Ohio History Journal

edited by

DONALD J. RATCLIFFE

The Autobiography of

Benjamin Tappan

There are few more fascinating characters in the early history of

Ohio than Benjamin Tappan. A sharp and audacious man, "always

pungent and always ready," he was formidable in argument, and few

people who openly disagreed with him ever forgot his cutting sarcastic

wit. Besides tending to talk through his nose "in a whining, sing-song

sort of style," he was also slightly cross-eyed, which gave him a

somewhat malevolent look. He made no attempt to conceal this defect,

not even when a national magazine published an engraving of his por-

trait in 1840; he insisted only that his sharp black eyes be portrayed

correctly-the left eye turning in, not the right-and that he not be

made to look a fool. No one ever accused this forthright, shrewd,

caustically witty man of that.¹

The eldest of six brothers, Tappan has been overshadowed histori-

cally by the two youngest, Arthur and Lewis, the famous abolitionists.²

Although he himself detested slavery and was unusually sympathetic to

freed Negroes, Benjamin disapproved profoundly of the strident agita-

tion of this political sensitive issue by "modern" abolitionists like his

brothers; and, in a fascinating correspondence he maintained with

Lewis for over forty years, he forcefully revealed the philosophical

differences that divided him from these younger evangelical zealots.

Benjamin Tappan was essentially a man of the Enlightenment, a deist

Mr. Ratcliffe is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Durham, Durham,

England.

1. This brief account of Tappan is based on a reading of the Papers of Benjamin

Tappan, in The Ohio Historical Society (OHS) and the Library of Congress (LC). All

manuscripts cited hereafter, unless otherwise stated, are drawn from these collections. A

good brief account of Tappan by Francis P. Weisenburger is in Allen Johnson and Dumas

Malone, eds., Dictionary ofAmerican Biography (New York, 1928-1936), XVIII, 300-301.

The characterizations are taken from Thomas Ewing to A. H. Goodman, May 26, 1868,

The Papers of Charles E. Rice, OHS; and from Henry Howe, Historical Collections of

Ohio, 3 vols. (Columbus, 1889-91), I, 971-2, II, 698.

2. See especially Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War

Against Slavery (Cleveland, 1969).

Benjamin Tappan                                           111

partisan leader of the Ohio Democratic party, his nomination was re-

jected by the Whig-controlled Senate during the panic session of 1834.

But in 1839, at the age of sixty-five, he was elected a United States

Senator, and soon became an adviser of President Martin Van Buren

and a leader of the Western "hard money" Democrats. Though refus-

ing to countenance abolitionism, he opposed the "aggressions" of the

"slave power," and in 1844 was responsible for leaking to the press

secret documents concerning the proposed annexation of Texas. A

Free Soiler in 1848 and a Republican by 1856, Tappan died in 1857

before the final crisis of sectional conflict arrived; yet his influence

continued to find expression through the person of his former protege

and law partner-Edwin M. Stanton, Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of

War.³

Most of these prominent public services, however, were performed

after 1823, and it is usually forgotten that Tappan had already had an

interesting career in the fifty years before that date. Although he was

one of the earliest pioneers in northern Ohio, the record of his experi-

ences has been largely ignored, while his correspondence as an active

politician before 1812 has never been properly utilized. Yet Tappan

himself left several accounts of incidents in his early career, which

survive in their original manuscript form. He wrote an important

critique of Henry Howe's Historical Collections of Ohio when that

work was first published in 1847, and towards the end of his life he

wrote an account of "The First Settlement of Ravenna." What is here

published, however, is a more systematic autobiographical account

which reveals the outlines of his career down to 1823.⁴

This "Autobiography" was written in 1840 at the invitation of The

United States Magazine and Democratic Review, which, under the

editorship of John L. O'Sullivan, was regarded as the literary and

intellectual mouthpiece of the Democratic party. Tappan's account

was then used as the basis for an article written by Matthew Birchard

of Ohio, Solicitor of the Treasury in Van Buren's administration, with

the assistance of Attorney General Benjamin F. Butler. This article,

published in the June and July numbers of the Democratic Review, was

designed to celebrate the virtues of "the venerable patriarch of the

Ohio democracy." Accordingly, it was filled with long-winded rhetoric

in the Jacksonian style, and omitted some of the historically more

3. Benjamin P. Thomas and Harold M. Hyman, Stanton: The Life and Times of

Lincoln's Secretary of War (New York, 1962), especially 19-38, 457; Howe, Historical

Collections (Columbus, 1889-91), I, 972.

4. All three manuscripts are at the Ohio Historical Society.

112                                                  OHIO HISTORY

interesting aspects of Tappan's original account. We are, therefore,

printing Tappan's unpolished early draft ot the autobiography, a ver-

sion which, though tantalisingly brief on some points, has the virtue of

allowing the true character of the writer to break through.⁵

Some features of the "Autobiography" deserve further initial

comment. Tappan's character and outlook were obviously deeply in-

fluenced by his upbringing in New England in the last quarter of the

eighteenth century. The Toppans (as the name was originally spelled)

were a family of orthodox Puritans who had lived in Massachusetts

since 1637, a family of farmers and storekeepers and village ministers.

Benjamin Tappan's father, as an apprentice goldsmith in Boston, had

married his master's daughter; the master, William Homes (or

Holmes), was the son of Mary Franklin, a younger sister of Benjamin

Franklin.⁶ Tappan reveals early in the piece that Franklin was his

great-great-uncle, and his account of his early training as a craftsman is

clearly reminiscent of the latter's much more famous Autobiography.

Tappan was similar to Franklin also in his rejection of the religious

orthodoxies of New England. His mother was a devout Calvinist, who

insisted on bringing her children up within the framework of the strict

evangelicalism reinvigorated by the Great Awakening; suitably, the

family lived for some time in the Jonathan Edwards house in North-

ampton, Massachusetts. Benjamin Tappan reacted strongly against

this religious indoctrination; his brother Lewis said Benjamin suffered

in his youth from attempts to make him a religious enthusiast at a time

of revivalistic excitement, and the result was to make Benjamin a

scoffer at all religion and a disturber of others in their more conven-

tional opinions. He had taken up the anticlerical and rationalist outlook

which was fashionable in advanced circles at that period; he found in

Voltaire and David Hume a sceptical attitude which he preferred to the

bigotry and narrow-mindedness of traditional religion. His prejudice

against religious enthusiasm was what divided him from an evangelical

reformer like Lewis, whose crusade against sin was buoyed by the

religious revival of the nineteenth century. That same aggressive pre-

judice is all too evident in the "Autobiography."⁷

5. Tappan to Lewis Tappan, June 6, 1840, OHS. The United States Magazine and

Democratic Review, VII (June, 1840), 540-562, VIII (July, 1840), 42-51. A fragment also

survives of what appears to be a later draft of the "Autobiography," which is very similar

to a passage in the Democratic Review article.

6. Dictionary of American Biography, XVIII, 300.

7. Lewis Tappan to Tappan, March 8, 1827, Tappan Papers, LC. See also the excel-

lent chapter, "The Legacy of Sarah Tappan," in Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan, which,

however, errs in sending Benjamin to Harvard to learn his infidelity (p. 13).

Benjamin Tappan                                          113

Such hostility to traditional religion inevitably turned Tappan against

the "Standing Order" in Connecticut. In this state the established

Congregational Church was closely allied to a secular government that,

even after the American Revolution, was still based on a colonial char-

ter which effectively preserved the power of the Federalist ruling

groups.⁸ When an opposition party emerged in the 1790s, Tappan

naturally joined it, and he could interpret the consequent party

contest-with more justice than perhaps in any other state-as a strug-

gle between "aristocracy" and "democracy." The "Autobiography,"

therefore, assumes a similarity-indeed, a continuity-between poli-

tics around the turn of the century and the political struggle of 1840

which most modern historians would reject.

This partisan background helps to explain the unattractive character

assassination which the "Autobiography" indulges in. Certainly, Tap-

pan seems to have had a knack for making enemies. Anyone who

irritated him, crossed him, or fell short of his exacting standards was

sure to receive the rough edge of his tongue; he was so self-opinionated

that he felt no restraint in repeating his scathing criticisms. Yet, in-

terestingly, in the "Autobiography" he overlooks some who had an-

noyed him most, such as his brother-in-law John M. Goodenow; but,

then, Goodenow had become a sound Jacksonian.⁹ Those held up to

our critical gaze were nearly all men who subsequently opposed Tap-

pan in politics or who by 1840 had deserted the Democratic party.

There were obvious reasons for wishing to destroy the reputation of

political enemies such as William Henry Harrison and Thomas Morris in

1840, and, indeed, of many of their more obscure followers. Interest-

ingly enough, the version printed in the Democratic Review omitted

most of these critical passages, except for the criticism of the military

record of Whig presidential candidate Harrison.

The "Autobiography" is reprinted much as Tappan wrote it, includ-

ing his unusual spellings. In order to assist the reader, however, it has

been fully punctuated and capital letters inserted. There are some

minor verbal alterations and a few changes of tense. Some of the origi-

nal crossings-out and corrections have been included where they ap-

pear to add to the story. Since at times Tappan slips over an episode

with tantalizing brevity, further material has been inserted in square

brackets, some of it drawn from his other reminiscences. Comments

have also been added where background information seems desirable

8. Richard J. Purcell, Connecticut in Transition, 1776-1818 (Washington, D.C., 1914).

9. Dictionary of American Biography, VII, 385-386.

114                                             OHIO HISTORY

or the historical record needs to be kept straight. But, for the most

part, Tappan will tell his own tale.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Early Years, 1773-1796

B.T. was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, on the 25 of May

1773. He received all the advantages of the common school instruction

of his native state untill he was ten years old, when his father, with

several other gentlemen of that town, established an Academy &

placed at the head of it a Scotchman of the name of Carson[?], who was

assisted by an Englishman of the name of Fry. At this Academy he

remained untill he was 14 years old. In this time he acquired a good

knowledge of mathematics, geometry, surveying & navigation, beside

some knowledge of the Lattin & French languages.

His father intended that he should be entered as a student in Harvard

University as soon as he & the rest of his class were quallified, which

was expected to be in the year 1787; but overhearing his father, in

conversation with his mother, express some doubt whether "if he gave

Benjamin a college education it might not be doing injustice to his other

children" (which seemed likely to be numerous), Benj. instantly de-

termined that his father should not be put to the expense of educating

him, & the next morning he told his father that he had been reflecting on

the matter & had concluded that it would be best for him to learn a trade.

His father, not suspecting the cause of this sudden change, urged his son

to continue his studies but did not succeed in changing his determina-

tion. The next day he went to work in his father's shop to learn the trade

of a Goldsmith, which he had carried on for many years. This incident is

the more singular in that it occurred in precisely the same way at the

same age to his father, who was the oldest of twelve children of the

Revd. Benj. Tappan of Manchester, Massachusetts, & at 14 commenced

learning the goldsmith's trade of his (afterwards) father-in-law, Mr.

William Homes of Boston, who was the son of Capt. Robert Homes, the

brother-in-law of Doctr Franklin.

At this time B.T. had learned to draw with black lead & india ink so

that he could copy engravings with much accuracy. One of the first

schoolmasters B.T. had was James Shephard, who practised, in his

writing lesson, drawing the head of some animal or bird in some part of

his capital letters. His pupil copied all these with great care & so much

to the satisfaction of his instructor as to induce the latter to take par-

ticular care & pains in giving lessons in drawing out of school. Besides

he got much assistance from a deserter from the British army in

Benjamin Tappan                                                      115

Canada who had been a coach painter. The writer of this has seen

drawings in black lead made when he was 9 or 10 years old which are

very exact copies of the engraved portraits in [Tobias] Smollet's his-

tory of England.¹⁰

B.T. worked seven years at different mechanic trades, first with his

father at the gold and silversmith's business about two years, during

which he learned & practised copper plate engraving & printing. He

had no instructor in this art but he polished his own plates, made his

own press & printed from his own engravings. After this he worked

some time with one Stiles [?] at making arms & musical instruments for

a troop of cavalry. He then hired Jacob Sergeant, an experienced

workman at clock and watch making, to teach him to make clocks &

watches, for which Sergeant received one hundred dollars. He con-

tinued working at various mechanic trades untill he was 21 years of

age. He was not, indeed, a good & finished workman for that requires a

practised hand, but he knew how to do many things well enough to

pass for a tollerable journey man at several trades.¹¹

During this time he had read everything he could get hold of &,

having a retentive memory, he had acquired a good knowledge of

history & general literature. He wrote also occasionally some poetry

for the newspapers, generally of a rather satirical cast. In politicks [sic]

also he had taken his stand on the democratic side by joining with that

party in a supper to rejoice at the recapture of Toulon from the British

& Spanish.¹²

10. The British novelist Tobias George Smollett (1721-1771) published a multi-

volumed Compleat History of England in various editions between 1757 and 1765. In-

tended as a popular rival to David Hume's history, at least one edition appeared in

sixpenny weekly numbers illustrated with portraits.

