Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 109

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006

USA > Ohio > Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I > Part 109

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CHAMBERSBURG, CROWN CITY and PATRIOT are small villages in this county, neither of which have over sixty families.

682

GEAUGA COUNTY.

GEAUGA.

GEAUGA COUNTY was formed in 1805 from Trumbull, since which its original limits have been much reduced. It was the second county formed on the Reserve. The name Geauga, or Sheauga, signifies in the Indian language Rac- coon. It was originally applied to Grand river, thus : "Sheauga sepe," i. e., Raccoon river. The surface is rolling and the soil generally clay. Its area is 400 square miles. In 1885 the acres cultivated were 62,698 ; in pasture, 103,077 ; woodland, 45,541; lying waste, 2,703; produced in bushels, wheat, 148,178 : oats, 383,891 ; corn, 253,691; potatoes, 171,760; hay, tons, 41,393 ; butter, 460,807 pounds ; cheese, 1,550,382. School census, 1886, 3,984; teachers, 240. It has 25 miles of railroad.

TOWNSHIPS AND CENSUS.

1840.

1880.

TOWNSHIPS AND CENSUS.

1840.

1880.

Auburn,

1,198

786

Middlefield,

835

Bainbridge,

988

683

Montville,

567

824

Batavia,

771

Munson,

1,263

774

Burton,

1,022

1,130

Newburg,

1,209

889

Chardon,

1,910

1,702

Parkman,

1,181

961

Chester,

962

748

Russell,

742

713

Claridon,

879

808

Thompson,

1,038

1,021

Hampden,

840

. 666

Troy,

1,208

901

Huntsburg,

911

810

The population in 1820 was 7,791; in 1840, 16,299; in 1860, 15,817; in 1880, 14,251, of whom 10,380 were Ohio-born; 1,241, New York; 372, Penn- sylvania ; 719, foreign-born.

This county, being at the head-waters of Chagrin, Cuyahoga and part of Grand rivers, is high ground, and more subject to deep snows than any other part of the Reserve. In its early settlement it was visited by some high sweeping winds or tornadoes, but perhaps no more than other counties around them. In August, 1804, John Miner was killed at Chester. He had lately moved from Burton, with part of his family, into a log-house which he had built at that place. A furious storm suddenly arose, and the timber commenced falling on all sides, when he directed his two children to go under the floor, and stepped to the door to see the falling timber. At that instant three trees fell across the house and killed him instantly. The children remained in the house until the next morn- ing, when the oldest made her way to a neighbor, about two miles distant, and related the sad tidings.

The first settlement in Geauga was at Burton, in the year 1798, when three families settled there from Connecticut. This settlement was in the interior of the country, at a considerable distance from any other. The hardships and pri- vations of the early settlers of the Reserve are well described in the annexed article from the pen of one who was familiar with them.

The settlement of the Reserve commenced in a manner somewhat peculiar. Instead of beginning on one side of a county, and pro- gressing gradually into the interior, as had usually been done in similar cases, the pro- prietors of the Reserve, being governed by different and separate views, began their im- provements wherever their individual inter- ests led them. Hence we find many of the first settlers immured in a dense forest, fifteen

or twenty miles or more from the abode of any white inhabitants. In consequence of their scattered situation, journeys were some- times to be performed of twenty or fifty miles, for the sole purpose of having the sta- ple of an ox-yoke mended, or some other mechanical job, in itself trifling, but abso- lutely essential for the successful prosecution of business. These journeys had to be per- formed through the wilderness, at a great

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GEAUGA COUNTY.

expense of time, and, in many cases, the only safe guide to direct their course were the township lines made by the surveyors.

The want of mills to grind the first har- vests was in itself a great evil. Prior to the year 1800 many families used a small hand- mill, properly called a sweat-mill, which took the hard labor of two hours to supply flour enough for one person a single day. About the year 1800 one or two grist-mills, operat- ing by water power, were erected. One of these was at Newburg, now in Cuyahoga county. But the distance of many of the settlements from the mills, and the want of roads, often rendered the expense of grinding a single bushel equal the value of two or three.

