USA > Ohio > Ashland County > History of Ashland County, Ohio > Part 32
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And last but not least, what shall I say of him who hath penned these
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thoughts ? A kind of second Johnny Appleseed, although not barefoot like he, yet almost always on foot; not with a golden chain about his neck, but carrying with him the golden elixir of life to soothe the aching head, and calm the palpi- tating heart; has traveled up and down your valleys, along your beautiful streams, and over your rugged hills, lo, these many years. But it will soon be said of him, that slender form which we so frequently saw, recognized, and welcomed to our firesides, and who shared our hospitalities and greeted us with a friendly how-do-you-do, will soon be seen by us no more.
DR. S. RIDDLE, Historian,
Ashland County Pioneer Society.
A. J. Baughman, of Mansfield, introduced a resolution tendering the thanks of the people of Ashland and Richland counties to Dr. Riddle, the organizer of the monument movement and the rest of the committee who had so faithfully and successfully carried into effect the resolution of the Ashland Pioneer Asso- ciation to erect the Copus and Ruffner monuments. Adopted unanimously.
SOURCES OF LOCAL KNOWLEDGE.
Prof. E. O. Randall, of Columbus, and A. J. Baughman, of Mansfield, represented the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society at the annual meeting of The American Historical Association, held in Chicago, during holiday week, 1904. Mr. Baughman was on the program for a paper on "Methods of Collecting Historical Material," which he presented at the Round Table session, held at the Chicago University. The following is a copy of the paper :
The collection of material for historical purposes covering what in Ohio is called the "pioneer period" has been a difficult task. That was not an age of literature, but of work-of clearing the forests and of building homes. The pioneers made history, but they had no time to write it. A few of the first settlers may have kept chronicles and annals, but after the country was some- what improved, the same impulse that brought them to Ohio, impelled some of them to again take their places in the line of the march of civilization to the still farther west, and while enroute, their records were lost. And when the historian came to write of the early settlements of the country, the information obtained was largely of the traditional kind, and it has been difficult often to discriminate between facts and fiction. There were state and county records, but the woof of events which the pioneers wove into the warp of time had to be sought in part outside of official records to make the web of history.
To state what I consider the best method of collecting material, I take the liberty to give my own experience, prefaced with some personal history. My grandparents were pioneers of Richland county, Ohio. They settled there in 1808, the year the city of Mansfield was founded. When a boy I heard my parents narrate pioneer tales, as we sat winter evenings around the family hearth, in the warmth and glow of the log fire of our cabin home. Their stories interested me, and that interest grew with my years, and I endeavored to extend my information upon pioneer history as opportunities were afforded. But it takes years to get an adequate knowledge and an accurate history of any locality.
VIEW LOOKING NORTH FROM BREWERY HILL, LOUDONVILLE
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I am a newspaper man and my vocation gave me opportunities to visit every part of Richland county and adjoining territory, not only once or twice but dozens of times during a series of years in the capacity of solicitor, reporter and special writer, and upon all such occasions I made more or less effort to become familiar, not only with the people, but with the early history, the geography, the geology, the topography and the prehistoric earthworks of the county. With the information thus gained, I began the publication of histori- cal and biographical sketches as feature articles in the Mansfield papers, and these in turn were copied by newspapers of other towns, and gave the people oppor- tunities to make corrections and additions, and these articles also aided in creating an interest in historical matters which had never existed before, and re- sulted in the formation of the Richland County Historical Society. From these sketches I prepared a history of the county, which was published in the Centennial year.
To the "Fourth Estate," as Edmund Burke termed the press, I give the credit for affording me the opportunities I utilized in collecting material and for its presentation to the public in a manner open to criticism and corrections ere it was put in book form.
Therefore, I consider the press the best means by and through which his- torical material can be collected and presented to the public.
The men and women who are the children and grandchildren of the pioneers of Ohio are proud of their ancestry, and while they do not laud those olden days as better than these of the present time, they form historical societies and hold family reunions to revivify the best experiences of former years into lessons that work for good in this commercial age of endless hurry and needless haste.
It is in historical publications and by historical associations that the lessons of pioneer life, with its joys and its sorrows, its trials, its hardships and its achievements, can be preserved and inscribed, as they should be, on the heart- tablet of every child in the land, from generation to generation.
