MARIETTA.
[INCLUDING HARMAR.]
CHAPTER XXIV.
MARIETTA—EARLY EVENTS—MORAL CONDITION OF THE COMMUNITY.
A Chapter of Initial Events—Various Names Proposed for the Settlement—First Fourth of July Celebration—First Deaths—General Varnum’s Death and Burial- First Marriage—Seventh of April Celebrated—First Births—First Religious Meetings—First Mail Route—First Postmaster at Marietta—First Town Meeting—Thomas Wallcut, of Boston—Condition of the Settlement—Mixer, the Tavern-keeper—A Slave Sold in Marietta—Indignation Expressed— Grievances Presented to the Court—Debating Society—Earliest Social Amenities—The Governor's Daughter—Intemperance—Ir-religion—Scarcity of Money—Names of Residents at Campus Martius, "the Point," and Fort Harmar—Marietta in 1803.
HERE, where but late a dreary forest spread,
Putnam, a little band of settlers led,
And now beholds, with patriot joy elate,
The infant settlement become a STATE;
Sees fruitful orchards and rich fields of grain,
And towns and cities rising on the plain,—
While fair Ohio bears with conscious pride
New, laden, vessels to the ocean's tide.
—HARRIS Tom 1803.
MARIETTA was the first crystallization of that idea which may be said to have had its inception in the midnight conference between two earnest men—General Benjamin Tupper and General Rufus Putnam—at the home of the latter in Rutland, Massachusetts, in January, 1786. Marietta was the first flower put forth in the west by a great plant firmly rooted and nurtured in New England soil.
So far as the history of Marietta is contained in that of the Ohio company it has already been given. The organization of that body, under whose auspices the settlement was made; the plans that were formed in New England for the laying out of the city at the mouth of the Muskingum; the purchase of the land; the journey and arrival of the pioneer band of forty-seven, and the progress of immigration and of improvement, have been very fully set forth in preceding pages. We have followed the pioneers—
"Through a long warfare, rude,"
in which,
"With patient hardihood,
By toil, and strife, and blood,
The soil was won."
The local events of that Indian war have been considered in their chronological order, with those at Belpre and Waterford, and in their relation to the broader aspect of the subject. It now remains our task to treat of those topics which, while not less important or interesting, belong more strictly to Marietta as a community.
In this chapter we present a number of the initial rtems of Marietta history, endeavor to give an idea of the character of its pioneers, and to show the condition of the settlement, morally as well as materially. The two succeeding chapters contain accounts of the beginnings and progress of mercantile business and manufacturing, and of navigation upon the Ohio and Muskingum. They are followed by the history of the religious and educational institutions and the professions, while subsequent
I chapters give the corporate and municipal history of the city and a wide range of miscellaneous matter, including such topics as the visits of distinguished individuals, reminiscences of slavery times, the sickly seasons, the great floods, temperance history early and late, burial places, the ancient works, etc.
NAME.
The city at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio was not originally known. It was for a short time quite commonly referred to by the residents and people at the east who expected to emigrate to the west, simply as Muskingum. It is interesting to learn that the choice of a name for the primal settlement in the Ohio company's purchase occupied much attention. Several appellations were suggested, some of which were ingenious and very appropriate; while others perhaps no less curiously formed or singularly adapted were certainly neither appropriate nor beautiful Some of the names discussed are mentioned in the correspondence of two New England historians* of the time, from whom we have quoted in this volume. One of them writes September 25, 1878, "Yesterday I dined with Major Sargent who told me that the old Indian fortifications near the mouth of the Muskingum was to be the site of the new city which they talk of calling Castrapolis (a name invented by Mr. St. John) in memory of the Indian fortified camp."
The same letter writer, under date of May 17th, 1788 says:
In my opinion, he (Cutler) cannot give the new city a more proper name than Protepolis. Urania seems to be quite out of the way Tempe would, I think, do much better. But I wanted something original. In this view Genesis would do. There are Montgomery's already.
The escape from Castrapolis and Protepolis is something for which the successive generations of Marietta people had they possessed any knowledge of it, would doubtless have been very thankful. Urania also would, indeed, have been quite out of the way. Tempe would have done much better. The name was suggested in all probability by the classical vale of Tempe.
*Correspondence of the Hon. Ebenezer Hazard and the Rev. Jeremy Belknap.
356 - HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO.
Dr. Manasseh Cutler was an advocate for the adoption of the name "Adelphia." He wrote to General Rufus Putnam, from Ipswich, Massachusetts, under date of December 3, 1787:
Saying so much about conveying letters reminds me of the necessity of a name for the place where you will reside. I doubt not you will early acquire the meaning of Muskingum; or you may meet with some other name that will be agreeable. At present, I must confess, I feel a partiality for the name proposed at Boston, and think it preferable to any that has yet been mentioned. I think that Adelphia will, upon the whole, be the most eligible. 1t strictly means brethren, and I wish it may ever be characteristic of the Ohio company.
By this name, Adelphia, suggested by Dr. Cutler, the settlement was called until July 2, 1788, when, at the first meeting of the Ohio company west of the mountains it was changed by the following resolution:
Resolved, That the city near the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum be called Marietta; that the directors write to his excellency, the Count Moustiers (who was the French minister) informing him of their motive in naming the city, and request his opinion whether it will be advisable to present to her majesty of France, a public square.
The name was compounded, and very prettily, from that of the unfortunate young queen, Marie Antoniette. One of the squares in the city plat was named after her. The proffered compliment was never formally acknowledged, the queen soon after being plunged into the midst of the troubles which finally bore her down.
It was very natural that the pioneers should have chosen the name they did. They had a great respect and love for France. Many of them were personally acquainted with, and warmly attached to, Lafayette and his brother officers who had lent their valuable aid to the colonies in the Revolution. Marie Antoinette had ever been the friend of the infant nation and these New England patroits assembled upon the banks of the Ohio appreciated her constant and uniform kindliness as they did the brave self-sacrifice of the sons of France. One writer says that Marie Antoinette "was intended to be the nursing mother of the infant settlement."*
THE FIRST AND SECOND FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATIONS.
