USA > Ohio > Ashland County > History of Ashland County, Ohio > Part 10
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CLEVELAND AVENUE, ASHLAND
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY
was visiting, his hunter's knife had attracted their attention, and he was im- portuned to sell it. When he positively declined their propositions, his wary eye detected mischief in their looks. He took his leave of them, and had not traveled many miles, before he became convinced that he was being pursued by the Indians. To confirm his suspicions, he suddenly quit the trail after crossing a prairie, and took observations from behind a tree-the result being to fully establish in his mind that their designs were against him. This was in the afternoon of the day, and he resumed the trail and pushed forward rapidly until the shades of night began to gather, and he had left his pursuers some distance in the rear. Again quitting the trail he hastily kindled a fire, a few rods distant, within a few feet of the fire he arranged an effigy on a log by adjusting his blanket in such a manner as would lead one to suppose that it covered its owner; and then concealing himself at a proper distance, awaited the progress of events. He had not long remained in this situation before a rifle ball from a concealed foe entered his blanket, and soon the two Indians were hurrying towards the effigy with uplifted tomahawks. The progress of the larger Indian was instantly arrested by a ball from McConnell's unerring rifle; and the smaller Indian reversed his movement and escaped in the woods before McConnell could reload his gun.
SIMON GIRTY
The notorious renegade, Simon Girty, was the son of a notorious drunkard, who had emigrated from Ireland. The old man was beastly intemperate, and nothing ranked higher in his estimation than a jug of whiskey. His sottishness turned his wife's affections, and she vielded her heart to another, who knocked Girty on the head, and bore off the trophy in his prowess. Four sons remained behind, Thomas, Simon, George and James. The three latter were taken prison- ers in Braddock's war, by the Indians. George was adopted by the Delawares, and died in a drunken fit. James was adopted by the Shawnees, and became a bloody villain. Simon was adopted by the Senecas, and became an expert hunter. In Kentucky and Ohio, he distinguished himself as an unrelenting barbarian. It was his constant wish that he might die in battle. This was gratified. He was cut to pieces, by Colonel Johnson's mounted men, at Proctor's defeat.
JOHNNYCAKE AND HIS WIFE.
The Indian was well known to the early settlers by the above name. He was a tall, wellbuilt, finelooking man, of genial temper, good moral habits, and enjoyed much the society of his friends.
His wife was a half-breed-the daughter of a white woman who had been taken prisoner by the Indians, near Pittsburg. Pennsylvania. Her mother, after having endured several years of captivity. made her escape, and returned to her white friends, leaving her little daughter among the Indians. This
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infant child remained among the Indians-attained the condition of womanhood -married-and became an exemplary and faithful wife and mother, and re- markable for shrewdness and tact.
Mr. Knapp refers to the residence of Johnnycake in Clear Creek township at a late date. In 1824, in the spring, Johnnycake had a wigwam in the vicinity of the present site of Savannah.
In 1829, when the Delawares were removed to their new home, west of the Mississippi, Johnnycake and his family went along.
Johnnycake died on the Delaware reservation, in Kansas, leaving two or three sons. In the war of the Rebellion of 1861-5, three grandsons of Johnny- cake served in Company M, Sixth regiment of Kansas Volunteer Infantry, under Captain John W. Duff. Their names were: John, Benjamin and Philip Johnnycake. Captain Duff says they were excellent soldiers.
A PIONEER TALK.
Essay by Miss Rosella Rice (now deceased) read Before the Ashland County Association in 1879.
There is a vast store of rich material almost untouched lying waiting for some writer who will hold the mirror up to nature and give us pictures of the people and the manners and customs of early times. What a royal book could be made! We grow so weary of politics, the sham side of religion; the ruthless clambering after high places; the desperate struggles for riches and fame and honor ; men standing on other men's necks to elevate themselves. Oh, sometimes, if it were not so sentimental and so like twaddle, or the talk of whispering lovers we could cry out in the language of Moore :
"O, had we some bright little isle of our own, In a blue summer ocean, far off and alone,
Where a leaf never dies in the still blooming bowers,
And the bee banquets on through a whole year of flowers."
etc. etc. You all remember it, and how charming you thought it sounded when you almost sang it to lengthen out its delicious sweetness.
