USA > Ohio > Trumbull County > A twentieth century history of Trumbull County, Ohio; a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 2
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Of course, colonizing was a new business and she did not know that idle gentlemen, degenerate second sons, laborers who refused to labor, with no women, never had successfully made homes in the wilderness, or anywhere else.
The early expeditions of England are so well known to all
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
who can read at all that they are not repeated here. These three countries are mentioned in this work because indirectly they had a bearing on Trumbull County.
James I granted charters to the London and the Plymouth Companies in 1606. The Plymouth Company was given the land from Nova Scotia to Long Island running indefinitely westwards, while the London Company was given the land from the Potomac to Cape Fear, the intermediate portion being open to bothı.
In 1609 a new charter was granted by James to the London Company, extending the coast line two hundred miles below and above the present Old Point Comfort. The northern line then began a little above the center of the New Jersey coast and ran at an angle of about forty-five degrees, touching near Buf- falo, on through Lake Huron, Lake Superior "up into the lands throughont from sea to sea and northwest." This covered nearly one-half of the North American Continent. Therefore, in 1609, the land which later became Trumbull County belonged to England. To be sure it was granted to the London Company, and claimed by Virginia. so called in honor of the Virgin queen.
The people of Trumbull County owe a great debt to the London Company, for it succeeded in doing what Elizabeth began to do-held back the Spanish nation, and established a self-government which a people belonging to a constitutional monarchy could do and which a people belonging to an absolute monarchy could not do. The rulers of Spain were real rulers, not leaders ; people had no voice whatever in their own govern- ment. The rulers of England were not all powerful. The Vir- ginians were conformers and therefore did not displease the king, as did the northern folks. Hence it kept its charter, while Massachusetts' was revoked in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
CHAPTER III.
CONNECTICUT CONSTITUTION .- CHARTER OF 1662 .- CHARTER OAK. -CONNECTICUT IN PENNSYLVANIA .- CONNECTICUT MAS- SACRE AND LOSS OF CLAIM .- CHARLES II'S GEOG- RAPHY .- CONNECTICUT RESERVES PART OF HIER GRANT.
The Connectient constitution was drawn up in 1639 by the men of the three settlements or towns, Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor. It provided for a government by the people and did not mention king or parliament. Other towns later or- ganized under the title of New Haven. It was in this colony that the laws were so strict as to be called the "Blue Laws," al- though these laws did not compare in severity with many laws of Old England. On April 23, 1662, Charles II confirmed all Connecticut charters and deeds, and because he hated the New Haven colony (it had defied him and denied him certain re- quests) he turned it in as Connecticut under this charter. The conveyance gave to Connecticut "all the territory of the present state and all of the lands west of it, to the extent of its breadth, from sea to sea." This really gave to Connecticut aside from the home state, the upper third of Pennsylvania, about one-third of Ohio, and parts of what has become Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California. This United Connecticut became prosperous and tranquillity seemed near when Andros, the governor of Massachusetts, appeared in the state and demanded their charter. The question of releasing this valable document was considered for hours, eloquent argu- ments were made, the hardships of early settlers were depicted, but even when night fell the governor was still demanding. No Tungsten burner lighted the room in which the council was held, but the best of the time -- the tallow dip-was there. Suddenly there was darkness. When the dips were set sputtering again
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the charter could not be found. Some patriot, or patriots, had spirited it away and had hid it in the hollow of an oak tree where it remained till Massachusetts rebelled against Andros, when it was triumphantly prodneed. On Sundays, on Thanksgiving, and on Fourth of July, when the early settlers of New Con- necticut had time to think or to hear orations, their hearts swelled with gratitude as they recalled that the charter which gave them the land upon which they had built their homes had been preserved to them by Yankee wit and courage, and the "Charter Oak" was ever held in reverence.
Modern historians are ernel. Not only do they declare that there was no William Tell, no apple, no arrow; but that Poco- hontas did not leap forth from the darkness and save the life of John Smith. Instead of the latter they give us the picture of a wise, beautiful, gentle, loving Indian girl doing many good deeds for the white people, as well as her own, and who in turn was loved for her devotion and her bravery. Pshaw! that pic- ture does not replace the other. Too many women have been good, wise and devoted to this great country, in the beginning, later and at this minute, to have "special mention." But more, the historian insinuatingly whispers that the hollow oak may have held nuts, leaves, dead branches, toads, squirrels, but no parchment-no paper upon which the chesty king in 1662 had placed his name and seal. Anyway, even if the story was ethe- real, the charter itself was not.
