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 3
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For many years previous to the coming of the surveyors of the Connecticut Land Company, men who made a business of trading with the Indians bringing to them provisions, trinkets and whiskey. taking in exchange furs, hides, ete., were staying -one could hardly call it living-between Pittsburg and the mouth of the Cuyahoga. Some of those men had married sqnaws and had children. Some traders brought their wives with them but they did not remain long, for the Indians preferred to trade with squaw men, as they were at least connected with the tribe. Besides, the hardships attending a frontier life and the lack of
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
companionship were a double burden which women were not willing to endure when there was no promise of home. Some of the diaries of the first settlers which the author has examined state that the travelers came upon a cabin in the lower part of the Reserve, and saw a white woman at work. She gave a cry of joy at the sight of men just fresh from civilization and with ยท trembling lips and moist eyes begged them to partake of refresh- ments, saying she had not seen the face of a white woman in three years.
The Moravians were now and then in northern Ohio, at Sandusky, on the Lake islands, and for about a year, 1786-87, on the east side of the Cuyahoga river. They were forced to leave during hostilities.
The presence of the French in the Northwest Territory was distressing to the English. The Frenchman, principally because he was an explorer and not a colonizer, attached himself to the Indians. He did not buy land for beads and spoil the hunting grounds. He, apparently, was no menace to the roving red men, and, hence, became an ally. This condition was bravely met and, as we have said elsewhere, we should be grateful to the Cavalier.
Just here the author wishes to introduce an interesting bit of history which applies only indirectly to the Western Reserve. James A. Garfield, when a representative in Congress, made an address for the Historical Society at Burton, Geanga county, in which he said :
"The cession of that great Territory under the treaty of 1783, was due mainly to the foresight. the courage and the endurance of one man, who never received from his country any adequate recognition for his great service. That man was George Rogers Clark; and it is worth your while to consider the work he accomplished. Born in Vir- ginia, he was in early life a surveyor, and afterwards served in Lord Dunmore's war. In 1776 he settled in Kentucky, and was in fact the founder of that commonwealth. As the war of the Revolution progressed, he saw that the pioneers west of the Alleghanies were threatened by two formidable dangers : first by the Indians, many of whom had joined the standard of Great Britain; and second, by the success of the war itself. For. should the colonies obtain their independ- ence while the British held possession of the Mississippi
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valley, the Alleghanies would be the western boundary of the new Republic, and the pioneers of the west would remain subject to Great Britain.
"Inspired by these views, he made two journeys to Vir- ginia to represent the case to the authorities of that colony. Failing to impress the house of burgesses with the impor- tance of warding off these dangers, he appealed to the gov- ernor, Patrick Henry, and received from him authority to enlist seven companies to go to Kentucky subject to his orders, and serve for three months after their arrival in the west. This was a publie commission.
"Another document, bearing date Williamsburg, Janu- ary 2, 1778, was a secret commission, which authorized him. in the name of Virginia, to capture the military posts held by the British in the northwest. Armed with this authority, he proceeded to Pittsburgh, where he obtained ammunition, and floated it down the river to Kentucky, succeeded in enlisting seven companies of pioneers, and in the month of June, 1778, commenced his march through the untrodden wilderness to the region of the Illinois. With a daring that is searcely equaled in the annals of war, he captured the gar- risons of Kaskaskia, Saint Vincent and Cahokia, and sent his prisoners to the governor of Virginia, and by his energy and skill won over the French inhabitants of that region to the American cause.
"In October, 1778, the house of burgesses passed an act declaring that 'all the citizens of the commonwealth of Vir- ginia, who are already settled there, or shall hereafter be settled on the west side of the Ohio, shall be included in the District of Kentucky, which shall be called Illinois County.' In other words, George Rogers Clark conquered the Ter- ritory of the Northwest in the name of Virginia, and the flag of the Republic covered it at the close of the war.
"In negotiating the treaty of peace at Paris, in 1783, the British commissioners insisted on the Ohio river as the northwestern boundary of the United States; and it was found that the only tenable ground on which the American commissioners relied, to sustain our claim to the Lakes and the Mississippi as the boundary, was the fact that George Rogers Clark had conquered the country, and Virginia was in undisputed possession of it at the cessation of hostilities.
