Amos Dunham's Recollections of Early Settlement

"In those days every man calculated to keep his bottle of whiskey by him if possible, and if a neighbor came in to sit awhile and was not invited to drink, 

he considered himself insulted."

On June 5, 1855, a three-mile wide by eight mile long strip of land bordering the Ohio River was taken from Belpre and Warren townships to create a new township. It was named “Dunham” in honor of Captain Jonathan Dunham (1750-1823) and his family, who had arrived in the West from Litchfield County, Connecticut, during the summer of 1803, and settled on the east branch of the Little Hocking River. On the occasion of the dedication of Dunham Township, June 30, 1855, Jonathan’s son Amos Dunham (1782-1865) delivered an address that described his experiences as a pioneer in an unsettled territory. The following is taken from his speech:

Fifty-two years ago this summer, my father undertook to follow the range line through from Turkey-hen to Belpre, then an unbroken wilderness.  He followed the line until he came to the creek between Sylvester Ellenwood’s and Isaac Bickford’s. He there lost the line, and had no other means of finding his way out than to follow the creek down.  The land where Mr. Goddard now lives struck his fancy.  He went to General Putnam’s land office, and found it was owned by Mr. Kilbourn, then living at the mouth of Duck Creek, above Marietta.  He purchased the lot for $2.00 an acre, on a long credit, and in the fall, made some preparations for moving to his purchase.  Father took the west half, eighty acres, I took sixty acres next, and the east end, twenty acres, were given to Amos Delano. 

At this time there was no house or road between here and the river; and down the creek, the first house was Elihu Clark’s on the school lot, then Mr. Cooper’s and Benjamin Bickford’s.  Down further near the mill, were John Tilton’s, Asa Dain’s, Mr. Foster’s and Mr. Malsey’s.  The inconvenience of having no road was a very serious matter, and immediately after I moved on my farm, I drew a petition to the trustees of the township (we then belonged to Belpre Township) for a road from Miles’ Mills to the river near Little Island, a distance of nine miles. But finding we could not work our tax on such a road, I abandoned the idea of a township road, and petitioned the commissioners for a county road, which was granted, and the road laid out. But the Surveyors neglected to make returns to the Commissioners and we failed again.  In the meantime, I had to walk a distance of nearly seven miles (on a causeway back of Lewis’s store), to do my highway work.  The third petition succeeded.

In the spring of 1804, I commenced working on my lot, and lived in quite a retired manner.  I slept in my little camp, a short distance back of where Mr. Goddard now lives; cooked my own pork and potatoes; kept a good fire in front of my camp at night; laid myself quietly down on my bed of leaves, and was soon hushed to sleep by the united melody of wolves and owls; and from Monday morning to Saturday night was not disturbed by the sight of a single human being.  Every night the wolves would commence howling on one hill and be answered by another flock on another hill, and another, until it appeared as if the woods were full of them.  Our sheep, after we got them, had to be enclosed in yards near the house every night or they would be caught.  I had fourteen killed in one night, in a yard adjoining my house, one of which was not over twelve feet from where I was sleeping.

For several years after I commenced farming, the wild turkeys would come on to my fields after the wheat was sown, in such numbers that the ground would be fairly black with them, and in the winter and spring the deer would come on in droves to take what the turkeys had left.

The pioneers of those days had a great many difficulties to contend with, that at this time would be thought insurmountable.  As a specimen, I will give you a short story about going to mill.  Harvesting was just finished, my supply of bread stuff was nearly exhausted, and my neighbors were worse off than myself. I threshed out a grist of wheat as quick as possible, put it on an ox sled, drew it out to the river, put it in an old log stable and returned home with my oxen.  The next morning I went to the river, borrowed a canoe, packed my grain down the bank, put it in the canoe, and poled the canoe up to Devol’s floating mill, on the Muskingum four or five miles above Marietta and I had to stay about a week before my turn came for grinding. When ground I put it into the canoe, pushed ashore, packed my flour up the bank to a hand belt, belted it by hand myself, packed it down to the canoe, pushed the canoe down to where I started from, carried my flour up to the old stable, took a small quantity on my back, and started for home.

When I got down about where Joline Hopkins now lives, I met Oren Newton and his wife, who had been out to my house on a visit, but Mrs. Dunham told them candidly she had not a bit of bread in the house, and nothing to make any with, and that her neighbors were in the same situation. They, out of pity for her, mounted their horses, and were on their way home, when they met me with my bag of flour, and were easily persuaded to return with me and finish their visit, and a good visit we had.

People in those days used to enjoy visiting.  So highly was it prized that my wife and myself have traveled on foot from where we lived to the river, to make a neighborly visit.  Why it should be so I know not, but from long experience I am convinced that it is invariably the case that people in a new country who are in low circumstances, and are rather hard put to it to bring the year about, are more friendly, more interested in each other’s welfare, and more benevolent, than those who are placed in more desirable situations.  I know that 50 years ago, when I had been at work all winter chopping a piece of heavy timbered bottom land, had the brush burned, and the logs ready for hauling in the spring and my neighbors had theirs in the same situation (my neighbors then lived three or four miles off), we used to unite our forces, roll one man’s logs one day, another’s the next, and so on till we finished the whole.  I felt nearly the same interest in seeing my neighbors land cleared as I did my own.

