Ashland County, Ohio - Chapter 19: The Erection of Fairfield County, 1880

The County Created. - Its Great Extent. - .Andrew Craig and Wife. - He is the First Settler in Ashland County. - Alexander Finley and Wife. - Thomas Eagle and Family. - The Primitive Forests.

After the territory of this county had been surveyed into ranges, townships, and sections, in 1806-7, the territory now composing the counties of Fairfield, Licking, Knox, Richland, parts of Morrow and Ashland, was erected into one county, with the seat of justice at Lancaster. The inhabitants of Licking, Knox, and Richland counties, were then very few, and the settlements far apart. The region about Newark, Granville, Utica, Clinton, Bellville, and Mansfield, had but few residents, and the latter, perhaps, none. The whole of Knox, the ueatcr part of Licking, and the whole of Richland, was thickly covered with the original forest, and was the favorite hunting-ground of the Indian tribes of the Northwest. No white man had settled within the limits of this county at that period.

The great extent of Fairfield county rendered it very inconvenient for the pioneer settlers in the most remote portions of the county to visit the seal of justice, located at Lancaster. As early as 1806 the question of a division of the territory into smaller counties was agitated, and many petitions were sent the legislature, then in ses- ac Chillicothe. The senator and representatives of hairfield county favored the proposed division, and, in H'oS, a bill passed both branches of the legisl :ture, creating and fixing the boundaries of lacking, Knox, ami Richland counties. The county of Richland, in- ' hiding most of the present limits of Ashland county, uas lclt under the jurisdiction of Knox until the legisla- ture should deem it proper to organize it into a separate county. In February, 1 808, a commission, under a joint ; resolution of the legislature, fixed the seat of justice for Knox county at Mount Vernon, where the people of Richland county would have to attend court until that county should have a sufficient number of inhabitants to : locate a seat of justice, and establish a court in her | midst. Under this arrangement, in April, 1808, the en- | tire population of Knox and Richland counties was re- ; quested to assemble at Mount Vernon and vote for a county commissioner, a sheriff, a coroner, township trustees, and other officers. We find that the greatest number of votes cast at that election was thirty-six; so that the aborigines of the forest: were ten times more numerous than their white neighbors.

It is a mooted question as to who was the first white , settler in Ashland county. Mr. Knapp is disposed to award the honor to Alexander Finley, who came from the present site of Mr. Vernon, and located at the presj ent site of Tylertown, in Mohican township, April 17, i Mohican township, himself and family were the only I white inhabitants within the limits of the territory that i now constitutes the territory of Ashland." Mr. Norton, in his history of Knox county, awards the honor to cue Andrew Craig. He gives the following description of | Craig and wife, with the reasons for his location at Greeti- ' town in 1809:

| "From our research into early statements, we arc led to believe that | Andrew Craig was the ilrsl white man. who located Within the present j 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 ''hail fellow well met" with the Indians then inhabiting the country. He was from the bleak, broken, mountainous region of Virginia, and as hardy a pine knot as ever that country produced, i 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 Fairj field,* the sole denizen in this entire district, whose history is nov.

written, tabernacled with a woman in a rough log hut. close be the j little Indian field, about half a mile east of where Mt. Vernon now j stands, and at the point -where Center run empties into the Ko-ko- - sing. There Andrew Craig lived when Ml. Vernon was laid out, in j 1S03 - there he was upon the organization of Knox countv, its oldest ! inhabitant - and there he continued until 1S09. Such a harum-scarum | fellow could not rest e..-y when v hite men rot thick around him, so he | left and went to d Indian village - Gioentown - and from thet'ee j migrate l farther out upon the frontier, preferring red men for neighbors.