The difficulties of procuring subsistence for a family, in such circumstances, must be ob- vious. Often would a man leave his family in the wilderness with a stinted supply of food, and with his team or pack-horse go perhaps some twenty or thirty miles for pro- visions. The necessary appendages of bis

journey would be an axe, a pocket compass, fireworks, and blanket and bells. He cut and beat his way through the woods with his axe, and forded almost impassable streams. When the day was spent he stopped where he was, fastened his bells to his beasts, and set them at liberty to provide for themselves. Then he would strike a fire, not only to dissipate, in some degree, the gloom and damps of night, but to annoy the gnats and mosquitos, and prevent the approach of wolves, bears and panthers. Thus the night passed, with the trees for his shelter. At early dawn, or per- haps long before, he is listening to catch the sound of bells, to him sweet music, for often many hours of tedious wanderings were con- sumed ere he could find his team and resume his journey. If prospered, on reaching his place of destination, in obtaining his expected supply, he follows his lonely way back to his anxious and secluded family, and perhaps has scarce time to refresh and rest himself ere the same journey and errand had to be re- peated.

Geanga suffered much from the "Great Drouth " in the summer of 1845, the following brief description of which was communicated to Dr. S. P. Hildreth, by Gov. Seabury Ford, and published in " Silliman's Journal."

The district of country which suffered the most was about one hundred miles in length, and fifty or sixty in width, extending nearly east and west parallel with the lake, and in some places directly bordering on the shore of this great inland sea. There was no rain from the last of March, or the Ist of April, until the 10th of June, when there fell a lit- tle rain for one day, but no more until the 2d of July, when there probably fell half an inch, as it made the roads a little muddy. From this time no more rain fell until early in September. This long-continued drouth reduced the streams of water to mere rills, and many springs and wells heretofore unfail- ing became dry, or nearly so. The grass crop entirely failed, and through several counties the pasture grounds in places were so dry, that in walking across them the dust would rise under the feet, as in highways. So dry was the grass in meadows, that fires, when accidentally kindled, would run over them as over a stubble-field, and great caution was required to prevent damage from them. The crop of oats and corn was nearly destroyed. Many fields of wheat so perished that no at- tempt was made to harvest them. Scions set in the nursery dried up for lack of sap in the stocks, and many of the forest trees with- ered, and all shed their leaves much earlier than usual. The health of the inhabitants was not materially affected, although much sickness was anticipated. Grasshoppers were multiplied exceedingly in many places, and destroyed every green thing that the drouth had spared, even to the thistles and elder- tops by the roadside.

The late frosts and cold drying winds of the spring months cut off nearly all the fruit, and what few apples remained were defective

at the core, and decayed soon after being gathered in the fall. Many of the farmers sowed fields of turnips in August and Sep- tember, hoping to raise winter food for their cattle, but the seed generally failed to vege- tate for lack of moisture. So great was the scarcity of food for the domestic animals, that early in the autumn large droves of cat- tle were sent into the valley of the Scioto, where the crops were more abundant, to pass the winter, while others were sent eastward into the borders of Pennsylvania. This re- gion of country abounds in grasses, and one .of the staple commodities is the produce of the dairy. Many stocks of dairy cows were broken up and dispersed, selling for only four or five dollars a head, as the cost of wintering would be more than their worth in the spring.

Such great losses and suffering from the effects of drouth have not been experienced in Ohio for many years, if at all since the settlement of the country. As the lands be- come more completely cleared of the forest trees, dry summers will doubtless be more frequent. In a region so near a large body of water we should expect more rain than in one at a distance. The sky in that district is, nevertheless, much oftener covered with clouds than in the southern portion of the State, where rains are more abundant ; but the dividing ridge, or height of land between Lake Erie and the waters of the Ohio, lacks a range of high hills to attract the moisture from the clouds and cause it to descend in showers of rain.

TRAVELLING NOTES.

An Amusing Old Lady. - On leaving Painesville on this the last morning of Sep- tember, my attention was arrested at a little

684

GEAUGA COUNTY.

depot on the outskirts by an old lady, evi- dently a character. She was seated on a box ; an eight-year-old boy was by her side, and she was smoking a pipe. Changes were be- ing made in the gauge of the track, with consequent confusion at the depot, with scant accommodation for waiting passengers. She was virtuously indignant. "All the railroad men care for is to get our money," she said ; then puffed away. After a little the locomo- tive came up drawing a single car; in a twinkling it was filled with a merry lot of rural people, laughing and chatting, exhila- rated by the air of a perfect September morning, sunny and bracing.