There is not half the material nowadays for the manufacture of readable stories and sketches there was in pioneer times. We are surprised when we the field over. How fresh and charming and breezy were the stories written by Eggleston, the only writer who has ever ventured into this broad and beautiful field.
The stories that are the simplest and most natural and that cuddle the closest to Nature's great warm, true heart are the best. Their narration brings the quick, hearty laugh and the sudden mist of tears the soonest. Bret Harte may, in his strange, bold way, bring out wonderful words, pictures of heroism, history may tell of great men who sacrificed their lives in a fury of
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enthusiasm, forgetting everything only fame that was to follow after. But in our own humble opinion we do believe God and the angels have looked down and beheld the truest heroes in the lowliest walks of humble life. Oh, we bare our heads in the presence of our grandees; we bow graciously, we smile and fawn upon them because they are great. The richest carpet is spread for them to walk upon from the doorway to the glittering carriage in the street; we beg for their autographs; we look after them adoringly and we sigh when they are gone and we read glowing accounts of where they go and how they are re- ceived and the honors that are heaped upon them, and our hearts warm with exultation. We call these our heroes. We believe the heroism hidden in the commonest walks of life, and perhaps not known beyond the horizon's rim, not read about, nor sang about, nor talked about, and scarcely known or dreamed of by the nearest neighbors, is the grandest example of brave courage and devotion that there is. In pioneer times such heroes were found in every neighborhood.
They were not shrined, neither did they stand on pedestals. They sat on benches at their looms, and on rickety chairs close up to their little wheels, and from early dawn until bedtime they made music; the music of the flying shuttle and the banging of the lathe, the buzzing of the flyers, and the fine metalic ring of the sharp teeth of the hackle. They dressed in clothing that they had manufactured themselves, and they clad their husbands and their children in the same. The heroism of these wonderfully energetic women will never be known, because they know it not themselves. We may talk of the spirit of our missionary women and laud them, but no need of theirs can compare with the self-denial of these managing, planning, contriving, overtasked, active foremothers of ours. Their creative ability was marvellous. Their general- ship was splendid. Their strategy and maneuvers and devices without parallel. And yet, revering their memory as we do, cherishing the bold, brave, beautiful examples they have left us, we cannot but lament the sad heritage they bequeathed likewise.
These noble grandmothers and mothers wrought with hands and brain; they toiled beyond their strength; they used up the vitality that they should have shared with us-their defrauded bodies. They robbed us, and the conse- quences abide with us today. We have white faces and flabby muscles and are short of health, and we have to coax ourselves to walk up hill, and then we hold a hand on our side and gasp. Instead of springing out of a wagon or off the side saddle, or from the top rail of the fence, we creep down as though we carried a set of china or a basket of imported eggs. They would have run up stairs three steps at a clip if they'd only had the stairs. As it was, they tripped up the ladder that stood in the corner, carrying a bushel of corn or twelve dozen skeins of flax thread with the ease that one of us would carry a glove box. We know one mother who died at middle age with a flush as of roses on her lips and her cheeks and a sunny sparkle in her eyes, and her glossy brown hair smoothed back from her white forehead. She lay down to sleep and to dream at night and the sleep came in the twinkling of an eye, but it was the dreamless slumber of death, and the word went forth that she died of heart disease-a very pretty name by which to designate such sudden calls of death, such untoward freaks of Providence. But her bereft family knew the limits
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of a life spent in overwork, an energy that knew no boundaries at all. She had said, "Now I will make fifty linen sheets for ourselves and then I will quit spinning and weaving." That was two hundred and fifty yards of linen. Any one who has raised flax and carried it through the stages prescribed, will know what that means. Raising, pulling, spreading, ratting, gathering into bundles, then breaking, scutching, hackling, spinning, boiling the skeins in ashes and water, spooling, warping and weaving. Then comes the bleaching out on the grass in March and April and the web is ready for use. Besides the stores of family and bed and table linen she wanted the fifty homemade linen sheets to lay aside for herself and husband in their old age and after the children were all married and settled in life. Poor, short sighted woman! She died before
half the number were made. Her husband, a young man, was left disconsolate with five little children between the ages of fourteen and four. What an
absurd mistake she made !
