Chapter Twelve:
Dille
By the time he arrived at the Connecticut Land Company's outpost at Cleaveland in 1797, David Gene Dille, Jr. had already seen a great deal of the Ohio Country.
His first wife, Nancy Viers, had died two years earlier, back in Pennsylvania, leaving him with six children, from teens to a toddler. Dille had a new wife, Mary, his little brother's wife's sister. She'd be 19 at Christmastime. Dille was 43.
He had been fighting Indians on the frontier for 16 years. His last enlistment ended just three years prior. He'd been moving and fighting, moving and fighting, his whole adult life. During the summer of Dille's last turn in the militia Anthony Wayne finally broke the Indians who'd brought down Harmar and St. Clair. The next year at Greenville they gave up everything east of the Cuyahoga.
Whether Dille actually bought his Euclid Township stake on that first 1797 visit to Cleaveland or a little later is not known. After, he returned to Dille's Bottom, the settlement his brothers had pioneered in Belmont County, down on the Ohio River below Wheeling.
David Dille's long road to Euclid started in the countryside across the Arthur Kill from Staten Island, New York, in Britain's New Jersey colony in 1753. Little about his early life is known. He was one of the ten children of David Dille, Sr. and Mary Wade. The parents began their family sometime around 1744 in Morris County, New Jersey, somewhere near the town of Woodbridge where they were members of the Presbyterian Church.
The American Revolution erupted outside of Boston in the spring of 1775. The summer of the next year the colonies declared independence. Very soon after an armada of British warships entered New York Bay and the King's troops landed on Staten Island. Wedged between New York, the most strategic city in the colonies, and Philadelphia, one of the largest, New Jersey was set to become a battleground. Perhaps anticipating this the Dille clan chose that moment to move west.
In 1776 the Dilles headed a group of pioneering families from Woodbridge to a settlement on a small tributary of the Monongahela River called Ten Mile Creek. It lay beyond the Allegheny Mountains on the frontier south of Pittsburgh in Washington County, an area now a part of Pennsylvania but at that time still claimed by the large and powerful Commonwealth of Virginia.
Historian Boyd Crumrine's 1882 History of Washington County, Pennsylvania:
"The family of Dille, who settled in this section, were numerous. They took up lands in what is now Franklin Township. Caleb Dille warranted a tract of land on the middle fork of Ten‑Mile... [which was called] 'Pleasant Harbor,' and contained 189 acres. David Dille's warrant... contained 400 acres, and was named 'Fair Plain.' Isaac Dille's land... was named 'Rabbit's Burrow.' Price Dille located a tract, which... contained 400 acres, and was called 'Mendicum.' These tracts were adjoining each other."
Under Crown law, unenforceable though it may have been in remote Washington County, settlements in the Indian lands beyond the mountains were illegal. As such, the tribes on the frontier generally allied themselves with the British, who in turn encouraged them to attack the settlements, the defense of which drew away manpower and resources from the rebel Americans' war effort.
After two years in Washington County, the then 24‑year-old David Dille, Jr. joined the fight. He enlisted in a militia unit known as the Rangers, "a troop of cavalry who spent most of their time in defending the frontier from the incursions of the Indians, who were very hostile to the White settlers."
Historian Paul Myers, from his 1987 book Washington County, Pa. Frontier Rangers:
"All Pennsylvania counties which bordered Indian country maintained companies of Rangers whose sole employment was in the defense of frontier settlements. The companies of Rangers were somewhat smaller than militia companies and usually served under a single officer. Frontier Rangers made frequent forays into wilderness areas along the frontiers and between blockhouses to discover and overtake bands of savages before sufficient numbers could gather to attack White settlements. When a Ranging company fell upon the trail of an Indian party, it was common practice to track the hostiles to their most recent camp, determine the party's strength, and to call in reinforcements to destroy the intruders."
