Adams County, Ohio - Chapter 18: Miscellaneous, 1900 (part 1 of 2)

Chapter 18: Miscellaneous

I have been requested to prepare a sketch of the only duel that was ever iought on Adams County soil. To me it is a very interesting subject, for that fight took place on the farm where I was bom and in the presence of a number of my blood-kin. From my earliest childhood I have heard the affair discussed by all of the old people of our neighborhood, especially by my father and mother, while away back yonder when I was a wee small bov 1 often saw the two principals in the affair eating and drinking and talking and enjoying themselves in my grandfather's hospitable home. Before going any farther permit me to gratefully acknowledge the assistance I have received from Mr. Hixson at the city library in looking up names and dates and details, and the kindness of my venerable friend Mr. John G. Hickman in placing in my hands a long and very interesting letter sent to the Cincinnati Commercial more than a score. of years ago, by Col. Thomas M. Green, of Danville. Everybody ifi this section knows what a charming and accomplished writer Col. Green is. His former residence in Maysville and his long editorial connection with The Eagle admirably fitted him to collect and preserve all data connected with the Marshall family, for he is a blood kinsman of the illustrious house.

The very spot where the encounter took place is hallowed by some of the sweetest and saddest associations of my childhood years, for within a stone's throw my brother Henry lost his life by drowning in the river, while a few hundred yards across the field toward the hill is our family cemetery where rest my beloved parents. The trees under which the duel was fought have long since disappeared, and gone too is the river bank, swept away by as remorseless current as that other tide that is carrying us all away into the utter oblivion of death and forgetfulness ! Right here premit me to say that T am sorry that the task of putting the record of this historical duel into permanent shape was not committed to an abler pen than mine. Once I heard Senator John Sherman say in a public address before the old settlers of Southern Ohio, that there was more of the heroic, the tragic, the poetic and of the melodramatic in the history of this border land than in any of those old storied lands beyond the sea.

The bill now pending in the Ohio State Legislature empowering the commissioners of each county to spend as much as $500 in the matter of the presevervation of public records and private memoirs for the use of the future historian is a step in the right direction. By and by some great and gifted wTiter like Sir Walter Scott will arise in our midst and taking these broken links of individual and family history, personal experiences, records of daring deeds by flood and field, frayed out strands of men's fortitude and women's patience and suffering, will blend them all into one glorious warp and woof of authentic history - ^a book that will be read by all men and find a place in every home and school room.

In looking over the strange and eventful lives of Tom Marshall and Charley Mitchell it will be well to remember that their earlier years were spent in a time when the code duello was looked upon as a christianizer and civilizer, when there was a superabundance of whisky in every house, when schools and churches were few and far between, when the rule of might was the law of the road, when danger lurked in every fence comer, when the courts were powerless to protect the helpless or to punish the guilty, when the conditions of life were so hard that men and women grew old and gray before their time and when the black flag of slavery obstructed the sunshine and threw its ominous shadow across the pathway of the Republic.

The Mitchell family came from Charles County, Maryland, and settled in Mason County, just after the war of the revolution. Ignatius Mitchell married a Bourbon County widow by the name of Mildred Mc- Kee. They lived on a fine farm of 900 acres some six miles below Maysville and directly across from Charleston bar. From this marriage came eight children, five of whom reached maturity. The eldest son, Richard, became a distinguished officer of the navy and served throughout the war of 181 2 with credit. Unfortunately he killed a brother officer in a desperate duel, which led to his resignation from the service and cast a deep gloom over his later years.

Charles Mitchell was born in 1792. From his earliest childhood he gave indications of the traits which afterward developed into marked characteristics. He could brook no restraint and rebelled at all authority ; defiant, proud, revengeful he struck at once at any and everyone who impeded the path he had worked out for himself or who he fancied assumed any superiority over him. For some imaginary slight he had received at home at the age of thirteen years, he swam to a passing flatboat and worked his wav to Natchez, where lived an uncle with whom he stayed three years. Becoming dissatisfied there he came back to Kentucky, but too proud to go back to the home from whence he had fled he sought and obtained the position of deputy in the office of the Clerk of Bourbon County. Next we hear of him as working for a merchant in Maysyille, where he stayed till the breaking out of the war of 1812 brought him the opportunity he had always longed for - the career of a

Captain Thomas Marshall, youngest brother of Chief Justice John Marshall, migrated from Virginia to Kentucky in 1790, settled in Mason County and married the sister of Wm. Kennan, uncle of the late Griffin Taylor of Cincinnati, and noted as one of the most intrepid of men of blood and iron who offered their bodies as ramparts for the defense of the white women against the tomahawk and scalping knife of the Indian ! Among Capt. Marshall's sons were Gen. Thomas Marshall of the Mexican war and Col. Charles A. Marshall of the Sixteenth Kentucky Regiment of the war of the Rebellion.

Young Tom Marshall was from his cradle a bom fighter and aristocrat and from the very beginning could not brook the thought that there was his equal in blood, brains and prowess in all the country around. Hence it will be readily seen that Mason County was too small for two such men as himself and young Mitchell, both of whom aspiring to be considered the "cock of the walk," in any company in which they were thrown.

Mitchell was about twenty years old, six feet high, raw boned, light hair and great big g^ay eyes - eyes that looked you full in the face with a gaze that told you plainly that here was a man who was bent on fighting his way through the world, though an enemy should be found at every step.

Marshall was about a year younger than Mitchell, black haired and eyed, six feet in height, very small hands and feet and a model of symmetry and manly beauty. Mitchell had long practiced with a pistol to be in readiness for such emergencies as were almost certain to arise, until he could at twenty paces hit a swinging grape vine an inch in diameter two shots out of every three. Marshall was an expert with the rifle.

They had eyed each other askance for some time, but neither cared to give the other the choice of weapons. The ill feeling originated in the assumption, as Mitchell fancied, of social superiority on the part of Marshall, which he very bitterly resented. At length, on account of some remark attributed to Marshall in reference to the commission in the armygiven to Isaac Baker and Charles Mitchell the former challenged Marshall, sending the message by the hands of the latter, which was promptly accepted and a meeting arranged. Baker's father and old Tom Marshall, who had been fellow soldiers and intimate friends during the war of the revolution soon put their heads together and resolved that their children should not fight, and so, soon adjusted the whole trouble in terms mutually honorable and satisfactory. But this termination was a sore disappointment to Mitchell, who cherished an ardent desire to figure in an affair of the kind, determined to balk the peace makers. It was not long before he embraced an opportunity of using language exceedingly offensive concerning the younger Marshall, which, being reported to the elder, disclosed to his mind a determination to force his son into a duel or degrade him in public estimation. He at once took proper steps to bring aflairs to a focus. A challenge was at once addressed to Mitchell and delivered by the hand of James Alexander Paxton, a first cousin of Alex. K. McClung, who aftenvards figured in Miss- issippi. The challenge was immediately accepted, the next morning named for the meeting, the weapons the old flintlock smoothbore duelmg- pistols, the distance ten paces, the place on the Ohio side, three miles above Aberdeen, on the farm of Washington Ellis. John Bickley was the second of Mitchell, IsaassBaker declining to act on account of the quarrel that had just been settleosbetween him and Marshall. On the field, in attendance of Mitchell, besiHe his second, were John Chambers, afterwards aid to General Harrison a^d Governor of Iowa; James C. Pickett, distinguished as a publicist, Se?tetary of State under Governor ] Jesha, Secretarv of Legation to Columl>ia\nd Minister to Bolivia ; Isaac Baker, distinguished for bravery at the Ri^r Raisin and other bloody engagements in the war of 1812.

Everyone knew that Marshal was almost ^rtain to fall. After the ground was measured and all the details arrangeoL^litchell came cantering up on a little bobtail pony, the last man on th^ground. Telling his second that he did not intend to kill, but only to wcio^nd his antagonist, he took the position assigned to him as coolly as if sittifUg down to breakfast. The word was given, both pistols were discharge!^, but Mitchell was the quickest and Marshall fell with a shattered thighV^ruck exactly where Mitchell said he would send his ball. Marshall, fil^ding that he could not stand, asked to be placed in a chair and to be allo^'cd another chance, but the seconds would not agree to this and the affaVir ended.

'* Mr. Thomas Marshall and Mr. Chas. Mitchell met this day, agreeable Vf^ *I appointment in the State of Ohio, where the gentlemen took their statioP® f°" exchanged a shot. Mr. Mitchell, when the word was given, being quicktV" than Mr. Marshall, shot him in the hip, which extracted Mr. MarshalTs fire. ^

Old Capt. Marshall had arranged for a signal to be given by th' party bringing his son, in case he should be hit, as every one expected, and on hearing it turned to his wife and said : ''Fanny, they are bringing Tom home !" which was the first intimation she had that her son was in peril. In a few minutes he was brought to her, stretched upon a board. He wrestled for some time with death, but lived to win a commission in the war. His second, Paxton, was afterwards aid-decamp to both Gen. Harrison and Gen. Shelby. Marshall afterwards became identified with the Democratic party, and represented Lewis County twelve years in the Kentucky legislature, one term of which he was six'aker of the house. During the Mexican war he was a brigadier general, and served with distinction and great address under both Generals Scott and Taylor. He was a prominent factor that led to the displacement of Gen. Scott by Gen. William O. Butler in the presidential campaign of 1848, when Cass, of Michigan, headed the ticket. He had a fine estate of 2,000 acres in Lewis County, where he dispensed a royal and free-handed hospitality to all of his old friends and visitors. Finally he was treacherously murdered by one of his tenants by the name of Tyler, in 1853. His remains rest by the side of

Ensign Mitchell was promoted for gallantry to a first lieutenancy of rifles, and served with distinction during the war, during which time he fought two duels, the first with a lieutenant by the name of Bayless, the other with a captain whose name is unknown to the writer of these lines. In! both of these encounters he came off without a scratch, but inflicted serious damage on both of his opponents.

