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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY, OHIO
A History of the County; Its Townships, Towns, Churches,
Schools, Etc.; General and Local Statistics; Portraits of
Early Settlers and Prominent Men; History of the
Northwest Territory; History of Ohio; Map of
Brown County; Constitution of the
United States, Miscellaneous
Matters, Etc., Etc.
ILLUSTRATED
Published: Chicago: W. H. Beers & Co.
1883
CHAPTER VIII
GENERAL PROGRESS OF THE COUNTY
Pg. 290 COUNTY BUILDINGS.
THE first court house was built at Ripley; work on its
construction was commenced in 1820. By a special act of the
Legislature, the contractor, George Poage, was allowed $3,350, with
interest thereon from the time the building was accepted by the County
Commissioners. This building, after the location of the seat of
justice at Georgetown, was sold at public auction for a small sum contract
for the erection of the first court house at Georgetown was let by the
Commissioners on Aug. 1, 1823. The contractors were Thomas L. Hamer,
William White, Michael Weaver, William Butt and David
Johnson. The sum agreed upon for the construction was
$8,999.99, which was to be paid out of the proceeds of the sale of lots
donated to the county by James Woods, Abel Reese and
Henry Newkirk. This building was accepted by the
Commissioners Aug. 2, 1824, and, for twenty-five years, was the court house
of Brown County. A representation of this quaint old building, as it
appeared a few years before it was taken down, may be found in Howe’s
Historical Collections of Ohio.
The first jail was erected at the expense of parties
who were interested in having the seat of justice at Georgetown. The
date of its completion cannot be ascertained from the records. It stood on
the site of the present jail, and was constructed of stone. Before the
erection of the first jail, a defendant was committed on a writ of capias to
the custody of the Sheriff. There being no prison, the defendant
escaped. The plaintiff in the case brought suit against the Sheriff
for damages sustained by reason of the escape, and obtained judgment.
The Sheriff, William Butt, paid the judgment, and brought suit
against
the County Commissioners for the amount he had paid. The case of
William Butt against the Commissioners of Brown County was
finally decided in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was divided in
their opinions, but a majority of the Judges held that, where an escape
happens in consequence of the want of a jail, the Sheriff is liable to the
party sustaining damages, and the Commissioners, in their official capacity,
liable to the Sheriff, who has been compelled to pay damages thus resulting.
Apr. 18, 1827, the Commissioners contracted with
John Walker for the erection of Auditor’s and Clerk’s offices, at $390.
Thomas L. Hamer and Jesse R. Grant were the sureties of
Walker for the faithful performance of his contract. The rooms
were completed and accepted by the Commissioners on the 4th of December
following. On Jan. 14, 1828, the Commissioners sold the old Clerk’s
office to the highest bidder for $3.50.
The Commissioners, on Jan. 15, 1828, authorized the
Auditor to advertise for the purchase of land and proposals for building a
poor house. On Jan. 16, 1829, the Commissioners purchased of Michael
Weaver a farm for the use of the county, for which they paid $522.
On the same day, Job Egbert, Edward Thompson and
Noah Ellis were appointed the first Poor House Directors.
On Mar. 18, 1835, the Commissioners contracted with
David Johnston
The
Page 291 -
for building a new jail, at the sum of $2,389. This jail stood on the
southwest corner of Cherry and Pleasant streets, and the building is now
used as a residence.
Mar. 7, 1849, the Commissioners, being of the opinion
that the old court house was insufficient, employed Hubbard Baker to
prepare a draft of a plan for a new court house, and at the same time
rented, for the use of the county, the basement of the Methodist Church, at
an annual Rental of $100. The contracts for the erection of the
new court house were let May 22, 1849. The building, which has served
the purpose for which it was erected until the present time, was completed
and accepted by the county in 1851.
The contracts for the erection of the present
substantial stone jail were let on Aug. 13, 1868. It was completed in
1870, at a total cost of $34,314.57. On May 18, 1870, the old jail was
sold. ROADS.
Page 292 -
TURNPIKES.
OHIO RIVER NAVIGATION.
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RAILWAYS
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CHURCHES
Page 295 - Page
296 - Page 297 -
PORTRAIT of O. F. RALSTON Page
298 - Page 299 -
THE LEGAL PROFESSION.
Page 300 - Page 301 -
Page 302 -
THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.
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AGRICULTURE.
