USA > Ohio > Allen County > History of Allen County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part One > Part 7
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All this was unnecessary, a tragedy brought on by the villainy of a trusted agent of the government.
This chapter cannot be more fittingly closed than to quote in full Charles Sprague's master- piece, so often read by our fathers and grand- fathers :-
THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN.
Not many generations ago, where you now sit, encircled with all that exalts and embell- ishes civilized life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the wild fox dug his hole un- scared. Here lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls over your head, the Indian hunter pursued the pant- ing deer ; gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate.
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Here the wigwam-blaze beamed on the tender and the helpless; the council-fire glared on the wise and the daring.
Now they dipped their noble limbs in your sedgy lakes, and now they paddled their light canoe along your rocky shores. Here they warred; the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death song, all were here; and, when the tiger-strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace. Here, too, they worshipped ; and from many a dark bosom went up a pure prayer. to the Great Spirit. He had not writ- ten his laws for them on tables of stone, but he had traced them on the table of their hearts.
The poor child of Nature knew not the God of revelation, but the God of the universe he acknowledged in everything around. He be- held him in the star that sank in beauty behind his lonely dwelling; in the sacred orb that flamed on him from his mid-day throne; in the flower that snapped in the morning breeze; in the lofty pine that had defied a thousand whirl- winds; in the timid warbler that never left his native grove; in the fearless eagle whose un- tired pinion was wet in clouds; in the worm that crawled at his feet; and in his own match- less form, glowing with a spark of that light to whose mysterious source he bent in humble though blind adoration.
And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came a pilgrim bark, bearing the seeds of life and death. The former were sown for you ; the latter sprang up in the path of the simple
native. Two hundred years have changed the character of a great continent, and blotted for- ever from its face a whole, peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of Nature, and the anointed children of education have been too powerful for the tribes of the ignorant. Here and there a stricken few remain; but how un- like their bold, untamed, untamable progeni- tors! The Indian of falcon-glance, and lion- bearing, the theme of the touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone! and his de- graded offspring crawl upon the soil where he walked in majesty, to remind us how miserable is man when the foot of the conqueror is on his neck.
As a race they have withered from the land. Their arrows are broken. Their springs are dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council-fire has long since gone out on the shore, and their war-cry is fast dying away to the untrodden West. Slowly and sadly they climb the distant mountains and read their doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before the mighty tide that is pressing them away : they must soon hear the roar of the last wave which will settle over them forever. Ages hence, the inquisitive white man, as he stands by some growing city, will ponder on the struc- ture of their disturbed remains, and wonder to what manner of persons they belonged. They will live only in songs and chronicles of their exterminators. Let these be faithful to their rude virtues as men, and pay due tribute to their unhappy fate as a people.
CHAPTER IV
DAWN OF CIVILIZATION IN THE COUNTY
Name and Formation of Allen County-First Settlers - First White Child Boru in Allen County, ou Hog Creek aud in Lima-Address of T. E. Cunningham, Esq., Before the Pioneer Association-Good Offices of Quilna-Organisation aud Naming' of Lima- Removal of the Shawnces-Early County Office:'s and Judges-"Auglaize City"-Fort Amanda-Sawmill and Navy Yard-Pht-Heroes of the Forest-"Johnny Appleseed" -Elida Pioncer Association-Roadways-Political History-Roster of County Offi- cials, Common Pleas Judges, Members of the General Assembly aud Congressmen.
Every great war has left its mark in some way upon the earth's surface. It may be a scar, deep, long and broad; it may be the lasting hatred of two nations, each for the other; it may be the dawn of better things. In the case of Allen County, however, the War of 1812 left its mark by the contribution of a name, ALLEN County.
One of the brave men, a colonel, in the War of 1812, whose name was Allen, gave his name to this county, which was formed April 1, 1820, from Indian Territory. A number of other counties were formed at the same time.
In the first years of its organization, Allen County was attached to Mercer County for judicial purposes, and in that way much of the early general history is the same as that of Mer- cer County. The history of the organization of the various counties of Ohio will be of general interest here.