Fifty‑four years later, in 1832, David Dille ventured from his Euclid Township farm into Cleveland and swore a deposition describing his military service in application for an old age pension being offered by Congress to veterans of the Revolutionary War. This pension application is the principal source of what is known about his life. He was 79-years-old when it was made. As it was dictated, in it David Dille is referred to in the third person:
"... [I]n the year 1778 about the first of March he volunteered for the term of one year... [D]ifferent parts of his... company were assigned to... guarding the frontier forts from Pittsburg [sic] to Wheeling, and none was called together at one place... [O]f that year he served nearly two months at the Fort at Wheeling... [F]rom there he was moved to Atkinson's Fort on Ten Mile Creek where he was stationed about two months and nearly the whole residue of that year he was engaged in scouting parties, scouring the Country in various directions... [H]e served as, held the rank and discharged the duties of orderly sergeant..."
Dille's activities during the rest of 1779 are not recorded in the deposition. But, "... During...the first days [of 1780] he was at liberty from the discharge of his [military] duties [and] he worked upon his farm."
And...
"... [In 1780] he volunteered again in the service against the Indians on the Western Frontier for the purpose of defending the same... he was elected a lieutenant of [his] company and served as such during the year then next ensuing... [T]he service he performed consisted principally in scouting excursions throughout the country... [I]n this service he was engaged every day for some time and at least as often as once a week... during the season of the year they were exposed to Indian warriors. During the year the scouting parties to which he was attached frequently scoured the country across the heads of Wheeling Creek and over to the head waters of Licking Creek—and whilst he was not engaged in scouting... he was principally stationed at Keith's Fort on Ten Mile Creek..."
Around 1780, Dille married Nancy Viers in Washington County. Their first child, a son, Nehemiah, was born on November 15, 1781. He too would come to Euclid, and buy a large tract in what is now Cleveland Heights. During this time David Dille continued his militia service, serving in scouting parties from 1780 to 1782, while in the East the war burned across New England, through New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, down into the Carolinas. The French joined in, and at Yorktown in 1781 the fighting in the East ended. But the war with the Indians in the West went on and on. And the worst of David Dille's war was yet to come.
*
Paul W. Myers' Washington County, Pa. Frontier Rangers:
"On February 10, 1782, a Shawnese [sic] war party abducted Mrs. Robert Wallace and her three children of Washington County, precipitating the massacre of Christian Moravian Indians at Gnadenhutten three weeks later. The village of Gnadenhutten was the main quarters of Christian Indians in Ohio, and although they professed their neutrality, whites [sic] believed they had aided the Western tribes in making war on white [sic] settlements in Pennsylvania. Enraged by the abduction of Mrs. Wallace, 160 mounted men of Washington County, under Colonel David Williamson, set off into Indian country to retrieve her and the children. Her lifeless naked body was found impaled on a sapling along the trail to Gnadenhutten. Colonel Williamson's party summarily massacred 96 of the Christian Indians with hatchets [sic]."
Certainly one and possibly two good sources place David Dille at the Gnadenhutten massacre. The first is an early and excellent source: his brother Asa's obituary from June 1862. In describing the older brother of the deceased, the notice, with a caveat at least, read, "He [David Dille, Jr.] was a member of Williamson's troop, and present at the famous massacre of the Moravian Indians at Gnadenhutten, and did all he could to prevent that sad catastrophe." The second is a much more modern source which outlines the events of that awful winter and concludes, "The men whose names follow served as Frontier Rangers in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and were participants in the foregoing events." David Dille and five of his brothers are then listed as privates. The wording on the latter source is ambiguous, and could suggest that Dille and his brothers participated in some but not all of the events described, leaving open the possibility that he killed no one in cold blood. Dozens of reliable biographical references for David Dille, Jr. make no mention of Gnadenhutten, whereas key events of his later service are trumpeted often. There's nothing in the pension application of it, which could be a mistake or an oversight. Or it could be the kind of thing neither he nor the federal government wanted remembered.
Whether Dille participated in the massacre at Gnadenhutten or not, his most celebrated campaign took place shortly thereafter.