11. He also assisted Prescott, the original inventor of the carding machine, in making

his various improvements, none of which could be seen by anyone else until the work

was finished. Tappan's brother-in-law later said he had seen him described in the press

"as a Working Man-who in youth could & did turn your hand to twelve different

occupations with energy & with success." Tappan to his son, January 21, 1840, Tappan

Papers, OHS; William Edwards to Tappan, December 26, 1833, Tappan Papers, LC.

12. The growth of partisan divisions in the early 1790s was commonly related in this

way to individual reactions to the growing crisis in Europe. By 1793 the French Revolu-

tion was threatened both by external foes and civil war. In the summer conservatives had

handed over Toulon, the main French naval base in the Mediterranean, and surrendered

the fleet to British and Spanish forces. The port was besieged by a revolutionary army,

and its recapture in December 1793 was followed by bloody reprisals. Such events

divided opinion in the United States, with many American conservatives reprobating the

extremism of the French revolutionaries. The more radical, like Tappan, identified them-

selves with the revolutionary cause and demanded that George Washington's govern-

ment pursue a policy of greater friendship to France than in fact it did. Thus foreign

affairs helped to sharpen and extend the party cleavage which had already begun to

emerge in the capital over domestic issues and which was soon to produce the virulent

conflict between Federalist and Jeffersonian Republican.

116                                                  OHIO HISTORY

At the time he arrived at 21 years of age he was boarding in the

family of a Mr. Manna Wadsworth, a man a few years older than

himself with whom he became very intimate & to whom he was much

attached. Wadsworth had a pulmonary complaint & was advised by his

Physicians, the celebrated Doct. Todd & the no less celebrated Doct.

Hopkins of Hartford, to go to sea, upon which he determined.¹³ He

was, however, too feeble to go without some friend to take care of him.

B.T., finding that he was not likely to succeed in getting a suitable

person to go with him, offered to go with him at his own expense.

Wadsworth thankfully accepted the offer. They went to Farmington in

Connecticut, where Mr. Wadsworth's father resided, to prepare for the

voyage. There they spent about two weeks in the society of Todd &

Hopkins, when they went over to Weathersfield & then took passage

on board a sloop for New London. At Lyme, Tappan landed & walked

across the country to New London, while his companion continued on

board the sloop. At New London they engaged a passage on board the

Brig Jason, commanded by Moses Tryon, bound to Barbadoes, &,

after waiting 21 days for a wind, sailed in June 1794. They had not been

at sea many days before T. discovered that, of the three quadrants on

board, not one was in good order or would give the correct latitude by

observation within five miles. His mechanical skill enabled him to

correct them. He also applied himself to learn practical (as he had

learned theoretical) navigation & he was welcomed as a volunteer of

the old sailors & worked with them at all branches of their duty on the

voyage out. Indeed, he learned so much of the business of a sailor that

he has often boasted afterwards that he could "bend, reef & steer"

with any old sailor, & Capt. Tryon was so well satisfied with his

superior skill that on the homeward voyage he gave up to him his

quadrant & log book & took no observation himself. The vessel arrived

at Barbadoes in the usual time & from there visited St. Lucia, Mar-

tinique, Eustatia, St. Thomas & Turks Island & returned to New York.

13. Eli Todd (1769-1833), the son of a wealthy merchant and a product of Yale, was a

personal friend of Tappan, with whom he shared a democratic, worldly outlook. At this

time Todd was practising at Farmington, Conn., though he was not to gain distinction as

a consulting physician until a decade later. He subsequently did much work for the

improved care and treatment of alcoholics and, especially, the mentally ill. Lemuel

Hopkins (1750-1801), a staunch Calvinist and Federalist of the older generation, one of

the "Hartford Wits," was already renowned for his pathbreaking methods of treating

tuberculosis, including the prescription of fresh air. Wadsworth continued to suffer from

"ulcerated" lungs and expressed dissatisfaction with the doctors Tappan had found for

him. Wadsworth to Tappan, September 15, 1795, and Todd to Tappan, May 1, 1798,

Tappan Papers, OHS; Dictionary of American Biography, IX, 215, XVIII, 570-571.

Benjamin Tappan                                                   117

Soon after his arrival here, finding himself exposed to the small pox,

he went to the city dispensary & got some matter with which he in-

noculated himself. He then formed the design of going to France &

with that view he made arrangements to sail in a merchant vessel which

was loading for Bordeaux. Mentioning the circumstance of his having

inocculated himself for the small pox to the Captain, this gentleman

advised him not to risk himself at sea untill he had had the disease &,

his advice & reasons being satisfactory, the voyage was for the present

given up.¹⁴

As I walked up from the vessel I noticed several mechanic trades at

which I believed I could earn journeyman's wages and I passed them in

review to determine to which I would resort for employment & the

means of subsistance. The result was that, as I intended to travel in

Europe, it would be better than any mechanic trade were I to learn

portrait painting. I therefore took the New York directory & wrote

down the names & places of residence of all the portrait painters,

determined to visit them & find one among them, if possible, who

would instruct me in this art. The first on my list was the Columbian

Academy of painting kept by two men of the name of Campbell in

Williams street. I accordingly went to the Academy & talked to one of

these Mr. Campbells about his terms of tuition, which he stated would

be 50 guineas. This was altogether beyond my means so that if I had

liked the man, as I did not, I could not engage with him.

The next on my list was Gilbert Stewart, 63 Stone Street.¹⁵ I went

there & was told by the English servant that Mr. Stewart was not at

home. I knew this was a civil way of telling me that he was engaged. I

told him therefore I would go in & wait untill Mr. Stewart came in. The

servant stared at me but showed me into a large room in which were a

number of portraits & two you[ng] Frenchmen, refugees from St.

Domingo,¹⁶ learning to paint. I staid here long enough to be satisfied

14. Tappan's design was "to join the republican party in France," as had Thomas

Paine. The risk at sea arose because "there would be no one on board capable of

rendering him proper assistance, in case of sickness from that disease." Democratic

Review, VII, 543. At this point in his narrative Tappan breaks away from the formal

third-person narrative and adopts a more obviously autobiographical style.

15. Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) had returned from Europe in 1792 or 1793 after estab-

lishing his reputation as a fashionable portrait painter in London and Dublin during the

previous seventeen years. Later in the year he moved to Philadelphia, and painted some

renowned portraits of George Washington and other national leaders. Dictionary of

American Biography, XVIII, 166.

16. The revolution in the French colony of Santo Domingo (later Haiti) had led many

wealthy whites to flee to the United States where they had a considerable impact on the

cultural life of the leading seaboard cities.

118                                                    OHIO HISTORY

that Stewart was a painter of a superior grade to the Columbia

Academicians. After an hour waiting, Stewart came in & asked if I was

the person who wanted to see him. I told him I was & that my business

with him was to see if he would teach me portrait painting. He asked,

"How do you know that you can learn that art? It is not everyone who

can learn it." I told him I could not well answer that question but that I

was confident I could learn. He then invited me up into his room where

he worked. I had no difficulty in making an arrangement. So I set up

my easel at his room & painted there, mostly in copying his portraits,

five or six months. I followed this business some months afterwards in

the country.

My manner of spending my time in New York was to go to the

Museum as soon as I had got my breakfast & there read in Dobson's

Encyclopedia (a work in about 20 volumes quarto which I read entirely

thro');¹⁷ there untill 11 o'clock; then to Stewart's for an hour; then on

[to the business ex] change [for] two hours to hear the news & read the

newspapers; after having dined, to the museum again & in the evening

generally to the theatre. I hired a back chamber at 190 Pearl Street

where I could paint conveniently such days as I did not go to Stewarts,

& I stored enough bones & c. for a neighbour apothecary in the room

to pay my rent. My provisions I bought sometimes at one place &

sometimes at another, living very frugally from necessity, for I did not

like to write to my father for money (tho' he was always very liberal

with me) because I thought that I ought to support myself.

By Stewart's advice I went into the country & painted a few portraits

& was getting some money & reputation. At Stratford [Connecticut] I

became acquainted with Mr. Baldwin, the amiable Rector of the

church in that place, & at his suggestion wrote a satire upon Doct.

Timothy Dwight who then preached at Greenfield hill.¹⁸ The state of

Connecticut had sold her western lands (now the North part of Ohio) to

17. This work was the Encyclopaedia Brittanica, which was already established as the

foremost and fullest reference work of its kind. The third edition, which had begun to

appear in Britain in 1787, was also published in the United States, under the imprint of

Thomas Dobson of Philadelphia, with the simple title of Encyclopaedia.

18. Timothy Dwight (1752-1817) had been pastor of the Congregational Church at

Greenfield Hill since 1783, during which time he had established his reputation as an

educator, preacher, author and man of affairs. A bitter enemy of Democracy and infideli-

ty, he exerted all his talents to preserve the "Standing Order" in Connecticut, in this

instance by buttressing the established church. Later in 1795 he was appointed President

of Yale, where he exercised such influence as to be called the "Pope of Connecticut."

120                                                          OHIO HISTORY

home I reed. a letter from my brother John, who had been residing with

a cousin in New York but who had at the commencement of the yellow

fever (1795) been sent into the country, informing me that his cousin

was dead & that he should return to New York in a few days to see

about his affairs. I immediately got me a horse & rode to Horseneck

where I found brother John aboard a sloop just on the eve of sailing to

New York. I brought him home with me by riding & lying[?]. I re-

mained at Northampton untill the month of April following, painting

some portraits & reading some but rather idling my time away books

upon anatomy & medicine with a view to study physic as a profession.

In April 1796 I signed with Mr. [Gideon] Grainger of Suffield in Con-

necticut to study law with him.

Law    Student, 1796-1799

In the month of April 1796 I commenced studying law in the office of

Gideon Granger, Jnr., of Suffield in the state of Connecticut. I studied

very dilligently with him three years, when I was admitted to the bar at

Hartford. During this three years I translated the whole of Voltaire's

Henriad into English verse.²⁰ I did this to perfect myself in the French

language and to indulge my taste for writing in verse.

Party spirit ran very high while I was studying & most of the students

were Democratic.²¹ The Federalists had not in that time brought politi-

cal lying to near the perfection they have it now & their press was not

as uniformly slanderous, but there was as much if not more personal

animosity. This arose from the Federalists' assuming and wearing a

20. Le Henriade was an epic account of the heroic deeds of Henri IV which Voltaire

used as a vehicle for criticizing the ancien regime in France. Tappan's manuscript

translation of the epic, and notes on it, still survive in Tappan Papers, OHS.

21. By joining the staff of Gideon Granger (1767-1822), Tappan was connecting him-

self with the leader of the opposition party in Connecticut. Granger had been responsible

for the Common School Law of 1795, which was preferred to Timothy Dwight's

ecclesiastical proposals. His articles under the pseudonym of Algernon Sidney in the

Hartford American Mercury were among the first evidences of opposition to the rule of

the "Standing Order" of Connecticut. By 1798 he was definitely aligned with the national

Democratic-Republican party, and his vigorous support of Thomas Jefferson in the Pres-

idential election of 1800 was to be rewarded by his appointment as United States

Postmaster-General. These years when Tappan studied in Granger's law office were,

indeed, a time when partisan conflict reached almost unparalleled intensity. The war

crisis with France, exacerbated by the publication of the XYZ letters, moved Federalists

to demand national unity and to pass the repressive Alien and Sedition Laws; the

Democratic-Republicans opposed measures they considered destructive of liberty, and

accused the Federalists of trying to involve the country in the European war on the side

of reactionary Britain. In retrospect, Tappan identified all his subsequent political oppo-

nents, and especially the Whigs of 1840, with his Federalist enemies of 1798.

Benjamin Tappan                                                121

black cockade as a badge of distinction; all the Federalists wore this

badge, the men in their hat & the women in their bosom. I remember

well spending an evening at my father's with the judges of the Supreme

Court of Massachussetts who were holding a court at Northampton.

They all had the black cockade in their hats. To show the violent

feelings of that time, I will state that the conversation was upon Alien

and Sedition laws, & one of the judges said that the Sedition law was an

amelioration of the common law and that on that account it ought to be

supported by every just man: it allowed the truth to be given in evi-

dence & the common law did not. I asked the judge whether the com-

mon law was part & parcel of the law of the United States, to which he

gave an evasive answer. He could not answer affirmatively, & he had

been led by his violent feelings to defend the Federal administration on

untenable grounds.²² It was very common for the black cockade gentry

(as they were called) to insult those who would not wear that badge,

particularly the young men. To prevent this we procured stiff hickory

canes & did not go out without them so that in a little time, as the

Federalists were distinguishable by their black cockades, the Democ-

rats were by their white staves. I well recollect seeing John Adams

while President wearing the black cockade.

In 1798 John Adams issued a proclamation for a general fast which

was kept more or less over New England & probably the other states.

On this occasion I composed a parody on the 148th Psalm & had it

published in a Democratic paper printed in Suffield, from which it was

copied into the [Philadelphia] Aurora & most of the Democratic papers

throughout the Union. It was entitled "A Psalm for the Federalist

Fast." [The "Psalm" accused the Federalists of wishing, not so much

to worship the Almighty, as to excite the people into a war against

France. The Fast became a focus of Federalist enthusiasm, and was

well observed in New England, though not in New York and Philadel-

phia.]

