Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 40

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 40

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JOHN TIONICA

MONUMENT IN COMMEMORATION OF THE COPUS MASSACRE.

The date for the unveiling of the Ruffner- Copus Monument was fixed for Friday, Sep- tember 15, 1882, just seventy years to the day when the tragic scenes took place, and prepa- rations were made for what was expected would be a memorable day in the history of Ohio. The expectations of the committee were more than realized. Early in the day the people began to arrive at the Copus Hill from every direction ; a-foot, on horseback and in every imaginable kind of conveyance, until fully 6,000 had assembled in the forest overlooking the scene of the Copus battle. The day was balmy-one of those pleasant fall days-and the thousands present came with baskets filled ready for the pic-nic. The ex- ercises opened with music by the Mt. Zion band, followed by prayer by Rev. J. A. Hall, then music, then the address of welcome by the gentleman above named. Rev. P R. Rose- berry followed in a few remarks, after which the venerable Dr. Wm. Bushnell, of Mansfield, and Andrew Mason, Esq., cf Ashland, in re- sponse to calls, entertained the audience. Mrs. Sarah Vail, daughter of James Copus,

who was present at the time her father and the three soldiers were killed, and who now resides hard by at the age of eighty-four years, was introduced to the multitude. Mrs. Baughman, mother of A. J. Baughman, was also introduced to the audience : this lady's father, Capt. Cunningham, assisted in burying the dead at Copus Hill. A recess was then taken for the pic-nic and an hour later R. M. Campbell, Esq., of Ashland, was introduced and spoke at length. Hon. Henry C. Hedges, of Mansfield, was then introduced and made some touching remarks ; at the close of his address the Huff Brothers Band played a dirge ; following this, Dr. P. H. Clark, of Ashland, delivered an appropriate address which was full of interest for the occasion ; at its close a procession of vehicles to the number of about 1,200 was formed and passed by the Copus Monument as it was unveiled. The multitude then proceeded to the Ruffner Monument, when it was also unveiled. Thus the ceremonies of the day ended ; a day long to be remembered.

260

ASHLAND COUNTY.

Under the names of Copus and the slain soldiers was carved, at the suggestion of Miss Rosella Rice, of Perrysville, the name of the eccentric Johnny Apple- seed, whom she knew well, and whose good deeds she has commemorated with her pen. A novel, founded upon these tragedies and the early times in this region, entitled, " Philip Seymour, or Pioneer Life in Richland County," by Rev. James F. MeGaw, published in Mansfield in 1857 and 1883, has had quite a local popularity.

PERRYSVILLE, sixty miles northeast of Columbus, on the P. Ft. W. & C. rail- road. It has churches : 1 Baptist, 1 Methodist, 1 Presbyterian, and 1 Lutheran, and in 1880, 476 inhabitants. A correspondent sends us some items :

Perrysville was laid out June 10, 1815, by Thomas Coulter and was the second village established in the county. At that early day whiskey drinking was the general custom. At one period there were nine still houses in the township in active operation, and they were unable to keep up with the demands of the thirsty. Jeremiah Conine, on the present Van Horn farm, was the pioneer dis- tiller. Hop picking was then an important industry ; the hops sold for fifty cents a pound. Mrs. Betsy Coulter, née Rice, in 1815 opened the first school in her own home. She took spinning and weaving as part pay for tuition. Johnny Appleseed was a frequent visitor here. He was a constant snuff consumer and had beautiful teeth. He was smitten

here with Miss Nancy Tannehill and pro- posed, but was just one too late : she was already engaged. He died March 11, 1845. in St. Joseph township, Indiana, at the house of Wm. Worth. When he died he had on for clothing next to his body a coarse coffee sack slipped over his head ; around his waist parts of four pantaloons ; over these a white pair complete. He was buried two and a half miles north of Fort Wayne. The prin- cipal white settlers in this section in 1809 were Andrew Craig, an exhorter and local minister in the Methodist Church who fre- quently preached to the Greentown Indians, James Cunningham, Samuel Lewisand Henry McCart.

