The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1866-12-06
Historical Sketches of
Highland County.
NUMBER II.
BY THE EDITOR.


ment at Mdnchester-His VdrioHs Erpe- |
ditionS and AdUentores-- Terrible Suffer
ings from Cold and Hunger-F First Entry
Of Lands in Highland o., by Simon Ken
ton, dc. DEC. dec.
That part of Ohio, lying between the
Scioto and Little Miami rivers, was orig
inally set apart by the State of Virginia,
to be appropriated to the payment of boun-
ties to her Revolutionary soldiers of the
Continental line. 1t thus acquired the
name of the "Virginia Military District"
On the 1st day of August, 1887, Col. r. G.
Anderson, who had been appointed princi-
pal Surveyor of the lands within the Dis
trict, opened an office at Louisville, KY,
for the reception of surveys and locations.
In those days the location and survey of
lands was a work attended with great dan
ger, and called into requistion the services
of class of bold, active and intelligent
men, who deserve honorable remembrance
in the history Of the country. 1t has been
justly said of them, that "defiant of hard
ships, privations and dangers, as were the
pioneer emigrants, the early Surveyors,
who located and ran off their lands, were
undoubtedly much their superiors. They
were not properly the first explorers of the
country, but they were the first to take
practical and permanent steps towards the
beginning of the settlements, which have
grown in the brief period of so years, into
an empire of population, wealth and pow.
er. They were all men of education, ant
many of them men of high order of tai
ent, while for daring, endurance and ener
gy, they stand unrivaled, perhaps, in an,
country"
Among the first, if not the very first, sur
veyors who visited the Virginia Military
District, in which Highland county is sit
uated, were Major John O'Banion and Ar
thur Fox, of Kentucky. In the spring o
1887 they explored the whole extent o
country along the Ohio, and some distanc
up the Scioto and Miami rivers, and SOM
of their tributaries. Entries were rapid,
made of the bottoms of the Ohio, Miam
and Scioto rivers. But these first entries
|
by act of Congress in July, 1888. Abou
two years afterwards, however, Congress
passed an act restoring validity to all tn
entries thus repealed, and prescribing th
mode of obtaining patents thereafter.
Owing to the dangers and difficulties at
tending the early location of lands in tn,
IDistriet, as already mentioned, the holders
of warrants generally employed the deputy
surveyors TO select and enter their lands
on such terms as could be agreed upon
the Surveyors receiving one-fourth, one
third, and sometimes one-half the land 70
their services. When paid in money, thei
usual terms were, ten pounds Virgins
: currency for each 1000 acres entered AM
/ es.
One ofthe most accomplished and sue
cessful Surveyors of that day, was Ger
. Nathaniel Massie. A large amount G
J warrants having been placed in his hand
for location in the District, he determined
, as preliminary step, to establish settle
r ment. He accordingly, during the winte
of 1790-9I, laid out the town ofManchestel
on the Ohio river, in the present county {
Adams, and built cabins for the inhabi
tants. The settlement was enclosed by
line of strong pickets firmly fixed in tn
! ground, with block houses at each angle
as a defence against Indians.
, This was the first white settlement mad
a within the Virginia Military District, an
the fourth within the present boundaries
the State of Ohio, and although commence
e during the hottest of the Indian hostilitie
it suffered less than any previously mad
I All north of this place, then calle
q "Massie's Station" to the Lakes, west [
8 the mouth of the Little Miami, and east
0 Gallipolis, was one unbroken wilderness
> through which the surveying parties pas
h ed, regardless of roads, and uncheered b
any of the incidents of civilization whiC
Z now greet the traveller. GALL" (says M
i Scott,) "was the lonely, solitary gloom
}. the dark old forest, except when relieve
v by. an occasional widespread prairi
u smiling in the silence and beauty of i
variegated and odorous fioweas Throug
all this vast wilderness roamed the bea
the elk, the buffalo, the deer, the panthe
o and the innumerable smaller game pecl
7 liar to a country in state of nature"
The manner in which these pioneer su
q veyors conducted their expeditions, is thu
u graphically described
"The surveyors generally chose the wi
- ter. for their expeditions, because the
l. dihns We're always more quiet during tn
e season. The plan adopted was essential
n military. Four or Ave Surveyors we
generally engaged In the same party. ,
each Surveyor was attached six men, ma
4. ing mess of seven men. Every man h,
" his prescribed duty to perform. The hu
l. ter vent in front, and kept in advance
le the surveyor two or three hundred yard
Is looking for game, and prepared TO give N
d tice should any danger from India
- threaten. Then followed the surveyor, d
- two ehainmen, marker and paclS-hors
" men, with the baggage, who always Ike
u near each other, to be prepared fordefen
d in case of an attack. Lastly, two or thr
If hundred yards in the rear, came a m,
N called the spy, whose duty 1t was to ke
- - on the back trail, and look out lest d
IL party might be pursued and attacked |
surprise. Each man, including the su