In the winter of 1798-9 the Federal lawyers in Connecticut had a

22. Tappan here is being myopically partisan, failing to understand the Federalist

lawyer's dismay. The status of Common Law was a bone of contention for a generation

after the Revolution, with the more conservative arguing that the courts could exercise

a jurisdiction not authorized by statute law as long as it was justified by long-standing

British precedents. The more radical, like Tappan, refused to follow British example

and could see nothing good to say for the repressive acts of 1798, themselves based on

British legislation of 1795 designed to suppress potentially revolutionary activity. Iron-

ically, Tappan as a judge in 1819 ruled that crimes under English common law should

be held as crimes by Ohio courts in the absence of specific state legislation, a ruling

which was much criticized and never accepted by other Ohio judges.

122                                                    OHIO HISTORY

meeting and agreed thereafter to exclude from admission to the bar all

Democratic students, & a short time before I applied for admission

they had refused admission to a young man in Tolland County who was

said to be of excellent character as a gentleman & schollar. I was the

second to be excluded and, as some of the Federal lawyers were my

personal friends, it was tho't adviseable to make some charge against

me. The charge made was sedition & blasphemy, and the "Psalm" was

produced as the evidence which was to convict me of those crimes. It

had, however, a contrary effect with the bar meeting, for when

Jonathan Brace, one of the oldest members of the Hartford bar, de-

clared that he would have been proud of the authorship of the Psalm,

the younger members gave it up (all except Theodore Dwight, who had

borrowed a pigeon net of me & never returned it, for which I had some

years before spoken sharply to him, & Walter Edwards, who had

swindled me out of $200), so that I was admitted on the next day.²³

Perhaps, however, the bar who were nine tenths Federalists were

somewhat quickened in this matter by learning that if I was rejected I

should settle down in Hartford & assist Major [Elisha] Babcock in

editing the American Mercury which was then a Democratic paper.²⁴

Journey to Ohio, 1799

[Tappan's fortunes were now influenced by the state of Connec-

ticut's involvement in northeastern Ohio.²⁵ Connecticut had sold the

title to its lands to the Connecticut Land Company, in which Tappan's

father was a stockholder. He drew as his share at least fourteen widely

separated pieces of land, but the main lot consisted of two-thirds of a

township which his fellow shareholders agreed in 1799 should be called

Ravenna. Having invested more than he ought in this speculation, the

father recognized that he could avoid serious embarrassment only if

the lands in the West which he now owned were developed and sold as

23. This Federalist relenting may have arisen in part from their general appreciation of

satire as a literary form; in this case, Tappan was beating the "Hartford wits" at their

own game. Jonathan Brace was also one of the three trustees of the Connecticut Land

Company, and so played a significant role in the settlement of northeastern Ohio. Theo-

dore Dwight (1764-1846), a younger brother of Timothy, had been a Hartford lawyer (and

"wit") since 1791; in 1814 he was to be secretary of the infamous Hartford Convention.

Walter Edwards was presumably a member of the well-known Congregationalist family,

related to the Dwights and the Tappans.

24. Elisha Babcock became editor and owner of the Hartford American Mercury in

1786 and in time made it the foremost Democratic-Republican paper in the state.

25. For background information on the settlement of Connecticut's Western Reserve,

see Harlan Hatcher, The Western Reserve: The Story of New Connecticut in Ohio

(Cleveland, 1966), 1-80; and Mary Lou Conlin, Simon Perkins of the Western Reserve

(Cleveland, 1968), 1-74.

Benjamin Tappan                                          123

quickly as possible. His eldest son agreed to strike out to the frontier,

survey the land, and sell it to actual settlers, on condition that the

proceeds should be divided evenly between his father and him. Thirty

years later Tappan confessed that his decision had been influenced

partly by his fear that he could not succeed in his profession in New

England, where there were so many able and learned lawyers-a fear

which he discovered too late was not well-founded.²⁶ Be that as it may,

Tappan now found himself a pioneer, striking out for Ohio where his

family owned extensive lands which he could sell or give away as

seemed most expedient in the cause of promoting settlement.]

Soon after I was admitted to the bar, I went to Northampton & on

the 19th April 1799 I left Northampton, with a man I had hired for six

months, for the Western Reserve. I took with me a yoke of oxen, a cow

and a box of plough irons, harrow teeth & other farming tools. At

Schenectady uncle Ben Homes ["my mother's youngest brother"]²⁷

joined me & I hired another man for six months. I let Homes have my

horse & started him on by land with the cattle, while I purchased &

fitted out a three-handed batteau & started by water. The first day we

worked hard to get the boat up against the current of the Mohawk but,

as both my hands were new to boating, we did not get out of sight of

Schenectady. ["The Mohawk was high & rapid for my boat was the first

that ascended it that spring & the ice had but just run out."] The second

day we doubled our distance and got six miles further. The third day we

got 12 miles, from which time on we did much better, tho' as the

Mohawk was high we had a labourious voyage. At Johnstown, I was

very hospitably entertained by Judge Fisher, whose boys were at the

river fishing & invited me and my hands to their father's house.

The next day, a few miles above that on the south side of the

Mohawk, we stopped to grind an ax & took in David Kellog & his

family, consisting of a wife & two young children. It was at a

blacksmith's shop we stopped to grind the ax. David was a blacksmith

& had been at work there. While my men were grinding the ax, he

enquired of me where we were going. I told him & my account of the

country I was going to caught his fancy much. I had expected my uncle

Homes to bring on his family, as he was poor & had a number of boys,

26. Tappan to his son Benjamin, September 29, 1829, Tappan Papers, LC. The most

useful sources on the background of the Tappans' landholdings on the Western Reserve

are Tappan's MS account of "The First Settlement of Ravenna" (written c. 1855), Tappan

Papers, OHS; and [R. C. Brown et al.], History of Portage County, Ohio (Chicago, 1885),

189-190.

27. This and subsequent inserted comments come from Tappan, "First Settlement of

Ravenna," Tappan Papers, OHS.

124                                                 OHIO HISTORY

& I had offered to pay his expenses & take him on with me & give him

200 acres of land when he got there. Kellog's wife appeared to be a

smart woman & I encouraged them to go with me & offered him 100

acres of land to go on & board me & my hands, I to take them ["with

what little furniture they had"] on gratis & pay them for all the work

they should do for me. I did not perceive that he was a mere loafer who

was willing to go anywhere, provided he could get someone to support

him.

We got on without difficulty & were the first boat which

passed down Wood creek & across the Oneida lake that season.

At Oswego, the wind being unfavorable, we were detained three

days, during which time I employed my men clearing the first ground

that was cleared in the town of Hannibal [New York], for a barrel of

salt.²⁸ From Oswego we boated along the shore of Lake Ontario to

Gerundagut [Irondequoit] bay, up to the head of which we went to take

in three barrels of flour & two of pork which had been deposited there

for me. We did this & got again into the Lake without accident.²⁹ Our

next stopping place was Braddocks bay where we were detained by a

head wind a day or two. From this we reached the mouth of the Niag-

ara river. Our boat & loading was waggoned by the path of

Queenstown to Chippewa, at which place, besides the barracks, there

were then but two or three houses. I got leave to occupy an old store

house for one night. [In other words, the party has crossed Lake On-

tario and is journeying south on the Canadian bank of the Niagara river

as a means of passing above the rapids and the Falls. They are now about

to take to the river in order to continue upstream into Lake Erie.]

The next morning we loaded & rowed out of the mouth of the Chip-

pewa [in] about the middle of the stream into the Niagara river, which

appeared to us, sitting in the boat, to pass on with a very moderate

currant. We had got out but little into the Niagara river when its cur-

rent struck the bow of the boat & turned it in an instant, [pointing it

downstream]. I then perceived our danger. We were at the head of a

descent of 160 or 70 feet in three miles (the distance from the mouth of

28. Tappan was told that this clearing became Hannibal by Martin Van Buren, who

later came to own this land; Tappan, "First Settlement of Ravenna."

29. By this point Tappan had met up with others travelling to the Western Reserve,

including David Hudson (1760-1836), of Goshen, Conn. Hudson left an account of the

journey which at some points contradicts Tappan, just as, indeed, Tappan's later ver-

sions slightly disagree with his 1840 version. For Hudson's version, see Henry Howe,

Historical Collections of Ohio ((Cincinnati, 1847), 470-472 (all subsequent references to

Howe will be to this edition); William H. Perrin, ed., History of Summit County, Ohio

(Chicago, 1881), 413-417; Hatcher, The Western Reserve, 52-53.

Benjamin Tappan                                          125

Chippewa to the horse shoe fall) & the boat driving down with great

velocity. Very fortunately I was steering & my hands sat with their

backs to the shore & were ignorant of the danger. I said, "We must go

ashore again, so pull steady, steady." They gave three strong pulls

before I could perceive that the boat gained any the least head way

towards shore, then it began to move a little that way. I kept encouraging

them & they saw we were in a strong current & exerted themselves so

that we reached the wing dam of Bridgewater mill about half way to the

falls & were saved.³⁰

This I think the most perilous adventure of my life. We towed our

boat back into Chippewa creek where I stopped only to tell the inhabit-

ants (who had stood on the bank & had seen us going into such peril

without giving us any caution) my mind as to their unfeeling conduct.

This made so strong an impression on me that I was really gratified that

the whole village was destroyed in the war of 1812.

When we got to Black rock ferry [the crossing at the head of the

Niagara River], the ice was running out of Lake Erie in large masses.

Five boats beside mine were waiting to cross & we agreed to attempt

the passage. We drew lots to see which should lead & my boat was the

second. We put in & the leading boat soon got discouraged & put back.

I had got so sick of Canada that I was determined to cross at all

hazards. We succeeded, but we were driven down to the lower end of

an island about a mile and a half lower down the river than we put in.

We passed the mouth of Buffaloe creek about three miles, & there

beached, an operation which consisted in unloading our boat & moving

it up on rollers well out of the water. Where we were we had a ride

[ridge] of sand between Lake Erie & the swamp, & we pitched our tent

on the side next the swamp & had our boat by the side of the tent next

the lake. This was the evening of the 25th of May ["my birthday"], &,

except an open space along the shore, the lake was full of ice for 30

miles to the west. That night the wind blew strong from the North west

& the next morning the ice was piled up between the boat & lake 10 or

12 feet high with a base of 20 or 25 feet, compleatly heming us in &

extending round on both shores of the lake as far as the eye could

reach. I think that at no time since has the ice remained in Lake Erie so

late in the season. ["It was out of the question to think of getting the

boat thro the ice to the water, so we remained in our prison another

night during which the wind blew a gale. In the morning of the 27th our

30. "As I steped out on the land I fainted & fell completely exhausted. We had gone

down a descent of what is said to be 50 feet per mile."

126                                               OHIO HISTORY

window of ice was all washed away except enough scattering cakes to

shew where it had been & the lake was clear."] At that time there was

a small log building where Buffalo now stands, occupied by Dr. Chapin

who was a trader, or agent of government, with the Indians.

I had dismissed one of my hands who was troublesome & I thought

dishonest. We had left [in the party] Kellog and his family, Bela Syl-

vester, who I had hired at Northampton, Massachusetts, & David

Hudson, whom I had taken on at Gerundagut and was giving him [and

his hired men] passage on to New Connecticut where he was going to

make a settlement, which he afterwards called by his own name. On

the 27th we started on our way &, after some days rowing and delays

with headwind, we got into the mouth of the Cuyahoga River.31

The only settler where is now the city of Cleveland was Lorenzo

Carter, who lived by the river bank.³² We were joined here by a boat of

Hudson's, which kept company with us to an open meadow on the

Cuyahoga bottom which is now the township of Boston, Summit Coun-

ty, Ohio. Here I unloaded my boat & made a tent of the sail to cover

the goods & Kellog's family, & with B. Sylvester set to work to make a

road to Ravenna. I run a line with my compass & he cut out bushes

enough for a sled to be got along, & in this way we made a road to

Ravenna in two days. We arrived there on 10th June. I found Homes

with the cattle; he had got there a few days before me.

[One of the difficulties facing the first settlers of the Western Reserve

was that, as a result of the complicated process of partition and allot-

ment, each proprietor had lands in the heart of the forest, miles from

the nearest places of settlement. So Tappan and Hudson needed to

penetrate inland up the Cuyahoga, which in places had, at that season,

only eight or ten inches of water, and then find their way eastwards to

their allotted townships. Fortunately the first parties of surveyors,

beginning in 1796, had divided the Reserve into townships (numbered

every five miles from south to north) and ranges (numbered every five

miles from east to west), and had marked the boundary lines, usually

by cutting notches into trees. These lines were much used by the

pioneers as a means of finding their route and locating their lands, yet it

was to take Hudson "six days' laborious and painful search" before "he

31. Tappan gives an explicit account of these delays in his "First Settlement of

Ravenna."

32. Lorenzo Carter settled in Cleveland in 1797 and helped to build up the settlement,

trading with the Indians, providing accommodation for pioneers, and even beginning the

shipbuilding industry.

