Hart selecting ears of corn as he husked the successful candidate, G. W. Barrere. and laying them on one side till he got an armful of tolerably hard corn. This he took to a log near them and putting it in a large notch in the log, commenced pounding the grains off, for they would not shell the ordinary way. He continued on pounding the grain until he reduced it to something like meal, which he gathered out and carried into the cabin.

When the husking was done the hands were invited in to supper. They entered the cabin which was most primitive in all its appointments. All along the sides were piled up the carcasses of deer, some of which were so old that they looked as dark as an old saddle skirt, while the entire floor was carpeted with deer skins, hair up. By the fire, when the company entered, sat the old woman-Hart's wife, who was said to be part Indian, on a kind of pillow made of buck skin and filled with deer hair. She was a cripple and sat close to the fire baking hoe cakes of the meal young Hart had pounded in the notch, on an oven lid. The first thing which struck Moses after this was the little cloud of deer hair-which is naturally very light -rising from the floor and floating, by the draft of the chimney, over the bak ing bread. How much fell on it he did not discover. The supper consisted of boiled venison and these hoe cakes. Fortunately for the stomachs of the huskers they had become very hungry, and were, therefore, able to bolt sufficient to satisfy their appetites for a time. The old man Tomlinson frequently bought venison of Hart, who sold it at thirty-seven and a half cents a carcass. The Tomlinsons got permission to grind their corn on Joseph Spargur's hand mill. It was double rigged, and two could work at a time. The boys, who had to work it themselves, soon discovered that the coarser the mill was set the easier it worked. So they frequently ground the meal so coarse that it would almost do to shoot woodpeckers. There was a wonderful beech mast on the creek (Rocky Fork) that year and wild turkeys were very fat and abundant. A horse load could be obtained in a short time. That year in December was the celebrated "cool Friday," so memorable to early settlers.

From information communicated to him by citizens of New Market, Head was induced to believe that a number of illegal votes had been polled in that township for Barrere, sufficient, if purged from the ballot box, to leave him the highest number of legal votes in the county. He accordingly took all the necessary steps to contest Barrere's right to the office, but after considerable expense and trouble, failed-Barrere being declared legally elected.

The first Pottery established in Highland was in 1806, by Richard Iliff, at what is now known as the Eagle Spring, a mile southwest of the Court House. Iliff was a Pennsylvanian and emigrated to the "high banks of the Scioto" two years before, and established a Pottery there, but was so much afflicted with fever and ague that he abandoned the enterprise in that region and took his course up the Rocky Fork to his brother-in-law's, James Smith. After recruiting his health, Iliff "squatted" at the Eagle Spring, having selected that point for its vicinity to a bed of good potter's clay. He erected the necessary buildings of light logs, and then moulded and burned the first brick made in the county, (summer of 1806,) to build his kiln to bake the crocks. Having cleared off some ground and planted corn and fenced it all-pottery and corn field-with a substantial brush fence, he commenced making crocks for the new comers. He was an odd looking, though esteemed a clever, worthy man, being six feet four inches in his socks, and as gaunt and slender as a fence rail. This establishment soon became a place of considerable note, and Iliff drove a flourishing business. He continued his Pottery there until Hillsborough was located and something of a town of cabins built; he then "moved into town," and established his Pottery on the ground now occupied by the depot. Amariah Gossett learned his trade with Iliff, whilst he carried on at the Spring. Gossett, previous to this, had been following the business of sawing plank with a "whip saw." The reader has been already told that there were no saw mills up to this date in the country-that all the boards used in Josiah Tomlinson and his family were the construction of the rude cabins of the Society of Friends, known as were split from the solid timber. Quakers. He has long since been dead. When, however, as the country grew a The first contested election in High- little older and some one fancied a land county was that of County Com- hewed log house would be more remissioner. At the election in October, spectable, if not more comfortable than 1806, Bigger Head, one of the candidates, the old cabin, he had to make arrangewas found to be only a few votes behind ments for plank. To meet this demand

one corner of this capacious kitchen. The main building, on the lower floor, was generally cut near the center, by a tight plank partition, the back of which was again divided by another partition, making two bed rooms. A stairway led to the upper story, which was generally in one large room, and used for quiltings, sleeping apartments for the children, &c. These houses were very durable and in their day the best in the county.

