OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Tidbits of Ohio -- Part 65A

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Historical Collections of Ohio
And Then They Went West
Know your Ohio
Tid Bits - Part 65 A
by Darlene E. Kelley
notes by
S. Kelly   [   ] see 65B
Memoires of Hon E. D. Mansfield.
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Tid Bits - Part 65 A.
E.D. Mansfield

               My Personal Memories

My father, Col Jared Mansfield, removed to the west in 1803, which in
those days required a long journey, much time and a good deal of
trouble. At that time there were then no public conveyances west of the
Allegheny. Whoever went to Ohio from the East had to provide his own
carriage and take care of his own luggage. At that time there was really
but one highway fom the East to the West and that was the great
Pennsylvania route from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. It professed to be a
turnpike, but was really only a passable road, and on the mountains
narrow and dangerous, It was chiefly traversed by the wagoners, who
carried goods from Philadelphia to the West. A private carriage and
driver, such as my father had to have, was the abhorrance of the
wagoners, who considered it simply an evidence of aristocracy. They
threatened and often actually endangered private carriages. My mother
used to relate her fears and anxieties on that journey, and, as
contrasted with the mode of travelling at the present day, that journey
was really dangerous.

 Arrived at Marietta, Ohio, my father established his office there, for
the next two years. At first, some trouble arose from differences of
political opinions at Marietta. Political excitement at the election of
Jefferson had been very high---
perhaps never more so. Gen. Rufus Putnam, my father's predeccessor as
Surveyor-General, had been a Revolutionary officer and a Federalist,
while my father was a Republican ( now called Democrat ), and supposed
to be a partisan of Jefferson. This political breeze, however, soon
passed over. The people of Marietta were, in general, intelligent
upright people, and my father not one to quarrel without cause. The
Putnams were polite, and my parents passed two years at Marietta
pleasantly and happily. I, who was but a little child of three or four
years of age, was utterly oblivious to what might go on in Marietta
society. Two things, however, impressed themselves upon me. They must
have occurred in the spring and summer of 1805. 

The first was what was called " The Great Flood." Every little while we
hear about extraordinary cold, heat, or high water; but all these things
have occurred before, The impression on my mind is that of the river
Ohio rising so high as to flood the lower part of Marietta. We lived
some distance from the Ohio, but on the lower plain, so that the water
came up into our yard, and it seems to me, I can still recall wood and
chips floating in the yard. However, all memories of such early years
are indistinct, and can only be relied on for general impressions. As I
was four years old at the time of the Marietta flood, it is probable
that my impressions of it are correct.

The other event which impressed itself on my mind was the vision of a
very interesting and remarkable woman. One day, and it seems to have
been a bright summer morning, a lady and a little boy called upon my
mother. I played with the boy, and it is probably this circumstance
which impressed it on my mind, for the boy was handsomely dressed, and
had a fine little sword hanging by his side. The lady, asit seems to me,
was handsome and bright, laughing and talking with my mother. That lady
soon became historical --- her life a romance and her name a theme of
poetry and a subject of eloquence. It was Madame Blennerhasset. [ see
notes at end of series. 65B ].

It is seventy years since Wirt, in the trial of Burr, uttered his
beautiful and poetic description of Madame Blennerhasset and the island
she admired. Poetic as it was, it did less justice to the woman.[ Wirt
was a trial lawyer in the Aaron Burr and Harman Blennerhasset trial. He
was also a writer.]
An intelligent lady who was intimate with her, and afterwards visited
the courts of England and Frances, said she had never beheld one who was
Mrs.Blennerhassett's equal in beauty, dignity of manners, elegence of
dress, and all that was lovely in the person of woman. With all this,
she was as domestic in her habits, as well acquainted with housewifery,
the art of sewing, as charitable to the poor, as ambitious for her
husband, as though she were not the " Queen of the Fairy Isle."
She was as strong and active in body as she was graceful. She could leap
a five rail fence, walk ten miles at a stretch, and ride a horse with
the boldest dragoon. She frequently rode from the island to Marietta,
exhibiting he skill in horsemanship and elogance of dress. Robed in
scarlet broadcloth, with a white beaver hat, on a spirited horse, she
might be seen dashing through the dark woods, reminding one of the
flight and gay plumage of some tropical bird; but, like the happiness of
Eden, all this was to have a sudden and disaterious end. The 
" Queen of the Fairy Isle " was destined to a fate more severe than if
her lot had been cast in the rudness log-cabin..........

During my father's residence at Marietta there appeared in the Marietta
papers a series of articles n favor of the schemes of Burr, and
indirectly a separation of the Western and Eastern States. These
articles were censored by another series, signed " Regulus," which
denounced the idea of separating the States, and supported the Union and
the administration of Jefferson. At the time, and to this day, the
writer was and is unknown. They are mentioned in Hildreth's " Pioneer
History," as a unknown author. They were in fact, written by my father,
and made a strong impression at the time...........

Here let me remark on the society of the past generation as compared
with the present. There is aways in the Present time a disposition to
exaggerate either by its merits or its faults.

Those who take a hopeful view of things, and wonder at our inventions
and discoveries, think that society is advancing, and we are going
straight to the millennium. On the other hand, those who look upon the
state of society today, espaecially if they are not entirely satisfied
with their own ideas, are apt to charge society with degeneracy. They
see crimes and corruptions, and assert that society is growing worse.

Let me here assure the reader that this is not true, and that while we
have all reason to lament the weakness of human nature, it is not true
that society is declining. No fact is more easily demonstrated than that
the society of educated people --- and they govern all others -- is in a
much better condition now than it was in the days succeeding the
Revolution. The principles and ideas that caused the French Revolution,
at one time, brought atheism and free thinkers into power in Farnce, and
largely penetrated American Society.

