settlement, settled and built his cabin men, and passing down the hill, since on what is now known as the old Pavey occupied by the residence of Beverly place, across the creek from Leesburg. Milliner, Pope gained on the Indian, but The same fall James Howard moved when they came to the creek the Indian in and built his cabin on the hill near ran straight through, while Pope made a the trace to Chillicothe, on what is now slight curve to a riffle, after which the the site of the town of Leesburg. This Indian gradually gained ground, and constituted the entire settlement, ex- finally reached the place where the dogs cept their Indian neighbors, who were had the bear treed about the same time encamped in large numbers all along as Pope, but as the Indians like to save Rattlesnake as far down as the mouth powder by getting close to the mark, of Fall creek. They were almost daily while he was creeping up to get a good visitors at the little settlement, and shot Pope took rest against a tree and frequently joined the whites in hunt- fired first. The bear came down badly ing. The small patches of corn which wounded, and a desperate fight with the the new-comers had planted having dogs ensued at the foot of the tree. At been gathered, but little remained, af- length the bear caught a favorite dog ter preparing their cabins for winter, and was killing him. Pope signed to but hunting. Some corn was packed the Indian, who was nearest, to rush in to the mill at New Amsterdam and a and tomahawk the bear, but he refused, pretty good supply of meal thus provid- simply saying "White man." So Pope ed, which, aided by the liberal supplies rushed into the fight to save his dog, of hominy pounded of nights and bad and by bravery and good luck succeeded days, and the small grists ground on a in tomahawking and knifing the bear hand mill, which indispensable instru- until he was dead. They then skinned ment in those days was found in almost him, and giving the Indian as much of every cabin, enabled them to pass the the meat as he chose to take, they partwinter in comparative abundance. Log ed on the best of terms, often to meet cabins at that time were far from com- again as friends and enjoy the sport fortless. As a general thing their inmates were robust and healthy, and their wants were limited to the absolute necessities of life, which reasonable industry never failed to supply. Bear and buffalo skins furnished warm and pleasant beds; the surrounding forest supplied the ample fire-place, and the rich odor of the johnny-cake and the broiled venison was quite as inviting to the backwoodsman then, as is the richest and most varied repast to the votary of ease and luxury at the present day.

Many of the Indians became quite social, and as they acquired a little English, or the settlers learned some words of their language, grew quite communicative. They pointed out, when on hunting expeditions on the banks of Lees creek, Rattlesnake, Hardins and Fall creek, trees where they had secured prisoners in former times. One day late in the fall, as the Popes were hunting on the waters of Hardins creek, the dogs started a bear, which ran within hearing of an Indian camp. The dogs of the Indian joined in the chase. The Popes were on horseback following the dogs. The Indian met them on foot, gun in hand, and intimated, half by gestures and half by words, that he would like to join in the sport if one of the whites would dismount and thus place himself upon an equal footing with the Indian. William Pope readily accepted the banter, and he and the Shawnee started on foot. They soon got ahead of the horse

which the widespread and unbroken forest of Hardins creek then furnished in the greatest abundance.

Nothing of note occurred at the New Market settlement during the fall and winter of 1800. No new-comers arrived, and those who were there had an abundance of the substantial necessaries of life. So they enjoyed themselves as backwoodsmen, free from all the restraints of polished society, usually do.

In the early part of the spring of 1801 James B. Finley moved up from Chillicothe and settled on a tract of land recently purchased by his father on the banks of Whiteoak creek. He built his cabin near the present residence of Judge Johnson, and resolved to follow the occupation of a hunter. Mr. Finley says he had just married, and his fatherin-law being dissatisfied with his daughter's choice, did not even allow her to take her clothes. So Finley, having nothing himself, the couple set out fully prepared to realize the glories of "love in a cottage." With the aid of his brother John he got his cabin built, into which he moved, so to speak, for he says he had neither bed, bedding, bag, baggage, cow or horse, pig, cat, nor anything but a wife, gun, dog and axe. In order to get a bed he resorted to the not unusual expedient in those days, af gathering leaves and drying them in the sun, to be used in a tick instead of feathers or straw. For a bedstead he drove forks into the floor of the cabin,

