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 77
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Hoping that we may meet in that better country, I bid you a long and last farewell."
He was heavily ironed, placed in a carriage and hastily driven to the scene of execution, followed by an eager crowd, and his com- panions taken to the city jail.
. The gallows had been erected in a small opening in the forest, outside the city limits. The doomed man was allowed to make a few parting remarks ; this he did in a calin, unim- passioned manner, saying that he had devoted his life to his country, and he was willing, if Providence so decreed, that it should be sac- rificed. His manly words and proud bearing produced a profound impression, and the managers of the affair realizing the influence it was creating on the on-looking crowd, has- tened the ceremony to prevent interference.
His remains were buried near the spot of his execution, but have since been removed to the National cemetery at Chattanooga.
SEVEN MORE HANGED.
On the 18th of June his seven companions who had been tried and sentenced were led out for execution ; a brief time was allowed for prayer and the utterance of farewells. Little ceremony was used. The nooses were adjusted and all launched into eternity to- gether. One of the number was so ill of fever that it was found necessary to hold him upright until the fatal moment arrived. An-
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other, William Campbell, fell to the ground by the breaking of the rope ; he was quickly carried back and hung again, not being al- towed a moment's respite for prayer, which he begged for. The only notice the local papers gave of the affair was that "seven more of the engine thieves were hung this morning."
.Following is a list of Capt. Andrews' little band of heroes :
Executed in Atlanta : Win. Campbell, Geo. D. Wilson, Marion A. Ross, Perry G. Shad- rack, Saml. Robinson, John Scott, James J. Andrews, Saml. Slavens.
Escaped in Atlanta : W. W. Brown, engi- neer, Wm. Knight, engineer, J. A. Wilson, J. R. Porter, Mark Wood, M. J. Hawkins, John Wollam, D. A. Dorsey.
Exchanged : Wm. Pittinger, Robt. Buf- fum, Wm. Bensinger, Win. Reddiek, E. H. Mason, Jacob Parrott.
W. J. Knight, the engineer in charge of the locomotive in the Andrews raid into Georgia, is now a resident of Stryker, Wil- liams county, Ohio. Mr. Knight wears the gold medal voted the raiders by Congress, which reads as follows :
The Congress To Private William J. Knight, Company E, Twenty-first Regiment, Ohio Volunteers. .
Mr. Knight has prepared an illustrated lec- ture on the incidents of the famous raid, which has been delivered quite extensively for the benefit of Grand Army Posts in differ- ent localities.
Rev. Wm. Pittenger, another of the sur- vivors, and now a resident of New Jersey, has given a detailed account of the experi- ences of himself and fellow-raiders in a work entitled " Daring and Suffering."
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TRAVELLING NOTES.
Bryan has a neat, domestic air, and is New England like in its general ap- pearance. The court-house square. is large and well shaded. It is the north- westernmost court-house in Ohio, and therefore it is but a short distance into the realms of Michigan, the land of the wolverines, and Indiana, the land of the Hoosiers, with the people of whom those in this corner of Ohio haye more or less of business and social relations. The entire county, at the time of the issue of my first edition, had but about 6,000 population, and Bryan but a few hundred. Being densely wooded, emigrants passed this region of Ohio for the more easily tilled prairie lands farther west, and so it slowly filled np. As a recompense it got a solid, sturdy body of pioneers ready to swing axes into some of the hardest + sort of wood. In the afternoon of November 23d I rode in a hack to West Unity, distance about ten miles, to see Dr. Frank O. Hart, an active member of the Ohio.Historical Society, and who has a fine cabinet of ancient relics. The ride over was pleasant, through a rich, level country. The farms are large, the farm-houses white, the barns have windows and are often painted red. As the landscape, woods and fields were brown and sere, the red barns enlivened the scenery. Many of them were immense, and filled with the fat of the land in the line of corn, wheat and oats. The wind pumps to draw the water were unusually plentiful. They add to the picturesque; so white farm-houses, red barns, apple orchards, wind pumps, level fields, tall woods and a gloomy November sky after a morning of showers, were objects to occupy my eyes as I passed along.
THE TALL STEEPLE.
My companions were a single passenger, a young man, and the driver. In a few miles we came to a hamlet named Pulaski, the seene of a catastrophe the week before. A cyclone had passed over it like an infuriated demon, and seizing the church steeple in its fingers had twisted it off, and dashed it, as it were, contemptuously on to the ground. We passed by the ruins. It was, the driver said, the tallest steeple in the whole country around, and then he told me that four miles above was another church with a very tall steeple, and a farmer who was attending that church, and lived half way between the two, when this was erecting, promised that if they would build the steeple of the new church taller than the other he would leave that and con-
tribute seventy-five dollars to the expense and take his family here " to meeting." This they had done.
