USA > Ohio > Ashtabula County > New Lyme > Condensed history of New Lyme, Ashtabula county, Ohio > Part 4
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ance of his long claws and white teeth, pelted him with the 1 head of his ax. The bear, not being used to that kind of treatment, went up a large elm tree, where he sat, looking very soberly down upon the boys and their undisciplined pups. The boys then held a council of war, to see what should be done. Elijah proposed that he should stay and keep watch of the bear while the other boys went for a gun; but the two younger boys would not consent to that arrangement, nor would they agree to stav and let Elijah go, for fear the bear, seeing them alone, would come down and overpower them. So it was agreed that they would all stay and fight it out on that line. They then cut clubs for the younger boys, and Elijah was to use the ax. In order to scare the bear down, they concluded to fall a small tree into the one where the bear had taken ref- uge; this had the desired effect, and down he came; the boys and dogs took after him pell-mell. The dogs soon had him down, and Elijah, with the ax, soon crippled him in one leg, then in the second and third, and then applying the ax briskly to the bear's head, soon killed him.
At this juncture, Silas, the youngest, feeling that he had not had his full share in the honors of the fight, said, "Now let me have the ax and give old bruin some;" which the boy was permitted to do to his heart's content. During the fight one of the dogs was hugged so tight that he cried "Hi, yi! hi, yi!" as much as to say, "Please. Mr. Bear, if you will let me alone I will you." And he kept his word, for he would never have anything to do with a bear after this battle. Then came the tug to get the bear home, for he was one of the big kind; but the boys'felt large and stout after killing a bear, so they tugged away until they got him home.
When uncle Griffin saw what his boys had done, he said: "Lord! Lord! If I had only known what you were about, I should have been with you." Those brave boys are still living. Elijah and Silas in this town, and Samuel in Rome. They are al! now old men. The place where the boys killed the bear
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can still be pointed out by our venerable pioneer friend, Mr. Amasa Hubbard.
The first merchant that sold goods in New Lyme, was Jer- emiah Dodge, Esq. They were furnished him by one Kiney, to sell on commission. At this time our nearest store was at Morgan, about eight miles distant, and poor roads at that. The usual mode of getting to Morgan was with ox teams, some- times with two-wheel carts, but more commonly with ox sleds. Buggies, or one-horse wagons, were unknown here in those days. We could not have used them if we had had them. The women, from the oldest to the youngest, were early learned to ride on horseback; and they thought it no great hardship to make a trip through the woods twenty-five or thirty miles, and back the same day.
In 1830 Colonel Richard Hayes and Benjamin Carpenter, of Hartford, Trumbull county, set up a store where the Dodges 1830 have ever since done business, in Dodgeville. In Feb_ ruary, 1834, they sold out to J. Dodge & Co. Samuel Plumb Esq., became a partner at that time, and later both Nel- son Hyde and Albert Latimer were partners with J. Dodge, since which time it has been in the hands of Calvin and John Dodge, until it came into possession of Hiram Dodge. under whose care the business has been successfully managed for the last twenty-five years. Hayes & Carpenter were the first mer- chants in this part of the county, it not in the county, that would exchange goods for wheat. This they would do and pay 3712 cents a bushel for wheat. When J. Dodge went into bus- iness he would take anything that was propetty. This brought him a trade that was enormous. Windsor, Orwell, Colebrook, Rome, Hartsgrove, Lenox, Groene, Wayne, Cherry Valley, ind other towns, traded more or less with Mr. Dodge, He would take all our old cows in the fall, after we had done making cheese, and would often pay us as much, or even more. than they cost us in the spring. Oxen, steers, butter, cheese, horses or anything a farmer had to sell, uncle Jerry would take, and
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allow us all it was worth, and often more than it proved to be worth to him.
Yet all this property had to be turned over and over again, which, together with his farming, which he never neglected, gave constant employment to a large force of hands. Such cat- tle as would not do to drive to New York or Philadelphia, were sent to Ashtabula harbor, and there butchered and packed for the New York market. In the fall of 1850, Mr. Dodge 1850 packed at Ashtabula harbor, 1,700 barrels of beef, be- sides a large quantity of pork at home, and tons on tons of butter, with about one hundred tons of cheese. He also run an extensive ashery, where he gathered all the ashes for miles around. They were converted into pots and pearls.