"In his 'Notes on the Early Settlement of the North-
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west Territory' Judge Burnet says: 'That fact (the cap- ture of the British posts) was confirmed and admitted, and was the chief ground on which the British commissioners reluctantly abandoned their claim.'
"It is a stain upon the honor of our country, that such a man-the leader of pioneers who made the first lodgment on the site now occupied by Louisville, who was in fact the founder of the state of Kentucky, and who by his personal foresight and energy gave nine great states to the republic -- was allowed to sink under a load of debt incurred for the honor and glory of his country."
CHAPTER V.
YANKEES. - PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH. - SCOTCH-IRISH. - SALT SPRINGS .- JUDGE SAMUEL HI. PARSONS.
Although the Frenchman (both Protestant and Roman Catholic), the Spaniard, the Dutchman, the Quaker, and the English (Cavalier and Puritan) colonized the new world, we are apt to think of the early inhabitant as the Massachusetts Puritan alone. Somehow the Puritan, especially the Pilgrim, with his plain, dark clothes, his high hat and his determined countenance, impresses itself deeply upon our sub-consciousness. Just so do we give all the credit of the successful settling of the Western Reserve to the Conneetient emigrants. This is entirely wrong.
There were two ways to enter New Connecticut, namely, through New York state to Buffalo and along Lake Erie, or through Pennsylvania to Pittsburg, to the Beaver and up the Mahoning. From the state of Pennsylvania came the Pennsyl- vania Dutch (a mixture of German, English, with sometimes a little Holland blood thrown in) and the Seotch-Irish, together with the New Yorker, all three joined with the Connecticut Yankee in the making of the new state. Some of the truest and most helpful citizens were the Scotch-Irish, some of the most frugal and industrious were the Pennsylvania Dutch. The Yankee considered himself superior to his neighbors, who said "du bish" or had a brogue. His education as a rule was better, his family longer established in these United States, and he believed himself responsible for the development of the country. On the other hand, the early Dutch Pennsylvanian saw fanlts in his Yankee neighbor and commented upon the same. The early Dutch housewife would say to her neighbor, when inviting her to stay to a meal, "It's not much we have, but anything is better than the weak tea and crackers of the Yankees." The
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"Dutelimen" were frugal, neat, industrious, but liked good liv- ing. Early settlers in Pennsylvania uniformly testify to the good cooking of Pennsylvania Dutch women. A Trumbull County man, now fifty years old, who as a boy taught school in western Pennsylvania, refers to those days of boarding around with pleasure because of the good eating. A prominent citizen of Warren, whose grandparents were Pennsylvania Dutch, and whose mother and wife were both excellent housekeepers, gives credit to both for being successes as home makers and cooks, but usually ends with "but no one ever quite came up to grand- mother."
It was the Seoteh-Irish who made the mirth for the pioneers, particularly at "frolie times," as house-raisings, log-rollings, and like occasions were called. They cared less for money than did the Yankee or the German and did not leave land fortunes to their descendants. They did, however, one thing for which they are never given credit. They, and not the men from the state of the Blue Laws, were first in establishing and maintain- ing churches.
Lest we may be tossing our heads in pride, we who trace back to the Connectieut forefather, let us see what others thought and think of us. W. H. Hunter of Chillicothe, in an address at Philadelphia on "Influence of Pennsylvania on Ohio," says :
"The claims made for the Puritan settlement at Mari- etta give us an example of Puritan audacity ; the New Eng- land settlements on the Western Reserve give us examples of Yankee ingenuity. In Connecticut he made nutmegs of wood ; in Ohio he makes maple molasses of glucose and hick- ory bark. In New England the Puritan bored the Quaker tongue with red-hot poker; in Ohio he dearly loves to roast Democrats. The Reserve was the home of crankisms. Joseph Smith started the Mormon Church in Lake county. And there were others, some of whom the northern Ohio emigrant took with him to Kansas."
The Connecticut pioneer impressed himself on the Western Reserve history because he was a college man. He became the surveyor, the lawyer, the judge, the legislator, the governor, because he was mentally equipped for such positions. Almost every leading jurist of that day was a Yale graduate.
