Ohio History Journal

EDITORIALANA.

AVERY'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. The second volume of A HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES AND ITS PEOPLE, From the Earliest Records to the Present Time, by Elroy Mc- Kendree Avery, published by the Burrows Brothers Company, Cleveland, Ohio, has been issued by the publishers. The purpose and general plan of this work, which when completed will comprise fifteen volumes, was set forth in the QUARTERLY for April 1905. The second volume fully meets the ambitious and alluring promise of the first volume. The vol- ume before us embraces the period of American Colonies from 1600 to 1660. The various initial settlements are suscinctly portrayed under the titles, among others, of Champlain and New France; Virginia Under the Charter and the Old Dominion; Settlement of Maryland; Massachusetts Bay; The New Netherland; The New Sweden; Connecticut Plantations; with background and settings such as The Growth of Separatism in Eng- land; Annexation and Confederation, Puritan and Heretic. Mr. Avery in this volume gives the reader not only in continued and logical sequence the events of the period in question with the pen of a master, but with- out adding heaviness or prolixity to his results, gives the philosophy and background to the incidents themselves. The author has, as we have be- fore intimated, the eye of an artist, the sentiment of a poet and the thought of a philosopher. These elements are charmingly used as set- tings and interweaving threads to his historical scenes. Mr. Avery might be justly styled "an artist historian," although in his pages accuracy and truth are never sacrificed for word effects. In no work we have ever read of a similar character has there been such a remarkable com- bination of the historical imagination and strict adherence to truth. Mr. Avery marshals the cold and literal facts in the warm colors of a word painter. There are no events in the history of civilization so fraught with tremendous reality and fascinating romance as the story of the initial settlements in America by the varied assortment of races of the Old World. The French, Spaniard, Dutch, Swede and the singularly con- trasted elements of the Anglo Saxon, as evidenced in the Cavaliers of Virginia and Maryland, the Pilgrims of Plymouth and the Puritans of Massachusetts. The contrasting and conflicting aims and accomplish- ments of these various colonists are admirably followed and skillfully (271)

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unraveled by Mr. Avery. The author bestows in turn impartial sympathy

upon the various efforts of each phase of immigration. His chapter on

the Growth of Separatism in England is a lucid and valuable recital of

the conditions in England that led to the religious exilement of the

Pilgrims and Puritans. The familiar story of the voyage of the May-

flower and of its immortal passengers is retold with fresh vigor and

clearness. After reciting the famous compact, signed in the cabin as the

little vessel lay at anchor in Provincetown Harbor, Mr. Avery says:

 

Let there be no mistake. We see here no group of philo-

sophic theorists with a vaunted "social compact." But we do

see practical men of rare good sense, familiar with the Eng-

lish idea of municipal self-government, with political concep-

tions widened by life in republican Holland, using a simple

covenant to frame a state as, sixteen years before, they had

done to form a church. They neither made any laws nor de-

fined the power of any magistrate. The language of the com-

pact, direct and simple as it is, shows traces of the age in which

its framers lived. For example, "dread sovereign lord" was

simply common legal fiction; "king of France" was sixty-two

years behind the truth; and the reference to King James as

the "defender of the faith" has been dubbed a grim Pilgrim

joke. And yet, "in the cabin of the 'Mayflower' humanity re-

covered its rights and instituted government on the basis of

equal laws enacted by all the people for the general good."

Such is the just verdict of George Bancroft.

 

God grant that those who tend the sacred flame

May worthy prove of their forefathers' name.

 

The opportuneness of the time and the relation of the geography of

Ohio to Virginia, call our particular attention to his recounting of the

settlement at "James Towne."

 

The favorable reports of the country brought back by

Gosnold, Pring, and Weymouth attracted the attention of cer-

tain "knights, gentlemen, merchants, and other adventurers"

of London, Bristol, Exeter, and Plymouth, who proposed a

corporation somewhat similar to the famous East India Com-

pany to which Queen Elizabeth had granted a charter. It was

natural that English merchants should adapt the corporation to

the purposes of colonization, for it was a familiar form of sub-

ordinate government that easily lent itself to plans of colonial

development. In fact, at that time, the corporation was a

necessity to successful colonization. With revenue scant, credit

wanting, and corruption prevalent, the government of the

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Tudors and the Stuarts was unequal to the task of developing

new colonies. On the other hand, ventures like those of Raleigh

went to show that such undertakings were beyond the re-

sources of an individual or of a small association of mer-

chants. James I. granted letters patent under which two com-

panies were formed. This charter was the first under which

a permanent English settlement was made in America-the

beginning of the line of historic American constitutional

development.

The year 1607 marks the successful beginning of English coloniza-

tion in America.

On Saturday, the twentieth of December, 1606, and under

sealed orders from the council for Virginia dated ten days be-

fore, three small vessels, the "Goodspeed," the "Sarah Con-

stant," and the "Discovery," sailed from Blackwall, England.

The little fleet carried forty or fifty sailors and "six score"

male emigrants, including fifty-two gentlemen and--a barber.

The following summer the Jamestown settlement was planted.

Mr. Avery with faithful devotion to historical accuracy and with

probable proof, robs Captain John Smith of the halo of his romantic

rescue by Pocahontas. He says:

It was during this month (December, 1607), if at all, that

the romantic incident of Pocahontas saving the life of Captain

John Smith took place. At the court of Powhatan, Smith was

received in royal state and feasted after the Indian fashion as

the central figure of a forthcoming execution. After ceremon-

ious hospitality, two large stones were brought in. The cap-

tive's head was pillowed on the stones and clubmen stood

around ready to play their parts in the expected execution. At

such a moment nothing is certain but the unexpected - at least

in the realm of dramatic fiction. "Pocahontas, the king's

daughter, when no entreaty could prevail, got his head in her

arms, and laid her own upon his to save him from death;

whereat the Emperor was contented he should live to make

him hatchets, and her bells, beads, and copper."

