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CHAPTER XIV.
HUGH EVANS SETTLES ON CLEAR
CREEK - PLANTS THE FIRST CORN, BUILDS A
"SWEAT MILL," AND PROSPERS, WHILE NATHANIEL
POPE IS SOWING THE FIRST WHEAT, AND WILLIAM
POPE, JOHN WALTERS AND OTHERS ARE HUNTING
BEAR, ON LEES CREEK AND RATTLESNAKE WITH THE
INDIANS, AND THE FINLEYS AND DAVIDSON FIND
SIMILAR EXCITEMENT AND TRIALS ON WHITEOAK.
Pg. 57
IN the spring of
1800 Hugh Evans*,
with several of his sons and
sons-in-law, settled on Clear creek, in the
present county of Highland, on a three
thousand acre tract of land entered and
surveyed for him by General Massie
some years before. Mr. Evans
emigrated from George's creek settlement,
Fayette county, Pennsylvania, in 1788, with
his numerous family, to Kentucky. That
locality, being near the southwestern
border, had, in common with the entire
frontier of the State, suffered much from
incursions of the Indians; and many were the
peaceful homes laid in ashes by their
relentless hands, while the inmates were
either slain or carried into captivity.
Evans was, therefore, no stranger to
the terrors of Indian warfare, and hesitated
not to avail himself of the opportunity to
make an early selection from the celebrated
rich lands of Kentucky, which land of
promise was then the far west. So he
loaded his household goods on a flatboat,
and with his family started down the
Monongahela river, in company with two other
boats having a like destination. They
passed on down to Wheeling, then an extreme
outpost of civilization. At that place
they received intelligence that the Indians
were taking every boat that went down the
river. They therefore deemed it prudent to
delay awhile; but in the course of a couple
of days several other boats came down, one
of which had seventy soldiers on board.
They all held a conference, and the majority
being of the opinion that they were now
strong enough to meet the enemy, they
determined to set out on the perilous
voyage. They kept all the boats as
close together as possible, the leader
taking the middle of the river.
Soldiers were posted on the boats with
rifles in hand, ready at any moment for an
attack. As they passed down they saw
several places where turkey buzzards were
collected on the trees and hovering round,
which the voyagers doubted not were the
vicinity of the dead bodies of emigrants,
killed and scalped by the Indians. The
little fleet, however, passed on unmolested,
and in duo time arrived in safety at
Limestone (Maysville). From this place
Mr. Evans took his family and
goods to Bourbon county, and settled near
Paris, where be built some log cabins,
cleared out the cane break for a corn patch,
and depended, like his neighbors, on the
buffalo, bear and deer for meat. Here
they were in constant danger from the
ever-watchful and blood thirsty Indians,
who, during the spring, summer and fall,
were almost daily making attacks upon the
border Kentucky settlements, burning houses,
killing the inhabitants, and stealing
horses. These stations were, of
course, all fortified; and whenever the
alarm was given the women and children were
hurried to the fort, and the men started in
pursuit of the enemy. After Wayne’s
treaty with the Indians rendered the
prospects for a continued peace probable,
Mr. Evans and his family started for the
country north of the Ohio river, for they
did not like to live in a slave State.
But when they reached the river they learned
that it was still dangerous to cross; they
therefore concluded to stop awhile longer.
They built three cabins on Cabin creek,
about three miles from the river, and
cleared out corn patches. During their
residence at this place Mr. Evans and
his sons made several trips across the river
to look at the country, and selected the
land which General Massie located on
Clear creek.
In the spring of 1799 Mr. Evans, with his
sons and sons-in-law, came over and built,
their cabins, and the spring following moved
their families. When they first came
they followed a trace from Manchester to New
Market, from which place to their land on
Clear creek they had to steer their way
through the unbroken forest by the aid of a
compass.
---------------
* See WILL of
Hugh Evans
Page 58 -
Hugh Evans, the
father, built his cabin on the farm where
Daniel Duckwall afterward lived,
William
Hill next below on the creek,
Amos next, then
Daniel,
Samuel. Joseph
Swearingen,
George
Wilson
and Richard
Evans.
Swearingen,
Wilson
and Amos
Evans
did not, however, move out till some time
after. At that time this settlement
formed the extreme frontier, there being no
white man’s house to the north with the
exception, perhaps, of a small settlement at
Franklinton.
Richard
Evans
started with his family from Kentucky in
March, 1800, there being considerable snow
on the ground. The first detachment
consisted of a strong team, two horses and
two oxen, hitched to a large sled, with a
pretty capacious bed prepared for the
purpose and tilled with such things as were
most needed, leaving the remainder to come
in the wagon when the ground got firm.
The snow lasted till they reached their new
home in the midst of the unbroken forest.
