The Coming of the Pioneer

After the Ordinance of 1787 was passed by Congress, John Cleves Symmes formed a land company and in New Jersey distributed folders advertising the Miami country. Among those who read Judge Symmes’ description of the fertile valley between the two Miamis were Daniel Doty, Stephen Veil, Moses Potter, and Abner Enoch, the men who first arrived at the site now occupied by the city of Middletown, Ohio.

Daniel Doty was the first man to make a settlement near Middletown. Some time in 1791, he reached the Great Miami and constructed a rough log cabin on the east bank of the river.

His life, filled with hardships as well as wilderness triumphs, is typical of that of the early pioneer. On March 23, 1765, he was born in Essex County, New Jersey. After being educated in the common schools of his own state, he was thrilled by stories of the new frontiers of the Northwest. In October, 1790, he left his home to take a long, perilous trip through the wilderness to Fort Pitt, thence down the Ohio River in a flatboat to the new settlement of Columbia at Fort Miami, near the mouth of the Little Miami River.

Here he stopped to assume the responsibilities of life in a frontier settlement. He enlisted as a member of the militia, which was under the command of John Geno. The little company of seventy men had not only to be ready at a moment’s notice to defend Columbia against the attacks of Indians, but to aid of communities as well. When the news came that Covalt’s station had been attacked, a party, among whom was Doty, went to the relief of the settlement.

Being a religious man, Doty volunteered to go to Kentucky to fetch the Rev. Mr. Kemper, a Presbyterian minister, and his family to the Miami Country. In June, 1791, accompanied by another man, the pioneer started on his mission. Two men followed an old Indian trail on which two other men had been scalped the previous week. The trip was, however, successful, and Mr. Kemper was brought to Columbia.

While he was living at Columbia, Doty decided to explore the region along the Miami River. He came up the Great Miami to the point where Middletown now stands, and so rich was the land of the "Little Prairie," that he decided to make a settlement here, after he had brought his family to the West. After looking over the land, he returned to Columbia, and floated down the Ohio and the Mississippi to New Orleans by flatboat. By sea he returned home to New Jersey, where he worked for three years. In the spring of 1796 he decided to return to the Miami Valley with his family and make a permanent settlement. He improved the land which he had formerly explored, and built a log cabin on the bank of the Miami River, one mile below Middletown.

Since there were no wagon roads in the West, the pioneers who settled in this region had to depend for the carrying of goods upon the pack horse, which followed the old buffalo trails, the Indians’ highways. Each pack horse was equipped with a saddle on which the load was tied by means of a rope. Ten to fifteen horses were managed by two men, one man acting as leader of the horses, while the other followed the pack train to keep watch over the loads to see that they were properly adjusted. Each horse could transport around two hundred pounds of merchandise over the narrow, winding paths. At night the horses were put out on pasture. A bell was placed around each horse’s neck, so that the men could know where they were at night. During the day the bells were muffled.

Many pioneers moved their goods West by the pack horse. Joel Collin’s father loaded his horses with his furniture. The feather beds were rolled up, fastened together by ropes, and placed lengthwise on a horse, one balancing the other. Between the feather beds a "cradle" was formed, where the children could be laid.

Soon roads were built to accommodate wagons. In 1813 part of the rough Cumberland road was ready for the large road wagons, which, being pulled by five or six horses, carried sixty to seventy hundredweight. The early pioneers who brought their goods to the Miami Country by wagons traveled in groups , so that they could combine their teams to pull a heavy load up a hill, or a wagon out of a rut.

Going down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati was a long, hard trip. The boats were slow and often one could go from twenty to thirty miles down the river without seeing a single house; The early traveler to Middletown sold his boat at Cincinnati, and brought his household supplies to Middletown, a trip of three or four days, by pack horse.

The early pioneers worked hard; they were known to "chop out he night and chop in the morn." A clearing was made, a cabin built, and then the garden was planted. The man with the ax took the trees from the land. In the Miami Valley the pioneer found such trees as the buckeye, box alder, sycamore, honey locust, walnut, maple, hackberry, hickory, cherry, oak, ash, and papaw.

Trees, three or four feet in thickness, had to be felled to make a clearing of about thirty feet in diameter for the building of a cabin. While Daniel Doty was building his cabin, he lived outdoors for over tow weeks, cooking and sleeping in the open air.

Some of the pioneers were satisfied to begin with a little hut seven by four feet, with the front left open, where a fireplace was built over which the pioneer could cook his food.

The first log cabins were made of hewn logs, which were flattened to a more or less uniform thickness. The logs were notched and put together so well that each log touched the other in the wall. The cracks between the logs were filled with chinks of wood, which were plastered with soft clay or mud, or with a mortar of lime and sand; the plastering was done both on the inside and outside. When this plaster was dry, the cabin had a neat appearance, and the cold winds were kept out.

The windows of the cabins were made by cutting about three feet out the one of the logs in the wall, and taking a few upright pieces and fastening them to the logs. Paper or a deerskin, which had been greased with hog fat or bear’s oil, was pasted over these upright pieces as a substitute for glass.

The door was made from boards which had been split out of logs. It opened on wooden hinges, and was locked by means of a wooden bar, called a latch, which was raised by means of the latch string that was left hanging on the outside during the day and pulled in at night. The roof was made from boards split from logs and held in place by long poles fastened with wooden pins to the main structure. The "puncheon" floor was made by splitting the logs into thick slabs, smoothing down the sides with an ax, and putting these split logs side by side.

