A centennial biographical history of Richland county, Ohio, Part 10

Author: Baughman, A. J. (Abraham J.), 1838-1913
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 836

USA > Ohio > Richland County > A centennial biographical history of Richland county, Ohio > Part 10

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Mrs. Copus and children remained in the block-house about two months and were then taken to Guernsey county, where they lived until the close of the war, when they returned to their home on the Black Fork, and where Mrs. Copus reared the family and lived to a good old age, beloved and respected by her neighbors and friends. Sarah Copus, the daughter, became Mrs. Vail, and lived to be present at the unveiling of the monument, September 15, 1882, erected to the memory of her father and the soldiers who were killed in that awful tragedy at that humble cabin in the wilderness, September (15, 1812.

Among the incidents of the fight it is stated that Copus and an Indian fired at each other simultaneously, the former receiving a mortal wound and the latter being killed instantly. Copus did not fall when he was shot, but staggered back across the room to a table, from which he was assisted to the bed. He told his wife that he could not live and that she would have to rear the children as best she could.

A number of times while the battle lasted the savages tried to take the cabin by storm, but the soldiers had taken the precaution to barricade the door and windows with puncheons removed from the floor.

A GOOD SHOT.

George Launtz, the soldier who had an arm broken by a bullet, caught sight of an Indian peeping around a tree, and, taking deliberate aim, fired, and had the satisfaction of seeing the savage bound into the air and then roll down the hill, dead. Another redskin, who had been shot, fell in the yard. His groans were heard as he attempted to crawl away, but a well-directed · bullet from the cabin put an end to his suffering. Forty-five scoop-outs where fires had been, were afterward found in the cornfield, where the Indians had roasted corn, and from that it was taken that there had been forty-five savages

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in the assault. Of that number, nine were carried away by the Indians when they retreated, which, with the two bodies found later, made their loss eleven, killed and wounded. During the greater part of the battle the Indians fought from ambush, taking refuge behind the trees on the hillside in front of the house. On the same day that the Copus battle took place the cabins of Newell, Cuppy and Fry, farther east, were burned, and the Indians who attacked the Copus family were supposed to have been the incendiaries, as they went in that direction. Those families were at the Jerometown block-house.

After the close of the war a number of the Indians returned to this county. Sarah Copus, the girl who had seen the redskins lurking around the day before the attack was made on their home, did not seem to be in favor with the savages. Going on the hill beyond the spring one day, after the family had returned from Guernsey county, she saw one hiding behind a tree. She ran toward the house, the Indian pursuing her almost to the door. They said the girl "knew too much"-was too observant of them and their actions.

KNEW ABOUT IT.

Tom Lyons, an ugly old redskin of the Delaware tribe, in a conversa- tion with Mrs. Copus in 1816, admitted he knew all about the attack on their cabin, but denied that he took part in it.

After the times became more secure the settlers returned to their homes, but affairs were more or less troubled until the close of the war.

MONUMENTS REARED.

"Ah, alas! imagination, Ever weaving dream on dream, Soon forgets the buried red men For some more congenial theme."

At a meeting of the Ashland County Pioneer Society, held August 18, 1881, the matter of erecting monuments to those who fell in the Zimmer- Ruffner and Copus massacres was considered, but no definite action was taken until at a special meeting held September 10 of the same year, when Dr. S. Riddle introduced the following resolution, which was unanimously adopted :

"Resolved, That we erect suitable monuments to the memory of those pioneers and soldiers who were killed by the Indians in the fall of 1812 and buried in Mifflin township."

A committee was appointed to conduct the canvass for funds, and two

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hundred and fifty dollars were contributed. Dr. Riddle was the secretary of the Ashland Pioneer Society, and to him credit is due for the conception of the thought, the formulation of the plans and the raising of a large share of the funds that finally placed monuments to mark the graves of those pio- neers and soldiers who fell victims to Indian rapacity, hate and vengeance.