An old friend of mine in the long ago, when learning of a stranger coming into his village, never asked with the usual curiosity of a Yankee rustic, "What is he worth ?: 3%. but. " Where does he go to meeting ?" And now that the tall steeple has gone it is a natural question to put, "Where does that half-way farmer now go to meeting ?"
A COUNTRY GRAVEYARD.
Beyond the hamlet we passed a country graveyard with some ambitious monuments, for they were solid granite, with epitaphs glittering in gold. In the olden time it was considered morally wrong to speak in praise
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of a man to his face ; it was ministering to vanity and pride, which was sinful. But when one was dead and buried, and good words were of no earthly comfort to him, they often made up for it by extravagant eulogy, which led an honest-spoken man, on visiting an old-style graveyard, to say, " Here lie the dead, and here the living lie."
BLACK WALNUT TREES.
The country is level, giving broad views, with , not much left in forest. The early settlers seemed to have such a spite against the woods that there is not, I'am told, left a single one of the old magnificent forest trees in a village in the county, and probably not one before the door of any farm-house. There was altogether too reckless a swinging of the axe, and now they are all sorry. The country originally was well filled with black walnut trees, which, if left, in many cases would to-day have been of untold value. A single black walnut grown in this county-a veritable monarch of the forest-a few years ago, under competition from buyers, it is said, brought $1,000. We passed by a fence bounding the roadside, perhaps a quarter of a mile long, with palings of black walnut and posts of cedar. That fence was forty years old, and yet so valuable was it regarded after this long use that its owner refused to exchange a new fence of ordinary wood and one hundred dollars in cash. In the fields back of the fence were some of the stumps of the original black wal- nuts, and they are of much value. I am told that they are taken by car loads from this, the Black Swamp region of Ohio, to the eastern cities and sawed into veneering strips for furniture, the roots being rich in hue and beautiful in graining. 1
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THE BIRD OF GRATITUDE.
On my arrival at West Unity I found the doctor had gone up into Michigan on busi- ness, and yet there were many deaths on that very day in the village. The subjects, however, were not a kind to require his professional services, although they averaged at least one to each household. The explanation of this is that it was on the eve of Thanksgiving. As Yankee Hill used to slowly drawl it out as a piece of impressive wisdom :
"When we are in Rome we must do as the Romans do ;
And when we are in Turkey we must do as the Turkeys do."
So when in a Christian land we must do as the Christians do ; that is, on Thanksgiving Day eat the turkeys. That was what these West Unitarians, being thoroughly orthodox, were preparing to do, smacking their lips withal, as it were, in anticipation.
I know of no prettier, morally grateful sight than the gathering at the Thanksgiving board of old and young, with their happy, smiling face in the beginning of the feast,
their eyes fastened in expectaney upon some huge gobbler lying upon an ample platter ready for their service ; lying flat on his back, his legs well up in the air, and he look- ing so dainty, well stuffed and cooked, and "done to a T," with that nicely browned coat upon him, where shade blends into shade of varying beauty tints. They talk about the Bird of Paradise, but he is nowhere com -. pared to the Thanksgiving turkey, whiel, be- ing offered up as a heart oblation, should be called the Bird of Gratitude.
MEDICINAL VALUE OF ONIONS.
It was not until the close of the next day, Thanksgiving, that the doetor arrived from the land of the wolverines, and after a ride of thirty-five miles over a frozen hobbly road and in a eruel, chilling wind. He had caught a severe cold, but by the free use of quinine and onion pellets prevented its tarrying. Onions are a great nervine and refreshment. In a tiny onion pellet is the concentrated strength of an entire onion. A department. commander, who had great experience on the plains, told me that after a hard day's march nothing was so refreshing and invigorating to the soldiers as the eating of a raw onion. . A drink of raw whiskey was nothing to it as a restorer from extreme fatigue. He did not, however, commend either alone, or even the union of both, as altogether judicious for a breathing emanation prior to one's entree into a polite assemblage.
ANECDOTES OF ANIMALS.
The doctor is a lover of animals, and this to any one enhances the interest in life. He gave two or three anecdotes, which I repeat for the amusement of my children readers. The first is a eat story. In the course of this work are plenty of stories of bears, wolves, snakes, and children getting lost in the woods, and these will help out the variety. It all appertains to life, the animals having taken passage in the same boat with ourselves.