Page 304 -
HORSES. Page 305
-
but it is certain that they have been greatly improved within thirty years
in style, action, form, temper and endurance. CATTLE.
SWINE.
Page 306 -
TOBACCO.
Page 307 - BLANK PAGE Page 308 -
[PORTRAIT OF L. B. MILES] Page
309 -
BROWN COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY AND FAIRS.
Page 310 -
GROWTH OF WEALTH AND POPULATION.
Page 311 - BLANK PAGE Page 312 -
Page 313 -
ANTI-SLAVERY SENTIMENTS
The
doctrines of the Abolitionists were very unpopular in this county, and those
who maintained them were subjected to much odium and abuse. There
Page 314 -
was, however, a small minority of the people who never flinched from avowing
their deep-seated and uncomprising opposition to every form of human
bondage. Leicester King, the Abolition candidate for Governor
in 1842, received 108 votes in the county, the total number of votes being
3,792. In 1846, Samuel Lewis, the Liberty candidate, received
208 votes, and in 1853 the same man, as the Free Soil candidate, received
593 votes in the county. The greater portion of the Abolitionists of
the county were in and about Ripley, Sardinia, Russellville, the Red Oak
neighborhood and some other localities.
Among the prominent leaders of the anti-slavery cause
were Rev. John Rankin, of Ripley; Rev. James Gilliland, of Red
Oak; Rev. Jesse Lockhart, of Russelville; Dr. Bearce, of
Decatur; Rev. Robert B. Dobbins, of the Sardinia Presbyterian Church;
Dr. Isaac M. Beck, of Sardinia; Rev. John B. Mahan and John
Moore, of Washington Township; Dr. Alexander
Campbell, of Ripley, and others whose names apppear in other
parts of this work.
Many fugitives from bondage passed through the county
on their way to Canada, and found friends to assist them on their way to
liberty. A common route followed by escaping slaves was from Ripley
through the neighborhoods of Red Oak and Russellville to Sardinia; thence to
the Quaker settlements in Clinton County. John W. Hudson, a
colored man, did much service in piloting the fugitives.
The operation of the Underground Railroad through Brown
County awakened the most bitter animosity on the part of the Kentuckians
against those who were believed to assist the slaves in their flight.
At an anti-slavery meeting of the citizens of Sardinia and vicinity, held on
Nov. 21, 1838, a committee of respectable citizens presented a report,
accompanied with affidavits in support of its declarations, stating that for
more than a year past there had been an unusual degree of hatred manifested
by the slave-hunters and slaveholders toward the Abolitionists of Brown
County, and that rewards varying from $500 to $2,500 had been repeatedly
offered by different persons for the abduction or assassination of Rev.
John B. Mahon, and rewards had also been offered for Amos Pettijohn,
William A. Frazier and Dr. Isaac M. Beck, of Sardinia, Rev.
John Rankin and Dr. Alexender Campbell, of Ripley, William
McCoy, of Russellville, and citizens of Adams County.
The trial of Rev. John B. Mahan, of Brown
County, Ohio, in the Circuit Court of Mason County, Ky., for felony in
aiding certain slaves to escape from their master, was a celebrated case in
the history of anti-slavery agitation. Mahan was a local
preacher and kept a tavern on temperance principles in Sardinia. He
was indicted in Mason County, Ky., on the charge of “aiding and
assisting certain slaves, the property of Wiliam Greathouse,
to make their escape from the possession of the said William
Greathouse, out of and beyond the State of Kentucky.” Mahan
claimed that he had never seen one of the two slaves of Greathouse
which had escaped; that the other had stopped at his tavern, but had not
been secreted by him, and that he had no agency whatever in causing or
assisting the escape of either of the slaves; nor had he been in Mason
County or any adjoining county for nearly twenty years. After his
indictment, the Governor of Kentucky sent a requisition to the Governor of
Ohio for his delivery to the authorities of the former State.
Joseph Vance, Governor of Ohio, on the 6th of September, 1838, issued a
warrant for the arrest of Mahan, and his delivery to the custody of
the Sheriff of Mason County, Ky.
