USA > Ohio > Lucas County > Toledo > A story of early Toledo; historical facts and incidents of the early days of the city and environs > Part 3
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I. Keller, Sr., lived in a house nearby, and lower down the river, Peter Navarre and his four brothers, Jacob, Francis, Alexis and Antoine, lived on the east side, about where Ironville now is.
FIRST STORE IS BUILT .- John Baldwin and Cyrus Fisher opened the first store in Port Lawrence, and John Baldwin & Co. sold dry goods there up to about 1829; the first store being in the log ware- house built in 1817.
After the collapse of the original Port Lawrence Company and the acquisition of title in the name of Oliver to river tracts one and two, the Port Lawrence Company was resurrected and in December, 1832, a new plat was made which included the land between Jefferson and Washington streets and back from the river to Superior street, but the names of the streets were different in these instances. What is now Sum- mit street was named Erie street. St. Clair street was Ontario street, and Superior street was Huron street.
There were about seventy-two lots in the plat and most of them sold in 1833 and 1834, the price running from $25 to $200 each. Many changes in the personnel of the Port Lawrence Company oc- curred in 1833, 1834 and 1836, by sales of undivided interests, to and from many persons. The change of ownership, the additional plats, etc., it is impos- sible to give in detail. By various additions the plat was greatly enlarged.
A few of the sales, the names of the purchasers and the prices at which the lots were sold, follow:
John Baldwin, lot 11, $25; Philo Bennett, lots
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17, 18, 23, 24, $250; Coleman I. Keeler, lots 33, 34, 40, $50; John Baldwin lot 8, $200; Abraham Retter, lot 46, $125; George Bennett, lots 22, 51, $75; Henry W. Goettel, 1-2 lot 12, $100; W. J. Daniels, 6 feet of lot 10, $25; C. J. Keeler, lot 44 and 20 feet of 42, $200; W. J. Daniels and Company, lots 88, 89, 406 and 407, $70; W. J. Daniels and Company, lot 19, $50; Platt Card, 127, 129, 140, 16, 27, 28, 210, 242, 146, 147, 77, 164, 233, 290, 274, 202 and 21, $8,100. The last sale to Mr. Card was at a later date than the others.
VISTULA .- Benjamin F. Stickney became in- terested in Port Lawrence first by purchase of lots in the 1817 plat and afterwards in the new plat. He burned the brick for the purpose of building on this plat, which he afterwards used in building his resi- dence downtown between Bush and Stickney ave- nue. He became dissatisfied with what he called lack of enterprise in the Port Lawrence proprietors, withdrew his interest from it and in 1833 laid out the town of Vistula on land immediately adjoining the Port Lawrence property on the northeast. He made a contract with Edward Bissell, then of Lock- port, New York, for certain improvements, involv- ing a large outlay by Bissell for buildings, roads, docks, etc., and in 1833 the sale of lots began, and continued until the fall of 1835. The Vistula pro- prietors included Benj. F. Stickney, Edward Bissell, Isaac S. Smith, J. B. Macy, Hiram Pratt, W. F. P. Tayler, Robert Hicks and Henry W. Hicks, with others.
Docks were built from Lagrange to Elm street, a warehouse and other improvements.
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To celebrate this successful inauguration of the new town, a grand ball was given in the old ware- house above mentioned, then occupied by the Bald- wins, the upper story being used for the dance, par- ticipated in by residents all along the river from Perrysburg and Maumee to the bay, that being the only room fit for the accommodation of such a fes- tivity in the vicinity.
CHAPTER V .- TOLEDO NAMED,
Before the union of Vistula and Port Lawrence, there had been laid out the town of Manhattan, and improvements had been made there. A hotel was built. Two warehouses out on the edge of the chan- nel approached by docks built on piling, some of which can yet be seen in low water.
Manhattan and Perrysburg seemed to unite against the two embryo Toledo towns. Marengo and East Marengo and Austerlitz were laid out and the claim made that the canal should enter the river at Delaware creek, which was called "The Head of Navigation," and there would be the site of the fu- ture great city. The channel of the Maumee river was a great distance from the Manhattan shore, be- ing nearer the east side at that point. At Toledo it was close to the west side. And yet, many steam- boats would land at Manhattan, pass Toledo on the way to Perrysburg, unless compelled by traffic con- ditions to stop, and it became evident that these two rival towns, Port Lawrence and Vistula, had better settle their jealousies and unite their energies in combating the common enemy.
