Adventures of the Zane Family: Jonathan Zane

By Janice McMillan and Rebecca Carr

 

Three brothers of frontier fame, Silas, Ebenezer, and Jonathan Zane, were born in Berkley County, Virgnia (now Hardy County, West Virginia) to Quaker parents, William and Anna (Nolan) Zane. They removed from Berkley County to the Ohio River and settled at what would become present day Wheeling, West Virginia. During the Colonial period, colonists were drawn westward by the possibility of obtaining land without debt, the excitement of adventure, and even the hope of new start.  The opportunity presented by the West also came with great danger, particularly in the form of Indian attacks.  This reality was nothing new to the Zanes, however.  In 1756, when Silas, Ebenezer and Jonathan were young boys, the Battle of Trough occurred near the present site of Moorefield, Hardy County, West Virginia, where Shawnee Indians attacked and killed many settlers, with more attacks occurring again the next year.[1]  On the frontier a strong antagonism was present between the settlers and Indians, and acts of great cruelty were perpetrated by both sides.  Settlers’ cabins were burned and their families killed or kidnapped, and as a result, some setters became Indian fighters, killing any Indian they found.[2] 

Captain Jonathan Zane, born about 1749, was described as about six feet in height, strong, compactly built, and muscular.[3]  In History of the Pan-Handle, it says “it would have been difficult to find a man of greater energy of character – of more determined resolution, or restless activity.[4]  He was widely considered one of the best marksman on the border, and most experienced hunter on the frontier.[5]  In 1767, Jonathan accompanied his brothers, Ebenezer and Silas, in exploring the Virginia frontier, and with them located the town of Wheeling along the Ohio River.  In 1771, Silas and Jonathan ventured up and down the Ohio River, and west into the Ohio territory.  Jonathan frequently came to the aid of the settlers in Wheeling and the surrounding area, acted as a spy and guide for the military during important campaigns from the beginning of Dunmore’s War to the end of the American Revolution, earning the title of Captain.

During Lord Dunmore’s War, in 1774, Jonathan Zane was a guide in the campaign against the Indian town of Wakatomika (near Dresden). He also directed Colonel Brodhead’s expedition up the Alleghany in 1779 against the Munsies and Senecas where he was severely wounded.[6]  In 1782 he was one of Colonel Crawford’s guides in the fatal Sandusky expedition.  When the army reached the Sandusky plains and the town was found deserted, Jonathan recommended an immediate retreat.[7] Jonathan’s instinct told him that, even though the Delaware appeared to have left, they were actually gathering reinforcements nearby, and if the army continued marching into the area, they would be attached.  Colonel Crawford was inclined to act on his advice, but the officers and soldiers did not want to leave without firing a shot, and so continued on.  Had Crawford acted at once on the advice of Jonathan, he and his army would have escaped defeat.  The Delaware indeed attacked with superior numbers, and Colonel Crawford was captured, tortured, and burned at the stake.[8]  After the retreat began, Zane succeeded in avoiding capture, and returned safe to Wheeling. 

Image from Zanesville Signal, June 9, 1946.

Jonathan was considered one of the best shots on the border, and was particularly proud of his marksman ability.  On one occasion, while heading home after hunting with his horses, passing through some tall weeds on the bank of the Ohio River near his home outside the city limits of Wheeling, he observed a raiding party of five Indians jump into the river and swim toward Wheeling Island where his brother, Colonel Ebenezer had a home.  He successfully killed the party with his rifle, one after another, loading and firing in quick succession. Four of whom he shot in the river as they were swimming the Ohio, and the fifth after the Indian had gained the Ohio side.  He hid behind a fallen tree in the stream, and was in the act of peeping over the trunk, when Zane’s quick eye saw the top of his head.  In another moment his body floated down stream.[9]