The observance of the Fourth of July, 1788, +—the twelfth anniversary of American independence—was the first public celebration in Marietta or the Northwest Territory. The day, Friday, was ushered in with the firing of a federal salute by the cannons at Fort Harmar, over which the flag of the United states floated and the bastions and curtains of which were decorated with standards. The celebration was upon the Marietta side of the Muskingum in the long bowery built by the side of the stream. At one o'clock General Josiah Harmar, all of the officers not on duty at the fort and several ladies joined the Marietta settlers and listened to the first oration of a political nature ever ,delivered in the State of
* Thaddeus Mason Harris.
+ Fifty years later—in 1838—the Fourth of July was celebrated in Marietta under the auspices of the Mechanics' Lyceum, the oration being delivered by Charles Hendric. Dinner was served at the Mansion house, Colonel Joseph Barker presiding, assisted by A. Pixley. Toasts were responded to by Robert Smith, Isaac Moss, Colonel Barker, Thomas J. Clogston, James M. Booth, John Grenier, William West. L. Dewey, Matthias Moot, J. . Glidden, E. Gates, and others, A procession marched through the streets, of which Isaac Maxon was chief marshal and John Lest the assistant marshal.
Ohio, a most eloquent and appropriate address by the honorably James Mitchell Varnum, one of the judges of the territory, a man, by the way, of the loftiest and purest mind in whom tenderness and strength seem to have been equally developed, but whose influence was, alas, not long to be felt in the little settlement. He was even then when he spoke hopeful and cheering words for the future of the country and of the pioneer community, in a consumptive decline which closed his bright, beautiful life six months later.
A repast, consisting of all the substantials and delicacies which the woods and the streams and the gardens and the housewives' skill afforded, was served at the bowery. There was venison, barbecued, Buffalo steaks, bear meat, wild fowls, fish, and a little pork as the choicest luxury of all. One fish, a great pike weighing one hundred pounds and over six feet long—the largest ever taken by white men, it is said, in the waters of the Muskingum—was speared by Judge Gilbert Devol and his son Gilbert.
The day was not all sunshine. "At three o'clock," says Colonel John May, "just as dinner was on the table came on a heavy shower which lasted half an hour. However the chief of our provisions were rescued from the deluge, but injured materially. When the rain ceased the table was laid again; but before we had finished it came on to rain a second time. On the whole though we had a handsome dinner."
The following was the order of the toasts drank after dinner had been served:
1. The United States.
2. The Congress.
3. His most Christian Majesty.
4. The United Netherlands.
5. The friendly powers throughout the world.
6. The new Federal Constitution.
7. His Excellency General Washington and the Society of the Cincinnati.
8. His Excellency Governor St. Clair and the Northwestern Territory.
9. The memory of those who have nobly fallen in defence of American freedom.
10. Patriots and heroes.
11. Captain Pipe, chief of the Delawares, and a happy treaty with the natives.
12. Agriculture and commerce, arts and sciences.
13. The amiable partners of our delicate pleasures.
14. The glorious Fourth of July.
There were several Indians present. Colonel May says: "While I headed one end of the table there came to me a Delaware Indian, one of three petty chiefs. He said to me how do you do, brother Yankee. I answered him politely and then seated him on my left. He ate with a healthy appetite, but when we began drinking the toasts he labored with all of his might to speak them, but made rather a ridiculous piece of work of it. When the cannon was fired at the toasts in honor of Generals Washington and St. Clair and the western territory, it made him start. The roar of a cannon is as disagreeable to an Indian as a rope is to a thief or broad daylight to one of your made up beauties."*
The writer of the above adds: "Pleased with the en-
* Journal of Colonel John May.
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO - 357
tertainment, we kept it up till after 12 o'clock at night, then went home and slept soundly until daylight." The celebration closed with a beautiful illumination of Fort Harman The recollection of one of the participants in this celebration, when he had become a gray headed grandsire has been handed down in Marietta by tradition, and, if not reproduced with literal exactness, there can at least be no doubt that the words express the opinion he held of the first Fourth of July jollification in the Northwest Territory:
Never had such a dinner since. We were one great family, loving God and each other, proud of our new home, and resolved on success. And we won it.*
The second celebration of the Fourth of July in Marietta, 1789, was an interesting occasion, but lacked the impressive significance of the first. At this time Return Jonathan Meigs, jr., then an attorney at law, afterwards governor of Ohio, was the speaker of the day. His oration was in verse—the first poem produced in the country northwest of the Ohio, a region which has since, considering that it has scarcely as yet emerged from the formative condition of its existence, given so much of poetry and other literature to the world. Meigs' muse sang in a lofty and prophetic strain. A portion of his roseate dream was never realized in the growth of Marietta. The sanguine seer might better perhaps have voiced his hopes at Cincinnati, Albach has indeed put his words into the mouth of John Cleves Symmes, + whom he imagines standing before and contemplating the site of the present metropolis of Ohio. We give an extract from the poem:
Enough of tributary praise is paid
To virtue living or to merit dead;
To happier themes the rural muse invites,
To calmest pleasures and serene delights;
To us, glad fancy brightest prospect shows;
Rejoicing nature all around us glows;
Here late the savage, hid in ambush, lay,
Or roamed the uncultur'd valleys for his prey;
Here frowned the forest with terrific shade;
No cultured fields exposed the opening glade.
How changed the scene !
See, nature, clothed in smiles,
With joy repays the laborer for his toils;
Her hardy gifts rough industry extends,
The groves bow down, the lofty forest bends;
On every side the cleaving axes sound,
The oak and tall beach thunder to the ground.
And see the spires of Marietta rise,
And domes and temples swell into the skies;
Here justice reign, and foul dissension cease;
Her walks be pleasant and her paths be peace.
Here swift Muskingum rolls his rapid waves;
There fruitful valleys fair Ohio laves;
On its smooth surface gentle zephyrs play,
The sunbeams tremble with a placid ray.
What future harvests on his bosom glide,
And loads of commerce swell the downward tide,
Where Mississippi joins in length'ning sweep
And rolls majestic to the Atlantic deep.
Along our banks see distant villas spread;
Here waves the corn, and there extends the mead;
Here sound the murmurs of the gurgling rills;
There bleat the flocks upon a thousand hills.