And the linen sheets. The cold, clinging, clammy
things. Well, the daughters-in-law cut them up and used them for baby linen and tea towels and dish rags, with never a thought of what they cost. And the sons-in-law wipe their bearded faces and tidy about their ears with the towels made out of them, and instead of thinking that the life of a noble but unwisely energetic woman was twisted up into the nicely spun woof and warp, and the fine gold of it beaten up into the flossy fabric, they scrub diligently, thinking of the sharp bargains they make in swapping horses. perhaps getting a good, two year colt for an old crowbait with its bony back thatched over with newspapers.
If there is one thing in this life that we sorrow over more than another, it is to see energy-that great lever that moves the world-misspent, poured out wastefully. Our possibilities for accomplishing good and great works are wonderful and we have no right to trifle them away and spend our time making overmuch provision for our perishable bodies. Why, the very time devoted to making pies, if spent out in the woods under the gracious roof of gold and green, when days are long and skies are bright, and woods are green and fields are breezy, would tend to make one fresh and active and interesting, and to grow mellow in a kindly way. So many lives dwarfed and disappointed, and in complete owe their failure to the wearing of the shackle that they impose upon themselves. They seem to glory in their manacles. They hug their thralldon !. We say to such :
There'll come a day when the supremest splendor Of earth, or sky, or sea, What e'er their miracles, sublime or tender, Will wake no joy in thec.
Sometimes we wonder if our own township is an exception in its wealth of story making material. Every old cabin hearth stone holds a story, sometimes wonderful, sometimes tragical and sometimes stranger than fiction. Away off in the woods on our way to and from the school we taught long ago we used to sit and dream and rest awhile on a heap of old hearth stones, the birthplaces of a poor little boy who, when he came up to manhood, received the appointment of Foreign Minister. His father made baskets and trays and half bushels, and his mother spun sewing thread and hackled flax and colored copperas and rocked her babies in a sugar trough.
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What to them was poverty ? Contentment disarmed of its sting. Their wants were few. There was no aristocracy in those early days. When the women wanted to visit neighbor Prudence and have a good social time and not tax the poor family, they took provisions with them. One would take half a quarter of tea and a pitcher of cream, another a loaf of bread and a roll of butter, another some maple syrup or wild honey, with venison or pork or raised cornbread or doughnuts, always carrying a good deal more than was needed, and then the woman whose honored guests they were could get up a plain meal without any embarrassment whatever.
At the time we used to indulge in these dreams, William was abroad an honor to the nation he represented, and perhaps many a time in his far-away political home, there came up before him the shady little nook in the wildwood, with its rich undergrowth of cool ferns and mosses and leaves mingling in wild luxuriance. Oh, such examples are so encouraging to poor boys. Energy and perseverance with a character based on good sound principles can accomplish anything. And how true and full of exaltation comes to such the ringing song of the sweet minstrel girl, Alice Carey. Her own soul alive with the inspiration that thrilled herself and others when she sang
"For many a lad born to rough work and ways,
Strips off his ragged coat and makes men Clothe him with praise."
But one hearthstone there was that could have told a boss story, as the boys say. Just the man and his wife and her sister comprised the family. It was the bleak November time, when the rains seem to have a sobbing sound and the winds cry about the leaves, and the dead vines swing mournfully, and the waters drip like tears from the dead leaves. The husband was away at the mill down at Shrimplins, and would not get home till late that night. The two women sat conversing over the embers. One subject only was in their thoughts, and that was "There will be no dress for the baby." Now did anybody ever hear of a wideawake woman who couldn't see her way through or over or under or around the obstacles in her path ? Surely not. The husband came home late, ate his corn bread and milk, buried the glowing coals and went to bed. Away in the night the young wife woke her sister with "Bet, say Bet, I've studied it out. Hark'ee! Early in the morning he will kill Old Nan, for what's the use o' keepin' just one sheep, poor, lonesome creetur', and me and you'll go to work and we'll make a bit o' flannel out o' the fleece, an' that'll be very daddle for a good, warm, soft baby dress. Don't ye see, Bet?" Poor, sleepy Betsy. We don't know whether she saw it or not, but she acquiesced with a drowsy "eh, heh." He killed the sheep bright and early the next morning. The two sisters picked off the wool nicely carded, spun, put the infantile web into the loom and wove it that day and evening, and at night they cut out the dearest little coatie and made it before they went to bed. There wasn't much margin left to boast of, because the next day's dawn found a sturdy little man child taking the tailor out of the brannew coatie. A little sprout of a pioneer with round, red fists and heels that tested the new flannel vigorously. And this was the stuff that pioneer women were made of in the long ago.
