Preble County, Ohio - Chapter 28: Miscellaneous Items of Interest, 1915

Chapter 28: Miscellaneous Items of Interest

As the time drew near for the century mark for Eaton, our people talked of holding a centennial, but after discussion, it was decided to make it a county centennial instead, and July 2, 3 and 4, 1908, were fixed upon as the time. Committees were appointed, and it was decided to call it the "Preble County Home Coming." Months before the event, letters were sent to all known former residents of the county, who had removed to other states during the past fifty years, inviting them to "come home." When the time came, the town was decorated as never before or since. Processions of people came on every road. Our streets were filled, bands were plentiful, speeches were made, and the time generally given over to jollity and good fellowship. Men and women came from as far away as California and Mexico. Judges left the bench and doctors forgot their practice to come home. It was a common thing to see some committeeman get old friends together who had been parted so long that faces were forgotten. The weather man even smiled on the event. So it may be said that when we got to be a hundred years old we had more happy people than ever before, and the pleasure of its memory will linger longer with our people than any other celebration ever held in the county.

A Memorable Gathering

I presume the most spectacular political campaigns ever waged in this county were the two Harrison campaigns. The 1840 campaign, with its processions, log cabin raisings and hard cider, struck this county with full force; a big mass meeting was held in Eaton with a tremendous crowd present; a procession went to Greenville, and the result was the Whigs swept the county. In 1888, when Ben Harrison, the grandson of Old Tip, was a candidate, the campaign managers concluded to duplicate the performance, and they organized what they called a "walkaround." On the day set the weather was ideal and crowds and delegations began assembling at Eaton. Shortly after nine o'clock the procession started for Camden, all horses and vehicles profusely decorated and flying the flag. Reaching Camden, they circled the town and, joined by other processions, started for West Elkton, where dinner was had about two o'clock in the afternoon; then north through and around Gratis and on to West Alexandria, where speaking was held in the evening.

The writer paused on Morning Star hill to get a good look at a procession of flags and bunting, waving over two miles long; and I think its memory will linger longer than that of any procession I ever saw. The result was the same. The Republicans swept the county. Locally, it will be long remembered.

Lost In The Woods

George D. Hendrix used to relate this story, that when his father came to Eaton on April 2, 1806, he brought with him, at first, a daughter, Julia, about twelve years old and a younger child whom he placed in a cabin near the west end of Decatur street, and returned to Camden to bring the balance of the family next day. In the evening the daughter started for the place occupied by Mills, now the northwest corner of Main and Beech streets, for water, and she got lost in the woods. It began getting dark, and she began to hunt a place to hide, when she heard someone chopping, and heading for the sound, came to Mill's camp, and he took her back to her cabin. Mr. Hendrix said that Julia always claimed that, as far as she could tell, her location when she heard the ring of the axe, was about where the court house square is located.

Many stories of the "Underground Railroad" still linger. When it is remembered that anyone who assisted escaping slaves was proceeded against in the United States court, and that the penalty inflicted on those caught was very severe, the costs and fine frequently bankrupting the victim, even if he escaped the imprisonment which might be added, we, then, can better appreciate the grit and determination of those who voluntarily furnished the issistance. When they turned over the runaway to the next station, no xplanations or talk, or telling each others names were indulged in; the lack was turned over, and often had disappeared before the conductor got ut of sight ; no chances for conversations, which would be given in evidence, t was business and no questions asked. At West Elkton, one of the most ?arless conductors was Thomas Stubbs, nicknamed "Mill" Tom Stubbs, to stinguish him. He was a man about medium height, light build, but wiry, rong, quick, absolutely fearless and very reticent. One winter during the ties he hauled eight or nine runaways in a wagon-box on a sled, to a point beyond Richmond. They were covered over with quilts, as if hauling dressed hogs. To all inquiries he replied he was loaded with meat. He reached Richmond about five o'clock A. M. and in turning a corner struck a rock and upset the sled, spilling the "meat" out in the snow. He ordered the blacks to right the sled and get in, and then he covered them again, drove on through the city and, two miles beyond, delivered the "meat," and came back to Richmond to feed his team. At another time, while taking one runaway to Richmond, and they were all taken after night, he drove up the Eaton and Richmond pike, and about midnight came to a toll-gate, near where the Campbell town road strikes the pike; it was closed. Tom knew the keeper of the toll-gate was a strong supporter of slavery, and he ordered the black to sit as far back in the buggy as possible. As the gate-keeper came out, he handed him exact toll to Richmond, and he unlocked the pole and let it up and then stepped forward, asking "who is with you," trying, in the darkness, to see the other man, when Tom spit in his face, whipped the horse and was gone. He came home another way.

At another time, some two miles northwest of Eaton, on a star-lit night, a man stopped him and tried to see into the buggy. Tom shoved the muzzle of an old-fashioned pepper-box revolver in the fellow's face, and he jumped backward and exclaimed, "No, I don't like pepper." Neither did Tom; he drove on.

