Nathan Smith (1771 - 1827)

Born 25 Nov 1771 in Manchester, Bennington county, Vermont

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 28 Oct 1827 at age 55 in Manchester Twp., Morgan county, Ohio, USA

Problems/Questions Profile manager: J P Smith [send private message]

Biography

Nathan Smith was the eldest of his parent's eight children and lived in Manchester only for the first 20 years of his life. Despite the beauty of Vermont, much of the land was satisfactory only for grazing, which may have led him to seek adventure and richer land on the western frontier known as the Northwest Territory about 1791. Nathan was joined in the trek to what would become the state of Ohio by his brother Abraham, who was only 17 at the time. According to a family history, they made their way to Pittsburgh by covered wagon and then proceeded down the Ohio River by raft. The type of raft they used was probably one known as an Allegheny flat, which was made of heavy planks or logs, had low side rails and could carry several tons of cargo. Normally, such rafts were considered a one-way craft, moving downstream by the thrust of the current and steered, with some difficulty, by a broad tiller. The raft was usually dismantled upon arrival at the destination so that the timber could be used to construct cabins. They then traveled overland through the trackless forest to an area later designated as Morgan County, probably to a tract of land their father had purchased in the Duck Creek Allotment. (He never came to Ohio). It was located some distance northwest of Marietta (now Manchester township), where the first permanent settlement in the region had been established three years earlier. Their arrival unfortunately coincided with the height of warfare with the Indians in the territory. Just the prior year, an army led by Brigadier General Josiah Harmar had attempted to wipe out the Indians but was routed. Then only a couple of months before the Smiths came, the Big Bottom Settlement, which was 40 miles up the Muskingum River from Marietta, was totally wiped out by a Shawnee, Ottawa, Delaware and Kickapoo raid led by the Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket. Several months after their arrival, the army of Lieutenant General Arthur St. Clair attacked the Indians and, as had been the case with General Harmer, was also soundly defeated. Finally, in July 1794, General Anthony Wayne led an army against the natives and defeated them at Fallen Timers near present-day Toledo. Subsequently, a peace treaty was signed with the various tribes that ceded to the United States, the eastern two-thirds of Ohio. The exception was the Shawnee chief Tucumseh who would not sign and continued to foment opposition against white encroachment until his death in 1813, while fighting with British forces against the Americans in the War of 1812. Several years later, the settlers in the area were startled when they felt the earthquake shocks of 1811 and 1812, which were centered on the New Madrid fault along the Mississippi River. It was the most massive quake in United States history. The tremblers were said to have caused church bells to ring in faraway Washington, D.C.. The earthquakes reportedly were predicted by Chief Tecumseh, who claimed they would be a signal for all tribes of the Indian nations in the region to rise again. He traveled the Midwest and South urging them to come together at his village of Tippecanoe in the Indiana Territory, from where a united offensive would be launched to drive out the white man. Unfortunately for his plan, shortly before the signal came his brother Prophet got into a battle with troops led by William Henry Harison, resulting in Tecumseh's village being destroyed and the tribes scattered. Thus, active Indian opposition in the Ohio and Indiana region was largely ended, although it continued further west for decades. Although the Smith brothers came from chill Vermont, they must have been surprised at the occasional ferocity of Ohio winters. A notation in a family bible observed that ice froze in the Muskingum River to a depth of nine inches in 1796 and that a similar winter was experienced in 1799. Sometime around 1796, Nathan Smith married Rosanna Deming, whose family had just settled 15 or 20 miles to the east in what became Washington County. Virtually no concrete information about her can be found. Some genealogical records identify her as the daughter of Ezekiel Deming while in others she is thought to be the child of his cousin Simeon Deming. Both of the Demings came to the area together. It is known that Nathan's brother Abraham Smith married Ezekiel's daughter Mary Ann Deming but the same records disagree as to whether the young women were sisters or cousins. This history assumes the majority opinion that they were sisters but further research is needed to confirm it. Whatever her parentage, Nathan and Rosanna set about establishing a homestead and raising a family of twelve children. Their first house was probably like most in the area: a rectangular log cabin about seven to nine logs high at the eaves with packed earth floors, greased paper windows and crude handmade furniture. Planks split from tree trunks were used for the heavy doors, built large enough for a horse to pull in a log for the fireplace at the end of the cabin. But undoubtedly their living quarters expanded with the family, and the necessities of life became more readily available as rapidly growing commerce brought the products of a more advanced lifestyle to the Ohio frontier. Nathan Smith died in Morgan County in 1824 when 53 years old and his youngest child was but three. (Taken from: A Family History, by Donovan Faust) ^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ First-hand information as remembered by J P Smith Smith, Friday, March 27, 2015. Replace this citation if there is another source.

• Find-A-Grave Memorial #32818469 in Dye Cemetery, Renrock, Noble County, Ohio, USA