Benjamin Tappan                                                      127

discovered, towards night, a line which led to the south-west corner of

his township."]33

Making a Settlement, 1799-1800

In the first place [we] made a dray ["of birch saplings"] to haul our

goods on. As soon as the dray was made, I sent Sylvester for a barrel of

flour & one of pork. He brought them back & informed me that he

found my tent abandoned & it appeared that some of the property had

been stolen. The truth was that, as soon as I had left Kellog & his

family to take care of my property on the Cuyahoga untill Sylvester & I

could make a road & remove it, David Hudson made Kellog an offer of

200 acres of land as a gift to go into his township and keep house for

him. Kellog yielded to this temptation & left my tent & goods to be

plundered by the Indians. This was all the compensation I got from

Hudson for giving him a passage from the Genesee country to New

Connecticut.

In the hurry of getting the goods over, we [over] heat one of the oxen

so that he sickened & died before we had finished.³⁴ This was a great

misfortune & one that appeared remediless, as I had expended all but

one dollar of my money. I immediately sent Homes thro' the woods to

the fort at Presqueisle [now Erie, Pennsylvania] with a letter to the

Commandant requesting him to give me money for a draft on my

father. Capt. Cornelius Lyman, an acquaintance of ours, commanded

there & readily complied with my request. In the mean time I deter-

mined to try my credit to make up my team, as my property was very

33. Howe, Historical Collections, 470. We have what appears to be a fragment of

Tappan's own diary, recording these last stages of the journey in slightly different terms:

"Arived at No. 4-11th R. [i.e., Township 4, 11th Range]. 9th June 1799 left the boat & c.

with Kellog & family. Doct. Miner, Hudson, Blinn & two of Hudson's men set out with

me to run a line from the boats to where the Indian path intersects the 9th Meridian. 10th

June MEM [Memorandum]: Hudson had agreed to assist me in cutting a road from my

boat to No. 3-8th. We went on untill we reached the Cuyahoga at Standing Stone and

blundered about to find the crossing place-Pease's Map not correct in this place. Hud-

son tired, would go no farther. I told him of his agreement-made no impression. (MEM:

Hudson was converted last winter from Deism to Deviltry). Camped for the night.

Musquetoes, gnats &c. &c. very busy. June 11th Hudson arose from his bed of turf &

with much solemnity bade me farewell & took off one of his men with him. The rest of us

made the best of our way on to No. 3-8th. As we did not know where Mr. Homes had

come to anchor, we frequently halted for him. We found him at last near the west end of

Granger's pond [one mile south of Ravenna] with a beard of two inches length. He had

been there a fortnight & nothing to eat or drink but milk. Our sudden appearance

somewhat deranged his intellect, but he recovered after swallowing about 2 pounds of

raw pork. Thus ended the journey out." Tappan Papers, OHS.

34. According to Hudson, all the oxen were troubled by blood-sucking flies, which

"actually killed one of Tappan's oxen this season." Howe, Historical Collections, 471.

128                                                    OHIO HISTORY

much exposed at the tent. [He also needed a second ox because "un-

less mine had a mate no ploughing could be done." As he had also lost

the horse which Homes had brought with the cattle, Tappan had to

travel on foot, using the surveyors' lines to guide him.] So as there was

no road in that country, I took the township line, the north line of the

township numbered two, & travelled on that East untill I came to a

road from Warren to Youngstown. I went to Youngstown & found no

difficulty in persuading James Hillman, Esq., to trust me with an ox

which I thought would be a good mate for mine.³⁵ I tied a rope round

the horns of the ox and in less than a day I led him the way I had come

back to Ravenna. Fortunately he proved a very excellent match for my

ox, but these things so delayed my work that I was not able to raise any

provisions that season. While the pork I had brought on lasted, we

lived on that & such wild meat as we bought of the Indians. When the

pork was gone, we depended on the Indians & our hunting for meat, &

sent to Pennsylvania for flour.³⁶

On the 10th of July Hudson came to see me. He looked very grave

&, as he was a very religious man, I suspected at once that he had got

tired of Kellog & had come to get me to take him off his hands. I let him

begin, however, which, after sitting a few minutes, he did by saying,

"Squire Tappan, I have done wrong in inducing Kellog to break his

contract with you, & I have now come to ask you to forgive me & I

hope God will forgive me." My reply was, "You did a very roguish

trick in getting Kellog to leave my goods to be plundered by the Indians

& to break his contract with me. God will do as he pleases as to

pardoning you, but, as to myself, if you mean by my pardoning you

that I will take Kellog back again, I shall do no such thing. You thought

by getting him from me you was gaining some advantage, & you now

35. Col. James Hillman (1762-1848), a Pennsylvanian, fought in the West in the Re-

volutionary War, then settled in Pittsburgh and traded with the Ohio Indians and con-

veyed goods by land as far as Detroit. He commenced the settlement of Youngstown in

1796 (though Tappan claimed the date was 1798) and he built what was perhaps the first

house on the Western Reserve. He was remembered for his essential services to sub-

sequent pioneers; in this instance his decision to sell Tappan an ox "on credit at a fair

price" was "an act of generosity which proved of great value, as the want of a team must

have broken up his settlement" (Democratic Review, VII, 435). Howe, Historical Col-

lections, 339, and Tappan's MS critique, Tappan Papers, OHS.

36. In his later account of "The First Settlement of Ravenna," Tappan slightly con-

tradicts these last statements. After securing the second ox from Hillman, "we made the

wood work for our farming tools, cleared & fenced in a garden plot & a field on the

bottom of about four acres, & planted them. The corn was planted on the 26 of June &

yielded a good crop." See also additional information about the first winter in First

Settlement.

130                                                OHIO HISTORY

was living there with his family when Hudson & I went into the Reserve.

Having wintered there & made a small clearing, he was the first white

man who settled in Portage County.

[Tappan was deeply annoyed by Hudson's account, which had em-

phasized "the privations and hardships of the undertaking, giving him-

self considerable credit with scarce an allusion to Tappan,"³⁹ since

Tappan had conducted him from Lake Ontario and Hudson had gener-

ally preferred to travel in Tappan's boat rather than in his own. The

clash between the two men was, however, basically one of tempera-

ment and outlook, in which Tappan was also to blame. For example, in

1801 Hudson, like the good neighbor he was, invited Tappan to give the

oration at a July Fourth celebration to be held at his cabin in Hudson.

To the annoyance of his more religious hearers, including the missio-

nary Joseph Badger, Tappan's oration was "interlaced with many

grossly illiberal remarks about Christians and Christianity."⁴⁰ Hudson

himself was to play a decisive role in the development of the Reserve,

building up orthodox religious and educational institutions, including

Western Reserve College. In the end, even Tappan acknowledged that

"David Hudson was an honest & very devout man, but was too weak

to resist temptation. It is rare that men of so much pretention to sanc-

tity are honest, but Hudson was an exception, notwithstanding his

conduct as to Kellogg & some other aberrations, & his general charac-

ter & deportment was that of an honest man."]⁴1

As I determined to spend the winter there, I made preparation to

build a log cabbin, but could not accomplish it untill the six months for

which Sylvester was engaged had expired & he and Homes left me to

return to New England.⁴² I was left entirely alone for 21 days, expect-

ing one [Benjamin] Bixby & his family to come on to settle there on 100

acres of land I had given him on condition of settlement.

[The great inducement Bixby, or Bigsby, had to offer was his wife,

who was to take over the cooking from Tappan. "I had done most of

our cooking during the summer, and was quite tired of it. ... I did not

feel as though I ran much risk in getting a woman to do my cooking and

39. Democratic Review, VII, 549.

40. Joseph Badger, Memoir of the Rev. Joseph Badger (Hudson, 1851), 26-27.

41. Tappan's MS critique of Howe's Historical Collections, 470, 473, Tappan Papers,

OHS.

42. Homes had wished to see the land Tappan offered before he moved his family on

to it. Though he liked the land, he never came back from Vermont. He apparently

disliked farming, though he was an able surveyor and had found no difficulty in travelling

hundreds of miles through the forest by himself. Tappan, "First Settlement of Ravenna"

and critique of Howe, ibid.

Benjamin Tappan                                               131

washing, the latter of which had not been as well done as the former

during the summer."] After Bixby had got on & we were ready to raise

our cabbin, two men of the name of Purviance, Quakers of Brownsville

in Penn[sylvani]a, came along. They were looking for land. At my

request they joined us in raising a cabbin of 22 feet by 18 a story and a

half high. [The cabin was raised and shingled in a single day. Tappan

had found it difficult to gain assistance from neighbouring settlements

because some settlers had returned East for the winter, while others

considered the season too advanced for a "raising." The two Quakers

who came to his assistance refused payment; according to his later

account, they came from Smithfield in Jefferson County, Ohio. There-

after] Bixby & I worked dilligently to make the cabbin habitable by

good puncheon floors & chunking, & on the 1st of January 1800 we

moved into it. Untill then we had lived in a bark camp, as it was called.

It was a place about eight feet square, open towards the East & close

on the other three sides & on top, built of Linn bark.⁴³ At the front side

it was high enough for a man to stand up & it sloped back to about 2

feet of the ground. Our fire was in front, in the open air.

Nothing remarkable occurred this first winter. I found use for all my

mechanical skill in making furniture for my house & tools for farming. I

split puncheons of cherry (which was abundant) &, having hewed them

thin enough, made partitions so as to divide my cabbin into three

rooms. In February about 20 inches of snow fell, and, as we were

entirely out of flour, I took my oxen & sled & went to buy some. I first

went of William's mill near Greensburg, but could get none there; the

mill was frozen so that it could not grind. I went from there across the

Ohio River at Georgetown about 3 miles to Laughlan's mill.⁴⁴ There I

bought a barrel of corn meal-no flour was to be had, so I went home

with that. On my way between Canfield & Deerfield one of my oxen

was taken sick & I had to go on without my sled to Deerfield, where I

got someone to go back for it & in this way I hired it hauled to Raven-

na. With good care my ox recovered, but my barrel of meal cost me

much labour & money.

43. Linn is Basswood or American Linden. Puncheons were pieces of timber split

from trees about 18 inches in diameter, and hewed smooth with a broad-axe; they usually

ran about half the length of the cabin floor. "Chunking" means filling the crevices

between the logs forming the walls with "chinks," or split pieces of wood, and then

daubing them with mud.

44. The early pioneers of Portage County had to travel 45 miles to the nearest grist

mill, until water-powered mills were built locally in 1801 and 1802. History of Portage

County, 248, 393, 521. William's mill had been specially provided by the Connecticut

Land Company for the convenience of settlers.

132                                                      OHIO HISTORY

In the spring of 1800 I hired two good ax men & much extended my

clearing. Settlements were commenced in Deerfield, Aurora & At-

water, & some families came into Mantua & Nelson. Settlements had

been commenced in 1799 in Canfield & Warren.

In June 1800 two Indian men & a child were shot by Joseph McMa-

hon & another fellow at the Salt Springs, & in August or September

Gov. St. Clair & Judges Gilman & Meigs of the Supreme Court & Mr.

Bachus, an Attorney of Marietta, came to Youngstown to try McMa-

hon for murder, he having been taken.⁴⁵ I was employed by a friend of

the prisoner to assist in the defense. The counsel he had employed

were Stark Edwards of Warren & Cunningham Semple of Pittsburg.⁴⁶

He was acquitted. This was the first cause I ever argued to a jury &, as

I knew both my associate counsel thought our client ought to be

hanged, I felt that his fate probably depended on what I might say. I

was very much embarrassed, so much so that it would have been

impossible for me to proceed beyond a few sentences which I had

committed to memory for a beginning, but Bachus, who sat by me,

seeing my embarrassment, said over some sentences ending with "I

will read you the law upon this subject," which I repeated after him &

then read my authorities, by which I gathered confidence to go on. I

gained some reputation by my defense of the prisoner, but the settle-

ment was too new to give me much business.⁴⁷

Return to New England, 1800-1801

In December I went a journey to Northampton on horseback, in

company with four others who were returning to New England. We

found tollerable accomodations untill we came to the settlement of

Lowry at 16 mile creek (east of Erie). From this to Buffalo there was no

45. The Salt Springs on the Mahoning were an early place of concentration for both

Indians and white men. Arthur St. Clair (1736-1818), a Scot by birth, after careers in the

British and Revolutionary armies and in Pennsylvania politics, was appointed Governor

of the Northwest Territory in 1787. He was particularly concerned about relations with

the Indians. Joseph Gilman, the father of Benjamin Ives Gilman, moved from New

Hampshire to Marietta as one of its earliest settlers. Return Jonathan Meigs, Jr. (1764-

1825) was a Yale-educated lawyer who was appointed a judge of the territorial Supreme

Court in 1798. He later became Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, U.S. Senator,

Governor of Ohio (1810-1814), and U.S. Postmaster-General (1814-1823). Elijah Backus,

who later became an active Republican politician and editor in Marietta, on this occasion

acted as prosecuting attorney.

46. John Stark Edwards (1777-1813), a grandson of Jonathan Edwards and related to

Tappan, represented his father's extensive proprietorial interests. He was to become the

leading lawyer on the Reserve.

