Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 41

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

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fellow-men scemed dissolved, and the busy world, with all its interests, forever hidden from his sight.

Fortunately Sweatland possessed a cool head and a stout heart, which, united with a tolerable share of physical strength and power of endurance, eminently qualified him for the part he was to act in this emergency. He was a good sailor, and as such would not yield to despondency until the last expedient had been exhausted. One only expedient remained, that of putting before the wind and endeavoring to reach the Canada shore, a distance of about fifty miles. This he re- solved to embrace as his forlorn hope.

It was now blowing a gale, and the sca was evidently increasing as he proceeded from the shore, and yet he was borne onwards over the dizzy waters by a power that no human agency could control. He was obliged to stand erect, moving cautiously from one ex- tremity to the other, in order to trim his vessel to the waves, well aware that a single lost stroke of the paddle, or a tottering move- ment, would swamp his frail bark and bring his adventure to a final close. Much of his attention was likewise required in bailing his canoe from the water, an operation which he was obliged to perform by making use of his shoes, a substantial pair of stoggies, that hap- pened fortunately to be upon his feet.

Hitherto he had been blessed with the cheer- ful light of heaven, and amidst all his perils could say, "The light is sweet, and it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun," but to add to his distress, the shades of night were now gathering around him, and he was soon enveloped in darkness. The sky was overcast, and the light of a few stars that twinkled through the haze alone remained to guide his path over the dark and troubled waters. In this fearful condition, destitute of food and the necessary clothing, his log canoe was rocked upon the billows during that long and terrible night. When morning appeared he was in sight of land, and found he had made Long Point, on the Canada shorc. Here he was met by an adverse wind and a cross sea, but the same providential aid which had guided him thus far still sustained and protected him ; and after being buffeted by the winds and waves for nearly thirty hours, he succeeded in reaching the land in safety.

What were the emotions he experienced on treading once more "the green and solid earth," we shall not attempt to inquire, but his trials were not yet ended. He found him- self faint with hunger and exhausted with fatigue, at the distance of forty miles from any human habitation, whilst the country that in- . tervened was a desert filled with marshes and tangled thickets, from which nothing could be obtained to supply his wants. These diffi- culties, together with the reduced state of his strength, rendered his progress towards the settlements slow and toilsome. On his way he found a quantity of goods, supposed to have heen driven on shore from the wreck of some vessel, which, although they afforded

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him no immediate relief, were afterwards of material service.

He ultimately arrived at the settlement, and was received and treated with great kindness and hospitality by the people. After his strength was sufficiently recruited, he returned with a boat, accompanied by some of the in- habitants, and brought off the goods. From this place he proceeded by land to Buffalo, where, with the avails of his treasure, he fur- nished himself in the garb of a gentleman, and

finding the "Traveller," Capt. Chas. Brown, from Conneaut, in the harbor, he shipped on board and was soon on his way to rejoin his family: When the packet arrived off his dwelling, they fired guns from the deck and the crew gave three loud cheers. On land- ing, he found his funeral sermon had been preached, and had the rare privilege of seeing his own widow clothed in the habiliments of mourning.

The First Regular Settlement made within the present limits of the county was at Harpersfield, on the 7th of March, 1798. Alexander Harper, Wm. M'Farland and Ezra Gregory, with their families, started from Harpersfield, Delaware county, N. Y., and after a long and fatiguing journey arrived on the last of June, at their new homes in the wilderness. This little colony of about twenty persons endured much privation in the first few months of their residence. The whole population of the Reserve amounted to less than 150 souls, viz. : ten families at Youngstown, three at Cleveland and two at Mentor. In the same summer three families came to Burton, and Judge Hudson settled at Hudson.

Pioneer Trials .- Cut short of their ex- pected supplies of provision for the winter, by the loss of a vessel they had chartered for that purpose, the little colony came near perishing by famine, having at one time been reduced to six kernels of parched corn to each person ; but they were saved by the in- trepidity of the sons of Col. Harper, James and William. These young men made fre- quent journeys to Elk Creek, Pa., from which they packed on their backs bags of corn, which was about all the provision the settlers had to sustain life during a long and tedious winter. Some few of their journeys were per- formed on the ice of Lake Erie, whenever it was sufficiently strong to bear them, which was seldom. On the first occasion of this kind they were progressing finely on the ice, when their sled broke through into the water. A.

third person who happened to be with them at this time exclaimed, "What shall we do ?" "Let it go," James replied. "No!" exclaimed William, who was of a different temperament, "you go into the woods and strike a fire while I get the grain." He then with great difficulty secured the grain, by which operation he got completely wet through, and a cutting wind soon converted his clothing into a sheet of ice. He then went in search of his companions and was disappointed in finding they had not built a fire. The truth was, they had grown so sleepy with the intense cold as to be unable to strike fire. He soon had a cheerful blaze, and then converted himself into a nurse for the other two, who on getting warm were deadly sick. . .

