Coshocton City (part 6 of 11)
Part 6 of 11 of the account of this township in Historical Collections of Coshocton County, Ohio :, published 1876; Historical of Coshocton County Ohio, published 1876. 15,976 words, covering 4 settlements. Source changes inside the text are labelled at the exact paragraph where the next book begins.
Contents
13 sectionsThe section headings the book prints inside this chapter, on this part. Each one jumps to where it begins.
Parts
11 pagesThe source prints this as one continuous account. It is split here so no single page grows too heavy to load; the text runs straight on across the parts and nothing is omitted.
The chapter
15,976 wordsReproduced complete and unedited from Historical Collections of Coshocton County, Ohio :, published 1876; Historical of Coshocton County Ohio, published 1876. The text is machine-read from scans, so expect recognition errors: misspelled names, dropped words, and stray characters. Nothing has been corrected, because correcting a proper name invents one. The headings below are the books' own; source changes are labelled in place.
John Morgan died at his residence, a few miles east of Coshocton, September 14, 1866, in the seventy-ninth year of his age. He was born in New Jersey, October 9, 1789. He was among the earlier settlers of Coshocton county, cultivating a farm until old age and illness interfered. He was for twenty -five years a member of the White Eyes Baptist church.
Charles S. Barnes w\as born in Faj^ette county, Pennsylvania, in 1798. The family removed to Jefferson county, when Charles came to Coshocton county, settling as a farmer in Bedford township, and becoming one of its most highly esteemed citizens. He was probate judge from 1855-1858. He was for man}'^ years a class leader and steward in the Methodist Episcopal church. His death occurred on the 17th of May, 1866, at his home in West Bedford. Several of his children abide in the township.
William Henderson died at his residence, in ISTew Castle township, in 1866, having been many years a farmer and stock-man in Coshocton county. He was in his seventyfirst year ; came from Pennsylvania ; was married in 1837 ; connected by the marriage of his children with several of the prominent families in the west part of the county.
George Darling, youngest son of Isaac and Jane Darling, died at Holton, Kansas, October 30, 1870, aged twenty-five years. His mother had gone on a visit to a daughter in Kansas, and was there taken sick with typhoid fever. After a lingering illness, her recovery was despaired of, and her friends notified. George went to be with her in her last moments, and was himself smitten with the same dissease, and in one week died, the mother following in a few hours. The bodies were brought to the old home, near Warsaw. George had only been married a few months (to Miss Foster), and was a very popular young man, and the circumstances of the death made the* event a notable one in his old neighborhood.
Samuel Squire, Sr., died on the 24th of l^ovember, 1874, at his residence in Jackson township, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. He was brought as a child to Coshocton county, in 18^4, being then eight years of age. His parents came from Kutland county, Vermont. He took possession of the place where he died, in 1832. He was a deacon. in the Regular Baptist church. He left children and a large circle of relatives.
Nicholas Bassett came from Mohawk valley, E"ew York, and settled in Linton township, more than forty years ago. He died on the 11th of March, 1875, in the eighty-ninth year of his age. A friend says : " He was a very active and energetic man in the days of his strength ; firm in purpose and vigorous in action ; a man of noticeable sort in speech and movement. His politics and his religion (the one Democratic and the other Presbyterian) were two things never lost sight of."
Samuel H. Scott, brother of Matthew elsewhere mentioned, was for some forty years a citizen of Virginia township, engaged in farming. He had been out of health, was coming to his home from Adams' mills, walking on the railroad-track, was overtaken by a freight-train, and miscalculating as to time failed to get out of the way before the train, then " slowed " very much, struck him. The nervous shock in his enfeebled and diseased condition was too much for him, and he died in a few days, his death occurring March 5, 1875. He had been for many years a member and for a few years an elder in the Presbyterian
Dr. W. li. Vickers died in Linton township on the 12th of February, 1875. On the evening of the 11th, he left his home, in Jacobsport, to visit a patient, Mr. M. B. Carr, one mile beyond Linton. He found Mr. Carr very low with pneumonia, who, also, as well as to administer medicine, asked the doctor to write his will. The doctor, after finishing the patient's will, conducted the evening devotions for the family, and was about to retire to bed, about eleven o'clock, when he complained to Mrs. Carr of feeling unwell, and asked for a little water and camphor, which were got for him, and after taking some he went to bed with one of Mrs. Carr's sons in an adjoining room. The next morning he was discovered to be serious!}^ ill, and, having been removed to his home, died about four o'clock in the afternoon. He had established himself very thoroughly in the regards of the community, and was a prominent member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
Thompsoyi Carnahan was born in White Eyes township, April 24, 1841, and died in Adams township (on a little farm which for some years had been to him a retreat after his work as a teacher was done), July 13, 1876. Obtaining the elements of a good education in the district vschool, he himself commenced to teach in 1860. In the summer of that year he attended the ISTormal School at Hopedale, in Harrison county, and having taught during the ensuing winter, took another term at Hopedale in 1862. In the fall of 1862, he went into the army, enlisting in the Ninth Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. He continued in service two years, and having been wounded at Big Shanty, Georgia, returned home and resumed his work as a teacher. In 1866, after attending one term, he graduated at the Poughkeepsie (New York) College. Having taught several of the most prominent of the country schools, and the one at Bakersville, he became the teacher of the grarnmar school in Coshocton in 1871. The next year he took charge of the Ros- coe schools, and continued there until smitten by the disease (paralysis) that laid him low in death. Always somewhat out of health, his conscientious faithfulness led him to unduly tax himself with his professional work, and about a month before his year was up, and some two months before his death, he reluctantly ceased to teach. But the bow had been drawn too far, and the string was already virtually broken. Returning after the school year was closed (his wife having Unished his work therein) to his farm near Bakersville, he for a time seemed to improve, but soon sank down in a peaceful death.
Conscientious and carefully trained in the principles of the holy Christian religion from his childhood, he made a profession of his faith in the Presbyterian church, at Bakersville, in 1870, and subsequently was an elder in the Presbyterian church of Roscoe.
With no special advantages of worldly sort and despite poor health he attained a scholarship that had merit above what his modesty disposed him to widely manifest, and showed what industry and conscientiousness may achieve even in comparatively early years. He married, in 1869, Miss Eliza J. Stonehocker, who, having herself been much engaged in teaching, proved a worthy help-meet in his school work, as otherwise.
Source changes here: from Historical of Coshocton County Ohio, by William E. Hunt, published 1876; 80,637 words in this source stream.
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Preface
THE tastes of the preparer of this volume disposed him to undertake it; a residence in Coshocton of twenty years, and peculiar relations and associations of favorable sort, gave him, as friends claimed, at least a certain fitness to do it; and the Centennial year seemed to be the proper occasion. Amid illhealth and other hindrances wholly unanticipated when the work was begun, the book has been written. If it does not meet all expectations, it is hoped it will not disappoint any reasonable ones. It could scarcely be expected that a work of the sort should be entirely free from errors, but great care has been taken to make it at least correct as far as it goes. Of course, in the line of personal history, regard must be had to the limits and scope of the work. It only purports to be a panorama - not a series of finished portraits, with every shadow and light. Mere mention of every person and thing not amiss in such a volume would indefinitely extend it and add to cost. To those who have kindly assisted in its preparation, I shall ever feel grateful ; and I can confidently say that if there had been on the part of some others such help as those kind friends' rendered, and as a little public spirit, local fame and denominational interest might well prompt, the book would bea better one. As it is, I respectfully submit it as at least an honest endeavor to put in convenient and permanent form something of the record of a locality of classic (American) interest, and to trace the steps whereby we have reached our
Wm. E. Hunt Corrections And Additions
To list of earliest settlers in Perry township, add Joseph Mills, coming in 1823, and dying in his 87th year, in 1876; and the father of J. 8. Maven, of Walhonding, long resident in the township.
Contents Chapter
Territorial Limits and Subdivisions of the County - Date of Organization of County - Names and Date of Organization of Lownships, Villages, @t¢..s.ct-sstecosese0s ocbainG Od HOoCHSOIOES Oat DOONOR 5
Chapter Ii
Indian Occupancy, and Early Military Expeditions - The Pre- Historic Race - The French Rule - The Delawares - Their Towns in Coshocton County - Netawatwees, or King Newcomer - Killbuck, White Eyes, etc., etc. - Boquet's Expedition - The Coshocton Campaign - The Revolutionary War - The Character of Indians, and subsequent whereabouts.......
Chapter
Advancement of County in Wealth, Matters of Taxation, etc... CHAPTER VIL. Something about Roads, Ferries, Bridges, Canals, Steamboats, GUG= LAM ROAM Ste capene seers se cess ss Bolcies erste cicaa ous soaie hea oueetiewe totes CHAPTER VIII. County Buildings and County Officers - Complete lists of latter. CHAPTER lax. Relations to State and National Government - Members of the Legislature, Congress, etc..........+60 so Congdese eotewarcesaceters CODES CHAPTER X. The:Courtsvand the: Barvevscccosesscvecesecest. rasiosivelaee's prc Peverreor ne (v)
Chapter Xiii
PAGES. Notes on Agricultural Affairs - Extent of this interest - Corn, Wheat, etc. - Hogs, Fine Cattle, Blooded Horses, etc. - County Agricultural Society - County Fairs, ete.......see-- 83-94 CHAPTER XII. Notes on Manufacturing and Mining. .......:.sssssseereeeeseerereees 95-107 CHAPTER XIII. Notes on Merchandizing, Banking, Tavern-keeping - Transportation Business, ers 108-115
Chapter Xix
Miscellaneous Matters - 1. The Pre-Historic Race. 2. Ancient Burial Grounds. 3. Meaning of the names Muskingum, Tuscarawas, and Walhonding. 4. Prose Legend of the Walhonding. 5. Heckwelder''s Famous Ride. 6. Temperance Crusade among the Indians. 7. The Gnadenhutten Massacre. 8. Curious Stories Touching Captives Reclaimed by Boquet. 9. Description of the Hunting-Shirt. 10. 'The Houses and Furniture of the Pioneers in Coshocton County. 11. Louis Philippe at Coshocton. 12. How to Raise a Large Family. 13. Indian Stories. 14. Backwoods
Chapter Xx
Incident and a Joke. 5. A Bundte of First Things. 6. Relics and Curiosities in Personal Possession. 7. Coshocton Wags in Early Days. 8. The Treasury Robbery. Dom TLMARMOEE OF -UNOCG PUGAC Oise set tegt coeeashs <i osdvesusentasvousscedees 178-191
Chapter Xxii
The Churches - Detailed Accounts of the Methodist Episcopal, Methodist (Protestant), Presbyterian, United Presbyterian, Protestant Episcopal, Christian Union Churches, ete.......... 205-231
Territorial Limits And Subdivisions Of The Country
Tue territory embraced in what is now the State of Ohio (and even a large territory adjacent *) was at one time divided into only three counties - viz.: Washington, Hamilton, and Wayne. The boundaries of Washington county, as constituted in 1788, were as follows: " Beginning on the bank of the Ohio river, where the western boundary line of Pennsylvania crosses it, and running with that line to Lake Erie; thence along the southern shore of said lake to the mouth of the Cuyahoga river; thence up said river to the portage between it and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum river; thence down that branch to the forks at the crossing above Fort Laurens (near the present town of Bolivar) ; thence with a line to be drawn westerly to the portage of that branch of the Big Miami on which the fort stood that was taken by the French in 1752, until it meets the road from the Lower Shawneetown to Sandusky ; thence south to the Scioto river; thence with that river to its mouth, and thence up the Ohio river to the place of beginning."
