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BIOGRAPHIES
(Transcribed by Sharon Wick)
 Source:
History of Ashland County, Ohio
with Illustrations and Biographical
Sketches,
by George William Hill, M.D. -
Published by Williams Bros.
-1880 -
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Colonel George W. Urie |
COLONEL GEORGE W. URIE
was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, February 22,
1806, and emigrated with his father's family to Orange township,
Richland, now Ashland county, Ohio in November, 1815. For
many years he has been a citizen of Ashland. His tastes
are strongly military. Under the old State organization,
he was promoted through the various grades, from captain to
colonel, of his regiment of independent rifles. When
mounted on horseback, properly caparisoned, he was a fine
looking officer, being tall and finely proportioned. With
an unusually piercing black eye, he was every inch a soldier, in
address and appearance. In the fall of 1845 he was elected
treasurer of Richland county, and upon the erection of Ashland
county, in 1846, he resigned, and was elected the first
treasurer of the new county, which office he held two terms.
Being bitten by the gold fever in 1851, he spent one year in
California, reaching that region by way of Panama. In 1853
he was elected a member of the State board of equalization from
the district composed of Ashland and Richland counties. In
1857 he was appointed deputy United States marshal for the
northern district of Ohio, and in 1860 aided in taking the
census. In 1865 he was elected recorder of Ashland county,
and held the office until 1874. In the spring of 1874 he
was elected mayor of Ashland, and held the office two years.
Colonel Urie is a member of the Presbyterian church, and
noted for his integrity and uprightedness. He is a son of
the late Solomon Urie,
noticed elsewhere. The family of Colonel Urie,
consists of four daughters, Mrs. Mary J. Porter, Mrs. Alice
A. Beer, Mrs. Libbie H. Anderson, and Mrs. Sadie A. Beer,
and a son who died young. Mrs. Porter deceased in
September, 1875.
(See more about George W. Urie below
here)
Source:
History of Ashland County, Ohio with Illustrations and
Biographical Sketches, by George William Hill, M.D. - Published
by Williams Bros. 1880 - 183 |
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COLONEL
GEORGE W. URIE was born in Washington county,
Pennsylvania, February 22, 1806, and in 1815, when nine years of
age, accompanied his father's family to Ohio, making a home in
Orange township, in the present county of Ashland. In his
boyhood he was an adept in the sports of the day, jumping,
wrestling, running foot races, etc., in which he was able to
hold his own with the best. His father was a great deer and bear
hunter, and he generally accompanied him to assist in bringing
in the trophies of the chase. In these expeditions he learned
the intricate details of woodcraft, and became as expert with
the rifle in securing game as his father.
When a young man he learned the trade of millwright,
which called him some distance from his home. He also worked at
the carpenter trade for more than twenty years—at that time very
hard work, as mechanics were obliged to go into the woods, cut
suitable trees, juggle, score and hew down the timber to a
proper size, after which it was hauled by ox teams to the place
designed for the building, where it was mortised and framed.
Very many of these strongly framed houses and barns are now
standing where they were built fifty or sixty years ago, and bid
fair to remain another half century.
Colonel Urie possessed strong military tastes,
and with his commanding figure and erect bearing was a prominent
character at drill and general muster. Under the old State
militia law he passed through the various grades from captain to
colonel of a regiment of independent rifles. At the breaking out
of the war with Mexico he still commanded this regiment, and
made all his arrangements to accompany his comrades in support
of the honor of the American flag, but having recently recovered
from a severe attack of sickness, he was advised by his
physician that if he followed his inclination in the matter it
would very likely prove fatal to him. He therefore reluctantly
decided to remain at home, and leave the honors that might be
won to other officers of the regiment.
In the fall of 1845 he was elected treasurer of
Richland county, and upon the erection of Ashland county in
1846, he resigned, and was elected the first treasurer of the
new county, which office he held two terms.
In 1851 he was seized with a desire to seek a fortune
among the gold mines of California, and entered the "golden
gate" by way of the isthmus of Panama. He remained in California
but one year, and finding his golden dreams contained more dross
than pure metal, he returned. In 1853 he was elected a member of
the State board of equalization from the district composed of
Ashland and Richland counties. In 1857 he was appointed deputy
United States marshal for the northern district of Ohio, and
aided in taking the census of i860. He was elected recorder of
Ashland county in 1865, and held the office until 1874, when he
was elected mayor of Ashland, which office he held two years.