Tom, the doctor's white cat with the beau- tiful fur, was present, and came rubbing against me, tail up and back arched, when the doctor said : "When I take my easy-ehair Tom is fond of jumping into my lap. He does not like cigar smoke very much, and when I'm smoking watches me until I finish and have thrown the end away, when up he eomnes.
A CAT STORY.
"One day I sat smoking, and being busy in meditation I dropped off into a sort of doze. My cigar went ont, and I remained holding the stump between my lips. Seeing my somniferous condition Tom gave a spring into my lap, crawled up to my face, and then turned partly round, and with a poke of his paw knocked the stump out of my month on to the floor. Then he cuddled down into my lap and began purring. I never was more
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surprised. I felt almost like stopping smoking at the thought of a dumb animal like Tom teaching me such a lesson.
POOR OLD GREY.
It was a good eat story, but I thought I had. a better, and thus told it. "My once eity home had a eellar-kitchen, an abomina- tion from which you country folk are free. To get out of it into the back yard were three steps. The yard outside was on a level with the kitchen window. The kitchen table where food was prepared was on a level with and against the window. Our 'Old Grey' was a mother cat. Over her eyes, as over all grey eats, were some blaek lines forming the letter W, which might have signified war. How- ever that may have been, she had much of what is called 'character,' and, as this inci- dent I now relate shows, an innate sense of the proper and fitting. The time of this in- eident was a summer morning. Our girl Mary was at the table preparing food for breakfast ; I think they were eod-fish balls. Old Grey was seated demurely on the kitchen floor watching her. There appeared at the window outside the last of Old Grey's kittens that had eseaped the drowning. It eame in, and annoying Mary she gently put it down on the floor, for she was fond of kittens, when it ran out up the steps into the yard and again eame into the window, Old Grey still watching in all her furry dignity. Mary again gently put it on to the floor, when it again ran out and appeared at the window the third time, Old Grey still watehing. Then she acted as though she had thought : 'Now I'll stop this impertinence. Mary is a good girl; you sha'n't bother her so ; she will never be able to get her breakfast ready in this world.' So she sprang up on to the window-sill, met her kitten, boxed its ear, drove her baek, and it eame no more." Here were exhibited the identical qualities of the human mind-obser- vation, reflection and judgment ; and yet a president of one of the first colleges of our land once said to me, "Animals have no re- flection. "
Poor Old Grey not long after this consider- ate act left these mortal scenes. She was seized with an ineurable and infectious dis- ease, so the doctor said, and that it was dan- gerous, as she might communicate it not only to other animals, but to human beings. That opinion was her doom. It was a dreadful thing to do ; but somebody had to do it, so I . took a tin boiler, put in it a sponge saturated with chloroform, and called her to me. She came with alacrity at my summons, looking upon me as her best friend. She lay in my arms gentle as a lamb, all confidenee, su- premely happy, and purred in joy. Proceed- ing but a few yards I laid her softly in the bottom of the boiler, shut the cover down tight, and awaited the event. In a few mo- ments there was a great rustling noise inside as though there was some object there going round and round, and then it suddenly eeased. Then I knew Old Grey had been overcome
by the fumes and was passing away. A grave was made for her in the garden, and with some of the bystanders there was a swelling of the throat, and their eyes yielded the trib- ute of a tear. And to this day none of us who knew Old Grey can think of her without a pang. And it did us no good afterwards to learn that the medical man was one of those who knew altogether too much ; the disease was not dangerous to any one, and was easily cured. The heart that cannot feel another's woe, even if it be but an humble, dependent animal, will never see the kingdom of heaven, at least that part of it that sometimes bends down to earth.
STORY OF A PET WOLF.
The doctor followed with a wolf story : "In 1882 a friend sent me from Kansas a babe wolf, and so young that it had not opened. its eyes. It grew to be a very kindly, timid and froliesome animal. When I entered the house it sprang to meet me with all the joy- ous manifestations of a dog. It was very fond of my little girl, and once seized her doil and ran with it under the table. Upon this she sat down on the floor and eried. Taking pity upon her the wolf brought it baek and laid it at her feet. Then when she took it up again he jumped and eapered around her, as though he could scarcely con- tain himself for joy.
"The wolf followed me about the streets like a dog. Few, however, recognized it as a wolf; strangers generally thought it a new variety of the dog family. His weight was about forty pounds ; but if he heard any un- usual noise he would run to me for protection, being exceedingly timid. I taught him to howl, so that he would do so by a mere wave of the hand. It was a most horrid noise, which became at last such a nuisance to our- selves and neighbors that we were obliged to get rid of him,"
A CHARMING WEDDING TOUR.