JEFFERSON IN 1846 .- JEFFERSON, the county-seat, is 56 miles from Cleveland and 204 northeast of Columbus. It is an incorporated borough, laid out regularly on a level plat of ground, and contains 3 stores, 1 Presbyterian, 1 Baptist, 1 Epis- eopal and 1 Methodist church, and 73 dwellings. The township of the same name in which it is situated was originally owned by Gideon Granger, of Conn. In the spring of 1804 he sent out Mr. Eldad Smith from Suffield, in that State, who first opened a bridle path to Austinburg, and sowed and fenced ten aeres of wheat. In the summer of the next year Michael Webster, Jr., and family, and Jonathan Warner made a permanent settlement. In the fall following, the family of James Wilson built a cabin on the site of the tavern shown in the view. The court-house was finished in 1810 or 1811, and the first eourt held in 1811 ; Timothy R. Hawley, Clerk ; Quintus F. Atkins, Sheriff .- Old Edition.

Jefferson, county-seat, is fourteen miles south of Lake Erie on the Franklin Branch of the L. S. & M. S. R. R., in the midst of a very prosperous farming distriet.

County officers for 1888 : Auditor, Ellery H. Gilkey ; Clerks, Chas. H. Sim- onds, Benjamin F. Perry, Jr .; Commissioners, Edward P. Baker, Thomas McGovern, Edward G. Hurlburt; Coroner, Wm. O. Ellsworth ; Prosecuting Attorney, James P. Caldwell ; Probate Judge, Edward C. Wade; Recorder, Edgar

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L. Hills ; Sheriff, Starr O. Latimer ; Surveyor, John S. Sill ; Treasurer, Amos B. Luee.

Newspapers : Ashtabula Sentinel, J. A. Howells, editor, Republican ; Jefferson Gazette, Republican, Hon. E. L. Lampsen, editor. Churches : one Congregational, one Baptist, one Methodist, one Episcopal, and one Catholic. Banks : First Na- tional, N. E. French, president, J. C. A. Bushnell, cashier ; Talcott's Deposit, Henry Talcott, president, J. C. Taleott, cashier. Population in 1880, 1,008.

The village is well situated on a slight eminenee which falls off in each direction. Its streets are wide, well kept and finely shaded. It has been the home of a number of prominent men, including Senator B. F. Wade, Hons. J. R. Giddings, A. G. Riddle, Wm. C. Howells, Rufus P. Ranney, etc. Mr. Howells is the father of W. D. Howells, the author, and is one of the oldest editors, if not the oldest, in the State; he was at one time United States Consul in Canada. The eminent Rufus P. Ranney was born in 1813 in Blanford, Mass .; passed his youth in Portage county ; studied law with Wade and Giddings ; in 1839 became a partner with Mr. Wade; was twice Supreme Judge; member of the Constitutional Con- vention, United States District Attorney for Northern Ohio in 1857 ; in 1859 was the Democratic candidate for governor against Wm. Dennison. He now resides in Cleveland and is considered by many as the first lawyer in Northern Ohio.

JEFFERSON HOUSE.

Drawn by Henry Howe, in 1846.

COUNTY BUILDINGS AT JEFFERSON.

TRAVELLING NOTES.

Tues., Oct. 5 .- At noon I stepped from the cars at Jefferson. There is not in any land a community of 1,200 people who live in more substantial comfort and peace than this. The streets are broad, well shaded, the home lots large, where about every family has its garden and fruit trees, where all seem to be on that equal plane of middle life that answered to the prayer of Agar ; and, more- over, as the home of Joshua R. Giddings and Benj. F. Wade, those Boanerges of freedom, and the spot of their burial, it has an honor and memory of extraordinary value. The village, too, is well named, being in memory of one who said that God was just and his justice would not sleep forever, for he had no attribute that sympathized with human slavery.

