Saturday, April 28, 2012

Drowned in the Flood

The Marietta Semi-Weekly Register, April 1, 1884

A Woman Found in the Drift.  Who Was She, Where Was Her Home?

Many were the terrifying reports of the loss of life when the mad waters were burying our homes and destroying our property.  But fortunately few were the instances of loss of life when the facts became known.

But there comes to us one sad case which, so far, remains a mystery, but it must have occurred during the high water and was therefore more likely accidental than the rash act of some unfortunate victim of despair.  The circumstances of the finding are these:  Last Wednesday a dog, owned by Marion Brown, of Independence, came to his master with the hand of a woman which he found and whose body it had mutilated somewhat, but not badly.  Diligent search was at once instituted among a big pile of drift on the river bank, at the mouth of Leath's Run.  Nearly a day was occupied in the search by Harrison Howell, George Howell, G. H. Holdren and others, when Harrison Howell came upon the remains of the woman hidden by the drift, though the head was visible to the passers by.  Decomposition had set in, the hair from the head was entirely removed and it would have been impossible to determine her age or general appearance.

She was dressed in a black calico dress with white spots in the form of a checker board.  She had on a cross-barred, black and red flannel skirt, drawers, fastened at the back with a white button, brown woolen stockings and fine button shoes.  She wore a corset.  Some taste in dress was indicated by the corset and shoes.  Her teeth were sound and even with only one gone.

R. W. Bedillion summoned a jury and it was decided that she came to her death by drowning.  Her remains were decently buried near where found, and the mystery of who she was or where from, remains unsolved.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

List of Letters

American Friend, July 2, 1819

List of letters remaining in the Post-Office at Marietta, O. June 30th, 1819; which if not taken out by the 30th of September next, will be sent to the General Post-Office, as dead letters.

N.B.  Persons applying for the following letters, will please mention they are advertised.

A
Richard Arnold
Lewis Anderson
Hugh Alerson
James Allin
Asher Allin
James Atwood
Elias Ayls
Preserved Alger
James Athey
Mrs. Ashcroft

B
Thomas Black
Nathan Bowen
Sarah Byard
Zadok Briggs
Franklin Briggs
Luther D. Barker
Albert Bennet
Elizabeth Buck
Samuel Babson
Nahum Bathrick
John Reu
Jane Brought
Nancy Boyd
John Buckford
Henry Bartimess
Robert Brackenridge
Heiress Baker
Count D. Bonney
Lenerd Boncrots
Smith Barklett
Nathaniel Bishop
Lovill Bishop
William Brewster

C
John Cole
Gared W. Cole
Isaac Cole
Joseph L. Clark
Betsey Clark
Harris Corey
William Care
Edward Cunningham
David Cunningham
Mary Copp
Jacob Cook
Salmon N. Cook
John Clogston
David Chapman
Joseph Chapman
Jacob Cole
Timothy Cone
Benjamin Cooper
William Care
Mary Cadwell
Benjamin Chace
Nathan D. Chace
Haverland Chace
Robert Crawford
Alexander Crawford
Daniel Comstock
Thomas Carpenter
John Collins
George Courtauld
Richard Campbel
Margret Carpender
Hosea Cushman

D
Laura Davis
Augustus Dana
Maria McDaniel
Stephen Dolley
Michael Deterly
Isaac Delong
Cornelius Delavn
Otis Dagget
Vincent Dye
Patrick Doonagau
Mathew Doyle
William Dunn
Merrit K. Duraud
John Davidson
Rachel Davenport
Abraham Dearer

E
____ Elderkin, Esq.
Charles Edwards
Timothy Emerson
Nathaniel Eddy
Samuel Edington
Jonathan Etheridge

F
Milton Foster
Henry Franks
Joshua Fogisson
Hugh Flaragain
James D. Hansworth
David Freemire
George Fleck

G
Benjamin Ives Gilman
Joseph Gilman
Marther Gardner
Margaret Gallougher
David Gilmore
Willard Green
John McGrigar
Jacob Gailor
Simon Goodwin

H
Isaac Humphreys
Joseph Holden
William Hatch
John Handy
George Handley
Wiman Hardy
Dennis Hysor
Thomas H. Howard
Will Hill
James C. Hill
William Harrah
Stephen Hubbell
Patty Heairn
George Hiltebrand
Giles Hempstead
Sophia Hall
Amanda Hall
Elisha Huntington
Daniel Hilton
William Hutcheson
Seth Humphrey
Roswell Hoskins
Daniel Hilton
Eve Hennion
John G. Henderson

I
Job Ingram

J
Benjamin Jarvis
John Jarvas
James James
Sarah James
Willard Johnson
William & H. Johnson
Willian Jnolson
Mary Johnson
George Jackson
Levi Jewell
Samuel Jagger
Delila Jones
Silvester Jones

K
Elizabeth Keller
George Keating
Henry Kimball

L
Leonard Loveland
William Lewis jr.
John Locker
Mary Loofborow
D. W. Loofborow
I. & J. Larues
John S. Laughary
Thomas Lake
Samuel Longfellow
Stephen Lancaster
Rebeca Lawrance

