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CHAPTER VII
MEIGS TOWNSHIP
p. 445
As will be seen
in the chapter devoted to Reorganization of the
Territorial Townships, Meigs Township was formed at the
December session of the Board of County Commissioners,
in the year 1806, and was named for Return Jonathan
Meigs, the second Governor of Ohio. The
elections were ordered to be held at the house of
Peter Wickerham who then conducted a tavern in the
present brick residence of Jacob Wickerham at
Palestine.
Surface and Soil
The surface in
the west is undulating with here and there comparatively
level tracts of poor white oak land. In the east
and southeast it is rough and hilly, and in places
mountainous, as southeast of the old Steam Furnace and
in the vicinity of Mineral Springs. Here as is
stated in the chapter of Geology and Mineralogy, are
some of the most elevated knobs in the county. The
soil varies from the rich alluvial bottoms of Ohio Brush
Creek and its tributaries to the barren shales of the
slate and sandstone capped knobs. The ferruginous
soil of the cliff limestone tratum is very productive,
as also the covelands in the marl stratum.
Villages and Postoffices.
JACKSONVILLE,
on the Limestone and Chillicothe turnpike at the top of
Brush Creek hill, was laid out by William Thomas
in 1815, and named in honor of "Old Hickory." then the
military hero of the country. A postoffice was
established there about the above date with James
Dunbar as postmaster. The postoffice was
discontinued in 1827, but afterward re-established and
called Dunbarton. The village is now rapidly
declining in population and commercial importance from
its proximity to the new town of Peebles, on the C. P. &
V. Railroad.
NEWPORT, at the junction of the West Fork and the East
Fork of Ohio Brush Creek, was laid out by James
Kirkpatrick in 1819. At that time the Marble
Furnace, a few miles from Newport, was flourishing and
the postoffice for the locality was located there.
In 1869 a postoffice named Wilson, in honor of Hon.
John T. Wilson, then in Congress from Adams County,
was established at Newport with William R. Rodgers
as postmaster. The commercial importance of the
village has improved with the building of the C. P. & V.
Railroad.
MINERAL SPRINGS is a postoffice and health
resort in the southeastern portion of the township four
miles from Mineral Springs Station on the C. P. & V.
Railroad. A postoffice was established there in
1872 with B. Salisbury as postmaster.
PEEBLES, in the north part of the township on the
Cincinnati, Portsmouth and Virginia Railroad, sprang up
with the completion of this railroad through Meigs
Township, in 1881. It was named, at the suggestion
of N. W. Evans, for John C. Peebles, of
Portsmouth, who subscribed liberally toward the
completion of the railroad from Winchester to
Portsmouth. It is now one of the thriving,
bustling, villages of the county with a population of
about 1,000 inhabitants.
Schools.
The village
school at Peebles is the largest in the township.
The enumeration for the present year is: Males,
107; females, 122. There are four departments
sustained and the schools are in a flourishing
condition. There are fourteen sub-districts in the
township with the following enumeration of pupils.
|
No. |
Males. |
Females |
No. |
Males. |
Females. |
|
1 |
25 |
32 |
8 |
24 |
17 |
|
2 |
26 |
27 |
9 |
27 |
32 |
|
3 |
34 |
15 |
10 |
30 |
28 |
|
4 |
25 |
14 |
11 |
31 |
28 |
|
5 |
34 |
38 |
12 |
19 |
18 |
|
6 |
27 |
19 |
13 |
28 |
36 |
|
7 |
10 |
5 |
14 |
31 |
34 |
The Mineral Springs.
These
celebrated Springs are situated nineteen miles north
from Rome on the Ohio River, and four miles south from
Mineral Spring Station on the Cincinnati, Portsmouth and
Virginia Railroad, in a delightful valley, and flow from
the base of a mountain, surrounded by scenery the most
picturesque and beautiful.
The chemical analysis of these waters show them to be
very highly charged with gas, and to contain 205.35
grains of solids to the gallon. These are composed
of chloride of magnesia, sulphate of lime, carbonate of
lime, chloride of calcium, chloride of sodium, oxide of
iron and iodine.
There is a large and commodious hotel with hot and cold
baths, and numerous rustic cottages for the
accommodation of guests. These Springs afford a
sequestered retreat to those seeking respite from
the cares of business, or in need of the refreshing
influence of mountain scenery and climate. The
buildings are located with a view to the health and
comfort of visitors, at the base of Peach Mountain or
"Grassy Hill," which casts a shadow over them at four
o'clock in the evening, making the nights cool and
pleasant, so that when it is too warm to sleep
elsewhere, the tired and careworn can enjoy a refreshing
night's rest at this resort.