But little time remained to clear out the
bottom and prepare it for corn, and it was a
heavy job. But first of all, sugar had
to be made, for there was none to be
obtained in any other way. They went
to work in good heart, and made enough sugar
for the year, cleared out the ground, and by
the last of May had eight or ten acres
fenced in and ready to plant. By that
time the wagon had arrived from Kentucky
with a supply of seed corn, seed potatoes
and a little flour, which was a great rarity
in those days and mostly came down the river
from Pennsylvania. The wagon also
brought a good supply of corn meal, which
was the main dependence for bread. The
first corn planted on the farm of the late
Richard
Evans
was planted on the last day of May and the,
first day of June, 1800. The soil
being loose and rich, the corn grew rapidly
and yielded an abundant crop, sufficient for
the family and some to spare, while
pumpkins, potatoes and turnips grew in large
quantities. When the corn began to
ripen—and that was not any too soon, for the
meal tub was almost empty—the question was
how to get it ground, for there was no mill.
At first a tin grater answered the purpose,
but soon the corn got too hard.
Richard Evans was,
however, equal to the emergency, so he went
to work and constructed what was called a
sweat mill, which fully supplied the wants
for a time. Many, doubtless, are
curious to know what a sweat mill is.
In the first place a sycamore gum about
three feet long and two feet in the hollow,
then a broad stone is dressed, and a small
hole bored in the middle of it. This
stone is nicely lit in the head of the gum,
the face about nine inches below the top;
then another is made to fit exactly on the
face of the first, having a considerable
hole in which to throw the corn with the
hand. Then a hand pole with an iron
spike in the end to work in a small shallow
hole near the outer edge of the surface of
the top stone. The upper end of this stick
is fastened some feet above the head, and as
the upper stone is hung on a spindle that
passes through the lower one, it can be
turned by hand very easily, and grind pretty
fast.
The Indians were very
numerous in the neighborhood at that time,
and visited the cabins of the Clear creek
settlement almost every day, perfectly
friendly and harmless, but most generally
hungry.
The act of Congress
organizing the Northwestern Territory
provided that whenever there were five
thousand free male inhabitants of full age
in the Territory they should be authorized
to elect Representatives to a Territorial
Legislature, who, when chosen, were required
to nominate ten freeholders of five hundred
acres, of whom the President was to appoint
five, who were to constitute the Legislative
Council. Representatives were to serve two
years and Councilmen five. Early in
1798, the census having been taken, it was
apparent that the inhabitants were entitled
to this change in their form of government,
which had previously been confided
exclusively to the Governor and Judges
appointed by the President and Senate of the
United States. A ccordingly
Representatives were elected, and the first
Territorial Legislature assembled at
Cincinnati on the 24th day of September,
1799, and having organized for business
Governor St. Clair addressed the two
houses. At this session an act was
passed to confirm and give force to the laws
enacted by the Governor and Judges, the
validity of which had been doubted.
The whole number of the acts which
received the approval of the Governor at
this session was thirty-seven. Before
the adjournment
William H.
Harrison was elected Delegate to
Congress.
During the fall of 1800 the first wheat known to have
been sowed in the present county of Highland
was sowed by Nathaniel Pope on
a few acres of ground where the brick school
house now stands in the town of Leesburg.
John Walters, who with his family
accompanied Pope to the Lees creek
Page 59 -
Page 60 -
Page 61 -
James B. Finley
says that in order to repair a pecuniary
loss sustained by going security for a
friend at Chillicothe, he spent a whole
winter hunting on Whiteoak, most of which
time he lay out at night before his
camp-fire, wrapped in skins. He slew a
large number of bears, selling the skins in
the spring at from three to seven dollars
each.
In the fall
of 1800 Thomas McCoy
emigrated, with his wife and child on a
pack-horse and he on foot, rifle on
shoulder, from Bourbon county, Ky., to the
Cherry fork of Brushcreek. Early the
next spring he moved to the west fork of
Brushcreek and built a cabin and settled
down on the farm now owned by the heirs of
John Haigh, near the site of
the present town of Belfast, then in Adams
county. There were at that time no
inhabitants in that vicinity nearer than the
settlement on Flat Run, which consisted of
George Campbell, Stephen
Clark, Philip Noland,
Levin Wheeler and William
Paris and their families. This
settlement had been made some two or three
years. Stephen Clark was
the first settler on Flat Run. Mr.
McCoy, who is now a very old man,
says “In those days' in order to build
a log cabin, we bad to collect help from
five or six miles around and could get but
few hands at that. Often our women
would turn out and assist us in rolling ami
raising our cabins. But I can say that we
enjoyed ourselves with our hard labor and
humble fare, although deprived of many of
the necessaries of life. I had to go
twenty-seven miles for two bushels of corn
and pay three shillings and six-pence per
bushel. This was the spring after I
settled on the west fork of Brush Creek.
The wolves were so bad that neither sheep
nor hogs could be raised. Game was,
however, abundant and the settlers could
always rely upon that for meat.”
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