HAYESVILLE, about seventy miles northeast of Columbus, is a fine trading town, in the centre of an extensive farming, wool-growing, and stock-raising dis- trict. Newspaper : Hayesville Journal, Independent, H. H. Arnold. Churches : 1 Methodist, 1 Presbyterian, 1 United Presbyterian. Population in 1880, 563.

LOUDONVILLE, about sixty-five miles southwest of Cleveland, on the Black fork of the Mohican river, also on the P. Ft. W. & C. railroad. It is surrounded by a very productive agricultural district. Newspapers : Advocate, Independent, P. H. Stauffer, editor ; Democrat, Democratic, J. G. Herzog, editor. Churches : 1 Methodist, 1 Baptist, 2 Lutheran, 1 Catholic, 1 Presbyterian, and 1 Evangelical. Banks: Farmers', J. Schmidt, president, A. C. Ullman, cashier; Loudonville Banking Company, G. Schauweker, president, J. L. Quick, cashier. Among the principal industries is one of the finest and best equipped roller-process mills in the State. Population in 1880, 1,497. School census in 1886, 547 ; Elliott D. Wigton, superintendent. Savannah and Polk have each about 400 inhabitants.

William B. Allison, the eminent member of the United States Senate from Iowa, was born in Perry township this county, March 2, 1829. He was educated at Allegheny College, Pa., and Western Reserve College, Ohio, practised law at Ash- land and Wooster, and removed to Dubuque, Iowa, in 1857.

261

ASHTABULA COUNTY.

ASHTABULA.

ASHTABULA was formed June 7, 1807, from Trumbull and Geauga, and organ- ized January 22, 1811. The name of the county was derived from Ashtabula river, which signifies, in the Indian language, Fish river. For a few miles parallel with the lake shore it is level, the remainder of the surface slightly undulating, and the soil generally clay. Butter and cheese are the principal articles of export, and in these it leads all other counties in the amount produced. Generally not sufficient wheat is raised for home consumption, but the soil is quite productive in corn and oats. In 1885 the acres cultivated were 129,992; in pasture, 150,152; woodland, 62,223; lying waste, 3,700; produced in wheat, 234,070 bushels; corn, 382,238 ; oats, 677,555 ; apples, 587,385 ; pounds butter, 1,042,613; and cheese, 354,400. School census, 9,441 ; teachers, 543. Area 720 square miles, being the largest county in Ohio. It has 191 miles of railroad.

TOWNSHIPS AND CENSUS.

1840.

1880.

TOWNSHIPS AND CENSUS.

1840.

1880.

Andover,

881

1,168

Monroe,

1,326

1,459

Ashtabula,

1,711

5,522

Morgan,

643

1,223

Austinburg,

1,048

1,208

New Lyme,

527

893

Cherry Valley,

689

698

Orwell,

458

973

Conneaut,

2,650

2,947

Pierpont,

639

1,046

Denmark,

176

697

Plymouth,

706

780

Dorset,

613

Richmond,

384

1,011

Geneva,

1,215

3,167

Rome,

765

668

Harpersfield,

1,399

1,116

Saybrook,

934

1,384

Hartsgrove,

553

798

Sheffield,

683

688

Jefferson,

710

1,952

Trumbull,

439

960

Kingsville,

1,420

1,621

Wayne,

767

835

Lenox,

550

820

Williamsfield,

892

974

Colebrook,

956

Windsor,

875

964

The population in 1820 was 7,369 ; in 1830, 14,584; in 1840, 23,724; in 1850, 31,789 ; in 1880, 36,875, of whom 1,274 were employed in manufactures and 2,814 were foreign born.

This county is memorable from being not only the first settled on the Western Reserve, but the earliest in the whole of Northern Ohio. The incidents connected with its early history, although unmarked by scenes of military adventure, are of an interesting nature.