About

Christmas they made their turkey hunt, and killed large numbers of them. To preserve them for summer use they cleaned them, cut them in two, and after salting them in troughs, hung them up to dry. In summer they cooked them in bear's oil. The dry breasts stewed in bear's oil became a good substitute for bread, which was then a rarity, the nearest mill being thirty miles distant. John Davidson, when he first settled on Whiteoak, had to buy corn and pack it as far as twenty miles. On one occasion he could find no corn nearer than the Cherry fork of Brushcreek, in Adams county, which he brought home, then he mounted two of his sons, Col. Wm. Davidson being one of them, with it on pack-horses and sent them to the mills at the falls of Paint to have it ground. When the boys reached the mill they found they could not get grinding under three days. So they returned, and Mr. Davidson went for the meal himself, making the whole distanee traveled to get the corn and meal 160 miles.

which, like its lining and roof, was of good mast, and bears were so plentiful bark-then laid poles across, which he that it was not necessary to go far from covered with bark. On this superstruc- the settlement to find them. ture the tick full of nice clean leaves was placed, which with bear skins for covering, furnished quite a comfortable bed. This done, the next thing was to provide something to eat. Of meat Finley's rifle furnished an abundant supply, but some bread was occasionally desired. So he went to the New Market neighborhood and cut and split one hundred rails for a bushel of potatoes, which he carried home on his back, a distance of six miles. At the same place he worked a day for a hen and three chickens, which he put in his hunting-shirt and carried home. Having neither horse or plow, he went into a plum bottom near the cabin and with his axe grubbed and cleared off about an acre and a half, in which he dug holes and planted corn, without any fence around it. This patch he cultivated as well as he could, and was rewarded with a crop of nearly a hundred bushels. During the summer he, with the help of his wife, put up a neat cabin, and made it close and warm for winter quarters. In order to give additional warmth to it, when he husked out his corn he carried and put it on the loft. Thus comfortably fixed, he marked the approach of winter with indifference, for, although he had no meal for bread, hominy, bear's meat and venison were abundant, and, he says, no couple on earth lived happier or more contented than he and his wife in their snug little cabin in the midst of the woods. Indians often called on him, and frequently stayed all night.

In the fall Robert W. Finley and his family, consisting of John, William, Samuel and Robert, jr., moved up and settled near James, and shortly after John Davidson, with his family, weary of the sickly valley of the Scioto, left the neighborhood of Chillicothe and settled on Whiteoak in the vicinity of the Finleys. Mr. Davidson had removed from Fayette county, Ky., to Chillicothe in 1797. The settlement on Whiteoak now numbered some fifteen persons, who being of necessity social in their intercourse, and all the males who were old enough hunters, but little rivalry, except in the chase, was known. The generous hospitality characteristic of pioneer days was common to all, and when any one wanted help all were ready to aid him to the utmost extent of their power. The greater part of the winter was spent in hunting, and a store of summer provisions thus laid up. The bear was the most valuable, and therefore most generally hunted. That fall there was a

Another great difficulty experienced by all settlers in Southern Ohio at that day, and for many years after, was to procure salt, which sold enormously high-at the rate of four dollars for fifty pounds.

In backwoods currency it would require four buckskins, a large bear skin, or sixteen coon skins to pay for it. Often it could not be procured at any price, and the only mode by which the settlers could obtain it was by packing kettles on horses to the Scioto Salt Lick, and boiling the salt water themselves, otherwise they had to dispense with it entirely. In such cases they used strong hickory ashes to cure their meat.

