Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 37

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 37

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Thursday Morn, Dec. 23 .- Well, here I am safe in Manchester. The boat porter took a lantern and holding me by the hand I got ashore with perfect ease ; a flood of light being thrown on the plank. The por- ter of the McDade Hotel, a colored lad, took me in charge. He also had a lantern and taking my hand we floundered through the mud up the river bank, my rubber san- dals getting boot jacked off by the way.

After leaving my "grip" at the hotel which faced the river, the boy taking a lan- tern went with me to make a call ; but the party was not at home. It is bad to get about in many of these places at night. The walks are so ugly with so many sudden " step up's " and "go downs," that it is dangerous for a stranger to move about without a lantern or a pilot.

I gave the boy a good sized coin for going with me. He could hardly believe his eyes. " What " said he, "all this?" "Yes." I then sent him out for cigars. When he re- turned I asked, "How old are you ?" " Nineteen." "Be a good boy," I rejoined, " and you will have plenty of friends." " Yes, I try to be. I don't drink, nor use tobacco, nor swear." Thinks I, "that boy is almost a saint !"

This is one of the oldest places in the State. The tavern is evidently very old :

240

ADAMS COUNTY.

the room I was in, a small dingy spot. In ancient days of free liquor it had been a bar- room, doubtless a loitering place for the scum of the river and village.

I took out my note-book and made some notes while the old clock ticked away faith- fully, not skipping a single second. My only companion, indeed the only person I had seen about the premises, the boy, tipped his chair against the wall and dropping asleep snored in unison with the clock ticks. Soon my notes were finished. I gave him a gentle touch, and then felt as though I had a saint in black to light me to bed. All of life does not consist in keeping awake. Then how sweet is sleep when without a thought or care of trouble one can sink into oblivion while the grand procession of the stars passes over him.

Blest sleep which beguiles with visions of far isles, So calm and so peaceful heart can wish for no more. With cool, leafy shades, and green sunny glades,

And low murmuring waters laving the shore.

Somnus, King of Sleep, "gentlest of the gods, tranquillizer of mind and soother of careworn hearts:" his subjects all welcome him, and nod at his coming.

"We are all nodding, nid nod nodding, We are all nodding at our house at home."

Few of them have their pride touched as he passes by, and so get mad and grumble, say- ing. "He would not speak to me."

The Best Sleep in History .- As long as the world has stood, Somnus has pursued his vo- cation with an industry worthy of all praise. But the greatest of his feats, for which we are the most grateful, was in the first exercise of his power. Way back in the ages it was, when he put the first man asleep in a garden and during that sleep a rib was taken from him, and when he awoke there lay by his side amid the fragrance of the flowers a beautiful creature. The doves cooed from among the roses and the fiat went forth that thereafter

man should not live alone. Thus was mar- riage instituted with flowers and love songs, while the bending leaves, its witnesses, whis- pered of the great event, and moved by the unseen spirits, the zephyrs, they danced in joy : it was the original wedding dance, that in Eden : the dance of the leaves.

But ah ! there was a sad omission to that union : no preliminary courtship, none of those blissful walks by moonlight in the dreamy poetic hours, to throw a halo of ro- mance over love's young dream, and which gives to many a joyous couple in their serene old age their most delicious sacred retrospect. Still the moon must later have put in her ap- pearance, smiling and happy as she played bo-peep from behind the soft, fleecy clouds, and blessed them, as she ever does us all.

The Blessing of the Moon .- We may all worship and love the moon, so beautiful and so chaste. Silent and solemn are her minis- trations. Her soft light drops down from on high-reflects from the bosom of many waters, bathes the mountain sides, relieves the gloom of the forest with ribbons of silver, lies over the fields and habitations of man, touches with the tips of her fingers the clustering vines of the trellis, and entering the chamber window spreads her angel light over the pure white couch where youth and innocence are sleeping. And the heart of man wells up in calm seraphic joy. He feels it is the power of God and he says: "Great is the gift of human life that it is made receptive of such hallowed, chaste beauty." It is the common blessing, alike to the lofty and the lowly-the blessing of the beauty of the moon.

