Wyoming City

Wyoming City

is west of Lockland, on the other side of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad. It was surveyed in the fall of 1869, by Isaac Riddle, for the Lockland & Wyoming Homestead association; was incorporated for special purposes December 7, 1870, and for general purposes March 25, 1874. Its mayor, the latter year, was Mr. W. B. Teetor. It had eight hundred and forty inhabitants by the census of June, 1880. The Presbyterian church here is in charge of the Rev. M. Maxwell.

New Burlington

has had, likewise for postal reasons, to change its name to Transit Post Office. It is an old place near the west line of the township, one and a half miles northwest of Mt. Pleasant. It was laid out May 31, 1S16, by John Pegg. In 1S30 it had sixty-two inhabitants.

Greenwood

is a village plat surveyed in 1858 by C. S. Woodruff, on the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad, between Lockland and Wyoming, by whose growth and fame its own have become considerably obscured.

Park Place Foster Hill

is next north of Park Place on the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad, east side, in the neighborhood of the first white settlements made in Springfield township.

Source changes here: from 1789 History of Hamilton County Ohio with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches, by Henry A. Ford and Kate B. Ford, published 1881; 8,746 words in this source stream.

Wyoming City

is west of Lockland, on the other side of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad. It was surveyed in the fall of 1869, by Isaac Riddle, for the Lockland & Wyoming Homestead association; was incorporated for special purposes December 7, 1870, and for general purposes March 25, 1874. Its mayor, the latter year, was Mr. W. B. Teetor. It had eight hundred and forty inhabitants by the census of June, 1880. The Presbyterian church here is in charge of the Rev. M. Maxwell.

New Burlington

has had, likewise for postal reasons, to change its name to Transit Post Office. It is an old place near the west line of the township, one and a half miles northwest of Mt. Pleasant. It was laid out May 31, 1816, by John Pegg. In 1830 it had sixty-two inhabitants.

Greenwood

is a village plat surveyed in 1858 by C. S. Woodruff, on the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad, between Lockland and Wyoming, by whose growth and fame its own have become considerably obscured.

Park Place Foster Hill

FOSTER HILL is next north of Park Place on the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad, east side, in the neighborhood of the first white settlements made in Springfield township.

is a short distance north of Foster Hill, on the same section, four, and the same side of the railroad, near the township line, not far from the south corporation line of Glendale.

is a station north of Glendale, on the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton railroad, laid out in 1868, by W. F. Muchmore, and named from Mr. John W. Ellis, a resident of the neighborhood. MAPLEWOOD is another station and village on this railroad, platted in 1873, by Joseph F. Mills. It is now incorporated with Hartwell village in one municipality.

The Population

THE POPULATION of Springfield township in 1870 was six thousand five hundred and eighty-four, and in 1880 had increased to seven thousand nine hundred and seventy-five.

Biographical Sketches Joseph Jackson

The father of the late Joseph Jackson, of Mt. Pleasant, John Jackson, was born in Loudoun county, Virginia, December .8, 1775, and removed to Pennsylvania in 1812, three years thereafter to Cincinnati, and in 1819 to the Great Miami river, in Butler county, about two miles north of the Hamilton line. Here he conducted the flouring-mill long known as Jackson's, now Graham's mill. He was himself a millwright, and by and by built and ran a paper-mill at the same place and moved by the same power.. This was also maintained until within a few years, when it was suspended. Mr. Jackson died October 30, 1857, at a farm a mile and a half from the mills, to which he had retired in his old age from the former business. His wife's maiden name was Annie Hough, also of a Virginia family. She was born September 25, 1778, and they were wedded in May, 1801. Their children were: Anna, born February 22, 1802, died June 5, 1846; Elizabeth, born April 29, 1804, died May 31, 1868; Rebecca, born May 1, 1806; Samuel, born November 8, 1808; Joseph, born December 4, 1809, died May 7, 1866; Thomas, born August 30, 1811; Mary, born March 28, 1815, died September 11, 1850; Amanda, born September ro, 1818, died June 8, 1880. Their third son was Joseph Jackson, the subject of this notice. He was born on the fourth of December, 1809, in Morgantown, Monongalia county, Virginia, and accompanied his family in their successive removals, learning at home his father's trade of millwright. About the time he reached his majority he left home, taking work at his trade in various places, as he could find it. In 1834, August 19th, upon his bride's birthday, he was wedded to Miss Nancy Riddle, daughter of Colonel John Riddle, the famous pioneer, near Cincinnati. For some years they resided at the mills of his father, in Butler county, and then removed, in 1839, to a farm one and a half miles south of Mt. Pleasant, in the neighborhood where the Cary sisters spent their earlier years. Upon this place the remainder of his days were passed in the improvement of a tract originally very poor, but which he made to blossom as the rose. Here he died May 7, 1866, and his remains repose in the beautiful cemetery at Spring Grove, adjoining the city of Cincinnati. He was not an active politician, and sought no public office or prominence of any kind. He was, however, for a number of years, president of the Cincinnati, Mt. Pleasant & Hamilton Turnpike company, and raised the road owned by it to a high degree of excellence and prosperity, so that, for the first and last time in its history, it paid some dividends to its stockholders. After his death Mr. J. F. Wright, an officer of the board of directors of the company, in the course of some remarks submitting a resolution in tribute to his memory, included the following eulogy, to which the resolution is appended:

He was elected to the presidency of the company in 1853, and continued to serve uninterruptedly in that capacity until his death. For the greater part of the time during the same period he also served as county superintendent of the road. His unanimous annual reappointment to both positions is indubitable proof of the satisfaction given by his official acts. As president I know full well it was ever his desire to be impartial, just, and prompt in the discharge of the duties which his official station devolved upon him. His knowledge of mechanics and human nature, together with his unwavering integrity, eminently qualified him and made him the efficient superintendent that induces every voice now involuntarily to inquire: ''Who can fill the place made vacant by his demise?"

