Chapter 1 History of Springdale, Ohio

CHAPTER ONE

WHITE SETTLEMENT

The end of the Revolutionary War signaled the end of British controls on settlement west of the Alleghenies and for the first time opened up the newly acquired lands in the Northwest Territory. This vast territory, considered by the British an important way to maintain peace with Native American groups, was viewed by Americans as a source of almost unlimited opportunity for wealth and property. Rich fertile lands and abundant natural resources beckoned farmers and their families to leave their homes in crowded, and expensive, eastern states. Revolutionary War veterans returned to their stony barren farms with federal certificates from an impoverished American government. Virtually worthless, these certificates had but one real value, which was to purchase land warrants in the new west.

In a major effort to pay off its war debts, the American government facilitated the sale and settlement of new western lands with the creation of the Northwest Ordinance in July 1787. One year earlier, New Jersey trader and Revolutionary War veteran Benjamin Stites stumbled upon the rich fertile lands of Southwestern Ohio while chasing down Indian horse thieves. Impressed, he enthusiastically encouraged other prospective land speculators, including his friend and New Jersey congressman Judge John Cleves Symmes, to travel down the Ohio River to see firsthand this land of unlimited possibilities.¹

Symmes, a man with a remarkable career already behind him, came back and immediately began negotiating to buy land from the federal government through the newly formed Ohio Company. On August 29, 1787, Symmes petitioned the Continental Congress for the purchase of two million acres of public lands between the Great and Little Miami Rivers in the Northwest Territory. Congress agreed to part with only one million acres negotiating a price of 66 2/3 cents an acre, payable in U.S. debt certificates. The final bill came to $571,437.60. On October 15, 1788, Symmes was granted a charter to develop the tract of land that became known as the Miami Purchase and reserved 40,000 acres for himself, his sole profit on the enterprise.²

Stimulated by the high cost of land and frequent articles in the New Jersey Journal, Symmes advertised his land during the latter months of 1787, inviting Revolutionary War veterans who still held land warrants and owners of federal certificates to redeem them for western land. Symmes invited the public to buy the land at his contract price until May 1, 1788. In early 1788, Symmes printed 3000 copies of the Trenton Circular which described the Miami lands as "unequalled, in point of quality of soil and excellence of climate, it lying in a latitude of about 38 degrees North, where the winters are moderate and no extreme heats in summer." Symmes may be forgiven for his hyperbole about the weather since at the time he had never spent a summer in southwestern Ohio. Despite this, his descriptions were quite accurate.³

Symmes determined to protect his lands from speculators who he felt had been "prejudicial to the population of the settlement of Kentucke...."⁴ He sold the land in quarter sections of 160 acres, but he stipulated that each purchaser had only two years to begin improvements. Symmes hoped thereby to prevent speculators from purchasing the land, waiting for the price to rise, and then profiting from subdividing it and selling it to others. According to Rev. James Kemper, one of his admirers, Symmes sought out farmers and their sons "as were of good religious character and induced them to come on immediately and improve the country." These settlers, according to Kemper, were a "poor lot" but "most respectable."⁵ Despite all of Symmes' efforts, his original purchase became a paradise for land speculators. With numerous agents selling land for him in both New Jersey and Ohio, often without establishing legal title to the lands, and with no provision made for an official land registrar to keep track of sales, Symmes became embroiled in tangled legal battles over land titles that hounded him for the rest of his life. Further complications arose in February 1811 when a fire destroyed his home at North Bend, along with some of the original records.