But I return from my allegorical poetical excursion to the McDade, the home of my young friend the black boy, Son of Night.

At daylight I was awakened by music. It was a monotone, especially grateful as I was so nicely nestled. The music was the sound of a steady pouring down rain on the roof over me ; but far above the first beams of the rising sun were striking upon the rolling mists, lighting them up as an aerial ocean of golden glory : a vast and awful solitude of ethereal beauty. Great is Creation ! and the wonder is that it can be, and our lives with so little of real evil.

Winchester is on the line of the railroad in the northwest corner of the county, thirteen miles from West Union. It has one newspaper, The Signal, Rufus T. Baird, editor ; the Winchester Bank, George Baird, president, James S. Cressman, vice-president, L. J. Fenton, cashier; and one Baptist, one Pres- byterian, and one Methodist Episcopal church ; population in 1880, 550; school census, 1886, 196; do. at Rome (fifteen miles southeast of West Union), 160; at Bentonville (five miles southwest of West Union), 142; Locust Grove 99, and Sandy Springs 56.

ALLEN.

ALLEN COUNTY was formed April 1, 1820, from Indian Territory, and named in honor of a Col. Allen, of the war of 1812; it was temporarily attached to Mercer county for judicial purposes. The southern part has many Germans. A large part of the original settlers were of Pennsylvania origin. The western half of the county is flat, and presents the common features of the Black Swamp. The eastern part is gently rolling, and in the southeastern part are gravelly ridges and knolls. "The "Dividing Ridge" is occupied by handsome, well-drained farms, which is in marked contrast with much of the surrounding country, which is still in the primeval forest condition. Its area is 440 square miles. In 1885 the acres cultivated were 119,175; in pasture, 29,598; in woodland, 53,395 ; pro- duced in wheat, 460,669 bushels; in corn, 1,157,149; wool, 103,654 pounds. School census, 1886, 11,823 ; teachers, 178 ; and 118 miles of railroad.

TOWNSHIPS AND CENSUS.

1840. 282

1880.

TOWNSHIPS AND CENSUS.

1840. 1880.

Amanda,

1,456

Ottawa,

7,669

Auglaize,

1,344

1,749

Perry,

923

1,465

Bath,

1,512

1,532

Richland,

3,372

German,

856

1,589

Shawnee,

756

1,241

Jackson,

1,176

1,893

Spencer,

1,646

Marion,

672

4,488

Sugar Creek,

1,032

Monroe,

2,182

The population in 1830 was 578 ; 1850, 12,116 ; 1860, 19,185 ; 1880, 31,314, of whom 25,625 were Ohio born, 3 were Chinese, and 4 Indians.

The initial point in the occupancy of the county by the whites was the building of a fort on the west bank of the Auglaize in September, 1812, by Col. Poague, of Gen. Harrison's army, which he named in honor of his wife Fort Amanda. A ship-yard was founded there the next year, and a number of scows built by the soldiers for navigation on the Lower Miami, as well as for the navigation of the Auglaize, which last may be termed one of the historical streams of Ohio, as it was early visited by the French, and in its neighborhood were the villages of the nost noted Indian chiefs ; it was also on the route of Harmer's, Wayne's, and Harrison's armies. To-day it is but a somewhat diminutive river, owing to the drainage of the country by canals and ditches, and the clearing off of the forests ; in the past it was a navigable stream, capable of floating heavily laden flat-boats and scows.

The fort was a quadrangle, with pickets eleven feet high, and a block-house at each of the four corners. The storchouse was in the centre. A national cemetery was established here, where are seventy-five mounds, the graves of soldiers of the war of 1812.

