A Painter and His Wife

THE LOLLARS and THE LAND
Chapter 3
Moses - 1797-1852

Moses Lollar was just over ten years old when his father, David Lollar l, died in 1807, leaving his mother, Phoebe Dunham Lollar, with seven children to raise on the 100 acre homestead southeast of Lebanon in Turtlecreek Township (known as David’s Land) she and David had acquired seven years before. The name “Moses” was much-used in Phoebe’s Dunham line, before and after it was given to her second son (Jonathan having died in infancy). Doubtless Moses was named after Phoebe’s brother Moses Dunham, four years younger than she. Nothing is known of him except that he stayed behind in New Jersey when the large emigration of Dunhams came to Ohio in 1795.

Surely, Moses, as the second oldest Lollar child, and the oldest son, immediately after his father’s death took on great responsibilities in working the farmland and caring for the other children. With the help of Phoebe’s family the Dunhams, and friends like the Drakes and neighbors like the Hatfields, a substantial acreage would have been cleared, and a house built, on the homestead before his father died. But producing a living on the limited flat acres that overlooked the deep ravine made by Bee Run which ran through the rear of the place would have presented a challenge even in the reputedly rich soil of the Land Between the Miamis in southwest Ohio.

There were three boys on the farm: besides Moses, there was Joseph, age 7, and Elisha, age 5, when their father died. And four girls: Elizabeth, age 11, Nancy 8, Polly 3, and small Phoebe, not quite a year old. Each of the children would have been given chores and responsiblities as their ages warranted. One can imagine a small garden being planted, and enclosures needing to be kept strong to keep the deer out. To say nothing of keeping small children from wandering off into the nearby deep dark woods where wildcats, large and small, and perhaps even wolves still existed.

Six years went on with Moses trying to act as the “man of the house,” until, in 1813, things began to change when his oldest sister, Elizabeth, on January 26, married Cyrus Simonton, brother of Richard Simonton, first minister of Bethany Church, founded in those early years not far from the Lollar homestead. Eventually, Elizabeth and Cyrus bought a farm east of Lebanon on the road between Clarksville and Fort Ancient, had 16 children. Cyrus was a trustee of Washington Township. He led the singing in Bethany Christian (New Light) church.

An even larger change came when, just two weeks after Elizabeth’s marriage, Moses’ mother, Phoebe, ended her six years of widowhood by marrying Charles McChristy. Apparently they all continued to live at the Lollar homestead for a time. Charles McChristy sold the considerable piece of property he owned in the south edge of the incorporated town of Lebanon. In 1818 Moses’ younger sister, Nancy, married Charles McChristy’s son, Jesse, and in 1818 the two couples, Phoebe and Charles, the parents, and Nancy and Jesse, their offspring, bought property in Bellbrook, small town northwest of Lebanon in Greene County, and operated a tannery there for some years.

In May of 1824, the “baby” of the Lollar siblings, at slightly less than 18 years of age, married Thomas hunter, son of Revolutionary War veteran Robert Hunter, who established a holding in Salem Township, just east of Turtlecreek. Known as “White Oak Farm” the place was later noted for it prize Poland China hogs raised by Leonidas (Lon) Hunter, who at the same time was sheriff of Warren County.

That same year, Polly, second to youngest of David and Phoebe’s children, married Joseph Ross. Joseph Ross, born in Augusta County, Virginia, in July 1801, was the son of Isaiah Ross, who, in turn, was the son of Dr. John and Katherine Fitz Randolph Ross. Isaiah was the brother of Sarah Ross who married Thomas Corwin, illustrious politician and statesman who, among other things, was governor of Ohio, U. S. Senator, Secretary of the Treasury, and Minister to Mexico before he died in 1865.

This brings us to Moses’ marriage, because on June 23, 1825, when he was 28 year old, Moses married Elizabeth Ross, another of Isaiah Ross’s children. It is believed they lived on “David’s Land” until Elizabeth died in 1850 and Moses died in 1852. Tax records for 1832 list Moses Lollar with 3 horses, 7 cattle. Administrator’s sale May 16, 1857, shows 6 horses, 9 head of cattle. Both Moses and Elizabeth are buried in the cemetery at Bethany Church, east of Lebanon.

The U.S. Census taken in 1830 shows Moses Lollar and Charles McChristy consecutively as heads of households in Turtle Creek Township. Although it is not known just when Charles McChristy died, it is known that Phoebe Dunham Lollar McChristy died in 1838. The fact that the 1850 census lists only Moses and Elizabeth R. Lollar and their five children would indicate that Charles McChristy must also have passed on by that time.

