Century history of Youngstown and Mahoning County, Ohio, and representative citizens, 20th, Part 11

Author: Sanderson, Thomas W., comp
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1074

USA > Ohio > Mahoning County > Youngstown > Century history of Youngstown and Mahoning County, Ohio, and representative citizens, 20th > Part 11

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VIEW OF YOUNGSTOWN, LOOKING EAST FROM COLONIAL HOTEL

VIEW OF YOUNGSTOWN, SHOWING PUBLIC SQUARE. SOLDIERS' MONUMENT AND MARKET STREET

LANTERMAN'S MILL AND FALLS

PIONEER PAVILION

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new territory in the most vivid colors, and further announced that a contract had been entered into between the associates and the Treasury Board, and offering for sale any township, section, or quarter-section in the 4,- 000,000-acre tract for which he had applied. He reserved for himself, as the site of a town that he proposed to lay out, an entire township at the confluence of the big Miami and the Ohio, besides fractional townships on the north, south, and west sides of it. The land was of- fered until May Ist following at two-thirds of a dollar per acre; after that the price was to be raised to one dollar.

The proposition proved attractive, and the best lands were soon taken. A large number of the purchasers soon found themselves de- ceived, as the Treasury Board refused to con- cede the entire front on the Ohio, and would execute no contract at all until October 15, 1788, when, through the influence of General Dayton and Daniel Marsh, they consented to a grant limited to twenty miles along the course of the Ohio, beginning at the mouth of the Big Miami, and with a northerly boundary to in- clude 1,000,000 acres. This excluded the lands sold to Stites and others, and also dropped a township that had been reserved for the use of an academy. The result was an immense amount of litigation, arising out of the vio- lated contracts between Stites and his associ- ates and the purchasers ; and the contentions in Congress and the local courts, in which latter Stites was a judge, were not ended until May, 1792, when Congress passed acts which ex- tended the limits of the purchase to the origi- nal number of acres originally bargained for, though with somewhat different boundaries. Reservations were set apart in each township for the support of religion, schools, one com- plete township for an academy and other insti- tutions of learning, a lot one mile square at the mouth of the Big Miami, and one of fifteen acres for Fort Washington. The people who had purchased lands from Symmes were granted the right of pre-emption on further payment of $2 per acre. Other schemes of set- tlement were soon under way. In November, 1788, Stites, with a strong party of friends and

followers, and provided with all necessary im- plements for clearing and building, landed just below the Little Miami, built a fort or block- house, and founded the town of Columbia.

In the summer of that year, Matthias Den- man, of New Jersey, who had taken up the entire section of land opposite the mouth of the Licking, and who was ambitious to become the founder of a town, met at Limestone, Col. Robert Patterson, the founder of Lexington, Kentucky, who was meditating a purchase from Symmes. Denman accompanied the Colonel to Lexington, where, in company with John Filson, they formed a partnership in the town site which he had secured opposite the mouth of the Licking. Filson was a school- master from Chester, Penn., who had turned surveyor and emigrated to Kentucky. The three drew up articles, which were formally executed August 25th, whereby Denman, in consideration of twenty pounds, Virginia cur- rency, to be paid by Patterson to Filson, trans- ferred to each an equal interest with himself in the section of land opposite the mouth of the Licking. Plans were made for laying out a town which was to be called Losantiville, the name being a forced and pedantic compound of three different languages-Greek, Latin and French- and intended to signify "the town opposite the mouth of the Licking." On the 22d of September. 1788, Patterson and Filson, with a large company of Kentuckians, arrived on the ground and were there met by Denman, Judge Symmes and Israel Ludlow, chief sur- veyor of the Miami associates. This meeting may be regarded as the inauguration of Cin- cinnati. Though it was impossible to proceed to the immediate location of the plat, Ludlow was detached to "take the. meanders of the Ohio," which measurement proved that Den- man was within the line. Soon after Filson, who had accompanied Symmes. Patterson and a party of the Kentuckians on an expedition twenty miles into the country, becoming alarmed at the presence of Indians, separated himself from the party and attempted to rejoin the main body. He was never more heard of, and undoubtedly met his death at the hands of the savages. Ludlow acquired Filson's in-

HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY

terest, and became the surveyor and principal agent in the town affair. Denman returned to New Jersey. Patterson and Ludlow, with a party of twelve, left Limestone December 24th, to form a station and lay out the town. The time of their arrival, which is supposed to mark the date of the settlement of Cincinnati is not known.

