USA > Ohio > Fulton County > A standard history of Fulton County, Ohio, an authentic narrative of the past, with an extended survey of modern developments in the progress of town and county, Vol. I > Part 23
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58
The first election was held in the home of John Losure, Sry, and fifteen votes were cast, resulting in the election of officers as follows: Elisha Williams, justice of the peace; Thomas Bayes and Jonathan Barnes, trustees; and William Jones, Sr., elerk. Life in the wilderness was necessarily of the Spartan order, with mueh privation, and com- parative isolation. Still, the settlers were, withal, happy. Rufus Briggs wrote: "There has been a good deal written on the hardships and privations of the early pioneers. There were a great many pleasures and enjoyments. At log house and barn raisings, logging bees, husking bees, when a new pioneer arrived, every one was ready and willing to lend a helping hand. The young people also had their enjoyments, such as coon hunting, spelling schools, and sometimes a dance; and for the music an old squeaky fiddle was the only fiddle used."
Of the subsequent activities of some of those pioneers of Clinton Township not much information is available. The Williams family, as a whole, has a creditable record, having cleared much of the aereage of Clinton and York Townships. John H. Williams, son of Elisha, bought from Henry Leist, in 1842, a tract of eighty acres of timber land, about two miles east of Wauseon. Not a foot had been cleared, and he cleared it, and lived his whole life upon it, the farm remaining in the family for seventy-six years, during which it had never been encumbered by mortgage. John II. Williams paid $215 for the land, which, when sold recently to H. R. Bonnell, realized more than $12,000. Elisha Williams became a prominent man of the township; Jerry Williams was one of the township's prosperous farmers and raised a worthy family, ineluding Judge Ed. E. Williams, who died in 1913, and was for two terms probate judge of Fulton county; and Captain William F. Williams, who died in September, 1914, was during his last years an honored member of Losure Post, No. 35, of the G. A. R. He had to his credit a worthy Civil War record, as a commissioned officer of the Sixty-Eighth Ohio Volunteer Infantry from 1861 until the end of the war. Just prior to his death, he was elected president of the Fulton County Pioneer and Historical Society.
195
HISTORY OF FULTON COUNTY
Elisha Huntington cleared a substantial acreage, and was an active citizen. One of his sons, William R., was later prominent in York Township. He was postmaster in Delta in 1887 and met a tragic death during the Fourth of July celebrations of that year. A sham battle was in process in the main street of Delta, the opposing forces, Confederate and Union, of course using blank cartridges. But a bullet struck Postmaster Huntington, as he stood near the post-office, viewing the encounter. He died within an hour.
Avery Lamb, who brought his family into Clinton Township, in June of 1836, and with them settled in section 24, upon which he had previously erected a cabin (in the previous winter, stated Mikesell) lived a long life in the township. His end' came suddenly, in April, 1874. He "dropped dead, while on the cars, at Broadwood Station, Illinois, about fifty miles west of Chicago." His remains were brought back to Wauseon, "in a beautiful casket and appropriate burial apparel" furnished by the Masonic fraternity. He was a charter mem- ber of the Wauseon Lodge, and had been interestedly active in much of the communal affairs of Wauseon and the township. He left a large family. His daughter Permelia, who was scarcely three years old when the family came to live in the wilderness, became the wife of Wauseon's pioneer doctor, Dr. D. W. Hollister, and she and her husband took up their abode in Wauseon as soon as its settlement began. She died in October, 1909, of typhoid fever. Her sister, Lucy, born in Clinton Township on June 11, 1837, and probably the third child to be born in the settlement, "developed a very social and genial disposition, and all her ways and manner were exemplary. She was the reigning belle in the community" averred Rufus Briggs. She married Harvey J. Eager, in 1866, and thereafter, until his death in 1898, lived in Wauseon. For some time afterwards she lived with her son in California and Washington. She was in San Francisco at the time of the great earthquake. She however died in Wauseon, where she was loved and fondly known as "Aunt Lucy Eager." Another daughter, Helen M., born in 1844, married Zina Eager in 1863, who later owned the Eager House at Wauseon. She died in 1898.
Thomas Bayes, Sr., was born in 1775, in Pennsylvania, and in 1820, came with his wife, Ann McMillen, into Ohio, settling in Holmes countv. His wife died in 1836, and he then, according to one account, sold his farm and in 1837 came into Clinton Township. His son, Thomas, Jr., was however, seemingly, in Clinton Township in 1836, or before, in company with William Mikesell, his brother-in-law, these two young men making "entry of fourteen eighty-acre tracts, for themselves and certain friends, travelling much of the time on foot, as they had but one horse, which they rode alternately." Thomas Bayes, Sr., did the first blacksmithing in the township in 1838, in a little log shop about forty rods distant from the spot where eventually the residence of Elliot Bayes stood, and on the west side of the road. Thomas Bayes, Sr., was one of the first trustees of Clinton Township.