M
William McKinney jr
Moses McFarland
Mr. McBride
Joseph McIntire
James McCullough
John Magee
Ruben Meriam
William Miller
Richard Marshall
Joseph Marshall
John Magee
Anna Moss
William Mason
Joseph Morris
John Merril
Oliver E. Marsh
Edward Mitchel
John Muirs

N
Craven R. Nott
James Neel
Phebe Nye

O
P. O'Fling
Washington Olney
Noah Owen
Lewis Oliver

P
Joseph Potter
Asahel Potter
Isaac Perkins
Hannah Perkins
John Perkins & Co.
Baylies Phillips
Absalom Parkard
John P. Palmer
Edward Parker
Zadoc Price
Reuben Page
Katharine Plumer
Thomas Patten
Abijah Park
Jesse Phillips
Samuel W. Pomeroy
Robert Pierce
John Patterson
James Plat
Bazaleel Palmer

Q
John Quack

R
Margarett Record
Ephram Rainger
Edward Rathbirn
B. Rathbourn
Joseph Rathbourn
William Rea
James Byon
Ephraim Ranger
David Ross
Abel Robinson
Henry Robinson
John W. Reace
James M. Richards
Elijah Risbey
Charles Reed
Elizabeth Rolings
Warren Reed
Timothy Risley
William Raper
John Rowe
David Rawson
Harley Root

S
David Satterthwart
Jacob Shefere
Josefus Stevensun
J. P. Stevenson
Joseph Stewart
Timothy Stanley
Leonard Stump
Caroline Shaw
Aaron Smith
Jamima Smitih
Samuel Stones
John Sharp
Frederick Sprague
Abraham Sharp
John B. Stone
Ruth Shreve
Wait Sacket
Ebenezer C. Stodder
Mary Stone
Martin Sheets
Thomas Seely
bBenjamin Stickney
Miss J. E. K. Shedden
Casper Smith, Merchant

T
Cornelius Tinkham
Thomas Taylor
Mariah Tompson
Mary Tucker
Robert Triplett
Jeremiah Towle
David Toulman
Saul Thomas
Billy Todd
John Thornhill
Margaret Tiddey

U
Anson Underhill
John Underwood

V
Joshua Vansant
Rachel Vandiver

W
Jesse Wells
Samuel Wines
David Willson
Moses Woodruff
James Williamson
Henry Wells
George S. Wister
Daniel S. Williams
Moses Watton
Reuben Willard
Elizabeth Wood
James Wood
Robert Williston

Y
Jacob Young

Z
William Zane

[signed] Henry P. Willcox, P.M.


List of Letters Remaining in the Post-Office at Point-Harmar on the first day of July, A.D. 1819 - which if not taken out by the first day of October next, will be forwarded to the general Post-Office as dead letters.

B
Samuel Brown
Salah Bosworth
John Brown

C
Timothy Cone
Jarvis Cutler

D
John F. Denning

F
Francis Faires

G
John Giboon

H
Stephen Hubbell
Joseph Hutchinson
Jabes Hamlin

L
Jacob Loomis

P
Francis Perdue
David Putnam

S
Joseph Smith
Lucy Smith

[signed] George Dunlevy, P.M.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Living Soldiers of the War of 1812

The Marietta Semi-Weekly Register, May 13, 1884

Tecumseh's First Battle Ground - Isaac and Rebecca Williams - The First Oil Wells in Ohio.

Almost 70 years ago, the 18th of February, 1815, peace was proclaimed between the United States and Great Britain and the soldiers of the war of 1812 were disbanded.

One beautiful day last autumn we drove to the home of two or three of these old warriors to talk with them and find out what manner of men they produced in those early days of the century.

Crossing the Ohio river we were soon driving up the West Virginia shore and in an hour or so found ourselves at the comfortable farm house of Mr. John Sharp, one of the veterans of the war of 1812. The room in which we waited for the old gentleman was such a typical country parlor, that I can not but describe it. The floor glowed with a brilliant rag carpet, representing many days of steady work.  On one side of the room stood what was probably regarded as the piece de resistance, a black hair cloth sofa, slipper as ice, stiff, dignified, cold, repellant, while opposite were three great, rollicking, split bottom rocking chairs, plebeian, but oh, so comfortable.  Over the mantlepiece was an eight day Yankee clock, and upon the lower part of its glass door appeared a gayly dressed young lady with a very remarkable waist, leaning her head upon the blue-coated shoulder of a white trousered young gentleman, who appeared well pleased with the arrangement.  Over the sofa, enclosed in home made frames of brown and white straw, were a number of faded photographs of ladies and gentlemen, all standing up extremely straight with their heads securely fastened in the iron clamp, gazing a great ways off with a stony glare and such an unhappy expression as if ordered to instant execution, that it quite made me sad to look at them.  In a corner out of common observation was a pathetic little piece of worsted work, faded and old, representing a weeping willow, under it a green grave, a ewer, a napkin, while below in beautiful clear characters, were the words: "In memory of my mother - Died April 3d, 1825."  Mother and daughter had long since passed to dust, the tree was a curious specimen, the ewer an awkward shape, but it went to my heart for it showed that some one had gone through with a terrible grief and I could imagine how often the hot tears of agony had watered that poor old tree as the designer bent over it.

