Daniel Doty
Probably the first settler in Middletown was Daniel Doty, one of the Western pioneers, who died on Monday, the eighth day of May, 1848, at his residence near Middletown, at the advanced age of eighty-three years. Daniel Doty was one of the first settlers of Bulter County, and among the first pioneers of the Miamai country. He was born in Essex County, State of New Jersey, on the twenty-third day of March, 1765. His parents were respectable, honest people, in the humble walks of life, who were unable to give their children any education other than thta which could be acquired at a common country school. They, however, taught them their duty to their Creator and fellow-beings, and brought them up to havits of honest industry on which, with their own exertion, they had to depend to make their way through life.
Having heard of the fine fertile country then opening in the far West, Daniel formed the resolution of exploring it and judging for himself. Accordingly, on the tenth day of September, 1790, he left his home in the State of New Jersey and proceeded to Fort Pitt (now Pittsburg), from whence he descended the Ohio River to Columbia, six miles below Fort Washington, situated where Cincinnati now is. He landed at Cloumbia on the twenty-third day of October following. At that time there were but two hewed-log houses in the town. They stood near the bank of the Ohio River. One of them was occupied by Major Benjamin Stites, the other by John S. Gano. Gano was captain of the militia, and Ephraim Kibby was lieutenant. The company consisted of about seventy men, good and true, who were willing to risk their lives for the defense of the country.
At that time General Harmar was commander-in-chief of the military forces of the country, and John Cleves Symmes, the porprietor of the Miami country, was chief magistrate and head of the civil department. At the time Daniel Doty landed at Columbia, General Harmar was out on his expedition against the Indians, and returned to Fort Washington with his army about ten days afterward. A number of his men were wounded, among whom were George Adams and Thomas Bailey. During the years 1791 and 1792 the country was in an almost continual state of alarm on account of the Indians. Three men were killed and scalped by the Indians near Covalt's Station, on the Little Miami River, about ten miles from Columbia. Their names were Covalt, Hinkle and Abel Cook. Daniel Doty and some others went from Columbia to the relief of the station and guarded the graves while the dead were buried.
In the latter part of December, 1790, the Indians made an attack on the fort at Colerain, eight miles from Fort Hamilton, killed were two men and took some horses and cattle. An express was sent to Columbia, and the company to which Mr. Doty belonged got ready immediately and started on the run. When they got over to Fort Washington, the commandant of the fort ordered Lieutenant Kingsbury and twelve private soldiers to join them. That evening they marched four miles and encamped on Mill Creek until next morning, when they continued their march to Colerain, but upon reaching the place found the enemy gone. About two weeks after this the fort was attacked by a large body of Indians, supposed to consist of three hundred or four hundred warriors, and who invested it closely for three or four days, then withdrawing without doing much injury.
Mr. Doty was instrumentral in bringing the second minister of the Gospel into the Miami country. The first preacher was the Rev. Daniel Clark, a licensed minister of the Baptist profession, who came from Pennsylvania in the Spring of 1791. The second preacher who came was the Rev. James Kemper. He lived near Danville, Kentucky. Daniel Doty and a man named French were chosen by the people to go and bring him and his family to the country. They proceeded on their way with rifles primed, their only road being a bridle-path for sixty miles, sleeping in the woods at night. This was in the Spring of 1792.
On the 24th of April, 1792, Mr. Doty returned to New Jersey by the way of New Orleans, coming back in 1795, and in the Spring of 1796, with his wife and children, came to Middletown, where he commenced a settlement on a tract of land, where he spent the remaining portion of his life. He built his cabin near the Great Miami River, about one mile below where the town now is. When his cabin was raised and inclosed, he lad no table, chairs, bedstead, nor any boards of which to make them. He cut down timber, and split puncheons and clapboards, and made his floors out of the puncheons and doors out of the clapboards. A table was made of a slab split from the tree and supported by four round legs set in auger holes. Some three-legged stools were made for seas, and a bedstead was constructed out of saplings, with a fork or limb of proper height from the bottom of the bed; the lower and upper end fastened to a joist above; in the fork or limb was placed a round pole, with the bark on, the other end being placed through a crack between the logs in the wall. This front pole was crossed by a shorter one laid within the fork, with its outer end through another crack in the wall. Clapboards were now laid with one end on the front pole and the other end in the crack of the wall, for the bottom of the bed. He also constructed a rude cupboard out of clapboards, in which were kept their pewter dishes, plates, and spoons, but mostly wooden bowls, trenchers, and noggins, using gourds and hard-shelled squashes when gourds were scarce. Pegs were inserted in various places on the wall, on which to hang petticoats and hunting-shirts. The buck-horns were fastened to a joist, for the rifle and shot-pouch, which completed the carpenter work of the building. For the accommodation of the babies, Mr. Doty cut down a large sycamore tree, out of which was constructed a cradle.
There were a few settlers in the neighborhood at the time Mr. Doty commenced his improvement, but no crops had been raised, and he went to Cincinnati the first year to buy provisions to support his family. Corn meal was worth one dollar a bushel, which was bought, packed home on horseback, and baked into johnny-cakes on a clapboard before the fire. This was their only bread. Wild game was plenty. Deer, bears, and turkeys were killed when needed.
In the Summer of 1796, while Mr. Doty was on his way to meeting, Sunday night, he heard his dog bark, crossing the cornfield. It was barking at a wildcat on the fence. On Mr. Doty speaking to the dog, the cat turned round and jumped off the fence towards him, and he ran toward the cat. The corn being thick and high, he lost sight of both dog and cat, but soon heard the dog cry out, when Doty went in that direction, and met the cat, and the dog walking behind him. Doty went straight toward the cat, and when the cat turned round to seize the dog, he kicked the cat over, caught him by the hind leg, and placing his left foot on his breast, pressed him with all his weight upon the ground until he was dead. Mr. Doty had killed a number of wild-cats, but thought this one ws the largest he had ever taken hold of.
Mr. Doty had three encounters also with bears, in all three of which he was successful. In one instance, during the struggle the bear cough hold of him by each of his shoulders with the claws of in forefeet, when he struck it down by a blow of his fist in the bear's throat. Another time he split open a bear's head with an ax, and at another time killed a bear with a club, knocking it down first, then following up the blows until it was killed. This last encounter took place more the twenty miles from any house, and while he was on his way to New Jersey.
Daniel Doty was the first collector of taxes in this part of the country. His district was twelve miles wide from north to south, comprising two ranges of townships extending from the Great Miami to the Little Miami, comprehending the sites where the towns of Franklin and Waynesville are, and the immediate country. The whole amount of tax contained on his duplicate was two hundred and forty-four dollars. He collected it all and paid it over to Jacob Burnett, the treasurer, at Cincinnati. In discharging his duties he must have ridden near a thousand miles. HE became a man of wealth and of influence. For several years before his death he himself paid a tax of one hundred and thirty-four dollars per year. He and his wife Betsey lived together on their farm near Middletown, fifty-two years, and raised a family of ten children, and before he died he lived to see the railroad take the place of the Indian trail, and comfortable brick buildings that of the wigwam and the rude cabin.
From A History and Biographical Cyclopædia of Butler County Ohio, With Illustrations and Sketches of its Representative Men and Pioneers, Western Biographical Publishing Company, Cincinnati Ohio, 1882.