Ohio is a noble State, and Darke County, emerging from obscurity, has advanced to prominence as one of her most productive counties. The history of Darke includes the origin of its founders, their progress in improving its lands and the results of their unwearied industry.

Could material reward our research, and unwritten truths be rescued from oblivion, much of what would fill these chapters would prove a valuable addition to our knowledge. There is the inception of courts, the crude attempts at agriculture, schooling, manufacture and mechanism, the projectors of the turnpike and the men who originated and carved through the railroads. There is the progress of education, the mutations of the press, the growth of religion and the strife of opinion-noble themes, worthy of labored study. The historian is desirous yet reluctant to attempt the task. Consulting the press, he finds its columns mainly replete with pleasing tales and political tirades. The pioneers have listened to able addresses, but these have not been placed on file. A Wharry, an Arnold, a Hiller and a Harper have gathered fragments and done a priceless service, but the records of Darke are meager and deficient, and their combination as lessons for present entertainment and future reference and instruction is a difficult and important task.

Traveling her railroads, traveling her turnpikes, and walking the streets of towns and cities, the county shows free traces of its recent growth, and the thoughtful are anxious to learn the story. To know the acts of our ancestors, to asertain the rank of the county, to rehearse examples of heroism, and to exhibit the results of untiring and well-applied industry, are considered well worthy of patient investigation. The brief outline of State history centering within the bounds of Darke, the perilous settlements before the war, the roll of pioneers, the rapid changes wrought by labor, are themes to dwell upon. Aided by recollec tions of aged pioneers, annals and manuscripts, attempt is made to delineate the customs of the early day, to note the characters of primitive settlement and the influence on their health and habits of a residence in a region remote from travel and dense with the growth of centuries. There was seen here what is now going on in the Far West. The woods abounded in game, the lands were offered at low rates, and villages and towns would somewhere be laid out, and we shall see that these circumstances attract the roving trapper, the reckless speculator and the permanent settler.

Few are left to-day, in Darke, of those who rendered her citizens such incalculable service in making the county habitable. They have perished, but their work remains the basis of present and future prosperity. Pioneer life is made prominent because, from its impress, the future was determined. His legacy to posterity was an example of rare courage and ceaseless energy. A generation, springing from blended nations, has stamped its character upon a worthy successor. Peoples have clung to mountain side, or island home, because of life associa tions, but citizens of Darke are proud of the historic interest attached to her cities, the number and perfection of her pikes, and the attractions of a beautiful and diversified scenery.

Undulating plains, platted with farms and dotted by habitations, stretch away on either hand. Many streams unite their waters, and irrigating the lands, drain the soil of surplus moisture; groves of timber alternate with cleared fields, while town and city reveal their site by court-house tower and spire of church.

Seventy-four years ago, the first white man established within the limits of Darke County, by his rude cabin, an outpost of permanent occupation in the Indian country. Traders had been here and trappers had followed the traces years before, but the trails of armies had been overgrown with vegetation, and the Indians, cowed and sullen, were still at home in their rude camps along meandering

streams.

Three-fourths of a century have transformed a savage paradise to an abode of the highest civilization. In vain disease and danger, privation and poverty,

were leagued against the pioneers; clearings increased in number and enlarged in area; tradesmen and professional men gathered in the towns. Along Wayne's road they trooped and turned aside upon their entered lands. Later came the railroads, enhancing values and accelerating transportation. The perfect mechanism of the age is here in use, on farm, in town and city, and agriculture stands prominent in volume and character of its products.

Nor were education and religion ignored-those sterling agencies which elevate and ennoble while they direct and stimulate exertion. These testimonials of the past are pledges of like recognition of eminent services in the present, and give direction to the future. It is with interest we seek to trace the history of Darke, and from the most disheartening commencement discern the growth of present proud pre-eminence among her sister counties in elements of stable and enduring prosperity.

LINE OF ORGANIZATION-CONCURRENT EVENTS.

