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OHIO GENEALOGY EXPRESS
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Ashland County, Ohio
BIOGRAPHIES |
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COLONEL GEORGE W. URIE
was born in Washington County, Pennsylvania, February 22,
1806, and emigrated with his father's family to Orange township,
Richland, now Ashland county, Ohio in November, 1815. For
many years he has been a citizen of Ashland. His tastes are
strongly military. Under the old State organization, he was
promoted through the various grades, from captain to colonel, of
his regiment of independent rifles. When mounted on
horseback, properly caparisoned, he was a fine looking officer,
being tall and finely proportioned. With an unusually
piercing black eye, he was every inch a soldier, in address and
appearance. In the fall of 1845 he was elected treasurer of
Richland county, and upon the erection of Ashland county, in 1846,
he resigned, and was elected the first treasurer of the new
county, which office he held two terms. Being bitten by the
gold fever in 1851, he spent one year in California, reaching that
region by way of Panama. In 1853 he was elected a member of
the State board of equalization from the district composed of
Ashland and Richland counties. In 1857 he was appointed
deputy United States marshal for the northern district of Ohio,
and in 1860 aided in taking the census. In 1865 he was
elected recorder of Ashland county, and held the office until
1874. In the spring of 1874 he was elected mayor of Ashland,
and held the office two years. Colonel Urie is a
member of the Presbyterian church, and noted for his integrity and
uprightedness. He is a son of the late Solomon Urie,
noticed elsewhere. The family of Colonel Urie,
consists of four daughters, Mrs. Mary J. Porter, Mrs. Alice A.
Beer, Mrs. Libbie H. Anderson, and Mrs. Sadie A. Beer,
and a son who died young. Mrs. Porter deceased in
September, 1875.
(See more about George W. Urie below
here) |
COLONEL
GEORGE W. URIE was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania,
February 22, 1806, and in 1815, when nine years of age,
accompanied his father's family to Ohio, making a home in Orange
township, in the present county of Ashland. In his boyhood he was
an adept in the sports of the day, jumping, wrestling, running
foot races, etc., in which he was able to hold his own with the
best. His father was a great deer and bear hunter, and he
generally accompanied him to assist in bringing in the trophies of
the chase. In these expeditions he learned the intricate details
of woodcraft, and became as expert with the rifle in securing game
as his father.
When a young man he learned the trade of millwright,
which called him some distance from his home. He also worked at
the carpenter trade for more than twenty years—at that time very
hard work, as mechanics were obliged to go into the woods, cut
suitable trees, juggle, score and hew down the timber to a proper
size, after which it was hauled by ox teams to the place designed
for the building, where it was mortised and framed. Very
many of these strongly framed houses and barns are now standing
where they were built fifty or sixty years ago, and bid fair to
remain another half century.
Colonel Urie possessed strong military tastes,
and with his commanding figure and erect bearing was a prominent
character at drill and general muster. Under the old State militia
law he passed through the various grades from captain to colonel
of a regiment of independent rifles. At the breaking out of the
war with Mexico he still commanded this regiment, and made all his
arrangements to accompany his comrades in support of the honor of
the American flag, but having recently recovered from a severe
attack of sickness, he was advised by his physician that if he
followed his inclination in the matter it would very likely prove
fatal to him. He therefore reluctantly decided to remain at home,
and leave the honors that might be won to other officers of the
regiment.
In the fall of 1845 he was elected treasurer of
Richland county, and upon the erection of Ashland county in 1846,
he resigned, and was elected the first treasurer of the new
county, which office he held two terms.
In 1851 he was seized with a desire to seek a fortune
among the gold mines of California, and entered the "golden gate"
by way of the isthmus of Panama. He remained in California but one
year, and finding his golden dreams contained more dross than pure
metal, he returned. In 1853 he was elected a member of the State
board of equalization from the district composed of Ashland and
Richland counties. In 1857 he was appointed deputy United States
marshal for the northern district of Ohio, and aided in taking the
census of i860. He was elected recorder of Ashland county in 1865,
and held the office until 1874, when he was elected mayor of
Ashland, which office he held two years.