Fair opes the lawn, the fertile fields extend,
The kindly showers from smiling heaven descend;
The skies drop fatness upon the blooming vale;
* Mrs. F. D. Gage in Little Corporal.
+ Albach's Annals of the West, page 482.
From spicy shrubs ambrosial sweets exhale;
Fresh fragrance rises from the flow'rets bloom,
And ripening vineyards breathe a glad perfume;
Gay swells the music of the warbling grove,
And all around is melody and love.
Here may religion fix her best abode,
Bright emanation of creative God.
Here charity extend her liberal hand,
And mild benevolence o'erspread the land;
In harmony the social virtues blend;
joy without measure, rapture without end !*
THE FIRST RELIGIOUS MEETINGS.
The first sermon preached in Marietta and the first in a Protestant style in the State of Ohio to other than an Indian audience, was delivered on Sunday, July 20, 1788, by the Rev. William Breck, a New England man and a member of the Ohio company. [The French upon the Maumee may have held Roman Catholic services, and we know that Heckewelder and the other Moravian missionaries had preached years before to the Indians at the Muskingum stations.] The text chosen by the Rev. Mr. Breck was the sixth and seventh verses of the nineteenth chapter of Exodus:
Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenants; then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people of earth; for all the earth is mine; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.
The service was held upon the bank of the Muskingum, "before a numerous, well-informed and attentive assembly." The governor was present, and it has been recorded, "afterward expressed much satisfaction." He particularly remarked that "the singing far exceeded anything he had ever heard." "It was enchanting," continues the writer, from whom we have above quoted. "The grave, the tender, the solemn, and the pathetic were so happily blended, as to produce a most perfect harmony." Very impressive indeed must have been this first religious meeting upon the people who at home had been accustomed to regularly attend upon Sunday the preaching in the little New England village churches, and who had now been so long without such solace. t
The second sermon was delivered on August 24, 1788, by the Rev. Manasseh Cutler, who had arrived upon the nineteenth. He simply notes in his journal the following:
Sunday, August 24.—Cloudy this morning—very muddy. Attended worship in the public hall at Campus Martius. The hall was very full. I had but one exercise. People from the Virginia shore and garrison attended.
THE FIRST DEATH.
Death invaded the settlement for the first time August 25, 1788, the person taken being Nabby, a thirteen-year old child of Major Nathaniel Cushing, whose family, with several others, had arrived upon the nineteenth. Dr. Cutler says in his journal:
About three o'clock in the night I was called up to visit a child of Major Cushing's, supposed to be dying. Just before I got into the house it expired—the first person that died in the city of Marietta. The
* Harriss Tour, 1803, (appendix).
+ Journal of Colonel John May: "A large number of people were assembled from the garrison, Virginia and our own settlement, in all about three hundred; some women and children, which was a pleasing sight, though something unusual to see. Mr. Breck made out very well; the singing excellent. We had ' Billings’ to perfection."
358 - HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO.
child was very low when Major Cushing left New England. The disease was an atrophia infantilus—greatly emaciated; expected it would have expired in the boat on the way down. Dr. Scott, of the garrison, attended after its arrival here.
The first coming of the fell destroyer to the compact little colony in which all of the chords of life were more closely knit together, and sympathies more quick than in the larger, older, busier and more bustling communities of the far away, outside world, must have caused a depth of solemn feeling, such as can be but poorly imagined. Two days later the family of Major Cushing followed its youngest member to the grave with nearly all the people of the settlement, to which they had come only eight days before, as sympathizers. Dr. Cutler says, under date of August 2 7 th : "At two o'clock attended the funeral of Major Cushing's child. A considerable number of people collected. The coffin was made of cherry tree wood. I proposed it should not be colored, as an example for the future."
DEATH AND BURIAL OF GENERAL VARNUM.
If the death of this infant caused sadness in the community and a feeling of solemnity because the first reminder of the mortality of all, that of General (or Judge) James Mitchell Varnum, which occurred on the tenth of January, plunged the people into the deepest grief. He was in the very prime of life, aged forty years. He had led, although so young a man, a distinguished career, and was one of the most active and influential men in the Ohio company and in the settlement; a judge of the territory; a man of fine and varied ability, and possessed of almost every admirable trait of character. He was respected in his public capacity, admired as a man and loved by all. Almost all of the leading men at Marietta had known him before his removal from New England, some of them as an officer in the Revolutionary army. His was the second death in Marietta. It was caused by consumption and occurred in less than eight months from the time of his arrival. The funeral took place upon the thirteenth of January, and was attended by all the people of the settlement, many from the garrison and the Virginia shore, and by a large number of Indian chiefs who had been present at the treaty of Fort Harmar, concluded upon the ninth. Dr. Solomon Drown delivered the funeral oration. All of the respect and honor possible was shown for the illustrious dead. The order of the procession which followed the body to the grave was as follows:
THE MILITARY UNDER CAPTAIN ZEIGLER.
MARSHALS.
Mr. Wheaton bearing the sword and military commission of the deceased on a mourning cushion.
Mr. Lord bearing the civil commission on a mourning cushion.
Mr. Mayo, with the diploma and order of Cincinnati on a mourning cushion.
Mr. Fearing, bearing the insignia of masonry on a mourning cushion.
PALL HOLDERS.
Griffin Greene, esq.
Judge Crary.
Judge Tuffer.
Judge Putnam.
The secretary.
Judge Parsons.
PRIVATE MOURNERS.
Charles Greene and Richard Greene, Frederick Craty and Philip Greene, Doctor Scott and Doctor Farley, Deacon Story and Doctor Drown, private citizens, two and two, Indian chiefs, two and two, the militia officers, the Cincinnati, the masons.
FIRST BIRTH.