While Jonathan Zane was involved in many battles with the Indians, he did not consider himself an Indian fighter or killer.  In fact, it was a practice, especially amongst the Zanes, to develop friendships with the local tribes, and avoid unnecessary confrontations.  Jonathan and Ebenezer had both developed close friendships with members of the Wyandot and Delaware tribes who would visit often with them in their homes, and with whom they would frequently hunt and fish.  On one occasion, a close friend and Delaware warrior called Captain John came to Jonathan’s home, as he had done many times before, but acted very strange on this occasion.  Captain John came into Jonathan’s kitchen where his wife, Hannah, was preparing dinner, and sat down at the table without saying a word.  Mrs. Zane offered him some dinner, which he refused, and Jonathan offered him a pipe, which he waved aside.  His behavior was so odd that Jonathan motioned his wife to hide her knife under her apron, and Jonathan positioned himself between her and Captain John, in case his friend decided to turn on him.  Finally, Captain John blurted out that he had left a Delaware war party which was headed in their direction to raid the Zane’s home and kill them.  He said, “Mr. Zane, I have eaten salt in your house, and laid beside you at night in the forest, and I could not see you and your family killed in cold blood without making an effort to save you.”[10]  Immediately,  Jonathan and Hannah grabbed their children, and what little possessions they could, and fled their homestead for the safety of Fort Henry.  When they returned the next day, they found their home reduced to ash.  In A. Alma Martin’s Zane Genealogy, legend says that, later in his life, Jonathan was sitting peacefully in a tavern in Wheeling, when a stranger came up to him and asked how many Indians he had killed.  Jonathan was so angry and insulted that he got up and walked out without finishing his drink.[11]  

Grave of Jonathan Zane in Walnut Grove Cemetery.  Credit: Ryan Stanton.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rpstanton/page6

Captain Jonathan Zane was “remarkable for earnestness of purpose, an energy and inflexibility of will which often manifested itself in a way truly astonishing.”[12]  Few men were as trusted and respected by his peers as Jonathan.  Among his many accomplishments, Captain Zane was present at both sieges of Fort Henry in Wheeling in 1777 and 1782, which is considered the last land battle of the American Revolution, as well as assisted his brother, Ebenezer, in forging the Zane’s Trace – the first federally commissioned road in the United States.  Along with Ebenezer’s son-in-law, John McIntire, he helped settled the town of Westbourne, present day Zanesville, Ohio.  Captain Jonathan Zane died the 9th of October, 1823, in his own home in Wheeling.  He left large amounts of land to his nine children, and a legacy of lifelong service to his country and fellow man.  

[1] Blumel, Benjamin. The Zanes: A Frontier Family. New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2005, 7.

[2] Ibid., 9.

[3] Newton, J.H., G.G. Nichols, and A.G. Sprankle. History of the Pan-Handle Being Historical Collections of the Counties of Ohio, Brooke, Marshall, and Hancock. Wheeling: J.A. Caldwell, 1879, 163.

[4] Ibid., 133.

[5] Blumel, Benjamin. The Zanes: A Frontier Family. New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2005, 30.

[6] Newton, J.H., G.G. Nichols, and A.G. Sprankle. History of the Pan-Handle Being Historical Collections of the Counties of Ohio, Brooke, Marshall, and Hancock. Wheeling: J.A. Caldwell, 1879, 133.

[7] Blumel, Benjamin. The Zanes: A Frontier Family. New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2005, 30.

[8] Blumel, Benjamin. The Zanes: A Frontier Family. New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2005, 31.

[9] Newton, J.H., G.G. Nichols, and A.G. Sprankle. History of the Pan-Handle Being Historical Collections of the Counties of Ohio, Brooke, Marshall, and Hancock. Wheeling: J.A. Caldwell, 1879, 133.

[10] History of wheeling, 101.

[11] Blumel, Benjamin. The Zanes: A Frontier Family. New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2005, 31.

[12] Newton, J.H., G.G. Nichols, and A.G. Sprankle. History of the Pan-Handle Being Historical Collections of the Counties of Ohio, Brooke, Marshall, and Hancock. Wheeling: J.A. Caldwell, 1879, 133.

  • Blumel, Benjamin. The Zanes: A Frontier Family. New York: iUniverse, Inc., 2005.

    Cranmer, Gibson Lamb. History of Wheeling City and Ohio County, West Virginia and Representative Citizens. Chicago: Biographical Publishing Company, 1902.

