Ohio History Journal

PIONEER DAYS IN CENTRAL OHIO.1

IT is pleasant, my friends, to realize the sentiment that,

not only peace has its triumphs as well as war, but that

domestic and home life hath its excitements and enjoyments

as well as the political arena.

In this day of public strife-in the middle of a campaign

in which the embattling squadrons of the several political

parties of the day are arrayed against each other in the con-

test for civil power-we rest on our arms, and come together

as under a flag of truce; nay, more, forgetting all differences

or grounds for hostility, we meet as friends and neighbors,

irrespective of all divisions on public questions, to interchange

kindly civilities, for mutual congratulations on the joys and

happiness with which God has blessed us in our present

social relations of life, and to contrast the same with the

character and conditions of our fathers, the early settlers and

pioneers of this part of our beloved State.

In the few remarks I may submit it is my purpose, how-

ever I may sometimes wander from the straight path I have

allotted to myself, to speak of the early settlements in Cen-

tral Ohio, and of the character and life-incidents of the set-

tlers.  In speaking of them I do not propose to recount his-

tory, but rather to refer to times and events that in a long life-

time, relating back to the beginning of the present century

have fallen under my own observation.

I came with my father's family to Licking county in 1809.

We settled in Newark, then a small hamlet composed of a

few straggling hewed log houses, or log cabins proper, chiefly

on the east and north line of the public square of that now

 

1 An address delivered at Mansfield, Ohio, September 15th, 1885, before

the Richland County Historical and Pioneer Society. This address was

the last delivered by Mr. Curtis (his death occurring a few weeks later),

and is printed from the manuscript in the author's handwriting, now in the

possession of the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society.

243

• 1
 

244    Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly.

beautiful city.  There were but two frame structures then

standing on the town site-one a lawyer's small office, the

other a one and one-half story dwelling of the other lawyer

of the village. A little to the north and south respectively

of the centre of the public square stood two conspicuous

hewed log edifices, simply enclosed, but otherwise unfinished

and unfurnished, the one for a common jail, with an upstairs

prison for debtors, the other dignified with the name of court

house. In the latter, upon a rude platform on which sat the

judges, and with rustic benches and improvised tables for the

lawyers, the forensic debates of the bar were delivered and

decisions of the four judges -Judge Wilson presiding--pro-

nounced.

At the period to which I refer there were probably two

hundred inhabitants, the families of some seventy-five or

eighty settlers, who had located on the plateau of this beauti-

ful valley of rich lands at the junction of the three streams

that here come together and make the Licking river. The

county had been organized only the year preceding, and

Newark, after a hard-fought battle with the settlement at

Granville, had won the contest, and become the county seat.

A small settlement was gathered around Robertson's mills

under the name of Wilmington, on the north branch of the

Licking, where the town of Utica now stands. Thence to

Mt. Vernon, in Knox county, was chiefly an unbroken forest,

with here and there by the narrow wagon way a log cabin,

and the beginning of a settlement. The same remarks would

apply to the line of roadway at that period of time between

Mt. Vernon and Mansfield, county seats respectively of Knox

and Richland counties, then recently erected. Small indica-

tions of villages were seen at Fredericktown and Bellville,

and in a few other places east of the main north and south

line of road. On the lower waters of Owl creek and upper

branches of the Mohican were beginnings of new homesteads

by settlers that had drifted in from Western Pennsylvania and

Virginia.

I wonder if many of those before me really had any proper

idea of the manner in which these early settlements were be-

• 2
 

Pioneer Days in Central Ohio.        245

gun. Of course I recognize some men of advanced age in

this audience, who, if they did not themselves participate in

the labor of building the first log cabin and clearing their

first field, may have lived so near that time as to recognize

some of the features I will attempt to give. In the first

place you must realize, if you can, that the work to be done

was usually at the greatest disadvantage; and hence much

more difficult than the same work, and in the same primitive

style, could now be done. An ax, a saw, and an auger, and

the hammer taken from the doubletree of his wagon, usu-

ally constituted all the mechanical tools with which the rude

architect was to rear and construct the house that probably

for the succeeding fifteen or twenty years must be the home

for his family. There the later children will be born and

reared, while the older ones are assisting the father to clear

the farm and open fields from the heavy timber and under-

brush of the surrounding forest. After a few days spent in

an improvised shanty, or perhaps the interior of the covered

wagon, the pioneer sets himself seriously to work in the con-

struction of his log cabin. Having selected his spot, the

tall, straight young trees of the forest are to be felled, meas-

ured, cut, and hauled to the place; at the same time properly

distributed to form the several prospective sides of the pro-

posed structure. The "skids" are provided upon which to

run up the logs. The clapboards, rived from the cleanest

white oak blocks, rough and unshaved, are made ready for

the roof. Whiskey, then about twenty-five cents per gal-

lon, is laid in, and due notice given to such neighbors as can

be reached, of the day appointed for the "raising."

