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THE PIONEER TOWNSHIP.
Elk Township is the
pioneer township of Vinton County, and the first settler was
a Mr. Musselman, in the year 1805. He was a
miller by trade, and something of a geologist. He
first discovered a fine burr stone in Elk Creek,, and
started the first quarry in the spring of 1806.
Elk Township is rich in coal and lies directly in the great
coal measure of Southwestern Ohio. It is not a rough
and broken township, but it is hilly. With the
exception of Swan, which it fully equals, it is probably the
best agricultural township in the county. The valleys
are fertile, being rich in an alluvial soil Elk
Townshipis also rich in iron ore and in fire-clay.
The Elk Fork of Raccoon Creek waters its eastern
portion. Little Raccoon runs through sections 1, 2,
and 12, in the northeast section of the county, while Elk
Fork passes through the center of the township, taking its
rise in Swan and Jackson township, and enters Elk in the
northwest and north, flowing south through the center,
turning east and thence southeast, leaving the township in
that section. Puncheon Fork flows from the west
central section of the township, just touching the village
of McArthur on the south, and running east flows into Elk
Fork. Little Raccoon Creek rises in the southwestern
corner of the township, flowing south and passing into
Clinton and Richland townships.
ELK COMES TO THE FRONT.
On March 7, 1811,
the commissioners of Athens County made the following order
of record:
"Ordered, That all that part of Alexander
Township lying west of the 15th range, being townships 10
and 11 of range 17, and townships 9 and 10, of range 16, be
erected into a new township by the name of Elk."
SIZE AND BOUNDARY.
For a number of
years Elk Township retained her size, being composed of a
trifle over one third of the present county of Vinton, but
when Vinton was created a county she was shorn of her
territory, and was made as she now is, a congressional
township, bounded as follows: on the north by Swan
Township, east by Madison Township, south by Clinton
Township, east by Madison Township, south by Clinton
Township, and west by Richland and Jackson townships, and is
congressional township number 11, of range number 17.
She has one town or village within her border, McArthur, the
county-seat of Vinton County, which is principally located
on section 21. She also has a station called Vinton
Station, on the Cincinnati, Washington & Baltimore Railroad,
located about three miles east and south of McArthur, on
section 26, but about on the section line between 25 and 26,
and is the shipping point for the product of the Vinton
Furnace, which is situated a little over a mile from the
station in Madison Township.
PIONEERS.
Among the first
settlers of Elk Township, were the Friend Brothers, who
located on the present site of McArthur, but did not remain
long. Levi Kelsey was the first permanent
settler of the township, coming here with his family about
1802. Isaac Phillips came in 1806; John
Phillips in 1807. A Mr. Cassill came in
1807 or 1808, and settled on section 26. His child,
Sarah Cassill, was the first death in the township.
Levi Johnson came in 1811. He put up the first
horse-mill, and first still-house. He was the first
Justice of the Peace, and performed the first marriage in
the township.
Jacob Shry came in 1811 and settled on section
25; his brother, Paul Shry, settled on section 28.
One of hte most noted pioneers of Elk Township was George
Fry, a soldier of the war of 1812, who came in 1816.
James and William Mysick came in 1815, and settled on
section 25 and 26. Edward Salts, came in 1816
and entered the land upon which McArthur Junction now
stands. Some of the later arrivals were Thaddeus
Fuller, David Richmond, Rev. Joshua Green, Lemuel and Allen
Lane, Joseph Gill and Isaac West.
The following condensed from
the personal recollections of Mrs. Bothwell is worthy
of place in history:
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF VINTON COUNTY
SIXTY YEARS AGO.
BY CHARLOTTE E. BOTHWELL.
