USA > Ohio > Allen County > A standard history of Allen county, Ohio : an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, educational, civic and social development > Part 56
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Samuel Lippincott who lies buried at Rockport died in Allen County September 16, 1836, after having been for some years a resident of the community. He was born August 29, 1759, in Shrewsburg Township, Monmouth County, New Jersey : at the age of twenty he enlisted in the Revolutionary service; after six months he was captured and he was held a prisoner seven months and seven days; it was one February night in 1780 that he was captured by five Tories and carried to Sandy Hook ; there is a private family marker at the grave. Mrs. James H. Sullivan established her membership in Lima Chapter Daughters of the Ameri- can Revolution through the name of Samuel Lippincott; the Lippin- cotts of Lima are of the same lineal descent.
An old account of the first burial plot in Allen County, now the site of the H. S. Moulton Lumber Company, written by Robert Bowers of Lima, says: "But still there is an old leaning slab there that marks the spot where Elijah Stites was buried March 6, 1843, his age being eighty-five years; he was a Revolutionary soldier and a color bearer at the surrender of Cornwallis, and afterwards a Baptist minister in Lima. I was orderly sergeant of a company called the Tigers at the time of his death, and helped to bury him with the honors of war. Gen. William Blackburn was out in full uniform." The above information appeared in a Lima Directory in 1879, but nothing could be learned at the Moul- ton Lumber yard about the "leaning slab" that marked the grave of a Revolutionary soldier. Diligent inquiry failed to gain any further knowledge of the Revolutionary soldier known to have been buried there.
When Peter Sunderland was buried in the military cemetery at Fort Amanda, it was in Allen County .. An old account says: "Peter Sunderland, a soldier of the Revolution, came to Allen County in 1820; he died in 1827, and was buried at the fort cemetery." On the grave- stone there is this inscription : "Peter Sunderland, a Revolutionary soldier, fought at Bunker Hill. He died August 1, 1827, aged 90 years," and on another marker: "Catharine, his wife, died September 1, 1831, aged 95 years." Mrs. Isabelle Sunderland Russell, mother of Susannah Russell Marshall, the daughter, of Allen County, was a daughter of Peter Sunderland and the Spencerville Sunderlands are of this line of Sunderlands. In 1917, when Earl Sunderland was leaving for overseas service in the World war, and Sunderland family picnic
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was held at Fort Amanda, July 13, just 100 years after the birth of Susannah Russell, he placed floral decorations on the grave of this Revolutionary ancestor-a most impressive thing. Peter Sunderland was the fourth son of Samuel Sunderland, who was the third son of John, the fourth Earl of Sunderland, and thus royalty lies buried in the Fort Amanda Military Cemetery, although it is understood that Peter Sunderland was born fourteen days after his parents arrived in the United States of America. Because it is in a military cemetery, more tourists visit this grave than any of the other Revolutionary shrines in Allen County.
While there is a sentiment toward some suitable memorial in addition to Memorial Hall, for the soldiers of all wars from Allen County, it has not yet assumed definite outline; the poet has said :
"On fame's eternal camping ground, their silent tents are spread ; And glory guards with solemn round, the bivouac of the dead."
and more attention should be given the Revolutionary shrines within the borders of Allen County. However, there has been a new interpreta- tion placed on the word patriotism; in the light of the world's needs, it is quite as patriotic to take up the hoe as the gun, and young men may perform just as valiant service in the corn field as on the field of battle; the plan of the Lima public square suggesting the palisade, carries the military idea; the official survey of the valuable acquisition to the United States Government through the Greenville treaty, was made by Capt. James W. Riley of General Wayne's command, who was also a soldier in the American Revolution, and along at the time when muster days were observed in Allen County, it was an admirable drill ground; it is so planned that the settlers could assemble and repel the attacks of the Indians, although no stockade was ever built about it.
THE SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND -- It is known that Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet, did not join with other Indians at the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, and while other Indians were at peace he began to commit various depredations ; in 1810, there were frequent calamities and an Indian war seemed imminent ; in 1811, Gen. William Henry Harri- son who was then governor of Indiana territory and stationed at Vin- cennes, at once marched against the town of the Prophet on the Wabash and the Battle of Tippecanoe ensued, and there were frequent contro- versies with the Indians until December 17 and 18, 1812, when the powerful Miami Confederacy was overthrown at the Battle of the Mississinewa in Indiana. There was never again an uprising of the Miamis.
