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 39

Author: Reighard, Frank H., 1867-
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 546


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 39


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THE PIONEERS


The first settler in Dover Township was William Jones, familiarly known as "Long Bill." He eame in the fall of 1836, and settled in the southwestern part of the township. In the building of his log cabin, which was 14 x 16 feet, he was assisted by Aaron Little, Jacob Boyers, a boy, and two Indians. "Long Bill" Jones was unusually tall, and was a conspicuous figure at public gatherings. He was a eapable well- educated man, and although he was one of the pioneer teachers, he was probably not the early teacher of whom Verity writes as having "had his scholars to spell United States commencing with You." Jones took executive part in much of the pioneer township organization; he was clerk of Clinton Township in 1838, being elected, in April, at the first election in Clinton Township. He seemed to have been a justice of the peace in 1839, for he went to German Township to swear into office Samuel B. Darby, as first township clerk of German. He taught in a log schoolhouse on section 14 of Clinton Township in the fall of 1840, and throughout his life he took interested part in educational adminis- tration. Also it appears that he sometimes preached "for the Dis- ciples, there then being a few of that faith in Clinton Township, on the south."


Alonzo H. Butler was the first to settle north of the Fulton line, in that part of Chesterfield which later became part of Dover Township. He came in the spring of 1837, with his wife, and settled upon seetion seven, town ten south, range two east.


Later, in 1837, several more families arrived, and settled, among them Peter Lott, Salathiel Bennett, Elijah Bennett, Michael Ferguson, James Gould, and Pearl Smith, all with families.


In 1838, the incoming settlers were: William Hoffmire, John J. Schnall, Nathan Gay, Eben French, Mortimer D. Hibbard.


During the next seven years, a settlement grew in the eastern end of the township, in the vicinity of what eventually became the site of the county seat, Ottokee. Among the settlers of those years were Moses Ayers, Joseph Shadle, Jacob Nolan, William Fuller, John G. Tiffany, Henry Herreman, William Jones, Jr., Oscar A. Cobb, Richard Marks, Alonzo Knapp, Warren W. Hodge, Comfort Marks, Archie Knapp, Elisha Cobb, John Atkinson, Chandler Tiffany, George Tiffany and John Meader. And, in the same period, many families settled in the


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western part of the township, among them William Waid, E. H. Pat- terson, Burdick Burtch, Jasper Dowell, William Brierly, Joseph Jewell, William Jewell, James Wells, Wiliam J. Coss, Eisha Hibbard, and Willard Church.


EARLY SUFFERING


The lot of these settlers was a hard one; made very much harder by the prostrating fever and ague, which seemed to take young and old, feeble and strong. Oliver B. Verity, who became probate. judge of Ful- ton county in 1858, took up residence in Ottokee when he assumed county office, and became so attached to the place and the people that he ever afterwards made Ottokee his home; and his history of Dover Township is probably the most authentic, for he was a careful historian, and knew personally and intimately almost all of the old families of Dover. Regarding the worst period of malarial distress in Dover Town- ship he writes :


"This township, from its settlement in 1836 to 1845, was a land of 'fever and ague to the very edge.' It has been no exaggeration of the historian to say that, for a few years after 1838, in the summer and fall, the larger half of the population were languishing on beds of ague and fever; many a housewife was compelled to keep house and do the work for a family between the passing away of the 'sweating stage' and the next 'ague' attack. In the interval a large amount of work was done by them, and had to be, because help was scarce in such times as these. This picture is but a fair sample of the township, and had to be endured until the winter frosts brought relief. Quinine was to them the staff of life, and often meant more than bread to the languishing individual. But few of those early pioneers died from these malarial attacks, yet all who passed through those days can never forget them."


Judge W. H. Handy, a former resident, wrote reminiscently of Ottokee, and seems to have vivid recollection of the distressing effects of ague. He wrote:


"One of the clearest recollections I have of those old days is of the fever and ague which everybody had, more or less, and which when once experienced leaves a recollection that is not to leave one very soon. People now living here who came here after our perfect drainage was established never had a touch of the shakes, and can have little idea of what the genuine old ague and fever really means."