Only those who were intimately acquainted with the man knew his virtues. He wasa man of probity and integrity; he was a lover of truth, kind and merciful in all his relations and intercourse with men, and utterly incapable of practicing deceit. The dishonest man he avoided as he would a pestilence, holding no intercourse whatever with him unless unavoidable. Ina word, for I must be brief, the community has sustained the loss of a good citizen and an honest man, its chief ornament. This board has lost an esteemed and valuable member, and an active and efficient officer. Theloss to both is irreparable.

'Resolved, That we greatly deplore the death of our late fellowmember, Joseph Jackson, in whom we recognized the honest man, the genial companion, the steadfast friend, and the faithful and efficient officer; and that the family of the deceased have our liveliest sympathy in their deep affliction; and that as a memento of our regard and esteem for the deceased, this resolution be spread upon the minutes of this. meeting.

homestead in Mill Creek, oldest daughter of Colonel John and Jane Marshall Riddle. Jane Marshall was the third wife of Colonel Riddle, who had five wives in the course of his long life. Nancy's natal day was August 19, 1811. She resided at home, receiving such education as was afforded by the schools of the neighborhood (then far out of the city, but now far within it), until she was: married as above noted, when she followed the fortunes of her husband in his several removals. She still survives her consort, and resides in a delightful home in Mount Pleasant, on the Hamilton turnpike. The third year after her husband's death she left the farm, and removed to the residence still owned by her, a little west of the Mount Pleasant station of the College Hill railroad, and in the fall of 1877 took her present place in the village. Her daughter, Miss Nancy Jane Jackson, resides with her. Mrs. Jackson presents a remarkably healthy and vigorous appearance for one of her years, and is every way a worthy descendant of the sturdy old pioneer who helped to lay the foundations of civilization in the Mill Creek and Ohio valleys. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson were, in order of birth, as follows: Nancy Jane, born May 28, 1835; Sarah Louisa, now Mrs. Cary B. Johnson, of Mount Pleasant, born January 10, 1837; George Washington, born January 27, 1839, also residing in Mount Pleasant, in the grocery and drygoods business for many years; John Riddle, born August 15, 1841, died August 10, 1859; Mary Maria, now Mrs. George W. Rofelty, of Home City, Ohio, born February 15, 1849; Joseph, born August 17, 1851, died August 2, 1854.

Hon. John Morrow Cochran

This gentleman, one of the most distinguished and useful citizens of Springfield township, resides one-half mile north of Glendale, upon the Glendale and Port Union turnpike. He was born near Gettysburgh, Adams county, Pennsylvania, June 18, 1808, son of William, grandson of James C., and great-grandson of William Cochran. The Cochrans are of English stock. The great-grandfather was born in 1699, and died in 1771; his wife, Sarah, born 1702, died 1785. The grandfather was born July 8, 1732, died December 8, 1810. The dates of birth and death of Jane, his wife, respectively, are November 14, 1742, and January 4, 1815.

Mr. Cochran's mother was Rebecca, daughter of John Morrow, from whom the subject of this notice was named, and sister of the late Governor Jeremiah Morrow, of Warren (formerly Hamilton) county. In 1814 his parents, with their young family, in wagons, with a five-horse team, and a saddle-horse for the mother, who would not trust herself upon the water, and hence insisted upon the land journey throughout, made the long trip across the country, still very much a wilderness, arrived in June at the residence of Governor Morrow, Twenty-miles Stand, on the banks of the Little Miami, eight miles north of Montgomery. After resting here a short time they then pushed westward, crossing the fer- tile valley of Mill creek, and settling finally two miles 'west of Sharonville, and just east of Mr. Cochran's present residence. The elder Cochran here purchased one hundred and sixty-nine acres, to which his son John has made important additions by successive purchases of fifty, seventy-five, and twenty acres. The latter attended the subscription schools of that day, at Springfield, now Springdale, and later the Miami university, at Oxford, where he numbered among his fellow students, these talented young men who were afterwards known as Lieutenant Governor Charles Anderson, the Hon. Robert Schenck, and Professor Freeman Cary, founder of Farmers' college, at College Hill. He spent seven years in all in Butler county, as a student at Oxford and a merchant at Millville, where his father owned and for some time conducted a mill property. In this county he was married June 28, 1832, to Miss Martha J., daughter of Joseph Wilson, of Rossville, now a part of Hamilton. Her mother was Elizabeth Dick, daughter of the old pioneer, Samuel Dick, who is celebrated in one chapter of McBride's Pioneer Biography. In the spring of 1839 they removed to Springfield township, and settled temporarily at Springdale, removing afterwards to the valuable property where they have since resided. About the same time he became president of the Hamilton, Springfield & Carthage turnpike company, which had just built the fine sixteen-mile road from Hamilton to Carthage - the best paying turnpike, it is said, in the State. He has been continuously in this position for forty-two years, except during a very brief interval caused by his resignation. For four years in his young-manhood he was township clerk, and consented in his later life to serve for three years as township trustee. He is naturally ambitious, was an ardent Whig and afterwards Republican, and easily turned to the active pursuits of politics and official life. In 1840, when but thirty-two years old, he was called into conspicuous service as a representative in the legislature from Hamilton county. Young as he was, he bore an influential part in securing the election of his candidates for judges of the court of common pleas in Butler county; and the friends of the defeated ones, in derision and chagrin at his success, gave him sixteen votes for judge, although his residence was not in that county.

