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 69
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They were afraid and they were hungry ; they were soaking wet when morning dawned; without much attention to toilet, they moved on again ; they heard the voice of a man, but they could not see him; they went toward the voice, and when they came to the Bucyrus and Delphos trails they were soon overtaken by three members of the searching party, Godfrey and Henry Chamberlain and Rufus Kearns. They placed the older children on a horse and carried them along, but the baby was so exhausted they left it at the home of David R. Jones nearby, where they found it, until it was nursed back to strength again. The children had heard the voice of Wesley Riley, who was driving a yoke of oxen hauling wood. While it was a welcome sound to them, he did not realize what cheer he was giving them. When the parents were unable to locate their lost children they organized a searching party at once, but the three little ones had an all night experience in the woods. When they were found there were blasts from all the dinner horns in the community. Men and women were still searching for them. It was a time of rejoicing in the frontier community. Evan Jones was later a well known citizen of Del- phos and a Civil war soldier. Elizabeth became Mrs. J. R. Williams of Lima, and Mary married and lived in Cincinnati.
When is a Boy Scout not a Boy Scout? While there have been Boy Scouts for years in Allen county, the Lima Council Boy Scouts of America was organized January 1, 1920, with R. L. Stalsmith scout executive. While it was financed for one year by the Lime Rotary Club, it was included in the community budget at the time of the Christmas drive. In war time there were seven separate Allen County troops, and since the war there are three outside of Lima, and the plan is to affiliate them. The Rotary Club came to the rescue of the Lima Council and it reorganized with fifty-five members, soon increasing to more than 200, and the adolescent period is when the boy needs careful guidance at the hand of an older brother. There is no effort to teach religion or politics ; it is citizenship that is instilled into the mind and heart of the boy. When he is older he settles such questions for himself. There are Boy Scout Councils in Delphos, Spencerville and Gomer who report directly to headquarters in New York, and it is hoped they will affiliate with Lime Council. The motto of the Boy Scouts : "Be prepared," is a good one, and first aid is a thing they study. There are twelve laws controlling
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the organization, and leading the boys into a splendid manhood. They are : A scout is trustworthy ; a scout is loyal ; a scout is helpful; a scout is friendly ; a scout is courteous ; a scout is kind; a scout is obedient ; a scout is cheerful ; a scout is thrifty ; a scout is brave ; a scout is clean, and a scout is reverent. Boy Scouts are taught scoutcraft, woodcraft and campcrafts of all kinds, and they stand committed to do some one a kindness each day. The Boy Scouts of America is a corporation founded by a group of men who are anxious that boys should be built up in all that goes to make character and good citizenship.
The following reminiscence is contributed: Away back in the '70s, when U. S. Grant was President, Col. C. N. Lamison of Lima was representative in Congress from the old Fifth Ohio District. It was during his term that a large increase in salary was passed, giving the President and each member of Congress an increase in pay. This aroused a great deal of indignation among the people, and it was known as the "salary grab." It was condemned in the newspapers, and by resolu- tions in all of the political gatherings that year. Some time during the following summer, there was held in Wapakoneta a District Democratic convention for the purpose of nominating a candidate for common pleas judge. The usual committees were appointed, and among them was a committee on resolutions of which Col. William Sawyer, living in St. Marys, was made the chairman.
Colonel Sawyer had served as Congressman from this district in an early day. He was a very economical man and believed in cutting down expenses. One day while discharging his duties in the House of Repre- sentatives, when the noon hour came he produced a lunch, spread it on his desk and proceeded to the "main question." As part of his lunch there was a fine length of sausage. A newspaper correspondent of one of the leading dailies saw the layout, and the next day his paper gave a long and amusing account of how the country member from the hoop- pole district of Ohio, who lived on hog and hominy when at home, had brought with him to Washington the necessary sausage to make him a lunch every day in order to save expenses. The story went all over the country, and from that time on the colonel was known as "Sausage Sawyer."