Out of this territory nearly thirty counties as they now exist have been erected. The northern central part of Washington county was, in 1804, erected into Muskingum county, and in 1811, by the Legislature then in session at Zanesville, the northern part of Muskingum county was set off under the name of CosHocton * county ; Guernsey, Tuscarawas, Knox, and Licking having all been previously organized. As originally constituted, Coshocton county embraced a considerable part of what is now Holmes, extending to the Greenville treaty line, six miles north of Millersburg; but that county having been organized in 1824, the limits of Coshocton county were fixed as they now are. Prior to the adoption of the present State Constitution, in 1851, there was considerable agitation about a new county to be formed out of parts of Guernsey, Tuscarawas, and Coshocton, with New Comerstown as the county-seat. There was also a movement contemplating a county, with Walhonding as the county-seat. But that instrument rendered such movements hopeless. The territory embraced in Coshocton county is part of that designated as United States Military Land District - so called from the fact that Congress, in 1798, appropriated it to satisfy certain claims of the officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary War. These lands were surveyed into townships five miles square, and these again into quarter townships, containing four thousand acres, and subsequently some of these into forty lots, of one hundred acres each, for the accommodation of soldiers or others holding warrants for that number of acres. What land was not required for the satisfaction of the military warrants was subsequently sold by act of Congress, under the designation of Congress land. Twentytwo and a fraction of these original townships were embraced within the limits of Coshocton county as finally fixed in 1824. Owing to the inconvenience arising from the intermediate rivers, part of Tuscarawas township was attached to the one west of it.; As the population of the
* The name is unquestionably a modification of the name of the old Indian town at the forks of the Muskingum - Goschaclhgunk - as somewhat variously spelled according to sound by the old chroniclers in different languages. Different and quite contradictory definitions of the name have been given.
townships warranted, they were named (having been previously designated as yet in all conveyances by numbers), and elections for justices of the peace and other officers ordered by the county authorities.
The townships first organized were Tuscarawas, Washington, New Castle, and Franklin, in 1811. The territory adjacent embraced in originally surveyed townships was connected with these for purposes of government and taxation, and afterward set off and organized as population might require. Oxford was thus set off in the fall of 1811, and Linton in 1812. Perry township was organized in 1817; the election for officers was appointed to be held in April, at the house of Elias James. Mill Creek was organized in July of the same year, and the election held at the house of John P. Wilson. Pike was organized in August, 1818, the election being at the house of James Bryan. The next township organized was White Eyes, in 1823 ; then followed Tiverton and Monroe and Keene the next year. Bedford was organized in 1825, and Bethlehem and Jefferson in 1826; Crawford, Virginia, and Jackson in 1828, and Clark in 1829. Adams township was organized in 1882, and Lafayette (the last) in 1835.
There are in the county at this writing one incorporated village - Coshocton - and the following other villages, viz.: Roscoe, Warsaw, West Carlisle, West Bedford, Jacobsport, New Castle, Walhonding, East Union, Keene, New Bedford, Bakersville, Chili, Canal Lewisville, Spring Mountain, New Princeton, West Lafayette, Linton Mills, Mohawk Village, Plainfield, Evansburg, Orange, Bloomfield. Moscow, and Avondale.
Coshocton was laid out in 1802, by Ebenezer Buckingham and John Matthews, who called it Tuscarawas. In 1811 it became the county seat, and its name was changed to Coshocton. Atthat time a number of blocks of town lots at the southern end were vacated and laid out into what were designated as south out-lots, answering to those called east out-lots, being east of the present Fifth street. The town plat embraced a territory about three-quarters of a mile square. The first addition to the town plat was
Lamb's - a strip of several subdivided acres on the northeast, in 1837. For more than thirty years there was no further addition. Then, just east of Lamb's, Dr. 8. H. Lee's addition was made. In 1869, the corporation limits were extended so as to include these additions; also the ground of the Agricultural Society, still further east, subdivided at a later day, and that included in John Burt's subdivision and Rickett's subdivision, together with adjoining tracts, making the village plat embrace territory a mile and a half square. The first subdivision was the " county commissioners'." The original proprietors of the town donated the square south of the present pnblic square to "the public;" but when the town was made a county seat, on petition of the proprietors, and subject to the approval of the lot-holders of the town, the Legislature authorized the county commissioners to subdivide that square and sell the lots, and use the proceeds for the erection of public buildings.* The next subdivision was De La Mater's; and the principal ones of later date are James M. Burt's, Williams', John Burt's, Spangler's, Johnson's, Triplett's, Agricultural Society's, Steel Works, and Rickett's.
In 1808, a town called New Castle was laid out by Robert Giffin, but does not seem to have come to much. In 1830, Jobn Clark laid out one called West Liberty ; and the new town and the old name became one some time thereafter. In 1816, James Calder laid out Caldersburg. After the Ohio canal was built, Ransom and Swayne made an addition on the north, and the town thus extended was called Roscoe, atter a then famous English author, Wm. Roscoe.
*The ownership of the public square has been much discussed. Originally it was given to the public." It was never given to the town nor formally to the county, but impliedly in 1811 to the latter. The commissioners have controlled it from that time on. They authorized certain citizens of the town to build a school house on the square; they also leased a piece of it to the Presbyterians, and proposed to lease another piece to the Methodists.
Wm. Brown and Wm. Henderson laid out West Carlisle in 1821, and John Gonser, New Bedford, in 1825. Evansburg was laid out, in 1830, by Isaac Evans; Canal Lewisville, in 1832, by Solomon Vail and T. Butler Lewis; Warsaw, in 1834, by Wm. Carhart - additions since by Eldridge and N. Buckalew; Chili, in 1834, by John and Samuel Fernsler; Walhonding, in 1841, by Wm. K. Johnson, G. W. Silliman, and T. 8S. Humrickhouse; Bakersville, in 1848, by John Baker; West Lafayette, in 1850, by Robert Shaw and Wim. Wheeler - Rue's and Ketchum's and James M. Burt's additions made since; and Mohawk Village, in 1859, by James and William Thompson.
The old-time chronicles tell of Lima, Newport, Maysville, Birmingham, Zeno, Providence, New Princeton, Cavallo, and Rochester; but these, and even others, never got beyond the infantile condition, and some of them are now entirely undiscernable by the eye.
Indian Occupancy, And Early Military Expeditions
Wuen the English-speaking white man first came into the territory now embraced in Coshocton county, it was in the occupancy of the Delaware Indians. It is quite certain that just before them the Shawnee Indians were in the land, retiring, as the Delawares came in, to the more westerly and southerly regions. The French were then claiming dominion of all the Mississippi Valley, and the head of the Muskingum, as an interesting and favored locality, was not unknown to their soldiers, traders, and missionaries. Some have been pleased, without any very clear evidence, to believe that the famous French explorer La Salle, more than two hundred years aga, traversed these valleys.
Indefinitely before that period was the pre-historic race, who have left their traces in numerous mounds and circles and graye-yards, proving their number and power, and perplexing the men of subsequent times, concerning which things some statements and speculations will be found in another part of this volume.
The Delawares, crowded ont by the white settlers about the Delaware river and in Eastern Pennsylvania - their Indian name means " People from the Sunrise " - found a home to their taste in the beautiful and fertile Tuscarawas, Walhonding, and Muskingum valleys.
Their language at least will abide in the land as long as the names just mentioned, and also those of White Eyes, Mohican, and Killbuck continue to be accepted as the designations of the rivers and creeks to which they are now attached. Within the limits of the county as now bounded, there were, a hundred years ago, at least five considerable Indian towns, the houses being built of bark and limbs and logs, and arranged in lines or on streets. One of these towns was called White Eyes (Koguethagachton) town, in the neighborhood of Lafayette. Two other towns were located - one three and the other ten miles up the Walhonding - and were called the Monsey towns, the more distant being occupied by a faction of the Delawares under control of Captain Pipe, who became disgusted with the generally peaceful and Christian policy of the nation, and seceded from it, desiring more indulgence for their base and bloody passions. The lower town was Wengimunds'.* The fourth town was Goschachgiink, occupying that part of the present town of Coshocton (a name said to be a modification of the name of the old Indian town) between Third street and the river. This was much the largest town, and for many years was the capitol of the Delaware nation, where the grand councils were held and whither the tribes assembled. It was the residence of Netawatwees, their great chief, and was often visited by the famous councilors, White Eyes and Killbuck (Gelelemend), as well as the big captains and braves of numerous tribes. The fifth town was situated about two miles below Coshocton on the east side of the Muskingum river (on the farms now in the possession of Samuel Moore and the Tingle heirs), and was ealled Lichtenau (" Pasture of Light"). It was occupied by Christian Indians under the direction of Rev. David Zeisberger (and afterward Rev. Wm. Edwards in conjunction with him), the famous Moravian missionary.
