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CHAPTER XI.
JACOB AND ENOCH SMITH SETTLE AT
THE FALLS OF PAINT - GENERAL MCARTHUR
SELECTS A SITE AND LAYS OFF THE TOWN OF
GREENFIELD.
Pg. 45
IN the autumn of 1796
Jacob Smith
and his brother Enoch led a
party of settlers, consisting of from ten to
fifteen families, from Virginia to the
Scioto Valley. They came by the river
to Manchester, and followed the trace from
that place, on their pack-horses, to the
falls of Paint. The Smiths,
being millwrights and on the lookout for a
good water power, at once perceived the
merits of that at the falls, while the
apparent richness of the surrounding lands
settled in their minds the value of the
location. They therefore abandoned
their original idea of settling in the
immediate vicinity of Chillicothe, and
crossing over to the north side, they
unloaded their horses and at once commenced
preparations for passing the winter.
Being pretty strong handed, they soon
erected and made comfortable a sufficient
number of cabins to house the party.
During the greater part of October and
November the weather was delightful, and the
new settlers had ample time, not only to
prepare their cabins but to examine the
surrounding country, and kill an abundance
of game. The first corn crop of the
settlers at the mouth of Paint, had turned
out most abundant, and the new comers at the
falls found their wants, in that important
particular, comparatively easily supplied.
The excitement always attendant upon making
a settlement in a country, the novelty of
every thing around them and the unusually
pleasant weather, combined to both please
and satisfy the Virginians with their new
home. But little was, however, done in
the way of improvement or clearing the land
during the winter, though a great deal, in
their judgment, in the way of hunting bear
and deer. They were fresh from the
east where game had then begun to disappear,
and though not first-class hunters, yet they
secured abundance and to spare.
While others were enjoying the chase or idling away
their time, Jacob
Smith
was prospecting about the falls and settling
in his own mind all the preliminaries of the
mill that was to be. He went to
Chillicothe to see Gen. Massie,
the owner of all the surrounding lands, and
was more than gratified to learn that he
could purchase on favorable terms, as that
enterprising and generous proprietor ever
looked more to the improvement of the
country and the advantage of his fellow-man
than to his own immediate aggrandizement;
yet, like most industrious and
liberal-minded men, he had rapidly
accumulated a fortune in rich lands, being
at that time the most extensive landed
proprietor in the Territory. Massie
had determined at this early day on making
his homestead near the falls of Paint, and
he at once made a proposition to Smith
to give one hundred acres of land for every
twenty of his own that was cleared and
brought into cultivation. This offer
was readily accepted, and in the spring all
the male settlers at the falls found
abundant employment. It was
unnecessary for them to clear corn land for
themselves, as Massie’s generous
proposal included the first two crops.
This not only supplied them with an
abundance of corn, but each man thus
acquired a farm for himself, and was enabled
during the two years to clear a sufficient
number of acres to be prepared to put in a
crop on his own land at the end of that
time, and some did it before. They,
however, continued clearing land for
Massie and thus adding to their own
farms, as long as he desired. The
Virginians selected their lands on the north
bank of the creek, while Massie
planned his farm on the south side, and had
much of the clearing done there, on which
he, in the course of a couple of years,
settled some tenants and commenced
preparations to improve with a view to his
permanent residence there. Meantime
the Smiths were pushing forward their
enterprise, to which General Massie
lent his assistance. He wanted a mill
on his side of the stream, for the
convenience of the settlers on his improved
lands, and he therefore joined with them in
constructing a dam across the creek.
In this way an abundance of water was
obtained to run both mills. The mill
built by the Smiths was a good one
for the day, and they subsequently improved
and enlarged it until it became
Page 46 -
one of the principal mills of the country.
It was put into successful operation in the
fall of 1798. Massie’s mill was
a small affair, and not wishing to interfere
with the industrious and persevering
Smiths he made no attempt to enlarge or
improve it, and of course it never became of
much consequence.
In September, 1798, General McArthur
having entered and surveyed, two years
before, a large tract of superior upland on
the west bank of Main Paint, west of
Chillicothe, and having witnessed the
unexampled success of General
Massie’s speculation at that place, set
out with a small party to lay out a town on
his lands. They journeyed through the
wilderness, there being no road of any
description then open from Chillicothe west,
and arrived at the place of operation with
their pack horses and camp equipage.