    Goodall, Cecil R. “Ebenezer Zane: Frontiersman.” West Virginia History 12, no. 1 (October, 1950): 5-45.

    Newton, J.H., G.G. Nichols, and A.G. Sprankle. History of the Pan-Handle Being Historical Collections of the Counties of Ohio, Brooke, Marshall, and Hancock. Wheeling: J.A. Caldwell, 1879.

Dr. Increase Mathews, Pioneer, Putnam Founder, and Muskingum County’s First Doctor

By Heidi Durig Heiby

The church bell clanged and muskets thundered. My eldest sister picked me up and rushed outside our farmhouse. Her gasping breaths dampened my cheek as she ran toward the town square. My other sister and our mother… caught up to us when we slowed. We met my father and older brothers near the Congregational Church. Huddled into small groups, normally sedate people shouted their confusion… The selectmen appeared, stood on the top of the stairs, and called for silence. One of them read the Declaration of Independence.[1]

This is an excerpt from the opening paragraph of the first of four books of historical fiction by Trana Mathews about storied Ohio country pioneer, Dr. Increase Mathews. The author is the great-great-great granddaughter of Dr. Mathews and based her novels on extensive historical research and his diaries. Here, a three-and-a-half-year-old Increase Mathews illustrates his very first memory. The place was his birthplace, New Braintree, Massachusetts, sixty miles from Boston, and the date was early July 1776. After the announcement of the signing of the Declaration and battles to come with the British, Increase’s father, 2 uncles, his 14-year-old brother, and a brother-in-law, as well as many of the townsmen, enlisted to serve in the war to establish the independence of the American colonies, leaving his mother and siblings and many families in a similar situation. The last sentences of that first chapter read, “The men picked up their muskets and packs, then left us behind. Their departure changed our lives.”[2]  It was a time of hardship, sacrifice, and loss that was formative for young Increase, also instilling in him a love of his fledgling country and a duty to it, his family, and his countrymen. He would later follow his maternal uncle, General Rufus Putnam, into the Northwest Territory, more specifically the Ohio country that was not yet a state, to plot and settle a little town on the Muskingum River across from Zanesville they called Springfield. It was later re-named “Putnam” after his famous uncle in 1814, and then incorporated into the city of Zanesville in 1847.

Increase spent the early years of his childhood helping his mother and remaining siblings on the family farm and with their lumber mill in Massachusetts until his father and brother returned from war. Naturally bright, enterprising, and hard-working, “Ink,” as those closest to him referred to him, wanted more than to be a millwright like his father. At age 16 he took a college class and began to apprentice a local doctor, Dr. Field. Although he did finish his studies and work as a doctor in New Braintree briefly, his uncle Rufus Putnam, who had become a Brigadier General in the Continental Army and an appointee of George Washington, convinced him to travel west to the Ohio country in 1798, at age 24, to see the vast land and opportunity available there. General Putnam was one of the settlers of Marietta, Ohio, the first European-American permanent United States settlement in the Northwest Territory, and a proponent of land grants for veterans; he was also the first Surveyor General of the United States.[3] After a trip to visit his Uncle Rufus and two of his siblings who had already moved there, Increase was convinced. He returned home to Massachusetts, married Abigail “Nabby” Willis in 1799, saved up enough money to buy land, and returned to the Ohio country with Nabby and their infant daughter to start a new life in the fall of 1800. The journey from New Braintree would have been an arduous one and took two months by Conestoga wagon. 

After wintering in Marietta, Increase moved his family, and he and his brother, John, a surveyor, built the first general store on a small parcel of land near pioneer John McIntire’s cabin in Zanesville in the spring of 1801; it also served as the first drugstore. Increase practiced medicine as well, the first physician in the area, and his practice extended as far as Coshocton and Lancaster. That year, the government was offering tracts of land in Springfield, later Putnam, for sale in Marietta. Increase, after having traveled and camped with his neighbor, John McIntire, on the way there, outbid him for the tract with the backing of Uncle Rufus Putnam and cousin Levi Whipple. Increase and his brother, John, began plotting what is now Putnam immediately after the purchase. Nabby died after the birth of their second daughter in the spring of 1802, and Increase remarried the following year. He and his second wife, Betsey, had 8 children together for a total of 10.[4] The sandstone house Increase built for his growing family in Putnam in 1805 is now considered the oldest building still standing in Muskingum County. The Increase Mathews House remains a history museum and local history education center.

