USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio, containing a collection of the most interesting facts, traditions, biographical sketches, anecdotes, etc., relating to its general and local history : with descriptions of its counties, principal towns, and villages > Part 69
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oak tree, without any covering except the clothes he wore, with the grateful pleasure of resting on his own land. In the morning, he returned highly elated to the boats and gave information of his success.
While in Ontario, New York, Tappan bought a yoke of oxen, and Hudson two yoke and two cows. These eight cattle they committed to the care of Meacham, a hired man in Tappan's service, who brought them safely on the Indian trail through Buffalo, until they found near the lake the west line of the seventh range on the Reserve. This line, it being the east line of the towns now named Painsville, Concord, Chardon, Monson, Newburg, Auburn, Mantua, Shalersville and Ravenna, they followed due south more than forty miles, crossing the Grand and Cuyahoga rivers and striking the Salt spring Indian trail near the southeastern corner of Ravenna. They followed this trail westwardly until they came to the new line recently made by Hudson and Tappan, which they followed to the spot where the boats were lying on the Cuyahoga, in Boston.
The difficulties encountered by these men in driving this small drove about three hundred miles on an obscure, crooked Indian path, and in following town lines through swamps, rivers and other obstacles fifty miles farther, almost through an uninhabited wilderness, were appalling ; and what rendered their circumstances truly unpleasant, and in some cases hazardous, was that they were strangers to the country and without a guide. Their mode of travelling was to have several bags of flour and pork, together with two blankets and an axe, well secured on the backs of the oxen. They waded fordable streams and compelled their cattle to swim those that could not be forded, passing across those streams themselves with their provisions on rafts hastily made of sticks.
Mr. Hudson's company being thus collected, his first care, after making yokes for his oxen, was to open some road to his land. The gullies they crossed were numerous and frequent, and often abrupt to an angle of 45 degrees or inore. On this road, bad as it was, they performed all their transportation in the year '99, while their oxen were tormented and rendered almost unmanageable by immense swarms of large flies, which displayed such skill in the science of phlebotomy, that, in a short time, they drew out a large share of the blood belonging to these animals: the flies actually killed one of Tappan's oxen this season.
After having conveyed their small stock of provisions on to the southwest corner of this town and erected a bark hut, Mr. Hudson's anxiety became very great lest he and his com- pany should suffer for want of provisions, his stock being very much reduced in consequence of the Indians having robbed his boat. Not hearing from Lacey, a man he had left behind in western New York to bring on stores, and dreading the consequences of waiting for him any longer, Mr. Hudson started to meet him. Taking a boat at Cleveland, which was providentially going down the lake, on the 2d of July he found Lacey lying at his ease near Cattaraugus. With difficulty he there obtained some provisions, and having a prosperous voyage arrived in season, to the joy of those left in the wilderness, who must have been put upon short allowance had his arrival been delayed any longer.
The company being thus furnished with provisions, they built a large log house. Mr. Hudson also set his men to work in clearing a piece of land for wheat, and on the 25th of July he commenced surveying. The settlement now consisted of 13 persons. In August, every person except Mr. Hudson had a turn of being unwell. Several had the fever and ague, and in the progress of surveying the town into lots, the party frequently had to wait for some one of their number to go through with a paroxysm of ague and then resume their labors.
By the middle of September, they found to their surprise they had only nine days' pro- vision on hand ; and as Mr. Hudson had heard nothing from his agent, Norton, at Bloom- field, New York, he was once more alarmed lest they should suffer for want of food.
He immediately went to Cleveland and purchased of Lorenzo Carter a small field of corn for $50, designing to pound it in mortars and live thereon in case of necessity. He has- tened back to his station, and having previously heard that Ebenezer Sheldon had made a road through the wilderness to Aurora, and that there was a bridle-path thence to Cleve- land, he thought it probable that he might obtain pork for present necessity from that quar- ter. He accordingly set out on foot and alone, and regulated his course by the range of his shadow, making allowance for change in the time of day. He found the Cleveland path near the centre of Aurora, then a dense forest. Thence he proceeded about two and a half miles to squire Sheldon's cabin, and on inquiring found that he could obtain no pro- visions within a reasonable distance in that direction. The next morning, on his return, he found that the boat had arrived with an ample supply of provisions.
