A history of Knox County, Ohio, from 1779 to 1862 inclusive: comprising biographical sketches, anecdotes and incidents of men connected with the county from its first settlement; together with complete lists of the senators, representatives, sheriffs and other officers of the county, and a sketch of Kenyon College, and other institutions of learning and religion within the county

Front matter

REYN

genealogy

• i ORfCAL

Preface

To write the history of my native county, and to rescue from oblivion the anecdotes and early incidents of its first settlers, has been with me a pleasant pastime. While it has been much labor to gather the material for this work, and to test it by the crucible of truth, my mind has thereby been relieved of much care and of anxious thoughts upon more serious subjects during an exile in my native land ; and if I will have been the means of preserving, for the future histo™ rian, matters which are within the recollection of but very few now living, my time and toil have been well spent.

Several years ago, when a resident of this place, I collected many of the items which I now produce from memory : such as the captivity of John Stilley, and events of early occur™ rence within the knowledge of Dr. Timothy Burr, my father, Daniel S. Norton, Col. John Greer, Judge Bevans, Gilman Bryant, Col. Emor Harris, Judge Jesse B. Thomas, Rev. James Scott, and others, who have since deceased. Among my papers in Texas are notes taken by me of conversations with the above recited parties, as also with Samuel H. Smith and William Smith, old residents of Knox, now residing in that State.

I would have delayed the publication of the sketch I give herewith, were it not very uncertain when the present unhappy war may terminate, or what my future may be. Procrastination might prove fatal to the enterprise ; hence I have con-

IV

PREFACE.

eluded to furnish it to the children of the old settlers, and the public generally in the Ko-kosing country, conscious that it has imperfections, but without the ability, under existing circumstances, of making it more complete. My object is accomplished in putting in this form for preservation much crude material, which I regard as of value to those who may succeed us: I did not undertake it with expectation or purpose of gain.

I may have overlooked some names in putting the manuscript to press, or improperly placed others; but from the most reliable data I have drawn my conclusions and made my state' ments. I would have been pleased to have extended my genealogical sketches, and to have traced out the various old families in the townships ; but, from having met several who were indisposed to give me information, I found this branch must necessarily be partial, and desisted from researches in that way. The reader will take those named as examples of the manner in which I think a history of the county ought to be written, and I would like to have so presented it. Some, whose names may not be found in this book, may find fault with its compilation, as did “ Schmidt,” the dutch drayman in the city of Austin, whose name he discovered in the Directory spelled “Smith,” and exclaimed, “I would not give one tarn for the Correctory vot has my name left out of it ; for Smith is not Schmidt no how.”

Of one thing all may be assured, and that is this: I have set down naught in malice, nor aught extenuated, but endeavored to represent all fairly and correctly. I have no object to do otherwise. I do not intend ever to live among you, nor in your State, and am, therefore, truly independent. I belong to no political or religious party, sect or organization of the present day, nor do I ever expect to. “ He is a freeman whom the truth makes free ! ” Having no interests to subserve —

PREFACE.

Y

“no friends to reward, or enemies to punish.” — I am, with my best regards to such as have received me kindly and aided me with information, and to the people of Knox individually and collectively,

Their friend,

A. BANNING NORTON.

Mount Vernon, 0., July 1, 1862.

HISTORY OF KNOX COUNTY.

Chapter I

Sketch of tiie country and settlement prior to organization. — Traversed before the territory of ohio was named by one of its

SUBSEQUENT SETTLERS. ITS INHABITANT BEFORE THE STATE WAS ORGAN-

IZED.— Its citizens when fairfield county was created. — With INCIDENTS OF FRONTIER LIFE AND ADVENTURE.

The country having for its name Ohio was constituted, under General Arthur St. Clair, a territorial government in the year 1788, and he continued as Governor until the adoption of the State Constitution in 1803.

By his proclamation the county of Eairfield was created December 9tli, 1800, and the district of which we now treat was included therein until the month of February, 1808, when it was, by enactment of the Legislature, organized into a separate and distinct county, honored with the name of General Henry Knox, a distinguished officer of the revolutionary army, who was subsequently Secretary of War in Gen. Washington’s administration.

