OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Tidbits of Ohio -- Part 72 ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES(tm) NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities so long as all notices and submitter information is included. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgenwebarchives.org ************************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 February 28, 2006 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Historical Collections of Ohio And Then They Went West Know Your Ohio Tid-Bits - Part 72. by Darlene E. Kelley notes by S. Kelly [ ] ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid-Bits -- Part 72. My Reminiscence of Marietta Society [ Hon E.D Mansfield, when a very young child, came with his family to Marietta. He told in his Personal Memories of his father Col Jared Mansfield, of a interesting memory when they first took up residence at Marietta, Ohio. This was his story; ] +++++++++++++ " My father's removal to the West, which took place in 1803, required a long journey, much time and a good deal of trouble. There were 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 baggage. At this time, there was really but one highway from 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 ad 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 abhorrence 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 that present day, the 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 Marrieta. Political excitement at the election of Jefferson had been very high -- perhaps never more so. Gen Rufus Putham, my father's predecessor 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 Murietta 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 Marrieta society. Two things, however, impressed themselves upon me. They must have occurred in the summer and spring of 1805. " The first was what was called ' The Great Flood.' Every little while we hear about exraordinary cold, heat, or high water; but all these things have occurred before. The impression on my mind is that 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 the 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 impression of it are correct. " The other event which impressed itself on my mind was the vision of a very interesting and very 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, as it seemed to me, was handsome and bright, laughing and talking with my mother. The lady soon became historical -- her life a romance and her name a theme of poetry and a subject of eloquence. It was Madame Blennerhassett. " It is seventy years since, Wirt, in the trial of Burr, uttered his beautiful and poetic description of Madame Blennerhssett and the island she admired. Poetic as it was, it did less than justice to the woman. An intelligent lady who was intermate with her, and afterward visit the courts of England and France, said, she had never beheld one who was Mrs. Blennerhassett's equal in beauty, dignity of manners, elogance 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 her skill in horsemanship and elegance 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 disastrrous end. The " Queen of the Fairy Isle " was destined to a fate more severe than if her lot, had been cast in the rudest log-cabin. " During my father's residence at Marietta there appeared in the Marietta papers a series of articles in favor of the schemes of Burr, and indirectly a separation of the Western and Eastern States. These articles were censured 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 by an unknown author. They are 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 always in the Present time a dispostion to exaggerate either 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 millenuim. On the other hand, those who look upon the state of society today, especially if they are not entirely satisfied with their own contention, are apt to charge society with degeneracy. They see crimes and corruptions, and assert that society is growing worse. " Let me here assure you 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 -- and they govern all others-- is in a much better condition now than what 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 France, and largely penetrated American society. " Skepticism, or, as it was called, free thinking, 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 some sort of official prestige to irreligion. But this was not all; a large number of the revolutionary army were licentious men. Of this class were Burr, Hamilton, and others of stripe. Hamilton was not as unprincipled a man as Burr, but belonged to the same caste of society. No one can deny this, for he publshed enough about himsef 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 to guests at all hours of the day, and not to offer them was considered a want of hospitality. The consequence was that intemperance is now chiefly the vice of laboring men, but then it pervaded all classes of society. " Judge Burnet, in his ' Notes on the Northwest,' says that nine lawyers cotemporary with himself, in Cincinnati, all but died drunkards. We see, then, that a large measure of infidelity, licentiousness and intemperance 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 intemperate; 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 Marietta his headquarters. " In the rapid progress of migration to the West his surveys also were soon necessary in western Ohio and in Indiana, Indiana was then an unbroken wilderness, although the French had etablished the post of Vincennes. This was one of a line of posts which they established from the lakes to the Gulf of Mexico with a view to holding all the valley of the Mississippi. There may have been a settlement at Jeffersonville, opposite Louisville, but except these there was not 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 the meat the party depended on the hunters. They went out early in the morning and returned only at night. As the surveying party moved only in a straight line, and the distance 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 those incidents occurred that illustrate the life of a backwoodsman. One day the hunters had been unfortunate. and had gotten no game, but brought in a large rattlesnake, which they cut into slices and broiled on the rocks of the fire. My father did not try that kind of steak, but the hunters insisted the flesh was sweet and good. On another day a hunter was looking into a cave in the rocks and found two panthers' cubs. He put them in a bag, and afterwards exhibited them in New Orleans. Here let me say, that prosperity will never know the kinds and numbers of wild animals which lived on the plains of the Ohio. Some are already exterminated east of the Mississippi, and can only be found on the mountains of the West. A citizen of those 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 a 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, and all kinds of berries were abundant, so that Ohio was as fruitful and generous to the Indians and wild animals as it has since been to the white man. In the 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 man that Ohio was an inviting land--- a garden rich in 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, wild pigs, 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 with 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 paroquet -- much like the parrot, its colors being green amd 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 government, judical, executive, and legislative, it put no limitation on the power of the people, and in the democrative govrnment there should be none. For half a century Ohio grew, flourished, and prospered under its first constitution. It was the best and brightest period Ohio has had. It was the era of great public spirit, of patriotic devotion to country, and of the building up 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." ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Tid-bits continued in part 73.