In due time the committee on resolutions, appointed by the Wapa- koneta convention reported to its chairman, Colonel Sawyer, and in scathing terms denounced the "salary grab," and the member from the Fifth Ohio District who voted for it, and took the increase allowed him. The chairman of the committee had hardly concluded when Colonel Lamison was on his feet, demanding recognition and getting it. Colonel Lamison was a very eloquent man and being thus challenged, he was at his best with a voice that filled every corner of the court room, making a splendid defense; in the closing of one of his orotund periods, he exclaimed : "What shall I do?" At the top of his voice, Colonel Sawyer answered: "Resign." Colonel Lamison paused for a moment, looked "Sausage Sawyer" squarely in the eye, took a couple of steps forward, and then said: "Resign! be d-d; I'd see you in h- first," but the eloquence of Colonel Lamison, although highly enjoyed by the delegates, availed little, as the resolutions went through with a whoop that made the walls ring. These two old time colonels, notwithstanding all this. were always the best of friends, and each was always a power for good in his own community. .
While the following story is similar to material used in the chapter on Allen County Highways, it is printed again by request. It is from the pen of Horace S. Knapp, historian of the Maumee Valley, and in
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the '70s it appeared in The Delphos Herald. The writer had been in Columbus on business. He returned home through Allen County to Kalida in Putnam County, taking his family with him from Kalida to Defiance. A rain occurred in June of that year, 1842, flooding all the water channels of Northwestern Ohio. At the date above mentioned no one except him who was at the time living here, and had been "to the manner born," could comprehend the difficulties of transportation. To say the truth, there were no roads. Some roadways had been under- brushed, but the tall timbers, the old monarchs of the forest, stood their ground and defied the woodman's ax. Neither were there any bridges over the rivers.
The mode of travel was either on foot, on horseback or by pirogue, the latter being the popular water craft of the few inhabitants dwelling upon the Maumee and its tributaries. This rain promised more than abundance, and it precipitated my departure from Kalida. Hastily gathering up my wife and child, my umbrella and some other things we were soon on our way, conveyed by a horse before a buggy. That was the only buggy of the country, and the property of a dear friend, Winch- ton Riley, whose name, next to those of my own wife and kindred, will ever be green in my memory. We struck the Auglaize just below Sam Myers' dam. (The reader will understand I do not use the word "dam" in a profane sense.) We got over, under or through somehow, but nar- rowly escaped drowning. We finally, amid much tribulation, reached the point where Blanchard's Fork mingles its waters with the Auglaize, and here, by reason of our immersion in the streams, and the rapidly increasing volume of water, and the sorry plight of my wife and infant, we halted at the house of Peter Myers over night.
When the next dismal morning hour greeted my vision, it became evident that with our conveyance I could neither advance nor retreat. I was surrounded by water. I did not like the thought of surrender. I never did, in fact, surrender. Rev. John Tussing resided then a short distance below the place where we had remained over night, and being a friend I applied to him in the morning to devise some means of relief. This gentleman was and now is a Baptist of the ancient regime, formerly known as "Hard Shell." He was even, to use his own expression, a "regular water fowl." In early life my good friend became ordained as a minister. I never enjoyed much conversation with Mr. Tussing upon doctrinal points, but if I remember rightly he once said baptism succeeded circumcision, and that he believed in baptism all over. My friend sug- gested the only rational expedient for our relief was to obtain a pirogue, but after a diligent search up and down the river none were to be found. The joint inventive genius of Tussing and myself here came in, and finally suggested the construction of a raft. So selecting a dead tree near the bank, we soon brought it down, cut it into convenient lengths, lashed the sections together, and launched it upon the angry flood, Tussing following in after it.
