Preble County, Ohio - Chapter 6: Advent of the White Man in Southern Ohio, and Settlement of Preble County, 1881

THE adventurous French explorers, Hennepin and LaSalle, who in 1679 steered the keel of civilization through Lake Erie and touched its south shore, were the first white men whom we know set foot upon the soil which now constitutes Ohio. The year following, the French had a trading station upon the Miami of the Lakes (Maumee), a few miles upon the site of 'Toledo, and, according to Bancroft, they had a route through the wilderness from Canada to the Mississippi, by the way of the Maumee, Wabash and Ohio rivers, in 1716, and a little later another upon the site of Erie, Pennsylvania, by the way of the Allegheny and Ohio.

Vague traditions have been handed down, asserting that the English had trading posts upon the Ohio in 1730, and we know that they had soon after that time, for in 1744 the royal governor of Pennsylvania issued licenses for the carrying on of trade with the Indians as far west as the Father of Waters. In 1748 a trading station "was established at the site of Sandusky, by the French, and in the same year the English explored the Ohio as far as the falls.

George Crogan and Andrew Montour, the latter a half-breed son of a Seneca chief, traversed the wilderness in the summer of 1748 as the bearers of prints and presents from Pennsylvania to the Miami Indians. In return for these gifts the Indians granted the whites the right to build a stockade and establish a trading station at the mouth of Loramie's creek upon the Great Miami, within the bounds of the present county of Shelby. Accordingly a fort or stockade was built which was called Pickawillamy. lt occupied the site of the subsequent station, generally known and often referred to in western history as Loramie's store. Fort Pickawillamy has been cited by some writers as the first point at which the English effected a settlement in Ohio. The building which was undoubtedly the first erected by the English on the soil of the State was destroyed in June, 1752, by a force of French, Canadians and Indians. The French traders along the Ohio and its tributaries, were pretty generally superseded by the English, and the enterprising and adventurous spirits from the settlements in Pennsylvania and Virginia, about the middle of. the eighteenth century, and they maintained the supremacy peaceably until 1784. Christopher Cist and Crogan, in 1750, explored Ohio and passed near, if not into, the present bounds of Preble county. They reported that nothing was wanting but cultivation to make the territory which they had traversed a most beautiful country. The Rev. David Jones (Chaplain Jones of Revolutionary fame) made a tour through a large part of the territory now included in the bounds of Ohio, in 1752 and 1753, and from that time onward, beside the traders and explorers, the country was seen by many who were engaged in military expeditions against the Indians, among whom may be named Colonels Broadstreet, Bogart, Mc- Donald, William Crawford, George Rogers Clark, Edwards, Tod, Bowman, Lockry, Broadhead, and Logan, Lord Dunmore, Israel Putnam, General Lachlin McIntosh, Daniel Boone, and Simon Kenton. Through the observations of these men and a host of others the wilderness was becoming known, and many had grown to look forward to it fondly as a prospective place of residence.

While the territory now included in Ohio was still a wilderness, the wilds of which were only inhabited by roving bands of savages and by a few traders, it became the field for the exercise of the zeal and bravery of the Moravian missionaries. The trials of these apostles of religion, the toils and privations of Frederick Post, John Heckwelder, and David Zeisberger, upon the Muskingum from 1772 to 1782, form one of the most interesting chapters in early State history, but it is beyond our province to here produce the story of the missions and the horrible massacre which ended their existence. We only refer to the subject to remind the reader of the famous men who were in this then but little known "far west," and to give a suggestion of the history that was being made long before the practical exercise of civil authority, and before the country was formally opened for permanent settlement.

