USA > Ohio > Richland County > A centennial biographical history of Richland county, Ohio > Part 2
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CAPTAIN THOMAS ARMSTRONG.
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Captain Thomas Armstrong was a chief of the Turtle branch of the Del- aware tribe. He was said to have been a white man who had been stolen when a mere child and was raised by the Delawares and adopted into their tribe. Other authorities say he was of mixed blood. He was the chief at Greentown and was aged when he was forced to leave the village. All the Indians, however, at Greentown were not Delawares. There were a few Mohegans, Mohawks, Mingoes, Senecas and Wyandots there also.
CAPTAIN PIPE.
Captain Pipe was a chief of the Wolf branch of the Delaware tribe and ruled at Mohican Johnstown, and never resided in Richland county. There was a Captain Pipe at Greentown who was supposed to be the son of the old chieftain. He was a young man and was described as small, straight and very affable. He later became a half-chief with Silas Armstrong on the reservation at Pipestown, six miles from Upper Sandusky, and died in the Indian Territory in 1839.
Old Captain Pipe was a large man. He had the blandness and oily address of the cringing courtier, the malignity of the savage and the bloodthirsty ferocity of the skulking panther. With his own hand he painted Colonel Crawford black, and by his order he was burnt at the stake. While paint-
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ing the colonel the treacherous Pipe feigned friendship and joked about him making a good-looking Indian, but the black paint belied his words, for it portended death. It has been stated that Captain Pipe refused to join with the British against the white settlers in 1812; but as he was a consummate dissembler the statement should be received in accordance with the character of the man. After Hull's surrender, Captain Pipe was never seen in this part of the state, and his fate is unknown.
GREENTOWN AND THE WAR OF 1812.
At the time of the advent of the white settlers here the village of Green- town contained from one hundred and fifty to two hundred Indian families who lived in pole cabins, and in the center of the town was a council-house built of logs. There were Mingoes there as well as Delawares, and some writers have confounded Greentown with the "Mingo Cabbins" spoken of by Major Rogers; but Dr. Hill thought the "cabbins" referred to were on the Jerome Fork, near to the place where the Mingo village of "Mohican Johns- town" was afterward located.
The Indians often hoisted sails to their canoes to glide them over the dark, quiet waters of the Black Fork. Along the banks the scenery in sum- mer was said to be of tropical beauty. Verdant plants and beautiful flowers lined either side and the luxuriant foliage of the forest formed a background to the enhancing picture, in which light and shadow were artistically blended and the songs of the birds came melodiously upon the perfume-laden air, making the valley seem a veritable paradise to the early pioneer.
Two branches of the Delaware tribe-the Wolf and the Turtle-were represented at Greentown.
By the year 1810 a number of families had been added to the Black Fork settlement, among whom were Andrew Craig, James Cunningham, Henry McCart, Samuel Lewis, Frederick Zimmer and others. A remnant of the Mohican tribe of Indians from Connecticut settled at an early day on the western branch of the Muskingum river, and nearly all our streams have Indian names. Mohican was derived from Mohegan, and from that river we have the various "forks."
The Indians yearly had a feast in their council-house or upon its campus, in celebration of some tribal rite or anniversary, to which the settlers were invited. The ceremonies were opened by singing, with a copper-kettle accon- paniment. Speaking would then follow and after that was dancing. In these dances some of the braves attired themselves in the most grotesque manner,
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in bear and deer skins and cowhides, having the hoofs and claws dangling about their legs, and upon their heads they wore the skulls and horns, making them look like animals. The braves and the squaws sometimes danced sep- arately, according to their idea of decorum or the rules of the dance. After the dance refreshments were served, consisting of boiled venison and bear meat. Upon one occasion Captain Cunningham thought the meat was tainted and concealed his portion in his pocket, as it would have been considered a grave offense not to eat the food given to him.