On the 4th of July, 1796, the first surveying party of the Western Reserve landed at the mouth of Conneaut creek. Of this event, John Barr, Esq., in his sketch of the Western Reserve, in the "National Magazine" for December, 1845, has given a narrative :

The sons of revolutionary sires, some of them sharers themselves in the great bap- tism of the republic, they made the anniver- sary of their country's freedom a day of cere- monial and rejoicing. They felt that they had arrived at the place of their labors, the- to many of them-sites of home, as little allur- ing, almost as crowded with dangers, as were the levels of Jamestown, or the rocks of Ply- mouth to the ancestors who had preceded them in the conquest of the seacoast wilder- ness of this continent. From old homes and friendly and social associations they were almost as completely exiled as were the

cavaliers who debarked upon the shores of Virginia, or the Puritans who sought the strand of Massachusetts. Far away as they were from the villages of their birth and boy- hood ; before them the trackless forest, or the untraversed lake, yet did they resolve to cast fatigue and privation and peril from their thoughts for the time being, and give to the day its due, to patriotism its awards. Muster- ing their numbers they sat down on the east- ward shore of the stream now known as Con- neaut, and, dipping from the lake the liquor in which they pledged their country-their goblets some tin cups of no rare workmanship,

262

ASHTABULA COUNTY.

yet every way answerable, with the ordnance accompaniment of two or three fowling pieces discharging the required national salute-the first settlers of the Reserve spent their land- ing-day as became the sons of the pilgrim fathers-as the advance pioneers of a popula- tion that has since made the then wilderness of Northern Ohio to " blossom as the rose," and prove the homes of a people as remarka- ble for integrity, industry, love of country, moral truth and enlightened legislation, as any to be found within the territorial limits of their ancestral New England.

The whole party numbered, on this occa- sion, fifty-two persons, of whom two were females (Mrs. Stiles and Mrs. Gunn, and a child). As these individuals were the ad- vance of after millions of population, their names become worthy of record, and are therefore given, viz. : Moses Cleveland, agent of the company ; Augustus Porter, principal surveyor ; Seth Pease, Moses Warren, Amos Spafford, Milton Hawley, Richard M. Stod- dard, surveyors ; Joshua Stowe, commissary ; Theodore Shepard, physician; Joseph Tinker, principal boatman ; Joseph MeIntyre, George Proudfoot, Francis Gay, Samuel Forbes, Elijah Gunn, wife and child, Amos Sawten,

Stephen Benton,. Amos Barber, Samuel Hungerford, William B. Hall, Samuel Davenport, Asa Mason, Amzi Atwater, Michael Coffin, Elisha Ayres, Thomas Har- ris, Norman Wilcox, Timothy Dunham, George Goodwin, Shadrach Benham, Samuel Agnew, Warham Shepard, David Beard, John Briant, Titus V. Munson, Joseph Landon, Job V. Stiles and wife, Charles Parker, Ezekiel Hawley. Nathaniel Doan, Luke Hanchet, James Hasket, James Hamil- ton, Olney F. Rice, John Lock, and four others whose names are not mentioned.

On the 5th of July the workmen of the ex- pedition were employed in the erection of a large, awkwardly constructed log building ; locating it on the sandy beach on the east shore of the stream, and naming it "Stow Castle," after one of the party. This be- came the storehouse of the provisions, etc., and the dwelling-place of the families.

The view was constructed from a sketch on the spot taken by us in 1846, altered to represent its ancient appearance. The word Conneaut, in the Seneca language, signifies "many fish," and was applied originally to the river.

CONNEAUT, THE PLYMOUTH OF THE RESERVE, IN JULY, 1796.