A conference was held, a union agreed upon, and in that conference one James Irvine Brown sug- gested the name of Toledo and it was adopted. Brown was a purchaser of some lots in the Vistula plat, and in 1833 came here from Easton, Pa., to live, under an arrangement with Edward Bissell to start a newspaper, which he did, locating his newspaper of- fice on Lagrange street, between Summit and Water streets and on August 15, 1834, he published his first
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number of the Toledo Herald, the present limits of Toledo. Mr. Brown set his own type and worked his own press and assisted in editing the paper. It has been claimed that this name was suggested first by Two Stickney, and in the Toledo Blade of December 12, 1903, Mr. Knabenshue, the editor, attributes it to Willard J. Daniels, but Mr. Andrew Palmer, who was present and one of the principal citizens at the time, in an early communication, gave Mr. Brown the credit.
DIFFERENT JURISDICTIONS .- It must be remembered that the territory included in the boundaries of the city of Toledo has been under many jurisdictions. About 1610 the French govern- ment claimed the territory and after planting the French flag at Sault Ste. Marie, for 120 years it was French domain. In 1763, Great Britain dispossessed France, and until 1783, and the treaty of peace be- tween Great Britain and the colonies, it was British. In 1787 it became a part of the northwest territory. In 1796 it became a part of Wayne county in said ter- ritory. In 1800 it passed to the territory of Ohio and in 1802 to the state. In 1803, Greene county, Ohio, included this part of the state. In 1805 Logan coun- ty. At this time and until the treaty of 1817 all of this territory except the reservations provided for in the treaty of Greenville was Indian territory, and not subject to the civil authority of Ohio. In 1805 the new territory of Michigan was formed and it was claimed that it was in Wayne county, Michigan. In 1827 Monroe county, Michigan, was organized and claimed it. In 1820 Wood county, Ohio, was organiz-
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ed and had jurisdiction so far as Ohio could give it. In 1827 Port Lawrence township, Monroe county, Michigan, was organized; which included this town- ship. In 1833 the agreement to consolidate Port Lawrence and Vistula was entered into. In 1835 Lu- cas county, Ohio, was organized by the legislature of Ohio to include Toledo. In 1837 the incorporated town of Toledo was created by act of the Ohio legis- lature. The date of the settlement of the boundary question has been given.
TOLEDO THE COUNTY SEAT .- The act creating Lucas county provided that the county seat should be located at Toledo, and the first session of the county commissioners of Lucas county was held at Toledo, September 14, 1835, and the first session of the court of common pleas was held here on the 7th of September, 1835, and the county seat remain- ed here until June, 1840, when commissioners ap- pointed by the legislature to determine the controv- ersy between Maumee and Toledo decided in favor of Maumee, and the county seat was moved there as soon as the county buildings were completed in 1842. The court was held at Toledo in a small frame school house on Erie street, between Monroe and Washington, afterwards on the corner of Monroe and Summit, and later in a building owned by Richard Mott, near the corner of Summit and Cherry streets. By vote of the people in 1852, they decided to move the county seat back to Toledo, which was done, the county leasing the Duell block on Summit, between Cherry and Walnut streets, where the county offices
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were located, until the court house on the site of the present structure, was finished in 1854.
In August, 1838, the proprietors of Oliver's divis- ion, which was platted and laid out in 1837, having set apart grounds near the old Oliver house at the junction of Ottawa street and Broadway, for a court house, proposed to the commissioners of the county to donate the ground and $20,000 in money towards the construction of the county buildings. On Au- gust 3, 1838, this offer was accepted by the commis- sioners, ground was broken and the foundation part- ly finished, when work was suspended because of the agitation to move the county seat to Maumee.
In 1834 and 1835 Miss Harriet Wright, a niece of Governor Silas Wright, of New York, taught school in this building in which the court was held. She was married to Munson H. Daniels of Toledo (there- after the first sheriff of Lucas county). Mrs. Daniels died in Toledo in 1842. So far as we have any re- liable information, she was the first female teacher in Toledo, and on July, 1835, the proprietors of Port Lawrence voted to give her as a complimentary pres- ent, on the occasion of hers being the first marriage at Toledo, lot No. 335, Port Lawrence.
