USA > Ohio > Ashland County > History of Ashland County, Ohio > Part 23
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HISTORY OF ASHLAND COUNTY
related concerning the red men who roamed up and down the Jeromefork a century and more ago.
Jeromeville has a population of over four hundred, and being eligibly located in the northwest part of the township, it is a good business town for its size. It was the third town platted within the present limits of Ashland county
A branch of the Ramsey railway system runs from Custaloga, on the Penn- sylvania road, northwest to Ashland, a distance of twenty-five miles, passes through Jeromeville and has added much to the business of both Jeromeville and Ashland. The road is called the Ashland & Western, and it is expected that the line will be extended to Lorain on the lake. There is also talk of extending the line south to the Ohio river.
Jeromeville at present contains three churches-the Christian, the Methodist and the Lutheran. A Presbyterian church was organized there in 1817, and was the first church in the place. They erected a church edifice in 1820, and the denomination prospered there for many years, but the organization finally ceased to exist and the church building has been remodeled and is now used as a store room.
The oldest building yet standing in Jeromeville was built for a hotel and was occupied as such for three-fourths of a century, but is now used for a furni- ture store and a dwelling. The building is in fair condition and seems good for another century. It is two stories in height, over fifty feet in length by about forty in width, and was considered a massive structure at the time it was erected. Additions were added in the rear for dining room and kitchen. This hotel structure was built of brick and sided with heavy, hard wood lumber, perfectly. matched and accurately fitted. A two-story porch with massive pillars and with railings nearly surrounds the building. There are great, old-fashioned fire places in both the first and second stories, of sufficient capacity to thoroughly heat the building and to admit of wood without much cutting. The first floor contains four large rooms with a wide hall running crosswise of the building in the center. The second story was formerly one large room, which was used as a bed room and upon festive occasions as a ball room. A large attic furnished further accommodations when needed.
All the material that composed the building inside and out was of hardwood, such as black and white walnut, cherry, oak, ash, maple, etc., all worked out by hand, floors, doors, siding, and all. The pillars are of black walnut and were cut from the stump here and all hauled by teams of oxen to Wooster, Ohio, and were turned out by William Spear; the range work, pillar bases etc., were cut out by Samuel Jackson, a stonecutter of great skill.
The building was erected by Richard Hargrave and was known as the "Hargrave Tavern."
Mr. Hargrave was the first postmaster at Jeromeville, and held the office for twenty-five years.
In the old stage-coach days this town was a relay station, and is about mid- way between Wooster and Mansfield, and this stage route was the most prominent and important between the Alleghenies and the northwest. Hence the Hargrave tavern was none too large for the accommodations needed. There are three other buildings yet standing in the town which were built for hotels back in the
M. E. CHURCH AND PUBLIC SCHOOL, JEROMEVILLE
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stage days, but are less pretentious. In one of these, the one in which the post- office is now located, the first session of court in the county was held, before a county seat had been located.
Another house is yet standing, supposed to be quite or nearly a century ol .. In the early settlement of the place it was the home of a Mr. McKahan, a wheer wright, who had a little shop adjoining, where he manufactured spinning wheels, which were used by the pioneer women to spin wool and flax. Spinning wheels are known to the people of today only as relics and curiosities.
A road from Wooster through Jeromeville to the west was cut through the forest in the fall of 1812 by General Beall's army. This road became a great thoroughfare, and is still used and called "Beall's Trail." A blockhouse was built in the autumn of 1812 at Jeromeville by the troops for the protection of the settlers and was placed under the charge of Captain Murray, who remained there for some time. This blockhouse stood upon a slight knoll at the north part of the village, back of the railroad station, near the flouring mills.
After remaining in the vicinity of the blockhouse one or two days, General Beall crossed the Jeromefork, and his pioneers opened a path along the old Wyandot trail, in a northwesterly direction, to the banks of a small stream, where they formed a camp. This location was subsequently known as the Griffin farm. The camp received the name of "Mercer," in honor of Major Musser, who commanded one of the regiments. The distance of this camp from the present site of Jeromeville, was about three miles. Here the army remained about two weeks. It was during their stay in this camp that the battle of the "Cow Pens" occurred.