When the time comes, and the forces collect together,

a captain is appointed, and the men divided into proper sec-

tions, and assigned to their several duties. Four men most

skillful in the use of the axe, are severally assigned to each

corner; these are the "corner men," whose duty it is to

"notch" and "saddle"-as it were, like a dovetail-the

timbers at their connection, and preserve the plumb, " carry-

ing up" the respective corners. Then there are the "end

men," who, with strong arms, and the aid of pikes, force the

• 3
 

246    Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly.

logs up the "skids" and deliver them to the corner men.

In this way the building rises with wonderful rapidity; the

bearers for the roof logs are adjusted; the broad clapboards

laid with skill, the "weight-poles" placed upon the succes-

sive courses, and the shell of the cabin is completed. The

frolic is ended and a good supper crowns the day's work.

Then follow the "puncheon" floor, made of heavy planks split

from timber and dressed on one side with an axe; the big log

fire place; the beaten clay hearth; the stick and clay chim-

ney; the "clinking" and "daubing;" the paper windows,

and the door with wooden latch and hinges. And so the

log cabin home is made ready, and the family moves in

with as much joy and delight as may fill their hearts when,

twenty years later, they enter their now stately frame or brick

mansion erected on the same spot.

The above is the primitive log cabin; but it was subject to

many modifications and degrees of advanced pretensions.

The cabin might be single, or double, with a gangway be-

tween, covered by a common roof. It was made of hewed

logs, or "scutched," which was a superficial hewing made

after the building was up. So, too, its elevation was suited

to the condition of the family; and sometimes the corners

squared or dressed down; and perchance the clapboards

nailed on, when so luxurious an article as nails could be ob-

tained, in lieu of the "weight-poles."

These were various forms of the residences of the pioneers.

They were all log cabins, but the primitive form first de-

scribed predominated; the improved form indicating the am-

bition, prosperity and taste of the proprietor and his family.

Such was the beginning of settlements in all this range of

beautiful country, embracing the central counties of Licking,

Knox and Richland, and others adjacent, through which a

gentleman may now drive with his carriage and pair as

through a park. The stately mansions and their surround-

ings often presenting the appearance of a villa; and the ex-

tended fields and groves forming a succession of landscape

most pleasing to the eye, and giving assurance of the wealth,

comfort and happiness of our people, and of the wonderful

• 4
 

Pioneer Days in Central Ohio.       247

rapidity with which our country has progressed during the

last half century, along the road of prosperity.

In this connection I might extend my reminiscences to em-

brace many interesting events in the early settlement of this

part of Ohio, the history of which is fast becoming mere tra-

dition. But a proper regard to the limit of time I may have

your attention, admits my mentioning a few only.

It was but natural that the amusements of the period often

assumed features corresponding with the character of their

employments. Hence the "chopping" and "log-rolling"

frolics, the "corn-husking bees" and the "raisings" would

bring together the neighbors of a five-mile settlement,

assembling with the social feelings that would lighten their

labor, and make the occasion one of joy and recreation.

Nor were these hilarious gatherings confined to the men; for

the good wives and daughters, entering into the spirit of the

time, would appoint some branches of their own industry-

their sewing or quilting-to enter into the frolic; and at the

end of the day, alike laying their labors aside, all would join

in doing justice to a chicken pot-pie, the making of which,

since the era of cooking stoves, has become a lost art to the

present generation. Then the evening would wind up-per-

haps with games and plays-or, if the fiddler could be

obtained, with a lively dance upon the green lawn, or the

"puncheon" floor.

