~pg 282~

GEOGRAPHY AND TOPOGRAPHY

Crosby is bounded on the south by the Great Miami and Whitewater townships, on the west by Harrison township, on the north by Butler county, and on the east by the Great Miami river, which separates it from Colerain township. Its present lines begin at the point on the Great Miami where the parallel between sections twenty four and twenty-five intersects. the river, thence west of the southwest corner of section twenty-two, thence north to the Butler county line, thence east to the Great Miami, and down that stream along its course to the place of beginning. The south line, separating this township from Whitewater, is but two and three-fourths miles long, its west line four miles, its north line six and a half miles.

Crosby township, as cut down to its present limits by the formation of other townships, is the smallest in the county, with the exception of its neighbor, Harrison, and of Delhi and Spencer. It comprises but fifteen full sections and seven fractional sections, the latter being those which abut upon the Great Miami river. Its total acreage is twelve thousand three hundred and eighty-two. The section lines in this township are exceedingly irregular, far more so than in any other township of Hamilton county west of this stream, a fact thoroughly surprising in view of its location altogether upon the Congress lands, with which Judge SYMMES' blundering surveyors and surveying purchasers are supposed to have had nothing to do. The second tier of sections from the west, for example, has an average breadth scarcely more than half as great as that of the sections in the tier next on either side of it. Those in the westernmost tier are considerably broader from east to west than from north to south, but are tolerably perfect parallelograms, while those next to the east, the three entire sections in the third tier from the west, and the two full sections in each of the next succeeding tiers - that is, to say, all the full sections in the township, except those of the westernmost tier - are trapezoids, by virtue of the divergence or convergence of their meridian lines. The other lines are parallel, and the north line of the county, west of the Great Miami, separating Crosby and Harrison townships from Butler county, is perfectly straight, unlike the boundary line resulting from SYMMES' surveys between the Miamis. It, however, strikes the Great Miami about half a mile below the point where the north line of Colerain intersects that stream. Had the parallel of Colerain been continued westward, as the north boundary line of the county west of the river, it would have brought into Hamilton the village of Venice, now in Butler county, and a very valuable strip of land in the Whitewater and Miami valleys, now lost to Hamilton and gained by Butler

The ranges in which Crosby township lies are: Range one, township three, comprising within it the three western tiers of sections, and so by far the larger part of the township; and range two, township two, comprising the five full and six fractional sections east of the range line.

The principal waters of Crosby are the Great Miami river and the Dry fork of the Whitewater river. The former curves in and out in a most remarkable manner on the eastern and southern fronts of this township, and contrives to wash about nine linear miles of its territory, in making southward across but four miles of latitude. Its general course is to the southwestward, though it flows toward every point of the compass in passing this township, and making its wonderful twists and bends. The great bend noted at some length in the history of Colerain township, as nearly enclosing the peninsula upon which stand the famous ancient work and the site of DUNLAP's station, projects its nose into Crosby township. The river receives, near the northeast corner of this township, a small tributary which heads across the line near Venice; a mile below New Baltimore it welcomes the waters of Paddy's run, which also takes its rise in Butler county, but, a little more than midway of its course, upon section seven, gets a small affluent which is altogether in Hamilton; and just before leaving the township has another but petty tributary.

The Dry fork of Whitewater intersects with an exceedingly tortuous course the entire western part of the township, entering upon section three, near the northwestern corner of the township, passing to the south and eastward until near the eastern line of the second tier of townships from the west, and thence making its way southwestward to its point of exit almost at the southwestern corner of Crosby. In its many turnings and windings it mush like the Great Miami, measure scarcely less than nine miles in length of channel while making the four miles of distance across the township. It takes its singular name from the disappearance of its waters in the dry season before reaching their usual debouchure into the Whitewater west of HUNT's grove, in Whitewater township. Two of its larger tributaries HOWARD's creek, which rises in Butler county and enters the Dry fork at New Haven; and LEE's creek which comes from Harrison township, joining the Dry fork not far from the town line in section twenty-two--take their names from noted old pioneers. Several other streams of moderate size, mostly flowing from

So well-watered a tract, considering the general character of the Miami valleys, naturally does not abound in hill-country. The township is largely taken up by the level, fertile belts of alluvial land adjoining the stream; but is pleasantly diversified in places by higher spots, in hills and ridges, none of which, however, are lofty or particularly abrupt.

