JEFFREY P. BROWN
Chillicothe's Elite: Leadership
in a Frontier Community
The Northwest Territory was dominated by
its small urban com-
munities, even though most settlers were
farmers. The towns became
crucial regional centers for business,
politics, and cultural affairs.
They served as headquarters for wealthy
and powerful merchants,
provided a base for lawyer-politicians,
and often contained the
homes of prominent rural landowners. A
few of the Northwest's
towns eventually grew into great
metropolitan centers, but most sim-
ply remained important regional centers,
with thousands rather than
millions of residents. Chillicothe,
Ohio, the economic and political
hub of the lower Scioto Valley, serves
as a good paradigm for these
towns.
Historians have debated for generations
the degree to which pio-
neer societies represented advancing
democracy. Classic historians
like Frederick Jackson Turner argued
that the frontier reduced social
elites and deference. Since the 1940s,
however, most frontier histori-
ans have emphasized the social and
economic competition that de-
veloped in pioneer communities. Thus,
Richard C. Wade argued
both that urban centers were crucial
parts of the Ohio Valley fron-
tier, and that they quickly produced
social elites. Wade stressed that
these elites, cooperating in business
and educating their children in
elite school settings, soon formed tight
inner circles that were nearly
closed castes. Stanley Elkins and Eric
McKitrick emphasized that lo-
cal rivals for social prominence often
learned to work together, but
only to advance their town's fortunes
against rival towns. Don H.
Doyle and other historians stress the
conflict that emerged within
towns, where continued in-migration
inevitably produced social cha-
os and conflict. Robert Wiebe reminds us
that it took time for the
leaders of isolated communities to build
ties to one another, while
Edward Pessen and Frederick Jaher remind
us that nearly all Ameri-
can communities, even the newest,
quickly produced social and eco-
Jeffrey P. Brown is Assistant Professor
of History at New Mexico State University.
Chillicothe's Elite
141
nomic elites. Certainly frontiers like
the Shenandoah Valley, as Rob-
ert Mitchell observes, developed both
social stratification and
dominant towns.1
Historians of the Northwest frontier
have generally found much
the same process of elite development.
To be sure, Ohio and other
Northwestern communities did not produce
plantation cultures,
which automatically meant an upper class
ruling a lower class of
slaves. Yet Wade, Andrew R.L. Cayton,
Alfred B. Sears, Jeffrey P.
Brown, and other researchers emphasize
that most of Ohio's regions
were dominated by appointed or
transplanted elites, and that men
who were not part of an early inner
circle met much resistance as they
tried to advance their own fortunes.2
It is therefore important that we
look at early communities like
Chillicothe, both to see the nature of
their leaders and the degree to which
elite control shaped communi-
ty destiny.
Chillicothe was first and foremost a
river town. The Scioto River,
which courses through central Ohio to
the Ohio River, offered pio-
neers easy access to the interior.
Although the Scioto Valley was
hilly and somewhat less fertile than
other parts of Ohio, it easily sup-
ported the classic frontier
triumvirate-corn, cattle, and hogs. The
area that became Chillicothe, encircled
by Paint Creek and the curl-
ing Scioto, had enough elevation to
avoid most floods. Ebenezer
Zane's trace road across southeastern Ohio
met the Scioto at this
1. The debate over frontier and national
social systems is enormous. See among oth-
ers Ray Allen Billington, ed., Frontier
and Sections; Selected Essays of Frederick
Jackson Turner (Englewood Cliffs, 1961, 37-97; Richard C. Wade, The
Urban Frontier;
Pioneer Life in Early Pittsburgh,
Cincinnati, Lexington, Louisville, and St. Louis (Chi-
cago, 1971 edition); Stanley Elkins and
Eric McKitrick, "A Meaning for Turner's Fron-
tier, Part I: Democracy in the Old
Northwest," Political Science Quarterly, 69 (Septem-
ber, 1954), 321-53; Don H. Doyle, The
Social Order of a Frontier Community:
Jacksonville, Illinois, 1825-1870 (Urbana, 1978); John W. Reps, Town Planning in Fron-
tier America (Princeton, N.J., 1965; reprint ed., Columbia, Mo.,
1980), 181-210; Robert
Wiebe, The Opening of American
Society: From the Adoption of the Constitution to the
Eve of Disunion (New York, 1984); Edward Pessen, Riches, Class, and
Power Before the
Civil War (Lexington, Mass, 1973); Frederick Cople Jaher, The
Urban Establishment:
Upper Strata in Boston, New York,
Charleston, Chicago, and Los Angeles (Urbana,
1982); and Robert D. Mitchell, Commercialism
and Frontier: Perspectives on the Early
Shenandoah Valley (Charlottesville, 1977).
2. John D. Barnhart, Valley of
Democracy: The Frontier Versus the Plantation in the
Ohio Valley, 1775-1818 (Lincoln, Nebr., 1953); Wade, Urban Frontier; Alfred
B. Sears,
Thomas Worthington-Father of Ohio
Statehood (Columbus, 1958); Andrew
R.L.
Cayton, The Frontier Republic:
Ideology and Politics in the Ohio Country, 1780-1825
(Kent, 1986); Goodwin Berquist and Paul
C. Bowers, The New Eden: James Kilbourne
and the Development of Ohio (Lanham, Md., 1983); and Jeffrey P. Brown, "Samuel
Huntington-A Connecticut Aristocrat on
the Ohio Frontier," Ohio History, 89 (Au-
tumn, 1980).
