Rachel [Miller] Young was born in Huntingdon County, Pa., May 1st. 1784.
In 1799, in company with her parents and three or four other families, she came to Fairfield County, Ohio, arriving there on New Year's Day. They floated down the Ohio river on a flat-boat to the mouth of the Hocking. From there they ascended that stream in canoes to the falls, where Logan stands. There the canoes were unloaded and dragged over the falls, where they were reloaded, and paddled up to the mouth of Rush Creek, the present site of Sugar Grove, where they were abandoned, and the goods and stores packed on horseback, the most of the company traveling on foot through the forest up Hocking to where Mr. Prindle now lives, two miles below Lancaster. From there they proceeded in the same manner to the neighborhood of Bremen, or rather the present site of Bremen, where they all settled, in the beginning of 1800.
In their passage up the Hocking, obstructing logs were severed with a cross-cut saw, and removed from the stream to allow the canoes to pass. Some of the men had been out the previous spring and cleared off some ground, and planted corn and potatoes, and also put up some rude cabins.
The company numbered fifteen souls, including one child, whose name was Joseph Ashbaugh. The following are the names of the fifteen:
Elizabeth Miller and her mother,
Andrew Ashbaugh,
Joseph Ashbaugh,
Frederick Ashbaugh,
Jos. Miller,
John Ashbaugh, Sr., and wife,
John Ashbaugh, Jr., and wife,
three daughters of John Ashbaugh, Sr.,
Joseph Ashbaugh, the baby, and
Rachel Miller, now Rachel Young.
Mrs. Young was married to Edward Young on the 2d of April, 1802, and remained in married life fifty-eight years; and, on her ninety-third birth day, had been a widow seventeen years. At that time she had six children living, viz.: three sons and three daughters. She became a member of the Presbyterian Church in 1820, and has lived a Christian woman and worthy pioneer mother. She was ninety-three years old on the 1st of May, 1877.
The men who came out the previous spring and made the preparations for emigrating were: Joseph Miller, and John and Joseph Ashbaugh. . .
The first school Mrs. Young remembered in the Bremeji neighborhood was near William Black's present residence. This she thought was in 1803. The first preachers who held meetings in the settlement were Rev. Cradlebaugh, of the German Reform Church, and Rev. John Wright, Presbyterian. This was also about 1803.
On one occasion, when Mr. Young came to see her as a suitor, he shot a bear on his way. He sent some parties back to skin and dress Bruin, while he remained with the object that was the cause of his visit.
On another occasion she went out on the hill to cut a rock, [a rock was a five-pronged switch formed into a kind of reel, upon which the hatcheled flax was wound preparatory to spinning — the best of the kind were found in the tops of dogwood saplings. — Ed.] and while she was looking round for a good one, a very large bear came walking leisurely along in unpleasant proximity, but as he did not show any disposition to molest her, she concluded the best plan for her to adopt would be to not molest him, and so each party took the course that suited them best.
The first hog killed in the settlement was a small shoat, which made a part of her wedding-dinner. After the ceremony of the dinner, dancing was introduced, John Ashbaugh being the fiddler.
Mrs. Young spoke of a method of salting down pork at that early day, which the writer remembers as having been practiced.
She said coopers were at first not to be found, and the settlers dug troughs from the trunks of large trees, and used them as meat-tubs.
She remembered that at one time she had five wild-turkeys salted down in one of these troughs. She spoke of a turkey-pen they built near her house, in which she caught twenty-one turkeys within less than two weeks. She and Catharine Ashbaugh were the ones that went in the pens to catch them.
She also spoke of another matter which perhaps few, even of the oldest inhabitants, have any recollection of, as it was not everywhere known. I allude to the art of manufacturing fine linen from the fiber of wild-nettles...
Every family manufactured their own clothes. Hand-cards were used in preparing wool for spinning.
The young people went to meeting barefooted; sometimes carried their shoes and stockings in their hands to near the meeting-house, and then sat down and put them on.
Mrs. Young was present at the first Fourth of July celebration held in Fairfield County, half a mile west of Lancaster, but did not remember the whisky-barrel and the fight, but she remembered that the wild meat was roasted before a big fire.
The first wedding in her neighborhood was that of James Wilson and Patsey Hammel.
The first death was that of a Mr. Hamerly.
The first birth in the new settlement was David Ashbaugh.. .