As families with pardonable pride trace their descent from a long line of honored ancestry, so may Darke seek out her origin from the counties first formed in the Northwestern Territory. Hamilton was the second county established in the Territory, and was organized by proclamation of Gov. St. Clair, on January 20, 1790, with the following boundary: Beginning on the Ohio River at the confluence of the Little Miami, and down said Ohio to the mouth of the Big Miami, and up said Miami to the standing stone forks or branch of said river, and thence with a line to be drawn due east to the Little Miami, and down said Little Miami River to the place of beginning. The condition of the pioneers of this county was deserving of commendation. For them to advance out into the wilderness seemed certain death, and to remain was to run the risk of starvation. Pioneers the best circumstanced found subsistence hard to get, and the poorer class were almost destitute. Game, fish, and what could be raised on small patches of ground in the settlements were the dependence for food. Having endured these privations for a time, some, the more resolute, determined to move out and occupy lands. There were several families which united to go, and for common safety block-houses were erected near their cabins. While at work by day a lookout was on the watch, and at sunset all retired within the pickets. So they labored on till improvements had been increased to a size sufficient to provide subsistence for their families. These stations became points of refuge for safety and food, and also drew upon them the attention of their foes. Perpetual vigilance, hardship and peril were the lot of the pioneer, and the block-house became the approved recourse of all settlers far up the rivers of Ohio. So scarce and dear was food at this time, that the little flour that could be afforded by families was saved away to be used only in case of sickness, or for the entertainment of friends, and game was sought as a necessity. Ross County was formed on August 20, 1798, by proclamation, as Hamilton had been, and likewise had very extensive limits. After Wayne's treaty, Col. Nathaniel Massie and others formed a company to make a settlement in the county. In August, 1796, Chillicothe was laid out by Col. Massie, and a lot given to each settler. Many of Wayne's soldiers and camp-followers settled here, and the society was much akin to what has been asserted of our Western towns of Deadwood and Leadville. Chillicothe was the point from which the valley settlements spread and advanced; it was a place of considerable business, and in 1800 became the seat of government of the Territory. Later, the honor of being capital fell to Zanesville, and finally to Columbus. Montgomery County was created from Hamilton and Ross on May 1, 1803, and the seat of justice was appointed to be at the village of Dayton, and, on January 16, four years later, Miami was formed from Montgomery, and Staunton, now a wretched hamlet near Troy, was made the county seat, and, finally, on January 3, 1809, Darke County was formed from Miami by act of the Legislature. It derived its name from the gallant Col. Darke, of whom honorable mention has been made in the successive campaigns of Harmar, St.

Clair and Wayne. The eastern, western and southern boundaries coincide with the original, but when formed, the county extended northward to the Indian boundary line fixed by Wayne's treaty, and therefore included a portion of the territory now belonging to Mercer County. As originally bounded, Fort Recovery stood on the northern line of the county. The original survey was made by Ludlow and his party early in the century, and the division into sections was the later work of Judge John Wharry, of Greenville. The field-notes of the original survey give dolorous accounts of the condition of the county, which seems to have been dismal with swamps and marshes and far from attractive to the most resolute pioneer. Less than a dozen men comprised the population of Miami County from 1797 to 1799, and in 1800 a few families moved in. Then immigrants began to come in from all parts of the country. From the coon to the buckskin embraced the circulating medium. Merchandise was first obtained from Cincinnati, then Dayton, and finally a man named Peter Felix established an Indian trafficking post at Staunton. Ten years had now gone by since Wayne had retired from Greenville, and Darke County still formed part of the Indian Territory beyond the frontiers. Its lands were traversed as yet only by the savage, the adventurous hunter, the wily trapper and by the Ludlows, Cooper, Nelson and Chambers, surveyors in Government employ, accompanied by their field hands. From June, 1799, to January, 1802, these venturing forerunners of occupation ran their lines in the face of the greatest natural obstacles with almost marvelous fidelity, and, returning, left their work to be made useful when the rising tide of settlement should flow in upon their forbidding, yet fertile tracts. Onward the settlements were sweeping as they have continued to sweep, till beating upon the far Pacific, there has come a return, and now in Kansas, Nebraska and other States there is still proceeding, under the potent influences of inventive genius, a continuation of that occupation which expands power, increases wealth and supplies homes for thousands.