By some authorities it is claimed that credit should be given these Moravians for establishing the first settlement in Ohio, intended to be permanent. The design of the founders of the mission station was doubtless to maintain them for an indefinite period, and had Salem and Schonbrun and Gnadenhutten not been wiped out in blood they would doubtless be to-day in existence, the oldest settlements in Ohio. However this may be, none deny to Marietta the honor of being the oldest permanent settlement in the State. An ineffectual attempt was made by four families to found a settlement at the mouth of the Scioto in 1785, but it remained for General Rufus Pütnam and his Massachusetts colony, associates in the Ohio company to establish at the mouth of the Muskingum, on the seventh of April, 1788, the pioneer place of permanent habitation in our State - Marietta, so named after Marie Antoinette, the then ruling queen of France.

Not long after the settlement had been made at Marietta, three separate companies were organized to occupy and improve portions of the Symmes purchase, between the Great and Little Miamis. The first, led by Colonel Benjamin Stiles, and consisting of about twenty persons, landed sometime in November, 1788, at the mouth of the Little Miami, within the limits of a tract of ten thousand acres, which Colonel Stiles had purchased of Judge Symmes. They constrücted a log fort or stockade, and laid out the village of Columbia. The second party, twelve or fifteen in number, was formed at Limestone (now Maysville), Kentucky, by Matthias Denman and Robert Patterson. After much difficulty and danger, caused by floating ice in the river, they made a landing opposite the mouth of the Licking river. The name adopted for the proposed town, says Burnet in his "Notes," was *Losanteville," which had been manufactured by a pedantic foreigner whose name has unfortunately been forgotten. It was formed, as he said, from the words Ze, os, ante and ville, which he rendered, "the village opposite the mouth." The proposed town was never laid off, but upon its intended site there was, however, laid out another village, according to a new plat - the village which is now grown into the populous, prosperous *Queen City of the West." "The third party of pioneers in the Miami country was under the immediate supervision of Judge Symmes. Leaving Limestone on the twenty-ninth of January, 1789, the party landed early in the following month, at the point now known as North Bend, and so called, because the most northern bend which occurs on the Ohio south of the Kanawha. For some time it was a matter of doubt as to which of the rival settlements would eventually, as the western world was populated, become a great town. Columbia, for some time, maintained the lead,,and even North Bend was considered to have advantages over Cincinnati.

During the time these settlements were making in the Symmes purchase, the southeastern part of Ohio was penetrated by the offshoots from Marietta, and the boundaries of civilization were slowly pushed forward along the river. On April 11, 1789, settlements were begun at Belpre (the French for beautiful meadow), fifteen miles below Marietta, and soon after at Newberry, twenty-five miles below, and also at Waterford and Duck creek. In the autumn of 1789 a settlement was made at the Big Bottom, on the Muskingum, about thirty miles above Marietta. The French settlement at Gallipolis was made in the summer of 1791. * Next atter the laying

* Although the French emigrants did not arrive until the summer of 1791, and after Massie had located Manchester, their village (Gallipolis), was laid out and made ready for them by the Ohio company, and avhen Manchester was founded there were residing at the former place a company of forty men from Marietta. Historians usually give Gallipolis the third place in the order of settlement, and Manchester the fourth. Should the consideration of priority in settlement, however, be based upon actual occupation of each site bv permanent residents, Manchester would be entitled to rank third, and Gallipolis would of course be fourth. In speaking of these places as the third and fourth settlements in the State, Marietta and its offshoots are considered as one settlement, and the trio in the Symmes purchase collectively as another.

The settlements made up to 1791 and during two or three years following, slowly increased in size. Cincinnati in 1792 contained about thirty cabins besides the barracks and other buildings connected with Fort Washington. The population was about two hundred and fifty. Four years later, or in 1796, according to Monette's Valley of the Mississippi, the settlement had grown to number six hundred souls, and the village was composed of more than a hundred log cabins and fifteen framed houses. - - = >