William Vannoy, with his widowed mother and her children, moved up from Adams county into Highland and settled on Brushcreek in the spring of 1806. His father, John Vannoy, moved out from Kentucky and settled in Adams county in 1804,

The

the whip saw-the pioneer of saws in this county-was put in requisition and Gossett, though comparatively a boy, engaged in the laborious business. He had assisted an Irishman by the name of McCauley to saw the plank necessary for his father's mill. After this he formed a partnership with McCauley to go over the country with the whip saw and cut timber for whoever might want their services. The first place they went was to Hector Mur phy's on Smoky Row. He was building a large two story log house and Gossett & McCauley contracted for the plank. They sawed two thousand feet, all cherry. They were able, by hard work, to cut two hundred feet per day, for which they received two dollars per hundred. Their next contract was Jacob Barnes and wife, John Barnes at David Jolly's, where they sawed two and family, and Michael Dugan arrived thousand feet, principally cherry, for at New Market, in Highland county, on his two story log house. They also the 10th day of June, 1806. sawed for Moses Patterson and other Barneses were natives of Berkley counof the citizens of that day who erected ty, Virginia, where Jacob was married the very peculiar hewed log two story in 1805. Soon after this he started for houses so common in this county fifty the West. He packed his little properyears ago. But few of this style of ty on a horse, Mrs. Barnes walking and house now remain in the county. It riding, as it suited best, her husband marked the third step in improvement walking and carrying his rifle. They of dwellings. These houses were built thus arrived at the Redstone settleof heavy, well hewed oak logs, notched ment in the fall of 1805. In the spring down pretty close, corners sawed off they were joined here by John Barnes square and neat-chinked with stone and family and they all came down the and daubed with pure white lime in- river to Manchester in a little flat boat. side and out. The exterior of one of John Barnes. settled about six miles these houses, after the logs had black- northwest of New Market, where he ened with the weather, presented a continued a very worthy citizen and pretty and novel striped appearance, as reared a large family. Jacob Barnes it stood in all its great strength, prom- was a member of Capt. G. W. Barrere's ising much comfort and good cheer, on Company in the war of 1812. the brow of the hill near the spring, half concealed from the road by the graceful forms of native sugar, elm and ash, with a back ground of young apples tree, and rugged fields full of stumps and dead timber. They were "underpinned" with stone, pointed with lime neatly. The chimney was also of stone generally a stack-pointed with lime. The doors and windows were cased with cherry plank-floors of ash plank, laid down tight, and white as snow. The upper floor was tightly laid down on very neatly dressed joists, beaded on the lower side. These joists were generally made of cherry. The roof was of lap shingles, and hearth of flag stones. The main house was two stories, at the end of which, and joined to it, was the kitchen, which was only one story. In this the cooking was done in a stone fire place, eight feet long, three deep and five high. The loom, which was still a necessary implement in every farm house, stood in

The first blacksmith shop established in the town of New Market was by George Charles. Old Mrs. Bloom, Christian Bloom's wife, made the ginger bread for the people in the early days of the ancient capital of Highland. Fritz Miller commenced tailoring in New Market and was the first tailor there, as well as the first merchant, after he closed his store. He was much esteemed as a cutter and maker of buckskin breeches, and had an extensive run of custom. In later years, for he stuck to tailoring the remainder of his life, after buckskin became rather unfashionable in town, he went round the country "whipping the cat," as it was termed, which means doing the tailoring of a family at the house and then going to the next. He found plenty of work on buckskins among the farmers, and was perhaps the last man in the county who made a scientific pair of buckskin breeches.

During this year Samuel Hindman

In 1806 or '07 Asa Hunt, a Quaker who came out from North Carolina a year before, erected a small water mill at the falls of Swearingen's branch, where he lived. This mill afforded considerable accommodation to the neighborhood.

was elected an additional Justice of a mortar with an iron wedge fastened the Peace for New Market township. to a pestle, a most laborious process. John Davidson was a Constable for At the spring at which the Trimbles New Market township this year (1806). settled there was quite a fall in the The first school taught in Liberty branch-perhaps as much as twelve township was in a little log school feet in the one hundred yards. This house on the land of Samuel Evans in suggested the idea to Allen Trimble of the winter of 1805-06, and John Mat- a hominy mill by water, and he went thews was the teacher. to work and constructed one, which, though cheap and simple, was efficient and constant at its work day and night, supplying the family as well as many of their neighbors, with their daily mess. This little mill is thus described by one who remembers it: "The water was conducted from the spring along the bank of the branch, on a level, to a point below, where there was sufficient fall, and then by a trough elevated on forks at right angles with the main channel, it was conducted into a sugar trough on the end of a sweep, which being filled, bore down that end of the sweep, which like a see-saw elevated the opposite end, to which was attached a pestle that played in a mortar block filled with a peck or a half bushel of corn." Slow and regular as the beat of the pendulum, the hominy mill did its work-day and night, turning out in good order this great necessary of the early settler.

Shortly after this Amos Evans erected a small tub mill on Clear Creek, near his house, where the bare footed boys from all quarters were almost weekly seen waiting the slow process of cracking the corn into hominy or meal as was required. Old Edward Chaney was the miller, who always had a kind and cheerful word for the boys, frequently entertaining them with a game of "fox and geese," with grains of corn, while their grist was Jazily passing out of the hopper.

Hominy in the winter in the early days on Clear Creek was almost indispensable and to prepare it in good style by pounding in the usual way in

CHAPTER XXVIII.

COMMON PLEAS COURT RECORDS-ESTABLISHMENT OF A PERMANENT SEAT OF JUSTICE FOR HIGHLAND COUNTY-NAMES OF MALE INHABITANTS OVER TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF AGE.