The cheese trade in this town has sprung from small be- ginnings. We are not exactly sure who is entitled to the credit of making the first cheese in New Lyme; but from the best in- formation we can obtain from the oldest settlers, we think we should be doing no one injustice in awarding the credit to Mrs. Zopher Gee. or "Mother Gee" as she was called. Though we have the best of reasons for believing that the first cheese made for marketing was by Elijah Brown, for in one season he made nearly a two-horse wagon load. As no one then bought cheese here, he loaded them into a wagon and took them up to Joab Austin to try and trade chem for goods. Mr. Austin, who years after would not have been as much startled at taking in a hundred tons of cheese a week as he was surprised to see this enormous quantity, and freely gave, as his opinion, that no Western market could stand the pressure of that amount of cheese. Mr. Brown, who was a man of great perseverance. started for Buffalo with his cheese; but on arriving at Dunkirk he succeeded in trading off his cheese, and returned home with the proceeds. Mr. Brown could find no tub sufficiently large to make his cheese in, short of Haves' store, in Hartford, where he found a heavy pine tub, which held over a barrel, which he brought home through the woods on horseback. It is said
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that he carried it all the way on his head. But we will return to our subject.
Mr. Dodge was a large dealer in oxen and steers. He bought, not only on his own account, but he often made heavy purchases for Eastern men. He bought 1000 head of heavy oxen and steers in one season, on commission. He also sent large droves over the mountains on his own account. The largest drove at any one time, was two hundred and fifty head, in 1826. 1826
Mr. Dodge bought largely of working oxen for the De- troit market; they were sold to emigrants as they ar- rived from the East; for this market none but heavy oxen were required. The highest price paid was $40 a pair; the average price paid here was about $35 a yoke. He generally took about a hundred pair at a time; he had the yokes all made here and taken up in wagons or by way of the Lake.
Old Mr. Dodge, wanting a pair of heavy oxen for his own farm use, Seldon Huntley brought him a pair that just suited him, and he offered Huntley $35 in cash, which Huntley re- fused, and started to drive his oxen home. Then Mr. Dodge offered him one hundred bushels of good old wheat for them, when Huntley, after studying a few moments, told him he would take the money, and did so.
Mr. Jeremiah Dodge made a practice of bringing in one or more uroves of cows each spring. He bought in Holmes, Tuscarawas, and Coshocton counties. We once met him in those regions with over one hundred and fifty cows, which had cost him $9 a head: those he would sell here to his customers and take cheese in the fall for pay.
The Dutch women wanted uncle Jerry to learn them how to make cheese. They had supposed that the milk was boiled down, like sap, until Mr. Dodge undeceived them by making two cheese, which he pressed in a half bushel with the bottom knockod. out, and pressed them by putting a pole through be- tween the logs of the house. They cut them when a week old, and pronounced them first-rate.
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The present great wealth of the Dodges' has not been cb- tained without an effort, and one of which the young men of the present day might well take lessons. We believe that the use of tobacco has never been practiced by any of the family. What a lesson this ought to teach some of our young men, whose cigar and other tobacco bills for a single year foot up $50 or more. In the early history of the mercantile business of J. Dodge, Esq., we have twice known him to go to Pittsburg with a wagon drawn by two heavy pair of oxen, loaded with such articles of produce as was taken in for goods, to be ex- changed for glass, nails, iron, and such other articles of mer- chandise as was most needed at his store. He drove his own team over the almost impassable Beaver hills, and through the rocky narrows of the Ohio river, where a single mis step would send the team and wagon down an awful precipice into the river below. He once sent twelve teams at one time, all loaded with cheese, to Beaver, to be shipped to Southern ports.
We have often been asked the question, if there was no money how so much business could be done away from home. Well, the bills trom here to Beaver were all paid in goods from the store Each tavern would send by the teamster for what articles they most needed, which would be taken to them by the next team down. This was not only done by Mr. Dodge, but by all merchants who had teaming to do from home. From the vast amount of cattle handled by Mr. Dodge, he early saw the importance of an improvement in our grade of cattle, and gave his attention in that direction.