The first child born in Marietta was a son of James Kelley, and Anna (Hart) Kelley, emigrants from Plainfield, Massachusetts, and was named after the governor, Arthur St. Clair Kelley. He was born December 30, 1788. The family afterward removed to Belleville, Virginia, and the father was killed there by the Indians on the seventh of April, 1791 (See chapter X, on the Indian War, page 76). The widow returned to Marietta and was given a home in Campus Martius. Arthur St. Clair Kelley passed his boyhood in Marietta, and died in Parkersburgh, Virginia, in 1823. The second child born was James Varnum Cushing, son of Nathaniel Cushing, the twenty-seventh of January 1789; the third Leicester G. Converse, son of Benjamin Converse, born on the seventh of February, 1789; the fourth Joseph Barker, son of Joseph Barker, born February 28, 1789. It will be noticed that only two months' intervened between the first and fourth births. (Other white children had been born in Ohio, but these were the first whose parents were pioneers and settlers. A child is said to have been born of a white woman in captivity, at Wakatomika, within the present limits of Muskingum county, in 1764; another upon the Scioto in 1770, the child of a white woman taken captive by the Shawnees and married by an Indian trader named Conner. John Lewis Roth, son of Rev. John Roth, the Moravian missionary, and wife, was born at Gnaddenhutten on the Tuscarawas July 4, 1773, and died at Bath, Pennsylvania, in 1841. Joanna Maria Heckewelder, daughter of the Rev. John Heckewelder, was born at Salem, one of the Moravian villages on the Tuscarawas, April 16, 1781. The last two of these births are well authenticated.
FIRST MARRIAGE.
On the sixth of February, 1789, the first marriage was solemnized between the Hon. Winthrop Sargent, secretary of the territory, and Rowena, daughter of General Benjamin Tupper. General Rufus Putnam, judge of the court of common pleas of Washington county, performed the ceremony. Mrs. Sargent died January 29, 1790, of child-birth, and was buried upon Sunday, January 31.*
THE SEVENTH OF APRIL CELEBRATED FOR THE FIRST TIME +
The first anniversary of the settlement of Marietta was celebrated on the seventh of April, 1789. The Ohio
* Journal of Thomas Wallcut.
+ The half-century celebration of the settlement of Marietta, April, 1838, was made an occasion of much interest. The exercises were held at the Congregational church. George M. Woodbridge, esq., delivered the oration. Colonel Joseph Barker was president, and Judge Ephraim Cutler and Joseph Barker, Jr., vice-presidents. Beman Gates, esq., conducted the singing. Henry Fearing was chief marshal of the procession. A dinner was served at the Mansion house. Among the toasts was one to the memory of Judge Gilbert Devol, and his son Gilbert, who caught the great pike in the Muskingum on the fourth of July, 1788. Music was furnished during the day by the college band, which was led by Samuel Hall, a graduate of that year, in the first class which Marietta college sent out.
HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO - 359
company, at a meeting held in February, had resolved that the anniversary of the landing of the forty-seven pioneers should forever be considered as a day of public festival in the territory of the Ohio company. At the same time the directors were authorized "to request some gentleman to 1prepare an address" for the approaching festival. They selected Dr. Solomon Drown, and he delivered a very. suitable oration upon the occasion, in which he cordially congratulated the assembled people on the auspicious anniversary. The address, although for the most part rehearsing happy events was not without its element of sadness. The speaker alluded to General Varnum, who had passed away three months before:
. . . Of those worthies who have most exerted themselves in promoting this settlement, one alas! is no more. One whose eloquence like the music of Orpheus, attractive of the listening crowd, seemed designed to reconcile mankind to the closest bonds of society. Ah! what avail his manly virtues now! Slow through you winding path his corpse was borne, and on the sleepy hill interred with honors meet. What bosom refuses the tribute of a sigh on the recollection of that melancholy scene, when, unusual spectacle, the fathers of the rand, the chiefs of the aboriginal nations, in solemn train attended; while the mournful dirge was rendered doubly mournful mid the groomy, nodding grove. On that day even nature seemed to mourn. 0 Varnum! Varnum! thy name shall not be forgotten while gratitude and generosity continue to be the characteristics of those inhabiting the country once thy care. Thy fair fame is deeply rooted in our fostering memories, and,
" The force of boisterous winds and mouldering rain,
Year after year an everlasting train,
Shall ne'er destroy the glory of his name."
FIRST HOUSES.
The first, frame house in Marietta was built in the summer of 1789, at the point, by Joseph Buell and Levi Munsell, and intended for a tavern. Captain Enoch Shepherd (brother of General Shepherd, who suppressed Shay's rebellion in Massachusetts) prepared the timber and lumber for this house, at McKeesport, Pennsylvania, and made it into a raft upon which he brought his family to Marietta. Colonel John May in the summer of 1788 built quite a pretentious house of hewed logs, which he said was "the first of the kind in the place." He describes his work as follows:
"This is an arduous undertaking and more than I intended. Am building from several motives. First, for the benefit of the settlement; second, from a prospect or hope of gain hereafter; third, for an asylum for myself and family should we ever want it; fourth, as a place where I can leave my stores and baggage in safety; and lastly, a foolish ambition, as I suppose it is. The house is thirty-six feet long, eighteen wide, and fifteen high; a good cellar under it and drain." .
MAIL ROUTE—POST OFFICE.
Although a mail route had been established across the Alleghanys from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh as early as 1786, there was none to, or in, the Northwest Territory until 1795. The people at Marietta and Cincinnati had no communication with the east except by expresses or messengers, and these means of communication were slow, uncertain and insecure. In 1788 the Postmaster General required only that the mail to Pittsburgh be dispatched once in a fortnight.
*Journal of Colonel John May.
In the spring of 1794 a route was established from Pittsburgh by way of Washington, Pennsylvania, West Liberty, Virginia, and Wheeling to Limestone (now Maysville), Kentucky, and the military post, Fort Washington (Cincinnati). In May the Postmaster General, Timothy Pickering, wrote General Rufus Putnam: .
"Marietta will be a station for the boats to stop at as they pass, and doubtless it will be convenient to have a post office there. Herewith I send a packet to you to be put into the hands of the person you judge most suitable for postmaster."
General Putnam selected for the first postmaster of Marietta Return Jonathan Meigs, jr., who twenty years later became Postmaster General of the United States, which office he held for nine years.
The mail which was carried from Pittsburgh to Wheeling by land and from thence to Cincinnati by the river gave the inhabitants of Marietta an opportunity every two or three weeks to receive letters from, or send letters to, their friends in New England. The boats made the trip from Wheeling to Cincinnati in about six days and required twelve days or two weeks to ascend the river. The boats were manned by five or six persons, well armed to resist attack from the Indians. This occurred once, in November, 1794, at the mouth of the Scioto. One man was killed and the others narrowly escaped with their lives.
