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BROWN COUNTY

 

 

Population of Brown county in 1820, 13,367; in 1840, 22,715; in 1860, 28,842; in 1880, 31,179, of whom 27,383 were Ohio-born.

 

 

 

A short time previous to the settlement of this county a battle was fought at a locality called “the salt lick,” in Perry township, in the northern part of the county, between a party of Kentuckians and some Indians under TECUMSEH. The circumstances are here given from Drake's life of that celebrated Indian chief.

 

Battle with TECUMSEH,--In the month of March, 1792, some horses were stolen by the Indians, from the settlements in Mason county, Ky. A party of whites, to the number of thirty-six, was immediately raised for the purpose of pursuing them. It embraced KEBTON, WHITEMAN, M'INTYRE, DOWNING, WASHBURN, CALVIN and several other experienced woodsmen. The first named, Simon KENTON, a distinguished Indian fighter, was placed in command. The trail of the Indians being taken, it was found they had crossed the Ohio, just below the mouth of Lee's creek, which was reached by the pursuing party towards evening. Having prepared rafts, they crossed the Ohio that night, and encamped. Early next morning the trail was again taken and pursued, on a north course, all day, the weather being bad and the ground wet. On the ensuing morning, twelve of the men were unable to continue the pursuit, and were permitted to return.

 

 

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enemy. The men being wet and cold, they were now marched down into a hollow, where they kindled fires, dried their clothes, and put their rifles in order.

 

The party was then divided into three detachments—KENTON commanding the right, M'INTYRE the centre, and DOWNING the left. By agreement, the three divisions were to move towards the camp, simultaneously, and when they had approached as near as possible, without giving an alarm, were to be guided in the commencement of the attack, by the fire from KENTON'S party. When Downing and his detachment had approached close to the camp, an Indian rose upon his feet, and began to stir up the fire, which was but dimly burning. Fearing a discovery, DOWNING'S party instantly shot him down. This was followed by a general fire from the three detachments, upon the Indians who were sleeping under some marquees and bark tents, close upon the margin of the stream. But unfortunately, as it proved in the sequel, KENTON'S party had taken “Boone,” as their watch-word. This name happening to be as familiar to the enemy as themselves, led to some confusion in the course of the engagement. When fired upon, the Indians, instead of retreating across the stream, as had been anticipated, boldly stood to their arms, returned the fire of the assailants, and rushed upon them. They were reinforced, moreover, from a camp on the opposite side of the river, which, until then, had been unperceived by the whites. In a few minutes, the Indians and the Kentuckians were blended with each other, and the cry of “Boone,” and “Che Boone” arose simultaneously from each party.

 

It was after midnight when the attack was made, and there being no moon, it was very dark. KENTON, perceiving that his men were likely to be overpowered, ordered a retreat, after the attack had lasted for a few minutes; this was continued through the remainder of the night and part of the next day, the Indians pursuing them but without killing more than one of the retreating party. The Kentuckians lost but two men, Alexander M’INTYRE and John BARR. The loss of the Indians was much greater, according to the statements of some Prisoners, who, after the peace of 1795, were released and returned to Kentucky. They related that fourteen Indians were killed, and seventeen wounded. They stated further, that there were in the camp about one hundred warriors, among them several chiefs of note, including TECUMSEH, BATTISE, BLACK SNAKE, WOLF and CHINSKAU; and that the party had been formed for the purpose of annoying the settlements in Kentucky, and attacking boats descending the Ohio river. KENTON and his party were three days in reaching Limestone, during two of which they were without food, and destitute of sufficient clothing to protect them from the cold winds and rains of March. The foregoing particulars of this expedition are taken from the manuscript narrative of Gen. Benjamin WHITEMAN, one of the early and gallant pioneers to Kentucky, now a resident of Greene county, Ohio.

 

The statements of Anthony SHANE and of Stephen RUDDELL, touching this action, vary in some particulars from that which has been given above, and also from the narrative in “McDONALD’S Sketches.” The principal difference relates to the number of Indians in the engagement, and the loss sustained by them. They report but two killed, and that the Indian force was less than that of the whites. RUDDELL states, that at the commencement of the attack, TECUMSEH was lying by the fire, outside of the tents. When the first gun was heard, he sprang to his feet, and calling upon SINNAMATHA to follow his example and charge, he rushed forward and killed one of the whites (John BARR) with his war-club. The other Indians, raising the war-whoop, seized their arms, and rushing upon KENTON and his party, compelled them, after a severe contest of a few minutes, to retreat One of the Indians, in the midst of the engagement, fell into the river, and in the effort to get out of the water made so much noise that it created a belief on the minds of the whites that a reinforcement was crossing the stream to aid TECUMSEH. This is supposed to have hastened the order from KENTON for his men to retreat.

