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 4
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On June 23rd, "after much talking on the part of the Indians, Cleaveland offered Capt. Brant 500 pounds New York currency, which equals $1,000, provided he would peacefully
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relinquish his title to the western land. This sum was not large enough to please the captain, but after much parley he finally agreed to it, provided Cleaveland would use his influence with the United States and obtain from the government the sum of $500 annually for his tribe. In case he could not accomplish this he was to promise that the Land Company would pay an additional $1,500 in cash."
Whether this agreement was kept, and whether either the government or company paid this sum is not known to the anthor, but as white men were treating with Indians we presume this money is the last they saw.
Cleaveland then gave two beef cattle and 100 gallons of whiskey to satisfy the eastern Indians, and a feast followed. The western Indians were also given provisions to help them home and all had been provided for during the council. It is greatly to the credit of the Connecticut Land Company, and a source of much satisfaction to the residents of the Western Reserve today that the title to the land was not stolen but was bought and paid for, even if the price was low; further, that possession of the new country was given and taken under the best of feeling and without one drop of bloodshed. To be sure, our forefathers must have had a little larger supply of whiskey than the sentiment of today would allow them, when we remem- ber they gave away one hundred gallons and had plenty for all summer, but history must be studied from its own time. Whis- key was as plentiful during the early days of the colonization as was food. To be sure, it was not our adulterated stuff of today, but it was whiskey and it did what alcohol always has done and always will do to men. Its stimulating qualities sometimes relieved the lonesomeness and fatigue, but the depression follow- ing surely more than overbalanced the good. All of the mis- understandings among travelers and early settlers and Indians were caused more or less by whiskey. The women in the early settlements abhorred it. They feared to have their husbands take it lest trouble should follow. Anxiously these women in their own cabins, with wolves howling near outside, and babies huddled close within, awaited the coming of the husband who had been to an adjoining clearing, not knowing what had hap- pened to him because of his fondness for whiskey or because of the Indians. These women saw their neighbors succeed and become prosperous because of their self-control, while they remained poor because of the "fruit of the corn." Many and
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many an overworked wife who had looked forward to a log- rolling for weeks went home from the same with weeping eyes and heavy heart, her husband too drunk to guide the horse or act as her protector. Some people believe that there was not as mneh drunkenness then as now and will bring proof to bear upon it. This is not the place to discuss the temperance question, but, when we know that in range one, number one, Poland. there were eighteen stills, that ministers were sometimes paid in whis- key, we can scarcely believe that the drunkenness of to-day is greater. Then, as now, women were temperate; then, as now, they suffered from drunkenness, and its consequences; then as now, they persuaded and begged their very own to desist ; then, as now, they wept and prayed, and then, as now, a few were heeded, while more were not.
One Trumbull County woman whose husband took too mich at stated intervals, when he came in in that condition, obliged him to sit in a straight-back chair till he was sober. If he started to move. she. at her word, raised a stick of wood as if to strike him, when he immediately resumed his seat. He finally declared there was no use in drinking if one had to sit still until sober, and he reformed. As a rule, however, the stick, in a real or metaphorical sense, was, and is, in the hand of man.
