Page images
PDF
EPUB

more than fifty-five years. The matters which he has related that occurred before he came upon the scene he obtained many years ago from the statements of those who had personal knowledge of the facts they related, and on whose truth he could rely; and the remaining statements of events since he came to the county were nearly all within his own personal knowledge. Of all of whom he has spoken, not half-a-score remain, and of those above mere childhood who dwelt in Greenville when he came to the place, not one is left-all are gone!

A few incidents of early years have been omitted, and of some of them mention should be made.

In 1828, a stray printer on his rambles came into the county, named Benjamin S. Bullfinch. At that early day "teetotalism" had not made any serious inroads. Bullfinch, when under the influence of "Baldface," entered somebody's house and promiscuously appropriated a watch of the value of more than $10, as it was alleged and proved. He was arrested, indicted and tried, and as drunkenness was not then a justification of theft, was convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary for a year. This was the first conviction for an offense punishable by a sentence to the penitentiary in the county.

On the morning of January 21, 1840, there was found on the premises of the Broadway House, a dead infant that had come into the world at some time of the preceding night. The mother was soon ascertained to be a young woman in the employ of the landlord. Charles Hutchins was then the Coroner, and in obedience to his warrant a jury was called, who by their finding made the charge of infanticide against the mother, and she, as soon as her condition permitted, was removed to the county jail. After several months she was brought to trial. She was defended by Judge Crane, who discharged that duty by order of the court, without fee or reward. defending the indigent accused, when thereto assigned by the court, upon and for At that day, lawyers discharged the duty of the honor of their profession; and the practice of shysters haunting county jails in search of jobs at the cost of the county had not yet been inaugurated. On the trial, the woman was acquitted. That death had been occasioned by violence was established by the post-mortem investigation, but whether that violence was the result of purpose or accident was never known. The mother had been entirely alone in her hours of agony. No defense of insanity was set up; that plea, as an offcome for murder, was then scarcely known in criminal procedure. Now the conduct and character of the manslayer and his ancestry, to the third and fourth generation, are sought out to establish hereditary insanity, and as scarce any one who in his pedigree but must make mention of fools as well as madmen, the defense of mental alienation is generally made out.

In 1794, a criminal in Wayne's garrison was by a military court tried, convicted and sentenced, and pursuant thereto was hanged. Since that day, the sentence to death as the penalty of a broken law has been but once pronounced by a court of justice in Darke County, and that sentence is not at this present writing executed. Whether it ever will be, is in the uncertainty of the future.

The uproar on the streets reminds the writer that this is "show day;" there is to be exhibited a menagerie of animals and a circus. The first show in Greenville was of a similar character, though on a smaller scale, in June, 1829. But then as now, the institution was accompanied by a band of counterfeiters and thieves. On the next morning, Jim Craig had amongst his assets $22 in counterfeit money, coin and bank notes. amounts. Two men had their pocket-books stolen, three others their pockets cut and Howell had $17, and other townsmen had lesser purses taken, and there were outside thefts in the county amounting in the aggregate to $200 or $300. But then as now, men and their families who had neither meat nor meal, salt nor whisky in their dwellings, came to town and spent their

last dime to "see the show."

Of the rise and progress of religious organizations in the town and township, the writer has not yet made mention, and, like many other matters of early years,

there is obscurity and doubt. As early as 1817 or 1818, Elder Nathan Worley, from Montgomery County, a man who could not read one word in the Bible, but by his people regarded as an apostle, belonging to the body who called themselves "Christians," and commonly called "New Lights," who utterly abhorred any other appellation or name of denomination or sect; and David Purviance, who had been a party in the revolt from the Presbyterian body at Cane Ridge, in Kentucky, about 1799 or 1800, and who, about 1809 or 1810, had removed with a number of like faith to the vicinity of New Paris, Preble County, the one illiterate as the fishermen of Galilee, the other like Paul or Timothy, "learned in the Scriptures from his youth," at intervals, few and far between, held religious services in the town or vicinity. About 1818, Greenville became a point in, a circuit of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and John P. Durbin, a D. D. of after years, and a man whose praise is yet in all the churches, although he has gone hence to his reward, was the first itinerant circuit-rider. About the same time or near it, the town and township became a missionary field of the Presbyterian Church, and was visited first by Nicholas Pittenger, and subsequently by John Ross of that denomination, who held services in the town and neighborhood. From 1819 or 1820, services of the Baptist Church were held at long intervals, by Childers and Wintermole, ministers of that denomination, who yet, after the lapse of sixty years, have a quasi-organization, although no regular stated service or house of worship in the town or township.

