Charles Willing Byrd
Charles Willing Byrd was born in Westover, Charles City County, Virginia, on Monday, the twenty-sixth day of July, 1770, at one o'clock in the morning, so reads the record in the old Westover Bible. He was the second son and the seventh child of the third Colonel William Byrd, of Westover, Charles City County. His mother, Mary Willing, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on the tenth of September, 1740, and was the daughter of Charles Willing, and his wife, Ann Shippen, of that city. His father was a Colonel under General Washington in the early part of the Revolution, but died when his son was but seven years of age. Thus left in his mother's care, she sent him at an early age to her brother-in-law, Thomas Powell. Mr. Powell, who married Mrs. Byrd's sister, was a member of the Society of Friends, and from whom Judge Byrd imbibed many of his views in regard to slavery, temperance, physical, moral and religious culture, for which views he was noted in his day. Thus we have the Friends' ideas grafted on the old cavalier, fox hunting and rollicking, Virginia stock. One of the reasons his pious mother gave for putting her son under this influence to be educated was on account of the skepticism and infidelity that had crept into the old college of William and Mary, at Williamsburg, Virginia, where all the preceding Byrds who had not been educated in England, had attended college.
Judge Byrd received his entire academic and legal education in the city of Philadelphia, and was a finished scholar and a gentleman of rare polish and elegance. He pursued his law studies in Philadelphia with Gouverneur Morris. He knew intimately, through his mother's family, the Hon. Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution. Directly after his admission to the bar in 1794, he went to Westover to spend the summer. There his brother-in-law, Benj. Harrison, wrote him that Robert Morris wanted an agent to go to Kentucky and take charge of his lands there and bring them into the market; and to any one who would do so, he would give him a salary of one thousand dollars a year, and he urged young Byrd to take the appointment and go to Kentucky at once. He did so and Robert Morris gave him a power of attorney, the original of which is in the hands of the Judge's descendants. He went to Lexington, Kentucky, and there met the family of Col. David Meade of Chaumiere, who had removed from the estate of Maycox, Prince George County, Virginia, opposite Westover and whose family were intimate friends of the Byrds. Col. Meade had four young daughters, and it was very natural that young Byrd should fall in love with one of them, which he proceeded very promptly to do, and on the sixth day of April, 1797, which was Easter Sunday, and which Judge Byrd, in his quaint way, called the "Day of his Resurrection," he was married to Sarah Waters Meade, the second daughter of Col. David Meade. Her eldest sister married General Nathaniel Massie, the founder of Manchester. After his marriage, he returned to Philadelphia and remained there until he was appointed by President Adams, Secretary of the Northwest Territory, which appointment was made in January, 1799. He held this munificent office at a salary of $400 a year, until he succeeded General Arthur St. Clair as Territorial Governor, and retained that position until 1802, when the State was organized and Governor Tiffin took charge on March 4, 1803. His commission as Secretary of the Territory in which he was sworn in as Secretary by Arthur St. Clair is in the possession of his family. On the third of March, 1803, he was appointed by President Jefferson, United States Judge for Ohio and held that position until his death on the eleventh day of August, 1828. During the time he was Secretary of the Northwest Territory and Federal Judge, up to June, 1807, his residence was on Fifth Street, Cincinnati, Ohio, which was then known as Byrd Street. The Presbyterian Church now stands on what was part of his home. Judge Burnet, Nicholas Longworth and George Hunt were among his many friends. The father of the late Vice President Hendricks kept a school in his vicinity. On June 8, 1807, he bought from his brother-in-law, Gen. Nathaniel Massie, a tract of six hundred acres in Monroe Township, Adams County, Ohio, being known as Buckeye Station and Hurricane Hill. He took up his residence there at once, at a point on the ridge overlooking the Ohio River, a romantic spot where there is a fine view of the Ohio both up and down stream, and under which the river almost directly flows. He held this property until August 15, 1817, when he conveyed it to John Ellison, Jr. In 1811, Nathaniel Massie, of Hillsboro, Ohio, lately deceased, then a boy of six years, in company with his father and mother, visited his uncle Judge Byrd at Buckeye Station. Mrs. Byrd, nee Sarah Meade, died February 21, 1815, and was buried at the Station. Judge Byrd removed to Chillicothe and lived there one year. He went to West Union in 1816 and resided there until March 16, 1823, when he removed to Sinking Spring, in Highland County, where he had bought a large tract of land and built a brick house. He resided there until his death.