In December, 1794, the town of Hamilton was laid out and soon after a few settlers located there. Dayton was laid out on the fourth of November, 1795, but not permanently settled until April r, 1:796. Franklin, upon the Miami, and within the present county of Warren, was laid out in 1795, and the first settlers arrived in the spring of the following year. Previous to this, Mill Creek, eleven miles north of Cincinnati, had been the frontier settlement in the Miami country. In 1796 Chillicothe was settled, and the same year pioneers began to penetrate the northern part of the State, and Cleveland was laid out at the mouth of the Cuyahoga. At the close of 1798 that portion of the northwestern territory now included in the State of Ohio had a population of about five thousand persons. This population was chiefly in the valleys of the Muskingum, Scioto, the Miamis, and the small tributaries of these rivers within half a hundred miles of the Ohio. | No portion of the country received a greater accession of settlers than the valleys of the Miamis. Nowhere was the development more marked or rapid, and nowhere was the prospect of the pioneers more alluring.

It is probable that a few "squatters" were in the territory now constituting Preble county as early as 1796, but the permanent settlement cannot be said to have begun until 1798.* Preble county now contains about five times as many inhabitants as there were in the whole state of Ohio in that year. The southern part of the county was first settled, and, to be more specific, the first township whichhad a permanent white resident was Gratis. In all probability that first resident, the pioneer of Preble county was John Leslie, who, according to the best autborities, came into the wilderness in 1798. He located on Elk Creek, and upon what is now known as section thirty-six, the extreme southeastern portion of the county, and that which was nearest to the settlements already made in the Miami valley. All northward of this locality was then an unbroken wilderness, and the Indian boundary but a few miles away. Southward there was a scanty fringe of settlements along the Ohio and a sparse sprinkling along its more important tributaries. The same year that John Leslie made his settlement, or the year following, Henry Phillips, John

The topic of settlement here only touched upon, and treated in a general way, is amplified in the several township histories, and the record of early settlers, in fact, forms, as it should, the greater part of each and every one of the chapters.

Phillips, Hezekiah Phillips and John Long arrived in .the county, and located in the same vicinity. About the same time that these settlers came in Jacob Parker* took up a residence in the woods on Twin creek, in what is now Lanier township, a short distance from the site of West Alexandria. The southwest corner of Israel township was settled in 1799, by William Huston, the Ridenours, the Kingerys, and some others. James Ochletree built the first mill in the county on Four Mile creek. Somers township. was settled near the site of Camden, about 1802, by the Hendricks, Pottengers, Bennetts, Beasleys, Mores, and Smiths. Henry Paddock, Eli Dixon, Reuben Kercheval and a few others settled on Four Mile creek, in Dixon and Jackson townships, about the year 1804. In all probability Eli Dixon was the pioneer of Dixon townshipr John Harding and the Wades settled on Elkham creek, in Jackson township, about the same time, and were 'among the first in the township. Peter Vanausdel, John Clawson and Albert Banta were among the early settlers of Lanier, coming in, however after Jacob Parker, already mentioned. Among the earliest settlers of Gasper township were Gasper Potterf(after whom it was named), Stephen Albaugh, Silas Dooley, sr., Robert Runyon, William Phillips, Phillip Lewellan, and the Duns. In 'Twin township the first settlers were the Robertsons, Dickeys, Nesbits, Ozias, and Vanwinkles. The pioneers of Harrison townshipwere Joseph Singer, who arrived as early as 1803, Martin Rice, Tobias Tilman, Jacob Loy, James Abbott, Zachariah Hole, Alexander McNutt, and others. In Jefferson township the first settlers were the Purviances (among them, David, who at an early day ably represented the district in the State senate), the Flemings, Marshals, and Irelands. In Washington William Bruce, Cornelius Vanausdel, David E. Hendricks, Walter Buell Alexander C. Lanier, John Aukerman, John Mills, John Goldsmith, and John Meroney, were among the first residents. Monroe was the last township in order of settlement, its lands being refused by the pioneers because flat and wet. Its first settlers were the Armatouts, Shurleys, Adamses, Millers, Marshalls, Doyles, Davisons, Browns, and Coopers.