I object. - While waiting for the start something was said about smoking in the car, whereupon a gentleman exclaimed : " If any person objects we must not smoke." Instantly came from a distant corner, in the shrill, screaming tones of some ancient woman : "I object." The announcement was received with a shout of laughter, in which everybody seemed to join. It was evident that every soul in that car felt that "I object" had such an abhorrence of to- bacco smoke, that if the man in the moon got out his pipe she would know it after a few puffs ; that is, if the wind was right.

My sympathy was excited for the old lady at the deprivation of her pipe-smoke, and so tried, as we started, to relieve her mind by conversation. As is not unusual with hu- manity, herself was an interesting topic. She was, she told me, fifty-five years old ; her parents born in Connecticut, she in "York State," but from five years old had lived in Geauga county. In turn I told her what I was doing, travelling over the State to make a book. "" Make money out of it?" inquired she. "Hope so." As I said this she dropped into a brown study, evidently thinking what a grand thing, making money ! That thought having time to soak in, she broke the silence with : "My husband died twelve years ago ;" then putting her hand on the shoulder of the boy, as if joyed at the thought, added : "This is my man; took him at five months-first time seen the kears."

As we were passing some sheep, I in- quired : "Sheep plenty in this country, madam ?" "Yes. I've got some, but no such poor scrawny things as those," she said, smirking her nostrils and pointing so contemptuously at the humble nibbling crea- tures, scattered over a field below us, that I elt sorry for them. Soon after crossing a country road whereon was a flock of turkeys, it came my turn to point, as I said : "How bad those turkeys would feel if they knew Christmas was coming." "What ?" said she. She had got a new idea: Turkeys dreading Christmas when everybody else was so glad.

Burton .- The ride over from the depot to Burton is a little over two miles westerly. Burton stands on a hill, and it loomed up pleasantly as I neared it, reminding me of the old-time New England villages. It was

largely settled from Cheshire, Connecticut, which also stands on a hill. The prospect from the village is beautiful and commanding in every direction, takes in a circuit of sixty or seventy miles, including points in Trum- bull and Portage counties ; north I discerned over a leafy expanse spires in Chardon, eight miles distant ; and south the belfry of Hiram College at Garretsville, fourteen miles away. As I look the one makes me think of Peter Chardon Brookes, its founder ; and the other of James Garfield, for there he went to school. The county is charmingly diversified with hills and valleys. About ten miles from the shore of Lake Erie and nearly parallel to it is the dividing ridge, on which are points nearly 800 feet above the lake, as Little Mountain and Thompson Ledge ; the mean surface of the county is about 500 feet above the lake.

The New Connecticut People. - General Garfield in a speech at Burton, September 16, 1873, before the Historical Society of Geauga County, drew a pleasant picture de- scriptive of the character of the people, a large majority of whom are descendants of emigrants from Connecticut. He said : "On this Western Reserve are townships more thoroughly New England in character and spirit than most of the towns of New Eng- land to-day. Cut off from the metropolitan life that has been molding and changing the spirit of New England, they have preserved here in the wilderness the characteristics of New England as it was when they left it in the beginning of the century. This has given to the people of the Western Reserve those strongly marked qualities which have always distinguished them."

When the Reserve was surveyed in 1796 by Gen. Cleveland there were but two white families of settlers on the entire lake shore region of Northern Ohio. One of these was at Cleveland and the other at Sandusky. By the close of the year 1800 there were thirty- two settlements on the Reserve, though no organization of government had been estab- lished. But the pioneers were a people who had been trained in the principles and prac- tices of civil order, and these were trans- planted to their new homes. In New Con- necticut there was little of that lawlessness which so often characterizes the people of a new country. In many instances a township organization was completed and a minister chosen before the pioneers left home. Thus they planted the institutions of old Connec- ticut in their new wilderness homes.

The pioneers who first broke ground here accomplished a work unlike that which will fall to the lot of any succeeding generation. The hardships they endured, the obstacles they encountered, the life they led, the pecu- liar qualities they needed in their undertak- ings, and the traits of character developed by their work, stand alone in our history.

These pioneers knew well that the three great forces which constitute the strength and glory of a free government are-the family, the school and the church. These three they

GEAUGA COUNTY.

685

planted here, and they nourished and cher- ished them with an energy and devotion scarcely equalled in any other quarter of the

world. The glory of our country can never be dimmed while these three lights are kept shining with an undimmed lustre.