Colonel Urie has been a resident of Ashland many years. As
is evinced by the numerous places of trust he has filled, he has
the confidence of the people of the county in which he lives. He
was twice married, and by his first wife raised a family of four
daughters—Mrs. Mary J. Porter, Mrs. Alice A. Beer, Mrs.
Libbie H. Anderson, and Mrs. Sadie A.
Beer. A son died young. Mrs. Porter died in
September, 1875.
An extended sketch of the life of
Solomon Urie, father of Colonel George
W. Urie, will be found below here. |
SOLOMON URIE
immigrated to Orange Township in the spring of 1814. In
1813 he entered two quarters of land - one in Orange Township,
the northeast quarter of section 34, and another in Montgomery
Township, the northeast quarter of section 4.
He commenced his improvement in Orange Township by the
erection of a cabin and the imperfect clearing of a few acres,
during the season of 1814. He was an emigrant from
Washington County, Pennsylvania.
Source: History of Ashland Co., Ohio - Publ. 1863. - Page 519 |
SOLOMON
URIE was born in Bedford county, Pennsylvania, near
Bloody run, in 1769. He was in Williamson's campaign against the
Moravian villages, on the Tuscarawas, in 1782, and was at the
massacre of the Christian Moravians, and saw the burning of their
houses. He was then quite young, but large of his age. Colonel
David Williamson was a brother-in-law, and for that
reason he was induced to accompany the expedition. He always
disapproved that barbarous act, and often stated to his sons, that
Williamson yielded a reluctant consent to the perpetration
of that dreadful tragedy, being unable to control the violence of
his soldiers, who were border volunteers, and had suffered much
from Indian raids and depredations. In the year 1810, Solomon
Urie and his brother Thomas went on a hunting excursion
across the Ohio and established a camp about midway between the
present sites of Cadiz and New Philadelphia. They hunted together
some days, and finally, in one of their trips through the forest
in search of game, became separated. Thomas, having killed
a bear, in the evening was conveying the skin toward the camp,
which he had nearly reached, when he was shot and killed by
Indians, who had taken possession of it, and were in ambush,
watching his arrival. Solomon, at the same time, was
approaching the camp from another direction, driving before him
his horses, which had been belled and hoppled. When almost in
sight of the camp, he heard a double crack of guns, and, fearing
his brother might have been assailed by Indians, considered it
prudent to leave his horses and carefully guard against surprise.
When he came in sight of his camp, he saw two Indians plundering
it, while a third was acting as sentinel. He raised his rifle to
shoot the Indian guard, when his brother's dog began to bark,
which pointed out his position to the Indian. Mr. Urie
comprehended the position at a glance. There were three Indians.
To press forward might be fatal. In his rear was a swamp. To
retreat in that direction would be folly. Summoning all his
energies, he made a bold dash in the direction of the Indian
sentinel. The Indian became alarmed and retreated, dodging behind
trees to escape his white assailant. Mr. Urie
pressed boldly forward, discovering as he went, the body of his
brother Thomas. He successfully escaped the Indians, who
pursued him some miles to the verge of a precipice, down which he
plunged, and on descending to the bottom, discovered that he had
broken the breach of his gun, the lock being uninjured. The
Indians, were amazed at the leap, and abandoned further pursuit.
Mr. Urie continued his flight in the direction of
the Ohio river, and, much to his surprise, came upon a camp formed
of Captain Samuel Brady and other hunters.
The next morning he and a number of others returned to his late
camp and . found Thomas covered with the skin of the bear
he had shot the day before. The Indians had carried away one of
his moccasins and a leggin. His body was pierced with two
bullets, and scalped. A grave was dug with wooden shovels, into
which his body was deposited, enclosed in a coffin made of
puncheons. The Indians had departed with the horses, forty deer,
ten bear, and ten beaver skins, and the entire stock of provisions
and traps. Mr. Urie offered all the property to his
new comrades if they would join him in the pursuit, capture and
punishment of the Indians. It was regarded as too hazardous an
undertaking, and he was reluctantly compelled to leave the murder
of his brother unrevenged for the present.