At the request of Netawatwees, Killbuck, and White Eyes, the town was established in close proximity to the capitol (which afterward was sometimes distinguished as "the heathen town''), in hope of its Christian influence thereupon. On the 12th of April, 1776, Zeisberger, with John Heckewelder as his assistant, at the head of eight families numbering thirty-five persons, encamped on the site of the future town, and began the next morning the work of felling the trees for the houses. The town grew rapidly ; the mission work prospered greatly ; a grandson of old Netawatwees and many of the head men at the capitol were baptised into the Christian faith, and became residents of the town. The place soon fitted the name, "a meadow beautiful by nature, and brightened by the light of grace." At one time the Christian Indians from all the Tuscarawas towns were gathered into Lichtenau to escape the evil influences and persecutions to which they were exposed through the machinations of evil-disposed white men, and, even worse, apostate and bloody-minded Indians. They remained for over a year, then returning to the Tuscarawas valley.
The Indian towns about the forks of the Muskingum were the objective points of two famous military expeditions. The first, both in order of time and importance, has been usually designated as ' Boquet's Expedition."
The Indians of the Northwest having started on the warpath, General Gage, whose headquarters were at Boston, in the spring of 1764, directed Colonel Boquet to organize a corps of fifteen hundred men, and to enter the country of the Delawares and Shawnees at the same time that Geveral Bradstreet was engaged in chastising the Wyandots and Ottawas of Lake Erie, who were then infesting Detroit. As a part of Colonel Boquet's force was composed of militia fron. Pennsylvania and Virginia, it was slow to assemble. On the 5th of August, the Pennsylvania quota rendezvoused at Carlisle, where three hundred of them deserted. The Virginia quota arrived at Fort Pitt on the 17th of September, and uniting with the provincial militia - a part of the Forty-second and Sixtieth regiments - the army moved from Fort Pitt ov the 3d of October. When Colonel Boquet was at Fort Loudon in Pennsylvania, between Carlisle and Fort Pitt, urging forward the militia-levies, he received a dispatch from General Bradstreet notifying him of the peace effected at Sandusky. But the Ohio Indians, particularly the Shawnees of the Scioto river, and some of the Delawares of the Muskingum river, still continued their robberies and murders along the frontiers of Pennsylvania; and so Colonel Boquet determined to proceed with his division, notwithstanding the peace of Gen- eral Bradstreet, which did not include the Shawnees and Delawares. From Fort Pitt, Boquet proceeded westward along the Ohio and Little Beaver and across the highlands to the waters of Yellow creek, then to Sandy creek, and along it to a point near the present village of Bolivar. There he erected a stockade and completed his arrangements. The Indians being convinced that they could not succeed in any attempt against him, made a treaty of peace, engaging to restore all their white prisoners. The expedition then passed down the Tuscarawas on the north side, and encamped on the high ground between the rivers near the Indian town at the forks of the Muskingum, and, erecting a stockade, there awaited the arrival of the prisoners. On the 9th of November, two hundred and six captives had been delivered, and on the 18th, the army broke up its cantonment and marched for Fort Pitt, arriving there on the 28th of the same month.
The second expedition is commonly known as the '"'Coshocton Campaign." It was undertaken in the summer of 1780, and grew out of the deepened feeling of antipathy to the Indians because of some recent depredations and outrages committed upon settlers in Pennsylvania, Western Virginia, and Eastern Ohio. It was also understood that the Delawares, contrary to pledges, were joining the British.
The number of regulars and militia was about eight hundred, under the command of General Broadhead. It marched from Wheeling directly to the Tuscarawas valley. A. part of the militia were anxious to go up the river and destroy the Moravian villages, which they regarded as at least shelters and half-way houses for Indian marauders, but they were restrained from executing their project by speeial exertions of General Broadhead and Colonel Shepherd. They kept on toward Coshocton, and observing some Indian scouts (one of whom was shot) a few miles therefrom, they made a forced march and surprised both Goschachgunk and Lichtenau, capturing, without firing a gun, all the Indians then in them. Among those captured in Lichtenau were several Christian Indians from Gnaden- hutten. These were released promptly by the commander of the expedition, and started in a canoe for their home, but some of the militia followed after and fired at them. Forsaking their canoe, they took to the hills, and all except one, who was wounded, reached their home in safety. Sixteen of the other prisoriers, having been pointed out by Pekilon, a friendly Delaware chief who was with the army of Broadhead, were doomed to death by a council of war, and having after dark been taken a little ways from the town, were speedily dispatched with spear find tomahawk and scalped. ILaving destroyed the towns, the army, at eleven o'clock the next day, set out on its return. The prisoners (twenty odd in number) were under guard of the militia, and, after marching about half a mile, these commenced to use their knives and tomahawks, slaughtering all of them, except a few women and children, who were taken to Fort Pitt and subsequently exchanged for a like number of white ones. Tradition locates the site of this butchery near a spring about three-fourths of a mile east of Coshocton, on a tract of Jand now owned by Mrs. 8. H. Collier.* Goschachgunk and Lichtenau were both subsequently rebuilt, to some extent, and became for some years the home of more intense haters of the white race, by reason of the associations of the place. But the towns never
* Among the militia of this expedition was the famous Indian killer, Lewis Wetzel, from Western Virginia. Just before the expedition set out on its return, an Indian chief appeared on the opposite bank of the river proposing ''a talk." He was invited over by General Broadhead, and assured of safety. But while he was talking, Wetzel slipped up behind him, and, drawing a tomahawk which he had concealed in his hunting-shirt, sunk itin the chief'sskull, instantly killing him. Legends of Wetzel's shrewdness and courage are abundant, and there is no doubt he was one of the most successful trappers and hunters and Indian fighters of his time. He and his friends had suffered much at the hands of the Indians. He moved, in 1795, to the frontier, on the Mississippi, that he might trap the beaver and hunt the buffalo and deer, and occasionally shoot an Indian. The exploit (not in some lights very creditable, but showing his intense antipathy to the redskins) above mentioned was his only one performed in Coshocton county as reported by his admirers.
Usually, and as to the great mass of them, the Delaware Indians entertained very friendly feelings for the whites. In their old home in Pennsylvania, from the day of Wm. Penn's treaty down, they had received a treatment calculated to produce such feelings, and the influenee of the Moravian missions among them was felt unto the same end. Far more Indian blood than white was shed about the forks of the Muskingum, and there is neither dark and bloody battlefield nor site of sickening family massacre within the limits of the county of Coshocton. The numerous bullets found in after times, in the plowed fields near Coshocton, were doubtless from the volleys fired by the expeditions, or from the rifles of the early settlers, with whom shooting at marks was a grand pastime. At one time seven hundred Indian warriors from the West encamped near the town, many with rifles. Accepting the idea of the poet, that '' peace hath her victories as well as war," it may be claimed that one of the grandest of these was won at Goschachgunk, the Delaware capital. When the Revolutionary War broke out, it was a matter of the utmost importance to the colonists to secure at least the neutrality of the Indian tribes, and efforts were accordingly made. Two treaties were made at Pittsburg in successive years - 1775 and 1776 - binding to neutrality the Delawares, and some of the immediately adjacent nations.
At the opening of 1777, the hatchet sent from Detroit (the British headquarters), was accepted by the Shawnees, Wyandots, and Mingoes. Rumor had it that it was also to be sent to the Delawares, and if they declined it they were to be treated as common enemies, and at once attacked by the British and their Indian allies. The famous chief Cornstalk himself came to Goschachgunk, reporting that despite his efforts the Shawnees were for war; parties were already out, and ammunition was being forwarded for their use from Detroit. Even a portion of the Delawares had been already pledged to take uparms. At this crisis - so threatening to the colonists - a general council of the
Delawares met at the capitol, on the 9th of March, 1777. Some of the young warriors appeared with plumes and war paint. After earnest discussion and eloquent speeches, especially from White Eyes, it was resolved to decline the hatchet should it be offered. Three times during that summer it was tendered and as often declined. Despite the taunts of their own race - against even a faction of their own nation - rejecting bribes and spurning threats, the people stood, month after month, as a mighty wall of protection to the western colonists. Looking to the plainly discernible natural consequences of a different decision in that grand council, it is not without reason that the claim may be made, that one of the grandest victories for the colonists in the American Revolutionary war was won at the Delaware capitol, at the forks of the Muskingum. Subsequently, indeed, by the machinations of renegades like Simon Girty (who was several times at the capitol), and the taunts of the tribes, a part of the nation was led to join the British Indians; but these were too few, and it was too late to do the colonists much harm, especially with the wisest and bravest of the nation committed to peace and friendliness with the Americans. In 1778, the rightful authorities of the nation made a complete treaty of alliance with the commissioners of the United States, therein providing for carrying out a cherished project of White Eyes, that the Delaware nation should be represented in the Colonial Congress, and become, as a Christian Indian state, one of the United States. By the neighboring tribes the Delawares were often taunted with being unduly gentle - * women " - and were always remarked upon as having too many captives; making exertions to secure as such those commonly appointed by other Indians to the tomahawk or stake. On one occasion, as already noticed, at their principal village, there were turned over to Boquet's forces two hundred and six captives, of whom thirty-two men and fifty-eight women and children were from Virginia, and forty-nine men and sixty-eight women and children from Pennsylvania. These were not indeed all captured by the Delawares; but a large proportion was, and others of them would doubtless have been butchered but for the influence of the Delawares, who would sometimes arrange with the tribes further south and west for their captives. The legend of the Walhonding (White Woman), telling how the captive virgin wildly fled from the camp and threw herself from an uprearing and overhanging rock,* into the seething waters of the storm-swollen river, choosing death rather than captivity, is significant of the horrors attending captivity, even among the Delawares.+ It is, however, most likely that she was a captive of the Monsey or Wolf tribe of Delawares, who were, perhaps, the worst representatives of the nation. Experience and tastes no doubt differed among the captives. It is said that some of the captives delivered to Boquet were compelled to go with him, and some escaped after the expedition started toward Fort Pitt, and returned to the free forest life. Simon Girty and two brothers were captured when young, and, having been adopted by the Indians, continued in their preference of Indian life. Despite all that has been said or may be claimed, it is no doubt true that even among the Delawares the savage nature was frequently displayed, especially when in the bad company of other tribes; and they were not without much blame at the mouths of the whites, for cruelties upon the hapless settlers, whose settlements to the east and south of them they invaded, and who, individually or in small hunting or scouting parties, might fall into their hands.