TREMAINSVILLE, WEST TOLEDO .- It was was somewhat difficult to determine the compara- tive dates of the settlement of Port Lawrence and Prairie or Tremainsville. Baldwin settled in the old log warehouse in February, 1823, and continued to live there with his family for 10 years, and members of his family continued to live in Toledo until their death. As already stated, there were other houses
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and other settlers here at that time. The Wilkinsons arrived and settled in Tremainsville in October, 1823. There were living in the vicinity at that or an earlier date Major Coleman I. Keeler, Eli Hubbard and Wil- liam Sebley, descendants of the Hubbards, and Keeler continued to live here, and Mr. Solomon Wil- kinson still lived there when, 94 years old. There are no doubt many names of earlier settlers which ought to be mentioned. It is not intended to do more than to preserve the names of a few of the early settlers. The Stickneys and Navarres are prob- ably entitled to the first place in that respect as set- tlers within the present city limits.
It is quite well established that Rev. John A. Baughman of the Monroe Methodist circuit preach- ed at Tremainsville in 1825, and formed a class at Ten-Mile Creek, and that a church edifice was later occupied on the land now occupied by the Lenk Wine Co. In the territory covered by Toledo, be- fore Tremainsville was annexed, and from 1828 to 1832 there were 38 persons and 10 families living here, viz., Benjamin F. Stickney, William Wilson, Joseph Trombley, Bazel Trombley, Seneca Allen, John Baldwin, Joseph Prentice, Hiram Bartlett, Dr. J. V. D. Sutphen, Captain Forbes and Joseph Roop.
The nearest postoffice was Tremainsville, and Benjamin F. Stickney carried the mail until 1833, when a postoffice was established at Toledo, just after the agreement for the union of Port Lawrence and Vistula.
CHAPTER VI.
CONTEST FOR COMMERCIAL SUPREMACY.
MANHATTAN .- All along the river from Mau- mee to the bay for many years the question where would the canal enter the river, and hence where would be the great commercial city was the absorb- ing one.
Maumee, Port Lawrence and Vistula, with occa- sional spasms of hope by the owners of Marengo and East Marengo, and Orleans, were for a time the prin- cipal competitors. On the union of Port Lawrence and Vistula in 1833, all of the conditions pointed to Toledo, but that was not conceded.
About this time a number of Buffalo gentlemen, principally engaged in the forwarding business on the Erie canal and the lakes, became convinced that this western terminus of the lake with its harbor and river, would in time become an important commer- cial point, and they obtained title to a large amount of property near the mouth of the river, not jointly, but in the purchase of individual and separate tracts.
Among these owners were Jacob A. Barker, H. N. Holt, Charles Townsend, Sheldon Thompson, John W. Clark, Stephen G. Austin, all of Buffalo, and George W. Card and Platt Card, living where Man- hattan was finally located.
These men decided to consolidate their inter- ests, lay out a town, make improvements and place the lots on the market. In October, 1835, they or- ganized "The Maumee Land and Railroad Com- pany," and appointed three trustees, John W. Clark,
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Stephen G. Austin and John T. Hudson, to whom the necessary authority was given to plat and sell. They laid out the town of Manhattan. They built docks, warehouses and a large and spacious hotel. The hotel was opened in 1836. The proprietors of Manhattan and its settlers celebrated with great do- ings the fact that the real terminus of the canal was fixed at Manhattan, with only a side cut through Swan creek at Toledo.
Shortly after the town of Manhattan was laid out, the same gentlemen with the addition of Daniel Chase, organized another company known as the "East Manhattan Land Company," to develop the land on the east side of the river and near its mouth.
Under a treaty of February, 1838, certain tracts of land were granted to Indians of the Ottawa tribe and others, among them grants to Wa-Sa-On, Au-to- Kee-Guion, Paul and Leon, Kee-tuck-ee, Wa-sa-on- o-quit and the Navarres. Most of these lands were purchased by the above companies, mainly through the ageny of Daniel Chase.
The capital stock of the Maumee Land and Rail- road Company, originally $350,000, was increased in 1837 to $2,000,000, and the capital stock of the East Manhattan Land Company was nominally $960,000, and this company was largely interested in and in- strumental in projecting the Ohio Railway Company, elsewhere mentioned. These warehouses built at Manhattan for a number of years had a large busi- ness. As already stated, many boats landed at Man- hattan and skipping Toledo, went through to Mau- mee. A line of steamers, owned by these forward- ing merchants at Buffalo, who were the projectors
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and stockholders of the corporations above named, as long as they could, without loss, made the Man- hattan docks their main terminus, and it continued until their loss of traffic ended the contest and the warehouses were abandoned.