This pretty story of rescue rests solely upon the presenta-

tions of Smith's General Historie of Virginia, published in

1624, after Pocahontas had been Christianized, lionized, married,

and seven years buried. In the earliest printed biography of

Smith, Thomas Fuller, a contemporary, says: "It soundeth

much to the diminution of his deeds, that he alone is the her-

ald to publish and proclaim them." The records written by

Vol. XV-18.

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contemporaries contain no allusion to such service by Poca-

hontas, and the hero's earlier work, A True Relation, pub-

lished in London in 1608, gives a widely different story of his

captivity and release. There is a real suspicion that the real

source of the story was Smith's characteristic inclination to

tell an interesting tale and his natural desire to utilize the in-

terest that the heroine's visit to England had created. Men

often mourn as the image-breaking tendency of modern criti-

cism what is in reality only "the correcting and clarifying in-

fluence of time." The narrative has been our favorite bit of

colonial romance for generations, but many of the later his-

torians refuse to accept it. Like the story of the apocryphal

voyage of Vespucius, it has not been absolutely disproved and

is not without able and valiant defenders.

 

As pertinent to early Ohio history, we give the statement from Mr.

Avery's account, and the accompanying outline maps showing the two

diverse claims to the territory subsequently embraced in Ohio as made

from the two interpretations of the original Virginia Charters.

 

In spite of its voluminous literature, the history of the

genesis of the colony is difficult because of the evil that was

thrown over the enterprise. Spain claimed the Virginia coun-

try, Spanish spies were everywhere, and the London company

guarded its transactions with an oath-bound secrecy. The re-

cently published correspondence between the Spanish king and

his ambassador at London throws a flood of light on this pre-

viously obscure feature of the venture. Zuniga wrote from

London to his master that he had found a confidential person

through whom he would find out what was done in the Vir-

ginia council, and advised that "the bad project should be up-

rooted now while it can be done so easily." A few weeks later,

he wrote: "It will be serving God and your majesty to drive

these villains out from there, hanging them in time which is

short enough for the purpose."

In spite of the claims of King Philip and the espionage

of Zuniga, King James granted a new charter with enlarged

privileges. The new company was styled "The Treasurer and

Company of Adventurers and Planters of Virginia of the City

of London for the first Colony in Virginia." The incorporators

were fifty-six of the London companies or gilds, such as the

company of grocers and the company of butchers, and six hun-

dred and fifty-nine persons mentioned by name in the charter.

The latter ranged from the great lords of the realm to the

fishmongers. Among them were twenty-one peers, ninety-six

knights, twenty-eight esquires, fifty-three captains, fifty-eight

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Editorialana.                        275   gentlemen, one hundred and ten merchants, representatives of the various professions, and citizens unclassified, an imposing array of wealth and influence. The territory granted by the charter extended along the coast two hundred miles each way from Old Point Comfort and "up into the land throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest."

This peculiar expression, "west and northwest," was won- derfully vague and led to serious controversies. It made a difference which line was drawn northwest. If the northwest line was drawn from the southern end of the four hundred miles of coast, and another boundary line was drawn westward from the northern extremity of the coast, the domain thus limited would constitute a triangle of moderate area. If, on the other hand, one line was drawn westerly from the southern of the two points fixed on the coast and the remaining bound- ary was drawn northwesterly from the fixed point north of Old Point Comfort, the included territory would embrace a great part of the continent and extend from sea to sea. This was the construction given by Virginia to the language of the charter. The grant of 1606 declared the limits of Virginia to extend from the seashore one hundred miles inland; the charter of 1609 extended the limit westward to the Pacific. The width of the continent in the latitude of Virginia was vaguely sup- posed to be not much more than a hundred miles. In spite of

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his pedantry, King James, little understood the hidden meaning

of the sea-to-sea extension. Under this charter of 1609, modi-

fied by that of 1612, Virginia held until the formation of the

federal constitution in 1788.

 

In reading of Mr. Avery's work we are tempted to halt and linger at

particularly important and interesting events. The reader reluctantly

leaves his story, which we again commend to both the general reader

and the close student. Both the author, Mr. Avery, and his publishers,

The Burrows Brothers Company, have embarked upon a stupendous

undertaking. This second volume offers indisputable evidence that they

are equal to its accomplishment. We know nothing to compare with it in

the efforts of American publishers for an American history.

 

 

 

ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE.

We pass from the stately splendors of Mr. Avery's description of

a continent's colonization to the graphic portrayal of the quiet rusticity

in the little interior, obscure hamlets of ETNA AND KIRKERSVILLE, Licking

County, Ohio, -- a charming bit of reminiscent retrospect by Morris

Schaff- (Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Boston and New York, 1905.) This

little modest volume of some 138 pages came to our notice as we grazed

among the late issues upon the bookseller's counter. The clear and un-

pretentious style of the author at first caught our eye and then our view

was riveted by the interesting sketches of the unimportant and almost

insignificant life of the early settlers in Ohio. The author does not deal

with great or striking events or distinguished personages. His facile

pen draws with artistic touch and poetic sentiment "the simple life" of

the pioneer country folk.