About the year 1762, Mohican John, a noted chief of the Mohegans, came to the vicinity of Jeromeville with a band of his tribe numbering about two hundred, and established a village upon the west side of the Jeromefork, upon a knoll or eminence, about a half mile west of the present town of Jeromeville. The village was called Mohican Johnstown, in honor of their noted leader.
The names of some of the heads of the families were Aweepsah, Opetete, Catotawa, Nesohawa, Buckandohee, Shias, Ground Squirrel Buckwheat, Philip Canonicut, Billy Montour, and Thomas Jelloway.
The Delaware Indians had a settlement near Jeromeville, which they left at the beginning of the war of 1812. Their chief was old Captain Pipe. When young he was a great warrior, and the implacable foe of the whites. He was in St. Clair's defeat, where, according to his own account, he distinguished himself, and slaughtered white men until his arm was weary with the work.
Mohican Johnstown was sometimes called Jeromestown, or Jerome's Place, as Jerome at one time owned all the land in and around the village.
A pioneer gave the following of the Indian village of Mohican Johnstown :
The village contained a council house and about sixty or eighty pole lodges or wigwams, and was located near the old Wyandot trail. The village was a common resort of hostile Indians on their warlike excursions to western Pennsyl- vania and Virginia, in the days of the border wars. Many white captives had been led up the old trail, by the village, from 1780 to 1795. The Indians had cleared some fifteen or twenty acres of bottom land, which the squaws cultivated in corn, after the Indian manner. About one mile northeast of the Indian
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village, a Frenchman by the name of John Baptiste Jerome, resided in a com- fortable cabin, having an Indian wife and a daughter, the latter aged about fifteen years. He also had horses, cattle and swine, and had cleared about thirty or forty acres of bottom land along the stream at the west side of what is now Jeromeville, on which he raised corn, and supplied many of the early pioneers with seed corn.
When the old Portage road was surveyed in 1810, Jerome lived in a cabin near the foot of Main street in Jeromeville. When Captain Douglas removed the Indians, the wife and daughter of Jerome accompanied them. It has been stated that Jerome gave them the choice of going with their people or remaining with him, and they chose to go with the Indians. The following concerning Jerome is from Hill's history of Ashland county :
"John Baptiste Jerome was born near Montreal, Canada, of French parents, in the year 1776 or 1777. When seventeen or eighteen years of age he crossed the lake with some French emigrants, and settled among the Indians at the mouth of the Huron river. He married an Indian girl, supposed to have been the sister of a noted Indian known as George Hamilton. After remaining on the Huron a few years, he removed to Upper Sandusky, and resided among the Indians until the campaign of General Anthony Wayne. In company with Captain Pipe, of the Delawares, he was engaged in a number of battles against the Ameri- can forces, and was at the famous battle of 'Fallen Timbers.' At the time of his residence in this county, he often related anecdotes concerning that battle, describing the amazement of the Indians at the rapidity and violence of the movements of Wayne's army-the Indians comparing him to a huge 'black snake,' and ascribing almost supernatural powers to him. He asserted, that for a long time, the very name of 'Mad Anthony' sent a chill of horror through the body of an Indian. They had, prior to the appearance of General Wayne, baffled the armies of the American generals, and committed many barbarities upon the wounded and dead soldiers left upon the battle field ; but, when he came, like a huge anaconda, he enclosed and crushed the warriors in such a frightful manner that they had abandoned all hope of resisting his victorious march, and were glad to stop his ravages by making peace."
After the treaty at Greenville in 1795, John Baptiste Jerome, Captain Pipe, and a number of the Delawares left the northwest and settled in what was former- ly Mohican Johnstown, on the south side of the stream, about a half mile from the present site of Jeromeville. The stream was thenceforth known as the Jeromefork, which name it doubtless received from Jerome. The precise period of this migration cannot be accurately fixed, but was doubtless as early as 1796 or 1797. Jerome crossed the stream and built a cabin a little southeast of the present site of the mill, where Joseph H. Larwill found him, his wife and daughter, while surveying, in 1806-7. Captain Pipe built a wigwam and located about one mile from Jerome, near what is now the Hayesville road. When the first settlers came into Mohican township, Jerome resided in the aforesaid cabin.
