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 49
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for this crime that he was hanged at Cleve- land. The name O'Mick did not properly belong to him but to his father.
EARLY COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE.
The first supply of merchandise was brought to Warren in June, 1801, in which year Jas. E. Caldwell and an assistant poled a canoe up the Mahoning about once in two weeks. When they approached a settlement they blew a horn, and the settlers who wanted anything came down to the river to purchase.
In the fall of 1801, or early in 1802, George Lovelass opened a small shop'on the east side of Main street, a few rods north of South street. About the same time Robt. Erwin, "who was a handsome but a sad scamp," so says an old lady, was set up in business by his uncle, Boyle Erwin.
FIRST MAIL TO THE RESERVE.
The following extract from a letter of Gen. Simon Perkins gives some interesting items concerning the first mail route to the Western Reserve :
"The mail first came to Warren, October 30, 1801, via Canfield and Youngstown. Gen. Wadsworth was appointed postmaster at Canfield, Judge Pease at Youngstown, and myself at Warren. A Mr. Frithy, of Jeffer- son, Ashtabula County, was contractor on the route, which came and terminated at Warren, the terminus for two or four years before it went on to Cleveland. Eleazar Gilson, of Canfield, was the first mail carrier, and made a trip once in two weeks; but I do not recol- leet the compensation. This was the first mail to the Reserve. Two years afterward, I think it was, that the mail was extended to Detroit, and it may have been four years. The route was from Warren, via Deerfield, Racenna, Iludson, etc., to Cleveland, and then along the old Indian trail to Sandusky, Maumee, River Raisin, to Detroit, returning from Cleveland, via Painesville, Harpersfield, and Jefferson to Warren. The trip was per- formed from Pittsburg to Warren in about two days. The distance was eighty-six miles. "
SQUIRE BROWN AND THE SLAVE-HUNTERS.
One afternoon in September, 1823, a negro and his wife with two children passed through Bloomfield on their way toward Ashtabula. At nearly dark of the same day, three dusty, way-worn travellers rode up to the tavern and announced themselves as slave-hunters. They were much fatigued and easily persuaded by the landlord to remain over night. It was soon noised abroad that the slave-hunters were in town and much excitement prevailed. Squire Brown got out his wagon, and a party of men were sent out to warn and seerete the slaves, who were found at a house near Rome, Ash- tabula County, and temporarily secreted in a barn.
In the meanwhile, the Virginia slave-hun- ters were sleeping off the effects of their hard journey. A singular torpor seemed to come over every one about that tavern on that night, so that it was late in the morning be- fore any one was aronsed ; the breakfast was delayed, the key of the stable lock could not be found, and when at last the stable was opened, the Virginian horses were each found to have cast a shoe. A blacksmith shop was visited, but the smith was absent, and when at last hunted up, he had no nails, must make new shoes ; the fire was out, so that when the horses were finally shod it was well toward noon. The Virginians finally got started on their journey, but not until beset by the most remarkable series of mishaps and delays that ever occurred to impatient tavellers.
Some time after their departure, Squire Brown's wagon drove into town with the negro family. They were led into the dense woods, where under the direction of Squire Brown, a temporary hut had been erected for their accommodation. Here they were con- cealed, and food carried to them by night, until the excitement passed by.
Three days later, the slave-hunters rode up to the tavern on their homeward journey. They found a warrant, issued by Squire Kim- ble awaiting their attention. Their offense was that of running the toll-gate on the turn- pike a little north of Warren. On passing the gate they had supposed that the objects of their pursuit had taken the State road to- ward Painesville, and therefore paid the half toll necessary to go by that route ; whereas, if they had represented that they were com- ing to Bloomfield, they would have been re- quired to pay full toll. On application to Mr. Harris for horse-feed, they were told that no slave-hunter's horses could again stand in his stable under any consideration. They then hitched their horses to the sign- post, and proceeded with the constable to Squire Kimble's, where they were fined five dollars each and costs. On their return they found the tails and manes of their steeds wanting as to "hair," and a notice pinned to one of the saddles, which read something as follows :
"Slave-hunters, beware ! For sincerely we swear That if again here You ever appear,
We'll give you the coat of a Tory to wear."