By the Ordinance of 1787, Ohio sprang into existence, and, when the Territory was organized, Washington County was established with its western limits resting on the Scioto River and its northern on Lake Erie. In 1790 Hamilton County was organized. In 1796 Wayne County was set off and within the two following years five more counties were estab- lished. In 1800 Fairfield and Trumbull were established. In 1803 the counties of Gallia, Scioto, Franklin, Columbiana, Butler, Warren, Greene and Montgomery were added. In 1805
Athens was formed from Washington County. In 1804 Muskingum was established; in 1805 Highland and Champaign; in 1807 Ash- tabula, Portage, Cuyahoga and Miami ; in 1808, Stark, Preble, Knox, Licking, Delaware and Tuscarawas; in 1809 Darke and Huron; in 1810 Pickaway, Madison, Clinton, Fayette and Guernsey ; in 1811 Coshocton ; in 1812 Me- dina; in 1813 Monroe and Richland; in 1814 Hocking and Harrison; in 1815 Pike; in 1816 Jackson and Lawrence; in 1817 Clark, Logan, Perry and Brown; in 1818 Morgan; in 1819 Shelby and Meigs; in 1820 Allen, Crawford, Marion, Mercer, Hardin, Hancock. Henry, Williams, Paulding, Putnam, Sandusky, Sen- eca, Union, Van Wert and Wood. The last named counties, including Allen, were set off from Indian Territory, and were not organ- ized for years after their establishment, and in the case of Allen County not for 14 years after the treaty of Maumee Rapids, which was made September 29, 1817.
The organic act of 1820 provided that the lands ceded by the Indians in the treaty of Maumee Rapids should be divided into 14 counties, viz. : Townships 1, 2 and 3 south, in ranges 1, 2, 3 and 4 to form Van Wert County ; all of ranges 1, 2, 3 and 4, south of townships 1, 2 and 3 south to form Mercer County ; all of townships 1 and 2 south and I and 2 north in ranges 5, 6, 7 and 8 to form Putnam County ; and, lastly, all of the second townships to the
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northern limits of the organized counties to form Allen County.
This act further provided that Allen Coun- ty be attached to Shelby County for judicial purposes. Subsequently Allen was attached to Mercer until the organization in 1831. In 1829 Christopher Wood, of Allen County, was nominated by the Legislature, with Justin Hamilton, of Mercer County, and Adam Bar- ber, of Putnam County, a board of commis- sioners to locate the seat of justice for each of the counties which they represented. This was accomplished and the organization of the county followed in 1831.
The soil of Allen County is of great fer- tility, forming at one time a part of the great Black Swamp. The area of the county is 440 square miles. The county has 13 townships, viz. : Amanda, Auglaize, Bath, German, Jack- son, Marion, Monroe, Ottawa, Perry, Rich- land, Shawnee, Spencer and Sugar Creek. The county has many Germans to-day, nearly all of them springing from the sturdy old German pioneers of the log-cabin days. These hardy and industrious people have helped to make Allen County what it is to-day.
The growth in population presents an inter- esting question : In 1830 there were only 578 residents ; in 1850 there were 12, 116; in 1860, there were 19, 185; in 1880, 31,314. Of this number in ISSo, there were 4 Chinese and only 4 Indians. But there were 25,625 native-born Ohio inhabitants. In 1900, the population was 45,000, and is now ( 1906) about 50,000. The first occupancy by white men of any part of what is now Allen County was on the site of Fort Amanda.
We are always interested in first events. The world has ever paid tribute to those men who first accomplished some particular thing. For this reason the inventor, the discoverer, and the explorer will ever appeal to us. Sir Francis Drake, Christopher Columbus, Mungo Park, Stanley, Cook and Lieutenant Peary will continue to challenge the admiration of all readers. The man who first reaches the North Pole will win an enduring monument.
None the less interesting, but in a local sense, is the record of the first white man who lived within the bounds of Allen County. His
name and his blood were French, Francis Deu- choquette, and the former, if not the latter, may be found upon the map of Auglaize County. Deuchoquette, who was an Indian in- terpreter, was present at the burning of Colo- nel Crawford in Wyandotte County, and is said to have used his most persuasive powers with Simon Girty and others, to prevent that terrible tragedy. In later years many of the old settlers remembered Deuchoquette for his kindness and aid to them in times of great dis- tress. About 1817, a number of other hardy pioneers came to live in the wilderness, among them being Andrew Russell, Peter Diltz and William Van Ausdall.