At one time, the slave hunters came to West Elkton on the hunt of a couple of runaway black women from Kentucky. It was during the fall, and there was an apple party at Richard Randall's, just east of the village, and about eleven P. M. they were getting ready to go home. The girls had put on their bonnets and veils, when the slave hunters, headed by a United States deputy marshal, came into the house, and compelled every girl to raise her veil, using force on one or two, so they could be sure they were white. It made every young man present a rank Abolitionist ever afterward.

Near Morning Sun one evening, two or three landed and were put away. Next morning, a man rode up at great speed and notified the man that a party was coming that day from Hamilton searching for runaways, when a young man shouldered his rifle, and with the negroes disappeared in the hills of Hopewell creek. In about two hours the hunters came with a dog, and he started on a trail. After going a half mile or more he met the young man coming back carrying a couple of squirrels ; when he saw the dog he surmised its purpose and promptly shot it, pretending that he was afraid and thought

These stories and many others I have heard related by men who took part in those troubles, and whose veracity I never heard questioned by friend or foe.

At the settlement of the county, rattlesnakes were very numerous, and the early settlers were in constant fear of them, especially for their children. The snakes were very much more numerous in some localities than in others. When the settlers began to raise hogs in large numbers the rattlesnakes began a rapid decrease, because hogs, especially the old woods breed they then had, are the most deadly foe of the rattlesnakes.

Dr. Christian Sayler, of Gratis, related, that in the early day, the Morningstar hill, just where it starts to break down to the north, was called Rattlesnake hill, because there was a small cave, yet visible, leading back into the Clinton rock, which was found to be much infested with rattlesnakes. They seemed to gather there every fall, and spread from there every spring. About the time of the 1812 War, the citizens set a watch one spring when the weather began to get warm, and when the watch notified them that the snakes were beginning to make their appearance in numbers, they kept a detail of eight or ten men there for several days, to hunt the woods around the hill, and watch the cave. During the time they succeeded in killing over four hundred rattlesnakes, after which the neighborhood seemed to be much less affected by the pests. Some of our old men still call it Rattlesnake hill.

As illustrating the homesickness that must have seized some of those early settlers, Ebenezer Paddack, of Jackson township, some thirty years ago told the writer the following incident: About 1830, a man of forty years of age, who resided in Virginia on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge mountains, moved with his wife and some three or four children to Jackson township and rented a farm ; but the great level stretches of land made him lonesome, and within a year he desired to go back, but could not readily find a buyer for the property accumulated. After three or four years, he made a public sale, retaining horses and wagon, and it so happened that he found no bidder for three large camp kettles. He heard that Mr. Paddack desired to get some kettles, and he walked about a mile next morning to the house to inquire. A bargain was made ; Mr. Paddack counted out the money and paid him. As he walked from the door he faced the sun and throwing up his head, he exclaimed, "Old Virginy, I smell you now." He went back.

George D. Hendrix often told this story ; once in presence of the writer, substantially as follows: That when white men first settled near Eaton, they found a large ox roaming the woods. He was a majestic animal with long-spreading horns, and only one eye, and having no known owner. He was supposed to have belonged to one of the wagon-trains hauling supplies to Wayne's army, or to the garrison of Fort St. Clair, and to have strayed away in the woods, and thus lost. He was caught by the early settlers ; easily tamed, and soon became very gentle. Many of the boys would climb on his back, the front boy guiding the old ox along the trail with a little switch, and when the house was reached the ox got a bite of the choicest feed the boys could find. Mr. Hendrix added, that as a boy he had often ridden the ox, that they all called "One-eyed." He was lent from house to house to help logging and plowing, and being so large and strong he easily drew his share of the load, and seemed so perfectly at home, at every and any house, that he was a general favorite, every settler seeming to feel an ownership. It was claimed that when he died he must have been some twenty-five years old. At his death, a large number of those pioneers turned out and buried him on Garrison branch, as one of them said, "a Christian burial."

About 1810 or 1811, the Indians abducted two little girls in Harrison township, one named Harper and the other Tharp. The trail was followed but lost, and no inquiry or search later brought any information, until, some fifteen or twenty years later, Harper learned that a white woman was with the Indians at Kaskaskia, Illinois, and supposed to have been taken from this county. He went there and, through an interpreter, established her identity as his daughter, but so thoroughly had her habits as an Indian become fixed that she refused to taik to her father and he returned home alone.

Some twenty-five years after the abduction, Mr. Tharp was informed by an Indian trader that a white woman was the wife of a Miami chief called Captain Dixon, near Marion, Indiana. Mr. Tharp went to the house of William E. Hendricks, a nephew of Colonel Hendricks, who lived near there and knew them. A meeting was arranged with the woman, who turned out to be his daughter. All his efforts to induce her to return were unavailing* she saying that she was too old to form new habits and that she would be ridiculed among the whites. Mr. Tharp came home alone. Captain Dixon was a drunken character who, some four or five years later, came home drunk,

It is related of Henry Kesling, who settled just north of West Alexandria, about 1804-5, that about a year after he located he went into the woods to hunt a hickory pale to hoop a sugar-water tub, and saw one that he thought suitable growing just over a big log. He stepped over the log to cut it, when a black bear that was behind the log, surprised, no doubt, by his sudden coming, rose up on its hind feet, only four or five feet away, with a "woof," and of course, Kesling was surprised, too. With the instinct of self-preservation, and without a thought of where to strike, he swung the axe, and, striking as hard as he could at the bear, was fortunate in hitting it in a vital spot, when it fell dead at his feet. He dressed it and the family had bear meat for dinner; but he never hunted bear that way again.