But we soon discovered that the raft would not float the required tonnage the total of which would be made up of my precious wife, our dear baby, their baggage, which consisted of a trunk, a carpet bag or two, Captain Tussing in command and myself as mate. So the craft with difficulty was moored in a sort of eddy or bayou, and the captain's fences were robbed of several cords of rails which, before the commence- ment of that protracted rainy season, might have been denominated "dry rails." This timber was adjusted underneath the raft to aid in buoying it up. Then brush was cut and placed on deck, and on this was deposited the baggage and seated upon it was all the wealth I then possessed in
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the world, my wife and child. Thus arranged we floated out into the broad current of the Auglaize, and drifted on our downward way.
We had not been out from shore to exceed half an hour before I discovered the fact that must have been equally apparent to my wife and Mr. Tussing, that our treacherous bark, the main support consisting of wood with the shell dry, but the heart would absorb water like a sponge, and that it was rapidly sinking. The wretched craft in a brief space had become so water logged that the seat occupied by my wife was already half submerged, and the water extended above her feet. She, however, had as brave a heart as anyone on board and although the greatest suf- ferer, and fully comprehending the peril, uttered no word of complaint. I had no doubt of our ability at the most critical juncture to reach one of the shores, but in my eagerness to get forward I closed my eyes to all danger and continued on, but at a moment when I had concluded to make for land while there was yet time, we discovered ahead and crossing the broad river a pirogue in which was seated the young man who in those days carried the weekly mail on horseback between Sidney and Defiance, when the condition of the country would permit him to do so. His name was John Crossley and he was well known to Tussing and myself. We hailed him, and I rather imperiously demanded that he come alongside, which demand he obeyed. I said to him: "John, we must have your pirogue to take these passengers and cargo to Defiance. This sorry craft you discover is sinking very rapidly, and you cannot afford to be guilty of the responsibility of allowing my dear wife and baby to be drowned," and the appeal was effective.
"I reckon not," replied the good Crossley. "I rather suppose not," and so the passengers and their baggage and the gallant crew were transferred to the pirogue, and John was landed on the west shore of the river, and the relieved party were not quite so rapidly on their down- ward way, as they had been a few minutes before. Within fifteen minutes after we had parted from the doomed craft we witnessed its disappearance below the surface of the river. Reaching Charloe, then the seat of justice of Paulding County, we disembarked for the night, where my wife, saturated, chilled and exhausted, toiled until near midnight before a fire to arrange from her damaged baggage proper raiment for herself and child. In the morning, amid continued rain, the volume of the Auglaize or Grand Glaize, as General Wayne, in his dispatches in 1794, wrote it, had largely increased, presenting more the appearance of an inland sea than a river, where the "Junction" became established after the Miami Extension Canal was made. The Wabash and Erie Canal running from Maumee Bay westward to the Indiana line was opened, but no packet lines had at this time been established. Here I concluded to abandon the pirogue and complete our journey to Defiance by canal route.
The distance as I recall it from where our craft was moored to the "Junction," was about one mile. How to overcome this mile now became an object of deep solicitude. My faithful friend Tussing tried to secure a team by which my wife and baby might be transported, but at that time there was not a horse, an ox or a wagon in the region. He returned, however, accompanied by two or three stalwart men who gen- erously proffered their aid in our dire extremity. This intervening space between the Auglaize River and the canal bank was covered by woods, and except the ground occupied by the trees with water from three to eighteen inches in depth. My wife, declining all assistance to carry her resolved to wade through as she did, myself carrying in my arms our baby. Reaching the junction, finally we obtained shelter in
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one of the three or four log cabins located there, and here was my young wife, not a dry shred upon her person, tenderly reared, of a delicate frame and in this plight! I have often wished in recurring to this scene that she had evinced a tone of fretfulness, made complaint, scolded or something of that sort. It would have been a positive relief to me, but no word but what was gentle passed her lips. After a while a boat, a line boat, came along and we made the distance eight or nine miles to Defiance.
