USA > Ohio > Ashland County > Loudonville > A brief centennial history of Loudonville, Ohio > Part 1
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Gc 977.102 L92h 2019099
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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02493 0288
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/briefcentennialh00heyd
A BRIEF CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF
LOUDONVILLE, OHIO 1814-1914
Written and compiled by J. M. HEYDE, M. D.
Assisted by the following committee
SELAH STRONG W. S. FISHER CHARLOTTE STEWART
A. ULLMAN, SR.
NED L. RUTH JOS. WHITNEY
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78 8359 8
2019099
HISTORY OF LOUDONVILLE FROM 1814 TO 1914
Price 25c.
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A BRIEF OUTLINE OF ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF THE HISTORY OF
1814 LOUDONVILLE, OHIO 1914
ARLY in our history, when we were vet a part of the Old Northwest Territory, and previous to settlement by the Aryan peoples, that part of Ohio which we now occupy was inhabited by another race-the American Indian- and previous to their occupancy we have every reason to believe, there lived here a still more numerous, powerful and civilized race of men-the Mound Builders-who have left their indelible marks in the various earthworks, forti- fications, mounds and cemetery sites-monuments which number at least 10,000 in Ohio alone, and several of which are within short distances of our town. All speculation and discussion of this ancient race, we must regard as foreign to our present task.
However, a short consideration of the American Indian-the various Ohio tribes-as being the immediate predecessors and relentless foe of the pioneer settlers o! Ohio, merits a brief consideration. During the 18th century, there were resident within the borders of the State of Ohio, at least six distinet Indian tribes, as follows: Wyandots, Shawnee, Ottawas, Mingoes, Miamis, and Dela- wares, the latter tribe alone occupying the Muskingum Valley. This tribe has been awarded a higher place by Cooper, the novelist, and Heckewelder, the Moravian mi .-- sionary, than general history would seem they deserve. Heckewelder has preserved a Delaware tradition, that many hundred years ago, the Leni Lenape resided in the western part of the American continent, that by slow migrations they at length settled eastward on the Hudson, Potomac, Delaware and Susquehanna rivers, making the Delaware the center of their possessions and from which they derive their name.
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Contact with the colonists of New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland by degrees forced them westward and by 17.10 we find them, by invitation of the Wyandots, locating in Ohio, around the head-waters of the Muskingum, with their capital at the confluence of the east and west branches of that river-where now is situated the city of Coshocton.
In this territory they lived, grew and flourished and became a powerful nation capable of mustering 900 warriors and having a total number of nearly 3000 souls. The Delaware nation was divided into the Turkey, Turtle and Wolf or Munsie tribes, the latter being the most warlike, and residing on the west branch of the Muskingum -the Walhonding and Mohican rivers. The principal chief of the Wolf tribe was the relentless foe of the whites-the warlike Captain Pipe, or, in the Delaware tongue, Hob-o-can.
This chief was at first friendly, and history records that at the time of landing of the Ohio Company's May- flower at the site of Marietta, Captain Pipe and his warriors were encamped on the east point, he and his warriors warmly welcoming the adventurers to the Ohio country. This was in 1788; yet how different was the attitude of the Pipe and his tribe in 1791. when at St. Clair's defeat he said he "tomahawked white men until his arm failed him." He was born in Pennsylvania about 1740, but when or where he died, history does not surely record. From 1778 to 1800 he was the warlike spirit of the Delawares. He it was who opposed the pleadings of the missionary, Heckewelder, and the peace chief, White Eyes at the council of Coshocton, when Heckewelder and White Eyes pleaded that the Delawares remain neutral in the Revolutionary struggle then on. So great was the Pipe's hatred to the American colonist, and so warm his love for his Catholic French Canadian, that he split his tribe, and he with his followers joined the British in Canada and fought side-by-side with the English redcoats against colonial independence. After the final peace, in 1783, he, with the remnant of his tribe, returned to their
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old hunting ground-the head-waters of the Muskingum- our immediate vicinity. He at this time resided at a town of his own, called Pipestown, located about three miles southwest of the present village of Jeromeville, Ashland County. Pipe also resided a part of his time at Helltown, a small Delaware village on the Clearfork, in Hanover Township, about three miles southwest of Loudonville. This town was small and was abandoned in 1782, after Crawford's expedition against the Sandusky Indians. On Crawford's approach, although not near the town, the Indians, becoming alarmed, fled farther north and the next year (1783) erected Greentown, on a prominent bluff over- looking the Blackfork. The town was located about three miles west of the present village of Perrysville, on the farm now owned by Mr. H. P. Rover. This became an important and well chosen town, the river on the south facing the bluff, while to the north and almost surrounding it, was an almost impassable alder swamp. The advantage of such a position can well be appreciated when it is ro- membered that practically all Indian travel was by water, while their natural enemies-the whites-traveled mostly overland.