 

The afternoon prior to the battle one of KENTON'S men, by the name of M'INTYRE, succeeded in catching an Indian horse, which he tied in the rear of the camp, and when a retreat was ordered, he mounted and rode off. Early in the morning Tecumseh and four of his men set off in pursuit of the retreating party. Having fallen upon the trail of M'INTIRE, they pursued it for some distance and at length overtook him. He had struck a fire and was cooking some meat. When M'INTYRE discovered his pursuers he instantly fled at full speed. TECUMSEH and two others followed and were fast gaining on him, when he turned and raised his gun. Two of the Indians, who happened to be in advance of TECUMSEH, sprung behind trees, but he rushed upon M'INTYRE and made him prisoner. He was tied and taken back to the battle-ground. Upon reaching it TECUMSEH deemed it prudent to drawing draw off his men, lest the whites should rally and renew the attack. He requested some of the Indians to catch the horses, but they hesitating, he undertook to do it himself, assisted by one of the party. When he returned to camp with the horses, he found that his men had killed M'INTYRE. At this act of cruelty to a prisoner he was exceedingly indignant, declaring that it was a cowardly act to kill a man when tied and a prisoner. The conduct of TECUMSEH in this engagement and in the events of the following morning is creditable alike to his courage and humanity. Resolutely brave in battle, his arm was never uplifted against a prisoner, nor did he suffer violence to be inflicted upon a captive without promptly rebuking it.

 

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“The celebrated TECUMSEH commanded the Indians. His cautious and fearless intrepidity made him a host wherever he went. In military tactics night attacks are not allowable, except in cases like this, when the assailing party are far inferior in numbers. Sometimes, in night attacks, panics and confusion are created in the attacked party, which may render them a prey to inferior numbers. KENTON trusted to something like this on the present occasion, but was disappointed, for when TECUMSEH was present his influence over the minds of his followers infused that confidence in his tact and intrepidity that they could only be defeated by force of numbers.”

 

Drawn by Henry Howe, 1846

PUBLIC SQUARE, GEORGETOWN.

 

GEORGETOWN IN 1846.—Georgetown the county-seat, is 107 miles from Columbus, 30 from Hillsboro, 46 from Wilmington, 21 from Batavia and West Union and 10 from Ripley. It was laid oft in the year 1819, and its original proprietors were Allen WOODS and Henry NEWKIRK. It contains 1 Presbyterian, 1 Baptist, 1 Christian Disciples and l Methodist church, a newspaper printing office and about 800 inhabitants. The view shows the public square, with the old court-house on the left and on the right a new and elegant Methodist church.—Old Edition.

 

Georgetown, the county-seat, is in the valley of White Oak Creek, on the C. G. & P. Railroad, 42 miles southeast of Cincinnati and 10 miles north of the Ohio river. The town has changed less than many others since 1846. Another and a neat court-house occupies the site of the one shown, and the grounds are ornamented with a fine grove of trees. County officers in 1888: Probate Judge, George P. TYLER; Clerk of Court, C. C. BLAIR; Sheriff, A. J. THOMPSON; Prosecuting Attorney, D. V. PEARSON; Auditor, John W. HELBLING; Treasurer, J. P. RICHEY; Recorder, G. C. REISINGER; Surveyor, J. R. WRIGHT; Coroner, John W. ADKINS; Commissioners, Frederick BAUER, S. W. PICERILL, R. C. DRAKE.

 

Georgetown has 1 Presbyterian, 1 Christian, 1 Methodist, 1 Colored Methodist and 1 Colored Baptist church. Newspapers: Democrat (Dem.), D. S. TARBELL, editor; News (Dem.), A. B. Fee & Lang, publishers; Gazette (Rep.), Wm. H. T. DENNY. Banks: First National, Joseph COCKRAN, president, W. S. WHITEMAN cashier. One woollen factory, R. Young & Co., 19 employees. A great deal of tobacco is shipped from here. Population in 1880, 1,293. School census 1886, 468; Isaac Mitchell, superintendent.

 

The greatest industry of this county is tobacco-raising, of which 3,702,542 pounds were produced in 1885, this amount being exceeded only by Montgomery county. Brown, however, takes precedence in the quality of tobacco. It is raised upon the bottom lands and hillsides by the water courses, the southern part of the county being more especially the tobacco region.

 

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Joseph FOOS on the farm of Captain Fred KANTZ. FOOS had procured some little burley seed from George BARKLEY, which, when it came up, produced plants some of which were almost milk-white. This led him to suppose that they had been damaged, but they grew as vigorously as those of a darker color. Therefore, when transplanting, he set out the white ones also. They grew and matured, were cut and hung by themselves, so that they could be distinguished. When cured they were very bright and fine in texture and of such superior quality that more of the seed was procured and planted with the same result, and from these plants the seed was saved. Thus originated the famous “White Burley” tobacco of Brown county, from which the farmers of that section have reaped such rich harvests. From it is made the celebrated brand of Fountain fine-cut of LOVELL & BUFFINGTON, also the Star plug of LIGGETT & MYER and many other popular brands.

 

In Georgetown is pointed out the mansion in which lived one of the most eminent, and eloquent men of his time in the State, General Thomas Lyon HAMER. It was through him that U. S. Grant received his appointment as a cadet to West Point.