The war of 1812, occurring as it did in the pioneer day of

Ohio, the proximity of the settlers to the Indian villages and

the Canada border brought them in direct connection with

many of its painful events, and added greatly to their suffer-

ings and privations. There was an Indian village on the

upper waters of the Raccoon branch of the Licking, near

where the village of Johnstown now stands; another, called

Greentown, near Perrysville, in this county; and then the

Wyandottes at Upper Sandusky. Although these several

Indian Poeblos professed to be friendly, yet their friendship

was unreliable; many young braves of the tribes, as well

from their natural hate towards the whites, as also from

• 5
 

248     Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly.

British bribes and influence, were covertly hostile; and these

villages gave shelter and harbor to emissaries from other

tribes openly hostile. Indians that had been peaceful in our

villages, as traders with their cranberries, pelts, and moccasin-

work, became a terror to the settlers; and the massacre of

the Copus family in this county, and the Snows in Huron,

and other depredations, added to the alarm.

There was a block-house at Fredericktown, another at

Bellville; also one at this village [Mansfield], and at other

exposed places. And often on signal of danger, all the

inhabitants of a village or settlement would gather in these

places of security for protection of their wives and children,

against apprehended night attacks of the savages. These

alarms were often without just cause-sometimes perpetrated

as practical jokes. The surrender of our first army at

Detroit by General Hull, followed later by the siege of Fort

Meigs, and the bloody battle of the River Raisin, increased

the general alarm of the frontier settlements and added to

the demand for vigilance on the part of the settlers.

The return of peace was hailed with joy, and the little

eight-by-ten windows of the cabins, as well as of the more

pretentious dwellings that had grown up in our villages,

blazed with added lights, and music and rejoicing filled our

streets and our dwellings.

I will now pass to some remarks I desire to make on the

character of the pioneers and early settlers of this part of

Ohio. And let me here premise, that I entirely disagree

with a popular writer of the day1 who has attempted to illus-

trate the proposition "that our manners and customs go for

more in life than actual quality." On the contrary, do we

not know that the former is but the superficial covering in

which the true man may be clothed; produced by factitious

circumstances, and conformed to surrounding influences?

While the "quality" of the man makes his true character,

to estimate which you must study his inner principles; his

habit of thought; his clear perceptions between right and

 

1Howells.

• 6
 

Pioneer Days in Central Ohio.         249

wrong; his spirit of enterprise; the greatness and strength

of his power of conception and resolution of purpose. These

are qualities that contribute true character-character that is

not the less great because found in the humble and unrefined

"manners and customs" of our noble sires-once called the

backwoodsmen of Ohio.

It is not the inert, the irresolute or stupid who strike out

in life in great changes of pursuits, or risks in business. It

is the men of thought, of enterprise, of resolution. Such

traits of character were necessary to bring the young man of

strong purpose, or the head of a family, to break up the old

associations of life, and dare the hardships and privations of

a new settlement in the wild woods of the West. Who does

not see in a Boone, a Kenton, a Symmes, or a Putnam, ad-

venturers who first penetrated the Ohio Valley, men of strong

minds and great character?

Of such qualities were the early pioneers of our noble

State. They were the men of nerve, of intellect, and strength

of purpose, that led the way over the Alleghenies to the bor-

ders of our beautiful streams and teeming valleys. Nor were

they ignorant or uncultured in the rudiments of fair education.

They had been brought up in a land of schools and churches,

and where colleges and academies were known. And they

brought with them their education and religion.

It is a great mistake, therefore, to suppose that our fathers

were of less culture in the arts and sciences, and all the

elements of civilization, than the succeeding generations.

On the contrary, the natural character of the men, and the

advantages they had received in earlier life, gave them an

ascendancy to which the first generation that followed could

not attain for the want of these accessories. So that it often

happened, that the growing family of sons and daughters, in

the absence of schools, were wholly, or largely, dependent

upon their parents for such teaching and instruction, as other

pressing labors would permit them to give. Hence, in con-

templating the characters of our fathers, we must go back

beyond the generation that succeeded, and remember the

men in their individual and collective relations; in the great

• 7
 

250    Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly.

qualities that fitted them to lay the foundations of government.

It would be interesting to individualize and illustrate the

ideas which I have attempted to give, by bringing into review

sketches of the lives and characters of the leading men who

marked the way in these early settlements of which I have

been speaking; and to whom this part of Ohio is so deeply

indebted for its present prosperity. But the limits of a brief

address cannot be enlarged into a volume-many of which

might be written on this noble theme. But I will recall to

your minds some recollections of the first courts of common

pleas-always the great working court-that opened the ad-

ministration of legal justice in these counties.