Home of Dt. Increase Mathews at 304 Woodlawn Ave.  The Mathews home originally consisted of the first floor, and basement.

Increase eventually stopped practicing medicine when other doctors moved into the area so that he could focus on his family, farming, and other endeavors. He did, however, inoculate his family against smallpox during an outbreak in 1809, in a time when most people did not understand or trust such a practice, and his family remained untouched; he had learned about inoculation from Dr. Field in Massachusetts. Dr. Increase was one of 5 original members of the first church organized in the county, a Congregational Church, and one of a committee in Putnam that organized and had the historic Putnam Presbyterian Church built and dedicated in 1835.[5] He also built the first grist mill and was the first to have full-blooded Merino sheep shipped to Ohio from Spain via Washington D.C. Zanesville and Putnam became thriving river towns, each in their own right, Ohio having become a state in 1802. When Zanesville and Putnam were both vying to become the state capitol, Dr. Matthews was instrumental in the building of the Stone Academy building as a potential statehouse in 1809. Zanesville won out and was the capitol of Ohio from 1810-1812. The Stone Academy became a school, public building, and important center of abolitionist activity in the 1830s and was eventually converted to a private residence. The Stone Academy also remains a local history center and museum.

Dr. Increase Mathews lived his entire life in his house in Putnam with his family. His granddaughter eventually added two stories to the original house. In his article, “The Pioneer Physicians of the Muskingum County,” in the Ohio Archeology and Historical Quarterly, Edmund Cone Brush, in 1891, said of Increase Mathews: “He was a cultivated gentleman of the old school, a man whose energy and character were felt in his day and are still exemplified in his descendants. He was an accomplished performer on the violincello, an entertaining and instructive conversationalist. His life was characterized by its simplicity and purity. He died June 6, 1856, full of years and with the high esteem of all his fellow townsmen, in the eighty-fourth year of his age, and is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, which was part of his original purchase from the government in 1801.”[6]





 [1] Mathews, Trana. The Mathews Family: Mathews Family Sag, Book 1. 2020, 1.

[2] Ibid., 3.

[3] Neu, Irene D. “Rufus Putnam Biography.” Last updated October 23, 2023. https://library.marietta.edu/oca/PutnamRufus.

[4] Everhart, J.F., and J.J. Graham. The History of Muskingum County Ohio. Dalcassian Publishing Company, 1882, 72-73.

[5] Schneider, Norris F. The Doctor Increase Mathews House. 1975, 8-10.

[6] Brush, Edmund Cone. “The Pioneer Physicians of the Muskingum Valley.”  Ohio Archeology and Historical Quarterly Volume 3, edited by Albert A. Graham. 1891, 252-254.





  • Brush, Edmund Cone. “The Pioneer Physicians of the Muskingum Valley.”  Ohio Archeology and Historical Quarterly, Volume 3, edited by Albert A. Graham. 1891.

    Everhart, J.F., and J.J. Graham. The History of Muskingum County Ohio. Dalcassian Publishing Company, 1882.

    Mathews, Trana. The Mathews Family: Mathews Family Sag, Book 1. 2020.

    Neu, Irene D. “Rufus Putnam Biography.” Last updated October 23, 2023. https://library.marietta.edu/oca/PutnamRufus.

    Schneider, Norris F. The Doctor Increase Mathews House. 1975.

Strife in the East and War in the West

By Gary Felumlee

The celebration of the British victory after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763 was to be a short lived affair.  There were clouds on the horizon, ever darkening as time moved forward.  The American colonies were accustomed to a sort of autonomy to manage their own affairs.  Much was imported from Great Britain, to be sure, but there remained the fur trade and an ever-growing commerce involving tobacco, cotton, sugarcane and slaves. 