 

He was born the son of a poor farmer in Pennsylvania in the year 1800, but passed his boyhood on the margin of Lake Champlain, where he was an eye-witness of the naval action fought by McDONOUGH, which, with its triumphant result, inspired him with a taste for a soldier's life. At the age of seventeen he came to Ohio with his father's family, and then struck out for himself as a school-teacher, beginning at Withamsville, Clermont county, a poor boy, with only one suit of clothes, that the homespun on his back, and a cash capital of “one and sixpence.” Later he taught at Bethel, where he boarded in the family of Thomas MORRIS, the pioneer lawyer of Clermont county, who befriended him. He occupied his spare hours in studying law and commenced the practice in Georgetown in the year 1820, which he continued until June, 1846, at which time he volunteered in the Mexican war. Being an active member of the Democratic party, he sympathized in its war measures. He was elected Major of the First Regiment Ohio Volunteers, and received the appointment of Brigadier-General from the President before his departure for he seat of war. in that station he acquitted himself with great ability up to the period of his death. He was in the battle of Monterey, and on Major-General Butler being wounded, succeeded him in the command. He distinguished himself on this occasion by his coolness and courage. General HAMER was endowed with most extraordinary abilities as an orator, advocate and lawyer. He represented the district in which he resided six years in Congress, and distinguished himself as an able and sagacious statesman, and at the time of his death was a member-elect of Congress. His death was greatly deplored, being in his prime, forty-six years, of age, with a most promising prospect of attaining the highest eminence.

 

Georgetown will be known for all time as the boyhood home of Ulysses Simpson GRANT. He was born in Clermont county, but as his parents removed here when he was a mere infant only about a year old, his childhood impressions were made and his early loves formed in this then little village in the valley of White Oak Creek His parents were of Scotch descent; his great-grandfather, Noah GRANT, was a captain in the early French wars, and his grandfather, Noah GRANT, a lieutenant in the battle of Lexington.

 

 

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you can’t.” GRANT had never really heard the word before and began to hunt it up in his old dictionary.  At last he went to his teacher and asked. “What is the meaning of can’t? the word is not in the dictionary.”  The teacher explained its origin and how it came to be corrupted by abbreviation, and then to impress an

 

Photo by Henry K. Hannah, Artist, 1886.

THE GRANT SCHOOL-HOUSE, GEORGETOWN.

Grant Schoolhouse

Grant Schoolhouse

 

important truth upon the minds of his young pupils he added:  “If in the struggles through life and person should assert that you can’t do anything that you had set your mind upon accomplishing, let your reply be, if your work e a god and lawful one, that the word can’t is not dictionary.”  GRANT never forgot the incident. He not only conquered his studies, but, in after years, he often replied to those who declared he would fail in attaining his object, that the word “can’t” is not to be found in any dictionary.

 

Photo by Henry K. Hannah, Artist

THE GRANT HOMESTEAD AND TANNERY, GEORGETOWN.

 

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the right, the tannery in the front. To the first a front addition has been made since the GRANTS were here; the smaller and near part was the old dwelling, as it was when GRANT was a growing boy and assisted his father in handling the hides. He was a lively, companionable boy, frank, generous and open-hearted, a leader and a favorite among the Georgetown boys. He was regarded as having good common sense without any especial marks of genius. When in after years he visited Georgetown he never failed to seek out the friends of his youth and greet them with hearty hand-shake and pleasant words.

 

REMINISCENCES OF THE PARENTS OF GENERAL GRANT, WITH AN ANALYSIS OF THE GENERAL'S CHARACTERISTS.—On our visit to Georgetown on our second tour over the State we happened not to meet with any who knew General GRANT in his youth, now more than half a century ago. At the time of his decease we wrote our reminiscences of his parents, with a pen-portrait of him as he appeared to us, which we here place on permanent record. One of his strong friends, for years associated with him in a post of honor, indeed was a member of his cabinet, pronounces it a just delineation of the qualities of this; extraordinary man.

 

During the rebellion and for years after the GRANT family lived in Covington opposite Cincinnati, and eventually Jesse GRANT, the father, was appointed postmaster of that town. When the star of his son was rising he was a familiar figure on the platform at Union meetings in Cincinnati. I sometimes saw him standing near the Gazette building where the people were wont to gather for the latest news from the armies in front in the periods of agonizing suspense.

 

Father GRANT, as they called him, was a large man with high shoulders, about six feet in stature and plainly attired; giving one the idea of being just as lie was, a useful, substantial citizen. His complexion was florid, and his eyes were fronted by huge green glasses; his whole appearance was striking. When the Union army was floundering m the mud before Vicksburg and millions were despairing under the long and weary waiting his faith never faltered. “Ulysses,” he said, “will work until he gets a grip, and when he gets a grip he never lets go, and he will take Vicksburg.”