BURTON is about 30 miles east of Cleveland, 8 south of Chardon, about 20 miles from Lake Erie, and 23 miles westerly from the P. & Y. R. R. It is a finely located village, and the seat of the county fair grounds. Newspaper :

OLD-TIME WAY OF MAKING MAPLE SUGAR.

Geauga Leader, A. R. Woolsey, editor and proprietor. Churches : 1 Methodist Episcopal and 1 Congregational. Bank : Houghton, Ford & Co. Population in 1880, 480.

THE MAPLE SUGAR INDUSTRY.

The peculiar industry of Geauga county is the making of maple sugar. Forty- five counties in the State make maple sugar, but Geauga, one of the smallest, yields nearly a third of the entire product, beside very large amounts of syrup of excellent quality ; but no other county in the Union equals its amount of maple sugar. The entire amount for the year 1885 was a trifle less than 2,000,000 pounds, of which Geauga produced 631,000 pounds, and Ashtabula county, the next largest, 253,000 pounds. Improvements in this have taken place as in other manufactures, and the quality here made is of the very best. Where poorly made its peculiarly fine flavor is lost. Our cut, showing the old-time way, is

686

GEAUGA COUNTY.

copied from that in Peter Parley's "Recollections of a Lifetime." The article which here follows is by Henry C. Tuttle, of Burton, who wrote it for these pages :

" The undulating and somewhat hilly character of Geauga county seems espe- cially adapted to the growth of the sugar maple and productive of a large supply of sap. Not only does it make the largest quantity, but also the best quality of maple sweet. From using troughs hollowed out of split logs in which to catch the sap and boiling it in big iron kettles in the open air to a thick, black, sticky com- pound of sugar, ashes and miscellaneons dirt, which had some place in the house- hold economy, but no market valne, sugar-makers to-day use buckets with covers to keep out the rain and dirt, the latest improved evaporators, metal storage tanks, and have good sugar-houses in which the sap is quickly reduced to syrup. All this has been done at a large outlay of money, but the result proves it to have been a good investment, as the superior article made finds a ready market and brings annually from $80,000 to $100,000.

The season usually opens early in March, when the trees are tapped and a metal spout inserted, from which is suspended the bucket. When the flow of sap begins it is collected in galvanized iron gathering tanks, hanled to the sugar- honse and emptied into the storage vats, from which it is fed by a pipe to the evaporator. The syrup taken from the evaporator is strained, and if sugar is to be made, goes at once into the sugar-pan, where it is boiled to the proper degree, and caked in pound and one-half cakes. If syrup is to be made, it is allowed to cool, and is then reheated and cooled again, to precipitate the silica. It is then drawn off into cans and is ready for market.

The greatest care and cleanliness is required to make the highest grade of sugar and syrup, and the fragrant maple flavor is only preserved by converting the sap into sugar or syrup as fast as possible. If the sap stands long in the vats or is boiled a long time the flavor is lost and the color becomes dark.

The groves or "bushes" vary from 300 to 3,000 trees each, the total num- ber of trees tapped in 1886 being 375,000. The industry is still growing, and there are probably enough groves not yet worked to make a total of 475,000, which, if tapped, would increase the output about one-third. The sugar and syrup is mostly sold at home. The principal market is Burton, centrally located, and from there it is shipped to consumers in all parts of the country, the larger proportion going to the Western States."

TRAVELLING NOTES.

Burton is a pleasant place for a few days' rest. It has a ten-acre square with homes, churches and academy grouped around it, and on it is a band-stard where, on evenings, the village band gives excellent music. The place has had some noted characters. Here lived, at the time of my original visit, two especially such, Gov. SEABURY FORD, boin in Cheshire, Connecticut, in 1801, and Juage PETER HITCHCOCK, born in the same place in 1781. Mr. Ford came here when a child.

He was educated for the law, was long in political life, serving as speaker of both branches of the State Legislature, and was governor of the State in 1849-51, and died soon after from paralysis. He was an ardent Whig and greatly instrumental in carrying the State for Henry Clay.