In June, 1812, for the second time the United States declared war against Great Britain-the Mother Country. While war is a conflict of ideas, as yet there was no local population to have sides in the contro- versy. While there are graves of heroes in both the first and second wars with England on Allen County soil, Allen County had no part in those wars. Gen. Benjamin Logan who was a member of the first Ohio Constitutional Convention from eastern Ohio finally located in Shelby County, where he was afterward a member of the Ohio Assembly, was the earliest military character known in the "neck o' the woods" now designated as Allen County. It seems that one McKee was the British-Indian agent, and when General Logan was superintending the removal of some hogs northward from Shelby County, he was attacked by the Indians at a stream and the hogs were never coralled again; the Indians afterward called the stream Koshko Sepe, which was later
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Americanized as Hog Creek and sacred to the memory of Count Coffin- berry as Swinonia. . General Logan, however, was always a terror to the Indians.
When the second war with England waged most furiously the prin- cipal theater of action in this vicinity was at Fort Amanda. Wayne's Trace in that vicinity rendered the point accessible to the necessary forced military marches through the wilderness combating the ambush methods of the Indians, and the inception of a garrison there was when Col. Thomas Poague was ordered to clear the timber and make a wagon road connecting St. Mary's and Fort Defiance; it was on his way back from Fort Defiance that Colonel Poague erected the stockade which he named in honor of his wife-Amanda Poague. The construction of Fort Amanda has already been described, and since the records of the garrison afterward fell into the hands of the British who destroyed them, the names of those who sleep in the military cemetery there will never be known to the world. While their names should be inscribed on tablets, and would doubtless have been placed on the monument unveiled there, July 5, 1915, they will answer Gabriel's call as nameless heroes as far as local records are concerned; while the old books say there are seventy-five of those graves, there are about forty government markers there bearing the inscription: "U. S. Soldier War of 1812," and they sleep the sleep eternal with the secrets of their lives buried with them.
While it is known there was never any military engagement at Fort Amanada, it was a rendezvous for officers, and soldiers exposed to long marches recuperated and some died there; in 1813, the hospital at . Fort Amanada was filled with the sick and wounded from the battles along the Maumee. The translation of the Indian name Tecumseh : "One who passes across intervening space from one point to another," does not soften the horror of young men giving their lives, and losing their identity in this wilderness struggle. Jonathan Meigs, Jr., was then governor of Ohio, and with his military training he was a strong execu- tive; he lost no time in mobilizing the Ohio regiments, and the best young men in the country joined the militia; some of them are num- bered among the silent sleepers at Fort Amanda. Gen. William Henry Harrison who was in charge of all military forces was sarcastic in deal- ing with those who were disheartened, telling them their folks at home would be ashamed of them-that their fathers would order them back, and that their mothers and sisters would hiss at them should they desert the army, and thus he moved them into action and Allen County soil became their burial spot ; while none were killed in battle, they had time to ruminate while wasting with disease, and the "thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts," under happier conditions than facing death in a wilderness hospital.
When the monument at Fort Amanda was unveiled, Governor Frank B. Willis penned these lines: "The name 'Fort Amanda' recalls the brave days of old when in frontier cabin at the midnight hour, the little family was wakened to battle for its life with a savage foe; out on the fringe of civilization the hardy pioneers struggled to protect their wives and children, and in so doing fought the battle of an advancing civiliza- tion ; they conquered the wilderness and made it bud and blossom as a rose; where once the forest frowned on the glaring council fires of the Red Man, the frontiersman built his humble home; he cleared a space for his garden, and later for his corn field and his orchard; he blazed the way for civilization. Smiling fields and busy cities now occupy the land for which he toiled and fought; the frontiersman's cabin has moul- dered into dust, but the memory of his heroic deeds lives on forever;
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it is fitting that this generation should show proper reverence and respect by erecting memorials like this: 'The world will. little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here'," and while it is now in Auglaize County the fact is not to be forgotten that prior to 1848, Fort Amanda was in Allen County. The later occu- pation of Fort Amanda by settlers has already been related in an earlier chapter in the Allen County History.