When the Indians were encampted temporarily at Mansfield, on their removal from Greentown to Piqua, a tragedy-incident of war-occurred that gave the stream that courses through the north part of the city from the west its name, Toby's run. A Wyandot Indian and his daughter, who had been visitors at Greentown, escaped, were followed by two soldiers, who over- took them a mile west of town, tomahawked the man, but let the daughter go to her own country, which, as "Johnny Appleseed" reported afterward, she reached in safety. The soldiers had had relatives murdered by the Indians, and the redskins could not reasonably expect mercy when they had shown none to the whites.
The settlers maintained friendly relations with the Indians for some time, but when the war with Great Britain was impending it was noticed that both the Greentown and the Jeromeville Indians made frequent trips to Upper Sandusky, and when they returned were always well supplied with blankets, tomahawks and ammunition, evidently supplied to them by British agents, who were busily engaged in trying to ingratiate themselves into the favor of the red man and be thus able to enlist them afterward as allies against the whites.
On the 18th of June, 1812, the United States declared war against Great Britain, and after that the estranged relation between the settlers and the savages developed into threatened rupture and resulted in the forced evacu- ation of Greentown, followed with the murder of the Zimmers and Copus.
The reason generally assigned for the killing of Copus was that he had accompanied Captain Douglas to, the Indian village and advised them to sub- mit to a peaceful removal. It is also stated that the Indians had a grudge against the settlers up the valley because their horses (which ran at large) had frequently come from that direction with fire-brands tied to their tails. The Indians also claimed that the whites made them drunk on metheglin and then cheated them in trades. Metheglin was made from wild honey, which was plentiful in those days. Metheglin was a favorite drink, was very intox-
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icating, and it is said that those who indulged in this delicious nectar could hear the bees buzzing for several days thereafter.
When the pioneers wanted honey they hunted "bee trees," as bees then used cavities in trees as hives in which to store their "delicious sweets."
The white settlers often joined the Indians in athletic sport on the campus of their village, in which the "run, hop, step and jump" and wrestling were the favorite amusements; but the Indians never took defeat graciously.
"Oh, merrily passed the time, despite Our wily Indian foe, In the days when we were pioneers, Many years ago!
"Yet, while we live, we may all . A backward glance still throw To the days when we were pioneers, Many years ago!"
KILLING OF TOM LYONS.
Among the prominent Indians at Greentown were Bill Montour, Bill Doudy, Jonacake and Tom Lyons. Several stories have been told of Lyons' death, locating the event in as many different localities. He came to Ohio soon after the Wyoming massacre, 1778, in which he took a part, and made his headquarters at Helltown and later at Greentown. He was removed in 1812 with the Greentown Indians to Piqua, and, like other Indians, came back to Richland county occasionally, after the close of the war, to hunt and to temporarily sojourn.
Lyons was called Old Leather-lips by the settlers on account of his large, thick protruding lips, and was considered one of the ugliest human beings that ever lived. He was reticent about himself, except when under the influ- ence of fire-water, when he would tell of the part he took in the Wyoming massacre, and of later having committed other murders, boasting that he had killed nearly a hundred white men, whose scalps he had tanned, and whose tongues he had pickled in alcohol.
About 1829 Indians held a hunting-feast two miles below Bellville, on the north side of the Clear Fork, nearly opposite Gatton's Rocks, in Richland county. John Gatton, in company with a hired man named Joe Haynes, attended the feast, as "lookers on in Venice." Tom Lyons was there, drunk and loquacious. To generalize was not sufficient for him in his maudlin con- dition ; he must particularize and state that he had killed Isaac Mericles, a
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relative of young Haynes, and that he lacked but one more scalp to complete his hundred. About a year previously Isaac Mericles had been found foully murdered, and Lyons' admission of the crime so incensed young Haynes that he publicly vowed to avenge his relative's death. Mr. Gatton cautioned Haynes that it was unsafe to make threats in the presence of the Indians against one of their number, and succeeded in getting the young man away. The Indians continued their carousal. A few days later Haynes took his rifle and went out to hunt, as was the custom of the times, and when he returned in the evening he told Mr. Gatton that he had killed Tom Lyons at Leedy's swamp, and had buried him where he fell; that he had found Lyons at the edge of the swamp, taking aim with his rifle at an opening in the thicket, and, without being discovered, Haynes shot Lyons in the back of the head, thus avenging his uncle's death.
