Historical collections of Ohio in three volumes ; an encyclopedia of the state : with notes of a tour over it in 1886 contrasting the Ohio of 1846 with 1886-90, Vol. III, Part 45

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Columbus, Ohio : Henry Howe & Son
Number of Pages: 1200

USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio in three volumes ; an encyclopedia of the state : with notes of a tour over it in 1886 contrasting the Ohio of 1846 with 1886-90, Vol. III > Part 45

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When the sun was obscured, the terrified savages gathered together, and forming a circle, commenced marching around in regu- lar order, each one firing his gun and making all the noise possible, so as to frighten away the evil spirit menacing the destruction of the world.

One "brave," who had fired off his rifle just as the shadow began to pass from the sun, claimed the distinction of having driven away the evil spirit-a claim which his fel- low-barbarians recognized, and for his valor-

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ous deed and invaluable service, at once raised him to the dignity of chieftainship.

STIGWANISH AND HIS TOTEM.

Stigwanish, or Seneca, as he was some- times called by the whites, although that was the name of his tribe, had many noble traits of character, was friendly to the whites and much respected by them. (See Lake County).

His people for years cultivated corn fields near where the village of Cuyahoga Falls now stands. In Boston township they erected a wooden god or totem, around which they held feasts and dances, before starting on hunting and possibly marauding expeditions.

They would make offerings and hang to- bacco round the neck of the totem, which the white settlers would steal as soon as the In- dians had left. The tobacco was said to have been of a superior quality.

When the Indians went farther west in 1812, this god was taken with them.

DEATH OF NICKSHAW.

Stigwanish had a son, "George Wilson," and a son-in-law, Niekshaw, each of whom was killed by a white hunter named Williams at different times, but in both cases under cir- cumstances hardly creditable to the white hunter. The death of Niekshaw occurred in December, 1806 ; he had traded a pony with one of the settlers, and being worsted in the bargain wanted to trade back, which John Diver, the settler, refused to do. Nickshaw threatened vengeance ; he told the settlers he had been cheated, and intended to shoot Diver. Later, while at the cabin of his brother, Nickshaw and another Indian called and tried to get Diver to come out, but he would not, and his brother Daniel went out to placate the Indians when he was fired upon, and though not mortally wounded was blinded for life.

The Indians fled, and a party of settlers, under Maj. II. Rogers, started in pursuit. They came upon the camp of the Senecas about midnight on a cold, clear night, at a point near the northwestern boundary of the county. Surrounding the camp they closed in upon the Indians, but Nickshaw escaped them and fled to the woods. He was fol- lowed by George Darrow and Jonathan Williams, who, after a three mile chase, overtook Nickshaw and called upon him to yield ; this he refused to do, although with- out means of defence. Williams then shot over his head to frighten him into subjection, but without the desired effect ; whereupon he fired again, killing the Indian. The body was placed under a log and covered with brush. Afterward it was decently buried by the whites.

Some of the settlers, deeming the death of Nickshaw unwarrantable and likely to occa- sion trouble with the Indians, demanded an investigation. The investigation, however, ended in a "hoe-down," with plenty of whiskey and a $5 collection for Williams.

WILLIAMS, THE HUNTER.

Johathan Williams belonged to that class of old pioneer hunters who knew no fear, were fully equal to the Indians in woodcraft, and bore them an inveterate hatred. He lost no opportunity to kill an Indian. He was six feet in height, with strong physique, swarthy complexion, lithe and noiseless in his movements. He supported a family. With his two dogs and rifle he was feared and shunned by the Indians, and was continually on his guard against them, as his life was threatened many times.

DEATH OF "GEORGE WILSON."

On one occasion, stopping at the- house of one of the settlers, Williams was told that "George Wilson," a good-for-nothing son of Stigwanish, had been there, drunk and ugly, and had made an old woman, whom he found alone, dance for his amusement until she sank to the floor from exhaustion. Williams at once started after the Indian, and over- took him in the vicinity of a piece of "Honey- comb swamp." Taking advantage of the In- dian while off his guard, he shot and killed him. Then depositing the body in the swamp, he pushed it down into the mud un- til it sunk out of sight.

The disappearance of "George Wilson" created a great sensation among the Senecas, but it was not known until years afterward what had become of him, although the In- dians and settlers suspected Williams as the cause of it.