In all probability the farm which Andrew Russell opened on the Auglaize was the first farm of the county. On this farm was born, in
SUBDUERS OF THE WILDERNESS. Courtesy of the American Book Co.
1817, the first white child, a girl, known as the "Daughter of Allen County." This girl be- came, in after years, Mrs. Charles C. Marshall, of Delphos. She lived until 1871. Absalom Brown was the first white citizen of Lima, and his daughter, Maria Mitchell Brown, was the first white child born in Lima.
The growth of Lima and, in fact, all parts of the county, has been constant and substan- tial. In Chapter V is shown a view of Lima in 1846, taken from a point on the Wapako- neta road south of the town. The picture shows quite plainly the Court House of 1842, part of the village, the famous "Swinonia" of Count Coffinberry and the covered bridge over this stream. Many versions are given as to
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the origin of the name "Hog Creek," the one generally credited being as follows: In 1786 a British Indian agent by the name of McKee was, during the incursions of General Logan in that year, obliged to flee with all his prop- erty. He took along his swine, and had them driven to the stream; here they remained, run- ning wild in the woods. The Indians discov- ered them and named the stream "Koshko Sepe," or Hog River.
At this point it will be proper to introduce the splendid narrative of T. E. Cunningham, Esq., of Lima. Mr. Cunningham gives his facts as they were gleaned from those who made the history, and "a good part of which he himself was", as Livy expresses it in regard to the true historian.
LEAVES FROM THE EARLY HISTORY OF ALLEN COUNTY.
Address of T. E. Cunningham, Esq .; Delivered be- fore the Pioneer Association, at the Fair Grounds, Lima, September 22, 1871.
Fifty years ago the territory which now constitutes the county of Allen was an almost unbroken wilderness; I say almost, for on the banks of the Auglaize River, in the neighbor- hood of where once stood the village of Hart- ford, a settlement was commenced by the whites about the year 1817. To the young these 50 years appear a long time; but there are men and women about me, who can look back over a period longer than that, and realize how swiftly the years have flown, freighted as they were with sorrows, hopes, keen disap- pointments and truest joys. Births and deaths alternated with the days; and memory is crowded with shadowy forms who lived and died in the long ago.
Allen County is a portion of that division of the State, commonly known as Northwest- ern Ohio. This section was the last opened for settlement by the whites. The Shawnee In- clian Reservation embraced a large part of the county, and the migration of the Indians did not occur until the month of August, 1832, although they ceded their lands to the general government some time before. The whites, however, had begun to come in before the ces-
sion took place, and the white man and the red for years occupied the country together, and illustrated the savage and civilized modes of life.
A family named Russell were the first whites who settled within the bounds of the county. On the Auglaize, in 1817, they opened the first farm, and there the first white child was born. That child, who afterwards became the wife of Charles C. Marshall, of Delphos, was familiarly called by the neighbors the "Daughter of Allen County." She died during the present summer, in the 54th year of her age.
Samuel McClure, now living at the age of 78 years, settled on Hog Creek, five miles northeast of where Lima now stands, in the month of November, 1825-46 years ago. He has ever since remained on the farm upon which he then built a cabin. The nearest white neighbors of whom he knew were two families named Leper and Kidd, living one mile below, where Roundhead now is-about 20 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. 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 after- wards 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 sit- uated eight miles below the McClure settle- ment, at the mouth of Little Hog Creek. A portion of the village was on the old Ezekiel Hover farm, and a portion upon the Breese farm. Mr. McClure and his little neighbor- hood soon became acquainted, and upon good terms with their red neighbors. He says Pht, the war chief, had he been civilized, would have been a man of mark in any community. Quilna was the great business man of the tribe here- abouts.