In 1819, while in Cynthiana, Ky., he got into a fight with a Dr. Mc- Millen, whom he left for dead in the street and fled to Texas. On his way to that part of the country - on the gulf between New Orleans and Galveston - ^the vessel was wrecked on an island, and almost all on board perished. Mitchell was washed ashore and came near dying from hunger and starvation. Little is known of his life in Texas, as he would never talk about his ups and downs there. Hearing that Dr. McMillen was not dead, he returned to Kentucky, and soon got into trouble with his brother-in-law - a man by the name of Masterson. They fought in a hotel in Ripley, in a room all to themselves - with knives. When the thing was over, Mitchell had only a few cuts, while Masterson was almost dead from the wounds he had received. The floor and walls of the room looked like a slaughter pen. The next fight he had was with a great big man by the name of Stephen Lee, who quietly and quickly picked him up and threw him down a stairway - a distance of some twelve or fifteen feet. He struck on his head and was so badly hurt and stunned that he was not able to get out his favorite pistol. This also took place at Ripley. Mitchell was chosen as second by William H. McCardle, of Vicksburg, in the fight that did not come off between him and the late R. H. Stanton, of Maysville.

Gen. Tom Marshall was "the friend" of the latter. This brought the two old chaps together, and over a bottle of Madeira they made up, and -afterwards lived on terms of friendship.

In 1844 John M. Clay, of Lexington, the youngest son of the great orator and statesman, was challenged by a Philidelphian named Hopkins, and both proceeded to Maysville to fight. Clay had a letter from his father to Mitchell, who at once proceeded to put him in training. The next morning Clay remarked to Mitchell that were it not for his age and probable unwillingness to participate in such an affair, that he would prefer him as a second to any one living.

"Oh, no," said Mitchell, firing under his left leg and peeling a twoinch sapling at twenty yards, "By Gad, sir, not too old yet to enjoy life." This idea of enjoying existence was quite a novel one to young Clay, whose blood ran cold at the suggestion. Hopkins withdrew his challenge, and the fight did not come off.

In his later years he was sent to the legislature from Mason County and served one term. He died in June, 1861, of heart disease. He was a strong Union man, and his last days were spent in lamenting that he was not at Fort Sumter with Major Anderson and been buried beneath the ruins. He wanted to die amid the storm and whirlwind of battle instead of on a bed of a painful and lingering disease.

Upon his return from Texas, Col. Mitchell married a lady by the name of Fowke, by whom he had a number of children, and one of whom, Richard - evidently a chip off the old block - got into trouble with a man in Ripley by the name of Tomlinson, Whom he killed on the spot. Tomlinson was a prominent newspaper man, and a relative of the Wylies, of Brown County. The bloody affair took place on the very night that John Morgan escaped from the Ohio penitentiary. Tomlinson's son, the Hon. Byers Tomlinson, late a member of the Ohio state legislature from Lawence County, is now publishing the Highland Register at Hillsboro.

The Village Register, then published by Ralph M. Voorhees, contained the following account of the Fourth of July celebration held at West Union, in 1825 :

The Fourth of July was celebrated in this place in a very handsome and becoming manner by Captains McClain's and Cole's companies and a large collection of the county and village.

The military, after going through the necessary forms and parades, marched into the court house, where the Declaration of Independence was read, and a very appropriate oration delivered by D. P. Wilkins, Esq. After which the procession marched to Browning's Inn, where they partook of an excellent dinner prepared for the occasion. Major J. L. Finley, a revolutionary patriot, acted as president, and Col. John Lodwick, as vice president of the day. After the cloth was removed the following toasts were drank :

By A. Hollings worth - Ohio River and Lake Erie - May they soon roll their floods together, inviting population to their banks, and cheering commerce to their crA'stal wharves.

By Benjamin Paull - Gen. Andrew Jackson - The favorite of the friends of American Independence - the terror of those who would destroy the purity of our political institutions.

By John Lodwick - ^The brave Major Croghan and his companions in arms, 183, who defended Fort Stephenson against the British and Indian army of 1,200 men, commanded by Gen. Proctor and CoL Elliott.

By H. K. Stewart - ^The Fiftieth Year of American Independence - May this be a year of jubilee to the oppressed sons of Africa, and may slavery be expelled from the nation before the next fourth of July.

By Robert McDaied - May the members of the West Union Light Infantry feel that fire of patriotism, and that just pride and honor which fills the bosom of every true republican.

By Henry Steece - ^The Goddess of Liberty - May the smile of her countenance be the Polar Star, to direct the weary traveler to the mansion of rest.

By John Fisher - The Second Tuesday of October next - In the election of officers may the citizens of Adams County consult their best judgments, and not be influenced by clerical, medical, or political knaves and quacks.

Scourge Of Asiatic Cholera

June 28, 1899, was the sixty-fourth anniversary of that first awful scourge of Asiatic cholera in West Union. At that time West Union was an inland village of scarcely four hundred people. Then, as now, it was the county seat.

To show the flight of time and the passage of events, we note the public officers and some of the prominent citizens. Robert Lucas was then governor of the state, and Thomas Morris, of Clermont, and Thomas Ewing, of Fairfield, were the United States senators. Thomas L. Hamer, of Brown, represented the county and district in congess. Gen. James Pilson, of Brown, w^as state senator, and John Patterson was a member of the house of representatives from Adams. Hon. John W. Price was the presiding judge of the court of common pleas, and Robert Morrison, Samuel McClannahan, and Joseph Eylar were the associate judges. William Kirker, Jacob Treber, and Seth Van Meter were the county commissioners. Gen. Joseph Darlinton was the clerk of the courts. James Smith was county recorder. Leonard Cole was county auditor, and James Hood county treasurer. Joseph W. Lafferty was postmaster, and kept the office on the corner of Mulberry and Cherry streets, where James Moore formerly resided. Rev. John P. Vandyke was the minister of the Presbyterian Church ; Rev. James

Caskey of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, and Rev. John A. Baugfhman and Maxwell P. Gaddis of the Methodist Church. Rev. Dyer Burgess was residing in West Union at that time, in what is now the Palace Hotel. The village had but one physician, Dr. William B. Will son, who resided on the lot where Jacob Pflaummer now lives; but he had a medical student. Dr. David M. McConaughy, lately of Manchester. Dr. T. P. Hamilton, a son-in-law of Mrs. Jane Armstrong, was there as a physician, but left when the cholera appeared and went to Ripley. The lawyers of the place were the Hon. Nelson Barrere, later of Hillsboro: George Collings, afterwards common pleas judge, and father of the present Judge Henry Collings ; James Keenin, whose subsequent history is unknown to the writer; and Daniel P. Wilkins, who was one of the victims.

Alexander Woodrow and William Carl were undertakers and made coffins. The only newspaper published in the town was the Free Press, owned by Recorder James Smith and Robert Jackman, and was edited by James Carl. John Sparks was then conducting the West Union Bank. The merchants of the village were Wesley Lee, Samuel McCullough, and James Hood. The grave digger at that time was Samuel Ross.

Of those named as citizens of West Union sixty years ago, all have passed away. There are only nine persons now residing in West Union who were living in 1835. These are Joseph Hayslip, Samuel Burwell, Sarah Boyles, Margaret Darlinton, Louis and Mary O. Johnson, Mrs. Caroline Worstell, and William Allen and wife. Of those there during the scourge, but now residing away, only one is surviving at the date of this article, David Sinton, of Cincinnati, who is in his ninety-first year.

The cholera had ravaged Maysville, Ky., in 1832, and had been in Cincinnati. Many citizens of Maysville and Cincinnati had spent the summer in West Union, and in the country, believing that the cholera would not come there. While, therefore, the citizens dreaded the cholera, and regarded it as a visitation of God, they hardly expected it to appear in their village. The people, however, had cause to apprehend its visitation. In 1833 Miss Sallie Sparks (nee Sinton), wife of John Sparks, the banker, had died at Union Landing. On the fourth of June, 1835, Alexander Mitchell, father of R. A. Mitchell, of Portsmouth, Ohio, and of Mrs. Samuel Burwell, had died of '\X at Maysville, Ky. His widow is now living at Portsmouth, Ohio, at the age of 93, and is in good health. Mitchell was only thirty years of age, and left four children. He was a miller on Brush Creek. He died at Maysville, Ky., on his way to Cincinnati. Dr. William Voris, who was with him when he died, a young man of 33 years, living at Brush Creek Forge, went on to Cincinnati, and was there taken with the dread disease, and died on June 7. He left a widow, the daughter of Col. John Means, and three young children, daughters. Both Mitchell and Voris were well known, and their tragic deaths created a profound impression on the village of West Union. There were many sad forebodings. 'The spring was backward and cold; there was much damp weather; the weatherboarding of the houses collected an unusual amount of

Thursday before it appeared - June 25, 1835 - there had been a heavy rain, the hardest ever known. Heavy wintry looking clouds hung in the sky. On Saturday afternoon Daniel P. Wilkins noticed an ominous looking cloud, and on going home at evening remarked to his wife that the cholera had come, and the strange cloud was its portent.