The western land held ont hope for the Connectiont folks and land companies were formed to establish settlements in northern Pennsylvania, then more or less of a wilderness. When the companies were ready, men and women set ont to make new homes in the beautiful valley of the Wyoming. They sought property and liberty, but they found others ahead of them who wanted the same things. Seven times did the Connecticut emi- grants attempt to make a settlement. Each time they were unsuccessful, being driven out by whites and Indians, and twice massacred. The life of a pioneer is a hard life at best, but for men and women to be cold, hungry, lonely and fearful most of the time, as they struggled for existence, and to be killed at the end, seems horrible when we know how the fertile land. plenty of it for themselves, their children. and their children's children, stretched ont invitingly before them.
Sometimes husbands settled their families in this valley and went out to fight or to hunt, and the women did the work
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
of both, their children hanging to their skirts, while they listened as they labored for the whoops of the dreaded red man.
So busy were these frontiersmen during the Revolutionary War that they neglected the warning of the wives at home. When at last, they reluctantly returned, they found themselves wholly unprepared for what awaited them. They proceeded immediately to construct fortresses, while the women engaged in the manly occupation of making the powder. However, both efforts were to no purpose, for instead of keeping within the barricades, the men, about three hundred, marched boldly forth to meet twelve hundred Indians, Tories and British. One hun- dred and sixty were killed ontright, while one hundred and forty escaped, nearly all to be recaptured. These unfortunates were tomahawked or tortured to death. Some were pinned down with pitch-forks onto blazing logs, or made to run through crackling fires till they fell fainting and were burned to death. One Indred and fifty widows and nearly six hundred orphans were made that day. When women realized what was happen- ing they seized their children and started for the east, through the "Dismal Swamp." In one of these groups there were nearly one Indred women and children and only one man. Alfred Mathews in "Ohio and Her Western Reserve" says:
"All were without food, many scarcely clothed, but they pressed on, weak, trembling and growing constantly worse from this unaccustomed labor through the thicket. mire and ooze. One by one the weakest gave out. Some wandered from the path and were lost; some fell from exhaustion, some from wounds received in battle, but the majority maintained life in some miraenlons way and pressed on. The only manna in that wilderness was whortleberries, and these they plucked and eagerly de- voured, without pausing. Children were born and children died in that fearful forced march. One babe that came into the world in this seene of terror and travail was carried alive to the settlements. At least one which died was left upon the ground, while the agonized mother went on. There was not time nor were there means to make even a shallow grave. One woman bore her dead babe in her arms twenty miles rather than abandon its little body to the beasts."
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
A court, organized by Congress under the Articles of Con- federation entered into by the states during the Revolution, sat at Trenton, New Jersey, in 1787. to consider the dispute between Connecticut and Pennsylvania as to boundary. The decision was for Pennsylvania.
When the author was a young girl she accompanied her father as he went from county seat to county seat in the dual capacity of common pleas and circuit judge. Being thus thrown for weeks together with judges and lawyers, she soon learned, to her surprise, that printed, high judicial decisions were not always so clearly and firmly worded as to make differences of opinion among lower judges impossible, and, further, that con- ditions and eireumstances, personal and political. entered into decisions in many cases. The ruling in regard to the right of Connecticut to the western lands is a fair sample. She had charters for land in New York, but Charles had also given the same land to New York. His geography was as shady as was the spelling of our first president. New York and Connecticut began to settle their differences in 1683 and finished in 1733. In 1787, Connecticut was possessed of her charter, shorn of all east of the western Pennsylvania line. But she had that. It was now her turn. The general government was begging the states to relinquish their titles, but Connectient, coquettishly or mulishly, held back. At last she agreed, reserving for herself the portion of land which was bordered on the north by the lake, east by the Pennsylvania line, south by the 41st parallel. and on the west by a line a hundred and twenty miles west of the Pennsylvania west line. That this request was granted rather strengthens the thought that the judges knew they had been a little unfair in their first decision, and wished to make amends. Otherwise why should Connecticut be the exception to all other states.