The opening spring found the Finleys and their neighbors in good spirits, and the summer's work was entered upon under rather more favorable circumstances than was that of the preceding year by James B. They had procured plows sufficient for their wants, and also some other implements of agriculture. An abundant crop of corn in the fall rewarded their toil. The following winter was extremely severe, and the bears all holed up in the large poplar trees which abounded in that vicinity, so that this very important source of winter and summer supplies was almost out of the question. The Finleys, however, were bold and persevering hunters, and after considerable search they discovered a tree in which they supposed a bear was holed. They and the Davidsons cut the

tree, and sure enough there was the to take along for supper that night, as bear, which they killed. They contin- they expected to camp out. In the ued searching the timber and cutting course of the ride they shot a fine buck, trees till in the course of a week they which they dressed and hung up out of found and killed eleven bears, four of the reach of wolves. They also left them old ones. The largest one weighed their bear meat at the same place, inover four hundred pounds. Thus sup- tending to return and camp there. They plied, the winter passed quite pleasant- gathered their bags full of cat-tails, and ly. They spun and wove their own flax started about sundown to the camping for shirting, etc., and dressed skins for ground. On their way back they killed moccasins, breeches and hunting shirts, another bear, and having arrived at the and had to pay tribute to no Cæsar. ground and built a fire, they feasted on They had no musters, no courts, no road the deer, and in the morning breakfastworking, no tax collector, no squires, ed on the bear's teet, which had been constables, doctors or lawyers. Their roasting in the ashes all night. This is social life was governed by the law of regarded by old hunters as a great delikindness, and if a quarrel did occur the cacy. Some, however, prefer a roasted parties interested fought it out fist and bear's tail, and others the marrow from skull, and made friends when their the joint of a buffalo. wounds healed. It was not often that they had preaching the Finleys not at that time being in the church-but if a traveling minister did stop and preach all went to hear him. If the preaching was on a week day the men would go in their hunting-shirts, with their guns; if on Sunday, the guns were left at home, but the belt and knife were never forgotten.

The next fall several of the settlers, urged by their wives, went to a swamp at a considerable distance from the settlement to gather cat-tails to make beds, the leaf beds being about worn out. They had not gone many miles toward the swamp when their dogs started up a bear, which soon treed. It remained there only a short time, however, before it let go and came down, when a frightful fight ensued. One of the Finleys sprang from his horse and ran in to help the dogs, and forgetting in his excitement to cock his gun, placed the muzzle against the bear and pulled the trigger, but it would not fire; so he threw it down, and taking his tomahawk was about to strike, when the bear broke loose from the dogs. They soon caught him again, and this time, being greatly enraged, it was in the act of killing one of the dogs, when one of the hunters reached the ground with nothing but his knife. He rushed in and thrust his knife in the side of the bear. At this it released the dog and caught the hunter by the leg. In his efforts to relieve himself he was thrown upon his back. The bear then made a vigorous attack upon the fallen hunter. It was a frightful situation; but the dogs, true as steel, though badly wounded, rushed to the rescue and succeeded in releasing the hunter, who regained his feet, infinitely worse scared than hurt, and soon dispatched the enemy. They skinned the bear, and selected the choice parts

James B. Finley says that in order to repair a pecuniary loss sustained by going security for a friend at Chillicothe, he spent a whole winter hunting on Whiteoak, most of which time he lay out at night before his camp-fire, wrapped in skins. He slew a large number of bears, selling the skins in the spring at from three to seven dollars eagh.

In the fall of 1800 Thomas McCoy emigrated, with his wife and child on a pack-horse and he on foot, rifle on shoulder, from Bourbon county, Ky., to the Cherry fork of Brushcreek. Early the next spring he moved to the west fork of Brushcreek and built a cabin and settled down on the farm now owned by the heirs of John Haigh, near the site of the present town of Belfast, then in Adams county. There were at that time no inhabitants in that vicinity nearer than the settlement on Flat Run, which consisted of George Campbell, Stephen Clark, Philip Noland, Levin Wheeler and William Paris and their families. This settlement had been made some two or three years. Stephen Clark was the first settler on Flat Run. Mr. McCoy, who is now a very old man, says: "In those days in order to build a log cabin, we had to collect help from five or six miles around and could get but few hands at that. Often our women would turn out and assist us in rolling and raising our cabins. But I can say that we enjoyed ourselves with our hard labor and humble fare, although deprived of many of the necessaries of life. I had to go twenty-seven miles for two bushels of corn and pay three shillings and six-pence per bushel. This was the spring after I settled on the west fork of Brush Creek. The wolves were so bad that neither sheep nor hogs could be raised. Game was, however, abundant and the settlers could always rely upon that for meat,"

.