The Methodists had a quarterly meeting appointed for Saturday and Sunday. They held their meeting on Saturday and Sunday morning, but after the morning meeting, all fled. In an experience meeting on Saturday, Mrs. Hughes, who lived on the Robert Ellison farm, arose and stated that she did not fear man, cholera or the devil - ^all of which those who knew her believed to be strictly true. The connection in which she made this statement has not been preserved. The inference is that she did fear God, and Him only. The presence of the dread visitant was known on Saturday morning at 10 o'clock. It was known at that time that Mrs. Prudence Woodrow, a young married woman, the wife of Alexander Woodrow, a cabinet maker, as he was then called, had the disease. She was the first one to be attacked. She suffered all night, and died the next day, the fateful Sunday. She was buried at 5 P. M. Sunday. Mrs. Rebecca Moody was the only woman who attended her interment.

Hamilton Dunbar, aged 53, the father of the now venerable David Dunbar, of Manchester, Ohio, was taken sick late in the evening, and died about 4 o'clock the next (Sunday) morning. He was buried that afternoon in the Lovejoy graveyard. His body was taken out in a wagon, and those who attended the funeral followed behind on foot. This was the usual custom at that time, when hearses were unknown. Hon. Nelson Barrere was one of those who followed the wagon containing the body.

Hamilton Dunbar's was the first deatli that day, though Mrs. Woodrow was the first one attacked. Mrs. Woodrow was the second one to die. She left four young children, Henry, Edgar, Andrew, and Prudence, all of whom lived to maturity, but the last three named have passed away. Henry is still living in Cincinnati. Samuel McCullough, aged sixty, who came from Rockbridge County, V^irginia, about 1816, was keeping a store in a frame building where Miller's and Bunn's drug store now stands. He had lost his wife the February previous, after a long illness of consumption, and was lodging in the rear of the storeroom. He, too, was taken sick in the night. Cyrus Ellison, late of Ironton, was with him all night, and ministered to his needs as well as he could. Samuel McCullough was the father of the late Addison Mc- Cullough, of Ironton, and William McCullough, of Sidney, Ohio. He died at 5 A. M. on June 28, and was taken for burial to Tranquility, Ohio, the same day.

John Seaman lived outside of West Union about two miles. On the twenty-seventh he was at work for Abraham Hollingsworth, excavating the cellar of the house where Miss Caroline Hollingsworth formerly resided. He went home Saturday afternoon, expecting to resume work again Monday morning. He was in the prime of life, and

John Hyde was a young man from Maysville, Ky. He was visiting in Adams County at different places. On Saturday afternoon, the twenty-seventh, he went to the residence of his brother-in-law, the late John Loughridge, four miles south of West Union, to spend Sunday. He was in excellent health and spirits, and sat up late that evening talking with the family. He retired as well as any one .At 2 o'clock on the morning of the twenty-eighth the chc^era attacked him, and he began vomiting and had the most severe cramps. The rice-water discharges appeared at once, and he suffered until 10 o'clock in the morning, when he died. He was buried that evening on the Loughridge farm. We have the account from the late John Loughridge, who resided in Manchester, and who was with him on that memorable day.

John Sinton, the father of David Sinton, of Cincinnati, was 71 years of age. He was taken with the disease and died on the twenty-eighth. David Sinton, his son, was then at Union Landing. He was sent for by a messenger overland, but did not reach West Union until two days after his father had been buried. John Sinton was buried on Sunday evening in the village cemetery.

Rebecca Cluxton was a young married woman, 19 years of age. She was the wife of Jedediah Foster, aiid the handsomest woman in the village. She was taken at noon on the twenty-eighth, and died that day. and was buried in the village cemetery. Her husband was engaged in the manufacture of chairs in the village. They were made at that time principally by hand, and not by machinery. Mrs. Foster was buried in an unstained poplar coffin at 9 A. M. on Monday morning, the twenty-eighth. Her body was hauled to the cemetery in David Bradford's wagon. Mrs. Nancy Hollingsworth was with her from her attack until she died. She left a seven months old baby, a daughter, who grew to maturity and married Jedediah Foster. Her husband is living at Chester. Ky.

John H. Thoniason, a boy aged 14, was taken with the disease and died on the 28th. The Thomason boy ate his dinner on Sunday and was taken sick right away. He died towards evening and was buried before dark on the same evening.

Thus, eight persons died that Sunday when the disease appeared, and all within six or eight hours from the time they were attacked. The villa<2:c was at once shut up; no one went in and no one came out except tlic Armstrong family, whose members went to Ripley. The country people would not come to the village for their mail or anything else. The citizens, as much as possible remained in their homes, and did not go out, except to minister to the sick, or to bury the dead. They would eat no fruits, believing if they did, they would be attacked with the cholera. They lived chiefly on bread and milk. There was one notable and noted exception ; this was Rev. Dyer Burgess. He went everywhere and told the people that slavery was worse than the cholera. ]^c circulated his abolition tracts right along, and wherever he could nurse the sick, or pray with them, or minister to their needs in any way, he would do so, and it made no difference whether the persons ministered to were friends or enemies. He alone, of all the people in the village, ate all the fruit he wished ; and to show his contempt for current theories during the scourge, he sat in his front door and ate publicly, a whole dish of sliced cucumbers, which, at that time, were believed to be sure death. Rev. Burgess had defied public sentiment so long and so vigorously as to slavery and masonry, that it was no difficulty with him, to defy it as to cholera.

On June 30th, Levi Rogers died. He was a farmer northwest of the village. He had been a chair-maker in West Union. He was buried in the Kirker Cemetery. On July ist William McGovney died.

On July 7th, Susan Hollingsworth, a g^rl of twelve years, the daughter of Abraham Hollingsworth, died. She was sick only eight hours. During the pestilence, the father and mother visited all the sufferers and ministered to them.

On July nth, Daniel P. Wilkins died, aged thirty-seven. He was one of the lawyers of the village, and the father of Mrs. John Eylar, and the grandfather of Mr. John A. Eylar, of Waverly. He was attacked at ten o'clock in the morning of July nth. Dr. W^illson was called but failed to arrest the course of the disease. Rev. Dyer Burgess called at eleven o'clock, but did not remain because he saw no prospect of a favorable termination of the case. The victim's pulse ceased to be; noted at the wrist one hour after he was attacked. At 3 P. M. there were several standing around him and he remarked that "A regiment of men could not- console a dying man at such an hour as this."

On the following day, July 12, Roland Dyer died at the age of thirty-two. He was a stage driver and a single man. On July 13th, Col. John McDade died; he was a well known citizen and had been sheriff of the county.

Death then rested from his labors until July 29th, when he took Mrs. Sarah Armstrong. At the beginning she had gone to Ripley to escape the disease. After the death of Col. McDade, she came home, opened her house and died.

Those were the primitive days. All of these victims were buried with their feet to the east, in shrouds, made of white jaconet. Mrs. Wm. Killin made the most of them. The family in which the death occurred purchased the material, and the usual price of making was one dollar, a great sum in those days. No person in West Union was buried without a shroud, till in 1849. Wesley Lee was the first person in West Union ever buried in a suit of clothes.

Alexander Woodrow, William Carl and Robert Wood were coffin makers of that day. The coffins were all made to measure after death ; were usually made of walnut, and plain, waxed or polished as parties ordered.

Coffins were not lined and hearses were unknown at that time; but even then the custom of carrying the corpse on a bier borne on men's shoulders, had ceased. The dead were hauled to the cemeteries in a common road wagon, and the mourners or friends, walked be- hind. The cholera funerals were attended only by a sufficient number to make the interment, - usually three to four, and there were no religious exercises whatever.

There were two persons in the village, reckless dissipated men, who at this time showed themselves heroes. They were David Bradford and Samuel Ross. They went everywhere, ministered to the sick and dying, and attended the funerals. They did not hesitate to expose themselves in any manner to the risk of the disease. They vied with the Rev. Burgess in their good offices in every family which had the disease. There were no paid or trained nurses in those days, and the nursing and care of the sick was a voluntary matter. These three persons came forward and made themselves the cholera nurses of that time. Samuel Ross dug most of the graves. The latter has been forgotten but his good deeds are no doubt perserved by the Recording Angel.

Oblivion is fast claiming the record of the time. No one contemporaneous wrote it up, and in searching for information, I have been met on every hand by failure and disappointment. Most of the old people, who could at one time, recollect it, have their faculties so affected by the infirmities of age, that they cannot recall it; and those who might have recollected, have forgotten, and the facts here presented, were obtained only after the most long continued and faithful research.