He first sent his son Calvin to look after some fine blooded - stock. He started out with some two thousand dollars in his pocket, and after traversing the State of New York and Eastern Pennsylvania, he returned without making a purchase, finding no stock that came up to his idea of what fine blooded stock should be. He next traversed Ohio, and when near Columbus he found some blooded cattle that came nearly up to the stand- ard of his wishes. This was in January, 1858. The stock bought
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at this time was: One 6 year old cow, $300; one 4 year old 1858 cow, $250; one 2 year old heifer, $250; one 2 year old heifer, $200, one yearling bull, $400; and other stock, amounting in all to $1,950. He after this replenished largely from some of the finest stock in the State of Kentucky. Soon the increase in his stock enabled him to supply others. In referring to his books, we find sales of steers at $500 each; one 3 year old weighed 2750 pounds; sales of cows, from $300 to $500 apiece; and of calves at $300 a head.
But to return to cheese. The first lot that was taken in bis town was packed at the barn of J. Dodge. One cheese was found to measure fourteen inches across; this was laid one side, and viewed with wonder and amazement, and was the gossip of New Lyme, as well as of our sister towns. At this time it was supposed that the art of cheese making was brought to the highest state of perfection, for they had then got to making them so soft that they could penetrate them with a sharp-pointed knife, without the use of a mallet.
After this Mr. Dodge bought a cheese of James Stone, of Morgan, that weighed five hundred pounds. A box to pack it in was made by the McNutts, of Eagleville, and cost $25. The cheese was shipped first to Cincinnati, and from there to St. Louis, where it sold at a satisfactory price. Cheese was at first sent to market packed in. paper-rags, generally in dry goods boxes; next in casks made of narrow whitewood boards; they would hold from seven to nine cheese, according to their thick- ness. First, brown paper was packed between them; this prov- ing unsatisfactory, the shavings from hemlock shingles wore used; next, a thick, clumsy scaleboard was put between them; then the nice scaleboard still in use. The first boxes used for packing cheese were made square, of unplaned clapboards, with no scaleboards at the bottom or top; but those soon gave way to the boxes in present use.
In the line of fine barnswwe think New Lyme is far ahead of any town in the county. We refer to that of Calvin Dodge.
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Esq. It is said that it will hold seventy-five tons of hay over the 'floors; the lower part has been done off into stables, after the most modern style.
In connection with the history of New Lyme we are in- clined to the opinion that the great improvements being made at the New Lyme station by capitalists of New Lyme, should not be wholly overlooked. Already they have a mill for plan- ing, dressing, and matching lumber. Also a first-class steam saw-mill. A large and commodious hotel is now being built, near which is a fine large horse-barn. It has an immense lum- ber yard, supplied with lumber from the Michigan pineries. The shipments of lumber for the supply of this lumber yard is indeed fabulous; forty car loads of lumber was recently re- ceived ir. a single shipment. One million shingles have al- ready been received the present season, and still the cry is for more lumber. One man in New Lyme has just sent down an order for lumber for six large houses, having already built one. This don't look much like hard times, as the orders were accompanied with the cash.
We think the following wolf story, from Jeremiah Dodge, is worthy to be recorded in this history: He says that when about fifteen years old his father sent him to Humphrey's grist-mill, in Morgan, on an old white mare, with two bushels of gratin under him. The distance was seven miles, and the day was cold and chilly; the snow was about six inches in depth, and the mud deep under the snow. After having gone about three miles through the woods, he met Mr. Roswell Woodruff. of Morgan, driving a pair of oxen attached to a sled. Mr. Woodruff gave him a word of encouragement, and he went on. Crossing a small creek and rising a steep bank beyond, he met a gang of wolves on Mr. Woodruff's track. The wolves cid not appear willing to turn out for the old mare, so he stopped; then they sat down directly before him. Jerry hal- looed to the wolves, who gave him a reverential attention, drop- ping their cars and lowing their heads He plainly told them
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his business, and requested that they should give him a share of the road. They paid good attention to his remarks, but did not move a peg. "Now," says Jerry, "what is to be done? if I turn and go back, the wolves may eat up the old mare and me too." He reached up into a tree, and broke off a limb cov- ered with snow, which he shook at them, at the same time yelling at them at the top of his voice. He told them the time was passing away, and as he had left the little ones at home on short allowance, they must turn out. This argument seemed to touch the hearts of the tenderer sex, and they left the track; all but one old dog wolf, who still kept his post, while Jerry rode around him. Then putting the gad to the old mare. the way he made the mud and snow fly the next four miles through the woods, was indeed a caution to old folks.