47. On the McMahon case, see Howe, Historical Collections, 480-81.

Benjamin Tappan                                           133

inhabitants but Indians, & no road but an Indian path. Each man laid in

his own stores for himself & horse. The first night we had rain & some

freezing. We laid down round a large fire. I had two large bear skins,

one under & the other over me, & was able to sleep some. The others

took turns in crawling under my bear skin which would shed the rain

off of two of them at a time. The next night we got to Cataraguas where

we found shelter in the hut of a Canadian Frenchman who was living

there with an Indian woman. My companions had consumed the last of

their provisions. What I had left I divided with them at noon. That

night we got to Buffalo & put up at Landon's tavern. From this to

Northampton I had no difficulty, as the country was so well settled that

I could put up at taverns to [the] Genesee river, & beyond that the

settlement was well advanced.

In about a fortnight after my return [to New England], I went to

Hartford [Connecticut] on some business connected with our purchase

of land, & at the same time made a visit to my friend Todd at Far-

mington. Todd went over to Berlin with me to visit Doctor Sylvester

Wells & Elnathan Smith, with whom we were intimate.⁴⁸ At Smith's I

saw again (after nine years) Miss Nancy Wright, with whom I had

formerly had a slight acquaintance. I returned the next day to Far-

mington with Todd &, after staying one night with him, I left him for

home, but I concluded to take Berlin in my way where I spent two days

with Miss Wright. In the spring we were married & started in a waggon

drawn by two horses for the Western Reserve. We went from Berlin

thro' Litchfield, New Windsor, Easton, Harrisburg & Bedford to

Pittsburg; thence by the way to Poland, Deerfield, & Atwater to

Ravenna. We were 45 days from Berlin to Ravenna. I drove my own

waggon, in which I carried my wife & her sister with a rather full load

of furniture. It was a very tedious journey & was not without its variety

of incidents, tho' not of sufficient importance to be here mentioned.

Pioneer Politics

[Initially the Western Reserve had no government because the right

of jurisdiction was disputed between Connecticut and the federal gov-

ernment. In May 1800 Connecticut released her claims to jurisdiction,

with the result that the Reserve came under the government of the

Northwest Territory, headed by the increasingly unpopular Governor

48. These three were all active leaders of the Republican and Tolerationist cause in

Connecticut. Wells was a Yale-educated Universalist, Smith an Episcopalian attorney.

For Todd, see n. 13.

134                                                 OHIO HISTORY

Arthur St. Clair, who was appointed by, and responsible to, the federal

government. The Reserve was organized as Trumbull County in July

1800, and its first military and civilian officials appointed. There was

already a strong move afoot, however, to advance from "colonial"

status to the greater autonomy of statehood-a move in the direction of

greater popular rule which Tappan was wholeheartedly to support.]

We began to talk about a State government. All but the officers were

tired of the Territorial government. I had seen Govr. St. Clair & got

acquainted with him at Youngstown. He offered me a commission as

Justice of the Peace, which I declined accepting, telling him that I

could not hold office under a government I was endeavoring to change.

He thanked me for my frankness. I was first introduced to him at John

Young's in Youngstown. He invited me to drink with him. I did so. He

poured into a half pint tumbler about a gill of Brandy &, after adding a

small quantity of water, drank it. I had heard of his drinking powers &

therefore observed, & counted that after me 24 gentlemen were intro-

duced to him the same evening, with every one of whom he drank

about the same quantity of brandy, & yet he seemed as steady &

conversed as well as early in the evening. St. Clair required more than

his salary to supply him with drink, & to get this he made a regulation

by which he allowed himself fees for almost every thing he did. For

instance, he required every one who wished to marry to obtain a li-

cence from him, & some he made pay more & some less for it, accord-

ing to their ability. The late Jeremiah McLane of Columbus told me

that he paid him fifteen dollars for a licence to marry his wife. He sent

me a licence to practice law & a message with it to send him $20 as a

fee. I sent back the licence with a message that I could practice law

without a licence. I heard no more about it.⁴⁹

The next evening after I was introduced to St. Clair, I found him

after supper in his room alone & entered into conversation with him on

the subject of organizing the militia. After conversing a few minutes,

say[s] he, "why don't you attend the meeting?" I told him I knew of no

meeting. "I am surprised at that. There is a meeting up chamber on this

subject & I wish you would attend it." I told him, altho' I was not

invited, at his request I would seek admission to the meeting. I went up

49. The demand for arbitrary fees was one of the main complaints that the statehood

party levelled against St. Clair. David M. Massie, Nathanieal Massie, A Pioneer of Ohio

(Cincinnati, 1896), 79, 180, 186, 195. Jeremiah McLene (1767-1837), a Pennsylvanian

who had served in the Revolutionary War, had a distinguished career in the public

service in Ohio, first as Assemblyman (1807-1808), then as the longest-serving Secretary

of State (1808-1831), and finally as a Democratic Congressman from 1833 until his death.

136                                                   OHIO HISTORY

sheriff, judges, clerk of the court, Recorder, &c., and sent [John] Stark

Edwards with it to Cincinnati to get it confirmed. This was in 1799

[1800].51 St. Clair, who knew nothing about the persons nominated,

made the appointments accordingly. Edwards got the most lucrative

office, that of Recorder; [Calvin] Pease the next, that of clerk; John

Young, in consideration of making the first settlement in 1798 at

Youngstown, was made chief judge of the county court; [John]

Kinsman, [James] Kingsbury & . .. [?] Griswold? were appointed

judges; [David] Abbot sheriff.⁵²

In the fall, I think October [1800], there was a court held at Warren &

in the evening we organized a meeting to nominate militia officers.

Judge Kingsbury was chairman & I was secretary of the meeting.

Young and the other officers of the territorial government tried to

break up the meeting, but, finding they could not do this, they with-

drew & made out a nomination for themselves which they got ap-

pointed by the governor. Mean time we went on with the meeting of the

democracy & nominated officers. I then drew up an address to the

Governor telling him very plainly the duty of a governor of a free state

& recommending the appointment of our nominees. The address was a

very plain spoken thing, for as I was well assured that the recommen-

dation of the office holders would have most influence with the Govr., I

drew up the recommendation for political effect. It was adopted unani-

mously but was disregarded by St. Clair.

In May 1801 [?], Elijah Boardman of Connecticut & Eli Baldwin

came to my house to see me. Boardman owned considerable land on

the Reserve & was a Democrat.⁵³ His visit to me was to induce me to

do what in these times is called "taking the stump" in favor of going

into a state government. I coincided with him in opinion but could not

agree to travel over the Reserve. The Deerfield people, however, in-

vited me to deliver to them an oration on the approaching 4th July &

collected a considerable number of people for so new a settlement. I

51. [Mary L. W. Moore, ed.,] Diary of Turhand Kirtland (Poland, Ohio, 1903), 34

(entry for July 27, 1800); Conlin, Simon Perkins, 35-36.

52. John Kinsman was a wealthy proprietor who had founded the town of Kinsman,

Trumbull County. James Kingsbury, whom Tappan considered the first settler on the

Reserve, had settled with his wife at Conneaut in 1796. David Abbot (1765-1822), a Yale

graduate and a lawyer, emigrated from Massachussetts in 1798 and settled in what is now

Willoughby. He sat in the Constitutional Convention of 1802 and in the General Assem-

bly, and in 1809 moved to Huron county, where he laid out the town of Milan.

53. Eli Baldwin was one of Boardman's first settlers, a land agent and merchant,

whose long career culminated politically when he ran as Jacksonian candidate for Gov-

ernor of Ohio in 1836.

138                                                    OHIO HISTORY

tington was elected by a majority of one over me, so that, if I had voted

for myself & Abbott, I should have been elected.⁵⁵

The Convention sat in Decr. & formed the present constitution of the

state. They gave the Reserve one senator & two representatives, &

appointed the election in the month of February, & the first session of

the assembly in April 1803. The nearest Post office at this time was

Canfield 27 miles distant, & we sent there but seldom & had but little

communication in that season of the year. I heard of the apportionment

of Representation for the Reserve & offered myself as a candidate for

the senate & had a fair prospect of success. Shortly before the time

fixed for the election I received a letter from Huntington informing me

that the election was to be holden at the two places of holding the

election (Warren & Painesville) on the   day of February, of which I

gave notice to the inhabitants of what was since the County of Portage.

Two weeks before the time mentioned in Huntington's letter as the

time for holding the election, Alijah Peck rode up to my house at a little

past ten o'clock in the morning & asked me why I had not gone to the

election. This was the first intimation I had as to the true time of

holding the election. It was about a day's ride to Warren &, if I had

started with him, it was doubtfull whether I could reach Warren before

the election would close. So I remained at home, as did every voter in

that part of the Reserve included in the late county of Portage, all

deceived by the false statement of Huntington. As I did not attend the

election, it was generally supposed that the story circulated by the

friends of Huntington that I had declined being a candidate was true, &

I got but few votes. Huntington was elected senator. This trick of

Huntington's easily succeeded because I did not then know him.⁵⁶

About 10 days before the sitting of the Assembly, Calvin Pease made

me a visit.⁵⁷ He said he had come out to see if I would not be a

candidate for the office of President of the court of common Pleas. He

did not know any lawyer in the circuit fit for the office but me, for, as to

himself, all he wanted was to be continued as clerk of the Court. I had

55. Samuel Huntington (1770-1818), of Connecticut and Yale, settled in Cleveland in

1800 and later became Supreme Court Justice in 1804 and Governor in 1808. The Con-

vention was called, not by the territorial Assembly, but by Congress.

56. As Tappan's father said, he really should have taken proper pains to learn about

the new Constitution and the prescribed dates of elections. Benjamin Tappan (Sr.) to

Tappan, April 22, 1803, Tappan Papers, LC. The election was actually held in January.

57. Calvin Pease (1776-1839), the brother-in-law of Gideon Granger and an old friend

of Tappan with whom he shared an anticlerical outlook, moved west from Connecticut in

1800 and settled as a lawyer in Warren in 1803. After serving this one term as President

Judge, Pease became a justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, 1816-1830.

Benjamin Tappan                                                     139

not thought of the possibillity of being elected to that office nor did I

wish to have it, but I knew Pease &, as he had come 30 miles to see me

& staid all night, I appeared to him to wish for the office &, as he said

he was going to Chilicothe & would do all he could to promote my

success with the assembly, I thanked him & he went away satisfied

that he had duped me. I told my friends that Pease was a candidate for

the office of Prest. Judge and would get it, as he would have no com-

petitor, & so it turned out. I had cause to regret playing this game with

Pease. I had better at once have declined his insincere offer, for, as it

turned out, he believed he had duped & deceived me & was ever after

my most bitter enemy, &, as he was destitute of moral principle, he

injured me greatly in all my business before him in the common Pleas.

At our first election under the constitution Capt. Wadsworth of Can-

field was elected sheriff.⁵⁸ The first assembly under the Constitution

elected Huntington one of the judges of the supreme court, which

vacated the office of senator from Trumbull Co. I determined to be a

candidate for the office. I do not recollect who the Federalists ran in

opposition to me, but I succeeded by a large majority. Ephm. Quinby

& David Abbot were the representatives.⁵⁹ The assembly met at

Chilicothe on the 1st Monday of Dec., 1803. We had a very busy

session. I drew up an act for the partition of real estate which passed

and has remained, with but slight alterations, the law of the state ever

since.⁶⁰ I also drew up & reported a bill establishing boards of county

Commissioners, which passed (before this the business had been done

by a court of quarter sessions consisting of the justices of the peace);

also a bill for organizing & discipling the militia, which passed; & many

other laws.⁶¹

58. Elijah Wadsworth (1747-1817) was a leading man in Canfield, in the southeastern

corner of the Reserve, and a business associate of Tappan. In 1804 he was to be ap-

pointed one of the four Major-Generals in command of the Ohio Militia.

59. Ephraim Quinby, proprietor and founder, in 1799, of Warren, was an influential

leader of the early pioneers, especially since Warren was named county seat in 1800.

60. Tappan's claim is a little exaggerated, since his bill was based on an act drawn up

by Jacob Burnet and passed by the Territorial Legislature in 1801. The purpose of the act

was to enable, upon petition, the division of any land held jointly. Jacob Burnet, Notes

on the Early Settlement of the Northwestern Territory (Cincinnati, 1847), 330.

61. These measures can all be interpreted as furthering the democratization of the

state. The reform of local government shifted power from officials appointed by the

territorial government to commissioners elected by the various county electorates; the

militia were to elect their own officers; while the partition of real estate would facilitate

the break-up of large landed estates, just as, indeed, the taxing of lands owned by

non-residents would encourage wealthy Eastern landholders to sell their lands quickly

and cheaply to actual settlers.

140                                                OHIO HISTORY

A very important question was agitated this session, whether the

lands of non-resident proprietors should be taxed. I took the affirma-

tive of this question, & drew up & advocated the bill which was passed

for laying & collecting a land tax. My constituents paid at that time one

fourth part of the land tax & so were deeply interested in the question.

After we returned home [David] Abbot, who disliked me much, circu-

lated a tale that I had been opposed to taxing non-residents & gave it

extensive circulation before I heard of it.⁶² It had the effect to prevent

my election, or indeed to prevent my being taken up as a candidate

again. Afterwards when the truth became known Abbot's character

suffered for this falsehood, added to many others. [On the other hand,

as his father said, Tappan was so irritable and tactless that he re-

peatedly provoked quarrels and so created enmities which prevented

his election to the public offices his talents deserved.]⁶³

Captain Elijah Wadsworth, a very intimate friend of mine, had been

elected Major General of the division we lived in (the 4th) & he urged

me to accept the office of aid to him, because he wanted my help in

organizing the militia. He had been a good cavalry officer in Sheldon's

regiment of light horse in the Revolution but knew nothing of infantry

regulations or tactics. I accepted the office & was commissioned as a

Major.