Historian Paul Meyers:
"Upon the return of the Williamson party to Washington County plans were discussed for a much larger foray into the Sandusky River country to deal a similar, final blow to the Western tribes. Popular opinion was such that Brigadier William Irvine, commander at Ft. Pitt, granted permission for an all volunteer force of Washington County men, under Colonel William Crawford to undertake the mission... Crawford's men left Washington County on May 23, 1782, arriving on the Sandusky plain on June 4, where a skirmish with the Indians ensued. On the following day, the Indians were reinforced by a British detachment from Ft. Detroit, causing a general retreat of the Crawford party toward the Ohio River. The retreat over a two day period became a rout, and twenty‑five men were captured and tortured to death..."
Dille's own recollection of the events as recorded in his pension application make no mention of, or the recorder declined to reiterate, either the details of the defeat or of Colonel Crawford's grisly fate:
"[E]arly in May 1782 [Dille] attached himself as a volunteer to the detachment commanded by Col. William Crawford in his campaign against the Indians on the Sandusky Plains. Of this detachment Col. David Williamson was the second in command... After the detachment was made up they assembled at the Mingo Bottoms on the Ohio River, their place of general rendezvous, and after being organized, they proceeded on that campaign through the wilderness. Crossing the Muskingum River some miles above the junction of the Tuscarawas and Whitewoman's Rivers... sometime in the month of June... [they] arrived at the Sandusky Plains. There they were met by the Indians and after fighting two days they retreated and pursued their retreat all night... [T]he next day they were overtaken by the Indians [and were] followed by them for several miles, fighting—From the campaign they returned early in July..."
One of the lucky survivors, Dille staggered home to Ten Mile Creek. "From this time his service was occasional duties in forts or scouting parties." He and Nancy welcomed a second child, Lewis Brooks, on August 3, 1783. He too would come to Euclid.
Just one month later representatives of the United States and of King George III of Great Britain signed a treaty at Paris concluding the war which created the American nation. But West of the mountains the peace may as well not have even happened. The fighting there continued, and Dille continued the fighting.
The pension application:
"[In] 1784... in the month of August... [David Dille]... was called out and became attached to a Company of about 30 men to guard a blockhouse in which were confined some four prisoners, being refugees or Tories, in which service he was engaged three months under the command of Capt. William Parkinson at Washington [Pennsylvania]..."
"From [1784] until 1789 his service was again occasional, being frequently employed in scouting parties or stationed in forts, always keeping by him his rifle prepared for any emergency..."
On February 10, 1785, Nancy gave birth to twin boys, Calvin and Luther. Dedicated to the Presbyterian Church like his parents, Dille, clearly, was an inveterate Protestant. They too would come to Euclid.
*
After the war, opposite where Graves Creek in Virginia—near what is now Moundsville, West Virginia, south of Wheeling—empties into the Ohio River, David Dille's brothers pioneered a new settlement on the rich soil of the bottomlands on the flood plain of the river.
The 1890 History of the Upper Ohio Valley:
"... John Dille and Samuel Dille settled upon land always since known as Dille's Bottom, which seems to be the first permanent and continuous settlement [in Belmont County, Ohio,] of which we have record."
Dille's Bottom, Ohio, still there today, is a small river town of approximately 5,000. There is some confusion as to the date of its settlement. Some sources put it at 1790, others at 1793. According to his pension deposition, made decades later, David Dille joined his brothers there in 1789. "During his residence there he became an extensive landholder." He and his brothers still maintained their large holdings in Washington County, and from family records it looks as though he somehow split his time between the two settlements, maintaining homes in both Washington County and across the Ohio River in Belmont.
While St. Clair and Harmar floundered, Indian resistance on the west side of the Ohio continued in the early 1790s. To protect the Belmont County settlement the Dille family led the construction of a fortification christened Fort Dille. The fort was a blockhouse, a square structure made of heavy timber, usually two stories high, with a roof, and loopholes to allow defenders to fire on attackers. The upper story of a blockhouse usually made an overhang of the lower, in order to cover it during attack and allow water to be poured on any fires an enemy might set to breach the wooden walls below. Frontier settlements in the Upper Ohio Valley often centered around fortifications, sometimes a proper stockade, sometimes just a cluster of strong cabins reinforced with earthworks and stout timber. They frequently took the name of the landowner.
