INDEARBO-L Archives

From: Earl Thompson <>
Subject: [INDEARBO] Article about pioneers in the area
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2000 16:36:06 -0400 (EDT)

I was retyping this article from the Lawrenceburgh Press newspaper for the
Ohio county GenWeb site, but thought it would be interesting for someone to
read which has items concerning Lawrenceburg and Dearborn county.

Mary COVINGTON
Lawrenceburgh Press - 5 Aug 1875
In Memoriam - The following notice of the death of Mrs. Covington, which we
clip from the Rising Sun News of last week, contains so much that is
interesting regarding pioneer life in this section, that we have thought it
would be a matter of interest to nearly all our readers:
Mrs. Mary Covington, whose death occurred in this city on July 19th, 1875,
was one of the first white settlers in this section, and having been a
resident of this immediate vicinity for seventy-seven years, her history is
intimately blended with the history of this section from its earliest
settlement. Mrs. Covington was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania,
March 7th, 1793. Her father, Col. Samuel Fulton, removed with his family to
Newport, Kentucky, in 1795, where he remained for two years, removing to the
present site of Rising sun in 1797, where he erected the first cabin built
at this place; near the present residence of Mr. William Goldson. Col.
Fulton afterward removed to the farm, about one mile north of town, upon
which he resided up to his death, which occurred January 15, 1819.
Col. Fulton was accompanied, or soon after followed, to this place by his
father, brother, Thomas Fulton Christopher Huston, father of Mrs. Enoch
Drake; Thomas Mountz, and others. The father of Mr. Enoch Drake came here
soon after, first settling near Laughery Island, and afterwards removing to
the farm on Arnold's Creek where he so long resided and where Mr. Enoch
Drake, still a resident of this city, was born in 1803. Mr. Benjamin Avery,
who first settled on the farm belonging to the estate of the late Captain.
D. G. Rabb, came about the same time; and the Browns purchased the large
tract of land so long owned by them, about the same time, and soon after
settled upon it.
Because of Indian hostilities, so prevalent at that time, but few
emigrants settled here for several years. They generally preferred to remain
near the forts, where they could be protected from the raids so frequently
made by the Indians. Not until after the battle of Tippecanoe, in 1811, in
fact not until after peace had been declared after the war of 1812, with
Great Britain, did the then residents here feel entire security from Indian
depredations. On many occasions were the residents here compelled to flee to
the Kentucky side of the river to escape Indian outrages. Mr. John James,
proprietor of Rising sun, removed his family here in 1811, and was afterward
compelled to take them, for safety; to Louisville, Ky.,where they remained a
couple of years before permanently taking up their abode here.
Mr. James laid out the town, as is well known, in 1814, and soon
thereafter quite a number of persons settled here a few of whom are living
and all of whom are honored and respected. It can be truly said of Rising
Sun that the great body of its early settlers were persons of industry, in
telligence, energy and respectability; and they gave to the new settlement a
reputation of which their descendants may well feel proud and which they
should endeavor to maintain.
The family of Mrs. Covington's father was exposed to all the privations of
frontier life, and great as we may estimate these privations, we can hardly
give them their full measure. from 1798 up to 1810, when the first tide of
emigration set in towards Rising Sun, there were perhaps not a dozen
families on the north bank of the Ohio River, in an area of ten miles
square, taking Rising Sun as a center. There was a settlement at
Lawrenceburgh, a family or tow at Big Bone, and here and there a family in
Boone Co9unty, with a small settlement at Burlington. If a crop was
attempted to be cultivated, it was in danger of being taken by the Indians,
and supplies of every king now deemed to necessary to our very existence
were obtained only at great trouble, cost and hazard. Cincinnati was then
but a small place, and reached only by land, or by the pirogue or canoe,
neither way being very safe. Lexington, Kentucky, at that time, was a more
important point than Cincinnati; and it was at Lexington that the then
residents of this place sold their peltries and furs, the only articles they
had to sell, and purchased their supplies. The writer has often heard Mrs.
Covington make mention of the act of purchases both by her father and mother
at Lexington, of bonnets and materials for dresses. Lexington then led
Cincinnati in the matter of fashions, and we are not to suppose it otherwise
than a fashionable bonnet was held in as high esteem at that day as now.
It is somewhat remarkable that the early settlers of this county made no
complaints of their privations of hardship. Mrs Covington often, up to the
time of her death, referred to them as "happy days" - better than now. She
said that there were then no pretended friends, but all were sincere and all
had confidence in each other. This opinion is held by the surviving
pioneers, and it was the testimony of all who have gone. Mrs. Covington had
girlhood friends and acquaintances residing at Newport and Lawrenceburgh,
and these she not unfrequently, visited, her father taking her in a canoe
and paddling or poling it against the stream, when business called him to
those places, and returning, in a much easier way, by floating with the
current. She also made visits to her neighbors, the McClures, residing in
what is now known as Egypt Bottom, in Switzerland County, and even extended
visits to Shepherdstown, twenty miles back of Louisville. Some of these
places can now be reached in as many hours as it then required days and yet
it is doubtful if so much pleasure is derived from such journeys now as was
then. It is not strange those appeared after the lapse of half a century,
"happy days."
With all their inconveniences and privations, the education and religious
training of the young was not neglected by the pioneers. After 1810, Mrs.
Lane, wife of Amos Lane, who was afterwards a member of Congress form this
district, and mother or Colonel James H. Lane, known to most of the present
generation, taught a select school for young ladies, in Lawrenceburgh, which
would compare favorably with many of the schools of the present day. Mrs.
Covington enjoyed the advantages of that school and obtained there not only
the advantage of a good English education, but a knowledge of needle work
which was taught in the school of that day. Specimens of her needle-work
being counterpanes and table-covers, executed while at school, the cloth
being woven and the thread spun by her own hands, from cotton grown on her
fathers farm are now in the possession of each of her sons, having been
presented by her to them at the time of their marriages respectively.
There was occasional preaching and her father's house was the place for
many years, at which the services were usually held. Appointments for
religious services were, of necessity, made a long time in advance and pains
were taken to notify others of many miles around. On sacramental occasions
generally a minister was brought from Cincinnati; and we have Mrs.
Covington's authority for saying that on more than one occasion her father
has taken a canoe to Cincinnati to bring down the late Rev. Joshua L.
Wilson, and taken him home again in the same way, after he had performed his
ministerial duties here. At the organization of the Presbyterian Church in
this place in 1816, her father and mother were among those who participated
in that organization. Her religious affections were always with the
Presbyterian Church, and she was a member of that branch of the Church in
this place of a period of about twenty-five years preceding her death.
On the 7th of January, 1810, she was married by Rev. James Jones, as a
pioneer Methodist minister, so well and honorably known in this community
for many years, to Robert E. Covington, who was born in Somerset County,
Maryland, October 31, 1789, and who died in Rising Sun in the same house
where his wife died including less than two months of fifty years later,
August 26, 1825. During all these fifty years which she passed in widowhood,
her whole wordly thoughts where entering upon the single object, the welfare
of her two sons. For their sakes she denied herself of many of the comforts
of society and the pleasant association of friends, seeking in her own
humble home and in their company such society and such pleasures as there
might be afforded.
Earl

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