GALLIA COUNTY

 

 

Page 668

 

            GALLIA COUNTY was formed from Washington, April 30, 1803.  The word Gallia is the ancient name of France, from whence it was originally settled.  The surface is generally broken, excepting in the eastern part, and on the Ohio river and Kiger creek, where it is more level and the soil fertile.  Much of the county is well adapted to wheat, and a great part covered with a sandy loam.  Area, 430 square miles.  In 1885 the acres cultivated were 69,775; in pasture, 86,973; woodland, 48,800; lying waste, 6,298; produced in wheat, bushels, 44,552; oats, 84,035; corn, 654,383; tobacco, pounds, 153,325; butter, pounds, 461,471.

 

            School census 1886—pupils, 5,359; teachers, 261.  It has 41 miles of railroad.

 

 

Township

And Census

1840.

1880.

 

Township

And Census

1840.

1880.

Addison,

   692

1,440

 

Huntington,

   972

1,758

Cheshire,

   791

2,030

 

Morgan,

   744

1,465

Clay,

   745

1,507

 

Ohio,

   626

1,429

Gallipolis,

1,413

5,227

 

Perry,

   973

1,329

Green,

1,047

1,532

 

Raccoon,

1,610

1,821

Greenfield,

   639

1,209

 

Springfield,

   991

1,782

Guyan,

   342

2,227

 

Walnut,

   423

1,892

Harrison,

   688

1,426

 

Wilkesville,

   738

 

 

            The population of the county was, in 1820, 7,098; in 1830, 9,733; in 1840, 13,445; in 1860, 20,453; in 1870, 22,743; in 1880, 25,178, of whom 22,763 were Ohio-born; 2,470 Virginia; 505 Pennsylvania; 323 German Empire; 398 England and Wales; 92 Ireland; 27 France.

 

            The first settlement in Gallia county was at Gallipolis.  It was settled in 1791, by a French colony sent out under the auspices of the “Scioto Company.”  This was an association formed in Paris, the project of Col. William DUER, of New York, Secretary of the United States Board of Treasury, a large operator and a man of speculative turn.  He was of English birth and had been a member of the Continental Congress.  While Dr. Manasseh CUTLER was negotiating for the passage of the ordinance of the Ohio Company’s Purchase Mr. DUER went to him and proposed to connect with it an outside land speculation and colonization scheme.  The passage of the ordinance seemed hopeless without DUER’S influence

 

Page 669

 

and as offered generous conditions CUTLER acceded.  With his influence its success was certain.  The matter, however, was to be kept a profound secret.  The generous conditions on the part of DUER to the Ohio Company for permitting the contract to be made under cover of its petition was a loan of $143,000 in securities, to enable it to complete the first payment to the Board of Treasury, many shareholders of the Ohio Company having failed to respond promptly to the call.

 

                In October, 1787, Dr. CUTLER and SARGENT closed two contracts with the Board of Treasury.  One with Manasseh CUTLER and Winthrop SARGENT, as agents for the directors of the “Ohio Company of Associates, so called,” was an absolute purchase of 1,500,000 acres, lying between the Ohio river, the 7th and 17th ranges of townships, and extending north from the river till a line due west from the 7th to the 17th range should, with the reservations stated in the contract, include the whole amount.  The other with Manasseh CUTLER and Winthrop SARGENT, “for themselves and associates,” was an option to purchase all the lands lying between the Ohio and Scioto rivers and the 17th Range, extending north to the line of the 10th Range Township, and also all the land east of this tract, west of the 7th Range, south of the 10th Township, and north of the Ohio Company’s purchase.  The whole tract of land included in the last contract was estimated to be from 3,000,000 to 3,500,000 acres.  In each contract the line of the 17th range is recognized as yet to be determined.  The price of the land was one dollar per acre, subject to a reduction of one-third for bad land, to be paid in gold, silver, or securities of the United States.

 

            From the above it is seen that Dr. CUTLER and Major SARGENT made an absolute purchase from the Board of Treasury for the direct use of the Ohio Company, and a contract for the right of purchase or pre-emption right of the three millions and a half or thereabouts wanted by DUER and associates.  Having done this they ceded to the latter the pre-emption right.  CUTLER and SARGENT, members of the Ohio Company, were included as associates with DUER.

 

            What we may term the Scioto tract was divided into thirty shares, of which DUER took 13, CUTLER and SARGENT jointly 13, and the remaining four were to be sold in Europe.  CUTLER and SARGENT assigned interests to Generals Benjamin TUPPER, Rufus PUTNAM, S. H. PARSONS, and Royal FLINT.  Joel BARLOW was also given an interest by DUER of one-sixtieth of the tract, he being selected as agent to go to Paris and sell the four shares.  He arrived there the last of June, 1788.  He could, however, sell only the “right of pre-emption.”  BARLOW took with him a copy of a pamphlet by Dr. CUTLER entitled “An explanation of the Map which delineates that part of the Federal lands comprehended between Pennsylvania, the Rivers Ohio, Scioto, and Lake Erie.”  This pamphlet was reprinted in Paris, in 1789, with the endorsement of Capt. Thomas HUTCHINS, the geographer of the United States, as to its accuracy.

 

            At first BARLOW met with indifferent success, but early in 1789 he got acquainted with William PLAYFAIR, whom he describes as an “Englishman of a bold and enterprising spirit and a good imagination.”