Prior to his being separated from his wife, Jerome was noted for his hospital- ity, his wife being an excellent cook and housekeeper, considering her oppor- tunities, Jerome being her only instructor as to domestic duties. During the
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prevalence of the war, Jerome remained at the blockhouse among the pioneers who sought protection there in 1812-13-14.
About the year 1817 Jerome and his German wife removed to his old resi- dence at the mouth of Huron river, where he died a few years afterwards, in indigent circumstances. After Jerome's Indian wife left him, he married a German woman from the Clearfork settlement.
In the fall or early part of the winter of 1812 the family of William Bryan, residing on the Jeromefork, about a mile and a half below Jeromeville, were one afternoon surprised by the appearance of a couple of Indians. As the Indians of the neighborhood had all been removed, their presence occasioned suspicion. They asked for food, and while it was being prepared a girl was dispatched to the fort to give the alarm. Thomas Carr and the Frenchman, Jerome, immediately armed themselves and started in pursuit, but before they reached Mr. Bryan's house the Indians had taken their leave and pursuit was abandoned.
The days following our visit to Jeromeville, the old dam, which for nearly a century had spanned the river there and furnished power for the grist mill, was blown out by dynamite, by order of the court, on account of the dam backing the water and overflowing the land. The court awarded Mr. Plank, the pro- prietor of the mill, ten thousand dollars damages for being deprived of this water power, and the money was paid to Mr. Plank a short time previous to the dam being destroyed.
Mr. C. T. Alleman, aged sixty-three, a life-long resident of Jeromeville, takes a commendable interest in the history of his town. The author of this work is indebted to him for favors.
LOUDONVILLE.
Loudonville is in Hanover township, situated on the line of the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad, midway between Mansfield and Wooster. The town is twenty miles from Ashland, twenty from Mansfield, twenty from Wooster, twenty from Millersburg and twenty from Mt. Vernon-an equal distance from five county seat towns.
Loudonville was laid out August 6, 1814, by Stephen Butler and James Loudon Priest, and was named for the latter. The first sale of lots was made September 14, 1814. There was one cabin on the site of Loudonville before the town was platted and was the home of Stephen Butler. It had but one room, but was used as a tavern, and was therefore the first hotel in the place, and the town was laid out around it. Chappel, who settled near the town site in 1814, was Mr. Butler's nearest neighbor. The early reminiscences of the place are similar to those already given of other communities, and the struggles and triumphs of its early settlers who came to the wilderness and who after years of toil and dangers brought it to a state of civilization, was much the same as of other pioneers.
Loudonville at one time, like a number of other new towns in the county, aspired to become the county seat. The Blackfork of the Mohican enters the township at Loudonville and furnishes excellent water power. It pursues a southwesterly course until it unites with Clearfork a few miles below.
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During the trouble with the Indians, Mr. Priest erected a fort upon his premises for the safety of his family and the members, and it was called "The Priest Stockade."
Mr. Haskell early laid out an addition to Loudonville. He erected a brick building at his own expense known as the "Haskell Academy," employed teachers and kept the school going for several years. He started the first bank in Loudonville in 1868, which was continued after his death by his nephew, George C. Haskell. One of the earliest mills in the vicinity was erected by Thomas McMacken in 1834. The A. A. Taylor mill on the Blackfork just above "the town is one of the largest country mills in the state.
Thomas H. Stewart, of Loudonville, was one of the first associate judges of Richland county, Loudonville being then in Richland county. The residence of Dr. Scott is the largest and most imposing in the town, although there are many other handsome residences there.