The spot where the above described scene took place has much altered in the lapse of half a century. One of the party, Amzi Atwater, Esq., living in Portage county in 1846, then described it from recollection :

It was then a mere sand beach overgrown with timber, some of it of considerable size, which we cut to build the house and for other purposes. The mouth of the creek, like others of the lake streams in those days, was frequently choked up with a sand bar so that no visible harbor appeared for several days. This would only happen when the streams were low and after a high wind cither down the lake or directly on shore for several days. I have passed over all the lake streams of this State east of the Cuyahoga and most of those in New York on hard, dry sand bars,

and I have been told that the Cuyahoga has been so. They would not long continue, for as soon as the wind had subsided and the water in the streams had sufficiently risen they would often cut their way through the bar in a different place and form new chan- nels. Thus the months of the streams were continually shifting until the artificial harbors were built. Those blessed improvements have in a great measure remedied those evils and made the mouths of the streams far more healthy.

263

ASHTABULA COUNTY.

Judge James Kingsbury, who arrived at Conneaut shortly after the surveying party, wintered with his family at this place in a cabin which stood on a spot now covered by the waters of the lake. This was about the first family that wintered on the Reserve.

The story of the sufferings of this family has often been told, but in the midst of plenty, where want is unknown, can with difficulty be appreciated. The surveyors, in the prosecu- tion of their labors westwardly, had princi- pally removed their stores to Cleveland, while the family of Judge Kingsbury remained at Conneaut. Being compelled by business to leave in the fall for the State of New York, with the hope of a speedy return to his family, the judge was attacked by a severe fit of sick- ness, confining him to his bed until the setting in of winter. . As soon as able he proceeded on his return as far as Buffalo, where he hired an Indian to guide him through the wilderness. At Presque Isle, anticipating the wants of his family, he purchased twenty pounds of flour. In crossing Elk creek on the ice he disabled his horse, left him in the snow, and mounting his flour on his own back pursued his way filled with gloomy fore- bodings in relation to the fate of his family. On his arrival late one evening his worst apprehensions were more than realized in a scene agonizing to the husband and father. Stretched on her cot lay the partner of his

cares, who had followed him through all the dangers and hardships of the wilderness with- out repining, pale and emaciated, reduced by mcagre famine to the last stages in which life can be supported, and near the mother, on a little pallet, were the remains of his youngest child, born in his absence, who had just ex- pired for the want of that nourishment which the mother, deprived of sustenance, was unable to give. Shut up by a gloomy wilder- ness she was far distant alike from the aid or sympathy of friends, filled with anxiety for an absent husband, suffering with want and destitute of necessary assistance, and her children expiring around her with hunger.

Such is the picture presented by which the wives and daughters of the present day may form some estimate of the hardships endured by the pioneers of this beautiful country. It appears that Judge Kingsbury, in order to supply the wants of his family, was under the necessity of transporting his provisions from Cleveland on a hand sled, and that himself and hired man drew a barrel of beef the whole distance at a single load.

Mr. Kingsbury was the first who thrust a sickle into the first wheat field planted on the soil of the Reserve. His wife was interred at Cleveland, about the year 1843. The fate of her child-the first white child born on the Reserve, starved to death for want of nourishment-will not soon be forgotten.

CONNEAUT IN 1846. The harbor of Conneaut is now an important point of transshipment. It has a pier with a light-house upon it, two forwarding houses and eleven dwellings. Several vessels ply from here, and it is a frequent stopping place for steamers. Two miles south of the harbor, twenty-two from Jefferson, twenty-eight from Erie, Pa., is the borough of Conneaut on the west bank of Con- neaut creek. It contains four churches, eleven stores, one newspaper printing office, a fine classical academy, Mr. L. W. Savage and Miss Mary Booth, principals, and about 1,000 inhabitants .- Old Edition.

Conneaut, on Lake Erie, sixty-eight miles east of Cleveland, also on the L. S. & M. S. and N. Y. C. & St. L. Railroads. The main shops of the Nickel Plate railroad are located here. It is expected that the harbor will shortly be opened by the Conneaut, Jamestown and Southern Railroad, giving improved shipping facilities.

