Ohio History Journal

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.

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.

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.