FLOODS DAMAGE THE SETTLEMENTS.

In January, 1789, Columbia and Miami City were submerged by a great flood, which also caused Fort Finney to be abandoned, the garrison, under Captain Kersey, proceeding to the falls of the Ohio. Symmes thereupon, by blazing the trees, marked out the site of an- other town, which, from its location, he called North Bend. He and his associates also ad- dressed a letter to the Secretary of War, com- plaining of their desertion by the soldiers, and in August Major Doughty was sent down to "choose ground and lay out a new work for the protection of the people settled in Judge Sym- mes' purchase." After reconnoitering for three days in order to find an eligible situation, he reported to Colonel Harmar that he had "fixed upon a spot opposite to the Licking River, which was high and healthy, abounding with never-failing springs, and the most proper position he could find for the purpose." This settled the destiny of Cincinnati. Fort Washı- ington, a substantial structure of hewn timber, about 180 feet square, two stories high, and with block houses at the four angles, was im- mediately erected, and on the 29th of Decem- ber was occupied by Colonel Harmar, with the larger part of his regiment, two companies being left at Fort Harmar. Early in January, 1790, Governor St. Clair arrived and estab- lished the County of Hamilton, on which oc- casion Losantiville was made the county town, and renamed Cincinnati in honor of the mili- tary order of the Cincinnati, to which the Revolutionary soldiers in Colonel Harmar's command belonged.

For some years Cincinnati remained a mere garrison town; the residences were but cabins, and the inhabitants migratory. Gen-

eral Harrison, then a young ensign, who saw it just after St. Clair's defeat in 1791, when the remnants of his demoralized army were strag- gling in, describes it as lacking in almost every- thing but whiskey, of which everybody seemed to have an abundant supply. "I certainly saw more drunken men," said he, "in the forty- eight hours succeeding my arrival in Cincin- nati than I had in all my previous life." In a few years the place began to improve, but in 1800 the population was but 750.

THE SCIOTO LAND SWINDLE.

It will be remembered that when St. Clair's appointment to the governorship had been ar- ranged, the domain of the Ohio Company had been enlarged for the benefit of certain New York citizens, represented by Colonel Duer. Congress had authorized the sale of all the land between the Seven Ranges and the Scioto River. It was divided by the Treasury Board into two contracts. One included a tract on the Ohio between the seventh and seventeenth ranges with a north boundary to include a mil- lion and a half acres. There were the usual reservations for the support of religion and the public schools, with two townships for a uni- versity, and some sections in different town- ships reserved for disposal by Congress. The other contract included the lands between the seventeenth range and the Scioto River. By the provisions of the first named contract the Ohio Company were granted possession and use of the lands east of the west line of the fifteenth range, containing one-half the pur- chase, which line intersects the Ohio just be- low Gallipolis. The Ohio Company then trans- ferred the western portion in accordance with the arrangement which had been made between Dr. Cutler and Colonel Duer. The New York associates, styled the Scioto Company, then sent Mr. Joel Barlow to Paris, to act as their agent in the disposal of the lands. He was assisted there by De Saisson, a Frenchman, and Wil- liam Playfair, of Edinburgh, who had taken a prominent part in the destruction of the Bas- tile. Barlow was a poet. of winning address, and apparently gifted with a most exuberant

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

imagination. He issued some very alluring but mendacious advertisements and maps in which the lands of the colony were described as "being immediately adjacent to the settled and cultivated country, and having charms of climate, health, and scenery such as to rival Arcadia or the Vale of Tempe." All the com- forts and most of the luxuries of life-the gas- tronomic luxuries, at least-were to be ob- tained at substantially no cost of labor or trouble. "A couple of swine," said he, "will multiply themselves a hundredfold in two or three years without taking any care of them." All sorts of wild game were in plenty, there was no danger from wild animals, no taxes to pay, and no military duty to perform. To tickle French ears the Ohio River was referred to only by the name of La Belle Riviere, the name given to it by La Salle. To complete all, the land was offered for sale on easy terms and at the most tempting prices.