 

One summer afternoon when GRANT was President I had the experience of a personal interview with his parents and with each alone. I had published in Cincinnati, my then residence, and in connection with the late E. C. MIDDLETON, a portrait in oil colors of GRANT, and crossed the river to Covington to show a copy to them and obtain their testimony as to its accuracy.  I first called upon the old gentleman at the post-office. He invited me in behind the letters, and on looking at the portrait was highly pleased, pronouncing it the best he had seen, and was glad to so attest. He was chatty and happy in my presence. Though sociality was natural to him, I am inclined to think that the reflection that he was the father of General GRANT brought up so forcibly at that moment, was the prime factor to produce an extra benignant mood.

 

Twenty minutes later I was in the presence of Mrs. GRANT. Covington, like most towns in the old slave-holding States, had a slipshod aspect. The GRANTS lived on an unattractive, narrow street in a small, plain, two-story brick house close up to the pavement. An old lady answered my ring. It was Mrs. GRANT, and I think she was the only person in the house. At the very hour when her son was being inaugurated at Washington, it was said, a neighbor saw her on the rear porch of her residence, with broom in hand, sweeping down the cobwebs.

 

She was in person and manner the antithesis of her husband; a brunette with small, slender, erect figure, delicately chiseled features, and when young and simply Hannah SIMPSON must have been very sweet to look upon. Indeed, she was so then to me from her modest air of refinement and that expression of moral beauty which increases with the years.

 

In my presence she was the personification of calmness and silence, and put her signature beneath that of her husband without a word. I tried to engage her in conversation to hear more of the tones than simple replies “yes” or “no,” and to see some play to her countenance. It was in vain. Believing that life is so short that one should omit no opportunity of trying to give pleasure to another, I said, “I think, madam, I am favored this afternoon. There are multitudes in all parts of our country who would be highly gratified to have an interview with the mother of General GRANT.”

 

It was true, I felt it, and it was a pretty thing to say. Not by a word or an expression of countenance did she show that she even heard me. Yet, I was glad I said it. A duty had been performed, and it revealed a trait of character. From her General GRANT must have got his immobility that on occasions when common civility demanded vocal signification showed in a reticence that was painful even to the bystanders. Neither mother nor son could help it.

 

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sympathy. Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln had words of cheer for everybody, and hence were widely loved. When Henry Clay was defeated for the presidency strong men bowed and wept; when Lincoln was assassinated the whole nation writhed in agony. There was then no such love for GRANT. It was because of his extreme reticence and that grim, fixed expression of face that gave no sign of the warm affections that were within. Few, we found, cared to have his portrait, while for those above named together with the portraits of George and Martha Washington, there was a great demand. Years later this was changed: GRANT, himself grew social and won more the affections of the people, as they learned his sterling moral qualities.

 

An analysis of the character of a great man always interests. It never can be only partially done. We never can fully comprehend ourselves, much less so another. GRANT’S moral qualities were of the best. They were modesty, magnanimity, self-repose, a total absence of vanity, self-seeking, jealousy, or malice. He loved truth and purity. His patriotism and sense of justice were so strong that he would elevate a test enemy to a position if he was the best man for the public use. No man better loved than he, but his dreadful reticence allowed him to illustrate this only by acts. His mind was simple, direct in its action, and he had it in the perfect mastery of an iron will.

 

His memory was like a vice. His topographical memory and capacity bordered on the marvellous. When in camp he soon knew the position of every brigade, the name of its commander and the whole country round with its roads, hills, woods an streams, and then it was all before him as map on the table. During the siege of Vicksburg he: heard of a Northern man living in the vicinity, a civil engineer familiar with the whole adjacent country from his surveys therein. He sent for him and adopted him in his military family. That gentleman afterwards said he never wet such a head for a civil engineer as that of GRANT’S.

 

This faculty made him superior to every other commander, so that with his breadth and clearness of views he could make his combinations and move his men on the field of battle with a well-calculated result, almost as certain as fate. He cared less than most commanders to discover the plans of his enemy. He had his own which they could no foresee, and his involved continued movement. Therein he acted on the knowledge that the greatest courage is with him who at tacks, and that even a musket ball in motion is worthy of more respect than a cannon ball at rest. His faculty of concentration was s great, his nerves so rigid, that mid shower of bullets and the skipping of cannon ball he was as calm as on parade. Moreover, he had the invincibility of the faith that the Confederacy would ultimately totter and ? the business of each day was to hasten on the time by action for the rising of that dust. So he kept pounding away, and proved himself to be God's hammer to break up slavery.

 

It was well for the amenities of that dreadful struggle that the commanders on both sides had been largely personal friends, youths together in the same military school, brother officers in the same army. GRANT ,felt this bond of sympathy when LEE came into his presence to lay down the sword. And LEE deserved magnanimity in that hour of humiliation. I chanced to make the acquaintance of a Virginian, an elegant young man, who had been an aide of LEE He told me that one evening at table early in the war the officers of his military family were speaking in no measured terms of indignation of a Virginian, perhaps it was General THOMAS, for remaining in the Union army, when General LEE rebuked them, saying, “You do him a great wrong, young gentlemen, in denouncing _.him. We has acted from the same conscientious sense of duty as you have, and is worthy of your highest-respect in his decision.”