He returned to his home in Washington county, resolved
to retaliate on the red fiends of the Ohio forests at no distant
day. When the war of 1812 was inaugurated, he and his son
Samuel served three months on the borders of Canada, and
rendezvoused at Black Rock. In the summer of 1814, Mr.
Urie visited Orange township, and located a quarter section of
land, and a quarter section in Montgomery township, and erected a
small cabin and cleared a few acres of ground, and in the fall of
1815 removed to it with his family, which consisted of seven sons—Samuel,
Thomas, David, Solomon, John, George W. and James; and
two girls—Susannah and Elizabeth.
In the fall of 1815, he erected a blacksmith shop on
his land, being the first one in Orange township, he being a
blacksmith and gunsmith by trade. The first winter after his
arrival, he killed forty deer, eight large black bears, a great
number of wolves, and other game. On one occasion, there being
considerable snow on the ground, he took an old horse and rode two
or three miles north in the forest, hitched to a sapling, and,
proceeding a short distance, shot a fine deer. Returning to the
horse, he rode it through the undergrowth to the deer, tied a rope
around its neck, fastened the other end to the tail of the horse,
mounted, and rode home, dragging the deer after him. He had
reached his cabin but a few minutes, when, as he was engaged in
skinning the deer, a gang of hungry wolves, following his trail,
appeared in the vicinity of his cabin. His dogs set up a furious
barking and commenced an attack upon the wolves, when they soon
fled into the forest. It was a narrow escape; for they were
half famished for food. He was very successful in trapping wolves.
He usually made a sort of triangular pen, arranging a large trap,
so that the wolf would have to pass over it in reaching a piece of
fresh meat which he placed in the narrow end, covering the trap
with leaves. Having bent and trimmed a small sapling, he fastened
the chain of the trap to it in such a manner that when the wolf
attempted to back out, it would tread upon the trap, set it off,
be caught by the hind legs, and elevated by the sapling. In this
way, he captured a great many, a reward being offered for their
scalps. Soon after the erection of his shop, Tom Lyons,
Johacake, Catotawa, and other Wyandot and Delaware
Indians, came to have their tomahawks and guns repaired. They
frequently brought bent gun-barrels to be straightened. Passing
the barrel between the logs of his shop, he used sufficient force
to spring it back, until the bend was out; then, taking a bow with
a thong of deer sinews, he passed the thong through the barrel,
and, springing it until it was tense, he could see whether any
kinks were left in the barrel by sighting through the bore; and if
any were discovered, he removed them by a wooden mallet, by laying
the barrel on the end of a square block and striking on it,
occasionally looking through the bore at a piece of white paper,
to see if all the kinks were out. The Indians watched the
operation very closely, insisting that he would "spoil gun." After
completing the work, Mr. Urie would challenge the
Indians to shoot at a mark with him. Being a fine shot, always
shooting off-hand, "Old Peel," as he called his rifle, was sure to
cut the paper. The Indians, being accustomed to shoot with a rest,
made poor shots off-hand. When they were about to shoot, Urie,
who was always brimful of fun and tricks, would stand close to his
competitor, saying, "Indian stir mush," "Cooza," "Nogo," when the
Indian, becoming very nervous, would miss the mark, and Urie
would laugh heartily. In this way, when he bet he won most of
their furs and skins.
After the murder of his brother, Mr. Urie
never entertained a very cordial feeling for the red race; and, on
his hunting excursions along the Black river, from 1815 to 1825,
though reticent on the subject, it is believed he more than once
avenged the death of his brother.
Mr. Urie died in Montgomery township,
July 7, 1830, aged nearly sixty-two years, and Mrs.
Elizabeth Urie, his wife, in June, 1842, aged about
seventy-three years. Colonel George W. Urie is the
only one of the family in this county. Thomas* and David
are in Iowa; and James is in Indiana. All the others are gone to
their final resting place.
* Thomas Urie died in Iowa, September 8, 1875, aged
eighty-two years. David Urie died in Iowa,
March, 1874, aged seventy-eight years.
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