Among the first white men who lived at this point was a Frenchman, Francis Deuchoquette. He was interpreter to the Indians. It was said he was present at the burning of Crawford, and interfered to save that unfortunate man. He was greatly esteemed by the early settlers for his kindly disposition. In 1817 came Andrew Russell, Peter Diltz, and William Van Ausdall ; and in 1820 numerous others.

Russell opened on the Auglaize the first farm probably in the county, and there was born the first white child, a girl, who became Mrs. Charles C. Marshall, of

(241)

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ALLEN COUNTY.

Delphos. She was familiarly called the " Daughter of Allen county." She died in 1871.

From an address by T. E. Cunningham, delivered before the Pioneer Associa- tion, at Lima, September 22, 1871, we derive the following additional items upon the early settlers of the county :

"Samuel MeClure, now living, at the age of seventy-eight years, settled on Hog creek, five miles northeast of where Lima now stands, in the month of November, 1825, forty-six years ago. He has remained on the farm where he then built a cabin ever since. The nearest white neighbors he knew of were two families named Leeper and Kidd, living one mile below where Roundhead now is, about twenty miles to the nearest known neighbor. On that farm, in the year 1826, was born Moses McClure, the first white child born on the waters of Hog creek. Mr. McClure's first neighbor was Joseph Ward, a brother of Gen. John Ward. He helped cut the road when McClure came, and afterwards brought his family, and put them into McClure's cabin, while he built one for himself on the tract where he afterwards erected what was known as Ward's mill. The next family was that of Joseph Walton. They came in March, 1826.

Shawneetown, an Indian village, was situated eight miles below the McClure settlement, at the mouth of Hog creek. A portion of the village was on the old Ezekiel Hoover farm and a portion on the Breese farm. Mr. MeClure and his little neighborhood soon became acquainted, and upon good terms with their red neighbors. He says Hai-Aitch-Tah, the war-chief, had he been civilized, would have been a man of mark in any community. Quilna was the great busi- ness man of the tribe here. Soon after the MeClure settlement was made they heard from the Indians at Shawneetown that the United States government had erected a mill at Wapakoneta. The settlers had no road to the mill, but Quilna assisted them to open one. He surveyed the line of their road without compass, designating it by his own knowledge of the different points and the Indian method of reaching them.

There are many of the children of the early settlers to whom the name of Quilna is a household word. To his business qualities were added great kindness of heart, and a thorough regard for the white people. No sacrifice of his personal ease was too much if by any effort he could benefit his new neighbors.

In the month of June, 1826, Morgan Lippincott, Joseph Wood, and Benjamin Dolph, while out hunting, found the McClure settlement. To his great surprise, Mr. McClure learned that he had been for months living within a few miles of another white settlement located on Sugar creek. He learned from the hunters there were five families : Christopher Wood, Morgan Lippincott, Samuel Jacobs, Joseph Wood, and Samuel Purdy. It is his belief that Christopher Wood settled on Sugar creek as early as 1824, on what is known as the Miller farm. In the spring of 1831, John Ridenour, now living, at the age of eighty-nine, with his family-Jacob Ridenour, then a young married man, and David Ridenour, bachelor-removed from Perry county, and settled one mile south of Lima, on the lands the families of that name have occupied ever since."

LIMA was surveyed in 1831 by Capt. James W. Riley. Christopher Wood was one of the commissioners appointed to locate the county-seat, and was on the board to plat the village and superintend the sale of lots. Both of these were remarkable men. Wood was born in Kentucky in 1769, was an Indian scout, and engaged in all the border campaigns, inclusive of the war of 1812. Riley was the first settler in Van Wert county. He was a native of Middletown, Connecticut. Early in life, while in command of a vessel, he was shipwrecked on the coast of Africa, and fell into the hands of the Arabs; his history of his adventures reads like a romance. For a fuller account of him see VAN WERT county.

Lima was named by Hon. Patrick G. Goode. In August, 1831, a public sale of the lots took place. A few months later came John P. Mitchell, Absalom Brow.1, John P. Cole, Dr. William Cunningham, John Brewster, David Tracy,

243

ALLEN COUNTY.