While residing in West Union, on March 8, 1818, he was married to Hannah Miles, a widow with four children. He believed the water of the "Sinking Spring" in Highland County, to possess remarkable medicinal properties, conducive to health and longevity, and so persuaded was he of this, that he bought the property having the spring thereon and built a fine brick mansion there, which is standing to-day. It seems that notwithstanding he had been reared in the elegant home in Westover and moved in the highest circles at Philadelphia, he had a strong taste for the primitive and quiet life he found at Buckeye Station at West Union and in the wild country of Highland County. He was very strict in the observance of Sabbath and would not, on that day, ride to church on horseback. He had a very strong liking for the principles and teachings of the Shakers, as appears by his will.
Unlike the typical Virginian, he was a total abstainer from all kinds of liquor, in an age when whiskey was pure and temperance societies unknown. He was very temperate in his eating, and guarded the digestion of his children in a manner unknown to the mothers and fathers of this day. He kept small silver scales by his plate, upon which he weighed every article of food which they ate, allowing a certain quantity of fat, sugar, and phosphates, with each portion. He had peculiar ideas as to the preservation of life to longevity, and yet, died suddenly at the com paratively early age of fifty-eight, when he had never been seriously sick in his life. He was engaged in the trial of a mail robbery case when he took his final sickness. His associate. Judge Todd, of Kentucky, took sick at the same time and they both died within an hour of each other. The cause of the death of these two judges is a mystery to this day. The children of his first marriage were all born between 1798 and 1810, and were Mary Powell, Kidder Meade, William Silonwee and Evalyn Harrison. His daughter Evalyn married her cousin and raised a family. She has two daughters now living at Nicholasville, Mrs. Anna Letcher and Miss Jane Woodson. The children of his second marriage were Jane and Samuel Otway, both deceased. Samuel Otway died at the age of forty-five, and left a son, William O. Byrd, who died a few years since at the age of forty-one.
While a resident of West Union, Judge Byrd lived in the property opposite where Mrs. Sarah W. Bradford lives, and afterward in the Judge Mason property on Mulberry street, where Mr. Riley Mehaffey now lives.
Judge Byrd kept a diary from 1812 to 1827. He writes nothing about his doings in the courts, the lawyers he met, or the judges with whom he sat, but a great deal about his diet. It appears that he was a dyspeptic, and suffered with a disordered stomach, and that his private thoughts were largely about his diet and the better preservation of his health. He was constantly making experiments in dieting on himself and his children. He notes Judge Todd's opinion as to medicines. Had he lived in our day, he would have been called a crank. At one time, he thought river water was the best and had three barrels of it hauled to his house for his use. At another time, he thought McClure's well in West Union was the proper water to use. At another time, he thought the water at Yellow Springs was the best, and when he became convinced that the Sinking Spring water was the best, he bought property there and made it his home. He refers to Judge John W. Campbell in his diary on the subject of grape culture only. He refers to the Rev. Dyer Burgess on Free Masonry. He speaks of his horses which he named Dolly, Paddy and Paul. The latter was named after a blacksmith who shod them all, and who was probably an ancestor of the Pauls of Bloom Furnace. At one time, when he was riding to Chillicothe, Dolly shied at a black hog along the roadside. He then had black hogs painted on his barn door where she could shy at them at her pleasure. He, at another time, became of the opinion that ammonia was healthful, and he had a seat fixed in his barn and spent a great deal of time there where he could inhale the fumes of it from the stable.
The Judge was very fond of sauer kraut and made frequent mention of it. Another vanity of his was boiled pullet. He had a horror of bile on the stomach, of jaundice and of epilepsy, and frequently writes of these, though it does not appear that he was ever afflicted with the latter. Occasionally, he wrote about the Erie Canal and of canals projected in Ohio, and frequently gave figures and statistics.