 

Grant's mind was strung, but, from his want of imagination. severely practical, dry and naked. An older brother of mine, IN the long past, a cadet at West Point, told me that when listening to a lecture there on the properties of a globe he found he could not comprehend it. Through his obtruding imagination that globe was enveloped in a blue flame, the result perhaps of the early theological teaching which I happen to know he had. With GRANT I venture to say when he came later to the same study the globe was as clear as a ball of crystal. He liked West Point for its mathematics mainly. What on earth can be drier? Even the “Pons Asinorum” is over a dry bed.

 

He had no ear for music. Every tune was alike to him. Varied, weirdly-pleasing sensations that arise in the soul of some natures were probably weak in him, such as come from listening to the wind sighing through the pines, the murmurings of the mountain brook, the cooing of the doves under the eaves, the chirp of the crickets and the nightly disputes of certain innocent, harmless insects who appear to have before them their especial question of the ages, whether “ Katy s did “ or “ Katy didn't.”

 

He seemed weak in the perception of the beautiful as derived from the contemplation of nature. It was a great deprivation, such will say who find exquisite enjoyment and lift their hearts in gratitude as they feel the benign presence of the universal spirit in the sparkling dew globule, the trembling leaf and the sweetly-tinted flower. To many a heart this love is a great panacea in a time of woe. They feel in the midst of sore struggles that the world of beauty is still theirs. But for this reflection they might sometimes seeks relief in suicide. “Life,” they will say, “is yet mine; it is the great possession.”

 

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there is no evidence that his information extended much into the leaves of books. I do know that the brightest of our men in ideas, such scholars and thinkers as Woolsey, Emerson, etc., were not his companions, but he seemed largely to find them in the lower strata of the kings of money and lords of fleet horses, gorgeous in their settings, luxurious and materialistic in their lives.

 

GRANT had the sense of moral beauty. He loved goodness and was incapable of an intentional wrong. Not an oath nor an impure expression was heard from his lips. He was as strong in his friendships as in his will, and he had that highest quality of citizenship, deep, fervent devotion to his own family. His dislike of exaggeration, his modesty, his calmness of spirit and honesty of purpose are shown in every word he wrote or spoke. His memoirs, when published, will be found as charming from their terse simplicity and crystal clearness as the narratives of Defoe. Every child will comprehend every word. Grant's absence of imagination and his power of concentration gave him a clear view of facts, while his marvelous memory gave him therein full breadth of, comprehension, so that each fact would fall in at one view and in its relative place of importance

 

His calmness was so serene that no intruding emotion could disturb the perfect action of his judgment. Having no imagination, he never appealed to it in his soldiers, nor did they want it. War was with them business, not poetry. A poet was not wanted as commander of the Army of the Potomac, no matter what the direction for which the soul of John Brown was heading; nor a looking-glass commander with his mind upon spreading epaulettes and bobbing plumes.

 

 He was a thoroughly independent, self-poised thinker, and in his simplicity and originality of expression often made two or three words do the work of an entire sentence. A notable instance of this was given when General BUTLER was imprisoned by the Confederates in the peninsula formed by the junction of the Appomattox with the James. He wrote that he was “bottled-up,” “two words that so comically expressed the dilemma he had been in that the public laughed at the quiet humor:

 

 

 

GRANT'S attachments to his friends was one of his best traits. Many public men, through selfish fear of the charge of nepotism, will allow those bound to them by the strongest ties of kindred to suffer rather than help them to positions which they know they can worthily fill. No such moral cowardice can be laid to his charge. He was alike physically and morally brave to the inmost fibre. A well-known illustration of his tenderness and strength of affection was shown by his grief on learning of the death of the young and brilliant James B. McPHERSON, who fell in the battle of Peach Tree Creek, July 22d, 1864, “when he went into his tent and wept like a child;” and later in the letter which he wrote to the aged grandmother of the lamented general, when he said: “Your bereavement is great, but cannot be greater than mine.”

 

Such a sublimely pathetic and morally beautiful picture as that presented by GRANT in his last dying work is seldom given for human contemplation. To what fine tender strains the chords of his heart, must have vibrated, and how inexpressibly sweet this life must have seemed to him in those sad, melancholy days as he sat there, seated in the solitude of his chamber penning his legacy, while the warming sun shot its golden streamers athwart the carpet at his feet, and the air was filled with the joy of short-lived buzzing insects, shown by their low, monotonous notes reverberating from the window-panes. Could the world to which he was hastening offer to his imagination, when he had cast aside his poor, suffering body, anything more beautiful than this?