The village contained a large bark council house and about 150 cabins. It was on the south branch of the old Duquesne-Sandusky trail, which passed about one-quarter mile to the north. Thos. Armstrong was the chief. and Johnnycake, Tom Lyons. Billy Dowdee and Thomas Jelloway were well remembered and eccentric Indians. The village was burned in 1812, its destruction being the immediate cause of the Copus and other massacres in Ashland County. Captain Pipe-a surly, unfriendly In- dian-late in his career fully realized the futility of resist- ing the advent of the whites, and mildly submitted to the inevitable. He, also, was taken west with the Delawares and never again returned to the Mohican hills he loved so well.
Of other Indians, there were about 150 Connecticut Mohegans -- the last of the Mohicans-who resided with
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their chief, Captain John, about eight miles north of Loudonville, near Mohican. The town was called Mohegan Johnstown. From this town and tribe the Mohican river and the village of Mohican derive their names. Of other Delaware towns, we may mention White Woman's Town on the Walhonding, deriving its name from a white woman, Mary Harris, a Delaware captive who lived there. Cos-hoc-ton, where Coshocton now stands, as before said, was the Delaware capital. Here lived and ruled succes- sively Chiefs Shingiss, Netawatwees, Bockonghelas, White Eyes and Killbuck. Up the Tuscarawas branch a few miles was Chief Newcomerstown, and farther north on the same stream, near the present village of Bolivar, Stark County, was the village of Tuscorora, a large and populous town in 1761, when Christian Post attempted to establish a mission here. It was in existence as late as 1763, when Colonel Rogers returned from Detroit, but was soon after
abandoned. Beaverhatstown was south of Wooster and Killbucks town, on the site of Holmesville, Holmes County. On the Jerome fork of the Mohican was Jeromestown, named after Jean Baptiste Jerome, a French fur trader residing here. This was on or near where Jeromeville now stands. Custaloga, Eagle Feather and Big Cat were other well known Delaware chiefs.
Through our immediate vicinity passed a number of Indian trails. The main one was the south branch of the old Duquesne-Sandusky trail. This was the main east and west thoroughfare from Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburg, to Sandusky and Detroit. Its general course was from about two miles south of Wooster, west through Wayne County, north of Odell's and south of Long Lake, west through the Workman settlement, along Lakefork to about one-quarter mile north of Loudonville, where it skirted south of Bald- knob and on west up the Blackfork through Perrysville, north of old Greentown, on up the Blackfork through or near Spring Mill on to Sandusky and Detroit.
This was the main east and west overland route of travel,-the route taken by Colonel Rogers and his troops on their return from Detroit in 1763-the route taken by
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the unfortunate Colonel .Crawford in 1782-and the path followed by Captain Douglass and by the commands of Crooks and of Beal in the war of 1812.
This main trail had a number of spurs to nearby localities. One such left the main trail just east of the Lakefork Bridge on the Loudonville and Wooster road, and followed the Lakefork north to Mohican Johnstown, on to Pipe's and Jeromestown; another, leaving the main trail at the same place, followed the Lakefork south to its confluence with the Blackfork, thence down the east side of the Mohican to the Delaware capital. In the immediate vicinity of Loudonville there was a branch off in a general southwest direction to Helltown and on to the Scioto towns.