CHAPTER XV.

A SETTLEMENT IS MADE ON ROCKY FORK, AND "SMOKY ROW" IS LAID OUT— JOHN PORTER'S GRIST MILL-POPE CUTS HIS WHEAT-DEATH OF THOMAS BEALS-ELIJAH KIRKPATRICK, LEWIS SUMMERS, GEORGE ROW, JOSEPH MEYERS, ISAAC LAMAN AND GEORGE CALEY COME TO NEW MARKET— ADAM LANCE, GEORGE FENDER AND ISAIAH ROBERTS JOIN THE FINLEYS ON WHITEOAK-THE VAN METERS SETTLE ON THE EAST FORK-ROBERT AND TARY TEMPLIN SETTLE ON LITTLE ROCKY FORK, AND SIMON SHOEMAKER, FREDERICK BROUCHER AND TIMOTHY MARSHON LOCATE AT SINKING SPRINGS-ADAM MEDSKER AND ROBERT BRANSON ARE BURIED AT NEW MARKET-BENJAMIN CARR, SAMUEL BUTLER, EVAN EVANS, EDWARD WRIGHT AND WILLIAM LUPTON SETTLE ABOUT LEESBURG LUPTON BUILDS THE FIRST SAW MILL AND JAMES HOWARD THE FIRST CORN MILL IN THAT NEIGHBORHOOD-THE FRIENDS ERECT A MEETING HOUSE, WHILE MRS. BALLARD IS THE FIRST TO BE BURIED IN THE GRAVEYARD.

Late in November, 1799, one Mareshah that Peggy determined to do as she Llewellyn pitched his tent on the banks pleased in the trifle of marrying. So of the Rocky Fork, two miles south of where Hillsborough now stands. He had set out from the pine hills, near the Catawba River, North Carolina, early in the preceding March for the Northwestern Territory with the double purpose of finding more productive land and better hunting grounds. Llewellyn was of 'Welsh origin, his ancestors having emigrated to America during the time of Charles II, and gradually as their wild and roving inclination predominated in any of the lineal descendants, the family name worked itself back from the shores of the Chesapeake into the almost desert of sands, swamps and pines which characterizes a large part of the "old North State." The inhabitants of this region are, or rather were, at the time of which we speak, sixty years ago, very poor and as a general thing depended much upon hunting in the mountains bordering Eastern Tennessee. They, however, retained many of the follies which their ancestors had brought with them from the old country, not the least of which was that of family pride.

Llewellyn was a young man of twentythree or four, stout, hearty and not bad looking for the region in which he had the fortune to grow, but all these good qualities could not overcome the deep seated prejudice of old George Smith, whose daughter Peggy he hoped to have peaceful permission to marry. Smith was an Englishman and despised the Welsh and constantly swore he would shoot his daughter's suitor if he ever caught him in the vicinity of his cabin. The very natural result of all this was

she and the Welshman stole a march on the old man while he was attending as a witness at Rutherford Court House, and packing their worldly goods on a pretty stout old horse, which Mareshah happened to buy on a long credit, they set off one bright moonlight night for Tennessee. After two weeks pretty brisk traveling they reached Elizabethtown, on the head waters of the Holston, where they were legally married. From this place they pushed on to Kentucky, camping out of course at night. Llewellyn did some successful hunting as he passed along, frequently stopping two or three weeks at a good point for that purpose, and thus supplied the wants of himself and wife. The skins he saved for market, which, by the time he reached Boonville, on the Kentucky River, had accumulated to a pretty good horse load. So he and his wife of course had to walk. They spent some time at Boonville, where he exchanged his bear and deer skins for some necessaries, not the least of which was a strong and large iron handmill for grinding corn. Again they set out for the North, but by the time they reached the Blue Licks the horse's back had become very sore and the weather so excessively warm, that they, as well as the horse, were about tired out, so they stopped and took employment with some men who were boiling salt at the Licks. They continued thus employed until the first of October, when they again bundled up, adding a small sack of salt to the saddle, and started North, crossing the river at Limestone. After a few days travel they