It is really a marvel to myself now, when I recall the events that that trip did not speedily terminate the existence of my wife and child. During several weeks, however, at C. J. Freedy's hotel after our arrival at Defiance, she required the best skill and attention of Dr. Jonas Colby. Years have passed and though misfortune has sorely tried her, and made sad changes externally upon the girl wife since the matters occurred, the heart brave and pure and true as of old has never become fossilized, and I am quite sure will ever beat until its last pulsation in sympathy with husband, children and friends.
William Rusler appends the following note concerning the man who assisted the Knapp family in their journey by water down the Auglaize river. The Rev. John Tussing, who so ably assisted Mr. Knapp, shortly afterward removed to Perry Township, and he became one of the pioneer citizens of Allen County. He reared a large family, who are now among our foremost citizens, some of whom professionally rank with the very best. The name Tussing appears in the annals of Perry Township.
CHAPTER L YESTERDAY AND TODAY IN ALLEN COUNTY
As men and women grow older they always multiply their yesterdays. When they begin living in the past, it is an unfailing index that their todays mean less to them than their yesterdays. It is true that the people of yesterday in Allen County discussed the weather, and their prospects for crops about as readily as men and women today "rake over" such things, never failing to give attention to the needs of the poor among them, but again: 'The shadow moveth over the dial plate of time," and the personnel of the community is different today. The pioneer gentleman in full dress was a handsome picture, saying nothing about society in Allen County today.
An old account says : "Then as now the follies and foibles of woman- kind were themes of never dying interest, and the bustle and hoop- skirt ( farthingale) were alternately laughed at and frowned against. The first hoopskirt hung up for an advertisement in a Lima store window was taken to be a squirrel trap," and the men and women of today who see them are unable to recognize-women sometimes intuitively guess, and there are amusing comparisons. The women of 1920 could not wear the hoopskirt with the scant dress skirts. There is just one rule for the length of a skirt, and that applies to sermons-must be long enough to cover the subject, but the men of Allen County all declare they are not slaves of fashion. They do not wear furs in summer and lace in winter. In the present generation there are no knee breeches and high collars, and few men who attract more than passing attention because of any garments worn by them. The costumes worn by women excite a great deal of comment in every community. The woman with a long skirt also attracts attention-different from the others.
The reason there are more observations in this chapter belonging to rural rather than urban life is because when home made devices were in general use, the most of the population lived in the country. There have not always been more people in Lima than in the country. At one time the production was more than the consumption, and cheap prices prevailed in the community. By and by the trend to the city changed the industrial situation, and people paid more for their food products. Everybody raising corn, nobody buys it.
"Some of us have been here a long time, stranger, and we have wit- nessed many changes," said a venerable looking old gentleman. To him the yesterday and today in Allen County show great strides in human progress. Yesterday the simple life lulled all into peaceful anticipation, while today the world is one vast whispering gallery with international problems confronting it. Today the sons of yesterday must meet and master the difficulties as they present themselves. The Methuselahs in every community unite in asserting things that seem improbable today. They used to take their guns and shoot squirrels in the woods covering the sites of the populous centers-witness the story of Daniel Musser, who killed a deer in the streets of Lima, and the evolution in industrial conditions is a problem in economics seemingly beyond solution. Time was when there was a factory before every hearthstone, the father making the shoes and the mother weaving and making the garments.
An old account says the pioneers furnished the leather and the linen shoe thread, while the shoemakers furnished the pegs and the lasts,
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but where would the family find the leather today? The wild animals are gone from the Allen County forest-they went with the forest. While they may not have been exactly foot-form shoes, they were always durable. It required skill to make the last, and when youngsters see it they understand something about the ingenuity of the family shoemaker of the long ago. While thick soles are humane and sensible, those addicted to the flexible, hand-turned soles of today would not wear them. The man or woman who stands on hard wood or concrete floor all day knows the advantages of the thick-soled shoe. The brogan shoe is never comfortable to one who has worn the hand-turned variety ..