The chimney was built with small twigs, plastered inside and out with soft mud. In the fireplace logs were burned for both heat and light. Pine knots or grease-soaked rags furnished extra light when needed. Pots and kettles used in cooking hung from the large hooks over the fire. Above the fireplace was a rifle, a powder horn, and a shot pouch. From the rafters were hung strings of garlic, corn, peppers, and coon skins.

In a Dutch oven the baking was done. Some of the pioneers had brought their pewter dishes, but most were satisfied with wooden spoons and bowls, or gourds. Many of the early spoons were made from horn, and the men ate with their scalping knives, which they used in hunting. Bowls were hollowed out of hard wood.

The first cabins had only a few benches, stools, tables, and cupboards, may of which were made from buckeye and beechwood. The three-legged stools were used because the floors were so uneven that four legs would never touch at one time.

The beds were built into the house. One of the early settlers wrote:

Since wheat flour could not be obtained by the first settlers, corn, ground in handmills, was the staple. Wild blackberries, grapes, plums, and crab apples were made into jellies and preserves, which were sweetened with maple sugar. There was an abundance of wild honey. Wild goose, duck, and turkey eggs were eaten. The Miami River was filled with catfish, pickerel, pike, bass, and sunfish. In 1799 hogs were brought to this region, and in 1800 the first sheep were transported from the East. Although there was plenty of food for the early settler, the food was not of such a variety as we enjoy today. Father’s gun was important. With it he provided the meat for the family; with it he killed the bear, deer, turkey, goose, duck, quail, squirrel, rabbit, and pheasant. Some of the meat was dried and salted for preservation. The deer and the bear were killed for both meat and pelts. Deerskin was used in the making of men’s clothing and moccasins, and the bearskin was used for rugs and covers. Winter caps were made from raccoon skins.

A "hominy-block" was an essential part of the home. A short log or tree trunk was hollowed out to resemble a bowl. Corn, which had been shelled, was thrown into it, and cracked into small bits by a wooden hammer. The meal was used for the making of Johnny cake, "pone," and much.

Corn was the crop ideally adapted to the early frontier. Land which had not been cleared fully could be used for growing this crop. Hills of corn were planted between the deadened trees; in Ohio crops of forty to sixty bushels and acre were produced on the frontier. Corn was easily stored and handled; it took only one-tenth as much seed as wheat, one-fourth as long to ripen, and was ready for use as soon as it was ripened. The cobs were burned in place of wood.

After the log cabin had been built, the land for the crops was cleared by "deadening" the trees. The underbrush and small saplings were out down and burned. The larger trees were girdled and left standing. Sometimes it took fifteen or twenty years for a large tree entirely to disappear. Before planting each year, the old brush had to be cleared off and burned. When the large trunks fell, they were not chopped up, but burned off. This was done by gathering up the brush, laying it across the fallen trunks and starting fires. Two or three boys could burn off more logs in a day than a man could chop in a month. The logs were then rolled together and burned. At times the fire would spread, for the "dry half-rotten bark and sap wood of the old trees was like tinder," and if a spark caught, it would creep up to the top of the tree along the branches, and the sparks would blow to other trees. When a field of these old trees was on fire at night, the field was lit up with what appeared to be great candles.

Through farming the pioneer made his living’ the river bottoms of the Great Miami River were fertile and easy to cultivate. The "Little Prairie" had loose soil, and produced bumper crops. Oxen were used at first to cultivate the land, for they were much cheaper than horses. The settler could make the yoke for the oxen himself. An ox that had been injured was not shot, as was the horse, but fattened and killed for beef, and the hide tanned for leather. The first plows used were those with the wooden mold-board. From the forks of a tree, harrows were made. At first corn was planted in hills made with the hoe, and the grains were dropped in by hand. The wooden harrow, after the wheat seed had been broadcast, scratched the seed under the soil. No attempt was made at crop rotation; when one field was worn out, another piece of land was cleared. Wood ashes served as fertilizer.

Fruit trees were set up, the leading ones being apple, pear, and plum. Currents, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries grew wild.

Both the squirrel and the bear menaced the pioneer’s cornfield. The old bear would sneak to a hill of corn, pull down the stock, husk an ear of corn, and have a feast. In one night a bear could do great damage to the small corn patch. But if the bear were seen by the farmer, it was the farmer who had the feast, and not the bear. When the bear thought he was unobserved, the pioneer might have been waiting in ambush--in that case the bear would meet certain death. The best part of the bear would be used as meat by the family, his skin, as money at the country store, and the fat for frying hominy, and what was left served as a feast for the dogs.

The dog was a friend of the pioneer. He was a playmate for the children, but he did more than this. The dog helped the pioneer track down the fox, the wolf, the raccoon, and the many other animals of the forest. The skins of these animals furnished the pioneer with his "currency." In 1806 the commissioner of Butler County offered a bounty on every panther and wolf; fifty cents for the scalp of one under six months of age, and a dollar for one over that age. Many Middletonians brought in scalps and claimed the rewards.

In the pioneer community there was something for everyone to do. Father cut timber, planted crops and shot the wild animals. Mother cooked, kept house, spun, weaved, cured meat, and made soap and candles. The children took care of the babies, helped with the chores on the farm, and shelled beans.

The pioneer community developed in this region. Frontiersmen settled here, for the land was fertile, and there was the river to furnish a natural transportation route upon which the settler could transport his surplus products to market. Stephen Vail saw that a village fronting the river could easily be developed.