Connectient, after all this trouble and uncertainty of years, was at last vietorions and she possessed the thing, or part of the thing. for which she had contended.
The stories of states are not unlike the stories of people. Connectient was barely relieved of a great anxiety-that of a possible loss of her land,-before she was beset by another one. She owned the land, but what should she do with it. An un- broken wilderness, hundreds of miles away, was not money in the purse. She had seen the Indians driven farther and farther away, she had had a peculiar experience herself of owning and
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
being deprived of, she had seen reversal of decisions, beside she realized the approaching power of central government and knew that individual communities might have to suffer for the good of the whole. She said to herself, "If I am not to be undone even at this late day, I myself must be up and doing."
CHAPTER IV.
COMMITTEE APPOINTED BY CONNECTICUT LEGISLATURE .- FIRE LANDS .- SECOND COMMITTEE .- ORIGINAL PURCHASERS .- QUANTITY OF LAND ON THE RESERVE .- NATURAL RESOURCES .- MEN WHO PRECEDED CONNECTI- CUT SETTLERS .- GARFIELD'S SPEECH.
The legislature in 1786 appointed a committee of three to dispose of this far western land. The price was placed at fifty cents per aere, the territory was to be divided into townships six miles square. The general assembly agreed to make a grant of a township to each purehaser, his heirs and assigns. In eaeli township was reserved five hundred acres of good land for the support of the "Gospel minister," five hundred aeres for "the support of the schools forever," and two hundred and forty acres in "fee simple to the first Gospel minister who shall settle in such town."
It was also agreed to survey the tract into tiers and ranges, No. 1 to be what is now the upper eastern corner of Ashtabula county. The legislature of the following year substantially ratified this, making a few minor changes such as placing No. 1 township at the southeast eorner, now known as Poland, and making the townships five miles square. Before the survey was made Judge Samuel H. Parsons bought the Salt Spring traet. Although reference is made to tier and range as if there had been a survey, there had not been. This was in 1788 and was the only sale made by the commissioners. This deed is recorded in Warren.
During the Revolutionary war the British destroyed prop- erty belonging to Connecticut land owners and they demanded reimbursement from the legislature. This was considered by that body in 1791 and in 1792, and 500,000 acres were set off for these sufferers, or their heirs, and this tract was known at first as "The Sufferers' Land," later as "Fire Lands," as most of the property destroyed had been burned.
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
The shrewdness of Connectient is seen even in this trans- action. She gave to those needing and deserving help, as men usually give alms, that is, she gave that for which she cared least, the land that was farthest away. Neither did she include the islands lying near and belonging properly to the territory. Every emigrant as he journeyed to his new home in the "Fire Lands" helped to make a roadway for the later settlers, and every aere eleared and every cabin erected on these "Fire Lands" added to the value of the land to the east awaiting purchasers.
Thus, the present counties of Huron and Erie, although belonging to the Western Reserve, brought no substantial gain, unless cancelling moral obligations be considered substan- tial gain.
In 1795 Connectient had grown desperate over her "White Elephant" and determined to dispose of it. After formally resolving to sell it, the legislature selected a committee of eight, one from each county, to transact the business. They were John Treadwell, Hartford county; James Wadsworth, New Haven county; Marvin Wait, New London; William Edmonds, Fairfield; Thomas Grosvenor, Windham; Aaron Austin, Liteh field; Elijah Hubbard, Middlesex; and Sylvester Gilbert, of Tolland county. It will be seen that the names of these men and these towns were used in many ways in New Connectient, as were also the names of the purchasers. At this time, several individuals wished to buy land for themselves or their friends, but the land company feared that some of them who were not from Connectient were not financially responsible, while the price others offered was not sufficient. Among the latter were Zepheniah Swift, author of Swift's Digest, ex-chief justice of Connectient. He offered a million dollars for the tract. This, however, was not entirely individual, as some of his friends were interested.
These eight men sold this tract of land to the following persons for the following amounts :
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
Joseph Howland and Daniel L. Coit. ... $30,461
Eliam Morgan and Daniel L. Coit. 51,402
Caleb Atwater 22,846
Daniel Holbrook
8,750
Joseph Williams
15,231
William Law
10,500
William Judd 16,250
Elisha Hyde and Uriah Tracy.