At last the surveyors had reached their destination. Even though they were adults, they had said good-bye to their home friends with thick throats and heavy hearts. They had paddled slowly the New York rivers, had outwitted the British officers, had suffered shipwreck, had endured the discomforts of long slow travel. had successfully treated with the Indians, and now, in the afternoon of a summer day, they had come upon the "promised land." The blue waters of the lake lapped the shore, the creek sluggishly sought its bay, the great forest trees were heavy with bright green leaves. the grass was thick and soft, the sky was bhie, and the lowering sun bathed the landscape with delicate reds and yellows. It was the Fourth of July, Inde- pendence Day, for which their fathers, twenty years before. had fought, and for which they themselves held holy reverence. They had double reason to rejoice, and they shouted, sang, fired guns across the water, adding an additional salute for the new territory. They drank water from the creek and whiskey from the jng; they named the spot Fort Independence. and drank toasts to the president of the United States, the state of Con- nectient, the Connecticut Land Company, the Fort of Independ-
Vol. 1-3
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ence and *the fifty sons and daughters who have entered it this day." When the camp fires had died down, and the stars above were thick and bright, they went to sleep in the new land which was shortly to be broken up into thirteen counties, or parts of counties (Ashtabula, Geanga, Cuyahoga, Lake, Trumbull, Mahoning, Portage, Summit, part of Medina, part of Ashland, Erie, Huron and Lorain). If anyone had dreamed that night that in one hundred and thirteen years these thirteen counties would have almost as much influence in the world as the thirteen original colonies had at that time; that most of the huge forests would be supplanted by cultivated fields and prosperous towns; that Indian paths would be macadam roads; that over tiny wires one could talk to any part of this New Country as easily as they could talk to each other that night on the lake shore; that school- houses and churches would be thick throughout that region; and that both would be free; that over the very spot where they lay sleeping, powerful engines would carry sleeping passengers at the rate of sixty miles an hour; that vehicles without horses would spin along the lake front from Buffalo creek to the Cuyahoga in less time than it took them to put their camp in order; that mountains of ore would lie in the lake ships a few miles from them; that no man wilder than they would be east of the Mississippi ; that the wildest animals would be the youthful bull or the aged house-dog; that in the nearby valleys would be some of the most wonderful industrial plants in all the world. and that hundreds of men would have sufficient money to buy and pay for the whole Western Reserve without inconvenience; that on this territory would stand the sixth largest city in the United States; that slavery would not exist; that women would have a voice in making the school laws, and that men would float or fly through the air above their heads in machines made for flying,-if any one of the party had dreamed any or all of these things, and related them in the morning, he would have been declared untruthful or as suffering too much from that taken from the gurgling jng.
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CHAPTER VII.
INDIAN COUNCIL AT CONNEAUT .- THE START OF THE SURVEYORS .- SETTING THE CORNER POST .- RUNNING THE PARALLEL .- SUMMER AT CLEVELAND .- RETURN HOME .- WINTER AT CLEVELAND .- WINTER AT CONNEAUT .- STARVATION.
On the morning of the 5th of July, two boats put back to Fort Erie for some supplies which had been left there. The surveyors began preparations for the field. On the following day the Indians, who naturally liked pow-wows, and to whom a party of settlers was a curiosity, asked for another commeil. Both sides were in a happy mood. The Indians made speeches full of praise to General Cleaveland, and Paqua presented him with a pipe of peace. This pipe is still in the possession of the family. Although it is hard for a New Englander to "roll out honied words," still the general did the best he could, and made np his deficiency in flattery with presents. He gave them a string of wampum, silver trinkets, and like things, besides $25 worth of whiskey. On this date, the 7th, the members of the surveying party left Conneaut. They were ambitious not only to do their work quickly, but well. Joyously they started into the unknown wilderness. Porter, Pease and Holley ran the first east line. They found the north corner of Pennsylvania, and ran down five or six miles west of that line.
Moses Warren and party had a line farther west. Before the summer was over, it is written of Warren. sometimes, "he was a little less energetic," and other times, "he is indolent." lle was either ease-loving, or slow. However, the author owes him a debt of gratitude because he wrote a full, clear hand and was a good speller. Manseripts of long ago try the patience of the readers of to-day. Both Pease and Holley left copious notes. From them we learn that the first line they ran cansed them much trouble and many vexations. The land was not only
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covered with huge trees, but with smaller ones and with thiek underbrush. It was impossible to sight at long range. The spring had been a wet one, the streams swollen, and the swamps sometimes impassable. The land lay flat, and on the whole was uninteresting. The horses often wandered off at night and precious morning time was spent eorralling them. Sometimes the surveyors waded the swamps and streams, sending the eooks, supplies, horses, and laborers around. This always brought about delay and more or less distress. As the surveyors took the shortest route, they arrived first and, wet, tired, and hungry, they were obliged to wait for the rest of the party, whose long route made them sometimes honrs late. Mr. Stow, the commis- sary, had his trials, first, in finding it hard to obtain fresh sup- plies, and second, in reaching the various parties in the field. Very often we find notes like these: "Ate our last breakfast," or. "Only one more dinner left," or, "Had less than a half of pint of rum left."
The mosquitoes and gnats were troublesome. The surveyors complained of "earth gas," and they attributed the fever and agne which came later to this gas, but almost always at the same time mentioned the presence of mosquitoes.
The plan was to find the 41st parallel at the Pennsylvania line, and then run west one hundred and twenty miles. From this base line, five miles apart, lines were to be run north, and later cross lines, parallel with the base line, thus making twenty- four townships across, and twelve in the deepest place.
These townships were numbered as ranges, and from the base lines up as towns. Before towns or hamlets were named, they were called by number. Poland was range 1, number 1, Cleveland range 12, number 7. Again and again do we read in diaries and papers, "Went to number 4; stopped at Quinby's." Nuumber 4 was not only township 4, but it was range 4.