Mr. Sharp I found to be eighty-eight years old, tall, slim, a little bent, "not much the matter with me," he said, "excepting that I was born in the last century."  After a while, seeing how interested I was, the old man told me the simple story of his life, wonderful in its self-sacrifice.  When twenty-one years his old mother died, leaving his father dis-spirited and delicate, with eleven children, the oldest of whom only numbered thirteen years and the youngest two.  The last words his mother spoke to him were: "John, come home and look after your father and the children, my son - Don't ever get shet of em John, but stand by em straight along."  He promised that he would "and I did," he exclaimed, "I stuck by em straight through till Joel, and Hanner, and Zekiel was married and little Joe, the youngest, was eighteen years old, and then I married Zidony who had been waiting for me three years, though we haint either one on us said a word, but I'd just kept company with her o' Sunday evenings and I knowed she'd wait for me, and she knowed I'd come just as quick as I could."  Mr. Sharp said once he dispaired, the time seemed so long.  So he left home and hired a little piece of land, intending to start out for himself, but his father came to him "lookin' so kinder white like and trembly, that I had 'em all come to me.  You see, pap asked me," he pathetically said, "and I couldn't say no, and I haint ever been sorry."

Mr. Sharp went out in the war of 1812 and was ordered with Captain Steed's company to Norfolk, Virginia, five hundred miles away.  It was the coldest winter ever known in Virginia. The river at Norfolk froze over, and the snow fell to a depth of six inches.  The company was engaged in putting up breastworks and suffered intensely from the cold.  A more insidious foe than Englishmen attacked them in the form of measles and very great numbers died of the disease.  As soon as a soldier was taken sick, he was marched through snow and sleet and mud to the hospital, most of them took cold and death was the consequence.  "I pulled through," Mr. Sharp remarked, "because the Doctor he took down just as I did, so I never peeped, but just laid still in my hut and got well.  There wouldn't a been no John Sharp to-day, Mum, if that ere Doctor hadn't a took it."

Mr. Sharp's pay was eight dollars a month, just what he gets now as a pensioner, "but seems like it goes a heap furder now than it did then," he remarked meditatively.  Mr. Sharp is one of the old residents of Virginia, as he came to the place near where his handsome farm is now situated, when, as he remarked, "there was nothin' here but bears and wolves and woods, and there were only six cleared farms about here."  Hill land then was worth twelve and a half cents an acre while cleared farms, now bringing a hundred dollars an acre, easily sold for seven dollars.

Mr. Sharp would not hear of our departure till he had taken us to see an historic spot, the place where the celebrated chief Tecumseh, then only sixteen years old, tried his maiden tomahawk in helping to shed the blood of five white persons.  Nicholas Carpenter, his little son ten years old, Jesse Hughes, George Legit, John Payne and two other men named Barnes and Ellis, after a trip to Clarksburg, Virginia, were returning with cattle for the settlers at Marietta, from which point most of the beef used at this first settlement of Ohio, was obtained.  This was in 1791 the first and worst year of the terrible Indian war.  These unhappy men, having reached the lovely spot to which Mr. Sharp guided us, on the bank of a little run only six miles above the settlement at Williamstown, Virginia, opposite Marietta, the evening of the 3d of October, laid down to rest, weary with the long day's march.  The evening of the beautiful Autumn day was fresh and cool and a bright fire being built, the weary men feeling perfectly safe so near the settlement, having seen no trace of Indians, wrapped in their blankets were soon lying around the cheery blaze, to spent in careless sleep their last hours on earth.  At early dawn they rose, Mr. Carpenter calling them, first of all, to morning prayers, little realizing that only a few yards distant Tecumseh and six Indian warriors behind a fallen tree, were watching them with cruel eyes.  Just as Mr. Carpenter was repeating a well known hymn, the Indians rose, fired and rushed upon them with their terrible yell.  Their guns were stacked against a tree some distance off, the poor fellows were only half dressed and half awake and were taken so utterly by surprise that Tecumseh and his men were upon them before they had the least realization of what was happening.  Ellis fell at the first fire crying "O, Lord, I am killed."  Hughes and Paul escaped by their fleetness of foot, but Leggit and Barnes after a fierce struggle were killed and scalped.  Carpenter was without his gun, had his little son with him and was lame.  He slipped behind some willows in the bed of the stream hoping to escape.

But alas, no.  Though he surrendered no attention was paid to the little lad's cry for mercy or to the father's passionate appeal for his son's life.  They were taken to the hill near by, which overlooked the Ohio now sparkling gayly beneath the glances of the rising sun, and there under the blood red leaves of Autumn, the grass grew red as well, with the life blood of father and son.  At such a time as this how cruel nature seems.  The little brook tinkled as merrily over the stones in its path, the birds sang as gayly, the autumn trees flaunted their scarlet, green and golden banners as proudly as ever, when these brave men were done to death under the lazily drifting clouds.

