A Little piece of Paradise… College Hill, Ohio - SELFCRAFT

Chapter 4 The Coming of the CarysDr. Samuel Cary was born June 13, 1734 in Scotland, Connecticut. He graduated from YaleUniversity in 1755 and was a well known Connecticut physician. In 1762 he married Deliverance Grantand in 1768 they moved to Lyme, New Hampshire. He died in 1784 leaving his infant sons, Christopherand William. The boys studied by the light of burning pine knots, as candles were too expensive.Deliverance married Captain John Strong of Thetford, Vermont and after having two children she was lefta widow once again.Her son, Christopher, with land warrants as pay for his participation in the Revolutionary War,bought land from Israel Ludlow in 1801. Leaving New Hampshire with his family, they arrived in Ohio in1803, when his son, Robert, was 15 years old. In 1802 Deliverance moved to Cincinnati with herchildren; Samuel, Delia and William.Christopher and William did not have the advantage of formal education but William became thedriving force for the colleges that were later established in College Hill. Christopher lost an eye as a childand was later crippled by a falling tree. At age 16 he enlisted in the Revolutionary War and went toCanada to fight. There he was taken prisoner by the British and was kept jailed at Montreal for ten monthsbefore he escaped and walked home to New Hampshire. Described as being of “stout frame and ironconstitution,” he had wanderlust and would spend months among the Indians.When William came he worked with Christopher on his farm, several miles north of where Williamwould buy land and settle, and found work “laying pump logs or bored logs to convey the water from aflowing spring on the side hill, afterwards called Keyshill north of the city to water the then village ofCincinnati.” 21He married Jan. 8, 1809, Rebecca Fenton, who came from New York in 1805, and built Bulls HeadTavern at the head of Main Street and Hamilton Road. When S. F. Cary wrote of this location hementioned that “...the site (of the tavern is) occupied by the large German Church, the road forked, onebranch going up Sycamore Hill, the other on Hamilton Road passing westwardly to where the BrightonHouse lately stood. Here the road forked again, one branch passing out through Cleves, Miami Town,Harrison, etc., the other going up the Valley of the Millcreek, through Cumminsville, Carthage,Springfield, to Hamilton. At Knowlton’s Corner, a “hill road” to Hamilton was established, passingthrough College Hill, Mt. Pleasant, and Burlington. This was called the Huston Road; a family of Hustonshaving settled a large tract of land above Burlington...”Deliverance died at the family home downtown in 1810 and was buried where the First PresbyterianChurch stands (4th and Main Streets). William kept the tavern until 1814 and then sold it along with 32acres. He, his wife and three children - Freeman Grant, William Woodward and Samuel Fenton - movedto College Hill. Freeman Grant Cary later remembered the trip up “...where Isaac Laboiteaux now lives;when on the way he (the speaker) had to dismount from the wagon stuck in the mud on what is nowParkers Hill, with two spirited horses in the team. There were no excavations or side cuts in those days,but the heights were sealed and ridges threaded, covered with trees, at first blazed to point out the trail.The lands purchased - some seven hundred acres - then were covered with a heavy growth of timber…” 22They traveled the Hamilton Road.In 1811 the Ohio River valley was rocked by the largest recorded earthquake, centered on Madrid,Missouri. The river town of Madrid was totally destroyed when the Mississippi River altered its courseduring the earthquake, inundating the town. The town of New Madrid was founded on the newly formedbanks. In 1874, E. D. Mansfield of Camp Washington described it: “On the sixteen of December, 1811,we were roused from our sleep by the rattling and tumbling of everything in the house. In fact, thechimneys had fallen down, and we rushed out of the house upon a light snow on the ground, in order, aswe supposed, to save our lives. That was one of the hardest shocks; but successive shocks occurred for21 Early Annals-Autobiography, Freeman Grant Cary, from the library of Mrs. Ruth J. Wells22 Early Annals-Autobiography, op. cit.26