Skepticism, or, as it was called, free thinkng, was fashionable; it was
aided and strengthened by some of the most  eminent men of the times.
Jefferson, Burr, Pierrepont Edwards, of Connecticut, and many men of the
same kind, were not only skeptics, but scoffers at Christianity. Their
party came into power, and gave a sort of official prestige to
irreligion. But this was not all; a large number of the revolutionary
army were licentious men. Of this case were Burr, Hamilton, and others
of the same stripe. Hamilton was not so unprincipled a man as Burr, but
belonged to the same general caste of society. No one can deny this, for
he published enough abou himself to prove it. Duelling, drinking,
licentiousness, were not regarded by the better class of society as the
unpardonable sins which they are now regarded. At the time wine,
spirits, and cordials were offered guests at all hours of the day, and
not to offer them was considered a want of hospitality.The consequence
was that intemperance, in a good society, was more common than now, but
probably not more so among the great masses of the people. Intemperance
is now chiefly the vice of laboring men, but then it prevaded all
classes of society.

Judge Burnet, in his notes on the northwest, says that nine lawyers
contemporary with himself, in Cincinnati, all but one died drunkards. We
see, then, that with a large measure of infidelity, licentiousness and
intemporance among the higher classes, society was not really in so good
a state as it is now. At Marietta were several men of superior
intellects who were infidels, and others who were intemporate; and yet
this pioneer town was probably one of the best examples of the society
of pioneer times.

I have said that my father was appointed to establish the meridian
lines. At that time but a part of Ohio had been surveyed, and he made
Maritta his headquarters.

In the rapid progress of migration to the West his surveys also were
soon necessary in westen Ohio and Indiana. Indiana was then an unbroken
wilderness, although the French had established the post of Vincennes.
This was one of a line of posts which they established from the lakes to
Gulf of Mexico with a view to holding all the valley of the Mississippi.
There may have been a settlement at Jeffersonville, opposite of
Louisville, bu except these there was a white settlement in Indiana. It
became necessary to extend the surveyed lines through that State, then
only a part of the Northwest Territory. For this purpose my father, in
1805, in the month of October, undertook a surveying expedition in
Indiana. As it was necessary to live in the wilderness, preparations for
doing so were made. The surveying party consisted of my father, three or
four surveyors, two regular hunters and several pack horses. The
business of the hunters was to procure game and bring it into camp at
night. Flour, coffee, salt, and sugar were carried on the pack horses,
but for all meat the party depended on the hunters. They went out early
in the morning for game and returned only at night. As the surveying
party moved only in a straight line, and the diatance made in a day was
known, it was easy for the hunters to join the others in camp.

It was in this expedition that some of these incidents occurred that
illustrate the life of a backwoodsman. One day the hunters had been
unfortunate, and got no game, but brought in a large rattlesnake, which
they cut into slices and broiled on the coals. My father did not try
that kind of steak, but the hunters insisted the flesh was sweet and
good. One other day a hunter was looking into a cave in the rocks and
found two panthers' cubs. He put them in a bag, and afterward exhibited
them in New Orleans. Here let me say, that prosperity will never know
the kinds and numbers of wild animals which once lived on the plains of
the Ohio. Some already exterminated east of the Mississippi, and can
only be found on the mountains of the West. A citizen of these days will
probably be astonished to hear that the buffalo was once common in Ohio,
and roamed even on the banks of the Muskingum; but such was the fact.

A large part of Ohio was at one time a prairie, and the vegetation of
the valley very rich. The wild plum, the pawpaw, the walnut, grapes and
all kinds of berries were abundant, so that Ohio was as fruitful and
generous to Indians and wild animals as it has since been to the white
man. In he valleys of the Muskingum, the Scioto and the Miamis were
Indian towns where they cultivated corn as white men do now. Marietta,
Chillicothe, Circleville, Cincinnati, Xenia, and Piqua are all on the
sites of old Indian towns. The wild animals and the wild Indian were as
conscious as the civilized white man that Ohio was an inviting land ----
a garden rich in the products which God had made for their support. But
man was commanded to live by labor; hence, when man, the laborer, came,
he supplanted man, the hunter.

The animals most common in Ohio were the deer, the wild turkey,
squirrel, buffalo, panther, and wolves. All these were found near
Marietta, and all but the buffalo subsequently near Cincinnati.

It is not my purpose, however, to go into the natural history of Ohio.
The inhabitants of the woods fast disappeared before the man of the
spade. I, myself, saw birds and animals in the valleys of the Miamis
which no man will hereafter see wild in these regions.

I recollect one bird which made a great impression on me -- the paraquet
-- much like the parrot, its colors being green and gold, but much
smaller. This bird I have seen at Ludlow station in large flocks. I was
told it was never seen east of Scioto.

Our residence at Marietta lasted two years. In 1803, Ohio was admitted
to the Union, with a constitution which continued until 1850. The first
constitution of Ohio was, I thought, the best constitution I ever saw,
for the reason that it had the fewest limitations. Having established
the respective functions of governement, judicial, executive and
legislative, it put no limitation on the power of the people, and in a
democratic government there should be none. For half a century Ohio
grew, flourished, and prospered under its constitution. It was the best
and brightest
period Ohio has had. It was the era of a great public spirit, of
patriotic devotion to country, and of the building up of the great
institutions of education which are now the strength and glory of the
State. In forming educational institutions I had some part myself, and I
look upon that work with analloyed pleasure. "
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Tid Bits- continued in Part 65B.