PIONEERS AND PIONEER DAYS GONE FOREVER.
The pioneer days of Ashland county are gone forever, and the last of the pioneers have been gatherd home. What a grand and noble record they left behind them. It is left to the present generation to write their history, and the history of the times in which they lived, and to impress their good deeds and the nobleness of their characters upon the present and future generations as worthy of imitation and preservation. A study of the characteristics of the pioneer fathers and mothers is calculated to ennoble the mind and strengthen the hand for the battle of life. We are indebted to them for having penetrated the wilderness of Ashland county, clearing the forests and rescuing it from the savages. Let us honor them for what they endured and accomplished, preserve their memory and continue the improvements they began.
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CLOSING WORDS.
In presenting to the public this history of Ashland county, we recognize and accept the verity of Macaulay's statement that "The history of a country is best told in a record of the lives of its people." In conformity with this thought the portrait and biographical record of the county has been added to the general history of the same, and instead of taking wholly from musty records, dry statistical matter that can be appreciated by but few, we went to the people, the men and women who have by their enterprise and industry, brought Ashland county to rank second to none in the state, and from the lips of these people we obtained the story of their lives and struggles, and no more interesting nor instructing matter could be presented to an intelligent public. The portraits of some and biographical sketches of many Ashland county people will be missed from this volume, but for this, neither the editor nor the publisher of the work is to blame. Not having a proper conception of the work, good-meaning people sometimes refuse to give the information sought, and while the work has been well patronized, there are those within the county who refused to take the same unless they could get "something for nothing."
In conclusion we quote :
"Farewell to thee, O rugged Pioneer, And Indians, dark specters of the West ; The one completes his hazardous career, The other sinks on distant plains-to rest."
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ADDENDA.
COMMEMORATIVE TO THE FIRST WHITE SETTLER.
A company representing old-time families assembled at the site of the old Indian village of Greentown on Friday, June 25, 1909, the gathering being commemorative of Abraham Baughman, the first white settler in the Blackfork of the Mohican valley, near Greentown. The meeting was held upon the sug- gestion of A. J. Baughman and his sister, Sade E. Baughman, the only surviving grandchildren of the pioneer Abraham Baughman. The company present was there upon the invitation of Mr. Baughman and sister and consisted of the following persons : Prof. and Mrs. J. C. Sample, Rev. and Mrs. Joshua Craw- ford, and two daughters, Nellie and Ninie, Dr. and Mrs. A. W. Budd and daughter, Frances, Mr. and Mrs P. C. Cowen, Miss Lottie Eddy, all of Perrys- ville; Aaron Peterson and wife of Hazel Dell, and A. J. Baughman and sister and Mrs. S. M. Morgan, of Mansfield, the latter being a great-grandchild of Pioneer Abraham Baughman. A picnic dinner was partaken of at the noon hour, after which there was a call to order, the Rev. Mr. Crawford acting as chairman, who after a few preliminary remarks, called upon A. J. Baughman, who stated that the meeting had been planned in honor and in memory of his grandfather, the first settler in that part of the country. At the close of Mr. Baughman's remarks, Prof. Sample was called upon and gave an interesting talk along historic lines. Miss Eddy and Aaron Peterson also made appro- priate remarks. Mr. Peterson said that he felt a special interest in the meeting as his grandfather, the late Colonel Solomon Gladden, had performed the cere- mony uniting in marriage the parents of A. J. and Miss Sade Baughman and that he and A. J. Baughman had been Union soldiers in the same regiment in the war of the Rebellion. Miss Eddy is the granddaughter of the late Hon. John Coulter, who was prominent in his day and generation. Mr. Coulter came to Ohio in August, 1810, and stopped at the home of Pioneer Baughman until he erected a cabin of his own on land he entered near by. He found Mr. Baughman with an improved farm at that early date.
When Mr. Cowen was called upon, he stated that, upon anticipation of being called upon for remarks, he had prepared the following paper, which he then read. Mr. Cowen is a lawyer by profession, was born in Ashland county and is well informed upon the history of the locality of which he wrote.