Newspapers : Herald, Republican, W. T. Findlay, editor ; The Reporter, Repub- lican, J. P. Reig, editor. Churches : 1 Congregational, 1 Baptist, I Methodist, 1 Catholic and 1 Christian. Banks : Conneaut Mutual Loan Association, Theron S. Winship, president, C. Hayward, cashier ; First National, S. J. Smith, presi- dent, B. E. Thayer, cashier. Principal industries are railroad shops, paper mill, Record Manufacturing Company, Cummins Canning Factory. Population in 1880, 1,256 ; school census in 1886, 564; E. C. Cary, superintendent.

The first permanent settlement in Conneaut was in 1799. Thomas Montgomery and Aaron Wright settled here in the spring of 1798. Robert Montgomery and family, Levi and John Montgomery, Nathan and John King, and Samuel Bemus and family came the same season.

When the settlers arrived some twenty or thirty Indian cabins were still standing, which were said to present an appearance of neat- ness and comfort not usual with this race. The Massauga tribe, which inhabited the spot, were obliged to leave in consequence of the murder of a white man named Williams

264

ASHTABULA COUNTY.

Two young men taken at the defeat of St. Clair were said to have been prisoners for a considerable time among the Indians of this village. On their arrival at Conneaut they were made to run the gauntlet, and received the orthodox number of blows and kicks usual on such occasions. In solemn council it was resolved that the life of Fitz Gibbon should be saved, but the other, whose name is not recollected, was condemned to be burned. He was bound to a tree, a large quantity of hickory bark tied into fagots and piled around him. But from the horrors of the most painful of deaths he was saved by the interposition of a young squaw belonging to the tribe. Touched by sympathy she interceded in his behalf, and by her expostulations, backed by several packages of fur and a small sum of money, succeeded in effecting his deliverance : an act in the lowly Indian maid which entitles her name to be honorably re- corded with that of Pocahontas, among the good and virtuous of every age.

There were mounds situated in the eastern part of the village of Conneaut and an exten- sive burying-ground near the Presbyterian church, which appear to have had no connec- tion with the burying-places of the Indians. Among the human bones found in the mounds were some belonging to men of gigantic

structure. Some of the skulls were of suffi- cient capacity to admit the head of an ordi- nary man, and jaw bones that might have been fitted on over the face with equal facility ; the other bones were proportionately large. The burying-ground referred to contained about four acres, and with the exception of a slight angle in conformity with the natural contour of the ground was in the form of an oblong square. It appeared to have been accurately surveyed into lots running from north to south, and exhibited all the order and propriety of arrangement deemed neces- sary to constitute Christian burial. On the first examination of the ground by the settlers they found it covered with the ordinary forest trees, with an opening near the centre con- taining a single butternut. The graves were distinguished by slight depressions disposed in straight rows, and were estimated to num- ber from two to three thousand. On ex- amination in 1800 they were found to con- tain human bones, invariably blackened by time, which on exposure to the air soon crumbled to dust. Traces of ancient cultiva- tion observed by the first settlers on the lands of the vicinity, although covered with forest, exhibited signs of having once been thrown up into squares and terraces, and laid out into gardens.

There was a fragment or chip of a tree at one time in the possession of the Ashtabula Historical Society, which was a curiosity. The tree of which that was a chip was chopped down and butted off for a saw log, about three feet from the ground, some thirty rods southeast of Fort Hill, in Conneant, in 1829, by Silas A. Davis, on land owned by B. H. King. Some marks were found upon it near the heart of the tree. The Hon. Nehemiah King, with a magnifying glass, counted 350 annualer rings in that part of the stump, outside of these marks. Deducting 350 from 1829, leaves 1479, which must have been the year when these cuts were made. This was thirteen years before the discovery of America by Columbus. It perhaps was done by the race of the mounds, with an axe of copper, as that people had the art of hardening that metal so as to cut like steel.