We looked in vain for any traces of their last resting places, which Mr. Sharp said in other years had been quite plainly visible, but this same nature with her leveling rains and penetrating snows and wild winds had followed these poor fellows still, and devastated even the little mounds of earth which the people of Marietta sadly reared above their comrades.  This spot is historically interesting from the fact that this was probably the famous Tecumseh's first bloodshed, and his only onslaught in this part of the country.  The little brook ever since this cruel 3d of October, 1791, has been known by the name of Carpenter's Run.

Shaking old Mr. Sharp's cordial hand we drove on, reaching in two hours time, the handsome country home of Nathan Rolston, Esq., another soldier in the war of 1812.  We soon found that Mr. Rolston also was in Captain Steed's company, and served with Mr. Sharp and twenty thousand others at Norfolk under Col. Booth.  "Ha!" cried the old man contemptuously, "the soldiers now a days have easy times.  They go by cars and five hundred miles isn't much more than a good day's travel for them.  We went on foot most of the five hundred miles to Richmond and carried Uncle Sam's heavy musket too, and a big load besides.  It took us nearer six weeks than one day I can tell you.  The soldiers now have their new fangled tents and their fashionable uniforms, and their silver forks for all I know.  We hadn't a tent of any kind and after we'd walked most of the way to Norfolk we worked through the hard winter in the snow and the ice, putting up huts and breastworks."  I had rather hoped that Mr. Rolston, like Goldsmith's soldier friend, would insist upon shouldering his crutch and showing how fields were won, but he couldn't for two reasons.  In the first place he didn't have any crutch and in the second place there weren't any fields.  These twenty thousand troops were stationed at Norfolk, and the three forts were built there to prevent the entrance of the British at this point.  "It was an ugly place" said Mr. Rolston, "the British ships would come sailin' along, give us a real good look and shy along past, for they didn't seem to think somehow that we looked hospitable.  Very soon after Captain Steed's arrival at Norfolk a keen eyed soldier with a strong glass discovered a British spy, in a tree about two miles distant, trying to discover what he could in regard to the number of the soldiers and the strength of the forts.  This was reported at headquarters.  One of the cannons was turned in that direction and the poor fellow never knew what hurt him.  "They wanted to help him down," said the old soldier with grim irony, "they wanted to help him down so they fired the cannon at him, and he didn't report much about our condition."

"What did the people think of the war, Mr. Rolston," we asked.  "The blue skinned Yankees did not like it much but the old Vaginny went into it hot and heavy."  About six months after Mr. Rolston's enlistment the war closed and the troops were disbanded.

The most interesting reminiscences of Mr. Rolston were in regard to Isaac and Rebecca Williams, the first settlers of Williamstown, Virginia, in 1786.  Isaac Williams had been employed as Indian spy when only eighteen and had served under General Braddock in his pitiful, terrible defeat, so he knew all about the Indians.  So also did Rebecca, his wife, as her life also had been spent upon the western frontiers and her first husband killed by the savages.  Before their marriage, as early as 1771, Rebecca had lived with her brothers at Grave Creek, Va., and in return for her services and care they settled upon her four hundred acres of land in Virginia, opposite the mouth of the Muskingum, where was made on the Ohio shore the first settlement of the North West Territory in 1788.  To this land, when Fort Harmar on the Ohio side was finished in 1786, moved Mr. and Mrs. Williams and lived there till their death.  To the settlers at Adelphi, as Marietta was first called, the kindness of these good people was constant.  Mr. Rolston mentioned with much feeling the conduct of Mr. Williams during the famine of 1790, "the starving year," as it was called.  The corn crop at Marietta failed.  Mr. Williams had a very fine supply.  Speculators had their existence then as now, and coming to the old man of sixty, offered him a large price, a dollar at a quarter a bushel, for his entire crop, but Mr. Williams indignantly refused the offer, selling his corn as the Marietta settlers came for it, so many bushels according to the size of the family, so that each might get his share at the uniform price of fifty cents a bushel.

Old Mr. Williams once, while roving through the woods alone, came suddenly upon three Indians sitting upon a fallen tree trunk.  Mr. Rolston said Mr. Williams would never admit that he had shot the Indians, but when speaking of the occurrence as he often did, he always rubbed his hands with great glee, exclaiming, "that was the best powder I ever had, the very best powder I ever shot with."  Isaac Williams was always a great trapper and hunter and even in his old age used often to take his old sorrel horse, Bob, and going to the Hughes River, trap the otter and beaver, and said old Mr. Rolston, contemptuously, "he'd kill a deer easier, and think less of it, than the young men nowadays do of shooting a pigeon."  Mrs. Williams was always kind to the sick and many were the herb teas and healing lotions which, like her namesake in the story of Ivanhoe, she gave to the sick pioneer and wounded hunter.  "She was a fine woman," said Mr. Rolston, "to anybody she took a liking to, a fine woman, but if she didn't take a liking" - an expressive grimace finished the sentence.  Though so far away from the busy marts of men, in the seclusion of their quiet farm, the death angel did not forget to call Isaac and Rebecca Williams home.  At another time we visited their graves about a mile from Williamstown, upon the farm they so long owned, upon the very spot Mrs. Williams herself picked out, who said: "I want to be buried here where I'll have plenty of room.  I have always had plenty of room and I don't want to be jostled at the resurrection."  It is a beautiful spot upon a little eminence under a wild cherry tree, with the hurrying river's murmur almost in hearing and the spires of Marietta in sight, while "the circuit of these summer hills" bounds the vision.  But alas!  The cows were standing upon the graves and the tombstones thrown down and almost illegible.  As nearly as we could decipher the ancient stones they read as follows:

"In memory of Isaac Williams,
Who died
September __, 1823, (or 1820)
In the 83rd year of his age."

