Faith Works: Nothing so invisible as what we don’t see in 1770s Licking County | Jeff Gill

In talking about lessons we might learn about race and racism from history, I’ve been spending a great deal of time 100 years ago, in 1923, with the Ku Klux Klan as that organization steadily took over Licking County and much of the Midwest.

To answer in part why this context is still important in 2023, I need to jump back even further — 250 years ago, in fact — to 1773.

History is in large part the study of the records of a period, and so for Licking County, our pre-history is deep and complex with artifacts and earthworks, but our written history begins in 1751.

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Christopher Gist, friend and associate of George Washington, passed through the Ohio Country in 1750 and 1751: Crucially, he left a journal. His party spends Christmas and New Year’s Eve 1750 in Coshocton, and he gives us our earliest written account of the legendary “White Woman” from whom the main street of Roscoe Village and other sites along Walhonding Creek get their name.

Mary Harris was a child captive born in 1696 in Deerfield, Massachusetts, seized in a 1704 French raid and by 1750 a matriarch married to a Lenape, or Delaware, man and leader of a village along the Muskingum. She remembers dimly so-called civilization in New England but says to Gist “she still remembers they used to be very religious in New England, and wonders how the White Men can be so wicked as she has seen them in these woods.”

That was recorded Jan. 15, 1751; on Jan. 16 and 17, Gist’s party passes through today’s Licking County, but he records salt licks and streams, nothing about people, on his way to the “great swamp,” which they pass around on their way to Hockhocking, what we call Rock Mill today, near Lancaster.

In essence, history as a written account begins for Licking County in 1751. A generation later, in 1773, we get history with characters to populate the scene. On Feb. 10, 1773, the Rev. David Jones passes through going the opposite direction, from Standing Stone on his way to Newcomerstown. From the Hockhocking area up to what he calls “Salt Lick Creek,” or the Raccoon Fork of the Licking River drainage, he notes “there were no inhabitants…” until they reach their destination. Jones goes on to tell us “Before night, came to the designed town, called Dan. Elleot's wife's; a man of that name was said to have here a squaa for his pretended wife. This is a small town consisting of Delawares and Shawannees. The chief is a Shawannee woman, who is esteemed very rich — she entertains travellers — there were four of us in company, and for our use, her negro quarter was evacuated this night, which had a fire in the middle without any chimney.* (Remember that asterisk.) This woman has a large flock, and supplied us with milk. Here also we got corn for our horses at a very expensive price.”

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Jones closes his “Licking County” sojourn by saying, “The country here appeared calculated for health, fertile and beautiful.” And, in fact, there’s good reason to believe it’s Chaplain Jones who routes the earliest settlers of Licking County to this area, from Bowling Green to the Welsh Hills. He and those settlers are the dawn of most historical accounts of our area, after a passing nod to thousands of years of Native American residence and activity.

But note the dual historical significance of the asterisked note on the page: “* This woman has several negroes who were taken from Virginia in time of last war, and now esteemed as her property.”

Do you see them now? I hope to sharpen the focus for us next week.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he knows it’s a struggle sometimes to see what’s in front of your face. Tell him what you’ve come to see at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Jeff Gill Faith Works column: Nothing so invisible as what we don’t see