OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List ----------------------------------------------------------------------- USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 99 : Issue 147 Today's Topics: #1 BROWN COUNTY - PART 4 [AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M RE] #2 MCHENRY Family in Tiffin, Seneca C [Maggie Stewart-Zimmerman <73777.25] #3 MCHENRY Family in Tiffin, Seneca C [Maggie Stewart-Zimmerman <73777.25] ------------------------------ X-Message: #1 Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 10:08:18, -0500 From: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com (MRS GINA M REASONER) Subject: BROWN COUNTY - PART 4 HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF OHIO, By Henry Howe, LL.D., 1898 RIPLEY IN 1846. -Ripley is upon the Ohio, ten miles from Georgetown, nine below Maysville, and about fifty above Cincinnati. The town was laid out about the period of the war of 1812, by Colonel James Poage, a native of Virginia, and first named Staunton, from Staunton, Va.; it was afterwards changed to Ripley, from General Ripley, an officer of distinction in the war. When the county was first formed the courts were directed to be held at the house of Alex. Campbell, in this town, until a permanent seat of justice should be established. For a time it was supposed that this would be the county-seat; a court-house was begun, but before it was finished the county-seat was permanently established at Georgetown. The courts were, for a time, held in the First Presbyterian church, which was the first public house of worship erected. Ripley is the largest and most business place in the county, and one of the most flourishing villages on the Ohio river, within the limits of the Stat e. The view shows the central part of the town only; it extends about a mile on the river. Ripley contains 2 Presbyterian, 1 Methodist, 1 Associate Reformed, 1 New Light, and 1 Catholic church, 20 stores, 1 newspaper printing office, 1 iron foundry, 1 carding machine, 3 flouring mills, and had, in 1840, 1,245 inhabitants. The Ripley female seminary, under the charge of Wm. C. Bissell and lady, has about forty pupils, of both sexes. This institution admits colored children within its walls; and there are quite a number of people, in this region, who hold to the doctrine of equal rights, politically and socially, to all, irrespective of color. -Old Edition. Ripley is on the Ohio river about fifty miles southeast of Cincinnati. Newspapers: Bee and Times, Republican, J.C. Newcomb, editor and publisher. Churches: 2 Methodist, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Christian, 1 Lutheran, 1 Catholic, 1 Colored Methodist, 1 Colored Baptist. Banks: Citizens National, J.M. Gilliland, president, E.R. Bell, cashier; Ripley National, John T. Wilson, president, W.T. Galbreath, cashier. MANUFACTURES AND EMPLOYEES. -The Board Manufacturing Co., lumber, sash, etc., 65 hands; Joseph Fulton, pianos, 23; J.P. Parker, machinery, etc., 10. State Report 1886. Also saw and planing mills, foundry and finishing shop, threshing machines and horse powers, cigar factories, carriages, tobacco presses and screws, clod crushers, wire and slat fencing, etc. Population in 1880, 2,546. School census in 1885, 821; J.C. Shumaker, superintendent. As long ago as 1827-28 steamboats were built in Ripley, in 1846, next to Cincinnati, it was the large pork packing place in the State. It mostly went south in barrels, by flat-boats known as "broad horns," each of which carried from 1,000 to 1,200 barrels; as many as ten to fifteen boats left here, in a season for the cotton and sugar plantations; all of this now changed. Some of the old "broad Horns" were built here; hard work, the sawing being done mostly by hand. Ripley is quite a horse market, and monthly on the last Saturday is "stock sales day," when the town is thronged. Thirty years ago horses in considerable numbers were exported to Cuba, and Cubans visited the place to buy horses. Ripley has about twenty tobacco merchants. The Boyd Manufacturing Co., which does business at Ripley, Higgansport and Levanna, annually manufactures at the latter point about two miles below about 10,000 tobacco hogsheads in connection with their extensive planing mill there. The town was alive in the war for the Union. As regiment after regiment from Cincinnati ascended the Ohio on steamers on their way to Virginia, the men, women and children thronged the river banks with cannon, flags and music, cheering on the volunteers. Indeed, this was common in all the river towns on the Ohio side at the outbreak of the rebellion. Ripley claims to have furnished the first company of volunteers for the suppression of the rebellion the 13th day of April, 1861; a Union meeting was in progress when news was telegraphed of the fall of Sumter. A.S. Leggitt, who afterwards gallantly fell at Stone river, at once wrote out a heading for an enlistment roll, and was the first to sign it, R.C. Rankin second, and in quick succession eighty-one others. The officers selected were as follows: Captain Jacob Ammen, afterwards General Ammen, now of Ammendale, D.C.; First Lieutenant, E.C. Devore; Second Lieutenant, E.M. Carey, afterward Major in Twenty-third O.V.I., now decea sed. At noon next day Captain Ammen started for Columbus, reaching there by noon on the 15th, by which time Mr. Lincoln had issued the call for 75,000 men. Our readers will see in the view of Ripley, taken