As the doctor finished the wolf aneedote, I changed for one of a different character, and said : "Last Sunday I dined with a young couple who had married but a few years be- fore, and then as usual started on their wed- ding tour. Not a soul could have guessed its objective point for the passing their 'honey- moon.' It is not probable any other couple living has had such an experience. It was to the White House that they had been invited by their friends, its occupants, Mr. and Mrs. Hayes. On telling me this the lady followed it with another. 'When I was a little girl, going home from school with other girls, we passed by a door where Gen- eral Grant was sitting quietly smoking his cigar. He stopped us, chatted a while, and finally took me in his arms and kissed me. Nothing exactly satisfies in this world, for when I had run home and told my mother, she expressed her regret that I did not have on my pretty new dress.' "
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WILLIAMS COUNTY.
A CURIOUS EPITAPH.
After giving these incidents of proud memory, to relate I trust in the coming years to her grandchildren, her youthful husband invited me to an after-dinner walk. As from the grave to the gay is the usual ending on the mimic stage, I here reverse it, and go from the gay to the grave. It was to the only spot where on a Sunday in my early days one could go for a stroll without, in the opin- jon of some estimable people, violating " God's holy day "-a graveyard.
The day was what is called a weather- breeder-clear, sunny, still-and the grave- yard old and little, and near the banks of the Sandusky, and there I copied this quaint in- scription :
"Prince Howland, Jr. Died October 7, 1817, aged 24 years.
"DEATH, bungling archer, Lets his arrow fly ; Misses old age, And lo a youth must die."
WEST UNITY is ten miles northeast of Bryan, on the L. S. & M. S. R. R. Newspaper : Chief, Independent, C. F. Grisier, editor and publisher. Churches : 1 Methodist Episcopal ; 1 United Brethren ; 1 Presbyterian, and 1 Church of God Bethel. Population, 1880, 884. School census, 1888, 265.
PIONEER is fourteen miles north of Bryan. It is an important wool market, and a large creamery leads in its industries. Newspaper : Tri-State Alliance, Independent Republican ; C. J. DeWitt, editor. Churches : 1 United Brethren ; 1 Methodist Episcopal ; 1 Baptist. Population, 1880, 754. School census, 1888, 189.
STRYKER is nine miles northeast of Bryan, on the L. S. & M. S. R. R. News- paper : Advance, Independent, Kitzmiller & Son, editors and publishers. Churches : 1 Universalist ; 1 Methodist ; 1 United Brethren ; 1 Catholic. Popu- lation, 1880, 662. School census, 1888, 367 ; W. A. Saunders, superintendent schools.
EDGERTON is ten miles west of Bryan, on the L. S. & M. S. R. R. Newspa- per : Earth, Independent, Charles W. Krathwohl, editor and publisher. Churches : 1 Methodist Episcopal ; 1 Presbyterian ; 1 Disciple ; 1 Lutheran ; 1 Catholic and 1 Reformed. Bank : Farnham & Co. Population, 1880, 782. School census, 1888, 328 ; J. R. Walton, superintendent schools.
MONTPELIER is eight miles northwest of Bryan, on the St. Joseph's river and W. St. L. & P. R. R. Its principal industries are the manufactures of oars and handles, hardwood lumber, flouring, brick and tile. Newspapers : Democrat, Democrat, Willett & Ford, editors and publishers ; Enterprise, Republican, Geo. Strayer, editor and publisher. Churches : 1 United Brethren ; 1 Methodist; 1 Episcopal ; 1 German Lutheran ahd 1 Presbyterian. Bank : Montpelier Bank- ing Company ; James Draggoo, president ; M. E. Griswold, cashier. Population, 1880, 406. School census, 1888, 324.
EDON is fifteen miles northwest of Bryan. Population, 1880, 513. School census, 1888, 194.
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WOOD COUNTY.
WOOD.
WOOD COUNTY was formed from old Indian Territory, April 1, 1820, and named from the brave and chivalrous Col. Wood, a distinguished officer of engi- neers in the war of 1812. The surface is level, and covered by the black swamp, the soil of which is a rich, black loam, and very fertile, and peculiarly well' adapted to grazing. The population are mainly of New England descent, with some Germans. The principal crops are corn, hay, potatoes, oats and wheat.