The canal which the projectors supposed was to make Manhattan great, in fact, was in part the cause of its downfall. Its entire traffic came into Toledo as soon as it was completed, and the warehouses and elevators at Toledo furnished the traffic for the east by water and the boats had to come here.
About opposite Manhattan there was an early French settlement, probably as early as 1807 or 1808, and this settlement adjoined a village of Ottawa In- dians who had resided there, certainly since the days of Pontiac, whose family lived there as early as 1763. In 1807 the Navarre family moved there and Peter and his brother Robert erected a cabin there, which Peter occupied most of his lifetime.
Who these early French settlers at this village were, other than the Navarres, we have no authentic record. At the breaking out of the war of 1812, Pon- tiac's widow, with a son and grandson, still lived there.
It is not intended in this narrative to include the early settlers at Maumee, Perrysburg, Miami, or the different points on the river south of Toledo. In 1812 there were some 60 families living in the 12- mile square reserve south of what is now Toledo, and they were earlier than any settlement in the lat- ter by a number of years.
The records show that in July, 1835, Wa-sa-on- o-quit, chief of the Ottawas, for $2,030 sold to Platt
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Card the Wa-sa-on-o-quit reservation, near the mouth of the Maumee, granted to that chief by the treaty of 1833, containing 160 acres.
In May, 1836, Aush-Cush and Kee-tuck-ee chiefs of the Ottawas sold to Daniel Chase for $2,000 the 160 acres reserved to them by the same treaty. Paul Guoin in May, 1836, sold the Guoin tract to Daniel Chase, and Leon Guoin, his tract to James L. Chase and Daniel V. Edsel, and so on.
ORLEANS AND LUCAS CITY .- An interest- ing story connected with the final location of the fu- ture great city includes the building of the first steamboat on the lakes, "The Walk on the Water." Messrs. McIntyre and Stewart of Albany, New York, built this steamer in 1818 in Buffalo, and she was built for the purpose of running from Buffalo to Perrysburg. The above named gentlemen purchas- ed a tract of land near Perrysburg, which included the site of Fort Meigs, and laid out on the river near the fort and on the low ground a town which was designed for the metropolis of the lake. It was nam- ed "Orleans of the North," and it was in aid of this town enterprise that McIntyre and Stewart built this pioneer steamboat, under license from Fulton & Liv- ingston, the patentees. The steamer on her trial trip reached Toledo and found that she drew too much water to cross the bars and shoals between the lake and "Orleans," and the town of Orleans drifted into obscurity. The improvements which had been made were washed away by the flood of 1832.
In the spring of 1836 there appeared in the To- ledo Gazette an advertisement of "Lucas City lots,"
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announcing that about 1500 of these lots would be sold; that Lucas City was at the mouth of the Miami river, near its junction with Lake Erie, and giving ex- tensive praise to its advantages, and referring to all masters of lake vessels for confirmation of its future "as the great outlet of the west." It was signed by Willard Smith, E. C. Hart and George Humphrey, trustees. Nothing further seems to have been heard of it. "Lucas City" was supposed to be located where Ironville now is.
Jesup W. Scott, after whom the Scott High school is named, in June, 1832, bought of Dr. J. V. D. Sutphen 70 acres, being part of the southwest frac- tional quarter of section 36, which includes now a part of Adams street, and having near its center the ground where the old high school stands, for $12 an acre. Dr. Sutphen then bought the west half of the northwest quarter of Section 35, and for this 80 acres he paid $480. In 1835 he sold this land to Scott and Wakeman for $35 an acre. In 1838 Scott sold an un- divided one-half to Noah H. Swayne, afterwards justice of the supreme court of the United States, for $200 an acre. A division was made by which Scott took the north 37 acres and Swayne the south part, about 43 acres.
The lands embrace a considerable part of the business section on Adams and Madison, adjoining the Port Lawrence tract, Jefferson street, about where the Locke residence is. Swayne place, and Scottwood addition on Collingwood, Parkwood, Monroe, etc.
The north line of the river tract on which Port Lawrence was laid out commenced at a point on the
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river east of Adams and near Lynn streets, and ex- tended west, crossing Madison street between Erie and Ontario streets and Monroe street about Twen- ty-second street, and all of the present city south of that line embraced in tracts one and two belonged originally to the Port Lawrence Company. It will be impossible to give the various additions to the city made since the city of Toledo was incorporated.