 

            In July of that year the Bastile was taken and all France was in an uproar.  The times were propitious for schemes of emigration.  BARLOW and PLAYFAIR issued “Prospectus for an Establishment on the Rivers Ohio and Scioto.”  In preparing this they used the pamphlet of Dr. CUTLER and Capt. HUTCHINS descriptive of the Ohio country, with additions and embellishments wherein PLAYFAIR’s “good imagination” was displayed, as is shown by the annexed extract:

 

                A climate wholesome and delightful, frost even in winter almost entirely unknown, and a river called, by way of eminence, the beautiful, and abounding in excellent fish of a vast size.  Noble forests, consisting of trees that spontaneously produce sugar (the sugar maple) and a plant that yields ready-made candles (myrica cerifera).  Venison in plenty, the pursuit of which is uninterrupted by wolves, foxes, lions or tigers.  A couple of swine will multiply themselves a hundredfold in two or three years, without taking any care of them.  No taxes to pay, no military services to be performed.

 

            VOLNEY, who came to America in 1795, in his “View,” where we find the above, says:

 

Page 670

 

                These munificent promisers forgot to say that these forests must be cut down before corn could be raised; that for a year, at least, they must bring their daily bread from a great distance; that hunting and fishing are agreeable amusements, when pursued for the sake of amusement, but are widely different when followed for the sake of subsistence.  And they quite forgot to mention that, though there be no bears or tigers in the neighborhood, there are wild beasts infinitely more cunning and ferocious, in the shape of men, who were at that time at open and cruel war with the whites.

 

                In France, in Paris, the imagination was too heated to admit of doubt or suspicion, and people were too ignorant and uninformed to perceive where the picture was defective and its colors too glaring.  The example, too, of the wealthy and reputedly wise confirmed the popular delusion.  Nothing was talked of, in every social circle, but the paradise that was opened for Frenchmen in the western wilderness, the free and happy life to be led on the blissful banks of the Scioto.  At length BRISSOT published his travels and completed the flattering delusion.  Buyers became numerous and importunate, chiefly among the better sort of the middle class.  Single persons and whole families disposed of their all, flattering themselves with having made excellent bargains.

 

            VOLNEY here refers to the travels of Brissot de WARVILLE.  Brissot published several volumes relating to America, as we infer from his preface to his “New Travels in America,” a work issued in the spring of 1791, and consisting in part of a series of letters written from this country in 1788.  In his preface to the last, he says: “The third volume was published in 1787 by Mr. CLAVIERE and me.”  In the last, he refers to the charges against the Scioto Company in this wise: “This company has been much calumniated.  It has been accused of selling lands which it does not possess, of giving exaggerated accounts of its fertility, of deceiving the emigrants, of robbing France of her inhabitants, and of sending them to be butchered by the savages.  But the title of this association is incontestable; the proprietors are reputable men; the description which they have given of the lands is taken from the public and authentic reports of Mr. HUTCHINS, geographer of Congress.  No person can dispute their prodigious fertility.”  He elsewhere speaks, in this volume, in high terms of the company.

 

            With the proposals they issued a map copied from that of Capt. HUTCHINS, but with a fraudulent addition in the statement that the country east of the Scioto tract was cleared and settled when, indeed, it was a wilderness, the first settlement within it, that at Marietta, having been made only the year before.

 

            The engraved map annexed was inserted in the first edition of this work.  It was copied by us in 1846 from the map of BARLOW and PLAYFAIR in the possession of Monsieur J. P. R. BUREAU, one of the settlers who was then living in Gallipolis, and who came out in 1799 from Paris.  The original was sixteen inches long and twelve wide.

 

            It was in French, handsomely engraved and colored, with the lands of the two companies and the tract east of them, all divided into townships of six miles square.  It represents the Scioto Company’s tract as extending about 100 miles north of the mouth of the Kanawha, and including more or less of the present counties of Meigs, Athens, Muskingum, Licking, Franklin, Pickaway, Ross, Pike, Scioto, Gallia, Lawrence, Perry, Jackson, Hocking and Fairfield.  This tract, on the map, is divided into 142 townships and thirty-two fractions.  The north line of the Ohio Land Company’s tract is eighteen miles south of the other, and included the present county of Morgan and parts of Washington, Meigs, Athens, Muskingum, Guernsey and Monroe, there divided into ninety-one townships and sixteen fractions.  The tract east of that of the Ohio Company extends forty-eight miles farther north.  Upon the original are the words, “Sept rangs de municipalite acquis par des individues et occupes depuis, 1786;” i. e. “Seven ranges of townships acquired by individuals and occupied since 1786.”

 

            It was in November, 1789, that BARLOW, as agent, concluded the sale to a company formed in Paris under the firm-name of the “Company of the Scioto,” the principal members of which were M. Gouy de ARSY, M. BAROND, St. DIDIER, MAHEAS, GUIBERT, the Chevalier de COQUELON, William PLAYFAIR and Joel BARLOW.  He used no deception with the company, showing them the exact terms of the grant to his principals.

 

Page 671

 

            The Society of the Scioto Company sold their lands rapidly, but the deeds did not give a perfect title nor claim to do so.  They conveyed “all the right, title, interest and claim of said society,” but many persons accepted the deeds as conveying and warranting a perfect title.  The warranty clause in the deeds guaranteed against “every kind of eviction or attack.”

 

            BARLOW exceeded his powers in allowing the Scioto Company to give deeds.  He, however, expected that from the proceeds of sales they would be enabled to

 

 

“PLAN OF THE PURCHASE OF THE OHIO AND SCIOTO LAND COMPANIES”

 

perfect the title.  His associate, PLAYFAIR, withheld the funds, and BARLOW, it seems, was duped by him.

 

            The upshot of the matter was that the Scioto Company and Col. DUER failed, and the failure of the latter was so great that it was said to have been the very first financial shock of any moment from speculation New York city ever received.

 

            A full history of the Scioto Company is given in thirty pages of the “Life of Manasseh CUTLER,” published by Robert CLARKE & Co., to which the reader is referred.

