Horses, Coffee, Ships,
Intrigue
Compiled by Teresa
Martin Klaiber
I
was first introduced to, teacher, Mary
Johns of Cambridge, Ohio via correspondence while we were residing in New
Jersey. Distant cousins through our
mutual Mains and McGrew families, I have written before about her via my blog
in an article called Mains Family Research Opens doors to Friends posted
14 April 2011.
One
of her oral stories involved James Cox McGrew, a brother of a double sister
line. Rebecca McGrew married James A. Mains while sister Margaret McGrew
married William Wilson. They were daughters of Finley McGrew and wife Dinah
Cox, Quakers from Pennsylvania. Rebecca
stayed in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. Margaret’s family moved to
Washington County, Ohio and brother James Cox McGrew ended up in Guernsey
County, Ohio where Mary Johns lived.
On
a pleasant fall afternoon in 1983 I fixed Mary a cup of tea. We settled on her pink couch, surrounded by
pink floral drapes and carpet and she began telling stories. No notes, no
documents, just her memories of her own former research. James Cox McGrew she quickly calculated would
have been my fifth great grand uncle.
“The
McGrew’s lived in Pennsylvania and he was said to have raised horses. James Cox McGrew is said to have made a goodly
sum on one trip during the period of the Louisiana Purchase. While there he met a man named Dillon who
talked him into buying a ship to go to Java for coffee. On the return trip, the
ship was attacked by a man-o-war and they were left on an island. Everyone thought them dead. It was two years before McGrew and others
were rescued. When James came home he
found himself broke. He then moved to
Ohio opening a grist mill near Birmingham, Guernsey County, Ohio. Soon the government announced compensations
for loss. After much correspondence,
McGrew found that Dillon had settled in Zanesville, Muskingum County, Ohio. Dillon did not tell the government that
McGrew financed the ship nor that McGrew had been the captain. Dillon received all the money. James Cox McGrew continued to live in
Birmingham until his death while Dillon prospered in Zanesville. I saw the letters family kept between Dillon
and McGrew.”
With
no dates and not even a first name of Dillon, I attempted to ask who had the
letters and did she keep any further information from her research. The only answer I got was “I researched it
and it is all true.”
From
wonderful Quaker records, I had already gleaned that James Cox McGrew was born 1761
in York County, Pennsylvania, British America, and married 1 January 1795
Rachel Walker. Plus, I had listened in
high school history and knew the Louisiana Purchase was bought from France in
1803.
The
name Dillon was well known in Muskingum County.
Our family enjoyed Dillon State Park and drove through the Dillon Falls
community when out and about. Muskingum
histories all cited Moses Dillon and his son John Dillon as worthy, wealthy
patrons of the county. A Quaker family,
Moses built the first iron furnace between 1805 and 1808 in Ohio. During this same time John Dillon was still
in Baltimore, Maryland where his father had empowered him to sell 275 acres
including houses and a mill.[i] By 1813 he is in Muskingum County, Ohio, next
door to Guernsey County, Ohio.
The
first bump in the oral story. If John
Dillon or father Moses met McGrew it may not have been in Pennsylvania. All research on Dillon placed them in
Baltimore. John Dillon was invested as
a partner in shipping with a brother-in-law Clement Brooke. Clement Brooke was declared to be insolvent
by 1808. A genealogy of the family
mentioned the cause as the “Jefferson Embargo” and mentioned a diary written by
John Dillon.
Both
Britain and France were plundering American Ships. The Jefferson Embargo was
signed December 1807. The embargo's were
an economic failure for the government and citizens. Like most oral stories with some validity I
confirmed that Dillon was in shipping and during the right time frame.
Dillon invested in inland shipping
after settling in Muskingum County, including the steamboat Indiana, in
Louisville, Ky in 1822. John Dillon, Esq., one of the oldest and most
enterprising citizens of Muskingum county, died at Zanesville, Aug. 17, 1862,
in his 86th year.
I continued to question other McGrew
researchers on the where-about of McGrew/Dillon letters, without success. I
finally had a lead on the diary of John Dillon and received a transcription
from J. H. Florea in Illinois. It reads
more like a biography:
“Zanesville, sept. 29th, 1846…according to the record of my venerable and lamented parents I am seventy years of age ...I had met with several severe and heavy losses before this Viz. one vessel and cargo worth about fifty thousand dollars entrusted to James McGrew who never returned me one cent. The Guadeloupe adventure was a desperate attempt to reinstate me in all I had ever made and would no doubt more than succeeded had the Capt. Obeyed orders and not been quite so avaricious himself. This voyage would have cleared over a million dollars had no accident happened and probably been the result the most prosperous voyage ever made. Since Adam came into the world – but so it was ... I did not suffer it to break down my adventurous spirit. At the request of my father, who was growing old and unable to attend to business of the furnace forge I was induced to move my family to the Falls…After I failed in Baltimore and gave up my property to a trustee my credit was still so good that W. Sullin(?) let me have a new Brig called the Caprius…”
At this writing the author is aware
that a letter book belonging to John Dillon from 1808 to 1863 is at the William
L. Clements Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The brief finding aid states that the earliest letters were to his
father (1808 – 1811). Future researchers should visit and review them.
There is mention of an accident but not of the Captain being left on an island.
During research I located one petition, with court citations beginning
in 1810 from John Dillon to the Government for compensation of the Schooner
Rachel seized in 1808. John Dillon of
Baltimore, Maryland’s petition stated he wished reimbursement for Rachel seized
and condemned in the district court of Orleans. She was seized in the port of
New Orleans for violation of law to suspend commercial intercourse between the
United Sates and certain ports of the Island of St. Domingo Her furniture,
apparel and tackle sold to the credit of the US. [ii] Is it coincidence that McGrew's wife was Rachel?
Another day trip in Guernsey County,
Ohio to Birmingham and nearby Salt Fork State Park was pleasant but shed no
light on the McGrew family. After Mary
John’s death her composition book full of notes, did not mention the oral story
of James Cox McGrew. The only mention
other than cut and dry birth/death dates was an unidentified clipping, assumed
out of the Cambridge newspaper, titled “Do You Remember.” The article was submitted by Mrs. John
Barton. John Barton married Grace Irene McGrew who was born 3 April 1881 in
Guernsey County and died 12 April 1970.
Grace’s father was Edmund Engle McGrew and great granddaughter of James
Cox McGrew.
William G. Wolfe, in a popular series
of articles called Stories of Guernsey County published in the Daily
Jeffersonian, wrote about Birmingham listing Finley McGrew as one of the
original lot owners. Finley was the son of James Cox McGrew. The burrs brought to the other grist mill by
Finley C. McGrew were manufactured by a 2nd cousin Nathan McGrew.
James Cox McGrew made his intent to
marry Rachel Walker at the Redstone Monthly Meeting in Pennsylvania in
1795. Once he migrated to Ohio he never
owned any property, in Guernsey County, prior to his death in 1836. Son James Walker McGrew first appears on the
Guernsey personal property tax list in 1825. James Cox McGrew appears to have lived to see all of
his children married prior to his death in 1836. One of his nine children
Ebenezer pre deceased him in 1800.
So I end this tale with a bit of
dissatisfaction. Who was the villain in
the story, John Dillon of means in Muskingum County or James Cox McGrew with
little to no means in Guernsey County, Ohio?
I like Mary Johns, who dangled clues before me as I learned more about
my forebearers, leave future researchers to access John Dillon’s letters in the
Clements Library. Remember there is
always some truth gleaned from Oral stories in your quest.