TYPICAL SETTLERS


Still, the fact that the region was malarial did not deter the set- tlers, and there is nothing on record showing that any left the district on that account. The pioneers came prepared, at least in will, to with- stand hardships, and they tackled the existing conditions, whatever they were, with good cheer, and a confidence that they would overcome all handicaps in course of time. The pioneer family, that of William Jones, "lived in their wagon, and under the shelter of rude temporary abodes, built of poles, brush, and blankets. while the father went to work to construct a rough cabin of round logs." Joseph Shadle, one of the worthy pioneers of Dover, began married life on forty cents a day, which he received for hard labor, that of cutting cord wood. He later inade coffins of walnut, which caskets he sold at a standard price of


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one dollar a foot, or $6.00 for a completed walnut eoffin. six feet long. Yet, he lived to own 1,002 acres of land in Dover Township, reared ten children, and his descendants now number 22 grandchildren, 80 great- grandchildren, 29 great-great-grandehildren, and twelve great-great- great-grandchildren. By his untiring effort and hard work he made it possible for each of his ten children to have a comfortable home of his, or her, own. He, and his wife, Jane Burk, were worthy pioneers of Fulton county. Both did their share, in working the wild unproduc- tive region into a land of agricultural plenty and of fine farm homes. She, Jane Burk Shadle, was well fitted for such a life of hard work and simple living as must have been theirs in their early days in Dover. Even in her young days she used to do the housework; break the flax; spin it; help make the clothes for the family; work in the fields, raking and binding grain ; and when Joseph Shadle and his wife and five children came to Fulton county, or rather to Lueas county, as it then was, they took nine days to make the journey from Wayne county, with horses, cows, and hogs; and when they took possession of their 160 acres of wild land in Dover Township, upon their arrival, they had in reserve only forty dollars. But husband and wife, and, as they grew, the children also, industriously labored until the wilderness had been conquered, or transformed into a rich farm property. Joseph and Jane Burk Shadle were typieal of many other eapable men and women whose names go down to posterity as the builders of Fulton county, Ohio. Little do the present generation know of the almost in- eredible and inconceivable thrift their aneestors had to practice in order to battle through the time of hardship and privation to the time of comparative plenty and comfort.


The Hibbard family, founders of Spring Hill, or Tedrow, was one of the most prominent and capable of the pioneer families of Dover Township. The family genealogy eonneets with leading families of colonial Massachusetts, and that generation which settled in Dover seems to have been of superior education and refined upbringing. Judge Ambrose Rice, unele of Mary Riee, who married Mortimer D. Hibbard, passed through the region, with a surveyor's ehain, some years before white settlement began, probably in 1834. He was in the employ of the state or federal government, and made Perrysburg, or Maumee City, his headquarters, but "thinking he had never seen a finer loeation than the oak openings, Judge Riee indueed his nieee, Mary Rice, and her hus- band, Mortimer D. Hibbard, to remove here from Athens county (Ohio), in 1838." Marie A. Hibbard, who writes the narrative, which is based upon diary entries made by her mother, Mary Rice Hibbard, continues: "With a good team of horses, and a covered wagon, they seem to have suffered no great discomfort on the way, although the trip was made in winter. They reached the little two-roomed log eabin, their future home for four years, on the fourth day of February. Their farm, seleeted for them by Ambrose Rice, consisted of a large traet of land lying half a mile north of the Maumee Road." Miss Hibbard writes also, of a somewhat exeiting introduction her mother had to the Indians who still clung to their old hunting grounds in the Maumee ecuntry. She explains that "the oak openings, or plains, were kept free from underbrush by the Indians, who burned them each fall to make better hunting grounds." And other records show that the banks of Brush Creek, at Spring Hill, were favored, as a eamping place by the Indians in former days. there being fine springs in the vieinity.


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But at the time the Hibbards came, the Indians in the county were so few that their possible proximity was forgotten. Miss Hibbard writes:


"Soon after their coming into the new country, she (Mrs. Hibbard) was necessarily left alone one day with her four little children. There were no near neighbors, and she had seen no Indians. A shadow fell across the floor, and, looking up from her work, she saw a party of them, each with gun in hand, filing through the door into the little cabin. As they came between her and her baby, sleeping in its cradle, her heart stood still for a moment. Seeing her alarm, the foremost one turned and stood his gun behind the door, motioning the others to do the same. Then they made her understand that they were hungry, and wanted something to eat. She gave them as good a dinner as she could, and after eating it they went quietly away, much to her relief, and she saw them no more.


"One morning, not long afterwards, an Indian appeared carrying a deer over his shoulder. He laid it across the doorway, probably in return for what she had done for the hunting party."