            In great Britain there was concern over the cost of the late war with France.  The victory had added greatly to the size and resources of the British Empire, but also the cost of managing it. The British Parliament felt that the American colonies should share some of the cost and expenses concerning the recent war and the colonial government. 

            Following the French and Indian War, the economy had taken a downturn.  Production was down and there was not the need for supporting the war effort.  Importing and exporting of goods decreased and this was most noticed in the growing cities of the east coast.  Cities like Baltimore, Boston, New York and even Philadelphia saw jobs lost and more suffering among the common citizens.  Things were about to take a turn for the worse, and, in the eyes of many, the British Parliament was to blame. 

            The Encyclopedia Britannica offers a concise listing of laws passed just following the French and Indian War by Parliament for the American Colonies. These Acts of Parliament would stoke the fires of unrest in the colonies to the point they would later have to be withdrawn as laws. 

            In 1764, the Sugar Act placed a tax on sugar that involved restricting colonial trade in the production and shipping of alcohol, for the most part.  It hurt American shipping and trade.  Local production increased as a response, as businessmen protested the act being imposed on the colonies even though the colonies had no voting representation in the British Parliament.  From that time on, “No Taxation Without Representation” became the rallying cry of protest.

            On November 1, 1765, the Stamp Act went into effect for the American colonies.  This act called for a tax to be levied on virtually all paper goods – legal documents, letters, books, newspapers, and even playing cards.  The citizens were outraged, and in many cases, held protests, some acting in violence against the representatives of the local government.  The British government in England rescinded the Stamp Act on March 18, 1766 as a failed piece of legislation.

            The Townsend Acts of 1767-1768 caused further deterioration between Great Britain and her colonies in America.  The “Acts” were proposed in Parliament by Charles Townsend, seemingly to establish a stronger, more loyal government in America and gather more tax revenue from the colonies.  It could have also been an effort to punish the colonies over the failure of the Stamp Act.  Nearly all British imports were taxed.  There was an almost immediate negative reaction from many of the colonists, and debates were held in the streets of cities and towns.  Other colonists remained loyal to the “Crown,” and its colonial government.  In October of 1768, Parliament sent two units of the British Army to Boston.  Seeds of revolution were being planted on the east coast.  To the west, in places like the Ohio country, and what would be Muskingum County, a struggle for survival was again about to ensue. 

            After the defeat of the French and the Treaty of Paris, the Indian Nations would be almost immediately affected by British rule.  It was a tradition for the Native Americans to receive gifts at meetings and Treaty negotiations.  British General, Jeffery Amherst, looked at the gifts as a form of bribery.  He sought to restrict the practice of gift-giving, and the trade of run, lead and gunpowder; the last two being essentials to the native tribes.  British traders were replacing the French, who had often lived with the tribes and married into them.  Many Native Americans looked on the British with mistrust.  Also, settlers began to encroach on the Native American lands, including Pennsylvania and present-day Ohio. 

            Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa Nation and Chief Kyashute OF the Senecca became aware of the developments and transfer of the land to the British.  Both had opposed the British in the late war and Pontiac began to form a loose confederation of the western tribes; Kyashute did the same with the eastern tribes to oppose England.  Some English leaders such as William Johnson, an Indian agent in New York still worked for peace, and made Amherst aware of the potential for war. 

            On May 9, 1763, 300 warriors led by Pontiac, launched a surprise attack on Fort Detroit.  The fort did not fall but was put under siege that lasted until November.  Many colonists in the vicinity of the fort were killed or captured.  On June 22, 1763, the Delaware attacked Fort Pitt at present-day Pittsburgh.  The fort didn’t fall but settlers in the vicinity were killed or captured as well.  Before the year ended, eight British forts and outposts were taken, and many of the occupants killed, leaving only Fort Detroit and Fort Pitt remaining, and the Ohio country vacant.  The Indian Confederacy was defeated at Bushy Run, which broke the siege of Fort Pitt.  William Johnson arranged a Treaty of Peace in July, 1765, ending Pontiac’s Conspiracy.  Pontiac met with William Johnson in 1766 at Fort Ontario where they made peace, and Pontiac received a pardon. After his pardon, he visited various tribes, and, one such visit, was killed. 