" BLUE LAW" IN OHIO.

Some years after the organization of Cop- ley township in 1819, one of its citizens, early one Sunday morning, was aroused from his slumbers by the noise of a great commo- tion in his pig pen. Hastily doming his clothes, he seized a rifle and rushed out of his eabin just in time to see a bear disappear in the forest with one of his pigs. He pur- sued the bear and shot it; whereupon he was brought before the Squire for violating the Sabbath, and fined $1. Shortly after- ward the citizen left that community and joined the Mormons. The historian does not so state, but if he was prompted to this as a result of the fine imposed for violating the Sabbath, he was so far, perhaps, justified in joining the Mormons, who had no laws against shooting marauding bears on the " Lord's day."

A LOTTERY SCHEME.

In 1807 the improvement of the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas rivers was the great idea of Northwestern Ohio. Col. Charles Whittle- sey gives the following interesting description of a scheme to this end :

"It was thought that if $12.000 could by some means be raised the channels of those streams' could be cleared of logs and trees and the portage path made passable for

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loaded wagons. Thus, goods might ascend the Cuyahoga in boats to Old Portage, be hauled seven miles to the Tuscarawas, near New Portage, and thence descend that stream in bateaux. This great object excited so mich attention that the Legislature authorized a lottery to raise the money."

The tickets were headed "Cuyahoga and Muskingum Navigation Lottery." They were issued in May, 1807, the drawing to take place at Cleveland, the first Monday in Jan- uary, 1808, or as soon as three-fourths of the tickets were sold. There were 12,800 tickets at $5 each. There were to be 3568 prizes, ranging from one capital prize of $5000; two second prizes of $2500 each, down to 3400 at $10. The drawing never eame off. Many years after, those who had purchased tickets received their money back, without interest.

A DESTRUCTIVE TORNADO.

On the 20th of October, 1837, there passed through Stow township a tornado of great destructive power. It occurred about three o'clock in the morning, struck the western part of the township, passed north of east, and exhausted itself near the center of the township. Its roar was terrific, its force tremendous ; in its course through heavy tim- ber, every tree within a path forty rods wide was snapped like a pipe-stem. It was ac- companied by vivid flashes of lightning, roar- ing thunder, and downpouring ram. It passed over Cochran pond. The residence of Frederick Sandford was torn to fragments, killing his two sons and mother-in-law out- right, injuring Mr. Sandford so that he died within a few hours, while Mrs. Sandford and her daughter escaped severe injury. Other houses were struck and felled or damaged, but no other deaths resulted. Farm utensils were twisted and torn to pieces. Domestic animals killed, as well as fowls and birds; the latter being plucked clean of feathers.

REMARKABLE CASE OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.

One of the most remarkable eases of cir- eumstantial evidence occurred in Northfield township. It eame near resulting in the con- viction for murder of an innocent man. The circumstances are quoted from Gen. L. V. Bierce's "History of Summit County," a work valuable for its preservation of pioneer history :

" An Englishman, named Rupert Charles- worth, who was boarding with Dorsey Viers in 1826, suddenly and mysteriously disap- peared. Ile was traced to the cabin of Viers on the night of the 23d of July, but on the following morning when a constable went there to arrest him, he was gone and no trace of him could be found. On the arrival of the constable, Mrs. Viers was found mopping up the floor. Questions were asked, but Mrs. Viers told contradictory stories as to the disappearance of the man, alleging in one in-

stance that he jumped out of the window and ran off and could not be caught; and in another, that he left when Viers was asleep, and the latter knew nothing of his where- abouts. A few days later some one announced having heard the report of a rifle at Viers' cabin the night of the man's disappearance, and of having seen blood on a pair of bars which led from the cabin to the woods. Years rolled on, and the excitement grew stronger with age, until, on the 8th of January, 1831, complaint was entered before George Y. Wallace, Justice of the Peace, that Viers had murdered Charlesworth. Viers was ar- rested, and a trial of eight days followed. Not only were the circumstances above nar- rated proved, but a hired girl who was work- ing for Viers at the time of the' man's dis- appearance, swore that a bed blanket used by Charlesworth was missing from the cabin on the day of his departure, and that it was afterward found concealed under a haystack. with large, black spots on it, resembling dried and clotted blood. It was also proved that Charlesworth had a large amount of money, and that Viers was, previous to the disap- pearanee of the man, comparatively poor, but- immediately afterward was flush of money. To complete the chain of circumstantial evi- dence, a human skeleton had been found under a log in the woods, beyond the bars already mentioned. Matters were in this shape when two men from Sandusky unex- peetedly appeared and swore that they had seen Charlesworth alive and well after the time of the supposed murder, though when seen he was passing under an assumed name. On this testimony Viers was acquitted ; but his acquittal did not change public sentiment as to his guilt. It was generally believed that the witnesses had been induced to perjure themselves. Viers, however, did not let the matter rest at this stage. He began a vigor- ous and protracted search for the missing man, and continued it with unwavering per- severance.

