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Historical Collections of Ohio

By Henry Howe

Vol. I

©1888

 

Athens County

 

Page 282

ATHENS COUNTY was formed from Washington March 1, 1805.The surface is broken and hilly, with intervals of rich bottom lands. The hills have a fertile soil and a heavy growth of trees. The Hocking canal commences at Carroll on the Ohio canal in Fairfield county, and follows the river valley to Athens, a distance of fifty-six miles. In the county are extensive deposits of iron ore suitable for smelting; excellent salt to the extent of 50,000 barrels were annually produced between the years 1848 and 1868. Its greatest mineral wealth is in its coal; in 1886 there were in operation forty-one mines, employing 1,804 miners and producing 899,046 tons of coal, being next to Perry the largest coal-producing county in the State. Its area is 430 square miles. In 1885 the acres cultivated were 46,685; in pasture, 128,269; woodland, 57,906; lying waste, 4,256; produced in wheat, 24,695 bushels; corn, 638,984; tobacco, 56,108 pounds; peaches, 2,077 bushels; wool, 580,983 pounds; sheep, 108,454. School census 1886, 10,108; teachers, 215. It has 102 miles of railroad.

 

 

 

 

Population in 1820 was 6,342; in 1840, 19,108; 1860, 21,356; 1880, 28,411, of whom 23,787 were Ohio born.

 

In Evans' map of the middle British colonies, published in 1755, there is placed on the left bank of the Hocking, somewhere in this region, a town, station or fort, named “French Margaret.” In the county above (Hocking) have been found the remains of an old press, for packing furs and peltries, which attest that French cupidity and enterprise had introduced an extensive trade among the Indians.

 

Page 283

tionary war, descended the Ohio, and landed at the mouth of the Great Hockhocking, in this county. He was there during the bloody battle at Point Pleasant—on an air line twenty-eight miles distant—between General LEWIS and the Indians. At this place he established a depot and erected some defences, called Fort Gower, in honor of Earl GOWER. From that point he marched up the valley of the river, encamping, tradition says, a night successively at Federal creel, Sunday creek, and at the falls of the Hocking. From the last he proceeded to the Scioto, where the detachment under General LEWIS joined him, and the war was brought to a close by a treaty or truce with the hostile tribes. DUMORE, on his return, stopped at Fort Gower, where the officers passed a series of resolutions, for which, see Pickaway county, with other details of this expedition.

Colonel Robert PATERSON, one of the original proprietors of Cincinnati, with a party of Kentuckians, was attacked, near the mouth of the Hocking, by the Indians, two years after the erection of Fort Gower. The circumstances are given under the head of Montgomery county.

 

The early settlement of this county began just after Wayne's treaty; its inception had its origin in one of the most noble motives that can influence humanity, viz.: the desire for the promotion of learning. We extract from” Walker's History of Athens County.”

 

During the year 1796 nearly 1,000 flat boats or “broad horns,” as they were then called, passed Marietta laden with emigrants on their way to the more attractive regions of Southwestern Ohio. In the early part of 1797 a considerable number of newly arrived emigrants were assembled in Marietta, eager to obtain lands on the best terms they could and form settlements. The two townships of land appropriated by the Ohio Company for the benefit of a university had been selected in December, 1795. They were townships Nos. 8 and 9 in the fourteenth range, constituting at present Athens and Alexander townships. The township lines were run in 1795, and the sectional surveys made in 1796, under the supervision of General PUTNAM, the company's surveyor, who from the first took an ardent interest in the selection of these lands and the founding of the university. His policy (in which he was seconded by the other agents) was to encourage the early settlement of the college lauds, make them attractive and productive, and so begin the formation of a fund for the institution.

 

Encouraged by Gen. PUTNAM, who wished to introduce permanent settlers as soon as possible, a number of the emigrants who had stopped at Marietta decided to locate on the college lands. Among these were Alvan BINGHAM Silas BINGHAM, Isaac BARKER, William HARPER, John WILKINS, Robert LINZEE, Edmund, WILLIAM and Barak DORR, John CHANDLER and Jonathan WATKINS. They made their way down the Ohio and up the Hockhocking in large canoes early in the year 1797. Having ascended as far as the attractive bluff where the town of Athens now stands, they landed and sought their various locations. A few of them fixed on the site of the present town, but most of them scattered up and down the adjacent bottoms.

 

The pioneers soon opened up several clearings about Athens, and a little corn for corn-bread was put in the first spring. The clearings, however, were irregular and scattered, and no effort was made as yet to lay out a town. Early in 1795 a number of emigrants arrived; among them were Solomon TUTTLE, Christopher STEVENS, John and Moses HEWIT, Cornelius MOORE, Joseph SNOWDEN, John SIMONTON, Robert ROSS, the BROOKS, and the HANINGS. Some of these had families. Some settled in Athens and some in Alexander township. Mrs. Margaret SNOWDEN, wife of Joseph SNOWDEN, was honored by having “Margaret's creek” named after her, she being the first white woman who reached this central point in the county.

 

 

Page 284

 

CAPTIVITY AND ESCAPE OF MOSES HEWIT.—Moses HEWIT was born in Worcester, Mass., in the year 1767 and came to the Ohio in 1790; at the breaking out of the Indian war he resided on the island now known as “Blennerhasset,” in a block-house, where he married. After his marriage, as the Indians became dangerous, he joined the company of settlers at “Neil's station.” At this period, all the settlements on both banks of the Ohio were broken up, and the inhabitants retired to their garrisons for mutual defence.

 

Hewit's Physical Prowess.—Mr. HEWIT was, at this time, y m the prime of life and manhood; possessed of a vigorous frame, nearly six feet high, with limbs of the finest mould, not surpassed by the Belvidere Apollo, for manly beauty. The hands and feet were small in proportion to the muscles of the arms and legs. Of their strength some estimate may be formed, when it is stated that he could, with a single hand, lift with case a large blacksmith's anvil by grasping the tapering horn which projects from its side. To this great muscular strength was added a quickness of motion which gave to the dash of his fist the rapidity of thought as it was driven into the face or breast of his adversary. The eye was coal black, small and sunken, but when excited or enraged, flashed fire like that of the tiger. The face and head were well developed, with such powerful masseter and temporal muscles that, the fingers of the strongest man, when once confined between his teeth, could no more be withdrawn than from the jaws of a vice. With such physical powers, united to an unrefined and rather irritable mind, who shall wonder at his propensity for, and delight in, personal combat: especially when placed in the midst of rude and unlettered companions, where courage and bodily strength were hold in unlimited estimation. Accordingly we find him engaged in numberless personal contests, in which lie almost universally en came off victorious.

 

Taken Captive—Some time in the month of May, 1792, while living at Neil's station, on the little Kenawha, Mr. HEWIT ruse early in the morning and went out about a mile from the garrison in search of u stray horse. He was sauntering along at his ease, in an obscure cattle path, when all at once three Indians sprang fruit behind two large trees. So sudden was the onset that resistance was vain. He therefore quietly surrendered, thinking that in a few days be should find some way of escape. For himself, he felt but little uneasiness; his great concern was for his wife and child, from whom, with the yearnings of a father's heart, he was thus forcibly separated, and whom he might never see again.

 

In their progress to the towns on the Sandusky plains, the Indians treated him with as little harshness as could be expected. He was always confined at night by fastening his wrists and ankles to saplings, as he lay extended upon his back upon the ground, with an Indian on each side. By day his limbs were free, but always marching with one Indian before, and two behind him. As they approached be prairies frequent halts were made to search for honey, the wild bee