The township of Etna was organized in 1833, and is in the extreme

southwestern corner of Licking County, Ohio. It is a true rectangle, two

and one-half miles wide and a little over eight miles long, stretching due

east and west on both sides of the National Road that runs through the

middle of it. It is a part of the Refugee Tract, a grant of 100,000 acres

donated by Congress in 1798 to citizens of Canada and Nova Scotia who

abandoned their settlements in consequence of having given aid to the

colonies in the War of the Revolution, allotting to each "in proportion to

the degree of their respective services, sacrifices, and sufferings." The

Refugee tract is a strip four and one-half miles wide and forty-eight miles

long; beginning on the Scioto at Columbus, and running easterly almost

to the Muskingum.

The village of Etna, which reposes in the middle of the township

and from which it gets its name, was laid out by Lyman Turrell, a Ver-

monter, in 1832, the lots selling at from $3.00 to $5.00 apiece. "If there be

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a place in this world that can lay an undisputed claim to being rural if not

obscure, I firmly believe it is my native township of Etna. And yet the

clouds float over it in beautiful colors, the stars come out joyfully, the

dew falls, the corn ripens, and the sun shines sweetly there." Between

1815 and 1825 emigrants poured like a tide into Central Ohio, and by

1830 there were enough settlers in Etna to ask for a local government

of their own. Mr. Schaff describes the civil features of the village gov-

ernment in which the justice of the peace was the highest and most

important official-- and the attainment to which office was the height of

the communal ambition. He pictures the administration of justice and the

settlement of legal disputations. Mr. Schaff's father came from Belmont

County, Ohio, in the winter of 1829 or 1830, and after "declining to buy

what is now a part of the great city of Columbus, bought a farm in Etna."

Upon that farm on December 29, 1840, the author was born and there

spent his early boyhood days until about the age of ten when the family

moved to near the village of Kirkersville, which town, some four miles

from Etna, was founded about 1831 and was named for Thomas Kirker,

acting Governor of Ohio in 1808.

"It would be difficult to portray the simplicity and naturalness of

society as it was in Etna when I was a boy, say in 1845 to 1850. There

was no class founded on wealth, no one distinguished by either learning,

ancestry, achievement, or pretentious estate,-we were all on the same

level, wore the same homemade clothes, read or studied in dimly lighted

rooms or by the light of wood fires, looked each other in the face when

we met at each other's doors, all unconscious of that restless kingdom

known as society, and in blessed, happy ignorance of what is now called

refinement and culture, and in a perfect freedom from the weakening, tor-

menting, pessimistic fastidiousness that afflicts modern life. It is true

there were the asperities and crudeness of uncut marble about all social

life, but viewed in the light of philosophy born of experience and close

observation of this drama called life, the conditions might almost appear

ideal."

He describes the social life, the establishment of the churches by

the different denominations and the rigid lines that separated the various

religious beliefs.

"I was present also at the dedication of the Disciples, commonly

known as Campbellite church, that stands on the north side of Licking, in

the angle formed by York street and the Refugee Road, in 1856. It was

a great occasion; for Alexander Campbell, the founder of the church

itself, was present, and hundreds of people, old and young, from far and

near, came to see that wonderful man. He was very tall, had white

bristling hair, worn in the Andrew Jackson style, and very dark, lively

black eyes overarched with mantling white eyebrows."

In striking contrast to the ecclesiastical features of this little society

was the grandiose military spectacle of the village militia.

"In my early boyhood, about the time of the Mexican War, there

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was a militia company in Etna. The hat they wore was very much like,

if not an exact copy of, the one worn at West Point, except that it had

a white and red pompon somewhat larger than the black one worn by the

cadets. In my eyes, as this company paraded west of the schoolhouse

in Etna village, they looked like warriors of many a bloody field; and

when they came marching along with their flint-lock muskets with savage-

looking fixed bayonets, -keeping step to two screaming fifes, the fifers

swaying proudly, and a bass drum beaten in lofty style by Henry Neff, a

heavy-browed Pennsylvanian, one of the village carpenters, -where is the

rustic heart that would not beat fast at such a spectacle of martial glory?

Thumping away with great flourishes and casting from time to time a

fierce look at us small boys chasing along in bulging-eyed awe, Mr. Neff

was something immense. I have seen Generals Scott, Grant, McClellan,

Sherman, Sheridan and all the great generals who led the gallant old

Army of the Potomac, but none of them were ever half so grand, in my

eyes, as Henry Neff marching at the head of the militia company, Captain

James Conine commanding."

Our city high school graduate of to-day would smile at the meagre

pedagogical opportunities that Mr. Schaff enjoyed a little more than half

a century ago. "The village schoolmaster taught nothing beyond arith-

metic, reading, geography, and elementary grammar; he had never had

the opportunity to fit himself to teach more. But he had walked the up-

ward winding ways and paths of many virtues, -virtues whose paths and

ways are greener than the ways and paths of abstract sciences; he taught

us all to tell the truth, to have patience, to have courage, and to be respect-

ful to our elders. He won many a boy's heart, and he won mine. I

used to write to him when I was at West Point, and more than once,

as I walked my post in the dead hours of night, I remembered him, and

wished that, when the day came for me to graduate, he might be present

and share my pleasure."

Mr. Schaff, with an intense love of nature inborn and deeply fostered

by his early environment and with the sympathy and the poetic feeling that

reminds us of Thoreau, describes the forests, the fields, the trees, the

banks and the runs, the swamps and their borders, the flowers and the

birds and the game of those early days. "There is nothing so everlast-

ingly and sweetly companionable as brooks and country roads. And in

the mind of the farmer's boy who aimlessly wanders along their winding

banks, or barefooted, hatless, and oftentimes coatless, loiters along their

dusty way, what seeds of delicious memories they sow! He never forgets

the shallow fishing-hole with its little poising-dace, nor does he forget the

silent, outstretching old road with its barways leading into quiet pastures,

its roadside bushes and persistent flowers, the vagrant thistle with its

royally tinted and girded bloom where bumble-bees, idler than himself,

bury themselves in dreamy sleep, and where the little yellow-bird feeds

when autumn comes on, mounting thence as he draws too near, and

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throwing back cheerily to him its delicately undulating notes. Yes, brooks,

lanes, and country roads, you carry mankind's sweetest memories."