in 1846, on the summit of the hill a solitary house; it is there this moment. That house, in full sight from the Kentucky shore, was in that day as a beacon of liberty to the fugitives from slavery. It was the residence of Rev. John Rankin and the first station on the underground railroad to Canada; thousands of poor fugitives found rest there, not one of whom was ever recaptured. Among these were Eliza and George Harris, and other characters of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." While Mr. Rankin claimed to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, he never gave aid and comfort to those who enticed slaves to run away. The ancestors of John Rankin were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who emigrated to Pennsylvania 150 years ago. His father, a soldier of the Revolution, settled in Jefferson county, East Tennessee, where John was born Feb. 4, 1793. He was educated at Washington College, including theology, and licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Abingdon, Va. He was from his cradle, brought up a Rechabite in temperance and an abolitionist. There was an abolition society in Jefferson county, Tenn., in 1814. While pastor of Cane Ridge and Concord Churches, in Nicholas and Bourbon counties, Ky., in 1817, he first began to preach against slavery. Loathing the institution, he moved to a free land and from the same reason nearly all families of his congregation at Concord did likewise, emigrating to Indiana, while he selected Ripley, where, from 1822 to 1866, he was pastor of the Presbyterian church. He was a great educator; was president of the "Ripley College," so called, and his house was always f illed with students in various branches, including theology. In 1836 he was for a time employed by the American Anti-Slavery Society to travel and lecture, and was often mobbed. "The aspect of a fierce mob-he once wrote-is terrible." He was also founder of the free Presbyterian Church of America, which excluded slaveholders from membership. Mr. Rankin died March 18, 1886, at the extraordinary age of ninety-three years, one month and fourteen days, and lies buried in Maplewood cemetery, Ripley. He left living eight sons and two daughters. Seven of this sons fought for the Union under Grant. One of the seven, Capt. R.C. Rankin, now of Ripley, has at our request given up in a letter the following interesting reminiscences of slave-hunters, abolition mobs, Gen. and Admiral Ammen and Gen. Grant, with whom he was a schoolmate. THE SLAVE-HUNTERS AT RANKIN'S - All that my father did in the aid of fugitives was to furnish food and shelter. His sons, of whom there were nine, did the conveying away. Some attempts were made to search our house. In March, 1840, four men from Kentucky and one from Ripley with two bulldogs, came to the house and were met on the porch by mother, of whom they inquired the way to Mr. Smith's (a neighbor of ours). On being directed, the spokesman, Amos Shrope, said, "Madam, to be plain with you, we do not want to go to Mr. Smith's, but there was a store broken open in Dover, Ky., and we have traced the thief to this house; we want to search for the goods and the thief." Mother replied, "We neither harbor thieves nor conceal stolen property, and you are welcome to look through the house." On starting for the door my brother, Rev. S.G.W. Rankin - now of Glastenbury, Conn. -took down the rifle from over the door, cocked it, and called out, "Halt! if you come one step farther I wil l kill you," and they halted. My brother David and myself had not yet returned home from conveying the fugitives to the next station North, but were soon on the scene, when word was sent to town and in a short time the yard was full of friends. The hunters were not allowed to pass out at the gate, but were taken by each arm and led to the fence and ordered to climb, and they climbed! MOBBING OF RANKIN. -In the early days of abolitionism my father was lecturing to an audience in a grove at Winchester, Adams county, Ohio, when a mob of 200 men armed with clubs marched to the grove and their leader, Stivers by name, marched down the aisle and up on the stand, drew his club over father and called out, "Stop speaking or, ____you, I will burst your head." Father went on as though nothing had happened, when Robert Patten, a large and powerful man, sprang forward and seized Stivers by the back of the neck and led him out, and that ended it. On another occasion father was hit with a goose egg; it struck the collar of his coat and did not break until it fell, when out came a gosling. He frequently came home with his horse's mane and tail shaved, when he would calmly remark "it was a colonization reply to an abolition lecture." THE SLAVE-HUNTERS AT THE LONE WIDOWS. - On one occasion I was sent to go to the house of a lone widow, being told that there were three men in her house hunting "runaways." I buckled on my revolver under my vest and proceeded thither. I knew one of the men, a desperate character, who had killed one man at Hamilton, ,Ohio, and had waylaid and shot another near his home in Kentucky. I approached him first and asked him to leave the house; after waiting a few moments and seeing he was not disposed to move, I put my hand on his breast to gently urge him out, when he ran his right hand in his pocket and grabbed his revolver; but I was too quick for him, and had mine cocked within three inches of his eyes and shouted. "Now if