The Old Man and His Grapes .- After leaving the cars I turned into the main street

leading to the centre, when my attention was arrested by the sight of an old man four rods from the road standing on a chair plucking grapes from an arbor by the side of his cot- tage. One of the pretty things in rural life is the sight of people plucking fruit; in- stinctively the thoughts go up, and there drops into the heart with a grateful sense the words "God giveth the increase." Early this morning while in a hack going from Chardon to Painesville I had passed an apple orchard where men and boys were on ladders plucking the golden and crimson fruit and carefully placing it in bags hanging from branches ; and the sight was pleasing.

It is a weak spot in the education of city people that they can know nothing of the gratification that comes from the cultivation and development of the fruits of the earth, nor that exquisite pleasure, the sense of per- sonal ownership that must arise in the breast

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of the husbandman as he looks upon his fields of golden grain, majestic forests, and grassy hills dotted with pasturing kine and gamboling herds, and feels as he looks that the eye of the Great Master is over it all : there, where the dew of morning upon every tender blade and fragile leaf sparkles with His glory.

This is a vain and deceitful world. My mouth watered for a bunch of the old man's grapes, cool and fresh from the vine; so I approached him under the guise of an inquiry about the way to the centre of the village, which I knew perfectly. As I neared him he excited my sympathy, for I discovered he was paralyzed in one arm which hung limp and useless by his side, and there were no grapes left except a few bunches under the roof of the trellis which he could with diffi- culty reach with the other, and he said in plaintive tones, "The boys came and nearly stripped my arbor when the grapes were not ripe. They did them no good ; if they had only waited they should have been welcome to a share with myself." I couldn't help thinking, as I listened to his sorrowful tones, the genus boy is the same everywhere, and then there is something so irresistibly comical in the nature of a boy that the very thought of one often makes me laugh ; that is, inter- nally, though at the moment the expression of my countenance may be quite doleful. On my arrival at the centre I found standing the court-house and tavern that I had sketched in the long ago only a little changed ; a grove of trees had grown in the court-house yard and a porch had been built on the front of the tavern. They gave me a good dinner therein and then I went for a walk about the village to see the comfort in which the people lived.

The Four Little Maids .- On the plank walk on the outskirts I met two little girls. I stopped them and said, "Where are you going, my little girls?" and they replied, To the primary, sir." And then I inquired of one of them, "How old are you-ten years ?" "No, sir, I am nine." Where- upon the other chimed in "I too am nine." "That," I remarked, "makes eighteen years of little girls." By this time two other of their mates had come up and, pausing, I asked each "How old she was," and each answered as the others, in the soft, musical tones of childhood, " Nine, sir." "That." said I, "makes in all thirty-six years of little 'girls." I wanted to hold this interesting group, so pointing to an oak near by, the symmetry of which had arrested my eye, I said, "Is not that a beautiful tree? What kind of a tree is it?" when one of them re- plied, "It is an acorn tree." I thought it quite a pretty name. She had evidently ad- mired acorns and had picked them up, and not knowing the right name of the oak had called it by its fruit. I too admired acorns- indeed, had one at that moment in my vest pocket-with its dark, rough reticulated sau- cer and smooth, light-hued conical cup. Then I said, "I make it a rule when I meet a group of little girls like you to catch the prettiest

one and kiss her." I so spake because I thought it time to bring the conference to a close, and I should have the fun of seeing them scream, laugh and scamper away. Man proposes, God disposes. They didn't scare a bit-stood stock still : one indeed, the pret- tiest, the one to whom I had first spoken, the one who had called the oak an acorn tree-a plump, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed little puss she was-advanced and, looking up archly in my face while holding betwixt finger and thumb a blooming gladiole, said, "Will you please accept this, sir?" Could anything be more irresistible ? a cherub dropped from the skies inviting a kiss ! Can anything that happens up yonder be sweeter than this ?

I had no sooner accepted the flower than a second little one thrust forward her hand holding a large, golden pippin and said, "Will- you please take this, sir?" and I took it. Then a third one did not advance, but in the hollow of her hand lay a small, wee peach, and as she spoke she gently waved her open hand to and fro, while her body waved in unison from right to left, and in a half-shy, deprecating tone said, "I have nothing but this little peach to offer; will you take it, sir ?" The fields and gardens around were blooming with flowers and orchards were bending under their burden of many-colored apples and golden, luscious pears, but Jack Frost had lingered too long in the springtime and cruelly nipped the peach blossoms ; so I declined the peach, as peaches were scarce, thereby I fear wounding her feelings.