The last of the children of Phoebe Dunham and David Lollar I to marry, and the only ones to leave Warren County to live, were Moses’ younger brothers, Joseph and Elisha.

Joseph apparently went north to Greene County when the McChristys had a tannery in Bellbrook. While still in Ohio, on January 22, 1827, he married Sarah Vaughn, daughter of John Vaughn. They had one daughter, Carolin, before Sarah died on March 16, 1832.

After that, in Ohio records, Joseph became a complete mystery.

A mystery - until - a series of events took place in the summer of 1996, the possibility of which is what turns genealogy from a static listing of names and dates into a fascinating never-ending treasure hunt. That summer, before I lived at Otterbein , I had rented an apartment in Lebanon to be near the family history libraries and came across a small black notebook in the Lollar family file at the Warren County Historical Society. Penciled at the top of a page of names were the words “Saratoga Lollars,” in what I immediately recognized as the handwriting of my father, Harry David Lollar. No other information. No clue about “Saratoga,” nothing in family lore or records ever indicated that any of the ancestry ever went to New York state. And no help from my father - he had been gone for more than 30 years.

Later in the summer, in pouring over a stack of unidentified photographs that had been kept in an old trunk with other family treasures, I found a couple of old-style portraits imprinted at the bottom “Gordon, Master Photographer, Union City, Indiana.” Thinking that perhaps if I went to Union City, Indiana, I could get some clue about the subjects of the portraits - a man with full black beard and a woman with bouffant hair - I searched an Indiana road map, having a vague memory of having at some time passed a sign pointing to a town with a name like that on the Ohio-Indiana border. As I searched the road map, I found - not only Union City, but also - Saratoga!

At the first opportunity, I started west on country roads through the beautiful farmlands of western Ohio and eastern Indiana and found the village of Saratoga. As I drove the length of the rather run-down center street , evidences of what had been a flourishing farm center were everywhere - rusting railroad track, shabby unused grain elevators, empty warehouses, abandoned trucks and farm machinery. Within a few minutes it appeared I was nearing the edge of town so, to turn around, I went into the graveled parking lot of a sizable red brick church. As I was about to leave the lot I noticed a man standing on the steps of the church looking at me intently so I decided I should explain myself and lowered my window and told him why I was there. As soon as I uttered the word “Lollar” the man, who told me his name was Carl Lake the church historian, said, “Oh, yes, you mean Joseph and Sarepta Lollar, do come in.”

It turned out that the Joseph to whom the man had referred was the son of the first Joseph and Sarah Pogue Lollar, who had moved from Ohio, acquired large areas of virgin land, and founded the extensive line of Saratoga Lollars.

The church, the Evangelical United Brethren Church, was founded by the son, Joseph Wright Lollar and his wife Sarepta Ford, who held the services in a cabin in the rear of their home for over ten years, then gave land for the present day church, which contains a stained glass window in their memory. Mr. Lake showed me church membership rosters with dozens of Lollar names, and sent me on to the town cemetery with even more Lollar headstones, and to the Health Department in the county seat of Winchester where genealogical files included a hand-written journal.

That evening, I returned to Lebanon with mind on over-load but aware that I had just lived a genealogist’s dream. In the next weeks the mail brought numerous envelopes of photocopies of section maps, and clippings of weddings and death notices, and cemetery lists and a Union City anniversary booklet showing a Lollar pharmacist, and a lawyer and a postmistress, as well as the many others still living on the land. But, I was told that in all of Randolph County, there were now no longer any Lollars left.

To return to Moses’ Lollar siblings, we come to Elisha D., born in Warren County on May 28, 1802, but thirty years later he appears in the records of Mechanicsburg, small town in Champaign County, some 50 miles to the northeast. By that time he had acquired the title of Dr., changed the spelling of his name to ”Lawler,” became known as “E. D.” and on November 27, 1832, married Mary Ann Owen, who had come to Mechanicsburg as a small child from Virginia.

Records do not show where he obtained his training to become a doctor or how he ended up in the little town of Mechanicsburg. Records in the local library do show that around 1830 he built a building, The Lawler Tavern (now on the National Register of Historic Places) and sometimes called the Lawler Inn or Goshen Inn. This was operated by his wife, Mary Ann, and their son James W., who continued to operate it even after Elisha died on August 5, 1865. Mary Ann lived until 1881. Besides, James W., there was another son, Orlando, who died from wounds received in the Civil War.