A violent and terrifyingly illustrative episode near Fort Dille is recorded in the History of the Upper Ohio Valley:
"...'Dille's Fort' was built on those lands for the protection of settlers that seemed to have increased rapidly, and... we have record of the killing of an old man, Tate, by the Indians, a short distance below and in sight of this fort, showing that the Indians promptly resented all efforts... to settle in Ohio. Tate, very early in the morning, as he opened the door of his cabin to go out, was shot, and his daughter‑in‑law and grandson pulled his body in and barred the door, and the Indians, unable to force it open, fired through and wounded the boy, and the woman was shot as she attempted to escape by the chimney and fell in the fire, but the boy who had been hiding behind some barrels pulled her out and again hid. The Indians forced the door open, killed a girl as they came in, scalped those they had shot, and made their escape. The wounded boy, shot in the mouth, was not discovered and made his escape to the fort."
Constant patrols of the kind Dille had participated in since 1778 kept vigil on the frontier. When they detected Native war parties runners deployed to warn the nearby settlements. Families in outlying cabins might be roused at any time and warned to "fort up," to take refuge in the fort. Though in the case of Tate and his family it's clear the Indians were not always detected in time.
Dille's pension application:
"... about the first of March 1793... [Dille] volunteered under the authority of the State of Virginia in a company under Capt. John McCullock, Lieut. Joseph Riggs + Ensign Levi Morgan for the term of nine months. During this time [the] company was constantly engaged in active service. Detachments of the company were every day sent out to spy and reconnoiter the Country. And in the month of October of that year the whole company made an excursion into the interior of this [the Ohio] Country, crossing the Muskingum on to the head waters of the Scioto River in which excursion some Indian prisoners were taken."
"[In 1794] he... again volunteered for... nine months... The... term... commenced about the first of March... This year [the] Company (about 70 in number) went down the Ohio River to the mouth of the Muskingum [Marietta] and thence up that river to the mouth of Jonathan's Creek [Zanesville] in pirogues + canoes—thence across the Country to the Scioto River [Columbus]—[he] was left in the company of five men to guard + take charge of the stores + property at the mouth of Jonathan's Creek. In this excursion five Indian prisoners were taken."
News of Wayne's victory at Fallen Timbers, and with it the belief that Indian resistance in Ohio had finally been quelled, would have reached David Dille during this last militia tour. The terms of the Greenville Treaty included the cession of the Connecticut Reserve lands east of the Cuyahoga and they must have looked like a promising new region for the Dilles to explore to develop.
Nancy Viers died, sometime in 1795, somewhere in Pennsylvania, Washington County a good bet. David Dille married Mary Saylor, the sister of the young woman, Frances Saylor, his younger brother, Asa, had married in 1792, on March 11, 1797. All four, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, all came to Euclid.
*
Gertrude Van Rensselaer Wickham's 1896 Pioneer Families of Cleveland:
"David Dille, Jr., came in 1797 from Washington County, Pa., to spy out the land. He was a farmer and was looking for fertile soil upon which to locate. He did not find what he wanted in or near the hamlet at the mouth of the Cuyahoga, and finally decided upon a 100‑acre lot in Euclid."
Dille did not settle that year, nor for several years after. The records of the Connecticut Land Company indicate that he did not purchase land in Euclid for himself initially, but in the name of John Dille, probably his older brother who had pioneered Belmont County years earlier.
The first Dille lands in Euclid were up on the Heights in the southwest corner of the township, Second Draft Lot 14 and the northern half of Second Draft Lot 15. Lot 14 contained the valuable intersection of two trails up the Portage Escarpment and into the interior. Second Draft Lot 50 and Gore Lot 9, along the main road at the base of the escarpment, were initially sold to a "D. Kilgore," and a David Kilgore commanded a company of Washington County men in 1777. Though speculation, it's possible that Dille knew him from the frontier fighting during the Revolution. There was also a Matthew Kilgore on the 1797 Connecticut Land Company survey expedition, which may or may not be significant as well. John Dille's name appears with Kilgore's on the tract by 1802, with the southern half of Lot 15 sold away, split between Connecticut Land Company shareholders Jonathan Brace and Henry Champion. By 1804, "D. Dille" had replaced John as Kilgore's co owner on the northern tract, and "N. Dille," (likely Nathaniel) had supplanted John on Lot 14 and the remaining northern half of Lot 15 in the southwest of the township.
