JOHN OKEY, County Surveyor

ing and instructive, but the grave has closed over most of the men of that generation, and anything like a truthful and correct history of those times cannot now be produced.
     The present generation must derive an instructive moral lesson by contrasting the privations and discomforts which beset the first settlers, with the happy circumstances by which they are surrounded; such contrast should inspire the latter with feelings of gratitude for the blessings which they now enjoy, and should stifle the disposition to complain, which has become almost as chronic with us as it was with the ancient people who were fed with bread from heaven.  In the social customs of our day it may be doubted whether we have made improvements upon those of our ancestors; in days of yore friends and neighbors could meet together to enjoy themselves, and with hearty good will enter into the spirit of social amusements.  The old and young could then spend evening after evening around the fireside with pleasure and profit; there was a geniality of manners and a corresponding depth of soul to which modern society is unaccustomed.  Our ancestors did not make a special invitation the only pass to their dwellings, and they entertained those who called upon them with a hospitality that has become almost obsolete.  Guests did not assemble then to criticize the decorations, furniture, manners and surroundings of those by whom they were invited; they were sensible people, and visited each other to enjoy themselves and promote the enjoyment of those around them; they had clear heads and warm hearts, they believed in the earnestness of life and in the power of human sympathies.  We may ignore obligations to the pioneer race, and congratulate ourselves that our lot has been cast in a more advanced era of mental and moral culture; we may pride ourselves upon the developments which have one standard of elevation as immeasurably in advance of that of our forefathers, we should stop and consider if in all these assumptions we are not, as we are in many other things that belong to our generation, "too fast."
     The type of the Christianity of that period will not suffer by a comparison with that of our own day.  If the people of the olden times had less for costly apparel and ostentatious display, they had also more for offices of charity and benevolence; if they had not the trappings and splendors of wealth, they had at least no infirmaries, and no paupers - very few lawyers, and very little use for jails.  The command to "love they neighbor as thyself" was then more faithfully observed than now.  Has it never occurred to you, reader, that we may be largely indebted to the characteristics of our pioneer fathers for that vigor or valor which have stimulated their descendants to go forth and fight our country's battles?  The vain and thoughtless may jeer at their unpretending manners, customs and costumes; but in all the elements of true manhood and true womanhood it may be safely averred that they were more than the peers of the generation that now occcupy their places.  That race has left its impress upon our times in more ways than one.  Rude and illiterate, comparatively, they may have been, but they were undoubtedly men of strong minds, in strong bodies, made so by their compulsory self-denial, and their privations and toil.
     It was the mission of many of them to aid in the formation of our noble commonwealth, and wisely and well was that mission performed.  Had their descendants been faithful to their teachings, they would have been harmony now, where violence and discord reign throughout the land.
     The "pioneer times" have the greenest spot

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COLLEGE TOWNSHIPS.

     These lands are embraced in three townships six miles square each, granted by Congress - two of them to the Ohio Company, for the use of a college to be established within their purchase and one for the use of the inhabitants of Symmes purchase.
     The two in the Ohio Company's purchase are situated near the center of Athens county, and constitute a considerable part of the permanent funds of the Ohio University at Athens.  That one belonging to Symmes' purchase composes the northwestern township in Butler county.  Its income is appropriated to the Miami University which is erected thereon.  This university was chartered in 1809, and located in the town of Oxford, which is situated in the foregoing township of land, granted by Congress for its support.
     These lands were really no donation, but were a part of the considerations inducing the Ohio Company and J. C. Symmes to make their purchases.

MINISTERIAL LANDS

     In both the Ohio Company's and Symmes' purchase, every Section 29 - equal to one thirty-sixth part of every township - was reserved as a permanent fund for the support of a settled minister.  As the purchasers of these two tracts came from parts of the Union where it was customary, and deemed necessary, to have a regular settled clergyman in every town, they, therefore, stipulated in their original purchase that a permanent fund, in land, should thus be set apart for this purpose.  In no other part of the State than in these two purchases are any lands set apart for this purpose.

SALT SECTIONS.