It can not be doubted that their treatment of Colonel Crawford out in the Wyandot country, when they bound him to a stake, fired numerous charges of powder into his flesh, cut and beat and burned, and by every possible torture put him to a lingering death, was Indian, fiendish. Yet it is to be remembered that the Delaware Indians doing these things were confessedly the more bloodyminded part that had turned away from those at the forks of the Muskingum and set up their lodges in the Wyandot country ; that they were incited by the Shawnees and Wyandots, and regarded their work as a retaliation for the bloody massacre of the Christian Indians at Gnadenhiitten, and other outrages that their race had suffered at the hands of those who were crowding them out of the land.
Killbuck (deer-killer") was the successor of a chief having the same name, whose town was on Killbuck creek, between Millersburg and Wooster, and who died, a very old man, in the Wyandot country, and was often designated Killbuck, Jr. When baptized by the Moravian missionaries he took the name of William Henry. Less shrewd and eloquent, he was a worthy associate and successor of White Eyes. He was even more pronounced in his religious views and less wavering. Adhering to the fortunes of the Americans and Moravians, he at length (in 1810) died at Goshen, near New Philadelphia.
Killbuck, aided by the other Christian Indians, for a time still held the nation very much in hand; but by 1780 Captain Pipe got the ascendancy at Goschachgiink, and put the people on the side of the British, setting up a new town in the Seneca country. Jsillbuck and those who sided with him went over fully to the colonists, and left the forks, never to return. After the massacre at Gnadenhiitten, the few remaining Delawares gradually retired to
* White Eyes (so called from the unusual proportion of white in his eves) died near Fort Laurens, on the Tuscarawas, on the 10th of November, 1778, of*small-pox. General McIntosh's colonial forees were at that time encamped near by. His death was a marked event of the time. His broad views and truly eloquent expression of them can not be questioned. His fair dealing with the whites, and his earnest and steadfast efforts for the civilization and christianization of his race ought not to be forgotten. A successor to the name - perhaps a degenerate son of this sire - was kiiled in what is now Columbiana county, in 1797, by a young man named Carpenter, whom he Was, while under the influence of fire-water, assailing and threatening.
the West or were taken to Canada; and in 1795 their country, of which Coshocton county forms the central part, and in which was their capitol (removed from New Comerstown), became by treaty the possession of the United States. Until after the war of 1812, a few straggling members of the nation, especially the Guadenhitten ones, moved about in the country, hunting, disposing of pelts, or possibly visiting the graves of their ancestors. In 1819 there were eighty Delawares near Sandusky, Ohio, and two thousand three hundred in Northern Indiana. Fragments of the nation are yet recognized in Canada and in the Indian Territory, but its power was broken and the scepter had departed when it was turned away from its loved hauuts in the Tuscarawas and Walholding valleys.*
*The sources of information for the foregoing chapter are mainly Doddridge's Notes, Howe's Historical Collections of Ohio, de Schweinitz's Life and Times of Zeisberger, and Mitchener's Ohio Annals; in which works those interested in Indian history and legends will find much to their taste. See also Chapter XIX, this volume.
Tue military expeditions mentioned in preceding chapter, besides accomplishing the immediate object for which they were undertaken, drew attention to the excellencies of the country. Wonderful stories about "the forks of the Muskingum " were told by the returning soldiers. The father of Geo. Beaver, of Keene township, was in Boquet's expedition. John Williams (brother of Charles) afterward settled in Mill Creek township, was in the Coshocton campaign ; and among the earlier settlers were several whose relatives had been in Broadhead's forces. The first white man known to have come into the territory now embraced in Coshocton county, with the purpose of abiding in it, was Charles Williams. In the spring of the year 1800, having come up the Muskingum in a canoe, he passed on up the Walhonding to what is now known as the Denman land, long called "the Paraire" (four miles above Coshocton), and there raised that season a patch of corn, besides fishing, hunting, and prospecting. The next year he fixed upon the site of Coshocton as his home, and was there joined by his brothers-in-law, the Carpenters, and William and Samuel Morrison, who, after staying with him for the season, went on up into what is now Holmes county, in the Killbuck valley. The same year, 1801, a settlement was made in Oxford township by Isaac Evans and others, who are reputed as having raised some corn and picked their land the preceding year. The Robinson and Miller settlement in Franklin township was made about the same time. The Hardestys are reputed as having been in Washington township the same year. A little later the Millers and Thomas Wiggins were located in Lafayette township. Nicholas Miller, James Oglesby, Geo.
McCullough, Andrew Craig, Isaac Hoagland, Benjamin Fry, and Barney Carr are repored as on the Lower Walhonding in 1805. In 1806, Philip Waggoner, Geo. Loose, John Wolf, and Geo. Leighninger settled in Oxford township, and the McLains were in Lafayette. In the same year the Darlings, the Butlers, John Bantham, and John Elder went to the Upper Walhonding valley. In 1807, Francis McGuire, who had been living above New Comerstown, moved down to the locality known as the McGuire settlement, above Canal Lewisville. Then came Moore, Workman, Neff, Lybarger, Thompson, the Bakers, Cantwell, and Whitten to Coshocton; and Meskimens, Johnston, and Harger to the Wills Creek region; and Mitchell, Markley, and Williams to the north of Coshocton; and Pigman, Chalfant, Norris, Slaughter, Woolford, Wright, Staftord, Meredith, John, and Severns into the western part of the country. No regular census of the country was taken until 1820. In 1810, Muskingum county, embracing the present Muskingum, Morgan, Coshocton, and part of Holmes, had only ten thousand population. A Scotch traveler, who spent the night at Coshocton in 1806, wrote of itas having a population of one hundred and forty ; but it was doubtless not understated to him. Dr. 8S. Lee, who came to the place in 1811, found it a hamlet with a score or so of rude structures. Fifteen hundred would probably be a large statement as to population at the time the country was organized in April, 1811. Immediately after the organization, the immigration was large. The war of 1812, while temporarily checking the growth of the country, and especially the inflow of population, was yet an advantage, particularly in making the region known to the people to the East and South. Just at the close of the war there were in the county one hundred and thirty-eight resident landholders, owning tracts of land varying in size from thirty-five acres to four thousand and five acfes. The list of these, and the townships as now named in which they resided, is as follows: siderable families, and upon some of the large tracts were several tenants. <A list of those who were croppers and hired men, and of those occupying town-lots, and of those who were on their lands under contract for purchase, is not accessible. It is, however, known that besides those whose names appear in this list, and their children, the following persons were residents of the county at that time, several of them having been so for a number of years preceding : Richard Fowler, Wm. Lockard, James Willis, Joseph Harris, C. P. Van Kirk, Peter Casey, Geo. Carpenter, Joseph Neff, Wim. and Sam'! Morrison, Jas. Jeftries, Dr. Sam'! Lee, Wright Warner, A. M. Church, Thos. I. Rue, Wm. Whitten, Thomas Means, Thomas Foster, Barney Carr, James Oglesby, Geo. Bible, John Bantham, Wm. Bird, Jas. Calder, Wm. Mitchell, Lewis Vail, Asher Hart, John Williams, Adam Johnston, John Dillon, Abel Cain, Joseph Vail, Rezin Baker, Israel Baker, John Baker, James Buckalew, Benjamin Burrell, Joseph Burrell, James Cantwell, Barney Cantwell, J. G. Pigman, J. W. Pigman, John Elder, Archibald Ellson, Samuel Clark, Ezekiel Parker, Andrew Lybarger, John Hershman, Peter Moore, the Mc- Lains, Wm. Biggs, Geo. and Levi Maguess, Richard Hawk, Isaac Shambaugh, and Elijah Neweum.
At the October election, in 1814, there were one hundred and three electors in Tuscarawas township, which, however, embraced at that time not only the township proper on both sides of the river, but also all the territory north of the Tuscarawas, and east of the Walhonding rivers. _
After the war the accession to the population was large, running through several years. In those years 1815-1820 came the progenitors of the since well-known Burns, Crowley, Ricketts, Sells, Mossman, Heslip, Renfrew, Boyd, Gault, Thompson, Roderick, Squires, James, Tipton, Powelson, Luke, Borden, Neldon, Ravenscraft, Norris, Winklepleck, McNabb, Slaughter, Mulford, Stafford, Cresap, and Lemert families. In 1818 there were 285 resident landholders.
of stories of laborious efforts and wearying hardships in clearing and planting and building. The large inflow of population involved a great deal of exposure. The conveniences of life, even with those best supplied, were scarce. Sickness, incident to all new countries, abounded, especially was a form of congestive chills known as "the cold plague" very prevalent, carrying off many of the settlers and discouraging immigration. Milling facilities were still poor and remote. Corn meal and bacon afforded, in many cases, almost the whole support. Even whisky, the panacea of those days, was not yet plenty. Yet, despite all drawbacks, children were born and settlers came in, and in 1820 the census-taker found 7,086 inhabitants in Coshocton county.
From 1820 to 1830 there was apparently an increase of only a few over four thousand, making the population in the latter year 11,162. It must, however, be borne in mind that in that period, by the formation of Holmes county, a number of people, hitherto counted as of Coshocton county, were set over, and the limits of the county decreased. Still the immigration was not heavy, especially in the earlier part of the period. Reports of the sickliness of the river region and of the rough ways of the settlers had gone abroad. It may be stated in this connection that the advancement of the county in both population and wealth has been regarded by many as having been hindered in all its earlier stages by the fact of there having been a large number (thirty-three) of four-thousand-acre tracts taken up by military land warrants, and held mainly by non-residents, cultivated only by a few cabin tenants, if at all.
From 1830 to 1840 the population of the county was nearly doubled, there being in the latter year 21,590 inhabitants. This large increase was largely owing to the opening of the Ohio canal.