Having completed his surveying on the 11th of October, Mr. Hudson left on the next day for Connecticut, to bring out his family, in company with his little son and two men. Being disappointed in not finding a good boat at Cleveland, he took the wreck of one he had
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purchased of Harmon, and embarked upon the dangerous enterprize of crossing the lake in it. It was so leaky that it required one hand most of the time to bail out the water, and so weak that it bent considerably in crossing the waves. During their passage, the weather was generally cold and boisterous ; three different times they narrowly escaped drowning by reason of the darkness of the night or violence of the wind. Being under the necessity of lying five days on Chatague point, they lived comfortably during that time on boiled chestnuts, in order to lengthen out their small stock of provisions. Arrived at Goshen, Conn., Mr. Hudson found his family in health, and by the 1st of January, 1800, was in readiness to leave his native state with all its tender associations. "Thus," says he " ends the eventful year 1799, filled with many troubles, out of all of which hath the Lord de- livered me."
Having taken an affecting farewell of his friends and acquaintances whom he had left behind, Mr. Hudson set out from Goshen in January, with his family and others. They tarried at Bloomfield, Ontario county, New York, until spring, making preparations for their voyage through the lakes and up the Cuyahoga. They purchased four boats, from one to two tons burden, and repaired thoroughly the wreck of Harmon's boat. Lightly loading them with supplies to the value of about two thousand dollars, they completed every necessary preparation by the 29th of April.
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" The next night," said Mr. Hudson, " while my dear wife and six children, with all my men, lay soundly sleeping around me, I could not close my eyes. The reflection that those men and women, with most all that I held dear in life, were now to embark in an expedition in which so many chances appeared against me; and should we survive the dangers in crossing the boisterous lakes, and the distressing sickness usually attendant on new settlements, it was highly probable that we must fall before the tomahawk and scalp- ing-knife. As I knew at that time no considerable scttlement had been made but what was established in blood, and as I was about to place all those who lay around me on the extreme frontier, and as they would look to me for safety and protection, I almost sunk under the immense weight of responsibility resting on me. Perhaps my feelings on this occasion were a little similar to those of the patriarch, when expecting to meet his hostile brother. But after presenting my case before Israel's God, and committing all to his care, I cheerfully launched out the next morning upon the great deep."
The crews of their boats consisted of Samuel Bishop and his four sons, David, Reuben, Lunian and Joseph, Joel Gaylord, Heman Oviatt, Moses Thompson, Allen Gaylord, Ste- phen Perkins, Joseph and George Darrow, William M'Kinley, and three men from Ver- mont, by the names of Derrick, Williams and Shefford. The women in the company were the wives of Messrs. Hudson, Bishop and Nobles, with Miss Ruth Gaylord and Miss Ruth Bishop. The six children of Mr. Hudson completed the number.
They had little trouble until they reached the mouth of the Cuyahoga. The wind on that day being rather high, Mr. Hudson, in attempting to enter the river with his boat, missed the channel and struck on a sand-bar. In this very perilous situation, the boat shipped several barrels of water, and himself and all his family must have been drowned had not a mountain wave struck the boat with such violence as to float it over the bar. When up the river, within about two miles of their landing place, they stopped for the night a little north of Northfield, at a locality now known as the Pinery.
A tremendous rain in the night so raised the river by daybreak, that it overflowed the bank whereon they slept, and even their beds were on the point of floating. Every thing was completely drenched, and they were compelled to wait five days ere the subsiding waters would allow them to force their boats against the current. On the sixth day, May the 28th, they reached their landing place, from whence Mr. Hudson, leaving his wife and children, hurried to see the people whom he had left over winter, and whom he found well.
About the time they completed their landing, Elijah Noble arrived with the cattle and Mr. Hudson's horse, which had been driven from Ontario by nearly the same route that the cattle were the preceding year.
Being busy in arranging for them, Mr. Hudson did not take his horse to the river to bring up his family for several days. When he arrived, he found his wife, who had cheerfully submitted to all the inconveniences hitherto experienced, very much discouraged. She and the children suffered severely from the armies of gnats and musketoes which at this season of the year infest the woods. After all the persons belonging to the settlement had collected, thanksgiving was rendered to the God of mercy, who had protected them in perils, preserved their lives and brought them safely to their place of destination. Public worship on the Sabbath was resumed, it having been discontinued during the absence of Mr. Hudson. "I felt," said he, " in some measure the responsibility resting on first set- tlers, and their obligations to commence in that fear of God which is the beginning of wis-
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dom, and to establish those moral and religious habits on which the temporal and eternal happiness of a people essentially depends."