57,400
James Johnston
30,000
Samuel Mather, Jr.
18,461
Ephraim Kirby, Elijah Boardman, and Urial Holmes, Jr.
60,000
Solomon Griswold
10,000
Oliver Phelps and Gideon Granger, Jr. .
80,000
William Hart 30,462
Henry Champion, 2d. 85,675
Asher Miller 34,000
Robert C. Johnson 60,000
Ephraim Root
42,000
Nehemiah Hubbard, JJr. 19,039
Solomon Cowles 10,000
Oliver Phelps 168,185
Ashael Hathaway 12,000
John Caldwell and Pelig Sanford 15,000
Timothy Burr
15,231
Luther Loomis and Ebenezer King, Jr.
44,318
William Lyman, JJohn Stoddard, and David King.
24,730
Moses Cleaveland
32,600
Samuel P. Lord
14.092
Roger Newbury, Enoch Perkins and Jonathan Brace.
38,000
Ephraim Starr.
17,415
Sylvanus Griswold
1,683
Jozeb Stocking and Joshna Stow
11,423
Titus Street ..
22,846
James Ball, Aaron Olmstead and John Wiles
30,000
Pierpoint Edwards
60,000
Amounting to
$1,200,000
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
The early diaries show some little differences in names and amounts but the above is in a "Book of Drafts" in the record- er's office, at Warren. This list was prepared by Hon. T. D. Webb, and given out by Joseph Perkins of Cleveland. Both men were accurate and painstaking. The total is always the same in all lists.
These men formed themselves into the Connecticut Land Company, and so careful were they as to the letter of the law, so exacting as to the carrying out of their obligations, and such personal standing had they, that, whereas in tracing titles in most places in the United States one must go back to the grants made by the rulers of the old world, in northeastern Ohio it is sufficient to go back only to the Connecticut Land Company.
In the beginning this territory was supposed to contain four million acres, but it was found later that early maps and sketches had been defective; that Lake Erie made a decided southern dip so that part of the land proved to be water with some air thrown in.
Here is given a table prepared by Judge Frederick Kins- man, who was very accurate in all statements.
Quantity of Land in the Connecticut Western Reserve by Survey.
Connecticut Land Company, land east of
the Cuyahoga River, etc. . ... 2,002,970 Land west of the Cuyahoga River, exclu- sive of surplus Islands. 827,291
Surplus land (so called) . 5,286
Islands Cunningham or Kelley's .2,749
Islands Bass or Bay No. 1. 1,322
Islands Bass or Bay No. 2. 709
Islands Bass or Bay No. 3. 709
Islands Bass or Bay No. 4. 403
Islands Bass or Bay No. 5 32 5,924
Amount of Connectiont Land Company land in acres. .2,841,471 Parsons's, or "Salt Spring Tract" in
acres 25,450
Sufferers' or Fire Lands.
500,000
Total number of acres in the Con-
nectient Western Reserve. 3,366,921
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IHISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
The $1,200,000 received in payment was placed by Con- neeticut in its school fund and has always there remained.
Connectient having obtained by grant, having retained by diplomacy and persistence, and having sold to her satisfaction her western land, watched with pride its development. At this writing a larger part of the Western Reserve, partienlarly the eastern section, is quite as much like New England as Con- necticut itself.
What was the nature of this new Connecticut ? It was heavy with excellent timber, oak, elmi, maple, hickory, walnut, beech, etc. It was bounded on one side by a great blue lake deep enough to carry the trans-atlantic steamers of today, and con- taining more fish in proportion to its size than any known body of water in the United States.
It had several navigable rivers and numerous creeks and rivulets. The elimate was temperate, a little colder in winter perhaps than the home state and possibly warmer in summer. The surface soil was a rich sandy loam in the northern portion, running a little heavier with clay at the southern part.
Within this territory was fine sandstone for building pur- poses and excellent flagging for walks, as the towns of today will testify.
Bituminons coal (now nearly exhausted) of the finest quality lay waiting to be mined.
