Automatic Electric Company, which regarded him as the foremost man of his kind. In every relation, he was an inventor—an improver—to whom the world is debtor for scores of useful devices. CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 287 While he had the magic wand of skill, he lacked the touch of gold. To those who measure success with dollar marks he was a failure, for his large earnings vanished and he left no fortune. To him an invention accomplished was like a charming story that gives the mind a keener desire for stranger novelty. He delighted in discovery and let others plan the profit. This counts as folly with careful souls. It seems different to such as enjoy the ardent chase more than the glutton feast. However much he may have felt or deplored his inaptness for the prudential paths of finance, he was fully conscious of his superb ability, which, as he knew, is far more rare than wealth. This pride tended less to arrogance and more to a seclusion that had more of sorrow than scorn. He could not bring the mass to his height of information, and he would not go to their level. His study, filled with costly books, became, except in office hours, the retreat where he lived in the lonely reading that made his fine memory a living cyclopedia of historic and scientific learning. Friends once enjoyed with gladness, vainly offered their homes to win him from the solitude in which he was found lifeless on April 11, I905, after a day's absence from his accustomed walks. It is told that he grew to be strangely gentle in this loneliness, where his strong mentality must have contemplated the oblivion against which he once strove with exulting ambition. Be that as it was, none can dispute the fact that, as a master of the useful arts, as a scientific editor, and as a prolific inventor, Oscar Snell stands first among all who have gone from Old Clermont. In 1802, except for the need or fancy of a hunter or camping traveler, not a stick had been cut from all the heavy forest between the "Big Field" by Williamsburg and Jacob Moyer's cabin on the upper O'Bannon by Goshen. Into that wide solitude, Conrad Harsh, a gentle, quiet, but persevering man, came from Pennsylvania in that year and went out on the Round Bottom Road to the site of what is known as Boston, but is officially named Owensville. His clearing soon included a log shop for his trade as a blacksmith—the first one mentioned in Clermont. There may have been, indeed, must have been, others before him, but no previous name as such has been handed down. Christopher Gist's Journal, an official authority, tells that on Christmas Day, 1750, he foun Thomas 288 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES Burney settled as a blacksmith among the Delaware Indians at Newcomerstown, on the "Muskingom," with several other white people working for the Indians, who entreated him to stay and instruct them in better modes of living. Going one hundred and forty miles farther west, Gist found "Mr. Henry," a white man, settled in the Shawnee town near Xenia, three hundred and fifty miles west of the Forks of the Ohio, where Fort Pitt, of Braddock's Defeat, was yet to be. Such incidents suggest that those who came to live along the creeks by the Ohio, or at Denhamstown, or Williamsburg, were not behind the Indians in needing smith work, but there is nothing before the coming of Harsh to show how or by whom it was done. Tradition claims that Harsh made the first "grain cradles," the all but forgotten "harvester" of the pioneers, used in Western Clermont. His improvements marked the fork of the road northward from the Round Bottom Road, and toward Lebanon by a crossing on the Miami called Deerfield, a name especially appropriate to the vicinity where Gist saw the deer and buffalo like cattle in a settled region. Conrad Harsh married Eva Hockensmith, who died in 1801, and then he married Nancy Hockensmith. An elder sister, Mary Hockensmith, was married to Benjamin Whitmore, and they came and settled with their brother-in-law, Harsh. When these humble, useful people died, their names also disappeared, but their influence lasted longer. John Pattison, with two children and a brother, William, came from near Dublin, Ireland, to America, where the third child. named William, Jr., was born, in 1768. After service in the Revolutionary Army, these patriotic immigrants came to the frontier of that day in Washington county, Pennsylvania, whence, in 1792, they followed the Ohio down to Limestone Point and Fort Kenton, and to a final home near Augusta, Kentucky, where they both reached the age of one hundred and three years. The sons and daughters of both married with names that became household memories in Old Clermont. The first to come over the Ohio was William Pattison, Jr., married in 1790 to Martha Bodel, who bore nine children, of whom John Pattison, Jr., the first of the four in Kentucky, was born, in 1792. In 1802 William Pattison, Jr., brought his family to Miami township, and, in 1803, to his permanent CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 289 home near Conrad Harsh, where his wife died in 1810. In 1812 he married Ann Hamilton, the mother of five more, making fourteen children for the father, who, in turn, added largely to the county. In 1814 John Pattison, Jr., married Mary, the elder daughter of Benjamin and Mary Hockensmith Whitmore, and became the father of eight