"In memory of Rebecca Williams,
Wife of Isaac Williams,
Who died
April 13th, 1823, (or 1825)
Aged 7_ years."
(Last figure indistinct.)

"In memory of Drusilla Henderson,
Wife of John G. Henderson,
Who died
July 12th, 1810.
Aged __."

This lost tombstone keeps alive the memory of the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Williams, who died almost when yet a bride.

Mr. Rolston is a wealthy farmer and stock raiser, worth at least sixty thousand dollars, which he has dug from the rich acres upon which he has lived since 1804.  When he first came to West Virginia with his parents, seventy-nine years ago, the country was a vast wilderness.  He has shot with his own hands three bears upon his farm.  He remembers well the first steamboat upon the Ohio, "the Washington," in 1816.  May the early settler, the old soldier, the wealthy farmer, the firm friend live many years and prosper.

Crossing the hurrying river sixteen miles above Williamstown, we wended our way up Newell's Run, as we wanted much to see Jacob Newland, another of these old soldiers.  We followed in the rocky bed of the little stream, now narrow and attenuated, sometimes after rains a roaring torrent, sweeping all before it.  On one side and the other rose bleak hills, with occasionally a corn field slowly and painfully climbing the eminence.  Here was a portable saw mill frightening the rabbits and quail and wakening a hundred echoes with its shrill whistle.  Very often there appeared through the green woods the grim arms of oil derricks, the unlaid phantoms of many a fortune buried beneath them.  The road grew intolerable, the bumps over the immense bowlders in the bed of the stream incessant, the hills narrowed down to the very verge of the little brooklet through which we drove, and the nodding ferns upon the precipitous sides peered curiously into our carriage.  No backward path was possible, and even had our courage failed us, there was nothing for it but a brave face and a forward march.  After an hour of this exercise we spied a little house pitched upon the rocky hillside.  "Does Mr. Newland live here?" we queried with much earnestness.  "Yes," replied a rustic, "George Newland lives here."  "It is Jacob Newland we want to see."  "What, my father!!  Bless you, he died nigh eleven years ago!"

We gazed at one another piteously.  After all our trouble to have it end like this.  Mr. Newland asked us to alight, as his mother was still living, and we did so.  My first view of old Mrs. Newland, aged eighty-five, was as we climbed the hill.  She was standing in the door of the log cabin, certainly the most curious specimen of gentle woman it has ever been my lot to see.  Her calico dress was short enough to display a black yarn stocking and low cow-hide shoe, while it was also sufficiently curtailed at the top to be what is known as half high, and her poor old skinny neck and collar bone were plainly visible.  Her face was thoroughly seamed with every variety of wrinkle, parallel, horizontal and diagonal, forming angles, rhomboids and hexagons.  The poor old lady looked as if she had inherited wrinkles from all her ancestors to the third and fourth generation and then done nothing else all her eighty-five long years but industriously add to her stock.  Despite the wrinkles, you noticed her chin was a determined one, her blue eyes kindly and sagacious, and that she held tightly in her mouth a clay pipe, at which she was puffing vigorously and which I afterwards noticed she filled every half hour.  Over her grizzled locks she wore a thick white cap with a gathered ruffle on the edge a finger deep, which gave her a very curious look.