At the close of the Greenville treaty, the county to the westward was a wilderness; but, in addition to the Indian traces leading from the Miami to the Maumee, and threading their devious way to other savage villages, there were the broad trails cut by pioneers, trodden by horsemen and footmen, and marking the route of armies and the forays of detachments. The soldier was also the citizen and the settler, and his quick, appreciative glance took in the possibilities of the countries he had traveled. For him the woods of Darke had no charm. The conditions elsewhere were here wanting. Contrast the statement made concerning the Miami settlement to the east with the actual condition of the lands of this county. There the country was attractive all about the settlement. Nature presented her most lovely appearance; the rich soil, mellow as an ash-heap, excelled in the exuberance of its vegetation. Cattle were lost from excessive feeding, and care was required to preserve them from this danger. Over the bottom grew the sweet annis, the wild nettle, the rye and the pea vine, in rich abundance, where the cattle were subsisted without labor, and these, with nutritious roots, were eaten by swine with the greatest avidity. In Darke lands there were found the woods, the endless variety of vine and shrub, impassable swamps, lack of roadway, and the great difficulty of making passable roads. Nor were the forests the only or most formidable barrier to early settlement. We have seen the woods to be filled with Indians. Their principal town was at Piqua, distant but eighteen miles; their camps were along the creeks. In the neighborhood of larger settlements they were treated roughly, and are entitled to little consideration, and it was known from bitter experience that lone families were in constant danger of the sudden wrath of the savage. We have spoken of Tecumseh's brother, the Prophet. As the lat ter appealed to credulity and superstition, so did the former to a slumbering sense of the wrongs to be redressed, and by far more was the warrior to be dreaded for the native eloquence and subtle scheming with which he gradually fanned the sparks of discontent into the flames of open warfare. It is said that he built a cabin at the point near Greenville, and by others it is denied; it matters not.

but the Shawnee brothers gathered about them dark retainers, who had no kindly impulses to the persons who might presume to pioneer the settlement of the country. Some portions of the county abounded in game, and among those timid and harmless animals were found those fierce and dangerous, as might be judged from the names of creek and locality. Still this might be regarded more as an annoyance than as a dread, and, later, premiums for scalps of wolf and panther supplied the settler with means of paying tax or buying necessaries. There existed a still more potent influence debarring occupation, and this was ill reports of health and climate. The men of that day were little afraid of labor; they knew the Indian must give way, but they were peculiarly influenced by whatever partook of the mysterious, and Rumor's many voices soon changed the natural to the marvelous, and Darke County was shunned as the haunt of a plague, designated "milk sickness." Some implicitly believe in its prevalence to this day, while others assert that it is a myth, undeserving of credence. Endeavors to find a case have always proved futile. It is heard of "just over in the next township," but, going thither, report placed it further on in the next township, or perhaps in the one just left, and the phantom always places the breadth of a township between its locality and the curious investigator. But whether a myth or a reality, the report spread along the Miami and beyond; the settlers believed it, and, what was worse, regarded it with dread. Even the Indians asserted that certain districts were infected with an air freighted with the odors of disease, and gravely told the whites, "Not live much here-too much belly sick;" and, whatever the cause, there was sickness where they gave this word of warning. It will thus be seen that the territory which afterward became Darke County had won an unenviable reputation, and land titles were held at low rates, with few bidders. These things undoubtedly delayed settlement and caused a tardy growth, while they gave in compensation a class of men possessed of pluck and energy, well qualified to leave their impress on the soil.

In the settlement of Darke County, which for eight years was a dependency of Miami, two classes of land occupants were recognized-the transient and the permanent. The historian called to do justice to the worthy class finds but few of their descendants resident citizens of the county, and it is not till 1816 and later, that families came to stay and make their fortune blend with that of their future home.