On Mahan’s arrest, several of his friends
accompanied him to Georgetown for the purpose of securing his release on a
writ of habeas corpus. The writ was obtained, but it was directed to
the Sheriff of Brown County, Ohio, and Mahan was already in the
custody of the Sheriff of Mason County, Ky., who was on
Page 315 -
his way with the prisoner to Kentucky, and refused to regard the command of
the writ. Mahan remained in prison until his trial, which
commenced on November 13, and continued six days. He was absent from
his home in all nearly ten weeks. He was acquitted by the jury, under
the charge of Judge Walker
Reid, that the court had no jurisdiction of the case, if the jury
should find that the prisoner was a citizen of Ohio, and had not been in the
State of Kentucky until brought there by legal process.
Although he was granted a fair trial and was acquitted,
the surrender of Mahan to the authorities of another State was justly
regarded as a great hardship. His defense cost him a large sum of
money. A civil suit was brought against him for damages for the loss
of the two slaves he was accused of helping to escape. The case
directed public attention to the extradition laws of Ohio as they then
existed, and which certainly needed revision for the protection of the
personal liberty of its citizens. The Governor of Ohio, in his annual
message, referred at length to the case as one which had caused much
political excitement, and defended his conduct in surrendering Mahan
as a high duty of an executive officer under the requirement of the National
Constitution, but he expressed the hope that the Legislature would take such
steps as would best secure the peace and tranquility of our border
population. The conduct of Gov. Vance in the case was
severely censured by many citizens of Ohio.
This case occurred fourteen years before the passage of
the Fugitive Slave Law, two years before the organization of the Liberty
party, and in the first year of the publication of the Philanthropist,
the organ of the Ohio State Antislavery Society, edited by Gamiliel
Bailey, Jr., and printed at Cincinnati. The Mahan
case occupied considerable space in the columns of the Philanthropist
and other anti-slavery journals for several successive numbers. The report of the trial was published in a pamphlet,
and anti-slavery societies were called on to assist in spreading it far and
wide, as it would do much for the cause of Abolition. The White Oak
Anti-Slavery Society, at a meeting held at Sardinia, adopted resolutions in
relation to the Mahan case, as did the anti-slavery citizens of
Sardinia at a public meeting. One of the resolutions adopted at the
later meeting severely condemned Hon. T. L. Hamer for refusing his
services as attorney in the habeas corpus case for the benefit of Mahan.
One year later, John B. Mahan, Joseph
Pettijohn and Amos Pettijohn wore tried at Georgetown on
an indictment for riot in rescuing a negro from the hands of a Constable.
David G. Devore, Prosecuting Attorney; W. C. Marshall and
T. L. Hamer appeared on the side of the prosecution. Thomas
Morris and Messrs. Jolliffe and Fishback for the
defendants. Mahan and Joseph Pettijohn were
found guilty, and were sentenced each to pay a fine of $50, to be imprisoned
in the dungeon of the jail of Brown County for ten days, and to be fed on
bread and water only during the term of imprisonment. The case was
taken to the Supreme Court, and (lie execution of the sentence was suspended
until the decision of the higher tribunal. In pronouncing sentence
upon Mahan, the court reminded him that it had been proved on the
trial that he was a minister of the gospel of peace; that the riot had taken
place on the Sabbath day; that instead of attending to the duties of his
sacred calling he had been found traversing the country on horseback in
company with armed men, violating the laws of his country and resisting a
ministerial officer in the regular discharge of his duties. He advised
him that his present situation should be a warning to him, and that he
should not allow his excessive philanthropy to lead him into similar
aggressions in the. future." The sentence was reversed by the Supreme
Court for error in empanneling the jury.
The following from the pen of Rev. John B. Mahan
is here given in justice to him, and as reflecting not only his own
sentiments, but probably those of the great majority of his cotemporary
Abolitionists: Page 316 -
“However much every
good man desires that slavery should have an end, and however much
Abolitionists are willing to hazard and sacrifice for this oppressed,
degraded and despised portion of our fellow men, I am confident that few, if
any, for various reasons, would invade the jurisdiction of another State to
give aid or encouragement to slaves to escape from their owners. But
it ought not to be concealed that a very great majority of Northern people,
as well as those that are not Abolitionists as well as those that are
Abolitionists (however much human nature has been marred by sin), are not
capable of violating the sympathies of their nature or the dictates of their
common humanity so far as to be able to drive from their doors the
unsheltered, unprotected stranger, or send away unfed, unclothed, unprovided
for the outcasts or wandering poor.”
VOTE OF BROWN COUNTY AT VARIOUS PERIODS
---------------
* Neither Gen. Harrison nor Senator
Morrow had consented to be a candidate in opposition to the re-election
of Gov. Brown Page 317 -
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