In November, 1826, he gave an item of seventeen dollars, travelling expenses from Philadelphia to Maysville, Kentucky; five dollars for tavern bills from Pittsburg to Maysville, and eight days allowed for the trip. At times he contemplated joining the Shakers and would sit down and write in his journal his reasons pro and con. One of his reasons, con, was the weakly state of his health, which would or might render it injurious to him to take such a diet as they use, and to rise hours before day as they used to do and sit by their stoves. Evidently the Judge liked good things to eat and to lie abed of mornings. Another reason, con, was that if he joined the Shakers, Hannah could get a divorce from him under the laws of Kentucky, and could marry again and probably would, and that would be sinful in her. Evidently he did not consider the sin of leaving Hannah and his family. His son, Samuel, said that his whole idea of the Shakers arose from a disordered stomach, which was no doubt true. Here is a tribute to his wife: "Mrs. Byrd. this morning after sunrise and before ten o'clock in the morning, April 23, 1827, after dress ing and washing herself, got breakfast, consisting of excellent coffee, with hot bread and butter, milked three cows, disposing of the milk in the usual way; washed up the breakfast things; made three pies; dressed and washed the little boy (Samuel); made up other bread, working it over a great deal, setting it away to rise a first and second time; and churned our butter; all these nine several things after she was dressed and had washed her face and hands, between sunrise end ten o'clock in the morning, and without any help from Catherine or any one else." We pause to inquire where the Judge was and what he was doing all the time he was making these observations. We very much suspect he was in bed.
August 22, 1822, he writes that he has put $1,400 in the hands of William Russell, to trade in, to be invested in merchandise, the profits of which he was to account for on fair and just principles and the money was to remain in his hands for four years. He writes that Mr. Russell had purchased $4,000 worth of merchandise and expected it on in one week's time. The same day he wrote that Mr. Sparks stated that in two months last past, he had sold $3,000 worth of goods. On February 26, 1822, he wrote that he had bought 39 1/4 pounds of beet sugar at 27 ½ cents per pound.
On December 19, 1822, he made an estimate that a single man may dress decently for thirty-three dollars per annum, including washing, mending, shoes, handkerchiefs and a hat, and for thirty-seven dollars, he may, if he lives in a rented room, with another, get his whole living in addition, his rented room, his washing, his bedding, and his bread and water, included, full total, seventy dollars. What a thing for our young men to look back to, that the young man of 1827 could live for seventy dollars a year. On February 26, 1823, he was living on venison at two cents a pound. Mutton, at the same time, was four and a half cents a pound. It was then fifteen days' passage to Maysville from New Orleans, and that it cost fifteen dollars to go from Maysville to Pittsburg. On June 10, 1822, he devotes two full pages to General Darlinton's, Mr. William Russell's, and Judge Campbell's culture of grapes. In June, 1822, he writes that it takes Paul, the smith, an hour to make nails and fit a pair of shoes and put them on, the shoes being made previously. He devoted a great deal of space in his journals to his children. His objection to a frame house, he wrote, was that it was an ice house in winter and an oven in summer, which has a tendency to produce derangement of the bowels. The Judge had the house at Buck eye Station in view when he wrote that. He gives a great deal of good advice to his children, but it is so much like what has been stated that we leave it out.
I have endeavored from the light afforded me, which is meager, to form an estimate of the character of Charles Willing Byrd, first United States Judge in Ohio. There are some strange contradictions in it. Had his father lived, there is no doubt he would have been reared a typical Virginian of the first families, But his father dying at the age of fortynine, when he was but seven years of age, and his mother being a Philadelphian and having brothers and sisters living there, he was sent to Philadelphia and placed under the care and instruction of a Quaker who it seems had sufficient influence to mould his character. It was there he received his ideas against the use of liquors and against human slavery. His ideas of Republican simplicity were partly his own and partly from Mr. Jefferson, his personal friend and friend of his father and mother. I have not been able to secure any of his writings except his will, and some of his journals.
That he was a gentleman in the fullest, highest and the purest sense of the term, there can be no doubt. A tinge of sadness was no doubt cast upon his life by the death of his father, and the extraordinary and almost inconsolable grief of his mother, which he was compelled to witness. His habits of prudent economy can be attributed to the fact that his father's estate was largely impaired by debts made by a course of liberal and reckless living incident to his day.
He had been a witness to the curse of slavery in Virginia, of its wastefulness and destruction of fine estates and that embittered him against the institution. Then his instruction in Philadelphia was that the institution was a positive sin. His mother was compelled to live in a less expensive house in order to extinguish the debts of his father and that intended to impress upon him the importance of economy and simplicity in living.