It is known that for many years before the organization of
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
the Connecticut Land Company, as early as 1755, people had traveled from Pennsylvania to Salt Springs, near what is now Niles and Warren, for the purpose of making salt. Long vats and kettles showing much wear and little care were early found by traders and explorers. Men who were identified with the early times have written of seeing travelers with kettles thrown over the back of a horse on their way to the springs. Salt was expensive, costing according to some authorities six dollars a bushel, others sixteen dollars a barrel. The water here was only brackish and cost of making too expensive to be profitable, although many persons attempted to make it. Some of the Salt Spring kettles were later found in a spot near Braceville where the Indians used them for making maple sugar.
So far as we know there was never anything very good came out of the Salt Spring region. The first man who owned the tract, Judge Parsons, was drowned. A man stationed in one of the cabins to watch the goods belonging to a Beaver firm was killed. The white men who constructed cabins there were in constant fear of the Indians and were not financially repaid for their trouble. "The Pennsylvanians who had reconrse to it during the Revolution erected cabins there. In 1785 Col. Brod- head, commanding the troops at Fort Pitt, had orders to dis- possess them and did so. The Indians soon burned the cabins they had erected." Here occurred the first murder on the Reserve and here, time and again, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, people have had hope of making fortunes from the mineral water, only to give it up in despair later. A year or so ago (1906 or '07) did the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad acquire the land, and now, where once men, white and red. boiled water into salt while they drank whiskey and fought, where women and children suffered from fear of the red man, where men invested time and money to no purpose, runs a great trunk line, and men and women sleep and eat as they pass over the spot where so much unhappiness has been, and never think of Indians or murder or even salt, for the latter is served them by black men without cost.
General Samuel II. Parsons, of Connecticut, whose father was a distinguished clergyman, and whose mother (a descendant of Henry Wolcott) was a strong character, was the first lawyer of the Western Reserve, and the first purchaser of land in Trumbull County. He was an early friend of John Adams, a graduate of Yale, took an active interest in colonial politics. and
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became one of the boldest of America's generals. Old records in the hands of the family attribute to him the planning of the siege of Ticonderoga, which was the first hostile move in the war of the Revolution. Congress, in 1785, appointed him as one of the commissioners to treat with the Indians for cessions of land. Cincinnati stands on one of the portions ceded. Two years later he was appointed judge for the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio River, and in 1789 became chief justice of the Northwest Territory. Having traveled through this county he was familiar with the land, and finally bought from the commissioners appointed by the Connecticut legislature to sell land, a tract situated in the townships now known as Lordstown, Weathersfield, Jackson, and Austintown. The deed to this twenty-five thousand acres is now on record in the Trumbull County court house, and all records and maps agree as to its boundaries. He chose this spot, undoubtedly, because the Indians and traders had cleared land round about, because the springs found there contained brackish water from which he hoped later to manufacture salt, and because Pittsburg was comparatively near at hand and stores could be gotten at Beaver and other points on the river. He, however, never occu- pied this purchase. He was drowned as above stated in the Beaver river, probably at the Falls, when returning east. Little or no money had been actually paid down for the land, but his heirs claimed it nevertheless. From Webb's manuscript we learn :
"And although the Connectient Land Company ran their township and range line regardless of this claim, and although they, in their proceedings at the time called it only a 'pretended claim.' yet, in making partition of their lands, they reserved land enough in the townships Nos. 2 and 3, in the third and fourth range, to satisfy this claim, which they never aparted and which they ultimately abandoned to the heirs and assigns of General Parsons."
CHAPTER VI.
LIST OF DIRECTORS AND SURVEYORS OF CONNECTICUT LAND COM- PANY .- THE WOMEN OF THE PARTY .- DETAILS OF THE TRIP. -SCHENECTADY .- FORT OSWEGO .- CANANDAIGUA .- -BUFFALO .- COUNCIL WITH THE INDIANS AT BUFFALO CREEK .- WHISKEY AND THE SURVEYING PARTY .- CONNEAUT, JULY 4, 1796.
The rules and regulations of the Connecticut Land Company are of great interest. Every possibility of misunderstanding is provided for, minor details are mentioned, and the document shows the workmanship of the careful, conservative New Eng- land mind.
The directors of the company were Oliver Phelps, Henry Champion, Roger Newberry, and Samuel Mathews, Jr.
Following is a list of the surveying party of 1796:
General Moses Cleaveland, Superintendent.
Augustus Porter, Principal Surveyor and Deputy Superin- tendent.
Setli Pease, Astronomer and Surveyor.