It is true we had one bad habit then which I hope is now in a great measure discontinued. That was, at all log-rollings we had whiskey.  Day after day have I spent in this manner going from one house to another to pile their logs, and generally the day was closed with a ring of wrestling.

For several years after we settled here, the settlement progressed but slowly.  Stephen Taylor built a house where the graveyard now is and lived there a short time, when his house took fire and was consumed.  In the War of 1812, he enlisted, went into the army and never returned.  Gideon Rathbun settled where Mr. Hollister now lives.  A man by the name of Straight built a house near the spring, back of Sylvester Ellenwood’s and lived there a short time, and Joseph Delano built on the creek west of Isaac Bickford’s.

About the year 1816, our settlement was increased by the arrival of Asahel Hollister and family, Jasper and Stephen Needham, Benedict Rathbun, and others.  From this time we began to hold up our heads, and think that the time was fast approaching when we should be SOMEBODY!  From that time to the present, you are better acquainted with the history of the settlement than I am.

My friends, on this occasion, will it be arrogance in me – will it be improper for me, an aged pioneer, whose looks are bleached by the frosts of 73 winters, to offer to you a little advice, to point out to you the rocks and shoals which my age and experience have enabled me to discover, on which the happiness of millions have been wrecked and lost?

I feel an attachment for this place. Twenty-one years' residence here when it was emerging from a wilderness to a well-cultivated settlement has engraved its memory on my mind so deeply that it will never be eradicated. And could I be a humble instrument in rescuing one of its inhabitants from the danger of impending evils with which they are surrounded, it would be a never-ending consolation to me during my life.

The first great evil to which you are exposed that I shall mention, that has been the ruin of millions and the prolific cause of almost every other evil, is ALCOHOL. The direful effects of this great destroyer of human happiness has been severely felt in every town, village, and I was going to say family, in our country. . . .

Perhaps you will say, “I have always been in the habit of taking a dram occasionally. I am fond of it, and I really think it does me good, and even if I should attempt to abandon the use of it altogether, I have been in the habit so long that it would be impossible for me to abandon its use.” In answer to this, let me give you a short history of my own personal experience. I naturally had a very strong appetite for ardent spirits. I never smelt or tasted any thing in my life that had so good a flavor as rum; and had I not, with uncommon diligence guarded myself, I should have been a drunkard before I was fifteen years old.

After I became a man with a family I used every year to raise rye, take it over the river to Mr. Old’s distillery, and lay in my year’s supply of whiskey, as regularly as I did my pork or flour.  In those days every man calculated to keep his bottle of whiskey by him if possible, and if a neighbor came in to sit awhile and was not invited to drink, he considered himself insulted.  After I moved to Marietta I was amongst company constantly where whiskey was used freely, so freely that I began to be alarmed. I discovered that every morning I wanted to go to the water bucket as soon as I got up. My appetite was very irregular; sometimes I would eat like a wolf, at others I could eat nothing at all. My sleep was disturbed and broken, my temper was more irritable, I was much easier insulted than I used to be. Something was wrong, and I strongly suspected that liquor had something to do with it, so I concluded I would reform. . . . In short, I am well pleased with the experiment so that although it is now twenty-three years since I commenced it, I shall stick to it a little longer.

In conclusion, let us take a short comparative view of [the east branch of the] Little Hocking [River] in early times and of Dunham now.  The inhabitants were, without a single exception, emphatically poor.  Their lands had to be cleared of a heavy growth of timber before they could raise their bread, their little log cabins were dark, smoky, and uncomfortable, some of them without any floor but the earth, and but one small room, for whole families.

 Enter those houses, you would have found the furniture to consist of a rifle gun, a bullet pouch, a few wooden stools to sit on, and among the more aristocratic, half a dozen splint-bottomed chairs, a puncheon table, bedsteads in the corners of the house, formed by inserting in a post one end of two round poles, for a side and end rail, the other end of which is fastened in the logs of the house. From the crevice between the logs of the house and this rail, are placed a number of thin puncheons or clap-boards, sufficiently strong, however, to bear the weight of the good man and his wife. A few knives and forks of different sizes and shapes, some few plates, spoons, tin cups, etc., are discovered on a shelf supported by two wooden pins drove into the side of the house, under which stands the water pail, and bake and tea kettle, and at one end, on a peg, hangs the gourd.  The good woman of the house is sitting at her spinning wheel, working away with all her might and main, and calculating how many extra yards of cloth she will have to make, after clothing herself and family, to enable her to buy herself a calico gown, or get the baby a new frock, and on the outside (for ornament I suppose) is stretched a monstrous great coon skin.

As for myself, I never cared much about dress, my pride did not run in that channel.  I was generally as happy and contented in my linsey roundabout and trowsers as I would have been in more costly apparel.  But I was once ashamed of my dress; I had been promoted, I had been appointed fourth Corporal in Capt. Howes’ company of militia; training day came, I went out to Belpre to training, and was ordered by the Captain to step out in front of the company to act as fugleman.  This was rather too bad, a man of my consequence in this exalted situation, I thought could not show off his dignity to good advantage, could not produce that awe and veneration to which his merit justly entitled him, in leather pantaloons.