The records that did survive illustrated how confusing the situation could be. For example, on July 24, 1796, William Chamberlain, who would later become one of Springdale's founding fathers, received permission to improve the forfeiture originally entered to George Kiekendall, who transferred it to John or Benjamin Cox for the use of Benjamin Cox, who was killed by Indians. Chamberlain was to take as his own and improve on-half of the section, the remainder to be held for Cox's heirs, but as of January 31, 1798, he had declined to make the improvements and the land was then deeded to John Jacobs.⁶

During the early years of settlement tensions between Native Americans who hunted the land that white settlers wanted to farm grew. Unlike the British who depended on the Indians to maintain peace with France, the federal government was determined to make these lands a part of a new American empire. By 1789, with defending the Miami Purchase a priority for the federal government, construction of a major fortification at Cincinnati was underway. Consisting of four "strongly-built" story-and-a-half cabins connected by stockades at four corner blockhouses and an enclosing fence on one acre of ground, Fort Washington, upon its completion in 1791, caused General Josiah Harmer to declare that the fort was "one of the most solid, substantial wood fortresses...of any in the Western Territory."

At first, the federal government tried to dictate is will upon the tribes but with no success. A second strategy was an attempt to buy the land from the Indians through treaty negotiations with the ultimate goal of eventually opening up all of the land west to the Mississippi River to white settlement. This effort, at first, was also unsuccessful. Despite the unsettled situation, settlers waiting in Fort Washington were anxious to escape the confines of the fort to start improving their lands. Slowly, tentatively, they moved northward in the direction of the Millcreek to smaller fortified settlements called stations. Usually consisting of "but a small number of men living with their families in a single blockhouse or in cabins about a central blockhouse" station settlements were fundamentally defensive communities.

Settling the land was a very dangerous enterprise, a danger sometimes increased by the poor judgment of the pioneers. In the spring of 1794, Luke Foster and Henry and John Tucker chose to locate their stockade, Pleasant Valley Station, on a line between section 4 and 10, near the center of the very trace Indians used on their travels.

From 1789 to 1795, Fort Washington, under the supervision of General Harmer and General Arthur St. Clair, was primarily an operational base for the campaigns against the Indians, many of whom were supported by the British. Because of the determination of Little Turtle, a Miami chief and leader of the Indian forces, to protect the rights of Native Americans, the first three years of the campaigns were ones of failure. The first campaign, led by General Harmer in 1790, was doomed from the start because of inadequately trained and inexperienced troop and 183 soldiers were killed. A second, and significantly larger expedition of 3000 men was organization in 1791 under the command of General St. Clair. An inept leader, St. Clair mounted a fall campaign which met with disaster when a surprise Indian attack killed many of his soldiers. Finally, under the command of General "Mad Anthony" Wayne, who trained his troops for a spring offensive, the Indians were defeated at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1795.

The Treaty of Greenville, negotiated shortly after the battle, defined a line of demarcation that opened most of Ohio and Southern Indiana to white settlement. Officially, the Indians were paid for the land that they lost, provided with restricted lands on which to live and a guaranteed right to hunt north of the Ohio River. In addition, these groups were expected to live more like white farmers. In reality, they were pushed farther west. For white settlers, the treaty effectively ended the Indian difficulties and for the first time encouraged massive migration into the area.

Sources indicate that many of the settlers around the area which became known as Springfield in 1806 were friends of John Cleves Symmes.⁷ Whether they knew him personally or by reputation, the "Jerseymen" certainly answered his call. They flocked to Springfield Township in general and particularly to Springfield village.⁸ Some of the earliest settlers were Dominicus Van Dyke II and his brother Peter, who settled in Springfield around 1795, and Harp Peterson and his family, who arrived from Monmouth Country around 1793.⁹ Numerous others followed. As late as 1850, 22 of 68 heads of families living in Springfield had been born in New Jersey.

Historic St. Mary's cemetery bears silent witness to the "Jerseymen," those Revolutionary War veterans and others who became part of the great migration into the Miami Purchase. Abraham Roll, who fought in the Revolutionary War along with his brothers John and Matthias, came to Ohio in 1805.¹⁰ His wife's relative, Samuel Vance, also served in that war as a lieutenant.