 

Night is over the great city and the stars with their silent eyes look down upon the tomb by the river as in the long ago they looked down there upon a wilderness scene when the prows of Hendrick HUDSON moved past through the ever-flowing waters. And there the waters will continue to flow on and on until another great leader shall arise prepared for the last great conflict. And this conflict will not be one of blood, but intellectual and moral—one that shall adjust to the use of the toiling millions a righteous measure for their labor in a land overflowing with wealth and abundance more than sufficient for the comfort and welfare of every deserving one, even to the very last, the humblest son and daughter of toil. But victory will never ensue until character and not gold has become the general measure of regard, and the race has attained that high mural plane where no one can wield vast possessions and live under the withering scorn that would befall him if he lived for himself alone.

 

 

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this town, until a permanent seat of justice should be established. For a time it was supposed that this would be the county-seat; a court-house was begun, but before it was finished the county-seat was permanently established at Georgetown. The courts were, for a time, held in the First Presbyterian church, which was the  first public house of worship erected. Ripley is the largest and most business place in the county, and one of the most flourishing villages on the Ohio river, within the limits of the State. The view shows the central part of the town only; it extends about a mile on the river. Ripley contains 2 Presbyterian, 1 Methodist, 1 Associate Reformed, 1 New Light, and 1 Catholic church, 20 stores, 1 newspaper printing office, 1 iron foundry, 1 carding machine, 3 flouring mills, and had, in 1840, 1,245 inhabitants. The Ripley female seminary, under the charge of Wm. C. Bissell and lady, has about forty pupils. The “ Ripley College” was chartered by the State, but not endowed; it is now a high school, under the care of the Rev. John RANKIN and an assistant, and has about forty pupils, of both sexes. This institution admits colored children within its walls; and there are quite a number of people, in this region, who hold to the doctrine of equal rights, politically and socially, to all, irrespective of color.—Old Edition.

 

Drawn by Henry Howe, 1846.

RIPLEY FROM THE KENTUCKY SIDE OF THE OHIO

 

Ripley is on the Ohio river about fifty miles southeast of Cincinnati. Newspapers: Bee and Times, Republican, J. C. NEWCOMB, editor and publisher. Churches: 2 Methodist, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Christian, 1 Lutheran, 1 Catholic, 1 Colored Methodist, 1 Colored Baptist. Banks: Citizens National, J. M. GILLILAND president, E. R. BELL, cashier; Ripley National, John T. WILSON, president, W. T. GALBREATH, cashier.

 

Manufactures and Employees.—The Boyd Manufacturing Co., lumber, sash, etc., 65 hands; Joseph Fulton, pianos, 23; J. P. Parker, machinery, etc., 10.—State Report 1886.

 

Also saw and planing mills, foundry and finishing shop, threshing machines and horse powers, cigar factories, carriages, tobacco presses and screws, clod crushers, wire and slat fencing, etc. Population in 1880, 2,546. School census, in 1885, 821: J C. SHUMAKER, superintendent.

 

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many as ten to fifteen boats left here in a season for the cotton and sugar plantations; all of this is now changed. Some of the old “broad horns” were built here; hard work, the sawing being done mostly by hand. Ripley is quite a horse market, and monthly on the last Saturday is “stock sales day,” when the town is thronged. Thirty years ago horses in considerable numbers were exported to Cuba, and Cubans visited the place to buy horses. Ripley has about twenty tobacco merchants. The Boyd Manufacturing Co., which does business at Ripley, Higgansport and Levanna, annually manufactures at the latter point about two miles below about 70,000 tobacco hogsheads in connection with their extensive planing mill there.

 

The town was alive in the war for the Union. As regiment after regiment from Cincinnati ascended the Ohio on steamers on their way to Virginia, the men, women and children thronged the river banks with cannon, flags and music, cheering on the volunteers. Indeed, this was common in all the river towns on the Ohio side at the outbreak of the rebellion. Ripley claims to have furnished the first company of volunteers for the suppression of the rebellion the 13th day of April, 1861; an Union meeting was in progress when news was telegraphed of the fall of Sumter. A. S. LEGGITT, who afterwards gallantly fell at Stone river, at once wrote out a heading for an enlistment roll, and was the first to sign it, R. C. RANKIN second, and in quick succession eighty-one others. The officers selected were as follows: Captain Jacob AMMEN, afterwards General AMMEN, now of Ammendale, D. C.; First Lieutenant, E. C. DEVORE; Second Lieutenant, E. M. CAREY, afterward Major in Twenty-third O. V. I, now deceased. At noon next day Captain AMMEN started for Columbus, reaching there by noon on the 15th, by which time Mr. Lincoln had issued the call for 75,000 men.

 

Our readers will see in the view of Ripley, taken in 1846, on the summit of the hill a solitary house; it is there this moment. That house, in full sight from the Kentucky shore, was in that day as a beacon of liberty to the fugitives from slavery. It was the residence of Rev. John RANKIN and the first station on the underground railroad to Canada: thousands of poor fugitives found rest there, not one of whom was ever recaptured. Among these were Eliza and George Harris, and other characters of “Uncle Tom's Cabin.” While Mr. RANKIN claimed to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, he never gave aid and comfort to those who enticed slaves to run away.