Amos Spafford, John Milton Holley, Richard M. Stoddard and Moses Warren, Surveyors. Joshua Stow, Commissary.
Theodore Shepard, Physician.
EMPLOYEES OF THE COMPANY.
Joseph Tinker, Boatman.
Charles Parker.
George Proudfoot.
Nathaniel Doan.
Samuel Forbes.
James Halket.
Stephen Benton.
Olney F. Rice.
Samuel Hungerford.
Samuel Barnes.
Samuel Davenport.
Daniel Shulay.
Amzi Atwater.
Joseph MeIntyre.
Elisha Ayres.
Francis Gray.
Norman Wilcox.
Amos Sawtel.
George Gooding.
Amos Barber.
Samuel Agnew.
William B. Hall.
David Beard.
Asa Mason. Michael Coffin.
Titus V. Munson.
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
Thomas Harris.
Timothy Dunham.
Shadrach Benham.
Ezekiel Morly. Luke Hanchet. James Hamilton.
Wareham Shepard.
John Lock.
John Briant.
Stephen Burbank.
Joseph Landon.
We are told in several original manuscripts that this party consisted of fifty, but as the above numbers only forty-six, Gun, who was to have charge of the stores at Conneaut, Stiles, who was to have like position at Cleveland, Chapman and Perry, who were to furnish fresh meat and trade with the Indians, must be added. In some of the original records the full list of the men are given with these words "and two females." So unused were makers of books and keepers of records to giving a woman's name, unless she were queen or some one quite extra- ordinary, that this seemed nothing unusual.
These "two females," who made the first real homes on the Reserve, were Ann, the wife of Elija Gun, and Tabiatha, the wife of Job Stiles. Not only did they keep house, one at Con- neant and the other at Cleveland, but they kept them so well that the surveyors took themselves there upon the slightest pretext. They also had an oversight and care of the company.
Here is given the instructions of the directors to their agent.
To Moses Cleaveland, Esq., of the County of Windham, and State of Connecticut, one of the Directors of the Con- nectient Land Company, Greeting :
We, the Board of Directors, of said Connecticut Land Company, having appointed you to go on to said land, as Superintendent over the agents and men, sent on to survey and make locations on said land, to make, and enter into friendly negotiations with the natives who are on said land, or contiguous thereto, and may have any pretended claim to the same, and seeure such friendly intercourse amongst them as will establish peace, quiet, and safety to the survey and settlement of said lands, not ceded by the natives under the authority of the United States. You are hereby, for the foregoing purposes, fully authorized and empowered to act, and transact all the above business, in as full and ample a manner as we ourselves could do, to make contracts in the foregoing matters in our behalf and stead; and make such drafts on our Treasury, as may be necessary to accomplish the foregoing object of your appointment. And all agents
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
and men by us employed, and sent on to survey and settle said land, to be obedient to your orders and directions. And you are to be accountable for all monies by you received, conforming your conduet to such orders and directions as we may, from time to time, give you, and to do and act in all matters, according to your best skill and judgment, which may tend to the best interest, prosperity, and success of said Connecticut Land Company. Having more particu- larly for your guide the Articles of Association entered into and signed by the individuals of said Company.
Pittsburg and Canandaigua were the outlying posts for travelers to the Western Reserve. The Connecticut Land Com- pany instructed the surveying party to gather at Canandaigua and proceed.
Several of the journals of these young men are in the pos- session of the Western Reserve Historical Society and the entries in some of them which have never been published are curious. Mr. Seth Pease says under several dates in close she- cession, "I began my journey, Monday, May 9. 1796. Fare from Suffield to Hartford, six shillings; expenses four shillings six pence. At breakfast, expense two shillings. Fare on my chest from Hartford to Middletown, one shilling, six pence." In telling about his trip to New York he says, "Passage and liqnor 4 dollars and three quarters." When he arrived in New York we find the following entry: "Ticket for play 75e; Liquor 14e; Show of elephants. 50c ; shaving and combing, 13c." Apparently Mr. Pease was seeing New York.
It will pay the reader to take a map and follow their route from Connecticut to Schenectady, up the Mohawk river into Oneida lake, on to the Oswego river, into Ontario lake, along the southern shore of this lake to Canandaigua, and then to Buffalo, from there touching at least once at Presque Isle (Erie), on past the Pennsylvania line. They rowed, sailed and walked the shore. Sometimes part of them turned back to help bring up those delayed, or went ahead of the party to counsel with military officers or to make necessary preparations for the party. It was a tedious trip.