children. Of them, the second son was born in 1819, and was the third in the American line to receive the name, William. That William married Mary Duckwall. Of their' children, it was my happy fortune in the former "select school" days to become the boyhood and lifelong friend of Louis A. and John M. Pattison. The progression of the lively, friendly, attentive and straightforward Louis into a prosperous and successful merchant went the course expected by his associates. The future of the bright, affable and studious John, whose busy ways left no time for idle mischief, was not so apparent. A score of years was to pass before companions realized that he was winning 'a place among the favorites of fortune. The large family and his father's small store mainly kept to help against much competition in a trade for small farm products did not promise much aid for the college course he wanted to take. Such use was made of the chances at home by his eighteenth year that a teacher's certificate was gained, and a school through a fall, winter and spring was taught two miles from his father's home in Owensville, out on the Deerfield Road toward Williamsburg. Whatever work was found to do when school was "out" was done with a mighty purpose. Meanwhile, in his sixteenth year, in 1864, in the extreme need of the campaign that was urging toward Appomattox, he volunteered in the One Hundred and Fifty-third Ohio infantry, and served with that regiment in Virginia, where he took priceless lessons in discipline and patriotism. "With gear gathered by ev'ry wile That's justified by honor," he entered the Ohio Wesleyan University, and was graduated in the full, classical course, made still more profitable by teaching now and then while studying always. This was fol- 290 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES lowed by a course in law, most intently read while acting as superin tendent of the Higginsport schools. While there, his friends included every teacher, met in Brown county. He made friends everywhere, not by magic, but by a simple, gentle, kindly, unaffected manner that disarmed rivalry and made its weapons harmless. His first election was a tribute from friendship that was stronger than party restraint. When admitted to the bar, he went at once into the strong competition of Cincinnati, where, with the first chance, he was nominated for the General Assembly, in which a membership would mean much to the unknown young lawyer. Then, as now•, there were many young men in the city from Brown and Clermont in all sorts of business. Of these a considerable number, otherwise in opposition to his party, conferred and agreed that they would "give Johnnie" their best help at the polls. As a result, "the new man from Clermont" lead his ticket in Hamilton county and was safely elected. That personal interest which placed the man above his party was manifest in more than a normal vote, whenever his name was up. That vote came not from a thoughtless kindness, but from men Who followed moral standards as high as his own. While in college at Delaware, an acquaintance with Alethea, a daughter of the great linguist, Professor William G. Williams, became the guiding star of his life. While their marriage attained an ideal of domestic felicity, it also prepared the way of financial opportunity, not through the wealth, which was only moderate, but through the social help of Professor Williams. The Union Central Insurance Company, organized in 1867 as a protective philanthropy for and by influential, yet often financially unfortunate ministers of the Methodist Episcopal church, through correct management and obvious utility rapidly exceeded the intention, but not the control, of those who founded the enterprise. Prominent among those founders, all personal friends, was Professor Williams, with the added, but scarcely needed, influence of several near relatives in the management. The modest company rated in 1868 in the first official report at one hundred and thirty-three thousand two hundred and ninety-eight dollars and eighty-nine cents, has grown in forty-four years to be Ohio's largest financial institution, with total admitted assets officially stated at CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 291 ninety-three millions fifty-three thousand six hundred and thirteen dollars and ninety-nine cents. When and where this 'sea of success seemed a mere local basin, student Pattison cast his effort for the sake of immediate profits to be used in getting the education that youth is apt to consider an end rather than the beginning of earnest life. It is much to believe that he had any perception how those efforts would be tided back when even the leaders were building larger than they knew. He wrote policies to pay his way, and unconsciously learned the market side of the business to come. By the time he was ready, the growing insurance company had money to invest, titles to be searched, claims to be enforced, and rights to defend. For some promised share in this, young Lawyer Patti-son settled in Cincinnati. He edited the news of the courts. Whatever he undertook was done with a diligence and finish that secured more work. Although rather slight than strong, he seemed to have no sense of fatigue. In those early city days, he delighted, in passing Sunday at his Owensville home, then reached by an omnibus to and from Milford, ten miles away. In good