Mr. Cochran again served in the lower branch of the legislature in 1864-7, two terms (the Fifty-sixth and Fiftyseventh houses), during which he was chairman of the important committee on corporations other than municipal, and member of the joint committee on enrollment. In the latter session he was also on the penitentiary committee. In the little volume of Biographical Sketches prepared for members of the legislature, it is said of him: "He is knowl one of the strong Union members of the house, fajfhful, prompt and efficient."

For the sessions of 1872-3 he was again summoned to service in the house by his fellow-citizens, when he acted as chairman of the committee on public printing, and member of that on public benevolent institutions.

Hamilton county. While the great struggle was in progress, in November, 1863, he visited his childhood's home, but as an official representative of the State of Ohio, by appointment of Governor Tod, to attend the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburgh, where one of the greatest battles of the war had been fought a few months before.

The confidence reposed by the community in Mr. Cochran has been shown most abundantly, not only by his repeated calls to official station, but by the frequent demands upon him to administrate upon estates, of which he has had as many as twenty-three in charge, settling all with thorough efficiency and integrity. He is universally regarded as an able and very useful citizen, in public and in private life. vives. They have had thirteen children, as follows:

William Arman, born April 14, 1835; October 14, 1856, married Julia Ann Lewis; now a farmer near Decatur, Illinois. Joseph Wilson, born December 29, 1836, married Mattie H. Cox June 18, 1862; an attorney at Peoria, Illinois, and for six years circuit judge. Infant son, born September 29, 1838, died unnamed October 24, same year. John Morrow, born December 13, 1839, residing with his parents. Samuel D., born February 13, 1842; married Marie Fitzgerald November 8, 1876; a bookkeeper and local manager in Cincinnati for the Champion Reaper company, of Springfield. Eliza W., born November 15, 1843, married October 12, 1871, to the Rev. W. H. James, pastor of the Presbyterian church at Springdale. Jeremiah Morrow, born November 20, £845, now an editor and proprietor of the Daily Freeman, Peoria, Illinois. Rebecca, born November 20, 1845, residing at the old home. Nannie A., born December 3, 1849, also at home. Jatnes Marion, born December 21, 1851, at home; Louisa D., born August 20, 1853, died April 12, 1854. Lewellyn, born May 20, 1855, died December 10, 1859. Martha Ella, born September 16, 1857, died April 12, 1854.

Captain George W. Walker

Joseph Walker was a native of the isle of Guernsey, born in 1774 of an English-French family. Hettie Stibbs was born in New Jersey, United States, 1780, of Holland stock. She became Mrs. Walker after the immigration of her husband to New York city in 1806 - probably about 1807 or 1808. He labored as a house carpenter, and also, under the direction of his friend the renowned Robert Fulton, he shaped at his shop by night, after the labors of the day were over, the model for the Clermont, the first steamer to navigate the Hudson river. The family, comprising then but two children, with the parents left the Atlantic coast in 1811, prompted thereto by the prospect of war with Great Britain and the consequent danger to him as still a British subject, and started for Cincinnati. From. New York to Philadelphia they journeyed by ocean vessel, thence three weeks' travel took them by wagon across the mountains to Pittsburgh, where they embarked upon.a flatboat for the river trip. Artiving at the young Queen City he reentered upon the pursuits of his trade, and in a short time became a prominent builder, being much in the employ of John H. Piatt, the enterprising speculator of that day. After a useful and honorable career Mr.

December, 1859, at the age of seventy-nine. | Five children were born to them in the city, among them the subject of this sketch. George W. Walker was the fifth child and fourth son, born January 28, 1817, near the corner of Third and Sycamore streets, which neighborhood was then mainly devoted to dwellings. His father's house was just at the brow of the "Hill," which had not then been graded down. George was educated in the city schools, which were then almost exclusively private, and somewhat costly. Among his early teachers were Caleb Kemper, Mrs.- Williamson, Mr. Wringlet, and other well-known early pedagogues. Following the example of his father and an elder brother, he learned the business of house-carpentering, to which he afterwards added the trades of ship-carpenter and steamboat-joiner, and practiced them all for some years. When about _ twenty-three years old his savings enabled him to invest in a steamer, the Mail, jointly with Captain Thomas J. Haldeman. - Thus early, in 1840, did the business association of these two gentlemen begin, which continued almost unbroken in steamboating and paper manufacturing until the death of Captain Haldeman in October, 1874. The company with which Captain Walker is now connected, still bears from him the name of the Haldeman Paper company. On their first venture with the Mail, Mr. Haldeman went out as captain and Mr. Walker as carpenter. Selling this vessel at the end of a year, they, with others, built a fine new steamer called the Express Mail, for the New Orleans trade. It proved a profitable investment, and was run by its owners four years, when they sold it to build the more costly steamer Yorktown - a powerful vessel built for the rapid transit of passengers rather than for freight, and bearing also on the wheel-house the designation of 'Fast Mail." Captain Walker continued to serve as carpenter of the steamers; but when Captain Haldeman retired to take the post of inspector of steamboats at Cincinnati - the first appointment there under a law of Congress which he had been largely instrumental in securing - Mr. Walker assumed the captaincy of another vessel purchased by them - the Norma. In a short time this became a total wreck by snagging at Choctaw Bend, on the Mississippi, the cargo, worth about three hundred thousand dollars, being mostly saved. For a year he was then engaged at Cincinnati and Madison in superintending the lengthening of steamers for the People's Line to Louisville, of which Captain Haldeman was president. He then engaged in real estate operations and house-building in the city, also making purchase of a farm in Clermont county and taking stock in a National bank in New Richmond. In 1866 he removed to his farm, nine miles from that place, but was called away from it in three years to accept a superior opportunity for investment in the paper-making business at Lockland.