This same season (1804) we had an election at Deerfield at which a

justice of the peace was to be chosen. Robt. Eaton, who lived near

me,⁶⁴ was a candidate & our best informed people, fearfull that he

would be elected, strongly urged me to be a candidate. I gave way to

their request reluctantly, knowing that it would be a very troublesome

office. My commission came on in Oct. & I had it a year without taking

the oath of office. Eaton complained much of this & I, finding that he

was getting up a party to force a new election, took the oath of office in

1805. I acted in this office about a year & then resigned. I lived during

this time about a mile from any other person &, when I held a justice's

court, I entertained all parties & witnesses, because they could not

well do without food for themselves & horses. This, and my never

charging any fees, made the office rather burthensome & I was glad to

be rid of it. I continued in the practice of the law in Trumbull &

Columbiana Counties, having after I resigned moved to Canfield in

Oct. or Nov. 1806.

62. Elijah Backus to Tappan, August 24, 1804, Tappan Papers, LC.

63. Benjamin Tappan (Sr.) to Tappan, August 9, 1805, ibid.

64. Robert Eaton settled in the township in 1802 and built a house which was later

used as Court House and Jail until the completion of the first public buildings in 1810.

Benjamin Tappan                                                    141

In June 1806 I went with my wife to New England on horseback. We

rode from Canfield to Litchfield in Connecticut in eleven days. We

spent the summer in New England with our friends, & in October I

accompanied my wife to Philadelphia where I parted with her, she

going with her brother James to Petersburg in Va. & I returned to Ohio.

I stopped in Canfield, where I had resided a few months, & was visited

by the agent of Colo. Burr, who laboured to engage me in his expedi-

tion, preparations for which were then going on at Beaver.⁶⁵ I soon

suspected there was some villainy in the business & endeavour'd to

find out what it was, but could not learn more than that many persons

were engaged in a military expedition southward. I went on in De-

cember to spend the winter with my wife &, on my way, called in

Washington City on Genl. Dearborn, the then secretary of war, & told

him what I knew about the matter. He told me that all Burr's move-

ments were watched & that every step he took was known by the

President. [Indeed, Jefferson had already sent his agent to the West to

investigate Burr's preparations and to warn the local authorities. Gov-

ernor Edward Tiffin of Ohio took steps to prevent the expedition, and

by December 15 could report the seizure of nearly all its boats and

supplies.]

I stopped but one day in Washington & went on to Petersburg [Vir-

ginia]. I staid there untill about the 20th Feby. 1807, when we returned

to Ohio. I stopped three days to hear the debates in Congress. The

House of Representatives was then a body in which there was great

order & decorum. Nathaniel Macon was the speaker. I heard John

Randolph, Josiah Quincy, James Smiley [sic], Wm. Findley, Benj.

Tallmadge & some others.⁶⁶

65. Tappan was apparently under some obligation to Burr for the part Burr had played

in securing Tappan's admission to the bar in Connecticut; Democratic Review, VII, 553.

66. The House had been troubled by scenes of disorder on several occasions in the

late 1830s. Nathaniel Macon (1758-1837) of North Carolina served in Congress from 1791

to 1828 and was revered by Tappan as a consistent, high-principled Jeffersonian. Macon

was Speaker of the House from 1801 to 1807, by the end of which time he was estranged

from President Jefferson as a result of his support of John Randolph of Roanoke (1773-

1833), who criticized the administration for behaving like Federalists. The brilliant but

erratic Randolph served in Congress until 1829, and, like Macon, transmitted old party

principles into the Jacksonian era. John Smilie was a member of Congress from Pennsyl-

vania for a number of years. He died about the turn of the year, 1812-1813. William

Findley (1741-1821), a Scotch-Irishman from Pennsylvania, was an expert defender of

the interests of frontiersmen and another firm opponent of Federalist measures during his

years in Congress, 1791-1799 and 1803-1817. Benjamin Tallmadge (1754-1835) of New

York, a former revolutionary soldier, was a moderate Federalist of much influence even in

the Republican Congresses of 1801-1807.

142                                                      OHIO HISTORY

The Making of Ravenna, 1808-1809

As I had purchased the whole of my father's land in Ravenna, we

returned to & settled again in that place. In the session of Assembly of

1807-8 the county of Portage was divided off from the county of Trum-

bull & my friends in the assembly put in Aaron Norton, Wm. Wetmore

& Amzi Atwater associate judges. They held the first court at my

house in May 1808.67 I perceived great coldness in the judges towards

me & for some time I was at a loss to account for it. It was owing to a

lie that Stark Edwards had told them, which was that I had said they

would know the God that made them. I shall not pretend to record the

one thousandth part of the lies the Federalists told to injure me; this is

one.

[On the other hand, this story does indicate the extent to which the

creation of the new county was a personal triumph for Tappan. When

the first serious proposals were made in 1805 to divide the Reserve into

a number of counties it had appeared for some time as though the plan

of division would place Ravenna township on the edge of a county.

After political manoeuvrings, however, Trumbull County was divided

up so as to place Ravenna township at the center of the new county of

Portage. Accordingly, in the spring of 1808 Tappan laid out the town of

Ravenna, which was duly selected as the county seat, though its re-

moval was threatened for several years. Ravenna thereby became a

focus of settlement, land values rose, and since Tappan had bought out

his father's share in 1806, he soon became relatively wealthy.⁶⁸ How-

ever, he and his wife disliked living in Ravenna because of its lack of

amenities, for, like other places on the Reserve, it settled only slowly

and remained fairly crude, isolated and backward until the 1820s.]69

In making the settlement of Ravenna, it was so far in advance of the

other settlements that, to get people to settle there, I was at first

67. Unverified tradition claims that when the various officers arrived at Tappan's

house to hold the first court, they found it burned to the ground. Tappan's failure to

mention the incident casts further doubt on the tradition. It is true that the officers

adjourned to Eaton's house, but this may have been a result of the hostility Tappan

proceeds to refer to. Amzi Atwater, one of the original surveyors of 1796 and 1797,

moved from Connecticut to Mantua in 1800. A large landholder and very public-spirited,

he had a considerable influence on the development of the county. The associate judges

were laymen who sat on the bench at county sessions of the Common Pleas court under

the chairmanship of the President Judge for the District, who was usually a lawyer by

profession.

68. Tappan to John Sloane, November 28, 1805, Tappan Papers, OHS. Tappan to

Nancy Tappan, October 6, 1806, and John Tappan to Tappan, July 2, 9, September 6,

1809, Tappan Papers, LC.

69. Hatcher, The Western Reserve, 62-74.

Benjamin Tappan                                            143

obliged to take such as offered, & thus I got for my first settlers a

parcel of rough fellows & some of them great villains & these kept off

better men, for those who were of better character & in good cir-

cumstances would not settle there. Among them were Sam Simcox, Jo

Wright & David Wright, horse thieves and the two latter forgers. After

I had detected these fellows & arested some of them, the others with

Moses Bradford burned down two cabbins & a barn & cut down all my

apple trees. It was necessary to get rid of these fellows & I finally

succeeded & in the spring of 1809 they had all cleared out. [These, no

doubt, were the settlers who, according to Charles Whittlesey, moved

over to the more idealistic community of Tallmadge, driven out of

Ravenna "by the systematic oppression of a large proprieter (sic) and

agent, Benjamin Tappan."]⁷⁰

But Ravenna was not a place in which much business was to be done

in my profession, & besides, my family were without the reach of

medical advice & assistance & my wife nearly lost her life by a prema-

ture parturition brought on by following the advice of Dr. Thompson of

Hudson, a most miserable quack but the best doctor in our reach.⁷¹

This reason determined me to remove to Steubenville, Pittsburg or

Cinncinnati. About this time I was applied to by some persons in

Jefferson County to undertake their suits & I went to Steubenville &

attended the April court, 1809. I found the business here so promising

that I bought me an house & agreed to take possession of it on the 13th

May, on which day I accordingly moved into it. I immediately got into

a very good practice, tho' it was more than a year before any of the

Federal women called on my wife; we got along very comfortably

without much society. When I went to Steubenville four Federal

lawyers resided there, [David] Jennings, [?] King, [John] Patterson &

[Jesse] Edgington. In less than four years they had all cleared out.

Dispute Over the Judiciary, 1809-1810.

In Dec. 1809 I was employed by John Bever to go to Chilicothe &

attend the session of the assembly as what has since been called a

lobby member. 72 Bever owned the town of Wooster in Wayne County

70. Quoted in Hatcher, The Western Reserve, 173. For a criticism of Tappan's treat-

ment of his settlers, see his brother John's letter, February 12, 1811, Tappan Papers, LC.

71. Dr. Moses Thompson settled in Hudson in 1800, having been promised $50 in

medicine by Hudson if he did so. Perrin, Summit County, 417-419.

72. John Bever, or Beaver, of Pennsylvania, founded and owned several towns in

Ohio, including Wooster and Mansfield, in association with James Hedges and Joseph H.

Larwill.

144                                                       OHIO HISTORY

& the Commissioners had very improperly, as he thought, fixed on a

place for the seat of justice two or three miles from Wooster, & my

services were required to get the judgement of the Commissioners put

aside & the seat of justice fixed at Wooster, which was accomplished

without difficulty.⁷³ This session of the assembly Genl. [Duncan] Mc-

Arthur was speaker of the Senate & Mr. Tiffin of the house. I boarded at

Irwin's tavern where about 30 members of the assembly were.⁷⁴

A very interesting question arose during this session which, as it has

been much misrepresented, I will state with some minuteness. The

constitution of Ohio has this provision: "the judges of the supreme

court & the Presidents of the Courts of common Pleas shall hold their

offices for the term of seven years if so long they shall behave them-

selves well & they shall receive for their services a compensation to be

fixed by law which shall not be diminished during their continuance in

office." The time was approaching when the first period or term of

seven years from the first appointment of judges in April 1803 was

about to expire, & it was agitated whether the Constitution had fixed a

septenial term for the service of the judges so that those who had been

elected to supply vacancies could only serve the residue of the term, or

whether each judge was appointed for seven years. In favor of the

former construction it was urged (beside the import of the words,

which was supposed to favor that construction) that it was a rule of

universal obligation so to construe a law or constitution as to give

effect to every part of it, if possible, & in accordance with the will &

interest of the law makers if that will & interest could be fairly inferred

from the language used. Here, it was said, it is very evident that the

makers of the constitution intended to put it in the power of the legisla-

73. The commissioners had chosen the Federalist-sponsored town of Madison, which

consisted of only one building, whereas Wooster was growing rapidly. The decision was

finally reversed, but not as smoothly as Tappan suggests. The General Assembly of

1809-1810 postponed action over the Wayne County seat, and not until 1811 were new

commissioners appointed and Wooster chosen. See Edward T. Heald, Bezaleel Wells,

Founder of Canton and Steubenville, Ohio (Canton, 1942), 92-100; Ohio, General As-

sembly, House Journal, 1809-1810, 296, 312-313, 359.

74. Duncan McArthur (1772-1818) had gained wealth through his pioneering work in

surveying and locating warrants in the Virginia Military District of Ohio and had built his

famous residence of Fruit Hill near Chillicothe in 1804-1805. Since 1805 he had served in

the state senate, and he was later to gain distinction in the War of 1812 and as a con-

gressman and governor (1830-1832). Edward Tiffin (1766-1829), an Englishman who

emigrated to Virginia and married Thomas Worthington's sister, settled in Chillicothe in

1796 and became the first Governor of Ohio, 1803-1806. He subsequently sat in the U.S.

Senate and the state legislature, and served as Commissioner of the U.S. Land Office

and Surveyor-General of the West, 1813-1829.

Benjamin Tappan                                                      145

ture to reduce the salaries of the judges at some time, if they should

judge it expedient. Was this power intended to operate on the whole of

the judges at the same time when they should all come into office

together? Or at the three or four different periods as they might come

into office in succeeding the incumbents? The constitution, it was

urged, contemplates raising the salaries, if they are raised, at once

when the necessity exists for raising them, & not periodically & in

future as the present incumbents go out & new judges come in; & it

was said that in no other way could that part of the constitution be

carried into effect but by the legislature exercising the power of lower-

ing the salaries of all the judges of the supreme court or of all the

Presidents of the common Pleas at the same time. On the other hand it

was said that the difficulty of lowering the salaries was merely imagi-

nary, for a law could be passed that the salaries of the judges of the

supreme court or Presidents of the common Pleas should be reduced

from & after the expiration of the terms for which they have severally

been elected.⁷⁵

During this discussion the Democratic members of the assembly met

at Irwin's to consult upon the matter. Mr. [Thomas] Morris, who was

one of the judges of the supreme court,⁷⁶ & myself were present by

invitation. Mr. Tiffin took the chair &, while they were talking about

the matter, I wrote a resolution, in [the] form of a joint resolution of

both houses, declaring what I thought a true construction of the con-

stitution & resolving to proceed on such a day to elect three judges of

the supreme court. I handed this resolution to Morris. He read it and

told the meeting that it contained what he believed to be the true intent

75. Tappan's exposition of the issue has concealed the true nature of the contest. The

dominant party in Ohio, the Democratic-Republicans, had divided in the course of 1807-

1809 over the question of judicial review; did the state's judges have the power to nullify

measures passed by the popularly-elected legislature if they considered the measures

unconstitutional? The more democratic faction, with which Tappan was closely as-

sociated, decided that judges could not overrule the popular will, and that judges who did

so (like Judges Pease, Huntington and Tod, all Tappan's personal rivals) must be re-

moved as soon as possible. In 1808-1809 an attempt to impeach Pease and Tod failed

narrowly to secure the necessary two-thirds majority. The idea of proposing a resolution

that the terms of all state office-holders, including judges, would expire in 1810 was then

adopted, since such a resolution would require only a bare majority of votes to pass it.

