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��HISTORY OF OHIO.
��informing them of tlie time and place of rendez- vous.
" About sixty men met, according to appoint- ment, wh(,) were divided into three companies, under Massie, Finley and Falenash. They pro- ceeded on their route, without interruption, until they struck the fills of Paint Creek. Proceeding a short distance down that stream, they suddenly j found themselves in the vicinity of some Indians who had encamped at a place, since called Reeve's Crossing, near the present town of Bainbridge. The Indians were of those who had refused to attend Wayne's treaty, and it was determined to give them battle, it being too late to retreat with safety. The Indians, on being attacked, soon fled with the loss of two killed and several wounded. One of the whites only, Joshua Robinson, was mortally wounded, and, during the action, a Mr. Armstrong, a prisoner among the savages, escaped to his own people. The whites gathered all their plunder and retreated a.s far as Scioto Brush Creek, where they were, according to expectation, attacked early the next morning. Again the In- dians were defeated. Only one man among the whites, Allen Gilfillan, was wounded. The party of whites continued their retreat, the next day reached Manchester, and separated for their homes.
" After Wayne's treaty. Col. Massie and several of the old explorers again met at the house of Rev. Finley, formed a company, and agreed to make a settlement in the ensuing spring (1796), and raise a crop of corn at the mouth of Paint Creek. According to agreement, they met at Man- chester about the first of April, to the number of forty and upward, from Mason and Bourbon Counties. Among them were Joseph McCoy, Benjamin and William Rodgers, David Shelby, James Harrod, Henry, Bazil and Reuben Abrams, William Jamison, James Crawford, Samuel, An- thony and Robert Smith, Thomas Dick, William and James Kerr, George and James Kilgrove, John Brown, Samuel and Robert Templeton, Fer- guson Moore, William Nicholson and James B. Finley, later a prominent local Methodist minister. On starting, they divided into two companies, one of which struck across the country, while the other came on in pirogues. The first arrived earliest on the spot of their intended settlement, and had eonmien -ed erecting log huts above the mouth of Paint Creek, at the 'Prairie Station,' before the others had come on by water. About three hundred acres of the prairie were cultivated in corn that season.
��" In August, of this year— 179G— Chillicothe* was laid out by Col. Massie in a dense forest. He gave a lot to each of the first settlers, and, by the beginning of winter, about twenty cabins were erected. Not long after, a ferry was established across the Scioto, at the north end of Walnut street. The opening of Zane's trace produced a great change in travel westward, it having pre- viously been along the Ohio in keel-boats or canoes, or by land, over the Cumberland Mountains, through Crab Orchard, in Kentucky.
" The emigrants bnmght corn-meal in their pi- rogues, and after that was gone, their principal meal, until the next summer, was that pounded in hominy mortars, which meal, when made into bread, and anointed with bear's-oil, was quite pal- atable.
" When the settlers first came, whisky was $4.50 per gallon; but, in the spring of 1797, when the keel-boats began to run, the Monongahela whisky- makers, having found a good market for their fire- water, rushed it in, in such quantities, that the cabins were crowded with it, and it soon fell to 50 cents. Men, women and children, with some excep- tions, drank it freely, and many who had been respectable and temperate became inebriates. Many of Wayne's soldiers and camp-women settled in the town, so that, for a time, it became a town of drunkards and a sink of corruption. There was, however, a little leaven, which, in a few months, began to develop itself
" In the spring of 1797, one Brannon stole a great coat, handkerchief and shirt. He and his wife absconded, were pursued, caught and brought back. Samuel Smith was appointed Judge, a jury impanneled, one attorney appointed by the Judge to manage the prosecution, and another the defense ; witnesses were examined, the case argued, and the evidence summed up by the Judge. The jury, having retired a few moments, returned with a verdict of guilty, and that the culprit be sen- tenced according to the discretion of the Judge. The Judge soon announced that the criminal should have ten lashes on his naked back, or that he should sit on a bare pack-saddle on his pony, and that his wife, who was supposed to have had some agency in the theft, should lead the pony to every house in the village, and proclaim, 'This is
- f^hillicr>the appears to have been a favorite name among the
Indians, as many localities were known by that name. Col. John Johnston says : "Chillicothe is the name of one of the principal trihes of the Shawanees. They would say, CJiil-i-cothe ntany, i. e., Chillicothe town. The Wyandots would say, for Chillicothe town, Tal-a-ra-ra, Do-tia, or town at the leaning of the bank."
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