McArthur, Ohio,
July 5, 1874. - It is just sixty years this day since my
husband and myself, with two children, started to move to
Ohio. We had been married four years, and living at
Silveysport, Md., where we had moved from Fayette County,
Pa., where I was born, Jan. 22, 1788. I was twenty-six
years of age; my husband was twenty-nine. We hired a
man with a wagon to move us to Geneva, a town on the
Monongahela River, about thirty miles, where we intended to
go on a flatboat. This was before the discovery of
steam-power. When we got there the river was so low
the boats could not run. We waited ten days, bu the
water was _till getting lower and my husband bought a large
pirogue and put our movables in it, and hired a man for a
pilot at $2 per day. My husband's brother came with
us. We started on Thursday. We were not two
hours on the water till both the children were very sick and
vomiting. We stayed the first night in Brownsville;
Saturday we got to Pittsburg, about an hour before sun-down.
As the children were very sick we intended to stop with a
family of old friends by the name of Brison. My
husband and the other man went up into town, and left me
alone with the children.
We remained in Pittsburg till Wednesday, when, the
children being much better, we started again. As soon
as we were on the water the children got worse. We
arrived at Marietta had a sister with her family that lived
there. This sister was the grandmother of President
Scott, of the Ohio University, at Athens. We
stayed there till Wednesday, when we started again. On
Monday morning we arrived at Gallipolis. There came up
a very great storm, and I took my children and hurried up in
town. The first house I came to was a bakery. I
went in, sat down with my children, called for a pint of
beer and six cakes. I did not want them, but I wanted
an excuse to stay. In the afternoon it cleared off,
and my sister's husband, Isaac Pierson, came with his
wagon to move us to our journey's end. They put our
movables in the wagon, and we stayed that night at the
tavern. Tuesday morning we started; Thursday morning
we took breakfast were the town of Jackson now stands.
It was then a salt-works, a number of rough scattering
cabins and long rows of kettles of boiling salt water.
IT was nine miles to Mr. Paine's; that was the first
house after we left the salt works. About the middle
of the day it commenced raining very hard and rained all
that day; everything was soaked with water. My
youngest child lay in my arms wet and cold, and looked more
like it was dead than alive. Several times we stopped
the wagon to examine the child to see if it was dead.
But we had to go on; there was no house to stop at till we
got to Mr. Paine's. It was more than an hour
after dark when we got there, wet, cold, and still raining.
We found Mrs. Paine one of the best and kindest of
women. If we had got to mother's or sister's we could
not have been more kindly treated. After breakfast, on
the next morning, we started and got to my brother-in-law's
the evening of the 5th of August, where, four days
afterward, our child died.
We were just thirty-two days on the way. The
weather was pleasant enough until we got to Gallipolis.
From there here the weather and the roads were very bad -
the bad roads of to-day bearing no comparison to them.
In point of fact, there were no roads, but mere paths, and
the men compelled to cut out roads with axes, and drive
along side-hills, where it was all the men could do to keep
the wagon from upsetting.
My husband had been here the spring previous, entered
160 acres of land - being the farm now owned by David Bay
- and reared the walls of a cabin upon it. When we got
here it had neither floor, door, window, chimney nor roof.
My husband hired two men to make clapboards to cover it and
puncheons for a floor, we remaining with my brother-in-law
until this was done. We then moved into our new house,
to finish it up at our leisure. Isaac Pierson
then "scutched" down the logs, my husband chincked it, and I
daubed up the cracks with clay. There was no plank to
be had, the nearest saw-mill being Dixon's, on Salt
Creek, twenty miles away, and I hung up a table-cloth to
close the hole left for the window, and a bed-quilt for a
door. The back wall of a fireplace occupied nearly one
whole side of the house, but the chimney was not built on
it, and when the wind blew, the smoke in the house would
almost drive me out. We lived in this way five months.
I was not used to backwood's life, and the howling of the
wolves, with nothing but a suspended bod-quilt for a door,
coupled with the other discomforts of border life, made me
wish many a time that I was back at my good old home.