The Losure family had prominent part in the early administration of Clinton Township, and members of it were later honorably placed in Civil War records. Five brothers served the nation during that war, one giving his life. Mary Jane Losure was the first white female child born in the township, that event taking place on November 6,
196
HISTORY OF FULTON COUNTY
1836. She lived in the township until 1888, then going to the home of her married daughter in Montana.
Isaac and Elizabeth Tedrow, with their many children, came from Holmes county, Ohio, in 1836, and settled on seetion nine. When the log schoolhouse, on section fifteen was opened for its first term, which was in 1839, there were six scholars on the register. Five were of the Tedrow family, Rachel, Catherine, Jeremiah, Isaiah and William, the sixth pupil being Christopher H. Losure. One of these children, Jeremiah Tedrow was destined to become "one of Clinton Township's most prominent farmers," and to meet a violent death in old age. In 1906, when seventy-seven years old, he was kicked by a colt, the injuries proving fatal.
"GEORGE MIKESELL BUILT A SUBSTANTIAL FIREPLACE FOR HIS LOG HOUSE."
In September, 1837, George Mikesell came from Holmes county, Ohio, and settled in Clinton Township. He was a brick mason by trade, and in 1838 put up a small kiln of brick, and eventually built a substantial fireplace and chimney for his log house. Thus, he may be given the credit of having been the first to manufacture brick in Clinton Township. George Mikesell died in 1840, on October 9th, and his wife, Mary Bayes, a week later. Their son, William, born 1810, married Mary, a daughter of Thomas Bayes, Sr., and although he was in the territory earlier, the time of the settling in Clinton Town-
197
HISTORY OF FULTON COUNTY
ship of William Mikesell may be definitely placed as April, 1837, when he came with his parents, and the family, and took up the development of his land on section fourteen.
The experience of the average family in the first year of settlement was probably somewhat similar to that of the Mikesell family. It appears that the father and sons within a few days after their arrival erected a log cabin, and cleared about two acres of land in time for corn planting that season. By the fall, another five acres had been cleared, and sown to wheat, which in time gave them a satisfactory crop. Mean- while they had lived on the flour they had brought with them in the previous year. And it must not be supposed that their diet lacked variety ; there was rarely a scarcity of meat, deer, wild turkey and game being plentiful, and costing nothing but shot, while sugar, in the form of wild honey and fruits, was present in abundance. Which was fortunate, for a journey to the nearest market town, Maumee City,
"WILD TURKEY. . BEING PLENTIFUL AND COSTING NOTHING BUT SHOT."
twenty-six to thirty miles distant, was an arduous undertaking, vehicles with difficulty travelling over the marshy roads through the county in those days. It took the Mikesells three weeks to make the journey in an ox-wagon, through the mud, from Holmes county to Fulton, or rather, as it then was, Lucas. Grain had to be hauled from Maumee City, where was the nearest mill. The Mikesells made some money by the curing of deer hams, and by the sale of furs, deer, mink and coon. In 1840, William Mikesell had enough skins to pay the purchase price of a horse.
John and Thomas Mikesell, sons of William, both saw service during the Civil War, John dying in the service in 1862. Thomas, in later life, developed & remarkably studious, methodical, and pains-taking
198
HISTORY OF FULTON COUNTY
mode of life. For more than forty years he faithfully and extensively kept a meteorological record, and eventually was eommended for his work by the national bureau. He was also a elose student of orni- thology. and his reports of bird migration eventually brought him associate membership of the American Ornithologists Union. He also was responsible for the publication of a history of Fulton county, published in volume form in 1905. He died in 1917, aged seventy- six years, having lived an active, useful, and diversified life.
It is not possible here to give extensive mention to all the pioneer families of Clinton Township. No history can possibly be complete, 110 matter how voluminous; and the historian must be governed in his narration by the space at his command.
