Joyce Wilson
Contributing Columnist
CHAPTER ONE — FIRST SETTLERS — CIRCA 1796
Perhaps it could hardly be called a wagon train — these two-wheeled carts — not as grand as the famed One-Horse Shay of this day, but with more carrying space.
Each family man was riding, postilion-style, the single work horse that pulled his cart. Some families had two carts, one driven by the wife or other member of the family and following the wake of the head of the house.
Cows, sheep, chickens, geese, turkeys, dogs and other animals were among all caravans of Western-bound home-seekers. A later day Conestoga wagon could hardly have navigated these narrow trails and military post roads traveled by this devout little band of Scottish Covenanters.
It was in the spring of 1795, when Robert Ralston and Nancy Ronalds, of the Ryegate Vermont Society, were married. As soon as the roads were settled, they started on the long trek to the Ohio Valley.
It was midsummer when they reached Western Pennsylvania where they were still being joined by other Covenanters. This state probably had more Covenanter settlements than any other of this time and many were pushing west.
Fall had come by the time they reached the Ohio Valley. By their crudely sketched map, they knew they had crossed the Scioto River three days previous. The day before, they had crossed the Scioto Brush Creek.
Knowing they were near their destination, they paused on a hill to view the beautiful forest country, ablaze with the glory of autumn.
Wild grapes, black walnuts, butternuts, hickory nuts, hazelnuts and huge trees loaded with the small, tasty chinquapins, abounded everywhere. Clumps of hawthorn and blackberry briars, too, were evident.
Cottontail rabbits scurried out of sight here and there and a huge flock of wild turkeys were surprised feeding in a hawthorn thicket.
These native foods were cheering as were the abundance of medicinal plants, and the water trickling from hillsides.
Securing a forked hazel sprout, one of the parties tested for water depth. The reliability of water witching has been much disputed but their water veins for wells were thus located throughout their settlements.
These thrifty Scots dug deep into the soil and with added security, they noted the rich loam, heavy with yellow clay in places — the blue clay banks along creeks and the huge flat limestone rock. Here would be ample materials for building stone and brick houses, with blue clay for chinking log ones.
Well pleased with the abundance of natural resources, yet, far from civilization and uncertain as to what dangers lurked, they pitched their tents for a night’s rest. Now, around a campfire, they paused to worship God.
Fear departed as they sang their metrical version of the 121st Psalm, so fitted to their surroundings.
“I to the hills will lift mine eyes,
From whence doth come aid
My safety cometh from the Lord
Who heaven and earth hath made.
My foot He’ll not let slide nor will
He slumber that thee keeps.
Behold, He that keeps Israel
He slumbers not nor sleeps.
The Lord thee keeps, the Lord thy shade
On thy right hand doth stay;
The moon by night thee shall not smite,
Nor yet the sun by day.
The Lord shall keep they soul; He shall
Preserve thee from all ill.
Henceforth thy going out and in
God keep forever will.”
Only the names of the Ralston’s, who settled on The Ridge, remain in my memory as those who came at this time. Probably the greater number settled at Palestine beside what is now Locust Grove Cemetery, they built their church.
In later years, perhaps a score of Ridges of this section — that later became Adams County — were given specific names. The one settled by the Covenanters and where this story centers, has always been spoken of simple as, The Ridge (Nichols Ridge located off State Route 770 just south of Tranquility) except for a few years in the early nineteen hundreds. If one could look through old county papers — the Record and Defender of that time — I think they would find items under the heading of Saints’ Ridge.
The Ridge is flanked on the south by West Fork Creek, so-called because it is a western tributary to the large Ohio Brush Creek. It is bounded on the north by George’s Creek, which meets West Fork around the valley below the east end of the Ridge. Together, these two creeks flow into Ohio Brush Creek.
Catfish and sunfish abounded there and large mud turtles were plentiful. The turtles were not considered a food and still were not in my youth, though considered a delicacy in other regions.
The Ridge-Brush Creek Covenanter church was a large brick building, erected near the same time as the Palestine church. In later years, for a reason explained later, it was spoken of as the Brick church.
This church was located on a hill to the right, just before you leave The Ridge Road and come to the pike. At the present time, this pike is Route 74. There you turn right to the ancient little village of Tranquility and left, to Seaman (today it is Route 770).
A few scattered bricks still remained at the site of this old church around 1900. Then, as small children, my brother and I sometimes with mother, climbed over the road bank and up the hill, through tangled weeds and briars, to visit the old cemetery that lies back of the church site.
The inscription on the oldest gravestone yet found is “Anna Jane,” daughter of Andrew B. and Harriet Burns, who died Jan. 22, 1800, age 9 years, 7 months and 3 days.
Few were the markers of marble or granite. Some were only native limestone rock with names crudely chiseled and many graves remained unmarked.
At this time, it was evident there had been something unusual in the history of this old cemetery, for part of it had a better fence than the other. As I grew older, I often heard the story related further along in this narrative.
Many of those lying here were directly descended from martyrs of Scotland, as well as from those of the banished.
Their steadfastness and fortitude placed them in my mind, on as high a pedestal as those who give their lives back in Scotland, rather than deny their Lord. These who had given their lives through the hardships of new land, never wavering from serving God according to the dictates of their own conscience, gave them this rightful place of honor.
Though some of us grieve over these unmarked graves and the neglect of the old cemetery, let all class them in memory with their martyred ancestors of Scotland as we read the tribute paid those Scottish martyrs by the old poet, Cowper:
“Their blood was shed
In confirmation of the noblest claims —
Our claim to feed upon immortal truth
To walk with God, to be divinely free.
Yet few remember them.
They lived unknown
Till persecution dragged them into fame,
And chased them up to heaven
Their ashes flew
No marble tells us whither”
Written circa late 1950s and early 1960s by Lena McCoy Mathews (1893-1988) and transcribed for The Defender by Joyce Wilson. Look for more history in future issues of The People’s Defender.