The price of everything the farmer could raise in those days was extremely low, and whatever he had to buy, exorbitantly high.  A bushel of wheat was nominally twenty-five cents, though it could seldom be obtained in cash.  I once took some good potatoes to Marietta for sale; some I sold for twelve and a half cents a bushel, and some I could not sell at any price.  In 1803 I went out to the old Scioto salt works, now Jackson, and worked several weeks for salt, packed it home on horses through the wilderness, and sold it for four dollars a bushel.  Think of that, farmers; 16 bushels of wheat for 50 lbs. of wet, black, dirty salt.  A yard of calico that can now be bought for eight or ten cents, would then have cost seventy-five, butter could be bought for six cents a pound, and eggs for four cents a dozen.

No doubt you will wonder, and exclaim, “How could people live in such times?”  We can now readily get two dollars a bushel for our wheat or potatoes, twenty-five cents a pound for our butter, fifteen cents a dozen for our eggs and all other production of our farms equally high, and yet we are barely enabled to make the two end of the year meet!”

I will tell you, friends; the people were plain, simple, and economical.  Such things as one hundred and fifty dollar gold watches, five hundred dollar carriages, one hundred dollar silk dresses, fifty dollar pocket-handkerchiefs, &c., &c., were not thought of.  The men raised flax and wool, and the women worked those articles into clothing for themselves and families.  The women were so vulgar they thought it no disgrace to be useful.  Even the young damsel had so little regard for decency and propriety, that she would not drop her broom, or quit her washtub, if she happened to be surprised by her favorite beau in so disgraceful a position.

And were they esteemed any the less because they were clad in plain homespun and used their utmost exertions to make a beloved family happy” Would not any sensible man prefer such a one for a partner for life to a modern belle, decked out in all her gaudy apparel, her silk dress dragging in the dust like a peacock’s tail, her fingers covered with gold (or brass?) rings, two large globules dangling from her ears resembling wattles on a hog, and a bonnet about the size of a clam shell, decorated with a profusion of ribbons, stuck on to the back part of her head; then she is so refined in her conversation that you can hardly understand what she says; she is so exquisite that the sight of a bug would make her faint; and her abhorrence of any thing she considers vulgar is so great, that she would almost as willing have people believe she was not handsome as to believe that she ever degraded herself so much as to do any kind of work? I think he would; I think that a plain, good commonsense, industrious woman is the greatest blessing bestowed on man, and also the most attractive object in nature. I positively know, that when I have seen Laura Guthrie dressed in a copperas-colored, home-made petticoat and short gown, dancing a French four, I thought her the most beautiful object in this beautiful world, notwithstanding I knew she worked every day.

I would not wish to be understood to insinuate that the present inhabitants of this township have arrived at that degree of extravagance and folly above described. I know they have not; few settlements of equal age have less of it; but yet, on a close examination, some small symptoms might be discovered, some little indications, that pomp and splendor are not entirely indifferent to you. Have not some of you, my friends, thought, when neighbor A bought his new buggy, and B appeared in meeting with his fine broadcloth coat and high, red-topped boots, that you were as able to indulge in such luxuries as they were? Has not your wife told you that Mrs. C. had appeared in meeting in a “brand new silk dress,” and that she herself was perfectly ashamed to be seen “in her old calico gown?” And the other day, when your daughter persuaded you to buy that brass breastpin, which the peddler said was gold and worth five dollars, did not her cheeks glow with exultation and delight, when she thought “how much prettier Mr. C. will think I look now?”

It will be needless for me to attempt to show the present condition of this place in contrast with former times; it is well known to you all. It is true the place has not flourished as rapidly as many others. Many circumstances have combined to retard its progress, but these circumstances are fast disappearing. The day of prosperity is dawning, and if you will be temperate, honest, industrious, and economical, I see no reason to doubt you will be a prosperous and happy people.

When I entered this assembly today it was very natural for me to look around for the early settlers of this township, my old friends and early associates.  I look, but I see them not.  Where are they?  Where are the Taylors, the Rathbuns, the Robinsons, the Johnsons, the Delanos, the Tiltons, the Clarks, the Coopers, the Bickfords, the Bellows, the Straights, the Hinmans, the Dilleys, the Ellenwoods, Harrises, the Nortons, the Smiths, the Coles, the Cutlers, the Newtons, the Chappells, the Hollisters, the Needhams, and the Gormans? Gone! Gone! Gone! With but here and there a solitary individual to show that such persons ever existed. They are gone, scattered, and dispersed in every direction, but the far greater proportion of them are “gone to that bourns from which no traveler returns.” They have finished their course, and now rest from their labors. True, I do see in this respectable assembly many who were then children, and others who have since been born, still left to preserve the names and perpetuate the memory of the Pioneers of Dunham. 

Source:

Address Delivered at a Meeting Held for the Celebration of the Setting Off the Township of Dunham, Washington County, Ohio, by Amos Dunham, published by O. B. Chapman, Cincinnati, n.d.