CLERMONT COUNTY OHIO - HISTORY: CLERMONT COUNTY [Part 3] (published 1898)
***********************************************************************
OHGENWEB NOTICE:  All distribution rights to this electronic data are
reserved by the submitter.  Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted
material will require the permission of the copyright owner.
***********************************************************************
File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by
Gina M. Reasoner
AUPQ38A@prodigy.com 
March 3, 1999
***********************************************************************

HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF OHIO, By Henry Howe, LL.D., 1898

        The name of Cornelius Washburn, or Neil Washburn as he was commonly
called, is lastingly identified with the early history of this region. This
famous Indian hunter, so noted for his sagacity and courage from 1815 to
1833, lived near Williamsburg. He was born in New Jersey in the year before
the outbreak of the American Revolution. He died "in his boots," as the
frontiersmen express it, being killed by the Indians in 1834 while acting
as a hunter and scout for a fur trading and trapping company on the
Yellowstone. This account of him we derived in 1846 from the lips of Thos.
McDonald, the brother of the author of the sketches and the first person,
as he stated to us, who erected a cabin in Scioto county.
THE EXPLOITS OF NEIL WASHBURN
        In the year '90, I first became acquainted with Neil Washburn, then
a lad of sixteen, living on the Kentucky side of the Ohio, six miles below
Maysville. From his early years, he showed a disposition to follow the
woods. When only nine or ten, he passed his time in setting snares for
pheasants and wild animals. Shortly after, his father purchased for him a
shot-gun, in the use of which he soon became unexcelled. In the summer of
'90, his father being out of fresh provisions, crossed the Ohio with him in
a canoe, to shoot deer, at a lick near the mouth of Eagle creek. On
entering the creek, their attention was arrested by a singular hacking
noise, some distance up the bank. Neil landed, and with gun in hand,
cautiously crawling up the river bank, discovered an Indian, about twenty
feet up a hickory tree, busily engaged in cutting around the bark, to make
a canoe, in which he probably anticipated the gratification of crossing the
river and committing depredations upon the Kentu
ckians. However this may have been, his meditations and work were soon to a
close, for the intrepid boy no sooner saw the dusky form of the savage,
than he brought his gun to a level with his eye, and fired: the Indian fell
dead to the earth, with heavy sound. He hastily retreated to the canoe,
from fear of the presence of other Indians, and recrossed the Ohio. Early
the next morning a party of men guided by Neil, visited the spot, and found
the body of the Indian at the foot of the tree. Neil secured the scalp, and
the same day showed it, much elated, to myself and others in the town of
Washington, in Mason. Several persons in the village made him presents, as
testimonials of their opinion of his bravery.
        In the next year, he was employed as a spy between Maysville and
the mouth of the Little Miami, to watch for indians, who were accustomed to
cross the Ohio into Kentucky, to steal and murder. While so engaged, he had
some encounters with them, in which his unerring rifle dealt death to
several of their number. One of these was the mouth of Bullskin, on the
Ohio side.
        In '92, the Indians committed such great depredations upon the
Ohio, between the Great Kanawha and Maysville, that Gen. Lee, the
government agent, in employing spies endeavored to get some of them to go
up the Ohio, above the Kanawha, and warn all single boats not to descent
the river. None were found sufficiently daring to go, but Neil. Furnished
with an elegant horse, and well armed, he started on his perilous mission.
He met with no adventures until after crossing the Big Sandy. This he swam
on his horse, and had reached about a half a mile beyond, when he was
suddenly fired upon by a party of Indians, in ambush. His horse fell dead,
and the Indians gave a yell of triumph; but Neil was unhurt. Springing to
his feet, he bounded back like a deer, and swam across the Big Sandy,
holding his rifle and ammunition above his head. Panting from exertion, he
rested upon the opposite side, in full pursuit. Neil drew up, shot one of
their number, and then continued his retreat down th
e Ohio, but meeting and exchanging shots with others, he saw it was
impossible to keep the river valley in safety, and striking his course more
inland to evade his enemies, arrived safely at Maysville.
        In the fall of the same year, he was in the action with Kenton and
others against Tecumseh, in what is now Brown county. Washburn continued as
a spy throughout the war, adding the "sagacity of the lion to the cunning
of the fox." He was with Wayne in his campaign, and at the battle of the
fallen Timbers manifested his usual prowess.
        Neil Washburn was in person nearly six feet in height, with broad
shoulders, small feet, and tapered, beautifully from his chest down. He was
both powerful and active. His eyes were blue, his hair light, and
complexion fair. A prominent Roman nose alone marred the symmetry of his
personal appearance.