John Mark, and John Bashore, all with families, except Brewster, who was a bachelor. Absalom Brown was the first white citizen, and his daughter, Marion Mitchell Brown, the first white child born here.

Three years later, the picture Lima presented is thus given in the cheery reminiscences of Robert Bowers :

My father brought me to Lima in the fall of 1834. I was then a boy of twelve years of age, and as green as the forest leaves in June-a rare specimen to transplant on new and untried soil, where there was nothing to develop the mind but the study of forest leaves, the music of the bull-frog and the howl of the wolf. The boys and girls were their own instructors, and the spelling schools that were held by appointment and imposed upon our fathers by turns, were our highest academical accomplishments, and unfortn- nately for myself I never even graduated at them. Lima was then a town of very few souls. I knew every man, woman and child in the settlement, and could count them all without much figuring. No newspaper office, no outlet or inlet either by rail or earth. In the spring we travelled below, in the sum- mer we travelled on top. Our roads were trails and section lines. Emigrants were con- stantly changing the trails seeking better and dryer land for their footing and wheeling. Yet under all our disadvantages we were happy, and always ready to lend a helping hand and render assistance wherever it was needed. The latchstring was always out and often the last pint of mcal was divided, re- gardless where the next would come from. The nearest mills were at settlements in ad- joining counties, and the labor of going thither through the wilderness and the delays on their arrival in getting their grain ground, so great that they had recourse to hand-mills, hominy blocks and corn-crackers ; so the labor was largely performed within the family circle. [A very pleasing picture of this is given

in the reminiscences of Mr. Bowers ; he says :] The horse and hand miller, the tin grater were always reliable and in constant use as a means of preparing our breadstuff. I was my father's miller, just the age to perform the task. My daily labor was to gather corn and dry it in a kiln, after which I took it on a grater made from an old copper kettle or tin bucket, and after supper made meal for the johnny-cake for breakfast ; after breakfast I made meal for the pone for dinner ; after dinner I made meal for the mush for supper. And now let me paint yon a picture of our domestic life and an interior view of my father's house. The names I give below ; a great many will recognize the picture only too well drawn, and think of the days of over forty years ago. Our house was a cabin con- taining a parlor, kitchen and dining-room. Connected was a shoe shop, also a broom and repair shop. To save fuel and light and have everything handy, we had the whole thing in one room, which brought us all to- gether so we could oversee each other better. After supper each one knew his place. In our house there were four mechanics. I was a shoemaker and corn-grater. My father could make a sledge, and the other two boys could strip broom corn. My sisters spun yarn and mother knit and made garments. Imagine yon see us all at work ; sister Mar- garet sings a song, father makes chips and mother pokes up the fire ; Isaac spins a yarn, John laughs at him, and thus our evenings are spent in our wild home, for we were all simple, honest people, and feared no harm from our neighbors.

The want of mills is everywhere a great deprivation in a new country ; varied have been the devices for overcoming it. The engraving annexed shows a sub- stitute for a mill that was used in the early settling of Western New York, and probably to some extent in Ohio. It consists of a stump hollowed out by fire as a mortar, with a log attached to the end of a young sapling bent over to act as a pestle. The process was slow and tedious, it being a day's work to convert a bushel of corn into samp.

The early settlers in Western New York when they owned a few slaves, which some of them did, employed them in this drudgery, hence the process was vulgarly termed " niggering corn." People of humanity in our time would not be guilty of using such an expression as this. No one thing shows the general moral advance of the American people more strongly than their treatment of, and increased con- sideration for, the humbler elasses among them.

Lima, the county-seat, is on the Ottawa river, 203 feet above Lake Erie, 95 miles west-northwest of Columbus, and on five railways : the P. Ft. W. & C .; D. & M .; L. E. & W .; C. A., and C. L. & N. W. County officers in 1888 : Probate Judge, John F. Lindemann ; Clerk of Court, Eugene C. Mckenzie ; Sheriff, Moses P. Hoagland ; Prosecuting Attorney, Isaac S. Motter ; Anditors, William D. Poling, Cyrus D. Crites ; Treasurer, Jacob B. Sunderland ;

244

ALLEN COUNTY.