Mr. David Hudson died March 17th, 1836, aged 75 years, leaving a memory revered, and an example of usefulness well worthy of imitation.
Hudson is 24 miles from Cleveland and 13 northeast of Akron, on the stage road from Cleveland to Pittsburgh. It contains 2 Con-
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Western Reserve College.
gregational, 1 Episcopal and 1 Methodist church, 4 stores, 1 news- paper printing office, 2 female seminaries, and about 600 inhabitants. The village is handsomely situated and neatly built, and the tone of society elevated, which arises in a great measure from its being the seat of the Western Reserve College.
The college buildings are of brick, and situated upon a beautiful and spacious green, in an order similar to the edifices of Yale, on which institution this is also modeled, and of which several of its . professors are graduates. The annexed view was taken near the observatory, a small structure shown on the extreme right. The other buildings are, commencing with that nearest -- south college, middle college, chapel, divinity hall, president's house, athæneum, and a residence of one of the professors, near the road-side, nearly in front of the athenæum.
The Medical College at Cleveland is connected with this institu- tion. By the catalogue of 1846-7, the whole number of professors and instructors in the college was 19; the whole number of students 320, viz. : 14 in the theological department ; 216 in the medical do .; 71 undergraduates, and 19 preparatory.
The Rev. CHARLES B. STORRS, the first president of the Western Reserve College, was the son of the Rev. Richard S. Storrs, of Long Meadow, Mass., and was born in May, 1794. He pursued his literary studies at Princeton, and his theological at Andover, after which he journeyed at the south with the double object of restoring his health and preach- ing the gospel in its destitute regions. In 1822, he located himself as a preacher of the gospel at Ravenna. In this situation he remained, rapidly advancing in the confidence and esteem of the public, until March 2, 1828, when he was unanimously elected professor of Christian theology in the Western Reserve College, and was inducted into his office the 3d of Dec. following. The institution then was in its infancy. Some 15 or 20 students had been collected under the care and instruction of a tutor, but no permanent officers had been appointed. The government and much of the instruction of the college devolved on him. On the 25th of August, 1830, he was unanimously elected president, and inaugu- rated on the 9th of February, 1831. In this situation he showed himself worthy of the confidence reposed in him. Under his mild and paternal, yet firm and decisive adminis- tration of government, the most perfect discipline prevailed, while all the students loved
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and venerated him as a father. Under his auspices, together with the aid of competent and faithful professors, the institution arose in public estimation, and increased from a mere handful to nearly one hundred students. For many years he had been laboring under a bad state of health, and on the 26th of June, 1833, he left the institution to travel for a few months for his health. He died on the 15th of September ensuing, at his brother's house in Braintree, Mass. President Storrs was naturally modest and retiring. He pos- sessed a strong and independent mind, and took an expansive view of every subject that occupied his attention. He was a thorough student, and in his method of communicating his thoughts to others, peculiarly happy. Though destitute in the pulpit of the tinsel of rhetoric, few men could chain an intelligent audience in breathless silence, by pure intel- lectual vigor and forcible illustration of truth, more perfectly than he. Some of his appeals were almost resistless. He exerted a powerful and salutary influence over the church and community in this part of the country, and his death was deeply felt .*
Akron, from the Medina road.
The large and flourishing town of Akron, the county seat, is on the Portage summit of the Ohio canal, at the junction of the Penn- sylvania canal, 36 miles from Cleveland and 110 northeast of Colum- bus. The name of this town is derived from a Greek word signify- ing an elevation. Akron was laid out in 1825, where South Akron now is. In the fall of the same year, the Irish laborers on the Ohio canal put up about 100 cabins. South Akron grew rapidly for a few years ; but in 1832, some buildings were put up half a mile farther north, and business in a short time centered here. In 1827, the Ohio canal was finished from Cleveland to this place. In 1841, Akron was made the county seat of the new county of Summit. The same year the canal connecting Akron with Beaver, Pa., was opened, and a new impetus given to the town by these advantages.