In this year, the cholera prevailed in three places in Adams County; in West Union, in Jefferson Township and in Wayne Township. It had been fourteen years since the epidemic of 1835, and the people felt safer. In this case, as in that of 1835, the disease was brought from Cincinnati. Adam McCormick was one of the most prominent citizens of Adams County. He had married Margaret Ellison, the daugther of Andrew Ellison. He resided in the brick house, now the Palace Hotel. He owned numerous farms in Adams County and real estate in Cincinnati. He was a member of the Baptist Church in West Union, the most prominent layman in it, and superintendent of its Sunday school. He had come from Ireland, a penniless youth and acquired a fortune. He had been to Cincinnati to attend to business relating to his property there, lie came home about July ist. On the second he took the cholera, and early on the morning of the third, he died and was buried the same day. The Rev. All good, a Baptist minister, conducted his funeral services. Dr. William F. Willson was then practicing medicine in West Union, as was Dr. David Coleman, and they were in partnership. They attended him. He was 65 years of age and his death was a great loss to the community. Rol^ert S. Willson attended his funeral on the third. At 9 A. M. on the fourth, he was taken violently ill, and suffered extremely until 8 P. M., when he died. Dr. William F. Willson attended him, but was unable to give any relief or save him. He was 61 years of age and left a large family of sons and daughters. He was buried the next day in the village cemetery, and Rev. John Graham, D. D., then pastor of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church attended the funeral. On the 13th, Rev. Graham was taken sick with the cholera, and died with it on the isth. He had a very severe case and suffered in- tensely. At the time he died, his son David, was lying seriously ill with the disease too sick to know of his father's death. The son, however, recovered. Rev. Graham had lived in West Union since 1841. He was of the brightest type of Christian character and was much beloved. He left a widow, two grown sons and three daughters. He received a public funeral and was buried in the village cemetery. On July 17th, the cholera broke out in Jefferson Township. James Scott, aged 61, died that day. Mary A. Mason died July 21st, David Mason died July 26, Margaret Mason died July 28, aged 27 and Samuel Mason died July 29th. These were in the eastern part of the township. John Edminston brought the disease fronu Cincinnati to Cedar Mills. He had an attack of the disease as soon as he returned from the city and he recovered, but three of the members of his family died. Then the widow Beatty and daughter had it. They both recovered. John Nichols and his child then took it. He recovered and the child died. Then three of Madison Bradney's children took it, but all recovered. Samuel Wallace, his wife and cliild had it. He and his wife died. His child recovered. J. M. Fisher had an attack and recovered. There were two cases in the same vicinity in 1852. Isaac Smith brought it from Cincinnati and died July 19th. James N. Fisher, who recovered of it in 1849, d'i^d of it July 20, 1852. Dr. David Coleman attended all the cases at Cedar Mills in 1849 and 1852 except that of Isaac Smith.

The epidemic was brought to the vicinity of North Liberty in the summer of 1849. The germs were brought in the body of Samuel F. Mclntire, who had visited Cincinnati. He was the son of Col. Andrew Mclntire. He was 29 years of age. He took the disease and succumbed in a few hours. His father, Col. Andrew Mclntire, aged 63, died of it the next day, and his mother, Elizabeth Mclntire, aged 62, died of it within thirty minutes from the death of her husband. Three more of the Mclntire family had it, but recovered. They were S. Dyer Mclntire, Jane Mclntire and L. I.indsey Mclntire, two sons and a daughter of Col. Andrew Mclntire.

John F. Wasson resided on an adjoining farm to that of Col. Mclntire. He and his wife and sons and daughters attended the family of Col. Mclntire during their sickness of cholera. Samuel H. Finley and Margaret Wylie, a maiden lady, neighbors, were at the house of Col. Mclntire during his sickness and on the occasion of his death. About August 10, 1849, the two latter each took the cholera and died. Finley was aged 22 years and Miss Wylie, about 40. Samuel C. Wasson, aged 45, a brother of John F., took the cholera and died August nth. His wife. Jane, aged 42. died of it on the 14th. John F. Wasson and his wife, Rebecca, both had it about August to, 1849, ^^^ t)Oth recovered. James Park, a neighbor, also had it and recovered.

The course of these cases would prove clearly that cholera was propagated by germs or bacilli, and that the period of incubation is from a week to ten days. From F. Mclntire's visit to Cincinnati until his attack, was about ten davs, and those persons who took it from the epidemic in the Mclntire family took it about ten days after their exposure to the disease at Col. Mclntire's residence. No precautions were taken at that time to destroy the germs or prevent the spread of the disease. It is remarkable that there were not more cases in the vicinity of Cherry Fork. Had the facts upon the subject now known, been known then. Col. Mclntire's family might have been saved and if that could not have been done, the lives of all the others who died in that vicinity, would certainly have been saved.

The cholera also prevailed at Jacksonville (Dunbarton P. O.) in August, 1849. Dr. Cephas Little died of it. He was about the age of 60. Dr. Wheaton, about the same age, also died of it. Samuel Ellison, about the same age, died of <it. Abraham Wisecup, an aged man, also died of it: Samuel Thomas, aged about 60, died of it. William Thoromon's wife died of it. These deaths all occurred within a period of a few weeks. The victims were all buried ^^nthin a few hours after death. Dr. Andrew Barry Jones went to the village after the death of persons above named. There were several cases after he came, but all recovered.

At that period, the pestilence was looked upon as the visitation of God. People dreaded it as such and felt helpless before it. Thev felt prepared to die when it attacked them and many died from fear of the disease. Had the people in West Union known what we know no\v, they could not only have prevented the scourge, but have stayed it after its outbreak In 1835, ^" ^^i9 ^^^ i" ^851, it was in each instance brought from Cincinnati. West Union then, as now, had no sanitary regulations. It was built on a hill and its entire soil, below a few feet, is underlaid with solid limestone. There is no way to drain the town except by surface draining. The vaults are nowhere over three to four feet deep and their contents can drain into the wells and may do so. The writer believes that all cases of typhoid fever in the village might be traced to this scource. Just before St. John's day in 1851, Francis Shinn, then auditor of the county, and one of the most prominent and popular men in the county, went to Cincinnati to procure supplies for a Masonic celebration which had been planned for that day. Wilson Prather also went at the same time. The weather had been sultry and rainy for some time before the outbreak and during the pestilence it rained frequently and torrents poured down. The Masonic celebration was held June 24, 185 t in the court house yard. Mr. Shinn had exhausted himself in his trip to Cincinnati and in his work on the day of celebration. He at that time resided at the southeast corner of Walnut and Market streets in the property afterwards used by J. W. LaflFerty for carding machines. He went home on the evening of June 24th, tired aiul worn out and that evening was attacked with cholera, the first case in the village. A great many people rushed in to see him and to tender tlu'ir sympathies and services. This continued until his death, early in the morning of June 26th and until after his death and funeral, the people of the village flocked to his house. It was arranged that he should have a public Masonic funeral on the 27th, which was given him. Mrs. Margaret Buchanan remained in his home from the beginmg of his sickness until his funeral. Then she and her husband and child drove overland to Chillicothe, Ohio, and remained there until July 9th, when they returned home. There was no further case of the disease until July 1st, when George Shinn, the father of Francis Shinn, who had been at his son's house on a visit, when the latter was takensick and had remained over until after his son died. The father was sick but a few hours and died in the early morning hours of July 2d. On July 6th, Mrs. Elizabeth Lytle, mother of Mrs. Frances Shinn, and who had been visiting there, took sick and died. On the 7th, Francis A. G. Shinn, a son <5 Francis Shinn, took the disease and died. Thus four persons died in the same house.

On July 9th, Horatio Cole, who lived at the foot of the hill on the Decatur road, whose system had been weakened by the free use of liquor, was attacked in the afternoon. He was taken to the Marlatt Tavern, and died at 8 o'clock that evening and was buried that night. On the evening of the 9th, of July, Mrs. Margaret Lee Buchanan and her husband, John Buchanan and their child returned from Chillicothe, Ohio, where they had been staying for some days. All of them were feeling quite well, but on that evening Mrs. Buchanan was attacked by the disease in its worst form. She suffered the most extreme agony for a few hours and then died Mrs. Minnick attended her as a nurse and physician and said that no other case in West Union suffered as she did. She was only sick about six hours. On the nth, Mrs. Mar\' Lafferty, an aged lady, died, and on the 12th, John Buchanan, husband of Margaret Buchanan, died. On the 13th of July, Thomas Prather, a boy, son of Wilson Prather, died, and on the same day, Ann Olivia Prather, a beautiful girl of fifteen years, his daughter, died. Thus eleven had died within fifteen days and in four families only, but many more had been sick with bowel disease and what they believed to be cholera. The principal physician of the place, Dr. David Coleman, had been busy all the time and was almost exhausted. He had attended nearly all the cases, Dr. Sprague having left and gone to the house of his friend, Oliver Tompkins, on Gift Ridge, just after the outbreak of the pestilence. Mrs. Barbara Minnick acted as nurse and physician both during the epidemic and did most unremitting work. Both Dr. David Coleman and she earned their crowns and harps from Heaven, during the scourge, and are doubtless enjoying them now. It is a great pity that they did not each write out and leave behind them their experiences. During the fifteen days the disease first prevailed, the volunteer nurses were David Graham, Frank Hayslip, Porter Marlatt, Michael Mider, John and William Holmes. The undertakers were George M. Lafferty, Joseph Hayslip, Alexander Woodrow and William Carl. Lafferty and Hayslip were partners. Alexander Woodrow and William Carl had separate shops. They made all their coffins after receiving orders, except Mr. Woodrow who aimed to keep seven or eight ahead, but all were made of walnut by hand. Thomas H. Marshall and James R. Oldsen were the grave diggers at that time. Nelson B. Lafferty then a boy of thirteen went everywhere, carrying messages keeping off flies, doing errands, etc. He exposed himself ever\'where among the sick and dying and was untouched. It is largely due to his excellent memory that this article is as full as it appears.