Ile visited all parts of the Union, and, after a search of years, he one day went into a tavern at Detroit, and in the presence of a large assemblage of men, inquired if any one knew of a man named Charlesworth. All replied no. Just as he was about to leave a man stepped up to him, and taking him to one side, inquired if his name was Viers, from Northfield. Viers replied that it was. The stranger then said, "I am Rupert Charles- worth, but I pass here under an assumed name." Charlesworth was informed of all that had taken place, and he immediately volunteered to go to Northfield and have the matter eleared up. On their arrival a meet- of the township was called, and after a thor- ough investigation it was the unanimous vote, with one exception, that the man alleged to have been murdered now stood alive before them. It appears that. he had passed a counterfeit ten-dollar bill on Deacon Hudson. and fearing an arrest, he left the cabin of Viers suddenly, and soon afterward went to England, where here mained two years, at the

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end of which time he returned to the United. States under an assumed name, and went into the backwoods of Michigan, where his real name, former residence and history were un- known. The name of the family was thus,

almost by accident, cleared of infamy and shame. This remarkable case is rivalled only by the celebrated case of the Bournes in Vermont."

EXPERIENCES OF DAVID BACON, MISSIONARY AND COLONIZER.

Rev. David Bacon, the founder of Tallmadge, was born in Woodstock, Conn., in 1771, and died in Hartford, in 1817, at the early age of forty-six years, worn out by excessive labors, privations and mental sufferings, largely consequent upon his financial failure with his colony. He was the first missionary sent to the Western Indians from Connectient. His means were pitifully inadequate ; but with a stout heart reliant upon God he started, August 8, 1800, from Hartford, afoot and alone through the wilderness, with no outfit but what he could carry on his back. At Buffalo creek, now the site of the city of Buffalo, took vessel for Detroit, which he reached September 11, thirty-four days after leaving Hartford, where he was hospitably received by Major Hunt, commandant of the United States garrison there. After a preliminary survey he returned to Connecticut, and on the 24th of December was married at Lebanon to Alice Parks, then under eighteen years of age; a week later, on the last day of the last year of the last century, December 31, 1800, he was ordained regularly to the specific work of a missionary to the heathen, the first ever sent out from Connecticut.

On the 11th of February, 1801, with his young wife, he started for Detroit, going through the wilderness of New York and Canada by sleigh, and arrived there Satur- day, May 9. The bride, before she got out of Connecticut, had a new and painful ex- perience. They stopped at a noisy country tavern at Canaan. They were a large com- pany altogether ; some drinking, some talk- ing, and some swearing ; and this they found was common at all the public-houses.

Detroit at this time was the great empo- rium of the fur trade. The Indian traders were men of great wealth and highly culti- vated minds. Many of them were educated in England and Scotland at the universities, a class to-day in Britain termed "university men." They generally spent the winter there, and in the spring returned with new goods brought by vessels through the lakes. The only Americans in the place were the officers and soldiers of the garrison, consist- ing of an infantry regiment and an artillery company, the officers of which treated Mr. Bacon and family with kindness and respect. The inhabitants were English, Scotch, Irish and French, all of whom hated the Yankees. The town was enclosed by cedar pickets about twelve feet high and six inches in diameter, and so close together one could not see through. At each side were strong gates which were elosed and guarded, and no In- dians were allowed to come in after sundown or to remain overnight.

Up to his arrival in Detroit the Missionary Society paid him in all $400; then, until September, 1803, he did not get a cent. He began his support teaching school, at first with some success ; but he was a Yankee, and the four Catholic priests used their in- fluence in opposition. His young wife as- sisted him. They studied the Indian lan-

guage, but made slow progress, and their prospect for usefulness in Detroit seemed waning.