weather he left the city on a train too late for the "Bus," and walked the entire distance. On Monday morning he walked back to Milford, frequently in time for an earlier train, refusing any help and declaring that it did him good and gave him about the only chance he had to think alone. "What do you think about at such times?" he was suddenly asked in a jocular way. "How I can get to be Governor of Ohio," was the equally unexpected answer. "Are you in earnest?" "I'll not be satisfied without it," said the young man, who was looking more than thirty years ahead. There, the incident closed, but was remembered by both, when the prospect seemed much nearer. With personal prosperity in sight, Pattison claimed his bride and, as the insurance company prospered, friends and relatives in the management retained his service almost exclusive of other affairs. Happily for political probabilities and fitting with fairer prospects, he returned to Clermont county and bought the property by Milford, known as "Promont," by whose shadows he had taken the long and lonely, late and early walks only a few years before. In this finest 292 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES home in Brown and Clermont counties, he was suddenly calker to act as their State Senator by the death of Judge Thomas Quinn Ashburn. While serving that duty, he was elected to Congress. But the Union Central that had fostered his steady growth soon reclaimed him for the exacting duties of its president, at a salary that, in his faith, commanded his utmost attention. Yet the position and his success made him a mark for other duties that could not be honorably avoided. His actions and opinions could not be separated from the moral Forces of the great institution that he had helped to form and was controlling. After ten years of non-political life, yet, not without some study of how his youthful ambition could be attained, he was chosen to be Governor of Ohio, by a vote marvelously exceeding the strength of the ticket that hoped to win under his name. It was remarkable among many notable elections in Ohio ; and, according to his own frankly avowed ambition, he should have been "satisfied." But it was all strangely, darkly different from the youthful dream. The incessant activity of an intensely motive temperament had exhausted all but the last thread of vitality. He was barely able to take the oath that made him Governor, and then he was carefully taken to his beautiful "Promont." The nation mourned the weakness that hindered him from standing on the height so worthily won. In Ohio during the winter and spring of 1906, his decline was watched with a painful interest that no success could have gained. Three of her great men, Harrison, Garfield and McKinley, and Lincoln, too, had been taken from the summit of power amid the protests of universal sorrow that they could not stay to enjoy the reward and confidence of a grateful country. Each of these, more or less, had tested the sweets of authority. But after a long and patient search of the way to the top of his ,ambition, Governor Pattison, having scarcely heard the shouting of his captains, was turned to tread a lingering path to death. After the ardent race was run, the General Assembly, the great judges, the executive officials and many of the chief citizens of Ohio came with a vast array of thousands under arms and formed in a stately march between heavy walls of home friends, as they went by and beyond "Promont" to bury CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 293 him in the lovely sadness of Green Lawn, where the Mound Builders once revelled and worshiped or paraded and perished. John M. Pattison, the only Governor of Ohio born in and elected from Old Clermont, was an evolution of a hundred years in that region. Political prophecy is usually based on what is hoped. Still, it is little to say that such example is apt to inspire emulation, and, as to other ambitions, it is safe to add that probably not one of the exceedingly numerous boyhood kin would have honored his early meditations upon future greatness. That he would have made a strong Governor is to be inferred from the survival of tendencies impelled by his election. If any should ask, Whence that strength? the answer should include his almost incredible industry. Yet, that virtue had high price in the long adjustments of time. Under the never relaxing strain, his years did not much exceed half the span of the hardy immigrant, and fell much short of the average longevity of the other ancestors. Yet, without that industry, the quality of the work would have been lower and he would not have been called higher. CHAPTER XIII. EARLY DAYS OF THE COUNTY. Nearest Settlement to the North Line—Bugler William Sloane —The King of the Hay Haulers—The Price Paid for the Union by the Sloanes--Other Settlers in Territorial Times —Report on Population—Elections—Exit St. Clair—Early Courts—Log Court f louse—Thomas Morris' Taverns—Formation of Townships—Roads—Thomas Morris—Log Jail—The End of Territorial Times and the Beginning of Statehood. One of the justly treasured gems of literature from the pen of Lincoln, the poetic President, is the letter of sublime consolation to Mrs. Bixby, of Boston, Massachusetts, the mother of five sons, who died gloriously on the field of battle to save the Republic. Each reader may judge how far and how well the sentiment of that