 

The ancestors of John RANKIN were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who emigrated to Pennsylvania 150 years ago. His father, a soldier of the Revolution, settled in Jefferson county, East Tennessee where John was born Feb. 4, 1793. He was educated at Washington College, including theology, and licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Abingdon, Va. He was, from his cradle, brought tip a Rechabite in temperance and an abolitionist. There was an abolition society in Jefferson county, Tenn., in 1814. While pastor of Cane Ridge and Concord Churches, in Nicholas and Bourbon counties, Ky., in 1817, he first began to preach against slavery. Loathing the institution, he moved to a free land and from the same reason nearly all the families of his congregation at Concord did likewise, emigrating to Indiana, while he selected Ripley, where, from 1822 to 1866, he was pastor of the Presbyterian church. He was a great educator; was president of the “Ripley College,” so called, and his house was always filled with students in various branches, including theology. In 1836 he was for a time employed by the American Anti- Slavery Society to travel and lecture, and was often mobbed. “The aspect of a fierce mob—he once wrote—is terrible.” He was also founder of the Free Presbyterian Church of America, which excluded slaveholders from membership.

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Ripley. He left living eight sons and two daughters. Seven of his sons fought for the Union under GRANT. One of the seven, Capt. R. C. RANKIN, now of Ripley, has at our request given us in a letter the following interesting reminiscences of slave-hunters, abolition mobs, Gen. and Admiral AMMEN and Gen. GRANT, with whom he was a schoolmate.

The Slave-Hunters at Rankin's.—All that my father did in the aid of fugitives was to furnish food and shelter. His sons, of whom there were nine, did the conveying away. Some attempts were made to search our house. In March, 1840, four men from Kentucky and one from Ripley, with two bulldogs, came to the house and were met on the porch by mother, of whom they inquired the way to Mr. SMITH’S (a neighbor of ours). On being directed, the spokesman, Amos SHROPE, said, “Madam, to be plain with you, we do not want to go to Mr. SMITH’S but there was a store broken open in Dover, Ky., and we have traced the thief to this house; we want to search for the goods and the thief.” Mother replied, “We neither harbor thieves nor conceal stolen property, and you are welcome to look through the house.” On starting for the door my brother, Rev. S. G. W. RANKIN—now of Glastenbury, Conn.—took down the rifle from over the door, cocked it, and called out, “Halt!” if you come one step farther I will kill you,” and they halted. My brother David and myself had not yet returned home from conveying the fugitives to the next station North, but were soon on the scene, when word was sent to town and in a short time the yard was full of friends. The hunters were not allowed to pass out at the gate, but were taken by each arm and led to the fence and ordered to climb, and they climbed!

 

Mobbing of Rankin.—In the early days of abolitionism my father was lecturing to an audience in a grove at Winchester, Adams co., Ohio, when a mob of 200 men armed with clubs marched to the grove and their leader, STIVERS by name, marched down the aisle and up on the stand, drew his club over father and called out, “Stop speaking or,—you, I will burst your head.” Father went on a, though nothing had happened, when Robert PATTEN, a large and powerful man, sprang forward and seized STIVERS by the back of the neck and led hint out, and that ended it. On another occasion father was hit with a goose egg; it struck the collar of his coat and did not break until it fell, when out came a gosling. He frequently came home with his; horse's mane and tail shaved, when he would calmly remark “it was a colonization reply to an abolition lecture.”

 

The Slave-Hunters at the Lone Widow's.—On one occasion I was sent to go to the house of a lone widow, being told that then were three men in her house hunting “run aways.” I buckled on my revolver under my vest and proceeded thither. I knew one of the men, a desperate character, who had killed one man at Hamilton, Ohio, and had waylaid and shot another near his home in Kentucky. I approached him first and asked him to leave the house; after waiting a few moments and seeing he was not disposed to move, I put my hand on his breast to gently urge him out, when he ran his right hand in his pocket and grabbed his revolver; but I was too quick for him, and had mine cocked within three inches of his eyes and shouted, “Now if you draw your hand out I will kill you.” He believed it and so stood, when one of his companions stepped up and slipped in his left hand an Allen self-cocking, six-shooting revolver; I exclaimed, “That will do you no good, for if you raise your arm I will put a bullet through your brain.” He also believed that.

 

In this position we were found by John P. PARKER, a colored citizen of Ripley, who came in soon after with a double-barrelled shot gun. In a short time a crowd gathered, and the “hunters” were taken before the mayor and fined sixty dollars and costs. I could mention many similar incidents. Through my mother I inherit the same blood that coursed through the veins of Gen. Sam HOUSTON, of Texas.