After the funeral of Francis Shinn, there were no more public funerals of the cholera victims, and no religious exercises at them, except in case of Gen. Darlinton when Rev. Vandyke repeated a prayer at the grave. The only attendants at the funerals, subsequent to those of

Francis Shinn, were just sufficient to make interment. Many left the town alter the 14th. Edward P. Evans and his wife had both been sick, and on the isth, they took their son Wiley, and Mrs. Evans' mother, Mrs. King, and went to Decatur, Ohio, where they remained till after the plague was abated. When the disease broke out a second time on July 24th, there was a general exodus of the inhabitants and this by the advice of Dr. Coleman. About June 28th, David Graham went to Chillicothe, when his sister Ellen (now Mrs. Gowdy of Des Moines, Iowa) was teaching and remained a considerable time. Mrs. Minnick went to Chillicothe about the 28th of June and returned at the same time with Mr. and Mrs. Buchanan. David Graham told his sister, Ellen, on his arrival at Chillicothe, that if he took sick with cholera to send for Mrs. Minnick, then in the town, for she had been very successful with her little pills.

The family of Col. Cockcrill went to his father's at Mt. Leigh. Mr. and Mrs. McCauslen, just married the winter before, went to Aberdeen. Judge Smith's family went to Yellow Bud, and many others went into the country near by. Alex. Mitchell, then eighteen years of age, was an apprentice working for Lafferty and Hayslip, and saw much of the epidemic. Joseph W. Lafferty and his family did not leave, nor were they attacked by the disease, though persons died all around them. This can be attributed to the fact that as soon as the disease appeared, Mr. Lafferty consulted Dr. Coleman, obtained a number of remedies and kept them at hand He fixed a diet for his family and all lived up to it. At the slightest appearance of any symptoms of bowel disease, he beg^ giving remedies and as a result, he and his family all came out unscathed when their neighbors died. On July 24th, the cholera deaths began again and continued for nine days. On that day, Mary B. Prather, a daughter of W^ilson Prather died. On the 26th, George Grant, her mother's brother died. On the 27th, Miss Margaret McCauley, Lewis Sanders, William Santee and Miss Caroline McCauley all died, the last three being young persons. On the 29th, Miss Caroline Lafferty (whose grandmother had died on the nth) and Miss Alice Brooks Prather died. On the 30th, there were four deaths, Mrs. Jane Crawford, Mrs. Mary Kitchens, Francis M. Hayslip and his sister Margaret. The two latter died wnthin five minutes of each other.

On the 31st of July, Andrew Haines died. On the first of August, Miss Cornelia Santee died. On the 2d day of August, Gen. Joseph Darlinton, Mrs. John Sanders and Robert Jackman, the postmaster and publisher of the West Union Intelligencer died, and there the disease stayed.

During the prevalence of the disease in the village, the following persons died in the vicinity : Parker Young, Miss Mary Young, Miss Eltzannah Owen, Arthur McFarland and Wilson Crawford. After the burial of Francis Shinn, all the victims were buried, with in four hours after death. Gen. Darlinton died about 7 A. M. and was interred at it A. M. But four persons attended his funeral, Geo. M. Lafferty, the undertaker: his son, Doddridge : his jc^randson, Edward, and the Rev. John P. Vandyke. Four of the victims were buried by night; Horatio N. Cole, Mrs. Hitchens. Jane Crawford and Robert Jackman. Mrs. Kitchens was taken sick, in the morning and died in the evening. Between the 24th of July and the 2d of August, all places of business were closed. The most of the inhabitants had fled. The grass grew rank in the streets, except certain spots where great fires had been built and tar barrels burned for the purpose of purifying the air. The country people would not come into the village for any purpose, but would open the fields adjoining and go around it. James Hood gave the key of his store to Dr. Coleman and told him of a barrel of brandy in his cellar and of the contents of the store and to help himself and others to any and all of it, and then left the town. Doctors Shackelford of Maysville and Vanmeter of Ecksmansville, each spent one day among the cholera patients in West Union. During the disease, fruit and vegetables were avoided and the people subsisted on ham, bread, butter and tea. Mutton was thought to be a suitable diet in that time and was freely used. Mr. Abraham Hollingsworth undertook to and did supply mutton and mutton broth to the families having cholera cases, and he was a ministering angel during the disease. There was a feeling of gloom, of sadness and awe pervaded the community during the epidemic. Men and women moved about in silence. Each one lived every hour as though he or she expected the next call from the Fell Destroyer. Business was not thought of. In fact, there was no business except to attend to the sick and dying and to bury the dead as quickly as possible.

The fact that Joseph W. Laf?erty and his family of five persons, breathed the same atmosphere and drank the same water as the cholera patients and remained through the entire thirty-seven days of the epidemic without being attacked, speaks volumes for the virtue of precaution. Dr. David Coleman has left the statement that there were premonitory symptoms of the attack from 12 to 24 hours before the disease could be pronounced cholera, and that if the patient sought medical aid and relief at the very outset of the symptoms, he could be relieved in nearly every case, but if he waited until he had a well developed case, the disease was more likely to prove fatal. The fact is that most of the victims would not apply for medical assistance until the disease was fully developed in them. Another fact was that many of the patients, when attacked, gave up at once to die and then died. Had every one taken precautions, there would have been but few deaths, but in those days, cholera was looked upon as a deadly disease and those attacked, at once gave up all hopes.

Gen. Darlinton had dreaded it since 1835. When attacked he at once succumbed. His great age, however, was a factor against him. However, while no age was spared, the young people furnished the greater number of victims. Dr. David Coleman went everywhere among the cholera patients. For ten days or longer of the plague, he was the only physician. He was not attacked, neither were any of his family. Mr. J. W. Lafferty, who took all the precautions suggested by Dr. Coleman, prevented his family from any attack. There is no doubt but that those who died, neglected precautions and preliminary symptoms until the disease was fully developed in them and then it was too late. We now know that cholera is a germ disease. That by proper sanitary precautions both by the community and the individual, its attacks can be prevented. It is a disease which can only flourish where there is neglect of the proper preventives. No comwi4^» .-4;,v* t*viH V i^t*^ -^v V v.virs^. i*»ai: iir «pv»r:u

Ohio River, Donaldson's Creek, and Ellison's Run, and connecting at the north with Gift Ridge, a long and wide stretch of table land, parallel with the Ohio River for some miles. The southeast corner of this plateau affords a most magnificent view up the Ohio River, and valley for ten miles and over the fertile farms in Kentucky opposite. The view is much finer now than it was in 1791. Then there was nothing but forests everywhere, with the sparkling waters of the Ohio, like a silver thread amid the solid emerald ; but besides the view up and down the river and across into the rich valley lands in Kentucky, there is now a view of the ridges, table lands, and forest covered hills to the north that is as entrancing as the views to the east, to the south and to the west.

Gen. Massie built a cabin of buckeye logs here on the southeast comer of the plateau and called it Buckeye Station. Here he came to hunt, to enjoy the grand views, to rest and recuperate himself. To secure his choice location from the Indians he took up the entire Gift Ridge to the north of it for four or five miles, with military warrants, and gave the land to those who would settle on it and thus placed a cordon between him and the hostiles. Massie was a brave man but he liked company when the Indians were expected. So captivated with his place was he that, notwithstanding the fact that he laid out Chillicothe in 1796, and then took up a fine body of land on Paint Creek, in Ross County, in the summer of 1797, he proceeded to erect a frame house on this place, when the erection of a frame house was a remarkable undertaking. The house is located about ten rods back of the cliff on the south, overlooking the Ohio River and about five rods from the bluffs on the east overlooking Donaldson's Creek, where on ;\pril 22, 1791, Israel Donalson was captured by a band of Indians. The timbers and boards for the inside and out, and for the floors were sawed out by hand with whip saws, and every nail in it was made by a blacksmith on an anvil. The house is but one story, but has two marvelously fine chimneys, one single and one double. Those chimneys were built most substantially. They stand today as perfect as when, one hundred and three years ago, the mason gave them the last stroke of his hammer and trowel.

The front of the house is to the south, with a side front to the east. Two rooms face the east, looking up the Ohio, and between them is the great double chimney. To the west is a wing with a hall and one large room, with the other stone chimney at the west end. The hall fronts the south, and besides the door on each side are two windows to enable the inmates to inspect a guest before his admission After entering the hall, there is a door on each side, entering the east and west rooms. Entering the east room from the hall, we find a window to the south and another to the east, with very small panes of glass. The walls of this room and the other two were lined with wide, primitive boards and ceilings only were plastered. The floors were made of wide old-fashioned boards, such as are now no longer seen. The fire-place, in the east room is a feature. It is four feet high from the hearth to the arch and eight f^t wide. To the left of this fireplace, as one stands before it, is a closet under the stairway from the north room. To the right is a door leading into the north room.