ON the 14th day of January, 1815, the chimney was
built; my husband had got some plank and a sash, and made
the door and the window. The hinges and latches were
of wood. Our cabin was the only in the whole country
around that had a glass window. On the same day, while
the men were working at the house, I finished a suit of
wedding clothes for David Johnson, father of
George and Benjamin Johnson, who still live here.
I had the suit all done but a black satin vest when he came.
I didn't know it was a wedding suit, and tried to put him
off, but he would not be put off. The next day my
third child, Catharine, who is the widow of Joseph
Foster, and lives near Sharonville, Ohio, was born.
My husband was a cabinet-maker and a painter, but bed-steads
and chairs and painting were not in use here at that day,
and his business was confined to making spinning-wheels and
reels. He did not get his shop up until the first day
of May. He had first started out here the previous
May, and not worked any for a year, and consequently our
little accumulated earnings were all spent. However,
we were not comfortably fixed. I had got some pipe
clay and white-washed the inside of the cabin, and some of
our neighbors regarded us as very rich and very aristocratic
- thought we put on too much style for this country! I
had learned the tailoring business, and found plenty of work
at it. There was not much money in the settlement, and
I was more frequently paid in work than cash; but we wanted
our farm cleared up, and therefore needed work. It
cost us about $10 an acre to clear the land, besides the
fencing. Lands all belonged to the Government and
could be entered in quarter sections, or 160 acres, at $2
per acre, to be paid in four annual payments of $80.
When we first came here there were perhaps fifty
families in and around this settlement, most of them
quarrying and making millstones. There was no person
making a business of farming. All had their patches of
garden, but making millstones was the principal business.
Isaac Pierson, the father of Sarah Pierson, of
Chillicothe, had the most extensive quarry. Afterward
Aaron Lantz and Richard McDougal had large
quarries. A man named Musselman first
discovered the stone in 1805, and employed Isaac Pierson
to work for him in 1806. This was on section 7.
There were no white people here at that time, and the two
camped out, and worked that year. Musselman
quit; but the next year Pierson, having found the
business to be very profitable, moved out, built the first
cabin and made the first permanent settlement. He
employed hands to help him, and soon the settlement began to
grow. The business was very profitable, and all
engaged in it would have become independently rich but for
one thing - whisky. Most of them drank,
and nearly every pair of millstones that were sold must
bring back a barrel of whisky, whether it brought flour or
not. If the flour was out they could grind corn on
their hand mills; but they made it a point never to get out
of whisky.
Trading was done principally at Chillicothe.
There was no store closer than Chillicothe or Athens.
Everything we bought that was not produced in the country
was very dear. The commonest calico - such as now
sells at 6 to 10 cents - was 50 cents per yard; we made our
own sugar; coffee, 40 cents; tea, $1.25. We made it a
point, however, to buy as little as possible. Our salt
we got at Jackson - gave $2 for fifty pounds of such mean,
wet, dirty salt as could not find a market now at any price.
All kinds of stock ran loose in the woods. Each person
had his stock marked. My husband's mark was to point
one ear and cut a V-shaped piece out of the other. I
marked my geese by splitting the left web of the left foot.
These marks were generally respected. There was good
wild pastorage for the cattle, and hogs grew fat upon the
mast. When one wsa wanted for use it was shot with the
rifle.
A wilder country than this in early days it would be
hard to imagine, with its great systems of rocks and hills,
and interminable forests. Indians, wolves, wild game
and snakes were more numerous than interesting. I
remember distinctly, one time my son Thompson was a
baby, I put him to sleep in his cradle one afternoon, and
went out to help my husband in the field; he had an Irishman
working in the shop. In the course of the afternoon he
went in the house to get some tobacco. He came running
out and holloed to us in the field: "Oh, Mon! Come
quick; the devil is in the house!" We hastened to the
house and found a large rattlesnake, which had been lying by
the cradle. Our presence disturbed it and it ran under
the bed, and my husband got a club and dragged it out and
killed it.
ITEMIZED.