As the Porter-Holley-Pease party proceeded sonth they, or their workmen at least, realized that New Connecticut was not a Paradise. The monotonous records show change when they reached the middle-east of the present Trumbull County. When they arrived at what is now Brookfield they could see the Penn- sylvania hills with the valleys in between, and they note that this is the first time they have seen "over the woods," and they feel cheered. The rest of the route south was a little less trou- blesome and more interesting. Once they thought they heard the tinkle of a cow bell, and hastened to find it, without sueeess.
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They thought they had just imagined the sound, but their ears had not deceived them, for there was then a family living in that vicinity. When they reached the Mahoning river they saw some traders in a boat, near the present sight of Youngstown. They talked with them and learned that supplies could be had at Beaver, and that these traders were on their way to Salt Springs, whose praises they sang.
Finally, on July 23rd, they set up a wooden post at the intersection of the 41st parallel and the Pennsylvania line, south- east corner of Poland.
They had been seventeen days running this line. Surely they had not been idle, and they had overcome grievous obstacles. Their poor instruments showed variations, and they did not have time to prove their work. When the whole survey was finished, they were half a mile out of the way. It was intended that each township should have sixteen thousand acres of land, and not one of them has just exactly that amount.
Moses Warren, and the other surveyors, came up with the Pease-Porter party on the 23rd, and they separated, beginning five miles apart, and ran the line back to the lake. The return trip was about the same, except that the laborers showed less inclination to work, and the cooks became a little more irritable.
On the 5th of July the laborers began the erection of a ernde log house on the east side of Conneant creek, which was used for a storehouse. It is referred to in the early history as "Stow Castle." A second house was later erected as a dwelling for the surveyors. It was then expected that Conneaut would be the headquarters.
As soon as all was under way, General Cleaveland started by lake for the Cuyahoga river. He reached his destination the day before the corner post was set in Poland, July 22nd. Among those accompanying him were Stow, the commissary, and Mr. and Mrs. Stiles. There is no record of how this spot pleased the party, although several writers have drawn imaginary pictures and noted possible thoughts. So far as the writer knows, Moses Cleaveland did not commit to paper his first impression. True it is, that many a purchaser of New Connecticut land, who intended to settle near the present sight of Cleveland, when they saw the desolate sand of the lake shore and felt the chilly winds, retraced their steps onto the Hiram hills, to the Little Mountain district, or the ridges of Mesopotamia, Middlefield or Bloomfield.
The running of the parallels was troublesome, the work was
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HISTORY OF TRUMBULL COUNTY
not finished the first summer as there was not time to do that and to plat the Cleveland vicinity. As the Chagrin river was not on any of the maps, it gave most of the surveyors some trouble. They all took it for the Cuyahoga, of course. The field work was destructive to shoes and clothes, and, as said before, food was not always certain. Part of the laborers early became dis- satisfied with only hard work and little pay, and the company, to ease things, promised them pieces of land and other rewards. Some of them were early discharged, and others left.
On September 16th, Holley writes. "Encamped a little east of the Chagrin river. Hamilton, the cook, was very cross and lazy. Was on the point of not cooking any supper, because the bark would not peel and he knew of nothing to make bread upon. Davenport wet some in the bag."
Thursday, September 22nd, "He discovered a bear swim- ming across the river." " Mumson canght a rattlesnake which was boiled and ate."
September 28th. "I carved from a beech tree in Cuyahoga town, 'Myron Holley, Jr.,' and on a birch, 'Milton Holley, 1796. September 26, 1796, Friendship.'" Apparently the young man was getting homesick.
October 16th, "Came to camp in consequence of hard rain; found no fire; were all wet and cold, but after pushing about the bottle and getting a good fire and supper we were as merry as grigs."
During the summer a cabin was put up for Stiles on lot 53, east side of Bank street, where the store of Kinney & Leven now stands. A house for the surveyors and a house for stores was erected near the month of the Cuyahoga. These were the first houses built within the present district of Cleveland for per- manent occupancy. There had been a number of buildings erected by traders, by companies, by missionaries, and so forth, but they were put together for temporary purposes and were destroyed either by the wind and weather, or by the Indians. The latter seemed always to rejoice when a chance was offered to burn a vacant building. Colonel James Hillman, who figured conspicuously in the early history of Trumbull County, said he erected a small cabin on the river near the foot of Superior street in 1786. A party of Englishmen who were wrecked on the lake, built a cabin in which they lived one winter, probably '87. In 1797, as we shall see, James Kingsbury occupied a dilapidated
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building, put up before '86, for protecting flour which was brought from Pittsburg tor Detroit people.