Entering that we find a door and window to the east and a door and window to the west, the latter opening into a porch in the rear of the hall and west room. The fire place in this room was as capacious a% that in the room north of it. The right of the chimney in the north Tfffym was a stairway leading to two attic rooms, sided and ceiled with l>oards over the north and south rooms. These rooms were quite small and no doubt had been used as sleeping rooms for guests. The porch to the north of the west room extended along it and the south end of the hall. The west room had the long stone single chimney, and over it an old-fashioned wooden-mantle of walnut, carved and fij^ured, which, when the home was built, was the pride of the proprietor and the envy of his neighbors. The spaces between the outer weather boarding and the inner ceilings of the room had been filled with mortar. The floor boards, though very wide, were tongued and t^rooved and the weather boards were put on pointed instead of overlapped. It is probable there had been additions to the house, but they were gone when we visited it. The grounds about the house were at one time tastefully laid out, and traces of the vanished beauty, were still apparent. Two locust trees, the largest the writer ever saw, stand in front of the house to the south. They are each at least ten feet in circumference and not less than lOO years old. Between them had stfxxl a monster cherry, and the trunk, prone on the earth, spoke of the grandeur when alive. At the northwest of the house, about ten yards distance, stands a living black heart cherry tree which measures thirteen feet, six inches in girth. Its spreading limbs, projecting horizontally, are as large as ordinary trees of its kind.

While this house overlooks the one great highway, the Ohio River, and the other great highway, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, with all boats and trains in view for miles, it is now one of the most inaccessible spots in the state. The hills in front descend sheer into the Ohio River without any shelf or bottom land within nearly a mile on either side of the property. It is only approachable by a road coming through farms from Gift Ridge in the rear and it is two miles from the station over the roughest and most i)riniitive of roads, over stones and up and down hills to the nearest turnpike, or public Highway. In early days when roads were of no consequence, it had a direct road to and from Manchester. The fact that the home is so out of the way has perserved it. Had it been upon a i)nl)lic highway, it would have been destroyed by fire, or torn down years ago. Tliere are seven fine springs flowing from the hillsides near the residence.

in a military point of view it is strategic. A fort on this property would command the Ohio valley up and down for miles, would command the Kentucky hills to the south and the Ohio hills to the north. Vori Thomas, near Newport, Kentucky, should have been located here, and whenever it becomes necessary to have forts along the Ohio border, there will be one here.

At this place. Gen. Massie dwelt occasionally for the five years, from 1797 till 1802, but the shacles of oblivion are so fast darkening the history of this hardy pioneer that little can be learned of his residence at that time. Gen. Massie's wife was Susan Meade, of Chau- merie, Kentucky, formerly of Maycox, Prince George County, Va. Her sister married Charles Willing Byrd, Secretary of the Northwest Territoiry, succeeding Winthrop Sergeant and United States District Judge for Ohio from March 3, 1803, until August 11, 1828. Judge Byrd bought this property, 600 acres, in 1807, of his brother-in-law. Gen. Massie, for $3,100, and moved there in June, 1807. He was then thirty-seven, and his wife was thirty-two, and his children were Mary, aged nine; Powell, aged 6; Kidder Meade, aged five; William Silonwee, aged two; and his daughter Evelyn, was bom there in August, 1807. Judge Byrd had been born and reared at the princely estate of Westover, seven miles from Williamsburg, Va., and his wife on the large estate of her father. Col. David Meade, at Maycox, right opposite Westover. Both had been reared in all the luxur}' that the times of their childhood knew. From 1799 to 1807 they had resided in Cincinnati, then an insignificant village, and why Judge Byrd wanted to bring his young wife and babies to this wilderness, no one can now conjecture. Here he and his family saw the first steamboat descend the Ohio in 181 1, and here his patient wife went to her everlasting reward on the 31st day of February, 1815, and was buried under a walnut tree some 200 yards from the house. Her grave is shown to this day.

That must have been a mournful procession of the Judge and his family, he then forty-five, Mary seventeen, Powell sixteen, Kidder twelve, William ten, and Evelyn eight, accompanied by his neighbors, bearing the fair daughter of Virginia, who had graced its best society and seen and known as the father's friend, the immortal Washington, to her last resting place, in the then primitive Ohio forest. There her remains have reposed for seventy-nine years, and though, in that time, the whole face of nature about the spot has changed, and wilderness and forest have yielded to plains and fertile fields and pleasant homes, yet if it is aught to the dead as to the scenery about the place of their last repose, there are no finer views anywhere on earth, horizon or sky. than surrounds this hallowed earth, and no fairer place for the fulfillment of the decree of "earth to earth" on the mortal part, could have been selected.

After this, the place being intolerable to Judge Byrd, and craving human society, he moved with his sons to the village of West Union, which had been laid out in 1804, and sent his daughters to Chamerie, Ky., to be reared by their grandfather. Col. David Meade. He sold the station to John Ellison, son of Andrew Ellison, of Lick Fork, for $4,000. John Ellison resided there from 1818 to 1829, the time of his death, and here most of his large family was born. His wife was Annie Barr, whose father, Samuel Barr, had been killed in a battle between Kentuckians under Maj. Simon Kenton, and Indians under Tecumseh in March, 1792. Here all but the two eldest of John Ellison's children were bom. Andrew was born in 1808, in Manchester, and spent a long life there. Sarah, the second child, was born in 1818 in Manchester, but was married at the station to the late Thomas W. Means, of Hanging Rock. There John Ellison's daughter, Mary K., was married to William Ellison, her distant cousin, and there her sister Esther was married to the late Hugh Means, of Ashland, Ky.

Jane Ellison, another daughter was the wife of David Sinton, of Cincinnati. She was bom there, but was married to Mr. Sinton at the home of Thomas Means, at Union Landing. She died in Manchester, Ohio, in 1853, and is buried there in the Presbyterian churchyard. Her daughter is the wife of Hon. Charles P. Taft, editor of the Times Star. Here the late John Ellison, the banker of Manchester, was bom, and here he spent a happy childhood and boyhood, whose joys he never tired of recounting among his friends. While the Ellisons resided there, the Station had many distinguished visitors from Cincinnati, Maysville, Hanging Rock and other points. Among others, Mrs. John F. Keyes, nee Margaret Barr, a daughter of Samuel Barr, before mentioned, spent the summer of 1832 here and remained till after the frost to escape the dread pestilence, the Asiatic Cholera, then prevalent. She returned to Cincinnati after the first frost in the fall of 1832, and was at once taken with the cholera and died within a few hours. The pioneers who knew this place, who had many joyous meetings here, and their natural foes, the Indians, are all gone to the shadow land, but the beauties of the landlscape and of the natural scenery, which charmed the untutored savage, the hardy pioneer and the deer hunter, the early settlers, still remains to produce, like sentiments in those who choose to look upon it.

The Triai. And Execution Of David Beckett

The most noted case in the annals of crimes in Adams County, is that of The State v. Beckett. This is so, not from the fact alone that it records the first homicide committed within the county after its organization, nor from the fact that the trial resulted in the only legal execution of the death penalty ever imposed in the county; but, the circumstances under which the crime was committed, the brutality of the act itself, the inexplicable conduct of Beckett after committing the deed, the momentous questions of law raised by the attorneys for the accused on his trial, and the scenes and incidents attending the execution of the condemned, all conspire to make it the most interesting and sensational criminal case in the history of the county.

of the whiskey in order to stupefy him before making the contemplated assault. In the night while Lightfoot lay in a drunken stupor, Beckett arose, seized an ax, or large tomahawk conveniently near at hand,, and dealt Lightfoot a murderous blow with the sharp edge of the instrument on the side of the head, sinking it into the brain up to the eye. Then seizing the limp and bleeding form of his victim, he dragged it to the side of the boat and rolled it overboard into the river. Having disposed of the body of his victim and whatever articles there were bearing evidence of the bloody deed, in and about the boat, Beckett determined to go to Limestone some miles below, at that time one o£ the principal landings and marts on the Ohio for western emigrants, and there sell the boat and cargo and flee the country. However the following day, while on the way to Limestone, he stopped at the residence of William Faulkner who kept a sort of inn and trading establishment near the mouth of Brush Creek. To him Beckett disposed of his possessions taking as part pay a horse which he immediately mounted and rode away. Shortly after this, the body of Lightfoot having been discovered, and Faulkner being found in possession of the boat and cargo, he was accused of murdering the traders, arrested and thrown into jail, although protesting his innocence of the crime. About this time, the horse which Beckett had ridden away, escaped from him, and he supposing that it had returned to its former owner, came back to the vicinity in search of the missing animal. He was accused of being implicated in the murder of Lightfoot, placed under arrest and taken to the jail at West Union, then recently made the permanent seat of justice of the county. This was in the latter part of October, 1807, ^^^ ^^ the sitting of the grand jury of the county, the following month of November, an indidtment was returned against Beckett for murder in the first degree.

As fully illustrating the form and character of such legal documents of that day and age.v the indictment is here given in full, verbatim ct liter at um.