MUSTER DAY IN LIMA-In 1792-quite early in the history of the republic, the United States Congress established militias in the different states ; all able-bodied white men between the ages of eighteen and forty- five were required to report for service, and later the word white was stricken out and all male citizens were required to report for military instructions ; the system continued in force until after the Civil war, and every county was thus the home of a regiment; the boy must put on a military cap and sumbit to discipline; the incorrigible submitted to dis- cipline the same as the patriotic citizen ; the muster law must have had its influence in the community ; mention has already been made of how well the Lima public square was adapted to muster day requirements; the state furnished but little equipment, and Allen County men and boys improvised arms for the occasion: they sometimes used corn stalks when going through with the manual of arms.
In the early history of Allen County, muster days in Lima rivalled the Fourth of July celebrations; since Allentown was the home of Gen. William Blackburn who was in command of the Northwestern Ohio Division, and Brigadier General William Armstrong of Lima was in command of the Allen County Brigade, muster day in Lima meant more than in some other Ohio counties. While General Blackburn came to Lima from Wapokeneta as receiver for the United States land office, he had served in the Ohio Assembly from Columbiana County; the land office was removed from Wapokeneta to Lima May 31, 1843, and from that time he was a resident of Allen County; there were always two muster days in the year, and he became the best known man in Allen County ; he was given to pomp and ceremony, and with his plume and spurs he would sit on a horse like a cavalier of old; he was as hand- some a soldier as ever mounted a charger. When General Blackburn headed the procession in Lima and was followed by a military band he was the center of attention from all.
General Blackburn had one horse called Tam O'Shanter that was a single-footer with a tremendous stride, and this horse seemed to share in all the enthusiasm of the drill; the military musters suited both the man and the horse; the horse was a chestnut sorrel, and with a rider weighing 300 pounds it was a spectacular occasion when General Black- burn came riding by; he was the man who put Allentown on the map of Allen County ; while he was a military character local histories are silent about his engagement in any battles; he had once been stationed at Fort Meigs; he appeared in military uniform at the funeral of the Revolutionary soldier, Elijah Stites; he died in 1858, and was buried with military honors in what is now an abandoned cemetery in Lima; it is with muster day rather than with any special war that the name of General Blackburn is associated; a daughter, Adeline Blackburn, sur- vives him; the Blackburn house built in 1850 in Allentown, was long a social center. "One night in 1904 there was a light against the sky and the Blackburn mansion was soon in ashes; the seasoned black walnut finish in it would command a fortune today."
Because of his unusual weight, General Blackburn never marched in the muster day procession, but always used Tam O'Shanter in lead-
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ing the parade; following him were the Knittles, Herrings, Coons, Ride- nours, Sunderlands, Ehrmans, Sawmillers, Stemens and sharing the military honors always was Gen. William Armstrong astride another sorrel horse called Sheriff, that was a show horse along with Tam O'Shanter. Is the military instinct extinct even though muster day is no longer observed in Allen County? The poems: Sheridan's Ride and The Charge of the Light Brigade keep alive the military spirit. and an eye-witness thus describes General Armstrong on muster day: "He was panoplied in all of the pomp and circumstances of glorious war; his chapeau was double the ordinary size; he had the largest feather from the largest ostrich, with mounted belt and flaming sash ; his gold epaulets were the size of saddle bags, and his sword was made for car- nage ; although his age excluded him from the service, General Arm- strong mustered in a local company for the Civil war," and it is said that
GOVERNORS FERRIS OF MICHIGAN AND WILLIS OF OHIO, WITH A BOUNDARY STONE BETWEEN THEM
he keenly felt the disappointment; when his son, the gallant Mart Arm- strong, was killed, April 6, 1862, at the Battle of Shiloh, his military zeal prompted him to take the place made vacant in the ranks; he went after the body and brought it back to Lima for burial. General Black- burn died before the Civil war. While he lived he always went for a short sojourn at Fort Amanda every fall, and those in camp with him said that Tam O' Shanter always had to be blindfolded when the general mounted him; then he would say to the boys: "Let him go," and "those were the days of real sport" in Allen County.