Mr. Schaff refers to the famous Bloody Run Swamp. "The head

of this swamp, now practically all cleared fields, when I was a boy was

about a half mile east of Kirkersville and reached to the old bed of

Licking Creek, a distance of two and a half miles. It was about a half

mile wide and was a thickly matted growth of willows, young elms, water

beeches and alders. In the middle were several islands covered with big

timber where the last of the wild turkeys roosted. Except in winter,

when it was frozen over, it was difficult, and when the Bloody Run was

high, it was dangerous to penetrate it, so deep and treacherous was the

mud. I have no doubt that it was made originally by beavers damming

Bloody Run, and later widely extended by the accumulation of heavy

drifts in Licking."

This swamp, long since disappeared, was in its day fraught with

historic memories. "Christopher Gist, the first white man, except captives

among the Indians passed by the swamp in 1751. In his diary he says he

camped at the Big Lake, now the Reservoir, and on the 15th of May 'set

out from the Great Swamp'."

Of the prehistoric features of his native village, Mr. Schaff says:

"So far as I know there is but one prehistoric relic in the town, and

that is in the Hampton woods, on the Fairfield line, and marked by a

circle on the map. It is a small circular fort, with walls about three

feet high and about thirty feet in diameter. In my day it was in the

heart of heavy oak timber, just on the divide between the waters flowing

north to the-Licking Valley and those bearing off to the southwest to

find their way into Poplar Creek, and then on to the Scioto. It is easy

to speculate over its location, and the reasons in the minds of its builders

and defenders; but it has occurred to me that perhaps the mound builders

of Circleville, on their way to the old fort at Newark, came up the Scioto

to the mouth of Big Belly, thence up the Walnut to the mouth of Poplar

Creek, which they followed in their canoes to the swamp at its head,

within a few miles of this spot. Somewhere on their line of portage to

Licking a defense of some kind may have been necessary, and maybe that

was the reason for its location; or it may have been thrown up during

a campaign.

Perhaps the most valuable feature of Mr. Schaff's little volume is

his account of the projection and building of the National Road, the

Appian Way of the early Middle West.*

"In the first place, long before a pioneer traversed the woods, the

Indians were coming and going from one hunting-ground to another; and

before them the mound-builders, and before the mound-builders, the

 

*A very complete and admirable account of the building of this

road written by Mr. Archer Butler Hulbert will be found in the 9th

volume of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical publications.

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buffalo. Starting then with the latter, we have the prairie meadows on

the Darby plains west of and about Columbus, and at Gratiot and along

the Muskingum salt wells or salt licks, where the buffalo and elk would

go in great numbers from their feeding grounds. Would they not natur-

ally follow the South Fork, going east after crossing the divide of Black

Lick? Besides, it is the very shortest line of travel. Again, the early

surveys of the National Road show an ancient mound on the east bank

of the Big Walnut, where it is crossed by the National Road. This

mound was built and the country around it occupied in all probability

about the same time as the celebrated works at Newark. Would not

the people of these communities visit back and forth, and would they

not follow the trails the buffalo had already made through the forest?

Furthermore, the beaver dam on the Heffner, now the Essex farm, to

be mentioned more particularly later, would it not draw the Indians going

from Black Lick and Big Walnut to the hunting-ground around the great

Bloody Run Swamp?. And what was more, Flint Ridge, in the eastern

part of the county, lies almost due east and on the very line of the old

road, where for ages the Indians got the material for their flints; would

it not draw them for many a mile, just as the salt licks on the other side

of it drew the buffalo and elk? Moreover, and above all, for man and

beast it offered the only easy passage between Bloody Run Swamp.

Bloody Run, and the South Fork of Licking. These are all mere guesses,

but I think fairly well based on plausible theories. But however all this

may be, the most of the pioneers of Etna came in over this old 'Hebron'

dirt road, a glorious passageway beneath majestic timber."

"The present generation, save those reared along it, are completely

ignorant of its history, and therefore cannot realize how great a part

this highway played in the nation's early life."

"To fully appreciate its national importance, it must be borne in

mind that in the early days of our country the commerce of the Missis-

sippi and Ohio valleys, obeying the law of commercial gravity, was find-

ing its markets down the Mississippi, and that there was wide and deep

political discontent over the indifference of New England and the middle

coast states to the welfare of the West; and so rapidly were these alienat-

ing forces increasing, that the chances are that, had its construction been

delayed twenty years, the West would have broken from the East, and

organized an independent government with the capital at Louisville, St.

Louis, or New Orleans."

"At once on its completion as far as the Ohio River, a mighty tide

of emigration set in, as though a magic bugle had been heard from the

river's banks, or from the top of the Alleghanies. High and low, and

everywhere among the mountains and down over the misty Blue Ridge

of old Virginia, the people heard of it, and with a better faith than that

of the Crusaders, teams were harnessed, the household property of manor-

houses as well as of many a cabin was packed, a good-by was waved to

the old home, and off they started for the National Road."