 

Page 672

 

            The result of the operations of the Scioto Company was to colonize a spot in Ohio with French people in 1790, who thus made the third permanent regular settlement within its limits at Gallipolis, the others preceding being Marietta and Cincinnati.  The first party of French emigrants arrived at Alexandria on May 1, 1790; about 500 in all left their native country for the promised land, and about October 20th the first boat-load arrived at Gallipolis.

 

            The terms to induce immigration were as follows: the company agreed to take the colonists to their lands and pay the cost, and the latter bound himself to work three years for the company, for which he was to receive fifty acres, a house and a cow.  Not all came on these terms, for among them were men of wealth and title

 

 

GALLIPOLIS, i.e., CITY OF THE FRENCH, IN 1790

 

who paid their own passage and bought land on their own account.  They were persons ill fitted for such an enterprise.  Among them were not a few carvers and gilders to his majesty, coach and peruke makers, friseurs and other artistes, about equally well fitted for a backwoods life, with only ten or twelve farmers and laborers.

 

            On the map is shown the “first town,” i. e., “Premiere Ville,” lying opposite the mouth of the Kanawha.  It was laid out by the Ohio Company, under the name of Fair Haven; but as the ground there is low and liable to overflow, Gallipolis was located four miles below, upon a high bank, ten feet above the flood of 1832.

 

            The location was made a few months before the arrival of the French.  Rufus PUTNAM sent for that purpose Major BURNHAM, with forty men, who arrived here on the 8th of June by river from Marietta.  They made a clearing and erected block-houses and cabins.  Col. Robert SAFFORD, who died here June 26, 1863, a very aged man, was of this party and was the first to spring ashore from the boat and signalize his landing by cutting down a sapling, which he did with a camp hatchet, which was the first blow towards making a settlement.

 

            On the public square BURNHAM erected eighty log-cabins, twenty in each row.  At each of the corners were block-houses, two stories in height.  In front of the cabins, close by the river bank, was a small, log-breastwork, erected for a defence while building the cabins.  Above the cabins, on the square, were two other parallel rows of cabins, which, with a high stockade fence and block-houses at each of the upper corners, formed a sufficient fortification in times of danger.  These upper cabins were a story and a half in height, built of hewed logs, and finished in better style than those below, being intended for the richer class.  In the upper cabins was a room used for a council chamber and a ball room.

 

            The Scioto Company contracted with PUTNAM to erect these buildings and furnish

 

Page 673

 

the settlers with provisions, but failed of payment, by which he lost a large amount.  It was a dense little village, the cabins close together, and in its personelle a piece of Paris dropped down on the banks of the Ohio.  According to well-authenticated tradition one of the cabins had out the sign, BAKERY & MIDWIFERY.

 

            We continue the history of Gallipolis in the annexed extract from a communication in the American Pioneer, made about the year 1843 by Waldeurard MEULETTE, one of the colonists.

 

                At an early meeting of the colonists, the town was named Gallipolis (town of the French).  I did not arrive till nearly all the colonists were there.  I descended the river in 1791, in flat boats, loaded with troops, commanded by Gen. ST. CLAIR, destined for an expedition against the Indians.  Some of my countrymen joined that expedition; among others was Count MALARTIE, a captain in the French guard of Louis XVI.  General ST. CLAIR made him one of his aide-de-camps in the battle, in which he was severely wounded.  He went back to Philadelphia, from whence he returned to France.  The Indians were encouraged to greater depredations and murders, by their success in this expedition, but most especially against the American settlements.  From their intercourse with the French in Canada, or some other cause, they seemed less disposed to trouble us.  Immediately after ST. CLAIR’s defeat, Col. SPROAT, commandant at Marietta, appointed four spies for Gallipolis—two Americans and two French, of which I was one, and it was not until after the treaty at Greenville, in 1795, that we were released.

 

                Notwithstanding the great difficulties, the difference of tempers, education and professions, the inhabitants lived in harmony, and having little or nothing to do, made themselves agreeable and useful to each other.  The Americans and hunters, employed by the company, performed the first labors of clearing the township, which was divided into lots.

 

                Although the French were willing to work, yet the clearing of an American wilderness and its heavy timber, was far more than they could perform.  To migrate from the Eastern States to the “far west” is painful enough now-a-days, but how much more so it must be for a citizen of a large European town! even a farmer of the old countries would find it very hard, if not impossible, to clear land in the wilderness.  Those hunters were paid by the colonists to prepare their garden ground, which was to receive the seeds brought from France; few of the colonists knew how to make a garden, but they were guided by a few books on that subject, which they had brought likewise from France.

 

                The colony then began to improve in its appearance and comfort.  The fresh provisions were supplied by the company’s hunters, the others came from their magazines.  When on the expeditions of Generals ST. CLAIR and WAYNE many of the troops stopped at Gallipolis to take provisions, which had been deposited there for that purpose by government; the Indians, who no doubt often came there in the night, at last saw the regulars going morning and evening round the town in order to ascertain if there were any Indian traces, and attacked them, killing and wounding several—a soldier, besides other wounds, was tomahawked, but recovered.  A French colonist, who had tried to raise corn at some distance from the town, seeing an Indian rising from behind some brushwood against a tree, shot him in the shoulder; the Indian hearing an American patrole, must have thought that the Frenchman made a part of it; and sometime afterward a Frenchman was killed, and a man and woman made prisoners, as they were going to collect ashes to make soap, at some distance from town.