David Dille and his new wife Mary had their first child together, Samuel, in Washington County, then their next two, Francis and Israel, across the river in Ohio at Dille's Bottom. Little Francis died at age four, and they buried him there in July 1803. Mary carried baby Israel in her arms on horseback to Euclid from Belmont County two months later.
The anonymous circa 1850 "History of Euclid" manuscript:
"... in Nov. 1803 David Dille moved in with his family and erected his cabin on the road half a mile West of Euclid Creek"
This area today is in the southwest corner of the City of Euclid on Euclid Avenue west of Dille Road, and David Dille is credited, perhaps because Joseph Burke ultimately left, as the father of Euclid, Ohio. Brother Asa settled on the Heights plot, which contained the intersection of what are now Taylor and Mayfield Roads, where Severance Center is now located. There Asa Dille fathered the founding family of Cleveland Heights.
Little direct is known of the last 30 years of David Dille's life in Euclid. His Indian fighting days seem to have ended along with his wanderlust. He settled, and not like he had in Washington County or at Dille's Bottom: he settled down. Mary stayed with him. He farmed, and he fathered many children. He's buried in the township cemetery on Euclid Avenue just west of Highland Road.
"The log‑cabin of the Dille family is said to have been one of generous hospitality and good cheer. In it 14 more children were added to the family, making in all 22, of whom 18 reached maturity. Meanwhile, the older members of it had been married, and some of their children were born before all of David's second brood had reached its limit."
"Like all the settlers of that day, they experienced privations, endured hardships without a murmur, and shared with each other like a band of brothers any successes that fell to any one in the neighborhood."
"A remarkable family. The Dilles were agrarians, little given to professions or trades, were not speculators, neither litigious; upright, law‑abiding citizens... A long‑lived stock naturally. David died 7 Oct 1835, aged 81 years 11 months, 85 days. A life of hardship."
The information in Chapter Twelve is drawn from the following sources:
"History of Euclid." MSS 1, Container 69, Folder 161, WRHS archive, Cleveland, Ohio.
"The Late Asa Dille, Esq. Obituary." The Fire Lands Pioneer, June 1862.
Andrews, Jay D. Early Descendants of David Dille, Sr. Vol I. May 1989. Published online at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~tnoye/daviddillev1-a.html.
Caldwell, J.A. History of Belmont and Jefferson Counties, Ohio. The Historical Publishing Company, 1880.
Crumrine, Boyd, ed. History of Washington County, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Sketches of many of its Pioneers and Prominent Men. L.H. Everts & Co., 1882.
Dille, William Wallace. "Dille Genealogy - Traditional and Historical." January 1911. Published online at http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~tnoye/wwd.html
History of the Upper Ohio Valley. Brant & Fuller, 1890.
McKelvey, A.T. Centennial History of Belmont County, Ohio. Biographical Publishing Company, 1908.
Myers, Paul W. Washington County, PA. Frontier Rangers, 1781-1782. Closson Press, 1987.
Orth, Samuel P. A History of Cleveland, Ohio., Vols. I and III. S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1910.
Wickham, Gertrude Van Rensselaer. Memorial to the Pioneer Women of the Western Reserve. The Woman's Department of the Cleveland Centennial Commission, 1896.
Wickham, Gertrude Van Rensselaer. The Pioneer Families of Cleveland 1796-1840, Under the Auspices of the Woman's Department of the Cleveland Centennial Commission, 1896. Evangelical Publishing House, 1914.
Revolutionary War pension application accessed via the Fold3 Database:
David Dille, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, application W7018
Encyclopedia of Cleveland History website:
case.edu/ech
Genealogy websites:
ancestry.com
findagrave.com