The first white man, recorded by authentic history, who ever visited our vicinity was John Smith. Smith, when 18 years of age, had been taken captive by the Dela- wares in Pennsylvania, brought to one of their Muskingum towns and adopted into the tribe. He resided with them a number of years. His own diary gives the events of a journey made in 1756, when in company with a Delaware Indian, they came by canoe up the west fork of the Mus- kingum to head-water, and overland to the Concsdatorie (either Black or Sandusky river), and down the latter stream to Lake Erie. Thus Smith was the first white man to view the location of our village,-and what view of unrivalled beauty it must have been .- a mingling of the graceful outline of hills and valleys with the profuse and natural distribution of magnificent forests and ever- varying, yet ever-beautiful outline of water, which cheers, beautifies and animates everything with its life-giving presence. These, the essential features of all primeval landscapes, were here combined in their most ultimate perfection. Indeed, it would perhaps be beyond the power of the most lively fancy, or most graphic pen, to adequately describe a more beautiful scene than that which here first presented itself to the eye of this Delaware captive. Yet all this primal beauty,-in the short space of a human life- time,-was destined to lose its pristine beauty and become
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the scene of ever-varying human handiwork. Primitive forests vanish, green hills become bare, and the white farmhouses of Aryan mankind usurp the place of the small Indian wigwam.
By 1812 the vicinity hereabouts, having been fairly purged of the relentless red-man, was ready for the cabin of the Western Pioneer. Indeed, some of the more ven- turesome and bold awaited not the going of the savage, but with courageous mien, bold heart and indomitable energy, pressed in among the westward retreating Delawares, and selecting the most likely and desirable sites, proceeded to hew a home from this wilderness of the West. History records that between 1809 and 1812 there were, on the Clearfork. the families of Daniel Lewis, James Cunningham and Peter Kinney; on the Black- fork, Henry McCarty, Thomas Coulter, Noah Castor, Allen Oliver, George Crawford, David Davis, Edward Haley, John Davis, Melzer Charles, Bazel Tannyhill, Joseph Jones, Eben Rice, and the brothers, Joseph, Lewis, Calvin and Harvey Hill.
On the Jerome and Lakefork, James L. Priest, William Greenlee, Thomas Oram. Joseph Oram, Mordecai Chilcote, Victor Metcalf, Jacob Lybarger, William Bryan, James Conoly, Benjamin Bunn, James Slater, James Bryan, Elias Chilcote, James Collyer, George Eckley, and others not recorded. As will be noted, these families were quite widely located, yet fairly well distributed over the town- ships of Hanover, Green and Lake, yet unorganized. The abode of these pioneers was usually a one-room log cabin, with its log fireplace, split clapboard weighted roof, one door and greased paper window. The latch-string was always out and domestic and neighborhood peace reigned supreme. Each settler had his small clearing, where corn, potatoes, vegetables and tobacco were grown. Wild game and the fruits of the chase furnished a large share of their daily sustenance. Flour mills were at inconvenient dis- tances, the nearest being Shrimplins and Stebbs, who had two-one on Owl Creek and one near Wooster. Conse-
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quently each family had its hand mill and corn pounder. The nearest trading points were Mansfield, Mt. Vernon and Wooster, all three small villages of a few cabins each. The nearest good trading point was Zanesville. from which place salt and flour were brought up the Muskingum by canoe or poling rude flat-boats. If the settler wanted pro- visions from Mt. Vernon or Wooster, he made the journey a-foot or horseback, no small task in those days. The trails were merely bridle paths through the forests, marked by blazed trees along the way. The forests were still in- fested with all manner of wild animals, and what was still more dangerous, numerous Mingo and Delaware hunting parties.
Early in 1812 began the second war with England. This proved a turbulent time for these new settlers of the west. The efforts of the Shawnee chief. Tecumseh. to confederate all the Ohio tribes with the British was being felt by the Ohio Indians. They were noticed making fre- quent visits to Detroit, always returning heavily armed and less friendly. This created suspicion, which after Hull's surrender at Detroit became almost a certainty, tha: the Indians intended mischief and would probably its Tecumseh and the British. Noting this growing disenn- tent. Governor Meigs ordered Captain Douglass the com- mandant at Mt. Vernon to remove the Jerandown and. Greentown Indians to the Delaware reservation a: Url con. where they could be effectually guarded. Captain De- lass, at the head of a company of militia, gathered the Indians together and moved them early in September. The Indians requested that their houses be not molested, which was granted.