Of the newspapers published in Loudonville past and present, the writer recalls the Independent, published by the Rev. Lockhart, but the editor's views were too strenuous to be popular, and in 1873 it suspended publication and the Advocate took its place, with the veteran, J. H. Ruth, as editor and publisher. In 1877, the Advocate passed into the hands of Stauffer and Miller. After a year or two Mr. Miller retired and Peter High Stauffer became the sole pro- prietor and conducted the paper successfully until his death a few years since. The Advocate is now published by H. E. Zimmerman. The Loudonville Demo- crat was founded by John Herzog in 1879, and is now owned and successfully published by John C. Bowman.
From a write-up of Loudonville, entitled "Looking Back Sixteen Years," which appeared in the Advocate in October, 1908, we take the following :
Looking back over a period of sixteen years, Loudonville has made a wonderful change to a former citizen who had not been here in that length of time, as there are but few of the old landmarks left by which he could recognize the place.
In the year of 1892, the T. W. V. & O. railroad was constructed by General A. Warner, which has proven to be one of the greatest coal-carrying roads in the state of Ohio.
During the same year the old West Main street bridge was replaced with a modern structure, of which any town and the county commissioners who erected it, can justly feel proud. The new bridge came none too soon, however, as the old one had become dangerous and entirely inadequate for the traffic. Thanks are due to Jacob Kettering, who was then a member of the board of county com- missioners and through whose untiring efforts this commodious structure was finally secured.
During the same year the municipal light plant was installed and no town can boast of being better or more brilliantly lighted than Loudonville.
And, while you are looking for and sizing up the improvements of the town, just allow your eyes to take a "snapshot" of the beautiful and costly dwellings which have sprung up on Mt. Vernon avenue, Maple Heights, Campbell, Union, Adams, East Main, South Water, Spring, Wood streets and Cherry avenue. Have you thought of the improvements made on these streets or must they be
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pointed out to make you fully realize the change that has been going on in the last few years ? In the interval don't overlook the improvement the P. F. company has made on its grounds-a good, substantial depot, train sheds and a park well kept which adds to the beauty of our village.
What was at first thought to be a disastrous blow to the town, was the fire of May, 1901, but which afterwards proved to be the beginning of a new era in the upbuilding and betterment of the town.
The erection of new business structures by A. B. Leopold, S. H. Evans, F. P. Young, A. Tenschert and F. M. Petot were the first Main street improvements to follow the fire. These rooms are as complete and up-to-date as one could find in many days' travel. Following these improvements came the erection of the Hotel Ullman by the Ullman family, a commodious hostelry, second to none in all its appointments and one which would be a credit to any town many times the size of Loudonville.
The year following the fire came the water works system. This was one of the best investments the town ever made. The water supply has never di- minished and the quality is the best to be found in the land. Following the water works came the sewerage system, which every citizen knows is a great benefit to public health.
Street paving was agitated by the property holders along Main street in 1906, but did not come to a focus until the year following. What street paving has added to the town in appearance and convenience is not necessary to mention as every loyal citizen feels proud even when he gazes upon it.
Going back to 1902, C. B. Scott and E. F. Shelley became associates in real estate, and, desiring to see the town kept on the move, they purchased the old American House corner. These grounds were then sold to individuals desiring locations to build; and, we might add, that they refused to sell to any one only prospective builders. As a result of their efforts in this direction, the first structure to become conspicuous, was the Beard & Harvey livery barn, a spacious tile building, erected by Orra Beard for a livery and feed barn. This was followed by the erection of three elegant business rooms on the American House site by M. Derrenberger, Earl Wolf and W. P. Ullman. The vacant lots on North Water street have also been occupied within the last few years, which practically covers that portion of the town left in ruins and ashes by the big fire.
While Loudonville has not grown as rapidly as some other towns in the state, yet it has always been recognized as a place of wealth and a hustling little business center. Located as it is, in the great Mohican valley, surrounded by picturesque hills and landscape scenery of bewildering beauty which impress visitors with a memory that will never be effaced, it forms an attractive center for trading.
No town in the state has a more intelligent, self-helping, self-respecting population than this little berg on the Blackfork. Honesty, fidelity and economy have been characteristic traits of its citizens from generation to genera- tion. No other town of its size enjoys a more liberal patronage from the sur- rounding community, and also can it be said that few towns this size, and even larger, can boast of as good stores in all lines of business, as well managed and all carrying splendid lines to select from.
