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Historical Collections of Ohio

By Henry Howe

Vol. I

©1888

 

Jefferson County

                                                           

Page 959

 

            Jefferson County, named from President Jefferson, was the fifth county established in Ohio.  It was created by proclamation of Governor St. Clair, July 29, 1797; its original limits included the country west of Pennsylvania and Ohio; and east and north of a line from the mouth of the Cuyahoga; southwardly to the Muskingum and east to the Ohio.  Within those boundaries are Cleveland, Canton, Steubenville, Warren, and many other large towns and populous counties.  The surface is hilly and the soil fertile.  It is one of the greatest manufacturing counties in the State, and abounds in excellent coal.  Area about 440 square miles.  In 1887 the acres cultivated were 76,976; in pasture, 86,680; woodland, 39,543; lying waste, 3,474; produced in wheat, 219,812 bushels; rye, 1,320; buckwheat, 168; oats, 309,089; barley, 2,511; corn, 517,398; broom-corn, 3,800 lbs. brush; meadow hay, 36,157 tons; clover hay, 4,201; flaxseed, 39 bushels; potatoes, 74,795; butter, 472,913 lbs.; cheese, 600; sorghum, 1,740 gallons; maple syrup, 5,146; honey, 4,938 lbs.; eggs, 443,652 dozen; grapes, 9,820 lbs.; wine, 540 gallons; sweet potatoes, 10 bushels; apples, 29,121; peaches, 785; pears, 1,644; wool, 566,680 lbs.; milch cows owned, 5,284.  School census, 1888, 11,905; teachers, 250.  Miles of railroad track, 83.  Coal mined, 243,178 tons, employing 347 miners and 80 outside employees; fire-clay, 144,090 tons.—Ohio Mining Statistics, 1888.

 

 

 

 

            Population in Jefferson in 1820 was 18,531; in 1830, 22,489; 1840, 25,031; 1860, 26,115; 1880, 33,018, of whom 24,761 were born in Ohio; 2,578 in Pennsylvania; 930 in Virginia; 158 in New York; 61 in Kentucky; 40 in Indiana; 1,179 in Ireland; 739 in England and Wales; 592 in German Empire; 188 in Scotland; 60 in British America; 9 in France, and 29 in Sweden and Norway.  Census, 1890, 39,415.

 

EARLY HISTORY

 

            The old Mingo town, three miles below Steubenville, now (1846) the site of the farms of Jeremiah H. HALLOCK, Esq., and Mr. Daniel POTTER, was a place of note prior to the settlement of the country.  It was the point where the troops of Colonel Williamson rendezvoused in the infamous Moravian campaign, and those of Colonel Crawford, in his unfortunate expedition against the Sandusky Indians.  It was also at one time the residence of LOGAN, the celebrated Mingo chief, whose form was striking and manly and whose magnanimity and eloquence have seldom

Page 960                                            

 

been equalled.  He was a son of the Cuyaga chief Skikellimus, who dwelt at Shamokin, Pa., in 1742 and was converted to Christianity under the preaching of the Moravian missionaries.  Skikellimus highly esteemed James LOGAN, the secretary of the province, named his son from him, and probably had him baptized by the missionaries.

 

In early life, LOGAN for a while dwelt in Pennsylvania and in Day’s Historical Collections of that State is a view in Mifflin county of Logan’s Spring, which which will long remain a memorial of this distinguished chief.  The letter below gives an incident which occurred there that speaks in praise of LOGAN.  It was written by the Hon. R. P. MACLAY, a member of the State Senate, and son of the gentleman alluded to in the anedote, and published in the Pittsburg Daily American:

                       

SENATE CHAMBER, March 21, 1842

TO GEORGE DARSIE, ESQ., of the Senate of Pennsylvania:

 

                DEAR SIR—Allow me to correct a few inaccuracies as to place and names, in the anecdote of LOGAN, the celebrated Mingo chief, as published in the Pittsburg Daily American of March 17, 1842, to which you called my attention.  The person surprised at the spring, now called the Big Spring, and about six (four) miles west of Logan’s Spring, was William BROWN—the first actual settler in Kishacoquillas valley, and one of the associate Judges in Mifflin county, from its organization till his death, at the age of ninety-one or two—and not Samuel MACLAY, as stated by Dr. Hildreth.  I will give you the anecdote as I heard it related by Judge BROWN himself, while on a visit to my brother, who then owned and occupied the Big Spring farm, four miles west of Reedville:

               

“The first time I ever saw that spring,” said the old gentleman, “my brother, James REED and myself, had wandered out of the valley in search of land, and finding it very good, we were looking about for springs.  About a mile from this we started a bear, and separated to get a shot at him.  I was travelling along, looking about on the rising ground for the bear, when I came suddenly upon the spring; and being dry, and more rejoiced to find so fine a spring than to have killed a dozen bears, I set my rifle against a bush and rushed down to the bank and laid down to drink.  Upon putting my head-down, I saw reflected in the water, on the opposite side, the shadow of a tall Indian.  I sprang to my rifle, when the Indian gave a yell, whether for peace or war I was not just then sufficiently master of my faculties to determine, but upon my seizing my rifle, and facing him, he knocked up the pan of his gun, threw out the priming, and extended his open palm toward me in token of friendship.  After putting down our guns, we again met at the spring, and shook hands.  This was LOGAN—the best specimen of humanity I ever met with either white or red.  He could speak a little English, and told me there was another white hunter a little way down the stream, and offered to guide me to his camp.  There I first met your father.  We remained together in the valley a week, looking for springs and selecting lands, and laid the foundation of a friendship which never has had the slightest interruption.

 

                “We visited LOGAN at his camp, at Logan’s Spring, and your father and he shot at a mark for a dollar a shot.  LOGAN lost four or five rounds and acknowledged himself beaten.  When we were about to leave him, he went into his hut, and brought out as many deer skins as he had lost dollars, and handed them to Mr. MACLAY—who refused to take them, alleging that we had been his guests, and did not come to rob him—that the shooting had been only a trial of skill, and the bet merely nominal.  LOGAN drew himself up with great dignity, and said, ‘Me bet to make you shoot your best—me gentleman, and me take your dollar if me beat,’  So he was obliged to take the skins, or affront our friend, whose nice sense of honor would not permit him to receive even a horn of powder in return.

 

                “The next year,” said the old gentleman, “I brought my wife up and camped under a big walnut tree, on the bank of Tea creek, until I had built a cabin near where the mill now stands, and have lived in the valley ever since.  Poor LOGAN” (and the big tears coursed each other down his cheeks) “soon after went into the Allegheny, and I never saw him again.

                                                                                                                                                          “Yours,   R. P. MACLAY.”

 

            Mrs. NORRIS, who lives near the site of Logan’s Spring, is a daughter of Judge BROWN; she confirmed the above, and gave Mr. Day the following additional incidents, highly characteristic of the benevolent chief, which we take from that gentleman’s work:

 

                LOGAN supported his family by killing deer, dressing the skins, and selling them to the whites.  He had sold quite a parcel to one De YONG, a tailor, who lived in Ferguson’s valley, below the gap.  Tailors in those days dealt extensively in buckskin breeches.  LOGAN received his pay, according to stipulation, in wheat.  The wheat, on being taken to the mill, was found so worthless that the miller refused to grind it.  LOGAN was much cha-

 

Page 961

 

grined, and attempted in vain to obtain redress from the tailor.  He then took the matter before his friend BROWN, then a magistrate; and on the judge’s questioning him as to the character of the wheat, and what was in it, LOGAN sought in vain to find words to express the precise nature of the article with which the wheat was adulterated, but said that it resembled in appearance the wheat itself.  “It must have been cheat,” said the judge.  “Yeh!” said LOGAN, “that very good name for him.”  A decision was awarded in LOGAN’S favor, and a writ given to LOGAN to hand to the constable, which, he was told, would bring him the money for his skins.  But the untutored Indian—too uncivilized to be dishonest—could not comprehend by what magic this little paper would force the tailor, against his will, to pay for the skins.  The judge took down his own commission, with the arms of the king upon it, and explained to him the first principles and operations of civil law.  “Law good,” said LOGAN; “make rogues pay.”  But how much more simple and efficient was the law which the Great Spirit had impressed upon his heart—to do as he would be done by!

 

                When a sister of Mrs. NORRIS (afterwards Mrs. Gen. POTTER) was just beginning to learn to walk, her mother happened to express her regret that she could not get a pair of shoes to give more firmness to her little step.  LOGAN stood by, but said nothing.  He soon after asked Mrs. BROWN to let the little girl go up and spend the day at his cabin.  The cautious heart of the mother was alarmed at such a proposition; but she knew the delicacy of an Indian’s feelings—and she knew LOGAN, too—and with secret rel