noble consolation can be applied to a mother and eight children whose combined education probably did not amount to thrice as many winters in the Old Stone School House built near and probably by John Charles in the north part of Stonelick township. The first settlement in what is now the northeastern part of Clermont county and in a scope that is represented by the northern parts of Goshen and Stonelick townships, and by all of Wayne township, and also by all of Brown county that is north of Four Mile in Sterling township, was made in Wayne township in 1802 by William Sloane, who had been a soldier in the Revolution and again in Wayne's Army. It was claimed that his bugle sounded Wayne's orders for the fierce charges that drove the Indians from their refuge in the Fallen Timbers on the Maumee, and thereby won that great victory for northwestern civilization. Few, perhaps none, of the once numerous family are left to confirm or doubt the stirring tradition that was rife among the many sons and daughters of William and his brother, George, who soon settled in the same neighborhood. For, when the "new country of Illinois" was "opened," the younger Sloanes 296 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES forthwith started on what was reported to be a successful search for larger farms. One, John, a son of Bugler William Sloane, having married a daughter of Mrs. Osborne—Charles, a sister of Lydia, the Lost Child, and having thereby come to possess a part of the tract that William Lytle paid for the improvement of "Harmony Hill," elected to stay in Clermont. As Cincinnati grew large with a business that had to be wagoned through the streets and to the steamboats, the demand for hay as "fuel" for the motive power made timothy the most valuable of crops on the plains and slopes of the land that should have been clothed with the herd-feasting and soil-protecting native blue grass. The vicious "farming" that took all and returned nothing while sending a yearly crop of hay to market, though profitable at the time, ranks next to the destruction of the forests among the deeply regrettable consequences of civilization in the Land of the Blue Limestone, which, with its natural growth of blue grass, under wholesome care, promised not only continuous but increasing fertility. Like some conditions of this time, all that was dimly seen by but few and practically ignored by all before and during the Civil War. In fact, one of the strongest arguments in the decade of 1850 for the extension of the "State Turnpikes" of 1830 and 1840 was the certain special increase in the value of haylands that could reach a market sure to be best when the roads were worst. It is idle to deprecate the natural craving of man to master what his hand findeth to do ; for it is his labor under the sun, which, by divine command, must be done with his might. What the captains of commerce may have honorably done in the widest fields of effort, John Sloane also did in humble ways invented by himself. Roughly calculating that if a profit could be made on one load, still more could be made on more loads, he built barns with many stalls, bought wagons and hired drivers, with which he took meadows on the shares or handled crops on commission, besides much that was bought outright. All that was frequently taken in quantities which called curious idlers to count the wagons passing to the city market, where he came to be called "The King of the Hay Haulers." Being well known, the man with calloused hands and a vice-like grip also knew the worth of a reputation or the CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 297 lack of it. His word as to the quality of a load was final, and, if, by chance, he was deceived in buying or tricked in selling a load, his wrath was something for the discovered object to remember. For he was much disposed to settle what he considered a strictly personal affair without any resort to courts. The rude and ready independence of the man was a long survival of pioneer manners, and his methods in business were a curious phase in a social state that cannot be repeated but, for the sake of the olden time, should be mentioned. Once, on a holiday, or perhaps when the market was "up," which was better, the "King," in true festal spirit, took his troop of drivers for a special "treat," where they tarried long enough for one of the waggish to slip some spoons into the coat pocket of a comrade. As they filed out, the joker lingered to tell that the youngster was getting away with a lot of silver. A hasty search of the plated ware resulted in a pursuit that easily found the spoons on the astonished victim. Notwithstanding his stoutly protested innocence, the youth was handed over to a policeman to be treated as a hardened thief in the court, where the crowd followed with Sloane in front, believing, but unable to prove, the unhappy driver's honesty. As the investigation proceeded, he was formally asked what all knew, "Where do you live, Mr. Sloane?" "In the State of Stonelick, sir." "Stonelick ! Stonelick, eh, that's noted for horse thieves, is it not?" The question at the time seemed scorching hot to the man highly wrought between his anger and the necessity for caution with the court. The fact was admitted that such people once troubled the country. "But it is forty years since we shot them out, and," with an explosive woodland oath, "I'll have you to