The first white man known to have viewed this section of country was John Stilley, who, when a captive among the Indians, traversed the White Woman and Owl Creek from its mouth in a northwesterly direction, as early as June, 1779, nine years before the name of Ohio had been given to this territory, and when the savages and wild beasts roamed at will throughout its vast extent.

The first settlers in this district were from Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and its inhabitants, at every period of its history, have been chiefly from the middle States.

Prom our research into early statements, we are led to believe that Andrew Craig was the first white man who located within the present county limits. He was, at a very early day, a sort of frontier character, fond of rough and tumble life, a stout and rugged man — bold and dare-devil in disposition— who took delight in hunting, wrestling and athletic sports, and was “hail fellow well met” with the Indians then inhabiting the country. He w as from the bleak, broken, mountainous region of Virginia, and as hardy a pine knot as ever that country produced. He was in this country when Ohio was in its territorial condition, and when this wilderness region was declared to be in the county of Pairfield, the sole denizen in this entire district, whose history is now being written, tabernacled with a woman in a rough log hut close by the little Indian Pield, about one-half mile east of where Mount Vernon city now exists, and at the point where Centre Pun empties into the Ko-ko-sing. There Andrew Craig lived when Mount Vernon Avas laid out in 1805 — there he was upon the organization of Knox county, its oldest inhabitant — and there he continued until 1809. Such a harumscarum fellow could not rest easy when white men got thick around him, so he left and went to the In-

KNOX COUNTY.

dian village — Greentown — and from thence migrated further out upon the frontier, preferring red men for neighbors.

After many years of solitary residence on the beautiful Ko-ko-sing, the solitude of Oraig’s retreat is broken by the entrance of a lone Jerseyman, who, in the spring of 1803, penetrates some ten miles further into the wilderness, so as not, by too close proximity, to annoy each other, and there raises a little log cabin and settles down. This follower of the trade of Vulcan soon gets in readiness to blow and strike, and sets about supplying the sons of the forest with the first axes they had ever seen, and by making for them tomahawks, scalping knives, etc., he acquires the sobriquet of the “ axe-maker,” which for more than half a century has attached to Nathaniel Mitchel Young.

A year passes by before any white accession is made to society on Owl Creek. Then a stalwart backwoodsman breaks the silence by the crack of his rifle, and at the spot where James S. Banning now lives, near Clinton, the pioneer, William Douglass, drives his stake.

The skillful navigator plies his oar, and Robert Thompson ascends Owl Creek to where Mount Vernon now stands, and on the rich bottom land, about one mile west, commences another improvement. George Dial, of Hampshire county, Virginia, in another pirogue comes up the creek, and, pleased with the beautiful country about where Gambier now flourishes, pitches his tent at the place now occupied by John Troutman. Old Captain James Walker, from Pennsylvania, settles on the bank of the creek where Mount Vernon now is. John Simpkins wanders from Virginia, with his son Seeley for his capital, and squats about a mile above Douglass, where George Oassel’s beautiful farm now exists. While these plain men from Virginia, If ew Jersey and Pennsylvania are preparing their cabins for comfortable occupation, and making little clearings, a stray Yankee, solitary and alone, with a speculative eye and money-making disposition, is, with pocket compass, taking his bearings through the forest, soliloquizing about the chance of making a fortune by laying out a town and selling lots to those who may come after him into this charming new country. Having, as he thought, found the exact spot for his future operations, he blazes a tree, and wends his way to the nearest town — Pranklinton — west of the Scioto, then a place of magnificent pretensions, where he gets chain and compass and paper, and returns and lays out the town of Clinton, in section number four, township seven, range four, United States military district, with its large “ public green,” its north street and south street, its main street, first, second, third and fourth streets, and one hundred and sixty lots, and, taking his town plat in his pocket, he walks to Kew Lancaster, being the first white person ever known to have made a journey in that direction from this infant settlement, and before Abraham Wright, Justice of the Peace, acknowledges that important instrument, and on the 8th of December, 1804, places it upon record. Thus Samuel H. Smith, subsequently the first surveyor of Knox county, for many years a resident, its leading business man, and

KKOX COUNTY.

largest land holder, made his entrance into this district.