A reconstruction of the company of Decamp, Haldeman & Parker had become necessary by the death of Mr. Parker, who was killed in one of the mills January 31, 1867. It became the Haldeman Paper company, with Captain Haldeman as president, who invited his old friend and associate to an interest in the new company. For a time Captain Walker employed his mechanical talent in the improvement and repair of the mills, and superintended the construction of the new mill in the summer of 1877, upon the site of the old mill where Mr. Parker was killed. Upon the death of Captain Haldeman, Mr. J. C. Richardson was promoted from the vice-presidency to the vacant place, and Captain ~ Walker became vice-president, in which capacity he has since served the company He has made his home in Lockland ever since his connection with the mills; is a member and trustee of the Presbyterian church at that place, which holds the faith of his fathers; and an uncompromising Republican since the outbreak of the late war.

In 1858, February 28th, Captain Walker was married to Margaret, daughter of Judge Robert Haines, of New Richmond, Clermont county. She is still living. They have two children, daughters - Hettie May, born May 10, 1859, in Cincinnati, now at home with her parents; and Alice Quinlin, born in Newport, Kentucky, December 28, 1863, and residing at home.

John L. Riddle

John Riddle, jr, was born in New Jersey in 1789, and in the fall of the next year was brought by his parents to Cincinnati. As he grew toward manhood he assisted his father, Colonel Riddle, in clearing and working the section owned by the colonel in Mill Creek valley, one corner of which was near the Brighton house, and all of which is now far within the city. He went out as a volunteer in the War of 1812-15, and served faithfully and safely during his term. In April, 1814, at the age of twenty-five he was married to Catharine Long, of whom and of whose father some notice is given below. Mr. Riddle and wife settled on a quarter-section west of the site of Glendale and handsomely overlooking it, where the remainder of their lives was spent. He died suddenly of hernia at about seventy-seven years of age; fall which rendered her unconscious and took her life in seven hours. They had never in their married life known sickness severe enough to confine them to their rooms; had been hard workers all their lives, and were . each performing their usual duties until struck down by the icy hand of death.

Catharine Long, wife of John Riddle, jr., and mother of John L. Riddle, was born December 13, 1788. She was a daughter of Michael Long, an immigrant from Penn's Valley, Pennsylvania, in 1794, and among the first to break the dense forest west of the present site of Glendale. He settled about twelve miles north of Cincinnati and two miles west of the former place. With him came his aged father and a number of relatives, among them some of the Longs, the McCormacks, the Smalls, the Sterretts, the Lowes, and many others, all of whom settled within a radius of four miles, and who were never driven out by the Indians. Lony soon cleared land and from the first became self-supporting. He soon built a saw-mill on a small stream running through his farm, which for simplicity as well as capacity is a marvel to the mechanicism as well as the enormous amount of work accomplished by it. During the entire life of Long it continued to cut lumber for the building up of the neighborhood, as well as to furnish quantities to Cincinnati boatbuilders. Mike, as he was called, was a farmer, blacksmith, tanner, mechanic of all work, shoemaker of evenings, and for the first three. years his own tailor, tanning skins and making clothes of them for the male portion of his family, but the first patch of flax raised relieved him of that necessity, and he lived to be able to procure for a wedding dress for his oldest daughter, calico, which then was considered the height of style in those parts. Michael lived to the age of sixty-five, when he died and was buried in the cemetery near Springdale. Since that time all his children have been laid by his side except two, and in the language of an old settler who knew him well, we know of no person, living or dead, 'who.has'contributed so much to improve and benefit the township of Springfield as Michael Long. The father of Michael was an emigrant from Holland, as was also his wife's father. Michael was born February 14, 1756, and died July 13, 1822. ny

Catharine Riddle. The others were William, Jacob, Mary, Emeline, Andrew J., Nancy, and Adrian A. Of these only Jacob has died. John was born in the old log cabin home, west of Glendale, January 5, 1821; spent his earlier years at home, getting such education as the primitive schools of the region afforded; was married in 1843 to Elizabeth J. Hitts, of Springfield township, and is the parent of eighteen children - five sons and thirteen daughters - Catharine A., Elizabeth J., Cornelia, Frank A., Harriet H., Clara, Julia, Margaret, Mary, John L., Henrietta, Jacob N., and six others who died infants unnamed.

Mr. Riddle has acquired a handsome property - partly by his very fortunate sale of parts of the site of Glendale, and is an extensive landholder in the northwest part of the township. He has never aspired to political honors, but has occupied numerous positions of trust, and is often employed to settle estates. Himself and wife have long been influential members of the church at Springdale: They occupy a pleasant home west of the village, and are spending their declining years in all honor, peace, and prosperity.