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"Built as it was by the government, brushing the mighty trees out

of its path as though they were reeds, carrying its level high over ravines

and marshes and surging creeks, cutting boldly down through hills, march-

ing on mile after mile, it possessed then, as it possesses now, the myster-

ious power of statehood; making every one who traveled it feel that in

no sense was he an intruder, but inspiring him, on the contrary, with a

feeling of self-respect and a lofty national pride. It was called the

National and United States Road, and brought the government as a

concrete reality for the first time to the immigrants, and sons of the

Revolutionary soldiers. It is interesting to imagine the expression on

their faces, as, emerging from some narrow, winding, grass-grown, muddy

country road, this great highway broke on their vision for the first time.

Its royal breadth; its bridges of cut stone spanning the runs and creeks,

their guards carried up three and a half feet, with a wide, heavy coping;

its defiance of every obstacle, and the obvious thoroughness of its con-

struction and disregard of expense, must have made their simple hearts

beat fast. The falling in, too, with people from all quarters of the country

must have had a quickening effect on the natures of these children of

provincialism, born in little, isolated, secluded cabins. It must have been

like a draught of champagne to them when they met the stages, heard

their echoing horns, and caught for the first time that look of superiority

and indifference which personages of average importance are likely to

assume when traveling on stages or in Pullman cars. Surely, as they

trudged on in their surprise and exultation, the National Road must have

seemed to them, not an ordinary highway, but something endowed with

might. But a youthful spirit, the genius of the land, was walking at

their side, and as the stages dashed westward, with kindling hopes and

animated faces they followed on."

"As soon as the road was located, the land all along it was rushed

into the market in lots to suit purchasers. Some bought whole sections,

others a few acres, and with almost magical speed the woods were peo-

pled. The building of the road itself gave employment to many men and

teams, as all the stone for bridges and for macadamizing had to be

hauled from quarries eight or ten miles distant. It must have been a

busy scene, as the road made its way between Kirkersville and Etna.

The axemen went first, cutting a swath eighty feet wide through the

timber; others, as fast as the trees fell, cut them into logs which teams

dragged off to one side. Men then grubbed around the huge stumps

till they could be pried up, when they followed their magnificent trunks,

to rot under the shade of their more fortunate fellows. Then came

ploughs and scrapers, till the grading was done. Hundreds of men found

employment, and under their labor the road almost walked across the

land. Often when we boys could get our mother into a reminiscent mood

(how provoking aged people are who have had thrilling experiences: and

sailors and soldiers, too, who have seen real war and have behaved with

courage, - how provoking they are to children in letting go only in little

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driblets of what is so interesting in their lives!), when we could induce

the dear old lady to tell about those days, how delightful was her story!

She would tell us how the camp-fires of the workmen lighted up the

night all along the line; about the bustle, the teams coming and going,

and on Sundays the drunken carousals and rioting; and finally the awful

death of so many of them by the scourge of cholera which swept the

entire country. Well, we never wanted to hear much about the funeral

processions that were remembered so distinctly, while our mother never

remembered half enough about the fights to suit us."

"As fast as the road was completed the stream of emigrants-we

called them 'movers'-began, which, for over thirty years, poured along

it. My remembrance begins about 1845 or 1846, and at that time and

till 1852 the stream that had set in in 1830 poured on. I do not believe

that from the last of March till the snow began to fall, the farmer's boy

ever looked off from the fields to the road that his eye did not fall on the

white canvass-covered wagons of the movers."

Here is the stage time-table for the winter arrangement of 1835-6.

"The Mail Pilot Line leaves Columbus for Wheeling daily at 6

A. M., reaching Zanesville at 1 P. M. and Wheeling at 6 A. M. next

morning.

"The Good Intent Line leaves Columbus for Wheeling daily at 6

P. M., through in 20 hours to Wheeling (127 miles), in time for stages

for Baltimore and Philadelphia."

"What would I not give to witness once more the arrival of the

stage at 'Kirk.' Lo! the vanished past is beckoning, and behold, I am

on the broad porch of the Kirkersville tavern, and I hear the rumble of a

stage coming through the covered bridge at the east end of the town.

There the horn blows and it is coming at a round gait. The seats on

top are full, and a young lad, one about my own age, sits up there, on

easy terms with his elders. What a fortunate boy! It is the great south-

western mail. A fresh, glistening team-big roans-emerges from the

wide-open door of the old, low, whitewashed, broad-fronted tavern barn,

and steps grandly forward, ready to replace the incoming team. The

usual crowd of stable boys and idle loungers are standing around; towns-

people and those who have come in to trade gather also, for the arrival

of the stage is the one important event in the life of Kirkersville. Uncle

Davy Neiswonder, a middle-sized man with rubicund, attractive counte-

nance, his hair as white as snow, contrasting well with his rosy cheeks,

appears, hat in hand, to welcome the guests or exchange greetings with

the passengers. The stage rolls up at a swinging trot, the driver, Frank

Jackson, grim and dignified, draws up his leaders; their breasts are white

with foam from champing bits, and from their panting sides perspiration

rises in feathery steam; he throws down the lines, stable boys fly to

unhitch, the bay team moves off proudly, the fresh relay team wheels

into their places, the lines are tossed up to the driver, who gathers them

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and calls out, 'Let them go'; and the superb roan leaders, that have been

prancing, waiting for the word, dash off."

But after all Kirkersville attained to something more than local

fame.

"It was in the summer of 1865, just after the end of the Great

Rebellion, when I was stationed at Watertown arsenal near Boston.