 

The Ammens. –David AMMEN, the father of Gen. Jacob and Admiral Daniel, came from Virginia and settled in Levanna, two miles below Ripley, and edited the first newspaper published in Brown co., Ohio. He as there when we came to Ripley in 1822. He soon moved to Ripley and there published his paper, the Castigator, and first published my father's letters on slavery in its columns. In 1824 and in 1826 he republished them in book form and received his pay in the way of rent, he living in one end of my father's house, a sixty-foot front, still standing on Front street, my father living in the other end. He was living there when “Jake,” as we called him, went to West Point. Jacob AMMEN was in Fort Moultrie, Charleston Harbor, during the days of nullification in 1832: after that he was eight years a professor in West Point. During this time GRANT was a cadet there, and Jake told me that Ulysses would never have got through had he not given him special attention.

 

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and Dan, born in 1820, the youngest, with Mike and Eve between them. David AMMEN moved to Georgetown, O. and from there Daniel entered the Naval School. I have never seen him but twice since, and then he came here and hunted me up, once by himself and once in company with Gen. GRANT, who was always a personal friend of mine since he went to school here in Ripley before going to West Point. We were in the same class and once occupied the same desk. I am one year older than GRANT, and Daniel AMMEN must be two years older. GRANT told me after the war that he always had a warm regard for Dan AMMEN, that he had saved his life when boys, bathing in White Oak creek, in Brown county, hence his promotion to admiral as soon as Grant became President.

 

Gen. AMMEN was superintendent of the Ripley Union Schools for several years prior to the war, during his residence at this place, and while here he married his second wife, the widow of Capt. Geo. W. SHAW, a graduate of West Point. Her maiden name was BEASKEY. They now reside, as does Daniel AMMEN at Ammendale, D. C.

 

The upper half of the northern prolongation of Brown county, Perry township, is one of the most interesting of spots to the Catholics of Ohio. In 1823 a little log-hut was built in the woods at St. Martin's for the use of the passing missionaries of the church, wherein to administer to the spiritual wants of the  few scattered Catholic families of the neighborhood. In 1830 Rev. Martin KUNDIG, a voting man of extraordinary zeal and energy, came and took charge of the mission in the then wilderness. There he lived for many months in a log-hut without a window and with no floor but the earth, “where,” he in later years wrote, “I lived in solitude and apostolic poverty. It was a school where I learned to live without expense, for I had nothing to spend. I built eleven houses without nails or boards, for I had them not, and I cooked my meals without flour, fat or butter.” He thus founded St. Martin's Church, and the seed he sowed has borne fruit a thousand-told. The now famed Ursuline Convent, with its school attached, at St. Martin's was founded in 1845 by a colony of French nuns and presided over by MOTHER JULIA CHATFIELD, an English lady from the convent of Boulogne-Sur-Mer, in France^.

 

The Most Rev. John B. PURCELL spent the last few years of his life at St. Martin's, where he his remains. This much beloved prelate was born at Mallon, County Cork, Ireland. His early years were passed under the care of pious parents and in the service of the church, receiving such education as could be obtained in his native place. At the age of eighteen he emigrated to the United State: and soon after reaching Baltimore received a teacher's certificate from the faculty of Asbury College. For two years he was tutor in a private family living on the Eastern Shore of Maryland At the end of that time lie entered as a student Mount St. Mary's College, near Emmitsburg, in the same State. In 1824 he went to Paris to complete his: studies at the Seminary of St. Sulpice. May, 21, 1826, he was ordained priest by Archbishop DeQUELEN, in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. He returned to America to fill the chair of Professor of Philosophy in Mount St. Mary’s College.

His learning and ability soon attracted the attention of his superiors, and on the death of the Right Rev. Edward FENWICK, Bishop of Cincinnati, in 1832, he was selected by the Pope to fill the vacancy, and October l; 1833. was consecrated Bishop of the Cincinnati Diocese, which then comprised the entire State. In 1847 the Diocese of Cleveland was erected and in 1868 that of Columbus.

 

In 1850 Bishop PURCELL was appointed Archbishop, receiving the pallium from the Pope's hand the following year. In 1862 he visited Rome for the fourth time, at the invitation of Pope Pius IX. He sat in the great Ecumenical Council of the Vatican of 1869 He founded or established during his care, many religious, educational and charitable institutions. His reputation as an able theologian and a scholar was far-reaching, while his gentleness and humility of spirit endeared him not only to those within the Catholic Church, but to the people of the State at large.

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ABERDEEN, on the Ohio, opposite Maysville, Ky., with which it is connected by ferry, was laid out in 1816 by Nathan ELLIS, who, with James EDWARDS, Evan CAMPBELL and James POWER, all business men, were the first settlers. It has 1 Methodist, 1 Baptist and 1 Colored Methodist church. In 1840 it had 405 and in 1880 885 inhabitants. Lately the tobacco business has started new life in the place.

 

ARCHBISHOP PURCELL.

 

FAYETTEVILLE is on the east fork of the Little Miami, 36 miles from Cincinnati. It has 1 Methodist and 1 Catholic church, and in 1880 390 inhabitants. The site of the village was bought in 1818 by Cornclins McGROARTY, a native of Ireland, and father of the heroic Colonel Stephen McGROARTY, of the Ohio volunteers in the rebellion.