THE FUND RAISED. 1

The fund having been raised, the committee met at Ashland June 10, 1882, and ordered two monuments, at one hundred and twenty-five dollars each, of Dorland & Kerr. The monuments were put up, one at the Copus place, and the other on the site of the Zimmer cabin, and were unveiled with great ceremony Friday, September 15, 1882, in the presence of a multitude of ten thousand people. The day of the unveiling ceremony was warm and perfect in the blending of the elements, in the beauty of its light and color, and in the mellowness of its atmosphere. An early frost had touched the tops of the trees with its icy fingers and colored the leaves here and there with shades of red and gold, while in the soft shelter of the hills some yet waved their green boughs in the mild September air; still others, standing in some open space, spread out their tremulous panoplies of unbroken amber. And while the whole landscape was suffused with the loveliness of early autumn, yet nowhere was nature more replete in its beauty than on the hill where the exercises were held and at whose base the Copus monument was unveiled.

The exercises were opened with music by a brass band, followed by prayer by the Rev. J. A. Hall. Short speeches were made by Dr. William Bushnell and others.

GUESTS OF HONOR.

Mrs. Sarah Vail, aged eighty-four, and Mrs. Elizabeth Baughman, sev- enty-nine, were given seats of honor on the platform and were introduced to the audience. Mrs. Vail was the daughter of James Copus and was the girl who saw the Indians lurking near the corn-field the day before the attack on the cabin and was in the house when her father was shot at the door. Mrs. Baughman was the daughter of Captain Cunningham, who was a prominent actor in the events of the pioneer days.

THE ADDRESSES.

At the noon hour a recess was taken and a picnic dinner partaken of,

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and, upon re-assembling, the principal addresses of the day were delivered by Hon. R. M. Campbell, of Ashland, Hon. Henry C. Hedges, of Mansfield, and Dr. P. H. Clark, the president of the day. Mr. Hedges' remarks referred particularly to Martin Ruffner, paying a beautiful tribute to his memory and character, saying that he possessed the strength and courage of a man and the gentleness and heart of a woman.

MONUMENTS UNVEILED.

At the close of the services the assemblage repaired to the foot of the hill, where the Copus monument was unveiled, and then proceeded to the Zimmer place, a mile and a half distant, and there unveiled the Zimmer- Ruffner monument. The ceremonies took place just seventy years from the date of the Copus battle. The names of James Copus, George Shipley, John Tedrick and Warnock are on the monument at the Copus place, and a cenotaph to Johnny Appleseed was added at the suggestion of the late Rosella Rice. On the other monument are engraved the names of Frederick Zimmer and wife and daughter Kate, and Martin Ruffner.

COUNTY LOCALITIES.

The localities where the soldiers and pioneers were killed by the Indians were then within the lines of Richland, but in the formation of new counties in 1846 the boundaries of old Richland were reduced to their present limits and the fertile valley of the Black Fork was given to Ashland, including the historic grounds where the Copus and Zimmer-Ruffner monuments stand.

Among the first settlers in that neighborhood were James Copus, Fred- erick Zimmer, John Lambright, Martin Ruffner, Richard Hughes, Henry Smith, Michael Ruffner, David Braden, Leonard Croninger, Michael Culler, Daniel Harlan, Peter Thomas, George Thomas and Jacob Keever, all of whom settled there prior to 1816.

James Copus' powder-horn is still in the possession of the descendants of the Copus family as an heirloom. The ball that killed Copus passed through the strap that was attached to this horn ere it entered his breast. Another bullet entered the horn, but was too far spent to pass through and remains enclosed in it still.

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THE BLACK FORK SETTLEMENT.

The location where James Copus lived is on the east side of the Black Fork, about midway between Mifflin and the old Indian village of Green- town. As we look about the place, the various scenes of that bloody battle come up from the history of the past like panoramic views before us. But few can walk indifferent and unmoved over fields of bloodshed and strife, and the lapse of time only serves to enhance the memories of other years. And these are heightened by the thought that our ancestors shared in the carly struggles and conflicts of the Mohican valley.

LOCALITIES OF HISTORIC INTEREST.

In this asynartete sketch only a brief mention can be made of several places of geographical and historical interest in the valley of the Black Fork. The Petersburg Lakes are well known. There are three and are fed by springs. They form a chain of lakes, the largest covering an area of about fifty acres, the middle about thirty and the smallest ten acres. These lakes were a favorite fishing resort in the Indian times, as they are to-day. The Copus spring flows from the base of a hill on the east side of the valley, near where the Copus cabin stood.