()n the 19th of February, 1802, his first. child was born at Detroit-the afterwards eminent Dr. Leonard Bacon. In the May following he went down into the Maumee country, with a view to establish a mission among the Indians. The Indians were largely drunk, and he was an unwilling witness to their drunken orgies. Little Otter, their chief, received him courteously, called a coun- cil of the tribe, and then, to his talk through an interpreter, gave him their decision that they wouldn't have him. It was to this ef- fect :

Your religion is very good, but only for white people; it will not do for Indians. When the Great Spirit made white people, he put them on another island, gave them farms, tools to work with, horses, horned cuttle, and sheep and hogs for them, that they might get their living in that way, and he taught them to read, and gave them their re- ligion in a book. But when he made Indians he made them wild, and put them on this island in the woods, and gave them the wild game that they may live by hunting. We formerly had a religion very much like yours, but we found it would not do for us, and we have discovered a much better way.

Seeing he could not succeed he returned to Detroit. He had been with them several days, and twice narrowly escaped assassina- tion from the intoxicated ones. Ilis 'son, Leonard, in his memoirs of his father, pub- lished in the Congregational Quarterly for 1876, and from which this article is derived, wrote :

Something more than ordinary courage was necessary in the presence of so many drunken and half'-drunken Indians, any one

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of whom might suddenly shoot or tomakawk the missionary at the slightest provocation or at none. The two instances mentioned by him, in which he was enabled to baffle the malice of savages ready to murder him, re- mind me of another incident.

It was while my parents were living at Detroit, and when I was an infant of less than four months, two Indians came as if for a friendly visit ; one of them a tall and stal- wart young man, the other shorter and older. As they entered my father met them, gave his hand to the old man, and was just ex- tending it to the other, when my mother, quick to discern the danger, exclaimed, "See ! he has a knife." At the word my father saw that, while the Indian's right hand was ready for the salute, a gleaming knife in his left hand was partly concealed under his blanket.

An Indian, intending to assassinate, waits until his intended victim is looking away from him and then strikes. My father's keen eye was fixed upon the murderer, and watched him eye to eye. The Indian found himself' strangely disconcerted. In vain did the old man talk to my father in angry and chiding tones-that keen black eye was watching the would-be assassin. The time seemed long. My mother took the baby [himself ] from the birch-bark cradle, and was going to call for help, but when she reached the door she dared not leave her husband. At last the old man became weary of chiding : the young man had given up his purpose for a time and they retired.

Failing on the Maumee, Mr. Bacon soon after sailed with his little family to Mack- inaw. This was at the beginning of the sum- mer, 1802, Mackinaw was then one of the remotest outposts of the fur trade and gar- risoned by a company of United States troops. His object was to establish a mission at Ab- recroche, abouttwenty miles distant, a large settlement of Chippewa Indians, but they were no less determined than those on the Mamnee that no missionary should live in their villages. Like those, also, they were a large part of the time drunk from whiskey supplied in abundance by the fur traders in exchange for the proceeds of their hunting excursions. They had at one time no less than 900 gallon kegs on hand.

His work was obstructed from the impossi- bility of finding an interpreter, so he took into his family an Indian lad, through whom to learn the language-his name Singenog. He remained at Mackinaw about two years, but the Indians would never allow him to go among them. Like the Indians generally they regarded ministers as another sort of conjurors, with power to bring sickness and disease upon them.

At one time early in October, the second year, 1803, Singenog, the young Indian, per- suaded his uncle, Pondega Kamran, a head chief, and two other Chippewa dignitaries, to visit the missionary, and presenting to him a string of wampmm, Pondega Kanwan made a very non committal, dignified speech, to

the effect that there was no use of his going among them ; that the Great Spirit did not put them on the ground to learn such things as the white people. If it was not for rum they might listen, "but," concluded he, "RUM is our MASTER. " And later he said to Singenog, "Our father is a great man and knows a great deal; and if we were to know so much, perhaps, the Great Spirit would not let us live."