While we are willing to award Mr. Finley all the honor to which he is entitled as a pioneer, we incline to the j opinion that Mr. Craig was the first white man that settled within the present limits of Ashland county (excepting 1 Baptiste Jerome and Thomas Green); and that Green- ' town, instead of Tylertown, furnished a home lor the new I adventurer. Greentown, at that period, contained from ;- eighty to one hundred Indian families, many of whom resided in comfortable cabins. Mr. Heckewelder, in his account of the Indian nations, i says:

+ See transactions of the historical and literary coirnitti-e of the American l'!"losoph<« al Socictv volume one, printed in l'tnladclphi ., ifbS, pages 132-3.

In ihe year i3o8, while I was riding \yith a number of gentlemen through Greentown (an Indian town in the '.State of Ohio), I heard an Indian in his house, who through a crevice saw us passing, say in his language to his family: See! v hat a number of people are coming nliing! What, and among all these not one "Long Knife" (Virginian). "All Yengees!" - then probably observing me, he said to himself, "No1, one Qtuekel (Quaker)!'

How often the good Moravian missionary, Rev. John Heckewelder, passed through Greentown in his missionary tours among the Delawares, we are not informed; but the trip made in 1S08 throws much light upon the condition of the inhabitants of Greentown, and goes far to show that when James Copus acted as occasional preacher among the people of that village in 1S09--10- 11 - 12, they were 'not unaccustomed to the presence of the white missionary; and that the Armstrongs, the Jelloways, Thomas Lyon and other leading Indians were prepared to listen attentively to the heralds of the truths of the Christian religion.

When Alexander Finley and family arrived at their new home on the Mohican, their nearest neighbor, as he supposed, was Benjamin Miller, who resided on the present site of Wooster. William and Joseph Larwill, now deceased, were then boarding in the family of Mr. Miller, and were young men. Thus, then, the valleys of the Black fork and Mohican were first selected for settlement, Messrs. Craig, Eagle and Finley arriving about the same period, in 1809. These valleys at that period were nearly destitute of underbrush and small timber. It had been the custom of the Indians for a long time to burn the undergrowth in Mohican, Lake and Green townships, to facilitate the pursuit of game. Some portions of the hills below Greentown. were entirely bare of timber, while in Lake and Mohican timber was scarce and much injured by fire. In the early part of the summer the soil in these townships was covered with sedge-grass and peavines, which afforded an abundance of provender for cattle and horses, and when cut. and properly cured, a very nourishing food for winter.

In May, 1809, Thomas Eagle and family arrived and located on a farm subsequently owned by Henry Tre.tce, near the present site of Mohicanville. There were many Indians in the neighborhood at the time of his arrival. The Indian village of Mohican Johnstown had, perhaps, about one hundred families, composed of Mohicans , Delawares, Min goes, and a few Shanaiees. Mr. Engle described them ns being generally harmless, and friendly to himself and family:

Mr. Eagle, and Finley, were under the necessity, for some years, of obtaining their supplies of food from Shrimplin's mill, near Mount Vernon. To do so, they descended the Lake fork and passed up Owl creek in canoes, with small quantities of' corn or wheat, which, having been ground, was re-conveyed to their homes after an absence of several days.

The forest abounded in an abundance of game, and these early pioneers could easily supply their families with a sufficient quantity of flesh, though salt to cure and preserve it was a rare article. W hile Messrs. 1* i nicy and Eagle were engaged in erecting their cabins, and clearing a small piece of ground around them for cultivation,

Captain Pipe, Crane, Jelloway, Killbuck, the Armstrongs, Jonacake,* Buckwheat, Catotaway, and Thomas Lyon were roaming up and down the Jerome fork, the Lake fork, the Black fork, die W'alhonding, and the shores of the Ko-ko-sing on hunting excursions. F'or three years the neighborhood of Messrs. Finley and Eagle remained undisturbed by the children of the forest.

*This name was originally spelled "Johnny cake," but, we think, incorrectly. The "cake" from which he was doubtless named was known by Virginians as "journey-cake," from which " Jonacake " is derived, and is the correct way of spelling it. See /.ell's Enclycopedia.