About the year 1833, a Methodist Church was erected on the site of the present edifice; it was a frame building, and of dimensions capable of seating an audience of one hundred to one hundred and fifty. The building was removed in after years across the street to make way for the present house. Near the same period, the Baptists took possession of the ground where the old log schoolhouse had been demolished, and erected a small frame structure to serve them as a place of worship. In 1836 or 1837, the existing Episcopal Church was erected on the ground where it yet stands; its position has been changed and the house enlarged. Either the same year or the year previous, the Christian Church erected a brick building on Third street, between Broadway and Walnut street, which was taken down about thirty years since on an exchange of lots, the church obtaining the site of the present edifice. These four buildings were the only structures for ecclesiastical uses in town or township in 1840. Services of other denominations were held either in some of these buildings after their erection or in the court house. It should, however, be stated here, that at the Catholic cemetery, two miles northeast of the town, a log house yet standing was erected, and in it at distant intervals religious services were held, when a priest came to look after the lambs of that flock who had strayed into the wilderness. This old building was probably erected in 1839 or 1840.

[blocks in formation]
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed]

HISTORY OF DARKE COUNTY.

BY PROF. W. H. MCINTOSH.

Those who bore the burden and heat of the early day,

Who suffered loss and privation uncomplaining-where are they?
They wrought with strong endurance, through discouragement and ill;
Has the great All-Reaper spared them? Do they dwell among us still?
Ah, no, they rest from their labors, and little to-day appears

To remind us of the hardships endured by the pioneers.

Their noble lives have drifted beyond the shores of time,

But the blessed works that follow are enduring and sublime.

Yet the past is soon forgotten, as an idle story told,

The New is a strong young giant that slays and devours the Old.

Who walks the streets of our cities where the tides of commerce flow,
And thinks of the sloughs and brushwood there fifty years ago?
Who, seeing the classic facades of our mansions grand and fair,
Remembers the buckeye cabins and the half-faced camps once there?
In the palace cars that bear us over the iron track,

Leaving the wind to follow, who pauses and looks back

To the time when the sole conveyance for human freight and goods,
Was a stanch old four-horse wagon, creeping along through the woods?
Who sits in our splendid churches, with their fretted and frescoed walls,
Where the light. through painted windows, like a broken rainbow falls,
And thinks of the band of sertlers who paid to God their vows
On the wild grass sod of the forest under the maple boughs.
Ah, the past is soon forgotten when its pulsing heart grows cold-
The New is a strong young giant that slays and devours the Old.

-S. T. Bolton.

INTRODUCTION.

HE history of Darke County is a record of military strife and civil progress. happy and harmonious developments of peace. It builds the forts which sheltered armies and, later, founds cities upon their sites. It shows to us a wild waste of forest and swamp, broken by stretches of prairie, and irrigated by bridgeless streams, transformed to fields productive, pastures pleasant, homes comfortable and cities growing, populous and flourishing. It presents to view the dwellers of the wood, the Shawnee, Miami and other tribes at home. The energy of France, power of England and the dominant persistence of Americans found here full play. It conducts from beyond the Alleghanies and beyond the ocean to find the fatherland of the race now dwelling in its townships.

the

The savage is seen to vanish beyond the Mississippi, the pioneer becomes the settler and commencement is made of a civilization whose manifest destiny is the highest happiness and power of a free people. Owners of the lands they till, makers of the laws they obey, themselves the projectors and builders of house and church, turnpike and drain, and all the improvements apparent to the eye of the interested observer. Persevering industry is seen to have rescued a region of swamp wherein miasma bred and floated, poisoning the atmosphere and endangering life, to become the most fertile of farms and healthful of lands.

« PreviousContinue »