Soon after the McClure settlement was commenced, they heard from the Indians at Shawneetown that the United States govern- ment had erected a mill at Wapakoneta. The settlers had no road to the mill, but Quilna
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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 house- hold 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. I think this community has been ungrateful. Some enduring memorial of him should have long ago been made. How much better and more appropriate it would have been, to have given his name to the new township recently erected in our county, out of territory over which his tired feet have so often trodden in the bestowal of kindness and benefactions upon the white strangers, who had come to displace his tribe, and efface the little hillocks which marked the places where his forefathers slept. Why cannot we have Ottawa changed to Quilna yet ? [It certainly should be done .- Ed. ]
In the month of June, 1826, Morgan Lip- pincott, Joseph Wood, Benjamin Dolph, whilst 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 that there were five families,-those of Chris- topher 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 now known as the old Miller farm.
In the spring of 1831, John Ridenour, now living at the age of 89 years, 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.
The State of Ohio conveyed to the people of Allen County a quarter section of land upon which to erect a county town. The title was vested in the commissioners of the county, in trust, for the purpose expressed. It was not a
gift, however, as many suppose. Two hundred dollars was paid for it out of the county treas- ury, while Thomas K. Jacobs was treasurer. In the summer of 1831 the town was surveyed by W. L. Henderson, of Findlay, the same gentleman who was recently prominent in the survey and location of the Fremont & Indiana Railroad. Patrick G. Goode, at that time a distinguished citizen of the State, who after- wards became a member of Congress, presi- dent judge of the judicial district and a Meth- odist minister, had the honor of naming it. He borrowed the name from the capital of Chile, South America, and to his last day would not forgive the public for their resolute abandonment of the Spanish pronunciation of the name. It was pronounced Lema, where he obtained the name-but our people insisted upon the long "i"; and Lima it has been to this day, and will continue to be when the walls of a city shall stand upon its foundations, and when the name of the good man who stood its sponsor shall have been forgotten.
In the month of August, 1831, a public sale of lots took place, and during the following fall and winter came John P. Mitchell, Absa- lom Brown, John F. Cole, Dr. William Cun- ningham, Abraham Bowers, John Brewster, David Tracy, John Mark and John Bashore, with their families, except Brewster, who was a bachelor. John F. Cole, who is now almost alone amongst the new generation of men who have come around him, settled a mile below town, on a portion of what is now the Faurot farm. Enos Terry, a noble gentleman, a brother-in-law of Mr. Cole's, settled upon an adjoining tract still nearer town.
The children of those men and women, who made this venture in the wilderness-some of them in the dead of winter-can form no idea of the toils endured, the anxiety suffered, and the struggles which accompanied the frontier life of their fathers and mothers. Nor can we, at this day, with our crowding upon each other in the race of life, contemplate without wonder the sympathy they felt for each other, and the constant mutual aid extended. I have heard my own mother tell how John P. Mitchell once walked nine miles to a horse-mill
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and brought home a bushel of cornmeal on his back, and divided it out amongst half a dozen families. This proves the goodness of human nature, and I believe the sons and daughters of these persons would do the like if they were surrounded with the same circumstances. I have heard John F. Cole describe his travels through the woods with his ox team, making but five or six miles a day, and at night turning out his oxen to find their own supper, while he, covered with mud, and frequently with no dry thread of clothing, crept into his wagon and slept the night away.
They had no railroads then, you know. I can recollect back to the time when the country about Urbana was called "the settlement," whence supplies were drawn, and it required several strong yoke of oxen and many days of travel, to make the trip to and from "the set- tlement."
In the month of August, 1832, the Shaw- nees took up their line of march for the far West-away so far, it was thought, that many generations would come and go before they would again be disturbed. But one generation had not passed, before the advancing tide of civilization swept against and over them, till, tired of the struggle, the majority of what re- mains of this once powerful and warlike tribe have quietly yielded to the surrounding influ- ences, and are learning and practicing the arts of civilized life.