The grand jurors empaneled and sworn to enquire for the body of the county aforesaid, in the name and by the authority of the State of Ohio, upon their oath present, that David Beckett, late of Green Township, in the county of Adams, aforesaid, Yeoman, not having the fear of God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil on the fifth day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and seven, with force and arms, at Green Township, aforesaid, in the county aforesaid, in and upon one John Lightfoot, in the peace of God and of the said state, then and there being, feloniously, wilfully, and of his malice aforethought did make an assault; and that he. the said David Beckett, with a certain ax, of the value of fifty cents, which he the said David Beckett, in both his hands then and there had and held, the said John Lightfoot, in and upon the left side of the head of him, the said John Lightfoot, then and there feloniously, wilfully and of his malice aforethought, did

Strike, giving to the said John Lightfoot, then and there with the ax aforesaid, in and upon the above said left side of the head of him, the said John Lightfoot, one mortal wound of the breadth of three inches, and of the depth of two inches, of which said mortal wound, the said John Lightfoot then and there instantly died, and so the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do say, that the said David Beckett, the said John Lightfoot, in manner and form aforesaid, feloniously, wilfully, and of his malice aforethought, did kill and murder, against the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the state of Ohio.

The grand jury having returned to the court an indictment against David Beckett, for the murder of John Lightfoot, the said David Beckett was set to the Barr and having heard the indictment aforesaid read, and it being demanded of him whether he was guilty of the murder aforesaid or not guilty, he said he was not guilty, and made his election to be tried by the Supreme Court next to be hoiden within and for the county aforesaid. Whereupon the said David Beckett was remanded back to the jail of Adams County.

Through the eflForts of his counsel, Henry Brush and William Creighton, Esquires, the trial of Beckett was delayed for one year from the finding of the indictment. The most important question raised by the defense for the consideration of the court, was whether the court had jurisdiction over the place where the crime was committed. Since Lightfoot was killed on a boat upon the Ohio River, the learned counsel for the accused contended that the place of the crime was not within the jurisdiction of the State of Ohio, basing their argument in support of the contention on the language of the deed of cession of the Northwest Territory by the State of Virginia to the United States: "The territory situate, lying, and being to the northwest of the river Ohio." This raised the question of what constitutes the southern boundary line of Ohio ; whether the bank on the north shore of the river, low water-mark on that shore, or the middle of the current of the Ohio? As the question had not been judicially determined till that time, the court took the question under consideration for future decision. [This question was again raised by counsel for the defendants and fully discussed by Hon. Samuel Vinton in the case of the Commonwealth of Virginia v. Peter ^I. Gamer et al, before the General Court of Virginia in 1845.] ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ sitting of the court, it was announced by the court, that inasmuch as the evidence disclosed the fact that the boat upon which the crime in question was committed, was fastened by means of a rope to a tree on the Ohio bank of the river, the place of the crime was within the State of Ohio, and that the court had lawful jurisdiction of the offense, and would proceed to the trial of the accused. So accordingly at the October term, 1808, the Supreme Court of Ohio, western division, held in the town of West Union, the Hon. Samuel Huntington and the Hon. William Sprigg sitting, David Beckett was put on his trial for the murder of John Lightfoot, as the following record will show:

State of Ohio, Adams County, ss. The state of Ohio to the sheriff of Adams County: You are hereby commanded to summon thirty good and lawful men of the county aforesaid (in addition to the standing jury of the present term) forthwith to appear before the Supreme Court now sitting within and for the county aforesaid, to make a jury well and truly to try the prosecution now depending in the said court against David Beckett, and have there this writ. Witness the Hon. Samuel Huntington, Chief Judge of the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio, this seventeenth day of October, 1808.

The prosecuting attorney, James Scott, himself an able and painstaking lawyer, assisted by John W. Campbell, a bright young attorney who had recently located in West Union, and who afterwards became a United States judge, convinced of the guilt of Beckett, spared no effort to bring about his conviction. On the other hand, the attorneys for the accused, Henry Brush, one of the learned members of the bar at that day, and afterwards judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio, and the brilliant young advocate, William Creighton, the first Secretary of State of Ohio, believing the earnest protestations of innocence made by the accused to be true, and urged on by the hope of victory in a contest so widely observed by the pepple, and in which the stake was not alone fame and reputation - but a human life - met every assault of the prosecution during the trial, steel clashing with steel.

Scores of witnesses were called and examined; and the many single subpoenas that were issued during the progress of the trial indicate the earnestness with which the contest was waged. A theory of the defense was that William Faulkner was implicated in the muder of Lightfoot to the extent at least of guilty knowledge of the crime. And public opinion was divided as to the guilt or innocence of Faulkner, even up to the day of the execution of Beckett. After consuming nearly a week in the trial of the case, it was given the jury, which after due deliberation, reported the verdict through its foreman, David Bradford, "Guilty in manner and form as charged.*'

October term of the Supeme Court sitting in and for the County of Adams, in the State of Ohio, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and eight.

The state of Ohio, to the sheriff of Adams County ; whereas at the aforesaid term of our Supreme Court, sitting in and for the county aforesaid, David Beckett was convicted of the murder of John Lightfoot and thereupon received judgment to-wit ; that he be taken to the place from whence he came and from thence on the tenth day of December next to the place of execution, and that he be then and there hanged by the neck until he be dead. Execution of which said judgment yet remains to be done. We therefore require and by these presents strictly command you that on Saturday, the tenth day of December, next, you convey the said David Beckett now in your custody in the jail of Adams County, to the place of execution and that you do cause execution to be done upon the said David Beckett in your custody so being in all things according to the said judgment. And this you are by no means to omit at your peril. Witness the honorable Samuel Huntington, Chief Judge of our said court, this twentysecond day of October in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and eight, and of the vState of Ohio, the sixth.

On Saturday, December lo, 1808, at the town of West Union, gathered the first of the three notably large assemblages of the people in the history of the county. They came in wagons, on horseback, and afoot, from every section of this county and those adjoining, and from the region of Kentucky opposite along the Ohio River. It was a wonderful, outpouring of the people, not only to witness the execution of the condemned, but to see and hear that eccentric and sensational itinerant preacher, Lorenzo Dow, who it was said, would be present to try his wonderful powers on the doomed man to elicit from him the facts as to the g^ilt or innocence of William Faulkner, accused of complicity in the murder of John Lightfoot. By noon of that memorable day the straggling village of West Union was literally swallowed up by as motley a crowd as ever gathered in the state. Backwoodsmen, boatmen, traders, merchants, mechanics, lawyers, preachers, women and children, all formed a surging mass, now crowding through the court house; and now engulfing the jail in which Beckett, in irons, was being prepared for his last hour on earth ; now scrutinizing the rude and barbarous gibbet from which the condemned would soon swing by the neck; and now listening with bated breath to the words of his awful confession as they fell from the lips of the doomed man.

The gibbet, consisting of two huge upright timbers firmly planted in the ground, with strong connecting cross-beam at the top, stood to the north of the northeast corner of the public square, near the present site of the Christian Union Church. Here was erected a rough platform from which Lorenzo Dow, Rev. William Williamson, then in charge of the West Union Presbyterian Church, Rev. Abbott Godard, and Rev. Robert Dobbins, then residing in Adams County, addressed the people preceding the execution. In the biography of Rev. Robert Dobbins, it is stated that he and Rev. Dow on the morning of the day of the execution went to the cell of the condemned man to elicit the truth from him as .to another being implicated in the crime for which he was about to suffer. "Rev. Dow first interrogated the prisoner, and being dissatisfied with his answers, left the cell. Rev. Dobbins then conversed with the prisoner and urged him to tell the truth, and spoke of the awful consequences of appearing before his Judge with a falsehood upon his soul. He finally succeeded in eliciting from the prisoner the fact that the implicated man icas not guity.*'

The condemned was then made ready, bound, and placed in a vehicle bearing his coffin, and driven to the place of execution. Here the Rev. Williamson preached a sermon from the text, "Oh ! Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help."

Rev. Dow then delivered an address from the words, "Rejoice, young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, etc.," after which Rev. Abbott Godard delivered an exhortation, and then Rev. Dobbins addressed the people.

"The prisoner then made a confession three-quarters of an hour long, and exhorted the young people to avoid the paths of vice. He said that intemperance, gambling, and base company had been the cause of his downfall."

Liberty Hall and Cincinnati Mercury of January 5, 1809, contained the following : "On Saturday, the tenth ult., was executed in the town of West Union, Ohio, between the hours of two and three o'clock, in the presence of about fifteen thousand (?) people, David Beckett, for the murder of William (John) Lightfoot.

"At twelve o'clock he was conducted by a strong g^ard to the place of execution, where a solemn address was delivered by Lorenzo Dow. He was succeeded by two other gentlemen, after which the culprit arose and addressed himself to the surrounding multitude for the space of twenty minutes. His countenance was mild; his manner and speech free and unembarrassed. He appeared about th^ age of twenty-five ; the flower of youth glowed in his face, even to the last moment. During his address he made the following confession : "I can not say I am innocent. I am guilty of the crime laid to my charge ; these hands deprived William Qohn) Lightfoot of his life. These are stained with his blood, for which I freely resign my life, and hope in a few minutes to meet him in a happy eternity." He also said that George (William) Faulkner was innocent of all charges laid to him respecting said murder."

