Ohio History Journal

ULYSSES A. PLYLEY

 

 

BY FRANK WARNER, M. D., COLUMBUS, OHIO

 

On the 19th of May, 1930, Ulysses A. Plyley died at

the age of 85 years. He was born in the house in which

he died. This house is located on Plyley's Ridge, a few

miles west of Chillicothe, Ohio, on the pike leading to

Greenfield. He was the last child to occupy this old

homestead of his father, William Plyley, who had lived

there through his entire married life and had raised

eight children. The eldest child, Clinton, was born there

June 20, 1827, and lived until May 8, 1916. His son,

Lindley, now lives across the road in the ancestral home

established in about the year 1800 by his great grand-

parents, Casper and Margaret (Gossard) Plyley, who

came from Eastern Pennsylvania and settled upon this

plateau which afterwards came to be known as Plyley's

Ridge, and is still so designated. These people were

sturdy Dutch descendants. With their energetic and

economic habits they laid the foundation for a prosper-

ous future, not alone for themselves but for those mem-

bers of the family they left behind; for they raised a

large family and provided them with farms as they

reached maturity and married.  Like all these early

pioneers, it was not without many hardships and heart-

aches that a sure and prosperous footing was secured.

In their early years, it was necessary for the boys to go

barefooted in winter. It was not long, however, until

this economic difficulty was overcome; then they could

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Ulysses A. Plyley            201

not only properly clothe the boys but found satisfaction

and laudable pride in the fact that some farmers living

in the more fertile valleys were obliged to come to the

less productive hills to borrow money.

Plyley's Ridge is scarcely a mile wide and perhaps

four miles long. It is situated between two narrow val-

leys made by the waters of the North Fork of Paint

Creek on the north and Owl Creek on the south. It

rises some three hundred feet above the valleys below,

the scenery being beautiful from this height. Mount

Logan and the range of hills extending north of it are in

plain evidence from certain parts of the plateau and af-

ford a beautiful view. The inspiring range of hills on

which is situated Maple Grove Hotel is seen on the

north; and range after range of hills, seemingly piled

one upon another, looms on the south.

If these Pennsylvania Dutch emigrants arrived on

this ridge in the early hours of the morning, in the early

days of the opening of the nineteenth century, and ob-

served the glorious sunlit hills all about them, no won-

der they concluded to tarry there and found their future

home.

It not only afforded beautiful scenery about them

but the elevation took them above the valleys which were

often fever-infected. It was harder to dig a living from

the poorer soil of the hills than from the black, rich and

thick soil of the fertile valleys below them. But there

was a compensation in the better health these upland

people usually enjoyed. The malaria-infected valleys

were a constant menace to their inhabitants. At that

time, it was supposed that a malarial atmosphere settled

down into the valleys, covering them and their inhab-

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202      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

itants and causing malarial fevers. Now we under-

stand what they did not: that a certain species of mos-

quito, the anopheles, is responsible for these malarial

infections, and that mosquitoes develop only around

stagnant water. On the hills, the only water the resi-

dents usually had was from the wells they dug. It is

true, an infected mosquito may fly from its stagnant

breeding-pool onto hills, yet its flying range seldom ex-

ceeds one-half mile and if it found no stagnant water

on the hilltop, it would not likely repeat its flight after

returning to its breeding-place below.

The father of Ulysses, William Plyley, was born in

1800 and died March 25, 1892. Whether he was born

on the Ridge or brought as an infant at the time of his

parents' emigration from Pennsylvania in 1800, is un-

certain. However that may be, he continued to live, as

stated, in the same house he founded at the time of his

marriage, until the time of his death. His wife, Mar-

garet Zimmerman, died February 14, 1881, at the age of

74 years. The death of Ulysses Plyley closes this home

to the Plyley family after this wonderfully long period

of occupancy. As long a period as this is to occupy one

house, we must remember that William Plyley had lived

across the road with his parents a quarter of a century

before his marriage and the building of this new home

for his bride and himself.

Casper Plyley, the father of William, and the grand-

father of Ulysses, founded the Ridge home, as stated,

in 1800. He was born in 1762; fought through the

War of the Revolution, boy as he was; came to his new

home in the Northwest Territory, out of which was soon

carved the State of Ohio, lived until his death in 1848, at

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Ulysses A. Plyley            203

the age of 86, in his new home which is still occupied by

his great-grandson, Lindlay Plyley. Casper's wife,

Margaret Gossard, died in 1836 at the age of 60 years.