William W. Baves, who married Mary Tedrow in 1834, came into Clinton Township in September, 1837. He died in 1885, aged seventy- six years. His log cabin "was the home of the pioneer preachers, and
FLAX BRAKE.
was for a time the church building. He was throughout his life a prominent worker for the Methodist Episcopal church. His son Isaac E., was born in the log cabin in 1843, about a mile west of the house in which he died in 1916, became a veteran of the Civil War. He had a rugged upbringing, but in a good Christian home. When the family . first came into Ohio, they raised flax, from which Mrs. Bayes spun garments for her children. Later, when a little more prosperous, they reared sheep for the same purpose. Another son, well-known in Wauseon and vicinity practically throughout his life of sixty-five years, was Meek Bayes, who died in 1915.
The other son, Elliot, lived a useful and industrious life. He was in the Union army during the war, and for the rest of his life farmed part of his father's original homestead. Mary Tedrow Bayes, wife of William W., died in 1869.
Erastus Briggs, a man of superior edueation, and by profession a surveyor, was born in Maine, in 1814, and in 1835, came to Maumee City, where he resided until April 1, 1837, then coming to Clinton
199
HISTORY OF FULTON COUNTY
Township. He purchased land from Elijah Huntington, and that transfer was probably the first recorded in the township. In the winter of 1838 Erastus Briggs taught school, the first opened in the township. In the next year, however, he returned to Maumee City, and there died in that year, being then forty-four years old. His widow returned to Clinton Township, and lived on the farm for almost fifty years, her death coming in 1898. Her son Rufus went to Kentucky, in 1847, and did not return until 1855, coming into Wauseon on the first passenger train that passed over the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. Rufus Briggs was later a successful business man of Wauseon.
Although the first transfer of land was that by Elisha Huntington, in 1837, when, on April 23d, for a consideration of $100, forty acres passed into the possession of Alanson Briggs, there had been some earlier handlings of land for speculation. The first entry of land in Clinton Township was made by David Andrews, on November 15, 1834. He entered the northwestern quarter of section thirty-five later known as the Abram Faulkner Farm.
"WENT ONTO THE RIVER BELOW WATERVILLE."
Elisha Huntington sold a further fifty acres of his land in section 25, receiving $100 for it, from Emulas Burdick, but he still had sufficient land in that section for his purpose. He cleared it and lived upon it until 1870, when death came to him at the age of seventy-four years. It seems that in October, 1836, the Rev. Uriel Spencer, an ordained minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, preached a sermon in the cabin of Elisha Huntington. It was probably the first religious service held by a minister in Clinton Township. Uriel Spencer had been in ministerial charge in New York State, and had been forced to come "west" in search of health, and to recover the full volume of his voice, which had failed. But for many years he stayed in Fulton county, making his home in York Township, until he was elected auditor of Lucas county, when he moved to Maumee City. He married Mary Mikesell, widow of Mr. Case.
Henry Krontz settled in Clinton Township in 1836. Henry and
200
HISTORY OF FULTON COUNTY
his wife Catherine (Hay) came from Holmes county, Ohio. Henry died in 1874, aged seventy-four years; his wife dying four years after they settled in Clinton Township. Their son, Emanuel, eventually served the nation during the Civil War, and another son, Jacob, was a prosperous farmer near Pettisville.
John O. Ensign settled on section 37, in 1839. Ultimately he dis- posed of his land to Naaman Merrill, and went "onto the river, below Waterville" to live.
Another temporary settler was John Dowell, who is believed not to have been even distantly related to Isaac Dowell. John Dowell settled on the south-west corner of seetion 32, in 1839. After living there for a year or so, he was taken to Columbus, to answer a criminal indictment, and did not again return to Fulton county.
Cyrus Coy had a blacksmith shop, on what was later known as the Judge Brown Farm, as early as 1839. And in about the same year, or earlier, Thomas Mikesell, Sr., had a smithy on the farm where later Daniel Clingaman lived. James Cornell eventually bought the Coy land, after which Cyrus moved a little to the Southwest.
William Jones was later familiarly known as "Long Bill" Jones. He was one of the pioneer school teachers.
Horace Pease was supposed to have settled prior to the first eleetion, in 1838, but one record states that he did not eome until 1842.
Elias Willey, son of S. B., was born in Clinton Township on February 23, 1840, and beeame a veteran of the famous Sixty-Seventh Regiment of Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the war. He died in 1914, having for almost forty years been a teamster in Wauseon. The G. A. R. post attended his funeral in a body.
John and Sarah Lillich raised a family of nine ehildren, seven of whom were daughters. One, Mrs. Ellen Lillich Crew, who died in 1916, lived many years in Wauseon, and was an active member of Losure Woman's Relief Corps.