        MILFORD is in a picturesque location on the Little Miami eighteen
miles above Cincinnati, and is connected with the Little Miami railroad by
a bridge. Population in 1880, 1,047. School census in 1886, 315; S.T. Dial,
superintendent.
        OLDEST METHODIST CHURCH IN OHIO -This place was early settled,
being a milling centre. In the summer of 1797 Francis McCormick, the
pioneer Methodist preacher, organized a church here in his cabin, which is
the oldest Methodist society in Ohio, and supposed to be the first church
organized in the great Northwest. He had left Kentucky in 1795, through his
hatred of slavery, and settled just north of the site of the village. This
founder of Methodism north of the Ohio was a giant in stature, with a
well-developed head, florid face and benevolent expression. Early in life
he had been a soldier in the American Revolution and served under Lafayette
at Yorktown. Prominent among his small congregation were Ezekiel Dimmit and
wife and John and Phoebe Mitchell, four pioneers residing near where
Batavia now stands, who went to Parson McCormick's a distance of twelve
miles through dense woods, to hear him preach. Uncle Zeke Dimmit was the
first class-leader, and at his old log-cabin the
 earliest prayer and speaker meetings were held, beginning in the fall of
1797. A few years later he with others organized a church now known as the
Methodist Church in Batavia.
        In 1799 the very eminent Rev. Philip Gatch settled alongside of
McCormick. He was born near Baltimore in 1751; in 1774 he and William
Walters took appointments as Methodist ministers and were the first native
preachers in America to serve a circuit. He was very zealous, and as
Methodism was not favorably received became subject to violent abuse. He
was tarred by a mob, his eyesight injured permanently, and he narrowly
escaped death at their hands. On account of his position on slavery he was
selected as a member of the first Constitutional Convention, and for
twenty-two years was an associate judge of Clermont.
        In 1817 Dimmit and his associates began the erection of a stone
meeting house at Batavia, and which was used by the society until Sunday
evening, May 15, 1887, when the old bell rang out its notes for the last
time for a farewell meeting within its venerable walls; a very interesting
occasion, it being the most historic landmark in this region. It had been
largely used for public meetings. Here the "Clermont boys" on their return
from the Mexican war were given a warm welcome, and here was rallied the
first Clermont company for the Union in the war of the rebellion. The old
building now altered is used for a shoe factory.
        THE FIRST CAMP MEETING IN CLERMONT and possibly in Ohio was held
near Zeke Dimmit's in October, 1815, at which a great crowd was present and
many were converted. The meeting was chiefly conducted by that celebrated
and eccentric itinerant Lorenzo Dow. He travelled through the United States
from fifteen to twenty times visiting the wilderness parts, often preaching
where a sermon was never heard before. Occasionally he went to Canada, and
made three voyages to England and Ireland, where as elsewhere he drew
crowds around him, attracted by his long flowing beard and hair, singularly
wild demeanor and pungency of speech. During the thirty years of his public
life he must have travelled nearly two hundred thousand miles.
        So great a factor was he in the religious history of Ohio and the
"new countries" generally that the pioneers about the year 1830 largely
named their boy babes "Lorenzo Dow," as in 1824, the period of General
Lafayette's visit to the United States, boy babes were named after him.
Those then named, the "Lorenzo Dows" and "Lafayettes," are now, when
living, old men.
        Pickett in his "History of Alabama," avers that he was the earliest
Protestant preacher in that State; says he: "Down to this period-in 1803-no
Protestant preacher had ever raised his voice to remind the Tombigbee and
Tensaw settlers of their duty to Most High. Hundreds, born and bred in the
wilderness, and now adult men and women, had never seen a preacher. The
mysterious and eccentric Lorenzo Dow one day suddenly appeared at the boat
yard. He came from Georgia, across the Creek nation, encountering its
dangers almost alone. He proclaimed the truths of the gospel here to a
large audience, crossed over the Alabama and preached two sermons to the
"Bigbee settlers," and went from thence to the Natchez settlements, where
he also exhorted the people to turn from the error of their ways. He then
visited the Cumberland region and Kentucky, and came back to the Tombigbee,
filling his appointments to the very day. Again plunging into the Creek
nation this holy man of God once more appeared among the people of Georgia.
        When Dow was in Indiana Judge O.H. Smith had the pleasure of
listening to a discourse from him, some items of which he has thus
preserved among his sketches. "In the year 1819," states the judge, "I was
one of a congregation assembled in the woods back of Rising Sun, anxiously
awaiting the arrival of Lorenzo Dow. Time passed away, we had all become
impatient, when in the distance we saw him approaching at a rapid rate
through the trees on his pacing pony. He rode up to the log on which I was
sitting, threw the reins over the neck of the pony and stepped upon the
log, took off his hat, his hair parted in the middle of his head, and
flowing on either side to his shoulders, his beard resting on his breast.
In a minute at the top of his voice he said; "Behold, I come quickly, and
my reward is with me." My subject is repentance. We sing, "While the lamp
hold out to burn, the vilest sinner may return." That idea has done much
harm, and should be received with many grains of allowance. There are cases
where it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than
for a man to repent unto salvation. Let me illustrate. Do you suppose that
the man among you who went out last fall to kill his deer and bear for
winter meat, and instead killed his neighbors' hogs, salted them down, and
is now living on the meat, can repent while it is unpaid for? I tell you
nay. Except he restores a just compensation his attempt at repentance will
be the basest hypocrisy. Except ya repent truly, ye shall all likewise
perish. He preached some thirty minutes. Down he stepped, mounted his pony,
and in a few minutes was moving on through the woods at a rapid pace to
meet another appointment.
        On another occasion, it has been said, having been informed that
the people thereabouts had suffered from the depredations of a hog thief,
he took occasion to state to an assemblage whom he was addressing, that he
felt certain that the thief was among them. Then stooping down he picked up
a stone, and said: "Now I am going to throw this stone at him," at the same
time making a motion as if to throw it, whereupon an individual in the
crowd dodged. "That's him," exclaimed Dow, pointing to the
conscience-stricken- individual. The people called him Crazy Dow; his wife
Peggy accompanied him in his travels. He introduced camp meetings in
England.


==== Maggie_Ohio Mailing List ====