Entering the funny little old log house, hardly large enough for two people, we were met by children of every age and variety.  They swarmed at the gate, they gathered at the step, they came from behind the doors and through the windows and out of the wide, old-fashioned fire-place (in which benches were placed in summer), they were under your feet on the floor and over your head on the rafters, and none of them were clean and all were eating bread soaked in ham fat grease.  They seemed to worry the old lady greatly and she called out viciously and often:  "You, Alexander Selkirk, you, Idy Marier, stop your squabbling or I'll break your heads."  Finally the infants were "shooed" out of the apartment and we sat down for a little quiet talk with the old lady.  We seemed to grow acquainted soon and it was not long before she was telling me of her aches and pains, her hopes and sorrows.  Her greatest hope was that we could get the government to raise her pension, and she seemed to think if we only exerted ourselves sufficiently, that would be all that would be necessary.  Her greatest sorrow was Jakie's death, as she called her husband.  "Ah, Honey," she said, "do you know the very first time I seen my ole man I was that dumb-founded, I fainted clear away?  You see this was how it happened.  Pap, he went to bore for salt wells on Little Muskingum some sixty-seven year ago, and I went with him to take care o' the shanty and cook for him and Solomon and David and Hezekier Mitchell.  Well, Honey, ole Miss Newland, she lived only a mile from the shanty and I used often to go over and see her, a kinder cheery sort o' a chunky woman and she were allers talkin' about her Jakie, that was off ter the east fork of Duck Creek, workin' for Urier Stebbins.  One mornin' she sez to me , sez she, 'Sairy, I've got a boy . . . you when he comes home," sez she.  I kinder laffed and said: 'O Miss Newland, I'll see him afore I buy, I guess," sez I, 'I don't never kick till I'm spurred," sez I, and then I laffed agin, 'cause Hezekier Mitchell had been kinder tryin' to keep company with me and I knew I could have him if I jist looked sideways at him.  So, Honey, one mornin' as I was standin' in the kitchen a scourin' the mush kittle, I heerd a strange voice, and, Honey, that voice went straight through me like a streak o' lightnin' and cum out at my toes, and I felt that weak and I knowed some way that it was Jakie.  He were a sayin' to Hezekier, "Stranger,' sez he, I'd thank ye lots for a drink o' water,' sez he, fer I'm orful dry,' sez he, and jist then he looked inter the winder, and, Honey, I jist fainted dead away and fell over on ter a cheer.  He and Hezekier, Honey, they both cum in and I ris up, perlite as ye please, and sez as how I'd stubbed my toe, but Jakie, he went right out and seed Pap and he hired with him that ere very hour fer eight dollars a month and his vittals, fer three months.  Well, honey, some way it seemed to go straight through us both, like the measles through a family, that we was made fer one another.  When his three months was up (and Hezekier Mitchell that sulky all the time because he seen right away that his fat were all in the fire), he telled me he'd be to my home on the west fork of Duck Creek in three week, and he lit out for somethin' else he 'lowed to attend to, which were, Honey, to build us a leetle cabin all to ourselves.  So in nineteen days I sez to pap, sez I 'pap siz I, I aint agoin' to stay roun' these dirty, reasy, nasty ole diggins no more,' siz I, fer you see honey, instead o' gittin' any salt well, they got nothin' but the nastiest, smellenist stuff yer ever seed in all your life honey, it was this same ile they've been a pumpin up since all around here, but we didn't have sense enough to know it were, so I jist lit out cause I seen pap was a ruinin' his self a payin' Solomon an' David an' Hezekier Mitchell.  Still I wouldn't a stayed no ways, if he'd been a diggin' gold dollars when Jakie wanted me, so I jist cut for home.  Hezekier Mitchell was that disgruntled, he wouldn't do nothin' or say nothin' but kinder groan like when I said good bye to the gawk that was white and like a ghost.  So I jist streaked it off and that was a Saturday in Oct., 1816, and a Monday Jake cum a walkin' in and we two was married and I want never sorry honey, never.  I don't know what makes me tell you all this honey, cept it's jist now the season o' the year when I fust seen Jake and though its come sixty-seven year, it don't seem longer ago than yesterday and I can jist see myself a trim lass jist come eighteen year old, jist as I looked that ere mornin' in my yaller caliker when I was a scourin' the mush kettle, and Jake jist how his eyes all kinder seemed to beam and shine and go all through me and I jist felt it wouldn't be no use to say no and I didn't want to say no."

What an astonishment it was to come upon such a bundle of romance and devotion done up in the curious person of this old woman in the depths of the country on the banks of Newell's Run.  Historically also Mrs. Newland was interesting, as she decided a mooted point viz.: the exact date of the sinking of some oil wells which were undoubtedly the first put down in the country, and at a spot which proved itself in '64 and '65 to be rich in the fluid which in the excitement of those years made and lost so many fortunes.  Dr. S. P. Hildreth speaking of these wells in one of his invaluable histories of the first settlement of the North West Territory puts the date at 1822, but I have no doubt that the old lady was correct in her statement, everything about that summer seemed so vividly recollected.

I asked her presently as the door being opened unadvisedly, the children came trooping in, why she did not live with a son who had fewer of them.  "Ah, honey," she said, "Jakie died in this here very room and I sed to him sez I, Jakie, sez I, just afore he died, sez I Jakie if you are carried out o' that ere door, I'll be carried out o' that ere door," so you see honey my time's a'most come.  Jakie's bin gone nigh eleven year but I'll see him soon now, and I mean ter keep my word ter him."

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Marietta at the Outbreak of Civil War

Sunday Morning Observer, April 15, 1917

Many At That Time Opposed the War As Do Many Today But the Spirit of Loyalty Ran Rampant.


The other day we happened to run into an old veteran of the Civil War and we soon got into a conversation that covered that period that was of intense interest and he described Marietta at the outbreak of that conflict in an interesting manner.

In telling of the scenes in and about Marietta at that time he said that the people of Marietta went wild with enthusiasm after Fort Sumter was fired upon by the rebel forces and a declaration of hostilities was made by President Lincoln.  Lincoln called for 175,000 volunteers to serve for three months at the beginning, and the supply of men was far greater than the demand.

