war, bereft the senior Kilbourn for several years of his reason. The family homestead was broken up, and young James Kilbourn, then a boy of sixteen, was obliged to quit his parents and go forth in search of the means of self-maintenance. This he did with a brave heart, and a spirit of determination above his years. His resources lay entirely within himself. When he crossed the parental threshold, and went out alone and penniless into the great world, he had neither coat nor shoes, and his education was so meager that he could scarcely write his name. After walking thirty miles, he obtained employment with a farmer, which engagement he exchanged at a later period for an apprenticeship with a clothier, whose trade he undertook to learn. During five months of each year, reserved by the terms of his apprenticeship for his own disposal, he worked on the farm of a Mr. Griswold, whose son, then a young man, afterwards became a distinguished bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The future bishop took a friendly interest in the young apprentice, and gave him instruction which supplied, to some extent, the deficiencies of his education. By means of these helps, and his energetic efforts to help himself, young Kilbourn rapidly mastered the intricacies of his craft, and so won upon the confidence of his employers that he was placed at the head of the clothier's establishment. He also won the hand of Miss Lucy Fitch, daughter of John Fitch, of Philadelphia, the inventor of steam navigation, and builder of the first American steamboat. Married at the age of nineteen to Miss Fitch, he soon afterwards entered upon a business career which carried him steadily on to affluence. After becoming the owner of mills, stores and several farms, including that which his father had lost by the war, he settled as a merchant at Granby. There we find him at the opening of this chapter, meditating schemes of western colonization, and also officiating occasionally as a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in which, at the solicitation of friends, he had taken orders. He had meanwhile founded a public library and acquired some reputation as a writer and speaker. After his ordination, several parishes desired him as their permanent pastor, but he declined their invitations. The fascination of the Great West had seized upon his mind, and permeated the current of his thoughts. In pursuance of these predilections he had already made several preliminary explorations in western and northwestern New York, when bis fatherinlaw, Mr. Fitch, advised him to turn his attention to Ohio. Acting upon this advice, he matured plans for the organization of a company to establish a settlement in that region. These plans he began to broach in 1800, but, says his biographer, "it took about one year for him to persuade his friends that he was in earnest and another, that he was not insane. Ohio was then regarded as on the utmost verge of the West; and they thought him too pleasantly situated to make so great sacrifices as were involved in such an enterprise."4 Kilbourn thought otherwise, and persisted in his designs. Having enlisted the first seven of the forty members of his proposed company, he set out in the spring of 1802 on his first expedition to Ohio. Traveling by stage until he arrived at Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, where the stage line then terminated, he there shouldered his pack, walked over the mountains to Pittsburgh, descended the river to Wheeling, and thence penetrated the Ohio Wilderness by the way of Zane's Trace, which he followed to the Muskingum and Lancaster, where he turned northward to the Forks of the Scioto. After spending the summer in exploring the country, and conferring with those best acquainted with it, he concluded his mission by selecting for the proposed settlement a tract of sixteen thousand acres on the east bank of the Whetstone, nine miles above Franklinton. He did not then purchase the land, but returned to Connecticut, and made his report to his associates. From that report, written by Mr. Kilbourn's own hand, on coarse paper now yellow with age, the following extracts are here copied : We, James Kilbourn and Nath' Little being by a resolve and determination of the Scioto Company appointed agent for said Company to explore the Territory of the United States Northwest of Ohio, and to transact any other business for said company which we should deem for their benefit, beg leave to report. Here follow descriptions of the country eastward from Wheeling, and of the lands in the valleys of the Muskingum, Hock hocking and Lower Scioto. The remarks on the tract finally selected for the colony contain these passages: This tract is situate on the Eastern side of the Scioto, and is watered largely by Walnut Creek a stream as large as Salmon Brook in Granby — and the Bigbelly Creek, which is near or quite as large as Farmington River at Farmington; both clear lively streams of pure water as ever flowed from a fountain, with small gravel and in places large pebble bottom. . . . There is in this tract a thousand acres at least, in one place, of the best clear meadow I ever saw in any place whatever, without a tree or a bush in the whole extent and the old grass and weeds are burnt off every spring. The present growth (which is good stack hay if mowed early) was, in the lowest places, higher than a horse's back, except where it was lodged down; and generally higher than my head, sitting on my horse, to the topmost spires. It was so thick as to be almost impossible to force a horse through it. A Mr. Spence and Mr. Little being with me, we had to take turns in going before, to break down a path, as a horse would tire and tangle himself in a small distance. This meadow is so dry as to be good plow land, and fit to be planted with corn, any year, with only plowing and fencing; and for the latter purpose there is a good forest of fencing timber around it on all sides, so that it might all be enclosed without drawing any rails two rods. The clear black mold in all this meadow, and others of the kind, is at least three feet deep, and will produce, if kept clear of weeds, seventy or eighty bushels of corn per acre, at a crop. This is fully verified by fields of corn on similar lands in the vicinity. Part of this is white- The soil of this tract is, in my opinion, rather superior to any of so great extent I have seen in all the Territory. It is of various depths from six inches on the highest hills, to three feet in the bottoms. Upon the large creeks, the bottoms seem to have a soil almost as deep as the banks of the stream. The principal timber is oak, making near one half of the whole. oak perhaps half- and the other yellow, black and Spanish oak. maple, hickory, black walnut, ash and whitewood in abundance. There is also cherry and butternut, elm, soft maple, buckwood, some beach and honey locust. The undergrowth which is not thick except in some particular spots, is chiefly spice-bush, mixed with pawpaw in all the bottoms and richest uplands. Upon the thinnest upland the underwood, where any there is, consists of boxwood, hard-beem, hickory saplings and hazelnut bushes; but not an alder of any kind have I seen beyond the hills on the Forks. On the sides of the prairies are thousands of plum-bushes which are very fruitful. some. The timber in all this region is much better than it is further south, and increasingly so as we go to the north, yet not very heavy, but generally of a fine size and straight, handIts growth is lighter by half than I had expected. But yet there are some very large trees in various parts, especially in the bottoms. I have frequently observed solid whiteoaks which will measure twelve feet in circumference many feet from the ground, and black walnut and white wood equally large, or nearly so, and buttonwoods in the flats much larger. |