These advertisements had due effect. Hun- dreds of people, most of whom were wholly un- fitted for the arduous and dangerous life of the frontier settler, were inveigled to the Ohio. Upon their arrival they were soon undeceived. St. Clair, on his return from the West, found about four hundred of them "at a place three miles below the Kanawha, which they had named Gallipolis. A hundred more were wait- ing at Marietta, and another hundred were on their way through Pennsylvania. They were living in long rows of cabins provided for them by the Scioto Company." A deputation of them waited on St. Clair with a paper reciting an account of their wrongs. He promised to investigate the matter, and in the meanwhile counselled them to organize themselves at once. by appointing civil and military officers, as well for their own peace and order as for defense against the Indians. But many of these people had been brought up to trades useful only in highly civilized and refined communities, and though some were farmers and mechanics, and a few men of education, as a body they lacked the capacity to help themselves out of the unfortunate situation into which they had been so cruelly duped. Without the ready re- sources and adaptability of the English, Scotch,

Irish and German races, having failed in their main prioject, they were unable to substitute for it any other practical scheme, or to make the best of the circumstances in which they found themselves. They gradually scattered and dwindled away, and though Congress came to their relief in March, 1795, with a donation of land known as the French grant-for the New York promoters of the enterprise not having paid for their lands, all the titles had lapsed-it does not appear that they took any practical advantage of it. Their famous coun- tryman, Volney, who visited them at Gallipolis in the summer of 1796, found them "forlorn in appearance, with pale faces, sickly looks, and anxious air, still inhabiting a double row of whitewashed log huts, patched with clay, unwholesome and uncomfortable." When this scandalous transaction was investigated there was some evidence apparently going to show that the Ohio Company, or at least some of its officials, were to a certain extent implicated in the fraud, but as the subject is obscure and complicated, and moreover, is not closely con- nected with the history of Mahoning County, it will not here be entered into save by this brief reference. In view of the fact that their culpability was never proven it may be as well to give them the benefit of the doubt.

THE VIRGINIA MILITARY DISTRICT.

When in March, 1784, Virginia ceded to the United States her claims to northwest ter- ritory, it was stipulated that she should be re- imbursed for the expense of subduing the Brit- ish posts, that 150,000 acres at the Falls of Ohio were to be granted to Colonel George Rogers Clark and his officers and soldiers, and that "in case there should not be a suffi- cient quantity of good lands south of the Ohio River to provide for the bounties due to the Continental troops of the Virginia line. the deficiency should be made up by good lands to be laid off between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers." In the winter of 1790-91 Gen- eral Nathaniel Massie, who had been appointed by Virginia some time before to make a survey of the district, impressed by the flourishing

HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY

condition of the settlements on the Muskingum and the two Miamis, determined to plant a Virginia colony north of the Ohio. Such a settlement, he thought, would enhance the volue of the lands of his State, and incidentally be a means of protection of his party while they were engaged in surveying the wilderness, a work that he had already begun. A site on the north bank of the river was chosen, and a town laid out which received the name of Mas- sies Station. This was afterwards changed to Manchester, by which name the place is now known. Free land was offered to the first twenty-five families who should settle in the town, and this advertisement being circulated widely throughout Kentucky brought responses from some thirty families who were eager to accept the offer. The settlement was com- menced in March, 1791, streets were marked out, a number of cabins built and surrounded by a stockade as a protection against the In- dians, and soon the little station was in a flourishing condition. It enjoyed practical im- munity from Indian attacks. This was mainly due to the character of its inhabitants-all hardy frontiersmen, courageous, watchful, and self-reliant, and long accustomed to brave the toil and dangers of the wilderness. General Massie subsequently attempted to found a town in the heart of the Virginia Military District, but the attempt was not successful, owing to Indian hostilities. A later effort in the follow-

ing year resulted in the founding of Chillicothe, which at the end of two years became the seat of civil government. Civilization in Ohio had now fairly begun. Commencing, as we have seen, at the river, it had invaded that long, dark stretch of forest which lay between it and the lake, and through which the native red man had hitherto roamed in undisputed sway. Soon the busy axe sounded here the knell of his ap- proaching extinction. In despair he made one last desperate effort to preserve the Ohio as the natural boundary between the white man's ter- ritory and his own hunting grounds. The four years' war, beginning with the destruction of the Big Bottom settlement on the Muskingum, January 2, 1791, and followed by the discom- fiture of Harmar and the utter rout of St. Clair, inspired him with a temporary hope that was forever shattered by Wayne's victory of the Fallen Timber, in August, 1795, to which reference has already been made. The great barrier to white settlement was removed by the subsequent treaty of Greenville, and the full tide of emigration swept in. Settlers' cabins soon began to dot the landscape; forest shades gave place to open clearings, soon to be trans- formed into smiling farms and fruitful orch- ards; thriving towns sprang up as if by magic, and civilization began its march of progress in Ohio, never again to meet with serious inter- ruption.