Akron contains 1 Episcopal, 1 Congregational, 1 Baptist, 1 Meth- odist, 1 Disciples, 1 Universalist, 1 German Lutheran, and 1 Catholic church, 20 mercantile stores, 10 grocery, 4 drug and 2 book stores, 4 woollen factories, 2 blast and 3 small furnaces, 1 carding machine manufactory, 5 flouring mills, 1 insurance company, 1 bank, 2 news- paper printing offices, and a great variety of mechanical establish-
* Abridged from the Hudson Observer of Sept. 28th, 1833.
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ments. The mercantile business of this town is heavy and constantly increasing, and immense quantities of wheat are purchased. The water privileges here are good, and manufacturing will eventually be extensively carried on. In 1827, its population was about 600; in 1840, it was 1664, since which it is estimated to have doubled. Two miles south of Akron is Summit lake, a beautiful sheet of water on the summit of the Ohio canal. Part of its waters find their way to the St. Lawrence, and part to the Gulf of Mexico.
A resident of Akron has given us some facts respecting the settle- ment of the country, and one or two anecdotes, which we annex.
In 1811, Paul Williams, Amos and Minor Spicer came from New London, Conn., and settled in the vicinity of Akron, at which time there was no other white settlement between here and Sandusky. We give an anecdote of Minor Spicer, who is still living at Akron. In the late war, one night just before retiring, he heard some one call in front of his house, and went out and saw a large Indian with two rifles in his hand, and a deer quartered and hung across his horse. . Spicer inquired what he wanted. The Indian replied in his own dialect, when the other told him he must speak English, or he would unhorse him. He finally gave them to understand that he wished to stay over night, a request that was re- luctantly granted. His rifles were placed in a corner, his venison hung up, and his horse put into a large pig-stye, the only stable attached to the premises.
The Indian cut out a piece of venison for Mrs. Spicer to cook for him, which she did in the usual way, with a liberal quantity of pepper and salt. He drew up to the table and eat but a mouthful or two. The family being ready to retire, he placed his scalping-knife and tomahawk in the corner with his rifles, and stretched himself upon the hearth before the fire. When he supposed the family were asleep, he raised himself slowly from his reclining position and sat upright on the hearth, looking stealthily over his shoulder to see if all was still. He then got upon his feet and stepped lightly across the floor to his implements of death. At this juncture, the feelings of Spicer and his wife may be well imagined, for they were only feigning sleep and were intently watching. The Indian again stood for a moment, to see if he had awakened any one, then slowly drew from its scabbard the glit- tering scalping-knife. At this moment, Spicer was about putting his hand upon his rifle, which stood by his bed, to shoot the Indian, but concluded to wait further demonstration, which was an entirely different one from what he had anticipated, for the Indian took hold and cut a piece of his venison, weighing about two pounds, and laying it on the live coals until it was warmed through, devoured it and went to sleep. Mrs. Spicer's cooking had not pleased him, being seasoned too high. The day before, he and his father lost them- selves in the woods, and after covering his parent, under a log, with his blanket, he had wandered until he saw Spicer's light.
James Brown, or as he was commonly called, " Jim Brown," was one of the early set- tlers in the north part of the county. He was known throughout the country as the head of a notorious band of counterfeiters. Few men have pursued the business so long without being convicted. Aside from this, he was to a certain extent respected, for he had the ex- ternals of a gentleman in his conversation and address, and had many friends. He was a fine looking man, over six feet in height, with a keen, penetrating eye. He even held the office of justice of the peace when last arrested. He had often been tried before, and as often escaped. Once he was sentenced to the penitentiary from Medina, and the sheriff had nearly reached Columbus, when he was overtaken with a writ of error and set at lib- erty. It is said that large numbers of young men have been drawn into his schemes, from time to time, and thereby found their way to the penitentiary. Many anecdotes are re- lated of him.
He and a brother and one Taylor once supplied themselves with counterfeit paper, and proceeded to New Orleans, where they purchased a ship with it and set sail for China, intending to make large purchases there with counterfeit notes on the United States bank. A discovery, however, was made, and they were apprehended before they had got out of the river, and brought back for trial, but he escaped by turning states' evidence. He escaped so often, that it was said he could not be convicted. However, in 1846, he was taken the last time, tried at Columbus, and sentenced to the penitentiary for ten years. When first arrested, he said, " Well, boys! now the United States have taken hold of me, I may get floored ; but I could have worried out a county."