Jeremiah Dodge, and his wife, Elizabeth, were the parents of old Eusebius and Edward C. Dodge, emigrated to New Lyme from East Haddam, Essex County, Connecticut, in company with their son, Edward C. Dodge. They arrived at New Lyme in the month of October, 1817, where they resided until the 1817 summer of 1818, when they settled in the east part of Rome. They built the house and cleared up the farm which is the present residence of Mr. Callender, where they lived with their son Edward, until their deaths. That of Mr. Dodge took place October 12, 1825, aged 82 years. His wife died March 12, 1849, aged 96 years. At the death of Mrs. Dodge their descendants numbered something over five hundred ...
Elder Eusebius Dodge, son of E. Dodge, Esq., commenced , deer hunting in 1821. He would not kill a deer until they 1821 were good; then when he had killed one hundred deer he would hang up his rifle and again swing his ax. He followed this practice until he thought he had killed a thou- sand deer. He once came near being killed by a buck that he had shot at and wounded. The battle was long and severe, and the Elder barely escaped with his life. At another time, to save the life of his dog, he raised his hunting hatchet to strike a bear
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on the head, when the bear raised her huge paw and struck the hatchet from his hand, throwing it into the woods; she then struck her claw into his right shoulder and tore the flesh deeply from his shoulder to the second joint of his thumb, at the same time tearing his coat and shirt sleeves entirely off from him. She then sprung on him with wide extended jaws. On seeing, as he supposed, instant death staring him in the face, he made a sudden effort to thrust his naked right arm down the bear's throat, at the same time raising his left arm. The bear caught it in her mouth, near the wrist. In the mean. time the dog fastened a grip on the bear, causing her to re- lease her hold, and Mr. Dodge escaped from what appeared to be instant death.
At another time his dog chased a bear up a large tree, and followed him up by fastening his teeth with a tight grip into the bear, and thus was carried fifteen or twenty feet up the tree, when the bear stopped, and looked first over one shoul- der and then the other, at the dog dangling in the air, fast hitched to his back parts, in perfect silence. It looked down at the dog, but was unable to reach him without falling: At length bruin let go his hold, and both dog and bear came tumbling to the ground together. Dodge was so convulsed with laughter at this scene, that he could not shoot, though a better chance was never offered. The bear struck out, and Dodge went home.
In the month of February, 1822, William D. Peck, I. J. Peck, Elijah Peck, Samuel G, and Silas Peck, John Bogue, Lem-
uel Flint, Seldon Huntley, Lyman Peck, and Eli An- 1822 drews, went up Rock Creek for the purpose of a hunt. After working up against the tamarack swamp, they found a tree scratched by bears climbing up it. They struck on It with their axes, and a large bear came down with the inten- tion of leaving, but the men made such a noise that he went up again. They had no guns, but plenty of axes. The tree was cut down, and the bear jumped and made for the swamp. He
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soon had the dogs and men after him. making the woods ring with their noise. The bear fought manfully, and was as sav- age as a bear could weil be. Seldon Huntley received a blow from the bear, on his knee, tearing his pants and cutting a gash across his knee-pan. In trying to get away, the bear ran between Mr. Andrews legs, taking him several rods backward toward the swamp. This rapid mode of traveling, back ward on a bear's back, was not highly relished by Eli, especially as he heard his comrades clap their hands and cry at the top of their voices: 'Go it, Bear! Go it, Bear!" Bruin was finally overtaken and killed. And he proved to be a bear what was a bear.
The first frame house built in this town, was that of Dan Huntley, about three-quarters of a mile north of Dodgeville. The first frame barn was built on the same place, by Joseph Miller. About the same time a frame cornhouse was built by Perry G. Beckwith, soon followed by the building of the frame houses Samuel G. Peck, Zopher Gee, Eusebius Dodge, Charles Knowles, and others. Choice cl ar whitewood lumber could then be bought in any quantities for $3.00 a thousand, in store goods, $1.50 being the trade price for sawing. Leading car- penter and joiners wages were 75 cents a day, while good hands were plenty at 50 cents. Our best masons commanded 75 cents a day, in trade pay. First class farm hands for six months would get from $7 to $9 a month, trade pay.