James and Margaret (Bayes) Cornell came to Clinton Township in 1837, from Wayne county, Ohio. They were formerly from New Jersey, where James was born in 1804. He died in 1880, twenty years after the demise of his wife, who was born in Pennsylvania. They had seven children, most of whom had prominent part in the develop- ment of Fulton county. Of their children, Charles W., is still alive and remarkably alert, mentally, notwithstanding that he is eighty-six years old. He was a veteran of the Civil War, and is the oldest resident of Clinton Township, and, in length of residenee, of the county, also, probably. Relating his experiences, when they first eame into the territory he said :
"What a journey it was from Tuscarawas county, through dense forests, fording streams, dodging swamps, meeting Indians, and at all times fighting malaria and fever. The entire distance was made by wagon, and took days of travel ...... Where Wauseon now stands was one dense woods, with giant trees towering toward the sky, broken here and there by some pond. On the hill just south of the H. H. Williams mill was an Indian village and many a time have I played with the young Indians. It was in 1843 that the Indians left this part of the county, and a sad day it was for them to say good-bye to their old hunting ground.
"When we came to what is now Fulton county (in 1837) but three
1
201
HISTORY OF FULTON COUNTY
white families lived in Clinton Township. They were: Elisha Williams, who owned a part of the section where my father located; Isaac Tedrow, who owned what is now the George Drennan Farm, northwest of Wauseon; and John Losure, who owned the Isaac Bayes Farm. In York Township lived Avery Lamb, one mile east of Wauseon, William Jones, at Emmerlings Corners; while William Fowler, Gilman Cheadle and Moses Wright were other settlers. In the fall of 1837 there was an influx of people. The Mikesell, Bayes, and Huntington families came and settled near what is now Wauseon, while John Knapp and John Markley located near West Barre."
Another worthy son of James Cornell was Jonathan C., four years the senior of Charles W. He served two terms as commissioner of Fulton county. He built the first grist mill in Wauseon, the flouring mill having a capacity of one hundred barrels a day. The other son, Thomas J., became a very enterprising and successful farmer in the county, well-known as a breeder of Clydesdale and Norman horses.
"A SAD DAY IT WAS TO THEM TO SAY GOOD-BYE TO THEIR OLD HUNTING GROUNDS."
In 1848, Elisha Williams built the first brick house constructed in the township. He made the brick himself from suitable clay deposits on his own land. And although George Mikesell, Sr., in 1838 erected a small kiln, large enough to meet the requirements of brick for his log-house chimney, and Shipman Losure, who came into the township in 1839, also began to make brick in 1840 or 1841, the industry was not carried on extensively until Elisha Williams made a large kiln, for his own purposes, in 1848. It seems rather singular that the pioneer of the township should, many years after it had become well settled, move on to other unsettled country, in another state, and leave all his friends of pioneer days, and almost all his children. That is what Elisha Williams did. He and his wife went further west, to unsettled parts, much after middle age had come to them. Elisha Williams died in October of 1864, aged sixty-six years, and his wife also died at about that time. Five of their sons and one daughter remained in Clinton Township. The daughter, Lucinda, was married to Thomas Lingle, by her father, who was a justice of the peace on January 7, 1838. That
202
HISTORY OF FULTON COUNTY
was the first marriage ceremony performed in the township; as a matter of fact, it took place before the formal organization of the township, and Elisha Williams must have held his office under the former administration.
It has been stated by two historians that Thomas Bayes was the first justice of the peace of Clinton Township; maybe he succeeded Elisha Williams, as justice, after the township had been organized. Unfortunately it is not possible to verify, as the township records have been destroyed.
The lot of the pioneer settler was not altogether an unpleasant one. If they were able to "tide over" the first year or two they were generally able to work along happily to ever-increasing comfort. One of the settlers in Clinton Township stated: "After the first two or three years of hardship for the advance guard in this wilderness there commenced a rapid influx of settlers, to whom vantage ground was given by the assistance of the first dwellers, who were always exceedingly hospitable and generous. The latch string of the pioneer's eabin was always out; and always a cut of venison, or a drum stick of wild turkey, and for dessert a nice Johnny cake, and possibly honey, was found in the larder of the good housewife for the weary and tired hunter. The more recent pioneers soon became used to the life of the frontiersman. They soon developed the push and energy which made up the intellectual fabric of the township. They were such men as Jacob, Mathias, and John Miley, John Gerringer, John Scott, Sr., Ebenezer Clark, John MeBayes, Isaac Dowd, Alonzo Pike, William Harrison, Meek Bayes, Jesse and Israel Poeock, and many others."
