Page:Women of Ohio; a record of their achievements in the history of the state (Vol. I).djvu/54

50 Sarah was a religious girl, for all that she had been the belle of so many gay parties in her ancestral home. So after Lucas had completed her brick house, he built her a brick church. This was in 1811.

He presented it, of course, to the congregation which had 13 members and constituted the First Presbyterian Church of the community. Dr. James Hoge, a young Virginian of fine old family who abandoned ease and plenty to become an itinerant missionary was pastor.

Lucas also gave Sarah four children. That she might face the ordeal of her first baby without terror, he induced a doctor to ride all the way from Chillicothe, 50 miles away, and await the advent for three weeks.

But do not think that Sarah Sullivant escaped altogether the perils and deprivations inseparable from the life of the pioneer. Once a tall half breed, inflamed with anger because he thought he had been short changed in the matter of certain yards of calico, caught her by the hair and pressed his hunting knife against her heart. A faithful servant rushed to the rescue and before he could be worsted, Lucas—for Lucas Sullivant always reached the right spot at the right moment— disarmed the drunken brute and gave him a good thrashing, then and there.

Sarah is said to have been a "ministering angel" to soldiers sent to Franklinton under William Henry Harrison in the war of 1812.

And after all, life was none too easy. In any case, Sarah Sullivant died at the age of 34, leaving four children, William Starling, Micheal Lucas, Joseph and Sarah Anne. The last named passed away soon after the mother but the other three lived and throve, married, begot fine and efficient children and left an indelible imprint on the entire region that is cherished to this very day.

KATHERINE DEARDURFF, born in Northern Germany, whence she brought to this country chests well filled with fine German linen, chinaware and a tailor’s “goose,” was the wife of Abraham Deardurff. They reached the settlement of Franklinton in October, 1798, to take up their ownership of 10 acres of bottom land obtained by Abraham through barter of his varied stock on a previous venture to the wilderness.

They travelled to the new home by oxcart and later Abraham utilized his knowledge of the territory to carry mail and continue his merchandising trade. Katherine did not mind hard work but she could not endure Indians. Once when she was outside her cabin hulling hominy, she looked up to see a redskin staring hungrily at her hominy tub. Katherine made the house in record time, slammed and bolted the door, then proceeded to scream to her heart’s content. But her men did not return until nightfall.

Then they made an investigation. In the woodshed they discovered a huge deer and a bundle of muskrat hides that the maligned and misunderstood Indian had left in lieu of the meal of hominy his mouth had so watered for.