Shortly afterwards a large accession was made to the population of the country by the emigration from Ten Mile, Washington county, Pa., of John Mills, Henry Haines, Ebenezer and Abner Brown, and Peter Baxter, who settled a short distance south of Owl Creek, where the Beams, Merrits and Lafevers have since lived. This settlement, by the increase of the Leonards, was in 1805 and ’6 the largest and best community in the country, and upon the organization of the county, and for several years thereafter, it furnished the leading men.

Ben. Butler, Peter Coyle, and Thomas Bell Patterson, in the spring of 1805, augment the Walker settlement, where Mount Vernon was located shortly thereafter. William Douglass is joined by James Loveridge, who emigrates from Morris county, Yew Jersey, and with his wife takes quarters on the 6th of July upon the clapboards in the garret of his little log cabin, and is mighty glad to get such a shelter as that to spend the year in. The next year Loveridge starts off, under pretense of hunting a cow, and goes to the land office and enters and pays for the tract of land, where shortly after he erected a dwelling, and has ever since resided. Upon this land there is an uncommon good spring, which caused him to select it, and he tells with much glee the circumstances under which he obtained it. The only Yankee then in the country claimed to have located it, and proposed to sell it to him at a higher price than the government rate, which was then $2 per acre. Concealing his intention from all but his wife, Loveridge slipped olf and examined into and purchased it himself from the government, and when he returned with his patent, Bill Douglass laughed heartily at the Jersey Blue overreaching the cunning Yankee. Amoriah Watson, of Wyoming county, Pa., also put up with Douglass, and thus this settlement was made up of Douglass, Smith, Watson and Loveridge, in 1805. The old axe-maker, in the meantime, is followed up by some of his relations and friends, who start what has ever since been known as the Jersey settlement. Jacob Young, Abraham Lyon and Simeon Lyon are the first to settle upon the South Pork of Owl Creek, and are succeeded by Eliphalet Lewis, J ohn Lewis, and James Bryant. The Indians they found very numerous, and through the kind feelings towards the old axe-maker, they were very friendly, and really quite an advantage in ridding the country of wolves, bears, and other varmints.

In the winter of 1805-6, that settlement entered into a written agreement to give nine bushels of corn for each wolf scalp that might be taken, and three of the men caught forty-one wolves in steel traps and pens ! The description of these pens, and one of the stories told of their operation, we give in the words of an old settler : — “ Wolf pens were about six feet long, four wide, and three high, formed like a huge square box, of small logs, and floored with puncheons. The lid, also of puncheons, was very heavy, and moved by an axle at one end, made of a small, round stick. The trap was set by a figure 4, with any kind of meat except that of wolf’s, the animals being fonder of any other than

KKOX COUNTY.

their own. On gnawing the meat, the lid fell and caught the nnamiable native. To make sport for the dogs, the legs of the wolf were pulled through the crevices between the logs, hamstrung, and then he was let loose, when the dogs soon caught and finished him. In Delaware county an old man went into a wolf trap to fix the spring, when it sprung upon him, knocking him flat upon his face, and securely caught him as though he were a wolf. Unable to lift up the lid, and several miles from any house, he lay all one day and night, and would have perished but for a hunter, who passing by heard his groans, and came to his rescue.”

North, west and east of these embryo settlements all was wilderness for many long miles. A place bearing the name of Newark had been laid out by Gen. W. 0. Schenck, but it had not any greater population than these little scattered settlements aforementioned. The principal towns of note to the early settlers were Lancaster, Chillicothe and Zanesville. Neither of them were much larger then than our usual M roads villages now are. The people were exceedingly neighborly, and performed all manner of “ kind chores” for each other, in going to mills, laying in goods, dividing what they had with each other, &c. The nearest mill in 1805, was in Tair field county. Our old friend James Loveridge informs us of a trip he made to that mill, which was seven miles up the Hockhocking river, from Lancaster. It belonged to Loveland & Smith, and was situated in a little crack between some rocks, and he went down into the mill from on top of the roof. He made the trip there and back/about 125 miles, and brought borne with him in his wagon about 900 pounds of flour, one barrel of whisky, and one barrel of salt. How the settlement must have rejoiced at the arrival of the great staples of frontier life, salt, whisky and flour !