 

                After this, although the Indians committed depredations on the Americans on both sides of the river, the French had suffered only by the loss of some cattle carried away, until the murder of the man above related.  The Scioto Company, in the mean time, had nearly fulfilled all their engagements during six months, after which time they ceased their supply of provisions to the colonists, and one of their agents gave as a reason for it, that the company had been cheated by one or two of their agents in France, who, having received the funds in France for the purchased lands, had kept the money for themselves and run off with it to England, without having purchased or possessing any of the tract which they had sold to the deceived colonists.  This intelligence exasperated them, and was the more sensibly felt as a scarcity of provisions added to their disappointment.  The winter was uncommonly severe; the creek and the Ohio were frozen; the hunters had no longer any meat to sell; flat boats could not come down with flour to furnish as they had done before.  This produced almost a famine in the settlement, and a family of eight persons, father, mother, and children, was obliged to subsist for eight or ten days on dry beans, boiled in water, without either salt, grease or bread, and those had never known, before that time, what it was to want for anything.  On the other hand, the dangers from the Indians seemed to augment very day.

 

                The colonists were by this time weary of being confined to a few acres of land; the result of their industry was lost; the money and clothes which they had brought were nearly gone.  They knew not to whom they were to apply to get their lands; they hoped that if WAYNE’s campaign forced the Indians to make a lasting peace, the Scioto Company

 

Page 674

 

would send immediately, either to recover or to purchase those promised lands; but they soon found out their mistake.  After the treaty of Greenville, many Indians passing through Gallipolis, on their way to the seat of government, and several travellers, revealed the whole transaction, from which it was ascertained that the pretended Scioto Company was composed of New Englanders, the names of very few only being known to the French, who, being themselves ignorant of the English language, and at such a distance from the place of residence of their defrauders, and without means for prosecuting them, could get no redress.

 

                Lonely Condition of the Colonists.—Far in a distant land, separated forever from their friends and relations—with exhausted means, was it surprising that they were disheartened, and that every social tie should have been loosened, nearly broken, and a great portion of the deceived colonists should have become reckless?  May the happy of this day never feel as they did, when all hope was blasted, and they were left so destitute!  Many of the colonists went off and settled elsewhere with the means that remained to them, and resumed their trades in more populous parts of the country; others led a half-savage life, as hunters for skins; the greater part, however, resolved, in a general assembly, to make a memorial of their grievances, and send it to Congress.  The memorial claimed no rights from that body, but it was a detail of their wrongs and sufferings, together with an appeal to the generosity and feelings of Congress; and they did not appeal in vain.  One of the colonists proposed to carry the petition; he only stipulated that his expenses should be paid by a contribution of the colonists, whether he succeeded or not in their object; but he added that if he obtained for himself the quantity of land which he had paid for, and the rest had none, he should be repaid by their gratitude for his efforts.

 

                The French Grant.—At Philadelphia he met with a French lawyer, M. DUPONCEAU, and through his means he obtained from Congress a grant of 24,000 acres of land, known by the name of the French grant, opposite to Little Sandy, for the French, who were still resident at Gallipolis.  The act annexed the condition of settling on the lands three years before receiving the deed of gift.  The bearer of the petition had his 4,000 acres; the rest was divided among the remaining French, amounting to ninety-two persons, married and single.

 

                Each inhabitant had thus a lot of 217½ acres of land; but before the surveys and other arrangements could be made, some time was necessary, during which, those who had reclaimed the wilderness and improved Gallipolis being reluctant to lose all their labor, and finding that a company, owning the lands of Marietta, and where there was a settlement previous to that of the French colony, had met to divide lands which they had purchased in a common stock, the colonists sent a deputation for the purpose of proposing to the company to sell them the spot where Gallipolis was and is situated, and to be paid in proportion to what was improved, which was accepted.  When at last the distribution of the lots of the French grant was achieved, some sold their share, others went to settle on it, or put tenants, and either remained at Gallipolis, or went elsewhere; but how few entered again heartily into a new kind of life, many having lost their lives and others their health, amid hardships, excess of labor, or the indolence which follows discouragement and hopeless efforts!  Few of the original settlers remain at Gallipolis; not many at the French grant.

 

            BRECKENRIDGE, in his “Recollections,” gives some reminiscences of Gallipolis, related in a style of charming simplicity and humor.  He was at Gallipolis in 1795, at which time he was a boy of nine years of age.

 

                The Little French Doctor.—Behold me once more in port, and domiciliated at the house, or the inn, of Monsieur, or rather, Dr. SAUGRAIN, a cheerful, sprightly little Frenchman, four feet six, English measure, and a chemist, natural philosopher, and physician, both in the English and French signification of the word. . . . . .  This singular village was settled by people from Paris and Lyons, chiefly artisans and artists, peculiarly unfitted to sit down in the wilderness and clear away forests.  I have seen half a dozen at work in taking down a tree, some pulling ropes fastened to the branches, while others were cutting around it like beavers.  Sometimes serious accidents occurred in consequence of their awkwardness.  Their former employment had been only calculated to administer to the luxury of highly polished and wealthy societies.  There were carvers and gilders to the king, coach-makers, friseurs and peruke-makers, and a variety of others who might have found some employment in our larger towns, but who were entirely out of their place in the wilds of Ohio.  Their means by this time had been exhausted, and they were beginning to suffer from the want of the comforts and even the necessaries of life.

 

                The country back from the river was still a wilderness, and the Gallipotians did not pretend to cultivate anything more than small garden spots, depending for their supply of provisions on the boats which now began to descend the river; but they had to pay in cash and that was become scarce.  They still assembled at the ball-room twice a week; it was evident, however, that they felt disappointment, and were no longer happy.  The predilections of the best among them being

 

Page 675

 

on the side of the Bourbons, the horrors of the French revolution, even in their remote situation, mingled with their private misfortunes, which had at this time nearly reached their acme in consequence of the discovery that they had no title to their lands, having been cruelly deceived by those from whom they had purchased.  It is well known that Congress generously made them a grant of 20,000 acres, from which, however, but few of them ever derived any advantage.