Early in the summer of 1782 Colonel William Crawford's ill-fated expedi- tion crossed the valley of the Black Fork on its way to the Sandusky country and to the defeat and the horrible atrocities that followed. Caldwell's Atlas says: "Colonel Crawford's army passed up the old trail which crossed the Killbuck some twelve miles south of Wooster; thence to the north side of Odell's lake; thence across the southern part of Ashland county to the vicinity of Greentown, passing from George Guthrie's to the old Baughman farm, and from there to the point where the Rocky Fork empties into the Black Fork, where the army crossed the stream and proceeded up the former via the present sites of Lucas and Mansfield to Spring Mills, and thence west to the Wyandot country."

General Robert Crooks, with an army of over two thousand men and a large number of heavy wagons loaded with army supplies, stopped a few days at Greentown shortly after the Indians had left, and confiscated their green corn : and four weeks later Colonel Anderson, with about one hundred and fifty men, with a train of twenty-five cannon and fifty covered wagons, each drawn by six horses, hauling munitions of war, made a halt at Greentown, then followed Crooks' trail to Fort Meigs. All three of these expeditions

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passed over part of the ground where the city of Mansfield now stands, and camped over night in the vicinity of the big springs on East Fourth street. One of these springs is at Lampert's and one on the lot on the northwest corner of Fourth and Adams streets, known for years as the Clapp Spring.

PIONEER INCIDENTS.

Abraham Baughman, the first settler on the Black Fork, bought a calf from an Indian, paying him the price asked. A year later an additional sum of money was demanded, as the calf had grown larger, and the amount was paid to avoid trouble; but still a year afterward another supplemental price was demanded and paid under protest. To prevent the heifer from growing bigger still, it was slaughtered for beef, as the owner did not want to pay for its growth every year.

Abraham Baughman was the first white man to make his home on the Black Fork; but ere long came the Coulters, the Crawfords and others, and soon quite a settlement sprang up around him. As the population increased a distillery was put in operation, as was then the custom in the west.

One evening. when Baughman and wife were at a neighbor's, two Indians called at the Baughman cabin, and, finding the boys in bed, ordered them to get up and give them something to eat. After they had partaken of the luncheon they ordered Jacob, the older son, to go to the "still house"-as dis- tilleries were then called-and get them whisky, and held George as hostage. threatening to scalp him if Jacob delayed or gave the alarm. For the want of a more suitable vessel, Jacob took his mother's tea canister and made the trip as expeditiously as possible. Upon his return the Indians cautiously smelled the whisky, and, detecting a peculiar odor, suspected it was poisoned, becoming enraged and flourishing their tomahawks about the boys' heads in a lively manner. Then they made the boys drink of it and waited to see the "poison" take effect on them ; but, as no bad symptoms were noticed, the red- skins finally accepted the tea explanation and proceeded to drink the contents of the canister and were howling drunk when the parents returned.

TWO BATTLES OF COWPENS.

There are two battles of Cowpens recorded in history,-one fought in South Carolina during the war of the Revolution, and the other in Ashland county-in our own Buckeye state-in the war of 1812. The former was a terrible reality; the latter a bloodless incident.

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At Cowpens, a village in Spartanburg county, South Carolina, on Jan- uary 17, 1781, the American army under General Morgan defeated the British under General Tarleton. The American loss in this battle was but seventy- two, while that of the British was over eight hundred-making the result a signal victory for the patriots. The Ashland county incident occurred in what is now Vermillion township, then a part of Richland county, ere the legis- lature cut up its original boundaries to create new counties.

When General Beall made his memorable march in the fall of 1812 to protect the settlements in this part of the state from attacks of the savages and incursions of the British, he cut a road, called Beall's Trail, through the wilderness from Wooster to the state road at Planktown, this county. While en route the army camped for two weeks in the vicinity of Hayes' Cross Roads, now called Hayesville. The camp was called Camp Musser, after Major Musser, an officer in General Beall's army.

While the army was at Camp Musser an incident occurred known in our local history as the battle of the Cowpens. It was on a dark, rainy night that the soldiers were awakened from their slumbers by the firing of pickets at one of the outposts and the command to "fall in" soon formed the men into line to meet the foe, as it was supposed the Indians were coming to attack the camp in

"The stilly hours of the night."

The pickets reported that the enemy was advancing upon the camp in solid phalanx and the ground trembled with the tread of forming battalions and of approaching "foes !"

