Saline Township, Jefferson County

How Saline Township, Jefferson County began

Saline Township occupies Jefferson County's extreme northeastern corner, where Yellow Creek flows the length of the township before reaching the Ohio River at Linton post office. The township holds one of the most consequential Native American sites in the county's entire history: the mouth of Yellow Creek, where in April 1774 a band led by Daniel Greathouse killed the family of the Mingo leader Logan, an event that helped trigger Lord Dunmore's War and produced Logan's Lament, among the best-known pieces of Native American oratory from early Ohio. Samuel Vantilburg, who settled in the township in 1796 and died in 1856, was among its earliest documented residents; the township grew the villages of Hammondsville, Irondale (described separately) and Port Homer, with coal mining led by W. H. Wallace's large-scale operation at Hammondsville from about 1851.

Settled 1796 (Samuel Vantilburg), platted not applicable (township, not platted as a town), incorporated organization date not found in sources reviewed, by Jefferson County Commissioners.

Where the name comes from

Named for the salt springs ('saline' deposits) documented in this part of the county, a resource also noted in neighboring Ross and Springfield townships.

Before the town

Saline Township holds one of the most historically significant Native American sites documented anywhere in Jefferson County: the mouth of Yellow Creek, where the 1880 county history records plainly that 'the massacre of the Logan family took place by Greathouse's band.' This April 1774 killing of the family of Mingo (Cayuga) leader Logan (Tah-gah-jute) by a band of Virginia settlers under Daniel Greathouse is one of the best-documented atrocities of the pre-Revolutionary Ohio frontier; it directly triggered Lord Dunmore's War later that year and produced Logan's Lament, a speech of grief and defiance so widely reprinted in the Virginia Gazette (1775) and by Thomas Jefferson (1782) that it became one of the most famous pieces of Native American oratory recorded in early American history. The same 1880 source describes an old Indian trail running roughly five miles along Yellow Creek with signs of a former encampment, and notes generally that 'along the banks of this creek for ages the dusky red men trod the warpath' -- language reflecting the source's own era rather than a specific documented culture, but consistent with Yellow Creek's role as a long-used Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga) travel corridor.

Nations recorded here: Mingo (Seneca-Cayuga).

• Mouth of Yellow Creek (Logan family killing site) (other) — confluence of Yellow Creek and the Ohio River, Saline Township, near Linton post office, April 1774 (ohiogenealogyexpress.com)
• Yellow Creek Indian trail and encampment traces (trail) — along Yellow Creek, Saline Township, roughly five miles, undated, pre-settlement (ohiogenealogyexpress.com)
• DeSellem farm mounds and fortifications (mound) — on the farm of G. DeSellem, near Port Homer, Saline Township, undated ("years ago"), attributed by the 1880 source to a settlement of "mound-builders"; no specific archaeological culture (Adena, Hopewell or Fort Ancient) is named (archive.org)

Timeline

1. 1764 — Col. Henry Bouquet's army of about 1,500 men marches west from Fort Pitt through the lower Yellow Creek valley in October on its way to the Muskingum, hewing a path through the forest at seven or eight miles a day.
2. 1770s — Jacob Nessley carves his name and a date of the 1770s (the last digit is unreadable in the scan) on an overhanging rock on the river bank a short distance south of the mouth of Yellow Creek, according to the tradition told by his great-grandson, after hiding under it from pursuing Indians; he settled on the Virginia side in 1784.
3. 1774 — Daniel Greathouse's band kills the family of Mingo leader Logan at the mouth of Yellow Creek in April, an event that helps trigger Lord Dunmore's War.
4. 1796 — Samuel Vantilburg settles in the township, among its earliest documented residents; he dies in 1856.
5. 1798 — William Wells, one of the first justices, buys lots four and five at the mouth of Little Yellow Creek; a formidable blockhouse stands on a point south of the creek's mouth, perhaps built by squatters before 1784.
6. 1803 — A stone hotel is built at the mouth of Yellow Creek; its date is found carved in a chimney stone when it burns in 1897. The first road in the county is cut from opposite Wellsburg to Yellow Creek in 1804.
7. 1806 — Joshua Downer discovers salt water at what becomes Irondale, leading to a well by Samuel Potts and a short-lived village first called Pottsdale.
8. 1806 — Salt brine from Samuel Potts's well yields six barrels a day and James Rodgers sinks two more wells of five barrels each; salt sells for $16 a barrel and the hamlet of Pottsdale grows around the works, with a bank run by the Potts brothers, until larger wells elsewhere end the trade.
9. 1831 — William H. Wallace, aged twenty and from Quebec, joins Jacob Groff in the store at Linton at the mouth of Yellow Creek and becomes first postmaster; in 1839 he moves three miles down river and founds Port Homer, named for his son.
10. 1839 — W. H. Wallace, who had been Linton's first postmaster since 1831, leaves Yellow Creek and opens a store and post office three miles down the river that he names Port Homer for his son Homer; he sells the business in 1851.
11. 1851 — W. H. Wallace begins large-scale coal mining at Hammondsville.
12. 1852 — Hammondsville is laid out on Charles Hammond's property and named for him; W. H. Wallace opens the first store and becomes first postmaster the same year.
13. 1856 — W. H. Wallace begins making fire brick at Hammondsville, which he sells to Lacey and Saxton in 1858; Samuel and Adam Minor begin fire clay works there in the early fifties.
14. 1869 — The Pioneer Coal Company brings a rolling mill employing 150 hands to the new town of Huntersville, renamed Irondale; Irondale Lodge No. 533 is formed and union church services begin in the schoolhouse.
15. 1884 — The flood of 1884 practically annihilates the few remaining river warehouses at Port Homer.
16. 1897 — William H. Wallace dies at Hammondsville on September 10 after serving sixty-seven years as postmaster at Linton, Port Homer and Hammondsville, longer than any other postmaster in the United States; the old stone hotel at Yellow Creek burns the same year.