This latter episode was greatly deplored by those who took the most active part in the resene. After the departure of the slave- hunters, the negroes remained for some time, the father working for Squire Brown, Even- tually they were placed aboard a Canada bound vessel, their fares paid, and they reached their destination without molestation.
AN INTELLIGENT DOG.
Bloomfield Township was purchased in
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1814 by Ephraim Brown of Westmoreland, New Hampshire, and Thomas Howe of Wil- liamstown, Vermont, of Peter Chardon Brookes of Boston, the proprietor of large tracts in this part of the Reserve. They en- gaged S. J. Ensign to survey it, and in the winter of 1814-15, Lemon Ferry, wife, two sons and four daughters moved into the town- ship. This was the first family. In the spring of 1815, Willard Crowell, Israel Proc- tor, Samuel Eastman, and David Comstock, came on foot from Vermont. "By special , request, Howe allowed his favorite dog Argus to accompany these men. Very much to their chagrin, the dog was missed somewhere in New York, and did not again join them.
"Several months after, Howe drove through, and, on stopping at a wayside inn to rest his horse, was much surprised to find Argus, who manifested his delight in all the ways within his power. Mr. Howe remarked to the landlord that he was glad to find his dog. The landlord insisted, as landlords will. that he had raised the dog from a puppy. Howe thought it would be easy to test the matter of ownership, and, pointing to his cutter, told the dog to take care of it. He then told the astonished inn-keeper that if he could take anything from the cutter the dog was his ; otherwise not. The landlord endeavored by coaxing and threatening to obtain posses- sion of a robe or whip, but in vain. Argus, rejoiced at finding his old master, immediately resumed a grateful service to him. When Howe was ready to start, he told his host that he should not call off his dog, but Argus was only too glad to follow, and in the new county was a general favorite, and became famous as a deer hunter.'
INDIAN RELIGIOUS FESTIVAL.
A few Indians still remained in the Maho- ing Valley up to the time of the war of 1812. They seemed like outlaws, who feel that their country owes them a living, and it is theirs to obtain it as best they can. Still they were never quarrelsome, though in looks they were fright fully savage.
A band of Indians and John Omick, their sachem had until the year 1810, encamped on the west bank of the Pymatuning creek, and were supposed to be a remnant of the Chip- pewa tribe. Their totem, or family designa- tion, was the venomous black rattlesnake, called the Massasauga. But they were peace- able, disturbing no man's property or person.
" Burning the White Dog was their annual religious festival, and to this they always in- vited white men to come. The sacrifice was offered each year in a certain spot in the northeast part of the township, and the country was hunted over to find a dog purely white for the offering. A pole was supported at either end by forked sticks set firmly in the ground ; beneath it were placed wood and kindlings for the fire. The dog was carefully bound with thongs, passed over the pole in such a way that the victim could be raised or lowered at will. Whiskey and food were
provided, and as the dusky band assembled their weapons were stacked and a guard placed over them, so that no one in a mo- ment of excitement should seize a weapon for retaliation or destruction. The fire was kindled and as a circle of these swarthy worshippers danced slowly around the altar, mingling their wailing songs with the beating of rude drums, the victim was lowered into the flames, then raised at intervals, and thus tortured until life was extinct.
Attempts, it is said, were made to Chris- tianize them ; but at last, very many having fallen victims to the small-pox, they thought the Great Spirit frowned upon them for staying here, so the survivors moved west- ward in 1810.
HOG STORIES.
In the spring of 1806 or 1807, David Brownlee settled in Coitsville ; he hailed from Washington county, Pa. In emigrating he brought with him a sow and a half a dozen pigs, five or six months old. They all seemed satisfied with their new Buckeye home, regardless of dangers from the prowl- ing wolf, the bear, the panther, and the other wild beasts, plenty in our forests in those days, and lovers of pork, and indulged in it at every opportunity. These swine were in their stye every evening, and regularly at their troughs at feeding times, and things for a time went on very pleasantly with the porker family. Anticipation ran high with Mr. Brownlee in prospect of the good and profitable things coming in the shape of ham, shoulders, flitch, spare ribs, sausages, etc. Now one evening in early summer the pig- sty was empty ; none of its occupants put in an appearance, Not much solicitude was felt about their absence for a few days, then a dilligent search was made for their where- abouts, but they could not be found and were given up for lost.