In the spring of 1815 a mound on Harbor street, Conneaut, was cut through for a road. One morning succeeding a heavy rain a Mr. Walker, who was up very early, picked up a jaw bone together with an artificial tooth which lay near. He brought them forthwith to Mr. P. R. Spencer, secretary of the Historical Society, who fitted the tooth in a cavity from which it had evidently fallen. The tooth was metallic, probably silver, but little was then thought of the circumstance.

The adventure of Mr. Solomon Sweatland, of Conneaut, who crossed Lake Erie in an open canoe, in September, 1817, is one of unusual interest. He had been accustomed, with the aid of a neighbor, Mr. Cozzens, and a few hounds, to drive the deer into the lake, where, pursuing them in a canoe, he shot them with but little difficulty. The circumstances which took place at this time are vividly given in the annexed extract from the records of the Historical Society :

Adventure of Solomon Sweatland .- It was a lovely morning in early autumn, and Sweat- land, in anticipation of his favorite sport, had risen at the first dawn of light, and without putting on his coat or waistcoat left his cabin, listening in the meantime in expectation of the approach of the dogs. His patience was not put to a severe .trial ere his ears were saluted by the deep baying of the hounds,

and on arriving at the beach he perceived that the deer had already taken to the lake, and was moving at some distance from the shore. In the enthusiasm of the moment he threw his hat upon the beach, his canoe was put in requisition, and shoving from the shore he was soon engaged in rapid and animated pursuit. The wind, which had been fresh from the south during the night

265

ASHTABULA COUNTY.

and gradually increasing, was now blowing nearly a gale, but intent on securing his prize Sweatland was not in a situation to yield to the dictates of prudence. The deer, which was a vigorous animal of its kind, hoisted its flag of defiance, and breasting the waves stoutly showed that in a race with a log canoe and a single paddle he was not easily out- done.

Sweatland had attained a considerable dis- tance from the shore and encountered a heavy sea before overtaking the animal, but was not apprised of the eminent peril of his situation until shooting past him the deer turned towards the shore. He was however brought to a full appreciation of his danger when, on tacking his frail vessel and heading towards the land, he found that with his utmost exer- tions he could make no progress in the de- sired direction, hut was continually drifting farther to sea. He had been observed in his ontward progress by Mr. Cousins, who had arrived immediately after the hounds, and by his own family, and as he disappeared from sight considerable apprehensions were enter- tained for his safety.

The alarm was soon given in the neighbor- hood, and it was decided by those competent to judge that his return would be impossible, and that unless help could be afforded he was doomed to perish at sea. Actuated by those generous impulses that often induce men to peril their own lives to preserve those of others, Messrs. Gilbert, Cousins and Belden took a light boat at the mouth of the creek and proceeded in search of the wanderer, with the determination to make every effort for his relief. They met the deer returning towards the shore nearly exhausted, but the man who was the object of their solicitude was nowhere to be seen. They made stretches off shore within probable range of the fugitive for some hours, until they had gained a dis- tance of five or six miles from land, when meeting with a sea in which they judged it impossible for a canoe to live they abandoned the search, returned with difficulty to the shore, and Sweatland was given up for lost.

The canoe in which he was embarked was dug from a large whitewood log by Major James Brookes, for a fishing boat ; it was about fourteen feet in length and rather wide in proportion, and was considered a superior one of the kind. Sweatland still continued to lie off, still heading towards the land, with a faint hope that the wind might abate, or that aid might reach him from the shore. One or two schooners were in sight in course of the day, and he made every signal in his power to attract their attention, but without success. The shore continued in sight, and in tracing its distant outline he could distin- guish the spot where his cabin stood, within whose holy precincts were contained the cher- ished objects of his affections, now doubly endeared from the prospect of losing them forever. As these familiar objects receded from view, and the shores appeared to sink beneath the troubled waters, the last tie which united him in companionship to his

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 40

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