142 OHIO HISTORY
point. Chillicothe was thus well served
by both water and land
transportation.3
Although Chillicothe lay in a fertile
and accessible valley, it was
for many years barred to white
settlement by Ohio's Indians. Their
defense of their homelands, successful
in the 1780s and early 1790s,
ended after Anthony Wayne's partial
victory in 1794. The Treaty of
Greenville, signed in 1795, established
a new settlement border some
eighty-five miles north of the
Chillicothe region. This immediately
made the Scioto-Paint intersection the
heart of an open and fertile re-
gion.4
Chillicothe's development was crucially
shaped by both the Indi-
an resistance, which delayed settlement
during the squatter period
of the 1780s, and by governmental
agreements on land. The federal
government owned the eastern side of the
Scioto, and therefore
controlled surveys and sales. To the
west, however, the Valley lay
within Virginia's Military District, an
area reserved for Virginia's Rev-
olutionary veterans with state land
warrants. Most veterans sold their
claims to speculators who, in turn,
hired agents and surveyors to lo-
cate and sell or rent their holdings.
These men were often paid with a
portion of the lands they handled. While
speculators usually stayed
on the seacoast, their resident agents
and surveyors set up headquar-
ters and homes in Chillicothe. This was
a common frontier pattern,
as Thomas Slaughter has demonstrated in
his study of contemporary
west Pennsylvania. The Scioto Valley,
like other frontiers, had ac-
quired an instant social and economic
elite.5
During the 1780s, Virginians with land
warrants headed first to
state-owned lands in Kentucky. Fertile
soil, and relatively safer settle-
ment, made Kentucky more attractive than
the Northwest Territory.
Only the most daring surveyors and
speculators began to explore up
the Scioto, an area still controlled by
hostile Indian nations. As al-
ways, the surveyors, led by men like
Nathaniel Massie, reserved the
best claims for themselves. They were
thus in a prime position to
prosper when settlement began to follow
them up the Valley. Massie
and other surveyors tried to lay out
entire future towns, since this
3. John G. Clark, The Grain Trade in
the Old Northwest (Westport, 1966), 3-4; Ran-
dolph C. Downes, Frontier Ohio,
1778-1803 (Columbus, 1935), 71, 80; and Robert E.
Chaddock, "Ohio Before 1850: A
Study of the Early Influence of Pennsylvanian and
Southern Populations in Ohio,"
Ph.D. thesis, Ohio State University, 1908, 17.
4. Wiley Sword, President
Washington's Indian War; The Struggle for the Old North-
west, 1790-1795 (Norman, Okla., 1985); and Richard H. Kohn, Eagle
and Sword; The
Federalists and the Creation of the
Military Establishment in America (New York, 1975).
5. Thomas P. Slaughter, The Whiskey
Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American
Revolution (New York, 1986), 65, 82-88.
Chillicothe's Elite
143
made their landholdings much more
valuable. After the Treaty of
Greenville opened up Scioto settlement,
Massie founded the town of
Chillicothe on 3,000 acres he had
located between the Scioto and
the Paint. He divided his town into 287
inlots, and like many town
promoters offered free inlots and
outlots to the first hundred settlers.
Later settlers had to pay $10 for each
lot. Most of Massie's early resi-
dents came with a group of anti-slavery
Kentuckians led upriver by
the Reverend Robert Finley, who
demonstrated his own anti-slavery
commitment by freeing his slaves before
leaving Kentucky.6
Chillicothe quickly became the most
important community in the
Valley. Northwest Territory officials
made it the seat of Ross County,
a newly created jurisdiction.
Chillicothe also became the federal
land office for government lands sold
east of the Scioto. The Valley
grew rapidly, and by 1801 it held almost
12,000 residents, about a
fourth of the white settlers in the
Northwest. Ambitious speculators
and surveyors enjoyed rapid land sales
or rentals.7
Some of the Scioto's landowners and
political leaders were self-
made men who found that enduring the
risks of wartime surveying
brought them their one chance for wealth
or political respect. Dun-
can McArthur, the son of a poor upstate
New York family, and Elias
Langham, an ordinary Virginian who
became a Revolutionary artil-
lery lieutenant, both prospered through
their willingness to work in a
dangerous profession. Another surveyor,
John McDonald, came from
a poor backcountry Pennsylvania family,
but eventually acquired
land, became a justice of the peace, and
won military honors. How-
ever, other surveyors came from
well-to-do backgrounds. Nathaniel
and Henry Massie, for example, were the
sons of a substantial
Virginia planter with large Western land
claims. Massie's appointment
as Deputy Surveyor for the Virginia
Military District stemmed partly
from his connections, although like
McArthur and Langham he
risked his life in a dangerous venture.8
The early surveyors, like
6. William Thomas Hutchinson, "The
Bounty Lands of the American Revolution in
Ohio," Ph.D. thesis, University of
Chicago, 1927, 36-52; John McDonald, Biographi-
cal Sketches of General Nathaniel
Massie, General Duncan McArthur, Captain William
Wells, and General Simon Kenton (Dayton, 1852), 57-65; Henry H. Bennett, The County
of Ross ... (Madison, 1902), 49-53; and David Meade Massie, Nathaniel
Massie, A Pi-
oneer of Ohio, A Sketch of His Life
and Relations From His Correspondence (Cincinna-
ti, 1896), 14-52.
7. John Steele, Schedule of July 4,
1801, Cincinnati Historical Society. Early settlers
in Ross County wanted to name it Massie
County.
8. Massie, Massie; Isaac J.
Finley and Rufus Putnam, Pioneer Record and Reminis-
cences of the Early Settlers and
Settlement of Ross County, Ohio (Cincinnati,
1871), 134;
Nelson W. Evans, A History of Scioto
County, Ohio (Portsmouth, 1903) 2 Vols., 2:209;
Lyle S. Evans, A Standard History of
Ross County, Ohio . . . (Chicago, 1917), 2 Vols.,
144 OHIO HISTORY
Massie or McArthur, were soon joined by
a second wave of well-to-
do Virginians. These men bought land
warrents through agents at
home, and expanded their Scioto
holdings. Thomas Worthington,
one of the most prominent early
landowners, typified these investors.