The first route established within the present limits of Ohio was from Marietta to Zanesville, in 1798. The schedule required that the post should leave Marietta every Thursday at 1 o'clock P. M., and arrive at Zanestown the following Monday at 8 o'clock A. M. Returning, the mail must leave Zanestown every Tuesday at 6 o'clock A. M., and arrive at Marietta on Wednesday, at 6 P. M. Daniel Converse was the first contractor. This route was discontinued in 1804, but afterward resumed. It was the only route within the present boundaries of the State in 1800. In 1802 a route was established from Marietta by way of Athens and Chillicothe to Cincinnati. Athens post office was not, however, established until 1804. James Dickey, of Athens county, was one of the post riders from Marietta to Chillicothe, a distance of about one hundred miles, between the years 1806 and 1814. Three riders each made one trip per week, and they suffered great hardships. By the year 1825 the mail was carried from Marietta to Zanesville once a week, to Chillicothe twice a week, and to Lancaster once in two weeks. Such were the mail facilities of southeastern Ohio less than sixty years ago.
With the exception of the Masonic lodge, organized in 1790, the post office is the oldest of Marietta institutions.*
*The following has been the succession of postmasters at Marietta from 1794 to the present: Return Jonathan Meigs, jr., May, 1794, to October, 1795; Josiah Munro, October, 1795 to 1801; David Putnam; 1801 to 1802; Griffin Greene, 1802 to 1804; Philip Greene, 1804 to 1806; Griffin Greene, jr., 1806 to 15; Samuel Hoit, 1815 to 1818; Henry P. Wilcox, 1818 to 1825; David Morris, January, 1825, to August, 1825; Daniel H. Buell, 1825 to 1829; A. V. D. Joline, 1829 to 1841; A. L, Guitteau, 1841 to 1850; F. A. Wheeler, 1850 to 1853; Nathaniel Bishop, 1853 to 1857; A. W. McCormack, 1857 to 1861; Sala Bosworth, 1861 to 1870; W. B. Mason, 1870 to 1878; S. L. Grosvenor, 1878, present incumbent.
360 - HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO.
FIRST TOWN MEETING.
The first "town meeting" held in Marietta was upon February 4, 1789. Colonel Archibald Crary was chairman, and Colonel Ebenezer Battelle, clerk. There seems to have been need at this time for some additional laws bearing upon the community, and a police force to carry out .the spirit of those already enacted. Colonel Crary, Colonel Robert Oliver, Mr. Backus, Major Sargent, and Major Haffield White were constituted a committee to devise a system of police and to draw up an address to the governor, who was then absent. The address, which was duly drawn up and forwarded, contained the following:
We must lament, with all the feelings of men anxious to live under the precepts of regal authority, the absence of your excerlency and the judges of the territory, more particularly at this time, ere the system of laws has been completed. We feel most sensibly the want of them and the priviledge of establishing such cily regulations as we are conscious should be derived alone from the sanction of your excellencysis authority; and that nothing but the most absolute necessity can exculpate us in assuming even the private police of our settlement. But the necessity and propriety of some system which may tend to health, the preservation of our fields and gardens, with other essential regulations, will, we flatter ourselves, apologize for our adopting it. . .
We see at this early day in the history of the settlement the earnest desire the people had for law and order. They had been accustomed to live under the exercise of authority and they desired to revive, so far as ble here in the wilderness, in the little col year old, that condition of society w the villages of New England.
A police system was reported upon March 17th, and a code of laws adopted which served comparatively well for the first few years. Rufus Putnam Archibald Crary, Griffin Greene, Robert Oliver, and Nathaniel Goodale were appointed the first commissioners charged with the carrying out of the laws and the management of the police.
CONDITION OF THE SETTLEMENT.
Morally, Marietta was for a pioneer settlement far in advance of any other in the west. Cincinnati was considerably vitiated during the Indian campaigns by the presence of the army. Chillicothe, founded in 1796, was sadly demoralized by the settlement within its precincts of many of Wayne's soldiers. The Virginia and Kentucky pioneer settlements had as a general thing a large element of lawless people.
The people of Marietta, as a rule, were New Englanders and fully abreast of the New England sentiment of the time. What has already been said exhibits their law loving nature. How deeply they abhored (as a majority) a laxity of morals has already been suggested on many pages of this volume.
The infant settlement, however, had some vicious citizens, such as are to be found in any community, and some crimes against society were perpetrated, which aroused great indignation in the bosoms of the better class of men.
A slave sold in Marietta! It reads strangely enough. Marietta, the initial settlement of the Ohio company— that beneficiently and wisely governed New England organization under whose very influence the ordinance of freedom was enacted!
A slave sold in Marietta! Such was the fact. It is well attested. Thomas Wallcut, of Boston, a member of the Ohio company, but not a settler, visited Marietta in 1789 and 1790, and took a deep interest in the affairs of the colony. It appears by his journal that Isaac Mixer, a tavern-keeper in the settlement, sold a little negro boy into slavery in Virginia, and allusion is made to other cases of negroes being sold. The editor of Mr. Wallcut's journal states that he was very decided in his opinions on the subject of slavery and offences against good morals, and he was always fearless in the expression of them. Early in 1790 he prepared an address to Governor St. Clair, in which the Mixer slave case is made the principal topic. The address also speaks of other evils, and the need of laws to check them. The extract we quote, shows that Mr. Wallcut was deeply indignant at the outrage of Mixer.
After some preliminary remarks complimentary to the governor, and speaking in general terms of "those natural, inherent and unalienable rights which we hold to be sacred, and which cannot be violated without endangering the public peace, liberty and safety," and setting forth that "infringement upon these rights ought not to go unpunished," the address continues:
We, therefore, beg leave to call to your Excellency's attention, and to earnestly recommend to your notice certain abuses and offences against the interest of society and good government which have taken place here, and against which it is said by some there is either no law, or that the laws are insufficient for remedying and punishing like offences in future.