            During Pontiac’s War, present day Muskingum County had two larger Native American villages.  One was a Delaware (Lenape) village called Will’s Town at Duncan Falls, and the other was Wakatomika, a Shawnee town, near what is now Dresen.  Prisoners were brought into Muskingum Valley and British traders were robbed and killed at each site.  John Bard and William Ives were killed at Will’s Town.  Thomas Mitchel Junior, John Price, James Morgan, and Edmond Mathews were killed at Wakatomika.[1] 

            In the fall of 1769, Ebenezer Zane arrived at Fort Henry in Wheeling, (then) Virginia.  Zane claimed land by blazing trees with his tomahawk, a practice sometimes called “Tomahawk Rights.”  He returned to the site in the spring of 1770 with his wife, Elizabeth, and his younger brothers, Jonathan and Silas.  Other families, the Shepherds, Wetzels, and McCullochs, soon joined him. 

[1] Carskadden, 160.

  • Carskadden, Jeff and James Morten.  Where the Frolics and War Dances are Held. Baltimore: Gateway Press, Inc., 1997.

Revelations on the Road to Rebellion and Revolution

By Gary Felumlee

The Ohio Country in the mid-eighteenth century was essentially an unknown land to most European colonists who lived on the east coast of our nation.  It was inhabited by tribal people, and wild animals such as the bear, panther, and wolf.  The land contained almost unlimited resources according to fur traders, who along with the Native Americans reaped a harvest of furs that were exported overseas, to France, England, and the Netherlands.  There was a great demand for the furs of the beaver and other fur-bearing animals in Europe.

            In the 1600s, during the Beaver War, the Iroquois had driven other Native American groups from Ohio, claiming Ohio to be “Iroquois hunting grounds.”  The other tribes were driven south and west from the state and the area of present day Muskingum County, Ohio.  In 1701, the Iroquois of New York made a treaty, sometimes called the Grand Settlement, with the Algonquin refugee groups (Huron-Wyandot).[1] This allowed for the resettlement of other tribal groups in Ohio.  It was over twenty years before Muskingum County was again settled by Native American groups, including the Delaware migrating in from Pennsylvania and the Shawnee from the south.

            Tensions between the British and French were ever increasing.  War was threatening to break out in Europe and spread to the settlements in America.  In 1754, it did.  People were taking sides along the borders and Great Lakes.  Great Britain, British America and the Iroquois Confederacy were joined by the Wyandot, Cherokee and for a brief time the Mingo.  France was joined by New France, the Delaware (Lenape), the Ottawa, Shawnee, Wyandot and several other tribes that were residing in present day Canada. 

            The French and Indian War went well for the French at first, but by the 1760s their efforts had failed as the British and their allies had more men and supplies.  The British gained control of Canada but at a great cost of revenue.  The Native Americans found themselves divided and more and more dependent on European trade goods which included not only metal items like kettles but also lead, gunpowder and guns. 

            After the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the British on October 7, 1763 issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which established the Appalachian Mountains as the boundary between the British colonies and an Indian Reserve.  At the same time, the need for increased production, due to the war, in the cities along the Atlantic Seaboard, was no longer there. In New York City, for example, 1763 brought depression and unrest among its workers, the demand for exports dropped off, the British Crown tightened its grip over colonial trade and the gap between rich and poor yawned ever wider.[2] The British government had just completed a costly war and was looking for ways to pay for it; feeling the colonies should pay their share.  At the same time, land speculators wanted to expand their holdings and settlers wanted to build new lives in the West including the Ohio County.  Changes were coming fast that would be a revelation to many.  The end of one story the beginning of another, the times were changing, choices must be made. 


[1] Carskadden, 40.

[2] Rothschild, 129.

  • Carskadden, Jeff and James Morten.  Where the Frolics and War Dances are Held. Baltimore: Gateway Press, Inc., 1997.

    Rothschild, Nan A., Amanda Sutphin, H. Arthur Bankoff and Jessica S. MacLean.  Buried Beneath the City: An Archaeological History of New York.  New York: Columbia University, 2022.