Crosby is the only township in Hamilton county, except Colerain, which has not a foot of railway upon its soil. The route of the projected Liberty, Connersville, and Richmond railroad is, however, surveyed to enter this township from Butler county, near the center of the north line of section six, running thence south and east about four miles to New Baltimore, a little east of which it will cross the Great Miami. There is also a rather unusual paucity of wagon-roads in the township, but seemingly sufficient for the needs of the people.

The township has at present but three villages New Haven and Whitewater, in the western part, and New Baltimore, in the southeast, about five miles from New Haven.
 

ANCIENT WORKS.

A number of mounds, and at least one enclosure of some importance, exist in this township. The latter is a little north of New Baltimore, on the Great Miami, in a bend of which it is located, and corresponds to its curves, making an imperfect semi-circle. Human remains have recently been taken from a mound at this place.

Two miles and a half southeast of New Haven, on the farm of Mr.. Daniel WHIPPLE, is an ancient burying-ground, now thickly overgrown with underbrush. It is said the graves in this are marked by stones. On the same range of hills, three miles south of New Haven, on J. W. SCOTT's place, is a superb mound, the finest in this region, which has never been excavated. Both of these lie not far from the lower or shorter road from New Haven and New Baltimore.

Upon a hill west of John MEYER's farm, in this township, are two or three mounds, from which portions of skeletons have been taken. Similar remains have been found in the township, exactly south of New Haven, on the range of hills along the Dry fork of Whitewater, where seems to be a regular ancient cemetery, in which, it is said, the bodies were placed in square spaces, protected on all sides by a kind of red limestone. About fifty graves have been identified there, with one or two mounds. Dr. BARTLETT, the veteran practitioner at New Haven, declares that the bones found here are not those of the red man.

Southwest of New Haven, half or three-fourths of a mile, on the SIMONSON farm, is another mound, of eight to ten feet height. Besides human remains, there have been taken from the ancient works of Crosby township well-executed pipes, stone articles of admirable workmanship and finish, pottery in various shapes, and other evidences of at least a partial civilization.

Among the most interesting antiquities in this town-is the grave of Adam POE, the renowned Indian fighter and hero of some of the most remarkable stories of the border warfare, particularly of the conflict with the chief Big Foot. His remains are interred in the burying-ground used by the North family of Shakers, one to two miles from New Haven.
 

FIRST SETTLEMENTS.

Joab COMSTOCK was probably the pioneer white in Crosby township. He immigrated from the vicinity of New Haven, Connecticut, in 1801, made a large entry of land, embracing several sections, and made his home about one mile and a half east of the present village of New Haven (Preston post office), with his farm reaching the bank of the Great Miami and the road to Venice, Butler county. He was the founder, in 1815, of the village of New Haven, in this township. He laid out the village of Crosby soon after coming, giving it his mother's maiden name, the township subsequently formed also taking its name from it. This was the only village of much account in the whole valley when the township was set off.

In April, 1801, when the public lands west of the Great Miami were first offered for sale at Cincinnati, a notable purchase was made in the northwest part of what is now this township. Jeremiah BRITTERFIELD, an enterprising young Massachusetts man who had come to Cincinnati shortly before as a prospector, and had assisted Colonel LUDLOW to run the boundary line between the territory of the United States and that of the Indian tribes, as prescribed by the Greenville treaty, formed a company with KNOLES and Alvin SHAW, their father, Esquire SHAW, Asa HARVEY, and Noah WILLEY, to make investments in the lands. They bought at the first sales two full sections and as many large fractional sections, extending from near the mouth of Indian creek, in what is now Butler county, about three miles down the Great Miami into this township and county. The tract comprises about two thousand acres, nearly all bottom land, perfectly level, and exceedingly fertile. In order to secure it the company bid ten cents per acre above the minimum price, thus getting for two dollars and a dime an acre a tract probably now worth not less than two hundred thousand dollars. The six joint owners then divided the land, under a survey made by Emanuel VANTREES and according to the amounts they had respectively paid, each having a front on the river and his piece stretching back to the west line of the tract. Mr.. BUTTERFIELD thus obtained eight hundred acres, partly in Butler and partly in Hamilton county. His own residence he fixed at a point near where Venice has since been founded. He handsomely improved his place, being the first in that region to plant an orchard, became an influential and wealthy citizen, and died at a good old age June 27, 1853. His sons Sherebiah, John, and Jeremiah, have since lived prosperously on parts of the ancestral estate, in Crosby township. The first named was during many years a justice of the peace for the township.