During his busy life as a “popular and well respected doctor in the community,” Elisha D. served as an early Past Master of the Masonic Lodge. He also established the Lawler Orchard on land he bought for the purpose next to the Tavern.

A series of transactions appeared in Warren County records in 1836 to 1838 to consolidate the ownership of David’s Land. Since Moses and his family were living at the homestead it seems appropriate for him to acquire ownership, and so one by one he gave each of his brothers and sisters an amount of money ranging from $50 to $500, officially transferring title. The $500 was to Thomas and Phoebe Hunter, Cyrus and Elizabeth Simonton already having sold their interest to them in 1826.

As a matter of conjecture, one might wonder if Moses might not have built a new house on David’s Land in the late 1830s. The house had been torn down before I, in 2002, discovered the site that was to be developed into Catalpa Ridge. However, photos taken by the Otis Blair Linkous family who lived in the house from 1930 to 1943 reveal a white frame house just such as might have been built a hundred years before, but was almost surely not built in 1800. Also, the fact that the original Phoebe Dunham Lollar McChristy may have been failing before her death in 1838 may have impelled them to get the property records up to date.

The early years of the nineteenth century brought many changes to southwest Ohio, to Warren County, to Moses and his siblings - the first generations of Lollars to be born in the newly-developing land between the Miami Rivers. It is interesting to look at the history of those years to see how those changes and developments may have affected the young Lollars in their growing-up years, and how they may have influenced the adults they were to become. Were schools and churches available ? Roads? What were the methods of transportation? What about Indians? Opportunities for social life? - All are questions that come to mind. Partial answers can be found in published works about the period, and conjecture can round out the picture.

Quotations from (1) The History of Warren County, Ohio, W. H. Beers & Co. 1882; (2)The Centennial Atlas of Warren County, Ohio, 1903; and (3) Warren County, and Beyond, by Dallas R. Bogan, 1997, are all sources of helpful information.

Indians - After the passing away of the Mound Builders, no tribe of Indians ever dwelt permanently upon the soil of Warren County (2, p 9). Only one incident is recorded of a skirmish between Indians and settlers. In 1792, two white men, a woman and a boy were in a canoe when they were fired upon by two Indians, killing one of the men. The Indians were captured, detained in northern Ohio for eight months and then ransomed. (1, p 440). During most of the winter and spring of 1798-99, and for several succeeding springs, a company of Indians had their camp on the hillside in the south edge of Lebanon for the purpose of making sugar. They also had a favorite fall hunting spot on Todd’s Fork. (1, p 243, 435). A considerable party of Shawnees, Wyandots and Pottawatomies on a forced migration visited the Shakers at Union Village in the summer of 1807 representing themselves in great distress for want of food, and were relieved by the Shakers. (1, p243).

Wild Lands and Animals - The labor of opening a farm in a forest of large oaks, maples and hickories, was very great, and the difficulty was increased by the thick growing spice bushes.. . The first dwellings of the settlers were cabins made of round logs notched at the ends. . . The cabin of round logs was generally succeeded by a hewed log-house more elegant in appearance and more comfortable. . .The great fertility of the soil was attested by the variety and exuberance of its vegetation. The native forests covered the whole surface of the county. . .The buffalo and elk had disappeared before the approach of the white man, but the bear, deer, wolf, panther, wildcat, otter, beaver, porcupine, wild turkey, rattlesnake, moccasin and copperhead remained in greater or lesser numbers for some years after the occupancy of the whites. (1, p 258) Shoals of fish were noted in the clear waters of the Little Miami (1, p 257).

Transportation - With the early settlers, almost the only modes of locomotion were on foot and on horseback. The farmer took his corn and wheat to mill on horseback; the wife went to visit her distant friends on horseback. Wagons were used for heavy loads and freightage. All of this was more difficult by the great prevalence of horse thieves in the county.(1, p 250,51) The first roads in Warren County were mere traces or paths for horses., which often became almost impassable in the wet seasons. In 1820 the State Legislature provided a fund for construction of roads, Warren County’s portion being $1,000. Stage coaches began to be an important means of carrying passengers and mails on the principal thoroughfares in Ohio about 1825 (1 p. 284). The turnpike from Lebanon to Cincinnati was completed around the year 1838. The Miami Canal across the northwestern part of the county was built between 1825 and 1828. The short-lived Warren County Canal came a few years later. The Little Miami Railroad was incorporated in 1836 and the first fifteen miles was opened in 1841. (1 p 290)