The first city directory was issued in 1858. It contained 116 pages of names with an average of 20 to a page, or about 2300 names, with a Tremainsville suburb supplement containing 18 names.
CHAPTER VII. EARLY TOPOGRAPHY.
MUD CREEK AND THE HOGS BACK .- In the front of the Toledo house, Summit and Perry streets, hereafter, mentioned, the ground was pretty nearly the present level of Summit street, but near it was a depression, which formed the runway for the water from the low ground of Mud creek, and this was covered by a log bridge, the logs covered with earth, and there began the bluff or rise in the ground to the ridge called "The Hog's Back." This includ- ed all of Summit street from the point to nearly Oak street, and at about Jefferson street it was from 15 to 20 feet higher than it is now. Its slope on one side was to the Maumee river, Water street not then being filled in, and on the other side to the creek above mentioned. A roadway was graded to the top of the bluff on the Monroe street end, where it was quite steep and on the top of the hill was a frame building, afterwards known as the National Hotel. This building stood there in 1836, and in 1845 was occupied by Lyman T. Thayer as the hotel above named. It was still in an abandoned and tenantless state in the writer's recollection. On the other slope and near its end on Summit, between Adams and Oak streets, Edward Bissell built a two-story build- ing which was the first postoffice of Toledo, built at this point, midway between Vistula and Port Law- rence, just after the union, as a part of the com- promise. The low ground from Monroe street to
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Swan creek had the appearance of the bed of a for- mer bay, and the topography of Mud creek indicat- ed that it was at one time a considerable stream or an estuary of the lake.
To those not familiar with the early topography of Toledo, the following facts will seem like a fairy story: Lower town and Upper town, Vistula and Port Lawrence, as late as 1850 were connected only by Summit street. A broad open space extended from Cherry to Adams and northwesterly to the canal. Summit street was graded through this Hog's Back, leaving embankments on either side between Oak street and Monroe from 5 to 20 feet high, and Summit street at this point resembled the channel of a canal with the water drained out. The earth from this excavation and the subsequent grading of the hill was used to fill up and practically make Water street at this point. These two sections of the city were connected only by a plank walk on the northwesterly side of Summit street and through the Hog's Back. In rainy weather that sidewalk was subject to landslides and became a very uncertain means of communication.
Trinity church, commenced in 1844, was built on the extreme edge of the dry ground on that slope, the bed of Mud creek extending from that point on Adams street to about Michigan street, at Adams street and farther as you looked easterly, the waters of the canal at that point being sustained between earth walls built through the creek.
To show something of the condition of the ground, now the principal business portion of the city, it may be related that there was a proposition
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from the Port Lawrence Company to donate the lot on St. Clair street where the First Congregational church stood, on condition of a church being built there. Jesup W. Scott offered the lot on the corner of Huron and Adams to the same church on the same conditions.
A committee was appointed to select from the two offers the most desirable and that committee re- ported that the Adams street lot was surrounded by water, to get to it the committee was compelled "to pick their way on bogs, logs, and isolated points of earth, and the lot itself was a piece of ground above water about large enough for the church surrounded by water of more or less depth and within a foot of the land surface."
The St. Clair street lot was dry and it was se- lected and on it the First Congregational church was built in 1844. This rejected lot on Adams street, corner of Huron, 103 feet on Adams and 180 feet on Huron, is probably worth five or six times as much now as the St. Clair street lot, 60 feet front, which was selected, and Rev. William H. Beecher, then pastor of the church, predicted that result.
The Adams street lot is now occupied by the new Lasalle & Koch building.
The canal ran through the city at the edge of the present library building, about where Ontario street crosses Adams, and the low ground, the bed of the creek, included the territory from near Orange street southwesterly with varying widths to its en- trance to the river, near Monroe street above men- tioned, now the most valuable part of the business property of the city.
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The morass or creek included the part of the city on Jefferson and Monroe about to Tenth street on Jefferson and after Jefferson street and Michigan street were graded and filled, the region for many years was known as Smoky Hollow, occupied by squatters in small squalid shacks. The ground on which the old High school building stands sloped down to the creek and it included the territory northeast of Adams street, and crossing Cherry street about at Woodruff avenue extended northeasterly to a point near the site of the Bay View park and in- cluded a part of the original town of Manhattan. The hill from Cherry street down Superior and onto the ice of Mud creek was the famous toboggan hill for the boys in winter time for many years and as late as 1855.
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