Warren County Local
History by Dallas Bogan |
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Dallas Bogan on 28 August 2004 |
Source: |
original article by Dallas Bogan |
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The third annual meeting of the Steddom descendants was held on Waynesville
Road at the Turtlecreek Friends Meeting House, Tuesday, August 14, 1916. Rain
showers had dampened the morning hours, but it did not lessen the enthusiasm
of the family members. It had been almost 112 years since the Steddom family
had settled in the area of Oregonia. The family owned large tracts of land all
up and down the Little Miami River in Turtlecreek Township. The 1875 Atlas shows
the land ownership for the entire family. Henry Steddom owned
301 acres just south of the Wilmington Road, which extended to the river, or
to Emmons Road.
Samuel Steddom owned a tract of 111 acres just south of Henry's
property. Moses
owned some 395 acres on both sides of the Oregonia Road.
Land holdings by the Steddoms show a real estate possession of over 1,400 acres.
The combined acreage owned by the families of the Steddom, Hollingsworth and
Kersey's in the Oregonia area show a total of over 2,000 acres.
A history disclosing family traditions and incidents was written and read by
Prof. W. Rufus Kersey during the 1916 reunion. It is quite
lengthy, but the substance shall be revealed in this text.
Prof. Kersey starts his account by telling of the Steddoms who settled in the
area in the winter of 1804. They were described as well behaved, law biding,
industrious and frugal.
Their protest against slavery took the form of migration with Waynesville and
vicinity becoming the escape route from this immense oppression.
The Quakers declared neutrality during the stirring times of the Revolution.
Men of this religious faith were compelled to leave their homes and become "outliers,"
hiding in the pine thickets. The ladies left at home would conceal food in a
number of places in the hope that the men would find at least some of it during
their period of exile.
Life at Bush River in South Carolina was a harsh one, but so was frontier life
in the grand unexplored land of the Northwest Territory.
A general route from North Carolina to Lebanon was by way of Newberry County,
which led by way of Greenville, through Saluda Gap to Ashville. Thence along
the French Broad River, past Bald Mountain, to Greenville, TN., through Cumberland
Gap and Lexington, Ky., to Cincinnati. From this point the road led to Reading,
a distance of twelve miles, the only improved highway in Ohio in 1804. Thence
to Lebanon and up the valley of Turtlecreek to their destination. This journey
usually required about six weeks.
Henry and Martha Steddom's granddaughter asked
a question as to why they stopped in this locality. The answer was simple: "We
just drove till we came to the spring and stopped."
Henry's stone home was built in 1839. He also built a large log barn with stables
at the ends, a threshing floor between them, and an abundance of storage room
above.
After the clearings, he planted a large apple orchard and a number of peach
and walnut trees.
One day about dusk, as he was returning home from his day's work at Spencer's
ford, he suspicioned that timber wolves were following him. He quickly found
a tree, climbed it, and escaped the menacing terrors. They kept him treed for
several hours, but finally they departed and Henry returned
home.
An event in the life of Martha Steddom that took place in South
Carolina was one of near calamity. Both the Continental and British soldiers
had a way of entering houses and taking whatever they chose. On one occasion
they cut from Martha Steddom's loom the cloth that she was then weaving and
carried it away with them.
She also had many stands of bees. An attempt of a party of soldiers to rob the
hives resulted in a rather comical episode. One soldier, armed with the family
butcher knife, was using it in his attempts at gathering honey.
Naturally the bees attacked. In his retreat, the soldier used the knife repeatedly,
striking out at the stinging bees. With one unfortunate stroke, he struck his
own nose, almost severing it from his face. He rapidly ran to the house asking
Mrs. Steddom to "tie it on" for him. She took bandages, fastened the
loose object, and "tied it on" the best she could.
After arrival in the new setting, the first spring found the men folk busily
setting up a sugar camp. Troughs were made for catching the sap by hollowing
out sections of the smaller tree trunks two and a half feet in length.
A deep notch was cut in the tree in which rested one end of the trough, this
being supported at the outer end by two wooden legs. This was the forerunner
of the modern pail with its sap spout and bucket hanger.
Iron kettles were used in which to boil the sap. Sometimes the process continued
all night. Samuel, second son of Henry and
Martha Steddom, told how he as a boy of nine arose at 4 o'clock
every morning to relieve the men who had labored all night.
Salt and its scarcity played a big part in the Steddom household.
The dirt from the smoke house floor had received the brine from meat that had
been hung in previous years. These ingredients were dug up, placed in a hopper
and leached. The water with its briny solution was then boiled down, and in
this way the salt was recovered.
Prof. Kersey submitted an account of the earliest means to
reduce corn-to-corn meal. He said a section of an oak or gum tree trunk, four
feet in length and two feet in diameter, provided a rude mortar. It was burned
out at one end to a depth of 18 or 20 inches. Into this container a portion
of grist was placed and beaten with a stick of wood that served as a pestle.
When adequately pounded the meal was then sifted and deemed ready to be made
into bread.
Because of the growth of the tall trees good wheat could not be raised. The
grain was light in weight, often moldy and not fully matured. Its color was
of a pinkish nature and was called sick wheat.
Henry Steddom, Jabez Hollingsworth and other
Quakers joined in an effort to establish the Turtlecreek Meeting House.
The Miami Monthly Meeting, from Waynesville, granted the request for the founding
of the Turtlecreek Meeting House, which was dated April 10, 1806; it officially
opened on May 10, 1806. Where the first meetings were held is not known, possibly
in a private home.
Henry and Martha Steddom to John Steddom,
Abraham Hollingsworth, Thomas Evans, Thomas
Sherwood and Samuel Steddom deeded Land for the church
in the amount of $1.00.
In 1832, a one-story frame structure was built which served as a house of worship
until 1869. Another was built and has since been torn down. The location of
this old building was across the road from the late Ralph Stolle's
farm, just south of the Turtlecreek Cemetery on Waynesville Road.
An Englishman built the original log building by the name of Kirby. While in
this capacity he boarded with Samuel Steddom. He was a man
of labor, for he would not quit work on the structure until the last chore was
done for the day. All attempts were made to break his habit of being late for
supper, to no avail.
Some years later a schoolhouse was built in the community, which was also called
Turtlecreek. It stood west of the original Meeting House site. It contained
one window, which was cut out of one of the logs on the east side. The floor
was made of puncheons.
A single row of narrow benches was placed around the room, they being split
from logs and supported by wooden legs. No backs were used, and were so high
that the feet of small children hung unsupported by several inches.
The writing desks were boards laid upon wooden pins driven into the wall.
The original school's successor was a brick building that still stands about
a mile south of the old Meeting House.
This school became an excellent facility for students from Wilmington, Waynesville,
Lebanon, and from the more distant Miami County.
Before the arrival of Alfred
Holbrook in Lebanon, and before individual high schools were developed,
the little Turtlecreek Academy was unsurpassed within a radius of twenty miles.
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