Worthington, a planter's son, came West
originally as an agent and
land locator for a family friend. He
liked the area and built an estate
there, stocking it with his former
slaves as tenant farmers. Yet Wor-
thington's 18,273 acre holding was
relatively modest. Nathaniel and
Henry Massie acquired at least 123,000
acres in the Military District,
while Duncan McArthur claimed another
90,000. Cadwallader
Wallace acquired over 118,000 acres, as
did a Kentuckian named
Taylor. Lucas Sullivant picked up 49,000
acres. Most of the great land
barons lived near Chillicothe, or hired
local agents to oversee their
domains, but some, like William Lytle of
the Cincinnati region, oper-
ated from nearby parts of the Northwest.
Among these large-scale
landowners, Worthington's holdings were
only the eighteenth in
size!9
Chillicothe rapidly became a thriving
governmental center and
business community. Many of the more
successful landowners used
their profits or resources to open other
enterprises. Nathaniel Massie
became a local agent for Richmond
speculators, paying their taxes
and advising them when to buy, sell, or
rent land. He founded a
number of other speculative towns,
developed an iron furnace on
Paint Creek, and speculated in salt with
James Wilkinson of Ken-
tucky. Land locater Joseph Kerr of
Pennsylvania, one of Massie's as-
sistant surveyors, opened a
slaughterhouse and pork salting estab-
lishment, and by 1804 began shipping
farm produce down the rivers
to New Orleans.10 Thomas
Worthington built a business empire out
of Chillicothe. He worked as an agent
for many absentee landowners,
including Albert Gallatin and Bailey
Washington. Worthington built
a series of sawmills and gristmills,
leasing them to their managers. He
constructed roads, erected a ropewalk
and a cloth mill, imported cat-
tle from the Chickasaw nation, and
raised extensive sheep herds.11
1:237-244; and Francis Heitman, Historical
Register of Officers of the Continental Army
(Baltimore, 1967), 340.
9. Hutchinson, "Bounty Lands,"
196-97; McDonald, Sketches, 93-94; Ellen S.
Wilson, "Speculators and Land
Development in the Virginia Military Tract: The Terri-
torial Period," Ph.D. thesis, Miami
University of Ohio, 1982, 7, 56-66, 103, 110; Sears,
Thomas Worthington, 14-19; The Ohio Historical Society, The Governors of
Ohio (Co-
lumbus, 1954), 31-34; Malcolm J.
Rohrbaugh, The Land Office Business; The Settle-
ment and Administration of American Public Lands,
1789-1837 (London, England,
1968), 43-47, 69, 171; and Nelson Evans,
Scioto County, 2:209.
10. Lyle Evans, Ross County, 1:223-226;
and Marie Dickore, ed., George P. Carrel,
General Joseph Kerr ... "Ohio's
Lost Senator" (Oxford, Ohio,
1941), 5-8.
11. Sears, Thomas Worthington, 25-36,
214-15.
Chillicothe's Elite 145 |
|
Other men, while not huge landholders, also developed important local businesses. Felix and George Renick, members of a large clan from the South Branch of the Potomac, became major cattle dealers. They bought cattle from relatives in western Virginia and Kentucky, and as early as 1804 began leading cattle drives to Eastern cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia.12 By 1807, travelers noted that Chilli- cothe possessed six taverns and fourteen general stores. The town soon included several tanneries, two hat makers, two brewers, sever- al cotton mills, and a paper mill established by a group of Pennsylva- nia Quakers. In the thriving agricultural Scioto Valley, a number of men became important import-export merchants, obtaining their goods via annual trips to New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and packing and selling their pork by flatboat to New Orleans. These men helped make local newspapers possible, since they heavily ad- vertised the merits of their Eastern city goods. A number of mer- chants were immigrants, including Scotsman John McLandsburgh, and John Waddle and John Carlisle of Ulster, but James McCoy, William McDowell, James McClintick, John McDougal, Joseph
12. William Renick, Memoirs, Correspondence and Reminiscences of William Renick (Circleville, 1880), 4-79; Charles Samner Plumb, Felix Renick, Pioneer (Columbus, 1924), 8-11; Robert L. Jones, Ohio Agriculture During the Civil War (Columbus, 1962), 4-9; and Paul C. Henlein, Cattle Kingdom in the Ohio Valley, 1783-1860 (Lexington, Ky., 1959), 8-14, 103-16, 131. |
146 OHIO HISTORY
Brown, Thomas James, and other men also
operated flourishing
stores or pork-shipping businesses.
James, a Virginian, branched out
into other enterprises, and ended up
operating a large ironworks.
Carlisle and Waddell invested in a
brewery. William McDowell be-
came a doctor, while Isaac Cook of
Connecticut, originally a land
agent for Pittsburgh's John Neville,
manufactured nails.13
The leading men of the Scioto Valley
also exploited political office.
As historians have observed, the
Northwest Territory developed a
political patronage system binding
locally prominent men to the cen-
tral government. Governor Arthur St.
Clair's appointees, in turn, were
men who either had good Eastern
references or who had already
achieved some prominence in the
frontier, and their appointments
brought them both income and status.