I do not know that this beautiful city, Mansfield, was ever

adorned with a whipping-post; but I remember very well that

interesting feature on the public square in Newark. It was

a centre for our games, to us school boys, and afforded the

test of agility in our trials to reach the great staple near the

top. It was in 1812, I think, that a poor fellow of the name

of John Courson was convicted of stealing some bags of flour

from a mill, and perhaps some other articles. He was sen-

tenced by Judge Wilson to receive fifty "stripes," well laid

on (as the law then required),-five the next morning, fifteen

at noon, and thirty the following day at noon. George Allis-

ton was high sheriff and Andy Beard deputy. The flagella-

tion was performed by the latter under the oversight of

the chief. A circle of about sixty feet diameter was drawn

and a cordon established that kept back the crowd that

pressed to the line. The prisoner was brought out from the

log jail and secured by his upraised hands to the big staple.

The first blow of the "cowhide" simply left a welt.  "A

little harder," said the sheriff, and Andy marked the four

succeeding blows in distinct red lines on the poor fellow's

naked back. He received this first installment of his sen-

tence without an audible groan; but when returned to the

same position for the second, his utterances and screeches

from the first stroke were heart-rending, and when returned to

the prison, his audible lamentations and prayers for annihila-

tion before another day were fearful and most painful to be

• 8
 

Pioneer Days in Central Ohio.       251

heard. Yet he stood the whole punishment, receiving the

following day the heavy remainder of the infliction, and re-

turned to his prison with his back lacerated and bleeding

from his shoulders to his hips. It was a painful and disgust-

ing sight, the first and last of the kind in Licking county.

William Wilson was the first presiding judge of the Court

of Common Pleas for these central counties.  He was ap-

pointed by the Legislature at one of its sessions in Chilli-

cothe at the organization of the circuit in 1808. He was

brought up on a farm near the " Dumbarton Hills," in New

Hampshire, where he received a fair education with a partial

classical course, and had wended his way to Ohio to grow up

with the country. Although a young and briefless lawyer at

the time, through the influence of some friends and with little

or no competition, he obtained the appointment, and immedi-

ately removed to and made Newark his permanent place of

residence until his death. He held his position on the bench

for three terms-twenty-one years-when he was succeeded

by Alexander Harper, then a leading lawyer of Zanesville.

Judge Wilson was a man of marked and practical good, com-

mon sense, which supplemented his deficiencies in legal learn-

ing. The long period of his presidency furnished him with

the rules of practice and increased his knowledge of the

principles of the law and the leading decisions of the courts.

But when subjected to the criticisms of such strong legal

minds as the elder Stanbery (then the great lawyer of Licking

county) and of the Shermans, the Ewings, the Grangers and

others of other parts of the circuit, he often had a hard time

to maintain his dignity on the bench, or to adhere to his own

rulings. Withal, he was a man of strict integrity of purpose,

of high moral character, and had the confidence and respect

of the public.

In the reconstruction of the circuits, Ebenezer Lane, a

distinguished lawyer of Norwalk, succeeded Judge Wilson in

what had been the northern part of the latter's district.

Judge Lane for the period of some seven years presided in

the Common Pleas Courts of this (Richland) and other adja-

cent counties. He was afterward translated to the bench of

• 9
 

252    Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly.

the Supreme Court. While by the bar of Ohio Judge Lane

is best remembered and honored for his clear and lucid

enunciations of the law in final decisions of the higher court,

it is as judge of the Common Pleas that the local bar and

the masses formed that intimate social and professional

knowledge of the man that so endeared him to our hearts

and makes his memory so grateful to all who had the honor

and happiness of his friendship. He was a graduate of Har-

vard, and studied the law in Connecticut. From that State

he came to Ohio, settling at Norwalk in 1819. He was the

prosecuting attorney who framed the indictment and con-

ducted the trial of the Indians who were convicted and sub-

sequently hung at Norwalk in the latter part of that year for

the murder and robbery of a white man in the western part

of the State, then within the jurisdiction of Huron county.