The defenders of the judges naturally argued that this constitutional ploy was adopted by

their rivals simply in order to secure all the offices of the state for their friends.

76. Thomas Morris (1776-1844), a Pennsylvanian who moved to Ohio in 1796 and

became a lawyer in Clermont County, had been chosen in the 1808-1809 session to

conduct the impeachment of the Supreme Court judges. Though the impeachment failed,

he was appointed to the vacancy created by the election of Huntington as Governor,

though Morris was never actually to exercise the office of Supreme Judge.

146                                                        OHIO HISTORY

& meaning of the constitution; that any construction which would

make each judge hold office for seven years was a plain violation of the

constitution. Others expressed their opinion on the subject & it was put

to vote, & the meeting, by a nearly unanimous vote, adopted it &

determined that it should be offered in the house by [Samuel] Dunlap of

Jefferson County. It was so offered & passed both houses.⁷⁷

At the election consequent upon this proceeding, [Ethan Allen]

Brown, [Thomas] Scott & [William W.] Irwin were elected judges of

the S. Court.⁷⁸ I was run against Brown & he beat me on the 1st ballot.

Morris was also a candidate & was beat by Scott on the second ballot.

Morris was in my room at Irwin's near the state house during the

election & Jere. Munson brought us word as to every balloting. 79 I was

not much disappointed that Brown was preferred to me, but when

Munson brought the account of Morris' defeat, Morris behaved like a

perfect madman. He walked about the room striking his fists together

&, with great vehemence, declared that he would not submit to it, he

would hold on by his commission as judge of the supreme court which

had several years to run yet to make up the seven years. He declared

that before he would submit to be turned out of office in this way, he

would carry the question up to the Supreme Court of the United States.

I thought this conduct strange, but, what was still more so, on his return

home he wrote an address to the people of the state in which he de-

clared the "sweeping resolution," as it was called, a violation of the

constitution, an unwarrantable invasion of his rights, & a measure

against which he had warned the members of the assembly. Morris was

77. Ohio, House Journal, 1809-1810. Samuel Dunlap was an important manager of

business in this legislature.

78. Interestingly, all three men later became Jacksonians. Ethan Allen Brown (1776-

1852), a New Englander who settled in Cincinnati in 1804, later became Governor of

Ohio (1818-1822), U. S. Senator (1822-1825), U.S. charge d'affaires in Brazil (1830-1834),

and commissioner of the general land office, before moving to Indiana in 1836. William

W. Irwin, or Irvin (1778-1842) was a Virginia lawyer who moved to Lancaster in 1801,

served in the state legislature (1806-1808 and 1825-1827) and later in Congress, 1829-1833.

Thomas Scott (1772-1856) was an active Chillicothe politician and lawyer who had been

secretary of the constitutional convention.

79. Not quite. A common election was held for all three judges, each member having

three votes and each successful candidate needing a majority of the members to vote for

him. Scott and Irwin both gained majorities on the first ballot, with Tappan, Brown and

Morris coming next. These three continued to be voted for, and not until the fourth ballot

did the strongest of the three, Brown, gain an absolute majority. Ohio, House Journal,

1809-1810, 349-350.

Benjamin Tappan                                                        147

not much noticed.⁸⁰ The new judges went on to discharge their duties

very quietly, & the Federalists had influence enough to have all future

elections held in utter disregard of the resolution so acted upon in Jany.

1810, & to stigmatise the sweeping resolution as a gross outrage upon

the constitution.⁸¹

On my return home I found J. C. Wright (my wife's brother) with his

wife & one child at my house. He had been broke up by libel suits. He

engaged in the study of law with me & lived in my family untill he was

admitted to the bar & was able to support himself.⁸² In June 1811 I

started on horseback with my wife for New England by the way of

Buffalo. We spent the summer visiting our friends & returned in

November, her health much improved.

War of 1812

In July following, war was declared, & on the 20th day of August I

received by express a letter from Major General Wadsworth, dated at

Cleveland, giving me an account of Hull's surrender of Detroit & the

intelligence that the British & Indians were coming down the lake in

great force destroying all before them, & ordering me to collect the

80. He was, however, elected to the next General Assembly, where he played an

active part in securing the repeal of the "sweeping resolution" in January 1812. Tappan

had good reason for denigrating Morris. In 1833, after over twenty years in the Assem-

bly, Morris had been elevated as a Jacksonian to the United States Senate where he

began to attack slavery on abolitionist grounds and refused to obey the Democratic party

line. When the Democratic majority in the state legislature accordingly refused to re-

elect him in 1839, Morris deserted the Democrats and became one of the leaders of the

new Liberty Party in 1840. Tappan had been elected to the Senate in Morris's place, and,

as a moderate opponent of slavery himself, clearly wished to show that Morris was

altogether an unreliable man.

81. Just such a criticism had been published in 1838 by Caleb Atwater in his History of

Ohio. Atwater not only condemned the "sweeping resolution" as "violent and uncon-

stitutional," and impugned the honesty of its supporters; he also described the consider-

able confusion it created, especially in the lower courts where there were often two sets

of judges exercising the office. In branding such critics as Federalists, Tappan de-

monstrated that he thought that all those Democratic-Republicans who took the other

side of this question were Federalists at heart. Though he co-operated with them later, it

is interesting to note how many of the conservatives of 1810 had joined the Whig opposi-

tion by the late 1830s-including Caleb Atwater. Caleb Atwater, A History of the State of

Ohio, Natural and Civil (Cincinnati, 1838), 182-186.

82. John C. Wright (1783-1861) had learned printing in his native Connecticut and then

moved to New York to edit the Troy Gazette, which involved him in financial and legal

difficulties. He became a leading Steubenville lawyer, and after 1823 served with distinc-

tion in the U.S. Congress, where Davy Crockett thought him singularly ill-looking. De-

feated as an Adams man in 1828, he later became a Judge of the Ohio Supreme Court and

editor of the Cincinnati Gazette. With his intellectual acuteness and sense of humor, he

was a suitable foil for Tappan, with whom he came increasingly to differ in politics.

148                                                 OHIO HISTORY

drafts in the brigade composed of Jefferson & Harrison Counties &

march them to Cleveland as soon as possible.⁸³ It was on Sunday

morning about daylight that I rec'd the order. I gave notice of it in town

& sent orders that day to all parts of the Brigade for the drafts to repair

to Steubenville, with arms & equipments ready for marching. The men

came in, but without arms, accoutrements or camp equipage. I engaged

in providing for them. I collected all the arms which could be got &

employed all the gunsmiths in repairing them. I purchased sheet iron &

set all the tinners at work making camp kettles. I purchased powder &

lead & cloth for tents & had tents made. I hired waggons & purchased

provisions for forty days' consumption of the men. I gave my certifi-

cates to all who sold their property to me of what had been purchased

& its prices. So dilligent were these preparations that, on the next

Friday after receiving the order, I marched the men out of Steubenville

armed & provided with everything necessary for service. Two com-

panies of volunteers composed part of the force, one of infantry raised

in Steubenville by Captn. Nich[ola]s Murray & the other of riflemen

commanded by Capt. James Alexander. Three days' march brought us

to Canton where we met the Columbiana militia under Genl. [Reasin]

Beall waiting orders.⁸⁴ I left my command with Colo. Andrews and

went to Cleveland where I met the Major General, who had about a

thousand men with him. The M.G. sent orders for the militia who were

at Canton to move on to Mansfield, while he prepared to march to

Huron. As he found the enemy were not coming down the Lake, he

determined to move his force towards Detroit as soon as possible.

The mode of supplying the troops at that time was by contracts made

with the secretary of war & the contractor for the country north of the

fortieth degree of north latitude was Augustus Porter, father of the

senator from Michigan.⁸⁵ He had for partner & agent a man by the

name of Tupper. The army with Genl. Wadsworth was not well

supplied with provisions, nor was the force with Beall, except those I

had brought on. The first care of the General was, therefore, to obtain a

supply. For this, requisitions were made upon the contractor to supply

83. Not quite right: the letter survives, dated "Canfield, August 22, 1812," Tappan

Papers, OHS. Tappan's response to the sudden threat of invasion through northwestern

Ohio was typical of the urgent rush to arms by the militia in most parts of Ohio in the late

summer of 1812.

84. Reasin Beall (1769-1843) had fought against the Ohio Indians in the early 1790s and

moved in 1803 to New Lisbon where he had held various public offices. He later served

as registrar of the land office at Wooster, 1813-1824.

85. Augustus Porter was one of the early surveyors of the Western Reserve.

Benjamin Tappan                                                       149

rations at Cleveland, the Portage, Canton, Wooster, Mansfield &

Huron at such times & in such quantities as was calculated to be

necessary to supply the troops. The times given to comply with the

requisition was agreed upon by the M.G. & Mr. Tupper, & we were

assured by the latter that there should be no failure on his part.

As some days must elapse before the contractor was to deliver his

provisions & no movement could be made untill that was done, I

was ordered by the Genl. to exercise the men in the new system of

tactics, as I was the only officer under his command who had any

knowledge of it, all the rest adhering to Steuben. I went to work &,

with the aid of diagrams of the eighteen manoevres which I had bor-

rowed of the widow of an English officer, I was able to give the troops

considerable readiness in the drill.⁸⁶ I must here observe that I knew

nothing of this but what I had gathered from books. Colo. John Miller

& myself had for several years studied the new system together &

knew more than those who knew nothing, but I was far from being able

to teach others very accurately.⁸⁷

The General had ordered a deposit of provisions to be made at the

Portage, as it was not thought safe to march to Huron or Sandusky on

the Lake shore, for it would be in the power of the enemy to annoy, if

not capture, the force if they should be on the look out, as was sup-

posed. The intention was to fall back to the Portage & march from

there west to Lower Sandusky [i.e., Fremont], while the militia with

Beall marched to the same point thro' Mansfield.⁸⁸ I was ordered to

86. For 30 years military training in the United States had been based on the drill

manuals of Baron von Steuben (1730-1794), the Prussian officer who trained

Washington's Continental Army at Valley Forge. On the eve of the War of 1812 the

regular army still used "the rules & discipline of Baron Steuben," while "the new

officers advocated the introduction of French tactics" (Thomas Worthington to Samuel

Huntington, December 31, 1811, "Letters from the Samuel Huntington Correspondence,

1800-1812," Western Reserve Historical Society Tracts, XCV [1915], 147-148). It is just

possible, however, that Tappan is referring to the British system of light infantry tactics

worked out to contain the mad rush of the massed French infantry, and introduced into

the British Army by Sir John Moore (1761-1809) and used subsequently to good effect by

the Duke of Wellington. For these maneuvers, see J. F. C. Fuller, Sir John Moore's

System of Training (London, 1924).

87. John Miller, Tappan's friend and neighbor in Steubenville and an editor of the

Western Herald, was to serve with distinction as a field officer in the Northwestern army

during the war, leading "the brilliant sortie" during the siege of Fort Meigs in 1813. He

later emigrated to Missouri, where he was elected Governor and served in Congress,

1837-1843, as a Democrat. In Washington he shared lodgings with Tappan. Democratic

Review, VII, 555.

88. Fear of a flank attack on any American troops marching along the Lake Shore

arose from Britain's undoubted, if short-lived, naval control of Lake Erie. Cf. Conlin,

Simon Perkins, 82.

150                                                      OHIO HISTORY

take a few men & go to the Portage [in the present Summit County] &

select a good site for the troops to encamp, &, after marking out the

ground, to go to Jefferson County & collect & march out the second

draft amounting to over 300 men. In obedience of this order, I went to

the Portage & chose a place for a camp on the west side of the Cuyaho-

ga. I was here taken sick, but I hastened to Steubenville & ordered out

the militia. I had sent to Pittsburg for arms & camp equipage so that the

men were well supplied, but, when I got them ready to march, I was

not able to go with them but was obliged to take to my bed to which I

was confined three weeks.