Colonel Urie has been a resident of Ashland many years. As
is evinced by the numerous places of trust he has filled, he has
the confidence of the people of the county in which he lives. He
was twice married, and by his first wife raised a family of four
daughters—Mrs. Mary J. Porter, Mrs. Alice A. Beer,
Mrs. Libbie H. Anderson, and Mrs. Sadie A.
Beer. A son died young. Mrs. Porter died in
September, 1875.
An extended sketch of the life of
Solomon Urie, father of Colonel George
W. Urie, will be found below here.
Source:
History of Ashland County, Ohio with Illustrations and
Biographical Sketches, by George William Hill, M.D. - Published
by Williams Bros. 1880 - Page 188a |
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SOLOMON
URIE was born in Bedford county, Pennsylvania, near
Bloody run, in 1769. He was in Williamson's campaign against the
Moravian villages, on the Tuscarawas, in 1782, and was at the
massacre of the Christian Moravians, and saw the burning of
their houses. He was then quite young, but large of his age. Colonel
David Williamson was a brother-in-law, and for that
reason he was induced to accompany the expedition. He always
disapproved that barbarous act, and often stated to his sons,
that
Williamson yielded a reluctant consent to the perpetration
of that dreadful tragedy, being unable to control the violence
of his soldiers, who were border volunteers, and had suffered
much from Indian raids and depredations. In the year 1810,
Solomon
Urie and his brother Thomas went on a hunting excursion
across the Ohio and established a camp about midway between the
present sites of Cadiz and New Philadelphia. They hunted
together some days, and finally, in one of their trips through
the forest in search of game, became separated. Thomas,
having killed a bear, in the evening was conveying the skin
toward the camp, which he had nearly reached, when he was shot
and killed by Indians, who had taken possession of it, and were
in ambush, watching his arrival. Solomon, at the same
time, was approaching the camp from another direction, driving
before him his horses, which had been belled and hoppled. When
almost in sight of the camp, he heard a double crack of guns,
and, fearing his brother might have been assailed by Indians,
considered it prudent to leave his horses and carefully guard
against surprise. When he came in sight of his camp, he saw two
Indians plundering it, while a third was acting as sentinel. He
raised his rifle to shoot the Indian guard, when his brother's
dog began to bark, which pointed out his position to the Indian.
Mr. Urie
comprehended the position at a glance. There were three Indians.
To press forward might be fatal. In his rear was a swamp. To
retreat in that direction would be folly. Summoning all his
energies, he made a bold dash in the direction of the Indian
sentinel. The Indian became alarmed and retreated, dodging
behind trees to escape his white assailant. Mr. Urie
pressed boldly forward, discovering as he went, the body of his
brother Thomas. He successfully escaped the Indians, who
pursued him some miles to the verge of a precipice, down which
he plunged, and on descending to the bottom, discovered that he
had broken the breach of his gun, the lock being uninjured. The
Indians, were amazed at the leap, and abandoned further pursuit.
Mr. Urie continued his flight in the direction of
the Ohio river, and, much to his surprise, came upon a camp
formed of Captain Samuel Brady and other
hunters. The next morning he and a number of others returned to
his late camp and . found Thomas covered with the skin of
the bear he had shot the day before. The Indians had carried
away one of his moccasins and a leggin. His body was
pierced with two bullets, and scalped. A grave was dug with
wooden shovels, into which his body was deposited, enclosed in a
coffin made of puncheons. The Indians had departed with the
horses, forty deer, ten bear, and ten beaver skins, and the
entire stock of provisions and traps. Mr. Urie
offered all the property to his new comrades if they would join
him in the pursuit, capture and punishment of the Indians. It
was regarded as too hazardous an undertaking, and he was
reluctantly compelled to leave the murder of his brother
unrevenged for the present.