Among other early settlers were the CONEs, the DICKs, the WAKEFIELDSs, and other well known families, many of whom will be further noticed in this chapter.

No. 1. June 25, 1803. Hartman VANTREES' ear-mark is a crop off left ear and a hole in the right ear. His brand is H. V.

No. 2. July 14, 1803. Noah WILLEY's ear-mark is a half crop on the under side of the left ear. (Taken up by Israel BUELL).

No. 19. May to, 1805. Andrew SCOTT's ear-mark is an under bit and an upper bit in the left ear, and a small slit in the right.

No. 53. January 24, 1815. Joseph ASTER's ear-mark is a crop and a slit and an upper and an under-bit, all on the right ear. His brand is J. S.

No. 54. January 24, 1815: William ASTER's ear-mark is a crop off the left ear and an under half crop off the right.

No. 104. July 29, 1835. John CARTER's ear-mark is an under-bit out of each ear.

No. 105. August 3, 1835. Lathan L. BATTEL's ear-mark is a crop off the fight ear. Formerly used by Samuel B. LOOKER

No. 107. October 6, 1838. John BAUGHMAN's ear-mark is a large under-slope off both ears, so made as to take both the point and heel of the ear, which mark is sometimes called foxing.

February 10, 1824. State of Ohio, Hamilton county, to Enoch C. HUNTER, constable of Crosby township: You are commanded deal to summons Polly MATHEWS to depart from this township with her family, if she has any, in time prescribed by law, and of this writ make due return.

These documents show that Hartman VANTREES was township clerk in 1803-5; Robert SIMMONDS in 1809; Daniel BAILEY, 1815; Elijah THOMPSON, 1817; John CAVENDER, 1826; and Joab COMSTOCK, 1838. James Scott, it also seems, was a justice of the peace in Crosby in 1826, and Nathaniel CROOKSHANK then an overseer of the poor. We have also notes of the following justices in the years designated:

1819 - Luther TILLOTSON, Joab COMSTOCK, Isaac MORGAN, Samuel HALSTEAD, William McCANEE
1825 - William WAKEFIELD, Jacob SCOTT
1829 - William WAKEFIELD, Henry LINCOLN, Oliver HAYS, jr., Joseph McHENRY.
1865-6 - Christopher KALLENBERGER, John CARTER.
1867 - John CARTER, R. J. GWATHNEY.
1868-9 - The same, with M. V. B. SATER.
1870-3 - John CARTER, M. V. B. SATER.
1874-5 - John CARTER,. Joseph SCULL.
1876--G. W. MILHOLLAND, Israel ATHERTON.
1877 G. W. MILHOLLAND, Israel ATHERTON, William SIEGLE.
1878 G. W. MILHOLLAND, William SIEGLE.
1879-80 - William SIEGLE, J. N. DUNCAN.
 

THE CROSBY TOWN-HOUSE

was put up in 1865, upon a lot granted for that sole purpose by Samuel BEVIS. Mr.. M. L. BEVIS gives the following account of its genesis:

During the last few years of the late Rebellion, there was an organization composed of the voters in the township, for the purpose of aiding persons who were drafted. Each member deposited a certain sum of money with the treasurer of the society. Of course the entire association was not likely to be called to the army at the same time, hence when a member was drafted a substitute was sent in his place, paid out of the treasury of the organization; thus it only cost the unlucky man a proportionate share of the expense. When the secession ended there remained some twelve hundred dollars in the treasury. The question was finally decided that a township house should be built with the remaining funds.