OHIO-MICHIGAN DIFFICULTY-The Toledo war in 1835 had to do with the Ohio-Michigan boundary dispute, and when both states assem- bled their troops on the boundary, Allen County was represented there, although no bloodshed resulted; before the formal opening of hostili- ties as is related in an earlier chapter, peace commissioners arrived and there were concessions from both commonwealths; while Ohio gained the portage at Toledo, it relinquished all claim to the mineral countries in northern Michigan, now asking for separate statehood from the
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southern Peninsula in Michigan; what Ohio wanted was lake frontage on Lake Michigan; in 1836, Congress decided the matter in favor of Ohio; the Fulton boundary and the Harris boundary had each been surveyed, and a row of townships across the northern part of Ohio were once in Michigan; recently stone markers were placed on the south- ern line of the disputed territory, and the Ohio and Michigan gover- nors again shook hands in settlement of the difficulty; on one side the marker is the word Ohio and on the other Michigan, and travelers appreciate them.
There is also some mention of a Reservoir war in Mercer County that involved citizens of Allen County. The records do not say much about Allen County in the Mexican war ; the Toledo and Reservoir wars were bloodless, and with but sparse population there was little repre- sentation in the war with Mexico. While the Lima Chapter Daughters of the American Revolution establishes relationship with Revolutionary soldiers, and there are local members of the Sons of the American Revo-
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lution in other cities, there are Allen County families who trace their lineage from soldiers of the War of 1812, although perhaps none of their ancestry lie buried at Fort Amanda. When the Civil war came on there was a denser population, and it touched many households in Allen County; within sixty hours after the attack on Fort Sumter it had a company of soldiers en route, and the schoolhouses and churches at every crossroads were bulwarks of good citizenship; the Civil war was a clash over states sovereignty and the slavery question. There was a clash of autocracy and democracy that long ago.
CIVIL WAR IN ALLEN COUNTY-War is resultant from conflicting ideas; there were mutterings and evidences of internal strife; the question of human slavery convulsed the whole country. Legislative compromises were no longer effective, and when in the presidential campaign of 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected it looked like aboli- tion of slavery would be the next thing confronting the people of the United States. The greatest problems of the ages have all been solved on the field of battle; war has been the solution, and bloodshed has paved the way for many things; it seems that the events of the ages
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are not mere occurrences ; they are parts of God's eternal plans, and the lessons of the centuries have been written in blood. In the Civil war the Allen County soldiers wrote their chapter in United States history along with the rest of the country.
It was on a bright Sunday morning, April 12, 1861, when Lima folk were in church; the harbingers of spring had arrived; the weather was warm and the windows were open; the sound: "Fort Sumter is fired upon," was heard in the street. Dr. Edwin Ashton was in his office, and soon an American flag was hanging from a wire stretched between Ashton Hall and the Allen County courthouse, and waving over Market Street; it was in the days of the second Allen County courthouse on the site of the Cincinnati Block. When the church serv- ices ended, and the people saw the stars and stripes floating on the air, they congregated in front of the courthouse; there they heard the story of the attack on Fort Sumter. The stars and stripes wafted the mes- sage to all. A store box platform was hastily improvised, and the Pres- byterian minister, Rev. T. P. Johnson, waxed eloquent in his appeal for patriotism; Martin Armstrong was the second speaker, and he stirred the hearts of all to patriotism; under the command of Capt. M. H. Nichols men were then and there ready for service; a printer from The Gazette named Charles N. Moyer was the first volunteer; on April 16 he went to Columbus and on April 19 the first company of Lima volunteers was in readiness ; it numbered ninety-two men rank and file, and April 22, it was inducted into the service.
In this first Lima volunteer company, the officers were: M. H. Nichols, captain ; C. M. Hughes, lieutenant ; T. J. Hustler, second lieu- tenant ; J. A. Anderson, sergeant; J. N. Cunningham, second sergeant ; William Bradley, third sergeant; W. H. Ward, fourth sergeant, and the corporals were: C. C. Oldfield, Milton Titus, J. B. Davison and Sam- uel McClure. It was the first time Allen County had been called upon to witness the men of the community march away to war; it was only the beginning. Camp Lima where the soldiers drilled for service was on the Shawnee road across the Ottawa River; in 1898, Allen County soldiers went to Camp Bushnell for training, and in the World war they went to the various training camps about the country. Seeing that first volunteer group of soldiers march away in 1861 did not make Allen County folk any better prepared to see subsequent groups of sons and brothers quitting their homes for the fortunes of war.