Mail - The first mail between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh was carried in a canoe, in February 1794, with relays at different stations, much in the manner of horse relays of the Pony Express in the Far West more than sixty years later. Cincinnati was for several years the post office of the whole Miami Valley. In 1805 post offices was established at Lebanon and Deerfield, with mail being brought approximately once a week from Cincinnati, at first by post-riders, later by stage coach. (1, p 292). A “List of Letters” published on August 7, 1835, notified recipients of letters at the post office which, if not picked up by the first day of October, would be sent to the General Post Office as dead letters. The name of Moses Lollar appears on that list with 2 letters waiting, probably indicating that the family did not get into Lebanon very often.

Social Activities - Most opportunities for social contact centered around groups of relatives and neighbors gathering together to build a cabin or a barn, or to plant a crop or to bring in the harvest. These, together with school and church, made it possible for single people to meet and find their life partners. The Western Star, a weekly newspaper was started in 1807 in Lebanon and carried items about marriages, and deaths, and small local ads, as well as articles of Ohio State Government and national importance.

Politics and Government - Of special interest was news of several people from Warren County, such as Jeremiah Morrow and Thomas Corwin, both very important in early state and national government offices, both having been governor, among other things. The War of 1812, in many ways a continuation of both the Revolutionary War in which the United States gained their independence from Great Brain, and of the Indian wars, primarily affected the Maumee region of Ohio, but also was surely was a great matter of interest to people between the Miamis. In fact, first mention of Thomas Corwin came when he drove large wagons of necessary supplies for the soldiers in the War of 1812. (1 p122). Reports of the mobbing of The Shakers at Union Village in 1810 and of the mammoth 1811-812 Mississippi Valley earthquake were surely things that reached Bee Run whether by press or word of mouth.

Schools - No State in the Union was more zealous in her educational interest than Ohio. However, it wasn’t until 1825 that a practical and effectual system was adopted. Prior to that, part of the Colonial Congress’s Survey Ordinance of May 20, 1785, reserved Lot 16 of every township for the maintenance of public schools within said township. In 1821 the State of Ohio provided legislative enactment for supporting free schools by public taxation. Township trustees and local householders were to elect school officials. (1, p 135). Early records show a school building on Stubbs Mill Road (said to be Union School, the seventh started in the County) which the Lollar children might have attended. There is a building in that location now used as a church, but with no burial ground, which probably indicates it started as a school. In addition, there were numerous small classes offered by private individuals in advertisements in the Western Star.

Religion - The fact that Phoebe Dunham Lollar McChristy was a founding member of Bethany Christian Church in 1821 must indicate a keen interest in religious matters even before that time. Records show that her parents, Joseph and Hannah Conger Dunham were members of the Presbyterian Church in Westfield, New Jersey, before Phoebe and David Lollar emigrated. Records also show that the Presbyterian was the most numerous sect in the early settlement of Symmes’s Purchase where the Lollars and several of Phoebe’s brothers settled in Ohio. One of the very earliest of churches in Warren County was the Turtle Creek Presbyterian Church near Beedle’s Station, four miles west of Lebanon, about 1798.

In 1813 Elizabeth, the oldest of the Lollar children, married Cyrus Simonton, brother of Richard Simonton, an itinerant preacher, who became the first minister of Bethany Christian Church. Among the 30 founding members of that church were numerous members of the Dunham/Lollar families. Also, as an interesting sidelight, more than half of the other founders were members of the Banta family, which included Daniel Banta, a first ancestor of twentieth century Lollars through Ruby Miller who married Harry David Lollar in 1914.

Around 1800 there was a remarkable religious movement know as The Kentucky Revival. Out of that grew three groups important to the Lollar story: The Newlights (who took the name of the Christian Church); The Shakers; and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Richard McNemar, minister at Turtle Creek Presbyterian Church, was a preacher at The Kentucky Revival. The leaders of the Shakers in New England and New York state heard about this revival and sent three men of their faith to join in. Through meeting Richard McNemar they came to Turtle Creek Presbyterian and soon were able to start a Shaker group that became Union Village. As we have seen, Richard Simonton started Bethany Christian Church. And, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, started in 1810, became the church of the twentieth century Lollars.

End of chapter 3