And there is not one instance recorded of a hardworking settler failing to make for himself, eventually, a comfortable home out of the wilderness and swamp, which once constituted all that there was of Fulton county. They had little money, but they needed little. So much could be obtained from the bounties of wild life-from the bounties of God.
Among those who settled in Clinton Township from 1838 to 1850 were: Joseph Wells, Jacob First, John Newcomer, Ebenezer Clark, Jacob Funk, James Pease, John Conrad Hartman, Jacob and. Mathias Miley, L. T. Morris, James Dunbar, Shipman Losure, John Linfoot, William Harrison, David Gorsuch, Nathaniel Gorsuch, William Hill, David Cantlebury, Eli Pocock and Jonas Batdorf. There were doubt- less many others and just as worthy pioneers, but their records are not available at this writing.
William Fraker, who eventually took up land on section 18 of Clinton Township, came to Fulton county in 1835, but lived at first in York Township.
Joseph Wells came in 1838; Jacob First came in 1841, or 1842, probably in the latter year, for "soon after he came" he married Lueinda, daughter of Smith and Orlinda Geer, who settled in 1840, They were married in 1842.
In the early forties, John Conrad Hartman came in from Rich- mond, Virginia, via Maumee. He bought a tract of land almost on the line of Dover Township, but in Clinton. In 1852 he traded that farm to Jefferson Case, for eighty acres, situated about two miles west of Wauseon. Charles Hartman now lives on the property. More regarding the family will be found in the second volume of this work.
203
HISTORY OF FULTON COUNTY
Another Hartman family came and settled in Clinton Township in the 'forties. The family was headed by John Hartman, Sr., a worthy pioneer. He was born in 1800 and died in 1850. His wife, Catherine Winters, died in 1865. Both came from Wurtemburg, Germany, to America in 1831, settling in Fairfield county, Ohio. With their children, they came to Clinton Township, and took land near where Wauseon eventually was platted. They had eleven children. Of the latter, Jacob became a Civil War soldier, and John, Jr., in 1853 bought the farm of ninety-five acres, near Wauseon, upon which he lived until his death in 1905. He paid $250 for the ninety-five acres, worth probably almost that much for one acre in this day. Such has been the value carved, or more literally hewn, out of the wilderness by the axe of the pioneer.
Ebenezer Clark, and his wife, Mary Dye, settled in Clinton Town- ship in 1841, coming from Holmes county, Ohio. They settled on an eighty-acre traet, for which Ebenezer paid $200. They also had eleven children, most of whom were born in Fulton county. Their son, John A. was born in 1829. He married Elizabeth Krontz in 1854, and be- came a very progressive and successful farmer in Clinton Township. He died in 1890.
Jacob Funk and his wife, Rachel, came in 1843. They were both pioneer members of the Church of Christ denomination in Clinton Township, and both were charter members of the Wauseon First Christian Church, founded in 1862. Rachel Funk died in 1898. Festus Funk, born in 1854, died in Wauseon in 1917, honored as a veteran of the Civil War, and a worthy member of the Wauseon church. One of the daughters of Jacob Funk married Elder L. L. Carpenter, one of the pioneer preachers of that church in Fulton county, and also prominent in county affairs.
John Newcomer and family came in 1844, and settled upon land which later, as Newcomer's Addition, came within wic boundaries of the village of Wauseon. The Newcomers were typical nioneers. John, son of Jacob, and grandson of Ulrich, was born in 1807, states the family genealogy. He married Naomi Debolt in 1831; moved to Holmes county, Ohio, in 1837; and in 1844 moved "to the unsettled regions of Western Ohio, and settled in what was then Lucas, but now is Fulton county, and carved out a home from the forests where after- wards was located the town of Wauseon." He died in Wauseon fifty- six years later, and an obituary gives the following information : "In the early spring of 1844 he came west, purchased 160 acres of wild land where now (1890) is embraced Newcomer's Addition to Wauseon, and the Northwestern Fair Grounds, and before returning to his eastern home let a contract to clear off three acres of ground across the street and in front of his late residence. In May, 1844, he loaded up a wagon with household effects, and left Holmes county for the new home in the west. The cavalcade consisted of: a covered wagon, drawn by two horses; one extra saddle horse; two cows; two or three head of young heifers; eight or ten head of sheep; father, mother, four children (one a babe of four weeks) and three other people. The trip was made in nine days." George D. Newcomer, who is still living in Wauseon, was the babe of four weeks of that trip. He says that his mother rode their saddle horse, and presumably carried him also. The eldest of the four children was Solomon, then
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.