Gatton was shocked, and advised Haynes to leave the country at once, as the Indians would soon learn of Lyons' death and that suspicion would be cast upon him on account of the threat he had made. Haynes then bade the family good-bye, stepped out into the darkness of the night and was never heard of afterward, the general opinion being that the Indians had made way with him the same night. The Gattons wisely kept their own counsel, and it was only within the past year that a daughter of John Gatton, now an aged lady, told the story, explaining the mysterious disappearance of Tom Lyons.
Tom Lyons has been described as one of the ugliest human beings that ever lived. He had coarse features, elephant-like skin, an under-lip very thick and so long that it drooped over his chin. He frequently called at the homes of the settlers, and sometimes upon awakening at night they would see him sitting in front of the fireplace! He usually went to the cupboard and helped himself to a lunch ere he left. To lock a door or pull in a latch- string would have been an insult in pioneer times to both settlers and Indians.
Lyons often got white women to bake bread for him, and he would weigh the flour he furnished, and then weigh the bread, and unless the weight of the bread was equal to that of the flour there was trouble. As a rule the women would add of their own flour rather than run the risk of the bread being light in weight.
The hunting-feast at which Tom Lyons boasted of having killed ninety- nine white people was held on the bottoms, across the Clear Fork from Gat- ton's Rocks, where L. N. Loiselle built several cottages the past summer and where a number of Mansfield people take their summer outings.
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Lyons' Falls was not named for Tom Lyons, the Indian, but for Paul Lyons, a white man, a recluse, who lived there for many years.
FIRST SETTLEMENT AGAIN.
We return to the first settlement to note what progress had been made there.
In the spring of 1809 the Newmans built a sawmill-the first in the county-near the place where the Amsbaugh gristmill now stands. It was a crude affair, but it could saw a few logs a day, and sawed boards were pre- ferred to skutched puncheons. The number of families at the settlement increased and in 1810 a gristmill was built. It was equipped with "nigger- head" buhrs, and the flour made was not of the roller-process kind, but it may have been as healthful. It was better, however, to have a mill at home than to have to pack grists on horseback to the mills at Clinton, Knox county, as they had previously done. Then, too, things are considered good by com- parison and in those days, so far as flour was concerned, the positive, com- parative and superlative adjectives of "good, better, best" were unknown.
The Newmans soon removed to Mansfield and while acting as a guide to General Crooks, in the winter of 1812, Jacob Newman contracted a disease from which he died.
Michael Beam bought the Newman land where the first settlement was made, including the mills, which he put in better equipment and operated for several years, and the place has passed into history as Beam's Mill.
But adversity and misfortune often lurk in the pathway of the most industrious and worthy, as was the case with Mr. Beam. To accommodate a friend he became surety for a large bill of merchandise, which he had to pay and that took his all, and he never got a start again. Parties at Pitts- burg got possession of the property and a Mr. Rogers was sent here to super- intend the same. Rogers built a more pretentious dwelling than those of the other residents. This house was situated just east of Mr. Mentzer's residence, and the ground upon which it stood is now cultivated as a garden. There, a few years since, a stone mantel was dug up and is now used as a step-stone at Mentzer's back porch. It is, no doubt, the first dressed stone mantel made in the county.
The scenery along the Rocky Fork, at different places below Beam's Mills, was said to have been quite picturesque in those days and is interesting still, especially where the stream makes a bend to the right, as it approaches the mound or knoll where the soldiers are buried who gave their lives for their
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country while garrisoning the Beam block-house in 1812; and there the rippling waters sing a sweet requiem as they pass the unmarked graves.
While I speak of the pioneers and their achievements, I mean not only the men of the two decades from 1808 to 1828, but include the women, also, for they shared alike with the men the dangers and hardships of that period, and besides their household duties often assisted in the fields and at times helped to defend their homes against the attack of the Indians. It was not "lady" then, but that better word, "woman." Woman the wife, woman the sister, woman the mother of us all! And although clothed in homespun and her hands hardened with toil, she had nobility of soul, and her character was irreproachable and her courage did not falter at the approach of danger, and her deeds well deserve to be written in history, to be preserved in tradi- tion and to be sung in songs.