While I lay sick the M.G. sent three expresses, one after the other, to

hasten my return to camp, for as I had written all his orders & was

mainly depended on in the business of his office, the M.G. found it

difficult to get along without me. I was also very anxious to get to the

camp &, as soon as I was able to sit on horseback, I was helped on to

my horse & started, notwithstanding the remonstrances of my physi-

cian who prophesyed that I should not live to get to Canton. I rode

sixteen miles without stopping to [East] Springfield [Jefferson Coun-

ty]. I was so weak when I dismounted that I could not stand, but, being

in very good quarters, I recruited [my strength] so as to proceed on my

journey the next day with increased strength. By the time I reached

Camp Avery on the Huron river where the whole force of the M.G.

was concentrated, I was well.

I found the camp somewhat disturbed by a court martial which had

been ordered by the M.G. & was then sitting upon Genl. Beall for

disobedience of orders. I was ordered to conduct the tryal as judge

advocate. Beall was acquitted of the charge exhibited against him, tho'

he would have been broke had such charges been made against him as

the facts of the case would have warranted.⁸⁹

Two days before I arived at Camp Avery, General Harrison who

89. Tappan was originally recalled in order to take part in Reasin Beall's trial as a

witness and counsellor. Beall had failed to follow his orders to co-operate with General

Simon Perkins in building blockhouses along the road from Mansfield to Huron and to

march his troops forward to reinforce Perkins in his more exposed position. After the

court's generous verdict, Beall resigned. In April 1813 he ran against Perkins in a Con-

gressional election in which Perkins refrained from revealing Beall's record even though

Perkins' own record was under attack. Beall's political career led him a decade later to

join the Jacksonian Democrats, but in the late 1830s he deserted to join the Whigs.

Tappan's revelation of Beall's war record may therefore be politically motivated, as his

following comment on William Henry Harrison undoubtedly is. Elijah Wadsworth to

Tappan, October 30, 1812, Tappan Papers, OHS; Conlin, Simon Perkins, 81-85, 91-93.

Benjamin Tappan                                              151

commanded the N.W. army had left there for Delaware.⁹⁰ I was told

that he had formed an hollow square of the troops, about 1500 men,

and made a speech to them in which he had promised them that they

should eat their Christmas dinner in Maiden [the strategic British fort

guarding Canada from invasion across the Detroit River]. A few days

afterwards an express arrived from General Harrison with a letter to

the M.G. which stated that there was a large quantity, supposed to be

1500 or 2000 bushels, of corn standing in the field at Maumee, and that

it was extremely desireable that it should be saved for the use of our

army, & there was reason to fear, if immediate measures were not

taken to save it, that the British & Indians would appropriate the whole

to their own use. The letter concluded with a request to the M.G. to

detach 500 men immediately to gather and rescue the corn.

The M.G. immediately called the general & field officers together &

laid General Harrison's letter before us. They all advised the M.G. to

send the detachment forthwith. After the superior officers had given

their opinions, the M.G. called on me for my opinion. I observed that,

as Genl. Harrison had recently visited Camp Avery, it was to be pre-

sumed that he was well acquainted with the material in possession of

that wing of the army, that I presumed while here he had called for &

taken with him full returns of our arms, amunition, camp equipage &

provisions. The M.G. observed that such returns were made out for

Genl. H. as it was expected he would call for them, but he said nothing

about such matters & the returns were not offered to him. He went

away from the right wing of the army with as little knowledge of its

military means as he had before he came there. I expressed some

surprise at this & produced the returns & laid them before the council.

They proved that we had not the means of issuing one day's rations to

the troops in camp; we had a plenty of fresh beef, but no flour, a few

potatoes, no whiskey, & nothing of the smaller parts of the ration. I

stated to the council that it was five days' march for well-provided

troops to Maumee & that we could not march 500 men there & give

them time to secure the corn without at least fifteen days' provisions, &

that, as we had not one day's provisions for 500 men, it was out of the

question attempting to comply with Genl. H.'s order. Such was the

90. William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), a Virginian who fought against the Ohio

Indians, settled near Cincinnati, served in the Territorial government, and governed the

Indiana Territory, 1800-1812. After commanding the Northwestern army during the war,

he served in Congress and as Minister to Colombia, and ultimately ran successfully as

Whig candidate for President in 1840.

Benjamin Tappan                                                153

the war, Perkins resigned in February.⁹² Tappan shared this disillu-

sionment and expressed his views forcefully in a letter to Congressman

Jeremiah Morrow which appears ultimately to have reached the Sec-

retary of War. Fundamental weaknesses, Tappan said, existed in the

army's supply system; because the commissariat was not under martial

law, the various suppliers could with impunity default on any contract

which appeared likely to make a loss; and so the army found itself

paralysed at critical moments. Until changes were made, he was unwil-

ling to enlist again, even at the head of a regiment.⁹³ Thus Tappan

stood aside through the rest of the war, even when Ohio was invaded

once more by the British and Indians in July 1813. Instead he entered

into dispute with the general government over requisitions and the

payment of the expenses he had incurred on his own account, most of

which were finally settled in 1816.]

Judge Tappan, 1816-1823

Nothing occurred out of the usual course with me untill the spring of

1815 [1816], when I heard early in March that the assembly had elected

me President of the common Pleas in the fifth circuit, which was soon

confirmed by receiving a commission. I was engaged in a very lucrative

practice at this time & did not want the office. I had been elected

without my knowing that I was thought of as a candidate.⁹⁴ Under

these circumstances I hessitated much as to accepting the office & it

was some weeks before I concluded to accept it. I served in this office

seven years & I can truly affirm that I never gave an opinion in a cause

unless I believed that I had no partiallity for any of the parties. [This

protestation probably derives from the impeachment proceedings com-

menced against Tappan in the General Assembly of 1817-1818, when

the various charges of improper judicial behavior had been dismissed

by the House.]⁹⁵

When my time was near expiring, I was at Columbus attending to my

92. Conlin, Simon Perkins, 85-90.

93. Tappan to Morrow, January 13, 1813, The Papers of James Monroe, New York

Public Library. Jeremiah Morrow (1771-1852) came from Pennsylvania in 1795 and soon

became the leading man of Warren County. He served in the territorial legislature and

constitutional convention, and was Ohio's sole congressman, 1803-1813. In 1813 he was

elected to the U.S. Senate, and was Governor of Ohio, 1822-1826.

94. Tappan's memory fails him here, for he not only mistakes the year, he also forgets

that he had been informed previously that the number of judicial circuits was going to be

increased and that he had been asked if he would accept ajudgeship. Robert Patterson to

Tappan, January 10, 1816, Tappan Papers, LC.

95. See the letters of September 1817-January 1818, ibid.

154                                                      OHIO HISTORY

duty as canal commissioner, to which office I had been appointed in

January 1821 [1822]. [Jeremiah H.] Hallock was a representative from

Jefferson County & wanted to be President of the common Pleas. So to

give him a chance & prevent my being a candidate, a few days before

the election was to come on he started the notion of running me for a

judge of the Supreme Court against Pease. I was opposed to this, for I

did not think Hallock & his friends could be depended upon & it would

fail. But Hallock got up a meeting of my friends the evening before the

election in which he and his Presbyterian friends pledged themselves to

vote for me for judge of the supreme court &, as they with my friends

for that office numbered 60, which was more than a majority of the

whole, my friends believed that my election to the supreme court was

safe. They told me of this agreement & that they had agreed to make

Hallock President. I told them that they were deceived, that I could not

get but 36 votes out of 108 against Pease, for that neither Hallock or his

friends would vote for me. Those I talked with were hurt at my want of

confidence in their allies, but I told them to go on their own way, that I

had no reluctance at returning to the bar. It turned out as I had ex-

pected. I had 36 votes on the first ballot & Pease was elected on the

second, & Hallock was elected President without opposition.⁹⁶

When I was appointed judge, J.C. Wright was the prosecuting Attor-

ney. In 1816 he told me that he should resign at the next court. But, to

go back, when I concluded to accept the office of Pres of the C.P., I

considered into whose hands I should put my business. Hallock then

resided at Canton & I proposed to him to remove to Steubenville &

take my office & finish the business I was engaged in, he to have all the

fees which had not been paid in advance, which was four fifths of the

whole, & to have the use of my library gratuitiously. Hallock very

96. Tappan was more disconcerted by his defeat than he allows, for he immediately tried

to secure an appointment as United States District Attorney, but in vain. There were,

indeed, good reasons why he failed to secure federal office, promotion to the Ohio

Supreme Court, and even re-election. He had been in bitter controversy with his

Steubenville neighbor (and another brother-in-law), John M. Goodenow, and had been

found guilty of slandering Goodenow. When the local paper published this news, Tappan

fell out with its editor, his former protege, James Wilson; and then suspected that Wilson

"declined an election to the legislature, & that Mr. H was pushed in, for the purpose of

ousting him" as judge. Tappan was, in fact, losing popularity and his reputation was in

decline, though no less an authority than Charles Hammond still thought him one of the

three most capable lawyers in Ohio. James Wilson to E. A. Brown, December 7, 1822,

Tappan to E. A. Brown, January 29, 1823, The Papers of Ethan Allen Brown, OHS.

Hammond to J. C. Wright, December 15, 1822, January 19, 1823, The Papers of Charles

Hammond, OHS. Lewis Tappan to Tappan, January 29, February 4, 20, 1823, Tappan

Papers, LC.

Benjamin Tappan                                                        155

gladly accepted my offer &, when the office of prosecutor was resigned

by Mr. Wright, I had Hallock appointed in his place.⁹⁷

When I first went on to the bench, I took minutes of my decisions &

kept them so that I need not, in the hurry of business, decide matters of

practice different ways. These minutes were sometimes tollerable full

reports of the cases & after a while the bar desired that I should publish

them. A subscription was opened &, enough subscribers appearing to

nearly pay the expense, I published "Tappans reports" which was well

received by the profession generally.⁹⁸

In the law which authorised an examination as to the practicabillity

of connecting the Lake with the Ohio by a navigable canal, I was the

first named Commissioner with [Jeremiah] Morrow, [Ebenezer] Buc-

kingham [, Jr.], [Thomas] Worthington, [Ethan Allan] Brown, [Alfred]

Kelly & [Isaac] Miner.⁹⁹ At the first meeting of the commissioners in

May 1821 [1822], Worthington, as soon as we met, moved that we

should proceed to elect a chairman. I seconded the motion. We bal-

loted & he had three votes (his own, Buckingham & Morrow), I had

two (Kelly & Miner), and I voted for Miner. Brown was absent. Upon

this Buckingham declared Worthington elected & he took the chair,

but after holding it a year he was compelled to resign & I was chosen to

97. His role in the appointment of Hallock as prosecutor was the basis of the most

substantial charge brought against Tappan in the impeachment proceedings of 1817-1818.

No doubt this made Hallock's subsequent lack of gratitude doubly annoying, and the

personal and political enmity between the two men culminated when Tappan himself

brought complaints against Judge Hallock before the legislature of 1830. Hallock, how-

ever, continued as judge until 1836, preserving a high reputation for uprightness-and for

having fewer decisions reversed in the higher courts than any contemporary.

98. This volume, entitled Reports of Cases Decided In The Courts of Common Pleas

of the Fifth Circuit of Ohio, provided the first record of decisions in Ohio courts. Cases in

the state Supreme Court were not reported before 1823, the year when sessions en bane

were inaugurated. Even brother Lewis approved Benjamin's decisions, except for his

ruling that fornication between a married man and an unmarried woman is no adultery,

since adultery occurs only if the woman is married. Lewis Tappan to Tappan, October

30, 1818, Tappan Papers, LC.

99. Ebenezer Buckingham, Jr., was a wealthy merchant and salt manufacturer from

Putnam, near Zanesville. Thomas Worthington (1769-1827), a Virginian known as "the

father of Ohio statehood," had already served in the constitutional convention, as U.S.

Senator (1803-1807 and 1810-1814) and Governor of Ohio (1814-1818), and now rep-

resented Ross County in the General Assembly. Alfred Kelley (1789-1859), a New En-

glander who settled in Cleveland in 1810, was an active lawyer and politician who had

served in the legislature since 1814. He was to be one of the two "acting commissioners"

who actually directed the building of the main canals. Transferring after 1836 to the canal

fund, he was responsible for saving the state's finances and, as a leading Whig politician

from Columbus, initiated important financial legislation in the mid-1840s. Isaac Minor

was a lawyer and politician from Madison County. For Morrow and Brown, see notes 93

and 78.

156                                                   OHIO HISTORY

succeed him, for it was found that he could not draw up a report to the

assembly which any of us were willing to sign.

After the first meeting of the Canal Commissioners, I went with my

wife to Hartford to have a cancer removed with which she was af-

fected. It was done at Doctr. Todd's by Doctr. Cogswell with some

hope of success & it appeared to do well for some months, but after our

return home the disease appeared again & in the summer of 1822 ended

her life. She was a woman of very uncommon mind & of a form the

most perfect.¹⁰⁰

Shortly after her decease I went with Judge Geddes101 on an explor-

ing tour by the heads of Black river, Chippewa lake, the Portage &

Congress pond, and from there thro' Randolph & Ravenna to the

Cuyahoga in Mantua. Our object was to ascertain the difference of

level between the Black river summit & the others east of it, & to

determine whether a canal could be made by the way of the Cuyahoga

& little Beaver between Lake Erie & the Ohio river. We found that it

was unpracticable to bring the canal into the Ohio river above the