The cold fall days warned the party that they minst stop work. They were not satisfied with the results, and neither was the Land Company. The latter had spent $14,000 and appar- ently had little to show for it. The southern boundary of their territory had not been run west after the fourth range. A large traet had not been surveyed at all. All of the territory "east of Cuyahoga. west of the fourth meridian, and south of the sixth parallel" was still not tonched. None of the six townships intended for sale were ready except in the neighborhood of Cleveland. However the surveyors had done the best they could under the conditions, and one can read between the lines of their ordinary surveyor notes an intense desire to be at home. Holley says, "Tuesday, Oct. 18th, we left Cuyahoga at three o'clock and seventeen minutes for home. Left Job Stiles and wife and Joseph Landon with provisions for the winter." Porter, Holley and Shepard rowed along the lake shore by moonlight. Pease walked, taking notes of the coast. (Pease was a poor sailor.) The pack horses were to go back to Geneva. Atwater and others took them by land. So anxious were these young men to reach home that they arose one morning at 2:00 a. m. and another 3:00 a. m. and arrived at Conmeant on Friday, the 21st. They left Fort Erie October 23rd at 1:30 a. m. and arrived at Buffalo at 10:30, where they struck a fire "and were asleep in less than thirty minutes." As they proceeded and their desire for home increased, their hours of travel were longer. Once they rowed all night. They reached Irondequoit Friday, the 27th. Here somehow they got out of the channel and had to jump into the water up to their waists and push the boat thirty rods. Wading in water waist deep the last of October is not pleasant, nor very safe. They reach Canandaigua the 29th and separated. When we remember that Holley was only eighteen years old, and all of them were young men with education, or older men without experience or education, we believe that most of them did their duty "in that state of life which it should please God to call them." Porter was the chief surveyor, as we have seen. Neither he, nor Holley, returned with the party the next year. They became brothers-in-law later. Holley settled at Salisbury, Con- neetient, and his son Alexander II. became governor. Moses Cleaveland did not return either. He retained his interest, more or less, in the history of the Western Reserve. At one time he
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purchased an interest in the Salt Spring Tract, of Parsons. Some of his family, however, later settled here and among his relatives was Mrs. Chas. Howard, whose children now live in Warren.
If all who had come to the Reserve had returned we could say "Here endeth the first lesson." When the winter set in, there were in Cleveland Job Stiles and his wife. Richard Lan- don, one of the surveying party, had expected to spend the win- ter with them. It is not known when or for what reason he left. Edward Paine, for whom Painesville was named, took his place in this eabin. It is a tradition that in this cabin, during the winter, a child was born, the mother being attended only by a squaw. Of this, however, we are not absolutely sure. Supplies had been left in Cleveland, and the Indians were exceedingly good to the settlers, so even if it was a hard winter for the three, there were some mitigating conditions. Mr. and Mrs. Stiles were there until 1800, and Mrs. Stiles, who is described as a capable, courageous woman, lived to a good old age.