ever collected together this side of their native Island. Their names were Alexander Fullerton, John Porter, Samuel McQuitty, William Ray, William and James Boyd, James Farrier, Hector Murphy and Alexander Carrington. "A little stream"-in the language of a gentleman of New Market, who furnished this information-"bearing the classic name of Smoky Row-in the memory of a cherished locality in sweet Ireland

wended lazily through the lane of John Porter, who was moved to profit thereby. John, in the course of a few years, set about building thereon a grist mill of most singular construction and when it was completed greatly rejoiced thereat; and as he viewed its zigzag walls and peculiar adaption to the object for which it was designed, Nebuchadnezzar, when viewing his capital and exclaiming, 'Is this great Babylon which I have built,' could not have felt a greater swell of pride. A thunder gust was seen forming itself in the West, affording a prospect of speedily trying the capacity of the mill for business. A sack of corn was dashed into the hopper -a jug of whisky worthy the occasion was speedily procured and all things made ready-when the winds blew and the rain descended and the flood came of such unusual height, that at one mad rush the dam, the mill, the race and all were swept. John hastily snatching up the jug and leaping from the floating wreck to the bank, waved high his jug in defiance of the storm and mingled his shout and huzza with the roar of the thunder and the flood. Mr. John Porter was not, however, the man to quail before adversity, so he rallied his energies and built a horse mill, which he kept in good repair till the year 1812, when he volunteered to fight the British and lost his life at the battle of Brownstown."

stopped, struck a camp and Llewellyn Market by a jolly set of Irishmen as took a two weeks' hunt. Not meeting the success, however, he had anticipated, he determined to move further to the North, as there were some settlers scattered at intervals of eight and ten miles in the region in which he then was. They passed on, looking out more for hunting than farming grounds, until they reached the banks of Buckrun, named for the great quantity of deer which early herded in the region through which it flows, where they again stopped for some weeks. His success was pretty satisfactory here, but he, one day, discovered the smoke of a cabin in his range on Flatrun and concluded that the locality was rather too hampered for good winter hunting. So he pulled up stakes and pushed out farther to the northward and did not halt, except for rest at night, till he arrived at the Rocky Fork. This region seemed to promise freedom from interruption, as well as good hunting, and he determined to stop and construct a camp for winter. He accordingly selected a site on the sunny side of a thickly wooded hill, near a good spring, and put up a half faced camp of poles; fixed up the spring with a bark spout, and settled down for the winter. This was the first settlement made on the Rocky Fork and was on the west side of the present road leading to Hillsborough, known as the old West Union road, about three hundred yards north of the creek. In the spring Llewellyn cleared out a small corn patch south of his house and raised corn, pumpkins, &c. During the summer, having concluded to stay awhile longer at this place, he went to work and built a cabin. In the fall he gathered his corn and ground meal on his hand mill for bread, which was a great luxury, being the first they had tasted since they left Kentucky. In the course of the next two years Wm. Dougherty, James Smith, Job Smith, Robert Bran son, George Weaver and George Caw settled in the neighborhood of Llewellyn, who still continued to hunt and grind corn on his hand mill for the new settlers. Robert Branson died in the summer of 1801. In the course of a few years, however, he grew weary of the mill business and as game had become rather scarce, he determined to move farther away from the settlement, and accordingly left. The remains of his house stood until within a few years, but it, together with the cabins and improvements of his neighbors, has entirely disappeared.

In the spring of 1801 Elijah Kirkpatrick moved from Chillicothe and settled with his family on Smoky Row. He was the first collector of taxes in Highland county. Lewis Summers moved into New Market from Pennsylvania early in the same spring, also George Row and Joseph Myers. No other persons moved during the summer.. In the fall Isaac Laman and his family moved out from Virginia and settled in the town, also George Caley. Nobody died in the town up to this time and there was no serious sickness. The first buryings at the New Market grave yard were Adam Medsker, who had recently In the fall of 1800 a settlement was moved into the neighborhood, and formed three or four miles south of New Robert Branson, from the Rocky Fork,