Private Cornelius Little fought with the Essex County, New Jersey militia against the British at the Battle of Monmouth. His sweetheart and future wife Martha, who lived nearby reportedly paced the floor for nine hours, refusing all food and drink, until the sound of cannon died away and her Cornelius returned to her side. In 1803, the Littles purchased land to the east of Springfield from former president John Adams, who had acquired it from Symmes, and continued their married life in a log cabin on the brow of a hill.¹¹

John Schooley was another veteran who established a prominent 19th century Springfield family. Jacob Skillman, a wagon master in Capt. William Davidson's company, bought his farm from Symmes in 1805,¹² then married General Luke Foster's daughter Abigail. Their five sons were very active in the Springfield Presbyterian Church.¹³

Veterans form other regions of the country also found the West alluring. Michael Long from Pennsylvania, known as "Black Mike," established a grist mill on the banks of the Millcreek to the south of Springfield. His family, through its marriage connections, became an extremely influential force in the area. The state of Virginia sent a number of her sons to Springfield. John Wilkinson came from Virginia, as did Robert and William Preston, also at rest in St. Mary's cemetery.

Typically, Springfield's first settlers were farmers. Judge Symmes' enticing description of the land lured men tired of trying to raise crops in New Jersey's increasingly depleted soil. But despite the attractions of the west and the shortcomings of the east, it took courage, initiative and ingenuity to uproot a family and undertake an arduous journey into the unknown.

There were two ways to travel west, overland and by river. Overland was the far less comfortable since initially the trail over the Allegheny Mountains was a foot or bridle path. A packhorse or pack mule carried the pioneers and their supplies. Later, when the road was widened, the settlers used Conestoga wagons. While these allowed the family to transport more their possessions, the rain-gullied road often broke down even these sturdy wagons. Horses and oxen were essential to pull the wagon, yet other animals were used in a pinch. One example was Thomas Sorter, his wife and three sons, who lost of their oxen while crossing the Alleghenies in 1810. Sorter simply pressed the family's milk cow into unaccustomed service and continued the trip. According to one account, after traveling in this manner for six months they arrived "careworn and weary at their destination."¹⁴ Just imagine the state of the poor cow!

The decision to make the journey required extreme courage combined with the real knowledge that some would not live through the long and arduous journey to the western lands. When Harp Peterson left Sandy Hook, New Jersey for the old Northwest in 1793, his family included a frail six-week-old infant named Sarah. Peterson held little hope that the sickly infant would survive the grueling trip. He prepared for that eventuality by purchasing a very small hair trunk to serve as the baby's coffin if she died on the way or be put to other practical uses if she did not. Happily, Sarah Peterson not only survived the long trip, but also the harsh life on the land her father bought from Judge Symmes just a mile southwest of Springfield. After outliving two husbands and seven children, she died February 24, 1883, just shy of her ninety-first birthday.¹⁵

Often pioneers to the Springfield area placed their possessions on a flatboat at Pittsburgh and took the much quicker journey down the Ohio River. At the end of the trip the boat could be broken down into planks and the planks hauled to one's home site where they became building materials. Teamsters met the boats in Cincinnati, prepared to haul planks and bedding, family, pots and the family Bible up the Great Road to Springfield.

While the long journey to the Northwest Territory took courage, cheap prices and even cheaper promises shored up faltering spirits. Whether they traveled overland by Conestoga wagon or down river by flatboat most settlers of Springfield discovered that their new home was all that they had been promised, and more. Dark, rich, loamy soil promised bumper crops. Forests of oak, buckeye, chestnut, sycamore, maple and pine provided building materials for cabins and barns, and firewood. Indeed, much of the land was so densely forested that many a man's arms must have ached at the very thought of clearing acreage sufficient to support a growing family.

Like other frontier settlers, those who moved to the Miami Country faced extreme hardship in the wilderness environment. Crude shelters or camps went up quickly to provide protection for families while they built sturdy cabins and cleared the land. New arrivals were encouraged through pamphlets and letters to bring "two axes, two grubbing hoes, two common hoes, a plow and harrow, a grindstone, a criss-cut saw, two guns with powder and shot and fishing tackle." Providing the basic necessities of survival took on great meaning in this new unsettled land as families adapted to a way of life that was unimaginably different from what they had known in the east. Upon her arrival in 1796, Francis Baily wrote "here I am in the wilds of America, away from the society of men, amidst the haunts of wild beasts and savages....housed in a hovel that in my own country would not be good enough for a pigstye."