Aside from a few people at Fort Erie, there were no white people between Buffalo and "the Freneli settlement on the River Raisin," except those at Cleveland and Conneant. Soon after General Cleaveland and party arrived at Conneaut, James Kingsbury. his wife and three children, appeared. He was the first "independent adventurer" who took up his residence on the Reserve. They had come from New Hampshire, stopping possibly in New York for a little time. His wife was Euniee Waldo, a woman of strong and pleasing personality. In the early fall, the Land Company cleared about six acres of land, sowed it to wheat, and this was probably the first wheat raised by white men in old Trumbull County. Kingsbury is eredited as being the first to thrust a sickle into the wheat field, planted on the soil of the Reserve. Just what Kingsbury did through the summer, we are not told, but when all the surveying party had disappeared, he and his family occupied one of the eabins, presumably "Stow Castle," Mr. and Mrs. Gun, the other. It was dreary enough at Conneant Creek when the winter settled down. For some reason, Mr. Kingsbury found it necessary to go back to New Hampshire. He went all the way on horseback to Buffalo. Hle expected to be gone at the latest six weeks. His trip was uneventful, but as soon as he reached his destination he was taken with a fever, probably the kind with which the sur- veyors had suffered, and it ran a long course. He had left with his family a nephew thirteen years okl, a cow and a yoke of
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oxen. During the early part of his stay, the Indians furnished the family with meat, and Mr. and Mrs. Gun were kind to them. Even when the husband's fever subsided his great weakness ren- dered it impossible for him to travel, and his anxiety as to his family retarded his progress. There being no communication at any time, Mrs. Kingsbury had the same anxiety for him, and in addition she was starving to death. At this erisis a son was born to her, Mrs. Gun being with her at that time. As this child is reported to be the first child born on the Western Reserve, we are led to think that the families of Kingsbury and Stiles became mixed in the minds of some recorders, and that there was no child born during that winter at Cleveland, and that this was the first. Before Mr. Kingsbury was able to travel, he set out and reached Buffalo the 3rd of December. This winter was a severe one, and the snow was over five feet deep in the lake region. However, Mr. Kingsbury, with an Indian gnide, trav- eled toward his family. His horse became disabled, but he stag- gered along, reaching his cabin Christmas eve. Mrs. Kingsbury had recovered enough to be up and had decided to leave with her family for Erie Christmas day. "Toward evening a gleam of sunshine broke through the long clouded heavens, and lighted up the surrounding forest. Looking out she beheld the figure of her husband approaching the door." So weak was she that she relapsed into a fever, and her husband, nearly exhausted, was obliged the first minute he could travel, to go to Erie for provisions. The snow was so deep he could not take the oxen. and he drew back a bushel of wheat on the sled. This they cracked and ate. Presently the cow died, and the oxen died from eating poisonous bonghs. The low state of the mother's health and the death of the cow caused the starvation of the two- months-old baby. Tales have appeared in newspapers in regard to this incident which stated that as Mr. Kingsbury entered his door on his return trip he saw the baby dead on its little conch, and the mother dying. This, as we have seen, is not so. The child did not die until a month after Mr. Kingsbury reached home.
A reliable old man who was abont eighty-four years okl in 1874, in talking of the hardships of the people of New Connecti- cut, said, "But the hardest day's work I ever did was the one in which I got ready to bury my boy." There were then no hearses, no coffins, no undertakers, no grave-diggers, but there were ten- der, loving friends, all of whom were ready to do all in their
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power. But here was Mr. Kingsbury, entirely alone (when the (inns left, we do not know) and obliged to do everything there was to be done for his baby. He, and his thirteen-year-old nephew, found a box and, laying the body in it, carried it to the top of a hill, where Mrs. Kingsbury, on her bed, could raise her- self enough to see the body lowered to the grave. When this sad dnty had been performed, and Mr. Kingsbury returned to the house, he found his wife uneonscions and for two weeks seemed to take no notice of anything going on. Mr. Kingsbury, still feeble, was nearly discouraged, when suddenly the severe north winds were supplanted by southern breezes, and in the atmosphere was a slight promise of spring. Early in March, when he was hardly able to walk, he took an old rifle which his unele had carried in the War of the Revolution, and went into the woods. Presently, a pigeon appeared. He was no marks- man and did not feel at all sure he could hit it with a good gun. He was so anxions, however, to get something which was nour- ishing for his wife that the tears fairly came to his eyes when he saw the bird fall. He made a broth and fed her, and saved her life. From this on the family all grew slowly better, and when the surveying party came back in the spring, they aeeom- panied it to Cleveland and occupied the cabin earlier referred to. Mr. Kingsbury later put up a cabin on the east side of the public square. In the fall of that year he had a comfortable cabin built, further to the east. Here his family was pretty well, much better than the settlers who were near the mouth of the Cuyahoga. Later he built quite a nice frame dwelling. The' first crop he raised was on the ground near the square. He had three children, Mrs. Sherman, Amos, and Almon. He lived to be eighty years old, and his wife seventy-three. He had a military commission in New Hampshire, with the rank of colonel. In 1800 he was appointed judge of the court of quarter ses- sions of the peace for the County of Trumbull. In 1805 he was elected a member of the legislature. Ilis letters written to Judge Kirtland of Poland at this time, now in the pos- session of Mr. H. K. Morse, are most dignified and business- like. Ile was a close friend of Commodore Perry and General Harrison. It is said the day before the battle of Lake Erie, he was with Perry when the latter asked him what he thought ought to be done. The judge replied, "Why, sir, I would fight." From all accounts it seems that Judge and Mrs. Kingsbury were exem- plary citizens and that the sufferings and distresses which came
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