Recorder, George Monroe ; Surveyor, James Pillars; Coroner, John C. Couvery ; Commissioners, John Akerman, Abraham Crider, Alexander Shenk. News- papers : Gazette, Republican, C. Parmenter, editor ; Democrat, Democratic, Mr. Timmonds, editor ; Republican, Republican, daily and weekly, Long, Winder & Porter, publishers ; Times, daily and weekly, O. B. Selfridge, Jr .; Courier, Ger- man, Democratic. Churches : two Methodist Episcopal, one Colored Methodist Episcopal, one Presbyterian, one Old School Presbyterian, one Mission Presbyterian, one Baptist, one Colored Baptist, one German Catholic, one Evangelical Lutheran, two Lutheran, one German Reformed Lutheran, one Episcopalian, one United Brethren, one Christian, one Reformed English. Banks : City, T. T. Mitchell, president, E. B. Mitchell, cashier ; First National, S. A. Baxter, president, C. M. Hughes, Jr., cashier ; Lima National, B. C. Faurot, president, F. L. Langdon, cashier ; Merchants', R. Mehaffey, president, R. W. Thrift, Jr., cashier.

Manufactures and Employees .- The Lima Engine Manufacturing Company, 6 hands ; Sinclair & Morrison, well-drilling tools, 10; W. Schultheis, leather, 23; E. F. Dunan, builders' wood-work, 8; C. H. & D. R. R. shops, railroad repairs, 154; Lima Machine Works, locomotives, 150; the Cass Manufacturing Company, handles, sucker-rods, etc., 10; E. W. Cook, job machinery, 37: the

EARLY SETTLERS POUNDING CORN.

Lima Paper-Mills, straw-board and egg-cases, 128 ; Enterprise Cracker Company, crackers, 10; Woolsey & Co., bent wood-work, etc., 78; Castle & Muller, drilling and fishing tools, 8 ; Lafayette Car-Works, railroad cars and repairs, 300; L. E. and W. R. R. Company, locomotive repairs, 103; Dr. S. A. Baxter, boxes and staves, 8 .- State Report 1887. Population in 1860, 2,354; in 1880, 7,567; school census 1886, 3,345. Estimated population in 1888, 18,000.

Lima has several fine business blocks. The court-house is one of the most imposing in Ohio; it covers half an acre, and was erected, with the stone jail adjacent, at a cost of $350,000; it is constructed of Berea stone, ornamented with red granite columns. It is 160 feet in height, and has a tower and clock. Its interior finished in granite, and with encaustic tiled floors, is furnished in the finest cherry, and is adorned with statuary. It is the large structure with a tower shown in the street view.

The Faurot Opera Block, finished in 1882, contains not only an opera-house (which is said to have only one equal to it in the State) and a fine music-hall, but also eight large business rooms, numerous offices, a dining-hall, and the Lima National bank, facing upon Main and High streets, and remarked for its beauty.

Annexed is a view of Lima, drawn by us in 1846, when the place was but a

245

ALLEN COUNTY.

small village. It was taken near the then residence of Col. James Cunningham, on the Wapakoneta road. The stream shown in the view is the Ottawa river, often called Hog river-a name derived from the following circumstance : McKee, the

Drawn by Henry Howe in 1846.

VIEW OF LIMA FROM THE WAPAKONETA ROAD.

British Indian agent, who resided at the Machachac towns, on Mad river, during the incursion of Gen. Logan in 1786, was obliged to flee with his effects. He had his swine driven on to the borders of this stream ; the Indians thereafter called it

CAND

BONS ENG CO. NZ

J. W. Mock, Photo., Lima, 1887.

STREET VIEW IN LIMA.