Chopping down the virgin forest was just the first step in a long and physically arduous process. Only after the family chose the house site, rolled the logs, grubbed the land, and cut and burned the brush and weeds could the settler build his house and plant the first crop. For many years one style of architecture prevailed, the log cabin. The first cabins wore their natural bark, but later the settlers removed the bark before they notched and fitted the logs together. Finally, the settlers began to give their interiors a more finished appearance by adding lime to mortar clapboard blocks into the chinks between the logs. Combined with the pieces of clapboard nailed to the rafters, a smoother look was created on the walls and ceilings.¹⁶ The neighbors, if any lived nearby, helped cut and haul the logs, and used their collective muscle to place the rip wholes and rafters.

"Civilizing" the Miami Country was a truly a family endeavor. From the start women contributed greatly to the settlement of this new land. Like their husbands or fathers, many women were attracted by the economic opportunities and shared the dream of transforming the wilderness into individual wealth. Yet upon arrival most women quickly found a hard life as everyone in the family helped to clear the land to plant crops. A harsh routine of daily chores, including planning and coordinating daily meals, dipping candles, making soap, spinning cloth, weaving and knitting, planting gardens, preserving foods and churning butter, was quickly established and directed by the women in a family. Keeping the family together, and alive, became the top priority.

Out of necessity, frontier families tended to be large. How fortunate the family with several strong young sons was. In 1820, 5.3 persons comprised the average Springfield household, and much depended on the children in the household. Would they survive? In an age when infancy and childhood were perilous years many would die long before they could swing the ax. Would the population be old enough to be productive and young enough not to be a burden? In 1820, 36% of Springfield's male population of 128 were boys under the age of ten. The village could claim, however, 30 lads between the ages of 16 and 25, young, strong and still unmarried. Adolescent sons, even young adults, cleared land and worked their fathers' farm without pay. Even in those rare instances when a son's labor was not needed at home and he felt free to sell his services to a neighbor, his father expected and received his wages. This paternal ownership of a son's time was an unwritten law.

Nevertheless, hard work brought rewards, frequently in the form of the son's patrimony while his father still lived. Jacob Whallon labored for years clearing his father's large parcel of land just north of the Butler County line. When he married, his father gave him a substantial timbered tract for his own use. The task of subduing the wilderness began again, and as soon as his own son, Jonathan, became strong enough, "he began to assist his father in the cultivation of the farm."¹⁷

When John McCormick, Sr. died in 1815, he left his son James 183 acres in Section 13, "the land he now lives on," according to his will. Another son, George, received 106 acres just to the west of Springfield, and John's two grandsons divided the entire northeast corner of the 18th section, 3d township, lst range, immediately adjacent to the village of Springfield.¹⁸ Dr. Jeremiah Breaden, who died in 1836, bequeathed to his son George his farm but only if he paid the executors of the estate $200 within three years of his death.¹⁹

In the early years, the fact that many related families arrived together eased the labor problem considerably. Examples included the Longs, Schooleys, Riddles, McCormicks, and the Whallon brothers from New Jersey. When the Sorters came, the extended family included grown sons and their families. It is possible that those unfortunate enough to have a wagon full of girls and no helpful kin hired set-up men to help with the initial clearing. Those rare extra young males hired themselves out as set-up men. Apparently, not all were local inhabitants. Some itinerants earned a living as set-up men, moving steadily westward as the advance guard of the new frontier.