Two miles east of Akron, and on both sides of the Little Cuya-
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hoga, is the village of Middlebury. As early as 1807, a grist mill was built on the site of the town, by Aaron Norton and Joseph Hart, which was of great use to the early settlers for many miles around. The town was laid out in 1818, by Norton & Hart, and soon became the most thriving village in this whole region, until the
Middlebury, from the Tallmadge road.
canal was cut through to Cleveland, when Akron took away most of its trade. It is now improving, has a number of wealthy inhab- itants, and the manufacturing capital is increasing. It contains 2 churches, 2 stores, 2 woollen, 3 comb and 1 fire engine factory, 1 machine, 1 carriage shop, and other mechanical establishments. The population is not far from 1000.
This village is in the township of Tallmadge. The first perma- nent settlement in Tallmadge was made in the fall of 1807, when the Rev. David Bacon, a missionary in the western settlements, assisted by Justin E. Frink, erected a log house on the south line, half a mile west of the centre north and south road. The first set- tlers in Tallmadge prior to 1812, were :
Dr. A. C. Wright, Joseph Hart, Adam Norton, Charles Chittenden, Jonathan Sprague, Nathaniel Chapman, Titus, his father, Titus and Porter, and others of his sons, William Niel, Joseph Bradford, Ephraim Clark, jr., George Kilbourne, Capt. John Wright, Alpha Wright, Eli Hill, Jotham Blakeley, Jotham Blakelee, Conrad Boosinger, Edmund Strong, John Wright, jr., Stephen Upson, Theron Bradley, Peter Norton, Elizur Wright, Justus Barnes, Shubel H. Lowrey, David, John, Samuel, David, jr., and Lot Preston, Drake Fel- lows, Samuel M'Coy, Luther Chamberlin, Rial M' Arthur, Justus Bradley, Deacon S., Nor man, Hervey, Leander, Cassander, Eleazar and Salmon Sackett, Daniel Beach, John Car ruthers, Reuben Upson and Aza Gillett.
The village of Cuyahoga Falls is 4 miles northeast of Akron, on the line of the Pennsylvania canal and on the Cuyahoga river. Man- ufacturing is already carried on here to a large extent, and the place is perhaps destined to be to the west what Lowell is to the east.
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The Cuyahoga has a fall here of more than 200 feet in the distance of 22 miles, across stratified rocks, which are worn away to nearly this depth in the course of this descent. In the ravine thus formed
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Village of Cuyahoga Falls.
are a series of wild and picturesque views, one of which is repre- sented in an engraving on an adjoining page.
The Indians called Cuyahoga Falls "Coppacaw," which signifies " shedding tears." A Mr. O., an early settler in this region, was once so much cheated in a trade with them, that he shed tears, and the Indians ever afterwards called him Coppacaw.
The village was laid out in 1837, by Birdseye Booth, grew rapidly, and in 1840 was the rival of Akron for the county seat. It contains 1 Episcopal, 1 Wesleyan Methodist and 1 Presbyterian church, 1 academy, 7 mercantile stores, 1 bank, 1 insurance office, 4 paper, 2 flouring and 1 saw mill, 2 furnaces, 2 tanneries, 1 fork and scythe, and'1 starch factory, 4 warehouses, and about 1200 inhabitants.
The view was taken from near the Cleveland road, above the vil- lage, at Stow's quarry. On the right are seen the Methodist and Episcopal churches, in the centre the American House, and on the left the Cuyahoga river, the lyceum and Presbyterian church.
The township of Stow in this county, was named from Joshua Stow, Esq., of Middlesex county, Conn. He was a member of the first party of surveyors of the Western Reserve, who landed at Conneaut, July 4th, 1796. Augustus Porter, Esq., the principal sur- veyor, in his history of the survey, in the Barr manuscripts, gives the following anecdote of Mr. Stow.
In making the traverse of the lake shore, Mr. Stow acted as flag-man ; he of course was always in advance of the party : rattlesnakes were plenty, and he coming first upon those in our track, killed them. I had mentioned to him a circumstance that happened to me in 1789 : being with two or three other persons three days in the wood without food, we had killed a rattlesnake, dressed and cooked it, and whether from the savory quality of the flesh or the particular state of our stomachs, I could not say which, had eaten it with a high relish. Mr. Stow was a healthy, active man, fond of wood-life, and determined
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