ASHLAND MEMORIES: Pioneer life and death in the blockhouses
After the violence of September 1812, the scattered settlers took shelter in several hastily-built blockhouses.
In his history of Ashland, George Hill says, “Life in the block-houses was exceedingly irksome and monotonous,” and the inmates returned to their cabins whenever possible. Most days they left the blockhouses to tend to their fields and stock.
At night they returned to the blockhouses where they told stories, spread their bedding on the floors, and slept.
Although there was no bloodshed, death still stalked the blockhouses. Mrs. Anna Carter died in Jeromesville in June 1813. Her 6-year-old son, James, also perished, along with another man. They died of malaria and lack of medical treatment.
Meanwhile, settlers living near present-day Perrysville also came together in defense. They gathered at a deserted cabin belonging to Judge Thomas Coulter. The cabin was 16-18 feet, and had been built in the fall of 1810 at the base of a bluff on the bank of the Black Fork.
They removed the roof and built a second floor onto the cabin, turning it into a defensible structure. Those who assembled there included the families of Thomas Coulter, Allen Oliver, Melzer Tannahill, Jeremiah Conine and George Crawford. George Hill laconically says “while a resident of the block-house, the wife of Jeremiah Conine died and was buried in the cemetery at Perrysville.”
Conine family son let is shattered by falling tree
Fortunately, other writers were a bit more generous with their details. Mary Simmons − she has a name − was the wife of Jeremiah Conine. While the settlers huddled in the blockhouse, Mary gave birth to a little girl, and we are told she was buried with a 10-day-old daughter.
Even more detail about the Conine family comes through the story of her son, Richard Conine. Earlier in 1812, some locals were hired to cut a road from Ashland to Mansfield. A tree fell on young Richard, badly breaking his leg. The men had to go borrow a horse. He then was carried him home in dreadful pain, with his fractured bonesgrating as the horse jounced along.
Unfortunately, it had not quite healed when, hobbling out on crutches to look at some pigs, he fell and broke it again. He had not quite recovered when the families fled to the blockhouse.
History records that “there, within its dreary, lonesome walls, Dicky’s young mother died, with no physician near to save or help.” The boy had only “hardy and sympathizing men and weeping and pitying neighbor women” to comfort him.
Only one person had previously been buried in the Perrysville cemetery. Solomon Hill died on June 4. The settlers had no lumber, and it was a hot summer, allowing no time to go all the way to Mount Vernon to get boards. One pioneer sacrificed his wagon bed to make a coffin, and Hill’s body was ferried across the Black Fork in a canoe for burial.Every man carried a musket at the funeral, but they were not needed. The Native Americans from Greentown arrived unexpectedly to pay their respects.
This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Ashland Memories: Pioneer life and death in the blockhouses
