General Joseph Darlinton
In this age of pessimism, agnosticism, materialism, skepticism and other isms, it is refreshing to go in the past for two generations and find a character whose faith in our Christian religion, was as pure, sincere, true and genuine as the sunlight. We know of no such character now and it elevates the soul to find one of a former generation and to contemplate his life. Such was Joseph Darlinton. He was born July 19, 1765, within four miles of Winchester, Va., on a plantation of over four hundred acres, owned by his father, Meredith Darlinton. It was a pleasant home with delightful surroundings, as the writer, who has visited it, can testify. He was the fourth of seven children, six sons and a daughter. He grew up on his father's plantation, receiving such education as Winchester then afforded, and he went through all the experiences of the average boy. He was too young to have been a soldier in the Revolution, but old enough to imbibe the spirit of the times. When he was twelve years old, in 1777, six hundred of the prisoners, British and Hessians, taken at the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, were kept on his father's plantation from that time until the close of the war. A part of them were lodged in his father's barn, and for the remainder, barracks were built which they occupied. As might be expected, young Darlinton spent much of his time with them, trading knives and trinkets, and listening to their wonderful stories of travel and adventure. He was, by their influence, filled with a consuming desire to see the world, so much so that, when of age, he begged his father to advance him his patrimony, which he did. Young Darlinton went to Philadelphia, and from thence took a sea voyage to New Orleans, and returned to his home by land. While seeing the world, he spent his money freely, and lived extravagantly. Had he lived in our day, he would have been called a dude or a dandy, but those names were not then invented, and so he was a young gentleman of fashion. He wore a queue, and as the young men of that day vied with each other which could have the thickest and longest queue, he had one as thick as an ordinary arm and very long. In his travels, he found Miss Sarah Wilson, at Romney, W. Va. She was an heiress, possessed of lands and slaves, and was the belle of the two counties of Frederick and Hampshire. She had many suitors, among whom was young Darlinton, and the future statesman, Albert Gallatin. Darlinton was the best looking and won the lady. He was married to her at Romney, March 18, 1790. He was, at the ceremony, dressed in a ruffled shirt, coat, waistcoat, knee breeches, silk stockings, great shoe buckles, and with his abundant hair pomaded and powdered and with his wonderful queue. He lived in Romney till about the close of 1790, when he moved to Fayette County, Pennsylvania, on a farm which his wife owned there. His oldest son, John Meredith, was born there December 14, 1791, and his second son, George Wilson, was also born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, November 18, 1793. The same year he and his wife united with the Presbyterian Church. While in Fayette County, he began his long career of office holding, having been chosen a county commissioner. It is told in the family that while living in Pennsylvania, young Darlinton and his wife were much discouraged. They often talked and wept together and thought there was nothing in the world for them. However, they concluded to try a new country, and they, with their two children, in October, 1794, left Pennsylvania. They descended the Ohio, on a "broadhorn" and landed at Limestone, Kentucky, November 14, 1794. He went from there to the mouth of Cabin Creek, where he kept a ferry. Tiring of this he bought land just across the river in Ohio, and removed there. In the spring of 1797, believing that the county seat would be at Washington, below the mouth of Brush Creek, he moved there. When the county was organized on July 10, 1797, he was, by Governor St. Clair, appointed its judge of probate, and thus became Judge Darlinton. How long he held this office has not been ascertained.
In March, 1798, at Adamsville, he was, by the Court of Quarter Sessions, appointed one of the three first county commissioners of Adams County and clerk of the board. James Scott and Henry Massie were the other two. In this same year, he was made an elder in the Presbyterian Church, which office he held for the remainder of his life. In 1803, he located lands east of the site of West Union and built a double hewed log house on the same, on the hill opposite Cole's spring. The house and spring have long since disappeared. He was elected a representative from Adams to the first Territorial Legislature. It sat from November 24, 1799, until January 29, 1801. He also represented Adams in the second Territorial Legislature, which sat from November 23, 1801, till January 23, 1802. He was one of the three members from Adams in the first Constitutional Convention, which sat írom November 1, 1802, until the twenty-ninth of the same year. As this body transacted most of its business in the committee of the whole, its record is meagre. He was on the committee on privileges and elections. On November 3, he voted against listening to a speech from Gov. St. Clair. He was on the committee to report a preamble to the first article of the constitution. On November 6, he was appointed on the committee to prepare the second article of the constitution, and on the eighth of November, he presided over the committee of the whole. He was also on the committee to prepare the third article on the judiciary. He was also on the committee to print the journal of the convention. He and his colleagues voted to retain the word "white" to the qualifications of electors. It is sufficient to say that he was present at every session and voted on every question before the body. In the first Legis lature, of the state he was a member of the Senate and served from March 1, 1803, until April 16, following.