After a time, Mr. Brownlee went back to Washington County to harvest his wheat that he had left growing. To his great surprise he found all his swine, with an addition of eight or ten pigs to the family, not one missing. When Mr. Brownlee was ready to return to his home he gathered his herd of swine, notified them of his purpose, and started them on their way. None making any detirmined opposition, they passed on before him until they came to the river, where they took to the water cheerfully and landed safely on the other side and took the direct road to Coitsville, nor ceased their efforts at all seasonable hours until they reached their Coitsville home and rested again within the sty, and fed from the trough which they had clandestinely deserted a few months before.
Another Case .- When Mr. David Stewart emigrated to Coitsville he brought his hogs with him. When they came to the Ohio river they drove the hogs, with other stock, on to the ferry-boat, and pushed off into the stream. One hog jumped from the boat
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when near the middle of the river and swam back to the shore. They did not attempt to recover the hog, and when they landed drove on. On the second evening after they crossed the river, Mr. Stewart put up for the night at Amos Loveland's in Coitsville, and put the hogs in an enclosure by the wayside. Next morning the missing hog was lying on the outside of the fence which enclosed its mates, composed as if nothing remarkable had happened. It must have recognized that it was lost from its companions, swam the river, took the cold track of the herd, and followed on persistently, tired and hungry, until it overtook them."
THE DEAN RAFTS.
In December, 1804, an elderly gentleman came to this region representing that he wished to contract for squared white-oak tim- ber and staves to be used for ship-building, and the staves to be taken to the Madeira Is- lands for wine casks. He was referred to Isaac Powers and Amos Loveland, men that could furnish what he wanted. He called upon them and made a bargain, which they had to go to Poland to have written. The contract was drawn at the house of Jonathan Fowler, and written either by him or Terhand Kirtland. The sizes and lengths of the tim- bers were all specified. It was all large tim- ber. The contract for the timber was made with Isaac Powers, and the staves with Amos Loveland. Mr. Dean was evidently a man that understood his business, and capable of driving a sharp bargain, as he succeeded in getting Mr. Powers into a contract entirely in his own favor, Mr. Powers, although be- ing a good mechanic in timber, never had the experience of the cost of furnishing timber of such sizes and weight, and consequently got but little to pay the scant wages due his workmen and for his own time and labor. He, however, furnished the timbers as called for by the contract, Mr. Loveland's part of the bargain will be understood by giving it in the words of his daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth M'Farland, who is now living (1876) in Coits- ville Township, and is eighty-five years of age. She says :
" My recollection of the Dean rafts is that they were three in number, and were got up about the year 1803 or 1804. They were com- posed of square timbers hewed ont, and of farge, air-tight casks. My father, 'Amos Loveland, furnished all the timber for the casks, and helped to take it ont. He also furnished the trees standing in the woods from which the square timber was made. He was not under contract for building the casks, or for any other part of the labor of constructing. He, however, had the contract to furnish the staves dressed. The staves were got out and dressed and finished, and then set up for the wine casks, and after- wards knocked down, that is, taken apart, and the staves destined for each cask punched or bundled, cach bundle being seenred by a
small hoop at each end. John Moore, father of Win. O. Moore, of the Sarah J. Stewart tragedy, James Walker, - Hlohmes, with the help of my father, were the coopers who split them out (the staves) in the summer, set them up and built the casks in the fall and winter. The casks were intended to buoy up the rafts. We furnished the boarding and lodging and shop for these coopers. We were often hard put to furnish the table with the necessary substantials of life. For meat we often had game, namely, wild turkey, venison, and occasionally bear meat.
" Mr. Powers took out all the squared tim- ber and built the rafts. It took about one year to get them completed. They were suc- cessfully launched in the Mahoning River in Coitsville Township, at the south end of the present Lawrence Railroad Bridge, at the spring flood in 1806. The river was swollen to its highest water-mark, and most of the inhabitants of the surrounding neighborhood were there to see them off. An old gentle- man, Mr. Dean, contracted for the building and launching of them. He was not here often, but his nephew, James Dean, bossed the job. He, James, fell out of a canoe be- tween this and Beaver Falls. He, with two men, were travelling in the canoe. The two others went ashore to sleep, leaving Mr. Dean in the canoe to watch their trunks and out- fit. The next morning he was found at the bottom of the river, wrapped in his blanket, dead. The rafts went to pieces on the falls of Beaver on account of insufficient depth of water to float them over.