He returned to his home in Washington county, resolved
to retaliate on the red fiends of the Ohio forests at no distant
day. When the war of 1812 was inaugurated, he and his son
Samuel served three months on the borders of Canada, and
rendezvoused at Black Rock. In the summer of 1814, Mr.
Urie visited Orange township, and located a quarter section of
land, and a quarter section in Montgomery township, and erected
a small cabin and cleared a few acres of ground, and in the fall
of 1815 removed to it with his family, which consisted of seven
sons—Samuel, Thomas, David, Solomon, John, George W. and
James; and two girls—Susannah and Elizabeth.
In the fall of 1815, he erected a blacksmith shop on
his land, being the first one in Orange township, he being a
blacksmith and gunsmith by trade. The first winter after his
arrival, he killed forty deer, eight large black bears, a great
number of wolves, and other game. On one occasion, there being
considerable snow on the ground, he took an old horse and rode
two or three miles north in the forest, hitched to a sapling,
and, proceeding a short distance, shot a fine deer. Returning to
the horse, he rode it through the undergrowth to the deer, tied
a rope around its neck, fastened the other end to the tail of
the horse, mounted, and rode home, dragging the deer after him.
He had reached his cabin but a few minutes, when, as he was
engaged in skinning the deer, a gang of hungry wolves, following
his trail, appeared in the vicinity of his cabin. His dogs set
up a furious barking and commenced an attack upon the wolves,
when they soon fled into the forest. It was a narrow
escape; for they were half famished for food. He was very
successful in trapping wolves. He usually made a sort of
triangular pen, arranging a large trap, so that the wolf would
have to pass over it in reaching a piece of fresh meat which he
placed in the narrow end, covering the trap with leaves. Having
bent and trimmed a small sapling, he fastened the chain of the
trap to it in such a manner that when the wolf attempted to back
out, it would tread upon the trap, set it off, be caught by the
hind legs, and elevated by the sapling. In this way, he captured
a great many, a reward being offered for their scalps. Soon
after the erection of his shop, Tom Lyons,
Johacake, Catotawa, and other Wyandot and Delaware
Indians, came to have their tomahawks and guns repaired. They
frequently brought bent gun-barrels to be straightened. Passing
the barrel between the logs of his shop, he used sufficient
force to spring it back, until the bend was out; then, taking a
bow with a thong of deer sinews, he passed the thong through the
barrel, and, springing it until it was tense, he could see
whether any kinks were left in the barrel by sighting through
the bore; and if any were discovered, he removed them by a
wooden mallet, by laying the barrel on the end of a square block
and striking on it, occasionally looking through the bore at a
piece of white paper, to see if all the kinks were out. The
Indians watched the operation very closely, insisting that he
would "spoil gun." After completing the work, Mr. Urie
would challenge the Indians to shoot at a mark with him. Being a
fine shot, always shooting off-hand, "Old Peel," as he called
his rifle, was sure to cut the paper. The Indians, being
accustomed to shoot with a rest, made poor shots off-hand. When
they were about to shoot, Urie, who was always brimful of
fun and tricks, would stand close to his competitor, saying,
"Indian stir mush," "Cooza," "Nogo," when the Indian, becoming
very nervous, would miss the mark, and Urie
would laugh heartily. In this way, when he bet he won most of
their furs and skins.
After the murder of his brother, Mr. Urie
never entertained a very cordial feeling for the red race; and, on
his hunting excursions along the Black river, from 1815 to 1825,
though reticent on the subject, it is believed he more than once
avenged the death of his brother.
Mr. Urie died in Montgomery township,
July 7, 1830, aged nearly sixty-two years, and Mrs.
Elizabeth Urie, his wife, in June, 1842, aged about
seventy-three years. Colonel George W. Urie is the
only one of the family in this county. Thomas* and David
are in Iowa; and James is in Indiana. All the others are gone to
their final resting place.
-----
* Thomas Urie died in Iowa, September 8, 1875, aged
eighty-two years. David Urie died in Iowa,
March, 1874, aged seventy-eight years.
Source:
History of Ashland County, Ohio with Illustrations and
Biographical Sketches, by George William Hill, M.D. - Published
by Williams Bros. 1880 - Page 189 |
NOTES:
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