The immigration of that period was of a much more miscellaneous sort, and having almost nothing of the old Virginian and Marylander element, so prominent in the first settlement of the county. New York, Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio, Germany, and Ireland were most largely represented.
The same condition of things has been noted in many other counties in Ohio, especially such as have hitherto been most largely agricultural. It is observed in this connection that the cities and larger towns of the State show the chief gains attributed to it. Thus, while Coshocton county lost during that time above noted, the town of Coshocton more than doubled its population, which in 1840 was 845, and in 1870, 1,757 - being in 1875 about 2,800. The disposition to forsake the farm for the shop and store and office, the " go-west" fever, the readiness of forehanded farmers to purchase at good prices the small tracts adjoining their larger ones, the enlargement of the stock interest, the development of manufacturing interests, and even the casualties of war, have all had to do with this -generally diminished population, especially in the rural districts, and the filling up of the cities and towns.
Appended will be found the population, as enumerated by the Federal census-takers, of the several townships for 1850, when the maximum population was attained, and also for 1870:
Chapter 1V
Tue first "settlement " made in the county was in this township. Charles Williams,* a native of Maryland, residing for a time in Western Virginia, and yet later on the Lower Muskingum, came up the river in a canoe, and located on the site of Coshocton, early in the year 1801 ; haying spent part of the preceding year in what is now Bethlehem township, but without definite purpose as to place of settlement. George Carpenter, a brother-in-law of Williams, and William and Samuel Morrison, came soon afterward, but, after stopping to help Williams raise a crop of corn, passed on up the Killbuck, becoming the earliest settlers in what is now Holmes county. Another brother-inlaw of Williams, John Hibits, came a little later, and subsequently located in the Upper Walhonding valley. Several of the early residents were "croppers," and after a time picked up a piece of land and settled in some other township.
Nicholas Miller, from Virginia, came in about 1803 - spent his long life in farming, dying at a good old age. John D. Moore (father of Commissioner Moore), also from Virginia, came a little later - was an easy-going, quiet farmer, dying many years since in the township. Peter Moore was a regular trapper and fisher. John Noble had a little farm near the ford, three miles below Coshocton ; for a time kept a ferry there in later years. J. Fulton was from Maryland - lived on the place best known as the Ricketts farm, about a mile southeast of Coshocton. He had a mill (run by the water of a big spring), making more corn-meal and whisky than anything else, said to have been the first mill set up in Coshocton county. Among others recognized as very early settlers were J. Workman, from Virginia (the father of General Jesse Workman), a farmer ; Joseph Neff, from same State, a tailor ; Asa Hart, from New Jersey, a blacksmith; Andrew Lybarger (grandtather of Representative E. L. Lybarger), from Pennsylvania, a tanner; Wm. Whitten, a general business man, the first justice of the peace; Dr. Samuel Lee ;* Thomas L. Rue ;* Adam Johnson (a son-in-law of Charles Williarns and the father of Matthew, Charles, and Wm. A. Johnson), the first county clerk and auditor; Wilson McGowan, from Mount Holly, New Jersey, a gentleman of the continental style, wearing a " queue," and flourishing a gold-headed cane ; Alex. McGowan, a younger brother of the above, who set up as a physician of the Tompsonian school, but was chiefly occupied in public office, having been many years auditor, ete.; Cornelius Van Kirk (a very stalwart man), the first tax-collector and sheriff; James Cantwell, a farmer; Geo. McCullough, an Indian scout and hunter; James Winders and Geo. Arnold, corn-raisers, and, as reputed, general "whisky punishers."
The list of earliest settlers in Franklin township includes the names of James Robinson, Benjamin Robinson, John Robinson, Wm. J. Robinson, Michael Miller, Jacob Jackson, James Tanner, John Walmsley, William Taylor, Abraham Thompson, Joseph Scott, John G. Pigman, Obadiah Davidson, Valentine and Jane Johnson, Geo. Littick, Isaac Shanbaugh, Philip Hershman, and Lewis Roderick. Onehalf of the township was originally owned by Michael Miller, Sr., and the Robinsons, each having a four-thousand-acre tract. Jarnes Robinson, William Davidson, and John G. Pigman were men of more than the average (for their day) education and force of character. None of those taking part in the organization of the township are now living, but the descendants of many of them are still well known in the township. The earlier settlers were nearly ajl from Virginia.
The German element, for some years quite prominent in this township, first became noticeable about 1835. About 1840, there was a considerable immigration of French. Of later years, the Germans have been outnumbered by the French, the former having moved largely to the west. James Robinson, of this township, was a member of the Legislature, and also an associate judge of the county. G. A. Mc- Cleary has also been in the Legislature. Henry Schmeser has served as county commissioner. Isaac Shambaugh was the discoverer of the Wills ercek oil springs. Louis Roderick was a preacher connected with the German Baptists (Dunkards). He held services mainly at the house of Philip Hershman for more than thirty years, and was wellknown throughout the county. He died a few years since in Lafayette township at the advanced age of ninety-five years. Mrs. George A. McCleary is reputed as the first child born in the township. She was a daughter of James Tanner. Isaac Shambaugh is doubtless the oldest person now living in the township. He came from Virginia in 1816, and is nearly ninety. He was a soldier in the war of 1812, as was also Robert Hawk, of this township.
Robert Giffin was among the earliest settlers in New Jastle township. He was, for a number of years, the largest landholder in it; but, after a time, sold out his interest there and became' more largely identified with Knox county. Edith Hull, a very early tax-payer in the township, was Giffin's sister. They are reported as being from the State of Delaware.
Thomas Butler and Joseph Severns are reputed as having come into the township about 1806. They were both from Virginia - the south branch of the Potomac. They were connected with Robert Darling, and he and they removed to Ohio about the same time. Mr. Severns died in 1857, being about eighty years of age. A son, of same name, died near New Castle, in 1850. A grandson is now living near Coshocton. Samuel Severns, the oldest son of Joseph, yet living on the old farm on Severn's Ridge, in New Castle township, is, at this time, about eighty-four years old. Another son, William, has reached the good old age of seventy-five years. A son of Mr. Butler, James, is now living just over the line in Jefferson township, at the advanced age of eighty-three years; and another son, Felix, about sixty-seven years old, resides on the old home place. Few, if any, people have given character to the upper Walhonding valley beyond the Butlers. Both Joseph Severns and Thomas Butler were out in the war of 1812.
Martin and David Cox were early settlers, keeping the post-office, for the township, for many years, at Cox's Cross roads. John Eli owned the farm on which New Castle now stands, though the town was laid out by John Clark under the name of West Liberty. The Meredith family was one of the earliest and best known inthis township. They were from Virginia. Squire Humphrey lived, at an early day, on the tract now owned by Loyd Nichols. M. Duncan made his mark, in early times, by building a large stone house, as also did the two Johns - David and Thomas - who were among the earliest, coming from New Jersey. John G. Pigman was a prominent settler in New Castle; but is reported more fully in Perry, within whose geographical limits, as ultimately fixed, he lived. John Wolf was another early settler.
The mother of Thomas Dwyer, of Coshocton, came into New Castle with her son-in-law (she then being a widow), Benjamin Farquhar, in 1808. They were from Maryland. Of Eli Nichols, long a prominent citizen of this township, mention is elsewhere made,
This township is the home of one of the professors of the occult sciences, Wm. Gorham, who claims to be able to discover hidden things, whether of the past or the future, and has sometimes created a sensation in the classic Owl Creek valley.
One of the noticeable people of New Castle township, some years ago, was one Walter Turner, an Englishman, who figured at a saw-mill in an effort to make the same water do duty several times - pumping it up again into the race after it had run over the wheel.
New Castle was one of the four townships organized before the county was organized (Tuscarawas, Washington, and Franklin being the others); and it is understood to have been named after New Castle in Delaware.
The first settlers of this township were John Hardesty, Jacob Cray, Mordecai Chalfant, Peter Lash, Francis Stafford, Frederick Woolford, James Williams, Bradley Squires, and George Smith. These were all in before 1811. John Hardesty was from Maryland, and came into the territory afterward embraced in Washington township before the State of Ohio was admitted. He was a regular frontiersman, and: kept moving with the tide of emigration westward while his years admitted. He died some years ago in St. Louis. Edmund Hardesty, also from Maryland, came into the township in 1811; died a few years ago in Illinois. Mordecai Chalfant came from Pennsylvania in 1808;.was for some time an associate judge of the county. George Smith was from Virginia. Bradley Squires was from Vermont. Jacob Cray came from Wheeling, Va., in 1808; was a farmer; died about 1864. Thomas Hardesty, coming from Maryland about 1811, still lives in the township. Walter McBride, farmer and carpenter, came from Pennsylvania in 1814; he is now more than seventy years of age.
The township was named at its organization by Mordecai Chalfant. Through his influence, a small mill was built in 1810. In 1811 a school-house was erected, and also a church (M. E.), which still goes by the name of Chalfant's meeting-house.
that, at all events, the same season that Charles Williams was raising his corn on "the prairie," Isaac and Henry Evans and Charles and Esaias Baker, all from Virginia, were raising a crop on the Tuscarawas, near Evansburg. Williams had come up the Muskingum, and the four above named had come down the Tuscarawas. The Bakers afterward went over into Linton township, and were among the very earliest settlers there. Isaac Evans brought his family in 1801, and remained in the township until his death. He was a captain in the war of 1812; was also one of the associate judges of the county. He built a mill, and was extensively engaged in farming. In 1806 Philip Waggoner, from near Carlisle, Pa., came in, and soon thereafter a brother-in-law, George Loose, and another named Philip Wolf, and still another, George Leigninger, all from Cumberland county, Pa. John Junkin, John Mills, and William and Joseph and John Mulvain, and Andrew and Ezekiel and Samuel McFarlin were all quite early settlers. Moses Morgan was an early settler, and well known as the keeper of the tavern at the forks of the road to Cadiz and New Philadelphia.
Among the earliest and best-known settlers in Linton township may be mentioned the following: The Addys, the Bakers, the McCunes, the Meskimens, the Heslips, Thomas Johnson, George Magness, the McLains, R. Fowler, and George Smith.