The four batteaux filled with provisions, baggage and men were heavy, while most of the men were unused to river boating. One of them records that pulling up the Mohawk was as hard work as he ever did in his life. It was a relief when they began
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
going down the Oswego and came to Fort Stanwix ( Rome, N. Y.) Here Mr. Stow procured the necessary papers to allow the party to pass Fort Oswego, which was in the hands of the British. At this very time an agreement had been reached which pro- vided that Americans could have access to the Lakes. The party therefore rapidly proceeded only to find they had been too sanguine. The officers in charge of the fort had no new orders from Fort Niagara, the old ones being to allow no Americans to pass, and consequently the party, somewhat disappointed, put into a little bay in the river. The land was low, the soldiers at the fort were many of them ill and dying, and the surveyors, ready and anxious for work in the far west, were not pleased at the thought of lying idly in this unwholesome spot until a mes- senger could go to Niagara and return. The directors of the Land Company had anticipated this trouble as said above, and had instructed Mr. Stow, who was the commissary, not to pass the fort if there was opposition. The situation was trying to Mr. Stow. Since he disobeyed orders and brought the party through successfully, we consider him an intelligent, faithful employee. Had the winds been a little stronger, the waves a little higher, conditions a little less favorable, so that the boats and the passengers had been lost, he would always have been referred to as a guilty, incompetent hireling. Luck, daring, conrage, and brains often make success.
The officers of the fort at Oswego knew that the party arrived in four boats, consequently when Mr. Stow, with one boat, went by the fort, he was not disturbed. These officers did not observe he carried provisions, they only thought he was going to Fort Niagara to obtain permission for the party to move on. The guard not being on the outlook, the three other boats passed the fort under the protection of night. The party now was all safely on Lake Ontario. They had been hindered and bothered in many ways but now they believed their troubles to be over. However, as is so often the case when people are sanguine, the worst they were to see was near at hand. A storm came up quickly and violently, throwing the three boats into Sodus Bay, where one of them was utterly disabled and where the whole party, almost miraculously, escaped drowning. One can imagine the anxiety of Mr. Stow, who had gone on to Tron- dequoit (the port for Rochester) when he learned that the three boats following him had been lost and nothing saved but an oar and a gun, thrown on shore at Sodus Bay. Either he or
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Auguster Porter (accounts disagree) with some men turned about from Irondequoit to go to Sodus to learn how the ship- wreck occurred. They were overjoyed to meet Captain Beard, who told them that instead of all being lost except the oar and gun, the oar and gun were the only things which really were lost. One of the boats, however, was useless and was aban- doned, but necessary rearrangements were made and the party proceeded on its way to Irondequoit, Canandaigua and the new home.
We next see them at Buffalo. The Indians were expecting them, and like all traders they were wondering what they dare demand; that is, how much they could get for their right to the land. It's a wise man who offers neither too much nor too little. A man who preceded the party with the horses was forced to pay three dollars for pasture. Since the grass was neither cared for nor used by anybody, this was rather a large amount.
In our day of rapid transportation it fairly exasperates us as we watch the slow movement of this party of surveyors. When they arrived at Buffalo, some of the party went to Fort Niagara, probably on business, some took a look at the Falls, while Holly, under the date of June 18th, says, "Porter and myself went on the Creek (Buffalo) in a bark canoe a fishing and caught only three little ones." It seems that although the streams were full of fish, these water animals were as capricions then as now.
Finally, the council with the red men was had, and pietnr- esque scene it was. On the shore of the lake, under the starry June sky, the white men, forerunners of the Western Reserve, with joy in their faces and hope in their hearts, sat around the blazing fire prepared by the red men. Speeches were made on both sides, and diplomatie messages exchanged, and while part of the Indians performed a swinging dance, the rest grunted an accompaniment from their sitting position on the ground. Nego- tiations were not completed then-not at all ; it was too soon. The Indian was "long on time" and short on whiskey. They must get drunk of course. What was the good of a treaty without a Pow-wow? What was the good of the white man except for his whiskey ? So pow-wow and whiskey it was, but fortunately there were no bad results.
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