CHAPTER XIII

SETTLEMENT AND ORGANIZATION OF MAHONING COUNTY

Lines of Development-Date of the First Settlement on the Reserve-First Wheat Cut on the Reserve-First Postal Service-Early Conditions of Life-A Primitive Mill-Old Time Threshing-Bounty on Wolf Scalps-Olden School Days-Early Youngstown Citizens-Draft of 1812-Homemade Soap-The Old Ash Hopper-Soap Spookery- The Old Ashery-The Stage Driver-Matches Unknown-If Fires all Went Out -- Wild Pigeons; Where are They ?- Pioneer Milling Enterprises-Slavery-County Seat Located-Early Elections-First County Seat Issue -- Useless Legislation-Renewal of the Strife- Some Interesting Old Letters-County Seat Changed.

The conditions of life in the wilderness made it necessary to obtain food from the soil as soon as possible. It was also of vital im- portance to be within reach of some channel, however difficult and obstructed, through which trade with the outside world could be carried on. As Lake Erie was the best natural high- way available for settlers in the Western Re- serve, there was a strong tendency to build homes near its shores. This, however, was checked in the earliest period of settlement by the menacing attitude of the English north of the lake, and at its western end, and their in- fluence over the Indian tribes of the region. Home-seekers felt safer, and more surely in American territory when within easy reach of the Ohio. Moreover, the soil was more pro- ductive, as a rule, and the danger from malaria less, at a good distance from the lake.

The result was a double line of develop- ment, one-half governed by trade, and the other

by farming. For a time the latter so far pre- vailed that Cleveland had a hard and seemingly doubtful race with other towns in the Connecti- cut Reserve. As late as 1812, when the first bank was established in the Western Reserve, it was not located in Cleveland, but in Warren, Trumbull County.

DATE OF FIRST SETTLEMENT ON THE RESERVE.

Soon after the partition of the Reserve was completed, many of the grantees removed to their land, and made it their future home. Others sent out agents. Purchasers from the grantees removed to the new country, clearings were made in the forests. log houses were erected, crops were put in the ground, and in the spring of 1798 was commenced the regular settlement of the Reserve.

The first house on the Reserve was prob- ably the log house erected by John Young and

HISTORY OF MAHONING COUNTY

Colonel James Hillman about 1797. This house stood on the east bank of the Mahoning River, near Spring Common, Youngstown. Another early house, which still exists in Can- field, was built in 1800-1801 by Major-Gen- eral Wadsworth, hero of two wars, and a mem- ber of General Washington's staff during the War of Independence. Major-General Wads- worth received a large tract of land in the Western Reserve before the State of Ohio was organized. When Mahoning County was or- ganized, in 1846, the house was used as a jail, sheriff's residence, and general county office, until the new courthouse was built. General Wadsworth died in 1818, and his body now lies buried in the little cemetery not far from the house.

FIRST WHEAT CUT ON THE RESERVE.

The first wheat reaped by white men within the limits of the Reserve was cut near Con- neaut in 1796. That was the year when the first settlement was made in Cleveland, and the date shows that the pioneers lost no time in getting land under cultivation and crops in the ground.

FIRST POSTAL SERVICE.

The first regular postal service in the West- ern Reserve was established and opened in October, 1801. The route extended from Pitts- burg to Warren, passing through Beavertown, Georgetown (on the Ohio River ), Canfield and Youngstown. The mail was carried on horse- back and delivered once in two weeks. The first mail contract was awarded to Eleazer Gilson, of Canfield, and was for two years, at the price of $3.50 per mile per year, counting the dis- tance one way. Samuel Gilson, a son of the contractor, carried the mail the greater part of the time, and as one source of information says, "on foot, carrying the mail bag on his back," but it is probable that it was only dis- tributed on foot in the different towns, as, ac- cording to old documents and papers, be- queathed by the late Elmer Kirtland, through Miss Mary Morse, to the Western Reserve

Historical Society, the route between the towns was covered on horse-back. Calvin Pease was appointed postmaster at Youngstown, Elijah Wadsworth at Canfield, and Simon Perkins at Warren, these three men being the first post- masters on the Reserve. In 1803 the population warranted a weekly delivery, requiring three days each way. A proposal to carry the mail, dated 1805, reads :

"I will engage to carry the mail from Pitts- burg, via Canfield, Poland and Youngstown, to Warren, once a week, for $850 a year."