"The timbers of the rafts were lost, but most of the staves were gathered, loaded in flat boats, and taken to New Orleans. These rafts were about one hundred feet in length, and about twenty-five feet wide. The casks for buoys or floats were made air-tight, and frame or yokes were made, in which they were confined. Upon this frame or yoke the raft timbers were placed. The casks were about four feet in diameter and six feet in length, and made of very heavy staves and well bound with hoops. The exact umber to cach raft is not known, but we are led to believe that it was twenty-four. They were framed in the timbers in pairs, to move end- ways on the water. On the top of the rafts were piled the staves.
"Jonathan Fowler, the first settler of Po- land Township, was drowned at that time at Hardscrabble in the Beaver River. He was accompanying the party that was running the rafts. While passing the rapids at that place, the canoe in which he was riding struck a rock and upset, and he was lost. The others that were in the canoe at that time were rescued.
"At the time these rafts were got ont, and until after they were gone and lost, there were no suspicions but that they were intended to be used for legitimate purposes. It, how- ever, afterward was minored that Dean was a Confederate or in the employ of Aaron Burr, and it was supposed and believed by
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many that they were intended to be used by him in his treasonable purposes against the Government. Nothing, however, positive
was ever known to the people of this country as to their intended destination."
THE EMIGRATION OF 1817-1818 TO NEW CONNECTICUT.
For some years just prior to the war of 1812, and also during the war, the emi- gration to Ohio was slight. This primarily was caused by the unhappy condition of the people on the seaboard, consequent upon the embargo and other non-inter- course acts of the general government, which brought on a stagnation in trade and great pecuniary distress. The people could not sell their farms, had they been so disposed, and thereby raise the means to venture into a wilderness, nor did they. have much inclination, in view of the demonstrations from the Indians, which eventually culminated in open war.
A few years after the close of the war there came a great revival of emigration, which is thus well told by Goodrich in his " Peter Parley's Recollections of a Lifetime :"
I must now ask your attention to several topics having no connection, except unity of' time and place : the cold seasons of 1816 and 1817, and the consequent flood of emigration from New England to the West ; the politi- cal revolution in Connecticut, which was wrought in the magic name of Toleration, and one or two items of my personal experience.
The summer of 1816 was probably the coldest that has been known here in this cen- tury. In New England-from Connecticut to Maine-there were severe frosts in every month. The crop of Indian corn was almost entirely cut off ; of potatoes, hay, oats, etc., there was not probably more than half the usnal supply. The means of averting the effects of such a calamity-now afforded by railroads, steam navigation, canals, and other facilities of inter-communication-did not then exist. The following winter was severe, and the ensuing spring backward. At this time I made a journey into New Hampshire, passing along the Connecticut river, in the region of Hanover. It was then June, and the hills were almost as barren as in Novem- ber. I saw a man at Orford who had been forty miles for a hall' bushel of Indian corn and paid two dollars for it !
Along the seaboard it was not difficult to obtain a supply of food, save only that every article was dear. In the interior it was other- wise ; the cattle died for want of fodder, and many of the inhabitants came near perishing from starvation. The desolating effects of the war still lingered over the country, and at last a kind of despair seized upon some of the people. In the pressure of adversity, many persons lost their judgment, and thou- sands feared or felt that New England was destined, henceforth, to become a part of the frigid zone. At the same time, Ohio-with its rich soil, its mild climate, its inviting prairies-was opened fully upon the alarmed and anxious vision. As was natural under the ciremustances, a sort of stampede took place from the cold, desolate, worn-out New England, to this land of promise.
I remember very well the tide of emigra- tion through Connecticut, on its way to the
West, during the summer of 1817. Some persons went in covered wagons-frequently a family consisting of father, mother and nine small children, with one at the breast-some on foot and some crowded together under the cover, with kettles, gridirons, feather beds, crockery and the family Bible, Watts' Psalms and Hymns, and Webster's Spelling Book- the lares and penates of the household. Others started in ox-carts, and trudged on at the rate of ten miles a day. In several in- stances I saw families on foot-the father and boys taking turns in dragging along an in- provised hand-wagon, loaded with the wreck of the household goods-occasionally giving the baby and mother a ride. Many of these persons were in a state of poverty, and begged their way as they went. Some died before they reached the expected Canaan ; many perished after their arrival from fatigue and privation ; and others from the fever and ague, which was then certain to attack the new settlers.