you draw your hand out I will kill you." He believed it and so stood, when one of his companions stepped up and slipped in his left hand an Allen self-cocking, six-shooting revolver; I exclaimed, "That will do you no good, for if you raise your arm I will put a bullet through your brain." He also believed that. In this position we were found by John P. Parker, a colored-citizen of Ripley, who came in soon after with a double-barrelled shot gun. In a short time a crowd gathered, and the "hunters" were taken before the mayor and fined sixty dollars and costs. I could mention many similar incidents. Through my mother I inherit the same blood that coursed through the veins of Gen. Sam Houston, of Texas. THE AMMENS. -David Ammen, the father of Gen. Jacob and Admiral Daniel, came from Virginia and settled in Levanna, two miles below Ripley, and edited the first newspaper published in Brown county, Ohio. He was there when we came to Ripley in 1822. He soon moved to Ripley and there published his paper, the Castigator, and first published my father's letters on slavery in its columns. In 1824 and in 1826 he republished them in book form and received his pay in the way of rent, he living in one end of my father's house, a sixty-foot front, still standing on Front street, my father living in the other end. He was living there when "Jake" as we called him went to West Point. Jacob Ammen was in Fort Moultrie, Charleston Harbor, during the days of nullification in 1832; after that he was eight years a professor in West Point. During this time Grant was a cadet there, and Jake told me that Ulysses would never have got through had he not given him special attention. On the organization of the Twelfth Ohio volunteer infantry he was made the lieutenant-colonel, and that is the way I became first lieutenant, and on the expiration of his term he was made colonel of the Twenty-fourth Ohio volunteer infantry and commanded a brigade in Nelson's division of Buell's army. It was he who got to Shiloh or Pittsburg Landing on Sunday, May 6, in time to fight two hours before dark. Beauregard never came a foot farther after Ammen's brigade got in position. For this he was commissioned a brigadier-general. Jake, born in 1808, was the oldest of the family, and Dan, born in 1820, the youngest, with Mike and Eve between them. David Ammen moved to Georgetown, O., and from there Daniel entered the Naval School. I have never seen him but twice since, and then, he came here and hunted me up, once by himself and once in company with Gen. Grant, who was always a personal friend of mine since he went to school here in Ripley before going to West Point. We were in the same class and once occupied the same desk. I am one year older than Grant, and Daniel Ammen must be two years older. Grant told me after the war that he always had a warm regard for Dan Ammen, that he had saved his life, when boys, bathing in White Oak creek, in Brown county, hence his promotion to admiral as soon as Grant became President. Gen. Ammen was superintendent of the Ripley Union Schools for several years prior to the war, during his residence at this place and while here he married his second wife, the widow of Capt. Geo. W. Shaw, a graduate of West Point. Her maiden name was Beasley. They now reside, as does Daniel Ammen, at Ammendale, D.C. ------------------------------ X-Message: #2 Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 13:38:55 -0500 From: Maggie Stewart-Zimmerman Subject: MCHENRY Family in Tiffin, Seneca Co. [1] From: "G. McHenry" gwm@friend.ly.net -------------------------------------------------- George, There was nothing in the newspaper indexes on McHenry in Tiffin. I was amazed. I found them in Adams Township which means that the records may be at Sandusky County. What I did find: Albright Cemetery; Union Cemetery (CR 21 & CR 32) Adams Township, Seneca County Row 5 McHenry John, d. Dec 20, 1864 38y 11m 19d Norman, s/o (?) d. Feb 19, 186(?) 1m 18d Hardie E. s/o J. & A. d. Aug 28, 1865 1y 4m 28d Emma K. d/o J. & A. d. Aug 19, 1865 3y 8m 2d ... McHenry Henrietta M. w/o Dr. H. d. Apr 5, 1850 27yrs Jackson, d. May 13, 1871 32y 11m 11d ... McHenry Elmira d/o S. & C. d. Apr 1, 1862 Oliver s/o S. & C. d. July 17, 1855 Silas d. Ju 12, 1861 55y 10m 11d ... McHenry Christina w/o Silas d. Oct 3, 1878 74y 8m 21d ... McHenry James M. s/o H. & H. d. June 11, 1848 13d [Continued in Next Message] ------------------------------ X-Message: #3 Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 13:38:56 -0500 From: Maggie Stewart-Zimmerman Subject: MCHENRY Family in Tiffin, Seneca Co. [2] From: "G. McHenry" gwm@friend.ly.net ------------------------------------------------------------------ [Continued from first message] Marriages in Seneca County [From the actual records] McHenry, Cornelius m. Laubach, Rebecca June 21, 1851 Keen G.J., JP V4-P78 McHenry, Henry m. Dasham, Henrietta May 24, 1843 V2-P106 McHenry, Hene(r)y m. Jackson, Harriet Jan 19, 1851 Vail, Zelah S., MG V4-P53 McHenry, John m. Huddle, Ann Apr 24, 1859 Seitz, Lewis MG V4-P250 McHenry, John S. >21 m. McHenry, May E. >17 Apr 28, 1867 Vail, Z.S., MG V6-P313 Sworn by B.F. Pontius, Consent by gdn of BR Books not available for the following: McHenry, Anna m. Paine, John W. McHenry, Helena m. Whiteman, MDL McHenry, Ninnie m. Rule, Sidney P. McHenry, Sarah m. James Steel -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V99 Issue #147 *******************************************