Several companies were recruited here.  Around the old court house there were five or six recruiting stations.  The crowds around the Court House were tremendous, and excitement ran high.  Men were feverish to join one of the companies so that they might assist in preserving the Union.  Their wives showed a noble spirit of self-sacrifice and seemed only too glad of the privilege of giving their husbands and their sons to the cause.

After three months the President called for 300,000 more troops and the response was instant.  The patriotism of the men of the city and county was not challenged in vain.  Farmers left their work in the fields to come to the city to volunteer.  Gawky country youths burned with desire to enlist.  There was much disappointment expressed by those who could not be accepted because of some disability or because the companies were all too soon filled up.  The streets were black with carriages.

The desire to enlist was so keen and the response at first was so large that Marietta and Washington county's quota of men was soon complete.  It was not until several years later that it was necessary to resort to conscription in order to get enough men to continue the war.

The whole mind and purpose of Marietta and Washington County was centered upon returning those states to the fold which had seceded.  There was no thought at the outset of getting the negroes free.  It was not until the war as more than half finished that President Lincoln freed the slaves by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, but it was necessary to prolong the struggle a long time before the terms of the proclamation could be actually carried out.

Of course, there were many men who enlisted who did not believe that the Southern states could be brought back through engaging in war.  They preferred to exhaust all diplomatic means before throwing down the gauntlet.  They were patriotic and true to their ideas of right, but they believed that some settlement between the North and the South could be affected through peaceable means.  They had the same purposes as the men who believed that the South could only be brought back by war, but they differed as to the means by which this might be accomplished.  Of course they were censured cruelly by the more hot headed and impulsive men, and they were taunted, defiled and called Copperheads.  But they were honest in their convictions, at least.

Opinion as to President Lincoln's honesty of purpose differed also.  He was not universally admired and worshipped as he is today.  No man is beloved of everybody except when he is sleeping his last sleep.  It takes martyrdom for a man to be judged for what he really is.  Partisanship and prejudice becloud the issue while he is alive.

But there were few men in Marietta who were not willing to stand by the president after the gauge of battle had been accepted.  They thronged the streets and cheered while the bands played and the enlisting went on.  It was a most impressive scene, one that will never be forgotten.  I mention it now because conditions are so different in this present crisis and people seem to be so undemonstrative and serious.  Their patriotic fever may be just as strong as it was then, but their feelings are expressed differently.  Also there was something very close and near and tangible about the civil war, from the standpoint of the north.  To lose that struggle meant the loss of half the country, and the setting up of two republics upon American soil.  In this war we fight for a principle and we get nothing tangible, according to President Wilson's message.

After the companies were filled, they were trained in camps located at the Fair grounds and Camp Tupper.  Large crowds of visitors visited these camps daily.

Finally the city turned out en masse when the soldiers left the city to begin their warfare.  Everything was bright and gay, in spite of the sadness of farewell.  It was like celebrating the return of a conquering hero.  But thousands of the troops that marched away that day never returned.

That the Marietta and Washington County boys in blue gave a good account of themselves is history.  And in talks that we have with a number of them in these days when the country is getting ready for another war, they still maintain their patriotism and many expressed their willingness to again shoulder their gun in defense of their country.



Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Survivor of the Titanic Disaster Arrives to Make Marietta Visit

Marietta Daily Times, April 24, 1912

Woman Who Was on Liner When She Struck is Now Here.

Lost Everything but Life and Clothes When Vessel Went Down.

Miss Lucy Ridsdale of London, Eng., a survivor of the Liner Titanic, which sank off the coast of Newfoundland ten days ago, after striking an iceberg, arrived in Marietta this afternoon from New York City, where she had been spending a few days with distant relatives.  She is an aunt of Mrs. Wikstrom, who resides at No. 1113 Third street, and will be her guest for a time.

The shock that Miss Ridsdale has suffered from the disaster has been such that she could say but little today concerning her terrible experience, but to a representatives of The Times she said in substance, "The sinking of the Titanic was so terrible a thing and I have been so nervous since that I don't know what to say.  I lost everything I had but my glasses and what clothing I had on when I left my stateroom.  I always wear my glasses at night and had them on when the boat struck.

"I had retired for the night when the collision came, but had not gotten soundly to sleep.  When the boat struck the iceberg, I did not know what was the matter.  It aroused me and then I heard some one give an alarm.  I heard so much confusion on the decks that I thought something serious was wrong.  When I went on deck people were hurrying in every direction, and somebody said that the ship was sinking.

"I saw officers and passengers manning the lifeboats and loading the women into them, and was soon helped into one myself.  I don't know which boat it was but I was thankful to be in any.  There was a strong wind blowing that night.  It was cold and with the water in the boat we suffered greatly with cold.  After a long time, seemingly many hours, we were picked up by the Carpathia, more dead than alive.  The crew on the Carpathia did everything they could for us and many of the passengers on the Carpathia gave up their state rooms for those who had been exposed to the awful experience on the Titanic.

"For several days I have been in New York, as I lost all my clothing and my watch, which I valued so highly."

Miss Ridsdale is an elderly lady of pleasing appearance.  She will make an extended stay here.