George H. Friend

His father, Charles Howard Friend, was born in Virginia July 5, 1789. He removed to Cincinnati with his family in the year 1825; was a common day laborer, and, having a large family to support (nine children), it became necessary for his son, the subject of our sketch, to earn his own living, and, accordingly, when ten years of age, became employed in the Graham paper mills, then located at the foot of Water street - Central avenue. He began work as assistant lay-boy at a salary of seventyfive cents a week, but being apt in his work was advanced in his position, also in his salary, receiving one dollar 4nd twenty-five centsa week. He continued in Mr. Graham's employ until the year 1832, when the miils were moved to the Black bottoms, below Hamilton, where he began work, in the same business for Mr. Spears, whose inills were located near the foot of Smith street. He received there two dollars and twenty-five cents per week, but about this: time his parents moved from the city, and young George, desirous of trying his adventures on the waters, left for the south on a flat-boat, having for his cargo.a load of lard and bacon. He was to receive for the round trip the munificent sum of twenty dollars, which was not a fortune considering the two months' time required to go to New Orleans and back. About crew; as they-either would get sick or leave through fear of the epidemic. At Madison, Indiana, all left the captain but young George, and at Louisville the whole force

Gerrean was employed, who, in consequence of idleness and refusal to work, the captain, in an enraged fit of passion threshed him off the boat, but evil consequences followed. As soon as the cargo landed in New Orleans the German was also there with officers and arrested the captain, detained his stock of goods, leaving Mr. Friend in a strange land without money and in critical circumstances. He next goes to Natches and engages work on the levee, but, changing his mind, accepts a position in a brickyard across the river, some miles above, at a salary of one dollar a day, and stayed that winter and part of the summer. He had formerly worked at the same business in the summer season at Cincinnati, and, as he understood it, made a useful hand in making brick and erecting a large court house. This work being done he set out for Natches, but the distance of fifteen miles through thickets and low marshes being impossible to make in any reasonable time, quietly shifted himself into an Indian boat lying at the water's edge, and about dusk of evening set out, As it happened the night was dark, a heavy fog overspread the river, and not the faintest glimmering of any star could be seen. He thrust his little boat into the middle of the river, let it take the current, and in the face of all danger from collision with snags and steamboats, glided down the rapid stream at the rate of about six miles an hour, reaching Natches about eleven o'clock that night.

Mr. Friend had now by hard earnings during the interregnum of 1834 and 1835, while away, collected together about fifty dollars, but he was yet to experience a loss differing from the others yet endured. At Natches a helpless applicant for a passage up the river appealed to him for aid, and after fair promises to repay the favor about twenty dollars was given and he went aboard. Being a fellow companion he laid siege to his trunk, relieved him of the rest of his money and all his valuables, and then deboarded his vessel at the first opportunity.

Such were some of the friendly experiences of Mr. Friend before reaching Cincinnati on his trip to and from New Orleans, but nothing daunted by misfortune, he set himself to learn the carpenter trade after his return, and for one year drove nails and shoved the plane in Cincinnati; but in 1836 he removed to Lockland and continued his business for eighteen years thereafter. In 1858 he and his brother, in company with a Mr. French, purchased from Messrs. Haldermann and Parker the first paper mill built at Lockland. In 1853 he built the dwelling house in which he now resides, but there immediately came a depression in his business, and owing to the facts of heavy indebtedness for property bought, and the failure of the business to support two families, Mr. Friend purchased the mill outright from Mr. French in 1862. Immediately after Mr. Friend taking the mill business revived, large demands for paper being made by the Government for war purposes, so that in a few years he found himself out of all indebtedness and making money rapidly.

In 1871 he purchased two other mills at Carrollton, Ohio, but in five years afterwards, to the day, they were burned down, the loss being about forty thousand dollars. Mr. Friend immediately rebuilt, putting in machinery, increasing their capacity, and making them the best of the kind in the west. His son, George Howard Friend, a young man of business tact, learned in the business, is now a partner of his father, and general manager of the Carrollton mills.

In 1840-41, a little church incident occurred which will illustrate Mr. Friend's politics. He was at that timea member of the Methodist Episcopal church in Lockland, and in the course of time, a minister of the Wesleyan Methodists having been invited to preach (it being in the

" troublous times of the free soil discussions), took for his text: ''God made. all men of one blood," which was so suggestive - although no ill word, bestirring plolitical or partisan hatred, had been spoken - that the pro-slavery faction of the church took umbrage, and before the preacher got under headway with the sermon, pelted him severely with eggs, and upon taking a more violent course, Mr. Friend interceded to prevent further trouble, and for this act was to be suspended from the church and reprimanded. The suspension hurt him not, and the reprimanding was not received, as he was and had been so staunch in his Union sentiments as not to allow those who fostered the free soil principles to engender his religious convictions. The church, however, even before its separation into the two branches, failed to carry out its threat, and he was always considered one of its members.

On June 15, 1843, he was married to: Miss Elizabeth Bradford, in Lockland, Ohio, and the fruits of this union were seven children: Mary Agnes Friend, married to Charles Howell; John B. Friend, died July 2, 1861, aged eighteen years; Charles W. Friend, married to Julia Jackson, died January 2, 1879, aged thirty years. They had three children: George, died January 1, 1873, Melvin, and Maynard; James Howard Friend, married to Flora Myers; they had two children: George Frederick, and Edith; E. Annie Friend, married to Samuel Johnson; they had one child: Fannie E; Catharine Friend, and Edward Friend.

Mrs. Elizabeth Friend, zee Bradford, still lives in the enjoyment of health and comfort, after having carefully raised and trained her family. She was born in Washington, Pennsylvania, July 22, 1818.