After thoroughly exploring the thickly
wooded lands on the west side of the stream,
McArthur selected the most eligible,
being a gently rising tract beginning at the
creek and extending west. This ground
was then covered with a dense forest, in
which not a sound of a white man’s axe had
ever before been heard. Adopting the
most natural as well as the most beautiful
plan, the proprietor proceeded to lay off
the town on a very liberal scale, in
squares, with wide streets, intersecting at
right angles. An in and out-lot, in
one part of the plat, were donated to actual
settlers; a square—the southwest corner of
Main and Washington streets —was donated by
the proprietor for the purpose of a court
house and jail, and also a lot for a burying
ground. The opinion was strongly
impressed upon his mind that the place
would, at no distant day, be the seat of
justice of a new and rich county, and he
therefore acted in view of such an event.
The town being blazed out, staked off and platted,
there remained nothing more to give identity
to it but a name, which McArthur
decided should be
GREENFIELD.
It
is not known why this name was adopted.
Certainly it proceeded from no local cause,
and it is therefore to be inferred that he,
prompted by a sentiment never found absent
from a generous and noble heart, named it
for a village in Erie county, Pennsylvania,
near which he had passed his boyhood days,
and where his father, brothers and sisters
then lived, and beneath whose church-yard
willows his mother was buried.
As one object of this domestic history is to preserve
the recollection of the pioneers of the
earlier days of the North-west, it may not
be an inexcusable digression to say a few
words about Gen. Duncan
McArthur, who was in every point of
view, perhaps, the best specimen of a
western man that this country has produced.
He was born in Duchess county, New York, on the 14tli
day of January, 1772. His parents were
natives of the Highlands of Scotland, and
his mother was of the Campbell clan, so
illustrious in Scottish story. She
died while Duncan was quite a youth.
When he was eight years of age his father
moved with his family to the western
frontier of Pennsylvania. The
Revolutionary war was then in progress, and
all the energies and courage of the frontier
men were called forth to protect themselves
from Indian depredation. Under these
circumstances schools were unknown.
But by the time Duncan was thirteen
he had managed to learn to read and write
tolerably well, although, being the oldest
son, he was constantly kept at hard work on
the farm to aid in supporting his father’s
large family of children. His father
was very poor, and as soon as the small crop
of corn was laid by, Duncan was hired
out, either by the day or month, to the
neighboring farmers.
At this time there were no wagon roads across the
Alleghany mountains, and all the
merchandise, such as powder, lead, salt,
iron, pots, kettles, blankets, rum, &c.,
&c., were carried over on pack-horses.
In this business young McArthur early
engaged, and the dangers and excitement
incident to it doubtless possessed more
charms to his lofty and daring soul than the
small pittance of wages the service brought
him. At that time it was almost an
every day occurrence to see a long line of
pack-horses, in single file, cautiously
winding their way over the wild and
stupendous Alleghanies, on a path scarcely
wide enough for a single horse. When
surmounting the dizzy heights they often
turned round the points of projecting rocks,
where the least jostle or slip of the
horse’s foot would have precipitated it into
the abyss beneath and crushed it to atoms.
So narrow and dangerous were the passes in
many places, that a horse loaded with bulky
articles could not pass these projections
without being first unloaded, the packers
then carrying with the utmost care the load
to the horse, and replacing it on the
pack-saddle. But the difficulties of
the road were not the only dangers the
resolute packers had to encounter; the wily
Indian frequently lay in
Page 47 -
ambush to kill the packers and rob the
train.
At the age of eighteen, young McArthur bid adieu
to his humble home and friends, and joined
Harmar’s expedition against the
Indians. From that time forward he
became identified with the history of the
present State of Ohio, and without the aid
of friends, without the advantages of
education, and without the society so
essential to mental improvement, he forced
his way, step by step—a farmer’s boy, a
packer, a private in the army; a salt
boiler, a hunter and trapper, a spy on the
frontier, a chain carrier, a surveyor, a
member of the Legislature—to the highest
honor within the gift of the people of his
adopted State—its Governor. He
endeavored to do his duty in every station
in which it was his fortune to act, and by
his great energy, courage and endurance
generally led those with whom he was
associated, when all stood upon an equality
in point of authority. As an assistant
surveyor, McArthur rapidly
accumulated a fortune, and though the honors
awarded him by his fellow citizens
necessarily introduced him into polished
society, yet his natural good sense and
manliness always pointed his straightforward
and independent course, and the frank
manners and generous nature of the
backwoodsman never forsook him. He was
physically a splendid specimen of a man —
upwards of six feet in height and as
straight as an arrow—hair and eyes black as
night, complexion swarthy; his whole frame
stout, athletic and vigorous, and a step as
elastic and light as a deer. To his
strong good sense and chivalric courage,
which amounted at times to a reckless
daring, he added the generosity and
disinterested friendship ever characteristic
of noble natures, and though his early
struggles and privations were rewarded by
wealth and honors, there are few who will
say, on reading the history of his eventful
life, that he received more than was justly
due his sterling merits in the varied
services, so cheerfully, so faithfully and
so ably rendered to his fellowmen.
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