It was the army's first experience in war's alarms and the soldiers acted as calmly as veterans of old, and with steady hands opened fire upon the advancing foe (?), lighting up with lurid glare and quickening flash the inky blackness of the night. The cracking of musketry, the charging of cavalry over logs and stumps, combined to make night grand and awful with the pomp and reality of war. Soon, however, the tramp and bellowing of stamp- ing cattle explained the "attack"-that the stock had broken out of the corral, and, advancing toward the picket post, had been mistaken by the guards for hostile Indians. The incident, however, showed the vigilance of the troops, as well as their coolness and bravery in the face of danger. A sagacious gen- eral is equal to and ready to meet surprises, midnight attacks and other emergencies. Napoleon won at least three of his most striking victories- Marenga, Austerlitz and Dresden-by passing at the right moment suddenly

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from an apparent passive attitude of defence to a vigorous offensive. Well- ington, after the world had come to regard him as great only on the defensive, used strictly the opposite tactics, with victorious results, at Victoria, Orthez and Toulouse, the last of these three actions being one of such apparent temerity as can hardly be paralleled in modern history. General Beall had many of the essential characteristics of a commander, and led his troops successfully through the wilderness in his campaign against both a savage and an invading foe, and defended himself against the jealous machinations of West Pointers. General Beall had previously served in the army, having been an officer in General Harmar's campaign against the Indians in 1790. He was a congressman from Ohio in 1813-15 and died at Wooster February 20, 1843. His campaign was made when Return Jonathan Meigs was gov- ernor of Ohio, and the story of Governor Meigs' life reads like a romance. In 1789 he was an attorney at law at Marietta and delivered a Fourth-of-July address, concluding with a poem, the first ever printed in Ohio:

"See the spires of Marietta rise, And domes and temples swell into the skies."

In 1802 Meigs was the chief justice of the supreme court of Ohio; in 1804 he was the commander of the United States troops in the upper district of Louisiana; in 1805, one of the judges of the territory of Louisiana; in 1807, one of the judges of the territory of Michigan; in 1808, elected a supreme judge for Ohio; in 1809, chosen United States senator from Ohio; in 1810, elected governor of Ohio, and re-elected in 1812; and in 1814, appointed postmaster-general of the United States. He died at Marietta March 29, 1825, aged sixty years.

Beall's Battle of the Cowpens has been likened, in its humorous aspect, to the Battle of the Kegs in the war of the Revolution. In January, 1778, the American army floated kegs filled with combustibles down the river to destroy the British shipping at Philadelphia. This was a Yankee trick the British did not understand and supposed that each keg contained a "rebel," and when the kegs were discovered the British opened fire upon them and "fought with valor and pride." Francis Hopkinson wrote a mock heroic poem of this episode, from which the following lines are taken :

"Twas early day, as poets say, Just when the sun was rising, A soldier stood on a log of wood, And saw a thing surprising.

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As in amaze he stood to gaze, The truth can't be denied, sir ; He spied a score of kegs or more, Come floating down the tide, sir."

"The soldier flew, the sailor, too," and spread the news that mischief was brewing, that the "rebels," packed up like pickled herring, were coming down to attack the town, and the most frantic scenes were enacted.

"The cannon's roar from shore to shore, The small arms made a rattle ; Since wars began, I'm sure no man E'er saw so strange a battle."

LYONS' FALLS.

There are traditions that are not historically correct. For years past it has been generally believed in these parts that Lyon's Falls were named for the old Indian chieftian, Tom Lyons. It may seem like uncalled-for icono- clasm to dispel belief in such a mythical personage as Lily Pipe, or to rob Lyons' Falls of Indian traditions. But history should be accurately given ; and its correct narration is more instructive than the erroneous one, and can be as entertainingly told as though its warp were woven with the woof of fiction.

Lyons' Falls are situated in Ashland county, about fifteen miles south- east of Mansfield. There are two falls, and the place, which has been a noted picnic resort for many years, is wild in its primitive forest and grand in its rugged picturesqueness. During the past summer a party of ladies and gentlemen, whose names are conspicuous on the list of Mansfield's "400," took a day's outing at these falls, and a grave was pointed out to them as that of "the noted Lyons;" and like many others they inferred that the Lyons buried there was the notorious Indian chieftain of that name. Upon their return to Mansfield they told entertainingly of the wooded hills and sylvan dells, of the overhanging rocks and of the eighty-foot leap of the waters from the edge of the precipice to the basin at the bottom of the chasm, casting its sprays into the cool grottos which the hand of nature chiseled out of the ever- lasting rocks. And the further fact that the party had seen the grave of a great warrior lent additional interest to the story and to the locality.