know, Judge, Stonelick is more refined now." The sudden assertion of his strong, provincial pride, with all sincerity, caused a laughter that relieved the strain and permitted the landlord to say, that he had accepted the repentant joker's explanation of no criminal intention, and that the prosecution would rest. But the old hay hauler was right. Everything was more refined. The Nation was fighting to right the wrongs of a race. Old Clermont had furnished the victorious commander. Maligned Stonelick was nourishing the Governor for a mofal crisis. And the rude, unlettered Sloane had raised a family 298 - CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES marked for rare devotion to patriotic duty. When Grant, divined the intention of his foe at Fort Donelson and made the famous remark, "They'll be quick if they beat me now," and then gave the order for the charge that won the first great victory for the Union and made himself a Major General ; in the hour when all this happened, it was told by his comrades in that charge, that Simeon Sloane, of the Eleventh Illinois, was the first man to mount the breastworks from which he fell inside, pierced by three bayonets. Corporal William Sloane, of Company C, of the Thirty-fourth Ohio, while acting as a scout, became engaged in a race for life with a Confederate soldier on a similar mission. As he rode after the Southron, he fired a wounding shot that caused his foe to reel and stop. But, as Sloane's horse dashed by, the wounded man rallied, and fired a killing shot, after which the rebel was seen to escape, clinging to his horse's neck. This, tragic event happened on September 3, 1864, near Berryville, Virginia. Richard Sloane, of Company E, of the Thirty-fourth Ohio, after being severely wounded at the Battle of Cloyd's Mountain, Virginia, recovered and returned to duty. In the terrible Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia, he was mortally wounded, and died in the field hospital. On July 25, 1863, the youngest of the family, Josiah Sloane, a mere boy, under the boyish Captain. Joseph B. Foraker, of the Eighty-ninth Ohio, succumbed under hard marching, and died in a hospital at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The fifth and sixth of the brothers, after much arduous service, escaped the fatalities of battle, but not the ravage of disease. The husbands of their two sisters also enlisted, so that the entire fighting force of the family of the "King of the Hay Haulers," amounting to eight soldiers, was in the Union Army. Thus, the fate of the house, from the loss of Lydia, to the tragic end of four and the not remote death of all, appears an inheritance of anxiety. In 1800 Ezekiel Dimmitt gained near neighbors on the East Fork, below Batavia, by the coming of Robert, James and William Townsley and three more on' the west, Shadrach, Samuel and Robert Lane, and their three sisters. Jacob Smith settled near Williamsburg, on Crane Run, but not one of his large family can be traced. William Crouch, born in Holland in 1777, came in his twenty-fourth year to Poplar Creek, CLERMONT AND BROWN COUNTIES - 299 in Tate township. John Boggess came to the same township in 1802 and left many descendants. Jacob Stultz came to be a neighbor in southern Tate, with Mordecai Winters. John Scott of Virginia, came to Huntington township. Alexander Martin was named in 1799 as one of the commissioners for the purpose of fixing on the most eligible place for the seat of justice in "Henry County." He was probably of that family at Ripley, but no other trace has been found. Hugh and Joseph McKibben came north on the Trace from the Bullskin landing about 1800 and raised large families that must be sought elsewhere. Zadock Watson also settled then near the site of the future Felicity. John Conrey, a Revolutionary soldier, settled a few miles farther north and west. William Bradley, from London, came to that vicinity in 1802, and Henry Camerer, Frederic Sapp and John Abraham came then or before to increase the population along Indian Creek. With these people, the all absorbing question of homes, only to be attained through incessant attention to rude requirements, left neither time nor art to make records of their deeds or merits. Their children often followed the ways of the parents and were heedless in preserving the personal information that has become an object of persistent and generally futile search. The migratory tendency that brought some also carried many to other places farther west. How futile a search through such conditions may be is only known by, those who have tried the baffling work. The names heretofore presented frequently stand for families already large and well grown. In every instance, the intention has been to include those who came before the Territory was changed to a State, and to exclude all for whom such a claim is doubtful. The territorial records contain names of which no other mention can be found. This account has been restricted to those founding homes that can be located, and for whom roads were soon to be provided. How far this attempt has succeeded may be judged by a document finely preserved among the manuscripts filed by General Lytle and marked "copy," which shows that the original was reported as indicated, and as follows: His Excellency, Ar. St. Clair, Esquire, Governor of the Territory N. W. Ohio. If absent, to the Honorable. Charles Byrd,