When he went to Kentucky, a young man of twenty-seven years, it was natural that he should visit the friend and neighbor of his father, on James River, Virginia, Col. David Meade, then living at Chaumiere Du Prairie, nine miles from Lexington, it was quite natural that he should be well received there and that he should fall in love with and marry the daughter of Col. Meade, whose social standing and his own were equal.
It was natural that he should receive the appointment of Secretary of the Northwest Territory from President John Adams. From one of the best families of Virginia and protege of Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution, that followed.
It was natural that he should receive the appointment of United States Judge from Jefferson, for the latter knew him as a scion of one of the most prominent families of Virginia, and in sympathy with his Republican notions of simplicity, which he had imported from France and which were much in vogue in those days.
There is, however, one feature of his character I cannot understand. He had been residing in Cincinnati on Fifth Street from 1798 till 1807. His eldest child was but nine years of age and he had five younger. He bought a tract of 700 acres of land in the then wilderness of Adams County and moved there, where he resided till 1815, or about that time. Why he should want to take his wife and young children into this wilderness, when he had a life position, which required him to discharge his duties in the large cities, seems strange.
Judge Campbell, one of his successors, when appointed, resided in Adams County but moved to Columbus where he was required to hold court. On the other hand, Judge Byrd, after having occupied his office for four years, removed to the country and continued to reside there for the remaining twenty-one years for which he held the office of Judge. At Buckeye Station, he could see all the steamboats or craft which passed up and down the river and could take boats to Cincinnati or points up the river. Being a Virginian he loved the country, as the English, their ancestors do, and have always done. At that day, few, if any, Virginian gentlemen would live in cities or towns, who could live in the country.
Why he removed to West Union in 1815, we cannot conjecture, unless on account of the death of his wife, he desired to see more of society. He resided in Chillicothe for one year, but did not seem to like that place and returned to West Union. In traveling from his home to hold his courts, he went from West Union through Dunbarton, Locust Grove and Bainbridge to Chillicothe. Sinking Springs was on his route, and having tasted the water there, he became satisfied there were some wonderful qualities in it, though it was not considered peculiar before, nor has any one since Judge Byrd's time regarded it as anything extraordinary. He, however, had the water brought to him at West Union for some time and finally purchased the property on which the spring is located, built a home there, which was an extraordinary one for his day, and resided there until his death.
The home is still standing and till lately was occupied by his grandson, William Otway Byrd. The neigborhood of Sinking Springs was, in 1825, much more remote from haunts of men than Buckeye Station, and why Judge Byrd, who had been reared in the most elegant society, and in his youth and young manhood had moved in the best circles of Virginia and in the city of Philadelphia, then the metropolis of the United States, who had moved in the best society in Cincinnati, should want to seclude hmself and family in the wilds of Highland County, seems unaccountable.
His childish and youthful ideas of religion were derived from two sources, that of his father and mother who were attached to the Episcopal Church, and from his uncle, Mr. Powell, of Philadelphia, who was a Quaker.
It seemed the Quaker ideas predominated with him, and at the time he wrote his will he appeared to think the Shakers had the true ideas of religion.
None of his decisions have been reported. McLean's Reports do not begin until 1829, the year after his death, and no reports on his circuit were published during this time.
He sat in the celebrated case of Jackson vs. Clark, 1st Peters, page 666, when it was tried in Columbus, Ohio, in July, 1826, and the decision of the Circuit Court was affirmed in the Supreme Court.
The generation which knew Judge Byrd personally and that which followed him has passed away and thus the avenues to a knowledge of his character are closed. Had any of his decisions been reported, or had we any of his writings, or were there extant any of the books he had written, we could judge of him, but as it is, our judgment of him is very meagre and narrow. Tradition tells us that he was learned in the law and had the training of a complete and thorough education. He was evidently a good judge, or we should have heard to the contrary. He must have had a large capacity for business, or Robert Morris would never have entrusted him with an important mission on his own private business in Kentucky. President John Adams had a good opinion of him and his abilities or he would not have appointed him Secretary of the Northwest Territory. President Thomas Jefferson must have had a good opinion of him or he would not havd made him United States Judge.
From History of Adams County, Ohio from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers - West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900