The building was erected by Mr.. James WILLIAMSON, at a cost of twelve hundred dollars, in the village of New Haven.
 

AN INCIDENT

Perhaps the most remarkable case of lightning stroke on record. so far as it relates to effects upon the human being and remarkable recovery from terrible injuries thereby, occurred in this township about the year 1835, upon a farm one and a half to two miles northwest of New Haven. Captain James CUMMINS, who resided there, is the principal hero of the story. It was in the early spring, upon an afternoon, that a heavy thundercloud, threatening rain, was observed in the west. As it came up in the sky, it spread along the horizon, and from the horizon toward the zenith, making repeated and powerful lightning discharges during its approach. One of these at length descended upon the premises of Captain CUMMINS. The astonishing effects upon the house and its occupants, and especially upon the head of the family, are thus told in a letter to the Harrison News of February 19, 1880, from Burlington, Iowa, by Mr.. Joab COMSTOCK, jr., who was at the time a student of medicine with Dr. James COMSTOCK at New Haven:
It struck the chimney of the house. ran down on the west side of it to the ridge of the roof, but soon parted, one stream passing down on the north side of the roof, zigzagging across the shingles until about midway, when it took down over the cave and the casing of a window, and thence to the ground. The other stream passed in like manner diagonally across the south side of the roof, but before reaching the cave divided again, one stream running over the cave and down the casing of a front window; the other stream going on further in like manner, ran down the casing of the front door, then into the ground. Mrs. CUMMINS was sitting in the west room, near its middle, rocking the cradle. John, the oldest son. was in the chamber above, lying on the bed reading. Nancy, the eldest daughter, was doing something before a bed that was in the room, where her mother sat. Two younger girls were in the other room attending to the work there. The mother was severely shocked but not seriously hurt. Nancy was thrown forward onto the bed before which she was standing, but not much hurt; John, who was up-stairs, was stunned so much, as he told me, that the first thing that he remembered he was half way to New Haven for a doctor.

Mr.. CUMMINS called Adam, the second son, to help him carry the new wagon under the shed. Adam took the end of the tongue, it being a stiff tongue, and the father took the axle. Adam had passed under the shed, and Mr.. CUMMINS had reached a position directly under the point of the scythe that hung above him, when a stream of lightning. which. no doubt, had become detached from the main shaft, has attracted by the scythe, and by it conducted to its point, dropped on the top of the captain's head. It made a small hole in the middle of the bat-crown much like a small bullet-hole; the body and rim of the hat, which was of strong felt, were literally torn to pieces. The neighbors picked up and counted sixty-three pieces. The crown of the hat remained entire. except the hole through the center. His underclothes were badly torn and set on fire. The pants, of nearly new and strong casinet had the backs of the legs torn literally into shreds. His shoes, nearly new and of strong cowhide, had the outside quarters literally torn out. The stream, after penetrating the hat-crown, struck Mr.. CUMMINS just in the crown or curl of hair on the top of his head. It spread out into a stream some three inches wide, passing down the back of his head and neck, burning the hair into a crisp, and matting it to the scalp so firmly that I presume I was an hour in detaching it from the scalp. On the back of the neck the stream divided, one part passing on down the spine to the hips, burning a wide strip all the way as broad as your hand and setting the clothes on fire. There were two or three places burned so deeply that subsequent sloughing took place. At the hips the main stream, as I call it, divided, the two streams passing down the back of each leg, and off at the heels, as above stated. The stream that parted from the main stream on the neck wound around the side of the neck to the sternum or breast-bone, passing down the sternum to the pit of the stomach; then it divided and wound around each side to the hips, and there united with the stream already described; and thus united, passed off at his heels.

Captain CUMMINS was of course very severely injured by the tremendous shock and the burns received. It is almost beyond belief that one could have such an electric discharge pass through, or rather over him, and not be instantly struck out of life. He did lose his hearing, at once and forever. Mr.. COMSTOCK, tells the rest of the story in these words:
He recovered slowly, but suffered a great deal from his burns and the shock his nervous system had received. I visited him and dressed his wounds every morning for two or three weeks. It would take as much plaster to cover his burns as would cover the leaf of a common breakfast table. He finally recovered his health, and became hearty and well, and in 1839 moved with his family to Iowa, and settled at Middletown. He subsequently died of cholera; so that what lightning failed to accomplish the cholera did. I have never read or heard of a parallel case to this, and I do not believe there can be a case to equal it found on record.
 