It was the first time a company had been recruited in Allen County and quick work was made of it; one account says Allen County had 776 soldiers in the Civil war, while another says the official report, October 1, 1863, accredits 1,200 men to the army and navy from Allen County ; few Ohio counties having a like number of inhabitants surpassed it, either in number or quality of its private soldiers. None of them would brook disloyalty, and traitors were made to salute the flag-a sentiment that has been handed down to their posterity; there is nothing Turkish about Uncle Sam's American Eagle-the Bird of Freedom, and when he ruffled his feathers and spread his wings-well, "Thereby Hangs a Tale." While President Lincoln faced an unprecedented crisis in Amer- ican history, and the people were in uncertainty and doubt, he did not at once interfere with human slavery. While the new-born republican party had not taken a direct stand against the slavery question, its lead- ers were among the avowed opponents of that institution, and when the President declared that the country could not cxist half free and half slave, there was response from Allen County; local citizens realized when the slave-holding states began passing secession ordinances, South
CAMP LIMA-CIVIL WAR
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Carolina first of all, that it was necessary for the President to take some decisive action.
When President Lincoln first called on his countrymen to avenge the insult to the American flag at Fort Sumter, there was a quick transfor- mation from peace to a state of war-the memory of it seems like a passing dream-but everywhere there were spontaneous meetings, and the latent fires of patriotism were soon aflame, were soon fanned into glowing heat, and there had been no parallel in history to the rush to arms at the country's call-when Grant, Sherman and Sheridan led the way, and as one of the "military group of counties," Allen acquitted itself with honor. Col. William H. Hill and Daniel S. Van Pelt were active citizens in recruiting for the war, and in the annals of the Welsh community by D. D. Nicholas is the statement that the Welsh were among the first to shoulder the musket in Allen County, and what is said of them applies to all : "They braved the rain of shot and shell on many hotly contested fields of strife; they endured long and tedious marches under the parching sun and through snow, rain and mud with scanty supply of rations often, and many times having nothing to eat; many never returned, and they sleep the sleep that knows not waking in national cemeteries at Nashville, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Andersonville, etc., and some are in unknown graves on hillsides and in valleys where no one marks the spot-no loving hands to place flowers on lowly mounds, the final resting places of many Allen County soldiers." There are more than seventy graves of Welsh soldiers in Pike Run Cemetery, and there is an Allen County plot in Woodlawn where Civil war soldiers lie buried-a sacred spot for those unclaimed by relatives.
The Home Guards organized April 23, 1861, was in response to Lincoln's call and in almost every Ohio command in the Civil war there were representatives of Allen County. "While not a sparrow falleth, but its God doth know," and "while the hairs of their heads are num- bered," the same condition has existed in subsequent wars; and Allen County regiments have numbered many soldiers from other counties, and from other states; in 1898, other young men temporarily employed in Lima enlisted here, and never lived in Allen County again; the same thing was true again on April 6, 1917, when war was declared against Germany; young men stopping then in Allen County enlisted, and Allen County young men sojourning in other places did the same thing; just now and then one asked to be counted from the home county; in the Civil war there were many soldiers in the United States army and navy of whom no record exists at all ; the same thing is true in the subsequent wars.
"Times that tried men's souls," is a stock expression carried over from the Civil war, and later generations have experienced similar conditions ; what General Sherman said about war has been demonstrated in the lives of Allen County citizens recently. Sometimes conditions are insurmountable; the South accepted Lincoln's election as a menace, and the doctrine of States' Rights as paramount to national control was openly advocated by John C. Calhoun; it was on December 20, 1860, that South Carolina took the initiative in passing a secession ordinance, other states following in quick succession and autonomy was the rule until 1861, when a peace commission met in Baltimore with the far- reaching purpose of safeguarding the Union, but Jefferson Davis was chosen President of the Confederacy, and decisive action was necessary.
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