The pioneers are often spoken of as an unlettered people. A few of them were, perhaps, while others had scholastic attainments. All classes from the Atlantic states were represented. But there were no allurements to attract the worst element of society, as was the case in California in the early settle- ment of that state.
The impelling force that brought people to Ohio to become pioneers was that restless spirit so peculiar to the American character, which even to-day causes some of the most intelligent and energetic to leave homes of refine- ment and comfort in the east to seek new homes in the west, or to go to the far-off Klondike in the wild rush for gold.
Colonel Rush Field once told the writer of this first Sunday in Lead- ville during the mining excitement there. The familiar words of the Venite greeted them as they entered the improvised church. There was a quartette choir and the voice of the soprano gave evidence of training and cultivation ; and in the Te Deum the exquisite sweetness of her voice and its wonderful power and compass were more fully noticed. Upon inquiry afterward it was learned that she was the daughter of a Boston banker and that her education in music was the best that two continents could give, and that she had left her home of luxury in the east to share with her husband, a wealthy mine operator, the inconveniences of a Leadville camp, and to become a Colorado pioneer.
The pioneer period was but the prelude to the fuller development of the county that followed. The settlers who cleared the land and founded homes and formulated the first laws, builded better than they knew, and as we look back at their work in the light of to-day award them the plaudit of "Well done !"
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Within four years after the first settlement in Richland county was made, war was declared against Great Britain, sometimes called the second war for independence. The question has been asked whether that war advanced or retarded the settlement of the county. We have read history to little purpose if we have not learned that the progress of civilization has been enhanced by wars. The fighting instincts of human nature have brought more important results than any other force. Homer, the earliest of the great poets, began his Iliad by invoking the muse to sing of martial exploits, and expressed his faith in war as a means of progress. The spirit then dis- played was not materially different from that which the patriots of colonial times manifested, which culminated in the war of the American Revolution. The same impelling tendency was seen in the heroic events of the war of 1812 and in the war with Mexico in 1848, as well as in our recent civil strife. The records of the "dull, piping times of peace" do not show the advance of civilization as do the annals of war. A number of the first and most important roads in our county were cut out and opened by the troops of the war of 1812, as they marched through or encamped within our bor- ders, and grounds were cleared for drill purpose upon which the settlers the next season raised crops. The highways opened by the army were the avenues along which emigrant wagons came when the war was ended. Then, too, the soldiers upon their return to the east after their discharge from the service told such enticing tales of the richness of our soil and the beauty of our land- scapes that quite a tide of emigration set in, and many of the soldiers came also and made their homes here.
But I am not writing the history of the war nor its aftermath,-only referring to the same now and then in giving incidents in county history, and to say that the war of 1812 advanced the settlement of the county by driv- ing away the Indians and by bringing the locality into notice.
"Through the woodland, through the. meadow, As in silence oft I walk, Softly whispering on the breezes, Seems to come the red men's talk."
The second settlement within the present limits of Richland county was made at Bellville by James McCluer in 1809, and was known as the "McCluer settlement." James McCluer came to that locality in the fall of 1808, entered land and built a cabin, but spent the following winter in Pickaway county. The next spring he brought his family and made his abode in the cabin he had built the fall previous, making the date of the settlement 1809.
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The first road in the county was known as the Wooster road, running from Wooster via Greentown to Mansfield, and the second road was from Mount Vernon via the McCluer settlement, and was called the state road.
James McCluer was so favorably impressed with the Clear Fork country and gave such glowing description of the same that several relatives and others joined him the same season. Upon the organization of the county in 1813 James McCluer was appointed one of the associate judges of the court of common pleas and sold his land to Robert Bell, who, in 1815, laid out a town plat of forty-eight lots, and the town was named Bellville. Judge McCluer removed to Mansfield and lived in a cabin on the northwest corner of Main and Fourth streets, the present site of the Mansfield Savings Bank. The last years of Judge McCluer's life were passed at Leesville, where he died ripe in years and in honors. The McCluer cabin at Bellville stood on the lot now owned by David Zent, south of the railroad and east of Main street and on the part of the lot he now cultivates as a garden. The block-house, built in September, 1812, stood near the present site of S. N. Ford's grain elevator.