Evidently, the "oak openings" soon proved to be productive soil.


JANE BURK SHADLE USED TO BREAK THE FLAX, SPIN IT, AND HELP MAKE THE CLOTHES FOR THE FAMILY.


There was wild fruit in abundance; and in the second season of their residence, Mrs. Hibbard records, under date of August 26, 1840, "We have plenty of good melons. One was brought in today that weighed twenty-six pounds and four ounces."


Mortimer D. Hibbard had leading part in both township and county organization. The first election in Dover Township was held in his house; and he and his father ably furthered the project which eventu- ally resulted in the erection of Fulton county. He was the first county auditor; and he surveyed and platted the village of Spring Hill, upon land bequeathed to his children, Oscar and Jason, by their granduncle, Judge Rice, who only spent a few years in Dover Township, being "troubled with a cough," and going eventually to a warmer climate, dying in New Orleans in 1841, "of hemorrhage."


Elisha Hibbard, father of Mortimer D., evidently did not come with his son in 1838. Mrs. Hibbard wrote in her diary under date February 1,.1841: "Father Hibbard arrived today, from his home in Dover,


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Athens county," and on the 5th of that month she wrote: "Father left today, on his journey home. He has bought a farm, and expects to move on it in September." The farm, it seems, "consisted of eighty acres, forty each side of the Maumee road, one mile east of the present village of Spring Hill. One mile east of Elisha's farm was the farm of Randolph Hibbard, half-brother of Mortimer. This farm is now owned by Dr. Borden, and occupied by James Hibbard." The old log house built for Randolph Hibbard was not torn down until 1916, having stood seventy-five years. The Rev. Elisha Hibbard was one of the judges at the first election in Dover Township, and on that occasion was himself elected overseer of the poor. He was one of the pioneers of the movement which culminated in the establishment of Fulton county. In 1845, he journeyed to Columbus, to make known to the State Legislature the desire of the majority of the residents within the, then, western part of Lucas county to be separated from that county. He died in 1847. There is little doubt that Dover Township was given that name at the suggestion of, or in honor of, the Hibbard family, which had formerly lived in Dover, Athens county. Rev. Elisha Hib- bard, had he lived, would probably have had much more conspicuous place in Fulton county annals. He was a man of strong purpose, and was not resident in Dover long before he exercised a strong influence for good upon his fellow-settlers. The diary, before-quoted, has an entry, July 24, 1841, reading: "We had a temperance lecture here to- day, the first ever held in Clinton Township. There were about a hun- dred here. Father Hibbard addressed them. If anything deserves the name of glorious it is the temperance cause. May it spread from the east to west, from the north to the south, until not a drunkard is left in the land." Apparently, national prohibition had been but slowly accomplished, for that meeting was held almost eighty years ago. It was followed by many other such meetings. Mrs. Hibbard, on February 4, 1852, wrote: "We had a temperance meeting here (Spring Hill) this evening. Brother David Edwards lectured. Sixty-three signed the pledge." In fact. the movement grew so strong in Spring Hill that no saloon was permitted in the village. Miss Hibbard writes : "An attempt was made, by a non-resident, to start one, but before it could be put in operation it was found one morning with pools of liquor surrounding it, and empty casks and barrels rolling about. No one could, or would, name the perpetrators. They said they 'guesed it was the women.' Many years after, two carpenters, young men, ac- knowledged it was their work."


EARNEST GOD-FEARING MEN


From a reading of the life-stories of many of the early residents in Dover Township, one gains the impression that, as a whole, they were earnest, God-fearing men of high moral purpose, and religious life. Moses Avers was one such. He was one of the pioneer members, indeed one record asserts he was one of the pioneers and founders, of the Disciples, or Christian Church, in Fulton county. Thus he is des- cribed by one writer: "A man who lived a life well spent, made the world better for having lived in it, and whose life commended itself to all who knew him." The same writer continues: "Moses Ayers was one of the charter members of the church at Brush Creek, Lucas