With such allurements it was not long until another detachment of the "400" also visited these noted falls, and the gentlemen of the party fired

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volleys over the grave, danced a war dance and gave Indian funeral whoops and came home satisfied that they had held suitable commemorative ceremony over the earthly resting place of the body of an Indian chieftain!

Tom Lyons, the Indian, who took a prominent part in the Wyoming massacre (1778), and was afterward a notorious character in the early history of Richland county, was killed by a young man named Joe Haynes, to avenge the murder of a kinsman, and he buried the old chief in Leedy's swamp in Jefferson township, Richland county. The Lyons buried at the falls was Paul Lyons, a white man. He was not a hermit, as one tradition states, for he took to himself a wife, who bore him a son, and he did not particularly shun his neighbors, although he did not admit them into his confidence. What Paul Lyons' object and motives were for leaving the civilization of the east and seeking a home amid the rocks and hills of that wild and uninhabited part of the country are matters only of conjecture, for he never gave his ante- cedents, and refused to explain or to give reasons for hiding himself away in the forest and leading such a retired life. He had "squatted" on land too rough to till, and he never attempted to clear off the timber nor to cultivate the rocky soil. He simply built a cabin amid the trees and passed his time principally in hunting and fishing; but, as the country became settled around him and farmers needed help to harvest their crops, he often assisted them in such work. He never made any exhibition of money, yet always paid cash for what he bought. He has been described as a large man, and that he had ability and education is shown by the statement of a lady now living, who says that he was an intelligent and entertaining conversationalist and that at the funeral of a neighbor he read a chapter and sang a hymn, and that it was the best reading and singing she ever heard.

About 1856 Lyons, while assisting in hauling logs, met with an accident which resulted in his death, and he was buried upon the hill, between the two waterfalls. The late Rosella Rice had a headboard, painted and lettered, put up at the grave, but visitors shot at the board for a target until it was riddled into slivers by bullets, and later the body was exhumed and the skeleton mounted by a physician. A slight depression in the ground is now the only sign showing where the body had been interred.

Lyons' wife was not an intellectual woman, and it is said that she was sent away and died in an asylum. It is also reported that the boy was taken to an eleemosynary institution after his father's death, and that when he grew to manhood he went west and prospered.

The most noted personage for many years in the region of the falls was Lewis M. Lusk, who in his time played the fiddle for hundreds of dances.

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In past seasons there were dancing floors at the falls, and Lusk furnished the music with his "fiddle and his bow," while the dancers kept step to its enlivening strains. He is now deceased, but tourists will long remember seeing him sitting in the door or in the yard of his cabin playing his fiddle, while the ripples of the waters of the Mohican seemed to echo the refrain of the music as the current of the stream swept around its graceful bends in front of the humble dwelling, the rugged rocks forming a rustic background to the picture framed by the encircling hills, all combing to impress the passers by with the thoughts how sweet is music, how dear is home and how inspiring is all the handiwork of the Creator.

ANCIENT MOUNDS.

There are a number of ancient mounds in Ashland county, the majority of which are no doubt of prehistoric origin and were built by the "Mound- builders." It is claimed by some who have made archaeology a study that a number of these mounds are of a more recent period,-that they were built in the seventeenth century by the Eries to protect their people from the invasions of the Iroquois tribe.

It is claimed by many that the "Mound-builders" were of Asiatic origin, and were as a people immense in numbers and well advanced in many of the arts. Similarity in certain things indicate that they were descendants of the ancient Phoenicians. Of the "Mound-builders" we have speculated much and know but little. But the mounds at Greentown are so small and so unlike the others that they evidently do not belong to that class.

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A centennial biographical history of Richland county, Ohio, Part 10

Author: Baughman, A. J. (Abraham J.), 1838-1913 Publication date: 1901 Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 836

Author: Baughman, A. J. (Abraham J.), 1838-1913
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Chicago : The Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 836