After a residence at Mackinaw of about two years and all prospects of success hope- less, the Missionary Society ordered him to New Connecticut, there to itinerate as a mis- sionary and to improve himself in the Indian language, etc. About the Ist of August, 1804, with his wife and two children, the youngest an infant, he sailed for Detroit. From thence they proceeded in an open canoe, following the windings of the shore, rowing by day and sleeping on land by night, till having performed a journey of near 200 miles, they reached, about the middle of Oe- tober, Cleveland, then a mere hamlet on the lake shore.

Leaving his family at Hudson, he went on to Hartford to report to the Society. He went almost entirely on foot a distance of about 600 miles, which he wearily trudged much of the way through the mud, slush and snow of winter. An arrangement was made by which he could act half the time as pastor at Hudson, and the other half travel as a missionary to the various settlements on the Reserve. On his return, a little experience satisfied him that more could be done than in any other way for the establishment of Chris- tian institutions on the Reserve, by the old Puritan mode of colonizing, by founding a religious colony strong enough and compact enough to maintain schools and publie wor- ship.

An ordinary township, with its scattered settlements and roads at option, with no com- mon central point, cannot well grow into a town. The unity of a town as a body politic depends very much on fixing a common centre to which every homestead shall be obviously related. In no other rural town, perhaps, is that so well provided as in Tallmadge. "Publie spirit, local pride," writes Dr. Bacon, "friendly intercourse, general culture and good taste, and a certain moral and re- ligious steadfastness, are among the charac- teristies by which Tallmadge is almost pro- verbially distinguished throughout the Re- serve. No observing stranger can pass through the town without seeing it was planned by a sagacious and far-seeing mind."

It was fit that he who had planned the set- tlement, and who had identified with it all his hopes for usefulness for the remainder of his life, and all his hopes of a competence for his family, should be the first settler in the township. He did not wait for hardier adventurers to encounter the first hardships and to break the loneliness of the woods. Selecting a temporary location near an old Indian trail, a few rods from the southern

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boundary of the township, he built the first log cabin, and there placed his family.

I well remember the pleasant day in July, 1807, when that family made its removal from the centre of Hudson to a new log- house, in a township that had no name and no other human habitation. The father and mother, poor in this world's goods, but rich in faith and in the treasure of God's prom- ises ; rich in their well-tried mutnal affection ; rich in their expectation of usefulness and of the comfort and competence which they hoped to achieve by their enterprise ; rich in the parental joy with which they looked upon the three little ones that were carried in their arms or nestled among their seanty household goods in the slow-moving wagon-were famil- iar with whatever there is in hardship and peril or disappointment, to try the courage of the noblest manhood or the immortal strength of a true woman's love. The little ones were natives of the wilderness-the youngest a delicate nursling of six months, the others born in a remoter and more savage West. These five, with a hired man, were the family.

I remember the setting out, the halt before the door of an aged friend to say farewell, the fording of the Cuyahoga, the day's jonr- ney of somewhat less than thirteen miles along a road that had been cut (not made) through the dense forest, the little cleared spot where the journey ended, the new log- house, with what seemed to me a stately hill behind it, and with a limpid rivulet winding near the door. That night, when the first family worship was offered in that cabin, the prayer of the two worshippers, for them- selves and their children, and for the work which they had that day begun, was like the prayer that went up of old from the deck of the Mayflower or from beneath the wintry sky of Plymouth.

One month later a German family came within the limits of the town ; but it was not till the next February that a second family came, a New England family, whose mother tongue was English. Well do I remember the solitude of that first winter, and how beautiful the change was when spring at last began to hang its garlands on the trees.

The next thing in carrying ont the plan to which Mr. Bacon had devoted himself was to bring in, from whatever quarter, such famil- ies as would enter into his views and would co-operate with him for the early and perma- nent establishment of Christian order. It was at the expense of many a slow and weary journey to okder settlements that he suc- ceeded in bringing together the families who, in the spring and summer of 1808, began to call the new town their home. His repeated absences from home are fresh in my memory, and so is the joy with which we greeted the

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Historical collections of Ohio in three volumes ; an encyclopedia of the state : with notes of a tour over it in 1886 contrasting the Ohio of 1846 with 1886-90, Vol. III, Part 45

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1891 Publisher: Columbus, Ohio : Henry Howe & Son Number of Pages: 1200

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Columbus, Ohio : Henry Howe & Son
Number of Pages: 1200