Detroit was added to the route in 1805, but not until 1823 was there mention of stage coaches, or any vehicle for the accommodation of passengers. The quarterly account of Dr. Charles Dutton, who was the second postmaster on the Reserve, being appointed in July, 1803, shows the amount of business done by the of- fice at that time. The amount collected on let- ters was $35; on newspapers, $3.79; total, $38.79. Postmaster's commission, $13.19; paid general postoffice, $25.60; total, $38.79.

EARLY CONDITIONS OF LIFE. -

A description of the conditions under which the early settlers lived, and their manner of life may be found in a small history of Ohio, by Caleb Atwater, published at Cincinnati in 1838.

He says in substance: "The people were quite uncouth in their aspect, but not so unhappy as one would suppose. The greatest difficulty with which they had to contend was sickness. The farmer kept many dogs to guard his sheep, hogs, fowls and himself. His fences were very high ones, and his dogs were always ready to defend their master's family and property. Hogs became so numerous in the woods that many of them became wild and multiplied until the War of 1812 gave their flesh a value, and they were killed. Cattle and horses had multi- plied greatly in the meantime, and the people had begun to drive them over the mountains at an early day to market.

The people lived in log houses, raised In- dian corn for their bread, and as to meat, they found deer and wild turkeys in abundance in the woods. Domestic fowls and hogs multi-

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

plied wonderfully in a country where there was so little winter for which to provide (here he seems to be referring chiefly to the southern part of the State), and as for pleasure car- riages, we do not believe there was one in the State when it was first organized. Not a few persons wore moccasins of deer skins for coats or hunting skirts and pantaloons. Thus dressed, equipped with a large knife and a good rifle gun, the men went about their daily business. When the State was first organized we do not believe there was even one bridge in it. The roads were few, and it was no easy matter for a stranger to follow them. For ourselves we preferred following a pocket compass or the sun to most of the roads in the Virginia Mili- tary Tract, and this even ten years after the organization of the State government. Travel- ers carried their provisions with them when starting from any of the towns into the then wilderness." What was true in this respect of the Virginia Military Tract was doubtless true of the Western Reserve at this early period.

Captain J. C. Hartzell, a prominent citizen of Sebring, who has at different times con- tributed much interesting pioneer information to local journals, describes in a recent article, the days "when our good old mothers told time by a noon mark, and made not only their own soap, but most other useful and needful things in housekeeping. They baked their own bread in a clay or brick or stone out-oven, and lighted the home with a lard lamp or cruisie, a strip of canton flannel, or a bit of candle wick in the melted lard or candle, dipped, and later along moulded them in tin moulds.

"Then they made their own sugar, and plenty of it : made their own clothes from wool off the sheep's back to the woven web, the warm and durable linsey-woolsey dress, or from the flax patch to the linen coat, gown, or towel; doctored their own or neighbors' fam- ilies with medicines of their own garnering from gardens, field. and forest. * * Each old pioneer opening in the virgin forest would have a most interesting story to tell of the be- ginning of civilized home life, if there were only some ready writer to set it down in good black print. while there are yet a few, a very

few, of the living witnesses of the labor in that struggle with the wilderness."

A PRIMITIVE MILL.

The Captain thus describesa primitive hand mill: "I am reminded of an old hand mill, the stones of which are buried in the earth, and form part of the foot-walk from the front door of the old Snode home to the little entrance gate into the yard. They are about two feet in diameter, and furrowed faces tell truthfully that this low estate in which we find them to- day was not the intent of the original designers. Our good mother Snode says they were brought along with the family pioneer wagon from New Jersey, when they came to this neighborhood. The old parchment deed for the home farm, signed, I think, by James Madison, President, is still in their possession. Mother Snode is ninety years old (1907), and has spent nearly her entire life near where she now resides.

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Century history of Youngstown and Mahoning County, Ohio, and representative citizens, 20th, Part 11

Author: Sanderson, Thomas W., comp Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1074

Author: Sanderson, Thomas W., comp
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Chicago : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1074