KNOX COUNTY.

Chapter II

Continuation op the early outline. — More about the first settlers. — Quakers from Maryland find their way in 1806. — Incidents connected with their emigration, and in the movements of other settlers.— Who they were and what became of them. — The privations

ENDURED AND DANGERS ENCOUNTERED. — MORE TOWNS LAID OUT. THE

first mills. — The scene of an encounter with Indians. — Inconveniences of the country. — Efforts for a new county. — An early election.— Fairfield divided. — Three new counties created by one bill. — Strife for the seat of justice of knox.

The spring of 1806 brought with it a new element into the wilderness region, in the form of the Triends — the forerunners of large numbers of that society, who by their quiet yet industrious ways have contributed very much to the prosperity and peacefulness of our people. The venerable father Henry Roberts may be justly regarded as the head of this emigration from Maryland. In 1805 he left Frederick county, in that State, with his family, and directed his course to the far west, but on reaching Belmont county, found it necessary to winter his family there, and sent his wagon and team back to Maryland with a load of ginseng and snake-root, and on their return with a load of goods, he started with his family and plunder, and on the 7tli of April, 1806, he landed at Henry Haines’, in the Ten Mile settlement, and after spending a week looking for a good location, on the 14tli of that month settled down his family at the little prairie five miles above Mount Vernon, of late widely known as the Armstrong section. The family consisted of his wife, Ids sons — William, now living at Pekin, Illinois ; Isaiah, now residing near Pilot Knob, Missouri ; Kichard Roberts, of Berlin — and a daughter Massah, who married Dr. Timothy Burr, and died at Clinton, March 9th, 1814. Mne acres of that beautiful prairie were at once broken up and planted in corn. It was very hard work to break the virgin soil with a first rate four-horse plow team, but it paid for that labor by one of the finest crops of corn ever raised in this country. In the fall Wm. Y. Parquhar, a cousin of Henry Roberts, came with Ids family, and after him came Wm. W. Parquhar with his family. They all stopped with Henry Roberts, and thus composed the first settlement of Priends in this district. Prom this nucleus came the numerous society of Quakers in Wayne, Middlebury and Berlin, in after years. Shortly after this we find another Quaker, Samuel Wilson, and John Kerr in what subsequently became Wayne township, and John Cook and Jacob Cook just above, in what is now Middlebury township, and Amoriali Watson goes from Douglass’ to the tract of land above, where Predericktown was the next year laid out, and which he subsequently sold to Jacob Ebersole, a place now easy to be identified by all. In the spring of 1806, there were within the after limits of Knox county but fifteen persons who turned out to vote, and but nine liable to per form military duty out to muster.

The first grist mill erected in this county was of

KNOX COUNTY.

a decidedly primitive character. It was in tlie Hains, or Ten Mile settlement, and constructed without the sound of the hammer upon iron. It was the joint work of Ebenezer and Abner Brown, assisted by the mechanical skill of the whole neighborhood, and was built on what was called by the early settlers “ Big Bun,” though in later times it is spoken of as the little Lake, through which the road to Granville has since been laid out. The water has almost disappeared — having been in its appearance greatly changed by ditching, and in some parts obliterated by filling up the hollow. The mill stood where Isaac Beam’s house now is, and the dam was where the bridge now stands in the lane. It was all of wood — a sugar-trough made its meal-trough — a little box the hopper — the stones were about two feet through, and hooped with elm bark for want of iron. It cracked corn pretty well with a good head on, but the stream was generally dry, and the mill was only able to run when big showers of rain came. The building was about ten feet square, of rough logs — not a nail or a bit of iron could be had when it was made. The stones of this ancient of days are certainly a curiosity — they are yet to be seen, being the property of Moses Earquhar, of Berlin, who since that day has attempted experiments with them. Bichard Boberts at one time took a grist to this original mill and had it ground. He was then about seventeen years old, and not much acquainted with the milling business, but he was greatly impressed with its mechanism, and ready to exclaim, with our old

friend Hadly, “ The works of God are wonderful, 2 but the works of man are wonderfuller !” He thought that it worked first rate, though Henry Hains at that time had got a little hand mill which he claimed was a great improvement on the little wooden mill.