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The banking interests of the town are in capital condition and each of the three banks are in competent hands, such as would be creditable to any locality. Realizing that the wealth and business interests of the town were sufficient to support a third bank, the Citizens Savings Bank company was instituted in 1905, with a capital stock of thirty thousand dollars and representing an actual wealth of one million five hundred and thirty thousand dollars. This bank first began doing business in the Derrenberger room, but was later located in a new building erected expressly for its use.
The same year in which the Citizens Bank was founded, Dr. Scott and Mr. -Shelley came in possession of the Larwell corner, including the site formerly occupied by the old Taylor warehouse, located in the rear of the Strauss & Arn- holt clothing store, which was destroyed by fire in 1885. A little later the Merklinger building and ground was purchased of Mrs. Hattie Ullman. A handsome structure, which is a consummation of art and convenience in its in- terior arrangement and with its white terra cotta front in imitation of white marble, with fluted pillars, in colonial style of architecture, has replaced the wooden building as well as the little shack formerly used as a fish-stand. This modern structure, which is not only an ideal banking building, but an ornament to the town, was the out-growth of the Citizens Savings Bank. Its construction was under the supervision of E. F. Shelley, who is president of the institution.
E. F. Shelley became interested in the bank shortly after its organization and has been one of the principal promoters of the many improvements which have taken place in the last few years. He is a man of exceptionally fine ex- ecutive ability and always stands ready to push any enterprise, which in his judgment, will benefit the town.
A. J. Solomon, of Mt. Vernon, was also instrumental in bringing about the present activity in the improvement that has taken place on the Larwell corner. Sentiment was one of the incentives of Mr. Solomon for assisting in founding this bank in Loudonville. In forming his system of banks throughout the state, he remembered where his boyhood days were spent, and was one of the prime movers in organizing and promoting this institution.
Dr. C. B. Scott, who is one of the directors of the bank, has been closely associated with Mr. Shelley in all his business relations. As a mover and pro- moter of public enterprise, Mr. Scott possesses many of the characteristic traits of his father, the late Andrew J. Scott to whom thanks are due for the active part he performed in securing the passage of the necessary bill by the legisla- ture at Columbus, for our electric light plant. Dr. Scott has been a resident of Loudonville all his life and enjoys a professional reputation of which any practitioner might well be proud.
More than a year ago the Loudonville Realty and Improvement Company was formed with the following roster of members: E. F. Shelley, Dr. C. B. Scott, M. J. Wolf, H. R. Priest and A. J. Solomon. The purpose of this com- pany was to promote public improvement and continue in the same progressive attitude as long as opportunity afforded. A contract was soon closed with the postoffice department with plans and specifications for a new postoffice building. A modern two story brick building now occupies a portion of the Larwell "mel- on patch." The building was designed and erected especially for postoffice
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purposes and is complete in every detail. The interior arrangement with its costly and up-to-date furnishings makes it a prominent feature of interest to strangers. S. B. Rathbone, assistant to the first postmaster general, with whom the company made the contract and who was sent here to inspect the building after its completion, said that the building as well as the postoffice fixtures were far in excess of what the department expected to see. He also paid a glowing tribute to Messrs. Scott and Shelley for the manner in which they fulfilled their part of the contract and for the elegant furnishings with which the office was equipped.
Messrs. Scott and Shelley have informed the Advocate that they are not only ready and willing to erect more business blocks such as they have already built, but would be very glad to do so for any one who is looking for a business room in which to locate.
If the property owners on the opposite side of the street, from Oswalt's corner east, would follow the example set by these two enterprising citizens, what a beautiful little business thoroughfare Loudonville would have.
If Loudon Priest, who laid out the town plat in 1814 and after whom Loudonville was named, could return what a wonderful change it would repre- sent to him, and we wonder how many of the old land marks here at that time he could point out.
SOME POINTS OF INTEREST AROUND LOUDONVILLE.
The following is from the pen of the late Peter High Stauffer and appeared in a supplement to his "Loudonville Advocate" newspaper in June, 1903 :
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