 

                As the Ohio was now more frequented, the house was occasionally resorted to, and especially by persons looking out for land to purchase.  The doctor had a small apartment which contained his chemical apparatus, and I used to sit by him as often as I could, watching the curious operation of his blow-pipe and crucible.  I loved the cheerful little man, and he became very fond of me in return.  Many of my countrymen used to come and stare at his doings, which, they were half inclined to think, had a too near resemblance to the black art.  The doctor’s little phosphoric matches, igniting spontaneously when the little glass tube was broken, and from which he derived some emolument, were thought by some to be rather beyond mere human power.  His barometer and thermometer, with the scale neatly painted with the pen, and the frames richly carved, were objects of wonder, and probably some of them are yet extant in the west.  But what most astonished some of our visitors was a large peach in a glass bottle, the neck of which would only admit a common cork;

 

 

THE FRENCH SETTLERS AT GALLIPOLIS, DIRECT FROM PARIS, CUTTING DOWN TREES

 

this was accomplished by tying the bottle to the limb of a tree, with the peach when young inserted into it.  His swans which swam around basins of water amused me more than any wonders exhibited by the wonderful man.

 

                The French Philosophers and the Savages.—The doctor was a great favorite with the Americans, as well for his vivacity and sweetness of temper, which nothing could sour, as on account of a circumstance which gave him high claim to the esteem of the backwoodsmen.  He had shown himself, notwithstanding his small stature and great good nature, a very hero in combat with the Indians.  He had descended the Ohio in company with two French philosophers who were believers in the primitive innocence and goodness of the children of the forest.  They could not be persuaded that any danger was to be apprehended from the Indians.  As they had no intentions to injure that people, they supposed no harm could be meditated on their part.  Dr. SAUGRAIN was not altogether so well convinced of their good intentions, and accordingly kept his pistols loaded.  Near the mouth of the Sandy a canoe with a party of warriors approached the boat; the philosophers invited them on board by signs, when they came rather too willingly.  The first thing they did on coming on board of the boat was to salute the two philosophers with the tomahawk, and they would have treated the doctor in the same way but that he used his pistols with good effect—killed two of the savages and then leaped into the water, div-

 

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ing like a dipper at the flash of the guns of the others, and succeeded in swimming to the shore with several severe wounds whose scars were conspicuous.

 

                Madame SAUGRAIN.—The doctor was married to an amiable young woman, but not possessing as much vivacity as himself.  As Madame SAUGRAIN had no maid to assist her, her brother, a boy of my age, and myself, were her principal helps in the kitchen.  We brought water and wood and washed the dishes.  I used to go in the morning about two miles for a little milk, sometimes on the frozen ground, barefooted.  I tried a pair of sabots, or wooden shoes, but was unable to make any use of them, although they had been made by the carver to the king.  Little perquisites, too, sometimes fell to our share from blacking boots and shoes.  My companion generally saved his, while mine would have burned a hole in my pocket if it had remained there.  In the spring and summer a good deal of my time was passed in the garden, weeding the beds.  While thus engaged I formed an acquaintance with a young lady of eighteen or twenty on the other side of the palings, who was often similarly occupied.   Our friendship, which was purely Platonic, commenced with the story of Blue Beard, recounted by her, and with the novelty and pathos of which I was much interested.  This incident may perhaps remind the reader of the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, or perhaps of the hortical ecologne of Dean Swift, “Dermot and Shela.”

 

                Connected with this lady is an incident which I feel a pleasure in relating.  One day, while standing alone on the bank of the river, I saw a man who had gone in to bathe and who had got beyond his depth without being able to swim.  He had begun to struggle for life, and in a few seconds would have sunk to rise no more.  I shot down the bank like an arrow, leaped into a canoe which fortunately happened to be close by, pushed the end to him, and, as he rose, perhaps for the last time, he seized it with a deadly, convulsive grasp and held so firmly that the skin afterward came off the parts of his arms which pressed against the wood.  I screamed for help.  Several persons came and took him out, perfectly insensible.  He afterwards married the young lady and raised a numerous and respectable family.  One of his daughters married a young lawyer who now represents that district in Congress.

 

                Sufferings of the Settlers.—Toward the latter part of summer the inhabitants suffered severely from sickness and want of provisions.  Their situation was truly wretched.  The swamp in the rear, now exposed by the clearing between it and the river, became the cause of a frightful epidemic, from which few escaped, and many became its victims.  I had recovered from the ague, and was among the few exempted from the disease; but out family, as well as the rest, suffered much from absolute hunger, a most painful sensation, as I had before experienced.  To show the extremity of our distress, on one occasion the brother of Madame SAUGRAIN and myself pushed a light canoe to an island above town, where we pulled some corn, took it to mill, and, excepting some of the raw grains, had nothing to eat from the day before until we carried home the flour and made some bread, but had neither milk nor meat.  I have learned to be thankful when I had a sufficiency of wholesome food, however plain, and was blessed with health; and I could put up with humble fare without a murmur, although accustomed to luxuries, when I have seen those who have never experienced absolute starvation turn up their noses at that which was a very little worse than the best they had ever known. . . . . .

 