Yesterday the saw mill was here and the grist mill was there, and both are almost unknown today. The portable saw mill serves the imme- diate requirement, and they grind feed in many places. They grind it themselves. Who knows the story of the mill boy with the corn in one end and a stone in the other end of the bag to balance it on the horse? What has become of the sway-backed beast astride of which the boy went to the mill with the bag of grain? What has become of the horse that raised the family? What has become of the mill boy himself? The footfall of the ages answers the question. The stories of today differ from the stories of yesterday. Automobiles, airplanes, ditching machines, cash registers, the moving picture show. Who says: "Backward, turn backward, oh time, in your flight?" Most people would like to be children again, but would they want a repetition of their own childhood conditions ?
There was an era when the young men of Allen County thought they were dressed up to the last minute, if they wore a bright colored double breasted vest with the handle of a tooth brush sticking out of one pocket, and a gold tooth pick in the other. They were all supposed to wear long trousers, and if they happened to be too short, as was often the case, somebody said "high water" about them. Long stemmed cake stands were in use then, and everybody had his own napkin ring. Every young man had a drinking cup inscribed : "For a good boy." All were taught :
"Early to bed and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,"
although it is understood today that one following that advice would seldom meet any of the social leaders. When the settlers went out in the evening they carried torches to light their way home again. The automobile headlight lights the way for those who ride, and the electric light has changed the conditions for the pedestrian. There were trails blazed through the woods, but now elaborate signs mark the highways and the stranger is never uncertain about his course in passing through Allen County. Just note the procession-buggies, carriages, automobiles, and then lift the curtain to witness the ox team and the jolt wagon of other days. Those who "cooned" the fences, and stepped from log to log half a century ago when there was a "Black Swamp" in Allen County would not recognize themselves or the country under changed conditions. While some had vision they would be surprised at every step along the wayside today.
The Allen County settlers all knew the process of pounding corn on a stone or in a mortar, and those who know the story of the hearth loaves-the bread the grandmothers baked before the fire-unite in declaring that nothing better has supplanted them under present day conditions of civilization. They would be content with a half loaf today if they were just as certain of the quality. While the men and women of
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the past made the most of the opportunity afforded by their day and generation, and the viands prepared by the loving hands of the grand- mothers were of excellent quality, what would they accomplish under present day environment ? Would those men and women be able to adapt themselves to the changed conditions? Does not education enter into it? Would the men and women of today be able to cope with their difficulties ? What about the affairs of yesterday as compared with human relations today ?
In the formative days of Allen County history the average family had a box stove that would burn a four-foot stick of wood or a fireplace that would accommodate a back log, and a forestick of indeterminate length. The people who knew what it meant to burn one side and freeze the other, also knew what it meant to have burned leather in drying their feet before the fire, and they knew what it meant for amber tobacco spittle, to "sizzle" on the side of the stick of wood. The furnace heat of today, the register or the radiator, would have alarmed them. They were used to open fires and roaring chimneys. The bath room was an unknown quantity to them. The methods of agriculture would dumbfound them. The cattle on the Allen County pastures would remind them of the Bible narrative. While the tractor is in use, the horse is still a domestic animal, and there are flocks and herds the settler would little suspect were he to come this way again.
While the corn pone of the past would be consumed with relish by the men and women of today, there are among them some who tired of substitutes and the bread made from corn as a war measure recently. Unfortunately the corn was of an inferior quality just when this measure was incumbent, and only as a patriotic duty did some Allen County people use it at all. How would they have survived the log cabin period in local history? Only yesterday you sat down to a meal table de hote, and your chair was manipulated for you by an attendant. The napery was spread across your expanse of shirt front, and everything suggested the tip which was the universal custom. Today you run the gauntlet at a cafeteria, and if your money holds out you secure a meal, prepare your own table and "tip" yourself if pleased with the service. While the set- tler once went to the woods with his gun and thus provided the meat for his dinner table, the citizen of today depends upon Armour and Swift for sugar cured hams and bacon, or if he has a smoke house there is usually a lock and key for it. No, the settler did not steal the meat. He only held the smoke house door open while the dog carried it out for him.
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