Stories

The killing at Yellow Creek's mouth

The 1880 Jefferson County history disposes of one of early Ohio's most consequential atrocities in a single clause: 'the massacre of the Logan family took place by Greathouse's band' at the mouth of Yellow Creek, in what became Saline Township. In April 1774, a party of Virginia settlers led by Daniel Greathouse murdered the family of Logan (Tah-gah-jute), a Mingo leader of Cayuga birth who had until then urged peace with encroaching settlers. Logan responded with a wave of frontier raids and, after declining to fight at the Battle of Point Pleasant that October, delivered a speech of grief and refusal to hate all white people indiscriminately that came to be known as Logan's Lament -- reprinted in the Virginia Gazette within a year and later by Thomas Jefferson, and still taught as one of the earliest and most powerful examples of Native American oratory preserved in the American record. The event helped trigger Lord Dunmore's War that same year, shaping frontier relations across the entire upper Ohio Valley for a generation, all traceable to this single creek mouth in the county's northeastern corner.

Jacob Nessley's name on the rock

On the river bank a short distance south of the mouth of Yellow Creek, in sight of the old McCullough mansion, an overhanging rock bears the carved words 'Jacob Nessley' and a date in the 1770s (the last digit is unreadable in the scanned book) The tradition, as told by William G. McCullough, a great-grandson, is that Nessley was prospecting in Virginia, crossed to the Ohio side, which was Indian country, and was chased by Indians. Reaching the overhanging rock he jumped into the river, dived, and came up under the rock, where he hid; the Indians, supposing him drowned, left him to his fate. When the way was clear he went back to Virginia, got a tool, and cut his name and the date into the rock. Nessley did not settle on the Virginia side until 1784, but he was in the region much earlier. His grandson Jacob Nessley McCullough was educated at the stone school on the McCullough farm and died with railroad and other interests valued at about $10,000,000.

Sixty-seven years behind the counter

William H. Wallace came to the mouth of Yellow Creek in 1831, twenty years old and born in Quebec, and went into partnership in Jacob Groff's small store at Linton, where he became first postmaster. In 1839 he moved three miles down the river and opened a store and post office he named Port Homer for his son; the river trade made it a prominent shipping point, with flatboats loaded with the product of distilleries, flour mills and salt wells. In 1852 he moved again, to Hammondsville, laid out on Charles Hammond's land, where he started the first store, managed the Hammondsville Mining and Coal Company, made fire brick and built four large stores that, the 1910 county history says, were run on the pattern of later city department stores and advertised in a newspaper he published. He was postmaster in the three offices until his death on September 10, 1897, a service of sixty-seven years that the history calls longer than any other postmaster's in the United States.

Local history sources: ohiogenealogyexpress.com · archive.org · archive.org · archive.org

Mostly private wells The water here

• Toronto76% of residentsOhio River
• Jefferson Co. W and S District - M24% of residentsOhio River

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