     Near the center of Jackson county Congress originally reserved from sale thirty-six sections, or one six-mile square township around and including what was called the Scioto Salt Licks, also one-quarter of a five mile square township in what is now Delaware county, in all forty-two and a quarter sections, or 27,040 acres.  By an Act of Congress, of the 28th of December, 1824, the legislature of Ohio was authorized to sell these lands and apply the proceeds thereof to such literary purposes as the legislature may think proper, but to no other purpose whatever.

VIRGINIA MILITARY LANDS.

     This is one of the largest and most important reservations of lands made by the States which ceded territory to the general government.
     This tract of land is situated between the Little Miami and Scioto rivers.  It embraces within its limits Adams, Brown, Clermont, Cinton, FAyette, Highland, Madison and Union counties entirely, and portions of Marion, Delaware, Franklin, Pickaway, Ross, Pike, Scioto, Warren Greene, Clark, Champaign, Logan and Hardin.  It embraces a body of 6,570 square miles, or 4,204,800 acres of land.
     As stated elsewhere, Virginia had, during the progress of the Revolutionary War, promised her officers and soldiers serving in the Continental line large bounties in land.  When she ceded her territory northwest of the Ohio to the general government, she reserved enough of the land to fulfill her engagement with her troops who had served in the Continental army.  Hence the name "Virginia Military Lands."
     Notwithstanding the United States had, after the cession by the several States of their claims to the western territory, made several treaties with the Indians, by which their titles to their lands seemed to have breen extinguished, yet the tribes still maintained an attitude of extreme and relentless hostility, which continued until after Wayne's victory, in 1794, completely crushed their hopes and humbled their pride.
     It was while the Indians were still in  this hostile attitude that the first lodgment of the whites was made in Adams county, at Manchester, in 1791.

THE PROSPECT BEFORE THE FIRST SETTLERS.
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ORGANIZATION OF THE TERRITORY - FIRST OFFICERS - SECOND GRADE OF TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT - EARLY LAWS - COURTS - EARLY SETTLEMENTS - FIRST SETTLEMENT IN WAYNE COUNTY
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     We can, at this late day, but faintly imagine the outlook that presented itself tothe view of the pioneers, and their feelings, when they first landed upon the borders of the wilderness in which they were to make their homes.
     Before them lay the boundless wilderness, covered with a dense forest of trees, that were, in many places, interfaced and festooned with the wild grape vines, which also frequently covered the smaller timber with their closely intertwined branches, that made an almost impenitable canopy of green.  Through these forests roamed countless numbers of ferocious wild beasts, as well as the savage and cruel Indian, wihle beneath his feet lurked venomous reptiles.
     A wilderness of great extent, presenting the virgin face of nature, unchnaged by human civilization or art, is one of the most sublime terrestrial objects which the Creator ever presented to the view of man.
     One prominent feature of a wilderness is its solitude.  Those who plunged into this forest left behind them not only the busy hum of men, but domestic animal life generally.  The parting rays of the sun did not receive the requiems of the feathered songsters of the grove, nor was the dawning of the early morn ushered in by the shrill clarion of the domestic fowls.  The solitude of the night was interrupted only by the howl of the wolf, the melancholy moan of the ill=boding owl, or the shrick of the frightened panther.  Even the faithful dog, the only steadfast companion of man among the brute creation, partook of the silence of the desert; the discipline of his master forbade him to bark or move, but, in obedience to his command, and his native sagacity, soon taught him the propriety of obedience to this severe government.  The day was, if possible, more solitary than the night, the noise of the wild turkey, the croaking of the raven, or the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech tree, did not much enliven the dreary scene.  The cravings of hunger often compelled him from day to day to sustain the fatigues of the chase.  Eager in the pursuit of his game, his too much excited imagination sometimes presented him with the phantom of the object of his chase in a bush, a log or mossy bank, and occasioned him to waste a load of his ammunition, more precious than gold, on a creature of his own brain, and he repaid himself the expense by making a joke of his mistake.  His situation was not without its dangers.  HE did not known at what tread his foot might be stung by a serpent, at what moment he might be met by the formidable bear, or, if in the evening, he knew not on what limb of a tree over his head the murderous panther might be perched.  In a squatting attitude, to drop down upon and tear him to pieces in a moment.  When watching a deer lick from his blind, at night, the formidable pather was often his rival in the same business, and if, by his growl or otherwise, the man discovered the presence of his rival, the lord of the world always retired as speedily and secretly as possible, leaving him the undisturbed possession of the chance of game for the night.  His situaton was perilous in the extreme.  The bite of a serpent, a broken limb, a wound of any kind, or sickness without medical skill, without those accommodations which wounds and sickness require, was a dreadful calamity.