Mr. Roberts recollects of having at one time packed a bag of corn from Tom Butler’s down on White-woman home, and from thence to a mill near Newark, and back home again, less a heavy toll. While at the mill he saw Hughes, and from his own lips had a true account about the killing of Indian horse thieves, whom Jack Ratliff and himself had pursued into the Owl Creek country and killed as they came upon them in the bottom just below where Eredericktown now stands. The story runs thus : — “ One night in April, 1800, two Indians stole their horses from a little inclosure near their cabins, located in some old Indian fields on the Licking. In the morning, finding their horses gone, and tracks about, they were satisfied of their having been stolen, and started off in pursuit, accompanied by a man named Bland. They followed their trail all day, and camped at night in the woods, and making an early start in the morning, surprised the Indians in their sleep. They drew up their rifles to shoot, when one of the Indians, discovering them, clapping his hands on his breast, as if to ward off the fatal ball, exclaimed in piteous tones, 4 me bad Indian ! — me no do so more ! ’ Alas ! in vain he plead ; the smoke curled from the glistening barrels, the report rang in the morning air, and the poor Indians fell dead.” Hughes and Ratliff returned home with the horses

KNOX COUNTY.

and plunder taken from the Indians, feeling as well over their little exploit as any men ever did over a great and glorious action. Ellis Hughes, who was known to very many of our old settlers, died near Utica, in March, 1845, and was buried with military honors. He was believed to be the last survivor of the hard fought battle of Point Pleasant. He was a hardy backwoodsman from Western Virginia.

Our old townsman, Wm. Mefford, informs us that when he improved his farm on Mile Pun, in Wayne township, he was clearing off ground on which to build his house, and he then plowed up the two Indians killed by Hughes, and also a rusty gun barrel, brass guard, and other pieces of a gun, which had not decayed. This was in 1835; and Jacob Mitcliel now has the old relics.

George Conkie gathered up the bones and buried them, and the house was built on the spot — the old Peck place on Mile Pun bottom, where Mrs. Acre now lives. In early days there was a favorite camping ground for the Indians about three-fourths of a mile from where these Indians were killed. Three old settlers have informed us that about 1808 they saw at one time more than one hundred and fifty warriors camped there. They have several times seen Old Crane, the Wyandot Chief, the Chief Armstrong, and Captain Pipe, with bands of Indians, roving through this country, and we have gathered some very amusing incidents connected therewith, which the limit we have prescribed for this work compels us to omit in this edition.

The great inconvenience the settlers labored under for want of building material caused William

Douglass, as early as the spring of 1805, to conceive the design of erecting a mill at the seat now known as Banning’s Mill. He then commenced digging the race and building the dam. After getting a saw to running, he set to work building a grist mill ; being a man of enterprise, he could not brook the thought that the people in that neighborhood should continue to boil and pound their corn when they could not take time to go to the distant mills.

John Kerr, as will be elsewhere noted in this book, erected a little grist mill on the Sullivant track, and laid out the town of Frederick in the first quarter, seventh township, fourteenth range, United States military district, which on the 11th of November, 1807, he acknowledged, in presence of George Chambers, before Wm. W. Farquliar. A full account of the early settlement and progress of this thriving village will be found under the head of Wayne township.

In our investigation of early matters, we find that the settlers of this district were solicitous upon three great points for legislative aid, to wit : the division of Fairfield, the increase of premium upon wolf scalps, and proper encouragement in killing squirrels. The General Assembly, in 1807, passed a bill to encourage killing of squirrels. It went through the popular branch with a rush, but the vote upon the final passage of the bill in the Senate, on the 21st of December, stood 8 ayes to 7 nays. The price for scalping grown wolves was increased, after some time and much petitioning, and the monster Fairfield was dismembered at last. Happy were those

KNTOX COITXTY.

old pioneers, at that period of their existence —

“All then was happy — possessing and possessed —

No craving void left aching in the breast!”