                General WILKINSON and Suite.—I had been nearly a year at Gallipolis when Capt. SMITH, of the United States army, came along in advance of the barge of Gen. WILKINSON, and, according to the request of my father, took me into his custody for the purpose of bringing me once more to my native place.  He remained two or three days waiting for the general, and in the meanwhile procured me hat, shoes and clothes befitting a gentleman’s son, and then took me on board his boat.  Shortly after the general overtook us I was transferred on board his barge as a playmate for his son Biddle, a boy of my own age.  The general’s lady and several ladies and gentlemen were on board his boat, which was fitted up in a style of convenience and even magnificence scarcely surpassed even by the present steamboats.  It was propelled against the stream by twenty-five or thirty men, sometimes by the pole, the cordelle, and often by the oar.  There was also a band of musicians on board, and the whole had the appearance of a mere party of pleasure.  My senses were overpowered—it seem an elysium!  The splendor of the furniture—the elegance of the dresses—and then, the luxuries of the table, to a half-starved creature like me, produced an effect which can scarce be easily described.  Every repast was a royal banquet, and such delicacies were placed before me as I had never seen before, and in sufficient abundance to satiate my insatiable appetite.  I was no more like what I had been than the cast-off skin of the blacksnake resembles the new dress in which he glistens in the sunbeam.  The general’s countenance was continually lighted up with smiles, and he seem faire le bonheur of all around him; it seemed his business to make every one happy about him.  His countenance and manners were such as I have rarely seen, and now that I can form a more just estimate of them, were such as better fitted him for a court than a republic.  His lady was truly an estimable person, of the mildest and softest manners.  She gave her son and myself a reproof one day which I never forgot.  She saw us catching minnows with pin-hooks, made us desist, and then explained in the sweetest manner the cruelty of taking away life wantonly from the humblest thing in creation.

 

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            In 1807 BRECKENRIDGE again saw Gallipolis.

 

                As we passed Point Pleasant and the island below it, Gallipolis, which I looked for with anxious feelings, hove in sight.  I thought of the French inhabitants—I thought of my friend SAUGRAIN; and I recalled, in the liveliest colors, the incidents of that portion of my life which was passed here.  A year is a long time at that period—every day is crowded with new and great and striking events.  When the boat landed, I ran up the bank and looked around; but alas! how changed!  The Americans had taken the town in hand, and no trace of antiquity, that is, of twelve years ago, remained.  I hastened to the spot where I expected to find the abode, the little log-house, tavern, and laboratory of the doctor, but they had vanished like the palace of Aladdin.  After some inquiry I found a little Frenchman, who, like the old woman of Goldsmith’s village, was “the sad historian of the deserted plain.”—that is, deserted by one race, to be peopled by another.  He led me to where a few logs might be seen, as the only remains of the once happy tenement which had sheltered me—but all around it was a common; the town had taken a different direction.  My heart sickened; the picture which my imagination had drawn—the scenes which my memory loved to cherish, were blotted out and obliterated.  A volume of reminiscences seemed to be annihilated in an instant!  I took a hasty glance at the new town, as I returned to the boat.  I saw brick houses, painted frames, fanciful enclosures, ornamental trees!  Even the pond, which had carried off a third of the French population by its malaria, had disappeared, and a pretty green had usurped its place, with a neat brick court-house in the midst of it.  This was too much; I hastened my pace, and with sorrow once more pushed into the stream.

 

            GALLIPOLIS IN 1846.—Gallipolis, the county-seat, is pleasantly situated on the Ohio river, 102 miles southeasterly from Columbus.  It contains 1 Presbyterian, 1 Episcopal, and 1 Methodist church, 12 or 14 stores, 2 newspaper printing offices, and by the census of 1840 had 1,221 inhabitants, and now has about 1,700.  A part of the population is of French descent, but they have in a great measure lost their national characteristics.  Some few of the original French settlers are yet living.  The engraving of the public square shows the market and court-house near the centre of the view, with a glimpse of the Ohio river on the left.—Old Edition.

 

            Gallipolis is on the Ohio, 4 miles below the mouth of the Kanawha, 102 southeast of Columbus, and on the C. H. V. & T. R. R.  County officers in 1888: Auditor, Anthony W. KERNS; Clerk, Robert D. NEAL; Coroner, Fred. A. CROMLEY; Prosecuting Attorney, D. Warren JONES; Probate Judge, John J. THOMAS; Recorder, James K. WILLIAMS; Sheriff, Valentine H. SWITZER; Surveyor, Ira W. JACOBS; Treasurer, D. S. TROWBRIDGE, I. Floyd CHAPMAN; Commissioners, S. F. COUGHENOUR, Daniel J. DAVIES, William H. CLARK.  Newspapers: Bulletin, Democratic; Gallia Tribune, Republican; Journal, Republican.  Churches: 3 Episcopal Methodist, 1 Colored Methodist, 1 Baptist, 1 Colored Baptist, 1 Catholic, 1 German Lutheran, 1 Universalist, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Episcopalian.  Banks: First National, R. DELETOMBE, president, J. S. BLACKALLER, cashier; Ohio Valley, A. HENKING, president, C. W. HENKING, cashier.  Industries and Employees: Gallipolis Steam Tannery, 14 hands; MORRISON & BETZ, lumber; James MULLINEAUX, doors, sash, etc., 24; VANDEN & Son, A. A. LYON, carriages; Martin McHALE, brooms, 19; FULLER & HUTSINPILLER, furniture, 75; The FULLER and HUTSINPILLER Company, finishing furniture, 64; Treasure Stove Works, stoves, etc., 21; KLING & Co., stoves, etc., 24; T. S. FORD & Co., flooring, etc., 12; ENOS, HILL & Co., machinery, etc., 25; GATEWOOD Lumber Company, furniture, etc., 22.—State Report for1887.

 

            Population in 1880, 4,400.  School census in 1886, 1,868; Miron E. HARD, superintendent.

 

TRAVELLING NOTES.

 

                In my original visit to Gallipolis I failed of learning that the extraordinary specimen of humanity known as Mad Ann BAILEY passed the latter part of her days in its vicinity.  In my travels over Virginia in the years 1843-44 taking pencil sketches and collecting materials for my work upon that State, I learned of her and inserted therein this account.