ORGANIZATION OF THE TERRITORY

     The United States having secured title to the Great Northwest."  Congress soon deemed it advisable to take the prelimiary steps looking to the permanent establishment of civil government in the new and extensive territory of which that body had just become the legal custodian.  Accordingly, after much mature deliberation and careful consideration of the subject, as well as prolonged discussion of the important questions involved, they, on the 13th of July, 1787, gave to the world the results of their deliberations in "An ordinance for the government of the territory of the United States northwest of the river Ohio," which has come to be best known as "The Ordinance of '87," sometimes also called "The Ordinance of Freedom."  This ordinance was the fundamental law.

WIRE HAMILTON, Attorney.

     The subject of this sketch was born in Monroe county, Ohio, on his father's farm, two miles west of Lewisville.  Jacob H. and Maria (Robinson) Hamilton, his parents, were natives of Pennsylvania and Ireland respectively.  He worked on his father's farm until he was eighteen, when he had improved his opportunities in the common school so that he was enabled to secure a teacher's certificate.  With this attainment he combined teaching and farming as a means of procuring funds for tuitions in higher schools.  In 1877 he graduated from Mount Union College, one of the best of his class.  After his graduation he resumed the profession of teaching and at the same time studied law.  Mr. Hamilton for several years was among the foremost teachers in the county, conducting several select schools for the training of teachers.  He was appointed a member of the county board of school examiners and held the position for two successive terms - which officer he filled with ability, and with honor to himself and the teachers of the county.  He attended the Cincinnati Law College and graduated there in 1881.  He spent a year in the law office of Forrest and Mayer of Cincinnati, after which he began the practice of law in Woodsfield and continued his chosen profession until March 1886 when he purchased the Spirit of Democracy, and at once entered upon his duties as editor and publisher of that journal and soon made it one of the leading weekly journals of the state.  He was elected Probate Judge of Monroe county in the November election of 1890 and was re-elected for a second term in 1893.  Shortly after his election to this important position of trust he sold the Spirit so that he could devote his entire time to the work of his office.  He brought to the bench a well-balanced, thoroughly trained mind and filled the position with general satisfaction and made a reputation as a judge.  In February, 1896 his second term expired and Judge Hamilton immediately began the practice of law in Woodsfield as a member of the firm of Hamilton and Matz and now enjoys a good share of the legal business of the county.  Dec. 15, 1856 he was so fortunate as to form a marriage alliance with Miss Emma E. Bircher, whose parents, George and Jane Bircher of Summerfield, Noble county, Ohio, were natives of Maryland and Scotland respectively.  Judge G. W. Hamilton and Emma E. now have a family of three children, Birch J., Florel J. and Maria and enjoy a pleasant home on Northern Row in Woodsfield.  He is a Mason, a member of the I. O. O. F. and also of the Knights of Pythias, and his wife, a devout member of the M. E. Church.  Mr. Hamilton is an ardent Democrat, has an inherent belief in the common people and has never hesitated to advocate the interests of the masses on the stump in past campaigns.

FIRST OFFICERS OF THE TREASURY.

     Congress, in October, 1787, appointed General Arthur St. Clair, governor; Major Winthrop Sargeant, secretary, and James M. Varnum, Samuel H. Parsons, and John Armstrong, judges for the the territory; the latter of whom, however, having declined the appointment, John Cleves Symmes was appointed in his stead, in February, 1788.  General St. Clair arrived at Marietta, and, finding the secretary and a majority of the judges present, proceeded to organize the territory.  The governor and the judges - or a majority of them - were the sole legislative power during the existence of the first grade of territorial government.  Such laws as were in force in any of the States.