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county, now Spring Hill, Fulton county. The church was organized in March, 1841, by Benjamin Alton, of DeKalb county Indiana. Moses Ayers ...... came to what is now Fulton county on February 26, 1838, and his cabin home was the stopping place for people going and coming from Eastern Ohio to Indiana ...... From some Indiana people, Mr. Ayers heard of Brother Alton, whom later he engaged to come and hold a meeting in his home. Mr. Alton came, and held the meetings, which Mr. and Mrs. Ayers enjoyed preparing for in his hos- pitable cabin home ...... Mr. Alton ...... before leaving organized the Spring Hill Church, with seventeen charter members. Mr. Ayers could not promise Brother Alton any money for his services, but, when this earnest worker started to return to his home in Indiana, Mr. Ayers gave him a cow worth twenty-five or thirty dollars. It was through his efforts that Brother C. J. Blackman was brought to Morey's Corners, now Lyons, and established a church there, in 1858 or 1859. Brother Ayers advanced the cause of Christianity to the day of his death, which occurred May 19, 1884."


Of course, William Jones, the first settler in Dover, must also be named among the pioneers of that church in Fulton county, for he appears to have actually preached to members of that sect, or denom- ination, in Clinton Township, probably before the coming of Moses Ayers. Jacob Boyers, who is referred to as having assisted in the rais- ing of William Jones' log cabin, was the son of Jones' wife, by a former marriage. Jacob Bovers "was a good, honest, substantial citizen ; one of several who, on the discovery of gold, took the long hard journey . to California, but, unlike many, he lived to return to his family." He married Lydia, the daughter of Joseph Jewel, an early settler, and pioneer teacher. Hannah Jones, half-sister of Jacob Boyers, made her home with him. She has been "long remembered, in and about Spring Hill, as a good teacher."


Adam Poorman seems to have first settled in Franklin Township, where he was reputed to be "a very hard-working and industrious man," and "a friend to the stranger and the new settler." In 1846, he sold his farm in Franklin Township, and moved into Dover, buying land in section six, town ten south, range two east.


Henry Harriman, who came to Dover in 1844, where he settled on a farm, was a young physician, and although not the first to take up practice in the township, "his coming at that time was a Godsend to the people of this, then, wilderness, for at that time nearly everybody was sick with fever and ague, and he was kept in the saddle night and day. With all his large practice, he was never known to crowd any one for his pay" stated an obituary, following his death, at his home, one mile east of Ottokee, on February 6, 1896, he being then eighty- five years old. When the call came for patriots to give personal service in the 'sixties he was one of those who joined the Sixty-seventh Regi- ment of Ohio Volunteer Infantry.


Edwin H. Patterson, came with his parents, in 1838, and settled in Chesterfield Township, in which of course part of the land now in Dover Township then was. (One record stated that his father, George W. Patterson settled on section fifteen, of Chesterfield Township, and that Edwin H. did not buy the homestead in Dover Township until 1847, then paying $240 for the original eighty acres.) In 1906, at the


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age of eighty-seven years, and still one of the largest landowners of Dover, Edwin H. Patterson made public some interesting personal history. The Patterson family, in 1838, set out from New York, coming by boat to Toledo, and according to Mr. Patterson's narrative:


"When we landed at Toledo, which was then about as large as Wau- scon is now, we tried to find lodging, but everybody was sick with the ague or fever. .... . It was so late in the afternoon when we landed that we could not get things ready to start on our western journey, so that night I slept on the dock, curled up by the side of a large store box. The next day we had everything loaded in our wagon, which was drawn by a team of oxen, and we started for our western home. We came west over the territorial, or government, road which is now known as the 'Old Plank Road.' On the first day's travel we did not meet a person. We had started for Morenci and at the close of our second day's travel, we reached our destination, but to our surprise there was no town, not even a house. The next day we landed on a farm, near where I now live. Our nearest neighbors on the west were ten miles away. There was not a village in the county, and only a few settle- ments. At that time, there was not a railroad in northwestern Ohio. (NOTE. An incorrect statement, for the railroad from Toledo to Adrian was then in operation.) The past sixty-eight years have brought many great changes in this county. In those early days we did our trad- ing at Adrian, that being our nearest town. We went to mill at Canandaigua, a distance of some sixteen or seventeen miles. The pub- lic roads at that time angled through the woods following the ridges. . No bridges were built and the streams had to be forded.


When I first came here, the best land could have been bought for three dollars an acre, while the land where the largest part of Toledo now stands was offered for sale at ten dollars per acre."


