Switzerland County before the Swiss

The Swiss colony at Vevay gets a lot of attention (as well it should). It was unusual and Jean Jacques Dufour was awfully good at promotion.

But there were settlers in what became Switzerland County before the Dufours and allies showed up, some of whom were displaced when Jean Jacques talked Congress and President Jefferson into giving him a sweetheart deal on 2,000 acres. And some of them weren’t happy about it.

The early settlers included a large group from Nelson County, Ky., who arrived about 1798, although this is more based on tradition than documentation. The 1792 Nelson County tax list includes several men who moved to Switzerland and Jefferson Counties, among them Ralph and William Cotton, Stillwell Heady (who married Rebecca Combs, Hannah's sister), Paul Froman, John Bray, Nicholas Lenz, Johnson Brown, and Jonathan McCarty. Several of these had come from the Shenandoah region of Virginia—McCarty and Froman (McCarty’s brother-in-law) for example. Shenandoah families that showed up later included the Lanhams, Cheeks, Cains and McKays

The Nelson County group included the well-known “Indiana George” Ash, who had been captured in Nelson County by Shawnee Indians in 1782 and lived with them until roughly 1795, when he settled in the Lamb area.

Perret Dufour, whose newspaper articles from the 1870s have been compiled as the "History of the Swiss Settlement, said the Cottons settled on Indian Creek about 1798 and James Stewart also arrived from Nelson County about this time.

McCarty is the easiest to track as on Aug. 6, 1799, he was named justice of the peace for what was then Hamilton County, Northwest Territory, whose western boundary extended to the Greenville Treaty line that reaches the Ohio River at Lamb, opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River. It can’t be proved McCarty was in the Lamb area at this time. But on Dec. 3, 1800, his daughter Lydia married Gershom Lee in Gallatin County, Ky. It can proved that the Lees had lived at the mouth of the Kentucky River from 1790 on.

Early Hamilton County marriage records, which survive only in a transcription, show that a Jonathan County officiated at the marriage of of Kesiah Pickett to Paul Froman Jr on Nov. 13, 1800 in Hamilton County. Since Kesiah was the daughter of Heathcoat Pickett and Froman was McCarty’s son-in-law, this was clearly McCarty. Jonathan Country, justice of the peace, presided at the marriage of Polly Netherland to David Owen on Oct. 12, 1800. The Netherlands were also proven as Switzerland County records. These were the only two marriages he performed, probably because it was easier for settlers to get marriage into Kentucky than it was for McCarty to take the marriage

Ash may have drawn these families in—he married Hannah Combs in Nelson County in 1802. And his effort to get Congress to approve a gift of lands from the Indians provides other details.

A petition dated Feb. 1802 supporting Ash’s claim was signed by Col. Adam Guthrie, Zachariah Garton, Edward Coombs, Alexander Porter, Captain William Hall and Gershom Lee. Combs was Ash’s brother-in-law (I think) and Lee was McCarty’s son-in-law. Otherwise, the petition does not provide residences.

On July 5, 1802, the government of the Northwest Territory commissioned officers from the second battalion of the second regiment, including William Hull (sic Hall) as captain, Heath Coat Pickett as lieutenant and John Hall (William’s son) as ensign. Some continued in these positions when Dearborn County, which now included Switzerland, was created in 1803. Lee was named lieutenant in the Dearborn militia on Aug. 15 while McCarty was named a justice on Aug. 30.

Some of these men signed an 1804 petition in favor of Ash’s land claims, which described them as being resident of Indiana and Port William [the first name for Carrollton], but didn’t say which was which. Signers included McCarty, Gershom Lee, Nathan Lee, both Halls, Griffith Dickerson (a known Switzerland County resident), Owens and Benjamin Combes. Bernard McLain, who was living in the Saluda area of Jefferson County in 1810, also signed.