Thomas Worthington sought
offices in the land office, while
Nathaniel Massie tried to use territori-
al politics to get his promotional towns
made county seats. This sys-
tem continued after statehood, when
Worthington's ties to the Jeffer-
son Administration made him the chief
distributor of Ohio
patronage. 14
Thanks to deft maneuvering by a
Territorial delegate to Congress,
Chillicothe became the Northwest's
capital. Although Cincinnati
and Marietta politicians in the
Territorial Assembly passed a bill to
switch the capital to Cincinnati, Thomas
Worthington used his ties
with the Jefferson Administration to
lobby successfully for state-
hood. Chillicothe was denoted the site
for Ohio's constitutional con-
vention, and became the state's first
capital. The seat of government
shifted briefly in 1811 to Zanesville,
but returned to Chillicothe be-
fore it was finally established in
Columbus, further up the Scioto.15
13. Lyle Evans, Ross County 1:79,
171-72, 265, 490-91; Williams Brothers, History of
Ross and Highland Counties, Ohio (Cleveland, 1880), 210-14; Bennett, Ross County,
145-47, 224-25; Fortescue Cuming, Sketches
of a Tour to the Western Country . . . in 1809
(Pittsburgh, 1810, reprinted in Reuben
Gold Thwaites, ed., Western Travels, 1748-
1846, 32 Vols, 1904-1907, reprinted New York, 1966),
4:212-19; William R. Southward,
Chillicothe Reminiscences (Chillicothe; 1811 memoir, reprinted 1950); and
Chillicothe
Scioto Gazette, microfilm edition, Western Reserve Historical Society,
February 20,
April 16, and May 7, 1804.
14. Sears, Thomas Worthington, 36-42;
and Cayton, Frontier Republic, 82-83.
15. John Theodore Grupenhoff,
"Politics and the Rise of Political Parties in the
Northwest Territory and Early Ohio to
1812 with Emphasis on Cincinnati and Hamil-
ton County," Ph.D. thesis,
University of Texas at Austin, 1962, 70-77; Journal of the
House of Representatives of the
Territory of the United States, North-West of the Ohio,
at the First Session of the Second
General Assembly (Chillicothe, 1801),
71-73; Thomas
Worthington to Nathaniel Massie, March
5, 1802, Thomas Worthington Collection, mi-
crofilm edition, Ohio Historical
Society, roll 2, frames 265-69; and William T. Utter, The
Frontier State: 1803-1825, (Columbus, 1942), 53-54.
Chillicothe's Elite 147
As a governmental center, Chillicothe
naturally attracted an unusual
number of lawyers. These attorneys came
from many places. Michael
Baldwin, a Connecticut lawyer, curried
favor with Chillicothe's arti-
sans, and enjoyed additional power
because two of his brothers,
Henry and Abraham, were important
politicians in Pittsburgh and
Georgia. Other notable lawyers included
Henry Brush of New York,
Englishman Levin Belt, Virginian William
Creighton, William K.
Bond of Maryland, and Frederick Grimke,
a South Carolinian who
did not follow his famous sisters into the abolition movement.16
Chillicothe also became a newspaper and
legislative printing center,
with Bostonian Nathaniel Willis
operating the Jeffersonian Scioto Ga-
zette, and Massachusetts Yankees George Denny and George
Nashee
a rival Federalist paper, the
Chillicothe Supporter.17
The new community played a crucial role
in territorial and state pol-
itics, especially before the War of
1812. The Scioto counties, settled
earlier than other parts of Ohio, held a
large share of the state's pop-
ulation; thus, in the 1802
constitutional convention, Ross and Adams
Counties, the two Scioto Valley
jurisdictions, got nine of the thirty-
one seats.18 In addition, men
like Thomas Worthington and Michael
Baldwin enjoyed many ties with
Jeffersonian leaders in Washington.
Ohio's Republicans dominated state
politics, since Federalist vot-
ers represented at most one-fourth of
the electorate. Within the Re-
publican party, the most important
Republicans came from the
Cincinnati-Dayton region (which elected
one Senator and the sole
Congressman) and from the Scioto Valley.
Thus, Chillicothe's lead-
ers were among the state's most
important. Thomas Worthington and
his brother-in-law, Dr. Edward Tiffin,
dominated one wing of the
state party. The men in this group were
sober Methodist converts. A
rival faction centered on Michael
Baldwin and Elias Langham. Their
supporters included artisans and
farmers, some part of a group of
16. William T. McClintick, Sketch of
the Life and Character of William Creighton, Jr.,
Ross County Historical Society archives;
Cayton, Frontier Republic, 83-88; Gerda
Lerner, The Grimke Sisters From South
Carolina; Pioneers for Women's Rights and Ab-
olition (New York, 1967), 342-43; Lyle Evans, Ross County, 1:104;
Dumas Malone,
"Abraham Baldwin," Allen
Johnson, ed., Dictionary of American Biography (New
York, 1928), 1:529-32; and Lindsay
Rogers, "Henry Baldwin," Johnson, ed., Diction-
ary of American Biography, 1:533-34. Grimke opposed abolition, but freed his own
slaves.
17. Lyle Evans, Ross County, 1:356-59.
Denny and Nashee were vituperative; see for
examples the Chillicothe Supporter, microfilm
furnished by the Ohio Historical Socie-
ty, October 6 and 13, 1808, and April 6,
13, and 20, 1809. After Mrs. Denny died, her
husband sold his share of the paper, and
Nashee ran a more moderate publication.
See for example Supporter, March
12, 1816.
18. Daniel J. Ryan, ed., "From
Charter to Constitution," from Ohio Archaeological
and Historical Society Publications, Vol. V (Columbus, 1897), 80-132.
148 OHIO HISTORY
rather rough people called "The
Bloodhounds." These men joined
in riots, and prevented sheriffs from
arresting Baldwin for his debts.