The first death in the township was that of Stephen Dodge, in 1811. He was buried on Snake Hill, now called Beulah cemetery.
A postoffice at Bellville was established in 1824, with Isaac Hoy as post- master.
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Private schools were taught by William Spears in 1815-'16-'17. The first public school in the township was taught by Timothy Evarts in 1818, and the schoolhouse stood on the old state road, a short distance north of Honey creek.
Mrs. Oldfield, whose maiden name was Lucy Palmer, was my first teacher in the schoolhouse that was afterward built near this spot. She was an exemplary Christian lady and one of the best of educators. My first day at school seemed a long one, for I was homesick and wished for the closing hour to come that I might go home to my mother, and a similar wish is the theme of my longing to-day.
John Leedy was one of the 1810 settlers, and his descendants live mostly in the southern part of the township. Mr. Leedy's daughter Catherine mar- ried Samuel Garber, and of their children, Jehu is perhaps the most widely known, as he served two terms as county commissioner.
Lewis K. Leedy came in 1811 and was the pioneer "singing master" of his time, and it seems but a few years since he attended our pioneer meet- ings and joined his marvelous gift of voice with those of Joseph Fleming, William Pollock, I. N. Thompson, John Schrack, Samuel Bell, Mrs. Yingling,
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Mrs. Pulver, et al., in singing the old-time melodies of the "Missouri Har- mony."
Mention should here be made of Governor Leedy and many, many others, but at present I must pass on to other matters.
Jefferson township is six miles square, and therefore contains thirty-six sections of land. It was one of the original townships. Bellville is situated on section 9, a mile south of the north line of the township.
The Clear Fork of the Mohican is the principal stream of water, and its north and south branches unite a mile west of Bellville, and after passing the town courses in a southeasterly direction, leaving the township about mid- way at its eastern border. There is scenery along the banks of the Clear Fork at several places that is beautiful in picturesqueness, and the pastoral charms of the landscape are enhancing, while the valley through which this clear stream flows is unexcelled in its fertility.
There was a block-house at Bellville for the protection of the settlers, but no Indian outbreaks ever occurred there. While the savages frequently hunted game in that locality, they had no abiding place there and therefore the settlers were not troubled much with them.
INDIAN CIVILIZATION.
Since engaged in writing sketches I have been asked why the pio- neers did not Christianize and civilize the savages. My purpose has been to state facts and not to elaborate theories. But, ere dismissing the red man for the time, will again state that there is an unwritten law that has come down to us from a period "beyond which the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," and that is the law that the weakest "goes to the wall," and, like the edicts of the Medes and the Persians, it is immutable, unchangeable. It is a science of historical physics that the lesser force yields to the greater.
The Indians themselves acknowledged this rule of fate. When Poca- hontas went to England as the bride of Rolfe, her father, the great Powhatan, sent her brother-in-law, Tocomoco, with the party to count the people in Eng- land to enable him to estimate the relative strength of the white and the red men! Upon arriving in England, Tocomoco got a long stick and began to cut a notch for every man he met, but soon grew weary of the task and threw the stick away. When Tocomoco returned to America and reported to Powhatan, he told the Indian chieftain to "count the stars in the sky, the leaves on the trees and the sands on the sea shore, for such is the number of the people in England." While Powhatan may, from the report of Tocomoco,
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have seen the "handwriting on the wall," it is often difficult to apply theories to ourselves and to accept the inevitable.
While a few Indians have been Christianized, they were but isolated cases,-the exceptions and not the rule. When Pocahontas became a con- vert to the Christian faith and knelt at the fount and received holy baptism from the hands of Bishop Whittaker, much good in the missionary line was expected to follow; but the majority of the Indians are to-day, as they were then, heathens and savages, notwithstanding the efforts and money expended to convert them.
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