Coming up the army roads, striking across the country, eligible locations caught the eye, and established the hunter at a creek-side home, while an unusual hard time in sickness and losses impelled the intended resident to move away. Thus there were conversions from one class to another, and all shared in a certain degree of restlessness while in search of a home, but a strongly marked distinction between the two divisions existed. There was seen to be here, as elsewhere, a border class of trapper and hunter affiliating with the savages, only endured by genuine settlers and hanging upon the outmost fringe of advancing occupation. It matters little who they were, these openers or beginners, who held aloof from neighbors, occupied miserable huts, raised small patches of corn, and left when the clearings became too numerous. Many poor men came into the county, put up small log cabins, cleared somewhat of ground, then, disheartened by privation, sickness and inability to make payments, gave way to others, who built with better success upon their broken fortunes. An old Darke County settler, located not far from Greenville, thus speaks of the actual pioneers as a class: "The place for the squatter is not quite among the Indians, for that is too savage, nor yet among good farmers, who are too jealous and selfish, but in the woods, partly for clearing it up and partly for hunting." The histories of townships, dealing with the first settlers, often speak of the unknown squatter, whose abandoned claims gave brief home to the settler, and whose ill-cleared vegetable patch, growing up to weeds and bush, made the spot seem yet more wild than the woods surrounding.

Travelers and land hunters characterize the squatter class as "rude and uncouth," and express relief when leaving some worse than usual “bed and board.”

Misunderstandings were decided not unfrequently by personal encounters, many grievances taken before those early Justices reveal the sad lessons of poverty and intemperance, in marked contrast with later days; such was the character of the squatter class of Darke County. We turn with pleasure to consider the class whose labor is the basis of the present enlightened society, and find expression in the language of the gifted Everett. "What have we seen," said he, "in every newly settled region? The hardy and enterprising youth finds society in the older settlements comparatively filled up. His portion of the old family farm is too narrow to satisfy his wants or desires; and he goes forth with the paternal blessing, and often with little else, to take up his share of the rich heritage which the God of Nature has spread for him in this Western World. He leaves the land of his fathers, the scenes of his early days, with tender regret glistening in his eye, though hope mantles on his cheek. He does not, as he departs, shake off the dust of the venerated soil from his feet; but, on the bank of some distant river, he forms a settlement to perpetuate the remembrance of the home of his childhood. He piously bestows the name of the spot where he was born, on the place to which he has wandered; and while he is laboring with the difficulties, struggling with the privations, languishing, perhaps, under the diseases incident to the new settlement and the freshly opened soil, he remembers the neighborhood whence he sprung-the roof that sheltered his infancy-the spring that gushed from the rock by his father's door, where he was wont to bathe his heated forehead after the toil of his youthful sports, the village schoolhouse, the rural church, the grave of his father and of his mother. In a few years, a new community has been formed, the forest has disappeared beneath the sturdy aim of the emigrant, his children have grown up, the hardy offspring of the new clime, and the rising settlement is already linked in all its partialities and associations with that from which its fathers and founders have wandered. Such, for the most part, is the manner in which the new States have been built up; and in this way a foundation is laid BY NATURE HERSELF for peace, cordiality and brotherly feeling between the ancient and recent settlement of the country.

In recounting the incentives to Western emigration, the ruling motive was the hope of improving the condition. The land was cheap, undoubtedly fertile, and the prospects of a rise in values certain. There were those who expected to find a "paradise in the West," and journeyed thither only to suffer from disease, want and discouragements. Some went back, telling of suffering, and dissuaded those lightly influenced; others, with inherent manhood, resolved, since they were here, to make the best of it, and gradually won their way to affluence and comfort. Some time in the fall of 1806, or the spring of 1807, the first white man who came to the county to remain, established an Indian trading-house upon the northeast corner of Section 34, Greenville Township, which for a time embraced the greater part of the county. His stock was small, and of the kind most desired by the Indians. He did a thriving business, and exchanged for his goods, which were sold at exorbitant prices, various kinds of furs and somewhat of the cursed coin which British greed of lands had induced their emissaries to distribute among the faithless savages.

It is said that the order in trading was as follows, but whether, in this particular instance, wherein Azor Scribner was trader, the plan was customary, is unknown. If not, it should have been, and it has some points worthy of attention from civilized customs at stores of this late day. The Indians, bringing with them their roll of furs, walked into the cabin and found seats, while each was presented with a small piece of tobacco. Pipes were lighted, and the residue was placed in pouches. After some time passed in smoking and talking among themselves, one arose, went to the counter, and, taking up a yardstick, pointed out the article wanted and asked the price. Payment being made in skins, there was to each kind a recognized value. The muskrat was held at a quarter, the raccoon at a third, a doe at a half and a buckskin at a dollar. Payment was made following