Nathaniel Massie and his brother-in-law,
William Creighton, worked
with both groups. They backed the
Worthington wing in 1803-1807,
but later swung into independent
opposition. Massie became
Langham's drinking partner. Chillicothe
had some Federalist politi-
cians, including Levin Belt, a bluff,
hearty Englishman whose per-
sonal popularity crossed party lines and
allowed him to serve as may-
or. The county's Senate and House seats
revolved with fair regularity
among a number of the community's
leaders; during the period
1803-1819, fifteen men held the two
state Senate seats, while the
House seats were occupied by more than
forty men.19
The Chillicothe Republicans, fairly
secure in their position within
state politics, fought each other, but
also learned to cooperate for the
community's good. Thus, Edward Tiffin
and Elias Langham, as
Governor and Speaker, surmounted their
personal dislikes, and
made sure that many of the state's first
roads centered on their com-
munity.20
This favoritism quickly bred a strong
anti-Scioto reaction in other
parts of Ohio. Voters in the outlying
regions, whether ex-Federalists
or moderate Republicans, began to unite
behind Republican candi-
dates like Samuel Huntington of Cleveland,
or Return J. Meigs, Jr., of
Marietta. The Scioto Republicans
responded by creating secret polit-
ical clubs, the Tammany Societies, to
try to enforce political regulari-
ty. During the War of 1812, the various
Republican wings in Ohio
came back together, a development
symbolized by Worthington's
tenure as Governor in 1814-1818.21 After
Worthington retired from ac-
tive state politics, other Chillicothe
landowners and businessmen
moved to the political fore. Duncan
McArthur became Governor in
1830-1832, while lawyers Henry Brush and
William Creighton often
represented the Scioto Valley in
Congress. In the period after 1835,
19. Edward Tiffin to Thomas Worthington,
January 8, 1806, Worthington Collection,
letter on loan from the State Library of
Ohio, roll 4, frames 20-22; Cayton, Frontier Re-
public, 79-94; Bennett, Ross County, 124; and Judge John
H. Keith, They Cast a Spell:
Essays on the Bar (Chillicothe, 1943, reprint ed., originally
Chillicothe: The Ross
County Register, 1870), 9-10. Local state Senators during this period
included
Nathaniel and Henry Massie, Joseph Kerr,
William Creighton, Henry Brush, and
Duncan McArthur.
20. William Creighton, Jr., to Thomas
Worthington, March 5, 1804, Worthington
Collection, roll 3, frames 226-28, letter on loan from the State
Library of Ohio.
21. Jeffrey P. Brown, "The Ohio
Federalists, 1803-1815," Journal of the Early Re-
public, Vol. 2, Fall 1982, 261-82; Jeffrey P. Brown,
"Samuel Huntington," 420-38; and
Sears, Thomas Worthington, 184-209.
Chillicothe's Elite 149 |
|
orphan William Allen, a highly successful Chillicothe attorney and McArthur's son-in-law, became a Congressman and Governor.22 Intense rivalry in business and politics caused many casualties among Chillicothe's new elite. Some of the men who lost early politi- cal prominence responded by turning to alcohol. Elias Langham and Michael Baldwin became hopeless drunks, while Nathaniel Massie went through alcoholic binges.23 Samuel Finley, a territorial county judge, served for years as a director of both the Bank of Chillicothe, founded in 1808, and of the Chillicothe branch of the Bank of the United States. He also invested in a steam flour mill. Finley went bankrupt during the Panic of 1819, and his death left Thomas Wor- thington mired in co-signed notes. Worthington remained an energet- ic investor, and sent his son James to England and France to study in- dustrial techniques, but was also reduced during this period to
22. Bennett, Ross County, 118-19, 122. 23. Edward Tiffin to Thomas Worthington, January 19, February 17 and 20, and November 30, 1804, and January 8, 1806, Worthington Collection, roll 3, frames 136-83, 200-04, 205-07, 357-59, and roll 4, frames 20-22, letters on loan from the State Library of Ohio; and Tiffin to Worthington, December 14, 1804, Worthington Reel 90, Ohio His- torical Society. |
150 OHIO HISTORY
plowing his own fields.24 Joseph
Kerr, the merchant and meat pack-
er, served as a U.S. Senator, but when
the government delayed re-
paying him for money laid out for War of
1812 supplies, Kerr went to a
debtor's cell. He lost more money when
he had to forfeit land sold
him by Nathaniel Massie (the land went
to a prior purchaser with a
better title), and by 1824 Kerr was
bankrupt. Kerr hoped to re-
coup his fortunes by backing Andrew
Jackson for President, but
development-minded Chillicotheans
preferred Henry Clay, and Kerr
eventually left Ohio for Louisiana.25
Some new men entered the
town's elite. Thus, Virginian John
Madeira married Felix Renick's
daughter, and became a hotel operator
and turnpike investor. Abra-
ham Hegler, another Virginian, bought
5,000 acres in 1809, and be-
came an importer of English shorthorn
cattle. Other men, like mer-
chant Humphrey Fullerton or Judge John
Thompson, simply moved
on. Thompson became a Louisiana planter,
while Fullerton went to
Texas to become a land empresario and
died in a steamboat explo-
sion.26
While the members of Chillicothe's elite
often competed with
each other, they also learned to work
together for mutual benefit.
Thomas Worthington and Duncan McArthur
represented rival wings
of the Republican party, but located
land for each other. Worthing-
ton and Joseph Kerr were partners in a
Portsmouth, Ohio,
packinghouse run by Kerr's son-in-law,
Amaziah Davisson. Wor-
thington and Samuel Finley operated
rival flour mills, but were politi-
cal allies in the early 1800s and backed
each other's notes. A group of
merchants headed by Humphrey Fullerton,
John Carlisle, and John
McLandsburgh pooled their efforts in
1815 to erect a toll bridge over
the Scioto. They received state
permission, and their bridge, which
replaced earlier ferry boats, made the
town's economy function
much more efficiently.27
Chillicothe's elite also dominated their
town's cultural institutions.