Set-up men's expertise also extended to cabin building. The nostalgic image of communal cabin and barn-raising efforts may only be partially correct as records reflected that men were often hired to help build. A set-up man charged around $30 for his efforts but he was quick and experienced. Sometimes he was the only choice.²⁰

The Springfield area offered great prospects for settlement. Not only did its fertile and rolling land promise reward to enterprising farmers, but its position on Wayne's Trace made it easily accessible. Nearby, the Millcreek flowed between the two Miami Rivers which opened up the entire area.²¹ In addition, after 1791 and the erection of Fort Hamilton, troops and traders improved the trace and on this road Wayne's army marched to battle in 1793. An enterprising man who platted out town on a route with such potential seemed certain to reap rich reward. John Baldwin seized this opportunity when he platted Springfield. In addition, he owned a tavern further south on the Great Road where he catered to an ever-increasing number of travelers, perhaps encouraging some of them to move on to Springfield. Already by 1805, a four-horse stage coach furnished weekly service from Cincinnati to Hamilton and Dayton.²²

In the first few years, Baldwin's enterprise looked like Baldwin's "Folly." While the lots in the village changed hands rapidly, they rarely increased in value. Springfield suffered from the surfeit of land on the market. In fact, the entire economy of the area was less than might be desired. But the location was too good for the village not to thrive. By 1817, it was, besides Cincinnati, the most prosperous village in Hamilton County.

Three interrelated factors contributed to Springfield's prosperity. The first was its strategic location on the road that passed through Springfield, known at various times as Waynes' Trace, the Great Road, Hamilton Pike and Springfield Pike, which became the major route radiating from Cincinnati. Not only did it link Cincinnati with Carthage, Springfield, Hamilton and Dayton, but laterals branched out from it connecting the entire Miami Valley. From Hamilton the traveler could go east to Chillicothe and pick up the Zane Trace through Lancaster and Zanesville to Wheeling. At Dayton, a lateral branch extended to the other Springfield, Urbana and Piqua. Yet another branch at Hamilton took travelers to Eaton.²³ Wealthy farmers used the road to ship their produce to Cincinnati and the services of Springfield artisans who served both the farming community and travelers' needs. The road was an essential avenue to the back country and as late as 1841 it was still the most important road in the area.²⁴

The maintenance and improvement of this road was therefore of paramount importance for the area's economy. When Ohio became a state in 1803, the legislature required able-bodied males to work on the roads for up to ten days annually. Yet during the winter and spring, the Great Road could still become virtually impassable, eroded by heavy rains and bad weather. It gradually improved, however, as the swampy portions of the route were corduroyed. The War of 1812 and the difficulties in moving troops northward combined with the increase in stage traffic, focused attention on the needed improvement.

The growing demands for better roads led entrepreneurs to establish turnpike companies to maintain the roads. The first such company in Ohio was incorporated in 1809. Specific criteria, established by the State, provided that roads be 60 feet wide, set on a bed of wood, stone, gravel or other like materials, faced with pounded stone or gravel. Because of its local abundance, the road workers used maple instead of the more customary oak on the road.²² Although a considerable improvement, the constant pounding these roadbeds took soon eroded them as well.

Soon the farmers around Springfield and in other areas demanded macadamized roads.²⁵ By the spring of 1839, the Hamilton, Springfield and Carthage Turnpike Company had built a 16 mile stretch between Carthage and Hamilton. ²⁶ The gatekeeper at the Springfield's tollgate at Princeton Pike collected fees based on an elaborate schedule set by the State in 1844.²⁷ Each time a horse and rider passed by, the gatekeeper collected a nickel for the rider and three cents for the horse. The fee for a two-horse sleigh or sled was ten cents, while a four-wheeled vehicle, drawn by two horses or oxen cost fifteen cents, though a horse-drawn cart was only ten cents. Each head of neat cattle was one cent while sheep and hogs were one-half cent each. Four-horse stages paid $150 every quarter and six-horse varieties paid $200. Most turnpike companies allowed the militia, funeral processions and Sunday worshipers to travel free of charge. All fees were good for ten miles.