At the close of his thrilling appeal, the noose dangling from the gibbet was adjusted about the neck of the condemned, the black cap was drawn over his eyes, the cart in which he was standing beside his coffin was driven from under him, and the murder of John Lightfoot was avenged.

Lewis Johnson says that his mother, then a girl, told him that she stood with others of her family on the high porch that used to front the house where he yet resides, and saw Beckett hanged, and that the gallows stood near where the old log jail used to^ stand, at the northeast corner of the present court house yard.

On the waters of Elk Run something more than a mile to the southeast of the town of Winchester, in Winchester Township, in 1893, lived Luther P. Rhine, or "Pitt" Rhine, as he was generally known and his wife Mary, whose maiden name was Mary J. Farquer. They had resided on a little farm, their home, for many years, and had reared a family there. They were at this time old and feeble, the husband past eighty and the wife upwards of seventy, and were living alone. With the help of a man or boy occasionally, these old people managed to grow enough on the farm to keep them in fairly comfortable surroundings, and to save enough to pay taxes and their dues to the church at Cherry Fork of which they had been faithful members all their lives.

Living in the vicinity of the Rhine home was a family of colored people named Parker. The family consisted of the mother and several children, the eldest of whom was a boy, Roscoe, at this time about sixteen years of age. He and his mother often assisted the Rhines at odd jobs of work, and were familiar with the affairs and surroundings of the old couple. About the middle of December in the year above named, this bov Roscoe, assisted Mr. Rhine to drive a calf to Winchester where It had been sold to a butcher, for thirteen dollars. Roscoe saw the money paid to Mr. Rhine, and spoke of the amount as he accompanied the old man home. On the Sunday following, December 17th, the old people were seen about their premises alive the last time. On Tuesday, the 19th, they were found by a neighbor in their home brutally murdered. They had been assaulted while asleep with bludgeons, and then with the family butcher knife, having their throats cut from ear to ear. The motive had been robbery. The person or persons had been discovered in the act. A struggle followed, and to avoid exposure of the attempt to rob, brutal murder had been committed.

Upon discovery of the crime, the greatest excitement prevailed among the citizens. The Parkers were suspected and a search of their premises was made. Some stockings, the property of the Rhines, were found. A five dollar bill was discovered hidden in a bed. Roscoe*s clothing had blood stains on them. He was arrested and a preliminary examination had before Squire Gilbert, of Winchester Township, in the town hall at Winchester. The people clamored for young Parker's life. He was secretly taken from the hall and placed in a closed carriage by Constable Bayless, who drove with all speed to West Union, pursued by a mob where the accused was placed in jail.

Sheriff Greene N. McMannis learned that on a certain night a mob would come from Winchester and vicinity and take the prisoner from the jail. He gave out the word that the prisoner would be removed to Georgeton, but instead of going there, he drove overland to Portsmouth, and confined the prisoner in the jail at that place. In the meantime, the newly elected sheriff, Marion Dunlap, had been inducted into office, and it being near the time of the sitting of the grand jury, on the lOth of January, 1894, he brought Roscoe F'arker from Portsmouth and confined him in the West tmion jail. That very night a large mob overpowered the sheriff and his deputy, Tames McKee, hammered down the doors of the old jail, and removed Roscoe Parker to the vicinity of his home and hanged him to the limb of a tree.

Parker fought in his cell like an infuriated beast, and disfigured the countenances of several of the mob before he was overpowered. It was a stinging cold night, and he was driven in his underclothes, from West Union to a point a half mile beyond North Liberty toward Winchester, a distance of ten miles, where he was hanged, yet it is said he perspired as in the heat of summer, such was his mental agony. He was swung up twice and then let down, in hope that he would make a confession, but he refused. He was sullen and stolidlv met his fate. On the morning of the nth of January, the body of Roscoe Parker, riddled with buUetS; was discovered hanging from the limb of an ash tree that stands in the corner of a piece of woodland just on the right of the Winchester pike, just across the little wooden bridge beyond North Liberty. The curious have about stripped the tree of its branches.

After an inquest had been held by Coroner Robe, there was much dispute among the authorities as to the disposition of the body, but finally on the 13th, it was buried in the northwest comer of the old cemetery at Cherry Fork. It was probably exhumed that night by medical students, and it is said Parker's cranium is in the possession of a well known physician of Adams County.

The place where Roscoe Parker was hanged is almost directly opposite the old Patton homestead at a point where a path from the colored settlement northeast of North Liberty leads down to the pike to Winchester. Before daylight on the morning of the lynching of Parker, old Leonard Johnson, a former slave, ignorant and superstitious, who does chores for the villagers of North Liberty, came from his home in "the settlement" along this path and passed directly under the body of Roscoe Parker hanging from a limb above. A grain sack that had been placed over Parker's head by the mob lay in the path beneath his lifeless body, and Johnson picked this up and carried it to North Liberty before he learned of the lynching of Parker and the purpose for which the sack had been used. Then he feared the dreaded ''hoodoo,*' and never since has he traveled that portion of the path to his home. And the other persons of "the settlement" no longer climb the fence at the bridge and take the path through Patton's woods, but very prudently avoid tlie "hoodoo" by traveling the public highway, and in the daytime.

Treason Triai. In Ohio

Edward L. Hughes, the defendant, was an Irishman, of large size and great bodily strength, of marked character in his mental and normal endowments, characterized by bravery and common sense, and self-confidence in his control over men, and who. after a long experience in contracts and jobs on the public works of Ohio, had settled down and purchased a valuable farm near Locust Grove, in Adams County, Ohio, on which he had resided for many years, and brought up a large and highly respected family, and which homestead was well stocked at the time of John Morgan's raid, with good horses.

The news of the approach of the invaders, having carried on the wings of the wind eastward to the neighborhood of the accused, he affected great indifference, on the ground that, being a man of high repute and a warm opponent of the war, his property would not be disturbed ; but on the morning of the T6th of July, 1863, John Morgan and his hosts were heard in the distance moving northward from Jacktown over the old Limestone road, and suddenly they arrived and halted at Locust Grove for breakfast, and while the General and his soldiers were enjoying all the good things prepared by the frightened people for their repast, the squad of scouts constantly out by the orders of Basil Duke as the wings of a bird, closed in also to the main body for lunch, and along with the detachment they led two very fine horses, the property of Mr. Hughes. He made an appeal to Gen. Morgan for the return of his horses; but he soon found out that the General was no respecter of persons in an enemy's country, and thereupon he instantly concluded he would join in and pilot Morgan, and thereby induce him to give up his horses. Accordingly Hughes installed himself as one of the commanders'chief of staff, and from his knowledge of the country, became General Morgan's efficient aid-de-camp, and led the front van down Sunfish Valley, across the Scioto River, through Piketon on to Jackson Court House, where becoming boisterous and unruly from drink, he was cashiered by his high captain and left to the mercy of the enraged populace and the pursuers of Morgan under General Hobson, who, coming up in close pursuit, had Hughes arrested for treason, and immediately sent to the jail of Hamilton County, Ohio, there to await an examination by the proper authorities, into the charge for the high crime.

The son and the son-in-law of Mr. Hughes hearing that he was imprisoned in Cincinnati, visited me at once and retained me as his longtrusted counsel, without any stipulated fee, to extricate him from his peril of apprehended loss of life by the civil tribunals or a military courtmartial, and immediately I went to Cincinnati and visited the prisoner in the jail.

As soon as we met, he, realizing his situation, exclaimed : "Thompson, I am in a bad fix - likely to be hung for the loss of two horses, and this all my crime. You know all I wanted was to get my horses back, and that d - d rebel has taken them and left me to suffer the possible forfeiture of life and property." I calmed him down by the statement that the chances of the future were in every man's favor, and the uncertainties of the-Iaw were the dew-drops of mercy in behalf of a criminal ; and that he must stand up manfully, and when I had heard the witnesses as he knew we might possibly find out some way of escape.

Immediately after this consultation, the prisoner was brought out before Hugh Carey, U. S. Commissioner, for an examination into the charge, and the testimony of the witnesses of the government having been partially heard, the case was continued for further exammation until August 27, 1863, and the accused was admitted to bail for his appearance at that time.

On the partial examination, one Mike Nessler was examined as a witness in behalf of the government, and as his testimony is a sample of what was expected to be proved, I give it from memory, after a lapse of twenty years, accurately as if on yesterday it had been heard, because of its indelible impression on my memory, then heated by my anxious attention.

Uncle Mike Nessler as the whole bar of this region of country called him, was a facetious, kind hearted, thrifty old German landloTvi, whose pleasant, varied and patient manners had been moulded and finished by his long association with and his attention to the distinguished members of the bar of Jackson, Portsmouth and Chillicothe, and occasionally others from the country around who attended the courts at Piketoo ; and he also was gifted with a twinkling eye, beaming from a jolly face,and a tongue with pleasant, soft speech ; and, thus eminently qualified, he kept the chief tavern in the center of that village at the interesction of its main streets, in a large two story frame house, with its porches over the pavement, which was always stored with good things to eat and good liquors to cheer, and Hughes knew it. The commissioner asked Mr. Nessler to tell him what he knew about the charges against the prisoner for piloting John Morgan and his army through the country.