Shortly after this, a company of Guernsey County militia under Colonel Crooks, marching from Wheeling to Sandusky, discovered and burned the now deserted village of Greentown. This created anger and a desire for re- taliation among the Indians. A few of the Indians had not been collected, some escaped from Douglass; these united and in a few days occurred the Copus and Zimmer
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massacres on the Blackfork. This created consternation among the settlers. There was a rush to their nearest blockhouses, Beams on the Rockyfork, Lewis on the Clear- fork, Priest's on the Lakefork and at Jeromes, Mansfield and Wooster. Shortly after this strong stockades were erected on the lands of Thos. Coulter and Allen Oliver in Green Township and J. L. Priest's in Lake Township. These places were later known as Coulter's. Oliver's and Priest's forts. They, however, were not long needed, as the Indians never returned to live on the Muskingum, although for many years thereafter they occasionally returned on brief hunting trips.
One of the first of these pioneers to thus crowd the westward going savages was one Stephen Butler, who in the spring of 1810 built himself a one-room log cabin and cleared land on the east bank of the Blackfork, within what is now the corporate village of Loudonville, near or on the site of the residence of Frederick Sprang on West Main Street. Soon after Butler's arrival, another settler, Caleb Chappell, arrived, entered land, built a home and com- menced clearing land. Chappell's land was situate north and east of Loudonville, and the residence built near where Joseph Whitney now lives, the old chimney foundation now being the remaining evidence of the cabin. On the tenth day of May, 1810, James Loudon Priest and two com- panions arrived up the Lakefork, travelling in dugout canoes. They landed in what is now Holmes County, three miles east of our village, near Kamerer's mill. Priest at once viewed the land, traveled to Canton, where the land office then was, entered 1000 acres, returned and built him- self a cabin on the bank of the stream. This completed, he returned to Pennsylvania for his family. His first cabin proving badly located, the next spring he erected another about a mile west of the first and two years later another larger and near the first. This last was still standing as late as 1901. In 1812, as before stated. Priest erected and guarded a strong stockade on his land which for a short time sheltered the families of J. L. Priest, William
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Greenlee, William Hendrickson, Nathan Odell, John Oram, Thomas Oram and Mordecai Chilcote.
On August 6, 1814, Priest laid out the town of Lou- donville on the Blackfork, four miles west of his own cabin. The plan of the village was a main east and west street, with three intersecting streets north and south. These were surveyed into lots of 60 feet front and 180 feet deep. Priest deeded the twelve central lots free to the village. to be used as a public park. He also gave a plot of land free for a cemetery. Priest himself surveyed the lots, wrote out the titles, and, assisted by Stephen Butler, Caleb Chappell, George Davidson and his own sons, staked off the village. numbered and marked the lots. Priest's father married Anna Louden in Massachusetts in 1768. From her Priest received his middle name and from this family the name of our village-Loudonville -- is derived. Priest died in 1821 and was buried with Masonic honors in the Loudonville cemetery, leaving a family of nine sons and five daughters, many of whose descendants are still living in this community.
Butler was the first, Davidson the second and Chappell the third citizen of our immediate vicinity. Chappell by trade was a carpenter and joiner, but engaged from the first in farming and working at his trade. At this time the nearest settlers were: on the east, Priest and Greenice. on the northwest, Allen Oliver, and southwest. the families on the Clearfork. Between 1815, and 1818, there were several new arrivals, among them being William Burwell and Abel Strong. About 1814 Butler, Chappell and Priest erected the first bridge across the Blackfork. This was a foot-bridge and to reach the bridge one had to ascend ladders at each end.
Un to this time there was no post-office, mail being carried from place to place by messenger, or sent to the land oflice at Canton, or at times to Mt. Vernon, from which places it in time found a carrier to the addressee. In 1819 the first stage coach route from Mt. Vernon to Wooster and Cleveland was established with Loudonville as
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a relay station. The stage, a four-horse ambulance sort of vehicle, was used for passenger, mail and freight service, making the trip twice weekly in the summer, but only occasionally, as the roads permitted, during the winter. The greatest obstacle to regular trips was the deep fords of the Blackfork and Muddyfork. In 1818 Alex Skinner erected the first flour mill, a two-story frame, with two run of stones. Caleb Chappell was the carpenter and de- signer. For motive power a dam was built in the Black- fork and a race cut to the mill, which stood where the present mill stands.
In 1819 Butler enlarged his cabin to a pretentious four- room tavern, where he conducted quite a business, supply- ing the wants of the public-mostly newly arriving settlers. Besides a tavern it was the village bar. In those days, whiskey, mostly corn, wholesaled at ten and retailed at fifteen cents a gallon and was good whiskey at that, if any reliance can be placed on tradition. Most of the settlers made their own cloth and clothes; homespun was the most available and cheapest, and nearly every woman was an expert with the loom. Corn was the principal farinaceous food, being crushed, pounded or ground between burr- stones and used as corn-bread, mush, corn fritters, hominy or distilled into whiskey. Wheat and wheat flour were less used.