NOTES OF SETTLEMENT.

Ezra SHERMAN, sr., was born in Connecticut in the year 1765. He served for a short time in the Revolutionary war, and also took part in Wayne's campaign. He was a member of the Methodist church, and for a number of years was a minister in that denomination. Coming to this State with the Ohio company he settled in Washington county, near Waterford. He was one of the first settlers who ventured into what was then the Northwestern Territory, and remembers seeing the first steamboat that sailed down the Ohio river. He married Mary PIERCE, a native of Connecticut. After a few years in Ohio he removed his home to Kentucky, and thence, after a stay of six years, to Indiana, where he lost his wife in 1822. After her death, the father and three of his children joined the society of Shakers, in which they remained till death. The family consisted of five children - Anna, who married David E. WHITNEY, of Hamilton county; Manley, who married Frances STERRITT, of the same; Abel, married Ann McGUIRE, of Alabama; Ezra, who never married, and lives in this township; and Mary E., also single, and living in Indiana.

Ezra SHERMAN, jr., one of the first trustees of the society of Shakers, was born in Washington county, Ohio, in 1805. When seven years old he went with his parents to Kentucky to live, and afterwards to Indiana. In 1826 he joined the society of Shakers. At various times he has learned the boot and shoemaker's, the stonemason's and the blacksmith's trades. He is a natural mechanic, and can do at once almost anything in the manufacturing line. He understands farming equally well, and has given especial attention to bee culture. Owing to the rules of the society, he takes no part in political affairs. He has voted for President of the United States only once; and that was for John Quincy ADAMS.

Joab WHIPPLE was born in Butler county, Ohio, March 20, 1817. About the year 1839, he removed to this county. His wife's maiden name was Jane J. LUTIS, daughter of Isaac LUTIS. They were married January 12, 1837. Nine children were duly born to them - Elizabeth L., Albina, Eunice J., Phoebe L., Isaac L., Zachary T., David J., Charles F., and Joab C. Of these, only five are now living - Elizabeth, Eunice, Isaac, Zachary, and Joab. Elizabeth married Henry CONE, and resides in Butler county; Isaac married Miss Inia L. DAVIS, and is a resident of Franklin county, Kansas; Zachary married Miss Letitia A. DAVIS, and also is in Butler county, Ohio; Joab married Miss Elizabeth WABNITZ, and lives in Crosby township. The last-named lives on the old home, his sister Eunice living with him. He was married March 17, 1880. Mrs. WHIPPLE is a member of the church of United Brethern, and is one of its most liberal supporters. Joab WHIPPLE, jr., is now a leading farmer in Hamilton county. His father died July 4, 1859, aged forty-six years. He was a man respected by all who knew him.

Charles CONE, one of the pioneers, was born in Connecticut in the year 1772, whence he emigrated with his family in the spring of 1800, and was a resident of the county up to the time of his death, April 26, 1853. He was married to Miss Jane HARVEY, who became the mother of twelve children: Rufus, Philena, Ann, Charles, Ass, James, James S., Thomas H., Grace, Rachel, William, and Martha. All of these but one, William, are now alive. He was born in this county January 2, 1810, and has been a resident of the county all his life, with the exception of about two years. He has been twice married; first February 6, 1834, to Miss Mary ATHERTON, daughter of Henry ATHERTON, of Massachusetts. Three children followed: William H., Charles, and George M. February 9, 1841, he married Miss Mary BROWN, daughter of Joseph BROWN, of Butler county. To them were born two children: Rachel J., and Joseph. All the children have been married and are living. Mr.. and Mrs. CONE are both members of the Presbyterian church, of which they are liberal supporters. When the elder Mr.. CONE came to Ohio the country was all in woods. The first thing he did was to build a cabin to shelter his family. At a later day he built an inn on the bank of the