In 1820, with a companion, Mr. D. Witter, he travelled through an almost unbroken wilderness to New Haven, Conn., for a four years' absence to obtain an education at Yale College. They both graduated, and were the

very first to do so from the young State of Ohio. While there he was elected the col- lege "bully." This was an office for which the physically strongest man was generally chosen, to preside at class meetings and to lead in fights against the "town boys," so called, the rongher elements of the city, with whom there were sometimes conflicts. On one dark night, the latter, a mob of town boys, went so far as to draw up a cannon loaded to its month with missiles, in front of the college and applied the torch. It simply flashed, having been secretly spiked on the way thither. The office of "college bully" has long since become obsolete from the ab- sence of a low-down class of people to cher- ish enmity against students.

Seabury Ford was one of the most efficient men known to the legislative history of the State. He gave an excellent piece of advice in a letter to his son Seabury, so characteristic of the man and so likely to he of use to some reader, that I know nothing more fitting for a close here than its quotation : "Avoid pol-

687

GEAUGA COUNTY.

itics and public life until, by a careful and industrious attention to a legitimate and hon- orable calling, you have accumulated a for- tune sufficiently large to entitle you to the respect and confidence of your fellow-men as a business man and a man of integrity, and sufficiently large to render you thoroughly and entirely independent of any official sal- ary."

I walked about a mile from the village on the Chardon road to visit the old home of Peter Hitchcock, who has been defined as "Father of the Constitution of Ohio," so largely was his advice followed in framing it. I wished to see how this man of mark had lived, and was greatly pleased to find it was with full republican simplicity. It seemed like an old-time Connecticut farmhouse set down here in Ohio. Vines nestled over the attached kitchen building, and a huge milk- can, tall as a five-year-old urchin, was perched on the fence drying in the sun preparatory to being filled against to-morrow morning's visit of the man from the cheese factory. Both are shown in the engraving.

Peter Hitchcock, in 1801, graduated at Yale at the age of 20, was admitted to the bar, and in 1806 moved to Ohio and took a farm here and divided his time between clearing the wilderness, teaching and the law practice. Four years later he went to the Legislature ; in 1814 was speaker of the Senate; in 1817 a member of Congress; in 1819 was a Judge of the Supreme Court, and with slight intermissions held that position until 1852, part of the time being Chief Justice. He was a leading member of the Constitutional Convention of 1850. In 1852, at the age of 70 years, after a public service of over forty years, like Cincinnatus, he re- tired to his farm and died in 1854.

He is described as having been finely pro- portioned, erect, strong-chested, with a large head full of solid sense ; his expression se- date and Puritanic. He was profound in law, his judgment almost unerring, in words few but exact to the point. He was revered by the bar and beloved by the people, and his decisions considered as models of sound logic. Unconscious of it himself, he was great as a man and a judge.

The history of MORTIMER D. LEGGETT, one of Ohio's efficient generals in the rebel- lion, is identified with this county. He was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1821, and in 1836 came with his father's family on to a farm at Montville. He worked on the farm and studied at intervals, then went to the Teachers' Seminary at Kirtland, later studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1844, but did not until six years after begin the prac- tice, for he became deeply interested in the subject of common schools and labored ardu- ously with Dr. A. D. Lord, Lorin Andrews and M. F. Cowdry for the establishment of Ohio's present system of public instruction. These three gentlemen, with young Leggett, stumped the entire State at their own ex- pense in favor of free schools.

Those two warm friends of education,

Judge Worcester, of Norwalk, and Harvey Rice, of Cleveland, fortunately were in the Legislature, and uniting their efforts in the fall of 1846, accomplished the passage of a special school law for the village of Akron, whereupon young Leggett, then but 25

PETER HITCHCOCK HOMESTEAD.

years of age, went thither and organized the first system of free graded schools west of the Alleghenies, under what is known as the "Akron School Law." The good Judge Worcester, whom I well knew-and who, by the way, was the brother of the scholar who made the dictionary-passed away many years since. Harvey Rice I found at his home in Cleveland in 1886, and although born in the last year of the last century, he was then erect, his hearing perfect, and his vision so good as to enable him to read with- out glasses. Moreover, he was active in instituting measures for the erection of a monument to the memory of the city's founder, now accomplished. Gen. Leggett is to-day a practising lawyer in Cleveland. His example of what a young man without expe- rience, but enthused with a beneficent idea, can do for the public welfare, is too valuable not to have a permanent record.

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 109

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio Number of Pages: 1006

Author: Howe, Henry, 1816-1893
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Cincinnati : Published by the state of Ohio
Number of Pages: 1006