Pioneer history of Green township in the blockhouse days, before and after the removal of the Greentown Indians; names of the families and location of their cabins in these days in and around Perrysville.
On August 12, 1812, General Hull surrendered at Detroit.
On August 27, 1812, the Greentown Indians were removed by Captain Douglass to Urbana. From Mohawk hill they saw the smoke of their burning village.
On September 10, 1812, Martin Ruffner and the Seymours were murdered at the Seymour cabin by the Indians.
On September 15, 1812, occurred the Copus battle with the Indians.
The news of Hull's surrender excited consternation in the minds of the
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frontier settlers of Ohio, as it was known to them that Tecumseh, the great chief, at the head of a powerful army of Indians, which he had organized from the various tribes in the north and southwest, redeem their lands and protect their hunting grounds from the encroachment of the settlers, had allied his forces with the British to strengthen the hope of his success. This hostile movement on the part of the Indians made the security of the pioneer and his family extremely hazardous. The small Indian villages scattered over the country from which hunting parties were constantly skulking through the forest were no less dreaded than a regular invasion by Tecumseh himself. Upon this pre- text the Greentown Indians were removed and their village burned, although a difference of opinion existed among the settlers of its necessity and justness. Charles Tannehill may safely be credited as the first soldier enlisted in Green township. He volunteered and enlisted for a term of forty days in a company recruited by Captain Greer of Mt. Vernon and under the command of Major Kratzer scouted from Mt. Vernon, Knox county to New Haven, Huron county.
Mr. Tannehill and four other comrades were detailed by their Major Kratzer to go to the assistance of the settlers on the Blackfork of the Mohican. This movement was prompted by the news of the Ruffner-Seymour murder which reached them about three days after its occurrence. When Mr. Tannehill and his four comrades reached the near vicinity of the Seymour cabin on the day of the Copus battle, they met the seven remaining soldiers who had been engaged in the Copus attack, and this scene had already been reached by the command of Captain Martin of Major Krebs militia from Tuscarawas county consisting of about one hundred men, stationed at Beam's blockhouse. Mr. Tannehill and , party, the seven Copus battle soldiers and Martin's company of Krebs militia camped that night near the Copus cabin. On the next morning Mr. Tannehill and four comrades passed through the desolate Greentown village to the cabin of Abraham Baughman which they found vacant, the family having fled to the Beam blockhouse.
After the Ruffner-Seymour massacre the settlers about what is now Perrys- ville became apprehensive of attacks from the Indians in ambush but did not retire to the blockhouse until the Copus battle intensified their fears.
Abraham Baughman's family was the first family to reside in Green town- ship. His cabin was located near the spring on what is now known as the old Richard Guthrie farm near Greentown. Richard Guthrie conducted a distillery at this spring later. At this cabin Charles Tannehill separated from his de- tachment to go down the Blackfork of the Mohican to his father's (Melzar Tannehill's) cabin. On his way he overtook John Coulter and Harvey Hill
driving cattle. They informed him that the settlement had become alarmed by the Copus battle and his relatives had already departed to the Lewis blockhouse and were at that instant on the road in advance of them. The blockhouse was located on the Clearfork of the Mohican at a spring on what is now known as the old Robert Darling farm about three miles southwest of Perrysville. The next day after this night in the Lewis blockhouse, John Coulter accompanied by Harvey Hill, returned to his father's (Judge Coulter's) deserted cabin situated on the Blackfork of the Mohican near what is now the old mill dam about a half
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mile southeast of Perrysville where they were joined by the Tannehills, Craw- fords and Conines. They took the roof off this cabin and added a second story which projected over the first story and provided it with port holes. Domiciled in this fortress were Thomas Coulter and family, Melzar Tannehill, Sr. and family, George Crawford and family, Jeremiah Conine, who was a Revolutionary soldier, and his family, and Harvey Hill. The first night this cabin was re- modeled and occupied as a blockhouse by these people. Judge Coulter and Harvey Hill rode on horses through the forest to Wooster for soldiers. General Harri- son was at this time in Wyandotte county with his army to repel Tecumseh and General Proctor. General Beall was mobilizing troops at New Lisbon, Canton and Wooster to protect blockhouses and render aid to General Harrison. General Beall began his march about September 25, 1812, ten days after the Copus battle. Judge Coulter and Harvey Hill secured a guard from the Beall volun- teers under the command of Lieutenant Winteringer. In the day time these soldiers scoured the hills and valleys through the wild trails in lonesome autumn for signs of Indians and at night stood sentinel about the blockhouse. The women and children remained constantly at the blockhouse for several months. The men went back and forth to their respective cabins, clearing, taking care of their stock and planting corn in the spring and often the women went out with them to help.