Monday, April 9, 2012

Catharine Emerson Sayles

The Marietta Semi-Weekly Register, April 18, 1884

Obituary.

Mrs. Catharine Sayles, wife of Joel Sayles, deceased, died at the residence of her son-in-law, Elijah Sprague, April 9th, 1884, in the 92d year of her age.  She was born in Smithfield, Providence Co., R. I., Sept. 19th, 1792.  She, with her father, Ezekiel Emerson, Esq., and three sisters, worked in John Slater's cotton factory, the first cotton factory in the United States.  Her father was overseer and her work was mostly reeling.  She was married to Joel Sayles when twenty-one years of age, and they moved to Ohio, in Wagons, forty-five years ago, and settled near her father in Guernsey Co.  Since they moved to Adams township, Washington Co.  Her oldest son died in Guernsey Co., and her second son enlisted in the 77th O.V.I. and died in his country's service at Alton, Ill.  She leaves six daughters and many grand children and great grand children to mourn her loss and to follow the good example she ever set before them.  She was patient and kind, and possessed a Christian character.  Her funeral services were conducted by Rev. George Wells, assisted by Rev. Mr. Guyler, at the M. E. Church, Coal Run.  Subject of discourse, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."

D. R. S.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

New Residence - Cisler House

The Marietta Register - Semi-Weekly, April 23, 1886

The Handsome and Commodious Suburban Residence of Mr. Thomas Cisler Completed.

At the invitation of Thomas Cisler, Esq., brick manufacturer of this city, a Register representative was shown through his elegant residence just completed, and which will be occupied after May 1st by Mr. Cisler's family.

Going in a carriage we followed an encircling road on an easy incline and were brought up to the building, which has a good elevation being but a little below the residences of Louis Goeble, Esq., and Beman Gates, Esq.

The surroundings of Mr. Cisler's new home are all that could be desired, commanding as it does the view of three valleys and high hills, and below his extensive brick works, which are a leading feature of our industries.  Three terraces, semi-circular in form, of red clay covered with nice sod, which at present is covered with small wild flowers, presenting spring in all her glory, lay just in front of the residence.

The building is of brick, manufactured by Mr. Cisler, contains ten rooms, and has many modern conveniences and is strictly modern in style.  Mr. A. Morris is the architect and superintendent and may well feel proud of his plan which was adopted.

The building is two stories high with a large attic enclosed by a heavy slate roof which forms gables here and there the valleys of which are handsomely and skillfully filled with designs, which naturally remind one of a Queen Ann or a Kate Greenaway cottage finish.  The plan of the house is as follows:  The front elevation of fifty feet in width is taken up on the right of a handsome hall of 12 x 25 ft. by double parlors about 15 x 30 ft. which are connected by sliding doors and finished in natural cherry, oiled and varnished, with pine doors.  Each parlor opens into the large and elegant hall and from the back parlor a door leads to a large veranda on the east side.  In each parlor is a large mantle of natural wood, within which is a tile border, which also forms the hearth.  William Harris & Son did all the wood work of the house, and deserved praise is due them for the way in which they have carried out their work throughout.  On the left of the hall in front is the large and cheerful dining room 15 x 20 feet with a bay window on the west side.  Back of the dining room is the pantry from which a door leads into a large and convenient kitchen 17 x 20, which is the only room on the first floor finished in white pine, all the others with the hall being finished with natural cherry and varnished.  From a door in the dining room we passed out to a large veranda on the west side from which we were taken into Mr. Cisler's office, a neat room 9 x 11 ft. in the northwest corner of the house.

We then proceeded to the hall, not one of these little narrow dark halls often seen in houses, but large and elegantly finished in natural wood, and inclosed in front with large double doors, French plate panels, faced on the inside with natural cherry and on the outside with black walnut elegantly carved.  (These doors were exhibited in Stanley & Grass' windows some time ago.)  A beautiful staircase on one side and toward the back helps to adorn the hall and deserves special mention on account of the novel design and beauty of the trimmings.

With an easy tread of a few steps we found ourselves on the second floor where were to be seen three large bed rooms 15 x 15 and one 17 x 20, all nicely finished in white pine and varnished.  On the same floor is a bath room 9 x 11 ft., near which are the back stairs leading to the kitchen.  The mantles of the rooms on the second floor are all of wood in neat designs.  The chimneys of the house are made in such a way as to shed water and with iron caps cannot crumble from exposure to the weather.  The basement is used partly for a laundry and the rest for cellars and coal rooms.

Gas pipes lead to every room in the house, and if not before we strike natural gas, surely then, he will introduce gas for light in his new home.

C. C. Wagner, employed by Harris & Son, got out all the wood work and Charles Baker and Conrad Saner put up the same.  L. R. Moore is the painter and by the skillful use of the brush has added greatly to the beauty of the building.

Mr. Cisler has spent considerable money on his home and surroundings and has now one of the finest residences and grounds in this community, and will with his family of a wife and three children, we trust, enjoy many years of happy life in it.  They will furnish the entire house with elegant and useful household goods.

Mr. Cisler takes just pride in this new evidence of his prosperity and will welcome his many friends who may enjoy a visit to his surroundings.