The first term of the Highland Com- ginia, and settled at Chillicothe as a mon Pleas for the year 1807, is thus re- lawyer. After serving two years as corded: "At a Court of Common Pleas Judge he became satisfied that an inbegun and held in the town of New veterate habit of gambling, which he Market, on the 25th day of February, had contracted, and which had grown one thousand eight hundred and seven, into a passion, absorbing his whole present the Honorable Leven Belt, thoughts, and which he either had not Esquire, President, Richard Evans, the power or inclination to control, Jonathan Berryman and John David- utterly disqualified him for the duties son, Esqs., Associate Judges." This of a Judge. It is said he would sit up term of Court lasted two days, during all night, night after night, during a which a number of small cases, chiefly term of Court, gaming, and even adof a criminal nature, were disposed of. journ Court for that purpose. He Judge Belt was elected the preceding went back to the bar, and soon after session of the Legislature to fill the moved to Lancaster, where he entered vacancy occasioned by the resignation upon a lucrative practice. Judge of Judge Slaughter. Slaughter was a Slaughter represented Fairfield county young man at that day of much in the State Legislature several sespromise. He had emigrated from Vir- sions afterwards and was esteemed an

New Market men, were much inclined ed to suspend business on account of to crow over their defeated antagonists the frightful uproar out doors. He orof the past two years. Considerable dered the Sheriff to command the peace ill blood had existed for some time on and to arrest the offenders. But the both sides, and more than one severe order was far easier made than execufight had occurred, when the parties ted. Maj. Franklin, the Sheriff, made met at Courts and other gatherings. an effort, but found some hundred or On this occasion the New Marketers more stout, bloody and infuriated men bore the taunts of the Clear Creekers included in the order and no one to asthe first day, but not with a very good sist. He saw the game had to be playgrace, and it was manifest that a storm ed out then and he wisely desisted. was brewing and that the slightest ag- The battle finally was over and neither gravation of provocations already ex- party positively claiming the victory, isting might bring on a general fight though all more or less wounded, the between the factions. Court concluded, in view of the fact On the second and last day of the that there was but one new well in term, in the afternoon, shortly after town, and that of limited dimensions, Court met, a wrestling match, which to countermand their order and let the had been previously made up between whole affair pass as a grand but terria New Market man and a Clear Creek ble exhibition of Highland chivalry man for the purpose, as it was said, to and courage, equal, as the presiding settle the long mooted question as to Judge remarked, to twenty Spanish which faction was composed of the bull fights. best men. The question was thought It appears that the Commissioners important, and its decision, in a con- appointed by the Legislature at the Sesclusive manner, was considered neces- sion of 1805, to establish the permanent sary at that time, Wrestling was seat of justice for Highland county, adopted for the plain reason that it having performed their required duties, would not do to get up a deliberate during the following spring, returned fight whilst the Court was in session, their report to the Secretary of State at with the terrors of Barrere's new well Chillicothe, to await the action of the staring them full in the face. So the next Legislature. During the session of two champions, Dana for Clear Creek 1806 action was taken by the Legislaand Gibler for New Market, entered the ring formed of their friends, in the street immediately in front of the bar room in which the Court was sitting.

ture on the report, and the proceedings of the Commissioners approved and confirmed, by a special act establishing permanently the county seat.

Gibler was the stoutest man, and the The point selected by the CommisNew Market men were sanguine in the sioners after a careful and thorough triumph of their party. After a most survey of the county, was believed to be desperate struggle they fell, but Dana as near the center as practicable, though was on top. At this unexpected re- lying somewhat north of the actual censult the Clear Creek men shouted like ter, which was then ascertained to be in savages and gave the well known war a large bog near the Rocky Fork, southwhoop. When Gibler rose, mortified west of the site selected near two miles, and maddened by the crowing of the on land afterward owned by J. M. opposite party, he instantly struck Trimble. Dana and knocked him down. At A strong inclination was manifested this, "Billy" Hill, quick as lightning, by the Commissioners to establish the knocked down Gibler. Hill, in his county seat at what is now known as turn, was instantly knocked down by the Eagle Spring, as being near the cenBordon, when "Jo." Swearingen pitch- ter, and already somewhat improved by ed in, and knocked down some five or the residence, clearing and pottery of six New Marketers, in such rapid suc- Iliff. But the ground was not thought cession that the first had hardly risen to be as well adapted to the purpose as when the last fell. The whole crowd the beautiful ridge near a mile northhad by this time engaged in a general east, which was at length wisely selectfight, and such a scene of knocking ed and reported. down was never witnessed in New Market, nor perhaps in Ohio, before or since. Swearingen was remarkably stout and very active, and he plied himself so dexterously as greatly to damage the enemy without receiving a scratch himself.

His Honor, Judge Belt, was compell

The site thus chosen for the future capital of Highland, lay immediately on the trace from New Market to Clear Creek. It was therefore well known to most of the citizens of the county, and regarded by the most tasteful and intelligent as the true place for the county town. The ridge was known as the