In 1821 the writer worked one day with a gang of hands. for Samuel Lee, in a large wheat field on the farm now owned · by Harvey Hill where the writer now resides, The hands were in the field at sunrise and worked until after sundown. The wheat was cut with sickles. . At night Mr. Lee offered the hands their choice between one bushel of old wheat, two bushels of old corn, or fifty cents in money. The 1821 writer took corn, and the rest of the hands took cash, In those days during haying and harvesting, breakfast was served between daylight and sunrise; lunch at 10 A. M .. din-
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ner at 12; lunch again at 4 P. M., and supper was eaten by candle-light.
In 1833 Jeremiah Dodge paid William D. Peck, one of the best hands in New Lyme, 3712 cents a day, in cash, for hay- 1833 ing. The best cradlers in the land only charged fifty
cents a day for cradling grain. Female labor was cor- respondingly low. Best girls to work in a dairy. seventy-five cents a week. Even up to 1850 none but the very best girls could command a dollar a week, and that only in large dairies. In 1848 the writer employed two of the best dairy girls to be found in the country, paying them SI.oo a week each. They made the cheese from fifty cows, and milked, on an average. thirty-six cows a day. They made two cheese a day, one in the morning and one in the evening, which often kept them up quite late; yet they were on hand, dressed, washed, and ready for business at a little past 4 o'clock in the morning. In addition to making the butter and cheese, they did a large amount of housework and sewing.
In 1852 we hired one of the best dairy girls in Geauga, county. when we advanced the wages to $1.25 a week. To this advance in the wages of dairy girls, our leading dairy- men took exception, and we were severely reprimanded by some of them. They declared that it was setting a bad prec- edent; that no dairyman could afford to pay such high prices for female labor. We well remember that your then leading dairyman, Albert Latimer, took strong grounds against this ad- vance in price. This girl made and took the most of the care of the cheese from thirty-five cows; milked eighteen cows a day, and did a large amount of other work. She arose at 4 .o'clock in the morning and worked till late at night. With all due respect for the ladies of New Lyme, we have no hes- itation in saying that this girl performed far more work than most of the girls that you now pay $3.00 a week. We made, that season, about six hundred pounds of cheese to the cow, and not one ounce was lost by bad management.
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The price of cheese for the last fifty-five years has ranged all the way trom 3 to 20 cents a pound, and butter from 7 to 45 cents a pound. The price of dairy cows has in the same time ranged from $7 to $100 a head; the latter price having been offered, and refused, for a select cow from the writer's own dairy. The first cow ever owned by the writer was bought of Jonathan Worthen .n 1821, for one hundred and seventy-five pounds of maple sugar, then worth 3 cents a pound, cash, or 6 cents in trade. The seller took the sugar at trade price, as he did not want the name of selling a cow for $4.50, when he could just as well have $9.00. The same cow was afterward sold to Charles Knowles, Jr., of New Lyme, then Lebanon, for slashing seven acres of timber, he finding his own whisky and board. Slashing at that time was $1.00 an acre.
As the price of labor in Colebrook and New Lyme were about the same, 'we give a few credits from our own books 1822 as far back as 1822 up to 1835. Here we find credits to different ones for chopping four foot wood at 20 cents a cord. and splitting rails at 18 cents a hundred; also credits for hewing timber at 50 cents a day. In 1833 we find credits to different men, for 16369 feet of whitewood lumber and ash flooring, all clear stuff, at from $3 to $4 per thou- sand; and brick at $3 to $4 per thousand. according to quality, The above prices were all of them for trade pay. We also find large credits in haying and harvesting, ranging from 31 to 6212 cents a day. As to the kind of pay: We find charged to Mr. Jeremiah Dodge in July 1822, one pig weighing nine pounds and six ounces. for one dollar, trale pay; this, at that time, would be equal to fifty cents in cash. We don't · remember whether he bought this pig for the purpose of im- proving his stock or not; but we more think it was one of those long-nosed and long-legged kind of regular old rattle- snake catchers, and that he wanted it to clear his meadows of that species of varmint,
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The first road laid out in this town, was the one running from the Stults & Jaynes' mill easterly; it follows up the south bank of Lebanon Creek to the east of Brownsville. It is, in- deed, a road with many bends in it, yet it is at the present day one of the most beautiful and picturesque roads to be found anywhere in our State.
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