The antecedents of the Friend family are numerous. They date back to the time when the father of our subject went to Canada on a visit to see his brother George, and while there married a daughter of Leonard Scratch, and sister of his brother's wife. It should also be stated that three children of the Scratch family married three children of John Wendel and Juliana Wigle. The two brothers came to the States. Charles stopped at Cincinnati, his brother going down the river to Jeffersonville, Indiana, where they settled, and the descendants mostly reside. Charles, however, remained in Cincinnati, and finally died in Lockland on January 23, 1868, aged seventy-nine years.

In the year 1870 some of the Canadian members of this large family, while on a visit to the States, proposed a retnion, to take place in Canada, which finally occurred in Gosfield, Canada, September 24, 1872. The meeting was held in a beautiful grove belonging to Theodore Wigle. Eighteen visitors from the South were present, and about eight hundred of the home relatives, making the affair, with its bounteous repasts of the day, and the cordial greetings of the numerous descendants, an occasion long to be remembered.

Sycamore Formation And Geography

The original Sycamore township was a new creation of the general reorganization of the townships of Hamilton county, after the erection of Ohio as a State and the setting off of Butler and other counties from the territory of Hamilton county. It was defined as comprising "all that fractional township No. 5, in the first entire range, and four tiers of sections on the eastern side of town four, same range; also, so much of the second entire range as lies north of the same." These tracts include the whole of what is now Symmes township, and all of the present Sycamore township, except the two westernmost tiers of sections. The township was but little larger then than it is now, having thirty-nine full and twelve fractional sections, the latter lying altogether on the west bank of the Little Miami river.

Sycamore township is now bounded on the east by Symmes, on the south by Columbia, and on the west by Springfield townships. Butler county bounds it for about two and a half miles on the north, and Warren county for three and a half miles. It is an approximately exact parallelogram of seven sections long by six broad, thus containing forty-two sections. Some unevenness is manifest in the original running of the-section lines, and the section corners on the east line of the township are considerable north of the northwest corners of the same sections in Sycamore. This breaks up the north line of the township badly at the northeast corner; it otherwise is pretty nearly a right line. The present township comprises the whole of town four, in the first entire range, and the southernmost tier of sections in town three, of the second entire range. Sections numbered only seven, thirteen, nineteen, twenty-five, and thirty-one, are thus, as in Springfield, duplicated in the township. It is the largest township in the county, having a total of twentynine thousand two hundred and ninety-one acres, or nearly a square mile more than forty-two exact sections contain. Springfield, which is the next township in size, and contains just as many sections, has but twenty-five thousand eight hundred and ninety-six acres - one thousand five hundred and fifty-five less than Sycamore, and nine hundred and eighty-four, or more than one and a half square miles, less than it would have were all its sections full and exact. The irregularity of surveys in the purchase could hardly be better illustrated.

The Miami canal leaves the township at the northwest corner of section thirty-two, in Lockland, having flowed through all the westernmost tier of sections north of that, in a course of nearly six miles. The Cincinnati & Springfield railroad, - otherwise the Cleveland, Colum- bus, Cincinnati & Indianapolis, or Dayton Short Line railroad - comes into the township at the south part of Lockland, half a mile south of the canal, and runs diagonally across the two western tiers of sections and part of the third, leaving Sycamore about two and one-third miles from the northwest corner, after traversing the township a length of a little more than six miles. The Marietta & Cincinnati railroad has only about half a mile df track in Sycamore, crossing the extreme southwest corner, between Madiera station, in Columbia township, and Allandale, in Symmes. The Miami valley, or Cincinnati & Northern railway, spans the entire township with nearly eight miles of track, crossing the Montgomery pike and entering Sycamore exactly at the centre of the south township line, and making gradually northeastward until it leaves the township precisely one mile west of the northeast corner, or two miles east of the point of entrance. The Montgomery, Lebanon & Dayton turnpikes, with an abundance of admirable wagonroads and otherwise, intersect the township in all directions. No stream of large size touches the township. The East fork of Mill creek, with one of its larger tributaries, heads in the counties to the northward, and flows through the northern and western townships to a junction with the West fork a little way beyond the township line, near Hartwell. Carpenter's run flows toward the East fork from the direction of Montgomery. Three or four small affluents of the Little Miami, on the eastern side of Sycamore, penetrate the township to the breadth of one to three miles. , The southernmost tier of sections is almost altogether devoid of water courses. The general character of the surface of the township resembles that of Springfield and the Hamilton county plateau. On the west, however, the Mill Creek valley in which lie the Miami canal and the Short Line railway, is broad and flat; and parts of the southeastern and eastern districts are on the low ground of the Little Miamicountry. The rest of the township is emphatically hill country, though not of a description unfitting it forthe production of large and valuable crops and for stock-raising. Most of the township is given up to farming, not much of it, away from Reading, being devoted to suburban residences, and this place, with Montgomery and Shawn, being the only villages of account in the entire township.

Justices Of The Peace

In the creative act of the county authorities in 1803, the electors of the new township were directed to meet at the house or John Ayres, in the village of Montgomery, and choose three justices of the peace.