Koshko sepe, which signifies Hog river. The eccentric Count Coffenbury, in his poem, "The Forest Rangers," terms it Swinonia. A sketch of the count is given elsewhere in this work, with extracts from his amusing poetry.

Although a substantial and growing manufacturing city, it was not until May,

246

ALLEN COUNTY.

1885, that it was discovered that Lima was in the largest oil-field known on the globe, not even excepting the famous Russian oil-fields. Its discovery was a matter of accident, the history of which, and the position of Lima a year later consequent upon it, has thus been given.

" It was while boring for gas at his paper-mill that Mr. B. C. Faurot found oil at a depth of 1,251 feet, and though Eastern speculators pronounced the product worthless, they soon leased land. In the following August (1885) a citizens' company was formed and a well was put down, which yielded about sixty barrels per diem. When the manufactories began to use the oil for fuel it brought the low price of forty cents a barrel. The work began in earnest in February, 1886, when the Mandeville company, from Olean, N. Y., leased land known as the Shade farm, at the suburbs of the city, and opened wells which made 200 barrels a day. When refined, the oil proved to be an article of excellent quality. Other wells were soon sunk, and some of them were found to yield some 600 barrels daily. A refinery was built ; the work moved on rapidly, and in less than one year there was an increase of at least 1,500 more inhabitants. There are now about 116 oil- wells, with a flow of about 5,000 barrels a day from 125 or more wells. A firm has for some time been manufacturing rigs. Drilling is going on, and another refinery is about to be erected, with a capacity of 2,500 barrels per day. An average of thirty-five wells is developed each month. The Standard Oil Com- pany is now erecting a refinery."

By May, 1887, there were seventy wells in the city of Lima, and in the entire Lima field over 300. What is termed the Lima oil-field extends southwest about twenty-five miles, through Wapakoneta and St. Mary's, in Auglaize county, into Mercer county, just south of Celina. The entire profitable oil territory of North- western Ohio is much larger. It covers all of Allen and Hancock counties, the south part of Wood, and parts of Seneca, Wyandot, Hardin, Putnam, Auglaize, and Mercer counties. The general position of Lima at this period (May, 1887) was thus defined by President Baxter, of the Board of Trade :

" The enterprise and dash of our people is inherited ; it came to us from our fathers who are dead and gone. We are reaping the benefits of their labors and sacrifices. We have a magnificent agricultural country, as fine railroad facilities as any city in the country. For thirty years we have had a substantial, healthy growth, with scarcely a single backset. We have the general shops of the Cinein- nati, Hamilton and Dayton, and Lake Erie and Western railroads ; a machine- works, with a specialty that brings orders from all parts of the globe; a straw- board and egg-case concern, with facilities that cannot be excelled on earth ; a contract car-shops, that employ more men than the combined industries of our neighboring town of Findlay; two wagon and carriage material manufacturers, that manage to disturb the markets of the country by the cheapness of their products. The town is filled with little concerns of all kinds in the manufacturing line, and last night a single bank in the city paid 1,800 checks to skilled labor employed in the various industries. In addition to what we have had heretofore, the past year has developed here the largest oil-field in arca in the world, and of which Lima is the nucleus. Within ten months probably $5,000,000 of capital has been brought in, and the future of Lima as the head-centre of the oil distribu- tion is fixed and assured by the action of the Standard Oil Company in building here the largest and most complete refinery in their entire system. Two other pipe-lines and a refinery, operated by gritty young fellows, are also in operation, and more coming. We have 500 oil-wells in operation, with a daily production of 20,000 barrels, and there is already stored, within a radius of a few miles, prob- ably 1,000,000 barrels of oil, with the oil business as yet only in its toddling infancy, the developed territory being capable of sustaining fifty-fold more wells and operated with much greater economy. The possibilities of the oil business are simply beyond comprehension to the ordinary mind, and those actively engaged in the production, handling, and purchase seem the most muddled of all. These are

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 37

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