The Addys were from Delaware. One of the family (the mother of Rev. John Baker) is perhaps the oldest person now resident in the township, being in her eightyeighth year. They came to Ohio in 1806. The Bakers were from Pennsylvania. MRezin (father of Rev. John and Lane) came into the county as early as 1802, and remained until his death, in 1842, in his sixty-second year. The family removed from Pennsylvania to Harrison county, and Rezin, just as he had fairly attained his majority, passed on out west, and hired out with John Fulton, living near Coshocton until he had earned enough to buy a farm in what is now known as the north bend of Will's creek, of which tract he took possession in 1808. His wife was in Harrison county, and she and two children were removed by death, he afterward marrying Miss Addy. Three other families bearing the name of Baker (Charles and Esaias and Basil), relatives of the above, came in at a very early day, and were recognized as of the " bone and sinew" of the township. The McCunes were also from Pennsylvania, and came in about 1806. The Meskimens were from Virginia (Potomac valley), and were originally quite large landholders. James Meskimens was a man of more than ordinary force, and was of the first board of county commissioners. Joseph Heslip, now living at an advanced age, in his youth had a passion for a life on the ocean wave. His father thought " the wilderness" would afford as much variety and spice, and prevailed upon him, after he had made a voyage or two, to settle upon a large tract, on part of which has since been built " the Linton mills" and the little cireumjacent village. The elder Mr. Heslip was a minister, and was much observed in the neighborhood because of his regard for the Sabbath, in a day when the chief use made of it was to hunt and fish.
As early as 1808 Andrew Tairare built a little mill on Wills .creek, about fifty rods above where the mill now stands, but a freshet soon swept it away. A few years later Mr. Loose built a mill near the mouth of Bacon run, making, with the volunteered help of the neighbors, a race some eighty rods long. But that was the day of hard toil. A walk of ten or twenty miles for a quarter of tea by a boy was nothing unusual, and a journey to Cambridge or Zanesville for a little flour was a common thing. Of Thomas Johnson an extended account is given in the '"' Biographical Sketches."
George Magness was from Maryland ; was in the war of 1812. Of the McLains, mention is made in Lafayette. Fowler and Smith were from Virginia; both in war of 1812. These all died at an advanced age in the township, and are still represented therein by descendants.
Among the earliest settlers in Perry township who have attracted most attention were the following: Samuel Farquhar; came from Maryland with six sons and five daughters; lived to be over ninety years of age, and none of his children have died under eighty. They were Quakers in their religious views, farmers as to employment. John Pritchard, a Baptist preacher; Wm. Coulter, from Bedford, Pennsylvania, who did most of the surveying in the western part of the county, and, it is said, with "a grape-vine chain ;" Joshua Cochran, originally from Dublin, Ireland, directly from Maryland, who had six sons and five daughters; also his sons-in-law, John and Solomon Smith, all coming in about 1814; Joseph W. Pigman, a famous Methodist Episcopal preacher, who was associate judge, and was also in the Legislature. He came from Cumberland, Maryland.
The first residents of the township to pay taxes on real estate were Andrew Billman, holding southwest quarter of section twenty, and Ann James, holding the northeast quarter of same section, and the southeast quarter of section twelve. That was in 1817. Several of those who at that -time were non-resident tax-payers, as, for instance, John Berry, Samuel Farquhar, John Pritchard, and Peter Dillon, soon took possession of their lands.
William Dillon, father of Israel Dillon, the present clerk of the court, came from Greene county, Pennsylvania, to the township about 1815; entered and cleared a quarter section of land, continuing to oceupy it until his death, in 1862, he being then sixty-eight years of age. He was a zealous Baptist.
Dr. E. G. Lee, the first physician in the towhship, came from Mount Vernon, and laid out a town called New Guilford. Calvin Hill, also from Mount Vernon, built a storeroom on one of the lots, and kept the first store. The next year David McHenry opened a hatter's shop.
Soon after New Guilford was laid out, John Conway, who owned the quarter section of land next east of that on which Guilford was located, started a town on his land, calling it Claysville. The rivalry between the towns was disastrous to both. After some years, they were consolidated under the name of East Union by act of the Legislature. The plat of New Guilford is now all used for farming purposes, having been practically vacated.
Richard Babcock purchased a quarter section of land in this township, and settled on it in 1812 with his family. They came originally from Vermont, but had stopped for a time in Harrison county. Mr. Babcock was killed by a run-away team about 1823. His widow died a few years later. ILis youngest son resided upon the home farm until his death, in 1874. His grandson, Daniel, now lives upon the place.
Solomon Vail purchased and settled on a tract immediately south of Babcock, in 1815. He removed to IIlinois, and there died. His widow still lives - probably the only one of the parents among the first settlers. Vail had a hand-mill, on which a few of the settlers did their own grinding. He afterward, assisted by his brother-in-law, built the first mill on the creek. It was a primitive affair, truly, grinding only Indian-corn, which was about all there . was to grind for several years. The stones for the mill were hauled from Mansfield by Thomas -Elliott, who was to receive for his labor a pair of shoes, which Vail, who was a sort of "jack of all trades," was to make for him.
In March, 1816, Moses Thompson, from Jefferson county, but originally from Ireland, took possession of his Mill ereek " cabin," which he had built after the most approved '"'back-woods" style of the day. He died in 1862 on the same place. He was the first clerk of the township. His son 8. T. Thompson resides near Keene. In 1817, there was quite a number of settlers came in. Henry Grimm (afterward associate judge), Thomas Moore, Joseph Beach, and John P. Wilson - these, as the former, came from
Eastern Ohio. With the exception of Babcocks and Mrs. Bible (whose father's name was Tipton), now eighty-five years old, none of the descendants of settlers prior to 1820 are now in the township. The Sheplons and the Mitchells came in somewhat later. The township is largely peopled by those coming from Jefferson and Harrison counties.
The township was originally very heavily timbered, and most of the early settlers were poor and had very hard work to get their lands. Wolves and other wild animals were numerous, and sheep could be raised only by the closest. attention. Many of the people wore deer-skins, others linsey. Still, there, as elsewhere, those who made due exertion soon had enough to eat and wear. As to drink, as soon as grain was raised, whisky was at hand and freely dispensed. The first " gathering " of men without whisky was at the raising of John Shannon's barn, say about 1835.
The first school in the township was taught by David Grimm, son of Ilenry. The pupils came from remote points, and had nothing scarcely but bridle paths to come by. The first church built was the Protestant Episcopalian at the Knob. Among the earlier settlers of this township was John Williams. He was a brother of Colonel Charles Williams, and the father ot Wm. G. Williams, a former county treasurer, and of Joseph Williams, now of Coshocton. He was in the Revolutionary War. At its close he settled near Wheeling; was in the Moravian campaign (the cruelties of which he always condemned) ; also was in the Coshocton campaign. He moved to Coshocton about 1812; came into Mill Creek about 1817, and there died in 1833, when about eighty years of age.
Daniel Ashcraft, from Pennsylvania, came to what is now Pike township, and entered the first quarter of land taken up in that township. His son, Jonathan Ashcraft, now eighty-four years of age, was the first man to plow a furrow in that township. He also had a saw-mill. <Alexander Graham, also from Pennsylvania, came into Pike township in 1819. He died in July, 1844. One of his sons, William, still resides in the township, and is seventytwo years of age. Daniel Forker came into the township in 1824, from New Jersey. He worked at shoemaking for a number of years in the town of West Carlisle, and then bought a farm about three miles south of the town, where he still lives, being about eighty-four years of age. He served many years as justice of the peace, and also was county commissioner. Two of his sons, Samuel and Wm. R., have held the office of county auditor. John Rine came from Maryland about the year 1819, and is still living in the township, being over eighty years of age. He was a soldier of the war of 1812, and now a pensioner. Peter Ault, in 1814, came from Belmont county, Ohio. He died in 1844. He was a cooper. Augustine White, Joshuh Lemert, Pierce Noland, and Payne Clark were all from Virginia. Clark came in in 1808, farmed extensively for several years, and then removed to Indiana. Lemert came in 1810, and was for years a prominent citizen of the township. His descendants are still well known in the region. White came in 1818; reared a large family ; died in 1852. Noland came in 1814; wasa farmer; died in 1834. Adam Gault came into the township in 1815; was from Pennsylvania;. died in 1846. About 1817, Samuel Perkins, from Pennsylvania, entered the tract on which West Carlisle is now situated. WHITE EYES TOWNSHIP.
The first freeholder in this township was John 'Henderson, who was in possession of four hundred and eighty acres of land in 1818. His brother, George, is understood to have been interested with him, and they were both occupants. They were from Beaver county, Pennsylvania. George died on his farmin White Eyes, at advanced years, in 1868.
In 1818, Michael Stonehocker settled in White Eyes. He was from Jefterson county, Ohio, not far from Smithfield. The next year Jacob Stonehocker, brother of Michael, and John M., the father of both Michael and Jacob, came to White Eyes. John M. died in a few years.
Michael Frock was born in Chester county, Pennsylvania, May 9, 1785. He married Elizabeth Seldenright, in 1807. In 1818, they came to White Eyes. He was the first justice of the peace of that township. His wife died in 1856, and himself in 1871.
Robert Boyd, frum county Donegal, Ireland, came to White Eyes in 1824. He died in a few years. His sons are yet well-known citizens of the neighborhood.
The Ravenscrafts were among the best known citizens of White Eyes for many years. They were freeholders in 1820. One of the family (William) was a Revolutionary soldier. James was county surveyor for some years. He died in the township about 1854.
John Carnahan came to White Eyes in 1826, and in the following year his father and the rest of the family, viz. : Adam, James, Ellanor, Andrew, Thompson, William, Nancy (now Mrs. Alex. Renfrew), Eliza, and Hugh. Most of these are still in the land. The family came originally from Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. John, the first named, died November 21, 1869, being sixty-six years old. His wife (Sarah Marshall, of Jefferson county) died January 30, 1872, aged about seventy-three years.