The first marriage
in Elk Township was that of Abraham Cassill to a
young lady living with Mr. Jacob Shry, who came from
Virginia. 'Squire Levi Johnson was the
officiating parson. This was in 1813.
The first horse-mill in Elk Township was erected by
Levi Johnson.
The first death was a child, Sarah Cassill.
The first preaching in the
township was by Rev. Jacob Hooper.
The first white settler in Vinton County was
Levi Kelsy, who came in 1801.
The first known cemetery was called Calvin's graveyard.
The first church was one built of logs and was used as
such for about twenty-five years.
SCHOOLS.
POPULATION.
M'ARTHUR,
THE MINERAL CITY
This village, the
county seat of Vinton County, is located nearly in the
center of the county and but little south of the center of
Elk Township. Its situation on a slightly oval surface
between the two main branches of Elk Fork and near their
confluence is a ...............................
ITS LOCATION.
INCORPORATION.
VILLAGE OFFICERS.
FIRES.
McArthur has been
remarkably conspicuous of later years for her devastating
fires. Her three great fires occurring within the
space of thirteen years have swept away the principal part
of the heart of the town, so that when rebuilt the town
will, in a measure, have lost its identity. These
fires were apparently small, but one at least, the last one,
was much larger in proportion to the size of the town than
the great fires of Chicago or Boston in 1871 and 1872.
FIRE OF 1883.
POSTOFFICE.
M'ARTHUR IN 1883.
CHURCHES.
SOCIETIES.
SCHOOL OF M'ARTHUR.
NORMAL INSTITUTE.
VINTON COUNTY NATIONAL BANK.
THE TOWN HALL.
RAILROAD AT M'ARTHUR.
THE FLOURING MILL.
BIOGRAPHICAL.
Pg. 1230
B. G. ALLENDER
ARCHIBALD ARNOLD
PROF. M. R.
BARNES.
EZRA P. BOTHWELL.
HON. H. S. BUNDY
M. M. CHERRY
ABRAM CLARK
WILLIAM COTTRILL
JOHN COULTER
HENRY W. COULTRAP
DANIEL CRAM
GEORGE CROW
G. W. DALTON
NATHAN C. DARST
WILLIAM BUCKLEY DAVIS
SIMEON P. DEAVER
CAPTAIN J. W. DELAY
REV. J. F. DICKSON
REV. JOHN DILLON
E. D. DODGE
HENRY DUDLESON
C. O. DUNLAP,
M. D.
JOHN T. FOREMAN
O. W. GILMAN
W. D. GOLD
DAVID HAWK
JOSEPH F.
HAWK
VOSS HOFFHINES
PARIS HORTON
W. S. HUDSON
HOMER C. JONES
JOHN H. KING
DAVID LANTZ
GEORGE LANTZ, ESQ.
ISAAC M. LANTZ
I. N. LOTTRIDGE
J. M. LOWRY
THOMAS A. MARTIN
ARTHUR E. McGRATH
JAMES M. McVEY
GEORGE PAFFENBARGER
HENRY PAYNE
CAPTAIN ALEX. PEARCE
C. B. PILCHER
E. B. PUGH, ESQ.
JOHN C. PUGH
D. . RANNELLS, M.D.
CAPTAIN WM. J. RANNELLS
HENRY
REYNOLDS
JAMES L. ROBB
EZEKIEL ROBINETT
A. W. SALTS
CONRAD SCHMIDT
STEPHEN W. SHERWOOD
GEORGE W. SHOCKEY
JACOB SHOCKEY
JOHN J. SHOCKEY
ISAAC SHRY
G. W. SISSON
WILLIAM SNOOK
RACHEL SNYDER
JOHN STANLEY
HON. FRANK
STRONG
ANTHONY TRIMMER
S. H. TRIMMER
GEORGE
W. WAXLER
NELSON B. WESCOAT
C. L. WHITE
J. P.
WHITLATCH
WM. WHITLATCH
DANIEL WILL
ANDREW WOLF, M. D.
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