Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/127

 ^

��HISTORY OF OHIO.

��115

��the Indians to o-o on to Kentucky and make his settlement at the fa'i« of the Ohio. His audacious bravery o-aiued hi^ request. Daniel Boone was taken prfsoner e^i'ly in 1778, with twenty-seven others and ke]^ for a time at Old Chillicothe. Thnau'-h the nfluence of the British Governor, Hamilton, wh> had taken a great fancy to Boone, he Jad ten o-^ers were sent to Detroit. The In- dians*, however, had an equal fancy for the brave iroiitiersma i, and took him back to Chillicothe, and adopt/^d him into their tribe. About the 1st , of June le escaped from them, and made his way back to Kentucky, in time to prevent a universal assacre of the whites. In July, 1779, the town destroyed by Col. John Bowman and one ndred ;iud sixty Kentuckians, and the Indians

7.

J^'^lie Americans made a permanent settlement in •ounty in 1797 or 1798. This latter year, a ^^ -iS erected in the confines of the county.

��us liU

��implies the settlement was made a short ^reviouslv. A short distance east of the

��which

time pleviouily. A

mill tw(^ block -houses were erected, and it was in- tended,) .should it bect)me necessary, to surround them md the mill with pickets. The mill was used ty the settlers at " Dutch Station," in Miami County, fully thirty miles distant. The richness of the coiiQtry in this part of the State attracted a great, number of settlers, so that by 1803 the county ^as established, and Xenialaid out, and des- ignate! as the county seat. Its first court house, a I'Miitive log structure, was long preserved as a curikity. It would indeed be a curiosity now. . _ ZaVe's trace, passing from Wheeling to Mays- Ville, ^ossed the Hockhocking* River, in Fairfield l^unty, where Lancaster is now built. Mr. Zane loii^ted one of his three sections on this river, covei"S the site of Zanesville. Following this trace iu^-^^^' ^^*"y individuals noted the desira- bleness of"^^ locality, some of whom determined to return ant^®^*^'^- " "^^^^ ^^^^ *^f ^^^ ^'i^J had in former times^^^° ^^^ ^^me of the Wyandots, who had a to/ }^^^'^^ ^^^t, in 1790, contained over 500 wio-w^'* ^^^'^ more than one l,0(iO souls. Their town y called Tarhee, or, in English, the Crane-toicii/ -^ derived its name from the princi-

s T},e ^y^ji-jOock-hock-ing in the DeJaware language signifies


 * 1) hawanee8 liave it Wea-tha-kagh-qua sepe, ie ; bottle

k^hite in the Amorican Pionper Bays: "About seven

-stnf Lancaster, there is a fall In the Hockhocking of

feet. Above the fall for a short distance, the creek

mw and straight forming a neck, while at the falls it

idens on eacli side and swells into the appearance of the

ottle. The whole, when seen from aliove, appears exactly

shape of a bottle, and from this fact the Indians called the


 * k-hock-ing.'' — Howti's Collections.

���pal chief of that tribe. Another portion of the tribe then lived at Toby-town, nine miles west of Tarhe-town (now Royaltown), and was governed by an inferior chief called Toby. The chief's wig- wam in Tarhe stood on the bank of the prairie, near a beautiful and abundant spring of water, whose outlet was the river. The wigwams of the Indians were built of the bark of trees, set on poles, in the form of a sugar camp, with one square open, fronting a fire, and about the height of a man. The Wyandot tribe that day numbered about 500 warriors. By the treaty of Greenville, they ceded all their territory, and the majority, un- der their chief, removed to Upper Sandusky. The remainder lingered awhile, loath to leave the home of their ancestors, but as game became scarce, they, too, left for better hunting-grounds."*

In April, 1798, Capt. Joseph Hunter, a bold, enterprising man, settled on Zane's trace, on the bank of the prairie, west of the crossings, at a place since known as "Hunter's settlement." For a time, he had no neighbors nearer than the set- tlers on the Muskingum and Scioto Rivers. He lived to see the country he had found a wilderness, full of the homes of industry. His wife was the first white woman that settled in the valley, and shared with him all the privations of a pioneer life.

Mr. Hunter had not been long in the valley till he was joined by Nathaniel Wilson, John and Al- len Green, John and Joseph McMullen, Robert Cooper, Isaac Shaefer, and a few others, who erected cabins and planted corn. The next year, the tide of emigration came in with great force. In the spring, two settlements were made in Green- field Township, each settlement containing twenty or more families. One was called the Forks of the Hockhocking, the other, Yankeetown. Set- tlements were also made along the river below Hunter's, on Rush Creek, Raccoon and Indian Creeks, Ple;isant Run, Felter's Run, at Tobeytown, Muddy Prairie, and on Clear Creek. In the fiill, — 1799 — Joseph Loveland and Hezekiah Smith, built a log grist-mill at the Upper Falls of the Hockhocking, afterward known as Rock Mill. This was the first mill on this river. In the latter part of the year, a mail route was established over the trace. The mail was carried through on horse- back, and, in the settlements in this locality, was left at the cabin of Samuel Coates, who lived on the prairie at the crossings of the river.


 * Lecture of George Anderson. — Howe's Collections.

�� �