Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/117

 HISTORY OF OHIO.

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��Braunon, who stole the great coat, handkerchief and shirt ; ' and that James B. Finley, afterward Chaplain in the State Penitentiary, should see the sentence faithfully carried out. Brannou chose the latter sentence, and the ceremony was faith- fully performed by his wife in the presence of every cabin, under Mr. Finley's care, after which the couple made off. This was rather rude, but effective j urisprudence.

" Dr. Edward Tiffin and Mr. Thomas Worth- ington, of Berkley County, Va., were brothers-in-law, and being moved by abolition principles, liberated their slaves, intending to remove into the Ter- ritory. For this purpose, Mr. Worthington visited Chillicothe in the autumn of 1797, and purchased several in and out lots of the town. On one of the former, he erected a two-story fi-ame house, the first of the kind in the village. On his return, having purchased a part of a farm, on which his family long afterward resided, and another at the north fork of Paint Creek> he contracted with Mr. Joseph Yates, a millwright, and Mr. George Haines, a blacksmith, to come out with him the following winter or spring, and erect for him a gi-ist and saw mill on his north-fork tract. The summer, fall and following winter of that year were marked by a rush of emigration, which spead over the high bank prairie, Pea-pea, Westfall and a few miles up Paint and Deer Creeks.

" Nearly all the first settlers were either regular members, or had been raised in the Presbyterian Church. Toward the fall of 1797, the leaven of piety retained by a portion of the first settlers be- gan to diffuse itself through the mass, and a large log meeting-house was erected near the old grave- yard, and Rev. William Speer, from Pennsylvania, took charge. The sleepers at first served as seats for hearers, and a split-log table was used as a pulpit. Mr. Speer was a gentlemanly, moral man, tall and cadaverous in person, and wore the cocked hat of the Revolutionary era.

" Thomas Jones arrived in February, 1798, bringing with him the first load of bar-iron in the Scioto Valley, and about the same time Maj. Elias Langham, an officer of the Revolution, arrived. Dr. Tiffin, and his brother, Joseph, arrived the same month from Virginia and opened a store not far from the log meeting-house. A store had been opened previously by John McDougal. The 17th of April, the families of Col. Worthington and Dr. Tiffin arrived, at which time the first marriage in the Scioto Valley was celebrated. The parties were George Kilgore and Elizabeth Cochran. The

��ponies of the attendants were hitched to the trees along the streets, which were not then cleared out, nearly the whole town being a wilderness. Joseph Yates, George Haines, and two or three others, arrived with the families of Tiffin and Worthing- ton. On their arrival there were but four shingled roofs in town, on one of which the shingles were fastened with pegs. Col. Worthington's house was the only one having glass windows. The sash of the hotel windows was filled with greased paper.

" Col. Worthington was appointed by Gen. Ru- fus Putnam, Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory, surveyor of a large district of Congress lands, on the east side of the Scioto, and Maj. Langham and a Mr. Matthews, were appointed to survey the residue of the lands which afterward composed the Chillicothe land district.

"The same season, settlements were made about the W^alnut Plains by Samuel McCuUoh and others; Springer, Osbourn, Dyer, and Thomas and Elijah Chenowith, on Darly Creek; Lamberts and others on Sippo ; on Foster's Bottom, the Fosters. Samuel Davis and others, while the following fam- ilies settled in and about Chillicothe : John Crouse, William Keys, William Lamb, John Carlisle, John McLanberg, William Chandless, the Stoctons, Greggs, Bates and some others.

" Dr. Tiffin and his wife were the first Metho- dists in the Scioto Valley. He was a local preacher. In the fall, Worthington's grist and saw mills on the north fork of Paint Creek were finished, the first mills worthy the name in the valley.

" Chillicothe was the point from which the set- tlements diverged. In May, 1799, a post office was estabUshed here, and Joseph Tiffin made Post- master. Mr. Tiffin and Thomas Gregg opened taverns; the first, under the sign of Gen. Anthony Wayne, was at the corner of Water and Walnut streets ; and the last, under the sign of the ' Green Tree,' was on the corner of Paint and Water streets. In 1801, Nathaniel Willis moved in and established the Scioto Gazette^ probably, the sec- ond paper in the Territory."*

In 1800, the seat of government of the North- west Territory was removed, by law of Congress, from Cincinnati to Chillicothe. The sessions of the Territorial Assembly for that and the next year were held in a small two-story, hewed-log house, erected in 1798, by Bazil Abrams. A wing was added to the main part, of two stories in

��* Recollections of Hon. Thomas Scott, of Chillicothe— Howe's Annals of Ohio.

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