Colonel Kingsbury, our commanding officer, was a classmate of General

Sherman; and when the latter came to Boston, he hurried out to the

arsenal to see his old cadet friend. During the visit our Colonel gave

him a fine dinner, to which all of us young bachelors were invited. While

at the table Sherman, who talked as usual most familiarly and interest-

ingly, said to Major Shunk who sat just opposite me, 'Well, Major, I

knew your father, Governor Shunk of Pennsylvania,' and after some in-

quiries in regard to the Major's family, turned his emitting dark brown

eyes on me and asked in his customary direct manner, 'Well, Captain,

where are you from?' Whereupon all the youngsters lowered their eyes

into their plates with the broadest grins, for only a short time before

Major Shunk, in buying a series of maps, had told the book agent that

he would take them, that he found them sufficiently minute in their deline-

ation as they gave Kirkersville, and they had had the usual fun out of

it. With some embarrassment I answered, 'General, I have the honor to

come from the adjoining county to yours. You are from Fairfield, I am

from  Licking; but I don't suppose you ever heard of my town--it's

Kirkersville.' 'Kirkersville!' exclaimed Sherman with enthusiasm, 'Kirk-

ersville! Why, I've been there many a time. I know it well; it had the

biggest pigeon roost in the world,' and he brought his hand down with

a bang. I wore a smile of triumph as I looked up and down the table."

And here Mr. Schaff proudly calls attention to a little map in his

book in which is presented a circle with a radius of twenty miles of

which Kirkersville is the centre and within the circumference of which

circle there were born or during their lives resided sixteen characters of

more or less national renown. Among them were Generals W. T. Sher-

man, P. H. Sheridan, W. T. Rosecrans, Irwin McDowell, S. R. Curtis,

Charles Griffin, C. R. Woods and B. W. Brice; Justice W. B. Woods of

the United State Supreme Court, Senator Allen G. Thurman, of Ohio,

Samuel S. Cox, member of Congress, Willard Warner, United States

Senator from Alabama, James F. Wilson of Iowa, James B. Howell,

United States senator from Iowa, and Thomas Ewing, the distinguished

orator governor of Ohio.

 

ANCIENT INDIAN GIANTS.

The Baltimore American is responsible for the following interest-

ing article concerning what it designates as prehistoric Indian giants.

Gigantic skeletons of prehistoric Indians, nearly eight feet tall, have

been discovered along the banks of the Choptank River. Maryland, by

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284        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

employes of the Maryland Academy of Science. The remains are at the

Academy's building, in Franklin Street, where they are being articulated

and restored by the Academy expert, John Widgeon, colored. They

will be placed on public exhibition early in the fall.

The collection comprises eight skeletons, of which some are women

and children. They are not all complete, but all the larger bones have

been found, and there is at least one complete specimen of an adult man.

The excavations were in progress for months, and the discovery is con-

sidered one of the most important, from the standpoint of anthropology,

in Maryland in a number of years. The remains are believed to be at

least one thousand years old. The formation of the ground above and

the location of the graves give evidence of this. During the excavations

the remains of camps of later Indians were revealed. These consisted of

oyster shell heaps, charred and burned earth and fragments of cooking

utensils. These discoveries were made fully ten feet above the graves

which contained the gigantic skeletons.

There have been other discoveries in Maryland of remains of men

of tremendous stature. A skeleton was discovered at Ocean City several

years ago which measured a fraction over seven feet, six inches. This

skeleton was interred in a regular burying mound, and beads manufac-

tured by white men were found upon it. This dead Indian was probably

one of the tribe mentioned by Captain John Smith, who, in July, 1608,

made a voyage of exploration of the Chesapeake Bay.

In speaking of Indians in the history which he subsequently wrote,

Captain Smith said of this tribe, called Susquehanocks:  "But to pro-

ceed, sixty of these Susquehanocks came to us with skins, bowes, arrowes,

targets, beads, swords and tobacco pipes for presents. Such great and

well-proportioned men are seldom seen, for they seemed like giants to

the English, yes, and to the neighbors, yet seemed an honest and simple

disposition, and with much adoe were restrained from adoring us as gods.

These are the strangest people of all these countries, both in language

and attire, for their language it may well become their proportions, sound-

ing from them as a voice in a vault.

"Their attire is the skinnes of beares and wolves, some have cos-

sacks made of beare's heads and skinnes that a man's head goes through

the skinnes neck and the eares of the bear fastened to his shoulders, the

nose and teeth hanging down his breast, another beares face split behind

him, and at the end of the nose hung a pawe, the halfe sleeves coming

to the elbows were the necks and beares and the arms through the mouth

with pawes hanging at their noses.

"One had the head of a wolfe hanging in a chaine for a jewel, his

tobacco pipe three-quarters of a yard long, prettily carved with a bird,

a deare or some such device, at the great end sufficient to beat out one's

braines; with bowes, arrowes and clubs suitable to their greatness. These

are scarce known to Powhattan. They can make near 600 able men and

are pallisaeded in their towns to defend them from the Massowmeks, their

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Editorialania.                      285

 

mortal enemies. Five of their chief Werowances came aboard us and

crossed the bay in their barge. The picture of the greatest of them is

signified in the mappe.

"The calfe of whose leg was three-quarters of a yard about, and

all of the rest of his limbs so answerable to that proportion that he seemed

the goodliest man we ever beheld. His hayre, the one side was long, the

other close shore, with a ridge over his crown like a cockes comb. His

arrows were five quarters long, headed with the splinters of a white

crystal like stone, in forme of a heart an inch broad and an inch and a

half long or more. These he wore in a wooleves skinne at his back for

a quiver, his bowe in the one hand and his clubbe in the other as is

described."

An evidence which seems to bear out the supposition that the skele-

tons found are of the same tribe was that one of the skulls found had

a large heart-shaped arrow imbedded in it.