 

                “There was an eccentric female, who lived in the Kanawha region towards the latter part of the last century.  Her name was Ann

 

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BAILEY.  She was born in Liverpool, and had been the wife of an English soldier.  She generally went by the cognomen of Mad Ann.  During the wars with the Indians, she very often acted as a messenger, and conveyed letters from the fort, at Covington, to Point Pleasant.  On these occasions she was mounted on a favorite horse of great sagacity, and rode like a man, with a rifle over her shoulder, and a tomahawk and a butcher’s-knife in her belt.  At night she slept in the woods.  Her custom was to let her horse

 

 

Drawn by Henry Howe in 1846

PUBLIC SQUARE, GALLIPOLIS

 

go free, and then walk some distance back on his trail, to escape being discovered by the Indians.  After the Indian wars she spent some time in hunting.  She pursued and shot deer and bears with the skill of a backwoodsman.  She was a short, stout woman, very masculine and coarse in her appearance, and seldom or never wore a gown, but usually had on a petticoat, with a man’s coat over it, and buckskin breeches.  The services she rendered in the wars with the Indians endeared her to the people.  Mad Ann, and her black pony Liverpool, were always welcome at every house.  Often, she gathered the honest, sim-

 

 

Fenner, Photo, 1886.

ON THE PUBLIC SQUARE, GALLIPOLIS

 

ple-hearted mountaineers around, and related her adventures and trials, while the sympathetic tear would course down their cheeks.  She was profane, often became intoxicated, and could box with the skill of one of the fancy.  Mad Ann possessed considerable intelligence, and could read and write.  She died in Ohio many years since.”

 

                I have this notice of her death which is kindly copied for me by Mr. James HARPER, from the Gallia Free Press, of December 3, 1825, published by his father.  In a note with it he wrote to me: “I saw Ann BAILEY a short time before she died—the first and only time—and she made a lasting impression upon my six-year-old mind.  She wore a hat, and her

 

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accoutrements were tomahawk and scalping-knife.”  The account was published under the caption “Longevity.”

 

                “Died, in Harrison township, Gallia county, Ohio, on Tuesday, November 22, 1825, the celebrated Ann BAILEY.  From the best account we have had she must have been at least 125 years of age.  According to her own story her father was a soldier in Queen Anne’s wars; that on getting a furlough to go home, he found his wife with a fine daughter in her arms, whom he called Ann, after the Queen, as a token of respect.  In 1714 she went from Liverpool to London with her mother on a visit to her brother—while there, she saw Lord Lovett beheaded.

 

                She came to the United States the year after BRADDOCK’s defeat, aged then forty-six years.  Her husband was killed at the battle of Point Pleasant in 1774; after that, to avenge his death, she joined the garrison, under the command of Col. Wm. CLENDENIN, where she remained until the final departure of the Indians from the country.  She has always been noted for intrepid bravery.  Col. Wm. CLENDENIN says, while he was commander of the garrison where Charleston, Kanawha, is now located, an attack by Indians was hourly expected.  On examination it was believed that the ammunition on hand was insufficient to hold out a siege of any length; to send even two, three or four men

 

 

ANN BAILEY, The Heroine of Point Pleasant

 

to Lewisburg, the nearest place it could be had, a distance of 100 miles, was like sending men to be slaughtered; and to send a larger force was weakening the garrison.  While in this state Ann BAILEY volunteered to leave the fort in the night and go to Lewisburg.  She did so—and travelled the wilderness, where not the vestige of a house was to be seen—arrived safe at Lewisburg, delivered her orders, received the ammunition, and returned safe to her post, amidst the plaudits of a grateful people.

 

                In the April number, 1885, of the Magazine of Western History is a sketch of Mad Ann by Wm. P. BUELL.  It states she was born in the year 1700, in Liverpool, England, and named in honor of Queen Anne, and was present with her parents at her coronation in 1705.  She was of good family; the name SARGENT.  At the age of nineteen, while on her way to school with books on her arm, she was kidnapped, as was common in those days, and brought to America and landed in Virginia, on James river, when she was sold to defray her expenses.  At the age of thirty she married John TROTTER, who was killed at the battle of Point Pleasant in 1774.  The loss of her husband filled her with rage and, swearing vengeance upon the entire savage race, she entered upon a career as a scout and spy.  She hunted, rode and fought like a man.  She had a fine black horse called Liverpool, in honor of her birthplace, an animal of great beauty and intelligence.  On one occasion, when she was pursued by Indians, she came to an impenetrable thicket where she was obliged to dismount and leave him for their capture.  She then crawled into a hollow sycamore log.  The Indians came and rested on the log, but without suspecting her concealment within.  After they had gone she followed their trail, and in the darkness of night recaptured the animal, and, mounting him, when at a safe distance from being shot or taken gave a shout of defiance and bounded away.  The Indians eventually became afraid of her, regarding her as insane and therefore under the special protection of the Great Spirit.

 

                After sixteen years of widowhood she married John BAILEY, a soldier, and went with him to Fort Clendenin, on the site of Charleston, Kanawha river.  This was in 1790, and when she had attained to the ripe, mellow age of ninety years.  Her second husband was murdered, when she went to live with

 

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her son, William TROTTER.  In 1818 TROTTER moved into Gallia county, became a large landowner and was justice of the peace for twenty-one years, and a highly respected man.

 

                A Chat with James L. NEWSOM about Mad Ann BAILEY and others was a wholesome entertainment for me while in Gallipolis.  Mr. NEWSOM lived in a little cottage a stone’s throw from the Ohio.  He was rather tall, cheeks rosy, and life appeared to have gone well with him; and was a boy of fourteen when Mad Ann BAILEY died.  He told me that he had eleven children, eight boys and three girls; that not one of the eleven had ever tasted ardent spirits, and the eight boys always voted the Republican ticket, which I concluded was a good thing for that ticket, but bad for the distilling business.

 

                “I knew Ann BAILEY well,” he said, “and heard her say she was five years old when, in 1705, Queen Anne was crowned, and her mother took her up to London to see the event.  She was a low-set, heavy woman, not over five feet two inches high, dressed in a petticoat with a man’s coat over it, wore a hat, and loved whiskey in her old age; often saw her come to town with a gun and a shot-pouch over her shoulder.  She would not live with her son and grandchildren—was too wild.  Her home was a cabin, or rather pen, four miles below town, high on the Ohio river hills.  She built it of fence rails, which

 

 

CABIN OF ANN BAILEY.