The First Immigrant

to the territory now covered by Sycamore township was James Cunningham. He was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, and emigrated to Kentucky while still a comparative youth, about 1785, there engaging, with four others, in building cabins for settlers, about four miles back of the present site of Covington. They were presently assailed by the Indians and one killed, when Cunningham and the remaining three decided to abandon their business in that quarter and settle upon the Beargrass creek, near where Louisville was afterwards founded. He was there married to Miss Janette Park, of another Pennsylvania family, in 1787, and in the second year thereafter, the first year of Cincinnati or Losantiville, and on the twenty-sixth of May, 1789, he entered a land-warrant which entitled him to locate on a half-section of land, which he chose on the west half of section twenty-eight in what is now this township, in the valley of the East fork. He soon began improvements upon his place, assisted by Arthur, Andrew, and Culbertson, his brothers-in-law and three of the first settlers of Reading village. They were the first to make a clearing in Sycamore township. It is supposed, as there was then comparative peace between the white settlers and the Indians, that Cunningham moved his family to the place and resided there until the Indian troubles of the next winter, when he removed to Cincinnati, where he is known to have bought a lot and built a cabin near the corner of Walnut and Second streets. He afterwards entered the Government service for a year or soasa teamster, and in the fall of °1793 removed finally to his farm, where the rest of his life was passed. He built and ran the first saw- and grist-mills in this part of the county, and about 1808 had a distillery in connection with the grist-mill. Among his surviving descendants are: a son, Francis Cunningham, lately living north of Sharon, on the old place, near the county line; two grandsons, Elmore W. Cunningham, of Cincinnati, and James F. Cunningham, of Glendale; and a granddaughter, the wife of Mr. Andrew Erkenbrecker, of Cincinnati.

James Carpenter was also a very early comer to the sections embraced in Sycamore township. He located on section fifteen, west of Montgomery, probably in the autumn of 1793, or the spring of the next year, and removed thither from Columbia. . Adjoining him on the west was Price Thompson, a soldier of the Revolution, who located a land warrant on the northeast quarter of seetion twenty-one, November 26, 1792. Other pioneers here were David and Abner Denman, whose sisters married Thompson and Benjamin Willis. Another of this party, Elihu Crain, a-distant relative of Thompson's; and Richard and Samuel Ayres. For the sake of company and mutual protection they put up their cabins near each other, where the sections fifteen and sixteen corner with sections twenty-one and twenty-two, or about where the Plainfield school-house is. Others who came to the settlement after Indian hostilities ceased are mentioned by Mr. Olden in his Historical Sketches, as James and John Mathers, Daniel and Nathaniel Reeder, Joseph Mc- Knight, Morris Osborn, Moses Hutelings, Matthias Crow, Henry, Benjamin, and Isaac Devie, Nathaniel Jarrard, and Samuel Knott, all of whom date by residence here back of 1797. He adds that "the settlement was never annoyed hy Indians, and there was nothing to encounter but the wild animals and the almost interminable forest."

John Campbell, who built a fortified station on the Great Miami, opposite Miamitown, also made a settlement in*Sycamore, probably in the summer or fall of 1793, on the forfeiture part of section twenty, southwest of Cunningham's. But few settlers clustered around him for years; he did not consider it necessary to fortify his cabins; and the history of his improvement here is wholly uneventful.

Some other early settlers of Sycamore were John Goldtrap, on section twenty-two, where now is the Jacob Shuff place; James and John Wallace, on section twentyone, now the Cooper farm; the Park brothers, with or near Cunningham, on section twenty-eight; and near Montgomery Ely Duskey, Moses and Joseph Crist, Joseph Tallman, and Andrew Lacky.

William R. Morris was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, September 12, 1836. His father is of Scotch extraction, and his mother of Irish descent. William R. Morris, sr., married Sarah Lydia Powers, sister of Hiram Powers, the sculptor. William R. Morris, jr., was one out of a family of nine, three sons only surviving to maturity. In May, 1865, he married Hattie, daughter of Captain Charles Ross, of Cincinnati, one of the old pioneers. Mr. Morris is the father of three sons and four daughters. Educationally, he attended St. Xavier college, Cincinnati, and Oxford college, for three years each, preparing himself for the bar. For several years Morris engaged in the wholesale grocery business at Toledo, though he is now a gentleman of rest, enjoying the fruits of his industry, residing at Carthage, Ohio.

Fortified Stations

Henry Runyan's, about a mile and a half north of Reading. Mr. Olden says: "Near the spring, east of the Dayton turnpike, stood the old station-house." Mr. Runyan was a Virginian, but emigrated from Kentucky, where he had lived since 1784, and had there been married to Mrs. Mary Bush, of Bourbon county. Upon two land warrants, May 9, 1790, he located the west half of section nineteen, the northernmost section of that number in the township, being fourteen miles from the Ohio, and then a long way back in the wilderness. It is believed that he did not move upon the tract within the period required by Symmes' contracts, atid that he consequently forfeited a little over fifty-three acres in the northeast corner of it. He soon, however, put up his cabin and made a clearing, and in 1792, according to his son Isaac, who is still surviving at a very advanced age, he removed permanently to the place. Mr. Olden thus presents some of the recollections of Isaac Runyan:

Mr. Runyan remembers the first school-house in the neighborhood. It was built of buckeye logs, and stood in the field south of Mr. John Rick's present residence. It was a rude cabin, with the ground fora floor. The benches were made of slabs, with wooden pins for legs. A few openings were left in the sides of the cabin, which, being covered with greased paper, served for windows. There Mr, Runyan took his first lesson in Dilworth's speller and reader. ty

The first religious meetings were held in the woods, where the people seated themselves on logs or on the ground, as they found most convenient. The first preacher that came to the settlement was a Mr. Cobb. The men dressed in the hunting-shirt and knee-breeches, and the women wore the petticoat and short gown, all made of linsey-woolsey, or homespun cloth.