Governor Edward Tiffin was the prime lay
preacher at Chillicothe's
Methodist church for years, until he was
expelled by the more con-
servative members during a political
quarrel. Since Tiffin was a mem-
24. Finley and Putnam, Pioneer
Record, 131; Sears, Thomas Worthington, 214, 231,
235-36; Cayton, Frontier Republic, 128;
and Minutes of the Board of Directors of the
Bank of the United States at
Chillicothe, 1817-1825, Ross County
Historical Society ar-
chives.
25. Dickore, ed., General Kerr, 33-102.
Two of Kerr's sons, early Texas settlers, died
at the Alamo.
26. Lyle Evans, Ross County, 1:176-77,
266-67, 649; Bennett, Ross County, 200.
27. Sears, Thomas Worthington, 17,
214, 231; Dickore, General Kerr, 42; and Ben-
nett, Ross County, 70.
Chillicothe's Elite
151
ber of the liberal Republican Tammany
society, the conservatives
charged that he was really worshipping
an Indian saint!28 St. Paul's
Episcopal Church, created in 1817, was
soon Chillicothe's most pres-
tigious church. Mayor Levin Belt and
iron-maker Thomas James
served as its wardens, while lawyers
Henry Brush, William K. Bond,
and Richard Douglas, and merchant
William Southward played im-
portant roles in its affairs. So did
Edward King, the son of powerful
Federalist Senator Rufus King of New
York. When he married one of
Thomas Worthington's daughters, Edward
King instantly became
one of Chillicothe's leading
Episcopalians.29 The merchants who lat-
er built the toll bridge-Carlisle,
McLandsburgh, and Fuller-
ton-dominated Chillicothe's Presbyterian
church. Carlisle fi-
nanced the construction of a building in
1809, while Fullerton and
McLandsburgh became church trustees.
Thomas Worthington's
wife Eleanor donated property for a
parsonage.30 Edward Tiffin and
Worthington's relative T. V. Swearingen
dominated Chillicothe's Af-
rican Colonization Society, while James
Dunlap founded a county
poorhouse and farm.31
During its early years, Chillicothe
relied on a private log cabin
schoolhouse, but in 1809 the community's
leaders organized the
Chillicothe Academy. It was a somewhat
haphazard Lancastrian
school, but in 1815 the Academy was
reorganized and put under the
leadership of the Reverend James
McFarland of the Presbyterian
Reformed Church. The trustees of the
Academy included then-
Governor Thomas Worthington, War of 1812
General Duncan McAr-
thur, Thomas James, John Carlisle, and
banker Samuel Finley.
Worthington and cattleman George Renick
dominated the board in
later years. They financed the
construction of a fine two-story school
with a cupola.32
28. R. Carlyle Buley, The Old
Northwest; Pioneer Period, 1815-1840, 2 Vols. (Bloom-
ington, 1950), 2:448; and William Utter,
"Ohio Politics and Politicians, 1802-1815,"
Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago,
1929, 111-16.
29. Bennett, Ross County, 219;
Lyle Evans, Ross County, 1:164; and L.W. Renick,
Che-Le-Co-the; Glimpses of Yesterday (New York, Press, 1896), 171-73. Although
Thomas Worthington was a leading
Methodist, his wife became a Presbyterian, and
several children joined the Episcopal
Church.
30. Lyle Evans, Ross County, 1:249;
and L.W. Renick, Che-Le-Co-the, 54, 92, 150-53.
The Presbyterians dispensed with all
musical instrumentation, and their church
strongly condemned slavery. It admitted
two black families, the James Hills and Billy
Dailys, as members.
31. Bennett, Ross County, 63; and
Colonization Society, Ross County Historical Soci-
ety archives.
32. Bennett, Ross County, 54;
L.W. Renick, Che-Le-Co-the, 142; and Chillicothe
Academy Record Book, Ross County Historical Society Archives.
152 OHIO HISTORY
In 1820, an Englishman named Steinour
opened the Young Ladies'
Boarding School. Within two years, this
institution was replaced by
the Female Seminary, founded by Yankees
Cassandra Sawyer and
Eunice Strong. The attendees at this
school included a number of
young Worthingtons, Creightons, and
Tiffins. Thus, both the sons
and daughters of the elites had an
opportunity to go to school, and
began to form closed circles.33 Accounts
left by the young women
make it appear that their lives revolved
around an endless series of
social gatherings.34
The members of Chillicothe's elite
cooperated with other fashions
beyond business, politics, faith, and
schools. During the War of
1812, John McLandsburgh and William
Southward headed up a
committee that urged defense
preparations in case of attack. When a
serious fire in 1820 caused considerable
damage, Mayor Belt created
a fire company. Belt appointed Thomas
James the director, Edward
King one of his assistants, Joseph Kerr
the captain of the bucketmen,
and a number of successful
merchants-John McCoy, James Miller,
John McLandsburgh, and others-as other
officers.35 Many of
Chillicothe's leaders joined each other
as members of Scioto Lodge
No. 2 of the Free and Accepted Masons.
The Lodge included such
members as Elias Langham, Henry Massie,
Levin Belt, Henry Brush,
Nathaniel Willis, William Creighton, and
immigrant printer John
Bailhache. While these men represented
every part of the political
spectrum, they became brothers as
Masons.36
Chillicothe's leaders recognized that
their town's prosperity de-
pended upon agriculture. Many of them
were important landowners
as well as merchants, and rented lands
or hired laborers for their
holdings. They took a strong interest in
agricultural improvements,
and especially in improving the
bloodlines of their cattle. In 1819, the
Renick clan began a drive to start a
Scioto Agricultural Society Cattle
Show. These shows, and the annual
general county fairs begun in
1833, probably increased the interest
that Ross Countians began to
take in cattle genealogy. By 1833, Felix
Renick, John Dunn, and Dun-
can McArthur took the lead in creating
the Ohio Company for
Importing English Cattle, and several Renicks
soon went to England
33. L.W. Renick, Che-Le-Co-the, 106-107;
Works Progress Administration, Chillico-
the, n.d., 39. Tiffin's first wife, one of Thomas
Worthington's sisters, died young. Tif-
fin remarried, and his daughters came
from his second marriage.