Every settler had his trusty rifle and trained hunting dog. The furs thus gathered during the winter months were one of their most valued assets. Butler was the fur trader, the skins being sent east by stage to English and other foreign fur companies. Education and religion were not forgotten, although no public schools or churches had yet been erected. Each family tried to educate their children and had daily family worship, usually the reading of a chapter from the Bible and a prayer. Tradition says Silas Parker taught a small subscription school in the Priest settlement in 1818. Whether a special building was provided and how long it continued is not known. The first school in Loudonville remembered was the old plank
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schoolhouse erected in 1818, on the southeast quarter of the square, about where the band-stand now stands. The building was about twenty feet square and constructed of plank standing upright. There was no floor and two windows. William Robeson was the first teacher re- membered.
As early as 1819 the Chappell family was interested in securing the first religious services in the cabins of this vicinity. For $63.00, payable in wheat, rye or corn, the labors of Rev. Thos. G. Jones, a Baptist minister, living near Wooster, were obtained once every fourth Sabbath. The coming of the stage supplied the opportunity for one more business and by 1820 there was a wagon and black- smith shop directly across the street from Butler's tavern, on what is now the Parrott corner. After regular stage service, came regular mail service and the establishment of the first United States post-office at Loudonville, January 14, 1820, with Thomas Taylor the first postmaster. At this time this community was a part of the original Wayne County as erected by Territorial Governor St. Clair. The surveys according to the United States Land Ordinance of 1795 were made in 1807 by General James Hedges, Deputy Surveyor of the United States. They were into ranges, and these into townships six miles square. In Range 15, Lake Township was organized in 1811, and in Range 16, Green in 1812, and Hanover in 1816.
In 1820 we find the following additional families in Hanover Township, viz .: William Burwell, Thomas Taylor, Robert Dawson, George Snider. Amos Harbaugh, William Webb. A. Winters, Abel Strong. John Hildebrand. John Burwell, Alexander Skinner, T. J. Bull and N. Haskell. The population of the village was about thirty. It had no civil government, was not incorporated and has left no census record. The village had one tavern, one black- smith, a flour mill and brickyard. There are no records of any store at this early date, though it is probable some small mercantile establishment existed. Caleb Chappell was the carpenter and Stephen Butler fur trader, Justice
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of the Peace and manager and owner of the tavern. By 1821 Nathaniel Haskell had erected and was operating a carding machine and fulling mill, at that time a great con- venience. Haskell was long after prominently identified with the business life of the village. During these early days the settlers were severely punished by agues, malarial and billious fevers and dysentery. There were no physicians nearer than Wooster, yet a few of the older women, if tradition can be relied upon, were possessed of marvelous medical ability. Mrs. J. L. Priest and Mrs. Greenlee were considered especially skillful in handling these prevalent ailments.
In 1821 Dr. J. S. Irwin located in Loudonville for medical practice. In 1823 a Dr. Cliff and in 1825 Dr. Clendennin were here. How long each remained is not now remembered. In 1831 Dr. E. B. Fuller, a physician of the old school, began practice. He spent his entire life here, had a large practice, died in 1867, and is buried in Loudonville. Dr. Smith was long a practitioner and con- temporary with Dr. Fuller. In 1825 John Strong settled in Loudonville and was one of the early stage drivers. In the same year George Easly, a watch and clockmaker, opened a shop in his residence, which stood where Weimer's meat market now stands.
Previous to 1825 the growth of the town was slow, with no demand for real estate. It is recorded that Samuel Garrett, in 1825, bought several of the most desirable lots in the village for one dollar each. The latter half decade of 1820-1830 was one of prosperity and growth to the village. The country around was being rapidly settled and Hanover, Green and Lake Townships had 1800 inhabit- ants, while twenty years previous the entire county had but one hundred and fifty. The village at this time had 272 inhabitants. The census of 1830 was taken by Colonel Urie, of Ashland. In 1830. as near as can be learned, Loudonville had three taverns, as follows: the Washington House, a brick on West Main Street ; this, previously opera- ted by Butler, was now operated by A. M. Hemelreich, and
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