Dr. William McHenry, one of the commit- tee of this Pioneer Association, came to Lima in the spring of 1834. There were then living in the village: John P. Mitchell, Col. James Cunningham, Dr. William Cunningham, Gen. John Ward, Dr. Samuel Black, Daniel D. Tompkins, Charles Baker, James A. Ander- son, David Tracy, Hudson Watt, Miles Cowan, Crain Valentine, John Bashore, John Mark, Abraham Aldridge, Alexander Beatty, Wil- liam Scott, Thurston Mosier, David Reese, Daniel Musser, Sr., Martin Musser, Daniel Musser, Jr., Elisha Jolly. Abraham S. Nichols, Rev. George Sheldon, Elder William Chaffee, John Jackson, Hamilton Davison, Amos Chut- ter, Robert Terry, F. H. Binkley and Abraham Bowers, Sr. Rev. John Alexander and Rev.
James Finley were ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church upon the circuit at that time. Rev. Mr. Sheldon preached to the Presbyte- rians, and Elder Chaffee to the Baptists. With- in Dr. McHenry's recollection of the persons named, who were, with one or two exceptions, heads of families then, there remain in this vicinity but Mrs. Bowers, Daniel Musser, Jr., Mrs. Musser (then Mrs. Mitchell), Hudson Watt and Mrs. Watt, Elisha Jolly and Mrs. Jolly, Mrs. Ward, Mrs. Patrick (then Mrs. Tracy), and Mrs. Bashore. John F. Cole and Mrs. Cole are still living now, and for many years residents of the town, but at that time they were upon their farm below town.
Tompkins is in Oregon; Baker is in Mar- ion; Watt, Jolly and McHenry remain in Lima; Valentine is in Michigan. The where- abouts, if alive, of Mosier, Reese, Nichols, Cowan and Clutter, is unknown; Sheldon is in Indiana, and Davison is at Defiance. The remainder of the names on the list will be found cut in marble-"In Memoriam."
The first white citizen of Lima was Abso- lom Brown, whose daughter, Marion Mitchell Brown, named after the present Mrs. Musser, was the first white child born in the town. The second was Katherine Bashore, now Mrs. John P. Adams. The first marriage in the town was that of James Saxon and Miss Jones, a sister- in-law of John Mark. They were married by Rev. Mr. Pryor, a missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
As late as the fall of 1834, Daniel Musser killed two deer on the present plat of Lima ; one about where King's warehouse stands, and the other about where the West Union School house is.
I am indebted to John Cunningham for the result of the census of Lima, actual count completed yesterday, September 21, 1871. The total number of families is 1,013; the number of souls, 4.979; an increase of between three and four hundred since the census was taken in 1870.
The county was organized in June, 1831. James S. Daniel. John G. Wood and Samuel Stewart were the first county commission- ers.
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The first Court of Common Pleas for Allen County was held in a log cabin, the residence of James S. Daniels, near the crossing of Hog Creek at the east end of Market street, in May, 1833. Hon. George B. Holt, of Dayton, was the president judge, and Christopher Wood, James Crozier and William Watt were asso- ciates. John Ward was clerk, and Henry Lip- pincott, sheriff; Patrick G. Goode, of Mont- gomery County, was special prosecuting attor- ney, appointed by the court.
Judge Holt was in 1838 succeeded by Judge W. L. Helfenstein ; he in turn, in 1839, by Emory D. Potter. Judge Potter went to Congress in 1842, and was succeeded on the bench by Myron H. Tilden, and he was succeeded in 1845 by Patrick G. Goode, who remained upon the bench until he was super- seded under the new constitution in February, 1852, by Benjamin F. Metcalf. In 1857, Judge Metcalf was succeeded by William Lawrence, of Logan County, but in 1859 he again returned to the bench, in a newly formed district, and remained in office until his death, which occurred in 1865. Among the very able men who have flourished in this section of Ohio, it is safe to say Judge Metcalf had no superior in intellectual qualities, and few equals. He was succeeded by O. W. Rose, of Van Wert, who remained upon the bench but a few months, when James Mackenzie, our townsman, was elected in the fall of 1865, and immediately assumed the duties of the office, where if the sincere wishes of the public can avail, and a kind Providence will spare him, he will remain for many years to come. Shortly after his retirement, Judge Rose's health gave way and he soon after died. He was a gen- tleman of singularly gentle manners, and his was a spirit as pure as ever inhabited our hu- man form.
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