34. Renick, Che-Le-Co-the, 98-99;
Sears, Thomas Worthington, 113.
35. Finley and Putnam, Pioneer
Record, 129; and on the defense committee, Ross
County Historical Society archives,
Folio 24.
36. Lyle Evans, Ross County, 1:339-42.
Chillicothe's Elite 153
to buy blooded bulls. The Scioto Valley
soon became an important
region for cattle breeding, and the Ohio
Company and its successor,
the Scioto Valley Importing Company,
flourished well into the
1850s.37
Chillicothe became, during the 1820s and
1830s, the most impor-
tant Midwest center for cattle feeding
lots. Once again, the Renick
clan led the movement into this new
enterprise. Renicks and other
cattle barons began to make annual trips
to new frontier states like Illi-
nois and Missouri, buying scrubby
cattle. They drove them to Ross
County, fed them Scioto Valley corn
until they grew fat, then herded
them to the East Coast. Hog drives to
Baltimore and Richmond sup-
plemented the cattle trade. By 1832, the
Renicks were importing
12,000 cattle a year, with the herds as
collateral for Bank of Chillico-
the 10 percent loans. The whole Valley
handled 45,000 or more cattle
a year, and 25,000 stock hogs.38
As this cattle and hog feeding empire
grew, Ross County farmers
grew less wheat and more corn. The area
had long exported its own
animal surplus. In 1817, 200 cattle were
herded to New York, while
Huffnagle and McCollister, a firm
specializing in barreled beef,
opened butchering operations in
Chillicothe in 1819. They flat-
boated their beef down the Scioto. Most
entrepreneurs continued
their overland drives, which grew larger
and more important as the
flow of Midwestern cattle increased. In
1842, William Renick led the
first drive to Boston, the nation's
tanning center.
Cattle feed lots became more important
in the later 1840s when rail-
roads entered Ohio, since cattle could
be shipped East from Ohio
with minimal weight loss. Of course,
this eliminated most overland
drives. Chillicothe developed large
slaughterhouses in the 1840s, as
firms like Fraser's, or Campbell and
Brown and Company, imported
Irish workingmen familiar with preparing
meats for the English mar-
ket. The first railroad to enter
Chillicothe, the Marietta & Cincinnati
(Felix Renick, President), was finished
in 1852.
Rapid expansion of the railroad network
soon ended the Scioto
Valley's cattle primacy. By 1854,
cattlemen in Illinois and Missouri
could ship directly to market, and this
reduced the need for Ohio
37. Buley, Old Northwest, 1:192-99;
Henlein, Cattle Kingdom, 76-97; and Plumb,
Felix Renick, 30. Various Renicks owned nineteen of the ninety-two
shares in the Ohio
Company for Importing English Cattle,
while Duncan McArthur held six shares. John
Dunn soon broke with his partners, and
began a rival bull importation program.
38. Buley, Old Northwest, 1:528-29;
Henlein, Cattle Kingdom, 6-11; William Renick,
Renick, 8-14, 47-48; Clark, Grain Trade, 132-33; and
Margaret Walsh, The Rise of the
Midwestern Meat Packing Industry (Lexington, Ky., 1982), 22, 92.
154 OHIO HISTORY
feeder lots and Chillicothe packing
houses. Scioto Valley farmers
continued to raise corn, but it now went
directly into whiskey pro-
duction. They also raised fewer cattle
and hogs, and more sheep for
the wool trade.39
Transportation changes like the railroad
extensions clearly affected
Chillicothe's growth. Early state roads
centered on Chillicothe,
making it the center of Southern Ohio
overland commerce. Chillico-
the's roads linked the town to
Cincinnati, Portsmouth, Marietta,
Wheeling, and Columbus. The community
also served as a major fo-
cal point for downriver Scioto commerce.
In 1831, the assembly au-
thorized a turnpike between Portsmouth
and Columbus, with
Chillicothe in the middle. William
Renick was the road's prime pro-
moter, while James Worthington and David
Renick took charge of
construction with in Ross County. Ohio
financed two state canals,
one running from Portsmouth to
Cleveland. The canal's Chillicothe
leg, completed in October, 1831, sharply
cut transportation costs to
the Great Lakes. Chillicothe eventually
became the logical division
point along the canal. To the south of
Chillicothe, farm goods flowed
towards Portsmouth and the Mississippi
Valley. Farm products from
above Chillicothe went to Cleveland and
the East Coast. This gave
Scioto Valley farmers a good deal of
access to both markets. The
construction of railroads into Ohio in
the 1840s and 1850s simply
completed Chillicothe's links to the
nation's economy.40
Banking further wove Chillicothe into
the nation's economy. The
state chartered a local bank in 1809,
with the Bank of Chillicothe
using the Masonic Hall as its
headquarters. Samuel Finley, Thomas
James, and John Woodbridge dominated
this bank. A branch of
the Second Bank of the United States was
established in Chillicothe
in 1817, with a board that included most
of Chillicothe's elite-
President William Creighton, Edward
Tiffin, Duncan McArthur,
Samuel Finley, John McLandsburgh, George
Renick, John McCoy,
William K. Bond, Edward King, John
Carlisle, and William
McFarland, among others. Ties to the
national economy meant pros-
perity, but they also made Chillicothe
vulnerable to downswings in
the larger marketplace. By 1818, as
notes from many banks flooded
the Northwest, Chillicothe banknotes
circulated at a 15-20 percent
discount. Sharp credit constrictions
during the Panic of 1819 took
39. Henlein, Cattle Kingdon, 132,
143, 172-73; and Jones, Ohio Agriculture, 6-9.
