TUSCARAWAS COUNTY OHIO - HISTORY: County History part 8 (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. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. *********************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Submitted by: MRS GINA M REASONER Email: AUPQ38A@prodigy.com Date: August 13, 1999 *********************************************************************** HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF HENRY HOWE LL.D., 1898 TUSCARAWAS COUNTY PART 8 THREE AGAINST FORTY. - Wright put up his horse, and was joined by Laffer and M'Connel. About this time the military company came up to the tavern door, and there halted for some refreshments. Mr. Wright knew the captain and many of the men, and went along the line, followed by the sheriff, inquiring their object and remonstrating, pointing out the disgrace of so cowardly an act as was contemplated, and assuring them, in case they carried out their brutal design, they would be prosecuted and punished for murder. Several left the line, declaring they would have nothing more to do with the matter. The captain became angry, ordered the ground to be cleared, formed his men and moved towards the jail. M'Connel was at the jail door, and the sheriff and Wright took a cross cut and joined him before the troops arrived. The prisoners had been laid on the floor against the front wall as a place of safety. The three arranged themselves before the jail door -M'Connel with the sword, Sheriff Laffer had the pistol, and Wright was without weapon. The troops formed in front, a parley was had, and Wright again went along the line remonstrating, and detached two or three more men. He was ordered off, and took his position at the jail door with his companions. The men were formed, and commands, preparatory to a discharge of their arms, issued. NOBLE COURAGE. -In this position the three were ordered off, but refused to obey, declaring that the prisoners should not be touched except they first despatch them. Their firmness had its effect; the order to fire was given, and the men refused to obey. Wright again went along the line remostrating, etc., while M'Connel and Laffer maintained their position at the door. One or two more were persuaded to leave the line. The captain became very angry and ordered him off. He again took his place with his two companions. The company was marched off some distance and treated with whiskey; and after some altercation, returned to the jail door, were arranged and prepared for a discharge of their rifles, and three ordered off on pain of being shot. They maintained their ground without faltering, and the company gave way and abandoned their project. Some of them were afterwards permitted, one at a time, to go in and see the prisoners, care being taken that no harm was done. These three gentlemen received no aid from the citizens; the few that were about looked on merely. Their courage and firmness were truly admirable. The Indians were retained in jail until Governor Meigs, who had been some time expected, arrived in New Philadelphia. He instructed Gen. A. Shane, then a lieutenant, recruiting for the United States service, to take the Indians with his men to the rendezvous at Zanesville. From thence they; were ordered to be sent with his recruits to the headquarters of Gen. Harrison, at Seneca, at which place they were discharged. ATTEMPT AT POISONING INDIANS. -Another incident occurred in Lieutenant Shane's journey to headquarters, which illustrates the deep-rooted prejudices entertained by many at that time against the Indians. The lieutenant with his company stopped a night at Newark. The three Indians were guarded as prisoners, and that duty devolved by turns on the recruits. A physician who lived in Newark, and kept a small drug shop, informed the officer that two of his men had applied to him for poison. On his questioning them closely what use they were to make of it, they partly confessed that it was intended for the Indians. It was at night when they applied for it, and they were dressed in fatigue frocks. In the morning the lieutenant had his men paraded, and called the doctor to point out those who had meditated such a base act. But the doctor, either unwilling to expose himself to the enmity of the men, or unable to discern them, the whole company being then dressed in their regimentals, the affair was passed over with some severe remarks by the commanding officer on the unsoldier-like conduct of those who could be guilty of such a dastardly crime of poisoning. The foregoing account was, in the main, written for us by Judge JOHN C. WRIGHT, at the time editor of the Cincinnati Gazette. The judge was an old-fashioned gentleman, one of the first-class men of Ohio in his day. He had very little dignity of manners but excellent sense, untied to a keen sense of humor, and a power, and a power of sarcasm that, when in Congress, made his about the only member that ventured to reply to the stinging words of John Randolph, which he was wont to do in an effective strain of amiable, ludicrous raillery. The judge was of a strong social nature, and on an occasion some one said to him, "I think, judge, you are rather free in loaning your horses and carriage to so many people who have no claims upon you." "Oh, no," replied he; "when I am not using my turn-out, and my neighbor, who is not able to own one, wants to take his family out for an airing, I have no right to refuse him." He was born in 1783, in Wethersfield, Conn., a town on the river Connecticut, early famous for its huge crops of onions which grew on the alluvial soil of the valley, and was better than a gold mine. In the onion-growing