They, with many of the Plyleys, are buried in the nearby

peaceful Concord Cemetery.

In their new location, they must have encountered

for a number of years hardships of which they little

dreamed. They were surrounded by Indians, bears and

wolves for many years after their arrival. I do not

know that they were ill-used by the Indians or that they

had any especially exciting encounters with the wild

animals; but the vicissitudes of an early pioneer life

were all there and that the hardships were not a few by

any means we may well feel assured.

Other children of Casper, who continued to live on

the Ridge for a time, in addition to William, were Jef-

ferson, Philip and Joseph.

Five characteristic features stand out prominently

in the Plyley family. They were a thrifty agricultural

people, showing no disposition to move about; all rep-

resented a desirable type of citizenship; nearly all of

them reached advanced years at the time of their re-

spective deaths, and all of them were of a religious type

of people; the Concord Presbyterian Church, near them,

claimed many of its members from the Plyley family;

and its church cemetery now holds the remains not alone

of the original settlers of the Ridge but many of the

descendants down to the most recent death in the family.

A daughter of William and Margaret Zimmerman

Plyley, and sister of Ulysses, Mary Ellen Dolohan, who

died November 6, 1923, at the age of 82, is buried in this

cemetery; as is also her sister, Eliza Jane Plyley, the

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204      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications

wife of Thomas J. Cook. She was born in 1830 and

died May

A brother of Ulysses, Carson Plyley, who was born

October 30, 1834, died October 5, 1894.

This last death, in the passing of Ulysses, leaves a

lone sister of this once large family, Alice Plyley Groves,

the youngest of the family, who has now reached the

age of 83. She lives near Greenfield, Ohio, comforted

by her son who lives with her, and where they conduct

a fine farm.

It was not scenery alone that these newcomers found

among these glorious hills, though they found that in

abundance, but they found those things that help to sus-

tain life: an abundance of wild animals for their meat;

pasturage for whatever stock they may have brought

with them, for in addition to the horses they brought

for the motive power to do their plowing and other

necessary things about the farm life, these emigrants

usually had a cow or two trailing behind their moving

wagon; they found an abundance of berries growing

about these hills; walnuts, hickorynuts, chestnuts, hazel-

nuts; an abundance of maple-trees from which to extract

maple juice from which they made their winter molasses

and maple sugar. Wild turkeys were in abundance, as

well as wild geese and ducks; also deer and bears.

These emigrants going to the frontiers, usually tried to

arrive in the fall of the year, so that they might get their

farm started in the early spring; their corn, oats and

garden vegetables planted, as well as the hay seed, that

they might make the necessary provision for the ap-

proaching winter. Then with whatever hogs they may

have raised, together with chickens and other fowls and

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Ulysses A. Plyley            205

animals, they were pretty well prepared to carry them-

selves over the non-productive period of the long winter

months. In early spring, great numbers of wild pigeons

were easily secured.

These people found the ridge on which they located

their new home, which they and their descendants were

to occupy so long, to be a wonderful fruit-growing

situation. Fruit will grow on these southern Ohio hills

that it is difficult to raise in the valleys below. A por-

tion of the great Keefaber Fruit Farm is now located

on Plyley's Ridge. In fact, all through the range hills

extending south to the Ohio River fruit trees abound.

Sheep were raised and the wool obtained found its

way to the spinning wheel and the loom, and the cloth

for their clothing and the blankets for their bedding

were produced in this manner.

It was not all hardship that they experienced. Their

descendants relate many happy days spent among their

neighbors and friends. This helped to visibly lighten

the hardships encountered. The elder families held

faithfully to their tasks of the farm development and to

acquiring an economic independence that their descend-

ants might be better prepared to meet life's problems

than they had been able themselves to do.

One might search the State over to find an example

which better exemplified the impress which the family

and their descendants have made upon their community

by hard work and honorable living. The name Plyley's

Ridge will stand as a monument to.the family who, 130

years ago, settled upon this plateau and where one of

the descendants still keeps alive the fires of the old

ancestral home.

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