40. Buley, Old Northwest, 1:432-33,
447, 466, 536; Lyle Evans, Ross County, 1:85;
William Renick, Renick, 83; and Williams
Brothers, Ross and Highland Counties,
152-53.
Chillicothe's Elite 155
leading Chillicotheans like Samuel
Finley or Joseph Kerr into bank-
ruptcy, while the B.U.S. proved so
unpopular that Ohio authorized
mercenary John Harper to invade the bank
and carry off $120,000 in
state taxes. Nevertheless, the B.U.S.
branch functioned in
Chillicothe through 1825, and the town
acquired other chartered
banks.41
Chillicothe's elite controlled most
aspects of community life. This
should not infer that ordinary citizens
were powerless. During the
early statehood period, they elected
popular leaders like Elias Lang-
ham and Michael Baldwin, while
conservative leaders like Thomas
Worthington worried about the
intimidating powers of the "Blood-
hound" artisans. When Worthington
and Edward Tiffin first created
a secret political club, the Tammany
Society, to enforce regular chan-
nels of authority within the Republican
Party, Tiffin wound up getting
expelled from his church. However, by
the time that Chillicothe
was fifteen years old, it had settled
into confirmed social patterns.
The earlier instability passed and some
twenty or so men controlled
most of the community's civic and
economic affairs.42
Unlike most early Ohio communities,
Chillicothe had a fairly large
black population. Ross County had about
one hundred free black
men, many with families. Most of these
men were tenant farmers or
mill hands who worked for former owners
like Thomas Worthington.
These laborers had no power at all, and
simply worked at hard
trades. However, some of Chillicothe's
blacks enjoyed some promi-
nence and had roles within their own
community. Jim Richards, the
town barber, also served as
Chillicothe's drum major. One member
of the black community, Morris O'Free,
prospered as the town's
chief caterer. O'Free hosted many of
white Chillicothe's civic func-
tions, including the many Female
Seminary affairs. Black people were
allowed to worship in several of
Chillicothe's churches. When white
Methodists insisted that black
worshippers take communion last, the
blacks seceded from the church, and in
1821 formed Quinn Chapel
of the African Methodist Episcopalian
Church. Although black
Chillicotheans could not challenge the
overall patterns of community
life, they had, like white artisans, at
least some influence on their
destinies.43
41. Sears, Thomas Worthington, 201-11,
231; Finley and Putnam, Pioneer Record,
131; Lyle Evans, Ross County, 1:373;
Buley, Old Northwest, 1:129, 572; Cayton, Frontier
Republic, 120-32;
and Minutes of the Board of Directors of the Bank of the United States
at Chillicothe, 1817-1825, Ross County Historical Society archives, November 10,
1817,
and September 17, 1819.
42. Cayton, Frontier Republic, 83-94.
43. L.W. Renick, Che-Le-Co-the, 99,
235; Lyle Evans, Ross County, 1:334; and Cay-
ton, Frontier Republic, 57-58.
156 OHIO HISTORY
Chillicothe's dominant elite brought
their community prominence,
power, and some wealth. At the same
time, their control probably
hurt the town's long-term growth. Many
of the wealthy landowners
who lived in Chillicothe preferred to
rent out their Scioto Valley
lands rather than sell them. While most
in the end found it necessary
to sell lands, their preference for
renting deterred many pioneer farm-
ers from taking up residence in the
Scioto, and led others to move on
to cheap and good soil elsewhere. Thus
the Scioto Valley grew rath-
er slowly after 1810, and became less
important politically. As other
areas of Ohio opened up, these outlying
regions resented Chillico-
the's early political power and arrogant
allocation of roads. The state
capital was shifted to Zanesville, and
by 1817 moved permanently to
Columbus, at the upper end of the Scioto
Valley. The National Road,
the most important pre-railroad artery
of commerce, subsequently
passed through Columbus, not
Chillicothe. By the 1830s,
Chillicothe was no longer one of Ohio's
dominant communities. But
the town remained prosperous. It
weathered a cholera epidemic, and
during the 1840s it began to attract
some of the German immigrants
who were settling in Ohio in large
numbers. Chillicothe eventually
became 40 percent German, and the new
settlers helped create a peri-
od of general prosperity. The town
remained a pleasant, modest-
sized community, with a well established
local elite controlling most
civic and economic affairs.44
Chillicothe offers a fascinating example
of the process through
which a new community developed a
controlling elite. Some of its
leaders were self-made frontier
surveyors, or immigrant merchants.
However, a large share of the town's
leaders were prominent men in
their home states. Some were wealthy
investors, or well-connected
surveyors. Others had a legal
background, or enjoyed family ties to
important national political figures.
Chillicothe's new leaders com-
peted vigorously in business and
politics, with some slipping into pov-
erty or alcoholism or both. Several
prominent men moved on to other
regions. Those who stayed and succeeded
in Chillicothe built en-
during estates. They invested in a wide
variety of businesses, includ-
ing land, cattle feeding, banking,
transportation, and milling. They
served together on civic boards, in
political offices, in fraternal socie-
ties, and as church leaders. Their
children attended the same
academies. Within a single generation,
Chillicothe produced a recog-
nizable elite of civic
leaders-prosperous, powerful, and active men
who dominated life in their new
community.
44. Bennett, Ross County, 77.