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HISTORY
OF ADAMS COUNTY, OHIO
Adams County is one of the
oldest in Ohio. It was formed July 10, 1797, by
proclamation of Arthur St. Clair, Governor of
the Northwest Territory. The elder Adams was
then President of the United States, and St.
Clair named the county in his honor. The civil
organization of the county was effected Tuesday,
September 12, 1797, at Manchester, the site of
the first white settlement in the Virginia
Reservation, and the third in Ohio. There were
three counties organized in Ohio before Adams,
namely : Washington, Hamilton, and Wayne.
Adams County lies on
the majestic Ohio, and borders Highland on the
north, Scioto on the east, and Brown on the
west. Pike joins at the northeast angle. The
form of the county is rectangular, its longer
sides being its eastern and western boundary
lines, and it contains six hundred and
twenty-five square miles of surface. The
original boundaries of the county included the
greater portion of the Virginia Reservation. On
the hydrographic charts of the state, Adams
County is classed in the Scioto Valley section,
but it is properly designated an Ohio River
county. Its system of drainage empties directly
into the Ohio, except a small area in the
northeastern part drained by Scioto Brush Creek,
a tributary of the Scioto River. Few counties of
the state surpass Adams in the number and size
of its fine streams and creeks. The largest of
these is Ohio Brush Creek, a magnificent stream
that flows through the central portion of the
county from the north and empties into the Ohio
River. From the village of Newport at the
junction of its west and east branches to its
mouth at the Ohio, it traverses a distance of
nearly forty miles, and for the greater portion
of its course attains the magnitude of a small
river. In the days of the old iron furnaces
their products were transported a portion of the
year in barges from "Old Forge Dam" to
the Ohio. A system of slackwater navigation on
Ohio Brush Creek was at one time contemplated by
the state when the iron furnaces were in
operation there. In an article in the WESTERN
PIONEER George Sample states that in 1806, he
loaded two flat boats with flour at his
residence on Ohio Brush Creek and took them from
there to New Orleans. Hundreds of rafts of logs
used to be floated from the vicinity of the
Sproull bridge during good stages of water,
while the lower course of the creek could be
used almost the entire year.
The present generation has
but little conception of the environments of the
pioneers of Adams county, and of the hardships
and dangers endured by them. When the first
settlement was formed at the "Three
Islands," what is now Adams County, as in
fact with two exceptions, all of the present
State of Ohio, was a vast wilderness, inhabited
by tribes of hostile savages, and filled with
ferocious beasts and venomous serpents. There
was not a white man's domicile in all the
Virginia Reservation, and there was not a fort
nor a single company of soldiers in all that
vast region to shelter the pioneer who ventured
within its limits, or to stay the course of the
bands of murderous savages that roamed the
forests. For the most part the entire region was
an unbroken forest, and the stately monarchs of
the woods, the oak leviathans, whose lofty tops
towered the heavens, formed a canopy of green
that was but dimly penetrated by the summer's
sun, and the creeks and streams were overhung
with foliage that shut out the sunlight and cast
deep shadows over the surface of the waters.
There was not a road nor a path through this
wilderness except those made by the herds of
buffaloes in their travels from one feeding
place to another. There were no means of travel
through this vast wilderness except on foot or
on horseback and these were fraught with the
greatest dangers to life and limb. With such
surroundings and under such conditions was the
first white settlement begun in the Virginia
Reservation.
Massie's Settlement at
Manchester. In the year 1790, Nathaniel Massie,
a young land surveyor, who was interested in
locating land warrants in the Virginia
Reservation northwest of the Ohio River, as an
inducement to found a colony there, offered to
each of the first twenty-five persons who would
join him in making a settlement, one inlot and
one outlot in a town he proposed to lay off, and
one hundred acres of land in the vicinity of the
new town. In accordance with this proposal the
following written agreement was drawn up and
signed by the parties interested :
Articles of agreement
between Nathaniel Massie, of the one part, and
the several persons that have hereunto
subscribed, of the other part, witnesseth : that
the subscribers hereof cloth oblige themselves
to settle in the town laid off, on the northwest
side of the Ohio, opposite the lower part of the
three islands ; and make said town or the
neighborhood, on the northwest side of the Ohio,
their permanent seat of residence for two years
from the date hereof; no subscriber shall be
absent for more than two months at a time, and
during such absence, he shall furnish a strong
able-bodied man sufficient to bear arms at least
equal to himself; no subscriber shall absent
himself the time above mentioned, in case of
actual danger, nor shall such absence be but
once a year ; no subscriber shall absent himself
in case of actual danger, or if absent, he shall
return immediately. Each of the subscribers doth
oblige himself to comply with the rules and
regulations that shall be agreed on by a
majority there of for the support of the
settlement.