At the point on the Choptank where the remains were found there

are steep shelving cliffs of sand and gravel that extend to the water's

edge. Beneath this bank is a layer of marl. The graves are in the sand

a few feet above the hard marl, and have deposits of between twenty and

thirty feet of sand and gravel above them. A peculiar feature of the

discovery is the charred state of the bones of the women and children.

This seems to indicate that the ancient Indians cremated the bodies of all

except their warriors. The wet resting place of the bones for so many

centuries has made them very soft and fragile, and it was with the greatest

difficulty that they were removed.

The work was done under the supervision of Widgeon, who has

done most of the collecting for the Academy for a number of years.

Since his work on the Choptank he has been to the West Indies and made

a splendid collection of several thousand specimens of insects, which Prof.

Uhler has at his home and which he is classifying.

 

 

 

HISTORY OF SERPENT MOUND.

Late in the fall of 1905 the Secretary of the Ohio State Archaeo-

logical and Historical Society at the request of the trustees of the society

prepared a little volume of 125 pages entitled, "THE SERPENT MOUND,

ADAMS COUNTY, OHIO. The mystery of the mound and history of the

serpent. Various theories of the effigy mounds and the mound builders."

This monograph was published by the society in cloth and paper editions

which are sold at prices of 50c and $1.00 for paper and cloth binding

respectively. The author who has made many visits during the past few

years to the mound, has been more and more impressed with its mystery

and significance. Archeologists who have given the matter attention have

pretty generally agreed that it must have been built for purposes of

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286        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

worship. It may have been the great religious temple of the mound

builders for the Ohio Valley. The book gives a full account of the

rescue of the mound from destruction, by Prof. F. W. Putnam, the

eminent American archaeologist of Cambridge, Mass. Professor Putnam

succeeded in interesting some worthy and philanthropic ladies of Boston

who purchased the property, restored it and presented it to the Peabody

Museum. The latter institution subsequently transferred it to the trus-

tees of Harvard University who in turn (1900) deeded it to the Ohio

State Archaeological and Historical Society under whose care and control

it now remains. This wonderful and awe-inspiring relic of the mound

builders is the greatest of its kind in magnitude and mystery in the

entire territory in which the mound builders of America seemed to have

found field for their strange monuments. In this volume the author

gives not only a complete and accurate description of the serpent but also

the various theories advanced by the leading archaeological writers and

students upon its origin, age and use. A large portion of the volume is

further devoted to the worship of the serpent, perhaps the primal form

of worship in the most primitive stage of nearly every race. The little

volume has met with a most welcome reception not only by students and

scholars but the general reader who is interested in the curious and inex-

plicable. The author has devoted much careful attention to the literature

on the worship of the serpent and has consulted nearly all of the authori-

ties now accessible upon this fascinating subject. The mound was first

described by Squier and Davis in their monumental volume on the mounds

of the Mississippi Valley and which was published about 1848 under the

auspices of the Smithsonian Institute. The monthly publication known

as RECORDS OF THE PAST, published in Washington, D. C., and edited by

Professor G. Frederick Wright and Mr. Frederick Bennett Wright, in its

April number presents a very complete and complimentary review of the

book, reproducing many of its illustrations. In conclusion the reviewer

says: "Much could he written as to the various theories held by differ-

ent people, but a very good idea has been given by Mr. Randall of the

most commonly accepted theory by the persons who have studied the

subject carefully. Altogether this little book is the most authoritative

treatise upon the Serpent Mound of Ohio which we have seen, and we

can confidently recommend it to the circle of readers of the RECORDS OF

THE PAST."

 

 

THE OHIO CANALS.

Another volume issued by the Ohio State Archaeological and His-

torical Society late in the fall of 1905 and which has not yet been noticed

in the pages of the Quarterly is the "HISTORY OF THE OHIO CANALS; their

construction, cost, use and partial abandonement." This volume contain-

ing some 200 pages is the result of the studies of two post-graduate

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Editorialana.                        287

 

students of the Ohio State University, Mr. C. P. McClelland and Mr.

C. C. Huntington, working under the direction of Professor J. E. Hagerty

of the Department of Political Science and Economics, Ohio State Uni-

versity, and by whom the preface is written. In an introductory note

by the Secretary of the Society it is said: "This monograph does not

attempt, of course, to discuss in any way the question of the policy of

the State as to the retention or abandonment of the canals. The pur-

pose has simply been to put forth in concise and accurate manner all

the data necessary for a thorough understanding of the constructive,

financial and economic history of the Ohio canals."

Probably no other single publication presents in so concise and

complete a manner all the information concerning the various features of

the history and construction and use of the canals as does this volume.

It treats exhaustively of the cost to the state, method of raising the

money, manner of building, extent of traffic and travel upon the same;

the industrial and economic effect, both direct and indirect, upon the state.

There are complete tables of the financial features of the canals, rates

of toll and so on for each successive year from 1827 to the present time.

An excellent map of the Ohio canals, proposed, existing and abandoned,

drawn by Mr. A. H. Sawyer of the Canal Commissioner's office accom-

panies the little volume. For many years there has been a great demand

for the varied information which this little volume supplies. It is sold

by the society at the prices of 50 cents and $1.00 for paper and cloth

editions respectively.

 

 

ELECTRIC RAILROAD TO SERPENT MOUND.