Ere I parted I gave to each my card, where- upon was told who I was and what my errand. And as I did so, I thought long after I had passed away and these little people will be mothers, they will show my book to their offspring with its many pictures of their Ohio land, and stories of pioneer life and later stories of the heroic men who fought for the Union in that dreadful, bloody war of the Rebellion, and point out the portrait of the author and describe this meeting with him when they, too, were young things on their way to the "primary ; " meeting with him, an old, white-bearded man, by the beautiful oak on the wayside of the village. And then to a question from the children, they may answer : " Oh, he has been dead many years, long before you were born ; it was in - he died."

An Early Acquaintance .- Twenty minutes later I was in the office of the Ashtabula Sen- tinel, and there met Mr. J. A. Howells, editor. I had seen him but once before ; he was then a nine year old boy standing by my side watch- ing me sketch Rossville from the Hamilton side of the Miami river. And when the book was published and he looked upon that picture with the old mill, bridge and river, it was al- ways with a sense of personal ownership-he was in at its birth. And the whole family valued it ; and when his brother, the famed novelist, had a family of his own, he wrote from Boston, where he lived, for a copy ; for he wanted, he said, his boys to enjoy the book as he had done in his boy days.

13.7. Lower

Giddings

ASHTABULA COUNTY.

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To illustrate the fruitfulness of the land Mr. Howells showed me thirty-six pears clustered on a single stem only about twenty inches long; the entire weight was eleven pounds. He told me that this county last year raised 587,000 bushels of apples. One cider factory, that of Woodworth, at West Williamsfield, sent off in 1885 twenty car- loads of sixty barrels each, fifty-two gallons in a barrel-in all 62,400 gallons.

The old-fashioned cider mill is here a thing largely in the past-the rustic cider mill, unpainted and brown as a rat, with its faith- ful old horse going around in a circle turning the cumbrous wheel, was always a picturesque object, and the spot attractive by its hnge piles of apples in many colors, especially to

the boys and girls who flocked hither to "suck cider through a straw."

Few peaches are now raised on the Re- serve ; formerly they were so superabundant that they could not use them all and had to feed them to the swine ; now in the absence of the peaches we have to look for the exqui- site tints on the cheeks of the merry, healthy children.

Anecdotes of Giddings .- Mr. Howells gave me some anecdotes of the renowned Joshua. When he came home from Congress after the long session often prolonged into the heated term of midsummer he would, as one might say, "turn out to grass." He went about the village barefoot with old brown linen pants, old straw hat, and in his shirt sleeves

Frank Henry Howe, Photo., 1887.

GIDDINGS AND WADE'S MONUMENTS, JEFFERSON. The monument of Giddings is in the foreground : that of Wade in the distance.

engage in games of base ball of which he was very fond, and enter people's houses and talk with the women and children, for he knew everybody and was eminently social. “On an occasion of this kind," said Mr. Howells, "he picked up my wife, then a child, and illustrated his prodigious strength by holding her out at arm's-length, she standing on his hand."

To a question Mr. Howells answered me that Mr. Giddings was such an even common sense man so devoid of eccentricities that there were but few floating anecdotes in re- gard to him. "I once, however," said he, remember hearing him relate this startling incident. When a young man clearing up the forest he one day leaned over and grasp- ing at both ends a decaying log he lifted it up with outstretched arms to take it away,

and had it drawn up to within a few inches of his nose when he discovered curled up in a hollow place within a huge rattlesnake." I presume at this discovery Mr. Giddings gently, very gently laid down that log ; it would be characteristic of him if characteristic of any- body.

The homesteads of Giddings and Wade were near each other in the centre of the village. Mr. Howells showed them to me, and then we went to visit their graves in the cemetery. I felt as though he was an emi- nently proper person to pilot me to a grave- yard, for only a few weeks had elapsed since he was in the most noted graveyard in Old England, the scene of Gray's elegy ; there he stood by the grave of Gray and witnessed an old-fashioned burial, that of a rustic borne on the shoulders of four men, with four others

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for a relief-they had brought the body two miles over a country road.

