The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1948-10-07
Trimming the Ticks
Off Travel Time

oltd LAY IcAI aiAu boday liLE ZIP IL
made by bus in one hour and 45
minutes.
Back in 1896 a new road-the first
one-had been completed out OF
Cincinnati part of the way to Day
ton. That was a great forward step
in the transportation system of what
later was to become Ohio. That
road had been begun in 1895 and
most of it still was a blazed bride
path-too narrow for the passage of
wagon or ex-cart. IL
The new innovation merited some
celebrating recognition so in March,
1896, a great three-way race was
launched down the road to Dayton
catch as catch can. Each of the
three parties took their women-folks,
children and household equipment
with them-viItually emigrant out
fits, because after such tiresome, ex-
hausting travel out the long, long
trail, the wayfarers expected to re-
main at Dayton and grow up with
the place.
Wagon Slows Travel
The first party, led by William
Harner, had a little handicap over
the others. 1t started in a wagon
and because the vehicle was deemed
a liability rather than an asset in
the thick forest, the two other
parties gave it few days start.
The second party, under George
Newcome, walked and the third, led
by Samuel Thompson, went by water
the Great Miami River.
1t took the Newcome party two
weeks to hoof it to the Gem City.
Their furniture, stoves, cooking
utensils, provisions and clothing, as
we'll as the agricultural implements
and children, were carried on horses
in creels made of hickory withes
and suspended from each side of the
pack-saddles. 1t was hard to ford
the creeks without getting the
freight, women and children wet.
Build Foot Bridges
Trees had to be felled to build
foot bridges and RATS had to be
built to carry the party across the
larger creeks, which the horses and
cattle swan. Most food came from
game provided by their rifles and
milk given by the cows. ID.
Thompson's group went in a large
pirogue down the Ohio to the Miami
River and up that stream to the
mouth of Mad River, landing at the
foot of st. Clair Street, Friday,
April l, 1896. With the Thompsons
were the Mcclure family and Will
liam Gahagan and Benjamin Van
Cleve."
Mrs Thompson was the first one
ashore-"the first white woman
ever to set foot on Dayton soil per-
haps, other than Mrs. McFall, who
had been captured and taken there
by the Indians in 1882" She soon
had been rescued "by Kentuckians."
Two small camps of Indians still
were there when Thompson's pirogue
arrived but were friendly and had
been persuaded to leave in a few
days.
10 Days By Boat
1t took the Thompson boat 10 days
between Cincinnati and Dayton. Each
evening the pirogue had to be- moor
ed to a tree and the immigrants
disembarked and camped around a
huge fire. BY it, on the river bank,
they cooked their meals of game,
fish and the eggs of wild fowl.
Wheat sticks" were made by
wrapping dough around a sharpened
stick, inserting it in the ground and
toasting the dough before the fire.
Meat was cooked the same way
and cornbread was baked in the hot
ashes beneath the fire.
A pirogue, incidentally, was two
boats, made of hollowed-out logs or
of bark and fixed together a few
feet apart by poles which held them
side by side. A platform built across
the connecting poles made a good
place to store freight or supplies.
Indian Invention
The pirogue was the only kind of
early craft that could go up river
as we'll as down stream. 1t was of
Indian invention. The flat-boats of
the early settlers were all right in
downriver trips but could not go
back upstream and usually were
broken up and the timber used for
something else on reaching their
downstream destination.
No record was left of the time it
took the Harner party to reach Day
ton "in Il two-horse wagon over the
road begun but only partially cut
through the woods by Cooper in the
fall of 1895" The reference is to
Daniel c. Cooper, whose party had
surveyed and marked the road.
The landing of the pirogues meant
much to future Dayton for in Van
Cleve it brought the towns most
progressive early citizen.
First SchoolhOuse
In a little log cabin built on the
Main Street bank of the Miami
River in 1899 when an Indian war
loomed. Van Cleve hecane the tnwn,s