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY
Sixty years ago a poor boy in Green township used to get up very early winter mornings, when the snow lay deep and white upon the ground, and as he flipped his homeknit suspenders over his shoulders he peered out between the cracks of his cabin home and whispered through his chattering teeth, "Jinks, do b'lieve I see tracks!" Then despite the cold he clad his feet in his father's old boots and sallied out to hunt rabbits. That boy wanted an education. He needed one of the first requirements-a spelling book. If it had been summer time he could have dug ginseng or columbo roots and sold them. But the winter season locked up this only resource, and all he could do was to catch rabbits and sell the skins for one cent apiece. Forty rabbit skins would buy a spelling book, a nice one with a good wooden back to it. That man died worth
one hundred thousand dollars. And this was the stuff that pioneer men were made of. Those were close times when rabbit skins and ginseng roots and wolf scalps and whiskey were currency. We often take down from the top shelf in the library a homely old leathercovered account book of our grandfather's and father's, and look over the items of trade. In the way of a deal, our dear old ancestors once obtained a barrel of the currency of those times, whiskey, which he used to deal out, we presume, to the best advantage. This was over sixty years ago. One page in a clear, bold, graceful style of penmanship runs thus : Dr. John Smith, dr.
Aug. 1, to five quarts of whiskey $0.50.
" 3, to two quarts of whiskey .25.
"' 5. to one bottleful of whiskey lent.
Sept. 1, to one quart of whiskey lent, .07.
Sept. 26, to two quarts of whiskey
.25.
Sept. 11, to three gallons of whiskey, lent
Oct. 2, to three bushels of rye at 5 cts. per bushel Nov. 4, by one quart of whiskey .12.
.15
And then the mother and wife came, a palefaced sad woman and her tears stopped the flow of currency. And our heart is glad when we look the old book over and follow the track of that barrel of whiskey, peddled out and discover that not the man who sold it nor one of those who bought it are represented today by one bloated face or pussy form, or red nose, or blear eye. We thank God for that signal favor. If ever our dead grandfather helped to foster the love of strong drink in any one whose tainted blood was inherited today by a weak son or grandson, we'd root out and wash out the foul curse, with our prayers and our tears. The John Smith referred to has three sons, elderly men, and because of the father's bad example, and the mother's tender watchfulness, her careful early training and early teaching, every man of them is a strictly moral man, advocating total abstinence. So we sit down and look the old book over as calmly as we would turn through Watt's hymns; but if he'd had a distillery and one of our beautiful springs hidden in a green gush in a hillside had been per- verted to such a base use, its sweet gushing waters made accursed and instru- mental to the degredation of his fellowmen, our poor shamed face would have been bowed today with marks of Cain on the forehead.