There is a beautiful chapel on the grounds for the
church-going guests, and a commodious amusement hall for
the entertainment of those seeking diversion in bowling,
billiards, dancing and such recreation.
There are telegraph and telephone connections with the
hotel. The present proprietor, S. R. Grimes,
a scion of one of the prominent pioneer families of
Adams County, is a most affable and accommodating host.
Picture of Residence of G. P.
Thomas, M. D., Peebles, Ohio.
REMINISCENCES.
*In
the vicinity of the Sproull bridge over Ohio Brush Creek
in this township was the pioneer home of Peter
Shoemaker, a brother of Simon Shoemaker, a
pioneer, also, of that vicinity. In the summer of
1796, a daughter of Peter Shoemaker's was stolen
by a band of Indians and carried away to their village
on the Little Miami in the vicinity of the present town
of Xenia. In after years this daughter, who had
grown up and married an Indian, was discovered by some
whites and returned to her kindred on Brush Creek, where
she afterwards married and reared a family.
U. S. Mail Robbed.
In May, 1827,
in the palmy days of the old stage coach line form
Maysville to Chillicothe, the mail was robbed between
West Union and Sinking Springs. As the bag was
never recovered it was supposed that it had been thrown
into Ohio Brush Creek after being rifled of its
contents. Suspicion pointed to a prominent
resident of Jacksonville as being concerned in the
robbery, and who fled the country, and William McColm,
then postmaster at West Union, offered a reward of fifty
dollars for his apprehension and confinement in any jail
in the United States so that he might be brought to
answer to the charge. The robber was never
apprehended.
Anecdote of an old State Driver
David
Bradford, who immortalized his name during the
scourge of Asiatic cholera in West Union, was one of the
daredevil jehus who drove a stage coach from Maysville
to Chillicothe before the days of canals and railroads
in this region. The Fristoe hill at the crossing
of Ohio Brush Creek was the longest and steepest on the
route, and was considered then a very dangerous place of
descent with a loaded coach or wagon.
On one occasion, when there had been a heavy fall of
sleet and the road was covered with a thick coat of ice,
people in the vicinity wondered how Dave Bradford
would get down Brush Creek hill; and, when finally he
dismounted from the box at the village postoffice, at
Jacksonville, he was admonished of the great risk of
attempting to descend the hill with his coach. But
David seemed little concerned about the matter;
however it was observed that his drinks of "old double
distilled" were larger than usual, and that at his
departure he had taken an extra "bumper" with Matt
Bradney, who had come to town the night before and
was "weatherbound" at the village tavern. But the
"bumper" with Bradney meant more than a nerve
stimulant to Bradford. It was the seal of a solemn
vow to Bradney that he would not again permit his
"nigger," "Black Joe" Logan, to
butt the life out of him as he had nearly done at the
Noleman Camp Meeting the summer previous, when
Bradney and "Big Dow" Woods had
attempted to drive Logan from the camp grounds while he
was peaceably caring for Bradford's team and
carriage.
So, seating himself on the box of his stage, he cracked
his whip and set out on a swinging trot for Brush Creek
hill. On arriving at the point where begins the
descent down to the valley of Brush Creek, he halted his
team and unhitched it from the coach. Then he
hitched a favorite horse to the end of the tongue, and
mounting the animal began to ply the whip, and yell like
an Indian, making the descent of the long and steep
grade without a single mishap; remarking that it was "a
d--d poor horse that could not outrun a stage coach."
--------------
* There is a version of this
incident that Peter Shoemaker was shot in his
cabin door by the Indians and his wife and two children
made captives. The wife becoming fatigued carrying
her infant boy, she was tomahawked, and the child seized
by the ankles and its brains dashed out against a tree.
The girl was adopted by an Indian family and grew up and
married an Indian by whom she had a girl child.
She was afterwards discovered and returned to her
relatives on Brush Creek.
After investigating all the known facts, the writer
concludes that the captivity of the Shoemaker
children must have occurred before the family came to
the Northwest Territory, for Peter Shoemaker, of
Brush Creek, died in 1899 and left a will in Adams
county. His wife may have been the girl captured
by the Indians; but if so it did not occur in Adams
County, for he settled on Brush Creek in 1796. Or,
it is probably that the version of the incident is true
that his daughter was captured in 1796, on Brush Creek
and that she afterwards returned and married Samuel
Bradford, in 1811. It is at least certain that
the individual in question was not captured on Brush
Creek in 1796, when a girl, then returned to her
relatives and married to Peter Shoemaker by whom
she had a daughter who became the wife of Samuel
Bradford in 1811, and who after his death, married
Col. S. R. Wood. See sketch of
Samuel
G. Bradford in this volume.
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