In looking over the old petitions and beholding the cramped signatures of a number of these hardy yeomen, whose rough specimen marks of cracked and blistered hands in frontier service, clearly bear witness to their whole heart being in the prayers sent up for these measures, we can well imagine how they must have chuckled with delight, as a Christian over his soul’s salvation, at the realization of their wishes. In those primitive times their attention was not diverted from the real live issues affecting the welfare of themselves and their families to grand humanitarian schemes for the benefit of any other race or people. The squirrels eat the kernels when the corn was in silken tassels, taking it out of their children’s mouths ; the wolves prowled about their tracks, destroying their pigs and poultry, and rendered night hideous with their howling, and frightened and endangered the lives of wives and children, so they could not leave home to attend to necessary business at the remote county seat. This was a remarkable epoch in the history of the pioneers of this country.

In 1807, at the October election, the section of country known as T air field county cast but 213 votes, all told ; and now there is scarcely a tow nship in all this country that does not contain more voters. Then the entire vote cast for Governor in the State, as officially published, was 5,616; and now, after the space of fifty-four years, our own county of Knox polls over 6,000 votes, and the old county as it then existed polled at the last election 40,000 !

What a change in the country we have lived to witness! How striking the contrast in manners, customs, education, intelligence, and in political, religious, and social life ! In nothing is the alteration more clearly marked than in the dissemination of information in reference to elections and the system of electioneering. Then every man ran on his own hook — his oivn race — making the best speed he was capable of — fully impressed with the belief that the devil would take the hindmost. The race was won then by personal merit and cleverness. Now party intervenes; caucuses and juntos dictate; conventions and wigwams gather together political carpenters, joiners and jacks of all trades, whose special province it is to make platforms out of vagrant material for weak-kneed and spavined candidates to stand on. Then there were no daily papers, and weekly ones only existed in great cities lijte Boston, New York and Philadelphia. In fact nine-tenths of the then inhabitants had never seen a newspaper. The official count of the vote of that year shows more fully than any language could convey the state of blissful ignorance prevailing throughout all this now politically crazy country. There were then two candidates running for Governor, to wit: Beturn Jonathan Meigs and Nathaniel Massie. The former was voted for under nineteen different names, and the latter under five different styles. The various tickets read: Por Beturn J. Meigs, Beturn J. Meigs, Jun., Jonathan B. Meigs, Jr., Jonathan Beturn Meigs, Jonathan Beturn

KNOX COUNTY.

Meigs, Jr., Return Meggs, Return R. Meags, Jr., Jonathan Meggs, Jonathan R. Meggs, J. Meigs, Jr., Jonathan Meigs, Jonathan J. Meigs, Judge Meigs, John Meigs, Mr. Meigs, J. Maggs, Return Israel Meigs, James Meigs, Johan Meigs. Nathaniel Massie, Nathaniel Massie, Esq., Janies Massie, Mr. Massie, Daniel Massie. Meigs received 3,299 ; Massie 2,317 ; and Return J. Meigs was declared elected Governor by 982 majority. Thomas Kirker, Speaker of the Senate, was then acting Governor.

Meigs had been a colonel in the army, and was appointed judge of the territory of Louisiana in July, 1805, and had resided in that country some six months ; his wife and family, however, had remained, during his absence, at Marietta, in this State. Massie contested his election; and on the 30th of December, 1807, the General Assembly, in joint session, by a vote of 24 to 20, decided that Meigs was not eligible. The vote of Eairfield was: Eor Meigs, 167 ; Massie, 46. In 1810, Governor Meigs wras elected by the people, and served as Governor until 1814. He w as a gentleman of education and talent, and Meigs county, upon the Ohio river, will perpetuate his name as long as Ohio exists. At the election of 1807, above alluded to, Elnathan Scofield was elected Senator, and Philemon Beecher and Wm. W. Irwin Representatives.