The first thing we beg leave to mention is that a certain Isaac Mixer, an inhabitant and inn keeper of this city and county, a man of notoriously character, keeps a disorderly, riotous and ill-governed house, which is considered by the citizens in general as an intolerable nuiance to the place, and one that will not only bring an odium and prejudice against the inhabitants and their police, but is also in its tendency destructive of peace and good order and exemplary morals, upon which not only the well being but the very existence of society so much depends.
To remedy and prevent the like abuse in future we beg leave to suggest to your attention whether it is not immediately necessary that a law should be enacted for licensing and regulating taverns and other places of public resort with proper penalties.
We next beg leave to observe that we apprehend the said Isaac Mixer has committed a flagrant trespass upon the rights of humanity, the privileges of American subjects, and the peace and happiness of this jurisdiction, as welt as the dinky of the United States, in selling a certain negro boy named Prince, about the age of seven years, out of this jurisdiction into the State of Virginia where slavery is tolerated by law. This atrocious crime, we presume, is against the divine and moral, as well as (according to Judge Blackstone) against the Jewish code, the common raw of England, and the ordinance of Congress for the government of this territory, which we apprehend to be our constitution and therefore the supreme law of the land. And considering that this is the second instance that the said Mixer has shown his contempt and defiance of the aforesaid sacred rights of mankind, we cannot refrain from expressing to your excellency our apprehensions that if this evil is not speedily checked it may grow to the abominable and degrading traffic of buying and selling our fellow creatures in this place.*
The document of which this was a part was never presented to the governor, probably, for the reason that Mr. Wallcut had an opportunity to bring the subject before the court of quarter sessions. He says (under date of February 2, 1790) . . . "Mr. Woodbridge (Dudley), foreman, asked the jury if we had anything more to present, and nothing being offered, I proposed
* Journal of Thomas Walcott, page 13.
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for the consideration of the jury, four articles of complaint to be presented as grievances. I prefaced them with some observations on their necessity and propriety and the informality of the paper. With leave of the foreman I read them. The question was taken whether the jury would take them up and act upon them. Passed affirmatively." These grievances debated upon by the jury were as follows:
1at Grievance. No law against dueling, etc.
2nd Grievance. No incorporation of Marietta and therefore no way of providing for the poor and sick strangers.
3rd Grievance. No law licensing and regulating taverns.
4th Grievance. No law against the crime of buying and selling the human species.
It is significant of the state of public feeling in Marietta in the year 1790, that while for the correction of the first and third of these evils there were respectively only two and nine votes, there were eleven for the fourth. "The presentments of the jury," adds Mr. Wallcut, "concluded by referring the court to two former cases of two negroes being sold, and asking that they would concur in an application to the governor and judges for remedy of these complaints."
The writer from whom we have already quoted throws more interesting light upon the condition of the Marietta of 1790. His journal has numerous allusions to an institution which it is not surprising had an existence among the Muskingum pioneers—a literary and debating society, the first in Marietta. Paul Fearing, esq., was president of this society. At the first meeting of which there is any mention made, January 27th, the question for discussion was the following: "Is the civil government of the Northwest Territory, as it now stands by the ordinance of. Congress, calculated to secure the peace, freedom and prosperity of the people, and what is wanting to obtain so desirable an object?"
The society were not unanimous, says Wallcut, in any opinion except that the ordinance or constitution would admit of amendments that might be very salutary, but that it is well framed for a temporary constitution; and taking futurity into consideration, some additions and amendments are necessary and proper. They, however, considered it as a compact that Congress cannot break or infringe without mutual consent.
One of the questions proposed for consideration at the next meeting was whether the police force of the city of Marietta was equal to the good government of the same, and what alteration, if any, was necessary. One proposed by Samuel Holden Parsons, however, and relating to the rights of navigation of the Mississippi, was chosen and debated upon the evening of February 11th. At a meeting held prior to this one, Enoch Parsons was elected president, Thomas Wallcut, secretary, and Joseph Prince, treasurer. Mention is only made of this debating society in one other place in the journal of Mr. Wallcut, and it is probable that, notwithstanding the number of educated men in the community who in ordinary times would have sustained it, it passed out of existence, owing to the excitement of the times, and the great activity with which all of the settlers were engaged in necessary pursuits. That it should even have been brought into existence at so early a period in the history of the settlement is a malter of wonder. It was an evidence of the education and taste which pervaded this pioneer colony.
Social amenities began in Marietta when the first families arrived—the first ladies. This was upon the nineteenth of August, 1788. Upon the very next day an entertainment was given to the governor and officers of Fort Harmar, at the hall in Campus Martius. Dr. Cutler, who was present, having arrived the day before with the first families, notes that they "had a handsome dinner with punch and wine. The governor and the ladies from the garrison were very sociable. Mrs. Rowena Tupper and the two Mrs. Goodales dined, and fifty-five gentlemen."* . The writer says that Mrs. Harmar "is a fine woman," and speaks in a very complimentary manner of Captain McCurdy and lady.
Upon the twenty-sixth of the month Judge Symmes and company arrived, on their way to the Symtues purchase to become settlers. The visit must have been one of very lively interest to the people of Marietta and to those who were about to enter a life similar to that which they saw here. Judge Symmes was accompanied by his daughter, who is described as "a very accomplished young lady." She was called upon by several of the newly arrived ladies of Marietta, and with her father visited General Putnam and Dr. Cutler. They arrived in the evening and resumed their journey down the river upon the following day.
The governor's daughter, Louise St. Clair, came out with the rest of the family, except Mrs. St. Clair, from their home in the Ligonier valley, Pennsylvania, in 179o, and must have been a beautiful but strange note in the little community. She was a boughsome beauty, brilliant and dashing, full of vivacity and action, wayward and unconventional in the extreme. Some of her hoydenish ways one can well imagine as calling forth the astonishment and displeasure of the dignified and rather severe majority. She compared to the more staid daughters of the pioneers as some brilliant tropical bird does to the brown thrush or the dove of the northern forest. Dashing through the woods in a scarlet riding habit, upon a fleet horse, alone, and even at such times as there was danger apprehended from the Indians, she was the picture of all that was high-lifed, careless and fearless. She was as active on foot as on horseback, could handle a rifle with wonderful dexterity, and in winter glided over the frozen Muskingum, equalling in her skating any of the young men and excelling most of them. Withal she was refined and highly cultivated intellectually. Several of the sons of the pioneers were madly in love with her. The verses which one of them wrote in her praise are still to be found in Marietta. Some time after the war she returned to the Ligonier valley, and it is said married a humble man in her father's employ.