season, it was said, the women of the town were all down on their knees, from morning to night, busy, weeding onions. Wright learned the printer's trade with his uncle, Thomas Collier, at Litchfield, edited the Troy (N.Y.) Gazette, studied law, came out to Ohio, just after the State was organized, settled in Steubenville, and began the practice of the law in 1810. For many years he was Judge of the Supreme Court, and served in Congress as an Adams Democrat from 1823 till 1829, and then, as a Henry Clay Democrat, was defeated for re-election. Judge Wright's "Reports of the Supreme Court of Ohio" (1831-1834) was a work of fine repute; but he could not well disregard his fondness for humor in his reports of cases that would allow of its introduction. He lived until February, 1861, at the time being in Washington a delegate to the Peace Congress. Judge Carter, in his "Reminiscences of the Court and Bar of Cincinnati," has given these anecdotes of the judge: "In the days of the Tippecanoe and Tyler too" campaign, Judge Wright used to be called by the adversary press one of General Harrison's conscience keepers. This arose from the fact that he belonged to a committee of three, consisting of himself, Judge Burnet, and another, whom I just now forget, who were appointed by political friends to answer all political letters addressed to the general, who, at the time, a weak, infirm old man was not thought fully able to attend to all the duties of the laborious campaign. As I know well, it did not at all disturb Judge Wright to be dubbed a conscience keeper of the general. "Better be a keeper of the good conscience of the general than the hunter-up of the conscience of Martin Van Buren," he would sometimes facetiously say. I must not forget to narrate a story, though somewhat at the expense of my old friend and law preceptor, Judge Wright. I know if he were alive he would not take it amiss, because he frequently told the story upon himself. Judge Wright was formerly a member of Congress from Ohio, from the Steubenville district, and while there he had for a fellow-representative from the State of Tennessee the long ago famous Davy Crockett. Judge Wright was not at all attractive in personal appearance. He was a diminutive man in stature, with a very large head, and a prominent face of not very handsome features, so that his looks, by no means prepossessing, were perhaps quite plain and homely, and not at all strikingly beautiful or picturesque. His mouth, chin and nose were extended somewhat, and this fact did not add to his beauty. Indeed, he had a reputation for being a very able and ill-looking congressman. On one occasion Davy Crockett was visiting a menagerie of animals -not the House of Representatives -in Washington City, and he had a friend with him. They were looking around at the animals, and at last they came to the place where the monkeys were. Among these was one large, grinning, full-faced monkey, and as Crockett looked at him he observed to his friend. "Why, that monkey looks just like our friend, Judge Wright, from Ohio." At that moment he turned around, and who should be just behind him, admiring the same monkey, but Congressman Judge Wright himself. "I beg pardon, Judge Wright" said Crockett, "I beg pardon; an apology is certainly due somewhere, but for the life of me, I cannot tell whether it is to you or the monkey." Judge Wright and Judge Benjamin Tappan were brothers-in-law. Many anecdotes were related of Tappan in that day illustrating his sharp, pungent wit, which had peculiar force from his personal peculiarities, he being cross-eyed, with a pair of sharp, black eyes, and talking through his nose in a whining, sing-song sort of style. The following contributed it, for he never would withold a good story for relation sake. The scene of its occurrence was said to have been in New Philadelphia at an early day. The court was held on this occasion in a log-tavern, and an adjoining log-stable was used as a jail, the stalls answering as cells for the prisoners. Judge T. was on the bench, and in the exercise of his judicial functions severely reprimanded two young lawyers who had got into a personal dispute. A huge, herculean backwoodsman, attired in a red flannel shirt, stood among the auditors in the apartment which served the double purpose of court and bar-room. He was much pleased at the judge's lecture -having himself been practicing at another bar -and hallooed out to his worship -who happened to be cross-eyed -in the midst of his harangue. "Give it to 'em old gimlet eyes!" "Who is that?" demanded the judge. He of the flannel shirt, proud of being thus noticed, stepped out from among the rest, and drawing himself up to his full height, vociferated, "It's this 'ere old hoss!" The judge, who to this day never failed of a pungent repartee when occasion required, called out in a peculiarly dry nasal tone, "Sheriff! take that old hoss, put him in the stable, and see that he is not stolen before morning." Col. Charles Whittlesey knew Benjamin Tappan well, and used to relate this of him: There came with Tappan from Massachusetts into Portage county an odd character whom, for the nonce, we may call John Dolby. He was not over bright very garrulous, and was wont, when others were talking, to obtrude his opinions, often making of himself a sort of social nuisance. On an occasion of suffering of this kind, Tappan flew at him and whined out, "John Dolby, you shut up! you don't know anything about it! You was a fool forty years ago, when I first knew you, and you have been failing every day since!" -continued in part 9 *************OH-FOOTSEPS Mailing List***************************