The soil was adapted to fruit growing and the very strip of land over which the Cleveland surveyors passed is now almost covered with vineyards. The maple tree stood ready for service and today, in the northeastern portion, is made the finest maple syrup in the world.
The woods abonnded in game and the streams in fish.
The land in some places was low and wet and, in others, flat and uninteresting, while there were rolling, hilly spots with touches of exquisite scenery.
Nature had done well by this part of the world and now man was to demonstrate what he could do on snel a foundation. "The folks back home"-the land company-had bought this territory as the boys trade marbles, "unsight, unseen." New Englanders knew nothing of the flat fertile middle west. Their country was a stony one and to them trees meant fertility. The Western Reserve was a forest; that satisfied them.
Some writers of the New Connectient history say that into Vol. 1-2
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
this vast forest, into this wild region, through whose woods and over whose hills no white man's foot had passed, came the advance guard, the surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company.
This statement is an exaggeration. White men were here when the first surveyor arrived, and had been here, as travelers, missionaries, soldiers, and traders long before.
Possibly LaSalle with his party, going east and west, in 1682-83, walked the shores of Lake Erie. French forts were at Niagara, Presque Isle (Erie), and at the mouth of the Maumee; it is more probable that he took the north shore however, since the Indians of that region were his friends.
The journals, diaries, survey books, etc., which are now being brought to light, show that in many parts of the Reserve timber was felled by a white man's ax at a very early day. In 1840 Col. Charles Whittlesey, who wrote an early history of Cleveland, says he examined a stump of an oak tree, in Canfield, which was two feet ten inches in diameter and "about seven inches from the center were marks of an ax, perfectly distinct, over which one hundred and sixty layers of annual growth had acemulated." Mr. Whittlesey procured a portion of the tree extending from the outside to the center on which the ancient and modern marks of the ax are equally plain; the tools being of about the same breadth and in equally good order. "The Canfield tree must be considered a good record as far back as 1660." This block may be seen now in the Western Reserve Historical Society, in Cleveland.
Mr. Jason Hubbell, of Newburg, reported the finding of like marks which he estimated to have been made in 1690.
Mr. Lapham, of Willoughby, felled a tree in 1848 which was seen by many people of that time and the stump of which was in 1867 standing near the railroad track one mile and a half west of Willoughby. This showed 400 rings outside the cut. indi- cating it to have been chopped in 1448 or forty-four years before Columbus' landing at San Salvador. Mr. Whittlesey says some trees form two terminal buds a year and if this were so it would bring the date abont 1648 or near the time of the other marks.
The early surveyors and settlers were usually good woods- men ; even if any one was not expert with the ax he appreciated good work in others. Being able to make the cleanest ent in felling a tree in the early days of the last century called forth as much admiration as the management of a lige industrial plant, or the forming of a great trust. There was no chance
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
therefore, of these ax marks being confused with those of the Indians. The "squaw axes" given the Indians between 1608-20 had different length of bit and the marks the red men made were entirely different in character. In fact, no matter how much we may sympathize with the Indian in the loss of his hunting grounds and the destruction of his tribe we must admit that they did not take kindly to agriculture or manual labor, and few, if any. ever excelled in these directions. If they had, some of us who now have blue eyes might have had black ones, or we might now be wearing feathers in our hair instead of on our hats.
Jesnits were among the Iroquois Indians in New York as early as 1656, but it does not seem, even if they penetrated as far as Trumbull County, that they could have chopped so many trees because the muimber found two hundred years later was too great for travelers to have made. Just why the Norsemen landed on our New England coast, when they were there, how long they really stayed, will never be known, neither will the time when the white men visited the Ohio Lake region be deter- mined, how long they staid, why they came, when they left. But we know that they. like the Norsemen, were here.
A. T. Goodman in a tract of the Western Reserve Historical Society says: "The earliest known occupation of the territory embraced within the limits of the state of Ohio by any collective body of white men was by the French in 1680." From that time until the conquest of Canada by the French, French traders were scattered throughout the territory, building a post. station or store at almost every Indian town. English traders first made their appearance in the Ohio country in 1699-1700. From that time until 1745, we hear of them at various towns and sta- tions. In 1745 they built a small fort or block honse among the Hurons on the north side of Sandusky Bay, the extreme of the Reserve.
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