The cabins in Green township in the neighborhood of the Coulter blockhouse occupied and owned by settlers at this time were Abraham Baughman's, located near Greentown. Solomon Hill's cabin was on the farm now owned by David Hunter and stood near the house where Ed Hunter now lives, and Moses Adsit, his son-in-law, occupied a cabin right where William Miller's house now stands on the corner. George Crawford's cabin stood near the Blackfork at the spring on the lot in Perrysville where the tan yard was. Lewis Hill's cabin stood below the spring a few rods northeast of the house where Charles Spohn recently lived. Calvin Hill's cabin was located near a spring west of the mouth of the ravine below the barn on the farm owned by Martin Trumpour. The blockhouse was the next building on the south side of the Blackfork and Allen Oliver's cabin stood near the old brick house on the Lewis Oliver farm. Melzar Tannehill's cabin stood near the house where his granddaughter, Mrs. N. McD. Coe now lives on the old Tannehill farm. Her father, Melzar Tannehill, Jr., and Charles Tannehill, the soldier, were brothers.
Jeremiah Conine's cabin was on the farm now owned by Harvey Van Horn and stood near the spring where the present buildings now are.
Otha Simmons lived in a cabin near the old brick house on the Ewalt farm near the railroad below the Oliver cabin. These cabins were all on the south side of the Blackfork. On the north of the Blackfork, Captain Ebenezer Rice's cabin stood near the vacant house built by Ruben Rice on the farm now owned by A. H. Wilson. Joseph Jones, a revolutionary soldier whose son, Moses Jones, was the father of Joseph Jones, who lived so long where Mrs. Marion Baker now resides, occupied a cabin near the spring at the present residence of Wade E. Guthrie, and Sylvester Fisher, his son-in-law, lived in a cabin near the house where Lisle Robinson now resides north of the Chapel railroad crossing. Solo-
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mon Hill died June 4, 1812. His grave was the first in the Perrysville cemetery. His body was carried from his cabin across the Blackfork in a canoe. Friendly Indians attended the funeral. They came down the Blackfork from their village, Greentown, in canoes. In accordance with their custom these red- skinned mourners marched around their white neighbor's grave and cast ever- greens into it. The whites suspected them of intending to dig up the remains for the scalp and visited the grave frequently for some time to see if it were disturbed. War with these Indians broke out in less than one hundred days after this funeral, and nearly all the whites were refugees in blockhouses. Shortly after her refuge in the Coulter blockhouse, Mary Simmons, wife of Jeremiah Conine, died, September 24, 1812, leaving a little daughter about ten days old. They made her grave at the foot of the grave of Solomon Hill. In dreadful apprehension of an attack from the Indians Lieutenant Winteringer and his soldiers quartered at the blockhouse and guarded Mrs. Conine's body to the grave. These are the first two graves in what is now the Perrysville cemetery. The man died in time of peace; the woman gave up her life, a sacrifice of war.
PHILPOT C. COWEN.
George H. Stewart
BIOGRAPHICAL.
JUDGE GEORGE HARRIS STEWART.