The Springfield Turnpike soon became the most profitable in the State and, as a result, stockholders, many of who lived in Springfield, received handsome dividends. in 1839, the president of the company was Springfield resident John Morrow Cochran, grandson of a former Ohio governor. Although he later moved to the large Cochran estate just outside of the village, the Cochran family remained important in Springfield²⁸.

A second contributing factor to Springfield's prosperity was the stagecoach trade that rumbled through Springfield on their way to and from Cincinnati. Traveling from Hamilton to Cincinnati took a full day that began at 5 a.m.. Regular stops were made Springfield to change horses and to allow passengers, already tired and hungry, to enjoy a hearty meal at Captain John Brownson's, or Turner's Tavern, before continuing the 12 mile trip to Cincinnati. The livery stable, hotels, taverns and other services associated with the stage generated considerable revenues for Springfield.²⁹

Additionally, jobs for teamsters and drovers were created. Some teamsters drove large freight wagons pulled by four to six horses. Springfield's proximity to Cincinnati meant a great deal of short-hauling by farm laborers who worked during seasonal slumps. In 1830, the typical farm laborer earned $7 - $8 a month and had to be very frugal to save enough to pay up to $100 for a good horse and wagon. In comparison, a short-haul teamster earned up to $2 per day, offering a real opportunity to save money for one's own team, or better yet, a farm.³⁰

Teamsters hauled primarily farm produce to the Cincinnati markets. While most farmers transported their own crops to market, more prosperous farmers hired the short-haul teamster. In the off-season, the teamsters hauled firewood, which by 1840 was in short supply and very expensive. A cord of firewood that cost $2.50 elsewhere in Ohio sold for $6 in Cincinnati.³¹ Farmers who still had forests to cultivate hired teamsters to transport the wood to sell at market for a handsome profit.

As the cost to move products to market rose, farmers soon discovered the advantages of sending their produce to town "on the hoof." Rather than shipping grain, farmers fed it to the hogs and cattle, and sent them trotting down the turnpike, at one or one-half cents a head to the city. Springfield had its share of men called drovers, whose particular skills involved shepherding a herd of squealing, grunting, undisciplined pigs to market. Little wonder these men congregated at Turner's Tavern, more commonly known as "drover's heaven," where swearing, drinking and carousing did not endear them to the town's more genteel folk.³² In 1839, Anthony Hilts, Sr. built Springfield's only pork packing plant, which for a time operated as part of Cincinnati's larger pork packing industry, internationally famous as "Porkopolis."

A third factor of Springfield's prosperity was the success of its artisans and trades, which were closely linked to the farming community., In the "age of the horse" many of the artisan trades were directly or indirectly indispensable and by the 1840s, Springfield boasted two full-time teamsters, two blacksmiths, four wagon makers, three saddlers and a plow maker.

Other common occupation in Springfield involved the building trades. In 1850, six carpenters and two bricklayers not only practiced their craft in the village but built barns, sheds, and homes around the neighboring countryside. Jacob Peterson, a cabinetmaker, made expensive and highly prized furniture. Benjamin Skillman wove wool into cloth and Dominicus Van Dyke, Alexander Lewis, and Robert Rich turned it into clothing. Ashur Striker, William More and Edwin Edwards kept the village and the farmers in boots and shoes. Merchants Marcus Thompson, George Wilmuth and Perry Colburn satisfied the needs of local housewives for everything from hair ribbons to special-order pianos.

These merchants wore many hats. Colburn ran the village post office along with his grocery store. Both Thompson and Wilmuth operated taverns, which must have made for tenuous relationships with the conservative farmers who dominated the community. On the one hand, they depended on the farmers for economic survival. Yet, they also provided for the wants and entertainment of individuals quite different from prosperous farmers. At night, drovers and teamsters filled the taverns in pursuit of "the wild, free life."³³ Arguments and fights, sometimes bloody ones, resulted. Even the less volatile traveling agents and travelers who spent the night in the Springfield Inn represented values alien to the respectable farmers who dominated community life. In the village of Springfield, the potential for conflict existed, and was played out in sometimes startling ways.

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