Of the character of the men at Marietta much has already been said in the early chapters of this work. A large proportion of those who settled in the Ohio company's purchase prior to the close of the war were Revolutionary soldiers, and nearly all were from New Eng
* Journal of Dr. Manasseh Cutler, in New England Historical and Genealogical Register,
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land. There was probably more of learning, virtue, and dignity in this than in any other pioneer colony planted in America. For the most part they were men who held the religious views common in the land of their nativity. Deep piety was a characteristic of many, but there were a considerable number who were more or less imbued with infidel opinions. It was not the infidelity of Thomas Paine, but the light skepticism of France, received in a large degree from the French officers of the Revolutionary army.
Excess in the use of liquor was the greatest evil in the settlement. Hard drinking was not confined so closely as now to the vicious class, but indulged in by many of the best men in the community, and the use of liquor in moderation was almost universal. A number of the brightest minds in Marietta, at an early day, were ruined by intemperance. Men high in position and of otherwise exemplary character were among the victims.
A recent writer,* after making the statement that "at Marietta were several men of superior intellects who were infidels, and others who were intemperate," says: "And yet this pioneer town was probably one of the best examples of the society of pioneer times." He means evidently that it was one of the examples of the best society of pioneer times. It was far ahead, as we have heretofore remarked, of the other pioneer settlements of Ohio and the west generally.
During the period of the war (and the two years previous to it) money was very scarce in the settlement and provisions high. Many people were obliged to live in exceedingly straightened circumstances; others absolutely suffered. What little produce of the country could be spared was used in lieu of money, in exchange for commodities brought from the Eastern States or from Pittsburgh. Ginseng passed current. It was a local legal tender. Skins were also exchanged for goods with the traders and storekeepers. Whatever the settlers could produce by their own labors saved them an outlay from their small store of cash. "Sugar," says Colonel Barker, we make ourselves. Sugar (material for it) is plenty, but metal to boil it in is scarce. . . . When General Putnam was on and obtained the grant for the donation lands, Lady Washington sent out a keg of loaf made from maple sugar, to be distributed among the ladies of the officers of the Revolutionary army of the Ohio company's purchase. f
We have said that the prices upon all articles brought into the settlement were high. Calico commanded from a dollar to a dollar and seventy-five cents per yard, salt sold commonly from four to five dollars per bushel, and sometimes was as high as ten dollars. Tea was two dollars per pound, and other articles in proportion.
RESIDENTS DURING THE WAR.
Elsewhere in this work (chapter VII) has been given
* The late E. D. Mansfield, of Cincinnati, in "Personal Memories." His father, Jared Mansfield, was appointed by Jefferson, in 803, as the successor of General Rufus Putnam, Surveyor General of the United States. The family lived for several years in Marietta. Mr. Mansfield was then a mere child. He wrote from common report upon the Marietta of earlier days.
+Colonel Joseph Barker's notes (Ms.)
General Putnam's list of arrivals at Marietta during the years 1788-89, and 1790. We now present a list* of those who were residents of Marietta—at Campus Martius, at "the Point," and in and near Fort Harmar-during the whole or a part of the period of the war.
To begin with, there were at Campus Martius the following:
General Rufus Putnam, wife, two sons and six daughters.
Governor Arthur St. Clair, son and three daughters.
General Benjamin Tupper, wife, three sons and a daughter.
Colonel Ichabod Nye, wife, and three sons.
Colonel Robert Oliver and wife, two sons, William and Robert, and two daughters, Nelly, married to Thomas Lord, the other to Captain William Burnham.
Thomas Lord and two apprentice boys—Benjamin Baker, and Amos R. Harvey.
Colonel R. J. Meigs, wife, and son, Timothy.
R. J. Meigs, jr., and wife. (He lived the larger part of the time at the Point).
Colonel Enoch Shepherd, wife, and nine children: Enoch, Daniel, Luther, Calvin, Esther, Anna, Rhoda, Lorana, and Huldah.
Charles Greene, esq., wife, and three children: Sophia, Susan, and Charles; also Miss Sheffield, sister of Mrs. Greene, and afterwards wife of Captain Ziegler, of Fort Harmar.
Major Ezra Putnam, wife, and two daughters. Major Haffield White and son, Peletiah.
Joshua Shipman, wife, and three children.
Wife and two sons and daughter of Captain Strong (who was attached to the army).
Captain Davis, wife, and five children.
James Smith, wife, and seven children.
John Russell, son-in-law of Smith.
Archibald Lake, wife, and three sons—Thomas, Andrew, and John.
Eleazer Olney, wife, and fourteen children.
Major Olney, wife, and two sons—Columbus and Discovery.
Ebenezer Corey and wife.
Richard Maxon, wife, and several children.
James Wells, wife and ten children. The sons were David, Joseph, Thomas, and Varnum. The daughters married as follows: Polly, to Richard Maxon; Nancy, to Thomas Carey; Susan, to Peletiah White; Betsy, to Jacob Proctor; and Sally, to Peleg Springer.
Major Coburn and wife, two daughters and three sons —Asa, Phinehas, and Nicholas.
Joseph Wood, wife, and one child.
Captain John Dodge, wife, and two sons—John and Sidney.
Robert Allison, wife, and children—three sons, young men, Charles, Andrew, and Hugh.
Elijah Warren, wife, and one child.
Gersham Flagg, wife, and children.
Widow of Joseph Kelley (who was killed in 1791) and mother of Arthur St. Clair Kelly, the first child born at Marietta.
* Derived for the most part trom Hildreth's Pioneer History.
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Single men—Major Anselem Tupper, Edward W. Tupper, Benjamin Tupper, jr., Rev. Daniel Story, ,Thomas Hutchinson, William Smith, Gilbert Devol, jr., Oliver Dodge, Alpheus Russell, Thomas Corey, and Azariah Pratt.