The principal sports or recreation among the men were had at the log-rollings and cabin and barn-raisings, and consisted chiefly in wrestling, jumping, pitching quoits and target-shooting. Spinning and sewing-parties, apple-bees and corn-huskings, "after the country had been settled a few years, were frequent, where not only the young of both sexes, but often the old and middle-aged, were brought together, when, after completing the work which the company had been invited to perform and partaking of a bountiful supper, they all joined and spent the remainder of the evening, and often the entire night, in plays and dances that formed the social glee. Thedance consisted of

"Nae cotillion brent new frae France," put the genuine old Virginia reel. And those who joined in the dance paid the fiddler, whose charges were fixed and well established at a fi'penny bit, or six and one-fourth cents, a reel.

_ Voorhees' station was situated upon section thirtythree, near the present towns of Lockland and Reading. It was not a block-house, or even stockade, but a large, strong log cabin, which answered for both residence and defence, and was frequently mentioned in the early times, in speech and print, as Voorhees' station. This cabin is said by Mr. Olden to have been situated on the west side of the East fork of Mill creek, several hundred yards east of Mr. Breck's residence in Lockland. He further says: "This old house was torn away in 1817 by Thomas Shepherd, who then owned the place, and the logs sold to Adrian Hageman, who used a portion of them in the erection of a house on lot No. 49, next south of where the new Catholic church stands in Reading. This house is still standing; it was weatherboarded many years ago, and is now occupied by John O'Neal, the constable.

- almost enough in itself to make an effective garrison. Abraham Voorhees was the head and front of it; and with him were his sons-in-law, Thomas Higgins and John Rynearson, with their families, and his five sons, Abraham, Miney, Garret, John and Jacob. They began their improvements in the spring of 1794, and in the fall of the same year moved their families to the station. They were soon after joined by another and still larger family, nearly all of them adult persons. The parents were Henry and Margaret Redinbo, of the Pennsylvania German stock, who removed from Reading, in that State, in the spring of 1795; their eight sons were Solomon (drowned on the journey westward), Frederick, John, Phillip, Samuel, Andrew, Henry and Adam; and the daughters were Ann, Barbara and Margaret. In August of the same year they obtained a deed from JudgeSymmes of the south half of section twenty-seven, west of the Voorhees tract, built a cabin and log barn on the property since owned by Dr. Thomas Wright, and there settled. The parents both lived to the age of ninety-four years, and died in the same year, 1828 or 1829.

The younger Abraham Voorhees was a blacksmith; and as soon as the progress of settlement, or the near prospect of it, would justify, he built a shop. near his cabin, on the east side of the new road running from White's to Runyan's station. Mr. Olden says this shop was "at a point where now stands the dwelling and storehouse of James Browne, on the northeast corner of Main and Columbia streets, in Reading. There he carried on his business for several years, using a hickory stump as an anvil." He also, in partnership with his brother Miney, built and ran a pioneer saw-mill on the west bank of Mull creek, in,what is now Conklin's addition to Lockland. The elder Voorhees laid out upon his land the adjacent village of Reading about 1798, and had it called at first Voorheestown, but allowed it afterward to be named Reading, at the suggestion of the senior 'Redinbo, from the latter's birthplace in the Keystone State.

During the autumn of 1794, William Moore, who was-a great hunter, and who made his home at Covalt's station, on the Little Miami river, while out on one of his hunting excursions, wandered to the Great Lick, as it was then called, about a mile and a half east of White's station, and on the lands now owned by John Hamel, in the southeast quarter of section thirty-two. He there killed a deer, which he skinned, and had prepared the saddle for packing, and while in the act of washing his hands in the brook, and at the same time amusing himself by singing an Indian song he had learned while a captive among the Shawnees, he was suddenly alarmed by a voice joining in the song in the Indian tongue. Heinstantly sprang to his feet and ran for the thick wood on the west, closely pursued by several Indians. As they did not fire, they evidently intended capturing him. The foremost in the pursuit was quite a small Indian, but véry fleet on foot. He was gaining rapidly on Moore, when, fortunately, they came to a large fallen tree, the body of which was some four feet in diameter. Moore placed his hand upon the log and leaped it at one bound. 'The Indian, being unable to perform this feat, was compelled to go round the tree. This gave Moore a fresh start, and after a long and closely contested race, he reached White's station, with the loss of his gun and coat, and also his game.

Early Religion

Baptist society, or religious organization of any kind, in the township. It was formerly a colony dismissed from the Baptist church in Columbia in 1797. Elder James Lee, pastor of the Miami Island church from 1799 to 1801, often preached at Carpenter's run. Mr. Richard Ayers was one of the laymen representing this church at the meetings in 1797-8, to form the Miami Baptist association, and was one of the committee to draft "general principles of faith, practice, and decorum," as the basis of an association. The membership of the Carpenter's run church was reported at the associational meeting in Columbia, September 6, 1799, as thirty-two. The association met with this church in 1801, when it numbered thirteen churches and four hundred and sixty-seven members, of whom one hundred and thirty-one, or more than one-fourth, had been baptized within a year. It is said that a very few members of this church were affected with the "falling" experience during the strange New Light revival of 1801-3 in the Miami country, which is described in our chapter on Springfield township. Some of the early pastors of this church were: Elder John Soward (Seward?) 1800-1; Elder Stephen Gard, 1803; Cyrus Crane, 1811-26 (for one year, 1814, Abraham Griffiths). The Mount Carmel church, whose meeting-house is not far south of the Carpenter's run site, long since superseded the pioneer society.

Some of the early settlers near Montgomery - as the Crists, Tallman, Durkey, and Lackey - organized a church in their neighborhood very early, which was known as the old Sycamore Presbyterian church until 1803, when it changed its designation to the Hopewell church.