A Tale Of A Turkey

Janies V. Acton came to Eaton from Virginia, about 1834. He was a lover of the rifle, and, of course, loved hunting. As illustrating the changes made, he related to the writer that, about a year after he came, while hunting one evening, he saw a flock of wild turkeys going to roost in the woods about the west line of Fred Earhardt's gardens and marked in memory the location. The next morning, before day, he quietly made his way to the location and, as daylight sifted down, he saw a turkey on the top of a tall oak, and as soon as he could sight his gun, he shot. The turkey flew to the southwest, but slowly descended. He was sure he had struck the bird and followed down the course, carefully searching for the turkey which he believed had only flown until life was gone. In the line was a cabin about three squares north of the depot, and while looking around the cleared patch of ground, the owner of the cabin came out and asked him what he hunted. He told of shooting the turkey and its flight; the fellow said, "I have your turkey," and went into the cabin and brought it forth. He had been making a fire in the fireplace, which contained an old-fashioned, wide chimney, when the turkey came tumbling down the chimney into the ashes. It had tried to alight on the chimney, when death overtook it. Uncle James took his turkey, but said that fellow had a number of turkey dinners later, and they became life-long friends. Every one who knew Mr. Acton will credit his story.

Henry Paddack, in the spring of 1806, settled on section 29 of Jackson township. His son Ebenezer Paddack, born in 1801, related to the writer in

1885, the story of a journey taken by him in 1808 with his father, as illustrating the traveling in those early days. His father planned to go to mill at the Bruce mill at Eaton, the boy begging hard to go along, and consent was given. Next morning he was called early, and at daylight they set out with two horses and a big wagon with two or three sacks of grain, and picked their way along the trail through the big woods, reaching the mill about 9 A. M. The horses were fed in the rear end of the wagon, while the father and son ate the lunch brought along, and waited for the grist, which was ready about three or four P. M. They immediately started on the return journey and got home just after dark, and the boy went to sleep at the supper table. It was nine miles only, but he said he had traveled many hundred miles since, in many kinds of conveyances, but no journey had left so deep an impression on his mind as that long one through the woods to the mill and back. I have known the round trip covered in the last year in less than forty minutes by automobile.

In the history of Preble county, the reader cannot but notice how liberal the early settlers were towards the religious bias of their neighbors, in fact, generally building Union or public churches in which every denomination could worship, when it was not otherwise in use. As illustrating the sentiment then prevailing, I give the following verse given me by George H. Kelly, who received it from his father, who had often heard it sung in the old public church in Eaton, in those early days. If the poetry be not classic, the sentiment certainly is:

The Course Of A Stream

As illustrating the changes that nature is making, the following, related by Mr. A. L. Reid, who is well known over the county, and who was born and reared on the banks of the stream, is worth recording. Where Little creek crosses from section 15 into section 16, Jefferson township, it originally swung west around the hill through the farm now owned by Mr. Bragg, and after passing around the hill it flowed back into its present bed just north of the hill at the south ford. The old bed can now be plainly traced by the sand and gravel- channel through the fields. Before the-advent of white men, of course, the flow of the stream was much obstructed by fallen timber. The Indians related that beavers had built a dam near the hill, and the bank or low hill on the west extended east and joined the hill or ridge east of the creek. In this bank many muskrats burrowed and made their houses, probably for many years. Finally, just before white men came, the Indians related that a great flood prevailed all over this part of the county, probably the big flood of 1789, and the water seeped through the burrowed bank, and finally washed a hole through. Then the whole stream took the short cut and has now washed out a channel some -eight feet below the former bed and, attacking the hill from the other side, washed it back some three hundred feet, leaving a sheer bluff some thirty feet high, where once the road ran over the hill. The early settlers related the story of the break to Mr. Reid's father, but the stream has washed the hill back at least one hundred and fifty feet within the memory of men yet living in the vicinity.

It is related that when the Bruce mill at Eaton was rebuilt, in 1810, into a three-story mill, the workmen hesitated about climbing to that dizzy height, overlooking the water, to place the rafters. The carpenter's wife nimbly climbed the ladders and walked around on the plates as though on the ground, then pulled a bottle of whisky out of her pocket, held it up and announced that any one who wished a drink, had to come up after it, and some half dozen went up. This story shows that woman and whisky could coax men into the most dangerous places in the days of those early pioneers, and they left many descendants who still dwell amongst us.