On the sixteenth of April, 1803, he was elected one of the first three associate judges of Adams County, but resigned February 16, 1804, and Needham Perry was appointed in his place. On September 10, 1804, he was commissioned by the Governor lieutenant colonel of the 1st Brigade, 1st Regiment, 2nd Division, Ohio Militia, and thus he be came Colonel Darlinton. He was commissioned a brigadier general of the militia March 17, 1806, and thus became General Darlinton, by which title he was ever afterwards known. He was appointed clerk of the court of common pleas of Adams County, August 3, 1802, and continued to hold that position by successive appointments until August, 1847, when he resigned, as he wrote to Judge Cutler, of Marietta, "to prepare for that better country out of sight." He served as recorder of Adams County from 1803 to 1810 and again from September, 1813, to 1834. Any one examining the old records in the recorder's office and clerk's office of Adams County will find whole volumes written out in his old-fashioned copper plate style. He never used any thing but a quill pen and used a soft piece of buckskin for a pen wiper.
On February 20, 1810, he was appointed a member of the commission to locate the capital of the state. No doubt the General held many other important offices and appointments, but as the writer has no time to read over the entire records of the state kept during the General's life, he is unable to give them, but the people interested and the appointing powers wanted him to have these various offices and he discharged the duties of every one of them, with the utmost fidelity.
While he was the incumbent of the clerk's office, there was no law as to the disposition of unclaimed costs. Whenever any costs were paid in, he would put it in a package by itself, and label it with the name of the party to whom it belonged and never disturb it until called for by the party entitled to it. These packages he kept loose among his court papers and with his office door only secured by an ordinary lock. In all the years he kept the office it was never burglarized, and his successor, Col. J. R. Cockerill, found the unclaimed costs in the very money in which it was paid in and much of it was worthless because the banks which issued it had failed years before.
In 1805, he became an elder in the Presbyterian church at West Union, and felt more proud and honored in that office than any he ever held. He reared a family of eight: the two sons have been already mentioned: John Meredith was married three times, while his second son, George, who has a separate sketch herein, never married at all. His third son, Gabriel Doddridge, well known to all the citizens of West Union, was born February 1, 1796, and married Sarah Edwards, his full cousin, October 2, 1823. His fourth son, Carey A., was born October 2, 1797, and married Eliza Holmes, May 5, 1829. His daughter, Sarah was born January 26, 1802, married the Rev. Henry Van Deman, November 2, 1824, and two of her sons, John D. and Joseph H. have sketches herein. She died July 23, 1888. The General's daughter Eliza, born January 22, 1804, and died April 2, 1844, never married. She was a woman of lovely character and was much esteemed in the society of her time. The eighth and youngest child of Gen. Darlinton was David N., born on December 10, 1806, and died in 1853, without issue.
On May 17, 1804, in the allotment of lots in West Union, he took lot No. 84 at $17. This was just north of lot 57, which he afterwards acquired, and on which he built his home. Just west of the home he built a log office, which was afterwards weatherboarded. It was in this log office he kept the postoffice in West Union from July 1, 1804, until October 1, 1811. His old residence is still standing, but its chief features, three immense stone chimneys, have long since been taken away. In this home, made pleasant and happy by the daily observance of all the Christian virtues, General Darlinton dispensed a generous and bounteous hospitality. No stranger of consequence and no public officer ever came to West Union without being his guest. In the first place, he entertained all the Presbyterian ministers who came there; in the second place, all the statesmen who traveled that way, and many of them did, and were not permitted to be entertained elsewhere. The associate judges and prominent citizens of the county were entertained at his home on the occasion of their visits to the county seat. In fact, in his day, the General's home had as many guests as the hotels, or taverns as they were called then, and but for the name of it, he might as well have had a tavern license.