The Tedrow family comes into earliest records of Clinton and Dover Townships. Isaac and Elizabeth Tedrow came from Holmes county In 1836. In 1839, he and Shipman Losure built, or helped to build, a log schoolhouse on the southeast quarter of section 15. That school- house was designated the Losure, or Tedrow, Schoolhouse, and the win- ter term of school in 1839 was conducted by Lorenzo Bennett, who received $10 a month. He taught, apparently, for about three months, for in January, 1840, Isaac Tedrow received from the Lucas county auditor (through Elisha Huntington, who was paid $3.50 for bringing the money from Toledo), the sum of $31.21.7, that being the amount taken from county funds for the maintenance of the Losure or Tedrow School District. There were six pupils in the first year, five being chil- dren of the Tedrow family, Rachel, Catherine, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and William. The sixth was C. H. Losure.


William Tedrow, in 1857, married a daughter of William Hoff- mire, who settled in 1838 a little north of Spring Hill. She was then only four years old, but vividly remembered most of the important happenings of her childhood. She stated that "the first post-office was kept by her father-in-law, Isaac Tedrow, who was then living on the farm better known as the Col. Brigham farm. The post-office was called Tedrow, in honor of Mr. Tedrow. Later, the office was moved to the old Schnall Farm, and from there to Spring Hill." Verity says that "John J. Schnall was the first postmaster, when the office was


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named 'Tedrow ;'" but the name given to the office leads one to believe Mrs. William Tedrow's is the correct version. It is supported by the diaries of Mrs. Mary Rice Hibbard, these enabling Miss Marie A. Hib- bard to write: "The village (Spring Hill) received its name from the farm of which it was a part. When the postoffice was removed from Mr. Tedrow's, several miles south, it was found that the name could not be changed to that of the village, as there was an office called Spring Hill in the state. Therefore, it kept the name of the former post- master, Tedrow." Isaac Tedrow was one of the original members of the first Methodist Episcopal Society formed in the Spring Hill neigh- borhood, as early as 1842. The Tedrow family has given many useful citizens to Fulton county. Jerry, son of Isaac Tedrow, died in 1906, from complications resulting from a kick by a fractious colt. He was then seventy-eight years old, and had lived about seventy years in the county, taking useful part in its development.


John J. Schnall, the first, or the second, postmaster of Dover Township, was responsibly identified with county and township affairs for very many years. He was county surveyor for twenty-one years, and throughout his life interested himself in the affairs of Dover. He was judge of election, at the first election in that township, and an in- dication of his general character is contained in the reeord that, in 1852, he took a leading part in the organization of what was probably the first temperance society formed in Fulton county. The Spring Hill Temperance Society was formed on February 18, 1852, with Mor- timer D. Hibbard, president, and John J. Schnall, vice president.


It is unfortunate that space is not available in this current work to review in detail the commendable activities of more of the industrious and public-spirited pioneers of Dover. So many had meritorious part in the various phases of community and county building. Verity named many, "of whom the township may well feel proud," among them: David Ayers, John Funk, Gideon Ayers, George Miley, Har- rison Schnall, Isaiah L. Hagerman, Willard D. Crout, Peter Gype, John Lathrop, Stephen Eldridge, Cornelius M. Spring, James Kahle, Daniel Foreman, James M. Gillette, DeLos Palmer, Harvey Shadle, Myron A. Beecher, Jeremiah Jones, Barnett and Adolph Kutzley, Thomp- son Todd, Lucien H. Guilford, Valentine Theobold, George Guilford, John Seibold, Alonzo Marks, Luther Shadle John Smellie, Gavin Smellie, L. C. Cook, L. N. Cook Barney H. Anderson, Levi McConkey, Jasper Dowell Asa Borton, Lemuel F. Waid, Charles Waid Charles Baldwin Carter, William Somers, Alfred F. Shaffer, John Huffman, Oliver B. Huffman; but that does not exhaust the list of Dover Town- ship residents of prominence and usefulness during the first fifty years of its settlement. Not the least useful was Oliver B. Verity himself, who gathered for the posterity of Fulton county more historical data of its pioneer period than has probably any other two local historians. And his personal record of public service is worth recording, includ- ing, as it did: nine years as township clerk of Gorham; a period as justice of the peace; many years as township school examiner, and, later, as county school examiner; twelve years as judge of the probate court; twenty-four years as postmaster at Ottokee; six years as super- intendent of the Fulton County Infirmary, or Home as it is now designated; and other public offices, such as township trustee, clerk, land appraiser, census marshal, and what not. His life seems to have




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