Inseparably interwoven with the history of Loudonville and the county is the name of George Harris Stewart, a man whom to know was to respect and one who was most honored where best known. For years Loudonville benefitted by his efforts and his influence and for years to come his good work will remain as a factor in the life of the city. Judge Stewart was born in Alexandria, Pennsylvania, on the 10th of October, 1809, and was the seventh son and ninth child of Thomas H. and Anne (Gemmill) Stewart. He was baptized George, being so named in honor of his paternal grandfather, but when a young man in Pittsburg he added the Harris to his name that there might be no confusion in the delivery of his mail to another George Stewart of that city. His father, Thomas H. Stewart, was the third son and fifth child of Colonel George and Margaret (Harris) Stewart, who was born February 5, 1767, in what is now Harford but was then a part of Baltimore county, Maryland. His birth oc- curred in or near Cross Roads, now Churchville. He was named for his maternal grandfather and in 1775 accompanied his parents on their removal to Tuscarora Valley, Pennsylvania. His father there died August 13, 1787, and it was about that time that Thomas H. Stewart left home, working at farm labor and also at the mill of his grandfather, under whose direction he learned the tanner's trade. When he had become proficient in that line he began business as a tanner on his own account near his father's homestead. He completed his arrangements for having .. home of his own by his marriage on the 5th of November, 1795, to Miss Anne Gemmill, a daughter of John and Elizabeth (Porter) Gemmill, whose home was on the Kilmarnock farm a few miles above Lewistown. John Gemmill was a Scotch clock and watch maker whose birth occurred near Kilmarnock, Scotland, and he belonged to a family several mem- bers of which suffered martyrdom for their avowed aversion to prelacy.
Judge Stewart spent his boyhood days in the midst of the beautiful mountain scenery of Pennsylvania but when in his teens went to Armagh, Pennsylvania, where he was employed as a salesman in a store for two or three years, during the time of the building of the Pennsylvania canal and the Portage railroad over the Allegheny mountains. Subsequently he accepted a position as bookkeeper and salesman in a wholesale store in Pittsburg and at all times enjoyed the fullest confidence and trust of his employers. He was ambitious, however, to engage in business on his own account and feeling that the new and growing west offered better opportunities, he came to Ohio in 1833 with a stock of goods which he had
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purchased and desired to place on sale at some favorable location. Mansfield was his objective point but he could find no vacant room in which to open his store save the bar-room of Smart's Hotel, which was then too far from the business part of the town although now in the heart of the city. Renting a horse at twenty-five cents per day, he came to Loudonville, then in Richland county, and in a small frame building began merchandising in this place. Be- fore the goods were all moved into the house he opened a bag of coffee on the street and sold it to the crowd standing around and in a half hour had secured money enough to pay the teamsters who brought his goods from. Pittsburg. From the beginning he received a liberal patronage, people coming from Knox and Holmes counties to trade at the "new store" and even from a point almost as distant as Millersburg. Later he closed out his stock of goods and entered the firm of Haskell, Strong & Stewart, as the partner of Nathaniel Haskell and Abel Strong. They occupied a frame building on the present site of the Farmers Bank and there Judge Stewart remained for a number of years. He did most of the buying for the firm in Pittsburg, making the trip once or twice each year on horseback, carrying his money in' a portmanteau. In those days goods were hauled all the way from Pittsburg in great "Pennsylvania wagons."
Judge Stewart did not confine his attention alone to merchandising although he met with creditable and gratifying success in that direction and was one of the leading early merchants of the town. In many other ways he contributed to the growth and upbuilding of Loudonville. In 1845 in partnership with Arvine Wales of Massillon, he laid out Wales addition to the town of Loudon- ville. The greater part of the succeeding winter was passed by him in Columbus in an effort to secure the organization of Ashland county, and when this was accomplished he received legislative appointment to the position of associate judge of the court of common pleas of the county. This position he filled most acceptably until the change in the judicial system wrought by the adoption of the present state constitution in 1852. His associates on the bench were Edmund Ingman and Bela B. Clark.
In 1846 Judge Stewart withdrew from the dry-goods trade and for three or four years thereafter conducted a tannery. He then again entered mercan- tile life but only for a brief period, when he became interested in railroad build- ing, realizing how essential was the construction of the railroad lines for the improvement and progress of any locality. He gave of his time, influence and money to secure the construction of the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago line, later the Pensylvania line, through Loudonville. He secured the right of way through Holmes, Ashland and a part of Wayne county, and when the railroad was completed to this point he was made the first station agent at Loudonville, performing the duties of the position for about ten years, when he voluntarily retired. He remained throughout his life an earnest worker for the public good and his efforts were effective forces for general improvement in many lines. In 1851 he purchased a tract of land in Wayne county and laid out the town of Clinton, now. Shreve, a station on the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad.
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