His personal appearance would have attracted notice anywhere. He was about average height, somewhat corpulent, of full and slightly elongated visage, fine regular features, clean shaven, dark brown eyes with heavy brows, and a large head and forehead with his white hair combed back from his forehead and behind his ears. He was quick of movement and to the last walked with the firm step of youth. He had a manly bearing which impressed all who knew him. The business of his office was admirably systematized and all his habits of daily life were regular and methodical. In the routine of life, it is said he did the same thing every day and at the same hour and moment for fifty years. His going to his office from his home in West Union and his returning were with such exactness as to time that his neighbors along the route, used him as a living town clock and did actually set their clocks by the time of his passing. Among other instances of his regularity in all things was the winding of his watch. While writing in the clerk's office, he would lay it down beside him, and when the hands pointed to a certain hour, he would take it up and wind it. The offices he held and his associations with the lawyers and judges, gave him such a knowledge of the principles of the common law of the state, and his familiarity with the statute law, having grown up with it, together with his excellent judgment, qualified him for a local oracle, which he was, and grave matters of domestic and legal concern were constantly referred to him, and when he decided the matters, his disposition was acquiesced in as satisfactory to all sides. In politics, in his last years, he was a Whig. He believed in the state promoting religion, education and internal improvements. While not anti-slavery in his views, he thought the war with Mexico was unrighteous.
His day, as compared with ours, was that of beginnings, and of small things. Everything was primitive but human character. That then had its highest development. In his day, there were no steam railroads, no macademized common roads, no luxurious vehicles, no telegraphs, or telephones, no typewriters and but few newspapers and books. All services were then compensated in sums of money which would seem insignificant to us in these days, and trade was largely carried on by barter, and exchange of goods and services.
General Darlinton always alluded to Winchester, Virginia, in affectionate terms, and loved to converse about it, particularly with his neighbors, Abraham Hollingsworth and Nicholas Burwell, who were also natives of that place. He owned the site of Winchester in this county, laid it out and named it in honor of his own loved Winchester, Virginia, but strange to say, he never re-visited the latter, though he had an interest in his father's estate until as late as 1817. But he never visited much in or traveled over Adams county, yet he knew every one in it and their circumstances. In his day, the clerk's office was the most important in the county, for every one's property rights were registered there.
What distinguished General Darlinton among men and above his fellows was his unusual amount of good, hard, common sense, which after all, is the most uncommon kind of sense. He was an entertaining talker, and always had something useful and entertaining to say. He had a wonderful natural dignity of which he seemed unconscious, and which impressed itself on those with whom he came in contact. His life was on a plane above the ordinary and the people who knew him well felt they were looking up to it.
But what distinguished his life above everything else, what shone out above all things, and what will be remembered of him when all else is forgotten, was his remarkable Christian life and character. His religion was of the very highest and best type of the Puritanic. With him, religion was not as now in many cases, a fashionable sentiment, but it was a living, essential reality, controlling every thought and action of his life. His whole soul, conscience, principles, opinions, worldly interests and everything in his life was made subservient to his religion. His life made all who knew him feel that there was truth and reality in the Christian religion, and he lived it every day. In his judgment, his crowning earthly honor was that he had served nearly fifty years as a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church at West Union.
Four years before his death, he had retired from all public business and was simply waiting the final summons. All his life he had had a dread of the Asiatic cholera. When that pestilence visited West Union in the summer of 1851, the first victim died June 26. By some irony of fate, he was the last and died of the dread disease on the last day it prevailed, August 2. He died in the morning about 7 o'clock after a sickness of but a few hours and was buried before noon that day, and there were but four persons present at his interment, when, had he died of any ordinary disease, the whole county would have attended. Geo. M. and William V. Lafferty, his son, Gabriel Darlinton and Rev. John P. Van Dyke were the only persons to attend his funeral rites. Rev. Van Dyke repeated a prayer at the grave.
The writer, at nine years, knew him at eighty-five. He was in his sitting room. He had a wood fire in an old-fashioned fire place. The floor was uncarpeted and a plain deal table stood out in the middle of the room, at which the General sat and wrote. The table had a single drawer with a wooden knob. On that was tied a piece of buckskin, which he used to wipe his pen. A rocking chair was at each corner of the fire place, and common split-bottomed chairs in the room. Grandmother Edwards, his sister, with cap and spectacles, sat in one of the rocking chairs. The General's hair was then as white as snow, long and combed behind his ears. He arose to meet and welcome me, only a child, and a more grave and dignified man I never met. To me, a boy, his presence was awe-inspiring.
General Darlinton was and is a fair example of the good and true men, who built well the foundations of the great State of Ohio. His good works in church and state have borne and will bear fruit to many generations of posterity. From the day West Union was laid out for forty-seven years his figure was a familiar one, seen daily on its streets, but for forty-eight years, it has been missed, but his memory is as fresh and green as that summer day, forty-eight years past, when he closed his books at the clerk's office for the last time and walked to his home. The memory of his lovely and lovable Christian character is the richest legacy he left his children, but they can give it to posterity, and be none the poorer.
From History of Adams County, Ohio from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers - West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900