There always was a charm to us in the relation of the incidents of pioneer life. It is so good to hear about those who have passed away, and are passing
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY
away-people, just like ourselves in all their loves and hates, their hopes and fears, their aims and aspirations. How often we hear these people say : "we never were so happy as when we lived in the cabin. I can't make such corn bread as I used to make, and oh how I would like to taste of the nice corn cake I used to bake, on a clean shingle, tilted up before the fire with a flat-iron back of it. What a sweet crisp cake it was and how nutty the fine flavor." No elegant parlor can have that air of cosiness that had the one room in the cabin home. How high the beds did puff up. How neat the pile of bed clothes looked heaped upon an old arm chair, or box, or something between the windows folded just as evenly as possible. The little mirror was the one nice thing in the house. Across its top wound a string of the shells of bird eggs, and a spray of asparagus drooped over like dainty mist. Under the glass hung a snow-white towel ironed in the most perplexing and abstruse folds and checks and diamonds and octagons. A very precise pin cushion hung over the white towel so as to show to the best advantage; sometimes the bullet pouch hung inside of it. The dresses and skirts turned best side out hung on pegs around the walls. The old bureau if there was one had a cloth netting and fringe around it, and the bandbox con- taining the Sunday bonnet held its place of honor on the top of it. The gun lay in hooks upon a joist over head. If there was a fiddle in the family it dozed in a green baize bag from a nail beside the window. The dresser stood in one corner with a scant supply of delf; one whole shelf devoted to the cups and saucers which were ranged in a row, every cup standing on the bottom of a saucer. The ladder stood in the other corner, and a wide fire place filled almost one end of the cabin. Overhead hung bags of seeds and hops and roots, and the poles suspended by leather thongs above the heads of the family, had socks hanging on them, and dried pumpkins and choice seed corn and wallets of dried plums and dried cherries.
Sometimes a knotty branch of a hickory was cut off and hung up and strung full of tallow dips. But you all remember these old time things. Some of you women will recall the satisfied feeling you had at night, after a hard day's work, when you sat with the baby on your lap, swaying in the easy old chair that creaked out a weake-wock-weake-wock, and you sat and sang little aimless odds and ends of camp meeting songs, your thoughts far away and as you looked up and surveyed the little stores, you felt gratified that every- thing was in order, kept with an eye to economy and neatness. Oh, not riches nor fine clothing, nor grand furniture, nor any of these things can bring back that sweet sense of enjoyment that was yours in your humble little home.
On a birthday occasion, an old pioneer dined with us a few years ago. We were telling what roused our anger soonest, and with a gurgling musical laugh, the old man said, "nothing ever made me madder than when I used to plow out in the clearings. My shins were all bundled up with bits of sheep skins so I could endure the blows of the little roots that spring up with such vengeful force when cut off by the plow share, and yet many and many a time I swore in spite of me. I was called a good Methodist and the Lord knows I tried to be a Christian and a good man. I had a great deal of very substantial praying to do for myself." On the same pleasant occasion, another old pioneer related a funny incident on himself. He was a young farmer who held the position of
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY
drum major in the militia. He didn't know every thing. The crows were very troublesome, pulling up his corn. One day when he was plowing it, he "shooed" at them and waved his hat, and threw clods, and finally a master idea entered his mind: he could get his drum and drum them away. He could sling it over his shoulder and carry it with him, and how much nicer that would be, and so genteel, too, and such a patriotic way of protecting his crop. When opportunity offered he turned his back to the old horse and struck up the strain of Yankee Doodle, just as if he were at general muster. The result was that the horse didn't concur with this new departure, and kicking up its heels it ran off and broke the plow and the harness and helped to scare away more crows than did the man with the new idea. The narrative of this incident was never drusick, but once, and then he was out on the creek in a canoe with his friends and fell overboard. The splash in the water roused him a little and he felt a touch of shame and humiliation and tried to take his own part, when they dragged him back in the canoe. He fumbled around and found one of his suspender buttons was gone. "There," said he, "ding it all, how could a fellow help fallin' in right backwards, when his gallus give way suddent?" We used to visit at his home a good deal. Such boisterous boys and girls we never saw to play blackman, and ball, and shinny, and silly bang, and poison, and steal partner. The mother would let us all turn summersaults on her bed, and the father would let us slide all in a row down the sides of the straw stacks, no matter if the straw all scooted down to the ground. And they would let us boil chestnuts in the tea kettle, and roast potatoes in the ashes, after night, and have all the nice butter we wanted to eat with them. And in improvising plays and theatricals they allowed us the use of all the wearing apparel the house afforded. The old mare was free for any four of us to ride at one time, out on the race course, which was round and round the house. How we longed to exchange mothers with the jolly little ones of this favored family. She scolded frequently to be sure, and declared that the terrible racket would kill her, but her husband. the drum major, assurred us in homely language that "her bark was wuss nor her bite."
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