We have received a prospectus setting forth the proposed electric

railroad which is to be built from Hillsboro, Highland County, through

Peebles and West Union, Adams County, to Aberdeen, Brown County,

and touching at many intervening towns. This project particularly in-

terests the members and friends of the Ohio State Archaeological and His-

torical Society, as the road will pass the entrance of the Serpent Mound

Park, thereby rendering Serpent Mound accessible in a manner which

has never before existed. As it is now it can be reached only by

vehicle travel from Peebles, the nearest railway station some six miles

distant. Inconvenient as its location now is, hundreds visit it each year

but with the proposed methods of approach the number of visitors will

be vastly increased and the interest taken in this wonderful pre-historic

monument will be greatly extended. Those of a highly sentimental and

poetic temperament may be somewhat "shocked" if indeed they do not

lament, that this curious earth structure of a vanished race is to be a

side station of the  electric currents of modern rapid transit. But the

advance of modern conveniences is no respecter of persons, existing or

extinct. It is a far cry from the centuries ago when the Mound Builders

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288        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

erected their temple on the hilltop to the day of the traction car. But

that car like the one of Juggernaut is the irresistible chariot of the

present that ruthlessly rolls over the veneration for the past.

The pamphlet prospectus in question devotes several pages to the

history and description of the mound and properly presents it as one of

the leading features which will make the proposed traction line a valuable

and paying institution. The pamphlet is published at Peebles, Ohio, by

the Hillsboro, Belfast and Peebles Promoters' Company. It can be

secured for the asking by addressing Mr. P. M. Hughes, president of the

Company, Lovett, Ohio, Mr. W. B. Cochran, secretary of the company,

Hillsboro, Ohio, or Mr. S. M. Rucker, one of the directors, Peebles, Ohio.

 

 

 

NYE FAMILY REUNION AT MARIETTA.

We have received through the courtesy of Miss Minna Tupper Nye

of Brooklyn, New York, a handsomely published pamphlet of 100 pages

or more giving the proceedings of the third annual reunion of the Nye

Family of America, held at Marietta, Ohio, August 16, 17 and 18, 1905.

Benjamin Nye of Bedlenden, Kent county, England, was the first to come

to America as early as 1637. His numerous descendants are now in every

state and territory of our country. Among the first pioneers into the Ohio

valley after the Revolution were Ichabod Nye of Tolland, Connecticut, a

soldier of the Revolution, with his family. They settled in Marietta in

1788 where Mr. Nye resided until his death in 1840. From the descend-

ants of this early settler a very cordial invitation was extended to the

Nye Family Association to hold the third annual reunion in Marietta.

The eight branches of the Ichabod family are scattered from the Medi-

terranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean and yet not one of these branches

failed in showing their loyalty and devotion by contributing in some way

to the entertainment. Great interest was sustained throughout all the

meetings. The leading citizens of Marietta joined with the family in

extending hospitality to the visiting guests. Mr. James W. Nye of

Marietta was the local chairman and a most interesting and successful

program was carried out. Mr. James W. Nye welcomed his family

guests with a most pleasing and appropriate address in which he said:

"On the walls at the relic room, hangs a banner bearing the following

inscription, taken from an address delivered here in 1888: 'The paths

from the heights of Abraham led to Independence Hall. Independence

Hall led finally to Yorktown, and Yorktown guided the footsteps of your

fathers to Marietta. This, my countrymen, then, is the lesson which I

read here.' This refers to the little band of stalwart men and brave

women, who in 1788, left their New England homes, and turning their

faces westward, journeyed by the crude means then in use, in search of

new homes, in the then unknown wilds of the territory northwest of the

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Editorialana.                        289

 

Ohio river, this locality being their objective point." In that initial land

of Ohio pilgrims were General Benjamin Tupper, born at Sharon, Massa-

chusetts, in 1738, one of the directors of the Ohio Company, and Colonel

Ichabod Nye, born at Tolland, Connecticut, in 1762. Mr. S. Curtis Smith

of Newton, Massachusetts, responded to the address of welcome. Mr.

George Nye of Chillicothe, Ohio, the oldest living member of the Icha-

bod Nye family, (78) prepared a paper for this occasion entitled, "The

Ohio Company." Miss Martha Sproat of Chillicothe, Ohio, read a paper

written by Miss Theodore D. Dale of Montclair, New Jersey, on Marietta.

Hon. David J. Nye of Elyria, Ohio, delivered a very interesting and in-

structive address on the "Beginnings of Ohio." Mr. William L. Nye of

Sandwich, Massachusetts, read an excellent paper upon "Sandwich" which

was the first settling town in the southeast corner of Massachusetts of

the first Nye immigrant in 1637. Miss Minna Tupper Nye read an ex-

tended sketch of Minerva Tupper Nye, wife of Ichabod Nye, the pioneer

who was her (Minna's) grandmother. Minerva Tupper Nye was born in

Chesterfield, Massachusetts, in 1764, the daughter of General Benjamin

Tupper, a noted soldier of the Revolution. In 1784 she was married in

Chesterfield to Ichabod Nye, a young soldier of the Revolution. When

in 1788 General Tupper brought his family to the New Ohio, with him as

part of his family came Ichabod Nye, his wife, Minerva, and their small

children, Horace, 2 year old, and Panthea, aged six months.. The journey

of this family from Chesterfield, which they left in June, to Marietta,

which they reached on the 6th of July (1788) is described in detail by

Miss Minna Nye from the journals and letters of the participants. The

paper is a unique contribution to early Ohio History.

Mrs. Sarah M. McGirr of Marietta presented a paper concerning her

great-grandfather, Ebenezer Nye, a pioneer of Marietta in 1790. Many

other papers were read and addresses made and the proceedings were

interspersed with musical selections and social gatherings. The third

reunion of the Nye family at Marietta was an event of much historical

importance and we do not know of any monograph that will excel this

pamphlet of the proceedings, in giving a first hand view of the termina-

tion at Marietta of that second Mayflower voyage, the journey of the

galley Adventure which came to port on the eventful day of April 8, 1788.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vol. 15-19.

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