George McCaskey, from Donegal county, Ireland, came to White Eyes in 1819, and remained on the same farm until his death, in 1871. He was eighty-six years of age. His wife died in 1862, in her eightieth year.
THompson has been a prominent name in the heraldry of Bedford township from the start. The name, familiar and in good repute in all that region, was among the first, if not the first, heard in the township as that of a settler. James Thompson, a native of New Jersey and a soldier in the Revolutionary War, settled near West Bedford, in 1808. Henry Haines and his bachelor brother, John, came in about the same time. They were from Bedford county, Pennsylvania; as also was Michael Heaton, who laid out the town of West Bedford. Heaton set up the first loom in the township, and for many years his own and his wife's fame was good in connection with "the fine linen,' which was quite a thing in that day. Thomas and Edward Smith came in about the close of the war of 1812. The story was long current that the latter accompanied some American soldiers on their return home from Canada, where he had been in the British army.
The first resident land tax-payers were Ezra and Thomas Horton. They had some blooded-stock, and were well up in "the horse talk" of their day. Elias James still lives on the place in the township where he settled at a day giving him rank among " the earliest settlers," paying taxes on it since 1822, but occupying it at a still earlierday. The family was from Virginia. John McNabb entered, before much land was taken up in the township, the place now occupied by his son. So, likewise, did Thomas Norris, Sr. Daniel and James McCurdy, long known in the township, were among the pioneers. So, too, were Bennett Browner, Nathan Evans, Edward McCoy, Henry Rine, Wm. Richards, and Hugh Barrett.
In Virginia township, as in some others, there were some who spent a single season taking a little tract by towahawk title, or beginning a little clearing, and then selling out their claims to some one coming along a few months later. The first settler, properly so called, in this township, was probably Joseph Tilton, coming in about 1804. He was from Maryland. Considerably beyond the four score, he still lives in the township. His descendants are, for the most part, in the west. Joseph Wright and Joseph McCoy came together into the township, December 24, 1806. Mr. Wright died, April 1, 1867, being eighty-seven years of age. Probably no one was more prominent in the township. His oldest son, Willis, is now a resident of Coshocton. Another son, Thomas, still lives in the old home township. Mr. McCoy, a number of years ago, was injured by a horse in his stable, and died from the effects of the injury, being in his eighty-seventh year. His children (one of them now eighty-two years of age), are well-known residents of Virginia or Jackson townships. Wm. Norris settled in Virginia township in 1808, and remained until his death, which occurred many years ago, at advanced years. One son, Daniel, died in 1875, aged eighty-one years. Another son, Samuel, still lives in the township, as also other descendants. These three families were all from the south branch of the Potomac, and were somewhat intermarried. Nancy Hays was a daughter of Norris - afterward married to Joseph McCoy. Mrs. Hays was a tax-paying landholder in 1814. Elisha Compton, now of Roscoe, married her daughter.
Henry Slaughter settled in Virginia township in 1812. He died in 1858, in his eighty-seventh year. Alex. Slaughter and Dr. Slaughter are his sons.
Beall Adams also came into Virginia in 1812, settling upon three hundred and twenty acres of land. He died, at advanced age, some years ago. Two of his sons are still jn the township. John Graves - the father of Wesley, of
The descendants and successors of the early settlers, as they themselves did, have given their attention almost exclusively to agricultural affairs.
Geo. Bibleis recognized by many as the first settlerin what is now Keene township. He came from Virginia very early in the century; was a good example of the Daniel Boone type of pioneer; loved the solitude of the woods, and was happiest roaming them, with no companion save dog and rifle, or sitting by his cabin fire "far from the haunts of busy men." James Oglesby was a very early settler in the township, some say the earliest. He also came from Virginia, and is said to have traveled up the Muskingum and Walhonding rivers, in true Indian style, in a canoe. Bartholomew Thayer and Samuel Wiley were Revolutionary soldiers - taking up lands with their land warrants. Mr. Thayer and his wife were buried on their farm, near Keene. He died in 1826 - about seventy years of age; she in 1825, at same age. A son, over ninety years of age, is reputed as still living at Elyria, O. Jesse Beal, the founder of the town of Keene, was from Nelson, Cheshire county, N. H. He died about 1835, being some forty-five years of age.
Adam Johnson (father of Dr. M. Johnson, of Roscoe) and Dr. Benjamin Hill were born in Cheshire county, N. H.; came to Keene about 1820. The doctor returned to New England and died, after burying his wife, who lies in the Keene burial-ground. Mr. Johnson was a good representative of Continental days; strong in body and mind; dignified in manner; wore a queue; had knowledge of the Latin language; was a student of the philosophies. James Pew was a soldier of 1812, still living in the township. The Farwells came in about 1825, from Cheshire county, N. H. Benton and Farwell built the first grist and saw-mill in the township. Robert Farwell kept hotel for many years in Keene. William Livingston was a justice of the peace, shrewd in judgment, but keeping such a docket that it was nicknamed " Bulwer's Novels." He died in 1840, aged seventy-two years. Andrew and Elisha Elliott and Henry Ramsey were well-known residents of Keene township, all immigrants from Ireland. Ramsey kept store in Keene about 1835. All three are dead.
Timothy Emerson was a citizen of Keene township from 1818 until 1873; came from Ashby, Mass. He reached the good old age of ninety-six; was a farmer; died October 80, 1878, just as arrangements were about being carried out for removal to Granville, where two children resided. He was greatly beloved - " a good man."
Jonas Child, Chancery Litchfield, Calvin Adams, Samuel Stone, and Jacob Emerson were early and active citizens of Keene township, and long dwelt in it. They were all from New England.
It will be observed that many of the early settlers of Keene township were from Cheshire county, N. H., the county-seat of which is Keene, and hence the name of the township.
The oldest man now living in the township is doubtless John Crowley, a Virginian by birth, who came into the county about 1816. He is verging on to a century in years ; was for some time sheriff, and held other offices, including that of member of the legislature.
John Daugherty lived fifty odd years on the farm near Keene, where he died about ten years ago. George Beaver is also a very old man, full of memories of the pioneer times.
The death of two " centenarians,' Mr. Humphrey, aged one hundred and three, and Mr. Oglesby, about one hundred, is reported as having occurred in one day.
The first resident tax-paying landowners in Jackson township were the Fosters (Samuel, William, David, Benjamin, Moses, and Andrew). The family was originally from Virginia, but came to Jackson township from Harrison county, Ohio, in 1816. The father died soon after the removal. David died some twenty years ago, and Samuel some two years. Moses and Andrew removed to the west a number of years ago. William still lives at advanced years where he first settled upon his marriage.
Barney and Thomas Cantwell were very early settlers in that part of Jackson township which originally belonged to Tuscarawas. The run just below Roscoe was long known as " Cantwell's run." Abel Cain was another very early settler.
About 1814 a man by the name of Sible built a small distillery on the farm just south of Roscoe, now owned by John G. Stewart. A little later he put up a little mill on Cantwell's run, about a third of a mile up. It was called a thunder-gust mill, as it only ran with full force after a heavy shower.
" Sible's corn-juice""' was very popular in that day, and the business done by him and his neighbor, Samuel Brown, was enough to warrant the idea of a town, and doubtless led James Calder to lay out in that vicinity " Caldersburg."
Brown was from Massachusetts ; first located, in 1814, at Rock run, three miles south of Coshocton. In 1816 he settled on a tract about a mile and a half west of Roscoe, and, after clearing a few acres and building a cabin, sold his claim to John Demoss. He then built a saw-mill on Cantwell's run, which had head of water enough to run the mill on an average three days in the week. For a number of years (until he united with the church) he depended on Sunday visitors to give him a lift in getting enough logs on the skids to keep the mill at work. The neighborly feeling, mellowed with a good supply of neighbor Sible's corn-juice, sweetened with neighbor Creig's maple-sugar (see below), was always equal to the demands thus made. Later in life Mr. Brown engaged in the making of brick. He remained in the vicinity until he died, in February, 1871, aged eighty-four years. He was for many years a useful and highly esteemed citizen.
About 1815 a man by the name of Creig bought forty acres of land, and built a cabin a little south of Robert Crawford's residence, on the tract now owned by Burns * and Johnson. He was one of the most successful makers of maple-sugar, an article largely made, and in universal use in early days in Coshocton county for sweetening coffee, tea, whisky, etc. Mr. Creig died about 1826, and the family removed from the county.
Theophilus Phillips was from the State of New Jersey. He lived in Zanesville several years, and in 1815 entered and settled upon the farm now best known as the Dr. Roberts' farm, in the western part of Jackson township. In 1816 he sold this tract, and built a cabin in what is now Roscoe, and having lived in that a few years, he built, in 1821, the first brick house in the vicinity, using it for a tavern for a number of years. He moved to Indiana about 1845, and there died in 1858, being seventy-four years old. His daughter, Mrs. Hutchinson, is still living in Roscoe, understood to be the only person resident in Roscoe in the day of the opening of the " Phillips' tavern."
Reuben Hart was a brother-in-law of Phillips, also from New Jersey, and in 1816 occupied the farm next to Phillips, now known as the Wallace Sutton farm.
Wm. Starkey came from Virginia in the spring of 1815, worked for a time in Carhart's tannery, one mile north of Roscoe; afterward lived for a time in Coshocton, but is an old settler in Jackson.
John Demoss (father of Lewis Demoss, of Empire Mill) came from Virginia, and settled in Jackson township in 1817. He bought out Samuel Brown, as elsewhere stated, and lived on the tract until his death, March 4, 1840.
The earliest settlers in Clark township are understood to have been the following: Parker Buckalew, from Virginia, came in about 1817, settling in Killbuck valley ; Isaac Hoagland, from Virginia, was here at a very early day; Abraham Miller, also a Virginian, came in about 1819; Andrew Weatherwat, a New Yorker, arrived about same date; Piatt Williamson, from Virginia.
About 1820, Eli Fox, originally from the State of New Hampshire, but directly from Zanesville, built a mill on Killbuck, to which the settlers had to blaze paths. The mill was burned in 1829. Before it was built the people went to Knox county for flour, or got it at Zanesville, as well as other goods, which they received in exchange for logs cut on the banks of the Killbuck, and rafted down to that place.