The village cemetery is in a forest half a mile from the centre and a beautiful spot it is, showing evidences of great care. Rustic bridges cross a ravine there, at times a brawl- ing stream ; I pencilled some of the fancifully trimmed evergreens. Such a handsome taste- ful cemetery as this little village possesses a hundred years ago would have been world famed, now such are scattered over our land. Even the first graveyard on the globe laid out in family lots dates only to 1796, that at New Haven, Conn., and by James Hillhouse, the man who planted the elms. The monument to Wade is granite, about twelve feet high ; that to Giddings is taller and more ornate, and one side is occupied by a fine bronze por- trait in bas-relief. The inscriptions are :

"Benjamin F. Wade, Oct. 27, 1800. March 2, 1878."

"Joshua R. Giddings, 1795-1864."

As we stood there looking upon the scene I heard a low chirping and then an answer- ing chirp, both in sad tones, and I inquired : "What birds are those ?"

Frank Henry Howe, Photo., 1887.

JOSHUA R. GIDDINGS' LAW OFFICE.

"Mourning doves," was the reply, "male and female, and one is answering the other."

At the end of the cemetery is a ravine over which crosses the railroad by a trestle forty- four feet high. The previous summer two boys one night were crossing this on some open freight cars during a severe thunder storm. They were from a Western State. Their minds poisoned by the reading of miser- ble fiction they had run away from their homes to go forth and seek their fortunes ; and were stealing rides upon the railways. An electric flash darting from a telegraph wire knocked one of them off the car and he was found next morning in the ravine in a dying condi- tion. Poor boy! He did not live long enough on earth to know much of it.

In the evening a faint light glimmered in the window of the little building so long famed as the law office of Joshua Reed Gid- dings. I made my way thither and knock- ing at the door was bade to walk in. The sole occupant was a young colored man ; and I could not have had my sense of the fitness of things more completely gratified than by finding one of this raee there ; Charlie Gar- lick the people called him. I had rather have seen him there than the proudest white man in the land. Mr. J. A. Giddings, a son of Joshua, I found a few minutes later in a store hard bye, a lounging place for the old gentlemen of the village. In the morning I had an interview with him in the old office ; and these are my notes.

A Chat with a Son of Joshua Giddings .- His father began the practice of law in 1819, his age twenty-six. This building was built in 1823 for a law office, adjoining his dwell- ing, a wooden structure burnt in 1877. For years it was the joint office of Giddings & Wade. The brick dwelling now on the site of the other is the homestead of his son, J. A. Giddings. In the office in his presence I write these lines as he sits in his roeking- chair twirling his glasses. He is now sixty- four years of age, a powerfully built man ; not so tall as his father, whom he strongly re- sembles ; has practised law, but playfully I tells me he is now a "land-grabber." think he has his hands full, all out of doors to go for. The building is 16 by 30, divided into a front and rear room, the latter once the consulting chamber, now the bed-room of Mr. Garlick. The office is just as left by his father ; everything is plain, a box-stove for wood, a large office table, two plain shelv- ings for law books, each standing on low cup- boards, three plain chairs, a rocking-chair and an old sheet-iron safe bought in 1836 and lined with plaster. The greatest curiosity is Mr. Giddings' desk. It is just four feet high at its lowest place, the front, and is in the corner by the front window. At this in the latter part of his life Mr. Giddings stood and did all his writing. The office looks out upon an orehard.

Mr. Giddings said : "My father never had an idea he could have a profession until he was about twenty-three years of age, when he commenced regularly going to school to a Presbyterian minister in the township of Wayne where my grandfather's family lived. Prior to this he had not been to school since he was a small boy ; there was no opportunity for developing his mind in the wilderness.

"Soon after his settlement in Wayne my grandfather lost his farm through a defeet in the title; so that they had to begin anew. My father and an older brother went to clear- ing land, the hardest sort of labor. By this they earned a farm for their parents and then one for each member of the family. This developed my father's prodigious muscular power. He was six feet two inches in stature, and weighed 225 pounds with no superfluous flesh.

"He was fond of athletic exercises, often

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played old-fashioned base ball here in Jeffer- son. He also was fond of ten-pins. On an occasion when he was in Congress he and Mr. Bliss, another member, engaged as part- ners in a game of ten-pins with Mr. John A. Bingham and my brother Grotius. Bingham was a poor player and always beaten ; but Grotiusexcelled. In theresult they 'skunked' the others, when Bingham was so overjoyed that he cheered and then tumbled and rolled on the floor in excess of hilarity. Grotius was an officer in the regular army and in one of the battles in which he was engaged, although the men lay most of the time flat on the ground, 400 of the 1,200 engaged were killed and wounded."

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Historical collections of Ohio in two volumes, an encyclopedia of the state, Volume I, Part 41

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