Area about 620 square miles. In 1887 the acres cultivated were 167,492; in pasture, 26,485 ; woodland, 65,055; lying waste, 1,059; produced in wheat, 661,013 bushels; rye, 104,379 (largest in the State) ; buckwheat, 1,560; oats, 815,896 ; barley, 27,080 ; corn, 1,884,832; meadow hay, 21,000 tons ; clover, 6,095 ; flaxseed, 84 bushels ; potatoes, 88,656 ; tobacco, 70 lbs. ; butter, 635,765 ; sorghum, 2,274 gallons ; maple syrup, 4,873; honey, 21,140 lbs. ; eggs, 749,213 dozen ; grapes, 56,220 lbs. ; wine, 962 gallons ; sweet potatoes, 21 bushels ; apples, 39,660 ; peaches, 1,383 ; pears, 1,537; wool, 83,799 lbs .; milch cows owned, 8,481. Ohio Mining Statistics, 1888 : Limestone, 36,565 tons burned for lime ; 81,000 cubic feet of dimension stone; 57,199 cubic yards of building stone ; 8,892 cubic feet of ballast or macadam.
School census, 1888, 12,763; teachers, 410. Miles of railroad track, 196.
TOWNSHIPS AND CENSUS.
· 1840.
1880.
TOWNSHIPS AND CENSUS.
1840.
1880.
Bloom,
437
2,022
Montgomery,
60'9
2,283.
Center,
97
2,023
Perry,
559
1,474
Freedom,
238
1,667
Perrysburg,
1,041
4,112
Henry,
213
1,688
Plain,
272
1,985
Jackson,
26
1,028
Portage,
199
1,434
Lake,
2,207
Ross,
639
Liberty,
215
1,292
Troy,
383
1,407
Middleton,
193
1,606
Washington,.
244
1,426
Milton and Weston,
539
Webster,
1,197
Milton,
2,181
Weston,
2,351
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Population of Wood in 1830, 1,096 ; 1840, 5,458 ; 1850, 9,165; 1860, 17,886 ; 1880, 34,022: of whom 25,808 were born in Ohio; 1,569, Pennsylvania ; 1204, New York ; 169, Virginia ; 158, Indiana ; 38, Kentucky ; 2092, German Empire ; 626, England and Wales ; 321, British America; 274 Ireland ; 118, France ; 110, Scotland; and 21, Norway and Sweden. Census, 1890, 44,392.
DRAINAGE.
Since our original edition of 1847 few counties of the State have been so sur- prisingly transformed as Wood. It was then an almost unbroken forest, covering the black swamp, and with few inhabitants. This advance has been owing to the very extensive system of drainage and clearing off the forest, which has brought a large body of agriculturalists to settle up the country, three-fourths of whom are, to-day, within a radius of abont 23 miles of some line of railway : hence there has been a steady and uniform advance in agricultural development. It is now fast becoming one of the great garden spots of the country.
What drainage is doing for this entire region is told in the article, " The Black Swamp," under the head of Putnam County. One single ditch in Wood county, the "Jackson Cut-off," drains 30,000 acres, and cost $110,000. It is therein stated that, counting in the railway ditches with the public and private ditches of the farmers, there are in Wood county alone 16,000 miles of ditches, at an aggre-
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WOOD COUNTY.
gate cost of millions of dollars. These are the basis of the great agricultural pros- perity of the county in connection with the richness of the soil. And later, comes the discovery and use of its great gas and oil resources to further enhance its prosperity.
EARLY HISTORY.
The following sketch of the early history of this region was communicated to our original edition by HEZEKIAH L. HOSMER, then a young lawyer of Perrys- burg. He eventually removed to the Pacific Slope, and held there a high judicial position.
The Military Expeditions against the In- dian tribes in the West, commenced under the colonial government about the middle of the last century, were finally terminated on this river by the decisive victory of Gen. Wayne in 1794. Previous to that event no portion of the West was more beloved by the Indians than the valleys of the Maumee and its tribu- taries. In the daily journal of Wayne's cam- paign, kept by George Will, under date of Aug. 6, 1794, when the army was encamped fifty-six miles in advance of Fort Recovery, the writer says: "We are within six miles of the Auglaize river, and I expect to eat green corn to-morrow." On the 8th of the same month, after the arrival of the army at the Camp Grand Auglaize (the site of Fort Defiance), he continues : " We have marched four or five miles in corn-fields down the Auglaize, and there is not less than 1,000 acres of corn around the town." This jour- nal, kept from that time until the return of the army to Fort Greenville, is full of de- scriptions of the immense corn-fields, large vegetable patches, and old apple trees, found along the banks of the Manmee from its month to Fort Wayne. It discloses the as- tonishing fact that for a period of eight days while building Fort Defiance, the army ob- tained their bread and vegetables from the corn-fields and potato patches surrounding the fort. In their march from Fort Defiance to the foot of the rapids the army passed through a number of Indian towns composed of huts, constructed of bark and skins, which afforded evidence that the people who had once inhabited them were composed, not only of ludians, but of Canadian French and rene- gade Englishmen.
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