Joel Glover, from Jefferson county, long holding the important office of justice of the peace, and who (as well as his children) has " stood high" among his fellow-citizens, dates his location among the hills of Killbuck, 1829.
It is understood that the township was named in honor of old Samuel Clark, long a county commissioner, who was among the earliest and most highly esteemed citizens of the Killbuck valley.
In 1818, the tax-paying landholders in Jefferson township were Joseph Butler, Thomas Butler, Robert Darling, Stephen Meredith, and Abner Meredith. They were all from Virginia. Darling and the Butlers came in 1806 ; the Merediths a little later. They and their descendants have been well known in the land. One of Darling's sons
Henry Carr came from Virginia in 1805, and, after raising a few crops in the prairie in Bethlehem township, settled in Jefferson. He was the grandfather of ex-sheriff J. H. Carr.
Colonel Wm. Simmons, a Virginian, who had been a colonel in the Revolutionary War, received for his services "Simmons section," the southeast quarter of this township, and settled thereon about 1819. He died at a good old age, and was buried on his farm. The family was one of the few who brought a carriage with them to the county. A son, C. W. Simmons, was in the Legislature; now resides in Iowa at very advanced age. A daughter was married by General Wm. Carhart.
John Elder emigrated from Ireland to Virginia in 1804, and thence came with the Darlings to the Walhonding valley, in 1806. After making several other locations, he settled in Jefferson township about 1820. He diedin 1851, on his farm, now occupied by his son, Cyrus Elder, a little west of Warsaw. He was a full-blooded, county Antrim, Presbyterian. He was twice married, and reared a large family, still prominent in the township. During the War of 1812, he spent some months in hauling supplies to the soldiers.
The Thompsons, Givens, and Moores have also long been among the well-known citizens of this township, and the two first named were very early settlers in it, coming from Pennsylvania or Eastern Ohio. The Tredaways have also been long in the land.
The early settlers in Crawford township were almost, without exception, Pennsylvania Germans, and the leading element of the township is even yet of at least German descent; Protestant as to religious faith. Most of the tracts of land originally taken up were small, and it is the most densely populated - more inhabitants to the square mile - of any of the townships in the county. In 1822 the resident landholders were Philip and John Fernsler, George and William Gotshall, John and Jacob Luke, John Smith, Daniel Salsbury, John Albert, and William Stall. These were all in the township a little before that time, but then were tax-paying residents. The township was organized in 1828, and from 1830 to 1850 the inflow of population was very great, the township having in the latter year some 1,500 people in it. The Crawfords and Himebaughs and Lorentzs and Lowens and Everharts and Winklplecks and Doaks are reported as old and wellknown families of this township. From 1850 to 1870 the population of Crawford fell off nearly three hundred, and it is said many of the old " first families" in point of settlement are now scarcely represented in it. The name of the township is said to have been given in honor of Associate Judge Crawford, who held a considerable tract of land in it, and was very popular.
Among the pioneers of Monroe were James Parker, William Tipton, Daniel and Jeremiah Fetrow, William Grifith, Thomas J. Northrup, William Bailey, Anthony Evans, and Jonas Stanberry.
The population has never been very distinctly marked as to nationality. In later years there was for a time a considerable inflow of Germans, but the tide, even in respect to these, soon ebbed rather than flowed. The modesty of the people, or the fact that there has actually been little of general interest in "the previous condition" of the early settlers or the movements of the township, makes these notices exceedingly brief. The capital of the township was originally designated Van Buren, but a change having been determined upon, the gallant citizens, it is said, conferred the honor of selecting the new name upon the wife of the principal of the academy (George Conant, now of Coshocton), and she, with an eye to natural fitness, called it Spring Mountain. The region may be called the highlands of the county, and the population likely to be drawn to it, as hitherto it has been, will be chiefly of the frugal and contented sort. It has furnished what indeed some of the more fertile and famous townships have not - a member of the legislature (Hon. EH. L. Lybarger), to say nothing of the present auditor and of other county officers. Evidently the early settlers gave the township a good " send-off."
In 1817, the only settler who had got his name into the books as a resident Jand-owner in this township was Isaac Draper. He had indeed been in for some time before, as were a few others; but getting a name and a place in a new country even yet takes some time. "Tomahawk titles" were no longer recognized; but transfers of titles, and verifying of lines, etc., took time when nothing else did.
A few years later than Draper's entering, the following were in Tiverton: Thomas Borden, Wm. Humphrey, Matthew and William Hirt, Charles Ryan, James and John Conner, Wm. Durban, John Holt, and Isaac Thatcher.
Tiverton has always been a sparsely settled township - her people almost purely agricultural, frugal, hardy, boasting of the good health found in their highlands. Some of the early settlers came in from counties in Ohio, somewhat further east or south; but a very noticeable element was of New England or New York origin. Several of the older branches of the early settlers have paid the debt of nature - in almost every case attaining to a good old age, and passing away as quietly as they had lived; but the families of forty years ago in Tiverton are, in noticeable degree, the families of to-day.
When the Walhonding canal was being built, some expectation was indulged of Tiverton attaining quite a degree of commercial importance, and especially of its Rochester reaching prominence as a manufacturing point ; but this failed with the failure to extend the canal.
Very early in the century, say about 1801, Wm. and Samuel Morrison, Ira Kimberly, and James Craig lived in what is now Bethlehem township. The first three were from Virginia. Craig, after a few years, moved to Coshocton, where he and all his family died, about 1814, of "Cold Plague." John Bantham and Henry Carr came to Bethlehem about 1806 - the former from Virginia, the latter from near Baltimore, Md. The Burrells were early settlers in the township. Joseph Burrell died in the township in August, 1874, being about eighty-eight years of age. Benjamin Fry, occupying the land about " Fry's Ford,' was also an early settler. Adam Markley, about 1808, came in with a large family - eight sons and four daughters. They were all farmers, and nearly all have been buried in this county. Barbara Markley, in her ninety-first year, and probably the oldest person now living in the township, is the widow of Wm. Markley. John Markley, killed by Geo. Arnold, at an election in Coshocton, in 1816, was of this family; also David Markley, now living at Lewisville.
Samuel Clark came from Virginia to Coshocton county about 1801, settling a few years later in Bethlehem, and there dying, a few years since, at a good old age. He was a justice of the peace during nearly all his active life; was also county commissioner several times. Gabriel Clark came about same time. Three sons of Samuel Clark (William, John, and Gabriel), with many descendants, are still living in the county.* Michael Hogle, John Merrihew, and David Ash settled in the township, April, 1814. They were all from Vermont. Michael Hogle raised a family of nineteen children; removed to Illinois in 1845, and died there in June, 1846.
* William Clark died, April 14, 1876, of lung fever, at his home in the township. He had been for some time a justice of the peace. Was sixty-five years old.
One-half of this township was military land, and the other half Congress land. Much of the latter was entered after the township was organized, which was in 1882. Wm. Addy was the first tax-paying freeholder (in 1819). Among the earliest settlers were Robert Corbit; James Jones, who, while the region was yet a part of Oxford township, served as justice of the peace, and his brother Wm. Jones; Wm. Norris, from Virginia, whose distinction was that of having twenty-one children; Thomas Powell, an emigrant from England; John Baker, the founder of Bakersville, coming from New Jersey ; another branch of the Norris family settled near Bakersville, and of a somewhat later date, but still in before the township was organized; the Campbells from Steubenville, and the Walters from Eastern Ohio. The first justice of the peace was Patrick Steele Campbell, who held the office until his death in 1850, Vincent DeWitt, and Leonard Hawk were early settlers, and the latter name is still represented in the township. The Mysers and Shannons, too, have long had a place "in the land."
Although Lafayette township was the last to be organized, the territory in it was among the first occupied. As early as 1801, Charles and Esaias Baker were raising corn on what is now known as the Colonel Andrew Ferguson farm. In 1802, George and Wendell Miller came out from Virginia, and continued to dwell in the township until they died at advanced years. Thomas Wiggins, also from Virginia, came in about the same time. In 1804, Francis McGuire, who had lived in the same locality (on the south branch of the Potomac, near Romney), whence the Millers and Wiggins had come, moved to the Tuscarawas valley above New Comerstown, and in 1807 came on down the valley to the locality in Lafayette township still known as the " McGuire settlement." The family were carried in a wagon which was driven along on the bank of the river, sometimes in it, and they afterward used the wagon-bed as their shelter and sleeping-place until a cabin could be built, which, in the want of help to any considerable extent from neighbors, took more time than in after years. Mr. McGuire died on the place thus taken up by him in 1853, being about seventy-six years of age.
In 1804, Seth McLain, also from Virginia, settled near the Bakers, putting up a cabin near the fine spring which now supplies Colonel Ferguson's house. After residing some ten years, the "settlers" discovered they were on the " Higby section" of military land, and moved over into Linton township, becoming thus early settlers therein. McLain married one of the Sells, whose connections had settled further up the river. His son James (fatber of Seth and Colonel R. W. McLain) died a couple of years ago, aged about seventy-five years. Thomas Mclain came into Lafayette township in 1805, and remained until his death. A son (Isaac) is probably the oldest citizen now in the township, about seventy-two years of age.
Joseph C. Higbee, from Trenton, New Jersey, settled on his military section about 1820, and remained there until his death, about 1878, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. It is said his death was hastened, if not caused, by a violent abuse he received from some one who, it is believed, purposed robbery. His first wife was Miss Hackinson. One of his daughters was married to Rev. Mr. Southard, who was for a time a minister of Trinity Church, New York. Another is said to have married Mr. Hay, alawyer, in Pittsburg. John Richmond, of Orange, married a daughter by the second wife. As illustrating "the style" of the man, the story was long current in the neighborhood, that, when he first came to the country, then in comparatively a wilderness condition, he brought with him six dozen rufiled shirts.
Provenance
Text from Historical Collections of Coshocton County, Ohio :, published 1876; Historical of Coshocton County Ohio, published 1876, in the public domain in the United States and digitised by the Internet Archive. The settlements listed against this township are matched by point-in-polygon test of each Geographic Names Information System coordinate against the Census Bureau's county subdivision boundary, not by name.