It was, I think, in 1818 that I published a small tract entitled "T'other side of Ohio," that is, the other view, in contrast to the popular notion that it was the paradise of the world. It was written by Dr. Hand-a talented young physician of Berlin -- who had made a visit to the West about these days. It consisted mainly of vivid but painful pic- tures of the accidents and incidents attending this wholesale migration. The roads over the Alleghenies, between Philadelphia and Pittsburg, were then rude, steep and danger- ous, and some of the more precipitous slopes were consequently strewn with the carcasses of wagons, horses, carts, oxen, which had made shipwreck in their perilous descents. The scenes on the road-of families gathered at night in miserable sheds, called taverns ; mothers frying, children crying, fathers swearing-were a mingled comedy and trag- edy of errors. Even when they arrived in their new homes, along the banks of the Muskingum or Scioto, frequently the whole family-father, mother, children-speedily exchanged the fresh complexion and elastic step of their first abodes for the sunken cheek
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and languid movement which marks the vie- tim of' intermittent fever.
The instances of homesickness described by this vivid sketcher were tonching. Not even the captive Israelites, who hung their harps upon the willows along the banks of the Euphrates, wept more bitter tears,. or looked back with more longing to their na- tive homes, than did these exiles from New England ; mourning the land they had left, with its roads, schools, meeting-honses ; its hope, health and happiness !
Two incidents related by the traveller .I must mention, though I do it from recollec- tion, as I have not a copy of the work. He was one day riding in the woods, apart from the settlements, when he met a youth, some eighteen years of age, in a hunting-frock, and with a fowling-piece in his hand. The two fell into conversation.
"Where are you from ?" said the youth at last.
" From Connectient," was the reply.
" That is near the old Bay State ?
"Yes. "
"And you have been there ?"
"To Massachusetts ! Yes ; many a time."
"Let me take your hand, stranger. My mother was from the Bay State, and brought me here when I was an infant. I have heard her speak of it. Oh, it must be a lovely land ! I wish I could see a meeting-house and a school-house, for she is always talking about them. And the sea, the sea ! oh, if I could see that ! Did you ever see it, stran- ger ? "
"Yes ; often."
" What ! the real salt sea ; the ocean, with the ships upon it ? "
" Yes. "'
" Well," said the youth, scarcely able to suppress his emotion, "if I could see the old Bay State and the ocean, I should be willing then to die ! "
In another instance the traveller met, some- where in the valley of the Scioto, a man from Hartford, by the name of Bull. He was a severe Democrat, and feeling sorely oppressed with the idea that he was no better off in Connecticut under Federalism than the He- brews in Egypt, joined the throng and mi- grated to Ohio. He was a man of substance, but his wealth was of little avail in a new country, where all the comforts and luxuries of civilization were unknown.
"When I left Connecticut," said he, "I was wretched from thinking of the sins of . Federalism. After I had got across Byram river, which divides that State from New York, I knelt down and thanked the Lord, for that he had brought me and mine out of such a priest-ridden land. But I've been well punished, and I'm now preparing to re- turn. When I again cross Byram river, I shall thank God that he has permitted me to get back again !"
Mr. Bull did return, and what he hardly anticipated had taken place in his absence : the Federal dynasty had passed away, and Democracy was reigning in its stead ! This was effected by a union of all the dissenting sects-Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists- co-operating with the Democrats to over- throw the old and established order of things.
The intense bitterness existing in those early days between men of different pol- itics and religious faiths seems in these later times to have been childish, when we reflect that all parties and all sects have an honest and patriotic and precisely the same ends in view. It was a difference in belief as to the means to that end. Among the outgrowths of the feeling of the early days was a comical pasquinade by Theodore Dwight, later Secretary of the Hartford Convention, in ridicule of a Jeffersonian festival, held at New Haven early in the century. It was repeated and sang all over the country by the Federalists, greatly to the irritation of the Democrats. But when years later the Democrats got into power, they repeated it in their own meetings with great gusto. We annex the first two stanzas :
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