At or near Fort Harmar were the following families and single men:
Hon. Joseph Gilman and wife.
Benjamin Ives Gilman and wife. These families lived in a block-house above the fort.
Paul Fearing, a resident of Fort Harmar, Southwest block-house.
Colonel Thomas Gibson, an Indian trader, licensed for Washington county, occupied a block-house near the fort.
Hezekiah Flint and Gould Davenport, single men.
Mrs. Welch and several children lived at the fort. Her husband died of small-pox in 1790, and she married Thomas Hutchinson.
Preserved Seaman, wife and four sons—Samuel, Gilbert, Preserved, and Benajah. Samuel had a wife and several children and lived in the guard-house of the fort.
Benjamin Baker, wife and one child, lived in a small stone house just south of the fort.
George Warth, wife and five sons—John, George, Robert, Martin, and Alexander, and two daughters; lived in a log house between the fort and the river. Two of the sons were employed as rangers for the garrison during the war; Robert was killed by the Indians ; George married Ruth, a sister of Joshua Fleehart, the Belpre ranger.
Joseph Fletcher married Catharine Warth.
Picket Meroin, married Polly Warth.
Francis Thierry and wife with two children were of the French emigrant party which arrived in 1790. Thierry was a baker. He lived afterwards for many years in Marietta. A daughter of Thierry's wife by a - former marriage—Catharine La Lance, married Robert Warth, a short time before he was killed.
Monsieur Cookie was another of the French emigrants who remained at Fort Harmar.
Monsieur Le Blond, also French, carried on a distillery of cordials, and made wooden shoes.
Monsieur Shouman had been bred a gardener in France and followed that occupation near the fort. He had a wife and son, but his wife dying during the period of the war, he married the widow of Sherman Waterman, who was killed by the Indians.
Monsieur Gubbeau, another of the French emigrants, was a young man. He carried the mail in company with Pierre La Lance in 1795, from Marietta to Gallipolis.
At the Point garrison were the following families :
William Moulton, wife, one son, Edward, and two daughters. The father and son were members of the pioneer party of 1788. They were from Newburyport, Massachusetts, and the elder, who died in 1793, was a goldsmith by trade. Anna Moulton married Dr. Josiah Hart, and Lydia, Dr. Leonard.
Dr. Jabez True boarded with the Moulton family.
Captain Prince, a hatter by trade, from Boston, with wife and two children.
Moses Morse and wife. Morse owned a row of four log houses, which he rented to transient residents or people who were preparing cabins of their own.
Peter Nyghswonger, wife (Jane Kerr, sister of Hamilton Kerr, the spy), and several children occupied a cabin fronting on the Muskingum. Nyghswonger was himself a ranger and hunter. He moved westward after the war, following the game.
William Skinner dwelt at the point during the war and kept store, but afterwards removed to the Harmar side of the Muskingum.
J. McKinley was a partner with Skinner.
R. J. Meigs, jr., whom we have spoken of as a resident at Campus Martius, kept a store fronting on the Muskingum.
Charles Greene was in partnership with him.
Hon. Dudley Woodbridge, wife and children, lived in a block-house very near the Ohio. Between his house and the Ohio river he built a frame house in which he kept a store.
Captain Josiah Munroe, wife and two children lived near the centre of the enclosure or stockade.
Captain William Mills, wife, and one child, occupied a house near Munroe's.
Captain Jonathan Haskell, commander of a company of United States troops, also lived at this garrison.
Hamilton Kerr, the ranger, and his mother, lived in a small block-house.
Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, wife, and daughter, had a small house near the bank of the Ohio.
Commodore Abraham Whipple and family lived with Sproat, who was his son-in-law.
Joseph Buell, wife, and two children, and Levi Munsell and wife, lived in a large frame house heretofore spoken of—the first frame house built in Marietta—and kept tavern.
William Stacey (son of Colonel Stacey), wife and children.
Joseph Stacey (also a son of the colonel), wife and children.
James Patterson, wife and children.
Nathaniel Patterson, wife and children.
Captain Abel Mathews, wife and six children. (He was the father of John Mathews, of whom much is said in this volume).
Thomas Stanley, wife and four children.
Eleazer Curtiss, wife and children.
Simeon Tuttle, wife and family of children.
A number of the Ohio company's laborers occupied a row of cabins which stood upon the Ohio river bank but their names have not been preserved.
We have, in most cases, given nothing more than the names of these families—the first settlers of Marietta— as biographies of most of them are inserted at the close' of the Marietta history, or elsewhere in this volume.
MARIETTA IN 1803.
The settlement, consisting of three small groups of dwellings—Campus Martins, "The Point" garrison and
364 - HISTORY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, OHIO.
Fort Harmar—and containing during the war period, the people whose names we have given and a few others, had become by 1803, after eight years of peace, a flourishing little village. It is thus described: by the Rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris, who arrived April 23, while making his "tour into the territory northwest of the Alleghany mountains:"
There are now within the town plat five hundred and fifty inhabitants; and ninety-one dwelling houses, sixty-five of which are frame or plank eleven of brick, and three of stone. It contains also eight merchants stores, nineteen buildings occupied by public officers and mechanics, three rope walks eight hundred and fifty feet long, a gaol and court house under the same roof, and an academy which is used at present as the place of worship.
Marietta is a place of much business, and is rapidly increasing in population. Ship building is already carried oft to a considerable extent. A spirit of industry and enterprise prevails. Add to all the remarkable healthiness of the place, the benefit it receives from the growing settlements on the Muskingum, and the extensive navigation of that river, and it is easy to foresee that it wilt maintain a character as the most respectable and thriving town in the State.
The situation of this town is extremely well chosen, and is truly delightful. The appearance of the. rivers, banks and distant hills is remarkably picturesque. Trees of different form and foliage give a vast variety to the beauty and coloring of the prospect, while high hills that rise like a rampart all around, add magnificence to the scene. Back of the town is a ridge finely clothed with trees.
According to the above statement Marietta had a little more than one-third the present population of the village of Harmar, two hundred and eighty less than that of Beverly, eighty-one less than Matamoras, three hundred and fifty less than Belpre and was almost exactly one-tenth the size of the Marietta of 1880—population five thousand four hundred and forty-four.