It was on the Ohio River Hills, below Gallipolis, and built by her of fence rails.

 

lapped at the corners.  It was made like a shed, had one door and a single window, a small, four-pane affair.  The roof was without nails, of black oak clapboards say four feet long, held to their places by weight poles.  The chimney was merely an excuse for a chimney; was, outside, about four feet high; the fireplace would take in sticks four or five feet long.  The interstices of the cabin were stuffed with straw and old rags and daubed with mud.  The only floor was the earth; she had no furniture, not even a bedstead.  Mad Ann was passionate, high spirited, had excellent sense, would allow no trifling with her, and hated Indians.

 

                She was very particular in the observance of the Sabbath; gathered in the children and taught them Sunday lessons.  Her voice was coarse, like the growl of a lion, and she chewed tobacco like a pig, the saliva coming down the corners of her mouth.  I often saw her in town; she sometimes walked and sometimes paddled up in a canoe, and always with a gun and shot-pouch over her shoulder in hunter fashion.

 

                Although spoken of as Mad Ann, no one ever had the temerity to so address her; the people fairly idolized her, treated her with great kindness, loaded her with presents and plied her well with whiskey.  She died from old age, never was sick—only gave out.

 

                She looked tough as a mule and seemed about as strong.  I was a stout boy of fourteen, and one day she laid down her bundle of things which people gave her.  We boys were afraid of her, as she was disposed to be a little cross, but as her back was turned I tried to lift it, but was unable.  She lifted it with ease, and walked all the way to her home with it, four miles away.”

 

                Mr. NEWSOM brought out a picture, which he gave me, saying he had kept it for years because it was an excellent likeness of Mad Ann, although not taken for her, and this is reproduced in these pages.  That of the cabin is from the imagination of an artist, who being a city man has made it altogether too palatial; Mad Ann would have scorned to have lived in so pretentious a mansion.

 

                Gen. EDWARD W. TUPPER, an officer of the war of 1812, lived in a house now standing, which faces the public square in Gallipolis.  In 1812 he raised, mainly from Gallia, Jackson and Lawrence counties, 1,000 men, marched to the northwest and had a skirmish with the enemy at the foot of the Maumee Rapids.  He was a large, fine-looking man, continued Mr. NEWSOM, and when our people

 

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attempted to establish a ferry to Point Pleasant, the inhabitants there arose in opposition.  The jurisdiction of Virginia extended over the Ohio, and they threatened to kill the first passenger who crossed.  Hearing this, TUPPER buckled on his sword and pistols and mounting his old war horse ordered the ferryman to take him over.  He landed and galloped to and fro through the village.  No one ventured to molest him, and thus was the ferry established.

 

                Mr. NEWSOM also related this anecdote of Col. Robert SAFFORD, who, as stated, cut the first tree on the site of Gallipolis.  “One time, said SAFFORD to me, after the defeat of ST. CLAIR, I was in the neighborhood of Raccoon creek with a brother scout, one HART, when we discovered an Indian seated on a hillock mending his moccasins.  I told HART we must shoot together and I would give the word by counting one, two, three, four.  When I said ‘four’ he must answer ‘four,’ then we would shoot together.  I did so, but HART not responding I looked behind me where HART was and saw him running away.  I again looked at the hillock and saw not one, but four Indians; so I followed suit.”

 

                Gallipolis was the life-home of SIMEON NASH, one of the learned jurists of Ohio; he died in 1879.  He aided me on the first edition by a valuable contribution.  He was one of those plain, sensible, industrious men who generally go direct for their facts and get them.  He was born in Massachusetts in 1804, educated at Amherst; was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1850, and for many years Judge of the Seventh District.  Judge NASH was author of various law works, as: “Digest of Ohio Reports,” in twenty volumes; “Morality and the State,” “Crime and the Family,” etc.

 

                JOSEPH DROUILLARD, now living, at the age of ninety-two years, with his son-in-law, Mr. James HARPER, editor of the Gallipolis Journal, is a son of the “Peter DRUYER” (as the name has been wrongly spelled) who rescued Simon KENTON from being burnt at the stake by the Indians.  He was clerk of the court here for twenty-three years and is a highly respected citizen.

 

                The cemetery at Gallipolis is unique from having so many monuments to French people.  One of these is to the memory of JOHN PETER ROMAINE BUREAU.  I met him here on my first visit; a little, vivacious, old gentleman, very urbane, graceful and smiling; evidently wanting everybody to feel as joyous as himself.  A daughter of his, Romaine Madelaine, married Hon. Samuel F. VINTON, one of Ohio’s most distinguished statesmen.  (See Vinton county.)  Their daughter, MADELAINE VINTON DAHLGREN, for her second husband married Admiral DAHLGREN.  As early as 1859 she published “Sketches and Poems,” under the pen-name of Corrine.  Her reputation as an authoress and a lady of the highest culture, wealth of information and efficiency in the circles of Washington is too well known for other than our allusion.  The Chapel of “St. Joseph’s of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” at South Mountain, Md., her summer home, was built through her munificence.  One of her works received the compliment of a preface from James A. GARFIELD, and another the thanks of Pius IX., and still another the thanks of the illustrious Montalembert.  Her summer home overlooks the famous battlefield, and resembles a castle of the Middle Ages.  Mrs. DAHLGREN has published various works on various subjects; essays, poems, biography, magazine and newspaper articles, and nearly a dozen novels.

 

            CHAMBERSBURG, CROWN CITY and PATRIOT are small villages in this county, neither of which have over sixty families.

 

 

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