I was present at the trial as a youth and student, and well

remember the clear and lucid statement of the case by the

young prosecutor, in which his logical array of the facts, the

inferences therefrom, and condensation of his argument,

indicated the later character of the jurist. Genial in his

friendships, taciturn but never reticent, ingenuous, kind and

courteous in manner, he had not only the confidence of the

bar, but their love and affection. And his retirement from

the bench to accept the presidency of a railroad combina-

tion, by which, in a sense, he became lost to the bar of Ohio,

was profoundly felt and regretted. After an extended tour

through England and the continent in 1860-'61, he retired

from public business. His death occurred in 1866.

In looking into the past, and my early professional associa-

tions in the Courts, the three several Clerks of the Courts of

these counties, of the period referred to, arise before me.

Amos H. Caffee, for some fourteen years Clerk of the

Common Pleas and Supreme Courts at Newark. How

genial his kindly face as it now, to my mind's eye, appears

before me. The accomplished scholar; the faithful friend;

my many-years' preceptor, and the model and guide of my

early youth. He came to Newark about the year 1811, and

soon organized a select grammar school, at the head and in

• 10
 

Pioneer Days in Central Ohio.      253

control of which, he stood for many years. In his school

the best young men of Newark of that day were trained for

the active duties of life. From the master's chair he became

Postmaster, and then Clerk of the Courts, as before men-

tioned. Mr. Caffee's first wife was a daughter of Mrs.

Henderson, a highly respected widow, of good business

capacities, and who for many years, as some of you may

remember, kept an excellent Public in the old McComb

House in this city. His faithful services in the Courts and

his obliging manners towards all who had business in his

office, should establish for him an honorable mention in the

annals of old Licking.

James Smith, for three full terms, twenty-one years, clerk

of the Courts of Knox county. Who of the survivors of

that period who had business relations with the good old man

fails to remember his gentle manners and kind old Virginia

heart? Few of the public transactions in the early affairs of

old Knox transpired without "Uncle Jimmy" being con-

sulted or his advice and participation enjoyed. He was

identified with every pnblic movement, and justly exercised

a dominating influence in the affairs of public interest in the

then village of Mount Vernon, and the county as well. Fond

of a good joke, he would enjoy it, tho' he were himself the

victim. His open-handed hospitality made his humble dwell-

ing a welcome home to all comers. In the Court room the

lawyers were his pets, for whom his services were ever cheer-

fully rendered. He was a preacher and writer in the denom-

ination called "The Christian Church," (otherwise New-

lights), and the chief organizer of that religious sect in the

counties of Knox and Licking. Your speaker was an in-

mate in his family for several years, and acknowledges with

gratitude the noble qualities of his patron and their happy in-

fluence upon his own character.

One of the first friendly acquaintances I made at the Mans-

field bar, in the outset of my professional attendance at her

Courts was with Elzey Hedges, the genial and obliging

clerk of all the Courts in old Richland, not old then but, like

the other counties I have mentioned, very young in organiza-

• 11
 

254    Ohio Archaeological and Historical Quarterly.

tion. Mr. Hedges was an early settler at Mansfield, but

whether he came in with the first I am not prepared to state.

In the early '20's he occupied a partially finished brick house

at the N. E. corner of the public square. The clerk's office

was kept in one of the front rooms; and there Elzey Hedges,

with his genial face and kind smile, could always be found, if

not engaged at his desk in the Court room. Though the ap-

pointments and conveniences of the office room were exceed-

ingly primitive, yet so faithfully were the records kept, and

the papers and files so carefully adjusted, that any document

or journal entry could be promptly produced, at the most

sudden call. Visiting lawyers from other counties always

felt their obligations to Mr. Hedges for his careful attention

to their business and the obliging manner in which he per-

formed his duties.

In the remarks which I have submitted, while recurring to

events of the olden times, and illustrating by brief notices

of a few of the characteristic men of the period, I do not

forget the hundred and one, so to speak, noble names of the

fathers who laid the foundations of these now wealthy

counties.  Their names are honorably mentioned in the

county annals, and will, I trust, be ever cherished by the

successive thousands that are filling their places. But chiefly

I have desired to impress upon the hearts and memories of

my hearers the high character of these pioneer fathers of the

State, for moral worth and noble aims. And that, however

humble their mode of living-their distinguished virtues en-

title them to our highest veneration, and to rank with the

heroes who establish empires.

HENRY B. CURTIS.

• 12