In consideration whereof,
Nathaniel Massie doth bind and oblige himself,
his heirs, etc., to make over and convey to such
of the subscribers, that comply with the above
conditions, at the expiration of two years, a
good and sufficient title unto one inlot in said
town, containing five poles in front and eleven
back, one outlet of four acres convenient to
said town, in the bottom, which the said Massie
is to put them in immediate possession of ; also
one hundred acres of land, which the said Massie
has shown to a part of the subscribers; the
conveyance to be made to each of the
subscribers, their heirs or assigns. In witness
whereof each of the parties have hereunto set
their hands and seals this first day of
December, 1790. signed)
| Nathaniel
Massie |
John
Ellison |
| John
Lindsey |
Allen
Simmeral |
| William
Wade |
John
X McCutchen |
| John
Black |
Andrew
X Anderson |
| Samuel
X Smith |
Mathew
X Hart |
| Jessie
X Wethington |
Henry
X Nelson |
| Josiah
Wade |
John
Peter Christopher Shanks |
| John
Clark |
James
Allison |
| Robert
Ellison |
Thomas
Stout |
| Zephaniah
Wade |
George
Wade |
Done in the
presence of John Beasley, James Tittle.
It has been said
that this agreement was drafted and subscribed
at Kenton's Station near the town of Washington,
Kentucky. It is probable that it was drafted at
Limestone and subscribed there. However, the
settlement was begun immediately, the town was
laid out into lots and named Manchester, after
Manchester in England, the home of the ancestors
of its founder. The new settlement was known for
years as Massie's Station.
"This little
confederacy, with Massie at the helm (who was
the whole soul of it)," says McDonald,
"went to work with spirit. Cabins were
raised, and by the middle of March, 1791, the
whole town was enclosed with strong pickets,
firmly fixed in the ground, with block-houses at
each angle for defense. [The situation of the
stockade was opposite the lower end of the large
island and extended to the river bank.] Although
this settlement was commenced in the hottest
Indian war. it suffered less from depredations
and even interruption from the Indians. than any
settlement previously made en the Ohio River.
This was no doubt owing to the watchful band of
brave spirits who guarded the place, men who
were reared in the midst of danger and inured to
perils, and as watchful as hawks. Here were the
Beasleys, the Stouts, the Washburns, the Leedoms,
the Edgingtons, the Dinnings, the Ellisons, the
Utts, the McKenzies, the Wades and others who
were equal to the Indians in all the arts and
stratagems of border war.
The pioneers of Adams
County as a class were honorable and moral men
and women. They represented some of the best
families of Virginia. Pennsylvania, Kentucky,
Maryland, New Jersey and the Carolinas. They
were a hardy, industrious, and frugal people,
who had come determined to make a home for
themselves and their generations in the great
Northwest. They were the daring, spirited and
brave element of the older settlements east of
the Alleghenies. It is true there were in the
early settlements as there is in every community
today, a rough, immoral, indolent element ; but
look into the history of any of the early
settlements in the county, and it will be seen
that each was dominated by moral, industrious,
and intelligent families. The pioneers were not,
as is the popular opinion, giants in stature and
of herculean strength, but they were hardy and
vigorous as a result of plain living and an
active outdoor life. As a matter of necessity
every man and boy devoted a portion of his time
to the chase. It afforded the principal
subsistence of the early settlers, and
"wild meat without salt or bread was often
their only food for weeks." They were a
generous-hearted and hospitable people, whose
welcome was plain and outspoken. There was none
of the deceit veiled in hollow formalities that
prevails in society today. "Our
latch-string is always out" meant a genuine
hearty welcome to the humble home of the
pioneer.
source: A History of Adams County, Ohio by
Nelson Wiley Evans, Emmons Buchanan Stivers
TRANSCRIBED BY JRICE 2008 FOR GENEALOGY TRAILS
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